The Bar Scene
After the drive I need a drink. We find a bar in downtown Greenville, it is the busiest bar we have seen yet. Matt and his brother start their fishing. They catch two sisters with lines from Borat. What the hell am I doing here? I drink and drink, but it doesn't work like it used to, no escape, no lightness, just a heaviness of trying to constantly be some place else.
I act, put on a mask of interest. Small talk and bullshit. Every 30min or so, I walk out into the fresh air and walk the small downtown. How did I end up here? Strange thing, I hate it and love it. My life is moving with an intensity and propulsion I haven't known in a long time. I am on a path of becoming, becoming something more, breaking the shackles of stagnation, being forced to live, to really live.
Maggie is sitting on a barstool, leaning against a wall. We talk, she is more interesting than the rest of the drunk, self-hating, sad drunks. She has amazing eyes, clear, sharp and open. She finds out that I am a poet and asks me to recite something to her. I finish and she stares at me. says, " I really felt something, and I don't ever feel anything" She makes me uncomfortable, the way she stares at me like she wants to devour me....not in a sexual way, I could appreciate that, but more in I will possess you sort of way. This is the last thing I want. Matt and his brother have closed the deal on two sisters, like an episode from the REAL WORLD. I am glad we are leaving.
We stop at their house, they are flirting with eachother, while I talk to the cat. The cat is articulate, we talk. She is the best conversationalist I've met. We talk of all manner of things. Finally we leave to the hotel with the sisters in tow. They are attractive, but too drunk to be interesting. I have little respect for someone who can't hold their liquor. I have never done anything intoxicated that I wouldn't do sober. Don't get me wrong, I have said things I shouldn't have, made a fight last longer than it should, but I have never done anything I wouldn't have done sober. I wonder what these girls will think in the morning? Maybe nothing being a part of the Narcissistic Generation, where the world revolves around them and everyone else are just players on their stage.
Finally we are back at the hotel, I say goodnight and can't wait to go to sleep and dream I am a man dreaming, I am a butterfly, dreaming that I am a man.
BASTA!
This was the call of the Cuban revolutionaries, Basta; Enough. I am sitting in the Seminar and I have to leave, I can't sit there and listen to the lies. The speaker is desperate to make a sale and he is pulling shit out of his ass. I am talking to this guy, and telling him some bullshit story about myself. I am sick to my stomach. " Thou shalt not bear false witness!" I am screaming at myself in my head, "You fucking liar" but I haven't said anything because I need this job. I don't think I can do it one more day.
I make myself scarce, walk around the hotel, avoid the conference room. Don, asks me what I am doing, leaving the new guy alone. I tell him that he's smart he can handle it. We get into a fight about the whole thing. I want to punch him, but just lean against the wall and take a drag of my cigarette. I am sure he feels my disdain.
What does a man have if he doesn't have his integrity? Pascal has said that life is not about getting the things we want, but about moments when we choose what is important to us, and that people matter, that the choices we make matter. At the end of our lives we are the choices we have made.
I am not what they are, I am different. It's time for me to stop this. Mykul once said that you can tell the character of a man but whom he associates with. I believe that, and cannot associate with these small men; I am smaller because of it.
This ethical dilema has made me think of who I am. Camus has said that in a world of injustice, the only response is to be just. I chose to be just. I am a good man. This is the one thing that keeps me going in a world of compromise and self absorption. I am a good man. I can say this with confidence and grace. Don't get me wrong, I am no saint, I can be a weak man, a fragile man, an asshole and self absorbed man and it has taken me a long time to admit this and embrace it. In the end, my motivations have been just and true. Of course, I could have done things differently in my life at times, but I have no regrets. It is a great gift to be able to say that, and it comes from knowing myself and a willingness to go all out, risk everything for what you believe in.
I am no longer embarrassed by my weakness or my wounds, they are part of who I am. I am the light and the shadow. I will stand up for what I value, becuase I would rather be homeless like David in Wilmington, than wealthy and false. Authenticity and the search for authenticity is the only way I can live.
We leave the hotel at 5am, get back into SLC at 830pm. This trip we have circled the US. We flew South - down to Phoenix then across to get to NC. On the way back we fly over the Great Lakes. An appropriate flight path for my last seminar. Leaning against the bulkhead.....half asleep - I look out the window at America unfolding before me..... So many lives, so many dreams, and I swear I can hear children singing. I fly above them catching all their prayers as I pass over and hold them for a brief moment and then let them go.
Beautiful!
This has been quite an adventure.
Recent Comments