|
Jadugarr -> RE: What’s the Expiration Date On That Baby? (4/9/2010 21:03:27)
|
Two
Narrator (To Himself): Mel.
Narrator: “We need a better transition.” More inherent, less rash. “I’m thinking: tumor. Tumors are fun, right? They’re ‘in?’”
Narrator (To Himself): Dawn’s hand moves. Fingers held up softly against her chin. A flex in her left ankle as she lifts her heels on her toes; she wants to speak. Refuses. Get it out—I wouldn’t mind a fresh opinion. You think the old guy’s going to open his mouth? Sense flows from that man like a fist of hair through a drain—like air through his lungs? He breathing?
Archer: “I’m solid that fantasy tales don’t ever involve tumors. That would be the worst plot device ever conceived by anyone—ever.” Shut up, Archer. “Now, Leprosy? Elegant move. And—fairies can’t heal lepers. It’s practically fact.”
Narrator (To Himself): “Y’know, it’s finally happened.” Now we got to go back. Got to change everything; you change one detail, “One damned detail—now you got to change everything!” When was the last time? Guy was brooding. Too much brooding; completely out of character. “The entire story was him batman-ing about the world like Fitts to a bag in the wind. You know what I had to do? Changed the entire theme—kept the character.” Half-a-year. Five months bashing in keys with my forehead.
Narrator (To Himself): Toes curl and teeth clamp the inside of her lip; she’s staring—and, yeah, okay, he definitely stopped breathing.
Narrator: “Marty? Marty! Hey, stick with me, bud.”
Narrator (To Himself): Stomach collapses in on itself as he breaks the seal of dust between his lips and lets in a breath. Ribcage protruding farther out than his feet.
Marty Prestin: “Uh, wha’—Yes. Yes, I’m—why’s everyone standing around here?” Why the hell is everyone here? You’re as old as brimstone, and over there? He doesn’t even speak!
Narrator: “Alright, Guy Whatever-your-last-name-is, just get out; Marty, keep breathing, don’t choke on your own spit, and follow him; Archer, I’d ask you to leave, but you won’t, you’re a bit of a parasite—I guess I’ll just off myself in a week or so.”
Narrator (To Himself): He chokes his fingers about Martin’s spine, his other pinning the old man’s gaunt palm to his chest. Steadily, Archer lifts him from the chair. Almost out-of-character. “No one is speaking," there is silence—nothing awkward, “everyone’s just thinking. What if Archer wasn’t here?” There wouldn’t be any transition from one moment to the next. “It’d be if nothing happened! Marty and whoever disappear to the hallway, then what? The next conversation begins? How much time passed? Did any time pass?” You can’t say that ‘minutes passed,’ readers need substance! Everything has to collide. Do you center some asterisks? End the chapter? “It’s not a flaw that I can’t do it.” Just need to stick with what I know.
Theresa Dawn: Lips draw from her teeth, “Don’t change Mel, but just—make some circumstances. Everybody’s a bit of a jerk sometimes. Doesn’t make them a jerk all the time.”
Narrator (To Himself): “End chapter. Fade to black.” Don’t talk Archer.
Archer: “Well, that was a sweet bundle of crap. While I’ll be washing that taste from my mouth, will you be wanting me to bring you back our finest cartridge of Welch’s, my dear?
Welcome in the Road Kill Archer
I found his attendance to be more than lacking; fumes of the grill and cigarette buds curled together and masked the clock, dispersing in half-hour segments. My stay transformed into a bloody remix of clapping dollar bills onto the table while the bartender slid glasses in my direction. At seven, I had a tie choked at my throat, at ten it might have well been wrapped at my forehead. At the very moment will turned into something of a bad joke, I was introduced to a hysterical person babbling on about how kitchen sinks are the bane of man’s existence when mixed with a ten-year commitment to a witch.
“Honestly, y’know?” he rambled about, his nails twisting at the crevasse of his hairlines, “There’s not a thing masculine about sinking your elbows into pipes, now is there? If you don’t know how to do it, what in the hell gives you the idea that I’ve the slightest clue?”
“Maybe, you think, we should mostly be doing something to get your mind off that?” I queried in blissful disinterest.
Addison struck his palms flat to the table and arched himself over, “I’m proud someone was off entertaining themselves!” With a quiet leer, he shook a folded bundle of paper from his pocket.
Ecstatic to unveil his art, he unintentionally tore at some of the creases before having it fall down in front of my glass. At first glance, the grease stains outlined of his fingerprints made it appear as though it had been molested by basket of fried chicken. “That’s it. There’s all it is; I know you’re shocked, but damn does that gold shine!” he continued in restrained exhilaration, “Go ahead, take a slice.”
With limited attention, my eyes drew away from Addison’s script; the place had been slowly wringing out—it was never a town for the lonely man. Wake up, hold your wife, dress your kids. Grab your pants from the bathroom floor and your keys from the fridge. When the hour strikes, you drop your backside into that cubicle six minutes late. You make sure to forget the time so you can follow the traffic back to the edge of your driveway. So why is it you leave the bar? So the clocks can turn back on themselves and you can pretend you don’t have to remember.
