The Belly of the beast....

Finally cracked, began working on the new book again. It just didn't feel right before- it felt like a lecture, a berating and a beating. I liked Jack, but saw no direction for the story to travel. I just didn't love it enough to let it live and so, after driving a big wooden stake through its heart, relaxing, kicking back and shooting the breeze with myself for a while, I came up with this- a story line. I've never plotted before (well, I have, but not for purposes of writing). this is my first plot, and gives away a little too much of my thought processes, a little too much plot, and exposes a little too much of me, but gives you all the idea of just where this thing is headed... I am so sorry, I will never plot again....

The belly of the beast.

OK, here's the setup- successful executive- sales, it's gotta be a sales instructor- boiler room style. He's got it all, the apartment, the car, the furniture- (think Jack pre-Tyler in "Fight club"). He goes to dinners with the best, lies to women about doing physical labor, wants to be able to tell stories of working on the railroads, with a shovel, cutting wood, driving a bulldozer, fighting fires and birthing animals- the setting is the late eighties, early nineties. His business if doing well in the eighties greed is good boom- then he goes to an Ashram on holiday, and finds he has to work-0 he's disgusted at first, he's asked to wash dishes, clean dirt floors, all that sort of crap- maybe make it a zen temple, something holy and zen like though- with an abbot- hey, why not the Golden Pavilion- there's enough art references for that sort of deal. He comes to study zen, really enjoy his time working in the temple, and when it's time to leave, makes the move to stay, makes the move to stay, but they tell him, no, you have to go back to your world. The abbot tells him though that he can visit this place of peace anytime he wants just by relaxing and focusing on the temple. He gets back to his apartment, and the shit has hit the fan- the nineties bust, that wave is just starting to roll over him, and roll over other like minded young entrepreneur execs. He's depressed, sad, and every time he thinks about his life he can only think about how good his life was at the temple, until finally he decides to kill himself, the old exhaust in the window trick, and in his last moments, as the abbot said to, he reflects on the temple and the peace of mind .

Cut scene.

OK, next scene, guys working the side of the road for the council, just gone to lunch, sitting down and admiring the high life, and then one makes fun of the new worker, he's a handicapped guy- intellectually- he talks slow and odd, and is scared to meet the eyes of the others. The foreman laughs, but tells them both to knock it off, he's a better worker than the rest put together, cut to the handicapped guy, and let some key word that identifies him as the protagonist slip.

Sorry.....

It's New Years / Christmas, what can I say, I've been slack. There'll be no new chapters until the Third of January- I'm off to the falls festival, but don't worry, I'll be back with more chapters soon enough.
For those who know and love The Anatomy Of Construction, don't worry, I'll still be posting every day.
Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love my writing, and just how important it is to me. I've not taken this time off lightly, but I've needed it, for soooo many reasons- more than anything else, just to spend some quality time with my Beautiful, talented girlfriend. You see, we're both just breaking into the profession- I'm a writer, she's a singer songwriter- I've taken it on full time a little before her, so we've had difficult times this year, trying to make time, trying to stretch money, trying to match schedules. So we're having a holiday, going to Lorne for the Falls festival, some relaxation, and a definite breather (secretly, I'll miss writing too much in the mean time[Oi! I read this, not so secret now!?!?!- M], but I've always got my pad and pen) There'll be photos galore when I get back, and another fifteen chapters. Forgive me?

Tom
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Chapter Five DRAFT

This is the poster that provided the inspiration for the opening of chapter Four- click on it to read the thing, it's hilarious- the one part that is missing is the "Bought to you by your friendly Neighborhood anarchists,"

Inspiration is every where. leaves in gutters, neighbors, other peoples stories, (especially about their house mates) and grafitti.

There's no end to the love and inspiration the place you live can give you; there's no end to the inspiration your most extreme emotions lend.

So this is chapter five.... Oh, it ends with the "Happily Ever after story"- I've used this story for a while at spoken word gigs- I still like it, but sometimes wonder if it makes all that much sense...

