“Open Letters” is another of my ongoing columns, a catch-all collection of not-quite-hate mail addressed to those in a position to make best use of it. It’s not just a complaining rant but also advice. It’s advice that is unwarranted and likely unwelcome–but still potentially valuable.
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(I’ve lost all ability to view this post rationally. I’ve tried to avoid happy life lessons, pretention or sermonizing. Amazing how many words that left. Weird.)
Around the turn of the (most recent) century, my brother and I would take regular trips to the local mall’s now-extinct game store for a few friendly hours of Magic: the Gathering. It’s a customizable card game where you build a deck and then… okay, it’s Pokémon for big kids. Happy?
My brother and I would gather with other–often nerdier–types in order to do battle as only card-carrying (See what I did there?) sorcerers can. In retrospect, it probably made us feel less lame, being surrounded by the aura of Mountain Dew and no-odorant. Imagine a not-so-parallel universe where being relatively normal translates to an unwritten kind of cool. In the land of the socially blind, the one-liner man is king. Keep this in mind, as it comes up later in our story.
Among the semi-regular roster of opponents was Kenny (sorry… “Ken”), the slightly “off” guy who often came without changing out of his Chick-Fil-A uniform. When he wasn’t handing out bite sized samples of chicken, he was handing his ass to pimply teens. Upset by a few rookie defeats, a frustrated Ken requested my brother and I come over to his apartment/parent’s house and help him build a more formidable card deck to potentially help him win something.
My first reaction? To uneasily decline his offer, while giving my brother the “Can you believe this weirdo?” nod.
Our meeting place eventually closed and the game became less important (read: chicks). But as Magic: the Separating was happening, fate still had plans to cross my path with Kenny. I mean Ken (but will still keep saying “Kenny” anyway, thank you).
Out drinking with friends a year or two later, I mentioned Kenny (perhaps discussing Chick Fil-A as all drunken sinners do) in passing to people who had no business knowing him. But one girl did. She regaled me with the story of “Penny Kenny”, a misfit from her high school years that would gleefully collect dropped pennies, unaware they had been carefully planted by snickering classmates. I needed no confirmation. I could sense this was right. Penny Kenny was “our” Kenny. The oddball who wanted playing card lessons. The oddball I would see at various places for the next DECADE of my life.
Kenny popped up at the movieplex where I spent each weekend. Each time he’d tear my ticket, I’d try to offer a familiar greeting. And each time, I felt like I was convincing him he had met me. It was always awkward, but underneath it there was a little sympathy. It was clear he was likely still the butt of jokes among his coworkers. The low point in the story comes next, get ready to hate me.
On one particular visit to the mall, Kenny called me out for bringing an open food container into the theater. Was I embarrassed? Probably. Was I angry with him for doing his job? I don’t really think so. But as I strode through the line and headed towards my theater, I heard myself call him a “freak”. Out LOUD. Like I was a giggling sorority girl with the support of all the cool kids around me. Like for a moment Kenny’s relative uncoolness made me cool by (dis-)association. (Diss-association? Don’t laugh here. I’m an asshole, remember?)
In reality, I never really looked down on the guy. Not really. It was the fear or expectation of those around me that drove my madness. When he invited us over, my assumption was my brother was watching, so I dismissed it as laughable. When I insulted Kenny in the theater, it was a moment of blind stupidity, coupled with mild embarrassment and a waiting line of normal people behind me. While the (justly) burning guilt followed me throughout whatever movie I saw, Kenny likely forgot the encounter much sooner. Which is fortunate because…
Over the next several years, Kenny would pop up wherever I went. When his movie days passed, he moved all the way to the food court, slinging single slices of Sbarro with his trademark nervous stammer. When I asked him how he was doing, that moment of recognition drove him to confess point-blank “I turned 30 today.” “Happy birthday” I replied. As least I think so. He was becoming a staple in my routine (as was pizza), and Kenny went from being a source of discomfort or sympathy to a genuine “supporting character” in my life.
