thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen

thirteen...

Beep...
"You said you were going to start going to church. Man, that slipped right by me. I suppose I was far more interested in the whole two girl thing than the church thing. Now I'm wondering what was meant to shock me more. The lesbian viewing session or the fact that you're going to start going to church and meeting whoever you'll meet there. I suppose if that's how you're going to get material. But I want to come with you. Can we go to some crazy new age place or do you want to go more traditional. Maybe you don't want anyone along. I don't really know what you want. Call me. I'm not at home right now but I will be later. Call me. I'm calling Jamie to see if he wants to go out and get something to eat. Eleven thirty now. See ya."
I thought I had passed the church thing by her but she was far too quick. Sure I was going to start going to different churches and hanging around prayer meetings. The downtown core has at least ten different religious institutions that I can exploit. Why not? It's an entirely untapped area of life I need to explore, maybe even fall into for a while. My sister fell into it for a while a few years back and used it as a crutch for a while I sat back and tried the best I could to survey the situation. Turned out she just had an allergy to certain foods that made her a little wacky in regards to her sanity and as soon as she got her diet sorted out she ditched the church. Rightly so. As much as I enjoyed her insanity at times it did begin to grate on me when she'd start to preach to me at the dinner table. For a while though it was a good source of entertainment and one I found intriguing as she set up camp on my mother's couch and didn't work for six months.
I was asked, for better or for worse, to not argue with her and to let her have her way until things sorted themselves out. I must admit though I would bring it on a little telling her about my life and all the evils I was committing daily, sins of the flesh and such, even though I was basically lying to her. And while I found my life boring and mundane, she found even the smallest of details regarding such things as dating or sex I had so incredibly sinful that I found it hard not to tell her more and more. But alas, they found out about her food allergies that were fucking with her head, she had a full recovery and I had to go back to storing up my life's experiences for use at a later date. Maybe I could start confessing to all sorts of things at the church of my choice. Have to see how this all goes.
Beep...
"I just spoke to Fawn. How come I didn't know about the carpet munchers who were at your place? The rug doctors. Ok. Don't worry. I'm sure I'll find out eventually. Call me. I've got to work later today but if you want to have dinner I'm in for later. But a late dinner. Where did you end up last night? This book thing really has you out and about doesn't it? Someone told me they saw you at some bar over on the West Side chatting up some woman who could have been your grandmother. Getting that experience are ya? You rule pal. Talk to you later."
Dinner with Jamie. I feel bad now that told Fawn about the lesbian floor show and not Jamie, but it only happened the other night so it's not really like he's totally out of the loop or something. Guy works too much really, and is always taking on more and more work. He may even move to Seattle and as much as we'd all miss him it may be good for him. I'll call him later and tell him about the blow job girl from Regina then he'll be one up on Fawn, but not for long. He does, however seem to know about me hanging out at some bar on the West Side chatting up older women. They're just friends of friends, for now anyway. I'm just getting material, a guy's gotta do what a guys gotta do.
Beep...
"Hi. Got your number from a mutual friend. She said you lived downtown. I live downtown as well. Maybe we could have a drink sometime. Oh. Our mutual friend is Wendy. Anyway. My number is 684.5563. I'll be home until seven then I'm going out. I'll be back around midnight, maybe a late drink then or.... Call me or I'll page you later. By the way my name's Corrie. See ya."
I can't believe Wendy gave out my number to one of her friends. I said, jokingly that she could give it out to her friends if they needed a little action but I was joking. Oh well, I suppose I could give this woman a call and see what her story is. Maybe I can take Jamie with me. I'm getting myself in deeper and deeper. It's better than getting a job right now and I still have money in the bank.
Beep...
"Hey champ. And you are the champ. Of what I'm not sure but you have apparently been turning it on lately and I just wanted to say I'm proud of ya. Johnny signing off."
Johnny’s proud of me. That's nice. I never hear from that guy anymore. He and Lori are so much in love that I dare not interrupt them. I actually ran into her the other day as I was walking along Pender Street and we walked together to the West End. Half way I asked her if I could buy her an ice cream cone at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. After we had made our ice cream choices and were back out on Robson Street I was glad I had run into her, it was sort of like seeing John as well, in some respects they have become one. He's a lucky man, he knows it too.
Beep...
"Dave here. How about some waffles? Brent wants waffles and so doI. Hey. Hear you turned down a blow job last night. Don't ask how I know... Ok. I know that girl. I mean, I know that girl. Weird. I'll talk to you later. Tomato pie."
Long time no hear from that guy but I guess since he's always out of town I can't fault him on it. The three of us, Dave, Brent and I used to live together and used to eat cereal almost exclusively. In fact we all loved and lived by the breakfast anytime adage. In fact, at one point we had over sixteen different types of cereal in our house and people would come over and just dig in. Waffles would be good today. Shit. The girl in the after hours place. Did she know me all along? Maybe the good idea, bad idea scale worked better than I thought.
Beep...
"Hey buddy can you get me tickets to u2? Hope so. I'll try you later."
U2 tickets? Fuck that. I could get them for that loser but really, the only reason he ever call me is to get something. Fuck him. Fuck Bono.
Beep...
"What's the deal? I saw you on the bus yesterday. You hate the bus. We all hate the bus. Where the fuck were you going? Nice hat by the way. Check ya later pal. Get off the bus."
It's no secret. I hate the bus more than just about anything. I argue with bus drivers I know about how much I hate the service they provide. How you never get anywhere close to where you actually want to be. Ok, but I had to take it the other day to the baseball game because I was late getting going. It was thirty blocks coming home but I decided to walk anyway, I beat the bus.
Reaching for a fresh smoke I decide to give Dave a call and see if he still wants waffles even though it's long after noon now.
"Dave, hey what's up."
"Not much just looking for you."
"Waffles?" I ask as if it's a one word invitation
"Right now?"
"Iron's just heating up"
"I'll be right over. I'll pick up Brent on the way."
"Right."
There are something's you can always count on. Breakfast anytime is one of them.

fourteen...

Storybook romance
(to be added somehow to 'night's end')
Thematically similar...


The things others seem to find hard have come to me with seemingly great ease. I find no solace in this except that it allows me to continue a lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. I have had success at things I had never even set out to accomplish, yet, it all comes my way, and I hide it all. The raises I never tell my co-workers about, the jumps up the corporate ladder I have never told my parents about, the things I have seen and done late in the night when everyone else is asleep. I have become ashamed of my success, of my luck.
Lately, I have become obsessed with women and the thrill that comes with the chase. I often find myself out trying to find just the right one, sometimes any one, to try and take home and maybe, if I'm lucky, or she's not, have my way with. There's no money in it for me, no prestige, no badge afterwards to pin on my chest but somehow it works for me on some level. And often, and of this I am not proud, as if I should be of any of it, I seem to prey on those who seem defenseless. The ones alone at the bar as if they're waiting for someone like me to come along. Someone to buy them a drink or someone to suggest that they, I, know what they're going through and that I care.
Tonight's no different. At home earlier I had decided that I would stay home and watch a movie and just relax. That I wouldn't let my boredom set in motion a chain of events that I couldn't stop once it got going. But, as the hours wore on, shortly after the movie ended I found myself putting on my shoes and going to the hook where I hang my keys and heading out the door.
As my car warmed up I checked my pockets to make sure I had cigarettes and just for fun swung open my Zippo and struck it just to see the flame fill the inside of my car. The dye was cast and once again I was heading downtown to find that special someone who needed a little company.
Turning onto Broadway I saw a woman hitch hiking and thought better of picking her up. Why I'm not really sure but, somehow, I knew that she wasn't the one I was looking for, not tonight. Coursing down Broadway I decided to stop in at the Seven-Eleven and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. A woman I had met at a bar worked the late shift there and maybe, just maybe she'd be working and I could see her and touch base and maybe set something up for another day. I needed gas as well so it wouldn't be a fruitless task if she wasn't there, besides she had a boyfriend and I was sort of shooting in the dark with this idea but you never know. In fact, it may work out better for me if she still, indeed had her current beau. Boredom works wonders sometimes, when the time is right.
Pulling in I see her behind the counter and tap my dash as if knocking on wood and pull up to the closest pump so she'll see my car as I stop.
Outside, as I'm pumping my gas, I notice that it seems hot under the lights, and wonder if what I'm doing is right. As if of a sudden, I'm having a moment of clarity. A moral flash that usually only comes late at night as I lay in bed with a woman I had just met hours before. I do have them, moments of clarity, or moral minutes or even seconds. I have become somewhat of a predator as of late and for whatever reason seek out those in trouble and somehow find comfort in my triumphs.The notches in my bedpost signify some sort of right of passage, although I have really have no idea where it is I am trying get with all of this bullshit, but something drives me to this excess. And, while I must admit that, the pain sometimes, in the middle of the night, drives me to sitting in the living room at five in the morning listening to my c.d.player repeat the same songs over and over, I find some sort of perverse pleasure in it all. And, as a friend said to me recently, as we spoke of sick and unnatural sex acts performed by others onto others, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with feelin' good." I couldn't agree more. Maybe one day when the pain starts to outweigh the feeling good I'll straighten up, and maybe in a way I wish that day were closer, but for now, I'm all for feeling good and I'll take the pain in the middle of the night. Because sometimes, it's okay to listen to the same song over and over and over again.
Inside, as I get set to pay the clerk behind the counter, I notice that she has moved to the back of the store and is looking at me. I wave and as I do she waves and calls me to come over after I've paid.
"Hi"
"Hi. I haven't seen you around for a while," she says as she slaps price tags on the top of pop tart boxes. " I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see or hear from you again."
"I've been keeping a bit of a low profile lately."
"Why's that? Too much pressure from the ladies?"
"Never too much pressure."
"Right." She says throwing a box of blueberry flavored pop tarts up on the shelf.
"Anyway, I was just on my way downtown and thought I'd drop in and say hi. So, hi. "
Looking at her I realized I had done the wrong thing and decided I had better get the hell out of there, and fast.
"So, I should get going, downtown."
"Meeting someone?"
"Don't think so."
"Don't think so? What the hell does that mean?"
"Well, I may run into someone but..."
"I'm sure you will."
"I'll see ya."
Leaving it felt as if her eyes were burning a hole in the back of my head and, for a second, thought about turning around and looking at her but decided to just let it be. But then as I grabbed the handle of the door and started to push on it I thought I heard the word 'prick' come from the back of the store and looked back to where she was but she was gone. Glancing over at the cash counter I noticed one of the cashiers looking back to where she was standing as well, as if he had heard it as well. Then as if on cue he turned to me and shrugged, I decided then that it was better that I get my gas from another station from now on.


