The Statue
ian griffin
Why is it that no woman has ever loved me? And why is it that those who have said that they did love me were, in fact, ruthlessly lying for their own gain? (At least, I guess that’s why they were lying like that.) I’d believed on more than one occasion long ago that I would’ve been able to love such and such a woman, if only she’d have given me a chance. I still believe this very moment that back then it was true. Now I’m not capable of loving anyone anymore.
This, readers, is no phenomenon. The process has followed a very definite path over the course of this now almost completely dwindled life, and the result could have been derived through logic long ago.
Although I did actually just work it out on paper a short while ago, even back then I had a very good clue about what the mathematics were capable of telling me; so after the third woman who’d told me she loved me just didn’t show up one day, I decided to live for something other than love. I wondered why for so long I had chose to ignore the funny fact that “live” and “love” both spell the same thing backwards. Coincidence, I thought in the beginning, it means nothing. I was glad to finally be able to admit that I’d been wrong.
Everybody needs something to live for. This is one thing that I never chose to ignore. I wouldn’t have been able to if I’d tried, because it’s either live for something or die. That’s just the way it is and there really aren’t any arguments. Well, any that I’m interested in anyway.
For a few weeks there after I’d made that first big decision to shun love and get on with something else, I was living just to find out what exactly it was that I would come up with to live for next. Remember that one, folks, it comes in handy more often than you’d expect.
And then I came up with something.
I was suddenly aware of it one night while I was busy cutting my toenails: I would live to think of something to get famous for!
This was serious progress I was making. In only a few short weeks I’d decided to get famous for something. Then my toe began to bleed. It was the toe I’d had between my fingers when I’d come up with my idea about what to live for. I’d cut that nail way too short in the excitement.
I felt it would be best to finish my pedicure the next day, when the excitement had had some time to ease up a bit. I also had a lot of other, more important work to do.
Next I had to decide what I would get famous for. Several mediocre ideas immediately came to mind.
I could amass the world’s largest hardcore pornography collection. I knew I’d have stiff competition from some people in Europe, but I’d been working on a platform of my own to stand on (which I never actually did stand on) since the day I’d turned 18, so I was sure that I had a shot at that one at least. So far not so bad, I thought.
Maybe I could devote my life to breaking and holding the most world records in the Guinness Book. Then I realized where that idea had come from. I’d just heard the morning before on the radio about some guy who was doing the same thing. They were actually broadcasting live on the scene as this man was in the process of breaking the world record for longest distance somersaulted. He was going from one town to another one a certain amount of miles away, and if he got there he would own the record. They even let him stop at intervals to vomit.
People regarded the guy as a mental case. The DJ’s were making fun of him right to his face. They would get microphones in close to him during his breaks and broadcast his retching noises live on the air. I didn’t want to be remembered as a weirdo. I was proud then. So I forgot about that one and continued to examine the ideas that kept on coming to me.
I thought maybe I could choose a professional sport, practice every day, and then try out for the local team during the training camp time of year, depending on what sport I chose.
Then I remembered the reason I’d quit sports back in junior high school in the first place: I sucked. That’s all there was to it. I had no coordination whatsoever. I looked like I was paraplegic when I ran. Back then the coaches told me I ran like a girl. Coaches wouldn’t use that figure of speech these days.
After dismissing that thought as not-so-good I had another one almost immediately: what if I picked an instrument to learn? Then, when I was highly adept at it, I could form a band and be a rock star.
That idea, I remember, appealed to me immensely; more so than any of the others so far. But in the end I decided against it. If I didn’t have the coordination to throw or catch a ball, I certainly wouldn’t be able to strike the delicate notes of an instrument. At best I could’ve been a gong player, but no one gets famous for that. Unless you make an entire television show out of it, that is.
I didn’t let the fact that I wasn’t coming up with any really good ideas distress me. Early on someone I forget now had taught me that in order for one thing to exist, an opposite to it must exist also. I integrated this idea into the rest of my thinking process as a sort of protective barrier against despair. I knew that in order for me to come up with any good ideas, I would have to come up with some bad ones also. For a brief moment I wondered if I shouldn’t go back and give love another chance. No. Bad idea.
World-famous podiatrist, world-renowned lunch meat slicer, and internationally-recognized blower of chewing gum bubbles that looked like circus clowns didn’t quite appeal to me either, but then I thought, maybe I’ll write. Maybe I’ll pen an immortal novel that is considered completely fresh and innovational by people all over the world! Yes! Even illiterate people will know my name, they just won’t know how to spell it! All of these things I thought.
