The Virus Carries - Marcos Johnson

obama-owns-arizonaalso.mov

FRESH OUT, OF COLD HARD CASH

When I don’t write, I read a lot. Sometimes I find interesting items among the daily drek. I get to see Sherlock say something like: “Using trauma as currency”. Next, in between chapters of a battered paperback written by a Brazilian woman who lived in the same favelas featured in a few photographs that were one day going to be part of a book by a battered writer, I get to view a bearded fellow bid adieu. To the acting.
Then I head out the door to cop a cup a joe at the Mex market, where I swear the sweetbreads were less expensive last week. Walking back I manage to munch one while simultaneously scrolling the Ipod. My fall fashions consist of a ten year old flannel, a torn t-shirt, cement stained jeans (cuffed), and Cons. My San Jose beanie is what I was wearing when a Woodstock devotee derided it in Los Angeles.
“Get rid of that San Jose shit. It’s killing you.” Or something similar.
Right after that I sold my signed copy of his memoir, with the personalized inscription, at the only used bookstore in town. The 13 cents on the dollar they gave me wasn’t enough to buy a beer so I sold the Big Book he’d given me also. Now able to buy a quart, I did, and filled myself with the fervor to snap open the Apple and proceeded to waste my time chronicling the colorful life of the writer who lives here. Has a kid. A wife in and out of rehab right along with Winehouse. A dozen friends or more dead, or indifferent due to the “disease concept”. He’s broke. Couldn’t make a buck banging at the blank pages on the computer screen. Had to get food stamps. Take odd jobs. Stop dreaming.
He tells me it hurts his ideas went the way of Desdemona. That the desire isn’t there. Doesn’t exist the way it did when fueling up with gas to get his daughter to school wasn’t so dicey. This is usually after a few beers he says these things, so I don’t take him too seriously. When I ask him what he thinks of The Actor in England he belches and reminds me he’s been to London before. In a blackout. But when I query him about the bearded guy his features soften, he grows silent, as if struggling for the right thing to say. I tell him its no big deal, but he begs me not to leave. And only after a span long enough to let him pick through his wallet and let the late October clouds pass does he come up with something suitable.
By blurting out “Bravo!”.

MARCOS
2008

CRY NOW, SMILE LATER

Seems so strange to be typing. Today, I am not the writer. I once was. But I mean that in a good way.
You see, it was somewhere during my self-imposed exile to a college town closer to the trees than I’d ever been before that I turned onto Sleater-Kinney while staring out the ever-present picture window I’ve been blessed with. And wrote. And wrote.
And wrote.
But very few of you were aware of it because I kept it to myself. I stopped posting, pontificating, probing the public for a reaction. Many times I wanted to put up another Virus post, but the same voice that once said, “Yes, do it!”, now said, “No!”.
It said:
“Write for yourself ASSHOLE!”
“You’ve had your interviews. Your fifteen shining moments, now render obsolete your need. Can you do that?”
I couldn’t.
And I didn’t.
What I did do was sit on my ass in the sweltering heat (when I wasn’t making cement for an architect from another planet, and another erstwhile buddy who inspired me) staring at nothing.
Not even the music was able to save me no matter how many times I listened to Devo’s version of “Turning Japanese” I’d downloaded just to do something.
All seemed lost.
My baby.
The book deal.
It was grim man.
But then as has been the case ever since Longshanks waved his wand over me with his ball-bustin’ bass lines (not long after The Actor had smudged me with sage straight off the boardwalk in Venice) I began to write again.
The “novel” morphed into a novella. 94 PDF pages which will hopefully be 120 when laid out properly by whatever publisher has the prescience to print pulp so the story of Darryl Robb, parole officer, can be read by the adoring minions.
And like Robb, I did less of whatever it was I was doing too much of when I was done with it.
All this was spurred by the knowing that what the inimitable Mr. Z had set up for me to sow on was soon to expire. That as of October 17th (appropriately my Pop’s b-day) the Virus site will cease to exist. And what a run its been. For many a day it provided me promise. Hope. Belief.
In a dreamer’s daydreams.
Which is why I switched formats to fiction.
The way I did to prose.
From poems.
To freak the Formulaic.
To prove to myself that I could write crime in the spirit of Nicky Belane, Big Jim, and Dangerous Dave Goodis.
And go back to being the father I was supposed to be while I was sucking up to sycophancy (you like that Bill?).
Don’t get me wrong, I still check my traffic, but the number of visitors isn’t nearly as unique as the eyes of seven year old when they’re smiling at you.
For you.
That being said, I’m not throwing you under the bus, I’ve just reached the tipping point, and finally feel free enough to use three overused sound bites made famous by the moronic masses in the same paragraph.
Which leaves only one logical conclusion, of course.
I must be ready.
To write a screenplay.

