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Diary of a HereticDiary of a HereticOriginal fiction posted daily, except when stories need more polishing, in which case non-fiction intrudes. Motto - Reckless fun and wanton disregard Articles
Mr. Happy
2008-02-06 03:46:00 I return from seeing Nando—we both love his baby girl and I’m trying to decide on a baptismal present. A scholarship, but I doubt Nando and Kira value college for their kid. So for now, Nando and I talk around it. He knows I want something that will help her out when she’s grown, but he can’t tell what that might be. And even if he could, he’d never ask—I’d have to guess. Or maybe I should ask Charlie. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Near the tree framing the view of the bay, the one where the Scarlet Macaws hang out in the later afternoon, I hear thumping from the music studio. Charlie doesn’t care if he’s any good. Charlie loves playing any- and everything, and he loves performing. Half a beat later, Emma’s wailing out an old blues song. She’d rather drink dirty water than put up with a cheating man. I’ve never heard her sing anything but girl rap, back in Chicago. Charlie starts one song and then another. I hi... More About: Happy
Good Time Charlie
2008-02-05 04:38:00 I skipped Emma’s morning class today, which I started taking to rebuild my muscles after three months recuperation. It’s working, too. My arms and legs never looked stronger. And balance? Half the time you’re standing on one leg and lifting the other as close to your nose as possible. Which, come on, is impossible. Except for Emma. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] My cell’s ringing for the third time in five minutes. So I answer, “Yup.” “I’m outside Trixie’s.” “Charlie ? Since when?” “Since five minutes ago. Wanted to say hi to Trixie, but she’s too busy at the restaurant right now. Tourists. So, Monty, how soon ya gonna get here?” (Charlie calls me “Monty” sometimes instead of Scott, because the Star Trek character’s official name was Montgomery Scott. You probably know that, but Emma didn’t until we’d played in together in Charlie’s band.) “Muchacho,” Charlie says. “Ya doing okay?”&nb... More About: Time , Good
Seekers on the Bus
2008-02-03 23:52:00 Trudging south, into a stinging wind on Sheridan Road, I hopped on the first bus coming my way. In the dark sky no stars shone. The lighting inside the bus rendered the riders woeful and unwholesome. The man across from me wore a Burberry scarf and a Burberry coat. He balanced a briefcase on his lap and was reading what looked like a legal brief. In a seat facing the front, a round faced, middle aged woman slept, her head back, resting against the molded beige plastic. A few seats behind her, a teenage boy and girl propped each other up, their arms and legs entwined. There were a few nurse-type women, their white uniforms showing beneath big down coats. And one more: Craning my neck, I noticed a hairy man in reflective running gear. He wore an orange cap and his shiny silver gloves fingered a waist-length beard divided into two heavily gelled conical shapes. To me, it seemed that those riding the four am bus were all desperately clinging to whatever was slippin...
An Outright Miracle
2008-02-02 16:09:00 Miraculously, I managed to slip out before Carlos woke. I bundled myself into a moss-colored anorak, this year’s Christmas gift from my parents. Trimmed with coyote fur, it is supposed to keep you warm to fifty below. My scarf and gloves lay on the coffee table near the sofa where Carlos was sleeping. Standing there, I could feel a sheet of cold air from the storm window above his head. Yet he lay oblivious on the undersized sofa—only half the army blanket covering him. Light from a streetlamp emphasized the furrows in his face. His hair flowed over the armrest. His inside arm was pressed into the sofa back and his outside arm was flung over his head, the underside of his biceps looking as sleek and lively as a quick brown fish. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] As I hovered over him, Carlos shifted in his sleep. His arm dropped to the floor. He turned on his side and the scratchy wool blanket sl... More About: Miracle
Howler Monkeys
2008-01-30 03:20:00 Is everyone stuck in their childhood? Nightmares, feverish delusions—they’re all the same. We’re trapped in an out of sync past. So in the dark, my mother slams the door, gone for good. Then she’s back yelling that my dad’s not worth it. She drove to a Lake Michigan pier, ready to “press the pedal to the metal” so her car would go soaring into the water, when it occurred to her that my dad wasn’t worth it. If he wanted to make up it up to her? If he wanted to do her a favor for being such an asshole? Why didn’t he go drown himself?[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] A minute later, my dad’s screaming at me, “Who broke the Christmas angel if you didn’t?” Do I think he did it? My mom? “That leaves your sister Annie. Are you telling me your sister, who’s not even crawling yet, broke the Christmas angel? My dad won’t go away. He keeps punching me, slamming me to the ground. I don’t get up, but because this... More About: Monkeys
Seduced
2008-01-28 04:25:00 “Let me get this straight,” Carlos said. “You think people who come to the meetings are going to say, ‘Holy crap! I can’t go out tonight; it’s Valentine’s Day!’?” “And you think it won’t affect business if we’ve got a bunch of misfits sitting around talking about whether a personal relationship with God is possible?”[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Carlos tossed his waist-length hair behind him. He circled the room on the balls of his feet. And as usual, the sight of his powerful calves and ankles in motion made me pant. The evil, alluring Carlos, a beatific grin on his face, set his twin sets of iron balls in their nests. Still grinning, he swayed on those wondrous feet as the raggedy terry cloth robe my mother gave me ten Christmases ago began to slip off his skinny Mexican shoulders, the frayed tie having come loose from his twenty-six inch waist. Circling silently behind me, he ro...
