S.G. Browne

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.

I’m riding in the back set of an Audi A6, sitting next to roughly four sticks of dynamite.

Most of that is in the form of a pyrotechnic cake with nine, three-inch mortars of Grade B professional fireworks with a street value of $120.  Without a pyrotechnician’s license, possession of Grade B fireworks is a felony.

I’m sitting next to a felony.

If that’s not bad enough, the dirver of the Audi A6, my college buddy Brian, has a vanity plate on his car that reads:

EXCLR8

So I keep asking him to slow down.

I’m not so worried about the four sticks of dynamite on the seat next to me going off.  But if we get rear ended, the six rockets in the trunk directly behind me come to roughly another four sticks of dynamite.

And I’m wondering if it’s such a good idea to wear my seatbelt.