Winona

a retrospective

by

j jackson

"Teach me about literature," Winona demanded.
"Literature. Well, that's a difficult subject."
"You don't want me to know. You want me to be stupider than you."
"No. Actually, I'd rather have you smarter than me. I like women who are smarter than I am."
She doubted it. "Then teach me," she said. But she thought he didn't want her to know.
"Okay. I'll try. First of all, the first thing you have to understand, is that you already know about literature. What you really mean is that you want me to teach you about academic literature."
"I don't understand."
"Okay. There are two extremes of literature: academic and popular. You already know about popular literature. You read Danielle Steele and Mary Higgins Clark. That's as valid a form of literature as the academic. It's the egghead mentality that influences the opinion that literature is something high and mighty and that the lower forms are not so valid."
"But it's the egghead stuff I want to learn about."
"Why? It's just as stupid as the other stuff, when..."
"Because people respect you for it."
"Me?"
"Anyone. Teach me!" She stamps her foot.
"Okay. Okay. Settle down. Popular literature can become academic, after a while. History is a great leveler. Who'd have thought at the time that books like Emma or Pride and Prejudice or stuff like that would become masterpieces. A hundred years from now, John Grisham novels might be considered great literature. Well, maybe not John Grisham, I don't think he's a very good writer. Maybe Tom Clancy. But I've never read him and I suspect he's a lot the same, although that could be a liberal prejudice. Maybe Danielle Steele, I don't know, I've never read her either and maybe she's like Mary Higgins Clark, and I don't think she's a very good writer either, but that could be an academic prejudice. The point is, it doesn't matter what a writer writes about, what's important is how the work is written, the usage, the grammar, and the style. If you want to know about literature, you have to be knowledgeable enough to evaluate all literature, and for that you don't need to study literature, you need to study writing. Learn how to write grammatically correctly, and you'll learn all you need to know about literature."
Winona stared at him, as if overwhelmed. "Okay. Teach me that."
"It's not something that can be taught in so short a time. You have to learn it over time, day by day."
"Okay. Teach it to me."
"Day by day."
"Yes."
"Okay. The first thing you have to do is start keeping a journal."
"You mean a diary."
"Yes."
"Okay. No problem."
"Next, start studying a book of usage. A page or so a day. Don't try to study too many pages at once, because it's hard to retain and you'll forget a lot. You have to assimilate into your journal what you're learning, you have to practice it, to make it a natural part of your style as it develops."
"Where do I get a book of usage?"
"I have an old one I can give you."
"Great! But what about literature? How do I learn that?"
"It comes automatically, as you read. That's the third thing. Read. Everything. You'll automatically begin to evaluate what you read, and you'll see the differences between literary styles, and you'll choose what you like and what you don't like."
"That's it? That's all there is to it?"
"That's a lot of work. It takes a long time."
"It sounds like fun."
"It is."
"Then it's not work."
"Yeah. It is. It's fun work."
"That's a contradiction."
"No. It isn't. That's writing."
"Okay. So I start to do this, and..."
"Oh, yeah, and one more thing. Between popular and academic fiction, there's another category of literature that makes it even more fun: postmodern fiction. This is where you get to break all the rules you learned. It's a great form of anti-authoritarianism."
"Oh. I know you like that then."
"You do, huh? How? How do you know that?"
"That's what people say."
"They do?"
"Yah. They say you're a rebel."
"They do?"
"Yah. Aren't you?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. Not any more."