fifteen...

Maybe I'm only good at keeping ideas together for short periods of time. Somewhat like my short attention span in high school. Maybe not even as long as that. This whole novel thing seems to be a little out of my league, it seems out of my hands, as if it's getting away on me. I have friends who write novels, not me. What an insult to them, calling myself a writer, not that I have actually told anyone that I am one. Nope, I have never really called myself a writer, at least not to their collective faces. Michael and Dave they're writers. With actual books published. Shit, Michael had a movie made out of one of his books. I just document what I see, theirs is or are much more based on fictional accounts, I know that or that's how it seems. God, I gotta keep all this straight. While I started out getting all this life experience in order to write this book I have now begun to obsess about it and am living, to a certain extent what I'm writing about. But I suppose that's the point, but will I throw away all of these things I have acquired for the story once it's all done or will they all stay with me? Time is flying along and what started out as a work of fiction, loosely based on real events has become a lifestyle unto itself. And I know some people are worried. Maybe not terribly worried but enough that they call me and ask a few questions and then seem to leave satisfied with the answers I give them about what I’m doing.
Shit, I've got to get it together. Weeks are turning into months and thousands of dollars in the bank turning into less and less day by day. I, also, haven't been to bed before four in the morning for what seems like a lifetime. Okay a few weeks at the very least. And as much as I love late night T.V. it seems that the whole joy of late night viewing has been erased by the infomercial. No more Hawaii Five-0, Waltons, Nothing. And when I come home at night all jacked up the last thing I want is an hour of Thighmaster info.
Time will tell if all of this is alright and whether or not it's all for the better, or worse yet, for the worse. I am keeping track though, I've got it all down, somewhere. I'm finding it easiest to write when I come home, before I go to sleep, when I'm slightly stoned or drunk or both. I'm not used to it yet, the drunkenness, what certain things will do to me, how I'll feel later. I haven’t acquired an internal yardstick yet as to what some of these things will do to me. I don't want to lose any of this, even if some of it's a blur to me. Maybe that's better in the long run, that I don't really remember it with exact clarity, the haze could work to my advantage, in making fiction of reality, or fiction a reality. Shit, I've got to get it together. Time will tell, time will tell. I know it.

sixteen.....

Storybook romance part two...

The a.m. Radio in my car fades in and out at the best of times and tonight is no different. As I turn left off of Broadway and head towards the Granville Street Bridge I punch in a station and listen as it begins to come in with more strength as I hit the bridge. A.M. means I only get the so-called hits teenage oriented stations, if it's music that I want. The names mean nothing to me, but I've heard many of the songs before, it's sort of like listening to the music video channels at home but without all the visuals. Every once in a while I hear something that reminds me of high school, when they dip into their oldies file, the gold, so to speak. I remember, once, calling into request a song before I went out so that I may hear it on the radio as I was driving around aimlessly but they told me they'd have to go and look for it down where they kept the ‘gold’. The song was only a few years old but this statement made me feel older than I could ever really be. The music tonight made me feel like an old man looking through the fence at a school yard at the young schoolgirls as they played kickball and hopscotch. I had no idea why I kept listening to it, or feeling the way I did about it, but I knew that I liked it. And that it was somehow wrong.
As I exited the bridge the station faded off as well and I felt something pit itself against my insides. A feeling that made me think I should just head home, as if another moment of clarity was driving me backward. Down Seymour street I went, past Luv-a-Fair and it's line-up of suburban ninety's new wavers', onto Seymour Billiards and it's drug dealing back end and the men playing pool but calling it golf. At the light at Robson and Seymour couples pass in front of my car and as they pass I can't help but think of them having sex and how they may look naked. And what goes on when they're alone with each other and how they treat each other when they're together. And the backstabbing when they're not together, the cheating, the infidelity, the lying and deceit. It's never perfect, can't be, even when you think it is. Imperfection makes me think of Lisa. She held my hand more times than I can ever remember and told me that she loved me and that she'd never ever go away. That I was the only one when I really wasn’t. It's okay though. Just know that's where you stand. You can only ever do the best you can do. In the end you're the only one you'll ever have to answer to. No one breaks your heart, no one steals your girlfriend or boyfriend, somehow you do it to yourself. I did it to myself, she didn't do it to me.
Just as the light changes a young woman runs up to my car and taps on my window asking me to open it. She's lost, just got in from Montreal and someone stole all her money and now she's just trying to get back to Montreal so she needs some money to help her out. Without a word I hand her a smoke and roll up my window and head down towards the Railway Club at Dunsmiur Street.
Pulling into the alley behind the Railway Club I wonder if I should even go in. If maybe, for once I should trust my gut and just go home, or maybe just somewhere else. Nights like these should be left alone, another night maybe, but tonight something's bound to go wrong. Out of the alley I pull onto Dunsmiur Street and park directly across from the bar and turn off the engine.
The inside of my car smells of something I can't quite place but know it must have something to do with the road trip I just took down to Washington state. Something that I ate that slipped up under the seat and was now taking on a life of it's own. Leaning across my seat I look up to the windows of the bar and notice a beautiful woman sitting in the window along with some friends. Harder to get to or at when they're with friends, but not impossible. From my vantage point I can also see the bartender working tonight, a young woman with striking features and red hair down to her shoulders. I know her, rather, I knew her. Years ago. We still say hi and exchange pleasantries but that's about it. She knows me. Knows my charm, my style. If any.

nine, ten, eleven, twelve

nine....

Thirty days pt. 3 (pulling up/R. coming over)


As we pull up to Arbutus and Broadway I lift my head to see the street and notice a street cleaner must have just been by as all the crap from the middle of the street-the leaves, bits of garbage, are now all wet and piled up against the curb. The cab driver drifts his cigarette out the window and searches the dash for his pack to get another. I figure it’s time to get my head around getting out of this cab and somehow finding my way into my building as he comes to it in a couple of minutes. Over Broadway past Eighth, Seventh, Sixth, I know this place too well. Over twelve years in the same place. We turn left onto Fifth Ave. and I know every car we pass-parked for the night. They’ve all been home for hours and I’m just getting here now.
As we cross Yew St. I feel relieved as we pull up in front of my building as if I didn’t actually think I’d make it here. The meter reads $17.50. I hand him a twenty and then reach into my pockets and find another five and give it to him. He deserves it. He says something I can’t understand as I gather up my stuff and get out of the cab. No sooner have I closed the door and he’s off and around the corner towards the Vineyard restaurant, down Fourth Ave. and gone.
Inside the answering machine light’s blinking and indicates three messages. Hitting it I send it into rewind and notice the time on the clock is four a.m. Two of the messages are hang-ups and the third has a long delay before the person-she starts to speak. I can hear noise in the background and then the voice comes. She’s out somewhere, wants me to call her when I get in-whenever I get in. Looking at the clock again I wonder whether I should call her.
I pick up the phone and dial her number and head to my bedroom and take off my shirt. She answers and seems pleased, but a little confused and dazed as she’s been asleep, by my call. I tell her I’m just returning her call and she thanks me and then asks me if I’m working today or not. For a second or two I can’t answer because I can’t remember what day it is or whether or not I have to work. Then remembering I say no.
She asks if she can come over and spend the night. I sit down at my computer and if by instinct turn it on and don’t answer her right away. The computer’s alert tone startles me and I say yes as if by command and she says she’ll right over.
I nod, as if she can see me and hang up.


ten.......


