Billy Coffey

storyteller

The value of our art

image courtesy of google images. Spangled Blengins, Boy King Islands. One is a young Tuskorhorian, the other a human headed Dortherean by Henry Darger
image courtesy of google images. Spangled Blengins, Boy King Islands. One is a young Tuskorhorian, the other a human headed Dortherean by Henry Darger

Let me tell you about Henry Darger, the man who wrote one of the most detailed and bizarre books in history.

Never heard of him? Me neither. At least, not until I happened to stumble upon his story a few weeks ago. Seems strange that someone who did something so grand could be so unknown, doesn’t it? But it’s true. In fact, you could even say that’s why Henry was so extraordinary.

image courtesy of google images
image courtesy of google images

He was a janitor. Nothing so special about that, but nothing so wrong with it, either. There is no correlation between who a person is and what that person does for a living. Einstein was a patent clerk. Faulkner a mailman. Henry Darger mopped floors.

An unassuming man. A quiet man. He never married, never really had friends. Just a regular guy living a regular life, one of the faceless masses that occupy so much of the world who are here for a short while and then gone forever.

Henry left in 1973.

There are no accounts of his funeral. I don’t know if anyone attended at all, though I like to think they did. I like to think there was a crowd huddled around his casket that day to bid him farewell.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that so many people are discovered to have been truly extraordinary only after their passing. Such was the case with Henry. A few days after his passing, his landlord went through his apartment to ready it for rent. What he found was astonishing.

What he found hidden among Henry’s possessions was a manuscript. Its title may give you a clue as to the story’s scope and magnitude:

THE STORY OF THE VIVIAN GIRLS, IN WHAT IS KNOWN AS THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL, OF THE GLANDECO-ANGELINIAN WAR STORM, CAUSED BY THE CHILD SLAVE REBELLION

Did you get that? If not, I can’t blame you. I had to read the title three times to even understand a little of it, and that doesn’t count the time I actually wrote it out.

The breadth and scope of Henry’s book went well beyond epic. The manuscript itself contained 15,000 pages. Over nine million words. Over 300 watercolor pictures coinciding with the story. Some of the illustrations were so large they measured ten feet wide.

A lifetime’s worth of work. Years upon years of solitary effort, hundreds of thousands of hours spent writing and painting, creating an entire saga of another world.

And all for no apparent reason. Not only did Henry Darger never seek any sort of publication for his work, he never told a soul about it. His book was his dream and his secret alone.

I’ve thought about Henry Darger a lot since I first read about him. Which, as change or fate would have it, just to happened to be the very week my newest novel released. A tough thing, that. You’d think it wouldn’t be, perhaps, but it is. No matter who an author is or how successful he or she may be or how many books or under his or her belt, the most important thing to us all is that our words matter. Matter to others, matter to the world. We want what we say and think and feel to count for something.

But Henry Darger reminds me that none of those things mean anything. In the end, we cannot account for how the world will judge our work, and so, in the end, the world’s opinion really doesn’t matter. Simple as that.

What matters—what counts—is that our words stir not the world, but ourselves. That they conjure in our own hearts and minds a kind of magic that neither the years nor the work can dull. The kind of magic that sustains us in our lonely times and gives our own private worlds meaning. The kind of magic that tinges even the life of a simple janitor with greatness.

The Stonecutter

Stone CutterThere are those in this world (and I am chief among them) who tend to devote a lot of their time to being more and better. Not a bad thing at all, unless of course you start thinking that who you are and what you’re doing now just isn’t good enough. Not true, I say. Not true at all…

I came across this a few days ago and loved it so much that I wanted to share it here. The words are mine, but the story is an ancient one from China:

There was once a stonecutter who lived in a tiny shack on the outskirts of his town. Every morning he would rise out of his simple bed and trudge off to work in the quarries. He hated his tiny job and his tiny shack, but he especially hated his tiny life.

One morning he passed by a wealthy merchant’s house. The gates of the courtyard were open, and through it the stonecutter could see the merchant’s fine possessions and important guests. “I wish I could be that wealthy merchant,” he said to himself. Then he would no longer have to suffer through life with a tiny job and shack and life.

Then, a miracle happened.

He woke the next morning to find that he had indeed become that wealthy merchant. He enjoyed more power and influence than he had ever dreamed and had more riches than he could ever spend. But then a government official passed by the house, carried in a grand chair by servants. Soldiers flanked each side blowing horns and commanding respect. Everyone, no matter how powerful and wealthy, had to bow to the official. “I wish I could become that official,” the man said. “No one could be more powerful than him.”

Another miracle.

