Journalists say not to bury the lede, and this time I’m going to follow their advice. This isn’t a story with a twist. It’s my freakin’ life. My name is Larry Indiana, and I’m both a man and a city.
Wait, what?
Yeah, I get that a lot.
It’s not your typical form of existence, even taking into account split personalities and other mental abnormalities. As far as I know, I’m one-of-a-kind.
(Hey, mom was right about something!)
I’ve no idea why I am the way I am. My parents were both human. Unless my dad had an affair with a zip code.
Sorry, bad joke.
As you’ll probably be able to tell, I use humor a lot to deal with my situation.
I would say I was just born this way, but that’s not, strictly speaking, chronologically true. As a city (Larry, Indiana, pop. 52,000) I was incorporated in 1831. I wasn’t born as a human (Larry Indiana, only and beloved son of John and Melody Indiana) until 1987. My earliest memories are from the 1850s, although I didn’t remember them until the mid-90s.
Confusing, right? I always thought so, yet being this way never felt unnatural.
As a city, I have inhabitants. As a person, gut bacteria.
You don’t have to laugh.
But I really do have inhabitants: people who live within my geographical boundaries. I care for them. I feel them, which is where it gets metaphysically fuzzy, because sometimes my city-self affects my human-self and vice versa.
When Larry Indiana has a bad day, the weather in Larry, Indiana gets worse. When Larry Indiana gets into a longer existential funk, Larry, Indiana finds itself falling on tough times. Rising unemployment, inflation, increasing crime. When that causes urban dilapidation, my physical appearance suffers. Bags under my eyes, a persistent cough. If I don’t deal with traffic problems, I get nasally congested. Nasal congestion leads to tiredness, which leads to sluggishness, which lowers local productivity, which makes my boss mad at me, which threatens to lead to depression.
And Neither Larry Indiana nor Larry, Indiana want a depression. Believe you me.
I’ve struggled with these urban/mental issues ever since I’ve been concurrently both place and person. I went to psychologists. I saw urban planners. I even took an ill-advised roadtrip once, Larry Indiana to Larry, Indiana, hoping that visiting myself might help my self-understanding, but, boy, I’ll never make that mistake again!
What a migraine!
What an ontological crisis!
(The car crashes and the burning freakin’ buildings. My gosh.)
Nowadays I self-medicate by smoking marijuana. Sure, it means more foggy days and a bit more smog for my inhabitants, but it helps me relax, and a relaxed city is ultimately a good city. Better than an anxious city. Better than a suicidal city. I also compartmentalize. I try to deal with my two selves separately. I fail, but with the hope that next time I’ll fail a little better.
But let’s go back a few sentences because I’m intentionally avoiding something.
Lately, I haven’t been failing better. I’ve been failing worse. I got demoted at work. I’m distracted. My municipal government is playing budgetary games with me. I can’t start, let alone sustain, a relationship. I’ve got a drug problem in my downtown core. Homelessness. I feel adrift. I look at Google Earth and I don’t even recognize myself anymore. So: a suicidal city. Yeah, deep breath: I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about how I’d do it. Vividly. I picture myself as a corpse, as a ghost town, one of those places where the industry disappeared and the workers all hanged themselves in the abandoned factories. Asphalt cracked. Flesh decaying. Strangers taking my buildings apart to sell for scrap metal. Worms chewing away at my face.
But, golly, I don’t do it.
I don’t act on it. I only think about it. Besides, what would it mean? How would it work, if Larry Indiana slit his wrists and bled out in a tub, would Larry, Indiana continue to exist? How about if the death was urban. How about the continuation of the man…
You know, I met a psychologist once, Dr. Eugene Benson, who had the gall to tell me I was crazy. Like, how can a city be crazy? That’s crazy. “You should be locked up,” he told me. Well, he should be locked up! I’m not insane. A city cannot be insane. Thankfully, he’s gone now, Dr. Benson. Missing and presumed dead. But let me tell you a secret: he’s not dead at all. He’s confined to a basement—in Larry, Indiana!
That was a good one, right?
Haha.
You know what else really hurts a boy? When his mother, the one person who’s supposed to love him unconditionally, help him in his times of need, when that person starts becoming afraid of him. Her own son. Can you believe that? Behind his back, she starts contacting “professionals” and “experts”. No use. “There’s something off about him.” Yes, I cannot be comprehended! Still, it was a shame when she passed away so suddenly. Dreadful accident. I miss her dearly. She’s at peace now, buried out in a small cemetery within my city limits. Try to guess how that feels, to have your own mother buried inside you, carrying around the decomposing cadaver of the thing that gave birth to you. My people put her in the ground. My worms, they feast on her.
It feels freakin’ limitless.
Do I sound mad?
I ain’t mad.
Furthest from it, really. Because I’ve hit upon the nail that is the solution to my existential problem. Bang, bang. That’s not the sound of a gun but of a gavel. I was always looking for help in the wrong place. What I’ve been experiencing is not a mental problem but a legal one. Aren’t all problems at root legal problems? Someone said that once. If not, I’m saying it now: all problems are at root legal ones, and what does a city do when it arrives at a point of urban stagnation? It legally expands. Encourages growth. Population, fiscal, economic, physical. By introducing policies, passing by-laws. All my human life I have felt constrained because I am constrained. I am too much: for my body, for my boundaries. Already I have set my municipal council-members on a path of expansion. They’re buying up surrounding farmland, drawing up plans for the annexing of nearby towns. I am to be larger. Already I am nine feet and seven inches tall. I am a giant, but this is nothing—nothing compared to the gargantua I shall become!
Oh, mother. Oh, Dr. Benson.
Oh, you, reader!
I see what underhandedness you all were planning. Look at Larry, he’s different. We’re scared of Larry. Larry isn’t like everybody else. Larry is a freak. Larry is a menace to society. Well, I am my own society, you stupid human motherfuckers! You tried to drive me to suicide, to bankruptcy and economic ruin. To make a Detroit out of me, but I’ll show you. I’ll show you what I am. What I can become!
And who’ll be laughing then, huh?
Not me.
Not Larry, Indiana.
I’ll have a population of a million by then. Followed by ten million. I’ll fuck your New York Cities in the ass and breed your San Franciscos. I’ll multiply until there’s no space left that isn’t me. I’ll become a country, a continent, a planet, a goddamn universe! Remember that board game we played, mom. Yeah? (Silence.) You can’t answer because you’re fucking dead! You’re dead to me, and Risk is not a game. It’s an instruction manual. Risk is a motherfucking instruction manual—