Of Novel Novels

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"Of course all human life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side
of the work- the big sudden blows that come or seem to come from the outside- the ones you
remember and in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at
once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within - that you don't feel until you realise
with a finality that in some regard that you will never be as good a man again."

F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Crack Up.

 Prologue

Present Day

I have kept a diary since I was nineteen. In hard times in my life I linger on the past by re-
reading the pages. Day by day I look to it as if it is a text book I can learn from.

I dwell on the past.

I also read his books. I read them and look for signs, I wait for him to mention things we did
together, people we met, girls we chased...

I am Paul, this is my story.

I have spent intervening years, it is over ten years now, with memories bouncing around in my
head.

Crack, crack, side of skull, side of skull.

I remember it all in high detail. I can smell the smoke, taste the booze and remember the
feelings like events are still happening in front of me.

I used to enjoy the late nights and unhealthy atmospheres. Now I can’t get them out of my head.
I want to write it all down and clear my mind. I wish to free myself from the cage of a good
memory.

Then I remember that’s what he would do, write it all down, make it clever and witty and
interesting. Turn his life into a novel and turn me into a minor, fringe character.

Gerald Ives, the famous writer took my story.

I hate him for that. Hate is a strong word but after these years that is what it has turned into. It
has created envy in me I cannot escape.

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 One

June 2nd 2000.

I was Twenty years old, very young really. It was another one of those nights. It was a Friday, the second
day of a cold winter. I remember I was wearing my corduroy coat, which stares at me from the back of
my wardrobe.

I didn’t feel like going out.

It was pointless, but I still went.

I’m not sure why I went there at all. It was just four walls and a ceiling, nothing magical. Truth be known,
it’s was an ugly place.

At least I assumed it was ugly. At the time I could never tell. I never saw the nightclub in daylight. It was
locked up. All I saw was the darkened version.

The walls were painted a deep sea grey. They trapped all available light. If you were lucky you got
flashes of red, yellow and green cast from three spotlights. Light struggled to escape after touching the
token mirror ball. I could have sat in a pile of coal dust the lighting was so dim. Sometimes, from the
condition of my clothes the next morning, I must have.

The floor was cement. They ripped up the carpet long before this story. It was beyond cleaning, too
stained from lazy hands dropping vodka-sodas.

The dance floor had black and white tiles laid out like a chess board. Periodically a smoke machine
would belch into life. Streams of white vapour challenged the air. The club was covered in a thin white
cloud in a pointlessly dramatic statement more annoying than mood creating. The mornings after my
hair always smelt acrid. My lungs were left raw, the result of a combination of the unwelcome smoke
machine and passive cigarettes. The place shortened my life.
I sat at a small table. I tried to get the same one every week. I had a silly ritual where I would lay out a
range of beers. Bottles placed, labels facing towards me, as if the alcoholic volume would guide me. Or
explain the way I felt.

I would sit there in near darkness and trying not to cough from the smoke.

You could hardly say I went there for the vibrant activity. Typically the club was half full. Or half empty.
It depended on if you were the owner or the DJ. It was all perception. The DJ was pleased to see that
someone turned up. The owner was displeased looking at the bottom line.

Still I went.

Reasons?

Personal and physical. I had a lot of regular friends who went there. It was convenient to catch up with
them all at the same time. My house mate Jay liked it too, it made splitting the cab ride home
affordable. We were pretty poor back then. We wasted a lot of our money. I brought at least one CD a
week. We ate, we drank, we consumed.

Sometimes I would hear a tune for the first time that surprised me. Bang by the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs came
out about that time. I loved the music back then. I wanted to suck it all up. Even now there is space in
my collection for more Blur albums. I still love giving Coffee and TV a spin. It’s all on iPod now of course.

There was cheap beer before eleven pm. Bottled beer for $2 each. You could buy four beers just before
the end of happy hour, and if you guarded them, three could be drunk before the inevitable bottle went
missing, snatched by an unknown hand, usually my housemate Jay, grabbing at one.

In addition to the attraction of booze and music, every now and then something would happen to
convince me to return the next Friday. Sometimes an unexpected smile from a pretty girl would draw
me back, that sort of thing. Anyway, Adelaide wasn’t that big there weren't that many places to go. That
is many places that weren’t mini-casinos. So I guess walking up a set of stairs to spend a day’s pay trying
to get pretty girls smiles was justifiable. It fitted my social standing. Young, male professional, urban kid,
you do that sort of thing, oh so clever. It became so much of my life by default.

