Dried corn syrup can be just as bad as spilled glue too.

Ugh, having to listen to some creep at this bar try to pick up a Cronenberg fangirl by clearly reciting shit he just read off of Wikipedia

"As is well known, Cronenberg is well known for....body horror...which was his thing in the early stages of his illustrious career"

Of course I could sort this out, but if she's as big a fan as she says, she should be able to fend for herself I'm sure.

You should slide on in there, crumbs.  "Baby, you know the Shivers.  I get you the Shivers."

Got to admit I was impressed by the old guy sitting next, who you wouldn't assume knew anything about the matter at hand, who piped up that Crimes of the Future was a remake of an old student film. And he didn't need to pick at his phone to know this. Or be a giant fake pile of shit.


I hope this old drunk ends up with this random girl and they get married and she has Brood babies with him.

Or maybe I just want this other guy to shut the fuck up and that would be enough

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

Got to admit I was impressed by the old guy sitting next, who you wouldn't assume knew anything about the matter at hand, who piped up that Crimes of the Future was a remake of an old student film. And he didn't need to pick at his phone to know this.

It's not, actually.  It shares a name, but otherwise unrelated.  But good on him even being awre of the former student film in the first place.

He just referenced the student film and I probably put the word 'remake' in there. Which , no,  it isn't. But it plays with similar thematic ideas.

But, I just care that he had knowledge he didn't pull out of his pocket and pretend was his.

The other guy was still prattling on about something he pretended he knew when I left. And it was distressing to see people were listening to him.

Look at that little player.

JACKIE PAPER 

1 

Got to get yourself the right woman. Sometimes they can be mean and take the better cat with them. Leave the fat and dumb one behind. Just like my father’s did. Left him with the one who was always falling off the television.

Jane travelled lightly. Just took her textbooks and Mooshy. Mooshy who was pretty and who they’d only just recently bought together. A cat that gave Jane something good to leave with. Maybe would have stayed if there hadn’t been something so easy and beautiful to tuck under her arm and walk away with. 

My father said it was like she’d been waiting for something she could love before she could leave. They only had it a couple of days before she was gone. Such a short time my father wasn’t even sure Mooshy was its name. 

“It was something like that”, he told me in his bed, now down the hall from mine. His cat on top of the television and beginning to wobble. “Does it even matter?” 

He explained how he let his emotions get to him. Could happen to anyone, he said. Alone with that lousy cat for days. Spreadeagle on the carpet in front of him. Rough-licking its fat belly pink and bald. Just watching the fur come off until the paramedics arrived.  

He said he guessed he was stuck with it forever now. Some fat thing he will need to carry with him wherever he ends up after this. Just him and it and a picture of Jane he keeps on a bedside table. 

“She never wanted him. Wanted to know why I picked a retarded one. Couldn’t believe there were others I could have chosen instead” 

I can hear him remembering something fondly, some argument he realizes doesn’t matter now, before he’s interrupted by the sound of a cat falling behind the television. Gets him to sink back into another long silence. 

2 

My father can’t be sure why she left. Things were always happening during the night. He wasn’t one to remember. 

“The next morning I’d have no idea what I did, but knew as soon as I saw her face it must have been something really bad” 

He says he does remember strangling her one time. 

“Maybe it was that”, he says, trying to figure this mystery out. “But you’ve got to think the things I don’t remember are even worse” 

I nod. I guess that makes sense. 

He lights a cigarette and tells me Jane was always telling him his mother had a lot to answer for. 

I make a face. “You mean my Nan?” 

“Yes, you’re Nan. She was my Mom before she was you’re Nan” 

I tell him she’s not so bad and change the subject.  

He should know she’s probably listening at the bottom of the stairs.  

She doesn’t like me coming in here. 

3 

Everyone sitting around our kitchen table. Andrea keeps trying to wave the smoke from Cathy’s cigarette away.

“You’ve been having a tough time lately, haven’t you Bruce?” Cathy says. “But even you’ve got to admit, this was a bit much” 

“Did you ever think about those poor nurses?” Andrea is already shrieking. She wasn’t shrieking a second ago. “Do you have any idea how hard they have it, how hard a job it is without people like you acting like a baby? Pulling your IV’s out like a big drunken baby?”  

Because Andrea is a nurse she knows what it is like to deal with a difficult patient. It’s why she’s so angry. 

“My favorite part is how he kept trying to light a cigarette in the oxygen tent”, Cathy adds. 

Because Cathy is a smoker she knows what it is like to want a cigarette. It’s why she’s smiling as she puffs away. 

My father doesn’t get along with his sisters and doesn’t want to talk about any of it with them. They are terrible at cheering him up. They aren’t really even talking to him. He’s already left the room but they just keep going on and on. 

“It’s not like you really loved her” 

“Of course he didn‘t. It’s Jane. No one did. Not even the Porkchops she brought into the backseat of her car”. 

My grandmother tries to shush her. “Andrea stop”. 

My grandfather looks confused. “Porkchops?” 

“I was her friend. Me. So I’m the one who would know. And I know exactly what she was doing in that backseat. Who she was inviting in. And it was never about love” 

“Porkchops?” My grandfather repeats. 

“Yes, porkchops”, Andrea shrieks. 

My grandmother clarifies to her husband that they are not talking about actual porkchops.  

