Kind of an abstract Gusev-like ending that pans away from my main characters
An ember broke free of the fire with a snap and floated into the sky, a firefly against the spread of backdropping stars. The flickering red grain danced in soft, frantic circles, rising upward. It dipped and seemed to be falling back to earth, before shooting up again, brightening as its red surface was drenched with cold night air. And, for just a moment, it seemed to die and disappear among the night. But to someone looking closely, someone dreaming into the deep black above them, the determined spark could be seen, minuscule and irredeemable, drifting up to be lost in the dark colosseum of dying lights.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Ketchup Bottle
I watched a middle-aged woman walk out of the condiment aisle and hoped it hadn't been her, because I had convinced myself that whoever it was would be important to me, and this woman did not call me to me with any electricity at all. The ketchup bottle was still facing forward, anyway, and my moment of worry about the poor uninteresting woman was unfounded. I walked to the center of the aisle and spun the ketchup bottle placed in the front. Better, I thought, with the label now facing away from me and the back of the bottle facing out. I wondered what I would say if she appeared now, as I stood with my hand on the bottle. Would I speak up and say something about my obsession with this bottle and how I had become obsessed with the idea that whoever it was who had also been turning the ketchup bottle around for the last two months would change my life forever? Or, would I pretend to be browsing the nutritional information of the various tomato based sauces, ignore the interested gaze, and move on? At that moment a simultaneous mixture of horror and relief swept over me. What if this had all been going on in my head? What if the bottle remained turned around because of sloppy shelving practices at this particular Safeway, or worse, what if the whole thing could be chalked up to coincidence? I knew that if either of these scenarios were the case, if no one else was turning around the bottle, and there was no obscure but somehow important communication going on with this ketchup bottle, that there was a good chance I was crazy or worse. This idea settled uncomfortably on me like an awareness of having made an inappropriate joke that comes in just after the joke is spoken, and hangs in the air, unacknowledged, like a bathroom smell. However, I reached out and turned the bottle around anyway, and the rear label faced me. I breathed a sigh of strange relief and walked toward the front of the store to checkout. I glanced one last time over my shoulder as I left the aisle behind. A woman stood at the far end, opposite the ketchup, and took in the various mustard options. She didn't look up. I wondered if she could be my ketchup-girl and laughed a little at myself. Pathetic, I thought, buy a dog or something.
I sat there, huddled and frozen at the aisle's end, waiting for him to leave. Just go say something I thought, but I couldn't bring myself to it. I watched as his hand hovered by the ketchup bottle. He looked troubled. Finally, he walked away, and I walked to the bottle to feel the last of the dissipating warmth from his touch.
I sat there, huddled and frozen at the aisle's end, waiting for him to leave. Just go say something I thought, but I couldn't bring myself to it. I watched as his hand hovered by the ketchup bottle. He looked troubled. Finally, he walked away, and I walked to the bottle to feel the last of the dissipating warmth from his touch.
Monday, May 11, 2009
1st Sentences
by Xochitl M. Perales
“The Void! The Void!,” Kevin screamed in a tone of agony.
A severed ring finger lay glinting mildly on top of a mulberry bush, a diamond engagement ring still attached, for some strange reason.
In the beginning, Demons ruled over the planet Nardor.
Analisa sat down ignoring our conversation, immersed in a book written by Sister Souljah, which she claims was assigned reading for one of her classes – yeah, right.
She had never had road rage before, but there’s always a first time for everything.
Would that I could walk on two feet like the rest of Earth’s inhabitants, but, alas, this is no longer a possibility for someone such as me, a former Guatemalan who had the misfortune to cross paths with a leg-eating werewolf.
I never asked to be born with three eyes, but I did at least appreciate having more than perfect vision.
Beware of the reptilian shapeshifters impersonating government officials, my mother always told me.
The sun cast blue-green rays across the valley in undulating waves, a mirage in conjunction with the dust clouds scattering the air in blurry patches.
“Your husband is dead,” said the stranger in the dark green suit.
Love is a song I stopped singing a long time ago, the moment it became apparent to me that the world was headed straight to hell in a pile of dirty diapers.
Across weather-beaten trails her bruised feet proceeded, blue as the peacock’s shimmering feathers rising antenna-like atop its head.
Monsoon season marks the time when Marisa’s husband likes to start fights and pick up loose women at the local bar.
He was the gayest homophobe I had ever met in my life, and I do not claim this lightly.
I cried endlessly as they lowered my lover’s coffin into the ground.
When in doubt, always consult a journeyman carpenter for the best way to seal up a room containing your worst enemy, while still allowing for enough air to breathe and a way to get food and supplies in and out.
My morning began with a cup of coffee, and a bloody corpse lying on my living room floor.
Fuck that!
I was embarrassed to be seen in public with a self-proclaimed alien abductee, especially one making every attempt imaginable to get taken again, regardless of the consequences.
I heard the sound of thunder, like war drums pounding in sturdy patterns down the contours of my spine, a terrifying experience, stark and ominous, and yet filled with a beauty too immense to even be whispered about in the dark.
“I’m going to kill that bastard!”
The little girl could not possibly understand the effect of her brilliant purple smile on the members of the congregation, who had moments earlier been praying for a sign that what they were doing would be sanctioned by God.
As the Cheetah took the Caribou down, it performed a dance so gentle and precise, and my eyes filled with tears to see the Cheetah first embrace its prey in a seemingly loving fashion, then bend over slowly to bite the Caribou’s neck, like a vampire’s kiss, in a beautiful death blow.
Where is that nasty bitch who ruined my life!?
The baby roach meandered its way uncertainly across the bathroom floor, a speck of brown-colored candy corn in motion.
“The Void! The Void!,” Kevin screamed in a tone of agony.
A severed ring finger lay glinting mildly on top of a mulberry bush, a diamond engagement ring still attached, for some strange reason.
In the beginning, Demons ruled over the planet Nardor.
Analisa sat down ignoring our conversation, immersed in a book written by Sister Souljah, which she claims was assigned reading for one of her classes – yeah, right.
She had never had road rage before, but there’s always a first time for everything.
Would that I could walk on two feet like the rest of Earth’s inhabitants, but, alas, this is no longer a possibility for someone such as me, a former Guatemalan who had the misfortune to cross paths with a leg-eating werewolf.
I never asked to be born with three eyes, but I did at least appreciate having more than perfect vision.
Beware of the reptilian shapeshifters impersonating government officials, my mother always told me.
The sun cast blue-green rays across the valley in undulating waves, a mirage in conjunction with the dust clouds scattering the air in blurry patches.
“Your husband is dead,” said the stranger in the dark green suit.
Love is a song I stopped singing a long time ago, the moment it became apparent to me that the world was headed straight to hell in a pile of dirty diapers.
Across weather-beaten trails her bruised feet proceeded, blue as the peacock’s shimmering feathers rising antenna-like atop its head.
Monsoon season marks the time when Marisa’s husband likes to start fights and pick up loose women at the local bar.
He was the gayest homophobe I had ever met in my life, and I do not claim this lightly.
I cried endlessly as they lowered my lover’s coffin into the ground.
When in doubt, always consult a journeyman carpenter for the best way to seal up a room containing your worst enemy, while still allowing for enough air to breathe and a way to get food and supplies in and out.
My morning began with a cup of coffee, and a bloody corpse lying on my living room floor.
Fuck that!
I was embarrassed to be seen in public with a self-proclaimed alien abductee, especially one making every attempt imaginable to get taken again, regardless of the consequences.
I heard the sound of thunder, like war drums pounding in sturdy patterns down the contours of my spine, a terrifying experience, stark and ominous, and yet filled with a beauty too immense to even be whispered about in the dark.
“I’m going to kill that bastard!”
The little girl could not possibly understand the effect of her brilliant purple smile on the members of the congregation, who had moments earlier been praying for a sign that what they were doing would be sanctioned by God.
As the Cheetah took the Caribou down, it performed a dance so gentle and precise, and my eyes filled with tears to see the Cheetah first embrace its prey in a seemingly loving fashion, then bend over slowly to bite the Caribou’s neck, like a vampire’s kiss, in a beautiful death blow.
Where is that nasty bitch who ruined my life!?
The baby roach meandered its way uncertainly across the bathroom floor, a speck of brown-colored candy corn in motion.
The Doorbell (Exercise 16)
The Doorbell (Exercise 16)
During the first three years Bea and Tom rented the house on Cedar Street once every few months the doorbell would ring without it having been rung. It never happened more than three times a year, so they didn't think very much of it. They made occasional jokes about a ghost, but no serious concerns or explanations arose.
But then the doorbell started ringing more frequently. At 3am. Or 5am. Once a week. Then three times a week.
“Should I see if I can unhook the doorbell,” Tom asked Bea.
“But what if we actually need it? How will I be able to hear UPS?”
“I don't like being woken up by it. I feel tired all day at work,” Tom said scratching just above his right sideburn, a frequent habit of his during a state of irritation or trying to solve a problem.
Bea decided she would sleep on the couch in the living room so she would be near the door to open it and determine what was causing the ringing the next time it happened. She had Tom's old baseball bat with her just in case. But that night the doorbell didn't ring. Nor did it ring the next night. On the third night she went back to sleeping in their bedroom. She had trouble falling asleep. Tom was snoring loudly and she kept anticipating hearing the ring of the doorbell. She counted even numbers backwards from one thousand. She felt she had just gone to sleep when it rang. She flung the covers off, picked up the bat and ran to the door, tossing it open. No one was there. She stepped out onto the porch and looked up and down the silent, dark street. Nothing.
The doorbell began ringing during the day, while Tom was at work. It happened five times in one day. Bea's nerves were frazzled. Tom said she looked pale.
“Maybe we should move?” he thought aloud.
Bea pressed her fingers to her temples. “No,” she said softly. And then, “Tom, what if it's something otherworldly?”
“What do you mean?” he asked not liking where this was going.
“Like a spirit or...a ghost.”
“That's ridiculous. I'm sure it's either a) malfunctioning or b) some joker playing tricks on us.”
The next day, after Tom had left for work, Bea picked up the hefty, worn yellow pages and thumbed through them until she found a listing for a psychic that sounded promising. She began to dial the number.
To Be Continued...
During the first three years Bea and Tom rented the house on Cedar Street once every few months the doorbell would ring without it having been rung. It never happened more than three times a year, so they didn't think very much of it. They made occasional jokes about a ghost, but no serious concerns or explanations arose.
But then the doorbell started ringing more frequently. At 3am. Or 5am. Once a week. Then three times a week.
“Should I see if I can unhook the doorbell,” Tom asked Bea.
“But what if we actually need it? How will I be able to hear UPS?”
“I don't like being woken up by it. I feel tired all day at work,” Tom said scratching just above his right sideburn, a frequent habit of his during a state of irritation or trying to solve a problem.
Bea decided she would sleep on the couch in the living room so she would be near the door to open it and determine what was causing the ringing the next time it happened. She had Tom's old baseball bat with her just in case. But that night the doorbell didn't ring. Nor did it ring the next night. On the third night she went back to sleeping in their bedroom. She had trouble falling asleep. Tom was snoring loudly and she kept anticipating hearing the ring of the doorbell. She counted even numbers backwards from one thousand. She felt she had just gone to sleep when it rang. She flung the covers off, picked up the bat and ran to the door, tossing it open. No one was there. She stepped out onto the porch and looked up and down the silent, dark street. Nothing.
The doorbell began ringing during the day, while Tom was at work. It happened five times in one day. Bea's nerves were frazzled. Tom said she looked pale.
“Maybe we should move?” he thought aloud.
Bea pressed her fingers to her temples. “No,” she said softly. And then, “Tom, what if it's something otherworldly?”
“What do you mean?” he asked not liking where this was going.
“Like a spirit or...a ghost.”
“That's ridiculous. I'm sure it's either a) malfunctioning or b) some joker playing tricks on us.”
The next day, after Tom had left for work, Bea picked up the hefty, worn yellow pages and thumbed through them until she found a listing for a psychic that sounded promising. She began to dial the number.
To Be Continued...
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Pomp
Don’t ask me how it works, I’m just a photographer. I only found out about this gig on Monster. You plug in a resume listing a double major in Photography and American History and you’re not going to get too many worthwhile hits. Just unrelated insurance garbage mostly. So when a high-paying salaried position with Kronos Industries comes up, yeah, you bite.
So no, I don’t know the secrets of time travel. I don’t know how they get the pod from point B to point A. How I don’t end up in the vacuum of space due to the constantly changing position of the Earth as it revolves around the sun at thirty kilometers a second. I don’t know anything about how the Earth I come back to isn’t exactly the same as the Earth I’ve left. I don’t know how they power it, how much the operating costs, where Kronos gets all its funding. I’m just a photographer. All I know is point and click.
Okay, so maybe I’ve been briefed on a little bit. I know a little about the safety procedures should the pod get stuck somehow in the past. I know about how far back the pods are capably of going, somewhere in the neighborhood of nine-hundred years though they keep revising that figure upward. I certainly know all the protocols and procedures for minimizing the impact of the present on the past. They run you through that shit for six months before you set foot in a pod. It’s practically a boot camp. And then every six months after that they require a quiz on specifics to make sure you’ve retained all that knowledge. That’s not to mention the periodic rules revision sessions they schedule whenever somebody up high decides to clamp down on some detail or another. Most of this is public knowledge, right? It’s all discussed in those teledocs, or written about in Ira Tang’s supposed tell-all indictment of Kronos and its nefarious meddling with history.
This isn’t one of those, of course. Absurd really, given the thoroughness that these minimization protocols are drilled into our heads. For the most part Kronos has treated me very, very well. A cushy salary far above anything I might have expected when I graduated from college. Nice benefits. Unbeatable hours. Here’s a company that actually requires three week breaks between jobs, only requiring that you work through a small stack of books in your down time. So you end up spending somewhere between a couple of hours and two days back in the past, and you get the next three weeks to relax and bone up on the current historical consensus about your next assignment. Not too bad.
And the work itself? Please, you hardly need a photography major for it. You’re creating a historical photographic record of pre-daguerreotype civilization. None of your shots are ever going to be put in a gallery or a show. Remember, you’re not even using your fancy SLR here, just a standard issue digital point and click with a mediocre zoom. No tripods, no zoom lenses, nothing that could possibly be construed as a weapon by a culture not yet exposed to such technologies. You do the best you can, but nobody is expecting Ansel Adams here.
So no, I don’t know the secrets of time travel. I don’t know how they get the pod from point B to point A. How I don’t end up in the vacuum of space due to the constantly changing position of the Earth as it revolves around the sun at thirty kilometers a second. I don’t know anything about how the Earth I come back to isn’t exactly the same as the Earth I’ve left. I don’t know how they power it, how much the operating costs, where Kronos gets all its funding. I’m just a photographer. All I know is point and click.
Okay, so maybe I’ve been briefed on a little bit. I know a little about the safety procedures should the pod get stuck somehow in the past. I know about how far back the pods are capably of going, somewhere in the neighborhood of nine-hundred years though they keep revising that figure upward. I certainly know all the protocols and procedures for minimizing the impact of the present on the past. They run you through that shit for six months before you set foot in a pod. It’s practically a boot camp. And then every six months after that they require a quiz on specifics to make sure you’ve retained all that knowledge. That’s not to mention the periodic rules revision sessions they schedule whenever somebody up high decides to clamp down on some detail or another. Most of this is public knowledge, right? It’s all discussed in those teledocs, or written about in Ira Tang’s supposed tell-all indictment of Kronos and its nefarious meddling with history.
This isn’t one of those, of course. Absurd really, given the thoroughness that these minimization protocols are drilled into our heads. For the most part Kronos has treated me very, very well. A cushy salary far above anything I might have expected when I graduated from college. Nice benefits. Unbeatable hours. Here’s a company that actually requires three week breaks between jobs, only requiring that you work through a small stack of books in your down time. So you end up spending somewhere between a couple of hours and two days back in the past, and you get the next three weeks to relax and bone up on the current historical consensus about your next assignment. Not too bad.
And the work itself? Please, you hardly need a photography major for it. You’re creating a historical photographic record of pre-daguerreotype civilization. None of your shots are ever going to be put in a gallery or a show. Remember, you’re not even using your fancy SLR here, just a standard issue digital point and click with a mediocre zoom. No tripods, no zoom lenses, nothing that could possibly be construed as a weapon by a culture not yet exposed to such technologies. You do the best you can, but nobody is expecting Ansel Adams here.
Poolside (counterpoint characters morphed into the characters talking back exercise)
Poolside
Two men sat by the motel pool from precisely noon to 2 p.m. each day, sunning their doughy-white, sunscreen slathered bodies and drinking iced tea. Despite the mirror image they projected, they did not know each other and rarely spoke to one another. They had an unvoiced agreement that one reigned over half of the pool and the furniture lined up against one side of the water, and the other ruled over the other half. They both wore sunglasses, the better to ignore each other with, or secretly eye each other, comparing guts and muscle definition. This went on for three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, until the weekend crowd interrupted the usual abandoned feel of the hotel, and families with swarming kids took over the pool area. On Friday, the only place the two men could find to relax were two lounge chairs, side by side.
Bill Harrington arrived first, carrying his own striped beach towel and The New Yorker. He lowered himself into the chair, flinching at the shouts of two boys trying to hit each other with pool “noodles,” those obnoxious strands of colored foam that floated. He commenced slathering sunscreen, and just as he finished, Roy Jacobs sauntered in the gate, wearing a white polo shirt and swim trunks, carrying a canvas tote bag. His face fell, seeing the glut of people everywhere, and the only available spot next to Bill. He trudged to the chair, yanked his shirt off and plopped down.
“All good things come to an end, huh?” Roy leaned toward Bill, who was rubbing at his hands furiously with a handkerchief.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Having the pool to ourselves. It couldn’t have lasted forever.”
“No. Yes. You’re right.
“It was nice while it lasted.” Roy rummaged in the bag and pulled out a huge, grease-streaked bottle of sun screen so old the lettering was starting to wear off.
Bill decided it would be better to shake hands now. He hated the slime feeling of sunscreen on his hands. Elsewhere, it was fine, but if it touched his fingers, he felt as if he’d been doused in a vat of liquefied fat. “I don’t think we’ve properly met. I’m Bill Harrington.”
“Hi-ya, Bill. I’m Roy. Jacobs.” He thrust forward a thick-fingered hand and vigorously shook.
“So what do you do, Roy,” Bill asked, aware of the fact required chit-chat had commenced. If he had just nodded at the first comment, and remained silent, they would both be sunning themselves by now, avoiding eye contact, acting as if they were alone at the pool. The introduction had sent them plunging into inevitable conversation, like dropping down the first roller coaster dive. Might as well submit to gravity at this point, he thought.
“I drive a bus. In San Jose. We’re over here, my wife and I, to get away from the rat race, you know? Take in the desert air, get a little sun. What do you do?”
“I’m an airline pilot.” Bill slipped on his sunglasses.
“Oh that’s nice.” Roy knew Bill was used to hearing exclamations at this fact, forced amazement. “We’re both in the business of carting people around.”
Bill forced a chuckle. “I suppose you could say that.”
“You suppose?”
“Well, I don’t mean to imply that driving a bus isn’t important,” Bill said, groping about his mind for a quip, a rescue. “It’s just that flying a plane isn’t like walking and chewing gum.”
“Oh, and driving a bus is. A monkey could do it.” Roy gave a wide grin. His teeth were so white and straight people often asked him if they were fake. Bill cringed. Roy watched a bead of sweat trail down Bill’s forehead, then leaned toward him and intoned, “Try driving a vehicle almost twice as wide as most cars, in rush hour, trying to keep a schedule, while listening to people shout at each other so bad you think a riot’s going to break out. Or a stabbing. I’ve had stabbings on the bus before. Now handling all that takes talent. You’re locked in some little compartment giving orders to a co-pilot I assume.”
