Looking as Discourse: Making it Make Sense
Image by Angelo Maneage
The theme of the 2022 Cleveland Humanities Festival is “Discourse.” Zach Savich, a Cleveland Review of Books board member and associate professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, asked a group of artists, writers, and scholars from Cleveland and beyond to address the topic, “How is looking a form of discourse? Or: how does looking become discourse?” Their responses explore some of the ways in which private and shared experiences of vision contribute to culture, conversation, identity, and collective exchange.
SHIT, SHIT, SHIT
A car wreck changes you. A car wreck rewires the circuitry of the brain. A car wreck teaches you to look both ways before crossing an intersection, to take three breaths and calm the nerves and say to yourself: I am safe. I am okay. I am under no threats from the world or from anyone. A car wreck on a two-lane road in Greensboro, North Carolina almost killed your little sister several years back. A car wreck on an interstate in Charleston, West Virginia almost killed your mother, your aunt, and your little cousin only a couple weeks into December of 2021. A car wreck, when you lived an extremely lonely year in Greensboro, North Carolina with your father, sent a flip phone into your mouth; split your lip wide open. You can still feel the chalky dust of the airbag’s residue on the surface of your tongue. You can still smell the smoke of the airbag when you think about that summer day you sat in the passenger seat of your father's blue Chevy Cavalier, texting, and—then all of a sudden—dazed. The sun brighter than it had ever been before. The clouds, whiter. You can still hear your father’s powdery voice calling your name: “Jason. Jason. Jason.” You can still feel the weight of his thick arm pressed against your chest. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” he’s saying. As if your name had changed.
MAKING IT MAKE SENSE
What is the ecological fallout of a car wreck? What is the environmental fallout of a car wreck? And is it better I call it a car wreck or a car accident? What is the difference? Does the difference matter? I think it does. I don’t want to be semantic about it, but semantics are important. How else are we to make it make sense? My therapist, E., says that the trouble begins when we try to find the order in things. When we attempt to retell the story of ourselves. When we attempt to pick up the puzzle pieces from the small table in his office and find which shapes fit into which. Once, my wife said her parents always start a puzzle by putting together the corners. To me all the pieces look the same—be they flat-edged corner pieces or pocketed-middles.
GRAY PONTIAC
I didn’t see it turning left onto West 65th Street. I don’t remember seeing it sitting at the red light on Bridge Ave—it going west and me going east, toward downtown Cleveland. I don’t remember anything except the light turning green, my vehicle—a 2015 Nissan Altima—being slightly lifted from the ground and wobbling as I hurried to straighten the wheels. Before I could get my bearings, a middle-aged Black man, with red eyes and milky skin, was yelling at me. “Motherfucker, you hit me.” There was a stillness in the air. “Bitch you hit me.” My voice was shaking. “Nah, man. You hit me. I had the right-away.” “No, motherfucker, I did,” he yelled. “You were turning left. I was going straight—“ The red-eyed man puffed his chest up as he sat at the wheel of his vehicle. Which, oddly, looked naked without its front bumper. “—I had the right-away,” he yelled. By this time, I had reached into my middle console to retrieve my insurance. We were blocking both lanes of traffic. “You know what,” he yelled from his window, one hand on the wheel and one hand with a finger extended, pointing at me, “I live right up the street. I’ll be right back.” My heart was pumping. My head was spinning. My mouth was dry. There were ten thousand hills and valleys and my stomach raced over and through every single one of them. There was a small ache in my hip that the adrenaline kept at bay as best it could. The man in the Pontiac pressed on the gas and drove down Bridge Avenue. I had driven down this very avenue many times before. I had never seen an accident happen in real-time at this intersection, but often I would see the remnants of an accident: broken light covers; bumpers; smashed side mirrors; shards of glass glittering the street like stars—all to rot and decompose in the middle of the neighborhood. That day, the sun was brighter than it had ever been. The clouds, whiter.
SEMANTICS
If I were to say—I hate the three seconds after my light turns green. Someone always T-bones my car when I accelerate into the intersection—you can piece together where I’m going: that I don’t like intersections because people are at their boldest when at an intersection. Myself included. I’ve picked up my phone to change the song or to switch from an audiobook to a true crime podcast after stopping at a red light. To say—I hate the three seconds after my light turns green. Someone always T-bones my car when I accelerate into the intersection—puts me in the role of the victim who has no control over what happens to them. As the one who followed a societal construct and waited my turn, who took responsibility for themself and others, am I not worthy of a gold sticker for following the rules? Am I not the better person?
BRIEF NOTES, TOLD THROUGH VEHICLES OWNED
2000 Chevrolet Blazer.
a. Purchased in 2009 at a police auction.
b. Purchased for $1,900 after working at a daycare all summer.
c. Sold to a scrap yard in 2014 because I needed money after moving from West Virginia to Ohio.
