The Dirty Works of Shane Levene

 

Would you just look at that! How utterly depressing it all is. Not set to stop any time soon either. We don't stand a chance... Not a fucking chance. You tell people that but they won't listen. It's one of the hardest things to do, to get someone to listen. I've been trying and failing miserably for nigh on 20 years. Two decades. Sounds a long time when spoken out loud like that, but lived, it goes by in a stride. One day you're standing here taking shelter from the rain and it's 1997 and the next, well, it's today or tomorrow or whenever. I feel like I could blink, suck it up and step right back into yesterday. It feels like it should be possible; like there has to be a way back. And yet, those who know the most about such stuff say that Time is a One-way Street. And they may be right, but it doesn't stop them from being a bunch of fucking comb-overs.

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Speaking of yesterday, there used to be a chap who worked out from under here on days like today... Sold cheap get-you-home umbrellas. £2.50. An old cripple. One leg six inches shorter than the other. Polio, I think. Always looked like he was in the process of falling over. A trompe-l'oeil as the French would say. Though they wouldn't say it like that. No. They wouldn't approve either. If only that cripple were here now. We could do with his cheap umbrellas. They wouldn't get you home, though. More bullshit. God, how miserable it all really is.

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Was that my phone or yours? Really? Well, it can't be good news, so I may as well take it in the guts right now. Let's see. Jesus! God Fucking Christ!!! Will it never stop? Here, take a look at this... Look. I'd like you to witness just how these maggots go about treating us! Go on! Read it out loud so as everyone can hear. That's it... A little louder even. Indeed:

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                   'What progress have you made? I need the manuscript before the 14th!' 

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Before the 14th! That's proof the imbecile has lost his mind... Totally lost it! The 14th is less than a week away. It's so impossible that even the depressed are laughing! Yes, yes madam, you heard right: the 14th! Look at her, soaked right through and even she can't hold it back! How the hell does he expect me to make the 14th with such pressure put upon me? How can he expect anyone to write with such flames singeing the hairs on the nape of the neck? No! Damn that worm! To hell with his threats and deadlines!

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A 'deadline'... Have you ever heard such nonsense? Let me tell you a thing or two about that fucking deadline: I'm already six months behind and nowhere near finished at that! I doubt I'll be finished in the next six months either! What people fail to understand is that writing your own stuff is not like writing a newspaper or magazine article. With that guff you at least know what you've committed to. With something creative - a novel, a poem, a short story - you don't know what the hell you're committing to... If it's even possible. You often only know that when it's not working and by then you may be a year or more in. I've a theory that writers write so much horseshit because they are pinned to such obligations and contractual agreements. They must knock something out and on time, what come may. As long as it is mildly publishable that'll often suffice. The truth is, and we all know it: if it's printed and distributed there will always be enough willing idiots ready to buy it. But don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want that to change. Heavens no. Writers need to be paid upfront - we die on credit. Just quit demanding something from us in return! Write me the cheque. I might finish it, I might not - I don't even know that. The only guarantee is that I'll not finish it on time! Agents and publishers enjoy waiting. They like to feel like they've squeezed this shit out of you. Phoning you up 2 or 3 times per week and asking where you're at, slamming the phone down, insulting you, telling you to cut out doing this and that, offering you a week away some place where there's nothing better to do than write. They like that. It makes them feel involved. Busting your balls is what they call it in the States. When you finally hand the piece in they take it as a victory, like if they hadn't had busted your balls they'd still be waiting. Any writer who's been in the game long enough knows this. They know that the worst thing you can do is make a deadline. No, no, I'm serious. Make a deadline and the maggots won't thank their lucky stars... Will they hell. They'll use the extra time to read your work! And not only that. They'll start offering up edits... changes... Suggestions... Improvements! In order to avoid such an infestation of shitty ideas, you must always be late. When you're late the priority changes. Then they are just relieved that they have something to publish. Then they'll read your work in a whole different way. They'll read it looking for as few changes as possible. The beatles will be so rushed to get your dung to print that they may even let you ruin your entire reputation. But that’s not a bad thing… That's a good thing… A great thing: therein lies total freedom. The freedom to be the ruin of one’s self. There's not much that is more liberating than that.