Tom

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Chapter Five
Which is exactly what Jack wondered the first time he was called to the Head of Philosophy’s office.
Professor Devners was not a brave woman. She knew a great deal about a great many things; she could quote Nieztsche- but was loathe to; she could explain symbolic logic; and the importance of logos and mythos in the development of systems of ethics; she was well known for her ability to explain the difference between morals and ethis; but very few people actually heard her speak. Her students would sit in the lecture hall, and even over the speaker system they often wondered whether she was speaking or just moving her lips, as she often nervously did.
The first thing Jack saw, when he walked into Professor Devner’s office was a large, oversize ashtray on her desk made of cut glass. It would have weighed anywhere up to two kilo’s, he guessed just looking at it, and seemed to serve no purpose. Obviously there were no cigarette butts in it, nor was it filled with paper clips, drawing pins, or any other number of accourments that one usually gathered on a desk, all the small things that had no place to belong to.
It sat there empty- a symbol, he was sure, of something. Professor Devner was nervously turning a pen over and over in her fingers, clicking it in and out.
Jack despised pen clickers, they always made him nervous- their clicking embodied the nervousness that he himself was trying to suppress.
“Uh, would you please sit down, Jack,” she said in a mousey voice. Jack looked, and sat in a chair against the wall, rather than the one that sat in front of her desk.
“Um, about your writing,” Professor Devner started, then said, “Ah, would you mind sitting closer to my desk?” Jack shook his head,
“Oh no, I’m nervous about your ashtray,” he said, shaking his head, “If you’ve read my writing you’ll probably want to hit me,” Professor Devner was surprised, but jack was smiling as he spoke, “Really, any time anyone reads my writing it makes them angry and I’d rather not get hit in the head with that honking great big ashtray- it looks like it’d hurt,”
“I’m not going to hit you with the ashtray, jack,” said Professor Devner, I just wan to talk to you about your writing- it’s rather, provocative,” Jack nodded,
“I know, makes people really angry, all the time, they read something and then they want to hit me,” when he finished speaking it was the first time Jack had ever seen Professor Devner smile. She seemed to like having someone more nervous than her in her office.
“Well, I can understand that, Jack,” She said, “Do you remember the piece you submitted on virtue ethics?” Jack thought for a moment,
“Five hundred words? Describing virtue in politics?” Professor Devner nodded,
“I don’t really think ‘Fuck!’ repeated five hundred times qualifies for anything more than a P2, do you?” Jack didn’t say anything, he sat, wondering what was coming. “You have a very provocative style, um, and, you seem to not be challenged by the subject material, but enjoy writing,” Jack nodded,
“I like writing,” he watched through the window outside as students wandered back and forth in front of the waterfall, sitting over the signs that said, “No smoking” and casually lighting cigarettes; the tint of the windows made it seem all so far away.
“I know, Jack,” said the professor, and began unraveling a paperclip with worried fingers, “But you’re not very challenged by the essays we give you, are you?” Jack shook his head,
“I’m challenged by the reading. I can’t understand the first page of the Critique of Pure reason, I can’t even find the words in a dictionary,” Professor Devner smiled again,
“That’s good, Jack, it means you’ve been reading it- no one can really understand that book at all,” she didn’t add she’d assign it as reading to students when she didn’t feel like reading their essays- she knew the results would be pure gibberish, “We’re talking about your writing though, Jack- how would you like a chance to use your interest and maybe, um, be more challenged?”
“What do I have to do?” jack was no longer worried, there was a hook buried in the bait, somewhere, he was sure,
“I’ve a friend who works for a local magazine, we were wondering if you’d like to write some band reviews for them- she likes your style, um, she thinks young people willw ant to read about what you’re saying,”
Jack waited, then stood an sat in the chair closer to Professor devner’s desk,
“So what do I have to do?” he asked. Professor Devners flicked through a book of business cards on her desk and then, in a scratchy hand wrote a phone number and address on a small notepad, tore it off and handed it to jack,
“If you give her a call she’ll explain it all to you,” Professor Devner looked closely at Jack and said, “I hope it helps you channel some of your, ah, pent up frustrations,” Jack hummed and said,
“I’m sure it will,”
“I hope it give you more focus,” she added, “Diverts you a little,” Jack buzzed like a fridge,
“Yes, yes hmmm, I’m sure it will,” he said, “It’s just the thing to focus all my, ah, frustrations on,” He looked at the slip of paper and smiled,
“I hope it will help,” Jack was nodding, waiting for the meeting to be over so he could call the number. “Because really,” said Professor Devner, “Your marks are, ah, appalling for someone of your ability,”
There it was. She’d said it. Jack thought for a moment he would have felt better if she’d hit him with the ashtray.
“You’ve got to focus yourself on your study, or, ah, I can’t see you passing the year,” she added.
“Oh,” said Jack, the wind all gone from his sails. He’d forgotten completely about the phone number now.
“Ah, yes, your last essay, um, ‘Ethics in divergent behavior,’ um, it was completely unacceptable,”
“Oh,” said Jack again. His feet had begun to sweat, he could feel his toes flexing in his shoes, like worms trying to inch their way out of the sun.
“You didn’t refer to the material at all,” Professor Devner was looking at a sheet of notes in front of her, she didn’t raise her eyes to Jack’s, “and you treated yourself as both a reference, and um, an authority,”
“Oh,” said Jack again. The clever cow, she’d seduced him into sitting the closer chair to deliver the blows, he thought, wanted him close to smell his fear,
“It comes off as a drunken rant without basis or merit,” she continued, “And um, doesn’t meet the word count,”
“Oh,” said Jack, and wondered how she new he’d written the first draft on serviettes in a bar, where he’d drunkenly ranted aloud at himself, scaring lunchtime diners and staff into leaving him alone until he was done.
“I’d like you to see my friend, she’ll offer you, um, something to take your mind off your outside activities, to shift your focus when you’re studying to the things that we’re studying, and,” she pushed her glasses up her nose with one finger and looked at Jack, “I’d like you to resubmit the essay, this time with an eye, um, on the ah, guidelines I’ve given you,”
Jack could only nod, and stand. The piece of paper in his hand was neither exciting nor important now. He had to rewrite the bloody essay.
“What a waste of time and bloody resources,” said Jack to Jeremy, over the music of the Jazz trio playing at the back of the bar.
There was a big crowd of people standing, sitting, milling about the tables and hollering at the band as each member took a hand in the solos. Jack had to shout to make himself heard over the music, and was wondering if he and Jeremy shouldn’t find a bar that was less popular.
In the past the worldsend had been a quiet pub during the week, after eight. From four until about eight the venue had been filled with uni students and lecturers and lecherers, and then, when they rushed home to have the necessary rest before the next day, the tables had been occupied by a few diehards; drinkers who drank to excess, drinkers who focused on maintaining superiority over others despite their cups; drinkers who maintained their status of student despite the number of pints that had flowed and made them want to loosen their tongues, cry down to their teachers, who lounged and lorded over the tables and tell them that they were wrong.
The front bar maintained the state of everything as it was, it was an assurance that nothing had changed, nothing would change and nothing could change. The few individuals and rebels that came were met with fierce opposition and sometimes violence. Jack knew this too well. He’d argued with an ageing hippy there,
“You better watch out,” howled the long pony tail and bald headed hippy, spit flying from his mouth with every word, “Once you force a pacifist to violence,” he raised a pint glass high, “You’ll get yourself killed,” Jack wanted to say he was making no sense, but mark, the jaded marketing lecturer at the nearby university bought the edge of his pint down on the table.
The glass shattered, and for the tiniest moment time stood still and Jack thought how pretty the shard of glass and fowm were as they hung in the air.
Then time resumed its normal pace, and the aged lecturer swung the jagged edge at his face, Jack flinging himself, and the stool backwards to skate and rattle on the floor towards the bar. Jack was on his feet as the older man was stepping up towards him, the glass in his hand and his lips curled back from his teeth.
The owner was rushing from behind the bar just in time to see Jack’s fist pop out, like a Jack-in-the-box to crack the older man hard in the nose.
At that most perfect of moments the bar was filled with silence. Even the music had paused between the songs for the spectacle.
The older man dropped the pint, the jagged remains bounced on the floor and rolled away, where it had fallen a few drops of blood marked the place.
The old man clutched his face, and Jack clutched his aching fist.
It wasn’t the first time he’d hit a man, each event marked with the consistency of a shuddering pain that swam up his arm- this time was no different. He felt shocked, he felt scared of what would happen next, and he felt angry.
For two hours he’d sat and listened as this gray haired hippy had told him that he’d studied with DT Suzuki in the sixties (who Jack knew had died in the fifties) he had told Jack he’d been cleared above MI5 clearance as a secretary for the minister for defense in the seventies in the UK and explained that he was managing to get both a pay check from the university and job search allowance from the governement. He’d listened as he’d been told he was afraid of reality, he listened while he’d been called a liar and a chancer- whatever that had meant. It was when he’d disputed the idea that anyone could be a pacifist had he been met with violence.
It seemed that in quiet submission to monolouge Mark was happy with Jack’s demeanor. It only seven minutes of true dialog Mark had decided that he needed to kill Jack.
It was within thirty seconds of fighting that Warrick, the bar owner decided that he needed a better class of clientele and had begun plotting ways to draw more customers to the bar, and drown out the rabble that had traditionally remained until closing time, drinking to the point where comical staggering had become exaggerate walking, much like one would do on the moon.
Jack had been quite proud on the first night that new cilentelle appeared. He had no part in it what so ever and no ownership in the pub, but they were his customers in his eyes, people that were his guests. Five pints in he loved them all. Ten pints in they all loved him. Fifteen pints in they were all a little too much for a Jack.
They knew nothing of urinal etiquette, and were quite happy to stand right next to him as he stood at the trough, so he began using the cubicles. The final straw had come for him on the second night when he went to the cubicle and found that Warrick had painted over all the graffiti that he’d contributed to the toilet door.
No longer was, “Normal consciousness will be resumed shortly,” the motif of the bathroom. His commentrary on the place of the stock market in society had disappeared beneath a purple film. The soap, that he’d stolen every week, whther he needed soap or not was gone, replaced with a press tub of hand soap; the nasty yellow urinal candy that had lain rotting in the urinal trough was none, now replaced with calming baby blue urinal cakes that held no fascination whatsoever; hand towels, that Jack had been writing drafts of essays on for months were replaced with a clever white hand dryer that only turned on when you held your hands directly beneath the nozzle.
It was the hand dryer that did it, explained Jack, as he complained to Jeremy about having to rewrite his essay,
“It was a step too far. Until then, this place still had the atmosphere of a pub, the low rent hand towels, the graffiti on the toilet door…”
“But you did that,” pointed out Jeremy. Jack continued as though he’d not heard Jeremy speak,
“The urinal Candy, the empty bar, the cigarette smoke to the ceiling, the two types of beer on tap, Pale and Draught,”
“I like the tiger they’e got on tap now,” inserted Jeremy,
“They’ve turned it into a yuppie bar,” said Jack, as if Jeremy had said nothing, “a Yuppie bar,” Jeremy nodded. Jack was ten beers into melancholy. “And now,” he said, “Devner wants me to rewrite an essay,”
“Well you did just repeat the word fuck five hundred times for the last one,” pointed out Jeremy, “It’s hardly the stuff of a Rhodes scholar,”
“They let Hunter S Thompson get away with it,” retorted Jack, “When he was asked to write an article on Nixon’s re-election he repeated the word fuck a thousand times,”
“Ah,” said Jeremy smiling, “So you plagiarized your essay,”
“Completely different context and wording,” said Jack, “I had an exclamation mark at the end of the word Fuck, Thompson had a full stop, and his was about Nixon,”
“Yeah, but your’s was about ethics in divergent behavior, so it amounts to pretty much the same thing,” Jermey was chortling at his own wit, but Jack was too drunk to see the funny side.
Mark hadn’t been able to see the funny side when Jack broke his nose,
“Call the cops,” he said to Warrick, “That little bastard just punched me in the nose,”
