Genius Interruptus

Tyrone was a great storyteller. There have been great storytellers throughout history, Greek, Irish, Native American, who have been lauded, published and even appreciated in their own lifetimes, but in his time, in his crowd, in his way, Tyrone was the best. His enthusiasm when warming to a subject was contagious, as it must be for any spinner of the yarn to be deserving of acclaim in their field, and his subjects and descriptions were as fresh and spontaneous in the latest retelling, which could conceivably run in the scores, as when first related. He could build to a climax, sense the temperament of the listener or listeners, and deliver just the right inflection, at just the right time, for optimum effect. His instincts were flawless, his performances legendary. And as with all great achievers caught in the frailty of their humanity, he had his ‘Achilles’ Heel’ and it defeated him at every turn.

The ‘Achilles’ concept, inspiration for Homer and his mythological brethren, more acutely manifest in the modern world as psychosis for Van Gogh, scandal for Wilde, and liquor for Fitzgerald, Wolfe, and Behan, was for Tyrone the sheer aggravation and frustration in the pursuit of bringing a finely modulated, intricately structured tale to its final conclusion. Not that any of this was of his own doing, or undoing to be precise. He neither courted nor encouraged the elements that strove to abort his stirring finales. He was victim, pure and simple, to an uncanny coincidence that disrupted his masterstroke at the point of climax every time, anyplace, and under all variety of circumstance. He was cursed.

If he were telling a joke to co-workers, he would be interrupted at the punch line by either manager or customer, every time. If he were relating an incident to an intimate, in his home, the telephone would ring at the pinnacle of profundity, every time. Anticipation didn’t help matters; phone off, doorbell rings, two, three, four o’clock in the morning. Every time.

Restaurants were particularly disturbing. “She looked him in the eye and said …” would inevitably end in “Would you like to hear tonight’s specials?” There were myriad variations on this theme of course, the dropped tray, the thunderstruck yelp in response to a proposal of marriage, separation, or an announcement of impending nativity, the always possible and ever annoying surprise birthday cake complete with candles, smiling servers, and a chorus of reluctant amateur choristers including himself. It seemed years since Tyrone had articulated a complete thought to an eager recipient and the stress was beginning to show. The amiable, social butterfly would snap and snarl at approaching potential interlopers. If you had lips, you were the enemy.

It would begin in the same fashion. Tyrone would scope out the area for likely candidates who might gatecrash his performance, cast an eye out for impending nuisances, begin his account in a self-conscious, measured manner to the point of no return, and then let fly with all intention and inflection intact, ardent in the pursuit of the perfect punch line. Imminent interruption would not rear its ugly presence until he was well on the way to conclusion. It was a maddening cycle of déjà vu that would haunt his every waking hour and discourage peaceful repose. The man was marked, pure and simple.

The day finally came when he was too deflated to offer up a rousing yarn, even when encouraged. Why contend with the elements when the deck is stacked and he obviously held no favor with the gods of chance? This was the day his philosophy was born. This was the crystal instant when Tyrone had a peek behind the curtain and he would never view his life the same again.

What Tyrone saw was astounding in its representation and simplicity? He was holding forth while behind the counter at his retail job on a slow, snowy night in December. The store was empty. The streets were empty. His two co-workers were attending him conscientiously and focused on his every word. He was a paragraph away from finishing his story when his eye caught a figure looking in at the window. His heart stood still while his lips kept the momentum going. As he was building toward his climax, he checked the office at the rear of the shop and he saw Tiffany, his manager, who was busy at her computer, stretch out her arm somewhat theatrically to clear the sleeve of her blouse, reach behind her head to adjust a barrette and glance into the hub of the shop. At that precise moment the window shopper opened the door and shouted across, “Are you still opened?” All eyes and ears turned toward the intruder. Tiffany leaped from her desk and began a cordial trek across the floor. “Yes we are, for another hour.” The inquiring, potential customer clad in Eskimo-like attire from hood to boots, than backed out of the door with, “Oh, that’s okay. I’m better off coming in tomorrow.” And out into the storm of the century without achieving a single objective other than to thwart the grand finale of a well-crafted tale.

