You, stenographer. Take up that pen. Take it up! Good. Now, scrawl a giant black line across the page. As you see fit, of course.
What the hell are you waiting for? What’s that? I didn’t hear you!
“Sorry. Are you serious?”
Yes. Go on. I want you to take it like an assassin’s dagger and stab the shit out of the heart of this here page. Do it.
Ha! See that. Look at it, you son of a bitch! That! That there is for just us! Only us! No one else can see that. Look how the line crosses over. Oh! Imagine that. You managed to scrape across the word “reaper”. Beautiful work.
My god, man. The way you peck at that typewriter is irritating me. I can’t stand over your shoulder anymore.
Where was I?
Hey. Look at that. Walking by right now in the skirt. I’d fuck the shit out of her.
What? You wrote that?
“Should I scribble it out?”
No, no, keep it, I guess.
“You said to write everything.”
I know what I said. Shit. We need a system. Here. If I don’t want you to write something, I’ll pinch you like thi zdf.hlg
Good. Oh. What’s that? zdg.hlg. Why’d you write that?
“Because you pinched me, sir.”
That’s no reason.
“It hurt, sir. I spasmed over the keys.”
Well. I like the looks of it. Zdg.hlg. That should be my word. It should mean something. In light of the occasion, I suppose I do have a definition for this new found word. I think it will mean that thing that’s always wrong. The one thing that lingers like some teasing, missing component taunting out on a string to ruin everything and all things. You know the thing?
“No, sir.”
Well you will. And you’ll know it by name. Zdg.hlg.
Onward! Allow me to describe myself. I am corrugated. Everywhere corrugated. Those lumps of indiscriminant trash that lie on the sidewalks, do you know them? The ones that you would question whether they’re old newspaper, food wrapping, or maybe even just a brown bag; but guess what? You don’t question because there are so many and they’re all so fucked up that you just go right on walking by. They’re not even ugly enough to throw away. They’re gray like all the other matter in the city, and they don’t need to rot or to blow in the wind. They just need to be looked past. Ignored. Subconsciously, in that part of your mind, that superego grandmother that sees all and cares for the scraps and talks to nothing; that voice, she says, “I hope someone will pick up that trash one day. Can’t be me. But that trash really does need a good picking up. Oh, well, guess they aren’t hurting anyone.” I’m a hobo. A dirty fucking hobo. I’ve lived so long out there on the streets that my skin has turned the color of them. My hair looks like barbed wire and my teeth are clay.
What are you looking at? You weasel. Just write.
Hoho! Should we tell them? Should we? I think we might have to. A hobo with a stenographer? But why? they’re saying. I think we should.
Look up at it. Try to type without your eyes on your mangy mitts. Look at the barrel. Look at the hole, that black hole with that shadow. Oh, that shadow. Keep typing. Don’t look at the typewriter! Look at the shadow in the hole. Like a gopher hole, only you don’t want this gopher to come out. Because once it does, without your even seeing it… Blam! Brains on the wall and some poor sap cleaning it all up off the hotel bedspread.
Wow! You don’t have a single type-o. Makes them wonder, I’m sure. Are you really that good without looking at your hands typing away, or am I really holding a gun at your face? Could you work that well under pressure? Not one fucking type-o! Am I lying about the gun? Am I? Answer!
“No.”
No? No, what?
“I meant, yes.”
That really didn’t make any sense. Oh, hoho! This is some good shit. Let’s be crystal clear. I am going to point the barrel straight at your forehead. Stare at it. Now! Do I have a gun? Yes or no. Answer!
“No. No gun.”
Good boy. I like that answer. (chuckling)
I really wish I did, though. I’d shoot a hole through page 44. Right fucking through.
Well, let’s see. Where to begin? Do you like romance? You shrugged, huh?
“Well, it just depends. Some romance is too airy or far fetched.”
Damn right. Look at me. Do you think romance ever came into my life? Even once? Don’t shrug. Answer.
“Yeah, sure.”
Bingo! Good answer. Because, how could it not, right? How could anyone not experience romance? Whether it comes to fruition is another thing completely. I’m just talking about that sting. It’s one of those key components to humanity. We need romance, even if it’s something creepy and incoherent like I’m sure it is with yourself, Mr. Stenographer. Can I call you that? Or no. Too long? How about Steno? No… Graphy. That sounds really bad. Stag. Yeah. We’ll call you Stag. It’s like the word stenographer, in its own fashion. Or, what the hell. Stag Ropehorn. It’s an anagram.
What? What’s that face for?
“I think, sir, that it isn’t an anagram. You added an O. Yes, actually. And you dropped an E.”
Well I can’t very well stare at the fucking word written right in front of me, now can I? You have that page to help you, you little gerbil. Now, shut up, don’t offer me any advice. Just write. And maybe ask to take a piss. We discussed that that was ok.
So, then. Your name is Stag Ropehorn. When you speak, you will say after the fact: Said Stag Ropehorn.
Good. Now, romance! I like romance. Not all kinds, but my kind. I like my kind of romance. I think I can start there. Yes. Romance is intriguing, it beguiles the very essence of human nature, tickles that need to fornicate. It dolls it up, like putting a nice dress on a whore. Oh, but, geez, that’s thin ice using a whore as a metaphor for fucking. Wrap your head around that, would you? A whore already fucks, but I want her to just represent the human need to fuck. I’m not talking about metonymy! I don’t want to rename her as fucking. I want her to be (put that in italics), be fucking, as in have her exist strictly as thus. Think about it, convert it, convert her. Put it in the right fucking hole! No, no. Don’t think like that. I was touching back on the metaphor with the kid with the hammer. He’s hammering those blocks out of shape to fit the hole, to solve the puzzle willy-nilly, to ignore that pestering need to understand. So, back to the whore. Romance puts the whore in a pretty dress. Ah. I’ve lost it… Did you lose it, too? Shit. You never had it, did you, you fucking slithery weasel. Let me read that paragraph. Quiet, now.
Oh. No good. I lost it. I guess I hammered the block in the wrong hole.
Well. All right. Romance. Let’s start there. Oh, wait. Clever me! I think this is a good place for a new chapter.
Chapter 2: Romance, I Guess
Don’t confuse the title. The “I guess” is strictly because I was guessing I should name the chapter that. But, oh brother, I’m certain that this is romance.
Well, it all came about because I had this job, you see. I worked a sort of museum. Or not a museum that people tend to go to, so not so much a museum. It was a potential museum, an impending museum. I will call it the Impusendeum. Let me see how you spelled that, Stag. Oh, rightly done. Impusendeum. The impending museum. It was thus because, well,