Bristol is Far From Texas

Day 451

I’d thought to complete yesterday’s maquette today, but then realized I didn’t have that much left to write. Good thing for me I frittered away the writing hour with breakfast and car loading. Also, I know the maquette-ishness of this maquette is lacking.

Timothy hunches in the auditorium chair appreciating the stark silhouette his shadow produces on the cement and the stackability of a row of cloned chairs: square chrome legs, orange cloth seats. He doesn’t know why the room is black. He doesn’t know why a single spot light beams into the crowd of chairs rather than the performance-free stage. He adjusts his shoulders to make the outline of his head on the floor distinct from the peaks of his jean jacket collar. Better.

Looking for an escape from the wedding party, he truly thought the door that swung open would lead to the outside and a polite secret smoke in the hotel ally. Instead he got this egotistically lit room. Of course he sat right down in the singular illuminated throne. But, as neatly as it served his mood initially, he still needed that smoke.

A pack of Marlboros appears out of habit. He packs it down and plucks out a lucky one before he realizes he’s decided to smoke in a building. Timothy casts back in the chair to prop it up on its two back legs so that he can fish his lighter out of his jeans.

He drops the chair back to four legs and lights the cigarette. That first sweet draw always recalls to mind the first time he felt like a smoker and not a poser: sitting atop a cement picnic table at the lake in Texas. This starkly lit conference room in a hotel in Bristol is a long way from there.

Timothy leans back to blow smoke straight up into the light’s shaft. He’s sprawled back with his arms owning the chairs neighboring his spotlit throne like a king or a man getting a blowjob when a door he didn’t entered through bursts open. Two men with guns are shouting.