“He ended his days in a homeless shelter in Budapest” was how Dustin thought it would end for him, but he was wrong. It occurred to him just moments before his actual end, as he had a bit of time to himself to collect his thoughts before it all went to black.
It had been Christmas Day and was continuing to be so when Dustin, thirty and mild-mannered, lost it. Like, just fucking lost it. He’d had quite enough of trying to be the best person he could be in order to impress his wife, Hannah. It hadn’t worked. She had moved out anyway, she had decided to see other people anyway, and she had dismissed in her own, special, silent way the idea of ever coming back. Dustin insisted on counselling, which they attended with little success; Dustin made plans to see her, which never went quite as planned. On their last outing ever together, they ate lunch at a local chain bar and had a pleasant chat about nothing important. They could do that rather well. It was the important stuff they could never quite work through.
There was a lot of back and forth, very little up and down, and a slight bit of side to side. It was driving Dustin nuts—Brazil nuts, banana nut bread nuts, all the nuts—but he kept doing his best to stay cool and collected in hopes that patience would rule the day. (It wouldn’t.)
After their final lunch together, Hannah went away for the holidays. She did that last year, too, leaving Dustin all by himself. This year, she didn’t even wait for the holidays to leave him all by himself. She had rented a room month-to-month somewhere nearby. She didn’t want to reveal her secret location, but it was a small town and he’d stumbled across her car before—compact, black, sleek except for a dented fender, with a stupid yellow antenna ball which begged everyone to know that the person inside the car shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
And so, Christmas Day. Dustin, having gone through all his usual morning bleakness with the added discomfort of being without a family for the holiday, decided to take a walk. It being a holiday, he took a great swig of Hannah’s favorite rum, which she was saving for a special occasion that never occurred. He loaded his pockets with all manner of keys and his wallet, for identification. He used a red marker to leave a note on the beige carpet in the middle of the living room floor—“It’s all yours”—just in case he didn’t get back. He might have simply burned the place down, but in the end, Dustin was frightened of making too much of a scene. Instead, he put his sunglasses on and walked out the door, not taking great care to close it after. Yeah, that’ll get her, he thought.
At this point, his feet took over, his brain having checked out long ago. He was sweating. Every sidewalk led uphill, and the sun was roasting him. He turned a corner off the main road and was in a little patch of suburbia with imported trees and absurd green lawns. Cars lined the street, but he spotted a familiar one in an instant—a little black thing with a dented fender and that stupid fucking yellow antenna ball. Time passed. He stared at the car; the car just sat there, because that’s what parked cars do. He approached it; it glowed to life. He glanced around, but there was no one. He placed his hand on the door handle and heard the click of the unlocking door. He opened it quickly and slid inside. In a moment, he precisely adjusted the seat and mirrors for himself, which was like second nature to him he had performed the action so often, but as if in a previous life. The old Dustin was gone; a new Dustin had begun. He pushed a button and an obscure Christmas album began playing. He moved to turn it off, but thought better of it. It’s Christmas fucking Day.
Now, through a series of small but impactful events, Dustin was driving Hannah’s car around town. He wasn't quite sure where to go. Maybe he should just park it somewhere else, as a practical joke. But what message was he trying to send, anyway? A bit of the morning fogginess was seeping away. The sun blazed out in the big open sky as weird Christmas music blared at him. An on-ramp appeared, and thus he turned onto the freeway—just to drive around a bit, he told himself, to sort things out. Something about the high speed would help bring him to a semblance of peace which would allow him to figure out the next phase of his life, his new life, Dustin two-point-oh. At eighty miles-per-hour, he looked around the untidy car, Hannah’s untidy car. Seeing all those bits of Hannah he missed so greatly brought him profound grief. She was gone. This—all of this—was no longer his to enjoy or to nag about or to help clean out or add to. Suddenly, he felt guilty for having taken Hannah’s car at all. Suddenly, he felt angry about the affair she’d carried on for a month which took her three fucking months to tell him about fully. Suddenly, he was ashamed, broken, lost, confused—
Well, never mind. Flying off the freeway and into a fiery wreck seems to have taken care of it.
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
06 December 2017
13 August 2015
F*** Off
Geraldine Taylor told Rex Carrington to fuck off, and he did. He fucked right off the planet. As he fucked off, he held a sign in the porthole that said “G.T.—THAT DRESS DID MAKE YOU LOOK FAT,” which the news cameras were unfortunate not to have gotten. The rocket ship Rex fucked off in was state-of-the-art, as they say, though the making of rocket ships is more of a science than an art. The press told him to say something cliché before he left, so his last radio communication was “So long, fuckers,” though they heard the thing they wanted to instead.
As Rex left the fiery atmosphere of the planet, he felt truly free for the first time in his life. He was almost grateful to Geraldine for telling him to fuck off. It had taken years for him to finally fuck off in this manner. First he simply left the apartment, but he felt it wasn't enough. He went to other cities, other countries; still, it wasn't enough. One night, having fucked off to a bar, an ad on the t.v. caught his eye. “Always wanted to really get away from it all?” Rex had. “Ever thought about travelling to space?” Rex hadn't. But it intrigued him.
For some reason, Rex was just what they were looking for. He studied long and hard everything he would need to know to operate a rocket ship, even though they told him he wouldn't need to do much of anything. Rex had decided he would play along, but when the moment came, he would cut communications and hijack the craft. They would never see it coming.
He laughed as he floated around the ship, free to do whatever pleased him. He was free from laws and rules, free from anything that would hold him down, and certainly free from Geraldine.
Settling in at the controls, he gave himself commands: “Straight on to Venus. Full speed. Steady as she goes.” The green-blue orb floated away.
Then he waited. Hours ticked by. This is what fucking off feels like, he told himself.
He slept and had an awful dream that he would see Geraldine on Venus. Not just Geraldine, but a whole planetful of Geraldines. He awoke feeling achey and decided to change course to Mercury instead. He dreamt about cars and ice cream trucks after that.
After some time, a fellow named George joined Rex in the ship. George seemed well aware of his being a hallucination, but that didn't bother Rex all too much. George was apologetic about it. Rex just liked the company. Then one day George was replaced by his much more attractive sister, Maggie, who disappeared every time Rex went to touch her. It was during one of these futile exercises that a bell went off, like a school bell. He looked out the window and was surprised to see a very familiar orb mightily looking back at him.
He had made a miscalculation. He pulled at the controls, but the rocket ship was powerless against gravity, one of those laws from which Rex hadn't actually been able to free himself. He hadn't fucked off after all.
Uh oh, he thought as he ventured towards the heat death of the sun. I fucked up.
As Rex left the fiery atmosphere of the planet, he felt truly free for the first time in his life. He was almost grateful to Geraldine for telling him to fuck off. It had taken years for him to finally fuck off in this manner. First he simply left the apartment, but he felt it wasn't enough. He went to other cities, other countries; still, it wasn't enough. One night, having fucked off to a bar, an ad on the t.v. caught his eye. “Always wanted to really get away from it all?” Rex had. “Ever thought about travelling to space?” Rex hadn't. But it intrigued him.
For some reason, Rex was just what they were looking for. He studied long and hard everything he would need to know to operate a rocket ship, even though they told him he wouldn't need to do much of anything. Rex had decided he would play along, but when the moment came, he would cut communications and hijack the craft. They would never see it coming.
He laughed as he floated around the ship, free to do whatever pleased him. He was free from laws and rules, free from anything that would hold him down, and certainly free from Geraldine.
Settling in at the controls, he gave himself commands: “Straight on to Venus. Full speed. Steady as she goes.” The green-blue orb floated away.
Then he waited. Hours ticked by. This is what fucking off feels like, he told himself.
He slept and had an awful dream that he would see Geraldine on Venus. Not just Geraldine, but a whole planetful of Geraldines. He awoke feeling achey and decided to change course to Mercury instead. He dreamt about cars and ice cream trucks after that.
After some time, a fellow named George joined Rex in the ship. George seemed well aware of his being a hallucination, but that didn't bother Rex all too much. George was apologetic about it. Rex just liked the company. Then one day George was replaced by his much more attractive sister, Maggie, who disappeared every time Rex went to touch her. It was during one of these futile exercises that a bell went off, like a school bell. He looked out the window and was surprised to see a very familiar orb mightily looking back at him.
He had made a miscalculation. He pulled at the controls, but the rocket ship was powerless against gravity, one of those laws from which Rex hadn't actually been able to free himself. He hadn't fucked off after all.
Uh oh, he thought as he ventured towards the heat death of the sun. I fucked up.
03 May 2013
Shelby
When we drink, we grow. It's something Shelby knew but couldn't place as she stared at the pink punch in the absurdly crystal bowl next to the crudités and caviar.
This wasn't her place, among heiresses and stockbrokers, and certainly not lamely standing before a bowl of champagne and sherbet, what passes for punch in this country. All hopes of her meeting a dashing European had been dashed when she noted that all of the male guests had a plus-one and a ring to prove it. Instead, she just took up smoking and was discussing the subtle difference between menthols by Camel and Marlboro when a dark fellow said something.
He was talking to someone else, but the accent was strangely familiar like that dream she'd had in Spain about a boy from Tuscany who taught her how to pick grapes from a vine. "Just like that," he'd said, staring deeply into her soul with crystal blue eyes like those you'd make a punch bowl from if you were some evil dictator who yearned for crystal bowls made from the eyes of Italians.
But she digressed.
This wasn't her place, among heiresses and stockbrokers, and certainly not lamely standing before a bowl of champagne and sherbet, what passes for punch in this country. All hopes of her meeting a dashing European had been dashed when she noted that all of the male guests had a plus-one and a ring to prove it. Instead, she just took up smoking and was discussing the subtle difference between menthols by Camel and Marlboro when a dark fellow said something.
He was talking to someone else, but the accent was strangely familiar like that dream she'd had in Spain about a boy from Tuscany who taught her how to pick grapes from a vine. "Just like that," he'd said, staring deeply into her soul with crystal blue eyes like those you'd make a punch bowl from if you were some evil dictator who yearned for crystal bowls made from the eyes of Italians.
But she digressed.
04 September 2012
This Blonde
So, there I was, minding my own business, when all of a sudden this blonde popped out of a shop on 23rd in such a rush she upended me on 31st. I was taken aback, to say the least, when my eyes met not the eyes of some bulky chap in yesterday's overcoat, but this vixen of legendary beauty and impeccable dental hygiene. I couldn't speak right away, so I took the gag out of my mouth. (Doctor's orders.) I stammered some lines of Shakespeare and Byron, but they came out all Dickinson and Poe. She smiled nonetheless and offered me her hand—I was still sprawled out on the sidewalk. She pulled me upward with the force of a professional bodybuilder. “Whoa!” I exclaimed.
We spent the afternoon ambling around Central Park, discussing Voltaire and politics. I said I was against the death penalty; she said she would vote only for the cutest candidates. She tried to hold my hand, but I played coy with her, having left my hand at home, next to my car keys and my Sear's card.
Dinner that evening was strange, as I had a date scheduled with Helga, my cleaning lady, and this blonde insisted on coming along. So, the three of us awkwardly sat around the table, shuffling our feet, reading the menu fifty times and not even ordering what we wanted in the first place. At this point I wasn't even hungry anymore, but the boot leather in red wine sauce ended up being rather palatable, and the bottle or two of late-vintage merlot washed things down splendidly.
That night, I felt I had a real good chance with my date, if you know what I mean, but this blonde insisted on coming up for coffee, too. So what else could I do? I killed her.
What? What did you expect?
We spent the afternoon ambling around Central Park, discussing Voltaire and politics. I said I was against the death penalty; she said she would vote only for the cutest candidates. She tried to hold my hand, but I played coy with her, having left my hand at home, next to my car keys and my Sear's card.
Dinner that evening was strange, as I had a date scheduled with Helga, my cleaning lady, and this blonde insisted on coming along. So, the three of us awkwardly sat around the table, shuffling our feet, reading the menu fifty times and not even ordering what we wanted in the first place. At this point I wasn't even hungry anymore, but the boot leather in red wine sauce ended up being rather palatable, and the bottle or two of late-vintage merlot washed things down splendidly.
