MERRY BURNING PARTY

Unrelated To How I Felt When I Called And No One Answered

2010-03-07T13:52:00.003-05:00

New Story! Thoughts?

I’m thinking of where I want to go and how I want to get there when I remember something that Aaron told me at lunch the other day. It was only a comment in passing, something lost between slurped Coke and laughed sentiments, and I don’t know why I remember it now because it wasn’t important, and I’m not doing anything to remind me of that conversation at lunch—I am standing on the sidewalk outside of a record store called The Record Store, and I am thinking about where I want to go and how I want to get there.

“It’d be a piece of cake, like making your own piece of cake,” Aaron had said. “When was the last time you made cake?”

I hadn’t thought of it at all at the time, instead preferring to rib him about something pertaining to his last ad pitch, which, if memory serves, failed because his shirt had a large stain on it and his tie was tied lopsidedly, and that particular combination had made him self-conscious to the point that he forgot his pitch completely. It suddenly occurs to me that, perhaps, oddly, ironically, the stain I ribbed him about was a cake stain. I’m not sure how one would get a cake stain on a dress shirt, and as far as I know, Aaron had not been to any birthday parties, not in a while. We know the same people, Aaron and I.

In my hand I hold a small plastic bag, the sort that electronics stores give you when all you buy is a CD or a DVD or something else small and disc-based. In this bag are two CDs, dutifully paid for, and a pack of gum, dutifully purloined. I make it my mission to walk out of every store in which I purchase something with a pack of gum, if it is available. It doesn’t taste better or anything like that. I don’t do it for any particular reason, other than to know that I can.

I cannot get the arbitrary thought of cake to leave my head, and so I stand outside the door of The Record Store and think about what I could possibly do with a cake. Aaron would tell me to bake it for Hannah. I would tell him no. I haven’t eaten cake since my kid brother’s birthday, and I haven’t seen him in a year and a half. How have I not had cake since then? I rack my brain and try to recall another time, but there is nothing there for me to remember.

A man wants to enter The Record Store. I step out of the doorway. My CDs are begging to be played. My gum is not begging to be chewed, though I will probably do that anyway. I think of cake and music and gum, and I decide that I may as well go home.

Home is not far, and I walk for a few minutes down the street before arriving at my apartment. It is a shithole, though I like to think of it as an endearing shithole. This is because it is my home; anyone else would call it a shithole in a non-endearing way, because, in reality, it is a shithole as the term usually applies. I live on the third floor, and the stairs, immediately inside the front door of the building (there isn’t a hall of any kind, just door and then stairs), are narrow and painted red, though the red is very old and flaking off everywhere. The girl who lives on the second floor leaves her bike in the stairwell most days. It’s not there today, which is nice.

My key sticks in my doorknob, and I am afraid, inside my gut and chest, that I will snap it off and be forced to crawl through a window. This has never happened, though the key gets stuck most every time, so I assume that it will happen sooner rather than later. I leave the window above my sink unlocked because of this. Today is not the day, and my door opens.

I toss my bag of CDs onto the couch next to my table. My table is in my kitchen, which also doubles as a living room, study room, and sometimes bedroom when I don’t want to get off the couch. I consider getting the CDs and putting them in the stereo. I get a glass of water, instead. I sit on my couch and look at my TV (which sits on my kitchen table). I glance at my watch—2:45. My kid brother should be out of school right about now. Or is it 3:45? The six years since high school have passed too quickly.

I call anyway. Two rings, and it cuts to voicemail. He must be in class. “Jake the Snake, it’s Harrison. Guess I caught you in class. Hope your phone was on vibrate or something. Wasn’t sure if you got out at 2:45 or 3:45. Anyway, I’m just calling to say hey, it’s been a while. Got The National’s new CD today. I wish you’d give them a chance, they’re great. Um—” My eyes roam around my kitchen. My trashcan is overflowing with microwave-dinner trays. My sink is filled with wine glasses. There’s a note on my fridge that I try not to look at. “Well, yeah, just calling to say hey. Hope Dad is well. Tell him I’ll try to call later. Talked to Mom lately?” I leave long messages. I rub my forehead. “Well, bud, just give me a call back sometime, whenever, doesn’t matter. You can tell me about that girl, Erica. Prom is soon, right? All right, well, I’ll talk to you later, then. Give Dad my best.”

I lean forward and slide my phone across the table. I want a drink.

I have cleared a space on my counter between the sink and the fridge. One of the CDs I bought yesterday is playing over my stereo. My oven, which I have used twice (give or take) since living here, is on. The corner store hadn’t been crowded when I went down earlier this morning. I now have two unopened packs of gum in my home.

Aaron couldn’t meet for lunch, something about going out with his work friends. He’s always working, up in that ad agency. “The deodorant won’t sell itself, Harrison,” as he tells me. “I have to con the masses into buying it, you know.” He uses deodorant in his example; in actuality, he does ads for many things. It’s a better job than my freelancing. Photography and the occasional article don’t count for shit. Jake didn’t call back last night, which is a shame, though not unexpected. We’re six years apart—I may as well be a stranger. I added another glass to my sink’s collection. Never listened to the CDs, which is why they’re playing now.

I did call Hannah, which surprised me. I stared at the note on my refrigerator for a long time. CALL HANNAH, it said. Says. It still says that. So I stared and thought and drank some wine and thought some more and finally called. Piece of cake. Three rings and I hung up. Finished the wine and went to sleep.

My laptop is open on my table. I haven’t been able to get anywhere on this article I am writing. Researching. Writing and researching, whichever. I’ve written nothing, which is the point. But my oven is on, and I am cooking for once.

I am baking a cake, which isn’t unexpected (though it is unexpected). It isn’t unexpected because after remembering my conversation with Aaron, I could not shake the idea of cake, which is stupid (and perhaps unexpected) because it’s just cake. But somewhere between finishing the bottle of wine, calling Hannah, and drinking something with vodka, I decided that cake was a good idea. If nothing else, it is something to do while I wait for sudden inspiration to write my article for me.

I want to call Hannah again.

This thought is singular and inescapable, like it has its own gravity and has torn a hole through space in my kitchen. I am staring at my oven and all I can think of is Hannah. I am baking a goddamned cake because I want to talk to Hannah. I wonder how Freud would diagnose this. Pent up sexual frustration, probably, which is fairly true.

I take the cake out to cool. I did the toothpick trick to make sure it was done. It’s a chocolate cake. I don’t like chocolate cake, but it is Hannah’s favorite. I have it in my head that I am going to make her a cake and win her back, though every cell in my body is laughing at me because of this. A guy who bakes is sensitive. My cells are crying in hysterics now. But I am calm because this could work. Music still plays on my stereo, though I’m not really hearing it.

I set the cake on the counter and step into my bedroom to grab my phone. No one has called, not even Jake. It’s 3 o’clock. I’ve wasted most of the day, again. My article is unwritten. Aaron said a while ago that he could get me a job with his company because “People who are good with words do well in advertising.” I’m not so sure that I’m good with words anymore. There’s an unopened pack of gum on my cramped desk. I take a piece.

I remember being down in Atlanta a couple years ago, sitting with Hannah on a sidewalk, late at night, because we were tired and lost after seeing some concert, and we couldn’t find where we’d parked her car. It was comical, thinking of it now, the two of us just sitting there beneath a streetlight in a city we didn’t know, wondering where her car was. I remember being worried, though not for myself. That was a good moment, my being worried for her. That was development. I remember her head on my shoulder.

The cake hasn’t finished cooling, but I flip the pan over onto a plate and let it fall. A good majority of it sticks to the pan. Half is on the plate, looking like crags and peaks of chocolate bread. There’s nothing in my sink, because I cleaned the wine glasses earlier today. I’d forgotten about doing that. I look at the crags and peaks of my flat chocolate-cake mountain, and it’s obvious that the thing is ruined. I sigh and set the plate in the sink.

I consider calling Hannah anyway. If she answered, it’d be easy to explain the last few weeks. It’d be easy to explain myself, and she’d listen because she always did. I look at the half-mess of cake sitting in my sink. The note on my fridge tells me to CALL HANNAH. I set my phone on my table. I’m not going to call, and if I did, she wouldn’t answer. She hasn’t answered in weeks.

I turn on the faucet and let the water soak into the cake. I tip the plate vertically, sliding the soggy mess into the sink. I force it into the drain, and it feels like mud.

Things Brought In With The Tide (shortened)

2009-12-22T19:35:00.002-05:00

This is the previous post, but shortened to 500 words--the original was 658. I'm thinking of submitting it to a 500 word story place thing, so this is my attempt. I think it holds up well, even missing 25% or so of its original length.

He stood on the beach and watched the waves drag filth onto the shore.

He’d left his sunglasses in the car and had to rely on an old St. Louis cap to shield his eyes. He squinted into the sunset and tried to ignore the waves lapping at his toes and wetting the bottoms of his jeans. He’d been here for some time; everyone else had left. The water was cold and made him shiver.

Seaweed patterned the wet sand, sometimes accented by the smooth, pale limbs of deserted driftwood. He saw trash in places. It was comforting to think that so many things loose and lost at sea could be returned by something as precise and mechanical as the tide. Chance aided by structure--there was still an order to things.

He knelt and lifted a shell out of the sand, felt the grit rough upon his fingers. The shell was almost blue and little patterns ran across it, like waves seen from a plane flying above the ocean. He threw the shell out to sea. After a time, it too would be returned to the shore, perhaps whole, perhaps as grains of fine blue sand.

Standing back from the encroaching waves, he walked up the beach, the sun at his back, his shadow disfigured against the sloping dunes. He found the path again with little effort.

He stopped at the parking lot. She sat Indian style on the hood of his car. The rest of the lot was empty. He sighed, looked around. She was supposed to be gone, too.

“Hey, Harrison,” she said. She extended her legs and slid off before standing by the driver’s door, her left arm at her side, her right one across her stomach to hold the other at the elbow. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was sunburned. She had put her other clothes on over her bathing suit.

He could still hear the waves. If he turned around, it would take only a few moments to run into the water, and then he could swim out until he was loose and lost in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do but be caught in the tugging of a tide that would eventually carry him back to shore.

She shifted on her feet and hugged her chest. He looked at her, still squinting, though he no longer knew whether from the hours spent on the beach or the falling darkness. He realized his hands were in his pockets, and that made him notice the chill in the air. A breeze blew up off the shore and he saw her shiver.

There was nothing to say. He walked to her and put his arms around her, held her close, rested his chin on her head as her arms hooked together around his back. They stood like that as the sun disappeared into the ocean and the waves continued to return the things that had been lost at sea.

Things Brought In With The Tide

2009-12-22T18:27:00.003-05:00

Here's something from the old blog; I'd forgotten about it, and I like it. (658 words; see above post for reference/explanation.)

He stood on the beach and watched the waves drag filth onto the shore. 

He’d left his sunglasses in the car and had to rely on an old St. Louis baseball cap to shield his eyes. It didn’t work very well. He squinted into the sunset and tried to ignore the waves lapping at his toes and wetting the bottoms of his jeans. He’d been here for some time, long after everyone else had left. He hadn’t yet found a reason to leave. The water was cold and made him shiver. 

Seaweed lay in intricate patterns along the wet sand, sometimes accented by the smooth, pale limbs of deserted driftwood. He saw trash in places. It was comforting, to him, to think that so many things loose and lost at sea could be returned by something as precise and mechanical as the tide. It was chance aided by structure. It made sense. It showed him that there was still some kind of order to things. 

He turned his head and saw his shadow stretched out long behind him, cast onto the dunes and hardy reeds that grew there. He didn’t see much else. This beach was quiet and very much alone. 

