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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Life The Fence

Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 9:56 AM

Clive Stapely, an Eton-educated English aristocrat, is walking with me through the woods at the back of my house in Harare. It is 1988, the weather is mild, we cross a stream. I want to show Clive, a man I deeply admire (and may even love—I certainly love his sister, who lives in Italy but only exists for me in the photos on the table beside the bed he slept in during the summer we spent in Gaborone), the giant bamboos in my neighbor's yard. There is nothing like giant bamboos. They give a human an ant's perspective of grass.

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We reach the fence; I show him the bamboos; he is clearly impressed—but he wants a closer look. Slender, young, and tall Clive jumps over the fence without a second thought and begins walking toward the towering bamboos. From the other side of the fence, I yell that it's wrong to jump the fence and to walk on someone's property without permission. Clive turns to me and says: "Charles, I had no idea you worry about such things. Worrying about fences is so... middle class." Those words sting me. They hit the heart of my emerging political feelings. Clive is beginning to see me as man in a cage of middle-class values. Before this picture is complete, I jump the fence, and together we walk into the magical forest of giant bamboos.

Image by Pat Rioux

Comments (20) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Haha...pwned.

Posted by Ziggity on July 2, 2009 at 9:58 AM

So...this explains your distaste for the middle class (and thus your love of tagging from the previous post)? Because some stupid limey with a hot sister made fun of you in 1988? I'll say it again: you a very strange man.

Posted by Hernandez

on July 2, 2009 at 9:59 AM

Hey !

What happened to my post? Where'd it go?

Posted by hartiepie on July 2, 2009 at 10:02 AM

Worrying about fences is a good way to not get shot.

Posted by Fnarf

on July 2, 2009 at 10:11 AM

.... and the upper class (whatever that is) doesn't have to follow rules, laws or protocols.

"We can do what we want. Fuck you!"

Posted by hartiepie on July 2, 2009 at 10:13 AM

Lovely variety of posts this morning, Charles.

Posted by gloomy gus on July 2, 2009 at 10:13 AM

Mr. Stapely is a typical aristocrat. Contemptuous yet utterly dependent on the status quo that indulges and coddles him. Cool picture of the bamboo though.

Posted by JR Labrador on July 2, 2009 at 10:15 AM

There's a lot of people in the middle-class making the world a better place than you are with your insipid Kerouac-esque maudlin intellectualism.

Please tell me you're being ironic and trying to satirize being a beatnik.

Posted by Ackham on July 2, 2009 at 10:21 AM

good thing you didn't try and show him a bamboo grove in montana or idaho. your ass would get shot.

Posted by Max Solomon on July 2, 2009 at 10:21 AM

This is the beginning of a nice piece of gay erotica. Please complete the story so I can wrap up here.

Posted by Colin on July 2, 2009 at 10:26 AM

Yes #9 the upperclass body will accept bullets just as easily as the middle and lower classes.

Posted by sleepchamber on July 2, 2009 at 10:35 AM

*thumbs down* *raspberry*

Posted by McGee on July 2, 2009 at 11:19 AM

If somebody came up to my door and asked if they could walk in my garden, I'd most likely let them in. Hell, I'd probably make lemonade and sandwiches. On the other hand, if I caught people jumping the fence to get into my yard, I'd yell at them to get out and maybe call the police. That's middle class values for you.

Posted by Greg on July 2, 2009 at 11:47 AM

As we make our way through the magic bamboo forest, a giant panda suddenly appears. Fearlessly, Clive approaches the beast and offers it a bamboo leaf. The panda reaches out, then quickly grabs Clive's wrist and wrenches his arm from the socket. Clive screams in agony, but before he can recover, the panda has pulled him in, crushing his chest and breaking his back. I watch in horror as the panda bites Clive's face repeatedly, ripping through the flesh on his skull and cracking the bone beneath. As I turn and run for my life, I think, you know...his sister isn't that hot after all.

Posted by crazycatguy on July 2, 2009 at 11:51 AM

Charles, you are a tiny bit crazy. But you are also the best writer at the Stranger.

Thank you.

Posted by Reverse Polarity on July 2, 2009 at 11:59 AM

Today's episode of Masterpiece Theatre is sponsored by Mobil/Exxon and starred Charles Mudede and Jeremy Irons in an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's lost masterpiece, "Harare Revisted"

Posted by michael strangeways

on July 2, 2009 at 12:39 PM

@16 - Heh.

I sense that I have nothing culturally in common with Mr. Mudede. I also sense that his Eton-educated aristocrat friend is someone on whom I'd love to sic a dog.

Posted by Quintus Slide on July 2, 2009 at 1:22 PM

@15: ditto!

Posted by Timrrr on July 2, 2009 at 2:19 PM

Try taking a walk on an upper-class owned estate or an upper-class community. The rich are very concerned with fences because fences keep the people that support their opulence away. Of course the rich are concerned with fences. Fences protect them from fairness and justice, and their fences are the tallest and most heavily guarded in the world. Mr. Stapely is both rich and stupid which makes him common at best. No one should care what he thinks.

Posted by Toasterhedgehog on July 2, 2009 at 5:32 PM

@19, I think that rich people think that THEIR fences are very important. It's just OTHER PEOPLES' fences that are so middle class.

Posted by moofie on July 5, 2009 at 7:05 PM