Lostman: Or (The Unexpected Dumbness of Strangers) (T. Chase Meacham)
Oh my God, I love her hair. Yeah.
Am I recording? I think so.
 Um. I’m....I’m lost?
I’m trying to go...to the Court House.
 The Court House. It’s where they try people—
But I need to go...you would? Okay.
 Maybe we should start over.
 ...a Court House. The Court House Station.
Can you...can you help me get there?
We’re right here. That was amazing. Can you be this direct, until we get to the Court House?
 Ah. My name is, ah...um. Theodore.
 It’s nice to meet you too. What is your name?
That’s amazing. If I was a girl I would have been named Ferdinand. So my parents tell me.
 And they’re assassins?
I’ve already forgotten.
I have a really small memory.
I’m just not very bright. It’s a thing that I struggle with.
 A Court House. From this way? Alright.
Okay. I’m gonna mind the gap.
Alright. We’re gonna sit here.
 Ah. So, this is a new train system?
I haven’t seen this before.
I’ve never been here before.
I’ve been in DC, I’ve never seen trains. Yeah.
Ah...like with the, um, like the big balloons?
Oh, those are the submarines! Okay.
Ah, I haven’t seen planes.
I’ve seen cars. With the horses.
I’m not on Facebook, so I’m a little behind.
 I have a Friendster. I follow hip bands on it.
Yeah. (clears throat) I’m trying to set the trends. (clears throat again) I’m...retroactively setting the trends.
I’m trying to backpedal. I’m trying to reconnect with my 90s friends.
 You know, what I just heard from my 2000s friends?? There’s going to be a Pokémon app....for iPhone!
I mean a Pokémon app for iPhone! So you can play your Pokémon on your iPhone!!
Amazing. I am so fucking excited.
That will be the day I will officially get nothing done. For the rest of my life.
I played Gold Version. Competitively.
Against myself. And my friends.
I was really....self-motivated, with my Pokémon. I felt like I had to catch them all.
Has anyone ever told you, you look like Ash Katchum?
 Why does my....my hair looks like shit today?
It really looks disgusting....my friend was like, “what the fuck product are you using, and can I introduce you to literally any other product, because this looks disgusting.” Because really. And it’s like tacky, and it’s...
I gotta get it fixed. Gotta go back to my drag queen barber.
Oh wait, that’s me. I’m sorry. What’s your name?
Ferdinand? I...I tend to repeat and, and get names confused. I’m just really sl—
I thought my name was Thaddeus?
 My mom tells me I’m special.
...to be quiet and go upstairs.
....is that the....African American rights group?
Ohhhh, okay, the basketball group.
 I don’t do competitive eating. I used to do Rubik’s Cube spin-offs.
They put a bunch of us in a big room with a bear, and we had to solve Rubik’s Cubes....
...before the bear solved the Rubik’s Cubes.
He knew the algorithms, so well. I mean it’s just...you get that thing on muscle memory and it’s just, there’s no contest. I lost a lot of friends that way.
 Do you competitively eat?
Whole chickens? Like, living chickens?
You just wet them and shove them down?
Oh, wow. That sounds very hard. Do you eat the feathers, or spit them out?
Ohhhhh, so it’s like a decoration! Like you’re making a little headdress!
So, you don’t have to eat the bird?
 Ah. So you play basketball?
Ohhhh. You know I was once on the Purple Team at St. Agatha’s Elementary Parish. We all had colors, because we all played each other. And I think they thought that if we all had colors we wouldn’t get attached, and overly competitive. And we’d be under this guise that everyone was a winner, which was abjectly false, because I was so much worse than virtually everyone else on the team.
But my daddy was the vice-coach, so I still got to play!
(Though I did not want to.)
I think he wanted me...yeah. Daddy wanted me to be a star.
I tried....golf. Tennis. Basketball. Ice hockey, for literally one game.
I tried mud wrestling. Yeah. That was tough because I didn’t like to get the little leotards dirty...and it was really hard to avoid doing that. Yeah.
Yeah I do a little Turkish Oil Wrestling.
We’d go to bathhouses for that.
Yeah. Mom telling me that I was special, and dad telling me to be quiet, as they drove me to the bathhouse.
It’s the bathhouse capital. At least in the Midwest. We’re known for corn, and gay brothels.
That’s where our gothels are!
Our gothels! A little squeak. You kind of got to pop it up into your falsetto, and then they let you in.
The pet rat had some medical complications, and so we got the pet rat surgery. Which my father said was a fucking waste of money.
But, more than it cost, by many folds.
Ah...it had a mammary tumor.
And we...we got it removed. Um.
And my father said, gently... “this thing cost five dollars, at the Petco down the street."
Ironically, my sisters’ rats, about six months after that, got diagnosed with medical pneumonia and had to be kept in an oxygen tent for surveillance overnight, and then fed antibiotics via syringe, every day for two weeks.
And again, my father said, politely: “these things, collectively, cost ten dollars. Down the street."
It’s a lot of rat-love.
 Now I just keep a couple little urchins under the stairs.
No, like children. Orphans.
Boy sea urchins. Oirchins.
I keep them covered in soot. I think that's good for their stamina; it makes them sweep harder...
A little chimney. But I only give them toothbrushes because I think that makes them appreciate...
Yeah. If they, if they, if they sweep successfully, they get a little biscuit.
Like a little dog biscuit.
Yeah, I try to keep it real.
I’m told that I’m a good parent.
My dad tells me to be quiet and go upstairs.
...go back to the bathhouse, to...
 Oh, she’s darling. She is a....
 Debutante Mistress. She’s a Debutante Mistress. Yeah.
 She was Miss Southern Belle, class of 1942.
But she has clung on to that title.
She was a tyke. She was one of those little toddlers who do those things.
And little corsets. Really fucked up her spine.
But she looked just darling.
She’s really competitive though, so she goes back every year.
I was...I’m a lot of things to my mother.
I was her pretty little girl. And she put me in what she won with, in 1940...whatever it was.
I was her pretty little girl. And then I was...
I was briefly her pretty little...
I was briefly Miss Debutante Ball, Miss 1996. But then mom came back in 97 and took the title away.
She’s got a cherub face, and a big trophy case.
When you win, they give you a little flower, and a BOTOX® shot. Which, as like a six year-old, was not very...
 I think you can save it, yeah. So, you know, if you want to go in the working world for a while, and then come back and shoot back down to your six year-old performance self. You can make it happen.
 So, that’s a little about me.
 Fox and the Hound, this has been so...
I still don’t know where I’m going. But I’m going to try and wander.
Peace to where you’re going.