Oblivious: A postmodern tale

Mark Krueger

In recent years there has been a fair amount of discussion in Child and Youth Care about postmodernism, what it means and it’s relevance to our work. Some people seem to embrace the idea and others see it as just another academic twist on what many experienced Child and Youth Care professionals already know. I tend to think of it both ways. In very simple terms I see the postmodern perspective as reminding me that we all make different meaning of the world in which we live and that this meaning changes in some way with each new encounter. To demonstrate I thought it would be fun to present a sketch I have worked on for a while:

Oblivious
In a window seat, I work on one of my sketches in the coffee shop. It is early morning. People rush in and out on their way to work. A few regulars sit at the counter.

I enter the prison with Isaac. Ten years ago his father killed his mother in a crime of passion. He came home and found her in bed with another man. Isaac was 2 when it happened. He came to the treatment center at age 12 very angry and aggressive. He hit a youth worker in the head with a small bowling pin. Then one day he drew a picture of an infant crawling on the floor in a pool of blood. It was the first time we realized that Isaac’s mother had died on the floor next to him.
I have known Isaac for about a year. He did not say much on the long ride here. He rarely says much except when he is angry. Isaac’s father is a model prisoner. He had no criminal record before he killed his mother. My father-in-law is the prison guard. Unlike some of the guards, he is a strong but a kind man. I have not seen him though at work and do not know what we will say when the four of us are together.

As we sit silently in the waiting room on two wooden chairs, I can not help but wonder what Isaac is thinking about. He has not seen his father for several years. The walls are barren. The sound of iron doors closing can be heard”

The regulars at the counter continue to talk about the news. More cuts “cuts for the poor, cuts for the sick, cuts for the neighborhood, cuts for the factory workers. “There are no more decent paying jobs,” one of them says.

–Go into computers. That’s where the money is,” a younger man says. I think about my son in San Francisco, a computer scientist, and how the last time I was there we walked together around town, and spent an afternoon in City Lights bookstore, the famous “beat” hang out. I wrote a poem about it on an earlier visit.

From the Basement of City Lights Bookstore (1997)

in the basement stacks
philosophy and the
rat tat tat of words

Sartre’s The Wall
beneath Duras, Camus
Oppen and Miller

the rhythms of poets
reading aloud
on San Francisco sidewalks

deaf again beyond
North Beach a refined figure
rises to a dark room
and locked door

enters the fray bent over
back to crowd
invisible key in hand

–I’m too old,” the other man replies.
“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, huh.”
“Something like that, I guess.”
A middle-aged man with a cast on his foot and a book, enters, sits down next to a man in a business suit, who sells industrial real estate.
–You ought to take a look at this.” The real estate man hands a piece of paper to the other man. “It’s a perfect space for what you’re looking for.”
“When my foot heals,” the man with the cast on his foot says.
“What are you reading?”
“Samuel Beckett.”
“Waiting for Godot, right?”
As I write again my pen scratches on paper then a pause while in the margins I continue my search for character.

Just then a sparrow flies into the window above my head, falls to the ground, flutters and dies. People rush in, and out, unaware of what happened. The sun rises above the houses across the street and falls on my shoulder. Shortly, a crow appears in a tree, its eyes darting about. The sparrow’s feathers flitter in a gentle breeze; the crow waits. A woman enters, orders her coffee, stands to the side, like the crow, and looks around.

–Light?” the man with the cast on his foot asks.
–From the north.”
–How much?”
“We can work something out.”
–No, I meant how much light.”
“Oh, plenty...”
The young woman catches my eye as she leaves. “No one likes to be judged, least of all you, someone told me once, not in so many words, but in words that meant the same thing.

I look at the dead bird again. “Sputzi’s, we used to shoot them with a sling shot, and cook them on a stick,” my father used to say.

–I’ve got to go,” the man with the cast says.
“When you get a chance, take a look at it. I think it will be an excellent space for you to show your photographs.”

There is a good shot right here, a dead sparrow and a crow, I consider telling the man, but don’t “this is my scene. Men and women in business suits walk past, feet too light to stick in Wheat Fields With Crows.

–Pink,” Suzanne says as we leave the Chicago Art Museum.
“What?” I say, unable to hear in the traffic.
–I wish I knew how Gauguin made that pink.” We walk through Grant Park. “That reminds me I need a tube of crimson.”
I cringe.
“What!” she says.
“Oils are so expensive.”
–I know but I only need one tube.”
We walk a while in silence. “Actually I like it when the paint gets thick on the canvas. It’s like going out for an expensive meal.”
–Van Gogh ate paint she says.

Outside the door, the man sees the bird, nudges it with his cane, and moves down the street. The crow watches and waits until there is a pause in the movement of people, then swoops down, claws its prey, and flies away.

Marie, (my mother, age 10) does the dishes, “Tied to the drainpipe with a towel,” the story goes.
As she works, she looks out the window above the sink. Her brothers are playing baseball in the backyard.
“Stay there until you’re finished young lady,” her mother says.
When the dishes are done, she goes to her room and smokes a cigarette, blowing the smoke out the window.
–Hey sis, what you doing?” asks Walter, her older brother, with a smirk on his face.
–None of your business.”
“Come down here, I want to show you something.”
Marie runs down the stairs and faces Walter. “What?”
–Just come with me.”
She follows Walter down the dirt alleyway.
“Where are we going?”
–you'll see.” He swings open the doors to a small barn. Inside is a shiny Model T.
“Whose is it?”
–Mine.”
She runs her hand along the fender,
“Want to go for a ride?” her brother asks.
–Yes, yes!”
They drive west toward the Kettle Moraine. It’s late in the day. When they are out of the city, he sits her between his legs and lets her steer. With her body wrapped in his strong arms, the sun sinking beneath the hills, and the gravel road vibrating through her hands and body, she laughs out loud at the sky.

The show over, I put aside my own work and grade papers. The students have written stories about their experiences with youth, much the way I have written these stories. Some are very moving. Others need work. Next week they will begin juxtaposing sketches from their childhoods. I read their stories with delight for about an hour more, then, as I stand to gather my things I look at the smudge above my head, wondering what the bird saw last, its reflection or the blue sky or a bright light.

–Don’t forget your mittens,” my mother used to say.