“The slow, creeping, dark cloak of death slowly encircled us, clouding our vision. We couldn’t see, and it felt like we couldn’t breath. My heart slowed down, and I could feel the hearts of my friends slowing too. Death was here for us. Death was here for us...”
John Franco Conard finished with a long, long-hanging-in-the-air dot dot dot (visual aid: . . . ) wanker-of-an-arse pause. You could imagine him planning it earlier in the evening, probably with his thin, black beret-wearing, red-spectacled wife.
The crowd broke into applause, some standing ovations. Some and then more. God. What a bunch of idiots.
I leaned over to my right. “Jesus Christ Rec, what a fucking joke.”
She laughed, “He is the newest, brightest darling of the literary elite.” I rolled my eyes and made to throw up. This year’s Writers’ Festival had been ordinary at best, but to “headline” the festival with John Franco Conard (“My Name is John Franco Conard (and yes, he pronounced “name” like a proper noun, like he was so damn special that “name” was just a word but “Name” was his word for him))!? Oh I missed the wit and brilliance and genial nice-guy-ness of Eggers. I miss the good looks of… the other writer, the Australian one. I missed all those smart funny people, those SEXY ladies who had graced the festival stages. Where were they tonight?
“Should we go?” Rec asked. I nodded. “I need some wine,” she said.
“Of course you do, what else would you drink after an event at the ‘Writers’ Festival’?” I said with some level of sarcasm.
We stumbled out, lucky to leave with our satchels in one peace, battering our way through the gagging horde of amazon.com-top 10-most-popular-books-of-the-month-reader/subscribers dying for a little bit of John Franco Conard.
“Fuck, I can hardly breath. What a joke. I am going to rip the fuck out of this tomorrow.” I didn’t see her, but Rec groaned rather audibly, probably on purpose.
“Boring. Tearing apart something on your crappy little blog. What a boring, clichéd joke Steve, seriously.” We stopped at the lights. I wanted to argue, but I chose against it. We started walking across the road, heading towards our usual, little bar without any real conscious inten…
“Well, why the fuck can’t I? We just sat through dribble, absolute dribble?” I couldn’t help myself.
“Of course. Why can’t you? Poor you, I forgot, I forget how you suffer through life. God, you are such a damn cliché of a failed artist. You are like every protagonist in a Hornby novel… No!” She yelled the last part out, which kinda shocked me.
“No. You’re not even good enough to be a Hornby character, you’re that stupid main character in that ridiculous book Alistair loaned you. The one with the shit writer who is jealous of his friend and gets one blow job a year and…” Rec laughed her cute little arse off.
I didn’t move. Can you believe that? Him? That character? I don’t even remember his name, the book: The Information. I think.
‘Rec, wha… what the fuck?” I stammered out. “That is one of the meanest things you have ever said to me? I mean, shit…”
She laughed at this pathetic attempt at my own defence (not doing that again: I paid a fine AND served a three month community service bit and was hopelessly humiliated). She laughed and then stopped abruptly.
“You are so negative, so full of spite. You didn’t even try, yet you bemoan the fact you never got anywhere, or anything done. People like you are everywhere. Wanker intellects with nothing to give the world but sour, sorry, ego-boosting words.” She was furious now. What did I do?
“You know what Steve? I liked Conard’s book. I never wanted to tell you because I knew it would kill you, look at your face, but I did. It was well written, it conjured wonderfully warm images in my head. You? Your blog hurts my eyes. Change the fucking colour of the font!”
Rec stormed off.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment