“The misunderstanding of postmodern literature often derives from the misunderstanding of its goal, that is, that there is no goal. With the progression of time, literature has also progressed forward from the days of explicitly polemic stories specifically aimed at a purpose that, if you missed it, you’d wasted your time, to a much more personal experience, that of drawing one’s own conclusions based on an emotional reaction to the story. We’ve seen the timeless question “what’s the point?” asked in countless situations to which the question simply does not apply. Literature now aims to move the reader, not necessarily toward a conclusion drawn up and mapped out by the writer, but toward an introverted response in which he or she is pushed to delve deeper than the point of comfort into his or her own thoughts and discover there something that may have previously gone ignored.”
Either I’m supposed to be having a revelation about the laws of physics right now, or this guy’s a terrible writer.
There were 39 architects in my hotel for the convention. One of them was named Marvin. The other 38 were named Phil.
I remember meeting an eccentric bartender while I was there. I asked him for a beer and he said that would be better than a bear full of beer. I said drinking with bears is all fun and games until somebody gets viciously mauled. After that he pulled out his black leather-bound book and asked me to write in it.
I read the other things people had written in it. One of them went like this:
“Hello other people! My name is Yellow. Quite the name, isn’t it? Plenty of people over the years have made this comment or that comment, most of them being ridicule, but not one, not a single one, has had the guts to ask me where I got such a name! I suppose they’re all too yellow, no?
You see, it’s a very interesting story. My parents were strung out on drugs, which severely hindered their cognitive function, causing them to give me this stupid-ass name that doesn’t make any sense and raise me with the competence of a pack of stray three-legged cats. Now I bang other people’s girlfriends to get my self-confidence. Go to hell.”
I could imagine worse things happening in my life than meeting Yellow. Just as long as my girlfriend wasn’t around. Just as long as the girlfriend I don’t have wasn’t around.
Another person wrote this:
“I can’t deal with it anymore. This bartender handed me this book, and it seems like a safe enough place for a confession, because he’s not going to read it until it’s full, and by then plenty of other grubby hands will have left their fingers on it. I killed Mason Anderson. I did it with a knife I bought off a homeless person and never touched with my fingers, then I ditched it. I moved. I disappeared, but now I’m back, because exile is too much. If I get caught, so be it, but I’m living in my own city until then.
If you’re looking for a justification, find me yourself and I’ll tell you.”
Mason Anderson had been one of the most controversial mayors in city history. He had survived six assassination attempts prior to the one that got him, all by an incompetent underground group that later confessed to deriving their inspiration from playing Assassin’s Creed. Anderson wasn’t so lucky the 7th time. They found him in his bed on the morning of April 1st with 47 stab wounds. It ruined April Fools Day that year.
For a second I shook, knowing my hands were the reason this guy was going to get away with one of the highest profile murders the city had ever seen. Half of me felt satisfied that I was part of the reason he could write freely, the other half wanted to go into hiding.
Both those feelings faded when I saw the entry four pages later.
It started with “I did it. I killed Mason Anderson.” And it went from there.
All the entries seemed the same after that, everybody trying to be more interesting than the rest, trying to say something more different. They all ended up the same.
It made me wonder if Yellow’s name was really Yellow. I hoped it was. I hoped at least some of the things people were writing were real. Just a few, at least.
Then came my page.
For a while I stared at it, so annoyingly white, daring me to do better than the rest of them. It made sense right then how it had all happened. They’d probably felt the same as me, then the stark white had tricked them into trying too hard. Sneaky bastard.
Finally, I decided not to say anything. Instead I wrote this:
“I run. I rap, I rock, I write, I roll, I wreck, I reign, Iraq, Iran, I roam.
I return,
I remember,
I reevaluate.
I am the victim.”
I figured that would at least get somebody thinking.
They say that a pistol going off next to your head is enough to leave you deaf. I guess I’ll believe it, because of how long my ears were ringing in the hotel.
No one saw it coming.
There was a reception going on in the hotel lobby for the architects, the ones who were there for the convention. I was on my way out, and I almost made it before I saw a woman reading Cosmo in a chair by the door. The cover said on it “7 Hot sex secrets that’ll make him roar.”
Oh, I get it. Gravity operates on the same principle as a flat, malleable surface, where heavy objects such as planets form a dip on which objects then roll toward the planet, orbiting it.
The five seconds that I spent walking slower to get a glimpse of what else the cover said were the five seconds I needed to get out. Instead he walked in and let loose a bullet straight into the air.
He was right next to me.
It made my ears hurt, and I fell down.
Falling was convenient, because once everyone was silent, he yelled “EVERYBODY GET DOWN!”
Done and done, Mr. Gunman.
Backstory: The hotel I was at was called the Riston, because it was owned by George Riston, and had been owned by George Riston for the last 7 months. I know this because George Riston is my uncle. When my apartment he said I could stay at the Riston, free of charge, until I got somewhere else to live, because I’d been planning on moving out anyway. At that point it had been four days, and that was supposed to be my last day in the Riston. That’s what I was thinking when it happened, that this hostage situation was going to keep me from moving into my new apartment, and that was a shame, because the pool at my new apartment had a waterslide. All the Riston’s pool had was several Jacuzzis and a fountain. You can’t get drunk and slide down a fountain. People yell at you for that kind of thing.
The reason that it matters when George Riston took over the Hotel Riston, 7 months, is the fact that before Uncle George got it was a western-themed hotel called The Lone Gunman. The name didn’t come from the theme, it came from the fact that the Lone Gunman was owned and operated by James Gunman.
