Revisions revisions revisions

Look at how different this is after my first series of revisions.  You can't say that's not constantly improving.


 

            Ron stared out of the window of his little shack with eager anticipation.  He read the letter from Stacy over and over again.

            “I hate my mom,”  He read to himself with zest.  “Remember that movie star auntie you said you had?”

            Ron shook continuously as he drank coffee straight out of the pot.  A police cruiser came down the street and he ducked, reaching up to twist the blinds shut.  He heard the car door slam and the crunching of footsteps coming up the drive.  Two sets of feet.

            The doorbell rang and Ron ran into the bathroom, parting his hair with a wet comb and throwing a polo shirt on over his mother of pearl wife beater.  There were a couple of loud knocks, followed by a few more rings of the doorbell.  He could hear his step daughters voice outside.

            “Officer McKenzie, first division.  I found this young lady wandering down the side of the road.”  Officer McKenzie said, flipping up the shades on his eyeglasses.  The air conditioner blared in the window, the cool lines coming off of it were almost visible powder blue squiggles.

            Ron was taken aback by the unfriendly greeting, and used it to buy time to think of something to say

. “Your mother couldn’t give you a ride? That woman is no-good.  Do I have to do everything for this family”  Ron said unconvincingly.

            The officer looked over at the closed blinds.  “Why’d you close the blinds? Is there something I should know?”

            “No, I just don’t like the police, you know?”  He looked at Stacy pleadingly.

            “Step aside.  I’m going to come in and take a look around.”  The cop said.

            “Don’t you need a warrant or something?”  Ron said weakly as the cop pushed him aside with a flattened outstretched hand. 

            Ron stepped outside and looked desperately at Stacy.  She removed a piece of gum from its tinfoil and rolled her eyes up at him.

            “I think I hear your police radio.”  Ron said.  “It sounds like something important is going on.”

            “You know it’s illegal to lie to a police officer, daddy.”  Stacy said with narrowed eyes.

            Luckily for Ron, he had cleaned up a little for Stacey.  He vaccuumed the purple shag carpeting, although it still had a few inconquerable stains.  The wicker coffee tables flanking the lumpy loveseat looked clean enough, granted you didn’t remove the coasters and lamp that were stuck to them. The beads hanging off of the multicolored chandelier were dust free.  However, the garbage can sitting next to the TV was overflowing with empty soda bottles, and a few had jumped ship onto the few on the floor next to it.

            “You weren’t planning on having this girl stay with you here, were you?”  The officer asked.  Ron walked back in sheepishly. “This looks like a single mans apartment if I’ve ever seen one.”

            “I was gonna sleep on the couch.  They’re fumigating her mom’s place.”  Ron said, the cop crossing his arms.  His moustache stood bristling at full attention.

 Ron knew he had to lay down on the couch.  The cushions crunched underneath him, and the best he could do to get his whole frame onto it was to cram his legs and head into a V shape.

            “It’s not comfortable but I have done it before and I’ll do it again.”  Ron said.  He added:  “I’d do anything for my little girl.”

            The cop gestured at Ron to come over into the kitchen and whispered. 

            “I saw the periphenalia in your bedroom.  I smell drugs all over this place.  I know you aren’t thinking of taking that car out front and running away with her.  You’ve got your rough spots, but I think you’re an honest man.  I don’t want to embarrass a man in front of his daughter.”

            The police officer rubbed two fingers together.

            Ron looked up dumbfounded for a second and then understood he was being solicited for a bribe.

            “I’m a little short, right now.”  Ron said.  The cop crossed his arms and shook his head.

            Ron and Stacy stood in the driveway silently as the cop pulled away.  He drove slowly, and Ron rearranged the thick stack of money in his wallet, unbeknownst to him Stacy was watching the entire time.

            “Are you sure we should even be driving this thing?”  Stacy asked.  Ron stepped heavily on the gas and a stream of smoke formed around each window like they were sitting on a hot spring.  Stacy rolled up the passenger side window and wiped dirt out of her eye.

            “It’s my car, Stacy.  It’s tougher than it looks.  Got a lot of character.”  Ron responded and dropped the car back into neutral.  “Get out and help me push it.”

            “Ron, I heard that cop say you shouldn’t be driving it.”  Stacy said and picked at peeling sea-green paint covering the rust that grew like a barnacle underneath.  She dropped to her knees and looked under the thing, and stood up and kicked the rotting exhaust pipe.  It fell off easily, like a dead part of a house plant.  Ron grabbed it and pushed it into the black circle it occupied.

            “We gotta get going or we’ll never get to Auntie Fiona’s house.  The pools a lot more fun during the day.”

            “I’m going to call mom.”  Stacy said as Ron pushed from the open drivers side door.  The front tires plopped up on the lawn, the car looking temporarily like a hungry killer whale.

            “What?  No, no no! You know mom, she gets jealous.”  Ron said, hitting the red button on Stacy’s Iphone.  “As a matter of fact, I’m going to hold onto this in case she calls.  We’re going to have a nice, quiet, relaxing day.  Besides, she’s always been jealous of Fiona’s looks and success.  You know your mother used to want to be an actress.  It will only upset her.”

            The car started fine, three gutteral coughs and then a long wheeze that diffused into palpatations.  It sputtered like Porky Pig’s car in an old cartoon as it flung pebbles in each direction as it scurried onto old Arvsdale Avenue. 