That night, I felt I had a real good chance with my date, if you know what I mean, but this blonde insisted on coming up for coffee, too. So what else could I do? I killed her.
What? What did you expect?
26 June 2012
Baby, Please
I awoke to a young cutie in my apartment.
It certainly was not the sort of thing I expected. It had been a late night, and I didn't remember going to sleep. Now sunlight was barely dripping in from behind the blinds. She smiled at me.
"Hi," I said.
She hardly spoke at all as I stumbled sleepily around the room, picking up clothes and garbage. She looked at me expectantly, her eyelids heavy. Then she cried. I must have disappointed her somehow.
"Shh," I said. "There there."
I wiped her tears with a white cloth. She spit on me.
"Now, there's no need for that," I said gently, wiping myself.
She was a mess. For whatever reason, she crawled around and babbled incoherently.
"Get a hold of yourself," I suggested, but I knew she wouldn't understand.
I sat on the floor watching. Then she started crawling all over me.
"Baby, please," I protested, but it was no use. She would do what pleased her.
That's what babies do.
It certainly was not the sort of thing I expected. It had been a late night, and I didn't remember going to sleep. Now sunlight was barely dripping in from behind the blinds. She smiled at me.
"Hi," I said.
She hardly spoke at all as I stumbled sleepily around the room, picking up clothes and garbage. She looked at me expectantly, her eyelids heavy. Then she cried. I must have disappointed her somehow.
"Shh," I said. "There there."
I wiped her tears with a white cloth. She spit on me.
"Now, there's no need for that," I said gently, wiping myself.
She was a mess. For whatever reason, she crawled around and babbled incoherently.
"Get a hold of yourself," I suggested, but I knew she wouldn't understand.
I sat on the floor watching. Then she started crawling all over me.
"Baby, please," I protested, but it was no use. She would do what pleased her.
That's what babies do.
28 May 2012
Love Song (part 2)
(Read part 1)
The great singer's throat was dry, so we headed out to explore the local wildlife. I recommended a nice saloon not far from where we were staying (according to the plan), and he nodded as he chewed a piece of Wrigley's. We found the place and glanced around. I saw the brunette sitting at a table for two next to the bar. We got there at the same time as a whisky rocks, and the great man sat down. The brunette looked wonderful sitting there, her hair waving in every direction, her cute gingham get-up unbuttoned in all the right places. She introduced herself with glistening lips, the big fan of him she was. He just nodded and coughed “hi” in reply. She sipped her daiquiri through her straw while looking up at him, and I needed to excuse myself. As I stood, the singer shot me a look with wide eyes, but I assured them they didn't need me to bog down their evening. I left.
Boy, was he mad. He fumed at me before the next show as he tuned his guitar and sucked on a mint leaf. His rage was never pointed or direct; it sort of rolled over you like a fog or a bad smell. It just got worse the longer you were in it. This time, this one time, he looked me in the eye and ordered me never to leave him “hanging” like that. “Ever.” The seriousness of his tone hit me like a dart, leaving its mark on my mind for time to come. Yet the great musician kept turning that peg up a few bits, down a few, grinding that mint leaf until it was mush and he had to swallow it. A tall glass of water waited for him to wash it down, gargling a bit, before he took all his gack to the stage for the show. I stayed behind.
There was no helping him after that. The same routine guided us each and every show, wherever he was playing: play the show, find a bar, sleep. I followed; I enjoyed his company, as much as I suppose he enjoyed mine, and every now and again I could reap the benefits of his friendship. I was with “the band,” and the girls loved it. What made me so successful and him not? I don't know. It stopped bothering me, since I told myself to forget it, and his every look reminded me to keep it forgotten.
Then we were at the end of the tour, just a few more cities then done. The great singer was working on new material to take to the studio. Where did it come from? Each song was better, more heart-breaking or uplifting than the last. He could weave the story of two young lovers in a dusty town with ease and finesse. He had complete control over the heartstrings of every apple-pie-eating, flag-waving, son-of-a-gun American out there. He told their stories, their true, honest-to-Gospel stories, and they loved it. They couldn't get enough. He wasn't doing it for the money. He liked it and he was good at it. He was damn good at it. That's all.
Then we entered our last hotel bar. He had a few more shows in this town, but it would be over, we'd have our celebration then go home to our usual lives. His whisky rocks, my gin and tonic. We clinked glasses and wished each other the best. Feeling strong, I also added that I wished my friend would find someone who really touches him, who really gets him, and he can be happy with. The singer stared at me unsmiling, but he didn't frown either. Then he grabbed my shoulder heartily, the first time I think we ever made physical contact, and thanked me before swigging at his drink. I smiled. We had a great time reminiscing about the tour, drinking with controlled abandon as we laughed—and even laughed over the failed date set-up, back in Peoria or Pecos or wherever it was. The bar was full and lively that night, but not many folks took interest in the great singer, which was fine by him. The lady next to him only took notice after he got a bit wild with his swigging and swung his drink onto the bar in front of her. He laughed and apologized, for the first time talking freely to a girl without bashfulness or self-distraction. She was a bit younger than the singer, pretty but plain, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a living cliché. She didn't know who he was, I could tell right away. And when he realized, when the singer realized, he started having a mighty fine conversation with her. The singer, the musician seemed taken with her, though, and I know when to keep my mouth shut. I drank alone watching the game on TV.
At the show the next day, it was “situation normal.” The crowd loved it, the girls cheered and swooned, and the singer gave his usual performance. A bit under-spirited, maybe, but still a good show. Backstage, afterwards, while everything was being packed, he sat on the sofa picking his teeth. I sat across from him. I had to ask about the woman last night, but he just sighed and kept on picking, mumbled something about knowing “when to show 'em and when to fold 'em,” which made me scoff and roll my eyes. He didn't seem to care.
We drank again, as usual, and the lady from yesterday was there. I wished them both well and found some young loveliness of my own to cotton up to, which met with great success.
That was the moment when things changed. His manager complained about it while rolling coins in the coach van. “That son-of-a's losing his touch,” he oozed. The great singer stopped writing good songs, love songs, any songs, and his performances were dragging, lacking energy, even though the crowd was his, ready to hang on every vibration in his voice. His heart wasn't in it any more. After the last show, he approached me and shook my hand. I asked him where he was going, what he would be doing. He said he'd be “around.” I asked him if he'd be finishing the new album, flying to wherever they produce those things, laying the tracks down. He looked around then leaned into me. “I can't do that anymore.”
Here he was, the greatest writer, the greatest singer of love songs on the planet in this age, and he lost his power. “I found my love, my soulmate,” he declared as he took her hand. She blushed and begged him to stop, it made her feel so good to hear.
It wasn't a matter of choice. The great musician had tried to keep his music writing going, but there was nothing to be done for it. As some said, the muse left him because he gave his heart to another. Others thought the devil left him because he agreed not to fall in love himself in exchange for the gift. Whatever the cause, for the first time in his life, the singer was happy. Truly, truly happy. The rest of the world, myself included, could never get over the break-up, and we still play his love songs to remind us and make us cry.
The great singer's throat was dry, so we headed out to explore the local wildlife. I recommended a nice saloon not far from where we were staying (according to the plan), and he nodded as he chewed a piece of Wrigley's. We found the place and glanced around. I saw the brunette sitting at a table for two next to the bar. We got there at the same time as a whisky rocks, and the great man sat down. The brunette looked wonderful sitting there, her hair waving in every direction, her cute gingham get-up unbuttoned in all the right places. She introduced herself with glistening lips, the big fan of him she was. He just nodded and coughed “hi” in reply. She sipped her daiquiri through her straw while looking up at him, and I needed to excuse myself. As I stood, the singer shot me a look with wide eyes, but I assured them they didn't need me to bog down their evening. I left.
Boy, was he mad. He fumed at me before the next show as he tuned his guitar and sucked on a mint leaf. His rage was never pointed or direct; it sort of rolled over you like a fog or a bad smell. It just got worse the longer you were in it. This time, this one time, he looked me in the eye and ordered me never to leave him “hanging” like that. “Ever.” The seriousness of his tone hit me like a dart, leaving its mark on my mind for time to come. Yet the great musician kept turning that peg up a few bits, down a few, grinding that mint leaf until it was mush and he had to swallow it. A tall glass of water waited for him to wash it down, gargling a bit, before he took all his gack to the stage for the show. I stayed behind.
There was no helping him after that. The same routine guided us each and every show, wherever he was playing: play the show, find a bar, sleep. I followed; I enjoyed his company, as much as I suppose he enjoyed mine, and every now and again I could reap the benefits of his friendship. I was with “the band,” and the girls loved it. What made me so successful and him not? I don't know. It stopped bothering me, since I told myself to forget it, and his every look reminded me to keep it forgotten.
Then we were at the end of the tour, just a few more cities then done. The great singer was working on new material to take to the studio. Where did it come from? Each song was better, more heart-breaking or uplifting than the last. He could weave the story of two young lovers in a dusty town with ease and finesse. He had complete control over the heartstrings of every apple-pie-eating, flag-waving, son-of-a-gun American out there. He told their stories, their true, honest-to-Gospel stories, and they loved it. They couldn't get enough. He wasn't doing it for the money. He liked it and he was good at it. He was damn good at it. That's all.
Then we entered our last hotel bar. He had a few more shows in this town, but it would be over, we'd have our celebration then go home to our usual lives. His whisky rocks, my gin and tonic. We clinked glasses and wished each other the best. Feeling strong, I also added that I wished my friend would find someone who really touches him, who really gets him, and he can be happy with. The singer stared at me unsmiling, but he didn't frown either. Then he grabbed my shoulder heartily, the first time I think we ever made physical contact, and thanked me before swigging at his drink. I smiled. We had a great time reminiscing about the tour, drinking with controlled abandon as we laughed—and even laughed over the failed date set-up, back in Peoria or Pecos or wherever it was. The bar was full and lively that night, but not many folks took interest in the great singer, which was fine by him. The lady next to him only took notice after he got a bit wild with his swigging and swung his drink onto the bar in front of her. He laughed and apologized, for the first time talking freely to a girl without bashfulness or self-distraction. She was a bit younger than the singer, pretty but plain, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a living cliché. She didn't know who he was, I could tell right away. And when he realized, when the singer realized, he started having a mighty fine conversation with her. The singer, the musician seemed taken with her, though, and I know when to keep my mouth shut. I drank alone watching the game on TV.
At the show the next day, it was “situation normal.” The crowd loved it, the girls cheered and swooned, and the singer gave his usual performance. A bit under-spirited, maybe, but still a good show. Backstage, afterwards, while everything was being packed, he sat on the sofa picking his teeth. I sat across from him. I had to ask about the woman last night, but he just sighed and kept on picking, mumbled something about knowing “when to show 'em and when to fold 'em,” which made me scoff and roll my eyes. He didn't seem to care.
We drank again, as usual, and the lady from yesterday was there. I wished them both well and found some young loveliness of my own to cotton up to, which met with great success.
That was the moment when things changed. His manager complained about it while rolling coins in the coach van. “That son-of-a's losing his touch,” he oozed. The great singer stopped writing good songs, love songs, any songs, and his performances were dragging, lacking energy, even though the crowd was his, ready to hang on every vibration in his voice. His heart wasn't in it any more. After the last show, he approached me and shook my hand. I asked him where he was going, what he would be doing. He said he'd be “around.” I asked him if he'd be finishing the new album, flying to wherever they produce those things, laying the tracks down. He looked around then leaned into me. “I can't do that anymore.”
Here he was, the greatest writer, the greatest singer of love songs on the planet in this age, and he lost his power. “I found my love, my soulmate,” he declared as he took her hand. She blushed and begged him to stop, it made her feel so good to hear.
It wasn't a matter of choice. The great musician had tried to keep his music writing going, but there was nothing to be done for it. As some said, the muse left him because he gave his heart to another. Others thought the devil left him because he agreed not to fall in love himself in exchange for the gift. Whatever the cause, for the first time in his life, the singer was happy. Truly, truly happy. The rest of the world, myself included, could never get over the break-up, and we still play his love songs to remind us and make us cry.