MARCOS
2008

LETTER TO THE CREDITORS

Up on the rostrum, Mean Fred didn’t look a pound over his playing weight. More like 70. His canary yellow blazer looked oddly the same shade as some of those Chargers jerseys of a youth the writer kept trying to recapture. With as much luck as they’d had in winning the Super Bowl, or he had in making money.
As a kid he would pore through the Best Products catalog and imagine a life that included a new house, new cars, a happy family, and one of everything in the catalog. That was success. He envied his dentist. HE made money. His family had a pool. They skied. He was from San Diego and didn’t give a shit about football, and if so, certainly not the Chargers.
They were losers.
Yes, they were, until the 75 draft netted them future Hall Of Famer, Fred Dean, and 3/4 of a defensive line that dominated and eventually ended up getting their rings in San Francisco.
Right about now the readers were wondering what a discourse on one of the best drafts in NFL history had to do with money, or the writer. And what with this dentist who the writer eventually came to abhor and consider his monetary achievements the very embodiment of evil? Perhaps this POV was why whenever he’d ascended the seven-figure ladder he’d leap off right before the riches arrived.
The sound of the readers further scratching their noggin’s pestered the writer’s subconscious, as he continued down a road that Goodis wrote. He too had fled Hollywood, even after having a film based on one his books which starred Bogie and Bacall, neither of whom were Charger fans either, since they hadn’t yet been invented. Frustrated, he fled back to Philly to prowl the bars in the seediest parts of town. It is said he wrote his most intriguing work during this period.
Before his liver gave out at 50.
The reason the writer persisted on this piece though by now half its original readers had it shit canned and gone onto other things equally as productive? was in hope that those to whom he was in debt might know he acknowledged all the ill-timed “loans”, crazy business ventures, and blatant rip-offs.
That there was hope.
Mean Fred had lost a lot of money too. Things must have looked bleak. As bleak possibly, as they had for the writer when just that morning he’d decided he’d tough it out for one more season, and one more season only. Super Bowl or bust. It was the one thing keeping him going sometimes. Not even the sight of his daughter’s face was enough to want to keep fighting. Struggling. Hanging onto pieces of a dream that began with Don Woods and will end with Ladanian.
The day after watching the ceremony the writer drove to Chico. Spirits as high as the crows consistently spotted along the now familiar route. Excited again. Ready to get on the computer and whack out whatever. Prepared to postpone the premature end he’d envisioned in his more self-indulgent moments. Dying to see what the the day brang he’d deliver on his promise that he’d deliver the goods. Not go the way of Goodis.
Calling it a day, lest the story kept confusing everyone, he christened the season with the Hall Of Fame Game. Its participants had won several Super Bowls. Their fans had experienced the unimaginable. And in addition to a Super Bowl Trophy, one of the owners had purchased the original paper towel roll “On The Road” manuscript for 2.4 million in 2001.
The writer had once sat behind him at a private function. He seemed to be a nice guy. The writer had read the account of the auction afterwards or he might have handed him a poem. Maybe made millions too. Paid off his friends. And wasted the rest of his life in front of big ass plasma screen.
Bought from Best Products.

MARCOS
2008

LAND HO!

