Hola, muzzafuckas! New feature today!
I mentioned this I think only once before. Several posts ago, I mentioned that this blog would be tweaking its format over time; first moving away from just stuff about 90s music, introduce a couple different regular features, some of my silly little hopes and dreams, branching out into different forms/formats/interests, and then way down the line, who knows, maybe finding a new focus. This right here, Flash Fiction Friday, is one of the new ones I promised.
Premise is, I chain myself to a computer, hop on Blogger, and just write, for a full hour. Hour's over, wherever I am, I wrap up the story (unless it finds its own ending before then), do a few very small spot-edits, and publish it. So here's my first attempt; hope you enjoy!
Note: If any of this somehow offends you in any way... I really don't care?
Lights up on The I Hate Myself And Want To Die Club. Well, only one part of the club. The stage. Yes, it's an actual club, not like, some club full of suicidal folks who talk about their feelings and how they wanna off themselves. Sounds kind of fun, actually. No, this is a flesh-and-blood, real-live arthouse club, over yonder under Sweden's Bridge. Naw, it's not made of flesh and blood. That'd be a little uncomfortable. FDA would be all over that shit. Sounds kind of gnarly, actually. I guess a more accurate description is, a real-live wood-and-steel arthouse club. Maybe iron instead of steel. I don't know. I don't know much about making buildings.
So on, on go the stage lights! And there's already a sumbitch there, standing at the mic. He stands mighty straight, like a pole, straighter than the mic stand itself. Funny. The types like this guy, they're usually not straight-standers. Stand-straighters? Nah, ain't my business. But he's one of them kids that looks like he could be fifty, skin all junkied out til it's like petrified sap, covered in tattoos, including a buzzard wrapping its way from his shoulder to his neck. I can see it cuz he's got no shirt on. Got his nips pierced too. And his earlobes stretched.
The murmurs begin, up front by the stage. Buncha loons. Show hasn't even begun and they're critiquing away. Buncha hens. I don't even know who this kid is, what he's doing performing at the I Hate Myself And Want To Die Club. But I lean myself forward in my chair, and I watch.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." he begins. He speaks in a croak, like a frog, or a goat. Depends on the goat, I guess. Sounds kind of like an alligator, actually.
Kid goes on to divulge the entirety of "A Tale Of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. Heartwrenching piece, really. Very timely, only took about two hours. Got to take a good look around at the clientele; see all the lonely dreamers, the snobs what look like they're wearing microscopes on their faces, the small-time critics (all these weaselly little fellas with notepads that keep twitching their noses like rabbits), the stuffed-suits. People drift in and out of this; not like it's boring. The kid's monotone and his heavy Icelandic accent, it's all very commanding. It's just a sleepy-ass night is all. The I Hate Myself And Want To Die Club sometimes tends to do that to ya. Low light, smoky, all-black interior. Lots of gothic chandeliers and curlicue furniture and the like. Lotta red candles too. Interesting place, interesting place it is.
About halfway through, the owner comes up to me, buys me a drink, just stopping in to say "hello". He's an old salt, he is; blind in one eye, left hand like a claw. Left eye's the blind one. No one's really sure what's the deal. Sounds kind of grotesque, actually. But it's not, it's not, it's really not. You get used to his visage like that. Finger-snap. You can't really snap your fingers at someone when you're writing it down, can you? So there, I wrote "finger-snap". Now you hear it, don'tcha? Finger-snap. So me and Louie, he's the owner see, we catch up. He takes off his top hat, fans himself cuz it's musty and stale like always (that's the I Hate Myself And Want To Die Club), sits back and watches the show with me, and then takes off.
Then I'm back to watching the show by myself. Not the pretty girls in red dresses flopping on these little suited punks like dummies, up there in the front, nor the bar and its black liquors. Just the front, just the kid. Just his accent and his constant storytelling. Heartwrenching piece, it really is. Sounds quite nice, actually. Something about the kid's voice. If you could take the sound of breaking kindling and somehow make it rich, that's a pretty good picture.
The piece ends. We all clap. Everyone that was asleep wakes up. No heckles, but no roses either. I actually stand up. A few other people stand up too. It's no ovation, but it's what the kid deserves, at least a little of it. Not that he notices, anyway. He walks offstage, soon as he finishes that last word. Still stiff as a pole.
I had the pleasure of drinking with the kid, the Dickens kid, and some other fellows on the veranda - the one hanging over the river - after the rest of the performances. Nothing else to speak of. I made sure to chide old Louie about it for a second after the dust had cleared. "Rolled out the best for first, eh?" I said. He laughed and made some kinda growl, mighta been a word. It don't matter much, he doesn't resent me for it. He was too busy putting chairs away anyway, and I was on my way out back to have a smoke and a drink.
I asked him why Dickens. He said because "Dickens hated his wife." I think it might've been a joke. I asked him why "A Tale of Two Cities". He shrugged, spun his beer in his lap for a second, legs up on the aluminum table. Maybe it's iron instead of aluminum. I don't know much about making tables.
Then the kid looks up, though he's still not looking at me, and he says it's about love. I ask him if he's talking about the Dickens or himself; the performance or the material. He laughs and says "Both," and then mutters "I guess." He has less of an accent now. Maybe it was part of the performance.
