Well, It's the year of the OX, finally. This is to be my year for Art-world conquest. (insert me grinding my hands together with lightning crashing in the background, here) My one resolution is that I don't fuck it up...
The holidays, as I'm sure you can relate, were all consuming. Add to this my extended stint at the Cultural Center, Leslie's' website (almost done!) a few commissions and preparations for upcoming events (more about that later) and you have one strung out artist at large.
In the midst of this, I have been diligently chipping away at my story. I had taken the holidays off to let all my creative endeavors simmer a bit and so, when I came back to it a few weeks ago, I decided to read what I had from the start. As I came to obvious gaps and story flaws, I inserted descriptions and dialogue and created "bridges" to help keep things movin' along. To my surprise, I got on a roll and ended up blasting through a few spots where earlier, I had gotten stuck and had to skip ahead.
I'm still rolling, but am limiting myself to an hour a day of composition, so that the more pressing matters and usual bullshit responsibilities of adulthood don't get neglected.
For kicks, and because I'm kinda excited about how much more developed Bouncer is getting, I'm posting the following excerpt that introduces the principle players.
:)
...
A small voice, crunchy with sleep, comes from the knotted lump of stuffed animals and bedclothes on the other side of the futon and pulls me from the brink of memory. “Mmmmm…Coffeeeeee.”
At two years, four months and seven days, ours is the longest one night stand in history. I roll across the bed and snuggle up behind her, running my hand under the pile – searching for a thigh.
“G’morning,” I murmur, nuzzling what I assume is her cheek, “how’d you sleep?”
“Coffee,” she mumbles. I can’t help but smile a little.
“Did you want some cream in that?” This I say as my hand reaches the warm, damp familiarity of her carefully manicured patch. A hand juts out from beneath a Care Bear, swatting at the nothing above my head.
“Sta-hop,” she whines, “Go make me coffee.” Sighing and with my morning erection going slack, I remove my hand; slide out of bed and into my jeans.
“Last night,” I say as I reach the door, “I couldn’t sleep so instead, I figured out the timer on your coffee pot. It should be ready in a few minutes.”
With an audible “CLICK,” I pull the chain on the single, bare bulb that hangs just above the sink in Amanda’s guest bathroom. As the primary lease holder, she alone gets to use the master “lounge,” which is very pink, very foo-foo and very, VERY much off-limits to everyone, including me. This “boy’s room,” which is reminiscent of the public restrooms you’d find scattered throughout a subway terminal… well…. if you’ve never been in a city flat, the smaller, more basic bathroom is just that -- basic:
* Hole in the wall from slamming the door open.
* Stack of bloated, slightly damp tabloids.
* Bag of fast food napkins instead of toilet paper.
* Weird stain on the ceiling where some brain has written; “Lick Me!”
* Moldy shower stall with loose tiles and a broken door.
* Toilet with a handle that you have to jiggle and no seat.
Last year Sean, one of Amanda’s two roommates, noticed that whenever you flipped the light switch, water would quickly start to fill the overhead fixture. We all agreed that that was a bad thing so, I was volunteered to fix it. It’s amazing what some lamp cord, a little know-how and a whole lot of electrical tape can do. Granted, it’s not the most flattering light but at least a guy can see well enough not to miss, if you get what I mean.
Yeah, that used to be a problem.
As I stand in front of the mirror picking crust out of my eyes, it dawns on me that in my enthusiasm to get laid, I have somehow managed to yet again forget my usual overnight grab-bag of man-sentials:
* Soap.
* Razor.
* After shave.
* Tooth brush.
* Deodorant.
* Clean briefs.
Fuck. Usually, there’s a strangled tube of some kind of eco friendly hippie toothpaste stuck behind the taps but not today. Double fuck. So much for that. Maybe Amanda has some gum or something.
With a heavy sigh, I dunk my shaved head under the faucet, close my eyes and run the hot water because after all, a good rinse is better than nothing. I take my time, letting the cool porcelain cradle me as the soothing static hiss of unfiltered city water – tan, metallic and gritty with decomposition, rushes past my ears and down the yawning nexus of the drain.
Standing, dripping and squinty eyed, I blindly turn to my left and feel for the bag of recycled fast food napkins that I know is sitting on top of the cracked and duct-taped toilet tank, when I become aware of the low, pulsing throb of an impending headache. It radiates from somewhere between my left ear and eye plowing across my forehead like a derailing locomotive. Instinctively, I swipe at my nose like its running and notice the shining, red skid mark of blood going across the back of my hand when abruptly, the floor pitches and I have to grab hold of the sink to keep from falling.
