Old House

The stars were out as Dave made it back from the telemarketing shift. He looked up at them and around the bus that groaned and growled through its gears. He wondered what it was all about, this life, for to him nothing seemed to make sense, and for that matter, never did; still, at least he was in work, but the pay was barely more than benefits. Something was awry, something amiss, somewhere along the line he was getting screwed, but he couldn’t figure out how or where, and the worst thing was there seemed to be no way to improve it. He thought about taking a second job, but the idea of doing a shift somewhere else before the telemarketing shift seemed too exhausting; and yet, somehow, despite it all, if anyone asked him, he was not unhappy with his life: it was the house where he lived that occupied most of his thoughts: the place, a living, breathing entity, with its own personality that he had liked right from the start.

He looked around at the other passengers traveling in the night: an old lady, sitting, reading; curly, white hair coiffed on her head, spectacles drooping down her nose on a chain; a young kid in a fast food restaurant outfit, then out the window, at the cars going past; the sound of a car horn, rain coming down. He felt the tiredness in his bones and it made him angry, for it seemed to him that nothing, no short-cut, no grand effort, no sacrifice, ever seemed to make the slightest difference: always, his life on a razor’s edge, always the mandatory three days wait in the fortnight in the pay week until he could eat again.

He watched the roads and streets drift past and a then a sudden horrible thought occurred: maybe, he wasn’t that bright, maybe the whole thing was a hierarchy of intelligence and he occupied one of the lower rungs. The more he thought about it, the more the theory made sense, and it sent him into an even blacker mood than before.

He thought about his background of private schooling, the money that his parents had invested in him and it horrified him:  how disappointed they must be, and yet, he was making it through teacher’s college, wasn’t he? Albeit at a snail’s pace �" yes, there was hope for him yet.

The bus came to his stop and he got off and stood on the curve and looked around the neighbourhood: houses in the gloom, wooden clapboard structures where people had lived and bred and died. He started making his way back and by the time he made it half-way up the street, he could sense the old house where he lived: the smell of tomatoes cooking and cigarette smoke and beer, the sound of laughter, an out of tune acoustic guitar. He came to the entrance and stepped through the front fence, its wood, long ago rotted away, obscured by the overgrown hedges and trees; stepped through the yard, the light from the house windows spilling into the dark onto the lawn; rubbish bins overflowing with beer bottles. He came to the front door that stood open like it always did, as though daring someone to step inside, walked in and heard laughter, made his way down the hall.

The walls were broken and cracked and covered in drawings that looked to have been made by a child. He passed closed doors until he came to the back of the house and a doorway with rainbow streamers, walked through them and came to the kitchen itself, put the kettle on, sat and looked around and marveled, not for the first time, at the cupboards that were painted with little figures: miniatures dancing around in tiny worlds of blue and orange, tiny Matisse paintings. The kettle boiled and he stood and made a cup of tea, sat back down and looked through the doorway at the night beyond and then the streamers rustled and a petite woman walked in and looked at him for a moment, took the kettle and filled it with water, lit a match, turned the gas on and put it down.

‘Up late, Davo?’

Dave looked at her and couldn’t help but admire her looks: elegant bones and a powerful body, black hair cut into a bob hanging on her shoulders. She turned and looked at him and smiled as if she knew what he was thinking, leaned in close, put her hand on his shoulder, and, as always, he was captivated by the depth of the brown of her eyes.

‘What’s wrong, Dave, cat caught your tongue?’

She then turned and poured two cups of tea, handed him a cup, turned and wished him good-night and left him sitting there, sipping the tea that was hot and burnt his tongue. He stood and stepped outside and looked up at sky, at the black night that gaped above the earth, stars strewn across it, spread by giants in another time then sat down on the log and sipped the tea and thought about the others in the house. He looked around at the garden and then at the back-shed, thought about renovating it, clearing it out like he had the rest of the place, rebuilding walls, putting down carpet and furnishing it. From what he could see, the power was already connected, though he wondered about the toilet. He thought about the rent they could save with another couple living in the place then threw the remainder of the tea on the grass and went to bed.

