What I Did Yesterday (text only)

What you are about to read is a true story. Only the names have been changed. Only minor fabrications for dramatic purposes have been made.

I awoke at noon, got out of bed, turned on subwoofer, stereo, kettle for coffee. Made coffee, sipped it while eating a Clif bar, then took coffee to computer with a bowl of dry Cheerios. My computer had been on for ten minutes or so by this point, since that’s how long my Fort Knox of an antivirus takes to finish updating. Anyway, I did the usual crap with social networking sites (you know the ones), scanned the NY Times and Google News for the latest disasters.

Eventually I realized I’d have to drive down to the pool room to collect on a debt. So I showered, shaved, etc, dressed and went down there. They guy paid me, I stayed for a couple hours of pointless nine-ball practice, ate some peanuts, returned a book to a friend, promised the owner a copy of my own book, then went home and fixed a salmon sandwich (no, not fresh salmon, the kind from the envelope).

When I refer to “my own book” I mean THE LEGEND OF JIMMY GOLLIHUE, which will be an e-book ANY DAY NOW! You didn’t see that coming, did you? Do you feel spammed? Do you feel dirty and used?

Reading back over this post, I wonder what was so important about yesterday that it deserved to be written about. For clues, let’s look at what I decided to wear: loose jeans, newish cross trainers, belt, white undershirt, green short-sleeved shirt (open). In other words I looked like just your average goofball. So what? What’s the point? What’s the significance? And what was I doing in a pool hall anyway, other than collecting a debt? Had I been there before? Would I be going back?

I was in the pool hall to collect a debt, but I’d been there when I let the guy borrow the money because I love pool, am addicted to pool, can’t get enough pool. In fact, my novel is about pool. Have you heard about it? The people in the pool room have heard about it, and they’re starting to ask questions about when the e-book is coming out … which is ANY DAY NOW! I can’t wait! Can you wait?

So yes, I will be going back to the pool room, and others like it. And yes, I will be talking about my book, handing out my business cards, and generally being a shameless self-promoter. Money will change hands when I’m in there, too. Peanuts aren’t free, after all.

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“Have you Seen This Guy?”

That Godot Guy Again – A True-Life Story

This is what happened today.

I’m writing, right in the middle of a crucial scene. The phone rings. The scene is shot.

“They’ll be there between 2:30 and 3:30,” says the voice.

“That’s what time it is right now.”

“My fault.”

I run downstairs to unlock the storm door. I run to get the broom and dustpan. I straighten. I neaten. I sweep. I run back upstairs and disconnect the 150 ft USB cable, coil it up. I don’t want the visitors to trip over it. I run back downstairs.

I wait. And wait. And wait. And I’m thinking:

Will I be able to finish that scene? In the scene, a beautiful naked girl stands naked and unclothed, totally nude, in front of a classroom full of feminists and horny men. The girl has said only half of what she needs to say. Then the phone call.

I wait. I stretch against the doorway while looking out the window. I wait some more. Then I run back upstairs to get my cell phone. No messages. I run back downstairs to wait. And while I’m waiting I’m thinking:

Hmm … I wonder what I’m missing on Facebook right about now. I wonder which of my FB friends are giving good content–with links, videos and pictures–and which friends are just whining. In the left-hand column of my imagination, in pulsing yellow phosphor burns, are memories of my friends’ thumbnails.

I wait. I stretch my legs, for the hamstrings. I jump up and down in place, like I was jumping rope.

They are not coming. That much is clear. It’s way past time.

I lock up, put out the trash, and nuke some dinner. Fish, beans, and French bread. I eat, rinse the plates, go back upstairs and hook my cable back up. Online, once again.

I make calls. I send e-mails. No response.

All questions remain unanswered. Whoever was coming, did not come. Or they came early, before I knew the score.

Before I knew I had to begin waiting.

The naked girl waits in the classroom. Her classmates stare.

I’m waiting to get back to her.

GUEST REVIEWER: on “Protagonist Unbound” by George LaCas

Today’s guest reviewer is Pierre Roquefort-Strand, author of New Directions in Postmodern Theory and the recent poetry chapbook La Plage, Ma Bit (Livres de Rive Gauche, 2007). He joins us today via satellite link from his office near the Sorbonne.

BLOG MODERATOR: Welcome, Professor Roquefort-Strand! What do you have for us today?

PRS: Thank you for the opportunity to appear on this weblog which appears to have nearly no web traffic. Today, I will offer a short review of the meta-fictional short story, entitled “Protagonist Unbound” by the essentially unknown yet in some ways provocative writer George LaCas, whose name sounds vaguely French as bastardized in the history of Canada.

