genteel stanley

Who shall I be today? Was the first thing Stanley thought as he slid
out of his silky sheets, the rustle made his left eyebrow twitch.
Stanley was nervous.
He knew she was only human, he could see she was, could smell the
humanity on her clothes, yet he couldn't come to think of her as
anything other than some all powerful deity of which he was lucky
enough to work with. And one which you need to please.
Constantly.
Now if anything, gods are nothing like that. Gods just let us mortals
get on with the stage performance whilst they sit in the top box and
watch the show. But hell it means so much to us.
Stanley realised he was shaving, the movement from the bed to the
bathroom was one he didn't seem to recall. But here he was, illusion or
not, the razor was sliding across his face. grasped only subconsciously
by his left hand. Routine was something that Stanley hunt had seemed to
cling to. He knew routine, it came just after coffee and just b4
biscuits in the great lunch break of his puny existence. As he stopped,
closed and locked his door, the thought which had awoken him re-entered
his brain. Who shall I be today? Shall I be the sardonic stud who's
just around the corner. Or the sweet sensitive caring type?or shall I
try some of those jokes I saw on telly last night. A response would be
good. For no matter how much Stanley hunt tried. It was futile.
As he entered the lift for 2 minutes and 31 seconds of fun. All of it
muzak. he saw

Elizabeth looked over her paper with one eyebrow raised as some guy she
barely recognised as a colleague entered the lift. He obviously cant
even shave himself she thought as she examined his facial catastrophe
with one scrutinising eye. She went back to her paper. Stanley was to
Elizabeth as small insects are to elephants. It seems that the bigger
your boots get, the more difficult it is to put yourself in anyone
else's.
She strolled into her office and settled down at her desk.
The 7 seconds it took to get to her desk from the lift passed
uneventfully. Mainly because no one stopped to realise he was actually
there. For Stanley was one of those people who just seem to blend into
any background anywhere, ever. The iguanas of the social interaction
arena are something to behold. They have opinions. Which they will
shout out vigorously in the form of nods of agreement and shakes of
disapproval. that's about it. They scream out "insecure" from every
living pore and just want someone to ask them a question about
something they might actually be able to answer in depth. They'll be
found everywhere. They might be stretching too much to show they're
comfortable whilst glancing furtively around their half moons, or
looking at the table whilst trying desperately to pluck up the courage
to ask a woman out. Stanley was doing both. In her office. She wasn't
impressed

"what do you want? She inquired in her usual exasperated tone she used
especially for Stanley and hobos
"um well I er..was um wondering if er you er would like? um?"
spluttered Stan as he fumbled his over-eager hands across a vase
"coffee? id love one er.. Stan isn't it? Decaf, black, thanks."
He turned and left. Went to the coffee machine and gave it a dark
look.
Coffee machines are easier to deal with. You put your money in, get
what you want and leave with a plastic cup full of warm goodness. Why
cant women be like that?
And where the fuck is superman he inquired to the empty bus seat in
front of him by means of a sudden frown as the bus ambled its way
through the sprawling mass of neon lights that was the city of angels
later that evening as the sun ambled its ways toward the horizon.

He spent ages over the joint, as he always did, he made sure the
tobacco was separated and layered down on the rolling paper, then in
went the ground skunk, like dust he sprinkled it on, rolled it and sat
back as the first swirls of smoke weaved their way toward the ceiling.
Yet another routine. He knew what he would do tonight. He'd smoke,
watch telly, masturbate and pass out on his bed. The usual.

The muggy feeling behind his eyes was the first thing that made him
aware he had woken up, it was 3:52 and, despite the cold chill of icy
wind blasting through the holes in his window pane, he got up, urinated
and tried to recover the pieces of the dream he had been enjoying.
Elizabeth. Naked. Soft lighting. He stopped recalling there. He knew
the rest of it like it was a bad made-for-TV movie he'd seen every
Christmas for the last 30 years. She'd get up, entice him, and
disappear. The rest of the dream passed in a panicky slow motion as he
watches himself try and find her. He counted up to 40 b4 his urine
ceased. "Impressive" he thought
He shook the rest of the dream out of his head and with one last look
around the bathroom, went back to bed.

