The cloud of witnesses

When I Sit Down to Write

When I sit down to write, a miniscule Ralph Waldo Emerson stands on my shoulder and whispers: Why not have an original relationship to the universe.

And I whisper back to Emerson: Why not go f#*& yourself?

And Bret Easton Ellis comes and knocks on the door and demands that I find a good bottle of wine because Jay McInerney is coming in a few minutes, after he drops something off at a neighbors’.

And Donna Tartt comes in right behind Bret Easton Ellis (who is taking a note in a notebook that has a picture of the Go-Gos on it, from the 1982 Vacation video in which Belinda Carlyle and all the girls are waving from their water skies while wearing frilly tutus) and says, “Hi, I’m Donna,” and she throws a cigarette down on my side yard.

And I try to remember if Sovereignty Wine delivers or not and if there is time to have something delivered before Jay McInerney arrives. Otherwise it is a 12 dollar bottle of red blend, Walla Walla’s finest, 2011.

“Ethan Canin’s not coming, is he? I could not hear one more fucking story about medical school and the corpus.” It was James Baldwin, being catty. Who knew that James Baldwin had shown up?

Not me, instead I prayed and prayed and prayed, “Please g*d, if we’ve gotten this far, please please please send Toni Morrison.”

A voice in my ear again (that rat bastard Waldo again): “See, that’s what I mean. Let Toni Morrison be Toni Morrison. Baby Suggs, she gets to create. You can riff on her if you’d like but you’ll never ever grab hold of that. Baby Suggs is hers. Yours is yours. This is what I was telling those kids in Cambridge back in ’38. Be real. Tell them something of your own life. Don’t speak out of someone else playbook — sacred or otherwise. Jesus, man.”

I smile/whispered back: “I know what you were trying to tell the kids back in 38. I’ve had to read your little essay a thousand times. I’ve nearly memorized it. And by the way, you got a number of things dead wrong. Now quiet, I want to find out if I should be bitter about not going to Bennington like all the cool kids.”

Donna Tartt: James, honey, could you possibly do a little recitation from The Devil Finds Work? I do love those words so much.

James Baldwin: I don’t do requests. And I only read that when W.E.B. shows up. I liked your little book with the college kids who kill one of their own and in 199-whatever you nailed the whole suspicious muslim terrorist hysteria thing, very prescient. As if a muslim terrorist would go after a preppy kid in Vermont. Good one.

He lights up a cigarette. “Not inside.” (That’s me.)

He ignores me. “I told you about the time I was a stranger in that village in Switzerland, right?” “Yes, a million times,” everyone says, including Emerson-on-my-shoulder, who adds: “But I will never tire of it.”

“Rufus Wainwright or The Cure?” Bret Easton Ellis asks. Rufus, I say, and the air is full of operatic pop with a touch of 1960s a.m. I think I’ll be able to talk them into Steely Dan, even though they think me so suburban when I go there.

Jay McInerney opens the door. “Look, who I found,” he says. Michael Chabon comes in holding a Golem, both looking disheveled. “There’s a Rabbi in Denver who can cast a spell and bring them to life. They are higher maintenance than you’d imagine.” I never found any other wine, other than the Walla-Walla red, so Bret opens it up, glasses are handed around, and Emerson-on-my-shoulder looks at Donna Tartt as she says, “Ok, everyone is here. What ya got?”

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially that which so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race set before us. Hebrews 12.1