Dead Guys Don't Write

This week we meet Gordon. Or Gordo as he prefers to be called.

Gordo has a cushy job with the old man’s construction company. Record keeper for a big Port Authority job at the passenger ship terminals. Plenty of time to do his two favorite things: Read & Write. Gordo wants to be a novelist. Of import. A Twain. A Melville. A Marquez.

But can he withstand the pressures? The family pressures. Peer pressures. Financial pressures. The Twins Pressures of Desire & Consumption. It’s a tall order. A tough task. He likes to think he’d rather be dead than give in to these pressures. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Gordon, or Gordo as he prefers

(00:45):
to be called. Gordo has a cushy job with the
old man's construction company, record keeper for a big port
authority job at the passenger ship terminals, plenty of time
to do his two favorite things, read and write. Porto
wants to be a writer, wants to be a novelist

(01:05):
of import a Twain, a Melville, a Marquez. But can
he withstand the pressures, the family pressures, peer pressures, financial pressures,
the twin pressures of desire and consumption. It's all a
tall order, a tough task. Porto likes to think he'd

(01:26):
rather be dead than give in to these pressures. Dead
guys don't write. He only has the job because his
old man owns the company. And a cushy job. It
is toughest part is getting his butt out of bed

(01:47):
at four point thirty in the morning in his parents'
swanky house in the Leafy Burbs and making the hour
and a half drive to the passenger ship terminal in Midtown.
Getting homes no picnic either. He usually pulls out around
three o'clock, but even by then the Lincoln Tunnel is
all jammed up with commuters who are ticked off and irritated,

(02:11):
and it can take two hours or more to get home.
But hey, no problem. He has a good relationship with
time and a very mellow disposition. He smokes a joint
and pops in some Credence or some Van Morrison or
maybe some Bob Marley. He's just starting to get into

(02:32):
Bob the whole laid back, spiritual reggae vibe. Now, Gordon
doesn't want to hassle anyone. He really really doesn't want
to hassle anyone ever, and he's sure as hell doesn't
want anyone hassling him. Gordo jokes around with the guys
on the job, you know, the crew, the laborers, the

(02:54):
dock builders, and the operating engineers. He buys coffee and
donuts and buttered roll, and most of the time doesn't
collect any dough for it. But it makes no difference.
They don't like him.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
I mean, come on, he's the boss's kid, a spoiled,
rich kid with the cushy job. A good part of
the day he sits up in the empty lounges overlooking
the docks and the Hudson River and New York Bay.
Sits up in the posh cool in summer, warm in
winter lounges, reading the one hundred greatest novels ever written,

(03:33):
Done Quixote, The Charterhouse of Parma, Huck Finn, Moby Dick,
one hundred years of Solitude, and of course writing, scribbling madly,
filling notebook after notebook with story ideas, characters, plots, themes,
the whole. Shebet Gordo really has just one overriding ambition

(03:54):
in life to become a novelist, and not just any
run of the mill noist, but a novelist of import,
a novelist in search of the great American novel, the
one novel that will once and for all define the
American experience. It recently occurred to him, however, that he

(04:15):
might need three novels to accomplish this a trilogy broken
down by space and time. North American magical realism, a
dream like Protestantism, consumed by greed and violence and the
all encompassing illusion that we Americans are the chosen people,

(04:35):
good and great and of course benign, despite all of
the evidence to the contrary that we were and still
are a bunch of bloodthirsty racists hell bent on manifest destiny.
He dropped out of college, such a waste, he insisted,
of my precious time. Hey, that's all we got to.

(04:57):
That's all we got, He'll tell anyone who will listen.
Time and it ain't on our side rushes past like
a full force gale. He works for the family engineering
and construction company, saves his dough, and then takes off
on solo rampages around the world in search of meaning

(05:20):
and to ask Brits and Colombians and New Zealanders and
Hungarians and Kenyons what they think of America and of Americans.
He listens closely to what they tell him, and he
writes it all down in his notebooks. Every word, Yeah,
the job, Okay, it's a piece of cake. It's cushy,

(05:40):
but Christ, somebody's got to do it. A multi million
dollar contract between the family Biz and the Port Authority
of New York and New Jersey repair and rehabilitation of
the passenger ship terminal on the Hudson River in Manhattan
Peers eighty eight and ninety so says the contract all work,

(06:04):
build time, and material, which means both the company and
the Poort Authority need to keep accurate records of man hours,
time and everything used to make repairs material. Every morning
and every afternoon, he records who's on the job and

