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The Boar Coffeeshop Podcast VII

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What up team?! We’re back (finally)!

That’s right, you heard correctly, the podcast is up and running again with fresh new voices and delicious new poetic grooves. Veronica Fredericks and I (being Jamie) have usurped control of the podcast from the hands of the dearly missed Philip and will be updating it on a regular basis.  Really, if the podcast were a recently widowed cougar, Veronica and I would be the Claudius to Phil’s Hamlet Senior.  But don’t you worry, because Hamlet Junior (played by the lovely Nokyoung Xayasane) will be sticking around to keep it real and levy empty death threats upon us!  Try not to think too hard about that analogy because I know that I certainly didn’t.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, expect us on a semi-regular basis.  We’re thinking that we’ll be around once every two weeks, with next week being the exception.  In light of the coming G8/G20 summit being held in the Big Smoke, we will be focusing next week’s podcast on that event.  Further, we will be bringing in spoken word artists to lay down some truth for us for during the podcast.

I think that is about it.  More details will follow as they become clear and the haze of fatigue lifts.

Hugs and kisses,

- Jamie and Veronica

P. S. – Jamie, here.  I will give a cookie to the first person to e-mail to coffeeshop@theboar.ca listing every single word that I mispronounce.  Seriously.

http://www.flickr.com/markjhandel

It looks like any other doorway along a row of shops, although the stairs wind down. Two of three landings, I feel like the path led to a space underneath the street, although I can’t imagine that being allowed.

The downstairs is laid out like a maze. A couple dollars entry and you’re in. Thin, teen, natural blonde, good teeth, money; all the things that make me attractive outside of here stop applying the second I hear automated latch on the metal door unclick. Once I’m inside the only things that make me worth looking at are my cock, my mouth, my ass and my pulse.

I walk down the dark hallways. Each room I go past has the flickering glow of a television screen inside flashing across someone’s face through the open door. Some of them sit on the edges of their couches with their hands on their knees, the way you’d wait for news of a loved one in the emergency room. Others lean back on the filthy cracked leather couches with their pants around their ankles. All of their eyes make instant contact with mine as I walk by. I get my pick.

I see others walking in front and behind me entering doors and closing them behind. Some have left the door open with two occupants. I care about nothing right now. I want to get fucked; I want someone to give me that scrap. Or maybe I want to be treated like the piece of trash I feel like.

I’m a mess. I was perfect, and we were perfect together. His dark eyes and handsome face. His strong hands holding mine. Then he left, and my structure began to collapse – the grades slipping, the sleep gone. And now I’m here at the bottom of the world.

He leans over the table. “You know I love you and always will, right?” My heart is torn apart. I know this conversation. “But listen, you and I, we need to talk.” I know it’s permanent.

I see a black guy, maybe late twenties, leaning back on the couch in his room. His red track suit is a bit dingy, the top unzipped with no other shirt underneath, and the track pants bottoms crowded awkwardly around one of his ankles, the other foot naked and free and legs spread apart. He doesn’t look at me, so I stop and peer in through the door ajar. The images of porn on his screen send colours flying across his face.

I scramble. I start crying. I start begging. I never thought I would act this way. “Please don’t leave me. Please. I really don’t think I could handle it Lets think about this.” His gaze goes to the wall. “Don’t do this to yourself,” he says “I can’t watch you like this, it’s embarrassing.” I continue to cry, and he leaves.

He still doesn’t look at me, so I step into his room. I am shaking. I kneel down directly in front of him and he shifts himself over to look beyond me at the television screen. I reach my hand out in front of me and can barely make use of my dexterity. The air coursing through this place is so cold; my fingers are freezing. I feel like there is sand coursing through my veins.

A day goes by from him leaving the table. I haven’t left the room. This is my moment, my creative burst. This is the beginning of the creative process. I convince myself that my pain can be used for good, and my pain can be used to write. I write about him, his pain. I write about how awful it must be to inhabit his skin, and when I exhaust that I begin to write about me, and how awful it is to be on the floor of my kitchen wiping tears onto a t-shirt he gave to me.

Before I can touch him he grabs my shoulder and pushes my face down onto his crotch. I choke and sputter, but he doesn’t care. I don’t either.

I spend hours in front of my laptop, typing. I don’t sleep. I get it wrong every time. I can’t hit the moment, I can’t hype up my pain. I can’t translate my feelings.”I’m not sure you loved me. I’m not sure you can love me.” It’s all shit.

The black guy stands. He holds me underneath the backs of my armpits and I am laying face down on the couch, my face pressed into the cracked leather. The foam bursting from underneath is soaked with the sweat of him and the countless others who have laid there today, yesterday, and before.

There is the disgusting moment when I realize that no great novel will come out of my pain. My emotions don’t funnel into beauty. My emotions mean nothing to anyone but me.

His big hand presses into my back, my neck and my cheek all at once. I am breathing heavy as he yanks off my jeans. We both still have shirts on. I hear him spit into his palm and I make some noises so he knows I’m ready.

As I delete everything I pass across something. “I worry that I have come to a full realization of you.”

I bite into my lip and hold in a yelp as he pushes himself into me. I want this, no complaining. My thoughts split into two streams. One asks me what I’m doing, why I’m here, what is wrong with me. The other half maintains the beat of the moment, as unsexy as it is – I know I want this. Harder. Deeper.

“Don’t come inside.” The only words I had said to him yet. Within ten seconds of my request, he finishes on my back, pulls up his pants and leaves. I stay in the awkward position for a moment longer.