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Here, let me tell you a story about this one agent I beseeched, and I'm talking a good few years back, mind. This fucking cockroach actually sent me back a video reply of him pissing all over my manuscript. He had dumped the thing in one of those fire-proof steel office bins and he was urinating all over it! That was the one time I was thankful that I had given it a half decent re-write. God only knows what he would have done to it otherwise! Ah, a breaking smile... No doubt a foul but humorous picture in your mind? But yes, pissed on my work... Put it in a steel bin and pissed over 3 years of pure emotional toil. Can you believe that?

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Well, anyway, these are the kind of grubs that we have to deal with. Though you'd be surprised just how many writers get off on stuff like that. You may laugh, but it’s quite true. There are writers who take a perverse delight in being insulted and receiving letters of rejection. And, the worse the insult, the more disparaging the rejection, the more they enjoy it! It seems to act like some kind of rocket fuel. They'll spend the rest of the week in their shitty little bedsits, pacing around in circles for hour after hour, muttering the offensive remarks over and over, blowing smoke out their noses and pulling out their hair and snapping pencils, creating fantastical scenarios in which they somehow confront the culprit, have this great showdown and redeem themselves... Redeem their words. It's a sight all right, to watch a man who has been stamped and trodden into defeat finally get his victory. And it doesn't matter that it's all in the mind, as there's no one else there: just him and four walls, a window, black, and a small sliver of moon.

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Aha! Look over there. Light Blue. A break in the weather. It'll pass soon. Let's drink to the passing rain. Let's drink to history and the washed up and forgotten! Let’s drink to all the great people who got stranded! Look at us all, peering out into the heavens, each face just as weary as the next, everyone stopped still and forced to look out at the little they have and the uselessness of it all. Yes, I drink. It's no great crime. From the way they go on you'd think it is, but it isn't. Those who want something from me, are quick to remind me how much I've lost through drink. They somehow think that if they prove to me what a pit I'm in that it'd make things better. Well, it wouldn't. As far as I see it, it'll only make things much worse. And anyway, any money I've lost through drinking is nothing compared to the amount I've lost through writing! That's the real truth. If I'd have packed in this game as soon as start it, I'd be a made man by now. Let me ask you: Do you find my drinking bothersome? No! So why should anyone else? The truth is that their threats don't work on a drunk. Threaten to ruin a drunk and take away his home, well, he'll lock himself up with a shotgun and a bottle and wait for the bastards to come. They don't like that. They like people who'll melt and give in to every concession, allow their art to be diluted down to a safe and impotent dose. It's like homoeopathy – just a trace amount left, 99.99% water. It really is a huge con... It's all part of one almighty racket. 

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Here, look at my shoes. Quite respectable looking, wouldn't you agree? Yes, not bad when the feet are together like this. But, look here. Hang on... Damn! I'll fall over trying to show you this way. Let me take the blasted thing off. Here. Hold it... Inspect it. Doesn't look so respectable from the underside, does it? The entire sole is split! Now, that's neither a sign of success nor a consequence of alcohol. Drink didn't wear that out! Tramping around town ruminating did that. Tramping around and thinking of ways to solve impossible problems, straining to somehow salvage what it is you have. When people are screeching on about deadlines, acting like your manuscript is the most important thing in the world, well, it simply means they have no idea of the urgency of a split sole. They don't realise how vile a manuscript becomes when it has led to that and only promises to lead to much worse. Now, give it back here. What a picture you look standing there holding a busted old shoe.