"Is he looking at my ass?"
"What?"
"Is he looking at my ass? Right now. Look over my shoulder. Is he?"
"Which guy? Maybe they all are."
" Terry. The guy who looks like a high school janitor."
"Terry? The janitor?"
"He's not really a janitor he just dresses like one." Fawn was now explaining as if he was an actor on TV. Who played a janitor but wasn't really one. " He's over in the corner with Stan and that bitch Silvana"
"Yeah." I manage to mutter after finding Terry in the corner of the bar.
"Yeah what?"
"Yeah. He's looking at your ass. " I say as if reporting back from the front. "Anything else you need to know right off?"
"Nope. Just wanted to know. He's always checking my fuckin’, ass out." Fawn says standing up straight as if to pull her ass in more towards her body.
"What have you got eyes in the back of your head?"
"No, but whenever I ask anyone they tell me he has his eyes trained right on my ass. That's a fact."
"Jack." I add
"So what's up with you anyway, newly unemployed guy?" Fawn asks
"What do you mean?"
"Jamie says your writing a book or trying to."
"Sort of, I am," I say looking around to see if there's anyone there I want to exploit for my story, "I just started a couple of weeks ago. I'm looking for things to write about right now besides old girlfriends who’ve dumped or burned me. Which doesn’t leave me with a lot of options"
“Lots of those bitter ex-girlfriend sorts out there, that’s for sure.”
“Thanks for the update professional dater”
"Not a profession just a hobby of sorts.”
“One I may have to take up. For research reasons”
“What kind of things are you researching?"
"Things I wouldn't normally do. Things that are outside my normal activities." I say really looking at her for the first time since we've gotten to the bar. "I mean, my life is so regular, so uneventful, that I think in order to write from a point of view I know something about I need to experience a few different things. Live a little."
"Like getting a regular job, a regular paycheck?"
"Right."
"Wouldn't be such a bad thing, I mean, I know you do just fine but.."
"But..."
"You're like a big kid."
"And that's bad thing?"
"No. But you should take your firing as a sign to get a job with some sort of stability."
"Soon. Not yet"
I try and deflect the conversation by turning waving to a friend and hoping that Fawn finds something new to talk about, something other than the book or my job prospects or lack of them.
"So what have you done so far?"
It obviously doesn’t work. I shouldn’t have even tried.
"About what?" I answer turning back towards her
"The book, the story. The new fucked you"
"I don't know. I'm trying to get out more."
"But you're out all the time."
" I know but places I'd never normally go. Clubs, restaurants, churches, hanging out in malls. Looking for shit."
"So? Any notable events so far?"
"A couple of dates with women I met through friends of friends. A couple a little older than me, not too much older, well, maybe. But nothing to write about really, just dates"
"Older is good. Maybe you’ll meet a sugar granny"
"I took home a couple of women the other night." I say turning away to look around the bar, as I can slip it right by her.
"What? Where from?"
"Here."
"Holy shit! And?"
"I don't know. It was different. They sort of put on a show for me." I say again looking around the room for victims
"Showtime at the Yard. Did you know them?"
"One of them. I'd been with her before. A long time ago. A friend of a friend. She's a big Red Wings fan so I kinda like her that way"
"Very good." Fawn says taking a long slow drink "So did you like it? Watching a couple of rug doctors go at it?"
"I think so," I say somewhat unsure of my answer, " It was strange. Kinda freaky really, but something I wanted for a long time but there it was presented to me on a platter and I didn't know what my role was really. What was I suppose to do? Join in? Maybe, I suppose, but I didn't. I wanted to just watch. Catch every moment, every second, then it was over and they were asleep in my bed. "
"Then what?"
“I think I may have been a little shell shocked because I didn’t really know what to do.”
“So?”
"I slept on the couch in front of the TV." I say turning too see Terry still watching Fawn from the seat in the corner, "When I woke up one of them had left and the other was still asleep in my bed. So I crawled in and tried to sleep but couldn't so I just laid there thinking about my book and where this would all fit in, if it could fit in. That and when she would go. Which I know sounds shitty but, I really kinda wanted to be alone. Or at least not with her. I hardly knew her. Fuck, I don’t know her."
" Easy big fella. It’s okay. So, what do you think? Can it fit in?"
"I haven't really decided what the book's about yet. It could I guess, if I get a character that does that sort of shit. Someone who it makes sense to. I don't really have a handle on the whole thing yet. It's just going to sort of evolve over time. I'll probably figure it all out when it's all written down. After it's out, if anyone wants to publish it."
"Sounds like, maybe you're just creating a new life for yourself because you think maybe yours is a little boring. A little plain, vanilla was it?"
"Could be. But I also need to expand my world a little. You only write about what you know. And right now, I don't feel like I know shit. "
“Come on. You’ve been around the block more times than the Good Humour man.”
“Sure, but, the things I’ve done are fairly regular. Dated girls, had a little sex, fallen down drunk a few times. Whatever. I want the sick shit.”
“Oh my Tim. Maybe you’re my type after all.”
“You know what I mean.”
"So what's next?," Fawn asks reaching across and grabbing hold of my collar almost as if she’s about to kiss me but stops just short of touching my lips, “a date with a transvestite dance team, maybe a game of naked twister with a flock of lesbian nuns, a donkey ride?”
"I'll let ya know when I know. It probably won’t be that exciting. Maybe it’ll be a job washing dishes."
"It's a job."
“So’s shoveling shit in a dairy farm”
Fawn smirks then turns and leaves me to pursue some guy she's had a crush on for at least a week who plays in some band. She's always had a thing for drummers or guitar players but not in a groupie sort of a way, she's too smart for that, but she always seems to end up with a guy who plays something. Maybe I should learn an instrument or sing in a band. Bad idea. Then I'd have to drive across the country in a van full of stinky guys and sleep on floors in some freaky fan's house. Something about ending up in Thunder Bay freezing my ass of in January playing to fifty people just doesn't do it for me. Maybe going back to school isn't such a bad thing when this little book thing is out of the way.

eleven...

Night's end.... Something-Could be anything.

I've been driving for what seems like hours now, actually in some respects, days. Slightly drunk but still within the levels that I can operate at, I think. And though the alcohol seems to dull my senses a little, the drugs, somehow keep me alert. I drive around trapped in some sort of cycle that takes me from street to street, block after block, looking for something, even though I have no idea what it is I'm looking for. I'll know what it is, or who it is, when I find it. The lanes and streets have all begun to look the same as I course my way along them. Broadway turns into Macdonald and it into Fourth, the street on which I live. My apartment faces the street and from its three stories above the street I can often hear the buses as they pass by my window early in the morning. And if it's not the buses it's the guy next door with the death stroke hack that seems to have no end. Bastard. I've got to move out of the neighborhood soon, twelve years in the same place is too much. My parents have been in the same place, the same house, for over thirty years and the last thing I want to do is end up like them. Trapped in a place that seems like a dream, with the same ending every night.
The street's slick with rain tonight and because of the wet the sidewalks are void of any foot traffic. The clubs let out hours ago and now as it approaches four thirty even the Denny's on Davie Street is empty. People are now at home alone or with those they picked up in the clubs just hours before. The years old ritual and dance of getting that chosen one home with you over and the real dance now beginning. The cab ride over and done with. The small talk on the way up in the elevator, or up the walk to the house, merely formalities for what the real agenda is. The mandate of the evening finally being realized and the plan taking it's course. Inside bedrooms right now across the city men are coaxing women into things they hadn't planned on doing and women by the same token taking advantage of a men wanting sex at, almost, any cost. Hands and mouths entering uncharted territory never, for the most part, to ever enter again. Then comes the silence afterwards, the getaway planned, prepared, well in advance and now as the hours turn into daylight the passion turns to fear of the impending questions. Numbers being exchanged, shoved into pockets to be run through the wash and later settled into lint catchers in dryers. I'm a little busy this week, but I'll call you early next week. Okay? Sure.

twelve...

