A Lively Tale of Spitting in Darwin's face in the name of Admittance to Grad School

First of all, I don't know what I clicked on to accidentally become a follower of myself (you may have noticed that). Second of all, I don't know what to click on to stop it, so I guess that's going to stay.

Third of all, here is the writing sample I submitted with my grad school application to BYU's MFA in creative writing program. Just in case anyone's interested. Not sure when I hear back.

Cheers,
Bentley

“On Nothing”

You’d never believe how good it felt to jaywalk across 8 lanes of rapid Parisian traffic, the ones that surround the colossal Arc de Triomphe. And it wasn’t a fluke either: my co-jaywalking life-buddy Justin felt just the same way. Describing the jaunt is pretty easy: explaining why we loved it is a horse of an entirely different color. Not that I ever understood what that really means.

So, like a lot of people live in Paris. Like 11,769,433. Lots of these people have cars. Lots of these cars drive along the Seine River, down Le Champs-Élysées—that’s main street, if you live in Paris. And as it turns out, Le Champs-Élysées leads right to a monumental Arc, or rather to, on this occasion, “us.”

And by the way, technically I suppose we were jaysprinting-for-our-lives, my man Justin and I. We’d plunged in during a brief gap of traffic, which, for being undoubtedly Providential, gave sort of stingy odds on survival. I mean, it’s not like the Red Sea was bursting out and engulfing odd Israelites here and there, back when Moses and Aaron were crossing it. The Black Sea me and “J” were walking across 229.65 feet of unlaned chaotic speed. We were only thirty feet into it when a few dozen Egyptians (who looked more than a little French) caught up to us and tried to PWN us before we reached the Promised Land. A few swung by, and orbited safely behind us, but a new herd of chariots was coming counterclockwise in the distance, and I wasn’t sure if we’d win our race or not.

Now I don’t want to bore you if you already know what this sort of thing is like, because you’ve navigated lots of asteroid fields or something. And of course, if you’ve ever cast yourself across a lifesize, rushing Russian roulette wheel, and plinked along for dear life while a best friend plunked for his, this description really isn’t necessary either. But if you haven’t, let me tell you what it was like—and this thought almost stopped me dead in my tracks, there on Le Champs-Élysées: “This is like living the last level of ‘Frogger.’”

Step. Step. Step. The thought just kept thudding into my head, like a frog into a semi. “Well, probably anyways. I guess I’ve really never seen the last level,” then I started laughing helplessly, “because I always died on level five or so in the middle of Trig in high school.” It was a beautiful irony, so even though it threatened my life, I gave into it and laughed, ironically.

Despite this deliberate frog-duel with Darwin, I had some sort of belief that Justin and I would survive. Maybe it was irrational—a self-nominated candidate for natural selection, thinking he’d survive—but that is what I thought. The scariest moment was probably seeing a rush of cars cutting off our retreat, and another blocking our progress ahead. I experienced a thought: “This is dangerous.” Then my survival instincts kicked in—panic became adrenaline, adrenaline became speed and mental clarity. And hindsight.

I was eyeing the formation of the next wave for gaps to run in when I saw a huge contingent detour east down Le Champs-Élysées, before they reached us on the north side of the Arc. Suddenly (I know the word’s overused, but it’s still the greatest “adverb of revelation”) the ridiculous possibility of making it seemed probable. A sensation of glory and elation mixed with a word much stronger than relief, one probably too perfect to exist. What it means though is a feeling much, much stronger than relief, the one that comes with the release of desperation, like the license to totally collapse. I had all I wanted, padding down the homestretch. We were actually out of breath at this point because the 229 foot jaystroll was further than it had looked, so we gasped our laughs and cried with glee and met eyes and definitely agreed: “We are idiots.” It was really funny.

Maybe you just had to be there.

The last danger came as Justin slowed waaay down because he was laughing so hard right then. Three or four or five cars were approaching along the two inner “lanes,” and I feared the gene pool might just get wiser after all, since Justin was far too close to them and moving slow and—honestly, dude—not even watching just shaking his head while he laughed, so that just made me start laughing too. It was like a tickle fight with the Grim Reaper. And I didn’t know he was ticklish, ‘cause somehow, we won.

Those last few steps across the asphalt I wanted to hold my arms up like an Olympic sprinter in first. Maybe I did. All I remember was the feeling. Nike! Victory! It was glory, and it was worth it. Justin was still closing and wiping his eyes. If we’d been offered all of the world right then, we’d have refused and just kept what we had. That was all we wanted. That was a surprise for a demanding Me. But somehow, I’d scattered my greed and my “needs” along the way, and felt nothing but lucky to be there alive. Which is exactly what I was. And maybe no more than usual either—it was just more obvious. But if obvious is what it takes, I’ll risk my life every day. I hope you’re not thinking, “Don’t push your luck, kid,” but if you are, you should try feeling lucky.

