Downtown Owl
Chuck Klosterman
ALSO BY CHUCK KLOSTERMAN
Fargo Rock City:
A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs:
A Low Culture Manifesto
Killing Yourself to Live:
85% of a True Story
Chuck Klosterman IV:
A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas
SCRIBNER
A Division of Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Chuck Klosterman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof
in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department,
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klosterman, Chuck, 1972–
Downtown Owl: a novel / by Chuck Klosterman.—1st Scribner hardcover ed.
p. cm.
1. North Dakota—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3611.L67D69 2008
813'.6—dc22
2007047088
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-8065-2
ISBN-10: 1-4165-8065-4
Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com
For Melissa, and for North Dakota.
This story is a non-autobiographical work of fiction.
DOWNTOWN OWL
Contents
Killer blizzard paralyzes region
AUGUST 15, 1983
AUGUST 25, 1983
AUGUST 28, 1983
AUGUST 29, 1983
SEPTEMBER 2, 1983
SEPTEMBER 8, 1983
SEPTEMBER 9, 1983
SEPTEMBER 26, 1983
OCTOBER 12, 1983
OCTOBER 17, 1983
OCTOBER 22, 1983
OCTOBER 26, 1983
OCTOBER 29, 1983
NOVEMBER 1, 1983
NOVEMBER 8, 1983
NOVEMBER 21, 1983
NOVEMBER 22, 1983
NOVEMBER 23, 1983
NOVEMBER 24, 1983
NOVEMBER 25, 1983
DECEMBER 9, 1983
DECEMBER 21, 1983
DECEMBER 22, 1983
DECEMBER 28, 1983
NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1984
JANUARY 5, 1984
JANUARY 7, 1984
JANUARY 11, 1984
JANUARY 17, 1984
JANUARY 20, 1984
JANUARY 23, 1984
JANUARY 26, 1984
JANUARY 29, 1984
JANUARY 31, 1984
FEBRUARY 3, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
FEBRUARY 4, 1984
Storm victim excelled on sports field, in community
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FEBRUARY 5, 1984
Killer blizzard paralyzes region
FARGO, N.D. (UPI)—At least 11 people are dead and dozens more remain missing in the wake of the Red River Valley’s most cataclysmic winter storm in more than a decade.
“This has been beyond a nightmare scenario,” Lyle Condon of the National Weather Service said. “The speed with which this particular storm system moved across the region was almost unprecedented. By the time the reality of this blizzard became obvious, it was already too late for a whole lot of people.”
Surprisingly, snow accumulations from the killer storm only measure between one and two inches. The intensity of the disaster was solely a product of its wind. Pushed by an “Alberta Clipper” that formed over British Columbia, Saturday’s storm was punctuated by gusts of between 55 and 80 m.p.h., dropping visibility in open areas to less than a foot. At 6 p.m., the windchill factor at Fargo’s Hector Internal Airport was measured at 74 degrees below zero. This falls in stark contrast with the local meteorological conditions just three hours prior, which NWS officials described as “calm, sunny, and unseasonably warm” (39 degrees).
The storm’s initial northerly blast knocked numerous moving vehicles off of roadways and into ditches, particularly those cars and trucks moving along an east-west trajectory. Carbon monoxide killed four people on Fargo’s 19th Avenue when their trapped vehicle was covered by drifting snow. The extent of the casualties remains less clear in rural areas, where many of the blizzard’s victims are still classified as missing.
AUGUST 15, 1983
(Mitch)
When Mitch Hrlicka heard that his high school football coach had gotten another teenage girl pregnant, he was forty bushels beyond bamboozled. He could not understand what so many females saw in Mr. Laidlaw. He was inhumane, and also sarcastic. Whenever Mitch made the slightest mental error, Laidlaw would rhetorically scream, “Vanna? Vanna? Are you drowsy, Vanna? Wake up! You can sleep when you are dead, Vanna!” Mr. Laidlaw seemed unnaturally proud that he had nicknamed Mitch “Vanna White” last winter, solely based on one semifunny joke about how the surname “Hrlicka” needed more vowels. Mitch did not mind when other kids called him Vanna, because almost everyone he knew had a nickname; as far as he could tell, there was nothing remotely humiliating about being called “Vanna,” assuming everyone understood that the name had been assigned arbitrarily. It symbolized nothing. But Mitch hated when John Laidlaw called him “Vanna,” because Laidlaw assumed it was humiliating. And that, clearly, was his goal.
Christ, it was humid. When Mitch and his teenage associates had practiced that morning at 7:30 a.m., it was almost cool; the ground had been wet with dew and the clouds hovered fourteen feet off the ground. But now—eleven hours later—the sun was burning and falling like the Hindenburg. The air was damp wool. Mitch limped toward the practice field for the evening’s upcoming death session; he could already feel sweat forming on his back and above his nose and under his crotch. His quadriceps stored enough lactic acid to turn a triceratops into limestone. “God damn,” he thought. “Why do I want this?” In two days the team would begin practicing in full pads. It would feel like being wrapped in cellophane while hauling bricks in a backpack. “God damn,” he thought again. “This must be what it’s like to live in Africa.” Football was not designed for the summer, even if Herschel Walker believed otherwise.
When Mitch made it to the field, the other two Owl quarterbacks were already there, facing each other twelve yards apart, each standing next to a freshman. They were playing catch, but not directly; one QB would rifle the ball to the opposite freshman, who would (in theory) catch it and immediately flip it over to the second QB who was waiting at his side. The other quarterback would then throw the ball back to the other freshman, and the process would continue. This was how NFL quarterbacks warmed up on NFL sidelines. The process would have looked impressive to most objective onlookers, except for the fact that both freshman receivers dropped 30 percent of the passes that struck them in the hands. This detracted from the fake professionalism.
Mitch had no one to throw to, so he served as the holder while the kickers practiced field goals. This duty required h
im to crouch on one knee and remain motionless, which (of course) is not an ideal way to get one’s throwing arm loose and relaxed. Which (of course) did not really matter, since Coach Laidlaw did not view Mitch’s attempts at quarterbacking with any degree of seriousness. Mitch was not clutch. Nobody said this, but everybody knew. It was the biggest problem in his life.
At 7:01, John Laidlaw blew into a steel whistle and instructed everyone to bring it in. They did so posthaste.
“Okay,” Laidlaw began. “This is the situation. The situation is this: We will not waste any light tonight, because we have a beautiful evening with not many mosquitoes and a first-class opportunity to start implementing some of the offense. I realize this is only the fourth practice, but we’re already way behind on everything. It’s obvious that most of you didn’t put five goddamn minutes into thinking about football all goddamn summer, so now we’re all behind. And I don’t like being behind. I’ve never been a follower. I’m not that kind of person. Maybe you are, but I am not.
“Classes start in two weeks. Our first game is in three weeks. We need to have the entire offense ready by the day we begin classes, and we need to have all of the defensive sets memorized before we begin classes. And right now, I must be honest: I don’t even know who the hell is going to play for us. So this is the situation. The situation is this: Right now, everybody here is equally useless. This is going to be an important, crucial, important, critical, important two weeks for everyone here, and it’s going to be a real kick in the face to any of you who still want to be home watching The Price Is Right. And I know there’s going to be a lot of people in this town talking about a lot of bull crap that doesn’t have anything to do with football, and you’re going to hear about certain things that happened or didn’t happen or that supposedly happened or that supposedly allegedly didn’t happen to somebody that probably doesn’t even exist. These are what we call distractions. These distractions will come from all the people who don’t want you to think about Owl Lobo football. So if I hear anyone on this team perpetuating those kinds of bullshit stories, everyone is going to pay for those distractions. Everyone. Because we are here to think about Owl Lobo football. And if you are not thinking exclusively—exclusively—about Owl Lobo football, go home and turn on The Price Is Right. Try to win yourself a washing machine.”
It remains unclear why John Laidlaw carried such a specific, all-encompassing hatred for viewers of The Price Is Right. No one will ever know why this was. Almost as confusing was the explanation as to why Owl High School was nicknamed the Lobos, particularly since they had been the Owl Owls up until 1964. During the summer of ’64, the citizens of Owl suddenly concluded that being called the Owl Owls was somewhat embarrassing, urging the school board to change the nickname to something “less repetitive.” This proposal was deeply polarizing to much of the community. The motion didn’t pass until the third vote. And because most of the existing Owl High School athletic gear still featured its long-standing logo of a feathered wing, it was decided that the new nickname should remain ornithological. As such, the program was known as the Owl Eagles for all of the 1964–1965 school year. Contrary to community hopes, this change dramatically increased the degree to which its sports teams were mocked by opposing schools. During the especially oppressive summer of 1969, they decided to change the nickname again, this time becoming the Owl High Screaming Satans. (New uniforms were immediately purchased.) Two games into the ’69 football season, the local Lutheran and Methodist churches jointly petitioned the school board, arguing that the nickname “Satan” glorified the occult and needed to be changed on religious grounds; oddly (or perhaps predictably), the local Catholic church responded by aggressively supporting the new moniker, thereby initiating a bitter feud among the various congregations. (This was punctuated by a now infamous street fight that involved the punching of a horse.) When the Lutheran minister ultimately decreed that all Protestant athletes would have to quit all extracurricular activities if the name “Satan” remained in place, the school was forced to change nicknames midseason. Nobody knew how to handle this unprecedented turn of events. Eventually, one of the cheerleaders noticed that the existing satanic logo actually resembled an angry humanoid wolf, a realization that seemed brilliant at the time. (The cheerleader, Janelle Fluto, is now a lesbian living in Thunder Bay, Ontario.) The Screaming Satans subsequently became the Screaming Lobos, a name that was edited down to Lobos upon the recognition that wolves do not scream. This nickname still causes mild confusion, as strangers sometimes assume the existence of a mythological creature called the “Owl Lobo,” which would (indeed) be a terrifying (and potentially winged) carnivore hailing from western Mexico. But—nonethe-less, and more importantly—there has not been any major community controversy since the late sixties. Things have been perfect ever since, if by “perfect” you mean “exactly the same.”
