Cliché
He explained to me that I could not treat him as a normal human being, because, he said, I am not one, never have been, never likely to aspire so high. Which is a problem for me, as he’s a character in my new novel, and I want to be the one to determine his character traits.
I can be cruel and selfish when I’m afraid, he said, or gentle, kind, considerate, even charming when all is calm with the world. And I explained that this is okay with me.
That’s because you don’t know me. You only know about me. What you do not know, what you fail to understand, is my genius for the unexpected.
I’m a writer, but I’m also a coward. I don’t need you to test my ability for the unexpected, or have you tell me what you need to be a complete character. That won’t work for me. I gave you your traits. I didn’t offer you a part so we could go hand in hand through life’s monotonies.
I hear that all the time, no matter which writer employs my abilities and traits. You want to get into this shit? What do you know about writing? I’ve seen your resume. It’s pathetic. What is it about your life that makes you think you understand me and mine? Were you there on the shore? Were you there when the wind blew my hair in waves like a cornfield in summer? Were you there when my spine, like a cobbled road, collapsed under the explosion of revenge? That’s what fucking so-called writers have done to me. Now you want to turn my life around because you have a creative desire to determine who I should be. Have I got that right? Because if I have, I’m pretty damn sick of it.
And who the fuck are you? Listen up, I can tell you who you are not; you’re not the one walking the battlements of creative genius. You want pain? I’ll give you pain; I’ll give you so much pain you’ll want a razor for the cavity of your throat. Don’t tell me you’ve been dealt pain. I’ve seen men so fearful their eyebrows were shot together and their breath smelled of vomit. I never saw you, not once, written in any real way. Always a fucking hero! Never real.
So that gives you creative rights to shape me and my life? It won’t do, it never has done and never will. You’re incapable of writing a woman into life who can love the likes of me. So you don’t. You don’t because you haven’t got an ounce of real talent.
That’s great, coming from a two dimensional jerk! You insist I can’t write you a woman worth loving. Let’s just get real for a moment. I’ve dribbled my way through cocktails searching in my pants for a comfortable place to dress myself because I’m so teased with cleavage, flat stomachs, and the gentle slopes of young backs. Forty years gone, I live with no prospect my hand will ever again follow that curve down to the roundness of firm buttocks. I write women any way I want; not in a way to satisfy your needs.
Cliché is still all you’ve got, then. There’s no hero here, there’s no knight on horseback, but there could be a character of some beauty, a man who dares the writer to love him. Who can carry the reader the distance. Give me the traits I need, not cliché, not romance. Get rid of the windy castle, the hero writing his love to the world. It’s literary garbage. Think more of me than a man satisfied with his tongue entwined in women’s mouths, bottom lips bitten, and hands holding hip bones. Fuck, you wonder why people put your work down. I’m telling you, there is no hope for me. You’ve given me a choice between life and death, so there is no choice. I’ll always be cliché.
© Harry Hogg 2020
