Today is 9/11/15. It's not every day you write a book or a movie that anticipates a very particular day in the future (recently, I made a joke in court about a continuance to October 21, 2015 that did not go over very well), and on those days, you must celebrate. You must celebrate (though on this day certainly, we must mourn) and reflect on your accomplishments and assess how accurate your vision has proven to be. I never wanted to release S/M on its own blog, like my other two "completed" books, but now we have posted 2 out of the 34 chapters or so. The previous one posted was not one of the highlights of the book, but was just extremely timely in the same way. This is a definite highlight in the book. This is the high point, the low point, the climax, the everything. It's a definite spoiler, but given the amount of interest that S/M has generated, who really gives a fuck anymore? Enjoy.
Experience
#4
Happiness,
love, sex, and death. The four essential
experiences to a human life. Birth might
also be included, but I have a hard time believing anybody remembers being
born. I also mentioned, earlier, that
work could be included there. True, I
could still go home, I could still get back on my feet, I could still work on a
screenplay, I could still achieve success yet.
Enough! My hope is all used up. That is not accurate to say. I do not want to have any hope. I do not wish to join the simpering masses on
their crowded commuter trains at 7 AM, on an inadequate sleeping schedule,
returning at 5, facing the world as an equal when even the most basic bodily
functions send terror shooting along my insides. I have never been able to express myself in language
aloud. What few words I manage to issue
forth from my mouth are filled with the most banal observations. Only here, on the page, is the full magnitude
of my personality presented. It has been
a long ride, but the roller coaster has just passed its final curve, and is now
stopping, prepared for us to disembark and to load in another train of
passengers.
Everyone wishes for sustained
happiness. Take Samantha for
example. Ben will provide her with
sustained happiness. By now he must have
passed the Bar. By now he must be
working at a prestigious law firm in downtown Los Angeles. The money will soon come rolling right
in. Samantha must be submitting shorts
to the Hollywood Film Festival. They
must be living together and thinking about marriage. Ben must be getting ready to pop the
question, or has probably already done so.
Samantha will clearly accept. Ben
has very few faults. There are none that
I have witnessed, and none that I have heard Samantha mention. Sustained happiness is theirs.
Take me, for example. Would Samantha and I even have experienced
sustained happiness, were she to have dumped Ben after that fateful “day of
reckoning” a month before the end of college?
There’s no way of knowing for sure, but my long term prospects could
never equal those of Ben. A rift in the
relationship could have occurred. The
only reason our friendship is so strong is because Samantha never allowed
herself to get close enough to me to be disappointed.
Happiness: Robby and I at a 4th
of July celebration, carefree, successful for our age, doing totally typical
teenage things, no cooler or less cool than anyone else.
Love: Meeting Rhiannon for the first
time, feeling like there was nothing I could do except impress her, going on an
adventure downtown, feeling more advanced, comfortably normal, the way living
should feel.
Sex: Tamara swiftly taking my
innocence, doing it gently, carefully, feeling more normal, now on the same
level as everyone else.
Death: At an early age, with
profound works of art attached, a thrilling obituary, not famous, but oh so
close.
If only they knew! If only those publishing houses had let me in
their doors! If only 20th
Century Fox, ABC Disney, CBS Paramount, Warner Brothers, or NBC Universal had
let me squeeze into their crowded, crowded worlds. If only I had found a place I could feel
comfortable, with everything taken care of for me, without feeling like an
invalid.
I won’t go home. What’s the day? Why, it’s a national holiday in
September. No work today. We must never forget. I remember: I was ten years old. I was getting ready to leave for school. My parents told me I didn’t have to go. We were witnessing something
unprecedented. One day of studies could
not contain the lessons presented in that experience. My parents called their relatives and
friends, but none of them lived in New York.
We were safe. None of us were
hurt. Now I live in New York. And today nobody goes to work. There are few symbolic dates in a calendar
year. January 1. February 14.
Easter. Thanksgiving. December 25.
Your birthday. October 31. December 31.
And today.
Am I drinking? I’m out of money. I could still call my parents and ask for
money to get home. I have a few
cigarettes left. Smoke one.
