rough sketchings and dumb bodies

he wasn't a particularly funny person. but he was always thinking of jokes. he didn't know why he did it. but he did. maybe it was because he loved the attention he received when he told a good one. maybe it was just the way his mind worked.

once he thought of a joke that was so good he decided to write a story about it. the story was published in a fairly obscure literary journal and somehow attracted the attention of a big-deal hollywood movie producer. the big-deal hollywood movie producer decided that the story was so good it should be turned into a big-deal hollywood movie. the man was ecstatic. he fantasized about who would star in the movie based on his story. there were a couple actors who he really liked and some he didn't like so much but were household names. he thought that, even if the actors he didn't like so much starred in his movie, he'd probably grow to like them because they were starring in his movie and he might even meet them at a press junket or an extravagant party that he could only imagine because he'd never been to one.

mostly: he thought about how people were going to see the movie--the movie based off a story he wrote--and this excited him very much. he wondered if it would become a well-regarded movie--either by critics or the movie-going public but, hopefully, both. maybe it would become a classic.

he imagined being interviewed about his story. he imagined being that important. the interviewer would be a bookish looking man--kind but detached. he would be a very prominent writer from new york--the type a guy who threw around latin phrases and allusions to the minor works of john updike in his reviews. he would wear glasses there were very large but still fashionable and dehumanizing. dehumanizing in the sense that they made it hard for anyone--but especially the man--to see the person beyond the lenses.

he imagined being asked about the popularity of the single joke around which the entire plot of the story revolves--the single joke that initially inspired the man to write the story.

"you know, i can't walk down the street anymore without someone quoting that joke," he imagined the interviewer saying.

"well, it's funny," he'd reply. "it's like--have you ever told a really good joke at the office? so good that it circulates from person to person for weeks? everyone asking you to tell it again or coming up to you and re-telling it to you, even, then laughing incredulously like they can't understand how something can be that funny. it's like that. but on a global scale. the water-cooler joke that reached the world."

he imagined saying this but saying it better, watching himself say it on tv or reading it in a magazine and then seeing a picture of himself next to the article, all-teeth and smiling, warm and inviting.

he imagined all these things but none of them happened. the movie tanked at the box office. people hated it. so did the critics. it was considered the worst movie ever made. anytime someone referenced it, the man cringed. it was an eternal source of shame. he told one really bad joke and he didn't know why. he wasn't a very funny person.

sure wood

For the past ten years, Edgar Nork made a habit of finding excuses to stay in bed. He rarely left the house, unless it was to go to work. Friends often called him, inviting him out to places--bars, restaurants, local events and parties--but he always declined, citing a lack of sleep or having to readjust to a sleep schedule which he could never establish with any regularity. Edgar blamed his behavior on his job--working third shift at the old cigarette factory--a gloomy fat building on the outskirts of town. In the early part of the twentieth century, when the factory was first built, many believed the factory would save the town's dead economy, but this never happened. The men of the town left their hard-labor jobs in neighboring counties to work at the cigarette factory but were subsequently laid off when due to a lack of revenue the factory could no longer afford to keep them employed. Still, the factory kept its operations going, even as buildings housing more successful business ventures sprang up around it. Eventually: something resembling a metropolis was born and the old factory was the one stubborn anachronism which refused to be weeded out. Glinting glass exteriors reflected the gloom of the factory as people in cars found ways to ignore its being in the way of traveling from point A to point B. There was a peculiar beauty to its tar-like bricks and bloated skeleton that appealed to Edgar. He never said it outright: but this was the reason he took a job there in the first place, having been to school and qualified to work far better-paying jobs. tbc.

less than spectacular

every sunday morning, after she made breakfast and he read the paper, they fought. they called each other names that they never dreamed of calling another human being because they were very cruel names and not the kind of names people typically call each other unless they're really mad at the other person. it didn't matter that they thought about calling each other these names throughout the week, they always waited until sunday to actually say them out loud and in reference to one another.

it was usually just before noon when the fights would start. by this time, everyone was fed. everyone was full and feeling sluggish. it's possible that it was because they were so full and sluggish that they fought. nothing incites agitation in another human being like being disturbed before their food has fully digested, except maybe for when they are woken up in their sleep--but that wasn't the case with these two because they both slept well into the morning on sundays.

one of the names he never called her when they fought on sundays was a "cunt," except for one time when he meant to say "bitch" but couldn't think of it in time. she was mad about it for a week because, to her, "cunt" was the nastiest thing you could call a woman.

often: she called him an "asshole," but never a "dick" because she had reservations about saying that word, in general. saying it made her feel less wholesome. it made her feel trashy when she said "dick."

other words they liked to use on sundays when they fought included: "fuck" "shit" "goddam" and "dumbass." they also liked to accuse each other of being crazy and say "ok" sarcastically when the other person accused them of being crazy.

as heated as they appeard during their fights, they always made up by the end of the day and they always said things like:

"i'm sorry. i didn't mean what i said. i was just frustrated."

and:

"i love you, ok? please forgive me?"

but it was hard to know if they really meant it when they said those things, too.

every time they fought, which was every sunday, their son and daughter sneaked upstairs so they could hear more distinctly what they were shouting at each other. it was easier when their bedroom door was closed because then they could walk up to the door and press their ears against it but they had to be very deliberate and quiet when they approached the door because the wood beneath the carpet in the hallway just outside their door was very old or not very good and creaked loudly. so they tiptoed up to the door and occasionally she would hear them and yell at them to go back downstairs. he might have heard them, too, but he never said anything if he did.

stray

i went to ritter's yesterday to get some ice cream. i haven't felt like eating much this week, so this was my one big meal of the day (which afterwards made me feel like dying). when i pulled into the parking lot, on my way to the drive-thru, i saw a woman absentmindedly swinging her baby behind her in an infant seat, like an unimportant bag of groceries. i pulled over as soon as i got my ice cream and recorded this observation for later use--in a story or something. this is probably as far as it will make it.