Riston and Gunman had gone to business school together, and they weren’t friends. When word got out that Gunman’s gambling addiction had caught up to him and The Lone Gunman had been forced to close, Uncle George had been the first to book a flight. He’s not the conceited type who would name a hotel after himself for no reason, he did it completely out of spite.
Now he was holding an architects convention to find someone to design hotels for his new chain. He’d decided he liked the hotel business.
That’s why Mr. Gunman had burst through the door and shot his pistol into the air, because he was a broke old man who’d been spited a little too hard.
After everyone was down he started yelling all the typical crazed gunman chatter. “Nobody be a hero,” and “if I see a cell phone I’m putting a bullet through your skull,” and all that stuff. Then somebody decided to do something about it.
One of the architects made eye contact with him, then he got up. Gunman started screaming at him to get back down, but he didn’t, he just kept walking. He advanced slow enough that he wouldn’t startle anybody, and there was Gunman, the gunman, pointing his gun at the man. His hand was shaking.
Phil stuck out his hand “Hi,” he said, “I’m Phil.”
James ignored his hand.
“Not much for handshakes are ya? I respect that. Listen, we’re not here for anything other than to talk about designing buildings, alright? We’re not looking to save the day or anything like that, alright? Now, when the police get here, they’ll be looking for all kinds of trouble, so I’ll tell you right here, Mr. Hostage-taker (he got the name wrong), that if you head out now we won’t say anything to anybody. You just step out, let us go, and it’ll be none the wiser, alright?”
Gunman shot him in the leg.
“I TOLD YOU TO FREAKING GET DOWN!” That’s what he said, then he pushed Phil back and he fell.
“ARE THERE ANY OTHER PHILS IN THIS HOTEL?! ARE THERE?!”
One hand went up, then it shot back down. Too late. Gunman saw it, and he walked over.
I remember one of the entries I read at the bar. I remember it because I read it after I’d decided everyone was just going for shock value, and I thought it was the most clichéd.
“I’ve lost it all. My wife is gone, she took the kids. My money is gone, all of it’s gone. I’ve got nothing left, and can I build it back up? No! No, I can’t, I can’t do it. Why should I? I’ll never get my wife back, she doesn’t trust me. I’ll lose my money again. Why put myself through the hard work to get it all back when I’ll do this again? No, no, I can’t. It’s about to be over.
It’ll be over once I finish the one job I have left. I’ve been laughed at by fate plenty of times, but this time it has a face. Fate has a face, I can see it laughing at me, and I’m going to shut it up before it’s over. I’m going to pistol whip it.”
There he was. James Gunman, perpetually laughed at by George Restin for the last 7 months, was pistol-whipping fate in the face. No one signed their entries, that was one of the things that the bartender said I specifically wasn’t supposed to do when I wrote mine.
I can’t know for sure whether it was James Gunman or somebody in the same boat or just somebody trying to scare a reader. I looked at that entry and thought it was clichéd and stupid. Sometimes when you say what you mean you don’t say it right. This is a place where you have to say things right.
Phil looked terrified. Gunman was right over his face, holding the pistol up against his neck. Judging by how he moved and how dazed he’d looked between yelling sprees, I don’t think he’d been sleeping. I never saw his face from as close up as Phil saw it, but I imagine it was terrifying. His grizzly beard right there, his greasy, wild hair up above it, and between the two his two bloodshot eyes. Phil looked like he was about to piss his pants.
He couldn’t stop stuttering. “I—N-no…I-I didn’t m-m-mean it l-like that, I-I…I just…I j-just…m-my name is Phil.”
Not all Phils have the same swagger when they deal with gunmen. Or Gunmans.
“Oh,” said James, backing his face away “is that so?”
“IS IT SO?!...I’m sure it all makes sense, I’m sure it does, after all, Phil’s a very common name….isn’t it?”
“Y-yes…i-it’s very common.”
“Oh, oh I’m sure, in fact I’m sure there are plenty of other Phils in the room, I’m sure you just misunderstood my question. Go on, does anyone want to prove that Phil is just a common name? Does anyone want to prove to me that he just misunderstood my question?” He turned back to Phil “so I don’t have to shoot him in the face?”
36 more hands went up.
James snapped back up. “YOU’RE ALL LYING TO ME!”
“No one in this room cares…no one does. No one thinks about why I’m here with this gun, YELLING AT EVERYONE, no one wants to think about why I haven’t slept in THREE FUCKING DAYS. No, no all you see is this stuttering, pathetic mess.” He turned back to Phil. “Maybe I should go ahead and remove the distraction.”
I run. I rap, I rock, I write, I roll, I wreck, I reign, Iraq, Iran, I roam.
I remember.
I reevaluate.
I return.
I am James Gunman.
The SWAT team spoiled Gunman’s homecoming. After his menacing return to looking at Phil my ears got shattered again. This time it was glass breaking. Gunman had six machine guns from different spots pointed at him before he knew what was happening. Someone had had a video feed going. They knew he wasn’t watching the door when they showed up.
People talked about the first Phil as the hero, the one who had made his valiant attempt with so much poise. They talked about the second Phil as the victim, the one who’d faced his nightmares and come within an inch of death. The word that people used the most to describe it afterwards was bizarre.
It was bizarre that so many people named Phil had been there.
It was bizarre the way that Gunman had acted.
It was bizarre that no one had seen it coming.
I run. I rap, I rock, I write, I roll, I wreck, I reign, Iraq, Iran, I roam.
I return,
I remember,
I reevaluate.
I am still the victim.
I run. I rap, I rock, I write, I roll, I wreck, I reign, Iraq, Iran, I roam.
I read,
I judge,
I ignore.
I am the gunman.
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