kevincasper.net

well, nobody said it was easy trying to make it out of the midwest.

david foster wallace died tonight after he decided to tie a rope around his neck and jump.

david taught at illinois state university when i was there, but i didn’t know that at the time. i was smoking a lot of thai stick and occupying various administration buildings in 1992, my first year at isu (david’s as well.) my friend scott might have taken a class with him, or at least been turned on to his work, because i remember him telling me all about infinite jest around that time. my favorite thing he wrote was an essay called getting away from already being pretty much away from it all. i remember xeroxing that and sending copies out to everyone i knew at the time. i have no copy of it now.

anyway, it was an amazing essay about the illinois state fair, replete with all the knowing details of true belief. he hit all bases: the cow sculpture made of butter, the milk pavilion et al, the beautiful collection of fallen carnival treasures strewn across the roofs of the fair’s many beer barns (treasures visible only from on high, vis-a-vis the cross-fair-high-wire ski lift), the most amazing-craziest-wackiest-shield-the-kid’s-eyes-death-defying-flea-market this side of new delhi LIVE! under the racetrack grandstand, the livestock shows, the tick tack toe chicken …

that essay made me realize that my past life could be beautiful if i could get the fuck away from my past life long/far enough to learn to see. i’m still away and still running, but i’m sharpening pencils and studying my moves. loss at the hands of a chicken will humble your ass. people wonder why midwesterner’s typically tend towards the meek and modest. i reckon it’s because many of us had our asses handed to us by the tick tack toe chicken.

so anyway, back in 1992, i enrolled in a human sexuality class with my friend scott’s girlfriend. we didn’t plan to take a sexuality class together, it just happened. she probably would have liked to take the class with scott. his coursework at the time (international business) conflicted with his ole lady’s sexual education, so he sent me in as a proxy.

the class consisted of a large lecture hall and a smaller discussion group that met once a week. the discussion group was lead by a fella from the wrestling team. big guy. cuddly, sweet, disengaged, clever. one afternoon, after the session, jessica and i were walking back to the dorm through the quad when i heard, “kevin!” i looked around. “kevin! kevin! up here!” i turned back towards the building we had just left, and there he was, the wrestling t.a., dangling out of the third story window with something in his hand. “come here!” stupified, unaware, i walked, and got below the window. “come up here! you have to get closer!”

mindlessly, curiously, awkwardly, i shimmied (one of the few times in my life i can say that i have officially shimmied) out on a small concrete outcropping, a ledge, that jutted off the side of the building. “come closer!” shimmy shimmy bo shimmy. now i’m in it, 20 feet in the air, standing on a ledge that is no more than 12 inches wide, looking up at a dangling wrestler hanging out the window above me. “here! are you ready! catch!”

he dropped, my hands opened.

i caught and looked.

dangling there, on the side of a quad facing building, in the middle of the afternoon, the sun. co-eds toing. co-eds going fro. exposed and dangling. dangling like an asshole.

i looked in my hand and instantly closed it. ‘shit,’ i thought. left, looked right, down. ‘shit!’

“what the fuck are you doing up there?”

i pocketed and looked up, meekly.

the dangling wrestler winked. i sighed, and smiled, and shimmied down.

we walked home.

and like i’ve always heard, it’s better late than never.

before you die and you can’t.

so …

thank you.

very.

much.

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