            “Wave goodbye to the house.”  Ron said wistfully.  Stacy found this remark more ominous than Ron intended. 

            “This death wagon.”  She said under her breath, popping her head out of the window and breathing in the hot, musky desert air.

           

            Mr. Beasley stepped out onto the turf for his ten A.M cigarette.  He pulled off his plain blue sweatstained visor and squinted. 

            He was down to the nub of it when he noticed the gaping hole between his tractor trailor and haywagon.  He took his flip phone out of the front pocket on his overalls and dialed whilst swearing to himself under his breath.

            “Boy ain’t paid his rent in months, now he’s taken my old Impala.” 

            “Ursa-Mae, get your sister.”  Rita said between puffs.  “That girl could sleep through a thunderstorm.”

            Ursa pushed into Stacy’s room, her alarm clock blaring.  The bed was a mess, girly magazines laying open.  And the window was wide open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze.  She pulled the blanket up to the pillows and went over to the window.  Her mother was out in the yard.

            “Ma, she’s run out again.”

            Ursa Mae:  Jealous of the fact everyone is paying more attention to her sister.  The more bookish of the family.

            Rita:  Afraid Ron is going to have sex with daughter.  40s

            “She sleep over at Harlie’s house?”

            “She isn’t friends with Harlie anymore.”

            “Well she better not be out that deadbeat creep Ron.”

            “He’s not that bad.”  Ursa said.

            “What was that?”

            “Ron, he’s not that bad.”  She spoke louder but didn’t quite yell.

            Ursa dug through Stacy’s drawers and retrieved two crumpled twenty dollar bills.  She took a dress out of her closet and hung it over her arm.

            “I called and she ain’t answering, phone must be off.”  Rita burst into the room.  “Get dressed we’re going to go find her.”

            “Yer boy took the truck and he’s gone.”  Words leaked out of Beasley like air out of a flat basketball.

            “He isn’t MINE.  We got DIVORCED.  And you’re his boss, not some friend of the family.” 

            “No matter.  If you see that boy, tell him not to come back.  He’s fired, and he can’t live here anymore.”

            The car rumbled past the “Population 500” sign, along a freshly paved onramp and onto the thick tar of the city road.

            Stacy smiled over at Ron.  He looked back sheepishly and refocused on the road, a light blush painting itself onto his cheeks. 

            “What’s she like?”  Stacy asked.

            “Oh, you know.  Like any other movie star.  She is nice, rich, nicest woman I’ve met.”  He reached an arm over behind her head.  “When I was growing up, we always looked forward to going to Fiona’s house.  She would cook up lobsters on the grill, she had fancy juice in a big pitcher with ice cubes and limes floating in there, we would spend the whole day by the pool.  Some of her movie star friends showed up, too.  They came and went like it was their hangout.”

            Stacy checked her makeup in the mirror.  “You know, if you didn’t always sound like you were full of shit I’d say you were BSing me.”

            “What’s all this crap?”  Stacy said, climbing halfway over the backseat and putting her butt up in Ron’s face.  “This is all of your shit, isn’t it?”

            On the side of the road, Montgomery sat in his smoldering black leather police cruiser.  Ron’s car flew by, and it wasn’t dark enough he didn’t notice their tail light was out.  He reached up at the siren switch tentatively, and took a sip of his gas station coffee.  He mulled it over, and typed in the license plate number on the laptop.

            “Ron Durante.”  Montgomery said outloud to himself, sipping more of his coffee.  He picked the computer up and put it on his lamp.

            Right about this time, Ron’s air conditioning decided to stop working.

            “All this sweat’s making my makeup run.  Hey, there’s a car guy.  Pull over.”  Stacy said.

            “No can do, Stace. 

            The heat thermometer had its arrow pointing firmly off the spectrum, past H.  Stacy turned the radio down and the whirring noise of the engine was truncated by a persistence bump.

            “What’s that noise, Ron?  That does it, I’m calling mom.”

            Ron cringed at the idea of his ex wife being “mom”.  He turned the radio back up, and a reporter interrupted their soft adult contemporary music.

            “…on the lookout for a green rusty truck…”

            Ron turned the radio off and drove in silence.  When Stacy seemed like she was going to talk again, he interrupted.

            “Alright we’ll get the car fixed.”

            They pulled into a rest stop and Ron pushed his legs out to open the heavy door.  He came around to Stacy’s side and pulled hers open. 

            “Go in and get yourself a bite to eat.”  Ron said, handing her a twenty from his wallet.

            The mechanic had a wide smile and was standing upright.  With his blonde hair he looked like a ripe ear of corn.

            “Jim.  Nice to meet you, Jim.”  Ron said and extended a hand.  Jim’s handshake was a vice grip compared to his own.

            “Mister,” He said, looking under the hood.  “You better find yourself a place to stay, this car might going to take a very long time.”

            “You don’t know what you’re talking about.  What’s wrong with it?”  Ron planted his hand on his forehead.

            “Well you see,”  The mechanic said, propping the hood up and resting it open.  “Your coolant is out.  You’re lucky the car didn’t start smoking on the way here.  On a hot day like today, you could have baked alive inside this thing.”

