There will come a day, mark my words, when every conceivable disappointment will meet in a giant hangar somewhere in Kansas. Every dashed dream and broken heart from all over America will converge there on the edge of some dusty little town to awkwardly mingle and avoid eye contact. Just as in Vegas, in the hangar there will be no natural light and no clocks, and the only way to mark the passage of time will be by the exhaustion in people's eyes.
Among those who will make the discouraging trek: The man who once upon a time dreamed of becoming an astronaut and grew up instead to become an unhappy insurance adjustor. The woman whose naked body was never seen --let alone touched-- by anyone outside a doctor's office. The failed writer of science fiction novels who lived with his mother until her death and, oafish and sweating, stalked about his old neighborhood in camouflage and, well into middle age, raced remote control cars up and down the sidewalk in front of his house. The jilted lovers, brides left at the alter, and infertile couples. The boy who asked Santa Claus for a Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine and received instead a Slinky, a seemingly small and isolated letdown that nevertheless in time planted the seeds for a lifelong pathology of disenchantment.
Also present: Beauty pageant rejects, disgraced public servants, neglected children, actors that never got a break, persistent writers of ignored doggerel, bitter misanthropes and alcoholics, those for whom an adolescent crisis of faith became crushing and permanent, brooders and pipe smokers, and all manner of neglected or talent-less musicians, artists, and philosophers.
You can be sure the sleepless will be there, standing in zombie pockets at some remove from packs of the pathologically shy, the socially awkward, and the chronically fatigued.
Should you make the pilgrimage you will be joined as well by stalled middle-managers, the perpetually startled, orphans, gimpy quarterbacks, cheerleaders who grew old gracelessly, bankrupts, and scores of broken refugees from Nashville, Hollywood, and New York.
There'll be quite a crowd, to be sure, and you're virtually guaranteed to recognize all sorts of old friends, neighbors, and former co-workers, and they're certain to bitch ceaselessly, provided they haven't been made entirely mute by their disappointment.
God knows there'll be plenty to bitch about: It will rain every day, the food will be lousy, and the accommodations will be sadly lacking. Entertainment --for lack of a better word-- will be provided by an assortment of some of the worst garage bands, barbershop quartets, choirs, magicians, mimes, ventriloquists, and baton twirlers you've ever seen.
As the evening wears on a bullhorn will be passed among the congregation of the disappointed, and each person will be allowed to shout out one sentence or declaration.
It's interesting, if fruitless, to speculate what those present might make of this brief opportunity to express themselves. How many do you suppose will use their moment in the spotlight to merely blurt terse, general condemnations laced with profanity? How many, however disappointed, will declare some enduring love or eternal regret? You can certainly imagine that there will be a great deal of stammering, and many will simply attempt to articulate some already broken promise, ineffectual apology, or impossible wish. Others, of course, will have nothing to say.
Should you or I find ourselves there in that awkward crowd of the bruised and broken what words would we find to speak to the assembled? What might we say to the better, happier people we --all of us-- should have been? And do you suppose there will be even one among us who will have enough small courage or faith remaining to utter some message of hope?
Finally, at some point in the endless night, black and white balloons will be distributed, and on command they will be released to rise slowly up into the distant rafters of the hangar. This gesture will mean different things to different people, and to some it will mean absolutely nothing at all.
"The worst trouble a man can be in, I think, is to have one hope left, and that a hope of something so inherently improbable that he knows deep in his heart it won't happen. It has been said of lotteries that they prevent suicide. I think that is one of the chief arguments against them. But even more painful than a lottery ticket is a stock of goods that no one will buy... Three feeble gardenias on a vendor's tray in the rain an hour after curtain time; a cup of fly-speckled jelly beans in a shop window: these are the merchant's last precarious handhold on the window ledge. The cruelest merchandise is a talent for which there is no demand." --Mr. A. J. Liebling, "People in Trouble", from Back Where I Came From
There was, in my neighborhood, in a strip mall so ugly one can only wonder if the man who built it hadn't cut his teeth in making minimum security prisons (he put asphalt over the grass, now broken and weedy and bulging from tree roots). One day, someone got the bright idea to put a candy store in there, perhaps the most pathetic excuse for a store I'd ever seen. She could have only raised the pathetic standard of her business by trying to ply Beanie Babies. She did not carefully place a sign in her window, but haphazardly slapped lettering in the door that read "Candy" in dark red, which could barely be seen from the sidewalk, much less the street. One counter displayed a single box each of the usual assortment of Hershey and Nestle bars, and there was a cooler filled with pop. The place was horribly empty, the walls unpainted from the last tenant, and there were even desks with old boxes in back, from an accountant who, I later discovered, died in there.
When I stopped in, she seemed less-than-thrilled to see me. I was curious: I wanted to see this place, where some poor sap spent an entire day, out of the sun, reading the newest Catherine Coulter novel, eating, not candy, but what looked like a frozen lasagna she'd microwaved in back.
For whatever reason, I asked if she carried Mallo-Cups. We stared at each other for a moment, both of us waiting, her not chewing that last morsel, me knowing God-damn well they didn't have Mallo-Cups. She swallowed and set her book down, and simply said, "No. Now get out."
I did. Two weeks later she was out of business. I didn't see her in the neighborhood before her store, and I haven't seen her since. Maybe she's in Kansas.
You might assume those who would express a message of hope would be the least miserable of the gathered, but I doubt it. I think the hopeful messages would be uttered by those regarded as the most hopeless. This is because the utterly pathetic have no brakes. That's the only way you can get down that far; by not stopping to bitch along the way.
This way the less pathetic would know they're even bigger failures than they'd thought. In addition to knowing the pain of a wrecked life they will witness the unbroken spirit of the truly broken and conclude that the forces that made themselves crumble didn't have to work up much of a sweat to do it.
I know what I'd say when it's my turn with the blower, too. I'd say "I got a case of Creme de Menthe here and what I don't drink myself I'll sell for a buck a shot."
Oh, Man! This kind of stuff keeps me coming back. And feeling guilty that you may not be getting rich off this incredible writing that you do.
Now I'm going to sit here and try to determine if you've just described Hell, real life, blogdom or Kansas.
Wow.
I'll see you there, buddy.