The Dilemma: Who Is Matt?

By Xlibris US

Matt receives accolades regarding his innovative retailing technique as produce manager at a large supermarket. Yet, his multi-ethnic identity continues plaguing him. Following a series of troubling confrontations, traumatic events, and the death of his wife, Mara, he finds he has the wherewithal finally to resolve his dilemma.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499036350

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by floyd merrell.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2014910807

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4990-3636-7

                   Softcover             978-1-4990-3637-4

                   eBook                   978-1-4990-3635-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/24/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

PART ONE:

FINDING THE FLOW

Useless Outrage

What Is And Isn’t

Matt’s Past Becoming Future

Happiness Is Becoming One With Someone

On The Job

Can Creativity At Work Make Matt A Unique Guy?

PART TWO:

LEISURELY FLOWING

Speaking Of Creativity: Matt-María

Out On A Limb?

Life’s Unpleasant Surprises

Creating At The Workplace

Meandering Mestizo Ways

INTERMISSION

Identity Is Always Becoming What It Isn’t

PART THREE:

A RIVULET IN THE FLOW

Exemplifying The Mestizo Flow

Living Differences That Make A Difference

Giving Ambiguities Their Due

Playfully Engaging

Play Acting

Playing At Work

PART FOUR:

WHIRLPOOLING

Down To Earth Again, And Out Of It

A Quandary In Cloverdale

Matt’s Fifteen Minutes Of Fame

Ominous Clouds

Storm Clouds Threaten, Then Shimmer

Working Complementing Writing

PART FIVE:

CASCADING

María Takes On A Role

Amerexican Turbulence

María’s Amerexican Coping

Amerexican Resilience

Matt’s Amerexican-Mestizo Nature Prevails

PART SIX:

BECOMING WHAT WILL HAVE BEEN BECOMING

The Creative Impulse

Moving On

PART ONE:

FINDING THE FLOW

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USELESS OUTRAGE

*     *     *

The days are good. Until …

That Goddamn son of a bitch robbed me!

Who in heaven’s name are you talking about? María says as she appears from the bedroom alarmed by Matt’s outburst.

That bastard! he cries out. My sweat and blood yields what he says has the makings of a good novel and he tells me he’ll get it published and he does just that. In his name!

Who?

floyd merrell, that’s who. If I ever get my hands on that asshole, I’ll tear him to shreds! Look at this!

Matt swivels his head toward the monitor with a scowling face and bleats out, "Look at it! My book in his name! This morning, when surfing, I happened onto an ad for a novel titled Looking Glass Killer. That’s the same title as what I wrote! I thought. What the hell’s going on here? I found an excerpt from it. I read it and was shocked! It was a scene from my novel! Except he had changed it and turned it into lots of pedestrian crap!"

I’ve never seen you so upset. You—

I’ve never been so pissed off in my life!

But, honey. When you gave him your incomplete manuscript, you told him to do what he wanted with it because you were going to throw it in the trash can.

I didn’t tell him to publish it in his name! That thieving rat!

Matt clicks past the book’s title page, and the acknowledgment page turns up. They read it in silence.

See there? He gives you credit for your input, María says.

It’s his name on the cover! Everybody will think he wrote it!

Hon, you only wrote a detailed outline and a few rough chapters.

It was my novel! A fuckin’ college professor did this! It’s just like them! All they care about is their own bloated egos.

Now wait a minute—

I work my ass off and he fuckin’ rips my book off!

"I grant you that much, hon. You were persistent—"

Damn right I was. I paid my dues! Now this is my reward?

*     *     *

The doorbell. I’ll get it, María says.

She opens the door and Ted Schiff shows his face. Matt perks up and voices a gregarious Ted! You couldn’t have picked a better time to show up. You know what happened to my detective novel I told you about?

Sure don’t, Matt. But I have an idea you’re going to tell me.

Matt repeats his story, embellishing it with a liberal dose of profanities. Ted gives him rapt attention with wide eyes and perked ears. When he finishes, Ted says, Well, Matt, you know the publishing business is a jungle. Take him to court and get what’s coming to you.

