Tyler: Vomit, Not Mine

Ok, so here's the very beginning of a short story I'm working on called 'Slight Rebellion off Northwood.' It's a piece in my compilation of short stories with inventive names all starting with 'slight rebellion off' and ending in a street name; an idea I lifted directly from Salinger because good writers borrow and great writers steal. Also, if anyone at all reads this besides our beautiful friend Nat, please let us know. To have some resemblance of an audience would be wonderful. I don't know, leave a comment, send us a text saying how great we are, anything. Thanks.

Now please sit back and enjoy the first three paragraphs of Slight Rebellion off Northwood.




I woke up sideways on my mattress with a screaming hangover. Now, there’s a very important point I’d like to make here. Note how I did not say I woke up sideways in my bed with a screaming hangover. I very much did not wake that way. You see, the requirements for waking up in a bed are a fitted sheet and some kind of padding between the metal springs and one’s back in addition to comforters, pillows, and the like. Waking up on a mattress means the only thing that was protecting my skin from springs was, well, the hair on my skin. Waking up in this fashion was either an omen for the day or a consequence from the night before; I’d have to wait it out to find the answer.

I rolled over, avoiding vomit that was not mine, to learn that the sun was indeed up and the bars on my bedroom window were still in place so that was a positive. I caught a glimpse of the digital clock sitting on my desk reading that it was a quarter past 9 meaning I’d slept roughly 3 and ¾ hours. That, my friends, is always a shitty realization.

Still lying, I stared blankly at my television as it did the same to me. It had been unplugged for months and I found myself envying its lack of responsibilities. All it did was sit on my dresser, content as all fuck. It didn’t have to worry about what it would do if some girl threw up in its bed the night before leaving it only a mattress to sleep on. The television never had to concern itself with how to get said girl out of its room whilst keeping her from trying to cause some kind of scene. I was wildly jealous of it’s laid back lifestyle and the more I thought about it the angrier I got so, still lying down, I grabbed for my copy of Bukowski’s Women laying near my bed and hurled it at the glossy black screen. Direct hit but I knew it was only a book and couldn’t possibly have hurt the television. It occurred to me that this son of a bitch television was probably laughing at my sorry-ass attempt at destruction and was laughing from deep inside its circuit boards. I was not about to be mocked by my own possession so I grabbed the remote. I figured smashing the screen with the remote would blow its fucking mind and then I would get the last laugh. I stared down my enemy and leveled my aim. I wanted the bitch to shatter. I wanted it to whimper as it lost it’s last bits of life. I wanted the fucking thing to explode for mocking me. I cocked my arm back and released a rocket easily traveling at the speed of sound. Unfortunately, I neither heard nor saw the amazing crash I was expecting. I didn’t see much due to the aforementioned high speed of my throw. I did, however, hear a loud thud. The kind of thud that can only be made when a television remote plunges 4 inches deep into drywall. At that point I figured my headache was both a result of the night before and an omen for the coming day.

Tyler: Yes

Roger just killed Eli. Killed him dead.

Roger - An incomplete "getting off my chest"

It should be noted that nothing posted is in anyway in any form or order. This isn't supposed to be our attempt at releasing anything. This is made for people to see our work and comment, and leave there work and comment. We are working on setting up a writing workshop here in Columbus, but as most things I am passionate about, we are having some trouble finding truly dedicated members.

Here is about half of a chapter that will, as I see it, end up being towards the very end of the endeavor we so endearingly refer to as Doublebook. It might make no sense. Well, it probably doesn't make sense. It also might ruin any story you think your getting out of this debacle. Enjoy!

Eli crashed around midnight they tell me. I had gotten home from work at 8 P.M. I had gotten home from school at 4. I knew he was still asleep. I knew he wasn’t out late the night before. I knew he should have been awake. I knew he wasn’t on his third nap of the night. But I waited for four hours after getting home from work to check on him.
Four hours of sitting.
Four hours of staring.
I had decided not to drink that night. Not that night.
I had a book open, but in four hours I never turned the page.
This had happened before. It wasn’t anything new. He would eventually open the door and say some cheesy fucking line. “What’s up, sug?” That’s what he’d say. He’d ask if coffee was on and I’d make fun of his napping habits. He’d tell me he had “a lot of habits don’t be so specific” or some shit. We’d talk about girls, whiskey, and bad movies, not necessarily in that order. We would geek until one of us had to leave, me for work or him for the doctors.
I’d like to say things had been different that week, or day, or month, but it hadn’t. The same shit, no difference. No weird attitude, nothing. Just normal bullshit. Normal fatigue. Normal irritability. He hadn’t been going out for months; I think the only reason he was at the apartment was to check on me. He knew how fucked up I’d get if he wasn’t around. He knew how much I need him. He was there for that. I’d like to think he did the same for me. I’d really like to think that. I don’t, but it would be nice.
I didn’t bother knocking when it struck midnight. I had contemplated knocking down his door all day. I had contemplated it other days. Just to make sure he was breathing. Just to make sure one of his numerous surgeries hadn’t gone ary. He had lived in a nursing home type thing for a couple weeks after the last one. He was so weak he couldn’t really geek or anything.
He stopped writing a few weeks ago, I guess that was different.
He just lay still in the bed. He was on his back, which was off. He sleeps on his stomach. I don’t know why or how I know that. He didn’t look peaceful. He didn’t look calm. He looked fucking dead.
They tell me he wasn’t, but he sure fucking seemed like it.
I called for the bus before I checked his heart or anything. I knew it wasn’t right. He wasn’t like he should have been. I assume the medics came there pretty quickly, but it didn’t seem like. EMTs don’t get paid by the hour, that’s why I think they got there so quickly. Cops got there an hour later, or so they told me. Figures, huh.
I didn’t CPR while I waited. I don’t know if his heart was stopped. I would’ve checked his pulse but I could only feel mine own racing. It vibrated my whole body. I breathed into him but it all came out of him in this weird burping like noise. Like my air wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t right. I did everything like I’ve seen on the movies, but nothing changed.
The medics told me I couldn’t ride with. I’ve always wanted to know why. Maybe it was cause I looked so fucking insane. Maybe cause I wasn’t a family member or something. I didn’t argue, they had more pressing issues to work on. The bus rolled out and I ran into the apartment. Everyone in our shitty development was outside their doors. It was the first time I’ve ever seen them out without having a bowl or a bean bag in their hands. I grabbed Eli’s phone off of his floor and called his mom. I just told her that the bus was on its way to OSU hospital and that I’d meet her there.
I don’t know why I decided to run there. I guess my body just told me my will would carry me faster than a car. I don’t remember the run. I don’t remember my body hurting. I don’t remember hating myself for being out of shape. I don’t remember the run, just the lights of the hospital.
I feel bad for the nurses that had to deal with me. I’m sure I wasn’t speaking coherently. I was just so fucking frustrated that they didn’t already know what I wanted. I caught the medics walking out and chased after them, damn near talking one of them.
“Where? Where?!” I screamed incoherently.
“Come on,” one of them said. He grabbed my arm and hustled me into a hallway in the E.R. “He’s in this room but I promise it will be better if you just let the doctors do what they have to do. Just wait out here and a nurse will help you.”
He walked away and I stood staring at the swinging doors. Ever once in awhile a nurse would come in or out. They all had blank faces. I guess if you see this enough you can’t really get too emotional. It was my first time. Stoicism had been thrown out the door. Eventually, a younger nurse saw me staring, standing in the middle of the hall.
“Are you lost, or something?” she asked.
“That’s my friend. I don’t know what happened. I just want him…I just don’t know what to do,” I responded.
She suggested I wait in the lobby, but the look on my face must have let her know that was out of the question. “Just wait here and I’ll try and find out for you.”
I followed her into the room, which I’m sure she did not intend on me to do. There were people all around Tyler. He had tubes down his throat and shit. I shouldn’t have been in there. The doctor let me know that, but I already knew. Maybe that’s why they don’t let you in the back of an ambulance. It’s like the door to the kitchen at a restaurant; it’s just not something you’re supposed to see, ever.
I stood in the way of just about everyone in the lobby. Time passed, don’t know to what extent. Eli’s mom rushed in at some point. She yelled at a bunch of nurses, just as incoherently as I probably had. His father trailed behind her by a few seconds. I grabbed his arm and dragged him outside the room Eli was in. He looked through the glass windows in the doors and stared. We didn’t say anything.
What the fuck could you?
Eventually, Eli’s mom pushed us aside and went inside. After a few minutes, most of the people exited the room, mother included. She was bawling, throwing herself at her husband. He just held her. Nothing to say. Nothing.
I turned and walked toward exit. The nurse he led me in most have noticed me leaving, as she called me to wait.
“He’s gone into renal failure. His body just stopped working. I guess he had a surgery recently,” she told me.
“He had a meat flap, or something,” I babbled.
“Um, I’m not sure what that is, but the he doesn’t have much time left. He’s unconscious right now, but we can bring him back for a few minutes if the parents permit,” she said.
“Where’s the nearest liquor store?” I asked her.
“Um, I don’t know. You know, you might want to be here if they do decide to bring him out.” I looked around the room. There was an old bum sitting in the corner with a big, bloody piece of gauze stuck to his head.
“Hey! Old man! Where’s the nearest liquor store that’ll sell me shit after hours?”
“Go to the 7-Eleven and tell them Constantine sent you,” he yelled back in a think accent. I didn’t bother to thank the nurse. She probably needed me too. That probably would have meant something to her. I just didn’t know how much time I had.
I had run across campus so many times, late for class or an exam or something. This time was the quickest, I’m sure. The 7-Eleven doesn’t normally serve liquor, but apparently the name Constantine pulled some wait in the “Quick-E-Mart” world. I asked for Maker’s Mark, but they only had Grand Dad’s. How fitting.
When I got back to the hospital, the rest of Eli’s family was there. Brother, sister, the blonde sister-in-law I made an ass of myself in front of at her wedding. They were all crying in the lobby. I walked right past them to the room. His mom and dad were talking to the doctor a little ways down the hall. The doctor was just nodding his head a lot and looking sad. I opened the doors and saw him. There was still a big, blue tube coming out of his mouth. I pulled up a stool in the corner real close to him.

