Sunday 29 January 2012

...Joe - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Days go by and I feel empty. She doesn't call me, no one calls me. I keep thinking I hear her coming through the door and I wait, here in my room, in my bed, but she doesn't come. So I lie here, in my dirty sheets and wait. I won't move till Jonie comes back. I refuse to think about what happened, about what I did. My brain however wants the opposite, and keeps replaying that night over and over again and every time the shame buries itself a little deeper and I'm afraid that this time I won't be able to recover.

I don't eat, shower or shave. My hair keeps getting longer and I only get up when I need to piss or you know, shit. I don't know how long I can go on like this. I watch the clock, the clock watches me and I listen to the sounds of my house and reacquaint myself with my loneliness. We may as well get used to each others company.

It's now been seven days since Jonie left and my stomach finally forces me out of my bed and into my barren kitchen. The breads mouldy and the milks gone sour. The only thing within sell by date is a block of mouldy mature cheddar or beer, so I grab the beer. After a few gulps I feel a bit better but I know to have to eat something – man cannot survive on beer alone. I contemplate going down to the corner shop in my seven day stink clothes and my stomach lurches. I can't go to the corner shop, I can't face “Phillip” or Leon or whatever the fuck his name was. I can't go where I used to go or do the things I used to do because in every corner of my life Jonies there. Her ghost lingering. Reminding me of my loss.

I down the beer and grab another one from the fridge. I slam the door and slam my head against it's cool exterior. I'm so fucking tired. I should go shopping, fuck I probably should shower. I sniff under my arms and I think I smell okay. Maybe the shower can wait.
 

I slowly walk back to my room, every surface of my house reminds me of her. I don't know what to do about this feeling, the memories of our relationship follow me around and I so desperately want to speak to her. I miss her so much. We haven't gone this long before without speaking to each other. We went everywhere together, holidays, shopping, drinking. We even went to Universities within train distance of each other. We were never to far away. Ever.

I wander into my room and look around. I should get dressed, it'll probably make me feel better. I pick up the first T-shirt I see off the floor. It's that fucking green Fred Perry polo shirt from that day. I scrunch it in my fist, I feel angry, so irrationally angry. I blame the polo shirt for bringing me such bad luck, in fact I curse you Fred Perry your clothes brought along my downfall. May all your profits burn. I am so angry I'm shaking. I throw the polo shirt as hard as I can and it hits the wall with a thud and springs back off. My beer spills a little from the force of my previous outburst and it makes me even more angry – hulk angry, so I throw that as well, it hits the floor and fizzes everywhere. I start throwing anything I can get my hands on. Cups, clothes, books, shoes, newspapers, plates. I drag the duvet off my bed and I hurl it across the room, the pillows follow and I upend the mattress and rip the curtains from the poles. 
 

I accidentally smash a picture of Jonie and my anger instantly dies. I pick up the frame and shake the picture free. It's an old picture, taken on the last day of Secondary school. We look so young, so fucking happy together and then that night comes flooding back and I'm crying again, so hard it's making my body shake and I can't breathe, I can't get a grip on what’s happened. It seems so unreal. I clutch the picture to my chest and curl up in the mess I made. Seems fitting doesn't it?

8 comments:

  1. Hi Rachel.
    First off, let me say that there's a great deal of raw emotion in this piece which I think accurately portrays how your protagonist must be feeling at this time. We can really feel Joe's pain and sense of loss, which is great. My only concern is that his varying emotional states seem a little too polarised. I think the swing from absolute apathy to blind rage is a bit too stark, and I'd like to see a more gradual transition. This is just a suggestion, but maybe, after Joe has lashed out against the green polo shirt, he should stub his toe in his stumbling clumsiness. This self-inflicted injury could add impetus to his rage and help us to understand his motivations when he begins to trash the room. It could act as a catalyst; the straw that broke the camel's back, if you will. Your first person narration is great, and we can really get inside Joe's mind, so it would be useful to include more self-pitying thoughts of how 'I can't do anything right' - further emphasising the depths of Joe's despair.

    Your sense of character is very good, in fact it's one of the strongest aspects of your writing. We really understand, over the course of the whole piece, who Joe is. Essentially he's a defeatist, but we have seen that this learned hopelessness stems from a troubled background as a mixed race kid with separation anxieties. He's had a difficult relationship with everyone except for Joanie and now, the one stable influence in his life has left - it's a sad state of affairs and I'd be interested to know how he overcomes this (or doesn't as the case may be.)

    However, Joanie and Anna both appear to be much more hazy and peripheral. I wonder if this is a deliberate move on your part to show that Joe is self-centred? I mean this in the nicest possible way – he's not a malicious character in any sense, but there's a lot of introspection and focus on his own actions rather than on the actions of others. There's a certain depressive narcissism to his character that makes him entirely believable. Most teenagers I know have had these feelings and it makes him a very vivid character as a result.

    You say you tried to add in more sense impressions into this chapter, and there are definitely some strong images, for example the rotten food and the piles of filthy clothes. However, I think this scene would be the perfect place for even more descriptive language. Maybe think about the smell of Joe's unwashed flesh, or the stale air in the room? The fact that Joe is drinking a beer is a perfect chance to describe the taste and texture of the liquid, especially as I'm assuming he's only drunk water for the past week. How does the beer feel? Is it sweet relief? Or is it bitter and sour, regretful? Sense impressions can often be used as powerful metaphors that speak about a character's inner a thoughts in subtle ways – making the reader work for their supper.