“I worry that I have come to full realization of you, and you’ve done the same with me. And that is why you are leaving.”

I hate myself.

The golden leaves fell softly, gently oscillating in their descent. She sat there silently, looking out into the field from the tiny chapel window. Her breath quickened, and she wished that for one split second — everything would just stop. If only the present time could be hushed and imbued with reassuring stillness, but life wasn’t like that; it moves as if propelled towards something greater.

Sophia sat immobile. Her long white wedding dress enveloped her slight frame as she watched the leaves falling slowly to the ground; their golden descent matching her tears. Her arm moved upwards, struggling out of a dense mud, caked with lethargy. She wiped her tears away.

And then it happened — as it always did: She saw him, youthful and optimistic, under that tree, smiling at her quizzically, and she could almost touch him, as one who is able to touch the past. But he wasn’t there. He was somewhere that she could never reach. Even years later when she saw him at the theatre, he remained someone untouchable, unalterable. His hair had become sparser at the sides, but she could have recognized that energy anywhere; it calmed her and energized her simultaneously.

“Sophia, my God, it’s been so long. How are you?” He had asked her that numerous times in the past and it had always thrown her off guard, as if she were realizing for the first time that she existed and felt things as person.

“I’m well. How have you been, Owen?” The distance between them minimized. They stood there alone, except for the flakes that began to descend. Their intimacy — short in distance, but heavy with things left unsaid. She smiled; the light never reaching her eyes. He smiled back at her genuinely, but always curiously. In that one shared look she felt the impossibility of them sharing any space together for more than a few minutes, and the conversation meandered, never settling in one place, never standing still, and eventually they moved away from each other as their words lost any semblance of meaning. The distance between them expanded, and the crowd of people materialized around them.

“Well, it was nice to see you again.” As he said this he moved his hand to touch her shoulder, reminding her of the ever-present awkwardness between them. Two people who were too joined in mental space to exist properly in physical space.

“Yes, it was nice. I hope you continue… to be well.”

“You too.”

“Well, see you when I see you.”

“Who knows, maybe it’ll be less than five years before we run into each other again,” he joked, his eyes smiling.

“Yeah,” Sophia laughed softly. She wanted to reach out and touch him gently. She wanted to strangle him.

“Well, only time will tell,” he trailed off, lost somewhere. “Okay, bye then,” abruptly spoken.

“Bye.”

They moved away from each other into their own realities, but those moments stood still for her. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face flushed, pulsating. She stood up and the train of white material rustled after her. The cool flow of air entered the room as she quickly opened the chapel window. Autumn air rushed in and the sound of the leaves rustled in tune with her dress as she fanned herself with her now feverish hands.

“This is not how I imagined it would happen.” Her youthful voice came to her from somewhere far off.

“What did you think was going to happen?” They were at the tree again. A light mist of rain fell, barely perceptible under the canopy. Sophia sat next to him with her legs folded into her body; her arms encircling herself, clutching at an unattainable comfort. He stretched his legs outward, looking at her with unbearable rationality. “That we could just get up and go?”

“If you asked me to go, I’d go.” Her intensity surprised even herself. She didn’t really want to go anywhere with him; she just wanted to sit still with him, to be with him, but this plan made things seem less real: running away together to somewhere far off instead of being here, in this space.

“Sophia, you’d hate me. The farther I took you away from Jacob, from your family, the more you’d regret it. By the time we reached the 401 you’d wished you had never decided to go.” Owen looked at her and she felt as if she were falling from a precipice, from somewhere she had been standing without realizing it. “You don’t even know me. We don’t even know each other,” he reasoned.

“But I want to know you.” Her naivety rang sharply in her ears. If only he would see it her way. If only he could.

“I’m someone that you’ve created in your mind. I’m not this person that you think I am,” he countered.

A deep sigh escaped from her lips. “I wish you existed.”

“I wish you existed.”

“Who?” asked her mother.

“Mom, what are you doing in here?”

“Well, honey, we’re waiting for you. Everyone’s waiting for you. Jacob’s waiting for you.”

“Okay Mom, I just need one more minute.”

“Is everything okay, Sophia?”

“Yeah, of course. I just need more time.” Only time will tell, Owen had said.

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll be waiting for you outside.” Her mother softly closed the door behind her and Sophia was back at the tree.

“What if we came back to this spot in five years?” She looked at Owen helplessly.

“No, Sophia, I can’t do that. I won’t do that. If you leave Jacob it has to be because of what he’s done or what he isn’t. It can’t be for me. It has to be for you.”

“Sophia, it’s all been for you,” argued Jacob as they faced each other in the kitchen, a year before their wedding day.

“What has?”

“What do you mean? Everything has been for you: the ring, the house, everything!”

She wished she could feel something more. A part of her yearned to stay with him, but she was already gone. Her mind wandered past sandy terrains, past the cloak that had shielded her for all these years. I know you want to keep me here, but I cannot stay.

“Why do you want to be with me?”

“Because I’m only happy when you’re around. I need you.”

She could feel the cloak begin to tighten. A warm pain festered within her chest and she struggled to breathe. He held her then and the pain subsided, placated by his touch. His mouth moved above her, inside her, around her, and she fell into him. The ceramic tiles were cold against her back. He moved above her, looking down at her. He loves me, she thought, and her tears fell.

