// creative //
February 26, 2015
Gruber vs. Gruber:
A Self-Interview, Across Decades
Jesse Gruber
February 26, 2015
Gruber vs. Gruber:
A Self-Interview, Across Decades
Jesse Gruber
2014: Thank you for coming. It’s a real pleasure to
2044: My agent said this will only take twenty minutes; I have to get back to the wife and…never mind, you’ll learn soon enough. I’ll take any opportunity I can to spread wisdom to college kids who think that knowledge is gleaned from books and not experience.
2014: (Winces nervously, but recovers quickly. He is proud of his resilience, but still self-consciously unsure if the intimidating Mr. Gruber has perceived any anxiety in his face and voice—as if the middle-aged gentlemen has not experienced his own share of mental discomfort/turmoil.) So let’s get to it I guess. As an experienced writer,
2044: You know F. Scott Fitzgerald already did something like this? As did Borges, I believe.
2014: I do. They did. This is either tribute or plagiarism, depending on how interesting and enjoyable you find the finished product. Can I start with the questions?
2044: Godspeed.
2014: (Clears throat; unfortunately the throat clearing has the unintended effect of spraining a minor vocal cord, producing a squawk and not the polished, mellifluous voice Jesse normally has.) What is your writing process like?
2044: I’m more a vessel than a writer. What happens is I absorb consciously and unconsciously whatever I come across, and eventually what’s to be written down stays in the gut, that is, it isn’t immediately flushed out with the rest of the garbage I take in, and so after I can no longer bear these stubborn ideas that don’t just cling but actually pierce my bowels, I shit em’ out, the ideas, and it’s like one of those shits where you peep into the water and can tell that this crap has been inside you for too fucking long. So my writing process is like shitting: the process itself is somehow both uncomfortable and cathartic, and what comes out is something vastly altered from whatever came in. And I always feel better after it’s done. I guess vomiting would work as an analogy as well, but I’d equate vomiting more with essays than fiction.
2014: …
2014: Can I ask you another question?
2044: Shoot. Actually. You don’t really want to ask those stilted, pretentious questions that you have there, do you? No GMO’s in this conversation. Just pure, grass fed, lean, medium-rare, beef. Can’t this just proceed organically? Just imagine you’re looking in the mirror. (Attempts to grab piece of printed questions from interviewer, who resists, causing the paper to rip. Holding the upper 61 percent of the paper, Mr. Gruber proceeds to read.) Were you really going to ask me this: “Who are your greatest influences?” “If you could have dinner with a historical individual, dead or alive, who would it be?” It would be dead Hitler by the way. “Would you rather have the power of flight or invisibility?” The last one is actually a decent question. I would have said flying when I was your age, but the trains nowadays are like as fast as Mr. Incredible’s grandson from the third sequel. Also, everyone wears jetpacks now. Kidding. So, invisibility. Wait. Do I have to be naked, or does whatever I’m wearing become invisible as well? If not, then I’d have to strip naked every time I wanted to, you know, turn on the invisibility, then I’d have to return to wherever I actually left my clothes or revert to stealing clothes or just leave clothes throughout the city. Also do I have to concentrate for the invisibility to turn on/off, I’m wondering just so I wouldn’t hypothetically scar a young man or lady who was imagining clouds into ducks or horses or innocent trifles like that, only to look up at the azure sky and see a man suspended amongst the innocent clouds with his cock erect,
2014: …
2044: resembling a long hairy old-school pistol, the kind Southerners used to shoot their fellow countrymen with during the Civil War.
2014: (Laughs awkwardly; the laugh of someone who didn’t fully comprehend a joke) Invisibility would unleash a can of pretty confused worms, no? wriggling about less snakelike a worm than a dying dolphin. But you can’t fly and be invisible…so you would choose flight, then?
2044: Don’t put words in my mouth. (Sighs.) Sorry, I’m just a little stressed; it’s not easy feeling like I have to say something meaningful or insightful or…I know that flying is the more noble choice, but it’s cold up there—also if it’s cold and the no clothes thing again? and the partial pressure of Oxygen is probably like 20% of what it is down here, and I don’t think I’m cut out to fight crime. I just don’t have it in me. Like I would be the first one to call the cops in a Kitty Genovese situation, but
2014: I think we should move on.
