Raised in Captivity Read online

  We work on this play constantly, over and over and over again. It’s usually all we do for the entire three-hour practice. For the first week or so, we assume this must be some kind of Zen lesson, because Lovelace tried to introduce us to Buddhism back in the cafeteria. We all assume we’ll eventually add the other offensive plays. The real plays. You know? But as the days progress, it becomes clear that we’re not adding anything. This is the entire playbook. We don’t even have a name for the play, because it doesn’t need a name. There’s nothing to differentiate it from. We never put in a punt formation, because we are told we’ll never punt, ever, under any circumstance. There will be no field goal attempts. There will be no passing plays. The night before our first game, Lovelace draws up a defensive alignment on the locker-room chalkboard and lists which eleven players will start and what specific positions they’ll occupy. But we never actually practice playing defense, based on his argument that it won’t matter. “This schematic is a projection of where you’re supposed to stand at the inception of your opponent’s action,” he said. That was how he talked. “When presented with the opportunity, initiate contact with the ball carrier.” That was the extent of his defensive instruction.

  Now, I realize some of this has been explained elsewhere, particularly in that unnecessarily contentious piece in Jacobin. But I will summarize it again, since I know that’s what you want and I know that’s what you’re here for. Jasper Lovelace had no football experience whatsoever. There was no mystery around that fact. He would straight-up say, “I am not a football coach.” I’m not sure what he was, to be honest, or what he thought he was. He seemed a little like an engineer without an engineering degree. He liked to describe himself as an artist without creativity. The one thing I do know is that he designed this singular play to mirror the movement of wristwatch gears, which was the reason for all that horology shit back in the cafeteria. Lovelace’s theory was that an offensive football team could generate a spiraling clockwise motion at the point of attack, and the sheer mass of the whirling players—including the defenders, who would be swept up against their will—would involuntarily propel the ball carrier forward and downward, into the turf but beyond the line of scrimmage. It was basically a physics equation. It did not matter what the opponent did, or even if they jammed the entire defensive squad onto the exact spot where they knew the ball was going. If executed correctly, the result was supposed to be the same, every time: The play would unspool, the mass of humanity would be untangled, and the wingback would always, always, end up 2.7 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, with a standard deviation of plus or minus four inches. Lovelace worked all this out on reams and reams of graph paper, which he later burned. But once the play was memorized and internalized, we didn’t need any pictures or calculations. Once his worldview was established, the logic became unassailable: If we ran this play correctly four times in a row, we would gain exactly 10.8 yards, which would constitute a first down. We would then run it four more times, and—once again—gain exactly 10.8 yards, constituting another first down. We could theoretically do this for the whole game, theoretically scoring a theoretical touchdown on every theoretical possession. It was—theoretically—100 percent efficient. This is the reason Jasper Lovelace believed investing any time into a defensive strategy was irrelevant. If we stopped an opponent on just one possession, purely by accident, the war would be over. Because we would score every time and they would psychologically surrender.

  The logistics, of course, were not that simple. We famously lost the season opener 88–0, and everybody in town thought Lovelace was an imbecile. Everyone was like, “What in the hell does this turkey tit think he’s doing? This isn’t football.” But you know, it wasn’t football, so that criticism didn’t bother him. I’ve never seen a man care less about other people’s opinions. Nothing changed. We kept practicing the same play, no matter how ridiculous it made us feel. There was never any talk of scouting the opposition or giving 110 percent or considering what any of this was supposed to signify. There was never any deeper message. We’d just execute the play in practice and Lovelace would say, “Execute again.” No emotion, no intensity. Just, “Execute again.” So we’d run it again. No huddles, no introspection. We lost the second game 54–0. It was humiliating, but Lovelace harbored no shame. “Execute again.” I found myself wanting to be more like him. I started wearing mirrored sunglasses. We lost the third game 27–0. “Execute again. Execute again.” We lost the fourth game 18–12, on the road, eliminating us from playoff contention before the season was even half finished. We were a laughingstock. You could actually hear people laughing in the stands. But on the bus ride home, after we scored those first twelve points, Lovelace cryptically looks back from the front seat of the bus and says, “It’s happening.” None of us will ever forget the way he said that. I can still hear his voice, right now, today. It haunts me. I have no idea why we stuck with him. I guess it seemed like we were inventing something other people couldn’t understand. It was a little like a cult. It was a cult, probably. So we play the fifth game, and we win. We win 32–28. And then the following week, we win 66–20. People think it’s cute that this is happening. They think it’s charming that a football team can win a game with only one play. We’re on the local news in Stillwater. The next week is homecoming, and the final score is 72–14. No one can touch us. We finish the season 6–4, winning our last game 112–0. Our wingback, Ricky Milner, breaks every scoring record in the state. But of course no college recruits him, because he never has a single carry that goes for more than three yards. By the end of the year, everyone in town is talking about how Jasper Lovelace is a genius and how we’ll undoubtedly go undefeated next season and win state.

