The Story
On a particularly sunny day in some city or another, a small lizard was basking on a big, grey rock, enjoying the morning warmth after a chilly night. It’s cold blooded body was close to functioning temperature now and would soon be going to look for some lizard breakfast. Or so it had probably been planning. A clever reptile would’ve been paying closer attention to the tall building behind it. But this one wasn’t, and during the dopey reptile’s morning bask, a big hawk had quietly soared down to catch up the lizard completely unaware, rip out it’s guts, and devour it. Sometimes nature can be cruel to the complacent.
Dammit! This story sucks! Delete. Yes, delete. I’m sure. Under the gun to produce something for the sequel to ‘Lucky Lizard’, and nothing. Who the hell gets writer’s-block trying to write a sequel to a thirty-page children’s book with no more than fifty words per page? A drunk, recently divorced hack with a penchant for adultery and self-destruction, that’s who. One who happens to be hungover and completely devoid of any ideas that might be considered suitable for children. Pretty sure most parents don’t want their kiddies reading about ‘Getting Lucky Lizard’, the one who dropped a grand on booze, cocaine and ladies last night.
Oh God! If only people knew what trials faced the lonely creative. So many little hearts depending on heroic deeds that somehow originate from these oft-sullied fingertips. The pressure is most times too much to bear. I numb the anguish of this tormented heart with liquid-forget and fuel future torment with Colombian lying-powder and a litany of other bad decisions. The companionship I seek in the small hours is just as much for them as it is for me. Briefly ducking our demons in a smokescreen of emotionless interaction and substance-inspired fantasies, sweet nothings whispered with the best of intoxicated intentions.
My selfish ex-wife crucifying me for seeking solace in the comfort of hired company. Not understanding my need for artistic release, a necessary outlet employed to avert utter madness. Instead she chose to fixate on the unfulfilled book deadlines and incriminating financial statements. Flinging resentment and blame until that quit offering her sufficient satisfaction. Heartless divorce papers descending on this beleaguered soul from shining towers-at-law for her final thrill.
I don’t know what that spiteful witch tells the children to get them to project the repulsion and discomfort they do at their tender ages. How could they possibly recall my late-night drinking episodes from when they were still in diapers? You would think that seeing their psychotic mother beating on me when I was too drunk to defend myself would skew their sympathy in my favour. Tears and begging, a ruse to get her to stop scaring the brats. I often sacrificed my dignity to avert domestic turmoil. To this day I bear scars from wounds suffered while letting her use me as an emotional punching-bag.
To pay the bills and maintain this hurtful status quo I struggle to fulfill contractual obligations committed to in times of naive optimism. I just want to give and to share my gift, but am beset on all sides by vampires, sucking away what little faith I have left in humanity.
Staring at the wall for momentary relief, another part of the process she never understood, always walking in right at the wrong moment. I need a break once in a while you know, creation is a taxing mistress, and the girls on these websites are my muses. Sirens really, calling out to me in the storm of an unhappy marriage, mercifully guiding our doomed vessel to splinter into a million pieces against the rocks. An ill-fated union destined to fracture beyond any hope of repair. The lies I used to tell, thinking I was sparing her feelings, while in actuality only digging a grave for any sense of trust she may have once had in me.
After the first best-seller and still no intimacy I told myself she must need some time alone to sort it all out. Now I was lying to myself, we were deep in the throes of hatred even then, much as I tried to pretend otherwise. My version of stepping back was to be completely absent. And although the thought of even touching her made my skin crawl, I’m a man that needs regular physical connection with the opposite sex. At first it was massage parlours once a week, but then graduated to penthouse parties with female companionship on a fairly regular basis. A parade of fragrant curves, expensive vices and mutual disconnection. Many ships passing in the many nights of our shared lonelinesses.
Alimony and supervised visits were clearly vindictive measures taken to lash out at me for my selfish attempts to find solace in the midst of the maelstrom. I never held any of her extra-marital affairs against her, even before everything fell apart.
Damn! I can’t write anything worthwhile when I’m this worked up. I need a smoke. Out on the balcony of this office I wasn’t able to afford three months ago but somehow convinced my publishers to pay for up to the end of the financial quarter. What a chore that was. Light up a foreign cigarette, given to me by my cousin just returned from Europe, she still believes my best is yet to come. Only a cousin through marriage actually, yet we have maintained a deep bond for years.