I’m watching documentaries on TV
about today. My history lesson, my déjà
vu from a more innocent time. Getting
drunk might prove advantageous at a time like this, but there is literally no
more money. Seriously. It’s call my parents and go home with my tail
between my legs or leave this life and hope that some published history will
suffice as a point of success, my education not a total waste after all.
Oh but what a waste anyways! What a waste of a perfectly healthy body, an
attractive frame, a reconstituted weight, and an artful mind. Social anxiety makes such a waste of
life. I could still go home and see a
therapist and receive a prescription and feel like normal people are supposed
to feel. You must know how I feel about
that, though: they’re all wimps. Did
they have prescriptions for depression in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece,
Ancient Rome? People got along perfectly
well on their wits. All these chains we
have to wear, more and more as we advance into the future—more invisible laws,
more anxieties, more population, more technology, and more division.
One thing that will I will miss:
you, reader! Reader, you have been with
me from the start. I applaud your
efforts of patience. You’ve been such a
good friend to me, to listen to this entire confession, to push forward after
many instances where others might have thrown it down in disgust—you believed
in me, and you don’t know how much that means to me. Unfortunately, no one else believes in me,
and this is why I have to do this. We
had a good time though, didn’t we? I got
to tell you about all the different times I cut myself and how my life has
inexorably led me to this decision, how my life isn’t worth living because it’s
filled with so much disappointment. Why
get older! I’m always concerned about
significant accomplishments for one’s age.
I have two significant pieces of writing to my name. Perhaps I may be awarded a posthumous
literary prize! Other people count
success by whether they can get a good job and find a good partner and have
their own happy family—but we all know that’s never been within my grasp. Therefore, my version of success: live fast,
die young, leave a good-looking corpse.
That’s such a cliché I can’t believe I just used it during such an
important part! But it is true—I have
followed that cliché to a T. But what
other versions of success have I grasped?
There was the applause for 28 ½
Cuts, an experience many people never have.
There was the love shown to me by my first English class freshman year
after that first essay I submitted.
There are the two literary documents—the first, a heartbreaking novel
about a doomed romance, the second, a memoir filled to the brink with pathos, a
companion for any fellow sufferers of abject humiliation and self-inflicted
hate. I give you all a giant hug from my
soon-to-be sterilized lower east side apartment in NYC.
Notes on imperfection: if my first
novel were good enough, it would have been published and I could have led a
slightly different life than the one I’m in.
But no. All the gods told me I
was a failure as a scribe. I couldn’t
put together a compelling enough query letter.
I couldn’t get people interested in me.
It’s all a matter of selling, right?
Selling yourself in interviews with prospective employers. Selling yourself at bars with prospective
lovers. Selling yourself in anonymous
letters with prospective agents. I
wonder why I even started writing in the first place. Oh wait, now I remember—I couldn’t deal with
so many “teammates” on an original cinematic production. I didn’t like selling my vision to a
group. I had to keep my vision inside my
own head and waste two years, a year on it, only to see it come to nothing. Nobody wanted it when I presented it. There weren’t the right characters. There weren’t the right problems. There weren’t the right solutions. There weren’t the right concepts to stand
behind. Excuses, excuses, excuses. There really wasn’t any talent in the first
place. It was always people who I knew
in person, telling me I had great potential, people that would be proud to know
me if I ever hit it big—you can never have too many friends in this
business. Entertainment. All 7 billion people on this Earth just want
to be entertained. And all 7 billion
just want to be entertainers, too. But
who among us is actually educated in entertainment? What about educated in enlightenment? Despite the overcrowded marketplace, there is
a glut of entertainment which does nothing to educate the dim swathe of America
which will believe anything a talk show host tells them. I’ve worked my entire life to gain the
respect of anyone in a position to judge my talent and here we are at the end,
disillusioned, disappointed, crestfallen, dismissed.
There are successes and then there
are greater successes and there are failures and then there are greater
failures. Right here today, we mix the
greatest success and the greatest failure a life contains. The greatest success—the completion. The greatest failure—the abortion. Do not misunderstand my use of the word
abortion—I am pro-choice—I do not believe abortion is a sign of failure. In a way, it’s a sign of too much
success. I suppose it only seems like a
failure for all of those couples unable to get pregnant. A wasted gift.
