Nothing Of Substance

A Short Story About Pens

2010-09-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

The Spoils Of War

You know, I can’t help but question the validity of personal privacy as a concept in a high information society. We exchange information about ourselves on a near constant basis, rigorously documenting the minute details of existence in exchange for the promise of validity or friendship. We graciously present lists of our favorite musicians, films, and books for the scrutiny of anyone. Allowing them to file through our tastes and preferences and decide if we are an acceptable person to be acquainted with. Yet, with all this information readily available to me, I’d prefer not to slither along the proverbial roads of social networks researching my associates. You see, I would much rather allow them the opportunity to hand these things to me personally. I’d much prefer to extract this information in a way that offers me a challenge, to convince the person speaking with me that I am a reliable source to divulge information to.

My name is Franklin Richards, and I collect pens.

Over five thousand pens to be exact. None of them are any particular company or style, just pens that I have collected over the course of my life. All contained within a series of plastic bins that sit in a dusty corner of my basement. Each with a small accompanying note that reminds me of its acquisition. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. I’m not reclusive, obsessive, or insane. I don’t wear a trench coat and stare at people on the bus as I stalk my way to the local megastore to purchase a new pack of pens. In fact, I have done very well for myself in the field of real estate. I routinely spend two thousand dollars a piece on Armani suits, my wristwatch costs more than the average outfit, and every single pen in my collection has been stolen.

That, my friends, is why these seemingly insignificant little chambers of viscous ink and cheap plastic are so important to me. They are not mere trinkets that I encounter. They represent the tiny bursts of conquest that I embark on every day. In terms of monetary value, they are practically worthless- but as beacons of my potential influence over people, they are invaluable. You see, there is a certain art to walking away with somebody’s pen, especially if they’ve been in their chosen profession for a long time. You have to trick them into believing that an interaction with you is more valuable than the pen they’ve kept out of stranger’s hands all day. Turn on a tiny bit of charm, and something as insignificant as a twenty five cent utensil becomes exactly that - an irrelevant matter in the span of a lifetime. The pen itself is of little consequence, it is merely a symbolic badge. It is a physical representation of my ability to bend people to my will, to make them forget themselves for a moment by breaking their routine with a warm smile and a few friendly words.

Yet, despite all of my treasures there is one that towers above the rest. It’s a fairly inconspicuous pen, a solid blue pen with a missing cap and remnants of letters long since faded written on its side. This particular pen found its way into my hands nearly two years ago, at a bank on the corner of Fifth and Parstons. I was heading into this particular bank to cash a commission check from a house I’d finally sold, and I was walking on air. I even peeked into the glass door of the bank to catch a bit of my reflection. I straightened the cuffs on my dark blue suit and fixed my tie, staring at the tall blonde haired reflection of myself as entered the room.

I was immediately struck by a blast from the air conditioning, a shrill reminder that this wasn’t an establishment where you relaxed and spent time; this was a place you got into and got out of as promptly as possible. The faint sounds of pop music drifted softly through the air, not loud enough to be recognizable, but too loud to be completely ignored. The room itself was filled with the scent of every single bank in the United States. That mixture of fresh linoleum, sharp polish, and new money. It was a smell that clearly said “Yes, this is a nice place. I’m really glad that you noticed we took the time to make it smell pleasant and artificial. Now, kindly approach a teller, finish your transaction, and get the fuck out.”

Who was I to fail to comply? I approached the teller and immediately recognized that she was in a foul mood. She was a svelte brunette with impatient eyes and full lips that were drawn into a tense line. Her hair was wrapped and clipped up on top of her head in a professional and inhibited manner. She tapped on the counter with a pen. My pen. I slid up to the counter and flashed her a smile. What better introduction than 32 gleaming white and perfectly organized teeth could a man give, anyways? Yet, she didn’t return my smile, and instead immediately asked me, “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I need to go ahead and cash this check. If you cou-”

“Photo ID please.”

This one was going to be a bit tricky. I slid the ID over to her, making a poor attempt at a joke “Don’t judge the picture on there; the photo was taken before I got so good at selling properties.” I flashed her a half-smile this time. I figured I had better revaluate my strategy here. This was not a battle to be won with empty charm and corny jokes.

