Boy, I sure looked forward to these Circles. Of course, tonight I had nothing to read--worked so long on that first sentence to my Great Work, never got around to the short story sure to purge me of my ex-wife.
After I got the wine--the snake oil that turned all would-be writers into writers--I dropped by Bob's. Yes, snake Bob was in my Writing Circle.
Climbing out of my truck, I could hear the metal inside Bob's house--the 70's Heavy Metal.
Climbing Bob's steps, I could hear the wood on the side of Bob's house--the 70's rotten wood.
Somehow, these dueling sounds--hard metal; soft wood--lit up the Big Screen in my head. Was this a scene from a hit movie I had seen? No, it was the scene Bob had made in the grocery store--hitting on that girl at the Salad Bar. No, if there ever was a guy who could give a girl a forking, it was Bob with that snake tongue of his.
The Big Screen lit up a couple of hands next.
Oh, how I wished the salad girl hadn't waved to me as she had walked away. Oh, how I wished I hadn't seen the hand of Bob--in the small of her back--giving me a thumbs-up, as he had walked her away.
At Bob's side door, I raised my fist to knock. I hit myself in the head instead. No, I really needed to get the salad girl out of it. Didn't need another girl haunting me till death. Had the ex to serve me there.
That wasn't accurate. It wasn't my ex-wife who haunted me--Tiandra and I were still friends. It was the turn towards Tiandra that haunted me. I'd named the turn Tiandra because that Tiandra turn was the biggest wrong turn of my life. The kind of turn a guy a spends the rest of his life mulling over.
Before taking on the load that was Bob, I thought I'd sit a spell, mull.
Planting my ass on Bob's rotten landing, I scolded myself. "Don't you go kicking yourself now." I kicked Bob's rotten step. "That wrong turn of yours; you were all of twenty when you made it. Hell, all the turns a guy makes at twenty are wrong."
That wasn't accurate. I'd only made the one wrong turn, really. Quite the feat considering all the wrong turns my room mate in college had made. And, oh, what a laugh I had over that great sum.
It was then that I felt the gods looking down.
Thank God for the gods. No, you want a dose of understanding; strike up a dialogue with the gods.
I looked up. "Sorry, gods. I know you don't like us shepherd-types laughing at our sheep."
Having had a laugh themselves, I had the gods say, "True, Anton, your room mate's serial womanizing was wrong, but, turns out, the sum of all Chuck's little wrongs equal your one big wrong."
Damn, the gods were right. Where serial Chuck was striking up relationships with a pair of tits, or a perfect ass, I was getting my cereal ass hauled off to the alter. Where Chuck's wrong turns lasted a week or two and were forgotten, my wrong turn lasted the better part of a decade. And here I was now, sixteen years later, that boulder from my past still obstructing my climb.
So there I sat, working the heal of my work boot, gouging rot out of Bob's punky step. OK, so I may not have been the highest shepherd on the mountain, but at least I was no sheep.
I was quite through with the gods, but, lo, they weren't through with me: "Not to sweater a shorn sheep, Anton, but think; think what you might have achieved had you not taken that wrong turn."
Now there's food for thought. I quit working my boot that I might look into this. "Let's see," I said, salivating, "there's so much I could have achieved." Having selected the most likely, I said, "I could have achieved samadhi, for one."
And, oh, what a laugh the gods had over that one.
"Hey," I said, working both heels, "I might have achieved that. Don't you remember what a healthy fear of God I had back when I was twenty?"
"Healthy fear of humans, is more like it."
"Ya, well, maybe I had some of that as well, but the point is, gods, there wasn't a day in college I didn't want to quit, make a beeline for the nearest monastery."
"Beeline? If memory serves, you couldn't get on the straight and narrow for the curves."
Damn, the gods were right again. Though I saw myself as a monk-in-the-making--all paranoids do, I was also male, wanted to take my shot at cracking the mystery that was female.
I took my eyes off the piles of punk I'd dug up with my heals, fixed them on the barrel Bob kept by his side steps. The darkness contained within the rim sure looked inviting. Instead of diving in, hiding--like I was prone to do in my youth, I spit in the barrel.
"Barrel?" Bob had said, "that's no barrel, bonehead. That's my wishing well."
"Wishing well?" I had said, sticking my head in it. "But, Bob, your well don't hold water." Boy, my voice sounded manly, booming in that barrel. "And . . . and . . . and there's no coins in it to boot."
I pulled my head out to find Bob pulling out his money clip.
"Listen, Blue Collar," he said, feeling up his greenbacks, "I didn't make my million by emptying my pockets." Bob pocketed his clip. "Take a lesson, Blue; there's two steps to success. Step one: Look down on everything. Step two: Spit on everything that's looking up." Manly Bob then spit in the barrel.
And there I sat on Bob's rotten landing, adding punk to my piles. Yes, manly Bob was the model of success, all right--not one redeeming quality.
That wasn't accurate; the guy could write. Which reminded me of something my writing prof had said in college: "Don't look down on a work just because the writer was an ass." "Why not?" I had asked. "Because then you'll have no literature to look up to."
Say, maybe that's why I struggled with my writing; I wasn't ass enough to do it service. And as for my ex-wife short story; maybe I was just too nice-a-guy to get down and dirty enough to purge proper.
That was that then, no more mister nice guy. I spit in Bob's barrel. And, as for ass, how hard could it be to play the ass?
But that was the size of it; playing the ass was easiest act on this nether earth plane. What was hard was checking the ass--checking the ass that a guy might achieve a higher seat. I mean, just look at the high chair all the eons of checking had gotten me.
"High chair?" I heard the gods say. "Do share, Anton; where is it again you are sitting?"
