I wrote this in 2002, when I was just thirty-one. It feels like three lifetimes ago. So weird.
I’m proud of younger me, who wrote it. He’s struggling so much, he’s so afraid, and he won’t get help for his mental illness for a while, yet, so every day is just so hard. He just wants to raise his stepkids, love them the way he wasn’t loved, and have some kind of life with his wife, but a vindictive piece of shit just won’t stop trying to destroy all of their lives. He is trying so hard, and he feels like a failure, every minute of every day.
My heart hurts for the guy who wrote this, because I can remember exactly how he felt, but I’m also super proud of his refusal to give up, give in, or surrender. He fights for his wife, he fights for his family. He hasn’t learned how to fight for himself, but that will come, later.
He’s learning how to be a writer.
It’s an oppressively hot October afternoon. I have the worst writer’s block of my life. I can write a few words together, I can create one or two images, but I can’t connect them. I want to tell the story of the young girl who sees the carnival come to her small town, the girl who is just 18, and aware of her power over men, the girl who tries to use this power on a young ride operator so she can escape her small town. The girl who has her power turned back on her and ends the story crying in an empty field surrounded by torn tickets and cigarette butts.
I want to tell the story of the powerless man who watches his wife cry herself to sleep at night. The man who can’t provide for his family, the man who can’t protect them from the Bogeyman. The man who wanders his empty house at night, looking for the joy he knows once lived there. The man who waits for exhaustion to claim him in the deep of night, and give him a brief reprieve from his sadness.The stories sit cross a river of doubt and frustration, and the ferryman demands a payment I don’t have. I decide to walk down the shore, in search of a bridge.I find myself in Old Town Pasadena, in front of Hooters, where this whole journey began. Maybe my muse is inside.I walk in and find the place filled with middle-aged businessmen who drink beer and leer at the young waitresses over fish sandwiches. A young girl with hair so bleached it looks like straw says, “Welcome to Hooters!”“Can I get food at the bar?” I ask.“Of course!”“Thanks,” I say, and take a seat.The waitress working the bar appears to be about the same age as me, in stark contrast to the other girls who look like they’re all in their early 20s.There are heavy bags beneath her tired and sad eyes.“What can I get you?” she asks.“A Guinness and a cheeseburger,” I say.She turns, and pours me a pint. It’s still settling when she puts it in front of me.“Not many people drink Guinness in the middle of the day,” she says.“Is that a fact?” I say. In my mind I’m Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe, and I’m in a 1920s Hollywood speakeasy.“It is,” she says, “I think this is the only pint I’ve poured all day.“Well, I don’t like to drink beer I can see through,” I say, as I lift the now-settled glass to my lips.Her laugh doesn’t make it to her eyes, but it’s still friendly. I find a kindred spirit in her sadness. We’re both in a place we didn’t expect to be. I bet I’m the first guy she’s waited on all day who hasn’t stared at her skimpy outfit while talking to her.“Hey, honey, can we get another pitcher of Bud over here?” calls a guy in a George Zimmer signature suit at the corner of the bar. His tie is loose and he bounces his leg on the rail. It shakes under my foot. I don’t like that at all.I look around the restaurant. I’ve never seen it this full during the day. John Fogerty tells me that there’s a bad moon on the rise.“Sure,” she says, and walks down to the taps.Two young girls turn heads as they walk in and sit at a table behind me. “Oh my god! Your eyebrows look so great!” the tall one says.“Don’t they? I totally had them tattoo’d on,” she says.I tune them out and count the rings down my glass: one . . . two . . . three.Four.I look down the bar and see Men’s Wearhouse and his business partners putting their best midlife crisis moves on the waitress — my waitress. Brown Suit stares at her chest while Blue Suit flashes a capped smile at her. She giggles and fusses with her hair, and fills their glasses.“Hurry back!” Brown Suit says, as she walks back up the bar.Five. I stare at the top of my beer. It looks like clouds over a black sky.“So what do you do?” she asks.” . . . I guess I’m a writer.”“You guess you are, or you are?”“I am. I’m blocked today.”“By what?”“The Bogeyman.”“What’s that?”“A convenient literary metaphor.”“You are a writer.”I laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am.”“Have you written anything I’ve read?” she asks. A loaded question.“Probably not,” I say, “I wrote one, and the people who read it seem to like it, and I’m working on another one.”“But you’re blocked today,” she says.“Yeah. This place is sort of involved in my career choice, so I thought I’d come here and try to break the block.”“How’s that working out for you?” she asks. A flicker of mirth passes her eyes.
“Well, at the very least, I’ll get a Guinness out of the deal.”
I want to hug that version of me, and tell him that, because of everything he’s enduring, because of everything he is doing to fight for us, I have a great life. He’s hurting so much, and he’s so afraid. He feels like giving up, all the time, and he often wonders if it’s all worth it.
It is.
