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Levon Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

“…All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”

— Isak Dinesen

Twelve noon on the dot I stood atop the imposing front porch. Levon seemed like a man you didn’t want to disappoint. I was at the awkward point in any friendship (I guess that’s what we were…friends), when you don’t know if you should knock or just go in. Sometimes you get to the coveted “allowed to enter through the side door or garage” status and that is pretty much the equivalent of being family. And if you are going through the side door, sneaking in the garage, and don’t fall under this category, you are either a hooker entering a brothel or 12-year-old sneaking into a girlfriend’s house. Anyway, I digress.

It was a typical fall day, when the air was a little cleaner than the day before and the leaves still had a luminescent shimmer from the nighttime frost.

There was music playing inside the house. I couldn’t exactly tell who it was. Levon always had music playing but I rarely knew the artists. He had a Victrola record player from 1922. It was a piece of furniture that doubled as a record player. The wooden monstrosity was polished daily. It was one of the only things in the Levon’s household that was consistently cleaned. The record player belonged to his father, a musician who studied Jazz composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Levon had a real pension for nostalgia; none of the music he played was recorded later than 2000. He believed every age prior to his was the “golden age.” He never liked to accept the reality of the world around him.

Sam Cooke was playing. Odd combination considering the household… stuffy old white man and one of the smoothest black guys in history. Sam Cooke could sing the feathers off a chicken. (I have no idea what that actually means, but it sounded good). Either way, I hesitantly entered the house, not out of fear but a feeling of uncertainty.

What was going to happen? He makes me write a couple short stories about some king and queen in a castle surrounded by a river of lava and a bridge guarded by a fire-breathing dragon? Maybe he will make me write some weird Asian poem, most likely because a hippie friend of his told Levon it gave his soul peace. I had no idea about all the above.

The door creaked open, very cliché, but it actually did (I am trying to include every detail and there was a creak that day). Levon was tending the fire in the library with his back turned towards me. I say library despite the fact every room in his house looked like a library. He wore the usual old dark blue Levi’s, a navy-blue hoodie, but this time from a summer camp in upstate New York and a pair of Nike Roshe Runs.

“If you are early you are on time, if you are on time you are late, if you are late don’t even bother showing up.” He said with his back still turned.

“Levon, with all due respect and everything…I know you saved my life but really? Come on, this isn’t boot camp. I am here so you won’t tell my mom the shit I pulled the other night, so let’s get this over with. I will be here at noon, so quit being a dick about it.” (As I now think about my words, it scares me how quickly I let the failed suicide attempt run from my mind. Even today it falls in the wayside of traumatic events in my life. I think I block it out just to protect myself).

“You really do struggle with communicating huh?”

He didn’t ask me to sit down but I did anyway. I was tired of standing. I sat across from Levon on the overstuffed armchair of the same color leather as the couch.

“Why do you think I want you to write?” he began before my ass hit the leather.

“I honestly have no clue. I can see you obviously enjoy books. You ever publish anything?”

“Some stuff.” He quickly said, “But this isn’t about me.”

He caught my usual tactic of turning the conversation away from myself and onto the person I was speaking with; it was a true conversation saver. Everyone likes to talk about him or herself. It works every time. Especially with women, women always love to talk about themselves.

“Alright…Well my answer still stands, I have no clue why you want me to come over here and write. It sounds honestly like the actions of a nut bag,” I said.

“Do you talk to everyone like this or just the people you like?”

“You assume I like you?”

“Do you need me to list the plethora of reasons you should like me? Let’s start with saving your life.”

“This is getting kind of ridiculous.”

“You mean stupid?”

“No, Ridiculous is exactly what I mean…I am leaving.

“Pussy,” Levon said.

“Ummmm. Did you just call me a pussy? Are you a bully or an old man?”

“Can’t I be both? Grab that computer…” He motioned to the desk in the corner of the room.

I reacted without question. Our quick-witted banter brought me into a trance. I knew he was joking but Levon was quick and I had to be quicker. This man was like a grandpa. And you can’t lose to a grandpa.

As I picked up the silver MacBook Pro, which sat next to three other different versions of Macs, I said, “Are you ever going to tell me why I am here?”

