“I will be dead very soon if they don’t bring me my food.”
The food arrived. We had a bottle of wine. She took a migraine pill.
During dinner, we received many congratulatory texts of kindness and love, and read messages aloud to one another for an hour and smiled until our eyes hurt. Later, we walked to the hotel and tiptoed into the quiet hotel room, everyone deep in their own dreams. Lauren checked to see if everyone was breathing, and I placed the hundred-pound plaque in my bag, secretly hoping TSA officials might ask to inspect it.
We turned off the light, exhausted.
“Where’s the check?” Lauren said in the dark.
“In my shoe,” I said.
The sad truth was that the prize money would barely cover the Wi-Fi charges at the Marriott. We both knew this. But it had been worth it.
We become who we become for reasons we cannot always know, because of what we saw our mothers love, or our fathers hate, and because of what we need deep down inside the places that others don’t know about, such as respect, or security, or adoration. What I needed, I guess, was the freedom to drink before noon and wander the house in my underwear, and I needed at least one other human who believed all the naked wandering might yield fruit, and that human was on the other side of the bed, probably trying not to think about plane crashes and heart attacks and all the skeletons in the water we were going to fly over in the morning.
She is hilarious and hurting and mean and made of iron and mercy, this woman who had plenty of reasons to walk away, or run. She often left the room, occasionally slammed doors, stood on the threshold in storms as if she wanted the wind to sweep her away for all time, but she stayed, and held my hand through the birth of this terrible beautiful fantasy that has constituted my life’s work. How do you say thank you? How do you say thank you to all the people in your life who carried you here, who handed you along in your search for meaning and purpose? You are flanked by love at every turn. There is no way around it.
Nobody tells you that these revelations are the currency of human life, that if you’re lucky, you’ll feel like an idiot, perpetually, eternally, realizing every day new blessings that surround you, have surrounded you for years, if you’d have only looked, new mercies every morning, which had been there all along.
“Night, night,” Lauren said.
“Night, night,” I said.
She reached out for me in the dark, as I reached for her.
Postlude to an American Dream
Do something worth talking about and become famous. Make it look normal.
—WRITTEN ON A NOTECARD FOUND BY AUTHOR MIKE SACKS INSIDE A COPY OF Comedy Fillers BY ROBERT ORBEN (1961)
SPRING NOW, A WHOLE NEW YEAR
WILL YOU SPEAK AT CAREER DAY?” STARGOAT ASKED.
“Okay,” I said. “But I will embarrass you. You know this.”
“The teacher wants you to inspire us,” she said.
“Do I inspire you?”
She looked out the window. “I guess,” she said.
On the day of my presentation, I made the short walk to the Habersham School, where my wife works and my children learn. The school, or most of it, lives inside Gould Cottage, a wide Tudor manse that lay across a sward of Savannah green like a great old goose that had spread its wings and lain down to rest. Gould had once, long ago, served as the Savannah Female Orphan Asylum, though now it served as an asylum for children with parents.
I like school buildings, always have. With a teacher for a mom, you spend a lot of time in them, on weekends, in summers, when buildings are empty and dark and clean, trembling with memory and promise, awaiting the trample and din of dreamers. Gould was not empty on this day, but humming, alive. They buzzed me in and I made my way to the modest assembly room, where I evaded notice and sat in back. About fifty or sixty students, some as young as five, including all three of my incredible daughters, stared toward the front with vague enthusiasm as the speakers made their pitches. I was up against a nurse, a dentist, and a golf pro.
For most of human history, these children’s career options would have been much simpler, back when you did whatever your parents did, which was usually to die of typhoid. If your father was an evil overlord, you became an evil overlord. If your mother was a subjugated washerwoman, then maybe, with hard work, you became a subjugated washerwoman-slash-leech-gatherer. But today, thanks to the Magna Carta, penicillin, and LinkedIn, there exist many kinds of subjugation to aspire to. Plagues no longer plague. Today, we are plagued with dreams.
I watched the others, before it was my turn.
Everybody had visual aids. The pro had his irons and woods. The dentist had her giant toothbrush. The children were very excitable. The class clowns were easy to spot, performing maneuvers with the enormous dental tool as it was passed to them, brushing their hair with it, their underarms and such. That would have been me, a lifetime ago, or yesterday. I could respect this behavior. Sometimes, comedy’s all you got.
The nurse, she was good with people, you could tell. “Nursing is my calling,” she said. “Helping others brings me so much joy.”
The dentist, this was not her first rodeo. Following the revelation of the novelty toothbrush, she revealed a pair of non-chattering teeth, which had an almost ecstatic effect on the children. She then concluded with what I felt were unfair remarks on the dangers of candy.
They called me up last.
“My name is Dr. Harrison Scott Key,” I said, “and I am bad at almost everything.”
The children laughed. So far, so good.
“Does anybody know what I’m a doctor of?” I asked.
Approximately every hand shot up.
“Yes, you,” I said, to an eager young lady up front.
“I want to be a dolphin,” she said.
“Fun,” I said.
“My cat has three legs,” a little boy next to her explained.