Winona works in a plant that manufactures plastic products, stupid little extrusions like refrigerator magnets and holders for tiny calendars that real estate companies use as advertisements. The company is in the process of installing new equipment in a newly constructed section of the plant, and Winona has been bugging her boss to get her transferred there after the installation is completed. She always wants to advance herself, she wants to learn new things, and besides, she'd heard that the employees who worked with the new equipment would make more money. Meanwhile, the boring work goes on as usual in the old sections of the plant.
Changes will, of necessity, be made, and Winona knows that people are divided into two groups, those who see an opportunity to advance, and those more bitter, disillusioned people who will be left behind. Paul is one of the former group, and yet he worries. He knows he will be included in the new operations, because the plant manager told him so, but he doubts his abilities, not consciously, but Winona talked to him and saw the doubt behind his words.
Karl visits the plant and hangs around in the new section as a functional non-entity. He's a worker who was laid off, but who continues on, working without pay, sticking around for the prestige of working, even though he has no duties. This is an entirely foreign concept to Winona, so she has no choice but to seek him out and try to become his friend, even though almost every other worker thinks he's crazy and eyes him with suspicion, not only because he works for free, but because he has a lot of other strange ideas, like psychology and literature.
Winona thinks that Karl must feel demeaned by working for free the way he does, especially since people like Paul use him as their sounding board to test their ideas. They're always asking him for advice. Everyone always seems to turn to Karl for encouragement and Winona hates Sebelia, the owner, for using him the way he does.
As the employees file out of the building at the end of their shift, Winona catches up with Karl. She wants to talk to him some more about literature, and she wants people to see him talking to her. She comes up beside him, intentionally bumping him as she does.
"Hi," she says in her disguised coquettish way.
"Hi." He looks down over his shoulder into her eyes. She likes that. She likes the way it makes her feel. But she's just as wary of it. She knows he can control her and in a way, she resents him for it. "I finished reading Old Floating Cloud last night."
"Good. How did you like it?"
"I didn't understand it."
"What's to understand?"
"Huh?"
"Did you understand the words?"
"Of course!"
"Then you understood it."
"I couldn't keep the characters straight."
"Oh. Yeah. That is kinda tough."
"You had that problem too?"
"Yeah. It's because they're Chinese. It's a different culture."
"Oh."
"But it's a tough book anyway. I told you that."
"I know. I didn't understand it."
"Sure you did."
"I did?"
He's about to respond as they walk along when he looks up and sees Joan sitting on the retaining wall at the edge of the parking lot. He stops and Winona stops beside him. Joan has obviously been crying.
"Hi, Joan," Karl says. "How are you?" He says it in a sing-song, teasing kind of way, knowing full well that she is not all right.
"Not too good."
Still in the same tone of voice, Karl says "What's the matter?"
"My gums are bleeding." She holds out a pink-tinted Kleenex.
Winona winces as she watches Karl express his concern with an untensed face. How does he do that, make people feel what he feels without showing any expression on his face at all?
Seeing their reactions, Joan realizes her dramatic posture and she lightens up.
"Where are you going now?" she asks Karl.
"I'm going home."
"What are you going to do?"
"Well, first, I'm going to take a shower."
"Yeah. I need a shower too."
Winona adds, "To wash off the evil effects of this place."
Joan and Karl both look at her.
She doesn't know why she said it. She didn't know it was true.
"Well, I gotta, go," Winona says, and she starts to walk away.
Joan says "Now's the time for a leading question."
"Huh," Winona says, turning, thinking Joan had commented on her remark. But she sees that Joan is talking to Karl.
They both look at her again.
Her face feels hot. "I thought you were talking to me."
"No," Joan says. "I was talking to Karl."
Karl turns back toward her. "And?" he asks.
"I was trying to make you ask me if I wanted to shower with you."
Winona stares at his back, waiting for his answer. Joan stares at Winona as if asking her to leave, or daring her to stay.
Joan looks back at Karl, who hesitates too long, prompting Joan to say "Or not."
Karl says, "Oh, no. I think that's a great idea."
Winona wheels and walks away fast.
Joan jumps down off the wall and she and Karl walk along together, trailing Winona through the parking lot. They talk as they walk, but Winona can't quite hear what they are saying. They're probably talking about fucking, Winona imagines, as casually as they talk about everything else. She's always wanted to get him into bed. Winona never talked to Joan about it, but she can imagine. He should worry about that bleeding mouth of hers, she thinks. Maybe he'll have to refuse to kiss her. Maybe he'll tell her they should be careful and, over time, they can ease into that kind of intimacy. He should be afraid of diseases. You never know what kind of girl she is outside of work. But, Winona thought, it seems she hasn't been all that smart so far.

