And every time I fail, now, I feel like a fool, and I’m ashamed of myself. And that isn’t a complaint. When you act like a fool, you should feel like a fool and be ashamed of yourself.
In fact, the reason I ultimately quit Panacea (though I didn’t understand it this way at the time) was that it denied me the capacity to feel like a fool and be ashamed of myself: the most important capacity for a writer to have. And, sure, yes—or maybe, at least—that’s an overstatement, the most important capacity for a writer to have. But during the three-plus weeks I was taking the stuff and foolishly failing over and again to use my nonexistent volume knob (and yet not feeling foolish or ashamed of myself for continuing to try), I was so very blinded by all my own brilliance and assured success (citation in the OED, etc.) that, apart from those alternative second lines of this book that are copied out in the section above, I didn’t write even a single sentence. And although I never stopped enjoying the Panacea-induced “increased acumen and sense of well-being,” once I’d started to suspect I might not really have a volume knob, I did enjoy it less. Or maybe I enjoyed it just as much, but just as much was no longer enough. Or perhaps there’s no difference.
A person, I suppose, can get used to anything, can grow tired of anything, even borderline-manic shameless enjoyment. In any case, I did. I grew tired of it. I grew tired of walking around full of hope, believing in a volume knob I couldn’t use; grew tired of believing that the next time I tried might prove successful. And I grew tired of believing that I was a genius; grew tired of believing that wasn’t in contention.
In other words—and despite not really understanding this yet—I’d grown tired of my incapacity to feel like a fool and be ashamed of myself. So I quit the drug.
Before I quit it, however, the Panacea and the shamelessness the Panacea allowed for did help me get something not-minor done.
* * *
About two weeks after my initial dosage, I received another letter from my father, postmarked ___________, Spain, containing a check for $3,300. I think that when he wrote the letter, he may have been feeling awkward about the confessional quality of his previous two letters. This one was all-business.
Dear Belt,
I found a bank here with branches in ________ and Paris where I can deposit American checks without getting my ass raped too roughly on fees, so I’d like you to start sending me your SSDI checks to Sal’s address (the one on the envelope) as they come, and then I’ll send you a check from my American account as I receive the ones you send to me. I decided that since I’ve got all this settlement dough now, I’m going to stop deducting rent and utilities and food and etc., and just give you the whole $550 a week instead of just $300 a week. That’s why the check that comes with this letter is $3300 instead of $1800. If that makes you feel weird or something, say so, and we’ll talk about it. Seems right to me, though. Along with the SSDI checks, please mail me the utility and mortgage bills too so I can pay them. I hope you’ll write soon or call.
Love,
Clyde
As I was stuffing into an envelope the bills and three SSDI checks that had come since he’d left, I realized it would be rude—even hurtful—if I didn’t enclose a letter as well. (I hadn’t yet responded to any of his letters, nor called him back). So I tried to write a letter, didn’t know how to start, gave up on writing a letter, told myself I’d call instead, and, just as I was making this decision—this decision about money and writing and not-writing and calling—it occurred to me somewhat free-associatively that I might as well try to sell the videos and photos of Blank I had under my bed.
After Blank’s death, I’d determined that I’d sell them once I’d finished this memoir—I’d imagined the sale would be a hassle, a distraction, and I hadn’t been hard up for money, nor in any rush—but now, through the lens of Panacea, that reasoning looked…silly. I wasn’t doing any writing from which I might be distracted, and the hassle I imagined no longer seemed hassle-y. It seemed almost like fun: calling up bigwigs, getting them to pay me.
So I 411’d around for not-very-long til I was able to get a number for someone ostensibly useful at Industrial Light & Magic. Dana, I think. Maybe it was Jenny. I pitched her what I had. In response, she sounded as though she was humoring me—asked me to restate, at least three times, Blank’s age at its death—then eventually gave me an address to which I should send the package of photos and videos. She said someone would get back to me after they’d looked through the contents, and this seemed somewhat reasonable, but also not quite ideal; not only would I have to make copies of everything (no way I was sending them my only copies), but then, if IL&M didn’t want to make an offer, what was to prevent them, a company worth billions, from doing whatever they wanted with the material, anyway? Me? My team of lawyers?
I 411’d more. I got Pixar on the phone. I got Warner Bros. on the phone. MGM and 20th Century Fox. They all treated me to the same condescension and instructions-to-send as the woman at IL&M.
But then I called up EON Entertainment. The Wachowski Sisters’ production company. When the receptionist at EON Entertainment answered, I, for no other reason than that I thought it might be funny, put on my most cartoonish southside, Sally-the-Balls-esque accent (for you readers for whom I wrote that long footnote about The Matrix: the one thing Lilly and Lana Wachowski are famous for—apart from making blockbuster films—is being from Chicago, Chicago’s south side) and, rather than simply returning her hello, I said, “Yeah, lemme talk to Lana there.”
“Please hold,” said the receptionist.
A minute later, Lana Wachowski got on the phone.
“Uncle Rich?” she said.
I said, “Wrong guy, hon. This is Belt Magnet. Author of No Please Don’t?”
“Author of what?”
“The novel,” I said. “No Please Don’t.”
“Oh,” she said. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” I said. “No misunderstanding here whatsoever.”
“Oh. Well…Well right now,” she said, “we’re working on another couple sequels to The Matrix, and we’ll be at that til…for a while. So we’re not looking to acquire or develop any adaptations to anything—”
“And I’m not looking to sell youse any rights to No Please Don’t, so relax,” I said. “Only reason I even mentioned my book’s cause you might have heard of it, me being, like you, from the Chicagolandarea. Why I called’s I got some pictures and tapes here you might want to use to animate with for your next Matrix movie there.”
And shamelessly so forth.