From Can't You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer's Memoir, and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise by Allan C. Weisbecker

I write these italicized words from the future, after it all went down, after all the events and all my weaknesses played out, plus my one strength, and after the writing of all of it. I add these words just before this book goes to press and I'll be unable to say anything more to you; these are the last words I'll write.

Norman Mailer calls writing "the spooky art" and that is very apt, for many reasons, but for me it has to do with you, the personal you. You. You are a very spooky entity to me.

You are spooky because you mean everything to me, yet I know nothing about you except that you are right now reading these words. Do you understand the bond I feel with you, the depth of it? I am giving you a lot but you are no less returning that. I speak of your time and of your attention, the two most valuable things you have to give. Thank you for that, for having come this far with me.

But instinct tells me that if it hasn't happened before it has certainly happened now, with these incidents of the sex oil and the phone cord. You consider me a fool.

You must understand something: I don't fear that you think me a fool, nor do I fear that you don't like me.

I only fear that you don't care. Don't care What Happens Next. Don't care what I've written on the pages you have not yet read.

To put it another way: I have chronic tinnitus, ringing in the ear. Sometimes the ringing is so loud – like a siren going by – that I can't believe everyone can't hear it. I fear that this book is like that.

That's my fear right now as I write these last words.

From Can't You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer's Memoir, and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise by Allan C. Weisbecker

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