There's a reason homecoming is so well attended... it only happens once a year. You can survive almost anything that happens only once a year...
Clark Kent, Daily Planet,
February 2001
-Joe Kelly, "Escape from Krypton"
The Story Before, Part 3:
Never Mind
Days like this, I tend to romanticize life in the Twentieth Century.
It just seems to me like things were different -- maybe even "nicer" -- before 2001 rolled along and American life became characterized by a constant sense of fear, loathing, and anxiety centered around carbs and Al Qaeda.
But I bet it really wasn't.
Anyway...
My favorite song on the soundtrack for The Adventures of Pete and Pete is "Waiting for October." I've been listening to this song of and on for something like five years now, and only recently discovered what it was really about, and it's kind of changed it for me. Kind of like how you think of Ben Folds Five's "Brick" as this really cool pop song until that day you really listen to the lyrics and realize it's about abortion. It's still a cool pop song, it's just not the cool pop song you fell in love with, but that's certainly not to say you can't learn to love it again and even learn to love it all the more.
I always thought "Waiting for October" was about looking toward the future with hope that things would get better. Hell, Jones and I have made a bit of an annual tradition of sitting up on September 30th in anticipation of a better life to come.
Well, it turns out the song's about some crazy guy outside of a Billy Graham sermon in Central Park telling anybody who'll listen that the world will end on October 28, 1999, and how he's going to heaven and it's going to really make his day. So the song's is about looking toward the future with hope that things would get better, but at the same time, it really kind of isn't.
From where I sit here in the year 2006, "Waiting for October" isn't about the future at all. It's about a day long ago that couldn't possibly live up to some whackjob's wild expectations. And when I think about it that way, I can't help but fall in love all over again.
I'm on a real "failure is beautiful" kick these days.
What any of this has to do with the text that follows will hopefully become apparent (but I'm not sure it will). I wrote "Never Mind" in November of 1999. We had to write narrative essays in English class, and I decided to write about what happened (and what didn't happen) when I went to the Homecoming dance. (I don't remember what day the dance was, but I'd like to believe it was October 28th. It wasn't, but would that have been cool?)
This was one of those weird times in my life at a time I didn't realize that there'd be a lot more. The usual heartbreak compounded with an interesting component in which I wrote a short story that fell into the hands of the wrong people and led to this rather ugly situation where I had to see a guidance counselor.
I don't really want to get into it, but it's part of the story. I think. I haven't actually reread this thing yet. I'll read it when it's posted like the rest of you.
This essay was my first use of the format that I eventually would use when I started my blog. Short little vignettes with titles. If I remember correctly, when my teacher graded it, she said it was reminiscent of Vonnegut, but I hadn't (and still haven't) read any Vonnegut, so I didn't (and still don't) have any idea what she meant by that.
(One of my creative writing professors did the same thing by comparing me to David Sedaris once, and I'm guessing the Vonnegut comparison was probably just as highly flattering though gravely unwarranted.)
This also marked my love affair with subtitling my essays (though I must admit, this first time out the gate, I kind of went overboard).
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '06... use subtitles.
If I could only offer you on piece of advice when it comes to writing papers for The Man, subtitles would be it. It seems to impress educators to no end for some reason. And it's easy.
In a perfect world, every essay you ever write can be called "Kiss My Grits: An [Examination/Exploration/Analysis/What-have-you] of [Whatever your argument might be] in [Whatever your subject is, be it a book or The 1970's]". But after I finish writing the essay, I usually pick the most poetic line in one of my quotations and subplant it for "Kiss My Grits". And if that doesn't suit you, you can always go with the old hackneyed standby of "Fear and Loathing in/on APPROPRIATE GEOGRAPHIC/METAPHORIC LOCATION such as 'Birmingham' or 'the Way to the Forum'". Especially if you're getting graded by a TA. I used that crap for every essay I wrote in Bob Collins class, and the TA who graded always wrote "nice title" on it. TA's can't get enough of that Hunter S. Thompson referencing. I think it makes them feel hip or in the know or something.
Wait... is anybody who reading this possibly still in college?
God, I feel old...
Lenar Clark
English IV
Narrative Essay
November 4, 1999
Never Mind:
A Vaguely Pointless Story About Writing Vague, Pointless Stories Told without the Burden or Benefit of a Fourth Wall Reluctantly and Regretfully Written
by Lenar Clark
I don't know what to write.
This is a problem when Mrs. Roder wants you to write a narrative for English class. It's an even bigger problem when you want to be a professional writer. Slam both of these trials together, and that's the dilemma I faced in October of 1999.
