She lends herself to me just long enough so that I might pour some nonsense into her ears, fill them up, right to the top until the babble spills out, running down those delicate lobes and onto her tiny shoulders. She’s not listening, but is at least going through the motions, putting on a good show with her little nods and slight shakes of the head, her hms and haws. I’m relentless in my talk, I know, but I like her way too much to entertain any sort of cruel expectations of undivided attention.
Stop.
The incessant clinking of a spoon against the side of a coffee cup finds its way to us from a neighbouring table, and suddenly I’m lost. My thoughts crumble a little here and there, words falling apart, their individual letters fraying at the edges to such a degree so as to render them nearly illegible. Decay. There is decay even there, within my own head, and I’m left with nothing to do but sit back and watch as a sort of ps chic d comp sition h s its w w h the int lectuali n of a th r k
“Hey,” she says.
“Huh? Sorry,” I say, a little stunned. “Think I blanked out there.”
“Tell me about what you’ve been working on lately,” she suggests, lifting the tiny white cup to her deadly red lips. “How’s the writing coming along?”
“Eh,” I say, “It goes as writing does. It looks as though I accomplish so little when the written words themselves are held up against the amount time it took to think them, to log them, to edit them.”
Starting to depress myself a little again, I scrabble for a change of conversational direction, something a little lighter, something a little less severe – but nothing comes up.
“Time,” I say. “It’s a bitch, right?”
She nods and smiles a little, lending herself to me so that I might find comfort in the illusion that someone actually gives a damn. The illusion that someone understands. The illusion that perhaps, just perhaps, I’m not completely alone.
Time. Goddamn time. I think about the last decade and how quickly it slipped by me, which in turn leads to me wondering just how many decades a guy has in him. How quickly would this next block of years fall away? And the next after that? Eighty years seems like a long time until you’re at the end of it.
I get lost in research during my writing, sidetracked to such a degree that I often wind up getting very little done. Immerse myself in stories of lost cities, wandering through the lush foliage around Machu Picchu, or setting off to the underwater city of Kitezh, and the glassy waters of the Lake Svetloyar beneath which it rests. I’ll find myself pondering curious technologies like the seventeen hundred year old Baghdad battery, ancient Egyptian flying machines, or the Antikythera mechanism, a twenty-two hundred year old analog computer discovered in a wreck of the coast of Greece. I’ll read about all of this and can’t help but feel that we’ve done all of this before. Over and over again.
A short block of eighty insignificant years is what we’re given to work with, and there’s this uncontrollable desire to be more than just a blip, this yearning to leave something more behind than just my DNA. I talk and she pretends to listen. To my babble about Teotihuacán, Calakmul, and secret chambers beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza. I talk, and as I do, a crushing wave of nothingness washes over me, stretching all the way from the beginning of time and rushes relentlessly on into the future. I’m speaking into vacant ears, thoughts crumbling away. And she can not understand – because I barely do, myself.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
the smartish few
“Throw yourself into whatever it turns out you’re good at.” That’s what your old man used to tell you with a half-read newspaper open in his lap, and one hand on the television remote, click, click, clicking. An ever present, teetering stack of dog-eared political books rested on the table beside him keeping company with a tottering pile of thick-covered poetry compilations. “You find one thing,” he said, “one thing you’re good at, and you stick with it. Go wherever your passions take you.”
So you did. No-one can argue that. You found you were really good at trying, so you dedicated yourself to that for awhile, trying to make it on your own in the worn out flats of deserted cities around the country, working in the soul-sucking company of better men that you. You tried and you tried. You tried so hard that you very nearly lost your mind. Suffered a collapse of sorts. Committed yourself. Got better.
You then discovered a knack for school, and decided to stay there for a time, haunting the halls of that dusty, echoing sepulchre, listening and learning, memorising and reciting. Stayed there perhaps a little too long with your old man’s words ringing in your ears. “A man’s got to stick with something,” he said. And you tried. God, how you tried. Kept residence in the crypt for so long that you began taking on the lifeless appearance of your fellows. Speaking the words of men long dead. Thinking the thoughts of those same. Writing their words. Got a couple nice pieces of paper for your trouble, and found yourself suddenly outside in the land of the living, blinking in a too bright sun. Drenched in its life giving light.
So now you’ve gone and immersed yourself in your work, accepting new positions, taking more money, doing less work, and really shooting up to the top or somewhere. Double cuffed shirts, platinum cuff links, and seven-fold ties – yes, you sure have become a reasonable facsimile of a successful man. Heads turns when you walk down the street and everyone now knows that you are, indeed, a man on his way up.
And your old man’s so proud. “You’ve really made something of yourself, my boy,” he says, clicking that television remote with one hand, absently leafing through a literary journal with the other. “You’ve really become someone. Just have to stick with it, right?”
And his tired eyes close just for a moment, and for that moment he is asleep and you’re alone with only an idea of a man before you. Then his eyes flicker open and his lips move once more. “Yes, my boy, that’s all a man’s got to do,” he mutters, “find something he’s good at and stick with it. You’ll find happiness and purpose there on that path to becoming one of the smartish few.”
So you did. No-one can argue that. You found you were really good at trying, so you dedicated yourself to that for awhile, trying to make it on your own in the worn out flats of deserted cities around the country, working in the soul-sucking company of better men that you. You tried and you tried. You tried so hard that you very nearly lost your mind. Suffered a collapse of sorts. Committed yourself. Got better.
