Mike walked around the office. Day’s close. Repeating the same message, again, again, exhausted him. So that was his initial aim in leaving seat, to stretch. But, he saw one of his colleagues, Lisa, about the floor. More than likely doing the same. There was a brief exchange, ‘what are you doing tonight’, ‘...this weekend I’m going to...’, topics of such octave and flavor. Then, Lisa halted, said, “You’re not going to blog about this, are you?” At first, Mike didn’t know what to attach to such a dialogue line. But then he appreciated its invaluable song. It’s potential place in project approach.
While driving back to Santa Rosa, while in the Carneros region, Sonoma side, he realized he needed to put the Self back in the spy’s mode. He needed dialogue. As much as he could scrape from a scene. In the wine industry, doing so could foster, breed, enemies. But he didn’t care. He wouldn’t skip in defamatory patterns on a page. Mike wanted tangible, rich, realistically overwhelming pages in his book. He would still respect characters’ real reality, he Self assured. And if people were so bent on believing passages were about them, then that’s them, to them. He wasn’t afraid of virulent reaction. Capote survived fallout from ‘Tiffany’s’, right?
He couldn’t endanger himSelf, either. He would practice pragmatic passion, while still delivering genuine prose. The Literary. The wine-twined Literature. When home, he’d type in silence complete, with the exception of the over-sugared and under-monitored children outside. This book would take him away. If it were marketable. Maybe he needed gossip, rumor, others‘ utters. A little defamation. What if Lisa didn’t recite her lines in the office, at day’s ending curtain? He was sipping what remained of last night’s Syrah, cartwheeling in reflective rumbles, within her words. “To Lisa,” he said to the little monster laptop’s screen.
Selling wine, taught Mike more than he ever thought he’d taste in the business, or rather marketing, realm. Wine, on its own, was magic. He knew. But he also knew that it needed a serious message, mission, behind it. You couldn’t just leap, he thought. No, he now knew. With this new knowledge, only a couple weeks aged, he would pour in the tasting Room of the old winery. Recording everything. Transactions; the patterns of vintage arrangement in the back room; the condition of the boxes, approach to guests, the amount of puddles on the counter, how many times he put his elbow in one. He would record all with the richest of realisms. And if he recorded a folly, and the winery didn’t agree with such journalistic capture, “Then how regretful,” he whispered.
Everything needed lines. Present: He sat on the couch. On the two cushions’ border. “This is not quite comfortable...ugh,” he thought, squirmed left. To be closer to the Racer 5 five atop the wine-themed coaster. He looked at that coaster, remembering he wrote a poem about it, or its visual confession, years ago. Dwelling on hill, vineyards below, sinking daylight. Paradigmatic vino stage. What was wrong with Romanticism in the wine world, “the industry?” he juggled. Not a thing. But there need be some order, he now appreciated. But with covert Lit ops, he could order the order as he pleased.
Mike saw himSelf a boon and bully to “the industry.” He sipped again. Mouthfeel. Hoppy gulpfeel. The typing increased in speed, delicious disorder. He wanted people to know him as a writer at-LARGE in the wine world. He wanted to be feared. He loved that certain characters knew they might wind up as characters. As his. Engraved on his page. He was thankful to Lisa for the night’s thousand words. And the Racer that relieved the ravishing Rhône.
The pizza was ready. He needed to stop writing. But hated his sight for projecting such. “Book...shelf, book...shelf,” all he could see. “Fear me, as you’re in my diary,” he recited. He was hungry, needed to rise from the current seating. He walked into the kitchen. With Racer. He viewed the burnt pizza. Gorgeous, he thought. He loved the molten top, caramelized, charred, or whatever an elitist chef would tag. He needed to buy that little notepad he’d been intending. He, the artful operative, needed armament. Always.
8:24p. Mike, back on the unaccommodating cushion border. The kids must be indoors. Too much silence now. TV on. Mike didn’t want shows. He wanted reality. Scenes. Characters. Dialogue. Chunky personality stews, moments. He looked over at the coaster, the picture of Alice and him at the Luxembourg Gardens. What if he took a pen to a places where indecipherable gems were voiced? He’d scribble anyway. He was a reborn spy. Life, the operation, undisclosed mission. Already he needed a break. his fingers, famished. Current pours, Petite Sirah. Chewy ink sex. The bottle had only been open for fifteen minutes. Less, perhaps? Still, distinguished with its gentle black fruit, leathery progressions, soft chalky finish. This character, its containment, in bottle, glass, romantic. Antagonistically waving, caressing. She taunts me, suggestively. Another sip.
She was a spy, too, surprisingly. Lurking, scouring plains for palates. She, kissing me like she were the scribe. He was glad he didn’t get the routine afterwork beer, or Cab glass. Downtown Napa always pulled him, victoriously. But not tonight. Capacitated like never prior. He flexed in theatrical brazenness. He was feared. “So what animal am I?” he thought. 8:55. He began to see the slow in his paginated strokes. I heard someone today, while at lunch in that microbrewery, say that they hated their coworkers, that he wanted to “destroy” them. Mike loved that for once in his day he couldn’t relate. Raising glass to the screen, that cuddled and housed his session. The new actualism. If Mike could accomplish with his book what Truman did with his...He couldn’t construct, project, such result in hypotheticals. All this, a game to the newly buoyed pen mover. He felt programmed, pleasurably. Levitating, following Lisa’s unintended lecture.
(4/21/11, Thursday)
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