Come on, do the locomotion!

Day number:  Lots o days.

Yeah I think I can probably get a Masters.  I watched Tiny Furniture yesterday and apart from all of the awful acting it was pretty good.

 

           And he thought he had stolen her from the original Carlo, the other Carlo.  He thought of himself as the Popeye character in the cartoons, with the other Carlo being Bluto.  Except, he didn’t have spinach.  He could get a gun, he had thought at one point, but he wasn’t adult enough to go through all the proper avenues and certifications.  He still felt like a sham, like he was only filling prior Carlo’s spot.  It didn’t help that Other Carlo was covered in tattoos (girls loved tattoos) and was nearly seven feet tall.

            He heard the cat meowing noise that signified when she got a text message, and she grabbed at her back to try to silence it. 

            She is committed to moving but not committed to him.  He’s committed to her but not to moving.

            “Aren’t you wondering who that’s from?”  He asked, suddenly feeling like the passive aggressive person that he had never meant to be.  He walked audaciously in front of an older woman who was in front of them, her disgusting stockinged legs somehow still moving on her mummified frame.  The wheels on his luggage stopped turning and the thing flipped over on its side, and he fought to turn it back right side up like a train was going to hit him.  Belinda didn’t stop walking, and now she was screwing with her phone again.

            Carlo was getting the silent treatment from most of his friends.  This is what usually happened when someone abandoned the city they lived in for a girl they hadn’t known very long (or so he thought).  And, facing the truth, he honestly didn’t meet very many girls.  For awhile he could make himself happy simply by reminding himself that he was dating an attractive woman (not girl), someone whom other guys would check out when they went out together.  He had reached a saturation point, and even an infinite amount of sex wouldn’t mitigate it.

            He wanted to cry, the old woman he had almost passed was in between them again, but now blocked the way more consciously, like a racecar driver avoiding a would-be passer.  Now the tire of his stupid luggage was wedged into the end of the conveyor belt, and half of it was running away.  It made an obnoxious screeching noise as he yanked  at it, and a vibrating noise when he’d let go.  An older man with a white moustache pulled it loose for him effortlessly, and put it back down on its wheels.  It reminded him of when he was ten and the mailman had recovered all of his papers that flew out of his backpack, rubberbanding it back together.

            “Thanks.”  He said, with real gratitude, and took off down the terminal.  A man with no neck and a plaid shirt protected his coffee like it was an egg containing his child.   

She was nowhere to be seen.  Carlo slouched and slowed his pace.  Another announcement sounded overhead, “The plane for Normal, Ohio will be departing shortly.  This is the final call for boarding.”  He started to panic, looking at the overhead signs in the long alcove and trying to decipher them with increasing incredulity. 

“There’s section A-1, and then it’s section C-7, so that must mean B-3 is this way.”  He assured himself that with proper focus he would make the plane, because he had been meant to make it. 

He ran as quickly as he could without the bag doing a wheelie.  He hummed to himself when he got nervous, and this time he was short on breath as well.  It was an awful rendition of Jailhouse Rock.  He passed a station where there was shuttles on each side, and he thought picking the right one would be akin to winning the lottery.

“Boy, you look lost.”  A man who looked like he worked on an airline said.  Carlo scoffed caustically, but since he had nowhere to go to softened.

“Do you know where this is?”  He asked, cutting the smalltalk.  He produced the ticket from his pocket and the man eyeballed it, taking his glasses off, putting them back on, and then finally resting them on the end of his nose. 

“Boarding…must…be…”  He started.  Carlo leaned in to listen more closely.  “Boarding is… almost over.  You need to get to that plane… right away.” 

The man scratched his nose between his thumb and index finger.  He looked like he was channeling information and waiting for it to be uploaded to the talking part of his faculties.  A few younger slacker type of workers laughed from behind a window.

“Are you putting on a fucking show right now?”  Carlo asked.

The man raised his arm slowly and then pivoted mechanically, pointing down the corridor in the exact direction Carlo had been going.

“Thanks a fucking ton.”  Carlo sneered, snatching the ticket from the mans hand and continuing past the shuttle system.  A child had heard him say “fuck”, and it’s mom shook her head disapprovingly.  “I’m not going to fucking apologize for that.”  He said to himself under his breath as he entered the enormous terminal, the hands on its giant clock ticking loudly.  The flight attendants were stowing the podium they took tickets at, laughing to each other almost certainly about Carlo.  He weakly presented his ticket wordlessly, and they reproached him. 

