The Price of Ink

What if a writer could create tangible reality by writing words, instead of a sensory one?

That question popped into my head upon reading my latest rejection letter. “Aimless, boring, derivative” was the feedback. The accompanying $375 writing class pitch is salt in the wound. The letter burns in my pocket.

Aimless.

Boring.

Derivative.

The words chafe.

My apartment mocks me. I have enough rejection letters to paper the walls. My notebooks and legal pads could build a fort behind which I hide in shame while my father wags his work-worn finger with a too-long dirty fingernail at me, bombarding me with I-told-you-so’s.

I need to get out of here.

I need to get out, period.

My life nowadays consists of working as a messenger - tooling around the greater Seattle area in the Datsun of my past by day, and futile writing by night. I have friends from work I see outside the 8-to-whenever-we’re-done confines now and again. Some of the old gang from the 1990-91 Carnival of Chaos and Clarity (Susie, Dawn, Ian, and Matt) cross my path, but it’s five years later now. We’re all in our 30’s and we’ve moved on to the next chapters of our lives. It’s not the same.

Hence, thusly, and ergo, my social skills are a dry creek bed. They need flexing.

I like to pop into the Comet Tavern every once in a while to catch the vibe of yesteryear, and today is one of those whiles.

The air hums inside. Petey, the bartender (now a co-owner) a man whose face holds more stories than my entire published output, nods a greeting. I get a Rainier, its cheap promise a familiar comfort. I nurse the glass, watching the parade of Friday night grungers. Their stories are arcs while mine flatlines.

A few stools down, I hear a woman’s laugh. Familiar. A bright, unrestrained sound that cuts through the bar’s drone. It’s who I think it is. Dawn. Her now shoulder-length dark hair catches the neon glow, a brilliant beacon in the dim light. She wears a wolf-grey rag wool sweater tinged with purple, black pants, a leather jacket, and simple black boots. Not the high spike-heeled boots that were Susie’s calling card, but boots that highlight her always grounded comportment all the same. She is a sight for sore eyes.

She catches my glance. Her smile, sharp and knowing, widens.

“Tim!" she calls, “Oh my God!”

She comes over and bear hugs me.

“I was just telling my friend about you,” she says.

“Good things, I hope.”

“Only the best,” she replies. “Come here, let me introduce you to Denise."

She leads me a few feet down by the hand to a petite red-head with sparkling blue eyes.

“Tim, this is Denise,” she says. “We work together at the Henry Art Gallery.”

I nod and smile. We shake hands.

“And this is my old friend, Tim,” she says, her eye.

“Nice to meet you, Denise,” I tell her.

“Nice to meet you, Tim,” she says. “And I’m sorry to be rude but I should visit the little girl’s room.”

“Don’t let us stop you,” Dawn says.

Denise excuses herself, leaving us alone with old ghosts.

“So what do you do at the Henry?” I ask.

“Help with grant writing and fundraising, mostly.”

“You still free lance writing?” I ask.

“When I can,” she says. “The Henry is more steady, though. But grant writing is a form of writing, yeah?”

“Tis,” I reply.

She chuckles.

"Still nursing that one beer like it’s the last drop on Earth?” she says.

Dawn always cuts through the gloom.

"Saving it for a special occasion.”

After another moment, we share a long embrace, and a smile.

“You’ve returned to the scene of the crime,” she says.

“This place has a magnetic pull. Always has.”

She takes my hand and squeezes it.

“So what brings you here?”

“Nostalgia,” I answer.

“For?”

“The past,” I tell her.

“That’s repetitive.”

“It’s also redundant,” I add.

She laughs, then is sad.

“Seen Susie much?” She asks.

“I was going to ask you about that.”

“Not a peep,” she says staring into her glass as Susie often did when she was fighting her demons.

We’re silent.

“I saw her at Paradiso about six months ago,” I tell her. “She was getting a coffee before going to work at a real estate office. She looked corporate, though she still had piercings. She’d lost some weight. She said she’s been sober for just over a year. She showed me her coin.”

“That’s great,” she says, before returning to her glass. “She’s been keeping her distance from me. I don’t drink like I used to, but I get why she’d need to steer clear.”

Another silent moment.

Then I raise my glass.

“To Susie,” I offer. “May she find peace."

Dawn clinks.

“Anyhoodle,” she says, "What dark musings consume you tonight, Mr. Tim?”

I pull out the rejection letter from my pocket and toss it her way.

"The usual. My writing, it lacks…’direction.’ It’s also ‘boring and derivative.’”

She snatches the letter, scans it, and snorts.

“Aimless? You could make a cockroach race sound like War and Peace. These suits wouldn't know a compelling arc if it bit them on the ass. Fuck those twats.”

She folds the letter into a paper football, then kicks it with her finger into the tip jar.

