Freckles, Part 4

I have had one request for me to continue Freckles. Which, by the way, is all I need! So here it is, the fourth installment in a planned series of 3. Sigh.

So, not a bull fighter. In fact my calling was something entirely new. In 2010 it’s hard to find anything new; most things are third generation at least. And more than that, I was unique. Blazing a trail, a modern day Lewis. Or Clark. Whichever was better. But early on we were still finding our way. And as a 9 year-old boy I could never have imagined the strange path my life would take.

My suspicions were confirmed: we had picked up a trail. With a hard copy of Mr Tonkin’s face, it was a simple matter to draw and decode his freckle map. As Cory’s freckles had led us to Mr Tonkin, so did Mr Tonkin’s freckles lead us to Jessie Masterson, eventually. Our difficulty once again was in the fact that the freckles provided us with a location, not a person. A high school girl who worked behind the counter at the Kilgore street corner dairy Fridays after school and all day Sunday, Jessie was a hard one to pin down. Several fruitless afternoons were spent lurking around the dairy awaiting signs of freckles. By the third day the elderly owner had convinced himself that Cory and I were trying to rob him and he chased us out with vague threats to call the police and/or our parents, interspersed with healthy doses of profanity. Undeterred, we mustered our courage and returned, luckily just in time to catch Jessie about to begin her shift.

I could tell within moments of speaking to her that she saw us as just two goofy kids, playing around. But she was prepared to humour us, so that suited our purpose fine. Our experience with Mr Tonkin had proven that the disposable camera was an indispensible piece of equipment for our task, probably even more so than the permanent marker. To think that complete strangers would happily let us ‘join the dots’ on their faces was rather naive. To have a photo taken by two strangers wasn’t exactly normal either, but our chances of success were upped considerably. Jessie was old enough for her features to have begun their bloom into a beautiful adulthood and young enough to luxuriate in the attention. Her wavy red hair stretched halfway down her back and framed her face like one of those rings of fire that lions jump through. But there was nothing leonine about her face. Her lips were soft and prone to curling up in a quick, cheeky grin as she spoke to us.  Thinking us nothing more than young admirers, she was more than happy to not only provide us with a photograph but to pose stylishly for it. I still have the photo of Jessie Masterson, one leg tucked demurely behind the other as she leaned against the dirty white walls of the Kilgore street corner dairy. Starting with her, I began to print two copies of each photo, one to mark the freckles and one to keep. What happened to her I do not know.

Nowadays we keep a database so we can maintain contact with all of our ‘freckles’, which has become both a name for the group as a whole and the feature that makes them of interest to us. 

Together, Cory and I collected 46 more pieces of the puzzle before the day when the inevitable happened. You can only photograph strangers for so long before you get on someone’s bad side. A young mother took offense at Cory and I trying to surreptitiously photograph her stroller-bound toddler. And she called the police on us. For some reason they did not believe that our motives were pure. With the agreement of our parents, who had been putting up with our freckles obsession for many years now, we spent a night in the cells. That was where Cory told me that he was done. He no longer wanted to catalogue the freckles of the world with me. I begged. I pleaded too, but to no avail. By the time my Mum came to pick me up the following morning, Cory was already gone. 

Our friendship would not recover.

Freckles, Part 3

It's been a while since we've checked in with our hero (and Cory his equally un-gay - despite what you may have heard - right hand man). Check out previous entries here and here if you need to refresh your memory.

Obviously my parents were called.

I remember sitting in the Principal’s office. It was me, the principal, Mr Tonkin and my parents. Cory was waiting outside with his parents for his turn.

“Now, I’m up for a laugh same as any other bloke,” Mr Tonkin explained to my parents. “But you just can’t go ‘round askin’ to use a permanent marker to join the dots on people’s faces. It’s not cricket.”

I nodded sagely, my hands folded in my lap while everyone in the room stared at me. Whatever had I been thinking?

And that was about it. Mum and Dad dragged me out of there. I shot Cory an apologetic glance as he was similarly dragged by his parents into the Principal’s Office.

So it was onto Plan B then.

2 days later.

“Mr Tonkin! Mr Tonkin!” I ran right up to him, a panicked look on my face. “Casey Perkins has fallen over on the courts. There’s blood all over the place!”

“Show me where.” He was already moving. I told you: nice guy. I felt the smallest twinge of guilt for what I was about to do to him.

