Well here we are, first draft is done.
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‘The Phoney Life’
By Vyse
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I wasn’t about to jump the guy, nobody in their right mind would try something on anyone armed with a gun, but there we were, standing in that small tunnel like it didn’t mean a thing. It was just the way he said it, “Don’t move or say a word, or I’ll shoot,” with such conviction. There wasn’t a thing I could do but comply.
It all happened when I was on my way home from work. I actually live within walking distance of the office building I work at from nine to five, five days a week. Life was pretty comfortable, still is in fact. I was barely 20 and I had managed to make my own place, working to make a living in society. I live in an apartment building with great neighbours all around me and of course, my girlfriend Sunny to come home to.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t even made it that far when it happened. I usually save some time by walking through central park. I still walked even during the winter like it is now. I absently took in the same image I did on this almost daily walk. A scheme of white which included frosted trees, and a lake that was normally populated with ducks, but was now half frozen.
I was passing under one of the small tunnels when my assailant seemed to appear from some unseen recess, a large bulge in his wind breaker suggesting he was pointing something at me with his hidden hand. His dress sense was appropriate in a number of ways, as he wore a scarf which hid most of his face, and a red hunting hat.
”Who are…” I made to ask, talking a step back, to which he quickly grunted,
”Hey! This ain’t no BB gun I got here,” the bulge in his wind breaker moved slightly to indicate what he referred to. “I’m gunna do all the talkin’ here Straddlater,” he added, eyeing me up and down.
Straddlater? My name is Maurice and yet in spite of that fact, I seemed to remember being called Straddlater once or twice. I tried to remember but could draw no further conclusion than that the gunman had known me at some point and called me that.
He made a motion with his head, flicking over his shoulder. “After you prince,” I had no choice, I began walking. As I walked past him, he stopped me by slapping my chest with his free arm, "Don't try to run, less you wanna be filled with holes. I'm not crazy 'bout jail, but I'm willin' to test the a-bomb right now, get me?"
We walked, within a close proximity of each other, close enough that he’d nudge me every so often with his hidden gun. With his short prompts, we began walking down through the city.
After some careful thought, I ventured a short question to him. “How far now?” To this, he gave a short laugh, “Just 4 more glorious blocks prince Stradlater, I hope its not hurting your princely toes,” I wasn’t sure what he mean’t by ‘princely toes’, I did work out to keep in shape. I didn’t have a bulky frame or anything, but I was fit enough to walk however many blocks we were meant to. I’ve always had this fixation on my looks, I don’t think I am vain like that now, but I was always combing my hair and shaving at my old boarding school. It worked for me, I was always getting the girls and even had the freedom of fobbing them off onto my friends when I got bored of them because of my popularity. In retrospect, it makes me feel a mixture of guilt and regret at treating them as such, now that I have Sunny.
“Here,” he grunted, looking up a set of concrete stairs which led up to a museum. This was to be the first of three of the city’s locales we were to visit that day. Odd as they were, I would eventually unravel the method amongst his apparent madness.
When we entered, the place was almost completely deserted save for the woman at the information kiosk, and perhaps one security guard, “I wouldn’t look to that old geezer for help, that million year old relic is worse than a dumb, deaf mute,” he smiled wickedly, stamping out any thoughts I had at trying to signal him.
I still led the way as we walked through, different displays to be seen all around us. A family of Indians, dinosaur bones and Neanderthals stood silently watching us. “You know what the great thing about this place is?” he began, taking in no less than a 360 degree image of all of the displays around us, looking around as though awed by them. “This place never changes. It’s calming in a way you know? But…” He stopped, and looked my in the eyes. “This is where it did all change,”.
”W…what?” I asked, deciding the question was implied.
”This is where the three of us met,” he replied, “You, me, and Jane,”
That feeling came over me, the one you have when you suddenly realise something you should have earlier. I had been to this place once when I was fifteen, on a school excursion. The only thing I distinctly remembered was that we went on this History excursion very close to the start of the first semester of that year, meaning it could well have been when he, Jane and I first met.
