Kerry Says

Meet Kate:

This day, from now on to be known as the day he left, was no different from any other. This bothered her. She was breaking up with the man she had loved, or whatever, for four yeas. Wasn’t it time for crying jags, masochistic drinking binges and emotional self-abuse?

Was she really going to survive this major life change with only a mild headache and irritation over scratches his movers had left on the hardwood.

The phone rings and Allison’s number pops up on the phone. It sounds like salvation. This means sitting at home is soon to become a break-up booze up with her bestie. This means self-indulgent actions with no consequence. This means free drinks. This is what normal people did when they ended four-year relationships.

“You’d better be calling with a plan and a pocket full of money,” she says in lieu of hello.

“What? Hunni how are you? Are you drunk?”

“No I’m not drunk. I’m not sorry that he left, and I’m not glad he’s gone. But let’s focus on the not drunk bit. It seems the part most likely to change with the least effort in the shortest period of time. Oh, how are you?”

“Fine. On my way over I guess, but the traffic’s nasty. Can you just meet me The Local instead? Then we can get right ripped and promote some prosperity for local enterprise.”

“It’s great the way you make me feel smart by using all that lawyer talkin’,” Kate says sweetly, cradling the receiver as she grabs her bag off the table and jams keys and sunglasses inside. It is nearly evening, but Kate feels new relationship widows should have their shades on hand to mask any tears... or in her case lack thereof.

Ali snorts into the phone. “Yeah well, if I associated with dumb people it could harm my stellar reputation.”

“Funny. I’m heading out and the drink will be running when you get there.... along with a tab in your name. See you soon.”

Meet Stewart:

Stewart sits at the bar. His jacket pulled tightly against his body, lips pulled tightly against his teeth. He is cold despite the fire and a pitcher of draft. This place is his second home, but it doesn’t feel it tonight. He wonders if that had anything to do with the fact that he is now homeless.

A heavy arm lands on his shoulder and a slurred voice offers to “by you a drink.” His funds are low, but he isn’t in the mood to barter friendship for beer. With a shrug he removes the offending limb. His would-be sugar-daddy grunts and spins around to look at the “piece of shit who thinks he’s too good to let me buy him a beer.”

Stewart puts his head down, slides off his stool and out the door hoping to avoid a fight. Or as he tends to think of them, beatings.

He can’t fight at the best of times, and certainly not tonight. He can barely keep his knees from giving out, and not because of the fear of an impending ass kicking, well not only that. The twinges he’d felt in the pit of his stomach when he’d packed the last of his things this morning had not been the shock of his eviction from the love nest, but the initial warnings of a full blown case of the flu. A flu presumably passed on by the heartless bitch who evicted him, though she didn’t seem to be suffering any symptoms. Typical.

Out on the street, he briefly debates exorcising the virus and a demon or two by picking up a hooker. A constant urge to vomit curbs the desire, well not only that. Truth be told, he’s never actually attempted to pick up a hooker before. Not because he is in any way against it, but because of a fear that he may be rejected.

Stewart feels the December air creeping up the sleeves of his jacket and tries to pick up the pace, but the effort leads to an intense coughing spasm knocks which leads to him falling flat on his ass.

From this vantage point, he comes to realize a few things. The first; that he is kind of drunk. The second; that he gave his heart to a woman, and when he headed out the door of their (now her) apartment this morning she had failed to return it. The third; He is in fact quite drunk and won’t be getting up off the ground any time soon.

A winter’s night is not a good time to take up temporary residence on the street, thinks Stewart. There is something about lifting your head off the pavement to coming face-to-face with the homeless guy you always mean to buy a coffee for and never do that doesn’t allow you to feel sorry for yourself but instead forces you to remember that sometimes you can be a real asshole.

“I’m going to end up just like him,’ thinks Stewart, all cold and lonely and resentful of the sad looks happy people are shooting him on their way to more important things.

“I ‘m going to die here tonight,” he mumbles to the twinkling stars. “I really think I am going to die.”

“The only way you’re going to die tonight is if I kick your ass for leaving me waiting at the bar for the last hour,” replies a voice from somewhere overhead.

Then a woman’s face appears above him. In his increasingly feverish state, he thinks for a moment that she might be an angel. His guardian angel, come to take him home. Wherever that was now.

The woman sticks an icy hand under his head, propping him up roughly against a building and then Stewart knows who she is. He knows that she is not an angel and he knows that she is furious.

He tries to tell her he’s sorry he’d forgotten to meet her. He tries to tell her he has a cold. He wants to ask her how her day was and if she could help him up because the sidewalk is damp.

What he says is, “the bitch kept the ring AND my Boston albums!”

Then Stewart starts to cry.

“Aw Jesus. She chucked you,” she says grabbing his arm and watches in horror as he blows his nose on her scarf.

“Oh fuck, you’re a mess. I guess we should get you home”

As the word leaves her mouth Stewart’s eyes well up again. She sighs, hails a cab and says, “OK not home then. I’ll take you to The Local.”

