Hey Myself. (let's not kid each other here) :)
So the big reading at Columbia went down the other night. I was the last reader of the evening, which I want to think is an honor, but might just be because I told them I was going to be late. Whatever the reason, it worked out great. There's lots of free booze at Columbia, that's one of the things they do really well over there, so everyone was pretty loosey goosey by the time I read and I really think they enjoyed it. I got a lot of really serious compliments afterwards and I can't tell you how good that feels.
I was just talking with a friend today about how graduate writing programs are such dour affairs...We walk around all day talking about how much of a lottery it is to crack into the publishing world and "make it". It's really a downer to any kind of ambition. There's obviously a lot of reasons why it happens, among them pure capitalism and certainly a large measure of false modesty and self defeat. But it's pretty ridiculous when you think about it. My friend and I resolved to be more positive, to try and change the "suffering under the burden of our calling" mindset that roams the halls like a frikin ghost.
So, it was good to get some validation from my peers. Plus, I wasn't sure how the dialogue in the story would read out loud, and it went over really well. I read a slightly different version of Cameo, but before that I read a story called "Sloth" that I haven't posted up here because it's always been in a state of flux. But my workshop last semester loved it, and now that I read it again, it does a lot of things I really really like. I imagine I have to post it here now with the big buildup.
Note: No profanity! Yaay. it was beginning to feel like a shipyard in here.
Note #2: Lots of italicized dialogue that might not come through on this stupid platform. Should be pretty apparent though
Note #3: This story was taken from some interesting real life experiences,(namely being on a boat cruise in Brazil) and I used my name and the name of an old friend in it. I have this weird thing with authenticity, and even though none of the people in the story actually did anything near what happens in the story, when I just make up names it seems fake. Maybe I'm doomed to use the names of people I know and care about, even if the stories have nothing to do with them. Makes it easier to write for me somehow. Enough notes, enjoy.
Story #8
Sloth
In the morning a wooden dinghy pulled alongside with a sputtering motor. It was two kids with a three-toed sloth. The sloth was cinched around the girl like a baby, ear to ear with her. It was as big as her whole torso with its arms around her neck and the fur of it greenish with fungus and matted and dark down on it’s back.
Gershon came out to the back deck and spoke to the kids. His portugese sounded quick and it was early. But it was warm and I was watching the kids. They smiled and the girl shrugged the sloth towards Gershon. The boy held the dingy alongside against the pull of the river. I went down to the cabin to wake Joanna. The sloth looked like something worth being woken up for.
I had a romantic plan to kiss her til she woke, but she was up, sitting up in the bed curling loose hairs between her fingernails.
When we came back up Gershon had the sloth and the dinghy was tied to the yacht with both kids standing in it, steady on their feet. The girl looked so thin and frail without the sloth in her arms and the boy smiled up at us, probably because by now he knew the trip had been worth it. They were dark kids, and short, and the boy had missing teeth.
When Joanna saw the sloth in Gershon’s arms she sucked in her breath,
Oh, is that what I think it is? Oh, look at its little bum!
It was part of her charm to always seem surprised. I had told her already about the sloth, and about the way it looked in the arms of the girl.
Oh, Gershon, can I hold him, is it dangerous?
No, it is super safe.
He reached behind his head to loose the sloth’s claws, to peel it off of him. It moved slowly. Everything about it was languid, like it was trapped in solution. Gershon too moved slowly when he took its arms from around his neck. He went up to Joanna and stood by her side, shrugging the weight of the sloth off of him, towards her. She took it in the same way. They both took their time in the exchange, both infected by the languid care the sloth seemed to give to the world. It was amazing to watch. The river going by regular speed and the breeze, and their delicacy with the sloth in a bubble of slowness that seemed to cover only them, with the sloth reaching one arm up around Joanna’s neck, and then the other, cinching to her torso in the same way it had held Gershon and the girl.
When Joanna had it she tried to bounce it like a baby. You could see the sloth tighten on her with the bouncing.
It’s so warm and so strong. Aaron you’ve got to hold him. He’s squeezing me everywhere.
He probably thinks you’re a tree trunk.
No, he knows me. Then to the sloth, to the back of its head, You know me don’t you? You know just who I am.
I turned to Gershon,
Gershon, is it a boy or a girl? Will you ask them?
With certainty.
Then he turned to the kids, steady in the boat and spoke to them in portugese. The boy answered in Portugese and I could tell it was choppier for him, a second language. He made a gesture to the sloth and laughed and Gershon laughed too, then turned to us to translate.
It is a girl, he says. He says it is clearly a girl because it has no…you know…
Gershon looked sheepish and did not continue.
And where did they find it Gershon, will you ask them?
He answered me without asking them,
They live in the jungle all along the river, super high in the high jungle.
Oh, but will you ask them particularly where they found this one? This particular one?
With certainty.
Then he spoke again to the kids and the boy again answered in rutty portugese, making gestures high above his head and then pointing to the girl. Gershon turned again to translate,
In the trees near their home, he found it. It was very high and he thought it was a nest of bees on the tree trunk. He climbed up the tree and gave it to his sister. This is his sister.
I looked at the boy and the girl. The boy looked at me and was proud.
And Gershon, do they live here? Do they take the sloth out to visit all the charters?
Yes, they live on the river. They are from a village closer to Manaus, I believe. It seems that way from their speak, from the way they speak. To take the sloth out is a normal thing. Those that want to hold it give them a small money or pay them to take away the boat trash, the trash from the boat. But don’t worry, it is taken care of. Everyone is happy. Yes?
Joanna spoke,
I’m only happy if Aaron holds him. You hold him, hon.
Love, it’s a girl.
I know. Here, you take him.
It was also part of her charm to act contrary. To fight those little battles, and win them.
She came up to me with the sloth in her arms. She moved across the white deck surface of the yacht. She braced at my side in the same way Gershon had done with her. I could smell the sloth, mold like old pillows and the smell of the river and the tops of trees. It was the strangest thing when it touched me, the fur more coarse than I had imagined, and I felt a tinge of careful slowness in me in the immediate presence of it. Like a whim. Like the smell of the sloth brought from far away on a breeze.
Wait, Jo. I don’t think I want to. I know it won’t make sense but I think I’d just like to watch you hold her. I guess it almost seems sacred.
She stood to process this, the sloth still touching my side, the slowness of it all around us, like humidity. Joanna spoke down, to the sloth.
It’s because he knows we’ve got a good thing going, you and me. Don’t you think we got a good thing going?
The sloth didn’t answer. They stood there and I stepped away and Joanna moved across the white deck surface of the yacht to where the dinghy was tied. She moved like she knew I was watching her.
She made eye contact with the girl and the girl reached up for the sloth. The sloth, on its own, took her arms from around Joanna’s neck, one at a time, and reached for the girl. It must have known her by her smell. Joanna leaned down and bumped her hips outwards to give the sloth something to stand on as it reached. For a moment, with its arms around the neck of the girl and its feet on Joanna, braced, the sloth stretched between them like a conduit of slowness. Like a filament. Stretched between the two of them and in that moment, I swear it, a power was loosed, what I had seen with Gershon and Joanna, what I had felt when its coarse fur touched my skin. A languid bomb of slowness epicentered out from their connection to swamp that whole scene.
The river almost stopped moving, it slowly scraped its wide banks. The mud of it eternally churned the shallows brown in slow eddys. The million leaves of the jungle all along that corridor of water stopped oscillating in the breeze and instead moved like slow dancers, back and forth. A split tailed swallow hung in the air above the river.
You could hold this sloth and stop everything. You could hold this sloth and the world would stop. You could carry this sloth wrapped around your chest like a time machine, calming your blood, making your heart beat slow enough to live forever.
It was the most beautiful thing. The ageless kids in the dinghy smiling and braced imperceptibly against the not-pull of the stopped river. Gershon caught in a smile he couldn’t erase because it would take an eternity to do so. And Joanna, her wit and suppleness braced on the deck in all youth forever passing that kind talisman to the girl. And the smell of the river and the smell of the tops of the trees.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Manila, no envelopes
Call it reverse jet lag, my body preparing to go back to east coast time after two weeks of Malaysia and Philippine time (my father and I building our USANA business).
I should be so exhausted. Up 24 hours now after a text from a NY friend (not knowing I was in Asia) woke me up at 3am yesterday. Functions all day today with the USANA people in Manila. Such wonderful people. Tonight Bob (the venerable daddy-o) and I gave a presentation to a group of 150 of our newest Philippine associates. Man these people love dinner parties, 5 hour dinner parties, and they love raffles. And they are such a humble and incredible people. All travel opens eyes, but travel to countries like Malaysia and the Philippines, where most of the people live below the poverty line, is especially humbling, eye opening. Not in the ways you'd expect either, Not because I see poverty, but because I see so many people overcoming it through hard work, a work ethic that makes Bob and I cringe when we compare it to the standard American Work ethic. I mean, i've never seen people as hungry for success as they are here and in Kuala Lumpur. It's really stunning.
