Things were rolling....to wit: in twelve years of writing, never before had the phone rang with a paying gig. And there it was on the machine: The Midwest Irish News was calling. They were wondering if, by chance, I’d be interested in covering something sometime. They had seen one of my “Main Street” articles and assumed, correctly, that I was Irish. I confessed up front that I had
yet to see their paper, and was promptly assured in turn that it was what “the
Irish in the Midwest read.” Enough said.
     I felt so decent I decided to treat myself to dinner. Normally, I just resign myself to it. Either way adds up to the same place: the local coffeehouse. What’s more, I saw someone paging through an X-ray so I chose to sit next to him at the bar. I watched from the corner of my eye as he leafed through it. Felt a flutter where my heart used to be when he got around to mine. He’s reading me, I thought. I talked to the fellow in advance and now he’s cashing in; it’s strange and wonderful and....
     The guy turns to me with an indignant gleam in his eye, and says, “What an ass! Who does this guy think he is, the goddamnPope of Main Street? Get over yourself, you know? So you made your deadline, filled some space. Big fuckin’ deal.”
     Excuse me, I replied. Then stood up and checked out the non-smoking section for the first time. It was strange over there. Everything was in the wrong place, and the people didn’t have the same look about them. Still I found a table and, sitting down, I took off my hat and lay my staff at my feet. The books on the wall mocked me long after I finished pretending to eat.
     Maybe there was no chance after all, I thought on the way home, of anybody understanding anybody. Maybe things were broken, the game fixed. But, alas, once home the night proved mine: another message. This one from a commercial agent. She explained that she had recently acquired some new clients but suffered from a dearth (her word) of writers. “Exiled,” it heartened me to
hear, had won her over.
     Not many writers, she laughed, would confess in just the second installment of a series to having run out of ideas. I was the type she was looking for. Or so she said.
     Four days later, I’m having lunch with her and her client, a certain carpet salesman who stars in his own commercials. I’m pitching ideas left and right as if I never left Hollywood. “What about you fronting a rock band, ever hear of Spinal Tap?
     "Or you’re waiting on a table, telling a young couple about today’s special, but you’re not talking about food, you’re talking about carpet....Get it?”
     My ideas were uniformly, unceremoniously rejected. That is until I cast him as a beatnik poet, at the mic and rapping about some carpet deal that would, truly, still be in effect ten years from now. The art was in pushing the words into some kind of hipster meter; the joke lay in the fact that the
owner/actor was a mushy-mouthed droop so far from hip he somehow inspired trust in others.
     I got the green light. I dreamed it up and deemed it good. For TV, at least. I mean, it gave Dan Dan the Red Tag Man a run for his money. Problem was, once on set, the man couldn’t get his lines right. Which was a strange problem, considering that the sole charm of his other thousand commercials was his boyish glee in being unable to go one minute without breaking character. All of a sudden bad acting seemed unacceptable. It was as if, somehow, the bar had been raised. Frustrated, at one point he turned to me and barked, “Look, you sunavabitch, you do it once.” My reply?: “I already have.”
     Thus ended my career in carpet slinging. Act two: a certain discount tire store that made a habit out of changing their sign almost daily. The well had dried up for them, maybe I could lend a hand? The irony was I passed this store on the way to my day job, and I had already taken notice of the fact that the sign remained unchanged for over a week. I had just assumed someone integral was on vacation.
     So after a couple of nights spent envisioning “tire poems,” one day I headed out to work a little early, feeling confident. “I’m here to write your sign,” I introduced myself.
     “Oh, you must be the Main Street guy, right?” the manager asked. “I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to live there.”
     I ignored him. “I have some ideas,” I said, sliding a piece of paper across the counter. He read the list, grimly at first, but chuckling by end. “ These are good alright, but there’s one problem: we’re plum out of the letter M....These all have M’s in them.” He passed the sheet back to me. The guy
wasn’t kidding.
     "Grab a coffee and a seat,” he gestured towards the lobby. “See what you can cook up.” I did just that, only that. Outside the store’s sign read “ SORRY, WRITER’S BLOCK,” and it was so prescient I called work to say I’d be late, despite being within walking distance. That done I proceeded to watch three different court shows, searching for inspiration. Thought to put air in my
front left tire. Wondered, it’s not like the letter M isn’t prevalent, who else has to work under such conditions?
     And of course it came to me the moment I gave up. I jotted it down, double-checked for M’s, and called for the manager. He read it aloud: “Rolling People Know.” He seemed uncertain about something, swished it around his mouth.“ Rolling people know,” he repeated. Then: “Why not, kid? It’s hardly a bang but it’s a start. I’ll try to get some M’s in the meantime.”
     He turned around and disappeared out back. When he returned he held both a long broom-like handle and a bucket full of letters. Here you go, he said. Great, I thought: not only did I just call work to say I wouldn’t be in at all, the flu you know, but now I’m going to be changing a sign on the busiest street corner in Springdale. It was a taxing process, too. Sort through the letters. Take them down, put them up. There was an art to it, I imagined; one that escaped me.
     What’s more, I was surprised to discover the sign had two sides. I’d be there until nightfall, but still there was little doubt that “Rolling People Know” had to go up. All the heads would be pulling into Shell for instant cameras, so I had to see it through. Not to mention the fact that this was a paying gig....Twelve more like it and I could retire from the warehouse business.
And just as I completed the first side, the one facing the establishment, a more urgent slogan hit me. This one would require two M’s, though. I barely hesitated before I started, broom-handle thing in tow, towards the movie house next door, its sign, and from there I stole two of them: one from “Miss Congeniality,” the other from “The Emperor’s New Groove.” I then high-tailed it back and threw together the straightest, most important line I was capable of.
     It was hardly original, this line, but that only made repeating it all the sweeter. It was taught to me somewhere between the street and warehouse. I had heard intimations of it on the radio. Recognized it in certain people’s stance, coveted it especially when coming from those who could barely afford
to say it. I wrote:

                              I AINT A
                              COMMERCIAL

     Then, I threw the broom-handle thing in the backseat of my car and squealed away feeling like a serial killer on the lam....I worried about a Karma flat most of the way home. Moving south on I-75, I passed the Liberty Street exit, the same exit I took religiously for years, up until recently. It only had red lights, Liberty did, and the road was an affront to my car. I had discovered a few months ago that if you waited ‘75 out until Seventh Street, there the lights were timed. Drive just above the speed limit and you wouldn’t see red until you were well on Main, at Donato’s, to be precise. And when that turned green, you knew that was your last stop before you’d be home.
     All of which no longer being true. The Great Invisible Antagonist decided some weeks back to switch things up: at Central Parkway and, worse, outside of Crappy Day Cafe. The whole run has been ruined, taken out of sync. Which is a minor thing, I must admit. Forget the solace found in the idea that someone once thought enough to pave a smooth way home for me. Throw concepts like
momentum and rhythm out the window. What’s important here is that I’ve yet to hear anyone else—not Nick Clooney, not Steve Ramos, nor the critic at the coffeehouse—either lament or applaud this or any other such change in the climate.
     So, my friend, you can do one of two things: assassinate, or wait. Until told otherwise, this is my party; the staff, the hat, all things holy are mine. I trust myself with them, somewhat. It’s a rare bird: freedom tempered with responsibility. Rarer still a blue-collar creativity, which is the very essence of this or any other paper thrown together on the sly. I’ve tired of spelling it out, finally, and besides we’re plum out of M’s. You are either heartened or annoyed by what you read. This, then, is a test:
     I aint a commercial.