I don’t have it copyrighted.

What? That’s the first thing you should do.

I know. Every day that went by I was going to copyright it tomorrow, and that half-ass tomorrow never came.

You of all people should know better. Text theft is rampant and—

Yeah, but I procrastinate. Dammit to hell how I procrastinate!

You should have suspected this might happen. These days students lift term papers from the Internet. Multinational corporations and nations throughout the globe steal from each other. Politicians pilfer words wherever they can find them and talk in doublespeak at every opportunity. The Internet offers a goldmine for expert hackers that is hard to resist. You should have protected your ass with a copyright for that reason alone.

I guess that merrell son-of-a-bitch did what we all do a little bit. Steal a few words and ideas here and there. But he did it on a massive scale. It’s like he raped me! Like he tore me open and violated me!

María had been silent. Now she puts a grin on her face and says, Don’t overdramatize your plight, Matt. You—

"I’m not overdramatizing. He’s got to be a psychopath. God dammit! He could have been that character in my novel Looking Glass Killer! Hell, he didn’t even so much as change the title."

Ted says, Actually, what you wrote was not a finished and polished novel, just an outline and a few chapters, wasn’t it?

But I wrote it, so it’s mine. The situation that bastard created when he committed his crime should be grounds for a million-dollar lawsuit.

How’s that? Ted asks.

He thought he stole words on paper. Those words aren’t just a lot of black marks. They are me and I am them. He violated me. Me!

Wild allusions won’t solve your problem, Ted observes. We need to focus on a plan of action.

Plan of action? There is none. He ripped me off. End of story. Now there’s nothing I can do about it. God dammit!

Not so fast. Do you have some early drafts in your hard drive? Pull them out. Check the dates. We can go from there.

Fat chance. I make alterations. Then I keep the new text and get rid of the old one because I can’t stand to look at it any more. It’s slash and burn. Do it. And then move on. That’s the way I write. What an idiot!

Unfortunate. Well, here’s another idea. Why don’t you write a parody about a novel merrell published in his name? That way your readers will realize what happened and your name will be vindicated.

Sure. What they’ll do is take my parody as fiction and the novel in merrell’s name as the genuine thing. I’m still the goat.

So, Matt, here’s yet another possibility. If he sells a lot of copies of your book and pockets the royalties, it’s a felony, Ted observes. Now, what we—

A lot of good that does me. I’m not copyrighted. I can’t prove his words are mine.

María says, "Most of the words are his. Some of the words and ideas are yours. There’s a difference, you know? You—"

No! It should be my novel in my name! And that’s that!

Ted jumps in, Wait a minute. Just because you didn’t post a copyright doesn’t mean your work is automatically turned over to the public domain. So …

I still have no iron-clad proof that it’s mine.

That’s right, I’m afraid. Now you might have to pay the consequences like a slew of other people in your situation.

What do you mean? Matt asks.

Artists of all sorts are naïve about the laws and their rights. They become easy pickings for thieves out there.

Yeah, but what’s done is done. Now I’m screwed.

Don’t give up so easy, Ted says. Go after him. Threaten him. Tell him you’re taking him to court. If that doesn’t soften him up, tell him you are going online with your Webpage, Blog, on Twitter, Facebook, whatever. Tell him you will inform the world he’s not the author he claims he is. Tell him you are going to create a paper trail of evidence against him ten miles long. In other words, exhaust all the possibilities.

I don’t have my original documents. I destroyed them.

Does he know that?

No.

There you go. Tell him he had better credit the book to you or else you will reveal his word theft to the world. Demand some compensation. Either in cash or a cut from his royalties. Give him an ultimatum. Warn him that if you get no response you’ll go online in two weeks.

It would be like I’m extorting him. I’m no criminal.

You can’t take this lying down, Matt.

"He’s right corazón, sweetheart," María says.

I’m … I’m not the aggressive type.