Christ. My lungs feel as if I smoked ten packs of cigarettes last night-maybe I did. And I have the voice of poorly aged Scotch and a thousand drags off of a cancer stick. My friend Dave gave up smoking when he married his wife Janet. She didn't make him quit, he just decided to. The will to change for someone else must be something unto itself. I'd like to try that sometime. In the mornings after a long night out my clothes smell like a dozen after hours bars and the sweat of people long gone home. Yet at night, as I hover around these dingy pits, these hellholes of booze cans for the ‘last chancers’, I feel as if the experience of it all is, maybe, somehow worth it. I'm getting out, seeing a little of what makes this town tick. And, while it's not a pretty sight, a large majority of the time, I'm learning the lessons of life as they're presented to me. Saw the song and dance routine last night, the buying of drinks, the passing out of numbers and cards, the looks, then came home, slightly drunk, and jotted down a few lines about it all, if maybe a little dramatically. I'm not sure I learned anything last night, except how to navigate my way home while slightly drunk-not something I'm really very proud of, but the dance was interesting nonetheless.
Fawn seemed a little put off as we split up last night, after she discovered her crush had a girlfriend, maybe, hopefully, that was it. I'm not sure whether or not I should have told her about the two women at my house. She knows everything else about my life why not that? She left last night to head off to some art opening in the West End that I felt was a little out of my league and something that I have seen so many times before that, as far as material was or is concerned, was a dead end. She'll come around, if she is, indeed angry at me. She's a keeper.
I ended up falling, literally, into a cab with several of the regulars at the club after last call had long come and gone. They were heading to an after hours party down on the East Side, a place I had never been to, near Pigeon Park and I decided that it would be worth a look anyway. I was out of money and somehow managed to get out of the cab before anyone realized I hadn't put in my share of the fare. A young woman, who was for some reason, holding and rubbing my hand during the cab ride ended up paying for the entire ride. Then as we headed towards the doors to the party she disappeared down the alley next to the bar next-door and wasn't seen or heard from again. Her friends seemed to think she was just getting some fresh air after hanging out in the club all night. I had other ideas about where she had gone with Pigeon Park being the heroin center for Vancouver. But I was, at this point in the evening, no wiser than them so I decided to take their lead and head into this after hours party that was, as I figured out later, only two blocks from my house.
Strange what attracts people to places like this or that late in the evening long after the bars have closed. But then again, maybe it's not so strange, it's all about booze and drugs. And sex. Young people hell bent on making the good times last for as long as possible and older party goers trying to preserve their fast slipping youth by hanging on as long as they can. The ritual, the dance, the last chance thing happening right before everyone's eyes. People trying to look their best when they're at their all time worst.
I ended up in a small room off the main area sitting with a young petite woman, apparently from Regina. Who told me she just wanted to get back to Regina and start school again to get her grade twelve and then go to college or university, maybe become a nurse. She looked as if she knew her way around a needle so this idea for a new occupation didn’t seem to far fetched. She wanted to stop this cycle she was on but found it hard to stop. It was all too easy. Her boyfriend dealt speed and coke and always took her along as he trolled the after hours clubs looking for customers. She knew all the regulars and often helped him sell his stuff to them. She tried to stay away from getting high on her own supply and for the most part was successful but tonight had taken a whack of speed laced with MDA and was now wishing it would all just go away. When I asked her where her boyfriend was she told me he was off fucking some woman they had both just met and that she wasn't jealous because she knew he really only loved her.
"You don't care that he's fucking her?"
"No. Not really," she said looking towards the light coming in from the main room, " It's just sex, it's not as if he loves her."
"What if he ended up loving her. Do you worry about that?"
"He won't. He wouldn't." She answered as if so sure of herself nothing could possibly sway her.
"That's interesting," I say now really feeling the effects of all the booze I had consumed ,"I hope it all works out for you. Maybe you'll get back to Regina and sort all this shit out."
"Maybe" she said pausing as if reflecting on something," I hope so. "
After what seemed like a short lifetime and several headaches, I decided it was time to head out and try and make it home in one piece.
"I gotta get going, " I said looking towards the only window in the place and noticing for the first time that it was getting light out, "I sort of have this rule that I like to be in bed before it gets too light out."
"Me too, but I never get to bed before noon usually."
"I'm usually up by then."
"See ya later." She said extending her hand to me
"You never know."
"Hey. I was wondering, " she said stopping me by grabbing my hand, "Could I come back to your place? We could have sex if you like."
Looking around I began to wonder if I was being set-up or if this was really happening. I have always been more for the direct approach than anything less so but this worried me a little. Her boyfriend, a drug dealing sex freak-or so I sort of hoped, was off with some other woman and his girlfriend was now asking if she could sleep at my place, or at the very least fuck me. It seemed, at best, surreal, but I felt as if I was about to be taken for some strange ride down a dirt road never to return or perhaps end up in a black body bag down near the sugar refinery. Well, maybe not but the prospect of having this young woman at my place rooting through my stuff as I slept made me a little uneasy. That and the need to perform sexually at this time of the morning after what could only be described as a shit mix of drugs and booze really made me wonder if this was a good idea but somehow I still had to ask her.
"What about your boyfriend?"
"I'll call him later. I always let him know where I end up."
Somehow getting a hold of myself, if maybe with a tinge of regret about not getting to see this young prairie girl naked.
I managed to say.
"Maybe next time," I said kissing the top of her hand and letting it drop to her side, "I really should get some sleep."
"How about a blow job?"
"When?"
"Right now."
"Here?"
"Yeah. I want to help you sleep." She said wiping her hair from her eyes.
"I really have to get going."
On the way out I pass a guy, who I think I recognize and assume, is her boyfriend, on the steps outside holding a woman who has, seemingly by no fault of her own, lost her top. He's telling her he has to get going, that his girlfriend is still inside and that maybe she, the woman with no top, can come home with them tonight. For a moment I think that maybe I do know him and maybe even, know her as well but figure I don't but may have seen them around before so many times that my mind thinks I may know them, maybe I served then at the bar.
Outside I see people I have seen around from time to time now heading home alone and in pairs. Flagging down taxi's and exchanging numbers as the buses pull away from the curb leaving them once again alone and looking like ten pounds of shit shoved into a five pound bag. Many of them I only know because we have revolved in the same circles for years. Not really friends but a kinship has developed over time that makes me actually care what happens to some of them, but not all of them. Some I can't even remember how I originally met them or for how long I've known them.
The two short blocks to my apartment seemed like miles as I shuffled along no longer drunk but much worse for wear. Numbers I don't remember getting lined my pockets as I searched for what was left of my cash supply. Bills, soiled receipts, and bus transfers also filled my pockets from days well passed by as if I've been living in these clothes for weeks. I'm was so aware of my tiredness then that when I looked down and noticed that my shoes were untied I dismissed the thought of bending over to tie them lest I fall forward from my weight and end up sleeping in the gutter outside the sub shop. Pigeon Park was alive and well as I passed by at what must have been 6:30 a.m. The drug dealers flashed signs at me as I passed by them with the only thing smelling worse than me being them. I see them every day and feel as if I know them and what they do.
Rounding the corner to my house I saw that another junkie had parked himself outside my building door and was in the process of trying to find a vein that hadn't been destroyed yet. The security guard inside had fallen asleep again and missed all the action that he is suppose to be attending to. I like him though and made a quiet entry into the building so as to let him sleep, noticing a well worn thumbed through copy of soldier of fortune on his desk, leaving the junkie outside to fend for himself.
My answering machine was flashing as I entered my apartment early this morning, but I decided that instead of listening to it then that I would leave it until I woke up. It's noonish now and I have just remembered the young woman who offered me sex so that I could sleep as if she was dolling out sleeping pills. What was I thinking? Why didn't I take the prescribed medication? Deep down there must have been something, going on in my head, that made me think it was a bad idea. Sometimes it's good to have an internal scale on which to weigh things out-good idea, bad idea. Every once in a while I put things into the ‘good idea- bad idea’ categories and then assess what may be the right thing to do.
My phone has rung three times, maybe more, since I went to bed at 7:00 a.m. So there were now at least six messages on my machine just waiting to be returned. Grabbing my Winstons I decide to check them and see what the world has in store for me today. Not before, of course, loading up my Bodum, filling my mouth with a smoke and putting the kettle on high. All things in the right order and right now it's first things first.

six, seven eight

six...

