american mysticism

by Marty Shambles

Everybody wants to be Chandler, but they are not Chandler. I am fucking Chandler. I am all that and a bag of chips. I beat out thousands of other would-be Chandlers. But they didn't have the juice--that Chandler juice. There are microplastics in dolphins' breath. The world is coming down around us. What's left is the irredeemable sensation that we went wrong somewhere; that the streets sag with the weight of bad decisions; that we are, sickened people who have no friends. So, in I come, Chandler, to play my part as a friend to America; to resurrect the power and prestige we once upheld. The director is a mincing intellectual named Aleister Crawley. (Yes, of the Connecticut Crawleys.) Using his trust for a vivisection of American theatre--to lay out the theatre prostrate and helpless for the knives jingoist magicks to cut. Crawley said in our first rehearsal, "The poet and playwright Antonin Artaud said that theatre at its best could be a magickal ritual to conjure up spirits or goliaths. That's what we're doing here. We're calling forth the goliath that looms in the American consciousness, that towering specter of the hegemon. This reboot of Friends is magick ceremony to bring back the Twin Towers, literally." I can bring back the Twin Towers because I am Chandler.

We all stay in character all the time. We live in replicas of the Friends apartments. I don't know my co-stars' real names. But that doesn't matter anymore. They are now Phoebe, Joey, Rachel, Ross, and Monica. We don't look exactly like our televisual counterparts, but our zodiacs are aligned in ways I don't really understand. I don't need to understand. I need to be Chandler. Full method immersion. This is what it takes to bring back the Twin Towers. And if I can't hack it, there are hundreds of actors ready to take my place.

In the episode, that is the play, that is the ritual, that will bring back the Twin Towers, Joey brings into Rachel's and Monica's apartment a suitcase. Joey is freaking out and I, Chandler, offer some sarcastic barbs, as is my wont. I drink a glass of water as he opens the suitcase, in the kitchen with the quirky furniture, to reveal a nuclear bomb. I do a spit take, spraying microplastics everywhere. Now is not a time for jokes, I say, "When I said your acting career was going to bomb, this is not what I meant." Phoebe says, "I'm super against this. I think bombs are bad for the environment." Ross, indignant, "Bombs are bad for everything! That's kind of the point of bombs!" Phoebe says, "You don't have to go off on me like that." Monica says, "Can we not say 'go off' so close to the bomb? It might get ideas." Eventually, Joey accidentally arms the bomb, and the timer says we have 30 minutes to disarm it. Rachel says, "I say we run. Get out of the city as soon as possible." Ross says, "During rush hour? There's no way we'd get out of the blast radius in time." The bomb squad is called, and they can't disarm it in time. It's a whole thing. I am scribbling in a notebook all episode, and at the end I deliver a eulogy for all of us.

We don't perform all the scenes sequentially until opening night, when we perform at Ground Zero. Aleister Crawley says, "If we don't get it right tonight, we won't get another chance. The cosmic penalty for attempting this magick—and failing—is to be doomed to the mundane forever. So go out there and make some American myths!" The play begins. Joey runs in with the nuke. Everything is moving like a clockwork bomb. We've gone through each scene hundreds of times. We know them like we know our names. My name is Chandler, and I am in the zone. My blocking is flawless; my comic timing--impeccable. I say,
we won't get a graveside
we won't get a parade of mourners
we won't get anything we deserve.

As the play draws to a close, here at Ground Zero, I feel the enormity of destruction as Chandler says my last words, the warm trickle of a tear rolls my cheek and onto the ground.

Beneath us comes a rumble and roar. Aleister Crawley tells us to move from the spot, or we'll go up with the tower. All the rest of my Friends get off the building and run to a safe distance. I am in awe of the enormity of the moment. How splendorous. How holy. I don't move in time, and the ground begins to elevate in the shapes of two rectangles as Twin Towers rise from street level. As I go up, I see the lights of the city flicker and wave. Maybe it was the tears in my eyes, but it seemed like the city was waving goodbye to me. I rise above the fracas and the fray, up past the skyscrapers, past everything really, and I can see Brooklyn waving too, up until I got that weird weightless feeling you get at the end of a fast elevator ride. I walk to the edge of the tower and look down. I'm way too high and I get vertigo. I, Chandler, say, "Bad idea. This was a bad idea." I drop to my knees and crawl back from the edge. I look over at the other tower, (the twin if you will.) It looks so lonesome. Up here with its twin sibling. They are alone. But at least they have each other. There is mostly nothing on this roof except for a door which presumably leads down into the tower. I, Chandler, say, "Well, hello! Fancy meeting you here," to the door, and let myself into the tower.

I go down a flight of stairs and there's the top floor. I walk onto the floor. It's fairly dark, lit by one fluorescent light in the center of an empty office space. The light illuminates an unplugged CRT TV on the green office carpet. As I approach, it turns on. I, Chandler, say, "Well that's not creepy at all." I look at the screen, into the screen, through the glass, the photons shift and sway. An image emerges and sounds emanate. It's... it's the WWF: Wizard Wrestling Federation. I, Chandler, say, "Fuck yeah!" and watch the match.

The match is between The Mithril Fist and Kron: The Flayer. Kron is the heel. He is in the arena, holding The Orb of Summoning. The crowd boos at Kron for his arrogance. The babyface, Mithril Fist, comes out to Kendrick Lamar as the crowd goes wild. A faceless man hands him a microphone. "Kron, you dare steal The Orb of summoning from my lair? Prepare to get Fisted!" Kron laughs and holds up the Orb. The crowd boos some more. Kron disappears and uses The Orb of Summoning to summon a giant hell beast that steps on the arena and instantly kills everyone inside. It cuts to the wizard locker room after the bout. The Mithril Fist is fine. It was fixed the whole time.

I feel like I can't move. I try to get up and leave but I am transfixed. I'm drifting away to join the cosmic consciousness. I am no longer I. Chandler is no more. I dissolve to third person, omniscient.

Aleister Crawley holds a press conference. "Yes, we did it. We brought back the towers. We are licensing the play for 1 billion dollars per performance. If you want your own World Trade Center, you can have it for 1/5 the price of constructing the original, (when adjusted for inflation.) Does your hometown need a World Trade Center? Get your own today!" After this announcement, a graffiti artist somehow manages to paint two giant targets on the new towers, exactly where the planes hit. Officials denounce the graffiti as a terrorist act, stating that the perpetrators belong in Guantanamo. The general public finds it tasteless.

There's a comfort with the return of the towers. It means Americans can go on not caring about the world again, as the great, lumbering hell beast of American empire stomps the arena of the Global South, with the kayfabe of democracy. Americans rest easier knowing that they don't have to think about depressing stuff like war and plunder anymore. It just happens...

Click here to read Marty’s bio.