Some of us are not so good with the business of staying on the rails. Some of us get off. Off the rails, the undergrowth is dense, and maybe you can't ever go back to the old rails. Maybe it's not so sure a thing you find some new rails. And everywhere, amongst the twisted roots and dead leaves, the bones of those who don't. The best you got for signposts, out there, off the map.
Used to work at this Chinese place. The boss's husband was an officious, ignorant, busybodied skinflinted little prick. I've known worse dudes, way worse, but this dude was a wet shit. I only kept my job because he was a little scared of me, as he wouldn't have tolerated a lot of my nonsense--chiefly, putting my feet up and reading a book when there weren't any customers in-house or orders to take, and also complaining immediately and saying no to his face if he said something stupid or told me to do anything ridiculous. These were regular things, with him.
Dude was nice to me sometimes, though, and we did have some laughs together. Yet he also sold me my first lemon, a terrible old Plymouth van that barely wanted to start and whose muffler fell off after about a week, which was a fucking bullshit move. But! I never signed the thing over to myself, so when I left it parked in the apartment lot where I lived, and the city towed it, it was him who got hit with the real fucking bullshit. He made noises at me about paying him, but let me tell you, I ignored him completely. His wife ended up making me give him a little out of each paycheck for a while just so he'd shut his mouth about firing me or whatever. I got paid cash under the table, so I couldn't really argue that much, short of quitting, and since I could do the job hungover every day, I wasn't much interested in scanning the market and putting my best foot forward.
No, my interests lay in drinking and smoking myself to death, passing the time by fucking my girlfriend, watching movies every day, playing Super Smash Brothers, and reading the rest of the time. Sometimes I dropped acid, or consumed some other hallucinogen--I was tripping on acid and sitting alone at my typewriter at the moment of J.D. Salinger's death. I wrote a lot of shitty poetry. The bits worth polishing, by the way, survived and made it into one of my books. I scribbled and slam-typed hundreds and hundreds of pages, but only sixty-four are left standing, much amended, and one's the title page.
Thought this was all okay, for my part. Probably the absurd confidence that I would soon be recognized for my vast, unprecedented talents and thrust into a new life took a lot of the edge off.
Man, I hope that's funny to you, because I really just want to rub my face until it vanishes when I think about that. Is there anything more risible than a young writer who has rejected writerly society, secretly convinced that one day, they will beg and plead for him to assume the mantle of literary lion which he so richly deserves, and which he would wear so well? But no! I would never give those...those phonies the satisfaction!
Ah, youth.
Punched out of work one fine Spring day with fresh money in my pocket, though less than what I would have made if I hadn't had to pay that fucking guy money I shouldn't have had to pay him. A half-shift at the Chinese place was always six hours, ten or eleven to four or five and four to ten or five to eleven. Off at five, all high on the money and in a good mood, I thought I'd have a drink at the bar like a gentleman before going home. I did not ever do this. Usually I went straight home, where I would drink at a wooden table by the kitchen window. If I did go to a bar, it would be with my girlfriend, and usually at least one other friend, who cared more about bars than we did.
Had the barman draw me a pint of Two-Hearted, and settled down to read my book at the bar. By the time I was into my second a little bit, a big old fellow sat for a chat, weighing in at least deuce-eighty and aged almost seventy, but still hale, agreeable, breathing well, sound of mind, and of good cheer and friendly disposition. He had a large-cheeked, florid, bright-eyed face behind his big aviator-style glasses, messy white hair, and an affable way of talking. He made conversation by noting that it wasn't often he saw a fellow reading at the bar, in a tone that indicated comradeship rather than the xenophobia of the barely literate, which dissolved my rigid mistrust of anyone older than me that wasn't a dead writer or certain sets of living musicians (after working as a musician a bit*, I now mistrust every living musician.)
He was a computer whiz but from the day. Without revealing too much, he was one of those dudes that had run the huge old computers that cost two billion smackers, ran hotter than a volcanic chute, and couldn't do the thousandth part of what an IBM would be doing in just a decade and change, let alone what your pocket rectangle can do. Dude had his hands in it from the start, and he told me many fascinating stories from the old days, and I was only too happy to listen, interjecting when I felt I could with some question or witticism or to show that I was listening and relating. He was a friendly dude with a good way about him, and I was being as courteous and erudite as I could. We were having a nice time.
Then comes the first break in my memory, somewhere after the fourth beer. I hadn't eaten anything in hours; I meant to go home after one drink.
Next thing I remember I am running back and forth in the bar, yelling and singing something unintelligible, but filled with a ferocious kind of joy. The old fellow's smile was gone, he was shaking his head, torso twisted around on his barstool to regard me gravely. I noticed this, but it in no way dampened me or slowed me down. Another blank spot, and we're at the door of the bar, he's handing me bus fare and actually looking a little alarmed, telling me to just go home, get home and lie down. I brashly assured him that I would, I would, of course I would, couldn't wait to!
