So I went to a local chain bookstore to buy a copy of that book, Writer’s Market. (I’m not using to having to try and “market” my work; as an artist, the “business” side of the profession has always been ignored by me, but that’s something that I probably need to change. I mean, even Hemingway and Faulkner wrote “for money”, at least sometimes.) So I asked the clerk to find me a copy, but when she came back with it, I was secretly aghastic to see that it cost $34, plus tax. Pleading that I had forgotten my checkbook and credit cards, I asked the clerk to keep it behind the counter for me, saying that I would pick it up later. (I used a fake name.) (But I knew that this was completely out of my price range, unless I went back to working double shifts, which didn’t seem possible, with all the new queer Mexican busboys they were hiring.)
* * *
I am glowing and gloating with a sense of triumph; my hands are shaking so much I can hardly hold my pen in hand. My “meeting” with both of my “parents” again was so triumphant, I can hardly hold in my laughter. I had called my “mother” from work on Monday evening, quite calmly informing her that “I would be coming for my things”, which she should pack into small boxes, on Thursday morning. (I will admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when “mother” hadn’t told me that she’d thrown them out.) She obviously wanted to talk, but I cut her off in mid—sentence, saying that I would see her Thursday, and abruptly hung up the phone.
Since I had no friends with a car, I had to hire a cab to make the trip to my parents’ house. When my “mother” opened the door, I brushed past her, saying that “I’ve got a cab outside with the meter running; are my boxes ready?” I could see my “father” sitting silently in his chair in the living room, pretending to read the paper, but I pretended not to notice him. (Even if he had said something, I would have ignored him anyway.)
I took the boxes, which my “mother” had stacked neatly on top of each other outside the door to my room, downstairs to the waiting taxi, two boxes at a time. (Since I’m paying you, you could give me a little help, here, I thought bitterly as the cab driver just leaned against his fender smoking, watching my labored breathing.)
As I carried the last of the boxes downstairs, I still had said nothing to either of my “parents” since my initial statement.
“Aren’t you going to say anything to me?” my “mother” asked, her voice trembling, as I was about to go through the door for the very last time. I felt a momentary twang of guilt about treating her this way, but I forced myself to realize that “She’s sided with my ‘father’ throughout all of this, so she’s made her own bed, and now she’s go to live with it”.) (But I reaffirmed my commitment to myself to eventually set her up in a small cottage at my full—sized estate; but my “father” can rot in Hell, the stupid prick. He wasn’t even man enough to apologize to me for his stupid arrogance and intensitivity.)
Coolly, I said flatly, “Goodbye, Roseanne”, relishing the sense of shock and pain in her eyes at my statement. (I had called her “Mom” throughout my entire life; my sudden formality, calling her by her first name after not having spoken to her in so long, obviously hurt her feelings, and made my heart leap with joy.) She made a small choking sob, and quickly turned and ran back into the house. So you’re hurt? I thought. Try seeing how it feels to be kicked out of the only home you’ve ever known, and then maybe you’ll have some sense of what real pain is. Try having to sleep on the streets for a night. Try having to sleep with a bunch of homosexual queers screwing all night. You don’t even know what “hurt” means.
I was filled with a sense of exhilaration exaltation as the taxi returned to my apartment. Exactly like I’d planned it, I thought gleefully. Not one excess word or syllable. (Let them feel the silent treatment, until they make the first move, and then we’ll see whether or not I accept it. I won’t accept it for a long time, of course.)
I was so exalted, that I feverishly wrote down my first—ever poem when I’d gotten home:
Goodbye, goodbye. ]
If you want, go cry.
So sad, Feel bad?
Then think,
About what you’ve done,
And about what you are,
Your sorry lives,
Won’t get you far.
I’m moving out,
And moving on,
By the time you read this,
I’ll be long gone.
I’m not listening,
To your calls to come back
You’ve had your chance,
It shows what you lack.
You think you raised me,
But you only failed me.
In my hour of need,
You’re no friend, indeed.
Your life’s failures,
Are no great mystery.
For you’ve now got a date
With infamous history.
And all I’ve got to say to you,
Is “Fuck you; and you, too”.
Go “Boo Hoo”.
My hands were trembling as I wrote these final words. Breathless, I read the verses again and again. THEY WERE MAGNIFICENT!!
I had never even dreamed before of writing poetry before; hell, I didn’t even like to read it, and I always skipped over poems that were quoted in books I read. But I instantly felt a natural affinity with it, with how you compress years and years of feeling into a single, pregnantly poigniant sentence. My lips silently pronounced the words of my poem, enjoying their glorious feeling as they rolled off my tongue.
True, this was only my first draft, but it clearly showed my profound ability in this new area. Perhaps this was why I felt so unattracted to the prospect of writing a long fictional piece, and sustaining the complex storyline for the length of an entire novel, when my idea were flowing so fast, I quickly tired of each successive storyline I developed—Clearly, I was meant to write short pieces, condensing vast realms of feeling and emotion into single sentences or phrases, sent crashing like thunderbolts from the mighty Thor.
