Part 23: Xander

It was the type of store that mostly sold meaningless trinkets and doodads, things that you bought not because you wanted them but because you wanted the experience of buying something. You could call it a tourist trap except that no tourist would ever come to this town, except perhaps for an alien who insisted he wanted to see how humans really lived, and wasn’t satisfied when you took him to the Pyramids and the Grand Canyon and the palace of Versailles and the slums of Mogadishu, who actually wanted to see the pinnacle of human mediocrity. It was both large and cramped; cheap and overpriced; bright and yet dingy. Dickens would have loved it.

Xander Cross entered, looking for a Meaningful Human Interaction.

It was his Day Off, which meant he didn’t have to do anything. But he was determined to prove Bobby Melrose wrong. One way to do that would have been to work on a creative project even though he didn’t have to, to spend the day writing songs just for the sake of artistic fulfillment, but that was also what Bobby wanted him to be doing, so it was complicated.

But life itself is a creative project, is it not? he said to himself as he browsed the store idly. He picked up and peered at a small, wooden owl. Mass-produced (the small, gold sticker on the bottom said Made In China) but made to look hand-crafted. Appealing to those who liked the idea of things being hand-crafted, who liked words like artisan and rustic, but also liked not having to spend more than $1.99.

That owl was him, or at least it was who he had been. Who Bobby expected him to be.

But just because the world was full of these mass-produced owls didn’t mean it was impossible to actually carve one by hand.

It just might turn out that his real art was not about Death and Love, but something less profound. It might look less artistic than the "art" that was mass-produced.

After all, the factory can do everything else better than the craftsman. Why should the aesthetic of craftmanship be any different?

Creating something real could mean appearing to sell out.

But he still didn’t have any ideas for what to write about. His songs were always about grappling with things. Decisions that had huge, epic consequences; good and evil. Meanwhile, here on earth, all he was grappling with was: should he buy the owl or not?

Well, yes, he should buy the owl, because the owl was just a pretext to start a conversation with the shopkeeper. A young kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen, vaguely alternative-looking. Not quite in the same aesthetic neighborhood as Xander or the Company, but in the same city at least. But most importantly, a human being. Someone with hopes and dreams and fears, someone with a whole past and worldview, with countless relationships and opinions and bits of knowledge both abstract and practical, lurking just below the surface. An iceberg, like every one of us.

The challenge was how to draw him out of his performative, occupational shell.

“How’s it going?” Xander started, placing the owl down on the counter. An overture. A prelude to the interaction proper.

“Living the dream,” the clerk replied. This was his standard phrase, one that he had picked up from an older coworker, maybe, or from television. He said it upwards of a hundred times a day.

“That’s funny,” Xander said, trying to look the clerk in the eye but finding it difficult. “Really, though, how are you? How’s your shift going today?”

“Oh, not bad, not bad. That’s two-twenty-six.”

“Oh, yeah? How so?”

“One-ninety-nine plus tax.”

“Right, right, of course,” Xander said, pulling out his wallet. “But I meant, like, why’s your day not bad? Has it been busy today? I really want to know. I'm listening.”

“Nah, not really,” the kid said, shrugging. Maybe the shell was starting to chip away. It was hard to tell. 

“That’s good.” Xander handed him three dollars. The transactional part of the interaction was nearing an end. If he wanted to transform it into an actual human interaction, he was running out of time. Maybe questions weren’t the right approach. “My name’s Xander, by the way. Well, Alexander, technically, but everyone calls me Xander.”

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Xander.”

Was. Shit. Xander looked around frantically for some possible subject of discussion. The kid wasn’t wearing a nametag, or any sort of uniform they could join together to make fun of. What was the name of the store, again? Greta’s Gifts? Yes - he caught the name on the small paper bag the kid handed him along with his change.

“So, Greta’s Gifts, huh?” Xander sensed that what he was doing could be called lingering.

“Uh, yep.” The kid glanced around the store, possibly looking for an escape - part of some instinctive human reaction to feeling trapped, even when what traps us is not physical but social.

“Is there an actual Greta? Or is that just the name?”

The kid shrugged again. “I don’t know. Just the name, probably.”

“Huh. That’s interesting. Kind of like how all these things are made to look like they’re homemade but obviously they were made in a factory somewhere. Made in China, right? Like, what isn’t these days?”

