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Authors: Paul Lisicky
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brilliance only ends up illuminating the space where the windows once were, and the rocketing fireworks feel desperate—ecstasy can only be sustained for so long. And can I be the only one who is thinking of war now? We are watching the ongoing, meaningless war (Iraq, Afghanistan) that the culture turns into entertainment.
Then everything stops, stills. A puff of smoke shoots up from the roof. The crowd is hungry. Three hundred fifty pounds of dynamite—what else should we expect of ourselves?
And just like that it’s gone. But the way it comes down? It comes down as a person would, balancing there for a minute, stricken. It takes a twist to the left, as if a leg had given way, and falls on its back. I take it personally.
Famous Writers
1986 | The phone rings in my parents’ kitchen on a Thursday morning, sometime in the middle of March. My hello might not be in my actual voice, the voice I use to talk to my parents, but a little deeper, more serious. I don’t know why I talk to Denise in that huskier register, and I don’t spend any time questioning it. Denise will be done teaching for the week after one o’clock, and maybe we will take a drive to Avalon and Cape May.
It isn’t Denise on the phone, but the administrator of the writers conference. The administrator is calling to tell me I’m being offered a working scholarship, which means I’ll be waiting tables at the conference, in exchange for room and board and tuition.
By waiting tables we mean waiting on Famous Writers.
“Do you think you’d like to do that?” says the administrator.
Is my name Paul Lisicky? Is—“I think I’m going to cry,” I say dizzily, after a dense, awkward patch.
“Please don’t do that,” she says, with a frown inside her voice.
“Okay, then I’ll just run around the house twenty times and wag my tail.”
That makes her laugh, which makes me laugh. She gives me the details of what will be expected of me—ten days, three meals a day. But I’m not taking very much of it in. It doesn’t so much matter to me that waiting tables and attending classes and craft talks and readings isn’t exactly a vacation; all I know is that the working scholars have the best time. They’re in the spotlight; they give their own group reading. They’re taken in by everyone, because some of the best-known writers were once waiters. And besides, doesn’t everyone love someone who’s straining at the gate, waiting to rush forward?
I call Denise instantly. I want to tell her first, even before I tell my parents.
She picks up. I tell her that she isn’t going to believe what she’s about to hear.
She must squeal, she must scream—I know she must. But two seconds beyond that, I can’t remember a thing about our conversation. I can’t remember whether she’s telling me who to say hello to. I can’t remember whether she’s telling me who to stay away from. Surely she must be giving me tips about the weather, the mix of hot and cold—one minute it’s eighty-seven, the next a cloud comes over the mountain and you’re shivering in your barn coat, hands shoved in your pockets.
My mind is drifting toward my image of that mountain, which looks lethal in its power, like my idea of Mont Blanc, which I discuss in a thirty-page bullshitty paper I’ve just written on Shelley’s spirituality. Up to this point my work has only been seen by Denise, by my teacher Lisa Zeidner, and the students in Lisa’s workshops. What will it mean to have my work seen by people who don’t know me, people to whom I haven’t already said supportive things?
If I hear any envy in Denise’s voice, I respond by pretending it’s not there. If she doesn’t hear any confusion or guilt in me, then she’ll know there’s no reason for her to feel left out. Competition will not be real if I decide we’re to be above all that.
Is that what I’ll do for the next twenty-some years of our friendship?
And maybe that’s why she says, with a hardness
Then everything stops, stills. A puff of smoke shoots up from the roof. The crowd is hungry. Three hundred fifty pounds of dynamite—what else should we expect of ourselves?
And just like that it’s gone. But the way it comes down? It comes down as a person would, balancing there for a minute, stricken. It takes a twist to the left, as if a leg had given way, and falls on its back. I take it personally.
Famous Writers
1986 | The phone rings in my parents’ kitchen on a Thursday morning, sometime in the middle of March. My hello might not be in my actual voice, the voice I use to talk to my parents, but a little deeper, more serious. I don’t know why I talk to Denise in that huskier register, and I don’t spend any time questioning it. Denise will be done teaching for the week after one o’clock, and maybe we will take a drive to Avalon and Cape May.
It isn’t Denise on the phone, but the administrator of the writers conference. The administrator is calling to tell me I’m being offered a working scholarship, which means I’ll be waiting tables at the conference, in exchange for room and board and tuition.
By waiting tables we mean waiting on Famous Writers.
“Do you think you’d like to do that?” says the administrator.
Is my name Paul Lisicky? Is—“I think I’m going to cry,” I say dizzily, after a dense, awkward patch.
“Please don’t do that,” she says, with a frown inside her voice.
“Okay, then I’ll just run around the house twenty times and wag my tail.”
That makes her laugh, which makes me laugh. She gives me the details of what will be expected of me—ten days, three meals a day. But I’m not taking very much of it in. It doesn’t so much matter to me that waiting tables and attending classes and craft talks and readings isn’t exactly a vacation; all I know is that the working scholars have the best time. They’re in the spotlight; they give their own group reading. They’re taken in by everyone, because some of the best-known writers were once waiters. And besides, doesn’t everyone love someone who’s straining at the gate, waiting to rush forward?
I call Denise instantly. I want to tell her first, even before I tell my parents.
She picks up. I tell her that she isn’t going to believe what she’s about to hear.
She must squeal, she must scream—I know she must. But two seconds beyond that, I can’t remember a thing about our conversation. I can’t remember whether she’s telling me who to say hello to. I can’t remember whether she’s telling me who to stay away from. Surely she must be giving me tips about the weather, the mix of hot and cold—one minute it’s eighty-seven, the next a cloud comes over the mountain and you’re shivering in your barn coat, hands shoved in your pockets.
My mind is drifting toward my image of that mountain, which looks lethal in its power, like my idea of Mont Blanc, which I discuss in a thirty-page bullshitty paper I’ve just written on Shelley’s spirituality. Up to this point my work has only been seen by Denise, by my teacher Lisa Zeidner, and the students in Lisa’s workshops. What will it mean to have my work seen by people who don’t know me, people to whom I haven’t already said supportive things?
If I hear any envy in Denise’s voice, I respond by pretending it’s not there. If she doesn’t hear any confusion or guilt in me, then she’ll know there’s no reason for her to feel left out. Competition will not be real if I decide we’re to be above all that.
Is that what I’ll do for the next twenty-some years of our friendship?
And maybe that’s why she says, with a hardness
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