The Not So Simple Life (A Comedy) Read online

  The Not So Simple Life

  The Not So Simple Life

  by

  Stephen Shea

  Copyright 2012 Stephen Shea

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or (un)dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

  "Return is the movement of the Way;

  yielding is the function of the Way.

  All things in the world are born of being;

  being is born of nonbeing."

  —the Tao Te Ching

  One

  Chickens: 1 Casey: 0

  "Casey—you're missing a finger."

  Her name was Violet. My first ever blind date with a Chinese woman had just begun and we were already into forbidden topics.

  I used my chopstick as a pointer. "You've got a piece of noodle dangling from your lower lip."

  She smiled, made no attempt to wipe it away. Her face was smooth and child-like, immaculate except for the fact that her right eye was noticeably larger than her left; perhaps when she was born the doctor had pulled down the skin to get a better look at her pupils and it had never returned to normal.

  Oops, sorry 'bout that. I'm sure this is covered under our insurance.

  Violet squinted at me. "You seem uncomfortable."

  "It's hot in here."

  "Don't you want to talk about your finger?"

  "Perhaps later."

  She wiped her lip with a napkin, seemed to be hiding a smile. "I'm sorry if I've offended you."

  My shoulder muscles were tightening into Gordian knots—I was turtling, an age old response. "No, it's a long story...that's all. Maybe some other time. Oh—a new course is here." A Chinese waiter padded up to our table, setting down a dish of vegetables. Violet whispered something to him in Mandarin and he went away chuckling. Was it about me?

  Welcome to club paranoia. I'll be your host tonight. The name's Casey Stewart.

  "So where did you say you work?" I asked.

  "Nowhere. I'm just visiting a cousin of mine." She paused. "Have you ever done anything wild?"

  "What?"

  "I'm just wondering if you ever release yourself. You seem a little stolid...in a good way. Do you ever just dive right into life and take a big bite?"

  "Well...yes, of course...no not really."

  "Which is it?"

  "Both...uh...neither."

  "You know what?" She was looking directly into my eyes now. I couldn't help but squirm. "You've got one of those tragic drama faces: thin nose, a cleft chin, gaunt cheeks. I can see your future written all over your features." She leaned even closer, perhaps was going to pull out a magnifying glass. "The planets are shifting in your favor," she whispered.

  "The planets? Is this my horoscope?"

  Violet had retreated. "Not quite. I see things, that's all. Change is coming."

  "Oh." Our third course arrived, via the same smiling waiter. Perhaps it was time for me to point out that I was psychic too—I already knew this date would end in disaster. The fact I found her attractive sealed my doom. My only hope now was not to make the headlines of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix: Man goes on date. Twelve people die. A whole city block destroyed.

  Ah, but again I was counting my grenades before they exploded. "You know," I said, jabbing my fork into a piece of chicken, "I'm not the boring person you think I am. Strange things happen to me all the time. Some of them are almost interesting." I brought the chicken to my mouth, started chewing, swallowed. "In fact, I have my very own, personal st—"

  My mouth stopped working. It wasn't chicken I had just consumed, it looked similar, tasted like it, but it was really a burning coal.

  "Casey?"

  "Ch-ch-chicken," I gasped.

  "You have your very own personal chicken? Kinky!"

  "No...hot, hot...chicken."

  Then I grabbed my glass of water and promptly splashed it on my face and down the front of my shirt. "Excuse me," I blurted, darting for the bathroom, my eyes swamped with tears.

  I missed the door by inches. The wall kindly stopped me. I leaned on it for a moment, felt my head, then rolled into the washroom, collapsed next to the sink and cranked on the taps.

  The chickens of the world were out to get their revenge. After almost twenty years they were still mad about one little day at the chopping block.

  I dowsed my face with water, then drank like a dried up camel. Everything cooled. I stepped back and looked in the mirror—my hair was pointing at the roof. Whoa, hello, Einstein!

  I had been about to tell Violet about my very own personal stalker—my albatross, as it were. The man who had a penchant for slashing the tires on my Volvo and leaving scrawled notes like: Caw! Yu ir 2 blame fir evryting!

  The burning chicken had been a message: don't tell anyone about him or things will get worse.

  It took me at least five minutes to clean myself up. When I walked out of the bathroom the entire population of the restaurant turned to stare.

  I bowed.

  Then I looked past them to the table. No Violet. All I saw was a ten dollar bill next to an empty soup bowl.

  I asked the waiter about her, but he only shrugged. He still had a Cheshire grin.

  I paid for my meal and ducked out onto the street.

  All in all it was probably the best blind date I'd ever been on.

  Two

  Mother Logic

  "Sarah Brennan is back...she hasn't been here since your father cut your finger off for you." Mother's voice squeezed itself out of my telephone receiver. "The bell rang, I opened the door and there she was, bags and all. No phone call, no warning."

  Even though I've told Mom I don't get up until seven, she consistently calls me at six to be sure I'm home.

  It's Mother Logic. Never argue with it.

  "I guess she has four kids. I was shocked, Casey. I got her written down as having three. Bless me if she doesn't have another son. She came out this way to see him."

