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Rubbish story 5: William

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An avocado bounces past at speed. I shrug and stop. 

I close my eyes, slip the fresh pack from my pocket. The cellophane resists my picking, fingers which used to be so artful are now cumbersome. 

I never smoked as a kid. “Never” was my byword though. Never gonna have a Jap car. Never gonna let no cunt call me William. Never gonna sit next to a stranger in the cinema after buying a ticket last minute so no cunt would see me going to see a film about gays in a laundry. 

Then that mad, bent Beijing beanstalk detonated it all. Caught me at a vulnerable moment: my teenage years. I’m down the pines, alone. Fade to Black on my ghetto blaster, bevvies in my school bag. Suddenly he’s there, all fucking grins and air guitar. Bewilderment can be a useful state of mind, like mental white noise.Temporarily cancelling out logic and preconceptions. I offered him a beer.

I open my eyes, hold the packet up, unintelligible gold characters over oxblood. Fingers rediscover their old rhythm, I loosen the foil and slip loose a prisoner.

Turned out Lei was more bogan than me, in a weird, canted way. Modding mopeds, throat singing, bombing bus shelters in artful script with his Dad’s paint brushes. I spent so much time with him that Summer I ended up standing up to Dad over Tiananmen Square. That reckoning that had been brewing a long while. 

He gave me a key to his parents' shop so I could kip out the back when Dad blew a gasket.

He taught me just enough Mandarin to impress his Mum, not nearly enough to impress his Dad. He taught me to make peace with who I was. I taught him how to shotgun beers and make a pie sandwich. On reflection I guess I got the better deal out of the skills and talents exchange.

Lei left five years ago, off to live with his Grandma. Old bird was being pushed about by the government. Now he sends me these dodgy Chinese cigarettes every August. I have one each time, then dump the rest with the nearest hard-up street sleeper.

He’s still with me though, in the most important ways. I breathe him in on the days I’m courageous. Out on the days I’m not.

I strike a match, inhale briefly to ignite, then once again to ingest. Then set off after that avocado.
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Rubbish story 4: Dan & Noah

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Dan boosts Noah onto his shoulders as they cross the empty highway.

“Daaad...”

“Yeah mate.”

“Do you think Uncle Kurt might know Darryl Dixon?”

“Who bud?”

“You know, off the Walking Dead.”

“Mmmm...Why do you think they’d know each other?” Dan says.

“Well Uncle Kurt had a Harley and Darryl does. And Darryl has angel wings, and Mum says Uncle Kurt has them too.”

Dan sees the white cross up ahead and lowers Noah to the ground. 

“I reckon Kurt’d be keen on that Noah, Darryl maybe less so.”

Dan kicks a beer can to the edge of the footpath. 

“Ok Noah, have you got your card?”

Noah draws out and unfolds his hand crafted tribute, nodding.

They approach the crude memorial, and Dan frowns at the mess of bottles ringing it, like a white trash stonehenge. Noah’s quiet, folding and unfolding the crayon decorated cardboard. Dan takes his hand.

“Daaaaad…”

“Yeah Noah?”

“Mum says uncle died because he made a bad decision. And he did that because he was young.”

Dan draws a deep breath in and releases it slowly, feeling his eyes start to tingle.

“Yip, aah, yeah. Yeah mate, I guess that’s true”

Noah gives his own tiny sigh and looks up to Dan with an intense wee frown. Which just as quickly melts into a cheeky grin.

“He did do the best mouth farts though!“

Dan help giggling. 

“Ohhhh ho yip, he was the face fart champ alright.”

He lets go of Noah’s hand and begins clearing the bottles and cans from the base of the home made shrine.

He draws a carry bag from his pocket and starts picking up the cans and bottles, muttering to himself. 

“Double Brown. Corona. Wow, Flame...”’

Noah turns and looks up to him. 

“That’s what Uncle Kurt called you. Flame.”

“What do you mean? When was that?”

“On your birthday party. I made stinky stuffed eggs with him.”

“So wait...what...what did he say?”

“Yeah. Like, when it’s dark, and he can’t see anymore, and he gets lost. Then you’re a flame and he isn’t so lost. He said when the baby sister is made, I can be a flame.”

Dan nods and turns away, the chill of tears on his cheeks.

“Yeah wee mate. Yeah. I think you’ll be a really...a really bright flame. “

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Rubbish stories 3: Willow & Harper

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“Fucksnatch” Harper blurts as the bag splits.

“Harp! Oh Harrrrpeeeeeer, chase it!” yells Willow, giggling.

The avocado tumbles down the gutter faster than Harper’s motivation to chase it.