2044: …
2014: So what kind of writer do I become: the Jewish Flannery O’ Connor, or the white James Baldwin?
2044: Kafka with a bigger heart.
2014: A less intelligent David Foster Wallace.
2044: Good one. A skinny Dennis Johnson.
2014: Wouldn’t you think more writers would be fat?
2044: Now that is a good question! I think we just forget to eat. Or maybe it’s the antidepressants. Or the pacing. Drugs for some. Thoughts?
2014: (A hard-to-conceal grin spreads rapidly across his face; validation is not wasted on the young.) I don’t think it’s the antidepressants as much as the depression itself, that is, the depression that knocks down an individual motivated enough to fight back with the weapons that are the treadmill and the elliptical—an individual wealthy or privileged enough with the opportunity, the time, to exercise away the demons, an individual not used to eating Little Caesar’s or playing with the toys that come in Happy Meals.
2044: I couldn’t have said it better myse
2014: One last question: if you could tell a younger you—a younger me that never spoke to you—what would you say?
2044: I guess I’d tell him—me—to stop worrying about the existential stuff because it’s clear now. Less foggy. The defrost button is working. Repaired. And even if the heaviness were lingering and weighing you down, you wouldn’t have time to worry because you have the kids to worry about. And they aren’t worrying which by some kind of osmosis you stop as well. Children are limitless springs of hope. Their fountains continually replenish themselves—(laughs) so they are like ordinary fountains, then. Just as your well is about to run out, just as the last drops are vaporizing, the hydrogen bonds breaking, the sky opens up—angels cry when they laugh—and a tsunami runs over the well so that the raging water dips slightly as it replenishes every hole and is even powerful enough to make the ground almost malleable, creating new reserves, and what’s tragic is the thought that my kids won’t be kids much longer, and that their springs of hope might become drier than mine ever was, and they’ll have to have their own kids because of the same hopelessness, the same selfishness that I once had…If you’ve never loved or been loved, have a child.
2014: (Reaches arm out to places fingers lightly enough on Jesse’s shoulder so that the cashmere doesn’t valley) I’ll take that as comforting. Tell mom I love her.
2044: (Breathes in deeply)
2044: My agent said this will only take twenty minutes; I have to get back to the wife and…never mind, you’ll learn soon enough. I’ll take any opportunity I can to spread wisdom to college kids who think that knowledge is gleaned from books and not experience.
2014: (Winces nervously, but recovers quickly. He is proud of his resilience, but still self-consciously unsure if the intimidating Mr. Gruber has perceived any anxiety in his face and voice—as if the middle-aged gentlemen has not experienced his own share of mental discomfort/turmoil.) So let’s get to it I guess. As an experienced writer,
2044: You know F. Scott Fitzgerald already did something like this? As did Borges, I believe.
2014: I do. They did. This is either tribute or plagiarism, depending on how interesting and enjoyable you find the finished product. Can I start with the questions?
2044: Godspeed.
2014: (Clears throat; unfortunately the throat clearing has the unintended effect of spraining a minor vocal cord, producing a squawk and not the polished, mellifluous voice Jesse normally has.) What is your writing process like?
2044: I’m more a vessel than a writer. What happens is I absorb consciously and unconsciously whatever I come across, and eventually what’s to be written down stays in the gut, that is, it isn’t immediately flushed out with the rest of the garbage I take in, and so after I can no longer bear these stubborn ideas that don’t just cling but actually pierce my bowels, I shit em’ out, the ideas, and it’s like one of those shits where you peep into the water and can tell that this crap has been inside you for too fucking long. So my writing process is like shitting: the process itself is somehow both uncomfortable and cathartic, and what comes out is something vastly altered from whatever came in. And I always feel better after it’s done. I guess vomiting would work as an analogy as well, but I’d equate vomiting more with essays than fiction.
2014: …
2014: Can I ask you another question?
