A Brief History of Anachronism

“Kid, don’t worry about him. I know his type. He probably cries while he’s jerking it”

This phrase, chaperoned by a one-armed hug and a shrill giggle, begins the best moment of both Karen Lautner and David Jameson’s lives. David will continue of the theme of tragic masturbation for another eight and a half minutes, the highlight of which will be mimicry of an orgasm in the style of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. At some point prior to this moment, the previously downtrodden Karen will hearten enough to laugh sincerely and pick up a handful of small pebbles. Her doe eyes will meet David’s bespectacled, lazy gaze as they both agree subconsciously to pass the afternoon listening to the sound igneous makes sliding across ice and cracking the pond’s shell, occasionally chortling at the air pockets that form and expand like amoeba.

The camera has long since panned off the two, who will wander towards a bad Midwestern pan-Asian restaurant as the cocaine whore and producer’s nephew who play them go to a God-forsaken trailer for New York style bagels from New Jersey. You can pause, rewind, completely ignore this nearly deleted scene in an A-minus list movie that you bought because it was your girlfriend at the time’s favorite movie for a whole two weeks. You might be urinating while the single greatest instant these kids will ever hope to experience is happening, the fragile non-milestone of two otherwise banal, contrived existences.  To be fair, this maudlin bit of platonicism is all you were offered of these foils’ stories. The main characters go on to be smitten with ardor, almost blown to bits, sexually replenished, et al. You’d have no way of knowing that this is as extraordinary as it gets for Karen (male lead’s sister and confidant) and David (male lead’s best friend and academic go-to).

The second best was, of course, the exhibitionist kiss the two shared on the ramshackle stage of Lester (Iowa)’s Senior High School when they played the main roles in a misguided, all-white production of Ragtime. Karen was cast because she almost had a pretty voice and was thin enough to make up for the “almost”. David was cast because he appeared to be both male and breathing. But, still, how the hell are you supposed to know that David marveled at having seen Karen eat a tuna sandwich not two hours before and could only taste yesterday’s mochaccino on her breath. Karen’s fascination with the feeling of stage makeup-ed lips slamming against her overbite is none of your concern.

And, for those keeping score, third best was when they baked pot brownies in Karen’s old EZ Bake oven and spent the night laughing at anthropomorphic Disney characters in rewind on an ancient VCR.

Neither you, voyeur, nor the actors who “play” at David and Karen can possibly know that this scene is, in fact, the closest they will ever get to complacency. His fixation on Karen unfulfilled, David will major in bioengineering for a time at the state university before entering a seminary and getting top marks in God.  Eventually, he will venture East to bring the Gospel to heathens in a small town in Connecticut. The good people of St. Antoinette’s will appreciate Father David’s joviality and attempts at cooking authentic German food. David will, in due course, toy with the idea of molesting a chorus boy or two, not because of a pedophilic tendency or any incident of sexual repression, but just for a change of pace. He will not act upon these thoughts, owing to a combination of morality and the sincerely disgusting nature of the greasy, preppy 6 to 14 year old moles in Mystic Seaport.  When he dies of a brain tumor in his early 70s, the Italian widows will weep over the loss of a good man, while more WASP-ish congregation members will simply remark that he was too young. Perhaps he meets Allah and gets eternal peace but no raisins or virgins because he worshipped Christ a little.

Karen will operate under the misconception that she has talent for acting and thus will move to Cincinnati for a time, bartending and auditioning biannually for U of C’s musical theatre program until she has eventually reached their maximum and her landlady kicks her out for owning a komodo dragon. Relocating in Sioux Falls, she will become a real estate agent for Century 21, specializing in rural duplexes. She will agree to get coffee with one of her clients, a professor of philosophy at the community college down the road and will end up, in accordance with dramatic irony, living in one of the shit boxes she cons people into leasing on a daily basis. The sex with Carl (yes, Carl) will be mediocre and semi-regular, spawning one ill-tempered female offspring with ADHD.

Carolyn (or Caroline, the diphthong will not change the amount of malice this child possesses) will go on to point out her mother’s every flaw on a daily basis, imperceptibly triggering a latent dose of bipolar disorder. As Karen goes further into Sybil mode, she will take on all the personality components expected of a “Real Housewife of El Paso”, embarking on a self-conflagrating crusade against cellulite and crows’ feet. This will start with a binge of organic cooking classes and gym memberships and expand to surgical options, requiring Karen to venture to an “aesthetic consultant” in South Dakota three times a week. Carolyn/line will continue to mock her Dorian Grey complex, while Carl watches the game on their rabbit-eared TV set.

This downward spiral of Vasco De Gama-ism of Karen’s 50s will culminate in actual surgical procedures, paid for by moonlighting at the gym as a receptionist. The nose job, tummy tuck, and Botox injections will all go smoothly. However, after completing a bowl of cereal 23 hours and 58 minutes prior to her thigh-based liposuction, Karen will bleed out on the operating table. Because we know you love nuance and cosmic sardonicism, the cereal was, in fact, Lucky Charms. Due to a bureaucratic error on the afterlife’s side, Karen will probably end up in limbo with all the un-baptized babies.

In case you were wondering, yes, Karen and David do meet again in time and space, and not in the afterlife; it’s not that kind of story. Their high school, like all high schools, will have unmerciful reunions every 5 years that both will feel obligated to attend, resultant of an imagined sense of school spirit and a covetous desire for that moment at the pond. Like all the other yokels they grew up with, they will wear business casual items of green and blue to the events at $20-a-plate restaurants in keeping with the theme of school colors. Some guy that no one really liked will dress up as the school mascot (a puma) and everyone will reminisce about the good old days, which were rarely good.

But this is none of your concern. Wipe the cheese curl dust on your wife beater and fast-forward to the sex scene between the protagonists. But somewhere, dangling in your subconscious, know that this is the best moment in the brief, semi tragic lives of two other beings, and it’s eluding you with each frame that passes.