Back when Jeffrey Scooter had fallen on hard times—“was a junkie,” Sharla Scooter would say—he would sit at the outdoor tables at the Vermont Avenue Starbucks, smoking cigarettes and staring at the passerby. I’m smarter than all of you, he would think as he sat, running black fingernails through stringy, unwashed hair.Every ten people or so, he’d choose one to kill and envision eviscerating them with whatever was convenient: for example, he’d pick the chubby woman in those ridiculous shorts that read “Hot Mama” across her sagging ass, and mentally impale her with the nearest Starbucks umbrella.
Six months later he was scooped up by the Global Conglomerate Group, cleaned up and put to work because, in fact, he was smarter than all those imaginary victims. Jeffrey’s mother Sharla, an truculent Amazon of a woman who stood over six feet tall, liked to say that she knew Jeffrey was different from the moment he “emerged” because “he was the ugliest baby I’d ever laid eyes on”. Sharla was a bully, but Jeffrey’s baby pictures supported her observation: unusually pale with tiny, piggish eyes and a fine coat of black hair covering his body (that, to Jeffrey’s credit, fell off days after his birth), most agreed that he was, in fact, the ugliest baby they’d ever laid eyes on. Still, from the start Jeffrey was clearly a gifted boy and, at the age of ten, Sharla had his IQ tested. Finding out Jeffrey had an IQ of 145, Sharla embarked on a campaign to put Jeffrey in an advanced learning track and simultaneously make sure “that tiny head of his doesn’t get too big”. The campaign resulted in a full scholarship to MIT and an accompanying Oxycodone addiction.
Jeffrey was able to keep his problem under wraps throughout his undergraduate education, but it swallowed him whole as he attempted to get his doctorate and, two years after graduating from MIT, he was helplessly lost in the belly of his addiction. Sharla shut him out of her life immediately, quoting in a singsong-y voice the mantra she’d heard at the Al-Anon meeting, “The three Cs! Didn’t cause, can’t control, can’t cure! Look for your handouts somewhere else, junkie!”
He hitch-hiked out to Los Angeles in search of a generous uncle who lived in Malibu and got stuck in Hollywood, where he comfortably outfitted himself with a dealer and a shitty room in a cockroach-filled hotel, never making it across town. He was about to snort his last crushed-up OxyContin—how he cherished feeling the pill break beneath the drinking glass as he brought it down again and again—when Marcus and Rick kicked in his hotel door. He stared at them stupidly for a moment, and then they lifted him up by the armpits and dragged him out to the car. He struggled and screamed—they’d taken him before he’d gotten a chance to do the line.
The snow was coming down thick and wet, and Marcy could hear the windshield wipers struggling with the weight of it. She was sitting in the third row back from the front of the bus, her Christmas presents perfectly wrapped and stuffed tightly in an unromantic sack wedged between her knees. It hovered above the floor, which was slick and muddy from the wintry detritus.
Initially there were only a few other people on the bus, but by the Rutland stop there were at least a dozen. Marcy had boarded at St. Albans with a clean-shaven man in his early thirties. They had been cordial as they waited for the bus, him sucking on a cigarette and her fussing with her holiday satchel. They had been making small talk, discovering they were both headed to Bennington, when the bus pulled up and, with a curt nod, Marcy lugged herself up the steps. She looked over at the man now. He was sleeping, his head resting against the frosted window. Bunching up her scarf, she formed a makeshift pillow and closed her eyes. She had an anxiety dream: waking in her father’s office, no idea how she had gotten there, she began walking home only to realize she was completely naked. The rest of the dream involved intricate pathways between cubicles, avoiding staff and attempting to cloak herself in items that seemed to shrink once she grabbed a hold of them.
Marcy jolted awake in time to see Bennington’s old welcome sign coming up alongside her on the left. Gathering her things as excitement began to rise in her throat, she offhandedly looked toward her St. Albans companion’s seat. The man was obscured somehow and, for a split second, she thought she saw his face before the image clouded again. Crediting the mirage with her waking state, Marcy tried rubbing the sleep from her eyes before looking again and realizing that the man was gone entirely. Perhaps he got off at an earlier stop after all that? She mused, not really caring.
Her eyes lingered over the place the man had been, noticing something off before realizing that all of his bags remained in the abandoned seat.