“If you haven’t figured it out, then I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why do you have to act like that? You talk in parables, hyperbole’s, incomplete thoughts and metaphors no one uses today. It is like I am in a conversation with a nobleman from middle ages.”

“There is a better way of transferring the same idea and meaning. Why say hot when you can say scorching? You ever watch Dead Poets Society?”

“No.”

“You do realize I have no idea what you are talking about? And just to mention this is real life not a fucking movie.”

“Have you ever scribbled a poem, an angry note to an ex… anything?”

“Yes”

“Okay well that’s a start.”

“Hmmm…” He hummed some tune to himself on a completely different beat than the Sam Cooke album, which still spun in the background. He groped his nonexistent beard and said, “Okay.”

Profound I know…

“Okay what?”

“Go grab a book off the shelf over there.” Levon pointed to one wall. It looked no different than the others. Completely out of order, dirty, with titles that were unrecognizable. The room was not as big as I remembered. “Take any,” he said.

I looked back, rolled my eyes, “Come on Levon what the hell?”

“First of all, roll them back, second of all just trust me, I saved your life for Christ’s sake. Why not just take a chance and maybe you will have a new experience and learn something instead of being the questioning and condensing piece of shit you have been until this point, in what you believe to be a worthless life.”

“Ruthless man. You do know that is no way to motivate anyone, right?”

“Will you choose a book, or would you rather clean my windows?”

“Got it boss.”

I looked back towards the infinitesimal number of books at my choosing. Quickly scanned. Some, I recognized, some, I didn’t. I had read none. So, I grabbed the first familiar title. I chose The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. As I brought the book back to the couches in front of the now blazing fire Levon asked what I chose. Without saying a word, I flashed the cover and the old man shot a cynical, conniving smile I have never seen before or since. It was a look that said, “Got you good fucker.”

I sat with the book in front of the computer now open with a new word document up. Again, this was by far, the weirdest thing ever for a 17-year-old suicidal kid. I accepted the situation at the time because in hindsight there is no way any sane person could consider this situation normal. You can never rationalize the irrational. It was Levon that made it not weird. He spoke with such passion, even when discussing what chair to sit in that you couldn’t help but follow. Throughout the later years with Levon I never encountered a single soul who was not comforted by his presence despite his lack of social decorum, or at least lack of social knowledge.

“Open it, to any page, read it and choose a line, any line, and I want you to type it exactly. However, include the sentence above and the sentence below but underline the one line you chose so you can separate it.”

Like a soldier in the army I unquestionably followed the directions. I closed my eyes thumbed the book like a man thumbing his cash after a big win in Vegas, and then stopped. I rested my right index finger on the page and opened my eyes to page 89. I read the line to myself and then began typing.

She is very lovely, and if she knows as little about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful experience. There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating — people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don’t look so tragic!

“Read it to me now,” Levon said seemingly knowing I was done just as I pushed the last exclamation point. I read the three sentences.

“Good, now write them in your own words.”

“Why?”

“I will tell you after, just try it. Read it to yourself. Think about what the words are saying as a whole. Ask yourself, what is Oscar trying to tell me? Use the lines before and after to help connect it to your life.”

“Levon, I don’t…” He cut me off.

“Try Jake, no hurt in trying. Don’t worry about grammar, political correctness, nothing… Just straight stream of conscience. Read and react. It is okay to react emotionally from time to time.”

“That’s how I got into that situation the other night. I don’t know…”

Levon ignored my last comment.

The world is filled with all sorts of people. Fat, happy, skinny, sad, tall, short, depressed, anxious, angry and everything else in between. With all the characters of life at our disposal one would think we find them all equally intriguing.

I paused…and heard… “Don’t you dare stop kid…keep writing!…”

However, there are only two types of people, which capture our imagination the same way a child’s imagination is captivated by magic. The ones who know everything and the ones who know nothing. This is because the ones who know everything are lying pretentious ass holes and those who know nothing are an absolute waste of a god given brain and body.

“Don’t you dare fucking stop…I can hear you Sport,” Levon screamed for absolutely no reason…

We gravitate towards the extremes. We fall in love with the extremes and dream the unobtainable. We humans are wretched things built for extremes, whether it is disappointment or pure ecstasy. We struggle to find a middle ground and when we do it is considered mediocrity.