“It’s not a good thing to assume,” Bill stammered.
“Oh, just you get to do that. Because you’re an airline pilot.”
“No, I didn’t mean to assume what you did— I was just saying… I was just saying flying an airplane is technical. It’s not a people mover. It’s a delicate, immense, deadly, involved piece of machinery that must be handled with… with skill.”
“Right. You’re a character, Bill.”
“Well, that’s right. I am a character and so are you! It’s not my fault someone’s putting words in my mouth. I find that I rarely agree with them.”
“Well I agree with mine.” Roy furrowed his brow, staring hard at Bill.
Bill wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. The temperature had become unbearable all of the sudden. “Does that make you more real then? Where did you get the capacity to agree?”
“Well where did you get the capacity to disagree? You just said something the writer of this story obviously didn’t plan on. But you just blurted it out, all on your own, like you… we are the ones in charge. Maybe we’re really writing this story.”
“No,” Bill argued, raising his voice to Roy’s aggressive volume. “Because I would have gotten rid of all these annoying people by now and we’d be sitting back, relaxing, enjoying ourselves. I don’t have an ulterior motive. The writer does. And I’m beginning to think you’re in cahoots with her.”
A chubby girl stuffed into a pink bikini ran screaming off the diving board into a cannon bomb, splashing the legs of both men. Bill gave Roy an accusatory look. Roy ignored the look and pressed, “How do you know it’s a her?” It was the first genuine question he’d asked all day.
“Well I know that much,” said Bill.
“Right, I’m asking you how you know. Because I don’t. All I know is the writer is manipulating us to fight in an attempt to show something. I’m supposed to show how you assume things about me when you don’t know me at all. For instance, did you know I’m a trust fund baby? I chose bus driver as a career because I like driving around all day and people watching.”
“You are?”
“See! You assumed I was some poor Joe nobody who was forced into the job. You resented my comparison that what we do is the same thing, because you think you’re job is more skilled and don’t want to be compared to someone of a lower class. A lowly bus driver.”
“I’m not of a higher class,” Bill contested, holding up his hands in defense.
“You’re not?” Roy paused, running his eyes over Bill’s The New Yorker, his meticulously trimmed mustache, his personal beach towel instead of a hotel towel, his fancy watch. “Then what’s with all the ‘I beg your pardons’ and ‘I supposes?’ You sound downright stuffy.”
“My good sir—
“See! That! No one actually talks like that. Are you British?”
“Look, I’m simply conveying my character through dialogue, as you’ve been constructed to do. So lay off.”
“Ha! Lay off! That’s something I would say, not you.”
“Quite right. Let me see… So bugger off!”
“That’s more like it.”
“May we get back to the point at hand, please, Roy?”
“Sure thing. Go ahead. I don’t mean to be so distracting. Although I really do, if you know what I mean,” Roy scrunched his face to give Bill a wink, wink. He wasn’t a good winker. It looked more like a grimace after eating something much too sour.
“The point at hand is that like you, my background isn’t what you would assume. I grew up in a rough and tumble area of Pittsburg with six brothers and sisters. I started working full-time at age 14 to pay for college because I knew I wanted to get out. Now I have a master’s in engineering and I’m an airline pilot and my wife’s a gorgeous lawyer and I’m damn proud of myself so if you don’t mind, I’d like you not to belittle what I do.”
“Okay, okay. I see where this is going. We were supposed to somehow come about these discoveries and both feel guilty for assuming things about the other person and learn our lesson so hopefully the reader learns their lesson too. Heavy handed, if you ask me.” Roy shrugged his shoulders and noticed the pool had suddenly emptied. The water was smooth as a sheet of paper, no movement whatsoever.
“It wouldn’t have to be heavy handed,” Bill argued. “What we just did was heavy handed. A skilled writer could pull it off with finesse, with delicate artistry. With…”
“Without cliché’s? Like ‘rough and tumble’?”
“Rough and tumble? Oh, I did just say that, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. Totally cliché.”
“Well it’s not my job to avoid such pitfalls. It’s hers. In no way am I to blame.”
“True. You’ve got her there. This whole thing is her job. Pity she’s not as good at her job as we are at ours.”
“Well, it’s obvious she’s taken the easy way out.”
“It’s a downright shame.”
“However, she is revealing something about her character this way.”
“But she’s not a character. She’s real. Something I’m kind of glad I’m not.”
“Maybe she is a character. I’ve got a feeling I’m writing this story more than her.”
“Me too.”
Two men sat by the motel pool from precisely noon to 2 p.m. each day, sunning their doughy-white, sunscreen slathered bodies and drinking iced tea. Despite the mirror image they projected, they did not know each other and rarely spoke to one another. They had an unvoiced agreement that one reigned over half of the pool and the furniture lined up against one side of the water, and the other ruled over the other half. They both wore sunglasses, the better to ignore each other with, or secretly eye each other, comparing guts and muscle definition. This went on for three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, until the weekend crowd interrupted the usual abandoned feel of the hotel, and families with swarming kids took over the pool area. On Friday, the only place the two men could find to relax were two lounge chairs, side by side.
Bill Harrington arrived first, carrying his own striped beach towel and The New Yorker. He lowered himself into the chair, flinching at the shouts of two boys trying to hit each other with pool “noodles,” those obnoxious strands of colored foam that floated. He commenced slathering sunscreen, and just as he finished, Roy Jacobs sauntered in the gate, wearing a white polo shirt and swim trunks, carrying a canvas tote bag. His face fell, seeing the glut of people everywhere, and the only available spot next to Bill. He trudged to the chair, yanked his shirt off and plopped down.
“All good things come to an end, huh?” Roy leaned toward Bill, who was rubbing at his hands furiously with a handkerchief.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Having the pool to ourselves. It couldn’t have lasted forever.”
“No. Yes. You’re right.
“It was nice while it lasted.” Roy rummaged in the bag and pulled out a huge, grease-streaked bottle of sun screen so old the lettering was starting to wear off.
Bill decided it would be better to shake hands now. He hated the slime feeling of sunscreen on his hands. Elsewhere, it was fine, but if it touched his fingers, he felt as if he’d been doused in a vat of liquefied fat. “I don’t think we’ve properly met. I’m Bill Harrington.”
“Hi-ya, Bill. I’m Roy. Jacobs.” He thrust forward a thick-fingered hand and vigorously shook.
“So what do you do, Roy,” Bill asked, aware of the fact required chit-chat had commenced. If he had just nodded at the first comment, and remained silent, they would both be sunning themselves by now, avoiding eye contact, acting as if they were alone at the pool. The introduction had sent them plunging into inevitable conversation, like dropping down the first roller coaster dive. Might as well submit to gravity at this point, he thought.
“I drive a bus. In San Jose. We’re over here, my wife and I, to get away from the rat race, you know? Take in the desert air, get a little sun. What do you do?”
“I’m an airline pilot.” Bill slipped on his sunglasses.
“Oh that’s nice.” Roy knew Bill was used to hearing exclamations at this fact, forced amazement. “We’re both in the business of carting people around.”
Bill forced a chuckle. “I suppose you could say that.”
“You suppose?”
“Well, I don’t mean to imply that driving a bus isn’t important,” Bill said, groping about his mind for a quip, a rescue. “It’s just that flying a plane isn’t like walking and chewing gum.”
“Oh, and driving a bus is. A monkey could do it.” Roy gave a wide grin. His teeth were so white and straight people often asked him if they were fake. Bill cringed. Roy watched a bead of sweat trail down Bill’s forehead, then leaned toward him and intoned, “Try driving a vehicle almost twice as wide as most cars, in rush hour, trying to keep a schedule, while listening to people shout at each other so bad you think a riot’s going to break out. Or a stabbing. I’ve had stabbings on the bus before. Now handling all that takes talent. You’re locked in some little compartment giving orders to a co-pilot I assume.”
“It’s not a good thing to assume,” Bill stammered.
“Oh, just you get to do that. Because you’re an airline pilot.”
“No, I didn’t mean to assume what you did— I was just saying… I was just saying flying an airplane is technical. It’s not a people mover. It’s a delicate, immense, deadly, involved piece of machinery that must be handled with… with skill.”
“Right. You’re a character, Bill.”
“Well, that’s right. I am a character and so are you! It’s not my fault someone’s putting words in my mouth. I find that I rarely agree with them.”
“Well I agree with mine.” Roy furrowed his brow, staring hard at Bill.
Bill wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. The temperature had become unbearable all of the sudden. “Does that make you more real then? Where did you get the capacity to agree?”
“Well where did you get the capacity to disagree? You just said something the writer of this story obviously didn’t plan on. But you just blurted it out, all on your own, like you… we are the ones in charge. Maybe we’re really writing this story.”
“No,” Bill argued, raising his voice to Roy’s aggressive volume. “Because I would have gotten rid of all these annoying people by now and we’d be sitting back, relaxing, enjoying ourselves. I don’t have an ulterior motive. The writer does. And I’m beginning to think you’re in cahoots with her.”
A chubby girl stuffed into a pink bikini ran screaming off the diving board into a cannon bomb, splashing the legs of both men. Bill gave Roy an accusatory look. Roy ignored the look and pressed, “How do you know it’s a her?” It was the first genuine question he’d asked all day.
“Well I know that much,” said Bill.
“Right, I’m asking you how you know. Because I don’t. All I know is the writer is manipulating us to fight in an attempt to show something. I’m supposed to show how you assume things about me when you don’t know me at all. For instance, did you know I’m a trust fund baby? I chose bus driver as a career because I like driving around all day and people watching.”
“You are?”
“See! You assumed I was some poor Joe nobody who was forced into the job. You resented my comparison that what we do is the same thing, because you think you’re job is more skilled and don’t want to be compared to someone of a lower class. A lowly bus driver.”
“I’m not of a higher class,” Bill contested, holding up his hands in defense.
“You’re not?” Roy paused, running his eyes over Bill’s The New Yorker, his meticulously trimmed mustache, his personal beach towel instead of a hotel towel, his fancy watch. “Then what’s with all the ‘I beg your pardons’ and ‘I supposes?’ You sound downright stuffy.”
“My good sir—
“See! That! No one actually talks like that. Are you British?”
“Look, I’m simply conveying my character through dialogue, as you’ve been constructed to do. So lay off.”
“Ha! Lay off! That’s something I would say, not you.”
“Quite right. Let me see… So bugger off!”
“That’s more like it.”
“May we get back to the point at hand, please, Roy?”
“Sure thing. Go ahead. I don’t mean to be so distracting. Although I really do, if you know what I mean,” Roy scrunched his face to give Bill a wink, wink. He wasn’t a good winker. It looked more like a grimace after eating something much too sour.
“The point at hand is that like you, my background isn’t what you would assume. I grew up in a rough and tumble area of Pittsburg with six brothers and sisters. I started working full-time at age 14 to pay for college because I knew I wanted to get out. Now I have a master’s in engineering and I’m an airline pilot and my wife’s a gorgeous lawyer and I’m damn proud of myself so if you don’t mind, I’d like you not to belittle what I do.”
“Okay, okay. I see where this is going. We were supposed to somehow come about these discoveries and both feel guilty for assuming things about the other person and learn our lesson so hopefully the reader learns their lesson too. Heavy handed, if you ask me.” Roy shrugged his shoulders and noticed the pool had suddenly emptied. The water was smooth as a sheet of paper, no movement whatsoever.
“It wouldn’t have to be heavy handed,” Bill argued. “What we just did was heavy handed. A skilled writer could pull it off with finesse, with delicate artistry. With…”
“Without cliché’s? Like ‘rough and tumble’?”
“Rough and tumble? Oh, I did just say that, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. Totally cliché.”
“Well it’s not my job to avoid such pitfalls. It’s hers. In no way am I to blame.”
“True. You’ve got her there. This whole thing is her job. Pity she’s not as good at her job as we are at ours.”
“Well, it’s obvious she’s taken the easy way out.”
“It’s a downright shame.”
“However, she is revealing something about her character this way.”
“But she’s not a character. She’s real. Something I’m kind of glad I’m not.”
“Maybe she is a character. I’ve got a feeling I’m writing this story more than her.”
“Me too.”
NARDOR (HELL YEAH)
Isaac Smith
Craft Fiction
Ex #4
NARDOR!
In the beginning, demons ruled the planet Nardor.
But there never was a beginning. Someone had to be commissioned to find a beginning. The old one had been shown to be weak and in doubt.
Beginnings are hard. Such as an over cooked egg or a petrified fetus. They are hard to find and they are hard to keep. It’s easy for a beginning to morph into illusions and betray its own simple truth. Something had to be done to keep Nardor viable in the community of life.
On Nardor word circulated. Something had to be made to work as the commission. Dust Bunnies crafted with glue and glitter which is to say Dust Bunnies made things with glue and glitter. Mostly useless things like eye patches, toaster covers, mittens for amputees, saddles and awkward earrings until they united to create a great wall that stretched nearly the entire length of the planet Nardor which is to say exactly 875 inches and three quarters and a hay penny. This was an impressive wall even to a listless Dust Bunny who had vague ideas of suicide such as Bread Dough, who kept saying, “Wow!” over and over. Even the blind Dust Bunnies ran their stubby paws back and forth across the great mass until a law had to be written forbidding blind Dust Bunnies from touching the wall unless they had proof they only had three days to live and then and only then could they touch the wall.
The lowest Dust Bunny named Dirty Poo woke early and had a vision- a vision of his grandmother’s floating Dust Bunny head and it said, “Dirty Poo, you’ve been a disappointment all these years but now is your time, your time to shine and bring good fortune to the family name.”
“But Grandma how many years have I spent trying the learn the art of colored macaroni and the way of the hot glue gun. How can I ever find the beginning to Nardor?” Asked Dirty Poo.
“Your journey will be long and full of doubt and tragedy but this is your destiny Dirty Poo. Do not forsake your destiny.”
“But where do I begin Grandma? I’m scared.”
“Start with the wall. It’s like an ancient language. This is all I can tell you. I am being called back to the other side. Be brave Dirty Poo!” And with that his grandmother’s head disappeared.
Dirty Poo didn’t feel confident. He did not feel like the chosen one. He doubted he’d even had a vision. For two full days Dirty Poo cowered under his blankets. “If I wait long enough surely someone else will find the beginning and win the wall and we’ll have a parade with lots of colored construction paper, glue and glitter. Someone like Big Pud will save the day,” said Dirty Poo to himself.
“Hey Dirty Poo! Where are you?” asked Bread Dough.
“I’m under my covers.”
“Did you hear the news?”
“What news?” Dirty Poo pulled his head from the covers and stared at his cousin Bread Dough who had black glitter glued under his eyes which was suppose to make Bread Dough look dead but just made him look like he had the advanced stages of leprosy. “Did someone find the true beginning to Nardor?”
“Big Pud...”
“I knew it would be Big Pud. Thank all the holy craft supplies of Nardor on Big Pud. What a relief. I thought I might...”
“Hey! Shut up for a second Dirty Poo! You didn’t let me finish. Big Pud and his best bud Chest Thump went looking in the forbidden Hallway of Doom and something attacked them and...”
“And...Well? What happened to them?”
“Only Chest Thump made it back and he’s missing the top half of his head so the doctors don’t things he’s gonna survive through the night.”
“You’re telling me Big Pud is dead? I can’t believe it. I went to school with him. He was voted best smelling Dust Bunny and the most likely to invent something really important. What attacked them?”
“Chest Thump said it came out of nowhere. It’s was huge and loud like a skyscraper screaming at the top of its lungs.”
“A skyscraper?”
“You know from the picture books in grade school. Tall things with windows,” said Bread Dough.
“I guess I remember. I just can’t believe it. I can’t. If Big Pud and Chest Thump can’t do it then who can? Why’s it so important for us to know the beginning anyway? Does it really matter how it all began. I mean don’t we know? Everyday in school we would recite-- ‘In the beginning, demons ruled the planet Nardor. But the Dust Bunnies vanquished the Demons. In a great battle that lasted one hundred days. It did not come without great cost. For in the end only two Dust Bunnies stood, still alive after the great battle with all the demons dead around them. These two Dust Bunnies are our saviors- Golden Rod and Glitter Lash. This is our beginning.’ Sounds good to me.
“That’s not what they teach the little Dust Bunnies anymore Dirty Poo. I swear you never pay any attention to the world around you. You just cower under your blankets all day. Things have changed. There’s evidence that demons still exist. That all the demons were not killed in the great battle.”
“What evidence?”
“Most recently there was a photo, it’s a bit blurry but its clearly the silhouette of a demon. Right here on Nardor. Close to the Hallway of Doom. That’s why everyone’s all worked up. They even cancelled the Great Colored Macaroni Celebration. Not that you would care Dirty Poo, you never go.”
“Look Bread Dough I need your help. I haven’t told anyone this but I had a vision. It was my Grandma’s head- floating and um...she said I was the one who would find the true beginning to Nardor. Will you help me?”
“You! Find the true beginning! You’re messing with me! And you want me to help you! You know I’m listless and vaguely suicidal.”
“Look I can’t do this by myself. I’m serious. Maybe together we can do this.”
“Well let me think about it...okay, I’m in. I mean the worst that could happen is I could die and that would vaguely fit into my future goals. So where do we start?”
“The wall Bread Dough, the wall.”
To Be Continued..
Craft Fiction
Ex #4
NARDOR!
In the beginning, demons ruled the planet Nardor.
But there never was a beginning. Someone had to be commissioned to find a beginning. The old one had been shown to be weak and in doubt.
Beginnings are hard. Such as an over cooked egg or a petrified fetus. They are hard to find and they are hard to keep. It’s easy for a beginning to morph into illusions and betray its own simple truth. Something had to be done to keep Nardor viable in the community of life.
On Nardor word circulated. Something had to be made to work as the commission. Dust Bunnies crafted with glue and glitter which is to say Dust Bunnies made things with glue and glitter. Mostly useless things like eye patches, toaster covers, mittens for amputees, saddles and awkward earrings until they united to create a great wall that stretched nearly the entire length of the planet Nardor which is to say exactly 875 inches and three quarters and a hay penny. This was an impressive wall even to a listless Dust Bunny who had vague ideas of suicide such as Bread Dough, who kept saying, “Wow!” over and over. Even the blind Dust Bunnies ran their stubby paws back and forth across the great mass until a law had to be written forbidding blind Dust Bunnies from touching the wall unless they had proof they only had three days to live and then and only then could they touch the wall.
The lowest Dust Bunny named Dirty Poo woke early and had a vision- a vision of his grandmother’s floating Dust Bunny head and it said, “Dirty Poo, you’ve been a disappointment all these years but now is your time, your time to shine and bring good fortune to the family name.”
“But Grandma how many years have I spent trying the learn the art of colored macaroni and the way of the hot glue gun. How can I ever find the beginning to Nardor?” Asked Dirty Poo.
“Your journey will be long and full of doubt and tragedy but this is your destiny Dirty Poo. Do not forsake your destiny.”
“But where do I begin Grandma? I’m scared.”
“Start with the wall. It’s like an ancient language. This is all I can tell you. I am being called back to the other side. Be brave Dirty Poo!” And with that his grandmother’s head disappeared.
Dirty Poo didn’t feel confident. He did not feel like the chosen one. He doubted he’d even had a vision. For two full days Dirty Poo cowered under his blankets. “If I wait long enough surely someone else will find the beginning and win the wall and we’ll have a parade with lots of colored construction paper, glue and glitter. Someone like Big Pud will save the day,” said Dirty Poo to himself.
“Hey Dirty Poo! Where are you?” asked Bread Dough.
“I’m under my covers.”