The one with the name tag that said “Tonya” picked up a phone, looking over at him like she was talking about a dog that didn’t speak english.

“Yes…”  It dragged on.

“You know, if you’d just hurry up and get off the phone, I can go find my seat.”

“Sir, that goes against proper protocol.  Now, if you’d just be patient.”

Too much time had passed, and now she would really play dumb about the text. While he prided himself on his ability to be honest about faults, he knew honesty wasn’t one of those problems.  She was a brick wall, like usual.  She’d talk about boring mundane things like cooking until he was thoroughly placated.  But, without her in the real world he was as good as a fish out of water.

Another one today!

            Now I am under the impression that the most important thing to know in order to write is that you need courage!  Boys and girls, all you need is some big giant balls!


 

            The counselor stepped back and let Biff talk.

            “I’m only doing this because they’re making me.”  Biff said, feedback from the microphone dulling the brains of everyone in the room.  “Matter of fact, I’m not doing this.”

            He attempted to get off stage and Mr. Davidson turned him around, pleading with him to share his story.  The rest of the campers had.

            “I’m not like all of you lot.”  He said, surveying the crowd of unhappy attendees.  One man with angry eyebrows had the audacity to boo.  Charles, the enormous security guard, looked for approval from Mr. Davidson to intervene.  Mr. Davidson nodded and Charles stepped into the row,  forcing his way through the aisle like he was walking in quicksand. 

            Carlo looked at his watch.  Charles yanked at the shirt of the guy who yelled, his head lolled back and forth like a bobble head.  His oversized suit coat twisted to the right, the buttons heavily burdened by Charlie’s weight.  Carlo took a bite out of a corndog, tossing the bare deepfried pole into his empty box of popcorn.

            “Sometimes I just get so mad, you know?  I blame my father.  Nothing was ever good enough for the man.  I feel guilty all the time, even right now, when I’m talking about it, I feel like I shouldn’t be talking about it.”

            Leroy, a man who embellished all of his intervention stories in a way to paint a more positive picture of himself, laughed at Biff’s admission.

            Carlo got up and feigned having to pee, and then said “Pee” when Mr. Davidson enquired as to why he was leaving.  As he entered the Airport Lobby, the water in the water cooler gurgled, like a pin needle dropping in the forest.

            He walked over the moving conveyor belt, moving twice as quickly as if he had been standing still on it.  He squinted at the coffee place across from the bar, which was shutting down for the night.  Belinda sat there, head in hands.  She wasn’t going to be happy with him.

            She was playing a stupid cellphone game and held up a finger as he approached.  He sat down for a moment half-assedly, and when it was clear she wasn’t going to pay attention to him until she was done being angry he decided to get a drink.  He stood at a crossroads, coffee or alcohol.  Coffee.  First.

            He ordered a red eye because their plane was leaving late and he liked the idea that he was having a red eye before going on a red eye.  She stole furtive glances at him, furrowing her brow and looking away every time she looked over.

            “You were right.”  He said.  This piqued her interest.  “The meeting wasn’t funny at all.  It was a bunch of depressing people whining about problems, nothing like in the movies.”

            “Of course I was right.”  She said under her breath.  “That’s why I didn’t want to go.”

            “You were scared to go and you know it.  Who sneaks into things like that?  Well, go-getters, go-getters like me do.”

            A man with a top hat and long hair passed by, his shitty jeans dragging as he walked.  Security people walked beside him on each side. 

            “You’re still wearing that stupid hat.”  She said.  “I thought it was a joke.  I thought you were a funny guy.”

            The man in the top hat stopped and glared over.

            “I didn’t mean you, I meant him!”  She said, waving her hands in front of her face.  Carlo smiled at the man under the veil of his very similar top hat.

            “You’re still wearing those dumbass sunglasses in your hair.”  The man leaned forward with his hands on his hips and said to her.  “You’re still wearing that ugly floral print skirt.”

            “Mr. Provolone, let’s get going.”  One of the security guards tugged at his arm like a child trying to get their mom to leave the supermarket.

            “What did I say about touching me, Jimmy?”  Mr. Provolone removed his arm forcefully and flattened out his suit coat.  “Now I am going to have to have this dry cleaned.  That comes out of your bill.”

            “Dino Provolone?”  Carlo said, stars in his eyes.  Or they might have been dollar signs.  The fluorescent lights burned his corneas as he sat unblinking for a minute at the counter.  He took a sip out of his coffee and his face sucked in at the corners.

