GUSTER WARD CONTEMPLATES THE SUCCESS OF THE CERN PARTICLE ACCELERATOR AS A SPEAKER BOX FOR THE GOD PARTICLE

Guster liked to call his hairstyle the Euclid Fade because the geometric patterns shaved into the side of his head were like an intricate broadside advertising Guster's technical predelictions. What it advertised most was that Guster was Fly Geek, Atypical Geezer, a tiger of style. Therefore, he had to back up his technologically advanced follicle design with dope clothes, chariot high tops, and a life-preserver rope gold chain. The delivery of Guster's self was a performance that was planned every night and carried out every morning. The way he saw it, his street kit was what brought customers to him; Guster felt that people were drawn to people who were successful and looked good, and knew how to gloss.

Guster made speaker boxes for the denizens of Ozone Park in Queens. His customers were mostly the Guyanese and Trinis that lived out in the outer regions of New York City, and he did it for a pretty penny. He was respected, but more importantly he was left alone and the neighborhood allowed him to run the speaker box making racket. He pushed out three speaker boxes a week and two on a slow week; he charged one hundred and fifty dollars for a complete speaker box, but he did paint and airbrush the speaker boxes before letting them loose on the streets. It took two full days to make a box but the process could be sped up for the right amount of money, although there were some things like drying ink and glue that could not be hurried. Even though Guster made them in his garage, he sometimes tinkered in a customer's backyard or garage.

When a client had the money to spare, Guster created monstrosities. He might take a Mongoose and hang two six by nines from the handlebars; these he could readily rig because the frame of the handlebar presented a sturdy frame and did not interrupt the navigation. However, he had also transformed a simple dirt bike into a chariot by enclosing the seat and back spoke within a wood frame. Even though the bike looked like it had been eaten by a garbage dumpster, you could still pedal the bike, and it's output was ridiculous. If you rode that bike you were guaranteed to get stares, especially from people who were not from the neighborhood and did not have the schema to understand what they were seeing. In Guyana and Trinidad, speakers were gospel and digital Bible; kids did everything they could to make, amplify, and adhere speakers to the most uncanny places. And they were loud, like a swollen heart beating irregularly in the background tapestry of Island noise.

Before heading out to school that day, Guster had read the news which talked about how the CERN scientists in Switzerland had successfully run protons through the 17 mile "proton track." To the best of Guster's understanding, these scientists were trying to re-create the conditions of the Big Bang to better understand how our universe came into being. It was a great feat, especially if you consider how the "track" under the hillets and mounts in Switzerland were kept in vacuums that were colder than space. That means that somewhere in Switzerland, there was 17 miles of space track that was going to be used to host some cosmic proton car crash in the very near future. Guster did not like to think of creation much, but when he did he was sure there was a speaker, amp, and mangoes at the disposal of the entities that were doing the creating. And luscious women in plum pants syncopating their ass gravity to the beat of some Dancehall arrhythmia (preferably "Bam Bam" by Chaka Demus and Pliers).

Guster went to LaGuardia; it had been two years since he started but getting his A.A. was something he did not think was going to be so time-consuming. He was still shy a couple of credits but he could have finished a little earlier if he had applied himself more. But without a job, his only real income had been building speaker boxes; He had not trademarked his business and as of late he had been working on a business plan so that he may trademark himself one day. If pressed to think of life after LaGuardia, Guster thought Computer Science at Queens or possibly City College. He had the grades and smarts but not necessarily the patience. I mean how many of his professors could wire a Mongoose so that it resembled an aircraft carrier? In Guster's world, the doing was more valuable than the thinking, not that you didn't need the theory; Guster was just much more tinker happy than equation persistent. Of late what had occupied his attention was the Higgs boson or God's particle. This was the particle before all of the other in the production titled, The Big Bang.

If the Big Bang was caused by the smashing of particles, there must be something that animated that first particle, the Higgs boson, with purpose. Guster could go with the idea that primordial gas gave way to particles and that eventually two particles collided and formed our planetoid architecture. But, the idea seemed to not delete the presence of God and Guster did not see a real need for himself to relive the glory, grandeur, and rapture of God's love. Guster loved Dancehall and thought that if God did not work to Beenie Man and Eek-A-Mouse when he was creating the pillars and heavens then he did not really want what Religion was selling.