Old Raincoats, New Skin.

            As a writer I have always felt compelled to learn about as many people as I can in order to build a mental storehouse of human traits and qualities to write about. In fact, I’ve been studying people closely ever since two cute nurses giggled at me (and my freckles) when I was six years old and left abandoned in a hallway at Central General Hospital in Plainview, New York, for what seemed like two hours before having my tonsils removed. Even then I knew I’d write about them one day. And see—I have!
            But it was as an adult, many years ago, with my tonsils (and most of my freckles) long gone and my freelance career underway, that my education really took off. 
            I was commuting by train from Long Island to my job as an account executive at a Manhattan public relations firm. One morning I sat next to a man who was wearing an old raincoat and a new watch. He smiled as I put a lined pad on my lap and began to write, despite being jostled about each time the train accelerated, decelerated, or rounded a curve. He asked what I was doing and I told him I was working on a freelance article. On spec. (That means it did not yet have a specific buyer.)
            “Oh—a writer, huh?” he asked
            “Trying to be,” I replied. 
            “Good… Very good.”
            “Not so good—‘cause it ain’t so easy,” I said, both for effect and as a true reflection of the difficulties I had been having trying to get a byline (other than those on the camera press releases I wrote all day long at work).
            “It’s admirable—“ he said, “working so hard on it. Even on a bumpy train.”
            “Yeah.”
            “I think I may have something for you,” he added, and then he asked for my address and a night I would be free.
            When I got home I told my wife, Bonnie, that I had met a man on the train who was going to give me an assignment. Maybe he was an entrepreneur who was starting a new magazine, I said, or a business tycoon who wanted me to ghostwrite his autobiography. Or something like that. Bonnie looked at me dubiously; I hadn’t even gotten the man’s name.
Wearing his old raincoat and his new watch, the man arrived at our small apartment at the time and on the day we had agreed upon, and he began to set up an easel in our living room. I was convinced he going to show me the lineage of an obscure Mafia family he wanted me to profile for New York magazine. Or something like that. Finally, with his chart posted and his pointer pointing, he began to discuss Amway—or some similar home sales organization (I don’t remember the actual name)—and told me I could soon qualify for a brand new watch, like the one he was wearing, if I became a local rep, or whatever they’re called.
            Gathering up all my courage (for he was a lot older and bigger than me), I asked the man to leave. He did, graciously, although he resembled a wounded bear. Bonnie was shaking her head at me as the man closed the door behind him. ‘You fool’ was written all over her face. I felt like screaming—at the wounded bear for taking advantage of me, and at myself for being such a jerk. Were all novice writers so naïve, I wondered? If so, did I really want to be one? 
            Three children later, with a handful of minor bylines behind me, I had an article published in the New Jersey Weekly section of The New York Times. In it I talked of the difficult search Bonnie and I had embarked on for a new home in the Garden State. The search was difficult because of some specific requirements Bonnie had for this new chapter in our lives. For instance, the branches on the trees on both sides of the block had to meet and shake hands in the middle, thus shading the entire street. That was for her. For me, the people in the neighborhood had to be eccentric, yet quiet. I wanted to be able to base characters on them for any future movies or plays I might write, and I needed a peaceful atmosphere in which to do it. 
I discussed all this in the Times piece, and the day the article was published I received a phone call from a man who said he was involved in theatre and film as an actor and director, that he lived in the next town, and that he wanted to meet me at local diner the following morning to talk. First I checked out his credentials. He was indeed listed in some theatrical reference books, and he had also played an Amish character in the Harrison Ford film, “Witness.” I had already seen the movie but rented it once again, just for the hell of it. I begged Bonnie to watch it, too, because I did not want her face to say ‘You fool’ ever again. Once was enough.
            I ran into town the next morning, all the while trying to picture what the cover of my very first Playbill would look like, with help from the man from “Witness.” He was already there when I arrived, and as we began to enjoy our deliciously high cholesterol breakfasts he started to tell me about the extra money I could make selling personal care products from an outfit known (if I remember correctly) as Nu-Skin. He said it was a side business that had kept him going reasonably well between projects, and he wanted to offer me the same opportunity. I told him I’d think about it. That was a lie, but it was an easy way out—and I wanted out. I was no longer enjoying myself. Certainly the breakfast had lost its luster. Unfortunately, so was the prospect of being a writer. (I won’t tell you what Bonnie said when I got home.)
            A few years after that, I had an article published in New Jersey Monthly about a weekly luncheon I have with two friends from my teenage years. All three of us had relocated from Long Island and, purely by coincidence, found ourselves working and living in Northern New Jersey. Bob was still chasing the goal of being an inventor; Gary wanted to be a professional musician; I wanted to be a writer of novels and motion pictures. The article addressed all that and spoke honestly of the mutual support we had for each other and how we still root for the professional success and independence each of us crave. 
            A week after the issue hit the stands a guy with a relatively young-sounding voice called me on the phone and asked if he could send a brochure and audiotape that would explain how to become financially independent while still pursuing the writing life. No obligation, he said. When I received the material I saw that it was an international sales organization that involved a substantial investment and more paperwork than refinancing a mortgage. So before Bonnie even saw it I took the no obligation brochure, the no obligation audiotape, stuck it back in the no obligation postage-paid return envelope, and dropped it in a no obligation mailbox. When I got back home I went over to my computer. Flying through space was saving the screen, but when I touched the mouse Microsoft Word came on. I shut it off. I didn’t feel like writing any more words. And I was under no obligation to do so.
            When my second nonfiction book was in final galley form, my editor and I were speaking on the phone one evening. He had been in receipt of several of my earlier proposals. He knew of my insatiable desire to write as well as my frustration of having to abdicate much needed writing time to the corporate world in order to support a growing family. He readily agreed that making extra money was the best way of buying the kind of independence that could eventually lead to a lifestyle more suited to my avocational passion. Then he said he was involved in an organization that could eventually provide that kind of independence. Something he himself does on the side. Something he wanted to introduce me to. Could we meet somewhere? For coffee? 
            I politely said no thanks and hung up. My first inclination was to tell him to take his independence and shove it, and I also felt like sticking my hand through the mouthpiece, wringing his neck, and throwing my computer out the window to see if could really fly through space. I remembered that when I was ten I wanted to be an architect. I wondered if it was too late.
            But then I realized something about people like my editor, and the young-sounding guy on the phone, and the Amish actor at the diner, and the man with the old raincoat and new watch on the train. I realized that they embody some real and quite remarkable traits and qualities, collectively and individually, that I can assign to certain characters in the books and plays I still plan to write one day. 
            So I didn’t scream or shove my hand through the phone or throw my computer out the window. I simply did what I know I’ve always wanted to do. 
            I wrote.
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Visit my website at http://JoeltheWriter.com.