He awoke the next morning to find that he was now the government official. He was carried through the city by servants, guarded by soldiers, and everyone was forced to bow to him. But as the day was hot, he noticed the sun was causing him to sweat. And more, he noticed that the sun didn’t care if he was a government official or not. “I wish I could be the sun,” he thought to himself. “Surely there is nothing more powerful than that.”

Then he became the sun, shining his power down upon the earth, giving life and taking it at his own whim. But as he was shining, he noticed a dark cloud pass between him and the land. No matter how hard he shone, the cloud prevented his light from reaching the ground. “I wish I were that cloud,” he said. “Then even the sun would have to obey me.”

And he became the cloud, rolling over the land to bring comfort from the heat and terror with his storms. He was both feared and revered, and no one stood against him. But then he discovered that the wind would blow him here and there without his consent. “No one tells me what to do,” he said. “I want to be the wind!”

So be became the wind, uprooting trees and spreading fires and damaging homes. Nothing, he thought, could stand against him. But then one day he blew against a mountain. A no matter how hard he worked, the mountain would not budge. “I want to be that mountain,” he said.

And he became the mountain. More stable than the merchant, more powerful than the official. Unfazed by the sun and the clouds and the wind. But as he rested there, content and finally at peace, he found that a small part of himself was slowly being chipped away. “What is causing this?” he asked. “I am a giant mountain. What could be more powerful than I?”

He looked down and saw far below a tiny speck hard at work. And with that sight he began to cry, for he knew then all his work and all his dreaming had been for naught.

For below him was the one thing in the world even more powerful than he:

A stonecutter.

Where tears go to die


I’m sitting on the balcony of our eighth-floor hotel room on a quiet Monday evening. The Atlantic stretches out below me like God’s welcome mat. A soft breeze kisses my face and leaves behind a salty film I desperately hope will never completely wash off.

I’ve abandoned my laptop for old fashioned paper and pen. On the small table in front of me is a rare indulgence of Hemmingway’s beverage of choice, and in my left hand is an even rarer indulgence of a long-forgotten vice: a very nice cigar. Bob Marley is singing “No Woman, No Cry” to me through the earphones on my head, and I lean back in my faded jeans and rest my bare feet against the wall.

This is what the ocean does to me.

It makes me smile, makes me relax. Makes me temporarily suspend my fears and regrets. It replaces the storms of my life with sunshine and the filthy mud with clean sand. And all those nagging cares that wash over me are silenced by the peaceful sound of waves meeting shore.

Here, I am a better me.

But this is not why I come here every year. Not why for one week out of fifty-two I say goodbye to my mountains to seek a distant shore.

If you really want to know why I make this pilgrimage, all you need to do is look at the old man in the bench eight stories below me. Sitting right there on the boardwalk, staring out to sea.

I flirted with the idea of taking a picture of him, if only so you could see what I’m seeing right now. But I can’t. It seems like an invasion of his privacy, a sacrilege to his holy moment. So instead I snap a picture of what he’s been looking at for the last six hours.

Yes, that’s right. Six hours.

We first passed him on our way out to the beach, loaded down with shovels and pails and chairs and towels. Seventies and tired, with a worn cane propped against his right leg. He stared out to the horizon with a soft smile on his lips. It looked to me that he was both there and somewhere far away.

When we passed him on our way back in for lunch, I nodded. He smiled. I nodded on our way back out afterward and got a wave.

Then, as we were calling it a day, I passed and said, “Pretty weather, huh?”

“Sure is,” he answered.

Sometimes having kids gives you opportunities you would otherwise miss. When my son began crying over a missing toy that he was sure would be swallowed by the sea overnight, I went back down to the beach to retrieve it for him. Another wave, another smile. On my way back, I decided to stop.
“Not much beats this view,” I said.

“Come here every day,” he replied. “It’s the only place where the scenery never changes but always gets better anyway.”

I liked that enough to stick around and hear more.

“You and your family from around here?” he asked.

“No, we’re on the other side of Richmond,” I said.

He nodded. “Nice country up there.”

“Beautiful country,” I told him. “But not like this.”

“My wife and I moved here from Iowa,” he said. “Came here, oh, twenty years ago. We retired and realized we’d never seen the ocean. Our kids were grown and gone, so we figured it was the right time.”

His wife wasn’t with him, and I wasn’t about to ask where she was. I knew. I knew by the way he had sat on only one side of the bench rather than the middle. Knew by the fact that he rested his cane against his right leg even though he was right handed. It was the product of repetition. Someone else had shared that seat with him for twenty years.

