Calgary [first part]

by Jordano Aguzzi

Laura is a post-Lisa. Lisa was a post-Olivia. Olivia was a post-Emily. Emily was a post-Julie. Julie was the one that fucked me up.

Comfort is a difficult thing to let go of. That’s what Laura told me. Baggage, briefcases and overcoats. Hidden in concessions rather than the crowd. Like fast food; ageless and becoming. Manufactured and shipped. Attached and long lost when dropped by the airport luggage handlers. Worried about, constant and distant. Aware.

Laura is smart, though. Smarter and older. Twenty-six and I’m only twenty. She calls me a child. When I slept with her for the first time and my loving was perceived as teenage tempo. This probably had something to do with the ripping of two rubbers before giving up on them completely. Guidance by the blind guide-book of free online pornography. Pornhub, redtube, youporn. They all failed me. I learned for the first time that I didn’t know how to fuck. And then I thought of Julie and how I accused her of her poor laying. Her subpar riding. Her self-respect out the window. I destroyed it while riding a white horse of delusion, faceless and emotionless.

It’s been six months since the break-off. My departure. I haven’t been sleeping very well.

Laura is shy. If her roommate didn’t tell me that she was hot for me, not even Bond could’ve guessed the apparently obvious. Completely oblivious. It happened when we went out for a smoke on her balcony. Roommate Ali was out at a gay bar with a woman who loved her but she did not love back. Laura looked over the edge of the apartment balcony. It was raining and cold and not summer in Montreal, even though it was supposed to be.

I tell Laura to look at the puddle. I smoked a joint earlier and now I was talking nonsense. But the nonsense was an image that I found beautiful and ran endorphins through my veins. And I don’t even know if that’s biologically plausible since I study the arts, but it was a passive thought, like most of the other ones.

The lamppost reflected in the black puddle had raindrops surrounding the yellow luminescent circle. A sun with dancing rays. Stop motion action in realization. Urban nature fleeing its primordial coil and expressing itself among concrete.

“You’re so deep, Adam.”

“Was that sarcastic?”

“Yes.”

“OK,” I mutter. Silence. She bites her inner lips while sucking them underneath her front teeth. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

She scoffs.

“Well. All the time actually,” I reiterate.

She takes a drag of nicotine. Lets it out through her nose and looks me in the eyes and gets shy and looks down at her all-white keds.

“And you got me all wrong. No philosophical revelations here. Honestly. I was just pointing out something aesthetically pleasing, Laura. But thanks for discouraging enlightened thought.”

“Don’t let it get to your head, dude.”

“What get to my head?”

“That stuff I said about you being smarter than most guys your age. Trust me, that doesn’t mean much.”

“Thanks for that.”

And then I reach underneath the back of her blouse and hold her breasts tight against mine, my arm against her flesh, hands on her bumpy spine, and I kiss her with the taste of cardiac arrest on her tongue. She looks away. I lift her up and carry her to the bed. I graze her cunt over her skirt. Under her skirt. I kiss her under her bellybutton piercing. I lift my hands up her skirt and she jumps.

She walks to her doorframe quickly and pats her clothes down and becomes wound up.

“Hey so do you want anything? Like tea? Or coffee?”

“Um.”

“I can do that.”

Laura’s now on her way back home to Calgary. The blue province. Cowboys. Tar sands. The inevitable champion of Canadian Suburbia. Not that that’s a bad thing. Just a repetitive one.

Morning is blue before the sun comes up. Then you hear the first bird chirp around 5:05am after illegally streaming British sitcoms. Apparently they want to make that felony now. Streaming copyrighted work. Once again, I’m a crook. As if spending every second minute smoking pot wasn’t. No matter how many I’ve smoked in the past or will smoke in the future, I will be crooked. The bad guy in-between places. Crashing at the parents place until I find a new place or my fatass ex-landlord decides to stop being a fuck. Open window waken bake. Writing in my mind but none of it taking place on paper. Further lost in the novel battle, laziness and ADD mindset swaying concentration and swooning self-conscious women because I have nice bone structure. Iced coffee is no help. Neither is a second spliff. A little self-medicated pain relief to dance away in the morning haze.

The bird’s whistle is clear again, almost like a human. Or almost like a bird. Just a single whoooo. Train smoke on a receding plain. Then two fleeting cries, then some vibrato towards the end and a break the third whistle. Wake up call symphony serta-fied. It’s very nice actually. A sort of peace coming through the cracks my window-blinds along with the pre-dawn blue. Blue.

The world is blue before the sun comes up.

That would not be empirical evidence. Locke would cringe. But my world is blue before the sun comes up. Subjective relativity and all that 20^th century bullshit. My parents tenant microwaves a breakfast snack. The beep beep and vroom of the circling glass tray. Then she showers away the sleep-sweat. And as she gets ready for work I’m trying to fall asleep. Asleep or maybe just fall. I wouldn’t know. The bird whistling stops.

Laura skyped with me tonight (this morning) and made me feel good about myself. She mentioned that whenever she says something positive about me I never reply. I tell her that maybe it’s because I don’t believe her. She asks why I wouldn’t believe her. Then I rephrase it and say I either don’t believe her or don’t know how to react when I know the good thing she’s saying about me is true. She says that she’s a sociopath but I highly doubt that.

The whistle twirls in again through the blue. I wonder what color the bird is and if it’s the mother. And when the other birds will begin singing with the early riser. The blue bird jazz. The wood pecker probably hung over after a long night of partying. The crow probably despairingly waking toward another day of life. A tenant. The pigeon shits all day. The blue bird cries. Undoubtedly, I know nothing about birds.

Work comes next a few hours later.

The Bookstore hired me a week after the interview because I was cute with the female interviewers. The name of the bookstore was The Bookstore. An attempt at irony, or something. How am I supposed to know; a job’s a job. It was a corporate place, with quantity of over-aged artists. Burnouts. They had me shacked up in the back warehouse with stacks of mass-market paperbacks surrounding me like a plastic in a dollhouse. My co-workers in the warehouse were all nut jobs themselves. Mutes, thieves and manic-depressives. The job was to count the quantity of each title, scan them, rip the covers off, put an elastic around the ripped covers, put them in the box, and throw the book in the large garbage bin with wheels that they brought down the compactor every night to crush together into small cubes to be easily sent to a landfill near you. As it turns out, throwing out books in the garbage is a more convenient alternative to big publishers than actually, dare I say, giving the books away for free. Egad. Shipping the books themselves was undoubtedly a waste of money because the majority of mass-markets were fluff and rarely appealed the Montreal-born reader. So all the extra Cussler’s, Patterson’s, Roberts’ and Brown’s would end up in the compactor. Into square cube beauty.

At some point, when it began to get repetitive, I started to think up theories (of which I convinced myself were philosophical, though nowhere even close, I soon found out). I questioned, what’s the purpose of ripping the cover off of the book? And what is so goddamn satisfying about it? Maybe the TSSSSHHH sound. Or was it the rebellion against knowledge or some shit like that? Then again, I don’t know how much knowledge Nora Roberts can provide on a daily basis.

Then the preachers enter the back-warehouse. The “documentary-folk”, as I call them. I’m about to dump a whole slew of Dan Brown’s Deception Point into the trash when I’m interrupted.

“What are you doing?”

I turn.

“Listen love, I don’t want to throw these books out in the trash. I want to give them to some poor house, or even recycle them. But this is a corporate business. You do realize that we work for a corporation? You do what they say because it is cost-efficient. Humility is long gone.”

She didn’t understand what I meant.

“I’m going to report you! And make a formal complaint to the bureau.”

“The fucking bureau—”

“Head office—”

“You call head office the bureau? That’s fucking retarded.”

“Do you know how many sea animals die in a regular a year because of chemical and garbage disposal dropped into the ocean?!”

Give me a fucking break.

“Listen. I’m out.”

