The current assignment was to write precisely 500 words based on either the photograph in the previous post or alternatively on a quotation from a Jorge Luis Borges' short story, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius."
The quotation is "Some limited and waning memory of Herbert Ashe, an engineer for the Southern Railway Line, still lingers in the hotel at Androgué, among the effusive honeysuckle vines and in the illusory depths of the mirrors."
Tango
Some limited and waning memory of Herbert Ashe, an engineer for the Southern Railway Line, still lingers in the hotel at Androgué, among the effusive honeysuckle vines and in the illusory depths of the mirrors. The hotel itself, like the station and the houses surrounding it, was imported wholesale from England during the boom of the late nineteenth century; the bathroom fittings and doorknobs, the mirrors and the honeysuckle, indeed the very bricks themselves, shipped the length of the Atlantic as the Great Empire turned its eye southward.
With them came Engineer Herbert Ashe, tasked with linking Buenos Aires to the vast and fertile cattle country of La Pampa and Rio Negro, and eventually to Rio Gallegos via La Trochita, the narrow gauge steam railway that a century hence was to achieve fame as The Old Patagonian Express.
Unlike the Scots and Irish labourers shipped over with them - who, on completion of the railway would become ranchers and leave a trail of Celtic names scattered across the pampas - the English engineers never intended to stay, least of all Engineer Herbert Ashe, whose limpid fiancée Daphne pined 'neath Lympne's bailey awaiting her consummation.
Engineer Herbert Ashe, however, would never return to the twin bosoms of Daphne and England. The telegram his distraught fiancée received informed her of his tragic death in a blasting accident on a Patagonian mountainside but delicately avoided the truth.
For Engineer Herbert Ashe had found himself one morning gazing into the illusory depths of those hotel mirrors, gratefully inhaling that effusive honeysuckle’s fragrance, when darting betwixt reflected vines he glimpsed a flash of eyes, a tremble of lace as black as the heart of darkness and was himself ensnared.
Unable, indeed unwilling to escape the mirror’s pull he stepped forward and found soft fingers stroking his own, enticing him deeper into lush foliage and heady aromas; on through verdant gardens she led him, ever on until at last the vibrant colours swirling around him resolved themselves into the streets of La Boca, the beating heart of Buenos Aires. La Boca: the Forbidden Quarter; rank with Criollo bordellos, replete with opium dens and, more seductive still, the sinuous rhythms of the Tango.
The authorities were never able satisfactorily to explain the presence of Engineer Herbert Ashe in a blood-filled bathtub on an upper floor of a dockside whorehouse in La Boca district, entwined as he was with the body of a beautiful Criollo prostitute, both of them naked and shot through the heart with the pistol that dangled still from the Englishman’s hand.
How could they know the pull of that rhythm, the allure of those kohl-rimmed eyes, the flashing scarlet of her lips, the whirlwind of lace as her hips ground against his to the breathless, frenzied strumming of guitars? How could they ever understand the intoxication of her perfume, the passion of her kisses, the wild ecstasy of endless nights in her arms?
How, in all honesty could he, Engineer Herbert Ashe, ever go back?
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Milwaukee’s Finest
This week's sentence was taken from line 532 of Beowulf ("beore druncen ymb spræce …"), using Seamus Heaney's translation:
The sentence was: "But it was mostly beer doing the talking."
Milwaukee’s Finest
Bass River Motel. Route 542. Jersey.
Piney country.
Kent insisted on these "night out for the boys" sessions after work; he felt the need to go over all the details of the day and look for ways to improve things. You got the feeling he would have liked to bring a flip-chart into the bar if he could. But it was mostly beer doing the talking. As the evening went on Kent would get progressively more maudlin until Mackinson would have to half-carry him back to the motel room and leave him to puke out his remorse.
On nights like these, Mackinson slept in the car.
Kent called for another round, sluicing down the remains of his fifth bottle, whining and pining after some trailer trash waitress who’d served them breakfast that morning. Mackinson just nodded and ignored him. He was a scotch man, beer made him bilious. After two shots he’d stick to water and let Kent ramble on and get it out of his system, bottle by bottle. It usually took about an hour for Kent to wander off topic and start hitting on the barmaid. He never got lucky. Drunk, miserable and boring is not generally what a barmaid looks for in a man, though it’s pretty much all she gets to see.
Kent bored the shit out of Mackinson. He also worried him.
Take today, for instance. The hit had gone smoothly, but as always Mackinson felt Kent enjoyed his work a little too much. A single shot to the back of the head would have sufficed, yet Kent insisted on shoving his gun in the guy's face, feeding off the terror in his eyes before blasting away like Clint fucking Eastwood.
And then the drunken remorse afterwards.
Distasteful. Inelegant. Amateurish.
He had made his feelings clear in debriefings: Kent was a liability. Mackinson preferred to work alone, but now here he was again, holed up in some backwoods motel room with a drunk and weepy psychopath. It was getting like a broken record.
Mackinson fetched a glass of water from the basin. Kent was hunched over the toilet bowl, puking up a gallon of Milwaukee's finest.
'Jesus, thanks, Mac. I'm sorry. I don't know why the fuck I always do this.' Kent took a sip, rinsed his mouth out and spat it into the pan while Mackinson wrapped a towel around his pistol and shot him once in the back of the head. The towel muffled the gunshot and caught the blood spray; the rest went down the toilet. Mackinson threw the body in the bath and let it bleed out while he fetched the cleaning products from the trunk of the car. He hummed while he worked: Roy Orbison's 'Only The Lonely'.
Bartleby had an arrangement with a meat packing plant outside of Hammonton. By morning, Kent would be shipped out in the latest batch of gourmet pork sausages. Maybe he’d get inside that barmaid after all.
The sentence was: "But it was mostly beer doing the talking."
Milwaukee’s Finest
Bass River Motel. Route 542. Jersey.
Piney country.
Kent insisted on these "night out for the boys" sessions after work; he felt the need to go over all the details of the day and look for ways to improve things. You got the feeling he would have liked to bring a flip-chart into the bar if he could. But it was mostly beer doing the talking. As the evening went on Kent would get progressively more maudlin until Mackinson would have to half-carry him back to the motel room and leave him to puke out his remorse.
On nights like these, Mackinson slept in the car.
Kent called for another round, sluicing down the remains of his fifth bottle, whining and pining after some trailer trash waitress who’d served them breakfast that morning. Mackinson just nodded and ignored him. He was a scotch man, beer made him bilious. After two shots he’d stick to water and let Kent ramble on and get it out of his system, bottle by bottle. It usually took about an hour for Kent to wander off topic and start hitting on the barmaid. He never got lucky. Drunk, miserable and boring is not generally what a barmaid looks for in a man, though it’s pretty much all she gets to see.
Kent bored the shit out of Mackinson. He also worried him.
Take today, for instance. The hit had gone smoothly, but as always Mackinson felt Kent enjoyed his work a little too much. A single shot to the back of the head would have sufficed, yet Kent insisted on shoving his gun in the guy's face, feeding off the terror in his eyes before blasting away like Clint fucking Eastwood.
And then the drunken remorse afterwards.
Distasteful. Inelegant. Amateurish.
He had made his feelings clear in debriefings: Kent was a liability. Mackinson preferred to work alone, but now here he was again, holed up in some backwoods motel room with a drunk and weepy psychopath. It was getting like a broken record.
Mackinson fetched a glass of water from the basin. Kent was hunched over the toilet bowl, puking up a gallon of Milwaukee's finest.
'Jesus, thanks, Mac. I'm sorry. I don't know why the fuck I always do this.' Kent took a sip, rinsed his mouth out and spat it into the pan while Mackinson wrapped a towel around his pistol and shot him once in the back of the head. The towel muffled the gunshot and caught the blood spray; the rest went down the toilet. Mackinson threw the body in the bath and let it bleed out while he fetched the cleaning products from the trunk of the car. He hummed while he worked: Roy Orbison's 'Only The Lonely'.
