Mere Musings

Here’s that short story I was talking about. I wrote it for a college writing class (just a general required one, not a creative writing class or anything); the “prompt” was just to write a comic piece. I discovered that writing comic fiction was very different from (and much harder than) writing a snarky blog post about video games.

Again, I don’t think it’s great, but I don’t think it’s awful or anything. Leave a comment and let me know what you think! With the dialogue, I wanted to accurately represent the way people speak in real life, which is why there’s a lot of quick back-and-forth stuff.

“Merlot”

“Hey, I’m heading to Best Buy. I’m going to pick up The Godfather Collection on DVD. They’ve got it on sale for forty bucks.”
“Sounds good. Later,” said Jeff.

As I picked up my jacket off the couch and headed toward the door, Jeff reminded me that the temperature had dropped twenty degrees overnight, and that I might want to break out my winter coat for the first time this year. So I opened the closet and fished out the coat, which reeked of moth balls and had a couple of prominent crimson stains.

“What the hell happened to my coat?”
“Huh?”
“My coat — look at the stains!”
“Oh, uh, yeah…about that…”
“What did you do?” I demanded.
“So, um, when you were home for Thanksgiving over the weekend, it got cold. Like, colder than today. I’m talkin’ frigid, man.”
“Okay, and you decided to borrow my coat?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where’s yours?”
“Cleaners.”
“Of course. All right, then what happened?”
“Well, I went out to get some Merlot to drink with dinner, and when I came back, the heat wasn’t working. I called the super, and he said he was working on it, but in the meantime, it was cold enough in here to chill the wine naturally. So I kept your coat on.”
“I don’t like where this is going…”
“Right, so it was really cold, and I stood by the stove while boiling the ramen noodles. You know, for warmth.”
“Wait-wait-wait…ramen? You needed Merlot to accompany your gourmet meal of ramen? What did you think, that the wine was going to bring out the flavor of the MSG or something?”
“I — well, I mean — oh, all right, fine, I just wanted to get drunk.”
“Great.”
“Hey, that wasn’t even what did your coat in. I brought the dinner to the living room and turned on the TV, but I was shivering so much that I spilled the wine on your coat as I brought the glass to my mouth.”
“You’re a klutz.”
“It was freezing, dude!”
“Whatever. Wait — so why are there two stains?” The second was low on the right sleeve, and now that I saw it in the light, it was more red than purple.
“Uh…” He looked away and rubbed his hands together, which was when I noticed the Band-Aid on the tip of his right index finger.
“Oh, hell no…” I began.
“So the, uh, super came to the door after dinner and announced that the heat would be returning shortly, and he handed me two letters, saying he found them on the floor in the hallway. I must’ve dropped them on the way in—”
“Klutz.”
“Shut up. Anyway, one letter was from my mom, so I quickly tore it open.” He paused. “I, uh, also happened to tear open my finger in the process — it was so damn cold, and my fingers were so dry and chapped, that, well, the skin just kinda split near the nail.”
Jeff’s mother sent him money every so often, and I knew he was in rather dire financial straits at the moment, so I could sympathize with his excitement at seeing his mom’s address on the envelope.
“Oh, that sucks, man. How does it feel now?”
“Eh, it’ll be fine in a few days. Sorry about your coat, dude.”
“It’s cool. I’m going to have to wear the damn thing regardless, because it’s blustery out there and I don’t have anything other than this to keep me warm. Oh well. See you in a bit, then.”
“Yep, see ya.”

This episode had left me with only forty-five minutes before Best Buy closed, and usually, it took a half hour just to drive there. I encountered some traffic, and only made it with ten minutes to go. I accosted the first employee I saw, a short, stocky Asian man. Stopping at all turned out to be a mistake.

