The Life and Times of Hollis Irving. (tentative title)

This is the beginning of something - something I'm not too sure of but am sincerely interested in. The first bit needs to be lengthened and changed, but it's the direction I want to head in (with everyone's opinions of Hollis). We'll see. 

-----

Hollis Irving, he’s an explorer of the oldest sort, the kind that’s rare these days.

…and a lot of people have opinions of him.

There’s Rowan Miller, Hollis’ baby-faced, frazzled best friend, for one. Often, of Hollis Irving, he’ll say:

“What a fraud,” With a sloppy hand pushing through his messy chestnut hair, “But one of the most brilliant sort.”

Then there’s Mylan Irving, Hollis’ much older half-brother who’s lost his soul on in stocks and bonds.

“Head in the clouds,” He insists often, a cluck of his tongue, “Too old for this poppycock.”

-----------

These days, Hollis Irving is mostly found in his workshop somewhere in a city that’s sort of like New York but isn’t, not in this world. He’s got his head buried in a book and glasses perched over caramel eyes, making him seem owlish and forever curious.

Rowan, this day, slams into the workshop, messenger bag stuffed to the brim with papers and stomping his scuffed shoes as loudly as he can. Rowan is as loud as an elephant marching through a library, but it doesn’t faze Hollis, not in the slightest. In fact, Hollis is still folded over a book, which is spread out over a giant map of a country that’s much like the United States, but may not be, not in this world.

“I’ve found it,” He says, dropping his books and bags and overcoat onto the other end of the map. From the mess he procures two tablets of paper, bound by the kind of ribbon you curl on presents. One falls apart upon it’s descent to the table’s surface, and only when page 143 of this tablet flutters into Hollis’ line of sight does he look up.

“This is page 143 of the missing Chambers manuscript,” Hollis says, smoothing the edges of the yellowed paper out. When its’ corner refuses to lay flat he uses the bind of his own book to smoosh it down.

“Yes, yes,” Rowan says, and begins the not-so-careful process of collecting the mess.

“Rowan Miller, this manuscript has been missing for approximately sixty four point two years. It’s a legend.” He’s pushed his large glasses to rest on the top of his carefully slicked back raven hair, taking another page of the work to his nose to sniff it powerfully.

It smells like damp earth and cigar smoke.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Rowan grins wolfishly, for the first time in a long time. He’s set the papers back in some semblance of order, but it’s not neat enough to erase the frown turning the corners of Hollis’ lips down.

He focuses on the paper, instead, and again sniffs it. This time, it has the heady scent of wood embedded somewhere in it’s folds.

“Where?” He asks, sliding the un-damaged manuscript from under a pile of hodge-podge. Tilting his head down, his glasses slide back down over his eyes and he pushes the manuscript, still bound, close, and then even closer, to his face. 

“In a cedar box buried two-point-three miles away from the vineyard, under an old half-cocked revolver stuffed with pigeon pellets.”

Hollis’ eyes are wide and curious behind his large-framed glasses, but his tilted eyebrow expresses the sarcasm these misconvey.

“Symbolism?”

“Perhaps,” Rowan huffs, licking a thumb to sort through the pages in his hands, “But of what sort?”

Hollis watches as Rowan takes a seat on the stool beside him and uses a free arm to shove everything over to accommodate the task at hand. In dismay, Hollis watches as his yard stick and set of matte and metallic colored pencils get dislocated in the process, hitting the floor with a ceremonious crash. He leans back to watch as they scatter helplessly across the floor, rolling under drafting tables and bookcases to sit among the dust bunnies and mice droppings. Rowan doesn’t even seem to notice.

 

/end for now.

Pedestrian

At the corner of 42nd and 7th - one of those quickly, rapidly changing corners in which it's sometimes easier to get lost in the blur of faces; of tourists and commuters and businessmen alike, there's a flash of familiarity, two eyes that meet yours (ones that you'd forgotten about, some days, but strike you immediately).

There's snow - it's drifting slowly, silently to the ground, landing on your jacket- ears- cheeks-nose. You can feel it's sting as it melts away into nothing, water collecting on your skin and cooling, sending a chill straight down to your bones, the kind that takes several blankets and at least a cup of tea to settle it away.

You're standing, staring, one earbud in, one out, words slipping and sliding out of your mouth, sounds stringing along into sentences, and you pray to God you're making sense (You're not).

You're late to work, to your life, the one that's here and now, but he's standing across from you, reminding you of the life you once had. Suddenly, there's memories resurfacing and he's smiling at you the way he had once. He's got snow clinging to his hair, which is shaggy and unkempt- how you once liked it, lifetimes ago.

