imanant :: look at me go.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005
I'm writing a story.

Here is a draft version of the first couple of "chapters".

Here’s To Successful Escape Plans.
by Ezra

“Chapter” One:

All I had to do was stand up and walk away. Choose a direction, any bearing. One foot in front of the other and then all you have to do is not fall down. There’s never mystery in staying. We’ve seen the same movies.

Get up. Walk. Move.
Don’t just sit there.

The endless possibilities. The most enticing left me prone, like a lab monkey sacrificing its life to find a cure for dry skin. Somewhere, my face is a on a PETA pamphlet.

Stand up. Andelay!
She’ll be back any second.

Staying means sex. Sex mean getting back together. No mystery there.

Get the fuck up, you idiot. Don’t do this to yourself.
Get up!

The change in the fountain reminded me of those colored shapes you see when you shut your eyes really tight in protest of eating your artichokes. Or my eyes were closed. Either/or. I can convince myself of anything.

Don’t do this to her.

“Patrick?”

“Chapter” Two:

Sleep less than your body deems necessary and you’ll see things. I call them specters, day dreams without even having to close your eyes. The mind wanders and you have a front row seat. Do a double take and the yellow brick road evaporates. Relax your eyes and the channel changes. There’s no nodding off, you’re much too wired for that. A marionette strung up by I.V’s of adrenaline. Sometimes you’ll just see a quick flash, an icouldaswronisawherfaceanambulanceorohmygodnonotagain.

Sometimes, at its worst, you can’t change the station. Imagine getting lost in a mall playing the same muzak version of Smells Like Teen Spirit in every store. Or your brain on basic cable at four A.M and real life becomes the commercials. Eventually, something jumps out at the you from the white noise Rorschach test of American advertisements. A billboard or a store fronts will be vulgar enough to momentarily snap you from your daze. Or maybe it’ll be the new Usher single from a passing car that jolts your eyes to attention right before you walk into the brunette in the mauve power suit who thinks you’ve been staring at her for the prior 50 feet. I’ve heard advertisers turn the volume up on commercials. I guess the theory is whatever is the loudest will echo the longest. Or they’re just trying to get your attention in the kitchen or bathroom. Eventually, you return to your regularly scheduled programming. The bell tolls and the specter lurches away.

Right then, and that whole day, my mind was hosting a talk show to discuss the previous night’s inaction. From the moment I woke up in Angie's bed till 14 hours later when I passed out on Nikki’s couch, I watched myself walk off in every direction away from that fountain before she came back. Intermittently, I’d see the accident.

Sometimes I’d talk to myself. Sometimes out loud.

“See Patrick? If you’d gone this way, you could have gotten pizza on your way home.”
“Lena’s was just northwest of you. You could have seen a show.”
“The Hudson was only a few hundred yards away. You could have jumped, you sucker for a self-fulfilling prophecy, wannabe Hamlet.”

As the undergrad with the Uggs boots behind the counter at Dante’s Italian Take-Out counted my change out loud I switched gears and started conjuring scenarios which would have allowed me leave even after she returned to the fountain and sat down again.

“That’s one…”, I could have told her the truth.
“Two…”. I could have lied and told her it was the truth.
“Three…” Faked tears and ran away.
“Four…” Told her I was gay.
“And five…” Pretended I was someone else.
“Have a good day!” Pretend she was someone else.

Before she’d left me sitting alone at the fountain, we’d gone through the motions of the talk. That’s not what we were there for, but we had it anyway. It’s all we know how to have. The trite, bitter at a simmer, how-could-you-do-this-that-and-the-other-thing talk that every relationship will have when it begins to be crushed by its own weight. This most involved, yet utterly superficial conversation, has two outcomes.

One, you relieve some pressure. Chop off some dead weight and find yourselves sweaty and better than ever after having the best make-up sex of your lives. If you’re in a relationship and your hay rolls have been lacking, but you’re on strong ground otherwise, go ahead, exploit a weakness and have a talk. With no actually predicament, it’ll be over relatively quickly and you’ll end up coiled together in a slip knot.

The climax of the second outcome is not as pleasurable. After you take turns poking holes in the others defenses, the skin of the relationship begins to decay until the body hemorrhages like a gunshot victim and all that’s left is a dried up carrion and you’ve both become vultures, but you're afraid to take more than a nibble because it’s your last meal.

As I left Dante’s, I watched Angie walking back to the fountain. Ah, the All My Failures channel.

I’m sitting head to knees on the lip of the fountain. She sits down next to me and I look up. She mumbles something about how she’s regrets the melodramatic entrance, I deserve more. My inner monologue is having a fit.

“NONONO! I DON’T! LEAVE! NOW! I’M A SON OF A BITCH LOOKING FOR A WARM BED!” My outward response is an overly passionate kiss. I don’t know why. Habit? Fear of being alone? Maybe I’m in love with her for real this time? A mishmash, an amalgam, a psychological potluck. Jamie’s dead two months and I’m about to relight an old flame, like those fuses you see in the Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

Then we’re in her bed.
Then I’m on Nikki’s couch.
Then I’m seeing things.
Then the girl with the Uggs…one…two…three…
Then there I am, holding my lunch outside Dante’s. The cinematography is fantastic. I should remember this for that movie I am going to make one day. I’m watching myself remember. A surrealist instant replay.

A girl yelping something about “Oh no he didn’t!” brings me back to the land of the aware. I pause. “This is getting serious.”

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