*

Justin and I had spent the whole morning looking everywhere for sewers. How many people have seen the sewers of Paris? Better yet, how many have seen the sewers instead of the Eiffel Tower? I wish I could say we did, but we never found the sewers. We foreswore every other pursuit for their sake, and failed the entire day. We also failed to fail at everything else, too, by accidentally sighting ol’ E. T. off in the distance. Admittedly, I was glad to have glimpsed it—not that I’d lost sight of our quest.

We were questing for the sewers because it struck Justin as hilarious that anyone would go to one of the most beautiful cities on earth and look for its sewers. I am dead serious. That is why. Because you people would be appalled. And I was too, at first. As a disciple of the liberal arts, with no certain chance of returning to their great Temple, Paris, sacrificing the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomph and especially—what I had wanted to see most of all—the Louvre, sounded like heresy, but the idea sort of grew on me, you know? And I supposed since Les Miserables was my favorite book, and we’d heard there was a tour to show where Jean Valjean “would have been,” that I’d at least get that out of it.

It was like cultural masochism. Like a syndrome, Justin’s transcendent nonchalance, and it was infectious. At first, we just planned to dump the touristic rites of Parisian passage until we found the sewers (and even then, we never planned to use maps or plans after), but the suspension felt so good that we decided to make it permanent. We would seek nothing, and only gratefully accept everything. Worst case, if we got hosed, we would laugh. Soon, we only wanted to miss more. Even water and bathrooms. “Pain is good. Extreme pain is extremely good”—I finally got those silly Navy Seals. They’re just preaching a sort of negative self-definition. A man’s greatness is negatively correlated with his needs: he is only as great as he is independent. So every loss proved who we were, and that we were enough. So we chose not to need. We chose, then we felt free.

So even finding the Arc de Triomphe, you see—let alone getting across to it—only happened by accident. Sure it turned out to be on main street, out there in total plain sight—but we hadn’t known that. We’d only known we could go on without it.

We went wandering first among black lanterned tridents, gothically ornate poles posted like sentries along Le Champs-Élysées; they guarded bridges like the Pont Neuf, which I’d seen long ago in a Renoir painting and pocketed as a permanent dreamshard, one I’d seek until I found. That’s what I’m about, and that’s the sort of stuff that hit me there in Paris: I never guessed I’d breathe the living spirit of the French Revolution, but I never guessed it was still living in Paris. And I don’t mean its terror, the dark side of it, either, but the idealism of the time: the Scarlet Pimpernels who saved the innocent; the spiritual nobles who fought for those with less; the exaltation of the still soul stirring cry, Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!

I once read a letter from that period by a young woman. She recorded a young French noble’s plea that inheritance laws be altered so his failing father could die in peace, knowing all his sons had been cared for, instead of just the oldest. This noble was the oldest. “What others may think of this young man I cannot say,” said the girl, “but as for myself I am violently in love with him.” Bangarang, I say, and hope to be nobler myself.

Maybe there was a touch of nobility in the patent stupidity of Justin and I. We were going without, trying to forsake everything, to stand by ourselves. The young noble gave up money and status for ideals; we gave up E.T. and Moulin Rouge and the Louvre for ours—everything, that is, except the sewers. But they were just our symbol for nothing. What could symbolize nothing better than a sewer? Nothing. Fortunately, that’s what we found.

*

Justin’s not much for religion lately. We’ve always been best friends, but I think it’s even more important to be a good one now. I wanted nothing in Paris more than the Louvre, but I wouldn’t have even been there if it hadn’t been for him—I was there to be and be with a good friend. So who was I to object when in beatific splendour the sewer quest appeared yonder in the heavens, and Justin obviously hankered on the pious crusade to go? As if France should trump camaraderie.

Well, so that was cool, but of course the sewer quest failed. Not to fear! All was not in vain. Justin was quite content with total failure and was beaming like a sunned peach pie, and I found the French Revolution, like I said before—at least its elevating spirit.

It hissed out of the stately portals facing the cobblestony Champs-Élysées; their columns and Neoclassical façades were endless. The same spirit poured from the lips of heroes, monuments of the old France, guardians immortalized in stone and glory—even Thomas Jefferson was there. The true France embraced all who’d fight for freedom. Every detail of the scenery seemed to bring me deeper into the vision. It was everywhere and everything.

