I find things alone, when I’m alone. The sizes of things impress me. The look in a small dog’s eyes, the blank stares of cities living in fear. I look for deeper things, the Essence, whatever I am. Discovery is replaced by immutable laws. Perhaps it isn’t that we are moving too fast. Maybe we move fast to distract ourselves from this: nothing lays along the path of the speeding train. It’s over the hill.
I lived in Ireland for three months for no good reason. I looked for the Essence and found it. But could I have found it in Wilmington, Delaware? Too bad we only get one spin at the wheel. Anyway, I threw a party once and it was a good time. Talked to two Spanish fellows about poetry. There we were, off to the side in a cheaply constructed bedroom turning anything in sight into chairs and beer coasters, getting riled up about poetry. They recited some things I knew and didn’t know. I slang a few on them. One friend remarked how great it was to meet people who could do this – just relate to each other over language barriers and the Atlantic. The Essence.
The great tragedy of culture, that which can communicate Essence, is its absorption of All Things. All Things illuminate and contaminate, and it all comes out in the wash to a big, fat nothing. And it’s loud. That’s a dangerous way to build a speeding train.
By the way, if you want to accelerate your search for the Essence, surround yourself with those who don’t speak English. The struggle to perceive and communicate the Essence will be like a beating bass drum in your heart.
It’s not all good when it’s happening. I had a few different crushes in Ireland. No less than three simultaneously. But they amounted to a Big Fat Nothing.
Here, the Essence is being pounded flat. It’s no wonder – Essence requires bravery, confidence, knowledge and openness. But there is always a murderer, a blemish, a contorted fact, an unflattering mirror.
Bruce Lee once instructed to take what works and abandon everything else. The Gang of Four once said, “I found that Essence rare/ it’s what I live for.”
I once said all this here about the Essence without fully understanding it. I’m dead now, as you’re reading this. Maybe. Wherever I am, I understand the Essence because I’m part of it. Maybe.
Here’s how it happens to me: I’m walking along, minding my own business, and suddenly a small dog with big eyes, a big man with beady eyes, a strange building alone or 50 normal ones in a row, a joke that gets it so right, a powerful person getting it so wrong, a place that looks like home for anyone and everyone, shoes that command respect, music that’s accidentally good, noise that forms sonic structure, a car sexier than any woman, a hub cap sprung loose rolling cleanly through a crosswalk, people I want to know, children who stare at me, old people frowning, a waterfall of coffee into a cup, a mansion with wall-to-wall books in every room …
These things, they take my breath and stiffen me up, slap me on the back. My tendons, muscles and ligaments tighten across my bones, calibrated closer to the Essence and ready to be plucked. I turn a corner and a new gale blows through me, playing a new tune.
… Like in a movie, the writer types and concentrates hard and then he rrriiiipsss the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and sets the last page down on a stack of paper that is at least one whole ream and that’s when the writer’s editor calls him on the phone and the writer says “yeah, yeah, I have it now, I’ve just finished, I’m taking it down to UPS and overnighting it to you, it will be there tomorrow morning, on your desk, bright and early” and as the writer sets the manuscript down on the passenger seat of his 2004 Subaru and fast-draws his seatbelt across his precious body he feels a sense of accomplishment and then pulls away from his log cabin and goes down the winding drive to the main road. Suddenly, an eight-foot-tall Sasquatch steps in front of the car and the car’s bumper taps the Sasquatch’s shins and it gets rageful and punches a hole through the engine block of the Subaru with one paw and punches a hole through the chest of the writer with the other. The Sasquatch takes the manuscript because he has heard that after humans take shits they like to wipe their asses with expensive paper and the Sasquatch thinks if its good enough for the humans …
… Or it’s like when you watch a movie about a journalist breaking the big story but she lives in a small city and her editor thinks she’s an asshole because she never gets her work in on time but when she does it wins all the Pulitzers so why the editor is pissed is a mystery, maybe he has hemorrhoids and needs to use baby wipes when he shits, but anyway …
The journalist lives in a rustic/modernist loft above the city that she writes about, the beat she covers, the stories that are under her purview, and the journalist is sitting at a sleek writing table in front of industrial-strength windows and there is a purple, floofy couch behind her with looseleaf papers and news papers and an iPad strewn all over it and the journalist is listening to an audio recording, transcribing a quote and playing back the audio to see if it matches what the source said, and she types and types and then there is a call from the editor that the journalist lets go to voicemail because he’ll understand once he sees the fucking story, the important thing is to get it all down on paper even though nobody uses paper anymore (eww paper) …