He knelt and lifted a shell out of the sand, turned it over in his hands, felt the grit rough upon his fingers. The shell was almost blue and little patterns ran across it, patterns that looked like waves seen from a plane flying above the ocean. He threw the shell out to sea. After a time, it too would be returned to the shore, perhaps whole, perhaps as grains of fine blue sand. 

He’d been here long enough. Standing back from the encroaching waves, he walked up the beach, the sun at his back, his shadow now before him and disfigured against the sloping dunes. He found the path again with little effort; it wasn’t too dark, yet. 

He stopped when he reached the parking lot. She sat on the hood of his car, Indian style, leaning against the front pane. The rest of the lot was empty. She was the only other person there. 

“Hey, Harrison,” she said. She extended her legs and slid off the car before standing by the driver’s door, her left arm at her side, her right one across her stomach to hold the other at the elbow. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face was red from the sun. She had put her other clothes on over her bathing suit. 

He didn’t respond, at first, because she wasn’t supposed to be there. He stood where the sandy path met the concrete of the parking lot, running things over in his mind, thinking but not really thinking at all. If he listened closely he could hear waves on the shore. If he turned around, it would take him only a few seconds to run into the water, and then he could swim out as far as he was able, swim until he was loose and lost in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do but be caught in the tugging of a tide that would eventually carry him back to shore. 

She shifted on her feet and hugged both arms to her chest. He looked at her, his eyes still squinted, though whether from the hours spent on the shore or the gradually falling darkness he didn’t know. He realized his hands were in his pockets, and that made him notice the chill in the air. A breeze blew up off the shore and he saw her shiver. 

There was nothing for him to say. He walked to her and put his arms around her, held her close, rested his chin on her head as her arms hooked together around his back. They stood like that as the sun disappeared into the ocean and the waves continued to return the things that had been lost at sea.

A Poor Attempt at Eliciting Sympathy for Anonymous Deceased Henchmen

2009-12-12T18:32:00.006-05:00

(Note: I only placed the small dashes to clarify the extra breaks; the one-line breaks after paragraphs signify a new paragraph, not a change in topic/mood/whatever as the dashes show. Formatting writing that was originally written on a Word doc can be difficult, so bear with the extra space, please.)

Here is the gist of it all, as close as I can get it: Richard June (henchman) has his neck broken by Pierce Slater (hero) on a cold night in February.

Expository details: Richard June has a wife, Alyssa, and two daughters, Samantha and Ariel (aged eleven and nine, respectively). They live in the suburbs. (The exact city is unimportant.) Richard drives off to work every day and stands guard at a slate-grey complex located a few miles off the interstate. The complex has a large colored sign out front indicating that “Brantley Corp. Is A Great Place To Work!” This isn’t true. In reality, no one works there except for Richard and the other guards. And Brantley. Richard does not like doing what he does, but he does it because it pays well and he likes his house in the suburbs. (His house has three bathrooms—Richard has never lived in a house with three bathrooms.) Richard and Alyssa argue about his work sometimes, but they know that it is best for him to continue as he does. After all, with three bathrooms there is rarely any waiting for a shower in the morning. All four members of the family like that. It’s hard to consider giving up something that the entire family can agree on.

A quick moment of action: To break up the monotony of exposition, here is a brief instance of action. This is not central to the story, nor does it fit anywhere, chronologically or otherwise. It is an example of life on the job.

Night, and there was gunfire. Richard stood over the body, breathing heavily, his gun heavy in his hands, the air weighted with the smell of smoke and blood. Footsteps pounded on the stairs behind him, and Richard turned as a heavy-set guard—Jared Fitzgerald?—entered the hall. He was panting. “What the hell happened?” he said.

Richard’s hands shook. Blood was pooling under the body at his feet. He swallowed, cleared his throat. “I’ll call Brantley. Someone tried to break in.”

The other nodded. “Sure. Good shot.” He left the hall to return to his post. Richard closed his eyes and took a breath. He lit up a cigarette. He took another breath. This would weigh on his thoughts tonight. He hadn’t made a kill in weeks.

Before he took this job, he had assumed that blood would be darker. Against the white floor it looked like strawberry syrup.

Additional exposition: The nature of a henchman is criminal. For this to be a well-rounded story, there needs to be a lawful do-gooder. The one we’ll use is Pierce Slater. He has a history with the aforementioned Brantley, though now there is only bad blood between them. In fact, at this moment Slater is “storming the castle,” so to speak, with the intent to kill Brantley. The reason for his revenge is unimportant—though it probably has something to do with a kidnapped girlfriend/love interest/wife—just know that it is happening. (Side note: Slater is not the intruder that Richard shot in the previous scene. It is Slater who will be doing the rest of the killing—he is the hero, after all.)

To get things moving again, we’ll cut to Slater’s arrival.

Slater approaches the corner, hugging the outside wall, his breathing quiet and controlled. There is a breeze on the night air and enough light from the moon for him to see. He has remained unnoticed so far. He tightens his grip on his pistol and peers around the corner. A solitary guard stands near the building’s entrance, smoking a cigarette and leaning against the wall. His rifle rests on the steps. He coughs and sniffs, wipes his nose with his sleeve.

Slater smiles. This will be easy.

The guard turns his back and flicks his cigarette away. Slater sprints forward, the guard turns, and there isn’t even time for surprise to cross his features before Slater is on him.

He delivers a kick to the guard’s torso before smashing his head with the butt of his pistol. The guard groans and tries to stand straight. Slater head butts him, and the man falls, blood streaming from his nose. Slater grabs him from behind and wraps his arms around his neck in a vicious headlock. He squeezes, and the guard kicks his feet out. He tries to grab Slater’s hands.

Slater grits his teeth and squeezes harder. There is a sudden cracking sound. His legs stop kicking, and his arms fall to his sides. Slater drops the body and walks to the door, which is unlocked. He isn’t even winded.

There are twenty-six guards positioned in and around Brantley’s complex. Over the course of his assault, Slater will kill them all. He will do this without conscience or thought. (Character insight: Though after everything is over, long after he has exacted whatever petty revenge he is there to exact, Slater will find that he cannot sleep. He wakes in the middle of the night in a sweat, neither hot nor cold, just a sweat, his hands clenched and his legs wrapped up in the sheets. He takes to sleeping on the couch so as not to disturb his girlfriend/love interest/wife, though even there he rarely sleeps. He won’t talk to her about his insomnia. He finds his thoughts wandering into the realms of death, and killing, and they begin to dwell there for much of his waking hours. Throughout all of this he does not dream at night, except for a recurring sensation of being suffocated. No images are attached to it. There is only a feeling, forced out during the final moments of the dreams that he does not see, of having no air, and the feeling becomes so unbearable that he wakes, only to find that he has been sweating and that he cannot recall any specific image or nightmare.)

Of course, it is a long-established fact that the hero can (and will and should) do everything in his power to complete whatever his goal happens to be—revenge, rescue, retaliation, whichever—without regard for the rules of right or wrong. It always ends with casualties, though we tend to gloss over these as “collateral damage,” as “excusable.”

Speaking of casualties: If you hadn’t already guessed, Richard June is dead, the first of Slater’s victims, splayed out on the steps to the building, complete with cracked spine (near his skull, one of the cervical vertebrae, probably the second because that is the one that rotates) and crushed throat. His eyes are open, and they stare straight ahead at the overhang above the stairs.

Richard had drawn the unlucky straw earlier that day—none of the guards liked the shifts out front, and the fact that it was February and cold only added to that. There was little sense of camaraderie between them, and no one offered to take Richard’s place. Richard didn’t bother to mention the cold he had been nursing for a week—it wouldn’t have mattered. In the big picture, all the guards would die, anyway, though of course Richard did not know this.

Richard had wondered throughout his life how it would feel when he died. The physical sensations didn’t concern him. He wondered what it would feel like. Would there be some flash of light? Would he see his life in a million-fold spray of images? Would there be anything, or would there be the physical sensation alone and then nothing?

Here is the moment of his death: His arms losing sensation and falling to his sides, his legs kicking out their final pathetic kicks, his throat closing and finally tearing, the cartilage and bone and sinew holding his spine together cracking and tearing apart, shredding his nerves and leaving a traffic jam of misfired signals and crashed synapses. Had he been able, Richard would have gone back and told himself, desperately—angrily, even—to stop worrying about what it feels like to die, because there is nothing to feel, nothing to see, not in that sense; there is only the feeling of dying, of losing oxygen and struggling, helplessly, against whatever tide was sucking you out to whichever dark ocean happened to be waiting.

If we were to revisit Richard’s last real thoughts (the thoughts not about choking and breathing and getting away from this man who has my throat, I can’t breathe, God I can’t breathe), the thoughts before he was struck by nothingness, if we were to pull them out of his head before the neurons completely puttered out, they would resemble the following. (Though here they are out of order and lacking definition; I have pieced together the remnants as well as I could, but thoughts come in flashes and flashes are impossible to hold.)

He only smoked when he was anxious.

Things Alyssa had said the night before had made him anxious. He was afraid the girls could have heard. Yes, they were in bed and it was late, but that didn’t matter.

Sneaking into the hall as a little boy and standing by the large fish tank, casting wavy shadows in its watered-down light, a clear view into the family room where his parents would sit and watch TV, programs he was never allowed to watch—and that was only a part of the fun, watching the TV. The rest came from the thrill of being there, of watching his parents when they didn’t know that he was watching, of outsmarting them in some way. Maybe they had known all along and were just allowing him to have his fun. Maybe he was a failure as a father because he wasn’t aware if his girls were awake or not.

Alyssa was upset about the work again, about Brantley. Brantley needed guards, and Richard was what Brantley needed. It wasn’t always the most honest job, but it wasn’t the mafia (not exactly) and it kept the family secure and

That’s my problem, Alyssa would yell, we’re not secure, we’re never secure, and I hate when you throw that word around. You come home and you’re bleeding and there are guns in our closet, in our closet, Richard, and how long before Samantha or Ariel find them? How long before they start to realize what’s going on? They won’t be children forever, why can’t you remember that?

Samantha turned eleven. Her party was in the park. All her friends and their parents came. The cake was chocolate and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Brantley is yelling about something, about revenge on someone, his old partner. Left him for dead. This is nonsense. I have places to be. Samantha’s birthday is tomorrow and I have to buy the party stuff and order the cake, and Jesus Christ, Brantley, we get it, Slater is an ass. Who is Slater? Alyssa will be worried. I’m not going to be home until late at this rate.

Driving to the mall with all the girls. We’re a happy family again. Samantha and Ariel want toys and clothes, clothes and toys; they’re caught in that age before all they want is clothes and boys. Alyssa wants to compare luggage prices, and I’m here because. Brantley is calling; will I have to turn around? Alyssa is happy, now. I don’t want to take this call.

The first day: Shake Brantley’s hand, firm grip, look him in the eyes. Remember, he’s buying us a house, we’re out of the apartment, we’re out of the city. Firm grip. Look him in the eyes. Long hours Alyssa doesn’t think are worth it. Brantley is younger than I’d expected. Working on the outskirts of town, he says. That isn’t too far. I wonder if I’ll get a new car out of this. Heater’s broken in the Honda. Maybe Brantley would understand if I explained that to him.

It’s cold out here. I wonder if Alyssa smells the smoke on me when I come home. This cold won’t go away. I haven’t been sick like this in months. Brantley asks a lot. How late is it, anyway?

