True Entertainment

by Michael Isner

It was a summer of discovering new things for me when I first moved to New York. Who knew what twisted paths moving from Canada would take me down.

It all started slow like life always seems to: doing nothing but work, slaving away for the man 100 hours a week, staring at a computer in an architecture firm. I was determined to make something happen at this job.

At night my best friend Trevore and I were shackled in a YMCA room as small as a closet and he watched an equally small TV.

"Oh... look at the new up and comer in the office" a sexy voice on a tv commercial murmured. "I wonder who he's sleeping with" purred the tv. I looked up with disgust and slammed the door on Trevore as I walked out of the room, thinking about days with never ending work. "I can tell you," I growled as I walked out the door. "No-one"

Girls were basically out of reach given my slave labor time constraints but analyzing life was not. In fact television was a great new exciting topic for me. I hadn't had a television for the last 15 years of my life and watching MTV here and there was very novel and new. It seems a bit stupid that I would have to travel to another country and be locked in a small room to appreciate it but that's what was happening.

That Sunday morning was even better because I had a day off and was introduced to Trevore's friend who actually worked at MTV.

"MTV! Wow, that's amazing" I said.

"Yup. It's great." He nodded and grinned like he had heard it a million times but still appreciated fan boy energy.

"Wow... Hey do you know that add with all those whitey old people dirty dancing on the street and talking like rappers? I just saw that last night. I love that add."

MTV guy looked a bit hmmmmm and glanced over at me peering but all cool. "Uh huhhh"

"Yah that's an amazing add. I mean I love that add." I started getting excited. "I mean, how do you come up with an idea like that? It's crazy. Old white conservative people grinding up against one another all sexy. How do you think of that? And then talking like rappers that's way way out there."

"Yahhhh...." he looked up matter of fact.

"I mean it's great." sometimes I get too worked up about stuff and was close to a state where I would start knocking food and glasses over. "Just great".

"It's funny, you know." he start, "MTV is a really fun place to work. Mostly reality TV now though. Lot's of ideas come from mail."

He continued, "There's this crazy old lady who sleeps outside our office and stalks people sometimes. It's kind of scary, she's on lots of medication. She sends us all this weird mails."

"Ok... I sort of see what you mean" I was a bit confused. "So she was the basis for the character in the add?"

"No she mails us proposals with all these insane crazy ideas like that add you like. And we started getting the idea to make them because they were so weird. And they were hits. So we keep making them."

And the conversation went on from there. But all day I had to think about that. An insane stalker woman mailed ideas to a television company. And they made them.

For a moment I had broken through the mirror and had a complete picture of the delivery system of the weird world I lived in. Who would imagine the world is like that? Lead by madness. Without laws or rules. It didn't matter what made you smile or where it came from. The result here was best from crazy people.

It didn't bother me to much though. In a way it made me feel like anything could happen an now was the moment to take a stand.

What I should do is finish preparing for my architecture thesis and take risks.

Exactly.

Take risks to make something new I thought as I roller bladed up to 62nd street.

If a crazy woman could do it why couldn't I?

A man on fire I descended towards my thesis site, a twisted hulk of melted steel on the Hudson River. This is my crazy topic I though proudly dreaming up the massive wormlike structure that I would design on this site. This is my chance to be an interesting point in the world. I was pure adventure.

Of course there was a problem that the land was owned by Donald Trump and no-one was allowed near it. But who cared all I wanted was to take pictures of the a big junk pile of melted metal.

There are no boundaries. Only action. And risks. And I took of my roller blades, dumped them into my backpack and climbed the fence towards my site.

It was amazing out there on the water. It was a weird new world of twisted metal and water. Space can be such a cool thing. Why do we choose to live and move around in such boring places? Everything would be so much better if it were twisted and interesting like this world...

My thesis was based on taking these twisted metal shapes and using that kinetic energy to come up with a new building form. If the world was ready for old conservative people rubbing against each other and rapping it could certainly stomach my dreams of a new architecture.

I crawled around taking pictures, my legs reaching from twisted beam to twisted be to see if my weight would hold.

For some reason there were several helicopters flying back and forth on the Hudson River today. Maybe they were testing something or there was some special event.

So every time a helicopter flew by, I would duck down into the mess of beams like a small animal and peer out with beady eyes. It was a cool feeling. This weird twisted hulk of metal was my home and the predators couldn't see me.

I got into the routine of that and got hundreds of pictures. I used to like climbing trees when I was younger and jumping from beam to beam felt like being a kid again.

Shit... another helicopter. Now I was approaching the end of the pier and there were fewer good hiding places. I ducked under a large beam and waited.

But the helicopter didn't go away. It just kind of hung there.

In fact it was getting louder. I could hear the chopper blades as a hunched and dug myself deeper into the wreckage of metal. Waiting for them to continue down the river.

Nope. Getting louder.

I looked up at the helicopter and it was stationary, hanging in the air directly above the pier. A police helicopter.

I squinted up in the light. This can't be happening. I'm sure they will just fly by.

