Phoenix
“So, how are you feeling?”
It was Adrian, his ubiquitous waistcoat seemed even more pretentious as the mercury neared in on 35 degrees Celsius – drops of salty perspiration hesitated on his temple before the merest of twitches sent them toppling down his reddened cheeks. Bubbles of water pooled on his dome, the occasional swipe of the napkin only succeeded in clearing a path for new beads to form.
My impotent iced tea warmed in the tempered sun, thick shade-cloth provided respite for the direct rays that seared from the heavens. The bottom of the tall glass sat in an expanding pond of dripping condensation, ice melted and refilled the glass as I drained it to quench my parched throat. The sweetness of the ice tea reminded me of taste sensations I’d forgotten to miss.
Adrian sipped his Macchiato, or Latte, or whatever the hell it was he was drinking. My new birth may have delivered me a new life, but Adrian was still living the same one.
“I’m good mate,” I replied. “Much better now.”
For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to say thanks.
“You look like you’ve put on some weight,” he said as he opened another packet of sugar and poured it into the cup.
I thought: ‘pot and kettle’.
I thought: ‘people in glass houses’.
“Thanks for that – you’re not exactly the epitome of fitness yourself there Adrian. That’s the third sugar in that cup.”
“I meant it as a compliment.”
“I know.” And I did. My weight loss had been eon-like in it’s progression, slowly eroding away my physique. I had been too oblivious to notice it but, once I stopped indulging, the wastage was apparent even to me.
“So, how are you feeling?” He asked again, he ruddy face bulging in the heat as he slurped at the roasting hot beverage now amped with sugar AND caffeine. He was a heart attack waiting for a host.
“You just asked me that,” I replied.
“Yes, but this time I really mean it.”
I’d forgotten his honesty. Some people took it as a brusqueness that bordered on smug rudeness, but he was simply blunt. His appearance made him look soft, bloated and pudgy – but I knew he was made of harder stuff than that. He’d stuck by me when others wouldn’t have and that was something I’d always remember too.
“Oh, okay. Look I’m fine okay. It’s still a daily struggle to keep focused but I am dealing with it and I know what I need to do.”
“Have you finally cleaned out Tina’s stuff?”
I took a deep breath as I recalled her knick-knacks, small keepsakes from her mother and her travels. They dotted the house, made it look messy and cluttered, yet the sum of this eclectic collection equaled a character that I had taken for granted. But, now that she was never coming back, I knew that I had to part with it all. They were like ghosts of her, haunting every square centimetre of the house.
For me to move on, I had to move them out.
“Not all of it – I can’t bring myself to touch her clothes. I might have to get someone in to do that for me.” Tina’s clothes still filled the walked in robe – my rags were strewn across the room. I hadn’t been in that robe since I identified her body at the hospital.
“Well, if you need me to do it, I’ll be happy to help. Just call when you’re ready.”
“I will.”
Adrian paused and I could see him wrestling with something in his mind. There was something he wanted to ask me but even his blunt confrontational manner was questioning whether or not to ask. My turn to force him now.
“Just ask mate, whatever it is.”
“OK - how’s the writing going?”
The writing…it should have been the last thing on my mind and Adrian knew it. I knew he didn’t want to appear to be pushy, but he was a business man and he knew I had to produce something soon. The publisher wouldn’t wait forever. I felt for him at that moment because he knew what I had been though (and, indeed, was still going through), but he also knew that if I didn’t sort it out quickly, then the deal would be off.
The reality was that the book was a mess. I say “book” but that’s really an insult to books. I had read and re-read it – I felt like I was reading some of it for the first time. Some pieces were Gonzo-esque in their absurdity. The language was flowery and hypnotic, the imagery was horrific in my newly found clarity.
Where I thought I had formed a story line, I found a cesspool of vitriol and pain. I tried to clean some of it up, maybe use some into another story. But I felt I was simply polishing a turd.
“It’s a piece of shit mate. Disjointed ramblings and some form of psychotic therapy. It’s like a psychedelic trip into my addled mind over the last year and a half. The characters are just crippled versions of me, each one of them the personification of my own frailty.”
I confronted my own banality in those few sentences, by describing to Adrian just how excremental the story without a name had become. The storyline, or what I had tried to pass off as one, had been done before. And done better.
“So nothing worth salvaging? Nothing to at least offer the company to show them?”
“Not really. Some of the chapters would, by themselves, make okay short stories though.”
I was clutching at straws but I saw a flicker of hope in him. “Short stories?”
“Maybe an anthology would be a good idea?” I asked.
I could almost see the gears of his mind turning as he weighed this up. An author with two successful books, suffers great personal tragedy and then hides in a bottle for a couple of years, only to rise like the Phoenix with a killer anthology of short stories. In these days of byte-sized chunks short stories, flash fiction and novellas have become the Zeitgeist.
“Anthology? Hmmm…not a bad idea that.”
“I have quite a few short stories in the back catalogue – some of which won a couple of competitions a few years back. I’m sure we could use them and some new stuff and put together enough quality to submit.”
Adrian leaned back revealing the spreading darkened pools of moisture under his armpits. The metal chair creaked and squeaked as he shifted his weight and he took in a huge lungful of air. He wiped his face with the paper napkin again, small white tufts of fibrous tissue clung on valiantly to three day old stubble, the scraping sand-paper like noise lost in his loud exhalation. That was his thought process.
“Yes, I like it…I like it a lot. That just might work. I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow.”
He waved to the waiter and ordered another unnecessary coffee, effectively adding another nail to his approaching coffin.
“Do you really need that?” I asked, knowing that I could be shot down for asking but, after the help Adrian gave me, I had to try.
“Oh don’t start sweetie,” he teased, “caring’s my job not yours. You leave that up to me.”
“Well, I was just trying to help.”
Adrian reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper – I thought it was a cheque. I wondered what he was giving me money for. But it wasn’t a cheque at all.
He explained what it was and I was confronted with the hardest decision of my life.
Writing Crash Page 19