Exercise: Representing estrangement between reunited friends

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Nuts? What do you think I am, a squirrel? What did you mean, that bit about expendible income? Are you trying to say I'm poor?"

"No, no, just saying I'm rich. Haha. Well, after a fashion. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound insensitive, or maybe you shouldn't be so sensitive yourself. Now, double JD and coke. Sit down, sit down, before that couple coming in piles into our seats."

A few moments later Pete and Dan were seated back down again, Pete with a fresh Marlboro Light, Dan in mid-conversation about his role as a local councillor.

"So, how I see things is that the metropolitan elite completely ignores us in the shires, the provincial heartlands of England. Our traditions are completely ignored. I'm not pro- hunting by any means, but I think the traditions of the rural classes are being attacked by urban politicians, with some woolly socialist agenda for shaping a nanny state."

"You always hated the countryside", rejoined Pete, noting Dan's rustic olde real ale poured as specified, flat and headless. "Remember that camping trip we went on to the Lake District with scouts? It was August, rain came down off the mountains in great buckets, you slipped on your arse into a ditch on one hike and you got a dose of the trots for the rest of the time. You were green in the face. Akela said it'd be as well to airlift you home, you were giving all the littleuns the bug as well."

"Ah, well, all that rugby strengthened my constitution. Did you ever play again?"

"No", Pete muttered after a pause. "So you're a Tory now? You were a dyed in the wool socialist at school. Always with the revolutionary pamphlets from the socialist bookshop, and the badges. Didn't you go to one of those Troops Out of Northern Ireland meetings at one point?"

"That wasn't me."

"Bloody was. You used to go with Frances Gillman from the Poly. You were in upper sixth and dating the radical Fran with the Doc Martins and the Dennis the Menace jumper. I remember, you got stuck in at one party with her, with all these anarchist types with red Che berets. I got stuck sitting with one pillock who kept going on about Althusser, and I couldn't go home because you were upstairs giving Fran the Radical one for the Revolution."

"Never got political with her. Anyway, there's a time for being a socialist and an idealist when you're a kid. But then you get responsibilities. A wife, a job, bills and taxes. A mortgage. Kids too. I have a daughter, Margaret."

"After Thatcher?"

"Very funny."

"And I suppose she's going to a posh school."

"We have her name down. She's only two, but there's a waiting list. Did you ever marry?"

"No. Oh no, not me. I like my freedom too much. I like my nights out, clubbing, being my own man. I mean, well, I lived with a girl once, Kerry, but it didn't work out."

* * * *

Third and last part to follow

FinsburyParkCarrots

Pete's eyes traced Dan's insolent cheekbones, assured, brash. A winner's features. The face that would fit behind the desk in a bank manager's office, a solicitor's chambers, a doctor's surgery even. And those hands, deliberate, never clumsy, holding his beer glass with the picture perfect poise of suburban man. Squeaky clean where blood won't stain. The signet ring on the little finger: a mason's? Mechanical jerks of the head. Has to turn his body to move his head. All the work of Jenny Hawksworth with her witch curse face and her plaits, her bass playing masonic dad and jobs for the boys in Oxford - -

"Don't you long for the security of a stable life, Pete? I mean, the pub company must get old. Like a goldfish bowl after a while."

Pete shuffled and rubbed his palms on his trousers. Dan continued. "This is the first time I've been here since I was twenty-one years old and in the bar regulars I know every twitch, face, sneer, guffaw and possible rumour in the place, in an instant. Those two guys over there, the emaciated one and his red faced disciple in the shell suit, they're making up some gay rumour about the young college drop out by the jukebox, because he has some youth they envy, or, what? The chance to go back on his failures. And the barmaid. You been with her?"

"How'd you guess that? Is she looking at me?"