You then discovered a knack for school, and decided to stay there for a time, haunting the halls of that dusty, echoing sepulchre, listening and learning, memorising and reciting. Stayed there perhaps a little too long with your old man’s words ringing in your ears. “A man’s got to stick with something,” he said. And you tried. God, how you tried. Kept residence in the crypt for so long that you began taking on the lifeless appearance of your fellows. Speaking the words of men long dead. Thinking the thoughts of those same. Writing their words. Got a couple nice pieces of paper for your trouble, and found yourself suddenly outside in the land of the living, blinking in a too bright sun. Drenched in its life giving light.
So now you’ve gone and immersed yourself in your work, accepting new positions, taking more money, doing less work, and really shooting up to the top or somewhere. Double cuffed shirts, platinum cuff links, and seven-fold ties – yes, you sure have become a reasonable facsimile of a successful man. Heads turns when you walk down the street and everyone now knows that you are, indeed, a man on his way up.
And your old man’s so proud. “You’ve really made something of yourself, my boy,” he says, clicking that television remote with one hand, absently leafing through a literary journal with the other. “You’ve really become someone. Just have to stick with it, right?”
And his tired eyes close just for a moment, and for that moment he is asleep and you’re alone with only an idea of a man before you. Then his eyes flicker open and his lips move once more. “Yes, my boy, that’s all a man’s got to do,” he mutters, “find something he’s good at and stick with it. You’ll find happiness and purpose there on that path to becoming one of the smartish few.”
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
queued
Where are you now that I’m in the dark? Another languid notion sets fire to my arm, albeit a weak fire, and I raise that withering limb through the gloom, up to my face, where fingers proceed to kneed at the bread dough flesh of my clammy cheeks. You’re still not here, and the absence would be nearly too much for me too bear – if I were actually capable of caring in this state.
One more, I think, and a new energy flares up from within, sending my other hand groping in the drawer of the bedside table. I withdraw a bottle of pills, wrench open the top, and shake a number loose, feeling them cascade down about the exposed flesh of my chest.
Just one more, I think, frantically snatching up at least five of the little suckers before throwing them into my mouth. Swallow. All good. You’re still not here, and I’m still in the dark. But at least I’m not alone, swimming in a sea of multicoloured pills, tablets, and capsules.
I think I sleep. At some point. I sleep through troubling dreams of eternal absence, and an ethereal existence devoid of companionship and true, no, unfeigned attachment. Even in dreams I am without you.
A shaky kneed wandering through waste high grass along a cold mountain pass, continually weakened by a distinct lack of
what is it?
flare. That fire from within. You’ll wander because you lack direction, and you lack direction because you can not give up this desire for wandering. Feedback loop. Crackling static broadcast out to the stars. Schizoid delusions. Distinct lack of
what the fuck is it now?
a distinct lack of
out with it, man!
self. A distinct lack of purpose plaguing your continued pseudo reality. No bloody idea of who you are, only who you’d like to be. Always the dreamer, you trudge along through the wastes searching for something, anything, that will set your mind at ease.
A shaky need wandering through the waste high thoughts of an overwrought unconscious, growing ever distant, lost in a
no, not again. Can’t you stay on track for even one thought?
lost in a
in a
come the fuck on already!
feedback loop.
I’m awake, and my hand is madly clutching the telephone handset to my ear, and the droning buzz of nothingness on the line gets increasingly louder. I’ve no number to call, so I let the handset fall to the floor where shadows swallow up even the sound.
I’ve no number to call, no-one to talk to, so I swallow a few more pills and wait for the day. Wait for the day, when the sun comes out and life returns to this lonely side of the planet. Wait for the day, when dysfunction moves out and regret moves in. Wait for the day, when I return to my place in this existence, wedging myself into normal just right so that no-one is the wiser.
Where are you now that I’m in the dark? One thought replaces another, perfectly, seamlessly, so that there’s not even an overlap. Only a waking cascade of ideas, burn-through from the unconscious onto the subconscious and outward. Queued. Waiting to be spoken by these sickly lips to your absent ears.
One more, I think, and a new energy flares up from within, sending my other hand groping in the drawer of the bedside table. I withdraw a bottle of pills, wrench open the top, and shake a number loose, feeling them cascade down about the exposed flesh of my chest.
Just one more, I think, frantically snatching up at least five of the little suckers before throwing them into my mouth. Swallow. All good. You’re still not here, and I’m still in the dark. But at least I’m not alone, swimming in a sea of multicoloured pills, tablets, and capsules.
I think I sleep. At some point. I sleep through troubling dreams of eternal absence, and an ethereal existence devoid of companionship and true, no, unfeigned attachment. Even in dreams I am without you.
A shaky kneed wandering through waste high grass along a cold mountain pass, continually weakened by a distinct lack of
what is it?
flare. That fire from within. You’ll wander because you lack direction, and you lack direction because you can not give up this desire for wandering. Feedback loop. Crackling static broadcast out to the stars. Schizoid delusions. Distinct lack of
what the fuck is it now?
a distinct lack of
out with it, man!
self. A distinct lack of purpose plaguing your continued pseudo reality. No bloody idea of who you are, only who you’d like to be. Always the dreamer, you trudge along through the wastes searching for something, anything, that will set your mind at ease.
