Olaf Johnson

FICTION SWEATSHOP

"You see that tall black guy with the scowl on his face walking past the rose bush, he beats the shit out of me every Friday night."

"What?"

"Well, This girl I work with downstairs at the Magazine invited me to join her Sho-Kwan-Do-something, class. I went cause, well you know, she was cute. The first night was good, everyone there was cool, but during our next sessions I noticed that whenever he would explain something to her, you know show her a strategic technique he would demonstrate it on me. This usually entailed getting my ass thrown down or kicked up." He was laughing, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. I didn't even know his name.

"And you went back?"

"Yeah, I kind of had to. I paid them for a month's membership."

"That's too bad." He chuckled some more. "Say what did you write for class?"

"I don't know, I had this great idea about," I paused watching the smoke swirl around his orange hair. I don't think he would understand. Hell, I'll throw it at him anyway. "Well think about this," I said in a serious tone, "Imagine a world where everything that happens doesn't affect anything else."

"You wrote another Sci-Fi story didn't you." He belched out grinning as if he'd discovered some dirty secret about me.

"No. Not really." I looked towards the glass doors. The black guy was walking back inside.

"What the hell do you mean then?" My orange friend persisted.

Did he sound agitated. No, it was the marijuana particles in his system. Right now the little culprits must be riding the backs of blood cells galloping through the velvet vessels of his medulla. That would be a good story. But would it be better from the point of view of the brain or the marijuana particle. He repeated his inquiry pulling my hindering thoughts back into the conversation.

"What the hell do I mean?" I mocked his accent and body language. "Well think about this." I swung my arm over the frail roof top railing we were leaning against and pointed below. "Look down there, along Lexington Ave of Manhattan of North America of Earth of etc. You see those people walking between the yellow cabs. Well, follow me for awhile," I stopped puckering my chapped lips around the moist tip of the slender white cylinder he had just passed to me, I sucked in. Out of the corner I saw Sascha walking towards us.

"Where was I," I continued, " Last night I visited this girl that I sleep with. We were having sex, at her place, when the door opens and in comes her boyfriend that I had no knowledge of. He looks just as surprised as I do. We are in the same boat. The difference is the idiot is in love with her. I watch them argue as I pull my jeans on. He is near to tears and she is in control. She admits that there are more men. Insulted by this I join in, calling her a nasty bitch. He get's mad at me and we push each other around. I hit him real good and he goes down. I shrug on my jacket, give her the rude eye, you know to punctuate the effect of final exit.

"The next day, which is today I come to school, go to my noon class then come up here to smoke with you guys before our next class. Her boyfriend drives a yellow cab. I don't know this. Nor do I know that the old rich women's store down there is having a 50% sale." I pause to inhale then I tilt the ruby metallic can of Dr. Pepper above my nose level as the warm acidic sweetness froth and gush around my tongue.

"What are you talking about?" Sascha asks dragging out the word under her french accent. She already has her bag down by the flowers and scans the area for patrolling guards before taking the joint from my hand. I put my hand on the shoulder of her black wool coat motioning for her to listen.

"I also don't know that after I left the boyfriend beats her to death, then drinks himself to sleep. He wakes up looks down at bruised, blood drenched, corpse, throws up and drinks some more. He plans to hide the body later on and put on a cloak concerned innocence when the cops or whoever came to question him. To make this work he decides to go to work.

"A man in California makes 900,000$ a year. More than half of that money comes here to the city, to his ex-wife and three kids. She has a addictive taste for cashmere. Just now she came downstairs from her lofty lavender apartment to pick up a gallon of milk. As she walks down Lexington she sees the white and red 50% sale sign above a cranberry red cashmere shawl. With a shine in her eyes she begins to cross the street but traffic stops her. A man next to her has his hand out for a cab. At the same time the boyfriend is in his yellow carriage. He sees the man, actually he sees three images of the man, but he never spies the woman. In a minute he'll swear to himself he never saw her. He turns the wheel in surfing the traffic across to the out stretch hand like he's done for 10 years now. Something feels wrong. The woman feels this first, the man feels it next. He wants to move but can't. The driver feels the same wrongness just as they all come together." I lower my voice building up an effect. "Yellow steel and crimson flesh. BAM!." I yell, smacking my hands together. At the same time Mr. Orange shakes his head. Sacha jumps, freeing a puff of smoke and an obscure french word from her throat.

