The Road Narrows As You Go Read Online Free Page A
Author: Lee Henderson
subscriptions, not exactly boding well for my chance at free rein. For all I know Gabby is about to shitcan me today. Iâm not as good as you, Hick, Iâm not half you, Iâm clumsy, my hand is, my eye is, my mind is.
A wake, he said abruptly. Iâm serious. I want a wake. Promise me, he croaked. Make sure everyone with a connection to No Manors gets invited. For my sake, so I can say goodbye to my friends. Not the usual sobbing routine at a rainy graveside. Not that. When I die, he said, I want laughs. Jokes, pranks, magic tricks, and cheap gags, lots of drawing games at the longtable, okay? Make sure people remember me on some high.
Wendy wasnât sure what to say. A wake was something organized after a death .
Cover me if you must, I donât care, just let me come home one more time. Lay out a bleak black blanket on the table, must be something black, at the place where I always draw. Some candles for ambiance. Make sure all the curtains are closed before my body arrives. No mahogany coffin. Put me in a big wicker basket on the table there where I always draw. Light the candles. I want one last party at the manor.
3
STRAYS
Wendy had to zoom straight up the 101 from visiting Hick Elmdalesâs bedside in 5D to the North Beach for coffee with her editor. Gabrielle was a thirty-something intellectual of independent means with an imposing forehead, a succession of husbands, therapists, and jobs, no grey hairs in her blond. Wendy checked her face in the rearview, then flicked open the ashtrayâshe bought her car used off a teenager in Presidio Heights for a thousand dollars in cashâand smoked the last half of a joint as she started out of the parkade. She could barely focuson the road, kept thinking back to Hick laid out in bed. Cursing as she whiplashed down Van Ness, damning to hell all the red lights to Broadway, all the other drivers were stupid incompetent ignorant ogres and blind . Trolley cars slowed her go up Columbus where for a dollar she bought a ticket to park in a valet garage.
Thatâs it, she decided, after that teeth-grinding drive, she couldnât waste her time on a comic that wasnât working, no matter what Hick said. She couldnât stand the humiliation. It wasnât in her or whatnot. In her mind there was always Jonjayâs counter-life to Hickâs ambitions. She was just as attracted to that other kind of artist who thrived on failure and anonymity and for whom no amount of success was better than no success at all. There was grace in self-abnegation. She could sense thatâs what Gabby was here to tell her anyway, that Strays was a total bust. She tried and tried. Hearing Hick tell her she should keep trying just reminded her how far away she was from what he achieved daily. Hick didnât need to keep trying, he simply was. She was not. She was not good enough. She wasnât awful, but she was worse than mediocre. This meeting with Gabby was fortuitous, for now was the time to sever ties with the syndicate and figure out what to do with her life. Maybe move back to Canadaâshe actually considered that, the traffic was so bad.
Nevertheless, Wendy and her syndicate editor embraced and said how good it was to see each other again; so it was; then Wendy lined up at the counter to order a double espresso from the flirtatious barista and came back and sat down next to Gabby at a table next to the window.
Gabrielle Scavalda said she loved people-watching, why she chose the window seat. This is one of the best corners in town for people-watching, Gabby believed. Gabrielle was the kind of emotive charismatic person you canât take your eyes off, so that as she stared at the people passing by, the people passing by stared back at her. Big round wet eyes and full cheeks and a thick coat of lipstick as glossy and fresh as red ink. Gabby dressed the part of an artist, including multicoloured glasses frames and a funkyscarf, although she would
A wake, he said abruptly. Iâm serious. I want a wake. Promise me, he croaked. Make sure everyone with a connection to No Manors gets invited. For my sake, so I can say goodbye to my friends. Not the usual sobbing routine at a rainy graveside. Not that. When I die, he said, I want laughs. Jokes, pranks, magic tricks, and cheap gags, lots of drawing games at the longtable, okay? Make sure people remember me on some high.
Wendy wasnât sure what to say. A wake was something organized after a death .
Cover me if you must, I donât care, just let me come home one more time. Lay out a bleak black blanket on the table, must be something black, at the place where I always draw. Some candles for ambiance. Make sure all the curtains are closed before my body arrives. No mahogany coffin. Put me in a big wicker basket on the table there where I always draw. Light the candles. I want one last party at the manor.
3
STRAYS
Wendy had to zoom straight up the 101 from visiting Hick Elmdalesâs bedside in 5D to the North Beach for coffee with her editor. Gabrielle was a thirty-something intellectual of independent means with an imposing forehead, a succession of husbands, therapists, and jobs, no grey hairs in her blond. Wendy checked her face in the rearview, then flicked open the ashtrayâshe bought her car used off a teenager in Presidio Heights for a thousand dollars in cashâand smoked the last half of a joint as she started out of the parkade. She could barely focuson the road, kept thinking back to Hick laid out in bed. Cursing as she whiplashed down Van Ness, damning to hell all the red lights to Broadway, all the other drivers were stupid incompetent ignorant ogres and blind . Trolley cars slowed her go up Columbus where for a dollar she bought a ticket to park in a valet garage.
Thatâs it, she decided, after that teeth-grinding drive, she couldnât waste her time on a comic that wasnât working, no matter what Hick said. She couldnât stand the humiliation. It wasnât in her or whatnot. In her mind there was always Jonjayâs counter-life to Hickâs ambitions. She was just as attracted to that other kind of artist who thrived on failure and anonymity and for whom no amount of success was better than no success at all. There was grace in self-abnegation. She could sense thatâs what Gabby was here to tell her anyway, that Strays was a total bust. She tried and tried. Hearing Hick tell her she should keep trying just reminded her how far away she was from what he achieved daily. Hick didnât need to keep trying, he simply was. She was not. She was not good enough. She wasnât awful, but she was worse than mediocre. This meeting with Gabby was fortuitous, for now was the time to sever ties with the syndicate and figure out what to do with her life. Maybe move back to Canadaâshe actually considered that, the traffic was so bad.
Nevertheless, Wendy and her syndicate editor embraced and said how good it was to see each other again; so it was; then Wendy lined up at the counter to order a double espresso from the flirtatious barista and came back and sat down next to Gabby at a table next to the window.
Gabrielle Scavalda said she loved people-watching, why she chose the window seat. This is one of the best corners in town for people-watching, Gabby believed. Gabrielle was the kind of emotive charismatic person you canât take your eyes off, so that as she stared at the people passing by, the people passing by stared back at her. Big round wet eyes and full cheeks and a thick coat of lipstick as glossy and fresh as red ink. Gabby dressed the part of an artist, including multicoloured glasses frames and a funkyscarf, although she would
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