The rest is incoherent. That would be the instant immediately before Slater grabbed him and broke his bones. A romantic view of dying holds that when the moment is there, when death is a step away, one’s thoughts return to loved ones. This isn’t true. Just as Richard June saw no white light or pretty collage summarizing his life, neither did his thoughts return to his family. He thought (if it could be called thinking) only of the terrible pain. Then his neck broke and there was nothing else to think. No thoughts, no sights, no feelings, and there would never be any of them ever again.

A moment from the past: Here is one more image, something to hold. Richard’s thoughts may have been wild and elusive, as are all thoughts, but this is a construct and I will leave you with something clear. It isn’t false. It isn’t fabricated. It is as much a part of Richard June as everything else already presented. I like to think that it is happy.

Richard is by himself on his narrow balcony, his hands resting on the metal railing. It is summer, late afternoon. The city is spread out in front of him. Down, nearly fifteen stories down, he watches people move about, in their cars, on their bikes, on their feet. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He looks at them, taps the pack absently on the bar. Behind him, in the apartment, his daughters watch TV. The door is open and he can hear the nonsense noise of cartoons.

There is another sound, and he turns his head to see Alyssa stepping through the door. She wears her hair short these days. She stands next to him and leans forward, placing her elbows on the railing.

“What do you think?” he says. Her eyes are very blue today, in this light.

“About what?”

“This time next month, we’ll finally be out of here. No more apartment. No more city.” He turns back to the open air in front of them. “No more view.” He shrugs. He taps the cigarettes against the bar again.

“I think it’s what we need. A change.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I am.”

In a sudden moment of inspiration, Richard throws the pack of cigarettes off the balcony. Inside the house, his daughters shriek with laughter.

Keep your eyes open, keep your lids peeled back

2009-10-31T17:49:00.002-04:00

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

We'll see what the weather brings.

UPDATION

2009-10-15T14:06:00.002-04:00

Posted the most current version of Not Our House. Technically only my first revision on it; there will be more in the future, to be sure.

Working on a new story. It'll be completely different what I have been writing as of late (Not Our House as an example of what I have been writing as of late). I'm going to try to tell one with no dialogue, with distant characterization. More telling a story, and it's going to break/go around some rules. Not "rules" I suppose, but it's going to be a little different.

I was told recently that the first thing that moves in a story is the focus. That will not be the case with this piece; I'm going to purposely go around that.

It's going to be fun, to say the least. I'm looking forward to writing this one.

Long weekend ahead. This is good.

Not Our House, revision #1

2009-10-15T13:58:00.003-04:00

Nighttime wanderings, and we ended up in a house that wasn’t ours.

My eyes were on her all night, this girl named Kat I had met the other day. She had short, dark hair and a ring in her lip, circling the lower left. She smiled a lot, curling her mouth in a slight, knowing way. Her fingers were long and slender, and she danced them along flat surfaces when she thought, shaking a silver bracelet on her left wrist. I’d heard her telling Eric that she’d been wearing it since she was a kid.

Eric, he suggested the house. He knew the Roebucks were out of town because he cut their grass when he wasn’t telemarketing. (That’s what Eric did—he made phone calls from his couch. Dropped out of school to do it because it paid a lot and he could live at home. “Gotta find myself, Harrison,” as he’d told me.) We were in his neighborhood and we were stoned out of our minds—“we” being Eric, Kat, Jamie, and myself. Jamie was the girl with Eric, and she knew Kat somehow from somewhere—I think from college—but I hadn’t been listening during introductions.

Dead quiet, this house. We crept around to the back, quieter than mice, than crickets without wings, quieter than the house. Jamie tripped and we had to stop and breathe hard and deep to keep from laughing out loud, and we stood there for a while because everything was funny, and Jamie nearly falling into a hydrangea bush was almost too much.

Eric shushed us, placed a finger to his lips in a grand gesture before shaking his head. I had to squint my eyes to see everyone clearly.

“Okay, okay,” Kat said. “Shh, yes, okay. Stop making that face, Eric!”

Jamie kicked at the hydrangea. “Piece of shit bush.”

“Don’t do that,” Eric said. He shifted the backpack slung over his shoulder, checked to make sure everything was still inside.

I kicked the bush. “Yeah, fuck Bush.” Kat snorted, held her delicate fingers to her mouth.

“Seriously, let’s go,” Eric said, motioning toward the gate. We followed, and I couldn’t get the Scooby-Doo theme song out of my head.

“What are you smiling about?” Kat said.

I paused, looked around. “Jinkies. Like, wow, Scoob.”

Jamie turned around. “Be quiet,” she said. She seemed nervous. I nodded and waved her on.

Finally at the back door after creeping onto the deck and making a game of dodging birdfeeders in the yard. Eric grabbed the key, though I couldn’t see from where, and he thanked the “security of suburbia,” which meant nothing at all.

Then we were in the door and in the house and standing silently because no one knew what to do. We stood in the kitchen, and I could see everything well. That puzzled me because it was night. But then I saw the light coming from below the microwave, a bright, insistent yellow, and that made sense, because people always left those stove-top lights on. My family always had, at least. The place was clean. Spotless, even. The curtains and the placemats matched, or were of a similar style: little red apples and green stems along some artsy brown background with swirls and splotches of color. Very fall, very autumn, very appropriate. The kitchen had an island and tiled floor. I took my shoes off to feel the cold of the tile, and the others followed suit.

“You sure no one’s here, Eric?” Jamie whispered. She hugged her arms around her waist.

“Of course. They’re gone until Tuesday.” Eric gave her a little hug and kissed her forehead. “Let’s find the TV, shall we? Ed mentioned a couple weeks ago that they’d got a new TV, a plasma. Bastard buys a new TV and only pays me twenty-five to cut his grass. It’s in here.” We followed toward the family room, peering here and there along the way. I opened a door in the kitchen.

“The pantry!” The others turned and looked at me. “I found the mother lode. This pantry is huge.” It was one of those closet pantries, the kind that rested under the stairs and sloped down where the steps sat above it. I flicked on the light switch, was greeted by far too much food.

Eric scratched his head, paused and ran his fingers through his curly hair a few times, savoring the feeling, I guess, like I was doing with my toes on the tile, scrunching them up and relaxing them, shifting my feet and finding new cold spots to stand on. “I’m not hungry yet,” he said.

“Me either,” Jamie said. She grabbed Eric’s hand. “Let’s not eat their food, okay? I want to watch TV.”

I glanced at Kat. She was staring at the pantry as if willing the food to come to life and dance around the room in some bizarre recreation of Beauty and the Beast. She stepped into the pantry and grabbed a small Tupperware container of cookies. “Cookies?” I said. “Good call.”

She gave me a small smile before continuing her examination of the container. She held it lightly, lifting the lid with delicate precision like she was opening a box of grenades. Grenades you could eat. And that wouldn’t kill you. I thought of cookies exploding all over the kitchen.

“Chocolate chip. We’ll save these for later,” Kat said. She stood very close to me, in the cramped space of the pantry, close enough that I could smell her. She smelled good, and I wondered if that was weird, that I noticed. “After you,” I said, motioning to the adjacent family room.

“Thanks,” she said, stepping out. “I’m—” She spread her arms wide and stretched, yawned, shook her head, smiled at me, “—sleepy,” and we joined the others.

Crowded on the couch, the four of us, watching infomercials in high definition and marveling at the glorious uselessness of the products they advertised. Eric was passing around a bottle of vodka, just a small one, enough to keep us buzzing along. There was more in his backpack, and some more weed in there somewhere. Then it was, “Billy Mays, here!” and I didn’t know what he was advertising because all I could think about was how close Kat was and how warm her body felt.

I looked at her through the corner of my eye, saw her fingers twisting and turning in her lap. She seemed engrossed in whatever Billy Mays was saying, but I thought I saw her turn her head ever so slightly to get a look at me. It could have been the flashing television light. I was getting tired of infomercials, although Eric seemed to love watching them, and Jamie loved anything he loved.

Kat turned to me, snapped me out of my thoughts. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“I’m not,” Jamie said, before leaning close to Eric to whisper in his ear. Or maybe she was kissing it. I raised my eyebrows at Kat, who at this point looked like she wanted to go. That was good. I wanted to go. I shrugged. Kat took the cookies off the coffee table and headed out of the room.

“Hey, wait a sec,” I said.

“I’m going upstairs,” she called back.

“Don’t turn any lights on,” Eric said. His arm was around Jamie’s shoulder, and he gave me a thumbs-up. “You kids have fun.” He grinned and pulled Jamie closer. I grabbed the bottle of vodka off the table. The current ad was for The Greatest Vacuum Cleaner In History, if the spokesperson was to be believed. I wondered if Eric would try to order one.

Kat waited for me at the foot of the stairs. I paused, stood next to her, thought of something to say. She took my hand and led us up, and I was conscious of how warm her hand felt, how small it was. At the top, she pulled me into a room and closed the door.

Kat threw herself on the bed and sighed, a heavy, contented sigh, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. The room was dark, but not too dark. A nightlight was plugged into the wall, casting shadows all around. Kat reached over and turned on the lamp next to the bed. There was apple wallpaper near the ceiling, a strip that ran around the room. This family had some sort of apple or autumnal fetish.

“I hope these are good,” Kat said. She opened the container as I sat on the edge of the bed, thinking very quietly in the back of my head that perhaps Eric was right and we shouldn’t be turning lights on in the house, because weren’t the owners supposed to be out of town? Of course, a lot of houses had those light timers, but who really used those anymore. A lot of houses? I shook my head, tried to clear my thoughts. I remembered the vodka and took a swig.

“Here,” Kat said. “One for you, one for me.” She leaned back on the pillows and took a bite. The pillows had fruit designs on them. Probably apples.

“Why are we even eating these up here?” I asked.

Kat rolled her eyes. “Do you want to be downstairs when Eric and Jamie start going at it? I don’t think so.” She wiped at crumbs on her shirt.

I nodded. “Good call.” I still sat near the edge of the bed. I wanted to lie down next to her, but that would be weird. Wouldn’t it? She seemed to sense my hesitation, and she smiled.

“Lay down next to me,” she said, patting the bed. She turned to her side to look at me, and as she shifted the Tupperware fell off the bed. “Oh, shit,” she said. “The lid was off.” She leaned over to grab it, her chest hanging off the bed. “Hey, Harrison, grab my legs.” She giggled. “I can’t reach them, they fell under the bed. No, wait, under the side table.”

I grabbed her legs at her calves. “Ow, don’t squeeze so hard.”

“Oh, sorry.” I loosened my grip. Her legs were strong, toned. I could tell even through her jeans. I imagined taking the jeans off, sliding them down her athletic legs, those runner or soccer player or lifeguard or something legs. I shook my head, glanced at the vodka and sighed.

“S’okay. Help me up, I got ‘em.” I pulled her back onto the bed and toward me. She turned around onto her back, positioned so that she was looking directly at me, so that I was leaning over her. “You’re cute,” she said. There was a pause as our eyes locked. I noticed that her eyes were blue like mine, only more so, and that her left ear had three piercings while her right ear had only one, just one silver stud.

Then her face froze up, and her eyes widened, and her breath came fast and labored. I backed off toward the edge of the bed, looking down and around. Had I been sitting on her? “Kat, are you—?”

“I can’t. Breathe,” she said. Her face was red and her lips were curled in a grimace, and all I could think was that her smile curled like that, except no, not like that, not pulled back to show all her teeth, straight teeth, pretty teeth.