2044: Shoot. Actually. You don’t really want to ask those stilted, pretentious questions that you have there, do you? No GMO’s in this conversation. Just pure, grass fed, lean, medium-rare, beef. Can’t this just proceed organically? Just imagine you’re looking in the mirror. (Attempts to grab piece of printed questions from interviewer, who resists, causing the paper to rip. Holding the upper 61 percent of the paper, Mr. Gruber proceeds to read.) Were you really going to ask me this: “Who are your greatest influences?” “If you could have dinner with a historical individual, dead or alive, who would it be?” It would be dead Hitler by the way. “Would you rather have the power of flight or invisibility?” The last one is actually a decent question. I would have said flying when I was your age, but the trains nowadays are like as fast as Mr. Incredible’s grandson from the third sequel. Also, everyone wears jetpacks now. Kidding. So, invisibility. Wait. Do I have to be naked, or does whatever I’m wearing become invisible as well? If not, then I’d have to strip naked every time I wanted to, you know, turn on the invisibility, then I’d have to return to wherever I actually left my clothes or revert to stealing clothes or just leave clothes throughout the city. Also do I have to concentrate for the invisibility to turn on/off, I’m wondering just so I wouldn’t hypothetically scar a young man or lady who was imagining clouds into ducks or horses or innocent trifles like that, only to look up at the azure sky and see a man suspended amongst the innocent clouds with his cock erect,
2014: …
2044: resembling a long hairy old-school pistol, the kind Southerners used to shoot their fellow countrymen with during the Civil War.
2014: (Laughs awkwardly; the laugh of someone who didn’t fully comprehend a joke) Invisibility would unleash a can of pretty confused worms, no? wriggling about less snakelike a worm than a dying dolphin. But you can’t fly and be invisible…so you would choose flight, then?
2044: Don’t put words in my mouth. (Sighs.) Sorry, I’m just a little stressed; it’s not easy feeling like I have to say something meaningful or insightful or…I know that flying is the more noble choice, but it’s cold up there—also if it’s cold and the no clothes thing again? and the partial pressure of Oxygen is probably like 20% of what it is down here, and I don’t think I’m cut out to fight crime. I just don’t have it in me. Like I would be the first one to call the cops in a Kitty Genovese situation, but
2014: I think we should move on.
2044: …
2014: So what kind of writer do I become: the Jewish Flannery O’ Connor, or the white James Baldwin?
2044: Kafka with a bigger heart.
2014: A less intelligent David Foster Wallace.
2044: Good one. A skinny Dennis Johnson.
2014: Wouldn’t you think more writers would be fat?
2044: Now that is a good question! I think we just forget to eat. Or maybe it’s the antidepressants. Or the pacing. Drugs for some. Thoughts?
2014: (A hard-to-conceal grin spreads rapidly across his face; validation is not wasted on the young.) I don’t think it’s the antidepressants as much as the depression itself, that is, the depression that knocks down an individual motivated enough to fight back with the weapons that are the treadmill and the elliptical—an individual wealthy or privileged enough with the opportunity, the time, to exercise away the demons, an individual not used to eating Little Caesar’s or playing with the toys that come in Happy Meals.
2044: I couldn’t have said it better myse
2014: One last question: if you could tell a younger you—a younger me that never spoke to you—what would you say?
2044: I guess I’d tell him—me—to stop worrying about the existential stuff because it’s clear now. Less foggy. The defrost button is working. Repaired. And even if the heaviness were lingering and weighing you down, you wouldn’t have time to worry because you have the kids to worry about. And they aren’t worrying which by some kind of osmosis you stop as well. Children are limitless springs of hope. Their fountains continually replenish themselves—(laughs) so they are like ordinary fountains, then. Just as your well is about to run out, just as the last drops are vaporizing, the hydrogen bonds breaking, the sky opens up—angels cry when they laugh—and a tsunami runs over the well so that the raging water dips slightly as it replenishes every hole and is even powerful enough to make the ground almost malleable, creating new reserves, and what’s tragic is the thought that my kids won’t be kids much longer, and that their springs of hope might become drier than mine ever was, and they’ll have to have their own kids because of the same hopelessness, the same selfishness that I once had…If you’ve never loved or been loved, have a child.
2014: (Reaches arm out to places fingers lightly enough on Jesse’s shoulder so that the cashmere doesn’t valley) I’ll take that as comforting. Tell mom I love her.
2044: (Breathes in deeply)
// JESSE GRUBER is a Junior in GS. He can be reached at [email protected]. Photo courtesy of blog.smartbear.com.