He showed up in my inbox, androgynous at the time, as pure potentiality, a MySpace friend request link.It was my choice to leave him unborn or to bring him to life with a click on the link.Curiosity made the choice for life.I was the willing accessory so I checked him out.
He was a young punk.He had on the requisite black AC/DC tee shirt.His head was cocked and angled back in a who-gives-a-fuck way so that his shoulder-length black hair covered one side of his face.He peered defiantly out of the exposed eye, which was pleasantly shaped.As was his dimple and mouth and chin.
I clicked on his baby bad-ass face to go to his full profile.Hilarious.Dude sells Avon in the Oak Park area!His “About Me” section read like a girl’s, “If you need eyeliner, eyeshadow, foundations, or just want to see a catalog…and many people aren’t aware Avon has a great line of men’s products…”
His interests and life goals were loftier than his looks.“My primary interest is in Aristotle’s natural philosophy, but I’m also more broadly interested in ancient philosophy and the history of science and astronomy…I’m attending Fox Community College and have plans to go to University of Pittsburgh to get my bachelor’s degree and then go for my doctorate.”
He had a whopping 219 friends, all women of varying ages, most of them middle-of-the-road attractive with the occasional stand-out.I clicked on a random few and from what I could tell at a glance, none were any different than any other chick on MySpace.
By now I was so intrigued by this mixed bag of debts and assets, my journalistic senses so piqued with the incongruence of it all, that I was compelled to find out what was up with this guy.So I approved his friend request and sent him a quick note via MySpace e-mail, “Dude, you’re the coolest Avon rep I’ve ever seen!”
The next day he sent me an e-mail, “I am?How tis that?”
Not what I expected from a modern-day student of Aristotle, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and answered, “Absolutely. Most Avon reps I’ve known are fat, frumpy, older ladies =:-O”
He responded, “Lol is that what makes me better?”
Oh lord, it’s bad enough his grad school mind didn’t get him a scholarship.And really at that point I continued the nonsense because Curiosity kept goading me.I wrote back, “Did I say anything about better?But let’s be real—it has all the potential in the world to make you better!Facts is facts—aesthetics sells.How’s that answer?”
He wrote back, “Would you like an Avon book?”
OK, that’s it. I was ready to nail the guy.I responded, “I’d rather interview you.I work for the Chicago Tribune.You’ll get some attention that’ll help you sell lip-liner like hotcakes.You got it going on it seems.Seems you’re super-enterprising, have mucho meaningful interests and goals, and it’s not everyday one runs into the atypical likes of you selling Avon!Let me know if you’re interested.”
He didn’t respond.
The following day, before I headed to the office, I checked MySpace and his profile had been deleted.Interesting, I thought, and made a note to re-check some of his women friends’ sites, to look deeper into the comments, and to do more internet research in general.Then I took off for the office.
No sooner had I plopped my purse on my desk and turned my computer on, my boss came in and handed me an assignment, “Michelle, take care of this, would you?I’ve had to put Dan on something else.It has to go to print yesterday.You got it covered?”
I just nodded and began looking at the paperwork.The CPD had just captured a 19-year-old male charged with rape and had found him to be connected to a series of rapes in the Chicago area.And there was a picture of my Avon guy.Sheer dumb luck.
“Yes I have a pair of eyes … and that’s just it. If they was a pair o’ patent double million magnifyin’ gas microscopes of hextra power, p’raps I might be able to see through a flight o’ stairs and a deal door; but bein’ only eyes, you see, my wision’s limited.”
The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
That’s how I feel.Like Dickens’ Sam Weller out of context.So does The Seer, oddly.But he says it’s best that way…
I met The Seer early one morning in Monterey when I was out on the beach off Cannery Row between Prescott and Hoffman.He was sitting on a rock out in the water, facing east and eating a bagged breakfast, the ocean ebbing and flowing around him.He was decked out in homeless attire, wild salt and pepper hair flying out from under his baseball cap.He had a small circular horn tied with twine and swung round his neck, resting on his back.
