It's a feeling of quiet creeping horror. As if I'm sliding down a frictionless hill right off the face of the earth. I can decide to stop but it makes no difference. I try to turn to the left, or the right, but down I still go. Seems I've lost all my say on an irrevocable path to doom.
I could scream or ask for help but what good would it do? I just keep flailing, grasping at anything to find traction, the answer (if there even is one) slips through my fingers. The Army asks if I can make the cut. Preacher man asks me to join the fold. Salesman asks if I've got the New Hip. But these fatal fathers are false. Who can help me? Who would try? Who could help me even if they did try?
I guess I must explain before I do slide off. Like a pinball deflecting off a bumper, my life has changed direction. The Woman Of Fabric got under my skin and into my head. One is no longer content with dog food after tasting steak. All you can think about is getting that steak again - no matter how impossible. I have over eight hundred million dollars, now suddenly useless.
The pleasure of her company - i.e. true pleasure - is gone from me. But when I went back to my traditional pleasures - my cars, my travel, my women - the pleasure is gone from them too. Oh, my. The further I slide down the hill, the clearer my sin. Because I can find nothing inside of me the outside is lost too. I'm sinking in the quicksand of futility.
It's obvious now what a tight edge I'd been walking. I've been living the good life since I was born. Why the fuck not? I always made a big show of it - covering up like a lot of my ilk do. But a secret dream had I: to be a person of worth. I could care less about business or finance or worldly games. Big money allows you to hide in all sorts of useless endeavors in the name of "responsibility". In the end, it's just busywork; a distraction. I wanted my distractions to be in the Egyptian sun of the Pyramids, sailing around the world on my yacht, and never a bikini far away. You can keep your office make-work!
I do have an office, though. It's a lovely pretense and gives excuse to ride high up into the Dallas skyscrapers as if I have real business to conduct. They bow and scrape before me, no one questioning my presence. "He's rich! He must be important, doing important things!" I found my fraudulence an amusing con. There actually is some paperwork on occasion to take care of but really, no office required for that. This fraud, however, is no longer amused.
I had hoped/dreamed/wished/fantasized/pleaded there is something real I can do in this world. I hadn't given up on me - and that is what allowed pleasure to my carnal cravings under the sun. I watched my mates slide into guilt (mostly from benefactor parents) by taking up phony positions and phony marriage contracts. Once trapped, they tried to lure me in too but I flicked away their concerns without a second thought. I'm the last holdout for decadence. Frankly, it had been a point of pride.
But when handed the reins of something real, I freaked and ran away. After a lifetime of refusing to face the mirror, I fled the altar's steps, refusing my bride. What if the box of fate's fortune is found to be empty?? I thought I was smart to be able to keep my lies alive, to not know of me, i.e. keep the party going! Then the thought hit me like the gates of hell opening up: I had left a treasure trove after all. Those weren't just fairy tales and myths I'd abandoned.
I pace the patio of my seven million dollar penthouse like a caged and restless lion. I think to myself, "What would they think if they could see me now? I'd be mocked from end to end." None of the old tricks work anymore! These realities - I had not counted on them. I never really thought it mattered if I was anything real because the world never really thought I mattered either. I fear the dark as the black hands of Mordor strangle me in the night tortuous and unforgiving. I cannot go on this way - even if I were to decide to.
I have begun to disconnect. I feign interest in my old pursuits and "life" as if I'm an actor reciting a memorized script. I know the words to say, everyone acts as if they still believe me - but I don't believe me. Sitting at an outdoor cafe at West Village shopping center seeing my Aston Martin parked up front to be shown off by the restaurant means nothing to me now. The idea of travel interests me not. Women are strangers in my bed. Everywhere I go is still me. All I can think is: "Keep the lie alive. It's all you've got left."
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