27 May 2012
Spilt Wine
It was the time I spilt wine all over my grandpa's Bible. I was alone (I'm always alone), eating pizza with a glass of wine, and I carelessly knocked into it, sending a recent vintage meritage all over the dining room table. And there was my grandpa's Bible, sitting there because I had cracked it open the other day out of curiosity.
He had given me the Bible as a passing thought. I was in his basement looking at old photos, and he asked if I wanted it. I said sure, because it was his, not because it was a Bible. He had written his name and address in it in case it ever went missing. It hadn't.
But now it was stained. “How will I explain this to my grandchildren?” I said out loud. It was a stupid thought. What grandchildren? From what children?
My next thought was, “Well, at least it's cheap wine,” as I mopped up the mess and poured myself the last of it. Good thing it was cheap; it only lasted a day.
And I was only just reading about that wedding at Cana. I didn't know much about it before, except that Jesus had apparently turned water into wine. They ran out of wine at this wedding, Jesus's mother complained (she must've been some drinker), and Jesus said he'd take care of it. But rather than run to the nearest liquor store, he just zapped some jars of water. It was an instant hit. I poured a glass of water, but no matter how long I stared at it, it just kept on being water. It was warm.
So I guess I could tell my theoretical grandkids about that if they asked. But there aren't going to be grandkids. Not at this rate.
He had given me the Bible as a passing thought. I was in his basement looking at old photos, and he asked if I wanted it. I said sure, because it was his, not because it was a Bible. He had written his name and address in it in case it ever went missing. It hadn't.
But now it was stained. “How will I explain this to my grandchildren?” I said out loud. It was a stupid thought. What grandchildren? From what children?
My next thought was, “Well, at least it's cheap wine,” as I mopped up the mess and poured myself the last of it. Good thing it was cheap; it only lasted a day.
And I was only just reading about that wedding at Cana. I didn't know much about it before, except that Jesus had apparently turned water into wine. They ran out of wine at this wedding, Jesus's mother complained (she must've been some drinker), and Jesus said he'd take care of it. But rather than run to the nearest liquor store, he just zapped some jars of water. It was an instant hit. I poured a glass of water, but no matter how long I stared at it, it just kept on being water. It was warm.
So I guess I could tell my theoretical grandkids about that if they asked. But there aren't going to be grandkids. Not at this rate.
25 May 2012
Love Song (part 1)
by Kevin Story
He was a singer of great renown, and when he sang the women sank into their sighs and longing. Long into the night, he'd sing for them his songs of love and loss, but mostly love. Of all the singers of love songs in the world, he was most assuredly the best as I watched him there, and the girls all around, sighing and longing and waiting for him to look their way, which he never did, since his eyes were usually closed or looking at the neck of his guitar or staring far off into another world. Even when he thanked them he closed his eyes and said it with a small bow of his head, then walked off to rest in whatever room was provided for his resting.
It was there I found him, sprawled on some chaise or sofa that seemed to be unfit for his western look, with a wet towel on his face. When I asked him if I could join him, he didn't seem to hear at first. Then he slowly lifted the towel so as to get a glimpse of me, and when he did he gestured to another chair in the room and went back to his towel and lounge. I sat down.
And there we sat for some time in silence, until the great singer began to hum something soft, which in his rich baritone was like rich chocolate flowing around my head. I relaxed. It was an old tune he chose, one of the old hymns. Something like “Wondrous Love” or “Holy Manna,” I couldn't tell; maybe a mix of the two. It rolled from his muffled lips wonderfully soft and connected to some deeper emotion that withstood identification. The warm chocolate enveloped my head, smothering me with its sweet, sweet sound. At last, when the song was over, he pulled the towel off and slowly sat up, wiping his face a final time before putting it (the towel, not his face) on the coffee table in front of him. He looked at me, and I wasn't sure what to say, so I smiled slightly.
He asked how the show went. The question surprised me. I answered that it went great, that the crowd loved it—especially the girls in front, whose show of love to him still rang brightly in my ears. He said something that sounded like “naww” and leaned back into the sofa, but not before scooping a handful of almonds. He flicked one into his mouth and chewed like molasses as his mind chewed and ticked and thought and processed. After another long while he sighed staring at the ceiling and said, “Missed a few changes here and there.”
I was profuse in my defense of him, but he raised his unoccupied hand to counter. This wasn't his “first rodeo, kid,” and he didn't expect people to “sugar-coat” their opinions of his performance, especially some “youngster” like myself. Another almond popped into his mouth.
Here was the man who toured all fifty states in the same year; who wrote love songs that got women old and young to swoon with delight; whose ingenious chord progressions and innovative melodies got musical academics nearly as excited as the women. Here was a true music man, a true folk artist, a true hero to so many boys who would grow up pretending to emit his soothing baritone and woo some lady fair.
Only, this last bit was not the case. Not that he was a loner by choice or on principle. This great singer, great musician, great man, simply would not, could not pick up a woman to save his life.
Three or four almonds flew into his mouth, and this time he chewed them quickly, forcefully. Somehow he needed to make a connection between the romantic musical genius inside and the speech center in his brain. I wanted to help.
At the bar, he drank his bourbon rocks and ordered my gin and tonic. In his head he was working out some new song, perhaps, or mulling over a new way to play an old tune. I squeezed my lime and stirred slowly, looking around the bar. The young bartender was nice enough; she poured fast and heavy, and winked as she walked away. She wore a tight white top tied on with shoestrings, and a large cowboy hat with upturned sides on her straight, dirty blonde hair. I stared at her when I could, but the great singer kept to his liquor and his thoughts.
She'd come over when we first sat down and recognized him right away (who wouldn't?), offering him a free drink while leaning her bosom over the counter. They were mounted perfectly in their proper places. He said he preferred to pay for his own drinks, but thanks just the same. It was me she winked at as she walked away, but I didn't hold her attention without the fame of my friend.
He swirled and stared at his whisky. I leaned into him and asked in a low voice what he thought of the bartender. He glanced at her then quickly back. “She's a fine lookin' woman,” he said softly, then drank and went back to his staring and swirling.
At that moment, a mother and her twenty-something daughter came up to the bar. The daughter sat right next to me. She wore tight blue jean shorts and a pink tee-shirt with a neckline that pointed handily to the middle of her perky chest. They chattered about the concert. The bartender came 'round and took their drink orders: a glass of white wine for Mom and a Long Island iced tea for Miss Cute 'n' Perky. Her glass was so full, when she slid it closer some spilt on my arm. She apologized, looking into my eyes. She had these great big bright brown eyes full of life and fun. She took her napkin and wiped the liquor from my arm. Then she smiled at me and said “There, all better,” before turning back to her mother, who leaned over and apologized for her daughter's “rude behavior.”
The mother wasn't all that bad looking, either, if you're into that sort of thing. She'd sashayed in with her fake blonde curls and familiar brown eyes, in many respects the older version of the young beauty sitting next to me. The same life was in the older woman's eyes, but the wisdom of her age clung to her face like spikemoss to a rock.
The great singer just sat there sipping, disregarding the beauty around him, shelled in his world of music. That's the way it was with him. As for me, I met up with the girl later on that night. She snuck out of her hotel room after her mother passed out drunk from one too many glasses of white. This isn't about me, though. It's about him.
It was like him to sit and stare off, despite the distractions around him. Maybe it's what made him the musical genius he was. “Beauty is everywhere,” his manager would say, counting fistfuls of twenties in the coach van as it slid along the highway into the desert. Still the songwriter absorbed himself in his musical fantasies. When the thought of having even just one drink with a lady was brought up, he'd fidget and flick his fingernails under each other, mumble something like “yeah, we'll see,” and go back to his inner sanctum.
Another show, another crowd of adoring women, another bar, another night wondering what was really going on in that head of his. Sometimes it seemed like a spirit wanted to jump out of him and grab the first gal it could, wrapping her with its spirit arms and wooing her with its spirit words, but a great force kept it back, made it abide. The great wall stood, seemingly impenetrable. Female fans flocked to him, and he nodded and signed in silence, making those girls want him so much more. He finished with a flick of his hat and stomped off with his hands wringing in front of him. I shook my head.
Across the desert in another town, I decided to give a little more of a push. This was a time for action; there seemed to be no other way. During the show, I scanned the crowd for a young lady who the great singer might take a liking to. There were plenty to choose from, but after chatting some of them up, I decided on one pretty-looking girl in particular. She was brunette, leggy, and sported a great pair of glasses, the true sign of an intelligent woman. I thought maybe the great musician might be attracted to a little more than just perfection of form. She and I talked for a bit after the final set, and I explained my plan to her. She was thrilled, to say the least, and she offered a time and place, a nice saloon not far from where we were staying. I said we'd see her there.
to be continued
He was a singer of great renown, and when he sang the women sank into their sighs and longing. Long into the night, he'd sing for them his songs of love and loss, but mostly love. Of all the singers of love songs in the world, he was most assuredly the best as I watched him there, and the girls all around, sighing and longing and waiting for him to look their way, which he never did, since his eyes were usually closed or looking at the neck of his guitar or staring far off into another world. Even when he thanked them he closed his eyes and said it with a small bow of his head, then walked off to rest in whatever room was provided for his resting.
It was there I found him, sprawled on some chaise or sofa that seemed to be unfit for his western look, with a wet towel on his face. When I asked him if I could join him, he didn't seem to hear at first. Then he slowly lifted the towel so as to get a glimpse of me, and when he did he gestured to another chair in the room and went back to his towel and lounge. I sat down.
And there we sat for some time in silence, until the great singer began to hum something soft, which in his rich baritone was like rich chocolate flowing around my head. I relaxed. It was an old tune he chose, one of the old hymns. Something like “Wondrous Love” or “Holy Manna,” I couldn't tell; maybe a mix of the two. It rolled from his muffled lips wonderfully soft and connected to some deeper emotion that withstood identification. The warm chocolate enveloped my head, smothering me with its sweet, sweet sound. At last, when the song was over, he pulled the towel off and slowly sat up, wiping his face a final time before putting it (the towel, not his face) on the coffee table in front of him. He looked at me, and I wasn't sure what to say, so I smiled slightly.
He asked how the show went. The question surprised me. I answered that it went great, that the crowd loved it—especially the girls in front, whose show of love to him still rang brightly in my ears. He said something that sounded like “naww” and leaned back into the sofa, but not before scooping a handful of almonds. He flicked one into his mouth and chewed like molasses as his mind chewed and ticked and thought and processed. After another long while he sighed staring at the ceiling and said, “Missed a few changes here and there.”
I was profuse in my defense of him, but he raised his unoccupied hand to counter. This wasn't his “first rodeo, kid,” and he didn't expect people to “sugar-coat” their opinions of his performance, especially some “youngster” like myself. Another almond popped into his mouth.
Here was the man who toured all fifty states in the same year; who wrote love songs that got women old and young to swoon with delight; whose ingenious chord progressions and innovative melodies got musical academics nearly as excited as the women. Here was a true music man, a true folk artist, a true hero to so many boys who would grow up pretending to emit his soothing baritone and woo some lady fair.
Only, this last bit was not the case. Not that he was a loner by choice or on principle. This great singer, great musician, great man, simply would not, could not pick up a woman to save his life.
Three or four almonds flew into his mouth, and this time he chewed them quickly, forcefully. Somehow he needed to make a connection between the romantic musical genius inside and the speech center in his brain. I wanted to help.
At the bar, he drank his bourbon rocks and ordered my gin and tonic. In his head he was working out some new song, perhaps, or mulling over a new way to play an old tune. I squeezed my lime and stirred slowly, looking around the bar. The young bartender was nice enough; she poured fast and heavy, and winked as she walked away. She wore a tight white top tied on with shoestrings, and a large cowboy hat with upturned sides on her straight, dirty blonde hair. I stared at her when I could, but the great singer kept to his liquor and his thoughts.
She'd come over when we first sat down and recognized him right away (who wouldn't?), offering him a free drink while leaning her bosom over the counter. They were mounted perfectly in their proper places. He said he preferred to pay for his own drinks, but thanks just the same. It was me she winked at as she walked away, but I didn't hold her attention without the fame of my friend.
He swirled and stared at his whisky. I leaned into him and asked in a low voice what he thought of the bartender. He glanced at her then quickly back. “She's a fine lookin' woman,” he said softly, then drank and went back to his staring and swirling.
