Thursday, February 14, 2008
Work in Progress
The pieces that follow I have been working on a little. I have some serious re-working to do on the short story but would love to hear what you think.
Wake Up Call
Wake-Up Call
By Ashton Goggans
Keys have always been a pain in my ass, literally. I grew up in a town that didn’t lock its doors, or didn’t have to at least. To add to the feeling of small town warmth, my father was the mailman; the ever chipper bringer of news, both good and bad. From time to time I would find myself in far-off places, sometimes in sketchier areas, and though I would remember to lock the doors from time to time it was rare that I didn’t immediately misplace the keys. The presence of keys in my pockets always felt foreign; a tumor of distrust for humanity.
In a fit of small town idealism and quarter-life crisis decision making, I moved to New York City, Brooklyn more specifically, to finish my Undergrad. Despite the dramatic change of pace, atmosphere, economic diversity, and crime rate, what I found most strange was the pile of keys which I was forced to carry: one for my big bike chain, one for my small, one for the building’s entrance, and another for the elevator, one for the main lock on our door, and one for the deadbolt. I am certain this mass of jangling, faithless, inhumanity caused my blood pressure to rise. I invested in a hook of sorts to keep them on, the kind that climbers use, and yet I still found myself momentarily panicking, more frequently than I would like to admit, the moment that I didn’t feel them jabbing my right upper ass-cheek, sending my right hand compulsively clawing at my ass for reassurance.
As a twenty-three year old single young man living in New York City for the first time, I found myself dabbling in debauchery and paid for it daily. On this particular morning the light that crept under the door to my room sent me cowering deeper under the covers. After a brief rationalization that I had things to take care of, I took a deep breath and in one movement slung the covers off and clamored towards the bathroom. Still dressed in the evening’s clothes, only one sock had survived the night. I exited the bathroom as quick as possible, trying to avoid looking at the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. In desperate need of stimulants, I put the kettle on the stove to make coffee.
My only source for time, my phone, had died sometime between last call and catching a cab home. Given the eerie silence and gray light that filtered into the loft, I figured it was around ten in the morning and my roommates were surely still sleeping. I am a slob. I know this. However, I have done a bang up job of keeping this fact concealed over the years, especially from roommates, in particular females. When I shit, I turn on the shower to muffle the grotesque orchestra and I never cook when anyone else is around to see the unsanitary nature of my culinary activity. And there are others. That said, I am infinitely conscientious of others, and not out of philanthropy or humanism, but out of fear of being disliked.
I plugged my phone into the charger and as I turned it on the kettle began whistling like the last train to Frisco. I dashed for the stove and as I rounded the corner I nearly died. The lack of traction caused by my one foot being covered in a sock caused me to slide around the corner, waving my arms like a man rolling up car windows in a locust storm, trying not to fall. Another flaw I have kept from others is my clumsiness. This has been harder than cleanliness to conceal and I was not about to pull the curtain. I snatched the kettle from the stove and took a deep breath. At that moment my phone must have activated. It rang—a fractured version of a David Bowie song echoed through the calm. I dashed for the phone, making sure to take the corner slightly slower, grabbed it and ran out the door into the hallway to answer. It was the manager of a store where I had submitted an application, and recently had an interview, calling to tell me I had gotten the job. The news came through the haze slowly, but by the end of the conversation I was overjoyed. I had moved to a strange city to attend a good school, found people to live with who had not seen through me, and gotten the job I wanted. Smiling I walked back toward the door with the intention of sharing this news with my surely awakened roommates; how could they not forgive my irritableness when they saw me in such high spirits. I reached for the door, turned the knob, and immediately realized my mistake. The door was locked. Like every other door in the city it locked automatically upon closing.
I knocked repeatedly and rang the doorbell. All of these things brought a pain to my stomach. I had been here a week and already I was the annoying roommate who never let anyone sleep in. Strangely no one came to the door. A neighbor was coming back home from church. I asked him what time it was.
“Almost one,” he said.
My roommates had been gone for some time and my drunken shenanigans had finally allowed me the ability to sleep in. I called Altyn repeatedly to no avail. Emily had just moved and we had not yet exchanged numbers. I thought she had a website for her jewelry and so I called my dad and asked him to look it up. Perhaps it is non-existent, perhaps not, but I blame my father’s ineptness with computers for not finding her number. After an hour, the cold began to creep in. Dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and a lone sock, the scars on my bare left foot had begun to turn a shade of purple, I couldn’t stop shivering, and I had to pee. Ever since I had moved I had possessed the bladder control of an invalid geriatric.