“That big bastard tried to cut me up with a glass,” retorted Jack, “Call the cops, see what they do,”
“He assaulted me,” complained Mark, “I think he broke my bloody nose,” jack was shaking his fist as if he could dislodge the throbbing in his knuckles,
“I think I broke his bloody nose,” he complained to Warrick, “Call an ambulance, my fist really hurts,”
Warrick didn’t listen to either of them, and instead threw them both out onto the street where they could continue to argue in peace, standing in the door to make sure neither came back in,
“You don’t know what you’ve just done,” said Mark, dabbing at his bleeding nose,
“I just broke your nose, that’s what I’ve done,” said Jack, “You tried to cut me with a glass, nearly got me, too. I just reacted,” Jack was shaken by the whole affair, both by the fact that he’d nearly had his face slashed open by a bullying pacifist and the fact that he’d punched the same bullying pacifist and could be in trouble with the law.
“I’m caling the cops you know,” said mark, and wandered over to the payphone just outside the other entrance, stood, and then fumbled for change, dropping everything he had on the footpath. His money, his tobacco, his lighter, his wallet. While he was bending down to pick it all up, Jack thought it best to slip away.
it was two weeks before he wandered back into the worldsend, sat down and noticed that there was a whole new crowd of people in the pub. He sw neck ties at an hour that neckties should have been hung up in walk in wardrobes. He saw high heels and stocking where he expected baggy jeans and fishermans pants; he smelt perfume and aftershave where he expected to smell stale beer, sweat and cigarette smoke; he saw vodka martinis and Fluffy ducks where he expected beer and bourbon. Worst of all he saw a nrew row of shining tap heads where he expected to see the same pair of worn and dirty taps.
This, he explained to Jack, was why he repeated the word ‘Fuck!’ five hundred times.
“I don’t understand how that doesn’t explain ethics in divergent behavior,” he said. Jeremy ignored the remark and said,
“So what are you going to do?” and sipped at his frothy beer. Some of the imported beers were really a lot better than the stale same two offerings he was used to, and he was developing quite a taste for fluffy ducks.
“What can I do?” exclaimed Jack, his words slurring into one drunken phrase, “I’m going to rewrite the damned essay, that’s what I’m going to do,” he fumbled in his pocket for the small crumpled slip of paper Professor Devner gave him, “And then I’m going to call this girl at the magazine and write really bad reviews about really bad bands,” he added, thrusting the small slip across the table to Jeremy, who looked at it, mildly interested,
“What magazine is it?” he asked,
“I don’t know, I haven’t called them yet- every little bit counts though,” Jack tipped a little of the same old beer he always drank down his throat, “-As the old lady said when she pissed in the sea,”
Jeremy was looking about the room at the beautiful women that were walking about in small pods, like fish in schools he thought, and pointed this out to Jack,
“Like mermaids,” said Jack, “Sirens, singing you to shore. Markmy words, nothing good will come of this,”
“Of what?” asked Jeremy. Jack was in drunkland, and rapidly approaching status of lord Mayor.
“Any of it,” he yelled over the music, “The foreign beers, the yuppies, the music- you can hardly enven hear yourself scream over it,”
“Yeah, but it’s a good band,” said Jeremy, “I love Jazz,”
“Since when?” said Jack, “Name me one time you’ve listened to Jazz,”
“I’ve listened to lots of Jazz,” Said Jeremy, “Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, heaps of it,” Jack snarled and shook his head,
“They’re just the names you know,” Jack wondered for a moment if the arguments all stemmed from this stool, the stool he was sitting in was the same one that Mark had sat in when he tried to let all the good red blood that was inside Jack out. “Those are just the names of Jazz musicians you know. When was the last time you bought a Jazz CD?”
“I’ve bought heaps of Jazz,” snapped Jeremy, “Just because you haven’t heard it, doesn’t mean I haven’t bought it. Every time you come around you just want to listen to the same stuff, over and over. Always with Radiohead, you are, it’s like your obsession,”
“s’not an obsession,” said Jack, “S’just that Thom Yorke speaks the same language as I do,”
“It’s an obsession- do you ever listen to anything else?”
“Do you ever listen to anything else,” mimicked Jack, “Course I do, I listen to lots of stuff. Tom Waits, The disposable heroes of Hiphopcrisy- that’s from when Michael Franti wasn’t a whining hippy- Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, heaps of stuff,”
“Always the same mournful political crap about how everyone except for you is shit and you’re so misunderstood,” Jeremy pointed out, accurately, “”Always the same sort of stuff,”
“Do not,” said Jack, “I listen to Grieg, and Tan Dun and Bing Crosby, I listen to heaps of stuff,”
“Then you should appreciate this, it’s something different again,”
“S’not,” snorted Jack, “It’s the same shit as you always here at a Jazz gig, and played by little fish in a tiny pond- s’the only reason they think they’re good, they haven’t left Adelaide yet,”
Jack fell into brooding, rolling up his raffle ticket into a thin short straw. As he was rolling the useless straw two girls came and stood at the table where they were sitting. One tall and slim with glasses and freckles and long brown hair, the other shorter and stumpier with a dried on curled up expression.
“Can we share this table?” the shorter girl asked Jeremy, and tried to smile in a pretty fashion. Jack groaned, not loud enough to see, but his expression obvious, but Jeremy waved them both to the table anyway, and in his best urbane tones said,
“Ignore my friend, he’s a retard and I’m his care giver- he was raised by bears,” Jack was leaning down, pulling a notepad from his satchel bag and began writing.
The pair of girls drew up chairs at the only table with any space left on it in the room and sat watching the band while Jack wroite as fast as he could, covering the once virginal page with heavy scribbled blue characters that wandered, both above and below the line and across the line at the same time. Jeremy sat and watched the back of the stocky girls head and wandered what was the best way to offer her a drink.
During the set break the band wandered about the area of their instruments, accepting the praise of the drunken punters while the two girls turned back to the table, and their slowly dying drinks,. Too quick for his own good Jeremy finished his beer, stood and said,
“Can I get either of you a drink?” both nodded, and asked for fluffy ducks, and Jack grunted,
“Just grab me a beer, man,” and kept writing. The slim girl with the freckles and the pretty smile interrupted Jacks writing while Jeremy was at the bar and asked,
“What are you writing?” Jack put his pen down with deliberate slowness and said,
“Do you really want to know, or are you just making semi-poite conversation to try and break the ice?” the stocky girl stared like an ugly rock at Jack but her smiling friend was undaunted,
“Actually? I really don’t cvare, I just thought of the most obvious question I could ask to try and make polite conversation and join you into the social circle,” Jack’s lips curled down in a thoughtful look and he nodded,
“Good answer,” he said, “best answer I’ve ever had. In that case then, I won’t tell you, but will contiue with the polite conversation and introduce myself,” he held his hand out to the slim girl and said, “I’m Jack, you are?” The girl smiled a crooked smile and shook his hand,
“Yasmin, this is…” Jack interrupted her and said,
“Yes, who is that man with you, a mine worker?” he was grinning, trying to be as rude as possible.
“You’re an arsehole, you know that?” she snapped. Yasmin ignored Jack’s rudeness and her friends comeback and said,
“This is Felicity, we just came up here to see the band, what about you guys?” Jeremy was at the table again for a brief moment, put down two drinks and went back to the bar to fetch the two beers that he’d ordered for himself and Jack.
“I,” said Jack, “Came here for the peace and the lack of conversation. Jeremy,” he said, just as he returned to the table with his hands again full, and the thoughtful gesture of a bag of peanuts, “Came here to pull girls and further lower his self esteem,” Jeremy was blushing at Jack’s rudeness.
“Ignore him, said Jeremy, and shook the hands of the pair, getting their names in the process, “As I said, he was raised by bears- it’s a sad story really, but slowly I’m trying to rehabilitate him,” behind his hand Jack whispered to Yasmin,
“Really he’s the sick one, I’m his care giver, he’s mad, quite mad, ignore what he says and down make any sudden movents- if he goes to attack you, just throw something bright and shiny on the ground, that’ll distract him for long enough to get away,” Yasmin laughed and showed her pretty white teeth, which Jack commented on, “You must have the most lovely teeth I’ve ever seen,” Jeremy was meanwhile speaking quickly to Felicity,
“So what do you do?” Jack again spoke behind his hand to Yasmin,
“See? Already he’s on the pull with the lamest and most generic opening line- later he’s going to tell her he finds her incredibly interesting and ask her for her phone number, and she’ll reject him and later I’ll find myself at this bar, still with no writing done and consoling him as he cries into his beer and asks why nobody likes him,” Yasmin only half heard Jack because she was trying to read what he had written on his pad.
Felicity, on the other hand, was deliberately ignoring Jack and smiling her sweetest possible smile as she spoke to Jeremy, “Oh, I study Marine biology, I want to go work on the great barrier reef and study sea horses,” Jack was ignoring Yasmin ignoring him as she read off his pad and said,
“I guess you’re a care giver too- it seems your friend must be a low watt bulb if she’s falling for that generic shit- it’s hard, isn’t it?” Yasmin looked up after a moment, as Jack watched her read and said,
“Hey, this is a story, isn’t it? How does it end?” Jack looked at the pad for a second, over what he’d written and said,
“Dunno yet, still figuring it out,” Yasmin looked surprised,
“It’s really nice, it’s funny,” she said. Jack looked away, a little embarrassed. Yasming repeated, “It’s nice, read it out to us,”
“Back in the day,” Jack began, “when shit was real; At the foot of Mount Fuji, long before the Tokugawa's bought Edo to the foothills there was a small village. It was not a grand village, and was known to few beyond the horizon, yet still the smell of cherry blossom filled the air in spring and the inhabitants lived out their lives, heedless of the march of progress, unaware of the litany of violence that surrounded them.
Among the villagers was a silent young Samurai, his close friend was a demure maid some years younger.
On her he spent his affections.
All about the village the families talked, assumed a licentious nature to their friendship. And because it was assumed by all to be true, it became the truth, despite the reality.
For the two were rarely apart it came to pass, on one of their many walks through the foothills, the came upon a vixen, her fore leg trapped amid a tangle of brambles. Kindly, for that was their very nature, they freed her from this fate.
This was in the time where the Bakfu still roamed and played in dreams and Fox magic still held power. In a thrice, before the two stood a beautiful woman. Her skin as though painted by the fullest moons light, the thin trace of her lips; a half sardonic smile; so thin as to be more noticeable and sensual for the fact; her kimono a silk a brilliant burning sunset in autumn.
"Thank you, for you have truly saved me from death, today,' said the fox, I would repay you each with a single wish."
The maid, heart overfull with love and filial duty wished only for the prosperity of her family and ancestors. The fox, smiling said, "It will be so. When you return home you will find your family's rice and grain stores overflowing- they will never know want." And indeed, when the maid returned, she found the fox had been true to her word.
After the fox granted the maids wish she looked to Takuan, the young Samurai, and asked, "What is it you wish for?" Takuan leaned in to whisper in the fox's ear, and then straightened. The fox looked at him and said, "It will be so."
In a trice, the pair saw the fox's red brush dancing as she bound across the slope, chasing down the sunset. The maid looked to her companion and said, "What is it you wished for?" to which he said nothing.
The years passed, the maid's family becoming more prosperous and known and held in higher regard. Takuan's fortunes remained unchanged. Still the maid remained curious about his wish, yet whenever she raised the subject he fell to silence.
As the years passed, their youth fell away. Wars came and went yet in the main, the village remained untouched. The hand of flood and drought found reason to stay away- the plagues never made it that far. Life ran its course, unimpeded by the terrors of the wider world.
Then one day, as happens, Takuan, the once young Samurai passed away.
People are born and people die. Yet still the sun rises and sets.
The maid though, her once rose kissed cheeks now faded and tear etched, was broken hearted. The only reply to her words now an echo and cold comfort. At last, her despair took her to the ragged rocky bluffs and she stood there, the drop and the fall calling her tenderly.
Then suddenly behind her, a soft voice said, "What is it you do?" and there stood the fox, breaking her reverie.
The maid told her of her woe and heartache as the wicked chill wind whipped tears from her eyes. The fox sighed.
"Takuan asked for one thing, that you have a happily ever after. Has not your life been perfect?"
The maid, smiled sadly, looked to the fox and said,
"Make it so," and dashed herself on the rocks below.”
After Jack finished his story, the table was silent and all had forgiven his rudeness.

