Sinister: Losing Hope, an excerpt from a work in progress, not to mention list abuse...

[Andre Alessi]

Heya folks,

Cunning Andre here.  I'm using my schneaky second email addy because I 
wanted to try something a little different.  As some of you know, I'm in the 
middle of writing my Great New Zealand Novel, called "Losing Hope".  Below 
is a rough draft of the first chapter, intended for your reading pleasure 
(or annoyance, depending on how much you dislike complex sentence 
structures.)  Feel free to offer criticism (or insults) via email, either 
through this addy or my Uni one
( aale002 at ec.auckland.ac.nz )

As for complaints that this isn't really B&S content-well, you're right, in 
a sense.  BUT, I should point out that the narrator, while being loosely 
based upon myself, has been significantly informed by my listening of 
Tigermilk, to the point of almost _being_ Sebastian (maybe Sturan should sue 
for infringement?  :) ) Additionally, every word has been writen to the 
strains of B&S, which may quite possibly account for the more whimsical, 
dare I say "twee", characteristics of the piece. (Apologies in advance for 
the crappy layout, and the lack of italics, which would make some of the 
sentences make a little more sense than they otherwise do.)

Chapter One


An absence is not a thing to share your bed with.  As has often been pointed 
out, in crass pop songs and by the sly grins of drunkards, absences do not 
keep you warm at night.  But there is only so much room in one bed (even a 
super deluxe king-size bed bought as the result of some vague, atemporal 
anticipation), and absences are difficult things to push away.  They cling 
to you.  And what person in their right mind would try and compete with 
something that isn’t there for space in a bed with someone who doesn’t 
realise that both they and the bed they sleep in are haunted by an 
emptiness?

Well, I don’t know if they were in their right minds, but this story is a 
seemingly misguided attempt to answer that question.  (Rhetorical questions 
have always bugged the fuck out of me.  If you ask a question, expect an 
answer.)  Perhaps it’s also a kind of confession, I guess, an attempt at a 
peculiarly mundane redemption; but don’t expect juicy revelations or 
cringe-inducing, self-indulgent self-examination, because (and this is a 
secret storytellers don’t want you to know, so pay attention) it’s all made 
up.  Mostly.  And the bits that aren’t are mine to own, not yours.

Every story has to be about something, and this story is about Hope.  Not 
the idea, but the person.  Well, maybe it’s not about her but about her 
absence.  So maybe it is about Hope the Idea.  Or maybe it’s not even about 
Hope the Idea, but about me.  Or about my friends and how crazy they all 
are.  Or about the Big Questions: Life, Love, Lust, Longing, Loss, The 
Meaning Of It All (I couldn’t think of another L word, but “All” has two 
l’s, so that counts), or…

Well, it’s about something, I’m sure of it.  I just don’t know what.  I 
guess we’ll find out together.


Anyways, Hope.  A name portending great things.  An epic name, almost.  Does 
that make me the hero?   The only hero I’ve ever identified with was 
Odysseus, in the time before the Battle of Troy.  He really was quite happy 
just to stay at home with Penelope and Telemachus and plough the beach, but 
those crazy Greeks had other ideas.  Yet even when he found himself far from 
familiar lands, fighting for a cause he didn’t much care for, all he wanted 
was to go home.  Home.  There’s another magic word.  Maybe that’s what this 
story’s about.  It’s certainly not about the hero “getting the girl” 
(whatever that might mean.)

I met Hope at the end of my teenage years.  She was working as a daytime 
duty manager in a franchise bookstore, a dead-end job for English graduates 
and other oppressed minorities.  I had signed on as a counterperson as a way 
of answering my mother’s silent, nagging complacence and my own steadfast 
conviction that I was destined for great things someday.   I’d already been 
working there for a month before we met.

The most remarkable moments of your life seldom herald themselves before the 
fact, yet even now, six years later, the moment I saw Hope remains burned 
into the interior of my skull in every minute, mundane detail: the doorway 
to the tiny storeroom swinging open (to the left); the light bulb inside 
dark and unrevealing; the white of her blouse and the black of her skirt 
clinically leeching the tangibility of pale skin and red hair as she stooped 
to pick up a box of microwave cookery books; her smile and eyes calling me 
to respond; the spiky presence of Doug, the store manager, to the right of 
the door as his voice initiated an introduction to destiny…

It should go without saying that when Hope and I first met, there was no 
“spark”, no chemistry.  I wasn’t much of a lad at that point in my life, 
still adjusting to the dislocation from small town New Zealand to Auckland’s 
buzz, unsure of myself around women that hadn’t seen me hairless and naked; 
while she was recovering from the abrupt disintegration of a quiet but 
stable relationship.  We were workmates, often the only two staff members on 
during the days.  We’d also work many of the public holidays together, as we 
both lived within easy walking distance of the store, and had no social 
lives.  Such folk are the prey of the rosters of store managers.

