Interlude.
winter
(1)
sloegin (gb0720@cnsvax.albany.edu) has joined #life.
****Users currently on #life: @Pillbot @Camille @crydydian frau denise
****Topic on #life: Another boring Sunday night (Camille 23:51)
****00:54 a.m. Monday, December 4th
<Pillbot> Hello sloegin!
****mode change +o sloegin by Pillbot
<sloegin> thanks pill
<sloegin> anyone here?
<Camille> hey sloe
<sloegin> hey Cam
<Camille> what’s up?
<sloegin> where is everyone?
<sloegin> am i lagging?
<sloegin> !seen reed
<Pillbot> Sorry sloegin, I have not seen reed.
<frau> gina!
<sloegin> trina!
<frau> who’s reed?
<sloegin> that’s what i want to know
<frau> hm...
<Camille> sorry, guys, busy... bbl
**** Camille has left #life.
<frau> bye cam
<sloegin> bye cam
<frau> denise, wake up!
<frau> !!!!!!
<sloegin> have you seen reed tri?
<frau> who’s reed?
<sloegin> some guy who was lurking on the channel the other night. He took me email address off
my /whois and mailed me that night
<frau> did you talk with him at all?
<sloegin> briefly. he’s from canada.
<sloegin> get this: he draws comics
<frau> canada?
<frau> does he do a strip?
<sloegin> he said he was an inker.
<frau> um...
<sloegin> I was just wondering if he had dropped by.
~
/whois reed
**** reed: no such nickname
/whois crydydian
****crydydian is crydydian@piledriver.uchicago.edu (ain’t it ugly like that)
****currently on channels: @#life @crydydian @philosophy
****on server: irc.texas.net
****crydydian has been idle 16 minutes and 37 seconds.
~
<sloegin> where’s crydyd? I seem him lurking.
<frau> he disappeared a while ago.
<sloegin> he’s been idle sixteen minutes.
<frau> maybe he’s slepping
<frau> opps
<frau> oops even
<sloegin> anyone there? are you all msging?
<sloegin> ...
<sloegin> boring.
~
/msg crydydian cry? you there?
~
<sloegin> bbl trina
****sloegin has left #life
(2)
Nick Kohl was in his room again, at his computer desk again, hoping the screen saver wouldn’t kick in again. And the lights were off in the apartment across the street, just as they had been all weekend, and Nick couldn’t imagine why.
He saw a small roach, maybe four or five days old, crawl out from under his keyboard. He waved at it furiously, scanning his immediate surroundings for a napkin, a sock, anything. By the time he had unearthed a McDonald’s napkin and positioned himself to strike, the thing had vanished. They had a way of doing that.
He sat there for about five minutes, thinking that maybe he should try to work them into his novel somewhere. The girl said use what you have, right? he thought, stroking his chin and baiting the screen saver. He certainly had roaches. Even in the shadiest apartments in Brooklyn that he’d visited the roaches weren’t as bad as they were in Albany. He discovered the roach problem about a week after moving in and had the bar and the apartment exterminated. They only came back to the apartment. Close to sixty dollars on various traps, motels, and sprays later, he came to the conclusion that he would just have to get used to living with them. In fact, not only did he get used to having them around, he would find himself having fits of empathy for them. He could not explain it to himself because in a bizarre way it made it easier, lighter, more fun to kill them.
He was sick of them. He was sick of thinking about them.
It had only started to bother him the past couple of days. He figured it had to do a lot with the fact that he had a bar to run, but there were nights like tonight that he could close up at 1 a.m. He knew that he had a good four or five hours to do anything he wished. He could write. He wanted to write. Part of what he hoped to accomplish while living in Albany was this novel he had been telling everyone he was going to write someday. But he did not even have a skeleton of a plot, much less any actual writing done. He wanted to write about New York City, but felt like even after six years of living there, he did not have a firm enough grasp on it. He didn’t want to write about Albany, even though he thought he understood it completely. So it was his head in a dark room, eyes open, staring at the screen, chain smoking, brooding. The motivation was there, but it was being- being--
Blocked, Nick thought. Writer’s block.
He leaned his head slowly against the window. His head squeaked as it slid down the pane, a splash of fog spreading out slowly over the glass under his nose, expanding with exhale, receding with inhale, expanding with exhale. It streaked cool on his cheek, moving across the surface with the pulse and slow authority of a glacier. Snowflakes would fly right into the window, break apart, melt, and race other former snowflakes down. When one would get stuck, usually about halfway down the window, Nick would wait it out. Sometimes it would end up just being stalled for a moment. He would wait until he began to feel that the droplet had stopped on purpose, to annoy him, and Nick would have to insist, coercing it into finishing the race with a swift clink of one of his right index fingernail against the pane. Nick noticed that this often led to the droplet, which had usually increased in mass by assimilating other snowflakes crashing and melting and following the path the droplet had run, running straight down the window and rolling over the tiny ledge at the base of the window.
Nick had been just about to flick his finger at another stalled droplet when he saw a cab come up Division Street and wobble to the curb across from the back entrance to the bar. A huddled human shape emerged, stringy blond hair sticking out from under a skullcap, clutching his hands underneath his armpits, running to the door. Nick looked away deliberately, his eyes wide and tense, and even though he knew it was coming, the flicking on of the apartment light still came to him as a flash of lightning that stayed, yellowing the air.
Mr. Johnson Trevor had come home.
(3)
*crydydian* gina? what’s up?
/msg crydydian where have you been? I need to talk
*crydydian* I’m here gina
/msg crydydian ...
*crydydian* ?
/msg crydydian it’s nothing, really. I’m just anxious. looking for someone
*crydydian* who?
/msg crydydian this guy reed who was on the channel the other night.
*crydydian* I don’t recall seeing any reed
/msg crydydian neither does anyone else
/msg crydydian are you going to be chatting on the channel all night?
*crydydian* hmm... could maybe stop by
~
/join #life
~
****sloegin (gb0720@cnsvax.albany.edu) has joined #life (01:08)
****Users currently on #life: @Pillbot @crydydian frau denise
****Topic on #life: Another boring Sunday night (Camille 23:51)
****01:08 Monday, December 4th
*crydydian* I could be busy all night tho
/msg crydydian why? what else better do you have to do?
<Pillbot> hello sloegin!
****mode change +o sloegin
*crydydian* I’m talking to denise
/msg crydydian ah ha! so she’s not lurking :)
<frau> hi gina
*crydydian* you know me ;)
*crydydian* seriously, check her out. She goes to my school. she claims to be a student in one of my philosophy classes.
~
/whois denise
****denise is deniser901@ddt.uchicago.edu (just me)
****currently on channels: #life
****on server: irc.texas.net
****denise has been idle 19 minutes 55 seconds
~
<sloegin> hey babe
/msg crydydian one you’re TA ing?
*crydydian* a freshman, nonetheless :)
*crydydian* yep :)
<frau> what’s going on?
/msg crydydian irc love seems to be in the air
*crydydian* hm? is this guy reed something good?
/msg crydydian i dunno...
/msg crydydian we were having a great convo but then he got split. He’s new and doesn’t know how to avoid server lag
<sloegin> not much
*crydydian* hey listen, i know you’ve only been on here a few weeks so i’m going to fill you in on
something: don’t get to caught up in the bf thing on this.
/msg crydydian oh no
/msg crydydian its not like that.
****Camille (kdf274@dotmatrix.dickinson.edu) has joined #life (01:09)
/msg crydydian i’m just intrigued by him
<Pillbot> Hello Camille!
****mode change +o Camille by Pillbot
/msg crydydian that’s all.
*crydydian* if you say so.
<Camille> re guys, i think i’m back for good this time
*crydydian* why does he interest you?
<frau> re cam
<crydydian> re cam
<sloegin> hi again
/msg crydydian honestly?
/msg crydydian he picked me
<Camille> eric
/msg crydydian for something
<crydydian> re kim
<sloegin> re
<Camille> HI DENISE
*crydydian* ?....
~
****reed (yCreede@worldwide.net.ca) has joined #life (01:33)
<reed> hi everyone
<Pillbot> hi reed!
*sloegin wakes up
<reed> hi gina
<sloegin> reed hi
<crydydian> hi reed!!!!!!!
<reed> hi crydydian :)
~
/msg crydydian shh!! go chat with denise!!!!
*crydydian* ok, ok have fun :P
~
****crydydian has left #life
<sloegin> ack.
<reed> did you get my email?
<reed> what?
<sloegin> i did, nevermind.
<reed> ?
<sloegin> sorry
<sloegin> sorry
<sloegin> oops
<reed> um...
*sloegin sighs
~
/msg reed can you see this?
~
<reed> yes gina
~
/msg reed no, this is private, when you see my name come with stars around it like that
~
<reed> how?
