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BACK NINE
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The Lot
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Barney
Funky-Phyffe closed his
book, started turning off his computer, stood up in his tiny office in
the
anthropology department. He’d finished his Ph.D. on the sign languages
of deaf pre-Colombian
Indians in southern It was
Austin’s constant influx of
18-year-old girls with high GPAs, SATs, and MMPIs from all over Texas
that was
enough to keep his 26-year-old interest in a constant state of
hair-trigger,
which was a pleasurable enough condition. Barney
sighed and left for Les
Amis, where he knew he could get a passable-to-terrible cup of coffee
and a
decent conversation. This afternoon was slow, like every other
afternoon. The
cicadas drowned out the traffic on Once
seated, the inevitable
internal monologue began. “I’m
depressed. Why am I depressed?
Because I am so conscious of my own shortcomings. Are they so much
worse than
other people’s shortcomings? No, but they’re mine. I am not a good
person. I
have done bad things. I feel bad about myself. How to expiate my sins?
Charitable works? But I’d just be doing them to make myself feel
better. Drink
heavily? Near-term gain for long-term pain. Find someone who takes me
out of
myself and makes me a better person, or maximizes whatever goodness I
have
while minimizing the bad? That would be good. But who would want me?
Someone
who’s just as screwed up as I am. But hopefully good-looking? Manage
those
expectations. C’mon, don’t I deserve someone at least reasonably
good-looking
and intelligent, even if screwed up? That would be a winning
combination. What
question should I ask myself next? I’m boring myself. Maybe I should
start
reading Maurice Merleau-Ponty? Or finish reading Mircea Eliade.” As he
stared fixedly at a scuffmark
on the floor, Barney noted a pair of shoes standing near him. He looked
up at a
figure next to his table, seeming to be making the physical gestures
appropriate for preparing to sit down. Barney saw a yuppily dressed
30-something fellow beckoning down at him. What’s this? A stranger
introducing
himself in Les Amis? Unheard of. Oh well, might as well get on with it. “May I?”
said the fellow,
indicating an empty chair. “You may,”
said Barney, smiling
crookedly to signal good intent despite the inescapable and perpetual
hint of
sarcasm in his voice. “I think
I’ve seen you around the
anthro department, so thought I’d introduce myself. I’m scouting around
for
people doing computational linguistics. It’s a hobby of mine,” he
laughed. Barney was
always suspicious of
these scouting-around-for-computational-linguistics types. Usually they
were
with the CIA and just wanted to know what’s up with research these
days. God
knows what they did with the info. Probably based our nation’s entire
defense
strategy on it. This one
was about 6 feet, well
built, close-cropped hair and neat clothes. Shoes that were actually
shoes, as
opposed to sandals, boots, bedroom slippers, or bare feet. Not your
everyday
denizen of Lazy Me. Well, one
thing led to another, and
soon enough they’d ordered a second pitcher of Barney was
waiting for the pitch
about what sort of research was going on in the department. But it
didn’t come.
Instead, Phil (as he called himself) seemed inordinately interested in
the
algorithms that Barney was using to translate the pre-Colombian
languages.
Finally, Phil went for the sale. “How would
you like to make some
money?” he said with a sly squint, if it’s possible to squint slyly
during a
third pitcher of beer. “What, you
want me to carry
something across the street? Oh wait, I just fell off the turnip
truck.” It was
a favorite expression, which had special meaning for Barney because he
had in
fact been conceived in the back of a turnip truck thick in the “Barney my
friend, I am talking
about top security clearance, deep in the bowels of Virginia, helping
us break
code and write code, we’re gonna outcompute those mothers so bad
they’ll never
know what hit ‘em. What do you say?!” Barney
wasn’t sure whose mothers we
were gonna be co-dependent on, but it was beginning to sound better
than starting
out as the lowest-paid assistant professor in Slippery Rock. *
* *
So, long
story short, Barney took
the job at the CIA, working on automated translations among every
language
known to the “Barney,
you old so-and-so!” Phil
bellowed, striding into the cubicle where Barney toiled. Phil had put
on a
little weight, which he carried perfectly naturally. Phil’s ability to
be
hail-fellow-well-met even 400 feet beneath the earth’s surface was a
marvel,
and commanded a certain respect. To be so full of enthusiastic
spit-shine-and-polish and proud of it, that takes a certain amount of
chutzpah
that is actually quite intimidating. Shamelessness is difficult to deal
with.