Highlights:
Waking up in KL every morning at 6 when the Muslim call for prayers would come blaring across loudspeakers from the mosque at city center park. Something powerful and sacred about a call to prayer in a language you don't know, the singing and intonations fuzzed and partially muted through the walls and windows.
Sneaking a break with My dad during a seminar last monday in KL, in an abandoned conference room. Him passing out on the floor and me on a set of chairs, just totally worn out from work and from so many goodwill dinners and functions arranged by all our generous hosts. Then waking up with a perfect set of memories of a cameo factory I visited in June on a vacation. Like I had dreamt it. But I hadn't. I wrote it all down on my Iphone and then revised it a bit, took it away a bit from the direct personal level of experience and, tadaa, a short story. Timely too, cuz I have a huge reading for all the columbia writing students/faculty on the thursday I get back, and I was beginning to despair at having new stuff to read. We'll see if I like it after a full night's sleep. I'll post it here, Enjoy, -Aaron
Cameo
In the bus heavy with old people, with the potholes bumping us all along. And out the window where I was looking the light blue of the water and the breakers and the coral flashing by like an old filmstrip, broken by moments of thick banana leaves and the raised capillary roots of banyan trees.
We stopped in the gravel parking lot of a roadside cameo workshop. It was on the tour. The sound of gravel under the tires when we finally stopped. All of us getting gingerly off the air-conditioned bus and the blast of humidity. And most of us then shuffling into the cameo shop to be back in the AC again, but there was none and then men fanning themselves with their tourbooks and women taking off their straw hats with floral patterned bands and fanning them.
The owner was happy, he had a deal with the buses I guess. He met us in the lobby and directed us to a table in the corner with all the shells laid out on it. Conch, snail. In pinks and greens and indigos. Then standing behind the table with cursory waves of his hands over the shells, and the being in the family for generations, and the shells laid out in front of him in various stages of preparation, some full cameos, some with half formed women’s faces peeking out in profile from the smooth surfaces. And some of the women, the ones that lived wealthy lives, who had really traveled, peeling off from the margins of the crowd before he had finished.
Then with a sweep of his hand turning us to the showroom where what must have been his grandaughters were waiting behind the glass display tables. The air moving with hats and tourbooks and the spinning of an off balance acacia wood fan. And throughout that afternoon the glances of old women at mirrors to see themselves peeking out in profile.
When we came out the driver sitting on the concrete parking curb saying yes, yes ready to go? Yes. And putting out his cigarette on the concrete before he stood and looked us over to see who he could name. Mr Thompson. Miss Shirley.
Back to the air conditioning and the potholes, the gentle curve of the island road that, if you took it long enough, would eventually take you back to where you started. That was where the tour ended. But before that, the looking out the window at the banyan roots and the banana leaves and every once in a while peeking out, on cue, the indigo blue of the lagoon and the deeper blue beyond the breakers, and the women that bought cameos swearing they looked just like that when they were young.
I should be so exhausted. Up 24 hours now after a text from a NY friend (not knowing I was in Asia) woke me up at 3am yesterday. Functions all day today with the USANA people in Manila. Such wonderful people. Tonight Bob (the venerable daddy-o) and I gave a presentation to a group of 150 of our newest Philippine associates. Man these people love dinner parties, 5 hour dinner parties, and they love raffles. And they are such a humble and incredible people. All travel opens eyes, but travel to countries like Malaysia and the Philippines, where most of the people live below the poverty line, is especially humbling, eye opening. Not in the ways you'd expect either, Not because I see poverty, but because I see so many people overcoming it through hard work, a work ethic that makes Bob and I cringe when we compare it to the standard American Work ethic. I mean, i've never seen people as hungry for success as they are here and in Kuala Lumpur. It's really stunning.
Highlights:
Waking up in KL every morning at 6 when the Muslim call for prayers would come blaring across loudspeakers from the mosque at city center park. Something powerful and sacred about a call to prayer in a language you don't know, the singing and intonations fuzzed and partially muted through the walls and windows.
Sneaking a break with My dad during a seminar last monday in KL, in an abandoned conference room. Him passing out on the floor and me on a set of chairs, just totally worn out from work and from so many goodwill dinners and functions arranged by all our generous hosts. Then waking up with a perfect set of memories of a cameo factory I visited in June on a vacation. Like I had dreamt it. But I hadn't. I wrote it all down on my Iphone and then revised it a bit, took it away a bit from the direct personal level of experience and, tadaa, a short story. Timely too, cuz I have a huge reading for all the columbia writing students/faculty on the thursday I get back, and I was beginning to despair at having new stuff to read. We'll see if I like it after a full night's sleep. I'll post it here, Enjoy, -Aaron
Cameo
In the bus heavy with old people, with the potholes bumping us all along. And out the window where I was looking the light blue of the water and the breakers and the coral flashing by like an old filmstrip, broken by moments of thick banana leaves and the raised capillary roots of banyan trees.
We stopped in the gravel parking lot of a roadside cameo workshop. It was on the tour. The sound of gravel under the tires when we finally stopped. All of us getting gingerly off the air-conditioned bus and the blast of humidity. And most of us then shuffling into the cameo shop to be back in the AC again, but there was none and then men fanning themselves with their tourbooks and women taking off their straw hats with floral patterned bands and fanning them.
The owner was happy, he had a deal with the buses I guess. He met us in the lobby and directed us to a table in the corner with all the shells laid out on it. Conch, snail. In pinks and greens and indigos. Then standing behind the table with cursory waves of his hands over the shells, and the being in the family for generations, and the shells laid out in front of him in various stages of preparation, some full cameos, some with half formed women’s faces peeking out in profile from the smooth surfaces. And some of the women, the ones that lived wealthy lives, who had really traveled, peeling off from the margins of the crowd before he had finished.
Then with a sweep of his hand turning us to the showroom where what must have been his grandaughters were waiting behind the glass display tables. The air moving with hats and tourbooks and the spinning of an off balance acacia wood fan. And throughout that afternoon the glances of old women at mirrors to see themselves peeking out in profile.
When we came out the driver sitting on the concrete parking curb saying yes, yes ready to go? Yes. And putting out his cigarette on the concrete before he stood and looked us over to see who he could name. Mr Thompson. Miss Shirley.
Back to the air conditioning and the potholes, the gentle curve of the island road that, if you took it long enough, would eventually take you back to where you started. That was where the tour ended. But before that, the looking out the window at the banyan roots and the banana leaves and every once in a while peeking out, on cue, the indigo blue of the lagoon and the deeper blue beyond the breakers, and the women that bought cameos swearing they looked just like that when they were young.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Folk Bloggin' and Eubelio's Story.
When I went to Guatemala as part of my MA Thesis research I spent a lot of time collecting stories from the muchachos, the local workers of the archaeological site I was at. They weren't just stories, they were myths and tales and aphorisms; they contained the combined wisdom of their lives I think. Very deep stuff shared in a simple format.
I tried to compile a few of them with my own poems and stories and that became my master's thesis. I just re-read it the other day for the first time really since I turned it in (Aug 08). Luckily it still was something I could be proud of. That's a good feeling.
The thing that was so weird about my experience in Guatemala was that, despite my most earnest attempts, there was no way I was ever going to be anything more than an outsider to those muchachos. Their stories weren't my stories, and never could be. So even though I recorded them, there was an inevitable distance in my retelling of them.
I'm almost finished with my first semester now in Columbia's MFA fiction program and one of my classes has focused on Faulkner and the Latin American writers (think Boom) that came after him and named him as a major influence. That class has proven to be an interesting synergy between the myths, tales, fables of Central and South America and the Americana myths and folk fables of which Faulkner is the master. It seems that one thing Marquez and Rulfo and Vargas Llosa (and others) really found liberating in Faulkner was the literary permission to dive into their cultural psyche, and to do so with a deep level of experimentation with technique.
And it's been a revelation for me too, my experiences with the stories I heard in Guatemala, and now with these novels I'm reading has opened up a serious creative can of worms for me. I find myself wanting to write about my myths, as a way of using a simple form to get to deeper things. Everybody has a lot of history, things in the cauldron that deserve a churning. Among other things I have my Mormonism, and though its a relatively young religion, it claims a restoration of some ancient cultural concepts. Plus, it already has it's exodus story.
But I'm also part of the deep but dying culture of Americana, and I'm finding myself drawn to explain that as well. For example: I found an online archive of Arkansas folk songs, most sung without accompaniment and all recorded in the 50's to early 60's. You can find it at http://www.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/songs.html if you're interested. These songs are beautiful, most of them are lost. Everyone who sang them is dead. Most of them are expressions of faith, or admonitions on how to live. There's got to be at least 300 of them.
There's that part in Odysseus (another simple tale that touches on the deepest things) where he goes to Hades, and he meets Tiresias, and Ajax, and finally his mother comes to speak to him. They all admonish him and mourn with him. That was my favorite part of the epic. When I listened to a bunch of these folk songs I got the same feeling, eerily so as they are sung without accompaniment. I got the sense that I was being admonished, and pleaded with, but most important I felt like I was able to communicate, commiserate in the ephemeral nature of humanity. I think the best stories get to the heart of all those things.
