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// Filed under: Verbiage on Monday October 31st 2005, 8:10 pm Gary’s Grill looms out of the smog of Backdrop City and, following the smell of refried grease, my nose leads me in. The smog was thick today, but that’s not unusual in this town and besides, there’s nothing I haven’t seen in a million detective novels. I push the door open and, rubbing my freshly-shaved chin, slide inside. The diner is just as I remember it. The wallpaper is yellow with years of nicotine-stains, and peeling from the moisture that permeates everything in this goddamn town. Lit by dim, dusty bulbs, the place is mostly empty, except for a few sketchy characters, whose details don’t seem to have been filled out properly. They’re probably not important to the story, so I ignore them and with a bit of effort, lift myself onto a stool at the counter. “Just the usual, this morning?” says Gary, nodding to me as one professional does to another. Gary is an interesting man. He’s interesting, you might say, because he’s so absolutely bland, which, in this city, makes him the perfect man for the job. He looks at me carefully, waiting for an answer. “Just the usual, thanks Gary.” “One burger with the lot, hold the salad, coming up,” he says, a faint smile dancing across his face for the briefest instant. “Wait a second,” I say suddenly. “Leave the salad in there. And, uh, throw some onion on the burger as well.” “Onion?” he says, confused. “Yes, please.” A quizzical eyebrow is arched. “I thought you hated onion,” he says. “Damn it, Gary! Just gimme some damn onion, alright?” The words burst from my lips before I can stop myself, and I regret it instantly. Gary looks up at me, his expression a mixture of concern and surprise. “…I’m sorry,” I say, after a brief pause. “I’m not having a good day.” “Don’t worry about it.” He puts a coffee cup down on the counter, brimming with thick, black coffee. “On the house.” I take a long, deep drink of the coffee. It’s steaming, oily and absolutely revolting. “Fantastic coffee, Gary,” I mutter as I reach into my coat, and place the manila folder onto the counter. “Take a look at those for me.” He picks one up, holds it carefully between thumb and greasy forefinger. His wife trundles out from the kitchen, a short, depressed woman moving with jiggling purpose, and takes my order from his other hand. “Onion?” she says, confused. “…yes.” She shrugs, spreading ripples outwards across her body, and returns to the kitchen. Gary takes out a dirty but serviceable rag, and starts to polish an old coffee mug absentmindedly, eyes still on the photographs which he has spread out across the counter. “His name is—“ “Tim. I know.” “You know him?” “Yeah. He used to come in here and eat a few times. He was in here just yesterday, in fact. Quiet fellow, kept to himself a bit. Told a great story, though. Used to sit over there, as I recall.” He gestures towards the far corner of the diner. “Go on,” I say, grimacing as I take another slug of Gary’s coffee. I can feel my stomach complaining, but it’s nothing that the heartburn can’t handle. “Well, that’s about it. He just showed up out of the blue one day, ordered a milkshake and sat in the corner, scribbling in a notebook he was carrying, and reading through the paper. I tried to talk to him a few times, but I could never manage to make any sense out of what he said. Always muttering about setting and exposition.” He is silent for a moment. “Why do you need to find this guy?” Gary says, his eyes suddenly very intense. I pull out the wad of cash from earlier. It makes a delicious thump as it hits the counter. “I gotta tell you, Gary, I don’t really know. But for that amount of… motivation, I guess I don’t really care.” He eyes the wad of cash warily, and then puts the mug he was polishing down on the counter. Leaning on his elbows, he looks at me carefully. “Who gave you this money?” “Some dame.” “Some dame?” “Yeah, she was, uh… she was about. Uh.” I trail off, trying to remember. Gary’s expression doesn’t change. “Shit. You know, I can’t remember what she looked like.” “Listen,” he says. “Just be careful, alright? I’ve been around a little while, you know. I may not have much depth of character, and I may not be much in the way of physical descriptions, but I know a cliche when I smell it.” Gary’s wife returns with my burger on a plate, and sets it down on the counter, interrupting the conversation. “I remember this one time he came in. He had this woman with him,” she says, “I’ve never seen anyone like her.” “A woman?” I say, instantly intrigued. “What did she look like?” “…I can’t remember,” she says after a while, slightly sheepishly. “Sorry. She was very plain. Could have been anyone, really.” She smiles again, sheepishly, and walks back into the kitchen. “Thanks, Gary.” I say, more than a little unnerved. I pick up my plate and move over to the far corner of the diner, where he had pointed. A rumpled copy of the newspaper lies on the table, open at the comics section. I push it to one side and sit down in the seat, placing my burger down in front of me. I thumb idly through the newspaper, thinking, as I eat my burger. The onion is piquant and delicious, and I wonder why I’ve never had it before. As I turn the pages, a scrap of paper flies out, skimming across the table and floating down to the floor. I bend down to pick it up. It looks like it’s been torn from a notebook, and in a patently neat hand that I just know is Tim’s, I read:
