Kafka in L.A.

An unseasonably warm night here in L.A. It’s February and it feels like summer’s embrace out there. And a full moon to boot, which just might be feeding my depression, as if my darkness really needs a little more fuel.

I was reading Franz Kafka’s short story “The Hunger Artist” last night and I was struck by this particular passage:

Fasting would surely come into fashion again at some future date, yet that was no comfort for those living in the present. What, then, was the hunger artist to do? He had been applauded by thousands in his time and could hardly come down to showing himself in a street booth at village fairs, and as for adopting another profession, he was not only too old for that but too fanatically devoted to fasting. So he took leave of the impresario, his partner in an unparalleled career, and hired himself to a large circus; in order to spare his own feelings he avoided reading the conditions of his contract.

Books. I have so many of them. Too many. My shelves are lined with books. The floor behind my sofa is stacked high with books. I have boxes of books that have never been unpacked and are awaiting the purchase of a new book case so they can be aired out and properly presented.

My late kid sister – I don’t know how she died as we had a very estranged relationship – once paid me a visit and marveled at all my books.

“These are all yours?” she said.

I replied in the affirmative.

“And you’ve actually read all of them?”

Lynn always poked fun at my ambitions to become a working writer. When she died four years ago I doubt she knew that I had already been living that dream for eleven years.

Like Kafka’s Hunger Artist, though, I sold my talents to a large circus a long time ago and I’m anxious to get out from under the big top. I need to concentrate once again on selling my short fiction. That’s where I have to place my emphasis. I’ve written over 60 L.A. tales, including the Trace stories, and they’re just sitting here, waiting for exposure beyond 8763 Wonderland.

Over the weekend a few friends took exception to … well, to two things, to something I did recently (none of your goddamn business what) and to some material in my fiction postings at Wonderland. Even if I told you what stories they had a problem with you probably wouldn’t know why they are upset, angry, hurt, whatever, because they were approaching the read with deep insights into me and my life. They know the back story, if you will.

“You don’t care about people’s feelings,” a friend complained to me last night.

Honestly, can I write the type of fiction that I write and not care about the feelings of others? But what was it Truman Capote once said? Something to the effect that if you have a writer for a friend you immediately waive all rights to claims of betrayal. A writer’s life is fertile ground for his work and the person I betray the most in my own work is me.

The same friend who sat in my home last night and accused me of being bereft of sympathy for the feelings of others wrote the following in an e-mail recently after the posting of a particular story:

When did you write this? Our talk was a waste of my time? You told me you were going to hold off on writing about this. You were lying? What gives? I am not angry. I am dismayed. I don’t get you at all.

When I informed this person that they were approaching the story with insider knowledge that the readers do not have, the friend wrote:

I knew you’d say that. You didn’t write it for the readers. This is absurd.

Of course I wrote it for the goddamn readers and if there’s some personal fucking politics in there, well ,welcome to the writing ballgame. Grab a bat and suit up or take a seat in the stands. Of course, that’s just the kind of attitude that another friend – also writing in e-mail recently in response to a piece of short fiction – would probably expect from me:

Earlier today I just wanted to ream you that new asshole and be done with it, but I’ve had an exceptionally good day and there’s only one thing I want to tell you. When I get back here for a longer period of time I’m going to write you an email. It worries me that you have so much disregard for everyone including yourself and it’s somehow amusing to you. It’s not funny. It’s dreadfully sad. The email will be constructive, I won’t be raking you over the coals because you’ve really done a good job of doing that to yourself.

That’s right. Please don’t rake me over the coals while I’m doing such a good job by myself.

I’m a writer. It’s all I have. I want more than that from life but I don’t know if I’m destined to get it. We shall see. I haven’t read the conditions of my contract.

Psoriatic arthritis has migrated to my left hand today. Always nice to have some physical pain to wrestle with in between bouts of “How the hell do I climb out of this goddamn depression?” I had one day in the last week when I felt good. One.

Incidentally, I had dinner this evening at the Sizzler in Atwater Village with David and Julie Scott and their adorable 4-year old daughter. When I arrived home shortly after 6:00, I had this in e-mail from another friend that I think just about sums it all up:

The absence of pain. Sometimes I think that’s all we can ask for, not to be happy, but the absence of pain.

And oh – I’m sure I’ll be hearing from those other two friends I mentioned earlier shortly after posting this, no doubt to tell me what an unfeeling asshole I am for writing this.