Do what thy manhood bids thee do,
From none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies
Who makes and keeps his self-made laws.
– Sir Richard Francis Burton.
The left side was his best. At least he thought so.
In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away. – T.S. Eliot
Dawns on me. You change genders and there’s a civil rights battle. You change personalities and suddenly a lot of folks stop returning your calls.
Worse, ADD a couple personalities and suddenly you are crazy. The man he was could never have survived. So, he became his own backup.
The transition began on Independence Day 1991.
TITLE: DBA BARKER AJAX
“Do what thy manhood bids thee do,
From none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies
Who makes and keeps his self-made laws.”
– Sir Richard Francis Burton.
I am Barker Ajax. I didn’t always used to be. What I mean is, used to be someone else. Me. You see, I accidentally reinvented myself.
It’s true. And, if it is true, it could happen to anybody. It could happen to you.
This is my story.
Times are getting hard. A lot of people are out of work. A lot of folks on hard times. A lot of them could be… any one of us.
The lottery is up to twenty-three million something. Barker had lost track. He’s a writer and a dreamer and he’s sitting in a bar. He’s just been stiffed by another Maggi White editor-type. The rent’s due. The credit cards’ bills are over limit. He’s NSF at the bank. He’s already sold too many of his books to Powell’s. Man’s gotta eat. He drinks sometimes.
It’s a Saturday night in Portland, Oregon. Barker is watching the television screen, not the nude woman dancing and prancing just a few feet behind him. Couple hours yet until she got off.
The drawing for the lottery is on television. Produced by the state government to promote their various gambling endeavors. Funny how this used to be so bad when The Mob was running the numbers racket.
You can’t be a winner, the ads advise us, if you don’t buy a ticket.
You are more likely to get struck by lightning… three times. Barker had a better chance of being elected President.
He didn’t want the job. He wanted to win this lottery. And he wanted to win it tonight.
He had a ticket. Six numbers. Six in any of six rows; Barker stood to pocket in one very lumpy sum, wait for it, $9,300,000.00. Many zeros, as they say south of the border.
Aloud. To no one in particular. To himself, for good luck, a little positive thinking. To the Universe, to the true gods, talking to the angels, Barker said,” If I had $15,000, I’d be golden.”
“I’ll give you $15,000.”
The voice came from behind Barker. For a moment, he didn’t want to turn around. Barker wanted to pretend he hadn’t heard. He was too proud to do the latter, so he had to do the former. He knew it was a mistake. Grandma Katherine Fink in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the coal miner’s wife who used to clean out Barker’s young ears with a dry washcloth wrapped around a large wooden kitchen match, the aged crone who forced him to sit on the porch in his good suit on Sundays while the other kids played, she had warned him that “pride goeth before the storm.”
Grandma?
“Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves.” – Germaine Greer.
Barker, in many ways, is an obstinate individualist. Which explains somewhat his alleged profession:Philosopher/Recreationalist.
My problem with the nuevo-IRON JOHN Drum Beating Men’s Movement is that I don’t feel a need to pay a couple hundred bucks to spend the weekend in the woods at some drum-beating spiritual circle jerk. I don’t see how dancing with some auditor from the suburbs is going to help me become a man willing to risk exposing my dreams, my fears, my ideas. That’s what writing is about.
I don’t need a set of congas to become a nature child again, an animal. I never lost that part of me.
Besides, I’d still rather hot tub with one woman than chant in a sweat lodge with a bunch of guys.
“I don’t mind adversity,” Barker explained. “It’s merely something to be overcome. An opportunity. Life is all about overcoming conflict. The important thing is not to get worn down. Keep the child within you.”
Keep the puppy always in your heart…
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” – George Bernard Shaw