desperation

CHAPTER 1

 

Somewhere very near Darius’s ear a crow cawed furiously. An indignant oily black eye jiggering about, taking in a million things to be pissed off and angry about in a chaotic zoom lens that processes it all back to one feeling; desperation. Darius would like to kill the f*****g thing but he is too sick to move. The pavement is moist and smells like urine but he hasn’t the energy to turn his head away. He feels cursed and indifferent at the same time. Contradictions plague him at every turn.

 

            CAW CAW CAW…

 

            The beginnings of commuter traffic begin to swell with the engorged sun and the early morning steps of the weary workers starting and ending. All these things are signs that Darius needs to get up and get going. Inside his groggy elated head he hears the bartenders words snap out clearly above all conversations and music, “Closing time boys and girls! Everybody out! You don’t have to go home but you sure-as-hell can’t stay here!”

            “Yeah,” he thinks, “can’t stay any-f*****g-where.”

            Brushing a few pebbles off his grease-stained pants, Darius pauses to whip a pebble at the crow sitting precariously atop a chain-link fence. Darius’ hates crows; they always wake him up with their incessant, angry cawing. The last thing he needed was more fuel added to his substantial fire. It’s bad enough that his head is swelling to the size of a watermelon and pain shoots behind his eyes like bolts of electricity. Nausea swims in his stomach, lurching treacherously in a boozy sea.

            And he’s two hours late for work.

 

He doesn’t really worry about being late, he works alone and his bosses only come by once-in-a-while to check up on things, or if he calls them for more supplies. The thought of having to work in his ill and battered condition is what really irritates him most.

            The job itself is pretty easy. Degrading but easy. Darius basically just walks around the train station with a broom, sweeping up garbage, and washing a few bathrooms in a nearby office. The first round of work will only take him about an hour and then he can go home and rest a bit, drink some coffee and have a hangover jerk to some porn. But when every step you take sends lightning to your brain and flips your stomach like pancakes making you want to pass out, then even an hour of work is like dragging yourself to the gates of hell. You know you’re going to end up there anyway, but f**k if you wanna go.

            Pushing his hands down into his pockets and hunching his shoulders, Darius strolls out of the ally and onto the sidewalk. The crowds jostle and nudge each other, all trying to get the front position. Every time someone bumps into him he grimaces and holds back the urge to yell obscenities or smash a face in. The image of his fist connecting with some a******s mouth, knocking the teeth back into their throat, makes Darius a little happier. But it’s a short-lived happiness when he sees the familiar door of servitude emerge as he dips into the skytrain station.

            He walks into the stairwell and opens a small, steel door that always reminds him of Alice in Wonderland, and takes out the tools of his trade; a broom and dustpan. The side door is frosted so that he can just make out the shapes of the people passing by, all streaming out like ants from the bus to commute onto trains or other buses. Just the thought of opening the door and going into their midst fills him full of dread. He can already see the many oblivious faces pretending not to see him so they can jostle past in a mad rush, dropping their coffee cups, newspapers, and snot-rags in their wake, trying not to make eye contact with Darius to avoid litter guilt. So many times Darius has thought of smashing someone over the head for throwing s**t on the ground, or rubbing his filthy, diseased broom in their mouths. Each day begins to feel longer and longer, the point where his patience will snap and he’ll f**k this job and go back to Ontario.

            Only one thing keeps him from doing that-his newly wed wife and their six-month old daughter, Corinne.

            He still has a vivid picture in his mind when he first met Corinne. They both happened to be looking to rent an apartment in the same building on East Broadway and Fraser. There was actually only two apartments, each next to each other, over an Indian food store, but the landlord decided to just show the one for convenience as both layouts were the same anyway. Darius happened to be walking in as Corinne and her three roommates were walking out after their showing. That moment seemed to move in slow motion, at least in his memory. He stood there in the kitchen, stunned like a possum in the headlights of its maker. Everything about her moved and spelled out softness and beauty, from her round chestnut cheeks, deep brown eyes, and her weed-induced choppy haircut to her delicate movements and slender petite body. To Darius she seemed to float out the door, as if caught on the currents of a breeze. But in that short moment there had been a look, a recognition.

