Eugène M Ashton While writing this Eugéne found himself at his desk in the employ of Jonathan Ball Publishers, where he is known for his dealings with books. Going backwards in time from this point, one would find associations on and off the stage, in and out of books, with and without rhyme. He perpetuates a jaunt at the University of Pretoria, before that a five-year stay at Pretoria Boys High School and then a foundation in the Makonya Mountains of the Lowveld at Barberton. Consequently he has performed and written in a most undramatic fashion and continues to do so ...

The Poet

Eugène M Ashton

I had to believe a story would emerge. That from all the years of writing things down, pretending that something was on the go, we would find something. When I use we I must tell you that it is only ever in the royal sense. So one day I read this story written by Jerry Salinger. The guy writes good prose. Have you read the story which is actually a letter, the one from camp — well try as I may I could not find it. It was only ever published in the New Yorker, it’s a magazine for people in New York or something, and only ever in 1965. Now I was not born then, but I went to the office the next day and ordered a subscription. Cost me a fortune. Thought that maybe that way I could find out more about the guy. Turns out that he has not published since 1965, so anyway I bought all his books and read them.

I really like the way he writes, it is like a timepiece, or at least that is what my friend says. But then he only read the one about that Holden guy going through New York. I really liked the New Yorker, but it was a real waste of money. Look the pieces are really good and everything and some of the cartoons make me laugh, I like what they write there and thought that I should send a poem or something. Maybe they like it and I can also be famous and write books, and live alone. That’s right live alone, that’s what I wanted to tell you.

You see I have never lived alone. I always shared a room with my brother, Wayne. It was never that bad because Wayne never read. So he never touched my books or took my pens. We fought, but never about books and when I was really angry with him and wrote it all down, he never read what I wrote. Even if I left the book open it was too much work for him to read so he just left it there and I could never be angry.

When I went to boarding school I had a tuck locker. I never had any money so I never had any tuck. My mother once sent me a box with all sorts of things, but that was the only time I used my locker for tuck. So I put all my poems there, they were really bad, and when people read them they told me they were bad so I never really wrote that many poems. You see the thing about boarding school was you never lived alone. There were twenty-three of us in one room and we all got on each others tits, well that is what we would say. When you farted you had to share. That was a joke from hostel. But it wasn’t that bad because I made some friends. There was this one guy who was just like Holden, he was also crazy and even fought with me. Casey. Casey laughed at all of my poems, he thought that they were all really stupid and that they needed work. That’s what he always said. He told me that I should burn them and start over. It hurt, but even though he was not really a clever guy it made me think that if he could see through them, there was something wrong. So I just stopped writing poems, they were bad so it did not matter so much.

Anyway, so I never was alone at hostel. There was always someone that was trying to get your mattress or something. That was the type of thing they would do, when you went on a trip or you were out at a play, you would come back to find that your perfectly good mattress had been stolen or something. I decided then that I must live alone one day and that I must have the space to have letters lying around and have my underpants on the ground. I would come back to the place from a play and find all my things on the floor and then think that after I got it all back in place I would want to leave. Just like Holden, except that I did not have a whole lot of cash and I did not have a sister. I had a brother and I don’t think that he would have wanted to go with me. He would have stayed so that he could have our room for himself. That’s what I don’t like about Wayne, that he won’t move out and leave me to have my own room.

There was a year, my last one, at school when I had a room that had only my bed in it. But I was never really alone, because it had a window over the fire escape. Every night all the guys that wanted to go over the railway or something would climb over me. It was like a station. In the winter I would make coffee, actually I had junior that would make the coffee, and I would give the guys coffee when they came. I made some money like that, not enough to live in a hotel or anything, or even to hire a car, but just enough to get a pie every day at break. I hated the sandwiches they were nice and everything but I hated them just the same.

It wasn’t a bad thing or anything like that to have my bed in the room at the fire escape, because I always knew who was doing what and who. It was like I was gate keeper and all the guys kind of thought that because they had woken me up trying to get in or go out that they had to tell me everything that they did. You can’t believe some of the things that they did. It is just like in that book, trying to kiss this girl and do that to another girl. And most of the girls were really nice and I even liked some of them. But you can’t believe what they let the blokes from hostel do to them. I sometimes thought that I could write poems about them and the things that they did, but no one would believe them. Also a poem is not such an easy form to tell stories about sex and alcohol and things like that. I think it is better just to put things like that on tape, then you get everything and you can really see how it was. But then I remembered that that sort of thing is vulgar so that is not such a good idea.