~
/msg reed type /msg sloegin (text)
~
<reed> ./msg sloegin like this?
<sloegin> without the period
*Camille laughs
*sloegin furrows her brow
~
*reed* like this?
/msg reed exactly :)
*reed* I learned that one the other day. A sideways smiley face :) and the winking one ;)
/msg reed you learn quickly :)
*reed* so only we can see this?
/msg reed yeah, all this text is private.
*reed* What’s your name by the way
/msg reed my name?
*reed* mine’s rich. Rich Creede
/msg reed um Gina
/msg reed Gina Becker
*reed* nice to meet you Gina
/msg reed and you
/msg reed Rich
*reed* I’ve only been on this thing for three days and I feel like I’m addicted already
/msg reed it has a way of doing that.
*reed* how long have you been on?
/msg reed too long
/msg reed waaaaaaaaay too long
*reed* on this #? #life?
/msg reed mostly. sometimes i go to the regular chat #s and am usually disappointed. This channel
is a tight group of ppl.
*reed* gets pretty intense huh
/msg reed think about it. you and i are exchanging completely serious conversation knowing almost
nothing about each other but where we’re from and what we choose to call ourself
in a anonymous forum
*reed* it’s the ultimate bar scene
/msg reed why do you say that
*reed* because it removes the fear
/msg reed how?
*reed* by removing faces
~
/who *albany.edu*
**** sloegin (gb0720@cnsvax.albany.edu) (will that waking become more heavenly?) @#life
**** barrett (rj3993@cnsunix.albany.edu) (fear nothing)
~
*reed* still there?
/msg reed mmmhm. just lurking a bit
/msg reed so how was work today?
*reed* behind schedule, as always. applications for schools due soon :(
/msg reed i’m fucked up about school myself. can’t make a decision on grad school
*reed* hang in there Gina
/msg reed hanging Rich
(4)
Chapter One
I knew it was fucked up from the start because he came home without the women. I wasn’t sure exactly what he would do, what they would do, what would become of all of this. But the one thing I did know was that the guy was in for some shit, for real soon. I saw it happen from the beginning, seen the whole thing coming.
The women were the key thing for him. I think they were cover for something, what I cannot god damn imagine. Maybe they were cover he’d gotten for himself. Like, when the women left he’d know that what he’d wanted to be alerted of had happened. It had to be some bold move, by somebody, I knew. I had seen too much not to know. I bet you he knew he would be followed, and he was, and even though everything has happened since then, I bet his balls still lit a fire under his ass for life in his head, like, for the whole mindset thing he had going in the first place.
My mind is hungry to talk of this. To think of a confession, spit on a blank page. Nothing is more deplorable to come out of a man’s mouth. But one has to be pretty obnoxious in general to open one’s mouth in the first place hm? So in these pages I shall tell nothing... of my actions. All I will relay to you is the fact, the object in sight. I shall tell you what I saw happen, and you can gather that when you question what I might have done, where I am now, where am I going? But I tell you, none is worse punishment than this. To see again. To bring it home.
To make it easy, I’ll just start at the beginning. At the very tip-top.
* * *
He’s in some shit. I knew it as soon as I saw the way he entered the apartment. His coat comes off, flailing some melted snowflakes off of it, and I see some even hit the windows. The night is crisp and clear in my head, even now, even here.
I remember the night it all started because it was the same night as the first snow of winter. He hadn’t been with the two women that night, and I remember him practically running from the cab. He waited in the lobby after the cab left for about five minutes, but whomever he suspected might have been arriving did not come. A minute and a half later, the lights in the apartment came on and I remember the coat thing, with the snowflakes, why, I don’t know. The water. Against the windows.
He must have sensed something was off. I saw him leaning on his counter, his palms spread out, the tips of his fingers squeezing the mica. He held that position for exactly three minutes. Did nothing but stare. Did nothing but stare. He didn’t even light a cigarette, like he always does, as soon as he realizes he hasn’t moved in twenty seconds after coming home. He knows he is relaxed, then. He knows it is safe. He knows he is in for the night.
He. For lack of anything else, I call him Johnson Trevor. That is his name. It has to be his name. He looks like a Johnson Trevor. Don’t ask me why, because I’ve never known anyone else with that name. He just is.
I know, I can see him.
I watch him. I’ve watched him, I should have a name for him.
He’s in some shit now, and he knows it’s here.