My hour of greatness is now. It is no
different than the other two hundred eighty thousand-odd
hours of greatness I have spent here with one beverage
or another in front of me, cigarette in right hand,
scribbling away the beginnings to a thousand stories
that will never be told on stained legal pads with my
left. And for what, where has it gotten me? To the edge
of an abyss staring into the beady yellow eyes of a
nervous breakdown, drunk enough to wake up in the morning
feeling fucked in places I didn't know I could be. Its
gotten me one hundred and seventy-five dollars, a mention
in Writer's Digest and a divorce. It's got me
nowhere but back where I started.
One would think that I would have had
an epiphany before my marriage failed, that I would
have done something to rectify the situation. I could
have found a second job, say, or written the greatest
Armenian novel of all time. I didn't and it did.
I suppose that's why he wound up fucking
the bartender on my birthday in our marriage bed. He
obviously saw her as someone whose talent materialized
itself: Sidecar, Manhattan, Gimlet, Martini, each one
a tangible product of her efforts to please him. Meanwhile,
I strutted around giggling and daydreaming, my imagination
as fallow as my loins.
I do not blame him for this. While he
screwed her in the bed with our names carved into the
headboard, I was wrestling with my 28 year-old aunt
and a randomly selected Joyce Scholar in a New York
City hotel room. We broke a window, we broke a bed,
we bloodied the nose of the Joyce scholar, enough said.
The marriage was crumbling before any
of this. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact
that, in the twelve years we were together, I spent
the majority of my time brooding over blank sheets of
paper. I suffered crippling bouts of depression and
binge drinking which transformed me into a violent and
abusive Gorgon. Certainly, I had my flaws. That said,
I was not the one with a secret life that involved steam
baths, feather cat toys and assless chaps.
Two months after I moved into the sweltering
attic of my own house, my husband started dating a doctor
named Steve. I packed up all my belongings, called up
the Joyce Scholar-- who just happened to have an apartment
on East 72nd between Park and Madison-- and ran off
to Paris for a couple of weeks to stalk James Joyce's
grandson. During the course of this jihad for self-preservation
I found myself:
1) drunk on Kir Royals, lost on the streets
of the 11ème arrondissement, looking for
a taxidermist
2) suffering an absinthe withdrawal in
the middle of a lecture on Ulysses
3) short of breath, three seconds away
from vomiting down the back of a German scholar's sport
coat
4) looking down at my hands and trying
to calm myself and noticing I was going invisible, that
I could actually see through my own hands.
But I survived this. Why? Because I am
a writer. I can stand in front of a mirror and stare
down into the darkest, emptiest parts of my soul, materializing
the vacancy I find there in prose. I can turn my pain
and misery into a story which might or might not be
understood.
I suffered a nervous breakdown upon my
return from Paris. I found myself living in an apartment
I couldn't afford, lying with a sick cat on twenty-year-old
bed sheets contemplating suicide. I realized, in the
pages of a biography, that as a writer my saviors and
saints die alone, penniless, mad, and alcoholic, in
run-down hotels. And like those feather-wearers of old,
who sat in salons dusting their tea cups with lilies,
I too will hang myself from the chandelier of words
that dangles from my tongue. Even with a symphony that
sounds like a cross between Bartók and Souza
clanging in my brain I will continue my quest to find
truth and beauty in a soul where I often find neither.
As Sultans loosed pythons to save Java from plagues
of rats, so will I save my sanity with my own inky venom.
Had I known it would cost me my husband
and my home would I have given up writing and gotten
myself a nice steady job in a bank? Fuck, no. I may
be the same shiftless, unemployed, unemployable writer
I was back then, but today, I have a deadline. I have
a deadline and the phone number of a hot Jew in my pocket
and I know that, come mid-afternoon, should I find myself
taking an eraser to these paragraphs, feeling doomed
and stupid, I can take a two-hour lunch break and at
least get laid.
Who says I am not the King of Spain?
Unlike that parallel-universe bank teller, I can be
anyone I want at any given moment. I can be a Puerto
Rican trapeze artist, a Two-Penny Upright, a kyphotic
dowager, or a famous airport gift-shop novelist with
such gems to my credit as Lost in My Shadows
and Shattered Vows: The Story of Donna Plipkoch.
At this exact moment I sit here feeling
as if my nerves are on fire, my hands shaking like those
of a Parkinson's patient. My coin jar is devoid of quarter,
dime and nickel, and I am hearing voices in my head.
And though I may feel as exposed as a naked schizophrenic
combing Walgreens for tinfoil and hair spray, I know
it is only pretend. This is the glory, the greatness.
I traded in a bellyful of steak for it: Liberty. This
is worth more than a backyard full of tulips. It is
worth more than love.
I know that my family and friends resent
and ridicule me for living my life as if it were one
continuous smoke break. They talk about me behind my
back, or even worse, to my face, and say that I'm unhinged.
They attempt to steer me towards a life of normalcy
and security, and when they tire of this-- and they
will-- there is the possibility they will abandon me.
In retaliation, I refuse to answer my phone or leave
the safety of my basement with the excuse, "I'm working."
I am not alone. I have behind me a battalion of cohorts
as socially maladjusted as myself. Some of them are
famous, some are unemployed. Most of them are dead.
Charles Lamb is behind me. Djuna Barnes is behind me.
Vladamir Nabokov is giving me the finger and Pauline
Reage has me bent over her chaise longue and, face down,
I will take it gladly. My hour of greatness is now.
It is my hour of greatness because I chose it.
Alena Nahabedian has actually
completed a draft of the great Armenian autobiographical
novel. Her family is currently exploring any and all
legal options to prevent the book's publication. Alena
lives and writes in Portland, OR, and doesn't have nearly
enough money to go running off to Paris, despite what
this story might lead you to believe.
