CIRCULAR MOTION
A Novel By
ripple redwood
Copyright © 2010 by Ripple Redwood
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
to the one that came before
and the ones that will never be
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 2.1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 4.1
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 6.1
Chapter 7
Pedro
Finis
Contact
Job & Lot
Day 7
Dreams
Death
Tuna Fish
Rewind
Next Chapter
Cathedral
Chapter 19
Chapter 1
It was raining outside and I ran my eyes across her lying next to me. The clock behind her said 1 A.M. in digital red block lights that left afterimages on my retinas when I looked away. When I looked away I turned a little to my left and my back cracked as the bed creaked as I saw her eyes blink in the dark gray with a ‘1:00’ tattooed onto her forehead. “Aren’t you done yet?”
She smiled and looked up at me. She knew I was kidding with my hair a mess ragged after nuzzling crooked against a pillow all night. Outside it was raining and when the rain came down it would tap against the window and skate the glass zagging left and zigging right. At least it will be over soon. I don’t remember what happened next but later it was morning. She was sleeping. I dazed. In the morning later I remember looking at the golden square of sunlight on the thin carpet from open window and seeing shadows of dust in the air shift like vapor trails in the desert. Golden square of desert in the cheap motel room here.
#
It was still raining. No, it wasn’t raining but I could hear dripping water from somewhere. I watched her sleep with her eyes closed and I thought she was pretty with her eyes closed and lips slightly parted in the twilight but I couldn’t say anything because she was sleeping with her eyes closed and lips slightly parted in the twilight. But this was earlier. Before the golden square of desert in the cheap motel room. This was earlier.
#
Further along she awoke and smiled. She was always smiling. Unless she didn’t know you were looking. I smiled back because that is all part of the communication, “Good morning.”
She lifted her arms above the headboard and stretched so I could see the mole in her left armpit. “What time is it?”
I turned my head to look but the linens over our legs blocked the clock face with its digital block time. I remember wondering what time it will be the next time I look. But now I’m thinking the clock was probably fast by a none-integer hour value. So it was all rot anyway. The linens were silk and produced specular light reflections. “I don’t know.”
“Stop teasing.” I guess she thought I was kidding. I wasn’t though. She giggled and the sun broke out from behind a cloud and it was bright in the room on the bed. The rain had stopped.
“I’m sorry. It’s eight.” I figured eight was a good time. She nudged me with her elbow and twisted on her side and the sheet slid off her shoulder. I think she was wearing CK One. I smelled the perfume in her nape.
“Hey…” She rubbed her finger in circles against my chest. The circles were small and slow and soft and then sometimes she would use two fingers and thereby hangs the tale. I would hear the faucet drip in the background. “I had another Dream.”
Dream she said. I found her first within a dream I think. And… but I still think… (can’t say that (yet)). “What kind was it?”
“Death this time.” She let go of me and faced her eyes up at the ceiling. “It wasn’t very good but it was enough.”
“What happened?” Death dreams are about being conscious of your unconsciousness. But I’m sorry. Show, don’t tell, right? I ran some track in high school. Foot on concrete machine. (machine) Foot on concrete. Not that I was any good at it or anything. I glanced across the room and saw the clock and it said nine of the clock ().
“Whatever… I had this kid that asked me if we had any money. I mean I had this kid and my kid asked me if we had any money.” I think I’m still uncomfortable with sex. (‘Really? Did you make a lot of touchdowns?’)
I remember once I had this disco ball in my room above my bed. The spotlight I thought was red but I guess it was really pink now that I think about it. But the important thing was that the focus wasn’t right; there was always this halo on the wall like the sun during eclipse. I used to watch the lights come out of the halo and spin around the walls and then go back into it from eclipsed sun to black hole.
“I said don’t worry about it and anyway I could always ask my dad, his grandfather, for money. I didn’t say so but I also thought that what I don’t have is years but whatever.” Remember that. Remember the circular motion of the disco ball beams as well if you can.
“Ya?”
She paused and breathed and then went on. “I know it was dumb but the void was there. Right here.”
I didn’t have to look because its something I’ve heard before like those lights that flash on top of buildings so planes don’t crash into them. Actually I don’t know if it’s so planes don’t crash into them but you know what I mean. But she was pointing to her breastbone, the plate of connection for the spidery legs of her rib cage.
Then there was a lull like between the waves full of horseshoe crabs in Atlantic City at midnight. Which wasn’t surprising; you can only touch these things with the tips of your fingers.
“Horseshoe crabs are really a kind of spider,” I said.
“What?” She laughed. “I love your non sequiturs.”
“It wasn’t really one.” I remember the stereo being on and listening to a Beck song that reminded me of a Lou Reed song. Oh hungry days, in the footsteps of fools… “Do you still like me?”
“Ya.” I had to keep asking that to convince myself. “Ya. A lot.”