            “Ok so I get some more coolant.”  Stacy looked at him from across the street, two teenager boys on each side of her. 

            “That fast food is going to destroy that girls figure.  Damn shame too, she’s a real piece.”  Jim said with a slight whistle coming from between his teeth.

            “That’s my goddamn daughter.”  Ron said.  He looked at Jim sternly, and Jim kept glancing out the window.  “Show some goddamn respect.”

            “The festival’s beginning.”  Jim said, tossing his wrench down onto the big metal slab the car was perched next to. 

            “What about my car?”  Ron asked.

            “No work during the festival, state law.”  Jim said with his arms up akimbo.  “Your daughters already there, anyway.”

            “Yep, looks like he took that big rusted thing.  Unbelievable he even got it started.” 

           

Here's a new one

         It's day a million.  Kevin Vokes has been reading this blog of mine.  I am not sure but I think things are getting better.  I'm understanding the role of conflict.  I'm working on a second book and this one is a lot better than the first one (ie: constantly improving)

 

            Ron stared out of the window of his little shack with eager anticipation.  He read the letter from Stacy over and over again.

            “I hate my mom,”  He read to himself with zest.  “Remember that movie star auntie you said you had?”

            Ron shook continuously as he drank coffee straight out of the pot.  A police cruiser came down the street and he ducked, reaching up to twist the blinds shut.  He heard the car door slam and the crunching of footsteps coming up the drive.  Two sets of feet.

            The doorbell rang and Ron ran into the bathroom, parting his hair with a wet comb and throwing a polo shirt on over his mother of pearl wife beater.  There were a couple of loud knocks, followed by a few more rings of the doorbell.

            “I found this young lady wandering down the side of the road.”

            “Your mother couldn’t give you a ride?”  Ron said.  “That woman is no-good.”  Ron said unconvincingly.

            The officer looked over at the window Ron had shut the blinds at.  “Why’d you close the blinds?  You in some sort of trouble with the law, boy?”

            “No, I just don’t like the police, you know?”  He looked at Stacy pleadingly.  There had to be some way she could vindicate him.

            “I’m going to come in and take a look around.”  The cop said.

            “Don’t you need a warrant or something?”  Ron said weakly as the cop pushed him aside with a flat hand. 

            Ron stepped outside and looked desperately at Stacy.  She removed a piece of gum from its tinfoil and rolled her eyes up at him.

            “I think I hear your police radio.”  Ron said.  “It sounds like something important is going on.”

            Luckily for Ron, he cleaned up a little for Stacey.  He vaccuumed the purple shag carpeting,  it looking frayed and stained but attentive.  Wicker coffee tables flanked a lumpy loveseat, beads hanging off of the chandelier.  The garbage can sitting next to the TV was overflowing with empty soda bottles, a few on the floor next to it.  Two doors on the opposite side of the room led to the kitchen and the bedroom.

            “You weren’t planning on having this girl stay with you here, were you?”  The officer asked.  Ron walked back in sheepishly.

            “I was gonna sleep on the couch.”  Ron said, the cop crossing his arms.  Ron proceeded to lay down on the couch, his legs and head elevated in a V shape.

            “It’s not comfortable but I have done it before and I’ll do it again.”  Ron said.

            “Are you sure we should even be driving this thing?”  Stacy asked.

            “It’s my car, Stacy.  It’s tougher than it looks.  Got a lot of character.”  Ron responded.

            “Ron, it’s a truck.”  Stacy said incredulously and picked at peeling sea-green paint covering the rust that grew like a barnacle underneath.  She dropped to her knees and looked under the thing, hitting the rotting exhaust pipe with the back of her hand.

            “We gotta get going or we ain’t never going to get to Auntie Fiona’s house.  The pools a lot more fun during the day.”

            “You promise this won’t kill me?”

            The car started fine, three gutteral coughs and then a long wheeze.  It sputtered like Porky Pig’s car in an old cartoon as it flung pebbles in each direction like a lawnmower on old Arvsdale Avenue. 

            “Wave goodbye to the house.”  Ron said dryly.  Stacy found this remark more ominous than Ron intended. 

            “This death wagon.”  She said under her breath, popping her head out of the window and breathing in the hot, musky desert air.

           

            Mr. Beasley stepped out onto the turf for his ten A.M cigarette.  He pulled off his plain blue sweatstained visor and revealed the tanline underneath. 

            He was down to the nub of it when he noticed the gaping hole between his tractor trailor and haywagon.  He took his flip phone out of the front pocket on his overalls and dialed whilst swearing to himself under his breath.

            “Ursa-Mae, get your sister.  That girl could sleep through a thunderstorm.”

            Ursa pushed into Stacy’s room, her alarm clock blaring.  Her bed was a mess, which was completely unlike her.  And the window was wide open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze.  She pulled the blanket up to the pillows and went over to the window.  Her mother was out in the yard.

            “Ma, she’s run away again.”

            “Yer boy took the truck and he gone.”  Words leaked out of Beasley like air out of a flat basketball.

            “He isn’t MINE.  We got DIVORCED.  And you’re his boss, not some friend of the family.”  Carline said. 

            The car rumbled past the “Population 500” sign, along a freshly paved onramp and onto the thick tar of the city road.

