I wrote this about 8 years ago, when I was thinking that a novel was what I had inside.
I’ve never written things that were very long, and I stopped early in the first chapter. I suppose that I had only really envisioned the first scene, and expected the rest to flow. For those wondering, this is not autobiographical, and precedes my most recent relationship by several years and relationships.
Part of why I stopped, I think, was that I was paralyzed by fear that I couldn’t conceive of another person’s "whole life", imagining enough details to seem authentic, without making it obvious that I was "hitting points". I had another person in mind, who I didn’t really know, as the model for the character… and since I didn’t know him well, I didn’t know his life. Maybe I should stick closer to home. Or just not worry about it, and learn how to edit in details later when I do research.
Anyway, here’s the beginning of the unlikely-to-ever-be-finished-novel I saved under the name "notlove".
Chapter 1 — The Fall
"This isn’t love, you know"
The words hung in the air. Before and after they came, the air conditioner rattled and hummed and sirens outside wailed, but while those words were being spoken they encompassed the entire room. She was resolute. Jeanne drew strength from the conviction she’d found that morning, before she sat up and faced the window, her back to me. When she’d stirred, I’d rolled to my side and faced the other direction. I’d known it was coming. I’d felt it in the way we no longer kissed when we made love, if one could call it that. It was fucking, plain and simple. It was empty, lonely, uninspired fucking.
I lay there with my eyes open, not acknowledging her. I strained to keep my breathing as it had been when I was sleeping. Of course, by then awake, I had no idea what pace that had been. Even if I’d believed it to have been deeper, that was something of which I was physically incapable. My abdomen was tense with that nervous fear that the charade was over, that my pretending hadn’t worked, and that I would again be alone.
I was thankful that this was all happening within the walls of my own apartment. I didn’t have to figure out a place to go when I realized how empty I was. Noone would notice me hiding from their attention. My comforter would live up to its name, protecting me from the cruel world. I felt the bed move when she rose, and then heard her let out a controlled — but not composed — sigh. The noise of the blind giving way marked what I knew would be the last time she’d peer out of my bedroom window. I heard her breathing unevenly as she earnestly tried to keep her balance while pulling on her jeans. I thought about how those jeans were a half-size too small, and how they’d leave a pink ring around her body when she took them off. I thought of the times I had put my hand in the back pocket of her Levis as we walked along the boardwalk, stopping to kiss every few minutes. I thought of the way I’d dreamed about a future with her back when I’d thought I’d been in love with her.
My closed-eye daydreams were interrupted when I heard her shuffle out, her shoes only halfway on, the heels clapping the hardwood floors just a little too firmly for her not to have been angry. There was the jangle of her white-trash-too-many-keys keyring, followed by the sharp two-click noise of the lock hitting its strike plate and then snapping back once inside. I must have been trying too hard to sleep after that, since I didn’t hear her slip the key under my door. Yet I found it there when I arose what I can only presume to have been hours later. The state I’d attained through a deep desire for unconsciousness blurred the line between sleepy facts and dreamed fiction, and only moving my leg to the side in a large, sweeping arc proved her not to be there with me, and the coolness of the uninhabited area of sheet reaffirmed that she’d left some time ago.
Within seconds, I was dizzy and sick and my brain was on the verge of imploding from the pressure which surrounded it. Closing my eyes and pulling my knees to my chest did nothing to help but to make me feel suffocated, which felt somehow appropriate. Words, images, sounds flashed through my head and left again before they’d left any more with me than the knowledge that not only was I alone, but I let her have the final words. Goddamn it! How could I have been so weak? As long as we’d been together, it had been on her terms… perhaps if it were to end any other way, it would seem perverse. Is there anything more humiliating for a man to be crushed by a woman he didn’t even love? Even that thought couldn’t stand up to the barrage of memories that jackhammered my sensory inputs.
Eventually I ceded control of my mind and body, rolled onto my back, and closed my eyes. I must have just tired myself out with all that thinking and tensing of muscles. When I again woke up, there was golden afternoon sun on the brick apartment building across the street, and though it crossed my mind that I was emotionally empty, my stomach yelled a little bit louder that it was even emptier. I shuffled across the floor in my underwear and socks, slide-dragging my feet across the cool hardwood. That was the thing about the air conditioning in my apartment. It had been an afterthought, and used the same vents in the floor as the heat. In summer, the floors of my third-floor apartment were colder than they got all winter. That explained the socks, somehow. And maybe the socks just reflected what was happening with Jeanne. For the past two months, sex was an afterthought which only happened if we were drunk and frisky. Otherwise, I wore socks to bed.
No Pop-Tarts. The expiration date on the eggs was a faint memory, and the celery sagged when I lifted it. No mold on the bread, though. Peanut butter sandwiches and Diet Pepsi it would be. I grabbed a plate, faked my way through making sandwiches, and put away the peanut butter. I walked to the Black Leather Recliner of Solitude, put the plate and can of soda on the end-table, and slammed down into the chair rather harshly as my body gave out below.
Clicked the power button on the remote, then reclined the seat only part-way so my feet wouldn’t block my view. Uninspired peanut butter consumption led to the need for Diet Pepsi to loosen things up, which led to the need to drag my ass back over to the refrigerator to grab two more cans so I’d not have to get up again. Upon my return, I finished the sandwich and a half that I’d had left, and another can of soda, and then found that my television was tuned to Magnum, P.I., dubbed in Spanish. The reason wasn’t nearly as worrisome as the fact that I’d been sitting in front of it for ten minutes without it having registered the tiniest bit within my skull.
Jeanne provided routine. She’d provided a set of rules I’d lived with, grudgingly. She gave me context. I was her boyfriend, and was expected to act like it. I’d be allowed minor transgressions like forgetting dates until one of those mid-relationship “talks”. Eventually, she accepted responsibility for all dates except her birthday and our anniversary. Given that she also cooked, and was anal enough about cleaning that I didn’t have much to worry about in my apartment, the context formed around my irresponsibility. I’d never be good enough, but that made her comfortable. I should shut up, make money, be “romantic”, and everything would be fine.
But it never was. She started showing signs of utter disinterest a few weeks ago. She started “working late”, and not eating after she got home.
Even though I’m sharing this with you here, I, Anthony Ortenzi, retain and reserve all copyright, of course.
Comments and criticism welcome.
Feels like stuff should be normal. - by