Good God. I haven’t got much time. (…to be continued…) // 3 Comments 
// Filed under: Verbiage on Friday October 28th 2005, 9:23 am I remember her like she was yesterday. Oh, I’m telling you, that dame had moxie. Moxie tough as nails. More moxie than you can throw a brick at, even. And I’ve thrown more than a few bricks in my time. She had the cutest little blue eyes, and these legs that must have gone straight up to heaven. I know they took me there on more than one occasion. I take a long, cool drag on my cigarette and swirl the smoke around in my mouth, tasting the aroma as I lean back in my rickety wooden chair, and hike my feet up onto my desk. Yeah, she was the best. Pity about this dame in front of me, though. “Hello? Are you even listening?” The morning haze fills my office, mingling with the cigarette smoke, pierced in alternating shades of light and dark by the vain attempts of the sun to make it through my curtains. “Yeah, doll. I hear ya.” “Doll? What do you think this is, 1930’s Chicago?” I don’t say anything as I reach into the bottom drawer of my desk and grab the neck of a cool glass bottle I’ve called friend for the last twenty years. The soft clink against the stained wooden desk, and the play of light off the amber liquid as it fills the dusty shot glass is music to my ears. I grab the glass, and gesture what I guess is her general direction with it. “Want a belt?” “It’s nine am,” she says. I shrug and drain the glass. “The original liquid breakfast”, I mutter as amber fire cascades down my throat. I look at her – or at least, I assume I do. It’s still far too early for me to stop squinting, even in this musty cocoon of an office. “Remind me again what you want?” She strides up to the desk, tosses a plain manilla folder at me. The contents spill out across the beer-stained surface and I see it was filled with black and white photographs. I pick one up after several uncertain attempts and examine it through bleary eyes. A vaguely familiar face peers out at me, a broad, plain face of a young man. He has a ponytail, and is wearing a slightly quizzical expression. “This young man goes by the name of Tim. I need you to find him,” she says. “He’s about to do something very stupid.” “Eh?” She moves closer, takes a reluctant seat on the chair in front of my desk and fiddles nervously with her handbag. “He’s just about to start writing his final piece for his creative writing class, and he’s having trouble coming up with something clever to write about.” I take my feet off my desk, and lean forwards on my chair. “Sorry lady. I think you’re wasting your time. I don’t do nutcases.” She leans forwards to match me, unfazed, and pins me with her eyes. “You don’t understand. If he can’t think of something clever to write about, he’s considering writing something… something meaningful.” She spits the last word out as though it is purest venom, and a chill passes through me. For a moment I think it’s the onset of another cardiac, but it feels different somehow. “Okay, alright. Let’s say I find him. Then what?” “Stop him.” “Stop him?” “If he writes something meaningful – some tripe about the triviality of human existence, or the darkness within the soul, or heaven forfend – something with symbolism in it… he’ll never forgive himself.” The intensity in her voice is mesmerising. “If that happens, he’ll be a broken man. And I can’t let that happen.” “Why? Why are you asking me to do this? Who are you?” She smiles ruefully. “I can’t tell you, I’m afraid. But you can call me… a plot device.” Reaching into her handbag, she pulls out a wad of notes so thick that you could beat a whale to death with it, and places it down on the desk. I look at them for a second, then at her. Then, helplessly, back at the money. “That amounts to about triple your usual fee, I believe. Upfront, in unmarked bills, as requested.” “What makes you so sure I’ll say yes?” I manage to say, still staring at the money. She laughs as she stands up, a lilting, musical sound. “What else could you possibly say?”, she says. “If you don’t say yes now, the story will end, way short of the required word limit. It’ll be as if you destroyed him yourself.” I look up at her, helpless, eyes narrowed. She had me by the narrative drive, and she knew it. Without looking, I pour myself another glass and slug it down. Her eyes tighten, for a brief second, but she knows what my answer will be. “Alright,” I hear myself say. “Alright, I’ll do it.” “Excellent,” she says. “We’ll be in touch.” The door slams and she is gone, replaced by the quiet hustle of traffic that filters through from outside. For a few minutes I sit, motionless, before remembering that I had a cigarette. It’s still lit and I pick it up, preparing to take a long and much-needed puff, but I stop halfway to my mouth. Suddenly I don’t feel like it any more. The cigarette ash hisses as I crush it out, disgusted with myself. I rub my chin with my hands, feeling three week’s worth of stubble, and decide I need to shave. Then I remember the photographs, and the money. Particularly the money. One thing at a time, I think to myself. (…to be continued…) // 10 Comments