According to Bukowski, a final word Fante said to him (whispered from his hospital bed) had a lasting impression.
The word was: Bitterness.
One man’s lasting impression of earth’s occupants as he prepared to leave it.
The writer had been awash in his own ocean of “depression”, attempting to “distract” his way out of it when he finally felt inclined to contribute to his website again. Many days recently he’d relived another time when the word didn’t come so easy. Then, he’d blankly stare at the blank paper bemoaning the ability he once had to transfer his thoughts onto the page. Ten years went by, and the writer blurted out to a bass player buddy how badly he wanted to write. Three years after that the writer didn’t want to write anymore. Henry Miller haunting him.
The Big Guy had sent him an email wherein Miller was saying how writers wrote essentially for…
“Power, Fame, and Success”
The crash landing that occurred with that realization was almost enough to sink the writer.
Now it wasn’t: “I can’t write.”
It was: “I don’t want to.”
He’d tried in vain to re-enter the work world.
Had hit the phones. Consorting with CEO’s seeking to artificially inflate their stock price. Agents selling actor’s baby pictures for millions of dollars to the tabloids. Shady producers. Christian country music managers.
He’d hatched idea after idea, all of them going nowhere.
Feeling his former self overtake him seemed slimy.
He wrote less.
And less.
Became so completely disconnected with his particular brand of non-reality he couldn’t create.
Everything was “too” real.
Reeked of failure.
Until as unexpectedly as with every major imprint he happened to be turning the channel on his borrowed TV in his borrowed home, after a long day of working with concrete for the same wage he had before he was a casting director jerk-off, and stumbled upon the show he could’ve produced if he’d stuck it out in the Salt Mines, cooped up at the Opryland, a perfectly artificial setting to produce make-believe reality television with artificial performers singing artificial songs they couldn’t create either.
He quickly changed it to a non-english speaking channel.
Pangs of remorse swept over him as he sat in of the two chairs in the house, at the plywood table that served as the desk he hadn’t been writing on.
Pissed he wasn’t getting paid.
“You could’ve been a provider.”
Cried the voices.
Followed by the predictable thoughts of suicide.
Ten days earlier he’d been on the phone with one of the writers from that show. He’d sworn he was through with it. Never again would he work with its asshole executive producer. No matter how much money they threw at him.
Ten hours after turning the channel the writer was on the phone with one of the three remaining people he talked to from that show.
“Hey remember our writer buddy?”
“Yeah, I just talked to him.”
“So did I. Ten minutes ago.”
“And?”
“Guess who he’s working with again?”
That night the writer wrote. Worked on the crime novel. At times forced himself to continue, but for the most part found it came easily. More importantly he didn’t send it out, except to the immediate players.
And though it didn’t earn a penny or acclaim he slept soundly, and when he dreamed the usual dream about sailing the seas of nowhere alone the ending was different. The ocean was still blue, and vast. The fear was still there. So too, the sadness, and its split second decision. Except that this time when he jumped he didn’t wake.
His feet had hit sand.