Although the question as to who was Jane still remained. I was still drawing a blank, and this girl was my only clue to discerning my enemy’s identity.
”We met here a few years ago I’m sure you’ve realised, well…what I meant to say was we both met Jane here,” he cast his gaze downward, “We met briefly, yes, but you wouldn’t remember me,” he locked with my eyes again, “Of course, that was never your strong suit.”
He motioned with his head like last time, and soon enough we were out on the street walking again. It was already dark, and most people tried to stay out of the cold, most likely why Sunny thought it illogical for me to be out any longer than I should’ve and called my cell phone.
We both stood still, and I turned to face him, the electronic beeping penetrating the bleak, icy ambience of the city’s streets. “Answer it, but don’t give anything away or I’ll kill you,” I made to retrieve my phone, but he interrupted me once more. “Don’t forget,” he pointed to his hunting hat, “This is my people shooting hat,” he smirked.
Carefully, I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and Sunny’s name flashed across it. Hitting the talk button, I put to my ear possibly my only chance of getting out of this.
”Hello?”
”Hun, where are you?” came Sunny’s childish whine.
”No, Spencer’s got the files,” I replied, eyeing my tour guide carefully, fortunately for me, he didn’t realise my non-sensical reply.
”What?” Sunny asked, confused as I expected her to be.
“I think he’s still got them in his filing cabinet, so don’t forget. I don’t want to wind up like Allie okay?” I spoke in the most convincingly normal tone of voice one could manage whilst being threatened by an armed man.
“What are you talking about, where are you?” she asked and as much as I wanted to tell her, I had to hope she could put two and two together.
Allie was a close friend of Sunny’s, but then one day out of the blue, he was mugged by a group of men. We were by his side before he died.
When my oppressor assumed the phone call was finished, he stepped forward. “Turn it off, in fact, give me the phone,” I handed the phone to him, and after turning it off, he pocketed it.
Our walking continued and we ended up walking into a bar. The dimly lit haze of the cigarette smoke wasn’t enough to mask the stench of alchohol. Nevertheless, the place was reasonably relaxed, with people cheerfully talking and dancing on the floor in front of the stage. A black jazz band harked back to the ancient days of the blues.
As we sat down at a table in the back, a waitress came to take our order. I declined, but my subjugator asked for rum, “Um sir, may I see some ID please?” she asked, which immediately set him off, as he stood up to equal her height.
”What! Do I look fifteen to you? What the hell is this sh`it!” he pulled out what I assumed to be an ID card. With as much subtlety as I could, I arched my head around him to steal a short glance at it, gaining nothing but his last name, Caulkfeld.
I quickly relaxed back into my sitting position as he sat back down. “I can’t believe these da`mn phoney’s with their da`mn phoney jobs. I mean, if I was her and some smart *** kid like me came in, I woulda shouted right back into his face,” When he spoke, he just stared out at the band playing on the stage.
”You met her here again,” he started after a brief pause. “I’d ducked into the rest room, only for a godda`mn minute I swear, and when I come back it was you again!” he looked at me now, his creased brow being the only facial indicator of his anger, “I come back, and there you are, dancing with my date, and what’s worse, it meant nothing to her”.
In my years as a student and leading up until now, I had probably been to every single club and bar in this town. I don’t know if it was my presence, or charisma, but I never had any trouble getting in anywhere. So I didn’t remember this bar more than any of the others, but I thought I remembered one time when I did dance with a girl who seemed to single me out from the rest. Normally I was the one singling out my dance partners, but she chose me, so we danced. Before we finished, she managed to write her phone number on my hand I think, but I still didn’t remember if her name was Jane or not.
“I mean, what would you do?” he asked, putting me on the spot, “If your date did that to you?”