Once again the day has slipped by me. All my plans made the night before for the next day shattered by my staying up too late watching TV and writing about ex-girlfriends-not so good for the soul, to get any sort of early start on the day. Two p.m. And I'm just getting out of bed to the sound of my phone ringing off the hook for the fifth time. I ignored the previous four calls letting my answering machine do it's work and take the messages of those so in need of getting hold of me. Why are people trying to get a hold of me at nine in the morning anyway? Don't they have jobs to go to or something as important to do instead of phoning me at that ungodly hour? I would suspect so. I would hope so. I decide to let the fifth go as well and fall out of my bed, throw on my boxers and smelly t-shirt from the day before. On the sixth ring my machine picks up and greets my, as of yet, unknown caller,
"Hey, this is Tim and for whatever reason I can't get to the phone right now. I may even be screening so leave me a message and I'll get back to ya. Or you can page me at 252.6552. Today use the name Tommy Lasorda in your message. See ya."
"Tim. It's Jamie. I had the most amazing weekend. I know it's thursday but last weekend was so good I kept it going until now. Basically got lost in my car with Renee and, well not lost really but, lost as in, let's get lost. Call me. I think I'm moving to Seattle. I've had it here buddy. I think I can work down there 'til the cows come home. Not that there's any cows in Seattle but... Look, call me and I'll tell all. I think Renee and I are going to get married. I'm at home. Oh, Tommy Lasorda rules my world. See ya."
Sitting for a moment thinking about what Jamie just said I reach for my Winstons and realize that I may be losing yet another friend to parts beyond. I don't blame him though, if I was him I'd be outta here too. If the work had totally dried up for me, which is true to a certain extent, as it has for him, I'd be on the next train out. And even though I had, recently been relieved of my duties at the bar I was working at, I still feel as though there may be hope here, some sort of blind faith, something Jamie has given up any real thought of. And if doesn’t head of to Seattle he’ll be heading back to Nova Scotia before long to become a big fish in a small pond rather than the minnow, he thinks he is here. I don’t blame him. I can’t.
Lighting my smoke I think about how much it is that I'm smoking and whether or not I should give it up. I kid myself that I'm not smoking that much but now, as I sit here sucking on a smoke only minutes after getting out of bed I realize I've got myself a full blown habit. Piles of spent butts line my ashtray and as I turn on my computer, to check my e-mail, the smoke swirls in front of my blackened screen and for some reason it makes me a bit nervous as if I can see the cancer hidden within the smoke. Unlike other smokers my fingers haven't yet turned yellow from all the nicotine but I know that it's not far off. I actually stopped smoking once for five years but gave that up a couple of years ago on a road trip to new Mexico when I realized I really liked smoking and driving, something about the wind, the road, all night gas stations and shitty food. Plus, as we all know, no one likes a quitter.
No one sent me anything today, which sort of worries me a little. But then again, no news is, supposedly, good news. I recently gave out my e-mail address in the monthly column I do and thought that a few people may take advantage of it and send me hate mail of some sort. The only thing I really worry about is people finding me now who don't have my phone number but read my column and now have my e-mail address. My phone number is in the book but I recently took advantage of re-listing my number under my second name instead of my first just to throw the scent off a little. T. Gary Shepherd rather than Timothy G. Shepherd. I don't really know if this is going to work as well as I want but I suppose time will tell. Come to think of it my phone does ring less these day so maybe it's working better than I think. Either that, or my friends have given up on me for good this time, which wouldn’t surprise me a bit given the amount of phone calls I actually return these days.
Heading downstairs I see that I've, once again, left food out on the counter from the night before and the mayonnaise has turned a creamy clear color, not unlike a glue or bathtub caulking. A few months back I left a can of orange juice, that I intended to mix up the next morning on my counter, out for an entire week and late in the night it exploded coating my entire kitchen in an rotting orange sludge. A hard thing to explain to friends who ask what the stain is and who think of you as analy clean. The flies have now come in through my balcony window to help me clean up the remnants of the night before. While there are really only a few of them, it seems as if I don't get this mess cleared up they're going to go tell their buddies about the score and I'll be taken over by them.
My balcony faces out onto an alley frequented by junkies and this morning, afternoon, it seems, is no different from any other. A couple, I've seen many times before are out there getting ready to fix. It all seems very controlled and orderly, same place, same time, same station every day. They stand next to the large garbage container and set out their kits and prepare their hits. After some short discussion and ritualistic lighting of matches, in one swift motion the man lies on his back next to the garbage container and the woman quickly kneels next to him and in one motion, shoots the heroin into his neck. And, as if nothing ever happened, he's up and rubbing his neck they're off to look for the next score. My mother, a former nurse now big wig of some sort at her hospital, was over one day and saw the whole procedure and marveled at the efficiency of it all. Things change all the time, my mom says, but something's are never going too. I guess. Today as they get ready to fix up a cop car flies down the alley and without stopping passes them as if they're not even there. The junkie couple stop what they're doing just long enough for the car to disappear and before I know it the man is on his back tilting his head to one side and motioning to the woman to nail him. Welcome to Gastown. Just another day in the big city. While a focus of sorts it’s not really what I’m looking for, at least not right now but I’ve yet to shake writing about ex’s-hopefully I’ll kick that habit soon. The sooner the better, I am becoming a bitter man since I decided to start writing again-not that I wasn’t just a little before.

seven.....



Thirty days... pt. 2 (note to me: don’t use Rachels’ actual real name)



Cold. The rain’s coming in the window and I can feel it’s coldness against my face and on my hands as it falls against me. Sitting up slightly I can see that the driver has lit another smoke and I decide to join him in one even though I don’t really feel like having one right then. Through this drive we’ve somehow come together even through the silence. He turns as I open my Zippo and the smell of lighter fluid fills the car. I think he thought I was asleep in the back and is taken aback by my quick action.
We’ve stopped at a light and I feel another car pull up beside us. An old Ford Comet with a beautiful woman driving, and I want, for a second to call out to her and tell her how much I appreciate not only her car but her as well. Our eyes meet for a second and she smiles as if she knows what she’s done for me, for my life right at that moment. I want to tell her about my life, my old car, my wanting to spend just a moment with her. ‘I have an old car too. A cool car like yours. A car I’d love to have you as a passenger in.’ I needed to tell her these things more than I needed to tell anyone anything at any moment. The light changes and she’s gone down Burrard towards the West End.
Women, I love them. I can’t take my eyes off of them. For hours. There are places in the city I refuse to go because I know, all too well, who’ll be hanging out there and what it all means. Women I have dated and things have not gone as planned-if there out I’ll run into them. Some I still love. I shouldn’t admit that I suppose. I have had to retreat home many times and just sit alone listening to the same song over and over again. Songs that remind me of some of them. Too many of them. My brain has some sort of radar that tells me when they’re near. My head turns as if on it’s own and I catch women riding by on bikes, getting of buses or all of a sudden there will be one standing right in front of me. Conversations with women I’ve just met leave me wanting more. Every time. And I can’t stop from imagining myself with each and every one of them. Women are the greatest thing in the world that will eventually kill me.
The lights between Burrard and Arbutus are flickering like the power’s being turned off and on and I figure that it’s just about right for the way I feel right now. I feel a little confused as the cab shoots along Twelfth ave and turns onto Arbutus St. past the Jiffy Lube whose entrance I can never figure out. Close to home now. A few more blocks and he’ll be turning onto Fifth Ave. and down to Vine.
My head feels as if it weighs fifty pounds, far too large for my body. I let it fall back against the seat once more. As my head hits the seat I remember an argument I had with an ex-girlfriend about my head that prompted me to write a letter to Esquire Magazine.
I had just finished reading an article about women who had ruined men’s lives but how the men still loved the women.
‘I am, not usually, seduced by magazine covers but at the very sight of the headline, “I’m sorry I ruined your life. In praise of dangerous women” I knew I was doomed. Doomed to buy and relive, through the process of reading Ron Rosenbaum’s piece on such women, my own past with an incredibly dangerous woman. Maybe several. One, in particular, stands alone in my mind. A fierce Jewish woman who knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t going to let anything stand in her way. A woman who owned every room she ever stepped into and took lip from no one. We met and fell in love and carried on one of the most passionate relationships I have ever been in. Fights fueled by religion and my apparent lack of understanding of the Jewish faith, yelling at four in the morning about nothing but wanting to get the last word and be right once and for all. As dominant as she was though, the sexual role played by her was one of submission and she attributed this to having to be in control all the time at her work. Sex was like life and death. Kill or be killed.
She tortured me mentally in public with verbal jabs and without knowing belittled me in front of others. She was, and still is beautiful, smart, cunning and will be, I’m sure, a millionaire soon. She hurt me and left me scarred for life. I’d take her back in a second’
They should have printed that one. Maybe not.


eight...