MARCOS
2008

INSANE CLOWN POSER

It was on a long ago day the writer was “lifting”, that’s how long ago it was, since he hadn’t lifted a weight in anger or vanity in over a decade.
The gym he happened to be “working out” in that particular day was in Los Gatos. Near the Lark Avenue exit off 17. On the way to the beach.
He had learned that if he did his curls last, really blasted the sets out, he could retain his “pump” until he hit the sand. For about 10 minutes.
It was while doing one of those crucial last “reps” an unexpected and up til then unwanted awakening waylaid his lifting as he curled the “curl” bar towards his chest.
“You’re doing this shit for someone else.”
When the enormity of that statement arrived he almost dropped the weights right there and then. And never again did he seriously pump iron, although push-ups and dips were mandatory when meeting a new prospective victim of the female variety.
How hollow his words to Richard rang.
“I want to write.”
Or was it…
“I used to write.”
Either way he couldn’t and didn’t want to remember as he thought about how little he wanted to work on the “crime” novel and the “kid’s” books. Neither of those projects brought the instant gratification the poems did when he would send them by the dozens to an unsuspecting readership that soon grew to accept the uninvited email intrusions and the long silences that followed when the writer was in a snit similar to the one he was going through recently. And the writer had grown VERY used to sending them. As he struggled to write this pathetic, tiny tome, he recognized how much of a hold the need for recognition had on him. The more it sank in, the less he felt like writing. Being back across from Bidwell Park there weren’t many options though. No TV, let alone cable. No wife. No kids. He was however, working. This meant there weren’t as many hours to waste while waiting on inspiration. No more writing one story, or making a video and arrogantly calling it a day when questioned.
“What did you do today?”
“Wrote a story for the website.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t laugh. It’s hard work. Most people can’t write a good story in a lifetime.”
“Maybe because most people work.”
Now that he was free from having to listen to anyone deride his chosen profession, AND he had all the time in the world, minus the hours he’d bartered for the bacon, you’d think immortal works were on the way, but no, the writer had taken to belittling his little black friends on the phone, to his other friends.
“Fuck the writing man. I’m done with it.”
“It appears I wrote for the wrong reasons.”
“Besides who wants to read about a fucking writer. It’s boring to read. And write.”
What really chapped his ass was not so much the missing adulation or outright hatred that came with penning another piece and shooting it via cyberspace, but that after all his hard work he seemed destined to remain forever unknown. A truth more bitter to swallow than whether the writing itself was worthy.
Staring at a blank white word doc while listening to Insane Clown Posse dis Eminem he was savagely reminded of another long ago time. When the word was nowhere to be found and neither was Richard.
To talk big shit to about being a writer on Beverly.
After enough days had passed to feel sufficient pain the writer resorted to another long ago workout routine and downloaded as much Led Zeppelin as Limewire would let him, figuring “What the fuck?” he’d bought their albums ten times over already. From 1 to lll to lV up to Coda he tried to resist Ramble On and Out On The Tiles. Tried and failed to keep a straight face to Hot Dog, and tried and failed to forget how it felt at fourteen to hear Ten Year’s Gone after his girlfriend had left him. The first time.
And he found at forty three, that if he pried open the portal, the same effect awaited. That despite the self pity, if he desired it badly enough it would never matter whether he got paid, or got a Wiki page.
Then he could finish this fucker before going back on the porch and tapping his toes to an Itunes which whistled:
How Many More Times.

MARCOS
2008

THE LOWER FIFTY

On his first visit to rehab, the writer roomed with a guy named Buddy from Texas, not as cool as Kinky is, which is neither here, nor in Austin, except for Friedman’s famous opening paragraph in one of the mid to latter chapters of “The Love Song Of J. Edgar Hoover”.
I don’t have it in front of me right now, having dutifully returned it to the main branch of the library on 4th Street, even though I technically didn’t have to since it had never been officially checked out in the first place. Daughter and I threading our way through the beepers, oblivious to having forgotten to take our books to the automated check out machine in the land of the Dewey Decimal, so I’ll have to paraphrase:
Basically what he said was…
“He wouldn’t make a very good shrink, because he wouldn’t have the patience(?) to dawdle with them. The patients. Just the judgment to send em on their way.”
“Ostrich boot up ass”
Feeling sorry for himself, he’d chosen a Friedman book to go with the Bradbury & Dick titles. Wanted to laugh a little. And of course he did, at the absurdity of his penny-ante problems. Relative is relative, but being really honest, he had it better than 99% of planet’s population.
“Dude, if I was in Darfur and shit, and my kids were dead, my wife was too, eatin’ leaves off a tree, I’d start walking. Every day I’d walk away from there. Maybe I’d get caught and killed, maybe I’d starve, but I ain’t staying there. That’s what I don’t get.”
The writer wasn’t in Sudan, and neither was the guy who said it, but it damn sure seemed like it, as the sky rained soot, and the temperature soared over a humid hundred. Sanding cement. Smooth to the touch he’d move on to the next corner piece, cornice, he’d already grouted. Then he’d set it out to dry. The heat hastening the process, before the coat of acid stain was applied at the end, and rinsed off. Ready to load into the truck to take to its destination. A huge house on a lake, nowhere near The Sahara.
Five hours later, the writer had earned his fifty bucks the old fashioned way. With his hands. His typing fingers gently glided the grout into the pitted spots. Occasionally he’d stop to take stock of his handiwork. All his life he’d been told he was stupid when it came to any sort of task requiring a certain amount of manual dexterity. Need bullshit? That’s me. Need your lawn mowed? Uh, sorry. Or had it been him telling himself he couldn’t create on another kind of canvas? “Wow, its been me that’s been telling myself I’m an idiot when it comes to this shit.” He exclaimed silently after the owner had checked out his work. “Not bad. I’m happy. Can you work tomorrow?”
When he got “home” he fired off an email to his other paying client. A website for bicycle enthusiasts that had advertised for writers. And they would pay them. And yes, they would love to have the writer aboard. At fifty cents word. His first story in the can he was curious about when, and how, payment would arrive, and he was definitely NOT writing another one until he’d been paid.
The reply came back quickly. His 444 word post was not worth the 222.00 he’d calculated based on the information they’d sent him, so he opened the file again, and re-read it after the site’s owner informed him she owed him a whole half dollar.
“I owe you .50”
According to her original email she did indeed owe the writer that amount. Not the almost car payment he’d counted on. “Give it to the first bum you see on Mission Street. Thanks,” he replied.
Taking Kink the Shrink’s advice to heart he didn’t let the disappointment of a 221.50 discrepancy get him down. Instead he played a parlor trick.
“I didn’t lose anything. Today I made 99 times more than I would’ve writing!!!”
That sat pretty well with him. So well he went three days without writing a thing. No sketches. No novel. No kid’s books. Nothing but a Kinky quote that sat at the top of an otherwise barren Word Doc waiting on inspiration.
Which might have come the second day he worked with the stones and the sandpaper while listening to NPR reports interspersed with his cohort’s commentary.
“Dude, I got a bad ass duck recipe.”
“I guess I want the black guy to win.”
“I gotta take a dump.”
In between those news bulletins, something that sounded somewhat akin to a death knell came over the airwaves. They were interviewing an editor.
About “disposable” books. And the digital age.
“There are actually more writers than readers in this country at the moment.”
The writer sanded away and smiled. Pondering the cutthroat worlds of publishing, psychiatry and politics. Knowing nothing beyond that the next chunk of sand and mortar needed something similar to the last line in a story, knowing not much more than that, and the precious certainties that he would be neither on Prozac, near the polls, or quoting Kinky.
Come November.

