Oddly Complicated
Oddly Complicated
“This is oddly complicated,” she said softly to herself, almost a whisper, however she had been repeating the blasted line in her head for the past ten minutes.
“What is?” he said. They sat on the sofa. She had her laptop on her lap, feet on the coffee table’s edge. He sat next to her with a copy of Guitar Player magazine. He wasn’t reading the articles, just looking at the pictures.
“Oh, nothing,” she said without looking at him.
He glanced over at her screen and saw a Google Docs page that was mostly blank except for one line at the top:
This is oddly complicated.
“What is oddly complicated?” he asked, sticking a forefinger into the magazine and shifting around to face her. He’ll drool over the latest PRS model later.
“I’m starting a new story and this is all I have so far,” she said and sipped some coffee. Her stories always started with some vague, minuscule idea and then blossomed into something interesting. “I don’t know, I was thinking of having the main character working on a jigsaw puzzle and that’s why she says this.” [Really? A jigsaw puzzle?]
“But jigsaw puzzles are meant to be complicated, nothing odd about that,” he said, taking her cup and tasting the hot, black brew. “Yuck, how do you drink this stuff?” He handed the cup back to her. It was a handmade, ceramic job that a friend had given to her. It had no handle, just a slot in which to slip your fingers. “You want me to massage your feet?”
“Okay.” She liked getting her feet massaged. It made her relaxed and somehow ideas flowed a little better. He sat on the coffee table in front of her and put her feet in his lap. She was wearing fuzzy, striped pink and lime-green socks. “Mmm,” she murmured as his hands did their magic.
Just then, Leap, their heat-seeking cat, jumped on the sofa and occupied the now empty, now comfortably warm space. They had found the kitten about a year ago wandering around their front porch. There was no tag and none of their neighbors knew who might have been the owner. They decided to keep it and named her Leap because it was leap day when they had found her. [That last part is an outright lie.]
“How about you write a story about a small town sheriff who’s investigating a murder and he has all these different clues and he finds it very complicated,” he said, working on her big toe. The left one.
“Oddly complicated,” she corrected, eyes closed, her left hand stroking Leap’s fur. “I like it but it’s been done a million times. I need something more. Like, each piece of evidence points to a different potential killer. That would make it complicated…”
“But not odd.”
“Right,” she said, “but not odd.”
“Are you sure you need that oddly word in there?”
“Yep,” she said, opening her eyes, “it’s got to have those words.” She looked at the laptop screen. The four words stared back with smug intensity.
“I got it,” she said and slammed the laptop closed and jumped up with a startling suddenness. Leap leapt. “Thanks for the foot rub.” She kissed him on the top of his head and skipped down the hall to the home office they called the “Monkey Room.” [Don’t ask, that’s another story.] He’s witnessed this part of the process before and knows he won’t see her again for a while. He picks up the magazine and stretches out on the sofa but a few minutes later he’s fast asleep with Leap on his stomach.
This is oddly complicated. That’s the first line she wrote. She had taken a micro nap and someone had whispered it into her ear. Not a real person, a dream person that exists in the space between sleep and wakefulness. So she wrote it down in the tattered blue notebook that lived on the nightstand. That was all that was whispered to her that time. Maybe she will try again later.
“Honey, do you want a muffin?”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s cranberry-orange.”
“No, thank you.”
It was the second day of Bonnie Jones’s [Think of a better name.] new position as sheriff. Her deputy, Alex Lightfoot, stuck his head inside her office and announced there had been a murder in Hunter’s Bay State Park that morning. Jones and Lightfoot headed out, siren wailing, lights flickering off the wet leaves and cold pavement.
Two hours later she had written six pages. She was pleased with this but she was also hungry. She decided a turkey sandwich was in order and headed to the kitchen. From the window, she saw him outside raking leaves. The pile was massive so he must have been out there a while.
“You want a sandwich?” They ate and discussed the benefits of getting a Toro 51621 UltraPlus Leaf Blower/Vacuum.
