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Vicky Rogers
mystystar@hotmail.com
Website


Forthright and Rude
-A short story

It's strange really.  Everything whirls about you like a whirlwind of change.  I have always liked that expression.  I don't remember whether or not I came up with it, or if someone else did.  Probably the latter.  As to why I find myself thinking about that, I don't really know.  My little philosophies of life come peeking into my thoughts at times and I always feel the need to write them down, like I am now.

As to why I'm writing, I don't really know the answer to that either.  I always get these bizarre impulses just to do something.  Usually, they only keep my interest for fifteen minutes to an hour tops and then after that, I find my mind preoccupied with other things that come up, but this time I'm set on writing.  About what, I'm not really sure, but I have all these words, these phrases; these thoughts that are all swimming about a sea inside my head and for some odd reason I feel inclined to write them all down.

The impulse came to me about half an hour ago.  I had stepped off the bus, going to a small cafe to read, drink coffee and smoke.  First, however, I had to stop by the corner store and buy some cigarettes.  I only had two left and I knew they wouldn't last me very long at the rate I smoke.  While at the counter, my eye spotted this dark blue journal.  The one I'm writing in now.  I just got this impulse and I reached over, plucked it from the stand and added it to my order.  I paid and left, puzzled as to why I exactly bought the book.  I began searching for metaphors and some deep, inner meaning to my impulse and quickly began to think of Freud and what he might possibly think of it.  My thoughts were too jumbled.  I couldn't think of anything beyond that.  That's when it hit me.  I bought it because my mind was screaming of my mind's manifestation.

Satisfied with my brilliant interpretation, I walked down the street towards the coffee shop.  My eyes scanned the area.  A swarm of high school student were just getting off the bus.  I glanced at my watch.  Yes, it was three twenty.  I quickened my pace, wanting to be ahead of them.  I had noticed a long time ago that teenagers tended to dawdle when they walked, often taking long pauses to light cigarettes.  I guess the art of walking and lighting a smoke simultaneously without slowing your pace takes a long time to perfect and judging the age of half the teenage smokers, they hadn't had much time to practice it.  Anyway, I don't like being stuck behind slow walkers and usually, there's no way to get around them which irritates me even more.  I've always been a fast walker myself.  In high school, all my friends termed my walk "Jocelyn speed" which was interpreted to "as fast as you can walk without running and looking retarded".  I'm not too sure if it was a compliment or no, but it doesn't matter much to me..  If I have a destination, I want to get there.  Even if I don't have one, I want to get to wherever as fast as I can.

I suppose that's a flaw of mine.  I've always been like that.  Wanting it and wanting it right away or if not, damn near close.  Now that I think of it, maybe it's not quite a flaw after all.  I mean, once I want something I set my mind to it and get it.  Except men.  Men have always eluded me.  I don't quite understand them.  I guess it's my men getting tactic which don't work.  I always try to be friends first.  I mean, my thoughts run like this:  If you can be great friends, that shows that it can be a lasting and good relationship.  How come men don't think that way?  As soon as we became friends, certain there's some sort of future for is as a couple, I approach them

I get shot down.

I get the old, "You're too good of a friend."  I've always wondered what exactly they'd do if I said, "Well, the only reason I became your friend was so I could date you and since you don't want to do that, bye!"  I'll have to keep that in mind next time.  It might even work too.  Hmm. . . If only I had tried that on Xavier.

Xavier.  Wow, I haven't thought of him in a long while.  I wonder why I thought of him now?  We had been pretty good friends back in high school.  The only reason I had started talking to him was with the intention of dating him.  Unfortunately, to him out friendship became too good to ruin through dating.  What a morbid way of thinking, I think.  They way he's thinking is that us dating would be doomed from the start.  Yes, I know that most relationships don't end in true love, and most often or not, just fizzle out and/or end messily, but there are those which last.  Maybe ours would have?  I don't know.  We got along quite well.  Two weird people.  I say weird because well, to most people I'm not exactly what you would call normal or neither would he.  We both had friends though, don't get me wrong.  For me, people found me amusing and were constantly laughing at my antics.