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Anyway… Well, never mind. Take absolutely no notice of anything I've said. Not a word of it matters. The world will go on working as it does no matter how many times we smash our heads off the wall. Here I am taking shelter from the rain and yet a good soaking would probably do me the world of good. We all need to be washed clean some times, have the dirt and disgrace hosed right down off of us. In my head I am forever protesting, declaring my status as a serious writer. But how can I be a serious anything when my left shoe is split undersole like this and I’m wearing four socks on the one foot and they’re all worn through? So, go ahead, ridicule me. Go on. Shake your head in disbelief that I’m so down at heel I can’t even afford the cheapest pair of shoes. I enjoy watching ridicule. I’ll learn from it. I already know that this afternoon will pass and the rain will ease and I’ll traipse home and will probably never see any of these lovely people again. No one will really know. The rumour won’t spread and take on a life of its own. We understand poverty. No one here is going to judge a man on a split sole. They may doubt him, however. They may say: Oh, but no successful writer would be wearing shoes like that! Yes, they may very well doubt me, but they won’t judge me, and so it’s fine to stand here with my false airs and graces and be whatever the hell it is I want to be. 

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Ha! Did you see that? Taxi!!! Taxi!! He went rushing out with a newspaper covering his bald head and the taxi seemed to purposely kill its light and accelerate away from him! Now look at the fool.  Not only is his paper sodden through but his bald head is running the rain all down his jacket and he seems to be taking it out on the dustbin! That’s right, dump the news in there where it belongs... In with the garbage! The news is written by people like me! Think about that for a second and wonder what kind of news you’ve been taking in to your tinpot head all these years! Yes sir, your bald head took a soaking. You’ll have to towel dry that when you get home! And now look, he’s coming this way. He’s going to stand under here with us and despise the fact that his wallet can’t advance his situation past ours! If he comes and stands near me I’ll whip my shoe off again and wriggle my rotten toes at him. That’s exactly what I’ll do!

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Hey… Hang on there just a moment. Did you give me back my phone? Oh, but of course you did, what am I talking about, it’s right here. For a moment there I thought you had swiped my phone! You don’t look like a man who swipes phones, but who does? That’s one of the problems in this world: nobody resembles who they are. I’ve always thought that. It’s maybe my only goal in life: to look like the man I am. If I achieve that I'll be happy. For an artist, of any medium, that should be all important. Your work must be you, and you must be your work. Much easier said than done, unfortunately. It shouldn't be, but it is. Too many restrictions on our animal! Wipe your arse this way and you're that. Wipe it that way and you're this. Don't wipe it at all and you’ve equal chance of being heralded a genius as you are a vile tramp! O, so many rules to remember... Too many. Here they want an extra comma; over the road they’ll hang you for it. This publication goes by this standard; that by that. But the end result is almost always the same:  your work becomes less you and more them. And that's where it all leads. They don't want crazy men or real artists. They want blobs of flesh which have memorized the rules and can be moulded and sheared and shaved into whatever shape is fashionable at the time. That's fine for common fodder, but for real works of art it's a death choke. But still there are people, real artists with split soles, who'll bend to whatever low in order to get a new pair of shoes or have their name embossed on the front of some fancy looking book or another.

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O, would you look at that! The tears have stopped and there’s something shining through the clouds. There is magic in this world and you should never forget it. O, what glory… What a glorious event on such a miserable day. Look at the people… Look! As ignorant as they are they've been struck dumb by the sheer awesomeness of nature. Even the bald chap. Look at him now,  staring up at the sunlight like he’s watching someone ascend to heaven. This is what it’s all about. This is why we persist with split soles and diseased hearts and swollen livers and railing lungs and bald heads, rebelling against time and death while clinging onto doctors and begging fantastic beings for enough health to deliver us just one more tomorrow. Ha! The 14th! That's what it read, didn't it? Yes. Yes. The 14th... A deadline... A veiled threat: Have my words ready by the 14th or else! 

 

O look, there he goes... The bald gentleman. The last to arrive; the first first to leave. There's no hanging about where that one's concerned. See a gap and fill it, never mind whose toes you may be stamping on. Just for that I'm going to wait here a little longer, give the pavement a chance to dry out and hopefully save my socks from getting soaked through once more. Yes, yes... That's what I'll do. I'll wait on here and let things dry off,  try to figure out how to make things work... Try to figure out just what's possible and just what's not."