THE MAGICAL VEIL

I  TELL MADE UP STORIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT. YET ALL OF THEM. NO MATTER HOW OUTLANDISH, CONTAIN A NUGGET OF TRUTH. SOMETIMES I DON'T REALIZE IT WHEN I'M WRITING. BUT THEY DO.

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT  BOY NAMED BILL AND A GIRL NAMED DEBBIE.:

     The summer went by and we went out for pizza, went to a couple of campus plays, took in some movies on campus and off. Mostly we just hung out at my place, helping each other with our classes because we were both going full time all year, watching TV, talking about girls and guys and sex and life and what we wanted to do with our lives.

     The summer went by even though I wanted it to stop, to stay. I loved every minute I spent with her and she seemed to enjoy my company. I knew this was going to end sooner or later. She could have been going out with a different guy every night, being wined and dined and having serious money spent on her.
      it was Friday, July 19. As usual, we didn’t make any plans. She popped in on me whenever the spirit moved her. This time, I decided, I was going to be the one popping in. Let me take her out for once. Even if it wasn’t a real date, it would feel more like one.
     I had a 1969 Volkswagen Bug that my mom had bought in ‘80 and I had kept running. I thought it would probably be the only time Debbie had ever had the experience of squeezing into a Bug.
     I was walking toward her sorority wearing my best jeans and a short sleeved shirt and clean tennis shoes, thinking what it would like to walk up like a real date when I saw her walking out of the front door. She wasn’t alone.
     A tall black guy had his arm around her waist and as I watched, he leaned down because he must have been 6-6 or 6-8. She leaned into him and kissed him      
     I stood there in the rapidly dying sunlight, blinking like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming 18-wheeler.
     I couldn’t think for a minute. Why was I so surprised? Not surprised, stunned. Why shouldn’t she be going out on a date on a Friday night? I hadn’t called her, hadn’t asked her if she was free. I’d just assumed that she was waiting by her phone for the pleasure of my company.
     I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I found myself walking back to my Bug, starting it and heading after them. It was stupid. She was out on a date. What the hell was I doing? But I followed their tail lights as they drove away from Sorority Row toward the city’s Restaurant and Nightclub Row.
     I drove back to my apartment. It was 3:30 in the morning. I’d stopped along the way and bought a bottle of Scotch. I sat in the dark, filled a shot glass and started sipping.
     Why the hell had she come to see me? Why the hell had she played at being a friend, joking about blow jobs and masturbation and keeping me constantly revved up, knowing she’d never touch me the way she’d touched that black bastard.
     Half the bottle of Scotch had vanished and Mark and one of my other roommates, Dave, were holding me down while two girls shouted in the background. My right hand hurt like hell and my head was hurting from all the yelling. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
      “Mark...what....let me up....let me up...”
     “I will, Bill, as soon as you relax. Stop fighting us. Can you relax?”
    I lay back and realized I was on my bed. After a moment, Mark and then Dave eased up and somebody turned on the overhead light and I looked around numbly.

     It looked like a tornado had swept through the room. The chairs were snapped and lay in pieces, the dresser had been overturned and the contents strewn around the room and there was a big, big damn hole in the wall next to the bed.

     I realized my hand hurt so bad I wanted to scream. I looked down at it and it looked like I was wearing a red catcher’s mitt.
      “What-“
     Memory flooded back into me
     “Get me to the emergency room, Mark. I’ll pay for all the repairs. I’m sorry.”
     “What happened, Bill?What in the world happened?”
     “Growing pains, Mark. I just grew up tonight. I’ll explain it to you someday.”

     Despite all the booze I’d had during the night, I was feeling stone cold sober, mostly cold. I wanted to shiver, despite it being in the 70s. After a few tense minutes, Mark and Dave helped me up and I  insisted on driving Mark back to our apartment. It was 9 a.m., the sun was shining and Gainesville was green and beautiful.
     He got out and was getting ready to come around to my side when I said, “I’m not coming in, Mark. I’ll be back in a few days, but I think I’m going to go home.”
     It felt good to be alone and on the road from Gainesville back to Jacksonville, driving through the small towns and rural countryside of Alachua County. Then I was back on Jacksonville’s west side and pulling into the driveway of the small, two bedroom house that had been my home for more than a decade.
     I was turning the key in the front door when it opened and my mother took one look at me and gasped, then wrapped her arms around me. She was a small woman, but she seemed to envelop me.
     “Oh, Bill....”
     “It’s OK, Mom. I just want to sleep.”

From "When We Were Married #1 -The Long Fall

    

     NOW, this is a  fictional story. None of it is true. Not the people. Not the events. Not the time. Not even the place where all this went down. And yet, it is a true story. It is more true than any of hundreds of newspaper stories and magazine articles I've written over the years. 

     It  is a story about that moment when you leave childhood behind, foolish dreams and the belief that if you do all the right things, life will treat you kindly. It is the moment when you realize that loving someone - despite all the romance novels - doesn't mean they have to love you back, the moment when you realize that The Happy Ending is a literary construct..

     Because it is a true story, it has weight and consequence. It left scars and has affected the way I look at life, the way I've lived my life. There's a reason I think the painting that will define my life will be two people trying to crawl their way to each other through barbed wire.

     Since blogs are supposed are supposed to teach: here is ,my nugget of wisdom. You don't need any other resource than the one that stares back at you from a mirror. Whether young or old, black or white, able bodied or confined to a  chair or  bed, your truth is in you. Whether your story takes place in outer space or ancient Greece, you use your imagination to get there, but when you get there use what you  know to make the story resonate with readers.

     OR, face unpleasant or terrible truths you can never discuss or deal with. Don't worry. Just lie about it, use the magical veil of fiction to transform it. And people may even pay you!

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