A shaky need wandering through the waste high thoughts of an overwrought unconscious, growing ever distant, lost in a
no, not again. Can’t you stay on track for even one thought?
lost in a
in a
come the fuck on already!
feedback loop.
I’m awake, and my hand is madly clutching the telephone handset to my ear, and the droning buzz of nothingness on the line gets increasingly louder. I’ve no number to call, so I let the handset fall to the floor where shadows swallow up even the sound.
I’ve no number to call, no-one to talk to, so I swallow a few more pills and wait for the day. Wait for the day, when the sun comes out and life returns to this lonely side of the planet. Wait for the day, when dysfunction moves out and regret moves in. Wait for the day, when I return to my place in this existence, wedging myself into normal just right so that no-one is the wiser.
Where are you now that I’m in the dark? One thought replaces another, perfectly, seamlessly, so that there’s not even an overlap. Only a waking cascade of ideas, burn-through from the unconscious onto the subconscious and outward. Queued. Waiting to be spoken by these sickly lips to your absent ears.
Monday, December 11, 2006
gordian knot
So you decide to drive some evenings instead of walk. Long, black car gliding effortlessly round snow packed streets, while the blue-white exhaust mingles with the breath of frozen passers-by, and the chrome grill grins and growls, pulling up at the stoplight.
You don’t notice the look of desperate admiration squeezed out of the driver of the foreign sub-compact next to you. You don’t notice, and even if you did you wouldn’t care. Above pretence, the car is more than a mere simulation of affluence. Above the rat race, the car is more than a status symbol. Above excess for excess’ sake, the car is more than the embodiment of greed, but is actually the embodiment of you. The driver. The man. The kingfish. You, who everyone else wants to be or be seen with.
Suckers. Red light turns to green, and your foot finds its way, romping on the accelerator, whipping the car into action. Speed doubles and redoubles, and before you know it, you’re cruising at thirty over the posted limit. But there’s no danger here. No. The car has been outfitted with every piece of modern automotive technology. Technology making deadly mistakes nearly impossible. Technology nearly erasing the possibility of driver error. Technology removing the need for driver skill.
So you sit back in the heated, plush leather bucket seat and let the car do the work, this magnificent piece of state of the art engineering. You sit back and you’re comfortable in the fact that you would have to actually try hard to fuck up this ride. Aim it directly at a light standard. Drive it off a bridge. Allow yourself to quietly drift into oncoming traffic.
Leather gloved hands rest easy on the custom steering wheel, and as you’re pulling into campus, you catch the admiring recognition on the faces of a few dozen students. This – this is the type of respect you live for. Not the acknowledgement of empty riches on your drive in from suburbia. Not the bullshit recognition of some fantasy brotherhood of the status quo. Not the mutually masturbatory reciprocal back-scratching of those at the top of the present class system. No. This – this is the only respect that matters.
You pull into your reserved parking stall, and as you do, a shadow falls onto the driver’s side window. The door is opened for you, and a hand is already in yours before you even get out of the car.
“Professor Wilkins?” an eager, young voice asks.
“Indeed,” you say, climbing out of your car, and shutting the door. “And you are?”
“James Levea,” he says. “Professors Duncan and Graham both said I should come and talk to you. Apparently you’re something of an expert on the subjects of myth and modernity?”
The simple recognition of a lifetime’s work. It’s all you want. Right? A young man asks for your help and gains your automatic approval. It’s the way of things these days. Getting credit for cognition. Approval for authority. Identification of influence. It’s more applause than flattery, but more fawning than applause. No. More adulation than fawning. Yes, adulation – that’s the word. Oh. Adulation.
So you choose to drive some evenings instead of walk. And you do so, knowing full well that the very attention you pretend to disregard is the exact same attention you crave. Your money, your importance, is importance gained through intellect. Your net worth is the recognition of your vast knowledge, and your net worth is the universal language of suburbia. An impossibly tight knot of roiling respect and rodomontade.
Yes, the car you drive, the home you live in, the clothes you wear, the life you live are all representations of your mental proficiency. You may deny it, you may pretend to not notice or care about the envy oozing out of those around you, but you can’t lie to yourself. No. You’re too smart for that. You’ve too good a grip on the ideas of myth and modernity.
There’s the crisp thweep thweep of your car alarm as you walk away, teacher and student, side by side. Your car, that beautiful piece of automotive science, is protected now. Protected from those who would seek to steal or vandalise it. Protected from those who lack the mental facilities, the cerebral adroitness, to obtain, honestly, such a symbol for themselves. Protected. The mechanical beast, cosseted, every bit as you are.
You don’t notice the look of desperate admiration squeezed out of the driver of the foreign sub-compact next to you. You don’t notice, and even if you did you wouldn’t care. Above pretence, the car is more than a mere simulation of affluence. Above the rat race, the car is more than a status symbol. Above excess for excess’ sake, the car is more than the embodiment of greed, but is actually the embodiment of you. The driver. The man. The kingfish. You, who everyone else wants to be or be seen with.
Suckers. Red light turns to green, and your foot finds its way, romping on the accelerator, whipping the car into action. Speed doubles and redoubles, and before you know it, you’re cruising at thirty over the posted limit. But there’s no danger here. No. The car has been outfitted with every piece of modern automotive technology. Technology making deadly mistakes nearly impossible. Technology nearly erasing the possibility of driver error. Technology removing the need for driver skill.