“Fuck it,” Harper says, kneeling to repack the one intact bag-for-life.

“Come on, you’re not going after it?”

“It’s one avocado Willow, I ain’t climbing this hill again for one unripened vegetable.”

“Maybe that’s why we’re being told we’re wasting all our money on smashed avocado.”

“Ha fucking ha, cram some of this in your backpack will you?"

Willow grins and squeezes the tub of salted cashew ice cream into her pack. 

“Seriously though, four weeks into lockdown I’m going stir crazy. Then I read that the government is supporting training, and I’m like, why the fuck can’t I design electric Harleys?“

Harper gives a shrug and pulls her vape out, inhales, puffs out a thick scented cloud of vanilla custard.

“What you need is one of them tech guys, all money, no self confidence. Build em up, bleed em dry, boot em out”

“Mmmm, and how did that work out with Caleb?”

Harper shrugs again.

“‘Apparently there’s more to making a billion in crypto than that boy’s prepared to learn.”
Willow takes a long breath and lets it out slowly, shaking her head. Harper carries on.

“We have to face it girl, we’ll never own houses. We won’t have friends named Tarquin or Genevieve or fucking Riccardo. I got a reading from that Ruth woman, you know, Delilah’s Mum. She says we’re a product of destiny. Fighting it’s a waste of spiritual currency.”

Willow looks over her nails, the worn blue paint, and lifts a lazy yet highly defined eyebrow.

“Do you think maybe it’s the people we surround ourselves with, which maybe hold us back, Harp?”

“Na, you’re trippin’, we’re surrounded by the same damn people. Next thing you’ll be choosing fucking Mima’s fucking yoga retreat over my 50th”

Willow turns back to face Harper’s incredulous expression.

“I just need to...evolve Harp.”

Harper lifts her brows in contemplation.

“I mean sure, I’m all-the-fuck about evolution, just so long as I don’t gotta change.”
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Rubbish story 2: Delilah’s Mum

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I poke the remote at the telly, hitting the power button forcefully ‘til that thick Trumpette Judith Collins disappears. Used to be that politics required a degree of cunning, ‘til the Russians figured out they could pay dissidents in Adidas sportswear to rewrite the results.

Matt used to call me that, before I helped him understand he was better off without me. Or the house. Cunning. The way I see it, there’s an elegant emotional mathematics to it, clever multiplied by duplicitous.

I always let my ego trip me up though. Too happy to crow about how I got one over someone, instead of keeping quiet enough to realise the benefits of my manipulations.

I wised up though, now I’m all about influence. That’s a cleaner kind of power. No forensics. No DNA. It started with the tarot readings. Fascinating how far some fools will go to have you tell them what to do. Then pay you for the privilege. All they need is a little push, and pretty soon I’m choreographing the whole damn neighbourhood.

Whoops, there’s the front gate. Delilah’s home. She’s a good girl, if easily manipulated. Of course I’m pushing her in good ways. Taught her to draw in colours. Blue for those you love the best, red for those you want to be your friend. Green for those you can’t trust. The bad-feeling ones. Each fridge picture is now a coded journal. 

“Draw Mum a picture of school pickups love, all those other Mums. What colour is Mrs Petrie?” 
Mrs Petrie forest green, filthy forest green.

Uh oh. Young Miss is wearing a frown. Dumping her bag to the ground. 

“No picture today angel?”

“I showed Mrs Clugh my homework. She laughed at it, said she didn’t know why I used all my colours. I chucked it out. I don’t want to draw all the thoughts, it’s dumb.“

“Oh love, I’ve told you, Mrs Clugh is sad because her husband is on the verge of leaving her. Don’t you pay her no mind.“

“Are you mad at her Mama?”

“Not mad baby, I just feel sorry for her. You go put your bag in your room. I’m going to have a wee chat to Peggy Clugh, maybe I’ll give her a free reading. Help a sister out, right De-de?”

“Sure Mama.”
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Rubbish story 1: Darryl

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Darryl peers at his murky reflection in the aluminium rim of can number two.
 
“One beer, per idea.” 

This’d always been their thing, him and Kurt. A six pack each, no one gets to start the next beer ‘til he thinks up a new idea.

The third beer, that’s where they usually struck gold. That’s where the giddiness took hold, where their imaginations crept out from under inhibition. 

That’s where Kurt had found their best (and only) pub con, AKA “bent elbow telepathy”. It was the birthplace of meat flavoured ice cream. 

