As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a writer; a writer because I was a reader. I’ll get to the writing part in a moment. First: reading.

At breakfast every morning, cereal with milk and a cut up banana, I would read the back of the cereal boxes. Wheaties was the best read, famous guys in sports. The cereal was shit, but the box was the best for reading.

So this is how it’s going to be going forward? Stealing lines. “As far back as I can remember…? That was the opening line of Goodfellows.*

That’s Goodfellas to you, pal, and I may have invited you in, but that doesn’t give you license to ridicule.

It’s what I do best. Just trying to keep you hones, but if this novel is going to be riddled with clichés and stolen memes, then maybe I have to readjust my goals.

I’ll let it run and see how it goes.

Thinking back, I now realize this was my first lesson in understanding the impact of words.

Until I was ten, words were just mostly primitive sounds we made to call attention to ourselves, to get things, to yell in frustration. When Wheaties added “New and Improved” to their box was when the cereal changed in taste going from bland to putrid. It was then I realized we had been had, that words could also be used to mislead. I later learned whole industries were created to mislead the rubes, that we could be led to believe what was not true. In other words, I discovered the power of fiction. My life path was beginning to develop.

Moving on, we come to my discovery of the comic book. I read my comic books so often they would be committed to memory. I was the neighborhood comic book maven.

“Hey, Hank, what was the monster guy’s name in the comic (fill in the blank),” and I would know. I was the comic book go-to guy. I developed certain panache, a swagger, able to leap towering stacks of comic books in a single bound.

Thor, Spiderman, all the X-Men characters, Iron Man. All the Marvel comics. But here’s the thing: while other kids put up posters of the comic book characters on their walls, I had a poster of Marvel’s creative genius, Stan Lee.** Here was my epiphany: if no Stan Lee, there would be no Marvel Comics. If no Marvel Comic, no Marvel characters. If the pitcher doesn’t throw the ball, the game doesn’t start. Without realizing it, I always looked for the inciting event.

Then there were the sports novels written for non-athletic nerds like me.

I devoured books like the Chip Hilton series,*** written by my next literary hero/model, Clair Bee.****

The Chip Hilton stories all seemed to center on a white, teenage only son of a widowed mother who mopped floors in office buildings overnight or baked an occasional pie while her son Chip, the hero of the books, went to high school, got straight As while working full time digging the next Erie Canal and being a five sport all-star, the rock of his teams, who always saved the day as he won the heart of the adorable, dependable level-headed blond, blue eyed, perky, pony-tailed school cheerleader.

While I might have begun by fantasizing myself as the old Chipper, I eventually grew to hate that fucking kid. But I also got a glimmer of what success could look like and how to achieve it.

So this is an autobiography? A trip down memory lane filled with events only you give a damn about? Boring!

You don’t need the exclamation point. I get it. I decided some backstory was important to understand my motives, my drive to write.

I’m going to need examples to see if this trip is worthwhile.

Be patient.

First off, to reach my aspirational self I would need to grow six inches in height, develop muscles where then was—and still remains—flab, shorten my beak of a nose, clear my pimple-pocked skin, and stop being terrified of girls. The notion of skill in the art of writing never entered the picture.

So as not to belabor and bore with my own Gilgamesh***** origination tale, I’ll—

Not bore us? I’m rubbing sleep out of my eyes to stay awake. You are flying under a false flag, my aspiring artistic arriviste.

Must I go into my “I Have a Dream” speech? Even as a preteen, I wanted success as a writer. But first I had to dream. Picasso allegedly said, “If you can imagine it, it’s real.”****** I wanted to make it real.

And did you?

Read on, my interlocutor friend.

—jump to the capper. I imagined that with a little effort, I could be the Jewish equivalent of Clair Bee, I could create the Jewish Chip Hilton, I could introduce the world to Moishe Greenblat, super Jew.

As you might imagine, living my dream was not smooth sailing. For example, coming out as an embryonic striver to the scribbler’s craft led to one of many family squabbles, one that might have lead this aspirer to a sideline.

“Murray, you need to talk to your son,” my overly dramatic mother screamed to my seemingly genetically engineered apathetic father who responded without shifting his stare from the I Love Lucy rerun, the one with the mistaken identity.

“Why,” muttered my father.

“He just admitted he wants to be a writer. He said it right to my face.”

“To your face, huh? Gutsy kid.”

“Jokes? Your son just came out as a wannabe writer and you make jokes?”

“Does he have paper and pencil?”

“Yes.”

“Then let him write. He can start by his describing the disaster of his room. Meanwhile, leave me alone.”

“You’re no help,” my mother continued. “He wants to throw away his life.”