Bartleby had an arrangement with a meat packing plant outside of Hammonton. By morning, Kent would be shipped out in the latest batch of gourmet pork sausages. Maybe he’d get inside that barmaid after all.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
February
This week's sentence was taken from Ken Kesey's glorious 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.'
It was:
'Out along the dim six-o'clock street, I saw leafless trees standing, striking the sidewalk there like wooden lightning, concrete split apart where they hit, all in a fenced-in ring.'
February
February. Daybreak.
I stepped outside and the chill hit. Bitter. I shook like a wet dog, my body sucking the last feeble warmth from my insides. I hadn’t eaten or slept since I couldn’t remember when.
Out along the dim six-o'clock street, I saw leafless trees standing, striking the sidewalk there like wooden lightning, concrete split apart where they hit, all in a fenced-in ring. Crab grass, rot and detritus strangling the shattered kerb at the impact zone.
I blinked. I saw grey: grey street, grey sidewalk, grey houses, grey sky. One big grey cloud, dark, mottled, livid like a bruise, hanging low, draped, drizzling over buildings like a damp duvet from horizon to horizon.
Dirty snow still hung around in patches like crusted scabs. Old grey snow so hard and sharp it could cut you, hunkered down gritting its teeth, marking the target for the next cold front, due in later today with another two feet of fresh reinforcements.
Down the street I saw Ralph stumble off to look for work through a yard strewn with broken Christmas sculptures, past last summer’s barbecue, tipped over and rusting in the long grass, past the long-dead Chevy Impala up on blocks, paint faded and peeling, off to wait for the bus in the freezing rain.
I saw the street pitted with potholes, littered with filth. Where I used to park my car leaned the crumpled blackened brazier round which me and Ralph had shared our last beer, warming our hands burning all the crap Arlene had left behind when she walked out on me and laughing long and hard and bitter. Shit, that was months ago.
I saw the rain turn to sleet. Stinging cold whipped up from Erie lashing down at my face. My teeth chattered and I hugged myself, wondering what the fuck I was doing out there. Too numb and too dumb to go back inside I carried on staring at the madness around me.
All along the street I saw plywood nailed up over windows. I saw dogshit, broken glass, plastic bags, gang tags, sodden cardboard, wrecked cars and the hopeless despair of the broken American Dream.
I saw drab lives shivering subterranean in dank, dark rooms, the deep and desperate helpless hurt of decent working people betrayed by imbecile greed.
I saw bright colours splash like blood, painful against the grey. Foreclosure boards. KEEP OUT! This house is no longer your home. We would rather it stand empty and rot than let you live in it.
Closing my eyes I saw blue skies, laughing children, Ralph and Norma, Arlene and me drunk as skunks, kicking back on lawn chairs and shooting the breeze, sharing our hopes and dreams long into the night.
And I saw myself standing here, unshaven and unwashed in dressing gown and slippers, no longer comprehending the world I was seeing.
Shell-shocked. What the fuck happened?
I saw the bus carrying Ralph off to look for work.
I stepped in front of it.
It was:
'Out along the dim six-o'clock street, I saw leafless trees standing, striking the sidewalk there like wooden lightning, concrete split apart where they hit, all in a fenced-in ring.'
February
February. Daybreak.
I stepped outside and the chill hit. Bitter. I shook like a wet dog, my body sucking the last feeble warmth from my insides. I hadn’t eaten or slept since I couldn’t remember when.
Out along the dim six-o'clock street, I saw leafless trees standing, striking the sidewalk there like wooden lightning, concrete split apart where they hit, all in a fenced-in ring. Crab grass, rot and detritus strangling the shattered kerb at the impact zone.
I blinked. I saw grey: grey street, grey sidewalk, grey houses, grey sky. One big grey cloud, dark, mottled, livid like a bruise, hanging low, draped, drizzling over buildings like a damp duvet from horizon to horizon.
Dirty snow still hung around in patches like crusted scabs. Old grey snow so hard and sharp it could cut you, hunkered down gritting its teeth, marking the target for the next cold front, due in later today with another two feet of fresh reinforcements.
Down the street I saw Ralph stumble off to look for work through a yard strewn with broken Christmas sculptures, past last summer’s barbecue, tipped over and rusting in the long grass, past the long-dead Chevy Impala up on blocks, paint faded and peeling, off to wait for the bus in the freezing rain.
I saw the street pitted with potholes, littered with filth. Where I used to park my car leaned the crumpled blackened brazier round which me and Ralph had shared our last beer, warming our hands burning all the crap Arlene had left behind when she walked out on me and laughing long and hard and bitter. Shit, that was months ago.
I saw the rain turn to sleet. Stinging cold whipped up from Erie lashing down at my face. My teeth chattered and I hugged myself, wondering what the fuck I was doing out there. Too numb and too dumb to go back inside I carried on staring at the madness around me.
All along the street I saw plywood nailed up over windows. I saw dogshit, broken glass, plastic bags, gang tags, sodden cardboard, wrecked cars and the hopeless despair of the broken American Dream.
I saw drab lives shivering subterranean in dank, dark rooms, the deep and desperate helpless hurt of decent working people betrayed by imbecile greed.
I saw bright colours splash like blood, painful against the grey. Foreclosure boards. KEEP OUT! This house is no longer your home. We would rather it stand empty and rot than let you live in it.
Closing my eyes I saw blue skies, laughing children, Ralph and Norma, Arlene and me drunk as skunks, kicking back on lawn chairs and shooting the breeze, sharing our hopes and dreams long into the night.
And I saw myself standing here, unshaven and unwashed in dressing gown and slippers, no longer comprehending the world I was seeing.
Shell-shocked. What the fuck happened?
I saw the bus carrying Ralph off to look for work.
I stepped in front of it.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
The Fan
This week’s sentence was taken from Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’.
It was:
‘A pair of silk stockings, that pretty carved fan, and a lovely blue sash.’
The Fan
Despite their occasional meetings they had never met.
The room was always dark. Twice now he had glimpsed the hands: heavy, scarred, age-spotted, yet always immaculately manicured. Expensive suit. Understated.
And the voice. Surprisingly soft. Mellifluous. In almost three decades that was all he had ever seen or heard of Bartleby himself.
Now they sat, sipping scotch in stygian gloom, idle chatter after Mac's debriefing from the Macao job.
One thing …
There was always a noise. A kind of soft clatter that reminded him somehow of his time in Indochina. It finally registered.
'So what's with the fan?' he ventured.
There was a long pause, Bartleby breathed slow and deep. Mac could almost hear the man smiling.
'It was a gift.' Bartleby spoke at last, snapping it open and handing it to Mac, who strained his eyes to make out the detail. 'Carved bamboo. Meiji period. It was found on him when he died.'
'You know I have to ask.'
'J.Edgar.'
Mac couldn't hide his surprise.
'Okay, I'm impressed. Is that all I get to know?'
'Tolson.' Bartleby enigmatic as ever. Mac screwed up his brain to squeeze out the connection.
'Clyde Tolson? Assistant Director FBI?'
Bartleby took another long breath.
'Their relationship was an open secret within the Bureau. In ‘72 it looked like it was going wide. Tolson panicked; he'd lose everything. He couldn't trust the FBI so he came to me.'
Another pause while Mac reeled at the enormity of what he was hearing.
‘I made it look like auto-erotic asphyxiation, though of course it was hushed up. Hoover’s death was officially attributed to a heart attack. He had high blood pressure. There was no autopsy of course. Tolson saw to that.'
Mac swallowed hard. Bartleby continued, as calm and measured as if he were reminiscing about a family vacation.
'They found him naked but for the items with which I chose to array him. A pair of silk stockings, that pretty carved fan, and a lovely blue sash. The sash made a nice contrast with the purple of his face.'
‘Holy crap.’ Was all Mac could think to say.
‘Tolson inherited Hoover’s estate. They even buried him next to the old queen.’
‘And you?’
‘And me?’ He sighed. ‘Tolson gave me the fan. And later I got unlimited funding and plausible deniability for the unofficial agency for whom you have killed so many people over the years, Mister Mackinson.’
