In the spirit of the season, I’m re-posting some chapters from my first ever novel.  It’s rough and it really does require an extensive rewrite.  I had intended to revisit it this fall but my work and book about real life in the music business has eclipsed it’s relative priority for now.  I will do the rewrite, as it is a labor of love and I believe the concept to be sound and compelling and it scared the fuck out of me to write it.  If you care to, the entire work is available here at brainspank under the category “Man In Picture”.  It does gain speed and flesh as the story grows.  Trust me, it doesn’t suck, it just needs work.  I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

Man in picture.

February 18, 2008 – 1:10 am It was interesting. Fascinating. Kinda compelling.

I had fun with it.

For awhile.

Sometimes, it was like picking at a scab or the tongue constantly probing a sore in the mouth.

Still, enigmatic in the most consumate of ways.

Until he was standing over my bed on a silent night, when some sense caused me to open my eyes.

I think I first noticed him on a movie poster. Outside a shopping mall. One of those faux shelters for public transportation. Maybe on the side of a bus.

I remember thinking, after clocking his countenance out of the corner of my consciousness, that’s one creepy motherfucker. In the background of one of those visually exploding advertisements for some inspid action movie. He registered only after the fact, in my mind’s eye.

Weird.

Time passed.

I swear I saw him wearing sunglasses in a potato chip ad on the back of a comic book. I don’t really read them anymore, but I’ll thumb through them when I come across a display.

Not long after, he was an extra in a cell phone commercial on TV. I wondered at how many times I’d watched that one before I noticed him.

Tall, pale. Gaunt. Always seeming to stare right at me.

Then, he was pictured on packaging for disposable razors.

Then again, in the very back of an advertisement for a new amusement park ride on a plastic fast food cup. I’ve always kept those cups. They hold a lot and it doesn’t matter what happens to them. They make excellent mini trash receptacles for a coffee or bedside table in the apartment of a single male.

Didn’t hang on to that one.

I would catch a glimpse of him walking opposite me while driving. Of course, I looked back and checked my mirrors. Of course, nothing.

He had large front teeth, maybe buck toothed. Red hair in a sort of crew cut flat top. Pale blue eyes that were unbelievably bloodshot.

I could only imagine all these companies hiring him for these ads must have thought he was kinda goofy and cool somehow, they were infusing their shit with character or quirkiness, or something.

I thought he was scary as fuck.

He started to appear in my dreams. Still pretty innocuous, but more overt. Winking, saying hello to me. That sort of thing.

He kept showing up in different places.

In the audience on a talk show.

Blackjack dealer in Vegas once.

One day, he was pumping gas a couple islands over at a Shell station.

Early seventies GTO. It was green. He pulled out very slow.

I walked through a mall and saw him going down an escalator on a lower level grinning up at me before he looked down, sprinted the last few moving steps and disappeared.

He always bolts or turns away when I see him. He knows me.

Obviously.

He said nothing. When he placed his index finger on my sternum ever so gently, I swear I could smell dirt and grease under a long nail. He said nothing but looked right at me. Not through me, but at me. The sliding door to my balcony was open, wind clattered the vertical blinds. I could smell gasoline.

He grinned; a rictus affording massive and misshapen incisors. He began to drool, then sucked it back violently. He blew air past his lips and walked away, away from my bed and out my front door. I heard him close it quietly behind him.

Now I get phone calls at work and on my cell. HEY MIKEY IT’S ME JERRY!! Or, ANTWON!! Or, WILLIAM!!

It freezes me. I know it’s him before it rings, if I don’t answer the goddamn thing, he’ll leave a voice mail and I’ll be absolutely compelled to listen to it. So I try to take it on the chin and then hang up. Get it over with. I know when it’s him.

Get this, he always wears brown corduroy pants, blue suede Puma Clydes, a maroon t-shirt under a leather biker jacket and he’s pigeon chested. Yeah, it’s all lopsided and the fit of his leather coat emphasizes it. His shoulders are narrow and he’s very tall. Sinewy and long limbed. A glance at his hands tells that one of them would kill you if it got you by the throat.

About a week ago, I was at Starbucks waiting for my unsweetened iced crack and he was backing out the door and firing a gun at me with his thumb and index finger. I pissed my pants. I’m pretty sure no one noticed.

I had to go home. I was late to work. The boss gave me the look and pointed out my shitty performance lately. I nodded and apologized.

I don’t sleep much anymore. I’ve begun to obsess about pigs. They scare the shit out of me. Are you aware of how smart they are? They will eat any motherfucking thing. And we eat them.

This is bad.