“Kat? Kat, look at me. Sit up, here, sit up.” I tried to pull her to a sitting position, lean her against the pillows. Her breaths came faster and shorter and her face was red, really red now, and I could have sworn that it was swelling and inflating like a balloon, a red balloon with short dark hair and a lip piercing, though for some reason it wasn’t popping even with a piece of metal puncturing its skin. Her fingers twitched and her hands opened and closed like she had no control of them, and then her arms started to shake, and I saw the bracelet on her arm, shiny and silver, a flat metal rectangle engraved with words connecting the silver strands, and suddenly I realized what it was. I thrust her arm close to my eyes and read the metal tab, and my heart beat faster, too fast: An allergen bracelet. Kat was allergic to peanuts, to fucking peanuts, and she was the worst kind of allergic there was. Was there something in the cookies? Wouldn’t she have known?

I jumped off the bed and backed against the wall, holding my hand to my mouth as my mind raced around. Kat groaned from atop the bed and her face was swollen and red and her neck was splotched with color and her eyes

(blue like mine)

were shaking in their sockets. “Hang on a sec, Kat, just hang on a sec.” I bolted for the door, threw it open and yelled for Eric.

No answer. I raced down the stairs. “Eric, sonofabitch, Eric, answer me!”

“What, Harrison, Jesus Christ keep your voice down, what?” He met me in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, wearing his boxers. He saw the light from the open room upstairs. “Why is there a light on? No one is here, man, we can’t have fucking lights on!”

“Eric, something’s wrong with Kat, I think she’s having an allergic reaction to something. She’s got a bracelet on and it says she’s allergic to peanuts, to goddamn peanuts and now she’s red and her face is swollen and I don’t think she can breathe, Eric, she can’t fucking breathe.”

“Oh,” Eric whispered, then ran upstairs.

“Eric,” I called. “What do we do? We can’t call the police from here, this isn’t our house, we broke into this place and we’re fucking high and—”

“Harrison?” It was Jamie. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with Kat?” She was only wearing a shirt. The light from the now-muted TV played odd blue shadows on her across the hall.

I stopped halfway up the stairs. “She’s having a reaction to something, I think it’s peanuts. We were eating cookies from the pantry and I guess she didn’t know what was in them and now she’s having a seizure or something and—”

“What? Harrison, she’s really allergic to those, they could kill her.” Jamie ran toward the stairs. I ignored her, ran into the room.

Eric had Kat straddled and was pressing on her chest, putting his ear by her mouth, pressing on her chest. I used to know CPR, years ago in the eighth grade. Took a course because—there was no reason, someone was offering it for free and I took the course because I could. My friend’s mom, that’s who was teaching it, my best friend’s mom, she was a certified nurse or something like that, and she was teaching CPR for free. CPR, I didn’t know how to do CPR. I froze at the door, watching Eric press and listen and breathe.

Jamie, crying behind me. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Call 911,” Eric said. “I don’t think so. Call 911. I don’t have my phone. Harrison, where’s your fucking phone?”

“Eric, we can’t do that, we have to get her out of here.” Jamie tried to interrupt me but I cut her off, talking louder. “This isn’t our house. They can’t come here and find us here, Eric. It’s not our house. We broke in here, Eric.”

“Fuck you, Harrison,” Jamie said. She ran downstairs.

Eric was pushing harder and faster on Kat’s chest. Her arms were loose, her hands still. “Eric,” I said. “Eric, we can’t. We have to get her back to my place, or your place, anywhere but here, Eric. Can’t you see that?” I shook my head and took a breath, closed my eyes and opened them. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Shut up, Harrison, I don’t know if she’s okay, okay?” He breathed into her mouth again. “I can’t tell.” He was talking to himself. “I can’t tell.”

Jamie, downstairs somewhere, crying into her phone. Did she even know our address? Eric, pushing and listening and breathing. Kat was still. God, she was still.

The lamp was bright in the corner of the room. I sat in the doorway and leaned the back of my head against the frame, quiet, my hands shaking and my heart pounding. Eric sat back from Kat. He was breathing hard, and he ran a shaking hand through his hair. He turned and looked at me. His eyes were red and hollow. The house was silent but for the sound of crying, the sound of breathing, the sound of stillness.

Driving At Night

2009-10-12T18:36:00.002-04:00

Oh, the tales we have to tell

Constellate

2009-10-11T12:36:00.002-04:00

The stars are hidden behind the clouds, though I could never see them anyway.

Pot Kettle Steam

2009-10-05T19:40:00.003-04:00

THINGS ARE COMING TOGETHER.

meaning that there is progress
meaning that there is continuance
meaning that there is a method
meaning that there is something to be said
meaning that there is no more hot air
meaning that there...are...plural statements of inconsistency
meaning every other thing that anyone ever thought

Because things are coming together. Gradual, glacial, glowering?

Moving on moving on moving on

I'm making progress and we'll see the seeds sown soon, and then we'll have a tree and I'll cut the tree and burn its wood and build a fire that will engulf this place and turn it into black, black dust.

I'll leave you with the final thought.

An Evening With Pickups and Horses

2009-10-04T12:29:00.004-04:00

I saw Silversun Pickups Friday night at a small venue in Gainesville called...The Venue. They put on an amazing show. There is something intimate about club shows--I last saw these guys at Lollapalooza, and as crazy as that performance was, this one destroyed it. I suppose "destruction" and "intimate" aren't exactly similar terms, but close quarters make for a certain type of familiarity.

I was probably eight feet from the band, and at one point was an arm's length away from Brian Aubert, singer/guitarist extraordinaire.

Speaking of Brian Aubert...the guy is a great frontman. Near the show's end he climbed onto the amps, walked his way over the stage and onto the adjacent bar/drink stand (all the while thrashing his guitar, mind you), ordered a shot of whiskey, took the shot, walked back over, and continued the show as if nothing had happened. The crowd was going nuts. Such a great moment.

So, if ever given the chance...go see this band.

Now, on to other music. The opening act was this great two-piece called An Horse. Kate Cooper sang and played guitar and Damon Cox pummeled the drums. Think the inverse of the White Stripes (and go ahead and switch the competence on their respective instruments, as well). I was floored by this Australian duo. From the opening guitar chords and through to the last note, I was captivated. Earnest vocals, catchy riffs, clever lyrics...recipe for a great show.

Here is a youtube clip of one of their songs, titled "Postcards." Their album is called "Rearrange Beds." It has a creepy album cover, but don't let that sway you. (Note: The album shown in the youtube clip is actually their debut EP, so don't confuse the two.)

Enjoy!

Clear Blue Cups

2009-09-27T16:39:00.006-04:00

I am sweating coffee and breathing light.

Shit, ya'll

2009-09-23T15:33:00.002-04:00

Not quite sure about what, but that's no big deal. That sentence makes no sense.

I have two stories in the pipeline. One is about traveling to the city. It will be sad. The other is about being famous and dealing with...shit, ya'll. It won't be sad, but it will be Deep. (Maybe.)

There are other stories. There are always other stories.

I think I am going to start making corrections to Not Our House today. It went over well (quite well, actually; my teacher saved it for last, and I don't think that was unintentional), but there are still things that need to be fixed. A couple minor, a couple major. Anyone with a major food allergy want to give me some advice?

My writing has been trapped in a rut, recently, a rut embodied by young 20-somethings, or even younger. The college crowd. I used to never write about this sort of stuff. I used to always write about out-there things, bizarre ideas, nothing relating to myself. And now for some reason I am trapped in a reality that is too close to home. I need to branch out!

So that is what I will do. Make like a tree and...branch out. Yeah.

Final thought:

I don't know what I will do with my life. That scares me.

This Song Has Stolen My Life

2009-09-22T01:16:00.005-04:00

Julian Casablancas, "11th Dimension"
(He is the lead singer and the songwriter of The Strokes, in case you're wondering)

First single off of his forthcoming solo album Phrazes for the Young, due October 20th.

Listen and be happy.

In other news, I should have an updated version of "Not Our House" up fairly soon. Initial feedback was positive. Changes need to be made, but I had already anticipated all that was brought up. Glad everyone was on the same page.

New stories are in the works, too. Hope to have those done soon.

Back to the City, back to the lights.

Not Our House, first draft

2009-09-13T13:02:00.002-04:00

Nighttime wanderings, and somehow we ended up in a house that wasn’t ours.

My eyes were on hers all night, this girl named Kat I met the other day. Kat for Katie or Kat for Katherine, I didn’t know. Didn’t care. She had short, dark hair and a piercing in her lip, a ring circling the lower left. Laughed a lot, and her lips curled in a slight, knowing way when she did. She had long, slender fingers that danced along flat surfaces when she thought. She wore a silver bracelet on her left wrist, and I’d heard her telling Eric that she’d been wearing it since she was a child.

It was Eric who suggested the house, suggested our going into it. We were in his neighborhood and I was stoned out of my mind. So were we all—that would be Eric and Kat and also Jamie, who was the girl with Eric. She knew Kat somehow from somewhere, I think from college, but I hadn’t been listening during introductions. A weekend home from school, back on the circuit in the hometown and roaming the streets just like the old days, common practice for Eric and me in our prime. He had the brilliant idea of the house, said he knew the owners were out of town. He cut their grass when he wasn’t telemarketing from his couch. That’s what Eric did, made phone calls from his couch. Dropped out of school to do it, because he made a lot and lived with his parents. Gotta find myself, Harrison, he’d told me. Maybe someone I talk to will tell me the secrets to life. Then he smiled. I’ll offer them a free stay in Bermuda in return, after they give me their email address and fill out an online survey.

Dead quiet, this house. Silent as mice, as a cricket with its wings cut off, we crept around to the back, quieter than the house. Jamie tripped and we all had to stop and breathe very hard and very deep to keep from laughing out loud, and we stood there for a good long while because we were laughing at everything, really, and Jamie nearly falling into a hydrangea bush was almost too much.

Eric shushed us, placed his finger to his lips in a grand gesture and shook his head, all the while trying to hold back a laugh from erupting.

“Okay, okay,” Kat said. “Shh, yes, okay. Stop making that face, Eric!”

Jamie kicked at the hydrangea bush. “Piece of shit bush,” she said.

“Don’t do that,” Eric said. He shifted the backpack slung over his shoulder, checked to make sure everything was still inside.

I kicked the bush. “Yeah, fuck Bush.” Kat snorted, held her delicate fingers to her mouth and stifled a laugh.

“Seriously, let’s go,” Eric said, motioning toward the gate. We followed, and I couldn’t get the Scooby-Doo theme song out of my head.

“What are you smiling about?” Kat said.

I paused, looked around. “Jinkies. Like, wow, Scoob!”

Jamie and Eric turned back to us. “Be quiet!” they said, and then we all stopped and laughed, hands over our mouths, stood again for a good long while because everything was just too goddamn funny.

Finally at the back door after creeping onto the deck and making a game of dodging birdfeeders in the yard. Eric grabbed the key, though I couldn’t see from where, and thanked the “security of suburbia,” which meant nothing at all.

Then we were in the door and in the house and standing silently because no one knew what to do. We were in the kitchen, and I noticed first that I could see everything well, and that puzzled me because it was night, wasn’t it? But then I saw the light coming from the microwave, a bright, insistent yellow, and that made sense, because those microwave lights were always on, and that light showed me how clean the place was, and I noticed the curtains and the placemats matched, or were of a similar style: little red apples and green stems along some artsy brown background with swirls and splotches of color. Very fall, very autumn, very appropriate. The kitchen had an island and tiled floor. I took my shoes off to feel the cold of the tile, and the others followed suit.

“Let’s find the TV,” Eric said. “Ed—that’d be Ed Roebeck, this is his house we’re in, how nice of him to let us stay (Eric motioned for us to say thank you, and we did: “Thanks, Ed,” sounding oddly somber)—Ed told me a couple weeks ago that they’d got a new TV, a plasma. Let’s check that baby out.” We followed to the family room, peering here and there along the way. I opened a door in the kitchen.

