Debasing Days - Critique strongly encouraged

imasmeasmecanbe

Debasing Days
Or
Morning of the Noble Underdogs

We awoke so cold and lonely in a far away place. Surrounded by faces yet lost in a come-down world all our own.
Ddddrrrrriiing. A phone. Eyes twitch, limbs stretch. Anyone for tea?

Click the kettle. 8 bags, 4 mugs, an unholy helping of sugar and as if by magic we remembered. Glances to and fro, shifty head movements, a party yes but how did we come to be here and why? Harold’s Cross. A couple sleeping on the couch managed to untangle themselves long enough to grab a cup of tea. Grace and John were the perfect couple, he was never particularly tall – in fact he was of less than average height for someone his age yet she still fitted snugly under his arm. Like a dove, hiding its head from the outside world she was safe and secure. He was greasy and unshaven; she was taciturn and gentle, she was the day to his night, polar opposites yet impossible to separate. They lived for one and other. The humid stench of love hung heavy in the air.

And so this is what our life had become. It came on slowly but like a bad flu we knew it was inevitable. We lived for the moment, never thinking, never planning. We had become “those guys”. No one was ever sure if we had been invited or just crashed these parties, but we mingled. We looked so like we belonged these places that people daren’t say otherwise. We were the brother’s friends, the neighbour’s kids and the ex-boyfriends. We floated from house to house leaving confusion and empty beer cans in our wake, we etched ourselves into the minds of people that we would meet again one day under much the same circumstances – and then we would belong. They were added to an ever-growing list of casual acquaintances always good for a ride or a place to kip.

The morning always came with a shock, Jolted back into sobriety, with a cheeky grin. Tea came first, then breakfast rolls. Leave the door on the latch in case. Fresh rolled cigarettes and torn jeans.

We stumbled to the shops, half dressed wholly unaware – these the dream-like moments where we could be counted among thousands. We pass them on the street and they nod knowingly, they hide intentions in silent gesture as if to say it is no dream. In these ever decreasing moments the world seems so small and perfect, everyone we pass knows us, knows where we’ve been and that we will one day be back. Accompanied as we always are on journeys to and from these houses of worship by shadow-suits and girls grown old before their time but we were as alone as ever - Innumerable in the midnight hour when others join the fray yet all together unmemorable in the silence in between. The suits serve only to hide the man within, the girls giggle to themselves, both taunt us ever willing us to join the mundane, to hang up the holey jeans and settle in.

Incoming message. Work tomorrow, something about a chest of drawers. IKEA has reinvented the nixer, thank Christ for that. The world will always be good to the man who knows how to work with his hands. None of us hold a steady job. We mix and match, paint houses, cut lawns and stumble from one minimum wage job to another. We are the seldom few who break the chains that bind only to realise the world is cold place without the certainty of captivity.

The three musketeers. Bandits. That’s us. Like family. I walked behind them to the shop; they let fingers dance and flicked hair. Sideways glances. Trying to stifle smiles. It never bothered me though, well used to it; it’s the way it always was – no need to change it now. We came together and left together. “Y’alright there love?” she turned into him awkwardly trying to catch my eye. Like a dove she was.

I envy them sometimes, grace and john that is. I am the third wheel, the go-between when things get rough, I can stabilize and maintain the relationship. I am the catalyst. I dream of one day finding my own Grace, someone who will miss me when I’m gone, something to hold me back and a reason to stop living day to day but who knows? If I keep hanging around for the eternal-tomorrow life is going to slowly slip away, stumble to its knees in a pool of vomit and phlegm. I need a reason, something solid to aim for. If i could only see the target in the distance I could aim true and shoot clear, void of heavy-heads, gone with hacking coughs and awkward mornings when the night seems but a beautiful dream.

The papers said it was Sunday although the lack of deli-food was in itself a warning. Back to the house we went, No. 31 or was it 32? This side of the road with the red door, sure we found it. A man-child no more than 16 welcomed us and announced our arrival to a sullen-eyed group of teenagers with something resting heavy on their shoulders. Was that their tea? There were 6 maybe 7 mildly-attractive girls and three guys who looked like they’d never seen a party before. The eyes drooped, the movements were slow and clumsy and the heads had to be constantly picked up from the ground – a struggle in itself for some of them. The grapevine said that some money had gone missing and surprise-surprise the blame fell on us. The tables had turned something awful, we had been the life of the party a measly few hours ago but they had no need for antics, too sober to humour us and too tired to offend. It wasn’t the first time, it happens countless times between the suns and sometimes we take the fall, others not. We of the bloodshot eyes, we the labelless fashionistas. We of hidden laughter, inside jokes and cheeky grins. We the rough diamonds.