Before that, I hadn't really confronted this sort of thing. Stories constantly banged around in my head just waiting for my hand to have the time to scribble them down onto paper. These stories may not have been very good, but I was happy with them, and that's all that mattered to me... until October of '99. That's when I wrote a story that not only wasn't very good, but also had several people concerned that I might be suicidal.
It was kind of hard to write stories after that.
"The Story Thus Far"
In the three weeks that followed, I hacked my way through some descriptive essays and a ballad, but it wasn't nearly as easy as it used to be, and I wasn't nearly as happy with the work. There was something missing, but I had no idea what it was. Then, I was assigned the aforementioned narrative essay. Compound the pressure of trying to write that with the stress of Homecoming, and that's a situation I'm surprised I limped away from without an ulcer.
I tried turning to my friends for some support, as any adolescent would, but they were useless. They were not only unsympathetic, but they told me that they'd learned to tune me out. The irony of being ignored by the same people who'd been so concerned for me weeks earlier didn't escape me, but I had more important things to worry about.
I had to find a story, and not just any story that came to mind, but a true story. I had to write about an honest experience where I learned some kind of lesson, or came to some new understanding about human nature. Try as I might, I couldn't remember a single significant event in my life that I could write about. I'm sure that there were some, but for some reason, I couldn't or wouldn't remember them. So, I decided to do the only thing I could. I decided to find a story. And, with the Homecoming Dance coming that Saturday, I decided to find my story there.
On Friday, while I decorated with Student Council, I tried to figure out what my story could be about, but everything I imagined happening at the dance was too far-fetched, and every different perspective I tried to look at the situation from left me with no creative outlets. Homecoming would just be another meaningless event in my life.
I still felt like this when I finally crossed the street to go home that night. There I was, alone in my room with nothing to do and no story to write. And, as interesting as this all might have seemed, I was getting tired of the "tortured artist" riff.
"Painful Smiles"
The next morning, I went over to Justin Smith's house where the two of us made signs and tee-shirts to support our favorite football player and adequate friend Karl Bloom. We watched the game, sitting on cold bleachers on a chilly day and cheered for the joyless Karl while watching the biggest guys from two schools slam into each other as hard as they could. I'm sure that it could be argued that there was a poetry or a strategy to the game, which is some gridiron allegory for life or some such inspirational nonsense, but I was too cynical to buy into that.
There was no story there.
After the game, I returned home to prepare for dinner and dancing. These preparations basically consisted of me falling asleep for an hour while trying to watch reruns of Kids in the Hall, waking up, and tossing on a pair of jeans and a tie.
I drove over to Katie Storms' house, because she and her family had so graciously offered to provide dinner before the dance at a price far cheaper than Darryl's, Applebee's, or even Burger King: free.
There was some uneasiness when I arrived for a few reasons. First, Andy's mom, Mrs. Sack was there, and she's convinced that I'm nuts. Second, Karl was there, and Justin had already given him the commemorative shirt we'd made for him that said: "I played in the Homecoming Game and All I Got Was This Stupid T-shirt." Suffice to say Karl wasn't too thrilled about having his own cheering section. There was also the obligatory picture-taking portion of the evening, and I hate faking a smile for any extended period of time.
Soon after the muscles around my lips stopped twitching from horrid misuse, Mrs. Schaffer arrived, and our happy little Homecoming group, consisting of the assistant principal as well as Katies Storms and Suenram, Kristin Jones, Danielle Schwartz, Rafaela Badardo, Andy, Karl, Justin, and myself, sat down to dinner. Seated at the candlelit table, it occurred to me that my narrative could be the story of that meal and whatever conversation we had there. With Mrs. Schaffer present, I was sure that there'd be wide sweeping commentary on life, liberty, and literature carried on by young adults and their educator.
I was wrong.
"Dinner and Dialogue"
In retrospect, I realize that nothing of the slightest significance was said at that table that night, but Mrs. Roder had said that she wanted our narratives to contain dialogue. Of course, I don't remember exactly everything that was said, because I'm a human being, not a tape recorder, but I do remember the general statements that were made.
"Bah! I am Karl!" Bloom roared, or at least something to that effect. "I am greatly displeased because I have a beautiful date to Homecoming who basically fell right into my lap, when I could be at home staring at my blank walls! I'm also mad because at the game today, my friends made posters and shirts to cheer me on even though I only played about five minutes! My life is hard! My only joy is getting in arguments with Katie!"