It was at the tail end that things tended to fall apart. The recent Cling Film COVID Mask test had turned frightening as a panicky Kurt had bent double and coloured up, unable to make noise enough to distract Darryl from a five-can piss.

Darryl thinks of Kurt’s very last last ever idea. Popular opinion (popular between Kurt & Darryl at least) was that a duck’s quack was the only noise that didn’t echo. So Kurt came up with the idea of a secret code built entirely of duck quacks, something an invading army could use for covert communications. 

Darryl might have pointed out that he couldn’t think of a single canyon-based Special Forces operation which might benefit from this dark art, but the name of the game wasn’t nit-picking, No, the name of the game was sinking piss. And so instead Darryl made mad-sounding duck quacks as Kurt had cracked the last can of beer he’d ever taste. 

Darryl’s last, high-impact idea was to play rock-paper-scissors to see which of them drove home. Darryl had won.

He remembers Kurt standing on a dirt bank swaying gently in the moonlight, keys dangling from his fingertips. He remembers Kurt steering with one hand, pointing with the other, and the rumbling as the car crossed the median strip. Then he remembers nothing.

Darryl stands alone, next to the old state highway. He peels the lid from the can of Flame, and closing his eyes against the sun pours the contents to the asphalt.

One last idea for Kurt. He drops the Flame can to the ground, stomps it flat. He limps toward home, knowing this last idea might just be their best ever.
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Rubbish stories: an introduction

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In Wellington we moved to a COVID lockdown recently.

I began my daily lockdown walks, the same neighbourhoods I’d explored the first time we stepped into the Apocalypse. My girlfriend did the same but with a rubbish bag, so she could clean the streets as well as stretch her legs. Once again I level up thanks to her. And it’s great, virtue’s a useful feature of days well lived.

Then I discovered a fringe benefit.

On my first roadside rubbish walk I found a tiny mobile phone inside a condom. I know, was the benefit the free burner phone, or the joy of tracing the owner through trace DNA found in the tuck and folds of the sheath? Fortunately neither.

So many things I gathered set my imagination off. Was it human or dog who a tennis ball half buried? Who’s still drinking Double Brown? And sure, why was a phone stuck inside a condom, and left in the grass in front of the bowling alley?

Hence this Lockdown Mini-Series.

It started as postings on Instagram/Facebook, which limited things to 1200 characters, about 400 words. Then Facebook blocked Story Five, a tale which was trying to break down racism and homophobia. Presumably because the review-bot thought that my intent had been the opposite.

So now, it’s tiny stories on my old blog site, and links back from Facebook’s monopoly.

I hope that these stories provide simple, thought-provoking entertainment, in a time when we’re often looking for distraction.

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Spring (AKA the day the sun came back)

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Sun

Today was shaping up to be a dozen things. It began with a long walk in the morning frost, steps towards removing the hibernation band that’s appeared around my waist over winter. Then it was time spent on another short story. This one’s about the descent of a man, about the stretching of time and the perspective that offers as he falls twenty-four storeys to the earth. And after crafting a fiction about the plummeting of a fragile soul, I had to shift head-space and finish writing an application for a grown-up job in the big city.

All the while the sun beckoned. It stroked my cheek as I hung washing on the clothes line. It slipped between the tilted blinds behind the computer, casting venetian shadows on the teal wall behind me. And it played along the drift of incense smoke that drifted from the mantlepiece, charming the strands of burnt sandalwood, teasing the wisps of charred Dragon’s Blood.

The call of outside was too loud. I clicked a “Send” button, then lifted my speakers on my way out to the car. I lowered all the windows, tapped a playlist, and drove towards the steeply stacked shoreline and wooden boneyards that define Turakina Beach. As Katchafire replaced Coldplay (don’t dare judge me…) I grinned out the window to the blue skies and suckling lambs of almost-spring.

The neighbouring west coast beaches tend towards dark sands and isolation. As I wound between low sand dunes I slipped my shoes from my feet and slowed, letting the earth’s warmth ease my long-stowed toes. There was a single vehicle parked high on the sand, abandoned and empty. The low tide exposed long walking options north and south. I chose to head northward, clambering over bridges built of china-white logs and mammoth’s tusks, to where the green paddocks of ocean-side farmlets crumble like shortcake, into the blue-green sea.

I slipped headphones over ears and set a soundtrack to my meander. I let the beat run through me, I dropped my jersey and hat in a dry-beach stack. I danced in the shifting line between states of liquid and solid. I leapt from logs, pirouetted with my shadow, and let the narratives of past and future slip away. And as I span in gentle circles, there was no one to judge, no whispers, no giggles that weren’t my own.