He saw me coming down the beach pondering life, and he motioned to me.I waved, thinking he was just being friendly that way, but he kept on.When I was almost adjacent to him, he climbed down from his rock and hopped from rock to rock and onto the sand and stood in front of me.He looked in his mid fifties, his face a parchment pirates’ map.As if he was quite used to being too much for the mainstream to take, he smiled benignly and offered me a bread roll from his bag.
I took it despite the What-ifs.He patted my shoulder and said, “Folks call me ‘The Seer’…I’m not entirely sure why, but I’ve become used to it.”
“I’ve heard of you,” is all I could say.I forgot my white-bread manners and didn’t tell him my name, but he didn’t seem to notice.Heck, he probably already knew, being The Seer and all.I smiled at the thought.
“The atmosphere’s dripping wet,” he reported good-naturedly, “The breeze is practically visible it’s so thick with the possibility of rain.It’s so sticky I can’t see either way.”
How absurd, I thought, as if he considers humidity an oddity on the coast.Stranger, though, was his statement about stickiness affecting his vision, so I asked, “Sticky?See either way?What do you mean?”
“Wision disconnect,” he said.“It’s like wearing a wetsuit.There’s condensation between my horn keys and my fingertips.My feet feel clammy.There’s dampness between me and my clothes, between me and everything, including my vision and my wisdom.Like electronics and moisture.Bad combination, bad contact.Produces static.”
He squinted into the darkening sky, sniffed the air, and looked back at me.He continued matter-of-factly, “There’s static between my imagination and my common sense, there’s fog between my eyesight and my insight.The manner in which I conceive something is out of synch with the process of generating a wise course of action.”
Ah, it’s figurative, I thought.It must be.Still, if I hadn’t gotten such good vibes from the guy I for sure would’ve run away screaming by then, but I was beginning to really enjoy his presence.Even so, maybe because so, I said something stupid like, “Well I guess you’ll just have to settle for one or the other, wisdom or vision, until a dry air mass flows through.”
The Seer lifted his cap and scratched the bald top of his head, “Not likely in these parts.”He patted the cap down on his head and just looked at me with nothing but good in his eyes.
I could see all the way out to the center of the universe through those eyes, could see why they called him The Seer, and I could’ve asked him the secret to life, anything, but all that came out of my mouth was, “Why don’t you move to Arizona or something?”
The Seer chuckled and said, “Because I like water flowing ‘round my rocks and on my sand.Because my skin would dry out and I don’t need wision that bad.Because you’re right, I can alternate between wisdom and vision and get along just fine.It’s just not optimum.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to strive for optimum?” I asked.
“Striving can get dangerously close to desperation without your knowing it,” he said.“Everyone around you can see it but you.Thoreau once said, ‘It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.’”
“Desperation certainly is unbecoming,” I thought aloud.
“Best not to invite the possibility of it,” The Seer said.“I did that once, chased after a dream…used to play baseball for a living…Yup, it’s best to let the dream come to you.”
“What happened with baseball?” I asked.
“I don’t remember…”The Seer frowned for a split second.Then his cheerful glow returned and he looked deep into my eyes and said, “This is the dream that found me:to usher in the day, usher it out, and fill the in-between with whatever’s in front of me.”
Then The Seer hopped back across the rocks, climbed up onto his rock and sat there facing west.Without looking back at me he put a hand up to wave goodbye and swung the little horn from off his back around to the front of him and began to play “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
Fini
“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.”
This piece is Sunday Scribbling (prompt #116) done with a McSweeney twist (prompt #10)
Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo in NYC
JOHANNA VIGNETTES – THE DYLAN DISILLUSIONMENT
A Play on Dylan
By Miss A
VIGNETTE ONE - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
(Bob Dylan sits pensively smoking a cigarette with girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, at a small kitchen table in a NYC apartment. He’s got his chair tilted back and his feet up on the old-style cast iron radiator.)
