Chad… Forward

This post updated: 23.12.06

Also available (slowly but surely) is the podcast/mp3 of this book. You can check it out here.

Welcome.

Here are the first four chapters of my novel “Chad and the Avocado Conspiracy”. If anyone decides to embark on reading this, I thank you. Until recently, I had the entire novel posted here. I’ve since changed my mind and decided to only publish four chapters. Maybe I’ll put the rest up again later. If anyone would like to read the other chapters just send me an email and we can negotiate. ;-)

To me, posting this here means nothing more than I’ve reached the proverbial end. The end of what? At this point in life I have really nothing to lose with the millions of words I’ve wasted so much time on. This is like throwing them out to the wind, I guess. As I’ve written in other parts of this weblog, this is what technology, as of 2006, is for: enabling the rest of us to have a bit of fame – meaningless and nothingness fame. Yes, Warhol’s (in)famous analog statement of fifteen-minutes can now be digitized: everyone will be famous for a few bits and bytes.

Hooray!

Anywho. The text of “Chad” reflects (my) growing up in the West and is influenced most by the decade of the 1980s. It amazes me when I read through this now and at the same time hear progressive liberals use words like fascism and martial law to describe a part of the current political spectrum in the united mistakes of America. I guess, in hindsight, I’m almost a profit. Ok, I’m over doing it. This story has nothing to do with what’s going on today in the US. But. Then again. It might. (If anyone can actually get through it.)

As bad as this novel is, I am even worse and to add to the flame (in my case “ashes”) now I am growing old and the bitterness of being a failure is chilling. The lust for hate has rescinded, though, which means that love is a long forgotten token or object, and the sight of human beings makes me, literally, want to walk off the edge. But being a failure also means that I’m a coward (the likes of which is not comparable to all of the successful people out there) so suggestions of suicide will not be entertained (not yet, anyway). If only I could have just a bit more courage. Perhaps the question/issue would then be, if I had a bit more courage how many others would I be able to take out with me?

I haven’t spent anytime with this text since I last put it on a shelf around 1997. To post it here I ran it through my spell check but left the grammar check off. I apologize for some of the chaotic formatting but does that really matter at this point? Even though most lit agents couldn’t get through the first few pages I think the text is perfect. So much for living as an individual, eh? Of course, I wrote this text in a couple of weeks after which I tried to edit it myself. But I really don’t give a hoot about grammar and the rest. In fact, I wish now that I wouldn’t even have used paragraphs. There’s enough well-written krapp in bookstores.

Although I am a bitter person, I am not spiteful. I wish all well and better and more luck than I. Yours truly, the bastard son of the coldest war, the great masturbator of the universe of suburban hell, American expat who wishes other planets were accessible,

tgs

PS please respect my copyright. This is all I have to offer. Honestly.

Chad… One

© 1994 Thomas Stough, Chad and the Avocado Conspiracy

Disclaimer: this is bad writing. Continue at your own risk. This text is open to anyone as long as you give me credit for writing it. By reading this text you agree that it belongs to Thomas Stough and/or WorstWriter.  

 

 

ONE

 

I heard a voice from afar thinking at first it was just a noise from the city but then it became clearer and I could tell it was a voice, a singing voice, deep yet not baritone and it came from the depth of someone's soul. But that's the city—at least part of the one in which I live. I've been trying to find a way to leave the city but have always been set back because of something that must come up or wont go away. For example: just last week I got a notice from my insurance company. It's on plain letter-head tinted green with a small-type return address and telephone number printed in one corner and two names typed at the bottom with corresponding illegible signatures. I've come to know this letter-head well. I think of the secretary that pushes the buttons to print it and wonder if she thinks of the persons to whom these letters go. I think not. The notice is that I have to reimburse the institution named above for charges accrued during a small infection I had not long ago. Insurance. I have come to hate insurance. It is a complete misunderstanding in modern society and, like war it feeds on ignorance and lies. But who am I to speak against insurance? I pay my dues during the year, a sum that is not small and yet, as I've paid this sum I have nothing to show for it – quite a sum in a society that demands product for payment or payment for product. And I haven't been sick—except for my recent infection, which, doctors say, I got from contaminated water. Others say, well, because you were insured, your sickness is then controlled if not alleviated. True, my infection is gone but I am diseased with another ailment: living.