So, I've been writing stories with those songs as a touchstone, and I'm really loving it. Hopefully it will coalesce into a project where I can use the songs, their tone and even meter to inform stories, and then I can build a connection/accretion of similar themes across stories in a collection with the songs. It's interesting. I'll post some soon. Right now, to end this Mammoth post, I'll paste a story from my MA thesis. It's the part I think held up the best. It's a verbatim story I heard from one of the muchachos, and I think it illustrates how strongly they believe in myth. I've come to really envy that conviction. Beware: Language.
Eubelio, tell me a story.
We are inside Pinturas, refilling a tunnel with stone and mortar. I need a running distraction. Eubelio has a body odor so horrible. Like every sin he ever committed was distilled into sweat and now leaks out his pores. He begins,
Here is a story. In a village there were two secret lovers. They met in town and the man said "meet me at the secret pool in the jungle at dusk." "But we must go separate to the pool" the woman said, "so the village doesn't notice. If you get there first, wait for me, and if I get there first I will wait for you."
When the man got to the secret pool he saw his lover from the back. She was bathing in the water. He moved close to her to heat her up, because you know, when you are with your lover you first have to heat her up. So he is heating her up and whispers "lets make love" and she says, "not here, not yet. lets move a little further into the brush" you see, she is not his lover. She is la Llorona, you know, the crying woman with long hair and the face of a horse. Maybe you do not know. He is in her spell and they move deep into the brush and he begins to make love to her. Suddenly he breaks from the spell and he realizes he is making love to a pile of cow shit. Thlop, thlop, thlop he is fucking this huge pile of cowshit. And that is how he died, with his dick in the cowshit.
Eubelio, what is the moral of that story?
It is not that kind of story. It is a true story.
Tell me another true story.
OK. When I am drunk I always end up at the cemetery. My woman is there, in the ground. When I am drunk I bring her candles and I lie on top of her grave. One time it was so dark and I got to the cemetery and death was there sitting in the branch of a tree. Death was hideous, with a black face, horrible to look at. You know how to save the life of a sick loved one? Remind them how ugly death is and they will be too scared to die. So I am drunk and even with death there I lie on top of the grave and I say to my woman, "woman, do you want me to spend the night here with you. do you want me to lie here with you". Suddenly I hear this moan "mmmmmmmmm" and I ask again, "woman, do you want me to spend the night here with you...." and again "mmmmmmmmm". One more time I ask, "woman do you want me to spend the night with you my love"....."mmmmmmm" and the sound was so close I got frightened and ran from the cemetery to my mothers house and cried when I told her what happened.
I tried to compile a few of them with my own poems and stories and that became my master's thesis. I just re-read it the other day for the first time really since I turned it in (Aug 08). Luckily it still was something I could be proud of. That's a good feeling.
The thing that was so weird about my experience in Guatemala was that, despite my most earnest attempts, there was no way I was ever going to be anything more than an outsider to those muchachos. Their stories weren't my stories, and never could be. So even though I recorded them, there was an inevitable distance in my retelling of them.
I'm almost finished with my first semester now in Columbia's MFA fiction program and one of my classes has focused on Faulkner and the Latin American writers (think Boom) that came after him and named him as a major influence. That class has proven to be an interesting synergy between the myths, tales, fables of Central and South America and the Americana myths and folk fables of which Faulkner is the master. It seems that one thing Marquez and Rulfo and Vargas Llosa (and others) really found liberating in Faulkner was the literary permission to dive into their cultural psyche, and to do so with a deep level of experimentation with technique.
And it's been a revelation for me too, my experiences with the stories I heard in Guatemala, and now with these novels I'm reading has opened up a serious creative can of worms for me. I find myself wanting to write about my myths, as a way of using a simple form to get to deeper things. Everybody has a lot of history, things in the cauldron that deserve a churning. Among other things I have my Mormonism, and though its a relatively young religion, it claims a restoration of some ancient cultural concepts. Plus, it already has it's exodus story.
But I'm also part of the deep but dying culture of Americana, and I'm finding myself drawn to explain that as well. For example: I found an online archive of Arkansas folk songs, most sung without accompaniment and all recorded in the 50's to early 60's. You can find it at http://www.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/songs.html if you're interested. These songs are beautiful, most of them are lost. Everyone who sang them is dead. Most of them are expressions of faith, or admonitions on how to live. There's got to be at least 300 of them.
There's that part in Odysseus (another simple tale that touches on the deepest things) where he goes to Hades, and he meets Tiresias, and Ajax, and finally his mother comes to speak to him. They all admonish him and mourn with him. That was my favorite part of the epic. When I listened to a bunch of these folk songs I got the same feeling, eerily so as they are sung without accompaniment. I got the sense that I was being admonished, and pleaded with, but most important I felt like I was able to communicate, commiserate in the ephemeral nature of humanity. I think the best stories get to the heart of all those things.
So, I've been writing stories with those songs as a touchstone, and I'm really loving it. Hopefully it will coalesce into a project where I can use the songs, their tone and even meter to inform stories, and then I can build a connection/accretion of similar themes across stories in a collection with the songs. It's interesting. I'll post some soon. Right now, to end this Mammoth post, I'll paste a story from my MA thesis. It's the part I think held up the best. It's a verbatim story I heard from one of the muchachos, and I think it illustrates how strongly they believe in myth. I've come to really envy that conviction. Beware: Language.
Eubelio, tell me a story.
We are inside Pinturas, refilling a tunnel with stone and mortar. I need a running distraction. Eubelio has a body odor so horrible. Like every sin he ever committed was distilled into sweat and now leaks out his pores. He begins,
Here is a story. In a village there were two secret lovers. They met in town and the man said "meet me at the secret pool in the jungle at dusk." "But we must go separate to the pool" the woman said, "so the village doesn't notice. If you get there first, wait for me, and if I get there first I will wait for you."
When the man got to the secret pool he saw his lover from the back. She was bathing in the water. He moved close to her to heat her up, because you know, when you are with your lover you first have to heat her up. So he is heating her up and whispers "lets make love" and she says, "not here, not yet. lets move a little further into the brush" you see, she is not his lover. She is la Llorona, you know, the crying woman with long hair and the face of a horse. Maybe you do not know. He is in her spell and they move deep into the brush and he begins to make love to her. Suddenly he breaks from the spell and he realizes he is making love to a pile of cow shit. Thlop, thlop, thlop he is fucking this huge pile of cowshit. And that is how he died, with his dick in the cowshit.
Eubelio, what is the moral of that story?
It is not that kind of story. It is a true story.
Tell me another true story.
OK. When I am drunk I always end up at the cemetery. My woman is there, in the ground. When I am drunk I bring her candles and I lie on top of her grave. One time it was so dark and I got to the cemetery and death was there sitting in the branch of a tree. Death was hideous, with a black face, horrible to look at. You know how to save the life of a sick loved one? Remind them how ugly death is and they will be too scared to die. So I am drunk and even with death there I lie on top of the grave and I say to my woman, "woman, do you want me to spend the night here with you. do you want me to lie here with you". Suddenly I hear this moan "mmmmmmmmm" and I ask again, "woman, do you want me to spend the night here with you...." and again "mmmmmmmmm". One more time I ask, "woman do you want me to spend the night with you my love"....."mmmmmmm" and the sound was so close I got frightened and ran from the cemetery to my mothers house and cried when I told her what happened.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Story # 6
I'm in Waterton and I'm loving it. I'm writing a lot and reading a lot. Since I've been up here I've read a lot of Brian Evenson, a lot of Ben Marcus. I've also read most of the old school paperbacks lying around the cabin, including Frank Herbert's Dune and an awesome old country paperback called "The Badge and Harry Cole". That one was my favorite. There's a lot of Brian Evenson in this story (think violence) and there is also profanity (warning for the weak-eared). I struggle with profanity. I don't swear a lot myself, and I don't swear much in omniscient 3rd person, but when I'm writing a story narrated by a crazy drifter I don't think I can censor his dialogue, because this dude would be swearing if he were real. Note, the formatting never comes out like I'd like it to, even after previewing. Dialogue is supposed to be italicized. If it doesn't come out then use your imagination.
Without Further ado:
Story #6: BUDDY
“Me and my buddy came apart in New Mexico. For my part I was all laid back in the passenger seat, looking out the back window where little raindrops were sliding across, lit up bright white from headlights behind like they were stars or something. A whole universe just sliding across the back window where sometimes a big drop would form with others, and then it was a huge asteroid sliding wild across that universe and taking galaxies with it off the edge of that black window. And I was all laid back watching it peaceful and sleepy when those white stars turned red and blue in a flashing way like the big bang end of the universe. But that turned out to be the cop car lights pulling us over.