Dylan
Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
Suze
Yeah, who pushed fast forward?Yesterday “Bob Dylan” sells 5000 copies and today you’re freewheelin’ with Miss Fame all over your ass with her critics and her record companies and her producers and all.
Dylan
And with America goin’ through some serious growing pains, from civil rights movements to men on the moon, and JFK on the brink of doom, it just don’t seem right.
Suze
Mmm.
Dylan
And now America, she’s sittin’ here stranded in a sea of Soviet missiles but most of her people just whistle or bury their heads back in the sand.
Suze
Exactly why you keep trying to wake people up!Now you’re just dealing with a bigger platform…which is really ideal for the level of awareness that’s required here.
Dylan
(Suddenly in one sweep, Dylan swings his feet down from the radiator and under the table.He puts his cigarette out and leans into the table toward Suze in mock excitement.)
So meanwhile the lights are flickering at Carnegie hall and I’m singin’ ‘bout the consequences that’ll befall us all, I’m singin’ ‘bout a hard-falling rain!(Laughs.)
(Dylan leans back, dejected, disgusted.Coughs.)
But the music’s been written for America and me, and more of the same’s comin’ down the pike.The country crooning keeps spillin’ out the radio, and there’s no turnin’ it off, ‘cause America and me, we’re both singin’ it on a roll to our destiny.
(The heat pipes cough.Dylan lights another cigarette and swings his feet back up on top of them.)
Fact is, Suze, I’m in bed with Miss Fame…Hey, let’s give ‘er a name…Johanna, yeah.And Johanna Fame just wants the bucks and it’s the poor that end up fucked.And it’s partly on account of her conquering minds like mine.
(Blackout)
VIGNETTE TWO - The times they are a-changin’
(Dylan leaves a NYC recording studio with his manager, Albert Grossman.It’s very late in the evening.The two talk for a moment in the parking lot.)
Dylan
(Lights a cigarette, squints up at the street light.)
Who’d’ve thought, standin’ in an empty lot, I’d be watchin’ the critics’ playing blindman’s bluff—Silber sayin’ I’ve lost touch with people and Ginsberg sayin’ my “Chimes…” is chains of flashing images?And you, Grossman…
Grossman
(Finishes for Dylan)
…I’m a leech.(Laughs)Yeah, but I love you man.
Dylan
You and all the girls and women and Columbia and Macmillan…All of ya’ll wantin’ to hop on the Dylan train… (Mock laughs)
Night watchman
(Comes from around the corner of the studio and flashes his light on them.)
Oh!Sorry Mr. Dylan, Mr. Grossman!I thought you’da been long gone, sirs.
Grossman
(Nods at the watchman)
Don’t worry about it.Glad you’re on the ball.
Night watchman
(Grateful no one is insulted, he continues on his way.)
Yes, sir.Thank you, sir.
Dylan
And that’s just it, Grossman…Under the light I dunno who’s insane, them or me.
(Grossman pats Dylan’s shoulder.)
I tell ya, man, I’m wearing down, I’m gettin’ thin.This Folk I’m doin’ is alright, it’s near to the innards of people, it reflects ‘em back to themselves but it’s not gettin’ it done… This is Johanna Fame, not me…
(Dylan throws his cigarette to the ground hard and twists it out with his foot.)
Been listenin’ to The Beatles.Outrageous chords and harmonies that make ‘em work.That’s where music is going.That’s where I’m going.
(Blackout)
VIGNETTE THREE - Another side of Bob Dylan
(Dylan is debuting his new electric blues with a full rock band at the Newport Folk Festival.The diehard Folk purists are booing and after just three songs, Dylan has had it.)
Dylan
(To the band)
Let’s go, man.That’s all.
(Dylan and the band walk off, backstage.The crowd is now doubly pissed, goes ballistic.)