Was he really this boring? Or was this particular kid just a dud of a human being? There had to be some duds out there, didn’t there - the law of averages and such. For every Van Gogh, you needed a monosyllabic store clerk. Xander briefly wondered which he himself was, before realizing that the kid hadn’t even bothered to fake a response this time. Well, that confirmed it. He certainly hadn’t been a spectacular conversationalist, but out of the two of them he had been the better.

“Well, alright then,” he said, figuring it was his responsibility - not so much to the kid but to the idea of discourse - and, clutching his paper bag, he left Greta’s Gifts. A small bell tinkled as he pushed open the door.

Where had Van Gogh come from? Xander wondered, as he rejoined the trickle of traffic along what passed for a Main Street in this dinky town. Who made him the patron saint of creativity? Just because he cut off his ear? After all, that was pretty much all Xander knew about him - he cut off his ear and he painted the one with all the swirly stars. He thought of what Bobby had said about suicide, and wondered if Van Gogh had had a Bobby Melrose in his life, a voice that told him, yeah, Vin, cut off your ear, it’ll play great with the target audience.

Xander saw a trash bin up ahead and considered throwing away the wooden owl, which he didn’t particularly feel like carrying around for the rest of the day. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had compared the owl to himself, after all, and now he was stuck with the symbolism.

Would it be hacky to write about not having anything to write about? It was paradoxical, but that didn’t mean it was clever. Xander had a vague sense that he had seen something like that before, and an even vaguer sense that it was in a cartoon.

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. It had to be either Bobby or his mother. The other guys in OBM didn’t call him - they were co-workers, not friends - and touring all the time meant he didn’t have many close relationships. Women, particularly, were a challenge (there was Kaitlyn, but that was complicated) - the ones who were attracted to him always repelled him. Xander said this was because they all seemed so young, even those who were chronologically his age or older. A psychologist might have said it was because of some latent sense of self-loathing - anyone who liked him must not be worthy of liking. His mother, for her part, still suspected what she had thought when he first started wearing eyeliner: that he was gay. She believed this the way some people believe in the existence of Jupiter, say: implicitly but with great certainty.

Pulling his phone out and flipping it open, Xander took a calculated risk: “Yeah?” To anyone but Bobby, this would have been rude; to Bobby, it was the way he expected to be treated, and anything more personal would have been offensive.

“Xander, Xander, Xander, I need to talk to you.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“Sure, but this is a conversation that would be improved by seeing each other. Aren’t you on a whole meaningful human connection kick right now, anyway.”

“It’s not a kick,” Xander replied, annoyed, remembering Greta’s Gifts.

“Sure, sure, Xan. You know you sound like every kid who gets into OBM and starts wearing all black and dyeing their hair and shit and says, it’s not a phase, Mom.”

“Hey, sometimes it’s not a phase. I mean, I was that kid, too.”

“Yeah, so it’s a little longer of a phase, but it’s still a phase, you know. A three-hour movie is still a movie, even when you’re two hours in. No such thing as half a hole, you feel me. But anyway, when are you gonna be back at your hotel room.”

“I was planning on never,” Xander said, hardly knowing what he meant by this. All of his luggage was in the hotel room.

“Jesus Christ, don’t be so melodramatic.”

“I thought you wanted me to be melodramatic?”

“Yeah, on the album, for Christ’s sake, not when you’re talking to me. Like, if this was McDonald’s I wouldn’t need you to go flip burgers at home, too, it’s not a method acting thing. God damn, Brando might be just as much to blame as Lennon, he made everyone think it was like getting in the bath, once you’re in you don’t want to get out, when really it’s more like, I don’t know, getting a haircut or something, where you do it once and then you don't have to do it for a while afterwards. Or sex, maybe. But fine, if you want to be difficult, we can have this conversation on the phone, I’m more comfortable here anyway. So first thing you need to know is I talked to Cicero.”

“Cicero? The Roman orator?” Xander leant up against a brick building and amused himself at the thought of people walking by overhearing just this snippet.

“You know exactly who and what I’m talking about, don’t play stupid - again, great for the album, not so great for talking to me - and I don’t feel like reliving the whole thing, it was taxing enough the first time, so please practice your inference skills a little bit.”

“You got the whole interview?”

“I got enough, I got what I needed. But Xander, what the hell were you on about?’

