The Ancient Shark Of Despair's blog

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

So the grocery kid came round today. Apparently it is his birthday. He came in and put the groceries on the floor instead of on the counter (which is his new thing) and just stood there with his arms folded and this look on his face that was just, 'Can't you see that you've hurt me.'
'Do you know what today is?'
'No, what's today?' I asked. He wanted so hard to look relaxed, but this was a big deal. You could tell he'd been thinking about it all day.
'How long have you known me?' he asked.
Time doesn't mean much to sharks because we live forever. I've told him this before.
'It's my birthday today. It happens every year on the same day each time.' Then he left. He wanted to leave me feeling bad about myself. I picked up the shopping, which was difficult, and noticed that he'd bought as many things in glass bottles as he could. I wonder if he thinks we're having this big, invisible fight.

Not much has happened here. Sarah's writing her exams now, Moe's quit his job, I went to a matric dance and the landlord's mother died. She was the grocery kid's mother too, but I don't really think of him that way.
It sounds like a lot of stuff when you lay it out in a line like that but it's really not. My life's still the same - nothing's destabilised. I've got a pretty good system that corrects against this sort of thing. It's not as if there are such things as 'events,' scientifically. It's just: day in, day out - yep, looks the same.

There's plenty of food in the house now, so I'm feeling in a pretty good mood, even though the landlord made me give the grocery kid a raise just because their mother died. It was easy for the landlord to do that since he handles all the accounts. He just said he was going to do it and then wham, it happened.

Though the grocery kid has been a lot less of a jerk since that happened. Except for today, of course. I guess that's all that people really want: A bit more money and for people to love you when you're feeling sorry for yourself, even if your mother was over ninety years old when she died. That is so old for a person to be. I'm not sure if I'm even that old.

So yeah, it feels good to be blogging on the internet again. I don't know if it's the same for you guys but it seems like everything on the internet takes longer these days. I think that's why I haven't been using it as much.

Anyway, be cool guys. And if your mother is over ninety and then dies, don't act like it's a complete surprise. You should know better than that.

Friday, November 7th 2008

I ordered pizza today, even though there's still a lot of food in the house. I've got to be more careful with my money, actually, since the landlord didn't collect the rent from anyone last month.

I've told him that all that stuff can be done technologically now, through the the internet. He doesn't like that idea, I think. To him, if the money is not in his hands or in the bank account that his first job set up for him, then it is cheating. I wonder how many people in the building have the internet. I hear modems dialling up sometimes, but the landlord would probably know for sure. He goes into all of the rooms and knows everyone's name. But I don't think it would be that many since they are all old people.

Ordering pizza isn't quite the same since Moe quit his job. I mean, it's cool and everything. I'm not freaking out or giving up pizza. (Though the landlord says I should.) I told you: I've got a system. But I miss having a regular guy who gets associated with pizza and food in my mind. I've tried talking to these new pizza guys but it's no use. They're these hot-shots who don't want to connect with anyone. They're too fixated on the big picture and getting to the next delivery that they don't want to take in some real human interaction. What can you do with people like that?

They all know exactly where to look for the money I hide though. I guess Moe briefed them on everything like that before he left. He was probably a pretty high rank among the pizza guys. I can see him standing up on a podium, pointing into the assembled crowd of peasant pizza guys and assigning them their delivery zones and demanding a cut of all their tips in this giant samurai voice that he would never use in day-to-day life. When that voice came out, you knew that it was time to obey. I think that the reason he quit was that being the top guy like that must have been pretty draining and the position of command would have isolated him and made him terribly lonely. But hey, Moe was all about loneliness. Maybe now he's left his job he's ruined forever. Change is like that to people who don't have a good system or a community to support them.

But nah, Moe definitely had a system. You could see it in his stability, in his ability to just cut through all the stuff that keeps normal people from understanding other people. I think that is why Sarah fell in love with him. She fell in love with his system.

The landlord sounded pretty stressed out on the phone this morning. He kept asking me if I was going to go to his mother's funeral. I don't know about that. I'm pretty tired already and I've got a lot of stuff I need to do tomorrow.