“Did you hear the news?”
“What news?” Dirty Poo pulled his head from the covers and stared at his cousin Bread Dough who had black glitter glued under his eyes which was suppose to make Bread Dough look dead but just made him look like he had the advanced stages of leprosy. “Did someone find the true beginning to Nardor?”
“Big Pud...”
“I knew it would be Big Pud. Thank all the holy craft supplies of Nardor on Big Pud. What a relief. I thought I might...”
“Hey! Shut up for a second Dirty Poo! You didn’t let me finish. Big Pud and his best bud Chest Thump went looking in the forbidden Hallway of Doom and something attacked them and...”
“And...Well? What happened to them?”
“Only Chest Thump made it back and he’s missing the top half of his head so the doctors don’t things he’s gonna survive through the night.”
“You’re telling me Big Pud is dead? I can’t believe it. I went to school with him. He was voted best smelling Dust Bunny and the most likely to invent something really important. What attacked them?”
“Chest Thump said it came out of nowhere. It’s was huge and loud like a skyscraper screaming at the top of its lungs.”
“A skyscraper?”
“You know from the picture books in grade school. Tall things with windows,” said Bread Dough.
“I guess I remember. I just can’t believe it. I can’t. If Big Pud and Chest Thump can’t do it then who can? Why’s it so important for us to know the beginning anyway? Does it really matter how it all began. I mean don’t we know? Everyday in school we would recite-- ‘In the beginning, demons ruled the planet Nardor. But the Dust Bunnies vanquished the Demons. In a great battle that lasted one hundred days. It did not come without great cost. For in the end only two Dust Bunnies stood, still alive after the great battle with all the demons dead around them. These two Dust Bunnies are our saviors- Golden Rod and Glitter Lash. This is our beginning.’ Sounds good to me.
“That’s not what they teach the little Dust Bunnies anymore Dirty Poo. I swear you never pay any attention to the world around you. You just cower under your blankets all day. Things have changed. There’s evidence that demons still exist. That all the demons were not killed in the great battle.”
“What evidence?”
“Most recently there was a photo, it’s a bit blurry but its clearly the silhouette of a demon. Right here on Nardor. Close to the Hallway of Doom. That’s why everyone’s all worked up. They even cancelled the Great Colored Macaroni Celebration. Not that you would care Dirty Poo, you never go.”
“Look Bread Dough I need your help. I haven’t told anyone this but I had a vision. It was my Grandma’s head- floating and um...she said I was the one who would find the true beginning to Nardor. Will you help me?”
“You! Find the true beginning! You’re messing with me! And you want me to help you! You know I’m listless and vaguely suicidal.”
“Look I can’t do this by myself. I’m serious. Maybe together we can do this.”
“Well let me think about it...okay, I’m in. I mean the worst that could happen is I could die and that would vaguely fit into my future goals. So where do we start?”
“The wall Bread Dough, the wall.”
To Be Continued..
Out Loud
You love to watch her read. You sneak around the apartment and stand in the doorways as she devours books and picks through articles. In the bathroom where she keeps large stacks of magazines, you tuck a few of your Sports Illustrated’s in between her Cooking Light and People. When she isn’t home, you rearrange the novels she leaves stacked on the stairs, moving Jane Austen’s, Pride and Prejudice, to the top, marking the passages about love with little yellow post it notes.
When she rips the post it notes from the pages and sticks them to the wall of the stairs, you smile, knowing she read the words you have read. You picture her reading those words as you kiss her that night, and bite her lip more violently. If only she would read them out loud to you and you could know to which words she gravitated. She won’t though. She won’t even let you watch her read those novels. Only when she thinks you aren’t home, she sinks down on the steps and takes them in her lap. You have to park blocks away and sneak back into the apartment to see her do this, to be able to watch her put her nose to the binding and breath in the book.
After you park those 5 blocks away, behind the red truck, on the street you know she never drives, you run back to the apartment. As you hop the fence in the back, hoisting yourself over the old wood, you sometimes get dirt on your crotch. She always rubs stain stick on the mark without questioning you. You wonder if she knows you came back, that you saw her put her hand to her head and sigh as she put the book down at the bottom of a pile.
When she reads articles in the kitchen, knees tucked up against her chest, and back to the oven, you worry that her butt will hurt. She always refuses when you offer her a pillow to sit on, and glares at you when you linger after coming to get a drink. She knows you are only there to watch her. If you stay too long she crinkles the articles into a ball of paper and tosses them beneath the sink. “Baby,” you say. She stands up and walks out without responding.
In the pantry you find her with a cookbook. “How about French toast,” she asks you. “Peach,” she says with resolution. You walk forward to touch her and before your hand can make contact she gives you the book, opened to the page of the recipe. “This is what I want,” she says and squeezes past you into the kitchen.
You follow her and think about how odd it is that you live in an apartment with a pantry. She sits on top of the kitchen table and looks at you. “Well?”
You hand her the book back, “you read.”
She starts to protest and then stops as you reach for the day old brioche. “Puree one half cup peaches.”
In the freezer next to the peaches, you find the remote to the T.V. When you take it out, she glares at it. “I thought about punching the T.V. I thought it would be more hurt if it had a piece taken from it.” You put the remote back in the freezer.
“What next?”
You watch her eyes move over the book, her body sways as her mind works through the words and you wish that you could hold her. When her lips move, you watch as they mold around the words like a black cave swallowing any scavenger who dares to explore. “Whisk 4 eggs and two tablespoons of sugar together.”
It’s funny to you, that word whisk. You whisper it over and over to yourself as you flick your wrist back and forth, “whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m whisking.” You turn to her, whisk and bowl in hand. Her knees sit split to you and you can see underneath her robe. She has on no underwear. She rests the book back between her legs blocking your view.
“Fine, get on with it.” The book jostles in her lap as she wiggles her hips on the wood. You want to snatch that book from between you.
To the eggs you add cream, vanilla and puréed peaches, whisking them without asking her. As the French toast comes together you don’t look at her, not until it’s done. Dusting both plates with powdered sugar you turn to her. She is still running her fingers over the text, strumming them.
“Baby,” you say.
She looks up and sets the book to the side. The full view of her is there for you again. Her lips split into a full open smile. It stops you and the plates tilt toward your thumbs. You can feel the syrup, but you don’t look down. When she walks toward you, you stand motionless. She takes both plates and you don’t protest when she sets them on the kitchen counter. Leading you to the stairs, she licks your thumbs clean all the while keeping her eyes on yours.
On the stairs she makes you sit down and then she sits down on your legs. The bones of her butt dig into you and you wince into her hair. It smells like a flower and you wonder which one. She takes a book from the bottom of the pile and flips it open to one of the last pages. Holding it in her lap she puts her finger to the text.
You read, “‘I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.’” She seems to purr as she twists in your lap. Tucking her head under your chin, she closes her eyes.
When she rips the post it notes from the pages and sticks them to the wall of the stairs, you smile, knowing she read the words you have read. You picture her reading those words as you kiss her that night, and bite her lip more violently. If only she would read them out loud to you and you could know to which words she gravitated. She won’t though. She won’t even let you watch her read those novels. Only when she thinks you aren’t home, she sinks down on the steps and takes them in her lap. You have to park blocks away and sneak back into the apartment to see her do this, to be able to watch her put her nose to the binding and breath in the book.
After you park those 5 blocks away, behind the red truck, on the street you know she never drives, you run back to the apartment. As you hop the fence in the back, hoisting yourself over the old wood, you sometimes get dirt on your crotch. She always rubs stain stick on the mark without questioning you. You wonder if she knows you came back, that you saw her put her hand to her head and sigh as she put the book down at the bottom of a pile.
When she reads articles in the kitchen, knees tucked up against her chest, and back to the oven, you worry that her butt will hurt. She always refuses when you offer her a pillow to sit on, and glares at you when you linger after coming to get a drink. She knows you are only there to watch her. If you stay too long she crinkles the articles into a ball of paper and tosses them beneath the sink. “Baby,” you say. She stands up and walks out without responding.
In the pantry you find her with a cookbook. “How about French toast,” she asks you. “Peach,” she says with resolution. You walk forward to touch her and before your hand can make contact she gives you the book, opened to the page of the recipe. “This is what I want,” she says and squeezes past you into the kitchen.
You follow her and think about how odd it is that you live in an apartment with a pantry. She sits on top of the kitchen table and looks at you. “Well?”
You hand her the book back, “you read.”
She starts to protest and then stops as you reach for the day old brioche. “Puree one half cup peaches.”
In the freezer next to the peaches, you find the remote to the T.V. When you take it out, she glares at it. “I thought about punching the T.V. I thought it would be more hurt if it had a piece taken from it.” You put the remote back in the freezer.
“What next?”
You watch her eyes move over the book, her body sways as her mind works through the words and you wish that you could hold her. When her lips move, you watch as they mold around the words like a black cave swallowing any scavenger who dares to explore. “Whisk 4 eggs and two tablespoons of sugar together.”
It’s funny to you, that word whisk. You whisper it over and over to yourself as you flick your wrist back and forth, “whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m whisking.” You turn to her, whisk and bowl in hand. Her knees sit split to you and you can see underneath her robe. She has on no underwear. She rests the book back between her legs blocking your view.
“Fine, get on with it.” The book jostles in her lap as she wiggles her hips on the wood. You want to snatch that book from between you.
To the eggs you add cream, vanilla and puréed peaches, whisking them without asking her. As the French toast comes together you don’t look at her, not until it’s done. Dusting both plates with powdered sugar you turn to her. She is still running her fingers over the text, strumming them.
“Baby,” you say.
She looks up and sets the book to the side. The full view of her is there for you again. Her lips split into a full open smile. It stops you and the plates tilt toward your thumbs. You can feel the syrup, but you don’t look down. When she walks toward you, you stand motionless. She takes both plates and you don’t protest when she sets them on the kitchen counter. Leading you to the stairs, she licks your thumbs clean all the while keeping her eyes on yours.
On the stairs she makes you sit down and then she sits down on your legs. The bones of her butt dig into you and you wince into her hair. It smells like a flower and you wonder which one. She takes a book from the bottom of the pile and flips it open to one of the last pages. Holding it in her lap she puts her finger to the text.
You read, “‘I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.’” She seems to purr as she twists in your lap. Tucking her head under your chin, she closes her eyes.
Monday, May 4, 2009
exercise 18
If I had to pick my arch nemesis, it’d be my sister’s dog.
As she walked into the confessional, all she could think was, please Jesus, don’t let this priest be as hot as the last one.
When I told my aunt my boyfriend was shorter than me, she simply replied, it all evens out when you’re lying down.
Tomorrow is the day I will tell him.
In our town there are only two options: get out of here as soon as you can or develop a coke habit.
All things considered, that was probably the best barbeque I’ve been to.
Today, I met a lesbian.
We’d been Jewish for about twelve years.
The only thing I ask of my friends is that they not eat pickles around me.
I looked at my baby in the car seat and knew I had to give her away.
She hates me.
It’s Wednesday again.
Every year, he rereads A Streetcar Named Desire.
He knew that none of them understood Catcher in the Rye like he did; they were all big phonies.
Despite her efforts, her pan de polvo would never come out like her grandmother’s.
They used to be close, the sisters, but not anymore.
It has been three years since her best friend stopped talking to her.
She worked very hard to overcome her pigeon-toed feet.
It’s been too long since her mother’s called.
Almost everyday she tells me robots will take over the world.
He hoped nobody would remember his birthday.
As she walked into the confessional, all she could think was, please Jesus, don’t let this priest be as hot as the last one.
When I told my aunt my boyfriend was shorter than me, she simply replied, it all evens out when you’re lying down.
Tomorrow is the day I will tell him.
In our town there are only two options: get out of here as soon as you can or develop a coke habit.
All things considered, that was probably the best barbeque I’ve been to.
Today, I met a lesbian.
We’d been Jewish for about twelve years.
The only thing I ask of my friends is that they not eat pickles around me.
I looked at my baby in the car seat and knew I had to give her away.
She hates me.
It’s Wednesday again.
Every year, he rereads A Streetcar Named Desire.
He knew that none of them understood Catcher in the Rye like he did; they were all big phonies.
Despite her efforts, her pan de polvo would never come out like her grandmother’s.
They used to be close, the sisters, but not anymore.
It has been three years since her best friend stopped talking to her.
She worked very hard to overcome her pigeon-toed feet.
It’s been too long since her mother’s called.
Almost everyday she tells me robots will take over the world.
He hoped nobody would remember his birthday.
Toby's first sentences
The man sitting next to me looks like Jesus.
If it weren’t for horses the world would starve.
The forest has never been my friend.
The clowns gathered around the baseball diamond and hosed down the slip and slide.
Every child should have a ghost horse.
If heaven is what I’m aiming for, then I better re-sight my rifle.
My grandma purchased our kitchen table from an estate sale at a home where they worshipped the occult and from that day on we switched from alphabets to cheerios.
There is a man who has been awake since world war II.
If prepositions are a bad way to begin a sentence.
The sun had risen past noon when an altar boy, refreshed from his nap against the cool gravestone of Eli Whitfield, had awoken to see a ghost standing over an open grave and a man who stood beside the ghost who wore a blue corduroy suit coat with khaki pants who was eating boysenberries from a large tree in the center of the cemetery of the Church of Perpetual Adoration in Twentynine Palms, California.
Waking up on the third morning over the fresh grave of his father, Doctor Samuel Malcome picked the dirt out of his ears and listened for the dead.
I see a lot of things through the windows at work.
Unscrewing his right leg, my Uncle Leo lights a bottle rocket and drops it into the hollow shaft where his bones should be.
She had a son.
The last white man in the Americas caused quite a stir, appearing, as did the first white men, quite unexpectantly and the issue of what to do with him being a topic on which there was much disagreement.
Erving Grover did not know why his life was falling in around him, but he suspected that it had to do with bees.
I think we should join a church, she said.
I woke up and noticed that my right sock was missing, and that the car was on fire.
It occurs to me that things should have gone differently, but then, where would the story be in that?
The abalone turned slowly to me and whispered.
It was the summer of 1988, the drought had gone on now for two straight months and lawns were catching on fire all throughout the neighborhood.
She turns and looks at me, then she tells me something about myself.
It’s not enough to write a story, the story has to matter.
If he were a better man, then none of us would have to be here.
“Get to the river before you drown.”
February, 1865 was the last month without a full moon.
Fireflies in a jar are all I ever see in the darkness.
It was a three mile walk to the cemetery and General Williamson was thankful he would have none of that.
I felt like Luther pounding those ninety five thesis’ to the door.
Shakespeare was never in love.
My father’s hands creaked as he tied the knot on my tie.
I struggle with the overtakelessness of people.
Walking inside the freezer room, my mother took her time in choosing, scrutinizing each vial; seven hours later I was conceived.
If it weren’t for horses the world would starve.
The forest has never been my friend.
The clowns gathered around the baseball diamond and hosed down the slip and slide.
Every child should have a ghost horse.
If heaven is what I’m aiming for, then I better re-sight my rifle.
My grandma purchased our kitchen table from an estate sale at a home where they worshipped the occult and from that day on we switched from alphabets to cheerios.
There is a man who has been awake since world war II.
If prepositions are a bad way to begin a sentence.
The sun had risen past noon when an altar boy, refreshed from his nap against the cool gravestone of Eli Whitfield, had awoken to see a ghost standing over an open grave and a man who stood beside the ghost who wore a blue corduroy suit coat with khaki pants who was eating boysenberries from a large tree in the center of the cemetery of the Church of Perpetual Adoration in Twentynine Palms, California.
Waking up on the third morning over the fresh grave of his father, Doctor Samuel Malcome picked the dirt out of his ears and listened for the dead.
I see a lot of things through the windows at work.
Unscrewing his right leg, my Uncle Leo lights a bottle rocket and drops it into the hollow shaft where his bones should be.
She had a son.
The last white man in the Americas caused quite a stir, appearing, as did the first white men, quite unexpectantly and the issue of what to do with him being a topic on which there was much disagreement.
Erving Grover did not know why his life was falling in around him, but he suspected that it had to do with bees.
I think we should join a church, she said.
I woke up and noticed that my right sock was missing, and that the car was on fire.
It occurs to me that things should have gone differently, but then, where would the story be in that?
The abalone turned slowly to me and whispered.
It was the summer of 1988, the drought had gone on now for two straight months and lawns were catching on fire all throughout the neighborhood.
She turns and looks at me, then she tells me something about myself.
It’s not enough to write a story, the story has to matter.
If he were a better man, then none of us would have to be here.
“Get to the river before you drown.”
February, 1865 was the last month without a full moon.
Fireflies in a jar are all I ever see in the darkness.
It was a three mile walk to the cemetery and General Williamson was thankful he would have none of that.
I felt like Luther pounding those ninety five thesis’ to the door.
Shakespeare was never in love.
My father’s hands creaked as he tied the knot on my tie.
I struggle with the overtakelessness of people.
Walking inside the freezer room, my mother took her time in choosing, scrutinizing each vial; seven hours later I was conceived.
Interview With Theia
hello, Theia.
hi. do I know you?
Erin.
nice to meet you.
you've been hired for the cover shot of the magazine, I hear.
yes.
are you excited?
yes, very.
that's great, I'm really proud of you.
thank you.
I've always admired you, you know. I really mean that.
thank you. that means a lot ot me. I work very hard.
oh, I know. that's what I admire most about you. so, what made you decide to become a model?
well, I knew that I had beauty--not just conventional beauty, or the kind that you can heighten with makeup, but the kind that I could prefect--limitless. the kind of work that goes into the shaping of my body is as much an art as painting or music or writing--a kind of sculpture, if you will. I know I can be perfect--
most people would say you already are perfect.
I know, but I can surpass what they think is perfect, and become something greater. I can do it all if I only work hard enough...you look skeptical.
no, I'm sorry. I'm more intimidated and confused that anything.
what do you mean?
I keep asking myself if I would know perfection if I saw it.
I see. Well, I hope you can take what I have to say as an attempt to be helpful, but I'm compelled to speak.
please.
you'd better know what perfection is--better be damn sure who and what I am--before you write another word.
I know--that's pretty impressive of you to figure out who I am so fast.
it was only a little obvious. only my creator would know so much about me.
true. I guess I'm just so enthusiastic about making this a reality. I know I need to learn patience.
yes, patience would be good.
I need to be more like you, I suppose. In a strange, cruel, and bizarre way, I do know who and what you are. I'm just having a tough time articulating it.
you know that no one will accept your perfection as true perfection, right? when you've articulated me, no one will accept me as perfect anymore.
that's for sure. you are rather...fearsome.
I do my best. maybe you should just leave it up their imaginations.
no.
good answer.
what makes you say that?
I was just testing you. you know me; I always need to put my two cents in, and you're just the same. you wouldn't be a writer if you were good at keeping your mouth shut, would you?
no, I guess that makes sense...for better or for worse.
well, they don't have to find your perfect to be true perfect...really.
no, they don't. if they can just accept it long enough to finish the book!
exactly.
you know, characters like Johnny and Edward and Selene are a lot easier to write than you are.
perfection is tough; complication is easy?
yes...in a way.
I suppose that makes sense. It's a lot easier to make them interesting than it is to make me interesting.
yes, but that's the challenge. it's fun, in a self-torture kind of way.
builds character.
no pun intended, of course.
of course not.
hi. do I know you?
Erin.
nice to meet you.
you've been hired for the cover shot of the magazine, I hear.
yes.
are you excited?
yes, very.
that's great, I'm really proud of you.
thank you.
