Maurice's Day, pt. 2

The cemetery was next to a church next to an expansive countryside with paths cutting through the rolling hills on which the dead were buried. Maxwell's parents were right by the road on a particularly flat stretch of land. The mourners began to gather around the two coffins, suspended above the two gaping holed dug fresh in the earth. Maxwell wondered if money and space could have been saved had they been laid in one coffin and buried in one hole. He quickly shuddered and told himself this was a horrible, horrible thought, but he wasn't entirely sure it was.

The priest's remarks were short. Maxwell hadn't heard a word until he said Maxwell's name. He perked up then, but only because the priest sounded a bit like his father, or how he imagined his father would have sounded in ten or fifteen years. But then he wondered if he was just making this up. He tried to remember his father's voice, but could only hear himself imitating his father's deep, grumbling speech. He tried to see his father's face, but could only picture himself with a heavy beard. He looked at the shadow cast by the leaves on the grass next to his parents' plot and tried to clear his mind.

When the priest had finished, the mourners began milling around, comforting each other, especially the two remaining parents of the deceased. A few came up to Maxwell, but he quickly broke away and started walking swiftly back to his car. Maurice saw this and jogged after him.

Maxwell got into his car and started the engine. Maurice ran up to the car, opened the door, and threw himself in the passenger's seat panting as Maxwell put the car into reverse and pulled out of the church's unpaved parking lot. Maurice turned on the radio and flipped it to Hot 93.7. A DJ was shouting much louder than he needed to, introducing the next song. The thundering bass rattled the windows. Maxwell flinched. He reached out and swiped at the tuning knob with the force of everything he'd kept inside himself for days. The dial flipped to an unused wavelength and Maxwell sighed, allowing himself to be lost in the waves of white noise rolling through the speakers.

Maurice turned the radio off. He slapped his hands on his thighs and expelled tuneless bursts of air through his lips. Maxwell turned onto the highway and immediately imagined yanking the steering wheel to the left and veering into oncoming traffic like the man who had killed his parents. But it would be different this time because Maxwell was driving the small car. He reached down and pushed the button next to him, releasing the seatbelt. It slapped against the window next to his ear. Maurice was looking at the breasts of the girl in the car to their right and hadn't noticed. Maxwell saw an eighteen-wheeler barreling towards them. There was another lane in between them, but it was clear. A freezing shiver jolted Maxwell's spine and he nervously regripped the wheel, unsure of what he was about to do.

"I want to invent something," Maurice said, breaking the silence as Maxwell watched the truck fly by to his left. Maurice was resting his head against his window, his gaze at the girl driving next to them (who couldn't have been older than eighteen) unbroken. "Yeah," he added, as if Maxwell had said something in the preceding twelve seconds of silence. "It would be nice to just invent something and make a couple million dollars and just live off that for a while." He sighed. Maxwell passed his exit, reluctant to change lanes. "Just sit around all day, get high..." Maurice trailed off for a few seconds. "Then when that money runs out just invent something else."

The girl in the car next to them accelerated. "Yo, give it some gas!" Maurice yelled frantically. He watched her car surge forwards. "I should have gotten her license plate." He thought for a second. "That's what I should invent. A little...thing you put on the mirror," he said, knocking the rear view mirror out of place so Maxwell could only see the light on the ceiling of his car. Maxwell flipped open the bin in between the front seats and began clumsily rummaging through it. "So you can flip the letters and numbers and keep someone's license plate on it so you don't have to remember it."

Maxwell threw a pen and an old receipt at Maurice. He looked at them for a second then quickly began to take down the license plate of the girl's car in front of him. "I'm gonna give her a call," he said, a bit wistfully. Maxwell's lane became an exit and he drove into a town he had never been to before. He off-handedly wondered how he would get home.

"I'm so glad I didn't have to go to work today," Maurice said.

Maurice's Day

Maxwell sat on his bed, staring at his lap. His mind was remarkably blank. His breathing was shallow. Every once in a while, it seemed he had to be reminded to breathe and he took a quick gasp of the stuffy air. He ran his hands up and down the sides of his uncomfortable wooden chair. Then he rubbed his hands on his sweatshirt, faster and faster, until he got them to top speed and he just stopped, yanking his hands off the fabric. He held his hands in the air for a couple seconds, letting them tingle, then slowly put them back in his lap. All this he did without thinking. When thoughts finally did return, he noticed how worn his jeans were on top and how strangely they contrasted with the sides, which were still bright blue. He tried to remember how old they were.

Fifty-two and fifty-three.

He moved to his desk, but found nothing for him there. He carefully balanced a quarter on its side. Then next to that, a penny. It took a little effort to balance the dime, but he got it eventually. He looked for a nickel somewhere but couldn’t find one. He rifled through his drawers, but carefully so as not to disturb the coins on top of the desk. There wasn’t a nickel in any of his drawers either. He got out of his chair to find a nickel somewhere in the room but sat back down again. He knocked the three coins over. They looked silly without a nickel.

Maurice burst threw the door and slammed it back in its frame. The old hinges rattled. Maurice panted in the doorway, fuming. He was almost twice Maxwell’s size and he looked even larger in his shrunken dress shirt and short tie. He had apparently left his jacket in the car.