// Filed under: Theories on Monday October 24th 2005, 3:38 pm Little Red Riding Hood. Now there’s a creepy fairytale for you. A wolf kills an old lady and then dresses up in her clothes. Look me in the eye and tell me that wolf doesn’t have some serious personal issues. And as for our protaganist herself, named only after her item of clothing - she’s got some serious eyesight problems if she’s having the trouble distinguishing her dear old grandmother from a slavering wolf. And look, far be it for me to condone violence being shown to children, but is it really appropriate for a children’s tale to end with the villain of the piece being hacked to death by an axe-wielding hunter? (Is nothing safe from political correctness any more?) Personally though, I don’t think there’s enough senseless violence in fairy tales. Hansel And Gretel for example. Instead of dropping pebbles or breadcrumbs, why didn’t he mark his path with carefully laid land mines. I know if I was being taken to a house made of gingerbread and various confectionary delights, I’d want to keep the only safe path to it heavily fortified against any potential candy-stealing invaders. And Cinderella! I mean, wow. Glass slippers? Talk about your injury hazards around the home! One wrong step and smash! Shards of razor-sharp glass embedded in your feet. There’d be enough tendon and nerve damage there to ensure she’d never have full movement or feeling in those feet again, assuming of course the clumsy bimbo didn’t sever them altogether. Sheesh. // 1 Comment
// Filed under: Life on Monday October 17th 2005, 9:04 pm The girl at Subway gave me three reward-stamps today, instead of two. She put a dressing on my sub, and that dressing was love. // 3 Comments
// Filed under: Life on Monday October 10th 2005, 7:50 pm So last week, I told myself, once I get this library assignment out of the way, I’ll devote my week break to finishing my Creative Writing work. Then, after the library assignment ran two days over, I told myself, I’ll spend these last three days working on my Creative Writing. And of course now, on Sunday night, I’m sitting here, my Creative Writing untouched. And you know what? I just can’t bring myself to care. Hooray for apathy! I’m sure, someday, I’ll be all “You know, I just can’t be arsed getting up to get that drink.” and then, ten years later, it will be discovered that that drink caused cervical cancer in men, and only my apathy will have saved my life. You know what drink that drink will be? Banana Supashakes. I’ll bet you anything. In fact, I’ll bet you a Banana Supashake, just so that if the cervical cancer doesn’t kill you, the irony will. Now some may say that this theory is just borne out of an intense spiritual anger at Brownes for pulling the Spearmint Supashake (Tim’s personal favourite) out of production (again, after canning it three years ago, then bringing it back, then canning it again) and replacing it with Banana, but those people are stinking pinko communist bastards, and probably on crack. Well, I hope they enjoy their cervical cancer, that’s all I have to say. And while we’re on that note, I have yet to eat/drink/snort a product flavoured after a fruit that actually tastes anything whatsoever like a fruit. Especially banana. It’s really this simple; If it doesn’t have real banana in it, there’s absolutely no way in the five fruity hells that it can possibly taste like banana. The point of this story is, the price of flavoured milk at my workplace has skyrocketed overnight. Well, not overnight, but since I only come in during the week, it may as well have been. I remember back when I was in high school, a choc milk was $1.60. Then, later, $1.80. Then, $2.20. Then, $2.50. And now, $2.90. Absolutely fucking ludicrous. And it’s even worse if you want the delicious “Classic” Chocolate, which is my personal chocolate milk of choice. That is $3.05. $3.05! Sure, some people may say I have my priorities all wrong. And to them I say, moving on… There’s an old folks home across the road from where I work (hilariously named Arcadia Waters, in total ignorance of this, apparently), and the folks there stumble/roll/fall across early every morning (old people don’t sleep, don’tcha know) to get the paper and/or tell me their life story. I’m on a first name basis with some of them (although some of them are so mumbly that as far as I can tell, their first name is Mfgabhsshb), and it really is pretty awesome and endearing to have old people back and forth with their delightful turns of phrases and constant forgetting of the time. So anyway, they had their grand opening on Sunday (even though the place has been open for three years) and some of them actually invited me along for a drink. How awesome is that? I couldn’t go of course, my shift ended after it was all over, but really, I was so flattered. It’s not every day that you invite someone who you essentially only know on a two-minute-a-week basis to a function of yours. Man, I totally want to be an old person when I grow up. // 3 Comments
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