The lamppost outside looks like a skinny old man growing out the top of a Ford Explorer. Blind slats cut across my vision. The windows are dirty. Before I got the sprinkler tube fixed, the water would spray up in the air like a geyser and wash them. The sky is a smoky blue with a white haze ringing the horizon above the rooftops. The driveways are empty because, for some reason, everyone parks in the street.
It’s likely I’ll sit here spitting sunflower seed shells into a cup all morning, watching nothing happen through the front window of this home office. Might as well record my doings, to get the word count. I think I’m poetic, but I’m probably not. Probably just a wannabe rapper with too much education. Too much abstraction and rhyme. They can’t see it, I tell myself. But I like it, and that’s supposed to be the point, right? But then again, I don’t like it that much. Not enough to think other people should like it. And that’s what good art has to be.
I’m not good with stories, either. I don’t like fabricating characters from my own soul and putting them in fake circumstances, pretending they’re not all reflections of my own inner turmoil. But I don’t wanna write a bildungsroman, either. Feels too egotistical. Or maybe I don’t wanna scratch up all those old scabs. Or maybe they’re too boring to scratch up at all. Nobody’s listening, anyways, let alone reading. Why take the time? Two birds just flew by, low to the ground. They must be pretending to talk a walk.
What is a man to do when he has a voice and nothing to say? I’ve certainly taken the wrong tack, preaching. Jobless men shouldn’t preach. Then again, aren’t all preachers jobless? It’s like working for tips. If you get good service, you pay for it. If not, you don’t. Preachers are servers, and I’m the kind of preacher that gives mirror service. Mirror service is when the service reflects the patron’s behavior back to them. It’s an experience for sure, especially if you don’t realize that’s what he’s doing. It’s really obnoxious, and I know it is, but I do it anyways because it’s amusing. It doesn’t pay well, though. That’s why I’m unemployed.
Actually, I don’t know why I’m unemployed. And that might, actually, be an interesting story to tell. But I’m not in the mood to tell it. It could be instructive for someone, but they’ve got enough in their own life to instruct them without having to pick through a half-lived version of a stranger’s experience. It’d be easier to show you your own teachable moments. That’s what I used to do, teach. But I got fired. The mother of one of my former students accused me of grooming her daughter. And that’s all it takes. I’m not even going to waste words trying to defend myself against the accusation, because the accusation alone was enough to cost me my job. Integrity, once assaulted, can’t be proven. You’d just have to trust me, and you don’t trust me. You, most likely, think I’m guilty. Maybe you’re right.
Why am I wasting my time writing? I’ve got a blog, but my wife isn’t even subscribed to it. There’s enough to make of that to make me quit right now. Maybe that’s it, I’m a quitter. I don’t stick with things that I’m not successful at. I’m a successful reader. I used to be a pretty good basketball player. I’ve got a writing voice. My marketable skills end there. Nobody’s paying people to read after graduate school. I’m too old for the NBA or the Big Three. I have nothing to write about. At least, nothing that I’m passionate enough about writing about that will keep my interest through the finish line. I’ve got enough patience for poetry, but as I said, I’m not good at it. Sometimes, I watch these anime shows or Claymation movies or stop-motion movies and marvel at the amount of time folks spent animating these hundred-minute feature films. Six years to make Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. All of the props and models and sets and artists and details and voices and retakes and remakes and. “Come back let’s try it again,” to sit down and see the film you poured your life out for dropped into the vat of endless scrolling options on your preferred streaming platform, to be watched or not watched, watched and then forgotten, watched and followed by some trash, watched and favorited and then forgotten, watched twice or three times but not make the favorites list. Studios must pay very well to get that kind of commitment for such a low level of appreciation. Maybe a trophy and a round of applause. Maybe the opportunity to pour six more years into another story, for less applause. The juice, it seems, is never worth the squeeze. To steal a bar from King Solomon, all is vanity and chasing after the wind. But I gotta work, because I need the money. I really need the money.
Those two birds brought friends back. Now they’re flying up and down between the grass and the gutters on the house across the way. The had some plumbing work done recently, so the ground was overturned. For the first couple of days afterwards, a swarm of them ate breakfast under the shadow of their roof in that very spot. The grass is beginning to grow back, but I’m sure the insects are still complaining about the construction. I can’t hear the birds singing through the glass, but I can hear the lawnmower growling down the street.
I guess what I’m getting at with all of this is, the world is ending. What’s my motivation, at this point? That it might not end? It’s not a matter of if, but when. But sure, to humor the argument, maybe there’re 150 years left before Jesus crack the clouds. Maybe 1,500 years. Maybe 150 days. Maybe 150 seconds. I glance at the clock. Either way, though, the way this thing is going, I’m not interested in being a part of it. Everybody is selling themselves, so nobody’s buying. Everybody’s talking, so nobody’s listening. Families are estranged. Texts are left on unread. We walk through the grocery store like the groceries are the most interesting thing in there. We don’t share stories or shows, because everyone’s algorithms different. There’s no more community, no nation of agreeable traits or mores. I don’t follow politics, but I can imagine even the most faithful party loyalists are pissed off at both right now. Every new show that comes out is about something wicked. Every new movie is dark and evil. Everything newly made is dredging up the dark matter of the soul of humanity. I gotta be Heath Ledger, now, to get read. I gotta become demon possessed to write what folks wanna read?
I’m not motivated by this atmosphere. I’m not motivated to preach to the certainly lost and unwilling to be found. I’m not willing to pour my soul out for the one. Because my motives are not pure. They’re monetary, and I thought I was better than that, but I’m not. I thought I was a better writer, but I’m not. I thought I was a better poet, but I’m not. And so now I’m here, an unemployed forty-year old black man with a wife and four children living in the most dangerous place for a black man to live in the history of the world without any independent way to provide for his family, and I’d love to turn this talent into something, but I don’t care enough about what I’m writing to focus on it because all I’m really after is getting these bills paid and taking a long Rip Van Winkle nap. Maybe with Jesus, I’ll write a book. But I can’t hear my heart right now. I’m too afraid. I’m too stuck inside of my head, batting back horrifying visions of the future. And if not horrifying, then mundane ones. It’s sobering to find out you’re not who you thought you were, who you’ve been saying you were, and now I can’t drink to the fallacy and wash it away. I could, but I won’t. I get to sit in this fire, rocking back and forth like a mule.
Don’t read this. It’s embarrassing. And please, for Christ’s sake, don’t comment. Just pretend you don’t see it.
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