On Friday I sent out my plea to get “Father Felony” Randall Radic a literary agent to help get his memoir, The Sound of Meat, published. Since then, quite a few people have commented how they wish they could read an excerpt of his book.
Ask, and Dr. Blogstein will make it happen for you.
Courtesy of Randall Radic, I’m proud to be the web’s exclusive home to the first chapter of The Sound of Meat.
Enjoy…
THE SOUND OF MEAT
by Randall Radic
Chapter One
I wonder in thirty-two words…
Why my life seems so absurd.
10010010011001001001. Just call me the binary man.
Roger Daltry sang, “Can you see the real me, Doctor?”
I’ve been seeing a shrink, a psychotherapist, because I’ve had seven fiancees and two wives.
I can’t sustain a relationship.
Or try it this way: who can confuse disappointment with success?
Not I, said the boy with a twinkle in his eye.
So I go; and I tell her about my life; I give her the negative reciprocal of entropy, information. The theory is that by thus doing, the elements will coalesce into nobler forms. We will discover why I can’t love or be loved by another human being. Quite frankly, this sort of incoherence, at
once engaging and suggestive of a deeper wisdom, sounds like obfuscation to me. I’m supposed to change by loving my inner child, who it appears, was neglected and not nurtured by my parents when I was young. Argot, catch-phrases, buzzwords. I’m magically bored.
Inside, outside, just leave me alone. Inside, outside, my head is my home.
Inside, outside, I don’t know where I’ve been or why I’m this way. What can I say? I’m out of my head…I might be crazy.
My dad. The source of all my problems, according to the experts. He was a black hole from Hell. The Prince of fucking darkness. He was kind of like one of those coffee enemas my sister used to take — a force which generates its own imperatives. She inserts that little plastic nipple in her ass; then hydraulically forces the coffee from the bag into her bowels. Brown Cola nut goo spurting through her colon to her lower intestines. Talk about hypercaffeinated!
I’m an approval addict because of him, ‘they’ say. Kenneth Virgil Radic. That was his name. ‘Was’ because he died about three years ago. Prostate cancer. Actually, he died of pneumonia, but it was the cancer that left him gasping and immobile. I lived in California at the time. I didn’t go home to Denver to see him when he was dying. I hated him. I didn’t want to see him. I just wanted him to die — and go away.
He spent his last two weeks in a hospice, The Hospice of the order of St. John. Which is stranger than strange, as he had no concourse with God that I know of. But there he was in a religious residence for the terminally ill. My mother was there; my sister, Renee; my brothers, Perry and Cris. But not me.
The annoying pulsation of the portable phone: “Hello.”
“Randy, it’s Cris. I’m at the hospice with Mom and Dad. The doctor says Daddy is really fighting dying. I mean, he’s really fighting.”
“OK. What do you want me to do about it?” A tottering and rachitic image of my Dad flashes into my brain. I behold him dueling, literally, physically, with some dark apparition of death, some drooling, salivating fiend.
“Well…the doctor talked to Mom, and they think he’s waiting to see you before he’ll let go.”
“Well I’m not coming. I don’t want to.” He doesn’t want to die, and it’s my fault. Already my name is synonymous with shame; now this added to it. I feel a weight settle between my shoulders. Suddenly, I’m cold. “I know. The doctor suggested that you call him and talk to him. We’ll hold the phone up to his ear. They want you tell him that it’s alright to let go.”
“What?! You want me to call him and tell him to drop dead? No goddamn way I’m doing that.” Louche!
“I know, I know, it’s kind of morbid….”
‘Kind of?! What the hell!” A wet bubble of nausea rises in my throat.
“Here, Renee wants to talk to you.”
“Randy, it’s Renee.”
“Hi. What’s going on? Cris says you want me to call Daddy and tell him it’s OK to die.”
“That’s right. The doctor thinks it will help him relax and go easier.”
“Jesus, Renee!”
“We really need you to do this. We’ll get it all set up on this end, and we’ll call you back in about ten or fifteen minutes, OK?”
“I guess…” The chill is absolute.
Ever held your breath for fifteen minutes? Afraid that if you exhale, your soul will exit with it? There was a vice around my heart and my head hurt like hell. Rub the head, rub the temples, rub the neck, rub something –make it go away! I just want to feel good, ya’ know? I want to get laid. I want to ’feel’ like I’m loved for just a few minutes.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Eeeeeeeee! Eeeeeeeee! I suppose I have to answer it.
“Hello.”
“Randy, it’s Renee. Were ready here. Cris is going to hold the phone up to Dad’s ear. Are you ready?”
“Yeah…” a squeak.
“Hey, Dad. It’s Randy. I’m in California and I can’t get away. I’m just too busy and it’s too short of notice — the church and all, ya’ know? But I wanted to tell you that I love you, and it’s OK if you just let go.” The final humiliation: lying to a dying man with tears streaming down my face.
Neither is particularly comely. I can’t see for the tears! They’re blinding me!
Heaven and Hell seem awfully immediate.
“It’s OK if you just let go. Don’t fight it so much. Don’t hold out so you can see me, because I can’t come. But I love you. And…and….and it’s OK if you just let go.”
Silence.
“Randy, it’s Cris. Did you tell him?”
“Yeah, I told him.”
“OK. Bye.”
Korn sang: “Caught in the corners of my mind…taking me over one more time.”
Silence. Tears. Shame. My kitchen, where I am sitting, a black box with sharp edges.
He was a veteran. So they buried him in Fort Logan National Cemetery in Colorado. I didn’t go to the funeral either. I couldn’t.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLETE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE SOUND OF MEAT.
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There are two television ad campaigns that are bugging me right now. They both happen to be for pharmaceutical products and they usually air during the Today Show and Greta Van Susteran, two shows I watch regularly.
The first ad is for Rozerem. This is the sleep aid for people with insomnia. It features “Honest” Abe Lincoln and a furry beaver playing chess while a man in a space suit is making eggs on the stove. The whole scene freaks me out like you wouldn’t believe.
Incidentally, the one non-student journalist quoted in Sipchen’s piece stood by Iversen and supported his findings. Probably because Iversen’s claims are true. Its time to stop trying to convince ourselves that everything is okay.