There are reasons why it’s better to go down kicking and screaming than to be simply swept away. But at that hour of morning she was hard pressed to remember any of them. At that time of day it seemed inconceivable Sophie could muster up the effort necessary to defend herself from this verbal onslaught.

No. It was much easier just to sit there glassy-eyed and take it.

And in this manner she was fired, again. Ending her stint at the fourth accountancy firm she’d been dismissed from this year.

The first time she’d been tearful, the second put out. By round three a sense of déjà vu left her feeling only mild amusement. And by number four her general attitude would be best described as resigned.

In all cases she’d have been happy to scream “I quit”, but had remained silent until her total lack of enthusiasm and work ethic said it for her.

With her newly old boss still leaning over his desk, accusatory finger still pointed, saliva still glistening at the corners of his mouth, she stood, exited the room, grabbed her purse and Fichus plant of the desk and saw herself out.

It was just after nine o’clock in the morning and she was unemployed again. The feeling was like that of an old pair of shoes. Perhaps a little uncomfortable now but so familiar you don’t mind it.

That she had been sacked didn’t bother her. She didn’t care much for accounting or accountants. In fact she was pretty sure she was done with the field altogether.

That she was broke didn’t bother her either. In fact, to her mind she wasn’t broke…. yet. She had some outstanding salary to collect and some vacation pay. She was going to be broke, no doubt, and soon.

But not today.

Today she could still take herself over to the fancy coffee shop, where they sprinkled cinnamon on absolutely everything, to buy a little treat to cheer herself up. She was rather fond of cinnamon.

It wasn’t until after she was sitting at a window table with her plant at her feet and her hands around an enormous steaming cup that she realized the one thing that did bother her about the whole situation.

She had an “I told you so” coming to her. It was likely to be more than one, she had become quite the spectacular failure in the working department, but there was one to come from a most unpleasant source. A screeching, gloating, judgmental source.

Sophie took a long slow sip and wondered how long she could go without Heather finding out about it. Not long she decided.

Her sister would know the minute they saw each other. There were no secrets from Heather, (Hawk-Eye their father had dubbed her). The girl had an uncanny knack of sizing you up in a heartbeat, then broadcasting your innermost secrets in stereo. Sophie remembered:

Walking out of the bathroom one day shortly after her 12^th birthday; “OH MY GOD! You’ve got your PERIOD!”

At 16 running up the stairs brown bag in hand; “OH MY GOD! You’re on the PILL!”

At 23 sitting down to dinner dry-eyed and tight lipped: “OH MY GOD! He DUMPED YOU!”

Thinking on it, she couldn’t recall any event in her life that hadn’t been conveyed to her family in this way. Older and wiser, Heather had been the narrator of Sophie’s life for over a quarter century.

Not that Sophie wouldn’t have like to get a word in edgewise every once in a while to set some things straight. (It is truly amazing the way your family can know every single thing about and understand absolutely nothing.) But trying to stop Heather was like trying to slow a freight train down by blowing on it.

No, Sophie had learned. It was so much easier to just sit there glassy-eyed and take it. Being Heather’s little sister was the only job she'd never managed to lose, and as much as it pained her to admit it, she wouldn't quit this one either.

Draining the last of her cuppa even as her bladder protested, she fished her cell phone out of her bag and dialed a number.

“’lo?”

“Hi Hez, it’s me”

“OH MY GOD! They SACKED you!”

STOP SHOOTING PEOPLE!!!!

Go do some drugs or drink alone or listen to Morrisey like eveyone else before you did.

Jesus...

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006
/09/13/shots-dawson.html

Jefferson stirred his coffee as the voice of a long-dead entertainer told complained that “it’s lonely out in space”.

No lonelier than anywhere else he thought staring out the observation panel into the darkness.

He would know, having spent the greater part of a decade moored in this station to the edge of a planet not unlike his own, but quite unwelcoming to the notion of permanent residents. The years of wealthy tourists lining up for a taste of “Life on Mars” were long since over It was now difficult to tempt even scientific minds to come and try a hand at turning the inhospitable red orb into a home.

No, after 40 years of circling its hostile borders, losing time, and lives and hope and, most importantly, money, the human race had decided to turn attention to saving the old tattered planet instead.

But still Jefferson came, begging funding from the few moneyed pessimists and doomsday prophets hedging their bets for survival. He had managed to keep his unrequited courtship with Mars hobbling along, though he was now a team of one, often left for months at a time in the crumbling station.

He’d wait until his very last crate of TANG (traditions must be respected) had been opened before requesting one of the sleek silver rockets now used primarily as pleasure cruisers providing tours of the outer orbit come to bring him back so he could restock supplies and recharge power sources.

He never stayed long.

Why?

Because, coward that he was, Jefferson found Mars was a less terrifying alternative to suicide and he felt he had no reason to stay on this Earth any longer.

Why?

A woman of course.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, STAY TUNED