"Whatever, Karl," was something close to Suenram's reply. "I am going to argue with you now because the two of us both like fighting all of the time, even though we pretend not to." Okay. That's not exactly what Suenram said, but I'm pretty sure that whatever she said was fairly inappropriate anyway.
We ignored Karl and Katie as long as we could, as we had learned to over the years, and at some point, we started telling bad jokes.
"Two guys walk into a bar," Justin said. "The third one ducks." We all chuckled a little after that except for Suenram, who looked slightly confused. "You see, there's this bar," Justin explained in that sarcastic mockery characteristic of him, "and they walked into it..." We all laughed at Katie because at the time, stupidity was amusing to us. Later, Karl told me that it took her three days to finally get the joke, but I wasn't sure if I could believe him.
Over the next half-hour or so, we were privy to a plethora of observations, wit, segues, and sarcasm. Every once in a while, we'd face a pregnant pause or uncomfortable silence. "Something funny," Andy would say, and the conversation would make another convoluted turn. The experience was Seinfeldian at best, considering we spent the better part of an hour talking about absolutely nothing.
Then we went to the dance.
"Fear and Loathing"
I have nothing wise to say about the Homecoming dance. I spent three hours there, and received no greater understanding of the universe or the mystic fallacies of life. In fact, when I spotted a maroon Oldsmobile with a Mystery Science Theater 3000 bumper sticker on the window, I knew I'd spend most of the evening helping Brent Jones deal with the imagined pressures of his first high school dance.
In between talking Brent down from various emotional ledges, and listening to the DJ babble inane banter, I continued my search for a narrative. If popular culture in the form of one-hour dramas on the WB Network, as well as the books in the Young Adult section at the library were to be believed, then a dance was the perfect setting for a story, as well as a virtual wellspring of life's little instructions. As time passed, however, I learned how much my life wasn't an episode of Dawson's Creek.
What story was there for me to tell that night? Who would be my hero? A loquacious loser without purpose?
It briefly flitted through my mind that I could try to make it a romance of some sort. Perhaps it could be a somber tale of unrequited love. Maybe I would write the story of a young man who dared to tell a girl that he cared for her a little more every day. And every day he'd say to himself, "I couldn't possible care for her more than I do today," only to be proven wrong the next.
This, of course, was not possible. It had to be a true story, and I knew that I couldn't make it true without causing Her undue distress, and I had made a promise to myself. I also knew that such romantic sentiments were just dreams for the foolish, and all of the ties straightened at Christmas time, spark plugs, and apologies in the world couldn't change that. So, I suffered silently with infrequent waves of fear and loathing until the dance finally came to an end, an experience as empty as any other day in my life.
"Plots and Ankles"
After cleaning up afterward as I was obligated to, I started to leave for home when Suenram told me that there would be a gathering of sorts at her house, and I was invited. I told her that I'd have to check with my mother, and crossed the street to do just that. On my way back to school, however, I couldn't help but notice that Katie's car was pulling away. Since I had left my car at the Storms house, Katie's car was the most convenient way for me to get to her party, or so I thought. And I considered her party to be my last chance at getting a worthwhile story out of this evening, so I ran after the speeding vehicle, waving my arms for her to stop.
The car continued to accelerate, and maybe I should have taken the hint. Instead, I ended up running all the way around the school building. In that final stretch of asphalt before the O'Hara parking lot melts into James A Reed Road, I twisted my ankle and hit the ground hard
I lay there for a minute or so, waiting for my vaunted healing factor to kick in and for the sharp pain in my foot to subside, when I remembered that I didn't have a vaunted healing factor. I stood up with some difficulty, my mind reeling. Katie would probably go back to the Storms house so that everyone could get to his or her cars. The way she drove, that left me about ten seconds to get there.
It took me about seven minutes to limp my way to the house. On the way, I somehow set off an alarm over at St. Regis Elementary, and by the time I reached my destination, everyone was gone. So, tired, bruised, frustrated, and alone, I climbed into my powder blue 1988 Nissan Sentra, turned on the one working headlight, and made my way toward Suenram's house in Lee's Summit.
"Paradise Needlessly Complicated"
I checked my speed as I pulled onto 350 Highway. My speedometer claimed was travelling at 77 miles per hour but I knew that I couldn't have been driving at more than 64. I started to mentally composed parts of my narrative.
I'll use a John Milton quote somewhere around here, I told myself, looking up at the night sky, but which one?