“The pantry!” Eric and Jamie and Kat turned and looked at me. “I found the fucking mother lode. This pantry is huge.”

“Me either,” Jamie said. She grabbed Eric’s hand. “Let’s go, I want to watch TV.”

I grabbed a granola bar of some kind and handed it to Kat. “Healthy munchies, I guess.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m—” She spread her arms wide and stretched, yawned, shook her head, smiled at me, “—so out of it right now,” and we joined the others.

Crowded on the couch, the four of us, watching infomercials in high definition and marveling at the glorious uselessness of the products they advertised. Eric was passing around a bottle of vodka, just a small one, enough to keep us buzzing along. There was more in his backpack, and some more weed in there somewhere. I was done with that stuff; I’d never been a big smoker. Then it was “Billy Mays, here!” and I didn’t know what he was advertising because all I could think about was how close Kat was and how warm her body felt.

I looked at her through the corner of my eye, saw her fingers twisting and turning the granola bar, not keeping still, expending nervous energy. She seemed engrossed in whatever Billy Mays was saying, but I thought I saw her turn her head ever so slightly to get a look at me. It could have been the light. I was getting tired of infomercials, although Eric seemed to love watching them, and Jamie loved anything he loved.

A few minutes later Kat elbowed me in the side, and my stomach dropped for just a second. I turned to her, saw her eyes were wide, her lips twisting to a grin. She put a finger to my lips, then moved her eyes toward Eric and Jamie. I followed her gaze, then closed my eyes in silent mirth.

Eric and Jamie were, of course, enjoying one another’s company a bit too much, too much for me, at least. I didn’t even hear them over the TV. They were oblivious to Kat and I. “What do we do?” I mouthed.

Kat mouthed something back, though all I caught was ‘fuck’ and ‘out.’ I stood up and grabbed Kat’s hand, pulled her to her feet as she grabbed the bottle of vodka, and we stumbled out of the room. Just in time: on the way into the kitchen, I looked over my shoulder and saw Jamie’s shirt come off.

I led Kat out of the kitchen, each of us shaking with laughter. I kept walking because the kitchen was too close and I wanted to get her alone, because the alcohol and general environment had me feeling far too confident.

I found the stairs and we walked to the second floor, quietly now and no longer laughing, though I noticed she hadn’t pulled her hand out of mine; if anything, she was holding it tighter. I stopped at the top of the stairs, unsure of where to go. She pulled me into a room and closed the door.

Kat threw herself on the bed and sighed, a heavy, exhilarated sigh, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. The room was dark, but not too dark. There was a nightlight plugged into the wall, casting shadows all around. Kat reached over and turned on the lamp next to the bed. I noticed apple wallpaper near the ceiling, a strip that ran around the room. This family had some sort of apple or autumnal fetish.

“God, I’m starving now,” Kat said. She opened up the granola bar as I sat on the edge of the bed, thinking very quietly in the back of my head that perhaps we shouldn’t be turning lights on in the house, because weren’t the owners supposed to be out of town? Of course, a lot of houses had those light timers, but who really used those anymore. A lot of houses? I shook my head, tried to clear my thoughts. Saw the vodka bottle and took a swig.

“Fuck my thoughts,” I said.

“What?” Kat said. She tossed the granola wrapper to the side. “Oops, I missed the trash can.” She leaned over, her chest and torso hanging off the bed. “Hey, Harrison, grab my legs.” She giggled. “I can’t reach it, it fell under the bed. No, wait, it’s under the side table. What was this thing, it was so good.”

I grabbed her legs at her calves. “Ow, don’t squeeze so hard.”

“Oh, sorry.” I loosened my grip. Her legs were strong, toned. I could tell even through her jeans.

“S’okay. Help me up, I can’t find it anyway.” I pulled her back onto the bed and toward me. She turned around onto her back, positioned so that she was looking directly at me. “You’re cute,” was all she said. My mind blanked, and I noticed that her eyes were blue like mine, and that her left ear had three piercings while her right ear only had one, just one silver stud.

Then her face froze up, and her eyes widened, and her breath came fast and labored. I backed off toward the edge of the bed, looking down and around. Had I been sitting on her? “Kat, are you—?”

“Kat? Kat, look at me. Sit up, here, sit up.” I tried to pull her to a sitting position, lean her against the pillows on the bed. Her breaths came faster and shorter and her face was red, really red now, and I could have sworn that it was swollen and inflating like a balloon, a red balloon with short dark hair and a lip piercing, though for some reason it wasn’t popping even with a piece of curved metal puncturing its skin. Her fingers twitched and her hands opened and closed like she had no control of them, and then her arms started to shake, and I noticed the bracelet on her arm, shiny and silver, a flat metal rectangle engraved with words connecting the silver strands, and suddenly I realized what it was. I thrust her arm close to my eyes and read the metal tab, and of course I was correct: An allergen bracelet. Kat was allergic to peanuts, to fucking peanuts, and she was the worst kind of allergic that there was.

I wanted to laugh hysterically. I jumped onto the ground and looked frantically for the wrapper of the granola bar, because that must have been what set it off. I couldn’t find it and then Kat groaned from atop the bed and I gave up my search and looked at her again, saw her face was swollen and red and her neck was splotched with color and her eyes

(blue like mine)

were shaking in their sockets. “Hang on a sec, Kat, just hang on a sec.” I bolted for the door, threw it open and yelled for Eric.

No answer. I ran down the stairs. “Eric, sonofabitch, Eric, answer me!”

“Eric, something’s wrong with Kat, I think she’s having an allergic reaction to something, to a granola bar, she’s got a bracelet on and it says she’s allergic to peanuts, to goddamn peanuts and now she’s red and her face is swollen and I don’t think she can’t breathe, Eric, she can’t fucking breathe.”

“Oh,” Eric whispered, then ran upstairs.

“Eric,” I called, running after him. “What do we do? We can’t call the police from here, this isn’t our house, we broke into this place and we’re fucking high and—”

“Harrison?” It was Jamie. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with Kat?” She was only wearing a shirt. The light from the TV played odd blue shadows on her across the hall.

I stopped halfway up the stairs. “She’s having a reaction to something, I think it’s peanuts. Look, just stay there for a sec, okay?”

“What? Harrison, she’s allergic to those, how did she eat peanuts?” Jamie ran toward the stairs. I ignored her and ran into the room.

Eric had Kat straddled and was pressing on her chest, putting his ear by her mouth, pressing on her chest, all the rotes of CPR. I used to know CPR, years ago in the eighth grade. Took a course because—there was no reason, someone was offering it for free and I took the course because I could. CPR, I don’t know how to do CPR. I froze at the door, watching Eric press and listen and breathe.

Jamie, crying. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Call 911,” Eric said. “I don’t think so. Call 911. I don’t have my phone. Harrison, where’s your fucking phone?”

“Eric, we can’t do that, we have to get her out of here.” Jamie tried to interrupt me but I yelled over her. “This isn’t our house. They can’t come here and find us here, Eric. It’s not our house, and I’m not going to jail!”

“Fuck you, Harrison,” Jamie said. She ran downstairs.

Eric was pushing harder and faster on Kat’s chest. Her arms were loose, her hands still, for once. “Eric,” I said. “Eric, we can’t, we have to get her back to my place, or your place, anywhere but here, Eric. Can’t you see that?” I shook my head and took a breath, closed my eyes and opened them. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Shut up, Harrison, I don’t know if she’s okay, okay?” He breathed into her mouth again. “I can’t tell.” He was talking to himself. “I can’t tell.”

Jamie, downstairs somewhere, crying into her phone. Did she even know our address? Eric, pushing and listening and breathing. Kat was still. God, she was still.

I sat down in the doorway and leaned the back of my head against the frame, quiet, my hands shaking and my heart pounding. The house was silent but for the sound of crying, the sound of breathing, the sound of stillness.

Transference of Energy on a Cold Day in February

2009-09-02T00:49:00.003-04:00

For the brief moment when their hands touched, the cold was not so biting, the clouds not quite so grey.

Call it coincidence that her taxi had pulled off a mere fifteen feet in front of him; call it happenstance that she had tripped, wrapped in her long red coat and for all the world appearing like a wounded soldier falling in a war; declare it a twist of fate, if you must, that he stepped near enough to grab her before she hit the ground.

Snowflakes were swimming in lazy descent, too light to really add to the slushy banks in the street. The cold was there, but the city was moving too quickly to be frozen in place.

His gloves had been in the left pocket of his navy jacket. He was cold, yes, but the gritty numbness kept him awake, made him less likely to trudge forward on cocooned autopilot--it happened often, the droning: Bundled people walking with their heads down, hands clothed in leather or fur or cloth and buried in pockets, their minds only occupied with the singular thought of staying warm. He hated that. There was too much to see, nobody but him to notice it.

He was aware, in the back of his mind, of her taxi door opening in front of him, roughly fifteen feet forward and on his right. The stark red of her coat registered as odd against the grey and white and black of the city's muted backdrop. Ten feet away and she was standing, closing the taxi door, gloves clenched in her left hand. He saw her as he saw the boy to his left, huddled in the lee of the doorway to Gerry's Book House and bouncing from foot to foot to stay warm, all the while holding his fists together at his lips and breathing, transferring the warmth from his lungs. Her presence was no more significant than that of the couple across the street, visible behind her taxi, exiting a bakery and laughing and smiling and walking arm in arm, he leaning close to say something, nothing, in her ear. The nuances of the city were most awake inside the cold.

Her taxi door was closed and she turned to step onto the sidewalk, he was next to her now, and her foot slipped on the melting ice. An exclamation, "Oh!" and she was falling.

He would have done the same for anyone else, he later thought. She fell and he stepped forward and reached out and caught her. Not a storybook rescue: It was rough and unplanned and stiff in the snow and their bundled coats. She grabbed his hand, a startled look still forming on her soft features. Her cheeks were red, though whether from the chill or embarrassment it was hard to tell.

At the touch of her hand he felt suddenly warm, which he would later attribute to a lapse in the wind or the opening of the door to the bookstore. The warmth made no sense; her hands were as cold as his. Yet there it was, creeping down his arms and through his chest.

She stood up, regained her balance, brushed her hair out of her face. Glanced at the hand he had grabbed. He saw that she was flexing it, opening and closing unconsciously. He didn't quite know what to say, asked, "You okay?" Looked at his own hand, shook his head.

"Yes," she said. "Thanks." A distracted smile. "Lost my balance there." She fidgeted with her gloves.

"The ice can be slick," he said. They were each pointing out the obvious. "Well, watch out the rest of the day, yeah?" The taxi was gone now. He hadn't noticed its departure.

"Of course." A pause, a silence, only the breathing of the clouds.

He pointed down the street. "Well, I'm off this way, so..."

She nodded. "I'm the other way. Thanks, again, really." She made a movement to walk, paused again, her hand still opening and closing, unaware.

"Have a good one, then," he said, smiled halfway.

"Same to you."

The sky was as grey as it always was in February. He remembered his gloves in his pocket. He pulled them on, then tucked his hands into his pockets, trudged ahead, his shoulders and arms pulled in close. He ducked his head, noticing for once how cold the city could be.

Spinal Tap

2009-08-11T23:54:00.004-04:00

I would have this straightened out
Placed in order, sensible:
Books on a shelf in a library
Ordered by author and subject
Meticulous, patterned, simple to explain.
And by reaching out, your hand
Would brush the spines, nondescript
And wrapped in plastic covers
To protect the words inside.
But my arrangement would mean nothing
Because you would stand
And gently rest a random finger
On the only one that held secure
The waning interest in your eyes.

That New Brew

2009-07-22T16:48:00.000-04:00

I'm writin' new shit. Aw yeah, I'm feeling it now.