            Stacy smiled over at Ron.  He looked back sheepishly and refocused on the road, a light blush painting itself onto his cheeks.

            “What’s she like?”  Stacy asked.

            “Oh, you know.  Like any other movie star.  She is the nicest woman I’ve met.”  He reached an arm over behind her head.  “When I was growing up, we always looked forward to going to Fiona’s house.  She would cook up lobsters on the grill, she had fancy juice in a big pitcher with ice cubes and limes floating in there, we would spend the whole day by the pool.  Some of her movie star friends showed up, too.  They came and went like it was their hangout.”

            Stacy checked her makeup in the mirror.

           

            On the side of the road, Montgomery sat in his smoldering black leather police cruiser.  Ron’s car flew by, and since it wasn’t dark enough he didn’t notice their tail light was out.

May 10th

          Oops I took a lot of time off.  I've been writing during that time but haven't been putting it up there.  Rest assured, it's still constantly improving I assume.  So here's something I have been writing today and yesterday.  Notice how it's constantly improving.  I'm going to try to do these atleast a couple of times a week.


 

            “Did anyone see a man with a hat and a beard come through here?”  MacDonald asked the group of onlookers, who all turned around rapidly as he rushed behind them.

            A man wearing a silly hat pointed at the elevator. 

            “Thanks, bum.”  MacDonald said.

“That could mean any floor.”  O’Malley whined.  “We could be here all day.”

“I don’t care if it takes us weeks, O’Malley.  Matter of fact, if you want to go home, go ahead.  I can’t have anyone half assing it here.  Go home to your videogames and your Michael Bay movies.”

O’Malley took the stairs next to the elevator.  A security guard approached MacDonald.

“Where’s your clearance?” 

“Are you fucking retarded?  I have a goddamn badge.  There’s a very dangerous man somewhere in your building.  If you don’t want any pedestrians getting hurt on your watch, you should follow me.”

O’Malley walked dejectedly out onto the street, and he stared at the little burger joint on the opposite side.  Cars flew past him on both sides, but a suspended bridge accessed by two stairwells granted him safe passage across.  He checked his police walkie talkie, there was no reception, and he clicked the thing off and shoved it into his bag.  He grabbed the railing and started up the stairs in a halfjog.

MacDonald combed through the halls with an inexhaustible supply of energy.  Sweat was seeping through his blue cop jacket on each armpit and he tipped his hat and scratched the top of his head with it.  When he stopped moving his eyes focused like those of a hawks.  Each floor was packed with people coming from either side, he was starting to doubt whether or not he would recognize the perp.

“Excuse me, sir.”  A younger man wearing a beige polyester shir tucked into jeans approached him.  “My girlfriend was supposed to meet me here an hour ago, and she’s not usually late.”

“I bet she’s breaking up with you.  Now beat it, Romeo.  I’m on the hunt for a dangerous man.”

“You fucking dick.”

            MacDonald stared through the window of the little café on the twentieth floor of this office building nonplussed.  He ducked into a little storage room and flipped the light switch on, removing a clipboard from his bag.

            “So this is what we know,”  He said to himself.  “

           

            O’Malley burst in and rushed the hostess at the counter. 

            “I need a quick table, a quick bite to eat.”  O’Malley said.  He looked plump and overweight in his police outfit.  A group of construction workers on break laughed without turning around at the bar.

            The place looked like a ritzy old hotel.  The wallpaper was an ornate brown-orange, pristine condition.  The wall fixtures were covered by felt that blended into the exterior, fake candleholders with lights inside of them hung above fake fireplaces.  The functionality of the décor was secondary.

            “Off duty cops sit over there.”  The waitress said.  The guys at the bars guffawed.  O’Malley shrugged and took a seat at a table near the entrance of the ballroom.           

            “So you’re a cop now?”  An old colleague of O’Malleys put his hand flat on the table and leaned over.  His breath reeked of vitriol.

            “Barnaby Haynesworth.”

            “I’d pull up a seat but I’m afraid to be seen with you.  Couldn’t get a decent teaching job?”

            Barnaby returned to his table.  To O’Malleys horror, he was sitting with a whos-who of unsupportive colleagues.  Stitch Madsen was there, wearing his hat with the feather in it and explicating some complex chain of logic with his hands.  Arnie Hemfield sat on the opposite side, celebrating what was surely his most recent academic victory with a plate of high brow dessert.  Flanked on both sides were Cindy Carlisle, an old girlfriend of O’Malleys who looked nothing like the girl she had been then, and Barnaby’s girlfriend Sally.  As he sat he put an arm around her and gestured over at O’Malley with a twitch of his neck.

            O’Malley waved at the bar ladies for a menu and they continued gabbing.  He checked his watch and looked out the window at the high rise building, and got up and hobbled to the bar to get a menu.  The waitresses congragated around a table of thirty men in the back of the restaurant.  The group guffawed loudly

            “Hey!”  He got the nerve up to say.  He coughed into his hand as the room turned momentarily toward him. 

            A man with a bib on and a lobster in front of him removed a wad of cash from his wallet and handed it to the man next to him.  He received it with his hand turned backwards, his other hand pulling the brim of his hat down in front of his eyes.

            O’Malley wondered what MacDonald would do in this situation. He didn’t have to wait for long.  His cheeseburger was finally on the way, he could see it sitting under the heat lamp where the chefs left the orders to be picked up, when MacDonald pushed through the door.