‘Sir,’ Mac, suddenly scared. ‘Does your telling me this mean that my life is now in danger?’
‘Your life ended back in Cambodia. I gave you a second life, an act of generosity on my part that you should do well to remember.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Mac wondered who was standing behind him in the dark. When the shot would come.
But it never did.
‘As for the tale I just related? Of course, I could be lying.’ Bartleby chuckled.
‘No, Mac, your life is in no more danger than usual.
Go now. But please leave the fan.’
It was:
‘A pair of silk stockings, that pretty carved fan, and a lovely blue sash.’
The Fan
Despite their occasional meetings they had never met.
The room was always dark. Twice now he had glimpsed the hands: heavy, scarred, age-spotted, yet always immaculately manicured. Expensive suit. Understated.
And the voice. Surprisingly soft. Mellifluous. In almost three decades that was all he had ever seen or heard of Bartleby himself.
Now they sat, sipping scotch in stygian gloom, idle chatter after Mac's debriefing from the Macao job.
One thing …
There was always a noise. A kind of soft clatter that reminded him somehow of his time in Indochina. It finally registered.
'So what's with the fan?' he ventured.
There was a long pause, Bartleby breathed slow and deep. Mac could almost hear the man smiling.
'It was a gift.' Bartleby spoke at last, snapping it open and handing it to Mac, who strained his eyes to make out the detail. 'Carved bamboo. Meiji period. It was found on him when he died.'
'You know I have to ask.'
'J.Edgar.'
Mac couldn't hide his surprise.
'Okay, I'm impressed. Is that all I get to know?'
'Tolson.' Bartleby enigmatic as ever. Mac screwed up his brain to squeeze out the connection.
'Clyde Tolson? Assistant Director FBI?'
Bartleby took another long breath.
'Their relationship was an open secret within the Bureau. In ‘72 it looked like it was going wide. Tolson panicked; he'd lose everything. He couldn't trust the FBI so he came to me.'
Another pause while Mac reeled at the enormity of what he was hearing.
‘I made it look like auto-erotic asphyxiation, though of course it was hushed up. Hoover’s death was officially attributed to a heart attack. He had high blood pressure. There was no autopsy of course. Tolson saw to that.'
Mac swallowed hard. Bartleby continued, as calm and measured as if he were reminiscing about a family vacation.
'They found him naked but for the items with which I chose to array him. A pair of silk stockings, that pretty carved fan, and a lovely blue sash. The sash made a nice contrast with the purple of his face.'
‘Holy crap.’ Was all Mac could think to say.
‘Tolson inherited Hoover’s estate. They even buried him next to the old queen.’
‘And you?’
‘And me?’ He sighed. ‘Tolson gave me the fan. And later I got unlimited funding and plausible deniability for the unofficial agency for whom you have killed so many people over the years, Mister Mackinson.’
‘Sir,’ Mac, suddenly scared. ‘Does your telling me this mean that my life is now in danger?’
‘Your life ended back in Cambodia. I gave you a second life, an act of generosity on my part that you should do well to remember.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Mac wondered who was standing behind him in the dark. When the shot would come.
But it never did.
‘As for the tale I just related? Of course, I could be lying.’ Bartleby chuckled.
‘No, Mac, your life is in no more danger than usual.
Go now. But please leave the fan.’
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Some Choices Are Not Really Choices
This week’s sentence was taken from Alan Paton’s desperate message from apartheid-era South Africa, ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’.
It was:
‘Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more.’
Some Choices Are Not Really Choices
Silence.
Sunset, sliced by venetian blinds slashed stripes across the room, slithered over Mackinson and slipped across his desk, slid down the wall and slunk off across the carpet into the corner, painting a pot plant in shades of burnt amber.
Smoke curled and writhed, playing lazily in the bars of sunlight. Dust danced. The only movement.
Down the hall someone was playing a Miles Davis LP. Mackinson recognised Moon Dreams from Birth of the Cool. He smiled.
An old room. He liked it that way. High ceilings. Art Deco, tiger-striped maple wainscoting, green glass shades, chevrons zig-zagging across faded silk on sagging sofas.
The walls wore a stylish set of sepia photos: 1930s Manhattan. Long, low, dark-framed, panoramic skylines taken from the water: Chrysler, Empire State, Liberty; Brooklyn Bridge; the classics.
The desk bare but for a reading lamp, a bottle of good scotch, two cut-glass tumblers and the gun. The lamp stand was bronze, shaped like a dancer from the Folies, shiny in patches where he liked to rub it for luck. The revolver a 38 snub-nose police special laying next to Mackinson's hand on a thick towel which could be instantly wrapped around it as an improvised silencer.
Mackinson waited patiently, perfectly still, nonchalant, seemingly relaxed but deceptively so, in the same way a tiger might crouch and watch his prey.
His prey, a City Councilman named Jarvis, sat sweating, sucking on a cigarette as he read through the pages on his lap; face flushed, florid under a bad wig, forehead slick with the sheen of having walked up too many flights of stairs to get here. A big man unused to exercise, unused to pressure, unused to the tight knot of fear that now gripped his stomach. His rumpled suit displayed dark patches under the arms, his lank tie awry. Jowly. The Councilman looked a little like Dick Nixon might have if someone had landed a good one on that ski-ramp of a nose.
Leaning forward he gulped down a half-tumbler of scotch. Mackinson didn't refill his glass; Mackinson didn't move a muscle; he simply stared.
A crackle as Jarvis turned a page, eyes panicked, lower lip trembling. Rivulets of sweat ran down from his temples over a flabby neck, staining his shirt collar.
The gun was mostly for show but he would happily use it. He would equally happily not. The man was weak. Spineless. Loathsome. A stony stare kept him cowed. Much as he despised his victim Mackinson would gladly let Jarvis live. The mess and stink of cutting up and disposing of the body would put him off dinner tonight. Besides, he was just the messenger, Bartleby had laid it all out clear as day on those few terrible pages.
Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more. Mackinson watched him carefully, searching his face for clues.
Eventually time, like his cigarette, ran out. Jarvis shuddered, took a deep, trembling breath and raised his wet eyes to meet Mackinson's.
It was:
‘Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more.’
Some Choices Are Not Really Choices
Silence.
Sunset, sliced by venetian blinds slashed stripes across the room, slithered over Mackinson and slipped across his desk, slid down the wall and slunk off across the carpet into the corner, painting a pot plant in shades of burnt amber.
Smoke curled and writhed, playing lazily in the bars of sunlight. Dust danced. The only movement.
Down the hall someone was playing a Miles Davis LP. Mackinson recognised Moon Dreams from Birth of the Cool. He smiled.
An old room. He liked it that way. High ceilings. Art Deco, tiger-striped maple wainscoting, green glass shades, chevrons zig-zagging across faded silk on sagging sofas.
The walls wore a stylish set of sepia photos: 1930s Manhattan. Long, low, dark-framed, panoramic skylines taken from the water: Chrysler, Empire State, Liberty; Brooklyn Bridge; the classics.
The desk bare but for a reading lamp, a bottle of good scotch, two cut-glass tumblers and the gun. The lamp stand was bronze, shaped like a dancer from the Folies, shiny in patches where he liked to rub it for luck. The revolver a 38 snub-nose police special laying next to Mackinson's hand on a thick towel which could be instantly wrapped around it as an improvised silencer.
Mackinson waited patiently, perfectly still, nonchalant, seemingly relaxed but deceptively so, in the same way a tiger might crouch and watch his prey.
His prey, a City Councilman named Jarvis, sat sweating, sucking on a cigarette as he read through the pages on his lap; face flushed, florid under a bad wig, forehead slick with the sheen of having walked up too many flights of stairs to get here. A big man unused to exercise, unused to pressure, unused to the tight knot of fear that now gripped his stomach. His rumpled suit displayed dark patches under the arms, his lank tie awry. Jowly. The Councilman looked a little like Dick Nixon might have if someone had landed a good one on that ski-ramp of a nose.
Leaning forward he gulped down a half-tumbler of scotch. Mackinson didn't refill his glass; Mackinson didn't move a muscle; he simply stared.
