String

I sometimes wonder if I have an addictive personality.  In junior high, I loved tying an empty soda can to a length of string and trailing it out the window behind the school bus each morning.

I was one of those packrat kids and always had junk on hand so, the first time I did it, I just used some junk string.  Sitting in the back seat, watching the can ride along behind us, I knew that I had found my calling.  So, each day, in art class, I’d steal a big ball of industrial string.  The next morning, I’d see how far the can could stay with us.  My record was 25 minutes, nearly the entire bus ride, and a length of 20 feet.

The danger involved is what I loved.  I’ve always assumed that everyone is out to get me, so I played an imaginary cat and mouse game with the driver.  I’d wait for when he was making a turn, so I knew he’d be watching the road and not the mirror to see me drop the can out the window.  Once the can was out, I quickly let the string unspool so he wouldn’t see it in the mirrors.

Every once in a while, the can or the string would get caught when the bus made a turn and the whole thing would be viciously snapped out of my hands.  Several times, cars behind us ran over the string and yanked it out of my hands.  I’m pretty sure, looking back, that I could have been seriously injured.  But there’s one rule in life I learned at an early age:  Always let go.

In high school, I was wearing a black trenchcoat before it was cool.  Instead of a gun, though, I carried around a big marker.  A seriously big marker.  The tip was as thick as three finger tips, and it was as big around as my wrist.  I stole it from the first Office Depot franchise in the DC area, and was infinitely proud of it.  I’ve always liked stealing petty things.  Not shoplifting.  I’ve never stolen candy, or groceries, or clothes.  I like to steal industrial items.  Milk crates, lumber… I drunkenly tried to steal a boxcar in college.  It was on an incline and I figured I could get it going with a good push.  Of course it wouldn’t budge, so I spent most of the night trying to get it rolling with levers and all sorts of MacGyver stuff.  Most people may tell a story like that and explain that they were high on drugs… In my case, I was slowly sobering and doing that instead of calling the platinum blonde, rail thin, sexy Phi Mu slut who had given me her number at the bar earlier in the evening.

Yeah.  I know.

I used the marker for many acts of vandalism, mostly to promote The Boble (which I’ll get to serializing here on the front page any week now).  Various catch phrases included “BOB is in your pants” and the generic “Hail God BOB” and so on.

Writing is an addiction.  I don’t feel that I’m good at it.  In fact, I can barely tolerate my writing.  I go back and read it and want to burn it.  But I’ve always done it.  My first story was “The Princess and the Dragon” in 1984.  It still exists somewhere in storage and, if we’re all really lucky, I’ll eventually dig it out and scan it in.  Because that’s what you do when you drink on weekday mornings.

I finished a sci-fi novel, and I have half finished a dozen more.  The Boble is over 300 pages.  Of course, the Greatsociety/Dirtyfreaks collection is huge.  If this were the late 70’s or early 90’s, I’d throw everything into huge 200 page “zine” collections like Answer Me! and I’d be famous.  But, today, I’m one of many million terrible writers blogging away on the internet because, like all those other bloggers, my destiny was decided when I spent the night fucking around with a boxcar instead of fucking a Phi Mu in the ass in a restroom stall.