so this is how my book begins

[spectremis]

obviously i there's work to be done...but its the rough copy i'm comfortable showing.

Monday

Being Monday I don't spend too much time frittering around aimlessly, like I would on the weekend. Most days off I envelope myself in some new game, movie or book I had bought the previous Friday to make myself feel better about the wasted week.

I have every Monday off. I work on a salary and have to put in forty hours a week. When I started I made sure that ten hours in four days was copasetic. The assistant manager gave me little fuss over the idea. He, however, did inquire as to why I would "need" every Monday off.
"It's a religious thing."
"Isn't that what Sundays are for?"
"It is in your religion."
"What religion are you?"
"To be honest I'd rather not get into it."

By telling him that, I played upon his assumption of what a religion should be and by briskly dismissing his religious questioning I exploited his obvious distaste of overzealous people's insecure need to press their views upon you. Long story short, unless it's an emergency I have every Monday off.

My friend's ask me about me this decision. Generally I flippantly tell them,
"Because I need one non-weekend day to get things done."
When in reality it stems from my imbedded desire to allow the world around me to flow while I get a little time to myself.

Most weekends I end up sleeping until a hair or two past noon. Not on Mondays. After rolling around aimlessly in my bed, kicking my comforter on and off, my rebellious nature seeps away and guilt pushes me out of bed.

I haven't yet been able to pinpoint exactly what it is about being home. But I'm rarely very dressed and rarely inspired here. As I've told my friends and shrinks in the past,
"For me, there is no place heavier than home."
In fact, every time I think about it, I always feel compelled to say that sentence out loud. The idea seems poignant and interesting, like the title to a book or movie. When I pursue the thought I envision an orchestra chorus swelling and dying down around two main characters in some place and time that is interchangeable. One of the obviously disheveled and emotional drained characters unknowingly times the exhalation of a deep breath with the lowering music and says the titular line,
"There's no place heavier than home."

The scenarios and events leading up to that personal revelation differ every time I think about it. But the main point remains the same: There’s just something about home that ways him down.

This is an idea seems to go completely over the heads of most the people I talk to. They all generally give me the same advice.
"Take a vacation", resonates in my head as if it was a choir of everyone I know. Or it's some facsimile that involves major changing of something unimportant.

I tried the vacation. I even did it without any plan whatsoever to separate myself from any kind of scheduled life. It didn't work. The very same thing that plagues me and keeps me from planning any further than six months ahead, kept me from enjoying it. The impeding knowledge of what was to come if all went well has always been a thorn. In the back of my mind I knew I have to come home.

There were the briefest of flickering moments where I didn't think about my life back home, when I attempted the changes suggest Ultimately it felt like draining a constantly infected wound. It was cathartic, but it didn't solve anything.

Needless to say, I quickly find clothing, regardless of whether it matches or not (so rarely it does) and head out to my car. The slow whipping wind hits me the moment I exit and peels off whatever weight that seems to tie me down inside my apartment. By the time I reach my car I feel lighter, emotionally buoyant.

I throw open the door and slide into the driver's site and have my belt on before the door bounces back and slams shut. In almost one continuous motion, I start the ignition, tickle on my overpriced ipod that's connected to the overpriced car charger/FM adapter and go to my "Car Tunes" and find the song that matches my mood (or the mood I wish for). Marcy Playground – "Wave Motion Gun". Excellent.

By the time I pull out onto the main street leading out, I am literally bouncing in the seat. I absolutely adore going anywhere but work. My destination could be a gas station or oral surgery. The excitement would be exactly the same. I can't remember when it was exactly that I enjoyed just going anywhere. That in itself is odd. Generally I can pull up any previous emotion about anything. That ability comes in handy in really long and pointless meetings, but is a little difficult around people like Dave.

Dave's a coworker three offices down from me. I've barely spoken to him and have no reason to dislike him. Unfortunately, he looks like a Dave that threw me off a swing set and kicked sand in my face in fourth grade, just before he stomped on, completely annihilating my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Shooter. It was the one that shot little circle plastic pizzas at whatever it was poorly aimed at.

So whenever this Dave speaks, I feel irritated and imagine myself stuffing a balled up mission statement banner in his mouth. Not to mention I have shot down an invitation to his Super Bowl party three or four straight times now.