***
The story didn’t appear till a few days after Christmas, when the reports had been filed. The hair on Marcy’s arms raised as she stared at the paper:
BENNINGTON, VT-A gentleman living in the Soldier’s Home in Bennington disappeared on a bus traveling from St. Albans to Bennington. The fourteen other passengers all said that the man, James Tetford, was sleeping in his seat. When the bus arrived in Bennington, Tetford’s luggage and bus timetable were still on board, but Tetford was nowhere in sight. Police continue to investigate Mr. Tetford’s disappearance as a missing person’s case and anyone with knowledge of the incident or Mr. Tetford’s whereabouts should call the Bennington Police Station at…
Marcy’s hands shook as she raised her coffee cup to her mouth. She would be boarding the bus back to St. Albans this afternoon. She wasn’t afraid of the trip, per se, but instead of that last hazy glance of the man’s face before it slipped away.
As Maclean puts it, at its heart, the Mann Gulch disaster is a story of a race. The smokejumpers in the race (excluding foreman "Wag" Wagner Dodge and ranger Jim Harrison) were ages 17-28, unmarried, seven of them were forestry students, and 12 of them had seen military service. They were a highly select group and often described themselves as professional adventurers.
A lightning storm passed over the Mann Gulch area at 4PM on August 4, 1949 and is believed to have set a small fire in a dead tree. The next day, August 5, 1949, the temperature was 97 degrees and the fire danger rating was 74 out of a possible 100, which means "explosive potential". When the fire was spotted by a forest ranger, the smokejumpers were dispatched to fight it. Sixteen of them flew out of Missoula, Montana at 2:30PM in a C-47 transport. Wind conditions that day were turbulent, and one smokejumper got sick on the airplane, didn't jump, returned to the base with the plane, and resigned from the smokejumpers as soon as he landed ("his repressions had caught up with him,"). The smokejumpers and their cargo were dropped on the south side of Mann Gulch at 4:10PM from 2000 feet rather than the normal 1200 feet, due to the turbulence. The parachute that was connected to their radio failed to open, and the radio was pulverized when it hit the ground. The crew met ranger Jim Harrison who had been fighting the fire alone for four hours, collected their supplies, and ate supper.
About 5:10 they started to move along the south side of the gulch to surround the fire. Dodge and Harrison, however, having scouted ahead, were worried that the thick forest near which they had landed might be a "death trap". They told the second in command, William Hellman, to take the crew across to the north side of the gulch and march them toward the river along the side of the hill. While Hellman did this, Dodge and Harrison ate a quick meal. Dodge rejoined the crew at 5:40PM and took his position at the head of the line moving toward the river. He could see flames flapping back and forth on the south slope as he looked to his left. At this point the reader hits the most chilling sentence in the entire book: "Then Dodge saw it!".
What he saw was that the fire had crossed the gulch just 200 yards ahead and was moving toward them. Dodge turned the crew around and had them angle up the 76-percent hill toward the ridge at the top. They were soon moving through bunch grass that was two and a half feet tall and were quickly losing ground to the 30-foot-high flames that were soon moving toward them at 610 feet per minute. Dodge yelled at the crew to drop their tools, and then, to everyone's astonishment, he lit a fire in front of them and ordered them to lie down in the area it had burned. No one did, and they all ran for the ridge. Two people, Sallee and Rumsey, made it through a crevice in the ridge unburned, Hellman made it over the ridge burned horribly and died at noon the next day, Dodge lived by lying down in the ashes of his escape fire, and one other person, Joseph Sylvia, lived for a short while and then died. The hands on Harrison's watch melted at 5:56, which has been treated officially as the time the 13 people died.
PANIC IN MANN GULCH
With these observations as background, we can now look more closely at the process of a cosmology episode, an interlude in which the orderliness of the universe is called into question because both understanding and procedures for sensemaking collapse together. People stop thinking and panic. What is interesting about this collapse is that it was discussed by Freud (1959: 28) in the context of panic in military groups: "A panic arises if a group of that kind |military group~ becomes disintegrated. Its characteristics are that none of the orders given by superiors are any longer listened to, and that each individual is only solicitous on his own account, and without any consideration for the rest. The mutual ties have ceased to exist, and a gigantic and senseless fear is set free." Unlike earlier formulations, such as McDougall's (1920), which had argued that panic leads to group disintegration, Freud, reversing this causality, argued that group disintegration precipitates panic.
By group disintegration, Freud meant "the cessation of all the feelings of consideration which the members of the group otherwise show one another". He described the mechanism involved this way: "If an individual in panic fear begins to be solicitous only on his own account, he bears witness in so doing to the fact that the emotional ties, which have hitherto made the danger seem small to him, have ceased to exist. Now that he is by himself in facing the danger, he may surely think it greater." It is certainly true in Mann Gulch that there is a real, palpable danger that can be seen, felt, heard, and smelled by the smokejumpers. But this is not the first time they have confronted danger. It may, however, be the first time they have confronted danger as a member of a disintegrating organization.