I'd have plenty of time to decide that later, considering I'd have to write at least two drafts to appease Rockhurst "University" and its painfully tedious composition requirements of draft after draft. I was doing all of the superfluous work of a college English class with none of the college credit to make it remotely worthwhile.
Despite this, I decided to go with an excerpt from Milton's Samson Agonistes:
The sun's rim dips;
The stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark.
Driving down that highway, feverishly trying to get to a silly little party for reasons beyond me, I realized that I felt darkness at my back, and that no matter how fast I drove, it would eventually overcome me.
"Wow"
In my paranoid reverie, I almost missed the Chipman Road exit. A sign at the off-ramp suggested a speed of 40 miles per hour, but my limited driving experience, the late hour, and my inaccurate speedometer told me that I could get away with 60. Once I was on Chipman, it was only a matter of making a few turns to reach Casa de Suenram. After missing one of these simple turns, I corrected myself and was back en route.
Wow. Six paragraphs just to say, "I drove to Suenram's house."
"A Long Way to Go for a Deep Longing"
It wasn't until I parked in front of the big, white house that I realized how tired I really was.
What am I doing here? I asked myself as I got out of the car and stumbled toward the front door of the house. Based upon my previous visits to the house, I knew that Katie and whoever had come over would be downstairs in the basement, most likely talking about the same odd and vulgar topics Katie was so fond of discussing whenever she could.
I really wasn't in the mood to talk. All I would probably do was sit quietly on a couch and listen, and I could do that at home. There was no reason for me to be there... except for one.
I was hoping Someone would be there.
As I stepped onto the stoop, the porch lights automatically came on. I was about to knock on the door when something stopped me. Part of it was the understanding that I'd have to knock fairly loud to be heard in the basement, and that would disturb Katie's parents who were probably trying to sleep. Another part of it was the realization that there was nothing waiting for me downstairs. There was no story to unfold.
"The Last Time This Happened"
I stood there at the stoop for a short while, in much the same manner I had sat at Andy Sack's stoop a month earlier. Back then I had felt just as lost for basically the same reason, and that feeling of loss ended up getting me labeled as crazy by Andy's mom.
That had happened in broad daylight. I shuddered to think what would happen if I was seen standing in front of a house at midnight.
"Never Mind"
I know that I didn't stay there for more than three minutes. I didn't know what I was going to do, when suddenly, I heard a defeated voice in the back of my head say, "Never mind."
I limped back to the blue cyclops and drove home.
"Denouement"
This is my narrative. Don't look for a purpose to this story, because there isn't one. If anything, the point is that there is no point. That's what I realized standing at the door to the Suenram house. I also came to understand why I'd been struggling with my writing for the last three weeks. It wasn't that I was scared that whatever I wrote would be analyzed by O'Hara's administration and used to put me in a padded suite somewhere far away where a straightjacket and tie were required and I could sip Prozac cocktails to my heart's content while psychologists asked me embarrassing questions about my personal habits. That was part of my writer's block, but not the bulk of it.
My inability to write wasn't even an inability to write. It was a disinterest in writing.
This story has no meaning because it's a true story that comes from my real life, and my life has no meaning. There are no major plot twists or morals, just a random series of occurrences that happen just for the sake of happening. There are no lessons to be learned, just days to get through. That's why I've written stories over the years. I've been trying to create miniature worlds in which characters have purpose in their "lives" and everything happens for a reason. I've been trying to give meaning to my life, and the ironic thing is that trying to do so is meaningless.
My last story, the one that had so many people worried, taught me that there is an inherent danger in trying to create purpose where there is none: that purpose can be misinterpreted and used against you or others. What point is there is creating meaning that won't be understood? What point is there in me writing anymore? If I lived to write one thousand stories, it wouldn't change the fact that my life has been meaningless, would it?
I'm not the first writer to come to this conclusion, and I don't suspect that I'll be the last. Absurdism will never die.
I'm a storyteller who doesn't have a story of his own, nor ever shall. I could keep on writing, and in all likelihood, I'll have to write again (I can't drop English class now, can I?), but eventually, there comes a point where something stops you. I'm now at a time in my life where Holden Caulfied doesn't seem so crazy, and the adventures of a man possessed by the offspring of angel and a demon makes more sense to me than going to college or even Andy Sack's dissertations on logic and common sense.
It's time for me to stop now.
And I'm well aware of the irony of writing a six-page story about how pointless writing is, so don't try to point that out. I'm sure I've broken enough of the little rules in Rockhurst's rubric. Breaking the rules is the burden of creativity, and a burden I hope to shed fairly soon...
It's just time for me to stop...