Chapter Four DRAFT

Chapter Four! Yes, I am cranking this thing out! Someone asked me how I'm writing this- the same way you write everything- one word at a time. you don't need to have a perect plot, notebooks full of detail on characteres, a rose wood desk and a Blackberry to be able to write- if you've the will, you'll find the way.

Hope you're enjoying the adventures of Jack....

Tom
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Chapter Four.
“Bought to you by your local Friendly Neighborhood Anarchists,” read Jack, running his finer along the bottom line of the flier pasted to the wall of the Alley way. The flier spoke of how organized gangs were roaming the streets, their colors were usually blue dress uniforms, headgear, badged hats and they were known to carry handcuffs, hand guns, Billy clubs and have gang head quarters all over the city.
The flier was of course referring to police. This had Jack Laughing, the idea that police officers were in fact a gang of people enforcing a set of rules, the thing that stopped him laughing, he explained to Yasmin, was the idea that Anarchy could be organized,
“Anarchy, at the end of the day,” he said, “Is about saying, ‘Hey, people don’t need to refer to a higher power, we can live without government, but I’m going to worry about my own back yard,’ that’s what Anarchy is about,” Yasmin nodded, and tried to join in on his humor as they stepped out of the alleyway.
Yasmin was late for class, and Jack had missed a lecture entitled, “What is God in Western Society,”
“God,” he explained to Yasmin, “Is just and indisputable authority set above all else to enforce the status quo,”
Jack wasn’t part of the status quo, and this is what worried him the most. He spent his conversations ranting about how it needed to be overthrown, torn down and created anew in a new image. And image more pleasing to his tastes. Most of Jack’s conversations about this subject were one sided. Most of his actions toward tearing down the status quo only served to reinforce his isolation from the status quo, and despite his wanting to tear it down and start again he often wondered why people did not accept him.
So while Yasmin rushed off to the class she was already late for, leaving him with a hurried kiss goodbye and an assurance that she loved him, Jack sat drinking over priced coffee in the mall.
He found himself sitting with a group of teenagers arguing.
“Why are you wearing a tee—shirt that says, ‘Don’t cry, emo boy,” he asked one of the guys sitting opposite him, “You’re an emo- is it irony?” The young guy had a length of dyed black hair hanging down over his right eye. An eye that was double hidden by the designer aviator sunglasses he wore.
“I’m not a fucking emo,” he said defensively, “I’m a punk,” Jack studied the skin tight designer black jeans, perfectly clean, the trainers, two hundred dollar plus, and the scarless knuckles and said,
“Well if you’re a punk, what’s an emo?” he lounged back, resting hard and heavy against the aluminum back of the chair and wondering how a five dollar coffee could taste so bad.
The rest of the table buzzed with conversation. There were five kids in total, each dressed in the same uniform- black designer jeans that were skin tight and had at least an inch of arse crack hanging out to the world unless white boxer shorts were pulled up to a ridiculously high level to show off the Calvin Klein Logo. They all wore black tee-shirts, each with a different corporate advertising logo emblazoned across the chest.
“What’s an emo?” he repeated, “and what’s a punk?” The young guy opposite him snorted,
“An emo listens to emotional music, they dress, like, I dunno, they try to dress like punks, but they’re not hardcore, they’re all, like, in it for the fashion,” Jack couldn’t recognize one of these kids from the next by their hair cuts- each had the same length hair, each had the length that hung down in their eyes, each probably used the same brand of black hair dye.
“It’s like, punk is about creativity and changing things, being against the system?” the kid intoned, “Emo’s, they just do it for the fashion, they’re not into the music,”
“Not like you are, not like you’re into The Ramones and The Misfits and all that shit,” added jack, and the young emo nodded,
“Nah, they’re into shit like Blink 182 and all that crap- I mean, they’re all just bullshit, they listen to that shit and dress like we do and try to pretend they’re hard, but they’re not, they’re just pussies,” Jack nodded and grinned,
“Yeah, not like us. So what do you do that makes you punk?” The kid shrugged and said,
“Shit, I listen to The Misfits and The Ramones- I’ve got all their albums- these kids just wear the tee-shirts,” Jack made room at the table as another young guy sat down, he was not like the rest. His hair was long and perfectly straight, he didn’t wear a shirt and his jeans were torn and his eyes swung about evasively,
“Hey, any of you got a cigarette to spare, like, that you could give me?” he asked, looking around the table. A girl sighed and offered him one, still looking and talking to her friends about how the band Brand New was “heaps more intense than ‘Boys night out,’”
The newcomer gratefully lit the cigarette and took a deep drag, looked at Jack and said,
“Hey, how you doin’ man, I’m Jesus,” Jack smiled and shook his hand,
“Jesus? I’ve been meaning to have a talk to you about some shit,” the kid grinned and said,
“Nah, everyone just calls me Jesus, I dunno why, I think it’s got something to do with the hair,” Jack pointed at his naked feet and added,
“And the lack of shoes,” The kid grinned and said, “Yeah, that too,” and took another deep drag on the cigarette.
“So Jesus, can you tell me and my friend here,” Jack interrupted himself, “Shit, sorry, I’m Jack, this is,” he pointed to the young emo opposite him and shrugged, “What’s your name, dude?”
“Everyone calls me Wangers,” the tone he attempted was apathy, “s’cause I’ve always got Wangers,”
“Well,” said Jack, “Wangers, Jesus. Jesus, Wangers,” he turned back to Jesus, “we’re wondering what the difference between a punk and an emo is- you should be able to fill us in, you’re Jesus,” Jesus laughed,
“I dunno, dude, I mean, a punk is someone who dumpster dives and shit and lives in a squat and makes their own clothes and that- most of the punks I know are old school guys, they’re all like in re-hab and shit,” The young emo looked at Jesus and said,
“Yeah, but there’s the new punks like us,”
“Nah, man,” Said Jesus, “all you guys are emos, you’re all dressed the same and got the haircut and shit,” he laughed and sucked down the cigarette, “Most of the punks I know don’t give a fuck about their hair cuts and clothes, they just get what they can that freaks people out- they’re into growing their own veggies and dumpster diving and shit,”
Jack had been into dumpster diving. Jack had been into dumpster diving until the supermarkets started to instruct their employees to make the food inedible. They’d begun by slashing open packages, but then later found it saved time and effort and a bathroom break if they just urinated over all the food in the dumpsters out back. It stopped the homeless eating for free and made sure that the waste from the supermarket was properly wasted.
The first time jack went dumpster diving he came away with five backs of cereal, three cartons of long life milk, two packs of steak, about a kilo of oranges that were over ripe and eight tubs of yoghurt just on their use by date.
“This is a gold mine,” he said to Jeremy, standing outside the dumpster, looking around worried as Jack rooted through, “All this stuff is still good,” he added, passing another carton of milk out to Jeremy.
“Can you hurry up so we can get out of here,” Said Jeremy, “What if you get caught?”
Jack had dived down to scrabble for a bright colored packet his dull eyes had spotted and his muffled voice came back from the depths, “Then we’ll say, yes, it’s true, we’re stealing your rubbish,” His head reappeared briefly with a tub of yoghurt, “Waste not, want not, that’s what I say,” and passed it out to Jeremy, then flung a leg over the side and hauled himself out.
“You stink, man,” Jeremy said, stepping back a little, “I hope you have a shower when you get home,” Jack was taking things from the ground where Jeremy had stacked them and said,
“This, my friend, is the sweet smell of success,” and then playfully tackled Jeremy to the concrete, holding his head in a lock and rubbing his armpit all over his face, “Smell that?” he jeered.
Jeremy could smell it, but couldn’t say anything. His mouth was filled with armpit.
Just then a flashlight splashed over the pair.
“Hey, what are you two doing?” yelled a voice that the pair couldn’t see, blinded by the flashlight. Jack grabbed the packages, looked at Jeremy and said,
“Time to run,” and then bolted at the rent-a-cop standing in the way. The Rental cop made a savage grab, but missed, and tried to run after Jack.
The stomach the bulged over his belt made him slow. The fact that he’d not run since high school made him slower. Jeremy was too shocked to run, but soon changed his mind when the flash light swung back to him and Jack had cleared the gates that hid the service entrance to the super market,
“Oi, you, stop where you are,” the rental cop yelled at Jeremy. Jeremy couldn’t stop, he wasn’t moving, so instead, ran, the same as Jack. He made the gates, but couldn’t clear them as easily, despite his better height. Primary school was the last time he’d climbed up anything higher than a chair. He panicked, but Just as the laboring rental cop caught up with him Jack flung one of the tubs of Yoghurt in the guards face.
The sound it made was the same as the sound a ripe cantaloupe would have made had you recorded its impact from a fifteenth floor window onto the concrete.
The sound the guard made was exactly the same as the sound you would expect if a security guard had howled like a hurt school girl when you threw an unopened tub of yoghurt into his face and it exploded. There was a baby pink spray as the yoghurt spurted from its package and smeared all across his piggy face.
“Fuck!” the guard yelled, after he’d regained enough composure to realize that screaming like a hurt primary school girl was not the sound he should be making and was certainly not masculine enough for his job.
“And away we fly,” said jack, dragging Jeremy over the fence by one hand. On the other side of the gate they heard the squelching sound as the rent-a-cop turned up his radio and called for back up. Jeremy landed on top of jack in a sprawl of arms and legs and quickly stood, helping Jack madly pick up the food before they began to ran,
“Thank you!” called back Jack and laughed as they quickly darted into the university grounds and ran through lanes and alleys that only other students would be able to navigate.
Their footsteps smacked and rang off the dark walls that were cast in deep shadows by the lights intended to make the grounds secure and the breath screamed in their lungs as they ran. It was only when they were finally down by the river that they stopped, jack dropped most of the haul on the grass and leaned forward, a jackals grin on his face, hands on his knees and panting,
“Whew, haven’t run like that for ages,” then he laughed. Jeremy flopped in a heap ion the ground and panted, the sweat staining the armpits of his gray hoody and plastering his hair to his forehead. Jack began to laugh and slowly Jeremy began to grin.
Jeremy had pushed past the limits of who he was and it felt great.
“Did you see the look on that security guards face?” he asked Jack,
“Did you see the yoghurt on his face?” laughed jack, “Pow, splat! Pink yoghurt all over the fucker,” his breath wheezed as he panted and his face was all flushed red with exertion. “Bit of a shame about the yoghurt though,” he added, and sagged to the ground beside Jeremy. The grass was cool and slightly damp from the evening dew. Joking he smacked Jeremy in the arm, “You owe me a tub of yoghurt, mother fucker,” he said, and turned his head to look at Jeremy and grin
Jeremy refused all profits from Jack’s dumpster diving,
“No, man,” he said, “That shit came from a bin, it’s someone else’s rubbish,” Jack was prizing the lid from another tub of yoghurt, licking the underside clean of the mud brown contents.
“Nope, that’s someone else’s food,” replied Jack, “And they were throwing it out,” he dipped his finger in the yoghurt and licked it clean, “if they don’t want it, I’ll take it,”