The autumn wind blew in through the chapel window. The leaves called out to her, called out for her to run. She clamoured up the windowsill and fell the short distance to the ground. The leaves crunched beneath her feet. Her heels pounded against the grass. More leaves fell around her — falling past her.  She ran, ran, ran. Never stopping.

A soft knock sounded at the door. “Are you ready? The music is about to start.” Sophia looked away from the window.

“Yes Mom, I’m coming.” For one moment, she stood still. She could feel the hard jut of the baseboard, the stickiness of skin on tile, the gasping breaths between two warm bodies.

She could feel the snow falling, melting on her face, the way snow surprises you with its first touch. And the rain. The drops of rain that made their way through the overhanging canopy; the drops that had fallen lightly between two youthful figures.

I wish you existed. Words reverberating from a past that moved forward without heed. I wish you didn’t need me so much.

Once the leaves outside were green, but they had changed to a golden hue, something altogether different, she thought. They perched on the tips of branches but eventually they must fall, softly floating down in their fragility to meet with the hard ground. She moved away from the window and the falling leaves.

The door opened and artificial light entered the room. She turned to face the light. Her mother’s face fell.

Alice felt an overwhelming desire to reach over to her mother and grab her by the roots of her hair, fisting the black locks at the base of her skull and repeatedly slamming her face into the dashboard. Her fingers itched as she rubbed them against her jeans. She moved the car out of the driveway and turned onto the deserted road. They sat together as the heat radiated and circulated within the confines of the car. The sun had not yet risen and the darkness moved fluidly in front of the headlights.

She wondered how her mother felt: waking up in total darkness, trudging to her minimum wage job, exerting herself in repetitive, graceless tasks, and returning in that same darkness to their dilapidated house. Sure, she had a short lunch break between her endless hours of sewing but how did it feel to move in perpetual darkness?

“All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t cut your hair,” her mother retorted, rummaging through her oversized purse. She removed a tube of lip-gloss from her scattered things and serenely applied it — her eyes intent on the mirror. “Why do you need to cut it? It’s beautiful just the way it is.” She rubbed the gloss onto her thinning lips as she spoke.

“I need a change, Mom. And anyways, I’m donating it to charity.” Alice’s right hand moved restlessly on her jeans.

“When are you doing it?”

“Today, I think.”

Her mother sighed heavily. In her periphery Alice saw her mother looking at herself in the mirror, running her fingers through her hair, now streaked with gray strands. She remembered that same disappointed sigh from years ago.

Here, talk to your brother. She felt the receiver in her tiny hands as a voice spoke to her through the static of the phone. Frightened by the disembodied voice she had begun to cry softly. Alice realized that it wasn’t the voice that had scared her, but the strange feeling of disconnect to someone who was joined to her by blood — her mother’s other child. She sighed and took the receiver from Alice.

When Alice was in her mid-teens she had been told the whole story of her mother’s son. It seemed like a tale from another life — a story with no basis in actuality, but in reality it was her mother’s story. She had left that little boy in the care of her ex-husband and had flown thousands of kilometers to Canada. Alice saw him standing among the rubble of his youth — abandoned. She wished that she could comfort him but he was a young man now, much older than she was. The feeling of estrangement wrapped itself around her and she was protected, but as his voice gave shape to his unknown form, a bond was generated between them. He could not touch his mother like she could not reach this woman sitting beside her.

Her mother looked over at her. “Well, you don’t have to pick me up after work then.”

“What do you mean? How’re you gonna get home?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll find a ride,” she said as she shifted her glance to the road ahead.

“I don’t get it.”

“I just don’t want to see you, is all. I don’t want to see the mess that you’ve made… out of your hair.”

Cut. Her mother’s words like a moving blade. Alice’s hands clenched and unclenched rhythmically as they strained against her self-control. They itched to feel the satisfying percussion of bone on dashboard. Breathing in deeply she glanced at herself in the rearview mirror.

An unmoving face stared back at her. Never show people how you feel. Never show them that they’ve hurt you, her mother had advised her when a fellow student had spit in her face. She felt the weakness of emotion take over and consciously hardened herself. She was impenetrable. No one could touch her. No one could cut her.

“Fine,” she said and looked away from the mirror.

To distract herself she wondered who had the better deal: herself or her mother’s son. In his mind this woman could be anything. Maybe he fashioned his own story about why she had to leave him. In his mind he must have seen her as a driven woman who aspired to greater things, to a greater self. She left him because she needed to escape poverty, he told himself. Then she’ll come back and find me and, once and for all, I’ll know that she really loves me.

They finally reached the factory and her mother exited silently. The morning light grew faintly in the distance.

——————————————————————————–

Jane opened the door of the factory and blinked repeatedly; the light — harsh and glaring. Her daughter’s words like a moving blade. Why did Alice continually challenge her? Why was her daughter so much like her? They were both two silent, brewing storms unable to release their deluge. She seated herself at the station where they sewed button holes. It was tedious and time-consuming, but she had perfected the task and did it skillfully and without thought. The press of the machines droned on; her hands moved ceaselessly, productively impotent. At these moments she felt her mind moving forwards and backwards, oscillating between past and present. Years ago, before Alice, Alex use to cling to her hand as they made their way through the busy market. Bicycles clinked past, carts sped by, and the harsh sun floated above a pulsating haze.

Mom, I’m hungry.

I know, Alex. We’re almost there. We’re going to see Papa.

Where has he been, Momma?

Oh you know your Papa. He has to work a lot. He has to make money to feed us.

Oh okay.

That day was a scar on her mind. Cut. She began to bleed again.