Snuck out the back because the alarm wasn’t on. Normally I’d have to ask a manager if I can leave by there and they’d walk over with their magical key and let me go with the wind. Child and parent. I hung out back for a smoke around the shippers and receivers. The muscle-men. The uneducated and wisest. True knowledge of time. You can see it in the crow prints next to their eyes.

“Adam man. Gino says that he’d wouldn’t wanna ever fuck his woman in the ass. What a fucking pussy, right?.”

“Suck my dick, Rick! Not my fault you enjoy rubbing your tiny cock with shit every night, bro.”

I pass the blunt to Gino after he throws a box labeled “EXTREMELY FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE” onto a pallet.

“Shatap you little bitch. I’m not saying I would go out of my own way and ask my bitch if I can fuck her in the ass. I’m saying that, that you know, if she just came to bed at night and asked you to fuck me, I mean, to fuck her in the ass, you sayin’ you wouldn’ do it? You’re a fucken liar.”

“Listen fag, I didn’t know you loved fagget sex so much.”

They yelled these profanities while carrying tons of full crates in and out of trucks at the import dock. It was beautiful. Gino passes the blunt to Rick and he inhales nearly half of it.

“Hey stop hogging the bud, Rick,” I mumble.

“You didn’t hear, Adam? Rick enjoys hogging it. But mostly up the ass.”

I force a laugh, eyes glazed.

“You’s all pricks. Fucking pricks.”

He passes it to me and leaves me with the roach.

“It’s alright Rick,” I say. “If you’re the receiver, then Gino’s probably the shipper.”

They stop walking and both stare at me blankly.

“You tryana’ be funny, kid?” Rick asks quite seriously.

The Bookstore became a funny place where employees masturbated in the changing rooms and stripped cover books ended up in my schoolbag where I auctioned them off at The Cock & Bull Pub for dirt cheap prices and extra brews. I tried writing some stuff myself, but nothing really came of it. Anyway, being labeled a poet or philosopher has always been more interesting than writing poetry or studying philosophy. A romanticized notion of permanence.

Then Meltzer told me to write a short story for his writing group and the prompt was “and that other dentist was a Nazi.” I went for the easy joke and tried to write something about Lars von Trier.

A Rare Occasion

Could it simply be that I was looking for love rather than it looking for me?

Platitude.

That I told myself that I could commit at this specific time of my life and that was it?

Platitude.

Then it was a game, for whoever would bite the bait first?

Platitude.

There had to be something more than this reasoning. This primal rationality. But from what I can remember, it was all me.

Platitude.

Tethered lines, feathered bows, trumping failures, givers' rows of shows' shmoozing losing faker of a being. Living on the interface of a so-called (time) code. Losers of ill conceited fates and self-fulfilling prophecies of loathing. And patience. Boredom. Bored, patient loathing. Bored of sex. Bored of loving. A quick stick in, a pitstop's drought. Giving up on the notion of my future wife with every move. Every movie. Every excuse to ignore and refuse. My grave future and the future and my grave: a wife. A grave stoned, high to the roof crumbling concrete on the slim hope that was a word characterized by mass mediated capitals which I have succumbed to and she has not. Or she pretends to not. The canon empty; an interface. A self-fulfilled prophecy, prof, you see, Ivy dropped out shopped out checked out, credit cash or debit or giftcard. Would you like a bag with that? That's 5 cents. You lose. Yes, it is returnable. Bong on the light air, makes the high even higher. Degenerate mothballs in the apartment the size of your mother's closet. Saving paper by saving face. In cigarette machines lost in the disco ages of funkshop fros and imagery which most likely does not encapsulate that generation. Images are everything, she said, but what happens when there are too many of them? There's a problem in every generation, they say, but I can't stand mine because I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. It just exists. She feels it. Even when inside. Capitals of capitals derived by capital scum-- gum on my shoe, flavour never running out but always getting thinner.

A Winter's Tale (Final Draft)

A Winter’s Tale

It began on the first snowfall of grade eight. The school accepted her late entry because, quite frankly, they’d accept anyone. As with most latecomers, the rumor was that she’d been expelled from some other school. An all girl private school up in Westmount where they were forced to wear short skirts, high socks and turtlenecks. Sacred Heart, or something. I’d see them in the morning sometimes through the bus window, crammed and carpooled in their father’s silver minivans. Shiny Doc Martins stepping in. I’d beg the wind to pick up, for the plaid to flutter.

Her name was Cynthia. She sat in front of me in English class and every day, almost mechanically, she’d tie her hair into a ponytail. A simple act, maybe, but Cynthia’s morning routine began the self-induced torture of my own. She’d begin by flinging her hair back, a purple elastic around her thin, tan wrists. Peachy arms would stretch out, bicep muscle expanding as she’d smoothly glide it around the wad of glowing blonde-streaked hair. Holding it tight in the palm of her fist behind her head, she’d slide the elastic down. Slowly. Then she flipped up her hair before finishing off.

I remember other times when she leaned forward on her seat if she’d accidentally drop a pen or rest her head on her desk – I’d catch a glimpse of her lower back. On a lucky day, I’d see the hot pink thong sticking out of her skinny blue jeans. The lace whale tail. The bulge in my sweatpants impossible to hide by tucking into my boxers, the heat rising to my ears. After a few weeks, I was able to construct a rainbow of lace in my mind.

Snowflakes tumbling down desolate Montreal skies latched onto my overcoat, hiding the blackness of it with melting clumps of ice. An old coat, passed down from a cousin – the material frayed, the mismatched buttons roughly sewed on by my nonna as if done in a rush. Some were more oblong than others and one of them even purple. Piled deep within my closet that morning, I had wrestled it out for the first snowfall. The first fall which continued to howl gusts of wind past my ears, spitting specks of snow, blinding me. A perfect juxtaposition to its scorching summer. Montreal, paradise.

I don’t remember how it happened. Nervous and cold. Cynthia’s body crushed into mine, my armpit over her left shoulder. I wondered if I put deodorant on that morning, but figured that the smell couldn’t perspire through the layers. We sat on a park bench. Her nose red and runny, the tip bright from the reflection of the glowing snow, though the sun hid behind the grey. Her bony fingers reached for mine; numb extremities intertwining. Her hair glowing. Her low-top, grey Vans sole-less.

“Fucking socks are wet again.”

“How about you get some new shoes?”

“How about you suck my dick, Adam?”

“Lovely, Cyn.”

She looked into my eyes and I didn’t know where to look back.

“It’s chill if I call you that… right? If I call you Cyn?”

She looked past me. Devin running after his bus in the distance.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

The wind rattled the basement window in my mother’s duplex; the humidifier I forgot to turn off let out a low and persistent hum. Cynthia’s mouth formed the shape of an O around the tip of my cock, having trouble pushing her throat any further down without gagging. I felt bad, embarrassed. I concentrated. Tightened my jaw – my body straightened out on the bed, head resting uncomfortably on a hard, old pillow. I tried not to think about it, I didn’t want to come too soon like a fucking loser. Chewing on the inside of my cheek. Biting off minuscule particles of dead skin that latched onto the tongue like leftover bread. But I couldn’t turn away from the blonde locks on the back of her head, the low light dancing as she bobbed gently, up and down, like hypnosis. And then I lost it. Too far gone to hold, sounds too distracting. Swallowing and gagging and humming and cracking. I finish in her mouth. Pathetic. I lie down, too much of a pussy to say anything. Finally,

“Sorry. Umm.”

The sound of her throat swallowing.

“Um, do you need a kleenex?”

“No... that’s okay.”

The next day, a packed city bus shook and slid on icy streets, but I barely even noticed before it reached the school. I couldn’t get my mind off of it – the day before, the first. Cynthia, too. Her hair.

I ran off to class and sat next to my friend Devin who had a shitface grin on.

“Hey Adam, I totally just took a piss while drinking from a bottle of water. Isn’t that fucking... what’s the word... fucking... fucking like paradoxical?”

“You’re a douchebag, Devin. That’s weird.”

“No it’s totally legit! It’s like messing with bodily functions.”

