Back in 1999 I had a cushy office job where I learned to work 10% of the day and screw off the other 90% of the day. More often than not, I'd write short stories, many of which I'd email to friends and forget about.
My brother Chuck was kind enough to email this gem to me that I wrote back then, and I found it to be a rather entertaining love story. Read it and weep!
"SMALLYWOOD" (1999) written by me
Big Jim Slims was an adult film star. He was a little hefty, overly tanned, very furry (other than the bald spot on his noggin), wore a lot of jewelry from mall kiosks, and had a thick, bushy moustache. He lived in Hollywood in a severely outdated condo with a dirty pool. It was not unusual to see the neighborhood kids on weekends taking their dogs for a swim and a bath out there.21 years ago he had run away from home at the age of 10 to a hard (pun intended) life of drugs and prostitution on the streets. And now he was making ends meet (pun intended), doing something he loved. His only link to his life as a child was a small photograph of him, his parents, his sister, and his Uncle Ralphy from their trip to Niagara Falls. It was severely weathered from the years of carrying it around, and now it sat in a small frame on his dresser in his dirty bedroom. His house contained a lot of wicker furniture, dirty carpet, and glass tables, and he had an Iguana named Ron Jeremy.
Jim was having a dilemma. He liked Roxy a lot, but she was a co-worker. You know what they say: Never mix business with pleasure. They had "done it" in every humanly and non-humanly possible way on camera (and then some), and the two both had an unspoken magic between them. They sometimes had lunch between shots (um.. pun intended again), and occasionally met at the clubs for a drink and a dance.
The next project they were in together, "Stiff Proposition", was starting tomorrow. Jim decided to take things a step further and ask her over for dinner, and maybe a little rehearsal afterwards. There's nothing they hadn't done to each other in the "rehearsal" sense, but he thought it would be nice to have her over to get to know her more. Break the barrier. It was time to get serious.
Roxy of course accepted, and came over at 7, bringing a bottle of wine as a celebration of their upcoming project. They ate, drank, chatted, and eventually wound up in Jim's bedroom. He left her for a brief moment to visit the bathroom, thinking to himself that he might be in be in love.
He returned to the bedroom to find Roxy admiring his treasured family photo. Maybe it's time to tell her how much I love her, he thought. Yes... now is the time.
Roxy had the photo in her hand and looked up with at him with hopeful tears welling in her eyes and said, "Where did you get this picture of my family? I haven't seen my little brother in years!"
(Dang... I think I need to send that one in to Reader's Digest.)
