Voracious

I. Post-Grad

And upon the final punctuation of what felt to be its own Wagnerian opera, a tear dropped from my eye, only to be caught by the yellowed pages of the paperback that I could only deem to be long overlooked.

The paperback of about four-hundred pages had finished itself with what many lesser teachers and academics would call a run-on sentence, but what I would call a lengthy poetic sprawl laced with everything literate and illiterate that the world had to offer: evenly balanced doses of realism, surrealist aspects, life stories, drama, thematic substance, symbolism both blatant and obscure, character development, life stories, details so small they can’t help but be autobiographical… The whole works. It had clear influence from Pynchon and paved the way for Wallace. 1976, the height of postmodernism.

While I had merely enjoyed Vicious Escapades up until that final one-sentence chapter, the well-over two-thousand word finale cemented it forever in my head, and single-handedly declared the novel a masterpiece.

My hands trembled as I re-read the back cover; the plot was so basic and so simple, not nearly as violent as the name may entail, but I found that such elusiveness made it all-the-better. For I was yet to decipher an official thesis for my MFA, I knew with absolute certainty the book that it would be about.

C.K. Sorkin… It was a name I was unfamiliar with, and yet I now considered it to be certainly my business to track down and consume all he has written, perhaps even to dedicate my career in academia to his work.

I had always fallen short in terms of my own creativity, my writing stilted and my authorial voice drowned out by insecurities and a heavy lack of confidence. But I knew as I went back to the campus library that dedicating my life’s work to books like Vicious Escapades would be just as fulfilling as any artistic career.

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And so I sat, awaiting my turn in class, nervous and uncertain, to announce my forthcoming plans to make my thesis on C.K. Sorkin’s masterpiece. I listened to peer after peer tell the class in their own vain pseudo-intellectual way how they would be writing their theses on Proust or Faulkner, and while many of them seemed to carry genuine excitement and grandiose ideas with them in their academic journeys, I could not help but find their choice in works predictable.

For they were merely scratching the surface of the general mainstream, the pop-culture of academia; and I felt to truly thrive in the world of literary analysis one had to dive deeper into the crevices of influence and inspiration to find the unsung and the obscure, to truly relish in the products of pure contribution to the craft we all loved so dearly.

I got up upon having my name called by the class’ own Dr. Phorman, and spoke loud and clear with a confidence unbeknownst to most of my peers.

“I recently, upon consuming a variety of books over the winter break, discovered this,” I held up the paperback, “A novel entitled Vicious Escapades, whose foundation and structure seem to be rooted in contrasting and betraying the tropes of both modernist novels and more pulp-oriented books about prison escapes. Released in the 1970s, I think reading more of its author, named C.K. Sorkin, could bring about an enlightenment on the way academia and the upper class holds such contempt for lower class works of art in a postmodern reflection of American class divide.”

Dr. Phorman, holding a pen to his lips, lowered his head, intrigued but certainly unconvinced: “Tell me, Lance,” he began: “How do you think your this novel, and your accompanying essay, could truly influence the zeitgeist of literary analysis?”

Dumbfounded, but not losing grasp, I went on: “People praise the likes of Pynchon and Wallace for their hefty and complex books, rich with built-in worlds whose mere existence upset the established order of literature, correct? Well I would begin by making the case that Viscous Escapades is doing the same thing, but I think Sorkin not only manages to pack in similar ideas in a more ‘readable’ narration, but is even capable of surpassing and building on such ideas, all in under four-hundred-and-fifty pages.”

Scanning the room for possible reactions, I could not gauge a proper consensus. There were less than fifteen people in this MFA course and did not seem to have an agreed-upon opinion. These people I knew vaguely on a personal level, but on a more professional one I’d learned over the preceding semester that they were not just passionate about their work, they were serious about it. Many of their faces were as perplexed as my own when I first picked up the novel, others seemed to be content with my notions. A couple of the most perceivably pretentious students looked to be on the verge of laughter, an acknowledgement that filled me with discontent and anxiety.