NEXT:
The Lenar Show, Series Finale
Clark Kent, Daily Planet,
February 2001
-Joe Kelly, "Escape from Krypton"
The Story Before, Part 3:
Never Mind
Days like this, I tend to romanticize life in the Twentieth Century.
It just seems to me like things were different -- maybe even "nicer" -- before 2001 rolled along and American life became characterized by a constant sense of fear, loathing, and anxiety centered around carbs and Al Qaeda.
But I bet it really wasn't.
Anyway...
My favorite song on the soundtrack for The Adventures of Pete and Pete is "Waiting for October." I've been listening to this song of and on for something like five years now, and only recently discovered what it was really about, and it's kind of changed it for me. Kind of like how you think of Ben Folds Five's "Brick" as this really cool pop song until that day you really listen to the lyrics and realize it's about abortion. It's still a cool pop song, it's just not the cool pop song you fell in love with, but that's certainly not to say you can't learn to love it again and even learn to love it all the more.
I always thought "Waiting for October" was about looking toward the future with hope that things would get better. Hell, Jones and I have made a bit of an annual tradition of sitting up on September 30th in anticipation of a better life to come.
Well, it turns out the song's about some crazy guy outside of a Billy Graham sermon in Central Park telling anybody who'll listen that the world will end on October 28, 1999, and how he's going to heaven and it's going to really make his day. So the song's is about looking toward the future with hope that things would get better, but at the same time, it really kind of isn't.
From where I sit here in the year 2006, "Waiting for October" isn't about the future at all. It's about a day long ago that couldn't possibly live up to some whackjob's wild expectations. And when I think about it that way, I can't help but fall in love all over again.
I'm on a real "failure is beautiful" kick these days.
What any of this has to do with the text that follows will hopefully become apparent (but I'm not sure it will). I wrote "Never Mind" in November of 1999. We had to write narrative essays in English class, and I decided to write about what happened (and what didn't happen) when I went to the Homecoming dance. (I don't remember what day the dance was, but I'd like to believe it was October 28th. It wasn't, but would that have been cool?)
This was one of those weird times in my life at a time I didn't realize that there'd be a lot more. The usual heartbreak compounded with an interesting component in which I wrote a short story that fell into the hands of the wrong people and led to this rather ugly situation where I had to see a guidance counselor.
I don't really want to get into it, but it's part of the story. I think. I haven't actually reread this thing yet. I'll read it when it's posted like the rest of you.
This essay was my first use of the format that I eventually would use when I started my blog. Short little vignettes with titles. If I remember correctly, when my teacher graded it, she said it was reminiscent of Vonnegut, but I hadn't (and still haven't) read any Vonnegut, so I didn't (and still don't) have any idea what she meant by that.
(One of my creative writing professors did the same thing by comparing me to David Sedaris once, and I'm guessing the Vonnegut comparison was probably just as highly flattering though gravely unwarranted.)
This also marked my love affair with subtitling my essays (though I must admit, this first time out the gate, I kind of went overboard).
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '06... use subtitles.
If I could only offer you on piece of advice when it comes to writing papers for The Man, subtitles would be it. It seems to impress educators to no end for some reason. And it's easy.
In a perfect world, every essay you ever write can be called "Kiss My Grits: An [Examination/Exploration/Analysis/What-have-you] of [Whatever your argument might be] in [Whatever your subject is, be it a book or The 1970's]". But after I finish writing the essay, I usually pick the most poetic line in one of my quotations and subplant it for "Kiss My Grits". And if that doesn't suit you, you can always go with the old hackneyed standby of "Fear and Loathing in/on APPROPRIATE GEOGRAPHIC/METAPHORIC LOCATION such as 'Birmingham' or 'the Way to the Forum'". Especially if you're getting graded by a TA. I used that crap for every essay I wrote in Bob Collins class, and the TA who graded always wrote "nice title" on it. TA's can't get enough of that Hunter S. Thompson referencing. I think it makes them feel hip or in the know or something.
Wait... is anybody who reading this possibly still in college?
God, I feel old...
Lenar Clark
English IV
Narrative Essay
November 4, 1999
Never Mind:
A Vaguely Pointless Story About Writing Vague, Pointless Stories Told without the Burden or Benefit of a Fourth Wall Reluctantly and Regretfully Written
by Lenar Clark
I don't know what to write.
This is a problem when Mrs. Roder wants you to write a narrative for English class. It's an even bigger problem when you want to be a professional writer. Slam both of these trials together, and that's the dilemma I faced in October of 1999.