Peter Yarrow
(Steps up to the microphone)
Hey hey!(crowd quiets some)
Your attention!(crowd quiets more)
Attention please!(crowd quiets enough to talk above them)
I assure you, Dylan just went backstage to get his axe!
(Peter goes backstage and finds Dylan extremely distressed.The band has taken off.)
C’mon man.Come on back out solo, man.
Joan Baez
(Rushes in from the side.She touches Dylan’s arm.)
Bob, fuck them!Don’t let ‘em get to you.Just finish for you, for the ones who understand.
(Both Yarrow and Baez continue coaxing Dylan.)
Dylan
Fuck it.
(He goes back out on stage flustered.Realizes he doesn’t have the right harmonica and snaps angrily at Yarrow.)
What are you doing to me?
Yarrow
(Looks down, sheepish.He realizes he wasn’t thinking of Dylan, just of appeasing the crowd, keeping peace.)
I’m so sorry, man.
Dylan
Fuck it.
(Dylan steps to the front of the stage his voice shaking a bit with nervousness and distress.)
Anyone got an E harmonica?
(A bunch of harmonicas fly through the air and hit the stage.Dylan snatches one up and begins an impromptu acoustic set. Sings…)
Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when Johanna’s name comes up
He sees he’s left himself completely
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And Miss Fame, she wears me out at night and shoots me down at dawn
(Music fades to blackout)
VIGNETTE FOUR – Bob Dylan World Tour
(Dylan is in Paris nearing the end of his world tour.Last stop is London.Portions of audiences are still refusing to accept his plugged-in material. He’s taking a break in the Louvre with Grossman.Dylan is silent, observes paintings, gets more and more agitated.)
Grossman
I know it’s hard, Bob, the audiences jeering, slow handclapping…Your last few press conferences have been surreal…The journalists are just doing their job and yet you torture them with your bizarre answers and rude behavior.What purpose is that serving?
Dylan
(Acts as if he didn’t hear a thing Grossman has said.Keeps walking and finally stops in front of the Mona Lisa.)
This is infinity, Grossman, all along this wall.This is what salvation must be like after awhile.But Mona Lisa here, she musta had the highway blues, she’s seen so much.She and I have seen the exploitation, the selling out.Look at Van Gogh:painted all his life for the love of it, goes insane, kills himself.Johanna Van Gogh facilitates his fame, too late.Johanna Fame has me live by the balls.Which is worse?
Grossman
(Clears his throat.)
Bob…
Dylan
(Interrupts him.)
Look at all these jelly-faced, bejeweled old crones ‘round here.Most of these cows are so fattened by the success of their men that they can’t see their knees, but they can see that this is the place to be seen.That is why this primitive wallflower here is smirking.
(Blackout)
VIGNETTE FIVE – Prophecy
(Dylan’s controversial World Tour crescendoed to a nasty confrontation between Dylan and the audience at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in England.Dylan is back in NY pissed, pushed, and under more pressure than ever before.He and his wife, Sara Lownds, are in the kitchen.)
Dylan
(He’s leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other.Mumbles…)
The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him.
Sara
What?
Dylan
(Makes no effort to be clearer.Mumbles.)
Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him.
Sara
Bob, for Christ’s sake…
Dylan
(Snaps back to the moment.)
The tour was screwed yet I’ve got ABC wantin’ a show, Macmillan demanding a final manuscript for “Tarantuala”, Grossman’s already scheduled an absurdly long summer and fall tour…
Sara
Honey, you will never not have appeal.You will never not write shows, books, music, go on tour…
Dylan
(Mock laughs)Ain’t it just a gas, how I down others who can’t see past their own puny joy and pain and jump on top of Johanna again and again, and here I am getting’ ready to do the same…again?!
(Sits forward, lights a cigarette, takes a drag.)
It’s depressing, don’t ya think?
Sara
Not if that’s what you’re cut out to do.You haven’t yet settled into yourself have you?