Pluck it up. Demand what’s rightfully yours.

*     *     *

Matt looks at Ted, at María, and amplifies his voice a few decibels.

What an idiot! María told me I should copyright my work and I paid no attention to her.

Ladies are more level headed than us men, Ted says. You should have listened to her. Right, María?

I told him. What more can I say?

Matt continues as if he hadn’t heard them, I created a detailed map for that novel. With sophisticated warps and weaves, flashbacks and subtle hints, multiple points of view and a tapestry of dialogues worthy of a cubist painting. That bastard made it into pulp fiction. I wanted to write like Picasso paints, and merrell turned it into a Norman Rockwell.

I understand your frustration, Ted says now in a half-hearted effort to console Matt, but he’s in no mood for patronizing gestures.

You still don’t get it. I tried to create a first-rate piece of literature. He put my words together in assembly line fashion.

"I do get it. You’re simply giving up the idea of claiming what is yours."

María shakes her head and says, Overdramatizing your plight won’t help. You should—

Once again, I’m not overdramatizing! I’m telling it like it is!

Ted pitches in, You can’t go on with this resentment. It will fester in you.

You don’t understand. I—

You ought to listen to him, María counsels.

You expect me to forget this? Dammit to hell!

If you can’t forget it, do something about it, Ted tells him.

Why do I have to? Me? I’m fuckin’ fed up with losing all the time!

On that emphatic note Matt falls into silence. María is pensive, with furrowed brow. Ted is baffled by Matt’s relentless, uncustomary outbursts.

WHAT IS AND ISN’T

*     *     *

Matt gets a second wind.

"Meathead merrell’s got it all wrong. I know him. He thinks what he ripped off is about the world, about what is real. That’s why he did nothing more than turn my creation into a Rockwell painting. No, not even that. Rockwell’s work has historical value. Mediocrity merrell exists in a valueless vacuum. He thinks he writes about what is. Hell, what is has little to do with imagination, creativity, and literary value. When we create we think about what isn’t and some of it stands a chance of becoming what can be in the readers’ minds if we express it properly."

You’ll have to explain yourself, Ted tells him. I’m lost in your shuffle of words.

"There is no is, Ted. Only becoming. Everything is always becoming different from what it was. Deadhead merrell thinks there’s only dull, changeless is."

You’re still losing me.

"That’s it! You just said what I mean! You are becoming lost. Becoming is never ending. So you’ll never be completely lost, period, end of your becoming. Because you’ll always have at least some vague idea about where you’re going."

Hold on, Ted says, with palms up. "Please go back to is and take it from there again."

"It’s like this, Ted. What is, is because we make it so. At least as far as we are concerned. The problem is that we can’t simply take our world like it is nor do we take it because that’s the way we see it. What we can do is participate with what might become and coax it into becoming part of our world. Our world is never exactly what is. It is always becoming what it wasn’t. The best fictions illustrate this process."

If you say so, Ted says.

We’ve discussed this many times and you know I’m with you, María tells Matt.

María! If you’re with me, how can you expect me to forget what merrell did to me? Matt shoots back.

He passes quick glances at the two of them as if expecting ready-made answers to his questions, thus negating his own words on becoming.

Well, I … María becomes hesitant. Matt jumps in,

I created those pages. Me! I created what he vulgarized. Well, screw him. I can do it again and I’ll do it.

Now you’re talking like the Matt I know, María says.

Ted remains puzzled, but he asks no more questions about Matt’s confusing semantic swamp of words on what is and what isn’t.

*     *     *

Then tell me, Matt, Ted asks him, if you say you can do it again, will you begin where you left off with your text before merrell poached it?

Definitely not.

You’ll have to pardon me, but I saw those pages you gave me as too cerebral. Will you continue along those same lines? Or will you try something lighter?

It’s like this. I wrote that outline because I was stewing over my past, my wholesale rejection of my fanatically religious upbringing. I had to convince myself I wasn’t psychologically affected by it all. I read up on deviant behavior and the criminal mind. Then I wrote the map of that novel. Now I know who I’m becoming … Well, at least a little better.

