Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category
The Notebook–3
Brimm sat in his recliner, rocking. The salesman, Steven James, was perched across from him on the mattress’s edge, several bibles stacked between them and the salesman was pointing at them, explaining. The salesman’s black briefcase lay propped up against the door.
“This cover is made of a simple, synthetic plastic–it’s just made to look like the real thing, but this one, this one here? This one is made of real Moroccoan leather and it gets better with age, but it will cost ya’ a tidy bundle.”
“Uh-huh,” Brimm muttered and lit a Player’s Light, studying the salesman. His face was smooth, almost youngish, with a light stubble sandpapering his face, while the light in the salesman’s dark beady eyes stared just up and over Brimm’s shoulder–never directly at him. Brimm watched the man smiling and warbling on about psalms and prayers and the Lord and all the while staring just up over Brimm’s shoulder.
“Of course,” the salesman pitched, “these ones here are only samples and it will take a few weeks to get’em to you, if you order them that is.” He grabbed a Bible with a Morrocooan cover and opened it to show Brimm the stylized New Times Roman typeface, which he explained, was unique to this series and by all accounts had been well received by the millions of people who have filled out the subscription, which he was presently sliding in front of Brimm.
Brimm took the sheet and thought of killing the man. It was a cold blooded thought that slithered in, hissing. I could do it, he reasoned pretending to analyze the form. I could go into the kitchen and grab a knife–just have to tell him I’m making coffee or something. Brimm looked up from the form and watched the salesman’s mouth form words, but they were soundless and unconnected to anything, they drifted towards him in a liquid form and his ears, ill equipped, could not discern a word of it. Besides what difference would it make? I’d be doing that sorry sack of shit a favor. And anyways, he took my story.
“So…do you?” the salesman asked smiling, his eyes gazing over and beyond Brimm’s right shoulder.
”Do I what, exactly?” Brimm replied shaking his head.
”Hey, come on now,” the salesman asked his eyes darting around the room. “Are you fooling with me? Do you have one here already?”
”Have what?”
“A Bible.”
”No, no I don’t.”
“Oh, Come on now. There has got to be one here somewhere,” the salesman said and leaned across the mattress to look in the milk carton night table.
“I don’t have one,” Brimm said spreading his hands, smiling. I mean, if a guy is wandering the streets at night, he must be alone, no family to miss him. No baboom-boom buddy….
“I see-ee,” the salesman said curling his lip into the corner of his mouth and exposing a cracked front tooth. It seemed to Brimm to be an uneven thing for a Bible salesman. Probably got it trying to sell this crap.
The salesman got up from the mattress and stomped over towards the desk. One of the bibles tipped over and tumbled to the ground. Brimm looked at it and then back to his notebook and recalled the notebook tumbling out of the bookrack back at The Write Tools Stationary Shop.
”I think I need a drink,” Brimm said getting up from his chair. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
”Why that’d be great, sir.”
“Indeed it would,” Brimm said and headed into the kitchen, the salesman droning on behind him about shepherds and their flock. Brimm set about making the coffee mechanically heating the water, opening the cupboard, pulling out a jar of Maxwell House, scooping two lumps of instant into two cups and pouring the hot water glug, glug, glug into the cups which he put on a tray with two slices of bread and the Hienz 57. Next to these he put a large boning knife.
[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud." Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]
The Notebook–2
Clear your mind and let it come, he thought and set about his routine. First, he placed the digital clock on the desk’s far left corner and then, after squaring a loose pile of papers with notes scribbled all over them at a right angle with the desk’s other corner, he placed the Goofy lamp on top of the pile and snapped it on, then off, then on one final time. He turned over her photo, the photo at the Falls. Remember: don’t speculate about plot or character and follow Palahniuk’s “egg timer method”– and when it comes, be ready to jump. He adjusted the seat’s height. Breathed in, held it, then exhaled. Just let it come. Finally ready, he placed the notebook in front of him and ran his index finger along the cover’s edge until it came to the bottom corner where he hooked in his finger and opened the book, the spine cracking like old wooden floor boards beneath some terrible weight–just let it come.
A half an hour oozed by and nothing came–not one word–and the first seeds of frustration broke from their husks. Alright, alright, he thought putting the pen behind his ear and nodding to himself, no worries, no worries. He rummaged through the desk’s drawer and dug out a bunch of elastic bands which he shot across the room. With his knees tucked up under his chin he pushed his chair away from the desk and spun in a loose little circle across the room to the doorway, where he picked up the wayward elastic bullets. Brimm stared across the room at the notebook and lazily fired some shots at it. Just give it a minute. This damn book picked me, remember? There is something in there, I know it. I just know it. He raised his hands to his temples and tried to will the blank pages to show him a story, a character, a narrative arc, something–anything.