It was the wind that whipped about the tricolor: red, white, and blue broad vertical stripes streamed proudly over the Seine; it was the memory of that hero Enjolras, an idealist to the end, wrapped in those colors on the barricades, back during Les Miserables in London; it was the dreamshard that I’d finally found. It was the true spirit of France, and it was alive, and while we felt it we were.

For Justin’s sake and with his help, I had hoped for nothing; but then I found all this. It was as if life had slapped and told me, “This is how you dream.” And during these kaleidoscopic visions of enduring, classic glory, revolving refractions of Le Champs-Élysées, we looked down the miles ahead, and somehow saw some more: an arch—could it be?—Napoleon’s, over his twin triumphant towers. That feeling: it’s something far too rare. It’s the joy known exclusively to those who’ve had their very brightest hopes fail, like candles do in daylight.

*

I wasn’t typically like that—free to find nothing as enough. I typically dream perfect dreams and then insist that life measure up, and in my demanding I become the slave to myself. I’m trying to see the quality of the sewer quest, my most liberating dream of late.

In order to verify I’ve “lived” my burdensome dreams, I rely on checklists: as a tourist in London pre-Paris I depended heavily on these to reassure me I’d enjoyed myself. Had I been to the National Museum? Had I seen the remnants of the smuggled Parthenon? Had I brushed the daub, wattle, and thatch of the new Globe Theatre, with my reverently quivering fingers? Had I got myself into Parliament like a spiritual corset, and been gratefully asphyxiated by its smotheringly formal air? Check, check, check. I could say I had. Therefore, I had enjoyed London. How could I not have? Yes, I had enjoyed London, because how could I not have? But somehow not missing felt like much less than finding.

Maybe that’s why so much of what I did didn’t matter to me. But that didn’t make sense, because they should have. I was supposed to do them because they were supposed to be good. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to plagiarize other people’s lives, the way I just plagiarized that phrase of my friend’s.

I probably would have followed my own taste, my feelings, myself, but another alien, artificial feeling—composed of scholarly duty and touristic expectations and Heaven knows what else—kept me from feeling free to. It happened all through my study abroad in England.

Wordsworth’s home, Rydal Mount, was a boring place, other than his garden. Not so the nearby stone and ancient chapel, and its medieval crenellations, which encased me in a reverie. The point of crossing Coniston Water was of course to visit Ruskin’s mansion and his gardens, so why were the two jovial ferrymen the best part of my week? Chaucer was supposed to be the greater author, but it was reading the intimate essays of my friends that flooded me with feelings. But these feelings didn’t make sense. Why should my friend’s words mean more to me than a master’s? I thought I was listening to reason when I prioritized what was “supposed to be” important. Weren’t these things on the checklist and hadn’t they good reason?

I was stunned to learn in France that I should have gone to war with these voices, the tyrannizing dreams. I should have fought for freedom. And in France I saw I could have won the war, because I did without. I finally saw when Justin showed me. I could do without.

*

By the time we’d exited the isle of our boy ‘Leon (as in, Napo-), I was wholly in the groove with Justin and his program. We’d wandered past Notre Dame Cathedral, which was near our one star hotel and its unforgettably buttery bread, near scalding breakfast cocoa and jam and hazelnut spread; then wandered among artisans and street vendors backlit by the sunny rippling Seine; then jay-conquered Napoleon’s Arc in our own triumphant fashion; and were now headed we knew not where, ready to love Paris however it came to greet us. That we had no checklist, directions, or even destination—that much was certain—but what we did have, that I do not know. I am still trying to articulate just what Justin’s—and then our—program was.

The best I can say is that Justin’s joy was independent of other things; in fact, it was probably in being independent of other things. The external world was nothing but something to transcend. We almost hoped for a backhand from fate, because we wanted the chance to not flinch. Maybe that’s why we kept tempting it, almost trying to ruin our day into glory.

*

By the way, the kindly French policewomen cleared up a very confusing matter that spared us the trouble of beating “Frogger” twice. Longsuffering smiles and fingers pointing to a tunnel illuminated everything: I’d been so mystified by those women pushing strollers on the memorial island orbited by 8 lanes of asphalt: “They must just run really fast,” I had thought. “Like, really.” We looked as sheepish and apologetic as we could, but frankly, we preferred our way. I think they thought we thought that, because we kept laughing. So contritely.