He woke to the usual crashing and banging, laughter and this time a baby’s waling, threw the covers off and sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the time: 9.30, he had slept in, again �" the telemarketing shift, drifting closer. He stood and grabbed his towel and headed for the bathroom, opened the door  and saw the curtain move, heard a women’s screech, closed the door and walked back into the kitchen, carrying his tooth-brush and paste, made a mental note to get a lock for that door.

A tribe of people were sitting around the kitchen table, most he had never met; a baby on a woman’s lap, all looking at him as though he should be ashamed that he had interrupted their conversation. He walked to the fridge and opened the door and got out the milk, the inside packed with food-stuffs, some labeled with people’s names on sticky tape, made the tea, poured it and stepped outside, sat on the log and looked at the day �" a blue sky, the world scraped clean, a cold wind.

Every now and then, voices would rise from the inside of the house and someone would laugh and all the others would join in. He sipped his tea and thought about his situation: one more year of University and he would teach High School, but was that what he really wanted? The truth was, he hated his University course, hated the assignments that he had to get in on time, and didn’t like the teaching rounds. The personalities that he had encountered in the profession had shocked and appalled him, and though he hated his telemarketing job, he felt somehow heroic for going there after a full day of University, and anyway, his co-workers had ended up becoming his friends.

He looked around the yard and marveled at the expanse of it, thought about what it would look like once he had finished cleaning it up, thought again about the renovating of the back-shed, sipped his tea and wondered how many more people were going to move in.

He stood and made his way to the bathroom, opened the door and found it empty, walked inside and stood on the old bath-tub and turned the water on. Old pipes banged out dirty brown water and then it cleaned up and became clear and he stood and washed his hair and then, a moment later, heard the door open, someone giggle and the door slam shut, made another mental note to get a lock for that door. He finished his shower and made his way back to his room and got dressed, the sound of laughter emanating from the kitchen, then decided to leave the house and kill time somewhere else.

He made his way to the bus-stop, came to it and sat on a seat next to an old woman and waited, enjoying the sunshine and the empty street, looked at the people in the café on the corner, and then the old woman turned to him and started telling him about the awful state of the country and that it was all the Government’s fault and then the bus pulled up on the curb and he let the old lady on first, stepped on and sat and looked out the window and thought about the women living in the house, the one’s he fancied : the main stays: Donya and Kat, and realized he liked them both and wondered which one liked him.

Images of tantrums and tears came, girlfriends from a past life, reminding him how quickly things could turn pear-shaped with women, and then he remembered how tough the rental market was, how difficult he had always found it to make ends meet.  No, he wouldn’t go there, not with either of them, wouldn’t risk a relationship war in the house: it was big and beautiful and a bargain, and, with any luck they could all live happily for years, just so long as there was no dating, then they would all get along fine. No, it would have to be someone he didn’t live with.

His heart sank as he realized that, apart from them, there was no-one. The bus came and he got off and waited for the tram and a woman walked past, just his type: dark hair blowing in the wind like silk, and then the tram came, clacking along the pavement, pulled up with a groan. He got on and sat next to a fat man with curly hair, eating from a bag of potato chips: a co-worker, on his way to a telemarketing shift.

He thought about the other jobs that he had had: the last one, a waiter at ‘The Spaghetti Tree Restaurant’, and remembered how much he loved the place and working there, and the day that he decided to set his cap for a job there whilst eating lunch there with his sister. They had marveled at how much the place was like the place his Dad had owned when they were kids, before the legendary bust up of his parents. Even the fittings were the same: old chandeliers, posters of old movie stars, all a tribute to old Hollywood; a by-gone era, just like his parents’ marriage.

He remembered the day that he had gone in there with a resume and the delight that he had felt when they asked him to come in for a trial, all of it, like fate, and then the sadness hit him that he was no longer working there: all over a misunderstanding with a manager, and he wondered about it and realized that there was something unfair about the whole situation, but he couldn’t make out what.