“I’ve seen him throw. With his arm strength, he won’t throw it far.”

“All writers are bums,” she continued by playing the social standing card.” Like my uncle Mel. He was a bum.”

“Mel was a bum because he never stopped chasing women but never started working.”

“You never liked Mel,” my mother went on the attack.

“Again with this dopey argument that I never liked your uncle. Enough already with this crapola.”

It went like that for several entertaining hours while I became the observant turtle, pulling into my shell, keeping my head down, kept writing and surreptitiously pursued my calling.

How do I remember this interaction from some 40 years ago, you might ask? Notes, dear reader, notes I still retain.

As they bickered about my writing, about my distant relative Mel whom I never met and of cabbies and kings, I was scribbling, turning their petty, seemingly insignificant squabble into words, then sentences and dialogue for a play; yes, even at that tender age. The more I worked on the play, the more I wondered whether or not their bickering had a sexual component. After all, how else to explain the passion and eagerness to engage in combat? Not that I have ever been able to contemplate my parents fucking, but then again, I also had to explain how I got here. That Immaculate Conception stuff can only work once.

Why are you treating us to this tour of trivial memories?

My need to present my bona fides.

Insecure?

Always.

Following is an example of my early work, begun at twelve, finished at seventeen. Not very subtle, but it was a beginning.

GEORGE AND MARTHA FIND A WAY

SETTING: Two tables, four chairs.

AT RISE: GEORGE and MARTHA sit at a table, each with a cup of coffee.

GEORGE

Nice place, Martha.

MARTHA

No big deal, George. We do grass, they do caffeine. Look at ’em, all wired, eyeballs lit up like bloodhounds. The way they’re bouncing around here, they should pad the walls. Grass is much cooler.

GEORGE

Want some cake or something?

MARTHA

How come this sudden concern about me?

GEORGE

Shouldn’t a husband be concerned about his loving wife? (looking over her shoulder) Oh, look, two chairs by the window. Wanna move?

MARTHA

I don’t want to move. What I do want is for you to tell me why you have been acting so strangely; what the hell is going on.

GEORGE

I have something to tell you.

MARTHA

I knew it.

GEORGE

I want a divorce.

MARTHA

(quickly)

Okay.

GEORGE

What?

MARTHA

I said okay. What part of OK didn’t you understand? The O or the K?

GEORGE

The quickness.

MARTHA

I’m decisive.

GEORGE

That’s it?

MARTHA

I’m decisive and charming?

GEORGE

I meant is that all? You don’t want to know why?

MARTHA

I know why I’m decisive and charming. I was raised right by my parents.

GEORGE

I meant…

MARTHA

(smug)

I know what you meant. You thought I was going to be surprised, right? George, you haven’t surprised me in 15 years. I know what you’re thinking, when you’re going to act, the why, the how and the where. When you just started being nice to me before, I said to myself, Martha, George wants a divorce.

With the following rapid interchange, GEORGE becomes increasingly frustrated trying to compete with MARTHA’S sagacity. MARTHA, on the other hand, increasingly glows as she wins point after point.

GEORGE

Wanna know why George wants a divorce?

MARTHA

Because you’re unhappy.

GEORGE

Wanna know why I’m unhappy?

MARTHA

Because you don’t want to be tied down.

GEORGE

Wanna know why I don’t want to be tied down?

MARTHA

Because you want to bring a freshness to your life.

GEORGE

Wanna know why I want to bring a freshness to my life?

MARTHA

(the winning point)

Because you’re unhappy. (A triumphant pause.) That pretty much brings it full circle doesn’t it, oh enlightened one?

There is a pause as GEORGE stares at MARTHA while she casually ignores him.

GEORGE

You know what this does to me.

MARTHA

You buy me a four-dollar coffee that tastes like it was filtered through a sock, tell me you want a divorce, and now expect me to feel sorry for you. George, you’re predictable, but ballsy.

GEORGE

You know what this does to me.

MARTHA

I just said…

GEORGE

(emphatically)

You know what this does to me when you get this way.

MARTHA looks initially puzzled, then slowly reacts.

MARTHA

Oh, that. Reeeally?

GEORGE

You did this on purpose.

MARTHA

(glances at GEORGE’S crotch)

No, I swear. Did you…?

GEORGE

No, I managed to stop it before…if we were home…

MARTHA

That’s sweet. And you said you wanted a divorce.

GEORGE

When you get like that, I don’t have any control over it.

MARTHA

George, you’d fuck a knot-hole in a rotting tree. You’re corrupt.

GEORGE

(leering)

I know.