"Where?" I said, "Why, I'm sitting here--here on my mountain of accumulated integrity. Sitting a stones throw away from graduating from this nether earth plane altogether is where. God, gods, get a clue."
"Here's a clue: You're sitting on Bob's rotten landing, the biggest ass in the kingdom. Here's Clue Two: You're destroying the rotten step you need to get off Bob's rotten landing. Clue Three: You're about to knock on Bob's metal door. There's only one door you should be knocking on, Anton, and, Clue Four: Heaven's gate ain't made of aluminum." And, oh, what a laugh the gods had over that pearl.
Damned gods. No, when it came to assigning me gods, God sure scraped the bottom of the barrel. I threw an eye to the gods then. A damning eye that said, "Maybe it's time I got me some new gods."
Perhaps the gods could read the damning eye, for lo, they said, "Believe us, Anton, we prayed and prayed to God to issue us a new sheep. Do you know what God said?"
I didn't say.
"God said, 'Tough love, suckers; no one gets a new sheep till the old sheep gets to market.'"
Just as I suspected; caught in a conspiracy that went all the way to the top. Well, that was that then; instead of helping the gods get me to market, I was going to do what stiff necks had been doing since the Eden exodus; make a mutton of myself.
I got up, faced the Heavy Metal rattling Bob's aluminum.
Like the last time I knocked and let myself in. Like the last time, there sat shirtless Bob, poultry colored skin, drumsticks in hand, banging on the pots and pans carefully positioned on his coffee table.
Heading for the stereo, I stepped over the pots and pans that didn't make it into his drum-set. Of course, Bob, banging away with his eyes closed, was unaware an intruder was in his home. I pulled the needle off the whirling LP. Bob stopped drumming, started rubbing the heavy metal out of his blood shot eyes.
"Christ, Bob," I said, heading for the coffee table, "I can't believe you sit on your ass all day pretending you're a damned drummer in a damned rock band. Hell, if I had your time to write, I'd-a knocked out a novel by now."
"But drumming," Bob said, rim-shotting some Teflon, "that's how I write."
"I'm sorry Bob, but banging the day way on kitchen caboodle is a far cry from writing."
"But drumming is how I see my story. It's like automatic. Once I get the beat down the story plays out in my head like a movie. Besides," Bob flexed, "it keeps me in shape."
It was true, the guy's upper body was as toned as mine, and I did real work eight hours a day.
"Still," I said, flexing a bit myself, "sitting around drumming up words in your head isn't writing. That's what every bonehead nonwriter does round the clock. You got to get the words down on paper, Bob. That's writing." And for punctuation, I raised a leg, stomped the floor.
Bob stared at the saucepan I'd stepped in.
Damn, my boot was really stuck in that saucepan. I hobbled over, took a seat on the coffee table. Wrestling with the pan, I took to thinking of Bob's writing dilemma. Perhaps he had writer's block. A common block was fear of the blank page. A fear I couldn't relate to, for I loved the blank page. "What, Bob, you fear the blank page?"
"Not at all. It's the drudgery I fear. The drudgery of wrestling pure fiction onto a page."
My foot free of pan, I stood up. "Well, did you wrestle any fiction together for today's Circle?"
"Sure did." Bob threw his drumsticks over his head, clawed some wild back into the hair he'd sweated flat. "What about you, did you finish . . . hey, you better have brought enough wine this time."
Bob threw on a shirt. Christ, the drunk had dribble stains down his bib.
"Pecooliar," Bob said, "plenty pecooliar."
"What's pecooliar, Bob?"
"You playing dress-up with me. I'm sure you'd make a man a fine one, but, sorry, I'm just not in the market for a wife."
I knew better than to say anything. Bob grabbed his short story off his mantle and we headed for the side door.
Down the side steps, Bob stopped to examine his punked up step.
"Oh, that," I said. "I meant to tell you, I saw a . . . a raccoon was what it was. Ya, clawing away at that step like . . . as if it had it in for you."
"Well, that's that then." Bob quick-drew his money clip. "I'm buying a gun."
I laughed. "Jeez, Bob, you can't be shootin no gun in town." A thought came to me then. I stopped, quick-drew my pad and pen.
"What?" Bob said, familiar with my quick-draw. "Some shootin words come to you?"
"Nah," I said, aiming my pen, "talking about the blank page back there; made me think of something."
"What, your history with women?"
I knew better than to say anything. Having thrown Bob the bad-dog glare I'd lifted from my new girl, Coral Score, I filled in my page.
Climbing in my pickup, I filled Bob in. "That blank page back there; made me think of my love of the blank page--the unlimited promise I see in the blank page. And that's what I had to get down. That unlimited promise I see in the blank page is the same unlimited promise I see when I first look into a woman's beautiful eyes."
My exclusive attraction to women who wore no make-up disgusted Bob. That's why, backing out Bob's potholed driveway, he said, "I see a blank page in those kind of eyes myself. And that's why those kind of women draw a blank in my pants. See, Anton, women who wear no make-up portray no Cleopatra--no deep mystery. And it's the prospects of probing the deep that gets a man up. A real man, anyway."
Real men disgusted me. That's why, driving down Bob's potholed street, I said, "Ya, Bob, you're real, all right. Too bad you real men keep making the same mistake."
"I make no mistake."
"Think about it, Bob; you see deep mystery in face paint. Seeing depth in surface is the biggest mistake in the book."
"Ya, well, what you see as deep mystery in a woman is worse."
"I keep telling you Bob, a mask does not the mystery make."
"I keep telling you, Anton, a lumberjack does not the mystery make. Now, if you get off probing a lumberjack's pants, well, more power to you. I'll stick with Cleopatra. Call it surface, but at least I know it's a woman's pants I'm trying to get into."
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