“I told you, it was all the questions he was asking, trying to make me out to be --’

“No, no, no, I’m over that,” Bobby cut him off. “That’s normal rock-star shit. I’d even be fine if he printed the whole thing. Make you sound super jaded and cynical. I can sell that to those Company kids, make them think you’re anti-music-industry, anti-label, anti-corporate, that’s fine. Hell, we’ll even spin you out into your own ‘independent’ label and do a whole big dramatic break with the major label if we have to. Regaining creative control, independence, and so on. No, no, no, it’s the other part I don’t get.”

“What other part?”

“Why’d you fly off the handle when he asked you about same-sex marriage? I mean, Jesus Christ, Xander, talk about a softball question. You know your kids are liberal as fuck, or at least they think they are, they think Republicans are literally the devil, and not in the cool way like you are. And half of them are gay or pretending to be. All you had to do was say yes and get the hell out of there, easy points. It’s like you got handed the test and you nailed the actual, you know, content, but spelled your name wrong at the top.”

“Listen, I feel bad for taking it out on Cicero . . .”

“I don’t care about that fuck. I just want to know what was going through your head, so I can figure out if we need to get you into a psychologist or a psychiatrist, whichever one of them gives you meds, I swear whichever one I say it’s always the other one. But please. I’m listening, Xander, I’m actually this time listening.”

Xander thought of his own “I’m listening” to the kid at Greta’s Gifts and cringed.

“You’re listening? Like, you’re not going to interrupt me and --”

“I won’t interrupt you,” Bobby said impatiently.

Xander leaned his head back against the brick wall, saying nothing.

“All right, all right, I see the irony, no need to get all pop diva silent treatment on me. From here on out, I’m actually, actively listening.”

“Fine,” Xander said. Bobby wasn’t the right audience for this, but he was marginally better than that damned journalist or the Company. “So right before he asked me that question, I was on a roll. I was going on about the universal nature of love, and how you can be in love with a flower or a tree or a drug or a stapler and it’s all the same thing, basically. Relativism and romanticism for dummies. I’m not even sure if I believe it, but I didn’t care if I believed it. I was just playing all the hits. It never occurred to me that there was a difference in believing in something and wanting to be the type of person who believed in it. And then, while I’m way up here, on the top of the fucking mountain of absurdity” - Xander gestured with his hand, the sol symbol above his head - “he picks up on this one little piece of it. I said something about man or woman and he thinks he should ask me about gay marriage.”

“Same-sex,” Bobby corrected automatically.

“Right, yeah, whatever. But it’s like, I was so far beyond that. I was outside the solar system, exploring different galaxies and shit and he comes in and he’s like, oh, but have you passed the moon yet? Yeah, obviously I passed the moon, I passed the moon like eighteen light-years ago. I was, like, ten years old when I realized it wasn’t fair that I could marry a woman but not a man . And he expects me to just keep saying that, over and over again. And what I really want to say is, like - the institution of marriage is an archaic tradition, and it’s based on treating women like property, and passion can’t always be channeled into such a socially-acceptable form. But they’re all waiting for a yes or a no. And I obviously can’t say no. But I can’t bring myself to say yes, either. Because it's not enough."

“But you did say yes, eventually,” Bobby reminded him. After a long rant, which had dabbled in the astronomical (but less lucidly; he had clearly been refining his analogies in his spare time) Xander had eventually said what Cicero had printed: “you can’t legislate love.”

“Yeah, I sucked it up. I gave them the answer they wanted. But after that question, something snapped inside me. That’s why I made up the shit about the emo bands and the Russian book and all of it, I guess. At the time I figured I was just having fun, toying with him, but now I think you were right. I wanted to see if we could just stop the game for a second to talk about the rules. Like I was trying to call a time out the only way I knew how, but it turned out it was still just part of the game.”

“Well, this certainly does sound like a breakthrough,” Bobby said, trying not to sound too patronizing. But ultimately he couldn’t help himself. “So do you feel heard now. Have you had your moment or catharsis or achieved closure or whatever. Are you ready to get back to work?”

“I mean, even now, Bobby,” Xander went on. “Are we really talking to each other? Or are you just trying to get something from me?”

“Xan, your problem is you still think it’s got to be one or the other. Jesus frigging Christ. You haven’t been reading Kant, have you?”

“No, why?” Xander had heard the name and associated it with castles and crowns for some reason, but that was as deep as his knowledge went.

