From: Jezzaroona
Category: Other
Date: 7/21/99
Time: 6:00:24 AM
Remote Name: 195.44.204.236
[Poster’s note: As I’m not here on Sunday for MA’s 50th, I always knew I’d have to do my bit in advance. And then I woke up this morning at 05:30 with a hangover (I can never sleep for more than five hours if I’ve drunk too much) and had the strangest thought: *what if*…well I won’t spoil it. The following is a combined result of both situations. See you on the other side of the weekend.]
“THE MAN IN THE MIRROR” - a short story.
They’re a strange crowd, I think to myself as I sit down in front of the mirror, the Brits always coming on-line with their deliberately degraded vernacular (they say things like “shite” and “mate” and “footie”), the Yanks coming back at them, after the inevitable transatlantic time-lag, with their knowing knowingness. A strange crowd. There’s the Stephens, Jones and P: affable and familiar, but also faceless and unknown (they usually post in tandem – are they twins? Two warring halves of the same troubled mind?). There’s Geoff with his boot-boy stance (I imagine touseled hair and touseled accent drinking Guinesses up the Junction); Jezzaroona with his cartoon name; Jim Murphy, the denied Mick. From the other side of other waters there are the transients: Brooklyn (an inverted eponym? a psuedonym?), Xenophile and Samuli, names that come and go in the night. And there are the lifers – Sugar and Ed and Steph – and Jarma (always Jarma) fizzing and boiling with unpredictability and conjured identities. And then there’s me! If only they knew the truth…I imply that I live near Seattle and they believe me. I tell them stories of how I’ve met *him* at *his* readings and how I’ve smoked *his* tobacco…and they believe me; how I’ve read the scrawling curlicues and loops of *his* handwriting in *his* margins and notebooks; how *he’s* asked me for advice on this paragraph and that page, on this character and that cariacature. *He* and *me*: now that’s a joke! Outside the window, the banked sky looks down on Highbury Fields with grim distaste. Inside, I comb back my hair – a sandy rug that no amount of pampering and light can ever fix - and daub a face on to my features, daub features on to my face: the milky smears of foundation over cheeks that will forever remind me of my father (I should have shaved – my stubble breaks through the caked layer of panstick like new shoots breaking through cracked mud); the oblong puddle of crimson lipstick over the fleshy lips; the dark bloom of eyeshadow over the lids of my shadowed eyes. If only they knew the truth… *Don’t they ever get bored?* They talk about *Success* and *Money* and *Other People* and sound like everyone else – but that’s not enough. Oh no, they want to go on and talk about *London Fields* and *Heavy Water* and *The Information*; about Rachel and references; about Nicola and nukes; about talent and teeth. Then it’s back through the list (as if Time’s arrow had swivelled like a weather cock in a changing wind): *The Information*…*Heavy Water*…*London Fields*…*Other People*…*Money*… *Success*. Their comments stack up hourly, meandering left and right over the quicksilver of the computer screen like the footsteps of a drunken sailor. If only they knew the truth… I stand up from the dressing table and pad across the piled carpet to my wardrobe, my armpits humming with anticipation as I open a drawer and delve my hand into a soft universe of underwear, into a paradise of gussets and bows. What will it be today? The modern delta of a V-string? The lorate harness of a satin thong? The rationbook elegance of a camisole and stays? I end up levering my cock and bully bag into white cotton briefs (ah, the illusion! the sensation!), tight and high cut over my thighs. The hairs on my legs crackle with pleasure. And what about Didedrick? The eye in the sky. The host with the most. What’s his game? What’s his beef? And why doesn’t he say more? I’ve seen his photo: toothy smile, hair like mine (thin and rangy), dressed in black with a white collar. What is he: a *priest*? Why can’t these people dress themselves? I pick out a matching bra and then it’s a matter of which dress to slide into – who am I today: Grand-a-night-hooker? Anybody’s? Lolita? City exec in the tight, pinstriped skirt? My hand brushes along the line of hanging clothes and comes to rest on an a wollen dress the colour of a Siamese cat. Nine buttons later I’m seated at my desk, feet crushed and arched over the impossible heels, earrings clipped into my yielding lobes. (If only they knew… ) I roll a cigarette while the computer boots up: blackness; a series of miniature static implosions; the blue skies of the Microsoft universe; the dial-up screen; the instinctive sequence of points and clicks, the small arrow moving over icons and symbols. *Post a new article (starting a new thread)*…*Subject* - who else? - *Name*…Jules. I laugh at the sexual ambiguity of the name (and I do so love my names). I tab the cursor into the next window and begin to type.
[Poster’s postscript: Jules – hope you don’t mind. I had to try it. I just had to. :-)]