I must tell you about this one night with this guy Casey. He was always a naughty kind of guy, but only really when he got very drunk and then forgot himself. You see he had been brought up the right way and most of the time would do all the things that one would expect from a gentleman, but when he got drunk and things like that he would just forget to behave. I think that most people are like that when they are drunk. I am never like that because I don’t really like drinking but then it is because I can’t really get any alcohol or anything, and I don’t want to steal from my dad so I just don’t drink. But Casey was drunk and at a party, and he told me this when he got back to hostel, and a girl who he did not know wanted it. So he gave it to her just like that, in a toilet or something with a whole lot of other guys knocking on the door. The funniest thing was that when he was finished the girl gave him money, like he minded or something, I did not really believe him. The next day it was all over hostel and then I heard from a friend at the girl’s school that it was true. I laughed at him.

Even though Casey and I did not like really get along or anything at school, especially with him always telling me to burn my poems, he and I lived in a one bedroom apartment together when we were at university. I really wanted to get my own room and that but I did not want to be in a hostel. All the apartments were really expensive and because I could only work in the library at the university and not do real work like the other guys to get lots of money, I did not have much of a choice or anything. I mean it is not that bad because I snore and he doesn’t so it only bothers him, but I sleep fine. We lived in the same room for four years before, so I did not mind so much. But it was still not my own room and I reckoned that I could work more hours at the library and then get my own apartment. That did not look like such a bad idea and everything, but the library was not open for enough hours of the day, so there wasn’t really a chance for me to work enough hours. They weren’t going to give me an increase in salary because I had just started. It was that catch 22 thing because the way I figure I was in a philosophical dilemma. (We learnt that in first year.)

Some things just look like they are bad for you, but the way I saw it I could take a chance and write something and all. But you see this was a problem because I could not write poems — them being so bad and everything. I also tried writing in the library but the women kept on distracting me, not that I am a handsome guy or anything, but because I always helped them so I didn’t have much time to write. That was another dilemma, besides this lady who works at the library told me that poetry doesn’t sell or anything. So I thought there isn’t much point to writing poems then, Casey hates them too. She told me that novels sell. So I thought I would write a novel, but that was hard work. I told some publishing houses that I phoned that I was a writer, well not really yet because I hadn’t written anything, but that I was going to. They did not really want to speak to me; they said that I had to produce a manuscript and everything. They said that I must print it out on paper and send it to them when I had finished. That didn’t seem to make sense to me because I needed money so that I could write all the time, so I asked if they will pay for me to write. The guy was really nice and everything, he told me I should get some poems or short stories published first if I wanted them to pay for me to write. Since poems were now out the window I thought I would write short stories.

So it is not so easy when you have to write a short story. Firstly, as you know, I had to share this room with Casey and when I got home at night he did not like it if I sat up and worked. He told me that he hated the sound of the pen scratching and then the crunching paper and the bump as it hit the dustbin. He said that this short story stuff was killing trees, not that he really liked trees or anything, but that it did not make sense to him. He said that he thought I saved more trees when I was writing poems even though I had to burn them, it made me tired and at least got me to bed early. This short story stuff seemed too much like work. I realised very cleverly that I was not going to write enough short stories that I could get published so that I could make money so that I could live in a room where the publishers would pay, so that I could write and be alone.

And then the other day this New Yorker comes and it has a cartoon on the title page about this guy at a cocktail party. He is speaking to a woman and you can see that he is trying to impress her and everything. I think that if I were in that situation I would tell her that I am a mechanic or something practical, because I can’t show her my poems because they are so bad and everything. Anyway so the guy tells her that he never really tells anyone that he is a writer, because he has never really written anything. So I thought about my poems and the New Yorker and laughed at myself.

You see I am never going to be published so I am never going to be a writer or anything so I am never going to live alone or anything. I think I should draw cartoons, except I can’t draw.

Inspired by a cartoon in the New Yorker.

boontoe

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