So you sit back in the heated, plush leather bucket seat and let the car do the work, this magnificent piece of state of the art engineering. You sit back and you’re comfortable in the fact that you would have to actually try hard to fuck up this ride. Aim it directly at a light standard. Drive it off a bridge. Allow yourself to quietly drift into oncoming traffic.
Leather gloved hands rest easy on the custom steering wheel, and as you’re pulling into campus, you catch the admiring recognition on the faces of a few dozen students. This – this is the type of respect you live for. Not the acknowledgement of empty riches on your drive in from suburbia. Not the bullshit recognition of some fantasy brotherhood of the status quo. Not the mutually masturbatory reciprocal back-scratching of those at the top of the present class system. No. This – this is the only respect that matters.
You pull into your reserved parking stall, and as you do, a shadow falls onto the driver’s side window. The door is opened for you, and a hand is already in yours before you even get out of the car.
“Professor Wilkins?” an eager, young voice asks.
“Indeed,” you say, climbing out of your car, and shutting the door. “And you are?”
“James Levea,” he says. “Professors Duncan and Graham both said I should come and talk to you. Apparently you’re something of an expert on the subjects of myth and modernity?”
The simple recognition of a lifetime’s work. It’s all you want. Right? A young man asks for your help and gains your automatic approval. It’s the way of things these days. Getting credit for cognition. Approval for authority. Identification of influence. It’s more applause than flattery, but more fawning than applause. No. More adulation than fawning. Yes, adulation – that’s the word. Oh. Adulation.
So you choose to drive some evenings instead of walk. And you do so, knowing full well that the very attention you pretend to disregard is the exact same attention you crave. Your money, your importance, is importance gained through intellect. Your net worth is the recognition of your vast knowledge, and your net worth is the universal language of suburbia. An impossibly tight knot of roiling respect and rodomontade.
Yes, the car you drive, the home you live in, the clothes you wear, the life you live are all representations of your mental proficiency. You may deny it, you may pretend to not notice or care about the envy oozing out of those around you, but you can’t lie to yourself. No. You’re too smart for that. You’ve too good a grip on the ideas of myth and modernity.
There’s the crisp thweep thweep of your car alarm as you walk away, teacher and student, side by side. Your car, that beautiful piece of automotive science, is protected now. Protected from those who would seek to steal or vandalise it. Protected from those who lack the mental facilities, the cerebral adroitness, to obtain, honestly, such a symbol for themselves. Protected. The mechanical beast, cosseted, every bit as you are.
Monday, December 4, 2006
old klestehl (anaesthetic)
In the early afternoon, I parted ways with Agamen near the entrance to the old quarter after repeatedly assuring him of my safety, and coercing him and the giant burlap sack of coffee beans into a taxi back to the hotel.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “Trust me, I’ve dealt with worse than common thieves and murderers.”
Agamen peered at me warily. “Well, I do not want to have to go and identify you at the morgue – or what is left of you. Something tells me these people would not stop at seizing your possessions, but would take your body parts, as well.”
I laughed, finding humour in Agamen’s habitual worry, but caught a hint of anxiety in my reflection as Agamen rolled up the taxi’s window.
Of course I would be okay. I was always okay. I had to be. And nothing strengthens a man’s resolve like dropping a few hours in a seedy tavern, so I ducked into a grimy tent in Old Klestehl’s south side and sat down at the bar.
“Your strongest,” I told the barman, slapping a large note down in front of him.
The barman, a dark young man in a crisp, blood red turban, stared at me a moment with black-ringed eyes. “You want strong?” he asked, rhetorically, “I give you strong.”
With that, he spun around, deftly snatching a half bottle of bright green liquid from the top shelf, slamming it down on the bar before me.
“You want glass too?” he smirked.
I nodded and grabbed the grimy glass from him, polishing it on my shirt before pouring a measure of the foul, emerald liquid into it.
The smell was a highly offensive combination of dirt and liquorice mixed with a hint of pine needles and cough syrup, but I lifted the glass to my lips, tilted my head back, and poured the contents down my protesting throat in one fluid motion.
Catching the heckling face of the barman just as my guts started to fight back, threatening to expel the evil liquor from my body, I managed to barely keep it down even while my face started to twitch involuntarily, and my teeth began to chatter. My poor senses, dragged from heaven to hell inside of one day.
“You like?” the barman wryly asked.
“No,” I replied. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Tell me,” he said. “What are you doing around these parts? We’re used to seeing the stupid, the crazy, the—”
“I’ve come to find someone,” I said. “A diviner.”
“Well,” the barman said, “You might be able to find an oracle or a soothsayer or two, but make no mistake – save for our coffee, you will find nothing of the divine here in Old Klestehl.”
“I’ll be fine,” I promised. “Trust me, I’ve dealt with worse than common thieves and murderers.”
Agamen peered at me warily. “Well, I do not want to have to go and identify you at the morgue – or what is left of you. Something tells me these people would not stop at seizing your possessions, but would take your body parts, as well.”
I laughed, finding humour in Agamen’s habitual worry, but caught a hint of anxiety in my reflection as Agamen rolled up the taxi’s window.
Of course I would be okay. I was always okay. I had to be. And nothing strengthens a man’s resolve like dropping a few hours in a seedy tavern, so I ducked into a grimy tent in Old Klestehl’s south side and sat down at the bar.
“Your strongest,” I told the barman, slapping a large note down in front of him.
