Peripatetic, Writer, Harbinger of Mirth
The wiry man I thought was homeless
Too quickly suggests he can help sell my book,
With phrases like “sales funnel” and “affiliate links”
And name-drops of famous cult leaders.
His face shape and speech pattern
Conjure images of the family friend
Whose emotional problems
Prompted expulsion from school for threatening another student.
I emailed this man, thinking, “Eh, what’s the harm?”
He hasn’t set off alarm bells—
Only over-bold signs of earnest devotion,
And who am I to punish him for that?
At sixteen, Julian could eat a whole pizza in one sitting. He’d be stuffed before downing those last few slices but finish anyway, because he hungered for achievement long after satisfying his hunger for pizza.
Yesterday, twenty-five-year-old Julian stayed awake for twenty-six hours. As he puts it, “one should spend times of plenty preparing for times of famine.” He calls it a “sleep fast” and planned to reach a whole day-and-a-half, but ended it early when he realized sleep fasts should be undertaken on days that don’t require driving.
Julian is most familiar with this style of self-disciplined self-deprivation from his multi-day foodless fasts, the longest totaling one hundred thirty-six hours (five-and-a-half days). He has completed a total of fifteen foodless fasts (each a minimum of three days long). There are known health benefits of foodless fasting. There are no known health benefits of sleep fasting, but he feels a calm sense of power for the following few days.
To cap off his sleep fast, Julian devoured a large $10 Costco pepperoni pizza. While you technically don’t have to be a member to eat at the food court, you certainly don’t have to be a member if you walk past the ID checkers when they’re not looking. If you employ this method, you also get to feel smug. There are no known health benefits of eating a whole large $10 Costco pepperoni pizza, but he did anyway. What a rebel.
You’ll only feel me by listening
to the same song,
but none better than the downtown boy
with hair like Dylan
accepted to Yale when I was
but dropped out
and now plays to a Farmers’ market audience–
an empty picnic blanket and me.
At 24 years old,
he looks more like twelve
and sings folk like a wizened bluesman.
Will he go anywhere
or stay in Fairfax forever,
wearing the same uncool shoes
as the classmate I bullied in 4th grade.
If America’s misfits come to San Francisco
and SF’s go to Oakland,
where go Oakland’s?
We’re only fifteen miles north of The City,
but you can believe astrology
and we’ll still believe in you.
If you move too quick,
you hit the speed of loneliness
like a too-fast car,
breaking the sound barrier,
collapsing personality,
emptying you out.
… if only to ask for money.
“Can I borrow your phone? I need to call my mom. I’ll give you a dollar; don’t even need to touch it. “ This comes from Chris, the Chicago Bulls hat with misshapen teeth and meth sores.
I dial the number for him, put the phone on speaker. “It’s 3am in Ohio,” Chris’ mom tells him.
“I’m sorry,” Chris says. “I didn’t realize.”
“Did you get the hundred-dollar MoneyGram I sent you? Can you come home? I’m worried about you. Have you talked to your dad? Did he send you any money?”
“Not in a while.”
“Okay, here’s the code:”
Chris’ Mom gives Chris the number for the MoneyGram. Chris writes it on his palm using the pen I lent him.
“Thanks, Mom. I gotta work in the morning, but I’ll call you at lunch.”
Chris played online poker until the US government shut it down seven years ago. Now, he teaches tennis and plays poker in Vegas, but one-tabling live is not the same context or variance as twelve-tabling on the web.
I suggested he go international—like to Cali Colombia, where he can play online again and live like a king for $1k a month. As a bonus, I told him about two ¿cartel members? who lose $1k per day in the only non-profit casino I’ve ever heard of. (A money-laundering front for the cartel? Probably.)
Chris calls his friend Red. Red’s got something for Chris. Chris writes an address on his palm next to the MoneyGram code and the “HoHoHo” he doodled while chatting with his Mom. I don’t know what Chris is going to pick up, but my money’s on meth. When he asks me for $3, I don’t know why I give it to him. Maybe it’s pity. Maybe it’s hope.
I wish he would go to Cali. The cocaine cartel in one of the most dangerous cities in the world would probably be safer company.
“People say to me, “thank you for your service.” I say, “You ruined my country.”
or
Talk to the man in the reflective vest in line behind you at Whole Foods.
A non-fiction monologue. Not verbatim, but accurate.
I been a marine for 27 years. I went away to war and the country was Leave it to Beaver. I come back and the country’s run by bullies. It’s the fat girls who became HR directors.
People say to me, “Thank you for your service.” I say, “You ruined my country.”
Twenty-seven years ago, war starts and all the strong men go away. Who stays back? Weak men. Now, the strong men come back and they’re messed up in the head. Who’s in charge? The fat girls who were bullies in high school. These are the people who speed up to get in front of you on the sidewalk just so they can slow down. Me? I’m married to a 32-year old Indonesian woman. Muslim, never been with a man.
I said that to my HR director. I said to her, “It’s the fat girl mentality running this company. That’s why our turnover’s so high.” Since I said that, our turnover rate plummets.
I say to my boss, “I don’t care if it’s PC or not. I say what I think” and he gets that.
I been a marine for 27 years. I been burned, cut up. I say things, people get mad. People say they’re not politically correct. I say, “Maybe not for your country now, but my country’s older than yours and there’s still some of us left.”
Julian Wise 