In Philly’s 30th Street Station, as I waited and prayed for some magical entity to whisk me to Boston, I was struck up for conversation by a former investment banker in his late 50s who was trying to reinvent himself as a business developer for some kind of biotech self-fertilizing soil start-up. He was attempting to network with me. You see, I was still wearing my funeral suit, which is a very elegant suit — Calvin Klein, in fact, originally purchased for job interviews but safely converted into a “sad occasion” suit given its total blackness and modest tailoring. The suit coupled with my laptop (on which I was blogging) gave me the appearance of being someone successful, a young go-getter and a potentially useful business contact for someone in the twilight of their career.
“I came down this morning from Boston for a 2-hour presentation to a company in Ambler,” he told me as we stared glumly at the sign that announced all train service to Boston had been stopped due to track flooding in Rhode Island. To my horror, he launched into his sales pitch — not that self-fertilizing soil isn’t an interesting concept, but he was giving me the science, the financials, the droning rip-my-ears-off market opportunity statistics. I wanted to interrupt him and stop this businesswoman charade by saying “I just came from a funeral!” but he suddenly asked me what I did.
“I work for an educational software company,” I said vaguely. “I do a lot of creative things, like designing, editing, and writing. I’m more of a writer than anything else.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” he said wistfully. “I always felt I had a book in me.”
Whenever someone expresses this aspiration to me, I must squash the desire to be snide and say “You and half of this goddamn country of functional illiterates.” Instead, I pretend to be super-amazed and impressed by their ambitions. If I’m feeling mean, I’ll slyly ask them who their favorite authors are just to watch them flounder for the name of the last respectable book they read.
“Something based on my own life,” he continued. “About my family, my father, and what I did when I was younger, my finance career… I mean, it doesn’t sound exciting, and it wouldn’t be exciting, but more profound.”
“Mmmm-hhhmmm… well, what I always say is the only way to be a writer is to write,” I told him. “I write something every day. Sometimes it’s for work, sometimes it’s for pleasure.”
He was quiet for a second. “Good for you,” he said. “Good for you. I envy you.” He looked distraught for a second, then recomposed himself. “You’ll leave something behind in this world. Writers leave something behind, something that people will want and value. I’ll leave behind a pile of papers that will be shredded, and that’s it. That’s the end of me.” He shook his head. “Morbid, I know.” His voice became upbeat, indicating a change of subject. “So what brings you to Philly?”
I thought about lying — it seemed more polite — but I paused for too long and the truth popped out. “A funeral, actually.”
Conversation killer.