It was an idea I finally really liked. It was something to live for, and something important. It was something that when I told people what it was I was busy doing, they would stare at me for a moment out of awe without even knowing they were doing it. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to tell anyone anyway.
It also didn’t quite work out that way, as you probably already know. It’s not because I decided not to carry through with the plan after all, though. Oh, on the contrary.
I began to write day and night. When I had to go outside and couldn’t be in front of my typewriter, I would bring a pen and a pad of paper with me and write on the way to wherever it was I had to go.
Job? Did I have a job during all of this? In the beginning I did. I was fired when my boss showed up one day and saw that people were having to get out of their cars to pump their own gas and then coming over to me to give me the money while I sat in a chair and wrote in my notebook. He was furious and chewed me out good before he told me to get lost.
But then the scum bag cashed in on my idea. A week later I was driving by and happened to glance over at the station. The prices were cheaper than they had been; cheaper, in fact, than anywhere else I’d seen for years. I wondered how this could be. Then I saw the sign in the window that told me everything: SELF-SERVE. I must’ve gotten all the other guys who’d worked there with me fired also. I hoped they didn’t know where I lived.
Actually, for a few weeks after that some very strange things happened while I was at home writing. For one thing, I didn’t get a single piece of mail for almost a month. And twice pizza delivery boys knocked on my door insisting that I’d ordered a large pie with everything on it when I had done no such thing. I like plain cheese pizza and that’s all.
But I’m getting away from my purpose.
I wrote a beginning to my immortal novel no less than thirty-seven times. I just didn’t feel that I was getting it right.
I also couldn’t decide if my hero should live or die at the end. Both had their pros and cons; I know because I made a chart of them just like I’d learned to do in junior high.
I’d been able to pay attention to my teachers back in junior high because I never had to worry about the big game I would have to play in after school.
I also tried to learn as much as I could because I couldn’t rely on sports to get me to college, and my folks were set on my going to college, even though they knew there was no way they’d be able to pay for it. I knew there was no way they’d be able to pay for it either, so I tried as hard as I could all through school to get A’s so I could get a scholarship.
I ended up never getting one anyway, but that’s a different story, one you’re never going to hear from me. Actually, there’s no one living today who could tell it to you either, so you might as well forget about it. The fact is I never went to college, and that’s the last you’ll hear on that topic.
Back to my novel.
Since I couldn’t decide if the hero should live or die, I decided that I shouldn’t have to decide. I instructed the newly-widowed wife of the hero to construct a live-sized statue of him on their front lawn, so that he could live on for her and anyone else who wanted him to. Pretty clever, don’t you think?
The arrival of that decision greatly inspired me and I was finally able to write a solid, immortal first chapter. And then, just like that, the thing began writing itself like all the experts whose articles I’d read on the subject said it would. They’d been so right. I figured that meant that I was practically an expert myself already. I must’ve been born to write an immortal novel!
The story line I’d carefully constructed went something like this: The hero was a balding middle-aged guy who lived by himself in an unkempt house in anonymous suburbia. All the neighborhood kids called him “the old homo” because he was old enough to be married but they knew he wasn’t and had never even seen him with a lady.
One day all those kids are out in the street playing hockey when a madman in a car comes tearing through without even blowing his horn to warn them and hits one of the kids, little Billy. Billy was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced alive and well, but his leg was broken and would be in a cast for six to eight weeks.
I mean, this is good stuff, don’t you think? Medically accurate and everything.
Anyway, the thing is the old homo happened to be looking out his window at the exact moment that all this happened, and was able to see and write down the license plate number of the car as it sped away from the scene.
He calls the police and gives a description which they then use to track down and apprehend the criminal, but he also tells the police that it’s an anonymous tip so that he won’t have to deal with the headache of telling all the parents in the neighborhood and especially Billy’s parents that they’re welcome.
So then an entire year passes uneventfully, except for the fact that the old homo decides to start exercising to get into shape. The narrative skips to a year later in the late afternoon when the old homo is out jogging around the block a few times.
When he was about as far from his house as he was going to get, another madman tears through the scene in his car and hits our anonymous hero! Can you believe it? What a coincidence, you must be thinking, what a brilliant and ironic coincidence!