    There are some great moments in this piece, especially the personification of the clock 'watching' Joe. It's like a stand off or a staring contest and really conveys a strong image of the passage of time. I also really like the reference to the shop assistant – who Joanie and Joe spoke to when they were stoned and re-named. This is a little touch of nostalgia that reminds us how fondly Joe feels for Joanie.

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  2. There are a few grammatical bits and pieces that you need to look at:
    1. “She doesn't call me, no one calls me.” This might work better if, instead of a comma, you use a semi-colon. In this way, the pause is elongated and serves to emphasise the fact that he is receiving no visitors. 'She doesn't call me; no one calls me.'
    2. In the third paragraph, you describe both the bread and the cheese as 'mouldy' is consecutive sentences. It might be better to swap one of these adjectives for something else – describe the bread as 'furry', or cheese as 'sweaty' instead for a similar effect but without the repetition.
    3. Your use of the possessive nouns and contractions is sometimes a little muddled. For example, in paragraph 3 “Jonies” should have an apostrophe 'Joanie's' because you're saying 'Joanie is there.' In paragraph 4 it should read 'its cool exterior' because you're using a possessive pronoun, i.e. it is the exterior belonging to the fridge.
    4. In the fifth paragraph, 'we were never to far away' should be 'we were never too far away.'

    It's a good, succinct piece. And, though I feel you could lengthen it with some further description, both of the scene and of Joe's state of mind, it's a good lead in to what promises to be an interesting and exciting climax to your story.

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  3. I liked this. In a small doses, hanging with Joe isn’t as heavy as I’ve experienced in the past. I’d say that you’ve become more aware of the limitations on your premise and have consciously chosen to push them. Your ‘sense work’ is at a level that I myself would be satisfied had I written this. It’s so much easier to handle Joe when your writing doesn’t indulge his every thought. We needed the mopey fuck to trash his room and unlike Leanne, I don’t mind that he didn’t stub his toe as a precursor to the violence. He has so much repressed feeling that I think he only needed to see the shirt to go a bit doollaly.

    Fav bits:

    ‘My brain however wants the opposite, and keeps replaying that night over and over again and every time the shame buries itself a little deeper and I'm afraid that this time I won't be able to recover.’

    Probably best bit in the ENTIRE series so far:
    ‘I watch the clock, the clock watches me and I listen to the sounds of my house and reacquaint myself with my loneliness. We may as well get used to each others company.’

    In this we get all of Joes self-involvement, his defeatism (thanks Leanne) and frankly, his rather difficult to like character. You’re a brave one for writing him as his simple motivation (the attainment of value in the eyes of someone he can possess/worship) is beyond his reach. Will he work out who he is and that he will not find satisfaction on his current course?

    ‘I can't go where I used to go or do the things I used to do because in every corner of my life Jonies there. Her ghost lingering.’

    LOVE the above part regarding the ghost. Would love to see some ‘rolling metaphors’ from you in future. Have the continual haunting of Jonie plague him through the finale. Or perhaps, hopefully, the girl will return and offer the poor bugger some closure…

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  4. John I know what you mean about Joe. He was getting a little whiny and it sptrated to piss me off! Hopefully the next chapter will see some recovering on his part.

    Leanne cheers for the grammer corrections. It's a thing I've been struggling with, especially that bloody apostrophe!

    I'm also gonna keep going ith the sense imagery. It's something new for me and I actually enjoyed writing it.

    Interesting that you two had different ideas about Joes kick off at the end. I thought he may need some impetus but because, like John said, he has so much pent up rage it could materialise from nowhere. I'm interested in what everyone else has to say.

    Leanne - Joe is a defeatist. It may be who he is and it may be his background. He has had a troubled family life but he had a priviliged upbringing - maybe that contributed to his feeling of unworthiness...

    John- I'm glad you deemed the clock watching bit the best bit in the ENTIRE series lol. I'm enjoying the rolling metaphors. I've been playing around with them a lot more lately.

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  5. "I blame the polo shirt for bringing me such bad luck, in fact I curse you Fred Perry your clothes brought along my downfall. May all your profits burn. I am so angry I'm shaking. I throw the polo shirt as hard as I can and it hits the wall with a thud and springs back off. My beer spills a little from the force of my previous outburst and it makes me even more angry – hulk angry"
    - This part seems to be in conflict with the emotional state of the character, it swings from emotional distress to light humour. I may be missing some backstory an have misinterperated tho. Was the shirt significant?


    really interesting turn of phrase you used about time, I really liked the bit about the clock watching him, I get that feeling alot.. it gives the impression hes been at it a while.

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  6. Yeah the shirt is from the previous chapters and he sees it as a symbol to everything that went wrong in the break up between him and his bestie.

    You haven't had the fortunate pleasure of Joe's epic mood swings!

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  7. I would interpreted Joe using the phrase 'hulk angry' to still be in the context of him actually being happy. Am I to interpret that his mood has swung here Rachel?

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  8. It's to show that a little bit of him is still there. Even under all the shit Joe's absurd humour still surfaces from time to time, so yeah Spider your right :)

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