ONE-UP

by
Joel Van Noord

�Hi, how�re you doing?� I nodded as I walked past, trying to be amicable.

He stopped cold and got this terrible look of confusion and angst on his face.

�Who are you?� He said and took a few steps toward me as I continued walking past him at a slightly slower rate, enough distance to feel comfortable. The man was big, well over 6 feet and 200 pounds.

�Oh, nothing� I just live upstairs.� I said, backing away and pointing to my empty flat.

�Do I know you.� He said aggressively.

�No� I just� live upstairs, trying to be nice.� I defended as I stepped back.

�Don�t be trying to push your conversation on me. I don�t know you.� He said shrugging his arms out and turning his palms up as he talked. �Don�t be pushing your conversation on me.� He said again.

I mumbled an apology to the dark concrete of the broken parking-lot and turned away, walking briskly.

Turning back to my new apartment complex: it looked like a Meth den. Absolutely, he was in some kind of trade.

I feel silly. We�re still these little kids kicking big red, high-bouncing balls on black-tops. Saying �hi� to each other, punching people in the shoulder, and pulling pig-tails. This time. This time I moved from New Mexico to Vermont, Burlington. What�s the difference? It was the same type of job. They have different problems in the desert than they do in the liberal attic of America. But what can fundamentally change?

I remember, drunk, telling this short gay man in Nectar�s, �in the west it�s not yet dead but dying fast, in the east it�s dead but recovering.� I assumed he knew what I meant. It�s chic to be pessimistic. We all know the ironies and disasters. We�re still children playing some game we think there are rules to.

Before the 34-hour drive (falling back two time zones) I read an article in the Guardian about how men consistently cited books of vast indifference, pessimism, and isolation as their trophy books; while women stereotypically picked up Jane Austin and emotional novels of over-coming. During the drive I thought of this and all the books I�d read and if it reflected on my personality or if my personality reflected what books I read.

The drive was a drifting, ephemeral distraction through three days. Then you�re there, wondering why you left, you could have stayed. But it was menial, you think, sure, this is menial too, the same: walking, lifting, carrying setting, writing, walking, lifting. But that thought is negated as the attitude strives away from the default pessimism.

Must lunge the mind where you want it to go.

On the drive there was ample time to muse over the short past. Like being in Phoenix for a (Republican) investments convention sponsored by a firm in control of literally, many trillions of dollars (one client will bring tens of billions alone). The firm was putting on an awards ceremony, mostly to gain access to their high profile clients. But my dad was there as a nominee for the best handling of a large public employees pension fund. He didn�t win and the loyal swarmed around us and said it was political. His state had won a different award the year before.

That weekend we were in a 500 dollar a night Ritz Carlton with 175 dollar dinner plates, over-looking a wasted golf-course desert. One night, walking among the luxurious grounds of the complex, a scrawny coyote scampered across the short turf below a purple sun and some of the most dry and cragged earth around. Landscape that can share the same beauty as Afghanistan.

For the next week or so I�d either be staying in a tent or Motel 6�s.

I also remember being in London with my brother, sitting on a silly European bed that was way smaller than an American standard. On the tv we were watching the BBC; they reported the tragedies of the South Asian tsunami, the death toll (200,000+) and the amounts governments were giving. It seemed like a contest of giving to the Europeans. To America, it was a pesky fly around the nostrils.

�That�s why Europeans are so much smarter than us.� My brother said as the new station took the time to scientifically describe what a tsunami is and how it is formed. The brother and I view ourselves a step aside.

In three months I�d start a masters program on global climate change in northern Canada. There were two studies I could choose from: shrinking glaciers and its repercussions for the flora and fauna on the mircro-climate, or rising temperatures and its effect on arctic fish.

�What firm are you from?� This 30-something man asked me as he nosed up with his gin and tonic. I had my Alaskan Amber and some kind of investment sage was standing next to me with his hands in his pockets, swaying on his feet and nodding as I answered his questions about my life. I laughed a little and looked to the Sage, then back to the slightly older man in the crisp black suit. I was the only one not wearing a suit, I had kakis and a sweater with a button-down under it. Yuppie pot-smoker�s Wallabies for shoes.

�I�m not from any firm.� I said. And looked to the Sage again, �A wildlife biologist.� I answered as the Sage passed off the questioner. This Sage was from a firm that wrote financial indexes like the S&P; 500 and many more. I was at a similar stage of thought as this Sage, I felt, he had made his millions. He lived in Manhattan and was over the game the youngsters were so obviously battling. I negated the entirety with starry eyes and a lust for dirt and the vagabond. It�s not the travellers life, which these champs practice, travelling from financial capital to hide-away Lake Las Vegas, Boulders, Laguna Beach conferences. It�s living in city A for several months and moving to city B, seeing it long enough to gain an intimacy, then leaving.

