Fucking HELL. I’ve spent the day doing pretty much only two things (1) trying to use the word “Valentine” in as many sentences as possible to taunt M. and (2) reviewing the ghosts of the past released from the comment section below.
In regard to (1) I have to say that in many ways M. is a champion of patience. And, there may be no better way to spend a fake holiday meant to force people to be together than to actually be together talking and joking. Then, filling our bellies at an Asian buffet (which is surely one of his visions of heaven) in the company of a couple of his old friends, moments away from birthing, is mellow and warm and lacking of hearts, pretense and the bogusity of smarmy sentimentality.
But, in regard to (2) it’s hard to even know where to begin as to the whole world remembered by a couple of quick lines. Not to get all Proustian, but I might as well have fucking chomped down on a madeline.
It’s probably a violation to talk about a guy who I remember as shy, in a retiring kind of way (not the don’t-make-eye-contact kind of way) and reserved in a very Scottish stoic why make a fuss kind of way. But, fuck it, he’s in Europe far out of reach.
Back in the late 80s, I worked for this publishing company. They are probably best known for the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, which no doubt everyone reading this shit has probably used to legitimately research a high school paper or more likely crib a few additions to a bibliography to beef up said paper. We actually worked for the Readers’ Guide Abstracts, a companion publication where articles from general interest periodicals are boiled downed to pithy abstracts of 13 lines or less. I just grabbed the copy I have of the book, which is dated March 1989, so I worked there before then. I can’t remember if they gave us the books or whether I stole it. For a variety of reasons, even though I don’t usually go around pilfering, this book may be ill gotten.
For me, the job was to be the dream job for a 25-year-old aspiring writer fresh out of journalism school. Publishing was it, the first step in the right direction to destiny.
The dream quickly, probably more quickly than in any other job before or since apart from the three-day McDonald’s stint, turned to ashes. I SUUUUCKKED as an abstracter. Look at this shit right here. Me, boiling stuff down to it’s essence, sans punchline, in as few words as possible? FUCKING Please. The Cambridge office was rows of cubes housing a variety of literary types and lovers of the written word sitting behind a single terminal running only a dedicated Wang word-processing program humming direct into the mothership mainframe in NYC headquarters. Everyone had at least a bachelor’s degree from an English, print journalism, writing or library school. Some were in graduate programs, possibly to teach or become a librarian. Most were poets or storytellers or playwrights, hoping only in their lives to become the holiest grail of grails, a published author.
These were quiet bookish people. I largely am not. Sure, I can read, and I’m capable of higher thought. But, in a room full of people I have to speak at some point. It’s an imperative I can’t apparently control. Maybe I could with time and training, like Tibetan monks can control their breath and pulse, but it would be a struggle.
That’s me now, but at 25 with everything in the world seemingly possible and the proverbial amounts of piss and vinegar fueling me into life’s bacchanal, fucking forget silence. Ramped up on age and hormones and drugs and booze, I didn’t have the patience to count the minutes and the words and the meanings and the minutia that all make for good abstracting. My reading comprehension was at an all-time low, and the big-brother dedicated system could count my keystrokes or lack there of and verify exactly to the second by how much I had missed the precisely required log in time of 8 a.m. (Thank fucking Christ and all other dieties real and imagined that I now have a job in which I can arrive at about 10-ish.)
So, I became friends with Malcolm. He and I both had a taste for fermentation and most days of the week we easily found ourselves diagonally across the street from the office at the Plough and Stars.
In my recollection, now fuzzy with time, it was a halcyon time (expect for the part where I sucked at and hated my job), where people from the office followed us to the pub. Eventually a steady group gathered over pints, and bullshit was discussed, and dreams and yearnings were revealed. A less clever, but just as drunk, Algonquin Round Table.
In reality, it probably was rather pathetic. But, I think everyone should remember the greatness and potential of their 20s. (Although, I also think the current folk in their 20s should be segregated from the rest of the population, so that we who have already passed through need not endure their eager, shiny newness.)
Malcolm and I later became roommates, after I lost that job, and probably deservedly so. We had a third roommate, Patty, with a shaved, punkish Sinead O’Connor look, incredible cheekbones and body, and the sorriest taste in men a woman has ever had the misfortune to have. Vaguely, I remember the swirl of activity around Patty and men and drinking and whatnot, while Malcolm listened to music and read William Carlos Williams.
I think Malcolm moved out around the time her crystal meth-loving boyfriend, who also enjoyed tying her up and shredding her clothes, became too much of a fixture. He was the poster boy for why drugs are bad, what with the stealing, loudly appearing at dawn for a shag and leaving shit like his grimy BVDs around and all.
For anyone in Boston comedy who sees this entry, in some ways Malcolm is the doppelganger to comedy’s Andy Ofiesh. Quirky, genuine, maybe with a slight dollop of creepy, red-headed, very aware of who he is within the world around him, and the chicks dug him. The mousey girls who spent all of their formative years in libraries with faces jammed in books trusted him and spoke softly to him and revealed their inner selves to him. As with Andy, my current favorite redhead, you could never quite tell from behind the smirking smile whether he was listening or just looking at the young tits an earnest hand’s length away.
He tells me that from that time and that office, one of our group is now an editor at the Atlantic Monthly, which might be the highest success in terms of literature. At least two of us have blogs, duh, and I’ve been trying to remember and Google the rest. I even pulled the print edition off the shelves, because I thought we were credited and it would shake the names from my memory.
I’m sure as more comes back, and I wonder more about that time, I’ll come back to this time.
Although, I must say, I am very happy to be who I am now and spend time with the people I do. All in all, the times were interesting, but I do not want ever again to be that age or relive that time. 40 is greater than 25.