She takes a shit and uses her bidet and as she does, checks her phone. There is a message from the editor saying “this better be worth it” and she thinks you betcha boss man it will be, just give me a sec and as she’s about to leave her bathroom and rush back to her desk and click SEND, there is a knock at the door and she doesn’t want to answer it but maybe it’s the super coming to fix her kitchen sink so she says “hold on a sec” and then the doorbell rings again …
She opens the door and before her stands a Sasquatch wearing coveralls with his name, Maurice, stitched in cursive on his breast pocket and he’s carrying a toilet plunger and he punches his hand through the journalist’s chest and watches as the life drains from her eyes. The Sasquatch proceeds to the bathroom, rips the bidet out of the wall and carries it off like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest …
Or its like the writer for the new Netflix show who is on set to take notes from the producers who feel that the show needs a new love interest and they want it to be hot and steamy but the thing is the show is about Sasquatches and their lovemaking has yet to be told in any media whatsoever and the writer doesn’t know what to write and he is at his wits’ end (which admittedly isn’t very far) …
This writer wears a helmet and body armor because he’s heard of the Sasquatch-on-writer crime that strikes whenever some bullshit cliched character shows up on a TV show or in a movie: the serious writer living in a cabin in Vermont, the overpaid journalist working some backwater like Utica, or …
The writer for the new Netflix show, he’s a nerd and he likes things that are meta. I’m not sure how I’m going to murder this asshole but I imagine he could get killed through the only open part of his body armor which would be the butthole, yes that’s perfect, all the Sasquatches take turns on his butthole, and now Sasquatch lovemaking has been told through this media so problem solved …
But maybe a more fitting end is that this writer turns into a Sasquatch but not from a Sasquatch bite but from having a Sasquatch take a shit on him, you see the reason there are so few Sasquatch sightings is that to make a new Sasquatch a Sasquatch has to shit on a person, and then that person turns into a Sasquatch upon the next, full toilet flush …
There was once a beautiful building by the bay, one that gleamed a bright brown in the sunset hours. It did no harm to anyone. Generations of New Yorkers lived inside it, from the 1920s on. The building housed talented artists, criminals, boys and girls, women of science, men of letters, grandmas of warm cookies, uncles of ill repute, and cats (but no dogs because they were not allowed).
Through no fault of its own, the building was sinking. As it sat in Manhattan, the city itself was subsiding, as it had since the last ice age. Scientists said that the Great Sinking – as the building preferred to think of it (if it could be said that the building had any thoughts) – had been occurring at 1.6 millimeters per year. And for over one hundred years the sea levels were rising. This had been the century of decline, literally.
The beautiful building was sinking into the bay and nothing could be done to stop it. Engineers had their hands full with more pressing matters, like pumping water out of the basement of the nearby hospital. Firefighters were farther inland, setting up a new elementary school. The police focused on directing traffic away from the flood zone.
To be forgotten about could hurt anyone, and if it could be said that buildings had feelings like people and dogs, the building would feel hurt. But little did it know it would soon fall victim to Cupid’s arrow.
The octopus is known to be the most intelligent invertebrate of the sea. There are more types than humanity could ever dream; sneaky mollusks that they are, they have maps to the deepest, darkest ocean spots ingrained in their minds. In short, what man knows of the octopuses is but the tip of the octopi iceberg.
The largest octopus could not enter man’s thoughts without causing panic, for it is a creature that takes up all the shadows and all the darkness man can imagine. If one true monster exists at the depths of man’s consciousness it is the Giant Octopus, not because it is specifically lethal to man but because man is in no way a threat to it. Man has discovered the giant Pacific octopus, which can grow up to 30 feet wide and weigh over 600 pounds. Impressive, but a mere flea compared to what lies beneath where light can reach.
If it is possible for a building to have feelings, can it cry out in pain or sorrow? If so, we know that sound travels faster in water than in air. Did the Giant Octopus hear such a cry? Is that why it turned its slit-shaped eye in the building’s direction? And if a building can have feelings, can the Giant Octopus move out of the shadows to take a closer look? And if all this can happen, why can’t Cupid’s arrow ricochet off the building’s facade and shoot into one of the octopus’ three hearts?
