Creek Running North 大自然 Memo

October 17, 2005

Memo

Date:10/17/2005
To: Canis Latrans
From: Chris Clarke
Re: resignation

Dear Coyote;

I quit.

I’m sorry that this resignation is not couched in more formal language, but our relationship has never been all that formal. OK, I lied. I’m not sorry. You may assume all the stipulated boilerplate businesspeak you wish: effective immediately, deepest regrets, privilege to serve, yada yada yada.

Elevator version: Find yourself another monkey to poke.

When I took the job of being the butt of your jokes, 45 years ago (has it been that long? How depressing.) I was honored at the invitation, pleased to be considered worthy of the position of butt of your perverse, sadistic sense of humor. “Life will certainly be entertaining,” I thought. “I’m joining a prestigious workforce of three billion people,” I thought. And I actually did enjoy the first couple decades, more or less. OK, the first decade. Well, the first half. The part where I built up a head of steam. And in retrospect, I have to admit painting that fake train-tunnel labeled “School” on that brick wall was a good gag. But the cardboard cutouts labeled “parents”? That was just mean, though they were nicely rendered. And sewing those 50-pound sandbags into my jacket labeled “depression” and “attention deficit”? Just because I went for a very long time without realizing they were there, doesn’t mean your little joke was funny. Unless you like laughing at the clueless.

Oh, wait. Sorry. I forgot who I was talking to.

Anyway, I’ve had it. I am sick of working to bounce back from your little pranks. I think I did a damn good job, too. You disintegrated my family, and I landed on my feet in California with no money and a telephone number. You sent people to beat me and I barely blinked.

You killed my girlfriend, you son of a bitch, and yet I didn’t fucking curl up and die, like I bet you wanted.

I will never forgive you for that.

So fine. You get bored of aiming those anvils at me, and you start with the matches between the toes. “So he finally finds love? Let’s give him too much!” And then the too much leaves for New Mexico, thank god, and life gets back to normal, so you say “let’s give him the job he wanted, perfectly suited for him, the envy of anyone he knows, the kind of job people dream of their whole lives… and have it suck so bad that he considers death a reasonable Monday morning option!”

The thing that really pisses me off, though, is how you treat everybody else. I have to sit here every day and watch people in pain, people I care about or people I’ve never heard of, watch them suffer, watch them die but sometimes not soon enough, seeing things just getting worse and worse. And what do you offer as the bright side? A moment before I wake, holding Becky. A blind, deaf dog who’s not going to be here long. A glint of blue off the wing of a scrub jay. And the worst part is that you make me love it.

I’m done with you. I’m done!

I know you don’t believe me. Spare me the line about my always crawling back. Go ahead and snicker. I just don’t fucking care anymore. God damn it, you’re probably chuckling to yourself at me calling yourself a “son of a bitch.” Fine.

I’ve got my desk cleaned out, and all of my loose ends here are tied up. Send my severance check to my house. I don’t really give a shit who you hire to take my place, and they are not welcome to call me to ask questions about my filing system. You’re the one who gave me ADD, you figure out my damn mess. Just tell people I’ve retired. Tell them I died. OK, I don’t care what you tell them.

No, I don’t want to talk about what you can offer me to stay.

No, I don’t care about the benefits.

Sigh.

OK, fine. I’m taking a few personal days, though.

See you Monday.

Posted by: Chris Clarke

Categories:
Biography

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I'm sorry, but the comment period for this entry has ended.

I don’t understand who Canis Latrins is or Coyote, either, but I’m sorry you are so sad. I’ve got the depression, I’ve got the ADD, and last week, I got dumped, fired and learned a cat I love died. Wow, I meant to say something consoling, but I guess I really don’t have anything to say that might help. Sorry.

1
By: Hissy Cat
on October 17, 2005
at 07:44 PM

P.S.: Coyote, leave my friend Hissy Cat alone too, dammit.

2
By: Chris Clarke
on October 17, 2005
at 07:56 PM

To: Chris Clarke

From: Coyote

Re: Resignation

Please direct your attention to paragraph 8, section 1.2 of your contract, which states that I’m the only one who can end this gig. You’re mine until I say otherwise. Quit whining and get back to work.

Oh, and ha! Ha ha ha ha! Thanks for the laugh.

3
By: nina
on October 17, 2005
at 08:01 PM

dear fellow roadrunner —

go run! enjoy the desert! avoid the anvils and acme corp. and take along some thanks from the RR union — we’re fighting this one.

meep meep!