I've always admired you, you know. I really mean that.
thank you. that means a lot ot me. I work very hard.
oh, I know. that's what I admire most about you. so, what made you decide to become a model?
well, I knew that I had beauty--not just conventional beauty, or the kind that you can heighten with makeup, but the kind that I could prefect--limitless. the kind of work that goes into the shaping of my body is as much an art as painting or music or writing--a kind of sculpture, if you will. I know I can be perfect--
most people would say you already are perfect.
I know, but I can surpass what they think is perfect, and become something greater. I can do it all if I only work hard enough...you look skeptical.
no, I'm sorry. I'm more intimidated and confused that anything.
what do you mean?
I keep asking myself if I would know perfection if I saw it.
I see. Well, I hope you can take what I have to say as an attempt to be helpful, but I'm compelled to speak.
please.
you'd better know what perfection is--better be damn sure who and what I am--before you write another word.
I know--that's pretty impressive of you to figure out who I am so fast.
it was only a little obvious. only my creator would know so much about me.
true. I guess I'm just so enthusiastic about making this a reality. I know I need to learn patience.
yes, patience would be good.
I need to be more like you, I suppose. In a strange, cruel, and bizarre way, I do know who and what you are. I'm just having a tough time articulating it.
you know that no one will accept your perfection as true perfection, right? when you've articulated me, no one will accept me as perfect anymore.
that's for sure. you are rather...fearsome.
I do my best. maybe you should just leave it up their imaginations.
no.
good answer.
what makes you say that?
I was just testing you. you know me; I always need to put my two cents in, and you're just the same. you wouldn't be a writer if you were good at keeping your mouth shut, would you?
no, I guess that makes sense...for better or for worse.
well, they don't have to find your perfect to be true perfect...really.
no, they don't. if they can just accept it long enough to finish the book!
exactly.
you know, characters like Johnny and Edward and Selene are a lot easier to write than you are.
perfection is tough; complication is easy?
yes...in a way.
I suppose that makes sense. It's a lot easier to make them interesting than it is to make me interesting.
yes, but that's the challenge. it's fun, in a self-torture kind of way.
builds character.
no pun intended, of course.
of course not.
Friendship with Girls (Ex. 13)
It was easy for us to do the backstabbing. It came naturally to all of us. At one time or another each of us had been the victim of it, had understood that we were no longer liked, that the group did not approve of us, that everyone was talking about us but we didn’t know what was being said. Or we found out because someone would “defect” for a moment to tell us, but that was really just a way of playing the game in a different way, or making the backstabbing worse, because what is worse than knowing something your aren’t supposed to know and the only way to expose your knowledge is by making a scene. It is a test of the limits of one’s restraint, of one’s ability to suck it up, of one’s weakness in the face of the others. Likewise we had all been the ones doing the stabbing, picking apart the actions of one of the others, storing up scraps of gossip to parcel out at the most advantageous moment… “Did I tell you about the time when she….?”
It was about power. Or about using allegiances to gain power. It wasn’t always that way. There was a time when we all, or most of us anyway, thought we were actually friends. Thought that it was our common interest that bound us together, despite having such radically different approaches to life. Thought that we were superior because of our inclusiveness. Now we know better. Now we know there is a game to be played and the winner is the one who gets what she wants.
The shift began when she showed up. By she, I mean the bitch. This is not to say that we weren’t all bitches in one way or another, only that we all saw right away that she was a different kind of bitch than we were, dirtier, less polished, less practiced, louder. She was the kind who would make a scene. She didn’t play the back door way. We saw right away that nothing was to be gained by absorbing her into our group. In fact, some of us saw that more was to be gained, in the form of entertainment anyway, by not absorbing her, by passive-aggressively pushing her away. Maybe we would get to see her breakdown. If it wasn’t at our expense, it would be fabulous to watch.
There were some, well, one really, who saw what was to be gained by pretending to be friends with the bitch. This, some of us came to think, was actually some supreme form of bitchiness, or politics-playing, or just the underlying problem of being friends with girls. This was when we realized there was a game being played, that we had been played, and that like the bitch, we might not ever have realized it except that we did.
We would say to each other, “I heard she went to that party, at the washout.”
“Really? What happened?”
“I heard she got trashed and fucked a couple guys.”
“Who told you that?”
“I heard it from a bunch of people. I saw pictures on Joey’s myspace.”
“Joey took pictures?”
“Of course, you can’t trust any of those assholes.”
“I don’t like that. Except I kinda do, if he got pictures of the bitch.”
“So wait, she fucked two guys or three?”
“That’s not what she says. She has a whole different story of how the night went down,” one of us would say, the one who knew about the game we were playing.
“How do you know?”
“I asked her. You know what she says? This is fabulous. She says Adam asked her out and he was really sweet and gave her his jacket.”
“Adam?! Oh she totally got fucked!”
“Of course she did,” says the one of us who knows the game. “But she doesn’t know that we know.” There is a smile we all share, it is a knowing smile. A smile that shows we know we are going to do something with this information. We are going to play with it. We are going to write some notes from Adam to the bitch. We are going to show some pictures to some people. We don’t all know exactly what we’re going to do, but we are going to play the game a little harder.
“I hate that bitch!” we say.
“Of course we do,” says the game-player.
None of us see yet that the bitch could be any of us.
It was about power. Or about using allegiances to gain power. It wasn’t always that way. There was a time when we all, or most of us anyway, thought we were actually friends. Thought that it was our common interest that bound us together, despite having such radically different approaches to life. Thought that we were superior because of our inclusiveness. Now we know better. Now we know there is a game to be played and the winner is the one who gets what she wants.
The shift began when she showed up. By she, I mean the bitch. This is not to say that we weren’t all bitches in one way or another, only that we all saw right away that she was a different kind of bitch than we were, dirtier, less polished, less practiced, louder. She was the kind who would make a scene. She didn’t play the back door way. We saw right away that nothing was to be gained by absorbing her into our group. In fact, some of us saw that more was to be gained, in the form of entertainment anyway, by not absorbing her, by passive-aggressively pushing her away. Maybe we would get to see her breakdown. If it wasn’t at our expense, it would be fabulous to watch.
There were some, well, one really, who saw what was to be gained by pretending to be friends with the bitch. This, some of us came to think, was actually some supreme form of bitchiness, or politics-playing, or just the underlying problem of being friends with girls. This was when we realized there was a game being played, that we had been played, and that like the bitch, we might not ever have realized it except that we did.
We would say to each other, “I heard she went to that party, at the washout.”
“Really? What happened?”
“I heard she got trashed and fucked a couple guys.”
“Who told you that?”
“I heard it from a bunch of people. I saw pictures on Joey’s myspace.”
“Joey took pictures?”
“Of course, you can’t trust any of those assholes.”
“I don’t like that. Except I kinda do, if he got pictures of the bitch.”
“So wait, she fucked two guys or three?”
“That’s not what she says. She has a whole different story of how the night went down,” one of us would say, the one who knew about the game we were playing.
“How do you know?”
“I asked her. You know what she says? This is fabulous. She says Adam asked her out and he was really sweet and gave her his jacket.”
“Adam?! Oh she totally got fucked!”
“Of course she did,” says the one of us who knows the game. “But she doesn’t know that we know.” There is a smile we all share, it is a knowing smile. A smile that shows we know we are going to do something with this information. We are going to play with it. We are going to write some notes from Adam to the bitch. We are going to show some pictures to some people. We don’t all know exactly what we’re going to do, but we are going to play the game a little harder.
“I hate that bitch!” we say.
“Of course we do,” says the game-player.
None of us see yet that the bitch could be any of us.
The "you" exercise
This is where you belong. The muddy heat, the street mobbed and bursting at the margins. Your skin slicked with sweat, constantly wiping your forearms and swatting away the low tide building on your thumbs. This is an aching air, and you, you ache inside of it too. Your mouth is an open book in this country, it is filled with scrawled etchings. The word meandering on your tongue, only to fall back in retreat to your throat.
This is what I’m saying is happening to you. Though should it be this way. You were born to be here but these people. They see you and you walk in distance. Or maybe, that’s just how I see you. Maybe that’s just what we all expect. So who flinched first? Did you come to this country and wear America as your gleaming totem? Did you watch the shore and wonder why the shore set on the wrong side of the horizon?
How did this happen? How did everything become so unfamiliar? When everybody here looks just like you. They can see it in the way you carry your body through open space. The heaviness in each of your steps. They resent you. They resent how you walk in and expect to occupy a room. The well fed proportions of your body, this is an American body. A proud American body. Look at their bodies, like ripened vines, like dying wood.
They will come to you and ask for money. Their outstretched hands: a beggar’s language, they can smell the dollars. It smells like cedar and pork fat. It rests so comfortably in your right pocket. They know where it is, they know you wouldn’t keep it in your back pocket. Too much of an easy mark. A bulge like a beacon. But you, you’re too smart for that. It’s what the experienced travelers know and you are not, but you’re smart enough to know what they know.
You’ve read books. And not just any regular book, you’ve read books where the main characters suffer through existential crises, self referential bouts of meta-fiction. You’ve read stories where the main character was turned into a fruit fly, but it wasn’t a horror story or science fiction, but a long drawn out treatise condemning the effects unfair businesses practices have taken upon the nation of Fiji. You’ve read these books and understood them.
What did you expect to find when you came to this country? Did you expect them to welcome you home? Did you expect streams of men and women to stop in their tracks and exclaim “Look at this guy, this guy right here!” Were you expecting all the women to give a shit.That you could rope them in with promises of a life in the states with you-- that you could get enough liquor in them to buy into the prospect? And then leave them with enough liquor to forget?
Do you believe this country owes you something, since you were so gracious enough to return. Did you expect anyone to care. Did you expect, that when you spoke to your cousins about the malleable nature of faith, the belief in a universal spirit, your brief flirtations with Buddhist thought, Bahai’i Faith, Reiki, the 10 days of silent meditation, the sweat lodges and the sordid history of the Catholic church they would have taken it as nothing less than you thumbing your nose at their beliefs. Because you were. Because you didn’t make it about the scope of your faith, you made it about the narrowness of theirs. And sometimes your upper lip curls when you think said something profound. This is also something that does not require translation. Every person, of every culture knows a smug asshole when they see one.
And yes, about the prostitute in the karaoke bar. The one who told you she was from your mother’s hometown. The pretty one, who came to Manila to become the next Regine Velasquez. The one who told you after that second time you fucked her from behind like a goddamn beast (as you like to tell people) that she had finally found the man of her dreams; that you were a prince. Who cried in your arms because you were so perfect and she didn’t want to see you go away. Whose affection was a framework of trope expression and inexhaustible cliche? You bought it. You bought every single bit of it. And for once in your lonely, sorry life you thought someone loved you like that love you had given away to so many others. For a moment, you were almost validated. Almost balanced. Home was almost an equilibrium.
This is what I’m saying is happening to you. Though should it be this way. You were born to be here but these people. They see you and you walk in distance. Or maybe, that’s just how I see you. Maybe that’s just what we all expect. So who flinched first? Did you come to this country and wear America as your gleaming totem? Did you watch the shore and wonder why the shore set on the wrong side of the horizon?
How did this happen? How did everything become so unfamiliar? When everybody here looks just like you. They can see it in the way you carry your body through open space. The heaviness in each of your steps. They resent you. They resent how you walk in and expect to occupy a room. The well fed proportions of your body, this is an American body. A proud American body. Look at their bodies, like ripened vines, like dying wood.
They will come to you and ask for money. Their outstretched hands: a beggar’s language, they can smell the dollars. It smells like cedar and pork fat. It rests so comfortably in your right pocket. They know where it is, they know you wouldn’t keep it in your back pocket. Too much of an easy mark. A bulge like a beacon. But you, you’re too smart for that. It’s what the experienced travelers know and you are not, but you’re smart enough to know what they know.
You’ve read books. And not just any regular book, you’ve read books where the main characters suffer through existential crises, self referential bouts of meta-fiction. You’ve read stories where the main character was turned into a fruit fly, but it wasn’t a horror story or science fiction, but a long drawn out treatise condemning the effects unfair businesses practices have taken upon the nation of Fiji. You’ve read these books and understood them.
What did you expect to find when you came to this country? Did you expect them to welcome you home? Did you expect streams of men and women to stop in their tracks and exclaim “Look at this guy, this guy right here!” Were you expecting all the women to give a shit.That you could rope them in with promises of a life in the states with you-- that you could get enough liquor in them to buy into the prospect? And then leave them with enough liquor to forget?
Do you believe this country owes you something, since you were so gracious enough to return. Did you expect anyone to care. Did you expect, that when you spoke to your cousins about the malleable nature of faith, the belief in a universal spirit, your brief flirtations with Buddhist thought, Bahai’i Faith, Reiki, the 10 days of silent meditation, the sweat lodges and the sordid history of the Catholic church they would have taken it as nothing less than you thumbing your nose at their beliefs. Because you were. Because you didn’t make it about the scope of your faith, you made it about the narrowness of theirs. And sometimes your upper lip curls when you think said something profound. This is also something that does not require translation. Every person, of every culture knows a smug asshole when they see one.
And yes, about the prostitute in the karaoke bar. The one who told you she was from your mother’s hometown. The pretty one, who came to Manila to become the next Regine Velasquez. The one who told you after that second time you fucked her from behind like a goddamn beast (as you like to tell people) that she had finally found the man of her dreams; that you were a prince. Who cried in your arms because you were so perfect and she didn’t want to see you go away. Whose affection was a framework of trope expression and inexhaustible cliche? You bought it. You bought every single bit of it. And for once in your lonely, sorry life you thought someone loved you like that love you had given away to so many others. For a moment, you were almost validated. Almost balanced. Home was almost an equilibrium.
exercise 12, i think
Jamie arranged the hair around the corpse’s face with a delicate and maternal care. The brown curls were swept to one side with a pin that Jamie had set aside for a ‘special’ case. She saved the prettiest accessories for the prettiest corpses.
This one was young, probably in her late thirties, and so the green tinge of putrefaction had not yet reached her face. But it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Jamie had grown accustomed to cold bodies, stiff bodies, dry bodies. She had been working at the mortuary for three years and felt more comfortable around dead bodies than the cloying clusters of girls at the junior college. People outside of work seemed so pink and sweaty and always in a rush. The only person she didn’t mind was Zach.
Zach had watery green eyes and black hair that hung down over his pale forehead. His skin was so white that Jamie guessed it would turn neon purple under the black light at the bowling alley. Even though he also attended Plainfield Community College, Jamie had only seen him there once, walking away from his girlfriend to smoke in the middle of a fight. Zach had seen her watching, but never said anything about it.
The steel door at the back of the mortuary groaned on its hinges as Zach swung it open and threw his keys on the aluminum counter. He was the other youth assistant during the week. Jamie tried to focus on applying foundation to the corpse’s cheeks and forehead.
“What’s up, kid?” Zach said, tossing his sweatshirt on the one plastic chair in the room. He opened the file cabinet and began leafing through the day’s deliveries and assignments. Jamie noticed a few burs that had fallen onto the concrete floor.
“You sleep outside or something?” Jamie asked as she tested eye shadows on the back of a receipt.
“What, you could smell it?”
“No, you don’t smell bad or anything…”
“Oh, thanks. I actually meant this,” Zach slid a miniature bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of his right pocket, the kind you can buy at gas stations to have with a chocolate cigar. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is just my morning chaser. I got so fucked up last night.”
Jamie watched him down the tiny bottle in a single bout. It was pathetic. All the same, she didn’t want to let on any concern or dismissal of this scene Zach was trying so hard to create. She decided on a warm brown for the corpse’s eyelids. “You know what they say,” she mumbled, distractedly, “hair of the dog or whatever…” Yes, warm brown matched the curls perfectly.
Jamie had moved on to a faint shade of lipstick. She had to hurry: the service was at noon, and she still had find the jewelry that the family had picked out and give the corpse to Zach for packing up into the hearse.
“Hey, would you look at this?” Zach yelled from the receiving room, which was adjacent to the prep room where Jamie worked. Zach was in charge of filing the initial paperwork when bodies arrived directly from the hospital. When there were puzzling cases, the coroner would come by the mortuary to examine the corpse.
“Check it out,” Zach said, twirling his empty bottle between his fingers. Jamie looked, but it was just another dead body. Well, it was a young body, but then she saw The Face. The Face wasn’t mutilated or disfigured. The Face wasn’t turning green. The Face wasn’t even ugly; in fact, The Face had a healthy complexion and was very beautiful. The Face also looked just like Zach’s girlfriend.
When Jaime realized who the corpse looked like, she clapped her hand over her mouth. Her Latex glove left a fine, white dust on her lips.
“Don’t worry, it’s not her,” Zach grinned, seeing Jamie’s thoughts race from one unlikely conclusion to another. “but I sort of wish it was.”
“What?” Jaime was still confused.
“Oh, we broke up a few weeks ago,” Zach twirled the bottle some more, then set it on the aluminum counter, finally, “or really, she broke up with me.”
“Oh,” Jamie stared at a crack making its way from the drain toward her shoe, “Oh, I’m sorry.”
This one was young, probably in her late thirties, and so the green tinge of putrefaction had not yet reached her face. But it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Jamie had grown accustomed to cold bodies, stiff bodies, dry bodies. She had been working at the mortuary for three years and felt more comfortable around dead bodies than the cloying clusters of girls at the junior college. People outside of work seemed so pink and sweaty and always in a rush. The only person she didn’t mind was Zach.
Zach had watery green eyes and black hair that hung down over his pale forehead. His skin was so white that Jamie guessed it would turn neon purple under the black light at the bowling alley. Even though he also attended Plainfield Community College, Jamie had only seen him there once, walking away from his girlfriend to smoke in the middle of a fight. Zach had seen her watching, but never said anything about it.
The steel door at the back of the mortuary groaned on its hinges as Zach swung it open and threw his keys on the aluminum counter. He was the other youth assistant during the week. Jamie tried to focus on applying foundation to the corpse’s cheeks and forehead.
“What’s up, kid?” Zach said, tossing his sweatshirt on the one plastic chair in the room. He opened the file cabinet and began leafing through the day’s deliveries and assignments. Jamie noticed a few burs that had fallen onto the concrete floor.
“You sleep outside or something?” Jamie asked as she tested eye shadows on the back of a receipt.
“What, you could smell it?”
“No, you don’t smell bad or anything…”
“Oh, thanks. I actually meant this,” Zach slid a miniature bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of his right pocket, the kind you can buy at gas stations to have with a chocolate cigar. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is just my morning chaser. I got so fucked up last night.”
Jamie watched him down the tiny bottle in a single bout. It was pathetic. All the same, she didn’t want to let on any concern or dismissal of this scene Zach was trying so hard to create. She decided on a warm brown for the corpse’s eyelids. “You know what they say,” she mumbled, distractedly, “hair of the dog or whatever…” Yes, warm brown matched the curls perfectly.
Jamie had moved on to a faint shade of lipstick. She had to hurry: the service was at noon, and she still had find the jewelry that the family had picked out and give the corpse to Zach for packing up into the hearse.
“Hey, would you look at this?” Zach yelled from the receiving room, which was adjacent to the prep room where Jamie worked. Zach was in charge of filing the initial paperwork when bodies arrived directly from the hospital. When there were puzzling cases, the coroner would come by the mortuary to examine the corpse.
“Check it out,” Zach said, twirling his empty bottle between his fingers. Jamie looked, but it was just another dead body. Well, it was a young body, but then she saw The Face. The Face wasn’t mutilated or disfigured. The Face wasn’t turning green. The Face wasn’t even ugly; in fact, The Face had a healthy complexion and was very beautiful. The Face also looked just like Zach’s girlfriend.
When Jaime realized who the corpse looked like, she clapped her hand over her mouth. Her Latex glove left a fine, white dust on her lips.
“Don’t worry, it’s not her,” Zach grinned, seeing Jamie’s thoughts race from one unlikely conclusion to another. “but I sort of wish it was.”
