So, here it is... a tentative, hopefull glimpse at the first couple of chapters of what will most likely be my next novel; a sequel to Not Only Am I With The Band... tentatively now titled I Am Not Animal.
Believe me when I tell you that the feed back you provide will most definately be taken to heart. So, if it pleases you, I now humbly ask for your feed back on the following. Be as brutal as you need be; the more honest the feedback, the better I can hope it to be come publication day...
Chapter 1: When an Animal Roars In the Forest
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
Marshall McLuhan
I am not Animal
Slogan on a t-shirt circa 1981
Ruth had been working at the Whitby Free Press about two weeks before I finally worked up the courage to ask her out for drinks after the weekly newspaper had gone to press; which is to say that it had gone to Bowmanville to be printed, since our little slice of heaven in Whitby was nothing more than an expanded backroom and, therefore, had no room to house printing presses of our own.
There was a nice quiet bar right across the street; Larry’s Roost.
“I believe you promised me a drink this evening,” cooed Ruth in her Glaswegian accent.
The two of us had hit it off pretty well after the managing editor and owner Mike B had hired her, ostensibly to help his long suffering wife Marj out in the advertising department.
Ruth was petite, with shoulder length auburn hair that was almost too intense to look at. She cut a buxom figure, filled out in all the right places.
“I believe you are right,” I replied, hoping against hope that I had managed to maintain eye contact with her for a long enough period of time to remotely qualify as judicious.
She held out her bent left arm to me and bated her eyes coquettishly.
“Why sir, would you kehndly escort me to the digs so ah might avail mahself of a most refreshing Mint Julep?”
Guys, you really haven’t lived until you have heard someone with a thick Scottish burr attempting a deep southern U.S. accent.
“Either that,” I offered, “or we could hit Larry’s for a beer and a couple of Tequila shots.”
“Why sir, you was jest readin’ mah mahnd. Let me away and retrieve mah purse.”
Now on most press nights it was all hands on deck; the editorial staff, which consisted of Mike K and myself, would type all of our stories and headlines into a digital copy machine which would in turn spit out a block or strip of text which could then be cut as required on the layout board and “pasted” onto the copy sheet; the advertising staff which consisted of Marj B, Frank and, most recently, Ruth, hanging about and fighting it out with Mike K over page space and; the managing editor / owner Mike B who would screen any photographs earmarked for publication in that week’s paper using a similar process to the text. Once the last flat was finalized and approved for general edification all concerned parties would abandon ship in as expedient a fashion as to make even the speediest of rats proud.
On this particular evening I had no reason to assume that anything should be any different. I was under the impression that it was just Ruth and I left holding down the fort. Time was diligently chasing 11:30 pm so that situation should not have been that untoward.
As I waited in the customer facing convenience store front I heard another male voice engage Ruth. It was our glorious leader, Mike B.
In retrospect, words still fail me as to a physical description of Mike B; save to say that if Lou Ferrigno ever needed a stunt double then he had been born for that role. He was the type of leader who would, quite without any kind of conscious effort on his part, inspire undying scorn and ridicule amongst his charges.
Now what the fuck does he want?
Five minutes past; then ten while I remained upfront, as quiet as humanly possible. Pushing 15 minutes I was just working up the nerve to make my way back towards the bullpen when Ruth appeared from out the darkness. We stood and regarded each other silently for a moment. It was her who broke the silence, not with words per se, although her actions of pressing her boobs up against my youthful body spoke volumes.
“I’ll meet you over at Larry’s in fifteen minutes; twenty tops,” she purred. “Order me a Labatt’s Blue, and a Blow Job for yourself.”
Any rational thought that I might have been capable of at that point completely deserted me. If she had kept rubbing up against me like that I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t have given my all right then and there. Thankfully, she withdrew.
“F..f…f…fifteen minutes,” I stammered, “I’ll be there.”
Ruth smiled beatifically at me before turning and sauntering back into the darkness.
I stood, dumbfounded, watching her perfectly formed ass retreat from me; each subtle shift of her cheeks promising more than any young man could ever hope to imagine.
Chapter 2: Captain Kenny Strikes Again
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here another year and take your Grade 13?”
I was sitting in the principal’s office in good old M.C.V.I. Ken Ridge; Captain Kenny to those who haunted the hallowed halls of the school radio station C.R.S.M. The thought of spending one more year in this emotional hell hole freaked me out more than I could have ever known.
“Well?” he damn near bellowed; just daring me to resist; contradict him.
I looked balefully at my shoes as if they might provide some kind of hither to unknown pearl of wisdom. Nothing; well shit.
“Fine,” Captain Kenny continued, taking my silence as acquiescence, “we’ll get you all set up for…”
“No…” I interrupted meekly.
He paused.
“What?”
“No,” I managed.
“No?”
After a tentative moment.
“No.”
Well, this just changed things; changed things all to hell and back, didn’t it. Captain Kenny puffed himself up to prodigious dimensions in advance of the well rehearsed speech.
“Now you know…” he glanced surreptitiously at the dossier sitting on his desk, “Stephen that grade 13 grads are much more likely to…”
“I want to be a journalist,” I blurted.
He paused, briefly, but this revelation didn’t set him back much.
“Well now, if you want to be a…”
“Doesn’t grade 13 focus primarily on mathematics?”
My chutzpa still manages to inspire and amaze me to this very day.
“Well,” stammered my soon to be my former principle.
“I’ve already done the research; I don’t need grade 13 to attend Durham College for Journalism.”
“But,” continued Captain Kenny.
“So,” I overrode, “I will not be returning to M.C.V.I. next year to take grade 13.”
This, at last, seemed to stymie his attempts to bring me back. We sat there in his office; the minutes slowly ticking away. After five minutes of staring at each other he sprang purposefully to life.
“Please send in the next student,” he barked into his intercom.
Well damn; I knew when I have been dismissed.
Music......Literature......Photography......Assorted Musings
