ode to a defender
ode to a defender
2,474 words.
stephen finnan & daniel agger, alternate universe.
Hello, majority of my friends list, I greet you and potentially scare you away with this post and the possible preponderance of football-related entries in the future. But wait. Before you go, I introduce you to Stephen Finnan and Daniel Agger (collectively known as Fagger), both from Liverpool FC. I fail to give justice to them by making an improper introduction, but as soon as I do, I hope you will like them.
Hi. I’ve been lurking around (referring to the community stealth mode I was/am in due to my shyness, inferiority complex, etc), and I do hope that posting this, though late, is better than never.
I've regretted not posting earlier, but I believe I am posting this on time, though, because I am feeling the love:
1. Football is back. I am excited by the return of Juve to Serie A, most especially.
2. I have just seen Paris Je T’aime and Quentin Tarantino (dubbed QT). Flail. Particularly bad photos of Quentin with red eye will follow (plus, narrations).
3. Liverpool has three points now. Also, the prospect of seeing old-school Steven and Xabi (!) again, makes me all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic inside.
I've never finished anything like this, nor done anything quite like this. It's crazy. ♥ It’s the first thing of this kind I’ve written, completely.
This one is for: Riza,
stroberi_arisa, who knows another writer named Stephen (he doesn't write like Stephen King but he writes pretty well). It's been a while since we last saw him, and we've been wondering what he's been up to lately.
This is also for Risa,
strascina. Your picspams have been keeping me happy as of late. I have been writing this last week, and coincidentally, this turns out to be #2 of your meme. (though you wouldn't have to give me a death threat for me to write this, lulz. y u resist the fagger love? i am still thinking whether i shall post this elsewhere. or not. because i think i am not worthy, ok.)
It amuses me v. much that their names are almost alike.
Last notes:
Technically, this is semi-AU, since Dan is really a tattoo artist, but it isn't his main profession.
I was supposed to write about global warming, animal conservation and Scandinavian fjords, but meh. I just learned that glaciers don’t exist in Denmark. And I don't think I'm ready for that kind of crack. (I swear Steve's infatuation wasn't meant to be with a blind Snow White.)
1
This is the way Stephen writes.
He writes with a natural fervor, an automatic adrenaline in his veins; he writes with an obsession, but it isn’t. It is, after all, his way of life. When he was one, he used to draw lines in crayon. When he was two, he was able to write the first five letters of his name on the living room walls of their house, and every time his mother would slap the backside of his hand but he would never stop. When he was three, people were saying that he would write novels. And, that his mother would be proud.
He writes because he feels the same rush as that of a racecar driver, or of people watching a football game. He has a wide literary range as his arsenal: from sonnets to lyric prose, haikus, elegies, and even short silly limericks about the town where he was born. Though his job as a glossy magazine feature writer would work like a restraint from natural self-expression, he likes it because of the challenge. He likes how things are unpredictable-how the sun sets an hour too early, or how the last snowflake falls on their doorstep in spring. He likes things that don’t turn out how he expects them to be, for he is one who believes that variation pretty much keeps the mind and heart alive.
(When Steve was sent by the editor to a small municipality in Denmark to interview a tattoo artist, he didn't expect any of this.)
2
He drops his suitcase; he picks up a pen; he starts.
In a small room in Hvidovre, there is a mattress as stiff as a piece of cold toast. There is a window, a small square with a slate grey windowsill. I am greeted by small, red flowers with flecks of golden pollen and they bowed shyly to me.
He picks up a pen and writes before the invisible setting sun.
3
The sun is never out. In a way, it is always concealed. It seems that the sun makes love with the sky that the clouds are there to hide it. On these days, the sky is completely lit, resembling a dusty, dimming fluorescent bulb.
He walks out, to a sky that voids the ground of color.
He navigates his way through the side-streets and cobblestoned alleys, following the directions given to him by his editor. He finally reached a place with the same sign drawn on the paper.
