Writing Crash

by Jamie J. Buchanan

Lee turned away from the computer and took a deep breath. He didn’t know the characters or what the story was supposed to be about, but he knew where this was coming from.

  He knew the passion, the fire and the torment that created such an explosion of violence and sexuality – two abstracts that were so far from the true nature of his friend.

  Lee understood.

  Strange Bedfellows

  Adrian Courtenay sat in front of his computer, the desk at the office strewn with paper – scraps of notes, bundled manuscripts that had been printed, loose pages of 12 point Times New Roman scattered at random.

  He was one of those people who couldn’t read from an electronic version. Adrian needed a hard copy, red pen at hand, and he would scribble notes, deftly encircling words or phrases that piqued his attention. Anyone looking at his work would have no idea if the ellipses made roughly by his red felt tipped pen were signifying his dislike for the turn of phrase, or his admiration for it.

  Today the sun beat in through the front window of the house-turned-office in West Perth. The filtered rays shone distorted shadows of leaves and branches onto the wall and across his polished Jarrah floorboards. The sea breeze was in and the shadows danced around the floor, momentarily distracting Adrian as he tried to concentrate on the piece he was reading. In the not-too-distance, the sounds of peak hour traffic were building – the constant city-hum filling the void like a stoner-rock version of tinnitus.

  It was a relief for him to feel the air rush in, propelled by the 25 knot sea breeze, as the door was opened and his afternoon intruded upon. He had no appointments this day and his immediate thought was…Michael Forster.

  It would have been just like Michael to arrive completely unannounced. Lately it would have been just like Michael to arrive unannounced and drunk…or stoned. Adrian might have been Michael’s agent, but he also actually liked the guy as well. It was true that Adrian didn’t necessarily enjoy the company of all those he was an agent for, but Michael was different. They were a similar age, similar background…and Michael never once referred to Adrian’s homosexuality. This aspect of Adrian’s life had no impact on Michael at all – it was simply a non-issue. Adrian found this so refreshing, so liberating, that he instantly loved Michael for that.

  And Adrian understood Michael’s problems too. He knew the issues that the writer had been going through, although he barely understood his pain. Michael’s issues were ones that Adrian hoped he never had to go through, but he knew that inevitably he would.

  Everyone did at some stage.

  But, on this Thursday afternoon, the doorway wasn’t filled with Michael’s disheveled stoop. It was Michael’s friend Lee Holbrook.

  Put simply, Lee was not Adrian’s most favourite person in the world. Like Michael’s parents before him, Adrian found lee to be a bad influence. He knew Michael had a dark streak, and a propensity to go off the deep end, but Lee always seemed to be the catalyst.

  This was the first time Lee had ever visited him though. In fact, it was the first time they had been together without Michael.

  “Lee,” Adrian said looking up from the dross he was forcing himself to read, grateful for the interruption. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Even as the words were coming out of his mouth, Adrian knew he sounded like a twat. He wanted to be sophisticated, bohemian, all windswept and interesting – a world-weary soul who was a touch above everyone else. Especially someone like Lee who was about as sophisticated as a hammer to the face. However Adrian always came off like a pretentious wanker – at least that’s what he thought he sounded like. Lee’s reply confirmed it.

  “Don’t be a pretentious wanker Adrian. We have a problem.”

  With his usual casual aplomb, Lee swung the door shut with precision, a gentle tap signifying the closure. He wafted across the room with grace, his athletic body effortlessly sashaying to the spare leather seat opposite the glass-topped desk buried under a nest of paperwork.

  “What do you mean-?” Adrian started.

  “Shit mate,” Lee interrupted, “I thought the 21st century was supposed to bring in a paperless office? You’ve got half the fucking Amazon on your desk.”

  “Oh, I always like to print things out…so I can make notes.” Adrian indicated the mounds of sheets with red markings all over them. As usual, Adrian’s attempt to appear superior eventuated in him sounding pompous and resulted in him defending himself.

