Special

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• July 29, 2017

“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

“What are you writing?” A middle aged man with a sun burn, wearing a suit, presumably getting off work asks me.  It’s about 6pm.  The thing about being a comic (especially when you have other job(s)), is you find there’s many times you have time to kill.  I don’t mind these couple hours between work and/or shows.  I always have a notebook and a novel on me, so give me a bar, cafe, or park bench, and I am in bliss, writing or reading, forever lost in another world.

Without moving my head or lifting my pen, I say, “my thoughts.”  Sometimes if you ignore someone, they leave you alone, other times, the more you ignore someone, the more interested they become.  He orders a shot of Jack and a Stella.

“So you’re a writer?”

“Aspiring,” I say, despite hating the cliche.

“What do you write?”

“Screenplays,” I say coldly, “and short stories.”  I was actually, writing jokes and/or premises of jokes, but revealing that I’m a stand up will lead to endless questions I didn’t feel like answering.  Plus, if he asked me to tell a joke, I’d scream.

“Well, it’s good what you’re doing.  You have to write all the time if you want to be a writer.”  Indeed.  And you are fucking up my flow, sir.

He’s a lawyer, I found out.  And he makes a lot of money.  I only know this because he told me.  I did not ask.  He works in corporate law, and is overpaid and underworked (his words).  This, I assume, was supposed to impress me.  But it didn’t.  I couldn’t really give a shit.  I’d be far more impressed, if he, let’s say, knew how many people died of Ebola in the last five years.  How much simpler my life would be if I was impressed by or pursued money.  I could have a lucrative career in corporate law where I’d inevitably kill myself if I wanted to.  Instead, I’m a starving artist, with a pipe dream of being a best selling author and a bleeding heart that’s guarded by a wall Trump would be impressed with.  I kept trying to politely turn my shoulder to him so I could go back to my writing.  This is my time you’re interrupting.  I waited all day.  But that wasn’t going to happen, so I conceded.  Alas, maybe I’ll get a joke out of this.

He said he doesn’t read much anymore because his whole (very lucrative) job requires a lot of reading, but his favorite book is Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.  I’d never heard of it.  He said it was hard to get into, but philosophy heavy and it changed his life.  I said I would look into it, and true to my word, I did, and it does seem like a book I would like.

Our conversation fell flat.  I’m not much of a talker.  I’m used to being uncomfortable, so it doesn’t bother me much, but I could tell the silence and blank stare on my face is throwing him.  That alone almost makes me smile.  People are never really sure if I’m smart or retarded when they first meet me.  I’ve been told this.  I tell them I’m both.

He then told me his “deal.”  That he’d been divorced twice (again, I did not ask).  Both ex-wives he gave million dollar houses to, and cars.  He regrets how it ended with his first wife.  He loved her, he says.  His second wife was batshit insane.  He gave them both a lot of money.  He must have mentioned how rich he was seven times in the fifteen minute conversation (where I said less than 50 words) we had.  I’m not interested in money.  I’m interested in soul.  And as one of my favorite writers Bukowski said, “I do not have time for things that do not have a soul.”

“What’s your deal?” He asked.  That’s a complicated question.  A question, I wished I had a one sentence answer for.  I debated telling him I was a lesbian, but in my experience, that has NEVER stopped a guy from hitting on me.  How could I get the conversation back on him, I wondered.  I didn’t much feel like talking about myself.  That’s what the notebook was for.  I’d rather write it down.  I always saved my best words for the page.

I shrugged, “I’m just a struggling writer hoping my work will bring some meaning to my life,” and then with a flawless transition, and topic changer, I said,  “What’s the name of that book again?”  This time, I wrote it down.  I told him my favorite authors were Sedaris, Bukowski, and Palahnuik.  He pretended to know who they were.  For a lawyer, he wasn’t a great liar.  But then again, he had no idea who he was up against.  Comics are notoriously good at reading people.

He told me his name and we shook hands.  I was happy he had somewhere to be and I could go back to writing my demented and cynical thoughts.  He gave me his card and said, “Let me know if you read that book.  I’d like to talk about it with you.  There’s something special about you.”

What a horribly cliche thing to say.  I had to focus on my face muscles not to cringe.  Sometimes, I want to drag a razor blade across my face so people won’t want to talk to me.  Though, that probably wouldn’t help at all.

“How’d you get that scar on your face?”

“Well… I sliced my face open with a razor in hopes to deter people like you from talking to me.”

I didn’t want to be special to him.  I wanted to be nothing more than the girl he interrupted from writing her dark thoughts into a notebook at a bar in New York City.  I wanted to be special only to the few who are special to me.

It’s funny, growing up a millennial, because we were taught in school how unique and special we all are.  I never bought it.  What a crock of shit.  Most people are not unique or special.  Most people kill their own souls just to fit in.  Or trade it for money.  Or let it slip, slowly from them, until they forget it existed at all.  It’s amazing just how few true individuals exist in the world.  Even in my house growing up, we’d mock the word.  If it was said someone was special, the response in my house would be, “special is just another word for retarded.” And then we’d all laugh.  Oh how we loved that word retarded.  Political correctness didn’t exist in our home.  And that’s the way we liked it.

But I have to say, his card did come in handy.  I used it to put my chewed gum in it that had started to taste sour in my mouth.