Despite not sharing in the spoils, Jeremy always came along when Jack when Dumpster diving- they never saw another security guard again, they saw camera, to which Jack would cheerfully wave, but never another security guard. It was the thought that they might that raised Jeremy’s pulse each time they went. It was the fact that this raised his heart rate and gave his languid life a little jolt that caused him to come along every time.
When Jeremy saw the banner hanging from the roof of the library on his way to an early morning tutorial, his adrenal gland gave him another jolt.
He knew it had to be Jack, there was no one else her knew in the uni that would do something both so crazy and so obvious at once. As he walked to the tutorial, not joining the small crowd that had gathered to watch as the maintenance crew tore at the silver duct tape he wondered how Jack had gotten up there.
“How did you do it?” he asked Jack in the David Jones Food court, smiled knowingly, and sipped at his coffee, “How did you get the banner up there?” Jack didn’t bother denying it to Jeremy,
“The same way I do everything, with panache and style,” he remarked and poked at Jeremy’s apple slice with a spork, “You gonna eat that?”
“I was thinking of saving it for later,” replied Jeremy, “How did you get up there?” Jack shrugged and poked at his own disastrous looking meal of lasagna cleverly disguised to look like the vomit of a seasoned drinker.
“By the stairs. I walked up the stairs and onto the roof and hung the banner up there. Easy,” Jeremy shook his head,
“No, how’d you get in- you would have done it at night,”
With a mouthful of the foul looking food, and his face half screwed up in distaste- the food tasted like it looked- Jack said, “Through the door, I went through the door, up the stairs and hung the banner up,”
“What’d you kick it in or something?”
“Nope, just opened it, and went through and up the stairs and…”
“Hung the banner,” finished Jeremy, “I know that part. I want to know how you opened the door. Did you pick the lock or something?”
“Whoever did it must have had a key,” said the Sergeant to the junior constable, “There’s no trace of damage to the lock- they much have had a key- there’s no unusual marks, no scratches, so they didn’t use a lock pick, they must have got a key from somewhere. Find out who has keys to this door,” he said. The Junior Constable wrote it down in his blue leather bound pad with the police force logo emblazoned on the front, ‘Find out who has keys to this door,’ his sketchy hand scribbled.
The Junior Constable was very proud of his pad. He used it at bars all the time when he was giving his phone number to girls that would never call him.
He’d joined the police force to make a difference, and already he’d made a difference. In his first week he distributed forty-three fines for various misdemeanors- not many people aside from him realized that spitting in a public place held a one hundred and fifty dollar penalty.
In his second week he’d managed to sit in the squad car and take one hundred and seven photographs of cars that were speeding and ensured that fines were sent off to ever one to prevent any accidents or risk to life and limb. He was proud of the badge he on his identification card and more proud of the gun he wore on his hip. He still wasn’t sure when he’d get to use it, but in the academy he’d practiced for many hours so that when he did have to he knew he’d get a result. At night he’d often stand looking at himself in the mirror from all angles, his hand wrapped about the butt of his sidearm, making sure that from each view he cut the right image.
“The gun is the symbol that deters people,” one of his instructors had told him, and he wanted to make sure he looked deterring enough.
His Sergeant sniffed at the lock and said, “I can’t smell anything, so they didn’t use any lock picks, they’d have oiled the lock other wise. The junior constable wrote this in his note book too, ‘Didn’t use lock picks,’- it seemed important.
As he looked up he saw his Sergeant staring at him,
“Do you want to stop writing in that bloody book and give me a hand?” he asked the Junior Constable. He stuffed it in the top pocket of his shirt and flinched as the radio mic pinned to his lapel squawked at him. “Turn that bloody thing down,” the Sergeant snapped and turned back to the door jamb.
“Well the mechanism itself is concealed behind this edge, so they can’t have slipped a credit card in,” The Junior constable looked at the mechanism and nodded thoughtfully,
“What about that Band-it strap- I heard kids are using that stuff in the states to break into houses,” The Sergeant shook his head,
“Nah, it could only be a key- look how narrow the gap is,” he closed the door to show the hairline gap, “Only someone with a key,” he looked again at the gap, closing and opening the door experimentally. “It’s a shame about those security cameras though,” he said, glancing up at the camera that stared at the door, only ten meters away.
“It’s a shame about the security cameras,” thought Jack, as he wandered around the grounds at night with his back pack- they were the risk he was running of being caught. The alarm he could sort out easily enough. He had a can of shaving cream in his pack specifically for the job. The cameras though- he was relying on the fact that he’d heard a rumor the tape was on a twelve-hour loop- he was taking the chance that the loop would finish and start recording again over the evidence before anyone had the sense to look at the tape for evidence. No matter he thought, standing beneath the camera, looking directly up at it before walking over to the door and taking the loop of high tensile stainless steel wire he’d curled over and over to keep its shape and slipping it in above the latch mechanism, through the tiny crack, and watching for the other end to expose itself. It worked on the first try. He took both ends of the loop, felt the latch move, and at the point of greatest give began pulling gently on the door handle until it swung open easily and quietly.
For a moment he stood, looking at his handy work and marveling. This was the first time he’d ever broken into a building.
“No,” said the Sergeant, “Who ever did this had a key and a world of experience, I doubt it’s one of the arts students,” he shook his head mournfully, “It’s someone with inside knowledge, a contact and a key,” the Junior constable looked at the door again and wondered why someone would go to all that trouble just to hang a banner from the roof.
The Sergeant was wondering why someone would want to go to all this trouble to catch a prankster, someone who was playing a game, trying to get e rise out of people. He wondered why his idiot junior constable would suggest that they get the finger prints of everyone, and he wondered what was wrong with the junior constable. It was an easy job, most days he sat in the car, watched motorists speed past and make sure the picture was taken so they could be suitably deterred by a fine in two weeks time. It was an easy job, fill out the paper work, look for the obvious, catch those who gave up the evidence and direct traffic around road accidents. Why would anyone make it harder? Damn upstart punks, he thought.
“Nah, you guys, you’re nut punks,” Jesus said,” Jack held his hand outward, like he was showing off a poodle that had just jumped through a hoop of burning fire.
“There we have it, the truth from he who would speak it most- Jesus,” Jesus grinned at him, showing off too square, perfect white teeth. The young emo opposite Jack said,
“Yeah, well, punk’s not a definition, punks are anarchists, we do what we want,” his lip was curled in defensive derision at Jack and Jesus.
“Dress the same, have the same haircuts, buy your jeans at the same store, listen to the same music jut out your bottom lip to let “The man” know you’re not going to do what you want him to and then go along with it anyway. That’s what your definition of punk is,” said Jack in triumph.
“Punk changes, what used to be punk is de rigueur,” said the emo, “It’s changed heaps over the years, I mean, all that stuff that used to be punk is mainstream,”
“Like The Ramones and The Misfits and all that stuff you can get on seventy-dollar hoodies- that’s like saying you support Che Guerra’s ideal because you own a tee-shirt- that you paid fifty nine dollars for at target- with Che’s picture on it- it’s selling out the ideal,” The emo looked across to his friends, he was looking for an in on their conversation, all he added was,
“No, man, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack laughed, looked at his empty coffee cup and stood,
“Damn, you got me with that argument, I mean, that just completely shot me down, I so don’t have a come back for that,” Jack laughed at how upset the young guy was- he didn’t even want to look at Jack, and had flushed red right to the roots of his pimples.
“Just ‘cause you’re older than me doesn’t mean you know shit,” Jack agreed with him,
“It’s true, age doesn’t prevent me from being a complete moron- just as youth doesn’t ensure knowledge of a movement,” Jesus sat beside Jack with a gentle smile on his face. Jesus was no older than the emo’s opposite but there was something about him. It was in the playful hold of his eyes, the skin tanned a deep, rich, timber brown from constant exposure, the easy smile and the relaxed way he held the borrowed cigarette. Jesus held himself like a man possessed of no knowledge and certain of the fact.
Jack leaned forward and got right in the little emo’s face,
“What is an anarchist?” The emo glanced at him, and then flicked his eyes back at his friends in a motion of dismissal; he intended this to be his final statement to Jack, the final word on the subject.
“S’just someone who does what they want,” he said and tried to drop it, but Jack was laughing to hard,
“Exactly! Someone who does what they want, that is an anarchist, someone beholden to their own set of inscrutable and mutable internal rules,” Jack had risen and had his arms stretched up to the sky, “Hallelujah, Jesus, we’ve got the truth,” then snapped his eyes to the whole group of emo’s who were now looking at him, “So why do you all dress the way you’re told rebellious youths are told they dress? Why aren’t any of you like Jesus, long haired, bare or chest and foot? Do you dress identical because you want to rebellious, or are you,” Jack sneered, “Up and coming conformists, the same thing you seek to mock?” Jesus was wearing the broad smile of an idiot and sucking in the sun and fun of it all. Jack raised an eyebrow and twisted his face into a half smile, mocking the kids in front of him.
“When you leave your degrees, you’ll go on to work in office jobs- on a Friday night you’ll go into the Crown and Anchor, for a moderate drink, but stop going there after a year or two because your colleagues don’t go there, and you’ll notice they’re much more successful than you, they’ll have cars and yachts and pretty partners with teeth whitened and enormous credit problems that they’ll brag about, pretending to be mournful while around the water cooler in the office- one day you’ll see some real punks, people in torn jeans and dirty tee shirts, and they’ll be sticking a poster on the wall and you’ll yell at them- if you’re with a group of your new friends you might even chase them off if you’re drunk and bold- you’ll tell them to stop what they’re doing and then complain about how they’ve got no right to attack a faceless building with posters,” Jack motioned Jesus to stand, “This is your future, kiddies, you’re welcome to it. Come on, Jesus, I’ll show you how to turn water into wine,”
That was the perfect exit, thought Jack as he walked down the mall with Jesus, his new found friend; that was the perfect exit. His knees shook with the excitement of it all, and in a voice that failed to show how nervous he was, he began to sing,
“Oh what a friend I have in Jesus,” then stopped and asked, “What do you do, anyway?”
Jesus was grinning and swaggering with Jack as he walked, laughing at the absurdity of this little man he’d just met,
“Oh, me, I’m a bum,”
“A bum?” asked Jack, “What’s that mean to you?”
“I dunno, I just get around and do what I want, have fun, sink piss, smoke bongs, you know,”
“Yes I do know,” said jack, then threw an Arm around Jesus’ shoulders, “Come with me Jesus, I’m going to make you my new disciple,” and they walked up the mal together, Jesus wondering what Jack was all about and Jack wondering what new thing came next.