“That’s like taking a shit while eating supper.”

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t tried that, bro!”

I was anxious for Cynthia to come into class. For her to act like she barely knew me, as usual.

“Hey Adam, did you try that password I gave you for Wildlatinagirls? It totally works.”

“Shut the fuck up, Devin.”

I clicked my mechanical pencil.

“Hey Adam, my cousin Mike asked if we wanted to smoke with him later. Are you down?”

“Only fucking losers and blacks smoke.”

“It’s supposed to be so chill, though. They call the stuff kush, bro.”

“Can you stop saying bro, you fag.”

“Shut the fuck up you pussy, don’t tell me what–”

His voice carried on as Cynthia entered the class, walking past poems written by the class and hung up on the wall by the over-eager temp. Ms. Rachel. I barely passed the assignment because I didn’t use enough metaphors or some garbage like that. I avoided eye contact with Cynthia and kept my head down looking at my desk. Pathetic. She came right up to me and kissed me on the cheek in front of everyone. She bent over to place her school bag on the ground showing off the lace. Devin stared incredulously.

The next few weeks with Cynthia became a blur. She really cared, because she’d tell me she loved me, and she’d tell it a lot. Perfect sense. She’d kiss me everywhere, even at Angrignon mall. At first I felt shy when everyone stared but they stopped to matter. Everything stopped to matter. She was the first person to ever give me the attention I craved, the attention I gave myself. She even had a pet-snake, rattling. Jumping at the clear glass cage, synthetic wood and leaves under its belly. I didn't really know what breed it was, but it was black and with subtle red stripes.

I remember a week later, getting drunk off of forty’s of 8% “rat-piss” in back of the Place La Salle with a couple older, fuck-ups from the neighbourhood. Cynthia and I had gotten into an argument – I don’t remember why, anymore. I stumbled, avoiding cracks and potholes in the parking lot.

And I saw her, the streaked blonde locks on the back of her head. Knees on cold concrete. Head bobbing up and down, sucking off Devin, his back resting against the maroon bricks of the wall. And he saw me and his body jerked and she turned her head – cat eyes, incandescent in the moonlight.

I remember sprinting home. Shrieking into my pillow. I remember ripping apart the sodden bed sheets. My mother trying to hold me down as I punched a hole into the wall, blood dripping down my knuckle.

That was then and now is now.

Run-down motels spread across the ironically named Canada Street like a decaying, coffee stained carpet. Old Orchard Beach, Maine – the prime vacation destination for the not-too-rich-but-just-comfortable-enough-to-max-out-their-credit-cards-on-a-cheap-holiday Québecois.

And now I’m walking under sweltering mid-afternoon sun on a black street barefoot, rushing to get from the motel room to the dark wet dark sand. The salt-drenched air digs into my lungs, clearing out residue of leftover cigarettes. A loose Led Zeppelin t-shirt bought from the local Target flutters underneath my armpits. I don’t like being topless. Probably due to the insults thrown at me as a child for being a chubster. It doesn’t matter now. In a world that has no need for me, or anyone for that matter, the thoughts tend to dwell on the past. But past is still dead, I am told. “Live in the now” is what all the self-help books say. Eckhart Tolle and Chopra and all that new-age crap. Bullshit. Live in the now, only to repeat yesterday’s mistakes, I suppose, is the generation’s tagline.

My mother and aunts and uncles are at the motel pool, glowing like Christmas ornaments, lathered in tanning lotion. I move in the opposite direction, taking the scenic route. Anything is better than confrontation. Perfume lingers in the air as a group of seniors walk by, making my stomach churn. Past the bakery where the chronically obese gather for fried dough, my feet still toast, like walking on burning coals. It’s a sad thing to think about. That every lived experience before this moment is now dying, only to be remembered temporarily, until forgotten and then death. These thoughts stray back and forth as a senile couple gobble down on some fried dough with Nutella spread. “Bein Tabarnak c’est bon!”

I make it to the beach and I don’t feel any better about it. Bulbous males fish on the beach, baited hooks in the ocean while young children with floaties wade through the waves. Safety precautions are merely suggestions, after all. I zone in and out of consciousness on a sandy towel. I dream of an elephant parade on an intersecting diner road in a desert. Then I have a dream where I fall backwards off a 20-foot diving board head first, but never hit the water. It’s recurring. I always wake up right before landing.

It is not hot anymore, the weather bipolar. A lack of Ritalin. I pop one down. I look through the sand speckled duffel bag and pull out a cracked-leather jacket, a hand-me-down from my cousin, stitches sewn up by my nonna.

Now is now and I am on the beach and I am alone and I am lost within my mind while the sun sets, dies, a symbol of something-or-other in most classic literature. I have been reading too much Camus. An appropriate choice to read on a beach. But do I even understand what any of it means, or do I read it only because Wikipedia tells me that it’s considered his “classic”? Sometimes I wonder why people even bother with the classics. Does it make them feel good about themselves? Accomplished? Does it make me feel important?

Whatever. Everything ends up meaningless.

I walk back to the stuffy motel room I share with my mother who coerced me here for a family trip over the summer. One more year until I’m eighteen and I can do whatever I want, or so I am told.

With the sun down, the “nightlife” begins. A rusted old ferris wheel twirls at the pathetic excuse for a fair in the heart of downtown. Downtown consists of a single, potholed street. The rides, arcades and game booths with buck-toothed carnies are dilapidated. The prize is a giant polar bear. Everywhere. No matter the game, the only thing worth playing for is not so endangered in Maine. An old club, the only one, called The Caribbean Padise blasts out shitty wedding music, like The Macarenna and YMCA. My drunken mother, aunts and uncles spend their nights there chugging margaritas. I have come to accept the fact that Old Orchard Beach is the poor man’s Cuba.

Tall street lamps attract a myriad of shad-flies and I envy them for their life-span of a single day. I see them attracted to the brightness of light and I can’t help but think of Plato’s cave. In fact, all this rumination has gotten to me. At the end of the day, I still am alone for another three weeks, slowly dragging myself towards monotony. I pray for China’s industrial revolution to speed up a bit.

I spend quarters at the claw-machines and have managed to collect over twenty-six stuffed animals, including the entire South Park and Spongebob Squarepants cast in doll form. Christ, I even won a Gameboy. I play the third one to the left side of the arcade, a big mother called Grab-O-Mania and in my mind, I constantly refer to it as Grab-Cock-O-Mania. I imagine Spongebob being fucked in the ass by Squidward as I play and drain the machine, collecting doll after doll, piling them on the floor next to me to maintain this I don’t give a fuck attitude to the other tourists. Secretly, I gloat in my prowess. The average modern man undermines the extreme skill and precision it takes in mastering the art of hand-eye coordination for a grabbing machine. Add in all the bells and whistles – the 30 second timer, the mirror reflections in the back of the machine, the constantly repeating jingle, the fact that the “claw” rarely closes more than a couple of centimetres (2.5 is my guess) – and “clawing” becomes quite serious.

Tonight, people seem to have noticed my meandering clawing skills. It makes me feel both pathetic and accomplished, probably like someone who masters Dance Dance Revolution and hangs out by the machine all day, with a water bottle and a towel to wipe away the sweat. Or like someone who manages to self-serve fellatio.

I see in the reflection of the back mirror, while dropping my 89th quarter into the slot, a group of young people behind me – people my age. They’re dressed like locals. An uncommon occurrence. And I notice enticing dark eyes staring into my own... well, the reflection of my own. The light bulbs flashing red, white and blue in the grabbing machine change the tone of her skin in the reflection. Considering my 90th quarter, I tell myself, if I fail this round, I will turn around and introduce myself to her. I will buck up. Grow up. Become a man.

Her name is Angela. And her real-life face is even prettier than her reflection. Her dark eyes, her long brown hair. She dresses like all the other kids who try not to dress like everybody else: a plaid shirt, skinny jeans, low top single coloured shoes, ray bans and a tweed hat. And I fucking dig it like all the other fools. Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

“Where you from, Adam?”

