NaNoWriMo Writing Sample: Day 10
Samantha and I end up dancing to a few more songs before I ask her if she’d like to come over for a drink. She agrees and the two of us leave the club.

She’s driving a red Camry and I make sure to go slow enough so I don’t lose her. I’ve probably had one beer an hour for the past three. I’m not drunk. I don’t know about Samantha.

I pull into my garage and turn off my car. Her Toyota is parked just outside in the driveway. I get out and walk towards her.

“This is just where I like to park my car. There’s actually a helipad on the roof.” I say. She starts laughing and puts her hands into mine. “Seriously, from here I was thinking we take my private copter to Bermuda. What do you say?”

“I’m not hard to please. How about you just take me to your bedroom?” She says and then puts her mouth on mine. I put my hands on her bare, upper arms and kiss her deeply.

“Well, to be honest, I’m really, really glad you suggested that,” I say. “But not for the reasons you think.” She looks at me quizzically. “Yeah, you can’t begin to imagine how much it costs to fuel and fly two people to an island for an overnight.” She’s laughing again.

We walk into my house through the garage and I turn on the living room lights. Felix jumps off the couch and stretches himself on the floor, yawning. I close the garage and shut the inside door behind us.

“And who is this?” Samantha asks taking off her coat and handing it to me.

“That is Felix.” I say hanging our coats in the closet. “You’re not allergic are you?”

“No. I love cats.” She says squatting down and scratching my furry roommate behind the ears.

“I was talking to Felix.” I say. Samantha laughs. “Can I fix you a drink?” I ask opening a cabinet above the refrigerator.

“Sure,” She says.

“What’s your fancy?” I ask.

“Can you make me a gin and tonic?”

“Sure I can. Wait. What’s in a gin and tonic again? I always forget.”

“Just ice.” Samantha says giggling a little.

“What? No straw?” I say incredulous.

“No straw.” She says. She walks over to the counter between the living room and kitchen and sits herself on a wooden stool.

I mix two gin and tonics with ice and hand her one. I walk over to my stereo and put my glass on top of a speaker. I kneel in front of it and open up the cabinet below my turntable. She follows me over and kneels behind me draping her arms around my shoulders. She kisses me on the neck as I start to finger walk through my vinyl collection.

Samantha gasps and grips my shoulders with both hands. I stop flipping the records. “Is that Some Great Reward?” I slide the album out and hand it back to her. “This used to be my favorite album.” She says sliding the lyric sheet out from the inside of its cardboard home.

“Mmmm,” I say. “I prefer Violator.”

NaNoWriMo Writing Sample: Day 9
I stop in the middle of the bridge and put my hands on my knees. I check my digital watch and click the stopwatch button. I put my hands on the chain link fence and look down on the cars going underneath. The sun is just about out of sight and it will be dark soon. This bridge is my turn around point.

I bet I’m the only guy who still wears a hooded, gray, running suit to jog in. I’m not fat; I’ve just always been too self conscious for shorts and t-shirts. Even on stage I’m one of the few comedians who still wear a suit.

I face the fence and touch my toes. Some teenage boys drive by and one of them yells out the window something about my ass. I’m probably also the only guy who doesn’t jog with an iPod.

I start up again and head back down the bridge. I’m running against traffic but I don’t care. I stay on the sidewalk regardless. If there’s no sidewalk there’s no way I’m going to run in the street. Oncoming pedestrians and bicyclists have to move for me.

I’m forty two years-old. I’ve been a stand-up comic for fifteen years. I realize I started late. I’m good at what I do and I enjoy it. I’ve had a couple of bit parts in big films and occasionally I’ll do a cruise ship for a couple of months. Mostly I work the local clubs. These gigs pay the bills.

As soon as I turn the corner of my street, I stop jogging and walk, hands on hips, back and forth in front of my house. As I’m walking, a street light comes on. A neighbor drives by and beeps. I wave but don’t look to see who it is.

My evening run is just four miles but it kills me every time. Still, I’d rather do this than join a club and have to exercise around a bunch of pretentious, yuppy douchebags looking for a hook up. I unzip my hoodie and walk up into my house.

I used to live in a garden style apartment and it was heaven. No mowing. No shoveling. No maintenance. The house was my last girlfriend’s idea. I stupidly went along with it because I figured it would move the relationship forward. When she decided she’d finally had enough of my miserable ass, she packed her shit and moved in with her sister’s family across town.

I can’t blame her. I’m not an easy person to love. I realize I’m an egomaniac. I know I’m high maintenance. I still think there’s someone out there for me. I still believe in love.

