Halifax Project (1)
[My friend and editor Nate Hoil recently interviewed me about some stories of mine he published in his zine. It's been a while, so I thought I'd go ahead and post the first of these (they're very DuckBeater-ey, I find). I wrote most of this on my phone in winter 2023, after a visit to Nova Scotiaâprobably why each paragraph after is about one iPhone 13 Pro Max screen long. The finished piece appeared in March 2024 and I reproduce it below with no dignity-mitigating edits.]
He describes a Canadian writerâs short stories as too cute by half. âLike, whatâs an example?â He answers, âAll the pennies in circulation have been used up in a kind of penny-press craze. Uh,â he tries to remember, âthe penny-press is that thing in a museum where you put two quarters in and then a penny, and the penny is smooshed and has a thing stamped on it. In this story, the penny stamp shows you a really small pictogram of your death. Or your first pet. Or the name of your soulmate. Itâs short stories like thatâthey have this carapace of magical realism that is also trivial and plot-motivating. The penny-press must be decommissioned because itâs adversely affecting the economy, the production of pennies canât meet the demands of the press. Indeed people gather the world over, in a globe-looping line, to enter the museum and climb its however many marble steps until reaching a fourth floor portico where the machine sits prettily and unassuming, save that itâs you know, supernatural.â His interlocutor says, âBut youâve thought about this story a lot.â He concedes: âI think about stories a lot.â âOh, are you a writer?â He says, âNot really, not anymore.â They drink their beers. âOkay, but what did you write about?â He thinks about it and says, âJust like, love stories, kinda.âÂ
What were his love stories about? âI worked on this one cycle for a while, about moving to Chicago and trying to make it work with this um, a guy, and I wasnât that young actually. Thirty-one, then, but it seemed I had no clue how to do anything. I had to start a new job and make new friends and acclimate to my boyfriendâs routines and in a lot of ways, the story I was writing concurrently, to keep up with the devastation and confusion of that relationship, and some of its joys, was a way of describing to myself the difficulty of what was happening in my life. Iâm always writing from life,â he says, with exhaustion. âI find my life puzzling, and my friendsâ lives interesting, and our problems make good copy, as they say. But people from my imagination donât really hold my attention in any sustained way. Although, because Iâve never really finished these stories, you could say that my own life also does not hold my attention in any sustained way, either.â The man asks, âIs that why youâre in Halifax?âÂ
âIâm in Halifax because it and Andrew generate strong feelings and mysteries to me. Iâm hoping to apprehend some of those feelings and solve a few of these mysteries.â Does he really believe this? âIâm not saying what I mean,â he says. His questioner says, âThen why not say what you mean?â He laughs a little. âI suppose that Iâm very lonely and I wanted to meet my friend. I wanted him out of my phone. Itâs normal enough.â The man asks, âAre you going to write about this?âââOur conversation?âââSure. But all of thisââ and the man points out at the bayâs midnight blue waters, and the string lights above the beer garden, and the revelers holding half-full steins shout-talking and smiling, and at tall, broad Andrew two tables down, surrounded by his friends. Thereâs a propane heater behind him whose tall orange flame turns his hair from yellow to gold and heâs laughing at something in such a sustained way, his mirth seems so cumulative, that his green eyes are grin-pinched and sparkling. Why is he looking at Andrewâs hair so closely? What does grin-pinched even mean?Â
Evan says, âYou know, summarizing my project this way makes me think I spent a decade drafting the most self-involved Am I the Asshole? post that never got on RedditâI just kept writing down new ways I was being an asshole, or how someone else was being an asshole, or finding strategies to make assholes mean more than their cruelty and their consequences mean more than misery, and thatâs possibly a lot of Western literature, actuallyâEdith Wharton novels are basically like, Am I the asshole for wanting a divorce?â He sips more of his beer. âAm I the asshole for wanting fewer social-climbing friends?â He tries to remember other Wharton plot points. âAm I the asshole for discreetly paying down my gambling debts?â
