I Am In Chemicals.

Portrait #4, and the first one done from a submission. Michael Webb, the excellent and thoughtful writer of Innocents and Accidents, Hints and Allegations, sent me this picture and a brief description of himself. Then it took me 4-5 days to get to this, not because I was so busy, but because I was paralyzed by the responsibility: "This stranger has put his SELF into my hands, and now I'm going to write about him, but it won't be him because I don't know him, but..." If you think too hard about it, the whole thing is like trying to scoop up a glob of mercury from the floor with your bare hands, and veers quickly (for me) to thoughts on the nature of the soul. And what is my responsibility to the characters I make up from whole cloth?

Anyway, I double checked with him, warned him I was not always kind with my characters. I thought a lot about some Flannery O'Connor quote (I couldn't find it) where she says that her stories are all about the motion of Grace, but some of her characters are so thick headed, that she has to kill them to get Grace to affect them.

He emailed back: "I trust you, brother. Write what thou wilt." Is he paraphrasing Aleister Crowley at me, I wondered?

So I finally took the plunge this morning. These tiny pieces don't go that deep usually, on a good day they hint at something bigger, but I think I did okay. Thanks for the opportunity, Michael. You're a brave man. Let me know what you think.

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“I am in chemicals,” Michael said, holding tightly to his drink with both hands. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think being in chemicals can have some small part in saving the world, since the whole world is chemicals.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh and dropped one hand and swirled his drink between our faces as if to say See? Chemicals. It’s ice tinkled in harmony with ice throughout the room of the party. Like seeks like, I thought.

I’m sure he was very nice. While a little taller than me and heavyset, he wasn’t tall enough to use his height on people. His smile was slightly apologetic, turned down at the ends, and his eyes were sad, turned down as well. Some loss, or losses, back there. That, along with the curve of his very bald head, made him the geometric form of a series of arches, like a rainbow. Brains bursting out of a round body. Not all melancholics had these attributes, but just about all the people I have ever met who have these attributes are melancholics.

But I was drunk, trying to avoid my own sadness, and like seeking like was counter to my plans of avoidance.

“I hate chemicals, Michael,” I sniffed, looking into my brown drink, watching the waves of water migrate off the ice. “Chemicals can’t save the world.”