In this story, Mr. LaCas seems to be making fun of the writing process, and in particular Western story structure (i.e., the basic form of the story which includes a hero or protagonist, whose world is threatened in its status-quo, who must go on some sort of interior or exterior journey to achieve a goal, exhibit character change, achieve redemption through suffering the consequences of sin, all while the story’s arc has a recognizable beginning, middle, and end – character from crisis to climax, and then home to the fireside to tell us all about it), and in so doing Mr. LaCas makes at least some of his characters aware of their own place within a fictional environment. At the same time the story itself is a satire, but of what? Of story in general? Or is it auto-satirical? Is LaCas making fun of the way he writes? Is he making fun of us for reading this story?

To summarize: A man named Protag is confronted by the sight of his wife leaving him, so he goes to his therapist, who is playing computerized solitaire and not paying much attention, who gives Protag his blessing in going forth to achieve the stated goal of “getting laid, even if I have to hire a call girl.” Protag then goes to a tranny bar and arranges a liaison with a red-headed person he believes to be a woman, the two have some sort of off-camera sexual activity, and Protag goes home to find that his wife has returned, which seems to negate the entire purpose of the story in the first place, including any enjoyment Mr. Protag had in bedding the sexy transvestite.

And if I may interject a personal comment: the ending, alas, I found wanting. By that I mean I wanted to know more. How did it feel to have sex with a transvestite? Was Protag’s masculinity threatened, or did he simply absorb this experience for the amusement of the author (George LaCas)?

BLOG MODERATOR: So in other words, Professor, you wanted details, a blow-by-blow account, as we say here in the States?

PRS: Oui, meaning yes. I wanted a fully-fleshed scene in which Protag suffered from the stripping-away of his larded-on masculine construct (such that it was; I doubt Protag could do 5 push-ups if his head was in the guillotine), or at least some good hot action for my own personal titillation. Wait. How do I backspace this device? I do not want to say that. Please excise that last bit.

BLOG MODERATOR: I’m afraid I have no control over your PDA, or keyboard, or voice-recognition system, Professor.

PRS: Merde! I demand a retraction of my own words! Salop!

BLOG MODERATOR: So did you like the story, or not, Professor?

PRS: [inaudible, unprintable]

BLOG MODERATOR: Thank you, Professor Pierre Roquefort-Strand, for your kind and considered critical input.

FLASH FICTION: “Juliana the Vampire”

Juliana was a beautiful graduate student to begin with, but when Alex seduced her and sucked her blood and made her a vampire, she became a knockout to die for. Shortly after vowing to hunt down the bastard and kill him, no matter what kind of vampire-extermination methods she’d have to research, she decided to become an escort. Having sex with men she despised proved to be an amusing diversion.

One night Juliana got a text from the service: Horlock Hotel, 7PM, client name Harold. $700. Likes tease and talk, some water sports. Dress 4 success! xxx Marlene . Marlene was the woman who ran the service, not a bad sort if you ignored the black patch she wore over one eye. Juliana sighed: “some water sports” could mean any number of things, but from the price, probably not a bad date.

By the time she got to the Horlock Hotel and was knocking on Harold’s door, she felt the hunger—cold and electric, undeniable, and she felt also her four fangs emerging from her gums. They felt like clits of enamel. She shuddered. Damn it! Why didn’t I drink some chilled blood before I left? But the reason she hadn’t was because she liked it warm.

She knocked. Harold answered the door so fast she knew he’d been watching out of the peep-hole.

“Hi, I’m Alyssa, from the agency?” said Juliana, in her best bimbo-voice.

“Oh … my … God …” said Harold as he looked her over. He was a balding chubby man in black suit-pants and a white undershirt.

“You must be Harold,” she said, striding in on her spiked heels. “Get naked and kneel down.” She shut the door behind her.

Harold took off his clothes and knelt. Juliana stripped out of her mini-dress, which was all she wore. She pressed her landing strip against Harold’s quivering lips.

“I hear you like to play like a naughty boy,” she said tauntingly.

“Yes … oh God yes …” moaned Harold.

“And I like to play like a naughty girl,” said the vampire Juliana, suddenly reaching down to grasp Harold around the neck. She pulled his head back with a crack, and as horror overcame the lust in his eyes she tightened her grip and tore Harold’s head off his shoulders.

