A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (36 page)

You know what I mean. Jeff and I had drifted in high school, but at this party, Andrew Wagner
’
s party, under the withering porch lights and both of us full of keg-pulled Schaefer, we caught up, punched each other in the arm, everything. When the party was moving from Wagner
’
s to this bar called McCormick
’
s, Jeff and I decided that I
’
d be going with him.

“
You
’
ll come with me,
”
he said.

“
Yeah, yeah,
”
I said. I wanted to be eleven again, with him, throwing eggs at cars. But then, as we were walking to his car, I ruined it and said,
“
Jeff, my mom
’
s dying.
”
Just threw it out before I knew what I was doing—

No, that
’
s not right, I knew what I was thinking, had thought of it, had been thinking of telling him all night, as we talked under the porch light, because he knew her, was there from the beginning—but I kind of sprung it when we were walking to the car, and he slowed down, and in his scratchy voice, scratchy even when we were very young, said,
“
I know.
”

And so on the way to the car we were both crying, but just for
a second, and then we got in his car and drove on the highway through town, past Lake Forest and Lake Bluff, and to McCormick
’
s, a roadhouse sort of bar on the way to Libertyville and Waukegan. The lot was full. Everyone, from football players to their hangers-on and anyone, really, had been coming here for years. I had never been.

Inside it was full, and I was struck by the fear that if Jeff knew, everyone there would know. There would be silence, gasping. Snickering. But no one said anything. We walked in and there was that one stout, apple-cheeked guy bartending, Jimmy Walker. There was that Hartenstine guy, huge, older, who once played for the Bears.

And there was Sarah Mulhern. Oh, oh.

We had almost grown up together, Sarah and I, had been on the same swim team when I was nine and she was eleven, were on that swim team for some years after. But we had never once spoken. She was older and a better swimmer. And a much better diver. I was a liability to that swim team, to the diving team. I was a slow swimmer and a hapless diver, wouldn
’
t do an inward, couldn
’
t even pull off a one-and-a-half. She could do
it
all—inwards, one-and-a-halfs, doubles, back one-and-a-halfs, whatever—always with her legs together and toes pointed and the little splash at the end. She was on the medley relay, always won her heats, was the name everyone knew, the name that was broadcast over the loudspeakers. But I never talked to her. Not in junior high or high school, the two years that separated us were too many, and her hair was too straight and blonde, and I had not yet developed the tools to mentally or physically handle the sort of curves she was working with.

But then there she was, Sarah Mulhern, at the bar, and I have no idea how I began talking to her, or much of what we said, but then Jeff was gone and I was getting into the backseat of a car with Sarah, driven by Sarah
’
s friend. The car smelled of smoke and old vinyl. Sarah smoked.

Then we were in her bed, in her parents
’
big house, and there was some of this and that but I passed out before—

I woke up in a canopy bed, and she was already awake, watching me. The furniture and walls were drenched in yellow-white, as if not only the walls but the air itself had been painted. We sat on her floor and talked about grade school, about the retarded kids who we were told to treat kindly, who would die young. We played records, talked about the fall—she was trying to be a teacher, had gotten her certificate and was doing some tutoring.

Then we snuck out through the garage—her parents were home—and she drove me home. As we sat in my driveway, I wanted to say so many things—that I was actually dating someone else, Kirsten, and that what I had done was a mistake, a terrible crime, that I had slipped because I was confused—

But then I saw a figure through the window, someone sitting up in the family room looking at us, and didn
’
t want to explain about my mother to Sarah and didn
’
t want to explain Sarah to my mother so—

We kissed quickly and I jumped out.

That
’
s Sarah.

Yes. You know, the great thing is that this format makes sense, in a way, because an interview where I opened all this up to a stranger with a video camera actually did take place—MTV could conceivably still have the tape (the application had said:
“
We will not be able to return the tape to you and a portion of it could end up being aired in conjunction with the series. Your signature on the application gives us the right to do this
”
)—and besides, squeezing all these things into the Q&A makes complete the transition from the book
’
s first half, which is slightly less self-conscious, to the second half, which is increasingly self-devouring. Because, see, I think what my town, and your show, reflect so wonderfully is that the main by-product of the comfort and prosperity that I
’
m describing
is
a sort of pure, insinuating solipsism, that in the absence of struggle against anything in the way of a common enemy—whether that
’
s poverty, Communists, whatever—all we can do, or rather, all those of us with a bit of self-obsession can do—

Wait a second, how many of you do you think are so self-obsessed?
All the good ones. Or rather, there
’
s actually two ways the self-obsession manifests itself: those that turn it inward, and those that turn it outward. For instance, I have this friend John who just channels it all inward—he talks about his problems, his girlfriend, his poor prospects, how his parents died, on and on, to the point of paralysis—he literally isn
’
t interested in anything else. It
’
s his whole world, the endless exploration of his dark mind, this haunted house of a brain.

