It. (rasatabula) wrote in repose, @ 2016-03-12 21:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | *log, cat dubrovna, jack penhaligon |
Cat + Jack: booze and books
Who: Cat + Jack
What: Feminist treaties, poetry and booze
When: Post ghosties
Warnings: TBD.
At this point, the most that could be said for the house with the view of the water (through grimy windows, naturally) was that it was not the motel room shrouded on the fourth corridor with the nicotine-stained walls and nylon bedspread. Which was not a bloody lot. He had bought it not out of ill-fated optimism for what he could do with the place (fresh-faced baby realtor with freshly-highlighted swingy ponytail and a bouncy smile and who was too full of nubile enthusiasm for Jack, exhausted by nightmare and with a loathing for acrylic nails) but rather the extent of his pretty weak bang for buck. He had gone to one of those meetings in the Capital shortly thereafter with the depressing smell of self-failure, shame and sorrow boiled into the weak tea and coffee, cradled a polystyrene cup between his hands and ducked out half-way through, fleeing his own self-respect. The aftermath of the mist felt like shellshock and there was no bloody chance he'd write anything - Jack thought momentarily of the notebook, the pencil scrawl, the notes on the woman - and swallowed bile. No, he bailed from a meeting of 'hello, my name is' and all the ways failure could be dressed up and walked around and paused only momentarily beside a poster in the wall outside he usually ignored squarely on the way out, that advertized the times for other Anonymous meetings, with a rather too hopeful set of tear-off telephone numbers lining the bottom. But drinking had been a theme in the reading material selected by the lady of the hour and she had a bloody dangerous sense of humor. He read intermittently, when the paint-fumes grew too strong to do much of bloody anything but sit around, watch the water and sink the liquor in the freezer - the lone kitchen appliance that sat humming in a ridiculously empty kitchen. He had some furniture now, courtesy a ride to the Capital and Louis looking out something less chipboard and reminiscent of student tenancy but the place was bare and what parts of it were clean were half-painted. He had done more reading in the last few months than he could remember doing in the last decade. Before (and Jack didn't dignify 'before' with any explanation in the confines of his own mental gymnastics: before was enough) there had been too much to bloody do to sit around and read. He tended toward activity, and books he could put down and pick up without regret: poetry was good for that. He had more time since living in Repose, but less of the inclination: good writing had a habit of inspiring, and if he could bury the whole of his own imagination, salt and scorch the earth, he would. He had read his own recommendations back before sending anything to Cat that she might peel open for its viscera to horoscope by but the week had been predominantly consumed by painting and the abortive meeting and the painting had consumed the time and inclination to drink. Jack had half-finished the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, just far enough through it to register the point (and the point had landed, smoked temper and a cigarette outside on the steps beyond the house closer to the water) and he was neither blitzed nor in the immediate aftermath thereof when he showed up at the Cat to collect. He had every inclination of drinking on her dime, however. There was a book in pocket, with hers in hand, and Jack walked into the Cat on an air of paint fumes, rather than booze, in an incredibly worn but expensive shirt that owed its prior life to required trips to see his editor and was now threadbare at the cuffs, and jeans that had at least a speck or three of paint. |