As the crew moved toward the river and became more spread out, individuals were isolated and left without explanations or emotional support for their reactions. As the ties weakened, the sense of danger increased, and the means to cope became more primitive. The world rapidly shifted from a cosmos to chaos as it became emptied of order and rationality."
- portions of Karl E. Weick's book Making Sense of the Organization
Ok so I'm back on the wagon this time, I swear. I've decided the multi-entry stories are what I'm into and I love horror so we're back on that train.
***
Sharon lay awake in bed certain she heard a cockroach. The terrible creatures had been the bane of her existence since moving into this house nearly one year ago—the old Craftsman had been infested long before she lugged her boxes up the front steps. As the day of her departure approached, she’d become increasingly paranoid about the bugs, waking from arthropod-filled nightmares, choking back screams. Now, between Mark’s snores, she listened for their scurrying.
As Sharon shifted her position, Mark, half-asleep, asked, “You locked our door, right?” She had, and tension rippled through her body at the thought of going to check, and, in turn, possibly stepping on a roach. Still, something compelled her and, switching on the bedside lamp, she hopped out of bed and padded towards the front door, flipping switches and lighting her path as she went.
Even without her glasses and with the bright light in the foyer, the locks looked not-quite-right, almost translucent. They continued to fade as she approached until, as Sharon reached the front door, there were no locks at all—the chain and the bolt had disappeared completely. It looked as though someone had sanded or sliced them clean off the door.
Sharon held her breath. It was still dark and she could hear rough, bloody sounds outside but an inner voice whispered mockingly There are no locks anymore—you’re basically outside already. Open the door. She heard Mark turn over in bed, oblivious and vulnerable. Sharon was terrified. Staring at where the locks had been she yelled to Mark, “The locks are gone.”
“What?” he sounded drousy and Sharon was jealous. Maybe if she just went back to bed, she could go back to worrying about the cockroaches, falling asleep soon after, and the locks would have grown back in the passing hours? The miracle of their reappearance struck her as ridiculous despite having watched them vanish without an explanation moments before. She heard Mark get out of bed and walk towards her. Impulsively, she twisted the knob and opened the door. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t.
Since my east coast visit, my blogging has been more sporadic, mostly because of my frantic job search. Employers, if you’re out there, GIVE ME A JOB. Yesterday I spent the better half of the day trying to “put a face to the resume” at one of the University job’s I applied to. It didn’t go well: without an appointment, I was treated like a security risk. Live and learn!
On vacation, I began reading Dan Ariely’s book The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. An Israeli behavioral economist and professor at Duke, much of what Ariely talks about touches on the issues I studied in organizational theory as part of my Economics major. Most importantly, both behavioral economics and organizational theory dismiss the assumption of traditional economics that all people behave rationally.
Ariely is a burn victim—as a youth, an accidental magnesium flare inflicted third degree burns on over 70 percent of his body. In one of his passages, he described an experience that bore a striking resemblance to one of my own:
“During one session at a conference in Florida, three colleagues and I were going to present our recent work on adaptation, the process through which people become accustomed to new circumstances…I had carried out some studies in this area, but instead of talking about my research findings, I planned to give a fifteen-minute talk about my personal experience in adapting to my physical injuries and present some of the lessons I had learned. I practiced this talk a few times, so I knew what I was going to say. Aside from the fact that the topic was more personal than usual in an academic presentation, I did not feel that the talk was that much different form others I have given over the years. As it turned out, the plan did not match the reality in the slightest.
I started the lecture very calmly by describing my talk’s objective, but, to my horror, the moment I started describing my experience in the hospital, I teared up. Then I found myself unable to speak. Avoiding eye contact with the audience, I tried to compose myself as I walked from one side of the room to the other for a minute or so. I tried again but I could not talk. After some more pacing and another attempt to talk, I was still unable to talk without crying.
I was clear to me that the presence of the audience had amplified my emotional memory. So I decided to switch to an impersonal discussion of my research. That approach worked fine, and I finished my presentation. But it left me with a very strong impression about my own inability to predict the effects of my own emotions, when combined with stress, on my ability to perform.”