”I would, probably get angry,” I replied, unsure of what really to say. This however, elicited a drawn out laugh from my potential murderer. “No way, you wouldn’t have wasted your time,” his laugh continued, and it left me to think. Yes, I probably would have then, but not now, not with Sunny.
Caulkfeld had only half of his rum before he ordered me to hit the streets again. We seemed to be re-tracing our steps, the whole world around us seemingly silent for our trek back across town and into central park where it started. The icy patch of white on green in the middle of the city was uninviting during the night, stories in the papers of ***** and murders taking place here repelling most people away from its already discomforting atmosphere. The path in front of us at times seemed to disappear into an endless abyss of black where the lights didn’t work.
He motioned for me to stop in the middle of the bridge that extended across the half frozen lake. “Where do you suppose the ducks go?” he asked, in a frank tone of voice, leaning against the railing. “You know, when winter comes?”.
”They…migrate,” I answered, taking hold of the railing with one hand.
”I know that you godda`mn idiot!” Caulkfeld howled back at me, standing up from the railing again, “I mean where exactly?”
“South…but I don’t know exactly,” I also let go of the railing.
”Exactly, you don’t know, each year this cycle continues, but you never know where the ducks will end up will you?”
The rhetorical question he posed obviously meant more to him, and so he continued, “You called her, you called Jane, and you ice skated here once together, behind my back,” the crease in his brow returned, this time because of me.
”I watched you both, she was wearing one of those godda`mn miniskirts too, she did everything she could to please you, and guess what happened?” a brief pause ensued, before he answered his own question.
“For once in your whole freakin’ life, you show some kind of decency,” Caulkfeld’s anger seemed to subside into a reminiscent tone. “I was close enough to hear the whole thing, you told her you already had a girlfriend, and you were going to stay with her,” his eyes shied away from mine.
”Sunny?” I quietly spoke. Yes, I did remember, Jane was a girl I once went out on a date with, only because I thought she deserved some kind of apology.
“But she never came back to me! She never had a chance” Caulkfeld flared again, “The b`itch was in such a sorry state afterwards she didn’t pay attention to anything, I tailed her onto the street, and was about to confront her when a car came barrelling down the street and…” a tear escaped his eye, and his voice seemed to lose impact. “I couldn’t do a godda`mn thing, she’d still be here today if you weren’t such a godda`mn phoney,”
Caulkfeld pulled his gun out, his self control crumbling. With his free hand he pulled his scarf away to reveal his identity.
“Harrison?” I remembered him from my History class, who always seemed to be the butt of everyone’s teasing and jokes, but Harrison always seemed nice enough. It would have surprised me, were I reading about it in the newspaper, I probably would’ve joked about it with Sunny.
“I was just about ready to pack up and leave, to head out west. You know, what I thought I’d do was, I’d pretend I was a dumb, deaf-mute, then I wouldn’t have to deal with any of you god**** idiots, so you can just die,” He cocked the hammer, and I was frozen like a cat in the head lights. My brain said ‘jump off’ but my body didn’t seem to get the message.
It all happened in a few seconds.
”Hold it!” a voice called from behind Harrison, even I didn’t notice the police officer whom had snuck up on us, gun drawn. Harrison made the mistake of spinning around to see who had called out at them with his gun arm still outstretched.
The policeman’s appearance snapped me back to the reality of the situation. His back was turned, and a police officer knew enough to now that my life was in danger. I leapt on his back and forced him to the ground. I did my best to hold him down, especially his gun arm, until a foot stamp from the officer on Harrison’s hand forced him to let go of it.
With my help we apprehended the man, handcuffing him to the bridge, and escaped his flailing to a safe distance. He had by that time already called in backup and they were streaming into our location now. As they received me, to take me back with them, even over the sounds of voice and radio chatter, wailing sirens, and nosey rubbernecks, I could still hear his voice calling.
”Fu`ck you! Fu`ck you and your whole fu`cking phoney life!”
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Arigato.