I wonder what ever happened to him.  Last I had seen him, he was going to Vancouver for film school.  I stayed home, went to school and moved here, Toronto.  I have an audition in Vancouver in two weeks, for the role of Ophelia in Hamlet.  If I get it, this will be the first time I actually perform Shakespeare.  I have always wanted to play Ophelia.  Something about playing a crazy woman appeals to me.  I'll hafta look Xavier up when I'm over there.

Wow, I just got up and bought another coffee.  I guess I've been sitting here for nearly thirty minutes now.  The girl working asked me what exactly I've been writing.

"My life," I had said.

"Oh really?  An autobiography?"

I had laughed, finding the idea rather funny, but realizing that while sounding farfetched, it really wasn't.  In theory, I am writing it.  "Yeah, something like that," came my reply as I picked up the cup and brought it back here to my seat.

I can see her from where I'm sitting.  She keeps looking at me, as if trying to decide who I am and what kind of important figure I am.  The thought of that makes me laugh some more.  What kind of important figure am I?  I don't really know.  Of course, I'm important to my parents, my brother even.  My sister, I don't know if I am or not.  We haven't spoken in nearly ten years.  Not because we hate each other, but I guess well. . . Because we realize we are two different types of people and that we run on two parallel roads.  They'll never meet anywhere, always the same distance apart.  We just don't have a common link despite the fact we share the same family.

"So," she had said  sitting down on a box, staring at me.  She had been fifteen then.  She had just ended grade ten.  I, had finished my first year of music theatre only three months before.  "You're moving."

"Yeah.  Get off that, will you?  My plates are in  there."

She had continued to sit there for a moment, just staring at me blankly.  She then got off while I was stuffing the last of my clothes into another box, not bothering to fold them.

"Mom said I could have this room," she said out of nowhere.  I glanced up, irritated at her.  She was now leaning against the doorframe, watching.

"Oh really?  That's cool.  There's lots of spiders in there though.  They eat you alive, I swear.  The wonders of living in the basement."  I had been greatly annoyed.  What the hell had she wanted?

She shrugged, undaunted.  "Where you moving again?"

"Downtown.  Oh Park street."

"Oh yeah.  You're gonna be living with that Amy chic and Dave?"

"Yeah.  You know all this already.  What do you want?  No, you can't have the computer.  Mom said I could take it."

She had just rolled her eyes, "I don't want it.  It's a piece of shit anyway."

"Don't swear."

"Why not?  You do."

"That's different."

"How?"  She continued to lean against the doorframe, arms crossed about her chest, gazing intently at me, waiting for an answer.

"It just is.  You're my little sister," I brushed the subject aside and grabbed a box.  "Hey look, instead of just standing there, could you grab a box?  Dave's out front with his pick-up."

"I can't.  Going to Mark's house."

It was my turn to roll my eyes.  Mark.  Brittany's new boyfriend.  It seemed she had a new one every two months.

"Don't roll your eyes.  I like him."

"Yeah, just like you liked Joe, Mike and Jordan.  Oh don't forget Cameron."

She glared at me and turned on her heel.  "Fuck off, Joce."

That had been that last time the of us had really spoken together.  Oh sure, we've seen each other at family gatherings, but we've never actually had a conversation beyond what show I was doing, her two kids and husband, Brad.  I'm sure she had come down to say something to me.  Even tell me she was going to miss me or good luck, but I had ruined it and caused her to change her mind.  I always ended up doing that sort of thing.  I don't do it consciously.  It just happened and I'm left there, standing in the smoke of the other's anger wondering what the hell it was I had said and/or done.  My mom says that it's  tact I lack.

"Jocelyn, I got a phone call today."

I groaned.  She was using that "I don't like this" tone.  "And I suppose you're going to tell me who it was and why they phoned, right?"