Elizabeth was still up, still working and still worrying, it was her
true occupation, daytime was just a welcome relief from her insomnia
driven anxiety. Her thoughts kept returning to Stan for some reason.
She wasn't sure why but she felt something resembling guilt on her part
for being so obtuse with him earlier.
You see Elizabeth isn't a bad person. She just needs to be in control
of everything. This is probably due to the vision she gets of a
freefall down a long dark tunnel which gets punctuated with spasmodic
flashes of red and green. And Stanley, frankly, scared her. She knew he
was trying to ask her out. No one did that. No one. Ever.
She tousled her long dark shiny hair and looked with contempt at her
nose in the mirror. It wasn't as if she was particularly ugly as a
whole. She had the perfect body, perfect hair, oval high cheek boned
face. Her arms didn't look woven with dark hairs like Janice the
cleaners were. But her nose was despicable she thought. Too big a lump
near the top were she had had her nose broken by her last and only
boyfriend. It was ugly b4 then. Too ungainly and out of sync with every
other part of her body. But when her ex got drunk that wild night back
in 95.?she shuddered. Every time she looked at her face she felt the
pain he caused, the blood seemed to have soaked her face because every
time she looked. She saw the red viscous liquid pouring from her
nose.
She put a blouse over the standing mirror and flopped onto her bed.
Stan would never do that she thought.

Stanley started humming to the muzak, he knew it by heart now. He knew
where the synth jazz would come in, and where it would stop and knew
the bit he hated most? about a minute into it. Where a crazy type of
woodpecker sound gate crashed its way into the melody. Then he saw her.
And stopped. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was some
kind of muzak anorak. He lifted his eyebrows as a way of a greeting and
went back to staring at the wall. He was still slightly annoyed by her
manner yesterday. But he smiled inwardly at the thought of him putting
too many sugars in her coffee everyday until she got fat. Then she'd go
out with him, he thought.

His eyes noticed her nose. This was the one thing about her that truly
astounded him. It was a special kind of beauty. Where something's so
imperfect is it looks almost heavenly, almost divine. He could see the
lump where she has obviously broken her nose. That thought gave him an
involuntary shudder. It made her real, not this fairy tale princess who
is perfect in everything. Stanley loved her flaws more than he loved
her virtues. It made her human. Made her reachable. He imagined himself
kissing the bridge of her nose. Then realised he was pouting, alone, in
a stationary lift. Elizabeth was already 5 seconds into the walk to her
desk.

Work passed in the usual way. Slowly. But Stanley made sure to
punctuate his day with little routines. Like around 10 o clock, he'd go
for a coffee and look around to see if he could sly a quick cigarette
outside. He never could. But spending 5 minutes trying to be
disobedient to his boss gave him a thrill. Like he was some renegade
office worker on the edge. Today he Then wondered why his brain started
up monologues as if he was the guy who advertises each movie b4 the
real movie u actually bought comes on. Stanley was an agnostic
romanticist. He romanticised everything , it kept him sane. and yet, he
still wasn't sure if he had ever loved.
Then at 11 he would get another coffee and try to build up the courage
to talk to Elizabeth. He never found quite the right amount of courage
so he would go back to his desk and watch her office door intently as
though waiting for her to come out. He would then run through his
repertoire of daydreams about what he would say, what she would say.
And it would always end up with them fucking.
This was his problem he felt. If hadn't fantasised so much about her.
He wouldn't get so stuttery around her. It was because she became
something of his creation in his dreams. She embodied everything he
wanted her to be. And when it came to the crunch. Where he actually
struck up a conversation, she would pop the bubble he'd been blowing
for the last couple of days and send him back down to earth.
But today he felt emboldened. For no clear reason he found himself
standing near her in the canteen talking quite pleasantly about the
weather to a friend/colleague of hers.
Nice weather we're having
Yeah its nice
He saw her eyes roll. She must hate the usual bullshit conversations
too.
Then he glanced at the article Elizabeth was reading. About pot
What's your stance he asked, nodding meaningfully at the glossy
page
Her friend interrupted with a rant about broken homes and heroin, he
got angry, he always did when someone related the whole cannabis
smoking world to a seedy underworld so misshapen by drug abuse it
became almost fictitious
Not at all, he braved, I know many smokers who have never touched
anything else, even booze, and are quite healthy and ambitious because
of it
Elizabeth looked up with almost a look of respect, I say almost because
no one is quite sure what each look she gives truly means. But she uses
them a lot and u get the basic grasp after a while
No booze>? Her colleague jean stabbed out, he must be crazy
Then Elizabeth spoke
I don't drink
Yeah I know but your different aren't ya girl
Different?
Yeah on edge
Oh
Stan walked with them and folded his gangly frame into a sear at their
table in the canteen, talking quite animatedly about cannabis and why
it should be legalised, and too his surprise so was Elizabeth
Call me Liz she said after a while, just to give the author a rest mind
you, not because my mates call me it or anything, she smiled
A slightly broken smile admittedly, which made her nose even more
beautiful to Stan
He wasn't sure quite what she meant by that but got up and said see you
later Liz, with a grin plastered over parts of his face he never
thought his smile could reach