Without Further ado:
Story #6: BUDDY
“Me and my buddy came apart in New Mexico. For my part I was all laid back in the passenger seat, looking out the back window where little raindrops were sliding across, lit up bright white from headlights behind like they were stars or something. A whole universe just sliding across the back window where sometimes a big drop would form with others, and then it was a huge asteroid sliding wild across that universe and taking galaxies with it off the edge of that black window. And I was all laid back watching it peaceful and sleepy when those white stars turned red and blue in a flashing way like the big bang end of the universe. But that turned out to be the cop car lights pulling us over.
My buddy said my name a few times to snap me up and I sat up and my seat up with me. He kept saying I wasn’t speeding, I wasn’t speeding and he said it with an edge to his voice like he was going to challenge the cop when he came up. He sure was on edge. End of a hard trip, I guess.
So the cop gets out of his car and pulls his hat down against the rain. It was just a drizzle, but I think he knew we were watching from the mirrors and it made him look more rugged I guess. Big dumb hat though, with a round brim all the way around like a park ranger hat and a brown cop shirt and olive pants coming at us in that cop waddle from being too overburdened with instruments. Big ol’ cop. He gets up to the window and my buddy reaches down with his left arm and rolls the window down. And the cop says something like I got you for speeding and my buddy says I wasn’t speeding. He says it real quick and just in the same way he’d said it to me. The cop doesn’t let it go. He says back 77 in a 75. That’s speeding, and my buddy looks at me and real loud says gimme a break! Just like how you’d point out an idiot to your friends.
This same trip we were around Memphis, just starting to head west, and we stopped at this bar right on the side of the highway, quaint little place that fancied itself a dance hall. Checkerboard floor and on the outside it had portraits of 50’s stars going all the way around the façade like some frieze on a temple. Buddy Holly and Elvis and Chubby Checker and the whole gaggle of them. Worn down though, so you couldn’t tell the Richie Valens from the Little Richard. So we go inside to sit down on something that isn’t moving and we sit off a ways from the dancefloor. And there’s this guy on the dancefloor moving like it’s still the 50’s. Just this middle aged guy out on the dance floor doing the twist. It must have been 3 pm in the afternoon. Nothing in that bar but this guy and us and that black white checkerboard floor. My buddy laughs right at him and turns to me and says the same thing he later said to the cop in New Mexico. Gimme a break he says to me, real loud and with a hard edge and in a way that made you believe he’d press the button to erase all the sad sacks in the world if you just put it in front of him.
We’ll this cop put it in front of him I guess, cause he got mad at my buddy for saying gimme a break and ordered him out of the car. So he gets out of the car, but not in a meek sorta way at all. He get’s out of that car like a shot and he slams the door and gets right up in that cop’s face. And that big old cop is bigger than he is, towering over my buddy with that park ranger hat brim keeping em both dry, so if you rolled up on the scene without knowing you mighta thought the cop invited my buddy close just to converse out of the rain. But you wouldn’t have thought that if you stayed. My buddy gets right up in the cop’s face, he’s bumping bellies with him, saying that 77 was bullshit and he wasn’t speeding. And this cop must have been from the old school cause he was bumping him back instead of going for his gun or pepper spray or whatever else was strapped around his waistband. Real man to man they were spitting it out right there on the shoulder, like baseball players sometimes argue. Then my buddy starts acting real crazy. He starts just screaming at the cop. Arms flapping and nonsense words and blowing out his tongue at the top of his lungs, with the spittle just flying into the cop's face. I think when the cop saw my buddy just go ape crazy is when he got a bit scared, cause that’s when he went for his gun.
Bout two weeks before this we were outside Corpus Christi, still heading west. We were in pretty bad shape. My veteran pay couldn’t find me on the road and my buddy’s disability is all used up. So he’s standing in front of the gas station asking for dollars so we can fill the car and keep going west. We’d been at it about an hour and I think we had something like 4 dollars. Anyway, this couple comes walking out of the station towards this astro van, and they’re dressed nice and they look nice. Husband has these lean glasses and dark hair, wife has big hair and big ol pads on her shoulders. I approach them solely so as not to intimidate them with the two men and I tell em what I tell em and they say, we’ll do you one better than a dollar, we’ll buy you dinner. And as they say it they look at each other and you can tell they’re some kinda Christian because they get that charity look on their face. Now my buddy and I ain’t no bums and we don’t usually take charity unless it’s the government’s and that's for services damn well rendered. We’re just looking for some gas, but we were hungry so we said yes, also partly because that couple looked so damn happy to be giving us their charity.
Off we go to a McDonalds and we’d just as soon taken it to go and went back to the gas station, but they insisted we sit down. I think their plan was to preach at us, and truth is I wouldn’t a minded it, but my buddy’s pretty far gone past Jesus and I could tell he was winding up to have none of it. The husband starts in about Jesus being the way and accepting him and the straight and narrow path. They’re good Christians and that wife sure looks handsome with that big hair and high shoulders, but my buddy’s had enough. He stops the guy when he’s talking about the 10 commandments and he says to him, I still remember it clear, he says, sirs, theirs only one commandment and I’m going to tell it to you once so you’d better listen the hell up. My buddy stands up from the table and he’s got a fry in his hand and he starts shaking it like a gavel for emphasis. Only one Goddamn commandment!, he says and he eats the fry and pauses and the couple looks pale beyond death and my buddy says real loud, I don’t care who you are, you’d better fucking run away from crazy people. People that bait a boobie trap with their kid. That’s fucking crazy and I’ve seen it. You can think your way out of all other jams on earth except when people get damn crazy and then thinking don’t work, just running the God Damn other way is the only thing that works. And if Jesus we’re here right now he’d say amen to that.
That’s what he said to the Christian couple, but I think what he really meant was that he could be or act crazy and get away with anything he wanted, cause people really do fear when someone just goes loony. I mean, he wanted to be out of that McDonalds, and he got it. He reached over and took that couples’ food as if it was his and marched right back to the station, me following him, and we left before anyone could blink an eye. Only had four dollars of gas though, and that ran out real fast. We had to hitchhike into McAllen, and I swear that Christian couple passed us hithcin in their big astro van and didn’t so much think about stopping. And that was just one time. I’ve been all across the countryside with that man and I never could figure out it he was crazy or if he was just playing crazy so that people gave him what he wanted.
Until New Mexico, that is. Then I guess he proved he was crazy. Cause when that cop reached for his gun my buddy went quick as a cat with an open fist and punched his palm right up into the bottom of that cop’s big round nose. He went from crazy spitting to some type of ninja, fast as you could blink an eye and the cop didn’t see it coming it all. I’d never seen my buddy use that move, but it sure did work cause that cop just went right down on his side and blood just started coming out of his nose like you’d turned on a hose. My buddy’s laughing and screaming and saying, Hit em right with the death punch. Right into the fucking brain. And he’s saying other things too that make less sense and I get out of that car quick and come around the front of it to hold my buddy back and somehow get us the hell out of there. And this whole time the cop is down on his side and he’s trying to reach for his gun but you can tell something is shit wrong with the guy cause he looks like a mouse with one half caught in a glue trap, legs trying to run away but doing nothing but spinning him around a bit on the pavement. And he’s making weird noises through the blood. My buddy says, let me help you with that officer, and reaches down and takes the cop's gun from its holster and fires two shots into the side of that cop’s face. When the cop stops moving for good my buddy pulls off that big rimmed hat and puts it on, with the hat all bloodied and the back of it covered with matter. Then he tells me to get in the car and I do and we head out down that road, still going the speed limit.
I wasn’t afraid. I’d seen dead men before and been responsible for it too, but I knew I wasn’t responsible for that big ol cop and within ten miles I told my buddy to stop that car and let me out. He looks at me like Gimme a break, and I can tell he’s on the verge of crazy again but I’d seen shit loads of crazy in my day and I wasn’t scared. Things kinda slowed down for me and my head started working. I said, this is where we come apart and I told him to shoot me in the leg to make me less of an accomplice. He looks at me again like Gimme a break and then he gets real quiet and then he starts to cry. I’ve been all around the countryside with that man and I’d never seen him cry. The car’s just stopped now and I say it again real slow to shoot me in the leg and drop me off and he looks at me with tearful eyes and says something about betrayal, but I don’t hear all but the end of it cause I’m getting out of the car. I say goodbye in a real solemn way then I scream again at him to fucking shoot me in the leg. So he shoots me and I think he shatters a bone in there and then he drives off.
I’m down on the ground putting pressure on it but knowing that it’s bad news if it nicked the big vein and the rain’s coming down good now and sooner or later I end up on my back. And there I am again laid back tracing stars except this time I can’t look at em good because the rain keeps coming into my eyes. I must have been there for an hour before I saw the first cop lights coming at me sideways, red and blue. I crawled halfway out onto the shoulder and that’s where they found me. Propped me up and asked me where the other guy was headed and I told em and they asked me his name and I told em and then I guess I kinda slipped off the edge there into unconsciousness. And when I woke up the doctors told me it was a week later and that I was lucky. Then the cops pushed past the doctors and started asking me more questions about my buddy. I guess in that whole time they hadn’t seen a hair of him or that car, which means I guess that he got to where he was going.
