A Fractured Life (the Wally Lamb style book)

What is summer without a Wally Lamb type book charging up the best seller list? Why it just ain't summer! But what of your look at non-fiction a few of more careful readers ask? We're covered on that base with this as well because industry insiders (are there any other kind) are whispering that this fictional novel is reportedly the memoir of Bill Keller! Maybe it's the "dedication page" which reads "To all the arm chair media critics. F.U.! Hey circle jerkers, jerk this!" but damned if it doesn't read to us like the life story of executive-editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller.

A Fractured Life

He hated those who pried.

Occasionally he would give away things to trusted ones, little facts and details of his choosing. He never regretted shared moments with the few that he did actually trust; however, more often than not, he would end up being forced to explain things to people he felt little attachment to. People who would catch him in a weak moment and, in the supposed name of closeness and friendship, demand of him details that he did not want to freely give. Pressed and put off, he would give of himself as he quietly detached and edged away. The closeness those people claimed to be seeking would never come because he hated being forced or tricked into self-exposure. He hated those who pried. He hated being forced to explain in a sentence or two something so complex that in a lifetime he still hadn't come to conclusions on himself. He had one stood before a mirror and said, "I am looking in the mirror and I see nothing."

He was not a chameleon. A part of himself was never truly lost. There existed a thread, albeit a fine, weak one, of continuity that linked all the different personas he expressed.

He didn't change, he just expressed different parts of himself. It wasn't that he wasn't genuine, it was that he wasn't one person, he was many people. Instinctively he knew what to give someone to win them over. Instinctively he knew which qualities to parade and which qualities to lock away. He was an artist when it came to relationships and like the impressionists and the post-impressionists before him, he utilized the technique of chairo scuro -- he emphasized either the brights or the darks depending on what he was trying to get across to his audience.

And indeed, they were all his audience, for though he longed to quit perfoming, he had yet to find a person to whom he could show the many divisions, fractions, factions of himself to. He was like a stained glass window looked at by a child who only picked out his favorite colors. He longed to be appreciated as a whole.

But he would rather have partial attention then none at all. To be ignored was to disappear. Once alone he slowly vanished like the picture on a black and white television screen. He was reduced to an ever fading white spot. To be watched, to be noticed, was to be alive. It was tangible proof that at this moment in time he existed -- he had a witness.

This need for confirmation was the most intense drive. It was the hub around which the wheel turned. He'd never been able to free himself from this need. He'd never been able to find inner confirmation. The outside was everything. Everyone was his mirror, in their eyes he lived or died. He had resigned himself to this fact.

His name was Bajo and he felt like he came from below.

Looking around at the other people, he often felt that the unfolding events made him somehow emotionally inferior. Many people had accused Bajo of thinking he was superior to them, but the truth was that when he ranked people, he almost always ranked himself bottom of the list. Only if the pyramid was inverted did he ever find himself on top. He looked around and marveled at the people who gave of themselves with the wild abandon of a drunk in Vegas. He, on the other hand, always had to weigh the balance and measure carefully before he gave anything. He had to be as guarded and as calculating as a whore. Like a whore, he always had to satisfy, he always had to please, even if the pleasure came at his own expense.

Bajo knew upfront that when the masks were dropped, when the mysteries were solved, interest in him woul die. Long ago a spiteful, old woman, who may or may not have been his grandmother, had told him, "No one who really knows you will ever love you." He'd learned it. He'd accepted it as gospel. He'd committed the statement to memory and learned to live accordingly.

It had to be the truth, for all the people closest to him, the people that outside world looked upon as his family, all knew him, and with nary an exception they all abused him. Expressing his disappointment, his pain, gained him no sympathy. It only gave them more ammunition to use against him. His every weakness once exposed became another limb nailed to the cross. Truth was not rewarded. He was left unprotected. Quickly he learned sleight of hand. Quickly he learned to surround himself with subterfuge and expose only that which would get him what he desired. He was both the magician and the prop. He could pull the table out from underneath himself and still remain standing. The skill with which Bajo accomplished his tricks became far more mesmerizing than any of the tricks themselves.

A painting studied too closely reveals nothing but the strokes and the pigments at play. Bajo knew the secret to a good painting was in filling in the contrasting details first and foremost. He knew to make himself an empty canvas first, then decide what he wanted to emphasize. But before adding those prominent features, he would add the contrasting colors first -- the colors that would enhance what he wanted to show. That way when he went back and added the features he wished to draw attention to, the canvas was no longer empty. He was already halfway done and before he knew it, he would be done.

But the paint was flaking off. Had he mixed the colors too strongly? Was the pigment not the right consistency? Or had the act of always shedding personalities only to add another finally began to take its toll? Was the problem pintemento? Were all the paintings underneath the exterior beginning to surface and blur the creation he intended to exhibit?