Chapter Three DRAFT

So how does it feel to be a sixth of the way through writing a novel in twenty days? I've asked myself this, and honestly, fantastic. I quite like Jack sometimes, and find him a complete prick others.

You learn a lot writing like this- I'm trying to develop a style that makes the work a thing of satire while fun to write. Characters like Dean Johnson write themselves- they're very black and white and sooo much fun to write. the more complete characters, the ones I try to develop slowly need a gentler brush and a more loving hand, but with these things in mind, the affection you hold for a character makes this easy to do.

Some of the parts are based on real life stories- like a town of men being told they needed to submit their DNA, submission was voluntary but if you didn't submit you were obviously guilty of a heinous crime. Some of the stories are pure fiction (which is harder to write) All of it though is turning into rolicking good fun , and damned if I'm not getting somewhere with it.....

Tom
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Chapter three
The people had looked alike when Jack stood atop the Library, wondering if hanging a banner saying, “Save scarce resources, suicide today,” was a wise thing to be doing in the middle of the night. It was certainly wiser than trying to do it in the middle of the day, where he would be caught for sure, but as the wind buffeted him he wondered who would catch him now if he fell?
Un daunted he looked for something to tie the banner to, to mount it, and finding nothing, thanks whatever primal forces still remained in the world for ducgt tape and bound the top edge down to the heavy lime stone edging. Once he was sure it was secure, he kicked the fat white rool of bed sheets he’d bound together and watched from above as it all unfurled below him, and laughed,
“Save precious resources; suicide today,” Yasmin read, standing with a group of students who’d arrived early enough to see it before security rushed to take it down. And wondered what the head of the University would think of this.
‘Save precious resources; Suicide today?” Dean Jhonson asked her secretary, “What does it mean?”
Dean Johnson’s secretary looked up fromher keyboard and said,
“I think who ever wrote it must be trying to tell people to commit suicide, to save resources,”
“I can see that,” Said Dean Johnson, and threw her heavy leather satchel down on the desk, “What I mean is is it a comment on our University, are environmental groups attacking us?” her secretary began typing furiously. With the extra work load this banner had given him he was hoping Dean Johnson would suicide today and save him some extra work.
Maybe he could get that week off if she did, that week off he’d long been promised but not seen.
“You could be right,” he said and strted typing faster, hoping the fury of the keyboard would drown out the bull voiced dean.
“Why? Why are they attacking us?” Dean Johnson wailed, shifting the tower of papers from her in tray to her secretary while turning on her computer with a jabbing finger and turning on her desk light, “We’re more than doing our part for the environment- didn’t they environmental groups get copies of the press release we had printed?”
“Which one?” asked her secretary,
“You know, that big three hundred page release I drew up, you know the one,”
Dean Johnson’s secretary did know the one, he’d typed it up himself and redrafted it at least twelve times. Each time making no changes whatsoever until finally Dean Johnson was satisfied with the release and asked him to send it to every address she had on her desk. Dean Johnsosn’s secretary nodded as the bellicose woman slumped into her chair, and plugged her USB coffee cup warmer into her computer and sat a fat paper cup full of steaming coffee in it so she could later throw it out still warm.
“Well why are they attacking us?” she snapped, then snarled at her computer, “Faster, faster, start up, I’ve got things to do!” Her secretary thought it best not to answer the question, it seemed rhetorical, but was asked again, “Why are they attacking us?”
“Maybe it’s a student prank,” he suggested in a timid tone at her loud words, “Maybe one of the student bodies did it?”
“Well, why would they do it? didn’t we send each of the student groups a copy of our environmental statement? Didn’t we tell them what we’re doing for the environment, the steps we’re taking over the next years toward reducing our waste?”
“Maybe it’s not an environmental message?” he ventured, and hit print, streaming out the latest of an endless stream of statements Dean Johnson issued to everyone.
Chris, the Dean’s secretary loathed having to stand before the various groups the reports were addressed to and tell them of the latest release the Dean had sent down.
None of the professors listened to him, and none of the students cared what he had to say, The Dean herself spoke to him as though he were an extension of her own mind. He was a down beaten man, but thanks to the endless stream of reports and releases the Dean dictated to him was the best scrabble player of anyone he knew. He could use words such as xenophobia and prolix with ease, and like the reports, every scrabble game he played featured multiple uses of the words reaction and proactive.
“Then what’s it all about?” snapped Dean Johnson, “Why would anyone encourage anyone else to commit suicide?” she asked. Chris did not tell her that every time Dean Johnson spoke he felt more than encouraged to commit suicide, and wished it was him that had hung the banner.
“Who ever did it, when we round them up, we’ll throw them out of the university,” she snapped, and then added, “Draft up a press release for me explaining it was all a student prank,”
“But what if it wasn’t a student group?” asked Chris, still tapping away at the keyboard,
“Oh, you know too well it can’t be an environmental group- Didn’t I just tell you that I wrote a statement for them telling them about the steps we were taking? No,” she mused, resting one hand on her chin and opening her e-mail, “It could only be a student body,” she thought for a moment and said, “Probably one of the arts students,”
Dean Johnson had never liked the arts students. She only suffered them because the university was also the conservatorium for music, and she suspected a predecessor of hers had inflicted that on future Deans as some cruel joke. Every year they would ask for something new. They couldn’t be satisfied with a three hundred dollar keyboard, they sacked her budget and demanded a one hundred and fifty thousand dollar piano, and then demanded that someone come in frequently to tune it. despite pointing out to the head of the conservatory that an electronic keyboard would not need tuning and sounded just as good to her ear, the head of the arts department insisted that it had to be this one hundred and fifty thousand dollar piano.
Whole rooms were sequestered for just one student to practice in, every day when she went out for her relaxing cigarette break next to the artificial waterfall she was subjugated to repetitions of just parts of songs, never the full piece, always just on part, played over and over and over; sometimes haltingly, sometimes slowly, never in full.
“No, it has to be one of the arts students, someone’s put them up to it,” said Dean Johnson, and checked through her mails to try and find something to take her mind of the massive work load she had and the shattering sound of Chris typing at insane speeds.
“Do you have to type so loud?” she asked Chris. Dean Johnson would ask Chris this every morning and every morning he would apologise and keep typing faster.
Dean Johnson didn’t like Chris, he seemed lazy and aloof, he never echoed her statements, he had opinions of his own that were absurd.
Like his theory that environmental press releases were best sent electronically. She’d struggled to get him to grasp the concept that there were some things that had to be done the traditional way. He was too young, he’d never understand that there was a satisfaction in holding a ream of document that you’d written. Often times she wondered is she could sack him for ignoring her instruction to type more quietly.
If the music faculty would only give up their demands for space she might have been able to put him in an office far away from her own, somewhere where she wouldn’t have to hear his loud typing and opinions. There was as much chance of that as there was of that damned fool Havermayer appreciating the efforts she’d put in over the years to raise him up to where he was now- the head of a department.
As Jack watched the banner tumble down from above he wondered if maybe he hand’t gone too far this time, looked over the edge and for a brief moment wondered what it would be like just to step off and drop. Not a serious thought of suicide, just a passing whim. The wind rushing through his hair, his arms flayed out behind him. He wondered what it would feel like to see the ground coming up fast and wherether he’d feel anything on impact. Probably not, he thought and then wandered back to the open door on the roof behind him.
It had been a shame, he thought, to have to kick in this beautiful old door, but a necessary evil. It was necessary for him to get up onto the roof. Other than that, the whole event seemed rather unnecessary.
Still, he tried his best to close the door bhind him and wandered down through the silent galleries and marveled at the muffled wail the siren was making through the shaving cream he’d filled the secure enclosure with.
Three and a half thousand dollars worth of technology defeat with two dollars ninety nine worth of shaving cream.
Leaving through the mainenetnce door he removed the length of thin high tensile wire he’d lasooed the latch with, and closed the door behind him, checking that the lock closed with a click and then wiped the handle and face plate clean, just in case someone check for finger prints, and just in case the police knew enough to ask him for finger prints.
He didn’t think they wopuld.
Jack didn’t think a lot would happen as a result of this. The student bodies would be addressed by various people, the perpetrator would be asked to come forward so the Dean could go easy on them, and nothing else would happen.
If the police were called, they’d treat it as a prank with a little vandalism and trespass, he hardly bend their backs to the task and turn back to trying to prove that people they had in custody had cut other people up that they had in barrels.
The city had been refreshed by rain, and Jack pulled the hood of his jumper up over his head, just in case there were cameras near by, and walked past the war memorial, keeping close to the street and away from some of Adelaide’s more aggressive drunks who lay and lingered on the park benches.
There was no reason for them not to be violent and aggressive, it was raining and they had to sleep on park benches and slowly become more sober. Until finally the sun came and people ventured near enough to them to hassle them for change to buy more cheap wine in a cardboard box and get as drunk as possible- it kept the rain from making them too cold.
Jack wasn’t cold in the rain, it rested lightly on the fleecy outer of his jumper and beaded, shaking off with every step.
Jack wasn’t cold, but he was worried. The sun would come up soon, and people would see the banner. He was worried that the wrong people would see the banner before a lot of other people, the right people, would see the banner.
He was worried that his sixty dollar investment might only become and investigation and an exhibit as opposed to a talking point and a provoking thought.
He didn’t really want anyone to commit suicide, at least no more than in the general sense that he wanted to see the worlds population reduced by a minimum of twenty billion people- it was his idea of a joke. Provoking, question seeding and offensive- a joke. It wasn’t all that funny, but it was certainly funnier than anything he saw on television, with it’s canned laugh track so people could tell when a joke had been told.
It made him wonder if comedians were actually funny or people were trained to laugh at certain gestures and movements.
Dean Johnson certainly didn’t find it funny when the police told her, no, they wouldn’t check for finger prints.
“Why not?” she asked, polite and reasonable but turning in her chair behind her desk to glance out the window, just to see if the perpetrator was out there, laughing at her. “Someone pbroke into one of my buildings and destroyed and antique door, disabled the alarm and hung that,” she pointed to the fat plastic bag one of the two officer had under his arm, “Offensive slogan off one of the university buildings. Surely that warrants and investigation?”
The Sergeant who’d been sent out with his junior constable was graying and fat, the front of his shirt stretched over his belly and hid his belt admirably. He often joked that in society’s where the overweight were held as persons of high esteem he would be a Fgod, and would shove more French fries into his mouth in front of his colleagues and laugh, until he got home and had “weight watchers” meal and groaned when he checked himself on the bathroom scales.
“I’m sorry, Dean Johnsons,”
“Johnson,” she interrupted sharply,
“I’m sorry, Dean Johnson,” he said, “but the most we can hope for is trespass, breaking and entering and criminal damage- nothing was actually stolen,”
