I'm not sure how old I was when I realized I was a writer or might be a writer or could be a writer. Problem was I couldn't think of anything to write about. A horny, overweight Jewish kid in the suburbs in love with a shiksa? Philip Roth already did it better than I ever could, and, besides, I really didn't want to, anyway. I was failing in school, didn't make the baseball team, had handlebars that resisted one hundred side bends a day, plagued with pimples, and no drivers license (I did have good teeth). I didn't want to be in that world, so why would anyone else? I needed stuff to write about. Enter Jack London, Richard Halliburton, Stephen Crane, Bret Hart, Kon-Tiki, Lawrence of Arabia, H.Rider Haggard, King Kong...That did it. I had to find stories. I rummaged through their worlds to find my own. I am a fishing trawler coasting through the waters with nets splayed, ready for the random catch. That continues to be the case. Don't ever say anything within hearing you don't want used somehow. If needed. Only if. Of course.
When I sat down to write this thing I hadn't intended to explore my career. It was my office, more to the point, my office as perceived by my twenty-two month old grandson. Again, I love it here, surrounded by so many souvenirs. I settle in as one cuddles under the blankets with a long time companion. Such easy comfort. A family reunion. I know what to expect, yep, but, still, it's always warm and very nice. And it stayed that way until the first time my son carried Dorian Alexander in here. His head snapped to. His eyes went wide as pie plates. Where to look? Where to look? Where to look? I've always thought someone could describe this room as looking like the pockets of ten year old farm boy. Focus here. Focus there. What's that? I wanna know. I wanna know. I wanna know. Now that he can walk I can tell by his footfalls when he's headed for my room where he instantly transforms into an octopus, eight arms whirling like a ferris wheel, grabbing at everything within reach. So, I work on slowing him down, piece by piece, talking about each, knowing he doesn't yet understand but knowing he will, and, as I talk, I realize I'm beginning to know them again without having known that I didn't.
On the wall are the masks of comedy and tragedy in the manner of a minstrel show, white lips, white eyes, black pupils, a red tear, but don't mistake them. Don't jump to conclusions. They were made to order by a consummate mask artist, a Black woman (whose name I cannot remember), for a play called, "Moms" by Alice Childress, the first Black female playwright produced in this country, about the great Black comedienne, Moms Mabley. GreenPlays produced it. I directed it. Worked out well. I was told it was my annuity. The play moved to New York. It wasn't my annuity, but it was a whole lot of other things that made me feel mighty good. I forget I did that. Dorian loves putting them over his face so we can play, "Where's Dorian? There he is!" What else can he get his hands on? What can he not? That's a snake skin. Careful. Delicate. Bird's nest. Leave it be. That's grandpa's diploma from Morgan State where he matriculated as the only white male on campus. I did that? And then I went to Yale? Was I really a corporal in the Marines? Hold on. Here's a photograph of an old cowboy I knew named Kenny Trowbridge. As a young man, Kenny broke horses for the army in WW1 and drove the wild herds to their posts. He taught me how to hand load, and, Verna, his wife, would call me at 5 a.m. to tell me she was making biscuits and gravy with elk liver if I wanted to come on down, which I always did. Kenny and Verna? They were really a part of my life? Damn, those biscuits and gravy were awful good. Then my little boy grabs a hunk of stone which happens to be gold ore, but, of course, he can't yet understand the sun-crazed prospector who gave it to me. It's on a bookshelf. It's real. Some day soon I'll tell him about the cranky old bastard. Bear with me. There's a point to this.
I am surrounded by my life - walls, floor, shelves, desk. If I didn't know it was mine I'd wish I had it, especially the wife, the kids., the grandkid. There's the whale tooth, the Apache tomahawk, my old dog tag, President George H.W. Bush giving grandpa the thumbs up, a fossilized clam shell from an ancient lake found on the desert floor in Utah - everywhere I look - a pic of Jamie at Glacier on our honeymoon, a fraternity mug from 1956, a bamboo flute carved by an old man with a kind smile on St. Vincent, a cutlass from Dominica - everywhere I look - the tiny american flag my beloved daughter waved at her naturalization ceremony, a necklace made of a strip of rawhide with a military style can opener strung on it like an ornament given me by a Native American boy in Alaska - Jesus, Stephen, what more proof do you need? Everywhere Dorian Alexander looks is a wonder to him, and, for me a kind of deja vu, something in the spirit of what I once experienced in the flesh. At night, before bed, I allow it to settle around me. Every "treasure" is a story. It astonishes me, this life I'm seeing. My own. Mine. I built it with a lot of help from a lot of people. Look around you, Stephen. You're surrounded. Come on. Smile. Remember the joys you may never have had, the characters you'd never have met, astonishing places you'd never have seen, adventures you'd never have had, those close calls (one or two, maybe three), and always the characters, the people who took me places and told me things. My idea of pleasure? Verna's biscuits and gravy with elk liver, and listening to an old cowboy tell me about breaking horses for the army in a time no longer here. But, I'm still here, and I will pass this on.
Lawrence of Arabia, Bret Hart, Kon-Tiki, King Kong. That did it. I had to find stories, so I rummaged through their worlds to find my own. Stories are my MOS. Basically, there are two kinds of stories: a story told as entertainment and a story told with intent to cause harm.
if I were gonna write about it, I was gonna do it. I have fought myself to be authentic. We write about ourselves, don't we, really? I never wanted to pose as anything I wasn't. Not easy and not without sin. If I were gonna write about something, I was compelled to experience/do it. I felt like a liar otherwise, and that felt terrible. Have I not told a "story" or two in my time? Sure, but there's a difference between a story told as entertainment, and a story told to take advantage of an adversary.
proud of being an artist
