Reposting this because it’s been one of my most positively reacted-to pieces on this site. And because I dig the attention.
This is a writer’s dream.
That’s me in the middle, sitting at a bar with two characters I could not have possibly conceived of on my own, despite my wild writer’s imagination. Please ignore the fact that I am wearing the same shirt I am always wearing on this website. It is simply a coincidence. I own other shirts, I assure you.
On the left there is Bobby. He says things like, “I ate a moth once,” and, “my hobby is silver mining.” He’s a former carnie, a beer-mug-to-beer-mug-cheers enthusiast and an incredibly interesting person. I did not make him up. At one point, he confessed- in a way that managed not to be heartbreaking because it was cloaked in alcohol and absurdity and some sort of a smile- that he was turning fifty-two in two days and had no one else to talk to but the kids at the bar. He is a non sequitur, a simple man that you have no chance of understanding.
On the right is Sam, the musician. His music is more popular in Germany than it is in America and could be classified as deathrock or deathwave. He likes to approach conversations that already feel like they’ve been yanked right out of a surrealist novel by adjusting his leopard-print-collared bowling shirt and tightening his rainbow-colored finger-gloves and asking everyone in the vicinity what their hobby is. He is unabashedly and impressively honest and straightforward, willing to confess to the world his day-to-day thoughts and acts because he sees no other option, and he’s grown used to the loneliness which these confessions have led him to.
These two characters reminded me of two things:
1) I write because I love people. I don’t understand them one bit, but I enjoy trying to. And writing’s probably the easiest way to do that, because I can explain all those things that real people won’t, even if I had the gall to ask. I can explain silences and haircuts. In real life, Sam and Bobby are playing a game of pool together, although they are ludicrously different people. And I have no idea what makes them interact in this friendly manner, because moments ago their conversation was tensed with opposing political viewpoints, both of which seem to stem from a sanity far from my own.
But I can write about it and invent a reason, invent that they both see the glimmer of loneliness in each other, despite their differences, and so why not pull a shade over its glare with a game of pool? And even if I don’t explain the why with my writing, I’m allowed to explore the is. Everything that is happening between them. In life, I observe and think, but in writing I can pick it apart, throw in my opinion and color it with the language I love so much.
2) Insanity is not far away. Who knows what it takes. At some point in their lives, these two men may have been fairly normal. Shit, to a different group of people, they may be far more normal than my group of friends. Was there a specific event in their life that turned them toward this life on the fringe of society, unknowingly being mocked by everyone at the bar because of how willing they are to voice their admittedly eccentric opinions and experiences? Was there a Wednesday where Bobby was just a lower class carnival employee with a semblance of social skill which was followed by a Thursday where Bobby was the crazy drunk at the bar, forever babbling on about his nonsense and solitude? He talked of a prom, pointed out the song that played at his. What was that night like, and what was he like then? Who did he love on that night (unrequited or reciprocated, inflated by infatuation or not, if you’ve lived through a prom, you’ve loved)?
Did events build up to the character I met at the bar or was Sam destined to be a self-tattooing, honesty-spouting, I-masturbate-a-lot-and-feel-lonely-all-the-time-even-in-marriage musician? Was it his childhood? His teenage years? All of the above? And if at some point Sam and Bobby were just nondescript humans quietly drinking their beers, making small talk about a sport or a rain cloud and then moving on with their lives, what would it take for any of us to get to where they are now, desperately sharing themselves in order to shed the feeling of being alone?
I think these two men are explosions.
They built up that common feeling we all share, but were for some reason too afraid to reach out and cure it. And that may be an unfair assumption on my part, since I don’t truly know the full story behind Sam and Bobby. But still, these men seem like explosions, fragmented, flamboyant examples of what we all could become if we don’t try to have conversations with people at the bar, with people who sometimes seem to live only inside our phones or computers, with anyone around us who might be willing to listen.
“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing world. Not just one of them. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.” - Neil Gaiman