She rolled her eyes and glanced at my ID for a moment before sliding it back to me. “You need to endorse this check, sir.”

Taking the check from her, I feigned surprise at my negligence and grabbed at the pen on the counter that was inconveniently strung to a small chain. Now, this just wouldn’t do. I pretended to scratch at the back of the check for a moment, acting like the pen had run out of ink. I sheepishly shrugged and reached into my pockets in a theatrical display, assuming she’d have no reason to question the fact that I didn’t have a pen. “I actually didn’t grab a pen on the way out, mind if..”

She handed me the pen without protest, and as I was slowly signing my name, I glanced up at her and asked “So, rough day so far today?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe”

“I wouldn’t eh? Try me.”

“Well it’s just that…oh, I don’t know.”

Here it was. The moments the floodgates would crumble and collapse by the unceasing desire to connect with another human being. Here was the fruitless endeavor of humanity brought crashing down upon our heads in that moment. I raised my eyebrows slightly to express interest and empathy, sliding my arms away from my chest to represent an open and accepting body language.
“Well? What’s going on?”

“You see…”

I leaned in close, allowing her to take a moment of pause to carry her eyes away from mine, and then back to them before she finally decided to continue. She gently brushed her hair from her eyes and spoke in a whirlwind of barely contained words. “You see I woke up late this morning because my stupid dog had somehow unplugged my alarm clock. So I overslept until like ten minutes to nine, when I had to be at work at nine. I stubbed my toe in the shower, I burnt my toast, and I got caught in traffic on the way here. I forgot my wallet and I didn’t bring anything for lunch, and the last few customers have been complete assholes.”

She finished her rambling and released a sigh that seemed to require the use of her entire body. Her entire frame rose and then sank with her breath. She blinked, feeling suddenly awkward that she had allowed herself to speak with such a candid lack of restraint. I smiled at her. “Well, you certainly have to feel better now, right?”

She smiled. Brushing her hair back from her eyes and locking them with mine, she allowed herself a small laugh. “Yeah, yeah I guess I do. Maybe that’s all I really needed. I feel a little silly now. None of that stuff seems nearly as important when I said it as it did when I was thinking about it. But yeah, I do feel better. Thank you.”

“Happy to help…” I squinted forward and glanced at her nametag “...Rachel. I think after hearing about your entire traumatic morning it’s appropriate to be on a first name basis.”

Again with the smile. Now that she was returning them it seemed to be working like a charm. I nodded to her and turned away to leave. She coughed quietly and as I turned around she said “Um..my pen, actually,” motioning towards my prize.

I slid up to the counter. “Oh yeah,” I began, “I held on to it for a reason.”

She smiled slyly, as if she knew what was coming next. I grabbed a brochure from the plastic container on the counter and turned it over. I looked back at her and raised my eyebrows ever so slightly. “You said you’d forgotten your lunch this morning. I was wondering if I could help fix that by taking you to dinner this evening.”

She blinked quickly a few times, apparently surprised by the proposal. After a brief moment of silence she responded. “You know, that sounds good.”

“And, your number is?”

I jotted down her number as she spoke and stuffed the brochure, along with the pen, into my pocket. I tapped gently on the counter and flashed her a closing smile, just for good measure. “Well then, I will give you a call around six o clock. Talk to you then.”

I turned on my heels and began to walk out of the bank. Again she made an indiscernible noise and I spun halfway around to meet her eyes. “I..uh. You know what, nevermind. I’ll see you tonight.”

With that, I was free from the struggle. I stepped through the doorway of the bank and into the sunlight, patting the pen through my pocket as I walked to my car absolutely bursting with self assurance. I had dived into the trenches of conversational warfare and come out the victor. I had braved the frontlines of disinterest and annoyance and swung the battle in my favor. And now, I had claimed my trophy. I flipped the pen onto my passenger side seat and hopped in the car to head home.

Even now, I smile as I recall the events of that day. I can’t help but pat myself on the back at my own ability to sway a beautiful woman in my favor and walk away with a little bit of her life in my hands. Although, I do feel a slight sting of remorse in looking back, it is quite a shame I had to completely fuck up her dinner plans for the evening by not calling.