“What?” Jaime was still confused.
“Oh, we broke up a few weeks ago,” Zach twirled the bottle some more, then set it on the aluminum counter, finally, “or really, she broke up with me.”
“Oh,” Jamie stared at a crack making its way from the drain toward her shoe, “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Exercise #10 Memoir scene 2004 (Interview with a journalist at Columbia University)
A: “Jana, your writing is so smart, and there’s so much promise. It belies your lack of maturity in speech.”
J: “Thank You so much.”
A: “So…how does it feel to be first generation Chinese American?”
(The Five Second Thought)
(I hesitate on answering this question. The meaning of the inquiry mingled with feelings of inadequacy, alarm, and indignation. I look at this journalist whom I’d never met and who knew nothing, absolutely nothing of my experience, or
even whether I considered myself “Chinese American.” How dare she assume that was how I identified myself by? I felt inadequate, because I didn’t know how to answer such a question. I felt alarmed at having to answer her, because I felt no matter what I said, it would only serve as an addition to the idealized construction of set beliefs about “my place” in American society. My feelings of indignation were caused by the implications of the term “First generation Chinese American.” I was not a “first generation Chinese American.” My parents came over to the United States in their early twenties, and adopted a lifestyle here that had little connection to the way of life in China. Now, when they go back to visit, the older generations consider them “outsiders,” not one hundred percent Chinese.” I am not an immigrant who suddenly found myself in a new land; I had grown up here. My parents are the first generation Chinese Americans. I am the second generation of pure bred American girls, Chinese by ancestry, but surely, American culturally.)
J: “What would you say if I asked you how you felt being an American?”
A: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
J: (in a rush of words) “I’m just as American as you are. I grew up watching the same cartoons on Saturday mornings, went to the same theaters, and watched the same movies, listened to Madonna and Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. I’m an American citizen just like you, and when I become eighteen, my ballot counts just as much as yours in political elections.”
(The One and a Half Second Thought)
(She’s looking at me searchingly and quizzically, trying to see where I am going with all of the things I just said)
A: “May I see some of the writing you brought with you today?”
J: “Sure, here is one…”
A: “No, I’d like for you to read them to me.”
J: “I don’t…”
(The Two-Day Thought)
(God, why did I break down in the middle of reading and cry in front of a total stranger? I really don’t understand why. I didn’t stop until I got out of the building. To that journalist, and perhaps to others, I am destined to write about the kinds of things a “Chinese person” would write about. I would constantly be limited to that point of view, the experiences of a categorized point of view. But I know it is my decision to break out of that)
J: “Thank You so much.”
A: “So…how does it feel to be first generation Chinese American?”
(The Five Second Thought)
(I hesitate on answering this question. The meaning of the inquiry mingled with feelings of inadequacy, alarm, and indignation. I look at this journalist whom I’d never met and who knew nothing, absolutely nothing of my experience, or
even whether I considered myself “Chinese American.” How dare she assume that was how I identified myself by? I felt inadequate, because I didn’t know how to answer such a question. I felt alarmed at having to answer her, because I felt no matter what I said, it would only serve as an addition to the idealized construction of set beliefs about “my place” in American society. My feelings of indignation were caused by the implications of the term “First generation Chinese American.” I was not a “first generation Chinese American.” My parents came over to the United States in their early twenties, and adopted a lifestyle here that had little connection to the way of life in China. Now, when they go back to visit, the older generations consider them “outsiders,” not one hundred percent Chinese.” I am not an immigrant who suddenly found myself in a new land; I had grown up here. My parents are the first generation Chinese Americans. I am the second generation of pure bred American girls, Chinese by ancestry, but surely, American culturally.)
J: “What would you say if I asked you how you felt being an American?”
A: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
J: (in a rush of words) “I’m just as American as you are. I grew up watching the same cartoons on Saturday mornings, went to the same theaters, and watched the same movies, listened to Madonna and Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. I’m an American citizen just like you, and when I become eighteen, my ballot counts just as much as yours in political elections.”
(The One and a Half Second Thought)
(She’s looking at me searchingly and quizzically, trying to see where I am going with all of the things I just said)
A: “May I see some of the writing you brought with you today?”
J: “Sure, here is one…”
A: “No, I’d like for you to read them to me.”
J: “I don’t…”
(The Two-Day Thought)
(God, why did I break down in the middle of reading and cry in front of a total stranger? I really don’t understand why. I didn’t stop until I got out of the building. To that journalist, and perhaps to others, I am destined to write about the kinds of things a “Chinese person” would write about. I would constantly be limited to that point of view, the experiences of a categorized point of view. But I know it is my decision to break out of that)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Exercise # 17
The novel begins in a field outside a town of red clay roofs and checkerboard pastures. You find yourself on the dirt road – your shoes are worn – the soles thin, the leather black in places where your feet press out, the bony parts, from the inside. You haven’t brought your sweater, because no one has told you what to expect. You notice you are at the crest of a hill, the road slopes down towards the town.
The impulse is to follow it so you do.
The first cottage is whitewashed but chipped in places, cracks spreading like vines, you realize as you get closer. There are matching chickens in the yard – white with red crests. They peck at red worms. Is this one of the themes, then? Red and white? You wonder what meaning lies in this color scheme. You look down at your clothes – black worn trousers – pine green flannel shirt. Perhaps you are mistaken. Must there even be a theme? But this is a novel and you’ve walked five minutes within it so far finding no meaning.
Perhaps the point of the story is this emptiness you feel.
Now you smell the brown warm honey-ed aroma of roasting meat. You realize you are hungry. When is the last time you ate? You have no memory beyond finding yourself standing on the dirt path. No memory to direct you – no theme to dictate your choices – only the road stretching forward. You follow it.
The second cottage is freshly whitewashed. Instead of chickens scratching in the dirt, you notice a soft mossy lawn, it grows up to the sides of the house and lends a storybook feel. The wafting aroma of roasting dinner you have been following is emanating from the many-paned window, thrown open in what you now decide seems like a cheerful manner. Smoke curls from the chimney – a goat – its udder pink and full and many-fingered, bulging with milk – grazes by a tree laden with fruit – round golden orbs that are not immediately recognizable to you. But this is the house – you feel the only guidance you are being given – this quiet inner urge – telling you to stop here. Yes, perhaps this is where the story will begin – followed by the rising action – the climax - the denouement – will all happen behind this self-satisfied plump-looking structure.
The door is thatched – as you approach you feel the spring of the moss under your tired feet. Your knuckles rap against the thatch – a muted sound. How does one make his presence known with a door such as this one? You are about to knock again but the door opens – a round pale face with a neat linen cap – you notice the eyes – blue like a sky with no end – before anything else. These are eyes that will stay with you – again that inner intuit – these are eyes that are going to mean something to you – though still, at this point, as the door is pushed open wider to let you in, you are aware that you are poised on the threshold of many things. Not the least of which is, how it will come to be that these eyes, as you are now sure they will come to do – will destroy you.
“Annika?” The voice from within the cottage is deep and harsh. The pale moon round face still looking at you deeply flushes pink as if stained by the spill of wine. Now another face appears, dark skinned with the ravages of sun, wind-burned, like leather. Similar eyes though these are without the sense of endlessness. Some kind of knowledge has hardened these eyes so that a balloon traveling up through the stratosphere would hit a ceiling. A place beyond which nothing travels anymore. Where did you come up with this image of a balloon bobbing and bumping against a smooth blue ceiling, you wonder, standing on this strange doorstep, following an inner prompt to remain standing there, even with nothing familiar to hold onto.
The man, Annika’s father, you guess, is glaring now.
“What do you want?”
Many possible answers race through your head: I want to be in the place where I can find myself again. I want to feel safe and your daughter’s eyes have promised me that. I want to close my eyes and feel nothing for awhile. But most of all: I want to go home.
If only you knew what that meant.
“Can you spare some supper and a corner and blanket for the night?” This is the first time you have heard your voice. It sounds like wood, firm and strong. You feel a bit more confident.
You look directly into the dead-end eyes. Perhaps sensing your newly found firmness, they seem to soften. Though infinitesimally, it is enough. The door is swung open.
Inside the cottage is as cozy as you sensed it would be when you stopped.
The novel begins in a field outside a town of red clay roofs and checkerboard pastures. You find yourself on the dirt road – your shoes are worn – the soles thin, the leather black in places where your feet press out, the bony parts, from the inside. You haven’t brought your sweater, because no one has told you what to expect. You notice you are at the crest of a hill, the road slopes down towards the town.
The impulse is to follow it so you do.
The first cottage is whitewashed but chipped in places, cracks spreading like vines, you realize as you get closer. There are matching chickens in the yard – white with red crests. They peck at red worms. Is this one of the themes, then? Red and white? You wonder what meaning lies in this color scheme. You look down at your clothes – black worn trousers – pine green flannel shirt. Perhaps you are mistaken. Must there even be a theme? But this is a novel and you’ve walked five minutes within it so far finding no meaning.
Perhaps the point of the story is this emptiness you feel.
Now you smell the brown warm honey-ed aroma of roasting meat. You realize you are hungry. When is the last time you ate? You have no memory beyond finding yourself standing on the dirt path. No memory to direct you – no theme to dictate your choices – only the road stretching forward. You follow it.
The second cottage is freshly whitewashed. Instead of chickens scratching in the dirt, you notice a soft mossy lawn, it grows up to the sides of the house and lends a storybook feel. The wafting aroma of roasting dinner you have been following is emanating from the many-paned window, thrown open in what you now decide seems like a cheerful manner. Smoke curls from the chimney – a goat – its udder pink and full and many-fingered, bulging with milk – grazes by a tree laden with fruit – round golden orbs that are not immediately recognizable to you. But this is the house – you feel the only guidance you are being given – this quiet inner urge – telling you to stop here. Yes, perhaps this is where the story will begin – followed by the rising action – the climax - the denouement – will all happen behind this self-satisfied plump-looking structure.
The door is thatched – as you approach you feel the spring of the moss under your tired feet. Your knuckles rap against the thatch – a muted sound. How does one make his presence known with a door such as this one? You are about to knock again but the door opens – a round pale face with a neat linen cap – you notice the eyes – blue like a sky with no end – before anything else. These are eyes that will stay with you – again that inner intuit – these are eyes that are going to mean something to you – though still, at this point, as the door is pushed open wider to let you in, you are aware that you are poised on the threshold of many things. Not the least of which is, how it will come to be that these eyes, as you are now sure they will come to do – will destroy you.
“Annika?” The voice from within the cottage is deep and harsh. The pale moon round face still looking at you deeply flushes pink as if stained by the spill of wine. Now another face appears, dark skinned with the ravages of sun, wind-burned, like leather. Similar eyes though these are without the sense of endlessness. Some kind of knowledge has hardened these eyes so that a balloon traveling up through the stratosphere would hit a ceiling. A place beyond which nothing travels anymore. Where did you come up with this image of a balloon bobbing and bumping against a smooth blue ceiling, you wonder, standing on this strange doorstep, following an inner prompt to remain standing there, even with nothing familiar to hold onto.
The man, Annika’s father, you guess, is glaring now.
“What do you want?”
Many possible answers race through your head: I want to be in the place where I can find myself again. I want to feel safe and your daughter’s eyes have promised me that. I want to close my eyes and feel nothing for awhile. But most of all: I want to go home.
If only you knew what that meant.
“Can you spare some supper and a corner and blanket for the night?” This is the first time you have heard your voice. It sounds like wood, firm and strong. You feel a bit more confident.
You look directly into the dead-end eyes. Perhaps sensing your newly found firmness, they seem to soften. Though infinitesimally, it is enough. The door is swung open.
Inside the cottage is as cozy as you sensed it would be when you stopped.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Next post due Tuesday, May 5
This will be your last post. I'm still missing the April 21 post from a couple of you, so please catch up if you're behind. To the rest of you, I've really enjoyed what you posted.
On Tuesday, May 19th, your final portfolios are due: these will consist of revisions of 5 of your exercises (3-5 pages each). Please bring these in to class and provide a SASE if you'd like them returned with a few comments.
Thanks.
On Tuesday, May 19th, your final portfolios are due: these will consist of revisions of 5 of your exercises (3-5 pages each). Please bring these in to class and provide a SASE if you'd like them returned with a few comments.
Thanks.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Forty's
(from Exercise #13)
All of this happened at a really tough time in our lives. Rocco’s old lady just got knocked up, meaning he’d have two kids and a lazy-ass wife to take care of. Slim Jim had finally gotten a job——actually found someone who’d take a shot on him. And I, well, shit…life was always hard on me but I ain’t pointin’ fingers.
This shit went down on a Thursday night. We’d gotten off of work and headed over to Forty’s for some beers. The week had been long but good and it was almost over. We didn’t want to wait for Friday. Not when the weekend was practically here.
We came in, one by one, since we all worked at different spots and got off at different times. I was the first one there and nursed some beers so I wouldn’t get shitty before they even showed up. To my surprise, Rocco was already drinking by the time he stepped in. When he sat next to me at the bar, he nudged me in the side, opened his denim jacket that always reeked of cigarettes, and showed me a flask. He’d taken a few pulls from it in the parking lot.
Slim had been tossed out of the bar a couple of months back for some bullshit so Rocco and I snuck off to the bathroom like fucking kids, trading a pull or two from the flask——Canadian whiskey. We were playing it smooth, drinking beers at the bar, watching the game, stepping out for a smoke and a pull or two from his flask. We called it “drinkin’ on the cheap” and I needed it since I was still temping at the warehouse, not getting paid the big bucks that a full-time forklift operator would rake in.
Fucking Slim showed up after 8 o’ clock——must have been around that time since the game was in the 3rd period. When he took a seat next to us at the bar, I could tell something was bothering him. Right away, he ordered a shot of Cuervo and some scotch on the rocks to chase it, standing and looking over at the bartender like he needed his drinks bad.
He comes around to tell us that he was sure he was gonna lose his job. Big wigs corralled everyone up in a meeting, saying that they shouldn’t be surprised if they’re let go in a couple of weeks. Seems like the guys heading the construction job were thinking of pulling out, since they couldn’t find companies interested in leasing the offices they were planning to build.
“They kept telling us, ‘If we build it, they will come.’ My fucking ass they will! No one’s stickin’ their neck out in this economy. No one’s gonna lease that space so why are they gonna keep payin’ us to build it?” Slim said before he downed his shot and started to drink from his scotch. “Just when I was thinking of buying a new car. The one I have now is goin’ to pieces.”
Slim got shitty in a hurry. We were all getting shitty real quick since Slim and Rocco kept sayin’, “Come on, come on. Drink with me.” I couldn’t say no to my buddies.
Before long, the bar was getting packed with all the kids, just off of sucking their momma’s teats, laughin' and goin’ on too damn loud about “Oh my god! Why is he texting me?” or “I shouldn’t be having this, but hey, my parents are paying for my car, so why not?” We couldn’t stand them but what could we do? The only other bar in town was Tiki’s Lounge, and we wasn’t about to get caught alive in that shithole. I mean, who drinks at a place called “Tiki’s Lounge”? Sounds like a place where a bunch of hot shot fruitcakes from the city go to “get away” or have a “power lunch”. Tiki’s Lounge…shit. All I’d wanna do is tinkle all over that goddamn place until it was yellow from piss. The one time I went in there were a bunch of old fogies, hunched over the bar, rotting away. I ain’t about to become one of them—ever. Rather deal with the fucking kids that go to Forty’s on Thursdays before they head up to the city on the weekend.
So what happened is this. Rocco was sittin’ at the corner of the bar, playing one of those video games where you have to touch the screen and if you do good, you get to see a picture of this hot-ass naked chick on the screen. I don’t know why the fuck he was doin’ that, since he could actually go home and get laid unlike me. Slim and I were standing at the bar, in front of our stools, watchin’ SportsCenter when a dart bounced off the wall, glancing off of Slim’s jacket. We turned and heard these punk kids, standing there pretending like nothing happened, while one of the skirts was turned away, her face beet-red because she was trying so hard to not laugh at us.
“The fuck’s a matter with you?” Slim said to them, his arms out.
That’s when we heard that dumb girl laugh and Slim pushed the closest guy. Just, pushed him. And that’s when one of his buddies clanked Slim on the face and we had no choice but to show ‘em who was boss. We were just defending ourselves. We weren’t the ones who started the whole deal. All we did was just react. And if we did that too well—busting their heads, breaking one of their jaws, beating the fuck out of them—then I guess that’s our only crime——that we were too strong, that we were too good at something.
But it’s what they deserved. They started it. I don’t see why our asses had to get hauled in when all we did was defend ourselves too well. Those fucking kids, thinking they’re all better than us because they got better rides with their fancy deskjobs, braggin’ about how they’re gonna live in the big city someday. What they learned that night is that all of that don’t mean shit when it’s man to man, our fists to their faces. We’re on a more level playing field there. And we may be stronger men then they’ll ever be but that doesn’t stand for shit these days now. Not when we’re tossed in the clank for just being more of a man.
All of this happened at a really tough time in our lives. Rocco’s old lady just got knocked up, meaning he’d have two kids and a lazy-ass wife to take care of. Slim Jim had finally gotten a job——actually found someone who’d take a shot on him. And I, well, shit…life was always hard on me but I ain’t pointin’ fingers.
This shit went down on a Thursday night. We’d gotten off of work and headed over to Forty’s for some beers. The week had been long but good and it was almost over. We didn’t want to wait for Friday. Not when the weekend was practically here.
We came in, one by one, since we all worked at different spots and got off at different times. I was the first one there and nursed some beers so I wouldn’t get shitty before they even showed up. To my surprise, Rocco was already drinking by the time he stepped in. When he sat next to me at the bar, he nudged me in the side, opened his denim jacket that always reeked of cigarettes, and showed me a flask. He’d taken a few pulls from it in the parking lot.
Slim had been tossed out of the bar a couple of months back for some bullshit so Rocco and I snuck off to the bathroom like fucking kids, trading a pull or two from the flask——Canadian whiskey. We were playing it smooth, drinking beers at the bar, watching the game, stepping out for a smoke and a pull or two from his flask. We called it “drinkin’ on the cheap” and I needed it since I was still temping at the warehouse, not getting paid the big bucks that a full-time forklift operator would rake in.
Fucking Slim showed up after 8 o’ clock——must have been around that time since the game was in the 3rd period. When he took a seat next to us at the bar, I could tell something was bothering him. Right away, he ordered a shot of Cuervo and some scotch on the rocks to chase it, standing and looking over at the bartender like he needed his drinks bad.
He comes around to tell us that he was sure he was gonna lose his job. Big wigs corralled everyone up in a meeting, saying that they shouldn’t be surprised if they’re let go in a couple of weeks. Seems like the guys heading the construction job were thinking of pulling out, since they couldn’t find companies interested in leasing the offices they were planning to build.
“They kept telling us, ‘If we build it, they will come.’ My fucking ass they will! No one’s stickin’ their neck out in this economy. No one’s gonna lease that space so why are they gonna keep payin’ us to build it?” Slim said before he downed his shot and started to drink from his scotch. “Just when I was thinking of buying a new car. The one I have now is goin’ to pieces.”
Slim got shitty in a hurry. We were all getting shitty real quick since Slim and Rocco kept sayin’, “Come on, come on. Drink with me.” I couldn’t say no to my buddies.