And destroying whatever targets I chose.
* * *
This business of writing poetry is harder than I thought.
I don’t mean that it’s “hard” in the sense that I can’t do it, or anything like that. I just mean that I’ve been writing prose for so long, that it’s a real “paradigm shift” to have to spend so much time over every single picky little word. I’m used to letting my imagination flow freely and uninhibitedly, and not having to keep going over the same line, over and over again. I’m used to writing pages and pages, before I compose a special “bon mot” that’s extremely quotable—but now I feel like I have to make every single line so damn “special”.
Maybe what I need to do combine the two media, and write epic poems, like Homer and Dante. Nobody really writes epic poetry any more that I know about, but I’ve said all along that my books are going to totally reinvent literature from the top down to the bottom.
Or do I have writer’s block? I can’t believe it; I’ve never had it before. However, even the very greatest of writers encounter it sometimes.
* * *
Or maybe it’s just that I’m drinking more.
About three times a week, I make the trek to the closest discount liquor warehouse, just about half—a—mile away from my apartment, and lug back two boxes of that “wine—in—a—box” stuff, which is the cheapest alcohol you can buy (except for “rotgut” fortified wines like the winos drink, of course). Although it was exhausting carrying two heavy 5—liter boxes back to my apartment, at least I knew that I would have enough to drink during my evening and morning writing sessions. I would have liked to be able to buy some marijuana from some of my coworkers, but it was too expensive; besides, I didn’t talk to them much anymore. But besides, alcohol was better for writing with; that’s why all the famous writers, like Faulkner,
Hemingway, and O’Neill were alcoholics, rather than potheads. Grass made you lose you ambition, and want to just sit back and watch television, rather than write on into the night.
But what the fuck else am I supposed to do, besides drink? I don’t have any friends or family, my job sucks, and no one even talks with me at work anymore. I can’t even afford a copy of the Writer’s Market book, and I sure as hell can’t afford to buy a computer. So I keep filling notebooks with my poems, and longer prose pieces. When are they going to have another one of those goddamn writing contests, again? I need the money, now. Or why doesn’t anyone reply to any of my job applications?
But on the “positive” side, my entire life has become subordinated to my art. Washing dishes is a tremendous waste of time, I’ve discovered; so after using a pot to cook in, I simply fill it with water, and let it sit in the sink. I continue this process until I have run out of pots (which doesn’t take long, since all I have are the ones that my “mother” included in the boxes with my possessions she packed up), or until the smell from the sink is getting too bad to ignore. But this saved the time of daily washing of the dishes, and was obviously much more efficient. Eventually, I was able to reduce this time even further, because I realized that when you can just eat chili directly from the can, and just wash the spoon afterwards, you don’t even need to do the dishes at all.
Laundry? Why spend hours at the laundromat, when you can just wash your things in the bathroom sink by hand, and hang them on top of the shower curtain to dry? I mean, I’m a goddamn dishwasher, not a maitre d’, for shit’s sake. No customers are expecting the dishwashers to be paragons of “sartorial excellence”, after all. And if they complain that one of the dishwashers smells bad, then what of it? They can always take their business elsewhere. But fortunately, Manuel has me working out of sight of the customers most of the time.
Most of the time, I feel sorry for my coworkers; they are so wrapped up in their own meaningless, petty lives, that they have no higher ambitions whatsoever. Give them their cigarettes to suck on, food to eat, some weed to smoke, a private place to conduct their homosexual acts, and a floor to sleep on, and they all think that life is fine. I don’t know whether I want to laugh, or cry, every time I see them, so I mostly avoid them. (I’m talking mostly about the Mexicans. The Blacks aren’t like them. And I get along pretty good with all of them. We all speak English, and we’re both being put down by “The Man”, so we can relate to what each other is coming from.)
* * *
Last night, I had a nocturnal emission; a “wet dream”, if you will. That makes three times this week.
This is just underscoring a reality that has made itself increasingly conscious to me in recent times. I need a woman.
But not just any woman; I need a lifetime partner, a soul mate. Someone whose devotion to me is absolute, and yet who is not possessive, understanding my artistic need to remain “free”; who will support me unconditionally, and yet not require me to waste my precious time by constantly tending to her own needs.
If I had the right woman, she would be the one I could pour my heart and soul out to; I could confide in her, I could share with her my agonizing over whether I should write prose or poetry. Although she obviously would not be a writer herself (or would she? probably not—if she were, she’d probably be too wrapped up in herself to be able to give me the proper attention I deserve), she could become my sounding board, the one on whom I could try out all of my ideas before committing them to the printed page. Even if and when I was “blocking”, she would be there with encouraging words, ever reminding me of what great things I had accomplished so far, and how much more I was still going to accomplish.
And of course, she would also free me from the minutes of day—to—day living, so that I didn’t have to take care of every detail myself; I’m sick of having to run to the store every time I get out of toilet paper or light bulbs.