And the other kind?

The people who think their personality is so strong, their story so

interesting, that others must know it and learn from it.

Let me guess here, you
—

Well, I pretend that I
’
m the latter, but I
’
m really the former, and desperately so. But still, my feeling is that if you
’
re not self-obsessed you
’
re probably boring. Not that you can always tell the self-obsessed. The best sort of self-obsessed person isn
’
t outwardly so. But they
’
re doing something more public than not, making sure people know that they
’
re doing it, or will know about it sooner or later. I guarantee that the applicants for
The Real World
—I guarantee that if you put all these tapes in a time capsule and opened it in twenty years, you
’
d find that these are the people who are, in one way or another, running the world—at the very least, they
’
ll be the most visible segment of the demographic. Because we
’
ve grown up thinking of ourselves in relation to the political-media-entertainment ephemera, in our safe and comfortable homes, given the time to think about how we would fit into this or that band or TV show or movie, and how we would look doing it. These are people for whom the idea of anonymity is exis-tentially irrational, indefensible. And thus, there is a lot of talking about it all—surely the cultural output of this time will reflect that—there
’
ll be a lot of talking, whole movies full of talking, talking about talking, ruminating about talking about wondering, about our place, our wants and obligations—the blathering of the belle epoque, you know. Environmentally reinforced solipsism.

Solipsism.

Of course. It
’
s inevitable, it
’
s ubiquitous. You see it, right? I mean,

am I the only one seeing the solipsism?

That was a joke.
Yes, yes. So.

So. What do you think you can offer the show?

Well see, I
’
ve thought a lot about this, and I
’
m figuring I
’
ve got it happening two ways: first, I can be the Tragic Guy. Second, we
’
ve got this magazine.

Right. Now what
’
s it called again?
Might.

M-i-t-eP

No, M-i-g-h-t. Everyone spells it M-i-t-e. It
’
s ridiculous. Why would it be named after a bug? Mite is such an obscure word, compared to Might, right?

Well, what
is
it named after?

Well, it
’
s a double entendre, see—you
’
ll love this, this is great, it
can mean two things at once, can sit right on the fence between two meanings—with, in this case,
“
Might
”
meaning both
power
and
possibility.

Oooh.

Yeah. I know. Its good.

And what
’
s it about?

Well, see, that
’
s what
’
s great—it
’
ll be this perfect match. It
’
s geared to the same demographic that you
’
re reaching. We
’
re trying to make clear that we aren
’
t just a bunch of people sitting around farting and watching MTV. I mean, not that there
’
s anything wrong with MTV, really, but—you know what I mean. So yeah, I get on the show, the show films us putting this magazine together, reaching millions, denning the Zeitgeist, inspiring the world
’
s youth to greatness.

Do you work a lot?
Yes.

How much?

I don
’
t know, maybe seventy hours a week. A hundred maybe. I don
’
t know. We all do. We punish ourselves for our comfortable childhoods. Marny probably more than all of us—she waitresses at a restaurant in Oakland, one in San Francisco, but still keeps up with the rest of us... But that
’
s good, right? Young people, working hard to, you know, achieve their dreams, striving for greatness. That
’
s good TV, yes?

Well...

Or not. We
’
re flexible. I mean, I could work less. I could work part-time. I could let the other people do most of the work. Whatever. You tell me.

Well, that would be something we
’
d have to talk about.
Right. Does that mean I
’
ve got the part? I
’
ve got it, right? Don
’
t I shine through the fog of the rest of these loser applicants? All these boring people? I mean, isn
’
t it all perfectly clear now? Don
’
t you want the Tragic Person?

The Tragic Person.

Right. There
’
s seven cast members, right?

Yes.

So, let
’
s work this out. First, you
’
ll get a black person, maybe two— they
’
ll be hip-hop singers or rappers or whatever—and then you
’
ll get a couple of really great-looking people, who will be nice to look at but completely ignorant and prone to terrible faux pas of taste and ignorance, their presence serving two purposes: they a) look wonderful on screen, and b) also serve as foils to the black person or people, who will be much sharper and sawier, but also easily offended, and will delight in raking the dumb people over the coals week after week. So that
’
s three or four people. You
’
ll probably throw in a gay guy or a lesbian, to see how often
they
can get offended, and maybe an Asian or Latino, or both. Or wait. A Native American. You should get a Native American! That would be so great. No one knows any Indians. I mean, I
’
ve never met an Indian. Actually, there was that one guy in college, Cletus, who said he was one-sixteenth— But so you need to get one who
’
s easily offended, not a passive sort. You need someone who
’
ll actually care about and debate the
“
tomahawk chop,
”
the Redskins and everything. That
’
d be great. So. Let
’
s see, that
’
s five or six people so far. Then you
’
ll need a really straight professional type, a doctor or something, a lawyer maybe, someone in grad school. And then me.