Overdue

Gordon Hull



There's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing...

-- Bright Eyes

I got home from work yesterday, and opened my little metal mailbox in a sea of other little metal boxes just like mine, attached to the lobby wall of the warehouse I live in. They still haven't put my name or suite number on the door. The only way I can tell it's my mailbox is from memory, and an old piece of tape stuck to the front of its 4x4inch face. Amongst the usual things in the mail that I usually just look at and promptly throw in the trash was a promotion to get cable for half the regular price. I haven't watched television for over a year, and miss it not, finding the darkness of the cinema on a sunny afternoon to be a much more satisfying experience than flipping through content on the TV geared towards unhappy suburbanites. Mail in hand, I climbed the stairs up to my suite staring at the ad, and was roped in by the very cheap offer of 9.95/month for 6 months by the time I got to the fourth floor. I unlocked my door with dreams of hosting a huge grey cup party, and cozy evenings spent with friends drinking Courvoisier and watching the fall classic. I picked up the phone and dialed the number to order cable for the first time in years.

After briefly chatting about the benefits of having cable over the holiday season with my service representative Rachel, I had a vision of sitting by myself in my underwear Christmas morning watching It's a Wonderful Life, certainly that's not what she was getting at. I went on to choose a package, book an appointment, set an automatic billing account up through my chequing account, and then finally, to seal the deal, all I had to do was read Rachel my drivers license number. She said she would have to put me on hold while she processed the order and I was instantly transferred to the last bit of Summer of 69, by Bryan Adams. Humming along I waited patiently for Rachel to return. She cut into Bryan within a minute, saying that I had an outstanding debt from three years ago, and before she could go ahead with the account, I would have to pay 150.00$ immediately. I asked her the name on the outstanding account, she told me a name, my name, and this is what followed:

"Well that person is dead, he died almost three years ago, back in February of 2003, so I need a new account," I responded with confidence.

"I am sorry sir, what was that you said?"

"I said, he's dead, so I need to set up a new account."

"Excuse me, is your drivers license number not _______ ?"

"Yes."

"Well then, that is the person that set up the account in 2003, which is overdue, and that is you, and you sound very much alive to me."

"Oh, I am alive Rachel! I am very much alive, I assure you, but that person that owes you the money, he is dead. He just doesn't exist anymore, and I need a new account, for the new me."

"Right. Well if the new you wants cable, he's going to need 150.00$. Maybe the old you left you some money behind? Have a nice day."

The old me didn't leave the new me any money. Nothing at all really, some clothes that didn't fit, a few pictures of people I didn't recognize, and an empty home. Nothing was left of that poor soul when he finally slipped away into the night, and awoke in the morning, alone, and someone else. He's dead, and I certainly won't be responsible for the messes he left behind.

Which is why I will be watching the Classic in the bar downstairs.

Love is a Bus

Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop





Goodbye you, you long lost summer
Leaving me behind you
Revealing things for lovers that may find you
I still hang on to every word that day, you passed my way

Like an intermission between dreams, I awoke from the grips of slumber, looked out the window, looked at the clock, and dropped my face straight into my pillow from a height of about 8 inches. Then I noticed a crispness in the air coming through the large open window across the concrete floor.

I am pretty sure I wrote something at the beginning of the summer about falling in love by the time the late afternoons turn dark and the leaves fall from their resting place above the hometown's avenues, but I never read back into the archive, so I am not entirely certain if that is the case, but if I did, what a ridiculous prophecy to make, which, is exactly why I must have done it. But it's moments like lazing in my new leather chair on Sunday, looking at Vernice with her legs tucked to one side while reading the Globe and Mail on the sectional, both of us hungover, and enjoying the lazy morning sun after a heavy breakfast; or standing in my washroom with Frannie, while she fixes her hair into a pony tail before going downstairs for a drink, that make the idea of falling in love by the end of summer as sure as the the bus that goes by my place, day in and night out.