I just wish it didn’t have such consequences.

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 ___________________

“I want to be a character in a book,” he yelled at me from across the table.

“You often are. Thinly hidden autobiography isn't that the term?” I remember telling Mr Gerald Ives. Jay
to those allowed close.

“A character that someone else writes, Paul.”

He was in fine form that night. Sitting opposite me, swigging his beer and telling me thoughts between
mouthfuls.

“It would be fantastic and interesting to see myself from the outside. Peeps would get insight they can't
get from my self-deluded ranting.

I mean it’s obvious really. All those stories I write. I’m always the main character.

Plain and simple. I might make them look different. Thin, blonde whatever. The fact is they are all me.
Think like me. Act like me.’” He paused and took a follow up sip of his beer.

“Thinly veiled autobiography.” I remember correcting myself.

“Exactly, I’m the most fucking, self centred, ego maniacal writer. I can’t believe that these people.” He
waved at the dance floor. “They can’t bust me for it.”

“Shut up,” I recall teasing him. “I think you’ll find they identify with what you say.”

“I’d like to see myself from the outside. See how someone else writes me. Then I would truly gain insight.
Become more rounded and self-aware. I would understand myself better. The readers would understand
me better.”

_____________________________
Present Day

Jay thought too much. He talked a huge amount of rubbish. He was always trying to get an
upbeat, philosopher image across. His publisher said the persona was good for his image. It
fitted the times. His poetry group said it drew people to their fundraisers. Apparently you needed
that kind of showmanship. A loud voice. A real 60's hepcat for the new millennium. Gerald
James Ives. GJ.

I believed in him then. In most ways he was my hero. Certainly, I wished I was as talented as he
was then. I am sure he is still the same way now. He was always trying to blind you with his
talent, he was always a bit melodramatic, always commanding attention.

Jay really did think too much. We had that in common. I guess that is why we got on so well. We
both liked to intellectualise. We both liked to take pleasure in the little details. I could never
resist responding to his ideas. I would always push Jay into continuing with his spiel. I always
played the game.

__________________________

June 2000.

“No, I can think of something better. I would like to be a character in a movie.” Jay laughed wildly. “My
movie. The story of my life!”

“Why a movie? They’re never as deep as novels. You have always told me that. Look what Hollywood
does with all those paperbacks. It stifles character development. It uses special effects instead of a
meaningful plot. Hollywood adds a token love interest.”

I tried to stare down my nose at Jay. I gave him my best school teacher impression. If he noticed I was
winding him up, he didn’t let on, he continued with his spiel.

“There are many instances where the movie has been as good as the book, maybe even better.”

“Name one movie that is an improvement?”

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“Last of the Mohicans. The movie added the love story between Daniel Day Lewis and Madeline Stowe. In
the book Stowe’s character throws herself off a cliff. It kind of fucks the ending. Not much of a love story,
if you’re dashed on the rocks.”

“True,” I sighed, but I must not have looked convinced in his wit because he kept going.

“OK then, don't get me wrong. All fairness to Runyard Kipling...”

“You're not going to start talking about the Jungle Book again? Your obsession with monkey children is
unnatural.”

“So very funny, so witty.” Jay placed his hands on his temples. He gasped at me. “Stop interrupting, I
haven't finished.”

“Sorry.” I said.

“Where was I?” He put his hands through his hair.

“We were questioning movies that are better than the book they are based on. Something about
Kipling.”

“The Man who would be King, is a fantastic movie based on a humble short story. Directed by John
Huston in the 70's.” Jay leaned in. He told me as if it was some sort of secret. “It was my classic video
rental last week, if you remember?’’

“Ahh, Yessch, Sean Connery and Michael Caine, Peachy say no more.” I said that in a passable Sean
Connery accent.

“Anyway, we are getting off the point. There is an obvious reason a movie is better than a book. I want
to be in a movie because then I would have a washed out, 45 minutes in the make up trailer, defused
light...” He paused. He ran a hand across his thickly stubbled chin. “Shiny superstar complexion.”

