alright, so i've been working on this piece of writing, and so far this is kind of just like the 'prologue.' i've got a bunch more that i plan on writing, and hopefully it'll turn into something quite big. so read (it is quite long though), and give me some criticism.
I wasn't even sure if submissions to literary magazines needed a title page, but I made one anyways. Hand written, because I wanted to make sure my name was on it, and my type writer couldn't produce a font big enough to suffice as, what I thought was, a proper title page font. On the last page of my story, I had even included my phone number. Just incase some other magazines read it, loved it, and just had to have a copy. Plus, I didn't have an e-mail for contact, so a phone number would just have to do.
The copies of the story that I was shipping out were anything but perfect. I had to talk a business woman into making copies in her office, and then I had to pay her twenty dollars for it later. Twenty dollars that I silently hoped I wouldn't need to pay the rent. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that the woman had probably read the story as she copied it, and no doubt she laughed at it. I wasn't making enough money to pay for food, rent, and a computer. So, I used the same typewriter that my dad used to crank out essay papers when he was in college. The lines were uneven, from me rolling the paper out, applying white-out to my mistakes, and then trying to get it lined up properly again. It never worked.
I figured it would be retyped though, and that the magazines would not care.
For the hundredth time since I rolled the last page of my story, also the one including Emily's tragic death, I gave my copy a final shake and set it down on top of a pile of papers so I would be able to find it later.
Carefully, I gathered my treasures under my arm, and blindly slipped my shoes on, not bothering to tie them up. There was a mailbox right outside of my shitty apartment building anyways. My heart was thumping hard in my chest, and I realized that these envelopes would be leaving me, much like my Emily did months ago. Only this time, I was certain of their destination.
I winced as I was welcomed outside by a sharp blast of a car horn, and made my way across the sidewalk to the mailbox. More like shuffled though, ensuring that I wouldn't trip over my own feet and send my works of art scattering under the feet of thousands of New York City pedestrians. One by one, I fed the envelopes into the slot. When I was down to the last one, I held it in both of my hands, pressed a soft kiss to the front of it, and dropped it in with the rest, wishing for the best.
The month that followed sending out the envelopes, included me smoking a lot more than I usually do, and me interrogating the mailman daily. Even just two days after I had sent them out, I was hoping for some sort of response. Something that would let me know that my writing was either total shit, or total brilliance, and they'd just love to publish my work in their magazine.
I'm also not going to lie, I was hoping that I'd get some Congratulations letters, along with a check for a few bucks. I was barely hanging on living on my own, and the checks that I still got from my parents at the age of twenty-two, weren't helping me out all that much. Not to mention, I was also hoping that sooner or later they would send me a letter saying that a long-lost relative had died, and that I would be getting a large inheritance. After living in a crowded apartment, an abandoned farm house, and this hell hole that I was currently living in: I needed a home. And I refused to move back in with my parents.
Three weeks since I sent them out, and I was finally getting responses. My first one, was a rejection letter. It felt like when I was eighteen, and actually cared about school, and getting into the college that all of my classmates were getting into. By the seventh rejection letter from a magazine, I was at the point of giving up. Just like I did with any form of post-graduation education. Three more letters came, telling me that I had potential, but that they weren't looking for something as apathetic and tragic as I had sent them. Ten letters, and five more to come.
The eleventh, was another rejection. Twelve, and thirteen were also rejection letters. Fourteen finally came with a 'congratulations,' and it was a locally run zine that I had sent a story to for the hell of it. No money, but pride swelled in my chest. I imagine that a firefighter saving a baby from a burning building felt the same. Plus, there had to be at least some people who read the zine.
Fifteen, took a month and a half to send anything back to me. When I finally saw the crisp white envelope on top of a pile of bills that probably wouldn't get paid, I snatched it up. First, I held it up to the light, to see if there was any 'regrets' or 'congratulations,' but I couldn't see, and half the lights in my apartment were burnt out anyways.
With shaking hands, and a cigarette clenched between my lips, I ripped the envelope open and quickly unfolded the paper. I quickly scanned over the 'Dear Mr. Garrett' and went straight to where my fate lay.
It was being published. In a fucking magazine that was printed not just in the NYC area, where only wannabe indie kids and hipsters would read it, but one where anyone into the literary arts would read it. I let out a loud, 'WOO!' before I smoothed out my paper, and did my best to stick it on my grimy refrigerator. I read over it a dozen more times while it just hung there, making mental note to check the news stands on January 4th, and that a check for fifty dollars was coming my way.
All I was asking for was a little bit of luck, and it finally came to me.
A week later, a thin girl dressed warmly in a black peacoat and scarf showed up on my doorstep, holding a stack of Xeroxed pages. Like I had said, of hipster fashion. I wondered if she was living the life that I did just a few months ago. She looked down to the address that was scribbled across the top of the page, and then up to me, her eyes widening slightly. I'm sure that when she read it, she wasn't expecting some twenty-year-old kid living in a shitty apartment, and looked and smelled like he hadn't showered in days. At least she'd be accurate if that was what she saw when she looked at me.