Tyler: Vomit and other Party Essentials

I’d been reading Kerouac’s On The Road for several weeks at the suggestion of my good friend Elliot and, like most people, it greatly influenced how I thought about several things. Namely, through On The Road I realized that I fucking hated Jack Kerouac. What a pretentious piece of shit he was. It was during one of my more violent fits of literary rage that I decided to call Elliot to let him feel my anger. He answered, “Eli, buddy. What the shit is going on, man?”

“I’m reading On The Road and I’m half way through and...”

“Isn’t it incredible? It is so incred…”

“And my life hasn’t changed yet so what the fuck? When does my life change?”

“Wait, what? You don’t like it?”

“It’s terrible. I get angry when I read it. Like really, literally mad.”

“But it’s perfect. He’s a genius and it’s perfect.”

“Jack Kerouac is a bitch.” I decided to remember that line for throwing around at a later occasion. It had quite the ring to it.

“The man was…”

“A bitch. Jack Kerouac was and forever will be a bitch.” It was therapeutic to say that after wasting so much of my time on his awful prose.

“I don’t think you understand, man. He led the Beat Movement. The last great advance in American literature.”

“Fuck the movement, it didn’t mean shit to me. No, no, fuck it all. I refuse to read any author from now on that had anything to do with any movement. Fuck progression for the sake of progression. It’s meaningless.”

“What about The Lost Generation? The first Expatriates?”

“Shit.” I was hoping he wasn’t going to go to Fitzgerald. He knew I loved to talk like I was a thesaurus. I felt I’d made my point and also felt that I needed a drink to calm my blood so I made my way to the kitchen for a mug of wine.

Elliot noted the defeat in my voice and changed the subject, “So check it out. I just moved into my new place with Andi. It’s right across from Shi-Sha on High and Patterson. It is fucking three stories and huge.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, it’s incredible.”

“Jesus.”

“Right? Anyway, we’re throwing ourselves a little shindig to get everyone acquainted with the place and you should probably be there.”

“Well when is it?”

“Tomorrow night. Come whenever. Oh, and bring your cheesy potatoes.” I made exceptional cheesy potatoes. The trick is lots of butter and bacon. And for god’s sake, cube the potatoes or its just ridiculous.

“I can probably do that.” I needed some potatoes.

I yelled out to my roommate Jude to see if he wanted in on the festivities. His response was nothing if not charming, “Bitches?” Jude often wondered why he could only attract awful women. I thought it was obvious.

“Yeah, there’ll probably be more girls than guys even.” In all the years I’d known Jude there was only one girl that he went around with that was halfway respectable. He dated her shortly before we moved in together so I was far from knowing everything about her but what I did know was fairly promising, at least for one of his girls. She had no addictions, warrants, or significant others which was more than any other girl he slept with could say. Also no diseases I think. Jude said they broke up because she was just going through some rebellious stage and it was just getting too ridiculous. But I knew it was because she wouldn’t give him head. I think that’s a perfectly fine reason to end things, I just think he should be honest with himself about it.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do,” and for the next twenty-four hours I cheesed the hell out of a bag of potatoes.

The next day I gathered my immaculate cheesy potatoes and Jude and I headed to my car. I carefully secured my entre via seatbelt while Jude selected the music. Over the speakers I heard the opening squeals and clangs of LCD Soundsystem’s anthem about the perfect party and we danced and we sang and all were merry until some fucker cut me off and put the life of my potatoes in peril. All would have been lost if not for the seatbelt. There’s a moral but don’t worry about it.

We parked behind Elliot and Andi’s place, which turned out to be this palatial brick house right on High St. just short of North Campus. No twenty two year old needs a three-story house unless of course they throw a good number of parties. Luckily, Elliot threw a good number of parties so everything was copasetic. Out of the car and before we even made it to the back door Elliot was out to greet us literally with open arms, “Eli! Jude! My brothers, how are you?”

Jude was the first to respond, “Good, good. How’s the party going? Are there many people inside?” He was focused, mostly on the aforementioned bitches.

“Oh, yeah. There’s a bunch of good people here already but more are coming. All in time.” Then his eyes caught sight of the potatoes, “You son of a bitch. I’ve been waiting all day.”

“I told you I’d bring them, didn’t I?”

Jude lit a cigarette and peered inside to see a bounty of women, “Tonight will be good.” He inhaled and blew out a cloud of plague, “Maybe.” Jude sometimes acted as though a camera crew were following him around. Said camera crew did not exist. We went inside.

Through the threshold and past a bathroom and we were in the middle of the kitchen and the party. There were a good deal of familiar faces but mostly new ones. Beyond the counter were some barstools and then their table, at which Preston sat with a surprisingly attractive blonde who seemed to be enjoying what he was saying. It was as if she couldn’t stop giggling. I looked at Jude and his eyes were already rolling. We made our way through the crowd to greet Preston and his lady. I offered my hand for shaking and he took it, “Preston, how the hell are you? You look good.” He was simply glowing. It was like he was pregnant or radioactive.

“Yeah man. I’ve been going to the gym lately. Hey, you guys remember me telling you about Carly, right?” He held his hand palm up and with a sweeping motion, presented the blonde.

I caught the look in Jude’s eye that said he had no fucking clue so I spoke up, “Yeah. Hi, I’m Eli. We’ve heard good things.” We had, I guess. I didn’t know.

“Oh, yeah? I have, too.” She pointed to Jude, “You’re Jude, right? Preston said you do film stuff and…” At that point I eased my way back into the crowd. I could tell that my participation in that conversation was done.

I found Elliot by the fridge just as my throat was parching, “I’m going to need something to drink, buddy.”

He turned and smiled, “For you, anything. Lets see, we’ve got some wine, PBR, Guinness, milk.”

He kept looking but I had an idea, “If I get the wine is there anything I can Irish it up with?”

“SoCo?”

“That’ll have to do.” I took my bastard child of alcohol out to the first of two den type areas. I found refuge in a recliner by the mantle and checked out the rest of the room. Several girls used the center of the room as a makeshift dance floor which visibly made the majority of the rest of the room feel awkward because there really was no cohesive way to dance to Bob Dylan, any Bob Dylan. I couldn’t help but wonder if they meant to go to another party. To my left and across the face of the mantle was what looked like a couch from the Industrial Revolution upon which sat two semi-attractive girls who kept whispering to each other and one hapless guy who couldn’t get a word in. Despair and red lines overwhelmed his eyes because he knew that if you couldn’t even talk to a girl it was very hard to convince her to sleep with you. It’s been done, it’s just hard. On the other wall was another couch with about five good looking girls on it. As my eyes swept the couch I noticed Andi at the very end who immediately jumped and ran over to me, a beer in each hand, “Eli! Drink this fucking beer so I can make it through the night. I’ve been drinking since, like, four or something. Hi!” She tried to hand me a Nati Light. No fucking way.

“I’m good, actually. I’ve got a drink but thank you. How’s it going?”

“I’m good but, no, you’re awesome.” Andi was a lovable drunk. “Hey, have you met Lucy?” She didn’t let me answer but instead turn back to her couch and yelled, “Lucy, come here. Meet Eli.” I’d never actually met Lucy but I knew who she was. In forthright terms Lucy was unobtainable. First and foremost, she was the longtime girlfriend of the lead singer of a fairly popular Columbus band so that sucked. Second, she was incredibly good looking. She was of indeterminate descent with some definitive Asian heritage but beyond that it was all mystery. She had short brown hair and a perfect smile and I basically had no right talking to her but in her drunken state, Andi thought I did. So Lucy came up, smiled with an unreasonable amount of sincerity, and shook my hand, “Hi. I’m Lucy.”

“Eli” was all I could muster. What the fuck? My face may have already been turning red but Lucy didn’t seem to care so all was well. I knew I had no chance with her but my awkwardness cared not for situation, it came and went as it pleased.