The barman, a dark young man in a crisp, blood red turban, stared at me a moment with black-ringed eyes. “You want strong?” he asked, rhetorically, “I give you strong.”
With that, he spun around, deftly snatching a half bottle of bright green liquid from the top shelf, slamming it down on the bar before me.
“You want glass too?” he smirked.
I nodded and grabbed the grimy glass from him, polishing it on my shirt before pouring a measure of the foul, emerald liquid into it.
The smell was a highly offensive combination of dirt and liquorice mixed with a hint of pine needles and cough syrup, but I lifted the glass to my lips, tilted my head back, and poured the contents down my protesting throat in one fluid motion.
Catching the heckling face of the barman just as my guts started to fight back, threatening to expel the evil liquor from my body, I managed to barely keep it down even while my face started to twitch involuntarily, and my teeth began to chatter. My poor senses, dragged from heaven to hell inside of one day.
“You like?” the barman wryly asked.
“No,” I replied. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Tell me,” he said. “What are you doing around these parts? We’re used to seeing the stupid, the crazy, the—”
“I’ve come to find someone,” I said. “A diviner.”
“Well,” the barman said, “You might be able to find an oracle or a soothsayer or two, but make no mistake – save for our coffee, you will find nothing of the divine here in Old Klestehl.”
Friday, November 17, 2006
favourite waitress
I don’t need another admirer. Slobbering drunks, squandering their miniscule paycheques. The calculated arrogance of wannabe kingpins. Ignorant frat boys rehearsing for a lifetime of buffoonery. So easy to drop these people into tight little categories. No, I don’t need another admirer. Not here. Not them. Not now. Not ever.
A waitress hears things. A lot of stupid things. Oftentimes, not very nice things. Piggish remarks from loutish losers in their one nice shirt. Their going out shirt. You can spot it as soon as they walk in, all stiffened gait and awkward poses. Soon, one beer turns to six and the loud-talking begins – and everyone’s a winner, then.
“Hey, sweetheart – ‘nother round here?”
Sweetheart. I’ll never play sweetheart to any guy who would wear his sunglasses indoors. I toss him a nod, and—
“What time you off, anyway?”
“An hour after close,” I say, hurrying to scoop the empties from the table.
“You busy later?”
But the desperate words are spoken to my back as I rush away to the next batch of washouts. I don’t hear him when he calls me a cunt – or at least I’ll pretend I don’t this time.
To the bar now with a tray full of empty glasses drained by empty people. Finding humour, I’m mentally checking off all the things these guys do wrong, ignoring the Five Tips For Picking Up Your Favourite Waitress:
1. Don’t be a drunken idiot – I see enough of these. Stand out by not standing out. If I have to pick you up off of the floor, tell you to put your pants back on, or clean up your puke, you are getting anywhere with me. Seriously. You know what they say about first impressions, right? Well, I’ll tell you right now that you’ll do best to just not make one at all – let the losers around you be the ones to highlight your strengths, making you look good.
2. Compliment. Don’t tell me I’m hot – I already knows this. It’s my job. You’ve got to tell me something that I don’t hear thirty times a night. However, if you insist on mentioning my looks, just tell me that I’m pretty. You’ll get a lot more mileage out of that. I can’t stress this enough, though: forget about using those lines you’ve got stored away. You’re dealing with a professional, here. A girl who’s heard everything you could possibly throw at her. Don’t even try to be cute.
3. Tip well, but not too much. You’re not trying to buy me, here. You want me to know that you’ve got class, but that you’re not slimy. Get it? I’ll be impressed because you know how reward me for my services, not because you know how to use a bank machine to fill your wallet with twenties. A buck on a drink tells me that you appreciate my hard work. Five bucks on a drink tell me that you’re hard up.
4. Be witty – and by witty I don’t mean sarcastic. Everybody knows that sarcasm is just a dull man’s wit. Release your inner Oscar Wilde. Make me laugh. If that means verbally trampling on your mates, calling them out for acting like complete cretins, then so be it. You’ll be saying the things I wish I could, and the things I would if I wasn’t on the clock.
5. Finally, ask me to breakfast. Waitresses love breakfast. We work late, closing the bar until well after three in the morning, so we tend to work up an appetite. Invite me to that all-night diner you know about, the one tucked away down a quiet side street downtown. Chances are, if you followed the other four rules above, I’ll reply, smiling, “Sure, pick me up out front a little after three.”
I was once told that if one ever gets to the point of thinking she is better than her job, then she has reached that critical point where she needs to quit. Well, I know that am better than my job. I am better than this cage, and I am better than the beasts which reside within. But I’m trapped here by a steady flow of tips from the idiotic masses. See, it’s the money which has me donning this fake hair and fake smile night after night. These fake clothes, this fake perfume. It’s not me. None of it is.
A waitress hears things. A lot of weird things. Oftentimes, outright bizarre things. Cryptic remarks from that strange, strange man down at the end of the bar. The one in the wide-brimmed hat, and too-short pants. Shirt opened a little too far; chest, a little too hairy for my tastes.
“So, I’m barrelling down this ravine in the backseat of a taxicab in Bujumbura – or what they call a taxicab anyway, the car being over fifty years old and driven by a man who could only have been its original owner – and we’ve got at least three cop cars behind us.