“Montreal.”

“Should I even be surprised? Wait, isn’t the legal drinking age there, like, nineteen?”

“Eighteen, actually.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing in this shithole?”

“I manage to ask myself that exact same question every day. Where you from?”

“That’s for you to find out. Hey, what are you reading over there?”

She motions toward my pocket. I reach at it, surprised. I forgot the book was there all along.

“Camus, right? The Outsider?” She’s right.

“Yeah.”

“He’s alright, I guess. I’m not really a big fan of the existentialists. Too morbid for my liking. And self-indulgent, too, you know? All that mental masturbation – in-itself, of-itself, for-itself. It can go fuck itself.”

For the first time in about two weeks, I legitimately laugh. It’s not even because it was that funny – it’s just that it’s a joke.

Under the rickety wooden pier, with a few more of her friends, I look for a flat surface to roll a joint; I take The Outsider from my pocket. Angela and her friends stare, impressed with my rolling skills and with the calibre of the pot I smuggled across the border. I’m just happy that I’m not smoking alone tonight.

“You Americans gotta’ step up your game, bro. Getting out-rolled by a Canadian fucker! Aren’t we supposed to be the nice ones?”

“Hey, shut your mouth, you... you existentialist! HA!”

Angela snorts mid-laugh and covers her mouth in embarrassment and then laughs some more. Then everybody laughs, looking dazed. Her pothead mannerisms are authentic – they are innocent. Then we get tired and plan on meeting up on the beach tomorrow, and I walk home with a jump in my step.

The next day, she wears a yellow polka-dot bikini, her breasts squeezed in tight towards the centre of her chest.

“You have to be kidding me. She wore an itsy bitsy teeny weeny...”

“Shut up! I find it cute. And trust me, I’m sure you don’t mind that it’s itsy bitsy...”

American girls.

I chase her into the ocean. Everything I say is perfect. She is into me. She wants me. Angela wants me.

Getting out of the ocean, I follow behind her as she leads the way, sand sticking to our feet. Rivulets of salt water drip from the lower half of her bikini, tight against the crevice of her ass. The lower side of her buttocks bounce with each step, sneaking out of the lower corners of her suit.

Walking in front of me, she lifts her arms. A purple elastic is tight around her wrist. She grabs back all of her wet, brown hair tightly into the palm of her closed-fist and gently slides the elastic down to tie her hair into a ponytail. Slowly. Drops of water leaking with the squeezing of her wad of hair.

My chest suddenly feels hollow – the feeling that everything is dead. A stone in the pit of my stomach.

She flips up her hair and turns back to look at me, looks into my eyes. I don’t know where to look back. I turn and I walk away. I walk, without an explanation, without a look back, without a goodbye. Heart pounding. I wonder if she follows, though I speed up. I think of the reaction on her face. The thought that I was surely joking until it went too far – too late to be a joke.

I continue down the beach until the winds begin to pick up. Black clouds envelop the sun and I am the only one left on the shore, waves crashing harder and harder. Gusts of wind start to throw sand up in the air, creating a dust storm with specks of salt flying and whipping hard against my legs. Wind hits my face and the sand blinds me. Plato’s cave. I can’t see a thing, I rub hard until I manage, through the tears, to see a blur of sand whipping in front of me, everywhere, like a snowstorm.

Untitled #?

This world of guilty pleasures
referring back to the same old images
which all mean nothing
It seems I should write about
poor little pigeons
squirrels
cats
and roadkill
Guts of belly
and blood soaked fur
cracked skulls
on the curb side
the important
real stuff
no more serial criticism
the bullshit will rot hot
the rhetoric to be debatable
datable
thus,
therefore,
a lack thereof:
Hope.
Could never commit myself
to the longevity
of a tattoo,
she'd end up a nihilist
another cold, dead heart
Tentacles sucking pores
pouring rain
living by ideals
to accept violence
but do not tell it;
to tell violence
but do not show it;
to show violence
but do not do it;
to do violence
but do not do it too badly.
Do you know where I'm coming from?
Besides my balls
and chain
green in the face
leaving it to the reader
to interpret
to stir it hot.
But,
make it real
ambiguous
he says
not for the benefit of the reader
but to counter all depth
with shallow notions
of shallow ideologies
of mass
market
topic
laden
cuckoo nests,
experimental frameworks
of the NAIVE
NAIVE
NAIVE.
Writers, writers,
call me academic,
intellectual;
I smoked five joints, drank seven beers, ate cake and pizza and it all ended up in the toilet.
Brain fizzling.
Call it excess,
I call it the circle of life
the holy grail
and the fountain.
Can you believe
they have once mistaken me
for a Jesusfreak?
& I have simply
mistaken them all for freaks.

untitled #3

this
primordial waterfall
sunken
ship
dry.

I am

An artist and an animal
Rational and banal
See through and thick
Atoms and bricks

Laughable and undecided
Unemployed and laughable
Tied down and tied up
hung and hanged
hanged by the hung, hard
constitution

Tropical industrialism
saturated calcium
Trans fatted metropolitan
stone, stone, stone
crumbled
tank toppled

WMD
Hair salons & action movies
Medium mediated by bigger medias
Manufactured cattle
by Corporate Livestock (Inc.)

A deep hole (hope),
rounded & shameless
a vacuum abhorred
Torn up, torn down
a rough draft,
In- grown nails
A personified television
A hypnotized hypnotist

Telephone Dialogue

This will be my last post for a short while. I'm currently working on a longer piece comprised of some of my major short stories (since a lot of them have similar tones). My goal is to edit and re-write them to form a short novel or a long novella. The tentative title is "Five Girlfriends and a Lover". I doubt that this novel/novella will actually happen due to the excess my brain has (thus far) been tolerating this summer. Anyway.


J: But you have to tell me, are you waiting because you want this, or are you just waiting for this to end?..
J: I don't know
J: I just wanna talk a little.
J: Mhm.
J: What are you typing?
J: Everything
J: No
...
J: Yeah
J: What are you saying, can you tell me?
J: I'm saying everything
J: What are you writing?
J: Everything
J: What does is start with?
J: It starts with, "But you have to tell me, are you waiting because you want this, or are you just waiting for this to end?.."
J: So whats the answer?
J: I don't know
J: So 'I don't know' means you're waiting for this to end.
J: ...
J: I think that we're more afraid to not be with each other. I think that's the problem. Are you listening, Jordano? Hello.
J: I think so too.
J: Ya eh? Do you think it would be better if we went together?
J: What do you mean?
J: Do you think that we'd be better off not together.
J: That's not what you had initially asked.
J: How do you know that?
J: Well now that I'm editing our dialogue to post on the blog, it seems like you actually asked something completely different before I had asked you what you meant by your question.
J: Just answer the question.
J: Which one?
J: Any one.
J: I don't know. I don't know anything. We just gotta' wait.
J: For what?
J: To wait and see if I'm crazy.
J: No. I don't want to wait for this to end, for you to make your decision. I don't want it to end badly, it's gonna drive me crazy, babe. I don't wanna wait for it.
J: I don't wanna make a decision.
J: I don't want us to be unhappy and wait for this to end.
J: Then what do we want?
J: I just... I want us to always be happy, and I want to be myself and not question things. I hate questioning things.
J: It's just so tiring, everything's so tiring.
J: Our relationship?
J: No, everything.

21

--Here's hoping
my pen has enough ink /
its holy dance
a hostile hospitality.

Inarticulate plastic
Consumer consumed good /
pure life pure laine
black eyes new black.

O's, X's & mostly X's

Electric chairs
tasers
Computer chairs
razors
Treadmills
paper
Leather
vapour

Gonna' die
gonna' die
All gonna' die
into vapour.
Cop cars on fire
all to witness destruction.

All in good fun--

Reckless (bonus post)

The first scene of a screenplay I began writing on a whim tonight, loosely inspired by Hunter S. Thompson & Max's "Whores, Dears and Red Convertibles." Makes up for my lack of post last week.