A crackle as Jarvis turned a page, eyes panicked, lower lip trembling. Rivulets of sweat ran down from his temples over a flabby neck, staining his shirt collar.
The gun was mostly for show but he would happily use it. He would equally happily not. The man was weak. Spineless. Loathsome. A stony stare kept him cowed. Much as he despised his victim Mackinson would gladly let Jarvis live. The mess and stink of cutting up and disposing of the body would put him off dinner tonight. Besides, he was just the messenger, Bartleby had laid it all out clear as day on those few terrible pages.
Jarvis sat a long time smoking, he did not read any more. Mackinson watched him carefully, searching his face for clues.
Eventually time, like his cigarette, ran out. Jarvis shuddered, took a deep, trembling breath and raised his wet eyes to meet Mackinson's.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Passing Through
This week’s sentence was taken from ‘American Notes’ by Charles Dickens.
The sentence was:
"He had ordered 'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and common doings'."
Passing Through
New Providence. Just a wide spot on a dirt road. 'Jo-Beth's Family Diner. No Dogs. No Coloreds.' was a lean-to tar-paper shed hanging off the side of a clapboard wreck that looked for all the world like a tornado had simply dumped it there in disgust.
Mackinson parked up and stared for a while, as if he half-expected it to sprout legs and walk off, eventually reaching the conclusion that he was hungry and this was the only diner he'd seen in the past fifty miles.
He ducked under the lintel and let his eyes adjust to the gloom.
"Halp Yew?"
A scrawny woman in a faded shift dress and the filthiest apron he had ever seen stood with one hand on the kitchen doorjamb and hefted her weight from hip to hip.
Mackinson faked southern-polite: "Ma'am, I'm kinda hungry. Any chance of something to eat?"
The woman pointed with her chin.
A child's blackboard that had seen better days leaned on a shelf behind the counter. Chalked between peeling paint was the menu.
It was brief.
He had ordered 'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and common doings'. There were no other options except the single word, "Koffee."
Klan town.
The woman disappeared into the kitchen and Mackinson amused himself in a vain quest to find a chair or table with four legs the same length.
He found one close enough and sat.
Looking up he saw her leaning in the doorway watching him. Something spattered in a pan behind her.
"Y'ain't local." She drawled.
"Can't say that I'm local to anywhere, ma'am."
"Name's Jo-Beth."
Mackinson nodded and smiled.
"Mac."
She was gone for a few moments. Clatter and sizzle from the back as she dished up.
“Smells good." He lied.
The food was passable. There were recognisable traces of chicken. His coffee was as bitter and raw-boned as the woman. He liked it.
Jo-Beth watched him eat. She took off the apron and let her hair fall loose from her barrettes. Streaks of grey in the brown. He guessed around forty-five. For all his first impressions she looked pretty good in the available light.
"Passin' through?"
Mackinson nodded as he ate.
"Coulda guessed. Ain't nobody ever stays."
She sighed.
"Don't blame 'em, neither. New Providence? Ha!"
Her voice suddenly sad. Resentful, like a pouty child.
"Godforsaken flyblown hole. What's to stay fer, anyways?"
He swallowed and grinned. "Well the food's pretty good."
Her laughter seemed to take her by surprise, like she hadn't laughed for a long time and had forgotten what it was like. It subsided only gradually and left her cheeks flushed.
She smiled. It suited her. He told her so.
Finishing his coffee, Mackinson slowly stood and reached for his wallet.
Flustered now. Fiddling with her hair. Suddenly shy.
"Mac." She paused, uncertain. "I …"
He walked over to her, touched her arm and felt her tremble.
His voice soft.
"Jo-Beth."
Her voice a cracked whisper.
"Stay a while."
The sentence was:
"He had ordered 'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and common doings'."
Passing Through
New Providence. Just a wide spot on a dirt road. 'Jo-Beth's Family Diner. No Dogs. No Coloreds.' was a lean-to tar-paper shed hanging off the side of a clapboard wreck that looked for all the world like a tornado had simply dumped it there in disgust.
Mackinson parked up and stared for a while, as if he half-expected it to sprout legs and walk off, eventually reaching the conclusion that he was hungry and this was the only diner he'd seen in the past fifty miles.
He ducked under the lintel and let his eyes adjust to the gloom.
"Halp Yew?"
A scrawny woman in a faded shift dress and the filthiest apron he had ever seen stood with one hand on the kitchen doorjamb and hefted her weight from hip to hip.
Mackinson faked southern-polite: "Ma'am, I'm kinda hungry. Any chance of something to eat?"
The woman pointed with her chin.
A child's blackboard that had seen better days leaned on a shelf behind the counter. Chalked between peeling paint was the menu.
It was brief.
He had ordered 'wheat-bread and chicken fixings,' in preference to 'corn-bread and common doings'. There were no other options except the single word, "Koffee."
Klan town.
The woman disappeared into the kitchen and Mackinson amused himself in a vain quest to find a chair or table with four legs the same length.
He found one close enough and sat.
Looking up he saw her leaning in the doorway watching him. Something spattered in a pan behind her.
"Y'ain't local." She drawled.
"Can't say that I'm local to anywhere, ma'am."
"Name's Jo-Beth."
Mackinson nodded and smiled.
"Mac."
She was gone for a few moments. Clatter and sizzle from the back as she dished up.
“Smells good." He lied.
The food was passable. There were recognisable traces of chicken. His coffee was as bitter and raw-boned as the woman. He liked it.
Jo-Beth watched him eat. She took off the apron and let her hair fall loose from her barrettes. Streaks of grey in the brown. He guessed around forty-five. For all his first impressions she looked pretty good in the available light.
"Passin' through?"
Mackinson nodded as he ate.
"Coulda guessed. Ain't nobody ever stays."
She sighed.
"Don't blame 'em, neither. New Providence? Ha!"
Her voice suddenly sad. Resentful, like a pouty child.
"Godforsaken flyblown hole. What's to stay fer, anyways?"
He swallowed and grinned. "Well the food's pretty good."
Her laughter seemed to take her by surprise, like she hadn't laughed for a long time and had forgotten what it was like. It subsided only gradually and left her cheeks flushed.
She smiled. It suited her. He told her so.
Finishing his coffee, Mackinson slowly stood and reached for his wallet.
Flustered now. Fiddling with her hair. Suddenly shy.
"Mac." She paused, uncertain. "I …"
He walked over to her, touched her arm and felt her tremble.
His voice soft.
"Jo-Beth."
Her voice a cracked whisper.
"Stay a while."
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Lunch
This week’s sentence was taken from Edith Wharton’s ‘The Age of Innocence’.
It was:
‘“Tell me what you do all day,” he said, crossing his arms under his tilted-back head, and pushing his hat forward to screen the sun-dazzle.’
Lunch
Central Park in the early 1960s; no mimes, no joggers, no Goddamned cellphones.
Bliss.
Sunny lunchtime in May.
Light so bright it bleached the sky. So fast it slammed into the lake and exploded on impact.
A million sparkling shards, flickering ricochets burning blind-spots, searing the retinas of anyone foolish enough to look.
Down by the lake: two guys in ties.
One lay back on the grass and breathed deep.
“Tell me what you do all day,” he said, crossing his arms under his tilted-back head, and pushing his hat forward to screen the sun-dazzle.
His companion sat looking the other way, watching office girls in summer frocks flounce through their lunch-break.
Greene peered up at him from under the brim of his fedora.
"I mean other than look at girls."
Matching grins.
"I'm a commercial artist."
"No shit?" he paused, "Notwithstanding that, my question remains."
Gray laughed.
"Notwithstanding? You're kidding! Who says notwithstanding these days?"
"I do. Notwithstanding that, what do you do all day, Mister Commercial Artist?"
"I paint those." he pointed his chin at the groups of girls. "I sit all day at a drawing board and make young housewives' dreams come true."
"Son, you know jack shit about housewives' dreams."
A guilty chuckle.
"Yeah, I know. But somebody's gotta make 'em yearn for that crap."
Greene raised his head.