Before long, the bar was getting packed with all the kids, just off of sucking their momma’s teats, laughin' and goin’ on too damn loud about “Oh my god! Why is he texting me?” or “I shouldn’t be having this, but hey, my parents are paying for my car, so why not?” We couldn’t stand them but what could we do? The only other bar in town was Tiki’s Lounge, and we wasn’t about to get caught alive in that shithole. I mean, who drinks at a place called “Tiki’s Lounge”? Sounds like a place where a bunch of hot shot fruitcakes from the city go to “get away” or have a “power lunch”. Tiki’s Lounge…shit. All I’d wanna do is tinkle all over that goddamn place until it was yellow from piss. The one time I went in there were a bunch of old fogies, hunched over the bar, rotting away. I ain’t about to become one of them—ever. Rather deal with the fucking kids that go to Forty’s on Thursdays before they head up to the city on the weekend.
So what happened is this. Rocco was sittin’ at the corner of the bar, playing one of those video games where you have to touch the screen and if you do good, you get to see a picture of this hot-ass naked chick on the screen. I don’t know why the fuck he was doin’ that, since he could actually go home and get laid unlike me. Slim and I were standing at the bar, in front of our stools, watchin’ SportsCenter when a dart bounced off the wall, glancing off of Slim’s jacket. We turned and heard these punk kids, standing there pretending like nothing happened, while one of the skirts was turned away, her face beet-red because she was trying so hard to not laugh at us.
“The fuck’s a matter with you?” Slim said to them, his arms out.
That’s when we heard that dumb girl laugh and Slim pushed the closest guy. Just, pushed him. And that’s when one of his buddies clanked Slim on the face and we had no choice but to show ‘em who was boss. We were just defending ourselves. We weren’t the ones who started the whole deal. All we did was just react. And if we did that too well—busting their heads, breaking one of their jaws, beating the fuck out of them—then I guess that’s our only crime——that we were too strong, that we were too good at something.
But it’s what they deserved. They started it. I don’t see why our asses had to get hauled in when all we did was defend ourselves too well. Those fucking kids, thinking they’re all better than us because they got better rides with their fancy deskjobs, braggin’ about how they’re gonna live in the big city someday. What they learned that night is that all of that don’t mean shit when it’s man to man, our fists to their faces. We’re on a more level playing field there. And we may be stronger men then they’ll ever be but that doesn’t stand for shit these days now. Not when we’re tossed in the clank for just being more of a man.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Mr. Table’s Demise
by Xochitl M. Perales
After the lamp industry collapsed, only Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps managed to turn a profit, and even that was short-lived. The obvious reason for their brief rather than long foray into post-collapse profitability had less to do with the razor-sharp lime green or hot pink tassels hanging down the edges of the umbrella-shaped velveteen shades sitting atop every single one of Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps, and more to do with the looming extinction of electricity from Planet Earth once the space travelers from Planet Yamfrost introduced a previously unheard of light and energy source stemming from the saliva of white-faced capuchins, but only those less than a year-and-one-month old. This saliva-based light and energy source spawned an innovative movement, called the “new and improved lamp industry,” whose main promotion of itself declared slogans such as, “Out with the old lame lamp designs, and in with the new super cool and modern ones.”
The travesty of this scenario, in the opinion of most non-Earthlings, is that humans could not completely let go of their dependence on electricity and fossil fuels when they discovered renewable and solar energy sources on their own, because there were too many trillions to be made in the oil and coal industries. This is why Yamfrostians finally felt it incumbent upon themselves to visit Earth, to put a stop to, or at least severely curb, the human tendency of wreaking environmental havoc on their own planet, because this in turn affected Earth’s solar system, which also affected other solar systems and galaxies and so on and so forth, in a great big domino or ricocheting effect with consequences of gargantuan proportions.
Even now, humans still retain a certain dependency, however minimal, on electricity and fossil fuels in a number of sectors, although not nearly as much as before the first Yamfrostian landing. But at least humans have finally managed to entirely relinquish their use of all variety of old lame lamps, last of all Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps, even if the demise of old lame lamp production had more to do with a loss of profitability in the old lame lamp industry and subsequent dwindling on the supply end, than a lack of demand due to human concern for planetary, solar systemic, galactic and farther-reaching environmental degradation. For this reason, Yamfrostians had a habit of shaking their heads in frustrated perplexity any time the words “Earth,” “Earthlings,” or “those really dumb beings on that planet whose name I don’t feel like naming” were mentioned.
More than a few parents could breathe a huge sigh of relief over the final curtain call of Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps, because there were far too many cases of overly curious toddlers cutting themselves on the razor-sharp tassels hanging off of the lamp shades while visiting the home of a childless friend, neighbor or relative. In one particularly notorious case, a little boy (age three) believed that he was in the presence of a lamp with strings of apple-flavored (because they were the lime green tassels) candy dangling off of the lampshade’s rim. (To give the boy credit, he had seen the commercials proclaiming these lamps to be “edible” lamps. But he did not pay attention to the warning at the end: “Although these are, indeed, edible lamps, only the top 1/3 of the lampshades are, in fact, edible. And please do not touch the tassels, for they are razor-sharp and can cause extreme bodily harm.”) The boy first grabbed a handful of these supposed apple-flavored candy strings, screamed in pain when they sliced his hands, then, in order to comfort himself, he shoved the strands into his mouth. Subsequently, he spent months in the hospital undergoing relentless hand and mouth surgeries.
Mr. Table himself did not concern himself with the dangers that his Fine Edible Lamps posed, even to children, for he did issue a warning at the end of his commercials, after all. However, he did fall into a deep state of depression when it was finally time to close down all of his factories down. So bad was his depression that his remaining family members (remaining not because they were the only ones alive, but because they were the only ones who could stand to be around him, given his nasty disposition) wondered if he would attempt to kill himself. And, to everyone’s great mortification and satisfaction, he eventually did. Kill himself, that is. By overdosing on white-faced capuchin saliva, ironically enough.
After the lamp industry collapsed, only Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps managed to turn a profit, and even that was short-lived. The obvious reason for their brief rather than long foray into post-collapse profitability had less to do with the razor-sharp lime green or hot pink tassels hanging down the edges of the umbrella-shaped velveteen shades sitting atop every single one of Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps, and more to do with the looming extinction of electricity from Planet Earth once the space travelers from Planet Yamfrost introduced a previously unheard of light and energy source stemming from the saliva of white-faced capuchins, but only those less than a year-and-one-month old. This saliva-based light and energy source spawned an innovative movement, called the “new and improved lamp industry,” whose main promotion of itself declared slogans such as, “Out with the old lame lamp designs, and in with the new super cool and modern ones.”
The travesty of this scenario, in the opinion of most non-Earthlings, is that humans could not completely let go of their dependence on electricity and fossil fuels when they discovered renewable and solar energy sources on their own, because there were too many trillions to be made in the oil and coal industries. This is why Yamfrostians finally felt it incumbent upon themselves to visit Earth, to put a stop to, or at least severely curb, the human tendency of wreaking environmental havoc on their own planet, because this in turn affected Earth’s solar system, which also affected other solar systems and galaxies and so on and so forth, in a great big domino or ricocheting effect with consequences of gargantuan proportions.
Even now, humans still retain a certain dependency, however minimal, on electricity and fossil fuels in a number of sectors, although not nearly as much as before the first Yamfrostian landing. But at least humans have finally managed to entirely relinquish their use of all variety of old lame lamps, last of all Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps, even if the demise of old lame lamp production had more to do with a loss of profitability in the old lame lamp industry and subsequent dwindling on the supply end, than a lack of demand due to human concern for planetary, solar systemic, galactic and farther-reaching environmental degradation. For this reason, Yamfrostians had a habit of shaking their heads in frustrated perplexity any time the words “Earth,” “Earthlings,” or “those really dumb beings on that planet whose name I don’t feel like naming” were mentioned.
More than a few parents could breathe a huge sigh of relief over the final curtain call of Mr. Table’s Fine Edible Lamps, because there were far too many cases of overly curious toddlers cutting themselves on the razor-sharp tassels hanging off of the lamp shades while visiting the home of a childless friend, neighbor or relative. In one particularly notorious case, a little boy (age three) believed that he was in the presence of a lamp with strings of apple-flavored (because they were the lime green tassels) candy dangling off of the lampshade’s rim. (To give the boy credit, he had seen the commercials proclaiming these lamps to be “edible” lamps. But he did not pay attention to the warning at the end: “Although these are, indeed, edible lamps, only the top 1/3 of the lampshades are, in fact, edible. And please do not touch the tassels, for they are razor-sharp and can cause extreme bodily harm.”) The boy first grabbed a handful of these supposed apple-flavored candy strings, screamed in pain when they sliced his hands, then, in order to comfort himself, he shoved the strands into his mouth. Subsequently, he spent months in the hospital undergoing relentless hand and mouth surgeries.
Mr. Table himself did not concern himself with the dangers that his Fine Edible Lamps posed, even to children, for he did issue a warning at the end of his commercials, after all. However, he did fall into a deep state of depression when it was finally time to close down all of his factories down. So bad was his depression that his remaining family members (remaining not because they were the only ones alive, but because they were the only ones who could stand to be around him, given his nasty disposition) wondered if he would attempt to kill himself. And, to everyone’s great mortification and satisfaction, he eventually did. Kill himself, that is. By overdosing on white-faced capuchin saliva, ironically enough.
"Intervention" or "The Anonymous Frotteur"
Shh. Shh. Everyone be quiet. Do you hear that, is that someone on the steps? Yeah, it is. Shh. Shh. Shh.
Here he comes, that’s his keys. Shh. Shh.
Surprise!
No, no. This isn’t supposed to be a surprise. Well, it is supposed to be a surprise, but it’s not like a party or anything. No, sit down Merman. Sit. Yeah, forget about getting settled, somebody will get your coat, somebody will get you a glass of water. Yes, go.
Now then, Merman. We’re gathered here to.
Is that a new rug? No? How come I’ve never noticed that before?
Ahem. Now we’re gathered here to.
Where did you get that lamp? Really, how much? Do you think they’ve still got it in stock? How long ago did you get it?
Ahem. AHEM. Focus, people. Ahem. Merman. We’re gathered here because we all love you very much and because we care about you and we think you have a very serious problem.
No, sit down, you’re not going anywhere. Everybody please just stay seated.
Yes, we’re well aware of your uh compulsion, Merman. We’ve seen the way you look at strangers on buses, on the metro, on the street. Many of us have been on the receiving end of your rubbings and gropings and frictions. Oh yes, we’ve noticed. And we know it was you. Yeah, that’s right. We’ve narrowed it down. By process of elimination, Merman. And also because none of us remembers it ever happening at any of those get togethers that you weren’t invited to or that you didn’t show up to.
You, sir are a Frotteur. Yep, we looked it up. It’s right there on the internet. Let me just look at what I jotted down here. Ahem. “yadda yadda specific paraphawhatsit which involves the nonconsensual rubbing against another person to achieve sexual arousal.” Yeah, that’s you all over.
Merman we love you very much but we don’t love you quite enough to have you rubbing all up against us all the time and we think you need to go seek hel—
“It wasn’t me.”
What’s that? Don’t be stupid, don’t be contradictory we know it was you. This is an intervention, sir.
“No, I’m serious. But I have felt somebody rubbing against me at some of our get togethers too. Once or twice.”
No you haven’t.
“Yes. Yes I have. How exactly did you guys ‘Narrow it down’ to just me?”
Well we all. Well we all started talking and we narrowed it down. Yeah, and we purposefully got together and didn’t invite you one night to see what happened and sure enough, nobody was going around being all frotteury.
“But if you all talked about it with everyone else but me, how do you know that it’s not just one of you all being a liar?”
Uh.
“I mean, maybe whoever it was just stopped rubbing against people and grabbing their junk because they knew you all would be watching and they wanted to frame me instead.”
That’s just stupid now. We’ve narrowed it down.
“Whose idea was all this, anyway? Who organized it, who got you all together? I bet that’s who it was.”
Well Larry was the one who stole the spare key from your nightstand that one night. But look, he’s not even here he had to be somewhere else?
“Okay okay who were the first two to discuss it, to put forth this idea of a half-assed intervention?”
I don’t know, haven’t we all been talking about this for a while? Was it you Ted? No, I think it might have been Jessie. Hey no, it wasn’t me. What are we doing, are we pointing fingers here? Hey, all be right back I’ve got to take a piss. Hey Merman, do you have anything to eat around here? I think maybe you’re right, it was Jessie. Like some chips and dip or like some crackers and cheese or olives or I don’t know, anything? Hey wasn’t it Jim who was complaining to Charlynne about that New Years gig? Alright, shut up everyone, somebody just grabbed my ass.
Here he comes, that’s his keys. Shh. Shh.
Surprise!
No, no. This isn’t supposed to be a surprise. Well, it is supposed to be a surprise, but it’s not like a party or anything. No, sit down Merman. Sit. Yeah, forget about getting settled, somebody will get your coat, somebody will get you a glass of water. Yes, go.
Now then, Merman. We’re gathered here to.
Is that a new rug? No? How come I’ve never noticed that before?
Ahem. Now we’re gathered here to.
Where did you get that lamp? Really, how much? Do you think they’ve still got it in stock? How long ago did you get it?
Ahem. AHEM. Focus, people. Ahem. Merman. We’re gathered here because we all love you very much and because we care about you and we think you have a very serious problem.
No, sit down, you’re not going anywhere. Everybody please just stay seated.
Yes, we’re well aware of your uh compulsion, Merman. We’ve seen the way you look at strangers on buses, on the metro, on the street. Many of us have been on the receiving end of your rubbings and gropings and frictions. Oh yes, we’ve noticed. And we know it was you. Yeah, that’s right. We’ve narrowed it down. By process of elimination, Merman. And also because none of us remembers it ever happening at any of those get togethers that you weren’t invited to or that you didn’t show up to.
You, sir are a Frotteur. Yep, we looked it up. It’s right there on the internet. Let me just look at what I jotted down here. Ahem. “yadda yadda specific paraphawhatsit which involves the nonconsensual rubbing against another person to achieve sexual arousal.” Yeah, that’s you all over.
Merman we love you very much but we don’t love you quite enough to have you rubbing all up against us all the time and we think you need to go seek hel—
“It wasn’t me.”
What’s that? Don’t be stupid, don’t be contradictory we know it was you. This is an intervention, sir.
“No, I’m serious. But I have felt somebody rubbing against me at some of our get togethers too. Once or twice.”
No you haven’t.
“Yes. Yes I have. How exactly did you guys ‘Narrow it down’ to just me?”
Well we all. Well we all started talking and we narrowed it down. Yeah, and we purposefully got together and didn’t invite you one night to see what happened and sure enough, nobody was going around being all frotteury.
“But if you all talked about it with everyone else but me, how do you know that it’s not just one of you all being a liar?”
Uh.
“I mean, maybe whoever it was just stopped rubbing against people and grabbing their junk because they knew you all would be watching and they wanted to frame me instead.”
That’s just stupid now. We’ve narrowed it down.
“Whose idea was all this, anyway? Who organized it, who got you all together? I bet that’s who it was.”
Well Larry was the one who stole the spare key from your nightstand that one night. But look, he’s not even here he had to be somewhere else?
“Okay okay who were the first two to discuss it, to put forth this idea of a half-assed intervention?”
I don’t know, haven’t we all been talking about this for a while? Was it you Ted? No, I think it might have been Jessie. Hey no, it wasn’t me. What are we doing, are we pointing fingers here? Hey, all be right back I’ve got to take a piss. Hey Merman, do you have anything to eat around here? I think maybe you’re right, it was Jessie. Like some chips and dip or like some crackers and cheese or olives or I don’t know, anything? Hey wasn’t it Jim who was complaining to Charlynne about that New Years gig? Alright, shut up everyone, somebody just grabbed my ass.
CLASS CANCELLED TODAY, APRIL 21
Dear students,
I have the flu and won't be able to make it to class or office hours today. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll see you all tomorrow hopefully for my talk.
Thanks,
Eric
I have the flu and won't be able to make it to class or office hours today. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll see you all tomorrow hopefully for my talk.
Thanks,
Eric
29NOV1987IN2D
Things took a turn for the worst. I'd been putting off coming through that damn door for two weeks, and now--here I am--I've gone through. Of course, when I look back, the door is still there, hovering just above the grass. The doorknob, a brassy little ball flush against the wood, is just the right size to fit into my hand, but when I reach for it, my palm is flat on the door, covering an image of the doorknob only, with nothing to turn. I realized then that the door itself had become flush with the grass--grass that doesn't tickle my toes, but layers like scales without texture. there's no leaning against the trees, which are just as flush with the grass as the door.
I can hear a stream nearby; I'll check it out after I've taken a nap; I'm exhausted.
I slept a little longer than I planned, and, I confess, I dawdled a great deal before going to explore the stream. I can't get over being able to touch clouds and sky. The closeness of everything--everything smooth and flush agianst everything else. It's a little smothering, really.
I went toward the sound of the stream; I was surprised how long it took me to get here. The stream rushes along without any depth. The water is cold, and yet, my hand doesn't go beneath it. I doesn't become flush with the surface of the water either, like it did with the door. My hand just--flickers. Feather- and bubble-shaped flickers of silver and blues--water colors. Little bits of my hand vanish and reappear and mix with the water until it becomes only a hand-shape, more part of the water than of me. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I panicked when I realized that my hand wasn't my hand anymore. The sensation of cold was as real as the stream-sound--like a poorly-dubbbed movie, where the sounds and lips are right, but the sound is coming from somewhere else.
It's taken me most of the day, (though it hasn't even begun to get dark yet, which I find very strange), to calm down my nerves about the near-loss of my hand to the depthless stream, and continue my exploration. I decided, for the sake of not getting lost, o follow the stream itself, keeping a safe distance. My hand seems to be okay, but who knows what would happen if I fell into teh stream, with littl ebits of me vanishing and reappearing and shimmering and flickering. Still, I don't think I have much of a choice but to press on.
I seem to have reached--a waterfall, I think. The stream widened a great deal as I was walking along beside it, and then it began to roar. The water colors ended in a great smear of white that stretches on into a cloud of mist, neither below nor ahead. The scaly grass, of course, has ended as well, and horrible jagged shapes of blackish grey and mossy green extend on either side of the white-streak waterfall. They fade into the mist as well. If I were to leap, I wonder if I would fall... Would I just be suspended, the way the door through which I came is suspended? neither up nor down? If thte stream could make my hand vanish and reappear in such watery ways, surely this white, roaring mass would shred me to pieces, like Osiris--thousands of little pieces scattered to every corner of this place--with no corners... There's a lazy appeal to it, I suppose.
I decided, after giving it a great deal of thought, that jumping woul dnot be wise, and it might not even kill me. I did decide, however, to turn back and see if there were anything on the other side of the door, (assuming I didn't have to go through it to get to the other side). I turned around, and, to my complete and utter shock, everything was dark. the sky was poked through with more stars than I've ever seen. The horizon--that's what I've decided to call the end of what I can see--didn't glow with distant lights, but vanished completely in blackness.
I was so terrified that I couldn't more for a long time. I turned around to see if there was any light behind me, and suddenly, it was daylight again! Everything was as bright as high noon, which, only frightens and confuses me more.
It took me several turns and many more deep breaths to be able to face the darkness without panicking. Facing the way I had originally come, I realized I was engulfed in total blackness, with nothing visible but stars. Facing the way I was originally headed, I was in daylight again. I tried to walk back the way I had come--in the darkness, using the sound of the water as my guide. Twice, I slipped and fell in, and was nearly carried away by the current. When I crawled back out of the river for the last time and sat on the grass, I must have sat there for hourse--or even days. There was no way to tell, of course.
I've begun to notice that little bits of me are missing. I'm not in any pain, but I'm missing parts of me. Funny-shaped holes and faded places, undoubtedly from falling into the stream. I keep thinking about the waterfall. At least it's light that way. I could turn and face the darkness, and jump...
I can hear a stream nearby; I'll check it out after I've taken a nap; I'm exhausted.
