They All Have Shaft Afros

At once, I see why I used to love—and now hate—the Law & Order series. When I was down with the show, I stuck with the original version. Every so often, I’d watch SVU, but I could only handle sex crimes and Ice-T-as-detective in small doses. Right now, Law & Order: Criminal Intent is on—Detective Goren hounds his suspect, trips him up in his own lies, as the violins warble in the background, as Detective Eames adds nothing to the investigation, as usual. In any iteration, I knew what to expect from Law & Order, particularly with the original: the police arrest their man (or woman), DA Jack McCoy gets angry because the police violated the suspect’s rights—digging for evidence without a warrant, interrogating him after he invoked his right to an attorney—and once the dramatized legal wrangling is over, the criminal either goes to prison or beats the case.

The last show I followed religiously was HBO’s The Wire; since then, sitcoms have come and gone, doctor and cop dramas rise and fall, leaving behind a trail of cliches, and reality shows, admittedly, try to allure me into their worlds. Three come to mind: Intervention, Heavy and The First 48. I watch them, wondering why I’m watching them, why I care about a meth addict goaded into treatment by a family he shamed and derided for years; why I care about a four-hundred-pound woman looking to reverse the self-inflicted damage done to her body; why I care about police departments hunting down murderers before the first 48 hours. After which, the murderer’s chances of escape increases, leaving John Walsh the unenviable task of tracking the killer down. The reenactments—also called skits—on America’s Most Wanted haven’t improved in quality over the years. They seem like wastelands for C-actor bumpkins looking for a way to break into the industry. I’ve never seen a leading actor at Sundance say, “Yeah dude, AMW was my big break.” I hold out hope.

I don’t watch as much television as I did in the past. I feel guilty at times whenever I think of my upbringing: if the hours spent watching television were instead devoted to reading books, I wouldn’t feel so behind. So many classics I still need to read: Moby Dick, various Shakespeare works, the genius prose of David Foster Wallace. I’d like to blame my parents, since I fail to recall a time when they shoved a book into my hands, turned off the television, and said, “Read, boy. You’re gonna be a writer some day!” No, instead they encouraged outside time—play time, I think it’s called—in part because of my weight, in part because I was a homebody. I’m still comfortable in my own space. I prefer it, although I’d like a closer proximity to a metropolis: a place with yoga studios (though I don’t yoga) and art galleries and snarky hipster moms pushing strollers the width of Hummers. A place like Tokyo, highlighted by Sophia Coppola’s Lost In Translation. I want to live like that, in a place like that. The closest metropolis to me is Philadelphia. It has its beauty, its artsy side—Philly ain’t Tokyo, though. Let’s leave it at that.

Reading a book is actually difficult work for me. I don’t know why. I’m not dyslexic nor do I suffer from some other learning disability. It’s a malady of the imagination: I see the words, I read and process them, though sometimes—more times than I care to admit—my imagination misfires. I can’t see the characters completely. No matter how spectacular the description, the character is a silhouette with gender features, maybe a light jacket for the Spring breeze the author introduced into his world, and I never get the hairdos right, even when the author failed to say “He is bald” or “She has dreadlocks.” If she’s a black character, I automatically give her dreadlocks or a small afro; if I’m feeling adventurous, a Halle Berry haircut.

But it’s always wrong: the author gives her an afro and I think “Well, is that a Pam Grier afro or a Shaft afro? It makes all the difference!” When I write, my inclination is to associate characters with the looks of a known person. It’s lazy work according to craft, and I remove the crutch during revision, but if the reader knows the difference between Pam Grier’s afro and Shaft’s afro, then that’s the reader I love. It’s who I’m pursuing in my work. I make the association as a kind of ice-breaker, to show we’re on the same wavelength. Stories, according to craft, don’t work that way. As a reader, I have to fill in the blanks—which is fine, except the blanks remain so when my imagination goes on sabbatical. As a result, I always feel like I’ve missed something. I settle for anything, even a pedantic analysis of the story’s theme: oh, they’re in love, but they can’t be together—I can dig it.

Is this television’s fault? Or images in general? I was born in 1981: I literally grew up with cable, with Sega and Nintendo, with home movies on VHS tapes and photos my brothers clipped out of rap magazines. They pasted MC Lyte, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh to the wall; the emcees were adorned with chunky gold chains, with Adidas jumpsuits or Air Jordans. They posed in a frozen performer state: mouth agape, microphone in hand or hand over the turntable, with drops of sweat on their foreheads or necks. Doug E. Fresh sampled the theme from Inspector Gadget, a cartoon I watch with the confounded look I now give Intervention, Heavy, and The First 48. A goofy detective with a helicopter propeller jutting from his gray hat: I wonder if the animators smoked dope and shamed and derided their families and required of them interventions. “Johnny, please. You stole all my gold and invented a mentally disabled robocop. Please Get Help!!”

I can see Inspector Gadget in my head, but not Junot Diaz’s Oscar, who was fat and nerdy and uncomfortable and Latino: when all else fails, I give Big Pun or Fat Joe a pocket protector and Dungeons of Dragons knowledge, maybe a little acne, because I can’t see what Diaz saw. Some would suggest this is the freedom literature affords, that a well-crafted story leaves enough space for the reader’s imagination. I think I want specificity. I’m used to it. I’m trying to break the habit, to convince myself that I’m not missing anything when I read a novel. I imagine the characters and their environments as best as I can, but I’m used to the ease and immediacy of imagery.

Murakami gives me a resplendent Tokyo, Shibuya Station and all—but Sophia Coppola beams Tokyo directly into my brain. I see Bill Murray’s frumpy, dissatisfied stance; I see Scarlett Johansson’s grace (and ass via pink, sheer panties); I see Tokyo’s fantastic arcades and titty bars and golf courses. I come from a life of images, not words. Enjoying and creating temporal art isn’t impossible, but it’s hard work. Readers may not be lazy, per se—just wired differently. Maybe I should try picture books or pop-up books. Here is Sam entering his bedroom; his face is sad because Janet, his girlfriend, appears to be getting it from behind by John, Sam’s best friend and former animator. Sam grits his teeth; see Sam reach for a blunt object.  I have no idea what Sam, Janet or John looks like. They all have Shaft afros.

@thomasdemary. @author of zero books.