"Dishwashers? Rotisseries? Laundromats? Who needs a dishwasher? That's what the housewife is for. What's she gonna do after dinner? Come and yak at her husband? Leave the poor guy alone, sweetie. Wash the Goddamned dishes."
Gray shook his head, laughing softly.
"You trying to put me out of a job? The world's changing. Housewives apparently have 'leisure time' now."
"You're scaring me, kid. Cut it out."
Gray's blue eyes met Greene's brown. He smiled.
"So what do you do all day, Mister Mysterious?"
"I'm not a cop, if that's what you're worried about."
Gray looked away, relief falling off him like sweat.
"I'm pleased to hear it. Notwithstanding that, my question remains."
Greene couldn't help but laugh.
"You've got a cheek, kid. I like that."
The younger man grinned at him, raising an eyebrow coquettishly.
"Notwithstanding that …"
"You really wanna know what I do? I hang around the park cruising for queers. What do you think?"
"Well I was kinda wondering."
"I'm a writer."
Gray nodded and shifted towards him, his fingers playing with the grass.
"So, Mister Writer man. I don't see you as a crusading journalist, rousting guys like me for the gutter press. What sort of things do you write?"
"I write short stories."
Gray looked a little disappointed.
"No Great American Novel, then?"
"Not yet. Just little slices of New York life."
Gray gazed at him for a long time.
"So what am I? Research?"
"No, son; you're just a figment of my imagination."
Greene got up and stretched. Alone but for the office girls he tipped his hat to them and strolled off through the trees, disappearing into the dappled shade.
It was:
‘“Tell me what you do all day,” he said, crossing his arms under his tilted-back head, and pushing his hat forward to screen the sun-dazzle.’
Lunch
Central Park in the early 1960s; no mimes, no joggers, no Goddamned cellphones.
Bliss.
Sunny lunchtime in May.
Light so bright it bleached the sky. So fast it slammed into the lake and exploded on impact.
A million sparkling shards, flickering ricochets burning blind-spots, searing the retinas of anyone foolish enough to look.
Down by the lake: two guys in ties.
One lay back on the grass and breathed deep.
“Tell me what you do all day,” he said, crossing his arms under his tilted-back head, and pushing his hat forward to screen the sun-dazzle.
His companion sat looking the other way, watching office girls in summer frocks flounce through their lunch-break.
Greene peered up at him from under the brim of his fedora.
"I mean other than look at girls."
Matching grins.
"I'm a commercial artist."
"No shit?" he paused, "Notwithstanding that, my question remains."
Gray laughed.
"Notwithstanding? You're kidding! Who says notwithstanding these days?"
"I do. Notwithstanding that, what do you do all day, Mister Commercial Artist?"
"I paint those." he pointed his chin at the groups of girls. "I sit all day at a drawing board and make young housewives' dreams come true."
"Son, you know jack shit about housewives' dreams."
A guilty chuckle.
"Yeah, I know. But somebody's gotta make 'em yearn for that crap."
Greene raised his head.
"Dishwashers? Rotisseries? Laundromats? Who needs a dishwasher? That's what the housewife is for. What's she gonna do after dinner? Come and yak at her husband? Leave the poor guy alone, sweetie. Wash the Goddamned dishes."
Gray shook his head, laughing softly.
"You trying to put me out of a job? The world's changing. Housewives apparently have 'leisure time' now."
"You're scaring me, kid. Cut it out."
Gray's blue eyes met Greene's brown. He smiled.
"So what do you do all day, Mister Mysterious?"
"I'm not a cop, if that's what you're worried about."
Gray looked away, relief falling off him like sweat.
"I'm pleased to hear it. Notwithstanding that, my question remains."
Greene couldn't help but laugh.
"You've got a cheek, kid. I like that."
The younger man grinned at him, raising an eyebrow coquettishly.
"Notwithstanding that …"
"You really wanna know what I do? I hang around the park cruising for queers. What do you think?"
"Well I was kinda wondering."
"I'm a writer."
Gray nodded and shifted towards him, his fingers playing with the grass.
"So, Mister Writer man. I don't see you as a crusading journalist, rousting guys like me for the gutter press. What sort of things do you write?"
"I write short stories."
Gray looked a little disappointed.
"No Great American Novel, then?"
"Not yet. Just little slices of New York life."
Gray gazed at him for a long time.
"So what am I? Research?"
"No, son; you're just a figment of my imagination."
Greene got up and stretched. Alone but for the office girls he tipped his hat to them and strolled off through the trees, disappearing into the dappled shade.
Saturday, 19 September 2009
April Love
This week's sentence was suggested by Katie and is from a short story called 'Dall', from the book Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston:
“I don't shoot animals and I hate cold weather, so maybe I had no business following Boone to the Alaska Range for a season of Dall sheep hunting.”
April Love
I don't shoot animals and I hate cold weather, so maybe I had no business following Boone to the Alaska Range for a season of Dall sheep hunting.
He'd badgered me for years to go with him until I had no excuses left.
Besides, what's a guy to do when he retires? Sit indoors with the wife? Janelle hates me getting under her feet.
"What's so exciting about shooting sheep?" I’d asked. "The ones around here are so dumb you could walk up and throttle them."
We sat in Boone's den, gazing at all his trophies. I wondered just how many rams' horns a guy needs. Dozens, if Boone was any guide.
"Ah, but these are wild sheep! Mountain sheep!" He had been depressingly enthusiastic. "They live on inaccessible crags and have fantastic eyesight; they can spot us from miles off so stalking them is nailbiting stuff!"
I had reminded him of this fact when our 4x4 got stuck in a herd of the creatures wandering lazily across the road near the lodge.
"Shall I git ma gun?" I joked.
"No, but you can get your fat butt out there and shoo these buggers off the road."
The lodge I liked.
Great food, plenty of beer, warm beds and a roaring log fire.
The first day's ride out to base camp had been glorious: pristine blue skies, glittering lakes, the lodge's friendly horses meandering through truly breathtaking mountain scenery. I had to confess to Boone that my own idea of hunting poon down in Cancún was probably not in the same league.
But then the weather turned and there I was, camped out with a dozen other crotchety old fools, visibility down to ten yards, horizontal sleet and a gusting gale that made peeing a real treat.
"Danny, what on earth possessed your parents to name you Daniel?"
"They knew I'd grow up to be a great backwoodsman and tracker just like my namesake."
"But you're a retired water-cooler salesman from Minneapolis. I'm pretty certain Daniel didn't drive a 4x4 with GPS or go hunting decked out in Gore-tex. Shouldn't we be wearing buckskins with dead raccoons on our heads?"
"That was Davy Crockett."
"Maybe they should have named you Davy, or something less likely to give my fat butt frostbite."
He chuckled. "You mean Pat? Jeez! Though did you know Pat's descended from Daniel himself?"
"Yeah, Danny, but you ain't!"
"What was it he sang?"
"Who? Pat or Daniel?"
"Heh-heh."
Suddenly the sound of crooning drifted across the campsite:
"April love is for the very young
Every star's a wishing star …"
"Hey Danny!" from another tent. "This ain't Brokeback fuckin' Mountain!"
And then we were all of us singing and laughing our asses off and the beer went round and the next morning the weather broke and you could see forever.
We're in our fifth season now.
Every August I head north to where the company is just grand and the scenery the closest I'll ever get to Heaven.
“I don't shoot animals and I hate cold weather, so maybe I had no business following Boone to the Alaska Range for a season of Dall sheep hunting.”
April Love
I don't shoot animals and I hate cold weather, so maybe I had no business following Boone to the Alaska Range for a season of Dall sheep hunting.
He'd badgered me for years to go with him until I had no excuses left.
Besides, what's a guy to do when he retires? Sit indoors with the wife? Janelle hates me getting under her feet.
"What's so exciting about shooting sheep?" I’d asked. "The ones around here are so dumb you could walk up and throttle them."
We sat in Boone's den, gazing at all his trophies. I wondered just how many rams' horns a guy needs. Dozens, if Boone was any guide.