There was a dirty couch in front of the office building of our apartment and after some serious soul searching I decided to lay down on the crusty piece of furniture. I was able to fall asleep for half hour intervals. From time to time the elevator or stairway doors would open and a rush of noise and brisk January air would fill the hall causing me to shiver uncontrollably. I found a coffee cup in the laundry room, peed in it, and threw it away, only to fetch it from the trash some three hours later to pee again, and again a few hours after that. The Hasidic men who ran my building came and went, offering nothing but scornful glances. At one point one of them came out from the building and asked why I was there.
“I’m locked out,” I said.
“And where are your roommates?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of them.”
He sipped his steaming hot coffee, glanced at the elevator, and kindly said: “I feel bad for you.”
Altyn did not return until after dark, perhaps seven o’clock. She had left her phone in the apartment and spent the day with her family. When I got back in the apartment everything was where I had left it. The coffee was brewed in the French-press. The stove was still on high, a detail I had forgotten in my panic. Altyn put down her bags and walked into the bathroom.
“Jesus Christ Ashton! Why didn’t you flush?”
I stood there, one sock on, speechless.
By Ashton Goggans
Keys have always been a pain in my ass, literally. I grew up in a town that didn’t lock its doors, or didn’t have to at least. To add to the feeling of small town warmth, my father was the mailman; the ever chipper bringer of news, both good and bad. From time to time I would find myself in far-off places, sometimes in sketchier areas, and though I would remember to lock the doors from time to time it was rare that I didn’t immediately misplace the keys. The presence of keys in my pockets always felt foreign; a tumor of distrust for humanity.
In a fit of small town idealism and quarter-life crisis decision making, I moved to New York City, Brooklyn more specifically, to finish my Undergrad. Despite the dramatic change of pace, atmosphere, economic diversity, and crime rate, what I found most strange was the pile of keys which I was forced to carry: one for my big bike chain, one for my small, one for the building’s entrance, and another for the elevator, one for the main lock on our door, and one for the deadbolt. I am certain this mass of jangling, faithless, inhumanity caused my blood pressure to rise. I invested in a hook of sorts to keep them on, the kind that climbers use, and yet I still found myself momentarily panicking, more frequently than I would like to admit, the moment that I didn’t feel them jabbing my right upper ass-cheek, sending my right hand compulsively clawing at my ass for reassurance.
As a twenty-three year old single young man living in New York City for the first time, I found myself dabbling in debauchery and paid for it daily. On this particular morning the light that crept under the door to my room sent me cowering deeper under the covers. After a brief rationalization that I had things to take care of, I took a deep breath and in one movement slung the covers off and clamored towards the bathroom. Still dressed in the evening’s clothes, only one sock had survived the night. I exited the bathroom as quick as possible, trying to avoid looking at the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. In desperate need of stimulants, I put the kettle on the stove to make coffee.
My only source for time, my phone, had died sometime between last call and catching a cab home. Given the eerie silence and gray light that filtered into the loft, I figured it was around ten in the morning and my roommates were surely still sleeping. I am a slob. I know this. However, I have done a bang up job of keeping this fact concealed over the years, especially from roommates, in particular females. When I shit, I turn on the shower to muffle the grotesque orchestra and I never cook when anyone else is around to see the unsanitary nature of my culinary activity. And there are others. That said, I am infinitely conscientious of others, and not out of philanthropy or humanism, but out of fear of being disliked.