  Then, before Lee could speak, Adrian realized why…he was attracted to Lee.

  The virtual smack in the face hit him hard as he noticed Lee’s face moving as he talked, but the words didn’t reach him. The realization that he actually liked Lee was more of a shock than it should have been. Lee was just the sort of guy that Adrian was attracted too – fit and strong, a bit rough around the edges, but with a casual charm that was infectious.

  And straight…Adrian was always attracted to the straight ones. Maybe it was the lure of the unattainable that hooked him in?

  His therapist would say that his attraction towards men who could not (or would not) ever reciprocate was simply a manifestation of his fear of intimacy and commitment. Adrian conceded this to be the truth…and that was why that therapist was so damned expensive.

  “Whatever,” Lee brushed off. “We need to talk about your meal ticket.”

  “Now hang on Lee! You know Michael is more than just a client for me!” Adrian was genuinely upset by that remark – especially so given the last twelve months or so and what he has seen Michael go through.

  “Keep your pants on mate, I’m just provoking you – you touchy queen.” Lee smiled that infectious grin that wiped away any ill feeling Adrian had. “I know you’ve been there for him lately. Therefore you’ll know that he’s not in a good place right now.”

  “That’s true,” Adrian replied, thinking about Michael’s appearance at the coffee shop the week before. He looked, smelt and reeked of desperation and was so far away from the talent Adrian knew was deep inside. “The last time I saw him, he was a disgrace.”

  Lee threw a thin pile of pages on his desk, rolled up with a thick elastic band in the centre keeping it all together on one tight tube.

  “Well, it’s getting worse. I don’t know if you’ve read his latest stuff?”

  “No, he wouldn’t show me anything. But writers can be finicky like that”.

  “This is it. Have a read of that and tell me what you reckon.”

  Adrian picked up the roll and set it aside his computer to read later. “I’ll get into that as soon as I have finished this,” he said, indicating the dross he was grateful to be avoiding.

  “No,” Lee said, “read it now. There’s fuck all there anyway so it won’t take you long.”

  “What’s wrong with it? Is it really bad?”

  “No, the words and the prose are actually quite good – in fact some of this might be his best stuff ever. But it’s the content, the theme.”

  “Not going anywhere? Aimless?” These were questions Adrian was asking, his upwards inflection at the end of each phrase signifying this – and inviting the answer ‘Yes’.

  Lee wasn’t playing that game: “Just fucking read it and I’ll make myself a cuppa tea while you do.”

  Fifteen minutes later Adrian knew exactly what Lee meant.

  Tobias could see Carlton losing his grip. The group had become a rabble since the intrusion of Desiree – that catalyst to maelstrom that drew everyone towards her. Carlton was increasingly disheveled, a wreck of a human being and the shell of the former counselor.

  Their crashes became more erratic, more erotic. The extreme nature of their nocturnal joyrides became more brazen.

  Lust for the extreme + ability to achieve it = increasing resistance to satisfaction.

  Like a drug addict who needs a greater kick in each shot, so too Carlton required that push closer to the edge. His motto: “If you’re not on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.”

  Carlton was doomed, even Tobias c
ould see it now. Sadie, Carlton’s demonic muse, was a post-alive morgue dweller. As they drove off from the scene of the tragedy only three nights before, Tobias looked back despite Carlton’s warnings – the fate of Lot’s wife’s not learned by Tobias.

  He saw Sadie sprawled naked on the black-top, shrinking into the hazy distance as they sped away from the scene. Parts of her were sprawled out over the road as she fell from the bonnet of the speeding cars, masturbating as they careened down the freeway.

  How was anyone to know the pot-hole would be there?

  Carlton barely lost control, but it was enough to send poor doomed Sadie to her death, scraping and smearing across the tarmac before coming to a sudden bone-crunching and hideous thump into the concrete guard wall.

  Carlton was emotionless, cold, detached. Shock will manifest itself in many ways.