At the moment I spend the majority of my week alone, installed in my 88 days of thoughts and words. But within this oasis my head is rarely resting within a moment. Rather it’s shuttling back and forth, between past and future. The one exception is when I’m inside the head of a character. A man bound to himself with cable-ties and determination, a girl trying to interpret dinosaur footprints, an oak tree trying to interpret a young boy’s pain. Then I’m inside their moment.

But I need to remember to make time to spend with myself. With a tune, in the sun, with my shade and my light. My heartbeat is a rhythm, and while it beats I have to remember to make time to dance.

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The pub quiz

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Image-1 (1)

Time for an excerpt from one of this week’s works. While Nick Cave’s been helping out with my ghost story, this other tale I’ve been writing might better be accompanied by Pulp.

I’ve got a love-hate relationship with quiz nights. I think there’s a certain irresponsibility in summoning armchair-experts into a nice warm boozer, and then plying them with alcohol. The atmosphere can border on grisly by the end of round seven, so what better place to set a simple story of inspiration and hope?

This is just the first few paragraphs from “The Pub Quiz”, a work in progress. It introduces our protagonist, Gavin, as he waits for his night to begin. It stops before we’re introduced to the woman who will force him to challenge his ideas of himself.

 

The Pub Quiz (extract from first draft)

The usual suspects mill the crowded floor-space between bar and tables, sending last minute texts. Celia and George Heffer, secondary school teachers, specialist subject: The price that terrible home at number 53 sold for. The noisy crew from the engineering firm down Crow’s End, specialist subject: Answers for laughs, not for points. Charles “Fisty” Cuffs, who works as a barrister in London, but unfathomably makes the journey back each Wednesday to take part in the Red Lion’s Quiz Night, specialist subjects (equally unfathomably): Daytime soaps and 80s hair metal.

Gavin shakes his head, sips ineffectually at his pint, and glances at his own phone. None of his team’s arrived yet. If he ducks out for a piss or pint now, it’s gone, draped jacket or no draped jacket. Besides, there’s a quantifiable time period for which one can hold an entire table when a pub’s this fucking busy. A time period which is very nearly up. He taps his mobile rhythmically against the table, avoiding looking any of the wandering pairs and threes in the eye.

Finally he spots a familiar couple up at the bar, craning their necks. The Moncrieffs. Mary the librarian, Mark the one-time BBC Sports Commentator. quiz team from heaven, marriage from hell. He waves them over, trying to engineer things so that Mary takes the seat nearest. But she’s passing the big man her glass, shuffling off in the direction of the toilets. Cunt-stubble. Mark takes the stool beside him, the scrape of wooden legs on slate tiles smothering Gavin’s poorly suppressed sigh.

“Alan texted, he’ll be late, something about the Ring Road” Mark announces, setting glasses to table with loud clunks. Gavin dips his head in greeting, which Mark appears to take as concurrence.

“Poor planning. No excuse for it” Mark continues. He raises his pint, gulps back a mouthful of bitter, eyebrows raised, waiting for a verbal response.

Gavin wants to shrug, but Mark doesn’t like fence-sitting, or neutrality. Or the Swiss. Or Pakistanis. Or pillow biters, The Irish, welterweight boxers. So Gavin grunts out something that might be agreeance, and then floats a diversionary tactic.

“New grandstand’s coming along” he says, tilting his head toward the South end of town. The terraced end. The money end.

Mark draws a low, slow breath, the sound of a lit fuse in a gassy shitter. Gavin cringes inwardly, remembering the construction has meant a single lane down the Moncrieff’s street for the past week. And dust. And unobjectionable loitering by shovel-wielding clusters of working class. Fuckfuckfuck…

There’s a loud, muffled tapping sound above the hum of the crowd, and Gavin hears Mark’s breath being released over the head of his pint. Saved by the quizmaster.

[To be continued]

_____________

What do you think? Any feedback gratefully received.

Later this week I’ll catch you up on how the first 14 days have gone.

 

x Regan

 

 

88 Days, Uncategorized

The Haunting

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Haunting

Week two is about atmosphere, about mood.

I want to complete first drafts of two short stories this week. The first is meant to be a dark, melancholy story, but it is set on a beautiful if remote New Zealand beach. The second is a buoyant stale of hope and charity, but it is set in a dark, dank English pub. So how do I haunt the golden, sandy seaside, and let the light shine amongst horse brasses and shuttered windows?

I woke early and went for a walk in the earth’s shadow yesterday. As I moved through desolate streets, between darkened homes, I let Nick Cave set the mood. He sang to me about summoning the unfortunates of the world, and I imagined spirits trailing me in the dark woods, old men of dark deed watching me from the low fields. My pace quickened.

