Salutatorian, Class of 2011, White Plains High School (NY)
Class of 2015, Haverford College
Moderator and Question Writer for the National History Bowl and Bee
Film Critic for the Bi-College News
Hello, everyone.
I am an inspiring writer of fictional novels, plays and screenplays (and critical analyses) of the highbrow literary variety who will be using this page to post some small works and previews of some larger works.
I will be constantly updating this page, so keep looking back for new material, and get in touch with me if you find something worth responding to.
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FILM REVIEWS FOR "LIKE CRAZY" AND "MONEYBALL" COMING SOON!!!!!
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OFFICIAL PREVIEW TO MY WORK IN PROGRESS, "THE DYING GENERATIONS"!!!!!
When I was twelve, I decided to conduct an experiment. It was the day before Gramma was to ship me off to sleep-away camp for eight weeks, and the morning and most of the afternoon had been hot and humid, and I was wandering around the apartment looking for something productive to do. You know I don’t do things unless I feel like they’re productive. Everything else is just filler—time-wasting.
So it was about five PM, and I wandered into Gramma’s room, and I noticed her dresser. Big, oblong mahogany thing, four dressers tall, two Vitruvian Men wide, with a big semi-circle of a mirror for her to look in while she was getting dressed each morning. It had mountains of shit on the counter—it still does—rubber bands, playing cards, jewelry of all sorts, a mannequin’s hand for all the rings, combs and brushes and strings of grey and white hair, a globe, acne cream and other medications, a Lego sculpture of the Taj Mahal I tossed together when I was seven, unopened desk calendars from years long gone—that sort of stuff. The kind of stuff you take for granted.
Anyway, I got kinda curious, and I wanted to see what would happen if I pulled out all the drawers from the dresser. Even if nothing happened, I wanted to know, to be certain about that nothingness. There was something that I couldn’t describe that struck me about the drawers being displaced, about an empty void being left in the dresser, about having to push the drawers in instead of out to retrieve your clothes, and to have to do it to the three you didn’t need your garments from rather than the one you did. It was surreal and twisted, for the bored boy I was.
So I started. I pulled out the top dresser, dragged it all the way out, to my nipples. I looked inside; that’s what a curious boy does. Socks, stockings—very vulnerable-looking, a hundred toenail clippers from when FDR was president, panties—which I tried to ignore, and some T-shirts. What’s underneath, basically. Coming out on top. I squatted down a few inches and pulled out the second drawer; there was something ominous about the way it slid out. Well, not really slid, but rather grinded out, as if birds with large rusty scissors for beaks were trying to clutch onto it, rein it back in and call it prey, and as I pulled triumphantly, the wood made a grinding, almost like a slicing, noise. The birds could do nothing but let go, but they wouldn’t forfeit without dignity. Of course I couldn’t see the contents of this drawer, but I knew what was there—crinkled blouses, wool turtlenecks, what came above the waist. Perhaps Gramma’s private diary from her adolescence was floating around there, somewhere.
I squatted further so that my nipples were touching my kneecaps and went to pull out the third drawer, which had Gramma’s shorts, sweatpants and corduroys; the bottom drawer was reserved for pantsuits and other luxury wear. I remember the coldness of the gold clasps on which I yanked, and the shadow of the drawer above casting a gloomy darkness over my arms. But there was something profound here. I could only pull out the third drawer halfway; the second drawer seemed to be pressing on it, at a downward angle. My gut told me to jerk my arms away, and I did. I erected myself and looked into the mirror, into my eyes, and I saw myself grow bigger and taller in the mirror, and while once the mirror was reflecting the opposite wall and the bookshelf up against it and the window puncturing it, it was now showing the bed in the middle of the room—and then the floor beneath it…
And that’s when I realized that the weight of the drawers was pulling the dresser down upon me.
Without thinking, I turned around and caught the top two dressers, hooking my fingers under the second one. The wood slammed into my back, and I understood that if I had given way, the dresser would crush me and break my spine. My spine—already weak with scoliosis—I’d be in a wheelchair to the end of days! The third drawer fell out and hit my knuckles; I let out this massive grunt. I felt like one of those slaves hauling stone bricks up the edge of the ziggurat, having to detach himself from the pain—to go beyond and outside of his body—in order to live. I heard a slew of noises behind me, an avalanche of objects falling, splintering and crashing to my sides, but I did not have time to glance over and see what they were. I just knew, there was damage. I felt the rim of the mirror flirt with the back of my neck; I’m amazed to this day it did not tilt over and shatter, although I knew it was fixed to the dresser.