  For Tobias, the thrill of the joy-ride was over – this rollercoaster had outlived its purpose for him. He didn’t want to go on the ride three days later but, at the insistence of his mentor, he relented. “Just one last time,” he agreed.

  “You won’t regret it,” Carlton replied. Or did he say: “forget” instead of “regret”?

  Famous last words.

  Carlton’s whole life was control – the support group, his VRT’s. Also the joyriders. But both of these spiraled into mayhem and when Carlton put the 9mm pistol in his mouth as he jerked off at the steering wheel, controlling the car with his knees at 140 kilometers an hour, Tobias knew that this was the climax – le point culminant in his life.

  Death wish + means+ reason = No return.

  Tobias braced himself as Carlton ejaculated, semen spurting onto the steering wheel. Carlton’s legs stiffened with the pleasure of orgasm, the car wobbled. Tobias heard the metal gun clink against Carlton’s teeth amid screams/pleas from the rear seat – others also now aware of Carlton’s plan.

  The car BOOMED, blood and hair spray painted the interior of the car as it swerved violently into the sand on the edge of the freeway, burying itself axle deep immediately.

  The remnants of Carlton’s head flopped around on his now limp neck, slapping into the steering wheel as the gun clattered with a heavy thud onto the floor of the car.

  This time Tobias acted – he ran.

  He knew he was covered in blood and brain, but, in the darkness, he figured he could get home.

  Carlton was no more – he had finally achieved his goal. The group would be no more, what was left for Tobias now?

  As he ran, his repairing limbs aching with every step, his amateur lungs striving for air with each step, he realised that the rest of his life was now forced upon him. Control was gone, finished.

  That scared him more than dying.

  A further fifteen minutes later and Adrian and Lee both knew what they had to do.

  Finding Fault

  “A fucking intervention?”

  I couldn’t believe it. Were they serious?

  I saw their nervousness at this approach and realized they were just as uncomfortable as I was.

  “You guys know this shit doesn’t work right? It never has done, urban myth right there!”

  “Call it what you want,” said Adrian, “but you need help. We can’t just sit and watch you destroy everything.”

  There weren’t that many people in the room, only 3.

  1. Adrian – my agent and, well I guess I had to admit it now, my friend.

  2. Lee – my best friend and recent savior.

  3. Ryan – my brother and the only one from my family still left.

  That was it. When it all came down to it, these were the only ones present at my so-called intervention. I’m not sure what depressed me more – the knowledge that they felt it necessary to intervene, or the fact that there were only three people there.

  There would have been four if Tina was there.

  “You can’t say this isn’t a shock Mick,” said Lee as he stood in the doorway, making sure that I didn’t make a run for it. I wasn’t going anywhere – my feet were like lead sandals, my legs immovable. I felt like I was being crushed, implosion imminent. The breath was being slowly squeezed out of my lungs; I’d forgotten how to breathe.

  This was my life. This was what it had been reduced to – two and a half friends (Okay, three if I am honest about Adrian) trying to make me realise what I already knew deep down. I was in a black cocoon, not knowing up from down, left from right. Day and night blurred into one, the lines between what was real and what was not could not be determined anymore. How could I trust my eyes?

  As I stood there facing these guys, they waited for me to talk. Or were they waiting for me to cry? Explode? Fall apart? I did none of these things. I looked at them and knew that this was fate – my path was always going to lead me here. It was only a matter of time.

  In my hand, two typed pages explained more about ‘why’ than I could ever have said out loud – my musings earlier in the day that I was going to use for one of Colby’s chapters in the book – my poor crippled mute.

  They’re all looking at me!

  I have no idea what’s going on because I only just came into this, but everyone here is looking at me like something is all my fault.

  It’s mayhem.

  Anarchy.

  I can see screaming, tears, hysteria.

  Words are yelled in my direction, but I can’t make them all out – sounds blurred and my comprehension distorts.

  “Fault!” I could make that out

  “Dead because of you!” I understood.

