In Times of Literal Truth

Originally Posted Monday, September 22, 2014

I'm glad I can read--that I have literature, I mean.  I'm glad that I have art, too.  There lies the richness of human experience and the human condition.  It is the antidote to the mundanity of living in real time.  I am happy that it is a place that I can go when life gets tedious or disappointing or just plain shitty.  What do those who do not have that do?  Drink, I guess, but I have that, too.  Watch football?  Some play golf, I hear, though I don't know any of the type.  There is travel, of course, but that usually takes planning.  Getting into bed with a book, though. . . doesn't take much at all. 

Yesterday, I went to brunch at the usual place with my usual pal.  We sat at the bar, as usual, and ordered the usual things.  But the day went kind of sideways.  The barmaids weren't as attentive and friendly.  Indeed, the hispanic girl who was so flirtatious a week ago seemed to be avoiding us completely.  No "papi" for me on this day.  C'est la vie.  We squeezed in between an old woman (a bit older than I) and two older "gals" (a bit younger than I).  My buddy, a nice guy to everyone, got caught up in a conversation on his right.  The women on my left began chatting me up about the lack of service we were getting. 

"Didn't you live on Holt Ave. forever," the one next to me asked?  I remembered her, of course.  She had been a true beauty and went to Country Club College with my girlfriend of the time. 

"Didn't you live on Maryland forever," I replied?  "You went on a semester abroad to Italy with my girlfriend in college."  I said her name. 

The woman remembered some things and asked me about my ex-wife who she said she was friends with.  Her pal got into the conversation on this one and asked about the guy that my ex-wife had dated. 

"Oh, she dated Al forever," she said. 

"Hey, I was married to her longer than they were together."

"Are you talking about the old guy with the gray ponytail," asked the other?

"Yea," said the once beautiful woman on my left, "he was cheating on her so she left him." 

I was in a devilish mood and wanted to stir the pot of potential future fun, so I said, "That's not right.  She was the one who got caught cheating.  Al was devastated."  I had no idea about any of this, but what the hell.  If a man can't make up shit about an ex-wife, what sort of world is this to be?  Al was a reasonably handsome fellow with a ton of money, but he was an asshole by all accounts.  I had known him peripherally for a long time since this was a small community, and peripherally was good enough for me.  I'd never heard anybody say he was a good guy.  He had one of those terribly smarmy southern accents that is supposed to inform the listener that the speaker is of a higher order and such.  He came from a prominent family, members of all the best clubs, etc. He worked out and was built, maybe even better than I, but I always sensed a weakness in him and believed I could beat him down on even a bad day.  I tested him after he had taken up with my not-quite ex-wife when I came across them together a few months after we separated.  I didn't say anything.  I just looked at them as they walked by.  I was waiting for him to look back or to be stupid and talk, but he was wise and looked about two feet ahead on the ground and was silent. I wasn't worried now about what might happen in the future. 

"Uh-uh," said the woman who knew my ex-wife.  "That's not true,"she told her friend.

"It is though.  Ask anyone.  It is the word on the street." 

"You know she married a boy she used to babysit.  He turned thirty on the day Al turned sixty." 

I remembered that I had heard the first part.  Now I was trying to remember when that might have been as I had been living with her since she was twenty.  The second part surprised me, though. 

"What?  How old is Al.  He must be eighty!"  I was hoping all of this was going to get back to everyone I used to know. 

"He is not."

"Jesus Christ, he looks ancient," I chortled. 

"How old are you?" asked the one time true beauty. 

I told her. 

"You don't look it," she said.  "What are you, an artist or something?" 

I don't know why, but I'm asked that often. 

"Nope," I said.  "I'm a whiskey taster." 

"What?"

"Yup, I get paid to taste whiskeys.  Only whiskey.  No vodkas or rums or gins.  I mean I drink them, I just don't get paid for it.  I only get paid for whiskey." 

The two women looked at each other with that fun sort of incredulity.  I was quite the raconteur, I thought.  I was having fun. 

"You need to save your buddy over there.  He looks trapped."

"Nope, he's a good guy.  He likes talking to people.  It makes him feel good about himself."  I turned over to him and caught up in his conversation.  I turned back to the women.  "Holy shit, you are right.  That woman is hideous.  She is just rambling."  I turned back to my friend.  "What's the matter, bud, you not hungry?"  He'd only eaten half his breakfast.  He looked at me bug-eyed.  "These nice women were just telling me about my ex-wife," I said.  "This one went to school with Liz.  I was just going to tell her about whatever pathology my ex-wife suffers from.  It's O.K., girls.  My friend here knows my ex-wife better than I do now.  He's known her just about as long as I have.  Now. . . do you know who she dated before she began seeing me? No?  Weellllll. . . she was dating Al's nephew.  That's right!  Oh, they used to go over to Al's house on the lake all the time when she was sixteen and they would smoke pot and run around in their underwear and go skinny dipping in the pool and old Al, well, you know, he was thinking all the time.  I guess he is a patient man.  Why old Al, he was just thinking of that sweet little girl he used to hear getting boinked by his nephew the whole time he was with her.  He used to kid about it to his friends." 

My friend was looking at me with a crooked grin.  The women weren't too sure what to say.  What fun, I thought.  I can't wait to run into any of them now.  Oh boy, oh boy.  I hate it when life gets dull. 

As we were walking toward the Boulevard, my friend said, "Well, you were on a roll today." 

"You didn't look too happy with your gal." 

"Seriously, I thought I was going to throw up.  She wouldn't shut up and she just kept talking about nothing.  She made no sense at all." 

"You should do what I do," I told him.  "When things go that way, when life is dull or makes no sense at all. . . just start making things up that seem like they could be true.  People like it, and so will you.  A writer's got to write," I said.  I was feeling better all the time.  There were dark clouds ahead, but that would be later, I thought.  The thing to do is to live in the present and to make it up as you go along.  There is no need to be literal, I thought.  There are few truths worth knowing that are literal. 

I was heading for some literal truths later in the afternoon, but that is not worthy of the telling here.  And by evening, I'd had enough of the literal truths.  And as I say. . . I'm a lucky boy.  I can read.  I have literature and I have art and they will get you through times of literal truths better than anything.  They are the antidote for it.