He Spun Too Far
2008-01-27 04:11:00 The second meeting hasn’t even taken place and Carlos is already talking about branching out, buying a few more bakeries to showcase his fabulous breads. What he wants, is for us to pool our resources and buy a loft or warehouse where we can all live and work together—all meaning him and me and, incredibly, Stephanie (!) and Maggie (!) [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] But what do I care? As long as he’s back sleeping on my couch, back performing those spellbinding hand exercises. He bathes, combs out his hair, and puts on my robe. He circles the floor, rotating the Chinese iron balls in his quick, strong hands. And as I obviously love watching this (twice I’ve caught myself with my mouth agape), he’s extended the routine to an hour, adding a CD of gentle flute music. I haven’t felt such lust since Jason, my roommate at Northwestern. He died the winter of our senior year, which is when my mom and dad boug...
Keep Calm
2008-01-24 03:45:00 Emma’s friends with everyone at Mia’s except Trevor. Pascal and his wife Julietta have taught her to clean and grill fresh fish and make soups and stews. She plays Scrabble with Bo and shares secrets, intimate ones—that’s my guess—with the regular yoga teachers.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] At first I worried she might get into meditation and non-attachment. Mia’s like that, aloof. But they call Emma a sensation junkie. And for now, Mia says, her sensation fixation, which includes her wild emotions, is okay. Well, thank you, Mia, I want to say. Thank you for approving Emma’s sensations. But no, Emma’s happy and busy. And no one expects me to get involved. I’m welcome to hang around or not. Mostly not. Their tantric little community bores me fast. Too bad, though, that Emma’s not interested in the music studio, where I try almost every afternoon to compose songs—almost every day. Half the time, I don... More About: Calm
Players
2008-01-23 05:12:00 Possessing another person’s inner life is impossible, Emma says. Whatever she means by “inner life,” (I mean, whether it’s the same thing I mean), I’m sure she’s right.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “If you admit that much, Scott, then think about why you chase women. Like, hunting down prey.” “I don’t know.” Really stretching, like I’m not the only guy out there doing this, I say, “Hey, even Cupid used a bow and arrow.” “Cupid, oh good one, Scott. Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not unromantic. The opposite. But you’ve got to think of me as a person and not another score.” We’re walking on the beach at sunset, which is a romantic cliché. But still beautiful. More than beautiful—awe inspiring. Look at the world, look at the possibilities in your life—she means my overprivileged life specifically. “And you plan to spend it going after me or some other woman, and then another and another... More About: Players
Religion Without Rules
2008-01-22 05:34:00 Maggie Townsend, across the table, chin on hands, asked me pertinent, half-adoring questions about "my forum." She tossed her blonde curls and said she could feel it in the air: something fantastic was about to happen. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Carlos, next to me, caressed the inside of my forearm. It took everything I had, life-or-death restraint, to hold myself immobile. “Don’t you hear it all the time?” Maggie asked. “That hum rising to a buzz?” She personally was ready to dedicate herself to freeing legions of thwarted souls. “What?” Determined to ignore Carlos, whose intricate, excruciating touch kept burning my arm, I asked Maggie how she and Carlos knew each other. What was their connection? Lavishing even more attention on me, Maggie said, “From tai chi.” They had taken a class together at the Y and had considered each other best friends” ever since. Best friends? I couldn’t ... More About: Religion , Rules