Now, he had his telemarketing job to go to. The money was about the same: not enough to live on, barely enough to get off benefits, but it was a job and he took what he could get. He thought about going back to his old job, about trying to clear the whole thing up, but the tram came to the city and the thought was swept away amidst the rush of people brushing against him and he stepped out into the sunlight and walked with the crowd, the bell of the old clock tower, chiming.

Voices, loud in his ears; a busker with a beard grown down to his lap, playing a piano, people, everywhere. He changed direction and walked down a laneway, the same one he would always take, took a table at the same café where he would always sit and the same waiter who always served him offered him water and coffee and he sat and read his book and tried not to eye the women.

The afternoon slipped away, and, for the first time, he suddenly felt a reluctance at having to go there, as though the whole thing was too much effort and pointless, which, for the money he was being paid, it actually was. He stood and paid and walked through the city, came to the sleazy part of town, where all the strip joints and cheap bars were, where his place of work was, came to the café where all the other workers would hang out and walked inside an old building.

He pressed the lift, waited for it to come down, turned and saw his old mate, James, standing next to him. The lift made a dinging sound and hit the bottom floor with a bang and the doors scraped open. They stepped inside, watched the numbers go up, and said nothing and it came to the third floor and the doors opened and they stepped out onto the carpet, walked towards the phone-room, stepped into a tiny space partitioned off with sections of ply-wood. A table stood with a jug and a pot of coffee, tea and sugar and a small fridge. Dave took a Styrofoam cup from a stack and James did the same and they each made their coffee and stood, sipping it, watched the clock on the wall that said 2.53, finished their coffees, threw the Styrofoam cups into the bin and walked into the shift.

Telemarketers spoke into phones, haggled and shifted around, feigned laughter, and then a woman with short hair and glasses walked into the room, announced in a loud voice that it was ‘last calls’ and everyone slammed their phones down in unison, as though it were a competition to see who could hit the receiver the hardest and then they waited for her to speak and she stood and the whole place went silent.

‘So, some of you are saying that the customer has ‘been selected’. We need to get this right: nothing has been selected, nor anyone; what it is, is that we are calling on behalf of Optus, just like you’ve been saying from your scripts, so don’t deviate! So, some of your sales have dropped; I keep on paying out bonuses, so let’s get our points up! Right, I’m gonna shut up! So, let’s get on the phones and start making sales!’

And with that, she stormed out of the room, and the phone-room became loud again, the haggling and feigning beginning anew. Dave looked over at his mate, James, seated in one of the columns of people on plastic chairs, all seated behind desks, and it seemed to him that James suddenly looked very small, saw him sigh and pick up the phone and start his work. Dave turned back to his own desk, stared down at the pile of ‘data’: countless names and phone numbers of people he would call and annoy over the evening, looked at the phone and realized that he couldn’t do this job for much longer, looked around and realized the absurdity of it all.

He thought about the fact that he was working below minimum wage then suddenly felt the urge to stand up and rip the phone out of its jack and throw it at the ‘team leader’, storm out and quit. Instead, he took a deep breath in and breathed out, picked up the phone and began dialing the numbers, placed a ruler under the first name on the pile.

In a few moments he had it dialing and a man answered the phone, sounding tired and annoyed. Dave managed to get his spiel out but it wasn’t long before the man hung up on him. He made call after call, his name, on the board, conspicuously without a sale, until the six o’clock break came and he stood and made his way to the tea-room, made himself a coffee and walked to the end of the building, looked down at the street below, at the cars driving up and down in the rain, their lights glowing yellow beams. Dave turned and saw his boss, the woman with short hair and glasses, standing next to him and it gave him a fright.

‘You’re very wistful tonight, Dave. Time to get back to work.’

He turned to say something but she had already walked off, leaving him standing there, afraid that she would return, and so, he made his way back to the shift, sat back down and began making calls.

He worked his a*s off for the rest of the shift and when ‘last calls’ were announced, he was utterly relieved that he didn’t have to talk to anyone on the phone for the rest of the night. He stood and turned to see his mate standing and putting his suite jacket on and they walked out together and made their way to the elevator, and stood, like an army waiting for rashens, and then the doors opened and they jostled their way forward, the doors closing in on some of them.