I talked to a bus driver at the party I was at on Saturday night. Remington, Leroy, and I had just finished piling into the living room, drunk on straight whiskey from plastic cups snuck into a baseball game we had just come from. We started dancing like maniacs on the lush white carpet, and then I attached a souvenir from the game to the wall as a house warming present. Eventually we made our way to the dining room where a group of people were making tempura with a large pot of heated oil and a heaping stack of vegetables in the middle of the table. The bus driver was frying some yams and was talking about how he mostly argued with people all day. I told him how great it is to hear a bus driver call out the stops without the use of a microphone. There's nothing like the sound of a good bus driver belting out the street names with a slow drawl as the road signs fly by. It's a sound of the city, and one that is being replaced by machines. He mostly drove the 9 route, I said I didn't ride the 9 that much, but would come for a ride just hear the way he calls the stops. The human voice is becoming nostalgic.

I've mostly been riding my bike lately though. The feeling of meandering back and forth through traffic in the urban core on a sunny day is just too appealing, and it's free. But soon, the rains will come, and I will look forward to standing in the dark slick streets waiting for a bus, that I know will eventually come.

Saturday

Eppich House - Arthur Erickson


Can't you see?
Love is the drug for me...

A few weeks ago, the band I am in was playing a small 2nd floor club downtown, and I met this blonde woman who seemed lovely. We flirted back and forth a bit, and there was an obvious attraction, not as intense as my lust for the asian girl from the opening act; who never took her sunglasses off, and kept telling me about the song they cover by, "The Animah's! The Animah's!" but an attraction that left me wanting more.

Last night was Frannie's birthday party. I made her a CD of sailing songs, because she has been taking sailing lessons. There are a lot of sailing songs, all of them as cheesy as sunset photography. Anyway, the blonde was there. I was told she would be at Frannie's party and was looking forward to resuming things where they had left off. I think I had forgotten what she really looked like and had managed to create an image in my head that suited my needs. Expectations are evil. I was immediately disappointed. She had that art girl wackiness I didn't pick up on last time, maybe it was the white glasses, or the shoes, but I knew right away that the charade was over, although, she did have nice legs. So I went up and chatted with her anyway, and she was totally rude to me. She made fun of my current interest in a Roxy Music, ridiculed my intense social life, after I raved about xiu xiu she explained the concept of EMO to me like I was retarded , and was disgusted with my attraction to nice shoes, specifically women's heels.

Other than being depressed that I had wasted so much of my time thinking dreamy thoughts about some mean blonde girl, the party was fantastic. I met a friend of Dave Eggers, and drank scotch till 430am with a sommelier at one of the hometowns finest dining rooms. Apparently it's all about matching food with the right level of acidity. As long as it's cold, and cheap, I am smiling, but I didn't tell him that. I went mad on an art director from Manhattan about DIY typography, started jumping up and down while talking about my favorite Arthur Erickson house, and was told revealing stories about a neighborhood I used to live in from someone that had lived there since they were 7. But of course my eye would trail over to the blonde every so often with a feeling of melancholy that I am living in a vulnerable and uncertain macrocosm of loneliness.

Anyway, I am going to another party tonight, east side, character home, patio, and a hot tub. I suppose by 7 or 8 I will be ready to try all over again, it's my nature, I am driven.

Happy Hour

and true, it may seem like a stretch,
but its thoughts like this that catch my troubled head
when you're away and i am missing you to death

I wonder what the bartender downstairs must think? I mean really, Tuesday I am making out with Vernice amongst the after work crowd, when drinks are cheap, when downtown establishments stick large wooden hooks out the front entrance, leashing the tired worker into dark contemplation with a glass of cheap cold beer.

Wednesday, I am back again, same time, but slightly deeper down the bar, with Nymphalidae. Looking lovely as always, she tempts me with early evening delights upstairs. All I can say is, don't tempt me my darling, don't you dare tempt me.

Sure, I am in love, but it's the worst kind of love there is; the kind of love you can never tell anyone about. Forbidden and destructive, but fantastic at the same time. A crush that is quite crushing indeed.