On the way home, Winona thinks about Paul, about what he said at lunch. Paul is kind of strange. He said something like "We should create an organization that kills or frames bureaucrats who promote injustices against the American public or against individual citizens. Like in that movie with Fred Ward. I forget the name." No one seemed to be listening to him. Even Winona pretended not to listen. Maybe everyone else was pretending too. He said that whether we kill them or not depends on how they are. They'd be afraid to do all the fucked up things they do if they thought that someone might be out to kill them for it. If they thought they'd be the next victim, they'd straighten up, most of them. This is what the law does for criminals, so this organization would pick up the job where the law is more or less helpless, when it can't prosecute the people who insulate themselves behind layers of government or corporate bureaucracy. Society, as it develops and becomes increasingly complex, finds it harder and harder to rehabilitate criminals. But extra-legal organizations can instill fear into criminal minds that have become hardened to lame legal social threats, because they operate outside of a determined code of ethics and so are impossible to predict.
"What are you talking about," Janis finally said.
Somebody had to say it.
Eileen said "I saw Mike last night."
Janis: "Where?"
"At the Seven-Eleven"
"Oh, yeah? What'd he have to say?"
"Nothing."
"At all?"
"He just said hi. There was a cop in the store. I think he was just trying to get out before he got noticed."
"It's been obvious for along time that cops are relatively ineffective in today's society. Yeah, they're good for the crudest kind of police work. And occasionally, their detective work comes through for them. But when it comes to the bulk of crime, they're pretty much unproductive. Lots of crimes go unsolved, and crime prevention is all but non-existent. This situation is nothing new. It's always been this way."
"He said he needed help, and I think he wanted to tell me more, but that was when the cop came in."
"And yet, even when they ask for the public's help, outlining how they can be better observers, requesting that they call in tips, generally eliciting their favor, they still maintain their goddamn authoritative attitude toward the populace. They can't effectively coordinate their activities between jurisdictions, despite the great appearance they manage to put up, because feds think they're better than locals and all cops think they're better than ordinary citizens and ride herd over them as much as possible. And they can't coordinate information, secreting it from each other, loyalties divided on an agency basis, jealously guarding their own identities and sources. Overall, law enforcement is a Neanderthal operation. We'll never advance as a society until they get their act together."
"Maybe he wants to give himself up and wants someone to help him do it."
"I doubt it. He probably wants someone to hide him."
"Or give him money," Eileen added.

These may not have been Paul's exact words, or even the correct sense or manner of his words, spoken as they were amid the ongoing conversation, even over top of it, like a disparate collection of conversation bits written by Can Xue, so that Winona had a hard time attending to them and comprehending them all while participating more or less in the general verbal melee. This is more her sense of it all, remembered, especially when awakening out of dreams of it, because she goes home and dreams about them all that night.

She hates it when she dreams about work, although sometimes she likes it when the dreams are about one of the cute guys, especially when she's making out with them, especially when it's with Karl. Usually, though, she likes to dream. She had a twin sister who died when she was very young and she's always dreamed a lot about her and awakens thinking she is her, as if she's looking into a mirror.
Looking into a mirror can tell you a lot about yourself, she thinks. But she doesn't know what it is that it tells her. But she knows that she learns, even though she doesn't know what.
It's like closing yourself off with headphones and becoming absorbed into the music, as if you are one of the musicians yourself. She likes to close herself off with headphones playing loud music. That way she can keep the world at a farther distance from her.
Obsessive-compulsive neurosis occurs in the manic phase of her bipolar disorder. Someone told her that. She can't remember who, but she imagines it was Karl, even though she knows she'd heard it before she knew him.
It was the kind of thing he'd say, like opposites attract. The farther away a thing is kept, the more potent is its potential for proximity.
These are not thoughts that she is capable of thinking, except deep in the recesses of her mind where she doesn't know she knows. These kinds of thoughts keep her mind at ease, because she knows them without knowing. Knowing without knowing is important. It keeps you free of stress.
Peace is not a place free of problems and stress.
Peace is a state of soul in the middle of difficulties.
And when you don't know what you know, you can be intelligent without becoming affected by it, like most people who are intelligent are.
Except for Karl. That's why she chose him to help to teach her, because lately she's been thinking that she has to learn what she doesn't know she knows, because people make fun of her being stupid, mostly behind her back, and Karl treats her like she's smart, because, she thinks, he sees and feels inside her and knows she knows things she doesn't know she knows.
At least, that's what she feels, she feels, like he's inside her. And she wishes that he really was. Because when he looks at her, she feels like he knows everything about her, because he makes her feel important, significant--and wet.