 

A voice… Yes. Well, I was about to board public transport, I love calling a bus that, and I heard a voice coming from the back and as I was paying for my fair I could make out a figure standing in leather with a high collar and a guitar. His hair was long and black and hung like pieces of drift wood; his skin was thin and light and needed sun. His frail and light figure could be easily mistaken for a bright Jamaican woman. And thru his barely moving lips came the tone of Elvis Presley with a clang so ingeniously insinuated with reggae from his guitar. I took a seat after watching a man with a cane slowly exit the bus keeping the driver from moving and I listened to the ghost-like Elvis bother some and fascinate others. I thought of my Auntie and wished she were here. She is an Elvis freak. But then again, she may not like this one.

I go avocado shopping for her because she is too old to go herself. She loves avocados. She thinks they are a delicatessen. Sometimes she's had phases where she will eat them every day. She cuts them in half and then proceeds to eat them each day (usually Tuesdays, the day I go shopping for them) and when I ask her why, she tells me that it's a privilege and some day I'll understand. She's having one of her phases now.

So I make my way across town listening to reggae Elvis instead of reading my book. Unfortunately he exits a few stations before me and I think of getting off with him to ask if he would play for my Auntie but then I remember the hectic I created for myself the time I met an Andy Williams impersonator. I thought he was singing Elvis so I brought him home. Auntie jumped for joy as high as her eighty-year-old legs could. But then she heard him sing and started yelling how much she hated Andy Williams. She didn't talk to me for a week after that. I think it a bit risky to bring the reggae act home. She might not understand—even if he does sound as good if not better than the real one. I couldn't bare my Auntie not talking to me for any length of time.

Perhaps you think it shouldn't matter. She is only my Aunt. If she didn't speak to me for a month I would still survive. But she is all I have. What would I do without her? Perhaps work that much less. Yes, I work. I work for my Auntie. She is old and exquisite, but she cannot fend for herself. She is legally blind and deaf. I have to clean up after her when she goes to the lu on account she misses. But none of that matters because she's all I got and I like her and sometimes she makes us both laugh. And when she's finished laughing I look deep into her crusty and semi-sealed eyes, cataract clouds reflect a light—and in that light I see something foreign.

Chad… Two

© 1994 Thomas Stough, Chad and the Avocado Conspiracy

Disclaimer: this is bad writing. Continue at your own risk. This text is open to anyone as long as you give me credit for writing it. By reading this text you agree that it belongs to Thomas Stough and/or WorstWriter.

TWO

Once I had a dream. At least I thought it was a dream. When I try to recall this dream it becomes blurred; not in the sense that I didn't have it but more in the sense that it might have been real. This has happened before and I think I have learned to deal with it. This particular dream though was different because it wasn't just about me. I saw my Auntie lying on her couch and the couch was on a cliff. Underneath the cliff was a bay and beyond the bay was a peninsula and beyond that a great ocean. Beside her was a TV. She lay stretched out on the couch having a chew. The clouds were churning in the distance above the great ocean and every once-a-once Auntie would adjust the antenna of the TV with her foot. I was hiding by the edge of the cliff, behind a rock, listening to the ocean and watching the weak waves slap the shore below wondering whether or not they were caused by the waves that I thought I could hear in the distant ocean. My Auntie would lean to the edge of the couch, peeling her head over its arm, and spit. She was chewing tobacco again, something that she wasn't supposed to do – the doctors have been warning her for years that if she didn't stop chewing tobacco she would eventually lose her jaw and perhaps half her face – so she switched to a Danish brand of tobacco that's supposed to be easier on the system – and always after her medical visits, which included of course the exam, the Insurance Company Declaration, and the Insurance Company Rights Seminar – on how to best use your doctor and insurer – she would come home in a roar, yelling dirty words and when she saw me she would say: goddamn doctors and insurance companies….

After a short while, probably when her chew lost its pizzazz, she'd get up from the couch and walk to the edge of cliff and spit one last time. She would then gather up what was left and spit the wad off the edge of the cliff. Then she'd go to her Lazyboy and make herself comfortable by crossing her legs. I could see how her nightgown crept up her leg, the left one, leaving her knee fully visible, it was blue and white. She'd just sit there and watch TV until I woke.

