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.