SWOOSH SWOOSH. Metal blades spun in the air.

Someone menacing looking wearing sunglasses in the helicopter was waving and pointing at me and loud sounds screamed outward

SWOOSH SWOOSH >>> TRESPASSER YOU ARE ON PRIVATE PROPERTY AND ARE >>> SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH >>> VIOLATING SECTION 456 OF >>> SWOOSH SWOOSH >> REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE

I slowly stood up my arms falling limp to my side and lifted my head upward.

SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH

Silence.

Blood rushed to my head. Time speed up to 100 mph. One deafening thought screamed to the top of my head.

RUN.

I turned around and bolted as 100 mph across the twisted wreckage of metal as fast as my legs could carry me. I took 30 minutes to carefully navigate across this structure and 20 seconds to blast half way across it, my legs bouncing on the shifty metal beams.

As I ran blood rushed to my ears like I had been struck in the head. My jaw clenched.

My knees bounced upward and I could feel the force of my determination to run forward. Panting. Clenched. Running the fastest I had ever run in my life. My breath tore through my body in desperate ragged intakes of air and pain. I ignored every signal to hold up and pushed forward hard into pain.

Running. Running hard.

Past the twisted metal I reached the grass at the side of the pier. Jumped forward.

Running forward faster, faster every inch of energy I had in my body would save me.

Panting. Panting. I was dying I could barely stand if I thought about anything for a second I would fall and collapse and end up in jail.

I looked up. The helicopter was still exactly above me in the same position and had just moved forward with me at the same speed. Still they were yelling through a sound system for me to surrender.

SWOOSH SWOOSH SWOOSH

Stupid.

You can't out run a helicopter.

Still I ran forward into the huge clearing of grass, about 400 feet across. On the other side I saw four police cars line up against the fence, flashing their lights with people running out.

Bad. This was very bad.

Think. My body was incapable of getting through this situation. Think. Think. I pounded my brain. Do something. I glanced around like a caged animal.

Trees. There were trees across the field on the left of the police cars. Helicopters can't see through trees.

My head locked down, I thrust my feet into another death run. There was no way out of this but forward.

Panting was ignored. Helicopters were ignored. Bodies running from police cars were ignored. Run forward. Hard. Pain. Ignored. Hard. Forward.

I reached the edge of the trees and ripped off my backpack. I will only survive this if they don't recognize me. I ripped off my hat and long shirt leaving a tshirt below. I stuffed the clothing in the backpack in a single gesture and jumped over the fence.

With shaking but ferociously determined hands I grabbed the roller blades out of the pack and jammed them on my ragged feet. And stood. And skated hard.

A police car squealed around the corner of the building beside me and banked in a tilting menace of screaming lights and aggression. They were hot in pursuit. And serious.

This was it. Act like someone else or go down.

I jumped up on the side walk beside the road pretending to grind against a rail and do tricks. As the police car speed around I let myself fall to the ground like a newbie in a bad wipe out. I barely felt the scrapes and bruises as I crumpled in exaggerated suffering. The angry police car rushed by me rack focused on the the fence and tree line and ignoring the stupid kid with roller blades.

I shook myself off and continued to skate out down the street.

All of a sudden a helicopter jumped out of now where from above a silloute in the air through a crack between two buildings.

I spun left into an ally and left and into a building. Waited. Spun out and went down an alley in a different direction. I could see the furious helicopter spinning in wider and wider circles trying to track my path. But as I raced forward to 55th suddenly I was surround by thousands of people. Safe. Hidden.

And I bladed the rest of the way home and reached the YMCA panting furiously. I opened to the door to our room and fell to the ground like a dog.

"Isner" growled Trevore interrupted from reading his book from the bunk bed above. "What are you doing?"

"Dying. I got chased by a police helicopter."

"What?"

"Yah I escaped. Trying to photograph my site."

"I don't believe you"

"Doesn't matter. I'm alive. I did it." I gasped. My head slumped to the floor and looked over at the TV. "You know we're better off watching stuff insane women dream up for us." Gasping. "Real adventure being chased around like that sucks."

"Oh that was funny" Trevore said. "Exactly your favorite commercial comes from crazy people. Hahaha. Figures."

"That reminds me", he continued as I lied motionless and panting on the thin tile floor. "I just read this article where a bunch of guys in Mexico were arrested for setting up an Everquest sweat shop".

"What?"

"Yah they hired tons of slave labor to sit there in Everquest collecting points with a repetitive hacking move and the sold the items on Ebay. They were taken down by a law suit. Reminds me of that crazy MTV stuff."

My breath died down and I lied motionless staring at the ceiling. To what lengths would humans go to avoid boredom? Apparently would be willing to be lead by the insane. They create imaginary worlds that enslaved others with repetitive tasks for no reason. And they would do crazy stupid high-risk stuff like myself to feel alive for 10 minutes.

What twisted paths boredom avoidance took. And from the looks of things, the whole world was posed to grow it forward fierce.

Again my head slumped floorward. My eyes shut and I slept on there for a long time.

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