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From the novel Westlake Village by Harry Buschman
© by Harry Buschman
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Doin' the Westlake Block
Psychology; Sudden cessation of speech or a thought process without an immediate observable cause, sometimes considered a consequence of repression.
You can tell right away the symptoms are pretty obscure. In the worst possible case you can't even explain it to the doctor, but even if you could he would be at a loss to know how to cure it.
You will look hard in the dictionary and the encyclopedia to find "Writer's Block". It's a very elusive thing, slippery as an eel and maybe it really doesn't exist at all. Writers of the older generation look at any human problem starting off with "Psycho" with mistrust, yet we hear from many writers, young and old that they've got "Writer's Block." I pity them. It doesn't show up in X-rays. I don't think Medicare covers it, and I don't think annual shots will protect them.
Henry Roth was
a writer, he holds the record for "Writer's Block." He wrote a
literary masterpiece "Call it Sleep" at the age of 28. His second
came 60 years later. In the interim he tried his hand at raising water fowl,
metal grinding, and tutoring in mathematics. When the "block" was
over he published a six volume epic! The interim could not have been pleasant
for his wife and children in those sixty years if Henry was like you and me.
Maybe it wasn't writer's block at all. Maybe Henry found better things to do.
Maybe that's the answer. Mozart never had composer's block, Michelangelo never
had sculptor's block and I've never heard of a commercial pilot say, "This
is the captain speaking .... I'm afraid I've got pilot's block, buckle up and
return your seats to the upright position -- thank you for flying Lightfoot
Airlines."
Writer's Block
is the special provenance and domain of writers. We share similar blocks with
people in other creative endeavors, but only under special conditions will we
share it with barbers and automobile repair mechanics. Our barber, Angelo has
closed his shop and gone off to Orlando to spend some time with his brother.
If that wasn't enough, Johnny Hicks is retiring! Both of them have reached a
critical point in their lives. Angelo, who cannot cut the hair of black people
nor that of females can no longer make a living from the few elderly white men
who stubbornly grow hair in Westlake Village. Johnny, the Village mechanic,
half my age, has had it up to "here" with giving old folks a jump
start in January and watching us drive
off to Toyota for a new battery.
Their creative juices have been drawn off and all that remains at the bottom of the keg are the pits, the skins and the stems of a vintage that none of us can remember.
I cannot afford such afflictions. They are in any case reserved for literati and not for a lowly scrivener who labors on the Westlake Village Guardian. As time passes, however, I meet more and more people who seem to be coming down with blocks of one kind or another and it occurs to me that it might be catching. You couldn't find two physical specimens more fit than Todd and Mark Buffalini. They are out of high school only six months and it is obvious to everyone in town that they are in the final stages of a block from which they will never recover. "Turd and Muck," we used to call them affectionately when they were defensive tackles on the Westlake Village "Toads." It seems their life ended when their careers as high school football players was abruptly terminated by graduation.
If two strapping twenty-one year old high school graduates can contract this incurable disease, what chance does an old man like me have? Perhaps it is a curse leveled on Westlake Village for having done something in the past, maybe it's the water or the radiation from the high tension wires above us under which the grass will no longer grow.
It is in this acerbic state of mind that I report to the Westlake Village Guardian to do my biweekly column called "The Golden Page," which, as you know is concerned with the dizzying pace of life the elderly lead in our town. Lucas is there endorsing checks. There is nothing he enjoys more. Stacey is at my typewriter, she grows more nubile every day and I fear for her future should she ever run across Mark and Todd Buffalini -- particularly in their state of mind.
"Hail to
thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert-"
I usually have something like this prepared for Stacey, hoping against hope that it may broaden her horizons. She eyes me strangely, and slowly a pink bubble emerges from her mouth and grows to enormous size. If there were an Olympic bubble gum event, she would get the gold.
"Smatter witchoo?" Lucas looks at me strangely as well. He stacks his checks in a sizable pile and catches sight of Stacey's bubble, now obscenely large. We both turn our heads waiting for the detonation. I was in a 155mm aircraft battery in WW 2, and the thwacking bang of it is unforgettable and only marginally louder than Stacey's bubbles. I wonder if the Buffalini boys are in greater danger than she.
"I dunno
really, a little off my feed I guess."
"Well getcha ass in gear, I need yer column by six." Lucas Crosby
made a living with this rag of a newspaper, sent two kids to Princeton. He did
the whole thing himself .... didn't need a leg up from anybody.
"I'm not
up to it, Lucas. Why don't you do it yourself?"
"Bullshit! I got these checks to cash. Take off that dumb baseball cap
and
sit'cha'self down. If there's no news, make it up." Such is the level of
the fourth estate in Westlake Village.
"Ever hear
of "writer's block," Lucas?"
"Yeah .... Sure, why? What's that got to do witchoo?"
This is the reason why people like me, people below the rank of literati, people who use words as reverently as did Keats and Shelley must write on endlessly. Whatever blocks we have must be shared with garage mechanics, barbers, defensive tackles and yes, even Olympic bubble blowers.
©Harry Buschman 1997
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