The day after she spoke to Karl in the parking lot, Paul asked her about it. He wanted to know what she said to him.
"It's none of your business," she told him.
"I'm sorry. But I worry about you. You always set yourself up to be hurt."
"Is your life so perfect that you gotta be worrying about mine?"
"No. But, well..."
"Don't you have problems of your own to worry about?"
"No."
"You don't have any problems at all?"
"All my problems are solutions."
She liked that. She liked Paul. But he is kind of strange.
Paul once asked her "Isn't anything sacred to you?"
"Actually, everything's sacred to me. It's people's trivialization of everyday phenomena that makes me cynical." She doesn't know where that came from. It was something like Karl would say. Maybe she was starting to channel him.

The following morning, Paul was sitting in his car in the parking lot before work getting high. Winona walked up from behind the car and tapped on the passenger side window and scared the shit out of him. She tried the door, but it was locked. She motioned for him to open it. As he reached across to unlock it, she flipped her cigarette out into the parking lot in front of the car like she'd seen John Travolta do in a movie. As she got into the car, Paul asked "When did you start smoking?"
"The other day."
She reached over and took the joint from his hand.
"Why?"
"Because it's cool."
"No it's not."
"You're smoking."
She hit the joint, once, quickly, hardly inhaling at all, and passed it back to him.
"Not tobacco."
"So? You just smoke this stuff to be cool."
"No I don't. I smoke it to be able to stand this job."
"I thought you liked your job."
"It's okay."
"Then why do you get high?"
"It's boring."
"Getting high's boring?" She giggled.
"The job's boring." He laughed.
"Well, that's why I smoke cigarettes."
"Because you hate your job?"
"Because I'm bored."
"You too, huh?"
"Huh?" They both laugh.
"What's wrong with smoking cigarettes, anyway?"
"You mean besides the fact that they kill you?"
"Yeah."
"You really wanna know?"
"Yeah."
"It's kind of insulting."
"So? Since when do you care about that?"
"You think I'm insulting?"
"Yeah. Sorta."
"Really! I'm sorry."
"It's no big deal. It's just the way you are."
"Well, then I better not tell you about smoking."
"No. It's okay. tell me."
"Okay, then, if you really wanna be insulted."
"Do it to me. I can take it."
"It's just that smoking tells me a lot about a girl."
"Like what?"
"Like, one, she's a dumb cunt."
"Yeah. What else?"
"Two. She has no concern for her health."
"Yeah. What else?"
"Three. She has psychological problems that an oral fixation may be compensation for."
"What does that mean?"
"Never mind. It's too complicated to explain right now. Maybe I'll explain it to you later. Besides, I don't wanna complain about that 'cause it could work in my favor."
"Whattaya mean?"
"Never Mind. Four. The most important one. She's a weak-willed person. If she's thinking about trying to quit and can't, the conclusion is obvious, but even if she isn't, the act of smoking itself betrays a weak will. When you depend on a drug, after having become addicted in the first place, it's an indication of a weak will, apart from a sign of ignorance, which, if she isn't trying to quit, is even more entrenched."
"I don't understand."
"That's cause I'm too high to explain. I'll explain it better later."
"Okay. But what about guys?"
"Huh?
"You said that those were things that smoking told you about girls. What about guys?"
"I don't care about guys. Let them be addicts or kill themselves if they want."
"But you care about girls."
"Yeah. Sure."
"Why?"
"Cause that's the way I am."
"What way?"
"Heterosexual."
"Oh. I thought you meant something else."
"What?"
"Huh?"
"What else did you think I meant?"
"Huh? I don't know. I forget."

After that morning, Winona never smoked again. She never really understood what Paul had said. She never really even thought about it again. But she decided after all that it wasn't cool to smoke. And this was when she began taking an interest in Paul. Before this time, she thought he was just another crazy head. But something about this morning sitting in the car with him changed her opinion about him.

Later that day, after she'd thought for a while about him, she decided that she liked him a lot and that he liked her too. She never saw it before, that he liked her. She caught him after work as he was leaving the building and, awkwardly, she asked him about it.
"Of course I like you," he answered.
"Then why don't you ask me out.
He said "Whether you are the game running or the hunter chasing, you are the sport in any case. Evading and pursuing are the same activity."
She didn't know what he meant, but for some reason she was afraid to ask him. She had never been afraid before to ask anyone anything, but now she was wary of what she said. Did he mean that he didn't want to be caught up in a game where he might want to kill her? He couldn't mean that. She concluded that he was a safe person, kind of what she already knew, and so, since he obviously was avoiding the issue, she asked him out. And he accepted.