Saturday, November 8th 2008

It's the landlord's mother's funeral today. It's happening right now actually. The landlord really wanted me to go. He turned up here really early in the morning and knocked on my door and said my name over and over. He didn't say it angrily, just loud and clear enough to let me know that he was serious about me hearing it. It was like this:
Knock
Knock
Knock
Knock (four knocks)
'Shark.'
Then he'd do it again.

I didn't answer because I thought it was a bit rude that he was here so early. I'd told you how tired I was yesterday. But then he called my phone and then I was trapped. So I got myself over to the door and pretended as though I had just woken up that second and was all sleepy and confused.
He was wearing a suit. I'd forgotten he even had one. It was light brown and didn't fit so well. I stared at it, but I think that upset him and he just said, "Sharky. Let me in." He only calls me Sharky when it's emotional.

I offered him some tea but he just brushed that off and kind of pushed me down onto the bed and sat down beside me.
"You're coming to her funeral," he said. I shook my head. That really isn't the way I do things. "You didn't come to see her once while she was ill. She kept asking for you but you didn't come," he said.
"Yeah but I can't go outside," I said.
"You've been going outside with those bloody kids all the time. You've been driving that little girl around at all hours of the night doing who-knows-what!"
Okay, now that really wasn't fair. First, I haven't given Sarah a lift anywhere for months, not since the matric dance. And she's hardly a 'little girl.' She seventeen now and says that she's going to leave home quite soon. I didn't say that though. He was too angry to talk to. His face was hard and pleading. It was weird to hear him swear again. He used to do it all the time!
"And after all she's done for you. You'd be dead if not for her," he went on. "You have to come today and pay your respects."

Even though we were just sitting on the bed, I felt that really I was in a corner and the landlord was just lunging at me again and again. He wasn't hitting me, just psyching me out again and again.
"Okay," I said. "I'll go. I don't care who sees me." That made the landlord stop lunging at me in my mind. He stepped back from the corner. I could leave now if I wanted.
"You have to come," he said again, but not as forceful as before.
"I will, I will. Just let me get ready. I need to get ready first." I said. I meant that I'd need to finish up my websites and lock up my pad and clean my skin. My skin produces a lot of grease to make swimming easier, but it's not so helpful when I've got to be around people. The landlord knows all about this.
"Thank you, Shark. This will mean a lot to her." He stood up, took a deep breath and swallowed whatever it was he was going to say next.
"I'll take my car. It still runs pretty well." I said, smiling. We used to be really into my car. The landlord smiled back.
"Thank you," he said again. Then he left.

But I don't know, funerals aren't really my thing. Instead, I spent the day on IRC chatting to my friend who likes Leonard Cohen with me. I told him that I wasn't going to the funeral of this girl I used to hang out with who was my old landlord. He said that he understood and that it was more important that you got all that stuff sorted out while the person was still alive.

Exactly, I said.

Sunday, November 9th 2008

So the landlord turned up here late last night. He didn't even knock, he just used the key he has and came right in. He had been drinking and he'd lost his light brown jacket. He hasn't drank in years. I can picture him saving it up, like a deep breath or a special move, just waiting for the right time to unleash it over everyone.

"That's it," he said, sitting down on the bed. Then he threw up his hands and said, "That's the last of it." He meant his mother. She's all gone now. He didn't cry but I think he wanted to. It's so like the world that a man who looks like he's on the verge of crying all the time suddenly can't cry at all when he's got a really good reason to do it.

He just sort of chilled on the bed for a while. I stood in the corner and wondered whether I was in trouble or not. He started to talk about the funeral. Apparently not a lot people showed up. She only had the one friend who wasn't as old as her and everyone else had been people she'd made and their spouses. The landlord and Celene were there and so was the grocery kid, his daughter and her ex. I haven't seen the grocery kid's kid since she was a tiny baby. I'd like to think she brought some youth and coolness to the funeral. They need that kind of perspective in the mix. I hope that life hasn't destroyed her yet.
“Was Moe there?” this is me talking.
“No,” he sighed. “Moe wasn't there, Shark.” I kind of figured he wasn't. But I could just imagine him there at the back of the crowd, peering over everyone, eyes cold, playing with the stuff in his pockets. He'd look at everyone's faces one by one and would have been able to tell if they had loved her or not. Damn, what's up with Moe these days?