It's difficult, you know, to stare at this stranger, who's now telling you lots of pretty things about his life ("My script is being produced - this small theater downtown, it's going to be great -"). You're watching the snow melt on his skin; flecks of ice trickling onto his cheeks, making them brighter, somehow. The flakes stick to his eyelashes, his lips (You used to love kissing) -  his favorite finger-less gloves. 

You're so lost in his face, in his details, you've lost sight of the Big Picture. At this moment you're so half in-love with him again that you'd forgotten all of his faults, stupidities. You want to collapse into his arms, fade into the past, cling to his jacket and bury your fingers into the material, breathe him in.

Very quickly you realize he's talking at you, not to you, words pretty and hollow and so awful and distant. You want to remind him that you'd once seem him cry, and that he'd broken your heart - (no need to be so formal) - he's seen it all, and that this is petty and gross. He should know you see right through it (maybe he does and doesn't care).

"That's so great," You hear yourself say, on autopilot. Cue: Tilt of the head, cute smile, nod  (inside you hate and you cry, a lot).

A snowflake lands on your nose, the 'walk' sign clicks over - you need to go uptown - back to your life, the one you live now - the one he really knows nothing about. You share an awkward hug, and you squeeze tight. He most likely interprets it as longing, but it's more of hatred (I'm letting you go now, the subtext reads) of what he'd done to you once. 

You push the earbud back into your ear as you walk away, the music becoming a soundtrack to your daily commute. He's gone now, back in the past where he belongs. Days later, you'll forget you saw him, really. 

He'd become nothing more then a pedestrian, a face in the crowd of the New York City tourists, businessmen, locals.

Perhaps one day you'll see him again - and he won't be as recognizable in the masses. Perhaps you'll brush by one day and not even look up, not even notice his eyes as he watches you blur past him, well on your way. Perhaps.

don't put your faith in my heart...

Short story, untitled right now. Possibility for UEL application, perhaps: 

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If he stands any closer he'd be touching you, and that's not something you want or need right now, not at all. Check out the way he's cutting the paper, voice gravelly and deep, with a sweet accent that is partly southern and mostly all Nawlins' yat, no 'ar's in words, just 'aw', like "part", but it's actually 'pawt'. He's got this accent as he explains with paint-stained fingers what he's doing (cutting colored paper into magnificent figures of opulent trees and rotting gravestones).

"It's nothin' like what we got here, in our cemetaries," He's saying to you as he continues to cut away. Around you, tourists are brushing past adorning fanny packs and whining children with sticky hands, "We got stand-up tombs, becuz of the water levels and such, it's surreal, really."

You're mesmerized by his tanned fingers and paint splattered long sleeves and the warmth he's radiating off onto you by his proximity. His name is Clyne, he told you when you'd approached him, wallet in hand to buy one of the plentiful paintings he's got strapped to the fences surrounding Jackson Square. In the near-distance, the St. Louis cathedral is being white-washed by big black men in overalls who are whistling better than some people can sing. 

Clyne's paying no attention, not at all, standing on the corner beside you as he talks, explaining something or other, looking like he's stepped out of a 40's photograph, hair tucked under a fedora, baggy sleeves rolled to the elbows, and suspenders sliding down his thin shoulders. 

"And, uh, the storm rolled in, right, and here I was, tucked into this uh, ball," He's barely distracted when a mother-type, toddler slung over her hip, wanders over with one of his least-appealing most-touristy painting in her hand, "That's twenty-five."

She palms over a twenty and five singles and he reaches one-handed into his back pocket to tuck it away, not even glancing at her, not once. You feel like an idiot because you're still there, hanging to his every word and feeling awe-inspired and like a tacky dolt for being enamored with him. He's a foreign being to you, so far away from the artists you met at your liberal, artsy college that he's intriguing, haunting, beautiful.

"And, anyway, yeah so me and Shea, he's over on the west side, down more by Decatur," He continues, cutting away. The paper is taking shape - long spindly branches and knotted wood emerging from old computer paper collected off of the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, all being delicately cut by a child's pair of scissors, "We ran for whateva we could, you know, climbed high onto the rooves of warehouses of the business district. Ate lots of weird nutrition bars and shared a bottle of stoli and a jug of apple juice for three days until we could walk the streets again."

He looks up at you then, the girl who's hair is plastered to her face because of the 85 degree heat, the girl with the touristy-tee shirts balled into a plastic bag; the girl still clinging onto his every word, and he smiles. His teeth are white, albeit crooked in some parts, and his eyes squint at you, which distorts his oddly-handsome face (everything's mis-proportioned and yet it just works) because of the sun, which you can feel beating against your back.

"What's your story?" He asks, honestly, and you don't know what to say. You're here to do service work, actually, to help rebuild New Orleans, to make yourself feel better for being such a lazy asshole who's spoiled and too-comfortable in her Northeastern liberal arts college, surrounded by pretentious assholes who don't have the dime of talent Clyne has.