It is late, and I just returned from the mirror in the washroom. So boney I am. My rib cage protrudes, most of my hair winds up in the sink, and I have a permanently wrinkled brow with little beads of sweat on it. But tonight, staring at myself, I am reminded of Carey Grant for some reason. Short waisted, perpetually dressed in a cool gray suit, crisp shirted, and devinely charming, I am about to fall asleep, thinking of Carey Grant, but don't think I have forgotten about Burt Lancaster.

This is Your Captain Speaking

Where are you right now? In an office full of people staring blankly at their monitors? Are you surfing the net in one of those corner stores that have a computer crammed beside an ATM for 2$ a minute? Maybe you're beautiful, laying on a bed with your laptop, in a state of undress, thinking about me. Perhaps you're in prison. Or maybe you didn't intend on coming here at all. LIke several people a day, you arrived here purely by accident when you were googling "tall women stories." Whatever the case, you're here, and I welcome you; it's been some time.

I am writing this in row 31, seat B, flight 299, originating out of the home town, 30,000 feet in the air, somewhere over Canada, and on my way back home. After a week of sitting in my dad's red leather lazy-boy, feasting on a steady diet of satellite cinema and 15oz steaks, consuming mass amounts of alcohol pool-side, and staring at the streets that used to contain my penchant for speed and fury, I am looking forward to getting home and resuming my urban ways. The band I play in has two amazing shows booked over the next two weeks, I have a meeting scheduled with the editor of my favorite city weekly, due to start publishing again at the beginning of September, and there are two parties to go to this weekend. And Vernice, despite emailing me when I was away, saying she never wanted to see me again after finding out I was skinny dipping with Frannie, is taking me out for dinner tomorrow. God it feels good to be on my way home.

I can't believe I lived in that little city for as long as I did. Fashion doesn't exist, the cars are all mid-size domestics, and the cuisine lacks in variety. My friends are racist, and essentially, drug addicts. Other than sitting together in neutral colored couches, sniffing, smoking, and rarely drinking, they go nowhere, and I found myself slowly falling into the couch trap upon my arrival. Earl said I had the hometown fever. Nothing changes there, but each time I return, it seems increasingly distant. The camaraderie that petty crime and drugs used to supply me with seems further from reach each time I sit down with the people that have known me the longest. I feel guilty for not appreciating their efforts to keep things the same, and mostly, I fall silent, and want to return to the way things are, and what I have become. They are there, and I am here, and as time and distance separate us with every passing year, it gets harder to appreciate and understand what ever made us friends in the first place, and the hometown becomes just another place.

Smack Dab

I am in the hometown, not the one that I live in now, but the one that I grew up in. I am in the middle of the country instead of the edge. This little city oozes with lost love; it's in the blades of grass growing up through the cracks of the broken little sidewalks, in the thin streets, the houses that I have been in, the names that I know, the fields that i've rolled in, and the old phone numbers I can still recall. I got off the plane, went to my parents, and haven't left the house since. Everything seems small, decrepit, and in need of a coat of paint. Every step in this place has history, and I don't want to see it anymore. There is safety in satellite television, so here I sit, watching TV, looking out the window, remembering how things used to be, how I should never come back here again, this place looks ugly now.

Well, that was until Cody showed up and took me away from the TV. Cody, wild as ever, hair hanging low on his brow, constantly being pushed backed, a smoke hanging out of the crack of the window of his wife's car slightly rolled down, "there's no smoking in this car, you can have one, because you are you, but that's it," he must have smoked six cigarettes on the edge of his seat like that, talking wildly the entire time, his worker hands gunning the wheel. Cody took me straight away to Earl's place, the smell of smoked cocaine was in the air, and some poor little red head was being fucked on the television. Earl held the door open for us to join the two other guys I didn't recognize on the couch. More cocaine, more porn, and more lies about what's really happening back there, where I live.