I think that was the moment I really stepped onboard with Justin. I was not so keen to take the fun way over the first time, but as we looked back across the asphalt, I realized I wanted something. I wanted to run back across. Unfortunately laughing stupidly and nudging my friend and facing the roaring roundabout again was a little conspicuous. If not the cops might not have floated over and given us the eye—it’s as clear in French as English—which invited us to consider using the tunnel, which we did, neither of us wanting to.

*

We exulted in our freedom, wandering no less happily than haphazardly past a museum under construction; sharpish businessmen swooping like a biker gang, except they were on balancing scooters; an impressive public square—a seeming sanctuary of the Enlightenment in its architecture, with countless ordered windows gazing from several floors towards the center; an intricate, sculpted pillar in the center of the classical square—a story winding up it like a procession of Egyptian hieroglyphs (I thought I’d heard of it in Humanities 201, that it was inspired by Trajan’s column in Rome, etc. and so forth, but truly didn’t know); and displays of all the avant garde in fashion, which Justin definitely would have whimsically purchased had the stores not all been closed—neon green sweaters under blue suit jackets. This was tourism.

And it’s not that I didn’t love London, but it didn’t feel the same. With such a unique chance, standing in the heart of my literary homeland, I came to feel I had to have it all, then I expected it, and then I got just a little less. But the problem was I was in the negative, and the gap between the “it” I didn’t get and what I finally got was my total sum of dissatisfaction: the surplus good I hadn’t expected in Paris summed up my gratification. My sights had been low, that is to say, no higher than “number 2,” to children, or than “feces,” to the scientist. And yes, I can say in the midst of Paris’s glory I had hoped for nothing more. I wanted diddily squat. And once I set life up to exceed all my expectations, it tipped its hat, “Monsieur,” and cordially obliged.

*

Anything is everything when nothing is expected. Imagine nothing. Now imagine that it’s gone. Everything is a black void, but the void is not absence, because there is no such thing as presence to be missing. There is simply nothing; it stretches on as far as the forever that there never was. What is the worth to that world of a single, searing candle?

I think I am blind to everything beneath my expectations. Anything less than them is nothing, nothing more than dues. Maybe London wasn’t dark because it lacked candles, because it didn’t, but because I expected chandeliers. I need to need less or I’ll always feel entitled, but how can I do that? All I know is that somehow in Paris I felt different—and I know there wasn’t more light, just more courage in the darkness.

I faced the darkness for this first time in a long time because Justin did. Could I go without? Could I handle nothing? I opened up my eyes and discovered that my existential abyss wasn’t as empty as I thought. Maybe I had enough inside me to handle nothing after all. That was the glory of it all. And then, clinging to that revelation, my friend and I saw the Arc. It was adorned by many figures. The first and highest was a fearless, flying angel—she must have been the spirit of old France. Her eyes were fire and her sword shot forward; her waxy voice sent out the call for other men to follow. Statues beneath her did. The megalith towered and shone, by the unknown soldier’s everlasting flame.

*

We came to a park after the Arc and the great square and the balancing scooters. It was beneath the street, like a gargantuan sunken living room, as wide as several city blocks. Just the wall of trees surrounding it made for walking trails and picnic spots. We descended through them on white steps, then started at the sprawling circumference of a peaceful, almost stationary pool; its gelatinous water slowly reflected disturbances like a fiery, mellow mirror. It was crowned by a fountain-like pedestal in its center. It felt like we’d found the fountain of France, the spring of that deep culture’s essence.

Not uncomfortable wiry chairs were scattered around the contained lake, occupied by ordinary citizens who lounged mingling cigarette smoke with communal ruminations on art and life and deep stuff. Scruffy faces and classy clothes worn with abandon bespoke the philosophical preoccupations of the three or four late twenty-something dudes. Cool. They didn’t look too appreciative of our unappreciation of life’s tragedy.

At least a dozen pillars, capped by vivacious statues, composed a large concentric ring around flat stones which in turn surrounded the pool. The statues alluded to Greek and Roman myths, and I did my best to recall and recount them for Justin, he being a wealthy computer networker and not a liberal arts student who was just let inside his personal Elysium (incidentally Le Champs-Élysées refers to the ancient western heaven).

What I’m trying to depict are a mere half of the things we referred to at once as the intensity of our elation melted words into inefficacy, compelling us to summon the forceful diction of sign language, by which we indicated, or rather, painfully slap-shouted, through that venerable American tradition and token—that is to say, the high five—a single, enthusiastic word: “Jackpot.”

For so it was.