  The rest of the story is the stuff everyone already knows. Lovelace inexplicably resigns that December and goes on to become the person he eventually became. Missing his funeral will bother me forever. Ricky Milner is now Richard Milner, who of course is our president-elect. We lost touch, Ricky and I, but I’m so proud to have known him, all those years ago. Who would ever have believed that the kid who used to shotgun Old Milwaukee in my basement would somehow become president of the United States? The boy who was our quarterback went on to design the first artificial lung from organic fibers. Our old left tackle is arguably the finest living architect in North America, having just designed that astonishing library in Vancouver. I assume you’ve read T. R. Henke’s novel, where the titular character is unambiguously named “Lovey Jasper.” Henke played halfback. I don’t remember him reading a single book all through high school, but now they say he’s probably going to win the Pulitzer. So wild. Every single person on that team ended up with an amazing life, which can’t be a coincidence. We were taught things they don’t teach anymore. We were taught things that were never taught, ever, to anyone else. Jasper Lovelace convinced us that we did not have to live like normal people. He rebuilt our brains. With the exception, I suppose, of my brain. I’m just a regular guy, which is why you’re here now, talking to me about the new president and all those other boys who keep changing the world. I’m the lone contradiction, and the media uses that against me. But please let me say, once more, for the record: I did not do the things they say I did. I did not kill those people. I can’t explain how their bone fragments got in my garage or why someone would have put them there. I don’t even know 260 people. I mean, come on—260 unconnected murders? Am I a monster? Am I a machine? The trial was a farce. My lawyer deserves to be disbarred, and that judge was a narcissistic clown. But I will appeal. Believe me. I will appeal. I will be vindicated. I will not die for what I have not done.

  Toxic Actuality

  They strolled through the quad, the only part of campus still resembling the institution that had hired them years before. It was the sector of campus always photographed for brochures, but only during October, latently suggesting that the whole geographic region existed in a state of perpetual autumn. The leaves were always floating to earth and a s
weater was always enough. One man was sixty-eight and the other was forty-five, so they were the same age.

  “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do this anymore,” Benjamin said for the third time that day. “I go to the dean of arts and sciences, exactly at noon. I’m exactly on time. But the kid is already there, so I’m asked to wait outside. The kid says he won’t speak if I’m in the room. About twenty minutes later, the door opens and the kid leaves. Doesn’t say anything to me. Doesn’t look at me. The dean calls me into his office, we talk for maybe five minutes, and then I’m told to sign a document that validates the student’s complaint and states that I will accept his perspective on microaggressions.”

  “Will there be repercussions?” Geoffrey asked. “Could you be fired?”

  “I don’t think I’ll be fired,” said Benjamin. “Maybe if it happens again, or if it keeps happening. I mean, it could easily happen again, either with him or with someone else.”

  “What was the nature of the dispute? You never really explained.” Geoffrey was treading lightly.

  “I have no idea,” said Benjamin. “I’m teaching the text. The student says the text is racist. I say, ‘No, the text is about racism.’ The student concedes that this might have been the author’s intent but that the language itself is racist, because the author didn’t recognize his privilege. The other white students agree. The whole class is white. I think, ‘Great, this will be a real discussion.’ But they don’t want a discussion. They only want me to admit that the text is racist. So again, I say it’s about racism, which is the reason we’re reading it. The same student tells me I couldn’t possibly understand, because my identity has never been oppressed. I tell him two of my grandparents died in the Holocaust. He asks if that means I support state-sponsored terrorism against Palestine. I tell him that his question is insane. Now, maybe I say insane louder than necessary. I’m sure I did. But still. So then he tells me it’s misogynistic to refer to him as crazy. He says that specific word is a form of oppression. I tell him that I never used the specific word crazy and—even if I had—it couldn’t be misogynistic, because he isn’t female. He starts inserting the word intersectionality into non-sequitur sentences, and I kind of laugh. I realize I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. He then marches out of the room. Six other students follow him. And then, two days later, the dean sends me an email and says we need to meet, because I’ve been accused of humiliating a student and creating an unsafe environment. I truly don’t know how I’m supposed to do this anymore.”

  Geoffrey, having heard this type of talk from Benjamin many times before, tried to swing the discussion toward abstraction. “You need to remember what things were like when you were in school. This happened in the early nineties, too. It happens every twenty or thirty years.”

  “No. You’re wrong,” Benjamin replied, shaking his fingers at no one in particular. “With all due respect, you’re wrong about this. It’s not the same. That was about people who didn’t believe Anita Hill’s testimony. That was about the ethics of listening to 2 Live Crew and Body Count. This is about how kids are being raised. They expect to live a life without intellectual conflict. They don’t believe other ideas should even exist. I mean, come on. I didn’t humiliate that kid. I didn’t even yell at him. I said one word, maybe ten decibels higher than my previous sentence.”

