The Underground Man
Issue 11 - Will recovery, creativity, and love survive? Here begins Part One...
Happy New Year, everyone!
Thank you for keeping your subscriptions alive over the past few months. Because of your generosity and interest I’ve been able to explore this archetype at greater depth than any other yet.
While previous issues have been mostly one-offs, this issue contains many pieces, all of which I’ve schedule to publish throughout the month of January.
New developments for this newsletter:
More posts!
All of my favorite Substack accounts post every few days. The posts aren’t always as long as some of mine have been, but I like the immediacy of doing this. I get a sense of connection to the creator that doesn’t seem to come through through other accounts that go silent for months at a time, between posts.
New Series!
Because of the research I got to do on this issue, I want to start an “Archetypes in Society,” series. This will be a chance to nerd out a little and get philosophical. It also scratches my itch to join conversations that move me, which might be already happening in other forums.
Lists! Thanks to reader suggestions, I plan to include lists of artforms that seem to speak from the seat of each archetype. (Think: Popular Songs giving the Underground Man)
My goal is to finish the archetypes corpus by end of year.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this material on the Underground Man archetype. Thank you to Alex Tretbar, Nick Reimond, and Andrew Foshee for sharing their valued time, experience, and insight with me, often in my most wishy-washy of modes. Their suggestions and edits really encourage me to push what I think I’m capable of.
Leave me a comment or message! I love hearing from you!
Below: Underground Man Self Portrait, (from the basement) - 2024 Digital Mixed Media
1
Descent: Isolation, Darkness, Addiction
Sagging beams, stale air thick enough to choke on, flickering lights just one twitch away from throwing me into total darkness. Spores and unimaginables multiplying. Funnel spiders at eye level--hanging there like little harbingers, judging me, all while the dehumidifier beeps "S.O.S." Beep...beep... beep... And there I am, sitting in the rubble, rotting right along with it all, like a member of the family.
Meanwhile, upstairs? A universe away. Day-walkers. They're afraid of spiders. They're up there, plotting their ticky-tacky lives, trotting out to soccer games, hosting sleepovers, noses to their phones, putting on their "nothing to see here," performance. I mean, they act like that's life, like that's all there is. They've got zero idea of the shit show brewing right under their feet.
But as long as they think "Dad's just a little tired," or "Dad's just got work stuff," I'm solid. Meanwhile, the minivan's loaded up with enough contraband to turn Kansas City into a case study. The family vacations? You gotta use what you've got, right? Luggage strapped to the roof, a hundred units of flower, cooler packed with rosin pancakes, blotter, pills, exotics, and, naturally, enough powder to prop me up for the photo roll. Just your average Griswold family holiday, except we donated the camping gear to the last site and rolled back in with a cargo full of felony.
And here's the kicker: I pulled it off. Every. Time. I got pulled over twice, twice, and still slid by. Grinning in all the family photos. KC to the coastal highway and back. Nobody knew. Nobody wanted to.
But the basement? I belong here, in the crevasse, my nest of shadows, expecting the next blastoff, the next ecstasy, the next nail in the coffin. Mouth chapped, nose leaking, heart hammering--I'm standing in the pitch black, listening to every creaking floorboard above me. Each time footsteps reach the door, I hold my breath like some sort of insane raccoon and wait to get caught.
God help me if I get busted down here with my stash out in the open. But they don't notice, of course. They don't even realize I'm down here, buried under their assumptions, their normalcy, their goddamn routine. They can't see it. Or maybe they just don't want to. Which works for me.
I mean, I wasn't made for daylight. I wasn't built for the nine-to-five, Christmas-card, LinkedIn crap. That's their thing, not mine. Hell, it's a good thing nobody really looks at me, because it's like I've got the look of an unhinged lunatic oozing out of my pores. And I stink. People can smell the outsider on me from a mile away. So I keep my distance and wait for the next chance to really blow this all to hell.
I know, I know, it's insane. But once you're running on fumes, nothing else matters. The drugs? They're my power source. Let me get right first and I'll tackle anything on the list. Without them, I'm a paperweight. And the cost? Oh, it's not what you think. I can still act my role, hug the kids, crack a smile for her. But there's this shield now--a protective layer that makes me untouchable, invisible, like I'm on the other side of one-way glass.
So yeah, I started driving. Middle of the night, just me and the mini-van, both loaded, tearing through Kansas City, up and down the parkways. Driving the east side one-ways like some neighborhood labyrinth at 3 a.m., slowing down every time I spotted a blacked-out cruiser, daring them to look. But they never did. I was invisible. At one point, I started fantasizing about it. Lying down in the middle of the street, hands behind my head, bags spilling out like some busted piñata, just waiting for someone, anyone, to finally notice.
But they didn't. They never did. I couldn't pay to get myself arrested, for fucksake. Like a ghost, haunting the city, unseen, untouchable, and completely goddamn irrelevant. It's almost poetic, really. I mean, come on, look at me. I'm the ultimate anti-hero. The basement dweller. The self-destructing dad in his own little catacomb. Even the narcs aren't interested. And why would they be? I'm a liability, sure, but not to anyone that actually matters. Just myself.
And the bigger bummer...? No bang, no glory. Just endless nights circling the same stretch of road, waiting for something to finally give. So yeah, here I am, back in the basement, staring into the dark, wondering what fresh hell awaits. When the world moves on and leaves me to rot, and I get a new excuse to do the whole fucked-up routine again. But hey, at least I don't have to smile for the camera.