(This originally appeared in The Inner Swine Volume 15, Issue 2)
Look at me and despair.
PIGS, despite my superstar good looks and obvious gifts, I’ve never been a gadfly. When I was a kid I was kind of shy and nerdy (shocking! I know); although I have very few horror stories from my childhood to scar me. According to Hollywood movies I should have been the Piggy character in my own story: Glasses, chubby, uncoordinated, and permanent squint from reading too much in the dark. Somehow, though, I had a great childhood. I am walking evidence that Hollywood clichés are not always based in truth—if you believe all the movies and TV shows, high school is a Thunderdome of Nerds Vs. Cools, with the Nerds emerging broken and traumatized to enter into decades of therapy and the Cools emerging into comfy CEO positions. Sure, my high school had cliques and I had a few painful incidents [1] in my youth—who hasn’t?—but nothing too damaging.
Or maybe I’m in denial and I’ve repressed memories so deep they’ve disappeared, because I did emerge from my childhood with a healthy distrust of all of you and a conviction that everyone makes fun of me the moment I leave the room. Aside from the fear of mockery, I also fear violence, convinced that strangers on the street are going to lunge at me suddenly and attempt to garrote me or stab me with their ballpoint pens, probably while screaming gibberish at me. Or maybe screaming something about owing them money, which I get a lot of.
Either way, I fear all of you.
So, whenever someone suggests I meet them for a drink I am immediately uncomfortable and suspicious. This is now exacerbated by the fact that I actually have, for want of a better term, fans these days—people who have never met me, but who have read my work and enjoyed it. Sometimes folks think it’d be cool to meet me and see if a) I really drink as much as I say I do [2] (often accompanied by sternly organized competitions) and b) if I’m as fucked-up as my writing would suggest.
Recently, for example, I met a few folks for drinks—people I’d never met before, people who only knew me through my writing or other authorial-type connections. I always regard such invitations with suspicion, which possibly translates to rudeness or simply Batshit Crazy to other people, but I can’t help it. I know myself, and I am not that interesting. People insisting otherwise who are not related to me in some way just seem … misinformed.
Still, to reject such invites would a) make me look like even more of a goon, as the first step down the Howard Hughes Path of Darkness is social isolation [3], and b) deny me the sincerely enjoyable experience of meeting folks. For me, meeting people is like travel: I hate the idea of it, resist until the end, and then once I’m there I usually enjoy myself. Then, once I’m ensconced in the Lair again, I forget how enjoyable it was and revert to my spiderish existence, squinting suspiciously at people and refusing to leave my room.
Part of the reason for my poor attitude, of course, is my instinctual allergic reaction to any sort of public social activity—imagine for a moment a food allergy, wherein a single microbe of peanut can make your head expand to four times its natural size, except instead of food its socializing. It just happens.
For example, I recently a reader of my books for a drink. Well, it ended up being several drinks, but that’s the way it goes. The actual meeting was great—he was an interesting, kind-hearted guy who just seemed friendly, and after a few beers I quickly relaxed and we had a great conversation. Getting there, on the other hand, was a farce.
The night before, while relaxing in the living room during a heavy rainstorm, a small piece of the ceiling dropped into my lap, quickly followed by a steady, horrifying stream of water. Whoo-hoo, roof leak! Nothing like it in the world. So, naturally, the next morning, instead of calling a roofing professional, I took my slightly rusted can of Stop-Leak to the deck and started prying up deck boards. Because why can’t I figure it out? I’m smart. Now, sometimes, with a rubber roof, you can literally see a puncture or tear that can be easily tarred over and you sleep easy. But this roof had a fucking deck on it. We didn’t build the deck. It was here when we got here, and it was old—I couldn’t see the roof, but the deck itself was a disaster and we’ve been cheaply trying to eek out a few more years from it ever since, and I thought boldly that perhaps I might dodge another bullet this time. So I revved up the power drill and started pulling up planks to see what was under there.
<time passes>
Another example that occurred recently: Another author with whom I’ve shared a chuckling email or two over the years, suggested we have a whiskey somewhere. My insatiable desire for whiskey was immediately at odds with my aforementioned fear of everyone in the universe who isn’t me, and finally whiskey won. As usual. Actually, whiskey walked in with some sort of futuristic ray gun and turned fear into one of those cartoon outlines of ashes before disintergrating.
We decided to meet at a bar I’d heard a lot about, known for its whiskey, and this time I felt very put-together. I left on time, I wasn’t deliriously sticky, and I felt vaguely interesting. Naturally, the one thing I neglected to do was write down the address of the bar.
I knew more or less where it was, but not the exact location, so naturally despite being generally early, I had to wander around in an increasingly sweat-stained panic, dodging cars and muttering curses at myself. When I finally did locate the place, I paused at the door to read a blunt sign:
PROPER ATTIRE
REQUIRED
NO SHORTS
OR SNEAKERS
And looked down at my scuffed black sneakers, feeling like a jackass.
Once again, when I arrived at the bar booze’s healing powers restored me and I managed a decent performance, but the fact remains I managed to take a simple social meeting and make it into a personally awkward moment. This is a rare talent, which will increasingly impact me as time goes on, I think. Unless i decide to pull a Salinger and become a recluse, which only really works if the general opinion of the world is that you’re a genius, which I’m scheduled to achieve some fifty or sixty years after my death, when the French lead the way in appreciating me.
FOOTNOTES
[1] There was The Fly incident when I was in Boy Scouts. My Boy Scout Troop was filled with delinquents and freaks and we were more like the World’s Most Dysfunctional Boys Club than a troop. While driving to a campground one night, we stopped for hamburgers and by chance I ended up having to sit alone at a table. In my efforts to act very, very nonchalant about this turn of events, I kept trying to seem interested in the decor on the walls and the people around me, and my fellow scouts noticed me looking around like a myopic madman and began narrating my sudden friendship with a fly. “Oh Mr. Fly,” they whispered, “you are my only friend.” I was of course gifted with a hilarious and detailed transcript of this when we were all back in the van, and had to spend the rest of my Boy Scout career acting like The Fly was a cool nickname.
[2] Answer: It’s a marathon, friend, not a sprint.
[3] Hell, I’m already wearing tissue boxes on my feet as ‘shoes’.