I knew I shouldn't have left the house. The hometown is full of lynchian evils. I want to crawl into a warm place, but there is nothing but indifference and congeniality everywhere I look. Something that doesn't exist anymore can't generate heat. Here in the middle.

FUCK YOU ALL.

FUCK YOU ALL.

Low on Low

Serge Gainsbourg


Lowest of the... says: (8:07:10 PM)
so are we still on for tomorrow?

Vernice says: (8:07:30 PM)
of course- i'll call you later from the show.

Vernice says: (8:07:38 PM)
and try and keep your pants on tonight ok?


Lowest of the... says: (8:07:42 PM)
yes Ma'am

Vernice says: (8:07:58 PM)
ok, bye

Lowest of the... says: (8:08:02 PM)
bye...

I've been lying in bed all day with no clothes on, eating nectarines, and smoking. I have to eventually get up, there is a party that requires my attendance, and it's a uniformed affair, but I am tempted to just show up in my flip flops and underwear.

Last night I walked home from the beach at 2am with no shirt on. I had been with Frannie. We had dinner, drank a bottle of wine on the beach, and then, as we were walking back to her place, she hopped the fence of the city pool, took off all her clothes and dove in. Her nude body was suspended in the midnight air for what seemed like an eternity, and in that mutation of time everything seemed to align itself into a powerful vision of sand, surf, stars, and white skin. Then it was my turn; I stripped down and quickly followed with a lame half step into the water. I've never been able to dive, and certainly wasn't about to try it without any clothes on. We floated on our backs and looked up at the stars, until I realized there was a security guard approaching us from the other end of the pool deck. We scrambled out of the water, hopped the fence with our clothes, and got dressed in the bushes beside the change house. Frannie took pictures of me as I started my half nude journey home.

I was looking for photos of my dad this morning, and I realized that I don't have pictures of anyone in my family, I gave them all away. My only connection with the past are haunted memories. I've re-birthed myself in a pool of gin and whiskey, cigarettes, late nights, pounding rhythms, monumental bike rides, strolls across bridges, visions of the city, early morning bus rides, and several lovers . Clothes, or no clothes, I am unrecognizable to myself, but I like what I see.

I suppose I should get dressed.

Don't Be Afraid

We've still got the day together.
Don't be ashamed,
there's nothing wrong with moving again.

Yes! The days are becoming welded together into a molten ball of hot metal, but I forgot my face shield, so flashes explode in the sky, coming from the city, blinding what was, and lighting what will be. Bridges with pearl necklaces, salt and vinegar chips with chocolate, bike helmets and eurofag sunglasses. Everything is loose and fluid; I am terrified to let it cool. I don't have a past anymore, and I certainly don't have a future. Who am I, and who loves me?

Short Bursts

Lift your arm now, or be alone forever
-- Miranda July

Seven days at a fleeting rate. A series of moments, collected and stored under the Gregorian calendar system. I lie in bed at the end of it all, the 7th day, with the sound of a truck coming from the alley, warning everyone in the area that it's moving in reverse; short vignettes replay in my mind.

Little snippets, from Monday to Sunday. Leroy sitting in the dark bar, professing loudly enough so that it turned heads, "I want to be sexy too goddamnit;" watching Nymphalidae's red skirt flutter in the wind as she biked past my window seat at a french bistro while eating salad nicoise with loveliness in tow; dancing with complete abandon to LCD Soundsystem for a seated audience of two; Dragica singing Gloria in our little club on the east side of town; sitting in my window, smoking in my underwear, and watching a box of fried chicken blow across the alley; having ten or twelve people swaying back and forth in unison as I sang in that bar with the model train; putting on a new shirt; feeling the heat of summer and sweating over a twelve dollar frittata; going to the cinema three days in a row; sticking my feet into the mist of a cold fountain; watching busses go by with their route numbers lit and streaking; the 15; the 5; the 4; popcorn; fountain pop.

I lie here on a barren mattress, the sheets thrown on to the floor because they reek of wine and lust. Nothing is in sequence, it's all blurring together. Everyday is everyday.