"Are you Weston Garrett?" she asked, holding out the stapled papers. Even if I wasn't Weston Garrett, she probably would've kept the papers held out to me until I took one. I knew these kids, they were vicious. They also wanted everyone to read their crap, and then pay them for it, just to produce more of it. 'Feed the Underground Seed.'
"Yeah," he said, licking over my chapped lips as I took the zine from her and examined the front page. The title was scribbled across the top, no doubt written in sharpie. While the front design was of a seed, a tiny sprout coming out of it with a mixed tape on the end.
"So you wrote 'Emily?'" she asked, watching as I flipped through the pages, searching for my story. There it was. Ten pages of copied glory, my phone number still attached at the end.
"What?" I asked, then registered the question and answered, "Oh, yeah."
The girl just nodded and rocked back on the heels of her written on converse. I didn't know if this girl was planning to leave my door step anytime soon, so I leaned against the frame of the door and scanned over my story.
"It seemed like he loved her," she said quietly, as if she didn't want to scare me. It was then that she looked like she was about to run away. As if I would grab her and pull her into the world of dust and clutter behind me.
"Excuse me?" I asked, and this girl probably thought that I was not only a smelly freak, but a smelly freak with a hearing problem. Not the case, though I could've easily blamed it on too many shows that were too loud. The ones in shitty clubs. Shows like the ones this girl probably enjoyed.
"I said," she started out loudly, before going back into a normal speaking voice, making sure she held my attention from the pages in my hands, "it seemed like he loved her. Which is why I was totally confused as to why you killed her off. I mean, yeah, she got hit by a bus and everything, but it's fucking fiction. Anyone could be resuscitated in fiction."
I stared at the girl, and scratched absently at my stubbly cheek. I let out a long breath, which probably smelled like instant coffee and cigarettes, and I shook my head. "Little girl," I said, "there's no such thing as a happy ending." With that, I shut the door.
A few days later, after I had rang in 2008 by myself, January 4th rolled around, and I was finally able to pull on my battered brown jacket, and my own tattered pair of converse. These shoes had carried me for five years, and they were finally carrying me to a newsstand to pick up an actual publication. An actual publication with my work in it.
Again, my hands were shaking. I suppose it was a nervous habit. One that I had picked up from being around her for long periods of time. Though her shaking was often pill induced, I shook with her for lack of anything comforting to offer her. I arrived at the newsstand, my fingers scrunched onto the five dollars that I had found on the street a few days prior.
I wasn't homeless, but I lived like I was.
My eyes scanned over the magazines. Over the headlines that claimed they could give any woman a smaller waist, and any man a bigger dick size. Finally, I found it tucked in the back corner. There was only a few copies, and while I knew that this was because the newsstand had only gotten a few copies, I liked to think that word had gotten out that I had been published, so everyone went out to buy one. I picked up the magazine, scanning through other stories, poems, and writing prompts, and finally came to my five pages of work.
I was a virgin to this, and I didn't know how to react. It even felt like my first time having sex. I was nervous, I was excited. And I had no idea what the fuck I was supposed to do now. Tell everyone around me that I had been published? Ask for it for free? Tell the owner of the stand that I would sign a copy for him for when I was famous?
I carried the magazine over to the old man who was running the stand, and held out my crumpled five dollar bill.
"Don't you need food or something?" he asked, and probably noticed my surprised expression before apologizing thoroughly. Though anyone else looking at my ripped jeans, five o'clock shadow, and hair that I hadn't cut in months would probably guess the same thing.
Again, I held out the five. "Look, man, I was published in here, and all I want is the damn magazine," he muttered out, wondering what he would do then.
"Published, eh?" he asked with a chuckle. To prove my point, I opened to the page of my story. "I was wondering why a young man like yourself would be buying a magazine like that .Not many people buy these. But since you're in it, just take it. And your ass better not be lying to me."
"I'd show you a drivers license if I could, sir," I grumbled. I muttered a thanks, before I was almost hit by a taxi crossing the street. I flipped the driver the bird, and carried on my way as I read and walked at the same time. I had done the same thing with the zine. Even though I read the story close to a thousand times before shipping it out, I was doing it again to make sure it didn't sound anymore retarded.
It was perfect, just to make myself sound a bit conceited. I was proud of it, and that was that. Fuck the man for thinking that I was some homeless man in need of reading material, and fuck him again for telling me that not many people bought them. There had to be some intellectual people in this city who would be willing to read something such as what I had written. Or what other various authors had written across the country.
When I got back up to my apartment, I kicked off my wet shoes, and kept my coat on. I was paying the minimal wage anyone could pay for an apartment in the city. Along with this, came shitty heat, rarely warm water, and faulty lighting. I lit a few of the candles on the coffee table, and fell back onto the distressed couch, reading over my work. Again, and again. I realized that there was words I could've used but I didn't. My incorrect punctuation, but was probably left there due to the editors thinking it was intentional, and there was also an illustration of a crying blonde girl. Emily had brown hair.