“Andrea is just being racist, dad”. Cathy lights another cigarette. “Now, Bruce, wherever you’ve wandered off to, I’m sure you liked her....you probably really liked her...but let’s not kid ourselves. It wasn’t actually love. The only reason you even married her is because mom said she wouldn’t. And so it wasn’t really worth trying to kill yourself over, now was it?” 

My father yells something upstairs. He’s closed his bedroom door and is hard to hear. Must be listening to us through the floor. Was probably “Fuck off, Cathy” 

“Personally, I would have let the little shit blow himself up”. Andrea pours herself another glass of wine. “Who cares. Not me. Let him smoke his cigarette. Kabloom” 

Cathy says it’s a good thing their brother didn’t end up at Andrea’s hospital. Andrea keeps waving her hands at Cathy’s smoke. And my grandfather is still sitting there, trying to figure out what Jane was doing with those porkchops in the backseat of her car. A look of horror on his face. 

5 

The night we got the typewriter from Jane, I went to my fathers room to talk about my plans. Sat on the carpet at the foot of his bed. Reminded him I was a genius and this was a good opportunity for him. That we would be writing a book together and that it would fix everything. Our book would be the greatest. The world would hardly know what hit it.  

He didn’t like the sound of this. He had two ways of lighting a cigarette and the way he lit the one he just lit meant he might get mean. Would tell me to fuck off. Call me an asshole. Roll over and go back to sleep. All the things he’d normally do when I was showing up in his room more often than he was comfortable with.  

I had hoped he would light his cigarette the other way. But when he didn’t I didn’t leave.  Just watched him smoke it and waited for him to light another. 

Sometimes he wanted me there and other times he didn’t. My grandmother would tell me he needed some time to himself and that I should stop going in there so much. He wanted to talk to someone, but not all day long. Not to a thirteen year old.  

I was a bit much. I didn’t need to know everything. 

But my grandmother didn’t know what she was talking about. She was just mad I wasn’t thinking of writing a great book with her. Trying to keep me out of his room and away from our potential. So I kept going in there, no matter how he lit his cigarettes. Waiting for the perfect moment to tell him about our incredible future. Him lighting one bad cigarette after another. Until I couldn’t wait any longer and just said it. 

Eventually he explained that this wasn’t what the typewriter was for. It was supposed to keep me in my room. That’s why he went through all this trouble. And Jane still didn’t even love him. Not even after all the talking they’d been doing. Could have spent his money better. She charged him fifty bucks. He drifted off into a mumble. 

I told him thanks for the typewriter.

 I expected the first chapter tomorrow. 

He lit the worst cigarette of all and I quickly left the room before he noticed I was still there. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

There are good ways to die. But I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.  

A squirrel stealing my final peanut  
My heart bursting as I scream at it in a tree.  

Run over by a baby. 

Machine gunned while struggling to hold three watermelons.  
Everyone looking down at me dying at their feet.  
Drenched in fruit juice.  
Dappled with black seeds. 
And I don’t even like watermelon.  

In my sleep, on the bus.  

But no matter what it might be I’d like to name my biography that 
A title that matters 
A title that gives away the end 
Like a premonition  

Except...  

I won’t know until it’s too late  

So let’s just call it Death by Family 
: or preferably bazooka 

2 

You’re not in love. You’ve just mistakenly applied for a job. In a room being interviewed by some guy who says he’s a millionaire. Or at least says his family is. He says his last name like you might have heard it before. 

“They don’t believe in me, but I’ve got a mission. A minute of peace is my mission. Who cares about money when these are the stakes. Fuck my father. Fuck my mother” 

He’s interviewing you in an empty one bedroom apartment. His family owns it. Owns a bunch of buildings that you can see from the window. That he points out to you. 

You don’t want the job but have combed your hair today. So maybe you’re trying a little bit.  

Also sitting across from you is that girl you found crying at the bar. Her accent different now. This is what she sounds like when she’s sober and getting paid to put together a concert extravaganza.  When she is trying to end war.  

You know you have about twenty dollars in your pocket and so haven’t been listening. Interrupt the millionaire who has been talking for awhile. Tell him that you couldn’t care less about his money. That you won’t lose any sleep if he goes broke. Money doesn’t matter. All you care about is fixing this goddamned world. Finding some work with meaning. And would probably tell him your preference is actually no work at all too, except now it's his turn to interrupt, and so you keep this to yourself. 

“Yes, yes”. He says turning to the girl. “Where did you find this guy. He’s perfect. Integrity!” 

Suddenly and without warning you get the job. And because you don’t care about money, he seems pleased to tell you he only pays minimum wage.  

Or maybe fifty cents more, because he doesn’t like the sound of that.  

His family are millionaires, after all. 

As you leave he tells you he likes No Doubt. That Gwen Stefani is a real piece of ass. Likes a girl in plaid pants. Especially around their ankles. That you will need to get on the phone with their manager tomorrow.  

“You can you come in tomorrow, right?” 

You tell him maybe the day after. Or possibly the day after that. You’re a very busy person. 

“Well, whenever you get here, you’ve got to ask their manager what their going price is? And if they’ll maybe take a pay cut if it’s for world peace. Play hardball” 

He’s wearing sneakers that are sparkly.  

Immediately go to the nearest bar you can find. Get as drunk as you can on almost twenty dollars.