Yes, there was love brewing in tres corazones. Yes, warm feelings were crackling in the hearth of every apartment on each floor. As the building sank, the Giant Octopus rose to meet it
As Cupid’s arrow was finding its marks, there were residents of the building who were falling out of love. As they saw their floors tilt and their walls buck, they thought, I’m coming out downside wrong on this deal. It’s time to split. Falling out of love with your place of residence is better than falling out a window of your sinking apartment complex. So, split they did.
And that sinking feeling was all around town. Every New Yorker wondered who would be next. Who would go home to find that their dwelling had lost air like a flat tire. Who had lost some inches off their vertical like a ballplayer.
Nobody really cared about the buildings themselves, just the stuff inside.
The building that was sinking, the one that would soon fall head over heels, the one suddenly empty inside, was not an Art Deco masterpiece like its 1920s brethren. It was eight stories of plain, clean brickwork, and it let everyone walk all over it.
The Giant Octopus was a loner by design. He wasn’t made to socialize. He didn’t know if there was another of his species around for a thousand miles, let alone a suitable mate. He had lived in the murky depths for so long, it seemed like darkness was all that existed.
The fish that swam overhead never saw him, and the other octopi were snobs. No man would dare to sink so low, their vessels not able to manage the pressure.
The Giant Octopus spent most of his life in blackness because he thought he deserved no better. Then he simply looked up and saw his love slipping down towards him. He knew he wanted more.
When the first tentacle wrapped around the base of the structure, people saw it and remarked, “What?” Their interrogative had a tone of incredulity. In other words, they couldn’t believe what they saw.
There are videos on social media labeled “sea monster dragging building down NYC,” “giant squid attack in Manhattan,” and “Loch Ness on East Coast.”
People talked about a monster destroying their beloved building, the one they neglected to paint for decades. The one with cracks in the foundation. With holes in the roof.
One thing that the building and the Giant Octopus didn’t know (and really, how could they?) is that this is the way everyone sees love from a distance when they know nothing. Someone is the victim of it, someone is the monster, someone is always dragging the other one down to their level.
Would you believe that there were even older, more established buildings situated more inland that had a view of the entire romance? Would you believe that they looked down on the building and what it wanted? Can you believe that they judged it harshly, remarking that it was throwing its life away with this sea trash?
An octopus arm can rejuvenate like a building floor can renovate. For so many years, the two lovers looked over the water at the same moon in the same night sky, separately, just from different angles, high and low.
They had so much in common and they never knew it.
Did the Giant Octopus reach out from deep, chilly waters into fresh New York City air, wrap its tentacles around the building and drag it down to its level, down in the briny deep? Or did the building, seeing the undulating cephalopod rising upwards in the moonglow, rush its own demise to meet it?
Whichever the case, the lover’s clinch happened slowly. The Giant Octopus was tentative, holding its breath (both in nervousness and because it couldn’t breathe out of water). The building did everything slowly, and falling into its lover’s eight arms was no exception.
They had plenty of time to back out if this wasn’t a sure thing.
Much later, the people who didn’t get it and the fish that didn’t get it and the buildings that didn’t get it will see (either with their wall-eyed gaze or via photograph) the eight-limbed leviathan and the no longer pristine eight-story structure canoodling at the bottom of the ocean, eight tentacles weaving their way through eight windows on eight levels, the tips emerging from the opposite sides, a meshed embrace. Those fish and those people and those buildings will say they saw the whole thing: when they met, the initial connection, and the two of them rolling into the deep blue. And those fish and those people and those buildings will say that they knew it would work out all along.
It’s been ten years since I published my first book. I am nowhere near done with my second, The Straw Man. I never thought it would take longer for Straw Man. I should be better at this, right?
Is it ok to not want it anymore? I want to be free of the expectation that it will be the RIGHT thing. I want what I write to be good, or fuck it. But I don’t care about what sells. I never was a “book seller,” I was a writer. I never was a “successful writer with a plan.” I just like to do it and it helped me. It always helped me. It always made me feel good. Even if it was bad. Even if the feelings were bad. Especially if the feelings were bad.
I have low self esteem. I rarely feel comfortable in any setting outside of my house. Even around my family I can feel awkward. Not my wife and kids, but the rest of them. They stare at me like I’m an alien. As they go, so goes the world.