When Paul picked Winona up that evening, she said:
"Well. What do you want to do?"
"Let's go out to the caves and stab bats."
"What!?"
He laughed, almost maniacally.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's a palindrome."
"What's a palindrome?"
A word or phrase that's the same whether you read it backwards or forward."
She thinks about it. "Oh. Stab bats."
"You got it."
"You are so strange."

§

Winona remembers her past like it all had happened to someone else. She wonders whatever happened to Paul, if he still works at that same place. She wonders about Karl and Joan, if they ever stayed together. But she doesn't wonder long. These are only passing flashes of memory, usually occurring in bed in the morning as she lies with her thoughts, preparing to get up. She gets up early in the morning and runs, hardly awake, relying on brisk morning air and the physical exertion to wake her up. As she runs, her hair, now short, remains firmly in place close to her head. When she returns home and jumps into the shower, she wets her hair immediately, shampoos it quickly, and rinses it out. The rest of the shower is like a brief breeze that passes through the bathroom. Then she is off to work after a quick breakfast of toast and a cup of instant coffee. She gets another cup, brewed, from the vendor at her building. The rest of the day is all downhill.

Winona remembers the day she found out that Karl was a friend of the owner and had willingly volunteered to be laid off to help the company out and collect unemployment while he helped to install the new system, but they couldn't tell anyone this because the owner didn't want the employees to "get any ideas." Paul told her that. Paul knew a lot of things about the company and she was sorry that she never paid much attention to him, even though she did sleep with him that one time when they had that date. But he wasn't very caring, so she ignored him after that, even though he tried to remain close to her. She liked him, but she didn't feel about him the way she felt about Karl. When she thinks about Karl, even now, she feels lost.

The Purpose of Life
"Do you know where you belong?" Winona had asked.
"Yes," Karl said.
"Where?"
"Wherever I am."
"I guess it's not important where you are as who you're with."
"You think?"
"Don't you?"
"No. Who you're with is who you're with."
"You don't think there are people who belong together?"
"Oh, sure."
"The problem is, finding them."
"No it isn't. People who are already together belong together."
"That's sad."
"Maybe. It can be, I guess."
"But some people are together that don't belong together."
"No they're not."
"What about a guy who's always beating his wife."
"Why does she stay?"
"Because she doesn't have a choice."
"Sure she does."
"Oh, yeah, that's easy to say. But when you're in a situation that you feel trapped in, when you don't have anywhere else to go..."
"When you're too scared to go out on your own, when you think you can't survive anywhere else..."
"Yeah."
"Then you belong where you are."
"Just because you can't go anywhere doesn't mean you belong where you are."
"Yes it does. That's exactly what it means. You belong wherever you choose to stay. It's a basic law of nature."
"There's always someplace where you'll be better off."
"Probably, but you have to be willing to go out and find it."
"Some people are afraid."
"Most people are."
"But if you keep looking, eventually you'll find that perfect place or that perfect person."
"No you won't. There's no such thing. There are only unrealistic perceptions and compromises."
"You're such a pessimist."
"It's not pessimism, it's reality."
"What about people who keep looking for something when they don't know what it is they're looking for until one day they wake up and find it right in front of them."
"Right. That's the whole point. It's right in front of them. It was there all along. It always is. You belong where you are. When you go out searching for some better situation, all you really find is more of the same imperfection. The world is not a perfect place."
"So, by that logic, we should never work to improve ourselves."
"No. We should always work to improve ourselves, within our present situation."
"So battered women should remain at home and continue to be battered."
"No. Not at all. Battered women should summon the resolve to leave. Change always happens from within. When you make the decision to leave, and then actually do it, you change who you are, so that--if you're serious and not playing games with yourself--you no longer belong where you used to be. When we change ourselves, we change where we belong."
"How do we do that?"
"By self-definition."
"How? What do you actually have to do?"
"It's different for every person, I guess. Me, I write it down. But I guess that's not necessary. You can do it in your mind. But I'm always worried I'll forget the conclusions I come to. I do forget them, even when I write them down. The same ones again and again. So, I don't know what you should do. Draw yourself a picture. Make up a story about who you'd like to be. I don't know. It depends on who you are."

Winona took Karl's advice and became who she is today.