At that moment, a mother and her twenty-something daughter came up to the bar. The daughter sat right next to me. She wore tight blue jean shorts and a pink tee-shirt with a neckline that pointed handily to the middle of her perky chest. They chattered about the concert. The bartender came 'round and took their drink orders: a glass of white wine for Mom and a Long Island iced tea for Miss Cute 'n' Perky. Her glass was so full, when she slid it closer some spilt on my arm. She apologized, looking into my eyes. She had these great big bright brown eyes full of life and fun. She took her napkin and wiped the liquor from my arm. Then she smiled at me and said “There, all better,” before turning back to her mother, who leaned over and apologized for her daughter's “rude behavior.”
The mother wasn't all that bad looking, either, if you're into that sort of thing. She'd sashayed in with her fake blonde curls and familiar brown eyes, in many respects the older version of the young beauty sitting next to me. The same life was in the older woman's eyes, but the wisdom of her age clung to her face like spikemoss to a rock.
The great singer just sat there sipping, disregarding the beauty around him, shelled in his world of music. That's the way it was with him. As for me, I met up with the girl later on that night. She snuck out of her hotel room after her mother passed out drunk from one too many glasses of white. This isn't about me, though. It's about him.
It was like him to sit and stare off, despite the distractions around him. Maybe it's what made him the musical genius he was. “Beauty is everywhere,” his manager would say, counting fistfuls of twenties in the coach van as it slid along the highway into the desert. Still the songwriter absorbed himself in his musical fantasies. When the thought of having even just one drink with a lady was brought up, he'd fidget and flick his fingernails under each other, mumble something like “yeah, we'll see,” and go back to his inner sanctum.
Another show, another crowd of adoring women, another bar, another night wondering what was really going on in that head of his. Sometimes it seemed like a spirit wanted to jump out of him and grab the first gal it could, wrapping her with its spirit arms and wooing her with its spirit words, but a great force kept it back, made it abide. The great wall stood, seemingly impenetrable. Female fans flocked to him, and he nodded and signed in silence, making those girls want him so much more. He finished with a flick of his hat and stomped off with his hands wringing in front of him. I shook my head.
Across the desert in another town, I decided to give a little more of a push. This was a time for action; there seemed to be no other way. During the show, I scanned the crowd for a young lady who the great singer might take a liking to. There were plenty to choose from, but after chatting some of them up, I decided on one pretty-looking girl in particular. She was brunette, leggy, and sported a great pair of glasses, the true sign of an intelligent woman. I thought maybe the great musician might be attracted to a little more than just perfection of form. She and I talked for a bit after the final set, and I explained my plan to her. She was thrilled, to say the least, and she offered a time and place, a nice saloon not far from where we were staying. I said we'd see her there.
to be continued
02 February 2012
Jacob and the Jar
(A fable.)
There once was a man named Jacob, a sculptor, who was decent enough at his craft to make a living. One day, while up a ladder working on the head of a tall figure, he fell and broke his leg. Luckily, the doctors mended him up fine, and in a few weeks, he went back to work. But he found his leg would give him pain from time to time, sometimes so great that he couldn't work. He went back to the doctors, who were only puzzled and shrugged and said it would go away. But it didn't. The pain grew, worsened in its severity and frequency. The doctors were still puzzled, but they were less interested in his pain than the other patients coming to see them. Jacob gave up.
On his way back home, he passed a sign he had passed often in his time. It simply said "Wizard" with an arrow pointing up a winding mountain path. He never saw a wizard, or anyone, walking the path, and so he always assumed there was no wizard; but his pain had gotten so bad, he thought it was worth a short trip out of the way. The path was easy and short; before long, he stood before a door cut into the rock of the mountain. There is a wizard after all, he thought. He knocked on the door and a wizened old man opened it and let him in.
Jacob described his pain to the wizard, who took one look at the leg and claimed there were evil spirits living in it, and that the pain was caused by the goodness of the soul fighting them. Jacob didn't believe this, but he was willing to try anything to relieve the pain. The wizard handed Jacob a jar filled with gumdrops which would do just that. "Chew one a day," said the wizard, "until the pain goes away for good. Then, destroy the rest of the pills. You won't need them anymore."
Jacob nodded and took his first dose. The pain went away almost instantly. Jacob was relieved, and thanked the wizard profusely. "Don't forget to destroy them when your pain goes away!" said the wizard as Jacob hurried down the mountain back to his house.
It was a good thing Jacob found his cure when he did, for a whole slew of orders came in for statues and carvings. Indeed, Jacob was busier now than he'd ever been in his life. Messengers were arriving from distant cities asking for his work and paying commissions up front. He could hardly contain his joy as he tirelessly worked from morning until twilight, finishing order after order. In a week's time, not only was Jacob feeling his good fortune, but his pain went away. On the morning of the eighth day, for the first time in a while, he woke up without the excruciation in his leg. He held up the jar the wizard had given him, but felt it was too soon to destroy it yet. He thought he should wait at least a day, just in case the evil spirits come back.
So Jacob went to work, but as he was working on one of his many orders, messengers started arriving to cancel some of them. Jacob asked why, but the messengers didn't know. He had to pay back some of the advances he'd received, and, regrettably, destroy some of the work he'd already done. It was a huge blow to his self-esteem, and he took the rest of the day off.
The next day, there were no new orders. Jacob had finished the last of the remaining statues and sent them off. He also got a strange idea. He thought, the orders had only come in when he was taking the wizard's gumdrops. Perhaps the success he was having was a side effect. He looked at the jar. Would it hurt to try for another day, even though the wizard had told him to destroy them after the pain went away? It couldn't hurt, he thought, and he popped a gumdrop into his mouth. Not five minutes later, there was a knock at his door: a messenger, there to place an order for a cathedral being built in a distant city. Jacob looked at the jar. He felt no ill effects, and yet the gumdrop seemed to bring him work almost instantly. He went back to work.
After another day, he was back to a full work load. The orders were pouring in, as was the money and prestige. His sculptures started winning awards. Scholars and scribes came to ask questions and learn more about his craft. Six days passed where he took a gumdrop daily, and still he felt no ill effects; far from it! The people who came to place orders or ask questions all looked at him in wonder and awe. On the seventh day, Jacob took his last gumdrop. As he chewed it, silently, he wondered if the wizard would give him more. He could pretend to still have the pain. Besides, with the way everything else was going, how could he not get what he wanted?
It was, again, a short walk to the wizard's mountaintop home. Jacob practiced his limp all the way there. Villagers avoided him on the way and whispered to each other. Jacob smiled at the power of his fame. The wizard once again let him in, looking surprised to see him, and asked if the gumdrops had worked. Jacob told him what he had rehearsed: that they were working fine, he just took his last one today, and he would probably need more. The wizard eyed Jacob for a long, silent time. Finally the wizard said, "The pain went away ten days ago, did it not?" Jacob was astounded and asked what made the wizard say such a thing. After another pause, the wizard slowly reached for a looking glass and put it up to Jacob's face. A hideous creature stared back at him, with horns and red eyes and flared nostrils and melting green flesh. Jacob contorted his face in horror, making the creature look even more fearsome. "Why do you show me this illusion?" asked Jacob. The wizard replied, "This is no illusion, young man. I told you to destroy the gumdrops when the pain went away, did I not? Their magic is powerful enough to take pain away, but also powerful enough to seduce a man and turn them into this." The wizard held the looking glass closer to Jacob's face. Jacob screeched and shattered the glass with his horns, then, though the wizard tried to stop him, he ran out of the house and threw himself off the cliff.
"Poor young man," said the wizard to himself sadly as he swept up the broken glass.
*****
And the moral of the story is...?
There once was a man named Jacob, a sculptor, who was decent enough at his craft to make a living. One day, while up a ladder working on the head of a tall figure, he fell and broke his leg. Luckily, the doctors mended him up fine, and in a few weeks, he went back to work. But he found his leg would give him pain from time to time, sometimes so great that he couldn't work. He went back to the doctors, who were only puzzled and shrugged and said it would go away. But it didn't. The pain grew, worsened in its severity and frequency. The doctors were still puzzled, but they were less interested in his pain than the other patients coming to see them. Jacob gave up.
On his way back home, he passed a sign he had passed often in his time. It simply said "Wizard" with an arrow pointing up a winding mountain path. He never saw a wizard, or anyone, walking the path, and so he always assumed there was no wizard; but his pain had gotten so bad, he thought it was worth a short trip out of the way. The path was easy and short; before long, he stood before a door cut into the rock of the mountain. There is a wizard after all, he thought. He knocked on the door and a wizened old man opened it and let him in.
Jacob described his pain to the wizard, who took one look at the leg and claimed there were evil spirits living in it, and that the pain was caused by the goodness of the soul fighting them. Jacob didn't believe this, but he was willing to try anything to relieve the pain. The wizard handed Jacob a jar filled with gumdrops which would do just that. "Chew one a day," said the wizard, "until the pain goes away for good. Then, destroy the rest of the pills. You won't need them anymore."
Jacob nodded and took his first dose. The pain went away almost instantly. Jacob was relieved, and thanked the wizard profusely. "Don't forget to destroy them when your pain goes away!" said the wizard as Jacob hurried down the mountain back to his house.
It was a good thing Jacob found his cure when he did, for a whole slew of orders came in for statues and carvings. Indeed, Jacob was busier now than he'd ever been in his life. Messengers were arriving from distant cities asking for his work and paying commissions up front. He could hardly contain his joy as he tirelessly worked from morning until twilight, finishing order after order. In a week's time, not only was Jacob feeling his good fortune, but his pain went away. On the morning of the eighth day, for the first time in a while, he woke up without the excruciation in his leg. He held up the jar the wizard had given him, but felt it was too soon to destroy it yet. He thought he should wait at least a day, just in case the evil spirits come back.
So Jacob went to work, but as he was working on one of his many orders, messengers started arriving to cancel some of them. Jacob asked why, but the messengers didn't know. He had to pay back some of the advances he'd received, and, regrettably, destroy some of the work he'd already done. It was a huge blow to his self-esteem, and he took the rest of the day off.
The next day, there were no new orders. Jacob had finished the last of the remaining statues and sent them off. He also got a strange idea. He thought, the orders had only come in when he was taking the wizard's gumdrops. Perhaps the success he was having was a side effect. He looked at the jar. Would it hurt to try for another day, even though the wizard had told him to destroy them after the pain went away? It couldn't hurt, he thought, and he popped a gumdrop into his mouth. Not five minutes later, there was a knock at his door: a messenger, there to place an order for a cathedral being built in a distant city. Jacob looked at the jar. He felt no ill effects, and yet the gumdrop seemed to bring him work almost instantly. He went back to work.
After another day, he was back to a full work load. The orders were pouring in, as was the money and prestige. His sculptures started winning awards. Scholars and scribes came to ask questions and learn more about his craft. Six days passed where he took a gumdrop daily, and still he felt no ill effects; far from it! The people who came to place orders or ask questions all looked at him in wonder and awe. On the seventh day, Jacob took his last gumdrop. As he chewed it, silently, he wondered if the wizard would give him more. He could pretend to still have the pain. Besides, with the way everything else was going, how could he not get what he wanted?
It was, again, a short walk to the wizard's mountaintop home. Jacob practiced his limp all the way there. Villagers avoided him on the way and whispered to each other. Jacob smiled at the power of his fame. The wizard once again let him in, looking surprised to see him, and asked if the gumdrops had worked. Jacob told him what he had rehearsed: that they were working fine, he just took his last one today, and he would probably need more. The wizard eyed Jacob for a long, silent time. Finally the wizard said, "The pain went away ten days ago, did it not?" Jacob was astounded and asked what made the wizard say such a thing. After another pause, the wizard slowly reached for a looking glass and put it up to Jacob's face. A hideous creature stared back at him, with horns and red eyes and flared nostrils and melting green flesh. Jacob contorted his face in horror, making the creature look even more fearsome. "Why do you show me this illusion?" asked Jacob. The wizard replied, "This is no illusion, young man. I told you to destroy the gumdrops when the pain went away, did I not? Their magic is powerful enough to take pain away, but also powerful enough to seduce a man and turn them into this." The wizard held the looking glass closer to Jacob's face. Jacob screeched and shattered the glass with his horns, then, though the wizard tried to stop him, he ran out of the house and threw himself off the cliff.