Petey raises his arms up like a referee.

“The kick is good!” He says, clapping.

Dawn is a force of grounded defiant energy. She was the Yin to Susie’s Yang, giving her validation and insight she never got anywhere else. Like Susie, she sees things others often miss. She’s grown in the past five years.

"You're a magnet for trouble, Tim. Magic, too. Trouble and magic slow dance like a couple of high-schoolers at the prom in this city. You lived it back in the day. It made you who you are. You haven’t stopped living it just because you’re in a slump. Perhaps you’ve just stopped paying attention as you’ve settled into a sad routine of the ‘mature, well-adjusted adult.’"

Magic.

My fingers, stained with ink, tingle.

The question on my mind earlier comes forward.

What if?

What if her words hold more than just metaphor?

"Dawn," I begin, my voice a low rumble, "what if I could write it?"

"Write what?"

“Magic.”

She listens.

I speak as words come to me.

“What I’ve learned about writing over the years is that the doing of writing brings your story to life in a visceral way. But what if what I wrote became real? Like my pen is a magic wand.

“What do you mean?”

"It's… a feeling. A deep knowing. That’s how it was back when the three of us were a wrecking crew. That feeling was on our sleeves at all times. What if I could make that feeling in whatever moment real?”

Her gaze holds mine, serious now.

"Tell me more. Tell me more. Like, do you have a car?” She deadpans.

Her sense of humor is always a well-placed dust bowl.

I take a deep breath.

“Say you have a struggling writer, and he discovers a hidden power within his words. Whatever he writes, happens. It’s not a metaphor. It happens.”

“What's the catch?" she prompts.

"The catch…is that the writing takes a part of him. Each time he alters reality, he loses a piece of himself."

Her smile fades.

"What kind of piece?"

“Maybe his memory. Maybe his empathy. But it’s something vital,” I answer.

Dawn looks away, and up towards the Kingdome roof tile hanging right above us on the ceiling.

“So the writer brings wild magic to life, but it’s zero-sum. That’s a heavy price.”

"What if the reward is worth it?” I counter.

"Only you can decide that, Tim,” she says with somber eyes.

I take a moment.

I finish my beer.

I step off the stool.

“I should go,” I tell her. “Thanks for the feedback.”

“Don’t mention it,” she replies, standing herself.

We take a moment, then embrace.

After a beat, she gives me a kiss on the cheek.

“Nice to see you, Tim,” she says. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” I say, zipping up my jacket.

Denise, who has been chatting with other folks turns around.

“Nice to meet you, Denise,” I tell her.

“Likewise,” she says.

I smile at both of them and exit.

*****

The craving for something more, something real, gnaws at me.

I need proof.

I walk home. The winter air is cold and damp.

I stop and pull out my little notebook and a UniBall.

I need to test this idea.

"The sky above Seattle clears," I scratch across the page. "The rain stops. Stars, sharp and numerous, appear."

I look up.

The sky remains steel gray, the rain a steady patter. My brow furrows.

As I walk the last block to my abode, there’s a shift. The rain softens. An imperceptible break appears in the clouds, a sliver of lighter gray. For a fleeting instant, a pinpoint of light flickers into existence before vanishing.

A tremor of exhilaration and fear goes through me.

It works!

Back home, the quiet presses in. I sit at the table, cheap beer from the fridge my only companion. I open the notebook.

This power.

What do I use it for?

Fame?

Fortune?

Love?

I think of my old life. Cast in the role of misfit. Bullying. Isolation. Abuse. My dad and his idiotic pontifications about what a man should be. A bitter taste fills my mouth.

I could rewrite all of it. Erase that past and create a perfect narrative.

But the price. A piece of myself. What would each stroke of the pen cost?

I’m tired. I go to bed. My sleep is restless and filled with dreams.

I wake to the persistent drumming of rain against the window. The subtle change from last night has vanished.

I make a cup of Cafe Bustello.

I reread my entry from last night:

"The sky above Seattle clears. The rain stops. Stars, sharp and numerous, appear."

I need a bigger, more definitive test.

I think of all those rejection letters. My desire for recognition burns in me. What if I write a best-selling novel? A novel that resonates with millions, secures my place in the literary world.

I uncap the pen. My hand hovers over the blank page. It thrums with tantalizing promise. But then another thought. What if the piece I lose is my creativity?

My ability to write.

My voice.

A chilling prospect.

I shove the thought away. No, not yet. Not for something as abstract as fame. I need something tangible. Something that touches my life directly.

I think of the Datsun, parked a couple of blocks away on Howell. It often needs coaxing, a grumpy old man with 207,000 miles on it. A minor inconvenience, but a real one.

I write:

"My Datsun starts up on the first try like it did when it was driven off the lot."