The Ultimate Believer
2008-01-21 02:45:00 Ninety-nine percent of the time I’m sure they’re right: You don’t give up after one try. But when I close my eyes there’s a nameless but familiar face there, winking and grinning at how stupid I am. Carlos is back at work—and thank God (no questions asked, no answers given)—back staying with me.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] The next meeting is scheduled for the fourteenth, at eight o’clock, and already he’s talking about branching out, buying a few more bakeries to showcase his fabulous breads. Before long, what he really wants, is for us to pool our resources and buy a loft or warehouse where we can all live, work and pray together—all meaning him and me and, incredibly, Stephanie (!) and Maggie Townsend (!) But what do I care? As long as he’s back sleeping on my couch, back performing those spellbinding hand exercises. He bathes, combs out his hair, and puts on my robe. He... More About: Ultimate
Bona Fide Saint
2008-01-20 03:33:00 Well, they did it. They convinced me to give it another try. Carlos and Stephanie and Maggie Townsend spent half the night coercing me into giving the New College of Complexes another chance. We’re planning one more—and I’ve sworn should it fail, last—meeting in two weeks.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Why, I asked again, if they thought the idea was so “crucial” as Carlos kept saying, did I need to be involved? Why didn’t they start a theology group without me? Because,” Maggie said, “to succeed, the group needs a holy leader.” “Why?” I asked. “Because otherwise it’ll devolve into a coffee klatch with pretensions.” “So you be the one.” Tossing her head, Maggie mock-checked everyone’s face to see if she dared speak. “Hard to believe in this day and age,” she said, “but some Americans still have kind of problem with women’s spiritual superiority.” “A problem,”... More About: Saint
Inversion Practice
2008-01-19 04:08:00 Headstand, handstand, shoulder stand. Mia teaches three classes a week and practices for an hour every day. She looks great, shape-wise. She’s in great shape. But the tropical sun has seriously spotted and wrinkled her skin. I see Mia every year so why her face suddenly looks so terribly old to me, I’m not sure. Between last year and this, Mia’s appearance slipped from one era into the next. It really disturbs me, but I hide it well enough. Except whatever I hide, Emma sees right away. She says I act awkward around Mia, like I’m not sure where to look. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] And she knows why. The juxtaposition of Mia’s young body and old, old face is obvious. “It makes me sad.” “But you just noticed? All of the sudden?” Emma asked. “Guess so.” Emma grew up afraid of the sun. She doesn’t just wear hats and sunscreen. She stays undercover during the day. Dawn and dusk are the best time for ... More About: Practice , Inversion
What You Say
2008-01-17 04:38:00 Click here to read the first episode of this story, or here to read the one previous. What you say and don’t say can either make all the difference or no difference. That makes sense. I guess. But Emma knows perfectly well that after two weeks in Costa Rica I’m still out of my mind over her. “Don’t worry, Scott.” She’s lying beside me. “I’ll wait till you get your mind back.” She giggles, but I don’t. She’s gonna wait and see. I say, “I’ve fallen in love with you, Emma.” And, “I’m dying for you, baby.” That’s old Motown, she says. “Why can’t you say, ‘I love you.’? Try it, Scott. I. Love. You.” Naturally, I’ve heard this before. But if we’re playing that game, it’s better if I don’t roll over the first time she says so. “What’s the difference? You know how I feel,” And, fitting my fingers between hers, I hold her hand on my chest. “Of course, I do. And you know how I feel.” “Uh-hum.” The thing is, I don...