"Poor young man," said the wizard to himself sadly as he swept up the broken glass.
*****
And the moral of the story is...?
24 January 2012
O Captain
"A look like that could shatter glass, it could," said Ernie, the old sailor.
A clang of tumblers came from the bar, seeming to punctuate his statement. The seaside pub was fairly empty this afternoon; it was a slow day for fish, too.
Mick threw back his beer and hummed noncommittally. The old sailor always went on poetically about looks and legs and other parts of the female outfit. Sure, the ladies interested Mick; he just wasn't a fan of Ernie's poetry. It rocked like the sea with enjambment and free meter. Mick was a purist. Give him a sonnet any day, he said, and he could live a happy life. But Ernie was a fine old sailor, and one to be respected, so Mick just mmmed and ah-hahed and nodded whenever Ernie waxed.
Tom was young, though, and had no ear for the stuff; yet, he was eager to learn. "Say, Ernie," he said, "what do you mean by that?"
"What, Tom? What did I mean by what?"
"You know, the look shattering glass. I've never seen someone shatter glass just by looking at it."
Ernie rolled the toothpick around in his mouth as he looked out onto the pier. "It's a metaphor, Tom. Just a metaphor."
A clang of tumblers came from the bar, seeming to punctuate his statement. The seaside pub was fairly empty this afternoon; it was a slow day for fish, too.
Mick threw back his beer and hummed noncommittally. The old sailor always went on poetically about looks and legs and other parts of the female outfit. Sure, the ladies interested Mick; he just wasn't a fan of Ernie's poetry. It rocked like the sea with enjambment and free meter. Mick was a purist. Give him a sonnet any day, he said, and he could live a happy life. But Ernie was a fine old sailor, and one to be respected, so Mick just mmmed and ah-hahed and nodded whenever Ernie waxed.
Tom was young, though, and had no ear for the stuff; yet, he was eager to learn. "Say, Ernie," he said, "what do you mean by that?"
"What, Tom? What did I mean by what?"
"You know, the look shattering glass. I've never seen someone shatter glass just by looking at it."
Ernie rolled the toothpick around in his mouth as he looked out onto the pier. "It's a metaphor, Tom. Just a metaphor."
18 January 2012
Edward's Lab Partner
With science, she blinded me. Or maybe it was her hips swaying gently as they moved silently through the lab. Either way, my throat was dry and my upper lip twitched as if some voltage was trying to find its way around my moustache. Instinctively, I switched off the miniature generator I had been working with and found my way to where she was now standing, peering over the railing and down onto the floor of the warehouse. Moonlight radiated through the gaping skylights above, softly outlining the curve of her ivory cheek, atop which a bold pair of corrective lenses perched in dark rectangular frames. Her face proved conclusively that phi existed; her ratios were more perfect than phi could even predict. There must, therefore, be some mathematical reason why reddish-brown hair, when bobbed, is especially striking against such unblemished ivory skin. In that moment, I could feel my heart rate increase. Was that a hint of adrenaline in my bloodstream? A drop of perspiration pushed itself from a pore somewhere near my frontal lobe. I casually brushed it away with a flick of my finger.
She wanted something from me, but I couldn't tell what. She was very quiet, just staring down over the railing. I was very close to her; I could feel her thermodynamics through my lab coat. In these late spring months, she was in the habit of wearing blouses that kept her cooler in the lab, but, for some inexplicable reason, kept me warmer. There must have been some biological reason for it. I made a note to call an anthropologist friend of mine to ask.
Finally she sighed, an expulsion of air that sounded as if it should be so very sweet, delicate, as if spun from the finest silicon. My heart jumped slightly, a feat I didn't think was biologically possible. Blood was draining from my head to other, more primal organs; I thought I might swoon, but a strong voice in my mind said that would be a dreadful thing for a man to do and told me to "buck up." I would have to look up the phrase later when I got to my study.
Then she turned to me and I noticed something cold and dark in her sinistral hand, a device that, when loaded with a projectile whose back section was packed with a combination of sulfur, carbon, and potassium nitrate, could pose bodily harm to those standing in front of its barrel. In a word, a gun.
"What?" I asked.
But before I asked that simple, incredibly open-ended question, I smiled. It is a strange, silly thing to do, really, when one has a dangerous weapon pointed at one, but it was a thing I did, nonetheless. I smiled because, for the first time since we began working together, I noticed she was left-handed. It is hard to say why this would pose as something amusing or, at least, smile-inducing. Again, something to ask my anthropologist friend.
She was incredibly calm for one holding such a powerful weapon. This fact did nothing to relieve my attraction to her. Her hair in the moonlight was, indeed, radiant, and the way her lab coat accentuated her true-to-phi figure was captivating. She wore high black boots with a good heel on them, adding approximately ten centimeters to her diminutive stature. On days I was particularly bored with my research, or just to clear my mind for a bit, I would estimate certain data: her natural height (150 cm), the circumference of her waist (53.34 cm), the volume and mass of her... well, that's not important. What was important was, in that moment, a very lovely woman, a co-worker, was pointing a very dangerous gun at me.
"What?" I asked again.
"You know what," she finally said. The frequency range of her voice was, for some reason, always pleasing to listen to. Even when she was holding a gun at me at a distance of, say, twenty centimeters.
"I'm afraid I don't know what," I said. "Specifically."
She walked around me ninety degrees, so now my back was to the railing. The moonlight once again highlighted her face down to her sternum. She came closer and gently pushed the tip of the gun into my abdomen. She looked up at me over her glasses, and more perspiration formed on the skin of my squama frontalis and more blood drained from behind it. This feeling of being so close to mortality and yet so close to what I can only describe as fantasy was perplexing.
"I'm pregnant," she said calmly.
Blood rushed back to my head. "What?" I said.
"You heard me," she said. The gun metal pushed against my stomach. I feared it might cause some sub-epidermal rupture, but a bruise was the least of my concerns right now.
"Yes," I said. "But what does this have to do with me?"
She never stared at me more intently. Her green eyes bored deep within my own mundanely brown ones. She was so still, so sure and calm. It was breathtaking, but perhaps not as breathtaking as having a firearm pointed at some vital organs.
"I'm pregnant," she said, pressing her reddish-brown eyebrows together, "and you are the father."
Then my life flashed before my eyes. There was a sudden burst of sparks and a loud bang, accompanied by the smell of sulfur and a warmish feeling where the gun had been pressing. I clung onto the railing as I watched my parents age in fast-motion, my teachers change and become stricter, more precise, and diplomata and degrees thrust into my hands. It was a quick vision, after which there was pain where there was warmth. I sank to the floor; she still stood there with the pistol aimed at me, but her calmness was cracking. Saline streams dripped down those smooth cheeks, now blushing. The ringing in my ears receded at just the moment she started speaking again.
"When I got the news I was pregnant, I didn't believe it. There was no way. I hadn't... But the doctors were absolutely certain. I ordered a paternity test as soon as I could have one, which is pretty fast these days, especially when you know people."
"Anyway," she continued, "I found out it was you. It was you. But how? It wasn't possible. We never... So I discreetly asked around the lab. That's when I found out..."
Now her calmness waned greatly. As for me, the pain was being replaced by a sort of fuzziness.
"What?" I whispered. I wanted her to keep talking. It was keeping me alive, thought the less logical parts of my brain, of which there were few. I estimated that my life would be limited to another one to three minutes.
She grimaced. "You... I always wondered why I woke up in the lab after the holiday party. I was too drunk to drive home, you said."
She was shaking. Or I was, I couldn't tell.
"You fucking knocked me out," she said. "And you... Ugh!" She expelled the contents of her stomach on the floor next to me. I coughed up more blood in solidarity.
"Sara," I whispered. I really needed to get this out before it was all over. "I...." It would take all my remaining strength. "I...." There was no mathematical formula, no scientific knowledge to help me here. Yes, I knew what she was going to accuse me of as soon as she said I was the father. Yes, she wasn't fabricating anything. I did everything she said I did, and more she didn't. It was a moment of extreme weakness for me. Desperately lapsed logic. I really, desperately needed to tell her, "I'm sorry."
There. The words came out. I did it. And I really meant it, too. I had been full of remorse the following day, but I couldn't apologize then and tell her what happened, what I did. Now was the only chance I would get.
"I'm sorry," I said again, as clearly as I could.
She stared at me, those green eyes now bloodshot and glassy. Then she sobbed loudly and held me tightly. Just before my heart stopped and I officially expired, I smiled. I had to smile. She whispered directly into my ear words I never thought I would hear, especially after sustaining the fatal bullet wound caused by her.
"I always loved you, Edward" she said, and she rocked me gently in her perfect arms as I peacefully died on the lab floor.
Our relationship, even to death, was complicated.
She wanted something from me, but I couldn't tell what. She was very quiet, just staring down over the railing. I was very close to her; I could feel her thermodynamics through my lab coat. In these late spring months, she was in the habit of wearing blouses that kept her cooler in the lab, but, for some inexplicable reason, kept me warmer. There must have been some biological reason for it. I made a note to call an anthropologist friend of mine to ask.
Finally she sighed, an expulsion of air that sounded as if it should be so very sweet, delicate, as if spun from the finest silicon. My heart jumped slightly, a feat I didn't think was biologically possible. Blood was draining from my head to other, more primal organs; I thought I might swoon, but a strong voice in my mind said that would be a dreadful thing for a man to do and told me to "buck up." I would have to look up the phrase later when I got to my study.
Then she turned to me and I noticed something cold and dark in her sinistral hand, a device that, when loaded with a projectile whose back section was packed with a combination of sulfur, carbon, and potassium nitrate, could pose bodily harm to those standing in front of its barrel. In a word, a gun.
"What?" I asked.
But before I asked that simple, incredibly open-ended question, I smiled. It is a strange, silly thing to do, really, when one has a dangerous weapon pointed at one, but it was a thing I did, nonetheless. I smiled because, for the first time since we began working together, I noticed she was left-handed. It is hard to say why this would pose as something amusing or, at least, smile-inducing. Again, something to ask my anthropologist friend.
She was incredibly calm for one holding such a powerful weapon. This fact did nothing to relieve my attraction to her. Her hair in the moonlight was, indeed, radiant, and the way her lab coat accentuated her true-to-phi figure was captivating. She wore high black boots with a good heel on them, adding approximately ten centimeters to her diminutive stature. On days I was particularly bored with my research, or just to clear my mind for a bit, I would estimate certain data: her natural height (150 cm), the circumference of her waist (53.34 cm), the volume and mass of her... well, that's not important. What was important was, in that moment, a very lovely woman, a co-worker, was pointing a very dangerous gun at me.
"What?" I asked again.
"You know what," she finally said. The frequency range of her voice was, for some reason, always pleasing to listen to. Even when she was holding a gun at me at a distance of, say, twenty centimeters.
"I'm afraid I don't know what," I said. "Specifically."
She walked around me ninety degrees, so now my back was to the railing. The moonlight once again highlighted her face down to her sternum. She came closer and gently pushed the tip of the gun into my abdomen. She looked up at me over her glasses, and more perspiration formed on the skin of my squama frontalis and more blood drained from behind it. This feeling of being so close to mortality and yet so close to what I can only describe as fantasy was perplexing.
"I'm pregnant," she said calmly.
Blood rushed back to my head. "What?" I said.
"You heard me," she said. The gun metal pushed against my stomach. I feared it might cause some sub-epidermal rupture, but a bruise was the least of my concerns right now.
"Yes," I said. "But what does this have to do with me?"
She never stared at me more intently. Her green eyes bored deep within my own mundanely brown ones. She was so still, so sure and calm. It was breathtaking, but perhaps not as breathtaking as having a firearm pointed at some vital organs.
"I'm pregnant," she said, pressing her reddish-brown eyebrows together, "and you are the father."
