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. . . I spoiled everything because I had developed a keen critical intelligence, I recalled, mopping up the bathroom floor. I applied this keen critical intelligence to everything, and in that way, I spoiled everything. I spoiled books, plays and music. Sometimes I even spoiled other people. If you enjoyed something, I became the very last person you would want to share it with because nine times out of ten, or even ninety-nine times out of one hundred, I would spoil it. I would spoil it by applying my keen critical intelligence. I did this all the time with everything. I became a real pain in the ass. But I didn’t know I had become a pain in the ass. In fact, it never occurred to me that the application of my keen critical intelligence would render me a pain in the ass. Quite the opposite, I felt, in fact, that I was doing other people a favor by sharing my keen critical intelligence and thereby spoiling whatever it was they had enjoyed. In fact, I even felt morally obligated to spoil whatever it was anyone enjoyed through the application of my keen critical intelligence. I had arrived at that obligation through the application of my keen critical intelligence to myself. |
It’s true, sometimes I felt bad about it, I recalled, still mopping up the bathroom floor. For example, there was this play. One of my (soon to be “former”) friends had a big role in this play. It was hard to get roles in plays, but one of my (soon to be “former”) friends got one, and it wasn’t just any role, it was a big role, that is to say, a “leading” role. He was very excited about it. He wanted to share his big role, leading role, with everyone and so invited everyone to the play. It was not the kind of invitation one could refuse. I didn’t even want to refuse it. I never considered refusing it even though I strongly suspected that the play would turn out to be crap. I never considered refusing because another of the conclusions I had come to through the application of my keen critical intelligence was the necessity to “keep an open mind” as they say and “see for myself” as they say. In truth, I felt obligated even, if not especially, in the cases when I was virtually certain that the thing I had heard about—a book, movie, play or even another person—would turn out to be crap, not to accept that certainty without first “seeing” the object in question “for myself” as they say; and what’s more “seeing it for myself” with “an open mind” as they say. |
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So, I went to the play, and the play was crap. It hardly took a keen critical intelligence to discern that the play was crap. It was crap from the very first line and continued to be crap until the final curtain closed. The play was quite obviously crap to anyone with even the smallest sliver of a keen critical intelligence. Fortunately for my (soon to be “former”) friend and the other actors and the “playwright”—with whom I found myself sitting in the same row—no one in the audience had even the smallest sliver of keen critical intelligence or if they did, they had somehow managed to suppress or inhibit this sliver of keen critical intelligence. In any case, no one, other than myself, applied his or her keen critical intelligence to the play. Quite the contrary, the entire audience ate the play right up to the last crumb even though it was total crap This was apparent from the grossly overly enthusiastic applause that greeted the beginning of the play and which continued with improbable frequency right up to, and for some time after, the closing of the final curtain. Yet again an audience has eaten up a crappy play to the very last crumb, I had thought, sitting in the same row as the playwright—who, by the way, had begun to grin maniacally—after the final curtain had closed. I have seen at least a hundred plays and ninety nine of these plays have been complete crap, I was thinking, but in all ninety nine cases, the audiences have eaten them right up as if they were the best plays they had ever seen in their lives. What can you do about audiences? I had thought at the time. |
No one wants to be disappointed, I was thinking, sitting in the same row as the grinning playwright amidst thunderous applause. No one wants to be disappointed in general and no one especially wants to be disappointed when they go to the theater. When people go to the theater, people want to be impressed, I was thinking. People are impressed with themselves for going to the theater to begin with. That’s why everyone dresses up when they go to the theater. They dress up because they are impressed with themselves for going to the theater. They are impressed with themselves and impressed that they are going to the theater and even impressed with the play that they have yet to see, I was thinking. Going to the theater is not a normal thing like going to a movie or staying at home. Going to the theater is a special thing and only special people go to the theater. Going to the theater is a privilege and only privileged people go to the theater. Of course in the face of all this impressiveness and special-ness and privilege, the play doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of being scrutinized with even the most sidelong glance of keen critical intelligence. Because, in that situation, to