The gambit had been exposed and all pretext revealed. This gatecrasher wasn’t coming back tomorrow, which indeed she did not. She had fulfilled her purpose in aborting the climax of his story and had been sent packing, back to central casting for another assignment. Tiffany’s cue had been obeyed and executed with adroit stagecraft and the mission had been completed according to plan. No satisfaction or praise would visit Tyrone tonight, or any other night. The conspiracy was laid bare once and for all. The manager’s strategy could not have been any clearer in its apparent purpose. This was no random ambush by the terrorist forces of chance. This was a carefully planned, orchestrated, and choreographed intrusion on the finely honed talents of a master of his trade (non-paying). This was, then, nothing less than the invasion by a covert super power that had singled him out as expendable and was determined to render him redundant in a timely fashion. With the gesture of a sweeping arm, his manager had furtively called “Action” and the plan rolled into effect without a hitch and never aroused the suspicions of his former captive audience. But now, at least and at last, he knew. Tiffany was more than a store manager. She was a stage manager. Tyrone quit the next day.

Once the grand scenario was revealed to him, Tyrone saw through it in every instance. He felt empowered by this exclusive knowledge of how our every action is anticipated and redirected by a clandestine preeminence until the impetus of one’s primary motive is dissipated and rendered useless. He also felt alone and inadequate to the task of alerting others to this implausible conspiracy. The light of revelation is only reserved for those who comprehend the whole in the shards and fragments of daily existence and, being thus exclusive, remains veiled from the perceptive scope of the innocent. He would be regarded as a lunatic and his voice would no longer command a rapt audience. Better to retire now with his reputation intact than to risk such a fall from grace. Better to restrict his talent voluntarily than be invited to subside.

Tyrone drifted for a while. He couldn’t hold down a job. He saw the machinations behind the scenes, especially in the realm of management, and knew he could no longer tolerate the deception. He no longer told stories for the eager consumption of his peers and was considered to be, for a while, a quiet, vigilant worker, but his ability to abide and conform to the tyranny was compromised entirely. He soon became a malcontent and unemployable.

After being delinquent in his rent for several months and no longer able to stave off the legal process, Tyrone took to the streets. The timing was perfect in that it was a June eviction and the alternatives weren’t all that bad. At first he crashed with a few friends, but after a couple of weeks he found himself sleeping on rooftops and in hallways until commanded to leave the premises. He spent his afternoons loitering around travel agencies in anticipation of an unguarded moment when he could lift a brochure or two endorsing a sunny locale foreign to the hardships of winter. He did this as much as he could, for his appearance was deteriorating by the day and his deceptions were becoming more obvious. He knew he needed to formulate a plan before the arctic air would begin to drift down from Canada and derail his current arrangement with the downward spiral of his life.

The days flew by and Tyrone adjusted to his new lifestyle without much trauma. It surprised him how little he needed to survive. The further withdrawn he became from the culture he once swore allegiance to, the more independent his nature grew, until he no longer recognized a need to recapture the trappings of his former life. He adapted quite well to the daily struggle for food and shelter that was the custom of his newly found brethren and relished the occasion to devise the creative resources that were requisite to achieve these ends.

At first he traveled alone, keeping to himself and eschewing all tendered kinship, while absorbing the fundamental lore of abandoned buildings, back alleys, and garbage cans. He would make mistakes and be ousted more than once from these locations, but the adventure of discovery kept him going so that each new day was a seminar in resilience. When he decided that he wasn’t learning fast enough to ensure his nocturnal security, or his safety in neighborhoods and establishments of questionable civility, he began to accept the counsel of his peers. After all, he reasoned, the wheel in this vocation had long since been invented and why not jump on board and catch up to speed before the frost set in? During this juncture in his life and in this humor, he welcomed the first friendly scrounger he encountered.

They called him Cicero. He was a veteran of the streets and seemed to know everyone; the dispossessed, the drunks, the druggies, the loonies, even the shopkeepers and janitors. He was a veritable encyclopedia of street life and he had come along at just the right moment in Tyrone’s odyssey.

