This essay originally appeared in The Inner Swine 19(1/2), Summer 2013.
Okay, first of all, the ravages of fucking time are fucking horrible, right? Sweet Jebus on a tricycle, I once looked like this:
Proof I’ve looked drunk since the day I was born.
Sweet hell, I was adorable. Shut up – I was adorable. Blond, soulful eyes, the correct proportion of nose to ears, I had it going on. Today I look like the fucking Crypt Keeper. Oh, this is the normal and perfectly natural process of aging? Maybe so, but it’s still personally horrifying, and if you’ve been riding this zine ride for 20 years with me you know this is all about me being personally horrified at things. If I was the type to wear a monocle, it would be constantly popping off in shock and dismay.
Anyway, if you are only familiar with what we will refer to as Old As Hell Jeff, which is to say any version of Jeff you may have encountered after he discovered alcohol and began drinking himself to death every night, you may be surprised to learn that there was a brief time in my very early childhood when I imagined myself to be somewhat athletically gifted. Whether or not I was actually athletically gifted or if I was just the least un-gifted on a block filled with children of questionable dexterity and physical fitness remains a mystery for the ages, but when I was a kid, man, I was fast.
I know I was fast because I won races.
Fat Drunk and Stupid is No Way To Go Through Life
Prior to adolescence, which brought with it glasses and chubbiness and poor fashion choices, I was the King of North Street, the street I grew up on. There were a lot of kids in my neighborhood when I grew up, dozens of them. On any given day there might be twenty or thirty kids in my general age range out in the streets, playing games. Touch football. I Declare War. Running Bases. Manhunt. Stickball and Whiffle Ball. Every moment our parents allowed us, we were all outside, playing in traffic, losing balls on rooftops, skinning knees.
It was kind of idyllic, actually. People hear the name Jersey City, New Jersey and assume a lot of things. And sure, Jersey City was a city. It had bad areas. I got mugged a few times as a kid, got into some fights. There were kids drinking on the corners, shit like that. But my early childhood was mainly me and the kids in my neighborhood playing a lot of dumb games and running around until we were exhausted and sweaty and you know what, looking back, it was kind of awesome.
I was generally acknowledged as the fastest kid on the block. I could motor, my friends. I was skinny as a rail and somewhat coordinated, and I enjoyed a sort of physical confidence in my abilities that I haven’t felt in decades, but I can remember it. Whatever happened, I knew that my body could do it. Could do anything. In a small way it’s got to be similar to what professional athletes experience, that simple confidence that you can outrun or jump over anything that comes your way.
Unlike pro athletes, of course, my own physical decline began at about twelve instead of thirty-five or so.
My transformation from tow-headed speedster to slightly chubby, brown-haired nerd is the stuff of conspiracy theories. Was I the victim of some sort of Paul Is Dead thing? Did the CIA wipe my memory and replace me with a lookalike? I’d hate to think a combination of genetics, adolescent trauma, and Snickers bars did the trick. That would be awful. Whatever the reason, by the time I entered High School I was slow, easily winded, and a voracious reader.
Sic Transit Gloria and All That Jazz
I have no regrets. Even assuming I could have that speedy little body back, and all the brain chemistry and reaction time that comes with it, I wouldn’t be interested. I kind of like who I am now, booze-soaked and gelatinous and out of shape as he his. The traumas and mild shocks that led me to become bookish and overly fond of whiskey were, to be a little clichéd and smaltzy, what created me, and I’d prefer to remain myself, believe it or not.
Because the fact is, I was never going to remain the fastest kid on my block for long, right? I mean, shit, even if I was some sort of genetically-gifted athlete, I’d have started to slow down and lose that hand-eye coordination a few years ago. If I have any clue at all what it’s like it would be if suddenly the words just come to me quite so easily, and nothing but a slow decline mapped out ahead of me where my writing gets harder and harder and less interesting. Which maybe is going to happen too, but at least I feel like I have a few more decades in me. Maybe. If you’re shaking your head in amused doubt, then go fuck yourself.
So if that’s the trade, I’m okay with it. Or as okay as I get with anything.