"I don't really want to talk about last friday night. Even if you think I do. I'm home now, back in Montreal, and just wanted to e-mail you and let you know I made it. Not that you really care, maybe you do. Shit, I don't even really know you. I read your column and got your e-mail address out of it and decided that I would write you. Okay,So maybe I want to talk about it. What can I tell you really? It was the first time I really did that, like that. Look, I don't know why I felt like I should write you but I did. I read your stuff and realized I have a ton of writing like that my self. Maybe I'll send you some. Part of me thinks that you’re an asshole. Shit. Why do I care? "
Shit. It's starting to come in, the e-mail’s about my column. Some of it's great, even flattering, others though, have decided to send me their inner most secrets, and I have no idea who they are. Stories of their lives, their heartaches, their losses, the sides of themselves they've never told anyone about, now they're telling me. Telling me things I really don't need to know. Things I really don’t want to know. I suppose I'm to blame for that, laying my life out like I do each and every month in a column aimed at exorcising the demons in my life. A column about love and the loses surrounding it, the tales of relationships and such. I guess I should be careful about what I wish for from now on, I just might get it. Maybe now I am. The woman from Montreal, who's e-mail I received this morning, was just one of many but because I've met her, just once, it hit a little closer to home.
As part of my getting out more practice, expanding my horizens, I was out at a bar near my house and ran into a woman I've known for a few years and she was with this woman from Montreal. It seemed as if they had known each other for years but as we talked it became apparent that they had really only met that night. They were playing darts, a game I not only hate but one played only by professional drunks, and drinking, something I do little of, and seemingly getting to know each other much better. As the night wore on they became a little closer and at one point, after we had moved to a table near the corner of the bar, as if out of the blue, began kissing right in front of me. Others in the area seemed not to notice but it was hard for me not too. Their hands clutched each other's under the table and soon moved to each other's bodies. And as if to gauge my reaction, they kept their eyes pinned on me the entire time. I began to get nervous and asked them if they wanted to leave the bar, or if they wanted me to leave them alone.
"No. Don't go Tim." Leslie, the woman I knew previously, quickly said turning herself to me, "I want you to stay"
"Does this make you uncomfortable?" The other woman, who's name I later found out was Linda, said.
"Not really. "
"Not really. Or not at all?" Linda asked
"Not really but maybe a little."
Then as if on que, Linda threw her hands around Leslie's waist and asked me if I wanted to watch them have sex.
I think I may have said something but I can’t remember right now, not that it matters now or did then either.
My mind reeled at the thought of it, this was indeed something I had never done before. I had, once before, in a drunken stupor, been with a couple of friends after a drunken game of Monopoly, but it was a buddy and myself with one woman when we were in high school so this was entirely different. My mind raced, and visions of what was in store for me here blazed through my head at record speed. Could I go through with this? Could I watch and not freak out? Would I have to join in? Could I perform if asked? Probably not, but did that matter? Could I use this for my story? Again, probably not. What was I thinking? Of course I wanted to see this. Who was I fooling by thinking about it? Not me. And then as if the will of G. Gordon Liddy had been placed inside of me for use just this once, a calm set over my body and I had regained hold of my senses, or lost them completely, I said it.
"Hell, I'd pay to see that."
"How much?" Linda asked, "I'm a little broke I could use the money."
“I’m not sure exactly. What’s it worth?”
"I don't want Tim's money" Leslie quickly added
"Where can we go, Tim?" Linda wondered out loud looking around the room at the tables next to use wondering, perhaps, if the other tables had overheard what we were saying.
"We could go to my place, it's just a few blocks from here" I said trying to remain calm.
"Sure. Let's go before we all chicken out." Leslie said grabbing her purse and quickly downing her drink.
We flagged a cab outside the club and headed towards my place on Cordova Street. The cab driver gave me a knowing look as he looked back to see the two women engaged in a deep kiss. Moving quickly down Seymour Street and onto Cordova Street we were soon in front of my building. As the cab pulled up, several of my neighbors were outside looking or waiting for someone or something and, as I exited the cab with the two women, after overtipping the cab driver, looked as if they knew where I was going and what I was doing.
"Hi Tim," one of them said looking at the two women, "not working tonight?"
"I was but I got off early and went out." I said passing by without stopping not wanting to tell then I had actually been fired from my job a week or so previous and have to get into a conversation about it.
"Have a good night." He said catching my eye as I waved my entry card past the keyless entry
"I'll try."
"He will." Linda quickly says looking the guy right in the face as if to verify what he was probably thinking was indeed correct.
Shrugging my shoulders I waved to him and headed in past the security guard who also gave me a look only one man can give another. Although it was already well past midnight, the night seemed extremely young and, as we stood waiting for the elevator, my life seemed to pass before my eyes. On the ride up to my apartment I caught myself looking at the two women and wondering what it was I was in for. The mood seemed to change inside the elevator with Leslie and Linda keeping their distance from each other and all of us eyeing the floor indicator.
"I think my place is a mess, " I finally say seemingly breaking the tension, "I didn't clean up before I left tonight."
"Well, I think we'll have to just turn around won't we, Leslie? "
"I think it'll be okay, Tim," Leslie says patting me on the shoulder as if to put me at ease, "as long as your sheets are clean."
Once again my life seemed to pass before my eyes and I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into. Was this indeed research for my story or something I could never ever use except for tonight? Was this part of getting out more? Stepping out as it were? The elevator came to a stop at my floor and before I knew it we were out the doors and heading down towards my place at the end of the hall.
Once inside my place, as if it was all prearranged, the women headed straight up to my bedroom and asked me if I was coming up. I, needing a little time to reflect, told them I would be up in a moment, that I just needed a smoke first. Perhaps two, maybe three. Heading out onto my balcony I surveyed the action below and was, for a moment, disappointed that the alley was void of any action and lit my smoke. I must have been on another planet as time seemed to stand still but as my cigarette burned my fingers I snapped back into reality and flicked the butt down to the courtyard below and headed back inside and grabbed a glass of water. Looking up towards my bedroom I decided to throw in a few cd's, of which I'm sure now that the choices were poorly made, Shudder to Think, Grant Lee Buffalo and Fat Waller, and turned on the speakers in my room and headed up.
With the only light in my bedroom coming in from outside the doorway it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, all the while a part of me wondered if I really wanted to see what was going on. As my eyes became accustomed to the lack of light I could make out the women's forms moving about on my bed. Leslie and Linda were now locked in an embrace and from the looks of things had taken care of each others clothes as they were now completely naked with the sheets of my bed barely covering their bodies. Sitting down at my computer I decided to survey the action from a distance and lit up another smoke. It all seemed as I thought it would, the action, the two women seemingly at home with each other, as if they didn't even know I was there. Moving my chair closer I saw them moving each others hands over each other's frames, exploring the territory, seeing what was there. They'd obviously done this before, many times in fact, it all seemed too easy for them and so uneasy for me. Kissing and handling each other without any regard for me, that I was seated only feet from them, watching like a man from behind the glass at a peep show, like Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas watching Nastaja Kinski. Smoking one cigarette after another, shifting my position from time to time, watching as if to record it all for later reference. Every once in a while they'd look up and over to see what I was doing and then with a quick smile go back to what they were doing. Minutes seemed like hours and before I knew it they were asleep in my bed holding each other as they spooned, it was all over, for now. And, as if there was no other choice, I returned downstairs to reflect on my new role as voyeur, get a drink and catch the late night sports cast.

four, five

Four...