"Just visiting," You say instead of everything that had just been running through your head. He smirks, more glimpses of white teeth under lips that you know must be salty-sweet because of the sweat mixed with the mint gum he's chewing on.

You suddenly just want to kiss him, because he's a lot of amazing in this light. He nods.

"Layla, you said yo' name was?" He says, his blue eyes meeting yours for the first time. You just nod in response, feeling a surge of something, just something, that he remembered. He sticks out his free hand, and you slide your palm into his and shake his hand tightly. You can feel the dried paint and the callouses and you wonder what it'd feel like on your face, or neck.

"I know I already introduced myself, but I'm Clyne," He says, and you smile back at him this time, feeling the blush spread across your face as he lets go of your hand.

------

Later, there's wine, lots of it, and Clyne's got a guitar and you're sitting in some warehouse with a bonfire raging and lots of other people who also look like they've just stepped out of a '40's portrait. Clyne's introduced you to the lot of them but you're terrible with names sober, so being drunk just makes it hopeless all together. You're not really concerned with them, though, because you've only got eyes for him, despite the blonde pin-up type with the crazy tattoos who's glaring at you from across the fire. You're drunk and you think he's mysterious and he's survived Hurricane Katrina on a bottle of stoli, nutrition bars and apple juice and that's just fucking insane, really. He's also all-kinds of talented, strumming away expertly at the beat-up acoustic in his hands, and he's already promised to show you his studio later, when it got quieter. 

By the flicker of the firelight he looks much more beautiful then he did in the bright New Orleans sunlight, and across the fire, he catches your eye and winks at you, a slow smile crawling across his lips.

-----

You end up from his studio (which isn't much more than a sectioned off portion of the warehouse drowning in old-sheets used as drop cloths and half-painted blocks of wood) to his bedroom (a small room tucked in the back), and you tumble into bed with him, finding out he tastes more salty-sweet-smoky then just salty-sweet because between this afternoon and now in addition to smoking a cigarette he's also eaten spicy-gumbo and smoked sausage (a meal you'd shared with him on one of the corners). He kisses drunkenly, and his hair tickles your forehead when he takes off his hat, and he's unbelievable in bed - more concerned about you then him, really. He kisses like he means it and whispers a mixture of sweet and dirty things in your ear, effectively making you blush and then flush almost right after each other. By the time he gets your shirt off you've already laughed out loud and cried, and you are so ready for the night ahead. So ready.

----

By day, the room is nothing more than a box-spring mattress on the floor with a surprisingly clean comforter and dark sheets. The wood floor is paint-spattered and there are records, unopened paint tubes, and half-drawn sketches strewn about. Clyne himself is laying on his stomach, a pillow tucked under his head and mouth slack-jawed. You spend awhile getting up, getting dressed, waiting for him to budge, but he doesn't - apparently he's a deep sleeper. 

Instead of waking him, you slip your sneakers on and scribble your name and number onto a scrap of paper found on the floor. 

You kiss his parted lips quickly and tip-toe out of the room, feet shuffling silently through the warehouse where his friends are still sleeping in various bouts of undress on the floor in front of the smoldering fire. The only one awake is Tye, a performance artist that you remember did a wonderful impression of Kermit the Frog the night before, who's smoking a cigarette outside when you tip-toe out. He smiles and waves.

----

The next day and the next and the next you work side by side others tearing down sheetrock and emptying out cupboards of forgotten teacups filled to the brim with stagnant, putrid water from when the Lower Ninth was under drowning, and you barely think of Clyne as you hear the stories of others. He's there, somewhere in the back of your head, the beautiful boy with the suspenders and smirk, but he's not much in the grand scheme of things, not when you watch a woman break into tears as she explains her daughters cry when it rains these days and that she's lost her whole family except her older brother, who's so petrified that the levees will break again that he refuses to come home.

-----

The last day, you and the group of students you came with make one last trip to the Quarter and from across Decatur, you can see Clyne as he cuts away at his paper, continuously making art. He's got a soft smile on his lips, like he's in on a secret no one else is, and he doesn't notice you at all. 

You dig your camera out of your bag and snap a picture of him just to remember him by.

Later, that picture will get printed because it's so surreal - a twenty-something year old artist, dressed to the nines in his slacks, button up shirt, suspenders and fedora looking like he'd been caught in the wrong century. It'll end up on your wall next to Clyne's art, which stands out as utterly remarkable against the ugliness of the walls in your room, and people will inquire lots about both photo and portrait, and you'll explain your trip to New Orleans as clinically as possible.

You won't tell them about how he kissed you so sweetly, spoke so dirtily in your ear, confided between moments that he both loved and hated what he was - nothing more than a street artist in the shadows of a fallen city. You won't tell anyone that while you hated your more traditional life he hated his own non-traditional one and that you both felt remarkably connected in your inability to change who you were, of what you've become by the roads you're ending up on.

