garysomething

I just saw Gary on thirtysomething die

and right now you’re

all probably shaking your collective heads at me

wondering how I can care about some character

in some television show

when there’s a war going on

but I saw Gary on thirtysomething die last night

and part of me died with him.

Gary was me, what I’d like to be anyway,

a college professor, politically correct,

loved by all, with a waif of a wife,

and part of me wanted  to be Gary,

riding a bicycle to work,

stocking cap tucked over his long strawberry blonde hair,

without a care in the world

and then he died

just like that,

this fictional myth I wanted to grow into died

and it was over,

he did however leave and oh-so beautiful corpse,

and friends keeping a place in their minds for his memories. 

Could be worse, though.

1st Epilogue

Gary has been appearing in flashbacks,

in Michael’s life, the character who knew him,

and mine, a real person who thought he did,

when I go to the CD rack I think, 

“What would Gary have liked to listen to?”

and then choose the discs accordingly,

there’s a Coltrane, an Elvis Costello collection, 

and a Van Morrison that 

sits patiently upon my right speaker, 

waiting for the Carole King to finish, 

so it can be placed in one of the empty slots.

As I sit down to postpone a bit longer the 25-page paper on South Africa

which has yet to be written or edited or printed out,

which is just another rough thought, another rough draft resting on a floppy, unprinted,

I think “What would Gary have done?

not how would my parents have handled this situation,

or what my best friends would tell me or do on their own,

I try to imagine this mythical icon,

this mythical icon I half-jokingly long to be,

and wonder what he would tell me,

what he would do if placed in the same situation I was in at this very second,

would he sit and scribble some thoughts across the screen,

leaving his paper aside, till he felt so inclined to resume,

probably not, he’d be doing the same thing,

only he’d be doing it with a white legal pad

— the yellow ones aren’t recyclable —

or would he set aside the four-week-old-funk he’d been working himself into instead of out of,

and churn out something, anything,

as long as it was handed in typed, double-spaced, and properly margined,

yes, it all sounds a bit innocuous

when there are Kurds gathered up on too-small-not-their-own tracts-of-land,

and it seems a bit too naive or simple

to wonder what some amalgamation 

of some other writers friends,

or perhaps completely conjured up in that same writers’ mind,

character

to wonder what that character is thinking

and use that character as some sort of guidepost 

to some of the decisions that you make,

either the writers have done a good job

helping me rediscover a person I feared I had lost,

or I’m just plain nuts,

either way,

I saw Gary on thirtysomething appear last night,

in a vision to Michael 

as his life’s problems became too many,

and today, to me,

as my simple struggle to finish another day, 

another word,

grew a bit easier.

2nd Epilogue

I haven’t tossed Gary away, as perhaps I should have,

maybe he’s like my paternal grandmother

(although she was real)

to be thought of every so often,

not in some sort of calculated way,

but when your hands are dirty,

and you remember that Grandma Minnie taught you how to clean them,

one finger at a time,

soaping one hand completely,

and then pulling up each finger

with the opposite hand closed in a circle,

or when you’re sitting in class

and your professor asks 

who was president after Van Buren,

and you say “Harrison”

and he asks you which one,

and you say “Benjamin or William Henry”

but aren’t sure which one it is

because when Grandma Minnie taught you the presidents

she taught you to remember their last names,

not their first, or how long they served for,

shit, you were five or six,

she died when you were almost seven,

right after the Mets lost to the A’s in the World Series,

and you answered the phone,

but they wouldn’t tell you what happened,

you just knew that you saw Grandma the night before,

she was supposed to sleep over your apartment,

and at the last minute she changed her mind,

she insisted, fought your mom and dad 

until they took her home,

and then the next day you answered the phone,

and they asked if there was anyone else home,

and you passed the phone to your 10-years-older sister

who they thought was old enough to hear the news first hand

and ever since then you couldn’t sleep well when you went into a funk,

and you blamed the Mets for losing the World Series,

as your six-year-old mind somehow convinced you that 

if the Mets had only won the World Series then 

Grandma Minnie would still be alive,

to tell you how to wash your hands,

and which Johnson came before Lincoln.