Confection

2009-07-13T21:15:00.004-04:00

I'll keep it short and sweet like ice-cream in September, forgotten on the front porch and dripping in the sun.

Photographic Italic

2009-07-12T23:56:00.004-04:00

I decided today (meaning this evening [meaning a couple of hours ago]) that I want to start taking pictures.

Yes, yes, everyone takes pictures, how stunningly original of you, Chase. But seriously. I want to take real pictures. Really cool pictures. Pictures that carry artistic weight. Pictures that don't need italics to set them apart--if said pictures were text, that is.

And yes, I know that it's "not that simple" (I quote that because I'm sure there are a collective group of you out there saying "Well, Chase, it just isn't that simple.") I know this. I'll pay heed to your warning--there's no need to rub it in my face later and collectively say "I told you so!"

If anyone could just run out there and grab an expensive camera and get instant arty photos, well, arty photos wouldn't be very arty. I doubt I even have a knack for photography. But that doesn't stop the stupid allure of it all from sucking me in. Way back in 11th grade, I wanted to take the Creative Photography class my school offered. Of course, the school didn't realize that I was an Important Student (Imagine that! The nerve), and of course they didn't schedule me into that class--instead I got Guitar 1 (which is an entirely different story/post/discussion).

Well, I guess three years has been enough for that photodesire to build up and finally come rapping at the door to my inner-head, insisting (and quite loudly, I might add) that I go get a camera and learn how to take really cool photos.

It's not that simple!

I know, I know.

But it's intriguing. And it's the thing on my mind.

Now I just need a few hundred dollars (or whatever a fancy SLR camera costs) and someone to tell me what SLR means. And how to use one.

Contact Through City Lights

2009-07-10T00:06:00.002-04:00

So I haven't approached the blog or the writing from this angle in quite some time.

Out for the night, home tired, thinking hazy; hazy for no reason I can think of, it's not like it is late. Interesting people, as usual; it's fun to meet someone new. Seeing old friends again is nice.

I'm alternating in my head how I want to write this; it's hard to decide between rhythmic 'verse' or prose. Or I could simply spew my thoughts in a long-winded sentence that goes nowhere and runs on and repeats itself, like the way that I am organizing my thoughts at this moment, if this could even be called organization, because I don't really see it as such.

Strange relationships with nightlife.

It feels so much easier to write exhausted. I'm having trouble getting the words because I'm too awake.

There isn't much to say, apparently.

Blue city lights and white-washed ferries. Walks over the river and photos flashed in dark. There isn't much else to see.

I suppose this is making contact, although with what I cannot say.

Not Expensive Starbucks Coffee

2009-07-01T15:27:00.002-04:00

It is hard to think with music ringing in your ears. Not that I've been anywhere with music--no concerts or anything like that. I am blasting (okay, not blasting) an awesome three disc set of Television's Marquee Moon, Fleet Foxes' self-titled, and Wilco's (The Album). I'm about five songs into the Fleet record. Good stuff. I can't believe that I didn't particularly care for these guys when I first bought the album...reminded me of My Morning Jacket too much. (Not that that is a bad thing, just unoriginal. I've since seen the error of my ways: Fleet Foxes do vocal harmonies better than the Beach Boys.)

Oddly enough, it's not that hard to write about what I'm listening to. Trying to spew out a story would probably be difficult. (Which is why, I think, I was having so much trouble writing last night. Curse you, music!)

I'm not really sure what this update is even about. Is this interesting to anyone?

It's fun to think that if I ever become famous, these little blogs I have will become treasure troves of information that my multitude of followers will pore over for information. Chase, in his youth! Egads!

My cup of coffee is cold. Not Expensive Starbucks Coffee (although that shit is gooooood, I don't care what anyone says--if I lose cred for liking Starbucks, so be it), but the home-brewed variety. Three cheers for me not paying for coffee!

I will say, it's nice to be writing again. If this counts as writing. I suppose it is. After all, I'm putting letters together to make words. That's writing. I guess the only thing I'm lacking is soul.

LET US SEE

2009-06-30T22:20:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure what we're looking for, but surely it will be an adventure! We'll peek under covers, sneak around corners, glance through shelves, peruse the spaces left by the fair-weather fans at a Jacksonville Jaguar game. Climb over couches and start up car engines, sound off air horns and blow whistles with a shrieking intensity that rivals the emotions of a high level celebrity divorce case.

We'll call in the media and they'll spin the truth so far around that a tapestry could be woven from the disparate threads.

Dance across the room!

I stood at the curtain and pulled aside the fabric, slowly, my hands still, my heart shaking as thoughts reverberated and pounded a staccato pounding. There was sunlight outside. The trees stood. The grass grew. Drops of dew hung on the windows, clinging on for life, enveloping each other as they slowly slid down the crystalline surfaces.

We're back to the seeing, whatever it happens to be. Adventure, yes, how could I forget? I saw nothing in the curtain, nothing hid behind its gossamer weaving, too light to have been woven by the media.

The table is set for dinner, but no one eats. The steaks are growing restless and finally consume each other. Perhaps if someone had been there....

Throw your computers into the trash, I think we're making headway!

Three years later, and no one knows any more. Twelve years to go.

Keep calling, maybe the Adventure will answer, and we'll be able to see. Let Us See, indeed. I'm never privy to the things we're contemplating, I'm never aware of what we're looking for.

%

2009-05-07T00:17:00.005-04:00

Found out a kid I went to school with in Ohio was killed. Accident, suicide, they're not sure. Kinda hits close to home. Wasn't really friends with him, but in a class of 135 that went through elementary, middle, and high school together, you know people. Small world. This is two kids from my old school that have died like this recently; one was a bad car accident a few years ago, if I remember correctly.

So it goes?

Running Commentary

2009-04-29T23:50:00.003-04:00

It is 11:50 as I start to write this, and I am caught within the last day of my first year of college. I'm not sure if today, 11:50 p.m. is my last day, or if tomorrow is. Tomorrow I leave and check out, but today was my last exam.

So which is it?

The exam signifies the end of classes, and checking out signifies campus leave-taking. Which is more real?

It's really irrelevant.

11:52, what's up with you?

I still need to gather a few more things together, and there is a bit more to pack. I sold three of my textbooks back to the school today for a total of $86 in cash. That was nice.

TEA wrapped up tonight, and we had our release party. I read a poem

(I
I is a word that embodies the self
It is who you are
You are I
Though if written that way
It seems you are me--
A strange paradox,
Because I am I
And never you)

that I wrote and kinda butchered it. I know, right? It's not long, and hell, I have it committed to memory.

Ah. Speaking in front of a crowd through a microphone, yeah, forgot about that one.

11:55, you still alive?

The room is a little chilly right now, and I already packed away my long pants. I suppose I could get them out but...where's the fun in that? Hm, perhaps there is fun in not being cold. Hace frio.

The posters are off the walls and it's a little dreary in here, if well lit. Sterile, like a hospital. Not a home. But a relatively fun place, nonetheless.

11:58, take care to enunciate.

I might go running at a Bolles track meet on Friday. Might not. We'll see. I'll probably work on Saturday, probably Sunday, too. Maybe both days, more likely just one, but which is up in the air. My life this summer will be filled with Publix. How exciting.

I'm ready for the summer, I think.

Lookit that, midnight, hold tight.

Distilled, as in vinegar or vodka

2009-04-26T20:52:00.003-04:00

Hard to believe that another year of education has passed me by. Harder to believe that my first year of college has fallen by the wayside. Talk about moving too fast--I'm barely holding on.

I don't have a lot to say, I just thought I'd get that out there; everyone else is thinking it, so why not write it down? It's terrifying to know that in a matter of years I'll be completely on my own. Within ten years, I'll probably be married. Hell, I'll probably have a kid within ten. Jesus, a kid. That's unbelievable, scary, frightening, Exorcist-style shit.

Hm. The thought of my own hypothetical child is as scary as a demented girl spinning her head in a full circle and spewing green sludge across the room. Not to mention the hole "possessed by Satan" deal.

Something's not right with that comparison.

My eyes kinda itch. I've had my contacts in too long.
My shirt smells like restaurant (Olive Garden, to be exact). Another shirt of mine smelled like Pizza Hut earlier today.
I'm debating whether to watch 'Yes Man' or read or write something. Any would be entertaining. Writing would be the most productive. Reading the most relaxing. The movie would probably bug my eyes, unless I take my contacts out.

I could study for my impending Spanish final, but who really cares about tests?

Apathy, my friends. Apathy is what makes the world go 'round. Or stay in one place and never progress. Take your pick.

Cold Waxed Paper

2009-04-22T00:01:00.001-04:00

This is an updated version of a story from my other blog (originally owning the uninspired title "Expectation"). Let me know how it is.

I have my hands around Halle’s waist and she kisses me, hard. My thoughts are muddled as we stand in her apartment room. I haven’t been drinking—I haven’t been drunk since Jacob’s party a while ago when he spent most of the night passed out half-naked on his floor.

Halle bites my lip, my heart jumps, my hands clench on her back. Her hair is thick, and I want to lose myself in its familiar scent of mornings spent undressed and clothed in sheets. My leg presses against the bed we fall onto it.

Dim streetlight bleeds in through the window. Her hands slip underneath my shirt and ease it off my body, nails scraping my skin. I pull her shirt up and off and kiss her neck and run my hands across her chest to the straps of her bra, gently tugging the material off her shoulders. Her eyes meet mine for an instant before she kisses me again with an energy that leaves my mind blank except for the recurring thought of how on earth I am here with her.

I reach my arms behind her and wrestle with the clasp of her bra, but she pushes me onto my back and straddles my waist. She pulls her hair from her face and reaches to unclasp her bra, meeting my eyes with a stare that makes the blood rush from my head to my crotch. The bra falls to the floor as she tiptoes her fingers down my chest to my waist, undoing my belt. I close my eyes, she kisses me, and her hands unzip my pants, sliding into my clothes.

***

Jacob hosted parties like it was his job.

“What do you think?” Jacob asked me. “More than last time?” He leaned against his fridge, outwardly calm but failing to hide his excitement from me. He always got excited about parties, and, of course, the bigger the better. His small kitchen was crowded, and a girl danced on a table behind him, her shirt magicked away by the real-world alchemy of 80-proof vodka and masculine attention.

I nodded, sipped my beer. “I’d say so. Another one out of the park.” I patted him on the back and started to walk toward the couches.

“Wait.” He grabbed my sleeve. “You’re not going to toast me on this one? C’mon!”

I rolled my eyes, lifted my bottle, and then grabbed another out of the cooler. “Now, Jacob, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go have a talk with the pretty young lady who, for some reason, is by herself on the couch.”

Jacob followed my gaze and slapped me on the back. “Get that, man! I don’t know her name; she’s friends of a friend, or something.” He glanced back at the girl dancing on the table. She seemed to have no intention of stopping. “I should make the rounds. Duty calls, you know.” He grinned and turned back to the kitchen.

I squirmed through the crowd, nodding to those I knew, forcing a way to Jacob’s ugly green couches. They were great for these parties: no worries of puke stains being visible.
Why isn’t this girl with someone, I thought as I got closer. Her shirt was cut low and left little to the imagination.

“Hey,” I said, sitting down next to her. She turned, gave me a once-over. “Want a beer? This is my best friend’s house, his party and all. Thought I’d say hello. I don’t think we’ve met, my name’s Trey.” I made to stick out my hand, realized I still clutched the beer that I was offering her, and set it next to her.

“Thanks,” she said, snagging the bottle and twisting off the cap. “Hell of a party.” Her eyes were blue, lips red.