When I was young I was jealous of all of my friends. They were confident, seemingly without effort. In contrast, I rehearsed what I said three times before I spoke, which was often too quiet. “Speak up!” my friends would say. Everyone would laugh. When I would get angry, they acted as though I was overreacting. Being too sensitive. I shyly smiled instead. Not because I was shy but because it afforded me the opportunity to stifle my anger. Count to ten, then utter, “What I said was …” Hating myself for it. Hating them. That’s exactly right: although I had close friends, I hated them in those moments.
When you have abundant confidence, things come to you too easily. I had to work harder. Rehearse the comment three times so that it landed; otherwise, be silent. It wouldn’t just be kinda funny, it would murder. It wouldn’t be sorta smart, it would be insightful. It wouldn’t be sad, it would make you cry. That’s exactly right. I wanted tears. I wanted them to feel pain.
When I was confident about my ability to do something, it was always after diligent training. Martial arts. Playing the trumpet. Writing. But I still couldn’t behave with confidence. I perceived every slight or criticism as an attack on my fundamentals.
But today those things aren’t me. This is who I am: I am loyal, maybe to a fault. If you go against my family, you are on my shit list. I’m thoughtful and I care about others. I’m a nurturer, clearly. I mean, all I do it futz around taking care of the house and the kids and my wife and the dog. I might complain or be tired of people’s shit, but I do it. I always do it. If I hated caring about others, I wouldn’t do it.
I am not afraid of taking complex information and breaking off a piece for myself. Whatever I can use. As I grow older, I find I don’t fear failure as much as I did. So yes, I haven’t finished Straw Man. But I don’t fear it becoming a mess.
In the following chapter, the main character, Kurt Bradbury, Jr., a famous writer and notorious alcoholic, reckons with his present, his past and his future. Specifically, he plots the future of his main character, the Man, and the object of that character’s deepest desires, the Woman.
It was cold inside, and Kurt remembered that he had forgotten to tell the landlord to turn the heat back on in preparation for his return. Cursing, he shoved the old wooden door in, stepped through, and shut out the hallway outside, its interesting characters, its smells, its dramas.
Kurt had lived there for ten years. In that time he had heard the sounds of love, the screams of hate and perhaps a few crimes. He often sat in a recliner in his living room with a notepad on the arm just in case something came up that inspired him. Nothing much was accomplished, but that is all writing in a sense.
But he listened. There was a particular set of sounds that accompanied love making – a distinct cork popping sound at 8:30 pm, the swell of a romantic number from a speaker at around 9:00 pm, the sound of a woman laughing at 9:15 with the laugh telling you what type of woman she was – loud and sharp was nervous, high and squeaky was young and naïve, and short and low was desperate – the TV noise shut off soon after or the stereo turned up louder, and then it was quiet for a while. At this point, Kurt would think he had been imagining things. His old age made him hear things that weren’t there, which made his apartment the most dangerous place he ever lived in. Each time he thought it was just something innocent. And then, at 9:45, some seismic rhythm began pulsating through the walls, floorboards or ceiling. No matter how quiet they wanted to be, the pulsing could be felt, the tiny hairs in the inner ear, on the ear drum, picking up frequencies and making nothing of them at first. Like the first submission of enemy transmissions to the code breaker – they mean nothing at first. Then the brain decodes the signal and gives the alert, and then you can hear it all. The shift of bodies on cheap cotton sheets that sound like marriage contracts being torn in half as they change positions. The playful smack on a place that hadn’t been touched like that in years, that couldn’t be mistaken for a dropped egg on the kitchen tile in his heightened perceptual state. The breathing of steam and water through the pipes and the hiss of the radiator change into quick breaths and wheezes and gasps that permeate the night. And when they are close to finishing, their cries of passion cannot be camouflaged as any network show in history. It would always be around 10:00 pm, Kurt’s bed time, that the last sigh of the ceiling fan was exhaled. Kurt could not be blamed for blowing them a kiss every now and then, through the walls, to bless them.
Over the years, he seldom felt jealousy for the young lovers. At his age he was old enough to be interested in that activity but had no patience for the process before and after. He resigned himself to the fact that he was just an old piece of machinery that only the most skilled technician would take the time to understand, and those who could were a dying breed.