FADE IN:

EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY
The day is scorching, heat rising from the asphalt. A red 96’ Pontiac Sunfire, both windows wide open, speeds down a Montreal highway recklessly. It dodges cars, switching lanes back and forth nearly knocking the back bumper of every other car in sight. The engine rumbles loudly, smoke peering from the creases of the hood.

INT. PONTIAC SUNFIRE - DAY
UNCLE JACK is at the wheel, frail and tanned with a sweaty face and a greasy, unshaven beard. A jittery fellow, he is barely paying attention to the road as his eyes shift and hands move from the dials on the radio to adjusting his thick glasses. A cigarette in desperate need of ashing is hanging loosely at the tip of his lips. A Molson Ex rests in his cup holder and he grabs for it at takes a sip. He wears a stained dress shirt, the buttons all undone, hair protruding from his chest.

BILLY is in the passenger seat, barely eighteen years old, pale, freckles. He is shitting his pants.

UNCLE JACK
(looking directly at Billy)
You see Billy, the thing you gotta’ learn about Montreal is--

He blasts his wimpy car horn.

UNCLE JACK (CONT’D)
Fucking piece of shit! The thing you gotta learn is, every man on the road in this God forsaken city has to fend for himself. It’s a fucking dog-eat-dog world out there, man, everyone’s got places to be, things to see and money to make. That don’t mean these fucking French peppers should get in your way!

He slams the gas, swerving across three lanes, cars all honking at him. He gets off the highway at the exit he barely makes.

UNCLE JACK (CONT’D)
Take for example that whore I used to date-- your aunt, Candy. Esti putain de merde that bitch was, I tell you. Sucked off every bastard in head office. Every separatist shit disturber. Anyway. Things are a little better now. I figured I’d get over my addiction to her with a new addiction. I thought, maybe cigarettes. Tried a couple, and now I’m hooked. Thought, what doesn’t kill you, right bud!?

Billy continues to sit terrified in the passengers, ready to be sick. Jack looks at him.

UNCLE JACK (CONT’D)
Hahaaa! You okay there Billy-boy, looking a little green. Don’t you worry, I got a little pitstop to make anyway.

They pull up to a Best-Buy zooming through the packed parking lot and he speeds into a handicap parking space, slamming the breaks as they screech. When he shuts the engine, the entire car sounds as if it will collapse.

BILLY
Are we allowed to even--

Jack opens the glove compartment, parking and speeding tickets all falling out. He pulls out a handicap parking voucher and hooks it up onto his review mirror.

UNCLE JACK
Let’s roll Billy Boy.

Breakup

prose in the form of poetry


“the realization:
I am generally sad in life,
but life without you
for the past couple weeks
has made me
exponentially more miserable.”

This was the last text
[a very post-modern
characteristic
of this poem (along with the use
of square brackets,
let alone,
a sidenote within double brackets
[right?])]
The last text
on the last day of our last break-up
of the day of the last day
in which we ever talked to each other.

This would be a lie.
We have been broken up
since god made us
or since a monkey evolved into us
nobody is ever born together

It always acts out like this:

Love is possession.
Happiness is relief.
Sex is possession.
Orgasm is relief.

redo:

Sex is suffering
orgasm is relief
love is still possession
happiness is the dirt under my nail

to sum it all up:

life is a fake orgasm

I felt so bad
about myself
tonight
that I gave money to
a homeless person
to try
and feel better about myself,
and it never works
like you expect it to.
Or if it does,
it is excessively temporary.
He didn't give back
any change.

Joey tells me
There are a lot of other fish
in the sea
But
When I drink from the fountain
he tells me to save some for the fish.

Sometimes my mind
runs a little too quick for my speech
and I slur meaningless grobble.
Grobble isn’t a word.
Grobble grobble grobble.

Birth is grobble,
Love is grobble,
death is grobble,
Everything in between is filler.

Dancers
move
but
singers
move
and fishers
fish and
workers
dance and lovers
fish and they are all

taxes.

The Stenographer

a first short part of a story i've been messing around with in my head for a while. tell me what you think. this is still in the rough stages because I want to eventually flesh it out a bit more and make it into a longer piece, but since this is sort of new territory for me, I want to ask what you guys feel works and what does not. thanks.


She wrote in squiggles.
Squiggled little lines and arcs which criss-crossed the off-white page like a ballerina dancer trying to keep up with the rhythm of the classical composition leading. Christ, she was even wearing pink. Ivan, eyes glazed and puffed, beard uneven and greasy like a rodent-- simply narrated his thoughts, eyes lost staring at the roof or floor, not giving her the slightest bit of attention or thanks. Not that she cared, of course. It was simply a contract gig, go in, record, transcribe and punch out with an extra ten-grand in her purse.

It had been a couple weeks since she had been paired up with Ivan Rolovich by one of his big name publishers. Rolovich, a prominent writer during the 1980’s had fallen into a rut following the messy divorce with his wife, leading to the abandonment of his only son, who chose to live with his mother in Maine. Ivan’s former novel, The Glade, had been nominated for Mann Booker and he was even listed by the New Yorker as one of the most prominent writers to look forward to in the future. Unfortunately, as Sonia noticed day after day alone with him, Rolovich dug himself a hole in which he could not climb out of, let alone fly.

He talked, and her job as one of the few stenographers left in the province, was to record and transcribe every single word said using shorthand, a system of alphabet different from normal english. This system of squiggles and arcs was to avoid writing down redundant words and combining them into phrases in order to directly record what Ivan was saying, word-by-word, without any flaws, without missing anything. Ivan directly ordered a stenographer and not a typist, as the clicks and clacks of the typewriter "slowly delved him deeper and deeper into my madness," so he says.

The novel had a deadline. That is truly why she had been hired. His publishers were pressuring him into finishing his final manuscript so his contract could finally end with them and they could finally drop him. His last two novels over the past ten years had been mediocre at best. Simon Says was about addiction to social norms as a result of the loss of self-identity, but it was morally “holier than thou” and Ivan dictated the entire novel which flowed uneasily with the shallow little plot. His followers still loved it. But with Blind Eyes he had lost everyone. The novel’s protagonist died within the first four pages and the rest of the novel was a hunk of depression, and the manuscript was nearly rejected when Rolovich denied to edit it and praised it as a work of spontaneous prose which did not require editing. The piece stood alone.

Though his present condition was futile, Rolovich was undoubtedly a genius. Initially, Sonia noticed this by his use of figurative language, which, though dense, left her in awe when she began recording his words. She could not believe the creativity, the beauty of his loneliness, spat out on a whim, without any ideas or plans prior to her coming. But as of late, it had only been description. Description of everything, of sound, of taste, of loneliness, of sex. Lots and lots of sex. And he had not even had a plot, just a sole man living through depressing experiences.

He dictated:
“His room was desolate. A lonely pigmented yellow meant to be white. Dead plants... dead. Death, the undeniable irony of life, and plants. And..."

This was outside of her job description, but Sonia could not handle it anymore. She was tired of his melancholy. Every day she would finish work and go home sad because of his boring and black sensory detail.

“Um Ivan..”
He looked into her eyes without addressing her. 'Fucking pretentious writers,' she thought.
“Um, I hate to interrupt.”
“Well that is what you are doing.”
“Yes.. yes I know. But, what is this novel about, really? I mean, what you describe is beautiful, yes. But where is the plot? Where is the meaning?”
“Plot is meaningless. Description is the plot as it is in every day life. There is no plot in life.”
“What?.. I mean..”

“I am writing thought, Sonia, not a story. But a thought process. That is why you are here to record it.”

He began again.

Good

This is me not having anything good to post and simply posting for the sake of posting just because it is my day and nothing more. Actually, I don't even really want you to read this. I just like seeing it in online because it looks pretty on the website. I wrote it in about three minutes, and probably spent more time on this introduction than on the actual piece. The piece, poorly edited and even poorer quality of writing, grammar and vocabulary has no relevance or meaning to anything anyone should really care about. Furthermore, any negative criticism or helpful suggestions will be kindly disregarded because perfection cannot be improved upon. And that is the entire point of writing.