Friday, June 26, 2009
MJ, then story #5
They say you never forget where you were when you first heard someone famous had died. With Princess Di I was camping with some friends in the mountains behind my house, and with MJ I was coming home from dinner on a cruise ship floating off the coast of France. My sister and I were both pretty shaken up. Some of my first memories are connected to his music. The first thing I ever wrote in school (1st grade) was a story about how MJ came down in a spaceship from visiting Mars and he had lots of new songs to sing.
Sad to see him go so relatively early. He was certainly a very very troubled soul, and might have done some horrible things (see "jesus juice"), but there was always the hope that he could turn it around and become something similar to how amazing/talented he was when he was younger. Very sad.
This story is about death. Written last week. Guess it kindof fits the MJ news, which feels weird.
Story #: It Wouldn't Work Unless She Was Perfectly Still
The young girl waited until her mother left for her second job, then she put on her black dress, wrapped her ponytail in a black silk tie and lay down on her bed, on top of the covers. She folder her arms across her chest and closed her eyes. She let slack the muscles in her face and neck and tried to breath gradually, horizontally, so that her stomach made no visible movement up and down. She thought herself perfectly straight and rigid. It took a while for the young girl to be satisfied of her stillness, and only when she was satisfied did she begin to pray.
“Hey big buddy. I’ve been missing you. What’s new with you over there?” She waited. Then she imagined she heard, or maybe she did hear, a response.
“It’s like being caught in a drying machine getting spun around and everytime you think you’ve figured out which way is up you get tossed again and can’t figure out how to steady yourself. It’s like that, except you don’t get sick or tired or need to breathe. You have endless energy and concentration to keep trying to stop the spinning, except it never seems to stop.”
His voice wavered and was dampened, like someone calling from inside the walls. She was calm and kind. She had to be for him. She prayed,
“Don’t worry booger, eventually it will stop. Nothing’s ever permanent. It’s probably just part of the process. The rules of the game, you know? I imagine it’s real tough on a soul to be free after so much time rooted in a body. Don’t worry. “
She put all of her calmness into that last “don’t worry”, as if sympathy and assurance were tangible, and could be floated out to her brother on the air of her voice. She heard or thought she heard,
“Have you ever been standing with your back to a wall, and you just knew the stones in the wall behind you were making faces or turning into gargoyles and stuff right behind you, but when you turned they were just stones again?
“Yeah. I know the feeling.” She thought hard for a way to describe it so that her brother knew she understood him. “Like someone is standing behind you ready to put their hand on your shoulder. ”
“Yeah, except I can’t turn around and check. I can’t turn around. So all the time it feels like someone or thing is just about ready to grab me from behind. It’s that feeling, or the drying machine feeling, or your voice. Sometimes all at once, sometimes everything is happening at once. How long has it been?”
She despaired a little to hear him sound so lost. She summoned more energy into her stillness and prayed again,
“It’s only been three weeks. Buddy, you should stop worrying about time and stuff like that. I don’t think it matters much now. All that matters now is getting you comfortable and figured out. Do you hear anyone else? I mean, someone that’s been through it maybe? Grandma maybe?”
“Once I heard mom praying for me. But she’s like you. There is a sound like combined voices, lots of them. They sound reassuring but I can’t make them out. They just combine and murmur in the background and it makes a constant noise. Sometimes I catch myself thinking it’s a heartbeat, then I remember. This place is weird. Even though it’s not a place at all. It’s hard not to feel scared. Oh, sister.
“I know, I know. Please be strong.” She wanted to cry out and hold him, but knew she couldn’t, so she kept talking. “The fear must be part of it. Maybe just the first part. Remember how scared you were to ride your bike at first? Maybe bud, the trick is to stop trying to make the fear go away, or make the drying machine stop, or pull yourself together. Maybe the trick is to let yourself come apart.” And she heard his voice in answer, she was sure of it this time,
“Thanks sis. Will you keep speaking to me? You make it easier. ”
“You know I will.” Then she paused and made a joke to keep from saying goodbye, “But you’d better find some heavenly way of returning the favor.”
“You bet”, he said, and then she heard her dead brother laugh.
Eventually she fell asleep and her breaths got deeper and vertical and moved her chest up and down in a steady rhythm. There were overripe lilies on her nightstand and she dreamt of rejoining cut stems with planted stalks and watching the flowers grow backwards to the buds and then down into the soil again. Her gardening hand fell away from her chest as she dreamt.
When her mother got home from work it was very late. She knocked softly, querying at the door to the bedroom, then opened it and stepped inside. She saw her young daughter lying there like some drugged Juliet on her bier, the nightstand light soft and angled on the black of her dress, with the lilies from the funeral drooping in the simple bedside vase, their overripe smell embalming the still room. The sight stopped her and she lost a breath to it. For a moment she felt as if in a holy presence, naked for her bare shoulders and ashamed for her work sneakers on the carpet. Instinctively she grasped for a rosary she hand’t held in her hand since she was a girl. Then she saw the steady rise of her daughter’s chest and knew her as a daughter and was filled with love for her, and mercy, and unimaginable pity. She moved to her and kneeled both knees at her bedside. She unfolded her daughter’s other arm and place it at her side. She took a spare blanket from the foot of the bed and laid it over her legs. The young girl did not wake or stir. The mother whispered, cooing, “it’ll be alright my bumblebee girl. It’ll be just fine. You just hang in there and one of these days you’ll wake up and it won’t hurt so bad. It’ll be better.”
She had said the same thing to herself too many times, and right then was the first time she believed it might be true.
Sad to see him go so relatively early. He was certainly a very very troubled soul, and might have done some horrible things (see "jesus juice"), but there was always the hope that he could turn it around and become something similar to how amazing/talented he was when he was younger. Very sad.
This story is about death. Written last week. Guess it kindof fits the MJ news, which feels weird.
Story #: It Wouldn't Work Unless She Was Perfectly Still
The young girl waited until her mother left for her second job, then she put on her black dress, wrapped her ponytail in a black silk tie and lay down on her bed, on top of the covers. She folder her arms across her chest and closed her eyes. She let slack the muscles in her face and neck and tried to breath gradually, horizontally, so that her stomach made no visible movement up and down. She thought herself perfectly straight and rigid. It took a while for the young girl to be satisfied of her stillness, and only when she was satisfied did she begin to pray.
“Hey big buddy. I’ve been missing you. What’s new with you over there?” She waited. Then she imagined she heard, or maybe she did hear, a response.
“It’s like being caught in a drying machine getting spun around and everytime you think you’ve figured out which way is up you get tossed again and can’t figure out how to steady yourself. It’s like that, except you don’t get sick or tired or need to breathe. You have endless energy and concentration to keep trying to stop the spinning, except it never seems to stop.”
His voice wavered and was dampened, like someone calling from inside the walls. She was calm and kind. She had to be for him. She prayed,
“Don’t worry booger, eventually it will stop. Nothing’s ever permanent. It’s probably just part of the process. The rules of the game, you know? I imagine it’s real tough on a soul to be free after so much time rooted in a body. Don’t worry. “
She put all of her calmness into that last “don’t worry”, as if sympathy and assurance were tangible, and could be floated out to her brother on the air of her voice. She heard or thought she heard,
“Have you ever been standing with your back to a wall, and you just knew the stones in the wall behind you were making faces or turning into gargoyles and stuff right behind you, but when you turned they were just stones again?
“Yeah. I know the feeling.” She thought hard for a way to describe it so that her brother knew she understood him. “Like someone is standing behind you ready to put their hand on your shoulder. ”
“Yeah, except I can’t turn around and check. I can’t turn around. So all the time it feels like someone or thing is just about ready to grab me from behind. It’s that feeling, or the drying machine feeling, or your voice. Sometimes all at once, sometimes everything is happening at once. How long has it been?”
She despaired a little to hear him sound so lost. She summoned more energy into her stillness and prayed again,
“It’s only been three weeks. Buddy, you should stop worrying about time and stuff like that. I don’t think it matters much now. All that matters now is getting you comfortable and figured out. Do you hear anyone else? I mean, someone that’s been through it maybe? Grandma maybe?”
“Once I heard mom praying for me. But she’s like you. There is a sound like combined voices, lots of them. They sound reassuring but I can’t make them out. They just combine and murmur in the background and it makes a constant noise. Sometimes I catch myself thinking it’s a heartbeat, then I remember. This place is weird. Even though it’s not a place at all. It’s hard not to feel scared. Oh, sister.
“I know, I know. Please be strong.” She wanted to cry out and hold him, but knew she couldn’t, so she kept talking. “The fear must be part of it. Maybe just the first part. Remember how scared you were to ride your bike at first? Maybe bud, the trick is to stop trying to make the fear go away, or make the drying machine stop, or pull yourself together. Maybe the trick is to let yourself come apart.” And she heard his voice in answer, she was sure of it this time,
“Thanks sis. Will you keep speaking to me? You make it easier. ”
“You know I will.” Then she paused and made a joke to keep from saying goodbye, “But you’d better find some heavenly way of returning the favor.”