Andi finished one of her beers and put it on the mantle like some kind of trophy, “Eli you motherfucker, since when are you shy?”

“I don’t know. I just need to drink more.” I looked down at my drink and decided I needed something stronger and if it was harder, better, and faster I’d be set.

“Then do it, for Christ’s sake.” She turned to leave and grabbed Lucy’s arm, “More drinks. Come on.”

Before they got too far away Lucy turned back to me and laughed, “It was nice to meet you, Eli.”

“Yeah.” And they were gone. I sat back in the recliner and tried to reflect on how bad I am at communication but got caught up in demolishing the rest of my drink. I perused the room again to see if there was anything of interest to me. To my left were still the two girls on the couch but their boy was nowhere in sight, probably somewhere drinking away a bad night. I couldn’t blame him. Across from me the couch was still filled with girls but none of them caught my eye. The dancing girls had stopped most movement and settled for just standing and talking.

I checked out the scene in the second of the two large gathering areas and was decidedly disappointed. It was mostly annoying guys and ugly girls and fuck that. They were the guys that get to a party and immediately hunt down an acoustic guitar and play Green Day’s ‘Time of your life’ until some desperate girl finds them attractive. They were no worse than the girls though. If the girls stopped paying attention to the idiot guys then they wouldn’t be idiots and it was basically a vicious cycle in which there were no winners, just a bunch of losers. A big bunch of losers. I play with words, you’re welcome.

I left my recliner and headed back to the kitchen to find myself another drink. I found Elliot behind the counter tending bar and he found me coming belly up, “Elliot, you need something stiff. I can see it in your eyes.” To be fair, I always looked like I needed a drink.

“Yeah, that’d probably be good. What do you have for me?”

“I can make you a mean White Russian.”

“Sure, heavy on the Russian.” I waited to see if that made any sense.

“What?” It did not.

“I don’t know. Make it strong.”

“You got it.” Elliot pulled his best Tom Cruise impression and started mixing my drink, “So Lucy said you two met. Pretty nice, right?” He had a big goofy smile on his face, something was up.

“We did. She was.”

“Ohh yeah?” He sported a bigger, goofier smile this time.

“What the fuck, man? What are you doing?”

“You’re going to talk to her some more, right?” Something huge was up his sleeve. Elliot had a fucking behemoth up his sleeve.

“I guess I could. I hadn’t really planned on it.”
I was lucky at this point that I had no liquid in my mouth for if I did I would have spit it our a la every movie ever created. Elliot delivered, “You know she’s single, right?”

I immediately looked around to see if any other guys overheard the good news. I turned back to Elliot, “For real?”

“Yeah and she said she thought you were cute and now that I see you in this light I can kind of see where she’s coming from. You look like a strapping, young Larry King.” I did. I don’t want to talk about it. The important thing was Lucy was one step closer to being obtainable. All I had to do was get past my fear of everything. And I was cute? That was unreal. Mostly because of the whole, you know, Larry King thing.

“Hey, thanks.” I stuttered, “For the drink, I mean.” I turned around and felt like I was opening some magical door. Everything seemed a little brighter and far cheesier.
I had only moments to bathe in my own contentment when I saw one of the girls from earlier. She and her friend had been whispering to each other on the couch, completely ignoring that guy with no chance in hell. She was standing with her back to me yelling at someone sitting in front of her who was apparently ‘a complete dick.’ Deep down in my soul I knew at whom she was yelling but my curiosity won out and I peered beyond her to see Jude blowing smoke nonchalantly in her general direction. I knew there were only three things they possibly could have been fighting about because Jude had well versed arguments in three major areas.

First was film. Anything that made a shit ton of money was good. Anything French or Italian was good. Zombie movies were bad (Zombies were a serious concern for Jude, poor thing). Disney movies were the devil.

Second was video games. Xenogears was perfect. Penny-Arcade was the holy gospel. Final Fantasy was epic minus XIII and if you even brought up the knife-gun you were dead to Jude. Pokémon will never be not cool (if anyone argued him on this I was quick to point out that Gengar was the most badass thing ever conceived).

Finally, Jude was prone to arguing politics. He was raised in a hyper-conservative household. He never voted. He was liberal on most social issues. Oh, and he was a staunch communist so he was just a nice grab bag of political ideals. I caught the end of one of his retorts to the girl, “The World Bank isn’t a charity. It’s a fucking bank. It works just like a real bank because it is one. Where am I losing you on this?” Ah, politics. I imagined she was having fun with that.

I was in no mood for fighting and luckily I had friends at the kitchen table. I pulled up to the table next to Andi and across from Lucy, Preston, and Carly. At the table I entered into a far more pleasant conversation. Lucy looked me dead in the eye and I prayed my blood would continue to flow, “Ok Eli. What’s your all-time favorite song?”

Lucky for me I had thought this question over many times and I always come to the same conclusion. I set my hands flat on the table and made my declaration, “’Kaite Come True’ by Son, Ambulance. It’s absolutely perfect.”

Preston tilted his head to the side, “Aw, that’s pretty. That’s a pretty song.” Carly giggled more and nuzzled herself under his arm, good for him.

Andi was drunk and shameless, “Eli, that’s not a real song. That’s a fake song and I’ve never heard of it and it’s not real.” Lucy and I, the soberest two at the table looked at each other and laughed which was more than enough to make me giddy but then her right hand came to rest on top of my left. It was like the first time I ever kissed a girl. Without fail blood rushed to my face and I blushed like mad. I looked over to see Carly’s eyes fading in and out and Preston sitting tall, proud of his catch. She must have known she was going quick because she grabbed his hand, stood up, and whisper rather loudly to him, “Come upstairs with me.” He could not even begin to hide the excitement on his face and I couldn’t blame him. It’d been at least two years and, dammit, he earned it. They were gone before anyone could even say their goodbyes.

With just the three of us left and Lucy’s hand still resting comfortably on mine, Andi finished a drink and looked at the two of us, “I was fine being a fifth wheel but I’m too damn good to be a third wheel.” And she got up to go to the counter for more booze. It was as if fate were throwing Lucy at me. She took a firm grasp of my hand and spoke, “Come on, let’s go.” And I followed her and I didn’t care where we were going.

As it turned out, we were going to a couch in the other room. The den area was much less dense than it had been before which was fine by me. There were no dancing girls. There were, however, the whispering girls from before on the other couch and the one who had been arguing Jude looked none too happy. Lucy sat me down and made herself comfortable. I, on the other hand, had more important things to worry about than comfort such as monitoring the stupid shit that usually came out of my mouth. I figured my best option was to speak as little as possible and maybe I’d luck into seeing her again.

Before she could start any real conversation Preston walked in front of us, actually, ‘sulked’ is more accurate. Preston sulked in front of us. I was in shock. I couldn’t imagine what could possible stand in the way of him ending his drought. I had to know, “Buddy, what are you doing? Did something happen?”

“She threw up. It was pretty bad.” My heart ached for him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think she was that…”

“She was.”

“Yeah, I would say so. What are you doing now?”

“I think I’m going to go home and chalk tonight up. I’ll see you guys later.”

Lucy sympathized for him, “Goodnight Preston. Drive safe, ok?” He couldn’t even answer he just raised his hand in half acknowledgement, half wave.

I let our a sigh, “Well, I’m pretty happy I didn’t drink that much tonight.”

She smiled and put my arm around her, “It’s a good thing, too.” Beg pardon? What in the fuck was going on? I processed her statement in my mind as fast as possible. Was she glad that didn’t drink that much because if I threw up it would have gotten in the way of sex? No, there was no possible way. There was no way she could be completely unobtainable in the evening and in my bed by the morning. Things did not work like that, especially not for me. I was speechless and I think she caught on, “So I’ve heard all these wonderful things about you from Andi and Elliot but you’re still sort of mysterious or something. Tell me about you.”

First of all, what were these wonderful things because I needed to capitalize on them as much as possible. And thinking I was mysterious? I liked whiskey and sex and just about everything I did was with one of those two things in mind. I was far from mysterious but if that’s what she wanted that’s what I was going to give her, “Well, I’m somewhat of a recluse.” She laughed thinking it was pure comedy. I played along, “Yep. And I read and I write and…”

“Oh, ok. The important stuff. What are you reading right now?”

“Well, I just finished Blankets by Craig Thompson and I’m starting in on some Faulkner. How about you?”

“Lullaby by Palahniuk. It’s about the third time I’ve read it.” Ok, now I had something to work with. She liked one of my favorite authors but unfortunately it was his worst book not including Invisible Monsters. I never, ever included Invisible Monsters. She continued, “Ok, past the reading, you write?”
“Yeah, I’m trying to. It started with a bunch of short stories but I’m pretty sure it’ll come out a novel. If it comes out, I mean.” I hadn’t really spoken to any girls of interest about writing and I hoped I wouldn’t come off as a pretentious asshole. Being an asshole was fine, it was the pretentious I was worried about.

