Brent Robison
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Brent Robison lives in the Catskill Mountains of New York. His writing has appeared in a handful of print and online literary journals, as well as hundreds of corporate training and marketing publications. His stories have won the Literal Latte Short Short Award, the Chronogram Short Fiction Contest, a Fiction Fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, and a Pushcart Prize nomination from Silent Voices. He is also the former publisher and editor of the Hudson Valley regional literary annual, Prima Materia.
by Brent Robison
Ty
Ty up, Ty down, Tyrone -- I'm your dealer in genu-wine post-consumer goods in truly fine condition! All laid out for your perusal on this be-yootiful day. Yo, li'l bro! Here be the hat to make your style. Da lid for da kid. Da eye for da guy. Just two bills and she's yours. No, nothin'? Aww, same thing back atcha. Ma'am, may I interest you in this pithy volume of fashion scripture? Fulla wisdom, and not a single dog-ear! Then perhaps this gently worn bracelet, full of character? Okay, sure, come again. Take a look, people! Everything used to be a dollar, but today's merchandise is just too good, and was just too hard to acquire. All so exquisitely excellent, I'm giving it away for two. Everything two bucks! Just two, folks! That CD, sir, I can vouch for it myself -- some sweet soulful shee-it in those grooves, and in mint condition too. A mere dos pesos, you can't go wrong. You get hours of listening pleasure, and Tyrone's baby girl gets a slice of pizza. Ahh, there we go. Thank you my man, and God bless. Friends, take a closer look. Hand-picked items rescued from a shameful death in a putrid landfill! Do your e-co-logical duty! Tyrone, your servant, will be grateful. Really, forever grateful.
So anyway, thanks to Professor Morrow for inviting me to talk to you. I'm not much of a public speaker. More a sneaker. Or a peaker. Public freaker, actually, is more like it. I hide a lot, I don't really talk much, so this is going to be mostly questions from you, okay? About my book or anything else. But first, I just have to say -- because you are all writers at this prestigious eastern college, so it's likely you have far more natural wit and incisive social insight than I've ever had -- that I honestly cannot tell you where this novel came from. It's just part of the great mystery, you know? The ultimate nothingness from which everything arises. And so, I'm humbled and grateful for the reviews and sales and all. So, how about some questions. Yes? Hmm, well, no I wouldn't say I'm a disciplined writer at all. Obsessive is more like it. I live alone and I do freelance editing so my schedule is pretty flexible, so I just go on big, long, sick writing binges. Often. Too much. My sanity comes into question, really. Another? Okay, well, I would say that the precipitating incident for this book was when I did something completely outside my self-concept -- I stole something. So I guess I'm going to confess now. I mean, I had done my share of teenage crime, but I thought I'd grown up -- you know, moved far beyond that. But then, for the second time, someone very close to me died suddenly, and I basically fell apart. This time it was 9-11. I was pretty messed up for several years after that, spending way too many hours watching TV and getting drunk, sometimes wandering the streets until all hours. I got in a couple of fights, I told extravagant lies about myself to anyone who would listen. Well, maybe as a result of one of those lies, I got myself invited to a big fancy party at a nice apartment on Gramercy Park -- some guy in the music business, friend of a friend of a friend, you know. I did one of those compulsive things. Standing there looking at his huge alphabetized CD collection, I reached out and grabbed one and stuck it in my jacket pocket, just like that. And then I stayed around, even chatted with the host, while I touched his stolen CD in my pocket. For no reason but utter perversity. So, it sort of shocked me that I did all that, made we wonder who I was, who I was becoming. And that's maybe the most important question I ever asked. What it meant really is that I finally was able to verbalize something I had known in some deep cellular way all along: that I am multiple… I mean, just like each of us, I am not just one individual, but many different people. The idea we all carry around that we have a unique, inviolable self, is really just illusion. Each day, each hour, each moment, we die and are reborn. So anyway, I sort of woke up, and within a week I had set aside an old manuscript I had struggled over for years, and I started scribbling madly, trying to bring into reality this feeling… I say feeling because it's more