Cashier: Bonjour--hello. Did you find everything you were looking for?

Client: Yes, I did. Thanks OH so much for asking!

Cashier: No problem! How are you, sir?

Client: I am good! And you, SIR!?

Cashier: Good. Thanks for asking.

Client: Oh, no problem at all. I mean, everyone is good these days, right?

Cashier: I’m sorry?

Client: I’m sure you are. What I mean is, well, good, you know, everyone is good when asked directly on the spot, but you’re obviously not expecting to me answer anything else which may shed any factual light about myself which may lead to an uncomfortable or awkward situation. Right? Well...

Cashier: ...

Client: I mean, when you ask ‘how are you,’ you’re expecting me to say good even though in reality I may be a mess. An alcoholic drug fueled mess. Right? I mean, it’s not like I’m asking you to feel pity for me or anything, I still have money and I can still buy books that look pretty on shiny clean dining room tables, but good, you know, It’s a figure of speech, right? A transition, the foreplay before the rising action, and the fuck, you know, the fucking denouement. A greeting ritual. A blowjob. Basically, it’s all shit, am I right? There is no substance in “good,” (so I guess it isn't really like a blowjob), like, if I were honest, and you truly wanted to know how I am, I would tell you the terrible fucking truth. Like how my marriage is falling apart and how my slow addiction to smoking crack has fucked with my brain and testicles. You know what I’m talking about when I say my testicles?

Cashier: Um, do you have a membership card?

Client: A MEMBERSHIP CARD? IN YOUR FUCKING DREAMS I HAVE A MEMBERSHIP!

Cashier: So your total is...

Client: I’m not paying money to save money, where’s the fucking logic in that? Fucking 5 cents for plastic bags and fucking 5 cents for an anal licking down the street.

Cashier: It would save you 10% off all books.

Client: BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT!

Cashier: Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to calm down. Your total is $55.00

Client: That’s all wrong! The price on the book says 40!

Cashier: That’s the American price. In Canada it costs more.

Client: BUT OUR DOLLAR IS FUCKING EVEN!

Cashier: Yes. Right. But we still import the books from the States and...

Client: Brian... Yeah Brian, that’s what your name tag says right? How are you Brian?

Cashier: I’m good, sir.. I’m..

Client: I KNOW YOU'RE GOOD BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FUCKING VEST WITH A FUCKING NAMETAG. BUT YOU’RE NOT GOOD, BRYAN. NOBODY IS GOOD. Nobody is good because there is no fucking meaning to life! We’re just another fucking breed of animal who fucks and eats and shits and pushes babies out of our fucking... VULVAS! Am I right? We just go around and around and around and around, and we spin through and buy shit to make us happy and then when we buy shit we buy updated shit to make us happier and then when we sit down and finally think of a meaning of it all, we fucking shit our fucking pants, am I right? Everything is so stainless and pretty and perfect and when we’re actually happy we find out that everything is dead and everything is going do die eventually and everyone is alone until we die! RIGHT?!

Cashier: Right.

Client: It’s not that we suffer! NO! We don’t suffer. We’re just too apathetic to suffer. This post-modern shit has fucked with our heads and now we’re too lazy to get off our asses and be honest. How are you, sir? I’M FUCKING PROSTITUTES IN THE ASS! HOW DO YOU THINK I AM?

Cashier: Sir I’m feeling mighty uncomfortable in this current situation..

Client: MIGHTY UNCOMFORTABLE, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU FROM?

Cashier: I’m gonna have to call a manager.

Client: GOOD! Do it. GOOD! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT! I DON’T FUCKING EXIST! I’M JUST FUCKING WRITING ON A FUCKING PIECE OF PAPER OR COMPUTER SCREEN, WHY ARE YOU EVEN WASTING YOUR TIME WITH ME? IT'S ALL JUST A BUNCH OF NONSENSE BEING TYPED DOWN GOING THROUGH SOME GUYS HEAD WHO THINKS LIFE IS GOOD AND LIFE IS GRAND AND MIGHTY FINE. AM I RIGHT? I’M JUST A WOODY ALLEN-ESQUE NEUROTIC CHARACTER STARING INTO THE CAMERA AND SLOWLY DEVOLVING INTO A MELANCHOLIC, RAPID AND OFF-BEAT ENDING, RIGHT?

Manager: May I help you sir?

Client: Ah, fucking suck my dick.

Longing

Like:

A lost puppy
missing--
never found
free from will.

A sidewalk
without cracks--
creased--
crossed
skidding over edge.

A cup of tea for a sweet tooth
though I'm tasteless
& you're gone--
grown--
beyond me.

A lost horizon
carriage misgiven,
first tooth lost
left without
pillowed change.

A lost flame
church candle extinguished
but still smoking--
floating.

A bumblebee in Autumn
gone--
grown--
beyond me.

A first toke
smoked--
park bench under stars.
Left hungry
mouth parched--
pasty,
and clayed
but still smoking--
floating.

Taking a Dump in Public

It was a half-moon kind of day, when the sun shines but it doesn’t, and the neon radiation glows through commercial establishments to give way to material expenditure. It was a ritzy kind of upper-class Sears with fancy chandeliers made of blood diamonds which twisted and misshaped rays of light. I sat on a comfy chair while my parents shopped for their hi-def something-or-other. The comfy-chair was enveloping my ass whole, as I silently let out low hums, vibrations of my putrid insolence. My passing of gas squeezed through the cushiony material of the comfy chair almost as if the air did not leave the crevice between my ass crack and two cheeks. Very slight vibrations, at most. Playing it casually. But then the smell arose and my initial hypothesis proved to be false. It reeked like tomato soup and left-over, microwaved fishsticks. In other words, not a good situation.

I don’t shit in public.

This was the problem. This code of conduct stuck with me ever since my grade three class when toilet paper was out. I was in the stall for the remainder of the day, before they sent out the janitors to search for me, worrying I had been kidnapped.

I run into the bathroom, the long, snarky fluorescent lights buzzing in laughter. Flickering. I walk into a stall and the graffiti boasts a survey as to which large-titted woman is the hottest; Lucy Pinder, Pam Anderson or Jessica Simpson.
Quietly, I place strips of toilet paper neatly onto the toilet seat and flatten it, two long vertical strands and one horizontal at the end to act as a barrier between my ass and the grimy seat. I sit. The openness kills me. The creases in the to the closing of the beige metal door edges... the open air and open feet underneath the stall... what if some kid decides to roll underneath and surprise me with punch in the balls?

I concentrate. And force myself.

Then, the door to the guys bathroom opens. A man with heavy-boot foot steps walks in, opening the stall next to mine and taking a seat on the seat next to mine, tearing down his pants and letting it rip. The stinks in the room between the two of us begin to meld into a cornucopia of rotten squash. I begin to lose track of which smell is mine and which is his. I do not finish the job, wipe, pull up my pants, and am the fuck out of there.

Next up was church. My parents followed their early sunday capitalist parade with some praying to the big man upstairs. This gave me a chance, I knew the bathroom at the church was a single stall with a lock on the door. I run in, past the pews, past the left-over incense filling my lungs and shaking my bowels to a bloody pulp. I squeeze my ass cheeks tight, but I can almost feel the shit crowning, trying to squeeze its way through down my intestines and masquerade as the not-so pleasant feeling of a fart.

I run into the bathroom. A crucified Jesus adornment is hanging on the wall across the toilet seat. Holy shit.

I rip down my pants, ready to sit, even avoiding placing toilet paper and then I see the most vile thing I have ever see in my life. The toilet seat had a blot of blood on it, surrounded by yellowy-whitish puss. Someone must have had a prime pimple on their ass which the toilet seat inadvertently squeezed for them. The remains remained, like ground beef in a grinder.

