T.C. Boyle

 September 30, 2024

     As we get closer to the most momentous election in American history and my waking dreams are filled with images of the Bogeymen who want to take power and dictate to us how to think and what we can and cannot do, I must report that I am once again walking, however tentatively, sans crutches or knee brace, all the better to make my escape if the worst should happen.  Which it won’t, will it?  Can anybody really want a mendacious, heartless, mentally crippled felon at the helm, one who has promised to dismantle the Constitution and rule with an iron fist, jailing all those who oppose or even speak out again him?  No.  No way.  Not in my country.  No, no, no.
     What am I doing about it?  Drugging, boozing, napping in the sun, limping up the road at dawn with the dog at my side and coming home again to worry over the keyboard.  No new work yet in sight, though I’m pursuing several leads—I’d like to complete the next book of stories and find the subject and theme of my next novel, but, of course, I live in terror and my usual resources of joy have been severely abridged by my accident.  What can I tell you?  Day by day, inch by inch, I’m getting stronger?  Well, yeah, okay, but to what end?
     This is called despair.  Yes, I can look forward to the joyous delirium of November sixth and the new work that will arrive to stimulate me—and walking, walking once again along the beach in the company of the dog—but for now, I find myself dissolving in a puddle of broken-legged worry day after day.  My readers help.  My family helps.  The dog.  The cat.  I tell myself I’m going to be all right.  So is my country.  First, we cut the head off the snake and then we break out the bandages. 
     What joy, what insuperable joy!  Crack the champagne!  Shout hosannas!  Throw away the crutches and crank the stereo!  As Solomon Burke sang, “Life is for the living,” and right now, right here, as I get to the bottom of this page, I feel I’m definitely in that camp, alive, alive still, and limping into the glorious future.  I’m not complaining.  Not a bit.  Uh-uh.  Never.