I pointed him in Casey’s direction and let him run off ahead of me. I needed to be far from the scene to avoid suspicion. From the top of the playground I watched him dash over to Casey to check on her. She lay balled up on her side, clutching her belly and groaning. A throng of concerned students had gathered around her. In the future she would receive recognition for her acting chops, starring in a short-lived comedy-drama series about a dental hygienist and her complicated personal and professional relationships. But I digress. So Mr Tonkin rolled Casey over and, before he could take in the fact that in fact blood was not all over the place and Casey Perkins was fine, the disposable camera she was holding went off in his face.

“Hey! What the-” Mr Tonkin cried, as she scrambled past him and took off at a run around the corner of the school block. He caught up to her eventually and demanded to know where the camera was. It was not on her person. She would not say where it was. Due to our strange encounter with Mr Tonkin earlier in the week, both Cory and I were asked if I knew anything about the strange incident of Casey Perkins and the camera. Cory was genuinely perplexed by this line of questioning. And I was not likely to mention that she had tossed it to me and I had stowed it under my bike (nestled innocently among 26 other bikes on the rack next to the pool gate).

I got some funny looks from the guy at the pharmacy when I took the camera in to be processed.

“You know there’s only one photo on here?” He peered at his screen. “A... close up of a guy’s face.”

“Yes.”

“That’ll be seventeen dollars."

“I’m fine with it.”

We were back in business.

END OF PART 3

Freckles, Part 2

The thick plottens, as my Mum used to say.

The year is 2010. My life has taken an... unusual turn. At age seven I declared to my parents that I had every intention of making bullfighter my career. It turns out things were not destined to be so cut and dried for me.

In fact, the map that I had drawn on Cory’s face all those years ago resembled our school grounds. What this meant for us, we didn’t know at the time. But we both knew that we were more excited about going to school the next morning than we had been at any other time that year. Except that day when the canteen had done American hot dogs.

So that morning Cory and I walked to school together. Of course my Mum rang Cory’s house and told his parents about what we had been up to. I’m pretty sure she had implied that it was all my idea too. My Mum always thought that kind of stuff was my idea. She was right. Cory’s mum, not my biggest fan to begin with, gave me a particularly filthy look when I knocked on the door to collect him. I knew she’d come around to me though (she never did). When Cory came to the door I could see that his mother had seen fit to subject him to another scrubbing session. His face looked pink and sore, which meant she had probably had a go this morning as well as last night. Not that Cory’s Mum had experienced any more success than my Mum had for her efforts; Cory’s face remained a living example of my artistry, albeit a slightly faded example. It made me glad Mum had never thought to check under, say, my T-shirt. My body remained adorned with every single one of Cory’s creations. I could imagine my barbarian ally under my shirt sleeve bringing me strength.

The looks, gestures and whispers from other kids started even before we got through the school gate. Cory was today’s show and tell. We were in different classes that year (for the first time, but not the last, once it was recognised that we could get up to more mischief together than separately) but I was considerate enough to seek out most of his classmates, the ones that mattered at least, and by that I mean the ones who were most likely to tease him. I told them that his facial markings were the first step in our plan to get Cory adopted by ninjas. If they were to tease him, these kids were told, I couldn’t guarantee that they would be swiftly and quietly murdered... but I couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t, either. For me the day passed uneventfully. I spent it gazing around my classroom and out the many windows, trying to gain some inspiration. What was Cory’s face-map trying to tell me? No matter how much I strained my brain I couldn’t come up with anything.

After school Cory and I met on the playground swings to compare notes.
“Did you see anything unusual today?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I saw everyone in the class staring at me all day,” Cory muttered. I sensed a sulk coming on.
“So you’re popular now. No need to thank me. Anything else?”
“Oh, yeah, my teacher pulled me aside at interval and asked if I was being bullied. That was a fun conversation. I don’t think she believed me when I told her we did it for fun,” he said, real confusion showing on his face. How could that not be considered a fun activity? "Other than that, nah, nothing.”
“Dumb.”
“What if it’s not really a map of the school? Maybe we made a mistake.”
“Do you really think that?” I stared right into his blue eyes, searching for the truth. “Do you know what I think? I think this is the furthest thing from a mistake possible. We did something completely right, maybe for the first time in our lives.”
Cory’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. Why does the best thing we’ve ever done have to involve messing up my face though.”
“That’s just the way it is, man. You’ll be right,” I threw Cory a reassuring grin, although I didn’t feel reassured. It was then that I noticed a particular set of freckles in on Cory’s right cheek. It wasn’t perfect, but if you looked at his face front on they almost formed... an ‘X’. And that ‘X’ was right where we were sitting, on the swings.
“What are you boys still doin’ here?” a voice called from behind us. “You waitin’ to be picked up?” It was Mr Tonkin, the caretaker. He was really nice to us kids, when we saw him. He was often out on the field, mowing, weed-whackering or pruning. He probably would have offered to call someone for us if we were left waiting.
He pulled off his sunhat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Cory and I both gasped. For some reason, before today we had never noticed how many freckles Mr Tonkin had. We looked at each other and my best friend tipped me a little nod.
I spoke up. “No, we’re okay, Mr Tonkin. Hey, this might sound a little bit weird, but...”

