Chapter 4: Danny

                To understand Danny one must first understand his childhood... which as Danny would point out is the way to understand anyone. Imagine a child with curiosity, more curiosity than other children. Imagine a curiosity that tended toward the macabre. Imagine a set of worried parents taking this child to countless Psychiatric and Educational Assessments.  Imagine a child who was enthralled with the idea of being able to see and understand what was in people’s brain. Imagine A child who developed a form of analysis that largely consisted of asking questions (which is rather like actual analysis).    Imagine a child who failed in school because he spent all of his time learning. Imagine a child whose intelligence was only superseded by his curiosity. Picture him.

Picture him and you will have pictured Danny in his formative years. The point is Danny never stopped asking questions and while it tended to make people uncomfortable (as well as think he was daft), it also tended to be very educational. Danny had learned long ago that everyone knew something. And usually that something involved something he did not know. In short Danny had decided to learn as much as possible about as much as possible (especially people). This typically involved asking as many people about as many things about what they believed, knew, thought, or did as possible before they called the police. Eventually Danny had realized that the only way people would tell him what he wanted to know was if he had some kind of reason for asking. 

Of course Danny did have a reason for asking; which was curiosity. This reason however never seemed to put people at ease so Danny decided to make it more official and call it research. Danny had found that by simply renaming his intent that people became more at ease. Of course some people were sharp enough to ask him what the research was for. After all he could not tell his research subjects that his research was for his own personal use. At first his response was to tell the m it was for a “paper” (because Danny often published his findings). But even this response only granted so much information. This was when he realized that he needed a project. Not even a project so much as a project title. Because after all Danny had a project to learn as much as possible about as much as possible, by asking as many people as possible as many questions as he could. Of course this would never do. One of the first things Danny learned in college was to never call anything what it was.

It took the power out of the scientific process. Yes research had shown that the more asinine and obtuse the title the more power it had. After all who would want to fund or participate in the project for why some people said "Y’all" and others said “you’s guys” when they could fund or participate In a project for “ Applied Linguistic relativity and Inter personal communication patterns of the North Eastern and Southern United States in relation to the plural third person indicative ”. In the End of course it did not really matter. The people involved would spend a lot and time and money to write a few articles and essays on what essentially was still their opinion. But the research made this credible. And the title made the research credible. So Danny went about making a title.

 

 At this point I would like to point out that Danny was in fact a credible researcher. He was a graduate student. Received the appropriate degrees, and was currently working under contract of a small grant.  He wasn’t just some yahoo asking people stupid questions for his own curiosity. He was an educated yahoo asking people stupid questions using someone else’s money for his own for his own curiosity. This as we have said before holds more credibility. In fact the only reason Danny had gone to college at all was credibility. Regardless it was in this quest that he had discovered the movement on the internet and decided to investigate, thus making him the fourth (technically third) member of the group.  Danny had called the number on the website. The conversation that ensued was to lengthy to quote verbatim, suffice it to say  Danny asked a lot of questions, Jack answered all of his questions, and  Danny agreed to meet with the group the following day at a diner near the end of town.           

 

“Hi, I believe we spoke on the phone.”

 

“Yes, have a seat. My name is Jack; this is Leo, and Anna.”

 

“Hi” Only Jack was looking at him.” I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about your group.”

 

“I’m not a member” Anna was stabbing at her pie.

 

Jack coughed “Technically none of us are. You see we are not really an organization.”

 

“Oh, in your website you said that…”

 

Jack raised his hand, “it’s complicated.”

 

“So you’re not a Group.” Danny was starting to get confused.

 

“Well that depends on what you mean by group, if you mean multiple people located in close approximation, than obviously we are a group. However if you mean a number of people who share a common politic, belief or agenda, who gather together because of said politic, belief, or agenda, than no we are not a group.”

 

Anna looked up from her plate. “Either way I am not a member.”

 

Danny was now completely confused

 

At this point Leo stood up, stirred his coffee, looked at Danny and sat down

 

               

                Danny gave Jack and Anna a strange look. Jack explained that Leo was trying to “Be”. Danny gave Jack a stranger look.  Jack shrugged. After a further explanation of Leo’s dilemma Danny tried explaining to Leo that death, was probably not the best stimuli for confirming existence (God‘s or Leo‘s), and that if he really wanted to confirm his hypothesis (that he in fact existed) scientifically, he would need a control (in order to demonstrate that it was truly existence that he was experiencing and not some other phenomena).

Danny proceeded to explain that the majority of things required some evidence of their existence. This Danny called the psychology of shampoo. This was in reference to the fact that the majority of shampoos contain a chemical which sole purpose is to create “suds”. Though this chemical does not assist in cleaning, shining, healing or otherwise shampooing the hair, it does tend to burn the eyes on contact. The reason for this, Danny Said, was that people expected to see (or more accurately feel) suds when they used shampoo. And the shampoo company’s learned long ago that if the shampoo did not suds the user of the shampoo would assume that it was defective, or somehow less superior to shampoos which did produce suds. 