“Know why I come here?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Because the ocean swallows our tears. That’s what she always told me. ‘Harry,’ she’d say, ‘I think all that is all the tears we shed. God just bottles them up and pours them out so we can have a place to visit where we can leave our struggles.’”

“I like that,” I said.

“Me, too.”

I left him to his pouring, and then I went up to my room and onto the balcony to do the same. Because that’s what the ocean is to Harry and I. A place to pour out our tears and leave our struggles. A place to find the better us.

On settling and being settled

image courtesy of photobucket.com
image courtesy of photobucket.com

The thing about Troy Heatwole is that he’s settled. He’ll be the first to tell you that. Not outright, mind you. Troy never says anything outright and never has. He prefers instead to take the long way around to the point he’s trying to make. So instead of simply saying, “I’m settled,” he’ll say something like, “I ain’t as young as I used to be an’ I ain’t as smart, but the world’s quiet.”

And really, who doesn’t long for a quiet world?

Not that life doesn’t pose any challenges. Troy’s like all of us in that he has bills to pay and ends to meet. That’s not what I’m talking about when I say he’s settled. What I’m talking about is that Troy not only knows his place in the world, he’s accepted it with all the happiness and peace one could ask. There is no striving in him, no longing, no unmet expectations. Just a nice, peaceful quiet.

I say this because I want to say that I envy Troy Heatwole. Not so much for what he possesses (which isn’t much aside from a small cabin in the woods, a battered Ford truck, and a coon dog named Bo), but for what he has. There’s a difference between those things. What you possess can be taken from you. What you have can’t. And Troy possesses a settled life. I do not.

But that’s not really what I’m getting at, either. I suppose I’m taking a page out of Troy’s book—I’m taking the long way around to the point I’m trying to make. How else could I bring myself to admit that I’m envious of a man whose life, settled or not and quiet or not, revolves around cleaning and draining septic tanks?

Oh yes, that’s right. Troy’s the septic man.

It isn’t that he loves his job. He does, however, find a purpose in it. Because just as Troy once told me that “Even the Lawd woulda had trouble lovin to do what I do,” he also said that, “Dis here world’s fulla crap, an’ somebody’s gotta clean it all up.” Wise words, those. Kind of makes you think.

I pass Troy on the road often. Our workdays tend to end around the same time and converge at a stoplight just outside of town. He usually gets the green while I’m stuck at the red. He blows by in his big pumper truck, windows down and long stringy hair waving in the breeze. And smiling, always smiling, because Troy has a quiet life and he’s settled.

Me, I’m not.

That’s not a big deal, I guess, assuming you’re not closing in on 40 and you don’t have a family and a mortgage. All of which describes me. If I’m ever going to be settled, this should be the time when I should get started. But I can’t. Even though I’ve been blessed with much, I can’t escape the feeling there’s more out there I should be shooting for. There are other lands to travel and other things to do and other Me’s to be. I want to settle and yet I feel I shouldn’t settle for less than I should.

That, in a nutshell, is why I’m envious of Troy the septic man. He has no need to ponder such things. He’s found his life. He doesn’t have to wander anymore.

But there are times when he passes me at the stoplight after a long day and I see his hair waving and his face smiling and I think differently. I think that maybe I have it all backwards. Maybe we should all be craving to be a little more than what we are. Maybe we should all be wanting to grow a little more each day.

Deep down we all want to be settled, but that may be more a trap than a treasure.

Maybe only as far as we’re unsettled is there any hope for us.

Dinging the universe

Steve Jobs image courtesy of photobucket.com
Steve Jobs image courtesy of photobucket.com

I’ll admit I’m a little late on the death of Steve Jobs. Truth be told, I didn’t know he’d died until two days after the fact. It was all over the news and the internet, people tell me. And you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without seeing his face on the front page. I guess that’s why I hadn’t heard. I don’t really keep up with the news. I’ve found it helps me enjoy the world more.

More truth: I hate computers. Maybe that’s the half-Amish side of me talking. Maybe I’m secretly afraid technology will steal my soul. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that I’ve never been able to work them well. Whichever the case, I count myself among the few who trust pen and paper more than keyboard and screen.

I heard last week that his biography, titled simply Steve Jobs, will be released sooner than expected. Evidently he granted his biographer unparalleled access to his life and sat for hours of interviews. Quite a coup, given that Mr. Jobs was a pretty private man. The book is already number one on Amazon. Sony purchased the movie rights for a million dollars.

Imagine, someone paying a million dollars for the rights to make a movie about your life. Your accomplishments. Imagine being called this century’s Thomas Edison. Or being compared to Leonardo da Vinci.

Imagine.