END OF PART 2.

Freckles, Part 1.

The basic premise to this story has been lying dormant in my notebook for about a year now. Something finally fell into place and what follows all gushed out of me in the space of about an hour. I am going for a Paul Jennings vibe on this one. Since this is my first piece of creative writing that I'm publishing to my blog, I would love to hear your creative criticism and/or ideas about where the story may lead.
Thanks for reading! Josh

Freckles
It started innocently enough. It was 1987. I was nine years old and my best friend Cory was nine years old and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to two nine-year-old boys to tattoo each other with permanent marker.
I was watching Cory put the finishing touches on a wicked looking barbarian warrior on my forearm when it hit me. His face was scrunched up in concentration, his tongue clamped determinedly between his teeth. Not for the first time I noticed his hair, curly, slightly longer than the fashion of the day and bright, fiery red. It matched his Super Friends t-shirt brilliantly. He was also blessed, as were all redheaded folk, with a full complement of freckles.
I sought to join them.
“Hurry up,” I told Cory. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Almost... done,” Cory said, rocking back on his knees. He tossed me the black marker.
“I need your face.”
Cory’s eyes widened. “Whoa, hold on. I don’t-”
“Ah!” I held up a hand for silence. He knew the deal: we each took turns drawing whatever we wanted on whatever part of the other’s body we wanted. It was too late to back out now, especially having two turns ago drawn a big set of fairy wings on my back.
Now it was my turn to concentrate. Before putting pen to freckle I paused a moment to take in the contours of my friend’s face and the placement of freckles that would underpin my masterpiece.
As I gazed at Cory’s face (an dhe gazed out the window, embarrassed at this close scrutiny) the freckles resolved themselves into something more than a collection of brown dots on ruddy pink skin. I don’t know how else to explain it to you, but it was like they spoke to me. And, armed with this knowledge, I began.
I do not know for how long I worked on my best friend’s face with that marker. Cory, for his part, sat stoically and allowed me to work, making not a sound.
When I finished the marker dropped my trembling fingers. Sensing that something bigger than us was at work we both moved soundlessly to the bathroom.
Eyes fixated on the mirror, Cory’s fingers traced the lines on his cheeks, his forehead, his nose. The lines remained; being permanent marker, they would remain long after the half hour my mum spent scrubbing at Cory’s face when she discovered us. But for now it was just the two of us, alone with our work.
“Is this... what I think it is?” Cory asked. His voice was uncharacteristically breathy and I supposed his heart beat just as hard and fast as my own.
“Yep. That’s a map.”

END OF PART ONE.

The Story of the Ring in the Pants

So I got married on Saturday. YUSS!!!
Part of the ceremony was composed of our celebrant retelling the story of how Cush and I got engaged. As it was slightly 'modified' for impact during the service I wanted to post my original version of the story here in order to preserve continuity when they finally make a serialised manga comic of my life.

