Into the Trees by Trake Dylan Copyright © 2020 by Ralph Robert Moore.

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Published in Black Static #77, Nov-Dec 2020

The 'Author's Warning' preface to Paul Reiser's 1994 collection of humorous essays about relationships, Couplehood, states, "You will notice in just a second that this book actually begins on page 145. Don't be alarmed-this is not a mistake…It's just that I know when I'm reading, I love being smack in the middle of the book…This way, you can read the book for two minutes, and if anybody asks you how far along you are you can say, 'I'm on page 151. And it's really flying.'"

I'm going to tell you something embarrassing about myself.

When I was a young teenager, probably about thirteen, a great age for a future horror writer, eating acorns in front of the TV, I decided I needed a pen name for all the incredible stories I was going to write. A name that really stood out. Because I felt my actual name, Ralph Robert Moore, just wasn't impressive enough.

I needed a nom de plume that was cooler than me.

So I rehearsed different names. One of them was H.R. Strangelove. 'H.R.' was a nod to 'H.P. Lovecraft', and 'Strangelove' was of course inspired by Kubrick's 'Dr. Strangelove.'

Another pen name I considered was Trake Dylan. I have no idea where 'Trake' came from, although I do like it. I picture someone with prominent black eyebrows and a square jaw. "Trake, I sincerely apologize." Hands raised in the air, eyes looking down at the shattered clay pots of multi-colored irises strewn across the kitchen's checkerboard floor. "I was out of line. It was that damn absinthe." 'Dylan', of course, came from Bob Dylan (which itself was a pseudonym for Robert Zimmerman.)

I thought if I had a pen name, that would propel me forward into authorhood, so instead of being on page 1, I'd be on page 145.

There's a tradition of people trying to pass under fake names.

In the Cinemax series Banshee, we never learn the actual name of the man who assumes the identity of the new sheriff, Lucas Wood. Over the course of the seasons he whispers his actual name into the ear of one or two characters, but we never hear it. In Mad Men, the man we know as Don Draper is actually Dick Whitman, but very few people are aware of that. And of course there's always the 'double rumble' of Humbert Humbert in Lolita, whose true name remains forever behind a mask.

The thing about a fake name is that it can allow you to have a fake life. Just like you made up your name, you can make up your experiences.

I remember when personal websites first became popular, back in the Nineties. And people would write blogs about how their life was going. And guess what? Their lives were going great! Everything was perfect. Sam had some friends over on a Saturday night, and in a moment of crazy inspiration he threw together some quinoa, cilantro leaves, minced pineapple, and fish sauce, and his guests, raising forks to mouths, eyebrows to foreheads, were like, Fuck, dude! How do you come up with these combinations??!!

That's just natural. We meet someone new, and it doesn't take that many sentences before we look up from our latte and say, Those cloud formations remind me a lot of the skies I saw while I was in Paris (or Tokyo, or Buenos Aires or Johannesburg, take your pick). And we all do it. We all drop what we think is a flattering fact about ourselves at some point into a conversation. We want to impress others. Hint that we're superior to all the other monkeys dropping from the tree limbs to the grainy white sidewalk, begging for bananas. There's that old joke: How do you know if someone is a vegan or an atheist? Don't worry, they'll tell you within five minutes of meeting you.

But it's the rare bravery who tells you something unflattering about themselves. That's not so easy to do. That requires an extraordinary degree of kindness. To let you know you're not alone, that even though others won't share something embarrassing about themselves, here's you willing to do so, telling readers, It's okay. We're all flawed. None of us are cool. Sometimes someone else has taken credit at a business meeting for something we've done, and we don't know how to correct that misrepresentation without it becoming socially awkward. A lot of women have pretended to find their manager's crude sex joke funny, laughing, looking away, because they need this job. A lot of drunk straight guys have sucked a cock at some point in their lives.

Instagram is filled with idealized photographs, perfect angles and lighting, to suggest the subject of the selfie is a god, or goddess. Living the good life. Fanned out hundred-dollar bills, string bikini butt slanted towards the flash. But they're not.

It's all pen names.

When I was a child, after I had been put to bed, my parents saying good night, partially shutting the bedroom door behind their exit, I'd pull the wool blanket up over my head, turn on the flashlight I kept in my night table, as excited by its cylindrical height as I'd feel a few years later curling my fingers around another cylindrical height, click on its light in my private tent, yellow circle aimed at the black text on the opened white pages of the book held above my face, turning the text into a drive-in movie screen.

Because when we're young, books are God. Books are how we'll survive childhood. The strong hand reaching down from the past. And to be a part of books? To write a book ourselves? It's like meeting Elvis.

So at that early stage in my writing career I wanted to write, wanted to share, but hiding behind a mask.

And a mask could be a full over-the-head piece with a wig and fake neck, or could be as scant as a Domino mask, covering only the area around the eyes.

I do admire writers who we can call Domino writers. They show more of their true selves, as unflattering as that is, and sometimes embarrassing. Not always presenting themselves in the best light. Because anyone can portray themselves in a flattering way. But only a true writer can portray themselves as someone with unattractive aspects.

And let's face it, folks. There's a lot that's unattractive about each and every one of us. But to share that? To be public about it? That doesn't make us weak. It makes us strong.

After we commit more to writing, we realize we don't want to hide behind a pseudonym or persona. An idealized presentation of our life where everything is happy. Because that isn't writing. It's primping. We want to say, This is me, balding. This is me, breasts not as pert. Because that's what art truly is, sharing. Art is arms around you, holding the side of your nose close to its unending heartbeat.

If you're honest, there's so much more you can pull out of yourself, because it's not just based on your limited ability to lie, it's based on the truth of the life you've lived so far, and that's almost endless. There is so much inside each of us to draw upon for our art.

People say, 'Imagine the tree inside the acorn'. But that's just the beginning. A nut doesn't just contain a tree. It holds within it baseball bats, dining room tables, banjos, bird houses, rulers, coffins, wine corks, doll houses, model airplanes, rocking horses, ventriloquist dummies, tongue depressors, sponges, chewing gum, disinfecting wipes, aspirin, toothpaste, rubber, acne medication, toothpicks, pencils.