scrutinize the play to which we have come to be impressed with even a sidelong glance of keen critical intelligence is to risk spoiling everything, I was thinking, absolutely everything, not only the gratifying sensation of being impressed with an impressive cultural artifact (to wit, the play) but also the more gratifying sensation of being impressed with oneself in the act of being impressed with an impressive cultural artifact. And so when an audience goes to the theater, I was thinking, and expects to be impressed with a play, that audience—even in the cases where the audience is chiefly composed of individuals gifted (or burdened, it must be admitted) with a keen critical intelligence—is bound to eat up to the very last crumb whatever play is put in front of it regardless of whether that play is total crap or not. After all, no one wants to get all dressed up to go see an impressive cultural artifact only to be confronted with a play that is total crap, I was thinking. This is a disappointment, but even more than that, it is an embarrassment. When you watch a play that is total crap, you can’t help but feel that only a drooling idiot would attend respectfully to such nonsense for two or more solid hours, which is exactly what you yourself had just done, I was thinking. What’s more, only a drooling idiot would have shelled out for the considerable expense of a ticket and then dressed himself up in his most impressive clothes in order to attend respectfully for two or more solid hours such absolute nonsense—total crap in fact—which in fact, sitting in your seat, applying your critical intelligence to the crappy play, you will realize you have also just done. No one wants to see themselves as a drooling idiot, do they? To say nothing of getting all gussied up and paying for the privilege of seeing themselves as drooling idiots? Of course they don’t. For that reason, audiences of plays rarely—that is, never—apply their keen critical intelligence when confronted with plays of any kind and eat every play they see right up to the very last crumb whether that play is total crap or not, I was thinking, sitting in the same row as the grinning playwright amidst thunderous applause after the final curtain had closed. |
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And so it went with the play my friend was in, I recalled, mopping up the bathroom floor. The whole audience ate it right up even though it was total crap. The whole audience except me, that is. I did not eat the play right up even though it was total crap. I only pretended to eat the play right up even though it was total crap—I did this because I felt a little bit bad about having discovered the play to be total crap and had recently begun to feel a little bit bad about spoiling everything for everyone on every possible occasion. In a word, I had begun to suspect that I had become a real pain in the ass. So while I did not eat up the whole play and in fact considered it crap, nonetheless—sitting in my seat in the same row as the grinning playwright amidst thunderous applause long after the final curtain had closed—I pretended that I had eaten up the whole play to the very last crumb and considered it if not the best play I had ever seen, at least, adequate. That is, I did not pretend with any great enthusiasm. On the outside, with lukewarm enthusiasm, I pretended to eat up the whole play even though it was total crap but on the inside—sitting in the same row with the grinning playwright amidst thunderous applause—I rejected the whole play in its entirety with the utmost passion. In fact, you could say, inside I seethed with a passionate rejection of this play that my keen critical intelligence revealed to me as total crap. |
Afterwards in a bar, surrounded by (soon to be “former”) friends including the one who had just débuted his leading role in the crappy play, I continued to conceal my passionate rejection of the crappy play by offering lukewarm praise for that same crappy play. I offered lukewarm praise to my friend, who had played a leading role in the crappy play, the playwright, who had written the crappy play and even the audience, who had eaten up the play to the last crumb even though it was total crap. Of course I fooled no one. At that moment, imperfectly concealing my passionate rejection of the crappy play with lukewarm praise, in the bar, surrounded by (soon to be “former’) friends, I began to suspect that I had become a real pain in the ass, and suspecting this, I felt loneliness with an intensity that I had never experienced before. Moments like these became only more frequent and prolonged the longer I stayed in that city. I had begun losing my friends, and though I could not yet bring myself to face this fact, I suspected it, and what’s more I feared it, I recalled, mopping up the bathroom floor. . . |
James Lewelling is the author of Tortoise (Calamari Press, 2008) and This Guy |
(Spuyten Duyvil, 2005; and recently re-published as an e-book by the author). His fiction has appeared in elimae, Fence, The Evergreen Review, Cafe Irreal, Word Riot, Black Ice and elsewhere. He lives in Abu Dhabi with his wife, the poet, Lisa Isaacson, and their two children, Frances and Cecily. The excerpt printed here is taken from a novel in progress, entitled Suicide.
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