And now you want to write from the vantage point of your new you? Ted asks.

"There is no new me. There’s me becoming someone I wasn’t. Remember? This new me becoming is my feeling self more than my thinking self."

Feeling self? Ted asks with raised brow and twisted mouth.

Tell Ted about your idea, María says.

I have neither energy nor desire to go into that.

Please tell me, Matt, Ted says. You’ve piqued my curiosity.

"Okay. I’ll try. Our feeling self is rich. Almost too rich for words. It is what we sense and vaguely intuit. It complements our rational deliberating and puzzle-solving thinking self. This thinking self is too slow for the feeling of knowing because it spends time reflecting and mulling over what to do next—"

Wait a sec, Matt. Slow down, Ted interjects. You’ll have to explain this feeling of knowing before going on.

"You see, Ted, my feeling self is always on the verge of emptying itself of everything."

Emptying itself? Ted queries. You’ve already lost me again.

See there? Matt cries out to María. I can’t make it intelligible!

Use the examples like when you told me, María tells him.

"Well … Ted? Okay … I’ll try. The key word is emptiness. It is something like zero. Zero isn’t just nothing. It contains the possibility for creating countless numbers. Emptiness of self, like zero, contains the possibility for creativity, for living creativity. This involves the feeling self more than the thinking self. It is closer to intuition than logic and reason."

I see … I think, Ted says.

"From emptiness, our feeling of knowing emerges. It is a type of knowing but without our really knowing it …"

Knowing without knowing? There you go again, Ted says.

Oh, to hell with it.

Patience, Matt. Please go on.

Well, what I mean is, our feeling self isn’t aware of what it knows in the explicit rational and logical sense of knowing. Acting out of the feeling of knowing isn’t a deliberate act. It is like—How can I say it?—Like tacit knowing. It’s sort of an implicit or nonconscious form of knowing. It is the consequence of asking ‘Who am I?’ It has to do with the elusive flowing sense of ever-changing personal identity.

Changing identity?

"Yes. My feelings are always with me. They are who I am—no, who I am becoming. I’m usually unaware of these feelings because I’m too occupied with my thinking self that’s preoccupied with solving its problems and understanding its world."

I would prefer to think that what I think defines who I am, Ted says.

No, no. Your thinking self can’t stand alone. Let me put it this way. Imagine that at this moment I am experiencing my feeling self.

I can’t imagine I could imagine something I don’t understand. Anyway, please continue and I’ll try my best to follow you.

Uh-huh. When I experience my feeling self, my feelings are spreading throughout my whole body. I have a vague notion of flowing along with everything in my surroundings. It’s like I’m in touch with my Yin nature.

Yin nature! I’m sorry, but you’re all over the place, Matt.

"No. I’m saying the same thing in different ways. You see? Yin nature is a feeling of the feeling self, of all that is happening. It is without breaks. It is one. Emptiness of self and its giving rise to the feeling self’s becoming aware of its feeling of knowing is like the number one emerging from zero. But our self becoming never stops there. Our thinking self quickly takes over. It mutilates the feeling of knowing, or one, and constructs categorical distinctions like two, three, and so on from zero and one. Our feeling self has by no means disappeared, however. It’s there, complementing and giving rise to our thinking self."

Oh? Ted calmly queries in an effort to prevent Matt’s becoming riled up again.

But let me stick to one for now, Matt says.

I’ll thankfully go along with that. Soothe my confused mind.

One, or let me call it oneness. Oneness can’t be said because, to say it, words have to break it up. So when saying it, it’s already more than oneness. There are now words, like the number two or twoness, and so on. If we just look in order to see what we see, we become aware of that something else, that twoness. At that moment oneness flies away because there’s twoness and us and everything else in our world. This relationship with our world makes up three or threeness. This is our Yang nature in the process of categorizing and conceptualizing and thinking about our world.