“T-truthfully, I’m cutting calories. And please, don’t ever touch me—ever,” I held up my hand erect above my head, “Ever.”
Addison slid back into his chair, his shoulders shrugged up to his jaw, “Just take it home, Archer, read through some of it and give me a call some time.”
“Is—what’s this about?” I queried, having been subjected to nothing other than incoherent babble of the blocks he’s hit along the drive.
“It’s absolutely brilliant. A thing of beauty—tragic but hilarious—it’s everything,” his voice began to hike up to the bloody heavens; “Read the first page and I’ll have you like a deer in the headlights.”
“Well, then, run that bumper through my skull and blow my mind.”
“That was a bit grim,” he calmly stated with a curled lower lip.
The neon lights dimmed black at the counter as the man behind it sat with his face draped along his fist. As a snapshot of the man would prove, if you don’t serve yourself hell, you can bet there’ll be a village to shove the funnel half-way down your throat. Sounds like a party.
“I need a ride home,” I said in return.
“Yes—yeah, I know.”
***
Throttling the height my ankles, the grass was as thick as it was overgrown. My shadow warped about the bushes as I took defined strides towards the garden; there’s not a key left under the doormat, but the doors remain bolted—much obliged to the inventor of the door you can’t unlock without a key pinched against your forefinger.
The back way entrance slid against the crackling leaves in the frame as I lifted my way through. Overcome by the house-fan drawing in the breeze, the chirping of the crickets quickly drained. Hours became seconds as the arms of the kitchen clock began to flutter and twirl; down the hallway air choked its way down my mother’s throat, I turned off at the door before and descended the staircase—my palm sliding at the rail.
Rinsing my fingers through my hair, I slouched over my desk to meet Addison’s script staring blankly in return. “Dumpster Babies: The More You Know,” I paused in dismay. “At the least, he’s got the hook.” I continued my read, “Little scrunchy punctuation: Addison Manningwell.”
I peeled forward the edge of the pages and threw back his introduction; the hour was far past both body and mind—minutes were nothing more than a time bomb to a blackout. “My foot running red from heel to toe, I was limping through to the kitchen with the back of my thigh in one hand and a first curled in the other. I haven’t the faintest clue of the man masking his striped drawers, but someone will be forced the blame. Someone like Malory.
Decisively, I rang from my lungs ‘Mal!’ just as he was turning around the corner and met me at my face in the doorway.”
Archer: “I’m sorry, but hold up there.” What? Who gave him the license to feel up my roughs? It’s a start, and I would damn well like some appreciation for my time!
Narrator: “Archer, what do I say?”
Archer: “New plan—I’m going to keep on speaking, and you? You’re going keep it to your bloody self.”
Narrator (To Himself): “Oh, honestly.” I don’t need to hear it. I’m in the right plane to crack off your head and hide it under my mattress. You just got’a cut out that medium. “Poof.” No more sound. “A significant decrease in the amount of Archer I’d ever have to listen to again.”
Archer: “First off, ‘I haven’t the faintest clue of the man masking his striped drawers’? You cannot be serious!” There’s nothing wrong with it. “Do you even know what ‘drawers’ are? Bloomers! Bloody bloomers!” Antagonistic alliteration. “Who in the hell would need to hide those? A nudist? Should we assume he’s talking about a nudist? A small, ashamed, shell-of-a-man turning back on his family’s past of letting it all hang out?”
Archer: “Do you actually think, do you? Did you know the brain can actually be used for other than breathing and drooling down your chin? Secondly, and this should’ve probably been the opener, but is my mother dying? ‘Down the hallway air choked its way down my mother’s throat.’ Are you killing my mother?” She’s snoring!
Narrator: “She’s snoring!” How the hell don’t you get that? You walk right past her—“If she was dying, you wouldn’t ‘ve walked right past her. Anybody with a simple process of inferring could determine that.”
Archer: “No they wouldn’t! Just shut up and say it—just shut up, cram those words where the sun don’t shine, and say it! Stop trying to be a poet! Just say she was snoring. Nobody wants to sit around for eight pages while you frolic on your heels about the color purple! It’s bloody purple! Get over yourself!
Narrator: It’s an art! If an artist can spend an hour shading a tulip, I can spend a couple paragraphs or more describing it!
Archer: “Yeah, you bloody well could; but the thing is, when you look at a portrait, you see hours of work all crammed into one beautiful moment that you can enjoy for as long as you so choose! Reading your work is sort of, a little bit, like spinal surgery, you may appreciate what they’re doing, but dammit if you don’t like the feeling of someone jabbing at your nerves with a scalpel for five hours on-end.”
Archer: “Lastly, where in the loving hell did you learn your bloody British?”
Narrator: “Where the hell did you learn yours!”
|
|
|
|