            “…One?”  The hostess asked nervously.  MacDonald lumbered past her with his slightly bow legged gait.  She looked around frantically for someone, and then pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen.

            O’Malley attempted to shield his face but it was futile, he was like a panda in a snake enclosure.  Macdonald stood next to the bookie, facing away toward O’Malley.

            “So you have been sitting here the whole time, while this has been going on?”  MacDonald said.  He was noticeably wobbily.

            “You don’t look so good, MacDonald.”  A man in a pinstriped suit asked from the back room.

            “You’re not going to look good in just a minute.”  MacDonald said.

            O’Malley got up and went to grab the burger.  He ate the thing in no time, stopping once to apply more ketchup.  He licked his fingers and walked over to MacDonald.

            “We are a little outnumbered, I don’t know if you noticed.”  O’Malley whispered behind his left hand.

            “Get out of here.”  MacDonald slapped O’Malley in the face.  He snapped open his holster and pulled the gun out.

            O’Malley retreated to the street and turned around before he reached the door.  He slammed a ten dollar bill down on the table right before the shooting started.

            He covered his head and ran down the street, and noticed a bearded man leaning on a light post.

Day somethingeruther. A lot

         Waiting for things to become natural and perpetuate themselves.  Today isn't so bad.  I know it's all constantly improving.

“That guy in the coffee place, were you just talking to him to make me jealous?”  Carlo talked to Belinda’s sleeping body.   He congratulated himself with a nod for using the word "guy" when he had so many other options.  He bit his tongue when he realized the guy was sitting across from them, reading Jim Kramer’s Freakonomics.  His computer sat open on the tray table in front of him, and Carlo bitterly assumed it was parked on his Facebook page.  He smiled smugly over at Carlo, his head looking like it might break backwards in a devilish cackle at any moment.He adjusted the pillow behind his head and folded his arms, and fell into a restless sleep.  His dream contained a lot more death and murder than he was anticipating.  In it, an old friend of his named Dougie was accompanying him with a hacksaw, they were walking down a long stretch of dirt road.  The dream was one of those that was especially real, he felt the warm air, he could see heat rising off of the yellow desert like stink lines in all directions.  He carried a bag which probably had a head in it, but as much as he tried to get his hands to open and release it nothing happened.

They arrived together in front of a precipice, and slid down the slowly declining dirt wall in front of a metal structure.  It looked like some sort of oil refinery, the legs that were holding it up jutted from the ground like spider limbs.  Dougie wiped blood off of the hacksaw before they even went inside.

They descended flight after flight of winding stairs, towering machines oscillating and filling the empty space with saturating noise.  He felt his face get angrier and angrier the deeper he got, his lips becoming a carved out jackolantern smile like Jack Nicholson playing an evil part.  Dougie pushed open the steel grate door at the bottom of the stairs and invited him in like Renfield, and he pushed through a thin layer of cobwebs.

Shaking his long hair free, he instictively called out, “No one can hear you!  I can’t even hear you.”  Belinda was strung up at the far end of the room, atleast a football field away, hanging by her feet from rusty metal shackles.

“This is how you deal with your problems, Carlo.  This is always how you deal with your problems.”  She ragged on him with an unflinching voice.  “Oh, I see you brought a friend.  Looks like he can do all of the work for you.” 

She looked relatively undamaged, her complexion still the ruddy pink it always was.  Aluminum foil sat on top of a wooden block, and on it there was a row of murder tools.  There was the dentist drill, the hammer, a rusty hook, a blow torch, any time he imagined something new it was there.  His eyes fluttered on the plane and he got a permament V-shaped eyebrow for a minute.

He grabbed the drill and stuck it to Belinda’s temple.  She stared up at him nonplussed, and as he held the trigger down it went with a gurgling noise directly into her head.  He felt a tinge of guilt but when he pulled the drill back out, bracing himself against the wall with his foot, the hole disappeared at the point of immersion.  Dougie got to work with the hacksaw, and although it easily cut through to the other side of her neck the head remained intact.

The stewardess passed in the aisle as Carlo gave off a low humming chuckle in his sleep.   She shook him by the shoulders and he roused, staring up at her like a Frankenstein monster.  He rose, almost automatically, and stepped across the aisle to where Mr. Douchebag was sitting, pushing poor Connie out of his warpath.

“Excuse me sir.”  Carlo said quietly.  The guy had his headphones in his ears and was asleep, his laptop still open in front of him.  A quiet sort of nonoffensive rock music blared.  “Sir.”  He reached down to pull the earphones out of the guys ears, a tough guy move if he had ever thought of one.

Belinda called from across the aisle.  “What are you doing?!”  She went from 0 to 50 in no time.  Meanwhile, Connie was trying to figure out where the air marshall was.

“I’m trying to sleep.”  The man groaned, his eyes opening to a slant.  Carlo reigned his arms in and stood with his hands at his side.  “What…?”

“How come a guy like you has to hit on my girl?”  Carlo said, shaking his head.  His self pity mechanism had kicked in.  “There’s… there’s all kinds of them around here.  Even just on this plane.”