Before that, I hadn't really confronted this sort of thing. Stories constantly banged around in my head just waiting for my hand to have the time to scribble them down onto paper. These stories may not have been very good, but I was happy with them, and that's all that mattered to me... until October of '99. That's when I wrote a story that not only wasn't very good, but also had several people concerned that I might be suicidal.
It was kind of hard to write stories after that.
"The Story Thus Far"
In the three weeks that followed, I hacked my way through some descriptive essays and a ballad, but it wasn't nearly as easy as it used to be, and I wasn't nearly as happy with the work. There was something missing, but I had no idea what it was. Then, I was assigned the aforementioned narrative essay. Compound the pressure of trying to write that with the stress of Homecoming, and that's a situation I'm surprised I limped away from without an ulcer.
I tried turning to my friends for some support, as any adolescent would, but they were useless. They were not only unsympathetic, but they told me that they'd learned to tune me out. The irony of being ignored by the same people who'd been so concerned for me weeks earlier didn't escape me, but I had more important things to worry about.
I had to find a story, and not just any story that came to mind, but a true story. I had to write about an honest experience where I learned some kind of lesson, or came to some new understanding about human nature. Try as I might, I couldn't remember a single significant event in my life that I could write about. I'm sure that there were some, but for some reason, I couldn't or wouldn't remember them. So, I decided to do the only thing I could. I decided to find a story. And, with the Homecoming Dance coming that Saturday, I decided to find my story there.
On Friday, while I decorated with Student Council, I tried to figure out what my story could be about, but everything I imagined happening at the dance was too far-fetched, and every different perspective I tried to look at the situation from left me with no creative outlets. Homecoming would just be another meaningless event in my life.
I still felt like this when I finally crossed the street to go home that night. There I was, alone in my room with nothing to do and no story to write. And, as interesting as this all might have seemed, I was getting tired of the "tortured artist" riff.
"Painful Smiles"
The next morning, I went over to Justin Smith's house where the two of us made signs and tee-shirts to support our favorite football player and adequate friend Karl Bloom. We watched the game, sitting on cold bleachers on a chilly day and cheered for the joyless Karl while watching the biggest guys from two schools slam into each other as hard as they could. I'm sure that it could be argued that there was a poetry or a strategy to the game, which is some gridiron allegory for life or some such inspirational nonsense, but I was too cynical to buy into that.
There was no story there.
After the game, I returned home to prepare for dinner and dancing. These preparations basically consisted of me falling asleep for an hour while trying to watch reruns of Kids in the Hall, waking up, and tossing on a pair of jeans and a tie.
I drove over to Katie Storms' house, because she and her family had so graciously offered to provide dinner before the dance at a price far cheaper than Darryl's, Applebee's, or even Burger King: free.
There was some uneasiness when I arrived for a few reasons. First, Andy's mom, Mrs. Sack was there, and she's convinced that I'm nuts. Second, Karl was there, and Justin had already given him the commemorative shirt we'd made for him that said: "I played in the Homecoming Game and All I Got Was This Stupid T-shirt." Suffice to say Karl wasn't too thrilled about having his own cheering section. There was also the obligatory picture-taking portion of the evening, and I hate faking a smile for any extended period of time.
Soon after the muscles around my lips stopped twitching from horrid misuse, Mrs. Schaffer arrived, and our happy little Homecoming group, consisting of the assistant principal as well as Katies Storms and Suenram, Kristin Jones, Danielle Schwartz, Rafaela Badardo, Andy, Karl, Justin, and myself, sat down to dinner. Seated at the candlelit table, it occurred to me that my narrative could be the story of that meal and whatever conversation we had there. With Mrs. Schaffer present, I was sure that there'd be wide sweeping commentary on life, liberty, and literature carried on by young adults and their educator.
I was wrong.
"Dinner and Dialogue"
In retrospect, I realize that nothing of the slightest significance was said at that table that night, but Mrs. Roder had said that she wanted our narratives to contain dialogue. Of course, I don't remember exactly everything that was said, because I'm a human being, not a tape recorder, but I do remember the general statements that were made.
"Bah! I am Karl!" Bloom roared, or at least something to that effect. "I am greatly displeased because I have a beautiful date to Homecoming who basically fell right into my lap, when I could be at home staring at my blank walls! I'm also mad because at the game today, my friends made posters and shirts to cheer me on even though I only played about five minutes! My life is hard! My only joy is getting in arguments with Katie!"