- Vyse
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‘The Phoney Life’
By Vyse
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I wasn’t about to jump the guy, nobody in their right mind would try something on anyone armed with a gun, but there we were, standing in that small tunnel like it didn’t mean a thing. It was just the way he said it, “Don’t move or say a word, or I’ll shoot,” with such conviction. There wasn’t a thing I could do but comply.
It all happened when I was on my way home from work. I actually live within walking distance of the office building I work at from nine to five, five days a week. Life was pretty comfortable, still is in fact. I was barely 20 and I had managed to make my own place, working to make a living in society. I live in an apartment building with great neighbours all around me and of course, my girlfriend Sunny to come home to.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t even made it that far when it happened. I usually save some time by walking through central park. I still walked even during the winter like it is now. I absently took in the same image I did on this almost daily walk. A scheme of white which included frosted trees, and a lake that was normally populated with ducks, but was now half frozen.
I was passing under one of the small tunnels when my assailant seemed to appear from some unseen recess, a large bulge in his wind breaker suggesting he was pointing something at me with his hidden hand. His dress sense was appropriate in a number of ways, as he wore a scarf which hid most of his face, and a red hunting hat.
”Who are…” I made to ask, talking a step back, to which he quickly grunted,
”Hey! This ain’t no BB gun I got here,” the bulge in his wind breaker moved slightly to indicate what he referred to. “I’m gunna do all the talkin’ here Straddlater,” he added, eyeing me up and down.
Straddlater? My name is Maurice and yet in spite of that fact, I seemed to remember being called Straddlater once or twice. I tried to remember but could draw no further conclusion than that the gunman had known me at some point and called me that.
He made a motion with his head, flicking over his shoulder. “After you prince,” I had no choice, I began walking. As I walked past him, he stopped me by slapping my chest with his free arm, "Don't try to run, less you wanna be filled with holes. I'm not crazy 'bout jail, but I'm willin' to test the a-bomb right now, get me?"
We walked, within a close proximity of each other, close enough that he’d nudge me every so often with his hidden gun. With his short prompts, we began walking down through the city.
After some careful thought, I ventured a short question to him. “How far now?” To this, he gave a short laugh, “Just 4 more glorious blocks prince Stradlater, I hope its not hurting your princely toes,” I wasn’t sure what he mean’t by ‘princely toes’, I did work out to keep in shape. I didn’t have a bulky frame or anything, but I was fit enough to walk however many blocks we were meant to. I’ve always had this fixation on my looks, I don’t think I am vain like that now, but I was always combing my hair and shaving at my old boarding school. It worked for me, I was always getting the girls and even had the freedom of fobbing them off onto my friends when I got bored of them because of my popularity. In retrospect, it makes me feel a mixture of guilt and regret at treating them as such, now that I have Sunny.
“Here,” he grunted, looking up a set of concrete stairs which led up to a museum. This was to be the first of three of the city’s locales we were to visit that day. Odd as they were, I would eventually unravel the method amongst his apparent madness.
When we entered, the place was almost completely deserted save for the woman at the information kiosk, and perhaps one security guard, “I wouldn’t look to that old geezer for help, that million year old relic is worse than a dumb, deaf mute,” he smiled wickedly, stamping out any thoughts I had at trying to signal him.
I still led the way as we walked through, different displays to be seen all around us. A family of Indians, dinosaur bones and Neanderthals stood silently watching us. “You know what the great thing about this place is?” he began, taking in no less than a 360 degree image of all of the displays around us, looking around as though awed by them. “This place never changes. It’s calming in a way you know? But…” He stopped, and looked my in the eyes. “This is where it did all change,”.
”W…what?” I asked, deciding the question was implied.
”This is where the three of us met,” he replied, “You, me, and Jane,”
That feeling came over me, the one you have when you suddenly realise something you should have earlier. I had been to this place once when I was fifteen, on a school excursion. The only thing I distinctly remembered was that we went on this History excursion very close to the start of the first semester of that year, meaning it could well have been when he, Jane and I first met.
