How do we function in a world which is both as randomly and intentionally cruel, as it is randomly and intentionally kind? Can we make sense of our lives when so much around us makes no sense?
How do we function in a world which is both as randomly and intentionally cruel, as it is randomly and intentionally kind? Can we make sense of our lives when so much around us makes no sense? In this, the final book of the trilogy, we find out what it means to be a "man who loves too much". More importantly, we discover if Billy Green is such a man.
Excerpt
Planet Oblivion
A week had gone by. Halloween had come and gone.
Still no word from Candy.
Maybe she had written him off.
Life in the big city.
Billy was sitting in Planet Hollywood on Broadway, in the heart of the new Times Square.
This area at one time had been the unofficial strip mall for all of the depravity, decadence, vice, and almost every commodifiable form of affliction and death, available from the slimy lowlife of New York City. You name it. You could buy it there. Drugs, sex, stolen goods, guns, a gangland assassination.
At night, so concentrated were the bottom-dwelling scum on 42nd Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue, spilling out onto the contiguous streets for several city blocks in every direction, the selling public — hookers, hustlers, pimps, fences, hit men, drug dealers, con men, and other illicit entrepreneurs — often outnumbered the buying public.
All of that changed in the 90s. Using coercive police sweeps and sanitizing enforcement of zoning laws and business licensing, the area under the direction of then mayor Rudoph Giuliani became a miracle of urban renewal. The massage parlors, peep shows, strip clubs, pawn shops, hooker bars, triple-X movie theaters, adult book stores, and scummy fast food joints were forced out.
Planet Hollywood and scores of other multi-national restaurant, tavern and clothing chains moved in and made the Times Square enterprise zone their base for spreading American consumerist homogeneity throughout the Big Apple, eventually turning the entire area into a family-friendly tourist trap — a Universal Studios City Walk with a New York accent.
Billy ordered the Spaghetti Pomodoro, sipped on a glass of ice water with a slice of lemon hanging on the lip, and watched people stroll leisurely by.
They had to be from out of state. They were smiling.
Several booths away and behind him, a boisterous group of six was arguing and causing such a ruckus, Billy’s curiosity got the best of him and he turned around to see what was going on.
The manager of the restaurant was standing there, partially blocking Billy’s view. But it looked like they were members of a rock band, some local act he didn’t think he recognized. All musicians wore the same uniform anyway, so it was hard to tell them apart. The manager was trying to keep his cool, but was becoming more animated and appeared to be on the verge of throwing them out.
Then the person directly behind the manager stood up. Billy recognized her at once.
Amethyst Reigns. That must be her band. There was one extra guy with them who stood out only because he didn’t. Unlike the other boys, he had on an ordinary button-down shirt over a white cotton undershirt, and a haircut he couldn’t have paid more than six bucks for. Maybe he was the band’s manager.
Amethyst had mentioned something about a manager at the Mercury Lounge gig.
She spotted Billy, winked and gave him a peculiar but not unfriendly smile, then flipped off everyone at her booth and walked over to him.
“Can you help me out?”
“Why me?”
She nodded towards a fat, balding man across the aisle in a three-piece suit with the juice from a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger running down his chin, trying look up the skirt of a waitress at the next table. She was immodestly bending over to serve another customer.
“Because fat fuck there is busy.”
She gave him the address and directions for her studio loft in Soho — an area that had so far been spared being gentrified into million-dollar warehouse spaces and store fronts — and asked him to be there day after tomorrow.
“Say around 6 pm.”
“What’s the favor?”
Amethyst laid her hand on the table palm up.
“Press the center of my palm with your index finger.”
He did.
She held up three fingers.
“How many?”
“Three.”
“Perfect. You can handle this. You may be overqualified.”
Amethyst then reached down the front of her lowrider pants and pulled out a small medicinal locket. She showed it to him.
“Used to belong to my grandmother.”
She took out a tiny pill and handed it to Billy.
“What’s this?”
“2Cb.”
“What’s that?”
“Trust me. Just take it.”
Billy spent that evening and the entire night sitting on a bench in a large, popular park near Cooper Union. He wanted to move but at the same time didn’t.
On a scrim that seemed to cover the entire range of his vision, projected from the occipital lobe of his brain like smoky filaments onto the shimmering fabric wherever he looked, were images from the last five or so years. If proper billing were to be had, he and Natalie were co-stars of what appeared to be both a comedy and tragedy, though a myriad of other major and minor characters made their appearances.
It was a plotless montage. Or maybe a cinema nouveau experimental piece, ignoring the need for clear exposition and narrative continuity. It was a long dark movie, in the end making obvious that the comedy was only there to mock the tragedy, ultimately pointing to the pointlessness and futility of everything.
The sun came up, as much as it ever came up on the murky eastern horizon over Brooklyn.
He watched as the pace of the city picked up. Never fully asleep, it quickly returned to its normal adrenalin raging tempo, horns blaring, tires squealing, pedestrians hurrying to their daily destinations.
