“Who can take a rainbow, wrap it in a sigh? Soak it in the sun and make a groooovey lemon pie?” Sammy Davis Jr.
I’m not a sensible man. But neither was Moses. Sadly, like Moses, I am the antithesis of sensible. I was never a sensible child, which makes perfect sense. The moment I was coerced into exiting the birth canal I was slapped on my newborn ass by some guy for doing absolutely nothing. That singular act of unprovoked aggression made very little sense to me. I made a promise to myself from that point on that I too would live a life based on insensibilities, which seemed like a sensible to do at the time.
At age nine, while at a family reunion in Papineau Township, I overheard my mother complaining about me to Perez, one of the sons of Judah, who was my mom’s third cousin on her father’s side, and blood brother to Hezron, Carmi, Hur, and Shobal. They were all by the picnic table where Reaiah, the son of Shobul, who was the father of Jahath, and Jahath who had recently became the father of Ahumai and Lahad - both bluegrass lovin’ families of the Zorathithes, was pounding back Labatts 50 with Ashhur, the father of Tkoa, who had no less than two wives: Helah and Naarah, who both unfathomably brought macaroni salad to the shindig. My mother, complaining, referred to me as “insensibly incorrigible,” which in retrospect, seems like a pretty sensible thing to say.
As a blossoming, gangly teen, I don’t recall being sensible in the least. Ever. Today, I’m a writer, which is the least sensible thing I could have ever become.
Check this out: “And what is literature but an insider’s newsletter about affairs relating to molecules, of no importance to anything in the Universe but a few molecules who have the disease called ‘thought’.” The great novelist Paul Slazinger told me this once. Like all great writers who do not really exist, Slazinger made very little sense, which of course makes perfect sense to me.
I hail from a long line of Pecores, all of whom are known to be insensible. My father is not a sensible man. He makes rash decisions, and is quite impatient. And his father, from what I understand, was not a sensible man. He was from Germany I think. Poppa Günter. Although there are some Germans who are quite sensible, my grandfather was not one of them. Apparently, Poppa Günter’s father - my great grandfather, Ëærkenbald, was the most insensible of them all. I once came across a picture of him trying to tip a cow somewhere in a muck field on the outskirts of Leipzig. He looked quite drunk.
“Hey man, she says that she’s got a pretty steep driveway, so unless you have a four wheel drive, just stay parked up top and walk down to the house.”
This seemed like a sensible suggestion. I, not being a sensible cat, however, said: “Oh yeah? Well, you’re not boss of me!” I then followed him down the hill - he in his four-wheel-drive, and me in my Jeep. I mean, shit, the thing has four wheels, so I figured this had to account for something. If you look at the commercials, Jeep Patriots can rip straight up mountains while hauling a trailer full of kayaks and shit. But I knew as soon as I parked and looked back up at the now ominous incline, that there would be no way in hell I would ever get back up.
After helping unload the roll top I got back behind the wheel to make the first run at it. No dice. Not even close. The fresh snow was doing nothing in the way of traction. The woman who bought the roll top even came out and had a go taking a decent race at the hill while my buddy and I tried to push. It was futile. I suffered six heart attacks, some type of stroke, and a pulled groin all within the matter of a half hour.
Then, just to break pattern, I did something sensible. I used the nice lady’s phone to summon Roadside Assistance, and then waited two hours in the Jeep for my tow truck. The saddest thing about this tale is that it was totally preventable. But again, not to belabour a point, having little sensibilities, if I had to do it all over again, I would still drive down.
Excerpts from Pecore’s “Journal of Hope” (Brought to you by RBC - where hope floats eternal)
February 22nd 2010
It’s 7:36 and I’m awaiting tow truck. It’s dark. Quiet. Snowing.
It’s 8:25 and all’s quiet. Light snow continues. There is zero traffic on McPherson. My Jeep is facing the road. I have my high beams on as a beacon for the tow truck that is apparently on its way. I’ve been lost in the wilderness for about 1.75 hours now. My pal, who had no trouble driving up the hill, left to return home. He did offer to remain with me until my imminent rescue, but I needed the time alone to reflect on my insensibilities.
It’s 8:36 and I’m starting to feel like Christopher McCandless stranded in that burned out hippie bus in Alaska. I’ve become severely dehydrated and dangerously faint from hunger. Weak. Can no longer do push ups. I consider writing a last note to my family. Instead, I write this column on a series of Burger King napkins.
Its 8:49 now. It’s getting dire. I fear I have soiled myself. I’m beginning to hear voices and am hallucinating wildly. I think I spoke briefly with a unicorn. I asked the unicorn: “brother, can you spare a dime?” As a distraction, I’ve rummaged through my book bag and took out the paperback ‘Being and Nothingness - The principal text of modern existentialism’, by French philosopher, critic, novelist, and authorized Herbalife Distributor, Jean-Paul Sartre. I’ve tried to make it through this book too many times to reckon. For as long as I can remember I’ve been looking for some serious answers to questions that I could never quite articulate to sensible people, but the concepts laid out in Sartre’s book, published in 1943, are so thick, heavy, and logically twisted, that I have yet to finish the introduction. They are simply insensible, and refuse to take root - they just bounce around inside my skull. I have read the following sentence hundreds of times: “It is not a metaphysical conatus of an unknown kind which hides behind its effects (accelerations, deviations, etc.); it is the totality of these effects.”
Yikes! I bought this book a few years ago, and have yet to get past page 3. But I will not give up on it. Ah, screw it. I give up. I may have to burn it for fuel if I am not rescued soon. I dig some more through the Jeep looking for something to read that does not make my head cave in on itself. Under the seat is where I find it: A Harlequin Romance novel, penned by Carol Marinelli. The provocative title says it all: BEDDED FOR PASSION, PURCHASED FOR PREGNACY.
“When Zarios D’Amilo meets Emma Hayes again, she is no longer the awkward teenager who tried to kiss him, but a beautiful confident woman. Now he wants her.” Yikes. This makes less sense to me than Sartre. This will make good fuel as well.
It’s 8:52. I’ve made a vow to myself to change my insensible ways. The costs are just too high. If I ever see civilization again, my family, friends, dogs etc. I will surely live a sensible life. I will seek sensible employment - maybe in an abattoir; freelance writing is terribly impractical. I will also stop trying to understand Sartre. I will stop betting on the dark horse. I will stop looking for answers to heavy questions. I will....wait, I see flashing lights. I hope it’s not that frigging unicorn messing with me. No, it’s the truck. I have been saved! I have seen the lights!
It’s 9:12. The tow truck has just left. It really only took a few seconds for the winch to tug me up the drive. I am now safely on even ground. Before disappearing from whenst it came, back into the darkness, the driver stood beside me, lit a cigarette, looked down the drive and said, “Shit, you had no chance getting up that hill without a four wheel drive. You should have just parked and walked down.”
To which I replied: “Oh yeah, well you’re not boss of me. I bet I can. How much you wanna bet?”
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