Oh well. Spoils of war, my friends. Spoils of war.

An Excerpt

2010-06-14T10:55:00.001-07:00

This is a selection from the YA (Young Adult) novel I'm working on, and it is a very early draft so don't be too brutal. The novel is about a young man named Daniel who is infatuated with his best friend Samantha, who is clearly out of her mind. Check it out and tell me what you think. If you hate it, tell me why. If you like it, feel free to encourage me to write more. So yeah, here it is:

Daniel awoke groggily the next morning to the sound of small objects crashing into the screen outside of his window. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he staggered to the window, relatively certain of what he’d see. Sure enough, when he opened the window Samantha was standing on the ground with a handful of walnuts. Daniel ducked quickly, narrowly avoiding a large walnut that had been spiraling towards his forehead.

“Yeah, Sam?”

“Danny, its time for brunch.”

“What are you talking about? I need a shower and..what?”

“Brunch, Daniel. Its in between breakfast and lunch. Its where rich people get together to drink orange juice and recommend therapists. I don’t know Danny, I just woke up and I want waffles, now.”

“Uh..alright, Sam. Let me get a shower and I’ll be out in fifteen.”

“Well hurry up, you don’t need to look nice for the Waffle House.”

Danny shrugged at no one in particular and gathered his clothes together. After his shower, he met Samantha in his driveway, where she’d painted a huge sidewalk chalk drawing of a stick figure. Beside it, in enormous letters it read “I LOVE BRAD PITT.” After staring at it for a minute he scratched his head and commented on it. “Wait a minute, you don’t love Brad Pitt.”

“I know. That’s why its in your driveway. Lets get some waffles.“

Daniel shrugged his shoulders and followed her to the car, where they spent the short ride to the Waffle House listening to music. When they entered, Samantha told Daniel to order her meal and rushed to the jukebox to pick out a few songs. By the time she was done with her selections, their meals had arrived.

For a while they joked, half eating and half talking as Samantha continuously doused her waffles in syrup. Daniel couldn’t help but think that maybe part of the reason she was consistently inattentive and out of her mind was the fact that she consumed the daily recommended amount of sugar about twelve times a day. Curiously though, she was still able to maintain her slender figure. As Daniel took notice of this, he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander, he followed the strands of her blonde hair to her shoulders and over the snugly fit tee shirt that outlined her small br-

“Daniel. Are you looking at my boobs?”

“Wh- What? No I was.. What?”

“Eh, Whatever. Mini-golf!”

In one swift motion, she slid out of the booth and dropped two dollars on the table before darting to the counter to pay for her meal. Daniel shoveled the last few bites of his meal into his mouth and paid his bill as she darted out the door. He met her in the car, where she pulled out far too quickly, sending the car lurching ahead and sending his hand in search of the seatbelt. As they sped down the road, he reached behind him and pulled out a case of CD’s. Daniel had a thing for matching music with environment- every album had a distinct feel to it, and he often made an effort to match the general atmosphere with the music he chose. There was something in that, the fact that art could imitate or reflect life, that resonated with him.

He slid in an upbeat punk album and sat back, allowing the warm summer air to pour in his window as he rested his head against the headrest, tapping his hand lightly on his knee in time with the music. Samantha sang the words softly, her fingertips dancing across the steering wheel as she followed along with the music.

After a short time they arrived at the mini-golf course, hopped out of the car and were soon on the first hole. They scorched through the first four holes, laughing (and often cheating) and having a good time. When they hit the fifth hole, they had to stop and wait. In the downtime, they took a look around.
Daniel saw it first.

The couple ahead of them were middle aged and weary, their faded Nascar T-shirts reflective of their solemn dispositions. They were stoic as they moved through the course, smiling ever so slightly when they did well and shrugging sheepishly when they didn’t. They walked as though they were trudging through mud, with heavy feet and somber eyes as they slunk along the course looking defeated and uninterested.