Leaning over the railing, listening to the living below. An older, unexceptional model car rolling along the boulevard in the dying light, pumping rap out of an obviously after-market stereo. Good rap, not this tuneless new machine-gun garbage all the retards listen to nowadays. Tupac maybe. Snoop or Nickatina are as rare as hens-teeth in this hip-hop age of creative anorexia. Bulimia more like it, puking forth from Wal-Mart sound-systems mounted in the plastic dashboards of Japanese not-rods. A generation of disposable nobodies desperately trying to impress fellow insipids as they cruise the strip. Thanks down there in your white-bread Impala, bumping music I don’t really understand but do appreciate.
Time to face the demons now, confront myself and somehow transcribe my own issues into a harmless tale for all the kiddies. Reward their loyalty with further adventures of a lizard more heroic than I could ever be.
Sitting here alone, the scariest scenario of my existence, being chained to a family I don’t love is a close second. I can admit to myself and my maker that becoming a family man was the biggest blunder to date. An irresponsible oversight, now impossible to take back. I can see why she hates me, the bitch, I hate her. How was I ever supposed to fool any of them into believing I wanted to be there? Now I don’t even try. It’s easier to walk away if I believe I’m despised. So I do what I can to make sure I am.
Rip back a few inches of powdered confidence and stare at the screen. Nothing jumping forth from my fingers yet. Sensuous distraction just a few clicks away, maybe find some inspiration looking at big asses in sexy positions, voluptuous Amazon babes flaunting shaved temptation in my defenseless face. Drug-induced fear of contractual obligations confining me to a chair that offers only debilitating alternatives to productivity. Me, fruitlessly clambering to force a tale from the poisoned mind of an all-too-willing victim of myself. If only these clueless parents had an inkling as to what kind of reprobate crafted the heartwarming adventures that their precious little shits love so much.
I remember when she kicked me out for good, I knew at the time that I shouldn’t bother pleading at the door. Just walked west for a while until I found a comfortable-looking set of concrete stairs about two blocks from the beach. The bottle of Tequila was still mostly full by the time I sat down, and I had stopped at the corner-store for cigarettes ten minutes before the final rejection. I was set for solitude.
As I eased down onto the second step of my self-induced misery, a beautiful little pit-bull gingerly appeared from the right, her with her issues and me with mine. After making the decision that I was hers, she sat politely by my feet, slightly to the right, and just listened. I cried on her pretty head for some time, more for the general state of my life than for my recent eviction from purgatory, and she licked away my tears. I don’t know what lead her to me but I will be forever thankful. She’s better than any best friend I ever dreamed I would never have. And for a while she was my only reason to continue living.
Just before blackness that night, I recall, now from the left side of my blurred vision, a little fuzzy German-Shepherd puppy stumbling into our world, lost but not in the slightest bit afraid. The three of us walked the remaining two-blocks to the beach, about the time I had hit the quarter-bottle mark, and I fell asleep with the fuzzy puppy snuggled into my chest, his baby breath injecting joy into my joyless life, and ‘Empress’, as I called her, curled into my thighs, keeping watch over her vulnerable new charges. The best sleep in recent history.
I awoke at first-light with the fuzzy brat licking my face. After some snuggles and wrestling, with Empress sitting patiently vigilant until we finished, I found the pup’s address on his collar and stumbled him home. His mom was overjoyed, her own human babies happened to be away for the weekend and their baby dog meant everything to them. She was so easygoing and approachable, and when she invited me in for tea I didn’t even think of refusing. I ended up staying for the entire weekend. No sadness for two days. Blissful clemency from my trials, briefly granted to me by the kangaroo-court of life.
That weekend was a minor miracle in a time when I desperately needed one. It gave me enough faith in life that I decided to continue living. And my dear new lady friend has since often assured me that I bring significant value to her life too. In an ideal situation maybe I would’ve tried to make something more of our relationship, but I was too much of a mess. I still don’t know when I lost myself, but even then I knew I was lost, and nobody needed to be the victim of that. Least of all her.
And so here I loaf and loiter, sitting, pacing, and leaning over the railing of a financially and spiritually tenuous predicament, watching the mundane goings-on in the boulevard below as I battle through self-imposed struggles and my perpetual fear and loathing. Empress is at my new lady-friend’s for a couple of days so I can at least come up with a story-line to the ridiculous sequel of my regret.
In the bliss that follows the birth of a child I had created something so far from who I feel I am that it’s origin remains a mystery. And a contractual thorn in my side. “Lucky Lizard”, Ha! What does that even mean? It means legal repercussions that I’m in no shape to withstand if I don’t come up with part-two, so get writing.