2010 Chevrolet Cobalt.
a. Purchased in 2015 at Ganley Subaru.
b. Purchased with a generous $3,500 loan from my now wife.
c. T-boned while driving to a job interview at Case Western Reserve University.
d. The driver didn’t stop after my light turned green. The traffic didn’t stop. They only crept to a crawl and peered at me from their car windows. This is when I learned it matters not only what you do behind the wheel, but also what others do.
e. Car insurance agency deemed the car totaled.
2015 Nissan Altima.
a. Purchased in 2018 at Prestige Automall.
b. Purchased after the Cobalt is deemed totaled.
c. Purchased with the help of my car insurance.
d. Rear ended once while sitting at a traffic stop near Progressive Field. Pulled off to the side of the road. The other driver didn’t have insurance.
e. Side swiped by my neighbor’s ex-husband during a dispute of theirs. There was yelling, tires screeching, then a boom. I chose not to press charges. Claimed to my insurance as a hit-and-run.
f. See GRAY PONTIAC.
RUBBERNECKING
It’s the rubbernecking, really, that makes me think of discourse—that form of communication—as a form of looking. Like when I am driving home from teaching a class about narrative and end up idling on I-90, Lake Erie, like a heart, beating against the chest of the concrete pier, and I am asking myself: What is going on? Why aren’t we moving? My impatience: a cosmonaut stuck in the orbit of traffic. But then, I see it: the two men on the side of the road, cell phones in hand—looking exasperated. Tired. As I creep forward, I see the bent metal, the shredded rubber, the yellow and red glint of plastic light covers, all left to rot and decompose in the median of the highway. The moon, brighter than it had ever been. Whiter.
SEMANTICS
If I were to say—Someone always T-bones my car when I accelerate into the intersection. I hate the three seconds after the light turns green—the meaning, though subtle, invariably changes. I am no longer the victim who has no control over what happens to them. Instead, I am a victim given a choice. If I know that people are boldest when presented with a yellow light and a four-way intersection, why not give myself pause? Why not count to three before accelerating into the intersection? To say—Someone always T-bones my car when I accelerate into the intersection. I hate the three seconds after the light turns green—puts me in the role of the victim who has a semblance of control over what happens to them by exercising options. By exercising patience. As the one who extends space on the road to others, does this not make me graceful? Am I not worthy of a job-well-done for extending grace? Am I not a better person for it?
PAYOUT
Last week, I received a letter in the mail about a class action lawsuit against the car maker Nissan. The lawsuit wants to represent everyone in the United States of America who bought or leased a Nissan Altima with halogen headlamps between 2013 and 2018. Overtime, the lawsuit states, the reflective surface inside the headlight’s assembly can become dull due to heat radiating from the halogen headlamps. After my 2010 Chevrolet Cobalt was deemed totaled by my old car insurance agency, I purchased a black 2015 Nissan Altima. The interior was leather; the front seats were heated; the car had a remote-start function that proved itself worthy during the cold Northeast Ohio months I drove the Nissan. The lawsuit ultimately drills down on this point here: the defected headlights can become so dull that it presents a safety hazard; some drivers have reported being afraid to drive at night; others reported that they have been pulled over by police on account of headlight visibility. In the class action lawsuit, it is being cited that Nissan has known about the defective headlight since 2013 but has failed to disclose the information to Nissan owners and drivers. I wonder, how much money would Nissan lose if they lose this settlement? If they are made to pay up for their defective vehicles? If they are made to take responsibility for their mistakes? Will I still receive a payout if I no longer own the black 2015 Nissan Altima?
MAKING IT MAKE SENSE
What is the ecological fallout of a car wreck? What is the environmental fallout of a car wreck? And is it better I call it a car wreck or a car accident? What is the difference? Does the difference matter? What happens when traffic is as still as the night sometimes seems and all the vehicles’ headlights, from a helicopter’s view, make the cars look like an asterism of Cassiopeia’s making? What happens when all of our vehicles are idling? Idling and pumping carbon emissions in the earth’s atmosphere? How long, in the junkyard, will a scrapped vehicle remain? And what do we do with the soil underneath the earth, on top of which all those metal and rusted parts go once dead? These are questions I am asking because I want to know that which I do not know. Like when I am driving home after teaching a class about narrative and end up idling on I-90, Lake Erie crashing against the pier to my right, and I am asking myself: What is going on? Why aren’t we moving? My impatience: a cosmonaut a part of the solar system.
A PART OF IT
Not too many things ruffle your feathers these days. Not since the therapy you started several years ago. Not since the Zoloft you started taking to manage your anxiety and depression. Not since, your friend M., once said to you on your way home from her poetry reading in Youngstown, Ohio, that one way she deals with traffic—be it vehicular or that of life—is to remind herself that she is not in traffic, but a part of it.