“She didn’t say anything about…”

Carlo came in with a haymaker, his flabby arm bouncing off of the mans cheek and a sudden jerk of the plane laying him out flat on his back in the aisle.  His arm got caught in the man’s computer power cord and it fell with him.  Awake suddenly, the man rose and rubbed his face.

“What are you doing with your life?  It’s no wonder Belinda wants out.”  The man stated sharply.

“He’s right.”  Belinda chimed in.

“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to come with us.”  A polite air marshall asked.  He was short stubby and tan, with a farmers tan and sunglasses.  Older ladies toward the back of the plane only witnessed this part of the incident, and assumed the worst because of Carlo’s darker complexion.

He talked to Belinda from across the glass.

“The man… Duane… has agreed not to press charges.”

“Charges for what?”  Carlo asked, incredulous.

“Carlo, it was full on assault.”

There was a moment of silence.

“…Are you still going to come live with me?”  Carlo asked.  Belinda looked away, tussled her black hair like she did every time they watched a horror movie.  “Well that’s just fucking great.  A new house, a new life, all by myself…”  Carlo made eye contact and was brought back into the moment, the way he could only stay mad at her when they weren’t together.  He resented her for her ability to produce empathy seemingly out of thin air.

“I think it’s best that we are apart for awhile.”  She said, turning to leave like she had just thrown a grenade.

“How long is awhile?”  A security guard gestured at the marshall, who opened the plexi glass security cage with a key hanging from a long ring on his pocket.

“You’re free to go, get out of here.”

Carlo sat in the sunroom of his new estate, surrounded by moving boxes taller than he was.  He sat on a stone bench that was part of the wall, earlier having retrieved his coffee maker and coffee cup out of the smaller box which he had purposely marked with a yellow “X” to ensure the ease of its retrieval.

It was a better cup than his last one, this he knew.  It said “Washington County Steel Workers Union” on the side with big grey prison bars, and it was the perfect width and length for his optimum amount of coffee.  It’s perfection made him think of it as the evil sports team from movies, the team with all of the choice prospects, the hard nosed semi-professional coach, the highly competitive clannish nature of earning playing time.  His old cup, one he had bought years earlier when things with Beverly were still going good, had been smashed somehow in transit.  The rest of the contents of the bag were in perfect condition, the larger superior backup cup seemed to be saying:  “Your other cup had certain limitations.  It’s time you moved on to a big boy cup.”    

He kicked his feet out and his lower half teetered uncertainly on the edge of the bench, and as he tipped to one side he eyeballed the full cup of joe, sloshing around inside like an overflowing bathtub.  He found it impossibly hard to use both arms independently, his right arm spasmodically flailing to preserve his balance.  It was like watching a first time swimmer. A sudden image of him smashing his head on the cement bench behind him and laying in a pool of his own blood for the movers to find him the next day popped into his head.  He looked down at the cup, which seemed to be demanding he acknowledge it’s importance, and dropped it to the ground.  The coffee spilled and the cup turned upright seemingly of his own accord..

“Worse things than my whole house smelling like coffee.”  He said to himself with a sheepish giggle.  He jumped at the sight of his own face in the linoleum, he looked like a burly bear of a man.  The coffee quickly followed the slightly slanting curvature of the kitchen and over the risers that led to his living room, a circular room with two high beams on either side and a bubble of glass window overhead.  He retrieved the coffee cup and marooned it in the sink.

extremely lame things happen!

Not my full thousand but whatever!

 

Carlo looked past Belinda and saw their window was closed.  Thunder broke ominously from all directions, and a primordial instinct kicked in as he begun to sweat profusely out of his forehead.  He enjoyed movies where people were stranded on desert islands, mostly because he was pretty sure he couldn’t do it himself.  The classic fish out of water story. 

“That guy in the coffee place, were you just talking to him to make me jealous?”  Carlo talked to Belinda’s sleeping body.   He bit his tongue when he realized the guy was sitting across from them, reading Jim Kramer’s Freakonomics.  His computer sat open on the tray table in front of him, and Carlo bitterly assumed it was parked on his Facebook page.  He smiled smugly over at Carlo, his head looking like it might break backwards in a devilish cackle at any moment.

He adjusted the pillow behind his head and folded his arms, and fell into a restless sleep.  His dream contained a lot more death and murder than he was anticipating.  In it, an old friend of his named Dougie was accompanying him with a hacksaw, they were walking down a long stretch of dirt road.  The dream was one of those that was especially real, he felt the warm air, he could see heat rising off of the yellow desert like stink lines in all directions.  He carried a bag which probably had a head in it, but as much as he tried to get his hands to open and release it nothing happened.

They arrived together in front of a precipice, and slid down the slowly declining dirt wall in front of a metal structure.  It looked like some sort of oil refinery, the legs that were holding it up jutted from the ground like spider limbs.  Dougie wiped blood off of the hacksaw before they even went inside.

They descended flight after flight of winding stairs, towering machines oscillating and filling the empty space with saturating noise.  He felt his face get angrier and angrier the deeper he got, his lips becoming a carved out jackolantern smile like Jack Nicholson playing an evil part.  Dougie pushed open the steel grate door at the bottom of the stairs and invited him in like Renfield, and he pushed through a thin layer of cobwebs.

Shaking his long hair free, he instictively called out, “No one can hear you!  I can’t even hear you.”  Belinda was strung up at the far end of the room, atleast a football field away, hanging by her feet from rusty metal shackles.