I decided that I wanted a woman who was highly intelligent, as well as a professional, but also had the right degree of combination of attractiveness and physical desirability that would stimulate my artistic imagination to ever new heights. I had seen the drab, nondescript young women wearing slacks and business suits, their hair pulled back tightly and without even a pinch of makeup, walking to and from their downtown office jobs for weeks, and I realized that none of them would do for someone like myself.
Finally, I decided that I should choose a woman who worked as a beautician. I figured they had to go to college for at least a couple of years in order to get their credential or license—whatever it is they have to have, so they should at least have had some “Introduction to Literature” courses, so she would at least understand what I was doing. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t exactly a “scholar”, as long as she had all of my other characteristics and attributes; I could teach her literature, using my new style of literature, so that she didn’t have to waste time learning the “old” styles, if only she were intelligent enough for me. And being a professional, she would have a well—paying job (her tips alone would probably be as much as I made doing this fucking busboy shit), although not enough to overshadow me completely. Hell, I could probably even move in with her in her own place, so I would no longer have to worry about taking care of household chores. And since she was a professional in the beauty business, it went without saying that she would not only be beautiful, but would always take care to keep herself that way, so that I would never need worry that she was “letting herself go”, and so on.
For me, her love would be REDEMPTIVE; and for her, my own calling would give her a higher purpose for her own life. Instead of just scratching around to earn enough money to exist on her own, she would be providing the wherewithal for a great artist to develop his own genius. Being freed from the necessity of constantly having to “earn my own bread”, I could focus more seriously on writing for publication. Although I disdain the “prostitutioning” of my art by writing for money, there were surely enough literary journals that would publish the work of serious young artists such as myself; and as increasing recognition, fees, and commissions came my way, she would be delighted and proud. And once I’d made enough money, of course, I could devote myself to the “purely” artistic writing that we would both want me to specialize in.
So I had the telephone turned on in my apartment, and I did some shopping at thrift stores, once I’d gotten paid, and I even managed to get a second—hand bed, as well as sheets and blankets, plus some throw rugs, and a matching set of towels. I had to let almost all of my bills except my rent slide for a month, but it was worth it; I actually had a place that would be presentable to my lady.
So it only remained for me to choose which one.
I passed such establishments constantly in my walks downtown: Beauty salons, hair salons, nail salons, tanning salons. I even studied the yellow pages, to make sure that I fairly considered all of the establishments in Stentoria that were within walking or bus distance. I had it narrowed down to two establishments: One “Unisex Styling Salon” that had one side of it’s business catering to men, and another that catered to women. Unfortunately, I saw when I walked by it one day that most of their stylists were older than me (thirties, and even older!), so they held no attraction for me. I want a young professional, not some old broad.
So I finally decided on a salon just about five blocks away from where I worked. It was advertised as being a “beauty salon”, but their sign said, “Styling—for Women and Men”, and I usually saw some men inside as I walked past it before or after work. (Naturally, I wouldn’t be seen dead in one of those shops that were only for faggots.)
And most of all, they had a tall, gorgeous blond who worked at the station nearest the front window. She looked like she was my age, or maybe even a couple of years older (which, given my high degree of emotional maturity, wasn’t a problem for me, and was even kind of an attraction—women my own age were so sup
erficial). She had long straight blond hair, had a great figure and big boobs, without having too much in the way of hips, but still with a great ass. She always had on skirts, nylons, and heels, and she always wore this light blue eyeshadow, and her lips were always pinkish red: physically, she was perfect—just a little bit shorter than me. And although she wore lots of jewelry, I saw that she had on no wedding ring.
Now, I just needed to find out who she was.
I’d been observing her for some time on my days off, and I felt that I knew her schedule pretty well. She started work at 9:30 or 10:00, and worked until about
1:30 (since a lot of people got their hair cut during the noon hour). Then she would rush off somewhere, usually alone or sometimes with a girlfriend from the salon, and would return anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes later, depending on when her next appointment was. She worked the rest of the afternoon, getting off anywhere from 4:00 to 6:30.
So on my day off, I was sitting across the street on a bench, pretending to read a newspaper, but really watching her every move. Precisely at 1:23, she left for lunch—alone—and I walked quickly yet casually across the street. I opened the door slowly, and as little as possible, so that the bell wouldn’t ring announcing my presence; they didn’t have a front counter, and most of the other beauticians were away at lunch, as well. Since there was no one at her station, I walked boldly up to it, and quickly read the name printed on her license from the Board of Cosmetology: Yaplonsky, Brigette.
Brigette. What a lovely name! It had just the sort of elite European sound that a writer needed to have for his mate. And I grinned at the incongruity of her “strange—sounding” last name, paired with her beautiful first name. Well, after we were married, I reasoned, she would be happy that her last name had been vastly improved: “Brigette Scott; Elliott and Brigette Scott; H. Elliott Scott, and his wife Brigette”. Yes, that would work; it would work very well.
Beyond Heaven and Earth Page 85