She saw his little form. She always made sure that his hair was combed. He was wearing a clean, blue shirt that day. It had been washed the day before along with all of his clothes. She placed the duffel bag beside him. He sat on the front steps while she kneeled in front of him. They were at her husband’s house. He hadn’t been living with them for over three months.

Alright, Alex. You stay here okay? Your Papa will be home in ten minutes. Here’s a watch so you can tell. When that hand gets to the two he’ll be home, but here’s his work number if he isn’t home by then. There’s the phone right there. She pointed to the nearby phone booth and placed a coin in his small palm.

I’m scared.

Don’t worry. Here, let me show you. You put the coin in here and you press these numbers. He had laughed. It was a fun game for him.

Where are you going?

I have to go and buy some food. Make sure to call Papa if he’s not back when the watch says.

Ok, Momma. I’ll wait here for you.

Cut.

“Shit,” Jane felt the blood on her fingertips. The needle left a small bloody pinprick.

He’s waiting for me, she thought. Alice is waiting for me.

——————————————————————————–

Alice held the long lock of hair and in the mirror — a different person. She relished the lightness and the freedom of this new look. The heavy curtain of blackness was pulled back, showcasing herself — explicit and raw. Stray strands littered the floor. Blunt and chopped black ends. There was nowhere to hide now. Her cell phone rang.

“Can you pick me up?”

Alice paused. “Okay.”

——————————————————————————–

She pulled into the parking lot. In the light of the half-open factory doorway she saw her mother standing there. Her outline silhouetted against the dimly lit backdrop of the factory interior. She stood there with her oversized purse and lunch bag — a figure in the darkness. In the muted light her mother looked down at her hands, hands that had moved skillfully and ceaselessly beneath the press of a sewing machine. In her creased and worn grasp, she had held a young boy and a young girl. Now these hands grappled with thread and needle and nothing else. Her mother quietly seated herself in the passenger seat. The car door creaked on its hinges and closed softly. They drove in silence. The darkness outside matched its morning brother, and cupped mother and daughter in its softness.

“I thought you didn’t want to see me,” Alice began.

“I know what I said.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I don’t know, Alice. I’m sorry. Your hair cut looks good.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks.”

The car moved forward into the darkness. Asphalt lit by the moving headlights. The heat emanated from the radiator.

The Blog family had a very busy day. It was Friday, November 13th and it was sunny outside with a few clouds.

The smallest member of the Blog family was little Markie Blog. Markie liked to be referred to as Mark because he felt it was more manly. Mark was six years old.

Mark’s mother, Susan Blog, had recently broken three of her toes when she dropped a load of eight text books on her right foot. Susan Blog was a compassionate teacher but was finding life to be a struggle with broken toes. Of her new found toe related issues, Susan thought driving was the most difficult.

Mark loved the idea of driving. He particularly liked the sound of a car’s motor upon starting. The rev, he thought, was an indication of the car’s strength. To Mark, his mother’s car sounded very strong. However, despite his love for automobiles, little Mark knew he couldn’t drive because of his age. To compensate for this fact of life, he had to settle for playing with his remote-controlled car in his room or mimicking his mother’s actions as she drove both he and his sister to and from school.

The accident happened just after school, prior to four o’clock in the afternoon.

Susan Blog had been so overcome by the pain in her right foot that she forgot to offer her co-worker a ride home. As a result, Mark sat alone in the back seat while his older sister sat up front.

There was still daylight peaking over the tree-tops when it happened.

The vehicle itself was in pretty good shape. Although it had lost a tire one time, Mark had helped his father put a new one on and now you couldn’t tell the difference in the vehicle’s steering.

Being well into autumn, some coloured leaves were still hanging from the trees while others were making their descent. It was these falling leaves that distracted Susan just before it happened.

When it happened, Mark let out a painful scream.

With a loud bang, the windshield cracked and splintered in-front of little Mark’s eyes.

His mother, scared for her son’s well being, struggled from her seat, made her way to Mark’s door, and forced it open.

Mark’s belt was still fastened around his waist, his shirt was still tucked into his jeans, and his shoes, velcro, were still fastened to each foot. Mark’s face however, was buried in his hands and he was crying very loudly.

“What happened?” Susan asked.

“I tried to drive it under the bed but the bed broke it,” Mark replied between sobs.

Susan hobbled over to her son’s bedside and inspected the remote-controlled car.

Mark’s sister opened her door across the hallway and entered Mark’s room. “What happened?” She asked.

“Oh it looks like the windshield broke  on Mark’s car when it hit his bed frame,” Susan said. Mark was still crying, though a little less than before. Susan put a comforting hand on Mark’s small shoulder.

“Don’t be such a baby Mark,” his sister said.

“Lucy,” his mother retorted, “what did I tell you about saying mean things?”

Blog Family Story #2: A Short About Saying Mean Things

The Blog family had a very busy day. It was Friday, November 13th and the sky outside was a smoke coloured grey.

The eldest of the Blog family children was the adorable but unkind Lucy Blog. Lucy felt she was the most popular person in her grade which, she figured, would lead to a career in politics. Indeed, she wanted to be a proper lady but at heart she was very much a fire starter. Lucy was nine years old.

With another school day passed, Lucy was now buckled into the front passenger’s seat of her mother’s car. The ride was silent as her little brother Mark played with a pocket-sized toy truck in the back seat and her mother drove tight-lipped, preoccupied by the pain in her right foot. Lucy felt bad for her mother who had managed to break three of her toes last week. However, despite her mother’s affliction, Lucy found her thoughts drifting to an event that occurred earlier in the day.