“This is how you deal with your problems, Carlo.  This is always how you deal with your problems.”  She ragged on him with an unflinching voice.  “Oh, I see you brought a friend.  Looks like he can do all of the work for you.” 

She looked relatively undamaged, her complexion still the ruddy pink it always was.  Aluminum foil sat on top of a wooden block, and on it there was a row of murder tools.  There was the dentist drill, the hammer, a rusty hook, a blow torch, any time he imagined something new it was there.  His eyes fluttered on the plane and he got a permament V-shaped eyebrow for a minute.

He grabbed the drill and stuck it to Belinda’s temple.  She stared up at him nonplussed, and as he held the trigger down it went with a gurgling noise directly into her head.  He felt a tinge of guilt but when he pulled the drill back out, bracing himself against the wall with his foot, the hole disappeared at the point of immersion.  Dougie got to work with the hacksaw, and although it easily cut through to the other side of her neck the head remained intact.

The stewardess passed in the aisle as Carlo gave off a low humming chuckle in his sleep.   She shook him by the shoulders and he roused, staring up at her like a Frankenstein monster.  He rose, almost automatically, and stepped across the aisle to where Mr. Douchebag was sitting, pushing poor Connie out of his warpath.

“Excuse me sir.”  Carlo said quietly.  The guy had his headphones in his ears and was asleep, his laptop still open in front of him.  A quiet sort of nonoffensive rock music blared.  “Sir.”  He reached down to pull the earphones out of the guys ears, a tough guy move if he had ever thought of one.

Belinda called from across the aisle.  “What are you doing?!”  She went from 0 to 50 in no time.  Meanwhile, Connie was trying to figure out where the air marshall was.

“I’m trying to sleep.”  The man groaned, his eyes opening to a slant.  Carlo reigned his arms in and stood with his hands at his side.  “What…?”

“How come a guy like you has to hit on my girl?”  Carlo said, shaking his head.  His self pity mechanism had kicked in.  “There’s… there’s all kinds of them around here.  Even just on this plane.”

“She didn’t say anything about…”

Carlo came in with a haymaker, his flabby arm bouncing off of the mans cheek and a sudden jerk of the plane laying him out flat on his back in the aisle.  His arm got caught in the man’s computer power cord and it fell with him.  Awake suddenly, the man rose and rubbed his face.

More improving-ment

             I am getting better at revising these things.  It's not good, but atleast some of it makes sense.  I might revise that first novel type of thing I wrote last November and make it make sense, eventually.  But overall I think my stories at the very least make more sense now.

         

He had atleast through the end of the month, he thought.  Her father had paid the security deposit and the first month of rent, and before she became “exasperated” and “artistically compromised” (the words he was sure she would use), he would have to make things good again.  His funds which were set aside for graduate school were going to be spent on many nights on the town, going dancing.  Her costume would change completely for dancing, she was suddenly ostensibly a dancer again.

He weighed the option of leaving her first in his mind.  In an episode of Seinfeld, George leaves a woman who he feels is going to break up with him before she can.  It works out pretty well, but it doesn’t work as a metaphor in this situation he realizes because first of all their isn’t much continuity on Seinfeld, and secondly George never keeps the same girlfriend for more than a few episodes.

His eyelids peeled back like they were glued together in the middle and he caught himself in one of those half asleep half dreaming moments.  If he really wanted to stay awake in this situation, he knew someone would have to slap him in the face.  He tried to slap himself, but his hands were like big wobbily wands.  Or, he could stand up.  The rows of seats went on endlessly, and in his stupor it seemed like everyone was sharing casual intimate conversations.  It was like one of those mirror rooms.  The darkened cabin drew attention to the row of lights on both sides of the aisle, which looked a lot like night lights.

The luggage was supposed to meet him at the house later that night, and like in the movies he asked if the movers would mind starting without him.  Luckily, he didn’t realize how often his plans of action were based on things he saw in the movies.  They said they needed a key to do that, and Carlo told them to talk to the owner.  They said it would cost extra, and he agreed although he could already see his nest egg steadily shrinking.  After the plane tickets, the Bruce Springsteen concert they had went to the night before, the steak restaurant they went to, the hotel reservations.

The house was a little bungalow on a flat stretch of land, it looked like nothing more than four walls from the outside.  Carlo had a collection of pictures of houses that he hadn’t actually seen on his computer, to make it look like he had done more investigation.  In reality, he had decided on the first house before giving any others much thought.  The selling point was a backyard that featured an enormous oak tree and an area which he thought he would convert into a garden. The yard needed a lot of weeding and fixing up, or so he ascertained from the satellite photos.  He imagined himself and Belinda in an idyllic, romantic Sunday morning, tearing hands full of the yellowest dandelions from the ground and throwing them into a wheelbarrow.  And then maybe having sex in a hammock or something.  He looked over again, and the way she was sitting did that thing where her chin disappears into her neck.  There was that lump on her neck again, he shook his head.  She refused to get it checked out, but it looked like it might be the beginnings of a goiter.  Maybe at some point it would act up and he’d have to take her to the hospital.

The “sit down” lights came on and the pilot assured everyone it was only for precautionary measures.

