Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Richard A. Webster

Time eventually slows to a crawl in New Orleans.
Until there are no days or weeks or months—just one long unavoidable experience.
Day and night lose all meaning.
Dawn and dusk become one.
Noon is the same as midnight and dreams become interchangeable with our waking experiences.
Sometimes it's impossible to verbalize the difference between love and hate and what side everyone is on—enemy or friend, lover or stranger.
I no longer recognize familiar faces.
Last weekend as I was walking out of the grocery store, a woman called out my name.
She was standing outside of the exit next to a table stacked with Girl Scout cookie boxes.
She smiled at me, a warm, welcoming smile that made me feel human.
But I wasn't human. I had been drinking for 48 hours and was trapped in the delirium of my self-induced derangement. These days, I find this state of mind a more comfortable place to exist. It frees me from the pitfalls of clear thinking and rational assessment.
"Rich, how are you?"
She was young and pretty and I had no idea who she was.
"This is my daughter Chloe," she said. "Chloe, this is Rich."
I felt relieved that she had a child. That eliminated any chance that I had done something unnatural to her in the deep hours of the night.
I smiled at little Chloe who showed no interest in me.
Smart girl.
The mother, who couldn't have been older than 28, took hold of my arm and asked me how I was.
"Fine," I lied.
It was a beautiful day, breezy and warm, the type of day built for momentary joy. But I was a wreck, sweating, shaking, desperate for the safety of seclusion.
My truck was 50 feet away. And as this kind mother talked to me I considered making a break for it. But despite my fall into the depths, I have been unable to skin from my soul the annoying desire to be liked and to return the kindness of strangers with my own brand of humanity.
This is my weakness.
I want to be a monster but my Irish guilt has me trapped in a never-ending cycle of ruin.
I can be as vicious as napalm to an unknown mark on a neighboring stool, but if there is a hint of connection, a friend of a friend or a person who claims to have a slight affection for me, I melt.
"Do you think you could buy a few boxes to help us out?" she said with a laugh.
Her eyes sparkled, uncorrupted and honest. Maybe a decade back she was like me and the others, but she left the debauchery behind when little Chloe arrived.
She left people like me behind where we belong.
"I don't have any cash," I said. "But I suppose I can go back inside and get some money out of the ATM."
"Thanks Rich," she said, again with the unnerving kindness.
So I went back inside the grocery store.
The goddamn grocery store.
I walked inside, head down, past the old, blank-eyed lady handing out fliers—"No thanks, I'm fine"—and diverted my eyes from the 90-year old widows shoving cans of Spam into their carts, trudging through the lonely asylums of their waning years. They were the ones who always got me. I couldn't stand the sight of them. And if they were shuffling down an aisle I needed to enter, I would wait and wander, periodically checking back to make sure they were gone.
These are a few of my least favorite things.
These widows and widowers, searching for a half-off special on coffins, they have always sunk me into that knife-like sadness that can turn a breezy, sunny day into a cemetery memory, me standing around the casket of my friend Tom who died four years ago.
And it's not that I mourn mortality, it's just that I hate the mundane ritual of growing unoriginal and old, checking off a list of grapes and raisins and butterscotch candies.
But I've said too much.
I moved quickly to the ATM, hit the fast cash $20 button and walked out the exit to the Girl Scout table.
"I'll take a box of thin mints."
The cute mother who somehow knew me and my name smiled and gave me my cookies and change and wished me well.
Good enough.
I said "bye" and walked to my truck, my dirty, windowless black truck with the silver fleur de lis painted on the hood like a warning or a desperate plea for attention.
I hit the ignition and spun the volume knob on the radio so everyone within earshot could hear "Fuck the Pain Away" by Peaches.
Another desperate bid for attention.
But in my mind it was a way to purge the crust of this domestic ritual from my spirit.
I'm running out of ideas, methods to separate myself from the masses.
I fear the next step will be self-mutilation or suicide.
Or maybe I'll become a priest.
Or apply to clown school.
But I fear I will be over-qualified for the latter.
"Dear Mr. Webster, we have received and reviewed your application but regret to inform you that we do not believe you are a good fit for Mr. Bobo's College of Squirts and Pratfalls. We contacted the references you provided and based on the stories they related, our dean denied your entrance shortly before he took an extended leave of absence. It seems the things he heard about your exploits in New Orleans caused him to question his own qualifications as a public amuser. The last we heard he was in Tijuana begging a serially abused mule to take his hand in marriage and return with him to the States so he could show that "goddamn bastard RAW" just who was boss. Please do not take this rejection as a comment on your obviously compromised character. The faculty at Mr. Bobo's fought for your admission. But between you and me, I think they only wanted to admit you to see firsthand if it was possible for someone to do what you have done and still retain the ability of speech. I myself have no doubt that you are a fully-functioning man-monster and would like to extend to you an invitation to attend my mother's fourth wedding. Of course, you will have to agree to be my date and reenact the story Mr. Sullivan told us regarding your time in Quepos, complete with the bottle of tequila, wrench and iguana, if only for appearance's sake. Yours truly, Squealy McNipple Twister."

Time eventually slows to a crawl in New Orleans.
Until there are no days or weeks or months—just one long unavoidable experience.
Day and night lose all meaning.
Dawn and dusk become one.
Noon is the same as midnight and dreams interchangeable with our waking experiences.
Sometimes it's impossible to verbalize the difference between love and hate and what side everyone is on—enemy or friend, lover or stranger.
I no longer recognize familiar faces.
And at this point I ain't too sure I give a shit.
One new friend disappears and morphs into another and is forgotten just as soon as you realize they've left your side.
This is the product of New Orleans livin'.
This is the product of experience and trial by tequila.
This is the product of lost loves and hope.
This is the product of nothing at all.
Say, "Hello."
Say, "I love you."
Say, "Pass me a beer."
Say, "Where did they go?"
And then say, "Goddammit. Where did they go?"
After that, it's back to the pits.
When you're loved, you take it for granted.
And when you're alone, you scream for affection.
And in the long, cold months in-between love and loss, when you feel neither joy nor pain, you may as well be dead, trudging down that supermarket aisle, shoveling cans of ravioli into your wobbly cart, knowing you long ago gave up the art of eating in favor of deterioration.
But you have to keep up appearances.
For the sake of mankind.
For nothing makes people uneasier than someone who is not following the predetermined rules of engagement.
For Christ's sake man, at least pretend to be normal.
Ok.
I will.
For you,
Anything.
I like reality TV.
How was that?
No?
It wasn't good enough?
I'm sorry.
It's all I got.
And to be honest,
I'm not sorry.
And I never was.
But you'll have the last laugh
When I'm deep in the dirt
Whispering all the darkest secrets of mankind into
The ears of the worms.
My friends.
These familiar faces.
And so it goes.