Waiting for the Man by Arjun Basu

Author:Arjun Basu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000
ISBN: 9781770905160
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2014-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

Begin the Begin

The Odyssey arrived, red as blood, or Australian wine, as the dealer had promised. It wasn’t quite virile, but that’s not the term one would expect to apply to a minivan. In a minivan, the masculinity is confined to the size of the cup holder. And whether or not it can keep drinks warm or cold. Or the coolness of the DVD player. Or the electronics on the dash, the computerized wizardry that can make the driver forget for a moment what he’s driving.

Or maybe it’s just impossible. Maybe the emasculation of the male has everything to do with the fact that millions of them are driving around the country in minivans. The first company that can make a virile-looking minivan is going to win the war, is going to bring their left-for-dead company out of the ashes into the shareholders hall of fame. The ad would have a suburban dad walking slowly toward the minivan, buckling up the kids and getting in, turning the ignition, all the while the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man” played in the background. Any campaign that could equate masculinity to this shape would alter the landscape of our economy. I suspect that company will be Asian. Perhaps even Chinese. Americans can’t build cars anymore. No, that’s not true. We can build them. We just can’t sell them properly. We have passed the mantle of design to the Japanese, the Koreans. The Europeans have always had it.

Two things we used to be good at: cars and skyscrapers and now we don’t do either of them well. We can’t make anything that takes your breath away. Look at all the starchitects: Europeans. Since the birth of the skyscraper, new buildings anywhere in the world have made a city look American. Now, even here in New York, all the new towers look like they’re from Shanghai. I’m not sure when this happened but like everything else, I’m willing to concede 9/11 as some kind of dividing line. We don’t want to admit it, but that trauma is still with us. Not in the stupid punch-drunk-with-rage wars we’re fighting overseas, but something deep within us died that day and it’s still dead. And it will stay dead forever. And a lot of Americans are still angry about it. Because they know.

Dan and I packed the Odyssey with sponsored goods. A giant cooler courtesy of Rubbermaid. Inside an assortment of Kraft cheeses. Fruits and pre-cut vegetables courtesy of Costco. Sandwiches courtesy of Dean & DeLuca. A dozen cans of tuna courtesy of StarKist. From the corner store an assortment of chocolate bars, fruit bars, granola bars, two bags of lemon cream cookies, a carton of orange juice, two bottles of Coke, two Sara Lee pound cakes, bags of Doritos, two jars of salsa, and a case of bottled water. A small portable microwave provided by Best Buy. Two more pillows, blankets, and a terrycloth robe courtesy of the new boutique hotel up the street. Three loaves of semi-frozen microwavable bread from a commercial bakery in Brooklyn.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.