“Amazing,” I said. “Does anybody know what I am a doctor of? It has little to do with sea mammals and cats, I am afraid.”
“You’re a doctor of nothing!” came a voice from the bobbing mass of heads. It was Beetle, hiding somewhere in the middle. Children really are full of darkness.
“Who thinks this delinquent child is right?” I said. “Who thinks I’m a doctor of nothing?”
All of them, apparently. The monsters continued to laugh madly. Some of the children laughed so hard their bones could no longer hold them upright, and they slid to the floor. Two boys appeared to be filled by the Holy Spirit and danced up and down the aisle.
The teachers performed a little ritual designed to quiet the children, while I observed, greatly pleased that I had caused so much human exhilaration.
Finally, the room grew quiet again. The teachers knew their work.
“Well, that little girl is right,” I said. “A doctor of nothing is exactly what I am.”
I told them how books and stories did feel like nothing, sometimes. They start as invisible things, in the imagination, and they take on materiality in the figure of a book, and then they go into someone else’s imagination, turning invisible once more.
“Who wants to be a writer?” I said.
There, sitting near the last row, Stargoat raised her hand, tentatively, smiling. I smiled back, gave my girl a wink.
“A dream is very much like a book,” I said. “It is an invisible thing in your heart, that nobody can see, except you. Sometimes not even you can see it.”
“Like nothing,” I said. “Light as air. Insubstantial as a cloud.”
The room was quiet now. Many were leaning forward. They believed.
I turned on my PowerPoint, and I showed them funny pictures, of my family, of a squirrel reading my book, of a deer hanging from my childhood swing set, and explained how this puzzling and incongruous image shaped my life and made me the freak I am, and how if they are blessed, they will one day learn how they became the freaks they will one day be. I showed them the Thurber Prize, grandiloquent and glinting in the light, and t
hey oohed and aahed, and I showed them my Most Hideous Boy trophy, and they laughed violently, pleased to know that a man so freakish had made something of himself.
“Are you really famous?” a boy asked.
“No,” I said. “But I was on TV once.”
“Cool!” he said.
I did not say that it was a local program and that the other guest on the show that day was a lady discussing the artificial insemination of bees.
“I was made to feel more important than I am, for a time,” I said, and I told them how my modest notoriety, fleeting as it was, resulted in many extraordinary episodes. For example, I was asked to judge important contests, mostly regarding pie.
“And I won’t lie, it was awesome,” I said. “You sit there and they bring the pie to you. It’s actually pretty easy if you focus and don’t scream at people too much.”
I looked out at all their eager faces, this roomful of little yearning machines, designed to love and want and work, and felt heaven heave with holy breath, that we are, all of us, made to dream. I could see in their faces the burning desire to know, to learn the nature of their destinies and seize them, to discover the truth: Did I bring candy for them, or no?
I told them what I came to tell them, which is that I am no hero. I have not discovered vaccines. I am not airlifting refugees from tyrannical governments here. All I am is a writer whose American dream came true, and to me, that is remarkable. It is more than remarkable. It is a wonder, a most happy miracle. It could happen to them, too, if they believed, and drove themselves to the very precipice of talent and sanity, such that they, too, may one day find themselves living in a home with more ceiling fans than one could possibly fathom.
The little baby of my dream was born and was nurtured and kept alive by the love of my family and the immeasurable kindnesses of friends and strangers and the favor of almighty God, and it grew big and strong and made this beautiful life possible, such that I can now open my inbox to find a festival itinerary that reads, “3:30 p.m.—I’ll pick you up at the Hampton Inn and take you to the site of the pie contest.”
“Who likes cakes and pies?” I asked.
Most of the children raised their hands.
“And who likes candy?” I said.
All the children raised their hands, almost touched the ceiling.
I reached into my backpack and pulled forth the largest sack of lollipops to be found in coastal Georgia, and I lifted it high, like the head of my enemy, and the crowd went wild.