A half hour later she was back in the Monkey Room. She reread the morning’s output and was somewhat pleased. However, there was something not quite right. Sheriff Jones was fine, Lightfoot believable. There was something about the dead body - that was the problem. [That wasn’t the problem.] The description of the body? The placement of it in the mud and leaves? It’s the gunshot wounds. She needed to change the actual homicide. The murderer would have wanted to make it look like an accident.
She decided to take a walk over to the park at the end of their road, so she sleeved her laptop, coffeed her thermos, and Nike’d her feet. She found the bench she preferred empty and dry. She crossed her legs and thought about the story before exhuming her laptop. A leaf, golden and crisp and inspiring, landed in her lap and she decided that the man was killed by a fall. And he has to be naked. Oh, and jellybeans are later found in his stomach by the coroner.
Okay, wait. Hold it. This is getting out of hand. Naked? Jellybeans? I can’t just sit idly by and let this happen. I need to set things straight and I need to do it now. So, I walked up to the bench and I sat down. That’s right. I sat down next to her on the park bench. She was still holding the leaf.
“You know, I used that in another story,” I said, trying to be nonchalant about it.
“Excuse me,” she said. I could tell she was a little worried, seeing that there were at least four other benches in the general vicinity which I could have chosen.
“The leaf,” I said, nodding toward her hand, “I used it in another story.”
“And who are you?” she said, nonplussed, scanning the park looking for witnesses or an exit route if it came to that.
“Oh, sorry. I’m John. I’m your author.”
“My what?” Confusion. It was apparent.
“Your author. You’re one of my characters. I invented you, for a story,” I said, but I didn’t think it helped any. “I apologize. I’ve never done this before. You know, actually meet with someone I thought up.”
“Could you please leave me alone, I’m kind of busy at the moment.” She dropped the leaf and picked up her sheathed laptop, probably to use as a shield or a weapon.
“Oh, right. Your story. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to talk to you about that. Jellybeans? Really?” Well, that got a response. Her confused look changed to… I’m not sure what it changed to, but it changed.
“How did you know that? I haven’t even written it yet,” she said. Perturbed. That’s what it was. Now she was perturbed.
“Okay, let me try to explain. I’m your author…”
“You said that already.”
“...and you’re in a story that I’m writing and hopefully it’s getting oddly complicated.”
“Wait, what? What did you just say?” Confused, perturbed, and… I want to say agitated.
“Oddly complicated. Yeah, I know. We’re both writing stories that we want to be oddly complicated. The thing is, I’m writing both stories, but you’re making it difficult.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she said, clutching the laptop like it was a frightened child. “How do you know me?”
“I told you, I invented you,” I said slowly, trying to be more comforting than shocking. “I know all about you.”
“Okay, if you know me, what’s my name?”
“You don’t have a name. I didn’t give you one. I do that sometimes.”
“Wrong. It’s…” Confusion again. Worry mixed in.
“Look, I’m not trying to scare you or make you feel bad. Would you like a drink? A lemonade, a martini, or how about a nice porter?”
“Yeah, I could use a vanilla porter right now,” she said with a sarcastic tone, but I could tell she was still in a bewilderment phase. So, I sipped my iced tea, she sipped her vanilla porter. She kept looking at the sweating glass and then at me and then back to the glass. “How are you doing this?”
“Easy. I just think it up. It’s called im-ag-in-ation. Try it sometime.” I shouldn’t have said that and I immediately regretted it. She was so pretty, even with that disoriented look on her face. This was a bad idea, but I really wanted her to understand the situation. So she did.
“So, I’m not real?”
“You’re real to me, and to yourself, and, in some way, to whoever reads this story, although not many people will.”
“You’re hurting my brain,” she said. “Do I even have a brain?”
“Hmm. Good question. Not totally sure. But I know your doofus boyfriend doesn’t have a brain. He doesn’t even own a guitar. But he’s secondary - good for raking leaves and foot massages.” She stared at me again, still wondering how I knew this information. Then she sipped her beer. There was a little foam on her upper lip, but I didn’t say anything. She wiped it away. Funny how that works.
“I feel weird. Is that possible? For me to feel things?” she said. Concern.