It started with a lie. I told Cushla that I had to go to town to get some DVDs from Dick Smith. That wasn't the lie; I did have to get some DVDs, for school. But I forgot to do this, because the real reason I had to go to town was to buy the ring that we had seen the day before.
I took that ring to my flatmates and said, 'how am I going to get this ring to Fiji without Cushla knowing so that it's a surprise when I propose?'
Many ideas were kicked around. Most horrible: swallow it. Most practical: bury it within your socks. But the best idea, based on the fact that I chose to do it, was to have my flatmate Amy sew the ring into my pants pocket. That way I could have it with me (I was terrified of stowing it in my bag in case our luggage got lost) and just pop my hand into my pocket every now and then to feel it was still there. In the end, I actually did put it in my suitcase. I decided that, if Cushla and I were meant to be married then nothing would happen to my case. And nothing did.
But I still changed into those pants as soon as we were in our bure.
The plan that had been discussed between myself and chief co-conspirator Amy was that I would ask someone at the resort for some scissors to remove the stitching around the ring upon arrival. This seemed like a lot of hard work for something that could yield similar results by just yanking real hard. It did put a bit of a hole in my pocket, but that's why I chose old pants!
Now I had the ring, and I had the girl I wanted to give it to, but I had no plan as such for the proposal. I tend to react instinctively to these sorts of things and make it up as I go along, which is partially why my wedding speech will make no sense.
But inspiration was forthcoming. Our room contained a little electronic safe. After reading the instructions and confirming sixteen times with different sized objects that I could open, lock and then re-open the door, I was ready. I stashed the ring inside and waited, like a shark waits for one of those people who dangle their legs over the side of the surfboard.
I took several minutes of terrible waiting before I could convince Cushla to open the safe by assuring her that it really was the best place to keep her passport.
As the safe door swung open I took a knee. Then, as Cushla looked in the safe, I wondered whether she would actually see the ring at all. You see, it was couched in a pile of odds and ends and if I am as sneaky as I like to think I am, she had no reason to believe there would be an engagement ring in the safe. Just as I was about to stand up again and say something witty like 'um', she turned around, holding the ring.

And the rest is very recent history.


Josh
It doesn't get better than this.

Pokemons! I Choose You!

I choose... ah, who cares.

Pokemon Platinum: the must-have game of the season.
I was pretty ashamed to get so much enjoyment out of Pokemon back when it first came out and I was about 14 years old. How sad is it that I still play the games now that I am a grown man?
Worse than that is the fact that I persist with the Pokemon series even though quite early on I gleaned one important truth about the Pokemon games: they’re all the same!

I can’t be the only person who has noticed. And yet, review sites applaud the developers’ ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality. I think those reviewers are just searching for a reasonable explanation for why they still enjoy this repetitive mass-marketing gimmick of a game. Incremental changes happen from one iteration to the next (what? Pokemon ribbon contests? Where do I sign up!) But the core mechanics remain very much the same.
But this is not even the problem. After all, how many great series have been ruined by ill-advised changes to the mechanics?

What irks me is that you can’t apply the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality to story. Sure, themes, settings, re-occurring characters. That’s all fine, but the whole thing? Why is there even a Japanese guy’s name listed under story in Pokemon credits nowadays?!

Seriously, watch this:
Boy (or girl. Next gen addition!) lives boringly in small village.
He meets professor who gives him a choice of three pokemon (grass, fire or water only!)
Boy is tasked with finding, like, every damn pokemon on the planet AND at the same time becoming the super pokemon master of the world. This is the manga equivalent of winning the Ultimate Fighting Championship with the aid of a paperclip while simultaneously locating the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti in the undersea kingdom of Atlantis. Make something a priority, Professor!
Your best friend, and also hyperactive pain in the butt, vows to prove that he is better than you like all best friends and runs off to do the exact same thing you are doing. Now I’m no scientist, but if you have two massive tasks that you would like taken care of, and two fresh-faced young scamps to do those tasks then why wouldn’t you give them a task each?
Boy goes to all the cities in his tiny world, facing the challenge of the Pokemon gym leaders who, despite being the best pokemon trainers on the planet, haven’t mastered the concept of elemental strengths and weaknesses. How did you climb to the top of the competitive pokemon industry by using six pokemon made of grass? It takes one fire-breathing pony to utterly destroy you! The gym leader’s explanation for their ridiculous choice is that they ‘like’ that type of pokemon. You know what type I like? The ones that let me win! That ‘I like them’ attitude is not how winners operate.
Oh, meanwhile you somehow get involved in stopping some conspiracy haphazardly thrown into play by Team INSERTSCARYGANGNAMEHERE to kidnap every pokemon on the planet and have them print money or defraud the government or something equally horrid.
Having slaughtered the gym leaders, and demolished some plot to do something dastardly with Pokemon, Boy goes all the way to the Final Four – Four trainers who – despite having no gym of their own – kick way more butt than those lame gym leaders. This might be because you have to fight all four of them in a row. Then you become the Poke Champ or something and you win. Because you abandoned the ridiculous ‘Find all the pokemon’ quest hours ago.

See what I just did? I wrote the story of every Pokemon game ever, including any subsequent sequels. Some royalties please, Nintendo?
Would it be too much to ask that something, *anything* could change in the typical Pokemon storyline? But Pokemon is not about story. And they’re shifting units so what’s the harm, right?

At the end of the day, I tell myself I won’t bother with the next one, but I still do. I still play them. I don’t know why!