What can you get a grip on? “It’s money
got you here, and it’s
money’ll get you out. Now listen to me.” Phil’s voice had diminished to
a
conspiratorial whisper, although the nearest other human was separated
by 30
feet of soundproof concrete. “You’re not looking so good, my friend.
You need
some fresh air. Check it out.” Phil
dropped a copy of the Koran
onto Barney’s desk. “Know what that is? I know, I know, it’s the Koran.
No,
it’s the HOLY Koran! These Moo-slims go apestank if you touch a hair on
its
chinny-chin-chin. And now here comes the likes of you translating it
via computer from Arabic into Lapp and from
Lapp into Cuernavacan and from Cuernavacan into Itskusk. You know what
the
Imams think of that? They think it stinks! They think you lose
something in the dad-gummed translation! They think it’s an American plot to ruin the Koran. They
think we’re gonna spread false prophecy far and wide.
They think we’re tryin’ to bowdlerize the Holy Koran.
And they
don’t like it! Not one little bit! Now these Imams, every last one of
‘em owns
nine oilfields. And you know what they do with their money? They
proselytize! And
they work against the enemies of Islam.
They’d be pretty danged
happy if these automated translations of the Koran all went down the
crapper.
Now what are the chances of that happenin’? How could that be? A line
of code
here, a virus there, as soon as you can say Ayatollah
Khomeini, we got no translations, zip, down the crapper, ka-blooey,
Phil
suddenly seemed spent. He
leaned back against the desk and breathed fast, til he started to calm
down.
Barney just kept watching him. Finally
Phil said, “You might be
wondering how I fit into all this. Whose side I am on, anyway? You’ll
just have
to trust me on this one, sport. Believe me, the Phil had
worked himself back up
into a state, and was clenching a pencil so hard the eraser popped off.
Phil
jumped, “What was that?” “The eraser
popped off that pencil
you’re holding,” Barney explained. “Damn, I
thought it was a tracer.
But I guess we’re safe down here. We better be, hey bubba?” Phil gave
Barney a
nudge in the shoulder. “Now you saw that number I wrote down, right?
You got it
mesmerized? OK, now I’m gonna eat it ‘cause we don’t want no nothin’
layin’
around here that we might regret one day. You with me? Hey, what say we
catch
that Jack Johnson and Coldplay concert over to *
* *
Four months
later, Barney was back
in Austin with his $8 million, and back in the anthro department doing
research
as a post-doc. He used
some of his money for a
lifetime membership in the Austin Golf Club, and most of the rest to
purchase
four square blocks of ex-Catholic high school in the adjacent
neighborhood just
north of the course. He donated the land to the Club, with
the
stipulation that the use of the land be put to a vote of the lifetime
members,
with Barney getting two votes. The members
had a lot of ideas
about what to do with the land. Do nothing! some proclaimed. Make it a
new
practice range, said others. No, a swimming pool, or tennis courts, or
a gym,
or a new clubhouse, or a children’s playground, or an organic garden,
or a
computer lab, a recycling center, a barbecue pit, a library, a
recording
studio, a parking lot, a retirement home, a couple of golf holes as a
start on
re-inventing the Club’s longlost back nine holes. Yes, the members had
a lot of
ideas. Unfortunately, the Club had no money to develop anything. The
members
went back to Barney, asking for more money. When he said no, many of
the
members turned against him, blaming him for poisoning the previously
pure
atmosphere of the Club with this precious gift that had only had the
effect of
turning member against member. The
campaign came down to basically
two sides: the old timers, who were mostly Do Nothings; and the new
timers, of
whom there were more, but they fractioned their votes into splinter
groups,
unable to rally around any leading idea. So, in the
end, the Do Nothings
won. The land sat, untended, vegetation growing lanarkically. The only
thing
that had been done was to remove the buildings, leaving a large vacant
lot. Over
time, this lot became the favored recreation space for kids from blocks
around.
Called The Lot by them, it hosted pick-up baseball and football games,
mock
wargames, frisbee-throwing, dog-walking, boombox-blasting, dirt-biking,
the
building of small shanties, random idle gatherings during the
languorous
afternoons that became group chats at dusk and morphed into
guitar-strumming
well into the night, the occasional amorous encounter, and overnight
camping.
Parents always knew where to find their children. Never had a finger
been
lifted to make the tiniest improvement. And never had space provided so
much
enjoyment. The City tried several times to establish some order, but
finally
gave up when it became clear that no matter how many fences, bike
racks, water
fountains, signs, trash barrels, or streetlights they might put up,
none would
be taken up, they would all fall to disuse, there was no point in any
of it.
The
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