Danny also explained that since most young children ( and some rather silly adults) do not expect suds, and would rather not have a burning sensations in their eyes, shampoos of the tears free variety simply exclude the chemical that creates suds, and thus eliminate the unwanted side effect of pain. Danny continued at some length after this discussing schemas and the general application of dye in food products, before ending somehow nicely on transcendental meditation. Of course everyone had really stopped listening after his amusing anecdote about shampoo, but his point was taken none the less, or so everyone thought.

 

 

                That night Leo purchased two types of shampoo making sure that one of them was of the “tear free” variety. The next morning Leo tried both shampoos.  First he applied the control shampoo, nothing happened, no suds, no confirmation of existence.  Suspecting that the first shampoo was defective (because there were no suds) Leo had decided to wash his hair again with the other shampoo, of the “dandruff free” variety. The second shampoo burnt Leo’s eyes so severely that he stumbled out of the shower, tripped on the toilet, and hit his head squarely on the sink. But before Leo slipped into the darkness he saw a Light.

 

                In fact the light was still there when he regained consciousness. He tried standing the Light stated doing neat spirals and twists reminiscent of a Pink Floyd laser show Leo’s brother had insisted on bringing him to. After his Head cleared a little (which is to say it was dully whispering rather than all out screaming) he realized two important things. First he had died. Second He had seen a light. This was the sign he had been searching for. He had finally experienced a genuine religious experience. He pondered this for a while. Religious experiences he decided felt a lot like concussions. So Leo decided to go to the Hospital just in case.  To Leo Relief The people at the hospital (all of which at this point recognized Leo on sight.) assured Leo that there was nothing wrong with him (at least no more than usual). They assured him he had not suffered brain damage and did not need to check into the hospital and should immediately leave the premises. This of course, had more to do with the fact that Leo (after the 45th near death experience in the hospital) had been banned (for insurance reasons), than the security guards’ (who had met Leo at the entrance) ability to diagnose a concussion. But none the less Leo was assured. Leo had finally experienced religion.*

               

 

                Leo Realized that now that he had had a religious experience he would need to change. After all what would be the point of getting answers to life’s all important questions if he was still the exact same person he was before he had received an answer to them. He obviously could not remain the same, something had to change. That after all was the point of religious experiences. The only problem was Leo could not think of anything to change. As far as he could tell nothing he was doing was against any of the major religions; he gave alms,  read all of the holy books, attended many different services, of many different faiths, Meditated, prayed, served, and on four memorable occasions was even baptized. In fact he had done all of these things since he was a child. Even later as an adult, while searching for answers, and keeping his options open he had explored a number of religions, philosophies, and sects, and with one or two minor exceptions (mostly dealing with self-mutilation, and the non-drinking of beverages brewed) tried to follow all of the rules, just on the off chance that any or all of them might be correct. And since he had already lead what might be considered a squeaky clean and (as stated before) obtuse life, he realized it would take him a while to figure out what he could possibly do differently. Leo began to wish he had not been so good. If only he had allowed himself to be propositioned by the devil. Who knew, He may have been lucky enough to have been a drug addict, a pimp, politician, or even a televangilist. Something, anything he could repent for. But no, he had nothing .Eventually at a loss for ideas he decided to Google “change”.

 

                Nothing truly useful came of this, so eventually he gave up and began to read the song lyrics. He hadn’t realized how many songs had contained the word change (or some variable thereof). He was Amazed most of these were songs he knew. Songs he had heard but never really listened to. Suddenly he realized he hadn’t actually listened to music at all. It had always been there, but he never really heard it. He always looked at it as a beat or a noise. Something that other peopled often played too loudly. That was it. That’s what he would change. He would listen to music, every word, every bar, every beat, and every single note. He would enjoy everything the world of music had to offer, from country, to slam, he would listen. He would know. He had his answer he knew what he would do.

 

                Leo was good on his word. He had listened as closely as he possibly could. In fact Leo had memorized the lyrics to virtually every song he had listened to. His head was full of lyrics from country to hip hop to punk he knew them all. This in and of itself was not a terrible thing. What made a terrible thing was that in memorizing all of those lyrics his mind had trouble retaining anything else. Again this would not be so bad if it had not also developed the nasty habit of spitting them out randomly while Leo was attempting to speak. The result of which was similar to a game played on a popular improvisational television show where the player can only speak in song lyrics.

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*              At this point one or two of our more serious readers may argue that Religion, has nothing to do with shampoo, or light, or concussions or ridicules things like that, but rather true religion involves soul searching, good deeds, and an occasionally half way decent pot luck, and even if seeing a light when you die has a little to do with Religion it certainly is not the whole of Religion. At which point the Authors would like to say, that we never said that it did, we only said Leo had a religious experience, and had experienced religion. You drew your own conclusions about how and why. So don’t use that tone of thought with us.

Author's Note

need help with punctuation. Grammar and style are intentional.