EXPERIMENTAL WRITING: IS IT STILL A VALID GENRE?
I haven’t written a ‘serious’ novel for years. Now, nearing 70 I thought I would explore the darkness enveloping society. It’s very experimental and the sentence structure is ‘choppy’ deliberately. There is also a hidden detail to the narrator. Is anyone else experimenting? This is all I am going to post, but would love some comments on how it ‘feels’ to you. Perhaps just another cathartic piece to put into the “trunk?”
1.
This man, he’s wearing a black homburg hat. His coat, a black greatcoat, heavy, resists the bitter wind and responds only to the movement of his feet. His feet. He is wearing patent leather shoes in spite of the gnarly weather. The howling wind, and sluicing rain affect him not at all.
The hat hides his face, though he walks without head bent into the slicing, ice rain.
He is the Dark Man. The man of my nightmares. Even in plain sight, he gathers shadows around him.
He crosses the street against the lights. The world moves in slow motion. There is no blaring of horns. The traffic appears to be unaware of his presence and he crosses without incident. There is a girl, waiting at the crossing for the green man. As he passes he gives the appearance of waving slightly. She looks up from the driving rain and he shoots her in the face. There is no loud retort. The gun is silenced. The man in the homburg and heavy greatcoat continues on his way in no hurry. The girl has fallen to the ground and a torrent of blood runs into the gutter. The street is awash with people, all walking heads bent. No one hears the slight crinkly pop. No one sees the man in the homburg and the greatcoat except me. I am standing in the doorway of a closed cafe waiting to bump into a stranger and skim their credit cards. The man in the homburg and the heavy greatcoat and patent leather shoes is not my business. I am afraid of him. She is dead. Completely. There is no point in my sprinting across the road to render assistance. The Dark Man has gone before the girl screams. She is with her young man. He holds an umbrella over her, bowing to an old age of chivalry. I imagine his face turning white. He is dressed well, in a Burberry coat, she, in a long, but lightweight black
Ann Demeulemeester hooded raincoat. She screams and screams and screams. I wish I were on their side of the street. I smell money on them even at this distance and fumble with my pocket skimmer wondering whether I should take the chance. The chance is not worth it and I merge further into the doorway. The man is now raising a cell to his cheek. I would have expected earbuds. He talks frantically. He wants to wave and gesticulate, but he gallantly holds the umbrella over his love, perhaps afraid that she might wash away in the deluge never to be penetrated again by his ardour.
Then the street is awash with lights, blue and red, flashing and strobing so that I must look away lest I engage in an epileptic fit.
A businessman in a felt Dress Hat hurries on my side of the street. I step out and bump into his chest, holding my small skimmer like a cellphone against his inside breast pocket. I assume he is right handed. “Did you see that?†His voice is excited and afraid. “Yes.†I say, smoothing him down, calming him. Checking his pockets. “There is nothing to be done. Be calm. You might yet have a heart attack. Be calm.â€
The businessman smiles briefly, a smile as watery as the weather. “Yes. Yes. Of course. Thank you.†We speak only briefly, but he quiets sufficiently to thank me again and then shuffles off, perhaps to his office to ponder the incident. Perhaps to his wife to engage her in the detail and huddle together naked in fear of a world gone insane.
Â
2.
Beauchamp is waiting at home. She corrects people when they say Bow Champ. “Beecham†She says. She is readying for work. She has just spent money on a curved duty belt, designed for the female anatomy. It does not dig into the hips. She checks her sidearm and her ASP. They need to be quickly accessible. Then she checks her cuffs. We share an apartment but not a bed. Sometimes I think of raping her, but the way she looks at me it would not be rape. It would not excite. We remain chaste. I do not bring women home. Beauchamp suspects that I am gay and I do not disavow. She absently checks her glock for the second time. I have learned that it can load both 9mm and .40 calibre. She wears a light cotton blouse with a pocket over each breast. She asks me to fasten the flap over each pocket. The little black buttons are small and I spend a little value time fumbling each one. Her nipples are like teats, long and rubbery. My fingernails scratch each one lightly while I tend to her dress. Each small intake of breath generates a lightning rod directly (censored.) Her eyes take on an almost imperceptible squint. She thinks I don’t see, or perhaps care. But I see everything. After all, was it not I alone who observed that casual murder by the man with the homburg and greatcoat? Who shot the girl in the face. A sliver of fear suggests this may be true.
