Hipster coffee-shop downtown. I sit in a shadowy corner booth sipping chai tea nursing a stubborn winter cold that won’t go away. Bundled up like a beatnik Eskimo in my bespoke shearling lambskin coat, fingerless gloves, and colorful scarf an ex girlfriend knitted. Hair’s grown out now to nappy mod-60’s-shag proportions complete with complementary 70’s-style sideburns and every third Friday of the month is open mic poetry night so the place is jump-and-jiving with pretentious artsy types so I blend in well.
I’m chilling with an old high school buddy who’s in town for a few days. He’s all grown up now, a professor. He teaches literature in upstate New York and every time we meet it’s bittersweet. He embodies what I could have been and I embody, to him, the quintessential Nietzschian figure. Tragically fallen from grace. He believes I chose the wrong path and threw away the “gift.”
Which I most likely did.
“ You really should be in Manhattan taking pictures. You know, it’s not too late. It really isn't. You're still young...” He tells me with patient optimism, in between sips of espresso, as though he’s a father addressing a volatile child.
I pause and sullenly gaze at him from beneath my oversized Tyler Durden gas-station aviators. And again I remind him that I'm broke and that I pawned my camera off a long time ago so I could pay hospital bills after I crashed my bike. Of course what he doesn’t know is that I actually drank that money away. Of course what he doesn’t know is that I've given up. That I'm disenchanted. That I'm not the same eccentric, bright-eyed, funny kid he knew in High School once upon a time. Perhaps he doesn't realize I simply don't care anymore.
Or perhaps he does know and he’s too polite to call me on it.
12 comments:
he must not have/had the url to this blog.
cause "you" are brilliantly gifted - giving up or not, the words are still here, telling a few lucky ones great stories of filtered times.
If you have it, you'll never lose it. Talent, that is.
It may just be that you're fear of failure surpasses you will to succeed.
Though . . . I don't think that is quite the case anymore. No?
good writing is, when it provoces a reaction in the reader.
like a good movie, a movie that you watch in the theater and you leave it with this feeling: i have to change my life! even though 99% of this energy will evaporate soon aftter, the little tiny 1% is still worth it, it builds up, i think.
i wrote a comment earlier but it didn't seem to get through. it was totally reactive to what i read and was approximately as follows:
NO! fuck no. it s not that he doesn't realize it or does but is too polite. no! he doesn't WANT to give in to that. he doesn't believe in it. if i can put all my feelings into him, project myself into his place i just scream out loud and yell: i don't believe in giving up! i don't believe in failure! not in the bigger picture at least! i believe in miracles to happen. and eveyr little miracle is worth a thousand dark hours.
ahhh! i am a naive wild child full of grace i know. and i can't ever ever ever give in to any of that. i don't want to believe in that. although i read oedipus and prometheus, although i saw my aunt pick herself up from the streets, alcoholic, rise and fall again and again. i believe in the power of transformation because we are all artists and artists have the power to transform. and so i am there and believe in the unbelievable and see you rise, am there, right there, breathe the air you breathe and watch your rise with my hopes and even though you might smash yourself and therefor my loving hopes into the ground again, i will still be there and pray for you and smile tears when i see the hopeless giving up energy strangle your eyes.
because i don't give up. i believe that every struggle has a value that goes to some sort of account in your favor somewhere in this freakin universe. i am naive and i resist. just like the dandelion that grows through concrete....
Hermes! I think the latter...when you watch your best friends slowly waste away when they have soooo much talent, well, it just kills you inside. You poke them and prod them to do their thing...the thing they were born to do...that one true god given talent that they possess, but have cast aside...only to be given the glare and the excuses. When you don't have a real talent and have to sit and watch someone throw theirs away, well, it's like a slow death inside...or not...
Rock ON!
He is far too polite.
Fire's embric scars might well be faint but in you they've not been washed away.
Surely not so foolish to think you could fool yourself and thus to stop it showing.