            “Keep your bitch on a leash.  I don’t care if you’re a fan.”  Dino said, and realized the majority of patrons were looking over at him.  He had inadvertently made a scene.  “Heh heh, just kidding!  Gotta run!”  And Dino was gone, his guards lumbering after him slowly.

            “Are you happy, Belinda?”  Carlo asked, doing his best Jimmy Durante impression.  He knew Belinda had no idea who Jimmy Durante was, but figured that joking around with her at this point was pretty hopeless anyway. 

            After a half an hour of silence, Carlo reading the funny section in the paper and Belinda staring mindlessly at her phone, the overhead announcement to begin boarding for their flight sounded. 

            “I’m a little nervous, Belinda.”  He confided.  “I don’t like airplanes.”

            “It’s too late now, my daddy thinks we’re coming.  And these tickets are a once in a lifetime thing.”  She sounded softer, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. 

            He checked his pockets for the boarding passes, and began to panic immediately.  “We have to go back.”  He said.

            “Go back where?  What’s wrong?” 

            “Back… I don’t know.  Back to the meeting.  Back to the coffee bar.  I can’t find the boarding passes.”

            “They can look them up by our names, I’m pretty sure.”  Belinda said.  But, Carlo was already booking it down the hall back to where the meeting had been held.  He checked his back pocket, where loe-and-behold he had the two boarding passes.  The nervous jitters were starting to get to him. 

            He always thought traveling with a girl would be nice.  Having a real girlfriend would be nice.  Someone to live with, a companion on the “road of life.”  But there was nothing romantic about it, when it happened in real life.

Day 105: Some things

I have noticed some things in these 105 odd days of my writing blog.  First of all!

1. It's still about quantity.  Quantity is experience.  And it's about experience.
2. Dialogue is easily improved over repeated readings.  Someone awful like Christopher Paolini said that the only way to get better is to read your own work, and he's right about that but I'm sure he stole the quote from Rudyard Kipling or JM Barrie.
3. Reading fiction and watching movies helps you with writing fiction a lot more than reading nonfiction.  So stop reading nonfiction, jerk.
4. Simplify simplify simplify.

Another whole bunch of words today!

       I'm not sure how I got away from this for so long but I think 2,000 words a day oughta do it.  I'm going to go get my Masters starting this fall!  Yippee.  Then I probably won't be able to do this again.  No!  Or atleast I'll do it every day until then, huh!

        

        “Nobody knows, nobody knows.”  Mr. Matilda flashes a smile at the kid, and as he enters through the back his face turns back into an exasperated look.

            The man leads Mr. Matilda inside a waiting room where he gestures to have a seat.  The walls are decked out with prints of italian opera posters.   Businessmen looking types sit on phones at their desks, not looking up as Mr. Matilda enters.  A few black and white pictures depict enormous families, from a distance it looks like an impressionistic painting of a skyline.  The Mount Rushmore of families.  A man is pushed out of the office on the far wall and a goon throws his powdered box at him, and he looks like he is going to say something but then shrugs it off and leaves, the box still sitting in the middle of the floor.  It looks just like Mr. Matilda’s box.  A secretary disposes of it.

Mr. Matilda sits in one of the two red foam chairs against the wall.  There are windows across from him, and he holds the box in his lap.  Mr. Matilda looks down at his watch and it says “3:15” and then he looks at a sheet that says “Be there at 3:15 exactly.”  He let’s out a sigh and relaxes in the chair, then checks out the magazine selection. He spins the magazine easel twice, finding nothing that interests him. It’s mostly old Sports Illustrated for Kids.  An old man who is leaving puts a Wallstreet Journal on the table and Mr. Matilda starts reading it, peeking over to look around the room.  Suddenly his stomach rumbles and he remembers the restaurant around the corner.  He gets up to leave and the man, whom some call “Martin”, attempts to take the powdery box from him.

            “You couldn’t possibly take this box into the restaurant, sir.”

            “It’s coming with me wherever I go, tough guy.”

            “I’ll take it for you.”

            “Fat chance, rascal.”

            Mr. Matilda’s voice is high pitched and squeeky, like Abraham Lincoln actually sounded.  The similarities end there.

            He sits back with his arms crossed.  Time passes quickly, the clock spins.  A secretary admits people over the intercom.  The blinds on the opposite side of the window open a crack and a set of eyes looks past the index finger which is holding it open.  The walls in the room are painted dark red, as opposed to the peeling powdery blue of the waiting room office. 