  "Gee...really," I murmured, encouraging Mom to charge on. My attention listed to one side and sank beneath the waterline of boredom.

  And about this finger removing business. Mom makes it appear like I asked Dad to slice Frodo, my ring finger, from my left hand. It wasn't that way at all. It was an accident on the farm. Years ago.

  He didn't mean to do it. I'm sure.

  Mom was still rambling. "Sarah's related to us by marriage to your dad's cousin but she looks like a Stewart. Same eyes, same light cheek bones. She don't seem a day over thirty-five. It's unnatural."

  I had forgotten whom Mom was talking about. Her stories about our kin were as long as continents and tended to drift. She knew exactly how each cousin and uncle and first cousin once removed were related to us—whose great granddad spawned which line of the Stewarts, Frosts, Morrisons, Bathes, Brennans, Hills, et al. She had traced our history back to the late 1700's when our family first arrived in this country from bonny ol' Scotland and potato-starved Ireland. She had even discovered, through some obscure and twisting family lines, that Robert Burns was our ancestor.

  It's a great ice breaker at parties. People ask me if I like anything he's done since Zeppelin split up.

  "—so don't forget," Mom admonished.

  Oops! "Forget what?"

  "Weren't you listening, Casey Stewart? Please get tickets to that Garth Crooks country concert for your Aunt Nancy. Just order them through work."
>
  Tickets? Aunt Nancy?

  "I'll get them," I promised, not bothering to explain once again that I no longer worked at CKSW, that I had scuttled up the great flea line of capitalism and landed a job in an advertising agency. Perhaps I'd never told her.

  I must have, it's been two years.

  Mom said goodbye; I set down the phone and closed my eyes.

  A second later my clock blared like an air siren. My neighbor immediately slammed his fist against the wall we shared—a Pavlovian response. I fumbled for the button and jammed it down, ushering in an almost perfect silence.

  Another morning on planet earth. When are the aliens going to rescue me?

  Three

  Good Morning? Think Again.

  I sat up, donned sweats and a t-shirt and stumbled towards the park two blocks away, stopping only to be sure my 1970 Volvo's tires hadn't been slashed. Odin was in perfect shape, his wheels round, his bumper gleaming. Perhaps it would be a good Wednesday.

  A surprisingly warm September morning shook my hand and slapped my back—the air moist, the sun peeping over the rooftops of the houses I passed, forcing me to squint. By the time I reached Greystone Park I was slick with a light film of sweat.

  I positioned myself next to a twisting proud birch tree I had named Lao and began to practice Tai Chi. Even though I've spent seven years studying these slow, meditative movements, I'm still a beginner. My teacher, a tiny sixty-nine year old Chinese man with jet black hair and deep smile lines, once said, "Feel like beginner, good, feel like baby that really good." According to him this exercise is the fountain of youth and if I practice long enough I'll become an infant again.

  I'd settle for sixteen and no acne.

  I've learned enough Chinese philosophy to know exactly how screwed up I am. Everything I had studied could be condensed into six basic words:

  Simple life.

  Simple world.

  No worries.

  I started with the short form—bending my knees, breathing in, finding my centre of balance. I turned to the West, stepping slow as a deep sea diver, extending my left arm outwards. My motions were disjointed: I inhaled and exhaled at the wrong time, forcing everything. Frodo, my missing ring finger, was cold—an ethereal feeling, the ghost nerves playing mystical tricks.

  Just as I reached a movement called Waving Hands Like Clouds, a guttural voice whispered:

  "So finally we meet, Brother."

  My friendly neighborhood stalkerman was here! I jumped backwards, my hands darting into a defensive position. En garde!

  "Caw! Caw!" Now he was behind me. I was being hounded by Poe's avenging raven. I spun.

  I glimpsed a black-masked face peering around a tree. Then nothing.

  "You stole my future!" This accusation shot from my left side. His voice was familiar. "You cannot hide. I see you with the eye inside my mind."

  Eye inside your mind? Buddy, that ain't normal!

  "Who the hell are you?" I asked, meaning to sound indignant, but it emerged as a squeak. All those hours practicing my tough man voice in front of the mirror were for nothing.

  Deep laughter sounded all around me, a flock of crows cawing. There were only four trees; somehow he was darting invisibly from one to the other.

  "You're my pen pal aren't you?" I asked.

  Silence.

  I listened. Heard the beating of my heart, the pounding of blood in my ears...then felt him—his presence fell across me like a wraith's shadow. His heart thumped at the same speed as mine, his breath matched my own...except he was stealing it all from me. All my energy, all my skill was spilling out, leaving me a husk, smashed as easily as a rotted Jack O' Lantern.

  He stepped into the open behind me, twigs snapping below his feet. My limbs were soggy wet noodles. I couldn't turn to face him.

  Get your shotgun, Gus...it's a sitting duck!

  "Who are you?" I whispered

  "Caw," he crowed, then came two quick steps, and a whistling sound as he struck me directly between my shoulder blades. The blow knocked me forwards and I sprawled face first in the grass. I rolled to a stop, then raised a feeble hand to block his next attack.