But upon Dr. Phorman’s approving nod, I could feel myself embark on this newfound literary quest to dig up and promote the works of what I may consider to be the most criminally underrated novelist of the past century.

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II. Ideas Rekindled

The sirens kept me up at night. Good, I thought to myself, it’ll force me to tend to my work, that and the mattress of hardwood and the lingering smell of the wretched pipes that lurked underneath.

But those themselves were pipe dreams; I found myself in a state of perpetual exhaustion. While sleep itself was indeed scarce, all my true energy and productivity went straight to my work in food delivery. And rent being a paycheck-to-paycheck notion these days, I was in no position to ask for vacation days or even sick days, so I told myself once again as I straightened my back in my chair that I had no real options save for “sucking it up” as my mother would say and doing the work I’d claimed so consistently I’d been wanting to do.

Aside from my laptop were stacks of literary magazines and academic journals upon the desk– with determinism I glanced at them as I wrote even more often than I cracked them open for reading. I had purchased them in the name of inspiration and motivation as well as a source for ideas, but I was ultimately uninterested in them until they bore the name Lance Orion, preferably (no, insistently) alongside the name C.K. Sorkin.

I approached the window, and, cracking it open, I lit a Marlboro. Recollecting my academic transgressions and my failure for my multiple theses on the works of Sorkin to be taken seriously, I could not help but feel my teeth grit with my tongue grinding at them, holding back profanities that the likes of them wouldn’t hear anyway.

Finishing my cigarette and flicking it off from the fourth floor I went back to the laptop and looked through the old Word documents of Sorkin analysis that I had done in the preceding six years.

I had since read all of his books, all eight that’d been published. I’d scoured Internet archives and obscure and shady thrift stores, both online and off for the works, and each one impressed me, all drawing connections to Vicious Escapades, which I easily deemed to be his magnum opus.

Since then I have written a multitude of essays on Sorkin, in the vain search of not only recognition for him, but for recognition of my own intellect. I reread some of the papers I’d written chronologically, and even through the lens of my own self-deprecating nature I could not fully see an evolving desperation that I was so convinced the publishers of academic journals saw in my work, for the rejections came faster and faster with every submission…

And so the dramatic and stupendous idea that has been lingering in the backdrop of my psyche finally made its way front and center, a notion that may be easily perceived as crazy but flattering (and possibly endearing) just as well.

In my tracking of the work of Sorkin the author, I would also acquire bits and pieces of information about Sorkin the man; the “About the Author” pages were sparse, but in delving into my online research of his eight books I would take note that all of the editions came from the same printing and publishing company known as Voyage Press, an indie company whose website promotes themselves as free-spirited post-hippie literature enthusiasts who highly encouraged the experimental and the absurd, more or less partial to an organic blend of the real and unreal. It was a strange brand to commit too, which is likely why they never emerged from obscurity until it was defunct just over ten years ago, but nevertheless its novels outside of Sorkin’s work, while not up to par with Sorkin himself, all certainly contained unique experiences that met the surrealistic quota.

I had looked up Voyage Press just a couple of years back and learned of its defunct status and its location in Southwest Louisiana; and after a few hours in the air I was perusing the streets of the town addressed in the novels’ fine print, a small location of modesty that was literally called Modesty, Louisiana. Upon getting to the hotel I opened my copy of one of Sorkin’s first books entitled A Macbethian Sojourn and pointed out the finer details of the publishing info to the concierge of the hotel, asking if he knew anything about Voyage Press.

“Um,” he began, “How old is this book here?”

“Came out in the early ‘70s,” I replied.

The concierge, clearly in his twenties, scoffed a bit and said, “That’s a little before my time, sir; hold on a minute. My manager can maybe help.”

And after walking away and returning with his manager, I got my clarity: “They used to operate in the office and accompanying warehouse just a few blocks away… Matter of fact I think the owner’s in the phone book somewhere…”

Flipping through yellow pages of the phone book on the adjacent desk, I looked for the name he told me, Adrian Vollman, and found what appeared to be a home-phone number, something that could only be found in phone books, which themselves could only exist in towns like Modesty where time seemed to have stopped altogether, just two decades prior.