"Ah, but these are wild sheep! Mountain sheep!" He had been depressingly enthusiastic. "They live on inaccessible crags and have fantastic eyesight; they can spot us from miles off so stalking them is nailbiting stuff!"
I had reminded him of this fact when our 4x4 got stuck in a herd of the creatures wandering lazily across the road near the lodge.
"Shall I git ma gun?" I joked.
"No, but you can get your fat butt out there and shoo these buggers off the road."
The lodge I liked.
Great food, plenty of beer, warm beds and a roaring log fire.
The first day's ride out to base camp had been glorious: pristine blue skies, glittering lakes, the lodge's friendly horses meandering through truly breathtaking mountain scenery. I had to confess to Boone that my own idea of hunting poon down in Cancún was probably not in the same league.
But then the weather turned and there I was, camped out with a dozen other crotchety old fools, visibility down to ten yards, horizontal sleet and a gusting gale that made peeing a real treat.
"Danny, what on earth possessed your parents to name you Daniel?"
"They knew I'd grow up to be a great backwoodsman and tracker just like my namesake."
"But you're a retired water-cooler salesman from Minneapolis. I'm pretty certain Daniel didn't drive a 4x4 with GPS or go hunting decked out in Gore-tex. Shouldn't we be wearing buckskins with dead raccoons on our heads?"
"That was Davy Crockett."
"Maybe they should have named you Davy, or something less likely to give my fat butt frostbite."
He chuckled. "You mean Pat? Jeez! Though did you know Pat's descended from Daniel himself?"
"Yeah, Danny, but you ain't!"
"What was it he sang?"
"Who? Pat or Daniel?"
"Heh-heh."
Suddenly the sound of crooning drifted across the campsite:
"April love is for the very young
Every star's a wishing star …"
"Hey Danny!" from another tent. "This ain't Brokeback fuckin' Mountain!"
And then we were all of us singing and laughing our asses off and the beer went round and the next morning the weather broke and you could see forever.
We're in our fifth season now.
Every August I head north to where the company is just grand and the scenery the closest I'll ever get to Heaven.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Becoming
This week's sentence was taken from Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road'.
It was:
'I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.'
Because of the length of the sentence, this week contributors were allowed to not count it in their 500 word total.
Becoming
I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.
Even as I shuddered and stretched and heaved myself up off the stained mattress I had to say it aloud to convince myself.
"I am Samuel Charles Mackinson." whatever the hell that meant.
Walking to the window the linoleum, worn down to the thread in patches, felt clammy against my bare feet.
The thin curtains were the colour of a bruise. Carefully avoiding the grease-grey stains from hundreds of hands I twitched them aside and looked the world square in the sunset.
Sunset always gets me.
This one took that filthy street of run-down tenements and flophouses and made it beautiful. I blinked until my eyes caught up with the glare.
A light the colour of apricots glistened on damp asphalt, glittered off broken glass, smearing gasoline rainbows across puddles and potholes; the tangled, rusting latticework of fire escapes cast jagged spiderweb shadows over cracked concrete and hot ochre bricks.
I breathed it all in.
Rush-hour. Pavement packed with people, the roar of traffic deafening even from three floors up. Cutting through it all, the banshee screech of the el train taking the bend at the end of the street a little too fast; a blaring, roaring and clattering cacophony.
Music to my ears.
I hit the sidewalk as sunset surrendered to a bright new world of garish green and ruby neon, its hum and sputter a mile-wide bug-zapper drawing in the nightflies, drawing in Sam Mackinson.
Day shift over, the city came to life.
Corner bar. Refresher. The coffee felt good, the scotch felt better.
Burning a hole in my pants pocket the crumpled brown envelope containing my instructions for getting here and most of the wad of cash that came with them, together with the key to a locker at the bus station.
I took my time and let the crowds thin.
The depot was deserted but for a ragtag of bleary-eyed overnight travellers, backpackers and sleeping bums; a vast shed, its darkness relieved by pools of sickly fluorescent lowlighting, the whole place rank with the stink of stale piss, exhaust fumes and delays.
Rows of lockers; pale green tin. I tried to focus; the events of the past few weeks coming together like a slow-motion car wreck and making about as much sense. A psychedelic whirlwind of flickering images dizzied me:
Sam Mackinson, fresh-faced fly-boy, running CIA opium out of Cambodia under Nixon's nose; a 'deniable asset' abandoned when the shit came down.
‘M.I.A.’
But somebody it seemed had not forgotten me - a guardian angel. Hustled across the Laotian border and out via Vientiane, smuggled to San Dago, I’d hitched cross-country and now here I stood in this filthy bus terminal: dazed, exhausted … nobody.
I looked at the key. The key to my future.
Checking all round I opened the locker and took out the briefcase.
The pistol was there. The money. The apartment key. A number to call and a name: 'Bartleby'.
Walking out into the shining night I knew who I was.
It was:
'I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.'
Because of the length of the sentence, this week contributors were allowed to not count it in their 500 word total.
Becoming
I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.
Even as I shuddered and stretched and heaved myself up off the stained mattress I had to say it aloud to convince myself.
"I am Samuel Charles Mackinson." whatever the hell that meant.
Walking to the window the linoleum, worn down to the thread in patches, felt clammy against my bare feet.
The thin curtains were the colour of a bruise. Carefully avoiding the grease-grey stains from hundreds of hands I twitched them aside and looked the world square in the sunset.
Sunset always gets me.
This one took that filthy street of run-down tenements and flophouses and made it beautiful. I blinked until my eyes caught up with the glare.
A light the colour of apricots glistened on damp asphalt, glittered off broken glass, smearing gasoline rainbows across puddles and potholes; the tangled, rusting latticework of fire escapes cast jagged spiderweb shadows over cracked concrete and hot ochre bricks.
I breathed it all in.
Rush-hour. Pavement packed with people, the roar of traffic deafening even from three floors up. Cutting through it all, the banshee screech of the el train taking the bend at the end of the street a little too fast; a blaring, roaring and clattering cacophony.
Music to my ears.
I hit the sidewalk as sunset surrendered to a bright new world of garish green and ruby neon, its hum and sputter a mile-wide bug-zapper drawing in the nightflies, drawing in Sam Mackinson.
Day shift over, the city came to life.
Corner bar. Refresher. The coffee felt good, the scotch felt better.
Burning a hole in my pants pocket the crumpled brown envelope containing my instructions for getting here and most of the wad of cash that came with them, together with the key to a locker at the bus station.
I took my time and let the crowds thin.
The depot was deserted but for a ragtag of bleary-eyed overnight travellers, backpackers and sleeping bums; a vast shed, its darkness relieved by pools of sickly fluorescent lowlighting, the whole place rank with the stink of stale piss, exhaust fumes and delays.
Rows of lockers; pale green tin. I tried to focus; the events of the past few weeks coming together like a slow-motion car wreck and making about as much sense. A psychedelic whirlwind of flickering images dizzied me:
Sam Mackinson, fresh-faced fly-boy, running CIA opium out of Cambodia under Nixon's nose; a 'deniable asset' abandoned when the shit came down.
‘M.I.A.’
But somebody it seemed had not forgotten me - a guardian angel. Hustled across the Laotian border and out via Vientiane, smuggled to San Dago, I’d hitched cross-country and now here I stood in this filthy bus terminal: dazed, exhausted … nobody.
I looked at the key. The key to my future.
Checking all round I opened the locker and took out the briefcase.
The pistol was there. The money. The apartment key. A number to call and a name: 'Bartleby'.
Walking out into the shining night I knew who I was.
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Blue Bayou
This week's sentence was taken from Bruce Chatwin's 'The Songlines':
At the bar, a big man with a purple birthmark on his neck was methodically swilling Scotches through his rotted teeth, and talking to the police patrolman whom we had met the day before at Burnt Flat.
Blue Bayou
Taking a booth by the window, I eased my ass into the pink bucket seat, flicked open the wipe-clean menu and checked the room.
Chrome and plastic; neon beer lights; sizzle and clatter through the kitchen hatch; the short-order cook preparing to load the arteries of the half-dozen early-bird diners dotting the joint and coughing smoke into their newspapers.
