2 Hours Later:
Hey, buddy. Hey you gotta go man. I groggily look up into the face of an ugly Slavic. He's wearing a fedora and button up orange shirt.
What time is it? I push aside my flannel sleeve and say, Ohhh... You seen my shoes?
You got em on, he mutters and grabs my arms, yanking me to my feet.
You seen my wallet around here?
Hey less talking and more walking. Time to go home buddy. He pushes me up the beer encrusted steps, swings open the door and with a final kick to my pockmarcked ass,gets rid of the last patron.
Alright, well... fuck you too then Mac.
On the walk to my car I look around with quick darting motions and my rational brain turns on for a second.The night is darker than usual and no one is out.
I turn my head upwards where the moon should be and call out, "Hoo!...Hooo!"
I stand there waiting for a reply but nothing comes back, the night swallowing my echoes.
Smiling to myself in derision, I stumble to the car, mumbling sweet nothings. The rusted door creaks open, and I plop down on the cold seat. Torn leather hugs my ass like a beanbag. Pffff, the leather lets out a slow fart as I nestle into it, my shoulders drooping and my ass sagging inwards. Jingle, jingle. My keys bounce off each other with a metallic clang and the one with blue lightning decals shoots out to enter the ignition. Brrrmm, brrmm.. The console lights up and the factory speakers begin to roar.
"Yeehaaa!" I open the window and yell. No one living calls back.
"Reaahh."
I need to wake up, where the fuck are my cigarettes? My eyes squint against the night while I fumble in my jean pocket for a cigarette. Ahhh sweet salvation. The fire burns out the night for a second and I squint my good eye against the tossing ocean.
It burns down to a tiny nub and I snuff it out on the beach towel, that doubles as my giant napkin, on the seat next to me.
Pfffuupp! The fire catches the grease stains and an inferno begins to rage inside my only means of transportation.
"Fuck!"
I roll down my window and grab the last spot that hasn't ignited.
With a , "Huhhh," I hurl the fireball out the window.
Whew.
My eyes slowly turn back to the road, my heart slamming against my ribcage, and my eyes stagger back up to the road, up, up just in time to look into the face of a 95' Plymouth Voyager screaming at me in barely legible english.
"HELLLOOO!" it yells in it's guttural language.
"Hi there!" I yell back, and proceed to smash into it's face, burying myself in it's lips of crunchy metal.
4 Hours Later:
My eyes gingerly open, one eye first, then the other.
Wow I feel sober.
Way too sober.
"Hello?" I call out into the dark depths.
"Where am I?" I look around and find that I'm in a stairwell with no doors or exits. How the fuck did I get here? I lean over the railing and look down. The stairs go down, down, down. A staircase that stretches down, no entrance or exit, a hot, dry, grating air. The realization hits me like a punch in the face and I slowly sag to the floor, curling up into a fetal position.
But I was nice to people! The worst thing I ever stole was a pack of Juicy Fruit. Sure I might have lied a little, done too many drugs, and fucked too many times, but really? Shouldn't I get some say in this matter? Can't I try to prove my case or something? I go on like this for a while until I remember something a friend told me a few years back:
I'm at a party, doing lines with my buddy, Billy, on a Home Living magazine. Billy looks up at me strangely, his eyes buried underneath big heavy eyebrows, and says,
"Maybe hell ain't all that bad man. Maybe it's the place where all your dreams can come true. I mean if it's bad to do drugs, have sex, and party, then maybe that's all they do down there. It could be like the best time ever."
My head perks up and slowly my hands leave my head and fall to the floor. I feel the cold bricks and for a moment they heat up. The stairway looks lighter too. "You know... Maybe ol Billy Goat was right!
I rise up to my feet and slide down the rail. Wooo. Damn that feels good. Woooohoooo! I put a smile on my face and jump down the stairs, singing all my favorite songs, sliding down the rails, and kicking off the walls.
Woooo!
Woooooooooo.
wooooo.
woo.
Fuck... it takes a long time to get down there.
I need to hurry up, maybe they're throwing a party for me and I'm late. The girls will be lined up for me like I'm the president of Zimbabwe, in nothing but bras and panties and all holding golden AK-47's. The stairs keep going and going... Jesus Christ. My legs are starting to get tired, and fuck how do you get out of breath from walking down stairs?
"Slow down and walk at an even pace," I counsel myself like a trainer.
The stairs keep going down and down. No energy left now. My legs are mush and I trip on one of the stairs and fall onto my blue jeans and stained Offspring sweatshirt. With a long moan I start to crawl on my hands and knees. I need someone here. Someone to help me. Mommy.. I keep crawling until I finally collapse with a final heave. My head flops against the cold pavement, and with a painful sigh, I drift off.The darkness jumps from the shadows and the last thing I feel is the strange heaviness of dirt against my back, before drifting asleep.