My knees buckled; the balls of my feet were elevated; my toes were struggling to remain planted to the floor. Everything was tense. My muscles were in agony. I had to close my eyes and clench my teeth. Was it worth it? Was it really worth it? This experiment? It honestly wasn’t. As much pain as my thighs were in, I proceeded to walk backwards, my ankles brushing up against the third drawer, until I felt the whole thing come back up slowly and quickly at once. Quickly in that the pain went away quickly, slowly in that the dresser’s two back legs seemed to take entire minutes to reach the floor again. Once they did, I shoved the three drawers back in—no time to waste leaving them out. I pulled the second drawer back out briefly to free my fingers, then turned around and pushed it right back in, afraid that the dresser had sensitized to this sort of thing, that it had developed some sort of immune response. One dresser out, and that would be enough to sink the ship.
I surveyed the damage. The globe had rolled over and taken down a box of thumbtacks with it, one of which was stabbing the capital of Sierra Leone. The mannequin’s hand lost its middle finger; never again would it be used to simulate sexual pumping. A platinum ring had cracked into thirds, and beads that were once necklaces and bracelets were now just beads, and a corundum jewel had rolled under the bed and through a crack in the floorboards, its cobalt blue light never to be seen again; I can only thank Heaven Gramma’s wedding ring survived the descent. The playing cards were everywhere. A glass bottle of Grampa’s old cologne—a nifty keepsake—had become shards; the scent remains pungent and choking to me. Did I forget anything? Oh, yeah. The Taj Mahal sculpture. Obliterated. And talcum powder had created a blanket of snow over everything. A few things had been lucky enough to get caught in between the socks and stockings on their tumble across the first drawer’s surface, but they weren’t many. I felt a deep and biting shame. These precious items, thrown into chaos and destruction, by me and by me alone, and for what? For curiosity, that’s what. A petty sensation.
In the living room outside, I heard my Gramma’s favorite five-o’clock news program click off. Her footsteps came running. She came through the bedroom doorway and gazed over it all in shock and worry. I fell into tears and explained the gist of it; she pulled me into her and told me don’t worry, it’s no big deal, you’ve destroyed nothing, you were just fiddling around as all kids your age do, you were forgiven before you did it. They alleviated nothing. The idea that my spine could have been shattered froze me and broke me. What if? Well, then, sleep-away camp would’ve been out of the question. Eight weeks of memories to last a lifetime—just vanished.
Gramma gave me a box of Kleenex. I sat on the bed with my back turned to her; I could not bear the sight of her picking up every shard, every Lego, every bead, every card, every speck of talc. It could’ve very well been my blood and bones she might’ve had to clean up. These thoughts worsened the tears, the heaving, the sniffles, the sobs I’d get made fun for by my classmates, who fashioned themselves macho men compared to me and sought to deny the entire importance of pure human emotion. It was embarrassing, but I could help nothing. I had endured catastrophe and averted a worse one, and in seconds my willpower had been drained.
But then, a miracle happened, and it was this: I thought about you.
I saw your face. Your straight brunette hair, shoulder-length—why did you ever dye it? Your light green, penetrating eyes—you have beautiful-colored eyes. Your soft, supple skin, and how it felt on my lips as it caved in as I kissed your cheeks, and the moisture on your red lips and how it made me want to kiss them. You had a beautiful red complexion, but now, you’re pale. I thought about your lovely, chirping mezzo-soprano voice, how it sung, how it giggled—now, it sounds tired and lazy. Your athletic body came to mind, and I longed, just for a second, that day when you would mature and when there would be more softness to feel when I embraced you; now, that softness has no momentum for me. And your style of dress—which has become disheveled and unnecessarily liberal. And the fact that you hated piercings and tattoos—that’s changed, too. No, the only thing that’s remained constant about you is that small birthmark, instantly noticeable beneath your right nostril. That is the only reason why you are still beautiful.
The past you calmed down the past me. I was reminded that there was beauty and forgiveness in the world; with you in it, there was still innocence and happiness, and bad happenings like these, like a dresser nearly knocking you over and paralyzing you for life, vaporized away and became ephemera. The tears stopped. I would see you again at the end of August, and we’d be friends—maybe, if I was lucky, more than friends—and I was happy, and I smiled and stopped shaking. I wiped the tears of what-if and what-now off my face, tossed the tissues I used into the trash and went to help my Gramma, whose forgiveness I then fully understood, do the repair work.
That type of thing doesn’t happen often. You don’t just think of a face and make all the pain go away. That rarity has a name: it’s called love. True, unprecedented, unabridged love. Love is not a globe and a box of thumbtacks. It’s not a well of cologne or a deck of fifty-two cards. It’s a gift. A gift few people genuinely get to give; a gift much less people genuinely receive. That’s a gift you had. That’s a gift that could have made your life into something more blissful than dreams. That’s a gift we could’ve shared and spread to future generations.
That’s the gift you lost. And that, ultimately, is your greatest punishment.
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My Links
- Review of "50/50"
JGL Finds the Pathos in the Tumor Humor (A) - Review of "Drive"
A Gripping Dose of Reality (A-)