We are at the end. Two cigarettes left. Smoke another.
What else do I have left to
say? I’ve already sent my final messages
to Samantha and Robby, my two closest friends in this life. What about Jake? Jake deserves a place in the end of this
confession, because I admit with Jake, I was respected as an equal. He was an actor and I was a filmmaker. We were cut out of the same cloth. We were equally talented. He stayed in L.A. and I went home on the
premise of guaranteed income. He stayed
on his own and fended for himself. Jake,
I admire you. That is my message to him.
I admire him, I wish I had never stopped being his roommate. We made a pretty good team, didn’t we? We had some pretty good parties. We collaborated on some pretty good
work. We had pretty good taste as far as
people in L.A. are concerned. Jake, may
this work become famous and may you rise to fame yourself for your role as a
character in this story.
Who else is there to mention? Tim, my Canadian compatriot from French
club? We never spent enough time
together, Tim. I should have asked you
if I could have moved in. More
intelligent to live in Chicago than New York.
New York may be where all the action is, but there’s just as much going
on in Chicago. The attitude is the only
thing that’s different. People in New
York live life to the fullest because they’re aware of how thin a thread
they’re hanging by, whereas people in Chicago live life to the emptiest because
they’re completely confident they’ll be able to live forever and accomplish all
of their family dreams. People in L.A.,
the majority of them, have their heads up their asses and don’t know hell from
high water. The division of classes is
more prevalent there than anywhere else.
But Tim, I belonged in Chicago and if I hadn’t been so stupid, I might
have been able to salvage something out of this heap I call my life.
Adam? Dare I mention Adam again? Or Tamara?
To both of them I want to say: I regret my fear of boldness.
Or anybody else there was that I
will never forget: Bill, Zack, wanting me for something that I’ll never be
again. Nancy, Susie, Rachel, Jenn,
treating me like a human being worthy of respect, despite less healthy
qualities. Sean, Corey, teaching me how
not to behave. Jessica, for introducing
me to the concept of girlfriend.
Rhiannon, for introducing me to the concept of discretion. Nick, showing me there was more than one way
to be cool. Professor Diminico, Jackie,
Professor Sheetz, making me feel like I wasn’t born on this earth to be a
failure.
My parents, who don’t deserve to be
treated like this. They never had
anything but my best interests in mind.
What a reward for them to receive for a job well done, giving their son
the best education money could buy (within their means), giving him the freedom
of an automobile, and giving him the autonomy to decide where he should make
his home without discouragement.
Down to the last cigarette now. Smoke it!
Sometimes questions like these are fun to answer: if you had to pick,
what would be the last album you ever listened to before you die? The last song? I remember reading that Kurt Cobain listened
to Automatic for the People and that
Joey Ramone listened to All That You
Can’t Leave Behind. There is the
legendary listening of Iggy’s The Idiot by
Ian Curtis. I’ve read vague things about a novel where
a depressed girl plans to slit her wrists while listening to “Strawberry Fields
Forever.” And I remember a friend of a
friend once saying he would listen to Kid
A if he were in a plane that was going to crash—maybe he was thinking of
the song, “How to Disappear Completely.”
For my pick I choose Young Team. I plan to take the offending action at the
start of the final track, and have everything ended by the close of its
seventeen minute running time. I wonder
if I should run a bath. We still have
some time, maybe a little over forty-five minutes until the writing will be
stopped. Oh, I’ll run a bath. I’ll bring this laptop with me in there and
place it on top of the toilet.
This is intense! Every minute holds greater and greater
significance. The decision is finally
mine to be made. Nobody is going to stop
me except myself. I can still call it
off and call my parents and tell them that I can’t make it in New York and need
to move home—could they send some money?
I could even take that money and have more good times and do this again
a week from now, lying to my parents, but that wouldn’t be polite. I at least want to go out as a thoughtful
person, never asking for more than was appropriate at the time.
