Nothing to Write About

Another of dad's stories, written in the present tense, a la Damon Runyon.  It amuses me that the reason for his call, credit card mischief perpetrated by a business, is somewhat prescient. Circuit City went out of business. I don't remember the reason. But their business practices probably didn't help. 

I am not surprised when I get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  When I hit the pad, lat night, I am fit to be tied.  Yesterday morning I get my credit card statement and I see I am being taken by a national company like any Rube with straw in his hair. I do not like to mention names, usually, but this one runs a perpetual TV ad where they have to plug in their building into a socket before their windows light up--Circuit City, to be exact.  It takes me three hours to fall asleep ad I dream of pulling the plug on their stock options.

Right after coffee, I call the City Attorney's Office, Department of Consumer Affairs, where I have my usual problem of identity--the main one being my name, which creates great problems with a national illiteracy.  Usually I spell it, painstakingly and enunciate clearly before I am permitted beyond the phone sphinx of the moment.

The next voice I hear is a guy named Irving to whom I unburden my soul, who offers no advice, but is ore interested in telling me his story rather than to listen to mine.  I do not mind.  It is early, and the only talk show on radio is some liberal host exchanging verbal titillation with his audience of listeners of consonant pathologies.

So I listen to Irving and receive a comprehensive autobiography.

Irving is divorced and looking for a replacement, someone who likes the outdoors and pastoral activities.  His wife, the second of his earthly career, divorces him after she passes the California State Bar Exam.

"Why does she divorce you," I ask, meaning the more recent one, as I do not wish to go too far back.  He is, after all, fifty-four years old.

"Because she wants more material things," he laments, "and now she can get them on her own."

"Are you an attorney," I ask, and receive a negative reply.  He is a writer, he says--two novels, one written some time ago, a second in limbo.  He has a drawer full of screenplays, articles, all of undying moment.  His agent, the one who had his first novel published is dead and he adds, "Do you know anyone in the business?"

It happens I do.  A friend of my daughter, an aspiring screen writer, who had maxed out his credit cards, and who agent got him fired from a good gig by asking, without his permission, for more bread.

"He lives with your daughter?" It is a statement rather than a question, and by inflection adds, "is she supporting him?"  I answer in the negative, but he continues:

"Boy, I wish I could find a broad to support me."  This I take to mean that he disbelieves my previous answer.

We have been conversing for almost half an hour, and very little of my original complaint seems to be taken as of potential interest for the City Attorney's Office.  It is clear he will not forward my displeasure to higher authority.

"I have to get off the phone," he concludes.  "By the way take down my phone number---you know, in case you hear something."  He proceeds to give it to me.  I do not get angry--the feeling I have is more like despair.  After all, I spend some twenty years in civil service.

It is a warm sunny day and the first of the month.  Generally on this day I go to the bank to replenish the coffers, ad to see whether some new liberal politician in Washington is dipping his sticky fingers into my financial substance.  There is a long line and I am standing behind a lovely girl in her early twenties who is holding a passbook with greenbacks protruding from each end.  I surmise that she is solvent.  Besides she is looking with interest at a bank offer of houses for sale, all of which start at healthy six-figure amounts and not in pesos.

"Are you house shopping?" I ask.

"No," she relies and smiles engagingly.  "I am an actress," she asserts some pride of status.

"Have you done anything?"  She waves her head in the negative.

I assure her she is a natural.  I notice that the greenbacks protruding from their enclosure are of substantial proportions, so I ask her, "What do you do for immediate needs while you search for stardom?"


"I'm a waitress," she replies.  "I'm making a deposit for the restaurant I work for."

I am sympathetic and understanding and wish to give her solace.  I tell the story I related earlier to Irving, of the young man who maxes out his credit cards while he waits for his muse to connect.

Her answer is terse, laconic.  "He'll just have to go to Plan B.  I'm still on Plan A."

I do not get the reference but I notice she is next in line for the teller.  I ask hurriedly for her name. She hesitates and says it is 'Laura', then adds quickly, "Christine."  I take it the latter is her real name.

She waves as she heads for the window.  I watch the classical perfection of her legs and I do not feel the weight of so many decades on my spirit.  I leave the bank and set out for my daily constitutional. Usually, as I walk, an idea for a story germinates in my mental peregrinations so that at the end of the exercise period there remains only the need to type the words.

Today, I draw a complete blank.  I don't know what to write about.  I has been just one pointless conversation after another.