Too Good A Word

By Jeremy L Hunter

Too Good A Word follows journalist and would-be intellectual Jay Lawrence as he pursues his first love, Paige MacDowell, across Western Canada from Edmonton to Vancouver. Teaming up with bartender-and-comedian Dax Ludlow, Jay must overcome distance, indifference, and faulty notions of the very concept of Love to win Paige's heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Mar 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9780228824602

Book preview

Too Good A Word

Copyright © 2020 by Jeremy L Hunter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-2459-6 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-2458-9 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-2460-2 (eBook)

Chapter One

The trouble started when he grew tired of his job with the Edmonton Independent Journal.

So then Thompson says of Kerouac, ‘If someone doesn’t shoot that fool soon, we’ll all be labelled the generation of the third sex.’ I mean, this coming from a man who wore lipstick and women’s wigs and described himself as ‘the soul of a teenage girl trapped in the body of an aging dope fiend.’ Christ, Harry, what are we doing another Thompson-Kerouac column for?

"You’re young, your readers are young, and young readers of the Edmonton Independent want to read about Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac."

"Right. I forgot about the sacred maxim. Edmonton Independent: More than one way to skin a dead horse."

That was in May of 2017. He had started with EIJ in the spring of 2013 as a wide-eyed twenty-three-year-old. He hadn’t read Tolstoy or Goethe or Nietzsche, but he had read Thompson, Kerouac, Burroughs, and even some Richler. Jay Lawrence then fancied himself a controversial journalist, polarizing and thought-provoking, posing the tough questions to Edmonton mayoral candidates: Now, we all know about the problem with frivolous government spending, but can you tell me why so many tax-payer dollars are going toward vaginal rejuvenation surgeries for councilmen’s wives? Are those vaginas now considered public property? The editors at EIJ saw him as their link to a younger, hipper audience, so Jay was never given the opportunity to do any real journalism for the outfit.

After he finished with the latest Thompson-Kerouac piece, he got started on another pressing topic: The Ten Best Venues to Catch a Punk Rock Show in the Edmonton Area. After that it was The Fifteen Best Rock N’ Roll Songs Not Called Stairway to Heaven. But it was the piece on the punk rock shows that brought him out to Picton. A half-hour southeast of Edmonton, between Sherwood Park and Camrose, he got to enjoy one of the first truly beautiful evenings of the season as he drove out. The bar doubled as a Chinese restaurant and was located toward the east edge of an old brick strip mall built in the middle of the twentieth century following the Leduc No.1 oil strike. Jay parked in the far side of the parking lot toward the back and double checked that he’d locked the car doors—it being a punk rock show, after all.

He walked into the bar. A big red neon sign above said Dragon City Bar and Chinese Restaurant. A smaller blue neon sign hung in the window beside the glass door, saying Open. The e and n flickered every time the door swung open and shut as bar-goers stepped outside for a smoke. Jay walked in toward the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender wore a name-tag that said Dax, and Jay thought he looked familiar. The bartender recognized Jay too.

Your name is Jay, right?

Jay Lawrence, that’s right. And you are?

Dax.

I can read.

Dax Ludlow. You wrote about me once.

Is that so?

Guess which column.

‘Edmonton Comedians: Who to See and Who to Avoid’.

You put me in the ‘Who to Avoid’ category.

You lost the audience.

They didn’t want to be won back.

The feedback from an electric guitar consumed the whole bar for a moment. A band member tapped on a microphone to make sure it was working and then disappeared into the back and out the back door to grab more equipment. Jay sat at the bar and spoke to Dax about the article (Dax agreed that Jay had given him a fair review) and then the first band began to play. They were no worse and no better than any of the other bands Jay had listened to over the course of this assignment. When he was only a few years younger, he’d picked up on the nuances and subtleties of punk rock, and he appreciated them. Now it was all the same noise—not exactly unwelcome, but no matter how hard he tried to follow along (that was, after all, his job), he couldn’t get excited about it. It always became background noise as he’d drink a few beers and then take a cab back to his apartment. But tonight he was thirty minutes southeast of the easternmost reaches of the city, and he didn’t want to collect his car tomorrow, so he set a three-drink limit for himself.

After he finished his second beer and the headlining band appeared, he found his way to the washroom. The stall doors had profane slogans carved into them, and the urinal had a miniature plastic hockey net in it with a tiny puck tied to a string hanging from the cross-bar. He remembered seeing one of these a few years before at a convenience store near the old EIJ offices. Jay thought about where he would rank Dragon City on his list of The Ten Best Venues to Catch a Punk Rock Show in the Edmonton Area and decided that since he liked Dax and had once given him a poor review, he would rank the bar fourth on his list. Anything he could do to help business—within reason. He washed his hands and quickly discovered that the paper towel dispenser was empty. The bar slid to sixth. He wiped his hands on his shirt and stepped out of the bathroom. Then he saw her. His already-damp hands started sweating, and his knees vibrated arrhythmically. What was formerly a sharp presence-of-mind imploded in chaotic haste as soon as his field of vision landed on her.

She was Paige MacDowell. They’d met young and she’d tormented him as the object of his affections for far too long. She’d never returned his feelings, but now they shared a smile as they locked eyes and Jay clumsily manoeuvred between the bathroom door and the obtrusive pool table just outside of it. She was sitting with a friend, and Jay felt compelled (and invited) to sit down at their table, if only for a moment.

I’m living here now, Paige said after the conventional niceties.

And who’s your friend? he ejaculated as he struggled for composure.

I’m Miranda. I’m Paige’s roommate.

Let me ask you something, Miranda. Has Paige ever mentioned me before?

I don’t know if she has. Maybe once. I get everybody from her old life mixed up. Then, after a brief and uncomfortable pause—and because the question made her uncomfortable—Miranda excused herself from the table. Jay and Paige were sitting alone together for the first time in seven, maybe eight, years.

How long have you been living here? Jay shouted over the music.

Around eighteen months now! I run a forklift out in Nisku!

What’s it been? Seven, maybe eight, years?

What’s that? I can’t hear you! Do you want to step outside and talk?

I’d love to.

They walked around the corner of the old strip mall, and the sounds of crickets and waterfowl complemented the faint vibrations of the music playing just inside. They got to talking, but the unplanned nature of the encounter caused them both to fill with nerves, and neither of them said anything of much substance. Jay’s old feelings were mentioned briefly but were never in danger of excessive scrutiny:

"I hear you’re working at the Edmonton Independent Journal now."

That’s actually what brings me here tonight.

"That’s good. I was worried you tracked me down because you