i’m sitting in my office behind my desk with my Magic the Gathering wizard costume on the carpet beside it. It is a gray (optimists would call it silver) robe on the ground whose top end ends in a Kermit the frog mask. Halloween is coming and we all really see ourselves or want to see ourselves but cannot express on other days, but feel socially licensed to on this day: for me, that i am an enchanted frog that enchants things, that i don’t need to be kissed to become something else. A youth walks in with a floppy blond head of hair above his black Megadeth t-shirt. He is my student like anyone can be my student if they have the right question to ask, if they seek the brand of teaching i advertise that i provide; i’m not saying i have the answers to these questions, i’m saying i expect the questions, at least. Does this make me a better or a worse teacher? If i’ve pre-prepared (is this superfluous) the answers before the particular question-asker with a particular life and background asks them, and you are that question-asker and my answers do not match you and your life, i fail you, but if i’m totally unprepared and am flabbergasted by your question, as effortful as i may be in responding to you, i may also lack the adequate cogitation to deliver a considered and wide-ranging answer. i’m fucked. “My name’s Connor,” my student says, “were you ever in a band?” he says. He’s sheepish, looking at a book on my shelf, i look where he looks, Cuentos Completos. But that could be by anyone, and the name of the author isn’t written on the spine. The author is spineless, or the spine is authorless. Yes, i say, i was in a band called Cornstar. “That’s a badass name,” he says. Half of that compound word is true, i say. “What?” he says. I’m saying my band was either bad or ass, I’m not saying it was badass though, i say. “Huh,” he says, but it’s a laugh, and that is how the laugh sounds, like Huh, the lower lip funnels and curves the laughing syllable up, to the ceiling, which i crane my neck to as if to follow the sound, and see there’s black mold by the ventilation duct. How do I live? i ask myself in my head, but where else would i ask it? My mouth, but i don’t ask it in my mouth. My pancreas, maybe, which suddenly hurts, a little anxiety there. My black mold, if i throw my voice there. Huh. Why do you ask? i say. What’s your band called? i say. “Griefmaker,” he says, and looks down at the ground. That’s a beautiful name, i say. What if it were called Grieftaker? i say, what kind of music would that be? “Too conceptually confusing,” he says. Huh, i say. “How did you write your songs?” he says. What do you mean? i say. “I mean,” he says, “did one of you write a song alone and bring it in when you were all together, or did you write your songs all together?” he says. Huh, I say. You first, actually, i say. “One of us,” he says, “usually writes a half-formed thing, and brings it in to show the others and the others interpolate whatever elements they dream up that then creates a compound, we kind of rear it together,” he says. Huh, i think. What an incredibly thoughtful answer, i think. He interpolated “interpolate” so naturally, i think. Connor has been looking at my robe while answering, and still is looking while i’m thinking, and then i look at it, too. What is he asking me? i wonder. “What is that?” Connor says. i follow his line of sight and see he’s looking towards my robe. It’s the wizard from Magic the Gathering, i say. “But it has a Kermit face,” he says. Oh, so it does, i say. How strange, i say. i reach down and hear my lower back creak, more than i even feel it, and i take my pointer finger and kind of gather up the gray material, kind of rear it together, swirl it around, close a fist around it, lift it up, sweep it around my shoulders, slide the Kermit mask over the mask that is my face in a neat 90 degree arc movement, the way a pez dispenser face opens, the head tilted back, the neck a long open tube or body without organs, then easily arcs closed again when released. You want me to teach you Arabic? i say to Connor through my Kermit mask. i don’t change my voice or pinch my throat in any way, but the muffling effect of the mask’s rubber material makes me resemble Kermie a little anyway. “What?” Connor says. You want me to teach you Arabic? i say. “You know Arabic?” Connor says. No, i say. “But,” Connor says. But I know a little Arabic, i say. I know Qur’anic Arabic, like I can read and understand 7th century Arabic, so I could maybe converse very slowly with a 6 year-old from the 7th century, as long as we were just reciting Qur’anic verses back and forth very slowly, i say. “How did you learn that?” Connor says, but i don’t think that’s the right question. i don’t see a need to answer that question. It is all peace until the break of dawn, I would say, i say. But the Night of Glory is better than a thousand months, he would say, i say. Is the morning not near? I would say, i say. Such a return is impossible, he would say, i say. Some of you may die young, I would say, i say. And taste the torment of eternity, he would say, i say. Connor says, “when I play I have to turn my back to the crowd. I want to see them and I want them to see me, but I’m too afraid when the moment comes. What can I do?” he says. What’s your address? i muffle. “What?” he says. What’s your address? i muffle more clearly. Connor tells me. In a week he receives a Miss Piggie mask in a box in his mailroom. He comes back the next week, and tells me this. Then he comes the next week, and the next, and sometimes we study Arabic together. Sometimes he is the little 6 year-old boy, sometimes i am. Every show he has played since, Connor tells me, he has played wearing his Miss Piggie mask, with the crowd facing him and him facing the crowd. They see one another now, he tells me. The band is named Grieftaker now. The music sounds the same, he says.
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Jared Joseph is boring.