NaNoWriMo Writing Sample: Day 8
Trevor calls and wakes me up at eight in the morning. He’s understandably super excited and nervous about this afternoon’s performance. I’m in a hotel in New York City. Last night we played the Mercury Lounge. The show sold out. It seemed like most of the audience was pretty in to it. All of this is very exciting.

I’d heard out first album had done fairly well in New York. Evidently, our latest, second album was getting heavy airplay on the city’s college radio stations and based on what I saw last night, the buzz was for real.

Five years. I’d been playing with Trevor since we graduated high school. The cold night’s in his parent’s garage loft. Five years playing shitty, Chinese restaurants to an audience who couldn’t care less. Five years of a steady, parade of drummers until we found one that clicked. Now it was all finally paying off. A two album deal with a reputable, indie record label. A world tour and now David Letterman.

“Chad, I couldn’t sleep. I’m too excited.” Trevor said over the phone.

“Yep,” I said rolling over and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

“Chad, are you still asleep?”

“Nope,” I said forcing myself to sit up in bed. “No, I’m awake.”

“David Letterman, man. I mean, can you believe it?” Leaning back against the pillow, I start to fall back asleep. “Chad! Wake up, man! Share this with me!”

“Okay, okay.” I say pushing the palm of my free hand into my eye and throwing my legs over the edge of the bed.

“You know, you’re a real fucking asshole, man!” Trevor yells into the receiver and hangs up.

I put the phone back into its cradle and swing my legs back under the sheets. Trevor could be such a drama queen. I start to think about how many times I’d thought about packing it in and getting a “real” job.

I’ve lost count of how many times he’s lost his temper before a gig or rehearsal. It’s got to be nerves. I don’t know how he pulls himself together, but when it’s time to perform, he’s always professional. Trevor never mentions the tirade and the band plays on.

The phone in my room rings. It’s our manager. He starts talking before I even say hello.

“Chad? I need to meet with you guys in the lobby in one hour.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll be there, Don.”

The mini fridge in the room is stocked with bottles of spring water and Diet Pepsi. I grab a bottle of water and fill up the room’s miniature, coffee pot.

I sit in one of the two chairs next to the room’s tiny table, light a Cambridge and turn on the television. I start flipping around and find the news. I watch as Bill Clinton waves to the camera as he walks across the White House lawn. I mute the set and pick up my bass, plucking away at the strings.

We named our band Mappy after a video game Trevor and I used to play in the lobby of the movie theater downtown. In the game, a mouse dressed as a policeman must retrieve stolen items inside a mansion. There are cats running around trying to get him which the mouse is able to thwart by slamming doors on them. I wanted to call our group Elevator Action after another game at the same theater. Of course Trevor shot that name down.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and add sugar and non-dairy creamer from little packets in a wicker bowl next to the pot. I stir the cup with a wooden stick and look at the TV. There’s an advertisement for a Steve Martin movie called, Sgt. Bilko. In the ad, Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd are goofing around in military outfits. I thought about joining the Army once. A recruiter came to my high school and I sat through a lecture and film. One buddy of mine signed up and was sent to Somalia right after we graduated. I wonder if I’d have been deployed overseas had I joined.

I walk over to the table with my coffee and pick up my walkman. I put on the headphones and flip the tape in the player. I’ve been listening to Lou Reed’s Transformer since we started the tour. It’s maybe the best travel music ever. Sure, everybody knows Walk on the Wild Side, but I wonder how many kids actually know the genius that Lou Reed and David Bowie put down back in the ’70s. I wonder if Bowie would produce our next album.

NaNoWriMo Writing Sample: Day 7
Gym class is the worst. It’s bad enough having to get undressed in front of your peers, but having to shower with them too is just excruciating.

We were told on the first day of gym that it didn’t matter if we took a long shower or a short shower, but we had to, at the very least, get undressed and get under the water. This just seemed so creepy to everyone. It was like our phys ed teacher was telling us, ‘I don’t give a shit whether each of you is clean or not, but I do want to see each one of your filthy cocks.’

For a while, some of us would get away with wrapping a towel around our gym shorts and just running into the showers, splashing some water on our chests and running back out. This worked for a few weeks until our teacher got wise and started making us hang our towels up before going in. Like I said, the whole thing just seemed like a creepy reason to stare at our shafts.

I’m getting undressed and tossing my gym clothes into a rusty, yellow locker. I pull out a ratty, green towel that’s been in my family since I was a baby and make my way down to the showers. I toss my towel on a hook and get myself under a shower head next to Max.

“I fucking hate fucking gym.” I say.

“Me too.” Max says turning towards me with his hands on his hips.