___________________

Present day
It’s was visual gag. Jay was 6 foot plus and permanently shabby. He was a big guy. Not exactly
the image of a Hollywood leading man. He would wear a black shirt and slick his black hair
back. He had perpetually sunken eyes, ‘genes,’ he would say, a combination of tiredness and
lifestyle, I thought.

He always dressed in a black overcoat. Always wore faded once black jeans. Doc Martin
shoes. The only colour coming from his yellow shoelaces. His figure seems gigantic and
sometimes menacing. Off putting. You could be forgiven for mistaking him for a bouncer, drug
dealer or small South American mountain range.

We graduated on the same day. Class of 1999. University of Adelaide. He graduated in the
morning. My ceremony was in the afternoon. I can’t think of two more different courses. His
liberal arts degree versus my winemaking degree.

We both went to Uni at 16, accelerated students. We had a fun time in first year being well
underage and crashing our way through parties and pubs.

By graduation I can’t think of two people who looked more different. I have a photograph of us
on our graduation day. Jay has four day growth beard with some side burns. He has a pair of
pink sunglasses on, even though the sky is cloudy. His hair is just over his shoulder. Black hair,
natural, no dye needed. I had dull brown hair. I kept it short.

I am about six inches shorter. Mid height but I look brittle standing next to him. I am thin. He
could snap me in half with just the tumble of his hand.

I have always been thin. Painfully thin. I can’t put on muscle. I tried those protein powders, I
tried judo, and I tried weights. You can still see each of my ribs as if they were the plates of a
Xylophone. You can play me like the Violent Femmes, Gone Daddy Gone. It’s just the way I am,
fast metabolism. I eat terribly. Whatever I want, never show the effects.

The time I was trying to bulk up using weight gain powder. Jay got pissed off. He said I was
mocking him.

I wasn’t. I don’t think people realise what it is like to be physically weak. Can you imagine
growing up being the gauntest in the class? Primary school lunchtime was not fun. The thought
of ‘all over red rover’ still gives me sweats.

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I guess I have middle aged spread to look forward too.

___________________

June 2000.

Jay wouldn’t let you stop laughing. He wouldn’t let your attention slip.

He erupted into a stirring rendition of a song he invented on the spot.

He thumped his hands on the table. In a sort of techno-primitive beat. (dum, dum, dum, DUM, dum,
dum, dum, DUM).

He hit the table and looked me in the eye until he had my full attention. I couldn’t recognise the beat as
the Chemical Brothers at first. I had to wait until the chorus. It was a big dancefloor song a few years
before.

“Hey boys... (dum dum dum) Hey girls... (dum dum dum) Superstar complexion… Here we go!”

Present Day.

They were good times. We would hang about; thinking we were cool, hanging out late at night,
wedged into a nightclub, drinking, practicing life.

The events of this recollection take place beyond 2 o'clock in the morning. You could set a
watch by our conversations and tell the time without looking. When they involved novels and
singing it was late.

I remember what Jay looked like, tapping his hands on the table. His eyes rolled back in his
head as he sang. Several hours in a session could do that to a man with even his frame. He
would often disappear into the toilets. To either prepare to get further out of his head or repent.
Both involved splashing water onto his face and re-slicking his hair. A baptism of holy water
from the bathroom taps.
In hindsight these conversations are not really witty, but at the time I considered doing what we
were talking about. I dreamed I could write all this down to produce a novel. Tales from the
social frontline. In my fantasies it would have been adapted into a play, then made Jay's
Hollywood role come to life.

The only problem with my master plan is nothing would happen. There was no action. No
drama. Just two guys talking and a little bit of intrigue.

It would be fake anyway.

You are not hearing about the real Jay Ives. Jay was an actor in public. He would try at being
witty and insightful. Behind closed doors he was a different person. He was quite and
introverted. He wrote a column called “The Black” for the Uni newspaper. His novels were still in
the future but even at that age he had written a couple of things for the Australian Literature
Society. Essays.

Most people when they heard that Jay was ‘The Gerald Ives’ they had an expectation of his
intelligence. They expected him to say the most brilliant things, to step off the written page,
sprouting philosophy. Mohammed walked down from the indie-mountain. People wanted all the
knowledge of his character pieces displayed in real time, or maybe something like an Aussie
Dylan Moran – “Black books.” Dry, clever, funny.