“Don’t read Kant,” Bobby advised. “But, Xander, of course I’m trying to get something from you. I’m trying to get you to write a goddamn album, and actually I think I’ve been pretty up front about that, so you should really be thanking me. Other people aren’t so honest, but they’re doing the same thing. And sorry to break it to you, but that’s not a Xander Cross thing, or a fame thing, or an entertainment industry thing, or a capitalism thing - that’s a human thing. The world’s a giant web of people misunderstanding and mischaracterizing each other, and you’re not gonna find a way out.”

“Can’t I try, though? Can’t you just let me fucking try?”

“Fine. Go ahead, try all you want, Xander. I don’t give a shit anymore. Whatever it is you want to make, make it. I’ll figure out how to sell it afterwards. Do you even have any ideas yet, though?"

“Well, I did have one,” Xander conceded, feeling suddenly sheepish, a kid in school who raised his hand without knowing the answer.

“Yeah, what are we looking at here, is it comedy, tragedy, what is it. I’m sure I can make it work whatever it is."

"Well, if you define comedy as a story that ends with the reinstatement of the status quo--"

"Sure, and if you define triangle as something with four legs and loves lasagna, then Garfield's the world's most famous triangle. No one does define comedy like that, no since, Christ, like, Aristotle or something. Get off the damn classics, it's two-thousand-and-seven, Xander, just give me your pitch."

“Fine. Okay. So, I was thinking about like, what actually are the issues in my life right now. I’m not grappling with darkness and misery. But I am struggling to find something to write about. So what if I wrote about not having anything to write about. I mean, it’s probably been done before . . .”

“Well, Christ, of course it’s been done before. Everything’s been done before!” Bobby exclaimed. Xander could hear a sound like the squeaking of a mattress, and figured Bobby had thrown himself down in exasperation. “But not by you. That’s the whole point. Where did you people all get this idea that everything has to be original? What, are you not going to take a shower because someone else has already done it? Won’t make dinner because it’s cliche? That’s what life is, Xan. You do the same shit that everyone else has already done, and then you die. But it’s different 'cause you’re the one doing it, you feel me?”

“I guess so. It just seems like . . .”

“And one more thing.” Bobby’s promise of listening had clearly had an expiration date. “You keep saying, like, you can’t ever go back, you’ve forever changed after that stupid question. But that’s not true. You’re the one who’s thinking of it like it’s this big traumatic break, and you can stop thinking of it like that too. Do you know why rehab works?”

“Why does rehab work?” Xander asked obediently. They had fallen back into their usual pattern. He had gotten to express himself, but still felt unsatisfied.

“It’s not any one of the twelve steps, or the sense of community, or the therapy, or any of the usual bullshit. Rehab works, when it does work, that is, because it gives people a different story to tell themselves. It gives them the word relapse.”

“Couldn’t they find that in the dictionary under 'r'?"

“When you’re a drinker,” Bobby continued, ignoring Xander’s interruption, “you think that being a drinker is your home base. Your normal. No matter how long you stop drinking, you still think that you’re basically a drinker, and you could slip back into it if you pick up a bottle again. But once you go through any decent rehab program, even though on the surface they give you all that shit about once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, they’re also fucking with your core. They don’t even realize they’re doing it, probably. But they’re reprogramming you, and the new you has this idea of a relapse. Because then, if you do drink again, you don’t automatically fall into, well now we’re back to normal again. You just call it a relapse, and as soon as you call it that, it’s dead. It could go on for days, weeks, months, years, even. But essentially, in reality, it's dead."

“What difference does that make, though? I mean, if you’re still drinking all that time. Sounds like a way for people to just pat themselves on the back for doing nothing.”

“Yes. Right. Exactly. How’s that any different from what you’re doing?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean, you want credit for having all these crazy ideas about falling in love with staplers and ducks splashing in the river, but at the end of the day, you’re just some guy walking around. If the only question anyone’s asking you is if you’ve been to the moon, yes or no, does it really matter when you got there? Only to you, Xan, only to you. All this is only happening inside your head. Go write some songs. I don’t care what you have to tell yourself to make it happen, if you want to call it expressing your soul through music or you want to call it throwing a bone to the dogs. Just make it happen.”

Bobby hung up. Xander angrily shoved his phone back in his pocket, along with the owl, still in its little paper bag. Bobby Melrose was a bastard, but he was certainly a clever bastard.