I swallow the puke in my mouth and let fate take its toll.

Nothing to say today.

That is all.

A Winter's Tale Part II

***

That was then, and now is now.
And now I am walking under torrid mid-afternoon sun on a black street, barefoot, rushing to get onto the beach. Onto wet, dark sand. The air is salt-drenched, digging into my lungs and clearing out the leftover nicotine. The run-down motels spread across the ironically named Canada street, like a decaying, coffee stained-carpet. Most hotels proudly boast the Quebec and American flags, and sometimes a Canadian flag. Why even bother with sovereignty when you can drive six hours south of the border to the Quebec-invaded colony of Old Orchard Beach, Maine? The colonists mostly being above the age of 65, of course.
Perfume lingers in the salty beach air, churning my stomach.

I walk past the bakery smelling the fried dough among the mortally obese, feet still simmering, like walking on burning coals. It’s a sad thing to think about. That every lived experience before this moment is now dead, only to be remembered temporarily, until forgotten, and then death. These thoughts, as I glance at a senile couple gobble down on some fried dough with nutella spread.
“bein tabarnak c’est bon!”

It’s a beautiful day for a parade on an intersecting diner road in a desert. Too bad I am stuck among bulbous males fishing on the beach next to young children. Safety precautions are merely suggestions, after all.
Once I get on the beach, I look through my sand speckled duffel bag and pull out my cracked-leather jacket, a hand-me-down from my cousin, stitches sewn up by my nonna. It reminds me of my youth. It gets me thinking.
Now is now and I am on the beach and I am alone and I am lost within my mind while the sun sets, dies, which emphatically symbolizes the death of something or other in most classical literature. I have been reading too much Camus and everything seems meaningless as I walk back to the stuffy motel room I share with my mother who coerced me here for a family trip over the summer. One more year until I am eighteen and until I can do anything, or so I am told.

With the sun down, the “nightlife” truly begins. Rusted old ferris wheels twirl at the pathetic excuse for a fair in the heart of downtown, which consists of a single street. An old club called The Caribbean Paradise blasts out wedding music like The Macarenna and YMCA, and my drunken mother, aunts and uncles spend their nights there chugging margarita. I have come to accept the fact that Old Orchard Beach is the poor man’s Cuba.

Tall street lamps attract a myriad of shad-flies, whom I envy due to their life-span of a single day. I see them attracted to the brightness of light and I can’t help but think of Plato’s cave allegory. In fact, all this thinking in theories has gotten to me. At the end of the day, I still am alone for another three weeks, slowly dragging myself towards monotony. One word, monotony, not Mono Tony, the kid we used to make fun of in high school for contracting mono after making out with some French girl nobody knew.

I spend quarters at the grabbing machines and have managed to collect over twenty-six stuffed animals, the entire South Park cast in doll form and even a gameboy. I play the third one to the left side of the arcade, a big mother fucker called Grab-O-Mania and in my mind, I constantly refer to it as Grab-Cock-O-Mania. I play and drain the machine, collecting doll after doll, piling them on the floor next to me. People undermine the extreme skill and precision it takes in mastering the art of hand-eye coordination for a grabbing machine. Add in all the bells and whistles -- the 30 second timer, the mirror reflecting you in back of the machine, the constantly repeating jingle, the fact that the “claw” rarely closes more than a couple of centimetres (2.5 is my guess) -- and grab machining becomes quite serious.

Tonight, people seem to have noticed my meandering “clawing” skills. It makes me feel both pathetic and accomplished, probably like someone who mastered Dance Dance Revolution. I see in the reflection of the back mirror, while dropping my 89th quarter into the slot, a group of young people behind me -- people my age. And I notice enticing dark girl eyes staring into my own... well, the reflection of my own. The lightbulbs flashing red, white and blue, changing her skin tone. Considering my 90th quarter, I tell myself, if I fail this round, I will turn around and introduce myself to her. I will buck up.
Her name is Angela. And her real-life face is even prettier than her reflection. Her dark eyes, her long brown hair. She dresses like all the other kids who tried not to dress like everybody else: a plaid shirt, low top single colored shoes, ray bans and a tweed hat.
“where you from, Adam?”
“Montreal.”
“should I even be surprised? wait, isn’t the legal drinking age there, like, nineteen?”
“eighteen, actually.”
“then what the fuck are you doing over here?!”
“I manage to ask myself that exact same question every day. Where you from?”
“that’s for you to find out. Hey is that Camus in your jacket pocket? The Outsider?”
She took me by surprise. I forgot the book had been there all along.
“yeah...”
“he’s alright, I guess. I’m not really a big fan of the existentialists. Too morbid for my liking. Too masturbatory, too, you know? In-itself, of-itself, for-itself, it can go fuck itself.”
For the first time in about two weeks, I legitimately laughed, not because it was funny, but just because it was.

Under the pier, with a few more of her friends, I roll a joint on The Outsider (a flat surface is essential, after all). Angela and her friends stare, impressed with my rolling skills and with the calibre of the pot. I’m just happy that I don’t smoke alone tonight.
“you Americans gotta’ step up your game. Getting out-smoked by a Canadian fucker!”
“hey, shut your trap, you... you existentialist! HA!”
Angela snorts mid-laugh and covers her mouth and then laughs some more. Everybody is laughing and dazed. Her pothead mannerisms are authentic, they are innocent. We plan on meeting up on the beach tomorrow, and I walk home with a jump in my step.

The next day, she wears a yellow polka-dot bikini, her breasts squeezed in.
“you have to be kidding me. You are such a tool. She wore an intsy bintsy teeny weeny...”
“shut up! I find it cute. And I’m sure you don’t mind that it’s intsy bitsy...”
I chase her into the ocean. It is all so cinematic -- it runs through my mind. Every little thing I say is perfect, she reacts to it intently. She is into me. She wants me. Angela wants me.

Getting out of the ocean, I follow behind her as she leads the way, sand sticking to our feet. Rivulets of salt water dripped from the lower half of her bikini, tight against the crevice of her ass. The lower side of her buttocks bouncing with each step, sneaking out of the lower corners of the bathing suit.
She then lifts her arms, a purple elastic around her wrist. She holds back all of her wet, brown hair tightly into the palm of her closed-fist and gently slides the elastic down to tie her hair into a ponytail. Slowly. Drops of water leaking with the squeezing of her wad of hair.

Until I remember.
Until my chest suddenly feels hollow. Until the feeling that everything is dead hits me.
She flips up her hair and turns back to look at me, a smile below the crusty, dried-up salt water and snot under her nose. I turn back, without even looking at her in the eyes, and I walk away. And I continue to walk, without a goodbye, without an explanation. My heart thumps as if hidden under a floorboard. I wonder if she follows me. I walk and walk, and I remember. I remember. I remember I am alone, and why I’m alone.

I continue walking down the beach until the winds begin to pick up and black clouds cover the sun and I am the only left, waves crashing harder and harder. Gusts of wind start to throw sand up in the air, creating a dust storm with specks of salt flying and whipping hard against my legs. Wind hits my face and I am blinded as it scalds my eyeball. I can’t see a thing, I rub hard until I manage, through the tears in my eyes, to see a blur of sand whipping in front of me, everywhere, like a snowstorm.

A Winter's Tale [Part I]

Part one of my final assignment for Creative-Writing with Alapi.

I remember Cynthia entering my life the day before the first snow fall of grade eight. She sat in front of me in English class, and every day, almost mechanically, she would tie her hair into a pony-tail. Although this may seem like a simple act, the coming of Cynthia’s morning routine began the part of my life you could call, adolescence. She’d begin by flinging her hair back, a purple elastic around her thin, tanned wrists. Lush, peach-fuzzed arms would stretch out, a slight bicep muscle expanding as she’d slowly and smoothly glide it around the wad of glowing blonde-streaked hair. Holding it tight within the palm of her fist, behind her head, she’d gently slide the elastic down. Slowly. Then she flipped up her hair before finishing off.
Other times when she leaned forward on her seat, whenever she’d accidentally drop a pen, or lean forward to rest her head on the desk, I was able see a glimpse of the her holy lower back. On a lucky day she’d be wearing her hot pink thong, and I would become scarlet, the heat rising to my ears. Cynthia was not a shy girl, and after a couple weeks, I was able to construct a rainbow of lace in my mind.