"That type of thing is precisely what the caller was talking about."

"What?"

"Don't play all Miss Innocence with me, young lady."

"I'm not!  I have no idea what you're talking about."

She gave me one of her all knowing looks as if to drag the confession that I did know what she was talking about out of me.  I just raised me eyebrows in return and waited for the barrages of complaints and accusations that I was the devil's child because I refused to admit when I was wrong.  At the age sixteen, I have to admit, I hardly ever thought I was wrong, but even now, at twenty nine, I still get confused with my mother's anger.  How am I supposed to admit I'm wrong when I don't know what it was I did that upset her in the first place?  I supposed this is how men feel like with women.

"You do too, Jocelyn May."

Uh oh, I had thought.  I'm in shit now.  Full name usage here.  "Mom, I don't know what it is, but maybe if you told me straight out and stopped playing games, I'd know."

I waited for the bomb to explode right then and there as soon as the comment came out of my mouth, but it hadn't.  Instead she had only taken a deep breath and motioned for me to come into the living room.  Well, this was a step ahead for her.  She wanted to talk.  She rarely ever did that.  Her ideas of talks were her yelling, me listening obediently.  However, it never really worked that way since I had inherited her own temper, though she never admitted it.  She still hasn't.

"Jocelyn, your drama teacher called."

"Oh, that.  Well, it's not my fault the bus was late.  that's why I was late for the exam.  Why she makes us write stupid written exam is beyond me."

"I know the bus was late, but it's also not my fault that you slept in.  If you hadn't, you could have taken the earlier bus like you usually do.  I saw you waiting at the bus stop, but I didn't want to drive you to school.  You have to start learning things on your own, but that's not what I was going to talk to you about.  She mentioned that you were mouthy."

I rolled my eyes.  "I just say it how it is.  Everybody mutters the same things I say.  She never says anything clearly.  She'll say do something, we'll do it and then when we show it for the class, she'll say 'No! No! No!  That's wrong.  I didn't want you guys to do that.' but we had done what she said to do.  Oh, and she never listens to what you have to say.  She only chooses what she wants to hear and the things she chooses, never make any sense.  I'm not going to take crap from her.  If the only way to get something into her head is to sound mouthy, then I'm going to do it."

I had expected my mother to make a big stink about the issue, but she only  nodded and left the room.  I could tell she wasn't angry.  Looking back at the drama teacher in question now, she wasn't all that bad.  She was a nice lady and she really encouraged me and my talent.  I guess she wanted me to be a better person, but my mouth always got in the way.  I speak the truth and only the truth.  I always speak the way I see things.  People find me rude.  I don't mean to be rude, I just want to help and I know I hate it when someone tip toes around issues instead of facing them straight on.  People are like politicians that way.  They're too afraid what people will think if they look at the truth.

It's funny.  As I'm sitting here (the girl still casting glances in my direction) I feel more calm.  More soothed.  Perhaps I need my story to be told.  To whom exactly I'm not quite sure yet.  Myself maybe?  That's probably it.  People should do that more often.  People need to look at themselves more.  Not in the mirror, though they can if it will help, but they should look at their inner sleeves more.  I'm not talking spiritually or anything, though someone could argue that what I'm saying is spiritual.  People have to look at their experiences.  Look at their faults and analyze them.  They should look at their past frequently to learn from it.  Learn about how they deal in certain situations.  Look at them objectively and say, "Ok, what I did there wasn't all that great.  How could I have improved the way I acted, if I ever run into that situation again?"  That's what I think.  Faults tie in there too.  Be aware of your faults.  Sometimes being aware of them is better than just plain fixing them without really knowing what they are.  That way, you can see yourself through other people's eyes and realize just why it is you got in that argument or why things occur the way they unravel.  That's a philosophy I've had since I was about seventeen.  Seventeen was such a good age for me.  It was my self exploration period.  Not sexually.  I mean. . . Well, spiritually to take the other person's argument.