Our work was seldom strenuous-a suburban bookstore makes its money after 
five p.m., not during the day.  In the fast-paced rat-race that is low-paid 
franchise management however, that fact brings a pressure of its own.  Her 
superiors would often remind Hope that her shifts were not archetypal 
examples of efficiency and profit, and she would pass such messages on to me 
(and whomever else might be working) in the form of half-hearted threats and 
breathed vulgarities.  (Perhaps now is a good time to mention that, for all 
Hope’s delicacy in appearance and demeanour, she could and did swear like a 
sailor.  Mostly around me, apparently, although I’m sure that’s just a 
coincidence.)

The days passed slowly, as they do when you’re waiting for nothing in 
particular.  Hope was, like most in the industry, entirely uninterested in 
reading, meaning that for us, interacting with customers was at best a 
diversion from putting those little price stickers on the backs of 
newly-received books.  And at worst? Well, the “service” industry would be 
filled with cheerful, polite, committed, creative people if not for the 
prevalence of a certain type of customer we like to refer to, obliquely, as 
“the problem customer.”

‘Excuse me, Miss, but I was in here the other day, and I bought this book…’ 
(displays the latest “Oprah’s Book Club” emotional paperweight.)

‘Yes?’ replies Hope, ‘Something wrong with it?’

‘Well, yes, in a manner of speaking.  You see, I asked you, and I distinctly 
remembered asking you, for a book that I would enjoy, and you recommended 
this…’ (shakes book like a cheap Taiwanese snowglobe, waits for significance 
of statement to settle upon the poor serving girl.)

Hope raises her right eyebrow dangerously.  ‘You didn’t like it?’

‘Ermm…’ (blushes deeply, swallows.)

‘I’m sorry, sir, but it’s not exactly store policy to offer refunds or 
exchanges after you’ve already read the book…’

‘Look, this book has far too much sex in it!  Sex everywhere!  And swearing 
all over the place.  Felt like I was reading Playboy or whatever.  Hardly 
appropriate for a widower my age, is it?  Couldn’t finish the damn thing, I 
was so embarrassed!’ (rocks back and forth on heels, snorts like a horse 
with pepper up its nose.)

‘Ah, I see.  Well, sir, I’m afraid that there really isn’t anything I can do 
about that…’ says Hope, fighting back a grin.

‘You damn well better do something, missy!  I paid good money for this 
trash, I solicited a service from you, and you misled me!  I want my money 
back!’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not really an option…’

‘Isn’t it, now?  Well, where’s your manager?  Just bring your boss out here, 
and we’ll see exactly what can be done about this!’

‘The store manager won’t be in ‘til tomorrow night.  But he’ll just tell you 
the same thing I have…’

‘Nonsense!  I’ve been a loyal customer of your store for three years!  Never 
had a problem like this before.  He’ll sort things out.  Sort you out too, 
missy!  What’s your name?’

At this, Hope simply turns and walks through the “Staff Only” door at the 
back of the shop.  Problem Customer, walking stick and counter preventing 
pursuit, turns to me.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Umm, not sure, let me think…’

‘Don’t give me that!  What’s her name?  She needs to be taken down a peg!  
Reported, that’s what.’

‘Sorry, I’ve only just started here.  Don’t know her name yet.’

‘Really?  Well, what’s your name then?’

‘Salvatore.  Sal.  Sal Dell’Vecchio.’

‘Sal.  Hmph. Figures.  Bloody wogs and women ruining things...well, Sal, 
just you tell that little missy that I fully intend to report this to her 
boss!  Get her fired!  Just what she deserves.  And wouldn’t be surprised if 
you get a right talking-to from your boss as well!  Don’t know her name!  
Hmph.’ (wanders off out the door, still muttering.)

‘You okay?’

‘He’s gone?  Yeah, I’m okay.  Prick.’

‘Arseholes like that get on my wick, too.  You did the right thing, walking 
away.  Doug’ll say the same thing when he calls back.  If he calls back, 
which I doubt.’

‘Shit.  He sounded like he really was going to make a complaint?’

‘I don’t think it’ll happen.  What’s he going to say?  That you wouldn’t 
refund a dirty old man’s money after he’d gotten his rocks off?’

Hope’s laugh is the first thing you really notice about her.  Before she 
laughs, she seems somehow ephemeral, forgettable.  But as soon as you hear 
that tinkle of silver bells, she suddenly bursts into your awareness, like 
sunshine through a cloudwrack.

‘That’s probably right.  Bastard couldn’t keep his eyes off me.’

“I didn’t give him your name, anyway.  Gave him mine, though.  Wasn’t 
thinking.’