"She's looking at the drop-out at the jukebox. See, I know your whole life in a few minutes. And you say you have freedom. The music you like, the drinks you drink, the bit of moonlighting you do laying carpets, the wrap you score at the weekend, the legover you chance, it's all in your yellow raver's trousers and your tan. Come on, Peter, you're what? Seven months older than I am! Jenny and I married at twenty-two, and worked abroad together for years before coming back to England and having Margaret."

"And playing trad jazz and campaigning against asylum seekers and going to masonic meetings and being the fucking enemy. You want me to say I'm jealous of you, don't you? You need my failure in order to get on, to base your sense of success. I'm what you got away from. I'm what you fear. I'm what you came here to master. Again. Once more. After all these years. I am what you ... want."

"You're deluded."

"No I'm not. You came here tonight like an ex-junkie checking out an old squat haunt out of a craving, to this place. You came to look for something of yourself. Something you've lost, something that deep down you want to experience again, to feel some delicious guilty joy about, some dirty glee. I know what you want."

"Stop."

"I know. Danny, it's me. Petey. Look at me. I remember."

"Just stop right there."

"Worried Jenny will find out, darling? She's not here. She's nowhere near. Sit with me...."

"I'm leaving. I'm not staying here. I have to go, I -- I remember I've to be somewhere --"

"No, no, you're not staying here. You're leaving. Just like you did that time before. There's somewhere you need to be. Somewhere dark, and shameful. Well?"

So the two men left the bar together.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Haha, I figured I couldn't have the two blokes fighting because then that'd be too similar to Kwijibo's story. So, to get the story finished quickly, I had them disappear up a back alley.

pearlmutt

i didn't expect that. that was fun. i kept thinking where is he going with this, oh, to the alley, of course.

reminds me of a place in Richmond, Alley Katz -- I can never remember how they spell the name. anyway, i remember the place.

FinsburyParkCarrots

pearlmutt wrote:

I've been working on this one too today.

G-riot

“In West African culture, both historically and today, each tribal clan has had its griot, an itinerant clan member who is combination historian-musician-storyteller: "A Griot is an oral historian and musician," explains Foday Musa Suso, one of West Africa 's most respected and well-known contemporary griots. "Griots were trusted court advisors to the kings of West Africa from the twelfth century to the twentieth. Every king wanted a Griot to recite the history of the kingdom, and to pass it down from father to son. History wasn't written down – everything was memorized and recited or sung." The griot memorized the clan's significant events such as births, deaths, marriages, hunts, and wars, ensuring the continuity of the collective heritage and culture. "If you want to buy some cloth, go to the weaver. If you want a hoe, ax or knife, then go to the blacksmith. But if you want to know the history of the people, you must go to the griots." Often accompanied by the kora (a harp-like stringed instrument), drumming and/or the handclapping of the villagers, a griot might speak for hours, even days, drawing upon a practiced and memorized history, passed from griot to griot for generations. It is said that, 'when a griot dies, a library has burned to the ground'."

http://ctl.du.edu/spirituals/Literature/griot.cfm

He sat down next to me on the bus, and I didn’t recognize him. How that was possible, I’m not sure. Maybe it was his beard. Could have been the sunglasses; I guess the weight was part of it. Most likely it simply was because I was staring out of the window, but whatever the reason I hadn't recognized him.

We were moving on away from the city. I was heading home. I watched the fields, studying them for changes. Had those trees been as covered with kudzu when I had last seen them? Hadn’t there been a barn over there on the top of that knoll? And the stone church, my friend had told me that it had burned down. How does a stone church burn down? It made me sad. I didn‘t want to believe it. So my friend assured me that the community had rebuilt it. As we rounded a curve, it came into view. The stones were still gray, but the windows were no longer stained glass. They had sat in a row, three of them, and the glass was beautiful, not like Chagall beautiful, just a peace lily, a cross, and an empty tomb. Very simple beauty. I had always admired them from the road, always wondered what they looked like from the pews on the inside with the light streaming through.

