Why did I become a writer?
Boy, do I have a story for you…
I must have been in first grade, or was it second—makes
no difference either way; I was a young boy: wild-eyed, enthusiastic, curious,
carefree, stubborn, and overly rambunctious (not much different than the man I
am today, some might argue). My entire class piled in a big yellow bus for a
field trip to the zoo. From our tiny hick town—where the cows outnumbered the
kids twenty to one—we journeyed the thirty or so miles into the BIG CITY. Now,
thirty miles may not seem that far to the average American adult, but to a
child who grew up in the boonies, we may as well have been traveling to a
strange, faraway world, like Neptune, or Guatemala, or Aspen, Colorado.
While most
of my fellow classmates fought over the coveted aisle seats—for that was where
the banter, laughter, horseplay, hijinks, and rabble-rousing all occurred—I
considered myself more than lucky to be trapped on the “inside” seat, where a
world I had seldom seen in my young life passed before my eyes; the only thing
between me and it, a scratched-up rectangle of glass. (How those windows always
became so severely scratched was and still is a mystery to me; perhaps the
buses were being used to transfer feral cats to the incinerator on the
weekends?) Regardless, (or irregardless, for those of you who subscribe to the
use of double negatives) what was happening outside that window was more
exciting than anything on television at the time (not counting MacGyver and Quantum Leap, of course). Gravel roads turned to paved streets and
paved streets turned to four lane highways. Barren fields gave way to rows of
cookie-cutter houses and rows of cookie-cutter houses dissolved into century-old
homes built in the style of Victorian architecture; and in the distance, the
skyscrapers and high-rises, built of brick and steel and glass, climbing over
the horizon like the fingers of a giant metropolitan God. Oh, what a scene! But
those weren’t even the most interesting of sights…
The
People! Yes, the people, they seemed to be everywhere, walking on tiny concrete
paths that ran parallel to the automobile-infested streets; concrete paths
known as “sidewalks,” an oddity that didn’t exist in our hobunk town, which saw
only ditches, guardrails, and barbed-wired fences lining our roads. The people,
they had skin the color of chocolate, the type up until then we only saw
projected on screens, and never in our “neck of the woods” so to speak, where 99.3%
of our ancestors were from Northern Europe, with the exception being the one
family of Italian heritage, whose sons all the girls swooned over because of
their “exotic” skin tone. But now, compared to the urban dwellers outside my
window, with their genuine black hair—not dark, dark brown—these descendents
from the Mediterranean boot suddenly seemed as ordinary and pasty white as the
rest of us.
After
thirty miles and what seemed like seventeen hours, we finally arrived at our
destination: The Buffalo Zoo. (Not a zoo filled with buffalo, unfortunately—come
to think of it, I don’t recall seeing a single bison that day—but rather a zoo
in the City of Buffalo, a midsized municipality in the rustbelt of Western New
York, at the time best known for its chicken wings and Super Bowl losing Bills;
now, only for the chicken wings. Go Bills! Go
Bills?) We all piled out of the bus (if we piled in, we can most certainly
pile out, can’t we?) and as is custom in totalitarian regimes such as
elementary school, formed a straight line to make our way through the entrance
gates. As each student in front of me muscled their way through the turnstile,
my anticipation grew—this was the ZOO!
after all, a magnificent place where any human being, for just a couple dollars
and change, could come within a few feet of wild animals, some having been
shipped from faraway places, like Africa, or Guatemala, or Aspen, Colorado. But
within a dozen or so steps of entering this inner-city-safari I had so built up
in my mind, my enthusiasm deflated faster than a set of bald tires over a strip
of traffic spikes.
The
animals that stood—or more likely, sat, laid, slept, or moped—in front of us
were anything but wild. They looked weary, worn, beat-down, and desperate, like
inmates in a maximum security prison, sentenced to life without the possibility
of parole. There was nothing that resembled a smile on any of their faces—even
in animal terms—or the slightest hint of hope in their eyes. If they could
talk, I’m positive they would have uttered phrases like, “Please shoot me.” Or,
“Put me out of my misery, I’m begging you.” Or, “For the love of God, what is
wrong with you animals?” Immediately, I realized that I despised zoos (a
sentiment that I still embrace today).