Mackinson nodded in time with the ancient jukebox and smiled.
"Roy Orbison. Nice."
At the bar, a big man with a purple birthmark on his neck was methodically swilling Scotches through his rotted teeth, and talking to the police patrolman whom we had met the day before at Burnt Flat.
"Scotch for breakfast. That's gonna kill him."
I had to chuckle.
"Jeez, Mac. Keep it down."
The waitress glided over: pink gingham, name-tag: 'ARLENE', good legs.
She oozed class - of a sort I liked - from her mousy roots to her plastic boots.
Sepia-stained teeth and fingertips clashed with ‘Harem Nites’ lips and the kind of pink, sparkly nails and turquoise eyeshadow that little girls used.
She popped her gum and slapped her mouth at us a couple of times.
"Ready to order?"
I smiled. A regular trailer park princess. I wanted her so bad.
Mackinson friendly: "Two coffees, honey; two OJ, two specials; eggs over easy.
Do you have a payphone I can use?"
"End of the bar." she tilted her head and a sudden wave of bottle-blonde ponytail cascaded onto her shoulder. The blinds painted her in stripes of sunrise and I winced, watching her wiggle back across the room and wishing I'd come here under different circumstances.
"Mac." I glanced upward and he stopped scratching his head, heeding my warning. These wigs were getting itchy. I suppressed a grin; he looked kinda distinguished with grey hair, glasses and moustache.
“I’ll call him.”
As he rose I shook open the Post to distract myself from the ache of Arlene.
Jeez! Gas just hit 64¢ a gallon! One of these days we're gonna have to do something about those fuckin' Arabs.
On the phone to Bartleby, Mackinson watched the fat cop waddle out into the car park and mount his patrol bike. It was quite a balancing act.
When the engine noise receded he gave me the nod.
I got up and stretched. Mackinson was easing his pistol from his belt and checking the room for backup. I walked over to the big man at the bar. He glanced up and saw me.
Too late.
As he stiffened in shock I shot him twice in the face then once behind the ear when he fell.
"Done." Mackinson hung up the phone on Bartleby, yanked the wire from the wall and we sauntered out while the other diners were still struggling to get under their tables.
I took a last glance back at Arlene where she crouched, weeping behind the bar.
Shame.
We drove away with Mackinson humming Blue Bayou; Arlene's cheap perfume mingled with cordite on my breath.
At the bar, a big man with a purple birthmark on his neck was methodically swilling Scotches through his rotted teeth, and talking to the police patrolman whom we had met the day before at Burnt Flat.
Blue Bayou
Taking a booth by the window, I eased my ass into the pink bucket seat, flicked open the wipe-clean menu and checked the room.
Chrome and plastic; neon beer lights; sizzle and clatter through the kitchen hatch; the short-order cook preparing to load the arteries of the half-dozen early-bird diners dotting the joint and coughing smoke into their newspapers.
Mackinson nodded in time with the ancient jukebox and smiled.
"Roy Orbison. Nice."
At the bar, a big man with a purple birthmark on his neck was methodically swilling Scotches through his rotted teeth, and talking to the police patrolman whom we had met the day before at Burnt Flat.
"Scotch for breakfast. That's gonna kill him."
I had to chuckle.
"Jeez, Mac. Keep it down."
The waitress glided over: pink gingham, name-tag: 'ARLENE', good legs.
She oozed class - of a sort I liked - from her mousy roots to her plastic boots.
Sepia-stained teeth and fingertips clashed with ‘Harem Nites’ lips and the kind of pink, sparkly nails and turquoise eyeshadow that little girls used.
She popped her gum and slapped her mouth at us a couple of times.
"Ready to order?"
I smiled. A regular trailer park princess. I wanted her so bad.
Mackinson friendly: "Two coffees, honey; two OJ, two specials; eggs over easy.
Do you have a payphone I can use?"
"End of the bar." she tilted her head and a sudden wave of bottle-blonde ponytail cascaded onto her shoulder. The blinds painted her in stripes of sunrise and I winced, watching her wiggle back across the room and wishing I'd come here under different circumstances.
"Mac." I glanced upward and he stopped scratching his head, heeding my warning. These wigs were getting itchy. I suppressed a grin; he looked kinda distinguished with grey hair, glasses and moustache.
“I’ll call him.”
As he rose I shook open the Post to distract myself from the ache of Arlene.
Jeez! Gas just hit 64¢ a gallon! One of these days we're gonna have to do something about those fuckin' Arabs.
On the phone to Bartleby, Mackinson watched the fat cop waddle out into the car park and mount his patrol bike. It was quite a balancing act.
When the engine noise receded he gave me the nod.
I got up and stretched. Mackinson was easing his pistol from his belt and checking the room for backup. I walked over to the big man at the bar. He glanced up and saw me.
Too late.
As he stiffened in shock I shot him twice in the face then once behind the ear when he fell.
"Done." Mackinson hung up the phone on Bartleby, yanked the wire from the wall and we sauntered out while the other diners were still struggling to get under their tables.
I took a last glance back at Arlene where she crouched, weeping behind the bar.
Shame.
We drove away with Mackinson humming Blue Bayou; Arlene's cheap perfume mingled with cordite on my breath.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
The Job
This week's sentence was taken from Paul Auster's 'City Of Glass', from his marvellous "The New York Trilogy", and it was:
"Then, suddenly, with great clarity and precision, he saw Bartleby's window and the blank brick wall before him."
The Job
Then, suddenly, with great clarity and precision, he saw Bartleby's window and the blank brick wall before him.
The wall.
Always the same.
It stared him down.
Browbeat him.
The early morning sun burned the bricks a violent orange that hurt his eyes but it was not the squinting brilliance that he found intimidating.
It was the purity.
The very blankness.
The effrontery of it all.
It was Bartleby …
For blocks all around, every surface within reach of an outstretched arm was a scribbled tangle of graffiti. Layer after layer of tags and murals and adolescent brag and bluster festooned and swagged across wall and window, shutter and trashcan.
Yet no paint touched Bartleby's wall.
Ever.
The bright bricks briefly dazzled him; a malevolent, blazing tabula rubra. He shaded his eyes against their glare.
The wall was around fifty feet long and went up three storeys. Bartleby's window sat just off centre on the middle floor; a stark, black hole into nothingness.
He couldn't see in.
There were no other windows.
There was no door; at least not out front.
He stood across the street and waited as he always waited in what had once been the doorway of a laundry but was now - like so much else here - utterly derelict; trashed, tagged, beaten and left for dead.
He looked at the payphone.
The only undamaged payphone for ten blocks; it stood at one end of Bartleby's pristine wall.
He waited.
He never had to wait long. Somebody would be behind the window watching him; maybe even Bartleby himself, though somehow he doubted that.
The phone would ring three times and he would leave, returning home to find in his mailbox the familiar A4 manila envelope containing a quantity of cash and Bartleby's enigmatic instructions.
The payphone rang.
He left.
He never walked straight back to his apartment but invariably varied his route in a determined attempt at discontinuity.
Some days he would stop for latte and a bagel; others he would browse the bookstores or linger at the library; maybe buy some groceries.
Today he walked to the nearest Metro station and caught a train to the park.
At this hour there were still empty benches. He sat in the shade of a plane tree, waited for a hefty jogger to pound past and opened his attaché case.
Trying not to think of what would be waiting for him at the apartment he read a couple of chapters of Auster's New York Trilogy.
He liked these stories. He liked to lose himself in the characters' Odyssean wanderings; the repetitive interactions between strangers; the vaguely mysterious yet ultimately futile assignments that ruled their lives.
Much like his own …
The envelope was there in his mailbox.
Back in the apartment he closed the blind against the sun and poured himself a stiff scotch, then sat with the envelope on his lap and reached for his letter-opener.
Taking out the single sheet of paper he began to read.
"Then, suddenly, with great clarity and precision, he saw Bartleby's window and the blank brick wall before him."
The Job
Then, suddenly, with great clarity and precision, he saw Bartleby's window and the blank brick wall before him.
