Greetings from the Vodka Sea by Chris Gudgeon

Author:Chris Gudgeon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Canadian Fiction, Love Stories, Canadian, Short Stories, Canadian Short Stories, eBook, Chris Gudgeon, Goose Lane Editions
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2003-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

The Death of Carver

The front hedge was nearly buried in snow, and they were still arguing over who would play them in the movie.

“Brad Pitt?” April stubbed out her cigarette. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Think about it.” Boyd leaned back in the chair and raised his arms behind his head, playing with her now. “I’m a deceptively complicated man; he’s a deceptively complicated actor.”

“I don’t know, Boyd. I can’t get past the abs.”

“In high school I —”

“Don’t say it, Boyd, I’m warning you. Don’t say it.” April gulped the last of her Bacardi and soda. She’d started to do that lately, gulp the last of her drinks, whether to get it over with or to begin again, she was not sure. In any case, it was a bad omen. She’d read in Ms. that gulping was one of the Working Women’s Warning Signs of Alcohol Addiction.

Boyd smiled. He had the cheekbones, that’s true. Big high Brad Pitt cheekbones, and big thick lips like a male model or a cod. Imagine an older, shorter, chunkier Brad Pitt with bad skin weathered down by time and comfort, superimpose that on the face of a fish — one of your less fishy but more human fish, but a fish all the same — and you got a rough idea of Boyd.

“But what about you? Julia Roberts? Come on. It doesn’t work, on any level. She’s too,” Boyd tried to think of the right word, “big. This is more of a . . . pastiche. It’s an ensemble piece at best.”

That was unfair, of course. He’d said himself she looked like Julia Roberts. An older, shorter, chunkier Julia Roberts, but slightly less cross-eyed and warmer in tone.

“I’ve changed my mind anyway. I’m thinking Angelica Huston. She has the range, the compression to pack a lot into a character who admittedly only dances on the periphery of the story.”

Carver raged again from the back room. “God damn you, Ford! God damn you!”

Boyd and April hushed. She tried not to look at him; he tried not to look at her. But their eyes met momentarily, and that giddiness overtook them. April had to cover her little mouth with both hands to suppress the laughter.

“If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times: I shot the bird, Ford. I shot the God damn bird!”

Boyd and April strained to hear Ford’s reply. He spoke in a gentlemanly Kentucky fried accent. Very restrained. Well modulated. Polite. They could make out little of what he said, the odd word. “Bird” came up a few times; “sophistry”; “trousers” or a word that sounded very much like trousers; frequent expletives (“shee-it” seemed to be a particular favourite of Ford’s). Then silence.

April tried the dip. It was a new one, pimento-chive, she’d picked up the recipe over the Internet. She’d gone a little heavy on the garlic and turned her head as her taste buds adjusted.

“And Carver?” Boyd smiled. He had his ideas.

April lit another cigarette and rattled her glass in Boyd’s direction.

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