“I’m yelling at the driver: ‘Speed up! Speed up!’ – but of course he doesn’t understand a word of English, so he begins to slow down. Just as he slows to the point where I think I could survive a jump from the moving vehicle, I pop open the door and suddenly I’m tumbling out into the night, through the brush, and into the tree line, still clutching to my chest the item I had gone there for – the Crown of—”
Suddenly, he turns to look at me, having noticed that I’ve sidled up alongside him with my empty tray in hand.
“Well, hello there, sweetheart,” he grins with perfect white teeth. “Another round for me and my friends, here?”
Sweetheart. Yes please. Those eyes. Sweetheart – I guess it’s all in the deliverance. “I, uh, yeah, I – I’ll bring them right round,” I stammer. I’m about to spin on my heel, my face aflush, when I’m caught off guard again.
“Say – you busy later tonight?” the strange man asks.
“No,” I chirp, barely audible.
“Good, then I’ll pick you up round three o’clock,” he says. “Having a little thing back at my place. Some drinks, some stories, you know the rest.”
I’m not sure I do know the rest, but I’m game. I’ll be there, waiting for him a little after three. I’ll be there and I don’t even know why. Just now, I’ve surprised myself – but it’s a good thing I like surprises. Just another reason, above and beyond the money, that I stay at such a crummy job. A girl can learn a lot about herself living in a cage of beasts.
A waitress hears things. A lot of stupid things. Oftentimes, not very nice things. Piggish remarks from loutish losers in their one nice shirt. Their going out shirt. You can spot it as soon as they walk in, all stiffened gait and awkward poses. Soon, one beer turns to six and the loud-talking begins – and everyone’s a winner, then.
“Hey, sweetheart – ‘nother round here?”
Sweetheart. I’ll never play sweetheart to any guy who would wear his sunglasses indoors. I toss him a nod, and—
“What time you off, anyway?”
“An hour after close,” I say, hurrying to scoop the empties from the table.
“You busy later?”
But the desperate words are spoken to my back as I rush away to the next batch of washouts. I don’t hear him when he calls me a cunt – or at least I’ll pretend I don’t this time.
To the bar now with a tray full of empty glasses drained by empty people. Finding humour, I’m mentally checking off all the things these guys do wrong, ignoring the Five Tips For Picking Up Your Favourite Waitress:
1. Don’t be a drunken idiot – I see enough of these. Stand out by not standing out. If I have to pick you up off of the floor, tell you to put your pants back on, or clean up your puke, you are getting anywhere with me. Seriously. You know what they say about first impressions, right? Well, I’ll tell you right now that you’ll do best to just not make one at all – let the losers around you be the ones to highlight your strengths, making you look good.
2. Compliment. Don’t tell me I’m hot – I already knows this. It’s my job. You’ve got to tell me something that I don’t hear thirty times a night. However, if you insist on mentioning my looks, just tell me that I’m pretty. You’ll get a lot more mileage out of that. I can’t stress this enough, though: forget about using those lines you’ve got stored away. You’re dealing with a professional, here. A girl who’s heard everything you could possibly throw at her. Don’t even try to be cute.
3. Tip well, but not too much. You’re not trying to buy me, here. You want me to know that you’ve got class, but that you’re not slimy. Get it? I’ll be impressed because you know how reward me for my services, not because you know how to use a bank machine to fill your wallet with twenties. A buck on a drink tells me that you appreciate my hard work. Five bucks on a drink tell me that you’re hard up.
4. Be witty – and by witty I don’t mean sarcastic. Everybody knows that sarcasm is just a dull man’s wit. Release your inner Oscar Wilde. Make me laugh. If that means verbally trampling on your mates, calling them out for acting like complete cretins, then so be it. You’ll be saying the things I wish I could, and the things I would if I wasn’t on the clock.
5. Finally, ask me to breakfast. Waitresses love breakfast. We work late, closing the bar until well after three in the morning, so we tend to work up an appetite. Invite me to that all-night diner you know about, the one tucked away down a quiet side street downtown. Chances are, if you followed the other four rules above, I’ll reply, smiling, “Sure, pick me up out front a little after three.”
I was once told that if one ever gets to the point of thinking she is better than her job, then she has reached that critical point where she needs to quit. Well, I know that am better than my job. I am better than this cage, and I am better than the beasts which reside within. But I’m trapped here by a steady flow of tips from the idiotic masses. See, it’s the money which has me donning this fake hair and fake smile night after night. These fake clothes, this fake perfume. It’s not me. None of it is.
A waitress hears things. A lot of weird things. Oftentimes, outright bizarre things. Cryptic remarks from that strange, strange man down at the end of the bar. The one in the wide-brimmed hat, and too-short pants. Shirt opened a little too far; chest, a little too hairy for my tastes.
“So, I’m barrelling down this ravine in the backseat of a taxicab in Bujumbura – or what they call a taxicab anyway, the car being over fifty years old and driven by a man who could only have been its original owner – and we’ve got at least three cop cars behind us.
“I’m yelling at the driver: ‘Speed up! Speed up!’ – but of course he doesn’t understand a word of English, so he begins to slow down. Just as he slows to the point where I think I could survive a jump from the moving vehicle, I pop open the door and suddenly I’m tumbling out into the night, through the brush, and into the tree line, still clutching to my chest the item I had gone there for – the Crown of—”
Suddenly, he turns to look at me, having noticed that I’ve sidled up alongside him with my empty tray in hand.
“Well, hello there, sweetheart,” he grins with perfect white teeth. “Another round for me and my friends, here?”
