Writer’s Block

My hair is a mess. My worn, tattered pea coat is crumpled around my body, which is feeling a little rounder today, due to the fact that I’m on a return trip home from a weekend at my father’s house, and he’s just provided me with the first few meals I’ve had in about three months that did not consist solely of Saltines and Ramen Noodles. (I don’t know who came up the phrase “freshman fifteen,” but I can guarantee you he was not a nineteen-year-old working his way through college. I barely have enough money to buy one hearty meal a week, let alone enough to grow fat from.) I adjust in the hard, plastic seat of the bus and my lap-top nearly slides off my knobby knees and onto the cold linoleum floor. When I catch it I clutch it so hard my knuckles nearly turn white, and then I shift it back into place, forcing myself to loosen my iron grip. Then, staring down at the blank, white word document that is supposed to be the most important paper of my life, and considering the fixed position of the blinking curser, still parked after my name, I sigh.
I suppose I should say this would be the most important paper of my life, should I ever think of anything to write. I have no ideas. None. Not even a little glimmer of something, a basic generalization that gives me enough to at least write a title, if a bad one. I can’t conjure up one word for the paper that will decide my entire future. I must say this is a disappointment. I mean, I’m not a writer or anything--I want to be a neurosurgeon--but I’m usually pretty on top of things when it comes to school papers. I typically have them completed within the hour they are assigned to me.
But not this time. This time the circumstances are different, and I just can’t seem to force the words onto the page. And the best part is why. The topic creating such an empty abyss in my normally crammed-full head? How Culture Affects Art. The class that could derail my bright, perfect future gleaming at me from behind the gates of Med School? The only class I’ve ever really had trouble with in my thirteen years-plus of education? Art history. I want to cut peoples’ brains open for a living, and I might not even survive a freshman course of art history. That must make my mother, one of the most recognized and celebrated surgeons in New York—and her high-powered lawyer husband—real proud. I cringe just thinking of her reaction to my last three failing grades. If I don’t ace this paper my professor, who isn’t much fonder of my failing grades in his class than the former, says I might as well not bother going to class anymore. Then I won’t have the humanity credits I need to graduate, and then I won’t become a doctor but instead will spend the rest of my sad, miserable days flipping burgers, and then I’ll die.
That might sound dramatic, but it’s not. It’s actually a pretty obnoxious understatement of what my mother would do to me if I failed this class.
The sheer nothingness of the screen before me starts to make my head hurt and my eyes ache, so I minimize the window and click open my web browser. I open my email account in hopes that focusing on something else for a while will give my brain space to muster up enough inspiration to at least begin my research. I have four new emails in my inbox, the first one appearing to be from my dad. I suppose he, like my mother, could be considered a doctor, but not necessarily in the same way. He’s a dentist. He calls himself a tooth doctor. He loves teeth. At the bottom of each email, letter, or note he sends is his practice’s logo; a small watermark of a set of dentures, permanently fixed into a perfect smile, a small pair of google eyes floating just above them.
“I’m in the business of smiles!” is a phrase I hear a lot. It’s a joke my father likes to tell at parties. Of course, his best friend, my best friend Tolbin O’Brian’s father, sometimes likes to one-up him at these gatherings. He’s an OB/GYN and, nudging my father in the side with a wink and a laugh, he tells the same party-goers that he’s “in the business of life.” My mother, really, could make this joke too, but she’s not nearly charming enough to pull that off. Dad, if anything, is most definitely charming. He’s warm and kind; he grins and shakes a lot of hands; he’s good at his job because he’s good at putting the weary at ease. Ted Berkle is good with people. I’ve been told I’ve inherited this trait. One would think, then, that I would be able to build a more friendly relationship with my art history professor. The dirty looks he shoots me when I flash a smile and try to explain how my developmental biology homework kept me up so late I slept through my alarm and missed half of our private session would prove otherwise.
