TALES FROM THE BARSTOOL
By: Clint Lien

"Clint Lien - the lost months"

This is the first I've written in a week. It's been exactly seven days since my last word. Quite remarkable considering that in the last eight years there hasn't been more than two days go by that I haven't, at the least, put an entry in my journal. More often than not I spend at least a few hours working on something. Why the dry spell, you ask? Back to the journal. I'm a voracious journal keeper. Even if I don't feel like working on a screenplay or the novel I plan to finish one day - even if there are no short stories coming to me or a few lines of a bad poem, there is always life. Life keeps going and I keep writing about it. I fill journals at a metronomic pace. I like to write in cheap composition notebooks - that way I don't get too caught up in the importance of the words. I don't censure and the ink bleeds on to the page unstopped.

I like going back over my journals and reminding myself of the things I've done. I have a terrible memory and I often come across adventures I'd completely forgotten. That's always rewarding. I use my journals as more than journals as well. If I have a new story idea it always starts out as a line or two in my journal. Some of my short stories and almost all of these columns start out as ink on paper in between the covers of my drug store notebook. When a book is filled I put it in the strong box my father built me when I was twelve, and lock it away. It's not that I'm worried about losing it or having it stolen; it's that I don't trust myself so I have to have a place where I know I'll find it when I need to.

A week ago to this day I lost my current journal. I was writing in a nice little pub in Victoria and I walked out of there without it. In the decade that I've been keeping a diary I've never lost one. I've never even misplaced one. Considering I'm the kind of guy who can't even leave the house without looking for his keys, wallet, cell phone and glasses, it's really quite a testament to the importance I place on them, but on this night my mind was somewhere else and I left that bar without the book.

I didn't realize it was gone until the next afternoon, when I sat down at Starbucks to do a little scribbling. I opened my laptop case I keep the journal in, and it wasn't there. I knew in half a heartbeat that I'd left it at the bar. The bar was less than two blocks away from the coffee shop and I started off for it. I was so completely sure it'd be there that I wasn't worried at all about finding it. I decided, on the walk over there, that I wouldn't bother coming back to the coffee shop and would just park at the pub and write there. The book wasn't there and a cold spike went through my spine. I drove back to the house to see if it was there but in my heart I knew it wasn't. My heart was right.

I shared a mutual friend with the waitress who served me the night before and I had her cell number within seven minutes. She hadn't seen the book and only one party had sat at my table after I left. They were regulars and wouldn't confess to seeing my book.

The janitor was contacted. He hadn't seen it.
It had simply disappeared.
My phone number was inside the jacket. My phone has not rung. The obsessing began almost immediately.
There were 200 pages in that book and I'd filled at least 150 of them. One hundred and fifty pages of intimate details - four months of my life gone.

I tried to go over in my mind what was in there. There was a lot. Thinking how a stranger could learn as much about me as could be known was not a comfortable thought, but worse were the things I'd written about my friends. I have a few friends who are persons of some notoriety in certain circles. I've shared intimate conversations and experiences with these friends and then written all about it later. Now I must live with the fear that some unscrupulous dog could affect their lives with what I've documented in my little book. I can't think of anything in there that anyone would have any reason to be ashamed of, but it doesn't mean you'd want it posted on the internet.

In the seven days since I've lost it I've thought of little else. I've dreamed of it and I've kept my phone turned on at all times. I've thought a lot about where that book is. I see all kinds of scenarios. Most of them are benevolent and only a few are malicious. I see it sitting in the back seat of some well meaning young guy who picked it up with the intention of calling the number inside the jacket, but because of too much drink the night he found it he's forgotten it. This summer, when he goes to do his yearly car cleaning he'll find it and I'll get a nice surprise on my birthday.

I sometimes see it rotting and swelling with putrid water out at the nearest landfill after some unthinking cleaning crew fellow tossed it in the bin. I've also imagined a lonely young woman reading the entries by the light of a small bedside lap. She imagines herself the secret lover of a man she's never met but knows so well.

I also imagine the phone calls requesting a substantial reward for its return - or worse, that call to simply laugh at me because I like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," then hang up. The following week, when it's raining and gray, he'll call again and comment that I shouldn't let the weather get me down, like I always do - and hang up again.

I'm more afraid of one of my friends calling to say they've just received a phone call of their own.

In the end, I just can't imagine what kind of a person would find a journal and keep it. If there really is such a thing as karma then that cat is in for some foul future event.

Besides the fear of the fallout there's been other concerns as well. I've sat down to write almost every day since then and I've not been able to jot a word. Now that I am writing, all I can write about is the loss of my words. I'm not sure why I haven't been able to perform but I think it comes back to that point. I'm a writer who lost his words. There's a feeling that a writer who loses his words doesn't deserve to write them any longer. I worry about starting a new journal. Will it be written with the same honesty and integrity - or will it be censured and softened because of the fear of losing it again?

I'm going to find out in a moment. There's a blank book sitting to my right and after I put the last period on this piece I'm going to open that book and write. I'm going to open a vein and bleed all over the pages. I'm going to write everything. I'm going to get back up on the bicycle. I've got to come out of the gate strong or bad habits will form.

The bastard who has my book will regret he doesn't have the one I'm about to start. It's going to be juicy. It'll be a little awkward moving through the day with a book chained to my wrist, but I'll work around it.

Reactions? Comments? Write me at barfly@netlistings.com