Another blank, and the next thing I am aware of is just finishing a word, my finger in my boss's husband's face. No idea what I said to him, but I had put my face about two inches away from him to say it. He looked completely bowled over, and just started moving his head slowly from side to side. "You gotta go, Joe," he intoned slowly. "You gotta go."
Drawing my lips back from my teeth, I growled silky through a rage I hadn't realized I'd been feeling, let alone acting on. "Okay, man. I will. I will."
Yet another gap. I'm getting off the bus, laughing hard, laughing my ass off. It was way before my stop, barely halfway home. At the time I didn't know why I'd gotten off so early; it is fairly easy to deduce that I had done something to get myself kicked off the bus, something which certainly had never happened to me before. Don't like the memory of that laugh. It had grown dark. I started walking, feeling like some kind of king.
Flashes, now. I found myself trespassing on a pharmaceutical company's private property--no fucking memory of jumping a fence and wading through some kind of mudfield just to get someplace I wasn't supposed to be, but there I was. I don't remember leaving, either. I remember staring at a traffic light with my mouth open. I remember screaming--fucking screaming, long wordless shrieks like to break glass, tearing at my throat, at a dude walking his dog. I know that dude didn't do anything to me. I have no idea why I did that to him. He kept his head down and kept walking. I would have done the same, some fucking nutball piece of shit in torn muddy jeans screaming blue devil in the darkness so hard he leans over and balls his fists. After that, nothing until opening the front door.
Got home so late that my girlfriend was home. She had been on shift when I got off, must have witnessed my screaming at our boss, and got home before me. I had wandered considerably after the bus, more meanderingly and slowly than I thought. She was waiting, along with my best friend. I had not been picking up my phone.
Their eyes, their wide scared eyes--they both have such light blue, such expressive eyes, eyes I knew so well, eyes so filled with pain and fear. All on me. By me, for me, because of me. If we exchanged words in that moment, or after, I have since forgotten them. But I will never forget their faces, their postures, most especially, their eyes, as I walked through that door.
Would have preferred to walk into four splinter bullets shattering into my torso and genitals than to walk into those eyes.
*
Don't ever be like me. Don't suffer people like me in your life. Shit like this, much more like it, and some even worse, is why I am a ruined nervous wreck with no friends**.
--JL
*roadied under circumstances I'll go into sometime; been in a few bands. Bad scenes, ranging from mere tomfoolery to actual abusive situations. I still make music all alone. Maybe someday if I make some more recordings I will share. The recordings I have, I don't know what decisions to make about them yet. But I have been playing music since I was a toddler; some of my earliest memories are of a musical daycare I attended and have always loved fooling around on pianos and xylophones, loved whistling and singing. I played trumpet and tuba in middle and high school, taught myself bass, drums, harmonica, and guitar, and have fooled around on countless weird electronic instruments. That's why I mention on some days off that I played some instruments.
No, my interests lay in drinking and smoking myself to death, passing the time by fucking my girlfriend, watching movies every day, playing Super Smash Brothers, and reading the rest of the time. Sometimes I dropped acid, or consumed some other hallucinogen--I was tripping on acid and sitting alone at my typewriter at the moment of J.D. Salinger's death. I wrote a lot of shitty poetry. The bits worth polishing, by the way, survived and made it into one of my books. I scribbled and slam-typed hundreds and hundreds of pages, but only sixty-four are left standing, much amended, and one's the title page.
Thought this was all okay, for my part. Probably the absurd confidence that I would soon be recognized for my vast, unprecedented talents and thrust into a new life took a lot of the edge off.
Man, I hope that's funny to you, because I really just want to rub my face until it vanishes when I think about that. Is there anything more risible than a young writer who has rejected writerly society, secretly convinced that one day, they will beg and plead for him to assume the mantle of literary lion which he so richly deserves, and which he would wear so well? But no! I would never give those...those phonies the satisfaction!
Ah, youth.
Punched out of work one fine Spring day with fresh money in my pocket, though less than what I would have made if I hadn't had to pay that fucking guy money I shouldn't have had to pay him. A half-shift at the Chinese place was always six hours, ten or eleven to four or five and four to ten or five to eleven. Off at five, all high on the money and in a good mood, I thought I'd have a drink at the bar like a gentleman before going home. I did not ever do this. Usually I went straight home, where I would drink at a wooden table by the kitchen window. If I did go to a bar, it would be with my girlfriend, and usually at least one other friend, who cared more about bars than we did.
