My Story (memoir, chapter 1)

M-Y — S-t-o-r-y —

I moved to the city. I lived in a house, on a tiny street. There were some poor persons there, but there were also some middle-class persons. I was declasse’ , having rejected all that, while still a teenager. Here I was, with an apartment! They were easily available, esp. in a neighborhood like this one — then I would go to the store. The walk there was failry decent. Some distance away was a bustling beighborhood of Chicago, known as Old Town. It was past its heyday and it contained a lot of crime.

The fudge shop is still there. That was about it but if you were to ask me how often I buy fudge it is about evey six years. My scope, or range, is limited. I have a skill. One. The one thing I am good at is being cool. I am a very cool person. If some people do not believe Jack Silverman is cool, it is probably because they are assholes. At any rate, you do not want to take away my one good thing I have: only that being what is at all snazzy or competent and I am an exceedingly competent person at being cool.

I whall say no more. Maybe that is being minimal but that’s what you get from a man who lives on a tiny street.

I used to do magic with my hands. I could manifest a little white mouse from out of nowhere at all. A girl visited. I had two things I could offer: Is it orange juice or milk that you want—? ~ I asked. I didn’t have a very good social life. She left. In my circles not having a girlfriend does not make a person uncool. One may be a nerd, a hippie, or a computer geek — in addition to what Gore Vidal calls the birds and bees.

I was a very isolated, lonely person. I played guitar. I was unappreciated except for a small group of friends who lived alongside of me in the old neighborhood where we all went to high school and finally grew up there. It is where, after high school, I still hung around; I stayed, and worked. I had like two or three jobs One was working at a taxi-driver job and then at the post office as a machine clerk. I’m not fast lane. Postal clerk was the really good job. It was excellent pay at the time. Everyone wants to be something, and that was being something. Yeah, and I woulda been satisfied. Except the fucking job drove me crazy

I was 23. Now I was in an apartment, in a converted house in the middle of Chicago. I had several “hobbies,” to use the standard term. I don’t think I knew where I was, or knew a lot about the world, but I was definitely working on it.