“The transmutation of the material into the speculative,” John repeated. “History is, first and foremost, a material thing or, from another point of view, a concatenation of material events that are interpreted through the human fallacy of time. And therefore, in order to present a cogent argument, I find that I must include the material bases of my so-called paper.”
John felt a cold drop of sweat trickle down his back. He took off his black jacket and placed it on the table. Then, slowly and deliberately, he used his keys on the padlocks and threw open the lid. He looked out at the packed house noting that there were people standing at the back of the hall. Everyone was looking at him as if he were a magician about to conjure a white tiger out of an old traveling case.
“I spent sixteen Saturdays visiting a real-time time capsule, what you would call a public trash can, and retrieved the base materials from which a glimmer of the notion of history might be garnered.
“There was Brother of George’s lost memoir and the magazine photograph which is being re-membered on the screen below.” He took the leather-bound journal and a balled-up magazine page from the chest, held them out for verification and then placed them on the table. “But this is only the beginning of our history-rich material discoveries...”
John then produced the comic book character list. When he gestured at the screen to his right the names (starting with Iron Man) began appearing one at a time at six-second intervals — slowly reconstructing the list.
“... This neo-mythology,” John said of the list, “may one day be used to study the people of this age by creating a window into this time as Gilgamesh, Hercules and Jesus allow us to understand the races and events of history — superheroes of a bygone era.”
He showed them the plastic cutlery set discussing briefly petroleum, derived from prehistoric plant matter, the napkin made from contemporary plants.
Indicating the broken headphones he talked about mass fabrication and how this process of making things in return creates the people as they practice the repetitive act of fabrication.
“Human history is the labor of men,” he said, “and women.”
After this pronouncement John turned to look at the progress of BOG’s diary. The words Nigers spicks and were on the screen. John smiled at the synchronicity and waited for chinks all over to appear before he continued.
He gestured at the other screen, and the short letter from Lynn to JD appeared in totality. John waited for the audience to read the beautifully rendered handwriting while BOG spewed overhead.
“They’re fucking,” an audience member said somewhat above a whisper.
The jigsaw puzzle was now allowing images from the pornographic magazine to become evident.
“Yes,” John agreed. “While Lynn talks to JD about lost or impossible love the recovered photograph represents desire.”
He presented the birthday cake, drugstore receipt and blood-crusted handkerchief as proofs of event... “without explanation or understanding.” The images of these items disrupted the comic book list for a few moments and then let the listing continue.
The talk continued and John produced items that, one after the other, appeared on the screen to his left.
“... was this nearly full package of Camels the attempt of some poor soul to stop that dangerous habit or was it a mistake? Maybe someone controlled their smoking by buying a pack, smoking one or two, and then throwing the rest away...”
John had been speaking nearly an hour. That put BOG’s diary at about word ten thousand. Below BOG’s rant the partially formed image was of a woman in a nun’s black habit. The floor-length hem had been raised above her buttocks; she was praying to a priest while a man penetrated her rectum from behind and others waited in line for their turn.
John raised the broken cell phone up and the auditorium’s speakers began to replay a recording of a man’s voice, Hey, Mo-man, I hope everything’s goin’ good with you and Felicia. I’m working on that project and I need electronic pictures of you, Felicia, the kids and grandkids. Hopefully Regine and I can see you guys in Seattle next month. The city is wonderful in the summer. Do you have state-issued ID? If so we can go up to British Columbia in Canada. It’s about two hours from Seattle. Talk to you soon...
“Using the tools available to me in faculty housing,” John said. “I was able to fix this broken, discarded cell phone. The data was more or less destroyed but I managed to cull this snippet from voice mail.
“A voice from out of the well of time speaking to us as though we coexisted. We’re given a few names and a nickname, a city and the possibility of travel to another. We know that they dealt in electronic data and felt some kinship over a distance that curtailed physical intimacy.
“This is history at its best. It’s not Abraham Lincoln’s brain suffering the indignity of John Booth’s bullet. It’s not Attila the Hun raping ten thousand subjugated women. This is the fragmentary grist of life; what we are all made of and at the same time indicative of the vast ocean of knowledge that is mostly unavailable, or only partially so. We pretend to know the story of humanity because we have agreed upon the information and people that are most important. But we cannot, with any degree of accuracy, define a single day in the life of a comatose quadriplegic in an isolation ward under twenty-four-hour audio and visual surveillance. There are just too many variables. The symphony of a single trash can gives us more than any computer could contain.”
John gazed out over the hall and was gratified to see that very few had left. The spectators were reading the angry laments of BOG, watching to see what new elements of the photograph would be exposed.
“The last two elements of my presentation bring a new wrinkle into the scope of our studies and ourselves,” he said. “Here we have a simple brown leather wallet that was discarded. It is empty. No money, credit cards, receipts or family photographs. Maybe it’s the castoff of some pickpocket or mugger. Maybe the previous owner bought a new wallet from the twenty-four-hour drugstore and moved the contents from the old to the new. Maybe... But on closer examination I found that there was a flap on the mass-produced wallet sewn shut by hand, not machine. When I cut the thread this photograph was revealed.”
John held up a tiny snapshot and instantly the blown-up image was displayed on the screen to his left. It was the portrait of a young man. He was grimacing through a bloody lip and a missing tooth. The subject was so frightened that the photograph evoked the depravity of the photographer.
One woman in the audience gasped. Murmuring could be heard among the spectators.
“An odd keepsake,” John noted. “And a find for any historian.”
The murmuring continued.
“Then we have this,” John said taking the black velvet sack from his Containment Report trunk. As he held up the little bag a photograph of its contents appeared on the screen to his right.
“All you would need,” John said, “for a night of opioid debauchery. A junkie’s fix thrown away. Maybe some concerned friend took it from him, or her. Maybe the police were closing in. Or possibly, as we speculated about the cigarettes, this was a last-ditch attempt to kick the habit and go cold turkey.