The lady, the hole and the dead zone desire.

I haven’t done any of it, K. Since I went into the phantasm.

I feel the tip of the shadow pulling through my chest. Its asking me to get in and it wants me there like gravity to the heavy heavy black and purple- spreads through the center of my vision like an undulating bruisy ink pool. I’m changing channels and the audio is chopping on a talk show, I can make out the faces but I’m dyslexic to them. The colours in them (their suits their hair and eyes) drone, but their voices are shrapnel in ultrasound, radiating through a slowly oscillating fan. There is no more, just a slow idea… just a feeling of being a cog. I might have been there, working in the machine for years; I think this is most likely.

Napolean and Groucho Marx

Tom:  You’re the kind of friend that’ll never acknowledge I’m the man I wish I was.

 

Jim:  You’re a nice guy, you’re just not as funny and smart as you think you are.

 

Tom: That’s fine, I think I’m so hilarious that if --for arguments sake-- I’m falling short of my own assessment, I’m still doing quite well.  It’s really about confidence, see?

 

Tom: You’re not confident, you’re delusional.  You think you’re one of these great men from history.  Humility can go a long way you know?

 

Jim:  Strategically, humility is only good at getting you in the door; once you’ve got people’s attention you’ve gotta show them you believe in yourself.  And who are you to talk about humility anyway?  In the privacy of your own home you’re the greatest self-promoter I know.

 

Tom: I’m just having a laugh when I sing my own praises.  I’m the best at video games among my low-life friends, I’m not Napoleon or Groucho Marx.

This is an old one.

I don’t care what anybody says, Andrew Sugarman is a true genius.  Such a genius in fact, that I’m more than a little hesitant to embark on this story about him for fear that, not only will my fictionalized version of him fail to live up to his real life genius, but that I’ll also end up having created a disgustingly clichéd version of genius indeed.

            Ignoring my levelheaded concerns about my limitations as a writer, I guess the place to start this story is with Andrew Sugarman driving down Main Street on his way to the Grocery store where he works 14 hours a week.  Andrew has worked here for 6 years and has refused every opportunity given to him to advance within the company.  Some might believe this tendency of Andrew’s to be ambitionless and lazy but I’m more inclined to believe Andrew just has better things to concern himself with than money.  Like right now for instance, Andrew is concerning himself with the piece of lettuce stuck between his teeth.  It’s important to note here that Andrew is typically a very cautious driver and his distractedly digging around in his molars for lettuce is very much uncharacteristic; in fact, I’d say it’s indeed indicative of some really big shifts going on in his head, shifts that Andrew himself may not yet be aware of.   

 

            Which brings us to David James; David James isn’t so much a genius.  My apologies to David but I’m sure he’d be the first to agree he’s not Nobel Prize material.  He is however a genuinely good person with good opinions and a great ability to get along with people from all walks of life.  Right now David is late for work, he’s riding his new bike on his way to his new job.  David’s never been the kind of person to think too far ahead in life, but right now he and his wife Carmen have a baby on the way and this is something he can no longer keep ignoring. 

There are a lot of things David still wants to do with his life; just the other night he got in a fight with Carmen because she found a very revealing list he’d written detailing his many outlandish aspirations.  Particularly noteworthy to Carmen were David’s desires to visit a brothel in Amsterdam and to compete in a mixed martial arts tournament (that’s the kind of fighting where there are essentially no rules and its participants invariably end up with cauliflower for ears.)   David did his best to defend his secret desires as mere musings but Carmen left the argument feeling her baby may end up with a father who isn’t through being a child. 