I've decided to start writing again. To start taking it all into account, make a written record of whatever it is that I think I should write. Two hours a day, a week, whatever it takes. It seems though, that when I do sit down to write, to actually do it, the writing, when I feel I should be writing, it all falls apart. Ideas I had, maybe, only hours before, before even now, are gone, forgotten and no amount of standing out on my balcony smoking seems to bring them back. Yet, walking around town, they come to me, from the shit I see, the everyday stuff, somehow it all makes me think of the strangest things. So today, as some sort of preventive measure, I bought a small notebook and decided to start jotting down these different ideas as they come to me. A free pen given to me by the woman I bought the notebook from, who I developed an immediate crush on for some reason I can't figure out, I took as some sort of positive sign as well. Trouble is, I'll probably forget it, the notebook and perhaps the pen, when I leave the house each and every time, like I do my glasses. And, like my glasses, I don't really need it, them, all the time but they, it, would surely help.
I didn't even know I needed them, my glasses, until I got them. It seemed though, after hours hunched in front of my computer, navigating my way through pages and pages of unmentionable subjects on the internet, my eyes, bloodshot and battered, often felt as though they were going to fall out of my sockets. So after a short, but somewhat interesting eye exam by a woman who seemed really interested in touching my face over and over like I was covered in Braille, I left, prescription in hand and wandered over to Granville Street and bought a pair of specs.
After trying on what seemed like a million pairs of frames, with my friend Billie offering up her opinion on each and every pair, something I found disturbing, if only because she was making a judgment on how I looked which made me uneasy, I settled on the Clubman's. Sort of a Clark Kent, Malcolm 'X', old guy, geek style of glasses.
It seems lately, without making any sort of conscious decision, that I've, somehow, affected or gained this nerd look for myself, almost by default. Every day, it seems, I start to look more and more like my grandfather, a man whose name I was given as if my parents couldn't think of anything better. The glasses, the clothes, even the way I smoke. And, while, I'll never ever match his tall lanky frame I have been told I walk like him, as does my father, and now that I've started to go gray the similarities have become even more pronounced. I find myself sitting like him, off to the side, holding a cigarette in my right hand and my Zippo in my left. Gesturing with it, the smoke, long before I light it, holding the lighter in my hand as if I'm warming it up before I flip it open, calling people 'farmers'. Although I never really truly understood what that meant, 'farmer'. My grandfather used to call me a farmer whenever I did something less than intelligent. Years after he died I had a job on a dairy farm and thought of him often as I shoveled manure and made my way around the field looking for lost cows.
Doesn't mean much now but, there were times when I understood what he had meant even if it hadn't really been his intent to insult farmers per say. Often at work I would find myself doing things that could only seen as stupid and without thinking. Yelling at cows as if they understood me and whatever it was I was trying to tell them to do. I even started wearing a cowboy hat, even when I wasn't at work but driving around town in my father's 1969 Chevy Biscayne, that with age and the odd running over by the farm tractor became a signature attachment of mine for better or for worse. That coupled with the, more than, occasional impure thought about my boss' Little House on the Prairie wife while I cut the lawn, listening to the Dead Kennedy's and the Stranglers on my walkman. All this made me think that if I stayed there much longer that my i.q. would continue to drop, maybe even to the point where I may not even be able to stay attached to the food chain. My dad eventually got me a job landscaping with the school board that was so much better intellectually.
And now, as I look at my clothes and those that I wear more than the rest I realize, if I don't nip this in the bud, I'm going to become my grandfather. Although, I'd still love to have some of his old clothes- there's nothing better than a big old grandfather style cardigan or pair of well worn work pants, especially when they smell like thirty years of pipe smoke.
Also, what started out as a means of saving money, and some sort of unconscious decision to look like my grandfather, has turned into something completely removed from that. The second hand beat-up men's black oxfords, 50's loop style short sleeved shirts and green janitor style workman pants, seem to fall onto my body as if they're the only clothes I own. Other clothes that I own sit for weeks, maybe months without me even so much as giving them a second look. I also, recently, bought myself a Biltmore straw hat that I wear with the brim rolled up all the way around. Apparently, according to my friend Renata, from whom I bought it, it's refereed to as a Stingy, a fedora style hat with a shorter brim. Every once in a while, you buy something for yourself and it feels like it was made for you, well, this hat feels just like that. Although, those who know that the hat is refereed to as a stingy yell that across the street at me as if it has become my nickname, I suppose it fits.
I'm not sure what happened exactly, but, my decision to start writing again came quite suddenly. I have, for years, written off and on, refusing to show anyone, with the exception of a small column I do for a local music rag, the results. Some of them, the stories, so close to the bone that I feared I would be giving up too much of myself. Stories about my life and all it's pitfalls and loves lost-most of which I killed all on my own without anyones help, thank-you very much. Lately, however, I have given up the ghost and let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, and given out a few stories to friends for them to read. More often that not though, I never ask them about the stories or what they thought of them fearing the worst. I don't have thick skin and take it all very personally, the questions, the criticism, and wish, sometimes, that I could grow or acquire a tougher outer layer. I guess I shouldn't really worry too much about that, time should take care of that and maybe a little rejection is a good thing, build some character, put hair on my chest and muscles in my spit as my father used to say. Lord knows I've been turned down more than once when I've asked someone to dance, shouldn't be that much different really.
So enough of the internal preamble, the sitting around smoking and thinking about it, I need to get started. Maybe I should start keeping a diary of my everyday goings on and take leads from that, for my story. Compile it all later, put it together somehow, make sense of it all, the chicken scratch notes. I'll have to be careful though not to use things too close to myself, verbatim accounts of every move I make and people's names have to be changed as a precaution. The last thing I need is to get this thing published, a long shot at best, and have someone see themselves portrayed in a somewhat unfavorable light-likely, and next thing you know I getting sued. I'll start a table with people's real names equally others. A Sam equals Susan, Jamie equals Richard sort of a thing. I'll also have to take parts of one thing, events and combine them with others so that direct references to certain events can't be made. Mix up the events, lie a little, change the names, screw up the dates and times and I should be alright. I have made the mistake in the past of writing about events, places and people in such a way that those who were there see themselves all too clearly and my phone has practically smoked right off of the cradle. Especially from old girlfriends-two in particular, who are sure I've given away every detail of our past love life and now the whole world knows all. So I’ve told a few tales out of school-so what?
Plus close attention had better be paid to my finical status as I go along. Running out of money would be the death of this whole little experiment and lord knows the amount I'm getting from the government each month for unemployment issuance really doesn't cover much. I have hidden away so much money from the government over the last few years that I get the bare minimum every two weeks and will have to just use that for my rent. That, a steady diet of rice, coffee and showing up to friend's homes at dinner time should carry me for a while. In the end I know I'm going to have to go back to work at something, bartending, perhaps a postal job or maybe freelance work here and there. Maybe I'll go back to school for something or another, something that's as good as anything, maybe a baker or an accountant. It's hell trying to live having to rely on an alarm clock and having to show up somewhere on time to work for someone you'd rather take outside and throw in front of a bus or better yet, take outside and piss on. But, that day will come and hopefully I'll be ready for it, I'll figure that part out when I get there, hopefully.
I also need to throw a little excitement into my life, spice it up a little. I need to stop being, for lack of any better term, so vanilla, so run of the mill. I have led a life that up to this point has been void of any real excitement, any real dirt or filth, something I could use a little of. Which is surprising in a way due to the amount of Lou Reed records I have listened to in my lifetime. You'd think all those nights spend locked away in my room as a teenager listening to 'Berlin', 'Street Hassle' and 'Transformer' with my old black and white TV Jammed in between stations so that it would create unsettling snow patterns, would have had some sort of effect on me. That and wanting to be just like 'The Thin White Duke' or 'Ziggy Stardust' would have, at the very least, made me want to hang out in drag bars or hang out downtown looking for smack. Even if I really didn't want to poke myself a needle or have sex with another guy.
I have managed, to this point, to be the guy who has blended well into the woodwork. I have led a life that could be viewed, really, only as boring and stayed. Doing things that I find interesting but that are of no real interest or consequence to anyone else really. I, for better or for worse, have become a bit of a loner and have spent too much time by myself, being my own best friend. Who's night is completed by the evenings episode of 'Law and Order' on A&E. I need to get out and go places I'd never normally go. Get out and see things I've only thought about, experience things to write about, research as it were. Sure, I go to gigs, drink a little, smoke like a bastard but more often than not, I head home afterwards when others are just getting started. I, also, have a daily routine I'm going to have to break. Coffee at the Whip Gallery instead of Starbucks, breakfast on Main Street instead of Fourth, all the little things have to altered, meet some new folks. I'll try and take my lead from others and what they're doing, read the paper, check the coming events calendar and get out and see what there is to see, check the streets. My friend Fawn, often referred to as a downtown scenester by the local media, always seems to know what's going on, maybe I'll enlist her services and follow her around a little. Time for some coffee.

five....

Romance told-you-so.... or something.(Maybe ‘Lisa X’)

There I was on the 401 heading towards Montreal after deciding to head further east rather than turn around and go home to her. There I was on the phone with her, on the 401 heading east towards Montreal, and she telling me-only after I pried it out of her, like I needed the kick in nuts, that she was cheating on me. That he was at the house right then, that he had been there all night, that he has been in my bed, fucking her.
There I was, on the 401, heading east towards Montreal from Toronto. Pissed off, feeling pissed on. Alone. And it was fucking raining and the traffic was backed up like a frathouse toilet.
She’s going to be sorry she ever did that.

Christ am I bitter. I’ve got to change my focus.

