Arcane Motifs from That One Guy You Never Actually Got Over

I’ve been running, as you’ve noticed. Our quiet ritual is already so familiar. I come up to you, breathless, bereft. Acting almost surprised that you’ve become a goal post, a landmark. It’s no surprise given our history. You tower above me gentle, significant. I’ve got time before work, and you’re not going anywhere. We don’t speak. The silence fills with my yearning. I pretend you can feel it.

Help me understand.

The other boys clustered around you are nearly meaningless to me. I could probably reach into my memory, grab at a few names and match them up more or less correctly. Not you, old man. Even now, what, twelve years later, you’re the enigma burned into my retina. The one I believe with all the answers, laudably withholding them behind several almost got it translations, generations of contextual gaps, impossible subtext, and my greatest mental block: the girl who set the stage.

“I am a seagull! No, that is not right! I am an actress!” the girl shouted jovially.

“Huh?” I cocked my head, clueless.

“That’s Nina’s famous line. Boy, this show will really be a stretch. He’s nearly impossible to get right,” the girl said.

Inspired and intimidated by her big-city art school energy, this small-town faggot with a love for the accessibility of musical theatre unconsciously made a commitment that day.

She continued, “Even the first production got it wrong the first time. This is actually a comedy.” She took a drag of her cigarette. “Start again, from I have no respect for him.”

I picked up my script and began reading, despondent. “I have no respect for him at all. You want me to think him a genius, as you do, but I refuse to lie: his books make me sick.”

She looked me square on. A crowning Arkadina appeared. “You envy him.” She recited. “There is nothing left for people with no talent and mighty pretensions to do but to criticise those who are really gifted. I hope you… I hope you… Judas Priest! Line!”

“I hope you enjoy the consolation it brings,” I offered to her.

“Consolation! Fuck, I’ll never memorize this. I smoked too much weed in high school.”

I sat there reading as Konstantin, wishing I was cast. A fitting role for my demeanor, I thought. The young writer. Eager, hopelessly melancholic, desperate for approval despite deep personal confidence in his own ability (albeit perhaps wide of the mark).

I, like him, love watering my pretenses.

I wonder what you would say about my past year. I imagine we are old pen pals, writer friends with a rich bond that goes deep into our history. Much like my Arkadina. 

My dear Chekhov,
I’ve been reading Alice Munro. Some cute gays on the TV were discussing her soft brilliance while flirting with eachother. They used words like “departure” and spoke through perfect teeth. It was so hot I ordered “Runaway” on Amazon straightaway. But after reading a few of the stories I don’t know if I understand what all the fuss is about. You know reading important work is so often lost on me. It’s the tone. It passes right through me and I’m left doubting my comprehension. Or perhaps my anxious doubting clouds my ability to sense tone to begin with. It’s probably that. Just read the words and understand them. It’s really that simple. 

Did you know, they say Munro is the “you” of the English language. Who “they” is I surely don’t know. The Smarts. The ones who decide things. Those people. I lap up what those people say. It's how I have opinions about things. How I know what work is important. I need those people. The cultured gays with perfect teeth. The smart art school girls.

I miss her so much, Anton. Eight months now. Soon it will be a year. I continue to question where my head was up until it happened. Like I’m remembering it wrong. Was it denial? No. I simply wasn’t paying attention. Idleness. That realization is heavy. Like I even had the skills to intercept the tragedy had I an ounce of fucking perception. I believe I may have only circumvented my own because of this. My vices have quickly faded as a response. 

Remembering your own mortality has one significant symptom. It festers meaning.

With all my love and doubt,
Drew

I send my mental note out into the ether and break from your gaze. Behind you, just past your esoteric figure, a long shaft protrudes. From where I stand it’s as if I could slide into your mind if only I could leverage myself up there. Being Anton Chekhov: Malkovich Reimagined. A movie like that could produce some complex themes I imagine.  

The girl’s arm swooped out over the river, gesturing comically. “One hundred and twenty-five million to build a bridge to nowhere,” she said as we toured the deck.

“It says here it’s The Endless Bridge.”