They met at the rear entrance of the Romano Restaurant in Soho. Tyrone was sifting through a garbage can for discarded scraps of protein. A voice advised him to “Leave that shit for the rookies.” When Tyrone looked up to see where the recommendation had come from, he discovered an elfish, bearded man sitting on the metal steps leading up to the kitchen door. The speaker had raised his hand and was wiggling his fingers so Tyrone could locate him without a protracted scan of the darkened alleyway.

The man appeared somewhat disheveled, but his attire suggested a hint of elegance. He appeared to be in his fifties and he wore oval, wire-framed bifocals. He sported a dingy knit tie over a light pink shirt, or an old white shirt that had been mixed in with the colors once too often, although it seemed ages since it had seen a wash. These were complimented by a brown corduroy jacket that suggested the wearer spent many long hours pounding out dialogue, themes, and plot twists in the pursuit of literary excellence. His raven black hair was sparse, but none-the-less long and tousled. All of these conflicting elements suggested that he was rather fastidious in his negligence.

“If you can wait, there‘ll be fresh stuff coming out any minute.”

Tyrone approached the back steps cautiously, not from any sense of trepidation, but from an innate respect for the space occupied by another being. As he drew nearer, the bare, dim bulb above the kitchen door revealed more details of this strange little man and his curious motif, curious in view of his current standing in the social order. This new information proved to be even more perplexing. He wore denim trousers, frayed to a pleasing powder blue with fringes at the cuffs that were more telling than decorative. These strands of decaying thread aptly covered the northern frontiers of a pair of dark leather cowboy boots that appeared to be fresh off a Wells Fargo stagecoach.

“Nice boots.”

“They were my dads’. He loved them so much he couldn’t bear to expose them to the elements. I have honored that tradition until now. I don’t have a choice anymore. All I have is necessity, my one true companion these days. Not that I’m complaining. Necessity simplifies things, keeps them clear and uncluttered.”

Tyrone understood this invitation to engage and his approach became more assured. He placed an arm on the railing and leaned in with a wink.

“Speaking of necessity, what was that about ‘fresh stuff’?” This seemed to get a rise from his new comrade in penury.

“Ah, I like that,” the man coughed up after a short expression of glee. “A deft segue none-the-less direct in its archery. My name is Cicero, and this is where I usually feed two or three times a week. You are welcomed to graze with me.”

“I’m Tyrone and I believe I will accept your gracious invitation.” Tyrone fought off an unconscious impulse to bow.

“One of the chef’s helpers is an old friend,” Cicero explained. “He saves the overage for me before it can be trashed. There is more than enough for both of us.”

“And what may I bring to the banquet?” inquired Tyrone, offering his outstretched hand in unity.

“Oh, I do like the cut of your jib,” hooted Cicero as he enthusiastically clutched Tyrone’s hand in both of his. “Sir, you may bring your wit, your insight, and the fulfillment of what appears to be a very promising collaboration.” With that, the kitchen door flew open and a shaft of light flooded the newly acquainted men in a snapshot tableau of brotherhood. The silhouette of the kitchen helper, a bounty of fragrant cuisine in his arms, gave celebratory promise to the enduring image.

* * * * * * * * * * *

“The gods are messing with us, no doubt about it,” offered Cicero as he finished off the last of a paper plate of Linguini Marinara. “You have to figure out in just what way you have angered them and attempt reparations.”

Tyrone scooped up a mound of tomato sauce with a piece of Italian bread. “That sounds a little too much like Father Conlan to me. I left all that guff way back in “Once Upon a Time.”

“Well,” savored Cicero as he swallowed his mouthful after a toothless mash, “It’s more like Mother Nature you have to appease. She is very much upon our time. I know, I know … about now you‘re figuring that maybe this guy is a bit loony tunes.”

“If you’re going to invoke a hellfire and brimstone sermon, I just might entertain that thought,” Tyrone rejoined with a nervous grin. “I’ll just pass it off as playful repartee until confirmed.”

“You can pass it off as gas, for all I care. You don’t arrive at my august circumstance in life worrying about public opinion.”