I nodded. Her hair might have been dyed; I couldn’t tell. “Here with friends?” I asked.
“Yeah, from class. My friend Claire knows Jacob. She left with some guy—” she waved her hand dismissively “—and my other friends are somewhere out there.” She paused as the staccato beats of some rap song erupted and the living room cheered in approval. Her flowered skirt was short and left most of her long legs bare. I don’t think she noticed or cared.

I’ll have this in a few minutes, I thought.

I opened my mouth to say something, but she beat me to it. “Thanks for the beer. I hate this music, no offense to your friend.”

“Yeah, it never did much for me, either,” I said. “But it’s what the people want.” I raised my drink in mock salute.

“We can not listen to it somewhere else, you know.” She very barely licked her lips. “Wanna get out of here?”

Or now. “Absolutely.” I stood, drained my bottle, and she followed as I navigated the crowd. I looked for Jacob as we approached the door. He was standing on the table with the dancing girl, two cups clutched in his hands. He saw me, said something unintelligible, chugged one of the cups, and pointed. The group of people standing around him cheered and handed him a refill. I waved and slipped out the door.

Within moments she and I were in my car and I was driving too fast, trying to shake off my buzz, maintain conversation during the brief ride to my apartment. Then we were in my room and on my bed, her clothes on the floor and my clothes in a trail leading out the door. I asked her name because I hadn’t caught it earlier, and she panted, “Morgan, it’s Morgan.”

I met Halle the next day.

***

Halle is sleeping. A small lock of hair lies delicately across her face, and I want to tuck it behind her ear. Her breath comes steady, easy; she is the most peaceful sleeper I’ve ever been with. I shake my head and climb out of bed, careful not to wake her. I don’t have time for a shower; sunlight is already reaching through the windows and I have places to be. I reach for my jeans, piled next to a stack of the New York Times. It had surprised me when Halle told me she read it, before revealing in the same discussion her love for modern journalism and mentioning something about The Matrix and its parallels to modern psychological theory. Hook, line, and sinker.

I pull my shirt on, a Beck t-shirt Halle had bought me a few weeks ago at a concert, and when my head pops out she is awake and looking at me.

“Leaving so soon?” she asks, propping her head up with an arm. Her hair frames her face, embraces it gently. She cocks her head. “I like the no-shirt look on you. Get a tan to go with those abs and you’re set.” She winks or something, and I look down, flexing unconsciously even though I’m wearing a shirt.

“Not like you haven’t seen it all before,” I say. “I’ve got some errands to run and a doctor’s appointment; remember, the follow up visit? I needed to stop by the bank, too, at some point. And it’s 12:15 already.” I shrug, raising my hands in helpless acquiescence to the machinations of the world. “I’ll try to fit a tanning bed in there somewhere, if I can manage to remember.”

“Okay,” she says, sitting up. “C’mere, give me a kiss before you go.”

I crawl onto the bed and kiss her, a whispered exchange of breath. I linger for a moment, breathe her in. Her hand cups my cheek and her lips are soft. I pull away and meet her gaze, and her crooked grin catches me. Her eyes take on another life when she smiles. I give her a questioning look.

“You need a haircut,” she says, and I roll my eyes before mussing her hair.

I stand, slip on my shoes. “I’ll call you,” I tell her, and she nods and sinks into the bed and then I leave.

***

I dropped Morgan off at her apartment around one in the afternoon. She handed me a slip of paper with her number, saying, “If you’re ever bored and want to have some fun, give me a call.” She waved and blew me a kiss, closed the door. I drove off, crumbling the paper and tossing it in the back. I wasn’t going to call and she knew it, expected it. That’s the way these things went.

I glanced in the rearview mirror as I waited at a red light, saw the dark circles under my eyes, and blew out a contented sigh. Jesus, what a night. My short brown hair was sticking out, but I—rather, we—had showered that morning, and I supposed I smelled okay. I decided to stop by Jacob’s place to see how he was.

After parking my car on his street, I meandered up to the house, kicking aside beer cans and red and blue cups. Someone’s shirt—man or woman, I couldn’t tell—was thrown over the puff of bushes by Jacob’s front door, and trash littered the small porch. The door was unlocked and I walked inside.

Jacob lay on the floor of his kitchen, very much asleep, surrounded by a night’s worth of drunken revelry. I was vaguely surprised that his house was still in one piece, let alone that he himself was. Bottles and cups were strewn about, most of them empty. Some kid was collapsed over Jacob’s couch. I wondered who else was in the house.

I toed Jacob in the side. “Hey. Jacob. Get up, man.” He snorted and turned over, crumpling cups and soaking his clothes. “Jacob! Get up, it’s—” I peered at my watch “—1:30. Let’s go.” I filled a cup with water and trickled it over his face. He sputtered, coughed, sat up.

Looking around wildly for a moment—I’m sure the eye-level view of chair legs had him confused—he finally saw me and blinked. “Hey. Trey. What—” he coughed. “What time is it?”

“1:30. Party’s been over for a while.” I helped him to his feet, and he wavered as he stood.

He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes as if trying to force them through the back of his skull. “Goddamn. That was insane. Things got crazy after you—oh shit! You left! The girl, uh, I don’t know her name, how was that?”

“You can do the math; c’mon, how long have you known me? I’ll fill you in later.” Reporting sexual conquests was best done when neither party had a headache and when each could think clearly. I’d spill over beers and Madden later, as it had been since high school.

“Yeah, alright, keep it to yourself. I’ve got an imagination.” Jacob looked around, shook his head. “Shit, man, I gotta clean.”

“Yeah, already on it.” I grabbed some bottles off the ground. Jacob nodded at me gratefully.

We cleaned for a solid two hours—I usually helped him with this crap when he threw a party; that’s what I got for knowing him for eight years. There were four people still in his house, two of whom were alive enough to take their cars and leave. Neither of the other two had driven, and before Jacob could ask, I said I’d take them home. “But the rest of the cleaning is yours.”

Couch Boy, as I thought of him, sat in the front seat as Laundry Room zoned out in the back. The ride to Laundry’s house was quiet except for a few slurred directions and one sudden sputter: “My parents are going to kill me!” I dropped him off and laughed as a middle-aged woman clutching very sharp garden shears berated him in the front yard. Couch Boy pointed me to his house; he still lived with his parents, too. Freshman at State, as he told me. Cheaper to live at home than pay for a dorm.

I dropped him off and was halfway down the street when I saw that he had left his shoes in the floor of my car. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

After parking haphazardly in the driveway, I grabbed his shoes and paced up to the door, considered leaving them on the step, and rang the doorbell. What the hell.

Couch Boy didn’t open the door and neither did his parents, which a part me of had been hoping would, if just for the sake of general awkwardness. Instead there was a girl wearing a blue tank top and shorts, probably my age, all dark, red-tinged hair and darker eyes. I blinked. Did I park at the wrong house? She stared at me, eyebrows raised, her finger tapping on the door jam.

“Ah, your brother left his shoes—I think that’s your brother—well, these are his shoes, he left them in my car—brother, right?” I rarely tripped over my words, but this girl had me floored and reorganizing my now-disordered thoughts.

She sighed, turned her head inside. “Eric!” she called. “Come get your shoes! And you better wake up, you’re taking me back to my place.” Eric/Couch Boy leaned into the room, unsure of his footing, and took the shoes from my hands.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. “Halle, I can’t take you, I’m—I’m—” he dropped the shoes to the ground, covered his mouth, and stumbled out of view.

“Fuck,” she muttered, then to me: “Thank you for bringing him home.”

She moved to close the door, but I said, quickly and without really thinking, “Hey, I can take you to your place. I’ve been running people around all morning, it’s not a problem.” Good God, what am I doing.

She paused, frowned, her brown eyes flicked toward the sound of retching coming from a bathroom, and she said, “Hang on a sec,” before walking into the house. I heard muted discussion interspersed with rounds of sputtering and coughing. There was a family picture on a table by the door. Her dad was big.

The coughing stopped and a toilet flushed. She came back into the foyer, grabbed a backpack off a chair, and nodded at me. “Ready when you are. Had to check with Eric, make sure he didn’t get rapist vibes from you.” I couldn’t tell if she was serious.

“Um, no, not me. I’m Trey, by the way,” I said, extending my hand.

“Halle. Eric said you’re nice enough. I almost feel bad—I won’t be able to vouch for him when our parents get back.” Her hand was slim and warm; mine was cold, as it always was. Shaking someone’s cold hand was awkward, and I knew that. Strike one.

In the car I asked her questions, made small talk, tried to pry information from her. Halle humored me and answered. While she was talking I snuck glances at her, noticed that her shoulders were spotted with freckles, that her ears weren’t pierced.

She was a senior at State—“I graduated from there last year!”

She danced and occasionally acted—“I swam and wrote for the newspaper.”

She was completing a psychology thesis—“I was Journalism, minored in Film Studies.”

She lived with her best friend (“We’re almost at the apartment, thanks again”)—“I lived with my friend Jacob during school, but I’ve got my own place now.”

She laughed a lot and asked me things in return. I liked hearing her talk—she had a soft voice, almost sultry, the kind meant for late-night jazz radio. She looked through my iPod and I was astounded at her taste in music. She mentioned that she played guitar and had just learned “Yesterday” by The Beatles, and I imagined her singing it while strumming away and I knew then that I had to somehow stop the car and talk with her more.

“D’you mind if I stop at a Starbucks before your place? I had a long night and all.” Smooth, Trey, she’ll never pick up on that.

“Yeah, go ahead.” There was a moment of storybook awkwardness before she continued, twisting a finger through her hair and focusing on something out the window. “That’s actually a good idea. I could go for some coffee.”

***

I’ve been to the bank and I’ve bought groceries, and I’ve dropped them off at my house and now I’m sitting on a giant sheet of waxy paper in the room of a doctor’s office. I hate these offices because I hate being cold. The sterile atmosphere doesn’t help much, but in the end it’s the fucking cold. I’ve been sitting here for a while—the nurse has already taken my blood pressure, and I feel like I’m thirteen again, getting a sports’ physical or check-up, and all that is left is for me to turn my head and cough.

A few days ago they pricked me with needles and hopefully by today they have run their comprehensive drug/sickness/well-being tests. If they haven’t, I’ll have to be patient, but patience is difficult to sustain whilst trying not to shiver. It’s all for an end, of course: job interviews require more and more these days, so what the hell, I’ll be ahead of the curve and have all this information handy. Can’t hurt, at least.

I’ve counted thirty-six blue items in the room and am looking for lucky number thity-seven when the door opens and my doctor enters, a manila folder in his hands.

I notice immediately that he’s no longer chipper. His fingers tap on the outside of the folder, and his wide brow is furrowed. He sits in his chair and removes his glasses, runs a hand through his thinning, graying hair. He looks tired, and I wonder how I ever could have seen him as energetic and happy. I lick my lips and my foot shakes.

“Mr. Madison,” he begins, before pausing and placing his glasses back on his nose. “Trey. Ah, I’m afraid I have some hard news. You asked us to screen the full range of tests, and…son, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but you’ve tested positive for HIV. The ELISA test picked it up first, and it was confirmed by the Western blot. These are highly accurate tests, and—” he stops and looks at me, doesn’t seem to know what else to say. “I’m so sorry, son.”

I try to register his words, try to imagine him sticking out his tongue and honking his nose, “Just kidding, Trey, it’s a joke!” My breath comes fast and shallow and all I can see in my head is Halle, curled up in her bed, her face pale and lovely, enclosed by twin spills of auburn. I see her and I don’t know what to think or how to act or respond because this must be a joke, some sick and unfunny comedy; it’s not funny and I am not laughing and oh, Halle, please God, no.