They made their way to the bottom of the building and then the doors opened and they walked out and were hit by the cold night air that stung their faces, then left the building and Dave looked over his shoulder and watched his friend walk up the hill, on his way to the hostel where he lived and wondered about him: a fifty-five year old black man immigrated from the U.S. Every Friday they would have pizza and James would tell him stories of his working life in America and Dave had to marvel. He remembered the time when James told him about how his car had frozen up on the interstate on his way to work, how he thought he was going to get hit by the oncoming traffic and it seemed incredible that, after all of James’s life, that he would end up living in a hostel, ostensibly homeless, and yet still be working.

Dave turned and began the walk to the tram-stop and looked around, the workers dispersing like bats, all flying in different directions. He wondered about them, too. It was said that some were simply workers, and raising families, but on the pay they were getting it just didn’t seem possible.  He dismissed the thought and kept walking, the rain falling on his face, came to the tram-stop and stood and waited and looked around, recognized other workers from the shift, doing the same, turned and saw a young girl standing next to him. He looked down at her and saw that she was very beautiful and then the tram came and the electric doors opened and he stood and got on, sat down and looked out the window.

He watched the city go by, the buildings and the river going past, the lights reflected on the black water. He watched the Casino building: tiny figures behind glass, seated in front of slot machines that were tiny boxes with gold light spraying onto the floor and wondered how it was that people had the money to be able to gamble it away.

The tram left the city and came to the suburbs. He watched the old stations appear and disappear; old buildings boarded up, people getting on and off and walking into the night and wondered about their lives too and then it came to his stop and he got off and walked the main-drag like he always did, florescent light illuminating the pavement.

He walked and admired the shop-keepers and the workers serving coffee and ice-cream, some starting to pack up the chairs, saw one that would serve him on a Saturday, then turned the street and walked past a pocket of bars and night-clubs, came to the neighbourhood where he lived that was dark and lit by the occasional street-light, a television on in one of the houses, a family sitting down to dinner. He walked on and, after a while, came to the main road where he lived, walked past the high school and came to the fence, walked the lawn, came to the open door and stepped inside. A tribe of people occupied the lounge, some, passed out, heads slumped back on old couches, mouths agape. Donya was one of them. Dave looked at her and admired her beauty: porcelain skin and blonde hair, falling onto her shoulders. A slender hand, sculpted by an artist, dropped a wine glass onto the floor. He kept walking, came to the kitchen and put the kettle on, and then, on cue, Kat walked in.

‘Long shift, Davo?’

‘Same old.’

She looked at him, and, as always, he was disarmed by her eyes, and then, he watched her body sway as it walked away, and for once, the place went quiet. He sat and enjoyed it and then the house cat jumped up onto the table and stared at him, yellow eyes that suddenly turned white. He shooed it away, remembering that it was bad luck to stare at cats, lit the gas and put the kettle down, opened the back door and sat and looked up at the sky; a dark night, stars in the sky, diamonds winking at him.

 

 

 

Reviews

[Christoph]

My cup of tea.

This website mostly isn't, which I can't fault it for, but still. It's mostly bland characters hidden behind Big Ideas. This person doesn't really have any thoughts or feelings, but hey, the whole planet is exploding and that's something.

I realize I'm talking about everyone else's writing in my review of your work.

Your work is about next to nothing, which is why it's great. You can't hide behind the blinking neon sign of a zombie apocalypse, so you had better write a character with something resembling a personality. And you do, and it's about perfect.

And hey, his personality is also next to nothing. Dry, monotone, here we go again. But even there, you've taken nothing and turned it into entertainment, poignancy, criticism. It's lonely, but you're connected to the world and the character is relatable. Again, great.

I'm here to say hey, great.

For everyone else potentially reading this, do what this guy did first, and then throw him into an epic fantasy if it suits you. There's proof here that you don't have to, but if you want to, you do need to do this bit first.