Free Spirit by Joshua Safran

Author:Joshua Safran [SAFRAN, JOSHUA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography / General, Family & Relationships / Abuse - General, Religion / Judaism - General
ISBN: 9781401304959
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2013-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

NINE

Decepticon

When I was nine years old, a little ray of normalcy came shining my way. My buddy Eli got a television set. I still struggled with chores, like hauling water and chopping wood, and boredom for most of the day, but here and there, windows of opportunity opened up. If I raced down the mountain at the right time, and if his parents weren’t watching the news or meditating in the living room, I could watch cartoons with him. Sometimes for hours.

Our favorite show was The Transformers. We’d stretch out on his soft green carpet and get transported away into a galactic struggle between evil Decepticons and heroic Autobots. A place where there was always more than met the eye. Where a car or a stereo or an airplane could suddenly transform into a robot warrior. A place where boys were never left alone to fend for themselves, and goodness always triumphed.

The spell of the Transformers would last for days. I’d replay entire episodes in my head, identifying narrative inconsistencies, and reconciling them with elaborate back stories that I’d compose in a little journal. Sometimes I’d stare intently at my broken Walkman, half believing that if I stared hard enough it would transform into a little talking, walking friend for me.

But it never did. Instead, I was left to ponder the essence of Transformer nature. Were they fundamentally people that could disguise themselves as cars, or were they cars that could suddenly become human? I posed this conundrum to Crazy John, who became very skittish and paranoid, wondering aloud whether he was actually a transforming robot. Then he took off his pants and disappeared into the woods yelling: “I’m not part of your System!” When I posed the question on a long-distance collect call to Uncle Tony, he explained to me that the Transformer conundrum I was describing was just the latest in Cartesian Dualism—a struggle between the mechanical body and the immaterial mind. And when I asked my mother what she thought, she responded decisively. They were people. Every person, no matter what shape they took, bore a fundamentally pure soul. You had to see through the rough exterior and recognize the shining light of human goodness. She applied this conviction to the Transformers—and to a man named Leopoldo.

At the time, Claudia was consumed by her History and Culture of Central America class at Antioch University. Her homework was to interview someone who had been directly impacted by US foreign policy in Central America, and she knew why the teacher had assigned it. Her class had been reading about US atrocities on foreign soil and looking at grainy black-and-white photos of disturbing consequences. But none of it was real. It took a living face sitting across from you, crying three-dimensional tears, to bring it to life. At the food co-op she’d heard that one of River Kerry’s new migrant workers at the ganja farm was a refugee from El Salvador and had many stories to tell.

When she reached the

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