“Holy shit, that’s so cool.” Score. “How far are you?”

“I think I’m closing in on twenty thousand words. I think.”

“Is that a lot?”

“It feels like it.” It did too. It felt like tons.

I saw Elliot eavesdropping on the two of us, “Actually, Elliot’s read some of it. He could tell you about it. Hey Elliot.” I waved him over and he pulled up a chair in front of us.

“Alright, so is he any good.”

Elliot looked to the ceiling, deep in thought, “Well, he hasn’t returned my calls in a while so I’ve been sleeping alone, dreaming of him.” She liked that and I did too but he moved on quickly, “well, he gave a pretty good description of that bar Mayne that I liked.” I did, that passage was fucking great.

“I’ll have to read it sometime. Actually, this might be a stupid question but do you have anything you wrote on you?” I was pretty sure she was setting me up to invite her back to the apartment. I mean, who keeps that shit on them at all times?

“Not on me, but back at my…” I couldn’t even finish my delivery before Carly came down the stairs in a heap. It was amazing and a true testament to her equilibrium that she didn’t fall face first down the flight. She was a mess. Her hair looked like she’d been electrocuted. Her shirt was wet and, more importantly, on backwards and her cheeks had streaks of black tears.

She looked up to Lucy and started crying more, “I need to go home.” Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Lucy, being a damned good person, jumped up and put Carly’s arm around her so that Carly didn’t actually fall and I stared in awe of Preston’s luck and mine. What are the odds? Elliot rose from his chair and picked Carly up Bodyguard style leaving Lucy to come back to me but not with good news, “I’m so sorry. I’ve got to take her home but I really would like to see you again. Can I give you my number?”

“Yeah, of course. We’ll do something, no worries.” I got her number and a hug and a few more ‘I’m sorry’s’ before she and Elliot got Carly out of there. I remained motionless on the couch until Elliot made it back and plopped down beside me where Lucy had just been. It had all happened so fast from her sitting down with me to Elliot sitting down with me and I was a little confused. Elliot seemed much happier about the entirety of the situation than I, “So it was a good night for you then, huh?”

I checked his tone for sarcasm but it wasn’t there. Then I retraced the steps of the night in terms of Lucy’s status in regards to me and things didn’t seem that bad. She started out unobtainable, moved to on the verge of having sex with me, then quickly leveled out with a phone number. So I came out better than I started, “Yeah. I think I did alright.”

We sat on that couch and waited out most of the rest of the party. Unfortunately that meant waiting for the rest of the acoustic guitar kids to get done making fools of themselves which took a while. Eventually Jude came out of the woodwork and sat with us. He looked tired in just about every sense of the word, “Where have you been?”

He finished off whatever liquid was in his cup, “Around. I’ve been around.”

Jude and I were some of the last to leave Elliot’s. On the way to the back door from which we first entered we passed Andi on the bathroom floor hugging a toilet, “It was good to see you guys. Make sure you go ahead and drive safe, ok? Ok? Ok.”

I turned to Elliot, “She going to be alright?”

“Eventually. Probably eventually.”

In my car and it was silently decided that there was no need for music. Driving down several alleys and finally on lit roads I asked Jude, “What’s your favorite Chuck Palahniuk book?”

“Choke was good. So was Fight Club.”

“Least favorite?”

“Lullaby was pretty bad.”

“Not counting Invisible Monsters, right?”

“Right.”

“Right.” It just seemed like common sense.

Tyler: Zero

Good evening America. How the shit are you? That’s cool. Really? Well, whose was it to begin with? Thank god you had a gun. Yeah. I know. Anyway, shit has gone down in the past couple days. Not bad or anything, just kind of generic shit.

Lets see, I guess most importantly I got my first rejection letter today from a literary agency. I sent a letter giving some quick information with four stories attached. I found the entire process interesting. You know what, I’m just going to post it here. You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy it too.

Tyler-
Thanks for your query. Your style and my taste are not a match. I hope you take that in as though I'd written "I prefer Indian food over Italian." I think your writing is yet a little raw and not yet ready for publication, but that's just my opinion. If you query ten agents, you're bound to get at least 12 opinions. Some offer conflicting opinions so that whether you fail or succeed, they can say "I knew that!"

The key is just to find the right agent to champion your work. While I am not the guy, there are a bejillion agents, maybe 1.5 bejillion.

My advice for future queries would be to eliminate the extraneous and self-effacing framing devices. You don't have to underline your newness to the process. That doesn't make the work any more sellable.

Just tell what the book is in a cogent way. State who the readers are and any evidence that there's a number of such people. And give a brief bio that makes you seem like a PR machine.

I wish you well.

I mean, I’d be far more mad about it all but he was so fucking nice about it. I like it though because it gave some pretty good advice. So here’s the score as of now, Literary World: 1. Tyler Yearling Hively: 0
Alright Literary World, lets do this fucking thing.

For all you Ohio fans out that, I mean the state itself, I got an Ohio tattoo today on the front of my bicep just above the crease in my elbow. It’s just an outline with a star for Columbus, simple really, but I think it’s fucking incredible. Does anyone else love Ohio? I know there’s more of us.

Ok, so one last thing, Roger and I are trying to get together a writers workshop. So far it’s just us and two friends but I believe we’re looking for more. If anyone is interested or knows anyone who’s interested please let one of us know. Also, please don’t suck at writing. Because we don’t. And we will think less of you if you do. That is all, America.

Tyler: Scarves, Son

Enjoy, children.