            In the back of David’s head he knows this is true, he loves Carmen dearly, passionately and without reservation but he’s felt this way about quite a few women.  There was the lovely miss Robin Kraft who David was madly in love with and who after a year of enthusiastic fornication declared abruptly that she was much keener on sex with girls, this left David shattered; there was Eleanor O’Connor who David used to call Ellie O., she was just a phenomenal girl who people used to tell David was, “way too young for him” and was, “self destructive and manipulative.” These comments never seemed to faze David much; he’s never cared what other people have thought of his girlfriends.  In fact it’s the one area in which David has always been free from other people’s negativity; that is to say David has always known what his heart feels and no amount of nay saying from close buds and family members alike is probable to change his mind about anyone. 

 

So anyway, here we are with genius Andrew plowing down Main Street in his mom’s Volvo while digging for lettuce in his molars; and, all around good guy David James questioning every aspect of his life riding his bike along 4^th avenue.  If you are an attentive reader you might well be able to predict what’s going to happen next; here’s a clue:  it involves a screeching rubber noise and then a loud thud not unlike the sound of a melon being hit with a sledge hammer.  That’s right; the always watchful and careful Andrew Sugarman has smote someone with his large, brick shaped Swedish car.  Andrew’s internal dialogue at this point is quite hilarious and neurotic; you’re just going to have to believe me though because I’m not a mind reader, nor am I a writer who’s up to the task of writing genius.  I can deduce however from having spent many hours in the company of genius, that his thinking right now is somewhere between disgust at the fragility of the human body and profound regret for having caused a fellow creature pain.

 

            The day is crisp, it’s one of those fall days when you can smell the cold; or maybe it’s just dry leaves and fireworks you smell but it’s quite complimentary to the cold regardless.  David James is splayed awkwardly on the dark-colored, solid, bituminous substance more commonly referred to as asphalt and Andrew is standing above him, cursing the fact he put off taking that first aid class for too long.  Nearby, David’s bike resembles a pretzel. “Are you alright buddy?” says Andrew regretting his choice of words but satisfied with his friendly tone. “Do you think anything’s broken?”  Asks Andrew hesitantly; he’s overwhelmingly aware of how David’s clutching his right leg.  “My leg feels pretty bad, I think it might be broken.”  This was the news Andrew had been dreading, “well the hospital's just a couple of blocks from here, if we can get you into my car it’s probably faster than waiting for an ambulance.” 

 

            The ride to the hospital is silent.  It’s really what isn’t said in these kinds of situations that’s important anyhow; it’s like when you take a cab and you wonder if it’s really worth asking the driver about his life, or if you should just sit there in silent acknowledgement of your coexistence.  Things Andrew can tell about David just by looking at him:  he’s not overly concerned with the way he dresses; Andrew sees this as a positive, in fact David’s pretension-free Velcro shoes are akin to a badge of honor as far as Andrew’s concerned.  He can also tell that hygiene isn’t a huge concern of David’s, Andrew’s no prig but he believes that one should -at the very least- give open wounds a small amount of concern; David however, not only seems casual about his injuries, but also blissfully unaware that he’s smearing blood from his arm all over the upholstery of Andrew’s mom’s car.

 

            As they pull up to the emergency entrance of the hospital, Andrew scans the area for someone that looks qualified to help them. 

I really want to end this story with some kind of catharsis on Andrew’s part. I want Andrew to really have felt something significant about life or love and I want David to have been the one that delivered the message.  Unfortunately, life lessons aren’t really the kind of thing you can plan for.  As a writer you can hope that by placing two such dynamic characters in a situation together that life living will ensue; you can even manipulate and man-handle the situation to really force a certain conclusion out of a character. But in the end, fictional characters are a lot like real characters; that is to say, you can’t really predict when life is going to slap them in the face.  Sorry to have wasted your time.  