(06:24):
what function they perform. This includes dock builders, laborers, operating engineers, oilers, gophers, foremen, superintendents,
and of course record keepers like yours. Truly throughout the day,
Gordo needs to record every pile driven, every creosoded piece

(06:45):
of timber bolted to the pier, every nut, every bolt,
every spool of wire used to wrap a pile cluster,
Every man and every item has monetary value.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
His job is to quote, keep a close eye and
don't miss a goddamn thing, so instructed his father, a
great lover of money and authority. Miss anything, boy, anything
at all, and it's going to be money out of
my pocket.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
At first it it had kind of been a burden.
Gordo felt like he had to hang around on the
barge or even down on the float stages and watch
like an eagle waiting for its prey. But after a
while he realized this was ridiculous. A head count of
the crew and a thorough accounting of all materials first

(07:35):
thing in the morning, then a quick visit every couple hours,
and another thorough accounting at the end of the day
was all he needed to keep perfect records the rest
of the day. The rest of the time on the
job was his own to read and to write. It
was absolutely perfect, the perfect job for a guy with

(07:56):
so intense an ambition. And in a couple months, if
he saves most of his paycheck, which he will, which
he always does, he can take off this time for
the Far East for at least a few months, maybe
six months. If he lives like a peasant. Nothing so
grand as living like a peasant. Give it up, the

(08:20):
old man recently advised, give it up. Kid.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Every idiot with a pencil and a pad thinks he's
a writer.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I tell you, son, I gotta.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Tell you you're wasting your time, waste in your life. Join
the company full time, get to work, buy a house,
get married and have some kids, and buy a bunch
of crap you can spend the rest of your life
paying for. Come on, be a man, be an American. Yep,
that's what the old man told him. In fact, that's
about what the old man tells him almost every goddamn day.

(08:53):
Gordo thinks, but doesn't say, I'd just as soon be dead.
And by the way, what the hell's wrong with a good, healthy,
formidable ambition, And fuck them all who think he's a
near do well, a do nothing. Nothing he can do
about the flocks of sheep bleeding into the wind trying

(09:13):
to change their minds as a fool's errand and a
wasted time. Even as a young whipper snapper, he knew
the only thing that mattered was the chaos swirling around
in his head. But hey, okay, he does think about it.
I mean, he is getting older, his old buds from
middle school, in high school. You know, they're starting to

(09:37):
pull down some big bucks, they're starting to have some
financial security. And then, of course there's some stuff that
he wants, stuff he desires, maybe a little British racing
green spitfire, a turntable in preamp, at dirt bike, maybe
an electric guitar.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Shit, he had to on a Wednesday, the workday over.
He says, so long to the dock builders, laborers and engineers.
Dead of winter, now cold and raw, blustery wind blowing
down the river, sun already low in the western sky corrido.
He takes a picture of that sun with his brain

(10:19):
and knows one day he'll put that sun into words,
use it in a story. It's all every thought, every encounter,
every breath, every pain, every ounce of doubt, fodder for
his stories. He crosses the barge and climbs down the
ladder to the float stage. He counts, piles, records, numbers

(10:43):
in his ledger. He does his job. Something they're floating
in the water. What the hell is that? Is that
a body?

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Hole?

Speaker 2 (10:52):
He christ it's a body, a dead body, bloated and
smelling like death. He grabs the pipe pole off the
stage and uses it to snag the dead guy's jacket.
His heart races as he pulls the body alongside the stage.
He thinks, he thinks he'll secure the body to the
stage with a length of rope, and then and then

(11:12):
he'll go and call the cops. He he has to
call the cops, but just as he squats and leans over,
a bow wave from a passing tugboat slams against the
float stage and knocks him into the river. He lands
on the dead guy, screams, panics, swallows a bunch of
river water. The water is bitter cold, just a few

(11:33):
degrees above freezing. He slashes at the water, tries to
pull himself up onto the stage. But no good. It's
no good. It's too high, it's too damn slippery. He
screams again, hollers at the top of his lungs, but
no one's around, no one hears. He's all alone. Another
bow wave strikes the float stage. The stage sways and

(11:56):
strikes him on the side of the head. He sees stars,
but recovers. His body bobs on the surface like a booie.
Another bow wave, Another blow to the head. This blow
knocks him out, knocks him cold. If you enjoy today's story,

(12:28):
please take a few seconds to rate, review, and subscribe
to this podcast, and then go to Thomas William Simpson
dot com for additional information about the author and to
view his extensive cannon The Ten Minute Storyteller is produced
by Andrew Pliglici and Josh Colotney and as part of

(12:52):
the Elvis Duran podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Productions.
Until next Time, This is Bill Simpson, your ten Minute Storyteller,