“Nothing?” replied Dean Johnson, “Nothing? What about the damage to the reputation of my University? What about the trouble this is going to cause for all the troubled students? What if someone actually takes it to their heads to actually commit suicide because of this?”
The Sergeant didn’t think this was likely, but thought it wise not to say so,
“Well, Dean Johnson,” he said, “It was probably a student prank, you know,” and he laughed in a jolly fashion, “You must have played pranks when you were a student?” he added, smiling and laughing, urging Dean Johnson to join in.
Chris, sitting behind the sergeant thought that the Deanhad probably never even been felt up in her student days, let alone played a prank. He too, had the wisdom of the Sergeant, and said nothing, instead admiring the gun the hung heavily from the belt of the Junior Constable standing with the bag full of banner.
“I most certainly didn’t, and I can’t see why anyone would regard this as a mere prank- what this person, or people was trying to do was get my students to commit suicide and soil the name of this University,”
The sergeant didn’t find this very funny at all and stopped laughing.
“I see your point of view,” he replied, stiff and full of apology, “But we simply can’t squander resources dusting for finger prints when it could have been one of any number of people who we do not know,”
“What if I told you it was the arts faculty?” said the dean, steepling her fingers and looking over them at the sergeant, “I’m certain the arts faculty has something to do with it”
“The whole Faculty?” gasped the junior Constable. Here was the meat and potatoes big crime he’d been looking forward to all his life. He’d long suspec5ted the arts of harboring an underground organized crime element, ever since that guitarist had dumped him for a painter.
The Sergeant looked at him sternly but the Dean agreed,
“Yes, I’m sure the whole factuly knows by now just who did it, I’m sure they know what it’s all about. Would that make you check for finger prints?” she asked the sergeant, having got the approval of at least one law enforcement officer.
“Well, no,” he said, pushing his cap back and rubbing at his fore head, then looking down at his watch, “No, we’d have to have the finger prints of everyone in the arts faculty to be able to do a match,”
“What if I could get them for you?” asked Dean Johnson and smiled broadly, I can convince the students that it’s for the best of the school,” but the Sergeant shook his head,
“The students wouldn’t have to give them to you, and you can’t really ask them to,” Dean Johnson smiled and said,
“Oh, but I can, it’s purely voluntary, they don’t have to, but they’ll want to- would you check for finger prints then?” The beleaugured Sergeant gave in,
“Well, we’ll check for finger prints, and if you can get the prints of all the students we’ll run a check,” Dean Johnson smiled broadly and lead the Sergeant and constable to the door,
“I think you’ll find we can do it easily enough,” she said, smiling, and then said, “Thank you so much for your support,” and then smiled at the young Constabler and frightened him, “You’ll go a long way young man, I can see bright things in your future,” and closed the door behind them.
“Next time, keep your mouth shut,” the Sergeant glowered at the Junior Constable, “Now you’ve doubled your workload and set another crazy bint off on a crusade,” the Junior constable said nothing, instead shuddered deep inside himself at the suggestion that had rested in the Dean’s eyes as she had told him he’d go far.
And go far the young constable did, it was only six months before he found himself station in Cooper Pedy where the temperature can reach fifty four degrees Celsius on a hot day.
Jack though, wasn’t that hot. He had made to the end King William road and was waiting for the lights to turn his way. The buses nearly tore his clothes off as they rushed past and half blinded him with their headlights that bounced and danced as they crossed the tramlines. The sides of the buses were emblazoned with slogans and advertising, telling Jack he’d feel better wearing this, and he’d attract women if he drove that and he’d truly be happy if he owned this phone and would certainly regret not investing with that bank. The buses flew past him so quick he could hardly tell what to buy. The only sign he did manage to read was on the back of the last bus to flee him before the lights changed.
It simply said, “Jesus wept,” and he wondered what that was telling him to buy.
Jesus would have wept if he’d heard the discussion Dean Johnson ws having with the Faculty heads.
“All of the art students?” the Head of the philosophy faculty asked, “You’re going to ask all of the art students to give their finger prints?”
“Yes” said Dean Johnson with some satisfaction, “All of them,”
“But that’s an invasion of their privacy, they know they don’t have to give them,” added the head of the Law faculty. The Dean simply nodded,
“Yes, but they should have no problem giving their finger prints if they’re not guilty, only guilty people would be worried about giving their finger prints,”
“Or those who simply don’t want to give their finger prints to the police,” added the Head of Philosophy, a slim balding woman whose fingers worried at the zipper on her bag, “I mean, a lot of student won’t want to give them on principal. And why just the art students?” The Dean walked across the room and back to the center again before answering,
“I have it on good authority that it was in fact a group of arts students who did this shameful thing,” one of the other heads, holding his pen like it was a longed for cigarette asked,
“Whose authority? Has someone come forward?” The Dean shot him a hard look and said,
“It doesn’t matter where it came from, I have it on good authority,” then added smugly, “A source I can trust led me to this conclusion. Your job,” she wheeled around to look at the rest of the room, “Is to convince the students that it’s in their best interests to help us in our investigation,”
No one bothered to point out to the pit-bull-like Dean that their job was to tech the students and produce inquiring minds.
“We have to send a message that this sort ofd behaviour will not be tolerated within the university. As soon as we find the student, or students responsible I’ll have them explled from the university and charged,”
“Can you have students expelled for this?” asked one of the heads, “I mean, I don’t think what it was a good thing,” he hastened to add, “But if it was one of the students it was surely just some sort of prank,”
“Not one, but an organized group of students trying to spread dissent throughout the university- if it was a harmless prank, they would have come forward when I asked them to, then I would have treated them with some leniency,” Chris, taking notes quickly thought, no she wouldn’t she would have hit them at the peak of her rage and expelled them.
“This could only be the act of a highly organized group who planned and executed this attack on My university. This sort of behavior simply must be nipped in the bud. Today it’s banners, tomorrow- what? Riots, violence, protests!” Dean Johnson was storming back and forward in front of the heads and ranting, “No, I tell you, this was the act of insurgents, people seeking to bring down My fine educational establishment by sowing seeds of dissent,”
“And what if the students object- you can’t really single out the arts students or you will have protests,” said the head of music in a droll voice, “It seems you’re picking them as a target, they’ll feel wrongly victimized,”
“Well we’ll ask all the students for their fingerprints,” she snapped, “Tell them it’s part of new security measures we’ve had to introduce to prevent this sort of thing going on,” she looked hard at Chris and said, “We can add new security measures, can’t we?” Chris looked about at all the eyes on him- suddenly he was the authority on legitimate security measures within the University system. He tried to swallow his adam’s apple and said,
“Um, I don’t know, I’m not sure if…” the Dean cut him of sharply,
“We can and will introduce all the security measures we need to ensure that this doesn’t happen again,”
“I think you’ll find,” said the head of the Law Faculty, “That you can’t actually set fingerprinting as a requirement for attendance at a university,”
“Well don’t tell them we can’t,” Said Havermayer, engendering a tender glance from the Dean, “Don’t tell them that we can’t and if we don’t tell them they can refuse we’ll get most of the students, if not all of them to give their fingerprints- those that don’t will look guilty, even if they aren’t, they’ll have no choice but to give their finger prints,”
“This is ridiculous,” said the head of law, rising to his feet and making a move toward the door, “We’re not dealing with Children. Everyone knows that you don’t have to give your fingerprints without due cause. The students, and rightly so, are going to be livid over this nonsense,” He was joined by the timid Head of Philosophy who added,
“I can’t stand by and not inform my students of the truth of this, it’s lying,”
When meeting had finished disintegrating Dean Johnson turned to Chris and said, “I think they must be involved- find out how we can replace them,” and then stormed off for a relaxing cigarette and to feel a further victim of some unseen pianist practicing only a little bit of a song over and over on her one hundred and fifty thousand dollar piano.
“I think I’ve caught a cold,” said Jack to Yasmin as he walked in the door of his flat, “I think I’ve caught a cold,” he repeated, wiping his running nose.
“Where have you been?” Yasmin asked.
“Oh, you know, out and about spreading the good word. I saw a bus with, “Jesus wept,” written on the back- that’s all it had, ‘Jesus wept,’”
“It’s like, one o’clock in the morning, what were you doing?”
“Just out and about, having a walk,” he replied to which Yasmin raised a curious eyes brow,
“At one in the morning with your back pack?” Jack nodded,
“Yep, out and about, having a walk with my back pack- it’s a nice night for a walk, only I think I’ve caught a cold,” he dropped the back pack on the floor and settled down on his favorite chair; a bean bag resting on four milk crates. He groaned magnificently as he fell back into it.
“You haven’t been dumpster diving again have you?” jack shook his head,
“Nope, no dumpster diving, “The grumbled, had to give that up after the Woolies guys started pissing on all the crap they threw out- what a waste, all that good food they’re throwing out and they won’t let people steal it,”
“Where did you go?” Yasmin asked and Jack answered honestly, telling her he’d walked up North terrace and poked around the uni a bit and came back home and caught a cold on the way.
“You wouldn’t believe the spray those buses make as they pass he said, “Just about drowned me each time they’d go past at the lights,” Yasmin shrugged,
“Many people out tonight?”
“Nah,” replied Jack, “Only a few bums trying to sleep in the park.” He sneezed violently, “I really do think I caught a cold out there,” he repeated, “A cold, can you belive it,” Yasmin just nodded, she could believe it.
She could still believe it the next day when she looked up at the banner hanging from the roof of the library and read aloud, “Save precious resources; suicide today,” She looked to her left at Jack, who, like her was looking up at the banner mouthing the words with a look of amused surprise on his face.
“Did you do that?” she whispered to him. Jack simply said,
“Only two types of people would deny having done it, the innocent and the guilty,” Yasmin hissed hard in Jacks ear,
“Did you do that?” Jack grinned,
“That’s an odd question, because I’m not the person I was last night, nor am I the person I was five minutes ago, and nor am I the person I’ll be in five minutes time, so I have to answer no,” Yasmin groaned,
“So you did do it, that’s where you were last night,” Jack looked surprised,
“No, I just explained, I couldn’t have done it,” he looked shocked, “I thought I’d just made that clear?” Yasmin turned her head away,
“More of the philosophical crap? Just what I want,” Jack laughed,
“It’s not philosophy, simple teleological fact. We become someone new with every passing minute,”
“What about your past self, the one that was on the uni grounds last night, did he do that?” she asked, having seen a way through his argument. Jack laughed,
“That, is an excellent question, and I’ll give you one version of the answer. Three people can keep a secret, but only if two of them are dead,” Linking her arm through Jack’s she hurried away from the crowd to speak to him,
“If you get caught, you know they’ll throw you out,” Jack nodded,
“but I won’t get caught, will I? No one saw me do it, no one can prove I did it, and hey, at the end of the day, give it two weeks, this’ll all just be a memory we laugh about,”
“The dean won’t,” said Yasmin, sitting down on a bench seat and dropping her bag beside her, “She’ll hunt you down forever for this sort of thing,” Jack nodded,
“No doubt she will, but everyone else will forget all about this soon enough- as I say, it’ll be something we laugh about in six weeks time- hell, most people will laugh about it today,”
Jack knew that one of the people that wouldn’t laugh about it was Dean Johnson, and he also knew that she would try and hunt him to the ends of the earth for hanging a banner from the library and would kick him out if she caught him, and this made Jack somewhat of a worried man.