I feel Max looking at me so I turn to find out why. Max’s looking at me with a big smile on his face and all of a sudden, Vin D’amico says, “Check it out! Max is totally pissing on D!” I look down and sure enough, there’s a steady, yellow stream falling on my left foot. Max starts laughing moving and shaking himself up and down.

Everybody in the showers starts laughing. I don’t know what to do, so I just push Max as hard as I can. Max slips and falls back into Kyle Roth who’s showering next to him. The back of Max’s head nails Kyle squarely in the groin. Kyle doubles over in pain. Max is sitting on his bare ass. He’s looking at me completely shocked.

“Holy shit,” Vin yells. “Max just tried to give Roth a BJ!”

Kyle starts punching Max in the head. “Get away from me, you fucking fag!” He yells.”This fucking homo just attacked me in the showers!” Nobody’s laughing anymore. Everyone seems to have forgotten the pissing incident which happened just seconds before. Max gets back on his feet just as our gym teacher walks into the shower area.

“Alright, that’s enough!" The teacher grabs Max and pulls him away by the arm before Kyle can take another whack at him. “Everybody finish up and get your asses out of here before I give you all detention.” He threatens. Max looks back at me as he’s being led away. I look back at him but don’t say anything.

The rest of the day seems to drag on forever. All anyone can talk about is how Kyle Roth was assaulted by Max in the showers. Just like a game of telephone, the story seems to get increasingly scrambled. Pretty soon, Max has been made out to be some kind of homosexual predator with a kinky, urination fetish.

In the halls, I pass Max, who’s now walking with his head down with a miserable look on his face. Guys whisper to each other as they pass him and a couple of bigger dudes actually give him a hard shoulder to the chest when they walk by. I’m not sure what to make of all of this.

Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that I’ve been made out to be some sort of brave hero in the face of a gay attack. Everywhere I go, people are coming up to me saying things like, “D, are you alright? It’s a good thing you pushed him. Who knows what he would’ve done? If it was me, I would’ve punched his lights out. He’s lucky you’re not as mean as I am.”

I’m not sure how to react to any of this. On the one hand, I don’t want to remind people I got pissed on in the showers. On the other hand, Max is my friend and to act as though I’m somehow heroic for pushing him seems like a betrayal of the highest order. I decide not to elaborate at all. Instead, I just say, “It really wasn’t that big a deal.”

NaNoWriMo Writing Sample: Day 6
I wake up to the local radio station. Fucking morning DJs are the fucking worst. I can’t stand the two, annoying douchebags on WARP. Don Skyler and Janet Keyson I hate you! Every morning these two nudniks blabber on and on about celebrities or the president or some such bullshit. They do get me out of bed, however; but only because I can’t stand to listen to their cheery, nasally, cunt face voices for more than five minutes.

I shuffle out of my bedroom and into the bathroom for a piss. I’ve got morning wood and I have to push my cock down and do multiplication problems in my head in order to make myself flaccid just to urinate. Being a guy is just fucking weird.

“David! Are you up!?” My mother yells from downstairs.

“Yes,” I say just loud enough for her to hear my voice, but not loud enough for her to understand the word.

“What did you say!?” She yells up from the bottom of the stairs.

Oh my God, I think. She can obviously hear me walking around up here. If she can hear my voice say anything at all, wouldn’t that imply that I was up? Standing in front of the toilet, considering how to communicate this information to my mother makes me furious.

“Mom,” I yell down to here. “What the hell do you think!?”

“Don’t you yell at me, David!” She screams. "I’m just asking you a question."

“Okay, okay,” I say. “I’m up, I’m up. Just, please leave me alone.” I’m fifteen years old. I’m a junior in high school. This is my life.

NaNoWriMo Writing Sample: Day 5
I walk into Trevor’s garage and head up into the loft. I can hear Trevor and Chad making like Lennon and McCartney as they play A Day in the Life. Chad smiles and gives me a nod as I hang up my gray Peacoat and light a cigarette. It’s cold in the loft. The guys have a couple of space heaters plugged into the power strip, but they don’t have much effect unless you’re sitting right next to them.

I pick up my drum sticks, sit down behind my kit and wait for a good time to come in with a beat for the song they’re playing. The butt dangles from my lips and the smoke irritates my eyes. I’ve been rehearsing with these two guys on and off for the last few months. I’d never played as part of a trio before, but I decided I liked it.

Trevor was the leader. There never seemed to be any bickering over solos or who would sing whose song between he and Chad. I was considered a robot for the most part. One of them would start playing a melody and they’d look over at me as if to say, ‘what can you do with this?’

