I love the thrill that is walking through Deep Ellum, easily the most sensory neighborhood in Dallas. With the varied and competing aromas of its eateries, to the ever-present public music, to the funky murals on its 1930's factory architecture to the outlaw, bohemian crowd it attracts, it suits the artistic side of me I so rarely get to display as a print journalist.
But times are tough for us old fashioned journalists. It's no longer what you know, but what they think you know. Stir the pot, roil the masses, grab the eyeballs. "I Bought My Five Year Old A Stripper Pole" How can I compete with the lusty rush to judgement that headline entails? Even standing here in the midst in my most favorite of places proves bittersweet with my life on the line in these most heretic of times.
"You want to know what's wrong with the media today? I'll tell you what's fucking wrong: they want to eat just like everybody else! Don't anyone tell me you're any better than that because you're not. Where the fuck is their goddam integrity? Answer me that!"
Yeah, yeah, I was on a roll, preaching to the sympathetic ears of my fellow reporters in arms. "You're supposed to hold their feet to the fire! Ask hard questions. So I can what, lose my access, my job, my house? What the fuck good does that do?" Many enthusiastic grunts resounded from my colleagues on that one. I imagined my words in print.
"I'll tell you what the real fucking problem is. It's all these dead-head people who don't want the truth, just pretty lies and petty cries. They'd rather hear if the princess farted at the wedding than to know there's treachery afoot to wipe out their jobs. But by God, when they lose that job they come storming the gates asking why!"
Yes, I was feeling a bit self-conscious about this whole rant, but dammit I was pissed! "Let's put the shoe on the other foot, shall we? What's the penalty for the great unwashed's lack of integrity? Who holds their feet to the fire? Who's going to support me when I burn those lying fuckers we're stuck listening to every damn day? Answer me that and I'll give you bucket loads of truth like you ain't never seen!"
Street corner preacher man fed off the hearty cheers of his kept congregation. I can't tell you what a stinging resentment it is to watch the untalented but dishonest rise in a trade that once meant the pride of a nation. I always said Watergate was the death knell of journalism because after that no wanted to hear the truth of who we were idiotic enough to elect. But even my faithful need melt back into the misery of the day, leaving me to myself.
In that singular moment in the dying sun of the day, I'd never felt so isolated. The once charming Ellum buildings dripped of drabness. I was pointless as a man on the moon and I began to question every decision I'd ever made. It was a piercing pain of feeling split open and left to die as the world walks by. Was it me who was the fool after all? If the universe came to take me in this moment, I'd of resisted not. Is fear and pain all there really is?
But it wasn't the universe, or God or the devil or angels who spoke to me next, but an intercom on a wall. Nevertheless, it startled the holy shit out of me!
"Do you want to come inside?"
I almost tripped as I stumbled around and then I realized where I was: in front of The Gatsby House, as we named it. The owner, rumor had it, was a cross between the Great Gatsby and Howard Hughes. And like both those characters stories gleefully sprung up to fill in the missing pieces. I never listened to any of them, especially the tired and lame tale of "he's killed somebody!" Breathless bitches.
It's hard to explain the place in my mind where The Gatsby House resides. It stands in the shadows of Deep Ellum like a watchful spy. More than once I'd heard passers-by say, "That's a house?" It's been said quite forcefully that if one looks through the criss-crossed lathing at the bottom of the fence one can see messages in the rocks. For some reason, I was always too afraid to check that out, thinking I guess I'd be more bothered to find it true than to stay ignorant. At last, I was part of the willfully ignorant masses!
It did not feel good.
So it was a curious mixture of shock and surprise and guilt when that voice reached out to me. I couldn't say no and live with myself and frankly, my reporter's instincts were on fire. But in the back of my mind sirens of danger rang loud and clear. Stupid guilt held me fast.
"You sure you mean me?" God, did I feel stupid saying that!
"Yes, I mean exactly you. I've been listening to you. I have a story to tell and I think you're the man to hear it. Am I wrong about that?"
The devil he was! I knew regardless of how many protestations proffered in the end I would say yes. Alert and tense as a man headed to the electric chair I told him I was his man as the electromagnetic locked snapped open and I entered the forbidden compound like a visitor to an ancient Chinese emperor. Oh hell, what was I letting myself in for! Considering my stressful position in life, my track record of decision making left me less than hopeful.
Having been summoned I knew I did not need to knock. The finely carved, inlaid wood door was not locked, silently swinging open to a small, tiled foyer about six feet in depth. On either side were what looked like snapped electrical cables, the big kind like you see on power lines draping the street after storms. The edges were frayed of a thousand smaller wires and I thought to myself, if those cables are live I'd be a dead man to touch them! But no one's crazy enough for a thing like that.
I stepped down into a modern but warm hallway highlighted with copies (or not?) of Miro dream prints that led to an inviting living area where the owner of the clarion voice stood waiting. But it wasn't he who spoke first but the complete, utter wreckage of the room. An image popped into my mind of a thousand angry children having stormed the place, tearing it to pieces, overturning furniture, wreaking vengeance against the ever-oppressive adult world. The word that came to me: fury. But when I looked into the faintly smirking eyes of the white-linened man in the back corner I knew it was he who'd done this - every last little bit.
There's a story here, I knew. But he needs to let it unfold his way and now is not the time for questions. After he let me get my fill of his "wreck room" he gestured me towards a swim down a post-modern hallway into an area of complete blackness. The walls oozing black. Black out curtains. Hideous, sinking black carpet. From beginning to end a feeling had been tugging me in greater and greater urgency: run! It was to the point I felt I could no longer ignore it no matter how indefensible it might seem.
Then he spoke.
"When I'm in here I'm not me anymore. I travel the universe. I have to...have a place like this."
I felt myself in the presence of a blinding awareness. He casually reading my thoughts and I strangely obliging him. It reminded me of the passage from one of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby:
He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.
It's one thing to read of it, quite another to experience it! Thank God I didn't have to speak at that moment for my composure was bleeding badly. I knew he had one more terrible secret for me and thus was compelled to share what little he did to keep me on his string. I didn't like where this was heading but we both knew I had to continue down this apocalyptic river. And there it was in the final room.
High and sturdy from the ceiling: a noose made for hanging a man. I stumbled backwards but found no place to sit. Words entered my ear from I know not where.
"It's my only hope..."
In a slow motion dream my face turned to see his true face at last. Contorted, confused, crestfallen. A man needing out. A wonderful show for the world he'd made, this Lizard of Oz. I had not stepped further than a few dozen feet from my spot out on the sidewalk a few minutes ago, but in that space I felt I'd spent a lifetime and journeyed across the stars. His face changed now, still pained but a wry smile of apology like a paraplegic begging to give a hug. For better or worse I was drawn in. Who is this guy?
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