gotta forget

I have this boy I have to forget all about. I aim to have forgotten him completely by the time I start my new job February 1^st. I’m not sure he knows how much of an impact he’s had on me but, then again, he has a certain power over girls that he appears to be quite aware of. You see, the thing I like about him is he’s been reliable up ‘til now when it comes to comedy. The thing about conversation art is you have to find a partner who can really roll with the punches; you need someone who knows when to hold back and knows when to proceed with caution. Most importantly, you need someone who knows to not take conversation to undesirable places too soon. Anyhow, I guess I was responsible for taking dialogue to a sort of undesirable place with this guy and now everything’s wrecked and I have to forget him. The really unfortunate thing is now, in order to stave off boredom, I have to seek out new-and more often than not insipid-people to converse with in his absence. I have a tendency to make up a lot of dialogues in my head; I like feeling complete control, I like to decide for myself how people respond to each jab, each cue, and how every question takes the conversation someplace new but entirely up to me. Rarely do real life conversations go as smoothly or as hilariously as the ones I make up when I’m bored. However, from time to time I’ll stumble upon someone who’s capable of improving upon themes I present and presents new themes that astonish and excite me. A person like this is extremely rare and, when they also come in the form of an unyieldingly handsome man, this is when alarm bells start to whistle and the old mind starts working overtime trying to conceive of some way to capture this creature, someway to make him mine. Forever and ever.

fat guy/pretty girl

“I’ve recently concluded that I want to be a father”, says a fat balding man to his winsome young lunch companion. 

“The thing is, it’s no longer an option for me to live my life just for me” continues the man as he wipes mayonnaise from his mustache. 

The girl looks perplexed by this unexpected burst of honesty, she wonders how on earth she finds herself eating lunch with people like this and squints her eyes for a moment mentally chastizing herself for passively agreeing to go out with this guy --It’s just lunch she remembers telling herself, it’s nothing serious yet here he is telling her that he wants to have children--she fights her gag reflex as he continues talking, 

“The way I look at it there are only three options one has as a person with a secular view of the world.” 

What the fuck is he talking about? Wonders the girl nearing a state of panic.  She wonders if she’s ethically capable of telling him she’s going to the washroom and then sneaking out the window.

“You can focus your life on your career, which is the most selfish of the three options.  It’ll keep your mind busy but it’s hard to imagine that it will bring you much peace inside.  Without a wife to answer to, a successful career man will more likely than not find himself living a really decadent life; he’ll search for fulfillment in the arms of high-class escorts or lose himself completely to drugs and gambling.”

 

That’s a first, thinks the girl, she’s definitely never been on a first date with a guy who casually brings up the inevitability of single men seeing prostitutes.

 

“The second option is to dedicate your life to your family, I’ve always shied away from this option because I could never see the point.  I’d ask myself, why would I want to bring another creature into such a flawed world?  Nobody asks to be born, we’re just thrown into this crazy zoo with almost no ability to deal with the pointlessness of it all.”  The girl makes a face that a more observant man would take as a cue to change the subject but the man continues,  “I love kids, I love picking them up by their ankles and calling them names. But the trouble with kids is that they become adults; complicated, brooding adults that in the end will probably blame you for not preparing them for the harshness of it all.”

This guy’s gotta be a serial killer or at least a dangerous misanthrope, thinks the girl as she sinks into her chair.

“But you know what? Who am I to question the way things are done? My parents might not have been perfect and I’ve faced my share of disappointments in life and love, but overall, I’ve had some pretty great surprises.  People can be pretty great to each other when you give them the chance.  Things operate pretty smoothly on earth considering no one's really in charge.  I mean there’s no god on a thrown of vapor looking out for us all.  You know what I mean?”  Before the girl can answer the man continues,  “ so I mean why not pump out a few more dirtbags into the world, at least then you’ll have someone to look after you when you’re old.”

The girl swallows and gives in to her curiosity,  “so what’s the third option?”

 

“The third option’s only for the most selfless people in society, the people unlike myself that really want to change the world for the better one brick at a time.  You know, altruist humanitarian types.  And I’m not talking about politicians and diplomats.  I’m talking about people that actually go build huts for African kids, serve soup to the homeless every single day.  Anyway I feel like I’ve been doing all the talking, tell me about yourself.”         