Mitch and the rest of the Lobos clapped their hands simultaneously and started to jog one lap around the practice field, ostensibly preparing to perform a variety of calisthenics while thinking exclusively about Owl Lobo football and not fantasizing about The Price Is Right. But such a goal was always impossible. It was still summer. As Mitch loped along the sidelines, his mind drifted to other subjects, most notably a) Gordon Kahl, b) the Georgetown Hoyas, c) how John Laidlaw managed to seduce and impregnate Tina McAndrew, and d) how awful it must feel to be John Laidlaw’s wife.
AUGUST 25, 1983
(Julia)
“You’re going to like it here,” said Walter Valentine. He said this from behind a nine-hundred-pound cherrywood desk, hands interlocked behind his head while his eyes looked toward the ceiling, focusing on nothing. “I have no doubt about that. I mean, it’s not like this is some kind of wonderland. This isn’t anyone’s destination city. It’s not Las Vegas. It’s not Monaco. It’s not like you’ll be phoning your gal pals every night and saying, ‘I’m living in Owl, North Dakota, and it’s a dream come true.’ But you will like it here. It’s a good place to live. The kids are great, in their own way. The people are friendly, by and large. You will be popular. You will be very, very popular.”
Julia did not know what most of those sentences meant.
“I will be popular,” she said, almost as if she was posing a question (but not quite).
“Oh, absolutely,” Valentine continued, now rifling through documents that did not appear particularly official. “I know that you are scheduled to teach seventh-grade history, eighth-grade geography, U.S. History, World History, and something else. Are you teaching Our State? I think you’re scheduled to teach Our State. Yes. Yes, you are. ‘Our State.’ But that’s just an unfancy name for North Dakota history, so that’s simple enough: Teddy Roosevelt, Angie Dickinson, lignite coal, that sort of thing. The Gordon Kahl incident, I suppose. Of course, the fact that you’re not from North Dakota might make that a tad trickier, but only during the first year. After that, history just repeats itself. But I suppose the first thing we should talk about is volleyball.”
“Pardon?”
“What do you know about volleyball?”
Julia had been in downtown Owl for less than forty-eight hours. The land here was so relentlessly flat; it was the flattest place she’d ever seen. She had driven from Madison, Wisconsin, in nine hours, easily packing her entire existence into the hatchback of a Honda Civic. There was only one apartment building in the entire town and it was on the edge of the city limits; it was a two-story four-plex, and the top two apartments were empty. She took the bigger one, which rented for fifty-five dollars a month. When she looked out her bedroom window, she could see for ten miles to the north. Maybe for twenty miles. Maybe she was seeing Manitoba. It was like the earth had been pounded with a rolling pin. The landlord told her that Owl was supposedly getting cable television services next spring, but he admitted some skepticism about the rumor; he had heard such rumors before.
Julia was now sitting in the office of the Owl High principal. He resumed looking at the ceiling, ap
preciating its flatness.
“I’ve never played volleyball,” Julia replied. “I don’t know the rules. I don’t even know how the players keep score of the volley balling.”
“Oh. Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate,” Valentine said. “No worries, but that’s too bad. I only ask because it looks like we’re going to have to add volleyball to the extracurricular schedule in two years, or maybe even as soon as next year. It’s one of those idiotic Title IX situations—apparently, we can’t offer three boys’ sports unless we offer three girls’ sports. So now we have to figure out who in the hell is going to coach girls’ volleyball, which is proving to be damn near impossible. Are you sure that isn’t something you might eventually be interested in? Just as a thought? You would be paid an additional three hundred dollars per season. You’d have a full year to get familiar with the sport. We’d pay for any books on the subject you might need. I’m sure there are some wonderful books out there on the nature of volleyball.”