Tyrone decided to allow the exchange to run its course. “Okay, so how have I offended Mother Nature?”

“Who knows? There are many ways to affront the elements that serve to sustain our lives on this planet, don’t you agree?”

Tyrone was once again intrigued by his companion. “I won’t argue that point.”

“Of course not. How could you? How could anyone? Yet, many disregard its significance in favor of convenience. After all, we are Man. We rule the earth and reshape it to our liking. We have achieved monumental advances beyond the capabilities of any other life form extant. Yet our legacy will be renowned for just one contribution above all others. We are the greatest purveyors of garbage the universe has ever endured. We pollute everything we touch … physically, mentally, and spiritually. Our greed and self-interest knows no bounds. And, unlike the creatures we share the soil with, our excrement cannot be absorbed, decayed, or destroyed. We, after all, invented plastic. These are sins, much more serious than lying, stealing, or coveting. These are sins committed against ourselves in a mad, mindless tango of self-loathing. Thus have we offended Mother Nature.”

“Amen,” was uttered with more substantive resolve than Tyrone had ever expressed in his youthful catechism.

* * * * * * * * * * *


“Amazing. You have truly seen behind the curtain of our collective reality,” Cicero announced over his Linguini Alfredo, once again at the back of the Romano the next evening, after enduring another detailed recounting of the tribulations of the master storyteller. “I was aware there was a force, but the particulars escaped my notice. Maybe because I function in a more structured environment than you.”

“How’s that?” Tyrone replied, somewhat astonished by his friend’s blatant declaration.

“Well,” the purveyor of back alley wisdom continued, “ I would have to say that, although your ability to weave an intriguing yarn is first rate, your choice of venues has been somewhat amateurish. You have, heretofore, been content with captivating your audiences in shops, cafes, and parlors. You have limited control, if any at all, in such settings. You are just leaving yourself open for the amusement of the gods.”

Tyrone stared at his companion dubiously. “You really believe these so called gods have nothing better to do than mess with me?”

“Is that any more implausible than seeing the hand of some unwitting stagehand conducting an orchestration of frustration, all in your honor? It’s really the same thing, isn’t it? What for you is bible, for me is balderdash? Ah, you are straddling a double standard, my friend, and it is unbecoming.”

“Point well taken.” Tyrone regarded his eggplant for a moment. “So, what would a more professional venue be?”

“The stage, of course. The podium, rostrum, dais, platform, pulpit … these are like churches. The gods of mischief dare not enter. Disruption is not tolerated. Interruption is a sacrilege. The faithful in these venues are agreed on one point, the natural progression of a tale to its crafted conclusion. It is the sole reason they are there. The tickets have been sold, the register is closed, phones are rendered inoperable, there is nothing between you and climax. When you perform anywhere else, workplace, restaurant, street corner, you are selling yourself to the moneychangers and they will function whether you are on a roll or not. You are not the purpose. You are a sideshow.”

Tyrone grasped the light at once. “To be or not to be, eh?”

“Ah, that is the answer.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

Later, in their search for evening quarters, they came upon an abandoned building in SoHo. Cicero led the way through a side entrance that he seemed quite familiar with.

“This is almost always accommodating for an undisturbed rest,” he muttered as they squeezed their way through a large, rusted, double metal door. “The lords of the land can’t quite figure out what to do with it, so we’ll provide it with a purpose for the night.”

Even in the darkened interior Tyrone could tell the structure was rather cavernous and he made his way around by feeling for the borders of its contour. Once at the opposite end he stopped and tried to quicken his eye adjustment for the purpose of satisfying an increasingly pressing need.

“Piss … piss … I gotta’ piss somewhere,” he whispered to himself and to whatever inner demons intent on tormenting his bladder.

“There’s a lobby just behind you and what’s left of a pair of toilets,” Cicero advised him in a low, casual voice.

“How the hell did you hear me?”

“You don’t have to shout. This was once a theatre and the acoustics were superior. Still are, obviously. I would appreciate it if you at least used the lobby section for your relief. If the sound can carry, can the odor be far behind?”