The wall.
Always the same.
It stared him down.
Browbeat him.
The early morning sun burned the bricks a violent orange that hurt his eyes but it was not the squinting brilliance that he found intimidating.
It was the purity.
The very blankness.
The effrontery of it all.
It was Bartleby …
For blocks all around, every surface within reach of an outstretched arm was a scribbled tangle of graffiti. Layer after layer of tags and murals and adolescent brag and bluster festooned and swagged across wall and window, shutter and trashcan.
Yet no paint touched Bartleby's wall.
Ever.
The bright bricks briefly dazzled him; a malevolent, blazing tabula rubra. He shaded his eyes against their glare.
The wall was around fifty feet long and went up three storeys. Bartleby's window sat just off centre on the middle floor; a stark, black hole into nothingness.
He couldn't see in.
There were no other windows.
There was no door; at least not out front.
He stood across the street and waited as he always waited in what had once been the doorway of a laundry but was now - like so much else here - utterly derelict; trashed, tagged, beaten and left for dead.
He looked at the payphone.
The only undamaged payphone for ten blocks; it stood at one end of Bartleby's pristine wall.
He waited.
He never had to wait long. Somebody would be behind the window watching him; maybe even Bartleby himself, though somehow he doubted that.
The phone would ring three times and he would leave, returning home to find in his mailbox the familiar A4 manila envelope containing a quantity of cash and Bartleby's enigmatic instructions.
The payphone rang.
He left.
He never walked straight back to his apartment but invariably varied his route in a determined attempt at discontinuity.
Some days he would stop for latte and a bagel; others he would browse the bookstores or linger at the library; maybe buy some groceries.
Today he walked to the nearest Metro station and caught a train to the park.
At this hour there were still empty benches. He sat in the shade of a plane tree, waited for a hefty jogger to pound past and opened his attaché case.
Trying not to think of what would be waiting for him at the apartment he read a couple of chapters of Auster's New York Trilogy.
He liked these stories. He liked to lose himself in the characters' Odyssean wanderings; the repetitive interactions between strangers; the vaguely mysterious yet ultimately futile assignments that ruled their lives.
Much like his own …
The envelope was there in his mailbox.
Back in the apartment he closed the blind against the sun and poured himself a stiff scotch, then sat with the envelope on his lap and reached for his letter-opener.
Taking out the single sheet of paper he began to read.
Prodigal
This week's sentence - from Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita':
"And again next day a thinly populated sky, losing its blue to the heat, would melt overhead, and Lo would clamour for a drink, and her cheeks would hollow vigorously over the straw, and the car inside would be a furnace when we got in again, and the road shimmered ahead, with a remote car changing its shape mirage-like in the surface glare, and seeming to hang for a moment, old-fashionedly square and high, in the hot haze."
Prodigal
And again next day a thinly populated sky, losing its blue to the heat, would melt overhead, and Lo would clamour for a drink, and her cheeks would hollow vigorously over the straw, and the car inside would be a furnace when we got in again, and the road shimmered ahead, with a remote car changing its shape mirage-like in the surface glare, and seeming to hang for a moment, old-fashionedly square and high, in the hot haze.
Now, far ahead, floating way above the horizon lay a blue line that spoke of the Sierras.
Another long day of burning heat stretched ahead of us; the sun blistering the car's ancient paintwork, beating like hammers on the hot metal, baking Lo and Mary and me as the wheezing remains of the air-conditioner sucked our mouths and throats dry of what little moisture we might have hoarded.
I recalled the last time we'd driven west.
Aunt Sarah's funeral.
The shrivelled up faces of relatives I'd not seen in twenty years staring disapprovingly at the boy who'd gone east to make his fortune, now returned like the prodigal in his tired clothes and junkheap car with that pinch-faced woman of his and their poor little girl in hand-me-downs.
Now here we were again, making a final marathon pilgrimage across this vast and unforgiving continent, back to the bosom of my loving family, the sneers and sniffy asides: "I always said he'd come to nothing."
Nothing.
I glanced across at Lo.
My shot at redemption.
She at least would appreciate the weather out here.
I felt a momentary shiver of pleasure in the stifling heat; a fleeting chill of bitter winter winds howling off Lake Michigan, biting at my baby's fingers; fern fronds of frost creeping across the insides of the windows in our dank refrigerator of an apartment.
I almost missed it.
I almost missed the roar and clatter of the el, shaking our restless sleep as we huddled together for warmth.
Warmth …
Here the sun burned the colours from the world.
We sat: me hunched over the wheel, Mary sagging into her seat, drained, Lo leaning forward, her pale grey eyes missing nothing; a mute triumvirate as the parched world rolled by us and the old engine droned.
Here a flyblown motel; a single black dog watching us from the dusty parking lot; an empty pool.
There a trailer set back from the highway; threadbare wire fence corralling a world in miniature; baked clothes limp on a washing line; the rusted corpses of cars littering the yard.
And after all the miles; after all the years; our own trailer and a part-time job for me, stacking shelves in my uncle's store.
My old life …
Lo's new life …
I watched the distant line of the mountains slowly drift downward, knowing that when it finally fell and locked itself to the landscape there would be no turning back, and secretly wishing it would stay, hanging up there in the haze forever.
"And again next day a thinly populated sky, losing its blue to the heat, would melt overhead, and Lo would clamour for a drink, and her cheeks would hollow vigorously over the straw, and the car inside would be a furnace when we got in again, and the road shimmered ahead, with a remote car changing its shape mirage-like in the surface glare, and seeming to hang for a moment, old-fashionedly square and high, in the hot haze."
Prodigal
And again next day a thinly populated sky, losing its blue to the heat, would melt overhead, and Lo would clamour for a drink, and her cheeks would hollow vigorously over the straw, and the car inside would be a furnace when we got in again, and the road shimmered ahead, with a remote car changing its shape mirage-like in the surface glare, and seeming to hang for a moment, old-fashionedly square and high, in the hot haze.
Now, far ahead, floating way above the horizon lay a blue line that spoke of the Sierras.
Another long day of burning heat stretched ahead of us; the sun blistering the car's ancient paintwork, beating like hammers on the hot metal, baking Lo and Mary and me as the wheezing remains of the air-conditioner sucked our mouths and throats dry of what little moisture we might have hoarded.
I recalled the last time we'd driven west.
Aunt Sarah's funeral.
The shrivelled up faces of relatives I'd not seen in twenty years staring disapprovingly at the boy who'd gone east to make his fortune, now returned like the prodigal in his tired clothes and junkheap car with that pinch-faced woman of his and their poor little girl in hand-me-downs.
Now here we were again, making a final marathon pilgrimage across this vast and unforgiving continent, back to the bosom of my loving family, the sneers and sniffy asides: "I always said he'd come to nothing."
Nothing.
I glanced across at Lo.
My shot at redemption.
She at least would appreciate the weather out here.
I felt a momentary shiver of pleasure in the stifling heat; a fleeting chill of bitter winter winds howling off Lake Michigan, biting at my baby's fingers; fern fronds of frost creeping across the insides of the windows in our dank refrigerator of an apartment.
I almost missed it.
I almost missed the roar and clatter of the el, shaking our restless sleep as we huddled together for warmth.
Warmth …
Here the sun burned the colours from the world.
We sat: me hunched over the wheel, Mary sagging into her seat, drained, Lo leaning forward, her pale grey eyes missing nothing; a mute triumvirate as the parched world rolled by us and the old engine droned.
Here a flyblown motel; a single black dog watching us from the dusty parking lot; an empty pool.
There a trailer set back from the highway; threadbare wire fence corralling a world in miniature; baked clothes limp on a washing line; the rusted corpses of cars littering the yard.
And after all the miles; after all the years; our own trailer and a part-time job for me, stacking shelves in my uncle's store.
My old life …
Lo's new life …
I watched the distant line of the mountains slowly drift downward, knowing that when it finally fell and locked itself to the landscape there would be no turning back, and secretly wishing it would stay, hanging up there in the haze forever.
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