The architecture was very different now. The angles of the church were more pronounced. The structure itself was twice as large and the windows were now at the top of the building. They were clear. I suppose they provided more light inside. Maybe the church didn’t have to use electric light on sunny days anymore. I didn’t like it though, not at all. I would no longer look forward to seeing it.

And then the guy beside me began to hum. I guessed he was bored, we’d been riding a while, and neither he nor I had on headphones. I continued looking out of the window, watching the tiger lilies come into view. They grew anywhere, in a field, by a mailbox, alongside of a house. They were omnipresent on roads like this one, and on days like this one, I knew I could count on them.

He was humming now more loudly, this tune that was familiar. And I turned to look at him, and then I recognized him, and said, “John?”

And he smiled.

And I said, “John Williams!”

And he smiled again, and said, “Yes?”

So I said, “It’s Gail. Gail Porter from Western.”

“Gail Porter from Western, how have you been?”

I wished he would take off his glasses so that I could really get a good look at him. It had been years, and I had always liked him; even though things hadn’t worked out, I’d always really, really liked him.

I felt like he wasn’t really looking at me. It was an odd feeling. But I was trying to find his eyes behind the unusually dark tint of his glasses and couldn’t. All I could see was myself looking at him. I felt uncomfortable.

Like our last argument, uncomfortable. He had explained that he wasn’t going to college, and I had told him that if he didn’t go, we wouldn’t stay together. I had thought he would fold so to speak; instead he saw my hand and he raised it.

“Okay,” he’d said.

“Okay!” I’d barked back at him. “What do you mean okay?”

“I mean I’m not going.”

And then we’d sat there in his car for a long time; I’m not sure how long, but we’d sat there, and it had felt like an eternity. Then I got out and walked away and thought about him for years, but never once tried to call his parents and find out where he’d gotten off to and that kind of thing. I mean what can you do with, “Okay.”

I looked at him and took him in. He seemed not to care that I was staring at him. I said, “I’ve been doing very well.” And thought that he didn‘t look well at all. He was gaunt. His clothes were stained. The knees of his pants were faded. His shirt was thin.

“How have you been?” I asked. And I was genuinely concerned. He had hurt my pride, but that didn’t really seem to matter now.

He smiled, “I’ve been okay.”

He began to hum again, which I thought was bizarre. We should be having a conversation right now. We should be talking about the fact that I had gotten a promotion, and I was getting ready to buy a new home, and I was going to get married at the end of the summer, and I was just going home for a little R and R because all these life changes, you read about how stressful they are, and it’s true. And I would be driving, I mean, it’s horrible to have to take the bus, but Taylor was using his car for his business trip, and mine was in the shop, and I thought it might be nice, relaxing, to let someone else drive me home, but anyway, the point is whether you are on a bus or not, it usually works like you run into someone from your past. They are doing this, this, and this, and you are doing this, this, and going to do that. And then you smile, good to see you again. Goodbye.

But John was humming.

Finally I asked, “What is that song?” because I couldn’t stand to be staring at him anymore while he hummed and seemed not to notice me.

And he said, “You are my sunshine.”

And I said, “My mom used to sing me to sleep with that song.”

Then he smiled and turned his head, moving it sort of slowly along with his humming.

This is fascinating in setting and atmosphere. It reminds me of V.S. Naipaul but totally without what George Lamming disdained as Naipaul's "castrated satire." The kudzu suggests Mali (yes?); the burning of the stone churches seems to me to allude to the persecution of Christians in Bamako and beyond. I get the feeling that this is about two white Africans struggling with displacement of their colonial identity, community and legacy in many ways. The reference to Chagall shows Gail's European cultural reference points and mindset, something that could be offset against the Islamicisation of Western Africa. Maybe I'm completely off the beam here but that's how I read it! Personal relations reflecting broader change in Africa...

I'd be happy to read more.