"Creepy shit, This is your story?" He shakes his head.

"No...it would've have been part of it but then I..."

"Cool idea!" She adds cutting me off. "Here," She turns, passing the joint to the him.

"No, I wanted to write about a place and time, where cause and effect doesn't exist."

"So," He inhales.

"Well, the story I just told you was riddled with causes and effects."

"So, it was good," He exhales.

"Exactly! Drama and tension is great but, My initial idea was all this shit would happen to different characters but then it would have no effect on anything else." I probably looked like a mad scientist explaining the details of my recent human brain transplant to a group of psychiatrists, but I felt like Einstein explaining his work to professional wrestlers.

"There's no story there mate," He moved his paper white fingers through his orange hair.

"Yeah, that's my point."

"Oh well don't worry, you'll get a good workshop down there, you always do." The french girl added showing off her white teeth. I noticed her fresh tan as the sun bounced off the white marble below us and rippled across her face. She was cute. I glimpsed at her hair bobbing under her emerald scarf in the wind. My nose swam in the current of citric perfumed aroma that escaped from her. We stood in silence now. I began counting the yellow backs of taxi cabs swimming through the darkening shadows and traffic in the urban canyon below. They didn't understand me. The silence confirmed that.

"What did you write Sascha?" Orange said breaking the small bubble of silence that failed to protect us from the rising bellow of the horns below. He passed me the withered joint and I turned to the girl waiting for her response. I could love her, I thought, if only perhaps she understood me.

"Well my stuff is about this Homeless guy..." She began hunching her shoulders against the chilled wind.

"Argh, not another charity story...you know what Madame X will say." He rubbed his bristly chin.

"Well actually my guy is this man who lives on the streets in Maine, he has been planning to, how do you say, migrate south because he doesn't like the cold, but he has this thing he does. During early Autumn he wanders around looking for a warm place after being told that he could only stay at the shelter on weekends. He finds he can sleeps in a church basement Mondays, and a few other places during the weeks. One of his discoveries is next to a socialist meeting hall. He goes in one night and finds that they meet every Thursday and the pews are very comfortable. After signing in at the door, he settles in and falls asleep. No one notices. No one cares. The all go to either talk or listen. The talking is good for him because it puts him right into slumber makes him have good dream. Every Thursday he returns.

"One night he is almost asleep when something he hears makes him raise his head. He gives his attention to the woman speaking. What she says is very interesting. He returns the following week finds as he listens there is a, how do you say, bundle of new ideas growing inside of him. He starts telling others there what he thinks. Soon he is invited to speak at the podium. Every Thursday he speaks. People come to just to hear him. They want him to work for them and speak at other places. He no longer feels homeless as a passion stirs inside of him and he soon becomes very famous after appearing on television. A few years later he becomes a successful mayor known for abolishing homelessness in eight north eastern states. Then down the line he runs for president and wins by a huge margin of victory. The end."

"I like that, great story, can't wait to read it." I smile at her. I actually liked it, maybe I could love her. Mr. Orange is nodding. He also likes what he hears but he doesn't say it. She likes that and gives him the girly eyes. 'A woman thinks it sexy when a man can express what he likes without saying it.' A girl once told me this secret of women. Sascha here was a lot like her. He probably had a better chance of getting with her than I did. I couldn't love her. I inhaled watching the tangerine orange of the sun floating in the glass face of the building across the canyon. I wondered why the sun turns from white to dark orange by the end of the day.

"Madame X would'nt like it, she'll tell you to cut out the first three halves of your story before she thinks its any good." Orange said. I exhaled and tossed the burnt out joint over the rail. The wind spiraled it around some before it disappeared, blending into the grayness of the concrete canyon world.