Had the barman draw me a pint of Two-Hearted, and settled down to read my book at the bar. By the time I was into my second a little bit, a big old fellow sat for a chat, weighing in at least deuce-eighty and aged almost seventy, but still hale, agreeable, breathing well, sound of mind, and of good cheer and friendly disposition. He had a large-cheeked, florid, bright-eyed face behind his big aviator-style glasses, messy white hair, and an affable way of talking. He made conversation by noting that it wasn't often he saw a fellow reading at the bar, in a tone that indicated comradeship rather than the xenophobia of the barely literate, which dissolved my rigid mistrust of anyone older than me that wasn't a dead writer or certain sets of living musicians (after working as a musician a bit*, I now mistrust every living musician.)
He was a computer whiz but from the day. Without revealing too much, he was one of those dudes that had run the huge old computers that cost two billion smackers, ran hotter than a volcanic chute, and couldn't do the thousandth part of what an IBM would be doing in just a decade and change, let alone what your pocket rectangle can do. Dude had his hands in it from the start, and he told me many fascinating stories from the old days, and I was only too happy to listen, interjecting when I felt I could with some question or witticism or to show that I was listening and relating. He was a friendly dude with a good way about him, and I was being as courteous and erudite as I could. We were having a nice time.
Then comes the first break in my memory, somewhere after the fourth beer. I hadn't eaten anything in hours; I meant to go home after one drink.
Next thing I remember I am running back and forth in the bar, yelling and singing something unintelligible, but filled with a ferocious kind of joy. The old fellow's smile was gone, he was shaking his head, torso twisted around on his barstool to regard me gravely. I noticed this, but it in no way dampened me or slowed me down. Another blank spot, and we're at the door of the bar, he's handing me bus fare and actually looking a little alarmed, telling me to just go home, get home and lie down. I brashly assured him that I would, I would, of course I would, couldn't wait to!
Another blank, and the next thing I am aware of is just finishing a word, my finger in my boss's husband's face. No idea what I said to him, but I had put my face about two inches away from him to say it. He looked completely bowled over, and just started moving his head slowly from side to side. "You gotta go, Joe," he intoned slowly. "You gotta go."
Drawing my lips back from my teeth, I growled silky through a rage I hadn't realized I'd been feeling, let alone acting on. "Okay, man. I will. I will."
Yet another gap. I'm getting off the bus, laughing hard, laughing my ass off. It was way before my stop, barely halfway home. At the time I didn't know why I'd gotten off so early; it is fairly easy to deduce that I had done something to get myself kicked off the bus, something which certainly had never happened to me before. Don't like the memory of that laugh. It had grown dark. I started walking, feeling like some kind of king.
Flashes, now. I found myself trespassing on a pharmaceutical company's private property--no fucking memory of jumping a fence and wading through some kind of mudfield just to get someplace I wasn't supposed to be, but there I was. I don't remember leaving, either. I remember staring at a traffic light with my mouth open. I remember screaming--fucking screaming, long wordless shrieks like to break glass, tearing at my throat, at a dude walking his dog. I know that dude didn't do anything to me. I have no idea why I did that to him. He kept his head down and kept walking. I would have done the same, some fucking nutball piece of shit in torn muddy jeans screaming blue devil in the darkness so hard he leans over and balls his fists. After that, nothing until opening the front door.
Got home so late that my girlfriend was home. She had been on shift when I got off, must have witnessed my screaming at our boss, and got home before me. I had wandered considerably after the bus, more meanderingly and slowly than I thought. She was waiting, along with my best friend. I had not been picking up my phone.
Their eyes, their wide scared eyes--they both have such light blue, such expressive eyes, eyes I knew so well, eyes so filled with pain and fear. All on me. By me, for me, because of me. If we exchanged words in that moment, or after, I have since forgotten them. But I will never forget their faces, their postures, most especially, their eyes, as I walked through that door.
Would have preferred to walk into four splinter bullets shattering into my torso and genitals than to walk into those eyes.
*
Don't ever be like me. Don't suffer people like me in your life. Shit like this, much more like it, and some even worse, is why I am a ruined nervous wreck with no friends**.
--JL
*roadied under circumstances I'll go into sometime; been in a few bands. Bad scenes, ranging from mere tomfoolery to actual abusive situations. I still make music all alone. Maybe someday if I make some more recordings I will share. The recordings I have, I don't know what decisions to make about them yet. But I have been playing music since I was a toddler; some of my earliest memories are of a musical daycare I attended and have always loved fooling around on pianos and xylophones, loved whistling and singing. I played trumpet and tuba in middle and high school, taught myself bass, drums, harmonica, and guitar, and have fooled around on countless weird electronic instruments. That's why I mention on some days off that I played some instruments.
**my ex is still my friend, and time has put this all behind us. I have many friends. I am simply too often fool enough to forget that. Frankly, that paragraph is profoundly stupid in every way.
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