Javier Melancholy Part 1

Javier Melancholy Part 1

By Drake Tillman



         

          You know, I'm supposed to see another editor tomorrow but I'm losing my footing with these motherfuckers and my patience. They don't get it, they can't figure out what my problem is. They can't sell nothing. They can't sell writing because it's good, they have to have some leverage on the reader. I'm darker than Bukowski, I'm darker than Thompson, than Burroughs, I'm darker than anyone you can fucking imagine and do you know why? I can tell you exactly why, because you don't know why, I don't know why. Because they knew what their problem was. Bukowski had woman problems and so did however many others and that leads to drink or to drugs but I don't have that, I don't need women to make me happy, I don't need drugs to cope, I don't fucking need anyone except a pen and paper. They want some college graduate with a fucking MFA. They want sellable lies like record companies want sellable noise. Goddamned publishers, they're as bad as record companies.

          I don't know why I like this coffee shop. This coffee tastes like shit you know, this coffee tastes like the shit my old art teacher used to brew in the back of the class. He'd keep it back by the kiln and he'd smell like coffee and cigarettes when he talked to you. I always wanted to smoke cigarettes but I can't you know. I can't because I just can't do something that stupid and blatantly and arrogantly ignorant. I can't but I wish I could, being seen with a cigarette in your mouth as a creative person gives you that edge, that "I don't give a fuck" attitude but I do give a fuck and I won't sniff your shit either because I don't like smelling other people's shit, still that's probably better for you than smoking goddamned cigarettes. It was one thing back when Hemingway did it, or Fitzgerald or whoever, the lost generation didn't know any goddamned better and they were fucking lost anyway, Fitzgerald was a drunk and so was his wife, which is probably why he was, Hemingway was a drunk because he'd seen friends die in battle and he was fucked up himself from war. Shit even a little later you could take Burroughs or Bowles, they did heroin and smoked cigarettes in Tangier and let that shit ruin them as humans, but it only improved their writing. Back then it was stupid not to smoke cigarettes and if it were back then I probably would and maybe I'd like a whiskey or a scotch every once in a while or drink beer or eat big bloody steaks or hell, maybe smoke some goddamned cigarettes and maybe if I did all those things and if it were back then I'd get fucking published.

          I went to that magazine yesterday and I was right, those goddamned pricks told me to get fucked. They said I'm not "quite what they were looking for." What the fuck does that mean anyway? Just tell me to get fucked you fucking twats! I don't need you to fucking patronize me. It's as if I'd be so upset if they just told me to get fucked. I don't need those goddamned magazine editors to fucking baby me, I can handle my own fucking ass. They've got all these fucking college graduates working for them writing the same bullshit people have been writing for years because that's what we need, but of course it isn't, it's what sells. Fucking love stories and fairytales, it's all the fucking same.

          My mother's dead now and I could write about that but I think I do write about her in everything I write and it gives me more cynicism. She's always there telling me not to stop even if these prissy pricks aren't publishing me, the only one that ever liked my stuff and it was only because she fucking had to.

          I always give a couple bucks, sometimes more, to this one homeless guy that sits and probably sleeps in front of the coffee shop I go to. He's told me stories about his life and I'd be remiss if I told you I hadn't based stories around him but that's my job as a writer, an observer, and I give him his cut, especially if I ever sell one. Hell, he'd probably rather just have someone to talk to anyway. I know he wouldn't mind me writing about him. Harold's like my heroin or my scotch or my cigarettes.

          It's this whole goddamned machine you know? This whole thing's horseshit. I sold my story to some small lit-mag for $500 and I was going to go down and see Harold. I went to the coffee shop I like and Harold the homeless guy wasn't there, I asked the clerk where he'd gone and she said he died yesterday, the ambulances came and picked him up in the afternoon. I should start my own magazine, or maybe my own publishing house.

          I'm giving Harold a proper funeral with the money I got from the stories he gave me and then I'm starting my own magazine, my fucking heroin is dead.



Drake Tillman 2014