When finishing my father’s cheery message (Charley! How’s my boy? I know you just left the house a few hours ago, but I wanted to see how you’re doing! How’s that paper coming?) I glance at the others, holding my breath as I move the mouse pointer toward one from my mother. It is not pleasant, but then again my mother rarely is. If it can be said that Ted Berkle is good with people, Charlotte Berkle (now Charlotte Vanderbilt) would not have this same luxury. The email is short but . . . powerful. It reads:

Charles,
I hesitated in writing you this message for I suspect you will use it as yet another way to procrastinate on your homework--a catalyst, if you will, into yet another failing grade in that silly little class you seem to be struggling so terribly with. But I ultimately felt the need to remind you of the impact failing will have on your career. Even if you were somehow able to make up the credits you will lose, that failure--in a simple art class, no less—will stay with you through the next four years of school, and will come back to haunt you every turn you take, during your application to medical school especially. The kind of schools my son should attend do not accept failures, Charles. I do hope you will keep this in mind as you venture on into your next assignment. I look forward to hearing the news that your grades have taken a turn for the better.







Best wishes, Mother.


Now if that doesn’t set the tummy all aglow with the warm fuzzies, I don’t know what does. Sighing raucously, I slink backward until I’m lightly slamming my head into the cold solidness of the side of the bus behind me. Glancing down at the screen I notice the next unopened email is one from Dr. Glendburg, the infamous aforementioned art history professor, and the topic of the letter is “Special treatment.” It must be in response to the last email I sent him asking for an extension. I read the first sentence and groan aloud.

Dear Mr. Berkle
One does not receive special treatment in my class simply for being “smart”—which you have yet to prove to me that you are—or for being “busy”—which, I’m sorry to inform you of this, is something we all are and by no means makes you any nobler or any more worthy of individual attention than my other students.

I switch to the next email without enduring the rest of Dr. Glendburg. I don’t need to; I can guess pretty easily what it would say. The next message is from Toblin, asking me how my weekend away was, goading me about the sorority “beach party” I missed. Apparently, a lot of inebriated young adults in their bathing suits hung around the dorm bathrooms and turned on all the showers until the steam or the alcohol (or both) clouded the space in their brains until clarity and rational thought transformed into foreign concepts. I can’t help but smirk at this image. My mother frequently reminds me that my life (by which I assume she means my role in her life) is too busy and important to spend any time on “characters” like Tolbin. He’s not as driven as I am, as dedicated to his studies, and he never has been. My mother thinks he’s a bad influence on me because the time we spend together is usually devoted to playing Call of Duty or shooting hoops or making asses of ourselves in front of complete strangers—mostly girls; in fact, always girls—and not researching the most effective way to cure colon cancer. Tolbin’s smart, though, and he allows me to escape the pressures that life and my mother and I pile on my already full shoulders. And though now that we’re in college he tends to encourage me to abandon my studies in pursuit of the full “college experience,” I’m still grateful I have him around to do stupid guy things with on the days I feel like my head is mere moments away from exploding. With a wry eye roll and a miniscule shake of my head, I log out of my email account, close the window, and bring up my paper.
I blink at it a few times, see the disappointed gaze of my mother, the chastising words of my professor, and the daunting white nothingness of the page before me, and instantly close the document again.
Instead, I open a friendly game of Tetris. Who doesn’t like Tetris? It’s simple, colorful, a classic. Even the silly sound it makes when one has lost the game is so familiar it’s comforting. I like to consider myself an expert at Tetris. I’ve reached levels ten-year-old me could only have dreamed of. I’m on my way to beating my already unheard of record when I notice that the guy sitting beside me is watching this. I come to this realization not through the usual way; that inexplicable sensation when you simply know that someone is watching you and you know exactly where it’s coming from. No, I noticed this man only for the fact that when I reached level 500 or so, I heard him mutter quietly under his breath, “Damn.”
I glance at him and shrug. “Years of practice,” I say with a smile. He nods but doesn’t say much, just continues to watch me play a few minutes more. After a while, I notice the man next to him has taken notice of me as well. He begins to cheer me on, quietly under his breath, saying things like “come on kid, come on. Move a little to the left. Come on.” I almost laugh. You’d think these people had never seen a simple video game before. But then I stop and think, who am I to judge? I mean, honestly, who’s the bigger loser in this scenario? The small gathering that has formed to take a certain interest in a boy who’s uncommonly good at a game, or the kid who has such a destitute social life that he has become such an expert at moving awkward shapes into their correct positions? I shake my head, not liking the answer. Not liking the thought that this little game, this destitute social life, will be my future if I don’t do something about this stupid paper. Not liking the scorn my mother would cast on me if she knew this was how I spent the long bus ride back to campus from my father’s house, even though I promised her I would use the trip for some quiet time to work on raising my grades. A nervous chill travels down my spine as the cheering from the five or six people who have taken notice of my little skill starts to feel antagonistic, as if they’re almost mocking me.
