Chapter Two
Peter’s wife, Cheryl, never understood a word he said either, and during the years of their marriage, paid little attention as he prattled on. She grew to care even less.
Eventually, she left him for three very large black men who collectively owned own a bakery. She then found herself living happily for the very first time in many years.
Beginning shortly thereafter, Peter would stalk her on Facebook using a fakebook profile he’d generated so he could slyly peer into the open windows of her newfound bliss, as well into the lives of many others. He loved it. It was like a game to him… at times, a slight perversion.
Comparing his mastery of solicitous disguise to the inner workings of a very fine clock, he would relish in his peeping.
Tick tick tick… he would read her posts and everyone else’s while secretly envying the generous dispensations of likes, pokes and comments each had received.
Yet, despite all his angered silliness, trickery, tomfoolery and awkward dabbling, Peter had a very concise plan. His plan was to compile all the information he could gather from each of their pages and ultimately use it against them. In his mind, he was akin to a spy.
He was James Bond down there in the basement. And he’d tell you so, too.
But here’s the strangest thing of all; what no one else knew, what only Peter knew, was that one day, before the end, he would stand triumphant before crowds of art lovers and reap the benefits that only a master may render.
How did he know this? The future told him so.
And yet, as the facts stood, he’d never sold a single painting.
There was his painting of the grey clock, the one he’d titled Le Fordesman. There was the red clock, the tarnished copper clock, the pink Cadillac, the bumper car classic, the grandfather Earle, the grandfather Slight, and his favorite of all; Le Imperiale, among all the many others.
He was a pistol in his dimly lit lair. He was also the life of the micey-mice party as well as all parties decorated with spiders and dust, yet deep inside he always knew that if given the chance, he could outwit the slinksters and outshine the many glossy, one-hit-wonders with all their laser sheen. Practicing his jokes on his old tool chest, he would exercise the art of keeping cool under pressure whilst imagining that everyone else was laughing right along.
Peter was an odd one, indeed.
However deeply wrapped within his convoluted feelings over people stuff and what it is that people do and how happy it makes them, he did manage to hit one nail right smack on the head, just one time.
It happened at a Christmas party at work.
That evening, someone was talking about a young girl who had recently hanged herself in her closet after suffering years of bullying.
Everyone was both saddened and perplexed.
Ho ho ho.
Upon hearing this terrible news, Peter had at first presumed the teen had been practicing autoerotic asphyxiation, as many purported suicides are often cover stories for embarrassingly fatal accidents. Then he changed his mind and uttered these most prophetic words, “It happened because the young lady and her classmates know no suffering.”
After saying this, he casually paused to sip from his drink. He could hardly abide the clear little holiday cup from which he was drinking, a brand often typified by splitting down the sides when squeezed.
“What?” Vera from accounting spoke first, feeling quite disgusted by his proclamation.
Edward from the mailroom was second to be roused, “She didn’t know suffering? How dare you? I think we can all say that she, her entire family, and all of her friends must have and are suffering plenty, respectfully, especially since it happened during the holidays. Just think of her young friends. How could you say such a thing?” Edward wanted to punch Peter right in his cotton- picking nose.
However, Edward had most dreadfully misconstrued Peter’s statement, a typical effect of drinking alcohol while being a twit.
Thankfully enough, the alcohol was having the opposite effect on Peter, a somewhat calming effect, so he merely sipped away while enjoying the frustrations he’d unintentionally generated in the others, and then he took his time in replying to the mustachioed twit from the mailroom and his dimwitted accomplice.
Peter wondered if the two were secretly involved.
Then, acting somewhat astonished, but still in control, Peter spouted, “God forbid, Edward! That’s not at all what I meant. What I am saying is, that children, and I have to include many parents in this statement as well, as most are no more than older and fatter children parading about with a misplaced sense of authority as a direct result of having someone small to boss about, know no suffering. It’s as simple as that.”