4
By: kathy a
on October 17, 2005
at 08:31 PM

To: Coyote

From: Kimberly

Well, Trickster, you got me again. I should’ve known you’d notice me lurking around here, enjoying the fine writing and intelligent conversation. Then, when I’m coming around regularly, you push Chris to the point of resigning, reminding me rather vividly in the process of the many times you’ve played your cruel little games with my life, too.

You really enjoy seeing me cry at my desk, don’t you?

p.s. What have you done with my friend Nina? She deserves much better than being your secretary.

5
By: Kimberly
on October 17, 2005
at 10:31 PM

We can’t all freak out at once, can we?

6
By: alphabitch
on October 18, 2005
at 12:07 AM

We can’t all freak out at once, can we?

Flash mob!

7
By: Chris Clarke
on October 18, 2005
at 01:15 AM

To Chris:

From Coyote:

You’re a figment of Zeke’s imagination. What makes you think you’re real?

8
By: susurra
on October 18, 2005
at 02:40 AM

Up here it’s the ravens who are in charge, and doing an equally fine job.

I learned when I lived in Alaska that some of the tribes there believe that it is Raven, the Trickster, who created the world so he could have a place to live and play. Kind of an interesting spin, I thought. As I remembered it, the tribes who referred to Coyote as the Trickster did not also credit him with creating the world. Yet I think it makes even more sense that the creature who f*&^s with us for his own idle ends would also have been the one to create the arena in which we play out whatever little amusements develop.

Or maybe the northern tribes are just more bitter than the southwestern. After all, up here we not only have real life like everybody else, but the weather sucks, too.

9
By: Sara
on October 18, 2005
at 11:46 AM

There has GOT to be something in the “air”. Many of my favorite bloggers (and myself) have had a difficult run over the last little while. Why?

It’s a comfort to know, at least, that other bright souls have been paddling the same waters alongside me, just out of sight but not out of earshot.

I gotta get back to my writin’, if only I could get a break from the “ten thousand things” to do so.

I didn’t understand the coyote thing either at first, started to get it through the post… I’m of the “raven” school myself. I didn’t know coyote had a rep as a trickster as well.

Something new every day and all that jazz, I guess.

Peace to you and yours and all who read through this comment as well. Peace to you.

10
By: thingfish23
on October 18, 2005
at 12:49 PM

There IS something in the air, even here in the Midwest. During my predawn run yesterday a foul wind blew from the south, and the leaves skittered uncertainly and roughly in the gusts. The nearly full moon ran behind thunderheads and lightning flickered, menacingly but dimly, in the distance. A strange hooded figure rode past on a squeaky bicycle.

This past summer we heard coyotes yip in our backyard and saw one scuttle through a neighbor’s yard. Coyote is messing with all of us and you’re right, the worst part is how much we love it.

Peace to you and yours.

11
By: Charles
on October 18, 2005
at 03:04 PM

Okay, I’m reading this a day late. But now I can say that I understand everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.

12
By: Roxanne
on October 18, 2005
at 05:11 PM

definitely something in the air, moon is in the 7th house and bush is in the white house — 2005 blows and your comments to coyote made me cry. coherence is vastly overrated ( on my part — not your writing)

13
By: leslie
on October 18, 2005
at 05:45 PM

oh yeah — if you haven’t read “Anansi Boys” yet you definitely should, speaking of tricksters.

14
By: leslie
on October 18, 2005
at 05:46 PM

I chuckled too. Then I thought it was inappropriate. Then I knew it was totally appropriate.

And yeah, everyone in my life, myself included, is having a bit of a time lately. Upheaval in the zeitgeist or something.

15
By: Steve
on October 20, 2005
at 11:23 PM

It’s always good to drop by and see that I’m not the only one who [fill in the blank]. At the moment, I’m on the periphery of a shitstorm of such epic proportions, words fail me. (My own, that is; yours never do.) At 3:00 this morning, the subject (object?) of said shitstorm pled with the ceiling, and the universe beyond, for “just one vanilla ice cream day—no sprinkles, no surprises, just plain vanilla, PLEASE?” whereupon we discussed the possibility of taking some personal time. So you’re way ahead already—ENJOY! And if you’re down here, give me a holler!

16
By: Doc Rock
on October 21, 2005
at 04:31 PM