In her dimly lit fourth grade classroom Lucy sat with the other pretty girls in the front right hand corner. It was here that they wrote insulting notes regarding the ugly girl’s ugly teeth or the poor boy’s poor clothes. A favorite subject of the charring notes that Lucy authored was the stupid boy’s stupid brain. Behind the teacher’s back such notes were passed and celebrated from O’ Canada straight through until home-time.

It was just after the day’s first recess, while the teacher was writing out multiplications of some number, that Lucy passed a real scorcher of a note. The other pretty girls enjoyed the insulting quip and passed the note back so that Lucy could dispose of it. Prior to disposal however, Lucy noticed a message scrawled on the back of the note from one of the girls. The message read, “Your notes are nasty Lucy, be careful your tongue doesn’t turn into a match and you burn your wooden teeth out!” Lucy laughed to herself, stuck her tongue out at the girls, and then proceeded to smile as if to show them that both her tongue and teeth were perfectly normal.

As Lucy’s mother now pulled the car into their driveway, Lucy concluded it was Sasha who wrote the unpleasant message on the back of her note.

Once inside, Lucy put her bags away and helped herself to some chocolate chip cookies while her mother sat and watched the orange and red leaves falling outside the kitchen window. Lucy wanted to help her mother some how but felt she needed to call Sasha. Without delay, she scurried down the hall with cookies in hand.

Just as Lucy was about to dial the phone however, she heard a kafuffle across the hall. Curious, she opened her door and walked across to her little brother’s room.  He was crying on his bed.

“What happened?” Lucy asked.

“Oh, it looks like the windshield broke on your brother’s car when it hit his bed frame,” her mother said.

“Don’t be such a baby.”

“Lucy, what did I tell you about saying mean things?”

Lucy laughed, “My tongue is never going to turn into a match mother. That’s an old wives’ tale and I’m never going to be a wife because I hate boys!”

“Laugh all you want Lucy, I just don’t want you to set your talker on fire.”

Back in her room Lucy called Sasha and the subject of the note followed closely behind her friend’s ‘hello. ‘

“I didn’t write it!” Sasha protested.

“Don’t lie Sasha, I know you’re just a stupid wanna be.” Poor Lucy. While she was correct in supposing her tongue would not turn into a match, the wives’ tale rang true regarding the fire. It was a matter of keeping the mouth moist and with all of her insults Lucy had dried her mouth out. Like many people in this world, she was born with a match for a tongue (although such a thing is completely undetectable). So when Lucy pronounced the sounds /t/ and /d/ in the word ‘stupid’, her tongue was set ablaze because of the friction created between the match-stick-muscle and her dried and rough Alveolar Ridge.

Well, Lucy’s tongue lit up and, as it turns out, her teeth were made of wax. With her molars melting and smoke bellowing out of her nostrils, she couldn’t help but cry. Alone in her room, her tears couldn’t stop the flames, so she sat in pain until the match burned out and all the wax cooled. With sealed and calloused lips, she screamed a muted scream and ran to her mother’s side.

In an expecting tone, her mother proclaimed, “That is why you don’t say mean things.”

Werdna, once venerated as a scholar, was discombobulated when the newspaper related a belated story about the unethical penetrating of a little tart who stole his heart and fucked him then plucked him feather by feather after he bucked at the little tart’s pressing to continue the undressing and re-dressing when Werdna truly thought that that was that, merely a debonair affair of thirty seconds flat. Oh but how he was mistaken!

The paper would make him a pauper and he would be expunged from his profession because of his transgression and he would be made the fungus of society, a champion of impiety, an ignominious and lascivious old scholar with kisses under his collar. Oh the opprobrium! The shame! Only playing the game, he thought, in the selfsame way that everyone rolls in the hay with the coquettish foot fetishist. Now it’s on me to foot the bill, to fill the shoe, to shoe the foot.

Winona was raving, but she was also craving mashed potatoes because the day-after pill didn’t work when Werdna’s condom broke, and the sperm fertilized the egg, or the egg chose a sperm rather, so Winona was in a bind, to consummate a craving or go on raving at her disgraceful scholar husband who broke the condom and the sanctity of marriage with his relentless thrusting, dipping his penis into so many baskets; she’d weave him a condom out of sheep’s intestine that he’d never break, the cock-dipping, basket-busting, sanctity-thrusting cunt-crazed kook. I’ll weave him this condom so tight that his prick will have a constant reminder of the ignominy it brought on me, with its leering and thrusting, its tearing and busting, its insatiable undeniable reprehensible needs. I will sit on his cock until the old crock drops dead while his prick turns rock solid in rigor mortis and it will be an open casket funeral and he’ll be naked with his big red hard cock sticking up to the sky.

Werdna never inquired about Winona’s whine, so he assumed everything was fine, and he hid the paper before she would see it, but she already knew of his secret visit with the tart and her cunt, the cunt and her tart, the post-prandial pussy, the crock and his cock, cocksucker winding his wristwatch.

Come here my darling, Winona said with a whine, I’ve got a present for you, for your cock more precisely, the stock of our marriage, your glockenspiel with the head unpeeled, a little gift after our little rift about the breaking condom. I think I’ve loomed the solution for your hard-on with its hat off.

Winona, my dearest, all is water under the bridge, dust under the fridge, food for the hogs, hogs for the bear, barren of meaning, barely meaning a thing, my lovebox.