than just an idea… this feeling of all the worlds that are, you know, inside. And so here we are -- this is the result. Yes? Well, okay, I don't mind if you haven't read it, there are a million choices out there, after all. But no, I don't really want to talk about the plot. Or the characters. I will say that, despite the title, it's really not about the ocean. But I don't really want to talk about the stuff between the covers at all. It's just words, really. Sorry. Anyone else? Okay, fair enough. I'm here because it's my job. To show up where invited, to talk about myself. Here's some practical knowledge: to be a published writer today, you gotta accept a few duties besides writing. Like this, public freaking. But the words on the pages -- those are for readers to discover. I can't say more words about those words; I already said them when I wrote the book. Right? Okay. Question? Gimme a break, guys. I don't know how to do this. I do hope you read the book, yes, of course. And I hope you like it. I have as much need as anybody to be loved. If not more. This is embarrassing. No, I really don't want to talk about 9-11. How many of you are writing novels? Okay. And how many have finished a novel? Okay. And how many have published a novel? Yeah. It's not easy. When I was your age I hadn't even begun to think about writing a book. My life was so intense, who could imagine anything more? So a lot of years disappeared. I encourage you to just go with it, write the damn thing the best you can, don't think about getting it published. Yet. Anyone else? What was the CD I stole? You mean -- all that, just for a lousy Britney Spears album or something? Ha, that would've been good. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Well, yes, actually, it does. When I took it, I thought I was grabbing Charles Mingus, but when I got home I discovered it was somebody I'd never heard of. It had a very plain label, one of those computer-printed stick-on types. Some home recording or something. It just said "W. McGregor -- Echoes." But I gave it a listen anyway. This turned out to be a good thing because the music seemed a perfect accompaniment to the like, really dense, esoteric reading I was doing at the time, which certainly must have informed the writing that later became "A Drop in the Invisible Ocean." Oh, and another thing. Actually, this may be the best part of the story -- poetic justice and all that. The CD was stolen from me. Somebody smashed my car window and took it, along with other CDs and my very cool purple and black hat with a third eye on the front. So… karma, I guess. Reminds me of the principle in the Navajo religion -- or actually, I shouldn't say "religion," because the Navajo have no such word, just like a fish has no concept of water -- anyway, the principle that everything is circular, everything always returns to the same point. Life is always moving clockwise: east, south, west, north, 'round and 'round. And speaking of clockwise, ohmigod, look at the time! Gotta run! No, I'm just kidding; we'll keep this going for another thirty minutes or so. Ask me something about the publishing biz. I've got plenty to say about that. On we go.
we sulking pack dogs, rabid crack hogs we wounded and vicious and shy and sad gonna do all bad, fuck you dad cut ourselves with razors under the sunday school sky hide when we cry we orphan child war-buddy boys for us nobody but us to trust in the busted midnight just home on this suburb curb nothing here but to be here, be fear, big wow in the now and still I love you and I never lie why ask why, dude the world she die
And so on and so on. Forget it, I'm sick of it. That's one of my first poems, and if you don't like it, fuck you. Ha. Hoo-ee! No, sorry, I don't really mean that, it's just a habit I seem to have developed. Blah blah blah blah. Sometimes I just want myself to shut up. Silence is golden, I've heard. Now, that's some sort of illiterate non-sequitur, right? -- silence heard, et cetera -- for which my professors should be sued for incompetence. Yeah! But sometimes I really wanna be silent, and these days I even wanna be invisible, but I can't be either. My gurus are Dylan and Rumi; my mission is talk. I spout and bubble, I foam at the mouth. Hoo-ah! I love these open mikes, I get a chance to pour it out, this… whatever it is, this passion, all this love from I'll never know where, and then, and then, sometimes, too much hate. Everything's like all zowie! -- splashing scarlet and purple, you know, no beige, it just ain't in me. And see, look, I can't hold still. And if I didn't buzz my hair, it would explode from my head like a zillion baby snakes bursting an egg. Pow! Hey, you and me, we're a lost generation, you know it and I know it. I'm twenty-three, holes in my