MARCOS
2008

ALWAYS A WOMAN

After another bout of unthinkable behavior by his daughter the writer figuratively threw his hands up, lest he wash them of her and every other woman in his life. She had taken to yelling. Screaming. Demanding attention. By acting out.
That’s what the shrinks, the “professionals” labeled it: Acting Out.
He’d heard similar things said about him. Behind his back. In front of his face. In the parent teacher conferences he could never get out of attending. Had no say in the matter. While the other kids got to stay home or congregate together on the playground or hallway during theirs, he would be stuck in between both parents at the big teacher’s desk. They would talk about him as if he wasn’t there, until one or all of them would smile superciliously, then pepper him with the usual question.
“How do YOU feel about this Marcos?”
Marcos wanted to say I think you’re all full of shit, but didn’t dare. You just didn’t do that back then.
But now, what would his daughter say, in this day & age of rehabs and Ritalin? Prescriptions and Prozac. Of millionaires making money off humanness by defiling it with diagnoses. And drugs.
Would she have the courage to tell them what her father wished he would have were she ever placed in such a situation against her will. Not by him, but by the authorities she might very well come to cross paths with as she got older. Acting the way she was.
Many moments her father found himself wanting to call someone and say: “What the fuck do I do???”
And when it got really bad he’d say to himself:
“I’m outta here.”
Knowing full well he could never do that.
Not to his baby.
Knowing full well that to the same extent she could scream, kick, cry out, she could create.
Knowing full well from a well of experience that things, and people could change.
And so could circumstances.
He’d seen too many of his friends overcome childhoods they rarely talked about to become among the greater members of society if you measured such gains in terms of kindness, honesty, loyalty.
Love.
It was July 4th and he wanted to say about the holiday what he should have in front of the teacher. The coach. The cop. The counselor. The sponsor. The attorney. The CEO. The judge. The jury. And every fucking relative, save his late great Grandpa. But after years of wanting to paint the town Red, White and Blue with blood, he couldn’t countenance any more mis-directed (like that one shrinkfucks?) emotion.
The answer came not while paying 200.00 an hour to snake oil salesmen AND women, sitting smugly beneath their degrees. It didn’t come from a Yahoo chat group. A priest. Not even God, unless you said such a word wasn’t necessary. Needed. Not when you had him, her, it, with you all along. Not then.
That’s how as he scuffled back and forth on the latest front “yard” of his life, past the fountain that had been toppled over after the bars closed by one of his carbon copies, he encountered a new and novel approach to parenting in the form of a few simple words that seeped through.
“Have you tried being nice?”
And just in case he considered too quickly returning to the familiar refrain of fighting. Fucking things up. They told him also, not to forget…
“It’s a privilege, to be called Papa.”

