BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY AND THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
January 3rd 2008 13:44
“We live... we live in a society that feeds off ambition,” Ellis told me as we stumbled along a street somewhere, someplace, I wasn’t really sure. “Everyone says that if you work hard, you’ll get what you want, so you work and work and work for yourself. We live in a society that takes value in individualism, where the power of one is the power of the world.” I looked at my palms and then at everything else and realised it was night time and I’m not happy when I’m drunk. Ellis threw his bottle on the ground and it shattered. “What... happened to the value of the... group? Why has it been typecast into some evil entity that’s linked with communism? Why has the worth of family been compared to the unattractiveness of conservatism? When has fucking and, and drinking and not feeling become something much more desirable than, I don’t know, thinking about... other people?”
I had finished my story (but with very little editing) and I was sick of Townsville and I was sick of Ellis and I was sick of his lectures and I was sick of drinking every night. I didn’t want to stay there anymore because the way Ellis drilled me, trained me, made me was making me lose control of things. Some days everything would be in complete free verse narrative, some days in third person perfect past. He gave me pills to help me write more ludicrous short stories. I didn’t remember Monday. Ellis lost his wife in Sydney. He lost her while writing his last novel. She never wanted him back. She’s pregnant now and he cries about it a lot of the time. Everyone still thinks he lives in Sydney. He tells newspapers he’s gay. He told me to do an online interview for him, and only reply to every question with one word: Paradox.
Ellis faced me and pointed at me. “I hate you,” he pointed at himself, “I fucking hate... me.” Ellis sort of wobbled as he spoke. “We’re so pathetic.” He stumbled into a shadow somewhere and I saw a lamp, and I thought about a poem I could write about that lamp and how it could symbolise a mother’s love for her daughter, and at the same time, symbolise the situation in Iraq, and at the same time, symbolise how I’m dealing with my father issues, and at the same time symbolise climate change. “Art is fucked in the mouth!” Ellis’ voice screamed from somewhere. “We love it because we want to escape, yet we don’t want to admit that something is horribly missing from our lives. Why do we need self help books to make us think that life is livable? Why do we need song lyrics, for fucks sakes, to motivate us? The Beatles... were all arseholes. Dean... you’re an arsehole. Nobody... can be content... Beauty in the breakdown... Art’s all so fucking fake! We’re all so fucking fake!”
I forgot to mention that Ellis’ daughter was standing right next to me, not looking very happy. I forgot to mention that there was a bunch of other people in the background. It was December something and it was my last night in Townsville. I was going to drive Vail’s BMW back home to Brisbane the next day. Ellis told me that once I finished editing my manuscript, I could send it to him to give to his friend, who was an agent, who was friends with a publisher some place in America, and I thought, That’s cool. Ellis didn’t know that I kissed his daughter the night before. He didn’t know that she played around with my nipples.
Finally, Ellis’ daughter couldn’t take it. She ran across the street, chasing him. “Why can’t you just be positive for once? Maybe you’re the only one who’s depressed, maybe you’re the only one who’s pathetic. Why can’t-”
Ellis’ mumbling stopped and I saw him come out of the shadows. He didn’t say anything. For that brief moment, no one said anything. The screech and the thump took away all the other noises. Ellis’ daughter hit the car’s windscreen and there was a crack and she rolled around at a strange angle and landed on the sidewalk.
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Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
OMG.
I also dealt with a drunken parent and it ain't easy... He needs ot build a bridge and get over it and his tirades have helped you get over it too.
I am reading on to see if she is okay, OMG it's awful...
Comment by Lara M
Love Speaks
Food Slate
...I'm trying hard to catch-up on your blog...