“Of course,” I said, “because I just wrote it. So that’s how you feel.” I started to think that I was losing her.
“So my boyfriend doesn’t really exist either?”
“Not really. He only exists when you need him to. For the sake of the story.” There was a forlorn look on her face now and I started to think I should try to say something that would make her feel better. We sat in silence for a while, both of us mulling things over.
“Why did you even come here,” she asked. The vanilla porter was gone, the iced tea was gone. I wanted to leave soon.
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little silly about the whole thing. “It’s not that important. I just wanted to tell you… um, you know, lay off the jellybeans idea and maybe put some clothes on the victim.”
“Wow, okay. Anything else?”
“Well, you can stop telling people that you found Leap on leap day,” I said. “It’s just not truthful.”
“Oh, you know about that too.” She was sounding more and more depressed so I had to find some way to make this all better before I left.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Would you like a name? I’ll give you a name and just write that you forgot this entire episode with me. How does that sound?”
“Um… Yeah, I guess. I’d like a name.”
“Great! Do you want to pick it or should I?” She thought about this for a minute.
“Allison?”
“Works for me,” I said, trying to sound upbeat, knowing it was the end of the line for her. There will be no murder story, no naked guy, no jellybeans, no Toro leaf blower/vacuum, no fuzzy, striped pink and lime-green socks. I got up from the bench and wished her luck. She smiled woefully.
“Thanks for the beer,” she said.
“My pleasure, Allison,” I said, and turned to leave. As I was about to veer off the main path, I turned and looked at her again. She was still sitting on the bench, but had the laptop out and was typing intensely.
“This is oddly complicated,” Sheriff Jones said to the homicide detective from the county office. “We have a man in his sixties. Contusions and fractures are commensurate with a high fall. But there are no rips and tears in his clothing [Good going, Allison.] that should have been caused by tree branches.
I made my way out of the park and headed home. I’m going to miss Allison, I thought to myself. I should have told her to find another boyfriend. These were the sorts of things I was thinking about when my phone rang. I hate phones so I ignored it. The phone kept ringing. Aren’t phones supposed to stop ringing after a certain number of times? This is what I thought while trying to ignore the phone. But since I was thinking about the phone, you could hardly say I was succeeding at ignoring it. I dug the noisy thing out of my pocket and looked at the screen. Private caller.
“Hullo?” I spoke into the now quiet thing.
“John?” a female voice said.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“This is Jen, your author,” came the reply.
“Ha ha,” I said. I didn’t laugh, I just said the word ha twice. Sarcasm. “Is this Allison?”
“Allison doesn’t have a phone, you didn’t write one in for her,” Jen said flatly. Okay, I have to admit at that point I was feeling a little uneasy. I decided to play it cool and go along with the charade.
“So I gave her a laptop but no phone?” I said.
“That’s right. I think you knew that already,” Jen said.
“What do you want, Jen?” I said. “You’re using up my minutes.”
“You have unlimited minutes. This conversation can literally be limitless,” Jen said.
“I have things to do, so I’m going to have to say bye-bye,” I said.
“You never say the phrase bye-bye, I just threw that in there so I could say you never say bye-bye.” She was starting to hurt my brain and I knew then how Allison must have felt. “And what do you have to do that’s so important?” I had to think about this because I wasn’t expecting to be called on it.
“Things,” I said unconvincingly.
“Good one,” Jen said. “Look, you fucked up. You’re not supposed to go meeting your characters. Just because she's an attractive woman doesn’t mean you can go meet her on a bench in a park in a town that doesn’t exist. And, by the way, you don’t need to make all your female characters attractive and all the male ones doofuses.”
“I…” I started but didn’t know where I was going. I had stopped walking, phone to my ear (the left one), mouth open. “That’s just not true,” I said finally, trying to think of an unattractive female character. “And who the hell are you, really?” Diversion tactic.
“I told you. I’m writing this story, you’re my character, and I need you to stop meeting the characters in your stories. It screws up the flow.” She had a nice voice, I wondered what she looked like.
“No, I’m writing this story and you’re my character!” I shouted when I didn’t need to - phones have amplification. “And you aren’t very attractive, Jen, I must say.” Low blow, but I was desperate.