Chapter two DRAFT

By the end of this chapter the character of Jack should be emerging somewhat more clearly. It's good fun watching this irreverant little bugger come to life in front of me, I'm enjoying getting to know him.

Writing like this and posting every day is a challenge- it's scary to publish first drafts, it's frightening not knowing where the story is going and it scares me to have commited myself so much to a story. The reward though! The reward is beyond compare.

I hope you're enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

Tom
X

Chapter two
Jack did like to argue.
He told this as to Jeremy as they were pushing their way through the people standing in the twenty foot escalator down into the David Jones Food Court.
“And why wouldn’t I?” he said to Jeremy. A woman standing he excused to the side of the metal strip glared at him as they walked past. “I’m surrounded by sheep who work at hallucinations all day,”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jeremy, and pushed a strand of hair back, not out of his eyes, but out of embarrassment, still he clung to Jacks heels following him.
Jeremy was a very worried man. Just as Jack was finishing his final year of Philosophy, Jeremy was completing his final year of accounting and the world weighed heavily on him. His marks were high, but not so high as to stand out above the rest of his year. He worked hard at learning to be a good accountant, but it seemed to him, in his own personal life, that at best, he had a talent for making losses. When he gambled, he lost, when he bought credit for his phone, he only got the credit he paid for, whereas Jack seemed to receive a credit bonus from Telstra every month, far and above anything he ever spent on Credit. Jack would brag that he’d paid for credit twice this year, and only then because his access had expired- the rest of the time he made calls off the free credit he was sent every month.
“Hallucinations,” said Jack, “Are what the world specializes in- take the share market for example,” they stepped off the escalator and with a grand sweep, Jack turned and spoke to the people gathering behind him, waiting to step off, marking time by treading lightly to keep up with the steps that withered at their feet. “Let this be a lesson,” said Jack to the people in front of him, waiting impatiently to get off, “An escalator is a device to increase your speed of travel from a to b, not something to slouch into and take a break from moving your body,” Jeremy had marched ahead, and called over his shoulder,
“Come on, you’re pissing them off,” Jack stopped, looked at Jeremy for a moment and grinned, before he shuffled in short steps quickly to catch up.
“Hallucinations, like the stock market- I mean, can you show me what a share looks like, can you catch one in a net,” Jeremy sighed, they’d had this conversation before,
“Shares represent the a portion of the value of a company,” Jack nodded,
“Yes, but they’re not a portion of a company, they’re just a representation, like you said. They’re not real,” Jeremy nodded and laughed,
“Yeah, but it’s real enough to make people jump out of the window of as twenty seventh floor building if the price drops too much,” Jack shivered a little as the cold air from the air-conditioning washed over him- the contrast between inside and out was remarkable.
All about them weary mothers pushed prams and dull, children clung at the side of the pram, it itself full of heavy boxes wrapped in plastic bags.
“I know, and people laugh at kids who suicide over their avatar dying in a videogame,” the rush and hum of conversation in the food court sounded like the ocean lapping at small rocks; individual voices were washed out into the his a swirl of sound all as an electronic orchestra played The Beatles “While my guitar gently weeps,” over the speakers hidden in the bright white ceiling.
“Videogames aren’t real, these kids just get wrapped up in them,” Jeremy said, and pushed the hair on his forehead back again. A young guy in a business suit hurried to catch up with Jack and stopped him,
“You know,” he said, “That was really rude, you pushed through people on the escalator and then stopped us and made us listen to your idiot ideas,” Jack stopped still and looked at the young man, eyes level with the knot of his tie,
“You know, replied Jack, “That was really rude of them. Each second they stood still and stopped me traveling at speed they were taking another second off my life, and they didn’t ask me for that second, and I didn’t want to give it to them,” The young tie held out an admonishing finger,
“You want to be careful what you do, you’ll get yourself in trouble,” Jack batted the finger away with his hand,
“You want to be careful- anyone can wear a neck tie, and it won’t make you happy, then turned and caught up again with Jeremy, who’d wandered towards a sandwich bar,
“You know, people think you’re a nutter,” said Jeremy. Jack just nodded,
“And they think Jesus was the Son of God and that you need to be a Christian to be a good person. I’ll worry what they think when I am a nutter,” He looked over the counter at the serving hand and asked, “Could I please have some pig flesh on a white bread with some mutilated, flaccid lettuce?” then turned back to Jeremy, “What do you want? My shout,”
Jeremy apologized to the sandwich hand and asked for tuna or rye with cranberry sauce. The girl looked back at Jack, half laughing and said,
“Would you like salt and pepper on your mutilated pig?” it was only then that Jeremy saw the tattoos around her throat. Jack nodded, then turned back to Jeremy,
“What I’m, saying is these things aren’t actually part of the real world- your accounting, for instance, it’s just concepts extrapolated from other concepts that are attached to the real world- it’s no more real than the things that pass before your eyes when you’re asleep,” He turned back to the sandwich hand and said, “Oh, and two cappuccinos too, thanks,” raised his eyebrows at Jeremy and said, “You want one, right?” Jeremy nodded.
“What weirds me out is that people like to think that they’re real, and that they’re important,” distracted for a moment he reached around and scratched his butt crack, “I mean, do you know how much a farm dude gets paid?” Jeremy shrugged,
“I dunno,”
“Neither do I, but I bet it’s less than a guy who writes software for accountants,” Jack looked admiringly at the sandwich hands back as she was working, “someone who sits on their arse all day and wiggles their fingers gets paid more than a person who sweats and strains and makes thing you can touch with your hands,”
Jeremy laughed at the comparison,
“Well, it’s the guys who sit on their arse's all day and don’t wiggle tell other people to wiggle their fingers that determine how much things are,” the coffee machine hissed in the background, drowning out the throng of shoppers behind them. Next to them a myopic old woman squinted at the menu board and was ignored completely as the girl with her throat tattoos turned and flirted with Jack as she passed the tray over,
“That’ll be twelve fifty all together- I’ve put some extra murdered pig in your sandwich and found the least flaccid lettuce I could for you,” She smiled her pretty smile. Jack passed over the money and then turned, ignoring the girl completely and passed the tray over to Jeremy.
“I paid, you carry,” he said, and followed the taller, but equally slim Jeremy over to an empty table that jutted like a mushroom cap from the floor. They sat down on plastic chairs that jutted, like new sprouted ‘srooms from beneath the cap of their elder.
“I really don’t think it matters what we think about this- it’s gonna be the same no matter what we say,” said Jeremy. “People with three-hundred dollar neck ties determine what the rest of us are worth,” and shrugged, “That’s the way the world is,”
“For now,” said Jack, “Five hundred years ago it was people with crowns, five thousand years ago it was people with clubs- the people with clubs and crowns referred to another concept for their authority, just as the suits and ties do,”
“And you’re going to change the world?” scoffed Jeremy, taking a mouth full of Tuna and cranberry on rye. Beside them a table full of young well dressed people, wearing fashions that they’d shudder to look at in photos in years to come laughed at a joke no one else had heard while Jack savagely chewed at his sandwich. He didn’t say a thing.
Jeremy was studying accounting, but was worried. He worried that maybe he wasn’t studying the right thing, he worried that maybe accounting wasn’t happiness.
At night he read cheap crime thrillers he brought on sale at the mega book store just outside the mall and fantasized that he could see where things were going. They were only fantasies, he conceded, because he knew nothing about solving crimes. Every morning he looked at himself in the mirror as he shaved holding all his muscles taut and thinking what a strong body he had, then would sit down and listen as a gray skinned wrinkled professor shouted down the less fastidious students who laughed in the back of the lecture room.
His idol, professor Havermayer was found of telling his students,
“It’s an accountants world, you have the highest responsibility of any one- without accountants, Doctors have no work, without accountants, their patients can’t pay them. Without accountants farmers can’t buy farms and can’t milk cows; we have the proudest, most important profession in the world,” Jack had once wandered into one of Professor Havermayer’s lectures and interrupted this rote speech, asking,
“Where do babies come from?” Jeremy, along with all the other students laughed loudly as Professor Havermayer’s cheeks flushed red,
“Who is this?” he demanded, pointing at Jack, then added, “Maybe you should sneak into a medicine lecture with that question,” and sniggered, his students joining him.
Professor Haverymayer, like Jeremy was a very worried man. When he looked into the mirror shaving every morning he wondered where the years had gone and who was this man he saw looking back at him in the mirror, his lower eye lids rolled down and red and flushed from an exhaustion that never seemed to leave or tire of his company. When Jack asked, “Where do babies come from?” at the peak of what Richard Havermayer thought was the most eloquent explanation of the importance of accountants he saw an unruly boy in torn green cargo pants and a bad attitude. He threw Jack out of the lecture room, telling him,
“Don’t come back and disrupt these lectures with idiot questions, I’m teaching accounting,” when Jack laughed at him and told him,
“You’re preaching how to attend the new gospel,” Havermayer wanted to agree with him, wanted to say, "It is the new gospel, everything important in the world comes from this gospel," but didn’t think it wise to say. Jack had the same smile he’d known too often as a student. The same rebellious, questioning smile he’d seen on the other students who called themselves hippies and beats and would argue long about things he didn’t understand and that he was not invited to listen too. They’d called him “Square,” and laughed when he turned down their proffered joints. It wasn’t that he wasn’t curious about drugs, Richard Havermayer had heard all about them- and nothing good. His father had told him that they addled the mind, they made you lazy and out of touch with the world. Then, as with Jack’s questioning, he’d been ready to dismiss it out of hand, but do nothing towards actually dismissing it. Instead, as with Jack’s question, he decided to forget about the whole thing.
In his office he had a series of lovely framed scrolls behind his desk, scrolls that told the world how important and successful he was. His seniors, when he’d started lecturing despised him and rather than befriend him, saw that he moved up through the ranks so they didn’t have to share a lunch room and office with him. So they didn’t have to hear his variations on how important accountants were for the world.
Each day, at twelve o’clock, he would walk from his office and pass the lunch room and try not to be seen glancing in through the window at his colleagues, his underlings as he called them with great confidence to his secretary.
“You know, that’s the reason they don’t like me,” he’d tell each of the beautiful young women he’d employ, “Because they know just how high up I am. I’m a very important man,” and then invite them to join him for his twelve o’clock walk, past the lunch room, to lunch in the upstairs restaurant at David Jones, “Where the best people eat,” he would add, with a wink and a smile.
None of his secretaries ever joined him for lunch, each made a polite excuse, and he’d find himself walking past the lunch room, trying not to glance in, but unable to help himself, just to see if his beautiful secretary was having lunch with one of his underlings, to that they weren’t smiling and having fun. If he did see them he would nod, and say to himself, ‘Some people just aren’t cut out for the superior world,’ and entertain ideas that maybe eugenics wasn’t such a theory.
Each night, at six o’clock, he leave his office, and with mechanical precision would catch the 137F on Grenfell street and ride it to exactly stop thirty-two. Never thirty-one, or thirty-three, and walk from the bas stop to his fine house with its expensive block and open just one of the double doors and step inside, take his shoes off, and then turn on his computer, and check the dating sites he was attached with. He’d look at his profile and smile,
Successful, financially well off gentleman with secure future seeking attractive woman. Prefer non-smoker, non drinker. Age not a concern.
He’d look at his profile before he turned to the dreaded ‘in box’ to reject the proposals sent by Russian women looking for Australian husbands and visas. He’d look through the photos online and ask for contact with every woman he could find, until hunger overtook a tepid ardor and he’d take from the fridge a microwave meal and sit in front of the television, watching and eating from his lap.
At exactly ten thirty, he would retire to the computer again, search through the collection of pornography he’d gathered, maybe add a few more pictures and movies, then masturbate himself to an unsavory climax before going to bed and dreaming of hippies and beatniks that were offering him joints and laughing behind his back. And then he’d wake.
At work, when with his peers he would lie about his weekends, tell them that he’d gone away, one weekend water skiing, the next snorkeling with a beautiful woman, who he’d spurn, claiming she was, after all, only after him for his money, and simply couldn’t keep up with him in conversation. He was never invited to their social functions unless out of necessity, and he turned them down, from a polite embarrassment, fobbing them off with lines such as, ‘Oh, I only drink vintage wines, none of that cheap stuff,’ sometimes, to try and fit in he’d swear, but when he did it left him feeling embarrassed and dirty. He imagined his father looming over his shoulder and telling him he shouldn’t use language like that.
Richard Havermayer’s father had been a steel worker and had worked with steel to the point where his very character resembled the steel he handled, cold and gray. He had a great love for his boy, but had always been disappointed that he had no rebellious streak, was too much like his mother. Though he never said this. Instead he’d ruffle his hair and tell him, “Grow up to be an accountant, accounting is the way of the future,”
Richard Havermayer had taken his advice to heart, and when looking at his young male chargers, all but forgetting the ambitious and talented female student, he saw himself as a father to them, and thought that they, like he, should grow up to fine, up standing citizens, accountants, like he himself was.
Even though every July he would employ an accountant to do his taxes. He was afraid he simply did not know how to go through all the forms.
Jeremy, having grown up without a father took the advice of Richard Havermayer a little too seriously. While he enjoyed the company of Jack, and the other students, Professor Havermayer would warn him that fraternizing with such students would only do him harm, and punished him with marks accordingly. Richard Havermayer had seen no harm in learning the student number of Jeremy- or any of the other students under his tutelage- so he could mark him according to his degree and nature of socialization. He was, he reasoned, leading the students to the correct path in life, guiding them, not bullying them into a way of thinking. Student like Jack, he would argue when lying about the encounter to his peers, were a necessary, but dangerous evil. He told his peers that Jack had asked a ridiculous question, “Where do babies come from?” he snorted, “As if the fool didn’t know! I told him to get out, he stood, threatened me he did! Threatened me, so I walked over and grabbed him by the neck and threw him out. Walking into my room, threatening me!” he said in a softer tone, “I suppose I was harsh on the boy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if trouble comes from this, but you know,” He curled an arm, fist inward, “Sometimes you’ve got to show these kids the strong arm,” and nodded.
His peers were polite enough not to laugh and instead went going back to their coffee and suduko, trying to ignore the professor who they heard was deigned to be the next faculty head.
It was a good life, he’d think before going to sleep. He’d sometimes wonder though, what was wrong with the rest of the world, why was he the only one who could so clearly see the way things were.
He wondered this when others had laughed at the banner that had been hung from the roof of the library proclaiming, “Save resources, suicide today,” and all the staff had laughed, instead of flying ton a justifiable rage, like he himself had.
He wondered what was wrong with the world every time he would look at his inbox, searching for the ardent reply he so sorely deserved to his prayer for sexual deliverance, a woman who would look after him, cook for him, wash for him and deliver him children to bring up in his own, near perfect image.
For Richard Haverymayer knew better than anyone else that he was as perfect as a man could be.
He’d wonder why his student worried so much about their other classes, when his lectures were the most important thing in their day; he wondered why so few students asked to be in his tutorials.
Jeremy was just one more thing that worried at Richard Havermayer's, for while he would ask to be in the Professors classes, Havermayer sensed in him a risk, a danger that the boy might develop into a man and think- to think of it- that there was something more important in the world than accounting. He worried when he saw Jeremy walking with Jack into the food court and wondered what influence this trouble maker would have on his young charge, how he would warp the mind of what just could be a perfect accounting student. He worried that Jeremy would one day question the marks he was receiving, look and wonder just what made a High distinction as opposed to the Credits and P2’s that Havermayer was giving him.
Most of all though, he worried that perhaps accounting wasn’t the way of the future and that at fifty two he’d wasted his life on something that would never really make him happy.
Jeremy never worried about Professor Havermayer. He worried about Jack.
“I reckon,” said Jack, talking through a mouthful of ham and lettuce sandwich, “That you can change the world. I reckon I can change the world,” Jeremy sighed,
“What? You’ll turn into some sort of Jesus and everyone will listen to you and suddenly realize that they were wrong?” Jack shook his head chewing,
“Nothing like that- Jesus got nailed in the end, didn’t he?” Jack chuckled and repeated a favorite line, looking up at the ceiling with it’s tiny bright white halogen lights pointing down, “I’m not gay, but if Jesus were alive, I’d nail him,” he laughed at himself, Jeremy grinned, he’d heard Jack roll the line out before. “No, I reckon we need to ask people the right question,” and then chewed thoughtfully.
“I mean, how many people have been thrown by Descartes question,” he took another huge bite from the sandwich, “Well, it wasn’t a question, but the old, ‘suppose not god that is the truth, but some evil and powerful mind,’ or something like that- you know, the old matrix argument, ‘What is reality?’” he chewed with thought as Jeremy replied,
“I dunno, how many?” after he swallowed, to Jeremy’s gratitude, he hated the way Jack would happily show the food he was chewing to the world when he spoke, jack said,
“I dunno either, but heaps I reckon,” he took another mouthful and spoke again, little flecks of food flying from his mouth with his words, “but it’s a good question,”
“It’s an irrelevant question,” said Jeremy, and ate; knowing he’d have enough time to finish chewing before Jack was finished speaking,
“s’not, it’s the most important, I reckon,” he thrust his finger into the table, the tip bending on the surface, “You know what keeps my finger passing through this table?” he asked. Jeremy shrugged,
“The table top,” Jack shook his head,
“Well, yeah, but you know what makes the table top different to my finger? The way the atoms are arranged, but we can’t even see them- I mean, something we can’t see is stopping my finger being one with the table,” he said, “So how do we know it’s there?”
“Because your finger doesn’t pass through it?” Jeremy replied, wondering what would come next,
“How do we know it won’t just pass through it the next time? Or the next?” Jack asked, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand as he swallowed the last of his sandwich. He picked up the stick like satchel of sugar and with a snap of his wrist flicked it all to one end, tore the end off he gripped between his fingers and poured it through the foam of his cappuccino.
“You can’t test for the next time, you can only test for this time,” Jack said, “Can’t be done,” Jeremy chewed at his sandwich and looked behind him in annoyance as a solid cleaner bumped him toward the table with her rubbish cart.
“That’s my point,” said Jack, “it’s a good question. We can’t ever know what’s real. What if all your memories of the past are actually memories of the future but we have a back to front perception of time?” he added, “What if the memories we have of the past were made up just this instant?” Jeremy laughed,
“It doesn’t really matter, we can’t change what we think now,” he put his sandwich down and looked at Jack.
Jeremy was a worried man.
“You’ve got to stop asking all these questions, you’ll go nuts,” Jack scooped up the chocolate foam and spooned it to his mouth, licking away the excess around his lips,
“What I’m trying to say,” He said, ignoring Jeremy’s statement, “Is that there are some very good questions out there and everyone should ask them,” he stirred his cappuccino again and asked, “Why do you study accounting?”
“Because I want to be an accountant?” Jeremy answered, “That’s why,”
“Why don’t you want to be a photographer instead of an accountant? Or a zoologist? Or street sweeper?”
“The money is good and its got a good future?”
“The money is crap and it’s got a bad future if the oceans rise two meters,” said Jack, “It’s all about perceptions, you believe being an accountant is a good thing,”
“And you believe this isn’t reality,” said jack, holding his hand up to the ceiling and snapping, “This is the world, Jack, like it or not, being and accountant means I can pay my bills, I can eat, I can have a family,” Jack grinned, this was more like it he thought,
“Birds eat; they don’t worry about bills or rent,”
“So go live in a tree!” replied Jeremy, “Go live in a fucking tree,” Jack was laughing now,
“Oh, I would, but your world would lock me up for that. I’m not allowed to live life the way I want to,” he threw his coffee into his mouth and swallowed all most the whole cup in one mouthful and stood,
“You want to finish that sandwich? I’ll show you something,”
Jeremy grumbled and wrapped what was left of his sandwich in the paper wrap and quickly drank his coffee. Weaving through the crowd of people in the food court, they moved to the escalators, moving up, one floor at a time until they’d reached the restaurant high at the top of the David Jones building, breezed past the table where Richard Havermayer sat, eating his chicken croissant and garden salad and stood at the window.
Jack pressed up against the glass and looked down, pointing,
“You see that?” he said, pointing at the people milling in the mall, steady streams moving back and forth. Jeremy looked down and said,
“What? It’s the mall” he stood a polite distance away from the glass that Jack was leaving greasy hand prints on and the distinct impression of where his nose was flattening against the glass,
“The people, do you see the people,” Jeremy nodded,
“Yeah, what about them?”
“Can you pick which ones are accountants?” asked Jack, “You can’t, can you?”
Jeremy had to agree with him. From this height people did look alike.