Crap.
All at once there’s a faraway voice, like a million people chanting in harmonious union: “Da-ay moh-on...” An unseen mob of paparazzi start snapping my picture, shrieking, and I’m dazzled by blinding white oblivion that hisses in my ears like a torn speaker. And louder and louder, closer and closer, the crowd keeps chanting: “Daemon, Daemon, Daemon.” Until they’re on top of me, crashing into me, smothering me with a smell like stale circus peanuts and lemonade that flips my stomach over the way an elevator will when it drops you a little too soon, a little too fast and then; nothing.
Nothing that is, except for a light, gentle breeze.
It’s crisp, cool and faintly salty upon my face, the ground: plush. I curl my toes in and out as I again gaze across a field of luxuriously succulent, impossibly green grass that stretches forever in every direction and out across the low-slung, sweeping hills in the distance. The sun, nearly set, shatters the sky into fragments of fiery, kaleidoscopic stained glass fractals of sweet, angelic rapture.
In the middle of this meditative serenity and directly ahead, is a very random woman. Her skin is winter cream, her hair the midnight sky. She’s wearing what appears to be a kimono, but its paleness matches her skin so, it’s difficult to tell.
Hello Daemon.
She opens her arms wide and smiles at me. For some reason, I’m terrified. I want to turn and run but don’t. From somewhere far away, like an echo of an echo, I can hear Amanda’s voice, frightened and angry, calling out to me; “Daemon!” The woman’s smile falters.
I want to answer but can’t.
Daemon, (her voice is warm and soothing in my head) let go.
But I can’t. I tell her; No, I’m not ready. Then I wonder, is my voice in her head?
She tangles her fingers into a delicate knot that hangs at her pelvis. The light should be radiating from behind her – outlining her with an ethereal glow but it doesn’t. There should be a long shadow connecting us but oddly, there isn’t.
With the morose, patient calm of endlessness she says; It’s not for you to decide.
At this point, everything starts to blur. From behind me, way in the distance, someone is screaming into a tin can: “OMIGOD!” and “Holy shit!” and “Is he dead?!” as a pair of gray smudges close in and grab at me. Lift me. Pull me.
“For God’s sake be careful!” I hear, as my meditative serenity dissolves into a milky, white haze. It flashes bright in time to my heartbeat like a strobe, each time sending a spray of broken glass and needles into the back of my eyes. And now I’m standing. Or not; it’s hard to tell, I think. “Baby?” says a smudge, “It’s Amanda. Can you hear me?! Ah-ma-an-daaaahhhh…”
I can almost make out the shape of the woman in the kimono standing in… the shower? I point. Why are you here?!? I hear myself yelling: “LEAMELONE!!!”
“Goddamnit, snap out of it!” I’m slapped. Hard. And then just like that, I’m back in the bathroom with damp magazines, roommates, a hole in the wall and Amanda -- frantically searching my face for clarity or brain damage or whatever.
“Ow.” I say.
~~~
We’ve been standing here for a while now. She’s holding me tight to her, sobbing. I’d put my arms around her but she’s got them pinned to my sides so instead, I bend low, lean in and rest my head on the generous swell of her breasts. I tell her it’s OK. I’m OK. I’m sorry I scared you. Shh, shh -- that sort of thing but really, it’s me I’m trying to soothe.
She feels so good with her firm, plump body pressed into me... Her shabby robe, rumpled and off kilter, exposing her shoulders… She has this tattoo of a flaming ankh that fills the spot between her collar bone and the top of her cleavage. Most nights, I rest my head there and listen to her heart as she drifts to sleep, leaving me in the dark, alone with my thoughts. I start rocking slightly, gently, side to side; coaxing her chestnut hair free of its loose bun and releasing this scent of warm, spicy cinnamon and autumn leaves that lingers just under the faded, chemical stench of her trendy perfume. It smells so good and her compassion is so sincere that for a moment, I forget myself and tell her; “I love you.” It just slips out, like a sigh.
BIG mistake.
Before I know what’s happening, she rears back and punches me for all she’s worth right in the gut, which immediately doubles me over in a surprised cough.
“You FUCKER!” She shrieks. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!!!” She shoves me back then, spinning on her heel, jerking open the door (cracking that hole a little bit wider) and storms down the hall to her bedroom, making all the pictures on the wall shake and go crooked.
BAM! She slams the door and then opens it again while I’m still searching the floor for my breath; “And clean up that blood!” BAM! Again goes the door.
