The Writer (5 page)

After visiting the
apartment, my parents were convinced that Joy was a modernized
Communist. Generally, artists were freeloaders, people who drank
too much, smoked, and pranced around naked. I had to promise that I
was not planning to get Joy’s named tattooed on my hidden cheeks,
nor change my name to Lover, before they would agree to drop the
matter temporarily.

Joy found my parents
hysterical. Hysterical was definitely the right word describing my
mother these days. So, I tried to make the most out of it all, and
decided they should finally meet. I mean, we had been living
together for half a year and dating, kind of, for a year and half.
It was time.

I dreaded the moment like
having my teeth pulled out, by hand, without any anaesthetic. That
said, it was not quite true. I had my first glass of red wine, with
Joy, that night. To my surprise, it went really well – Not the
evening, but the wine with the meal.

I really could not believe
what I had been missing.

“This wine really
complements this tomato sauce,” I said, astonished.

Joy laughed.

“I know…” she said. “I’ve
been trying to get you to taste it for ages now…”

I had another long
swallow.

“Mmm…” was all I managed
to say.

My mother stared solidly
at Joy and me. I knew she was trying to turn my son into an
alcoholic! Evil Artist!

I laughed loudly,
again.

“Oh, Mom! You are SO
funny!” I exclaimed.

“You’re drunk!” my mother
yelled out. “Look Roger, your son is Drunk!”

Joy and I looked at each
other and started laughing even louder now.

I drank some more, and
again, a little more. After a few glasses, here and there, now and
then, this evening became the most fun I had had in
ages!

“Mother, Live, and Let
live!” I exclaimed, laughing. “Maybe I’ll do like Joy and get naked
in front of a bunch of mongrels and let them paint me all
over!”

My mother’s eyes almost
popped out of her head. Her face turned beat red. She was the
funniest woman EVER!

“I never did that” I heard
Joy say. “They did not paint on me.”

I laughed and laughed.
This was going SO well! Why had I tried so hard for so long to keep
my Worlds separate? LIVE AND LET LIVE! Yes, Tomorrow, I would let
it all RIDE. Tomorrow was going to be a GREAT day!

Chapter 14

I flushed, again. My face
rested against the cool ceramic tile of the toilet. I tried to
raise it, but felt my brain compressing intensely within my skull.
I think it was preparing itself to leak out through my ears. My
brain and everything else wanted out of me today.

To make the matter worse,
Joy was prancing around the house, completely unaffected by last
night’s dinner party.

What was that smell…
Eggs?

Back into the toilet seat
I go.

“Must you cook such rancid
foods?!” I screamed across the house.

Joy’s head peaked from
around the corner. “Moderation is the key when it comes to Alcohol,
Benjamin.” She pulled her tongue out at me.

“GAH!” I said, and at the
same time making my own head explode.

“How long do
these…hangovers usually last, anyway?” I asked.

“It’s not because I am an
Artiste that I over-drink. I feel insulted even that you would
suggest such a thing!”

“You’re annoying,” was all
I could say, while I stretched out once more on the bathroom
floor.

“It’ll last all day… You
not only drank too much wine, but you mixed your drinks... Which is
a big no-no.” she said.

I felt like I was going to
die, a long and painful death at that.

“I will never drink
again…” I muttered.

Just when I thought my day
could not get any worse, the phone rang.

“It’s your mother!” Joy
said happily.

Great. Just
great.

“Tell her I’m
busy…”

“He’s busy lying over our
ceramic floor in the bathroom. Can he call you back?”

Silence.

“Hello? Hello? Are you
there?” Joy asked.

Joy had managed to make my
mother faint. She had probably broken a hip by now, and would blame
me for it too. I was already the cause of every white hair sitting
on her skull.

“Give me the phone,” I
said to Joy. “Mom?”

“You’re killing your poor
old Mother Benjamin, you know that right?”

“Sorry mom…”

“God is punishing you for
all your sins. I hope you realize this…”

“Oh yes.” I said, trying
not to get sick all over again.

“I don’t want you to ruin
your whole life, Benjamin… Don’t get that girl
pregnant!”

This was just getting
better and better.

“Of course
not…”

“Don’t live in
Sin…”

“Good idea. I’ll marry
Joy, then!” I said, jokingly.

Joy stood in the
doorframe, mouth wide open.

Oh dear.

“Can I call you
back?”

I hung up the phone
without waiting for an answer. I looked up at Joy, who was beaming:
smiling the widest smile, I had ever seen.

It seemed rather late now
to tell her I was just trying to annoy my mother and did not
actually mean it.

“Are you proposing to me?”
Joy asked, getting to her knees. She whipped the sweat off my
brow.

“Look at you, you’re
shaking… Of COURSE, I’ll marry you!” she exclaimed.

She got up and fetched me
a glass of juice. “I don’t want my future husband getting
dehydrated!” She glided out of the room. “I’ve got to call my
parents! They’re going to be SO happy!”

I lay back down, closing
my eyes.

Perfect, just…
Perfect.

Chapter 15

“What have you been
writing these days?” Joy asked one morning.

“Nothing really… just
jotting down ideas in my notebook,” I said.

“I’m glad you kept that
up.”

“It was a good idea, much
better than writing on papers and having to sort them all the
time,” I smiled at her. “What are you up to?”

“I’m working on a common
project…”

“Oh?” I said.