(Gets no answer)
Well, I guess that dissatisfaction’s what keeps you moving forward.Look where you’ve been, all you’ve done!Where you could go!
Dylan
(Elbows on table, head between hands.)
Shit, man.I need an out.
(Sits up, leans back in the chair, takes a drag off his cigarette, stares straight ahead at nothing in particular, glassy-eyed.Blows smoke out slowly, steadily.)
This thing’s on a roll I can’t stop.I need a savior and I ain’t even seen the Madonna yet.
Sara
Well, Baby, you do what you gotta do…
Dylan
(Still staring, glassy-eyed.)
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain
(Blackout)
EPILOGUE
Narrator (V.O.)
Turns out these last few words, they were a prophecy.A few days later, Dylan had a motorcycle accident that didn’t hurt him badly, and gave him just the right out.The stage was devoid of Dylan for twenty months.His debts of obligation were zeroed out with understanding.He took a break to heal and reentered the scene casually on his own terms, not Johanna’s.
Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.
In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here
The ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place
Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze
I can’t find my knees”
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel
The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”
But like Louise always says
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain
Attorney Eron Psykhe, foreground, and client Gene Daimon
New York, NY (MAP) June 16, 2008 – Just when you thought things couldn’t get stranger, materialism meets myth, corporate disaster meets the soul’s code, Normand Myers meets his match.
Myers, 43, who was convicted last year of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in Millenius Communications’ $9 billion accounting scandal, has filed a negligence suit against his Inner Guide, Gene Daimon, of Acorn Theoretics, Inc.
The suit charges that Daimon urged Myers, then CEO of Millenius, to make the decision to stop at nothing to keep Millenius’ performance in line with Wall Street analysts’ estimates, even if it meant reporting expenses as capital, which he did, subsequently leading to Millenius’ ruin as well as his own.
Jones Behrand, Myers’ attorney, said, “The Inner Guide has a contractual duty to best serve the interests of its human client.And Mr. Myers feels that Mr. Daimon, who was acting on his behalf in that capacity, failed to meet that duty by inspiring the decision to falsify accounting.Mr. Myers feels betrayed, and rightly so.”
Myers’ downhill slide began in 2004 with a request from the SEC regarding Millenius’ accounting procedures.Shortly thereafter, with Moody’s and S&P cutting Millenius’ short- and long-term credit rating and Millenius’ shares on the brink of plummeting, Myers was forced to resign as CEO.
Myers was indicted in 2007 and had no recourse but to attempt painting himself in a better light prior to his trial by agreeing to forfeit nearly all of his personal assets, totaling roughly $50 million, to settle a civil suit filed by investors.
Now Myers’ bad ride has bottomed out.He’s fresh off failure to see his conviction appealed, he’s scheduled to report to a federal prison in Mississippi on August 26th, and he’s practically penniless.
“This negligence suit of Myers’ is clearly a move to build himself a little cushion to land on when he gets out of prison,” said Vincent Scorsazza, attorney of former Millenius CFO, Ross Masseu, who was lightly sentenced last year due to a plea agreement.“If [Myers’] good health prevails, he’ll have some good years ahead of him after he’s released.”
Myers is seeking $1.1 billion in damages against Acorn Theoretics, Inc. for financial losses, defamation, and emotional distress due to the alleged gross negligence, mismanagement, and fraudulent acts of Gene Daimon.But Eron Psykhe, Daimon’s attorney is utterly unphased, “This is a case of the clashing of two worlds, human and spiritual, and the former can’t harm the latter.”
Asked to elaborate, Psykhe said, “The contract with Myers is straightforward and Daimon and Acorn have not failed to meet their duty.”He paused and added, “It’s a common misconception that Inner Guides always lead their human clients to good.Inner Guides lead their humans to whatever destiny they have chosen for themselves before coming to earth, whatever they have come to this planet to experience to aid their progression in the spiritual realm.”