"I know what you mean, She'll give you a tough workshop." I smiled. "Remember that guy that try to be creative with his writing technique and everyone hated it"

"Oh yeah the "Cockroach and the lightbulb" that was a great story," Orange said spitting off the ledge. "The way the roaches made that lightbulb their own Sun-God, then the bulb blows out and the all go crazy and kill each other. The idea of Man creating God who , in turn, creates Man was cool. And the bitch tore it up, telling us the perspective and tenses were all mixed up."

"Oh, don't ever mention tenses to me again, I hear enough of that down there, The Professor should limit that. You tell everyone at the beginning of class the can only say the word tense three times and that is it, no more, you got to say something else. No more tenses!" I said shaking my fist in the air.

"Speaking of tense, look who this way comes, shush!" Sascha said. It was her. Madame X had come up to our roof top hang out for a smoke. She saw us and immediately approached bouncing awkwardly on top her 4 inch heels. We exchanged 'hellos'. She asked Orange to light a cigarette she held between her thin lips. The bubble of silence expanded around us again but it was not intimate this time.

"So what are you guys talking about?" She smiled pushing past Sascha to lean, between me and Orange, against the waist high railing. We shrugged our shoulders.

"We're talking about criticism in workshop" Orange said his forehead wrinkling with the frustration we were feeling.

"Oh, so you must be talking about me, how nice!" Madame X smiled, inhaling.

"Do you think you are the only critic in class. You shouldn't be so sure of yourself" Sascha commented.

"We'll, I am not scared to express myself, and that threatens people sometimes. And people tend to get upset with me." She exhaled in Sascha's direction.

"Don't worry no one in class feels threatened by you, annoyed at times but far from scared." Sascha said her french accent becoming thick. Madame X threw her a nasty look.

"Who are you the class leader or something? Don't think that you could upset me. Having power to upset other is beyond your level. Don't you think so fellas." She winks at me. This was not getting good. Sascha was turning red in the face. I was also becoming embarrassed.

"Let's leave now, class starts in two minutes." I suggested.

"Sounds like a plan." Orange said. Sascha remained quiet.

"It's that how you deal with fears, frenchie," Madame X taunted, "Well then run away, and tell them I'll be down shortly." She grinned showing of her perfect smile then blowing stream of cotton white smoke after us. I could love her. Her persistent arrogance has some sexual appeal. Sascha says something in french. It must be a curse. She goes up to X and puts her face next to hers. She is about to speak but X pushes her back. Sascha grabs her arm then lets go abruptly. Madame X loses her balance and tilts over the rail. The points of her heels scraps along the marble as her short legs flies upward. Sascha is kicked and falls back. I catch her as Orange attempts to grab Madame X. She is screaming and already over the rail. Orange dives for her with his torso hanging over. I cradle Sascha, I feel her little french heart beating away rapidly inside her. Madame X has some voice and she uses it to the full extent to express what freefalling feels like.

The screaming stopped but Orange is still hanging over the railing.

"You caught her?" I repeat three times. He starts laughing. He rises with his back to us. He has something.

"Why are you laughing?" Sascha asks. I pull her up. He turns twirling two shiny black slender spikes between the fingers on each hands. He is laughing harder now.

"What the hell?" I ask.

"Her heels" he states. "It's her heels, they snapped right off" He laughs. We stare at him still digesting what happened. Now we all are laughing.

"Let's get out of here." Sascha says getting up her bag. We go inside and the warm air attacks us, fogging my glasses. We get to class. Everyone is already there. The professor is taking attendance. New fiction stories are in neat piles on her desk. We each take them. I look around and see four empty seats. Me and Sasha sit. Orange goes to an empty seat and places the two spikes beneath them. He comes over and sits by us. We all giggle. Madame X's name is called, and then repeated. The Professor gets up to make a couple announcements then sits back down.

"Well then who would like to begin our workshop on Henry's story?" She inquires looking around at the blank faces that surround us.