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Plea #1: I've Done Stuff
O Divine Grad School Admissions People,
please hear my plea for entrance into your hallowed program.
Unlike many of the young punks who are
applying right out of undergrad, I've done stuff. I have things to
write about.
I've swum the mighty Hudson River, late
at night, the current pushing me and my friend downstream, whilst
tremendous tankers bore down upon us. I've been a newspaper
reporter, been in fistfights, been involved with more than one woman at a
time. I've given my heart to a corporation only to have it trammeled
upon. I've said goodbye to a grandfather, knowing it would be the
last time I'd see him. I've been party to innocent bombs made by my
good friend Tony, hit a tennis ball with Vitas Geralitus, interviewed
Katie Couric in the Millbrook Diner. I've had over four hundred
story submissions rejected and still I keep trying. I've changed a
flat tire on Gene Shalit's Mercedes, driven naked from Chicago to New
York, piloted a trawler down the Penobscot River in the rain.
I've bought a house for my parents to
live in. I've taken a limo home from the office night after night
with the pre-9/11 skyline of New York full of purpose and promise.
I've helped friends move—a
lot of them. I've shook hands with Stephen King, told Rosie
O'Donnell she was full of shit, and intimated to Bryant Gumbel that he was
old.
I've beaten speeding tickets, yet seen
my cars launched into the woods and sunken to the bottom of a pond.
I've given my umbrella to a homeless woman caught in a thunderstorm.
I've hauled lobster traps and arm-wrestled with high school students, been
harassed by parents, and endured the crushes of many a schoolgirl.
I've written a novel. I've hired
people and fired them. I've collected unemployment in New York while
touring ghost towns in Wyoming. I've walked out of elite fashion
shows because everyone was a fake. I've been a vegetarian.
I've chased a tornado, rubbed my wife's feet after a tough day, and
carried on an email correspondence with a pornstar.
Like I said, I've done stuff.
Plea #2: My
Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandmother was a Full-Blooded Passamaquoddy
Indian
Her name was Molly Orcutt, and she was
apparently an
Indian doctress who helped sick white settlers in Maine.
According to one account, "Molly was
found dead on White Cap Mountain near East Andover, Maine in 1817. She had
gone to the area to pick blueberries. When her body was found it had been
partially eaten by wild animals."
Because of my direct lineage to her, I
am 1/64 pure Native American. The only problem is, when they ask
about your race on the application, they don't give you a chance to
explain fractions.
I'm sure that if Molly were alive today,
she'd ask that you let me into your writing program. And if you
won't do it for me, do it for my People.
Plea #3: My Great-Grandfather was
Gunned Down by Book Thieves
It was 1885, and Josiah Orcutt, a
stagecoach guard for Wells Fargo, was delivering a shipment of
Huckleberry Finn first editions to Idaho. While in Montana, a
heavy snowstorm to the south prevented Josiah and the driver from taking a
shortcut through the Sawtooth Pass, so they had to find another route.
The pair ended up on an narrow
switchback that passed through an abandoned mining town, Garnet. As
they reached the top of the mountain and were on their way down the other
side, a band of highwaymen descended upon the stage and demanded the
lockbox containing fifty first editions of the eagerly awaited novel.
(Somehow they had heard about the cargo, and since a couple of the bandits
were ex-mining associates of Mr. Clemens and had had more than one of
their tall tales "borrowed" by the illustrious author, they knew the value
of the books too well and were determined to take them.) When Josiah
and the driver refused, the robbers drew their guns and all hell broke
loose.
Josiah's
last diary entry
documents his dying wish: that one of his descendants follow in Mr.
Twain's footsteps. Won't you make Josiah's dream come true by
admitting me to your program?
Above: A colorized photo of Josiah and
the Wells
Fargo driver somewhere in the Nevada desert.
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Above: One reason to admit me to your grad
program: I've done stuff--like
driven
naked
cross-country in a Dodge Mirada.
Above: Help a struggling young
writer afford graduate school.
Above: A rare lithograph of my distant
Native American ancestor, Molly Orcutt.
Above: Josiah Orcutt, Wells Fargo
guard, was
gunned down in Garnet, MT protecting a
shipment of Huckleberry Finn 1st editions.
Above: Josiah's
final diary entry.
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