Frustrated Bob February 17, 1986
Bob is rigid as hell, but also loyal, a good talker, but utterly
passive, and most certainly incompetent at times.
He is in constant conflict with himself, his emotional side at
war with his intellectual side, his mind always struggling to rein in his emotions,
which may explain why he has ulcers.
The son of a career military man and a self-professed
conservative, Bob struggles to live up to his capitalistic ideals.
He is rightfully critical of a welfare state that keeps poor
people enslaved, and yet can’t quite justify the greed upon which capitalism
depends.
All people rich or poor are selfish, even the ones who claim
to be fighting for social justice. The question Bob keeps raising, which greed
is more productive, the socialist model that sucks money out of people who work
for a living, or the capitalistic model that on some levels creates jobs and
additional wealth?
Nobody has a good answer for this, not even Bob, who seems
to dislike “the do-gooders” who would use government to impose their limited
point of view on other people.
But as much as Bob wants to live up to the capitalist model,
he’s just not very good at it, and the effort is slowly killing him.
He looked particularly worn Saturday night when I came to
pick up test photos from one of the bins, his face showing intense pain, his forehead
bearing deep lines as if a man twice his age, his eyes bearing the look I
sometimes saw at the military hospital when I was in the army, an expression of
hopeless and endless struggle, though he forced himself to look stern, his jaw jutting
out like an Army drill instructors, daring anyone to challenge his commitment
to his philosophy.
His father sent him to military school as a kid to toughen
him up, assuming that military training would make him strong, refusing to
believe that his son was not cut from the same mold as he was, when Bob clearly
isn’t up to snuff in that regard, even though he takes hunting trips to Pennsylvania
and climbs mountains, and rides his motorcycle during long, grueling overnights
on remote roads near Sussex.
About my height and build, Bob seems to be shrinking under
the external and internal turmoil.
Slightly older than I am, he’s far less nimble, stiff arms
and legs from injuries, from too many attempts to prove he’s as sturdy at 35 as
men a decade or more younger than he is.
He’s a lot like the father character in Woody Guthrie’s Bound
for Glory, unable to live up to his expected potential. After so many years
trying to prove himself to his father by acting as if he is a machine, he is
slowly falling to pieces, and yet continues to push himself every day, making
it all the worse.
He dresses like a conservative, in muted colors, expensive
and durable, wearing a suit while on duty, but rugged gear when off on his own
or doing a photo shoot somewhere.
Business people get along with him partly because of the way
he looks and partly because he’s always careful not to reveal just how extreme
he is in his beliefs, which aren’t really his beliefs, but his father’s; he
espouses them to satisfy his father and some urge inside him to please a father
who has always been disappointed in him.
Bob’s whole childhood was strict regiment, schools where
they taught him discipline, but not how to love or be loved, and kindness
unheard of.
Last week, when Bob dropped off some paperbacks, he
described his first fist fight, a brawl, not with another student, but with his
own father. His mother had to call the police to break it up.
It took years for his father to even mention it, and when he
finally did, he asked Bob where the boy had learned to fight like that.
Standing in my kitchen recounting the story, Bob’s face went
red with embarrassment, yet not without a bit of pride, “I told him I learned
to fight like that in military school.
Over the years, Bob has lived a double life, a frustrated
sexual life and aspirations for capitalistic success, unable to find
satisfaction in either.
I tell him he should have become a hippie, a life he would
be much better suited for. He only curses at me.
Maybe now that he’s going to California, he will find peace.
But the wizard of California is as phony as the one from Oz.
Pauly says Bob will be back.
I suspect so, too.
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