Let the Dog Walk Down the Stairs

“You're my favorite arbiter of taste," she says.

It was the last line of the piece she wrote, which felt more like a love letter, or a long excruciating handjob. I look up at her and smile to indicate I am happy to be here. She looks like me if I hadn't had a wildly successful bout of anorexia in my sophomore year of college.

"It's good. It's rough." I say. "I know." She says. "It's good." I repeat.

We sit in silence for a minute. I watch her open and close her mouth a couple times, trying to find words to fill a space that doesn't exist.

"Is it the title? Is it too on the nose?"

The title in question is, 'Please don't assess my writing the way I know you're assessing everyone else's writing right now like just read it and don't try and situate it into the culture because I'm just doing me'. It's a good title. It'd be an even better post. I think about taking her off my story to post it. Then I remember she already did post it, of course. Bitch.

"I want to give you something real to think about. At the same time, I don't know if you deserve it," I tell her.

I'm not even sure what I mean by that. I hit her vape and reflect for a minute. There is a dilemma, of course. If I give her something real, or new, it becomes a common good in our shared marketplace of ideas. What are the chances she takes it and makes something better than me? Low but possible. What are the chances she bastardizes it in my name? Highly likely. And, in fairness, what are the chances she creates something generative and authentic with a tasteful homage to yours truly?

"Your writing is purposefully derivational," I say, holding out my hand to exchange her vape for a lighter. My oral fixation is more of a performance than anything, but I can't let up now. I light a Capri, since it's basically like smoking hot air. I lean forward.

“You're forcing an attempt at satire to avoid authenticity. It's pulling you down."

She nods solemnly. She lights her own Capri. We sit in another minute of silence.

"Can I read you another excerpt?" She asks "Sure," I reply

I lean back and close my eyes, pretending that I’m pretending to listen. She starts again.

"Put your finger on something other than the pulse. It's going to swell and move just like it and you can press on it till it bursts. Unlike the real thing which will move ahead and behind you constantly until it wears you out and also tells you that the shoes you bought off that one girl who swore they were soooo still in style? Fugly. Very. Everyone hated them. And every photo you post is two weeks past its prime. The high exposure flash era is over, and your post-ironic pastiche is gauche. Where is your authenticity? As if."

I yawn, audibly. She takes it as an insightful comment. I think I see her write something down. Her style irks me because it’s not a style at all. But it's exactly what she wants to be doing. It's also what I want to be doing, kind of. I haven't quite done it but when I do it I'll be doing it better. Every flier, every DM, every poster, every offhand remark at another shitty gallery opening, every screenshot, every text post, and every circulating image collected for use. Nothing untouched. But still so removed. And so vague.

"You're clinging to the indefinite you." I tell her. "I know, but it's my trademark." She replies "Your what?" "My, like, literary trademark" She insists, showing her first sign of exasperation all night. "Right," I say.

Let the dog walk down the stairs. Right.

I think about what I have to do back home. I’ll have to go back to feed my dog soon. He’s on a new diet. Raw octopus and dried squid from one of those complex feeding mats for mental stimulation. He's supposed to be a fishing dog, but I never taught him how to swim. Retrieving preserved seafood in between plastic grass wedges is a close second. I briefly wonder if he'd like her writing. He'd probably find it funny. He's not very smart. But he is clever.

"Do you ever get bored of your own work?" I ask. "Or are you one of those people who can read it again and again and again, getting off on their own words?"

Right then, a large truck passes by, almost colliding with a motorcyclist. He's yelling curses as he veers to the curb. Something pops from the back of his bike once he skids to a stop, but he seems fine, I think. I don't hear her response.

She opens and closes her mouth a couple times as I fumble with a pack of gum. She settles on a question.

"Can you read an excerpt? I'll pay extra"

"$200 total?"

She nods in agreement.

I scrounge around in my bag looking for something to please her. I’m not sure why she agreed to that, considering that most of the work I did have worth reading was already available on a variety of magazines, websites, and Instagram carousels that no one ever fully read. Certainly, I don't have anything worth paying for. Girls like her rarely care about things like that, though. I’d know because I’m just the same. But I’d never pay in money, which reeks of desperation. I guess she just doesn’t have anything else to give.

I pick up my diary/journal which only gets used during bouts of psychosis or when I need to make a particularly private list. I open it up to a page. A list dated April 2nd 2021. It reads:

TODO:

1. Brush Teeth
2. Jack off (scribbled in the margin: video or thoughts? vibrator?)
3. Brush Teeth again
4. Drink 1L of water
5. Work out (20 minutes)
6. Walk dog
7. Reply to emails

Only the first two are checked off.

I close the journal. I can't share anything from it. I open up my phone. Seven messages from my roommate about the state of our sink. She thinks it's clogging because I trash eggshells in the food incinerator. I switch over to my notes app. I scroll. "Here's something stupid," I tell her. She sits up. I sit up in response, then slouch back down out of habit. I start:

"If I write like I'm looking for your validation it's because I am. If it's a copy of everything you've ever heard or read it's because it is. I won't make anything without you because I can't."

She purses her lips and nods, reaching in her bag and taking out a slim wad of $20s, counting them off slowly until she gets to $200. In the prolonged silence, I move first to get up and push in my chair. She follows suit and then hands me the cash. The cafe inside is empty now. The barista wiping tables looks up at the two of us from behind the frosted glass. We smile at him. He smiles back, if not out of disdain, then envy.

"Can I email you more of my stuff?" She asks. "Sure,” I reply “but I'm busy".

I walk home in silence. When I come back, my dog is already asleep. I take out his frozen feeding mat and shake him awake. He eats lazily, not caring to hunt for all the fish stuck in between the chunks of plastic grass. I wish I had taught him how to swim.