Blood, in a luscious hot fountain, rose pumping before her, and Juliana bent her grinning face to Harold’s neck and opened her mouth to drink it down deep. She glanced just then at the mirror, to watch herself drinking the blood, bathing in it, as it painted Harold’s white undershirt red, as it washed crimson over the four ivory tusks that jutted from her lips.

She drank him dry, and cast aside his remains, where they quickly turned to ash and chemical trash. Juliana burped, pleased with herself, and before she left she remembered to take $700 from Harold’s wallet, which lay on the dresser.

FLASH FICTION: “Lick My Blahniks, she said”

She looks at him, and he sees her look is a cruel one. He gulps. The veal piccata before him smells like carrion.

“We’re getting close to the end, I think,” she murmurs.

“No, no,” he says, panicking. “We ain’t nowhere close to over.”

“Yeah, this is the denouement, and soon the credits will roll.”

“Bullshit!” he cries. “This is still the first third of the movie! First third of the book!” He flails his arms around, tie flying out from him, as the other patrons of the restaurant stare. Outside a taxi with a purple turban inside it runs a red light. New York cat-calls, middle fingers, learn to fuckin drive! goes the night.

“It’s getting, like, so over,” she tells him, “and I’m way over it.”

“Still the first third!” he insists. “You ain’t seen nothin yet! First third, the meat and potatoes, baby!”

She laughs a bitter laugh. He knows she wants to light a cigarette so she can flick it in his face. Instead, she picks up her $2000 Cartier lighter (white gold) and examines the reflection of her perfect white teeth.

“You don’t have the meat, never did,” she tells him, “and potatoes just make a girl fat. So crawl back into the past, you sad clown, because you’re fucking history.”

“I’m begging you,” he begs.

“Won’t work this time.” She sucks a piece of caper from a molar.

“I’ll do anything,” he whispers.

“Now you’re singing my tune,” she says, brightening. “While you’re down on your knees, dog-boy, lick my shoes … just the sole, sweetie. These are my Blahniks.”

Outside, a long black limousine pulls up in front of the restaurant, and she shifts in her seat as he nuzzles her ankle with his nose. Something about her body language (the way she gathers her purse, her lighter from the table) tells the other patrons that it is she, the beautiful girl getting her Manolo Blahniks licked, who’ll be climbing into that lozenge of luxury parked outside.

“You’re nothing to me,” she tells the man on his hands and knees before her. “Nothing. That’s the only part of me you can have—my sole, and not the one that’s going to heaven either.”

“I love it when you talk to me like that, baby,” he gurgles.

“Don’t call me baby. Now suck the sidewalk off my shoe.”

Eyes closed, he licks long and wet, sparing himself nothing, tasting the gritty street on her luscious leather shoe-sole. A woman clutches her napkin to her breast and gasps. A waiter looks on, curious. Outside the limo driver climbs out, steps to the sidewalk, and lights a cigarette. The way he waits looking at the Empire State Building seems to say This is gonna be a long one.

Flash Fiction: “Minerva Gets Pierced by Love”

Her hand on the pill bottle, thought of endless sleep lulling her, Minerva one night had a change of plans, for Mr. Wright knocked on her door in the form of a potbellied perv with a Vaseline mustache. Through the open door she could see his Corvette was ruby red. She tried to see through his greasy sunglasses and waited to hear what he wanted.

“Feel like a date?” he asked her.

“Well,” she said, hiding the pill bottle behind her back. Her cat hid under the TV and watched all that transpired. “I don’t see why not,” she said.

So she jumped in his car and away they went to the Adult Superstore, and to show his good intentions Mr. Wright treated Minerva to dinner and a movie. He swung into the McDonald’s drive-thru and ordered two cheeseburgers while Minerva watched trailers on his sticky laptop.

Browsing arm-in-arm down the lanes of the Superstore, Minerva fell in love with Mr. Wright and he with her. She bought him a thick rubbery ring with suckers on it like something cut from an octopus. He bought her a piercing, a bright golden hoop for her hood. She thanked him with tears in her eyes. He smoothed down his mustache and smiled.

He kept his sunglasses on all through that motel-room night, as if anticipating the white-hot dawn that would pour through the curtains next morning. When morning came he was snoring, and the sunlight lay upon Minerva’s buttocks in bright curves. She twisted round with new flexibility and watched her white body in the mirror. The light on her ass looked like a smile.

She wondered what her cat would do for breakfast, for she wouldn’t be there to fix him Vienna sausages with jam. But as she fell asleep against her fiancée’s pot belly she remembered she had left her front door open, in the haste of her flight. At some point her cat would realize he was free.

George LaCas, Celebrity Author