clothes, didn't shave this week, hardly ever wear shoes, see-naked feet! But, but, ma'ams and sirs, I am shockingly well-educated -- four years in a small but prestigious mid-western college known far and wide for its oh-so liberal Weltanshauung. Pfffft. Okay, here we go, another poem. Let's see, let's see... Nah. Not tonight, I just wanna talk. As you heard the boss man say, my name is Kamal -- Kamal Khouri, pleased to meetcha. I was born in Beirut, yes, that Beirut, the city once known as the Paris of the desert, but of course as soon as I was born they started bombing it to shit. Not that I believe it's really a cause and effect situation, you know, but it's a legacy I carry. But I'm as American as apple pie, I really am. Grew up in the Cabrisi projects of Chicago; what's more American than that? Escaped with Mom to the middle class, lucky me. So what the fuck is up? Do I need broken bones? I'm not the one who knocked down your precious money towers! There I am just minding my own business, and then it's like, hey towel-head, hey camel-jockey, hey sand-nigger, we're gonna call you Al -- Al Qaeda. And my buddy Josh says ignore the fuckin' rednecks, but my mouth has a mind of its own, blah blah blah, and then it's wham, bam, boom, like this, like that, baseball bat, and when I got out of the hospital, that's when I received my calling. I was called by Allah to be a wandering poet, to be a prophet reviled in his own land while the Great Satan sits on the throne. Thus am I here before you. Hoo-ee! One toke over the line, sweet Jesus. The boss man is giving me the motion, time's up he says, but hold on, hold on, I gotta do something. See my boom box here? This shiny little disc has given me my sweet background groove for long enough now, it's time to open up the vacuum principle, share the wealth. From God to the sidewalk hawker to me, and now to you. Goodbye, my musical friend. Here ya go out there, a frisbee from heaven! So dude, it's yours now -- what's your name? Matt, hope ya dig it! I love you all, I do. Okay, okay. I'm done. Bye.
I'm happy to be standing here tonight, sharing my experience, strength, and hope, because today I'm celebrating one year of sobriety. Thank you. I was just sitting here thinking about things I've lost -- lost because of my drinking. In some ways, I have to be grateful for what I've lost because if I hadn't lost things along the road, I never would've found my way to these rooms. Good chance I'd be dead. So... lost things... like relationships, friends, lovers. Money. Car keys. I hope that when I lost the beautiful old saxophone I inherited from my grandfather, I also began to lose the other thing I seem to have inherited from him -- this disease. He died from it, long ago, when I was barely twenty, and still it took me all these years to wake up. One thing that I thought was lost, but has been found again, is my relationship with my mother. She's an alcoholic too, and I hated her for it when I was a kid, and I really didn't speak to her for years and years, most of my adult life. But, it's like a miracle, and if my dad was still alive, he probably wouldn't believe it, but she's been in AA and staying sober now for five years. She's become an inspiration to me, of all things. Mostly just now, what I was thinking about was losing a friend, and losing some music. I'm a musician, and I've done a little composing along the way. This happened a couple of years ago. I'd written some pieces for a trio -- sax, bass, and drums, plus some overdubs, echo effects, atmospherics, stuff like that -- and a good friend of mine had just finished putting in a nice little home recording studio in the basement of his building on Gramercy Park. So we decided to record there, and he would act as producer and engineer. I mean, he hired a couple guys we knew, drummer and bassist-even paid them a decent session fee as a loan to me, you know -- deferred payment until we could see if the recording could sell. He was a good friend to me. Then I proceeded to fuck him over. I mean, he knew I was a drunk. We'd clashed a few times already, like when I would be too drunk to play well at gigs he had helped me get, stuff like that. And he was struggling with his marriage, too, because his wife was developing a serious booze habit of her own, and he didn't want it to affect their little kid. Well, what happened was this: we finished the recording and the mix, and decided to celebrate with a little private party at his place upstairs from the studio. I proceeded to get totally shit-faced. Well, everybody did, really. I was in no shape to go home, so I crashed on the couch. So, who knows what time it was, a couple hours later or something, all of a sudden I wake up to find my friend's wife on the couch with me. She's totally