Billy sat motionless but alert.
He had thought with making new acquaintances — Candy and Amethyst featuring prominently — and the change of scene, he would beat the grinning Grim Reaper of the living dead, the orchestrator of his nightmares, choreographer of the ghosts of his past, that demon dervish who with the sinister twirling of his mustache and arrogant flicking of his fingers, played Billy like a puppet slave, jerking and twisting him into impossible and agonizing shapes, torturing him with the worst suffering of all, the self-inflicted pain of his own self-loathing.
Billy stood up, exhausted and drained. He felt foamy and spent. Eviscerated.
Marginally confident now that he could distinguish the navigable elements of reality from the hallucinations, he started making his way back to his apartment.
It was fully light now. The street lamps had all been turned off. He walked across 6th Street, down 2nd Avenue, across 3rd Street, cut through a small park. Behind the only bench in the park was the body of an old man, probably a bum, judging from the state of his clothing, his lack of shoes, and the layer of grime on his feet, hands and face. The old man’s head was bashed in and a large pool of blood spread out around him. He was obviously dead.
Billy stared at the corpse for some time, intrigued by the amoeba-shaped hematological puddle that in slow motion was pooling on the cement walkway. His emotional stasis felt curious. He was not in the least concerned about the loss of the man’s life, or even what his own role as an innocent bystander might entail. He felt nothing.
Finally he exited the park.
He continued along 2nd Avenue and spotted some graffiti on an abandoned building. Primitive and spartan.
Nothing to distract from the message.
Art imitates life.
Life imitates art.
Okay. But what if there was no art?
Would that be the end of life?
Ah! That’s what happened.
Art disappeared. Everyone died.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
He stopped at a liquor store. How could you not love a town where the liquor stores open for business at eight in the morning?
Finally back to the dismal torpor, the sheer ugliness of what he called home.
In less time than it would have taken him to eat the bowl of cereal he should have had, Billy finished two bottles of pre-mixed margaritas.
He slept for 14 hours straight. Then he smoked a joint. Slept 9 more hours.
When he finally woke up, he saw that someone had thrown a brick through his window. There was no note attached, so it wasn’t a secret admirer.
He carefully picked up the large shards of glass, whisk-broomed the splinters into a dustpan.
Maybe he should read a book. He still had those same two staring back at him bedside.
Naw! Too much work. He might learn something. Or worse, find out things he didn’t want to know. He had already had too much of that.
Billy lay down. Not that much different than sitting up. Except he had a better view of the water-stained, yellowed, peeling paint on his ceiling.
He wished he lived by a beach.
That way he could stick his head in the sand.
Up his ass would have to do for now.
Professional Reviews
What A Ending!
What I liked about this novel.....
Now, this was an excellent novel. I would very much recommend you read this authors first two books..1 and 2 before attacking this read. Now in saying that... I will know say again this book 3: Oxymoron...was quite some read. This author brings it all together for the reader in this trilogy "The Man Who Loved Too Much" and answering the one important question... did twenty six year old Billy Green love too much? One thing for sure I did understand Billy's love for his mom and his girlfriend Candy. The reader will find from the read...dear Billy has gone through a lot....now we find in this book 3 he is still trying to survive which seems to be so hard for him to do. Not knowing what he wants from him life Billy seems to be drifting day by day in a state of confusion. Where will this leave him? I liked how this author was able to bring out with his relationships with various people and or .... Billy's mom, Candy, Amethyst, Natalie & Pam, Apooalypso, Mr. Marty Dykstra,
$ 2,227,861,...Who and What was Billy Green?...man or [Woman], Sabrina, Samantha, [Dr. Bender, Dr. Hegel], who was ... Cream Cheese and Dr. Freundlich to name a few. All of these characters plus a few others will add some great interest to this read that will keep you turning to pages for more of what all Billy is going through in his state of confusion. Will Billy be able to come to some kind of conclusion in the end? Well, I don't want to give too much of this good story away other than say you will have to pick up this read and see for yourself how well this author brings it all out for Billy...the "man who loves too much....can't love too much." I loved that Epilogue...where it brings this series...book 1, 2 & 3 together so well. Thank you to the author...it was a excellent read!
Review of The Man Who Loved Too Much Book 3 Oxymoron
With every turn of the page, Billy's life unfolds in the real world and history that came in those months and years through out this whole trilogy. It really touches the heart and really makes you step back and take a look at what is going on around you. At times this story had me laughing, crying, and at other times made me want to reach in and slap a few characters.
Is it possible to love too much? An unforgettable story that I highly recommend.
Does Billy Green love too much? Will the breakup of his marriage end up destroying him? Or will he get his life turned around, pull his shattered life and dreams together? The answers to these questions are not clear as Billy wanders aimlessly through each day with the help of drugs and his cynicism. Who will help him? The answers are surprising. I've read John Rachel's two previous novels in this trilogy and enjoyed them. This one leaves me wanting to read this unforgettable story again.
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