Thirty days turns thirty-two years.... pt. 1 (lying/stretching the truth is okay for this)

The ride in the cab feels right tonight. I’m coming home from a party that I shouldn’t have gone to. But I did. The air is coming in through the half open rear window and the window on the driver’s side is open wide and he keeps flicking the ash off of his cigarette out the yawning opening. My day started at 5:30 a.m. and it’s now 3:30a.m., the next day, and as I settle into the seat I can barely keep my head up so I just let gravity take it’s course and let my head fall back against the back of the seat and close my eyes.
I know the street we’re driving on well and try to figure out where we are, opening my eyes every once in a while to see if I’m right. I’m usually off by about a half a block-not bad.
I left the party with a woman I’ve had contact with before but we’re way beyond that now. At least I think so. She was looking at me strangely as we rode to her house, we figured it was cheaper that we ride together since her place was on the way to my house, and I felt a little weird, even worried. We spoke of things that I could tell neither one of us was really that interested in. Goes that way sometimes. When we got to her place she sat for a second and looked at me as if she wanted to say something but then broke the silence by just saying she’s see me soon. Maybe. She will. More than likely. Soon.
I’ve been working too much lately. Practically from the time I get up in the morning until the time I go to bed. Instilled in me, somehow, by my father who always told me that it was good to work hard and that the time would come for sitting still and rest. This day, however, seems to be taking it’s toll on me. Or maybe it’s this week or this year. I have really been working like I have something I really need money for. Some sort of hidden goal.
My social life has flown out the window as of late. I’m single. Again. For a while now. Almost by choice. I was doing a lot of fucking around, literally. I work four to five nights a week as a bartender and while I would hardly say I’m a great catch, not even close. I have found that, as such, I have been very fortunate. In the sense of sex and the case of which it seems to find me. Shit. It was getting bad. I’d wake up in the morning and not always know where I was or who I was with. The lure of the regulars, the women, at the club, while intense at first has seemingly lost it’s shine as of late. And I, recently, decided that I would make a concerted effort to try and turn off my gravitation towards them. They’re beautiful, young and I love them. The thought of them, women, in general, but mainly a select few, kills me. I have to learn to have faith that I will meet the right one eventually and that I don’t have to take a different one home every night to feel complete. I’m working at it but late in the night sometimes I find myself in bed with another wishing I had only used my better judgement. Maybe she’s thinking the same thing. Probably is. Shit.
The air in the cab feels good. It rushes across my forehead and I think for a moment that if I could hold any one moment for ever this would be it. Just the time of having someone drive you around and the sinking into the seat. The darkness around me. The sound of other cars passing by us. I contemplate telling the driver to keep driving around and then remember I don’t have enough money to do it.
Sleep. I’ll get a few hours tonight, if I’m lucky. Where am I working tomorrow? While I admire myself for working a lot and never having to rely on others for sources of income it takes it’s toll and I have, to a certain extent, become a workaholic. My father , it’s his fault. Weak. I feel weak. Lately I’ve only been able to gain anything I’ve wanted to by getting it from others. For two, maybe three years I’ve barely been able to hold my own. Maybe I’m selfish. Shit.
It’s raining hard now and the sound the windshield wipers make as they cross back and forth across the windshield breaks the sound of the wheels as they pass along the pavement. The driver has made three phone calls from his cell phone as we’ve been driving and because I can’t understand a word he’s saying I fantasize h’s plotting my murder.
The blocks race by as we bolt down Twelfth avenue and I know by the passing of the all too familiar neon that I’m getting close to home.

one, two, three

catch

garnet timothy harry


for my friends
and don bull

................


“The lord hates a coward”

Floyd Harry

...............

one...




Sometimes my head feels like a cinder block sitting on my shoulders. The weight of it, at times, seems as if it will cause me to pitch forward head-first into the pavement with my hands falling slowly behind and coming in a late second long after my head has hit the concrete. An ex-girlfriend, who was one to never mix words or lose the chance at a good argument, once told me I had a rather large head. Actually, what she said was, 'man, you've got a big head'. What ensued, an argument, at what was at best seven in the morning, ended with me making some sort of comment about her thighs and how I would never say that they were big-which they weren't. But it didn't matter, my point was lost and I was once again the bad guy and I still had a big head. We were in love, this is the truth, but I think deep down we really hated each other if for nothing else than the fact that we couldn't, for little better and much worse, stop loving each other. I wrote about her from time to time even when I didn’t want to but she brought out something in me I still can’t figure out. Back to my head, sure it's large, who am I kidding? It’s huge, but I can only hope it's full of something.

Two...

It's really odd, riding the bus, everyone trying as hard as they can to avoid the stare of others around them. Everyone wanting to just get the hell to work or wherever and be done with it, some smelling like cheap perfume samples from fashion magazines, others swimming in plain, blue-collar, everyday sweat. And, more often than not, I find myself wondering, as I ride, what the hell the others around me are thinking and where the hell it is that they go every day, every night. Where they wake up in the morning, at their place, someone else’s, in an alley, if they've actually been to sleep at all. And sometimes I find myself thinking that I actually care about the answer to some of these questions which, somehow, makes it worse. I wonder if they wonder what the hell I'm up to, where I'm coming from or going to, if I've been to sleep yet, looking at my big head.
I often hide my face in the newspaper and hope to god that no one, especially those from my high school or old neighbourhood, which happens more often than I care to admit, recognizes me and I have to talk to them. Having to go into some sort of built-in lying mode and make up shit, lies built upon lies built on nothing at all, to keep them at bay. Lie about my job and where I live and what I've been doing for the last ten years or so. I told a guy at my high school reunion, which I should have never gone to, that I had spent the last five years in jail in Montana for something I really didn't want to get into the details being sorted and somewhat disgusting to say the least. Another friend, who had been the one who had convinced me to go to the reunion, had been hurt in a car accident but hadn't seen anyone from high school since, helped come up with the lie and confirmed it when anyone would ask. Her somewhat grizzlie details better than anything I could ever come up with on my own. Some of which somehow made me very popular with some of the women there and somehow confirmed my status as the high school fuck-up, something I really wasn't. I actually had a B plus average and was on student council at one point, until they asked me to leave for reasons I could never really ever figure out, but if that's how they wanted to remember me I was satisfied. My end of the deal was to confirm that Sean had been paralyzed in a skydiving accident somewhere in Mexico. Lying has never been my thing but I was happy to become a criminal with untold crimes if it meant being left alone by the Science Club guys and somehow more attractive to their bored wives. Something I would have taken advantage of if I hadn’t been dating someone I actually cared about at the time. Plus, for some reason, I was the only one allowed to smoke in the hall where the reunion was taking place and take my drinks out into the public area. I didn't care much about the drinking but the smoking allowance was not lost on me.

Three...

Every morning, lately, my chest has felt as if it's been ready to cave in from all the cigarettes from the night before, like a smoking hangover of sorts, a punch in the chest from Mr. Winston himself. I have also wondered when I may have to stop this cancer habit and take care of my blackening lung and the other related hazards I was, perhaps, overlooking. I woke up the other night slumped over on my couch with a cigarette still burning in my fingers and the ashtray broken on the floor next to the couch. Sitting upright I gathered myself and, without thinking, took a final drag off the smoke before I putting it in a Coke can on coffee table. Smoking had or has become an obsession of sorts as much a part of my daily routine as sleeping and eating. I hope it passes, not the smoking but the obsessing about it.
But more than that, the blessed smoking, I have become obsessed with the goings on around me, especially those I have no real idea about, or that have anything to do with me. Not because I live a sheltered life, well maybe a little, but more that I have had no interest, up until recently, in any of it. Maybe because up until recently I had something that held my interest, at least a little-a job I went to daily, like those around me on the bus. Sure, it was a shitty job, bartending in a dive held together by career drunks but it was a job and it was mine. That and a few other outside jobs, usually under the table gigs, kept me afloat but somehow they've all gone south on me. For the first time in many years I have become dependent on my savings, which handled properly or at least responsibly, could last me a long time. My sister, bless her heart, calls me the most irresponsible responsible guy she knows. According to her I’m a guy who makes all the ends meet each month, packs a little cash away and then goes snow boarding until it's time to make the ends meet again. Now though I need something to do while all of my friends are at work during the day-sleeping in, smoking and pool only take up so much time each day. And so it was today, as if by some sort of divine intervention, that it came to me. What to do. How to make it all go away, pass the time I have some much of or at the very least make it make sense, to me anyway. Something to tell people I'm doing that somehow will make some sense to them and that I'm not just wasting my time. Because I will be wasting time to a certain degree, I just don’t want people thinking that’s what I’m doing.

catch - what it is.

years ago after being fired from a couple of jobs i sat in my apartment as it rained and wondered - often out loud - what the hell i was gonna do next. i had always enjoyed writing and had written a few magazine articles and had a column in discorder magazine as well so i thought, why not try and write something longer? why not....? a story based on nothing at all. so here it is. written around 1998 and full of holes and poor grammar and such, but it's mine, kind of.
please don't judge it too harshly, it's the work of a man unsure of a lot of things. i'm still unsure of a lot of things.

g. xo