“Fix me?†Beauchamp sits backwards on a simple kitchen chair. Her legs splayed. Her arms along the topmost spindle. Her chin on her arms. She lives two lives. That of the soft, tactile, scented maiden. That of the tight, wound up, disciplined, strict administrator of the law no matter her personal opinions. I am the vice. Ah! You think I mean vice! “Come on! Fix me! I’m going to be late again!†The fixing begins. Taking heavy full-bodied red hair, separating out hanks. Slowly. The feel of hair is silk on silk. A synapse ignites a wish to feel it on exposed, but yet hidden skin.
The hanks are plaited overtight. Extreme. Beauchamp squints, but she wants it to be like this. When finished she will coil it against her skull. Hands now upon her shoulders. She is tight. Coiled up. Then gone. Behatted and wearing dark glasses.
Â
3
The computer is shared. Beauchamp locks up a few folders but her porn history is effortless to access. TOR takes precedence. USB connects the skimmer and for a while at least, there is cash in the wallet. Beauchamp’s porn is of the romantic preference. Simple and naïve. Women may instigate. She is however, a cheat. A thief. She has downloaded copyright material. Copyright exists in the work. Porn too. When/if I decide to rape her, the camera will record and upload.
Beauchamp is good at what she does. She takes her training seriously. Each weekend we go together to the range to use handguns. She has a broad knowledge of such things. She can make her own ammunition. There are two assault rifles in a combination safe under her bedroom carpet. Lumicyano and a camera opens the safe. Her fingerprints are easily read. There are sex toys too, but of the simple, non-extreme kind. One of them entices me. A latex vibrating butterfly with a wireless remote control. Intriguing.
There should be something about the murder on the television. Channel surfing finally finds an item on Fox. The place, the time is right. Only one man comes forward for the camera. It is the man I skimmed. “The SUV came around that corner.†Pointing. “Had these big wing mirrors. Like the ones you use if you’re hauling a caravan. “Slammed her right in the face! Man! It was horrible.†He pauses as if deciding if he should continue. He does. “I was so busy watching that I bumped into someone . I said did you see that, and they said yes.†His description was naturally way off. My hair is red, not blonde. My long hair was under my woollen hat. It was blue, not black. My hat that is. I am confused because not only can he not give an account as to my looks there is no hatted man. I am not surprised with his description of my person. I however, saw no SUV at all. I saw what I saw. I saw a man in a homburg and greatcoat. His gun was a 9mm Beretta 92FS. There is little recoil. Even at distance handguns are familiar. Beauchamp is a remarkable teacher and a remarkable shot.
When Beauchamp works nights, I watch a little TV, often falling asleep in my chair. The channels are repeating the same old garbage. Rambo 111, Lethal Weapon, Back to the Future 2. Stallone, Willis, Mel Gibson, and Michael J Fox. They have become bores.
I settle on Lethal Weapon. It is better than the others, and the shopping channels. The news channels make no mention of the man in the hat. Perhaps I was mistaken in the drowning rain. Even though it was daylight, the sky was crowded with low black clouds. A dark day, a dark man, and I in a dark mood. Of course. The evil thoughts about Beauchamp disperse. Overproof rum aids the disconnect. She is a sweet girl who still believes in the innate goodness of humanity. When the sun shines we walk together in the parks and the city. She is without parents, but has a sister in Boston. Her sister is married to an accounts manager in advertising. They have two childen and a dog called spot. They are without imagination. The dog is a Dalmation. The children, named Britney and John. I presume Spears and Lennon as their inspiration.
Soon sleep intervenes and the rattling, pounding gunshots through the big sound system fade into nothing at all. Dreams offer surcease from dark thoughts.
4