Then my life flashed before my eyes. There was a sudden burst of sparks and a loud bang, accompanied by the smell of sulfur and a warmish feeling where the gun had been pressing. I clung onto the railing as I watched my parents age in fast-motion, my teachers change and become stricter, more precise, and diplomata and degrees thrust into my hands. It was a quick vision, after which there was pain where there was warmth. I sank to the floor; she still stood there with the pistol aimed at me, but her calmness was cracking. Saline streams dripped down those smooth cheeks, now blushing. The ringing in my ears receded at just the moment she started speaking again.
"When I got the news I was pregnant, I didn't believe it. There was no way. I hadn't... But the doctors were absolutely certain. I ordered a paternity test as soon as I could have one, which is pretty fast these days, especially when you know people."
I coughed up warm red liquid, a mix of hemoglobin, bile, and
stomach acid.
"Anyway," she continued, "I found out it was you. It was you. But how? It wasn't possible. We never... So I discreetly asked around the lab. That's when I found out..."
Now her calmness waned greatly. As for me, the pain was being replaced by a sort of fuzziness.
"What?" I whispered. I wanted her to keep talking. It was keeping me alive, thought the less logical parts of my brain, of which there were few. I estimated that my life would be limited to another one to three minutes.
She grimaced. "You... I always wondered why I woke up in the lab after the holiday party. I was too drunk to drive home, you said."
She was shaking. Or I was, I couldn't tell.
"You fucking knocked me out," she said. "And you... Ugh!" She expelled the contents of her stomach on the floor next to me. I coughed up more blood in solidarity.
"Sara," I whispered. I really needed to get this out before it was all over. "I...." It would take all my remaining strength. "I...." There was no mathematical formula, no scientific knowledge to help me here. Yes, I knew what she was going to accuse me of as soon as she said I was the father. Yes, she wasn't fabricating anything. I did everything she said I did, and more she didn't. It was a moment of extreme weakness for me. Desperately lapsed logic. I really, desperately needed to tell her, "I'm sorry."
There. The words came out. I did it. And I really meant it, too. I had been full of remorse the following day, but I couldn't apologize then and tell her what happened, what I did. Now was the only chance I would get.
"I'm sorry," I said again, as clearly as I could.
She stared at me, those green eyes now bloodshot and glassy. Then she sobbed loudly and held me tightly. Just before my heart stopped and I officially expired, I smiled. I had to smile. She whispered directly into my ear words I never thought I would hear, especially after sustaining the fatal bullet wound caused by her.
"I always loved you, Edward" she said, and she rocked me gently in her perfect arms as I peacefully died on the lab floor.
Our relationship, even to death, was complicated.
02 May 2011
Edward the Preacher Boy
The night came quickly. I came in when the AA people got to the church to open up so I could practice my piano. Since Gene the choir director died, the people at the church asked me if I wanted to play for them, as a temporary thing until they found someone new. I wasn't doing anything, so I said sure. On Tuesdays, after I'm done with whatever after-school stuff I'm doing, I ride over to the church to practice, and on Thursdays I play for the four or five people who come to sing in the choir. I've been teaching myself how to play the organ... all those feet and hands and pedals and buttons. It's nerve-wracking. I can almost play with my left foot.
I'm seventeen. I know I look younger than that, but you're gonna have to deal with it.
The first few weeks after my new job started, my Tuesdays were spent half practicing, half sorting music. I developed a system for sorting the new music and the old music. The new music goes chronologically from soonest to latest in the grey box, and the old music goes alphabetically in the black box. Then the music cycles to and from the back room, where all the church's music is in two tall filing cabinets that date back to the jurassic period. But Gene hadn't kept things sorted, so now I was going through piles and piles of music that hadn't found their folders, or didn't have folders. It was a menial task, but it kept me busy.
As a seventeen-year-old, I am acutely aware that my “look” doesn't appeal to the female of my generation. I'm scrawny and pale. I do have bright blue eyes, but I think they sit too close together, and besides, my glasses get in the way. My hair is brown and uninteresting; I hate haircuts as much as George Harrison did. But I don't play guitar until my fingers bleed. I get bored.
That is to say, I have spent some time trying to get the attention of girls. But the first time I ever got it is when I wasn't even trying. I was practicing.
Like I said, it got dark earlier than usual, but I was still in the sanctuary pounding away at the keys. I always made sure all the doors were closed so the sound wouldn't bleed too much into the hallway and disturb the AA meeting. That didn't stop recovering alcoholics from poking in and listening for a while. I didn't care too much; if they wanted to listen, let them. Far be it from me to interfere with their recoveries.
At this particular moment I was trying to play with my eyes closed and failing at it. Occasionally I'd have to open my eyes to change chords or if my fingers weren't where I thought they would be. Watching blind people play piano got me into it; I figured I should learn in case I ever went blind. Now, I can play without even looking at the piano at all. That's what practice does.
Out of the corner of my squinting eyes I saw a girl my age or slightly older leaning in the far doorway, in the back of the sanctuary. I had a feeling she was pretty, which surprised me. I never saw pretty people coming in or out of AA, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. I didn't want to glance at her because I didn't want her to go. I decided to play further up the piano so maybe I could see more of her out of the corner of my eye.
She looked pretty from what I could tell: short round black hair; thin. She didn't take up much of the doorframe, so probably not tall. She was dressed in blacks and greys. That's all I could see without making my eyes hurt from straining.
She began showing up regularly to my practice sessions and I got to see more of her bit by bit. She was absolutely pretty, but in a broken sort of way. She was thin with a roundish face. She always wore black, grey, white. Sometimes there was a hint of red or purple, but not often. She'd sit in the back, then she'd stand in the aisle in the back, and eventually I stopped thinking about her too much so that I didn't have to constantly play when she was there. I would sort music while she was there, and that was OK, apparently; she didn't leave right away.
One day I was kneeling on the ground sorting music using the front pew as a table and not paying attention. I'm almost always paying attention, but I guess I was tired, or maybe I hadn't had enough coffee that day, and suddenly she was sitting in the front pew about three yards from where I was sorting music.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked. I knew that's how she sounded!
“Sorting music. It's dull.” I looked at her. She was staring straight ahead, maybe looking at the piano. Her hands were in her lap and her knees touched, making her feet turn in in that cute way that girls sometimes turn their feet in when they sit. See? I'm babbling now. That's what happens to me.
“How'd you get here?” she asked.
“Drove.” I drive a 1986 Chevy whose red paint is very quickly wearing off. Still drives like a champ, even if I have to drive with one working wiper in the rain.
She looked at me and scrunched her face. It was damn cute. “Damn” is the only curse word I afford myself.
“You're not old enough,” she said.
“I'm seventeen,” I told her.
“No shit,” she said. I panicked for a second and looked at the unadorned cross above the chancel, which made her say plainly, “Sorry, God.”
I shrugged as if it hadn't bothered me, even though it so clearly had, and went back to sorting. “Preacher Boy,” they sometimes called me at school. Idiots.
“Are you really seventeen?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” she nodded. “Me, too.”
I looked at her. She had green eyes.
“I'm Liana,” she said. She put out her hand to me. She didn't look like a Liana.
“Edward,” I said. I took her hand. It was cold, but soft. Her fingernails were painted deep red. She had beautiful hands. Instinctually I put my other hand on top of hers, to warm it, and looked at her green eyes. She wasn't smiling, but I'm pretty sure those eyes were.
Sorting music isn't fun exactly, but it's something that needs to be done, and it gave me something to occupy myself so I didn't have to look at her the whole time and melt into a steaming puddle of flesh seeping into the red carpet. So, after I let her hand go, a while went by with just the sound of paper moving. I was nervous. She was just sitting there. Couldn't tell you what she was thinking. She could have been thinking anything. Why was this seventeen-year-old stuck at a church sorting music? Why did he look like he was fourteen? Is Edward even a cool name? She could have been thinking anything. Until she slid closer and leaned into me.
“Can you drive me home?”
I stopped.
“How'd you get here?” I asked.
“It doesn't matter. Can you drive me?”
“Why are you here?”
“Edward.” My heart skipped a beat. I never liked my name before.
“Sorry, it's AA, isn't it?” I asked, being vague.
She sighed. “Look, I had a problem, I've been dealing with it, and I'm trying to stay away from it. I've been sober for a few weeks now. But if you tell anyone I'm here, I'll kill you.”
My eyes went wide. I didn't want them to. I wanted to look tough, or calm, or indifferent. Fail.
Originally I thought this girl was there with her father or mother or someone else, just tagging along or offering support. Apparently she had been drinking for who knows how long. I couldn't imagine that. Not to say I don't believe in drinking; I have the occasional glass of wine with dinner if I'm invited to do so. It's OK stuff, but not something I'd go at in large quantities on a daily basis.
“I won't tell anyone. Promise,” I said.
“Good.”
“How did you get here?” I asked again.
She turned away. “Someone drove me,” she said finally. Then she turned back to me and added “Please?”
Why did she want me to drive her home? Me? Of all the guys she could probably get in the world, all of whom would be jumping for joy to drive her home, why would she want me? I'm just a straight-laced white boy who likes music and theatre. It's a wonder I like girls.
Then I remembered, she's here because of AA. She's a recovering alcoholic... a seventeen-year-old recovering alcoholic. Which probably means she's dangerous in some way, reckless or something. Maybe she's too dangerous for some of these guys. She's damaged. She's unclean. She's scared.
I wanted to help.
“Yeah, let's go.”
I'm seventeen. I know I look younger than that, but you're gonna have to deal with it.
The first few weeks after my new job started, my Tuesdays were spent half practicing, half sorting music. I developed a system for sorting the new music and the old music. The new music goes chronologically from soonest to latest in the grey box, and the old music goes alphabetically in the black box. Then the music cycles to and from the back room, where all the church's music is in two tall filing cabinets that date back to the jurassic period. But Gene hadn't kept things sorted, so now I was going through piles and piles of music that hadn't found their folders, or didn't have folders. It was a menial task, but it kept me busy.
As a seventeen-year-old, I am acutely aware that my “look” doesn't appeal to the female of my generation. I'm scrawny and pale. I do have bright blue eyes, but I think they sit too close together, and besides, my glasses get in the way. My hair is brown and uninteresting; I hate haircuts as much as George Harrison did. But I don't play guitar until my fingers bleed. I get bored.
That is to say, I have spent some time trying to get the attention of girls. But the first time I ever got it is when I wasn't even trying. I was practicing.
Like I said, it got dark earlier than usual, but I was still in the sanctuary pounding away at the keys. I always made sure all the doors were closed so the sound wouldn't bleed too much into the hallway and disturb the AA meeting. That didn't stop recovering alcoholics from poking in and listening for a while. I didn't care too much; if they wanted to listen, let them. Far be it from me to interfere with their recoveries.
At this particular moment I was trying to play with my eyes closed and failing at it. Occasionally I'd have to open my eyes to change chords or if my fingers weren't where I thought they would be. Watching blind people play piano got me into it; I figured I should learn in case I ever went blind. Now, I can play without even looking at the piano at all. That's what practice does.
Out of the corner of my squinting eyes I saw a girl my age or slightly older leaning in the far doorway, in the back of the sanctuary. I had a feeling she was pretty, which surprised me. I never saw pretty people coming in or out of AA, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. I didn't want to glance at her because I didn't want her to go. I decided to play further up the piano so maybe I could see more of her out of the corner of my eye.
She looked pretty from what I could tell: short round black hair; thin. She didn't take up much of the doorframe, so probably not tall. She was dressed in blacks and greys. That's all I could see without making my eyes hurt from straining.
She began showing up regularly to my practice sessions and I got to see more of her bit by bit. She was absolutely pretty, but in a broken sort of way. She was thin with a roundish face. She always wore black, grey, white. Sometimes there was a hint of red or purple, but not often. She'd sit in the back, then she'd stand in the aisle in the back, and eventually I stopped thinking about her too much so that I didn't have to constantly play when she was there. I would sort music while she was there, and that was OK, apparently; she didn't leave right away.
One day I was kneeling on the ground sorting music using the front pew as a table and not paying attention. I'm almost always paying attention, but I guess I was tired, or maybe I hadn't had enough coffee that day, and suddenly she was sitting in the front pew about three yards from where I was sorting music.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked. I knew that's how she sounded!