“We may be experiencing a mild amount of turbulence, as we fly directly through the approaching thunderstorm.  If I may say so, it’s a thing of beauty, and if you can overcome your nervousness you may enjoy staring out of the windows.”

Carlo looked past Belinda and saw their window was closed.  Thunder broke ominously from all directions, and a primordial instinct kicked in as he begun to sweat profusely out of his forehead.  He enjoyed movies where people were stranded on desert islands, mostly because he was pretty sure he couldn’t do it himself.  The classic fish out of water story. 

“That guy in the coffee place, were you just talking to him to make me jealous?”  Carlo talked to Belinda’s sleeping body.   He bit his tongue when he realized the guy was sitting across from them, reading Jim Kramer’s Freakonomics.  His computer sat open on the tray table in front of him, and Carlo bitterly assumed it was parked on his Facebook page.  He smiled smugly over at Carlo, his head looking like it might break backwards in a devilish cackle at any moment.

He adjusted the pillow behind his head and folded his arms, and fell into a restless sleep.

Day one million

         Did I take another day off?  Oops.  I think I might have.  This might be my best one yet though.  I think it's about confidence, still.  Just keep trying everything until something works!

          Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000228 EndHTML:0000008719 StartFragment:0000002423 EndFragment:0000008683 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/justinengelbart/Documents/The%20counselor%20stepped%20back%20and%20let%20Biff%20talk.doc

There she is, talking noisily to who-knows-who.  If I had been here on time, phones would be put away by now.  Oh no, she’s talking to Kim.  He thought to himself.  That was even worse than if she had talked to Bluto.  He swore that all girls had a conspiracy against him, he was sure they were bandying death sentences and not pulling any punches.  Even worse, every time he nearly interecepted one of these conversations it would abruptly end.  He wanted to atleast know what she was talking about.

Carlo rose after his second tiny gin and tonic and readjusted himself.  In the awful Drew Barrymore movie that was airing on the TV that projected from the ceiling like an eyeball from a cartoon characters face, Drew was crying and spending a night drinking wine and eating spaghetti while watching an awful romantic comedy of her own.  A few seats down, Belinda was clutching a napkin tightly and had the same watery eyed look as Drew, who was now hammering out the numbers of her ex boyfriend on an old fashioned phone.  Or, atleast Carlo assumed that was what she was doing, because he didn’t have his little headset plugged into the armwrest. 

He decided he was going to try to sleep and immediately had to go to the bathroom.  When he reached it, the door said occupied.  Standing on a plane felt a lot like being on an elevator that was in motion to Carlo, and he clung limpid fingers onto the railing on the outer wall of first class.  Peeking in, he saw that they had nicer curtains in first class, and that small style upgrade made a considerable difference.  Biff emerged from the lavatory and wiped a handfull of sweat off of his forehead, nodding and smiling at Carlo as he passed.  was three rows ahead, noisily fiddling with his seatbelt. 

Carlo had fond memories of TV dinners, and he rubbed his hands together excitedly as the enormous cart made its way down the aisle.  He could get used to this airplane thing, he thought, as he contemplated how he was in an airtight sealed vessel hurdling at thousands of miles an hour suspended miles above the ground.  Events happened in no particular order in the air.  Connie, the server, looked like a rare bird.  How could she strut around with such poise and professionality and still maintain any kind of humanity?  She couldn’t.

“You like her, don’t you?”  Belinda asked louder than she intended to because her headphones were still in her ears.  It rung through Carlo’s bell of a head like it had interrupted a beautiful dream.  Carlo was upset at first but then reminded himself that jealousy was a good thing, as long as it wasn’t coming from himself.  Jealousy meant she was vulnerable, and that she was willing to meet him half way or better yet stick her neck out and allow him to either wound or cajole her.

“There are certain things I like about her.”  Carlo bit his tongue to stop himself from going further.  He liked that she had a job, that she seemed independent, that she might be impulsive or atleast get free airfare.  Her argyle socked leg crossed over his, uh-oh, you’ve done it now Carlo, she is going to use your sex against you.  He looked over and suddenly she wasn’t the burn-out uncool failure who tries to hard anymore, now she was that beautiful quirky sex object again.  And she had watery eyes, which the jury was still out on.

“Sir.”  Connie purred and smiled an impossibly genuine looking smile down at him.  He turned his face around to meet her, and she was leaning over his seat, not unlike one of those perpetual motion birds.

He had atleast through the end of the month, he thought.  Her father had paid the security deposit and the first month of rent, and before she became “exasperated” and “artistically compromised” (the words he was sure she would use), he would have to make things good again.  His funds which were set aside for graduate school were going to be spent on many nights on the town, going dancing.  Her costume would change completely for dancing, she was suddenly a dancer again.

He weighed the option of leaving her first in his mind.  In an episode of Seinfeld, George leaves a woman who he feels is going to break up with him before she is able to dump him.  It works out pretty well, but it doesn’t work as a metaphor in this situation he realizes because first of all their isn’t much continuity on Seinfeld, and secondly George never keeps the same girlfriend for more than a few episodes.

His eyelids peeled back like they were glued together in the middle and he caught himself in one of those half asleep half dreaming moments.  If he really wanted to stay awake in this situation, he knew someone would have to slap him in the face.  Or, he’d have to stand up.