Focusing so much on my inability to emotionally regress back to a time I didn't enjoy pointless driving so much, I nearly missed the turn. I slam the breaks and the tires squeal a bit while I ease around the turn before stopping abruptly in front of the gate. The "Entitled Rich Kid's Community" as I call it. It's a gated community loosely tied to a nearby private college. Troy lives here. Technically Troy lives with me, as his expired driver's license states. But when he goes from romantic wanderer to trust fund baby, he lives here. One day he will own the entire place, if he doesn't get deleted from his parents Will. He doesn't pay rent, except half of mine.

Annoyingly, he doesn't have a car. He has more money then he knows, and his lone mode of transportation is a rarely used immaculately kept jet black Kawasaki sport bike, apparently bought for him by his father's desperate attempt to connect with his son's wild and rebellious nature. I think it remains just a poor statement of how little they know their son.

I pull into Troy's usual vacant space, since his bike is in a nearby storage facility. With the same swiftness I demonstrated getting into my car and driving routine, I am out. I trot up the narrow path, and further up the stairs to the second floor, taking two steps at a time.

As per usual, the door is open. It fits in nicely with the rest of Troy's general apathetic demeanor toward things and life in general. Not to mention he knows everyone who lives in the area, and would have little to no problem tracking down whom, if anyone, broke in.

Peeking into the window that lies about a foot and a half away from the door, I make sure the coast is clear, before hip-checking the unlocked and slightly ajar door.

There's sex in the air. Or perhaps its just a Pavlovian response I've developed whenever the door is slightly open and I'm staring at what lays before me. A line of clothing starts about two feet in front of me, beginning with kicked off shoes and high heels. Then it's a belt, a couple of socks, some buttons but no shirt, and so on. I imagine the rest of the bread crumbs lead back to his bed room.

Despite the "thrown clothing" road, his place is immaculately kept. Constantly dusted black metal furniture bookcase and home entertainment center are to my left, with the newest high definition plasma screen rest safely. To my right is a matching black metal table and chairs. The chairs are pushed in neatly, and there's a rose in a dark almost opaque vase. Just beyond that is, what I assume, is the newest computer one can own. Finally, near the dining area is, of course, black matching refrigerator, microwave, stove and clearly seen through the clear glass cupboard doors, black glass dinette set. And all of probably never used.

A few steps forward and I'm lazily kicking the loose clothing out of my way, when I hear a loud "THUD!" and Troy's bedroom door swings open. Out charges black laced panties and matching bra filled with, what looked to me like, a professional dancer or cheerleader. I make that guess when she gets close enough for me to see her well defined legs, probably earned from years of dancing. Her face is red and so is her demeanor. Filled with rage, she collects the female parts of the "thrown clothing" road (which wasn't very much) and drags it all with her foot until she's right in front of the door and sliding her silk top on. It isn't until she is pulling up her tight khaki colored pants that she even notices my presence. With one eyebrow raised, she opens her mouth and waits until her zipper is up before speaking.
"He a friend of yours?"

I take a deep breath, close my eyes while raising my eyebrows and raising my shoulder's slightly.

"Well I hope you know that your friend…", she turns toward Troy's bed room and continues.
"Is an a*****e!". Her nostrils flare.

She turns and extends her hand, opens the door and marches out. Not a second after her body is out sightr, I realize Troy is standing next to me, completely naked.
"WELL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? I TOLD YOU I WAS AN a*****e. YOU BELIEVED WHAT YOU WANTED TO, DEAR."

He raises one nostril and tilts his head back slightly to look down his nose at me.
"Oh hey…just get here?"
"Yeah."

I don't even ask anymore. Angry girls leaving his place or mine isn't anything I haven't seen several dozen times a year.

He motions his head toward the, still open, door.
"Sweet a** on that one. But Dear GOD if she isn't dumb as a post. She completely fell for number 4, "The Repentful b*****d", without a second's hesitation

I don’t need the rest of the story. Playing wingman and walking in at inopportune times has awarded me the luxury of staring out the window, ignoring all but the details that make this different than any other night, which isn’t very much.

“So in walks green eyes and blonde hair, obviously just threw off her power suit… business attire, whatever.”

“Where she work?” I offer a question to try and connect with this story.

“Umm… Law office, accounting, I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. She should’ve been in advertising. It was too easy. Get this. She did jazz dance and ballet, in high school. Oh I can’t resist the dancer’s legs.”

“That and insecurity and dysfunction.” I add to skip the majority of the back story.

He laughs loudly and quickly, as if he was compacting thirty seconds of laughter into one guffaw to get to his next thought out.

“What can I say? Overly conservative parents and absentee fathers are this generation’s Spanish fly.”