Why then, you might ask, if Daimon and Acorn Theoretics have that kind of power, would they allow this scenario to get this far, to the point of a lawsuit?Psykhe smiled and said, “This is all part of what Mr. Myers wanted to experience.”
Fini
PHOTO CREDITS
All photos from Getty Images
Click here for more on prompt “#115 – Guide” from other Sunday Scribblings participants.
8:12pm.Another long day.We begin to shut the place down, retrieve the odd voice mail message, take stock of last minute thoughts, and write all of it down in our planners, in our memories, or both, to be picked up tomorrow, or not.It depends on the day, the vibes of it, the demands of it, how loud the hollering is and who’s doing the hollering, on the phone, in person, in our heads.It depends on everything out of our control, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.
Sasha finishes checking in all the fusion splicers, GPS backpacks and hand-helds.She says let’s stop at Russell’s Café for a drink and a bite, says she’ll wait while I finish.Sure, why not.I’m done…enough.It doesn’t matter anyway, there’s no catching up with it all.We head for the door.I flick the lights off and turn around to look at the sea of green and red dots on all the equipment, each computer, plotter, fax machine, copier letting us humans know it’s still alive and watching, waiting to devour another day of our lives.
We step out in silence.No need for more, we’ve known each other so long.I lock the door and turn to face the goings on.The street is not so busy for a Wednesday, hump day, the day people begin to slide off the week into another raucous weekend. The sidewalks are full, though, of the usual smoke and cologne and lack of cologne.The night is checking in and the slashes and curls and rectangles of neon are getting brighter, more garish with the passing of moments that seem like they should be used for something else.My spirit cools, dampens under the weight of the sinking night air, and it’s all done but the hoping that he’ll show up tonight.
Russell’s is glowing, buzzing with just the right number and sort of people, hip-looking people, some alone with their laptops or legal pads, others flirting, whispering to lovers, laughing softly, sweetly with friends.The lights are low and the atmosphere is rich with the warm invitation to dive into whatever’s going on in your mind, to roll with it to some unknown fruition, to discover the mystery of it, or not.It depends on her mood, her line of thinking, what she says about him.
We head to the back of the place, up a small, curved staircase to a loft of tables overlooking both bars and a Grand Ole Opry-looking stage.Our waitress shows up all aesthetic with her black and red cat’s eye glasses, tattoos, and a Garofalo flair. I order a shot of espresso and a pint of Old Peculiar.While we wait, Sasha brings up the whole scene today with Legal and ROW tag-teaming us on the Detroit job.Makes no never mind to me.It’s just another day, so I let her ramble.It seems to help her and that’s all I care about.
I down the espresso so I can go the long run then hit the pint to put me right.I work it down about three quarters of the way and let it work me down to a dull roar.Then I begin the thing with Sasha.I tell her she needs to go back to him.She already knows my interest is mostly selfish, but I prefaced with that anyway just to prove I’m aware of my faults and working on them.I tell her I need this guy but he’s no good to me, can’t inspire me unless he’s inspired by her.I tell her I can’t take another night of writing pure crap, which she also already knows, so really, this entire conversation is pointless reiteration, unless she’s changed her mind.She hasn’t.She no longer feels “that way” about him.
At this point I begin not to care about him either, begin to feel the edge of the coffee more than the soothing stroke of the beer.I order another pint and a quesadilla.I tell her heck, let’s just leave him out of it, skip the middleman, and she can be my muse.I rant that it’s ridiculous I’m in this position, that I was fine without him, that I wasn’t looking for a muse, that he found me!I rave on how I never knew how good it could be, how high I could get, the incredible stuff I could write!I tell her the miserable bastard showed me the good stuff, then split, that is, she split, and I can’t find another like him!