He stands in front of a small residence, which looked nothing like the tattoo parlors he has seen in movies, or those he imagined, with a painted sign on an enormous glass panel in front, or something like a motorcyclists' barbershop. He rechecks the address, which turns out to be correct. He knocks, he waits, and then the door opens to him. He enters the house.
4
Stephen wrote his first love letter to a girl he liked in sixth grade. She had short, black hair, and her face was as fair and as faultless as a china vase.
He wrote about her by the Shannon River in secret, how her hair fell to her shoulders and her bangs, just above her lengthy eyelashes that were so thin they looked ash grey in the light, and how she had this habit of scratching the side of her cheek when she thinks. He thinks she shouldn’t; it’s too perfect.
He would seal these letters into airmail envelopes, those with red and blue stripes on their sides-but would not write anything on them, nor send them. He would keep these letters in a cardboard shoebox of the same color as her hair (the color of absence).
When a science experiment in high school exploded in her face, her cheek, that cheek he wrote of so often-was permanently scarred.
But Steve still cared.
Only that, he didn’t get to tell her since she lost sight ever since that ill-fated incident and stopped attending school.
He takes all the letters from the box and drops them into the river, envelope by envelope, like a person dropping raffle entries into a drop box (maybe, he thinks, I’ll get lucky). He wishes, somehow, that the letters be washed ashore. And she’d be there, frolicking by the riverbanks, and then (too impossibly), a miracle would rid her of her impairment.
From the moment the last envelope rippled into the water, Steve refused to care until,
“Your name?”
“Steve.”
“Is this your first time getting a tattoo?”
“Well, actually, I’m here for that interview-”
“Yeah, I got a call regarding that last week. I don’t normally do interviews but, you went all the way from?”
“Ireland.”
“Where in Ireland?”
“Limerick.”
“That’s a funny name, for a place. How about having a limerick tattooed? Know any clever ones?”
“Haha.”
“Eh, okay then. Go, shoot.”
“So, Daniel.”
“Dan.”
“Okay. Dan.”
“Tell me about this place.”
“Oh. What do you want to know? Um, here, there are like, approximately 49,800 people living in this area.”
“I can just look that up on the internet, thanks. And I went here to interview you about the tattoos. Also, you talk like a tourist guide.”
“I was one.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why?”
Steve almost says, 'Cause you have those crazy, fucking tattoos, kid.
Dan could say I fucking hate interviews, but he doesn’t.
(This is only the start of another love letter.)
5
You can’t classify Steve’s penmanship; it’s something uncertain, a little in between print letters and script (or, alternately). The i’s are cursive, inverted v’s with curls on both sides, while he writes the t like a cross made with two sticks. A cross, like writing’s a religion. Because it is, for Stephen. And he thinks, what is Daniel’s religion?
And Daniel introduces his Mona Lisa, his Melancholy and Mystery of a Street, The Persistence of Memory and much more-he leads Stephen into a room where the walls are not filled with famous paintings nor children’s crayon drawings but photographs of people who had their tattoos made.
“And this old lady, she was seventy-eight. She had the names of her nine grandchildren tattooed on the back of her shoulders. See?”
“Seventy-eight, you say?” Steve writes this in his notepad.
“Why do they do this? I mean. Why?” Steve wants to understand why he’s doing this.
“Reasons are confidential.”
“People expose their skin to you and they say it’s confidential?”
“Yeah, they do. Like, kind of how a Christian priest and confession works. You know that, right?”
“Just because I’m Irish doesn’t mean I’m a practicing Christian, yeah? Why’d you do your own tattoos?”
“I don’t know. I just, love how it creates permanence. Most of all, I like what I do. It’s just like how you love writing for instance. Um, if you really do love writing, that is. You sure you don’t want a tattoo?”
“I’m sure. Daniel.”
“I’ll do a leprechaun, or a four-leaf clover on you, if you want.” Dan snickers; the edge of his mouth is caught up in a half-smile.