   

New Story

He didn’t know where to take her that might impress her, so he just decided they’d go to Stanley Park.

They walked down from the bus stop at Dunsmuir and Burrard, and he thought about Heather when they passed the statue of the old woman looking for her glasses on Georgia Street.

Trying to ignore and indulge the memory at the same time, he carried on quickly to the seawall past the rowing club, and stopped by the statue of Harry Jerome.

"He died when he had an epileptic seizure, you know."

She didn’t say anything.

"Flashing Christmas lights."

"Who was he?"

"A runner. A sprinter. He held some world records. A friend of a friend of mine. She was there when he died. At a Christmas party."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. Merry Christmas."

They walked on, and when they got to where the totem poles are he took her hand and started running. She didn’t know where they were going, but decided not to resist. He didn’t seem dangerous.

They caught up with a horse-drawn carriage full of tourists. The thing could probably seat about forty people and it was all full up, except for the very back row. He hopped up onto the bench without letting her hand go, and she followed. The tour guide was distracted, pointing out an interesting tree, or the location of an affiliated souvenir stand.

Although the guide didn’t notice them jump aboard, some of the paying customers did. Before they could say anything, he smiled his teeth all over the place and laid a great big lover’s kiss on the girl by his side. When he looked up again, the tourists were laughing and giving each other knowing looks as they turned back around to face the front.

"They were going to give us away, those tourists."

"How do you know?"

He picked at a bit of loose skin on his thumb.

"How do you know?"

"I could see it in their faces."

"I don’t know."

"Anyway, not bad for a first kiss."

"Yeah. Definitely."

The carriage carried on through the park, with the guide droning through his routine, but surely thinking about his brother’s recent car accident or his girlfriend’s developing "friendship" with her coworker or something – anything – more important than what he was talking about.

In the back of the carriage, the stowaways had had their second, and probably tenth kiss when the tour reached the sign for Beaver Lake.

"Oh, this is us!" he said, suddenly pulling away from her and jumping off the moving carriage without much thought for whether or not she would, or could, follow him.

He looked around for the trail among the trees that would take them to this Beaver Lake that the sign promised. As he looked for and found the trail, he heard his date jumping off the carriage with a short sharp yelp on landing, as well as the tour guide making a joke about people abandoning ship, without realising that the joke was really on him.

"This way, my dear," he said, speaking as though this had always been his plan, and as though, for a moment, she really was his dear one.

They strolled down the path, talking about God knows what – music, probably, judging by how they were dressed – and before long, they found the lake and started walking around it.

He was a bit surprised, because it was all a bit beautiful. The lake looked like it could easily be a real one, not man-made. It was all surrounded by trees, with very few people around, which seemed strange after seeing how full the horse-drawn tour was. The weather was ideal as well – overcast but fairly bright, lightly drizzling, and, he felt sure, fourteen degrees Celsius.

He looked at the girl he was with and realised that she was actually quite pretty. He asked her if she’d like to go into the woods, a little off the path. She said she’d be fine with it, and took the first steps into the trees without looking to see who noticed.

She found a spot that was mostly hidden from the pathway. She took off her coat and laid it on the ground, lining up.

Sitting down against a tree she took his hand and pulled him onto his knees and kissed him. It wasn’t long before he reached for her belt, heard some sounds of approval, and carried on until her pants and underwear were around her ankles.

He lifted her feet up and put them either side of his head, with her pants behind his neck, which made them both laugh. He worked his way up until he buried his head between her legs.

After some time and a bit of moaning, he sat up, wiping his mouth with his jacket sleeve. There was a moment of quiet as a seaplane passed overhead. They both looked up at it, then at each other.

He stood up and checked that nothing had fallen out of his pockets, as she struggled to get her pants up.

Once they were both collected and composed, they stepped back onto the path. He walked with her out of the park the same way they had come in, past the statue of the old woman, as far as the bus stop at Denman Street.