Day 104, 20 April: Dialogue Day #2

Norfolk Terrace, Norwich, Day 104. Dialogue Day #2

With his back against the brick wall, he lit his cigarette with the fickle lighter. On the third flick the flame finally connected to the paper, and he took in his first nicotine-filled breath of the night.

      ‘Alright, Pete, we better get to talking.’ He attempted a smoke ring but failed.

      The guy named Pete finally looked his way, hesitant. ‘Uh, sure, Frank, what should we talk about?’

      Frank looked at him. ‘You don’t remember? We followed that kid today.’ The cigarette went out. Piece of crap. ‘He wants us to record how his day went.’ He relit.

      ‘Uh, did he say that? I don’t remember…’

      ‘Shut it, Pete. Just for that, you go ahead and dive in first.’

      He licked his lips. ‘He woke up.’

      A mocking Frank jumped up and clapped. ‘Very, very observant, my friend.’ He leaned back against the wall, his dull expression back on his face. ‘Now say something interesting.’

      ‘It rained off and on all day. The kid stayed indoors for most of it.’

      ‘Getting warmer…still making me fall asleep.’ Frank closed his eyes, committing to his joke.

      ‘Fine!’ Pete fired back, ‘Then you demonstrate!’

      ‘Walking through the rain, the boy managed to journey over to the UEA Hotel, asking for Eleanor Crawford at the desk. He proceeded to the door on the right. There before him was the elegant lady he had met around the time of Mrs. Jill’s luncheon, way back in Day 39. She had pale skin, as if she had been more in fluorescent light than sunlight.

      ‘She handed him a letter from Mrs. Jill. A thank-you note, for his thank-you note, to continue this pleasant cycle of gratitude. Mrs. Jill also invited him and the other Berkeley student Sierra to her lodge in the next two weeks, on a Thursday. Smiling, he closed the letter.’

      Pete held up his hands, defensively, ‘All right, all right, I get it. You’re just SO good at describing things.’

      Frank closed his eyes. ‘And you’re not. Try harder. Go.’

      ‘All right, well, here goes: The boy kept rereading passages from Stephen King’s On Writing, an autobiographical writer’s manual if there ever was one. He read up to the middle of a writer’s schedule. Mr. King writes four to six hours a day, his quota 2,000 words.

      ‘The boy looked at the panicked, present-tense narrative voice in his current short story for class. It wouldn’t do. As he sometimes does, he opened up a new Microsoft Word document and started over. The words came easier in the past tense. The voice became more mature. Subject matter the boy kept the same, but the story took on a more developed texture now. He got to a 1,000 words. He was happy.’

      Pete stopped and looked over at him. ‘Well?’ Frank asked.

      ‘How was that?’

      ‘A good second attempt. Apart from being unclear at some points. You should’ve said, “He read up to the middle of the section about a writer’s schedule”. And it’s unnecessary to say the boy was happy. I honestly don’t give a crap. He wants us to write about his day, not talk about feelings. We’re not freaking psychologists.’

      ‘Okay.’ A braver Pete started up again. ‘He skyped his parents in the early afternoon. He was glad to talk—‘ Frank shook his head. ‘Oh, right, no feelings. Later, much later, he went for a run. His pinky toes have cuts in them, probably from the shoes. He ran anyway.’

      ‘And the pain during the run made him do the oddest thing,’ Frank joined in.

      Pete continued, ‘He decided to run backwards, for a hundred metres or so. Just to give his toes a break.’ (In a parenthetical aside, Pete heard his friend murmur, ‘Weird kid.’)

      After another breath of smoke, Frank said, ‘But before the run, he wasted part of the day on his computer. He ended up running at 7:30, starting with a stop at the campus market. It was closed. Dumb kid.’ After a nudge in the side, he corrected himself, ‘Oh well. He learned that apparently the store closes early on Fridays.

      ‘Anyway, he ate a microwaveable dinner at 9, which prompted Marie to tell him that he ate at the oddest hours. She arrived back today, by the way, along with Dan the Man. He was glad to see they were back.’

      After missing his cue to continue where Frank left off, Pete said, ‘And the boy picked up the oddest interest in fountain pens today.’

      The cigarette was barely a stub. His friend squashed the remnants of it with his foot, and made a reckless smile with his yellowed teeth. ‘Well, Pete, I’d say that just about covers his day, don’t you?’

      ‘Well, no, he read more of Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady and read—‘

      Frank interrupted, smiling, ‘Yep, I’d say we’re done.’