Tyrone was aware of a soft, self-satisfied, contained chuckle on the part of his cohort.

“You’re really pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”

“Ah, so that information was conveyed quite accurately, was it? Imagine if there were lights, eh. The air itself would be teeming with vision and initiative. It would crackle with invention. Inspiration would fly from the footlights and alight on every head in the house like the Holy Spirit at table.”

A trickle of satisfaction was heard from the back of the house, accompanied by, “I hear every word you’re saying, I just can’t wait. Ah, sweet release, I sing thy praises in this moment of urinary rapture.”

“Ah, less of a poet and more of an actor, “ sighed Cicero as he explored the flooring at the base of the proscenium apron. “His citation is dramatic and his voice stentorian, but his sensibility remains decidedly base.”

“I heard that.” The voice was moving closer.

“You were meant to.”

“You think I’m an actor?”

“I think you exhibit a distinct potential for ham, yes. But you are still a piglet and have much to learn.”

“I like this quality. When my voice carries out, it returns to me and I can enjoy the effect as one of the audience.”

“I’ll cure you of that,” Cicero nonchalantly offered. “It’s bad form to indulge in one’s own sense of grandeur. It will be noticed and it will be resented.” He walked along the stage apron and came across a mass of material piled at the end that appeared to be the remnants of what was once a curtain. “Ah, here, take some of this for bedding. I will sleep here under the footlights. You shall take the stage and get comfortable with it. Your training has begun.”

Tyrone could not fall asleep immediately and was still awake some thirty minutes later. He turned on his side and peered through the darkness to see if Cicero had fallen out as yet.

“I’m still awake, if that’s what you want to know.”

“I can’t sleep either,” Tyrone confessed. “I’m thinking about this theatre thing. I never thought of myself as a performer really. I must admit, its kind of exciting to think about.”

“I know.” Cicero turned on his side facing Tyrone who was a few feet above him on stage level. “I could hear you thinking. Its been keeping me up.”

“I feel something … I don’t know what it is. I feel sort of alive again, like when I was a kid.”

“You are beginning to sense your way.”

“My way?”

“Your path … your Tao. You are being reborn, but first you had to go through the pains of being delivered.”

“Yeah, but delivered from what?”

“The world. Let us begin at the beginning. You were born, naked, alone … absolutely and completely unique. Then you found your mother and love was first defined for you. You were given a name so you would know what to call yourself, an identity in the family hierarchy, a nationality, a religion, a code of ethics. You were told who you were before you ever had a chance to find out for yourself. Your world was defined for you and all you had to do was live up to it. Then came your first brush with doubt and disappointment.”

Tyrone propped himself up on one elbow. “That there was no God?”

“No Santa Claus, but close enough. You get the idea. Same thing, really. Another myth passed along without much rhyme or reason except to keep you boxed in to your given identity”

“Okay, so then … when did this rebirthing begin?”

“When you saw behind the curtain. It doesn’t matter if your theory was right on the money or just an aspect of a passing paranoia. You just decided once and for all that nothing, really, was as valid as portrayed by your co-habitants on the planet. You realized you had to re-invent yourself or die clinging to the dogma of a desperate generation that is clinging to the desperate dogma of the last generation. You broke the circle. Doing that is painful. It involves doubting yourself because what reassured your father doesn’t reassure you any longer. To deny that element is to deny your father. Birth is always an agony of transition, but you must become the father of the child that is still asking the questions you ceased asking when you entered adulthood. The pat answers and slogans don’t work for you anymore.”

“So I do what, erase the past?”

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. Listen, you have a history, one that you know is real because you lived it. Good or bad, don’t let it go to waste. Use it. Keep it as a guide because, as you know, history has a history of repeating itself.”

“So, how did you break the mold?”

“Ah, I was most fortunate. I had a strange father who had no desire to make me into what he could never be. When I asked him, at a very early age, what was the meaning of it all and was there really a god, he told me that searching for answers was one of my job requirements in life and that he wasn’t about to do my job for me. He also told me that I might find a few answers along the way, but not necessarily to the questions I ask.”