Sweetheart. Yes please. Those eyes. Sweetheart – I guess it’s all in the deliverance. “I, uh, yeah, I – I’ll bring them right round,” I stammer. I’m about to spin on my heel, my face aflush, when I’m caught off guard again.
“Say – you busy later tonight?” the strange man asks.
“No,” I chirp, barely audible.
“Good, then I’ll pick you up round three o’clock,” he says. “Having a little thing back at my place. Some drinks, some stories, you know the rest.”
I’m not sure I do know the rest, but I’m game. I’ll be there, waiting for him a little after three. I’ll be there and I don’t even know why. Just now, I’ve surprised myself – but it’s a good thing I like surprises. Just another reason, above and beyond the money, that I stay at such a crummy job. A girl can learn a lot about herself living in a cage of beasts.
Monday, November 13, 2006
in obscurity
I am afraid of the dark. Even then, crawling my way through the void, that deep dark cavern, I was more than a little terrified. Water dripping on the back of my neck. Things brushing – crawling? – on my face. Cramped, with little room for movement, legs begin to seize up. Back spasms with each twist. Arms grow so weary. With each yard forward, a new stage of the fear was realised: with each yard forward, I was one yard further away from safety, one yard further away from the light.
I am afraid of the dark. Yes, even then, I was afraid. Of the darkness, of what my eyes could not see. Of the unknown, of what my hands could feel but not recognise. Crawling through the darkness, my fingers clawed at the dirt and rocks towards the artefact. I hoped. Even then I was drawn to the strange and unfamiliar even while I was frightened by it. That untried and unusual. That indefinite nothingness.
***
Flash to six months earlier and a time of light – breakfast in the stone portico of a tiny café in Colmar. She sat sipping weak coffee, and I sat gulping strong Alsatian wine.
“Any progress?” she asked, knowing full well that I would know exactly what she meant. Her eyes shone with genuine contempt, something true, a sentiment so real bubbling up from within.
“A little,” I said, ignoring the hostility. “I’ve a general location in mind. Details in the documentation are sketchy at best, but at least I’ve my maps.”
“General location,” she snorted. “You say this as though it’s a good thing. And those maps – what good will come of them if all you’ve got is this general location?”
“A little triangulation,” I said, finishing off the last of my fourth glass of Silvaner. A wine fine, elegant, and strong – just like her. “A little trial and error. Some guesswork—”
“Guesswork!” she laughed, the mockery tinkling out past perfect white teeth and red, red lips. “You’ll never get by on—”
“Educated guesswork,” I corrected. “Remember, I’ve a general location in mind. I’ve narrowed it down, at least.”
“This location,” she said, accepting another tiny cup of coffee from our young server, “will it see you leaving the continent?”
“Would you like it to?” I asked, arching an eyebrow in jest.
“I’ll tell you what I’d like,” she replied, “I’d like to see you actually enjoy a glass of wine for once, rather than swilling it down as though it may be your last. It’s not even noon yet.”
I laughed, twirling a fresh glass slowly atop the table. “Yes, this new adventure will see me leaving the continent – but I should think that I won’t be gone for a long time.”
“When will you go?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“So, we’ve tomorrow then.”
“Yes” I admitted, “we’ve tomorrow. I was thinking we could spend the day up in the Vosges. Beautiful this time of year, I think.”
She didn’t respond, choosing, instead, to stare vacantly into her coffee cup. Anxiety welled up from her clear blue eyes. Unease pulled tight her fine lips. Hate made her grow suddenly old. She didn’t respond – she didn’t have to. She knew that the next day would be our last together. She knew, as I did, that I was a leaver. All the time, I left. It’s what I did. I was actually really quite good at it. Notorious.
“Don’t you think you ought to be prepared,” she suddenly snapped. “Don’t you think you ought to think things through, plan things out a little further, before you throw yourself blindly into something?”
The morning fell away to lazy argument, as my cares were washed away in a sea of Silvaner. The sun rose, and the shadows played their usual games, slipping silently from one side of the portico to the other. All the while, we sat. All the while, we sat, frozen in argument, wasting our second last day together. Choosing the easy comfort of hate over the complicated awkwardness of love.
***
Crawling through that cave six months later, I was almost wishing that I had decided to bring along those spare batteries for the flashlight. Almost wishing. Hands blindly grappling at rocks on the ground, feet scrambling in the dirt, I was almost wishing, then, that I had been a little more prepared. But a year’s planning! What more could have been done?
I am afraid of the dark. Then, as ever, I was afraid of the dark and the secrets it concealed. Inching my way through that pitch black tunnel deep within the ground, I tried to think of nothing but the potential end result. Me, achieving my goal. Me, clutching that ghoulish article in my hands at long last. Me, somehow finding it in that swirling eddy of soggy darkness.
Thoughts flashed quickly from darkness to light and back again. From inky caves to sunlit porticos. To her and her advice. Think things through, she said. Plan. Prepare. Organise. But all of the maps and charts, diagrams and graphs on earth can not help the man who is determined to lose himself. I know that as well as anybody. I, the man who will brazenly act on the first tip, following the whispers of a stranger in a backwoods inn. I, the man so crazed for knowledge that he will cut his life short to get at it. I, the man who will leave his spare batteries behind just because.