Nevertheless, I typed the number into my phone and hit “DIAL.” Keeping my hopes high but my expectations in check, I clenched my free hand into a fist as it rang.

Two rings later, a man with a wheezy and frustrated voice answered: “Hello?”

“Hi, um… This wouldn’t happen to be Adrian Vollman, would it?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Um… Well–”

“Well, who’s asking?”

“I’m an admirer of the novels you used to have published at Voyage Press, Mr. Vollman. Was hoping I could chat with you somewhere?”

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Unnerved and frustrated beyond belief, I stuck out the hitchhiker’s thumb I was blessed with. Cars strode by, of course they did, why would they pick up some geek dressed as a professor who’s been wearing the same clothes for the past two days?

“He moved.” Fuck do you mean, he moved? I was livid; he had no agent, no contract, nothing. I was now determined that this was a fruitless project. The rude Adrian Vollman had nothing to give me. “They came in the mail with no return address.” Bullshit. Why would you even take submissions with no return address? “He collected royalties in person; always had his manuscripts in longhand…” Somebody had to know this guy. But I knew somewhere in me I’d never be so lucky (unless his novels are autobiographical or some shit…).

I’d spent my last dollars to travel to Louisiana, consistently convinced that meeting and interviewing him would bring about the final insights I need to produce a groundbreaking work of academia that could redefine the currents of how modern literature is perceived. Just one more thing, and then I’ll write my paper, and then I’ll be happy…

III. Days Past

“Next!” I called.

They moseyed through the cafeteria. The shelter was just a few blocks away from my suburban quietude. I could not help but see myself in these lost and estranged men, especially the younger ones.

It had been twenty-two years since I had worked my way to Louisiana to try and confront the author who (I thought) had changed my life. Although I had admittedly groveled in the desire to keep searching, too stubborn to quit, I had eventually seen the true reality that that was simply not going to happen. I worked in high school English. The wife and daughter awaited me every night. I gave back some weekends. The simple life.

After all the men and women were sitting, I perused down the halls of tables, eyeing the demeanors and profiles of those who society had left behind, up until one of the coats stuck out at me…

It was a camouflage army coat, with a name sewn to it, and it had read “SORKIN.”

I stopped in a near-cinematic pause of afterthought. No fucking way, couldn’t be him.

As casually I could muster, I turned back around and approached the army-clad loner sitting and eating peacefully. He had the long hair and beard of an archetypal veteran who never truly recovered.

“Excuse me, sir.” He looked up, disinterested.

“Yeah?”

“If I may ask…” I muttered.

“Huh?”

“If I may ask, what’s your name?”

“Clayton.”

“Your full name?”

“What? Why?”

“I’m just curious? Indulge me?”

“Clayton Karver Sorkin.”

“Carver with a ‘C’?”

He shook his head, “K.”

I tried not to portray my awe to neither him nor any onlookers or passerbys. Expressions aside, I stared at him long enough to cause an eyebrow raise and another shake of the head before looking down at his food again.

“Ever go by C.K?”

He looked up: “Huh? What?”

“Have you ever gone by your first two initials?”

Another eyebrow raise: “Not in a good while.”

I couldn’t help myself but ask one more thing, all agitations aside: “Ever read Pynchon?”

“Hm?”

“Thomas Pynchon?”

“Who?”

“The novelist, Thomas Pynchon?”

A snorted laugh: “Haven’t read anything in almost five decades, son. Must’ve been high school. Leave me alone, will you?”

In awe for new reasons, defined solely by distress, I did as I was told.

I swung open the shelter door and immediately bummed my first cigarette in over a decade off a bystander, I propelled my consciousness inward, in search for a clear-cut answer to what had just occurred. I felt the path of my life shift in a new direction, if never physically than always mentally, now discerning that abstractions, from the literary to the mundane, would never quite satisfy me again.