naked, her tongue in my mouth. I mean, there was really nothing between us, no more than occasional friendly flirting, stuff like that. This was the booze at work. Well, you can guess what happened. Our bodies did what they wanted to, with no help from our minds, or our better selves. Afterward, she disappeared and I slept for a bit, but then I woke up feeling like shit, and just snuck out and went home before the sun was up. I was aware that I had screwed up big time, and I just hoped that nobody would ever know what we had done. Turns out the wife either had a sudden fit of hangover guilt, or maybe it was more complicated and she wanted to make him jealous, I don't know, I mean she had her own share of personality defects, you know, like we all do. But anyway, she told him everything. So that morning I get a call from him and he's screaming like a madman on the phone, saying how he was going to destroy all the masters of my music, pretend we never did any recordings at all, pretend he never knew me, stuff like that. And he never wanted to hear from me again, and he hoped I would die from liver disease, and I could just go fuck myself. You get the drift. Well, I deserved that treatment. I stayed away from them entirely. A few months ago, I was doing some eighth step work and I tried to contact him, make amends, you know. I left a phone message, and I wrote a letter. No response, nada. So I lost that friendship. And I lost the music we had made, the one thing I had created that was my very own. Since then, I haven't been able to get the funds together to record it again. I blew a great opportunity. You know, I play in various bands, I scrape together a living, but I'm always doing other people's music. I dreamed of something of my own going out into the world and affecting people's lives, but at this point, it's nothing but a dream. Maybe it will happen sometime in the future. But there's only gonna be a future if I can keep it together, keep coming to meetings, stay sober, one day at a time. So that's my experience, part of it anyway, and I guess it says something about my hope too. As far as strength goes, strength comes from gratitude. I'm grateful I'm alive today. And I'm actually grateful for things like being rejected by friends and losing important things, because without those losses, I never would have hit bottom. It's only through those really, really painful things that we finally come to these rooms, desperate for some kind of help. Well, okay. That's all I have to say. Keep coming back, and work it, it works. Thank you.
Oh. My name is Sidney Farber, and this is my first time in one of your, one of your, services. I was just baptized yesterday by Elder Anderson and so I guess that, today, today I become an official member of your church. It's hard to believe. I mean, I hardly ever knew a Mormon before. Matter of fact, I'm a Jew, but I was never religious at all until this, this crisis. My son Matthew, he's 19, he's the age of Elder Lee there, but he's been going down a sort of bad road, I guess. He got drunk and crashed his car and got a pretty serious brain injury, and we all thought he would die. I just, I just couldn't stand to think of it. So I called the number that the missionaries had dropped off at my business. Let me tell you, these fine young men have a real spiritual power. They came to the hospital with me, and they laid their hands on Matthew's head, and anointed him with sacred, um, olive oil, and they blessed him with the authority of your holy Mormon priesthood, and it was the very next day that he woke up. My wife was… upset. I mean, now that Matt has opened his eyes, she's so happy, but before that…. I mean, naturally she's been under incredible strain, sitting by Matthew's bed all day and all night. She's not one for things like Christian, you know, rituals and prayers and such. She's sort of a Buddhist. And she had been playing music in Matt's room, and she really believed he was responding to it. It was a disc that I found when I cleaned out his wrecked car, just some sort of weird jazzy music like he liked to play with his band, and she sat there and talked to him and played this thing over and over and over and over. And then, when I came in with the elders to pray for Matt, Emily really kind of… well, I guess it's not for me to talk about here. She really lost her cool. I'm sorry, I've gone on too long. I just, I just don't know. I pray that Jesus will touch Emily's heart too, and she'll start speaking to me again, and our family can be healed. And we can be an eternal family. Matt is awake now, but he hasn't really moved or spoken yet, and we don't know what will happen. I'm just so… I'm sorry…just so grateful. Thank you, that's all.
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