Suddenly, my fingers met the fingers of another there in obscurity, and I desperately grappled my way up a sinewy, dead arm, its hardened, ancient flesh like lacquered rope. I tried not to think about how close our faces really were as I reached a twisted neck right about where it should have been, and felt the dull cold of a braided strand of precious metal.
Her face, right next to mine. Though she didn’t breathe, I imagined that I could feel her breath on my cheek, escaping from the gaping dead maw of her petrified head. Cloves. I could almost catch the scent of cloves whispering from her mask of death, skin pulled taut, lips pulled back, with rows of hideous yellow teeth. I didn’t bring the extra batteries for my flashlight because I didn’t need to see this. I didn’t need to see her expression when I pulled the necklace from her long, lifeless neck.
I am afraid of the dark. Yes, even then, I was afraid. Of the darkness, of what my eyes could not see. Of the unknown, of what my hands could feel but not recognise. Crawling through the darkness, my fingers clawed at the dirt and rocks towards the artefact. I hoped. Even then I was drawn to the strange and unfamiliar even while I was frightened by it. That untried and unusual. That indefinite nothingness.
***
Flash to six months earlier and a time of light – breakfast in the stone portico of a tiny café in Colmar. She sat sipping weak coffee, and I sat gulping strong Alsatian wine.
“Any progress?” she asked, knowing full well that I would know exactly what she meant. Her eyes shone with genuine contempt, something true, a sentiment so real bubbling up from within.
“A little,” I said, ignoring the hostility. “I’ve a general location in mind. Details in the documentation are sketchy at best, but at least I’ve my maps.”
“General location,” she snorted. “You say this as though it’s a good thing. And those maps – what good will come of them if all you’ve got is this general location?”
“A little triangulation,” I said, finishing off the last of my fourth glass of Silvaner. A wine fine, elegant, and strong – just like her. “A little trial and error. Some guesswork—”
“Guesswork!” she laughed, the mockery tinkling out past perfect white teeth and red, red lips. “You’ll never get by on—”
“Educated guesswork,” I corrected. “Remember, I’ve a general location in mind. I’ve narrowed it down, at least.”
“This location,” she said, accepting another tiny cup of coffee from our young server, “will it see you leaving the continent?”
“Would you like it to?” I asked, arching an eyebrow in jest.
“I’ll tell you what I’d like,” she replied, “I’d like to see you actually enjoy a glass of wine for once, rather than swilling it down as though it may be your last. It’s not even noon yet.”
I laughed, twirling a fresh glass slowly atop the table. “Yes, this new adventure will see me leaving the continent – but I should think that I won’t be gone for a long time.”
“When will you go?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“So, we’ve tomorrow then.”
“Yes” I admitted, “we’ve tomorrow. I was thinking we could spend the day up in the Vosges. Beautiful this time of year, I think.”
She didn’t respond, choosing, instead, to stare vacantly into her coffee cup. Anxiety welled up from her clear blue eyes. Unease pulled tight her fine lips. Hate made her grow suddenly old. She didn’t respond – she didn’t have to. She knew that the next day would be our last together. She knew, as I did, that I was a leaver. All the time, I left. It’s what I did. I was actually really quite good at it. Notorious.
“Don’t you think you ought to be prepared,” she suddenly snapped. “Don’t you think you ought to think things through, plan things out a little further, before you throw yourself blindly into something?”
The morning fell away to lazy argument, as my cares were washed away in a sea of Silvaner. The sun rose, and the shadows played their usual games, slipping silently from one side of the portico to the other. All the while, we sat. All the while, we sat, frozen in argument, wasting our second last day together. Choosing the easy comfort of hate over the complicated awkwardness of love.
***
Crawling through that cave six months later, I was almost wishing that I had decided to bring along those spare batteries for the flashlight. Almost wishing. Hands blindly grappling at rocks on the ground, feet scrambling in the dirt, I was almost wishing, then, that I had been a little more prepared. But a year’s planning! What more could have been done?
I am afraid of the dark. Then, as ever, I was afraid of the dark and the secrets it concealed. Inching my way through that pitch black tunnel deep within the ground, I tried to think of nothing but the potential end result. Me, achieving my goal. Me, clutching that ghoulish article in my hands at long last. Me, somehow finding it in that swirling eddy of soggy darkness.
Thoughts flashed quickly from darkness to light and back again. From inky caves to sunlit porticos. To her and her advice. Think things through, she said. Plan. Prepare. Organise. But all of the maps and charts, diagrams and graphs on earth can not help the man who is determined to lose himself. I know that as well as anybody. I, the man who will brazenly act on the first tip, following the whispers of a stranger in a backwoods inn. I, the man so crazed for knowledge that he will cut his life short to get at it. I, the man who will leave his spare batteries behind just because.
Suddenly, my fingers met the fingers of another there in obscurity, and I desperately grappled my way up a sinewy, dead arm, its hardened, ancient flesh like lacquered rope. I tried not to think about how close our faces really were as I reached a twisted neck right about where it should have been, and felt the dull cold of a braided strand of precious metal.
Her face, right next to mine. Though she didn’t breathe, I imagined that I could feel her breath on my cheek, escaping from the gaping dead maw of her petrified head. Cloves. I could almost catch the scent of cloves whispering from her mask of death, skin pulled taut, lips pulled back, with rows of hideous yellow teeth. I didn’t bring the extra batteries for my flashlight because I didn’t need to see this. I didn’t need to see her expression when I pulled the necklace from her long, lifeless neck.
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