Although the question as to who was Jane still remained. I was still drawing a blank, and this girl was my only clue to discerning my enemy’s identity.
”We met here a few years ago I’m sure you’ve realised, well…what I meant to say was we both met Jane here,” he cast his gaze downward, “We met briefly, yes, but you wouldn’t remember me,” he locked with my eyes again, “Of course, that was never your strong suit.”
He motioned with his head like last time, and soon enough we were out on the street walking again. It was already dark, and most people tried to stay out of the cold, most likely why Sunny thought it illogical for me to be out any longer than I should’ve and called my cell phone.
We both stood still, and I turned to face him, the electronic beeping penetrating the bleak, icy ambience of the city’s streets. “Answer it, but don’t give anything away or I’ll kill you,” I made to retrieve my phone, but he interrupted me once more. “Don’t forget,” he pointed to his hunting hat, “This is my people shooting hat,” he smirked.
Carefully, I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and Sunny’s name flashed across it. Hitting the talk button, I put to my ear possibly my only chance of getting out of this.
”Hello?”
”Hun, where are you?” came Sunny’s childish whine.
”No, Spencer’s got the files,” I replied, eyeing my tour guide carefully, fortunately for me, he didn’t realise my non-sensical reply.
”What?” Sunny asked, confused as I expected her to be.
“I think he’s still got them in his filing cabinet, so don’t forget. I don’t want to wind up like Allie okay?” I spoke in the most convincingly normal tone of voice one could manage whilst being threatened by an armed man.
“What are you talking about, where are you?” she asked and as much as I wanted to tell her, I had to hope she could put two and two together.
Allie was a close friend of Sunny’s, but then one day out of the blue, he was mugged by a group of men. We were by his side before he died.
When my oppressor assumed the phone call was finished, he stepped forward. “Turn it off, in fact, give me the phone,” I handed the phone to him, and after turning it off, he pocketed it.
Our walking continued and we ended up walking into a bar. The dimly lit haze of the cigarette smoke wasn’t enough to mask the stench of alchohol. Nevertheless, the place was reasonably relaxed, with people cheerfully talking and dancing on the floor in front of the stage. A black jazz band harked back to the ancient days of the blues.
As we sat down at a table in the back, a waitress came to take our order. I declined, but my subjugator asked for rum, “Um sir, may I see some ID please?” she asked, which immediately set him off, as he stood up to equal her height.
”What! Do I look fifteen to you? What the hell is this sh`it!” he pulled out what I assumed to be an ID card. With as much subtlety as I could, I arched my head around him to steal a short glance at it, gaining nothing but his last name, Caulkfeld.
I quickly relaxed back into my sitting position as he sat back down. “I can’t believe these da`mn phoney’s with their da`mn phoney jobs. I mean, if I was her and some smart *** kid like me came in, I woulda shouted right back into his face,” When he spoke, he just stared out at the band playing on the stage.
”You met her here again,” he started after a brief pause. “I’d ducked into the rest room, only for a godda`mn minute I swear, and when I come back it was you again!” he looked at me now, his creased brow being the only facial indicator of his anger, “I come back, and there you are, dancing with my date, and what’s worse, it meant nothing to her”.
In my years as a student and leading up until now, I had probably been to every single club and bar in this town. I don’t know if it was my presence, or charisma, but I never had any trouble getting in anywhere. So I didn’t remember this bar more than any of the others, but I thought I remembered one time when I did dance with a girl who seemed to single me out from the rest. Normally I was the one singling out my dance partners, but she chose me, so we danced. Before we finished, she managed to write her phone number on my hand I think, but I still didn’t remember if her name was Jane or not.
“I mean, what would you do?” he asked, putting me on the spot, “If your date did that to you?”
