Phantom Strays
Page 29
“I want to write a novel about the desert,” I explained late that summer when Meredith was at home and was about to graduate and leave for Boston. “I want to write about this place.”
“Well, don’t get all xenophobic and stuff. I really hate that square junk.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, focusing on the stuff here is what I mean and ignoring big issues. The really important places are back east. Take New York, or Boston. Those places are where more people live. You don’t want to write anything hokey and little about the dumb cow towns of the west, do you? Talk about trivial. It’s just not going to be important enough. If you want to write anything important, it has to be about the important parts of America.”
“You mean nobody important and famous lives here? So stuff about it is hokey?”
“Exactly. I hate it when Dad thinks this place is important. When he makes a big deal out of this place. He has a hang-up about it. It isn’t an important place, not at all,” Meredith said with a snort. “There’s lots of places. This is just one place. But it’s not an important place. The history is obscure and stupid. It doesn’t fit in with America. Mexican stuff fits in with Mexico. And Mom’s right. The gunfight stuff is dumb. Real dumb. There isn’t anything else worth writing about. Unless you mean Indian stuff, but that’s tasteless too. You’re not an Indian.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t write Indian stuff ever.”
“Please don’t. Let them write their own stuff. Desert stuff just baffles people. They don’t even care about this place, and that’s okay because it isn’t anything great.”
“Sure. I guess you’re right. I’m going to write stuff anyways. About Arizona.”
“The word is ‘anyway’ not ‘anyways.’ Maybe I’ll get around to reading it. I won’t guarantee it. I don’t think you’ll be very good at writing, frankly. You don’t write very smoothly and you haven’t read half as many books as I have. The ones you read you don’t really understand or you’ve misunderstood their real meaning. You mispronounce everything, too. You can’t pronounce half the words you say. Frankly, you missed your calling, you know. Art was your calling, but you missed it. You’ve got talent in art, but not any in writing. I’m telling you the truth for your own sake, you know. There’s no use in lying or pretending. You had another calling and your talent lies elsewhere.”
“I like pretending. There is a use in it. I think. And I’m going to do writing anyway because it makes me pretty happy. Happy-ish. Sometimes it’s frustrating and really hard. I know that now. I think it’s kinda like a big, hard puzzle.”
“If you were good at writing, believe me, it wouldn’t be hard. It wouldn’t be a puzzle. Everything would be easy. See if you were a genius you would never think it was hard.”
“No, I don’t think you’re right. I think hard work is always hard. Writers have to work really hard. It isn’t going to be easy to write anything good.”
“If you were good at something it would be easy to do. See talent isn’t really work. It’s different. Hey, I have a funny incident you could write. There was this janitor on an elevator at the university and he said to me, ‘Do you know about scene?’ I answered ‘what?’ He repeated his question again and again getting all frustrated and then I realized he was actually asking ‘Do you know about sin?’ He was pronouncing the word ‘sin’ like ‘scene.’ You could probably write about that.”
“Because I mispronounce words.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s pretty funny. Mashers are pretty funny guys to write about.”
“Well, anyway, suit yourself about taking up the quill, just don’t expect a good result. You really missed your calling.”
“Okay.”
“When I’m back East I’ll be living in the center of the art world. It’s also the center of the writing world. Where all the publishers and editor and the readers are? Nobody out here reads much of anything that really matters. They just read junk. Like Harold Bell Wright and shit. Goofy books and hokum. You should move to the east coast. You’ll never write anything successful about this place. Not really successful. It’s doomed to be hokey and a failure. Big fish, little pond. Little fish, big pond.”
“I wish you had told me you were moving. When are you going?”
“December. Right after I graduate. I’m staying with that lady from the Anthropology Department. Right after I graduate.”
“Won’t you be back at Christmas?”
“Well, maybe. But I don’t see how I will, actually. I guess Mom and Dad will send me the price of the ticket and maybe I will. Don’t get your hopes up.”