‘I don’t think it’ll matter.  Like you say, Doug’s probably going to be on 
my side with this.  But it’s just one more thing to hold over my head at the 
next meeting.  Fuck.  I hate this shit.  I really, really do.’


So, when did I fall for Hope?  Honestly, even now, I don’t know.  I know 
that she was, and remains, a very beautiful woman.  That she was petite 
helped matters (I have always had a thing for tiny women), as did her air of 
mischievous, elegant otherworldliness that bespoke of nothing so much as a 
slightly randy pixie.  Rather predictably, perhaps, I dubbed her 
‘Tinkerbell’ in response to her (presumably pejorative) nickname for me, 
‘Peter Pan’; and to me, Tinkerbell she remains.

I do remember a day, sometime between Christmas and New Year’s, a day of no 
particular significance in itself, when golden sunlight slanted down through 
a dirty window housing a promo for the latest Barbara Cartland to set her 
aflame (Hope, that is, not Barbara Cartland), for what seemed like a 
thousand years, but was probably more like thirteen seconds, as she 
stretched up to tear down some green tinsel from the display; moving 
briskly, her burning hair tied up; eyes the colour of the late afternoon sky 
narrowing upon her goal; lips pouting slightly in determination; skin 
glowing like molten silver; the susurrus of the traffic outside lilting like 
a choir of angels; breath catching fire in my lungs; the world around her 
gradually fading to an inconsequentiality, leaving me ever more distant from 
her; and the strange, inescapable intuition  that I was in way over my head.

	“In” what?  In love?  No.  Not then.  Not yet.


On a night about three weeks later, I couldn’t sleep, and I wasn’t sure why. 
  I’d been avoiding caffeine and sugar all week (I’m excitable at the best 
of times, but add stimulants to the mix and I start terrifying small 
children with excessive pupil dilation), yet I felt as though I’d just 
mainlined half a kilo of arabica.  At this time, Max TV was still subverting 
Auckland’s musical tastes, so I flicked on the idiot box, hoping for a 
chance to indulge in what is perhaps my only unforgivable vice: DIY-karaoke.

I like to think that I’m a fairly rational, sceptical person.  Many of my 
friends consider me almost too rational.  But I have a few odd beliefs, and 
one of them is that, every now and again, when you least expect it, 
something will happen to you that is both entirely coincidental and 
profoundly meaningful.  I don’t know if we just construct the meaning of 
these events out of thin air, or if there really is some sort of order and 
purpose to what happens at times like these.  What I do know is that many of 
us, myself included, perceive these “omens” in the world around us, and make 
life-changing decisions based upon them.

It’s hard to talk about these things without sounding like an utter 
fruitcake.  What makes it even worse is that the particular “omen” I feel I 
witnessed that night seems so…pop-cultural, so postmodern.  Two songs by New 
Zealand artists I was particularly fond of at the time played, one after the 
other.  First “Prove You Wrong” by Second Child, then Bic Runga’s “Bursting 
Through”, both songs about needing someone who wasn’t there, and being 
dazzled by the beauty of the things that that made you feel.  Tacky? Tawdry? 
  Mundane?  Yup, all that and more.

Specifically, the “more” was a realisation that the way I felt about Hope 
wasn’t just a transitory attraction, but something I wanted to pursue.

When I say “pursue”, I don’t mean “stalk.”  Whatever it was I was feeling, 
it was less about Hope than it was about the feelings she stirred within me, 
at least at first.  We often think back to our young adulthood as a time of 
obsessional desires with random individuals.  What we forget is that it is 
also the time we first learn of the extraordinary pleasure that comes from 
simply feeling something, anything.  To be suddenly aware of the ability to 
experience an emotion so overwhelming it threatens your very sense of 
identity is one of those rare moments you can pinpoint in your past to say, 
“I grew up a little that day.”

To learn that you might want to feel so strongly about another person is a 
surprise in itself.  And no one was as surprised as me-there I was, a 
twenty-year-old university dropout, still living at home, faced abruptly 
with the realisation that my life would never be the same again, and that I 
would never want it to be.

What to do in such a situation?  How to respond to the emotional equivalent 
of the Kraken, rising unbidden from the deeps of my soul?  Such a dark and 
doubtful presentiment of longing carries with it its own demand for action, 
for one to do what must be done, regardless the consequences.

Only one thing to do, of course.  I wrote her a hopeless, desperate letter 
demanding her acquiescence to the demons of my need, which I then slipped to 
her in a plain brown envelope, on the pretext that it was a late Christmas 
card.


Right-o, that's all,
Cunning Andre

________________________________
Irony is killing our generation.

Freaky kitties do my head in:
http://www.konstructiv.net/kitty_02.html


_________________________________________________________________
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