But the best part has yet to come. Nobody witnesses the crime except for an unmarried, middle-aged lady who lives in the attic of her parents’ house. A regular Emily Dickinson. She first calls an ambulance and then the police to report the crime and give a description of the culprit’s vehicle. She was even able to get the license plate number!
The old homo appears to be hurt badly, and while he’s lying there in a puddle of lonely blood, the lady falls in love with him from the attic where she’s looking at him from through her tiny window.
She decides to visit him in the hospital and they fall in love. He’s badly injured but expected to pull through, and while he’s still in the hospital the two get married. The Justice of the Peace comes right into the hospital room and marries the two of them.
Now here’s the part I told you before that I had a lot of trouble with. The way it ends up is that sudden and mysterious complications cause the death of our hero, and the grieving widow gets possession of his house and erects a statue of him on the front lawn. All the neighborhood children are baffled by this, but that doesn’t really matter. The old homo is now immortal just like my novel about him will be!
When all of this was finally down it had taken me four years and totaled 674 pages. There was no detail I left unwritten. It was real, it was all very alive and capable of provoking the deepest emotions in readers. I myself cried while writing many of the pages. And I’m no crybaby.
Let me tell you, no less than thirty-seven publishers took a look at my manuscript. I nearly went broke just sending it out so many times. Twenty-six of them rejected it within the first month. I was dumbfounded. Were these editors or sheep I was dealing with? Weren’t they able to see that with the proper promotion, my book would make them millions? Obviously not!
I had a little more hope for the remaining eleven who had yet to give me any word. Since I had never published anything before I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I figured that if it was being given it the proper consideration, it would take a few months. After all, reading 674 pages is no small task. It had taken me six months to get through Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed. (My story puts that one to shame, of course. No offense to Fyodor or anything.)
So after six months of not hearing from any of the remaining eleven publishers, I decided to give them a polite ring on the telephone, one by one.
Seven of them flatly denied ever hearing of, let alone receiving, any manuscript from me! Who are you? they asked! I couldn’t utter a word each of the seven times. I just hung up .
The other four informed me that my manuscript had either not been read yet, or was still under consideration. That got my spirits back up again. I was overjoyed to learn that at least there were two people in this country who knew immortal literature when they saw it, with the potential for two more.
Well, don’t let my kind words fool you. They’re just part of the story. A month ago I received three rejection notices in rapid succession. Idiots. That’s what the “publishers” in this country are. The whole lot of them. I mean, are they trying to sell books or what?
Last week I decided to telephone the one publisher who was holding the very last of my hope. I wanted to see what the story was. They told me that they didn’t know who I was and denied ever having seen my manuscript!
My head almost blew right off my shoulders under the pressure of the anger and despair that filled me. I wanted to know who the hell they thought they were to be jerking me, an immortal novel writer, off like that! They asked me what the date was that I had been informed that my manuscript was still under consideration. I checked my calendar and told them. There was a pause. Then the ass-hole says
-Uh, sir? Our secretary was on vacation that week, and we instructed the temporary girl to tell anyone who may be calling to check the status of a manuscript that it was still being considered. Your phone call brings to light the error of our judgment, but there is really nothing we can do and we are very sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused you. Good bye.
He sounded like a goddamn machine, and for all I know he could’ve been! Who knows who’s running the publishing houses these days! Judging by the stuff you find in the bookstores, they probably are all machines! It wouldn’t surprise me!
But I didn’t even want to think about it. I’d had it with publishers just like I’d had it with every other damn rotten person in this world. The whole thing was over as far as I was concerned. Finished. At least while I was still alive, that is.
I was angry enough to burn the manuscript, but the funny thing and point of this whole story is, I decided not to. I still think the thing is going to be immortal, but it’s obvious to me now that I have to die first. That’s all it’ll take.
So here you go. When I hung up with that last publisher a week ago, having lost the last bit of my hope and pride, I sat down and thought about what I should do. I didn’t have a reason to live anymore.
What was finally decided upon was that I would sit down for however long it took me and briefly put down the story of my life, just as one last reason to live. I would tell about all the things I had done and all of my thoughts on the world and life etc., and then I would kill myself in order that my book finally gets the recognition it has always deserved.
As you might’ve been able to guess, now it’s really over. I don’t have anymore to say and this is it. This past week has really allowed me to gather my thoughts, and now I’m really ready to do what I have to do. I’m doing this for all of you.
Farewell.
P.S. You better not forget to buy my book!