His thirties brought him out from behind the register to the carousel in the middle of the food court. Then later to an electronics store I was passing through in need of some… electronic thing, I suppose. I’d have forgotten that trip entirely. But Kenny was there. Unassuming, completely unaware of who I was, giving me yet another chance to introduce myself, which puts the stupidest grin on my face. There are definitely other places we saw the guy, but I’ve forgotten at the moment.
What is it that made Kenny the way he was? I’m sure he might’ve been a little autistic. It slowed him down socially, and perhaps was what kept him from putting down any occupational roots. Time rolled past, and after a while I stopped running across him (moving a few towns away is apparently the one way to shake up fate’s algorithms).
I have never been one of the “cool kids”. Instead of coming through life like a victim about it, I’ve tried to be the champion for other such “weirdos”. I’ve attempted (and failed, holy shit have I failed so many times) to include others. Not out of pity. I’m sure there are some loners and whackos that have absolutely earned the awkward bubble around them. But until someone proves otherwise, I want to give them a chance. Man, I’m gonna fuck that up so many more times in my life. But I “know better” now is what I’m saying.
How often I’ve been someone else’s Kenny? You?
This isn’t some after-school special. I’m not imparting life lessons. I haven’t stopped calling stupid people “retards”. I haven’t volunteered to help special needs kids. I can still be just as selfish, but am just irreversibly more aware now. Is part of it a simple matter of maturing? God I hope not. I think even in our most self-centered phase (our teens, early 20s?), we know when we are being a dick to someone. I think awareness is always there.
A few weeks ago, I Googled Kenny. I found two things: (1) Kenny’s Facebook page has filled in those “missing years” as his eternal job hunt rolls on (including a recent stint at another theater, of course); (2) a Facebook “fan page” put together by a group of his former co-workers who are at least half-mocking him (though not fully). My first reaction at the fan page was a sympathetic bit of indignant rage. But I doubt he’d have hurt feelings if was even aware of it. He’s clearly become a supporting character for other people too. He’s someone’s Kramer. Someone’s Urkel.
People talk of “letting your freak flag fly”. But to me that’s a very conscious decision. You are still making an effort, seeking attention even if what you are doing is “who you are”. I think it’s the things we don’t worry about controlling, the quirks that come so naturally to us… they are what make us genuine. And if you could define someone who’s honestly “cool” (interesting, attention-worthy), it would be someone who simply accepts him/herself and relates whatever they find to others. Not worrying about being unique or special… but not fading into the background either. I spent the first half of my life worrying about how much I could blend in. What for? How will I be remembered?
I’d love to be someone else’s Kenny, at least in the way that I think of the guy.
And all this is not to say that he’s happy and easygoing and life is great where he is now. I’m sure he’s still teased, probably hates the job spiral he’s in and still wants to figure out what he’s doing wrong. I’m not reducing him to something two-dimensional, or making him some kind of dopey saint to be admired for his simple Gumpian dignity. But from time to time, I think about the motherfucker. For every supporting character you get in life, you get a shit-ton of extras: bodies to fill your scenes, no speaking parts. I sincerely apologize for ever trying to be interchangeable.
Once in a while, I can see a past acquaintance struggling to remember my name. And I want to punch them in the part of the brain that remembers awesome shit. Because they are wasting it. Or worse… because they aren’t. Of course, after that, I’d be “that brain-punching guy”. So there’s that to look forward to.
Is it something I’ve “learned” from Kenny’s “story”? No. And fuck those clichés, by the way. It’s just how I feel at this point in my life. Nothing more grandiose than that.
When discussing my recent hunt for Kenny, my wife has joked with me that I’m getting obsessed with talking about him. She met him many of the times I mentioned above, and was able to take part in the occasional impromptu-Waldo-hunt with me back in the day. But obsessed? Okay, I guess. But I also obsessed over collecting playing cards, seeing movies in the theater, hitting the food court (or arcade, comic book store, etc.). And despite posting this tale and getting it out of my system, I doubt we’ve discussed Kenny for the last time either.
And you know who we haven’t discussed at length this week? Me neither.
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