Roger: Atheists in Foxholes

It’s Saturday night and I’m in a fantastic mood. Cat got put in Franklin Detention for shoplifting and I don’t have the money to bail her out. As I am the only one she knows who ever has a dime it means she’s stuck. She had 2Gs of merch from a fucking Kohl’s when they caught her. How someone tries to hide $2,000 in shitty department store clothing on their body I haven’t the foggiest. She told me it was bullshit but I just assumed it wasn’t because she thought her personality mattered to me. If I fuck her after this she’ll never get the hint.
So, why am I ecstatic over my steady vagina ending up in the jail? Find me an easier way of never seeing someone again than them going to jail. Besides, it’s hard to keep steady fresh. I can only spend so much time paying attention to conversations that don’t mean anything. On the first date I’m like Sherlock Holmes when it comes to details. After a few months I’m not gonna remember what the words tattooed on your back mean or what your dad said to you that made you cry. I guess it means I’m leading them on. I’m not a good person
When I told Eli and he saw my face I knew he was jealous. I knew this because he just instantly started getting ready to go out, his tell-tale sign of displeasure. I also know this because he told me.
“I spent three hours in a church parking lot trying to keep Lauren from beating me up. Why couldn’t she have just stolen some shitty clothing?” Eli says with the sincerest of inflections.
“Fuck cares. It was about fucking time and you know it,” I replied. He knows it because I told him. I started to think of the weirdest thing I had ever done in a church parking lot for three hours and this made me smile even more. I would tell Eli about it but it would only make him more upset.
Eli tried to insist on driving, but after I pointed out that I would probably have to drive him home anyway we had might as well take my car. He doesn’t like my car because it is ridden with empty cigarette boxes and smells of a cross between smoke and rotten fruit. Only one of those smells is my fault. We loaded ourselves into the car and began the drive to one finds themselves in such an attractive disposition as mine: the Blue Danube. A sort of home away from home, the Dube as we have learned to call it, satisfies all my egoistic tendencies. We would know nearly everyone in there, and everyone else we could easily ostracize.
Walking into the bar is an event into itself and certain rules apply. We must first find our favorite waitress and have her motion us towards her table. It’s all too often that we are fought over; as we tip well and have a habit of making the people around us drink more than usual. After taking our seat and throwing back a shot we begin to peruse the scene for people we wish to see and those we wish to avoid. This is much easier for Eli, as his enemies are restricted to those who dare disagree with him in class. If only my life was that simple.
The Dube has the amount of cliques in it equivalent to a high school cafeteria. All tend to stay to themselves and disputes rarely occur in house: a kind of throw back to the concept of hallowed ground. The majority is made up of hip college students valiantly defending their positions on an assortment of unimportant topics. They alternate pumping quarters into the jukebox, in some sick competition of who can play the most obscure song. As much as I despise these people, I have somehow become one of them. At least I’ll never be as bad as Eli. The man would suck Bob Dylan’s dick if given the opportunity too. He’d practice ahead of time too ensure satisfaction. And what a sight it would be.
“Hey boys haven’t seen you in a while. Where ya been?” The waitress asks us. We had been there on Monday. It was Wednesday. I hoped she was just drunk. “Jude we got some new shit on the jukebox. You think you can find my new favorite song?” I asked this girl out once, she’s never gotten over it. Too bad she’s married and has morals.
“Looks like more of a Tom Waits crowd tonight. Not making much money I take it.”
“Nah, but we started drinking early so it’s all good. We got specials on Miller Chill but it’s shit. Order draft Pabsts and I think I can hook you up.” Pabst Blue Ribbon is the official beer of Columbus. I have no idea why.
I indulge her and get a whiskey as well. Eli gets a shot and chocolate milk. Separate, of course. They fucked that up once. I was high on uppers and couldn’t stop laughing for several minutes.
Tyler doesn’t notice the dime piece behind him turning and giggling at us. I don’t recognize her which is for the best. He neglects the scenery and goes into the important stuff.
“I see Nick Cave’s got a new album. How does it feel to have an artist that does nothing but satisfy every aspect of your life?”
“My life is way too complicated to be defined by a single artist.” This isn’t true. Complicated or not, I wasn’t going to be able to win this argument.
“Oh, really? The guy has been writing about how much getting laid all the time causes him a seemingly infinite amount of sadness. He speaks as if there was a Great Gatsby and he was a god. He faked his own assassination at a concert! You would kill for that kind of attention!” I would. “For fuck’s sake the album’s called ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!’. You wish your tag was as good as that!”
He’s referring to the use of a figure from Christian mythology in an ironic sense. The concept gives me an intellectual erection. I always said the whole Christian doctrine plays as a sweet action movie (Tom Cruise plays the role of Joshua). Back when I used to paint I tagged Longinus. It’s the name of the Roman centurion who stabbed Jesus in the ribs with a spear to make sure the poor bastard was dead. He pierced the divine. That’s me. Un-fucking-stoppable. “Lazarus ain’t got shit on me.”
We don’t talk about Longinus much anymore. I don’t like taking anything seriously so when people started getting too hyped up I walked away. Some of the older fuckers decided to start disguising the fact that Columbus is more about love than being hood and got power hungry. At first the old crew tried to stand up for themselves, but we learned right quick the divine can’t do much in a dark alley behind a bar when firearms are involved. I’ve heard that there aren’t any atheists in foxholes. Maybe that’s true, but when you’re picking up the pieces of your best friends you start to have questions.
The Danube was one of the only places the crew could meet. Nobody brought any shit in here. People here were too intelligent and snobby to deal with other people’s drama. This isn’t the place for name dropping your crew and talking about godfathers and shit. I fucking love this place. Status doesn’t exist here. Just beer and shit food and art. It’s like walking into a hot spring. Hard to get into at first, but eventually you never wanna leave.
We both get drunk and laugh with the folks around us. We joke about Keanu Reeves and Ian MacKaye not being dead. We laugh at the thought of Henry Rollins performing poetry. A couple of guys get heated over semantics concerning Post-Modern charcoal drawings and I use this as an opportunity to flirt with the ladies they’re with. I play footsy with the one across from me without ever really looking her. I talk to Eli but steal a glance from time to time. It’s all about balancing your emotions. The cold demeanor, the sense of not really caring, pressed against the rare moment of intimacy. The drastic change can bring down just any wall you can build in front of me. I learned that from Sergei Eisenstein. Twelve grand a year to learn how to make a girl’s panties drip. Why the fuck not?
I only notice the smoking ban when it’s winter. All the democratic politicians around here do is take shit away from me, be it taxes or the warmth in my prick. Columbus has some of the worst weather in the country. Colder than shit in the winter, hotter than piss in the summer. Snow angels and sweating gets real old, this I can tell you. Footsy girl had followed me out. She was wearing Eli’s coat.
“You look like a dirty old man,” I told her with no edge of a smile on my face.
“Whatever I love flannel, it’s warmer than shit. What else matters in December?” she replied. Yeah fucking right I believe this broad actually has that intensive sense of pragmatics. She looked kind of cute though. She wore her eye make up all wrong and she had a bit of a snaggletooth but she looked…I don’t know. Nice?
She told me her name was Alicia, but like A-LEE-SHE-A. I wondered if her mother knows that’s how she introduces herself. Maybe she doesn’t have a mother. I wasn’t really listening to her; I was kind of drunk.
I came around at the end of the story she was apparently telling me; “—so yeah my teacher was totally just staring at my tits the whole time and the he was just like all ‘sure you can turn it in late’ and it was like so gross.” She talked too fast and she didn’t look at you when she did. That’s probably why she didn’t notice that I wasn’t paying attention. “I have to pee so bad. Can you hold my cigarette?” she asked me. There was maybe a drag left. I hate it when people do that. I held on to it and waited for her to turn around before I threw it in the street.
“Hey man can I bum a smoke?” some kid asked me. He looked familiar enough so I obliged him. “Shit music in there tonight, eh? It’s like the fixed-gear kids got a hold of the jukebox tonight.” I love what small talk is like here.
“Yeah how many times do I have to listen to the Liars and Mars Volta when I am allowed to publicly get annoyed without anyone looking at me like the anti-Christ. I mean I loved At the Drive-In just as much as the next guy but that shit was what a decade ago,” I replied. It’s not that I didn’t like the bicycle kids, they were just a bit too faggy for my taste.
I went home with footsy girl’s number and a pretty decent buzz. Tyler talked to some broad about teaching and the education system and a bunch of other nonsense, even though about five minutes in she told him she had a boyfriend. I would have hope he would have learned more from living with me by now, but after I heard him refer to a certain movie as being “poop-dick” I appreciated that I was making headway. I drove home and had only minor trouble in the snow.

Tyler: Eye Fucking

An important message from the fine folks at DEATH BY DRAGONRY

Tyler: Be Massive, My Friend

I’m relatively ecstatic and have several things to talk about. So as not to confuse myself here is my list of what I will discuss.

1. MASSIVE
2. Roger’s Birthday
3. Cool by Virtue of Youth

If you hadn’t heard, Massive (the Columbus Crew) won the MLS Cup for the first time in franchise history and I really couldn’t be happier about it. Growing up, all I did was play soccer and when I say that it is almost literal. If not at school or sleeping, chances are I was practicing either with my team or on my own. Back in 1996 my family had season tickets for the inaugural season and it was incredible. It has been amazing watching the league grow over the years not just in teams but in talent as well. It’s obvious that MLS teams can’t really compete with the top clubs in the English Premier League (Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool) but what you never hear is that we are as good as the rest of the EPL. The MLS is getting some great players from around the world and young American players are as good as any in the world. Freddy Adu gets a lot of shit from a lot of media sources but the bottom line is incredibly young and good enough to lead his club team to the Champions League. The future looks great for American soccer and for Massive. Without a doubt, Massive won the MLS Cup amongst the best talent the MLS has ever seen. Final note on this issue, if you’re a Toronto FC fan, in your fucking face! Can’t wait to see you next year when we sweep the Trillium Cup.

So last night was Roger’s birthday party and I haven’t had that much fun in a long time. Roger had fun, I don’t know, if he so chooses he can write about it but this is my post so this is all about me. So for the past year, year and a half I’ve been very limited as to how much I can go out to bars and stuff because of various medical stuff. Anyway, so last night was one of the few times I’d been out recently and there are very few greater feelings than having several people come up to me to say it was good to see me. It was flattering. The entire night was fantastic. So many people came out to karaoke and sang and drank and everyone was so excited to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of Roger’s birth. I love Columbus. I love the people around me. Life is pretty good right now.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I’m 21 and wear thrift store clothes. Something about this combination does something to how I’m perceived by many people. I was with my brother and a couple of his friends months ago and I was wearing this odd v-neck shirt with another shirt underneath because it was all I had as far as clean clothes. My brother said something about how weird it looked (which it did) and his friend countered with something along the lines of how I could pull it off because I was fashionable. Don’t get me wrong, I think I usually dress very nice (voted best dressed in high school just so you know) but on that day I looked like an idiot. There is something about being young and different looking that makes me immune from fashion criticism. I’m at a good place in life, I think.

Roger: Another chapter: Goodbye Horses

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Roger: FIRST BLOOD!!!!!

Tyler: Chaotic Tranquility

Hi, hello. So I started this story a couple days ago and just now finished it. And I like it so that's good too. If you actually read this and have any reaction to it at all, please let me know. Any response is good. Anything.

Also, it's called 'Slight Rebellion off Acton' which is a direct homage to my favorite short story of all time by JD Salinger.



Elliot’s annual Arbor Day Extravaganza was winding down along with my spirits. Lately I’d been lacking in attention from women and hurting from it. Actually, that is an understatement on two counts. When I say women were paying me no mind, that is not just limited to the romantic kind. I mean, I could not get any girl to look my way even for some platonic companionship. Beyond that, I literally was hurting from it. It wasn’t the kind of emotional pain one gets from pining after some girl with no results. My loneliness had manifested itself into a cancerous entity that started by weakening my joints and had lately been working on providing me with insomnia in addition to a twitch I would get whenever I thought about the last time I laid with a woman. A fucking demon it was.