Appendix A
BOOKSTORES, FESTIVALS, AND RELATED TOUR PERFORMANCES THAT WERE FUN AND ALMOST KILLED ME
2015 AJC Decatur Book Festival, Decatur, Georgia
2016 Georgia OBGyn Society Annual Meeting, Sea Island, Georgia
2016 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Discovery Show, Savannah, Georgia
A Capella Books, Atlanta, Georgia
Alabama Booksmith, Birmingham, Alabama
Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee
Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference 2016, Los Angeles, California
Baylor School, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Belhaven University, Jackson, Mississippi
Blue Bicycle Books, Charleston, South Carolina
BookPeople, Austin, Texas
Booksellers of Laurelwood, Memphis, Tennessee
Château de Lacoste, SCAD Lacoste, Lacoste, France
Country Bookshop, Southern Pines, North Carolina
Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, Jacksonville, Florida
E. Shaver Books, Savannah, Georgia
Fall for the Book Festival, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
Faulkner House Books, New Orleans, Louisiana
Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home, Savannah, Georgia
Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, Virginia
Glen Workshop, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Golden Nugget Biloxi Hotel & Casino, Biloxi, Mississippi
Hub City Bookshop, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Ivy Hall, SCAD Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia
Jackson Preparatory School, Jackson, Mississippi
Lemuria Books, Jackson, Mississippi
Literary Death Match, Nashville, Tennessee
Literary Guild of St. Simons Island, St. Simons Island, Georgia
Louisiana Book Festival, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
M. Judson Booksellers, Greenville, South Carolina
Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, Asheville, North Carolina
Marshes of Glynn Libraries, Brunswick, Georgia
McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro, North Carolina
Mid-South Book Festival, Memphis, Tennessee
Mills University Studies High School, Little Rock, Arkansas
Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi
Mississippi School for the Arts, Brookhaven, Mississippi
Neshoba County Fair, Philadelphia, Mississippi
Nightbird Books, Fayetteville, Arkansas
Octavia Books, New Orleans, Louisiana
Ole Miss (University of Mississippi), Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford American, Little Rock, Arkansas
Page & Palette, Fairhope, Alabama
Park Road Books, Charlotte, North Carolina
Parnassus, Nashville, Tennessee
Pomegranate Books, Wilmington, North Carolina
Purple Crow Books, Hillsborough, North Carolina
Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, North Carolina
St. Andrew’s Society, Savannah, Georgia
St. Johns County Public Library System, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida
Savannah Bar Association, Savannah, Georgia
Savannah Book Festival, Savannah, Georgia
Savannah Rotary Club, Savannah, Georgia
SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia
SCADshow, Atlanta, Georgia
SCBook Festival, Columbia, South Carolina
Seersucker Live, Savannah, Georgia
South on Main, Little Rock, Arkansas
Southern Festival of Books, Nashville, Tennessee
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois
Southern Lit Alliance, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Square Books, Oxford, Mississippi
Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading, St. Petersburg, Florida
Texas Book Festival, Austin, Texas
Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, Oxford, Mississippi
The Book Lady Bookstore, Savannah, Georgia
The Florida Heritage Book Festival, St. Augustine, Florida
The Habersham School, Savannah, Georgia
The home of Emily and Guy McClain, Jackson, Mississippi
The home of Emily and Toff Murray, New Orleans, Louisiana
The Shoe Burnin’ Show, Columbia, South Carolina
The Shoe Burnin’ Show, Savannah, Georgia
The Wild Detectives, Dallas, Texas
Thurber House, Columbus, Ohio
Turning Pages Books & More, Natchez, Mississippi
Turnrow Book Co., Greenwood, Mississippi
University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville, Virginia
Walker Percy Weekend, St. Francisville, Louisiana
WORD, Brooklyn, New York
Words and Music Festival: A Literary Feast in New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana
Word of South: A Festival of Literature & Music, Tallahassee, Florida
Writing in Place Conference, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Appendix B
PEOPLE WHO GAVE ME A CLEAN PLACE TO SLEEP DURING THE TOUR OR HELPED ME IN OTHER VERY SPECIFIC AND OCCASIONALLY INEFFABLE WAYS AND DID NOT USUALLY CHARGE A FEE
April Cheek and Mark Blanton
Ariel Felton
Austin Bolen
Beth Ann Fennelly and Tommy Franklin
Brian Floyd
Brian Perr
y
Calvert Morgan
Carol Ann Fitzgerald
Cathy Doty
Chia Chong and Amy Zurcher
Chris Offutt
Cille Norman
Curtis Wilke
Daniel Pritchett
Davey Kim
David Rush
Dayton Castleman
Deborah Grosvenor
Eliza Borné and the staff of the Oxford American
Emily and Guy McClain
Eric Svenson
Gebre Menfes Kidus
George Dawes Green
George Hodgman
Greg Thompson
Gregory Henry
Gregory Wolfe
Hannah Hayes
Hilary Chandler
Hill Honeck and Family
James Lough
Jamie Quatro
Jan and John Remington
Jay Jennings
Jeannie Stock
Jessica and Jason Miller
Jill and Joel Bell
Jim Dees
Jim Tyler Anderson
Joe Birbiglia
John Hanners
John Maxwell
John T. Edge
Joni Saxon-Gusti
Karin Wolf Wilson
Katherine Sandoz
Kelly Pickerill
Laura Brown
Lee Griffith
Lisa and Clint “Bird” Striplin
Marc Smirnoff
Melanie Black
Mike Sacks
Nate Henderson
Neil White
Paula and Glenn Wallace
Richard Grant
Rod Dreher
Roy Blount Jr.
Sarah and Michael Spencer
Scott Spivey
Shari Smith and the Shoe Burnin’ Show
Shelby and Hudson Segrest
Tanya Key Mansfield
Teresa and Jeremy Roberts
The Finn McCool Fellowship
Tim Taylor
Virginia Morell
Wanda Jewell and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance
Wynn Kenyon
Appendix C
FURTHER READING AND WATCHING ON THE NATURE OF WORK, ART, AMBITION, FAME, SUCCESS, FAMILY, LOVE, AND/OR THE GLORIES AND PERILS OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
A Cool Million by Nathanael West (novel)
Act One by Moss Hart (memoir)
Advertisements for Myself by Norman Mailer (memoir)