That time I was in a Sartre play: part of a memoir, sort of.

I’m considering penning a memoir.  I’m serious.

I’m sure there’s a finer art to it than what I’m putting to paper. No, I know there is as evidenced by PaperGirlMemoir’s blog. I enjoy her blog, among several others, those detailing their writing journeys. I suppose she’s serving as a “model,” though she has a much better, cleaner handle on how to go about writing one than I do. I tend to ramble. (I’m pretending it’s my style, so don’t say anything).

Sometimes, it reads like this, but it doesn't feel like it.

At first, I thought, why on earth would I think anyone wants to read a memoir by me. And then, I thought, why not?  Words don’t exist just for those with accomplished lives. Nor do they wait for sentences that only come from the pens of established literati. I have lived, and that is miracle enough.

If we take Jung at his word, and dip our own toes in the “collective unconscious,” then surely there is no life unworthy of being written about.

Besides, what you say isn’t the point, is it?  The challenge comes in how you say it.

I’ve been stressing and stressing this to my students, this first summer term: that their opinions are of merit, that they really already know most of this critical theory “stuff,” (we do it daily in our normal lives) they’ve just never had to give it a name, before.  The higher hill to climb for them is in learning just that: how to justify their opinions. Most of them immediately jump to Reader-Response criticism, overlooking the necessity of understanding the purpose of becoming an “informed reader” within an “interpretive community.”

But, twisting that critical concept, a bit, I suppose, that’s what I’m trying to do, too: justify my opinions (except in this case, they all total up to My Life)…but, I mean, that’s one way of looking at a memoir, or the impetus behind writing one, right? It’s the ability to interpret your community.

I’ve been irregularly writing a memoir, or two, for the last couple of years. I never put a great deal of steady stock in it, but the idea, I find intoxicating. One day, maybe, I’ll put all these random pages together. But, in the meantime, I thought I might share a couple with you.  I’ve put, perhaps, a total of 60 pages into two different collections; the reason for that is they come from two very different stylistic approaches: singular personal (mostly me with opinions) and plural personal (mostly me + others + opinions). The titles I’ve given them are Loud Enough and Deer in the Road. I’m writing the titles here for posterity’s sake.

I got first dibs, in other words. (I worked really hard on coming up with them, too). 

…from Loud Enough

Maybe this is a work of fiction.  There’d be a certain irony in that, if it were.  Maybe this is an autobiography; there’s a good deal of personal experience and truth to the subject matter.  Or, maybe it doesn’t matter.  I’m probably only vaguely aware of what I’m saying.  But first things first, of course.

I’d been obsessing over a book, a memoir, for a long time because I thought I was interesting; I’d conquered (and that’s a term I’m using loosely) prose and poetry and playwriting.  Granted, these conquests occurred mainly in the privacy of my room, and the only witness was my cat, Aristophanes.  

Still, she was nonetheless proud and a harsh critic. 

But you know, I almost didn’t get this far.  I was almost too afraid of having to be responsible for words.  I’ve also been obsessed with that concept, with language in general.  For instance, I don’t own any of these words, and yet, by putting them into these sentences I’m basically contracting myself to their overall impression, their intent. 

There are few words more disappointing, more potentially upsetting in the whole English language than intent. It’s a frightening responsibility, too, to commit to something as determined as intent […]

I was haphazardly cast as The Tutor in Sartre’s The Flies, one February, early in the month, years ago.  I use haphazard because, to be honest, I didn’t want to be in the play.  I’d grown very upset with acting and tired and weary.  After all, I’d just turned 27.  I was already washed up, I felt.  I’d done nothing with my life, in theatre, at that point, of any real significance and I’d had such plans.  God, did I have plans.  All my friends were doing their, you know, plans, but not I.

Even a picture of flies is aggravating.

I fell in love.

That’s not so necessary for this book, though. 

At least not for this part.

I still had my professional experiences.  I still worked with good people who had a lot of knowledge about their place in the world of theatre and masks. 

A large criticism in my past has been my reluctance to commit; perhaps, I should use the colloquial term here for easy reference:  I was lazy.  But, now wait.  I had a good reason to be.  My procrastination came from an abundance of directions.  I was consumed with ideas for plays, for scenes, as an actor, as a singer, cabaret artist, and in character analysis, for design and costume, and so on and on and on.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibilities, and when you’re  faced with an endless array of potential, no matter which way you turn…what do you do?  I slept, usually.  My potential was deeply rooted in depression, a rhetorically habitual Remembrance of Things Past (I really should have read more Proust in life), a negligence of what was right in front of my face – I was nearly my own demise. 

Surely, you know that feeling.

Now, of course, I should explain about Sartre.  He’s really the reason I’m at this point, and really, in all honesty, why the hell should you care if I don’t at least explain the basis of this bizarre ramble…because of all the things I’m kinda OK at, rambling is not one of them – I’m more than OK at it; I am a Master of rambling. 