“Good evening. Where are your DVD movies?”
“Over there,” he replied, pointing toward the back of the store
“Do you know if there are any copies of The Godfather Collection on DVD left?”
“The what-now?”
“You know, The Godfather Collection. It’s the Godfather trilogy in a DVD box set.”
“Oh, right…” His voice trailed off, and I realized that his eyes were fixed on the dark red blotch on my chest. “Um…what happened to you?”
“Oh, that — don’t worry, it’s nothing. My roommate was wearing my coat over the weekend and he — you know, it doesn’t matter. Do you have The Godfather Collection in stock or not?”
“Uh-huh…” He didn’t appear to believe my story, and by this point, I was getting exasperated.
“You know what? I’ll just go over there and find out for myself. Thanks for your help.”
“Wait, sir!” He grabbed my shoulder, and with his free hand, beckoned furiously to a nearby security guard.
“What the hell — get off me, man! I gotta get this DVD before the store closes,” I pleaded.

But he was having none of it, clutching me like a hawk does a snake. The security guard, who looked to be about six-foot-five and a rock-solid two hundred and twenty pounds, had made his way over to the two of us by this point.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
“Look, sir,” I started, but the employee — who still had a Chinese death grip on my now-aching shoulder — cut me off.
“I think that’s blood. We should call the police.”
I was taken aback. “Wait, what? No, I told you what happened — this is just wine,” forgetting that I had, in fact, failed to sufficiently explain the nature of the stains on my coat.
“A likely story,” said the guard. “You’re not going anywhere until the cops come and sort this out, so let’s go to the manager’s office.”

We walked to the office, which was near the row of cash registers. A few customers were making their purchases, and everybody was staring at us while whispering to each other. I’m going to break that empty bottle of Merlot over Jeff’s head the next time I see him, I thought. The manager was apparently somewhere on the floor, helping to usher out stragglers. Soon enough, I heard the whine of sirens, and two local cops came in. The security guard, with the help of the employee who had reported me to him, quickly explained the situation to the cops, who eyed my stains just like everyone else had. I related my side of the story, and the four of them breathed a sigh of relief when I finished telling them about Jeff and his mother. I was free to go, so I decided to get out of there as quickly as possible, figuring I’d visit another Best Buy location the next day for the DVD.

By the time I arrived back at the apartment, it was two hours since I originally left. Jeff was immediately curious as to what had taken so long, so I quickly told him of the events that had transpired. A sheepish grin crept across his face, but if he wanted to laugh, he sure did a good job of holding it in. I’m sure there was some fear of reprisal involved, since he knew he had caused the whole mess in the first place. When I finished, he simply said, “Sounds like you lucked out, man,” and returned to his game of Halo 3.

Later that evening, I was checking my e-mail when Jeff said, “Hey, wait — so did you get the trilogy, or what?”
“No, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”
“Oh, sweet! It all works out, then.”
“Huh?”
“Remember my hallway mail?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember how I had two pieces of it?”
“Go on…”
“So guess what the second—”
“Will you just spit it out already?”
“Right, so the second thing was my monthly mailer from Amazon.com. I ripped it open — using a letter opener this time — and the first thing on the inside was a notice about a sale on DVD box sets. The Godfather Collection? Thirty bones.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Take a look for yourself.”

Jeff tossed the mailer to me, and there it was, clear as day: the regal black box for the three Godfather films, partly covered by a white circle inscribed with “Sale: $29.99” in bold, bright green text. I glared at the page for a while, initially unsure if my eyes were deceiving me. Then I looked up at Jeff:

“Why in the world didn’t you tell me this before I left for Best Buy?”
“Um, it slipped my mind. I just forgot about it after our discussion of the stains on your coat.”
“B-b-but,” — I was making a great effort to keep my composure — “you mean to say that I could’ve avoided the entire Best Buy ordeal?”
“Guess so.”
“Goddamn it. I’m doing all my shopping online from now on.”
“Can’t get your coat dry-cleaned over the Internet. Might want to drop it off at the cleaners.”
“Crap. Yeah, I guess.”
“Mind getting my coat while you’re there?”
He had barely squeezed out the word “there” by the time the dark bottle, labeled California Merlot, 2004, shattered against the wall behind him, narrowly missing his head.