3rd Epilogue

So Gary’s not real,

so you never actually sat down and talked to Gary about his problems with getting tenure,

and how you expect to have the same problems one day,

and you never really sat down to tell him that you couldn’t commit to much either,

but that you wanted to commit to everything,

and how until Judy you never thought you’d find 

any sort of love,

and how you want to put a ring on her finger

before you fuck it up,

or how everytime you have to sit down and write a term paper

you could never do what you thought, or knew,

all the good students were doing,

work on the paper from the day it was assigned,

and arrange those little three-by-fives according to each section of your outline,

so you could just assemble the paper 

like one giant jigsaw puzzle,

and hand it in a week ahead of time,

instead of your way,

picking a neat topic,

getting approval after you’ve grabbed two armfuls of books

and an oh-so simple understanding of the subject,

only to postpone the work until you only had a week left,

I’m a good enough writer,

I can just churn something out in a week and still get a B,

and after all, that’s all you need,

you were never able to get an A,

never wanted to work that hard,

and neither did Gary,

content to get a C in a class he knew better than most,

content to read books and write papers when he felt like,

content not to fit into the system

until he realized that if he ever wanted to graduate he’d have to

because you can’t make up your own rules 

when the requirements stare you in the face,

you can only postpone completion so long,

until, finally, you realize you’re just postponing yourself,

until you look at all your friends with jobs, and marriages,

and general lifeplans

when all you have is this really neat, idealistic view

that you want to be a teacher,

but didn’t know ’til last week what a doctorate required,

you just knew that to be a teacher you needed one,

and that was that, you’d get one,

and you’d find out later on how you did that,

just keep plugging ahead until you came to that step,

and then you’d stop and ask somebody,

and they’d tell you and you’d do it,

hopefully not waiting ’til the last week

to try and sum up your past 20-some-odd years of schooling

hopefully writing the dissertation you knew you should,

but know you won’t,

knowing you’re gonna become a prof somehow,

and forgetting about the office politics,

knowing that some day you’ll be up for tenure

and you’ll offend some member of that committee

and that’s that, all those years down the drain,

and now it’s time to pick up the pieces, 

time to figure out which way the next step takes you,

and thinking all the while,

“What would Gary do?”

and looking into the mirror and seeing your own Gary.

4th Epilogue

So Gary is dead,

so Judy has left you

and you never did put that ring around her finger

but it wasn’t your fault

so a year later you care for two small children

although you can’t care for yourself,

although your life is still muddled

and you’re throwing money to people who need it less than you,

so you’re alone,

and hating it,

and that thesis you did all the research for is coming due

and you still haven’t opened your marble composition notebook to type your notes up,

and know you’ll wait ’til the last week

how you’ll get away with it,

have been since junior high,

and haven’t been caught yet,

won’t be either you say,

and so you’re alone

and loving it,

and you’ve interviewed 23 people for your thesis 

and have 45 pages of notes that all you need to do is type up,

they’re sitting there right in that marble composition notebook,

you just want to wait until the last week so you can do it all at once,

so you’re all alone,

sitting in the house during the day watching thirtysomething on tapes, gleeful that Lifetime is airing reruns,

learning more from Gary,

brought back to life 

as beautiful as ever,

and listening to some Art Blakey

getting ready for snow’s end and basketball in Washington Park,

lacing up your hightops just for fun,

spinning red/black basketball 

and dribbling on the oak floors while

you’re all alone.

5th Epilogue

So you’re doing no work in your classes this term

thinking all the doctorate applications are in

no need to work

no need to maintain last year-and-a-half’s good grades

easier to toss it away and play a bit

poetry and hoops

lots of tv and junk food

and every so often open a textbook

for show

then you call CUNY-Grad and they tell you

thanks

but no thanks

and you realize Columbia is going to do the same

and you’re back again 

at step one

muddled life

no girl

lots of knifes in the kitchen

but you were always too squeamish

so you do it your own way

ignoring assignments

not showering 

or sleeping much

then you don’t stop figuring out options

while laying on floral print couch,

’neath itchy blanket

watching gary on afternoon reruns

while nursing cold,

and for moments visions of profdom dance away

and back and forth

as you debate many options,

working in bookstore down block 

from new NYC apartment

waiting tables

or slaving at copy shop,

maybe even find another job in publishing 

or journalism,

though you’ve grown tired of them both,

then you call your advisor

clueless and helpless as you

and he’s okay ’cause it isn’t his life 

so maybe you’ll apply to other NYC grad schools,

or trash history prof vision totally,

though, if just to show CUNY guy up, you won’t give in,

and as watching gary in all his beauty,

you comfortably resting 

pondering too many options

and planning on move away from all,

downing some drowsy cold pills

and falling off.