Anna_falk

I know you
still I don't
I knew you
do I now ?
notice
you've changed
the years have past
but familiar you are
all the things we've done
memories we share
still I feel
I will always
know you

pearlmutt

you are really a smarty Fins because it was sort of inspired by dmb (you know? Stand Up, and other things that a friend of mine who teaches a class on that band has taught me)

"In other words, the griot wields the Sasa; he or she essentially contains Sankofa, illuminating the present by means of the past, as in these lines from the praise-song from contemporary African griot Zolani Mkiva (quoted in Kaschula), created to commemorate the installation of Nelson Mandela as the first President of the African National Congress:

Stand up Mandela, stand up with pride!

That is Mandela

The rest of the world cried with us

Nations wept

And the struggle continues

Fahka

ok yeah this thread is way too smart for me:D


im really curious, what do u guys do? where did you get yer education, its really pretty amazing

pearlmutt

america's finest. the public school system.

and shshshsh don't tell anyone, but i make things up, but not for a living -- i would definitely lose my job for that. Right!

sleep tight smarties of the world and fireflies and lightening bugs and nurses and Sasas and leather mandi (that's a good name, very creative, i think you'll do just fine on any smart thread) and especially griots.

and good night John boy who was on Columbo the last time i watched television, in his black, of course, and I said, Johnny I hope you get this message, cause you're at home. And then I turned it off.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Anyone else fancy a go? I know Olderman's writing something.

ISN

we met in London
I was going crazy there
he took me to Spain
and dumped me after a few months
I thought I would die without his love
so I contacted him
we wrote for a few months
but now I don't care about him anymore

(I'm in the throws of an anxiety attack, and this was all I could manage.....sometimes I just get overwhelmed with anxiety - let's hope it goes away soon - I'm trying to distract myslef)

pearlmutt

(i can't manage much of anything when anxiety strikes. so that's very good. anxiety ends up coming out like this for me: fck,sht,gdmn,fkng,fckr! No vowels, it's a mess. Hang in there.)

ISN

I feel better already......I'm so strong pearlmutt.....but it's cold.....and instead of steak, I'm gonna cook muffins and egg......I jus worry about the whole shebang sometimes.....it takes over.....it's hideous!!!!

pearlmutt

I've got to say, Johnny, somebody got that message,

and ISN,

IT'S A BEUATIFUL DAY . . . .. . . . . . . . .. .!

olderman

sunlit wooden floors,
sunlight filtered by dust and cloth,
sets the scene for this reunion of two friends,
scented by water stained drapes,
still life cold colours of blue hued prisms,
this is the time to write of a life..

your life, my good friend,

the life you decided to end.

scattered images of loves gone bad,
i try, i try to feel with your family so sad,
needing answers i cannot provide,
i ask questions to which i know answers,
your wife is sad,
saddest is her crying,
to think of you,
lying..

your last call was to ask what should be done,
as if it were some new kingdom come,
as though you were unique to this world,
in such some way you had more fun,
entitled to the lead role in a play,
as if you ever had some way,
you anger me with your obvious deflections,
as you were a social liberal with bad breath,
and your love's last intent
was a beautiful girl
who loved you
and i have no
sorrow
left
inside
of me
for you

Kwyjibo

I really like the way those first two lines look.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Thanks to all who have contributed to this exercise.

pearlmutt

You're welcome, Fins. Is there an emoticon for that?

I checked you out so to speak, and I saw that you are working on your masters.

What are you learning about?

FinsburyParkCarrots

Thank goodness someone knows the difference between a postgraduate degree and a post-doctorate! Some people have been elevating my credentials. I'm a supposedly mature masters student and I do want to do a doctorate afterwards if my brain doesn't seize up first. I'm studying literature in Britain and India in the period 1800-1990, and this evening I'm currently reading Kanthapura by Raja Rao as well as re-reading some post-colonial theory and criticism by Homi K Bhabha.

pearlmutt

well, that is very interesting!

so the buddha of suburbia, good, great, bad, or just plain fun?