There had been women after Nancy who could make him forget his troubles, the troubles he gave to others. They shared time and space, facts, interests, recipes and music. No breakups ever occurred; there was nothing to break. Kurt and the woman simply stopped showing up at the same shows and both forgot to call each other. Too young to give up, too old to make the simple complicated.
These women were not right for the Woman.
Another sound Kurt often heard was not as pleasant, and it was the reason he hated being there, especially during the weekends. It started at 9:00 am when a large vehicle pulled up to the curb near the desired window and honked. And honked. Seconds later a woman’s voice screamed angrily to a child or children to get his or her or their things. The anger in her voice was intended for the driver of the vehicle, but it never seemed to reach this person. The children gave loud protests about not wanting to go, loving their mother and hating their new mother, and yet they still made it out the door by 9:15 or 9:30. If not, the driver of the car could be heard stomping angrily up the apartment stairs, pounding on the door and booming a hostile greeting. When the door opened, everything went silent for a few seconds. Perhaps a mutter here or there about the details – should be ready by now, my weekend, your weekend, let’s go. The kids tumbled down the steps and could be heard on the street for a brief moment before the car doors slammed shut.
Kurt wanted to pity the kids, but he thought it would be hypocritical. Or the parents. He had been in that situation too. After his divorce from Nancy, he had court appointed visitation with his children. Claire wanted nothing to do with him. She was 17 when the divorce was finalized. She had her sights on college, wanting to study oncology. No English classes. Over the years, she sent him a card on his birthday, after which he would call and they would talk for a few minutes. She had a few boyfriends, then a husband and a child. He saw a few pictures of them, mostly Christmas cards. Claire was remarkably similar to Nancy. She had no trace of him in her persona. When they spoke, she was a woman. No little girl left for him. Kurt looked into the eyes of Ken, her husband, and hoped that he saw integrity and love there. As far as Kurt knew, the man was a good husband. It looked bad for Claire at first; she had bad luck with bad men. Her father was no exemplar of love.
The visitation was never with Claire, but his two boys were always there to see him. Bruce and William were born late after Claire, eight years. Kurt had wanted a boy the second time, someone he could mold, start anew with. He pictured a lot of one-on-one time spent fishing, playing basketball or doing something creative with the boy to show him how his old man made a living. But he and Nancy got two for the price of one. Everyone was ga-ga for the twins; Nancy’s mother and father were omnipresent for the first six months. And then they grew up just enough to move around on their own, which caused all the problems between Kurt and Nancy. No, not the alcohol. It was the double teaming menace that shared the same brain and communicated through secret twin lingo, apparently, because as one was pulling a bag of flour from the kitchen countertop onto his head, the other was fiercely trying to yank the tail off of a docile yet fearsome German Shepard. The dog had a pleasant, friendly personality. It had flecks of white throughout its brown coat, and it never flashed its intimidating fangs at anyone. Its name was Horace.
Bruce grew up the more studious, William the more adventurous. Bruce was funny and intelligent but shy; William was willfully ignorant and boastful. And they were always at each other’s throats, except when in Kurt’s presence. They tried to manipulate him with childish pranks. It was a game to them – see how mad dad could get. Kurt didn’t see the fun in it right away, and he was mean to them often.
The worst thing one can say to child, even in jest, is, “I wish you were never born.” Kurt had said it, drunk, and repeated it, sober, to them both. Initially, it wounded them. But through their telepathic bond, the twins simultaneously began to get over it through the use of more overt rebellion. First, they ignored his admonishments about taking out the garbage, turning off the TV or getting better grades. Next, they began talking to each other about Kurt while in his presence – “he’s probably just drunk,” “how can you tell?,” “he’s conscious, so . . .,” “Oh, right, you’re right,” “but what about when he’s unconscious?,” “Yes, he’s drunk then too, brother!” And then they just ignored him completely. Kurt should have been concerned at this point, but he had begun writing more serious material and was actually pleased about the lack of attention.
After the divorce, Kurt drove to the house and sat in the driveway, honking the horn. Bruce and William were the types of kids to keep a person waiting. Thirty minutes later they would emerge, loaded down with cassette players and hand held video games, comic books and the like, and slide into his back seat. “Why doesn’t one of you climb up here in the front with dad?”
