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 Another day of mild escape and lonesome pleasure.This morning I followed the same vision that yesterday I held inside my bony head: a long and narrow gravel path that led me toward more sunlight than I usually like to tolerate. I prefer the evening hours, and yet I cannot sleep beyond the break of dawn. This chronic condition has worsened with age. Too much worry to allow for rest and relaxation. Jim Thompson said it best: The killer inside me has something on his mind. And so I got up, rolled my body out of bed, slipped my arms into my immaculate silk robe, and stumbled toward the pot of coffee that I last night timed to greet me. The cat meowed when I kissed her, this a good sign that I might survive another day. Another day away from the office, the second day away this week. A scant but significant reprieve from the hell that bores me numb and stupid as it absorbs my energy and wastes my heat on those who could not care less that I am there beside them bleeding the disease we name mortality. A cheerless bastard I may be, but I deserve more than this; if justice exists, then I deserve more in exchange for my service to ignorance. *** With thoughts of faint freedom rising I felt almost human as I climbed the staircase. Slowly I realized that for the next three days I'd need not pretend to be anyone but who I am. Not even here. There is no need here at home with you to write a second draft of my temperamental personality. Today you get me as I am: clumsy, awkward and embarrassed by many imperfections. *** I sat down at my desk to write for a short time, but nothing of import ran through me, and so I quit the counterfeit effort. I am quite stubborn in my conviction that most people who would be writers should scribble less and consider more. The difference between good writing and bad is mind. If one's mind is tired, then one's writing will yawn. And yes, tonight I contradict myself, but it doesn't really matter, because my audience is small and quite capable of leaving the theatre without giving notice to the obstinate manager. *** The shrubbery above my head today appeared in cool shades of green, my edges tinged with tired yellow, here and there a powdered hint of blue that reminded me of those randy days when my hair still seemed dark if I squinted my eyes each time I cared to stare at myself. I remember the moment when I first realized that I had grown old. It was about eight o'clock at night. I sat inside my car, waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Behind me another driver pressed his horn. I searched my rearview mirror for the source of his alarm, and there I met a stranger who should have been me. I shook my head and ran my hands quick and rough through my hair, thinking next to brush the dandruff from my shoulders, but the white speckles lingered and threatened my sense of well being. I'd gone salt-and-pepper in the space of a nightmare, and it took the beep of an impatient driver to make me realize my misfortune. At that moment I wanted just to turn around, go back to bed, wake up another morning in a parallel world, a young man once again, penis stiff and ready for business. But the light turned green and I slipped forward. I owned no choice in the matter. Traffic was thick and no one cared to hear me complain. *** Just after noontime I visited a bookstore, one that looks much like an organized mess and smells like a memory of peaceful days when ink and paper seemed to lead a man toward wisdom. The owner, a man I call Frank, once led a sleepless life, a life not unlike the one I lead today, and then he married a lady who would pay his way and leave him alone to study his old books and ivory manuscripts. I envied the man as I walked through the door and past the metal desk where he sat. Envy, say the gurus and priests, will destroy a man heart and soul. I know that they say this only because they publish their words in books, or pray their speeches before a camera, either opportunity one which earns them royalties and the right to give advice to sinners. To hell with their advice. I know what I feel and there's no use denying what runs through me. I knew Frank would own the book I sought, an old copy of Thomas Wolfe's _You Can't Go Home Again_. I bought a stained and tattered paperback, one that in its heyday cost a snobbish reader $2.95 and today cost me twice that amount. I said goodbye to Frank, 'Goodbye you lucky bastard,' and then I walked across the street to a tired café where I ate a bowl of soup and read the first few pages of Mr. George Webber's love affair with youthful intellect. On page 10 I recalled the reason that I read this book the first time many years ago. George Webber's lady is much older than he. A friend of mine, a man with whom I shared sweet wine over shaved ice and a pompous affection for literature as we defined it, recommended the book to me during a time when he shared his bed with an older woman, a woman who by my standards today would seem a child, a selfish child who enjoyed pain as if it were pleasure. Torment. Yes, that's what Wolfe's saga is all about, the delicious torment of uncertain love. I doubt that today I am capable of finishing this book. Too much of life has changed for me. Sweet wine over shaved ice today would taste like pretentious candy. *** George Webber, of course, is Thomas Wolfe in transparent disguise, a writer who owns words so vast that they cannot fit inside a story; and yet he dreams of publication. A trunk filled with manuscript pages, all of them delicate and none of them enough to make a story. This is the way I write, and if today I cannot complete a tale to satisfy a reader, if today I cannot enjoy more than a memory of sweet wine over shaved ice, still today I must entertain the possibility of publication. Much like the sin of envy, this insistent desire rots me from the inside out, leaves me restless waiting for the morning, pulls me crying toward the keyboard every morning. But why? Who knows? It doesn't really matter. Perhaps I understood my reasons better on the night before I saw myself inside the rearview mirror, saw myself as the man I must become. Today, though, today I am tired of trying to understand myself, and even more tired of listening to the advice of priests and gurus who read no more than the flimsy pages of their own tired bibles, religious books about religion. Torment, the delicious torment of uncertain love. *** I own a favorite chair. All old men own favorite bits of incidental furniture, and I am no different from the rest. Sitting in my favorite chair I have kept company with all the books I wish I could have written. Books authored by ghosts and gurus, books penned by women I've desired and imagined by men I've envied. And still the one book eludes me, the one most important book escapes me; the book I hold inside my stubborn head will not come out and speak to me: the book about my own love affair with youthful intellect. Tonight I wonder if tomorrow I'll discover the path, the one that will lead me toward more light than I usually like to tolerate. *** Thanks for stopping by to visit us here at SpilledBeans.com. If you'd like to be notified whenever something new is posted to SpilledBeans.com, then please join the Spilled Beans notification list. -- Con affetto, Anthony V. Toscano, Editor SpilledBeans.com  |
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