I plugged my phone into the charger and as I turned it on the kettle began whistling like the last train to Frisco. I dashed for the stove and as I rounded the corner I nearly died. The lack of traction caused by my one foot being covered in a sock caused me to slide around the corner, waving my arms like a man rolling up car windows in a locust storm, trying not to fall. Another flaw I have kept from others is my clumsiness. This has been harder than cleanliness to conceal and I was not about to pull the curtain. I snatched the kettle from the stove and took a deep breath. At that moment my phone must have activated. It rang—a fractured version of a David Bowie song echoed through the calm. I dashed for the phone, making sure to take the corner slightly slower, grabbed it and ran out the door into the hallway to answer. It was the manager of a store where I had submitted an application, and recently had an interview, calling to tell me I had gotten the job. The news came through the haze slowly, but by the end of the conversation I was overjoyed. I had moved to a strange city to attend a good school, found people to live with who had not seen through me, and gotten the job I wanted. Smiling I walked back toward the door with the intention of sharing this news with my surely awakened roommates; how could they not forgive my irritableness when they saw me in such high spirits. I reached for the door, turned the knob, and immediately realized my mistake. The door was locked. Like every other door in the city it locked automatically upon closing.
I knocked repeatedly and rang the doorbell. All of these things brought a pain to my stomach. I had been here a week and already I was the annoying roommate who never let anyone sleep in. Strangely no one came to the door. A neighbor was coming back home from church. I asked him what time it was.
“Almost one,” he said.
My roommates had been gone for some time and my drunken shenanigans had finally allowed me the ability to sleep in. I called Altyn repeatedly to no avail. Emily had just moved and we had not yet exchanged numbers. I thought she had a website for her jewelry and so I called my dad and asked him to look it up. Perhaps it is non-existent, perhaps not, but I blame my father’s ineptness with computers for not finding her number. After an hour, the cold began to creep in. Dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and a lone sock, the scars on my bare left foot had begun to turn a shade of purple, I couldn’t stop shivering, and I had to pee. Ever since I had moved I had possessed the bladder control of an invalid geriatric.
There was a dirty couch in front of the office building of our apartment and after some serious soul searching I decided to lay down on the crusty piece of furniture. I was able to fall asleep for half hour intervals. From time to time the elevator or stairway doors would open and a rush of noise and brisk January air would fill the hall causing me to shiver uncontrollably. I found a coffee cup in the laundry room, peed in it, and threw it away, only to fetch it from the trash some three hours later to pee again, and again a few hours after that. The Hasidic men who ran my building came and went, offering nothing but scornful glances. At one point one of them came out from the building and asked why I was there.
“I’m locked out,” I said.
“And where are your roommates?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of them.”
He sipped his steaming hot coffee, glanced at the elevator, and kindly said: “I feel bad for you.”
Altyn did not return until after dark, perhaps seven o’clock. She had left her phone in the apartment and spent the day with her family. When I got back in the apartment everything was where I had left it. The coffee was brewed in the French-press. The stove was still on high, a detail I had forgotten in my panic. Altyn put down her bags and walked into the bathroom.
“Jesus Christ Ashton! Why didn’t you flush?”
I stood there, one sock on, speechless.
The Rise and Fall
"The Rise and the Fall"
By Ashton Goggans
Dashed lines, racing to the horizon.
Sun setting on crisp autumn air and
The Flatlands blur together
As you drift to sleep, uninterested,
Bubbles are carrying the brave
Against the bronze, bleeding sky.
Do I wake you?
Would you care?
This life, beautiful,
Passing you by and I can’t stop it.
So I stop, for me, and follow them.
Abandoned fire-tower stretched to heaven
I open the door--the fall
Tickles your skin awake with a shudder
"Look," I say. "It's beautiful."
But you see balloons through the eyes,
Those hazy hazel eyes, of the dead.
It is done. I know. And I am scratching over the fence
Before your eyes close
Climbing towards the sky, I can smell the sea
But all you see is dusk, never dawn, and broken me,
Out the window (always out the window)
of the passenger seat.
By Ashton Goggans
Dashed lines, racing to the horizon.
Sun setting on crisp autumn air and
The Flatlands blur together
As you drift to sleep, uninterested,
Bubbles are carrying the brave
Against the bronze, bleeding sky.
Do I wake you?
Would you care?
This life, beautiful,
Passing you by and I can’t stop it.
So I stop, for me, and follow them.
Abandoned fire-tower stretched to heaven
I open the door--the fall
Tickles your skin awake with a shudder
"Look," I say. "It's beautiful."
But you see balloons through the eyes,
Those hazy hazel eyes, of the dead.
It is done. I know. And I am scratching over the fence
Before your eyes close
Climbing towards the sky, I can smell the sea
But all you see is dusk, never dawn, and broken me,
Out the window (always out the window)
of the passenger seat.
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