Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from heaven, That slid into my soul.
— S. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
JUNE 3, 10 P.M.: WEST 79TH STREET, MANHATTAN. Bored and frustrated, hunched over, elbows rubbing on his desk, head resting in the palms of both hands, Dan Ryan stares at the blank computer screen. All I need is the first line of my next column and then I can go to sleep, he thinks. I’ve got to get up early so I can watch the masses pay tribute to John Galt tomorrow. But that’s what he’s been saying to himself for three hours and it hasn’t done him any good. His head is spinning like a wheel with a hyperactive hamster in it. He’s tried chanting the mantra he hasn’t used in fifteen years (Could it have expired?), a half hour of yoga, and a hot bath. In desperation, he considers prayer, incantation, and incense. He’s on the verge of giving up—getting into bed and hoping for the best. But he knows himself well enough to know that will never do: at worst, he’ll toss and turn for who knows how long; at best, when and if he settles down and inspiration comes, he’ll have to get up and write something.
This is not typical of Ryan—and every writer’s nightmare: fear of losing “the spark,” the sine qua non that makes a real writer a writer or a real anybody an anything. He always knows exactly what he’s going to write before he writes it. A columnist, he never suffers from anything as sophomoric as writer’s block. But for some reason, tonight, he’s got no fire in the belly, no burning desire to write about anything or anyone. The hypochondriac in him wonders if he could be dying; the drama king, if he’ll have to become a waiter.
He keeps replaying the scenes from the day for clues about what’s troubling him and (hope against hope) for inspiration. But this Friday was no different than every other for the past five years, except for those falling on a full moon when all hell breaks loose. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., he refereed the usual political slugfest on his daily radio show, “The Honest Truth,” between guests and their real or imagined ghosts, guests and guests, guests and listeners, and listeners and guests and himself. Like every day, he predicted how the comments would align around the day’s topic, today’s having been “John Galt: Should Atlas Have Shrugged?” The guy he’s dubbed “Fuming Frank,” who calls in every day at 7:15, can always be counted on to rail against the Federal Reserve, even if the discussion is about global warming. Today, he ranted that only the Fed shrugs. “Thanks for sharing, Frank. What about John Galt?” Ryan asked.
“Is he still alive?” Frank fired back.
“Have a nice weekend. Goodbye,” Ryan said.
Predictably, “Platitudinous Pat” took issue with John Galt—“Wasn’t he a vice president?” she asked—and every president going back to Calvin Coolidge, whom she claims as a distant maternal cousin and savior, and to whom she attributes the words of Harry S. Truman: “The buck stops here,” “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen,” and “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Ryan sent her to Bartlett’s. But Pat insisted it’s a Democratic plot to keep Cal, and her family, from getting the respect they’re due.
He advised “Maxed Out” Maxine, who calls in for financial advice because she’s again reached the limits on her seven credit cards, to wait until 10 a.m. for “Finding Financial Freedom with Francine,” but she said she didn’t like Francine but that Ryan once gave her the best advice she’s ever gotten—though, when pressed, she says she can’t remember what it was.
No, four hours of mental masturbation five days a week never bore or frustrate or unsettle him or leave him without something to write about. As long as he’s got a mute button on the control panel and a hefty pay check—When will they discover I should be paying them?—he knows he’s got the best thing going. What’s more, he invariably finds the spark for his weekly column from those that fly from the vox populi. So why not now?
He isn’t unsettled because he’s dreading tomorrow, either, though he probably should be. For one of those “Saturday Specials” that isn’t in his contract for him to cover, but which he gets roped into and accepts to keep the peace and his pay check, he's got to get up at 6 a.m. on his day off, meet up with the crew of his radio show, and drag himself to New Atlantis to cover the 67th Anniversary of John Galt’s saving the nation. He’s done it so many times, it should bore him. But it doesn’t.
No, if asked, the clearest he would say about what’s keeping him from finding the first line of his column, and the peace he feels he so richly deserves, is that he pictures some troubling, fuzzy, amorphous grayness that gives him a funny feeling in his stomach, like nothing he’s ever felt before, a feeling that could foreshadow impending doom or delight, but without a clear cause. Something’s missing, he thinks.
Finally, he simply goes to bed. If I can just close my eyes, maybe it will come to me, he thinks, prays, hopes. Cut the crap, he tells his inner demon. Let me sleep. I need the strength of Atlas. I’ve got to be up at 6:00 tomorrow morning and somehow get myself through the day.