Daniel spun around to avoid watching them any longer and saw a family pulling up in a brand new minivan. The side door slid open and three kids poured out with eyes all aflame and excited to play something that didn’t involve a couch and a controller. The exasperated wife and mother stepped out of her door, her purse on her side and her eyes narrow and frustrated. Her husband said something to her, and her eyes rolled nearly into her skull as she sighed deeply and grabbed the hand of one of her children.

He saw a group of middle school kids with shifting, dodging eyes searching for a place to smoke a cigarette one of them had stolen from a parent. They stood with awkward stilted poses, as if they were trying so hard to portray confidence, but had none. For all their posturing, they just looked positively fragile. Daniel shook his head and leaned on his golf club, realizing there was no reason to feel as dismal as he did. Nothing was bad, everything was just shockingly and mind numbingly average. The mundane nature of it all clenched at his head, and he let a chest heaving sigh escape his lips as looked back at Samantha.

Her mouth was curled to the side in an inquisitive and disappointed look. She dropped her club and
shook her head, quickly walking off the mini-golf course. Before he could recover from the slight shock, Daniel realized she had pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, leaving him there. “Son of a bitch!”, he exclaimed far too loud. The kids giggled, the parents glared, and the Nascar couple half-smiled at him.

He walked off the course and returned the clubs, his phone pressed to his ear as he called his friend
James. “Hello?”

“James, it’s Daniel. What are you doing?”

“Well I’ve got this chick over right now, she‘s waiting for me in my room.”

“Really?”

“No. What’s up?”

“I’m uh, I’m kind of stuck at Jurassic Golf, can you pick me up?”

“Why the hell are you stuck at a mini golf course? Why the hell were you AT a mini golf course?”

“Sam.”

“Ah, shoulda figured. I’ll be there in ten.”

Daniel climbed up onto a bench, sitting on its back with his feet planted on the seat. He hunched down, head in hands as he waited for James to arrive. When James finally showed up, he was already shaking his head as Daniel climbed in the car. “Sam seriously left you here?”

“Yeah dude. Sucks.”

“What the hell for? Did she have to rush home to take her meds or something?”

“Funny. I have no idea dude, she just got this look in her eyes and ran to the car and just..left. I dunno, man.”

“She’s crazy, that’s why. No explanation needed. She is fucking crazy.”

Daniel shrugged and leaned his head against the window for the rest of the ride. When he got home, he collapsed into his bed, shoes and all. A short time after, he woke up to his phone ringing in his pocket. He reached for it, still feeling half asleep, and realized that he had 7 missed calls. Samantha. He rolled onto his back and answered the 8th call as it came in. “What?”

“Outside.”

“I don’t know if I should come out, you might just leave me there for no reason.”

“Oh don’t be a baby Daniel, you made it home alright didn’t you? Shut up and come outside.”

Daniel snapped the phone shut and headed outside. When he reached Samantha she had her hands behind her back. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“Yeah, where are you going to leave me this time?”

“California, if anywhere”

“What?” Daniel shook his head. “Anyhow, what’s this surprise.”

She whipped her hands from behind her back and revealed a ticket in each of them. She handed one to Daniel and he looked it over. It was a train ticket, with the destination of West Virginia printed on it.

“What? Why the hell would I want to go to West Virginia? Why the hell would anyone want to go to West Virginia?”

“Well not just West Virginia, stupid. We’re going to California, but I’ve got to visit some family along the way. My Uncle David lives in west Virginia, we’re going to stop and see him. I talked to him already, and he said when we visit him he’d give us bus fare to head down to Kentucky to see my cousin Mary, who I haven’t seen in like three years. After that we are heading to Texas or something. We’ll probably go to a wax museum somewhere in there because I really want to go to a wax museum. I don’t know where all we are going, but we’re going to California.”

“What? I’m not going to California. You’re out of your mind. What is so great in California even?”

“I dunno, I hear In N Out Burger is pretty sweet.”

Daniel looked at the ticket and shook his head. “I’m going back to bed, Sam.”

She called out as he started to walk away. “Did you check the time on the ticket even?”

He looked back at the ticket and saw the time printed in small letters. Departure was at 11:30pm. It was 8:00pm.