Let me offer one final shout at God:
This is it! This is the brain you gave
me, this is what it led to. Utter
despair. Do you think I blame you for
letting this world get too crowded, for letting opportunities come to the few
that separate themselves by god-knows-what mechanism? No, I would rather blame my parents for
having me. They didn’t deserve a child
with my face, with my body, with my personality. They deserved the starting quarterback of the
high school varsity football team. But
it was you that made that decision, you that chose consciousness for me. I would rather be a non-entity, unaware that
anything lively ever occurred. Knowledge
and observation is a curse. To see all
those people, complaining about not getting laid in a month. I went years
until I had the boldness to bring back Trudie.
And I even owe all of that to heroin.
Why am I talking to God about my sex life? That’s so inappropriate it’s not even
funny. Why are people so obsessed with
their sexual activity? Why did you have
to make me so abnormal in this category?
Like that author whose name I won’t reveal said: sex is one of the four
basic elements to the human life. And I
am deprived of a normal one. Why? I’m intelligent, I’m attractive—what the hell
is wrong with me? Oh, right, I’m just
confused, that’s all. Just put it out of
your mind. Life is not one big Greek drama,
complete with a protagonist’s tragic flaw.
It’s just babies being born, growing up, doing the things adults do,
growing old, and dying. It’s just making
a living, that’s all it comes down to.
Work. Why can’t we all live in
harmony, God? Why can’t there be enough
for everyone to go around? Why do we
always have to worry about how we’re ever going to be able to survive? Is it just this country I’m living in, that
has perverted the basic elements of human existence, or is it the entire world,
and is this place actually better than others?
I don’t know who to believe about anything anymore. The greatest writers in history. Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Homer,
Aeschylus and Aristophanes, Dante and Cervantes, Shakespeare and Milton, Lao
Tzu, Flaubert and Balzac, Tolstoy and Kafka, Joyce and Proust, Nabokov and
Mann, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. They’re
the only ones I can believe. And who
knows how many of them were motivated by commercial popularity. Who knows how many of them were fixated on
immortality. I suppose I should believe
in doctors who only have the health of their patients in mind. Or lawyers, who only have the freedom of
their clients in mind. Or journalists,
who only have the ideal of objective truth in mind. None of them can help me. I can’t join their ranks. There’s enough of them as it is. All that’s in store for me is low-wage
slavery. What a fantastic way to go out.
Barely squeaking past the rent every month. Only being able to afford the cheapest food,
and then having to cook it myself, without anyone to share it with. Or else, with someone to share it with, but
with constant anxiety in regards to conversation, tedium, fear of
double-crossing. Better to be alone, to
go out with a real bang, to show everyone I was here, I saw what it was like,
and there wasn’t any place for me.
Except being a loser that returned home to his parents without any
money. And I will not give in to that
failure. I will not be condemned to that
life. Better to be an independent being,
a victim of impossible circumstances, a fool perhaps, but a very talented one
that went unappreciated. A person whose legacy
is defined by this very document, a work of filth, a work of half-lived life, a
piece that will live in infamy as the definitive treatise on inadequacy,
depression, anxiety, self-injury, deviance, abuse, popularity, failure,
bitterness, hostility, paranoia, competitiveness, dilettantism, and love—real ,
imagined, denied.
Enough with the grandiose
vocabulary—are you still into it? I’m
not. It’s time to go. I’m in the bathtub. Here’s my utility blade. You’ve been a wonderful audience. Let’s see how long I can last. Just like when you’re scared to do something,
like jumping into a cold pool. One, two,
three, go! Right one cut! Right one cut! Oh, the blood is spewing, it is spewing! So much!
So fast! It’s crazy. Okay, left one now, left one now. And, left one cut! Left one cut!
Oh, that is crazy. I should put
my arms in the water for the soothing feeling but this is incredible, no one
has ever written this way before, I swear to God no one has ever spent their
last minutes writing as their life gives out.
Oh, it would be soothing to put them in the water. There is pain, and blood is getting all over
the keyboard, I hope the circuitry doesn’t become damaged and this document
unrecoverable. A buzz! A buzz at the door. I must buzz them in. A visitor!
Well I just got out of the bathtub
to grant them admittance to my building and I opened up my front door a crack
so they can push it in. Maybe they will
rescue me and bring me to the hospital and I will survive yet, but oh
well! It’s up to them. For now, I’m going to stop typing. Put my arms back in the tub and relax. This song is so soothing.
THE
END