I slept a little longer than I planned, and, I confess, I dawdled a great deal before going to explore the stream. I can't get over being able to touch clouds and sky. The closeness of everything--everything smooth and flush agianst everything else. It's a little smothering, really.
I went toward the sound of the stream; I was surprised how long it took me to get here. The stream rushes along without any depth. The water is cold, and yet, my hand doesn't go beneath it. I doesn't become flush with the surface of the water either, like it did with the door. My hand just--flickers. Feather- and bubble-shaped flickers of silver and blues--water colors. Little bits of my hand vanish and reappear and mix with the water until it becomes only a hand-shape, more part of the water than of me. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I panicked when I realized that my hand wasn't my hand anymore. The sensation of cold was as real as the stream-sound--like a poorly-dubbbed movie, where the sounds and lips are right, but the sound is coming from somewhere else.
It's taken me most of the day, (though it hasn't even begun to get dark yet, which I find very strange), to calm down my nerves about the near-loss of my hand to the depthless stream, and continue my exploration. I decided, for the sake of not getting lost, o follow the stream itself, keeping a safe distance. My hand seems to be okay, but who knows what would happen if I fell into teh stream, with littl ebits of me vanishing and reappearing and shimmering and flickering. Still, I don't think I have much of a choice but to press on.
I seem to have reached--a waterfall, I think. The stream widened a great deal as I was walking along beside it, and then it began to roar. The water colors ended in a great smear of white that stretches on into a cloud of mist, neither below nor ahead. The scaly grass, of course, has ended as well, and horrible jagged shapes of blackish grey and mossy green extend on either side of the white-streak waterfall. They fade into the mist as well. If I were to leap, I wonder if I would fall... Would I just be suspended, the way the door through which I came is suspended? neither up nor down? If thte stream could make my hand vanish and reappear in such watery ways, surely this white, roaring mass would shred me to pieces, like Osiris--thousands of little pieces scattered to every corner of this place--with no corners... There's a lazy appeal to it, I suppose.
I decided, after giving it a great deal of thought, that jumping woul dnot be wise, and it might not even kill me. I did decide, however, to turn back and see if there were anything on the other side of the door, (assuming I didn't have to go through it to get to the other side). I turned around, and, to my complete and utter shock, everything was dark. the sky was poked through with more stars than I've ever seen. The horizon--that's what I've decided to call the end of what I can see--didn't glow with distant lights, but vanished completely in blackness.
I was so terrified that I couldn't more for a long time. I turned around to see if there was any light behind me, and suddenly, it was daylight again! Everything was as bright as high noon, which, only frightens and confuses me more.
It took me several turns and many more deep breaths to be able to face the darkness without panicking. Facing the way I had originally come, I realized I was engulfed in total blackness, with nothing visible but stars. Facing the way I was originally headed, I was in daylight again. I tried to walk back the way I had come--in the darkness, using the sound of the water as my guide. Twice, I slipped and fell in, and was nearly carried away by the current. When I crawled back out of the river for the last time and sat on the grass, I must have sat there for hourse--or even days. There was no way to tell, of course.
I've begun to notice that little bits of me are missing. I'm not in any pain, but I'm missing parts of me. Funny-shaped holes and faded places, undoubtedly from falling into the stream. I keep thinking about the waterfall. At least it's light that way. I could turn and face the darkness, and jump...
Collective sigh
Exercise #13
We hung out at the beach that summer. Lily, Arn Cad and me. It seemed then that never before had so many languid moist cloudless days been strung together for anyone’s enjoyment. We were kings. Lily was our queen. The sand was as clean and fresh as brown sugar. We were the first beings to set foot in this cove. The water was cool and green and clear like a forest at dusk. Mostly the boys took turns throwing Lily into the waves and each of us, like a collective sigh, fell in love with her.
It took all four of us to love her wholly. We each had our own piece of love, like a slice of Arn’s Aunt Jilly’s rhubarb pie. My wedge was tremulous and aching and painful to the touch. I loved in anguish at night in the bed I’d lain in since I was a boy. I sweated sorrow until my sheets were like gauze stretched across festering wounds. I wept in dreams of sand dunes blown smooth by late August winds that smelled of snow and early winter.
Lily loved each of us. This is what kept it going. A suspense story that we couldn’t put down until the end was revealed. Who would she choose? Quiet thoughtful stringy-legged Arn, our sinewy dingo of the sands. Always the first, in the mornings, into the surf, sprinting across the still-cool purple foot-sized troughs of sand, springing off the top of his toes from the last edge of wet sand, flinging himself carelessly, a pale tangle of arms and legs, into the ocean.
Me. I trembled sometimes, on my towel, watching her come up from a dive, her light brown hair slicked back like a seal. Pale skin, wide, round little-girl eyes. A thin careful creature of the sea.
I didn’t realize I was growing up that summer. Lengthening and broadening – my smooth skin a light golden hue that made me seem to glow. When Lily looked up at me, it was as though she was seeing someone else. I loved but I couldn’t catch up with myself fast enough, then, to keep her.
Cad was out leader. He had been since as long as any of us could remember. He believed in the good in all people and he had freckles and shiny blond bangs to match his earnest faith in humanity. We put our trust in him because with Cad there was no question of misstep.
Lily loved him first.
We had come up from the water – the tide was coming in – the waves curling on top of each other softly, the ocean shining like dark metal in the slanting late-afternoon light. The sand smelled of the sun it had soaked up all day and was now releasing. We lay on our towels shifting and pushing at the granules till they formed hollows and mounds that held our bodies as we dried. Cad reached out and pulled Lily to him. No words – Cad didn’t like words – first he was pulling on her long tanned arm and then his hand was firm under the base of her hair. I heard the sound of their lips, at first dry, then wet, working like muscles, pulling each other in until Lily made a small noise in the back of her throat.
Arn and I watched them, peeking through the private hot caves of our elbows, lying on our stomachs, arms folded at the tops of our towels, our faces pressed against our forearms. We didn’t look at each other. We didn’t have to. It was as if we had both known, somehow, that we would be lying here like this.
Lily’s back was to me. I watched the place where her bathing suit ended before the curve of her thigh began, a half-moon of pale buttocks that had pushed free of the prim yellow sea-shell print. Her skin here, covered by light blond hair.
Cad’s fingers were still at her neck. That was Cad. Patient. Sure. He didn’t need to be greedy. That was what made Cad our leader. All came to Cal in good time.
Arn and I had our seats. For the first time in my life, I felt I could be patient too.
They pulled apart and rolled onto their backs. Lily reached over and took Cad’s hand. Cad’s eyes were closed, Lily’s open, she was looking at the sky.
“My turn,” Arn said into his forearm and Lily laughed. I rolled over, too, looked at her face quickly then at the sky, as if there was something up there I needed to find.
Even in that glimpse I could see: She was smiling, glowing. She was ridiculously happy. She was in love with Cad. Obviously. We all were.
The hardest thing about being Cad was he didn’t have himself to look up to. He shouldered all of our hopes and dreams.
We hung out at the beach that summer. Lily, Arn Cad and me. It seemed then that never before had so many languid moist cloudless days been strung together for anyone’s enjoyment. We were kings. Lily was our queen. The sand was as clean and fresh as brown sugar. We were the first beings to set foot in this cove. The water was cool and green and clear like a forest at dusk. Mostly the boys took turns throwing Lily into the waves and each of us, like a collective sigh, fell in love with her.
It took all four of us to love her wholly. We each had our own piece of love, like a slice of Arn’s Aunt Jilly’s rhubarb pie. My wedge was tremulous and aching and painful to the touch. I loved in anguish at night in the bed I’d lain in since I was a boy. I sweated sorrow until my sheets were like gauze stretched across festering wounds. I wept in dreams of sand dunes blown smooth by late August winds that smelled of snow and early winter.
Lily loved each of us. This is what kept it going. A suspense story that we couldn’t put down until the end was revealed. Who would she choose? Quiet thoughtful stringy-legged Arn, our sinewy dingo of the sands. Always the first, in the mornings, into the surf, sprinting across the still-cool purple foot-sized troughs of sand, springing off the top of his toes from the last edge of wet sand, flinging himself carelessly, a pale tangle of arms and legs, into the ocean.
Me. I trembled sometimes, on my towel, watching her come up from a dive, her light brown hair slicked back like a seal. Pale skin, wide, round little-girl eyes. A thin careful creature of the sea.
I didn’t realize I was growing up that summer. Lengthening and broadening – my smooth skin a light golden hue that made me seem to glow. When Lily looked up at me, it was as though she was seeing someone else. I loved but I couldn’t catch up with myself fast enough, then, to keep her.
Cad was out leader. He had been since as long as any of us could remember. He believed in the good in all people and he had freckles and shiny blond bangs to match his earnest faith in humanity. We put our trust in him because with Cad there was no question of misstep.
Lily loved him first.
We had come up from the water – the tide was coming in – the waves curling on top of each other softly, the ocean shining like dark metal in the slanting late-afternoon light. The sand smelled of the sun it had soaked up all day and was now releasing. We lay on our towels shifting and pushing at the granules till they formed hollows and mounds that held our bodies as we dried. Cad reached out and pulled Lily to him. No words – Cad didn’t like words – first he was pulling on her long tanned arm and then his hand was firm under the base of her hair. I heard the sound of their lips, at first dry, then wet, working like muscles, pulling each other in until Lily made a small noise in the back of her throat.
Arn and I watched them, peeking through the private hot caves of our elbows, lying on our stomachs, arms folded at the tops of our towels, our faces pressed against our forearms. We didn’t look at each other. We didn’t have to. It was as if we had both known, somehow, that we would be lying here like this.
Lily’s back was to me. I watched the place where her bathing suit ended before the curve of her thigh began, a half-moon of pale buttocks that had pushed free of the prim yellow sea-shell print. Her skin here, covered by light blond hair.
Cad’s fingers were still at her neck. That was Cad. Patient. Sure. He didn’t need to be greedy. That was what made Cad our leader. All came to Cal in good time.
Arn and I had our seats. For the first time in my life, I felt I could be patient too.
They pulled apart and rolled onto their backs. Lily reached over and took Cad’s hand. Cad’s eyes were closed, Lily’s open, she was looking at the sky.
“My turn,” Arn said into his forearm and Lily laughed. I rolled over, too, looked at her face quickly then at the sky, as if there was something up there I needed to find.
Even in that glimpse I could see: She was smiling, glowing. She was ridiculously happy. She was in love with Cad. Obviously. We all were.
The hardest thing about being Cad was he didn’t have himself to look up to. He shouldered all of our hopes and dreams.
Monday, April 20, 2009
the exercise with 'we'
The shipment had arrived. The armored truck looked both conspicuous and ridiculous making its way through the bands of cacti, its guns loaded and manned. The shipment could be hijacked at any moment. We could not take any chances. Once the unlabeled vehicle passed the three security checkpoints, we waved it up the drive with broad smiles.
Dr. Belmondo entered the code to unlock the hatch. He was the only man--aside from the Chief of Staff--that knew the combination and thus, came with a high price. We could not afford to let him out of sight. Belmondo spent his days with a microchip embedded in his pelvis (the Government had deemed his arms too easy to detach) and his nights with two permanent bodyguards, one posted under his window and one on his living room couch. For a few nights, he would be able to enjoy the luxury of sleeping without bodyguards while at the complex. We had great respect for Belmondo and all confidence that our respect was earned. We had measures in place to ensure that this was the case. He would never desert us.
Belmondo entered the main reception area, and we greeted him with a Styrofoam cup of water, a cordial nod, and his briefing packet for the week. And suspicion. We have been told by them that suspicion is our greatest asset in this line of work. Everyone must be treated with absolute suspicion.
The steel crates were unloaded, and the process of decontamination was begun. Everything had to be decontaminated: the crates, the drivers, even the tire tread. There could be no traces of the outside world in the complex or vice versa. We sat down with Belmondo at a long conference table in the south wing for routine questioning.
"Well, how did the transporting go?" we ask.
"Very well, very well," Belmondo grins, "we only had to 'eliminate' two snakes and one lizard on the way."
"Good," we answer, not so charmed by Belmondo's ease with Government terminology, " we don't like for there to be a lot of elimination going on around here."
Belmondo, fiddles with his pencil, twirls it between his teeth, obviously takes the point.
After a pause, we ask, "When do you expect production to begin?"
"Not for a while," Belmondo leans back in the office chair, "maybe four months? This stuff takes a while to, you know, age to perfection. Think of it like cheese or wine."
Another joke fell flat. We were not interested in the refined processes of gourmands. We were not interested in food beyond the necessary sustenance it provided.
"This is nothing like cheese," we respond thoughtfully, tracing the contours of Belmondo's face with our eyes.
"Well," Belmondo swivels in the office chair, wipes his hands slowly and methodically on his government-issued trousers, and stands up, "a cheesemaker is a sort of scientist, isn't he?" He grins again as he moves slowly toward the door, "If you'll excuse me, I've had quite a day, what with transporting highly reactive substances for the government, I think I could use a little rest."
"Yes, of course," we watch him open the door, step into the hallway, "we will speak again soon."
Nights in the complex are difficult to adjust to at first. There are the routine tests and inspections being carried out at every hour. A small lull around 0200 provides about an hour and a half of uninterrupted sleep, but the activity picks up again toward the early morning hours. We all had a hard time at first, but as with any new place, you get used to it.
We are waiting for Belmondo when he hurries into the Central Corridor for the morning’s briefing. “I’m a bit rusty on these codes,” he says, and hold a crumpled piece of notebook paper above his head, “all except one, of course.” Belmondo takes his seat next to the Chief Lab Tech and stares at the screen, blinking.
“Welcome, comrades,” the automated voice begins “to day 764 in complex… Z… 3… D… A… 6…” We take this opportunity to look at Belmondo who has promptly and quietly fallen asleep, still upright in his chair with his hands folded on the metal table. The voice continues, “As such, today, we will have a special presentation from Doctor Hector Belmondo at 1000.” The automated voice spells out each syllable of the Doctor’s name with care.
Dr. Belmondo entered the code to unlock the hatch. He was the only man--aside from the Chief of Staff--that knew the combination and thus, came with a high price. We could not afford to let him out of sight. Belmondo spent his days with a microchip embedded in his pelvis (the Government had deemed his arms too easy to detach) and his nights with two permanent bodyguards, one posted under his window and one on his living room couch. For a few nights, he would be able to enjoy the luxury of sleeping without bodyguards while at the complex. We had great respect for Belmondo and all confidence that our respect was earned. We had measures in place to ensure that this was the case. He would never desert us.
Belmondo entered the main reception area, and we greeted him with a Styrofoam cup of water, a cordial nod, and his briefing packet for the week. And suspicion. We have been told by them that suspicion is our greatest asset in this line of work. Everyone must be treated with absolute suspicion.
The steel crates were unloaded, and the process of decontamination was begun. Everything had to be decontaminated: the crates, the drivers, even the tire tread. There could be no traces of the outside world in the complex or vice versa. We sat down with Belmondo at a long conference table in the south wing for routine questioning.
"Well, how did the transporting go?" we ask.
"Very well, very well," Belmondo grins, "we only had to 'eliminate' two snakes and one lizard on the way."
"Good," we answer, not so charmed by Belmondo's ease with Government terminology, " we don't like for there to be a lot of elimination going on around here."
Belmondo, fiddles with his pencil, twirls it between his teeth, obviously takes the point.
After a pause, we ask, "When do you expect production to begin?"
"Not for a while," Belmondo leans back in the office chair, "maybe four months? This stuff takes a while to, you know, age to perfection. Think of it like cheese or wine."
Another joke fell flat. We were not interested in the refined processes of gourmands. We were not interested in food beyond the necessary sustenance it provided.
"This is nothing like cheese," we respond thoughtfully, tracing the contours of Belmondo's face with our eyes.
"Well," Belmondo swivels in the office chair, wipes his hands slowly and methodically on his government-issued trousers, and stands up, "a cheesemaker is a sort of scientist, isn't he?" He grins again as he moves slowly toward the door, "If you'll excuse me, I've had quite a day, what with transporting highly reactive substances for the government, I think I could use a little rest."
"Yes, of course," we watch him open the door, step into the hallway, "we will speak again soon."
Nights in the complex are difficult to adjust to at first. There are the routine tests and inspections being carried out at every hour. A small lull around 0200 provides about an hour and a half of uninterrupted sleep, but the activity picks up again toward the early morning hours. We all had a hard time at first, but as with any new place, you get used to it.
We are waiting for Belmondo when he hurries into the Central Corridor for the morning’s briefing. “I’m a bit rusty on these codes,” he says, and hold a crumpled piece of notebook paper above his head, “all except one, of course.” Belmondo takes his seat next to the Chief Lab Tech and stares at the screen, blinking.
“Welcome, comrades,” the automated voice begins “to day 764 in complex… Z… 3… D… A… 6…” We take this opportunity to look at Belmondo who has promptly and quietly fallen asleep, still upright in his chair with his hands folded on the metal table. The voice continues, “As such, today, we will have a special presentation from Doctor Hector Belmondo at 1000.” The automated voice spells out each syllable of the Doctor’s name with care.
Exercise 13
We get into the club successfully. There was much debate outside as to how to pass off those of us who aren’t 21 as 21. Some of us thought that to look 21 meant to look slutty while the rest of us thought it meant to look sophisticated. It’s hard to look either of those in jeans and Chucks. Most of us have little make-up on, another heated debate. We couldn’t collectively decide if lesbians wear less make-up to show they are above trying to attract somebody by covering their faces or if we as newly out homos should wear more war paint to assert our femininity in this viscous battleground, Rain, only of only three gay clubs in town. At least those of us who are already 21 only had one look to decide on.
The club was small; perhaps those who built it figured there aren’t that many of us. We split up. Those under 21 head for straight for the bar while the rest of us assess our surroundings. The dance floor is small, way too small for this type of club. We’re gays, we need to dance. The DJ pounds out the classics: Mariah Carey’s Fantasy, Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel, and the goddess of the gay male, aside from themselves, Cher. Before we can head to the porch, the crowd pushes us towards the left corner of the club. They are waiting. We, not completely sure of the traditions of this club or the rituals of our people, wait too.
The rest of our group joins us, drinks in hands.
“What are we waiting for?” Meredith asks.
“We don’t know,” we say.
“Is that a stripper pole?” Jill points out.
We look to where she’s pointing, and it is indeed a stripper pole surrounded by a cage.
The DJ comes on over the speakers. “Ladies, butches, and queens, welcome to Rain’s Sunday night amateur strip night! Think you got the balls? Think you got the moves? Think you got those Calvin Klein’s tight enough? First prize is 100 bucks!”
We look at each other, trying to hide the blood rushing to our cheeks. The first contestant gets up on the small stage and after sliding down the pole, he begins to clumsily take off his white t-shirt and jeans. There are scattered cheers from the crowd until he is only in his underwear.
“Well, if I ever needed proof I’m gay,” Jill says.
We laugh in agreement.
“I’m going up there,” Meredith says, downing the rest of her drink.
“You can’t go up there,” we tell her, half hopeful she’ll ignore us.
“If I win, drinks on me,” she shouts back as she walks up to give the DJ her name.
Justin Timberlake comes through the speakers and Meredith walks confidently to the pole.
We send out our catcalls and whistles, watching her slide out of her shirt as Justin claims to bring sexy back. The rest of the crowd joins us. We forget the 100 bucks, thinking only that we, too our up on that stripper pole, naked for everybody to see.