Mr Cave’s a master of evocation, this week he’s going to be my muse. I’m going to start with his song lyrics, and see what they reveal. I think he’s also worked on screenplays, maybe written a book or two? I’m sure amongst all the slow piano and gravelly murder ballads I’ll find a few moments of levity…

So by the end of this week, I will have two roughly written tales, each around 2500-3000 words. I’ll also be looking for people to read some of these shorter pieces, and offer feedback, so message me if you’re interested.

Ok, time to research whaling stations, Nordic ghost stories and companies who create pub quizzes.

_____________________

Beneath the fold: What’s in a name?

One of the first issues I encountered while writing a first draft of my manuscript, was naming my characters. I searched baby name lists for hours, and I began to realise what a huge descriptor a name can be. Who’s more likely to cover up a murder, Tom or Ash? Is Celeste going to be the wicked step-mother, or Griselda?

By the end of last week, I had a list of 17 short story ideas. That’s a lot of names. So I went for a walk in the local cemetery for inspiration. I roved between stones seeking ideas, and trying to avoid an old woman adding new flowers to old memories.

Amongst the Corona and Jim Beam bottles filled with flower stems (hello small town New Zealand…) I found elaborate names, solid names, even vampire names. Lorna and Charles Pompey. Thomas Hossack. Victor Hamilton-Hyde. But in general I found that the fields of the dead in a very young country, are very, very localised. Fine if I want to set my story in rural New Zealand in the 1960s. Not so much for labelling Viking chieftains.

So the hunt continues. Someone on Reddit mentioned looking at the Immigration and Emigration lists from the countries you’re interested in. Another suggested war memorial sites, lists of the dead. Morbid, yet interesting…

 

 

88 Days, Uncategorized

Sounding the drums

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Colour writing

It was half day through day one that I felt a ripple of relaxation shift through me. When the same thing happened the next day, I understood its source. I had given myself permission to write.

This three months of creative productivity  wasn’t an easy thing to commit to. It has meant dropping out of full-time work, and a consequential drop in my income. I’m not money-focused, so the numbers aren’t important. But I place a huge value on harvesting experiences, some of which consume cash. Particularly the ones where I board a plane with a belly full of anticipation, and a thousand dollar ticket.

And of course I have bills to pay, a share in both a forest and a house truck to pay off. So I’m working in an office two days a week to cover all of this. And coffee. But parts of me have had to be put on hold.

I live in a country which is not given to celebrating the arts. Our statues are rarely of philosophers, or novelists, or painters. The result of this is that patrons are few, novelists are rare, and “suffering” for your desire to create isn’t generally understood. And so the decision to simply write takes a combination of self belief, considerate friends, and a supremely understanding partner.

So as much of a thrill it has been to let my imagination draw me forward, I have also had to plan to make my writing a business. It’s a confronting realisation. As much as this 88 days is going to be about generating stories, it is going to have to equally be about self-promotion. I don’t have an agent, nor a publisher. I don’t yet have a track record of works printed in The New Yorker, or Granta. I need to earn my own reputation.

Writing is a quiet pursuit. Me, a keyboard or notepad. Maybe birdsong, or Lorde’s new album on a lower volume than it deserves. The world has no audible or visual clue idea that I’m unfurling scenery, painting characters, summoning mythology. For all they can see, my brow might simply be furrowing in lieu of Tinder responses.

When you practice with your heavy-grunge band, the world is alerted. A couple of beers, a wall of amps, and the wail of feedback, there’s no denying your output. When I painted murals around walls, an audience was assured, commentary was inevitable. But my words threaten to lie cold within the cage of my laptop. Colourless without a mind to project them, silent without a consciousness to voice them.

I heard a wonderful quote this week, though I failed to make note of the origin. Or the exact words. But it was something like “what a joy it is to remain hidden from the world, but what a crime it is, never to be discovered”. For five years I’ve remained largely silent about my stories. It’s time to start beating a drum. And over the past seven days, I’ve started to understand that I shouldn’t be beating it just for myself.

One of my tasks in week one, was a hunt for community. And what I’m finding, is that I need to be that community, as much as to find it. Once I find inspiration in someone’s talent, or tenacity, or imagination, then I need to make some noise for them as well. I can’t write as part of a band or troupe, but I know I can be an enthusiastic member of other people’s audiences.

So I sit in the shade of the seventh morning, listening to the thudding of my heart. I’m preparing to work not just on the foundations for my own success, but also to begin  contributing to the elevation of others.