NOW GODDAMNIT NOW?!
Yes. This week.
It was the publicist, calling to tell me to run the intro and now. Her voice is soft and svelte, a birdsong compared to the panicked rasp at the other end of the line.
BUT…WHO WILL JUDGE THE RIGHTEOUS?, I yelled. FIND YOURSELF HERE! and, stammering now, AREN’T YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?!
She’s a good girl. She’s wont to break it down country simple and gently “talk me down” when I get like this. I had been on the roof for 7 hours. I had over 3,500 words written in tribute to guest-blogger Don Bajema but it was not a kind journey. The kids at the Khabele School across the street were giving me queer looks and I glared back at them, crunching down on a burning cigarillo with hater blockers on. I was greasy with Deet and the shit was giving me a chemical high of the worst kind. I had drunk more coffee than the APD working nightshift on Judge’s Hill. The bugs and the heat and the caffeine and the smoke were making me jiggy. Not only that but every time I climbed in through the window to get more coffee I took a piece of hardware with me. The dead mouse hung by its cord out the window and earbuds were tangled, twisted and burning in the ashtray. My spare hardrive lay in sorry pieces scattered all over the roof at my feet.
Just send me what you have. I’ll take a look and we’ll run it tomorrow, mk?
OK?! Ok.
Just focus on your respect for the man. Don’t get too bogged down, and, parse it out.
I hung up and stared at the pile of hardwire and the mess of black wire twisting at my feet. What had happened to my life? Whatever could it be that has brought me to this loss? All my efforts to write smoke-free had been usurped, laughed at and thrown down by the bad bitch of a deadline.
Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
-Ernest Hemingway
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good life. These days the worst kind of trouble is no trouble at all.
Some folks are better writers simply getting out of bed in the morning than I’ll be all day. And some writer’s blow their brains out with a shotgun in a remote cabin in Idaho. We’re all mad here but deadlines, like time, will wait for no man. Being on deadline is kind of like having a nervous breakdown.
Any seasoned journalist, like me, has many tools (drugs) in his toolbox. But as the heat index pushes temperatures above 102, and the caffeine wears off and the scales of life teeter dangerously toward the suicide option side, it’s best to call it a day. Most wise. Pour yourself a drink and watch the sun set on the Empire, burn down another night and blast that banshee with rock&roll and loud, motherfucker.
Aho. I’m glad for writers like Bajema. There is no finer an ally to enjoy sunset in America with. And I’m just as glad for the gentle and kind folks who tolerate me, who at times offer me guidance&support as I cleave down the savage road I first stepped foot on nearly 27 years ago.
The publicist, the editor, readers like you-you’re all keeping me alive.
The girl was right about parsing it out. It was Labor Day Weekend. School was letting out across the street. My ankles were raw and bloody. I was covered in sweat. Another day at the Office.
It is my great pleasure to present to you an intro for guest-blogger Don Bajema.
In parts.
fml
STAY TUNED FOR PT I OF: WHO WILL JUDGE THE RIGHTEOUS?…Guest-Blogger, Beautiful Writer&True Patriot Don Bajema Makin’ em Know on Going For the Throat With the First 3 Chapters of his Latest Work…NEXT WEEK
Going for the Throat 