I insist that we couldn’t subsist without that which I have made, because it’s with this sheep’s intestine condom that you can thrust your heart out, fuck your bone out, and love me deeper than a ravine, my lovefiend.

Well if that’s the case, encase my cock with the sheep and sleep no more, because my love bone doth murder sleep, lady. Dream a dream of my cock in sheep’s wool and write it on foolscap next to your bed because it’s about to become a reality in your prissy pussy my cuntlove, and there will be nothing prim about it when I surge with my lovepump my plump little darling.

My anus is wet with anticipation listening to your oration you old scholar. Quit lecturing me and pump your love into my love if you’re thirsty enough to handle it.

My lovepump is so rigid that it will be hard to get that sheep over my corona, but once it is, you better prepare your persnickety bologna for a penetration greater than any to ever hit the nation.

Werdna set about capping his snout and they went for a roll in the hay.

Winona sat on his cock as she leered at the clock and watched night turn quickly to day.

He had been so heinous; Winona clenched her anus; for the disgrace, she would be sure that he pay.

His cock turned hard in the sheep, so Winona went to sleep and woke to find him dead the next day.

His cock pointed to the sky, as people moaned “why oh why” and they buried him and his hard-on in clay.

Leeroy was sitting alone near the front door. He sat with a coffee and a donut. At the table next to him  a nameless gentleman sat alone with a coffee, having already finished his own donut. In Leeroy’s left hand he held a novel that he was busy reading.

“I tell you what,” the nameless gentleman spoke. “It’s so cold out there that my fingers fell off.” The man brought his left arm from bellow the table, revealing a stump just beyond the wrist. “Yea, I lost my typers which is a shame because I used to do computers when they first came out.”

Leeroy tucked the stir stick from his coffee between the pages of his novel to mark his place. “It is cold out there,” he agreed.

“It’s been a day of a night I tell you young fella, lots goin’ on. Hit a deer with the truck way back around midnight. This time of year hunters are always scaring ‘em out of the woods. The kicker is I didn’t stop until 2 am to clean it off the grill. That was a mistake – but I don’t think I should be talking to you about my mistakes.” The nameless gentleman then paused to look at the floor. “Hell I almost had the truck in the ditch twice before I found this haven. Thanks for the coffee eh?”

“Oh no, don’t thank me. I don’t think I served it to you,” Leeroy said.

“Well sure but you got the uniform on you know? You’re part of the team and etcetera.”

Leeroy laughed, “Right.”

“Yea, I used to do computers for a living, just typing up reports and stuff in the big city. Then I lost the fingers on my left hand saving some guy from getting hit by a subway train or something.” The man slid dirt off of a floor tile using the toe of his well-worn shoe.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Leeroy said. “Your heroics must have been pretty well received though. I mean, saving a person’s life is really something.”

The nameless gentleman dug at one of his tired eyes using his knuckle. “You’re from around here right?”

“Yea, I live about five minutes from here,” Leeroy replied.

The nameless gentleman patted the chest pocket of his jean jacket and pulled out a pack of smokes. He put the pack down on the table and rested his hand over top of it. “You know, grown men sing to each other all the time, eh? Big burly fellas with guts like pregnant cows. They’d crush you like a junior mint but in secret, they sing like fools. What time is it now? 4:09 am, yup.” The nameless gentleman laughed and tapped his pack of smokes on the table. “Those burly men are probably howling to each other over the radio right now.” He smiled. “I tell you, the other night one of my buddies was singing to me over the radio. Now I’m talking about the trucker’s radio keep in mind. I don’t remember what the song was called but you’d recognize it, and he must have sung it ’till his face turned red. It was likely the nicest thing anyone’s done for me because it got me laughing and kept me awake. Jezus, when a bunch of lonely people get radios, they sing.”

Leeroy smirked and looked at the napkin he was playing with. “I never would have expected such a thing,” he said.

“How about here, you coffee grinders ever sing a little something to keep each other up during these shifts?”

“I don’t know,” Leeroy started. “One of our bakers hums to herself sometimes but it breaks my heart because she hums the lullabies she should be singing at her two year old’s bedside.” Leeroy looked the nameless gentleman in the eyes and he shook his head.

“Shit. That’s life for us but she shouldn’t be doing that to you guys.”

“Oh no,-” Leeroy began. “Yea, I’m right,” said the nameless gentleman. “I used to fish for Alaskan Crab way up North, off the coast of Alaska, and there was this wall of guy.” The nameless gentleman aided his story with lecturing movements from his right hand. “His face must have been carved from wood because his expression never changed. I tell you son, he was terrifically calm or stern or something. Anyway, in waters like that, if a man fell overboard you couldn’t rescue him because he’d be frozen to death by the time you got the life preserver thrown down to him. So a friend of mine- and we were both young at the time- he falls overboard like a fuckin’ fool. Well sure enough it nearly kills me inside and I yell and scream for a minute or two but that’s all I can do. So for the next few days I took long breaks and just stood there freezing on deck with my hands in my pocket sighing. Anyways, this wall of a man comes up to me after a while and says, ‘Why are you sighing? You want to see your own breath? Be tougher than that, keep it inside.’” The nameless gentleman leaned back in his chair looking Leeroy in the eyes successfully. “That baker lady’s just singing to perpetuate her own sadness and it’s bringing you guys down, that’s not right.”

Leeroy eyed 4:11 uncomfortably. “Well I don’t know, I don’t think it’s like that in this case.”