I stopped. Levon looked directly into my eyes. He had light brown eyes I considered more honey colored than brown. He was a man you learned details about the more you hung out with him. He gave very little away at any one point. His eyelashes were longer than any man’s eyelashes should ever be. Not that I ever noticed eyelashes before, but something about being around Levon gave you a heightened sense of observation due to the fear he would question you on some detail, which seemed so obvious when asked.

Levon grabbed the computer without asking. He took his honeysuckle eyes and scanned the words on the screen. I didn’t know what to expect.

“I was right,” He said, talking to himself. This made me feel pretty awkward. What was he right about?

“Quick, who are you?”

“Just a kid.”

“No Jake, you will never be anything if you always believe you are a child. WHO ARE YOU!?”

“I just want to be me! Jesus, why do you have to make everything an argument, or just super dramatic? I just want to be me, okay? Is that all right with you? Or is it not enough? What do you want me to say? That I will be the next Hemingway? Or I will be an incredible athlete like Jordan? I don’t know what you want me to say. So, who do you want me to be Levon because I have no idea and don’t particularly care anymore? Stop fucking with me, pretending to have some ‘Good Will Hunting’ or ‘Finding Forrester’ moment. Those are movies, this is real life and sitting here isn’t helping me do anything productive towards it. I am depressed, I am angry, and I don’t want to do this.”

“Use that anger, use that hate, and use those emotions kid. You don’t think this matters? You don’t think you matter, do you?”

“What happened to you? How can you talk so bad about a life and world you have yet to encounter? You are wrong. I will tell you that first. Accept it. People who live those middle-class mediocre lives, such as your parents, worked their ass off for it. They chose that life because they chose you. Many of them find great enjoyment in life despite not being famous, or wealthy, or all knowing. This is when you need to make a decision about who you are. And you need to like it, because if you want my honest opinion, I think you are afraid. I think you are afraid to go after your dreams, to do anything worthwhile. You are afraid to fail. If you aim low, you will never disappoint yourself. You decide to sit back, observe, and throw in a plethora of backhanded comments for brief moments of comic relief. This is a cop out. This is when you realize you are much more insane than you ever imagined. You are a joke. Everything you are doing is a joke because if you can’t wake up every day and say I am going to take the world by its scrotum and fuck shit up then you might as well not wake up.”

“I want you to let go Jake.” Levon continued. “Just try. I know it sounds like a load of shit. But try to trust me. What can it hurt? Just let go.”

“Let go of what?”

“If I told you to start a story, what would you say?”

“I’m not starting a story.”

“Jake, get out of this shell already…why do you think someone is going to take away your ‘cool card’ if you care about something, or are intelligent?”

“I…I don’t.” I stumbled over my words.

“Do you remember the feeling you had when you put Oscar Wilde’s line into your own words?”

“I just did it, there was no feeling.”

“Wrong kid. You won’t admit it, but 10 years from now when you read what you wrote, you will see the meaning and relevance. It may not win you a Pulitzer, but it will still mean something, at some point. Always save your words, they are all you have.”

“Why do I always have to be wrong?” I asked.

“And you say I am the one with the communication problem?”

Flustered and angry I followed direction out of some innate reaction unknown to myself before this moment.

“But I don’t know what to write about. What do I know? I am only 17 Levon! So, my best friend killed himself in my house. But who doesn’t know someone who committed suicide? I “loved” one girl, but I don’t even know if it was real or true love. Nothing makes my life, my story worth reading by anyone. I did get laid a few times, that was fun.” I quipped trying to lighten the growing tension.

“There is such thing as true love, but to say you will only have one love is an ignorant statement of a lackluster cynic.”

“I have absolutely no idea what that means Levon. Anyway, I don’t want to just write anything. I want it to mean something. Like if you are going to make me sit here and waste my time typing every day for god knows what reason, it better be at least worthwhile. I want it to change the way I think, or you think.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Do you enjoy belittling me?”

“Wait until you see what it actually means to be belittled you little shit.”

“Harsh.”

“Fear is the ultimate restraint. Don’t be afraid to piss people off. Don’t be afraid to get angry. Don’t be afraid to set the world on fire. Too cliché again?”

“Why do you speak like you are trying to incite riots and preach to the masses? It’s just me here. Calm down Stalin.”