The original story tells a tale of, “Lucky” and his best friend, a butterfly, not generally a match we would expect to work well, but it does, much to the chagrin of the lizards on one side and the butterflies on the other. It could never work they all said, but the two misfits defy social norms and follow their hearts. A Freudian glimpse into the workings of my own psyche. Always defiant, always difficult, and finding unlikely companionship in situations that shouldn’t work.
The butterfly goes missing one day and Lucky sets out on a mission to rescue her. He travels along in search of his kidnapped friend, o’er hill and dale, engaging in meaningful and tender interactions the entire way, completely oblivious to the near-fatal situations he unknowingly avoids at almost every turn. In one instance he slips off of a branch just as a hungry bird reaches for him, and falls onto a pile of leaves below, where he encounters a mouse who saw where the butterfly left the yard. Those kind of things. Thus the name ‘Lucky’. And on it goes.
Eventually he finds his butterfly bestie in a children’s hospital, behind glass in a beautiful cage with many other lovely butterflies. The two of them have a very heartfelt conversation and come to the agreement that these children need beauty in their lives. The right thing is for Butterfly to stay, but Lucky can’t live without her so he purposely gets captured and is imprisoned as well. He gives up his freedom to be with his unlikely friend and the two of them bring happiness to suffering kids.
I know! Where in the hell did all that come from? It makes me sad to think I have this in me somewhere yet I’ve become the person I am now. But I am who I am now, and it’s too late to bother wishing I wasn’t.
Another small toot of Colombian marching-powder and a stiff whiskey, then it’s really time to sit down and think up the next part of the tale. Flick through a few images from a preferred website or two first, just a couple more and then I’ll ‘x’ out of here and start working before the disgust I feel for myself pushes me to abuse more substances. It doesn’t take much to nudge myself over that cliff.
Alright, no more avoiding this. I have an idea. I think the story picks up a fair way past where the first book left off. The butterfly is very frail now and is about to pass on. The two best friends have had very relaxing and fulfilling lives together in meaningful captivity; they regret none of the decisions they’ve made. As Butterfly breathes her last, she asks Lucky if he is willing to do her one last favour, and, of course, he is, nothing would make him happier. What is this last request?
Butterfly doesn’t want to be thrown in the hospital garden after she goes. Would Lucky be able to carry her body back home and lay her to rest by the rose-bush where the two of them first met? He assures Butterfly that he’ll see the mission through. She dies, the members of the cage shed a tear and Lucky formulates a plan of escape with their cooperation. The next day the plan goes off without a hitch and he sets out on his epic journey back home.
This time, because all of the critters for miles around are aware of the sacrifices made by both Lucky and butterfly, they do everything they can to help Lucky get home. A sign of the respect they have for the noble manner in which he and his Butterfly chose to live their lives. Lucky is old now as well, and the trek is very hard on his tired body, but he forges on, determined to uphold his promise to the best friend he ever had. Luck once again lends him a helping hand and he eventually arrives at the rose-bush. He puts Butterfly down in her final resting place, lays down beside her, closes his eyes for the last time and floats toward her as she calls him across from the other side.
All of the animals in the yard, and many creatures from all over, come to pay tribute to these great beings, acknowledging their many virtues and vowing to do everything they can in ensuring such values live on in the community. Well ain’t that a peach? If only I could have come up with that bit of brilliance two years ago I would still be married to a wife I never loved and saddled with children I never wanted. Funny how some things that seem terrible in the moment turn out to be blessings after the fact.
Is it so awful to admit to having no parental connection with one’s offspring? They only exist due to the dishonesty of their devil mother and her desire for a free ride. How is it on me if she purposely neglected to take the birth-control I was assured she was on track with? On multiple occasions.
The way I see it, I was completely candid from beer one, and any ensuing consequences resulting from her reproductive manipulations are on her withered soul. The products of our unhealthy alliance are the responsibility of the demon that deceptively engineered their existence. Take your spawn, succubus, and begone! Sooner or later you’ll realize your efforts to use them against me will only backfire in your conniving face. I don’t care if they never love me, they’re yours, and when the poison you’ve injected into their hearts eventually incites them to turn on you, know that their mutinous manner is only a product of your own wickedness. You’ll reap what you have sown, and I’ll gladly throw money at you to keep you and your odious offspring at bay.
Oh dear! With such flagrant honesty I seem to have left myself standing out on a limb, one which I cut deeper and deeper with each candid admission. And I still don’t care. I drink my coffee as bitter as I’ve brewed it, at least I’m awake to the truth. I never expect to win any awards for my humanitarian perspective, those will be earned by the only worthwhile and genuine expressions of my jaded heart: a fictitious lizard and his butterfly bride. My god! I’m going straight to hell.