She just looked at me and no more needed to be said, ever.Neither of us felt “that way” about each other.She’s not inspired to inspire me nor do I feel particularly inspired by her presence.The two of us are for another purpose.We like the feeling of co-existing, filling each other’s surface cracks.We paid the bar tab and hugged on the doorstep of Russell’s before walking in opposite directions into the night and its beady chill.See you tomorrow, I say over my shoulder.You bet, she says.
10:47.I’m home.I can still get some time in.I feel excitement trying to stir within me based on the premise that there’s a chance he could show.I moderate it with the plain truth that there’s a chance a lot of stuff could happen.I grab a Coke and a handful of pretzels from the kitchen, fire up the laptop, and touch the keys.Nothing.I stare at the screen and write some crap hoping that even crap, if it’s dry enough, will catch fire.Forget it.It’s 12:32am and I have to deal with Legal and ROW at 9am.
I hit the sack.My brain spins, begs, prepares a petition to the gods, composes the same desperate letter every night under my breath, under my radar like malware that’s infested my system.And I send it off into my dreams, into my night after night to the Apsaras, to the Valkyries, whatever it takes to revive my muse, my fallen hero, if not for me, for someone, anyone.
I hate my job and I hate that I’m not doing anything about it.I feel so wimpy, so ineffective.I’m just dying and watching myself die, just standing on the sidelines!I don’t know what to do, I feel so trapped. I’d have to go to college, and I can’t afford that on this minimum wage salary!!!I’d have to take night classes.I don’t want to do that!I’m already whipped when I get home late almost every night!I can’t see myself leaving work and cramming some fast food down my throat on my way to some community college because I can’t afford to go to a university.And how long would an engineering degree take on that slow-mo schedule, anyway?!Jesus, I wish I’d had my shit together when I was a kid, gone to college like I was supposed to when it was on my parents’ tab.It’s all so huge and hopeless now and it’s my own fault.God, I am so tired of this life.Cassie underlined the word tired.First one line, then two, then she saw herself digging the pen into the paper, watched as anger seized her and spasmodically scratched fat black lines back and forth, up, down, around and around, until the grip of it released her as quickly as it’d come on.She went limp all around her bones.Her tears had mixed with the paper and the furious nest of black lines and made a grayish paste in her journal.She just stared at it. And then for a reason she wasn’t fully in touch with, she calmly turned to a fresh page in her journal and began writing.Cassie, you need to snap out of your oblivion.I’m living the life you chose by not choosing and it’s sheer hell.And then she took the biggest, fattest marker she could find in her desk drawer and wrote slowly, deliberately, CASSIE WAKE UP!!!!!!!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Why, my brilliant brood,” Mr. Davids was saying, “why, from the standpoint of the fundamental laws of physics, should we not have the same access to the future as we have to the past?”Mr. D swept the roomful of juniors with his wide, wild eyes.Cassie smiled shyly and looked down when he got to her.Mr. D was a young teacher, a little too good-looking, and he was full of it.He was like watching a stand-up comedian, was everywhere at once with his “out there” ideas and brain-cramping challenges.Like everyone else, Cassie was down with the entertainment value.It made physics tolerable.But he was such a force, the mighty windstorm, and she just a reed.She doodled in her journal as Mr. D crescendoed, in tune with the exact number of minutes he had before the bell rang.She began to slip away into her drawing, flowers becoming monsters with blood dripping from their teeth as the daydream progressed from high school to whatever happened after that.She saw a flash of herself utterly miserable, frustrated, working a shit job. She saw herself cry out.She snapped to and felt the despair claw her insides, from her brain down.Mr. D was winding up to leave his charges with a mind-curving thought, “So why, when we act now, do we think we can affect the future only and not the past?”And there was the bell.Dude’s a pro, she thought as she made a beeline to Guidance.Previously utterly passionless, she now had a passion—not to end up suffering a slow, agonizing death in a low-paying dead-end job.She really didn’t care what she chose.She was good at math, her counselor had mentioned engineering, so what the hell!
Fini
Photos above from Getty Images
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