“You bet”, he said, and then she heard her dead brother laugh.
Eventually she fell asleep and her breaths got deeper and vertical and moved her chest up and down in a steady rhythm. There were overripe lilies on her nightstand and she dreamt of rejoining cut stems with planted stalks and watching the flowers grow backwards to the buds and then down into the soil again. Her gardening hand fell away from her chest as she dreamt.
When her mother got home from work it was very late. She knocked softly, querying at the door to the bedroom, then opened it and stepped inside. She saw her young daughter lying there like some drugged Juliet on her bier, the nightstand light soft and angled on the black of her dress, with the lilies from the funeral drooping in the simple bedside vase, their overripe smell embalming the still room. The sight stopped her and she lost a breath to it. For a moment she felt as if in a holy presence, naked for her bare shoulders and ashamed for her work sneakers on the carpet. Instinctively she grasped for a rosary she hand’t held in her hand since she was a girl. Then she saw the steady rise of her daughter’s chest and knew her as a daughter and was filled with love for her, and mercy, and unimaginable pity. She moved to her and kneeled both knees at her bedside. She unfolded her daughter’s other arm and place it at her side. She took a spare blanket from the foot of the bed and laid it over her legs. The young girl did not wake or stir. The mother whispered, cooing, “it’ll be alright my bumblebee girl. It’ll be just fine. You just hang in there and one of these days you’ll wake up and it won’t hurt so bad. It’ll be better.”
She had said the same thing to herself too many times, and right then was the first time she believed it might be true.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Story 4, and an awesome story
Been busy with travel and hanging out with old friends. Last night we were sitting around my parents house watching the padres game, which was tied in the bottom of the 13th inning. I turned to my friend Austin and said "I have a feeling this game is going long. Let's drive down to the stadium and I bet it'll still be going on." So four of us got in a car and made the hour long drive to the stadium, we sneak in, and run to seats on the third base line (it was the 16th inning, almost nobody left in the stadium). I rush to the front row, sit down, and then a split second later I stand up screaming in joy because Padres catcher, Nick Hundley, hits a towering fly ball. We hug and high five each other as the ball sails out for a walk off homerun. Padres win. We only saw one pitch but all agreed it was the best BB game we had ever been to.
Enjoy this story. It's one I've tried to revise so much that it's to the point that i have to post it now or I never will.
The narrator is a stylized version of myself I've been toying with using as the narrator for a series of interconnected short stories. The events are mostly fictional. To my knowledge there aren't underground fight clubs in Provo.
Story #4 Reasons for Leaving Utah.
My last winter in Utah, I rented out a small upstairs office in quaint downtown Provo with two tall windows. The windows looked east across University Avenue to the brown-yellow brick of a six-storey building. On top of the building a crumbly façade read “Knight Building, 1902”. Extended families of pigeons roosted there and instead of writing a master’s thesis, I spent my afternoons looking out those tall windows and watching the birds fly lazy ovals and then, in unison, settle again. I would watch them until the windows of the Knight Building sent back at me the fierce orange of a reflected sunset and it hurt my eyes to look. Then I would remember my deadlines and slog out some poem. I was 26. That last winter I wrote a lot of poems about pigeons.
The overhead lights in that office were harsh-bright and I never liked to stay long after the refracted sunset. I would get lonely and then chide myself for feeling so lonely when I had a wonderful girlfriend and three fun-as-hell roommates waiting for me at my apartment complex. Too blessed to feel lonely, I’d think to myself, and then I’d get in my car and make the short drive home.
One late weeknight that winter, thoughtful, having just come from poems about pigeons, I pulled into the underground parking structure of my Provo apartment complex. There was a loose circle of people blocking me, hoodies and fleeces and some wrapped in blankets congregated in the wide middle lane of that covered space. It was a concrete pad, one floor under the apartments, with parking spots on either side and ramps leading out to the north and south. On winter Sunday nights it was a place people in the complex often gathered to say a group prayer. This wasn’t a Sunday. Seeing me, the circle broke open to let me through and I parked in a stall beyond it and got out. My girlfriend walked to me from the loose circle and met me by the driver’s side door. She put her right hand on the side of my stomach and let her momentum carry her, hips first, into me. I was real heavy then and she liked to use her small body to test how hard it was to move me. She spoke into my eyes. She looked excited and flushed, like someone who has just come in from a long time in the cold.
“there’s going to be a fight”
“Like a fight, fight?”
This was BYU. We were religious kids or timid ones or both. We never fought. We used that concrete space for group prayer.
“I think it’s more like a boxing match. Jason set it up.”
“Who’s doing the fighting?”
“This kinda nerdy kid named Jon and that one kid you always call the German”
“OK? So what are they fighting over?”
“Me, silly. No, just kidding. I don’t really know. I don’t think it’s anything but friendly. They’ll have boxing gloves on. Is your camera still in the back? Jason asked me if I would take some photos.”
This whole time her hand was resting on the outside of my stomach and her hips were up against me. I opened the car door for her and she reached in and got my digital SLR from the backseat. Then she turned to me and curtsied.
“You’ll excuse me, sir, if I stand with my girls. They get lonesome for me.”
“No worries.”
She made me smile. She turned to leave. I touched her and she turned back. “Hey. You look beautiful. Like you’ve just come in from a long time in the cold.”
“Thanks baaaaaaby.” She said, then quick turned and catwalked away towards her roommates, exaggerating her hips for me and modeling the camera to them with a sweep of her hand over it. I couldn’t see her face but I knew she was smiling.
I walked over and stood in an empty spot of the thickening circle, near my roommates. Jason was already there, in the middle, with a microphone made out of tinfoil. He was introducing the fighters. I knew Jason. He was new to the apartments, but he was a legacy. His family owned one of the units and his older brothers, as they attended BYU, had lived there previously. He had just moved in for winter semester, fresh from being the most popular kid in high school. He played rugby now, and had a loud smile.
Jason introduced the kid I called the German. He called him the German too. The kid came down the stairs in a black tank top with wristbands on his biceps. He had red boxing gloves and he was holding the edges of a German flag draped around his shoulders. He was short, five foot something, with close cut dirty blonde hair and all his baby fat. I remember thinking how determined he looked to fight, like there was no fooling around in him. Usually he just walked around like a wannabe badass, ready to mad dog you in the hallway when you weren’t looking, but never to your face. He always wore fresh sneakers and low cut jeans and kept his hair buzzed and he talked way too much about who his parents knew and pranks he had supposedly orchestrated and hot tubs he had supposedly been in with girls. But the thing was he always told the same stories. Plus, he was always talking about his German heritage, not the Nazis overtly, but you could tell he admired their stereotyped coldness and stoicism. So I called him “the German” sarcastically, to mock just how far he was physically from the chiseled Aryan stereotype. As much as he acted proud of the nickname, I think a part of him knew it was mockery and that just made him angrier. It turned your insides a bit to think about it.
But now he just shuffled around the circle, trying to dance on his feet but he wasn’t nimble enough. So he went and carefully draped his flag over the windshield of his hatchback, then stood in a corner away against a concrete wall and stared at the ground, talking to himself and punching his fists together. Then when Jon started coming down the opposite stairs he turned and stared at him and moved out into the circle to meet him.
Jon came down the stairs in a blue t-shirt, black gloves, and a flag of Guatemala draped around his shoulders. He was dark skinned, and just as pudgy as the German, but taller. I barely knew him, because he was so shy. But I knew he wasn’t athletic, and I knew he played a ton of World of Warcraft and I knew that he was probably doing this just because Jason had befriended him and convinced him. Jason had that kind of charisma. I imagine Jon was lonely for the attention. You could tell he loved it as he hammed around the now crowded circle, smiling and growling at everyone through a cheap mouthpiece. If he any fear or any idea how seriously the German was taking this exhibition, he didn’t show it. I should have said something to him. The German was small but he had so much anger in him. Instead, I just smiled along with Jon and the rest in the circle and the air charged a bit because we knew now that the fight was going to happen.
The motive was apparently trumped up from nationalism. That was the hook Jason gave the crowd at least. Jason brought Jon to the center of the concrete circle where the German was waiting. The fighters touched gloves. Jon was still smiling. The German looked angry and proud and round without angles. We cheered. And then they fought.
The German’s style was to lean his head way back out of harm’s way and punch upward with his palms out. There was no weight behind his punches because he didn’t turn his hips and drive his body behind them. He just punched upward with his head back so it looked like he was trying to block a falling rock or plug a leak in a dam above his head. Jon liked to slap the German’s gloves out of the way, or punch at them in a palms out stalemate, and then rush grunting in and hug the German. At least he leaned into his body punches. But he didn’t know where to punch and soon the outsides of the German’s arms were red, but nothing else.
They moved and grunted and people smiled at them and my girlfriend was opposite the circle from me taking pictures and my roommates and I chuckled at their lack of coordination and Jason was rushing in constantly like a referee to unclench them and urge them to open up and it was a cold night and their faces were red from rubbing and their breath came up white and fogged above them in the air.
