This is the start of something I'm messing around with, not sure how much sense it'll make out of context.
Jake left his flat at sixteen minutes past two in the morning. At twenty-eight minutes past, he ran home, packed his things and booked the next available flight back to New York. All because of a text.
He stared at the screen, then at the clock on the wall, then back at the screen again. He’d been writing since six, it was now quarter to two in the morning, and he had little under half a page. He’d typed more, carved out sentences and paragraphs from nothingness. Then read them back and digested the words. They’d returned to him like an acid reflux leaving bitter tastes in his mouth. Growing frustrated, he purged them from the screen, holding down backspace and steamrolling each syntax into oblivion. He was Godzilla razing a city flat in less than thirty seconds. The sentences he had left standing were abominations of their pure and virginal form, hung from a mouse and gutted, their meanings had spilt across the screen and into the white void.
Before Jake now was the hollow attempt at a story. It was the meat left on a rotting carcass, the bad meat, the meat no vulture will dare go near. Later on, he’d package this corpse, like the many others before it, methodically away into a folder titled, IDEAS. And there it will fester and stagnate. Occasionally, he would dig it up, poke it and prod it before burying it once more. It would never see the sunlight and a potential publisher would never hold it in their hands.
He needed a smoke. He stood up and stretched his legs; his muscles groaned as they pulled taut then relaxed again. Blood ran to his feet for the first time in hours. When he’d been writing, Jake hadn't noticed the singing, but now the bleating sound was inescapable. Amber, one of his rents, was performing a crude rendition of David Bowie's, Life on Mars. But she wasn't just drowning out the musician with her guttural tribute; it sounded to Jake as if she was pinning the poor fucker under the water, as sharks ate the flesh from his face and bubbles blew from his mouth as he was desperately trying to sing, ‘It's the freakiest show.' Amber had one playlist, of several songs that she played without fail throughout the day and into the early hours of the morning. Songs included, Our House by Madness, No More Heroes by The Stranglers, and Going Underground by The Jam. When played on a constant loop, Jake was certain they would have been useful in breaking the minds of prisoners during the MKUltra experiments back in the sixties.
Jake had become desensitised to it all now, though. The same way that when he’d walk into the kitchen, he wouldn't see the half empty bowls of cereal, the ketchup dripping down the washing machine, or the faithful reproduction of the Tower of Babel, constructed out of pots and pans that manifested in the kitchen sink. Jake had accepted long ago that was what he got for renting out to students. He was their live-in landlord, and for £400 a month he was also their relationship counsellor, reluctant father, shoulder to cry on, spell checker and money lender. Jake had always wanted kids. He’d even got close to it one time. But the notion of ever having some of his own was extinguished at the same time the spark in his marriage was.
He put on his jacket, a pair of boots and grabbed a straight, superking, from the packet in his desk drawer. Padding down his pockets, he felt for the shape of his lighter. And just as he was ready to go, he bumped into his other lodger in the corridor. The girl was sauntering outside his bedroom door, sobbing. On her face were milky lines were her makeup had run, revealing a different skin tone to the one she aspired to have. Jake wondered whether it was lipstick or red wine smudged around her mouth.
‘Rebecca. You alright?' Jake asked, he already knew the answer, and dreaded in what way she was going to respond. Rebecca was turtleneck wearing art student who listened to The Smiths and had an extensive list of mental health issues that required more drugs than a pharmacy had in stock to keep in order. One time Jake had found her in the kitchen crying, she'd burnt her toast
‘I'm just finding it very hard you know. Like every time I think I've met someone right they fuck me over.' She was drunk; her words were slurring.
Jake asked her if it was Shaun, cautious to omit the ‘again'. Shaun was Rebecca's on again off again boyfriend. Jake had first met him when he had walked into his living room late one night to find a half-naked teenager asleep on his sofa. Rebecca and Shaun had had an argument, as they were prone to do, and Rebecca had sent Shaun to the doghouse. This was the extent of Jake’s relationship with Shaun; occasionally he would come home to find he had gained an extra lodger, one who contributed nothing in the way of rent and left crumbs all over his futon.
She sobbed. ‘Yeah, it's Shaun. He says he can't handle me anymore.'
He asked her what Shaun had done, inadvertently opening the floodgates.
‘He's ended it.' She screeched. ‘He says he doesn't know if he's coming or going with me anymore, that he's had enough of it and needs to put himself first for a change. The bastard, I can't believe I ever let him put it in my arse.' Jake made an effort not to wince at the unnecessary detail. He couldn't blame Shaun though; dating Rebecca couldn't have been all plain sailing. Her mood was like a roller coaster, the one from Final Destination. This was a story he’d heard a million times before though. Usually, they would argue and fall out, and a few days later he would hear Rebecca's bed banging against the wall, the whole flat shaking. Eventually, she would stumble out of her room, hair matted and the smell of unprotected sex wafting behind her. Then, some time later, Shaun would waddle out into the bathroom, and wash his balls in the sink, or at least that's what Jake assumed he did. He’d been fortunate enough never to see it happen. Sometimes when he was brushing his teeth, he would find the occasional pube caught in the plug hole.
Rebecca pulled herself into Jake’s chest and began to blub. He found himself talking into her hair; it smelt like acrylic paint. He told her that it was going to be okay, and gave her a squeeze, but she didn't budge. He was thinking about the cigarette, the one he should have been having right then and as she clung to his waist, he also grew conscious of his muffin top.
‘Sometimes,' He began, ‘these things happen for a reason.' He had watched enough soaps to have learnt the script by this point. ‘It's important you put yourself first and think of this as a good thing, a chance to focus on bettering yourself as a person.'
‘But I can't be single again,' she cried, ‘what if I don't ever find someone else and grow old and alone.’ It was a punch in the gut for Jake. Whether she meant it or not, she was referring to someone like him. A forty-three-year-old American divorcee, living in a sad little village in England, playing dad for two university students and saving for the Icelandic holiday that he believed would reinvigorate his passion for writing if it were ever to happen.
‘You're what, twenty, twenty-one now?' He asked.
‘Eighteen.’ She replied.
‘Eighteen. Jheeze.' A not so gentle reminder of his age, another punch in the gut. ‘You've got your whole life ahead of you, though.' He reassured her. ‘You don't need to be worrying about your future just yet. You should be focusing on your studies, so when you're older, you'll hopefully have decent one.' The girl loosened up just a little bit. ‘Why don't you expel some of that negative energy into your art?' He suggested, in actuality, Jake just wanted to get rid of her and have his cigarette. He couldn't play therapist all night.
‘Yeah, you're right. I guess.' She said as she squeezed him once more before finally letting go. He took a deep breath. His jacket was damp with tears. Rebecca told him he was a good listener.
‘I've had a lot of practice.' He said, before suggesting she get a good night’s sleep.
‘No.’ She said. ‘I’ve got a better idea. I’m gonna paint a picture of Shaun out of my own menstrual blood and title it The Dickhead. That would be so totally fucking cathartic.' He hoped she was joking. The determination in her voice suggested otherwise.
‘Right… okay, just don't make a mess of the carpet alright?' Jake called back to her as she went into her bedroom, slamming the door.
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