“Aaaahhh!” Maurice yelled. He bent over and put his head in his hands, squeezing at his eyes in fury. Maxwell looked at him blankly. Maurice got up and almost punched the door. He jumped up and down and spun around to face Maxwell again.

“Aaaaahhhh,” he shouted again. “I’m so angry! Jesus, I’ve never been so angry.” He paced around in a short circle on the doormat, gradually looking more ridiculous as he continued to pick up speed. Finally, he stopped and lifted his arms to his shoulders, spinning his clenched fists in little circles with his eyes closed. Suddenly, he stretched his face out, opening his eyes as wide as he could and using every muscle in his head to push all the skin on his face back to his neck. Maxwell just stared up at him. Maurice let out a grunt and ran to his bed, where he picked his pillow up and buried his face in it, screaming. Maxwell twitched a bit, but otherwise sat perfectly still. Finally, Maurice put the pillow down, took a deep breath, and began to speak.

“So I go into work and there’s this new guy there who has the nerdiest tie on I have ever seen, I swear.” Maxwell continued staring at the space in front of the door where Maurice had been carrying on earlier. So I’m in the break room with about three other people and this new guy comes in and he just stares at us, right? Like he expects us to welcome him or something like that. So I say ‘Hey, goober, who do you think you are?’ And I grab him by the tie and I throw him onto the ground! So he goes running out crying like a little pussy and everyone’s laughing except for this one chick. So it turns out this chick goes and tells the boss that I’ve been ‘harassing my coworkers,’ which is not true except for that one guy who asked for it. And anyway, my boss calls me in and he says, ‘Listen, Mr. Sayer, if this happens again, you’re going to have to face some disciplinary action!’ Like, can you believe this dweeb? So anyways, I spit in his face and I walked out. And then he fines me $100! I mean come on!” By now, Maurice was standing on top of the bed, waving his hands in the air for emphasis. He had been shouting, but he hadn’t released all his frustration. He sputtered on top of the bed, spitting out syllables that didn’t make words. Finally, he sighed and his arms fell back to his sides. He inhaled and exhaled deeply for a few moments, never taking his eyes off Maxwell. When he had calmed down completely, he spoke again.

“And then I heard you parents died, that’s too bad.” Maxwell said nothing for eight seconds.

“Thank you.”

“Sure, man, if you need anything let me know.”

“OK.”

“OK.” Maurice got off the bed, took off his shoes, and walked into the bathroom.

This has no title, but I like seeing the big white letters

The other day, I ate lunch with a friend of mine who told me I should meet another friend of hers. "You'll like him," she said. "Everyone who knows both of you says he's just like you."

This made me quite nervous. All of a sudden, I felt a lot of pressure. Ever since I've been conscious, I've been convinced that were I ever to meet myself, I'd hate myself. I'm truly astounded I have any friends as it is, but I suppose different people have different tolerances for these sorts of things.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly bored and especially self-centered, I imagined what it would be like to have a conversation with myself. We'd probably get along well enough at first, marveling at our remarkably similar taste in music and movies. But after the "So, do you like music?" phase of any relationship ends, one finds oneself at a crossroads. The new friends either develop a casual, easy rapport, descend into awkward silences, or dislike each other.

I'm sure if we ever got past the awkward silences, I would find myself unbearably annoying. Jared Fogle would probably come up somehow. I'd mention how I find Subway's Jared hilarious with his big pants and all. The other me would roll his eyes at this obvious attempt to appear offbeat and quirky, knowing full well that only the dullest of people every try something like this.

Conversation would probably be stilted and awkward. I would tell a joke and the other me would force some fake laughter. I would notice and grow resentful. "Don't patronize me," I would think. "I haven't heard you say anything funny."

Trying to get out of the situation, I'd excuse myself for some transparently made-up reason. I would realize I was just trying to leave and quite justifiably take offense. The next day, both mes would ask our mutual friends what they could possibly see in that boring, self-absorbed, offensively unfunny jackass.

As bad as I am now, I shudder to remember what I was like as a child. I'd probably apologize to every adult I ever knew if I weren't so certain they'd force me to apologize for the way I am now as well. As a child, I was basically the way I am now, only louder, less funny, and with a complete and unshakeable confidence that everyone around me wanted to hear every thought I ever had.

As I've evolved as a person, I've always hated my past selves. By the time seventh grade rolled around, I was mortified that, for no particular reason at all, I used to stretch my socks up my legs instead of bunching them up at the bottom like a normal person (I have pictures which you cannot see). In tenth grade, I would have recognized my middle school self as possessing every trait I hate in every punkass little kid in my neighborhood. And my twelfth grade self would have found the whiny, mopey, moody tenth-grade Chris completely insufferable. As I grew older, the gap between the present and the most-recently-hated past self began to close, and I only realized that I had finally become a mature young adult when I learned to be embarrassed by myself as I lived.

To my great relief, I found my friend's altername quite personable. He was nice, he seemed intelligent, and we had a pleasant little conversation. "Thank God," I thought. He really isn't like me."

Searching for Scottywood and Finding Shrimp Products

This afternoon, somebody searched Yahoo for xwf scottywood blood and stumbled upon me viciously ripping into the XWF. I've never been prouder of this little site than I am right now.

::Scottywood rubs the belt::

As promised

The first of many

1

2

3

More to come