The main
attraction that season was an albino alligator—“One of Only a Few in the World
of its Kind,” or so they claimed—that traveled the country, visiting zoo after
zoo, like some sort of circus sideshow. At least at a circus, though, it would
have been out in the fresh air, or at the very least, far below the high canvas
ceiling of a ginormous big top. But here, at the zoo, inside the Reptile House,
it had only a small room, not much bigger than my parents’ kitchen, with an
even smaller swimming area, which could best be described as a large puddle,
not much different than the kind automobiles were accustomed to swerving around
on the gravel roads back in our hillbilly town.
The
chatter amongst us children was quickly hushed as one of the zoo’s “experts” started
spewing out facts; things like, “an alligator’s chances of being born with
albinism are about 1 in 100,000.” When
it was time for the Q and A segment of the tour—being a curious kid and all—I
was the first to raise my hand. “Don’t you feel bad,” my high-pitched
prepubescent voice asked, “about keeping such a large animal in such a small
cage?”
“I can
assure you that this alligator is more than comfortable with his current living
arrangements,” the expert explained. “Any other questions?”
Before
any of the other students could raise their hands, I blurted out, “But how do you
know how the alligator feels?”
“Because
I’m an expert.”
Besides
immediately losing faith in anyone who referred to himself as an “expert”—a
sentiment that I still embrace today—I didn’t feel as if my question had been
sufficiently answered; so I asked another. “Wouldn’t he be better off in his
own natural habitat?”
“The
truth is, the majority of albino alligators don’t last more than twenty-four
hours after being born in their natural habitat. He’s actually extremely lucky
to be in captivity.”
“How
could you possibly know that?” I shot back, thinking about the Italian brothers
in my school and the already explained infatuation with them by all the girls,
and how this alligator, with his own exotic skin color, would certainly receive
similar attention from his female counterparts. “With the rarity of one being
born in the first place, how can you be certain that he would only last…”
But
before I could finish my thought: “Look kids!” The expert pointed at the
alligator, “He’s getting into the water!”
While
the other children pressed their faces against the large glass viewing area, elbowing
each other to get the best possible angle of the eccentric beast bathing
inside, I slyly slipped out the backdoor of the Reptile House.
I’d had
enough! Enough of the albino alligator; enough of the “expert’s” claims; enough
of the zoo altogether. I walked past the elephants and the giraffes, the lions
and the polar bears, through the gift shop, past its key chains and snow
globes, its magnets and postcards, and out the exit doors. After all,
everything I had seen on the way to the zoo had been much more fascinating than
anything I had seen inside.
I
scurried through Delaware Park, across the rugby field, heading toward the
baseball diamonds. As I scampered through the largest field of green I had ever
laid my young eyes on, I found three white golf balls, and like a child during
an Easter egg hunt, deposited each one into the left pocket of my cargo shorts,
much to the chagrin of a cluster of adults in the distance, who waved their
shiny sticks toward the sky and filled the open air with foul words—the same type
of vulgarities that would have earned me a seat facing the corner at school or
a mouthful of soap at home. This obnoxious yelling only made me run faster,
through a tunnel beneath an expressway, by a lake empty of boats, a graveyard
teaming with souls, and south down Delaware Avenue.
Soon
enough I was lost: a small child in the big city—a place where I knew nothing
and no one, in no particular order. Now, most children’s instincts would have
been to panic, but I was much too smart for that; knowing that the Earth was
round—a fact that we had recently learned in science—I realized that if I
simply continued to walk in a straight line, I would eventually make my way
back to the zoo. So that’s what I decided to do. But then, I heard a voice.
“I
wouldn’t go much further if I were you.”
I looked
to my right to discover a house built of brick, three stories high, with arched
windows and a small covered porch on its far left side. Alongside the front
door, hung the numbers 4 7 2, vertically, in large bronze castings. On the
stairs leading to the stoop, sat an old man, his hair wild and white, with a
mustache and suit to match. “I’ve been waiting for you,” were the next words
out of his mouth.
“For
me?” I asked, somewhat confused.