The club was small; perhaps those who built it figured there aren’t that many of us. We split up. Those under 21 head for straight for the bar while the rest of us assess our surroundings. The dance floor is small, way too small for this type of club. We’re gays, we need to dance. The DJ pounds out the classics: Mariah Carey’s Fantasy, Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel, and the goddess of the gay male, aside from themselves, Cher. Before we can head to the porch, the crowd pushes us towards the left corner of the club. They are waiting. We, not completely sure of the traditions of this club or the rituals of our people, wait too.
The rest of our group joins us, drinks in hands.
“What are we waiting for?” Meredith asks.
“We don’t know,” we say.
“Is that a stripper pole?” Jill points out.
We look to where she’s pointing, and it is indeed a stripper pole surrounded by a cage.
The DJ comes on over the speakers. “Ladies, butches, and queens, welcome to Rain’s Sunday night amateur strip night! Think you got the balls? Think you got the moves? Think you got those Calvin Klein’s tight enough? First prize is 100 bucks!”
We look at each other, trying to hide the blood rushing to our cheeks. The first contestant gets up on the small stage and after sliding down the pole, he begins to clumsily take off his white t-shirt and jeans. There are scattered cheers from the crowd until he is only in his underwear.
“Well, if I ever needed proof I’m gay,” Jill says.
We laugh in agreement.
“I’m going up there,” Meredith says, downing the rest of her drink.
“You can’t go up there,” we tell her, half hopeful she’ll ignore us.
“If I win, drinks on me,” she shouts back as she walks up to give the DJ her name.
Justin Timberlake comes through the speakers and Meredith walks confidently to the pole.
We send out our catcalls and whistles, watching her slide out of her shirt as Justin claims to bring sexy back. The rest of the crowd joins us. We forget the 100 bucks, thinking only that we, too our up on that stripper pole, naked for everybody to see.
Perspective
We plan the party to coincide with the full moon, on the hope such a detail will lure our friend Jasmine and some of her woo-woo sidekicks. There are no quibbles as to whose house. Jason and his wife Leanne are the only ones who have their own place, a spacious two-bedroom house in the hills with a backyard hidden from neighbors, a deck, and a cedar hot tub under a weeping willow tree.
The first of us arrive early, around six to help Leanne in the kitchen and Jason at the bar-be-que. We light candles claiming to keep mosquitoes away, and hang Leanne’s string of tiny Japanese lanterns over the picnic tables at her request. We marinate meat. We break into the white wine, saving the red for dinner and afterwards. We stare at the hot tub, assuring ourselves that this time, we will stay late enough to take a dip. (A soak in the hot tub is never offered before 2 a.m.) We check our cell phones to see if any of our friends have cancelled or confirmed or gotten lost. The men among us set the phones to vibrate and stuff them in our pockets. The women turn the sound up, changing the ringtones to the most hip-sounding, most likely to receive kudos ringtones we can find.
We filter in, a light sweat clinging to our skin from driving in warm weather. Lacey Krous waltzes in with a man none of us have ever seen. He looks like he’s walked off the cover of Details, dark gelled hair, a loud collared shirt, dress pants, and penny loafers. Those of us far enough away not to be noticed exchange meaningful glances. Glances that all say something to the jist of “Lacey’s got a new boy toy, eh?” Lacey glows, partly due to the fact that she and Mr. Details shared a joint in the car before coming in, partly due to the fact that her moisturizer creates a sheen, and partly due to the fact that she has not yet been intimate with Mr. Details and is reveling in anticipation.
We pretend to have serious conversations as Leanne, Todd, Jack and Susan bustle in and out of the kitchen. Kids, careers, lovers, ailing parents, spirituality, philosophy. Are you happy though? Are you really happy? Is this what you really want to be doing with your life? We drink in the atmosphere, the aromas, the heightened (in some cases, faked), enthusiasm.
“How many are we expecting?”
“I think this is it,” Leanne says, glancing over the crowd. About 14 of us. No Jasmine. Yet. We all silently observe this fact, but assure ourselves she’ll turn up later.
We fork chunks of steak, grilled salmon and garlic chicken into our mouths, watching their juices slowly spread across our plates. We savor ripe melon, sip strong wine, bite into soft bread rolls, and try, but fail, to daintily eat corn on the cob. By the end of the meal, the warm afterglow of the summer evening has slipped into chill. We stuff our hands into our pockets, rub our arms, hunch up our shoulders, or dash back inside for a sweater or coat. Jasmine shows up as we begin to clear the outdoor picnic tables, dumping the remnants of wine bottles into each other’s glasses.
“Hello? Hellllllllllllo!” Jasmine calls from the doorway, eliciting smiles. We greet, we exclaim. We greedily drink in her pronouncements: “Mary, your aura is just overwhelming! You’re shining, like a star! Joe, you’re in love, I can tell. And is that Edie? I had the strangest dream about you last month. We were…” She’s even thinner than we remember, almost skeletal. She’s brought four friends, three in paint splattered clothes, one in a loose linen shirt and black yoga pants. Leanne grabs a stack of clean plates from the cupboard and carefully arranges leftovers for the late guests. “Are any of you vegetarian? Vegan?”
“So what have you been up to?” we ask Jasmine. We all live vicariously through her artsy, flamboyant, spur of the moment whims. Envy her for refusing to be tied to a steady job, just one lover, a firm living situation…
“Well, I’ve taken up painting. Actually, we’re all just coming from a class. Gale here,” she points at the lean woman in yoga pants, “is a nude model.”
We turn on music. It’s discovered that Mr. Details has a hefty stash of E, and if you allude to the existence of this stash he will give you a pill, and politely accept any cash you’re willing to offer for it. Nearly all of us make our way over to Lacey and her new beau and procure ourselves a little bliss. The music is changed to a salsa mix and Jasmine insists on teaching anyone who will indulge her, the basics of the dance. We stand in a line, laughing and stumbling over each other, trying to keep up with the beat. Time slows and speeds. People start trailing their fingers over things—skin, the back of the couch, clothes, their hair. The painters start eyeing Jason and Leanne’s living room critically.
“What a beautiful room.”
“The light from the chandelier and that lamp in the corner are making amazing shadows. See? Look at that, by the bookcase.”
“The set-up is quite nice too.”
“Get a figure on that table, and you’ve got a lovely backdrop.”
“We need to paint this.”
“Definitely.”
“Certainly.”
We’re all in a pretty good mood when Jasmine announces the painters want to hold an art class in the living room. Gale has volunteered to model. They’ve got extra canvases and at the very least, large sheets of white paper we can all draw on. Why the hell not?
(obviously, this scene is in progress – not done yet!)
The first of us arrive early, around six to help Leanne in the kitchen and Jason at the bar-be-que. We light candles claiming to keep mosquitoes away, and hang Leanne’s string of tiny Japanese lanterns over the picnic tables at her request. We marinate meat. We break into the white wine, saving the red for dinner and afterwards. We stare at the hot tub, assuring ourselves that this time, we will stay late enough to take a dip. (A soak in the hot tub is never offered before 2 a.m.) We check our cell phones to see if any of our friends have cancelled or confirmed or gotten lost. The men among us set the phones to vibrate and stuff them in our pockets. The women turn the sound up, changing the ringtones to the most hip-sounding, most likely to receive kudos ringtones we can find.
We filter in, a light sweat clinging to our skin from driving in warm weather. Lacey Krous waltzes in with a man none of us have ever seen. He looks like he’s walked off the cover of Details, dark gelled hair, a loud collared shirt, dress pants, and penny loafers. Those of us far enough away not to be noticed exchange meaningful glances. Glances that all say something to the jist of “Lacey’s got a new boy toy, eh?” Lacey glows, partly due to the fact that she and Mr. Details shared a joint in the car before coming in, partly due to the fact that her moisturizer creates a sheen, and partly due to the fact that she has not yet been intimate with Mr. Details and is reveling in anticipation.
We pretend to have serious conversations as Leanne, Todd, Jack and Susan bustle in and out of the kitchen. Kids, careers, lovers, ailing parents, spirituality, philosophy. Are you happy though? Are you really happy? Is this what you really want to be doing with your life? We drink in the atmosphere, the aromas, the heightened (in some cases, faked), enthusiasm.
“How many are we expecting?”
“I think this is it,” Leanne says, glancing over the crowd. About 14 of us. No Jasmine. Yet. We all silently observe this fact, but assure ourselves she’ll turn up later.
We fork chunks of steak, grilled salmon and garlic chicken into our mouths, watching their juices slowly spread across our plates. We savor ripe melon, sip strong wine, bite into soft bread rolls, and try, but fail, to daintily eat corn on the cob. By the end of the meal, the warm afterglow of the summer evening has slipped into chill. We stuff our hands into our pockets, rub our arms, hunch up our shoulders, or dash back inside for a sweater or coat. Jasmine shows up as we begin to clear the outdoor picnic tables, dumping the remnants of wine bottles into each other’s glasses.
“Hello? Hellllllllllllo!” Jasmine calls from the doorway, eliciting smiles. We greet, we exclaim. We greedily drink in her pronouncements: “Mary, your aura is just overwhelming! You’re shining, like a star! Joe, you’re in love, I can tell. And is that Edie? I had the strangest dream about you last month. We were…” She’s even thinner than we remember, almost skeletal. She’s brought four friends, three in paint splattered clothes, one in a loose linen shirt and black yoga pants. Leanne grabs a stack of clean plates from the cupboard and carefully arranges leftovers for the late guests. “Are any of you vegetarian? Vegan?”
“So what have you been up to?” we ask Jasmine. We all live vicariously through her artsy, flamboyant, spur of the moment whims. Envy her for refusing to be tied to a steady job, just one lover, a firm living situation…
“Well, I’ve taken up painting. Actually, we’re all just coming from a class. Gale here,” she points at the lean woman in yoga pants, “is a nude model.”
We turn on music. It’s discovered that Mr. Details has a hefty stash of E, and if you allude to the existence of this stash he will give you a pill, and politely accept any cash you’re willing to offer for it. Nearly all of us make our way over to Lacey and her new beau and procure ourselves a little bliss. The music is changed to a salsa mix and Jasmine insists on teaching anyone who will indulge her, the basics of the dance. We stand in a line, laughing and stumbling over each other, trying to keep up with the beat. Time slows and speeds. People start trailing their fingers over things—skin, the back of the couch, clothes, their hair. The painters start eyeing Jason and Leanne’s living room critically.
“What a beautiful room.”
“The light from the chandelier and that lamp in the corner are making amazing shadows. See? Look at that, by the bookcase.”
“The set-up is quite nice too.”
“Get a figure on that table, and you’ve got a lovely backdrop.”
“We need to paint this.”
“Definitely.”
“Certainly.”
We’re all in a pretty good mood when Jasmine announces the painters want to hold an art class in the living room. Gale has volunteered to model. They’ve got extra canvases and at the very least, large sheets of white paper we can all draw on. Why the hell not?
(obviously, this scene is in progress – not done yet!)
The Golden Woodpecker
Isaac Smith
Craft Friction
#13
The Golden Woodpecker
We watch from afar, the lights, cracking, invisible. Our eyes closed and the heat from each blast pushing us back, just a bit. “It’s like surfing,” someone says, “or standing next to a freight train.” We’ve come from rural and urban ghettoes, from doublewides and mountain passes, from single mothers and marbled mansions, from mac and cheese and chicken teriyaki, from cakes and cookies and bare cupboards littered with mouse shit, from overbearing fathers to ghost papas and stepdads, from great vast expanses of silence and from the immense din of siblings and hungry dogs racing down dirty hallways. From everything piled into a garage sale: jeans frayed and weak in the crotch, books ear marked and unfinished, black graduation gowns folded in clear plastic, highchairs yellowed and cracked, cassette tapes with the white worded titles partially worn away.
Now we are in the war. “The shit” is what we like to call it, sometimes literally, sometimes sarcastically, and sometimes with great enthusiasm. “The shit! This is the shit!” We’ve had dreams, as children of being here, in this very place, with our baby cheeks pressed against the heat of battle. “It feels good doesn’t it? Like putting your face against the microwave while the potato pops and faintly sizzles.” But this is better, we all agree, silently to ourselves. Some of us get erections, in honor of the shit, the war, our prepubescent dreams of sweating in the jungle with death trying to dry hump us around every dip and turn. With erections we feel immortal and take each distant blast like a mini orgasm. We even hold hands with each other and laugh. We call each other gay and punch each other hard whenever the opportunity arises. Sometimes we even fall in love with each, muscled behind the softness of a glance and we cry with long letters home because we know nothing will be the same.
We point towards the explosions and say, “In a few hours we’ll be where those blasts are right now.” We feel ready like specialized rats, trained to maze through the distinct body memory procedures. Inside we might loose our shit but outside our body will surface and perform, like a refined dancer, spinning little shards of death. We all wear the same thing, called a battle dress uniform or b.d.u. for short. The same color- digicam, a series of squares with different shades of green and tan. Our clothes fit loosely around our arms and legs. We like the familiarity of knowing how we all feel with our b.d.u.’s on. The way they stick and cling to certain parts when the sun stands dead center and beats at our brains like a bloated golden woodpecker.
Sometimes we say weird things when we’ve been waiting a long time for orders. “Doesn’t the sun just look fuckable today?” “God I’d like to shoot one of those rat ass kids. Right in the head. Always begging for our water. What? Their country didn’t have water until we came? Fuck them and fuck their shit smelling country.” We joke a lot. It’s how we pass the time. We play with dead puppies, trap each other in the shitter, and take lots of pictures of corpses. Lots of pictures. They become our screensavers, our proud little psuedo-family photo albums. “This is maggot face Joe.” “This is headless bloated man.” “This is Crispy. Notice his big smile.” “Shit man he must had a good death.” “Yeah, maybe I should call him Crispy the Masturbating Clown.” We get letters from third graders in North Dakota who say, “Thank you for keeping America safe.” Usually they spell safe without the e and a few times they use a k instead of a c in America. We joke about sending them back a bunch of our corpse photos as a way of saying thank you. We all pretty much hate kids. American or otherwise. It’s because most of us are still kids ourselves. We misspell some of the same words as the third graders. The kids like to call us heroes in their letters but we don’t think about being heroes. Mostly we think about not getting shot in the dick. That’s a big fear among us all, getting shot in the dick would be the worse. Sometimes we have nightmares about getting shot in the dick. We wake up holding ourselves and whimpering about our dicks. “Is it missing?” We ask? “Shut up! You were just having a nightmare. You douche bag.”
We don’t give a fuck. We’ve come to kill the golden woodpecker and everything else. And at night when we are about to fall asleep we even admit, that we secretly fantasize about our own death. Death is righteous. “Death is the shit.” “Bam!” We point our fingers at each other and say, “Bam!” We pretend to be comfortable with death. We have words penciled under our breath for the moment when we expire (hopefully not from a shot in the dick). Simple words, like “fuck you death.” We can’t lose. And if we do, the flags go half staff and bullets will be wrapped in velvet boxes for our weeping mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, children, pets, cousins, hometowns, first kisses, coaches, all the third graders in South Dakota and lastly our weapons. The metal we so seriously cuddled and babied when the world seemed completely crazy like anything could happen, anything, absolutely anything.
We always want to leave but we never want to leave the company of each other. Even the guys we call, “Retards” and “Semen Shots.” We are those men and in the end we all look up at the sun, the golden woodpecker and think, “It’s looking pretty fuckable today. Wouldn’t a say?” “Yeah.” The answer is always the same.
Craft Friction
#13
The Golden Woodpecker
We watch from afar, the lights, cracking, invisible. Our eyes closed and the heat from each blast pushing us back, just a bit. “It’s like surfing,” someone says, “or standing next to a freight train.” We’ve come from rural and urban ghettoes, from doublewides and mountain passes, from single mothers and marbled mansions, from mac and cheese and chicken teriyaki, from cakes and cookies and bare cupboards littered with mouse shit, from overbearing fathers to ghost papas and stepdads, from great vast expanses of silence and from the immense din of siblings and hungry dogs racing down dirty hallways. From everything piled into a garage sale: jeans frayed and weak in the crotch, books ear marked and unfinished, black graduation gowns folded in clear plastic, highchairs yellowed and cracked, cassette tapes with the white worded titles partially worn away.
Now we are in the war. “The shit” is what we like to call it, sometimes literally, sometimes sarcastically, and sometimes with great enthusiasm. “The shit! This is the shit!” We’ve had dreams, as children of being here, in this very place, with our baby cheeks pressed against the heat of battle. “It feels good doesn’t it? Like putting your face against the microwave while the potato pops and faintly sizzles.” But this is better, we all agree, silently to ourselves. Some of us get erections, in honor of the shit, the war, our prepubescent dreams of sweating in the jungle with death trying to dry hump us around every dip and turn. With erections we feel immortal and take each distant blast like a mini orgasm. We even hold hands with each other and laugh. We call each other gay and punch each other hard whenever the opportunity arises. Sometimes we even fall in love with each, muscled behind the softness of a glance and we cry with long letters home because we know nothing will be the same.
We point towards the explosions and say, “In a few hours we’ll be where those blasts are right now.” We feel ready like specialized rats, trained to maze through the distinct body memory procedures. Inside we might loose our shit but outside our body will surface and perform, like a refined dancer, spinning little shards of death. We all wear the same thing, called a battle dress uniform or b.d.u. for short. The same color- digicam, a series of squares with different shades of green and tan. Our clothes fit loosely around our arms and legs. We like the familiarity of knowing how we all feel with our b.d.u.’s on. The way they stick and cling to certain parts when the sun stands dead center and beats at our brains like a bloated golden woodpecker.
Sometimes we say weird things when we’ve been waiting a long time for orders. “Doesn’t the sun just look fuckable today?” “God I’d like to shoot one of those rat ass kids. Right in the head. Always begging for our water. What? Their country didn’t have water until we came? Fuck them and fuck their shit smelling country.” We joke a lot. It’s how we pass the time. We play with dead puppies, trap each other in the shitter, and take lots of pictures of corpses. Lots of pictures. They become our screensavers, our proud little psuedo-family photo albums. “This is maggot face Joe.” “This is headless bloated man.” “This is Crispy. Notice his big smile.” “Shit man he must had a good death.” “Yeah, maybe I should call him Crispy the Masturbating Clown.” We get letters from third graders in North Dakota who say, “Thank you for keeping America safe.” Usually they spell safe without the e and a few times they use a k instead of a c in America. We joke about sending them back a bunch of our corpse photos as a way of saying thank you. We all pretty much hate kids. American or otherwise. It’s because most of us are still kids ourselves. We misspell some of the same words as the third graders. The kids like to call us heroes in their letters but we don’t think about being heroes. Mostly we think about not getting shot in the dick. That’s a big fear among us all, getting shot in the dick would be the worse. Sometimes we have nightmares about getting shot in the dick. We wake up holding ourselves and whimpering about our dicks. “Is it missing?” We ask? “Shut up! You were just having a nightmare. You douche bag.”
We don’t give a fuck. We’ve come to kill the golden woodpecker and everything else. And at night when we are about to fall asleep we even admit, that we secretly fantasize about our own death. Death is righteous. “Death is the shit.” “Bam!” We point our fingers at each other and say, “Bam!” We pretend to be comfortable with death. We have words penciled under our breath for the moment when we expire (hopefully not from a shot in the dick). Simple words, like “fuck you death.” We can’t lose. And if we do, the flags go half staff and bullets will be wrapped in velvet boxes for our weeping mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, children, pets, cousins, hometowns, first kisses, coaches, all the third graders in South Dakota and lastly our weapons. The metal we so seriously cuddled and babied when the world seemed completely crazy like anything could happen, anything, absolutely anything.
We always want to leave but we never want to leave the company of each other. Even the guys we call, “Retards” and “Semen Shots.” We are those men and in the end we all look up at the sun, the golden woodpecker and think, “It’s looking pretty fuckable today. Wouldn’t a say?” “Yeah.” The answer is always the same.
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