Nothing. Not even one turning to the other and suggesting that Kurt couldn’t tell them apart. If they were in a punchy mood, they would turn to each other and start having insane non-sequitur conversations: “Get that watch you were looking at in the mall, Bruce?” “Yes, William, catfish tastes better with lemon juice” “And do you still have a prosthetic nostril?” “Keep your hands off of my ladybug!” Kurt assumed that, since Nancy had no means of getting and keeping Kurt’s attention anymore, she devised some kind of living hell for him every other weekend. It was convenient to think that the woman could brainwash his sons. But somehow Kurt always knew better. They were fully capable of making up their own opinion about their dad without their mother’s deriding comments. They shared opinions like they shared clothes.
The last Kurt had heard, Bruce and William were not speaking to each other. He had no idea why, but assumed it had nothing to do with him. They didn’t contact him, and Kurt never tried to contact them. They were middle-aged men now, in their forties, no doubt with kids of their own. Sometimes, late at night, Kurt would imagine what his sons looked like, what his grandchildren looked like, and what that unborn son, the one he had wanted, the one he would mold as himself, the one he would fish with and bond with, would have been like. Some nights he had grand schemes. Some nights he realized that the boy would simply inherit too many of his father’s traits. Molded like that.
His thoughts were on that boy as he checked his messages and settled in for the night. He still had no idea what the Woman would be like, and it reminded him of this boy, a young man now actually, who inhabited his mind. Had Kurt any right to toy with them as if he knew what was best for them?
Kurt sat down in his chair in the living room. He was ready to be inundated with thoughts, memories and sounds, but not sights. There was nothing new to look at in his place. It was the same stuff collected through the years – black chest with miscellaneous papers that had a fifteen-inch black and white television perched on top of it. The wallpaper was a mix of brown and deep reds and gold in stripy zigzags. It made you feel as if you were constantly moving up or down and spinning. There was a brown grandfather clock in the corner that was a wedding gift from his uncle that Nancy forced him to take. Very few pictures were on the wall, and they were mostly from the events Kurt had attended over the years. One had him with a few big writers from the past fifty years, names that people would recognize. It was taken in the seventies, and all of them, though old, were open minded enough to try lamp chop sideburns, a gold medallion, bellbottom pants or a bushy moustache. It was a moment that flashed just as quickly as the fashion; Kurt could point to each one and recall the last words he said to him, the words that ended each friendship. They each held drinks in their hands.
It was hard not to think of alcohol in the apartment. Aside from the pictures, there was the reality that outside of his door there were hundreds of taps, bottles, glasses, snifters and flutes ready for anyone. Someone would drink it all. It’s not like he’s taking it away from anyone. One or two can’t hurt. That’s not a problem. He could slip out and buy a six-pack, bring it back, drink a few and nobody would have to know. What was he doing that was so important anyway?
It had come and gone over the years, and Kurt had had varying degrees of success with sobriety. Sometimes all it took was the feel of the door handle to make him turn away. Other times it took the ringing of the bell over the door of a liquor store to nurture some Pavlovian response learned in recovery. Occasionally, it took a glance at every bottle of wine, jug of whiskey and beer flavor on the market to make him realize that he was stepping into a dangerous past. The closest he had come was showing up to a bar down the street, ordering a shot of whiskey and putting his thumb and forefinger gently on the glass. Some people in recovery need that once in a while to remind them that they make their choices minute by minute. It was never too late. Not even if they had the drink to their lips.
No judge had forced Kurt into recovery and Nancy certainly hadn’t demanded it. He found himself there after his divorce when the booze had just about wrecked his career and all of his friendships. Bridges were burned with editors, publishers, agents, other writers and critics. Kurt was untouchable until he met Leslie. She was a new, young agent at the time and she saw Kurt for the cash cow he was. But the booze had to go. The books Kurt had been trying to turn in during these dark times were not up to par with his previous works. The booze had been causing him to write badly. It had to be one or the other so choose already was Leslie’s refrain. Of course he was angry about her talking to him that way. What did she know about marriage, divorce, pain, war, love lost, etc.?
After much discussion, Kurt entered a clinic in Ohio in the country. Everyone was very nice. Kurt was very mean. He and the other “inmates” had it out on numerous occasions, Kurt claiming to be a privileged genius who deserved to cut loose now and then without any explanation. These group sessions typically involved him being asked to keep quiet and listen to the others, then being ejected when he couldn’t do so.