“What about the life dreams?” Life dreams are the other kind of dream she sometimes has. They’re kinda the same as death in a Zen yin-yang sort of way. Like in assembly if you just pop the stack before your function return you get tail recursion.
“Stop it.” Across the room on a desk there were three Minute Maid orange soda cans. Two of them were lying sideways and I guess could roll but didn’t.
“Sorry.” I meant it that time. I was being mean.
She pulled herself up on her arms above me. “You’re beautiful.”
I smiled back. I mean I smiled and she smiled back. I couldn’t take it seriously cuz I knew she had been through this before. So had I. I wanted to take it seriously, though; I wanted it to me more than communication, interface. “Why, what makes me different?”
“Sure.” She was getting warm. “You’re very special to me, shaygetz”
I was looking up at the ceiling and listening to the faucet drip. I heard it three times and then I don’t remember what happened next. I think she loved me.
“Sometimes I wonder where the suns are.” Oh it’s such a perfect day… that was the Lou Reed song. Songs are like books in a way.
I’m not sure if any of that meant anything but you say weird things sometimes when you’re half-asleep.
#
Later in the afternoon I went to get lunch. She didn’t want to get out of bed so I left her behind in the room under the sheets curled against the particleboard wall smoking a cigarette.
Across the street from
the place we were staying there was a restaurant/café with a black chalk sandwich board in front listing the menu in pink and white and blue. Inside the shop through the glass I could see the tables were all empty and wooden and round. When I opened the door a bell above me rang and before I got too far into the store a man with a black uniform and a white apron came up to me. “How are you today, Sam?” he said.
“Fine.” Sam wasn’t my name though. The bell rang again as the door closed behind me.
“Is it just one today?” He poked his head to the side and looked back at the door and then smiled at me again.
I nodded and he took me to a table by the wall that was already set with napkins and silverware. I sat down angled against the wall. I could see the window and street and the waiter hovering in front of me.
“Do you know what you want to eat yet or would you like to look at the menu?” He held up a pad of paper and poised a pen and smiled with teeth perfect like four years of braces or good denture cleaner.
I picked one of the sandwiches I remembered from the chalk menu in front. I think it was Brie or something. I remember staring at the waiter’s clothing and seeing this stain on the apron that resembled England. It was a small stain but England isn’t that big either.
“And to drink…?”
“Orange juice.”
“Sure.” He put the pad in his pocket and made some gestures with his hands. I didn’t understand what he was trying to do.
“What’s wrong?”
“Um… what do you mean?” He starred at his hands and then dropped them to his sides. “What?”
“Nothing… your hands.” His hands that moved jointed like bird wings or Zoob or really any other jointed thing.
“What? That’s nothing.” Then he smiled again and turned away from me for a second. He had a grand smile. He snapped back at me. “This one time I had a professor who said ‘Kant’ like ‘cunt’. He was English and said it was the German pronunciation.”
“Oh.” I gave him a funny face like I was confused. He smiled a third time and turned away the second.
I guess I should say something about Kant in transition between the paragraphs here but I don’t know too much about him. I’m a computer science/finance major after all. I remember from high school that he was some kind of philosopher though.
I’m sorry; that was a rather pathetic thing to say. Er write.
I remember looking above my table and seeing a glass lamp hanging from the ceiling. I was staring at it and forgot about the conversation with the waiter. The lampshade was colored red and rotated slowly as air currents in the room agitated it but only harsh white light from the iridescent bulb hit me cuz I was sitting under it.
Then I looked around at the other tables. The restaurant was still empty but I was in it. I was thinking about this one time I was eating dinner on the kitchen table at my parents house and staring at my food in the 60’s-style orange/brown room cuz I didn’t want to finish it and my grandfather came up to me and said, ‘what are you doing? You should not think while eating. First eat, then think! First eat, then think!’.
But that wasn’t all that I was thinking. (alone) The empty tables reminded me of the Life dream. The Life dream is always there but usually you can cover it up. (I’m always alone but usually I cover it up) It’s about empty tables in restaurants that have their menus written in chalk by the door.
“Here you go.” It was the waiter.
“Huh?”
“Brie sandwich and an OJ.” He brought my food. “Anything else?”
“No. I’m ok.” But he was gone really before I finished my sentence. A couple walked in through the door with the bell walking hand-in-hand and I guess I had a lower process priority level.
The waiter shuffled them to a table on the other side of the room; they didn’t have to sit near me since there was no one else in the place. I remember that the girl was dressed in a black turtleneck and had pale skin like a mannequin. I couldn’t hear their conversation so I ate my sandwich. It tasted rather dry. I knew they were talking cuz I saw their moving lips like muting TV. (no commercials)
I remember thinking again about how all the tables were round. They had two chairs each. The tables I mean. The tables had two chairs each. Once in high school I was sitting alone in the cafeteria and just watched people come and go. But then the bell rang and I had to leave.
