Quiet Desperation

Wednesday, May 07, 2003

A Short Story

35 degrees. It was approaching freezing. He tore his eyes from the plummeting thermometer and back to the blank screen. But soon they drifted to the bottom, where he saw the time. 3:00am. He had to start working, he thought, breathing into his gloved hands and pulling his jacket closer around him. His stomach growled, but he ignored it. The thought of the credit card bills sprawled on the floor next to him haunted his mind, killing any urge to go buy something to eat. There hadn’t been anything to eat since the grocer had cut up his credit card at the counter. He had this new deal, with this small magazine. His bills were coming out of his direct deposit paychecks, but the magazine had gone bankrupt after his first paycheck, and they’d skipped town without bothering to say goodbye. Remembering all the promises of that last venture and all the hope they had birthed in him, gave rise to the all-too-familiar anger and another bout of coughing. He’d been angry for too long. Starting with his uncle used to tell him to get off his butt, stop fooling around with books. and do something that would pay. His English teacher told him he had no gift—no natural talent. To enjoy a good read, but don’t try to write. He would end up on the streets. He got into college and worked off his tuition, but couldn’t make it to the end on the money he was earning. His only choice was to take his Grandmother’s offer of switching majors and accepting her financial help. He felt like a sellout—a conformist. But it paid the bills. His family was not unsuccessful. His cousins had all done what had been expected of them and rose in the business world, but writing was his life, his passion, and his only love. Any offer made him, and any job he found dealing with writing drew him like a magnet. Most were small jobs, not paying much. He soon grew poor. His family had never been big on giving him financial aid, being the illegitimate child of a wayward sister who died shortly after his birth. They’d always been ashamed of him and felt that he needed to be paying them back for the suffering he caused them by sharing their last name. The pressure for him to do something “useful” with his life became oppressive, and a year after college, he struck out on his own, cutting off all ties with his family. Life began to look up. He loved the new independence and felt better in body, mind, and spirit. That is, until he met Jean.

The clock on the staircase landing, his ceiling, was striking 3:30am. The night had been so slow, but his heart leapt as the pit in his stomach grew deeper. If he didn’t write something for the column between now and six, he would be on the streets. They had promised to pay him right away. Then he could pay Mrs. Thomas, the landlady. She, of course, shared the same sentiments as the rest of them. No one believed in him. No one ever had. Those that even acknowledged his existence were annoyed by it and felt he owed something to them for putting up with him. When they discovered that he was a writer—a freelance writer—they seemed to take it as a personal offense. The working class seems to take great pride in their disdain for art. They feel it is useless, meaningless, and, worst of all, unproductive. However, these are people who worked so hard for their own happiness and wellbeing readily and eagerly made any necessary moral compromises for it. If the brunt of their hatred and disdain produces something they truly love, he becomes their God, immediately accepted into all areas of their society, and readily recognized as a leader.

He had almost been on the streets when he met Jean. He had a job doing play reviews for a small tabloid. He’d enjoyed the job and was especially content one evening going into a small theatre downtown. Wrapping his shabby overcoat tighter, he settled into the torn seat and waited for the lights to go down so he could chuckle quietly to himself. The small flop was short-lived, ending the suffering of the playwright quickly and quietly, but the story in the tabloid the next morning was anything but negative. The editor didn’t understand. No one wanted to read some fluffy, heartwarming story about the leading lady of a complete flop. This being his second story, and the first being a reject also, his career with the tabloid died with the play. However, the leading lady agreed to have coffee with him the next day, and this was more of a victory than any big byline. He thought he was drinking up liquid joy, his heart warming with each moment to the sound of her voice. She said it was the coffee, but if he drank in anything that night, it was the warm, brown, depths of her eyes.

He stood up suddenly and paced the tiny room, breathing again into his clenched hands. 4:00, the computer read. He felt sick. Suddenly his head began to turn. He sat down hard on the bed. He slapped his hands against his chest and stomped his feat, but he had given up staying warm. After all, he hadn’t really felt warm since the day on the bridge. That kind of cold pierced through the heart and left you with a permanent chill

Looking into the same brown eyes he had met that night in the theatre, now flashing at him with a kind of icy fire, he asked again, and she gave her cold reply. He knew what this was about. He knew she wanted a provider. She deserved it. She deserved someone who would do something sensible that would pay and give back to society. Not this—not an artist. He asked her the question that had been running through his head, but as she turned, he saw her bitter eyes. She didn’t believe in him either. She said it clearly. He’d never cared about the rest; they didn’t matter. But Jean—somehow he thought she would understand. He had admired her determination so much, only to discover she would do anything to get out of acting and live what she called a decent life. He’d been betrayed. He thought he loved her but now realized he had loved a lie.

His coughing kicked back up. It was the next morning that they found him down by the river. He hadn’t remembered much about that night, but they took him in for sleeping down there, even though he hadn’t slept at all. He owed a fine, and found a job to pay it off. But that night had started the cough that never really went away, and any regular job he got was interrupted by the sick days he was forced to take. He was grateful for his bed and his warm nook under the stairs—it would be a nice place to end. But not like this. Not with so much anger. Was it his family; was it his teachers, society, or even Jean? No. He didn’t hate them. He knew exactly what they felt because, after all, he felt the same way. In truth, he hated himself. He hated himself for loving it. Even he had never believed; even he felt he owed himself more. More than this: a stupid dream, and idea, a moral, a value, a life sacrificed for a vision. He wanted happiness and comfort and compromise and conformity—he wanted to be like them.

He couldn’t think anymore. The air in the room grated on his throat and his cough worsened. His head spun and he lay down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He saw his cousins graduating with honors and his aunt with her sharp eye and condemning tones. He saw former teachers and employers with their cutting remarks, pushing him away on every side, and an entire procession of condemning faces, passing him in a crowd, pushing him back and flashing him vengeful looks. At the end of the procession he saw a pair of deep, brown eyes and the warmest smile. As he gazed at the face, it turned away from him and followed the crowd. Turning again from the sight, he saw another face--his own. It looked mournfully after the brown eyes and then turned, looking deep into his own eyes, full of hate and scorn. And then, all at once, the horrible expression was turned away, following hard after the retreating crowd.

MS

I thought of making it where he was supposed to be writing for a weekly Sunday school newsletter and the reason he couldn’t write was he found he was angry at God for giving him such passions and love—those that are so rejected by society unless they meet societies exact standards. Would have been a nice touch. (:

I get so frustrated with my writing—there are such better ways to make the points I make in this story—humor is one of them—why can’t I write good humor—I’ll try sometime—just takes relentless discipline I suppose. (: And why o WHY can’t I master the art of writing as your protagonist would be thinking! The do it in the New Yorker endlessly. It gets old, actually. But Jerome K Jerome perfected that style so beautifully that I can’t help but strive for his excellence. Ok—I have to go to bed. It is REALLY freezing down here. (:

posted by Mary 1:04 AM