I walk to the car. Rain still falls. I turn the key. The engine starts right up, a robust, steady purr I rarely hear. A wave of triumph washes over me.

Then, a fleeting image. I think it’s Susie. She’s telling me “I’m a bi chick, okay? I love having sex with women and men, but I’ve only ever loved women, but…I look at you, I talk to you…I'm with you, and I think 'Maybe,' you know?'' Her face, always clear in my mind, wavers. Her name is blurring.

The cost is real.

Days turn into weeks. I write small things.

A lost umbrella appears.

A parking spot opens right in front of my building.

I drive down 4th Avenue without stopping at any traffic lights.

Each minor convenience brings a small, unsettling loss. A memory of Mickey, our little Yorkie when I was a kid; a lyric from “When the Levee Breaks;” the name of a distant cousin. Nothing vital, but the cumulative effect unnerves me.

Dawn calls.

“Hey Tim," she says, her voice crackling with static. “I’m calling ‘cause I had this weird dream. You were writing, and the words glowed, but then a part of you…faded.”

My heart lurches.

She senses it.

I don’t ask what faded.

“Just a dream, Dawn," I say with a thin voice.

"Maybe," she replies, "or maybe, you're finally tapping into that magic I was talking about."

Her voice drops.

"Just remember the price,” she counsels.

The knowledge of the cost changes my writing. I write less. The instant gratification dulls against the creeping fear of loss. My apartment grows quiet. The thrill fades.

I meet up with Dawn again back at the Comet. She’s fidgety.

"This city," she declares, "is too quiet tonight. It needs a shake up. A jolt."

Her eyes brighten with mischievous fire. They meet mine.

"Remember that day back in ’91 when Susie was crying because the sun hadn’t come out for, like, ever? You joked and said, ‘I shall command the sky to clear by writing a proclamation.’ You sat down and wrote it. The sky cleared after weeks of rain within minutes. Susie’s crying became tears of joy. You made her day, Tim. You’ve always had magic. That’s why I…”

She gasps and blushes.

“What?” I ask.

She takes a breath.

“You just stopped believing in the magic.”

She leans in.

“Write it, Tim. Write something wild. Light a fire under the ass of this town! Subvert. Make people remember they’re alive. Just like you did five years back when you’d sit at that table and write like a man possessed. You gave Susie life. You gave me life.”

I have become staid, cautious, hoarding my essence against the inevitable drain of this new power.

"No," I say. "The cost…"

"Fuck the cost!" Dawn explodes.

She slams her hand on the table, making beer slosh.

"What’s the point of living if you're not living? You're a writer, Tim. Write something worth losing a piece for!” She commands.

Her words ignite me. A spark of the old defiance. My original impulse to write is not for comfort or convenience, but rather to make truthful sense, capture the raw, untamed beauty of existence.

I pull out my notebook. My pen, usually so light, feels heavy, charged with a new purpose. I give Dawn a mischievous grin, which she returns.

"The city," I write, my hand moving with a fierce new determination, "hums with a dynamic pulse. A secret music, felt by all that awakens the people and they dance with wild joy."

I close my eyes, the ink still wet on the page.

I feel a shift, not a loss. Then the building shakes.

Lightness permeates my being, much like it did when I shed that old skin five years ago.

I open my eyes. The bar shimmers. The usual noises - loud music, clinking glasses, low chatter - now weaves into a symphony, a rhythmic beat vibrating in my bones. The air is thick with raw, sweating souls with a palpable hunger moving through the room like a great, slow tide.

Dawn climbs onto a table like Susie of before, her arms flung wide, her dark hair a halo under the neon. She makes a joyful cackle, and the bar moves as one, swaying in a collective pulse of vibrant life.

And then, she’s fading.

Little by little, she’s disappearing.

I gasp, flushed.

What have I done?

“NOOOOOOO!” I cry.

The notebook lies open, ink still wet..

I scribble as fast as I can, “Dawn lives!”

The dancing Comets continue.

The music is louder.

I reach up on the table.

I feel Dawn’s arm.

I pull.

Hard.

Harder.

And…

She solidifies.

I’m up on the table with her. Embracing her and dancing with her in the thick air, like we’re breathing smoke from a forgotten fire. The whole damn room shimmers. Dawn and I are pulling something out of the walls, off of the sticky floor, out of every soul hunched over a beer. It’s not a jig or a two-step. It's breathing. A freight train - one slow, heavy breath. Slow dancing, swaying to the music with an increasing rumble. I can feel it in my teeth, in the soles my feet. The earth is shifting off its axis.

Dawn’s eyes blaze.

We kiss as the patrons swoon as one.

The cost - whatever it may be - will be real, but the gain - the shared experience, the connection to the very pulse of humanity…is worth it.

This is writing.

This is living.