Anything but silence Oct. 8, 1985

 


No mail today.

This is a sad event because I always look forward to mail, good or bad news. I only get upset when I get letters that say something like: Mr. Sullivan, unless you pay this ticket your license will be suspended.”

Some days mail becomes a primary source of anxiety. For a time, early on, I got regular mail from my apparently best friend at the credit card company.

But lately, things have been rather calm, aside from a few unpaid utility bills and bounced checks.

Even these are rare since I started working myself into the grave.

In years past, I had the typical American dream that I would come home and find a million-dollar check in my mail, a human fantasy that contributes to the success of stories like Mark Twain’s “Million Pound Note” and the 1950s TV show “Millionaire”

The whole lottery scam is based on this fantasy. Realistic people look at the odds and balk, also aware we’re dealing with a government that changes the odds and rules as they wish, an impeachable offense by my thinking.

We are perpetually hoping for some great benefactor to bring our ship in, full of riches and success.

These comments come at news of the death of Rock Hudson, whose face and size (and sexual preference) attracted a well-known Hollywood producer to hire him, one more in the mythology of unknowns being discovered which sent tens of thousands to Hollywood and Vine (including my ex-wife) in the hope they might get discovered, too. Many were – by pimps and porno, by bikers and pushers, and occasionally new and well-established religions.

The percentage that “made it” is smaller than those who win the lottery, smaller maybe even than those who get rich waiting for wealth to reach them by mail.

I’ve changed; so, have the times.  While many rush down the Garden State Parkway to make their fortune in Atlantic City, others have a more practical way to lose their shirts – money markets and Wall Street, paying a stiff percentage to the banks to handle their vast fortunes.

The only way to get and stay wealthy is to become a Scrooge or wait to get a card in Monopoly that tells you the bank erred in your favor.

But there are other letters, good and bad, I still get, such as the one I got from Maryann a few days ago, full of righteous rage at the angry letters I sent asking why she remained silent.

“Just because I haven’t written doesn’t mean I’m staying silent,” she said, ignoring the fact that I also sent stories, copies of our zine and letters of affection.

But any reaction from her is a good reaction, I think. It’s the silence that kills me.

But alas today there is no mail, and so far, no newspaper, no word from the outside world.

Weariness hovers over me like a cloud, an exhaustion that sucks up my energy from the moment I wake, leaving me empty and uninspired.

But I need not worry. Soon the notices will arrive, the requests for payment, the warnings of the overdue, even they are welcome, better bill collectors than silence, anything but the silence.

 

  1985 Menu


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