And, besides, you have no idea who I am.  But, you will.  You’ll care, because despite the idiosyncracies that are me, despite how different I might seem, I represent you, in a way.  I had a story I wanted to tell, and now I’m telling it.  I just decided, Enough!  It’s self-pity or self-preservation.  I suppose, though, you’ll decide that later, after reading this.  Still, that sort of passion in life is sorely overlooked, I think.

Don’t you?

As I said, I was The Tutor.  I had been unwilling to accept the role, even though I was asked three times to take it; the director, bless her beautiful heart, had offered it to me originally but I was suffering from a severe nonchalance of the stage. I’d spent, a few months earlier, over 350 rehearsal hours, every day of the week, on a somewhat shoddily written, original musical (though two of the songs were digestible), with a director incapable of producing a random scribble from a pencil, much less a vision for the piece (which was in and of itself a powerful story), and this, all from a nonprofit theatre organization with really good intentions (i.e., we all had day jobs, other contracts, etc.).  It was a painful process and nearly destroyed my faith in theatre.  That’s the part that would be severe. 

So, I wasn’t terribly excited or looking forward to another venture on stage.  Especially, Sartre’s The Flies, in which, I almost had to perform barefoot…which I never do. Ever. It was quite a struggle: me and the costumer.

You should know, first off, that The Flies is an excruciatingly lengthy production, and not one of his best.  Or perhaps that was only the case for ours? Most of our leads were magnificent, I must say, (though we did have a weak Orestes), and personally, I loved the material. It was, perhaps, my reticence that kept me; I also got in trouble for sneaking out, in costume, during Act One, third night of the run, and buying a bottle of champagne. I also got gas; I was on empty. (For shame!) But, The Tutor doesn’t come back on, after Act One, for a very long time. (Kris, Kris, Kris).

The play was still a poignant piece, and well-attended.  But, I took the role out of pity, a major offense in the craft of acting. 

No caption necessary.

That didn’t change much throughout the course of the run, either. I carried my plastic cup of pathos everywhere I went.

However, despite my best efforts at being indifferent and “put-upon,” Sartre got to me with one line. One line that would not escape me. One single line that made the entire show “worth it.”

[…]

There’s a moment in the opening of the play in which Orestes, the rightful heir to the throne of Argos (though I can’t see for the life of me why he’d want it) turns to The Tutor who had begun to politely berate him, if you will, about his aloofness to his upbringing and of course Orestes, being displaced royalty and spoiled, immediately starts in with “I know how lucky I am, but all the same, yadda yadda yadda…”

Kids.

But then, in one of his diatribes to The Tutor, he actually turns the tables.  It’s very slight, very subtle.  He’s in the middle of another “yadda yadda yadda” spiel when he suddenly (this is Sartre, so the use of the word suddenly is generous) accuses The Tutor of having no “joy in going somewhere definite.”

And all of a sudden, just like that, I was not The Tutor anymore. 

I was a 27-year-old man on a plain stage in Bloomington, Indiana, and I was…well, I was exactly what Orestes said, a man who had no joy, not going anywhere definite, not really going anywhere at all. 

Anymore.

And I wanted to know what happened to that curly-headed kid in glasses from Mississippi who had all his life been lauded as the next great piece of poetry in motion.  When did he slow down?  And why? 

So, here I am, writing a book about my life as if I’m great, one painful, pulled minute after another.  As if I’m worth it.  

And you want to know why? You want to hear the truth?  It’s because I’ve never believed I wasn’t. And that’s why I’m not afraid to write. This or anything else.

More to come…?

God, I hope so…(though it is a tad boring. But, I’m working on that, sorry).

Ah, Wilderness! Ah, Bottle Rockets!

What, no Welcome To...?

I was never the best with fireworks.

Which I find odd, in retrospect, because I had nearly flawless hand-eye coordination. Reflexes that would make a hummingbird jealous. I played tennis, and well. But, somehow this quick-speed ability failed me at fireworks.

I learned the hard way, too.

For some reason, as children, when the Hot Holidays arrived, so called because we were allowed fireworks as part of the celebration – and these included Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas which drained into New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, the Fourth; basically, we begged for fireworks on every holiday – and when we got them, oh how we eagerly hoarded the stash of Wildcats, Roman Candles, and Bottle Rockets.

We did this because we were preparing for battle, specifically with the bottle rockets.

The competition was fierce because the family was large, and so, there was precious time to twiddle thumbs and admire the holidays for their own purposes. Blood was soon to be drawn, when night fell, and there was an entire forest behind the house where our stashes would have to be hidden, kept in utmost secret, until the crucial hour.

I’m not sure who started Bottle Rocket Battle (it was by far and away, the most anticipated and heated of the Fireworks Wars), so I’m going to blame my cousin Michael, or his cousin from his mother’s side,  Hubo. (That’s right, his name was Hubo). They’re easy targets. Literally. But more on that in a moment.

Looking back, I wonder why no one stopped us.  Perhaps, our families knew we’d learn more if we actually got hurt. At any rate, that’s exactly what happened.