Of course we denied it, I extended a palm of peace in the form of a pouch of tobacco and some papers. They accepted and we settled in to hear the stories we all forget from the night before. The stories never changed, just the names - x was wasted and got with y but z didn’t know. Poor z. Someone broke a bed, on their own. Haven’t bounced on a bed in years. Strange how some people revert to childhood habits when they can’t see straight. I blessed the beast with some young one. Used to know her brother, he skipped the country a few years back. Never cared much for him myself – but sure the forbidden fruit is made sweeter only by the jaws of the devil or something like that in anyways. Maybe we’re getting too old for this. We the corruptors of innocence.

People our age went to college, they held jobs and formed relationships beyond their comfort zone. Not us though, this was the rut we had let ourselves fall into, this was the glue that held us together. We were fragile and lost, I think it was Rousseau who said that we are only truly ourselves in a state of sheer inebriation; we can cast away the masks that govern the monotony of daily life and just be ourselves for once. Just be. We knew ourselves too well, we lost the ability to hide behind fake emotions, I wore my heart on my sleeve. I couldn’t function outside my comfort zone, outside the party I was a nobody, but I could be anything I wanted when I was there. I could be the travelling student, the struggling writer, I could be the mentor to people joining my way of life (not that I would wish it on anybody).

Click click on the airwaves. Jjhhhhhnnnnnn, my phone again. The hollow sound reverberated around the room. ‘You have been availing of free texts for the last 20 days”. ****e. Johnny wanted to go to the pictures later. Johnny, another acquaintance met amidst the smoke and greeted with dead-eyes. He is slowly becoming one of us. Dartangan. One last text, better make it count. – that’s Johnny on to me, pictures later? Check the funds. Nought but shrapnel between us. Wonder if they’re good for it? Walk to town in anyways, nothing doing here.

We escaped the castle walls once more, no latch this time. Wont be back again. The plans fall and the group splinters apart, Romeo takes his lady home as does happen once in a blue-moon. We make plans to meet up later on. We know they’ll never come into fruition. They retreat up a lane, she hitches her skirt and they hop a wall. I call after them but they are dead to the world again, lost in each other – as much use as tits on a bull.

I walk on, head down, retreating inwards as the garish light of day threatens to rekindle my plight. Past the church, down through Rathmines. The long way round. I wore my father’s coat. Scenic route. The streets were empty and the shops were closed, a hardware store advertised key-cutting, coal bunkers sat unused on the curb. Shutters down. I got to thinking if it was all worth it, the late nights and early mornings, the familiar faces slowly but surely turning away. Hiding their faces from the new-dawn. The chains were growing heavy, the glue slowly fading as cracks began to show in logic. Warped. All we know of the world is what we hear through the herd, the one forever-night moving slowly out of sight as drowning dreams scream. I will break the chains once more, I have lived through other’s stories, watched the world but seen nothing. It is time to leave. Make an example. I never did meet Johnny.

And they will follow where I go. The trendsetter, pioneer. We will take your world by storm. We of ever-setting sun. Forgotten by the crowds. We the unshaven. Shab-chique bought to new extremes. We serve the masses, we take our lot with pride. We the Noble Under-Dogs.

weiming

I enjoyed a lot of this, got a kind of "Trainspotting" feel to it, only without the sex and drugs. I think "...We stumbled to the shops, half dressed [and] wholly unaware..." was classic. At the same time, other parts tried to achieve this same "air" but didn't quite make it for me.

Personally, I would lose the overt sound effects. I realize they have their "significance", but that's just me.

I know the style of "hinting rather than telling" is all the rage, and admittedly I'm guilty of using it myself, but I still found this a bit hard to follow in places. I read the piece closely, but I was still largely in the dark as to what, specifically, I had read.

The piece also goes against two rather staple methods in writing. (1) Endearing the protagonist to the reader. Whether we come to love him because he's lovable or love him because he's hateful. The reader seems instead to be encouraged to like the protagonist less and less as the story progresses.
(2) Fulfilling the reader's hopes for the story. Sure the protagonist is down in the dumps, in a dead-end rut and all that. But is there really nothing better for him than the "fatalistic" ending he has in mind at the end of the piece? Even "Trainspotting" gave us that.

I'm not saying going against these conventions is necessarily a bad thing, it could even be a bold new direction, I just hope the author is aware of it.

Still, highly readable. I hope you keep writing.

imasmeasmecanbe

i really wasnyt aiming at anyting fatalisitc more leaving the ending open, with a sense of the unfinished about as all short-stories should be. this was really one of those things you just right without planning and whatever comes, comes. i had planned, and i am still tinkering with the idea of elaborating the idea in to a novella or a possibly a short book.