Keep going! they encourage, Don’t stop now!
But what I hear is different. What I hear is a buildup of all the toxic asides I’ve heard my entire life. What I hear is a chant of all the fears my mother and stepfather and teachers and mentors have instilled in me since childhood.
Don’t stop now! Don’t lose! Don’t show us all what a failure you really are! The failure you’re destined to be! The failure everyone else on the whole goddamned planet knows you are! Don’t slip up! Don’t make a mistake! Never make a mistake! Successful people don’t make mistakes, Charley! Be perfect, Charley! Why aren’t you perfect? Why can’t you be perfect?
“I’m trying!” I hear myself shout. Shout to all the people standing around me, who hear me but shouldn’t have to. To those who can’t hear but need to. To myself, who knows just how true the words are but that they’re not enough. I am trying, I’ve always been trying. But I can’t please everyone, I never will, and the harder I try to be perfect the more unattainable this unrealistic idea of perfection will be.
So I stop. I stop moving my hands on the keyboard, stop hearing my mother’s voice in my head telling me just how important everything is. I just give up. It doesn’t matter; the crowd has already given up on me. They were so startled by my little outburst it hardly bothers them that I’ve stopped playing. That I’ve lost.
I look up and try to paste a smile onto my face. Try to shake the feelings that just washed over me. I give them a small wave and say, quietly, “Sorry. Next time,” and throw in a little shrug for good measure. They back off, walk away. I can’t tell if it’s because they think I’m a little unstable or if they’ve just lost interest, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just happy to be alone, to have some breathing room. I run my hand through my hair and curse under my breath, unsure of what to do now.
“Wow,” a soft, feminine voice says. “A temper and a potty mouth. Attractive qualities.”
I look up to see a girl, a beautiful girl; long red hair, light pink lips turned up into a wry smile, bright eyes that shine like they hold a secret, and skin so pale she could pass for a snow angel. She raises one perfect eyebrow at me and asks “And mute too? Quite a catch, aren’t we?”
For a moment the back of my neck grows hot and I blister like she’s making fun of me, but then she grins (the kind of grin that could stop, warm, and restart the coldest of hearts) and I can tell she’s just teasing. “I . . . You saw that, huh? What happened just now, with the game, I mean?”
She laughs. It’s a great sound, that laugh. Like the tinkling of bells, like air wafting through a wind chime. I unconsciously move closer to her, wanting to be near that sound. “I think it was pretty hard to miss,” she says. “Wanna tell me what that was about?”
I look at her. “I don’t even know you.” And it’s true. I don’t know her. I mean, I wish I did. I’d really like to know her. But as the situation stands, I think the rule of not revealing intimate details to a perfect stranger is still in effect.
She shrugs her delicate shoulders, slightly raising the purple fabric of her soft-looking sweater. “So I’m unbiased,” she offers, that little smirk falling back into place.
I nod at this, and without any further consideration my mouth begins to work on autopilot and tells the whole sordid tale, not bothering to ask my permission first. I tell her about my weekend at my dad’s and how it was intended to help me with my homework crisis, though it obviously didn’t live up to this expectation. Inform her of the importance of this paper that I’m finding so difficult to complete. Fill her in on the highly dysfunctional, overly stressful relationship I have with my mother and how she’s created this life for herself that’s so successful it is impossible to live up to. Explain how my outburst stemmed from a sudden realization that everyone’s expectations for me are so vast and unfeasible that I feel like every action I take will have irreparable repercussions on my entire life.
“So that’s why I quit the stupid game, why I freaked out,” I sigh as my story comes to an end. “I just couldn’t have anyone counting on me, for anything, even something trivial, for one more second. I just wanted it to stop.”