But here I am now, with a long overdue story-line for a party of professional letter-peddlers that most certainly hate the sound of my insincere platitudes and broken promises. The only mercy bestowed upon their patient heads at this point is my physical absence. Shame and shirked obligation driving me to employ all manner of desperate avoidance tactics. They stopped coming around far a face-to-face many months ago. My obvious but effective methods making the situation too embarrassing and uncomfortable for even them to confront. Every once in a long while hesitant emails and imploring texts are sent down the wire. Reminding of deadlines passed and informing of highly-reviewed rehabilitation facilities.
This recent bit of contractually-coaxed literary brilliance should begin to bridge the divide. My magnum opus, serving to open channels of communication I’ve been systematically terminating for some time. Open arms and forgiving smiles, times of renewed kinship with the long-suffering team of good people I have been victimizing with my selfishness. That’s the goal anyway. I sincerely hope that this latest offering lays some solid groundwork for the long road to redemption.
But because the success of the first children’s book was such an accidental and mostly unwanted boon, I’ve pigeon-holed myself into a genre where I don’t belong. The lifestyle I live and my entire persona is not what I would consider one in which tender tales for the tots comes naturally. I need an out. And in much the same way a writer engineers their words to fit their stories, I intend to engineer a few well-planned social gaffes for the purpose of discrediting myself as someone that parents would want writing books for their precious progeny. But first, I need to present the latest installment of my unwanted fame to agent and agency.
Mix another drink, flesh out the story with appropriate details, polish it over the course of a few more libations and send out to my representative over an invisible mystery known as the internet. Today was a great day. I’ll just pass out in the office tonight, floating into unconsciousness on a cloud of personal satisfaction. Something I haven’t known for a long time.
Deep in a flying dream, one where I was soaring high over the world, looking down upon a magical castle sitting by a rolling blue sea, golden sunlight glinting off of the water in a thousand twinkling sparkles. I soar lazily down, down, down, and realize the castle belongs to me. As I descend onto one of the ivory parapets with the intention of exploring this palace from top to bottom, an intermittent sound-track begins to steal my attention. I try and ignore it. To no avail. The sense of loss I feel as I transition from dreamland into the sparsely-furnished office of my sad life is heart-breaking in an all-too-real sense. Gonna have to change the ring-tone on my phone now, don’t want to sub-consciously associate one of my favourite songs with loss.
It’s my estranged agent on the line, sounding eager and happy enough that I refrain from openly hating him for ruining my blissful slumber. He loves the lizard sequel and has already been in touch with the publishers this morning. They love it as well. Can I make it in for a meeting at noon? I assure him I can, and show up at one.
My tardiness is completely ignored, I’ve become the favoured son once more, a shining apple in the eyes of glowing parents, all wringing their hands with glee while counting the anticipated portions of profits to come. Much back-slapping and hand-shaking, drinks all around. Even in my low state of hungover pessimism, I must admit that there seems to be a fair measure of genuine happiness in the room. I also have to admit the uncomfortable fact that many of my associates appear to genuinely care for my well-being as a person. Add more guilt to a soul already groaning under the weight of it’s own foulness. I endeavour to do better by these people in the future.
Over the course of the next two weeks, an outline for illustrations is formulated between myself and the wonderfully talented illustrator, a woman they must have brought in since the last time I was around. We work like dogs, organizing the ideal marriages of pictures and words, and complete the book ahead of schedule, increasing the general sense of well-being for everyone involved with the project. By the time we have everything buttoned up, I must admit, it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.
The illustrator and I celebrate by going out for a night on the town, where we run into her fiancée, a man I was unaware existed. His bride-to-be and I had become exceptionally good friends since the third day on the project and had been spending near twenty hours a day together. He stumbled upon us in an alley outside of a popular night spot, me holding her hair while she threw-up dinner and drinks against a dumpster bin. She had insisted on covering the night’s expenses, so watching her vomit out her good intentions was, to me, rather hilarious. For the husband-to-be, not so much. He failed to appreciate the irony or the humour, and instead opted to conduct himself in a most ungentlemanly manner.
Initially I tried to reason with him, even after the opening abusive tirade directed toward his fiancé and myself. But appealing to his higher nature was an exercise in futility and I eventually had to resort to baser reasoning by beating him stupid. To impugn my honour was understandable, to impugn the very character of my new friend was not. Nor was it forgivable. Even if she was somewhat responsible for a heart-breaking betrayal. But it takes two to tango and I had to wonder what he was doing so wrong that his lady preferred my company.