The man has not read Wharton and fears Evan will keep citing her. âAre you writing now,â he asks, âeven a little something?â Christ, thinks Evan, I am getting drunk on this pier and I should have brought a jacket. The September air is unseasonably cool. He is almost crowd-deaf and slightly swaying, gripping the tall table to steady himself. âIâve been drafting sketches,â he starts, hesitating, âabout this sick guy who lives inâor he maybe lived inâPort aux Basques, Newfoundland. Itâs unclear now. God. Iâm afraid this story will sound like our Canadian friend with her pressed pennies. Iâll tell it like that, if you donât mind.âââI donât mind.â So Evan takes a breath. âThere once was a man in high demand to the claim and fame of the stars. He did everything: hair, makeup, tattoos, styling. And he took in everything, all of culture and celebrityâa cosmophage. He played piano, painted and mixed his own perfumes. All his life was luxury; all he owned was exquisite; his tastes were apiece of his access and accolades, his jet-setting ways, his success and self-mythologizing.Â
âI know this because Iâve kept detailed records, an archive really, for months nowââEvan repeats this, wincing and abashedââJesus Christ, for months now, of the slightly psychotic content he posts to a GoFundMe page. This is where, apart from listing haute couture fashion houses and expensive consumer electronics, heâs journaled about dying from blood cancer or suicide (he hasnât decided which) and belly-ached about the unfairness of life and begged donors for absurd cash sums, in an effort, I suppose, to recapture the glory thatâs abandoned him. For the glory did abandon him, as riches and favor in fairytales sometimes do.â
The man asks if this is another story from his life, and Evan answers: âNo, not my life, but I am obsessed with his GoFundMe page and refresh it with eerie persistence. Iâll be holding my dick in the stall and thinking, Whatâs my sad guy in Port aux Basques blogging about today? and have my phone out before I finish peeing. Once you find someone this idiotic, itâs difficult to look away. You want to keep your idiot safe. You also want to keep your idiot batshit crazy because itâs very entertainingâhis heartache is very entertaining. Thereâs this line by Robert Walser that I love: âPeople will think that suffering has made you stupid.ââ
âBut your guyâs suffering has made him entertaining?â
Evan shrugs in a practiced, almost sacerdotal, knowing kind of meanness. âAm I the asshole,â he says, âfor finding this very public cry for help utterly transfixing? Anyway,â he continues, âitâs difficult to say what drove him back to his small seaside village. Manic depression, insolvency, a breakup? Heâs a very unreliable narrator, and thereâs glaring narrative inconsistencies, as youâll often find with someone so unhappy and desperate. It could be that last September, per his reports, Hurricane Fiona destroyed his salon, his livelihood, his apartment, his life. It could be, per his reports, that heâs holed up in a storage room in his momâs house, drafting these long missives, and sending them out on his meagerly-followed social media accounts, every day asking for someone to restore him, asking for everything back. Asking for Nespresso, KitchenAid and Dyson; for Gucci, Fendi and Prada; for Apple, Google and Amazon; for Dom PĂ©rignon, Veuve Clicquot, MoĂ«t & Chandon; for Bugatti, Tesla and Maserati; and for properties in London, Los Angeles and Toronto. Every day, heâs asking that his riches be returned. Every day, heâs asking for a way out that isnât death. Itâs pathetic. Yet a little bitâuhâa little bile noble? Um, and anyway, Iâm writing about that.âÂ
The man asks Evan, if you live in Chicago, how did you find this dying man with his dumbfounding GoFundMe, when he lives in Newfoundland. âAndrew did.â Evan points at Andrew, who remains backlit by a column of propane fire, the two tables away, listening to someone else, eyes lowered and holding his elbows. âHeâs a great dredger of internet idiots. Brought me a prize.â
âWhy not just fly to Newfoundland?â
âBecause Iâm not a journalist.â
âBut the stuff you take from lifeââ
âIâm not a reporter. I add a lot of nonsense.â
âAh, the love stuff,â says the man. Then: âAre you sweet on Andrew?â And because Evanâs killed two steins, and the night is young, and he assumes heâll remember very little of this conversation, he says, âAh, but thatâs no great mystery. Didnât fly 1,200 miles from home to know my own heart.â The man smiles at this, says: âYouâre ate up.â And Evan says, âNot at all. Just drunk,â and saunters back to the bar.