I made up my mind that I had to get out of there. Scratch that, my mind made the decision for me seeing as it had been doing many things without my consent as of late. At any rate, I had to go. Now this is not a knock on Elliot’s party. The Arbor Day Extravaganza was one of the highlights of April in our neck of Clintonville and we treated it as such. I was simply too tired to continue drinking mindlessly and too depressed with the selection of girls left. They were all out of my league; some higher, some lower. The only girl in which I had any interest was Madi and she’d left hours ago. I had been Madi’s best friend for years and she had been my secret, probably disinterested love interest for about the same period of time. Over this time I always sat back watching her make poor choices in men, judging and feeling sorry for myself from a distance. She watched and encouraged my flights into dating never knowing what I really wanted. I don’t need to really tell you this though, everyone I know has gone through it and knows the pain that goes with the unrequited love cliché.

I was clearly done there but did not want a big send off saying goodbye to the forty remaining people, most of whom, I didn’t know. With most exits blocked I made my way for the remarkably deserted front door. Once I was on the porch I’d be safe from any outbursts of spontaneous dancing which seem to consume anyone within striking distance like a drunken tornado of bad rhythm. So as inconspicuously as possible I made my move for the door.

“Eli! You son of a bitch. You need to get back here and take a hit of this,” I turned to see Kyle running at me with a bowl and lighter outstretched. My escape had been postponed but at least I wasn’t dancing. Having started my departure without giving any ‘goodbyes’ I should have known I’d be caught by someone and, on the bright side, that person did have a bowl for me.

“Fine Kyle, but just because I can’t resist your beautiful blue eyes,” His eyes were highly glazed over but I’m a nice guy so I’m all about doling out compliments. He handed me the blown glass bowl and a pink lighter. I sat myself down on the steps of the porch and sparked the Bic a couple times getting a feel for it. The butane smelled like my friends cars in high school. Actually, so did the weed. I lit it and watched the herb sparkle before settling on a sunset orange color. I breathed the smoke in, closed my eyes and held my breath as long as I could before coughing up a whole bunch of potential lung cancer.

It wasn’t my strongest hit ever but it certainly wasn’t the weakest either, “Not bad, Kyle. Who’d you get this from?”

He looked ecstatic when I asked him, “Me, man! I fucking grew it myself. In my bathroom!”

That last part was supposed to impress me but I’d seen this kids bathroom and it was more suitable for growing mushrooms than weed. I managed to keep a look of disgust off my face as well as vomit from spewing out my mouth. Needless to say, I was beyond done with it, “Well, thanks buddy but I think I’m going to get going. You take care of yourself, alright?”

“Alright, man, alright. I’ll see you later,” he stumbled back into the house and I remained quite content staring at the chaotic tranquility of High St. from the porch.

Columbus was a great town at night. Light pollution from the city was usually low and provided ample stars to enjoy. If you were out at the right time you might also be privileged enough to see the drunks stumbling to their respective homes whether they be high class, faux industrial lofts or actual abandoned industrial buildings. That’s one of the greatest things about alcohol, it cares not for your social status but only your tolerance level. To be honest, Columbus shared that attribute with alcohol which might be why I love this city so much. You could run in any circle so long as you could drink with them.

As I sat contemplating the love triangle that was Columbus, alcohol, and me I felt the cold chill of ice on the back of my neck causing my immediate jump and scream, “Fucking hell! What the fuck?”

Madi nearly fell over laughing before settling down next to me, “For Christ’s sake Eli. You’re a little jumpy, aren’t you?”

“Well, shit, you gave me a fucking heart attack,” she handed me a beer and it was all I could do to be completely appreciative and resentful toward her at the same time, “Thanks, I guess.”

“It’s what I’m here for, sugar,” she took a long drag on the bottle and smiled in my direction melting me.

“I thought you left here awhile ago. I mean, I least I thought I saw you go,” I tried to play it off like I hadn’t noticed her whereabouts but I never hid my intentions very well.

“Well, I did, kind of. I ran into Brook Sutton, do you remember her from high school?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” I did. Brook Sutton was the kind of girl that wouldn’t look my way in high school but as soon as she started drinking and smoking I was suddenly perceived as wildly intriguing. I had run into Brook several weeks before and was very confused to find that where I was once a social outcast I had more recently become someone to know apparently. In high school I was the weird kid who sat by himself and yet I was somehow transformed into a weird kid that knew several integral people and several integral Columbus scenes. Our meeting ended when she started being excessively nice to me and in my discomfort I abruptly left the situation surely leaving both parties equally confused.

“She was a cheerleader, I don’t know if you knew her. Anyway, I ran into her and we started talking about books so I started talking about Palahniuk. She’d never even heard of him so we went back to my place so I could just give her one of his books.”

This worried me a little. Palahniuk was my third favorite author and I felt deeply that one must earn the right to read his best books. Now, Fight Club can be read by anyone because it belongs to the people due to its theatrical release. Same goes for Choke though not nearly as many people have enjoyed that work. I was hoping Madi had given her something easy and less involved to read like Lullaby but really I was hoping that she’d given Brook Invisible Monsters because that is by far his worst book. She deserved it. My greatest fear, however, was that Madi had given her Survivor, my second favorite book of all time and the single greatest concept for a book ever. I prayed Brook didn’t receive Survivor.

“What book did you give her?”

“Snuff.” I could deal with that. It was an unimaginative look at the porn industry and I found it rather suited to Brook.

“Cool.” My beer was near empty but sitting with Madi was more than enough to sate me.

“Yeah, it was totally weird though. I hadn’t seen or even thought about Brook in ages and then she just showed up here out of nowhere. I’d nearly forgotten about her. I mean, I almost didn’t remember her.”

“Yeah, I can never remember the people I forget.” It was cheesy but it got a laugh out of Madi so I was happy. Her laugh, God, it killed me. She laughed from deep down but still managed to make it come out in an adorable manner. I’d fallen for this girl long ago and her laugh was a large part of it. That and just about everything else about her.

I moved the conversation to more pressing issues like her asshole boyfriend, “So how’s your boy?”

“He cheated on me with his ex a couple weeks ago,” I’d heard this same sentiment from her several times but it never made me feel good.

“Christ, I’m sorry. What happened?”

“I don’t know. I found some messages they were writing each other. It was pretty bad.”
“So what did you do?”

“I haven’t talked to him in a couple days but I think we’ll work it out.”

“Why?”

“I can’t help it Eli, he does something to me.”

“You have a nasty habit of dating assholes.”

“I know.”

I pulled out a cigarette to take the edge of the moment off, “You want one?”

“I quit.”

“Yeah, so did I. Twice.” I lit up and took a long, hard drag.

I paused as long as I could trying to come up with the perfect words because I knew whatever I said then couldn’t be taken back, “I’m not an asshole, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Tyler: Indestructible

A good while back I had a dream in which Jay Gatsby introduced me to a prostitute and the next morning, upon reflection, I realized that my dream was a pretty good description for what I think my literary styling is. In my most egotistic moments I fancy myself as a cross between Charles Bukowski and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I really, truly enjoy talking (and writing) as though I am smarter than I really think I am. I don’t think its because I’m trying to impress anyone, I just think people spoke in a way cooler manner in the roaring 20’s. In my stories I call girls dolls because that’s what I call girls in my day to day life. At the same time, though, I love the vulgarity and honesty of Bukowski. If anyone asks me what his writing is like I tell them to open up ‘Women’ to any page and read it. One of my favorite passages from ‘Women’ goes a little something like this (just a little because I’m paraphrasing).
Random girl talking to Chinaski (Bukowski’s alter ego): I want to destroy your face with my cunt.
Chinaski: I’m not so sure you can do that.
Girl: Your face doesn’t stand a chance.
Chinaski: You’re right. Cunts are indestructible.

‘Cunts are indestructible.’ It’s insane. You cannot find that kind of writing in just about any other literature.
Me, though, I still think I fall somewhere in between Buk and F. Scott. I’d like to think so, at least.

I’m currently reading ‘This Side of Paradise’ by Fitzgerald and I’ve stumbled over a thought that never occurred to me whilst reading anything before. I’m not incredibly deep into the book but I feel like I have a good understanding of Amory Blaine. I was reading today and through my mind the idea scrolled, “I have never encountered a character in a book that was so essential to literature.” Now, what the fuck does that mean? Let me try to explain.

Romeo and Juliet: Classic young love that is naïve. Essential to literature.
Ahab: Definitive monomaniac. Essential to Literature
Holden Morrisey(seriously) Caulfield: Drunken, angsty teen. Essential to literature.

I hope you get my point. The difference though is that for those three (and many, many more) we are told that they are important characters and very pertinent to literature on the whole. With Amory and ‘This Side of Paradise’ though, I came to the conclusion on my own. Amory is an unforgivably arrogant egotist that I truly think everyone can relate to on one level or another. I will tell you, though, feeling yourself relate to such a character is a little depressing. I’d like to think I’m not as shallow as Amory but at the same time its very possible that I’m a bigger douche than I realize.

On an entirely different note Massive (the Columbus Crew) is in the MLS Finals and I am fucking ecstatic. So ecstatic that my brother and I are actually looking for a way to get out there for it. I love Columbus.

Columbus till I die
Columbus till I die
I know I am I'm sure I am
Columbus till I die!!!
Be Massive!