MARTHA

Well, the divorce is still on.

GEORGE

Wait.

MARTHA

Wait your ass. No waiting. It’s lawyer time.

GEORGE

Can’t you take a joke?

MARTHA

Look, George, just because you get turned-on by some kinky masochistic fantasy, don’t think this is going to work out. You wanted a divorce, you got it, babe.

GEORGE

I was just trying to get you going.

MARTHA

Bullshit.

GEORGE

You have no sense of humor, Martha, no sense of the new, of finding life in life. You’re dead, Martha, and I’m alive, and live people don’t want to be with dead people. So if it’s divorce you want, it’s divorce you’ll get.

MARTHA

First of all, George, this was your idea. And second, no sense of humor? Me?

GEORGE

Yes, you, Martha. Here I set you up for a little joke and you go all serious on me. The only reason I suggested the possibility of maybe a divorce was to wake you up a little to our marriage, to our life. I’m trying to do you a favor, here, Martha.

MARTHA

Oh, that was good, George. Doing me a favor. You didn’t think that up yourself, did you, George? Tell the truth; who wrote this for you? Come on. Who created the divorce sketch?

GEORGE

Spur of the moment.

MARTHA

Liar.

GEORGE

Maybe it was the caffeine.

MARTHA

Maybe it was all the young yuppie ass in this caffeine den that caught your attention.

GEORGE

Are you really going to…

MARTHA

What?

GEORGE

You know.

MARTHA

No, George, tell me. What?

GEORGE

Are you teasing me again?

MARTHA

(glancing at GEORGE’S crotch)

Ask your dowser. It can pick up humiliation like radar picks up a missile.

GEORGE

I need an answer.

MARTHA

Let me ask you this, George. You’ve been complaining about my not bringing a spark to our marriage for the past, oh, five years or so. Right?

GEORGE

I guess five years is about right.

MARTHA

And in those five years have you ever, once, considered that I was perfectly happy with the way things were going?

GEORGE

Well, I…

MARTHA

That maybe I was perfectly content with the status quo?

GEORGE

No, I guess I…

MARTHA

That I didn’t want the boat rocked?

GEORGE

No, you seemed…

MARTHA

No, George, not seemed. I was. I was perfectly content and perfectly happy to let things move along as they did. And you never asked why.

GEORGE reacts with increasing passion.

GEORGE

Okay, why?

MARTHA

You were so caught up in your own little world, your own little obsessive concerns, you never looked at me and asked, why is Martha so content, so happy. Did you?

GEORGE

Okay, why?

MARTHA

Stared at your own navel, never giving my life even a fleeting thought, so wrapped up in your own misery.

GEORGE

Okay, why?

MARTHA

Never wondered once…

GEORGE

(finally explodes)

OKAY. OKAY. WHY? TELL ME. NOW. WHY?

MARTHA checks her nails.

MARTHA

I was fucking Nick.

GEORGE quickly grabs his crotch.

MARTHA (cont’d)

Did that do it?

GEORGE

(catching his breath, then smiling)

Oooh, yeah.

MARTHA, looking somewhat smug, sips her coffee, smiles at GEORGE.

MARTHA

I still have the touch, right Georgie?

GEORGE

Baby, you’re the best.

MARTHA

Thank you, Georgie. Tomorrow we’ll hit the place on 74th Street. It has better coffee.

GEORGE stands, holding a napkin over his crotch. She stands. They exit.*******

I had learned a critical lesson in writing: observe and objectify, to watch and be ready to take dictation.

This was not the only time Mom had worried about her son. There were several all of which might have derailed a lesser obsessive, but my epiphany, that I can convert all events, no matter how tragic, how absurd, how painful could be defused of the tragic, the absurd, the painful through the simple expedient of writing it all down. My Eureka moment.

***

* Goodfellas (1990), directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Robert DeNero, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci.

** Stan Lee (12/28/22 – 11/12/18), comic book writer, responsible for either the creation and publishing of Marvel Comics.

*** Chip Hilton, 1948-1966, Grosset & Dunlap, NY, 24 sports novels, for adolescents.

**** Clair Bee (3/2/96-5/20/83), Hall of Fame basketball coach, University of Brooklyn.

***** Gilgamesh, heroic Mesopotamian figure in Epic of Gilgamesh, written circa 2150-1400 BCE.

****** Pablo Picasso (10/25/1881-4/8/1973), Spanish artist of some repute.

******* Fresh Brewed: Tales From the Coffee Bar, Samuel French, New York, 2008.

***

For all installments of “Portrait of the Artist as a Schliemel,” click here.

Portrait of the Artist as a Schlemiel