“It’s going to change the
World!” she exclaimed, laughing.

“I wouldn’t expect
anything less.” I said. “What are you planning to do?”

She sat straight in bed,
turning towards me.

“We want to promote
Peace!”

“Peace and Love?” I asked,
laughing. “Isn’t that a little too… 60’s?” I asked
incredulous.

She rolled her eyes at me.
“We want our Mural to remind people of how we’re all Related, one
big family. That everyone is Someone’s child, brother, daughter…
When we hurt each other, we’re only hurting ourselves.”

I smiled. Idealistic
Joy.

“A mural?” I
asked.

“Yes! And we’ll donate the
proceeds to Africa.”

“Of course you will…” I
said. “All 20 dollars, if you’re lucky…” I teased.

She did not laugh this
time.

“Who’s working on it with
you?”

“The hounds,” she
grinned.

Now, it was my turn not to
find the joke so funny.

Chapter 16

For a while, I feared that
I might have to find excuses to postpone our wedding, tell her that
I had been only attempting to torture my mother.

That said, I realized
quickly that I would not actually need to. As I saw less and less
of Joy, the subject seemed out of place somehow. At first, I felt
like our schedules were clashing: she must have been working the
day shift, while I was at home and vice versa.

Soon though, I came to
realize that it was not the case.

I came home early one
night to find her with one of the dogs, and not the barking furry
one.

They were drinking wine on
the balcony and chatting away. Apparently, they were organizing a
trip somewhere.

“Are you leaving me?” I
asked her that night.

“Of course not… Why would
you even say that?” She asked turning towards me.

“You’re talking about
travelling with some guy… and leaving me behind… I might be
open-minded, but I’m not stupid.”

“You’re not open-minded
either…” She joked.

‘Maybe. So, what’s the
deal?” I asked. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks… You haven’t
mentioned our engagement once or tried to set a date or anything…
What am I supposed to think?”

She smiled.

“I didn’t really think you
were serious about the marriage proposal…” she winked.

“Why would you say that?”
I asked.

“You wouldn’t just drop it
like that to your mom, if you were serious. You’d want to put a few
drinks in her first…” she grinned.

“I guess…” I said
quietly.

“And I haven’t been
avoiding you; I’ve been working on the mural. Josh and I are going
to bring it to Africa.”

“Say that
again?”

“At first, we were
painting on canvases, drawing images… but you made me realize there
wasn’t much money in that, and that we wouldn’t really be able to
help anyone the way we wanted to… So, we had to think about
something else creative that could at the same time Change the
World – in our own way…

“SO, we’ve been going to
Fabric warehouses and getting them to donate whatever they didn’t
use up. You know the same way I paint with left over buckets; we’ve
been sowing and making colourful blankets with left over or
misprinted fabrics. We’re going to bring them in our luggage to
Africa, and donate them to an orphanage.”

I stared at Joy,
wordlessly.

“I didn’t expect you to
want to come. So, I didn’t offer.” She smiled tenderly.

All this information
should have made me feel liberated, happy even, but for some
reason, I was left with an aftertaste in my mouth. I just looked at
her and smiled.

Chapter 17

The next day, I was
sitting in the middle of an unknown lounge, surrounded by a bunch
of hippies patching up fabrics that would soon become the rainbow
blankets, after their group name: The Rainbow Warriors – which they
took from the sunken Greenpeace Ship.

There I sat, with a piece
of pink fabric on my lap, trying to sow shut a hole as big as my
arm. Methodically, I advanced slowly.

As I looked around the
room, I realized that this crowd did not want to reinvent the
world; they simply felt responsible for the Wrongs that they could
make Right. While some used Art to express their will, others
chained themselves to trees.

On our way home, in the
metro, we sat next to each other quietly for a while.

“How’s your writing
going?” she asked.

“I haven’t found anything
to talk about really… I’m still just playing with a few ideas, a
few concepts, you know?”

“Not really,” she
answered. “I don’t really understand with everything going on in
the World, how you can have nothing to say…”

“I’m not a political
person,” I laughed.

“I’m not talking about
becoming a politician, but about stating your opinion on
things…”

“I’m not a journalist
either, I like fiction…”

She exhaled.

“How you can be so…
indifferent?” she said, anger resonating in her words.

“I’m not indifferent; I
just don’t see the point in making a big deal out of
everything…”

She turned towards me with
icy eyes.

“But you do make a big
deal out of everything! Nothing’s ever simple with you! It’s like
you’re always looking for a fight! You’re always oppositional and
difficult! You never just agree to anything! How can you possibly
say that to me! You are such a self-centred person!”

I let it all sink
in.

“I disagree.” I
stated.

“I’m shocked.”

“How can you call me
selfish, just after I spent the entire day sowing a pile of
blankets just for you? I asked, exasperated.

She suddenly looked
sad.

“I don’t want you to do it
for me, but because you wanted to be part of something bigger than
yourself… I want you to want to make a difference…”

“We can’t all be Joan of
Arc.”

She looked at me with her
big beautiful eyes, and asked me: “Why not?”

Chapter 18

Her birthday was coming up
again. This time, I decided that instead of getting her something,
I would surprise her.

I asked the mutt if he
could collect a few of Joy’s friends, and have them pop over later
tonight. I would leave the key under the front pot plant, and they
could let themselves in. I would be having dinner with Joy, and we
would come home for dessert.