Den of Vipers
2008-01-16 05:09:00 Click here to read the first episode of this story, or here to read the one previous. Only the sound studio and the bathroom have four walls; the rest remains open to the air, under a thatched palm roof. You can roll down canvas screens and zip ’em up if the rain drives straight in. But my reason for living here half the year include the sun, stars, breezes, rain, monkeys, parrots, trees, flowers. Swinging on vines and surfing. Sometimes snakes slither inside or scorpions take shelter. But so far only nonpoisonous snakes like that boa constrictor, which was a big mother, and small, non-lethal scorpions. I show Emma pictures of a few coral snakes. They’re quick and loaded with venom. But even though they come in all sizes and colors, you can always tell them because of their black rings. No pictures of pit vipers—I don’t want to scare her. But if we’re gonna hike around today, she needs to know what to avoid. “So it’s like, beware? I just watch out?”... More About: Vipers
Like Dr. Seuss
2008-01-15 04:28:00 Click here to read the first episode of this story, or here to read the one previous. We’re here and I’m dying to get up inside her. All day, I’ve felt like, here or there, but you know, right away. Wherever and whenever. Like Dr. Seuss : on a boat, beneath a coat; in the hall, against a wall; on the stairs, in a chair. So I pull Emma toward the high deck, where we sleep. I’ll show her the house later. And our bags in the truck can wait. The place is immaculate, white muslin and legal cedar. I pay Nando to maintain the house, including eco-friendly snake and scorpion removal. A local lady, Alma, cleans every week, whether I’m here or not. “Wait. Scott, I’m hungry. Aren’t you?” “Maybe a little.” She gets mango, pineapple, and banana slices from the refrigerator. I grab Nando’s specialty of papaya pulp, yogurt, honey, and coconut milk. With a little coaxing, Emma agrees to sit on my lap while we eat. The fruit tastes incredible, so incredible it demand...
Be A Man and Ask
2008-01-14 04:15:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. A dismal omen: the first customer this morning was an old woman with shoe polish in her hair, who handed me a dollar (sixty-two cents short but I couldn’t bear to quibble) that was translucent from age, as soft and warm as living tissue. Then after a slow, dreary day, at 8:00 in the evening, with the shop empty—relief and fury. Carlos appeared! Breezed in with the voluptuous, beautiful Maggie Townsend, on his arm. I watched from behind the swinging door at how she slid out of her ankle-length coat, wiggled in her low-cut dress, and squirmed in her chair. And from where I stood, Carlos the militant ascetic, Carlos the nonpracticing homosexual, seemed oddly flushed. His attention horribly, peculiarly riveted. Stephanie’s big block-shaped backside obscured my view. As if she knew. Or not as if—of course she knew! Mar...
Lard Logs
2008-01-13 04:14:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. Carlos is still gone; he did not come back last night, or the night before. I can see now how ridiculous it was for me to expect him to. But expect it I did: every time footsteps sounded from the street, I listened for the next sound, which I was sure would be that of a lock turning, a door opening, Carlos in the kitchen, up the back stairs. Sounds that never came. By nine o’clock last night I was absolutely convinced he was on his way here. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, that’s long enough. Carlos was going to show up any minute. To get myself ready, I closed the shop early. A picture was stuck in my mind of myself posed nonchalantly in the narrow arch between entranceway and bedroom as Carlos rushed to explain where he’d been. I took a long shower. If Carlos should arrive while I was in the middle of luxuriating und... More About: Logs , Lard
Wild Life
2008-01-12 02:32:00 Click here to read the first episode of this story, or here to read the one previous. The little plane flies low over the rain forests and mountains. I point out volcanoes to Emma, although I’m guessing. Somewhere among the jagged peaks are volcanoes, anyway. We’re in the last seat or I’d signal the pilot—no stunts. Over the water, he tilts the plane and I start forward but he winks in the mirror. Okay, no loops or barrel rolls. Meanwhile, we’re a few hundred feet above the bright blue waves, the wings angled so that Emma slams up against the van-size window, facing straight down at the beach and bay. “Berto, don’t scare her.” I wrap an arm around her, pulling her close. “We’re almost there.” She giggles, her face giddy from an obvious adrenaline rush. I brush the hair back from her face and press my mouth against her ear. And she closes her eyes, rising in her seat as we land. Nando’s parked my truck behind the low fence border... More About: Life , Wild
The Flying Bus
