LAZYGUTS

❝     sooo…   write  some  more.     ❞          fade  in  on  mara  banks,   27,   confused     —     isn’t  everybody  as  good  at  speaking  as  she  is?     on  second,   indulgent  note,   no,   that’s  just  her.          ❝     i’ll  give  it  a  star  rating.     out  of  five,   y’know?     ❞

“  sounds like something my mum used to say.  ”    it comes out more as a mumble than anything else, gaze drooping down to the ground momentarily, tracing the scuff marks on the tip of her boots.  she’s aware of the acute irony to be found in how her mother would push for politeness and then, in the next breath, rant and rave about the government or the neighbours or the trees in the garden, if it was a slow enough day.  it’s nothing more than an acceptable form of hypocrisy, she thinks, and she won’t involve herself in it.    “  i think you’re the first person to say that to me, y’know?  ”

‘ maybe our mums are mates. they could’ve gone to school together. ’    so  the  politeness  police  is  a  multi - mum  thing.  i  always  thought  the  phrasing  on  politeness  being  the  cornerstone  of  being  was  weird,  a  bit  stilted.  so  lives  the  legacy  in  the  polite  children’s  heads.    ‘ are you nice to service workers? i can take the advice back if you’re not. then politeness is the cornerstone of being. i can sell that then. ’

               ❝ You are OUT of your mind. ❞ Look, I’m a reasonable man, or at least, I think I am. I’m not quite sure who the fuck this bird thinks I am, though. First, the facts. It’s always good to start with the facts. I’m broke, down on my luck, and a second-year theatre student at uni who doesn’t know how to talk to people. Great combination. Second, I’ve just been making small talk with this girl— says she was close friends with Olivia, but funny how I never heard Olivia mention her, but girls are weird. And we’ve gotten into this heated debate over music— and see, that’s the one thing that really gets my blood boiling, properly, ‘cause no one talks shite about the Beatles and gets away with it. Not on my watch.                ❝ Y’know news reports don’t mean shite, like, anycunt can just print whatever the fuck they like and publish it. Just ‘cause it’s in the news or in a book doesn’t make it TRUE. ❞

‘ that’s why i said a heavy book. ’   it’s  hard  to  explain  how  i  got  caught  in  this.  like  it  would  be  a  task  to  explain  why  too.  

                                talking  gets  me  into  this.  it  gets  me  into  everything,  and,  truth  told,  there’s  not  enough  space  in  my  head  to  reserve  for  facts  or  genuine  hard  held  opinions  on  the  beatles.  most  things,  actually.  i  never  put  the  thought  in.  lies,  i  said,  is  a  song  by  the  beatles  when  he  had  said  something  about  liking  them.  that  it  is  my  favourite  song  by  the  beatles.  he  said,  that’s  not  a  beatles  song.  i  continued  on  as  if  i  could  name  any  beatles  song  other  than  hey  jude.  in  this  place,  for  no  reason  at  all,  i  am  the  self  proclaimed  mega  fan  that  knows  fuck  all  about  anything.   

                                ‘ like an encyclopaedia, ’   i  say,   ‘ like a really  . . .  trustworthy book. you know. really unlikely that it’s faked. something in the non-fiction section. i - i’d believe that. ’

‘ do you think sometimes on weekends when it gets light you could swim there? maybe if the water was clear. ’

i’m  at  a  recital.  this  is  public  speaking.  there’s  crowds  of  eyes  watching  me  and  the  practised  speech  needs  to  run  its  course.  i  like  that  more  than  having  to  come  up  with  something  on  the  spot.  in  my  mother’s  voice,  i  say,   ‘ politeness is the cornerstone of being. ’   i  don’t  mean  it.  

                                i’m  not  at  a  recital.  there  is  maybe  one  pair  of  eyes  on  me.  this  is  called  a  conversation.  this  girl  is  called  alice  and  canned  responses  don’t  bode  well  because  i  can  never  expand  on  them.  my  straight  face  falls,  i  smile  and  it’s  out  of  nervousness.  it’s  polite.    ‘ or something  . . .  you don’t have to be polite. ’

‘ news report. ’   easy.  believing  is  a  fool’s  game.  stubbornness  lands  a  space  in  the  same  territory  but  being  stubborn  and  wrong  versus  stubborn  and  sceptical  but  non - committal  till  you  see  solid  facts  are  vastly  different  things.  you  look  like  an  annoying  cow  for  the  latter  but  the  long  run  feels  immediately  less  embarrassing  for  choosing  it.   

                ‘ or, ’   i  start  and  my  eyes  start  darting  around.  they  do  that.  that’s  what  being  knowledgably  sceptical  is,  right?  like...  looking  for  the truth?  eyes  darting,  never  resting  till  the  truth  is  uncovered.  proper sherlock  holmes  shit.  something  like  that.  not  just  the  thought  of  looking  someone  in  the  eye  for  too  long  making  my  skin  hot  and  my  whole  body  start  shaking  like  fuck  in  that  embarrassing  way  it  does.   ‘ or something in a book. something in like  . . .  a heavy book. i know news reports may not be accessible or realistic. ’   my  eyes  land  back  on  him.   ‘ and i don’t accept proof in pamphlets because i know people can just make a pamphlet and copy it at the library in like, what? an hour? that won’t fool anyone. ’