His pride hangs in the air as he takes his naked self toward the kitchen. While pulling out a carton of eggs, a couple pieces of bread, jam and varies ingredients and his back to me, he continues.

“Speaking of absentee father’s… This just girl wreaked of it with “a*****e Ex” wafting behind her. You could almost see the years of wanting daddy’s attention.”

I take my usual seat and posture on the barstool at the counter adjacent of him.

“You know the type. Independent to a fault. Head strong, driven. Generally pretty instinctive, because, hell, she had to emotionally raise herself. But really just dying for that ol’ attention. Dad was probably not very engaging, thus her penchant for assholes.”

He turns back toward me, gesticulating as if he was describing her physical attributes.

“A veritable impenetrable box of self-reliance, entirely too much pride projecting an image that very clearly states, ‘I am just too good for you.’.”

My eyes drop and I grimace.

“I really wish you’d put on pants. I’m not entirely keen on seeing your physical representation for just how much you enjoy this stuff.”

He doesn’t listen and takes 3 eggs from the carton. While looking away scowling, I slide three black opaque martini glasses between us to obscure my view.

“So I head toward the jukebox and hit a few songs I know is gonna set the tone and give me my in. I was a bit torn between either Gnarls Barkley or The Violent Femmes for ‘Gone Daddy Gone’. I went with Gnarls, doubting she’d know who the Violent Femmes were. Besides, you saw what she was wearing. That girl had style and I’ll bet you anything she throws out her entire closet every 6 months.”

A few years ago, Troy and I realized you can tell a lot about someone by the music they listen to. People’s taste often gives way to a lot of paths back to themselves. Since we consider ourselves music elitists it didn’t take long for us to develop stunningly accurate insights into guessing what people listen to. Actually, within 30 minutes of meeting someone I can guess what genre’s they consider to be their favorites, and with a few questions can garner just how long they’ve felt that way.


“I come up and offer her and her friends a round of drinks. I throw out the charm, the best jokes, but make it very clear I’m interested in her, paying nothing more than polite courtesy to thing friends she’s with. You know these type of girls. They have to feel like they’re the only ones in the world. And it has to be done almost indignantly. I’ll be honest, it took me awhile to get her away from her friends. She kept throwing me some cold shoulder, just obstacles for me to leap. It would’ve been easier had you been there. Unless you lost your instincts…”

“No, just my drive. I can’t help you get laid every night.”

“Anyway. I excuse myself to the bathroom, get my game face on and just before I come back, I make one last stop a the jukebox. Cake – I Will Survive.”


“…Seemed to be a night for covers, for you.” I add.

“Well, yeah. Like any good cover, using past work and making it your own is paramount. I dropped a few subtle conversation starters about ex’s. I can tell her break up wasn’t too long ago, cause her past a*****e just falls out of her mouth. I won’t get into him, but wow, I kind of want to meet him. I learned a few things.”

“Now that’s a scary thought.”

“Oh but the set up was beautiful. I went right into the number 4. I’m finishing her sentences, I’m calling things before she says them… almost like its providence. I start dropping some of the s**t I pulled over the years, the ones that were similar to what she had. I leave out the really bad ones, so it seems just a little better than her last guy. BUT I hint at a deep remorse, and tell her that I feel like I missed out getting to know these girls, because of my inability to allow myself to be vulnerable.”

Troy’s now so into himself and the story his voice is sounding as if he’s talking to her.

“…Which she’s just eating up.”

“Well yes, that is the benefit of being a romantic sociopath, you can fake guilt when it suits you.”

He lets out another Troy-signatured laugh.

“So we get back to my place…”

If this were a movie, somewhere in the back Weezer’s song ‘Tired of Sex’ would just start playing. I don’t know if its me starting to become like my own father or maybe just the monotony of these stories, but I completely tune out the carnal portions and let my thoughts drift elsewhere.

Troy’s not a shrink. Troy’s an a*****e. Having been raised by 2 sets of shrink parents armed him with the kind of insights that would frighten any girl who could read his thoughts, and the fact that his childhood took a back seat to a bitter divorce and careers, gave him little to no moral compass or sense of personal responsibility.

Looking back on these times, it’s painfully obvious why Troy ultimately killed himself. It was only a matter of time before he aimed that high-powered perception back at himself and blew the sum total of his own findings out the back of his head. A person can only spend so much time focusing on the faults and habits of another without one day questioning what they themselves amount to.  

[[[[ bunny ]]]]

awesome.. now... FINISH! xd  

[Ybrik]

Pretty cool. I'm waiting to see where it goes.