My Auntie loved TV. She watched too much of it. And no matter what I did, even hanging from that cliff, I couldn't take her away from her favourite show: Columbo. She watched every episode. She even rented videos of it when she could find them. Once she even found a source of videos that were from China. They were the worst copies you could get but she said the most complete as some of the people there would tape for or five shows on what tape. “Industrious fellows, those china men,” she would say. I saw the videos and they were of a horrid quality but that probably matched my Auntie’s eyes. Other times she would search all the video stores in the city; she was a member everywhere; the video store owners all knew her. There was even a video store association and they all knew her. She was invited to the video store association conference and even had her own place to sit – a glass of sparkling wine included. I asked her once why she didn't just buy herself all the Columbo videos and she would say: because they don't put them all on tape and there is a reason for that, boy!

You see, my Auntie has a theory about Columbo. Columbo is the definition of simplicity made obvious. She says that the format of the show could be used to solve social problems. Allow me to reiterate what she believes:

Columbo is a metaphor for modern society. She says we should treat social problems as if they were a Columbo episode. Within the first ten minutes you know who did it and how it was done. During the rest of the show (my Aunt would always accentuate that is was less than an hour) Columbo shows you how to solve the problem even though you know who did it. But, she says, our problem is, everyone is stuck in a commercial break.

I hate Columbo. I think he's stupid because he doesn't carry a gun.

Chad… Three

© 1994 Thomas Stough, Chad and the Avocado Conspiracy

Disclaimer: this is bad writing. Continue at your own risk. This text is open to anyone as long as you give me credit for writing it. By reading this text you agree that it belongs to Thomas Stough and/or WorstWriter. 

 

THREE

 

The first book Willy the grocer ever gave me was a 3-D picture book titled "Utopia." It was by an anonymous author and it included sentences and words in languages I couldn't understand. When I told Willy I couldn't read it he apologized:

-Sorry about that. Here, take this one.

Then next book he gave me was story about a little boy and an elephant – no, that's not right. It was a story about a little boy and a snake that had just eaten an elephant – there was much more to it but that's all I got from it – something stopped me from reading it to the end. Willy also gave me a copy of a theatre play written a thousand years earlier. I can't remember his name now. I'm sure it doesn't matter.

Each time I visited Willy we talked about the books he gave me. When we were talking about the play he gave me he had to stop in the middle of our conversation because his leg started bleeding and his wife took him away from me to give him his pills and change his bandages. And as he walked away, up the steps to enter his home, pushing the thick insulation curtain to the side so he could pass, he turned to me and said:

-I like the idea about the father coming back as a ghost to tell his son that his mother had married his father's murderer and that it was his son's job to avenge his murder. That's pretty harsh, don't you think, Chad? I mean, being the son of a father who can come back as a ghost and tell you to avenge his murder… if only other generations could do that with us.

Things have only gone down hill for Willy the last few years. It seems his only pleasure was complaining about the doctors and the insurance companies and the banks and the pain… – ohh yes, the pain.

 

I miss Willy giving me books. He stopped doing it one day. I didn’t know it at the time but Willy stuck his neck out for me by giving me books. You see, some books are not allowed – and it's because of the government. But Willy had a collection in his basement. And he didn't care about the government. But he did tell me to be careful with the books in case the government found out that I could read them. But no one ever asked. Well, once or twice I was asked. Yes, I remember now. Someone asked me, right in the middle of the street:

-Hey, you there, where did you get that book?! That looks interesting. Can you teach me how to read?

I'm not really sure if the government actually has a law prohibiting books or anything like that, and I should be careful what I say here, but I'm sure they have something against them. I think I heard my Auntie mention once that what they do is prevent people from reading. So it's not so much that books aren't allowed it's more that few know what to do with them. I used to think that they would hang me or guillotine me if I was caught with certain books. But worse than that, there were voices sometimes that said: "why do you read that shit" or "shit like that isn't good for the system." Not to mention the fact that Willy, since he is an adult and a tax payer, would most likely lose his store and probably be sent to… I don't know… the suburbs where no one reads. I surely didn't want to lose Willy. The day he stopped giving me books he gave me something else:

-Chad, here, take this…

He gave me a voice recording machine packed in a leather case. I've lost the case.