  “Decibels increase exponentially,” said Geoffrey. “A ten-decibel increase would actually be twice as loud.”

  “I think you’re missing the point on purpose, Geoff.”

  “Then explain the point, Ben.”

  They were now using direct address, which meant the conversation was no longer amicable.

  “The point,” Benjamin said, “is that we’re allowing these kids to live in a false reality. Which would be fine, except that we’re also supposed to act like their false reality is rational. We’re somehow allowing them to be fascist and childish at the same time. They won’t be prepared for life. Take the kid I allegedly humiliated. What’s going to happen the first time he has to confront an idea that contradicts his worldview? What’s going to happen the first time his boss eviscerates him in front of his co-workers? How will he survive that? There’s no way that kid will be able to handle the real world.”

  “But there is no real world,” said Geoffrey. “That’s what you don’t understand.”

  “What?”

  “There is no real world,” said Geoffrey. “Or at least not a world any realer than this one.”

  They walked in silence for fifteen steps. They watched a squirrel disappear into a dead tree.

  “Look,” Geoffrey continued. “I know you think this place is some kind of sick incubator, and that the world outside is harsh and uncompromising, and that these kids are going to leave school fragile and deluded, and that they’ll be dead on arrival. But that will never happen. The world you believe they’re forcing upon us is the only world they will ever know. You think the kid who filed that complaint is going to graduate and become a construction worker? A nurse? A welder? That doesn’t happen to the kids who go here, unless they want to write a memoir about it. Maybe they’ll end up doing nothing, but they’ll still be fine. They’ll pretend to be broke until their parents die, and then they’ll be as rich as their parents. This is the real world, for them and for us. Right here. Where we are, right now. This path they photograph for the brochure. This is it. This is the world.”

  They stopped walking to watch another squirrel. The rodent watched them back, nervous and bored.

  “I don’t accept that,” Benjamin finally said. “That’s illogical. That’s like giving up.”

  “It’s not up for your approval,” replied Geoffrey. “It’s not a motion that requires ratification. Quit talking about rationality. That’s not part of this. That’s never part of this. They’re building their version of society, and we can either pretend we like it or find a different one. You and I did the same thing. People used to call me names I hated, pretty much whenever they felt like it. They would say those things to my face, and there was nothing I could do. So I chose to live my life in a place where that never happened. I chose a life where people don’t talk like that, or at least not when I’m in the room. I’m sure some people still talk like that, somewhere out there, in places I’ll never go. I’m sure a few people out there still talk the way everyone used to talk. But I haven’t met a person like that in thirty years, and that is by design.”

  “That’s not the same thing,” said Benjamin.

  “Nothing is the same,” said Geoffrey. “Analogies don’t work. Analogies only work on standardized tests, which is why we pretend they qualify as arguments. Things that seem the same are still different. When I was twenty, I had a summer job at a bakery. My boss yelled at me constantly, for being lazy. I didn’t think I was lazy, but he did. Compared to him, maybe I was. But that’s all over. These kids will never get yelled at for being lazy. That won’t be part of their existence. They will only get yelled at when the kids who come after them decide they’re holding antiquated beliefs about how the world is supposed to work, and that all the big ideas they once considered progressive are actually reactionary. So you’re right. It’s not the same. But what’s the difference? There’s still yelling.”

  They continued along the gravel lane another twenty yards, or maybe it was 18.3 meters. The path warped into a roundabout. There were four options in front of them: veer left (toward the part of campus that resembled an industrial park), veer right (toward the part of campus that resembled a hobo village), turn back (where they’d started from originally), or continue forward (out through the wrought-iron gates and into the ugly little town).

  “So I’m just supposed to let this happen,” Benjamin said, staring at the gate. “I’m just supposed to let some kid accuse me of things that aren’t true, because he gets to decide what’s real, because he’s young and I’m not. Is that how it works now?”

 
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “That’s how it works now, and that’s how it has always worked. You need to get over this.” And that was the end of the walk.

  How Can This Be the Place?

  I have the kind of job where I take a shower at night, after I get home. When I was young, I always assumed I’d have a different kind of job, the kind of job where you take a shower in the morning, before you leave. That’s not how things worked out. I went to college for three semesters, until I was broke. They told me to apply for a Pell Grant, but the application was more complicated than any of my classes. I needed to work for a while before I went back, and the only way to make real money was to take a job where you took a shower at night. I figured ten or twelve months of night showers would lead to a lifetime of morning showers, which is what I wanted. But you know, I also wanted a Honda Hurricane. Then I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled. Then my friends who were still enrolled at school convinced me to go to South Padre Island for a week and we all took turns driving, except I got a DUI in North Texas and had to wire some lawyer three grand to knock it down to reckless driving and minor in consumption. That was sixteen years ago. I’ve had a lot of different jobs in the interim, but my showering schedule has remained unchanged.