He won't call you, but that's okay, because you'll never forget him, and you'll never forget what it was like to walk down those streets, metallic Mardi Gras beads seemingly melting off of the trees everywhere, like cold, colored icicles misplaced in time and place. You won't forget the stories, the tears, the teacups or the mold-ridden walls. You won't forget the slick, sweet/salty of his kisses and whispers in your ear:

"It's haunting, ain't it? This city? This dead city? Makes you think remawkable things can happen to you, sometimes...but only sometimes."

His laugh was just simply musical.

------

/end.

Fan Fiction; The Art Of.

I won't stand by the fact that this is the correct thing to do right now, with being the sad, introvert I've been lately. I've been hiding behind the fact that I have to get up super early to stay in and watch bad tv and obsess, but that's my common, ritualistic way of hiding from reality, I guess.

I haven't been writing all that much  - I fan fic, here and there, some Chad/Ryan HSM slash, a fic for the JuC Swap, two little vignettes for Spring Awakening fan fic.

(See:

Melchior spent time, time, time - just wondering, mourning. Not even the grass under his fingertips or the sound of Wendla's whispers in his ears could take him away from the time he needed to get over such a thing. On the good days, he could see the endearing mess that was Moritz behind his eyelids - the hair that never stayed flat, the worried gaze, the flash of teeth betrayed by a weak smile. On the bad days - he could barely see him behind those same eyelids, could barely recollect the sound of his voice.

This day, Melchior's eyes barely remained open as he sifted through his subconscious for one thing - just one thing to hold on to. Memories, moments slipped through his fingers like sand, and when his eyes opened to the cloud-laden sky plenty of moments later, the wetness on his cheeks were hardly the raindrops falling from the hidden stars.)

Fan fiction is a weird thing, really, because what is it, really, other than practice in the art of stealing character's you yourself weren't creative enough to come up with? I did a lot, a LOT of writing for Rent, for a couple of years - in fact, I have over 40 short stories in the realm of Jonathan Larson's bohemians - I took them and pushed them farther than he ever did, and in ways that probably made him turn over in his early grave. It was an exercise, really, a motion to better myself as a writer, but in turn, spoiled me because I can care less about creating my own. Something about me makes it difficult for me to create lives, peoples, characters from scratch. Instead, I've got a pile of uninteresting characteristics and lots of details that really aren't important in the slightest, not at all. 

I was always drawn to Rent, mostly because of the characters - not the music, like most - and probably because underlying it all, there's this sense of angst, heartbreak and loss even in the light-hearted aspects of the show. I will not hesitate in saying that show, those characters, saved my life. If anyone was going to buy into it's "life's too short, no day but today" bullshit, it's going to be me. It saved my life because I was, am broken-hearted, weak and simple sometimes. I hurt a lot, especially these days, and then, I did too, and those characters, while nothing like myself really (except maybe Mark - I relate to him, a lot, sort of) really gave me something to grasp at.

/messed up ramblings of someone who's life is a mess.

so, i've written a lot for Rent, the fandom, and the other people who love the characters as i do. i've killed them, made them live, ripped them apart, mis-matched them, and pasted them back together.

ie:

Personal Silence

It would be quiet, sometimes, Mark with his journal in his lap, scarf snaked around his neck as he took turns looking down into the street below and scribbling into his leatherbound notebook.

The world would sort of continue around him during these times, Roger climbing in and out of the window, often sitting beside him, Indian style, as he plucked at his guitar and sang a few notes. Mark would peek at the guitarist from the corner of his eye, observing the long fingers gliding over the strings and the long hair in green eyes.

He’d be gone not that much later, and Collins would climb out, lighting a cigarette and smoking dazedly, or Mimi would scramble up or down the fire escape using her own personal entrance to their loft, heels clicking on the metal staircase. She’d often grin at Mark, or lean over and kiss him on the cheek in her way of saying hello, but words were never exchanged, and never needed to be.

Maureen would sometimes sit out there with him, sketch pad and pencil in hand as she planned a protest or doodled. Even Joanne would appear at times, using the fire escape to escape Maureen when she would pick a fight. Inside, they would both hear Maureen talking in rapid burst to Mimi or Roger or Collins or when Angel was alive, Angel, complaining about Joanne loudly. Joanne would exchange looks with Mark, take a deep breath, and finally climb back through the window, ready to re-face the competition.

Often though, when Collins was away, and Mimi was at work, and Roger was practicing with his band, and Maureen was doing God-Knows-What, Mark would sit alone, missing the background hum that he’d come to know as his personal silence.

And when this hum drifted away one by one and Mark’s silence became dark and black and much like the silence the rest of the world was used to, he’d cry, because life would never be the same, not anymore.

/end Rent fan fiction.

Peace. For now.