S.G. Browne

So there I am, sitting in the front row at the Warfield Theater, waiting for Bon Jovi to take the stage, when Eddie Murphy walks up in drag and asks me for a light.

Okay. So it’s not Eddie Murphy. But he looks enough like him to pass for the real thing. I quit smoking two years ago and stopped carrying a lighter a year after that. You never really quit smoking until you give up the lighter. So I can’t oblige Miss Eddie, who saunters away looking for someone else to hit on.

Did I say I was in the Warfield Theater? My mistake. I’m at SFO, Gate 33, waiting to board United Flight 4117 to Boston. And Bon Jovi’s not about to take the stage, though several of his songs are on my iPod, so I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or later.

Did I mention I’m a professional liar?

Prevaricator, actually. Professional prevaricator. I get paid to tell lies. To husbands. Wives. Children. Accountants. Nannys. Athletes. Doesn’t matter. I’ve lied to them all. Well, most of them. I still can’t lie to my urologist.

Eddie Murphy in drag? That was the truth. Dead ringer. But he didn’t ask me for a light. He didn’t even walk past me. He’s sitting across from me, applying another coat of lipstick. It looks like bubble gum.

And I never smoked cigarettes. Or owned a lighter.

I see a therapist twice a week.

His name is Ted.

Ted hates me.

I know this because he told me so.  At least I think he told me.  It’s hard to tell with all of these other voices in my head.

These people.

These characters I created with pen and paper or with any number of keystrokes across my computer keyboard.

One of them is telling me to write a story about an old man who goes fishing for marlin by himself in a one man boat.

“That’s Hemingway,” I tell him.

“What’s Hemingway?” asks Ted.

I explain to Ted that I’m being badgered by one of my characters who has plagiaristic tendencies.

“Tell me about him,” says Ted.

“He’s one of my earliest characters,” I say.  “He lacks originality.”

I’ll never forget her face.

Arched eyebrows.  Pouty lips parted in the beginnings of a gasp.  Her upturned chin.  Delicate nose.  Eyes as blue as the ocean, opening wide.  All of it framed by her platinum blond hair.

I suppose it could have been worse.

I suppose my last memory could have been of a dumpster filled with broken bottles.  Or the yellow roof of a taxi cab.  Or a parking meter.

Asphalt.  Concrete.

Oil stains and gum stuck to the sidewalk.

But when your parachute doesn’t open during an illegal base jump and you’re plummeting down the face of the Empire State Building, you never expect to end your life landing on top of Paris Hilton.

The second part of the exercise was to use those same elements and write the END of your story.  Most writers don’t seem to have a problem starting a story or even getting into the meat of it.  But ending your story or novel is always the hardest part.  At least, ending it with satisfaction.

So here’s the ending I wrote for my beginning:

By the time the fire department and the paramedics show up, the nurse is dead, my third Thursday three o’clock is unconscious on the floor in a pool of sculpting gel, the leprechaun has stopped breathing, shoved halfway into the mouth of his sousaphone, and the gerbil has escaped with my virginity and the contents of the cash register.

I always was a sucker for rodents with a French accent.

At my Tuesday writers’ group in the Mission, we always start the workshop off with an exercise.  Last time was my turn to facilitate, so I decided on an exercise where each of the members in attendance would provide one element to use for the beginning of a story.  Those elements included:

a setting, an object, a profession, an animal, and a mythical creature.

 For this exercise, those elements turned out to be:

a hair salon, a sousaphone, a nurse, a gerbil, and a leprechaun.

Below is what I came up with:

One day at the hair salon, I’m giving a simple cut and wash to my third Thursday three o’clock, when in walks a leprechaun with a sousaphone.

“Mind if I play?” says the leprechaun.

I look at the leprechaun, all three feet of him, staring up at me over the lip of the tuba, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s a bad idea to say “no.”

“Sure, whatever,” I say, figuring it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The woman in the chair, my third Thursday three o’clock, looks at me in the mirror and says, “That’s strange.”

I figure she’s talking about the leprechaun, who’s standing by the hair driers playing the opening notes of “The Girl From Ipanema,” when in walks a nurse with a gerbil on a leash.

And I’m thinking that this looks like trouble.