On Legacy

There's been lots of talk on legacies between friends lately -- take a look at Angelica's blog post here -- and I feel I have more to add to the conversation:

I need a group of personal acquaintances (friends, family, lovers, co-workers, neighbors, classmates, rivals) to contribute to my posthumous biography. I'll need them to provide the standard biographical requirements of a documentary -- thoughts, opinions, anecdotes -- but it's important for them to not excessively gush over me and not exclusively sing my praises. I don't need them all to wax poetic on how nice, caring, talented, loving, generous, and wonderful that I (supposedly) was. I'm sure my Mom could provide all of that on her lonesome. But too much of that mushy, saccharine stuff would be boring. I don't want this to be a eulogy; I want a fair and brutally candid account of my life.

What I really need is people who resented me, begrudged me, hated my guts. They'll have to be passionate about their disdain, willingly voicing their complaints both in print and on camera. If I'm lucky, maybe a TV crew (I'm thinking this could air on the History Channel) can get shots of them desecrating my grave. They'll cast doubt on my public perception, blurring what would otherwise be a pristine image, forcing future generations to decide if I were an artist or a scumbag or both.

I'm interested in getting a wide spectrum of negative opinion, running the entire gamut. I'll need these people (and I'd like to thank them all in advance, from the bottom of my heart) to corroborate the fact that I was mean, weird, condescending, creepy, distant, overrated, cold-hearted, petty, and just the tiniest little bit mentally ill.

They'll have to recount personal stories of their past experiences with me. I've already scripted the perfect fictional anecdotes, so hopefully they'll be, more or less, similar to these:

A neighbor: "I don't remember ever seeing him go outside during the day. His house was always so eerily quiet, like a tomb, like a mausoleum right in the middle of a suburban cul-de-sac. I don't think I can even recall ever waving to him through the window, his blinds were always sealed shut. I'd notice that his car would be gone sometimes, his newspaper picked up, and his garbage cans dragged to the curb. So he obviously came out sometime, I'd just never actually see it. I thought that was strange."

An ex-girlfriend: "Yeah, we had a fun together, but he was kind of cheap."

A former friend: "He had this annoying habit of making plans, and then breaking them off at the last second. We were supposed to see a movie or grab a bite to eat, then something would come up and he wouldn't be able to make it. And he'd do this habitually. It happened a lot. I secretly presumed that he did this on purpose. It's as if he got off on being a flake and messing with people. Either that, or he had some weird social phobia."

Another former friend: "I remember one time he got this really bad haircut. They took too much off. I jokingly told him that it looked retarded, just goofing on him, just busting his balls a little bit. And he got really mad about that! I don't know why he took it so personally. And here's the funny thing: he never spoke to me again after that. Let's just think about that for a second, he held a lifetime grudge over a stupid joke."

A co-worker: "He was always late for work. It'd be, like, 15-20 minutes after the hour and he'd just be pulling into the parking lot. Under any other circumstance, I wouldn't care what he does. It's a free country. He's the one running the chance of getting fired, not me. But with the way our system was set up, one person would always have to relieve another person. If you wanted to clock out, someone else would have to clock in...y'know, pretty typical stuff. And of course, I'd always get stuck working the shift that ended just as his shift started. I'd confront him about it, but he'd just mutter some half-hearted apology about traffic being bad or something other lie. He was actually a pretty fun guy to work with, it's just this one habit of his was so rude and inconsiderate."

Another ex-girlfriend: "He never complimented me on anything. I was never pretty enough, or thin enough, or smart enough. And whenever he did say something nice to me, it always seemed insincere. Like he was mocking me, like he was secretly laughing at my expense to some inside joke that he had with himself. It was actually very hurtful. It was really fun breaking up with him."

A classmate: "He had such a high opinion of himself. He thought he was this incredible writer -- like he was the next Fitzgerald or Faulkner -- but to be honest, he was kind of a hack. Now he was decent, don't get me wrong, but not nearly as innovative and original as he thought he was. It's, like, whenever he'd pitch to us this great new idea for a novel he wanted to write, it was basically just a rip-off of The Catcher in the Rye; whenever he had a new idea for a screenplay, it was basically just a rip-off of Garden State. Heh, it's funny, the only thing he ever seemed capable of doing back then was that stereotypical 20-something-year-old coming-of-age story...and it was always based on something else that'd already been done. And I don't want this to seem like sour grapes, I'm glad he became successful. Some of his stuff is okay. But shit, he was pretentious."

The stories have to be incriminating. They have to be kind of funny, kind of pathetic, kind of disturbing. They'll cast me in a light not made up of stark whites and blacks, but more muddled shades of gray. This is exactly why Tom Hanks isn't an interesting human being. He's adored by all. Everyone loves him. I don't think I've ever heard an associate of Hanks' relate a single story of him ever resisting arrest, or cheating on his wife, or getting into a barroom fist fight. His record is so spotless, his character so beyond reproach, that I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find an old kindergarten classmate that could admit something as harmless as him eating paste as a kid. I'd hate for that to happen to me, to be a historical footnote that has no other points of interest other than being a historical footnote. I don't want to be Tom Hanks.

But I also want to make this clear: I don't want to be a monster. I don't want to be despised by the public. I want my fame to be laced with infamy...but just a little. I'd be crushed if any of this were allowed to overshadow my life's work. My name is important to me and I'd hate for it to be ruined. Take Joseph Conrad for example; he wrote Heart of Darkness, Chance, and Lord Jim and yet his lasting impression among many scholarly circles is that of an unapologetic racist, someone who believed one group of people (namely, his own) held genetic superiority over everyone else's...now that really sucks, that really is a shame. Being a jerk or a recluse or an eccentric shouldn't be my legacy, it should simply be one small chapter to it. That'd defeat the whole purpose. Cutting nose off, spiting face...you're familiar with the old saying. I'd hate for my maladjustment to consume me. First and foremost, my accomplishments take precedence. And any other quirks I may have are supplementary.