Once again, no one knew where the hell he was going with it. He continued unabated, finding himself less than distracted by the expressions worn by each of his present counterparts, “Instant gratification is the culprit in this case. Children are given everything these days, and so, like houseplants that are overly fed and watered and kept under residential lighting, they have no sturdy roots.”
“What the hell are you saying Peter? Please, spit it out in English.” Molly was ready to spit upon, then strike, stab and strangle the wretched fellow.
“Please” and he stopped once more to sip from his waning cocktail. He felt the ice cubes they were serving were unacceptably stale. “All I am saying is this: Kids these days have no chores and no responsibilities. This culture, this culture of wrong, which is led by the inept and the feeble, serves only to promote and to proliferate giggling and silliness, an endless profusion of smiling and other profitless and witless meanderings, as if life is some sort of jolly good play land and childhood a super sensitive period of time that no one should risk scratching or blemishing with work and responsibility.” He abruptly harrumphed.
Then, to his dismay, but not to his surprise, he saw that they could not follow, or would not, by choice.
Peter punctuated the reflection of his many perturbations with, “We’re making weak kids.”
Still, they could not understand.
“Can’t you see it? Nothing is real to them.” Peter felt his task was a hopeless one.
Internally, and ever so quietly so as not to arouse any suspicion, Peter began to entertain himself by pretending that everyone in attendance was actually a tourist from the future, each having paid a handsome price to spend a few precious hours in the far distant past in order to lavish in his presence. He smirked, once again wondering what naked women in the future would look like.
Then, as all stood dumbfounded and no one seemed capable of mustering up a rebuttal, Peter added, “Chop wood, carry water, people. Isn’t that what the Buddhists say is one of the many secrets to happiness, health and longevity? Well, if they never chop, chop, chop that wood or bucket up the proverbial or material water, how are they ever going to be sound?”
Edward let fly with a whistling fart then, but everyone chose to ignore his breach of social graces.
“Children torment one another more frequently and more insidiously these days because they have no empathy, and they have no empathy because they suffer no chores and no punishments. Each goes about willy-nilly, twittering away and texting, all the while never once enduring any consequences for their transgressions and lackadaisical ways. We’ve fallen prey to the damaged pop psychologists and over-privileged, town mouse housewives and the fairy clippers who cry on and on about how terrible a spanking is and all because they themselves are too delicate and hypersensitive to handle the sight of a child’s tears. That’s why the kids are so cruel these days, I tell you, and why so many are killing themselves and others. They are weak and psychotic, like penned rats or puppies in a stinking mill. They are akin to thin, little seedlings grown in a paper cup, deprived of natural sunlight. They have no inner strength.”
Peter belched almost imperceptibly and then sipped from his drink once again. Finishing, he thanklessly accepted another transparent cup, this one full. No one else could speak.
“Children today get praised for taking a shit. They expect a trophy for the effortless act of showing up, and not one of them can do a fucking thing aside from histrionically emoting and emoting senselessly, on and on, as if life is nothing more than their personal, fifteen minute drama set on record and repeat.”
It wasn’t the drink. He was more so simply giving the time travelers their money’s worth.
He was definitely on a role, casting his wealth of observations into the future, one might say, or so he mused.
“You don’t get it, do you? Any of you?” Peter bellowed, “Hello? Unless one knows the suffering incurred from the cleaning of one’s room, or cleaning a dirty bathroom, of washing dishes… unless one weeds the yard, takes out the trash, mows the lawn; unless one repeatedly endures the insufferably mundane and the boredom involved in the completion of simple tasks, one does not develop character or empathy. It is formulaic, people, as well as being formative.”
Looking into all of their prettied, yet dull and nearly lifeless eyes, he added, “Can’t you people see this? You are breeding veal! Sociopathic and heartless veal and it will come back to haunt you. Trust me.”
Peter left the party shortly afterwards. However, not one of the people within earshot learned a fucking thing they could take back to the year 8015 and aptly apply, or so he’d wrongly imagined.