The Sage had a nephew who just went permanent with the Forest Service and we were talking about this. How it was difficult to get a perm these days with the feds. I was a temp in New Mexico with the Fish and Wildlife. �It�s even tougher these days with all the Republicans in office.� I said, wondering what effect it would have. He nodded knowingly. That evening, as I shook hands and told jokes and heard anecdotes, I was greatly surprised at the reactions I got from describing my lifestyle (job): solemn contemplation and respect. It was different from the blank stares and dismissive attitudes I envisioned.

In London, years before, we sat around the Holiday Inn near Russell Square and the BBC switched segments. This time a reporter, dressed in a causal white button-down, subtle vertical lines, and black slacks, walking around the barren-rock world of Afghanistan.

�We went to war to bring freedom to this?� My brother scoffed in irony as all was crumbled rocks and dirt. No colour or life save for the cloaks the people wore. Unobvious as to if that was the natural state or if it was from constant war.

I chuckled. But the most intriguing thing was an intimacy with the Afghani landscape and people the foreigner was walking among. It was a strange view into a world I�d never seen. He wasn�t afraid.

The first thing is housing and that�s an anxious bitch. Everything in your car. 2 crates, 2 boxes, and 3 or 4 duffle bags and backpacks of clothes and bedding. Skis, bike, climbing shoes and harness. All in there, for all the eyes. Driving downtown to a coffee shop, out with the cell-phone and laptop, classifieds open, calling and driving, driving and calling. Four days this time and I found a place, a one-room, on the north-east side of town, away from Lake Champlain but closer to the field station I�d be working out for the summer months, close to the downtown for beer, coffee, books, and music.

That was something else I had to say to the short gay male. Which is to say, that was something that was on my mind and he was someone that would listen. �Rural west is the shit, sights, recreation, breath-taking, stupefying vistas. But the chance to meet many cool people� see music, bars, coffee shops�naw.�

I still had two days until I started. I had called the station chief, told him I was in and assumed there�d be some get together at a bar, or something. But, he was a little standoffish and apologized profusely that he was going out of town for two weeks early the next morning. So I trudged it to a bar. Nectar�s where Phish once banged around. I was living in an old motel turned apartment complex. It was a low-income type thing and I was renting month to month. I walked outside and down the concrete flight of stairs, into the parking lot and past the rows of doors and front windows.

There was a large male standing in front of his car and moving things into his apartment. I could tell he wasn�t moving in, but there was a lot of stuff he was moving.

�Hi, how�re you doing?� I asked and nodded as I walked past, trying to be amicable.

He stopped cold and got this terrible look of confusion and angst on his face. �Who are you?�

At Nectars an unknown guitar, jam trio wailing out on stage. They had a steady back beat and I had two shots and a beer. Out there dancing I found a college-aged girl and put my arm around her waist for awhile. Thinking how silly it was, the mating games we technologic animals play. In antelope and many ungulates, they form what are known as leks. Where there�s a vast open space and no great resources to defend. But each male stakes out his imaginary space and defends it. The male in the centre of the group has the most desirable location, since he had to defend and beat the most amount of males. And the females consequently travel their way into the centre and mate their way on out.

Bluegills and a few other Centrarchids will have what they call �sneaker males�, who are much smaller than their male counterparts as well as the females. They were the runts of the litter who passed on their genes again and again, selecting for smaller individuals, while the larger males did the same: two successful mating strategies. Anyway, the females will choose to mate with the large bluegills and start their rituals, bodies together and tails touching, flicking and turning on the small rock covered depression on the lake floor. Then, when the female lays her eggs and the big male is getting ready, the much smaller sneaker will dart into the nest and squirt his sperm. Swim away and do it again and again. Infuriating the much larger and slower champion.

A co-worker in New Mexico told me what he used to do as a kid in the desolate mountain desert of Utah. He�d try to pee while riding his bike.

I sat down from dancing and took a shot or two more and I was feeling it. Looking back it�s ironic, answering why I�d left the west, too tired of fighting, caring and having hope; consistently losing to mining, grazing, and development. There�s more to gain but the losses are frequent. �In the west it�s not yet dead but dying fast, in the east it�s dead but recovering.� I said.

And then I took the ill-paid masters in global climate change in northern Canada, fighting the big fight. Learning what will only depress. Finally able to have a permanent job, though. He bought me a drink and it was the first person I�d had contact with in a long drive. He was cool. Sort of ugly, little hooks in his chin and nose and forehead. The bones jutting out. Soon, two empty tequila shots showed up and then there were two more. I was talking to him and he was listening. I suppose I told him my living situation, possibly the encounter with the large Hispanic and he asked a few questions about �no sources of entertainment�. I said I had books, but he seemed to feel sorry for me.

�I have an old Nintendo,� he said and I perked up.

�No shit man. What games you got?� I asked and he began listing.

The next thing I knew I was walking the cold streets of Burlington with him, back to his house, his roommate was �probably still out� and I was commenting, saying something about how fucking hot it was in southern New Mexico right then.

� Joel Van Noord
Reproduced with permission

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