Yes dear, thank you dear. No, no please don’t fuss – I’m fine. Really, I got this you crazy fucking emotional retard you.
Taking a couple of deep breaths and using the napkins that are still clenched in my fist, I wipe up the small spatter of blood that I’m currently standing in, shut the door for privacy and then turn to face the mirror, giving myself the once-over.
“Damn.”
Reflected back at me isn’t me, it’s a cheap, dollar store Halloween mask of me. From my nosebleed, I’ve got this nasty blood moustache and the taste of dirty old pennies in my mouth. Amazingly, this makes me want a glass of chocolate milk. Shaking the thought away, I again dunk my head under the faucet for a fresh rinse.
This is your third seizure in a week, kiddo.
“Shuddup,” I tell myself.
Just as I start cleaning up, there’s a quick double rap at the door that pulls me back into the moment; “People live here y’know.”
That would be Christian, Amanda’s other roommate. We’ve never gotten along. Christian is one of those granola crunching, spazoid militant vegan assholes that picket local restaurants and fast food joints once a month screaming; ”Animal rights” and “Murder” as they wave disturbing pamphlets under your nose and throw buckets of red paint at little old, fur-clad ladies.
I get it. I do. The pollution thing isn’t being handled right, farmland isn’t being rotated often enough and we should at the least try to treat our animals with more benevolence but c’mon -- it’s not like cows walk up to you and say; “I moo, therefore I am.” Besides, if these people really wanted to make a difference, they’d surrender their cell phones, take themselves off the grid and go till wide expanses of land with charcoal.
I said this to the swishy little fuck the day we met, which was just after he nailed my steak dinner to a makeshift cross and hung it over the stove and just before I crammed one of those frigging pamphlets of his down his throat.
If not for Sean jumping in when he did, we might have put each other in the hospital. Christian’s wispy, brightly colored and kinda fem but he’s fast and hard, spends a lot of time in the gym and knows how to throw a punch.
Later, with Christian out and about in “Christianland” doing whatever the hell he does when he’s not flopped out on the couch stoned stupid, Sean and I hit up the corner taqueria and split a burrito the size of a small dog. We talked about everything from tits to politics, had a few laughs at Christian’s expense and came up with a much more creative way for me to get back at him for crucifying my steak.
There’s another quick double rap that I promptly ignore; “Hello?! Asshole?!”
I check my eyes, unsure of what I expect to find. They’re clear, focused, kinda grey -- pupils the same size. I fake a smile. Both sides go up, same as always. I run a twist of napkin up each nostril to clear away clots of blood when I catch my right hand trembling a little. Just your nerves kiddo, don’t sweat it. When I stand-up straight again, I see that someone has drawn a cartoon goatee on the mirror. Sean. Has to be. At five nine, he’s a good ten inches shorter than me which puts his doodle around the base of my neck. I squat down a bit, fitting a snarl between the rough marker lines and chuckle, despite myself.
I’ve always liked Sean. He’s good people. He’s that creepy loner, the standard issue rebel guy we’ve all known at some point in our lives: black boots, black jeans, black oversized coat, faux-hawk; cheap sunglasses. The only thing that ever seems to change is the pithy slogan scrawled across his shirt proclaiming his anti-conformity or what particular a-tonal screamer band is currently bleeding out of his taped up headphones. The fact that he flunked out of art school after his first semester and is now one of the top tattooists in the city just makes him all the more heroic.
What sets the guy apart, aside from being completely covered in ink from the neck down, is his Zen-like take on the world, making him pretty much cool with everybody; everybody that is, except for Christian who unfortunately, seems to have a thing for scrawny straight guys and apparently can’t take “no” for an answer.
So anyway… later that night, after the whole “passion of the steak” thing and just after Christian got home; I showed up with a bottle of Bacardi 151 and called for a truce. It wasn’t a hard sell. Christian pounded back shot after shot of what we now call “Blackout Juice” while Sean, Amanda and I did shots of what was actually bottled water. After about an hour and a half, we got him so blinding drunk, that he passed out in the hallway naked, thinking he’d found his bedroom. The next day, Christian awoke not just to the worst hangover of his life but also to find that we’d used a big, black permanent marker to section off his whole body like a butcher’s cutting chart and had him hog-tied on the kitchen counter.
Since then, Sean has been able to leave his door unlocked at night and as for Christian and I well, these days, we mostly stay out of each other’s way.
There’s yet another double rap at the door: “Hey, if you’re done having your little drama, I need to take a shit.”
As I throw open the door and push past him I say; “You don’t take a shit, Chrissy, you leave it.”
...
