Lawrence of Suburbia

WC 603

Lawrence of Suburbia

By Jack Rawlins

My name is Larry. I’m a single, forty-year-old fluffy, bald, bored San Francisco suburbanite. Today I became an explorer…an intrepid explorer. Explorers must be intrepid, you know. It takes brass cajones to travel uncharted paths to places no one else wants to go. Perhaps my confidence is often a tad more malleable than brass, but I’m tough enough to tough things through.

My goal was to explore a dark and mysterious labyrinth where no man had gone before.

At dawn, I set out on foot: one giant step for me, no big deal for anybody else. As I struggled westward I realized that all the City’s hills go up. And as I pounded the pavement and puffed onward, I noted other pedestrians staring at me with wary expressions. I thought at first my fly was open but then I realized my grim determined look fooled them. They thought I was another angry-looking power-walker who might knock them down if they didn’t jump aside in time.

They had no way of knowing that I was an intrepid explorer. I carried no machete. I wore no broad-brimmed hat with mosquito netting. They could never guess I was on a quest.

Hour after hour I struggled westward. Every drop of sweat was a reminder that a cab would have been easier; or that I could catch a cable car and maybe even ask permission to ring the bell. But like the ancient mystics who subjected themselves to agony to find enlightenment and ecstasy, I plodded toward my goal. My agony already included a little blister on a big toe and a big blister on a little toe.

I did have a brief respite at Fisherman’s Wharf. There I enjoyed an abalone sandwich on sourdough bread and four ice-cold foamy draft beers. As I sat, sipped and munched, I thought of the many other explorers who had sailed from this very port. I felt at one with them. I was psyched, or perhaps psycho.

My heart was light and I was a lightheaded when I resumed my journey. I thought how nice it would have been to be fifty pounds lighter. I decided I would shed a few pounds at some future time.

One hour later I reached my goal. I hobbled into a musty room lit only by a few rays of sun that squeezed through the slats of a Venetian blind. A polite cough signaled that I was not alone.

In the next two hours my journey took me through a lifetime. I rediscovered places I had often been and discovered new places yet to come. I scaled peaks and plumbed valleys. I met and caressed sweet angels and wrestled hideous demons. I screamed. I laughed. I cried. I cussed. I fell asleep.

When I awoke I knew my time had come. I didn’t want to accept the truth. But minutes later I staggered from the exit of Dr. Ruth Swahootza’s clinic for the potentially psychotic. I stood in the street, still reeling from sticker shock. She had just billed me $400.00 for professional consultation, hypnosis, and copious amounts of dope—which she called medication.

Moments later, I caught a cab and hurried home where I found comfort and companionship in an extra dry martini and my laptop.

In my journal I wrote: “Today, I became an explorer. I explored both the dark and bright passages in the labyrinth of my mind. My guide was an expensive shrinkette. She led me to many places I could not have found without her. But most important of all, on this journey I discovered who I am--and why.”

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