            Flashback to the night before.  Mr. Matilda is holding the box up to a fluorescent light with one hand, the other hand holding a flashlight for additional visibility.  He’s standing on a chair.  A face walks by in the window, which he does not notice.  No luck, there’s nothing new to find on the box.  He looks down at the box that it came in, which is open and spewing packing peanuts indiscriminately.  It’s got the watermark of “Cool Breeze & Company”, he sighs and looks at the UPS switchblade he got from his previous job.

            A knock on the door.  He looks through the peephole and sees Martin, an overweight ex business partner.

            “Come on, Herman, I know you’re in there.  It’s not too late to back out, you don’t have to do this.” 

            Herman tells him to “fuck off” in so many words.  He sits in front of the TV, not bothering to close the blinds or pretend he isn’t there.

           

            The phone rings and he jumps.  We’re back in current time.  A head pops up from behind the window on the outside, it’s the same guy from the flashback.  Roger wears suspenders and glasses with thick black frames, pants that are too long but the correct width.  Roger waves through the window and Mr. Matilda covers his face and attempts to hide behind the Wallstreet Journal.  Roger is unphased and he walks in, Martin intercepting him and telling him that Mr. Matilda is a very important client.

            “Herman!”  The man calls, struggling against Martin like a dolphin in a net.  “Herman, this brute is manhandling me!”  His glasses fall off and he starts hyperventilating, Martin not budging. 

            “Do you know this man?”  Martin asks.

            “No.  I have never seen him before in my life.”

            Martin uses an eyeball to get a sensor to open the door.  A dog comes running out when it opens.

            “Peter, would you fetch my pouch?  Peter, my pouch is gone.”

            Peter is asleep at a little table and a man who resembles Marlon Brando after he got fat pesters him for a second before prodding him with a stick.

            “Ah!  And you are… Mr. Matilda!  And you have my box!  Unbelievable, it must be my lucky day!”

            The room is furnished with large wooden block furniture.   The fat man sits behind a round desk varnished with gold along the outside.  A grandfather clock ticks with an echo throughout the room, and the view overlooks a fountain and sprinklers orchestrating a dance like an Esther Williams routine.

            “You have been smoking again, I can smell it on you.  And you’re wearing THAT shirt. My fathers shirt.”  Herman looked down momentarily at her fathers red and blue aloha shirt, stained and unwashed.  He shrugged defiantly. Petuna stood, shaking her head.  Herman attempts to crane around her to see their son Abner sitting in the front seat of the car.  “He doesn’t want to see you.  Herman, you are a bad influence.”

            “Why did you bring him with?  You are just here to antagonize me?”

            “The car, Herman, this is about the car.  If you had just kept your old job…”

            “I gave my life to that place.”  Just then, Herman noticed a homeless looking man exiting the backseat of the old red Corolla.  He tried to walk past Petuna, pulling his shoulders in, like a kid trying to get behind the refridgerator.  She stopped him, horrified and overreacting, with a flattened hand.  He touches her hand on accident and withdrawals, and she blushes and takes a step backwards.

            “Hey you!”  Herman regains his composure and yells at the man by the red Corolla, who runs off into the night.

            Petuna hands a letter to Herman and gives him a quick stink eye, departing.  She answers a cellphone call as she sits in the front of her little sedan, Abner waving at Herman from the window.

OK it's not quite as "Constantly Improving" As It Used to Be

            Alright I'm going back to get a Masters.  Whew!  Let's all get Masters degrees.  If all goes according to plan I will go back and be a professor at some point.  And then everything is awesome.
           Things are going pretty not-bad though.  Reading a lot of books.  Working on IT right now.  Read a pretty good one about storytelling (mainly screenwriting) by David McKee called "Story".
           Well, no excuses this time!  A certain amount of words a day (2,000) for (indefinitely). 

His name is Matilda.  Mr. Matilda.  He wears his slacks loose and his eyeglasses on the top of his head.  His arms were always crossed, his eyes always on his watch.  The black door to an all white house opens and gets caught on the rug, he pulls it closed again.  It reopens, and the same problem again.  He gets on his hands and knees and pries the matt out from under the door, muttering under his breath.  He stands up and brushes the dirt off of his pants, his keys cutting through his pocket.  He works to untangle them.