            Up to that point in his life, Darius had never believed in love at first sight, or love at all, and not to say that he believed he had experienced it here, but there was some knowing, some foresight in the diaphanous world of the senses. Vibrations moved through him as if he were an ant with feelers instead of a broke a*s skinny m**********r standing in the kitchen of an Eastside apartment.

            As luck would have it, both Darius and his two friends, Trip and Raine, and Corinne and her three friends got the apartments.

            Trip and Raine were two brothers Darius knew from his small hometown in southern Ontario. They had initially just showed up in Vancouver for a weeklong visit, but Darius, eager to get out of the couch-surfing syndicate, convinced the two gaming addicts to stay in Van, get jobs and enjoy living in the city. “Beats f*****g mosquitoes and s****y winters.” He had told them. “No mosquitoes?!” cried Raine in his whiny voice. “Yeah,” Darius replied, “there ain’t even screens on the doors or windows man. No need for ‘em.”

            Trip was harder to convince, always being one of those guys that needs a plan for every f*****g move he makes. Darius preferred to jump in headfirst and smash his brains on a concrete of jubilee. You only live once, right? Soon, though Trip agreed to stay as well.

            Being that the brothers were more used to socializing with each other and their ‘friends’ on Everquest as opposed to real folks, Darius did all the talking to get the apartment, laid down the damage with his own money, and even managed to get Trip a job interview at Wal-Mart, where he was working, by pretending he was Trip on the phone.

            To Darius it was a small price to pay to have a place so close to Commercial Drive, where he could sit outside one of the many coffee shops, people watching and laying down a poem or two. The artistic, eclectic neighbourhood drew him in the first time he visited and he had wanted to live there as soon as possible, to immerse himself in the muse of freaks, grubbies, greaser lesbians, hippies, punks, whatever. It beat the hell out of trying to find a poem watching a bunch of nicely dressed bores in North Van or Kitsalano.

            The first night in the apartment Darius was left alone. Trip and Raine wanted to spend one last night with some respective friends. Being that they never lived out of their mothers’ womby fold, Darius figured they were probably a little apprehensive about moving into an empty joint in a not-so-good neighbourhood. Darius threw his s**t in a small backpack and garbage bag and made himself at home. There was a couch left over in the living room with one cushion missing and the carpet had seen better days but this couldn’t ebb the tide of excitement for Darius. There is just something about moving, discovering new places.

            Along the wall in the living room was a small bookshelf roughly made by an unsanded chunk of wood painted a faint red. Darius unpacked his book collection from his backpack, some Burroughs, Kerouac, Welsh, Carroll, Cave, Rollins, and some random poetry books, and lined them up on the tiny shelf. When he stepped back to admire the bright, multi-coloured spines one side of the shelf cracked under the weight and all the books slid to the side and hit the floor. “S**t!” he exclaimed, laughing at the situation.

            Next door he could hear music and the faint sound of girls giggling, drifting through the wall and an open window along with the sweet smell of marijuana.                                                                     Darius stuck his head out the window and watched traffic roll by, pedestrians hurrying to jobs, families and homes, twitchy prostitutes swaying and teetering on plastic high-heeled shoes, and drug dealers hunch-shouldered and muttering their wares to passerby from shadowed store fronts. He laughed softly at an old pair of tattered pants caught in the tree directly in front of him when he noticed from the corner of his eye the glow of a cigarette from the window next door.

            “Hi,” he croaked awkwardly. Corinne smiled coolly and tossed her butt into the street before disappearing inside.

 

 

Reviews

[Hedra Helix]

I love the you in this, brings authenticity, interest and genuine pacing. Theres a delicacy in the writing thats a very cool juxtaposition to the rawness of his thoughts. Again the authenticity shines.

Im stoked! Can I butt in around half way and add a minor catalyst arc? Thats all I'd like to do to this, the descriptions and thoughts are a slow deep hot burn, I'd just like to add a flick of the lighter in the center....

Otherwise i think its a very strong start and im excited and stoked!

[Hedra Helix]

reading now.....