New Object

WALTER CALAHAN



Carter in costume in his DC loft.

I emerged from five years of grad school in the late 80s
well, if not victorious, at least not much worse for the wear
(I quit). The early 90s found me plundering the depths of
New York City. Then came stasis: spending my late 30s in
that social cesspool known as the nation’s capital. Is there a
better place to be when one is no longer enamored of one's
own potential, when the daisies have grown more than a lit-
tle like three-day-old foccacio? A better place from which to
launch oneself into the new millennium, toward a new ceil-
ing of consciousness? For if I can be said to be doing any-
thing, it must be that. Yes, I write penetrating and provoca-
tive theater featuring African Americans as universal charac-
ters with depth and agency for a country that creates space
only for mindless melodrama about marginalized morons.

The truth is, after years of imagining myself in the
counter-cultural revolution, I’m not sure I’ve seen any of it
and I’m not even sure what it is. At Haverford, the enemy
was pretty obvious. One could take aim at various incarna-
tions of ‘the establishment’ and be pretty sure of hitting the
pifiata. But out here, it’s much more difficult to measure
success in terms of change. Change in society, change in the
city in which you live (unless, woefully, you are Rudolph
Guliani), even change in your own circle of friends, is
extremely difficult to effect. The brilliant literary stuff is
easy. What I find myself struggling to do are the so-called
ordinary things: doing meaningful work, finding someone
to love, finding the right tennis partners, riding a bicycle in
the city, getting out of bed in the morning looking forward
to the day.



FALL 1999

What does some college | attended
16 years ago have to do with that? I
don't know. I’m forced to admit | dont
know a lot of things. I’ve stepped back
fom the cultural front lines and reso-
lutely focused inward. There I discover I
have a time-worn capacity to bounce
back. Whether it’s being graded unfairly
by a Bryn Mawr English prof senior
year and taking it in stride, recovering
virtually unscathed from a head-first
collision that by all accounts could have
killed me, or untying the heart strings
cauterized by a lover's desertion, I have
this crazy sense that I belong in this
world right side up. Did Haverford
give me that? | certainly got a han-
dle on the academics. Some of that
credit goes to English Professor Steve

Finley, my senior committee chair, a gifted
ceacher and communicator. But ultimately I'll never know
the answer to that one either. If it did, it was through
the same process by which a rock is molded.
You don’t turn around and thank the fire,
shaking off sparks; in its mindless, imperson-
al, relentless way, it only tried to force a
meltdown. Maybe that’s why by the tme I ran headfirst
‘nto that SUV, my head was hard enough to leave more
damage than it received (onlookers say the dent looked like
1 boulder made it). Maybe cars are just cheaply made.

Anywhere but New York City, | still seem to carry more
diversity with me than I encounter. Maybe that's my M.O.
On the verge of 40 and on the edge of the new millen-
bumhum, I work to increase the responsible use of alcohol
and to reduce the digital divide. I write plays and never
seem to run out of ideas. My car is back. I have a few sore
bones and muscles. And I am generally happy. I get out of
bed and look forward. I have the hope that my private bat-
tles will somehow resonate on a larger plane. I no longer
dream a world, I live in one. After all, no one knows they've
given birth to an Albert Einstein or a Miles Davis, or even
whether you are one. You just know you've got a baby to
love and take care of, youve got a story to tell, youve got an
idea about the world, or you've got a song to play, and you
do the best you can.

Wendell E. Carter works for Health Communications, Inc.
helping people nationwide learn to consume alcohol responsibly,
and is a playwright and reviewer. He lives in Washington; DC.

His e-mail address is wendell_carter@yahoo.com. |



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