I collected unemployment for two months and wrote most of my first novel as 2002 began. Found a horrible job at an insurance brokerage and published the more complete sections of my novel as Cant columns. Eventually finished the story for real, but never got around to posting the final chapters. (They're by far the best part.)
After that I couldn't write anything. I had nothing to say and not because I'd said it all; I'd spent months running in circles, struggling to write an entire novel without embarassing any relatives, which is exactly as easy as writing a novel without using vowels.
I finally realized that I had spent no years marinating in seedy bars and dimly lit brothels, studying the fringes of human existence, learning the secrets of international espionage, sleeping my way through Hollywood, looting the newly opened markets of Mother Russia or living the rock 'n' roll life for the youthful thrill of it, eating out of dumpsters and playing scrabble with Uncle Heroin. I hadn't even lived in a tree for six months as the last defense against the monster of industry. The world was neither better or worse for my being here. My life story was a TV guide entry without a summary. Thursday, 3:30 am PST: Joseph Ferreira: Profile in Acne" (30 min) (Time approximate after bowling).
I wanted to be a novelist and I had nothing inside me to write. No moving journal of recovery, no first-person historical reportage; not even a video guide, for chrissake.
After months of frustration and surreal arguments with those around me (for what we argue about is never what we think we’re arguing about; and the deeper the vein explored, the more insane it looks when it mutates to the surface); I realized the problem: I'm due to write a book about my parents, and in doing so, confront directly all the childhood issues I’ve put off dealing with for the last few decades. I wasn't pleased by this realization, since I put off dealing with those issues for good reason, and there is no role for Harrison Ford or Gina Gershon in the film version of my parents' lives; yet it would have to happen.
A friend told me about her favorite writing teacher from college - the guy who lived in an apartment in Harlem with his wife and no electricity; he cooked his meals on a barbecue set on the fire escape. He told her there were two kinds of writers: those who read constantly and write about what they learn, and those who observe the world obsessively and report what they see with great honesty and accuracy. And me? I'd run in the third direction, back into the big beige eye of the storm, where most people are very nice and they stay that way by very carefully feeling only what they're supposed to feel, thinking only what they're supposed to think, revealing not much of anything and admitting to no embarassment greater than choosing the wrong shirt-tie combo.
But every day of life has knocked through moments of literary excitement; the characters I've met could make up several books all by themselves. Note:
A classmate from UCSC moved to San Francisco after graduation and we hung out a few times. His girlfriend was a psychic who worked for a telephone fortune-telling service run by gangsters with phone-sex operators sharing the office.
Eight years later I drove from New York to Pittsburgh to pick up my stereo from a friend; walking one mile down the street to a restaurant for dinner, I bumped into my classmate. I said hi; he said he was in a hurry to get somewhere. If I’d been on the other side of the street, I never would have known he was there. How many chance encounters had been narrowly (and successfully) avoided over the years?
Three years after that, I bumped into him on Grand Avenue in Oakland. He was hurriedly waiting for a bus. It was awkward.
Through a personal ad I met a large-breasted woman with two dogs and no hair who left home at 16 to join a rolling hippie protest. She didn’t call back.
I also saw her a few days ago on Grand Avenue in Oakland. Are they dating?!?
Through another personal ad, I dated an artist who made her living by doing phone sex. She didn’t like Spike Lee’s film on the subject.
In high school I was in love with a beautiful young woman who hung out in Bart stations reading a book she hoped would attract men. Her plan was successful and she got pregnant shortly after graduation, got married, got divorced, did some modeling, dated locally famous musicians, raised her daughter and suggested I move into a warehouse with her. She took the Green Tortoise to New Orleans and arrived with her scooter tied to the roof of the bus, five dollars in her pocket, and no shoes. She has a talent for finding men to take care of her. She drew beautifully and has had at least a few gallery exhibitions. She was smart enough to get into an exclusive private high school; you’d never know if from speaking with her. She speaks like English is her second language and flustered giggling is her first.
A woman I once proposed to is now engaged to the ex-husband of the friend I was in love with when I met the woman I later proposed to. (It was an awkward week, let me tell you.) He shared my habit of pining for women who were living with their boyfriends; he took it several steps further and divorced his wife to be with the woman he loved when she was still living with her boyfriend of several years. The boyfriend decided he liked the idea too, and he left; she was hurt and angry, furious at being manipulated and idolized and robbed of all stability in her life. She got over it.
More to come. Notes to take. Names to change.
Copyright 2002 Betsy Shebang