Tyler: Writing DemiGod

Good evening America! It is a glorious Sunday in beautiful Columbus, Ohio and I do not have to do dishes. Now you may ask yourself, Tyler don’t you have a dishwasher? You may ask yourself, why don’t you have to do dishes? You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house. You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife. Those last two are directed exclusively at David Byrne, mind you. The point still stands though, I do not have to do dishes. You see, last Sunday Roger and I made a deal, if he wrote 3,500 words for DoubleBook, I would do all the dishes and, alas, he has not.

In the short term I am very happy because I think Death is currently living in the depths of our sink. The entire apartment reeks when the dishes are left undone to the point where I bought a circulating fan to try to disperse the smell on bad days. Buying an apartment with no dishwasher is a very bad idea, if you were wondering.

In the long run, though, this is bad. It means I’ll have to stay in school another week because our book remains unfinished and 100% unpublished. The thing is that I think I’m only really good at one thing and that is writing. I’m not one of those people that say I can’t live without writing/music/some other bullshit because I could. Easily. Anyone could. I mean, to think otherwise is inane. No one has ever dropped dead because their iPod battery died (my apologies if you know someone who did, that was very insensitive of me). I am, however one of those douchebags that thinks they’re the greatest living writer. Seriously, I’m fucking great. Deal with it. So being in school basically just sucks and until I write this book I can’t drop the fuck out.

On a entirely different and unabashedly nerdy note, Roger and I just beat Gears Of War 2 on Co-op. It confirmed my suspicions. I am bad at every game besides Pokemon. No lie, I’m a Poke-fucking-master.

Tyler: Don't Hate Me

I read this line in some shitty music magazine recently and I think it kind of stuck with me. It was basically a list of things that are always overrated. One of the top 5 or so things was the music you listened to in high school which I get. I understand that. I listened to some shit I wouldn’t be ready to admit in most circumstances but I feel relatively safe writing it here because, well, I think only me and Roger actually read this.

Freshman year of high school had ridiculous pop punk going on.
1. Blink-182
2. New Found Glory
3. Good Charlotte
4. Mest
5. Relient K
I mean, I still love Blink and I think I always will but the rest of that list actually hurts to look at. Just fucking embarrassing really.

Here’s the thing though, I still need that music. Maybe you know me, maybe you don’t, I don’t know. If you do you might know that I’m usually pretty laid back but every other month or so I will just flip out. My brain will stop functioning on a normal level and will just elevate itself to this really fast paced rambling with which I can’t keep up. It’s absurd. I was at my parents house today and I was looking in the mirror of my bathroom and all I could think was, “I’ve got to get some of this fucking hair off my head.” And I did. It was almost unconscious. I got out the trimmer and went to town. My sink looked like it was growing baby rats. At the end I looked around at the mess of my departed hair (does this pun work here? Like, it’s gone but it’s also not parted anymore. I don’t know.) and kind of felt like Edward Norton at the end of Fight Club when he shoots his jaw and kills Tyler Durden. Fucking weird. And right now, I keep saying ‘fuck’ over and over in my head. Fuck fuck fuck.

So before I left my parents’ house I looked through my old cd’s and found a mix a friend made for me junior year of high school I think. It starts off with Mest, goes on to some hardcore punk stuff I never really liked (I liked pussy pop punk, remember?) and track 11 is where I jumped. That’s where she implanted four Get Up Kids songs that still haunt the depths of my brain. I just looked up the name of the song I’ve been singing all day, it’s called “Don’t Hate Me.” I listened to it for the entire ride back to my apartment and it calmed me down better than my prescriptions so I think that’s pretty good. I don’t know, maybe if I didn’t find that song I would have listened to Death From Above 1979 on the way back and wondered what the fuck I was actually listening to. I’m pretty glad I still have all the music from high school. I wouldn’t go preaching that to a crowd but I still need my Get Up Kids every once in a while.

Tyler: A Little More Chapter 1

So I think my part of DoubleBook is driven mostly by plot with events happening to and around the protagonist (Eli) so most of the characterization is developed through his reactions to these events.

I get bored with that though so I've been trying add more and more Columbus as I've written (just so you know, I've written a little over 35,000 words totaling 10 chapters out of an outlined 17 chapters but out of those remaining 7 chapters I've written about 3 of them so I'm closing in on something of a finish). I've tried to describe my city the best I can where I can and think this passage is part of that.

Roger and I both posted parts of our opening chapters but I'm not really a big fan of how mine started so I'm going to post a little more of my first chapter. This passage is basically a description of Hound Dogs and Ravari. I'd like to know if anyone else likes it or even thinks it's accurate because, really, I think it's fucking great.

So, without anymore of my really boring prologue bullshit, here is a little more from chapter 1 of DoubleBook.







Ravari was a filthy pizza place with a bar attached at its side like an underdeveloped Siamese twin on a drunken homeless guy and it had been our second home for some time. It was the kind of place that looked like it only had a back door, which, in actuality, it did. It had a very unique aura about it. The carpet inside Ravari looked like it came from Dresden circa 1946 and the walls were covered with flyers for bands and grindhouses and all the other underground shit you can force on a wall. There were makeshift tables in the pizza part of it that had to have been doors in previous lives and the wood chairs were all but a few patrons away from being kindling. Surrounding the bar were simple stools and several surprisingly nice pool tables, which had so much pizza and beer spilled on the felt that all the balls had a permanent greasy sheen to them. The grease inadvertently added an air of sophistication that made the balls look like polished marble; the juxtaposition was irresistible. There was a singular jukebox that supplied all the music in Ravari and offered both Michael Jackson and Gwar and every genre in between. The staff seemed required to have purposefully unkempt hair and tattoos of obscure things like artichokes and portraits of Queen Elizabeth with Shakespearean quotes underneath. Going to Ravari was like going to one of your best friends’ parties where everyone there is inexplicably cooler just by being there but you have to ignore that someone just shit on the coffee table. It was a decent place.

Jude and I found some chairs by the pool tables and appraised the room. There was a table of guys in girl pants and girls with guy haircuts. I know there is some kind of literary device I could use here but I can’t put my finger on it. These kids just threw away all the reality I could hold on to and gave me something M.C Escher wouldn’t understand. But I’m open-minded so I said nothing. Another group of kids clustered some stools together and formed their own section of the bar. They were all wearing khakis and had heavily gelled hair. No one wanted to be in their section of the bar so it was perfect. Then scattered throughout the rest of Ravari were the typical ‘non-conforming’ girls that were always there. They all were basically a mold of each other though none would admit it. Black hair cut at some ridiculous angle with streaks of every other color of the rainbow that couldn’t possibly be natural. A tight black shirt that either had guns and hearts on it or skulls and hearts, it made no difference really. Every so often a girl would try to come in wearing a shirt sporting both guns and skulls but removal was quick because those girls were far to dangerous to be mixed in with the general populous. Loose cannons they were. They all had tight jeans and shoes that couldn’t be found in Columbus, much less Ohio. If you were a girl in Ravari, you probably looked just like the two other girls you came with. These girls never interested me but one man's trash is another’s treasure; more times than not, Jude’s treasure. Who am I to judge? Jude and I rarely shared interest in the same girl, which was nice. It worked on two fronts. Firstly, we never wanted each other’s woman, no hassle. Secondly, it made it that much easier to make fun of each other’s terrible choices in women. A waitress who looked just like all these girls except with a much more extreme haircut with more angles in it and less color came and asked for our drinks.

“Two smashies.” Jude knew the names of all the drinks. A ‘smashy’ was a shot of whiskey with a half glass of Coke. I never understood the Coke part. I never got the point. Our waitress wrote the order and turned to leave. No dice. No smashy for me, “Can I get a double bourbon?” She looked back to acknowledge me and seemed slightly surprised to have three drinks to bring back. She must have been new there.

Roger: Chapter One - Vodka Sours

I have always been uncertain as to if I have ever slept in my life. You would think that the fact that I wake up at all would suggest it, but the feeling of complete exhaustion and doom acts as a fairly decent counterpoint in my book (and this is my book, so you might as well just roll with it). The best thoughts of my life have occurred between six and seven in the morning. Unfortunately, the racing of my mind makes it hard to settle down and actually rest. And my parents wondered why I never wanted to get up for the fucking paper route. Since I have begun getting some sort of fucked up for the past six months or so, the hangovers have made it nearly impossible to even get out of bed. Maybe you don’t understand hangovers. Maybe you haven’t had the experience of not being able to eat for days because of a few hours of debauchery. Allow me to explain, you poor lost soul.

We will begin from the end and move back to the beginning. My current disposition is that which I have experienced nearly every morning since the summer between my second and third year of college (I don’t know why I started drinking so heavily. You’re probably smart, you figure it out). A weak night of casual drinking is eight to ten drinks. A good night I have no idea. I’m classified as a moderate to heavy binge drinker. I start at about eight PM on non-work days (I try not to drink until much later at work). I’ll stop around four AM. I’ll eventually pass out, hopefully but not always in my own bed. I wake up too early and just lay around for awhile. Whenever I decide to sit up is when I start getting the “swallows” as I like to call them. I then run to the bathroom and puke twice. I brush my teeth and make a pot of coffee then take one of about four beer shits. On a bad day I won’t be able to eat and any real physical activity will just make me dizzy. Some people talk about their cures for this sickness. These people clearly don’t actually drink that much (my suggestion: slow paced video games and pornography).

