Home, I sat in my kitchen nook, watched the house fly bang his head against the bare bulb. Bored with the banging, I looked in my saucepan, sized up the two thighs circling one another like bare-backed wrestlers out of Iowa. As usual, I put my money on the smaller.
"Boil, bastard, boil."
Thighs dancing in pan, I set about chopping vegetables. Chopping, I could feel the eyes of Sarah Bernhardt looking out from my wallpaper. Though the actress wasn't allowed to speak until spoken to, usually, by now, I'd be using her as an appetizer: The pile of curls upon her head, the gardenia above her ear, that pull of her little finger upon her lip.
And why had I taken no notice of the actress? In part, because I'd had enough of women for one day. In part, because the actress was always making an ass of me. In part, because I needed to prepare my defense, so when I finally allowed the dead actress to speak, I could come out of the tangle with dignity.
This little game I played of an evening was simply a writing exercise I'd drummed up to hone my dialoguing skills. The trick was to relinquish control, allow the fictional character to come to life, speak for herself. And, yes, I'd become so accomplished at my craft I had little to no control over what my antagonist would say of an evening. That's what made my little exercise engaging--if not a little scary.
And, no, this little game I played of an evening, wasn't symptomatic of a human going over the edge. It was symptomatic of an artist going to the edge. We creative types hovered over edges out of necessity. For edges were where artists got stuff--the good stuff, anyway. Sure, the artist could make art without going to the edge, but that art didn't involve creativity; it involved stealing.
Waiting on my stew, I grabbed the book I liked to read when starving. This novel, Hunger, was first published in 1890. I must have read it twenty times. All my favorite novels were published before 1920, and I kept reading them over and over. Sure, I was hungry for something new to read, but there was little to no fiction published these days that I could read. In truth, that's why I wrote; so I'd have something to read.
What else I liked about this book was the embossing. Before reading, I liked to take a finger, run it over the little dog on the cover. No, I had little to no love of dogs, but this dog was blue, and not real, so I rather liked petting it.
Before opening Hunger, I got the bright idea of shoving the book in Sarah's face. She was already pissed that I'd taken no notice of her, and I--up for some engaging dialogue--was out to piss her off some more.
My stew cooked, I took a bite of thigh--yes, the smaller back out of Iowa had won first bite. Chewing, I looked up, made as if I'd noticed something. "Oh, Sarah," I said, smacking, "was that you, or just the house fly banging his head against me bulb?"
Sarah was so pissed I could hardly make sense of what she was ranting on about. Something about a snowstorm outside, a red-nosed clown inside. But then she dropped the line, "Taint a fit night out for man nor muse."
This line was from a W.C. Fields movie. WC says, "Taint a fit night out for man nor beast," then throws his dog out into the blizzard. Sarah had cleverly substituted muse for beast in light of the point that she thought I, having talked to my muse--a no-no by the codes of courtly love--had thrown my muse to the dogs.
My defense well prepared, I pointed my spoon at Sarah. "You know what your problem is, Bernhardt? You're hung up on the wall of history. That's right; dead for so long you don't know up from down."
Sarah didn't say anything.
"Take hemlines, Sarah. You wouldn't believe how hemlines have gone up, come down, since they buried you in that ankle-length dress of yours."
Sarah looked at me as if she didn't know where I was going with this.
"What I'm saying, Sarah, is that courtly love is a lot like fashion; certain decades permitting more leg than others. Which is to say--in these waning days of the twentieth century--it's totally OK for an artist to talk to his muse."
"How convenient," I had Sarah say. "You screw up, and you change codes as old as Hammurabi to suit your screw-ups. Like I say, some old soul you are."
"Listen, you relic, I'm not tossing out hemlines altogether. Though we artists of today are allowed to talk to our muse--even get to know her, if we are so disposed--still, a line must be drawn. And that line is clearly this: The artist must never lay as much as a finger on said muse. Why? Because if he does, then she . . . then the muse in her up and dies."
"That's a cumbersome saying," Bernhardt said. "Perhaps you wanted to say, 'Touch the muse; torch the muse.'"
Say, that was better. I opened my journal, wrote it down.
After doing dish, I boiled some water, threw in a bag of chamomile, carried my saucepan over to my laptop. My goal: Prove to Bernhardt--and myself--my muse wasn't dead.
I clicked opened my Great Work, read aloud the first sentence--all I had so far. "I rather liked my horse, but then a certain finger stirring a certain ponytail roped me, and that's how I lost me horse."
Proud, I looked up at Sarah. "Is that a killer first sentence, or what?"
Sarah didn't say anything.
I looked down at my killer sentence. "No, Sarah, you just don't get a sentence of that caliber without a working muse working your ear. Not to say it was all my muse's doings. Sure, she came up with the meat of the sentence; the horse part, but when it came to bait for my better reader--the clever ponytail part--that was all my doing."
"Ponytail?" Bernhardt said. "What better reader's going to bite on a ponytail? Ha, ha."
I looked down. Mmm, perhaps a ponytail was a bit juvenile. I deleted the ponytail part, which left me with a certain finger stirring a certain . . . what?
I remembered something then. Something pressing I needed to turn to. No, my Thursday night Writing Circle was approaching and my short story needed work. So I clicked open my ex-wife story, started throwing the garbage out in that.
Bored with forty-something ex-lovers, I went into my kitchen nook, picked up my chair of power, carried it to my closet, positioned it just so. Here, between door jams, I'd sit and meditate. Here, in my place of power, I'd wield my will and whatnot.
Before sitting, I liked to throw a cold eye into the corner I never went in, where stood the chair I never sat in. That blue fish chair I wanted no part of because it was bad.
The good chair I sat in was more like a short stool, with a short back on it. Because one couldn't lean back in the chair without falling over, I'd learned to position the chair in the doorway of my closet, using the one jamb as a backrest, the other jamb to brace a knee against. Yes, wedged between jambs like that, one could sit for hours.
Positioning my body just so, I rolled my neck, engaged my breathing, shut down my thoughts, tuned to my favorite program: Silence.
Wait. I'd never expressed it just so. I got up, lifted my journal, wrote, "Silence, my favorite program."
I looked back at my beat-up chair posing between door jambs.
Which reminded me; time to turn in. I laid down on my floored futon, turned out the light, told myself a bedtime story.
But my eyes, they're burning in the sun.
No, too much glare for a bedtime story. I rolled over, covered my eyes, told a story with a darker theme.
Every one has little bugs inside.
****
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