“Um… you’ve never even met me,” Jen said with a calmness I despised. “And don’t despise me because I’m calm. Calm people make the world go ‘round. Think about it.” I thought about it. I didn’t agree but I didn’t want to start another argument.
“Don’t you think it’s awfully suspicious that ‘Jen’ and ‘John’ sound so similar?” I said. “You just have to adjust your larynx a little or some other thingy in your mouth and you’re saying the other name.” Silence on the other end for a few moments.
“You should never use the word awfully,” she said. “It’s the worst adverb, possibly the worst word ever, in the history of language.”
“Well, you’re the one who wrote it if you are indeed writing this story,” I said. I heard her sigh on the other end, and I wondered where that end was. “Why don’t you just come down to the park and we’ll talk about all this like two rational adults,” I said, knowing it wasn’t feasible and it would break her rule which I wrote and which I also broke. Unless she actually was writing this and didn’t want to break her own rule.
“I’m going to have to let you go, John,” Jen said, still being all calm and whatnot. “Just go finish your complicated…”
“Oddly complicated,” I reminded her. I heard her sigh again.
“...oddly [sarcastically overemphasized] complicated story,” she continued. “Just try to stay out of your character’s… um… lives.”
“Okay, Jen. Well, it was awfully nice talking to you,” I said. (I just had to.) We hung up at the exact same time. I shoved the phone into my pocket. “Private caller,” I mumbled out loud to nobody in particular. “Never answering one of those again.” I decided to go back and see if Allison was still on the bench. She wasn’t. I knew that already. She was failing at writing an oddly complicated story, and so was I.
When Allison got home she still remembered our conversation in the park because I forgot to write that she forgot about me. She took her phone off the charger and checked for messages. None. [How could there be? She just got the phone.] She gave Leap some fresh water and headed into the Monkey Room to resume her story.
When I got home I was still a little perturbed about my conversation with Jen. Who did she think she was? My author. Ha! But she did know a lot about me and even about Allison and Allison wasn’t even Allison a few minutes before our conversation about Allison. I decided to call Allison.
“Um… hello?” Allison said.
“Hi, it’s John,” I said. “How do you like your new phone?”
“It’s nice, I guess,” Allison said. “What do you want? Why do I still remember you?”
“I called to apologize about this afternoon. I shouldn’t have invaded your personal space like that. It was wrong and I’m sorry.” Thoughtful contemplation on the other end. “And I’m sorry that I forgot to make you forget but I’ll get right on that.”
“That’s okay,” she said meekly. “You don’t have to do that. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m just your character.” She paused but I knew she had more to say so I let her finish. “And, you were right, the jellybeans was a stupid idea. In fact, the whole story is kinda dumb. I think I’m just going to start over. And I won’t lie to people about Leap anymore. It wasn’t even a leap year.” She let out an attractive little laugh [Okay, it was a normal sounding laugh.] and I knew she was going to be alright.
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “I wish you luck on your story and whatever you decide to do.” [Meaning: finding a new boyfriend.] My phone did a shimmy and I saw that Jen was calling. I rolled my eyes and said, “I gotta go, Allison. Sorry about all the confusion. It was really nice meeting you.”
“You, too,” Allison said and we both disconnected.
“Hi, Jen,” I said into the thing I wanted to throw away. “Run out of people to bother?”
“John, what were we just talking about literally five minutes ago?” She didn’t sound pleased. Calmness depleted.
“I’m fine, how are you?” I said.
“I don’t have much time, I’m waiting for the mail lady. You’re going to have to stop all this confabulating with your characters.” [Confabulating?]
“Look,” I said, “I just wanted to apologize to Allison and now I’m done with her. So, say hi to Loretta for me and I’m pretty sure your peanut butter cookies are burning.”
“Oh, shoot,” she squawked and I heard a blustering of movement and noise. I disconnected and that was the last I heard from Jen. I sighed and put the phone in my sock drawer.
Well, that was an interesting afternoon.
Maybe I will have one of those cranberry-orange muffins.