”I would, probably get angry,” I replied, unsure of what really to say. This however, elicited a drawn out laugh from my potential murderer. “No way, you wouldn’t have wasted your time,” his laugh continued, and it left me to think. Yes, I probably would have then, but not now, not with Sunny.
Caulkfeld had only half of his rum before he ordered me to hit the streets again. We seemed to be re-tracing our steps, the whole world around us seemingly silent for our trek back across town and into central park where it started. The icy patch of white on green in the middle of the city was uninviting during the night, stories in the papers of ***** and murders taking place here repelling most people away from its already discomforting atmosphere. The path in front of us at times seemed to disappear into an endless abyss of black where the lights didn’t work.
He motioned for me to stop in the middle of the bridge that extended across the half frozen lake. “Where do you suppose the ducks go?” he asked, in a frank tone of voice, leaning against the railing. “You know, when winter comes?”.
”They…migrate,” I answered, taking hold of the railing with one hand.
”I know that you godda`mn idiot!” Caulkfeld howled back at me, standing up from the railing again, “I mean where exactly?”
“South…but I don’t know exactly,” I also let go of the railing.
”Exactly, you don’t know, each year this cycle continues, but you never know where the ducks will end up will you?”
The rhetorical question he posed obviously meant more to him, and so he continued, “You called her, you called Jane, and you ice skated here once together, behind my back,” the crease in his brow returned, this time because of me.
”I watched you both, she was wearing one of those godda`mn miniskirts too, she did everything she could to please you, and guess what happened?” a brief pause ensued, before he answered his own question.
“For once in your whole freakin’ life, you show some kind of decency,” Caulkfeld’s anger seemed to subside into a reminiscent tone. “I was close enough to hear the whole thing, you told her you already had a girlfriend, and you were going to stay with her,” his eyes shied away from mine.
”Sunny?” I quietly spoke. Yes, I did remember, Jane was a girl I once went out on a date with, only because I thought she deserved some kind of apology.
“But she never came back to me! She never had a chance” Caulkfeld flared again, “The b`itch was in such a sorry state afterwards she didn’t pay attention to anything, I tailed her onto the street, and was about to confront her when a car came barrelling down the street and…” a tear escaped his eye, and his voice seemed to lose impact. “I couldn’t do a godda`mn thing, she’d still be here today if you weren’t such a godda`mn phoney,”
Caulkfeld pulled his gun out, his self control crumbling. With his free hand he pulled his scarf away to reveal his identity.
“Harrison?” I remembered him from my History class, who always seemed to be the butt of everyone’s teasing and jokes, but Harrison always seemed nice enough. It would have surprised me, were I reading about it in the newspaper, I probably would’ve joked about it with Sunny.
“I was just about ready to pack up and leave, to head out west. You know, what I thought I’d do was, I’d pretend I was a dumb, deaf-mute, then I wouldn’t have to deal with any of you god**** idiots, so you can just die,” He cocked the hammer, and I was frozen like a cat in the head lights. My brain said ‘jump off’ but my body didn’t seem to get the message.
It all happened in a few seconds.
”Hold it!” a voice called from behind Harrison, even I didn’t notice the police officer whom had snuck up on us, gun drawn. Harrison made the mistake of spinning around to see who had called out at them with his gun arm still outstretched.
The policeman’s appearance snapped me back to the reality of the situation. His back was turned, and a police officer knew enough to now that my life was in danger. I leapt on his back and forced him to the ground. I did my best to hold him down, especially his gun arm, until a foot stamp from the officer on Harrison’s hand forced him to let go of it.
With my help we apprehended the man, handcuffing him to the bridge, and escaped his flailing to a safe distance. He had by that time already called in backup and they were streaming into our location now. As they received me, to take me back with them, even over the sounds of voice and radio chatter, wailing sirens, and nosey rubbernecks, I could still hear his voice calling.
”Fu`ck you! Fu`ck you and your whole fu`cking phoney life!”
---
Arigato.
- Vyse