It’s funny though, most people don’t stare at tables like I do and think they’re important.
I tried the orange juice. It wasn’t very good so I tried to call over the waiter instead. “Uh… excuse me…”
He was leaning against the counter next to the cash register talking to a waitress I think. It was weird cuz he had one leg bent at the knee so he was only standing on one foot.
“Excuse me.” When I said the orange juice wasn’t very good I mean it wasn’t not from concentrate.
This time the waitress noticed me and told my waiter I was calling him. He looked at me and said something to the girl and then came over with his grand smile. “What can I do for you today, Sammy?”
Sammy was strange. “Hi, could I get a newspaper?”
“A newspaper? You know they’re not 25 cents anymore. This other guy came in last week and was like, ‘can I get a newspaper’ and then I gave him one but when the check came he was like, ‘hey man, what’s with this bill?’ You’re not gonna pull one of those one me are you?”
“What?” It wasn’t really what I was expecting him to say.
“Ok fine. What kind of paper do you want? We have The Post, Times, and USA Today.”
I was still kinda thrown off. “I guess The Times.”
“Fine, The Times it is.” He walked away from me without smiling this time. I think maybe I gave the wrong answer.
The couple on the other side of the room started fighting. I didn’t know what it was about but the girl looked angry. The man was old. He had a suit on and I remember my left contact starting irritating me.
Then the waiter came back with the newspaper. He put it down and then stopped and looked at me for a second and then turned away. He looked at my face but I just looked at the table and my half-eaten sandwich cuz I didn’t want to look back at him. When he left I opened up the paper to one of the middle pages and read an article on how Parisian trashcans were reopened. They had welded them shut before in fear of terrorist attacks. I think it had to do with one of their old African colonies but I’m not sure about that part. Algeria maybe.
I had to squint to see the paper and by the time I finished the article I was afraid my contacts might fall out so I closed my eyes for a while and didn’t think about anything. They were weekly disposables so I didn’t know why they were so bothersome. Then the waiter came up to me.
“Would you like anything else, Sam?” When I opened my eyes the couple wasn’t there anymore.
“No thanks.” He put the check on the table and went to talk to the waitress-girl again.
I figured I should leave so I put some cash under my concentrate orange juice glass and left the restaurant to be empty again. I forgot my copy of the paper on the table by mistake. It was bright outside and my contact was working so I could see.
#
When I got back to the motel she was already dressed. I never saw her eat anything. She looked pretty and you could see the orange peach fuzz on her arms from the light from the window. I think that’s fenste in German. She doesn’t even eat when we go out. Was kostet das machen in der fenste? She’ll only have a coffee or expresso or something. I only had one year of German in high school. It’s not pretty like French. She sat on the bed and fastened her shoes to her feet. They were clogs. “How was it?”
“Alright, I…” I was going to say what I had to eat but I had already forgotten.
She pointed her index finger at my stomach. “Was the orange juice from concentrate?”
“No.” I told her one time about how I don’t like normal orange juice and since then she’s always bugging me
about it.
“How horrible. You’re life really sucks.” Her right hand covered her mouth and her head shook.
“What? Leave me alone.”
“I know… life is so boring when you can’t get orange juice from concentrate. It makes me just want to die.”
“Stop bothering me.”
“Ya mister ‘I’m only going to get 100k my first year out of school and will only be able to afford a Porsche and I’m sooo depressed’.” She grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Let’s go shopping.”
I said ‘ok’ and she kissed me on the way out. I remember she had the taste of mint toothpaste on her teeth.
I had to break up with her. She made me promise I would if she fell in love with me. I think it had something to do with not wanting any illusions in life. I drove her to the mall. I never liked driving; I could never concentrate well enough. To drive I mean. I could never concentrate well enough to drive. My mind would wander unless I go really fast and swerve and make it interesting. Maybe I should drive stick or something.
Actually I’m surprised I’m not dead yet.
#
When we got to the mall I parked the car and we left the sun to wander indoors. The stores were all about the same size but some of them played different kinds of music. We walked in and out of shops until we found this dress she liked. I guess it was a sundress. It was yellow and had flowers. I like flowers. She took it off the rack and looked at it. “I think I’ll try this on.”
She went into a backroom clutching the dress. I looked out the store window and watched the people walk by with their shopping bags and purses and plastic faces. There was this kind of bell music playing like from a clock or one of those cheesy musical doorbells except the synth producing the sounds was pretty high quality like a xylophone or something. It was coming from outside the store:
I couldn’t figure out what key it was in since it wasn’t the Major scale. I was trying to remember how to transpose the Phrygian but then someone tapped my shoulder and that distracted me. I turned around and she was standing there yellow and in flowers.
Circular Motion Page 1