And so here they were speeding through the countryside a few weeks
later, the moons lucid glow flickering through the wall of trees either
side, the headlights illuminating the route ahead, a tunnel made of
overlapping branches and the occasional rabbit, the blue/green LED's on
the dashboard threw both of them into a gentle stupor brought about by
the joints they cradled between them as the wove their way towards the
destination?whatever the destination was, Stan was enjoying the drive,
they had talked at length earlier and that had, frankly, knackered him
out. He felt he really had to listen when she was breathing out her
torrents of thought and belief. He knew it was because he felt that she
was so temporary that in a few weeks, he would be trying to remember
her voice whilst drinking himself to corruption alone. In many ways it
was almost a welcome relief to talk in turn? it gave him a moment to
fully comprehend her staggered extended metaphor. He talked of his
idiosyncrasies and any other flaw he could find humour in and for a
while, They both laughed over the hum of the engine and the throb of
guitars being expelled from the speakers.

He dropped her home just after midnight, the cold wind stabbed deep
inside his bones as he ushered her inside with a peck on the cheek and
a breathless goodbye. She radiated warmth, and all he wanted was to
find a nook or cranny deep inside her soul and just crawl up and go to
sleep. Hibernate inside her dewy smile, her restless eyes, and furtive
glances, to creep around her inner fears and soothe all the places that
ache. But he knew she was delicate, any wrong move on his part could
send him crashing down to earth in a hail of sexual desperation and
pay-per-minute porn. She had breathed every worry she had in his
general direction tonight. Her body language seemed to have wings. It
took him to a higher sense of who she was much more than her mere
words. But the words were more fun, her body language made him cringe
with anxiety and almost sweat with fear, she was really, really uptight
about things?u could almost see her shudder when things got too
intense. Even stoned, she never let herself properly get
comfortable.

Wow he said when he got home, , bracing himself near the radiator while
he gently thawed out. It had been the most fun he'd had in a while. But
it had crushed his mental image of her personality in a chronic
fashion. And he wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a bad one. And
that was pretty much all he thought as he undressed, masturbated and
slept through a a complex dream of vivid shapes and shifting
landscapes, which ended abruptly with him and Elizabeth slapping each
other violently in turn. He woke up scared, and strangely alert.
Are we doomed in this relationship due to our inner fears? He asked the
wardrobe handle as he opened it and chose his suit for the day
Or am I just still stoned?
He picked out a tie in soothing blue and made his way to the bus
stop.

The first thing he noticed in the lift wasn't the music, it was liz,
looking as thought she'd been up all night jogging up mountains, she
looked terrible. And she didn't even acknowledge his existence. This
was the sign he thought, last night I must have done some incredibly
bad faux pax and not even realised it. He raced around his brain all
morning, trying to find something, some statement, some look, some
gesture which would have made her act this way. He couldn't find a
thing. And so he admitted defeat. He must just be a complete
bore.

Liz truly hoped he hasn't noticed her in the lift this morning. She
felt dead and ugly and after the anxiety attack she'd had b4 during and
after the fitful sleep she encountered in her bed. She really didn't
want to talk. didn't want to talk to anyone or anything about anyone or
anything. She got this way some days, when the sting of the erratic
sobs made her very insides raw with bile. Made her movements painful
and her nose ache

She'd honestly had the best time of her life last night since b4
Michael, her ex. But that really wasn't much to contemplate, shed had
hell these last few years, and she only realised it last night when
she'd had the most innocent of dates with a gentle, if slightly useless
male which was why she'd cried so much b4, during and after sleep. She
had hated Stanley this morning as she showered and dressed but when she
caught his frame entering the lift, she really stopped caring, he was
starting to look really good to her and that scared her. She'd always
looked upon the date in the days b4hand as a kind of test run b4
meeting real males. And now, Stanley was turning into one of them. She
melted, recomposed herself and froze any caring emotion in its tracks
and returned her glance back to the times.