She scoffed.

“Beautiful view though,” I continued.

While I don’t remember the specifics, the spirit of the conversation and the spirit of the girl was a call to put resources into the community, not grandiose displays of nothing. I assimilated the shell of the ethos and judged the space. Afterall, back at college, I thought I was being groomed for Lookingglass and Steppenwolf. Important work. Not this place. If only I knew back then that Chicago would be a quick blink of my life and I was being gifted a first look at the city where my vices and recovery would eventually hold me.

A bridge to nowhere. A giant slide. An endless bridge. The meaning shifts–much like your seagull motif. 

Back at school, play rehearsal went on.

“A young author, especially if at first he does not make a success, feels clumsy, ill-at-ease, and superfluous in the world. His nerves are all on edge and stretched to the point of breaking; he is irresistibly attracted to literary and artistic people, and hovers about them unknown and unnoticed, fearing to look them bravely in the eye, like a man with a passion for gambling, whose money is all gone,” the unassuming Trigorin proclaimed. The script rattled in his hands.  

One of those smart voices shouted from the back row,, “You’re talking to Nina, but what are you projecting? Find the honesty! Find the beats!”

“I would if, for a minute, I could forget that your first choice dropped out due to brain cancer.” I thought with defense.

“This is a great male role! One of his best!” 

“And apparently the man for the job is in the hospital!”

Looking back, I see now the director’s intent was encouragement. In the moment, I projected unattainable standards.

“Just read the words and understand them. It’s really that simple,” I thought.

A young author? Okay. Nerves on edge? Check. Attracted to artistic people? I imagined myself hiding among all The Smarts of Steppenwolf. I smiled.

Honesty found.

“What are you writing?” Nina playfully recited, eliciting me back into the present.

“Oh!” I scrambled. “An idea for a short story. A young girl grows up on the shores of a lake, as you have. She loves the lake as the gulls do, and is as happy and free as they. But a man sees her who chances to come that way, and destroys her out of idleness, as this gull here has been destroyed.”

I look out into the wings. The girl’s nose is pressed deep into her script.

Destroys her out of idleness.

In hindsight I’m realizing how severely that monologue wrote the tone of my life. Quietly cementing my lens on so much. An inside out of how I show up in creative spaces. A long-winded expression of how I inhabit the writer. Was that just a character you crafted? Or did that come from within? I think I know, but I’m reluctant to land at commonality. You’re you.

Who were you idle with?

When I arrived at the hospital, I was given the room while the girl’s parents discussed palliative care down the hall. I hadn’t been in the same room with her for years. Hard years. For both of us. The girl was asleep. Her long lashes swooped down her cheek bones. I gently stroked her brunette hair waving across the pillow. Soft music tinkled out of my phone. Songs from school. Songs woven with memories. 

“I’m gonna understand Chekhov, baby girl. I promise. I’m gonna read him and soak it up. I’ll do it. I will.”

A promise to pay attention, as it were.

So here I am. Praying to the portrait. If a letter fell from the ether, what would it say?

Dear Drew,
I’d enclose a cigarette, but I think you might prefer a pen. 

Sounds like you’re committed to looking up. Fix your gaze lower. This girl would be proud if you did so. I’d even go so far as to say she’d laugh to know of your credulous affection for her, regardless of how idle you remember yourself.

Perhaps at some point in your life you were shown that grace was unobtainable and you worshiped that idea because it affirmed your fear and it looked a bit like truth. Let go of those pretenses. If not, I have a fitting epitaph for your grave: “Here lies Drew, a clever writer, but he was not as good as Chekhov.”

Believe me, people will laugh. 
Anton

P.S. The role of the artist is to ask questions. Not answer them.

By now I’ve caught my breath. It’s another 5K back home, and the morning is waning.

See you tomorrow?

I move into a jog and my breath becomes rhythmic.

Maybe there is no secret third answer I’m not privy to knowing. If that’s true, it’s quite expensive for the soul to pay for those beliefs. A bridge to nowhere.

What could an endless bridge do for me?

-DS