And yes, that’s the sort of person I’d like to be. Shouldn’t we all? I’m around college kids five days a week, almost ten hours a day. You know what? Most of them don’t want to become great. Most of them have somehow become convinced that they’re already great. They don’t want to affect the world, they want the world to affect them. I think that’s kind of sad.

I think there should be more people who say “I want to put a ding in the universe,” as Steve Jobs once said.

That’s what he did. He dinged the universe. But I wonder at what cost. His biography was written with his permission, he sat down and did all those candid interviews, not for the reason you might think. Not to inspire or inform the world Steve Jobs helped to transform, but simply because of this:

“I want my kids to know who I am.”

Of all the things I’ve read about Steve Jobs over the last week or so, that’s the one that stands out. Not the iPod or the iPad or the iPhone, but the iWant.

It takes a lot of effort to put a ding into the universe. A lot of time and failure and trying again. A lot of passion. It demands that priorities be set clear. Things like work take precedent. Things like family do not. And while I’m thankful for the Steve Jobs of the world and their dedication, the sacrifice the make is one too steep for me.

Steve Jobs’ death struck me. By all accounts he was a brilliant man who changed our world. There are a good many people in this world who long for those two things—to be both brilliant and remembered. I don’t mind saying I count myself among them. But honestly, the odds are good I’ll be neither. Maybe you, too. More probable than not, I will pass through this life just as the billions before me. My footprints upon this earth will be small and vanish. My picture will never grace the front page. The world will not notice my passing.

I will not ding the universe.

But when my time comes to trade this world for the next, I will pass with a smile. I’ll be ready, because I may not have much, but my kids will know who I am.

Pleasure in the wanting

image courtesy of photobucket.com
image courtesy of photobucket.com

Today is the end of what has become a rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating road. That’s something I’ll tell you, dear reader, and no one else. Especially my son. Because he is to blame for all of this. And, by extension, so am I.

I’ve always found it fascinating how certain traits in parents are passed on to their children. I’m not talking about things like hair and eye color. I’m talking about attitudes and preconceptions, things that go a long way in defining how they see the world. Good things. Bad things, too.

Take my son, for instance. Folks say he has my looks and my hairline, two things for which I’ve already apologized to him. Like his father, he loves baseball and walking through the woods. And he also has a tendency to fixate on something he wants to the point of near obsession.

It’s this last point that has led us down the rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating road.

My son also loves Star Wars (again like his father, once upon a time). Five and a half weeks ago found the two of us in the toy aisle at Target, where we stood face to face with what he described as the single greatest thing ever in the history of the world—a Darth Vader costume. Complete with mask, utility belt, cape, and a genuine imitation lightsaber.

“I gotta have that, Dad,” he said.

“Sure is nice.” I looked at the price tag. “How much money do you have?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out three quarters, a rubber ball, and three Legos.

“Don’t think that’ll do it,” I told him.

My son knew that. Reality is rarely comforting, however, so he spent the next few days sulking. All of his other costumes—and his has dozens—paled in comparison. His life would not be complete until he could walk through the house as Darth Vader, doing that deep, throaty breathing and intimidating us all with the dark side of the Force. His paltry (to him) allowance meant he’d have to wait months to save enough money, and by then the costume would be gone. It was hopeless.

But then my son remembered his report card and his standing deal with his grandfather. Good grades equaled good money, much more than what I’d give him for cleaning his room and taking out the trash. The problem was that he had five weeks to wait.

And let me tell you, that was a long five weeks. A rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating five weeks.

He marked the days off his calendar. Asked me to float him a loan. Stared at a picture of the costume he found on the internet, then stared at me with puppy-dog eyes. He moaned and whined. He yelled and pouted. He even said he dreamed he’d finally bought it. My son obsessed over that costume for five weeks, and he just about broke me in the process.

Then came today.

Report card day.

His marks were good, which meant a quick trip to the grandparents between the end of supper and the toy aisle at Target. Two hours later, it was all mercifully over. I peeked at my son through the rearview mirror on the way home. He was cradling his prize. You should have seen the smile on his face.

It stayed there for a while.

As I write this, my son’s beside me on the sofa. He’s dressed to the nine’s—mask, cape, belt. Lightsaber. He’s slumped in the corner watching a rerun of Phineas & Ferb. During the last commercial, he said, “Did you see that new Lego set they had at Target? That would be awesome.”

I figure I have another six weeks or so to hear that. Yet another rocky, tiresome, and utterly aggravating road.

I suppose I’ll comfort myself with the hope that he’s learning a valuable lesson through all this. One that we all should learn at some point.

Because there are a lot of things in our lives like my son’s Darth Vader costume—things that are wonderful before we attain it and nothing special afterward.

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