I wake up six hours later to find myself standing in front of a building. A bluish light shines with an eerie glow from somewhere, emanating out of the darkness itself. I'm at some sort of entrance and the door looks shiny and new. I walk up, my heart strangely eased of all worries, and with a relaxed motion I ease open the portal.
I peer around at this odd room and the walls catch my eye. The floral wallpaper is covered in yellow flowers with purple irises. Small sage leaves fill in the gaps. I touch the wall, and with an, "Eeeekkk," the flowers scatter to the outskirts of the wallpaper, the baby leaves get the cue, and follow in their stead like little ducklings.
"What the fuck.."
I jump back and stare at the now pasty white wall. The decor is now huddled against the corners, apparently shivering. My Vans slowly ease back, creaking with old, worn-in leather. My legs are slowly tightening and getting stiffer by the second.
"Forward", I hear.
"Forward now, and don't stop till you've reached the front desk."
It's a whisper that comes from behind my shoulder.
"Umm, I don't have any money." I whisper back.
The voice deadpans back to me, "No problem, the only currency here is pain."
The familiarity of the voice startles me. It sounds a lot like my own, on the darkest of nights, when I talk to myself, alone in bed, counting the stars on my ceiling. It's also incredibly corny, like myself. My back hairs straighten up and stick out, standing on end, trying to escape my skin. The sweatshirt housing my body is peeled back for a second and a rush of clammy air shoots down and caresses my skin with oily fingers. I jump forward in shock, my heart beating against it's shell.
"Run, Frank, Run!"
I push my toes against the concrete as hard as I can. Alongside me, the flowers follow on the wall. They bounce over each other and intertwine, beginning to merge together. Blobbing together like an amoeba that eats all. Slowly they form into my shape and the spectacle completes itself with flailing limbs and a big toothy grin. I wrench my eyes away and deflect my pupils to the floor. A white shadow follows me on the mirrored black marble. It looks up at me with weary eyes and moans, "Don't go that way Frankie.. listen to your father." The eyes are red-rimmed and droopy.
"Aaahhh, fuck!" I keep running, not realizing I'm going the wrong way. Deeper and farther down. Another door appears and I tear at the door handle, ripping it open, pinning my body against the nightmare.
Ding.
Ding.
A melodic bell sounds and I open my eyes.
A man appears before me, his massive frame barely hidden behind a worn, wooden stand. His raven black hair is slicked back and on his bulbous chest, a metal tag says Franco. He flashes a gleaming, toothy sneer at me, opening his arms, his sleeves getting pulled back to his elbows in the process.
" Hello Mr. Crispie. You finally made it. Welcome our worthy and esteemed gentleman- to Hell's Hotel."
Hi Merlin –
ReplyDeleteI like the stretch here, and the silliness, the humor and the energy, and I’m interested in the direction you’ve taken it. You certainly pushed against the assignment in ways that are working for you.
Are there more photographs? The ones you have work nicely for you, and they are also well taken, I think, and interesting. Four doesn’t seem like enough, especially because the ones you hav are actually pretty effective in setting up an atmosphere. The photograph of the stairs augments the humor in that passage, which is pretty funny, and I think you could benefit form an additional picture or two, if that is possible. In part it would be useful because at the moment the text sort of overwhelms the pictures, but the pictures are cool enough that I have a sense it wouldn’t have to if you could put more in.
You’ve got a wonderful energy as a writer, one that demonstrates at every sentence that you like the way your words sound on paper when you put them down. (Great sentence about the president of Zimbabwe – just clever and sideways in a nice way.) This is clearly a strength for a writer, but it is also something of a curse, because writers who suffer from an enjoyment of their own prose can sometimes get lost in that pleasure and enthusiasm. It means that other critic I mentioned in class the other day becomes even more valuable, the one in your head who isn’t as big a fan of your writing. I say that because I know you will benefit from a careful stepping back and pruning and re-shaping. Sometimes the sprawling nature of the piece carries it away, mostly on the tide of verbal momentum – the trick is to hold onto that energy and make it work better for you, rather than against you. Which means as you revise, slow down, and the slow down a little more, and think about the work each part of what you have written is doing for you structurally, narratively, and stylistically. Also, proofread when you’ve finished revising.
This will be your one of your challenges as you continue to develop as a writer: how to discipline your language more, without giving it the feel of disciplined language (this was one of Jack Kerouac’s great strengths – he made his work look like he never revised it, even though he did). Of course sometimes you need your langauge to be overtly disciplined – but when you learn to straddle that line, you can bring that energy and life you have as a writer even to the most staid and uninspiring sorts of genres.
Looking forward to your revision – nice work here.
Kirk