In a freewrite piece called The Night My House Burned Down (spoiler alert: it’s a downer), I wrote about the shock of getting extremely emotional after reading a story about the house fire:
“The first time that I lost control of my emotions when talking about the fire was not until two years afterwards, when I chose to read a short story I’d written aloud in class. I had woken up early to write it, behind on my schoolwork as always, and decided to write about walking through my house after the fire. I thought I was being clever: what teacher would give anyone less than an A when they’re talking about their house burning down? One of my friends told me that for the essay section of the SAT, he’d written a [made-up] story about his mom getting cancer and credited his high score to the sympathy of the readers. This was my strategy-- manipulating my teacher into giving me a grade that I didn’t feel I deserved. I felt so confident as I began to read in class, proud of the inevitable regard my classmates would hold me in after learning I’d gone through such a poignant event. Imagine my surprise as my voice began to falter half-way through the reading and my hands shook uncontrollably as I put down the paper. Never mind the absolute stupor and embarrassment at my reaction to my professor saying tentatively, “This was obviously upsetting for you...” I began to respond, “Well, it’s obviously shocking when you see your house burning down...” and absolutely collapsed, losing control and crying hysterically, almost hyperventilating before excusing myself and weeping in the bathroom for the remainder of the class. I had accidentally gone too deep, not thinking when I sleepily wrote lines like, “some of the pictures were still on the wall, water-logged and distorted by crusading hoses, but some lay shattered on the floor, choosing to go down with the ship”. I had tapped my emotional reserves which pooled unseen and undisturbed in my subconscious.”
I chalked it up to “going too deep”, but Ariely’s passage gave me a strange comfort, normalizing the experience: the audience (my classmates) had amplified my emotional memory. At the same time, the act of talking about—announcing, even—these emotionally poignant moments is like exposing them to the air—breathing life into them and forcing us to realize just how devastating these events were.
I’ll end this post with Ariely’s thoughts on blogging and the reasons behind it. In a passage called “Blogging for Treats” he writes:
“Now think about blogging. The number of blog out there is astounding, and it seems that almost everyone has a blog or is thinking about starting one. Why are blogs so popular? Not only is it because so many people have the desire to write; after all, people wrote before blogs were invented. It is also because blog have two features that distinguish them from other forms of writing. First, they provide the hope or the illusion that someone will read one’s writing. After all, the moment a blogger presses the “publish” button, the blog can be consumed by anybody in the world, and with so many people connected, somebody, or at least a few people, should stumble upon the blog. Indeed, the “number of views” statistic is a highly motivating feature in the blogosphere because it lets the blogger known exactly how many people have at least seen the posting. Blogs also provide readers with the ability to leave their reactions and comments—gratifying for both the blogger, who now has a verifiable audience, and the reader-cum-writer (editor's note: I LOVE COMMENTS). Most blogs have very low readership—perhaps only the blogger’s mother or best friend reads them—but even writing for one person, compared to writing for nobody, seems to be enough to compel millions to blog."
Last summer, I met a newly graduated Celebrant. The mother of my friend B, she told me all about the Celebrant Foundation and Institute and I was struck—celebrancy seemed an ideal option for me. Celebrants are non-religious “ceremony officiants”—we study the history of rituals and their place in our lives to facilitate us in ceremony building. Doing events like weddings, funerals, divorce ceremonies, and downsizing ceremonies, the celebrant works closely with the participants in order to build a significant and personalized ceremony for the occasion.
I decided to “major” in funerals. Some might call it morbid, but I was drawn to the rituals surrounding death much more than weddings and child namings. Attending online classes from October to April, I’ve finally received my celebrant certification and am ready to start. The business sense of celebrancy is difficult—you’re essentially starting your own enterprise.
After putting a lot of thought into it, I decided to do animal funerals instead of human funerals. I came to this conclusion after realizing that I—and thus the general public—would prefer to have an older (i.e. more experienced) person officiating a loved one’s funeral, among other things. Further, I think Los Angeles is the perfect place to start a doggie funeral home.
At this point, it’s about building a website and contacting people—is it too dark to talk to doggie day care places? Dog walkers? Veterinarians? I’ll end with the poem I gave to my friend C after the death of a loved furry one—it resonates with me as a dog owner and serves to inspire my fatalistic entrepreneurial spirit.
Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.
All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.
They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.
You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.
Lucia Davis is a young author who has written on everything from robotics competitions to gold mining. A thorough investigative reporter, among her interviewees are American entrepreneur Dean Kamen and LADOT Bike Coordinator, Michelle Mowery. Her work has been featured in EQUITIES Magazine, The Foothills Paper and other publications.
Davis has worked as a park ranger, real estate appraiser and pig race announcer, among other things.