(Ravari)

I had to drop Eli off due to his ability to sleep at night (it’s one of his worst qualities). We left Mayne before close for the first time since I can remember due to Preston’s obnoxious tale of some broad he thinks he has a date with. Also, ever since I started working there the place just makes me want to crawl under a table and watch the people through the holes in the shitty wood. Eli can’t stand the women and sometimes I wonder why he comes at all. He’s always been one to hold moral integrity over the wetness of his cock. He slipped back two rock bourbons and was toasted. I throw back free smashies with the Asian bartender with the Spanish name and begin to find everything more annoying. By the fifth shot I’m about to go postal so we slip out the back. Eli fell asleep on the 7 minute drive back home. He might be the worst boyfriend in the world, but I’m sure Laur still loves that he’s a cheap fucking date.

I would have just sat around and geeked for several hours but as it was a Monday I got the inevitable call from Cat. Cat always got drunk on Mondays, as she found it made her week go a bit faster. I once caught her waking up and mixing a G&T at eight in the morning but she gave me some hooplah about it making it easier for her to sleep that night. She called saying she wanted to see me and I bit and crawled over there like the little bitch that I was. I got to Cat’s at or around three. Her roommates were sitting around drinking shit vodka and watching shit TV. Before going upstairs I got the usual rounds from the four cunts.

“So Jude, how’s academic probation going?” asked one of them; she had a terrible nickname I could never remember. Cat had the tendency to tell everyone everything she knew about me. Every time I bitched about it she would just tell me it was because she was so intrigued by me and I should be happy with that.

“Just about as good as it should be,” I replied as nicely as I could muster.

“So Mr. Film Theory Major, what do you think of Aladdin? Or are Disney movies too beneath you to give a shit about?” snottily asked the fat one who always seemed to have some awkward scumbag hanging on them. I would go into the complexities of the development of animation from the 1970s on, specifically the two dimensional department of the Disney Corporation, but what was the fucking point. I just stared at her for a moment, took the shot out of her hand and slow sipped the fucker like I was Thomas fucking Crowne. She called me an asshole and told me to go fuck myself. I smiled and turned around real slow towards the stairs. My swagger was interrupted by a new face. Tall girl with wavy hair and a big smile, a cardigan two sizes too big that I’d bet had sentimental value.

“Funny seein’ you here, deary,” she said to me coyly. Deary? Deary? Who the fuck says deary? More specifically, who do I know that says deary to me like that would go over well? This was a constant problem of mine, people remembering me like I gave them three abortions and me acting as dumbfounded as a Mormon call-girl.

I pretended like I knew who she was and asked her the normal “how’s it goin’s” and what not. I would have tested my interrogation skills but knew my window of opportunity with Cat was closing pretty fast. The vodka on these bitches breath was starting to get stale and I knew how Cat has a tendency to pass out early. I said goodnight and walked up the creeky carpeted stairs to Cat’s room.

Cat was as much of a scumbag as a twenty-year-old girl could be. She was dirt poor and always asking for money, but for no more reason than she couldn’t hold a job and she did too much blow. Her room was a mess of crappy books, photography, and posters. She had a mattress on the floor with a cheap TV at the edge. She was watching a terrible B horror flick with the subtitles on. I hate it when people do that; how is it that people can’t pay enough attention to a fucking movie to hear what the people are saying.

“S’about time asshole,” she slurred at me. I dropped my hat on the ground and sat at the edge of the mattress. She got up and started shoving her tongue in my ear in an attempt at sex appeal. She thinks I like it because it makes me quiver, but for the record, I fucking don’t. I reference Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn for my aversion towards fucking slugs in my ears.

What a terrible fucking moment. I start to take my shirt off and she switches off the light. I know all too well that the only possibility for the rest of the night is terrible sex and an argument. Same shit every time. I could walk just stand up and walk away. I could. But I’m fucking bored so that’s how things will turn. I don’t make excuses or blame other people for why I’m so unhappy with my life; I’m quite aware that it’s my fault. But, I’m simply not that good of a person and there’s nothing else to do in this town.

I crawled away early in the morning before she woke up. I couldn’t get off on account of the liquor and didn’t feel like looking her in the face. I snuck down the stairs and headed for the door. Before I left I opened her fridge and stole a yogurt and her coffee. She would notice the coffee missing and would know it was me. I think this is what people refer to as “spicing up the relationship.” It’s so twisted I couldn’t stop smiling while I ran to my car.

I love it when I start my car in the morning after a long night of partying. It smells like cigarettes and sweat and the music is up so loud it makes me jump. On the drive back I start to piece together everything that happened the night before. I’m the type of person that thinks back on past events and gets embarrassed. It’s one of my most masochistic elements.

Tyler: DoubleBook

So, writing as we do, Roger and I are trying to write a book. I think we'll post some of here from time to time. No matter what Roger says, the book will be called DoubleBook. Fuck Yeah. Here's what I got.




CHAPTER 1: Point Break to Morpheus


“No, I know how hilarious ‘Point Break’ is but just because it’s funny does not make it a comedy. Genre depends on the intent of the creator. That’s just the way it works.”

To Jude’s ridiculous statement I had to respond, “But you have to take into account the cast. Keanu Reeves. Patrick Swayze. Anthony Kiedis. Gary Busey. Come on, Gary Fucking Busey. You cannot tell me whoever cast that movie actually thought it was going to be just an action movie. They knew what they were doing was hilarious. Look, his name is Johnny Utah for Christ’s sake.” He was still unimpressed, “Okay, so say you’re a director or something and someone comes in and says ‘Yeah, so, Reeves and Busey are a pair of undercover cops.’ If you heard that you would instantly think, ‘This shit is going to be amazing.’”

“I don’t know, man.”

“He was the quarterback for Ohio State. It’s so rich.”

Realizing there was no way I was going to concede defeat when I was so far in the right, my roommate opened another beer and changed the subject, “So what’s the deal with you and Lauren? It all seems kind of confusing.”

It was. Kind of. I had met Lauren Cody two years earlier at a party through my sister, she being cooler than I and knowing more people than I ever would. The first time I saw Lauren I was immediately smitten. She had plastic rimmed glasses that framed blue eyes that would make poets want to write using every cliché they knew; they were really pretty. She had curly brown hair that defied gravity for the most part and on her cheek she had three freckles that, according to her, made a backward ‘J’ though I never really saw it. Strangely she never referred to it as an ‘L’ which seemed vastly more logical. Finally, she had one of the most incredible bodies my young eyes had seen. It was quite nice. After our initial introductions her first words to me were ‘smell my hands.’ I did and it didn’t seem as strange then as it does now. After we got over her hands the conversation made its way to literature where we compared authors. I was a fan of Bukowski while she was well read in most of the American and British canon thus sparking my inferiority complex. Eventually we got to music, specifically Modest Mouse and we agreed that we must have looked like the wallflowers at that particular party and that we indeed were like black Cadillacs outside a funeral. We went on several extended dates and I learned she had a boyfriend which was slightly off-putting but I’d never let that stop me before and after a brief courting period and the dropping of her boyfriend she was mine. We dated for two years and all was well and I, as I have found out time and time again, do not do well when all is well. Absolutely nothing was wrong in our relationship but I began to get itchy. My brother had just gotten engaged and through that I could see my window of singledom was rapidly closing. I still had youthful looks and whether they were good or bad I wanted to take advantage of them while I still could. The break up itself was rough. It lasted about two hours in a parking lot of a church in my car. So bad. There was crying and yelling and near violence and it was all the very worst degree of unpleasant. I eventually took her home and she proceeded to call her parents and all her friends so that everyone knew to hate me, which I can’t really complain about having done it to myself. I went home, turned my phone off and went to sleep at some point. The next morning brought a slight sense of freedom and feelings of impending doom. We had nearly all the same friends and were working in the same goddamn place so things were not going to be easy no matter where I went. I called her and we ironed things out with more rational thoughts and words, less profanity. I think after some explaining she could see that we were very close to being married and that was possibly the furthest thing from where I wanted to be. We determined that we would not try to make things anymore awkward than they had to be and decided to strive towards friendship while maybe seeing other people at the same time. At that point I should have known that things would eventually blow up, good or bad. Possibly both. Probably just bad. But I was young and naïve and found confidence in something about myself of what nature I still am not sure. The call ended and I breathed and all seemed relatively good. It was then that I decided to write a novel in an attempt to have a record of what I’d done wrong and to whom I did it.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t really working. We’re doing the stereotypical ‘seeing other people’ thing.” I nonchalantly said while grabbing a beer and sitting back to meditate on my newfound lack of relationship obligations.

“How’s your novel coming?”

“Shitty.” And it was.