Johnny Wraith Stories

“You see, here I am past the mid-point in my life and I’m still dreaming of what I’m going to do with my life, making plans for what I’m going to be when I grow up.”

“What are you going to be?”

“Hell, I don’t know, but I want to be something. I’m just waiting.”

“How long are you going to wait?”

“Not much longer than I’ve already waited because I’m not going to live that much longer. I know a lot of people have regrets over what they have and haven’t done, but not me. Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t know what I should be doing or should have done in the first place; yet, it’s out there. I feel it. I’m waiting for it. Waiting. Patiently. I can see me now, lying in a casket in the darkness; my body is bloodless and filled with embalming fluid. The gravedigger is throwing dirt in my face, and I just want to jump up out of there yelling:

‘WAIT! I STILL HAVEN’T FIGURED OUT WHAT I WANT TO DO YET!’”

“I don’t think there’s anything to figure out. You’ve already figured it out.”

“How so?”

“What really fulfills you?”

“You know the answer to that. I like writing stories. There’s something about just sitting down and pouring the words out. There’s an ecstasy in the process, as if it is a feeling of… well… how to describe it? Purified, non-physical, masturbation. Jerking off in the spiritual realm with the hands of my soul stroking my ethereal pecker.”

“I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I feel like I’m a writer too, that it’s my calling. To write. There’s nothing like getting a story down, going back and reading it and being awed by how you’ve ejaculated such great shit all over the paper. To read my own words after putting them down is like looking into my soul and discovering a new world, and other people – little voices inside of me with whom I can’t otherwise converse, unless I’m looking inward.”

“Yeah, yeah. We really do have something special, don’t we man?”

“We sure do. So see? You’re already where you need to be and don’t need to be anywhere else or arrive at any other place. You’ve figured it out. There’s no need to fret the inevitable day when the dirt is being shoveled into your face. It’s coming and will be here. It’s unavoidable, but at least you have the pen in your hand right now, at this very fucking moment.”

“But I’m not published.”

“Yes you are. Just like me, you’re putting what you write up on a web site for the entire world to see. Whoever wishes to read your offering can read it. Out there, today, somewhere, someday, somehow, you’re touching others and you’ll touch even more. It doesn’t matter how many you reach, or if they even let you know they’ve read your words. They’re out there, or they’re waiting to be edified. It may be only 2 or 3 souls that are touched. It may be 1 million. That’s why I’m saving up my money to self-publish a few “real” paper books. I’m also putting my best stories in a time capsule to be unearthed in 1000 years. But who cares, right? As we know, the best part is the ecstasy of putting our words down, making them tangible. The process of it, the movement of our hands or the clicking of our fingers as we transfer the spiritual into the material and visible, connecting the soul with the mind, the heavens with the dirt – this is the real becoming! These are our brushstrokes and paints, our communion with the world, all the others, ourselves, and us. We, through pitching our words into the ether and the storm, the chaos, the Internet, unread newspapers, dirty magazines, hardbound books, THE NEW YORKER, become integrated into a living, literary ecosystem. Some, but very few of us writers are or become the redwood trees standing high above the forest, and many of us are just the blades of grass, and a few of us are but struggling seeds on the side of a mountain. It will take a thousand years for us to take root, sprout, and struggle for the sunlight, to poke out a single leaf or stem from a mere damp crack in granite.

“You sure have a way of putting things. Just look at my forearms. I have goose pimples! But what about the way we live our lives? It’s easy for you to say. You have a good job, a house, cash in the bank, and I just have debt, a small room, rags to wear…”

“And you are still creating material for your stories. I’m not. I have to look back 10-20 years before I can come up with anything good to write about.”

“You have a point there. I’d die of boredom working a desk job like you.”

“I sit there and write emails, talk on the phone, do the same shit over and over again. You at least get out there and have conversations with people on the streets. Your daily efforts to survive, to make rent – the way you often wake up in the gutter some mornings and have to piece together what’s happened and where you’ve been. I’m envious of that. Such a powerful creative process, the building blocks of Art!”

“Well, you have a point. When you live in a single room and can inventory all you have at a glance – there is some comfort there. It does help me focus on more important things, than keeping up with all the rats out on the busy streets.”

“So you see? There isn’t much of a gap between us, but for the large distance that puts you ahead of me. Judge ourselves as we may, the most important thing is that we have our writing, and when that’s thrown into the equation, the clothes we wear and the cars we drive are such miniscule factors they’re rounded off entirely by the time the problem is solved.”

“Then why don’t you quit your job and start living on the streets?”

“I’m not as good of a writer as you.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s easy to preach the life of an artist from your pedestal.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I am a hypocrite, but I did try to compensate for my shallowness by losing $500 on slots and spending $200 on lap dances at the Bunny Ranch last week.”

“They don’t wear bottoms there, do they?”

“Nope. You get to see the pussy, but they don’t serve any alcohol.”

“So, you don’t really have any answers, do you?”

“No. Just temporary respites from the pain only money can buy.”

“Well then, what will you feel like jumping up and screaming when the gravedigger is shoveling the dirt into your face?”

“I think I’ll be remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

“Remembering that girl I only dated for about two weeks. I can’t even recall her name anymore. She lived in a dive. We were both dirt poor but young enough to still be hanging onto the hope the future would save us from it all. There was one particular night when we were sitting on the couch, at her place, watching Married with Children and The Simpsons. It was so long ago when these programs weren’t reruns and they were played back-to-back. On Wednesdays at 8:00-9:00? The lights were dim and we were laughing out loud at everything. She smelled good, like roses. The room was really warm because she couldn’t run the air conditioning on high due to the cost. The Phoenix summer was already at the doorstep. It felt cozy just being there, though the sweat was streaking down my back, as if I were snuggled into a soft down comforter on a lazy, Saturday morning when there was still a chill in the air.  We were drinking good tequila, straight from the freezer and I had the perfect half-drunk feeling going and it make my scalp tingle. During a commercial break she jumped up and said, ‘I’ll be right back,’ and then she ran down the hall, disappeared from sight. I heard the bathroom door swing open and the shower come on. A few minutes later she came back wearing nothing but a t-shirt and little white socks with fuzzy yarn balls on the heels, and a big smile.  Next thing you know, my pants were down around my ankles, and she was riding me, taking it in with deep pelvic gyrations of the slowest kind, as we took turns spitting ice-cold tequila into one-another’s mouths and swallowing it all.”