Ken Cormier is a teacher, performance poet, independent radio producer, and musician. He is the author of two collections of stories and poems: Balance Act (Insomniac Press 2000) and The Tragedy in My Neighborhood (Dead Academics Press 2010). He has released three CDs of original music: God Damn Doghouse (2000) and Radio-Bueno (2002) with Elis Eil Records, and Nowhere Is Nowhere (2009) with Cosmodemonic Telegraph Records. Ken’s live performances have been described as “a William Burroughs exorcism through a Karaoke machine.” Ken co-founded and edited The Lumberyard, a radio magazine of poetry, prose and music, which aired weekly on WHUS in Connecticut from 2005-2008. Ken is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Quinnipiac University.
“Economics” is the third of six short-shorts from Ken Cormier that will run every other week for 12 weeks.
I am having trouble controlling my children. In every situation they scream and run at top speed in all directions and hit each other and knock down objects and throw things. I tell them in my loudest voice that they must obey. They must be obedient, I say. This is what I was told when I was a child, and I am obedient now. I always do what I am told, or, if I am not told what to do, I always think very hard and calculate what would be the most obedient thing to do, and then I do that. But I cannot control my children by appealing to them in this way. Today, at the playground, I meet a retired professor from the local university. He was a professor of Economics, he says, and I nod and smile broadly. He stands stiffly, and I can see that he has a little trouble moving. He wears a broad-brimmed hat, and his long-sleeved t-shirt is tucked into his dark blue jeans. I remember a couple of my old friends who majored in Economics fifteen or so years ago, but when I ask him if their names sound familiar he shakes his head. “I was the department chair for a lot of years back then,” he says, “and I often taught graduate classes instead of undergraduate.” I nod and smile. My boys are climbing up the plastic slides and grunting like pigs. The retired professor of Economics scans the playground and spots his three granddaughters on the swings. He orients his body toward the swings and slowly begins to move in that direction. I tell him it was nice to chat, and he waves me off. Despite my obedience—or maybe because of it—I often get the impression that I am not a pleasant person to be around. Sometimes I wonder if it is simply a matter of my looks. I have severe facial features, and my hair, as I’ve aged, has become wiry and limp. I look at my boys, and sometimes I envy their youth and vitality. But then it occurs to me that it’s only a matter of time before they too will start to fade and diminish, and they will find themselves looking back and regretting that unnamed something that they seem to have possessed but somehow lost. I watch the retired professor of Economics creep toward his granddaughters, and for a moment I am dazzled by his slow, diligent progress, his marvelous resolve, his physical stamina. I look straight up at the sky and notice the way the sun defines the sharp outline of a lone white cloud against the deep blue background. Then I tell my boys it’s time to go, and we begin to make our circuitous route back to the car.