-I think, yes, perhaps, you've reached the point where you can tell stories of your own. Try your luck at dictating.

When I got home I sat in my room and stared at the recording machine. For reasons I do not know it reminded me of my childhood. It reminded me too of my parents and sometimes the stories my mother would tell me. But that was such an unfamiliar time, as beginnings always are – a time when I knew little and much less than I know now. How wonderful it must have been. I must try and think about those times again soon.

Chad… Four

© 1994 Thomas Stough, Chad and the Avocado Conspiracy

Disclaimer: this is bad writing. Continue at your own risk. This text is open to anyone as long as you give me credit for writing it. By reading this text you agree that it belongs to Thomas Stough and/or WorstWriter. 

 

 

FOUR

 

I rolled out of bed and felt the smooth carpeting below my feet. Inria's shadow was in the other room. My back and legs were sore. I wrapped myself in the sheet and exited the room.

-Good morning.

-Is it morning?

-Of course it's morning …sleepy face.

She had set the large dinner table with plates, forks and knives for two. She had cooked a pan of fried egg whites and half green, half orange tomato slices.

-Here… you have to try these tomatoes. I picked them fresh this morning.

She scooped egg onto my plate and then on to hers and told me to sit and eat before it gets cold. I was hungry but not awake. I asked her if she had any coffee. She told me coffee was bad for the health then she exited. She returned with a dark-blue and white spotted tin can of coffee. There we sat, two strangers, eating breakfast and drinking coffee.

My first thoughts were of the hours I had obviously slept – and dreamt. But I brushed them aside with black coffee – strong like my Auntie made it. The eggs and tomatoes were delicious. "This one is an impressive catch," I'm sure some redneck would say. Then she said the tomatoes and eggs are from a newly developed all-season mini-farm where everything grows twice as fast. She also told me that she would be going into the city today and that if I would like to join her she would be glad to take me along. My mind was blank – like a shore line when the tide has taken all away after a storm. I gulped more coffee:

-I don't remember much. Don't you find that strange? Everything is such a blur to me. Yet I recall something happening. Something is trying to talk to me. I think I should be getting along…

She looked at me. I caught her with a mouth full of egg white and a fork full of tomato. She put the fork down, swallowed the egg:

-I was worried about you, Chad. I thought that last night you were gonna freak out.

Chad? Why did she call me that?

-Did I tell you my name was Chad?

-Isn't it?

She stood after I failed to answer, like a frustrated one night stand, and went into the other room. I held my head and whispered deep into the hands within which my face was hid:

-Where am I? What has happened to me? Why am I still here?

 

Like wind, I moved. The tasty meal Inria had so kindly prepared would have to wait. I leaped to the front door. Inria watched me as I opened it and peeked out. She asked what I was doing. I did not respond. Instead I ran down the hallway and stopped. I realized that I was going in the wrong direction and not only that, but I was only wearing a sheet! I turned around and went back, placing each foot in the same step as before until I re-entered Inria's apartment, lost and confused. Again I put my head in my hands and felt Inria touch my shoulder.

-What's happening? What day is it?

Inria was drying her hands with a wash towel. She saw my confusion.

-Monday. Chad…?

-When did I come here?

-Chad, what's the matter?

I was sweating. I was shaking. Inria tried to reach out and comfort me but I resisted. There was rage in the room yet I heard nothing and then I knew that it was inside me – I had to move to get away from it.

-Did you give me anything? Have you put something in my blood stream?

There was no response.

Chad… Five Thru Thirteen + Epilogue

Sorry. This isn’t intended to be a trick. There really are ten other chapters and they are all, basically, as bad as these four chapters.

May the dead-lord praise those of us equipped to write poorly and all that is rejected and uninteresting and…

I’ve removed the other ten chapters, which includes an Epilogue. If anyone would like to read more then just contact me.

Oh yeah, check back for the podcast of this novel. There’s three chapters available there.

-tgs-