One day Kurt was called into the office of Dr. Cy Garson, the chief doo-daa of the recovery center. The man had a long, narrow, lined face that was pale from too many days supervising patients. “Mr. Bradbury, please sit. I’m told you’re making a lot of commotion and showing little progress. Naturally I am concerned for your well being.”
Kurt didn’t like the man immediately, but perhaps that was just the type of mood he was in. The sobriety wasn’t pleasant. Kurt spent many mornings downing aspirin and many afternoons contemplating how one could distill alcohol from common items, like shoe polish. “I can see that,” he replied. “If you’re so concerned, doc, then let me have something. Gimme a drink or some stronger pills! Jesus!”
“Mr. Bradbury, someone of your stature cannot afford failure now. At your age, recovery is a life or death issue.” Garson switched his tact as he shifted to more comfortable position in his high-backed, leather chair. “Mr. Bradbury, you come to us with no past, no history.”
Kurt had been ready to debate the man on the subject of his drinking being life threatening, but suddenly felt the urge to defend his status as an author. “Excuse me!”
“Settle down. I mean that you come to us not from a court order or from public scandal, but of your own recognizance. You signed the papers, you can leave whenever you want.”
“So that means I can leave right now. I can get in my car and go get a drink.”
“Well, yes, but if you do that you cannot come back.”
“Oh, boo hoo. Where’s the door?”
“Not so fast, Kurt.” Garson was warming up and Kurt could already feel the other shoe dropping on his chest. “You couldn’t come back here, and nobody would take you back, either. I spoke with Leslie, your agent, and she tells me that if you fail this, you’re out of the business.”
“Well that’s debatable.”
“I’m not so sure from what she tells me. She won’t take you back. Nobody will. And its due to what you did and said while you were swimming in booze.” He waited for response, but Kurt was dejected. There was nothing to say. Garson let the silence reinforce his point. Finally, he said, “I’m going to make a deal with you. If you stay here I will give you this word processor. You’ll take it to your room and write a novel. Make it about anything. But you can’t stop the novel until you’re done with treatment, and the treatment isn’t done until I and my staff say it’s done.”
“What will that prove?”
“It will prove the theory that Leslie and others have suggested many times before. You need to quit drinking to help your writing improve. One cannot exist with the other around. If you stay, you will have chosen writing. If you go, your choice is alcohol. Get it?”
Kurt returned to his room. The contraption that Garson promised eventually arrived. It had a small black screen with bright green letters and buzzed constantly, sort of like Kurt’s head. He immediately hated it, and dedicated his first several opening paragraphs about how much the infernal, abominable machine drilled a spike into the spot behind his left eye into his brain. Next, his target was Garson and his awful plan. Soon he had transformed the entire hospital and its staff into the monsters he saw at every meeting. The patients were organized in groups. Each day that Kurt went to counseling and divulged his personal history with drinking, beginning in the war, he would add it to the novel with his own angry twist to each tale. He hated the world and the mutants that would do this to him. As the months progressed, Kurt burned off the fuel of rage and moved on to introspection. The book moved through phases with him up until the very end. On the day of his release, Kurt printed the thing on accordion fold paper. As he said his goodbyes, the printer chugged out what would become his critical masterpiece.
Though he wasn’t sure he ever wanted this book to see the light of day, Leslie pushed Recover Me to every major newspaper and magazine in the country. It was hailed as an instant classic, filled with mirthful hatred at first then progressing to a deep respect and genuine love of all mankind. Most critics saw it as a satiric look at recovery at all of its stages; most of them had no idea that Kurt had been in recovery, so they never new the story of this happy, accidental work of genius.
It was the triumph of his art over his demons that kept him from further alcohol problems. But it was never easy.
Kurt had been thinking about these times while reclining in his chair in his living room. His thoughts drifted to the next day and what he had to do. Pay some bills, give Leslie a call, go back to the office and write. About the Woman.
In the moments before sleep got its hands on him, Kurt began thinking more about the Man who would be after this Woman. There would have to be a Man; she was too incredible to be without a hero to chase after her. Would he be opportunistic like the men that invited women into their beds night after night all around him, or pure of heart like the little boys who tumbled down the stairs to meet their fathers? Like Bruce or William? Like Kurt, with all of his faults? Just before losing consciousness, Kurt thought about the boy he created in his mind, the one he would fish with and bond with. What would he be like as a man? Could he be a hero?
Shored#Bitless 