The chair’s wheels grumbled over the rough wooden floor as he slid back to the desk and glared at the notebook. “Okay you fucker,” he said realigning himself at the desk, “let’s do this.” But the notebook remained blank and twenty minutes later, it was still blank. Brimm breathed, leaned back, drummed his fingers, eyed the clock–it was quarter after three in the morning. He picked up the book ready to hurl it across the room. He squeezed it in his hands and shook it, his teeth bared. Annoyed, he dropped it back on the desk where it crashed with a thump. He poked the book repeatedly as if trying to pick a fight with it then screamed “What the fuck is the problem?”
He flipped to the back and opened the small envelope glued to the back of the notebook. He slipped his finger inside and pulled out a simple cardboard business card. It read:
——————————————————————–
Hillary Thoms
Books, Bindings, and all things Crafty
2014 B Water Street. G7F 4M3
e-mail: thecraftsinthecaring@gmail.com
——————————————————————–
He flipped the business card idly and wondered what Hillary Thoms looked like. He pictured a woman in her mid forties, early fifties maybe, with a loosely knit cardigan falling from her narrow shoulders and a halo of cracked and frazzled grey hair crowning her head. He saw her, diminutive but not demure, in a little shop surrounded by beads and scissors and swaths of leather, hunching over an unfinished book, her thick yet dexterous hands working carefully. “Thanks for the Christmas gift Mrs. Thoms,” he said aloud and replaced the business card, confident that his story would write itself.
He got up and looked out the bay window at the grey clouds that were rolling onto the house’s across the street which, except for the sagging lines of tiny Christmas lights blinking and twinkling and swaying from the eaves, were shut down for the night. He leaned onto the sill and a chill crept in through the window casting his elbow with a crisp coolness while he smoked a Player’s cigarette. Outside, the wind rattled the window and the trees. He inhaled his final draw and turned to crush the cigarette in the ashtray at his desk when a movement, a shadow of a life, caught his eye. He turned back and gazed out the window. A lone figure carrying a black briefcase came into view and trundled up the street, leaving a trail of shapeless black boot prints following behind him.
A million questions snuck into Brimm’s mind. He couldn’t figure it out. What’s a man in a dark trench coat and a black fedora doing roaming the streets? And at this hour? His writer’s mind kicked in. Narratives formed. Ignited by the possibilities, Brimm rolled down the blinds so the man wouldn’t see him and peeked through–watching.
The man kept a slow plodding pace, now and then stopping to look at the houses or the cars in the driveways, but never for very long and never with any real intent. Try as he might, Brimm couldn’t discern a clear pattern in the man’s actions–it all seemed random and quite harmless, he had to admit. But something tugged at Brimm and he leaned farther into the window trying to figure it out. He watched the man as he sauntered through the freezing wind and the blustering snow, down passed the red Post Office mailbox and the little white picket fence surrounding the old grey house on the corner, his briefcase swinging merrily by his side in time to his peppy little jaunt, swinging and swaying as if he were humming a pleasant tune on a gorgeous summer day, when suddenly the man stopped and reached out his hand to touch a big chestnut tree that grew on the sidewalk between the two street poles, and then slowly he raised his head admiring the tree trunk and up beyond that to the branches that arched and cracked over the middle of the street and finally touched the sky and, as if he were following a vapor trail, the man looked upwards, higher and higher, his head turning slowly up over his shoulder, then arching behind it, rotating further and further, like an owl, until he faced the direction of Thomas’s window and stared.
The man had a long face and his eyes nailed into Brimm’s own. Brimm was stuck; unable to move. It was as if the man had found the object of a lifelong search and wasn’t going to let in get away again.
The blinds snapped as Tomas leapt away from the window and into the shadows. His heart drum rolled.
Jesus. What was that all about? That man…. He….
He crept back to the window and peeked out through the blinds. He scanned the street again up, down, and up again but there was no sign of the man–it was as if he had disappeared. In a fit of fear, Brimm rushed across the room and yanked the chain across the door. His mind scudded and skipped over the irrational: Where the hell did he go? Did he see me? People just don’t disappear. He can’t be coming here–he can’t be! Can he?
Sounds picked up. The wind shook the trees and their arthritic branches scratched long gnarly nails along the outside of his apartment. Inside, the fridge kicked in, groaning.
What the hell am I worried about? I’m freaking for nothing. It’s just some dude. But the way he looked at me. It was… not right.
A few minutes ticked by before Brimm relaxed and bit by bit his nerves resettled into a rickety rigidity. What am I worried about? he repeated chuckling to himself. He scanned his room. There was no christmas tree, no presents, no jewelry, no nothing really. It’s not like he’s going to get anything anyway.