The old
man turned his head left, then right, before settling his eyes back on me. “I
don’t see anyone else around, do you?”
I turned
my head left, then right, before settling my eyes back on the old man. “Do I
know you?”
“Not
yet.” He put a cigar in his mouth and lit it with a match. “But you will.”
Now, most
children’s instincts would have been to panic, but I was much too bright for
that; knowing that elderly men almost always suffered from chronic arthritis—a
fact that I had recently learned from my grandfather—I realized that I could
simply run away at any time and there was no chance this old geezer would ever
catch me.
“You don’t
need to run away.” A cloud of smoke poured from under his mustache like steam
from a locomotive. “Take it from me. I ran away twice. There’s not much
satisfaction in it, even as a recollection.”
What was
this ancient man talking about? I needed to find an excuse to leave. I
remembered the golf balls in my pocket and pulled them out. “I’m sorry,
mister,” I said, “but I have to return these.”
“Oh,
those guys have others. Plus, golf is a good walk spoiled. You did them a
favor, Jon.”
“How do
you know my name?” I didn’t think about saying the words; they merely flew out
of my mouth.
“I
already told you—I’ve been waiting for you. Jon Penfold, right? If that doesn’t
sound like a writer’s name.”
“A
writer’s name?”
“Yes.
You are a writer.”
“I am?”
“Aren’t
you?”
I had to
think for a moment. Was I a writer? I suppose I had written things down before,
but never anything I would share with anyone else.
“It is
no use to keep private information which you can’t show off.” The man raised
his big white eyebrows.
Was he
reading my mind? “But my teacher caught me writing in class once and said that
I shouldn’t waste my time with silly stories; that I should concentrate on my
studies.”
This
made the man chuckle. “Don’t ever let schooling interfere with your education.”
“But…”
“No.
There are to be no ‘buts’. You want to be a writer, don’t you?”
I
suppose I did, I thought. “I suppose I do,” I said.
“Then
you must remember a few things. Are you ready?”
I nodded
my head.
“Good.
First: Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level
and then beat you with experience. Got it?”
“Got
it.”
The old
man flicked the ash of his cigar off to the side of the stairs. “Second: It’s
easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled. Do you
understand?”
“I think
so.”
“Lastly:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you
didn’t do than by the ones that you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover.” The old man took a long drag from his cigar. “Any questions?”
“What
should I write?”
“What
should you write? WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE? Write what you want. Write what you
know. Write things that will make people laugh. Write things that will make
people cry. Write things that will make people think. Write things that will
downright ruffle people’s feathers. Sometimes you’ll tell nothing but the
truth. Sometimes you’ll flat out make things up. And sometimes you’ll combine
the two, like you are right now. And when all else fails, write what your heart
tells you. You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of
focus.” The old man put his cigar out on the steps and stood up. “Now, if
you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go.”
“Where
are you going?”
He
slowly shook his head as he headed toward the door. “To write, of course.”
“Wait!”
I pleaded. “You never told me your name.”
The old
man turned toward me and smiled. “My family calls me Sam, my friends, Clemens,
but most of the world knows me as Mark.”
He
stepped through the entrance, shut the door behind him, and within a blink of
an eye, the house was gone—the entire complex: the bricks, the arched windows, the
covered porch—transformed into an A-framed carriage house. As you can imagine,
this freaked the hell out of me, so I took off, full-speed the way I came,
North up Delaware, past the graveyard and the lake, beneath the expressway, by
the baseball diamonds, through the largest field of green I had ever seen—where
I dropped the three golf balls in proximity to where I found them—across the
rugby field, back in the exit door, through the gift shop, and into the zoo. I
immediately began searching for my classmates, but couldn’t find them
anywhere—not at the lion cage, or the monkey house, or the elephant lands. Now,
most children’s instincts would have been to panic, but I was much too
intelligent for that; knowing that you should always look for something at the
last place you saw it—a fact that I had recently learned on an episode of MacGyver—I returned to the Reptile
House, and I’ll be damned if they weren’t all still there, just as I had left
them, their faces pressed against the glass, trying to get a better look at an
alligator of a different color.
And
that’s why I became a writer.