  He was gone.

  I glimpsed a black clad figure dashing out the far end of the park, leaping a car and disappearing into an alley. His magpie laughter flapped back to me.

  I used a tree trunk to pull myself up. The possibility that he might return got my legs working. Homeward bound, eyes darting from side to side, I jogged along. But he had houdinied away and was probably snickering on a breezy rooftop tracking me with binoculars.

  He would return.

  But who the hell was he? Maybe it was someone who had read one of my stories and taken offense. I had arrived! The first sign of fame...the appearance of kooks on your doorstep. Hey John...Hey, Mr. Lennon!

  I had already told the police about the letters and the slashed tires. The night officer's response was a drowsy "Oh...not much we can do at this stage. Ninety percent of these people are all talk."

  "What about the other ten? I'll end up in the obituary column! I don't have any good pictures of myself."

  "Mister...Uh..." He looked down at my complaint report, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "Mister Stewart, you have nothing to worry about." He surrendered to a yawn, becoming an opera singer: Don Giovanni with a badge and a mouthful of fillings. The pack of officers behind him yawned in unison, his chorus. Figaro! Donut-hole! Figaro!

  "Excuse me," he apologized. "One of our cars will swing by your apartment block every night. You'll be safe."

  Safe! Where are you now? I knew the police wouldn't do anything till I was chopped up, stuffed in cans and sold as Casey Stewart soup.

  There was only one person in recent memory who could have been my stalker: Melvin, an old acquaintance from my university days. I had shared two English classes with him, spent my time laughing at his jokes and borrowing his notes. We even had a beer at Louis' one Friday afternoon. Then one day in the middle of class he erupted, screaming that I had stolen his award winning essay and was using my microwave to capture his thoughts. Then he fled the building, never to be seen again.

  I need help picking friends.

  I had told the police about Melvin, but they considered him an unlikely suspect. I knew it was useless to try and convince them otherwise. I understood what was behind it all—a hideous, invisible force that has been slouching towards me since the day I was born. I had seen it in the glint of my father's eyes as he swung the axe, felt its slipperiness in the ice on the highway, smelled it in the antiseptic hospital hallways as we went to view my sister.

  S-s-s-s, my preciouss, it'ss coming for Cay-ssey, it isss. Sslippery, Sslimy and sscary. S-s-s-s.

  I checked Odin again. His tires were still inflated. I burst into my apartment like a football player, grabbed my hockey stick from the corner and swept around in a FBI crouch, swinging doors open.

  No one home. Time for food. I gobbled down my oatmeal porridge, searching for a clever plan to catch my nemesis: none came.

  Not for me an ordinary morning, no I hadn't even had my breakfast and I'd been attacked by a lunatic.

  What was the rest of the day going to be like?

  Four

  The Problem with Stair Climbers

  I contemplated calling in sick, remembered I had missed a day last week because of feigned illness; so off I went to work, my Volvo carrying me. It had already turned into a hot prairie morning; God, if he existed, was pointing a giant hair dryer at this great city of bridges.

  Surprisingly, I felt alive. Something had squeegeed away the bustle and confusion and for the first time I was hearing and seeing the world with a powerful clarity.

  I guess this is what happens when someone tries to kill you.

  On the radio a man named Uncle Ed blathered away, wanting to sell me a stereo system for my vehicle, telling me I needed it now, this was my only chance to buy and I wouldn't have to pay him for six blissful months. Dumb guy. Most of my friends
wouldn't lend me money for six seconds.

  Do you ever wonder about all this advertising we're bombarded with? Drink this, smoke this, own this, be this, hi, I have big breasts so buy this car. When are we going to stand up and scream stop yelling at me!

  Yes, I wrote the ad Uncle Ed voiced. Life has its little ironies.

  I putted into the lot behind BoMark Advertising, eased Odin to a gentle stop below the BoMark knows advertising sign. I got out and shuffled towards the rear entrance, getting a view of the thin, slit-shaped windows I would be sitting behind for the next 8 hours.

  I opened the door, passing from heat into man-made cool. The dampness of a night swamp lingered here, fabricated by our air conditioners. I shivered, the unnatural drop in degrees surprising my body.

  And yet I remained attuned. I had "thousand mile eyes" as the Chinese called it: I could see more, know more than ordinary. The building vibrated with the anxiousness of trapped minds—necks tired, everyone looking over their shoulders, fearing the loss of their job (and half wishing it would happen).

  I said my hellos to the janitor and the receptionist then retreated to the office I shared with two other copywriters. I clicked on Hal, my computer, and began turning half baked concepts and jotted salesmen's statements into ads compelling people to appear at a certain location at the proper time, eager to spend.

  Two years of sameness pressed down on me.

  I had to concentrate more. I had already been called into the Boss's office twice this week for "motivational" lectures. The first time Linda yelled at me until she was hoarse. In the second session she poked my chest in a silent rage, then grabbed my ear, threw me into the hall and slammed her door. Apparently she had learned her corporate encouragement techniques from the Gestapo.

  But I was determined to be a good boy. I would focus and create, I told myself. I could do this for one more day.