MARCOS
2008

DREAMING OF DOWNEY

Standing at the intersection of Bassett and Little Market the writer stared up at a sky whose view was partially obstructed by the eighteen-wheeler that had been blocking the street since Monday. A plane was flying high enough however, to be seen soaring into a sky free from the ash that had encumbered it. High, high above, it flew. Higher. Its blue and orange motif clearly visible from 20,000 feet below. He took it as an omen.
Then he dreamed about Downey.
And all good feeling became consumed in all out grief.
Wherever the writer was he’d been happy. Perfectly content to loll the hours away on the floor of the unfamiliar abode his subconscious had cobbled together from so many similar places. When Robert walked up he was reading.
His hair was short. Beautifully understated gray suit (charcoal), set off with white shirt, and an almost navy tie with a muted pattern rounded out the picture.
The writer had ALWAYS referred to him as The Actor in his stories, sketches, poems, and unread novel. Out of respect for anonymity he’d remained an amorphous character in their ever-evolving encounter.
“What was it we said to each other?”
He wondered while typing for the first time since becoming an agent again.
He had musicians. Artists. Architects. All of them talented. As deserving of acclaim as anyone in their field. Many of them had wanted to quit. Or had.
“Listen man, I believe in you, and if nothing else we’ll know we tried.”
The writer still couldn’t remember what Robert had said exactly. Except he wanted him to go to rehab. He couldn’t understand why, when all he was doing was reading. In his own world.
Did he laugh at him when he’d said it?
Had he hurt his feelings?
He wouldn’t have done that to him, not to his brother?
Then it came back. What he’d said.
“Cool suit bro.”
As he attempted to keep from crying at the memory, at his cold hard reality, of bridges burned and long gone smiles, he conjured up everything he had to be grateful for in the face of seeming failure.
His daughter. The sleeping bag they slept in, where she’d say: “Shoulder Papa, shoulder.” Then cradle her head into the crook of his bony biceps.
The faith a few people still had left in him.
“I’m with you Marcos. We CAN do it.”
The home cooked breakfast burritos his mom had made for him to wolf down quickly before the next phone call to a booking agency, a studio, a label, a prospective partner. An angel.
Following these acknowledgements the writer willed himself to stop wallowing and focus on other things. The private words they’d shared in the back alleys of Beverly. The dinners at Houstons.
The good ol’ days.
And after dialing his and Cheech’s numbers, leaving them both a message, he decided to do one better by writing what he really wanted to say when he saw him.
Happy Birthday Buddy.