“What?” I croak.

The doctor, whose name suddenly comes to me,

(Thompson, it’s Thompson)

sets the folder on the small counter and puts his glasses next to them, apparently trying to be more human without them, because at this point that will really make a difference. He stands and moves closer, not so close as to intrude but close enough as if to tell me, “Hey, I’m here for you,” because at this point that will really make a difference. My hands are sweaty and no longer cold.

“Trey, we have counseling for this, and I know it’s a lot to take in, a lot to swallow. Have you been sexually active lately, have you—”

I burst out laughing and I’m sure I sound hysterical because of course I’ve had sex recently, I pride myself on my ability to have sex, I’ve fucked so many people in the last year that oh, Jesus Christ, Halle, how many times have I had sex with Halle, and suddenly I can’t remember how long we’ve been together, and then all the other names come pouring back into my brain, names I had purposefully forgotten: Morgan, Katie, Anna, Stephanie, more, too many names. Is this really even such a surprise? I’ve been stupid, God I’m stupid, I could have done this to any of them, any of them could have done this to me, and how do I know? Whose fault is this? This is all a mistake—but no, the doctor is serious and for God’s sake, he took off his glasses, they only do that when they’re reporting someone’s death or telling someone they’re crippled or telling stupid kids that they’re going to have AIDS—

Dr. Thompson puts a hand on my shoulder that I don’t feel because my body is numb, and I rest my head in my hands while sitting on the cold waxed paper in the sterile office, unable to get Halle’s face out of my mind, and she’s looking at me and she’s beautiful and I can’t figure out what I could possibly say to her because there is nothing I can say, there is nothing at all.

***

Halle and I sat in the Starbucks, sipping coffee as jazz music played over our heads. She was still drinking hers; mine was gone an hour ago, but I was okay with that. We’d been there for most of two hours, conversation running from journalism to movies to psychology to music and back around again.

“I still can’t believe you play guitar,” I said. “I tried to learn in high school and gave up.”

“It’s not too bad,” she said. “‘Practice makes perfect’ and all that.” Her eyes were focused on mine, and I noticed for the first time the little shards of hazel in her irises. Brown eyes flecked with gems.

I shook my head. “For some of us, maybe.” I grinned at her. “I do play a mean kazoo, however.” She rolled her eyes. I occupied my hands with my empty coffee cup, hoping that my turning of it was less conspicuous than the tirade of butterflies in my stomach. I hadn’t felt those in a while.

“What about you?” she asked. “You get around a lot? Go out for coffee with the sisters of drunk freshmen often?” She smirked, her eyes never leaving mine.

“Not too much,” I said. “I mean, well, you know. Not the drunk part, nothing serious.” I felt my neck flush. Embarrassment? This girl has me tied into knots four different ways.

“Well,” she said. “I’ll just have to watch myself with you then, won’t I? Provided, of course, that you take me out again sometime.”

Neither a question nor a statement; she said it easily, perfectly aware of my response before I had time to consider it. She was running two steps ahead of me and I was stumbling behind, probably missing a foot, trying my best to keep up.

Before I could say anything, she stood and walked to the door, and I scrambled to my feet. “Hey, you’re not even going to let me respond?” I called, following her out.

She turned around and walked backward toward my car, the late sun suspended in the trees above her like a ripe orange.

“You don’t need to,” she said.

And I suppose I didn’t. Halle got in the car and I stood outside it for a moment, my door halfway open, and I realized that I didn’t even know her last name. I wondered what that meant, because with the other girls I had never really cared.

I climbed in and she smiled, and I asked her which way to go.

Quoted text

2009-04-20T14:24:00.000-04:00

I'm finding it near impossible to put words down, except when writing in this self-aware style, a style that doesn't really mean anything, a style that isn't a style but is only a spewed collection of thoughts. What good are thoughts like this? What good does my writing this do? Am I proving a point? Asking rhetorical questions has no point in writing (and neither do parenthetical asides, or so I have been told. I disagree with both points--there is a place for anything in writing, so long as you can fit it well; I'm probably not fitting it well right now, so I suppose it could be argued that this is pointless. I might agree with you). So, I'm left with a crappy rainstorm outside and a lack of brainstorm here. Whoopdeefreakingdoo.
I'd really like a cup of coffee, but I took my coffee machine home. Starbucks is too far (and remember, it's raining. Fuck going outside). I never know how to place periods at the end of parenthetical asides like that. Same goes for "quoted text." It's a word or phrase in quotes, not dialogue...so where does it go? "Quoted text". or "Quoted text." ? I think the latter is correct.
Someone is walking down the hall outside my room with squeaky shoes. Must have been outside, in the rain. Kinda sucks.
This is a large solid block of text.
I should study, I have an exam tomorrow. If I do well on said exam, I might get an A in the class. I I don't do well, I'll get a B. I should study. But will I? That's not rhetorical, I'm honestly wondering.
I finds that I compare myself to other writers I know far too often. I'm never as good as them. Sometimes I am. Sometimes I'm not. I might feel that what I write is as good, but then I go back and look at it agin and I want to burn the pages because they're shit and I can't write for shit.
I don't even have the attention span to write something longer than 20 pages. I lose track of the story. I veer off into bizarre realms that I never intended to visit, and suddenly my story is not what it was and I don't know what to do and I inevitably stop writing it because I feel that it is crap.
Is it crap? I really don't know.
I'm not even 20, is that too young to be a serious writer? Do I have more skills to develop? I fucking better or there is going to be hell to pay, because what else am I going to do with my life? Yay, good for you, an English degree, the most pointless of all degrees. If I was mathematically inclined I'd graduate and immediately get a job designing car parts or working in medicine or creating new technologies or computer progrms. 6 figures, out the door. Fuck, I'll be lucky to make 6 figures after 8 more years of school. I'll be lucky to get anyting off the ground. My choice of education means nothing in today's society. Why even bother? Jesus, why couldn't I want to be a doctor? What the hell is wrong with me, if I was shitty at English and great at math and science, I'm be set for life right now, or on my way there. But now. I got the short end of te stick, the bullshit inclination that means nothing today.
I'm hungry.
I've finished an early re-write draft of my story, the one with the sex and the party. I think it's better than it was. But it's still a story about sex and parties, aka bullshit. Yeah, so it's a different style for me, woopdeedoo. It's a crappy idea. They're always crappy ideas. I have another, we'll see where it goes if I ever get the balls to write it. Probably not. I'm not meat for this. I want this, but I don't think I'm meant for it. Is that a typical process of thought? Statistics would say that it's completely common to not know what to do with your life. Great. I've got the same issues as everyone else. Something odd about being human is feeling that the collective issues are weighing down solely on your solitary shoulders.

26.2

2009-04-20T12:21:00.000-04:00

I was planning to go to class today.

I was even prepared to stop watching the Boston Marathon online--as a matter of fact, I had closed my computer and had gathered my things. And to think there was only 30 minutes left in the race! And it was getting intense! And gah I was so torn about leaving...but class is important, right?

So I leave my room and head for the door. Upon getting outside, I notice immediately that it is raining (fairly hard, mind you).

Screw class. I went back inside and finished the Marathon. Ryan Hall 3rd for the men, Kara Goucher 3rd for the women. Not bad, America.

Now, hopefully I didn't miss anything too terribly important in class today.

Ode to Extraneous Information in Math Problems

2009-04-15T22:53:00.000-04:00

Bob is 12 and Sue is 13. They each have 4 cats. Bob bought an ice-cream cone for $3.27. Sue spent her money on a bag of oranges (which cost $1.75). She then did 64 jumping jacks.

How much more money did Bob spend than Sue?

-----

I was first aware of extraneous information at some point in elementary school. Let's say 4th grade. Up until the 4th grade, math problems were simple: how many quarters are in a dollar? how many minutes are in an hour and a half? what is two plus two? I could do this stuff.

Lo and behold, 4th grade (or whenever it actually was) rolled around and attempted to flip my world over, kinda like what you do to mattresses after you've slept on one side for a long time: get your mom or brother to help you, you each grab an end, you wrestle with the very large cushion and try to finagle it over onto its side, but of course the fan is on and the mattress can't stand on its end, so you must turn the fan off as your brother (or mom) impatiently holds the better part of your bed awkwardly in the air so that the corner you let go is slumping down a bit and generally making it very difficult for your poor mom (or brother) to hold; but then you get back and the fan is off and now things are a bit easier to manage, and after a few minutes of grunting and mild complaining you get the mattress turned over, usually to realize that you left the mattress cover on the side that was the top and is now the bottom, and that the entire flip-flopping exercise was essentially pointless.

Extraneous information. Is it even necessary in math problems? Yes, it is. Here's why:

Were it not for extraneous information rearing its pock-marked and ugly face (it had a huge nose and its eyes were too close together, did you know that?) in the 4th grade, no one would ever be ready for calculus.

Whoa, whoa, hold the phone--calculus? You're making an awfully large jump here, am I sure I heard you correctly?

Yes, yes you did--and you didn't "hear" me, because I'm not talking. I'm typing.

If people hadn't learned to ignore the number of jumping jacks Sue performed or the number of cats Bob owned, if they hadn't developed the keen frustration-quelling senses that are cultivated when dealing with the extraneous information section of 4th grade math, if they hadn't stared in dumb frustration at their math books (the kind with a colorful cover on the front and pictures of children on the inside, one of whom was always confined to a wheelchair), then they would never have developed the patience to handle calculus.

Calculus (any of its forms, really. Calc 1, 2, 3...take your pick!) could be nerve-wracking. It could be infuriating. It tried its best to flip your world upside down (remember the mattress?).

But thanks to 4th grade and the unnecessary information that everyone had learned to deal with and sift through, calculus was a breeze. We could handle it.

You might argue that the parallels aren't there, but you're wrong. (Sorry.) But, you say, Calculus is vectors and rotations and derivatives and integration!

You'd be correct in stating that.

But "vectors and rotations and derivatives and integration" translates to "very, very annoying." And guess what 4th grade's extraneous information translates to for a 4th grader? You're quick! "Very, very annoying."

Deal with one and you can deal with the other.

Thanks to all of that unneeded and unwanted info, I was able to pass calculus, a form of math that I will never, ever need again--and you can thank English degrees for the latter.

Comedy Is Underrated

2009-04-15T00:18:00.000-04:00

Saw Demetri Martin tonight, for free, in the O'Connell Center (or The O-Dome if you're a local or a college hoops fan). Guy is freaking funny. My butt got sore after a while, but c'est la vie. Good comedy: I laughed, I didn't cry, we all made merry and that was that.

In other news, I'm still bouncing around some story ideas; okay, not "some," really. Mainly just one.

Well, I guess there are a few. Hm. One that I am currently entertaining, how about that.

The idea is (vaguely) that one day every single woman that a man has loved over the course of his life pops up at the same time around him. He wakes up and BAM, they're all there, from preschool crush to current wife. And they're all the age at which he knew them. I like the thought of taking "normalcy" and adding a bizare twist to it; we'll see if I can actually write it okay.

Ever had V8 Fusion? Good shit. It's how I get my veggies, so don't hate.

Bed is calling, or, more specifically, my book.

Digging A Hole

2009-04-14T00:58:00.000-04:00

Down the rabbit hole, you know. I'm venturing out again into the magical blog-world, the blogosphere, whatever they call it.

My first blog (this, if you would like to see it) had become a bit too juvenile--or maybe it had always been that way. That's what I get for starting it in high school, right?

Big man on college campus, now. Times have a-changed and etc and etc.

Anyway, I'll try meandering in this section of the internet for a while, see where it gets me, see what I find, see what finds me.