I’m not a great drummer. When you’re young and you play drums, ninety five percent of getting the gig is having the equipment. My parents had bought me a beautiful, eight piece, red, Yamaha drum kit for my sixteenth birthday. My twin brother Vance got a car.

The song ends with Chad plucking hard on his E string and then holding the bass up to the amp to create a feedback ending to compensate for the piano used on the actual, Beatles recording. It’s as good as the song is going to sound recreated by three people. It’s what we always warm up with.

“Mind if I get one of those?” Trevor asks referring to my cigarette. I shake a butt out from the pack and hold it over the middle tom in his direction. “Thank you, Sarah.” He says taking it and lighting it with a Zippo he pulls out of his jean’s pocket.

“Are you into Galaxie 500 at all?” Chad asks looking at me.

“I love On Fire.” I say. Chad looks over at Trevor and smiles.

“Do you know Strange?” Trevor asks me.

“Absolutely,” I click my sticks four times and we begin to play. The song sounds good. Trevor’s able to fake his way through the lead guitar riff at the beginning. I’d even hasten to say his voice isn’t nearly as warbly as Dean Wareham’s and it just works.

We run through a few of Chad’s originals and a couple of Trevor’s songs including a ballad and decide to call it a night. Chad packs up his bass and says something about having to pick up his girlfriend. We say goodbye and he descends the stairs leading to his car in the garage.

“Thanks for letting me leave my drums here.” I say as I help Trevor roll up the amp cords.

“Oh, no problem; thanks for playing with us. I hope you don’t mind me beating on them when I get home from school.”

“As long as you replace anything you break, I don’t mind at all. You’re doing me a favor. Vanessa and I didn’t have room for them in the apartment,” I say. “I really liked that slow song you debuted tonight. What inspired you to write that?”

Trevor shakes his head and smiles looking down at the wooden floor as he wraps an amp cord around his elbow and hand. “Uh, my last girlfriend,” He says laughing a little. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“You think so? Awww, I thought it was kind of sweet.” I say.

“Yeah?” He asks looking up at me and scratching his head.

“Yeah,” I say handing him a rolled up cord. “You’ve got a real talent for words. I have to admit, I’m a little bit envious.” I put on my coat, turn around and find myself face to face with Trevor. He gently puts his hands on either side of my head and starts to kiss me.

“Whoa,” I say, turning my head and pushing his hands away.

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” He says. “I just thought I felt something there between us and seized the moment.”I feel my face burning.

“It’s okay. It’s fine. I just didn’t see that coming is all.” I say quickly buttoning up my coat. “So, we’re practicing next Saturday?” I ask, not making eye contact and trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

NaNoWriMo Writing Sample: Day 4
My green Civic is parked in the two-story garage outside the hospital. I toss my backpack on the floor of the passenger’s side and start the engine. AC/DC’s Back in Black is in the CD player and I turn it up loud. I roll down the windows and pull the clip holding my hair up out. As I drive out of the garage, I see Mark walking towards his car. I beep and he waves and smiles.

I stop at the hospital’s main entrance and take a right onto the street. I turn on my GPS and punch in the address of Darius Decker. Earlier this past week, we had a call to this neighborhood regarding a choking incident. It didn’t take a genius detective to figure out Decker’s wife didn’t dial 9-1-1 because she was choking on a chicken bone.

Darius was dismissive, insisting that we weren’t needed and that everything was fine now. I knew better. While Mark talked to Darius, I walked Mrs. Decker around to the back of the ambulance to have a better look and ask some questions.

“Mrs. Decker, I’m going to need inspect your neck now.” I said moving my hands toward the collar of her turtle neck sweater.

“That’s quite alright.” Mrs. Decker said as she pushed the collar higher and moved herself away from me. “I really shouldn’t have called and wasted your time.”

“Mrs. Decker, please.” I say. “If you don’t let me inspect your neck, I won’t hesitate to involve the authorities, as I’m beginning to guess something more than just your dinner got the best of your throat this evening.” Mrs. Decker begins to cry.

“Please…” She says. “You don’t understand. If I let you see my neck, will you just get out of here?”

“Okay.” I say. “I’ll make you a deal. If you let me inspect your neck, I promise I won’t mention anything about suspicion of domestic abuse in my report. Have we got a deal?”

Mrs. Decker nods. She puts her hands in her lap and raises her chin. I gently pull down the collar of the turtleneck and force myself not to cringe.

Mrs. Decker’s skin appears strained and stretched. There are black and blue fingerprints at the nape of her neck that continue around both sides of her head. It’s obvious she was choked by her husband.