"Whatever, Karl," was something close to Suenram's reply. "I am going to argue with you now because the two of us both like fighting all of the time, even though we pretend not to." Okay. That's not exactly what Suenram said, but I'm pretty sure that whatever she said was fairly inappropriate anyway.
We ignored Karl and Katie as long as we could, as we had learned to over the years, and at some point, we started telling bad jokes.
"Two guys walk into a bar," Justin said. "The third one ducks." We all chuckled a little after that except for Suenram, who looked slightly confused. "You see, there's this bar," Justin explained in that sarcastic mockery characteristic of him, "and they walked into it..." We all laughed at Katie because at the time, stupidity was amusing to us. Later, Karl told me that it took her three days to finally get the joke, but I wasn't sure if I could believe him.
Over the next half-hour or so, we were privy to a plethora of observations, wit, segues, and sarcasm. Every once in a while, we'd face a pregnant pause or uncomfortable silence. "Something funny," Andy would say, and the conversation would make another convoluted turn. The experience was Seinfeldian at best, considering we spent the better part of an hour talking about absolutely nothing.
Then we went to the dance.
"Fear and Loathing"
I have nothing wise to say about the Homecoming dance. I spent three hours there, and received no greater understanding of the universe or the mystic fallacies of life. In fact, when I spotted a maroon Oldsmobile with a Mystery Science Theater 3000 bumper sticker on the window, I knew I'd spend most of the evening helping Brent Jones deal with the imagined pressures of his first high school dance.
In between talking Brent down from various emotional ledges, and listening to the DJ babble inane banter, I continued my search for a narrative. If popular culture in the form of one-hour dramas on the WB Network, as well as the books in the Young Adult section at the library were to be believed, then a dance was the perfect setting for a story, as well as a virtual wellspring of life's little instructions. As time passed, however, I learned how much my life wasn't an episode of Dawson's Creek.
What story was there for me to tell that night? Who would be my hero? A loquacious loser without purpose?
It briefly flitted through my mind that I could try to make it a romance of some sort. Perhaps it could be a somber tale of unrequited love. Maybe I would write the story of a young man who dared to tell a girl that he cared for her a little more every day. And every day he'd say to himself, "I couldn't possible care for her more than I do today," only to be proven wrong the next.
This, of course, was not possible. It had to be a true story, and I knew that I couldn't make it true without causing Her undue distress, and I had made a promise to myself. I also knew that such romantic sentiments were just dreams for the foolish, and all of the ties straightened at Christmas time, spark plugs, and apologies in the world couldn't change that. So, I suffered silently with infrequent waves of fear and loathing until the dance finally came to an end, an experience as empty as any other day in my life.
"Plots and Ankles"
After cleaning up afterward as I was obligated to, I started to leave for home when Suenram told me that there would be a gathering of sorts at her house, and I was invited. I told her that I'd have to check with my mother, and crossed the street to do just that. On my way back to school, however, I couldn't help but notice that Katie's car was pulling away. Since I had left my car at the Storms house, Katie's car was the most convenient way for me to get to her party, or so I thought. And I considered her party to be my last chance at getting a worthwhile story out of this evening, so I ran after the speeding vehicle, waving my arms for her to stop.
The car continued to accelerate, and maybe I should have taken the hint. Instead, I ended up running all the way around the school building. In that final stretch of asphalt before the O'Hara parking lot melts into James A Reed Road, I twisted my ankle and hit the ground hard
I lay there for a minute or so, waiting for my vaunted healing factor to kick in and for the sharp pain in my foot to subside, when I remembered that I didn't have a vaunted healing factor. I stood up with some difficulty, my mind reeling. Katie would probably go back to the Storms house so that everyone could get to his or her cars. The way she drove, that left me about ten seconds to get there.
It took me about seven minutes to limp my way to the house. On the way, I somehow set off an alarm over at St. Regis Elementary, and by the time I reached my destination, everyone was gone. So, tired, bruised, frustrated, and alone, I climbed into my powder blue 1988 Nissan Sentra, turned on the one working headlight, and made my way toward Suenram's house in Lee's Summit.
"Paradise Needlessly Complicated"
I checked my speed as I pulled onto 350 Highway. My speedometer claimed was travelling at 77 miles per hour but I knew that I couldn't have been driving at more than 64. I started to mentally composed parts of my narrative.
I'll use a John Milton quote somewhere around here, I told myself, looking up at the night sky, but which one?
I'd have plenty of time to decide that later, considering I'd have to write at least two drafts to appease Rockhurst "University" and its painfully tedious composition requirements of draft after draft. I was doing all of the superfluous work of a college English class with none of the college credit to make it remotely worthwhile.