Once they separated and the German actually leaned into his leak-plug of a punch and it caught Jon in the throat. Jon took quick steps back and circled a bit stunned that he had been hurt and after that the German must have sensed blood because he started pressing. Jon kept clenching, but the air in that circle was charged again with danger.
Then the German paused for a second. Aware now of danger, Jon moved in to clench. The German wound up and threw a perfect right hook. It was a miracle coincidence of clumsy physics. His feet set squarely on the balls of his toes, he twisted and moved his weight flawlessly behind the punch. To see something so beautiful come from such a clumsy man was a shock. I was shocked by it, then horrified when it landed flush two finger widths to the right center of Jon’s chin.
Jon was close to me, very close but I was too stunned we all were to catch him as he fell, like fluid, with no attempt to brace himself. He fell on his right side and the outside of his right leg hit first, then his right shoulder then the wave force of his fall snapped his limp head into the concrete like a stretched rubber band released against skin. I was right there and the sound was horrible. Like coconuts. Everyone heard it.
I swore, then I knelt down and turned him on his back, supporting his neck. I looked up and saw the German standing there above us, gloating, with the light behind him, breathing hard face set hard in the horrible embodiment of his mock stereotype. I made eye contact and there was so much rage in me. Then his hardness was gone and he rushed to Jason, shouting at him to take the boxing gloves off but Jason wasn’t listening paralyzed mouth-open mouthing “o shit o shit” over and over again. And half the crowd seemed to melt backwards, the collective wish to get the hell out of there and the other half came forward in shocked concern making a new and tighter circle with Jon and I in the middle. Somebody asked me what to do. I dunno why they asked me. I must have been the oldest. I just said “911”. There was nothing I could do. Jon was paling there shallow breathing on the concrete with dots of blood cooling on the spot where his right ear had first made contact with the ground.
I stood up and a nursing student roommate of my girlfriend took my place beside Jon. When I stood up I could see some of the eyes in the circle looking at Jon but most of them looking at me. I looked away and saw the German alone near his car outside the circle, kicking the tires and swinging his arms around as if he could throw the boxing gloves off with the twirl-force. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so horrible. Then the German made a strange keening cry from deep inside and rushed up the concrete stairs crying, gloves still on. He left his flag limp and wrinkled on the windshield of his parked hatchback.
A night earlier that winter. Up the canyon with my girlfriend. Stopped at the parking lot by Nun’s park, near the river:
“Tell me a dream you had, any dream”.
Her voice is always deeper after we make out. My mouth is hot. The muscles in my face are loose from the kissing and I can feel a spot of pain on my lower lip where her canine caught me. I’m stretched out on my back across my reclined seat and angling into hers. My head is up against the outside of her left arm and the leather of her seat. She has my right hand palm up in her lap and she is absentmindedly massaging my forearm with both thumbs. There is the tinted moonroof above me, obscuring all but the brightest of stars. There is the smell of her arm and the yellow hue of her soft blouse. There is the dig of the gearshift as it presses my love-handle and with the nerves in my right elbow I can feel the delicate heat of her lap. Then there is her presence above me, the nebulous shape of her head and hair as she cranes into my vision to speak, moving like an unfocused eclipse in front of the moonroof.
“Go on,” she says, “any dream.”
“I can’t remember any dreams right now, silly.”
“Make one up then. But tell it like you really dreamt it”
“Yes Maam. Ok… I dreamed I was one of the pigeons that lives on top of the building across from my office.”
“Were you lord of the pigeons or just a worker pigeon?”
“I was the pigeon king.”
“Ooh I like this dream”
“Yeah, so let me tell it”
She scrunches up her nose at my mock impatience, a cute affectation.
“So I was this pigeon king and I was pure white and bigger than my fellow pigeons, and it was my Job to tell all the other pigeons when to take off from the roof and circle around, and then it was my job to tell them all when to fly back down again and sit on the roof.”
“And that’s it, you had no other responsibilities as the pigeon king?”
“Well the mating and such with eligible young pigeon damsels, but it wasn’t that kindof dream.”
“You mean a pigeon based wet dream?”
“Wow, you had to say it. Yeah. It wasn’t a pigeon based wet dream.”
“Ok, you may continue.”
She says that coyly and she looks at me lovingly, like a toy. Like her absolute favorite amusement.
“The thing was in this dream the pigeons weren’t even letting me do my kingly duty. They seemed to know when to go up and down before I did and everyone was just kindof in line with the program. I just sat on my royal perch, feathers all puffed out and watched while everybody did their thing. Left out mostly.”
“Did you have a pigeon queen?”
“Yeah, sure. But you weren’t listening to me either”
“Hah. My kind of dream”
There is a pause of two unhurried breaths, then a total eclipse as she cranes to kiss my eyebrow. Such a perfect child. Then she asks,
“How long had you been pigeon king?”
“I dunno. Long time. Since 1902 I think.”
There is another pause, and she tightens the grip of her thumbs on my forearm.
Enjoy this story. It's one I've tried to revise so much that it's to the point that i have to post it now or I never will.
The narrator is a stylized version of myself I've been toying with using as the narrator for a series of interconnected short stories. The events are mostly fictional. To my knowledge there aren't underground fight clubs in Provo.
Story #4 Reasons for Leaving Utah.
My last winter in Utah, I rented out a small upstairs office in quaint downtown Provo with two tall windows. The windows looked east across University Avenue to the brown-yellow brick of a six-storey building. On top of the building a crumbly façade read “Knight Building, 1902”. Extended families of pigeons roosted there and instead of writing a master’s thesis, I spent my afternoons looking out those tall windows and watching the birds fly lazy ovals and then, in unison, settle again. I would watch them until the windows of the Knight Building sent back at me the fierce orange of a reflected sunset and it hurt my eyes to look. Then I would remember my deadlines and slog out some poem. I was 26. That last winter I wrote a lot of poems about pigeons.
The overhead lights in that office were harsh-bright and I never liked to stay long after the refracted sunset. I would get lonely and then chide myself for feeling so lonely when I had a wonderful girlfriend and three fun-as-hell roommates waiting for me at my apartment complex. Too blessed to feel lonely, I’d think to myself, and then I’d get in my car and make the short drive home.
One late weeknight that winter, thoughtful, having just come from poems about pigeons, I pulled into the underground parking structure of my Provo apartment complex. There was a loose circle of people blocking me, hoodies and fleeces and some wrapped in blankets congregated in the wide middle lane of that covered space. It was a concrete pad, one floor under the apartments, with parking spots on either side and ramps leading out to the north and south. On winter Sunday nights it was a place people in the complex often gathered to say a group prayer. This wasn’t a Sunday. Seeing me, the circle broke open to let me through and I parked in a stall beyond it and got out. My girlfriend walked to me from the loose circle and met me by the driver’s side door. She put her right hand on the side of my stomach and let her momentum carry her, hips first, into me. I was real heavy then and she liked to use her small body to test how hard it was to move me. She spoke into my eyes. She looked excited and flushed, like someone who has just come in from a long time in the cold.
“there’s going to be a fight”
“Like a fight, fight?”
This was BYU. We were religious kids or timid ones or both. We never fought. We used that concrete space for group prayer.
“I think it’s more like a boxing match. Jason set it up.”
“Who’s doing the fighting?”
“This kinda nerdy kid named Jon and that one kid you always call the German”
“OK? So what are they fighting over?”
“Me, silly. No, just kidding. I don’t really know. I don’t think it’s anything but friendly. They’ll have boxing gloves on. Is your camera still in the back? Jason asked me if I would take some photos.”
This whole time her hand was resting on the outside of my stomach and her hips were up against me. I opened the car door for her and she reached in and got my digital SLR from the backseat. Then she turned to me and curtsied.
“You’ll excuse me, sir, if I stand with my girls. They get lonesome for me.”
“No worries.”
She made me smile. She turned to leave. I touched her and she turned back. “Hey. You look beautiful. Like you’ve just come in from a long time in the cold.”
“Thanks baaaaaaby.” She said, then quick turned and catwalked away towards her roommates, exaggerating her hips for me and modeling the camera to them with a sweep of her hand over it. I couldn’t see her face but I knew she was smiling.
I walked over and stood in an empty spot of the thickening circle, near my roommates. Jason was already there, in the middle, with a microphone made out of tinfoil. He was introducing the fighters. I knew Jason. He was new to the apartments, but he was a legacy. His family owned one of the units and his older brothers, as they attended BYU, had lived there previously. He had just moved in for winter semester, fresh from being the most popular kid in high school. He played rugby now, and had a loud smile.