            The dog Rodney watches from the window every morning when Mr. Matilda leaves, dust floating in the air in the sunlight in the kitchen.  He stands on the kitchen table with his leash in his mouth and disappears and reappears as he jumps in front of the triangular window. The freshly cropped grass stopped an inch in front of the sidewalk on each side, the abandoned Carolla with the tires removed still sitting in front of the fire extinguisher.  Mr. Matilda looked at the car and shook his head, continuing down the drive.  He jots a note in a little notebook, “Call about car still being there.”  He walks closer to the car to potentially check it out but his beeper buzzes and he regains his poise.

            He looks exhausted, his hair is messy, his face is shadowed with stubble.  He drinks his coffee, which is already cold.  Shaves his face with an electric razor, slicks his hair back with pomade.

            Mr. Matilda wears a dark black pinstriped suit dotted with speckles of dust.  He holds a powder coloured box in his lap, even while he’s on the drivers side.  He fidgets with a pair of handcuffs, looking at the little loop on the powdery cake box, and when he can’t get them open throws them in the backseat.

            Being alone in a big place.

            Mr. Matilda rolls the driver’s side seat way back.  He is now prepared to start the vehicle.  The car purrs and drifts out of the driveway, like a leaf on a river.  He presses the stereo button on .  A news reporter talks in a unobtrusive voice about weather and the construction of a local bridge.  Mr. Matilda sighs and starts whistling a tune.  He had never been to the other side, East Winchester City.  He used to know a girl who lived over there, although that sounds like a detective story cliché.

            “My baby left for Mexico, she’ll never be back, never be back.” An old country western tune starts up.  Mr. Matilda shut off the radio with a shutter, watches the rearview mirror for awhile sporadically while screwing with the radio.  He pops the tave out of the tape deck and it briefly reads, “Songs from Petuna.”.  Mr. Matilda throws it in the little spot between the gas and the stereo. 

            He checks his map.  He references his watch, and then looks back at the map, and then up at the compass in his car which is broken.  A wry smile flashes across his lips.

            He drives past a sign that shows the name of the town he lives in is “Kingpin” with a populatioin of 405.  The sign is flanked on both sides by fake looking palm trees, and the street up ahead reveals square bungalows.  He looks back in the rearview mirror, where we see a bridge that he obviously has just crossed.

            He pulls into the gas station, it’s darker now.  He gets gas and watches a car go by, the man driving looks at him through the lowered window.  He has a big silver moustache and a cowboy hat.  Mr. Matilda stands more profile and lights a cigarette against the prevailing wind.  He watches as cars pass, everyone eyeballing him, and sees an emormous black SUV emerging from the end of the street.  He puts out the cigarette quickly and hops back in the car, letting out an exhale of relief as it passes.

            He pulls into the parking lot of a small diner.  He comes around to the opposite side of the car and removes the small package.  A man meets him at the door with a clipboard and circles him, evaluating the condition of the box.  Mr. Matilda starts walking toward the front door of the diner and the man comes from behind him, putting an arm around him and guiding him around to a door on the back.  Old men and women sit at the booths drinking orange juice and staring at mounds of pancakes.  A small child watches them as they try to walk discretely, and the fat man pushes him by the face.  He falls back and watches from a distance.

            “What’s in the box?!”  He yells from far away.

            The man leads Mr. Matilda inside a waiting room where he gestures to have a seat.  The walls are decked out with prints of italian opera posters.  A few black and white pictures depict enormous families, from a distance it looks like an impressionistic painting of a skyline. 

Mr. Matilda sits in one of the two red foam chairs against the wall.  There are windows across from him, and he holds the box in his lap.  Mr. Matilda looks down at his watch and it says “3:15” and then he looks at a sheet that says “Be there at 3:15 exactly.”  He let’s out a sigh and relaxes in the chair, then checks out the magazine selection. He spins the magazine easel twice, finding nothing that interests him. It’s mostly old Sports Illustrated for Kids.  Suddenly his stomach rumbles and he remembers the restaurant around the corner.  He gets up to leave and the man, whom some call “Martin”, attempts to take the powdery box from him.

            “You couldn’t possibly take this box into the restaurant, sir.”

            “It’s coming with me wherever I go, tough guy.”

            “I’ll take it for you.”

            “Fat chance, rascal.”

            He sits back with his arms crossed.  Time passes quickly, the clock spins.  A secretary admits people over the intercom.  The blinds on the opposite side of the window open a crack and a set of eyes looks past the index finger which is holding it open.  The walls in the room are painted dark red, as opposed to the peeling powdery blue of the waiting room office.