“Sorting music. It's dull.” I looked at her. She was staring straight ahead, maybe looking at the piano. Her hands were in her lap and her knees touched, making her feet turn in in that cute way that girls sometimes turn their feet in when they sit. See? I'm babbling now. That's what happens to me.
“How'd you get here?” she asked.
“Drove.” I drive a 1986 Chevy whose red paint is very quickly wearing off. Still drives like a champ, even if I have to drive with one working wiper in the rain.
She looked at me and scrunched her face. It was damn cute. “Damn” is the only curse word I afford myself.
“You're not old enough,” she said.
“I'm seventeen,” I told her.
“No shit,” she said. I panicked for a second and looked at the unadorned cross above the chancel, which made her say plainly, “Sorry, God.”
I shrugged as if it hadn't bothered me, even though it so clearly had, and went back to sorting. “Preacher Boy,” they sometimes called me at school. Idiots.
“Are you really seventeen?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” she nodded. “Me, too.”
I looked at her. She had green eyes.
“I'm Liana,” she said. She put out her hand to me. She didn't look like a Liana.
“Edward,” I said. I took her hand. It was cold, but soft. Her fingernails were painted deep red. She had beautiful hands. Instinctually I put my other hand on top of hers, to warm it, and looked at her green eyes. She wasn't smiling, but I'm pretty sure those eyes were.
Sorting music isn't fun exactly, but it's something that needs to be done, and it gave me something to occupy myself so I didn't have to look at her the whole time and melt into a steaming puddle of flesh seeping into the red carpet. So, after I let her hand go, a while went by with just the sound of paper moving. I was nervous. She was just sitting there. Couldn't tell you what she was thinking. She could have been thinking anything. Why was this seventeen-year-old stuck at a church sorting music? Why did he look like he was fourteen? Is Edward even a cool name? She could have been thinking anything. Until she slid closer and leaned into me.
“Can you drive me home?”
I stopped.
“How'd you get here?” I asked.
“It doesn't matter. Can you drive me?”
“Why are you here?”
“Edward.” My heart skipped a beat. I never liked my name before.
“Sorry, it's AA, isn't it?” I asked, being vague.
She sighed. “Look, I had a problem, I've been dealing with it, and I'm trying to stay away from it. I've been sober for a few weeks now. But if you tell anyone I'm here, I'll kill you.”
My eyes went wide. I didn't want them to. I wanted to look tough, or calm, or indifferent. Fail.
Originally I thought this girl was there with her father or mother or someone else, just tagging along or offering support. Apparently she had been drinking for who knows how long. I couldn't imagine that. Not to say I don't believe in drinking; I have the occasional glass of wine with dinner if I'm invited to do so. It's OK stuff, but not something I'd go at in large quantities on a daily basis.
“I won't tell anyone. Promise,” I said.
“Good.”
“How did you get here?” I asked again.
She turned away. “Someone drove me,” she said finally. Then she turned back to me and added “Please?”
Why did she want me to drive her home? Me? Of all the guys she could probably get in the world, all of whom would be jumping for joy to drive her home, why would she want me? I'm just a straight-laced white boy who likes music and theatre. It's a wonder I like girls.
Then I remembered, she's here because of AA. She's a recovering alcoholic... a seventeen-year-old recovering alcoholic. Which probably means she's dangerous in some way, reckless or something. Maybe she's too dangerous for some of these guys. She's damaged. She's unclean. She's scared.
I wanted to help.
“Yeah, let's go.”
20 February 2011
The Actor
“You—she—the priestess—is like a prune: a long, thin, prune whose juice has been sucked out and all the sweetness is gone. Perhaps she is more like a raisin; formerly a tight, tart grape, whose juice has been sucked out and any sweetness that might have existed is completely gone. Yes, like a raisin. You see? Tight, sour, dry. Tart. She could be your age, but she's assuredly old before her time. We'll try it when we come to it. Let's go back.”
The aged actor spouted lines interspersed with direction and character study. His analogies grew with each sentence. Every year for the last thirty, this man played the same role in the same adaptation of the same story which he also directed. No longer did he need the wig and makeup he once religiously donned, for Nature had provided the perfect mask by this time.
Jacob Goldsmith was revered in the region, humble as he was, as one of the greatest dramatists in the area. His annual presentation of A Miser's Miracle was the social event of the year for many. They were drawn by the amazing scenes, the fabulous performances, and magical effects that they felt rivaled those of hallowed Broadway, a mere fifty miles away. For this was not a professional theatre by any stretch; the seats were held together with duct tape and old gauze, and the bare wall showed through where paint had chipped away. Here was a theatre that existed solely for the love of theatre and not the love of money.
For thirty years the master studied these characters, now firmly rooted, ubiquitous in his mind, though every year he discovered something new about each, and their relations to his own character might change as did his understanding. He retold the old American story of the miser who lives by himself and shuns society, refusing to make charity or embrace change. One evening he awakens to find his bed floating above the earth, transported to some foreign land. He meets people along the way who remind him of himself, and of his former youth; it opens his heart. When he returns to his bedchamber, he is a new man, and he opens his coffers to help the poor and needy and throws his arms gratefully around his fellow man.
Jacob sneered and the beggar children approached him. “This is America,” he growled in his miser voice, pointing a gnarled finger. “Let them work for their own money.”
Young, aspiring actors who found out about this theatre and this production soon wanted to be involved. There was something in the wisdom of Jacob Goldsmith that suited him to mentorship. Not to mention the children who involved themselves at the behest of their parents came away with something much greater than that with which they started. By this time, there were over a hundred children who had been involved in Miracle, and some were grown up and had children who got involved as well. The legacies abounded, and it did not go unnoticed by Jacob, who kept very careful records in his filing cabinet of a brain.
“When you come at me, Charles,” Jacob said to a hulking young man, “I want you to think more about your own pain—his own pain. The spirit is in great torment. Obviously, you and I have experienced nothing like what this spirit has gone through and is going through, but I want you to substitute painful episodes in your own life and apply them here: the times you did wrong, the times you were helpless, the times you were sorrowful. Apply them all here and give me a great big cloud of pain, sadness. Fear.”
Charlie Campbell often sat back when he was off-stage and thought about Jacob's accomplishments. This was Charlie's third year, and he still felt he had so much to learn. He observed that Jacob seemed undaunted to revisit this material year in and year out; in fact, Jacob seemed to revel in it, taking the opportunity to actually direct something that meant the world to him. He wanted it to mean the world to everyone.
“I'm sorry, was that my cross? Did I miss it? Dreadful sorries. Let's go back.”
Jacob had been playing the old miser since he was twenty years old. When he hit thirty, he realized that he was too young to have understood the subtle nuances of the miser's character. He spent the first ten years simply yelling loudly, and gesticulating loudly, and generally being unbearable to watch after some time. Audiences still loved it; he was a good writer and a talented director. In that tenth year, he started over and rewrote the entire adaptation based on his new discoveries about the miser and the people he met on his journey. There was less yelling and more glaring, more staring, more sneering. “Audiences eat it up,” as Jacob would often say.
The eager apprentice quickly turned into the stingy businessman, then withered into the shriveled hermit, becoming the old miser. He relived his past in various scenes, much like going through an old photo album where the dust always stirs with each turned page. “May you learn that love is the only thing in life worth having,” said the apprentice's kind, jovial master. It was a refrain from something else, something Jacob heard before in some other story, some other play. But he used it. “Why create something new when the old thing does a better job?” he said.
When asked about the young dowager who, some thought, showed a bit too much skin, Jacob would say, “It's something to warm a cold man's heart,” another of his aphorisms. (He knew a flash of flesh would keep some husbands and bachelors as regular customers, no doubt.) Also, he often and repeatedly drew obscure lines from countless other plays to toss into casual speech. “It's something you can always depend on,” he would say to whomever played Georgia, the maid, “you know, like the kindness of strangers.”
While Jacob always played the old miser, the character he dealt with most was that of the tormented spirit visitor; for, he would say, the spirit is the one who brings about the ultimate change in the miser. The spirit, hovering above the scene as if on his own cloud, pointed at the starving, huddled masses downstage, saying, “The poor exist to remind us to count our blessings, and if we have trouble counting that high, to give until it's easy.”
Some days in rehearsal, Jacob stood center stage rubbing his eyes, his blue button-down shirt puffed out in the back and his shoulders hunched as he thought, or acted, whichever he was doing. Other times he walked around the house, across and back through each row with the miser's walking stick, shouting “Louder!” and “More connection! More feeling!” Watching the scenes, his scenes, unfold on that stage, he'd admonish a young girl, saying, “No, no. Am I embarrassing you? I hope so. Now, give the boy a real hug, my dear. He's not diseased, you know.” And thus the play would come together, take form and shape, grow as tall as giants, to tower above the audience when the curtain rose.
Each performance, year after constant year, was a triumph. Full houses wept, laughed, and clapped, cheering loudly when Jacob took his grateful bow. “It's for the audience,” he would say to those cast members missing their curtain call manners. “It's for the audience, not the ego.”
One year during rehearsals, Jacob developed a nasty cough which persisted despite medication and hot tea with lemon. He endeavored to carry a handkerchief with him for the run of the show, for he would not miss it—“even for six magic beans,” he said. It was one day during rehearsals the cough was especially bad. He sat on the bed and heaved greatly. A few cast members rushed to his side and rubbed his back, whispering their sympathies. One ran for a glass of water. Jacob signaled that he'd lay down, and others let him. The coughing subsided, but he held his torso tightly. After a moment of staring vaguely, as oft he would when inventing new direction or redeveloping a character, he instead said plainly, “Will someone take me up the hill?”
Most of the cast went with Jacob to the hospital up the hill from the theatre. Doctors were puzzled, and nurses could only assure them. Day by day his situation worsened. Then one day, with most of the cast and some from past productions gathered around him, he leaned back on his pillow. “Now I, too, shall truly float away in my bed to distant lands,” he said. And then, like all the distinguished throughout time, he faded away.
And the lights went to black.
The aged actor spouted lines interspersed with direction and character study. His analogies grew with each sentence. Every year for the last thirty, this man played the same role in the same adaptation of the same story which he also directed. No longer did he need the wig and makeup he once religiously donned, for Nature had provided the perfect mask by this time.
Jacob Goldsmith was revered in the region, humble as he was, as one of the greatest dramatists in the area. His annual presentation of A Miser's Miracle was the social event of the year for many. They were drawn by the amazing scenes, the fabulous performances, and magical effects that they felt rivaled those of hallowed Broadway, a mere fifty miles away. For this was not a professional theatre by any stretch; the seats were held together with duct tape and old gauze, and the bare wall showed through where paint had chipped away. Here was a theatre that existed solely for the love of theatre and not the love of money.
For thirty years the master studied these characters, now firmly rooted, ubiquitous in his mind, though every year he discovered something new about each, and their relations to his own character might change as did his understanding. He retold the old American story of the miser who lives by himself and shuns society, refusing to make charity or embrace change. One evening he awakens to find his bed floating above the earth, transported to some foreign land. He meets people along the way who remind him of himself, and of his former youth; it opens his heart. When he returns to his bedchamber, he is a new man, and he opens his coffers to help the poor and needy and throws his arms gratefully around his fellow man.
Jacob sneered and the beggar children approached him. “This is America,” he growled in his miser voice, pointing a gnarled finger. “Let them work for their own money.”
Young, aspiring actors who found out about this theatre and this production soon wanted to be involved. There was something in the wisdom of Jacob Goldsmith that suited him to mentorship. Not to mention the children who involved themselves at the behest of their parents came away with something much greater than that with which they started. By this time, there were over a hundred children who had been involved in Miracle, and some were grown up and had children who got involved as well. The legacies abounded, and it did not go unnoticed by Jacob, who kept very careful records in his filing cabinet of a brain.
“When you come at me, Charles,” Jacob said to a hulking young man, “I want you to think more about your own pain—his own pain. The spirit is in great torment. Obviously, you and I have experienced nothing like what this spirit has gone through and is going through, but I want you to substitute painful episodes in your own life and apply them here: the times you did wrong, the times you were helpless, the times you were sorrowful. Apply them all here and give me a great big cloud of pain, sadness. Fear.”