“Shit, you’re a little shy on age boy, and let me say that with experience comes age. Just wait ’till you get some more experience and then you’ll be old enough to tell the difference. Hold on here, I’m going to grab you something out of my truck real quick.” The man sprung from his chair, pushed open the exit-door, lit a cigarette and headed for a truck at the other side of the parking lot. Leeroy sat quietly. A few minutes passed.

From his vantage point Leeroy saw a cigarette hit the asphalt just outside the window. The nameless gentleman smothered it out with his shoe and made his way inside. He approached Leeroy’s table rubbing his right hand against his stump.

“I tell you, it’s so cold I could barely keep these fingers on.” He lifted his right hand and wiggled his fingers.

Leeroy offered a polite, breathy laugh. “My break is nearly over,” he said. “I’m going to have to get back there.” Leeroy motioned toward the counter area.

“Okay boy, I understand. Don’t want the boss getting on your case. I used to work at a joint like this. I worked the cash when I was about your age.” The nameless gentleman rubbed his chin and looked around.

“Well listen, it was nice to meet you,” Leeroy said extending his hand.

“Oh right, hey, I’ve got a tip for you.” The nameless gentleman struggled to get his hand into his pants’ pocket. “Look both ways before you cross the street.” He laughed at his own joke and pulled out a handful of money. “Here, take this.”

“No, no I couldn’t.”

“Yes, take it you dummie.” The nameless gentleman tossed a hundred dollars on Leeroy’s table.

Leeroy rose from his seat. “No please, it wouldn’t feel right.”

“Keep your feelings inside boy.”

“Hey listen; I don’t deserve your money.”

“Neither do I.”

It began to snow but the ground wasn’t cold enough to hold the flakes so the earth was merely getting damp. The nameless gentleman started his truck and drove about five minutes down the road. He pulled an envelope out of the glove box and removed an aged picture of himself smiling alongside Leeroy’s mother and father. He wrote their names on the front of the envelope and slid the picture back inside. The nameless gentleman stepped down out of his truck and walked to the front door where he placed the envelope inside the mailbox. He stood for a moment before walking down the steps toward his truck. In the middle of the front lawn he stopped walking toward his truck and turned back toward the house. Swiftly, he jogged up the front steps, removed the envelope from the mailbox, and walked back to his truck. He turned the key and the truck’s engine rolled over slowly, starting with a sigh. Back on the highway, the nameless gentleman lit another cigarette.

***

Keegan Tremblay is a University of Waterloo English student who actually spends time writing, and doesn’t just say that he does. His writing has recently “gone digital” via http://keegantremblay.wordpress.com/, where the first two parts of the preceding  story debuted. We are happy to offer you the third and final part of “What the Nameless Gentleman Didn’t Think He Should Say” (along with the rest of the story).

Be sure to check out Keegan’s book, which he is publishing — 140 characters at a time — on Twitter.

PLEASE NOTE: PARENTAL ADVISORY IN FULL EFFECT FOR THIS PODCAST, EXPLICIT CONTENT FOR REALSIES

Hey! Quick, what’s that behind you?

Nevermind, I thought I saw a ghost.

Image courtesy of owaief89 at flickr.com

The Boar Coffeeshop Podcast V

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So we’re back for the fifth Coffeeshop Podcast from the Boar. Make sure you listen to the fourth Podcast if you want to know what’s going on (the stirring conclusion to… WHAT WOULD NOK SAVE FROM A FIRE I DON’T KNOW!) and see if you can spot the hidden Russel Peters reference. If you can, I’ll give you a lolly. Just write “Gimme My Lolly” c/o Phil Froklage at The Boar, include your answer and fifteen dollars, and I’ll try to make sure to remember to send you that lolly we talked about.

New poetry by Rachel Kelly, “Play Dough”, new short fiction by Andrew Szymanski, “Once Upon a Time”, a couple of very cool and talented cats.

Special thanks to the lovely Sukhpreet Sangha, blogger and editor extraordinaire from the Boar’s own Unidentified Fashion Object (plug plug!)

P.S. if you liked COOL CAT THEN BAM.

The Universe has a plan for you. God has a plan for you.

Those were the reassurances I was given. It is the reason for the bad things. It is why “Billy” Preston Hayfield has nothing. Nothing is defined as two dead parents, zero tangible assets, no safety net, and a plan held in trust.

Such are the circumstances that conspired to make Billy an orphan, a foster child, a scholarship recipient, a college dropout, and an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is code for self-employed scam artist when filing one’s taxes. Scamming fellow citizens is easy money but scamming one’s government is a fool’s game. No, Billy was a people person. He pitched a small game. Short cons.

What sort of scams? up spoke the regular I had been sharing words and rounds with.

You know, the melon drop, wire game, Jamaican switch, Spanish prisoner, badger game, pigeon drop, Albuquerque handshake, change raising, dead man’s purchase, rip deal, white van speaker scam, jenny invert postage stamp, those sort of scams.

I’m always getting the wool pulled over my eyes. Change raising. I’m an easy mark.

You’re drunk.

Yeah, he acknowledged with a deep resignation.

You’re an easy mark. Billy would have scammed you in the worst way. But life does not stand still. Billy is no longer that man. He met a girl. It’s always a girl. And no longer did Billy want to scam and con and grift and steal. So no longer did Billy scam and con and grift and steal. With her in the picture, different elements suddenly came into focus. He wanted to be a better person. For her. Her better person.

