after the miracle
TRANSCRIPT
University of Northern Iowa
After the MiracleAuthor(s): Richard RobbinsSource: The North American Review, Vol. 269, No. 3 (Sep., 1984), p. 12Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25124539 .
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the job of champion. He always looked as if he'd swallowed the List
erine. And sure enough, that came to
be the look of the modern champ of film and story?the celebrated anti
hero. Uh?ros malgr? lui. James Dean. Marlon Brando. Robert Duvall. Robert Everyman. The ordinary guy as champion. For Warhol's fifteen
minutes. This is democracy, and
democracy has a lot to do with win
ning but not much with the better
man. It has to do with consensual man and woman, the ordinary guy.
Much more convincing as anti-hero,
considering the life lived by most
ordinary guys and gals. But once in a
while they can rise up and win one.
So nowadays being a champion is often a simple matter of winning once
at anything, anywhere. And a
number of contemporary heroes
don't have to win anything at all;
they're born out of Media's ear.
So, as often with modern life, tra
ditional standards abandoned, the
game is up for grabs. Historically, up for grabs equals gimmicks. Even with the Greeks. Ten whole years of war and it's decided by a wooden horse? Phui. Anyway, when it comes down to a matter of gimmicks, it's not the
hero who decides championships, it's his "handler." Heroes aren't known
for big brains. In fact, they're neces
sarily so single-minded, with that one
bee in their bonnet, that consuming quest, that they can't see an inch to
the left or right, let alone behind them. But the handlers! The manag ers, agents, lawyers, PR people! The
wily ones. They couldn't beat their mother in a fair fight, but sell her to a
sultan, you bet. And make her think it was what she always wanted, com
pared to Dad in red polyester pants at the TV watching football. Presum
ably he's watching heroes, winners.
Except it now seems that maybe half of them are on something, chemical
heroes, and what kind of business is that? I mean, if you looked Medusa full in the face you got turned to stone. But if you were stoned
already, then what? Or ... if like them you're a hero and an outlaw at
the same time, but not like Robin
Hood, for the good of the poor? You don't even have to steal the money
from the rich, they give it to you. The
Holy Grail is a million a year plus endorsements, and you get it
whether or not you rescue a soul all
year long.
In short, the business of winning is business. From the little leagues to the Olympics. Which corrupts the
country, but more importantly puts me in a ridiculous position. I can't
stop rooting just because there's
nothing worth rooting for. The fact is that you root because you're a rooter,
it's built in. The further fact is, there
fore, that the particular hero or cham
pion never was the real object of it all.
They were just tools in the business of winning, or at least not losing.
Winning may not be all, but losing is damned depressing. Your support should not be powerless, by God!
You don't find me sitting willingly at a performance of Camille. I'll proba
bly be watching a rerun of a John
Wayne western. Or maybe a Woody Allen, where at least there's a chance
he might win, or if he doesn't you can see it's all a big joke anyway.
?Kenneth Lash
12
RICHARD ROBBINS
AFTER THE MIRACLE
A gate in the spine open, muscles there
gone slack as clothesline, finally and now
strangely your back doesn't exist, the pain
swept away as cleanly as the factory's
acid air once the wind shifts. You sit,
remembering tightness, the way it drew
all of you to its center, distracting
any motion, any other thought. After
the miracle, after the all of you focused inward suddenly disappeared,
what was there left but doubt in the new walk
and restored axis? Fearing ease, braced
for the wrong step that would freeze you to your
spasm?come home again, familiar?
what was the yard and house but background again to inward attention, this time on absence,
on the emptiness of you without pain, while the dumb flesh spread out, and body hair
twisted toward light, and grass filled the yard, and lawn, trees, and gate opened to the street?
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