2008-01-10 04:41:00 Click here to read the previous post. In San Jose my friend Nando is waiting at the gate. When I ask him how he got past security, he winks at me and touches his nose. He knows San Jose and takes us to a nice local place near the airport while we wait for Nature Air’s puddle-jumper to take us all to Drake Bay. In the back of the taxi, he treats us Peruvian flake, which he says comes through Panama. While we’re drinking cerveza and waiting for some food, Emma takes off and returns five minutes later with a pair of scissors. How she’d do that? She doesn’t even speak Spanish. Excusing herself, Emma glides off to the ladies room and and every man in the place is watching her. She soon returns with the bleached-out, fried ends of her hair cut off. A bad beauty salon experience in New Mexico had left her hair like cotton candy, which is why we called her Emma Frost. But now light honey, straight hair fans out around her face. She twirls around in her light white shi... More About: Flying
Escape Artist
2008-01-09 03:07:00 Now's The Time For several weeks I’ve posted newly sliced and diced excerpts from “Diary of a Heretic,” (the novel) while rewriting three serial stories that first took shape here during the past year. Some posts needed so much rewriting it embarrasses me to think so many mistakes appeared here. But that’s built into this blog: the risk of writing in real time. So: Time to dive back in. Weekdays, watch for either a nice little stunt or a belly-flop. Weekends I’ll continue to put up tapered excerpts from Malcolm’s diary. Escape Artist When am I gonna learn? As soon as Emma and I buckled our seat belts for the flight to San Jose, the pattern cut me up like a jigsaw puzzle. My friends had warned me. “Bad habit, Scott.” But I shrugged ’em off. What I was doing wasn’t a coincidence exactly. But falling insanely in love with some babe, especially—or no, always—when I had to compete for her, felt genuine. So here’s the thing: Whoever it is already has a ...
Alone Again
2008-01-08 04:00:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to start from the beginning. I knew it was coming and it did: Carlos is gone. He’s gone but he’ll return. Even if three days is not long enough to establish a routine, let alone what it felt like—a lifelong ritual—I have absolute faith. Carlos will come back and we’ll return forever to the world we so effortlessly made together. All morning long, I tried to ignore the impending break. I spent the morning absorbed in details—details were all: the smell of coffee, the wiggly activity of customers, the sound of crockery knocking together, the way my hand looked on the countertop, and oh a hundred other things at once. And yet—there was no ignoring the fact that outside life was returning to normal. Paul from Mystic made it through the alley. And Louie Duvall’s man triple-parked in front and dollied the flour in through the restaurant. Even old Mr. Downey and old Mr. Hedlund trudged their way in today, a...
The Hot-Blooded Prophet
2008-01-07 04:00:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to start from the beginning. Tonight we ate Spanish rice and drank red wine which he’d bought during the hushed white afternoon. He went out several times, for a razor, a comb, cumin, green peppers, wine. And returned each time with state-of-the-neighborhood information: most food and liquor stores were open, but no laundromats or dry cleaners. A group of children tried to coax their German Shepherd to pull their sled. Most of the trains ran today; I heard them. Yet Carlos has said nothing of going home. At one point I started to invite him to stay indefinitely, but changed my mind, afraid of scaring him off. These last two days have been so blanketed, so quiet and white and separate, I want them to last forever. He’s washed his socks and underwear in the sink and is drying them in the oven. As I write this, he’s padding barefoot in an old robe of mine, his hai... More About: Prophet
How Wrong I Was
2008-01-06 03:01:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. Everything’s changed! Carlos and I have spent the last forty-eight hours together. All my senses are heightened and I know: Something good is going to happen. Two days ago, the skies dumped three full feet of snow on city and suburb. And now, forty-eight hours later, the blinding, howling army of snow devils shows no sign of letting up. Cars and trucks can not make it through. They’re lost inside towering drifts. There is no other news. Life in Chicago has stopped. The CTA is at a standstill. The piercing beeps of plows making minimal progress are incessant. And—Carlos is with me. That’s the main thing, Carlos is with me! Maggie took Saturday off. And Stephanie left hours before the first flake drifted through the air; she’d heard reports. Carlos, on the other hand chose that static afternoon, a day oppressive with the impending b... More About: Wrong
Revulsion
2008-01-05 04:08:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. I have not looked at Carlos once since the meeting. I have not even come close enough to looking at him to know whether he’s noticed I’m not looking at him. Oh, I’ve maintained. Being around him. But it’s required tremendous effort. Like walking around with the flu. Just sitting up takes will power, just keeping my eyes open. The need to lie down in a darkened room and let my hatred of him run through me is almost insurmountable. Today I held steady even as he slunk around, brushing up against me! His repulsive hand on my shoulder. His long swift fingers alighting at my sides, as he dipped behind me for a knife or slotted spoon. “Excuse me, Slim,” his knuckles oh-so-lightly jiggling the extra bit of flesh at my waist. “Everyone needs to know and say why they’re alive.” The man had gall! “You know,” he...