I thought she would be angry with me for administering such a sound drubbing to her beau, but she wasn’t. She was instead relieved to have some closure concerning a love that had died long ago and was just waiting to be buried. The festive atmosphere of the night was extinguished at that point, so we staggered to a hotel room, put on a feel-good movie and slept.
I helped her move out of her apartment later that week and into the condo that my ex-family and I used to inhabit. No strings attached, just pay the bills.
The ‘Lucky’ sequel was released and the response utterly shattered even the most optimistic expectations. In a very short period of time I became one of the most famous writers of children’s books this century. Something I didn’t feel comfortable with at all. Book signings for kids? Appearances at schools and charity functions? I was an accidental natural in a genre I clearly had no business being associated with. A fraud. When my agent told me there were whispers of a children’s television series, with an impressive writing budget for me, it was the last straw. Thanks for the appreciation kids, but I’m out.
Over the last six months the questionable ‘novelty’ of being successful in this field had completely worn off. It started not long after the money began drying up, I noticed in hindsight. And now even the thought of money was not enticing enough for me to continue down this path.
I decided to rent a very foreboding looking character home for a late-summer weekend theme-party. An occult/pagan sort of idea. Anything goes. Prizes for the most authentic get-up and that sort of thing; leaning toward the darker side of occult was encouraged. Invites went out well in advance of the date so the word would have sufficient time to spread around and all those planning on attending would have plenty of time to find suitable costumes. I had made sure to invite some world-class gossips, so spreading the word took no time at all.
It was a smash, and to anyone looking in from the outside, terrifying. There were full goat-headed devils drinking blood-colored cocktails from fake human skulls, a satyr, with his flute even, prancing through the unholy throng until he passed out and fell into the pool. Two scantily-clad succubus’ pulled him to safety and revived him with mountains of cocaine and then mounted him poolside in front of the entire ominous entourage. Which led to more of the same type of behavior all over the property.
Witches and warlocks, vampires, demons and all sorts of other unholy-looking characters, painted, tattooed and otherwise branded or decorated with sinister-looking symbolism, engaging in every manner of deliciously sinful vice. A costumed orgy of booze, drugs, and sex. It looked like a medieval artist's rendition of hell. I could not have scripted a better outcome.
At the height of all this wickedness, an anonymous call was made to one well-known tabloid sleaze-ball, the exclusive inside scoop was his to scavenge. Get your bottom-feeding carcass over to this address for the biggest opportunity of your greasy life. He slithered right over, lurked in the shadows for an hour with an expensive camera and wore out his trigger finger. Within two weeks anybody that lived on the topside of a rock had heard of the Bacchanalian soirée hosted by a beloved and popular children's author. I was swiftly pilloried, soundly discredited as a suitable entertainer of children, and was no longer the undisputed king of that world. Thank Christ! My plan had achieved exactly what it was designed to.
As a completely unexpected bonus to the career-crushing event, every single copy of both lizard books sold out, and limited numbers of prints are still being released at well-researched intervals. Cult-classic collectibles of tomorrow. If only I had known earlier that this was all I had to do, I could have minimized months of anguish and turmoil. But such is life. Committing career suicide turned out to be the best career move to date.
My memoir, I had it half-finished even before I threw the career-ending shindig, was released three months after the party. My cousin was right, the best was yet to come. Book two is well underway and things are looking up.
Sitting here half-a-year later, on the ocean-facing patio of my fairly modest home, drink in hand, watching my dog trot around the beach. No major plans for the immediate future. I live here with my puppy, and often with the lovely illustrator I’ve previously mentioned, although we have agreed to maintain separate dwellings for the time being. I signed the condo over to her as a bonus for the stellar job on my book, and because I think I love her. She spends just as much time here with me as there.
The broom-pilot (ex-wife) and her spawn live light-years away and cause me no strife. Her new marriage is still intact so the monsters have a replacement father, which is better for us all. My legally-binding financial obligations to them are on auto-pay and I don’t concern myself with any more than that.
Out of the chaos of my own making I have somehow emerged shining like a new penny, smelling like a rose as it were, and I don’t know how. Some people say good things happen to good people, but what do they know? They also happened to me. For that little oversight I’m quite thankful.
A gentle wind floats into my little space, softly caressing the decorative grasses in their pots. Every so often the soothing sound of a calm sea makes it’s way up the beach to my ears, briefly drowning out the muffled music playing inside. A bead of sweat rolls down the side of my glass as I raise it to my lips, and out of the corner of my eye I can see a big yellow butterfly dancing on the breeze, just a few feet from the the eyes of a small, motionless brown lizard watching from the handrail.