“It sounds like he was a wise man.”

“He was. I honor him in my own way. He had his own ideas and he allowed me to have mine. I do wear his boots though.”

“What did he do for a living?

Cicero shifted position until he was on his back, his hands clasped behind his head, staring into the vastness of an invisible firmament.

“He buried people.”

Tyrone was intrigued.

“A hit man? No wait … an undertaker.

“Close. A gravedigger. A bit of a philosopher also, but the digging paid the bills.”

“And your mom?”

Cicero felt a crick in his neck and repositioned his arms across his chest.

“Never knew her. I vaguely remember a spectral, feminine presence when I was very young … more a sense of her than anything substantial.”

Tyrone sensed that he should tread these waters lightly.

“I’m sorry. How did she pass?”

“Pass?

“Pass away. You know, die. I’m striving for delicacy here.”

The interviewee let out a little chuckle.

“You certainly are. Well, she may have passed, but she didn’t die. She passed away from us to join the circus.”

“You’re joking. That’s ridiculous.”

“It certainly is. Actually, she ran away to devote her life to the theatre. We never heard from her again. To his enduring credit, my father refused to farm me out to relatives, even when things got rough. We soldiered on, the two of us, through all the vagaries and condiments of life’s grand feast. We survived the indigestible parts, shat it out, and came back for more.”

Tyrone was impressed with his companion’s ability to navigate the waters of disenchantment with such aplomb.

“I find it somewhat amazing that you have such a respect and passion for the theatre. I would think that jealousy or resentment would have drained you of that.”

Cicero cleared his throat with a swift and efficient expulsion of air.

“On the contrary. The theatre represents, for me, all the possibilities that might have been. If dear mum had stayed, the course of her life, and ours, would have been etched in stone, as concrete and absolute as typeface. In the world of theatre, it might have evolved into any number of promising scenarios, each holding a potential for the fantastical meanderings of a creative, rambunctious mind. The promise is what keeps our lives together for the long haul, the result is but a few moments of satisfaction, usually lost in the numbness of achievement.”

Tyrone remained rooted in the secular.

“You don’t hate her for what she did?”

“I am incapable of hating someone I don’t know. Her actions will be accounted for in her own reality, dependent on her own ethics. I’d be better served attending to my personal liabilities.”

Tyrone was not persuaded by this alleged profession of detachment.

“Yeah, but what she did was … reprehensible.”

Cicero tired of the inquiry and rolled on to his side, his back to Tyrone.

“I cannot answer for her.”

He was asleep before Tyrone offered a confession of his own.

“My mother was always telling me to sit down and shut up. She was afraid I might say something offensive and embarrass her. I wish she had run away and joined the circus.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

Cicero had no idea how long he’d been asleep when he drowsily became aware of the footlights in operation. They weren’t turned up all the way, but he was amazed they worked at all.

He soon realized that Tyrone was no longer camped downstage center, but a muted spotlight revealed and illuminated a woman in Elizabethan finery posed royally on a decorative throne. She appeared to be enacting Queen Gertrude from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The scene unfolded thusly:

Gertrude

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Cicero

Now, mother, what's the matter?

Gertrude

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Cicero

Mother, you have my father much offended.

Gertrude

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

Cicero

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Gertrude

Why, how now, Hamlet!

Cicero

What's the matter now?

Gertrude

Have you forgot me?

Cicero

No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your theatre husband's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

Gertrude

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

Cicero

Why did you abandon us?

Gertrude

O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

Cicero

Then I will leave you to your fate, as you did me.

Gertrude

O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Enter Ghost (Tyrone, stumbling back from the lobby)

“Every time I get comfortable these days, I gotta take another leak. Who were you talking to? Cicero, come on, I heard you.”

Cicero never answered and Tyrone didn’t persist, not detecting his corpse until the next morning. Tyrone told his story that day at the precinct, with a pair of cowboy boots tucked under his arm, and sometime later he repeated it nightly during his one-man show addressing the complex nature of familial consequence at a theatrical venue in the city. All concerned listened intently and no one interrupted him.

© 2005 by John Cannatella