She nods slowly, processing all this information. “So, what you’re saying is, you wanted to stop trying to be perfect.”
I nod emphatically, “That’s it. That’s exactly it. I just wanted to be a screw up kid, just for once, not this prodigy on his way to being a doctor long before most of my friends have managed to purchase their first car.”
“I get that,” she says understandingly, taking a moment to brush the fire of her hair behind the snowy white skin of her ear. She smiles at me and continues on. “Everyone has a messed-up family in some way. My parents are these super O.C.D, rich, blueblood sophisticates. They were basically raising me to be this stuck up, know-it-all, trust fund baby. I realized this a couple years ago, decided I didn’t like it, said screw it, and went to live with my crazy hippie grandmother. I took up art, which I think I like so much because absolutely everything about it is messy. And that was that. I never looked back. And I can tell you something, I’m happier now than I ever was with them controlling my every move, you know?”
I nod, because I do know. I know exactly what she means. And then something hits me. “Wait, you’re an artist?” I squeak, not quite willing to believe my life is really that ironic.
Both of her eyebrows lift up under her bangs and she regards me with amusement. “Yeah. I just started art school here. Why?”
I shake my head, my hand coming up to rub the back of my neck as I glance down at the blank word document still occupying my computer screen. “Nothing. I just . . . the class I’ve been struggling so much with is this art history course, which is so ridiculous because I’m in the medical program, you know? But I needed the humanity credits, and when I saw this on the roster, I thought . . . .”
“You thought it would be an easy A for you, huh? Well, I can tell you right off that was a stupid idea. I’ve known third year art students who’ve struggled with that class, if it was taught by a difficult enough professor.”
I sigh deeply, leaning back on the wall behind me, muttering “Now you tell me.”
She smiles softly, scooting closer to see my screen. I try to pretend like I’m not holding my breath at her nearness. “What’s your paper about anyway?”
I look at her wearily, afraid someone with actual experience in the subject will mock me even more harshly than my critical mother would should I reveal the topic to her. She nudges me gently in the side with her elbow, though, and her touch, even through our cloths, is enough to elicit a response out of me. “How culture affects art,” I mumble, and she leans her ear close to my mouth, my body freezing as her whole arm brushes against my chest. I know she won’t move until I say it intelligibly, and despite how much I enjoy her warm sent of vanilla and strawberries , her milky white skin just before my eyes, her soft hair brushing against my chin, I know if I don’t breathe soon I’ll pass out, so I tell her again, louder this time.
“Ah,” she says, leaning back. Her brow furrows, eyes squinting, lower lip jutting out to form this cute little pout, and she contemplates this. She stays just like that for quite some time, only moving to occasionally brush her hair behind her ear. After what feels like an eternity to me, but I’m sure in actuality is only a few minutes, she sits up straight, looks me in the eyes, and says, “Okay, this is what you’re going to do.”

Thirty minutes later, the bus is nearing our destination and I’ve finished my paper. My lap-top currently sits steadily on her slender knees, her long fingers occasionally flitting across my keyboard to correct a spelling mistake or a grammar error, and she quietly reads my paper. I’m sitting awkwardly beside her, trying not to interrupt her to see what she thinks, but also trying not to stare at her in amazement. I mean, who is this angel that danced seamlessly into my life? An hour ago I didn’t have the slightest clue where to even start for this all important paper, and then she waltzes up to me and knows exactly what to say to spark ideas, even helping me type the exact correct words in the search bar to find the articles I needed for my research. How could someone I didn’t even know existed not an hour before have saved my life so effortlessly?
I sneak a glimpse at her long hair sweeping across her shoulder to touch the top of her denim clad thigh and wonder what Tolbin would make of this situation. He’d probably be ragging on me to hit on her or something, but somehow it feels like saving my entire future has put us far beyond cheesy pick-up lines and a not-so-subtle attempt at flirting. I try to contemplate how I would even go about asking her on a date, and not for the first time today I come up blank. Maybe I could just, I don’t know, ask for her name, or something. Yeah, a name. That’s good. I mean, we already know each other’s family histories, and a few minutes ago I found out that she goes to school with me and she’s getting off the bus at my stop because she lives with a friend in an apartment just off campus, so I even know where she lives. A name should be pretty harmless, right?