I know he loved Dylan Moran, he tried to dress like him and he tried to present a stormy
personality.

I knew his different side. Behind closed doors he wasn’t like that. He spent hours hunched over
a computer keyboard trying to get everything right. He laboured for tracts of time to appear
instantaneous. He often prepared witty stories with me, then he would use them again with
different people. It was hard for me because I ended up hearing the same story dozens of times.

He was almost like a stand-up comedienne you see several nights in a row. You hear the same
jokes.

The reality of his writing was not glamour. I used to watch him make preparatory notes at the
dinner table. I saw how many edits and rewrites it would take to polish. It took him a few weeks
to write an article. Sometimes a year on a poem, start to finish. Most people never realised he

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would write several things at once and delay finishing them. He always finished his work last
minute in a blind rush. He was an odd contradiction, parts of his work were painfully researched,
then he would delay and sulk over it, before a final stream of consciousness rush to finish.
Some nights he would sit, cigarette in mouth his hands a blur on the keyboard, other times he
would look on the internet and waste time.

At twenty Jay already had fans and to them he was some sort of entertainment accessory. The
party ice in the kitchen sink, but he could melt.

Some nights you could see a tinge of desperation in his act. Like a cork riding on a sea of
alcohol, Jay’s mood would go up and down on the waves. One minute he would wistfully try to
be the life of the party to anyone fluttering by. He next moment he would turn on you. Snap,
snarl and run away.

Ours was a frustrated friendship at times.

I have said Jay was my hero. I never thought he was perfect. Sometimes he was hard to live
with. Hard to live with is an understatement. Impossible is a better description, I can't remember
why I agreed to move in with him.

He was always losing my car keys. He never quite paid his share of the groceries. I did the
shopping I made sure the rent was paid. He was practically a free loader for months on end.

And if you could have seen some of the states I used to find him in… He used to wreck himself
with an alarming regularity. I was always the more sensible one, more together.

Once he came home obviously tripping out of his skull and proceeded to fight a battle with my
cat. He was saying all this shit, about the cat being out to get him, real paranoia. He was trying
to smack my cat with his shoes, poor Boris. I had to keep the two of them apart. He kept me
awake until 10:30 the next morning.

He worried the fuck out of me. He even ruined two of my birthdays with his mood swings. He
would smash glassware and laugh about it. I found he was likely to get kicked out of our
favourite public houses.

The list as I remember.

The casino for general drunkness. The Crown and Anchor for smoking a cone upstairs. The
Adelaide UniBar for climbing out of the window, this was an achievement because the bar
proper doesn’t have windows you can open, but the side function rooms do. Kicked out of both
Mansions and the Hotel Richmond for breaking glasses, from the Crown and Sceptre for
arguing about the introduction of their $5 Saturday night cover charge. The London Tavern that
was an early ejection in his career for being underage and unruly. General disorder was the
cause for blacklisting at The Griffins Head something involving bathroom taps and snapping.
Producers likewise for general disorder. On Rundle Street East he never got kicked out of either
the Austral or the Exeter, he must have saved his best behaviour for the East End.

The night the old Stix nightclub hosted is final POP! with DJ Ian, Jay took opposition to having to
wait in line, so he went out the back and took a pot plant from the stairwell. He lined up with it on
Gouger Street holding the aforementioned pot plant as if it were his date. Needless to say when
he tried to get in, both were ejected, although the pot plant was returned to its rightful place.

Still, that night, Friday June 2nd, 2000 he was good. My diary says so and I remember Jay was
entertaining, happy, even if it was a bit forced.

I am a bit older now. In the time that has past, I learned not everyone is born to be instantly liked
and accepted. No point feeling bad about it. Half the people you are trying to impress will be
gone soon enough. No point in dismissing yourself as a fake for trying to live up to an ideal.

Jay was very hard on himself, very negative. This is a fault that I seem to have caught in the
intervening years. I guess you can catch depression like the measles.

At that time I liked Jay whoever he was, whatever he did. I forgave his depressive side. I loved
him despite of himself. I never minded if he wasn't as charming as he is meant to be. I didn’t
care how many times he lost my keys. He made me feel alive. There was no point in me judging
him even if he fell flat. I appreciated the effort. In return I was the model friend.

______________________

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