He strolled into the kitchen and fixed a drink. The kitchen was a compact room with a small table and two lime green chairs wedged between a fridge and a gas range stove. Two letter magnets, F and U, dropped to the floor as he pulled a Girl Guides calendar from off of the side of the fridge and put an “X” through December 25th. Not much time left. I gotta get this story down. I’ve just go to. If I get it down and get it to her, maybe then I can get her back. A dank smell of stale cabbage and freon burped out at him as he opened the refrigerator and took in the contents. There was a half eaten package of O’Grady’s sliced ham and a loaf of white bread, two brown eggs and a bottle of Heinz 57. He pulled out the other item, a chilled bottle of London Gin, and took a long, hard swig.
He lit a Player’s Light and smoked it. It ain’t gonna happen, he thought and guessed it was well passed four in the morning. He drank more. It’s just not going to happen. The booze rounded out the edges of his mind while he sat at the table drinking, erasing his frustrations about the notebook, the story, his problems, whatever. Fuck it all, he thought and sat and stared above the kitchen table where a small window acted as a frame for a picture he had cut out of a Time magazine and hung there. It was a black and white photo of a ticker tape parade. Brimm stared at it and drank. About an hour passed in this way and with the bottle nearly empty, he slumped at the table and shut his eyes.
The thoughts of the man and the notebook and the Chinese man and everything else that was odd that day slid from his mind.
He awoke an hour later with his head still buzzing from the booze. He got up from the table, stretched, and went back into the living room when it struck him–it was that same feeling he had had in the Chinese man’s shop: a kind of cleansing clarity, a crystal certainty like it was all there, awash, given to him by some freak insight, laid out in full: the setting, the characters, the plot–everything.
He rushed into the other room and over to his desk. Of course, some things’ll have to be ironed out like names and some locations and a few subplots, yes, yes, of course a plot point or two will have to be worked out--typical, typical, he thought smiling, and of course I’m going to have to figure out what symbols to use–but I can get it done. I can do it! Ha! Don’t forget symbols! And metaphors–
He scratched one word on the notebook, feeling the doors open but as he was about to write another there was a knock, knock, knock at the door. The sound shattered his concentration and his story blew away like leaves on a lawn. In his mind the bits and pieces that remained slowly faded back and away and dissolved into the neurochemical percolate. Gone.
Knock, knock, knock. He shot an eye at the door with murder on his mind. He looked at his notebook and it was terribly, awfully blank. Blank except for one simple word. And so was he: blank except for one simple word: “fuck.”
Knock, knock.
Who’s there? he sneered and laid down his pen.
It’s that fuckin’ guy with the hat, he thought and swiped the blinds aside and looked out the window. The clouds were gone now and the sun streaked the sky in an orange amber yellow. Living room lights yellowed the houses across the street. The storm had ended but inside of himself, he felt another one was beginning.
Knock, knock, knock.
He strode to the door and opened it a little, not enough so that the chain stretched taut, but enough to sneak a look at the man in the doorway. The hallway was dark and there was clearly a lack of jingle bell cheer floating through his apartment. A wall sconce illuminated a man with a long dark coat, a fedora, and a black briefcase which he carried in his right hand–his knuckles were white.
“Good day, sir” the man said producing a business card. “My name is Steven, Steven James and I was wondering if I could….”
“I don’t care what you were wondering. It’s Christmas and I….”
“Yes sir, I know,” the man said smiling. Brimm noticed that one tooth, the front left one was cracked. “Merry Christmas. Isn’t this a truly glorious season?”
“I suppose so,” Brimm said playing along to get a better look. It’s him, it’s definately him.
“Well, sir, how about a set of Gideon’s bibles to remind you of the true spirit of the holiday season? I got both Testaments–the Old and the New. And these?” he said producing a thin black book from his breast pocket, “These are free! Yes sir, a new set of psalms by Reverend….”
“I gotta get back to work,” Brimm mumbled. A fucking Bible thumper! I can’t believe a shit like this took my story from me.
“Work, sir, on Christmas Day, the day of our Savior’s birth?”
“Yeah, I’m working” Brimm said looking into his apartment at his desk and the notebook. “The same as you.”
“Touché, sir!” the man said gripping the briefcase. “But when it comes to the message of God….”
“Look fella, I gotta take off. Good luck with the sales,” he said and shut the door. Just go buddy. It’s best for you if you do. Please! Please just go away. He waited for the sound of footsteps to fade down the stairwell, but instead an awkward silence hung heavily around the door’s circumference and then a knock, knock, knock interrupted it.
“Sir?” the salesman’s soft voice drifted through the door. “I know you are still there, sir.”
Brimm stared at the door and breathed.
“Sir, I think you should open the door, sir.”
He dropped his head to his chest. Squeezed his eyes shut–breathed.
“This book, sir,” the salesman continued. “This book can help you with your problems.”
[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud." Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]