Maggie's Mission
2008-01-04 04:00:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. Maggie Townsend is at the shop all the time now. My guess is that Carlos assigned her a secret mission: To hold my hand. Listen to my woes. Cheer me up. Make me smile. And she’s good at it. She’s pretty and funny and bops around like a tomboy playing the vamp. Officially, Maggie has started waitressing here because Stephanie’s undependable. But no more. Since that second meeting, with the clear smell of money in the air, Stephanie arrives on time. She stays late. In fact, they all hang around, all the time. At least Maggie is straightforward. To get my attention, she dips and sways and goes into these pretty little yoga stances, clanging invisible chimes. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she says. “‘Trix are for kids.’” “The topic was loneliness! Everyone was supposed to stand at the mike. Everyone was to speak his mind. A... More About: Mission , Missi
Don't Resist
2008-01-03 04:10:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. In the kitchen, Carlos was literally dancing with glee, and I had to grab his elbows to get him to stop. “Why’d you do that to me?” “I looked at you and the truer issue showed on your face.” “Well, it showed on your face, too! There was a moment,” I said, “where everything was going to be okay. Nothing horrible was going to happen, and then your eyes shone with malice.” “It wasn’t malice,” Carlos said, folding his hands against the small of my back. “Just this once, don’t resist.” It gets worse. Stephanie and Carlos’s friend Maggie Townsend went around collecting unconscionable sums—I’m talking hundreds of dollars!—in “donations.” (To be continued)
Is It Only Holy If It Hurts?
2008-01-02 03:32:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. “Worship?” I shook my head. “Forget it, Carlos!” And I started to walk out. But he blocked my path. He held up his hands in an infuriating—and utterly false—show of innocence. “Why? What’s wrong with worship?” “It’s nothing but another master-slave game,” I said. “That’s what!” I lifted my feet, as if to disentangle myself, but I was already in too deep. “What kind of God, ” I waved my arms, “demands that his creatures bow down and adulate Him if they want to be anything but lost and miserable their whole lives?” The reaction to this was a squirming, and then a slow, languid shift. Looking at the faces, I felt a chill. We had the same people as last week attending: the professors, Ms. Maggie Townsend, the blonde, who it turns out is a good friend of Carlos’s. Old Mr. Downy and old Mr. Hedlund, and m... More About: Holy
Stand and Deliver
2007-12-31 04:47:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. By haranguing me nonstop, Carlos talked me into addressing the issue of loneliness as a spiritual goal. He convinced me “to set the tone” before handing the mike to the first comer. “I know what I’m talking about. You have to be willing to stand up and say what’s important.” What really got to me, though, was his argument about my own fear. Because I was afraid to stand up and say what I thought, I must stand up and say it. And yet, acquiescing to him felt like glass cracking, a thin tumbler filling with too hot a liquid—splintering shards and pooling tea. But as the café filled with people I sat in the office, staring at nothing for who knows how long. Eventually I managed to get up and enter the kitchen. No one was there! I was completely alone and so panicked about speaking, I couldn’t tell what was just me being psychotic a... More About: Stand
Selling the Scheme
More articles from this author:2007-12-30 06:13:00 An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning. I hurry over to a front table where the dry cleaner from across the street and Stanley, the pharmacist who works next door, sit looking incredulous. “What is this?” Stanley asks, a flier in hand. The dry cleaner, whose name I don’t know because unlike R.Ph. Stanley Larson he doesn’t wear a name plate, winks. “Getting in on the next big thing, are you?” Shaking my head, I get them sandwiches. How did Carlos dig up and distribute the fliers so fast? When I return, the dry cleaner wants to know where I am on the six levels to awareness. Four? Five? And are there points in between? Fool that I am, I say, “Yes, there are points in between.” “So right now, you’re trying to surpass what? Four? Four and half?” “It’s hard to say.” “Of course. I shouldn’t have asked.” For a second, I wonder if he’s making fun of me bu... More About: Selling 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