Despite this, I decided to go with an excerpt from Milton's Samson Agonistes:
The sun's rim dips;
The stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark.
Driving down that highway, feverishly trying to get to a silly little party for reasons beyond me, I realized that I felt darkness at my back, and that no matter how fast I drove, it would eventually overcome me.
"Wow"
In my paranoid reverie, I almost missed the Chipman Road exit. A sign at the off-ramp suggested a speed of 40 miles per hour, but my limited driving experience, the late hour, and my inaccurate speedometer told me that I could get away with 60. Once I was on Chipman, it was only a matter of making a few turns to reach Casa de Suenram. After missing one of these simple turns, I corrected myself and was back en route.
Wow. Six paragraphs just to say, "I drove to Suenram's house."
"A Long Way to Go for a Deep Longing"
It wasn't until I parked in front of the big, white house that I realized how tired I really was.
What am I doing here? I asked myself as I got out of the car and stumbled toward the front door of the house. Based upon my previous visits to the house, I knew that Katie and whoever had come over would be downstairs in the basement, most likely talking about the same odd and vulgar topics Katie was so fond of discussing whenever she could.
I really wasn't in the mood to talk. All I would probably do was sit quietly on a couch and listen, and I could do that at home. There was no reason for me to be there... except for one.
I was hoping Someone would be there.
As I stepped onto the stoop, the porch lights automatically came on. I was about to knock on the door when something stopped me. Part of it was the understanding that I'd have to knock fairly loud to be heard in the basement, and that would disturb Katie's parents who were probably trying to sleep. Another part of it was the realization that there was nothing waiting for me downstairs. There was no story to unfold.
"The Last Time This Happened"
I stood there at the stoop for a short while, in much the same manner I had sat at Andy Sack's stoop a month earlier. Back then I had felt just as lost for basically the same reason, and that feeling of loss ended up getting me labeled as crazy by Andy's mom.
That had happened in broad daylight. I shuddered to think what would happen if I was seen standing in front of a house at midnight.
"Never Mind"
I know that I didn't stay there for more than three minutes. I didn't know what I was going to do, when suddenly, I heard a defeated voice in the back of my head say, "Never mind."
I limped back to the blue cyclops and drove home.
"Denouement"
This is my narrative. Don't look for a purpose to this story, because there isn't one. If anything, the point is that there is no point. That's what I realized standing at the door to the Suenram house. I also came to understand why I'd been struggling with my writing for the last three weeks. It wasn't that I was scared that whatever I wrote would be analyzed by O'Hara's administration and used to put me in a padded suite somewhere far away where a straightjacket and tie were required and I could sip Prozac cocktails to my heart's content while psychologists asked me embarrassing questions about my personal habits. That was part of my writer's block, but not the bulk of it.
My inability to write wasn't even an inability to write. It was a disinterest in writing.
This story has no meaning because it's a true story that comes from my real life, and my life has no meaning. There are no major plot twists or morals, just a random series of occurrences that happen just for the sake of happening. There are no lessons to be learned, just days to get through. That's why I've written stories over the years. I've been trying to create miniature worlds in which characters have purpose in their "lives" and everything happens for a reason. I've been trying to give meaning to my life, and the ironic thing is that trying to do so is meaningless.
My last story, the one that had so many people worried, taught me that there is an inherent danger in trying to create purpose where there is none: that purpose can be misinterpreted and used against you or others. What point is there is creating meaning that won't be understood? What point is there in me writing anymore? If I lived to write one thousand stories, it wouldn't change the fact that my life has been meaningless, would it?
I'm not the first writer to come to this conclusion, and I don't suspect that I'll be the last. Absurdism will never die.
I'm a storyteller who doesn't have a story of his own, nor ever shall. I could keep on writing, and in all likelihood, I'll have to write again (I can't drop English class now, can I?), but eventually, there comes a point where something stops you. I'm now at a time in my life where Holden Caulfied doesn't seem so crazy, and the adventures of a man possessed by the offspring of angel and a demon makes more sense to me than going to college or even Andy Sack's dissertations on logic and common sense.
It's time for me to stop now.
And I'm well aware of the irony of writing a six-page story about how pointless writing is, so don't try to point that out. I'm sure I've broken enough of the little rules in Rockhurst's rubric. Breaking the rules is the burden of creativity, and a burden I hope to shed fairly soon...
It's just time for me to stop...
NEXT:
The Lenar Show, Series Finale
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