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If a man yells in the street and no one hears him, is he still crazy?

Rick Casillas
The Commuter

Friday, November 14, 2008

Last week I received a call from City Hall confirming my worst ballot-related fear: that I had, in a fit of illiteracy fueled rage, disregarded the large angry red print on my envelope and turned it in blank. I rushed downtown, thoughts filled with images of my dejected unsigned envelope, passed over and shoved into some file cabinet in the corner while his friends were gutted and tallied by the elderly. The hours I had spent poring through my voter’s pamphlet, drawing handlebar mustaches on incumbents and laser eyes on all the constitutionalists before stabbing furiously at my ballot, were they all to be for naught?! Through neglect I had forsaken my role in the electoral process, making me no better than those that voluntarily abstained from voting in the first place. Terror gripped me as I recalled my great-grandma’s words whispered into my ear on her deathbed: “A vote for nothing is a vote for Satan’s tyrannical hellfire rule.” I had voted for Satan. While crossing the street to the tall white building, I heard amid the beat of traffic a mechanical whine; distinguishable from the squeals of brakes and chutters of engines as belonging to a human voice. At first, it occurred to me that my id had won, and I was insane. What a wonderful sense of freedom and entitlement I had, insane at last! Never to be held to societies rules again, able to wander the streets in the middle of the night to my heart’s content, screaming and knocking over shit until I got tired and fell asleep. But the madness was not mine; I saw people glance about, confounded as to the source of the rhythmic terror, but their curiosity went no further than a turn of the head and a shrug of the shoulders. A few even ventured bravely with a “Shut the fuck up already!” But nobody rose to meet his cries, no one talked to the person responsible. I found that my own interest was not so easily sated. No sir, I was no drudge of a lemming; I pressed on, eager to find the place of it’s inception. After mere moments of wandering I traced the sound to a dilapidated building adjacent to that office I always see couples fighting in front of. And there, through the open mesh screen on a first story window I saw a perfectly sane looking young man sitting on a couch, eyes transfixed on nothingness while his mouth lay agape, spilling out his siren’s call. His vision shifted at the appearance of my outline against the light that poured into his apartment; he turned with a smile and extended his hand.

“Oh hey, what’s up man? Do you live in this apartment or were you just passing by?”

“Just passing.” I replied cautiously, head tilted, my free hand tensed in anticipation of his inevitable crazy-guy attack.

I began to mentally inventory my possessions, estimating their value as weapons. A pen would simply glance off of his tough hide, but If I possessed the physical prowess to pull off such a feat I could probably strangle him with my headphones…probably. I squinted my eyes, nodding in satisfaction as I wound the rubber coated cable around my hands. That’s right crazy man, make your move, daddy’s ready to play. But first to throw him off the scent.

“So…uh, what’s with the yelling?” I inquired innocently.

“I’m just practicing for the elevator.” He replied, in a vain attempt to infect me with his crazy voodoo madness; I resisted.

“No, seriously? This has to be some kind of social experiment or something.” My hand went slack as I reached for a notebook instead to write our conversation down; I could probably paper cut the hell out of him if necessary anyway.

“Well it didn’t really start as one, but yeah I guess.”

“What kind of reaction have you found people are having?”

“Most just ignore it, you’re the first one to say anything.”

He then introduced himself as Eric; after a brief exchange of numbers and a friendly goodbye, I returned to my aforementioned duty, mind now heavy with ponderous implications. Suddenly my perspective had changed. Eric seemed not to be the lunatic I once thought he was, but I began to question the sanity of those that went about their day, listening to him scream his head off while they pretended nothing was amiss. ‘This would probably make some kind of sweet metaphor,’ I thought, as I heard him begin to pick up tempo again behind me. And it does my friends, oh how it does. How many of us have Erics in our lives, yelling their little brains to mush while we mindfully ignore the problem, hoping it will just go away? How long can we afford to wait until we address the wailing and actually do something about it; if we see a necessary change in our midst what prevents us from making it happen ourselves? So much emphasis lately has been put on politics and elected officials that promise to turn our world around, to make everything better and quietly usher those crazy guys yelling at us to a place where we cannot hear them any longer. But they still exist, and they still need to be taken care of. A politician will not give you a job, a politician cannot help you reconnect with a loved one or teach you how to apologize for a mistake, they cannot raise your children or instill in them the values you can. A politician will not improve your life, that is your responsibility and yours alone, and once you begin to master that truth you will find that the world is a much simpler, quiet place. Until then: keep on yelling Eric, maybe someday they’ll hear you.

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