"Say a few words, Chuck Kinder."

I am Chuck Kinder. Chuck Kinder speaking.

Deep in my second marriage, after the death of our old and foul-tempered Siamese, my wife bought two Bengal Cats, kittens with pedigrees, and they have caused me to pause and look things over.

In this life of mine I've created five or six identities for myself, most of which I'm now ashamed of or at least embarrassed by. My current one is my best one, and it's allowing me to do some reshaping of the legend I will leave behind when I die. Anyone would want to do this. My old friend Noble, though, says he prefers three of my previous identities to this one, which he says is too much like PR.

To make a living I've been a full-time professor, and recently I moved up to a semi-administrative position within the English Department. I moved up. I'm proud to say that a senior University official, the Provost, sometimes comes to my parties. He arrives early and leaves early, but he puts in an appearance at my house.

I drive a BMW.

But lying on my couch, half asleep and even wide awake, I'm an outlaw, I'm a real slackjaw redneck in a red pickup truck with rust, a general badass, a moonshine hillbilly with a knife and a lover of beautiful mysterious women, I'm ex-golden-gloves and a literary presence in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac or even Charles Bukowski, but not in the tradition of Scott Fitzgerald who was effeminate, and not Truman Capote either. My old friend Noble says it's more like Sofa Desperado and Milltown Gertrude Stein, but in my opinion Noble's jealous of my life and my accomplishments. So are some other people I could name.

When I lived in California my best friend was George Lynn, who ended up years later crippled and in prison because of a shootout with police over a girlfriend. I send him some money, but it's a sad story. Now, I feel sorry for George Lynn. He's a real and true cautionary tale. It's a sad story. He took a real and true outlaw chance and he really lost. It's a pathetic situation, but I send money to him.

Among boxers of yore, I always liked Joe Frazier over Muhammad Ali, who always seemed like a loudmouth to me. I always liked Roberto Duran or Marvin Hagler over Sugar Ray Leonard, who was more like a flashy pretty-boy than a fighter.

I drink some, and I have diabetes; I nearly died of sustained high fevers and gangrene ten years ago after I allowed a darkness on the sole of my foot to deepen and widen for far too long. Eventually it got to the point where I was in a delerium and one doctor wanted to amputate, somewhere above the ankle.

Once, my old friend Noble wrestled me down onto my own kitchen floor, took off my right shoe and sock, and exposed my black big toe and olive drab sole to my wife and to the startled couple standing by the sink. I snapped the crocodile tail at Noble for that one.

To someone who doesn't know me, my home life might appear Gothic -- our house is big and old and doesn't get much light. We keep the lamps low or off. Children are afraid to walk to our door at Halloween, and I heap piles of Reese Cups on the few bold ones who appear.

For light, in the spring and summer and early fall, I go out to the wooden patio in the back, and there I let the sun tan my face and neck while I make plans and dream dreams. I recall the armored car heist, where, in my baseball cap, ponytail flying in the wind, I leaped nimbly up onto the running board waving the sawed-off shotgun and told the driver to pull over right now. Here on my patio, facing the sun, I also decide what to say in letters of recommendation for students. I imagine various situations where I am being lionized and think of ways to bring these reveries to life. I rub my dick and look at the back yard.

In the late afternoon and in the evenings people often stop by, especially in the summer. They come to my house; I don't go to theirs. I like to be in my own territory. You make all the rules at your own house and you can control things. Plus, you get deference since it's your house. Out in the world I'm a hippo on land, but here in my Chuck Kinder scene it's different.

People come, people go. Groups of people come, groups go. None of the original regulars are still around. Things are fluid here at my house.

The cats, one male, one female, have the chiseled cheekbones and jaw lines of an ocelot or a margay. They are constantly in motion and they weave a hypnotic spell as they move sinuously around each other and as they play. I've been under their spell for weeks now, and within this spell I have daily revelations about my life of 68 years -- some high-quality, some maybe not.

I've realized, for example, that I've had too many things to prove to too many people, that my vanity knows no bounds, that I've reduced my social life to yes men, suckups, stepping stones, and ornaments to The Scene, that I give great energy and time trying to turn necessities into virtues, that my life truly has been Gothic, at the Poe-story level, and that my shamefully swollen need to be admired has always been on display for all to see. I hadn't fooled anyone.

Maybe there's no substance to these revelations. After all, human behavior can be interpreted in many ways. Odds are I'm not driven to press my imagined life story on all those around me, odds are I'm not a living-room hen, odds are I don't walk that well worn path between my couch and my refrigerator in the dustmote haze of a 70's time warp (even if every face in every color photo on the kitchen corkboard has faded to a yellowish, unrecognizable phantom), odds are I'm not a flaming asshole, odds are I'm not Roderick Usher, odds are I'm not a foul-tempered cartoon of self-absorption, no matter how you define these terms.

I'm a generous person (between you and me).

My real work is writing, and what I write about is myself. Jim Stark is the name I've given to this self because it's the name of the misunderstood teenager in Rebel Without A Cause. I'm 68 now, but I was a misunderstood teenager, and my life then was similar to James Dean's. You must remember this and tell it to my biographers if you're interviewed.

In my writing I spin variations of more resonance on my own life story, minute by minute, hour by hour, year by year. I work this floating lava-lamp vision of myself, in my house, and I will confess that I am always happy to absorb the thoughts of anyone I know or come in contact with and pass them off as my own. All artists do this. I don't apologize for it. I celebrate it. It's the only way to be a true artist.

See, I'm brutally honest with myself. And with you too. I will confide in you, but not the next person.

In my writing I make myself more sympathetic as a human being; I can settle old scores, I can take some revenge, and I can also share my philosophical observations about life -- for example "reality is the shifting face of need."

In one recently finished scene, I am 17 and an older man who makes me call him "Daddy" sucks my dick.

I've sold four books doing this. The most recent one (where you will find the above-mentioned moment) might eventually create some regional fame in my home state of West Virginia since it's heavily set there, and maybe it will become a cult classic or, in paperback, one of those rare bestsellers -- one which also has depth and richness of texture. I want one of those, either one, plus some recognition and acclaim. Several of my friends got it; it should be my turn. What about me, Chuck Kinder? So far I'm just a medium-sized fish in the small pond of Pittsburgh. Even here in the Burgh there are people with more literary cred than I have.

My old friend Noble says I'm a shameless networker and constantly promoting myself in order to receive acclaim, any kind of acclaim, name it. He says I'm insufferable. He also says I'm funny in my excesses and sometimes a tolerable sidekick. To him I'm a mixed bag. He says I'm a comic figure and tells me I have the desperate single-mindedness and fierceness of a wounded animal. But what wounds I have suffered are all now shaped into fiction.

Lost in the movements of these cats I've realized that I don't really have any work left to do, and I feel biblical, altered, and my heart swells with a strange new love.

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Slip back into Johnny's Lounge

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