So I started a novel.
That is, about 5 years ago, during a period of unemployment, I started writing a novel.
I've always remembered that I had it, sort of in the back of my mind, but I haven't really had time/motivation to return to it and was never really sure if it was any good. On top of that, I'm fairly certain that any and all creativity I still have at the end of the work day usually gets used up to post something on this blog, so I haven't really needed an outlet for creative energy.
Or, maybe, haven't had any to spare.
Anyway, I just found it again on a flash drive that usually sits in the ceramic bowl where my keys are. So, I figured, why not post the first chapter on here for no reason at all. Keep in mind I wrote this a while ago (though it's actually possible I was smarter at the time I wrote it). Give it a read if you're bored and let me know what you think.
Should I pick it up again? Should I delete the file "TheBook.doc?"
It's probably hard to get any sense of where it's going but, who knows, if reviews are positive, more chapters might follow.
Chapter One: Rude Awakening
I’m unsure whether it was the blinding one o’clock sunlight streaming through my bedroom window or the sound of head pounding drilling shaking the walls of my apartment that woke me first. The best bet is that the two had joined forces with whatever had died in my mouth the previous evening in order to tell me that I had slept long enough.
The day itself would most likely have been described, by those who tend to do such things, as a nice one. I, on the other hand, opening my floor to ceiling Venetian blinds to reveal a sweating, hairy ass crack at face level, was inclined to find the day somewhat less than gorgeous. The crack, as it turned out, belonged to one of two mason workers on scaffolding just outside my sixth story apartment.
The drilling, which I had heretofore believed to be a symptom of the world’s worst hangover, was actually the sound of the Ass Crack’s associate jack hammering brick away from the frame of my window. They both turned to look at me, Ass Crack rising from mixing some sort of cement and his friend scratching what at first glance appeared to be a scrap of dark brown rug but upon closer inspection turned out to be chest hair. And then I remembered that I had actually requested this wake-up call in the form of a complaint about my leaking window.
Fuck.
I would not be getting any writing done today.
Watching a fine powder of mortar drift down from the end of Chest Rug’s drill to become a perfect coat of white dust on top my 1988 Dodge Aries sixty-feet below, I let both men see me scratch my balls through my underwear to show my appreciation of the great work they were doing. This was definitely a Tim Horton’s kind of morning.
My apartment on the upper east side of London, while by no means lavish, was certainly exclusive enough to attract the type of tenants to whom proper decorum and manners were important. The heightened security, immaculate lobby and halls and distance from the student housing downtown made it an ideal location for a lot of older and more wealthy clientele. Thus, when Eleanor Denunzio from apartment 411 got on the elevator to find me scraping what can only be described as yellow schmutz off my teeth with my fingernails, her distaste was obvious. Indeed, I was still somewhat of an oddity to the people in Kingsgate Estates. Being that this was a city where young people aspired to
wealth as a means of leaving town, those who could afford to, and chose to, remain in the wealthy areas of what was known as the Forest City were largely what is referred to as old money. I, as it turns out, seemed to be the kind of person whom such elite condos were constructed to keep out. This, along with a desire to elicit envy from those who had routinely kicked my ass in high school and an extreme distaste for big cities, was among my reasons to remain in my home town after my first novel, Dirt Nap, had become a surprise success two years ago.
A surprise I had not counted on this morning however, was finding that my car was not only covered in dust, but also in the middle of a twenty square foot area of parking lot which had been fenced off with heavy orange plastic.
“Hey! I can’t get my car out,” I yelled up to Ass Crack and Chest Rug who were watching me from the side of the building and lighting cigarettes.
“I can see that,” answered Chest Rug, who evidently was hilarious. Then after seeing that I was not amused, continued “No, we had to close off the lot so shit wouldn’t fall on people’s cars.”
Apparently the irony of telling this to someone who was standing beside his shit-covered car was lost on Chest Rug.
“Well, how are we supposed to get to work this morning?” I yelled, growing impatient.
“Well, first of all, it’s almost two o’clock in the afternoon. Second of all, everyone did leave for work this morning because they read the notice that’s been up in your
lobby for two weeks and didn’t park there.” Chesty replied, much to the delight of Ass Crack. I noticed that my car was, indeed, the only one remaining in that section of the lot.
“Can’t you just come move the fence so I can get my car out?” I asked looking at my watch as if I actually had somewhere to be.
“Yeah. We’ll be right down, your majesty” Chesty said sitting down heavily. I shouted “Assholes!” and stood staring dumbfounded until I realized that I could in fact almost see the coffee shop which was my destination and decided the argument need not progress any further.
The walk, it turned out, might have been a good idea after all. I realized as I laboured up an extremely gradual hill that the advent of the drive-through coffee shop had taken a serious toll on my personal health. Looking back on the four months that had passed since I had bought a pack of cigarettes, I was actually having a tough time recalling the last time I left my apartment for any reason other than to buy something that
could be acquired through the window of my car.
