--"Untitled", The Cure
When Breanne first came to visit me in sunny California I had to go through the traditional tour through my residence. Sure, I was embarrassed to point out the fact that I was twenty-two and still living at home in the same damn guest house I'd been living in for the past seven years. I was embarrassed to let her see that, after putting me up in a spare bedroom probably 1 1/2 times the size of my bedroom, my "place" was so small. But what could I do? It wasn't like I could pretend I was living somewhere bigger or on my own. As she's famous for saying, I can only be mojo--no more, no less.
"So this is where all the magic happens?" she asked, indicating towards the computer tucked away in the corner. "This is where all those pent-up ideas get murdered and put to paper."
"Actually, the magic happens over there," I replied, pointing to my bed, "but, yead that's the computer where I've written practically everything you've read."
She took a seat on my chair, twirling it around a bit, and took in what little the room had to offer. I didn't exactly have a style to the room. I had very little in the way of decoration. What I had were a few piles of magazines and various writings strewn around the floor. The area especially around the desk was cluttered with barely started short stories. Also, as everyone who has ever known me can attest to, there was a sizable layer of dust on everything. I just have never gotten quite acquainted with cleanliness to everyone else's satisfaction.
I watched as she picked up one of the stories I was working on.
"What's this, sugar?"
"That? That's nothing. It was just an attempt at a ghost story. Nothing quite so interesting as your stuff, but I thought I had a good idea."
"Ooh, can I read it?"
"You're not going to like it. Besides, it's not done."
I approached her and sat on the side of the bed closest to her. I was hoping she wasn't going to press the matter, but something told me she would. I'm not sure if every individual who calls themself a write has the same paranoia, but I have this phobia that whenever somebody reads a half-finished work it never gets finished. I don't know how many times this has happened to me. I do know that it's happened enough to be fairly adamant that no one gets to see anything until the work is done. Call it a phobia, but I don't like people peeking at a work in progress.
Yet we all make concessions when it involves people we feel are close to us so when she began reading it, I didn't attempt to any certain degree to stop her.
As I watched her reading it, embarrassed about everything to do with my room and my situation, I started to think how the rest of the week was going to be so much better. I was going to take my friend away from my pitiful unkempt room. We were going to have fun driving up and down the coast. But mostly I was going to take her away from everything that could possibly incriminate me as being something I wasn't. Much like my writing, there's an inherent contract of trust when a person allows another person into the place they reside. In parts, I felt good that I could show her where I lived and have her not make fun of me, but in others I knew behind every bookshelf and inside the closet were tons of anecdotes, many of which were not flattering. It was the second part that was prodding me to get the obligatory tour around the room over with and to quickly get our butts on the road.
"It's good, but why didn't you finish it yet?" I heard her ask. I studied her face, searching for signs of false praise or, worse yet, pity praise. She seemed genuine. I was prepared to say that it was due to working on something more eventful or promising. I was prepared to give her a line about how I have this intricate system of priortizing what I work on first. But that would have all been a lie. She knew me too well to have me pretend I had anything resembling order in my creative process. That's the question she was asking, what superstition or act of chance had prevented me from completing the story in her hands.
"I scared myself."
"You what?"
"I got going with the writing and wrote myself into a particularly scary portion of the story. Then all the talk of ghosts proved too much for me and I had to stop."
Breanne started to laugh. She started to laugh so loudly that I knew that my parents over in the main house could hear her. I got up and tried to shush her repeatedly, but the fits of laughter pealed from her like thunder. I'm pretty sure I've described Breanne's laughter to you all before, but, in case I haven't, she laughs like a hurricaine. There isn't a thing subtle about her laughing. It isn't this quiet, restrained chuch mice laugh. On the contrary, it's this big, boisterous laugh of someone who quite enjoys laughing. Most of the time, I find it refreshing. It's a different story when I'm the root cause of her laughter.
"It's not funny, Breanne. An author is not supposed to be scared of his own work. It's not like Stephen King gives himself nightmares writing horror. I shouldn't either."
She tried to speak as the laughter began to fade away.
"I don't get it. You can watch a scary movie, darling. Why is it so hard for you to read a good ghost story?"
"It's different."
"Of course, it's different. But why is it different?"
"I think it's the difference between seeing something with your eyes and seeing something with your head. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like to see a ghost in real life, but, barring that, it's worse when I get the image of a ghost in my mind after reading a book. Seeing a movie, it's like in through the eyes and then out of my head. Reading a book, the sight stays with me quite awhile."
"Sounds like you have a problem of an overactive imagination."
"That's me."
I sat back down on the bed, embarrassed but smiling. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard before so I wasn't embarrassed about divulging any deep, dark secret. I was more embarrassed because of how long I had had that particular quirk about ghost stories. I love to read them and they fascinate me to no end, but inevitably they scare the crap out of me. The fact that I had let her in on that particular personality trait when I first met her, five years prior, and I was still coming up with new ways to demonstrate my irrational fear embarrassed me.
never knew how I wanted to feelI closed my eyes and tried to imagine what the rest of the week held. Honestly, I wanted to get as far away from where I was at at that point as possible.
It was during that point when I couldn't see that I heard more than felt her sit next to me on the bed. I then felt her place her arm above my shoulder and around me neck. It felt good, it felt comforting, and only served to reinforce that I definitely had a good week in store.
"What'cha thinking about, Eeyore?"
"I was just thinking about how nice it's going to be to get away with you."