My face was flushed; I was angry…he was pissing me off. Everything was pissing me off. His words made my blood burn. I was like Jack Nicholson in The Shining breaking through the door. I wanted to scream. So, I screamed. No one heard. I couldn’t put the anger into words yet. It needed to be filtered.

I thought about all the pain, the uncertainty, anxiety…. and I hit the keys harder than ever before. I began sweating and was suddenly lost, like a runner who catches a running high. The thoughts moved smoothly, and the fingers gracefully skipped across their surface never missing a beat almost as if I never thought the words. They just went straight from synapse to reflex…I blacked out and I have never experienced anything like it since. It must be what heroin addict feels the first time they shoot up. I have been chasing that dragon ever since. It was word vomit. But like throwing up, I felt much better after this came out…

As the sun lay gently over the velvet grass of northern France and the dew seeped onto the musty hills, my eyes wandered from the soulless black of the night to the blue in her eyes, as I could remember nothing before, and remember nothing since. “Romance Sport, is a young man’s game.” We race and fight for the beautiful, the smart and strong. We look for the perfect bodies and the most compatible souls; however, the problem with romance is that no one looks where they should be looking. No one looks at themselves. They are too concerned with everyone else, they forget how to make themselves happy. That doesn’t come until one is old.

Nope that’s not how I can start it. It’s not my voice…

I can still see the smoke rising up in the room. I can feel the slow burn down my throat as my diaphragm spasm’d telling me no more, but like a victim of emphysema I sucked and pulled until my eyes rolled. I put the blunt down. Then I put the joint down. Then I put the bowl and the bong down and stopped eating the brownie. I took two Xanax and left for work. I came home took an Adderall, kept working then smoked a bowl, then a joint then went to bed.

Nope that is definitely not it…Too crackhead-ish.

You ever meet someone and afterwards say to yourself, “what the fuck?”… Can’t start with a question…

Nope…Think…Think…Type…Write… Ugh fuck this shit. Crazy ass old man yelling at me, looking over my shoulder probably smirking while I intend to insult him…

I can feel the breeze. I have felt that breeze before. But not here. Not like this. I felt that breeze when I was running once as a boy. I felt that breeze on the Indian Ocean, no wait, maybe it was the Mediterranean. I felt it as I stuck my head out the train car whipping past townships in Argentina, and I felt it while standing on the Black Hills of the Dakotas. I am 24. I should be 19. No, I am 20. When I wrote my first book, I was 19. When I wrote my second, I was 22. When I hit 30, like everyone else in my life I had a quarter life crisis, terrified the adventures were over. No more 4 a.m. dance parties in the living room. No more hard drugs. No more fucking girls in elevators on cruise ships. No more drinking until your eyes begin to spin around like a dreidel in Israel. Perpetually underachieving, I have become the poster board for mediocrity. No doubt I will get stuck in my job, never to travel, never to caress a stranger’s figure while knowing we are only in it for one night of reactionary passion, they make porn after. No longer can I sleep until 4, get up, smoke a joint, eat some Chipotle and fart for 6 straight hours without shitting my pants.

It’s that breeze. It cools me down, warms me up and slaps the back of my neck with a five star bigger than a Converse billboard.

…Where was this coming from?…I kept going…It felt really good.

We all get those feelings, the unrelenting desire to run… to get up and run. Maybe for self-discovery, which is usually a stoner’s way of saying no more responsibility. Maybe it is to learn…maybe that desire comes from a gypsy soul engrained in a few whose nomadic heart can’t hold them in a society, which glorifies stupidity and mocks intelligence. Or maybe it’s just a breeze and we tend to over analyze shit.

There is no starting point for this tale. There is no lesson. It is not entertainment. It is not a memoir, it is fiction. But like all fiction it is based on fact. Fact cannot be ignored, and it is only facts that we can rely on. The fact is that I live in the worst, period. Generation, period. That has ever been privileged to grace this planet and I am fucking proud of it.

Levon smiled. “I knew it.”

I hated when he said, “I knew it.” Cocky son-of-a-bitch.

Levon closed the computer and said we were done. He didn’t say goodbye or ask me to leave. He just walked away, went upstairs and left me alone in the library with a closed computer.

Only about an hour passed since I arrived at Levon’s, but I figured he was done, so I left without a word. Levon never said goodbye.

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