MARCOS
2008

THE FIRST 500 ARE FREE

Half awake, but not in the body bag, the writer wrote a post. That’s what they called them: Posts.
When written for Blogs.
The writer hated that word.
“How fucking gay is that?”
He’d said to his roommate at the time, a down & out Sax player who’d said:
“I’m starting a Blog.”
“I mean the name bro, Blog, not your idea.”
“Well that’s what they’re called.”
“Good luck, I guess.”
His roommate hadn’t needed luck. He’d had the moxie to beat heroin, and now he’d defeated the depression of having your true love taken from you by transferring his energies.
Four years later he was a Blogger.
One of the biggest in the land.
Those 50.00 ad’s were now worth 5,000.
He was constantly being interviewed.
Flown places to speak.
The power of being a Blogger was his.
Meanwhile, the writer worked on HIS website.
http://theviruscarries.com/
A friend had set it up for him a few years back even though he’d said:
“Dude, I don’t, I won’t Blog”
“Then don’t call it that.”
“Oh, OK.”
And after another friend had paid the pawnshop so he could retrieve his G4 for perhaps the fifth time that summer (making it the most expensive Apple ever) he began “Blogging”.
It was explained to him that was what the “Updates” section was for. The new shit. And the more he learned about cybersapce, and the fickle nature of the publishing business, the more he vowed to keep giving his writing away. Despite the advice of others.
“I don’t understand these updates man. I think you’re wrong to send your entries out every day. It’s like Dylan said, it takes the power out of it. Besides does anyone really care?”
Based on the writer’s average of 30 unique visitors a day the writer responded:
“Of course they do. I get hits!”
“Whatever man.”
Click.
Along the way he learned about RSS feeds, Meta Tags, and being bombarded by Spam. Desperate to make money, any money, with his writing, he began to search further. Even resorting to Craigslist.
“Writers Wanted!!!”
Most of the ads were for stuff he had no interest or acumen in. Advertising. High-Tech. Self-Help.
But there was one ad for a bike Blog.
“We pay .50 a word. Please send resume.”
The writer promptly responded with a header that read: “I don’t do resumes”.
They wrote back. They liked the links he’d left in the email body as proof he could write.
“We’d love to have you aboard as an author!”
The writer was so surprised at this he grossly miscalculated his potential earnings when crowing to his friends about finally becoming a “Paid” writer.
“Dude, I’ll make fifty bux for every 1000 words.”
“No, dipshit. 500.00”
“You’re right. I must have miscalculated.”
The writer felt so potentially empowered he began to plumb further. Found an instructional site for bloggers:
http://freelanceswitch.com/
Then PNN. Porn Sites. Sports Sites. All up his alley. He would write for all of them! He would be like his heroes who had written for a penny a word for the pulps. And he wouldn’t use a pseudonym. He would be proud of his work. Unequivocally stand behind it, no matter how trivial the subject matter. And he would be rich!!!
Doing what he loved, at last.
While doing all this writing and research he also read Bradbury. The book he hadn’t stuck around to be assigned to him Sophomore year at Bellarmine because he’d dropped out.
He did get to read Clockwork Orange and Inherit The Wind as a freshman however.
And learned how to look over the other freshman’s shoulders as they unlocked their combination locks.
Surreptitiously memorize the numbers and later open the lockers. Steal their books and sell them back to the bookstore. This served him well during his career as a crack smoker. But didn’t do much for his career as a writer until he used the anecdote in this story.
Bradbury was good. Better than him at this point, and maybe forever. What a clever idea he’d had. Turning definitions upside down. Writing about books being burned in a world that saw the written word as evil. Dangerous.
“Wow!” said the writer to himself at certain paragraphs.
He began to recognize a rhythm much like his own when reading some of these other writers. Usage of phrasing. Pace. Abrupt stoppages. U-turns in the stories. Novel ways to get the word across.
He decided to experiment and work on a crime story. A children’s book. And that lowest form of all: The Screenplay.
Anything but his Blog.
No one knew about these projects except his collaborators. And though he missed the occasional reply from a reader he was mostly content to continue until he ran into Alex. An old crackhead buddy.
“Yo Alex! How ya doin?”
“Same ol. Same ol.”
“Still smoking that shit?”
“You’re still writin’, right?”
“Yeah, but I’m getting PAID for it now. It took five hundred free stories, but it happened.”
“Sounds rough. Dope man only gotta give one away for free before he make money.”
“I know. I know. But this is more honorable.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is. Look at you.”
More of Alex’s teeth were missing, and he wore the same funky Nike’s he’d tried to trade the writer at his apartment in 96, which he’d delicately described as his “Man Overboard” period.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Sure you did, and later you’ll write about seeing scummy old Alex again. AND get paid for it. Must be nice”
“Nah dude. It’s hard work. Not for everyone.”
“Like the dope man.”
“Not quite Alex.”
Alex wasn’t listening. His eyes were glued to the vintage Mercury Cougar circling the block.
“There he is. There he is!”
The writer committed to memory every detail he could absorb about the classic car turned ghetto-mobile. The loud rims, raising the car up. The hideous paint job. The pine scented 8-ball dangling from the rearview. The nigger at the wheel. Making eye contact with Alex. He could FEEL the panic in Alex as he watched him driving away without a sale.
Absentmindedly the writer dropped a couple of crumpled bills at Alex’s feet, and almost patted his head. Said goodbye. Got on his newest, old Schwinn and rushed home to his own rush while the story was still fresh. Barely hearing Alex behind him yell:
“Yo!, you got a light???”

MARCOS
2008