Snowflakes tumbling down desolate Montreal skies, latch onto my semi-long overcoat, slowly enveloping the blackness. It was an old coat, passed down from my cousin -- the material frayed, the mismatched buttons roughly sewed on by my nonna as if done in a rush. Some were more oblong than others and one of them even purple. It was piled deep within my closet as I pathetically wrestled it out for the first fall. The first fall which continues to shriek gusts of wind past my ears, spitting specks of snow, blinding me. The perfect juxtaposition to its scorching summer. My paradise.

I remember being nervous and cold, Cynthia’s body crushed into mine, under my sweaty armpit. We were sitting on a park bench and her nose was red and runny, the tip shining due to the vibrant whiteness of snow, which seemed to glisten off the ground even despite the lack of sun. Her bony fingers strangled my pores, rarely ever letting go. Her low-top Vans were sole-less, and she persevered with them throughout the deadly winter, albeit, not without any complaints.
“my fucking socks are wet again.”
“how about you get some new shoes?”
“how about you suck my dick, Adam?”
“lovely, Cynthia.”
Cynthia.

The basement window rattled in my mother’s duplex due to the weather battering itself against it, and the humidifier I forgot to turn off let out a low hum. Cynthia’s mouth formed the shape of an O around the tip of my cock as she had trouble pushing her throat any further down. I concentrate. I don’t want to finish too soon and seem look like a loser. I chew on the inside of my cheek, biting off minuscule particles of dead skin which latch onto my tongue like leftover bread stuck in teeth. This whole time, I could not turn away from the blonde locks on the back of her head which reflected different perspectives of light as she bobbed it slowly, up and down. The strange sounds of swallowing and gagging meld into a premature orgasm in her mouth.
“sorry. Um.”
“...”
“um, do you need a kleenex?”
“no... that’s okay.”

The next day, I sat next to my friend Devin as he went off on some tangent.
“Adam. I totally just took a piss while drinking from a bottle of water. Isn’t that fucking... what’s the word... fucking... fucking like paradoxical?”
“you’re a douchebag, Devin. That’s just weird.”
“no it’s totally legit! It’s like messing with the body.”
“dude, that’s like taking a shit while eating supper.”
“don’t pretend like you haven’t tried that, bro.”
“don’t say bro, you fag.”

When Cynthia entered the class, I avoided eye contact with her, but nonetheless, she came right up to me and kissed me on the cheek. She bent over to place her school bag on the ground showing off her pink thong. Devin stared incredulously.
Cynthia was the first person I ever legitimately felt passion towards. She’d tell me she loved me, she’d kiss me at any available moment, even in public. She was the first girl to ever give me the attention I strived for, the attention I gave myself. The first girl to take away my virginity and she was the first girl I ever loved.

I remember a week later, getting drunk off of forty’s of 8% Labatt (what we used to call rat-piss) in back of the Place Lasalle with a couple older guys from the neighborhood. Cynthia and I had gotten into an argument -- I don’t remember why, anymore. I stumbled avoiding cracks and potholes in the parking lot. And I saw her, knees on cold concrete, sucking off Devin, his back resting against the maroon bricks of the wall. And he saw me and his body jerked and she turned her head, cat eyes, incandescent in the moonlight.

I remember sprinting home.
I remember shrieks into my pillow.
I remember ripping apart the sodden bedsheets.
I remember my mother trying to hold me down as I punched a hole into the wall and as blood dripped down my wrist.

HEY!

My post (which should have actually been posted yesterday) is simply to inform everyone that the first edition of the heart-rape club lit journal is COMPLETE. Please pass by Marianopolis during artsweek to pick one up and tell all your friends. I believe Ms Liss is printing out 50 copies (though I will persuade her to print more).

Peace, love and Kid Cudi,
Jordano

Montréal

[to be read in the tone of Allen Ginsberg's voice]

Montréal,
my concrete freedom
my frozen granite
my subzero marble
my dusting off the windshield
with cracks in the hood.
Montréal,
your hydro-bright scrapers
your dried-up-gum-on-métro-floors scrapers
your friendly neighbours
who have the decency of always minding their own business and never nodding hello.

Montréal,
I have never seen your true face
Because there is a language barrier
Montréal,
I will never be considered a true artist by your standards
Because there is a language barrier
Montréal,
I have tried,
time & time again
to understand the perplexities
nuances
& éxceptions of your language
But you have left me in the bitterness of your winter
and scorch of your summer.
Whatever,
is isn't really your language to begin with.

Montréal,
why is your beer so young?
and why take away my innocence?
and why sleep when I'm awake?
Montréal,
you are my rocking-horse
you are my saviour
death
&
re-birth.
Montréal,
you are my melodrama
my philosophy
my melancholy
Montréal,
why are you so cold in the shadows?
of the PVM
or the W?
Montréal,
why are you so shallow?
why are you so deep?
why are you so pretty?
your puke stained main
saturday at 3 am (although technically it's sunday)
and your stoned-cold tams
searching for mysticism with percussion
at the top of a mountain

Montréal,
do you have cabin fever?
or can everything be answered because you are an island
with collapsing bridges.
Montréal,
when all your exits cut off
and sink to rock bottom of China's lost canal
will you still love me, Montréal?
Montréal,
why are you so cold?

Metro

[I've been creatively lazy (creatazy?) lately, thus, here is another old story I wrote about a year ago that I kind of forgot about but believe it has its merits. Also gonna re-work on "Sporadic Flashbacks" and make it into something better and amazing. Stay tuned, folks.]


It was past midnight on the metro when he sat directly behind me, on the seat attached to mine. Technically, it wasn’t my seat; it didn’t belong to me, but it was the seat I was temporarily making use of, while on my night ride on the metro. I was instantly aware of his presence with out even seeing him; he gave off a stench of alcohol, cigarettes and Vicks cough drops. I stared at the reflection of him to my right in the train’s large window. He had long and greasy silver grey hair in a ponytail, and wore a pair of shining women’s earrings. Looking closer at his reflection, I noticed the undeniable use of eye liner, outlining and sharpening the look of his eyes.

The old man slept.

I had just watched Charlie Kaufman’s new movie, Synecdoche, New York, and I was thinking about the false purpose created by ourselves in our lives. How the failure of one’s self is directly in our own hands. And so is the ability to change.
That’s why I cringe when I see the people who need to be hand fed and cared for. Tax payers money, tax payers money, tax payers money. That’s why I think that sometimes instead of begging for money on the street, these people should get a job.
That’s what I think.

I sit on the metro and this man’s stench begins to get to my stomach as the train zooms through underground tunnels at light speed. I am full from the three course supper I just ate with a few associates of mine before going to see the movie with my girlfriend. My stomach bulges, but the smell of the man causes it displeasure.
I decide to move.

I stand up and get out of my spot, sitting a little bit further away. The old man stands up too, and heads towards the sliding doors, prepared to open at the stop. He wobbles on his two feet and almost loses his balance. I stare with the dirtiest looks. He makes me sick. It’s midnight and this man can barely stand, his 40 ounce bottle sticks out from his dirty plaid jacket, resting in a paper bag.

The man stares at me as the metro begins to come to a halt. His shiny women’s earrings glow and his eye liner accentuates the sick glaze he has in his eyes. This man is pathetic and is everything vile about the city life.

And he doesn’t stop staring at me.

I turn my head away, and look at him in the reflection of the window. He looks at me up and down, looking at my blue silk tie and long black jacket. The doors open and before he leaves, he speaks, voice like sandpaper.

“Hey, fuck you man. Get a job.”

And with that, he stumbles out of the cart.