Here's the next page from my book of 292 Drawing Prompts. (The last page appeared in mid-April.) The prompt for this present drawing was "Ticket stub".
Dear diary,
I can’t decide if my biography is important or not — not even to me: I’m not clear how I feel about my “life story”. But I do have one strong opinion along these lines, and that is: If my bio must be told, then let it be as short as possible. I hope I live a long & pleasant life, but I’d prefer the relaying of its developments to be kept very brief.
Also I wish that my gospelist (yes, I’ve now turned my biography into a gospel; that’s how big my ego is — & I wish I were kidding) would embellish the actual events of my life: Add more adventure, and also exaggerate my rise from poverty. Say that I was born in a wooden shed on the beach, instead of a hospital; and set it in Italy instead of Wisconsin, U.S.
And who should act as my parents? — You know what, I’m gonna probably surprise you with this decision, but I say: Let my actual, biological parents, Doug and Rita, play themselves. I think there’s no way you’d find two more pathetic creatures in the world to mimic this duo; so, you might as well bow to the limitations of art and employ the real thing. Plus I’d like for the audience to experience what I myself have had to put up with all these years — not that my progenitors were evil, but there’s just something about them that gets under your skin…
OK, so I’m born in a wood shed on a beach in Italy to my forebears Doug & Rita. Now what? — Well, in real life, I don’t remember my first two years; but immediately after my 2nd birthday, my official memories begin, because that’s when my brother Paul came into the world. I remember this clearly because it bugged the living heck outta me (memory is triggered by pain) — my impression was: How can I, the only begotten son of mom & dad, their beloved firstborn, need replacement by some cheap copy? For during my twenty-five months of life, I’ve learned to crawl and then walk, and now I can even speak words in the same strange language as my benefactors — I often utter proper sentences (I pretend to order takeout meals) — yet suddenly this newborn comes along and usurps all my glory: & everyone clearly values this fresh birth higher than me; and the thing can’t talk, can’t walk, can’t even creep upon the ground! — it just sits there in its cradle and goes “Om, om,” like a stupid monkey.
But time is relentless, thus it continued to tick itself forward; and ages passed and icebergs melted. So, when we became adults, my brother Paul and I arrived at mutual respect. From his birth until way past high-school, we had spent all our moments together fighting each other: physically pummeling each other, all thru our younger years; then, when we were teenagers, our conflicts matured into verbal spats — great yelling bouts — but after we both found a way to sustain ourselves individually and thus to escape the house of our parents, we (as I said) began to achieve a respect for each other. At least I myself now respect my brother Paul. I can’t really say that Paul respects me (I have no proof, as we’re not on speaking terms), but I assume that he does.
Now, backing up to the point when I was two, what was the next significant event worthy of being recorded in my gospel account? I mean, besides the birth of my brother. — Hmm, I’d say my life is pretty uneventful until preschool, which is a few years later: I hated preschool so much that my mom let me drop out after Day One. Then I lazed around the house listening to big-band records on high-speed until the time came to enroll in kindergarten. I was forced to attend public school, which I hated as much as the private preschool that I fled; but they didn’t let me off the hook this time: I remember sitting in math class and trying to learn what “five plus five plus five plus five plus five” is. (In other words: five times five.) Everyone else was chanting the correct numbers, “five, ten, fifteen, twenty, etc…” and I was sitting there staring panicked and nervous like a man who has wandered into the wrong cult. The fear was so strong, I nearly peed my pants.
I don’t remember how I got thru those “multiplication tables”, and to this day I have an aversion to ultra-sane tedium.
But the next strong memory I have is of being in middle school, around my teenage years. At this point, I began feeling severe angst persistently: in 7th grade I skipped the very first day, on account of being so terrified. And this feeling of overwhelming fright has plagued me ever since. I’ve learned that it will never leave; so I tell people, “I’ve accepted this.” But the truth is that I’ll never accept it.
Yet I’m forgetting that it’s important for my gosepelist to swap out all the boring events with adventure; so let’s cut all the stuff about my brother & school & my nervous disorder, and replace it all with an equally awful substitute — say, an arranged marriage:
Say that some huge fierce woman came and visited our wood shed; and she paid my parents a sum they couldn’t refuse, in exchange for permission to wed their eldest boy. So the gospel truth is that I spent my formative years living out of a mobile trailer with Furry Lucy, a giant damsel from the Amazon, who pulled our tabernacle from town to town with an old American motorbike...