With the exception of the Christmas my mother set the yard on fire with an unfortunate mishandling of a Roman Candle, while trying not to spill her eggnog (it was less egg, more the nog), we held all of our fireworks displays, way out in the country of Winston County, in a section of it called Nanih Waiya, the birthplace of the Choctaws: land of gulleys, poprocks, a park with a large mound where their sacred dead are buried, and the countless number of people the police fine and/or arrest for trying to have sex on top of it, or “smoke the weed,” after the park has closed.

There was family land out there; Ma Onie, for instance, lived out here with two of her children, and about three hundred or so head of cattle. Cattle that were never sold, never killed, just fed, and allowed to reproduce.

The setting-of-the-yard-on-fire was an accidental ritual my Mother introduced, I’m afraid. It was a unique event that I would repeat down at Fish Camp, in Aunt Dot’s yard, several years later on the Fourth, while trying to outshine my cousin Kaye who could do everything perfectly from marriage and babies to coiffed hair and making even bran cupcakes delicious, etc. The difference was this: Mother set the yard on fire in the daylight; I, however, set Aunt Dot’s yard on fire in the middle of the night. 

I mean, come on!

You might think fire is easier to spot at nighttime. It isn’t.  Should this ever come up in dinner (or water cooler) conversations, you will now be the wiser.  I’m still waiting for this tidbit to somehow find its way on Jeopardy.

I remember that Christmas, a distant relative who was traveling (he always seemed to travel on family holidays) and unable to come home sent the children a large box of Chinese fireworks. At first, that meant little to nothing to me, wasn’t fire the same in every language, culture? Wasn’t it like, the one thing you could always count on not being different?

Pretty much. It was the “works” part that was foreign and dangerous and of course, absolutely what any child could ever ask for in a firework, if he or she were prone to throwing them at his or her cousins in War.

This is what we did, this was our game.  And these Chinese Reds, Paul called them that, he was fifteen and so, far more intelligent about the world than we were, they flew at a speed that had gotten my sister in trouble on more than one occasion.

See, we’d wait until dark, slip outside under the guise of, you know, shooting some fireworks, so far so good, that was expected.  The adults would mill around on the back patio, and we’d shoot out for the pasture.  The cows, grown used to the tradition would see us running into their yard, so to speak, and begin the long trek and amble down the other side of the hill, to settle in for the night, and low. We’d head to our respective stashes and the game would begin.

The point?

So, anyway, here’s how you played, and don’t try this at home (unless you have cows, and thus, a large pasture). You’d have your own cigarette lighter, no easy feat in a family of non-smokers – thankfully, we had grills and Buckstoves – and you’d track your opponents down, zero in on them, as fast as you could, light the bottle rocket and throw it at them.

This is the stupidest idea for a game in the history of the world, abridged and otherwise.

Yet, we played it. Year in and year out…until the time when I almost took Hubo’s eye out. It was all our faults, actually. We’d decided to play the game during the day, out of absolute and sheer boredom…I mean, we’d already kicked over all the antbeds and stuck the ends of the bottle rockets into it, allowing the ants to attack the rose-colored wood, and then we’d light the sucker and send them to the moon, pretending they were on a mission from their own Anthropod NASA.

They would never make it to the moon. Half the time, they didn’t make it over the chimney. One ill-fated flight flew slap into the side of the mailbox.  There’s always a risk.

So, naturally, there we were, in broad daylight, every antbed left unmade, and what’s a bunch of kids to do? Bottle Rocket Battle.

The problem was, this time, you could totally see your opponents. The bigger problem?  Parents milling about on the patio could also now see you. The lovely mystery of stealth, from all sides, was eliminated. The spoils would have to go not to the soft-footed, but to the quickest draw. If we were going to get in trouble for this, I was, at the least, going down in a blaze of glory, for it.

I was, like, having to try and light four and five bottle rockets at a time.

And, then, before I could see him, there was Hubo, one foot in the ditch, and the other on the cold, unloving road, merely a foot or two away from me; he’d been hiding behind that unsightly bridal bush that Ma Onie wouldn’t let anyway cut down, even though the county had told her it was a blind spot.  People should drive slower, she said.

The calling of the cows.

He was flicking his lighter, hopping a little on one leg, and I got nervous. I didn’t have time to light a single bottle rocket, so I just threw them all at him, at his face, and the bottom of one, apparently, stabbed him in his eye.

He cried so loudly, we were all around, what, 11 or 12, and with such a wail, that the cows came back over the hill, thinking it was time to eat breakfast. There was hardly a scratch on his eye, I thought, really, but he still came back from the emergency room with an eye patch.  

He was the center of attention at school until like Valentine’s Day.

Which we celebrated, quietly, peacefully, and with nothing more exciting than  a couple of stupid sparklers.  And that was fine by me.  I didn’t touch another firework until this past New Year’s, and that I did with my foot, protected safely behind a steel-covered boot, my jacketed arm covering both my eyes.

Which isn’t easy to do when you wear glasses.