I always hate to see a man develop a conscience.

There always needs to be a complicating action.

He raised a finger. He looked at me straight on, with eyes sunk deep in his face; it was unnerving. They looked like beads tied together by some invisible string across the thin bridge of something that might have once resembled a nose. Drinking had made him flush, offsetting the natural colour of his skin which had long ago wandered clear past the safe side of sallow. Jeans and a flannel in Royal Stewart adorned his slight frame. He looked like a man you would expect to be wearing a gas station feed cap but he wasn’t. Instead, his hair simply sat, loosely, atop his painfully obvious scalp. He waddled away. Three minutes later he waddled back.

For those absent three minutes, this unfurnished tin building country-western looked ever more populated by his shadows: hollow reflections of men, jobless, fired, laid off, bought out, severed. They were tiny husks, these patrons, filling space like ghosts in a ghost town, false occupants who move in after the atomic blast that claims its rightful citizenry. The greatest shadow of all signaled the forgotten tonk–the unblackened centrepiece for a piano occupied only by a lone jukebox. We were the survivors of this place and places like it. Today’s forgotten men, only remembered by the shadows we left behind.

So this girl–she have big teeth? I love a girl with big teeth.

It’s your dance. I indicated him for the barman.

She had big ideas. Well, Billy had the big ideas. She merely encouraged the good ones. She believed in him. She told him that he could be anybody he wanted to be. The past was for the dead and the present for the living. We’re all alive right now, she’d say. The past is over. Finito. It doesn’t matter. The future was theirs. It only could be, all part of the plan. This girl, she–

She was scarcely twenty years old to Billy’s twenty-nine. He was at the same time both lithe and limp; he gave the uncomfortable impression of being submissive. He had studied with passion and with vanity nearly every page of God only knows what philosophical manual. He made use of logical positivism to put an end to any question that lingered in her heart. The reasons a person can have for hating another or for loving one, are infinite: Billy reduced the history of moral choice to a selection of incontrovertible facts. For a gentleman only lost causes should be attractive, she told him. Night would fall, they would continue their attraction in the hall, on the stairs, then along the vague streets. He read to her from books. The ideas Billy parroted impressed her less than his irrefutable, demonstrable belief in what he was saying. These ideas were not discussed: he dictated them with power and with a certain contempt. These were not ideas. They were truths.

So it continued week after week, the vague streets became the open road, clearly defined, stretching into the distance for the foreseeable future, and they grew closer. Their lives hopelessly entwined, only to be shocked by a sudden burst of real truth. Sunday was their day. A true day of devotion. It was there that she first told him. He need no longer be alone. She provided something, a grounding, a child, interminable pregnancy. The day that she told him, something and nothing changed in him. Clear skies. It connected cities, states, neighbourhoods. It collected tolls. It created a great nation: the road. Some roads will always remain open. Billy was a driver and the open road provided him not just a place to connect but also to be alone. On Sundays Billy would propose to her the idea of the failure of unregulated self-interest or the meaninglessness of abstract relationships. On a Sunday she proposed to him an idea: him as a father. It was Saturday night. A two-lane blacktop receding past trees and farms and hills and crops, a rural existence deserted of souls, populated only by shadows. And the road only continued past. Stark yellow against the black of night guided his car. The yellow was a bright spot in the darkness, a lantern calling you home, or the headlamps of oncoming traffic beckoning you to drift to centre. Out of the darkness and towards the light, the warmth, but you snap out of it. That’s the easy way out, the coward’s way. A man walked along the road that night, a man much like myself.

Another? called the barman.

I nodded to my compatriot. This time I excused myself and when I returned a drink waited.

Billy coasted along mile after mile; his and her route became him and straight lines and the black. And a man walked along that road on this night, probably lost in his own thoughts. Maybe he had girl troubles, job troubles, life troubles, or maybe his car broke down. Billy hit and pinned this man to a tree with his car. Dead. He was pinned to a tree. Nothing left could be done for him. Billy, though; this was his chance–escape! His mind twisted and twisted and twisted, turning over his options like the pistons in his discontinued full-size basic sedan. The car was shifted into reverse. It was backed up a few feet, the body moved, the car replaced, pinning to the tree nothing but a ghost, a forgotten man. The car was given a new driver. Wallets, watches, rings, personal effects were exchanged. The details of the exchange are taken with careful thought and consideration. The deal is sealed not with a handshake but with a fire. Any remaining contestable details are washed away by flame. And Billy walked away into the night a new man. His own man.

I tell you this because Billy’s story reminds me of something that my father once told me. I remember when I was just a boy my father said to me that I could be anybody I wanted to be, that the past, who we were, who we knew, it all didn’t matter. The past. It doesn’t matter.

Was that the plan?

There is no plan. I chose to be Preston Hayfield.

Image courtesy of owaief89 at flickr.com

The Boar Coffeeshop Podcast IV

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Hi there! It’s so good to see you. How are you? I just ran into Jack a minute ago and we were talking about you; this is so crazy.

Well, I have a little something that we’ve been working on to show you — it’s the fourth podcast from the Coffeeshop. New poetry from Amy LeBlanc, new short fiction from Justin Burgess. Masterful work, all. Hope you enjoy it!

Well, say hello to your brother for me when you see him. I hope he’s having fun in Europe!

Sweet hugs and baby pugs,

Phil and Nok

P.S. Hey, it’s Phil. Sorry this podcast is late. I have a note from my doctor that says I’m an idiot, so it’s okay.