Walking high above it all has its risks
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- March 27, 2021
- 785
Writers are creatures of habit, most of them bad.
The habits, not the writers, although, well, let’s not go there.
We tend to be very fond of our routines and find comfort — and sometimes more than a little inspiration — when we are surrounded by totems and artifacts and mementos, the accumulated detritus of a life lived on the margins, never quite fitting in, always outsiders.
Disruptions can be disastrous.
I’ve always adhered to the theory that what’s right for me is wrong for you; simply put, you can’t know what it feels like to be me.
And yet, that’s my job.
Sometimes, though, I grow weary of explaining the strain of stringing together coherent word chains, wishing I’d chosen to be a fruit seller in Little Italy or a tour guide in Williamsburg instead.
But writing pays the bills, so far, and I’m lucky to still be doing it.
I had wanted to devote this week’s work to an examination of hate.
The world seems to thrive on it, especially lately.
My brother — whose writing can be found between hard covers — is fond of saying hate is “just too much work,” and I understand his point of view, which stems from our mother’s lifelong pursuit of holding grudges, turning it into an art form, akin to origami.
She possessed that rather rare genetic sequencing that made it possible — essential, even — to maintain and improve her put-upon feelings of being wronged even as she rubbed shoulders with the very same people she believed, with a fury, were responsible.
Mom was a complicated, complex woman, and I knew enough to steer clear of her when she was sharpening her talons, taking a mental inventory of those on her metaphoric hit list, doing her very best Brando as she brooded and bided her time.
She was a “Godfather” devotee and imagined herself inhabiting a spatial place she called “the compound,” a safe zone, walled off from the world, a family-only enclosure where the business of settling scores was conducted and the wine flowed like water.
But that’s as far as my mother ever got. She wasn’t going to walk into a restaurant and gun down a police captain and a Mafia chief.
Instead, she taught at the local college, raised three children and was a loving, caring spouse, albeit one with dangerous daydreams.
I’ve been mainlining a Showtime series titled “Billions” lately, and as I began the second season, another version of hate presented itself. The story is a simple one, old as the Bible, timely as today’s splintered world of divisiveness and mistrust: hunter v. hunted.
A slimy hedge fund mogul is being pursued by a dogged U.S. attorney, and the machinations each employs to outwit the other are operatic in their grandiosity and awe-inspiring in their skill.
It’s not a show that features much in the way of what is usually conceived of as action; in fact, it’s 99% dialogue, and that’s probably why I’ve enjoyed it so much. Screenwriting is an awfully difficult thing to do well, and the best make it look easy.
Frequently, I’ll watch a slice of a scene several times, marveling at the word choices, hoping to decode the secret to that kind of art.
“Hate is one of our most sustainable resources,” says Bobby Axlerod, the antihero whose ability to see around corners and play 3-D mental chess lies at the heart of “Billions.”
And he’s right.
We’ve all been there, stewing in our bilious juices, picturing Gollum as he ponders revenge after Bilbo’s theft of his “precious.”
Consider “The Sting,” the 1973 film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a couple of grifters bent on avenging the death of a friend at the hands of an unctuous Robert Shaw.
At some point Newman’s Henry Gondorff says something like this to Redford’s Johnny Hooker: “Don’t go thinking there’s more because that’s all we’re gonna get.”
In other words, even righting a grievous wrong isn’t like a rigged game of poker, played on a train, as rivals try to outdo one another.
Sometimes, you have to settle for the next best thing.
Hooker sees this in the end.
“It’s not enough,” he says with a winner’s grin, “but it’s close.”
Movies like “The Sting” and television series like “Billions” provide an escape from a cruel world that lets us down, often with deflating and debilitating after-effects, including the discomfiting realization that — to paraphrase Norm from “Cheers” — it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and we’re wearing Milk Bone underpants.
“Everybody knows the dice are loaded,” wrote the late, lamented Leonard Cohen. “Everybody knows the good guys lost.”
So as I’ve been sitting here, sharing my thoughts on getting even, it occurs to me part of my problem is that when stuff gets moved around in my writing space — no need to go into specifics — the world seems off-kilter and out of balance and it’s scary.
Have you ever seen the documentary titled “Man on a Wire?”
It tells the story of a guy named Philippe Petit and how, in 1974, he determined he would string a wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and walk across it. In the aftermath of 9/11, it’s taken on a new dimension of nuance and subliminal urgency, but that only enhances the viewing experience.
I remember the first time I saw it. I was back home, visiting the home of a woman who had, at one time, been a very close friend. Timing and circumstances prevented us from getting serious about a relationship, but we’d maintained our friendship over the years.
“Man on a Wire” is one of those rare dramas that renders all communication pointless. You are spellbound from start to finish, and as the tale unfolded that evening in her living room, silence held sway. You just couldn’t believe what you were seeing, the way Philippe Petit cloud-walked his way — more than 100 stories up, Manhattan beneath his slender frame, a yawning maw — into performance art history. It’s a breathless, moving accomplishment.
And that’s how it can feel sometimes, this world with all its callousness and cruelty, a hostile place where survival of the fittest often zeroes out those whose bankbooks aren’t big enough, whose lives are dwarfed into nothingness, whose dreams don’t matter.
I promise to get my work space back in order before I write again.
Thanks for bearing silent witness to my high-wire act this week.