New Work...from a New Writer...

Posted below is a contribution from a friend of the blog's named Broderick. His short prose piece is a little weekend treat for you all youz kids out there on the internets. Enjoy and if you want to contribute prose or poetry or art or whatever, just e-mail us and if we pick up good vibrations you could be seeing your work on display. - Jeff

Lanie Visits II

Lanie had a certain feel. She was a sun in a box. Her bouncing ball followed the sound squeaking out of the stereo. Silently, she approached the door. I, on the other hand was a walrus drifting in a mellow ice. I flopped out of my comfortable couch to get the door. The bell had already rung twice; any more would have just been rude.
“Hi”
“Hey… come on up”
I stared a little while. She looked great. Lanie had been rummaging through her sister’s closet again, in search of something new. The wind blew gently, her sisters dress drifted slowly with her red hair, only to reveal blue jeans she probably bought last week from a store at the mall. I don’t know why she did it, probably because it’s “indie” or good for the environment or something like that. I didn’t know anything about fashion.
We went up the winding stairs to the music room. There were instruments sprawled all over the room, as well as a tower of records in milk crates slowly growing in the corner. I sat down on the couch to continue my duty. She looked around the room, like always; I figured it was some feminine ritual in order to suppress any comments about the absence of any apparent organization.
“What are you going to play for me today?”
“I don’t know. How about you decide?”
She wandered over to the tower and moved a couple of boxes around. After five minutes a cry for help came,
“Where’s Sonic Youth?”
“In that white bin you just moved, in about the middle. It’s in alphabetical order by artist then the albums are in chronological order of initial recording date”
“Oh…”
She pulled out the dusty square with a candle on it. Then Lanie put that black disc on the turntable and the needle glided merrily. She then turned her attention to me.
“Whatcha doing?”
“Messing around with the record.”
I had recently received some fragments from my crazy old uncle. He said he bought it after flunking out of some school. He hung out in New York for a while, bought the record for my mom, then broke it some how. Anyways, I figured I could salvage it by soldering the jagged pieces together.
“Oh… what’s it sound like?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’ve been so obsessed with it.”
“You know if you put as much effort into your social life you could be pretty popular.”
“Most of them don’t have any mystery though. If you know all the archetypes you can read ‘em like books, not the good ones either.”
I think I can be absolutely unreliable sometimes. That was just another pop in the record, another random burst of thunder, another blast of noise. The ancients saw these as omens but modern science has destroyed their myths. But Lanie shines on, despite a cloud of a boyfriend.
“Just look at your boyfriend, there’s no happy ending in those pages.”
“Oh stop it. He’s sweet and its not like you’ve had a date in what, two years?” I tinkered on with a small smirk. I seemed to be a square peg in a round hole; I didn’t fit either.
“You’re going to go off with this attitude and then what? You know I’m not going to be there for you to brood….”
There was a small pause. We both stared at the inevitable knife of time as the record squeaked. I know one day it’ll be over. But today wasn’t that day.
“Anyways, I know this girl who’d be perfect for you. We could double date on Saturday. You know, the typical movie and a dinner.”
We laughed at my prospects. The sound waves were calm and they washed upon our feet. Then he stuck a gigantic rock in the middle of the beach.
“Oh, that’s him. I have to go.”
I watched her drift into his car. It was a red mustang. In a sense, he was the car after all; he looked just like it. That bastard probably spent more time with it that Lanie.

Saturday eventually rolled up to my doorstep. Lanie’s boyfriend drove us to the movie. I moved in and she was there with long blonde hair and a small yet pointed nose. She was wearing a white shirt and a denim skirt. We were in our seats with thirty minutes to spare so I started talking.
“Lanie’s told me so much about you, especially your music collection.”
I nodded. Her eyes rolled around the room, searching for something, or somebody. She wouldn’t look at me, and I knew I wasn’t that hideous, but then again, she might not have any beauty.
“So what kind of music do you like?”
“Whatever’s on the radio, what else is there?”
She girlishly giggled and twirled her hair around her finger. Oh God! What had I gotten myself into? Her brain seemed to be as white as her shirt! I seemed to be stuck in one of those blind date shows. However there aren’t any subtitles to make me laugh and I’m the one having a bad time. Never trust optimists about people if you’re a pessimist: they overlook the flaws that are blatantly obvious to you.
I tried to move to sports. Bad Move. She just went on and on about how “hawt” the football players on the school team were. By then I knew her eyes were longing for one of them, my only consolation was that my mind was yearning for something else. It was a silent disagreement, but a fierce one. The only thing worth fighting for was the end, and every minute moved me closer to the electric end.
Finally, the movie started. It was a drama. I hate dramas. Every one of them is a sadder sequel to your life. So I tried to look to the characters for something thrilling and there was nothing new. It had all of them: the angst filled protagonist, the oblivious parents, the girlfriend, the nemesis, well, all of them but not even in an epic way.

Afterwards, we went to a casual restaurant. Lanie’s date was spurting out his interpretation of the film as the other diners clinked their utensils. He made it seem like this huge psychological turnaround of utmost importance. He kept on saying, “You might not have caught it, but it means…” Lanie just fawned over every word and my date was stuck in an infinite loop of “Like, oh my gosh, that’s so true!” and “You are so smart!” I politely stapled my tongue to the table; it was in character. I started focusing on the blob of sound before me waiting for something to break.
Then it happened.
“Tonight’s the day candle…”
“You might not have caught it but the protagonist’s line there was totally a reference to the Great Gatsby and it meant that he was alone.”
What did that jackass know about Fitzgerald, being alone, the movie, or anything? I abruptly stood up and extended my fist to his empty existence.
“I never thought I’d see a dark star falling.”
It was a perfect contact as if it was meant to be. His bulky form fell to the floor. The restaurant went silent. Everyone stared at Lanie and my date as the two girls gathered around him trying to stop the stream of blood from tissues from their purses.
I knew I wasn’t going anywhere except for his home if I stayed with Lanie so I walked home. There was a full moon and the night, cool, crisp, and welcoming, seemed to invite me. It was about three miles from home so there was plenty of time for meditation and singing. When I got home my parents were asleep so I just went to my bed and faded away.
The next day I decided to go over and apologize because I figured, as much as he had it coming, I probably shouldn’t have hit him. Luckily his parents were home so I wasn’t going to have the shit kicked out of me on the spot. Surprisingly, his parents were nice. His mom thought it was good of me to apologize. That relieved me because I knew I wouldn’t have to face the court and a wall of paper. He took my apology but was apathetic. I could tell it was a mask.
I tried to call Lanie but she didn’t answer. She was nothing more than a specter that week, or maybe I had just been the ghost all along. I saw her at lunch and was about to approach but he was a wall of a caveman.
Eventually, I got a hold of her on the phone.
“I never want to talk to you again!”
“Come on Lanie…”
-Click-
I held the phone up to my ear for about five more minutes hoping it was only a bump in the record. It was the sound of losing Lanie. I continued on as I did before her, and I eventually got that record all back together. I put it on the turntable and waited for it to revolve. “Amazing Gr…Click. Buzz” The stereo hummed on in pain. The needle was broken.