"Hell's bells, got that right. It'll be nice not to have think about college for once."
"And I was thinking how scary it is to know that you know all my secrets."
"You mean, the ghost thing?"
"Especially the ghost thing."
"I hate to break it to you, but it isn't exactly the recipe for Coke you've got there, sugar."
I sighed and looked at her. Another weird quirk I have is that I don't often look people in the eye. Brandy, who has had some training in psychology, thinks it's because I have respect issues and that I tend to avoid looking at people who I don't think are on the same level. She thinks I don't look at people I feel who are better than me in the eye because I feel beneath them and I don't look at people I feel are worse than me in the eye because I feel they're beneath me. I just happen to think I spent one too many years inventing half-truths and spinning tales to entertain myself. I think my tendency is to look away from most people's faces when I'm setting up the story, but once I get to the payoff, I immediately look most people in the face for effect. It's much in the same fashion I like to write a sizable paragraph of contemplation and thought, then sell it with one key phrase or bon mot.
With Breanne, however, I've always been able to look upon her from word one.
"I don't know--there's not a lot of people who know exactly how silly frightened I get over ghost stories. It isn't like it's a cool phobia or anything."
"Awww, I feel honored then."
"You should, it's one of my most private fears and something I tend to get easily shy about."
"Any more you'd care to share, sugar?"
Until that moment I didn't know exactly what kind of anecdotes I was exactly trying to hide. I just knew that with every knick-knack, every photo, and every letter, stored somewhere, came a story. It were these stories, some forgotten and some blocked out, that I knew would pouring out of me if I lingered too long in the room with her. I've always had particular weakness for spilling my guts to whomever would listen, even though a few hours later I've always lamented being so easily compelled into confessing. I've always felt the need to unburden myself given the right circumstances. And, of course, I've always felt particularly close to my friend from the South. All this added up to a situation where a story I knew was hiding somewhere in my room would come pouring out.
I never paid close attention t the stories I choose to share with her. Most of the time, they naturally come rushing out of me. I hear a key phrase, see a picture that reminded me of something, or just have it on the forefront of my mind for some reason. Whatever the impetus, I am always willing to share my life with her. I never take a tally of which key incidents I have already told her and which incidents I haven't. They just flow. This leads to many instances of "you already told me that one, Patrick" or "I've heard this one before." It's all good. I have the worst short-term memory, but I do love talking about stories from past, as evinced by the very purpose of this blog site. I think a person's past is material ripe for the picking. It's like pulling quotes for a research paper. Need an example of what a decent guy I was? Tell the story about how I escorted Brandy around Disney World when she had been left behind. Need an example of what a jerk I am? Tell the story about how I slammed DeAnn's arm in a car door. Need an example of me at my saddest and most downtrodden? Tell the story about having to watch Jennifer slowly die away each day in the hospital. The point is I have what amounts to a black book of stories that I readily tell my closes acquaintances and friends, often to the point of tedium, because I do have what amounts to a system regarding which story to tell in a given situation.
The story I told Breanne that day, though, I knew I'd never told anyone before.
"One of the scariest things I can remember doing happened right here in this room. It was three years ago, before she and I stopped talking to each other. I had come up with the great idea to send along with a letter, along with a gift, a videotape to Jina in my next package to her. I had videotaped all over Sierra Madre. I had gone up to Mt. Wilson to show her view from atop there. I had recorded all these snippets of what my life was like and I thought that was going to be the extent of the videotape--a kind of day in the life of one mojo shivers.
"When I got back here, though, I had one other idea that I'd been toying with for the past few days I'd been videotaping with my friend Peter. I wanted to set aside a portion of the tape to tell her some of what I felt for her. So I closed the blinds, turned off all the lights, and stood in that closet over there, with only the dim bulb illuminating my shadowed face.
"And I proceeded to talk, to rant actually, about some of what she meant to me. I remember I had The Cure's 'Untitled' playing for background music. And I remember thinking that I was pouring a lot of my heart out to a video camera. And I remember thinking that it felt weird knowing that Peter was behind the lens hearing everything I was saying. In the end I didn't care. I thought I was saying what needed to be said."
I watched as Breanne's oceanic blue-green eyes danced with every admission. Again, I peered into them to see some semblance of a sign of what she thought. They betrayed everything. I marveled at how easy my words came out, but even moreso at how affected by them Breanne was. Normally, I was used to people who reserved their opinions until the conclusion of the tale or the speech. Breanne's face was like looking at an applause meter, which rose and fell with every syllable. It was kind of comforting to have such easy access to an honest response.
"Hell's bells, Patrick. What happened after that?"
"I sent it off. She got it, didn't know how to respond, and proceeded to draw away from me. That's when I got upset, burned all her stuff, and mailed her the ashes.
"And now you know, the real reason why Jina and I aren't friends... because I was stupid and impulsive. Embarrassing story, huh?"
If she felt my shame, I wouldn't have known. If she felt awkward about hearing me talk about my awkwardness, I didn't get the impression from her. If she had grown timid or shy or nervous after my tale, I didn't feel that from her. The only thing I felt from her was the other arm come around and embrace me in a show of support and gratitude at being chosen worthy enough to hear that particular anecdote.
Suddenly living in that untidy room full of untidy objects which held untidy stories didn't seem so embarrassing. And just as suddenly I no longer was in any hurry to be anywhere than there. I had stopped being scared of my own ghosts and the ghosts that haunted that room and my life.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: Breanne, fears, ghosts, Jina