But just as I’m mustering up the courage to open my mouth to ask the question, a muddled voice, nearly, but not quite, impossible to understand, announces our stop. I look at all the passengers standing up around me, shifting into seats others are vacating, stretching out there legs as the buss comes to a stop. I look at this mystery girl and say “Um, I think we should probably—“
She holds up one delicate finger in my direction, signaling that she’s almost done and I should be quiet for a moment. A few seconds go by of her sitting perfectly still and me squirming awkwardly on the bench, anticipating the movement of the bus, starting back up to take us away from our stop and the school. Just as I’m about to say something, she looks up at me with a grin so dazzling I forget about the bus for a moment.
“It’s great,” she announces, sounding unbelievably proud of me for someone who just met me about forty-five minutes ago.
“Really?” I say, feeling a huge weight lift off my shoulders. “Really?”
“Yeah,” She smiles, nodding emphatically. She looks up then, then back at me and says “Hey, what’re you doing? Get your ass off this bus or we’re gonna get stranded!”
I can’t help but laugh at that as I grab both of our bags and run down the steps of the bus just as the driver is about to close the doors. “A little quicker next time, kids,” the little old men says kindly, before closing the doors behind us as we step onto the platform and into the station.
“So you really like it? I mean, you think my professor will think it’s okay?” I ask as we head up the stairs that lead above ground.
She nods happily. “I mean, I can’t speak for him, but I think anyone would have to be crazy not to see the effort and the brilliance you put into that paper.”
I shake my head and laugh. ”I can’t believe I met you like this. I really can’t thank you enough. I mean, I don’t know what I would have done if . . . .”
She shakes her head and laughs. “Don’t mention it. All I did was help brainstorm some ideas.”
“No, really,” I say, touching her arm. “You’re great.”
She blushes, looks down at her feet, smiles the private kind of smile that one only has when they’ve been complimented unexpectedly. “Well, thanks. You too. I mean, you’re great too. I mean . . . yeah.”
It makes her somehow even more endearing to have this moment of awkwardness. Cute, relatable, human even. Perfectly imperfect, which I think I need a lot more of in my life these days.
“Thanks,” I smile.
She looks up at me, her eyes bright and shy and happy and everything a person’s eyes should be. “Well, look, I should probably get going, but I’ll see you around, okay? I mean, I’ll find you.”
“How’re you gonna do that? It’s a big campus.”
She smiles again. “I have my ways.”
I laugh and nod. “Okay,” I say. “See you around.”
And then I turn away from this amazing woman, and we go our separate ways.
And then I remember I have her bag, and she has my computer.
“Wait!” I say, turning around, running back to where I’d left her. But she’d been running back too, and we end up colliding, laughing, clinging to each other and smiling and taking each other in right there in the middle or a crowded subway station.
“You have my—“ we say at the same time, and then laugh. She looks down and shares another private smile with her shoes.
“Here,” I say, holding out her bag.
“Thanks,” she smiles, gently lifting the pink duffel onto her shoulder and placing my lap-top into my hands. “See you around, okay?”
“Okay,” I nod, standing quietly and watching her hand slip from my skin as she releases the computer, watching her step back and walk away, watching her disappear into the crowd. “Good bye.”
Back in my dorm, lying on my bed, I open my computer and pull up the document that has the paper that I though would decide my future. I shake my head, skimming through it to see if it really is as good as I remember. But when I get to the bottom I forget all about the contents of the essay, forget all about my mother, my professor, and the anxiety this assignment caused me to carry around for days. Because at the bottom of the paper, just after the last word of my essay, the last period, is something that I feel will affect my life much more than this silly paper. I read to myself a name, her name, and number.
“Olivia Weston,” I say aloud. I can’t help but laugh, shake my head, grin like an idiot. For the rest of the night I say her name, laugh to myself, and reflect on the phenomenon that such a silly, trivial, momentary, unimportant thing as writer’s block could affect my life in such a profound way. But I suppose that’s how the best moments in life start; trivial, insignificant, only becoming life-altering when you least expect them to. I suppose that’s what makes them so great.