The phone number seemed to be a hit, though. I was starting to get calls from people I had never met in places that I had never heard of. All wanting to know the same thing; why was Emily killed? It would've made the most perfect love story if Emily had stayed alive. Again, Emily was dead to me. So she would be dead to the world. And everyone, except for her friends and family, would know that it was her. These strangers had no idea.
Still, no calls from the people I had been hoping from. No impressed editors, or news hosts wanting some sort of interview with the man who had produced a short story legend. I did get an interesting call, and when I answered it, my heart stopped beating.
"Weston Garrett, I can't believe you fucking killed me off!" she exclaimed into the phone with an incredulous tone to her voice.
Her. Emily. My Emily. The Emily that had up and left in the middle of the night months ago. My mind was reeling to say the least. The Emily that I had killed in my story. Emily Hadwell.
"Emily?!" I croaked out, my throat going dry.
"You know it's me, you asshole," she muttered out. I could tell by her tone, and the use of her favorite insult, that she had not changed at all.
This was the first time I had heard from her in months. Though while most people tend to forget their ex-lovers, and try to force their image and voice out of their mind, it was so hard for me to forget. After all, she had taken up two years of my life. Quite possibly two of the most beautiful years of my life. Instantly, a mental image of her face was conjured up in my mind, along with the sad tone that her voice took on when she'd sing me to sleep. It could be the happiest song, but she would still make it sound melancholy.
"How'd you get this number?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows. In the farmhouse, we didn't even have electricity, let alone a phone. Then I looked to the magazine and remembered the printed number.
"You put it at the bottom of your story, asshole," she said with venom, and I could even mouth her own words as she spoke them. "Obviously you're not still at the farmhouse. Glad to hear you finally left that hellhole."
"Well duh," I said, rolling my eyes, "that place was a joke, and I was tired of living like a poor man." Of course, this was a lie. I was very much still a poor man.
"You seemed to like it quite a lot," she said, and I could tell without seeing her that she shrugged, and had probably flicked some of her dark brown hair off her shoulder. Probably bare, since she was rarely wearing a t-shirt or sweater, even in the winter. She was telling the damned truth. I could've dealt living illegally in that farmhouse for the rest of my life. Though without her in it, it just wasn't the same for me after she had left. "Now tell me, why the fuck did you kill me off?"
"What did you want me to do, keep you alive?" I asked in a dry tone, though I was actually surprised that she had even read the article. "Where'd you even read it at?"
"'Feed the Underground Seed,'" she said, talking about it as if it was the grandest publication of all. She was two years younger than I was, and I couldn't help but imagine she was still in the scene. Not like I was much older than her or much higher above her. Then I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows, because I didn't even know that she was still in the city.
"You're still in the city?" I asked curiously, propping my feet up on the coffee table, careful of the magazine, and careful of the candles that I still had lit. Emily had been a high school dropout at the age of sixteen, and then took to hitch hiking to whatever city she could land herself in. Eventually we met at one of the indie music clubs, and the rest is history.
"Yeah, I'm living with Kite and Art," she said absently, and I could tell that she was probably sitting there, bored. When we lived in the farmhouse, Kite and Art were frequents. Two art students at NYU who couldn't get over 'how tight' the farmhouse really was. Kite was a girl, who got her name from being high a good majority of the time. Also the one who introduced Emily to drugs at the innocent age of seventeen. Art, was a guy, who wore pants that he was probably sewn into, and glasses with big boxy frames. I wasn't even sure if Art was his real name, or if it was just because he was an art student himself.
"Oh," I said quietly, pursing my lips together a bit, at a loss for words. Before I could even help it, I had blurted out the question I was longing to ask for months and months, had I been given the opportunity to speak to her, "why did you leave me?"
There was a light laugh on the other end of the line, and I couldn't tell if it was because she was high, or because my question sounded so unlike the anti-romance man I was, and still am. Even though love was something she taught me, showed me, and gave me. "Oh, Weston," she said with a light sigh, "I think we'll have to meet for coffee to go over that one."
I wish I had the strength at that moment to tell her no. Tell her I was dating a model who was taller than I was, had nicer tits than hers, and actually washed her hair on a daily basis. Instead, I asked her what time. Three o'clock the next day. Done deal.
After hanging up the phone, I turned it over a few times in my hand before setting it down. I cursed myself for being so weak. For not telling her about my imaginary model, or at least tell her that I hated her so much, and that's why she was now a dead girl in a hospital bed at the end of my story. I felt around for my cigarettes, finally located them in the cushions of the couch and lit one.
Our relationship was so twisted and fucked up sometimes, that it almost seemed like a nightmare. Then again, it was probably the best real life dream that I had ever had.