“No, really, thanks.”
6
Steve was watching the weather report; the monotone voice of the weatherman sort of illustrates the weather itself.
Thy sky will be moderately cloudy, the temperature would be at-
Steve shuts off the TV.
Fucking meteorology.
Nothing’s more predictable than the weather here.
Stephen is on his bed. He stares at the hotel ceiling and wonders, why the boy, the boy with the indelible marks on his skin, his canvas, how is it possible that his face, while tattooed with a million freckles, is still not hidden?
And does this boy get any gratification for his art? (Not only the art, but the pain that goes with it.)
One thing he forgets to ask Daniel is how he justifies pain for the sake of art.
And when he dreams, he dreams not only of writing, but of Daniel and his strange little house, his artistic fortress, with his strange little walls covered in wallpapers of graffiti on arms, chests, backs, legs.
He dreams of Daniel because the needle, the ballpoint of his medium-sinks into skin and engraves permanently.
7
The walls are still covered in skin and ink.
And Daniel is, too.
He approaches Steve, a needle in hand, step by step, (an enticement)
It’s like an elegy, Stephen.
It’s how people will remember you by.
And it will stay on forever.
-and Steve is just a little apprehensive, just before the needle touches his skin,
How will you, Daniel, remember me?
Daniel leans to whisper in his ear, and-
Stephen opens his eyes, sees the ceiling again, and this time it stares at him.
8
A few questions stagnate in Stephen’s head:
Are tattoos vandalism?
(He sometimes misses out on the most important details.)
What do we have in common?
(The ink. Ink on paper, ink on skin. The distinction is the surface.)
He remembers the girl with the hair made of black henna and thinks; I threw away all that I’ve written. How would I dispose of them if I’ve had tattooed on her name and her velvet face? How would I have her erased?
He dials Daniel’s phone number, while pacing around and twisting the coils of telephone lines alternately, and in between his fingers.
“Hey,” Stephen says,
“Dan,” almost hesitatingly-
“Hi, Steve.”
“Want to eat out Friday night?”
“It is Friday today. Or tonight, rather.”
Stephen takes a moment. He covers the telephone mouthpiece, slaps his forehead in embarrassment,
“But, yeah, Steve, tonight’s okay if you still want to.”
“Uh, sure thing. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Steve leaves his room two minutes after. Two minutes because, there is one minute to think about what he’s just done, and another to think about what he’ll do. (And then, thirteen minutes for what he’ll say.)
His notebook is left on the desk, temporarily forgotten.
9
They eat dinner with few cans of beer in a corner café along Køge Bay’s quiet harbor. The water is relatively silent, but the corrugations of the sea are frayed white edges of torn paper. The winds are accompaniment to their slow passage, their peeling off the sea from the crest of each wave. Daniel, this time, is the one to ask.
“So why did you decide to go here?”
“It was either this or Iraq.”
“Why not Iraq? If I were you I would’ve chosen Iraq.”
“Are you serious? Anyway, I’m the one interviewing you here.”
Bravery was always the issue with Daniel.
With Steve, it was always conviction.
(And what he notices is a new tattoo peeking out of Daniel’s sleeve.)
“I mean, why not? It’s more interesting than this cold place.”
“Why’d you always act so brave?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your tattoos.”
“What about them?”
“Those hurt, right? So you have them made, then they just bleed profusely until they scab for, like, a week and yet you don’t mind the pain at all?”
“It’s not just about the pain, Steve.”
“Then what is it about?”
It’s much, much more.
It’s everything else I told you about.
A span of silence. Daniel looks at his watch, and the seconds tick-three, four, five.
And within those five seconds, Steve closes his eyes, opens them again, his eyelashes momentarily trembling under the haze of the streetlight. Half-empty cans of beer and their elbows are what's left on the table. The warm air wraps around his fingers as he picks up his beer and places it near the edge of the table.