We kind of ran out of things to say after that. The landlord wasn't in the mood to look at any of the new websites I'd bookmarked and he didn't start making dinner like he normally did, so I played some TV games and he watched. I'm still pretty good at most of my games. I've finished a few of them but I'm out of practice these days. I've forgotten a lot of the moves. I kept falling down this one bottomless pit that used to be no problem at all and had to keep on starting from the beginning. The landlord watched me do this for about fifteen minutes before he piped up again.
“We've been talking,” he meant him and the grocery kid and the team they formed when they ganged up on me. He didn't continue for a while because he was psyching himself up towards making the thing he was about to say real. “We might sell this place. There's a developer who's been interested in it for years. And with Ma gone it just...” he finished the sentence with his shoulders.
“I own this place.” I corrected him. I've told you guys the story before.
“I was talking to Ma's lawyer today,” he said quietly. “And it seems that Celene owns this place. She always owned it.”
I'm pretty sure that's not how it is.
“It's just an idea,” he said, standing up. He looked around the room like he'd never seen it before, like he was trying to figure out what it was all worth in money. “Of course we'd have a lot to sort out first.” He was talking about me.

But you know, that got me thinking. Maybe it's time for a shake-up around here. Sharks have to keep moving to stay alive. Not literally, of course, but it's like a state of mind. I spent most of today typing out new things that I'd do if I moved out of my pad. It would be something like the adventure I had (the real one, not the lame one with David) only bigger and it would never stop.
I'd pack up my essentials, sell of the rest of my stuff ... a lot of it is old and probably really valuable. My bottles for instance. I'd drive up to Moe's house, my glove compartment full of money. He'd come out and he'd whistle and he'd understand what was happening. He'd stop only to grab a fresh change of clothes and the miniature versions of the things in his house and he'd hop in. We'd find David, wherever he is, and we'd patch things up with Sarah. I know that we could do it if we all did it together. Out on the road, one of us might have to sacrifice his or her life for the good of the many but we'd never stop learning lessons and all the world couldn't contain our growth / power.

Yeah, I think I'm ready.

Tuesday, November 11th 2008

Okay, so I've calmed down right now but I've had a really stressful day. This morning I was looking out the window, smoking a cigarette and chilling when I tried to imagine what the courtyard would look like after the developers buy up the place and do their developing. I saw the developers filling up the courtyard with more and more apartments which got filled up with more and more people – pregnant people, sad people, teenage people, people who pretend to be vampires, people who are really into their trucks – and there are just so many people and they all need a place and they all need food and they all need a community and the developers are all wearing light brown suits and they are making more apartments but they can't catch up with all the people coming in and the place just collapses with the weight of all the people and all their neediness and then the developers pick up all the rubble and turn it into a homeless shelter and all the people live there now, packed into cots, no space, too sad for most people to care about.

There's another group of homeless people just outside the gate, just where the landlord's mother's little granny flat used to be. Everyone in the group is a parent. Every day of their lives they hoped that the future would turn out just okay enough for them to slip just one more person under the wire but now that hope is a joke. They're outside the gate and the gate is closed and the landlord is sitting there in a deckchair looking at his watch and he won't open the gate and let them spend the night in the shelter because it's four minutes past closing time and it's tough. A car drives past, but it's not Moe in the car. It's no one. It's Mr. Roberts. Moe's gone. He probably didn't make it. Turns out this place was the source of all his power and, with it gone, he was all alone out there. Having no community watching your back means that none of your talents are worth anything and no matter how insightful or brilliant or cool you are, life will find a way to crush you so easily. So it's so long, Moe. Life just didn't care about you in the end.

I ran into the bathroom to pick up my phone and I called the landlord. He didn't pick up at first but I kept on calling.
“What's happened?” he asked, a bit angry and a bit worried. I don't call very often.
“Don't sell this place!” I gasped. “I don't think you know what you're doing!”
“Shark, I'm up in Joburg. I'm in the lawyer's office. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay? First thing tomorrow. Just – calm down. Get something to eat. You know how you get when you don't eat.” He hung up and I went back into the bathroom, turned on the shower and didn't come out until all the hot water was used up. Then I crawled into bed and stayed there for a little while. I must have fallen asleep for a bit because the next thing I knew, it was dark and I was calmer. I did eat something but now I can't get back to sleep. I'll wait up until the morning. I don't want to miss the landlord when he comes round.