His knowing was then lost in self-realisation, or is 'polite' all that's left to fill the otherwise happy space between them?
When there is no taste then we will know (ceteris paribus), though they will not, and at then is the time for our (should we wish) taking leave.
you should consider your alcohol consumption an investment in distillation futures. I'd be honored to serve as your broker.
I know I always come here blowing the same tune, but it's because you leave me no choice - no other reason. I genuniely think you are one of the most talented writers I visit on the web. I mean, like in the top three, not a good one from 25 decent writers I visit.
This post does great things, sets up a history, a conflict between 2 characters I already want to know more about. Why did the 'you' give up? What happened along the way? How did the other guy - the pal from High School - get to be a lit professor and to sound like a dad?
Also, because of this rift between them, which the 'you' feels more than the professor, there is an edge of danger. 'You've' given up and this piece reads like a lion who's befriended a hyena to me - I really want to know, not only what happens next, but what happened before.
And, that's just the scene -nevermind the style, which as always has what I consider that gorgeous mix of fluid, natural speech, interspersed with the odd piercing line:
'a father addressing a volatile child'
'the place is jump-and-jiving with pretentious artsy types so I blend in well'
Those two lines - brilliantly insightful. If these lines were humans, they'd be sinewy black-belts with PhDs in several sciences - not a word or morpheme wasted - totally rounded, complete lines that have so much in them - like Russian stacking dolls.
Anyway, that's about it - hope you think about doing more with this piece, but if you don't I know whatever is next will be cool too.
Cheers
All, please excuse the lack of responses to your comments. I have been without internet at home for the past several weeks and only have a limited amount of time at work to attend to the blog.
G.D. He doesn't read this blog... nor will he ever. I wouldn't want to tarnish his pristine opinion of me would I? ;)
Colonialave. It may just be that you're fear of failure surpasses you will to succeed.
Absolutely. This is what separates the truly successful with the jaded, disenchanted masses... having the balls to go for it.
I'm still waiting to get "discovered" as I'm waiting tables or walking the dog.
Piranha. Sometimes it's naivete that can give us strength. Like the bright eyed optimisim of a 17-year-old... who believes the world is their oyster. You should treasure this.
Rockdog. Ah, I never stated he was a true friend though, merely an acquaintance. If he had been a friend of mine, and kept his mouth shut, I'd have reached across the table and slapped him silly.
Exploring. Sometimes brevity is wit.
Red Egg. I think you may be right. As mentioned in the post, it was the gentle, patient nurturing a father would give a rebellious youth.
Or modest agreement to keep my mouth shut and/or avoid confrontation.
Anonymous. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Maybe he took a quick peak in and then decided to lightly blow on those dying embers.
Extraspecial. I wouldn't trust my growing nest-egg with anyone else.
Ruksak. Wow, what can I say?
I mentioned this over at your place and I'll reiterate here. The feeling is definitely mutual. If you indeed feel this way, then it's a symbiotic relationship. Or even a parasitic one -
I absorb YOUR work, as well as the few others I regularly read, like a starving leech on a hippo's ass. I need entertainment. I need inspiration. Or new ideas. Or a laugh. Or a cry.
I keep my links list small and select because there aren't too many writers who can capture my interest and hold it.
You have been there since day one.
More and more as of late I've been debating whether I should write a multi-part story. However, every single fucking time I read a chapter of your work I'm inspired to do it. To go for it. To create a character, or a world, or a storyline... and remain there for awhile and bathe in it... to gleefully wallow in it as a pig in mud.
Then I wonder if I could pull it off as elegantly as you.
Again, Ruk, thanks for the kind words and the constant feedback. Make sure you send me a copy of that book ya fuck!
"So waitaminute, are you back on the junk? If you are I'm coming down to Juarez to kick your ass."
Only if you cut out that chai tea. It'll kill ya.
i like this, well, strange to call it a "lighter" tone of yours, but i think that's what it is. kinda playful. great imagery. diggable.
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