[You guessed it: I watched Fellini’s La Strada (1954) last night on VHS, and I’m stealing ideas from it for my own story while I go.]
So Furry Lucy, whose name stems from a reversal of the syllables of “Lucifer”, instructs me on how to be a funny stand-up comedian. So that’s my part of our act. (We support ourselves by traveling to small rural villages & performing an act that’s billed as entertaining.) I tell jokes and make the circle of people who’ve gathered around us grin. And then Lucy’s the main attraction: her act is that she sets herself on fire but remains unconsumed.
The people are wowed by our talent; and, at the end of every show, I remove the bowler hat from my head and pass it around to all the bystanders; & our audience tosses in their last two coins, to support us. That’s how we make our living.
Bryan leans against the impalpable stage and watches how the people keep casting money into the treasury. Many that are poor cast in their last two mites, which equal one farthing. Yet then there appears a certain rich heiress, who places atop the other offerings a massive moneybag filled with banknotes.
And Bryan calls unto him his true love Lucy, and sez unto her: “Verily I say unto you that this rich heiress hath donated more to us than all they which have cast into the treasury prior to her: For the rest did offer up all that they possessed, even their last two coins, which represented their entire life-savings, and now their families will surely be destitute; but this one gave only a small percentage out of her abundance, but that is enough to buy rum for a year — perhaps even two years!” (Mark 12:41-44)
So, after we put on the above show that was included in the story by my ghostwriter Mark the Saint, Lucy brings me to the saloon. There she meets a fine gentleman with whom she flirts openly. And they dance & get drunk together; then the two of them, while laughing, simply leave. They stumble off into the distance, abandoning me alone there in the saloon. So I end up spending the night on a curb, with little children staring at me.
But in my real life, the “source material” as it were, nothing happens until I enter high school. (Note that preschool suckt, elementary school suckt; then middle school suckt; & now high school sux, cuz it’s awful in general — it’s just like prison.) Then, right when I turn fourteen, I get my first job: the burger joint near my house hires me for minimum wage.
So I work low jobs in fast food, moving from one franchise to the next, while attending high school, until I graduate in 1995:
Now I’m eighteen years old & therefore eligible to work in the retail mega-store that is located across the highway from where I live. (Proximity is important, as I own no form of transport.) My job is unloading the trucks in the back. Being done with school, I’m able to work full-time now, tho I’m still only receiving the legal minimum hourly wage, which is not enough to live on; thus I’m unable to move out of my parents’ house. This is when I realize it’s not only school but life itself that really sux. Since the pay is more than I need for food and clothing, but not enough to cover rent or a mortgage, I end up spending all my hard-earned cash on rap tapes. (A “tape” is a “cassette”, which means “an album of noise”; and “rap” means “hip-hop”, which is “a sonic-art genre that was surprisingly distinguished during the days of my youth, tho it has since become unlistenable”; and, no, this last definition is not just me being biased on behalf of the first fad that I fell for during my teen years: my judgment is trustworthy.)
Then, one day, out of the blue, a friend from high school calls me up on the telephone & sez:
“Long time no talk.”
And I say, “Yeah.”
And he sez, “Well I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but I’ve been working at this eyeglass factory. It doesn’t suck too bad because they pay you just a bit more than minimum wage.”
“Sounds awesome,” I say.
“Yeah,” he sez, “but here’s the bad newz: You know how I got my girlfriend pregnant right after I dropt out of school?”
“Yeah,” I say. (For, unlike me, this friend of mine did not bother finishing high school but dropped out instead; and after accidentally impregnating his girlfriend, they both moved in together and contributed jointly to the mortgage of a two-bedroom condo — they both worked full-time jobs, and their child’s grandparents served as daycare for the kid.)
“Well, the bad newz,” he continues, “is that my baby’s mama’s angry that I won’t get married straightaway — I insisted that we remain engaged for at least five years, because I have principles. So anyway, we were having a big argument about this topic of wedlock yester-even, & she got steaming mad; & she took the kid & left me forever. That’s what she said — she said: ‘I’m leaving you forever.’ She went to move in with her mom. So now I’m screwed cuz I can’t afford to pay for this place all by myself.”
“Just a moment. Just a moment,” I say, in imitation of HAL-9000 from the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. “This job that you mentioned, working at the eyeglass factory — you said it pays well?”
“It pays just a bit more than minimum wage.”