Oh yes. Yang always has to be hanging around somewhere. I’m getting the message … maybe.

"Well, It’s like … when I’m in tune with my Yin nature, I’m barely flowing out of emptiness or what I call zero degree."

Zero degree?

Yes. It’s like the initial starting point of whatever is becoming.

Oh … Well, why don’t you move on? I’ll continue trying to find some sort of anchor for what you’re saying.

"After my Yin flows out of the zero degree, I find myself in my world of things and the distinctions among them. This world that I break up into categories is my Yang nature. In this world, my knowing self usually dominates and Yin’s role fades."

Yin and Yang. Hmm …

Yin and Yang, Matt reiterates.

They’re always struggling with one another, Ted suggests.

Negative. If I’m inside my feeling of knowing or Yin, my knowing self fades into the background. If I enter the differentiated world of Yang, my feeling self wanes. I can’t have both Yin and Yang in equal measure at the same moment. They are like particles and waves. You know? Quantum theory? You can have either the one or the other but not both.

Good grief! This is too much for a dumbbell like me, Ted says.

No. I know you and you have a good head on you, Ted. Dammit the problem is me! Why can’t I say what I need to say? That fuckin’ merrell turned me into a bumbling idiot! María, help me explain this!

*     *     *

Show Ted that Necker cube or one of your other ambiguous images, María says. That might help.

Image41435.jpg

Can you draw it? On that sheet of paper on the end table next to you?

María does so, turns to Ted, and says, It’s a two-dimensional drawing that can be interpreted in two different ways as a three-dimensional cube. There’s a cube that looks like it’s coming out of the page, and another cube receding into the page. But you can’t grasp the two cubes simultaneously.

And the relevance? Ted asks.

It’s ambiguous, Matt says. "It consists of two possible images that are mutually exclusive. You see the one or the other but you can’t see them both at the same time. They are complementary."

Complementary, hmm …

It’s actually quite simple, Ted. It’s as if one possible square can’t tolerate the other one. Yet they need each other. They are mutually exclusive. Yet they belong together. They complement each other.

Together they are like Yin and Yang, María chimes in. However, there’s a way you can think you see the two ambiguous images simultaneously.

How’s that? Ted asks.

By a technique they use to produce 3-D movies, Matt tells him. If you look at an object near you through one eye and then through the other eye, you will notice a slight difference due to the position of each eye and its line of sight. Those 3-D movies capture scenes through two cameras side by side, like two eyes. Then they use polarized light to produce a 3-D effect.

Polarized light? Ted asks. You’ll have to excuse me, María and Matt. My knowledge and yours are like those two mutually exclusive cubes and you’re taking me into unknown territory.

It’s like this. Regular light has waves in all directions. Polarized light organizes the waves so they move along one plane only. One camera has them moving horizontally and the other one has them moving vertically. María? Can you draw it?

Image41444.jpg

She quickly constructs an image of the glasses that give a three-dimensional effect while Ted continues querying Matt. Then she says,

Here you go, Ted. Horizontal waves of light enter the viewer’s left eye and vertical waves enter the right eye. They give each eye a different perspective so the viewer has the sensation that what she sees is three dimensional.

Ah, Ted blurts out. It’s like we can see the two cubes on the sheet of paper as if they are three dimensional without contradicting one another.

Something like that, María answers.

Okay, going back to what you said earlier, Matt. You mentioned possibilities. They are like numbers contained within zero. Some of them might find their way into our world as we know it. Can I put it that way?

Yes! You’re pretty much on target, Matt responds.

In this sense you seem to be saying that each moment opens up many possibilities, Ted ponders.

Image41461.jpg

Correct, Matt tells him. "The range of all possibilities is what I call the zero degree. Or emptiness. It’s like the wavy line separating Yin from Yang, like the distinction between particle event and wave function, or like the Necker cube seen one way and then the other way. It’s like zero resting between positive numbers on one side and negative numbers on the other side."

Sort of like a middle ground? Ted wonders aloud.

That’s it! You said it! María is quick to