  But, through the maelstrom, I can detect support, sympathy. Not words, but feelings – a soul that is with me, protecting me. It’s a male presence; it’s helping me as I sit in this van.

  The driving is erratic – clearly affected by the emotion present. The bodies bounce around the tin shell, some of the clothed, some of them trying to be clothed. I can feel the hard steel under my butt, taste the fear in the air. A woman is crying uncontrollably and a semi naked man puts his arm around her in consolation – a small gesture that envelops and comforts her.

  I sense the sadness.

  Clarity is returning – it’s like I opened the door and stepped into a riot. The bombardment of images/violence/stimulation is too much to immediately understand but it is becoming clearer. Lucidity is approaching as the people in the van regain some semblance of human form.

  Words and sentences start to unravel and I realise that someone is dead. Outside the window of the car I see the night flashing past, lighting riding the darkness like surfers on a wave – flashing past with grace and poise. Then I see Carlton again, his destroyed cranium a mass of blood, bone and brain.

  “It’s no-one’s fault,” I hear someone say.

  “It was a matter of time.” This is Tobias as he exits the vehicle and lumbers off into the darkness.

  “We all need to calm down – it’s under control,” I think someone says. Or maybe it was me? Did anyone else hear that? Then the tone changes.

  I am calm; I can sense my own detachment to the people in this car. I feel no empathy, no sense of belonging or loss at the death of someone these people felt strongly about.

  I can feel another presence – malevolent, manipulative. It’s visceral in the car, but I cannot place it.

  I look out the window and, in the darkness, the window reflects.

  I know this is my reflection, my face in the throes of rapture and bliss. The chaos, the mayhem, the pleasure of the forbidden – it’s all reflected in the mirrored effect of the glass in the dark.

  I recognise the face as I wake.

  Desiree.

  Finally Ryan said something: “Look, I’m not sure how this is supposed to go, but I think you need to know just what you’re putting us through. We’ve been through so much as it is, you’re just being such a selfish prick. It’s about time you sorted yourself out!”

  Only a brother can say that to another brother – even close friends can’t be that candid. He continued:

>   “Don’t get me wrong – I fucking love you. I know things haven’t been easy lately, but you have to stop destroying yourself and get this under control – you’re killing yourself and you’re killing us. Me – you’re killing part of me too.”

  I saw the water in his eyes well, I knew that constricting throat feeling as the words struggled out through emotion – the pain of feeling/caring prevented the vocal chords of expressing what needed to be said.

  “Not helping Ryan,” Adrian tried to be peace-keeper, playing ‘Good Cop’ to Ryan’s ‘Bad Cop’. “We are here to help Michael, not condemn him.”

  “Fuck that,” Ryan snapped back, “I thought this was an intervention where we get to tell him just how much his bullshit behaviour is pissing us off.” His tears started and my heart broke for him – the humility and pain/anger in his outburst tore me open.

  I was getting used to that feeling.

  Words were exchanged and I watched on with interest. I could see that they were all there for me, but had no idea how to do actually make this work.

  Then Ryan said: “What’s that?” and pointed at the papers in my hand.

  I opened the sheets up and I read. When I got to: “Dead because of you!”, I could read no more.

  My heart opened up, pain flowed like melting snow. A crushing ache collapsed within me as I finally imploded into agony. A howl of agony wailed through the room as I finally realized my fate. There was a vague feeling of weightlessness as I fell in slow motion, gliding to the floor like a feather. I barely registered the landing, softly, agonizingly laying prostate on the hard wood floor.

  My jaw drooped open, spittle spraying out with each sharpened breath. I shook, a violent post-addiction comedown. There were words being spluttered out by me, gargled within the slime I oozed from my orifice, my eyes, my pores. My collapse was complete and total – I was broken.

  They broke me.

  And, like the pages of subconscious revelation said: “Fault!”

  The fault here lay entirely with me:

  my fault they were intervening;

  my fault that my behaviour drove them to do this;

  my fault that caused this behaviour.

  Yes…it was my fault that my wife was dead.