*

We second-hand smoked the angst of the twenty-somethings. We took pictures of the statues. Then we saw that from one direction, looking across the pool, our old friend, the Arc de Triomphe, was a mile or two in the distance, down a gallery of trees which chivalrously proffered protection the entire journey down. The anticipation necessary to plan such an achievement staggered me. This was a culture of taste. Birds bathed on the fountain of France and on the dying sun’s reflection; clouds were piercing the golden orb and its purple-orange gore was falling on the forest; it hovered almost perfectly above the glowing Arc at the far end of the gallery. Almost like candlefire. Except it was about a candle to the left—almost infuriatingly close. I sort of tried to look at it sideways as if that would help. No. But there was something hilarious about the irony of it being that close to serendipitous perfection and then failing so unbearably. I showed it to Justin and we laughed. “Heck! I mean, seriously, we’ve had everything go our way”—or nothing, anyways—so it was so easy to gracefully handle this one. “It’s totally close enough!”

I never thought you could exceed perfection, but maybe that’s what that moment did. It felt like perfection was what we’d already found, and everything else was just a bonus. Life was just a bonus. I had a wonderful revelation: in the mode I was, my initial thought hadn’t been how far away the sun was from perfection, but how much closer than it had to be. Like I had said, everything had gone “our way,” but maybe that was just because our way was nothing. About then I remembered E.T. He must have been moping somewhere beyond the trees, utterly transcended, his absence a reminder of just who he’d been transcended by.

Somehow though our success’s secret was wanting nothing, what I wanted most was to want nothing more; meaning, I wanted to know how I could do it all again.

I think the way it works is joy is a formula; life is a fraction. It numerates my circumstances, and I denominate my demands. I want “more” like anyone, I believe, but too often I forget that the quotient is the point and focus on the numerator. “If only life would give me more.” I’m no whiz at math, but I know that life could give me tenfold what I have now and the total would still only be a number.

But what quotient will I find when I transcend the earth, and stand upon it free, a whole number over zero?

What will I feel then?

*

Joy jerked us about like a taze charge: we visited and revisited half the statues. Honestly, despite all the time I’ve thought, I don’t know why we were so thrilled, I just know we were; we just were. None of the details were right, but this was the dream I’d had for Europe. The dream was feeling how I felt. This was what the checklist would supposedly produce; of course, now I wasn’t even checking it.

Half our pictures that day were of our garden: pictures of the statues; of the guys smoking and forlornly philosophizing (whom we cleverly captured by posing near them as if they were, by strange coincidence, there, and we just loved the pool—a trick pioneered on mullet-hunts); of the Arc at the end of the forested gallery; of the single, searing sunset still flickering above it.

And then it was time to go. It was dark—just past ten. We looked at a model of the park on the far side of the garden, up out of the sunken living room again, and turned to scan the field of our triumph for the final time, such fine and impressive work. There were jaw-bustingly big grins, and lots of hearty American shoulder slapping. Also there was a psychotic statue called “Cain and His Sons” which scared me in a way that Darwin never could. But even that was fine. Nothing could have not been.

So we couldn’t leave. We ran back down for one more picture, wanting to baste in our blessedness just a little longer. We walked directly away from the Arc this time—East—up strong white steps that were as broad as the pool. As we ascended, a large building materialized, its classic architecture as beautiful as the public square we’d found earlier, but more regal and overwhelming. I had no idea what it was: it looked like a small scale Versailles; its four-floor palatial wings gradually flanked us like pincers.

Our approach was inevitable: we couldn’t resist adventure at this point, though exhausted from hours and miles of travel, mostly walking. Justin had even done it in dress shoes and his ridiculous suit—Italian, with reflective pinstripes (“I got it as a joke, then lost all my luggage on a train,” he laughed). Getting hosed is the best.

We would have had no clue what the palace was had I not read The Da Vinci Code. Thank heavens for the classics. An unusual shape appeared which I only remembered from the book because it seemed so weird to me then. Seeing it in the flesh stopped me like a slap. “No,” I thought, “No way. Could this really be?”

After wandering with total abandon through the fifth largest city in Europe, like disoriented six-year-olds swinging at piñatas, somehow we’d connected. I just couldn’t believe it, and burst out laughing. Justin chuckled, almost a bit impatiently, until he finally got me to tell him why.

We’d been celebrating for an hour and a half, fifty meters from El Dorado, because we’d found silver dollars in its parking lot. And despite that, we still could have made it in—fifteen minutes earlier. We definitely could have made it in if we’d realized the party wasn’t in our park, because our park and gallery were just miles of cultivated royal carpet—they were just the entranceway. But life was great as martyrs, because we lived for irony.

The weird object was a pyramid. The building was the Louvre.