“Did you ever fall in love with someone you drew a tattoo on? Did you have her name tattooed on your arm or something?”
“No, no. All the people I fell in love with never had tattoos.”
Dan almost says, but, a tattoo will look really good on you, Steve.
Steve could say maybe, maybe I would consider getting one.
(But they’re not drunk enough.)
10
“So you always thought you could write, Steve?”
“Been writing since I was born.”
“I’ve been drawing since I was born.”
“Well, writing is a form of art.”
“And drawing is a form of writing. Putting pen on paper. Or skin, for that matter. Making a mark.”
“So it works both ways, huh?”
“Yeah.”
And Steve can only think, I can go on and on about what I write, and I can write about your art, and you can draw what I write, and it can be endless. It can be like the nebulae of stars on your cheek, or the ink that penetrates the layers of skin you have that makes it so infinite. And, I. I can punctuate.
11
This is the day Stephen leaves.
This morning is the clouds’ betrayal. The flare of the sun and the tungsten of the sky are exposed in their full glory, gleaming through the airport’s fibreglass walls; the sky was so extremely color saturated that the people’s heads were tinted blue.
“I guess this is it, huh,” Daniel says, assuringly, his partly-tattooed hand gives Steve his other suitcase, and then pats him on the shoulder.
“Come back. That is, if you want to.”
“Of course. Hey, Dan, I have one last question.”
“Yeah?”
“If you have tattoos you don’t like anymore, what do you do with them?”
“Nothing. They just stay there. Or what you do is, you cover them up.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s pretty much it, Stephen. All the tattoos I’ve got on me, they’re very special. Each one of them has a meaning, a lot of importance. That’s why I choose them very well.”
“I understand. Okay, Dan. Do send me pictures of your new tattoos.”
“Okay. Bye, Steve. Write to me.”
And then Daniel looks at Steve until he disappears into a mass of navy-colored heads, and for a moment there, it almost seemed like a rippling, a wrinkling of the water.
12
D is a letter that stands for departure.
Stephen falls asleep on the plane going home, his pen on his hand, his notebook on his lap. The sunlight is on his face.
On his notebook, a single scrawl:
His name, was Daniel.
13
This is the part where Daniel reads what Stephen inscribes.
Less than a year later, a package arrives in the mail.
Daniel is careful not to touch it with the new wounds and words distributed among his fingers (a saying that-the artist and his pen is mightier than the sword), so he carefully tears it open. A magazine. The editor’s note says,
“To Dan,”
“This is how I write.”
There is a photograph of Steve on the editor's page, and there is sharp black lettering on his left hand, with the same inscription.
(When Steve writes, most of all, he writes with his heart.)
1
Stephen John Finnan was born in Limerick (Irish: Luimneach: Lom na nEach - the bare place - i.e. open ground - of the horses) is a city and the county seat of County Limerick in the province of Munster, in the midwest of the Republic of Ireland. Its description: Urbs Antiqua Fuit Studiisque Asperrima Belli, or "An ancient city well versed in the arts of war". (Steve is meant for defending, y/y? Also, I have no idea what his religion actually is.)
2
Daniel Munthe Agger, on the other hand, was born in Hvidovre, a suburb south of Copenhagen, and is located in Region Hovedstaden on the island of Zealand (Sjælland) in eastern Denmark. Køge Bay (Køge Bugt) is located at the south of this municipality.
3
The Mona Lisa, and The Persistence of Memory, are famous paintings of Leonardo DaVinci, Giorgio de Chirico, and Salvador Dalí, respectively. Dalí, by coincidence, had childhood friends from FC Barcelona, Sagibarbá and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort of Cadaqués, the trio played football together.
(Thanks, Wikipedia, for half the things I know by heart because apparently, wiki > school. I learned that Dan's sister and I have the same first name.)
And hello unfinished work. I shall stare at you until my head is on its proper axis again.