“Do you think that you could get me a job there too? Cuz I can’t stand living with my parents; and if I could make a little more cash, I could move in with you, and we could split the mortgage payment; which would be a win-win for the both of us, cuz, think about it: you wouldn’t have your condominium foreclosed upon; and meanwhile I would not only be able to escape from my forebears, but the income I’d be spending would be contributing to the equity of a property, & not wasted on paying rent to some deadbeat landlord.”
“But” he answered, “the eyeglass factory has a policy: they won’t hire anyone under twenty-one years of age.”
“Really? Hold on — but you & I are both exactly the same years old. So how’d YOU get the job? Did you lie & claim that you’re something that you’re not?”
“No, they made the policy right after they hired me.”
“Dang.” I say. “Well, is this point negotiable? Could you talk to whoever works in the personnel department, and—”
“That would be Jen,” he interrupts. “She’s really nice; and she likes me a lot.”
“OK, so could you ask Jen if she would hire your school-friend Bryan, who, altho underage, is willing to work as a temporary misfit for a certain amount of time — say, a couple months or so — just to get his foot in the door? I’ll even accept lower pay, if they give me a chance… Here, write this down so that you can remember it — say: ‘Bryan sez he’ll work for straight minimum wage as a temp during a probationary period of no more than three-to-six months; then, after his trial phase expires, if you like how he looks, you will agree to hire him on full-time at the regular rate.’ Can you deliver that message to Jen, and put in a good word for me?”
“Why don’t you just call her yourself?” he sez; “I can give you the extension number for Human Resources...”
“But I hate talking on the phone,” I say.
So I weaseled my way into working at the eyeglass factory. I left my parents’ house for good, during the week of the above conversation; and I moved in with my friend. Then, after six months of working as a temp, the executives decided to make me a permanent employee, which bumped up my hourly-wage rate by a couple of cents.
This stage of my life may be condensed by my gospelist into one long night-time scene of wandering in a vacant lot, finding & planting seeds that’ll never grow, while my spouse Furry Lucy is sprawled on the ground, asleep in the weeds, with a coma-like hangover.
*
And that’s pretty much all. I’ve never really surpassed the factory-job struggling-stage of existence. This marks the last pivotal point of my life, for everything has been the same ever since...
The only changes that occurred after my stint at the eyeglass place are that I ended up quitting & then went to work for my dad’s small business (he owned a couple of ugly trucks that allowed him to fulfill contracts with delivery services), cuz he offered me the same pay to do his accounting and safety-compliance paperwork, which allowed me more free-time to pursue the Art Life; also, around the same period, I abandoned the pursuit of rap/hip-hop in favor of poetic literature, which eventually led to me writing a bunch of books of my own. Then my friend had to sell the condo where we were living, cuz his baby’s mama took him to court and made him pay a percentage of his income for child support, which broke his bank; so I moved out and found my own place — it was a real dump, but I was content as long as I could continue reading weird books.
I feel that my literary obsession would serve well as my crucifixion scene, cuz, just as Jesus never does truly manage to climb off the cross but just sorta fades into its wood forever after (sure, there’s all sorts of rumors about him rising from the dead, and then getting beamed up to the heavens where his father lives; but none of these allegations really convince anyone, least of all believers — that’s why they need to keep repeating to themselves that these things are true: “I swear, he is risen! yes, indeed, he is risen!” — no, truthfully speaking, we all somehow just KNOW, deep in our hearts, that Jesus met his end on that cross, hanging between those two cat-burglars, and the last words he heard were the sounds of their wisecracks) likewise I find myself trapped in this realm of creative text: all I do is read & write, and I no longer even know why, or what my aim is. I’m resolved to the fact that I’ll never make money from writing; and I couldn’t care less about pleasing the critics in the schools or getting published beyond what I’ve done for myself. I’m pretty convinced that there will not be any humans left to read what I have written, anyway. (I see mankind as coasting down a path that leads to either of two dead-ends: extinction or illiteracy.) So it’s almost like I’m lost in an atheist’s prayer. I know my words go nowhere, but I can’t stop saying them. Again, it’s that old cliché of the young child stranded alone in the dark: singing simply to ward off fear...
Ah, but that’s perfect: Now I can end with yet another quotation from my favorite film Wrong Cops (2013) — the following is spoken by the man who is slowly dying in the back of the car of the friend of the officer who mistakenly shot him:
Hey, turn some music on, please... it did me some good, in your partner’s car — it helped me to think of something else... Without the music, it’s very difficult: the pain comes back; and I really don’t feel that well... So just put a little music on for me — that’s all I'm asking for.
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