Here we are again peeking through the blinds at a writer. He’s talking to himself again. No surprise there. Well, we asked him to. Matthew Dexter’s story “Confessions of a Tanning Madam” is on the main Metazen site today. Put on your UV protective glasses and check it out, but for now nudge the blind down a bit and put your ear up to the glass.
Q: Buenas tardes, gringo loco.
A: Buenas tardes, señor.
Q: You often publish under pseudonyms, but since we’re here in Mexico now should we just call you Don Mateo or Emperor of Enchiloso?
A: Either or. Okay?
Q: In your story, Confessions of a Tanning Madam, you mention sizzurp. Do you sip sizzurp?
A: Next question.
Q: Do you?
A: Of course not—it’s just a story. (Points out the passenger window, desperately attempting to hide Styrofoam cup under his seat.)
Q: You’re a writer living in Cabo.
A: Yes. Six years now.
Q: And you just packed up the car and crossed the border?
A: Exactly.
Q: So how do you manage to get any work done?
A: Easy. Live with no money and don’t leave the house.
Q: It’s all good when you get down south in Baja past all the military checkpoints?
A: Yes.
Q: So you are not a member of any Mexican drug cartels?
A: Not anymore.
Q: But you’re a hard-drinking American writer who likely will squander whatever talents you might have acquired or developed and eventually end up either killing yourself with alcohol, drugs, or a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
A: Yes.
Q: Do you drink while you write?
A: Sizzurp?
Q: Anything?
A: Never. I’ve limited myself to Mexican beer and water. Not Mexican water…well yes, Mexican water, but bottled. Anyway, I never write while intoxicated; only stoned.
Q: What?
A: Nothing. I always write sober. And you can’t drink too much or you’ll have a headache in the early morning, when writing is always best, which makes writing and reading and thinking impossible on a higher level. I would never write anything great under the influence on purpose because that’s the worst way to write.
Q: So you never write intoxicated?
A: Of course I do, all the time.
Q: What’s that smell?
A: Nothing.
Q: Can you explain your story, Confessions of a Tanning Madam? Where the idea came from?
A: The idea came from listening to my skin bake in a tanning bed.
Q: You go to a tanning salon?
A: Used to… almost every day for about three years.
Q: Are you sure the melanoma won’t kill you?
A: Not entirely. It should have already done so.
Q: Do you think tanning booths and tanning salons make interesting settings for stories?
A: Of course.
Q: Can you elaborate?
A: It’s just something about that smell of flesh burning in the air, melanoma seeping into your skin for superficial purposes, and the addiction creeping into the largest organ in your body.
Q: Where do you see yourself in fifty years?
A: Dead.
Q: Caught in the dust of the tanning salon air-condition system?
A: Maybe. I hope so. There could be worse places to be.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
Q: Hello?
Q: Please don’t do that on camera.
A: Sorry.
Q: You’re a writer. You’re an expatriate. Is it worth it? What’s the goal?
A: Anything you believe in is worth it. What doesn’t kill you…you learn to accept the struggle and appreciate those multiple days when you ate nothing because you were penniless. Those moments add up. You know you’re a writer doing this for food and shelter and not some fancy MFA program. Those struggles build you and make you a better artist. Your inspiration and hunger grows and you get fat like me. Those moments make you watch those in real jobs on your lunch break, and wonder: What the hell happened?
Q: So, it’s not for the bikini contests or poetry readings alone in front of the ocean?
A: It’s all in our minds, meaningless, unless we get all those words down every day, and we’re all just waiting for our hearts to stop beating, burst into the stars. Better hope the butterflies don’t get greedy and start throwing nets.
