My Archive – by Gary McLouth

My Archive
by Gary McLouth

The den, euphemistically called “the office,” is walling in on the 7 X 3.5 ft. mahogany writing table. Book shelves long overstocked sprout files and layers of borrowed and purchased reading, but there’s still some floor space, and I know the contents of each pile, sort of. My wife remarks how I’m turning the cozy den into a “rat’s nest.” Since I was born in the Chinese year of the Monkey, I respond with scratching and giggling.

The scene reminds me of graduate assistant day at SUNY Albany. The Associate Director of the just launched NYS Writers Institute, where I had a position, asked his Assistant Director and me to get his “damned office” organized so he could keep his academic course material separate from the anticipated onslaught of Writers Institute business. The afternoon should be time enough for the job, he assumed.

The room layout was awkward, crammed by two bulky desks butted end-to-end, squeezed into the space where one might have been able to get to the windows that overlooked the courtyard three stories below. Tiers of books and files leaned precariously from floor-to-ceiling shelves along all available wall space. Boxes and an assortment of shopping bags littered the floor. There was just enough walk-around area for a tightly choreographed dance trio. And, the room was cold.

We started where most reasonable do when facing someone else’s office stuff. Laughter, hilarious laughter. Then, careful not to break anything, we sifted through reams of notes, papers, and copies of copies. A random collection of novels, short story collections, medical and law tomes, Bibles and dictionaries got sorted. Texts marked by paper clips and match books were stacked. When we got down to the surface of the desks, gritty scraps of paper and ripped magazine pages waited: phone numbers and names, phrases, indecipherable messages. We liked, “call me.” Clearly out of date, the scraps got scrapped. We wiped the desks clean and started on the bags and boxes. Mistake.

What to do when confronted by the self-collected hagiography of a man’s live? Beginning with love poems from the 1700’s, we did our best to arrange the mess into a kind of chronology. Books first, manuscripts second, personal letters last. The method helped clear a path to the open windows which let in the cold. It also exposed an Oakwood pole rack in the corner; it was draped with several heavy wool overcoats and two hand-knit mufflers. In a crook of moth-eaten collars, a little bird sat silent on her eggs.

I remember a look of discombobulation on our mentor’s face. Some nervous laughing and a timid retreat from the “new office.” As we passed down the long hallway, we heard a plaintive moan. “Where’s my novel?”

Years later, his mother and a trusted friend scoured every possible redoubt for the novel manuscript. Nothing. Sometimes I wonder whether the novel my mentor was looking for was in that archive of a rat’s nest, or whether he was uttering a Jobian epithet of despair. I don’t really know, but as things pile up around here, I take comfort in believing there’re some stories in my archive.

***

Feel free to leave a comment about your thoughts. What did it make you remember of your own life?

4 Responses to “My Archive – by Gary McLouth”

  1. Gary Michael McLouth

    Still writing notes to myself. Where the hell is that serious audience of colleagues, writing circles in their own circles? A venture launched a couple of years ago–a screenplay based on a memoir I edited for an African American/Cherokee Indian bigger than life character–now has me trying to turn the experience of working with the guy into a story about the character Alan Hollister (me) trying to juggle his college teaching load, his latest live-in sex bomb, and the ennui of middle-aged existence. I’ve scribbled a first draft I can hardly read, and I’m on to a second/third draft on the computer. I planned to mimic the screenplay, but the dialogue leads us on a slick surface of happenstance. It’s tough to show a character’s inner thoughts in visual format. Even though the form is fun to write, internal monologue gets relegated to voice overs which can mangle melodies of speech, and tell the audience what it already intuits, thus deflating the most important qualities of a filmed story, anxiety, and anticipation.

    Reply
  2. Gary McLouth

    The writing desk now dominates a freshly constructed room in the old garage. I’ve been calling it “The Dugout.” My wife refers to it as “His Cave.” I’ve honed the book collection to mostly poetry and fiction, hung a number of paintings and prints on the walls, crammed a leather couch against the back wall and magically, covered every defenseless surface with what you might call “clutter.” In other words, I feel at home in here.

    Reply
  3. Gary McLouth

    While looking for a colleague’s email address, I reread this piece and noticed a couple of errors. Since the writer is held responsible for all errors in his or her work, this writer would correct the a couple of things: add people after reasonable in graf 4, line one, and change live to life in graf 5, line 1.

    I’ll check later to see if anyone else has caught an error.

    Reply
  4. Gary M McLouth

    Wow, nearly 4 years and no comments? Things haven’t changed much. Books continue to multiply along the floor boards, manuscripts of varying subjects and states of development shuffle from legal pads to computer files, the new printer is slower than the last one. Increasing course load at FSW adds a mix of student essays which I try to stack at the edge of the desk. They’re color-coded!
    But I can’t locate the black, soft-cover calendar book listing passwords, addresses and reminders to remember to write things down so I won’t forget them.

    One thing I don’t need to remind myself to remember is how much of my private life this room
    engenders.
    GM

    Reply

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