Charlie Campbell often sat back when he was off-stage and thought about Jacob's accomplishments. This was Charlie's third year, and he still felt he had so much to learn. He observed that Jacob seemed undaunted to revisit this material year in and year out; in fact, Jacob seemed to revel in it, taking the opportunity to actually direct something that meant the world to him. He wanted it to mean the world to everyone.
“I'm sorry, was that my cross? Did I miss it? Dreadful sorries. Let's go back.”
Jacob had been playing the old miser since he was twenty years old. When he hit thirty, he realized that he was too young to have understood the subtle nuances of the miser's character. He spent the first ten years simply yelling loudly, and gesticulating loudly, and generally being unbearable to watch after some time. Audiences still loved it; he was a good writer and a talented director. In that tenth year, he started over and rewrote the entire adaptation based on his new discoveries about the miser and the people he met on his journey. There was less yelling and more glaring, more staring, more sneering. “Audiences eat it up,” as Jacob would often say.
The eager apprentice quickly turned into the stingy businessman, then withered into the shriveled hermit, becoming the old miser. He relived his past in various scenes, much like going through an old photo album where the dust always stirs with each turned page. “May you learn that love is the only thing in life worth having,” said the apprentice's kind, jovial master. It was a refrain from something else, something Jacob heard before in some other story, some other play. But he used it. “Why create something new when the old thing does a better job?” he said.
When asked about the young dowager who, some thought, showed a bit too much skin, Jacob would say, “It's something to warm a cold man's heart,” another of his aphorisms. (He knew a flash of flesh would keep some husbands and bachelors as regular customers, no doubt.) Also, he often and repeatedly drew obscure lines from countless other plays to toss into casual speech. “It's something you can always depend on,” he would say to whomever played Georgia, the maid, “you know, like the kindness of strangers.”
While Jacob always played the old miser, the character he dealt with most was that of the tormented spirit visitor; for, he would say, the spirit is the one who brings about the ultimate change in the miser. The spirit, hovering above the scene as if on his own cloud, pointed at the starving, huddled masses downstage, saying, “The poor exist to remind us to count our blessings, and if we have trouble counting that high, to give until it's easy.”
Some days in rehearsal, Jacob stood center stage rubbing his eyes, his blue button-down shirt puffed out in the back and his shoulders hunched as he thought, or acted, whichever he was doing. Other times he walked around the house, across and back through each row with the miser's walking stick, shouting “Louder!” and “More connection! More feeling!” Watching the scenes, his scenes, unfold on that stage, he'd admonish a young girl, saying, “No, no. Am I embarrassing you? I hope so. Now, give the boy a real hug, my dear. He's not diseased, you know.” And thus the play would come together, take form and shape, grow as tall as giants, to tower above the audience when the curtain rose.
Each performance, year after constant year, was a triumph. Full houses wept, laughed, and clapped, cheering loudly when Jacob took his grateful bow. “It's for the audience,” he would say to those cast members missing their curtain call manners. “It's for the audience, not the ego.”
One year during rehearsals, Jacob developed a nasty cough which persisted despite medication and hot tea with lemon. He endeavored to carry a handkerchief with him for the run of the show, for he would not miss it—“even for six magic beans,” he said. It was one day during rehearsals the cough was especially bad. He sat on the bed and heaved greatly. A few cast members rushed to his side and rubbed his back, whispering their sympathies. One ran for a glass of water. Jacob signaled that he'd lay down, and others let him. The coughing subsided, but he held his torso tightly. After a moment of staring vaguely, as oft he would when inventing new direction or redeveloping a character, he instead said plainly, “Will someone take me up the hill?”
Most of the cast went with Jacob to the hospital up the hill from the theatre. Doctors were puzzled, and nurses could only assure them. Day by day his situation worsened. Then one day, with most of the cast and some from past productions gathered around him, he leaned back on his pillow. “Now I, too, shall truly float away in my bed to distant lands,” he said. And then, like all the distinguished throughout time, he faded away.
And the lights went to black.
26 October 2010
excerpts from "The Actor"
Jacob Goldsmith was revered in the region, humble as he was, as one of the greatest dramatists in the area. His annual presentation of A Miser's Miracle was the social event of the year for many. They were drawn by the amazing scenes, the fabulous performances, and magical effects that they felt rivaled those of Broadway, a mere fifty miles away. For this was not a professional theatre by any stretch; the seats were held together with duct tape and old gauze, and the bare wall showed through where paint had chipped away. Here was a theatre that existed solely for the love of theatre and not the love of money.
For thirty years the master studied these characters, now firmly rooted, ubiquitous in his mind, though every year he discovered something new about each, and their relations to his own character might change as did his understanding.
He told the old American story of the miser who lives by himself and shuns society, refusing to make charity or embrace change. One evening he awakens to find his bed floating above the earth, transported to some foreign land. He meets people along the way who remind him of himself, and of his former youth; it opens his heart. When he returns to his bedchamber he is a new man, and he opens his coffers to help the poor and needy and throws his arms gratefully around his fellow man.
Jacob sneered and the beggar children approached him. “This is America,” he growled, pointing a gnarled finger. “Let them work for their own money.”
...
For thirty years the master studied these characters, now firmly rooted, ubiquitous in his mind, though every year he discovered something new about each, and their relations to his own character might change as did his understanding.
He told the old American story of the miser who lives by himself and shuns society, refusing to make charity or embrace change. One evening he awakens to find his bed floating above the earth, transported to some foreign land. He meets people along the way who remind him of himself, and of his former youth; it opens his heart. When he returns to his bedchamber he is a new man, and he opens his coffers to help the poor and needy and throws his arms gratefully around his fellow man.
Jacob sneered and the beggar children approached him. “This is America,” he growled, pointing a gnarled finger. “Let them work for their own money.”
...
11 October 2010
Landscaping
Marco pushed his spreader up and down the hills around the buildings of the complex. The grass was green and a chilled wind tousled it as he walked, sweating. He had the areas around buildings 4 and 5 to do, then across the parking lot to building 14, where there were some patches of yellow grass from the dogs. The day was gorgeous, but Marco didn't care; it would get done either way.
The fertilizer was also a pesticide, something to get rid of the vermin before it went inside where it was warm and wet, before the chill set in for good and drove the insects to look for more hospitable places to burrow and gestate. Marco didn't care; it was something he had to do, and he'd make sure it was done, no matter what.
The fertilizer was also a pesticide, something to get rid of the vermin before it went inside where it was warm and wet, before the chill set in for good and drove the insects to look for more hospitable places to burrow and gestate. Marco didn't care; it was something he had to do, and he'd make sure it was done, no matter what.
another short installment of Love Song
Read part 2 here.
-----
At the bar, he drank his bourbon rocks and ordered my gin and tonic. In his head he was working out some new song, perhaps, or mulling over a new way to play an old tune. I squeezed my lime and stirred slowly, looking around the bar. The young bartender was nice enough; she poured fast and heavy, and winked as she walked away. She wore a tight white top tied on with shoestrings, and a large cowboy hat with upturned sides on her straight dirty blonde hair. I stared at her a bit, but the great singer kept to his liquor and thoughts.
-----
At the bar, he drank his bourbon rocks and ordered my gin and tonic. In his head he was working out some new song, perhaps, or mulling over a new way to play an old tune. I squeezed my lime and stirred slowly, looking around the bar. The young bartender was nice enough; she poured fast and heavy, and winked as she walked away. She wore a tight white top tied on with shoestrings, and a large cowboy hat with upturned sides on her straight dirty blonde hair. I stared at her a bit, but the great singer kept to his liquor and thoughts.
22 September 2010
The Return from Lennok’s Town and the Taconican Dragons
The bard walks through the door to her house. He had just returned from his journey to Lennok’s Town in the land of Masa'tsu, where he met with the priests and the mayor, the fifth in the Lennok clan, to discuss a matter concerning the dragons of Taconica, in the mountains to the west. The priests needed a bard to learn the enchantment song of the Taconican dragons, and Tessal was renowned throughout the known world for his skill and talent. While in the process of attending to that matter, a messenger came to him from Airoti D’Azilé, his true love in Paixamour. Now, mind you, reader, that when the author writes “true love,” he does mean that these two were almost inseparable, and indeed were inches from engagement. However, the news borne to Tessal was not of the good sort. In fact, the message was disheartening. She had chosen to end the relationship, and would not have it any other way. Tessal, being in no position to respond or react, was distraught for the remainder of the moon cycle which he would spend in Lennok’s Town. His treatment of the dragons proving sufficient enough for the priests thereof, The not-so-Jolly Bard returned, as quickly as the winds would allow, to the Pleafwood Forest and his hometown.
19 September 2010
Vithul’s Explanation of Numbers
The soup bubbles over, its readiness clearly shown in its willingness to escape the confines of the pot. Tessal turns to Vithul, the elf, and asks how much his portion should be.
Vithul’s reply comes as such: “You know, numbers as you know them are purely a human invention. Their perfection, as the humans profess, is what drives this creation. However, when they find a series of calculations with an imperfect answer, they simply dismiss that one for being ‘irrational’ or ‘imaginary,’ never once questioning the perfection of numbers. You see, humans think that the power of numbers lies in their relationship to each other. But, the elves came up with the truth behind numbers. Quick. What is two greater two?”
The half-elf gives a half smile. “Four.”
Vithul’s reply comes as such: “You know, numbers as you know them are purely a human invention. Their perfection, as the humans profess, is what drives this creation. However, when they find a series of calculations with an imperfect answer, they simply dismiss that one for being ‘irrational’ or ‘imaginary,’ never once questioning the perfection of numbers. You see, humans think that the power of numbers lies in their relationship to each other. But, the elves came up with the truth behind numbers. Quick. What is two greater two?”
The half-elf gives a half smile. “Four.”
18 September 2010
The Forest Abode of Sir Albahn of Tollin
Albahn’s dwelling consists of a series of levitated rooms which hang from the boughs of the ever-sturdy oaks which litter the forest. Connected by a series of covered bridges of straight plank and rope are four rooms altogether: a sitting room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and another room needing description in more detail. This room serves as a storage for the vast amount of military supply and writings as well as detailed charts of every land between the outer reaches and the sea abyss, which Albahn has spent many years and many coppers accumulating. It is breathtaking, not only to see the huge collection, but to see Albahn move about it with such ease and familiarity; he can tell if one quill is only inches out of place from the previous day. And he is proud for the fact.
As Albahn and Tessal sit, appropriately, in the sitting room, mulling over some black beer, they discuss, as all do over any alcohol, philosophy. It is whilst discussing such a topic that Albahn shares:
“You know, I know the trees.”
Tessal, blankly, replies, “How so?”
As Albahn and Tessal sit, appropriately, in the sitting room, mulling over some black beer, they discuss, as all do over any alcohol, philosophy. It is whilst discussing such a topic that Albahn shares:
“You know, I know the trees.”
Tessal, blankly, replies, “How so?”
16 September 2010
Weary Travellers Discover Paixamour and the Jolly Bard’s Tavern
these stories i wrote quite a while ago. i haven't done much to edit them. here is the first.
-----
“Welcome, adventurers, to the town of peace and love, Paixamour. I am elder Stephan le Sage.”
It is truth, as well, that Paixamour looks peaceful and lovely. The sun illuminates a gorgeous scene of a greener-than-green forest that surrounds a well-planned town. A river trickles off in the distance, just to the west. The soldiers’ hearts fill with gladness as they take in the scenery, and calmness quickly comes over them. One man speaks on behalf the group.
“Thank you, sir. I am Geoffrey de Lifdonne, and these are my friends. We would like a room in your inn, if you please.”
“Of course, you must have been travelling all night. Come this way.”
-----
“Welcome, adventurers, to the town of peace and love, Paixamour. I am elder Stephan le Sage.”
It is truth, as well, that Paixamour looks peaceful and lovely. The sun illuminates a gorgeous scene of a greener-than-green forest that surrounds a well-planned town. A river trickles off in the distance, just to the west. The soldiers’ hearts fill with gladness as they take in the scenery, and calmness quickly comes over them. One man speaks on behalf the group.
“Thank you, sir. I am Geoffrey de Lifdonne, and these are my friends. We would like a room in your inn, if you please.”
“Of course, you must have been travelling all night. Come this way.”
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