The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [44]
But Dana’s influence was different. She would, on occasion, talk to women in bars and, having decided they weren’t gay (or “gay enough”), bring them to me, after talking me up to them. She would introduce me as “a writer.” She described my labors sitting on our fire escape going over my words again and again, stumbling in at dawn, exhausted and happy because I’d managed in those long hours to write a few lines that reached to the heart of what it felt like “to be a woman today,” she said to the unbelievable hottie with the rack that just would not quit. “He sees that more clearly than any man I’ve ever known.” Not true, obviously, not for a single instant, not in a single detail. I had written almost literally nothing, and certainly nothing of any value, just some feeble efforts at mildly erotic science fiction. I never went out on our fire escape—the window was painted shut.
But I liked me in her version, and I aspired to it. I could not remember the last time I’d wanted my mother to be proud of me, probably not since Little League. Sil’s approval had mattered, but only in more prosaic questions of masculinity: “That’s no way for a man to act” was very harsh when spoken softly by Sil. I madly pursued my father’s approval for many years, with no result. But Dana’s praise I wanted and I could win. That’s the person who will shape you permanently.
I did my hours at my job, hoping to make her (and Dad) smile with my work when I could. Our agency was famous for its print campaign for Absolut Vodka, with the distinctively shaped bottle laid into various disguises. I discovered and passed up through the art department The Tempest, I.ii.126: “Absolute Milan!” The e was dropped, the island was shaped like the Absolut bottle, and the tiny ship was smashed into its neck.
In a copywriter’s dream, I was also able to convince an account director and then the small client to use some of Sonnet 6 as the body copy for an ad. In the posters that went up in bus shelters and nightclub men’s rooms, a handsome man at the far end of “young” looks through a rainy window. His finger noticeably lacks a wedding ring, and the only photos on his desk are of him with his aged parents. His face, spotted by the shadows of raindrops, reflects the first melancholy realization of passing time’s acceleration. Below him are the lines
Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial …
and the name and phone number of the sperm bank, as well as the going price for premium-quality, résumé-supported donations.
The references were lost on most vodka drinkers and lonely seed distributors; both ads quickly vanished. Perhaps that is why I became a novelist: I stunk at everything else. But no, there it is: the self-deprecating memoirist, mythmaking.
In Shakespeare’s case, the mythmaking began seven years after his death, on the dedication pages of his collected works, the First Folio, where my birthday buddy is lauded by his companions, competitors, admirers—“He is for all time!”—as if we are meant to forget that they all stand to make money by this idolizing ad copy. “Read him,” urge the collection’s editors, his old business partners, blurbing like maniacs. “Again, and again, and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him.” The first stage of turning a writer into a god requires some intellectual bullying: if you don’t like him, you might be slow.
14
BREAKING PAROLE to come to Dana’s graduation led to another six months’ imprisonment for my father. I sometimes wonder if he knew this