The streets of London were relatively quiet at this time of day. Generally the streets of London are always pretty quiet, but today, at two o’clock on a late summer weekday, before University kids had come back to town, things seemed eerily quiet. Especially to a person who is accustomed to seeing these same streets from inside a car with a loud radio.
By the time I got to the coffee shop a few blocks from my apartment I was noticeably, and embarrassingly, winded. Was I really this out of shape? A quick glance at the line of sweat forming in the fat wrinkle of my stomach as I stood in line for coffee told me that, yes, I was definitely that out of shape.
“Large double double and an apple fritter,” I ordered as I wondered how long those two guys would be outside my window. I had actually seriously intended to get down to work today. While I had always prided myself on my ability to get things done at the last minute, the pressure to have some tangible work to show to my editor was growing; especially since his calls in hopes of seeing a few sample chapters from my sophomore novel had become an almost weekly occurrence. The problem was that, in the
two years following Dirt Nap, I had written a total of twelve pages. Most of which, I might add, was incoherent shit. Dirt Nap had actually been more of a side project than an effort to write a good novel. During breaks in studying or writing essays for my last two years of university I had written a page here and a chapter there. Little did I know that by writing a novel about a lawyer who encounters zombies I had inadvertently tapped into the two most lucrative genres in popular fiction. Accordingly I had made more money than a very recent college grad should rightly have.
I suddenly realized that the coffee girl had spoken. “I’m sorry?” I said.
“I said ‘You’re welcome’” she said before turning her eyes to the line behind me and dismissing me with “Can I help who’s next?”
I realized that I had, in fact, not said thank you at all. I also realized that this was the same girl who sold me my double double and apple fritter through the drive through window nearly every day and I could not remember if I had ever said thank you.
As I pondered the possibility of my utter disregard for the proletariat in the parking lot, I was snapped back to reality by what must have been the largest car door in the world swinging open in front of me and nailing me square in the balls. From my fetal position on the asphalt I became aware of two things: hot coffee on my chest and stomach and a man in a hideous brown suit crouching over me apologizing profusely.
“Oh jeez, oh jeez. I’m...I’m..awful, awful sorry. Are you alright?,” the suit was stammering.
“Motherfucker!” I assured him. Grasping what I confirmed to be the largest, whitest driver side door in the history of the automotive industry, I managed to lurch to me feet.
“Really, really sorry. I’m an idiot,” the man was saying, wiping sweat from his brow. As I bent over with one hand in my pants, half expecting to cough up a testicle, the man thrust a business card in my face.
Daryl Clifton, Broker
Forrester Insurance
“You want to sell me insurance?” I coughed, squinting against the sun behind Darryl. I noted that the green ink on his business card matched his faux silk tie and his thin, fading socks.
“Oh, no, no no no no,” he was saying as he bent down into his impossibly big Lincoln, bumping his head in the process and emerging with a wad of crumpled yellow Wendy’s napkins. This was a man who seemed as if he would be flustered at the best of
times. Wiping coffee off my shirt and apologizing profusely, he seemed positively disheveled. His flaming red hair, which somehow seemed to be thinning and yet impossibly thick at the same time, appeared to be holding on to his balding head for dear life. No two hairs seemed to be going in the same direction and what I imagine had started as a comb-over had digressed into seven or eight lonely strands of hair flailing wildly about in the wind.
“I heard, uh, that you came here all the time and I uh...” Darryl tried. He seemed as distracted by his wildly gesticulating hands and lip-licking as I was. However, I had heard enough.
“Oh, I get it. You’re a fan,” I said, cutting him off. I reached in to my breast pocket for a pen and scribbled a quick autograph on the back of his card. “Have a good one buddy,” I said, slapping the card on his chest and dismissing him.
I had walked maybe five steps when he said, “No, no, you don’t get it, wait.”
He rushed up behind me and grabbed my arm and I started to get pissed off.
“Listen asshole. I don’t give a shit how much you liked my book. All I wanted to do today was to have my coffee and not be bugged by some asshole in a diarrhea-coloured suit, but you already fucked that up. So if you could kindly get back in your car and leave me the fuck alone, it would be much appreciated,” I spit the words at him like venom. Roughly taking his arm off mine and spinning on my heels I walked quickly away before he could recover.
I know I may have sounded like an asshole, but, believe it or not, this kind of thing happens to me a lot. For God’s sake, I wrote a body-snatching, legal thriller two years ago and still I had to deal with pricks who thought I was James Joyce or something. Absolute rudeness, I had found, was the only way to get them to leave you alone.
I had planned to sit down in front of my computer and force myself to bang out at least a few pages so that I had something to show my editor, but, after I changed my shirt, the dirty laundry was practically full and I had to clean it all. By the time I had finished cleaning, drying and sorting all my clothes according to colour, it was almost nine o’clock and I decided that, rather than force what would inevitably not be my best prose, it was better that I meet my friends at my local bar for a quick night cap and get an early start tomorrow.