Jason introduced the kid I called the German. He called him the German too. The kid came down the stairs in a black tank top with wristbands on his biceps. He had red boxing gloves and he was holding the edges of a German flag draped around his shoulders. He was short, five foot something, with close cut dirty blonde hair and all his baby fat. I remember thinking how determined he looked to fight, like there was no fooling around in him. Usually he just walked around like a wannabe badass, ready to mad dog you in the hallway when you weren’t looking, but never to your face. He always wore fresh sneakers and low cut jeans and kept his hair buzzed and he talked way too much about who his parents knew and pranks he had supposedly orchestrated and hot tubs he had supposedly been in with girls. But the thing was he always told the same stories. Plus, he was always talking about his German heritage, not the Nazis overtly, but you could tell he admired their stereotyped coldness and stoicism. So I called him “the German” sarcastically, to mock just how far he was physically from the chiseled Aryan stereotype. As much as he acted proud of the nickname, I think a part of him knew it was mockery and that just made him angrier. It turned your insides a bit to think about it.
But now he just shuffled around the circle, trying to dance on his feet but he wasn’t nimble enough. So he went and carefully draped his flag over the windshield of his hatchback, then stood in a corner away against a concrete wall and stared at the ground, talking to himself and punching his fists together. Then when Jon started coming down the opposite stairs he turned and stared at him and moved out into the circle to meet him.
Jon came down the stairs in a blue t-shirt, black gloves, and a flag of Guatemala draped around his shoulders. He was dark skinned, and just as pudgy as the German, but taller. I barely knew him, because he was so shy. But I knew he wasn’t athletic, and I knew he played a ton of World of Warcraft and I knew that he was probably doing this just because Jason had befriended him and convinced him. Jason had that kind of charisma. I imagine Jon was lonely for the attention. You could tell he loved it as he hammed around the now crowded circle, smiling and growling at everyone through a cheap mouthpiece. If he any fear or any idea how seriously the German was taking this exhibition, he didn’t show it. I should have said something to him. The German was small but he had so much anger in him. Instead, I just smiled along with Jon and the rest in the circle and the air charged a bit because we knew now that the fight was going to happen.
The motive was apparently trumped up from nationalism. That was the hook Jason gave the crowd at least. Jason brought Jon to the center of the concrete circle where the German was waiting. The fighters touched gloves. Jon was still smiling. The German looked angry and proud and round without angles. We cheered. And then they fought.
The German’s style was to lean his head way back out of harm’s way and punch upward with his palms out. There was no weight behind his punches because he didn’t turn his hips and drive his body behind them. He just punched upward with his head back so it looked like he was trying to block a falling rock or plug a leak in a dam above his head. Jon liked to slap the German’s gloves out of the way, or punch at them in a palms out stalemate, and then rush grunting in and hug the German. At least he leaned into his body punches. But he didn’t know where to punch and soon the outsides of the German’s arms were red, but nothing else.
They moved and grunted and people smiled at them and my girlfriend was opposite the circle from me taking pictures and my roommates and I chuckled at their lack of coordination and Jason was rushing in constantly like a referee to unclench them and urge them to open up and it was a cold night and their faces were red from rubbing and their breath came up white and fogged above them in the air.
Once they separated and the German actually leaned into his leak-plug of a punch and it caught Jon in the throat. Jon took quick steps back and circled a bit stunned that he had been hurt and after that the German must have sensed blood because he started pressing. Jon kept clenching, but the air in that circle was charged again with danger.
Then the German paused for a second. Aware now of danger, Jon moved in to clench. The German wound up and threw a perfect right hook. It was a miracle coincidence of clumsy physics. His feet set squarely on the balls of his toes, he twisted and moved his weight flawlessly behind the punch. To see something so beautiful come from such a clumsy man was a shock. I was shocked by it, then horrified when it landed flush two finger widths to the right center of Jon’s chin.
Jon was close to me, very close but I was too stunned we all were to catch him as he fell, like fluid, with no attempt to brace himself. He fell on his right side and the outside of his right leg hit first, then his right shoulder then the wave force of his fall snapped his limp head into the concrete like a stretched rubber band released against skin. I was right there and the sound was horrible. Like coconuts. Everyone heard it.
I swore, then I knelt down and turned him on his back, supporting his neck. I looked up and saw the German standing there above us, gloating, with the light behind him, breathing hard face set hard in the horrible embodiment of his mock stereotype. I made eye contact and there was so much rage in me. Then his hardness was gone and he rushed to Jason, shouting at him to take the boxing gloves off but Jason wasn’t listening paralyzed mouth-open mouthing “o shit o shit” over and over again. And half the crowd seemed to melt backwards, the collective wish to get the hell out of there and the other half came forward in shocked concern making a new and tighter circle with Jon and I in the middle. Somebody asked me what to do. I dunno why they asked me. I must have been the oldest. I just said “911”. There was nothing I could do. Jon was paling there shallow breathing on the concrete with dots of blood cooling on the spot where his right ear had first made contact with the ground.
I stood up and a nursing student roommate of my girlfriend took my place beside Jon. When I stood up I could see some of the eyes in the circle looking at Jon but most of them looking at me. I looked away and saw the German alone near his car outside the circle, kicking the tires and swinging his arms around as if he could throw the boxing gloves off with the twirl-force. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so horrible. Then the German made a strange keening cry from deep inside and rushed up the concrete stairs crying, gloves still on. He left his flag limp and wrinkled on the windshield of his parked hatchback.
A night earlier that winter. Up the canyon with my girlfriend. Stopped at the parking lot by Nun’s park, near the river:
“Tell me a dream you had, any dream”.
Her voice is always deeper after we make out. My mouth is hot. The muscles in my face are loose from the kissing and I can feel a spot of pain on my lower lip where her canine caught me. I’m stretched out on my back across my reclined seat and angling into hers. My head is up against the outside of her left arm and the leather of her seat. She has my right hand palm up in her lap and she is absentmindedly massaging my forearm with both thumbs. There is the tinted moonroof above me, obscuring all but the brightest of stars. There is the smell of her arm and the yellow hue of her soft blouse. There is the dig of the gearshift as it presses my love-handle and with the nerves in my right elbow I can feel the delicate heat of her lap. Then there is her presence above me, the nebulous shape of her head and hair as she cranes into my vision to speak, moving like an unfocused eclipse in front of the moonroof.
“Go on,” she says, “any dream.”
“I can’t remember any dreams right now, silly.”
“Make one up then. But tell it like you really dreamt it”
“Yes Maam. Ok… I dreamed I was one of the pigeons that lives on top of the building across from my office.”
“Were you lord of the pigeons or just a worker pigeon?”
“I was the pigeon king.”
“Ooh I like this dream”
“Yeah, so let me tell it”
She scrunches up her nose at my mock impatience, a cute affectation.
“So I was this pigeon king and I was pure white and bigger than my fellow pigeons, and it was my Job to tell all the other pigeons when to take off from the roof and circle around, and then it was my job to tell them all when to fly back down again and sit on the roof.”
“And that’s it, you had no other responsibilities as the pigeon king?”
“Well the mating and such with eligible young pigeon damsels, but it wasn’t that kindof dream.”
“You mean a pigeon based wet dream?”
“Wow, you had to say it. Yeah. It wasn’t a pigeon based wet dream.”
“Ok, you may continue.”
She says that coyly and she looks at me lovingly, like a toy. Like her absolute favorite amusement.
“The thing was in this dream the pigeons weren’t even letting me do my kingly duty. They seemed to know when to go up and down before I did and everyone was just kindof in line with the program. I just sat on my royal perch, feathers all puffed out and watched while everybody did their thing. Left out mostly.”
“Did you have a pigeon queen?”
“Yeah, sure. But you weren’t listening to me either”
“Hah. My kind of dream”
There is a pause of two unhurried breaths, then a total eclipse as she cranes to kiss my eyebrow. Such a perfect child. Then she asks,
“How long had you been pigeon king?”
“I dunno. Long time. Since 1902 I think.”
There is another pause, and she tightens the grip of her thumbs on my forearm.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Patter, then Story # 3
I'm halfway through 3 new stories (2 of which I'm very angry at right now) and nothing new is ready for today. So I will reach into my bag of tricks and pull out an old story (written 3 months ago) that I was saving for a slow week. I feel like I'm using a lifeline on a 200$ question, but I gotta keep the 20 story run going somehow.
In other news, I've abandoned TV. Said I was going out for a pack of cigarettes...which made the TV ask me if I was picking up smoking, which justified my saying back to the TV, "see, you don't know anything about me. You never listen to me. I don't know why I'm in this relationship in the first place". The TV apologized, but I was angry and it wasn't enough. I unplugged her and put her in the closet. Facing the wall because I can't stand the blank look of reproach on her face. And, it's been good, so far. Lots of Hulu. Lots of rediscovering my love of music through Pitchfork and Pandora. Lots of writing excercises. Lots of being sociable. Maybe I'll sell her on craigslist. Maybe I'll just keep her in the closet. Maybe I'll destroy her with my antique ball-pen hammer. If I destroy it, you can blame it on Robert Bly's "Iron John".
Story # 3
The Palest, Most Beautiful Boy in the World
I dreamt of a pair of riverside beggars, man and woman. Itinerant wanderers who had camped on the slow bend of an s-curve on some offshoot of the Mississippi. We were uneasy friends and sat on plastic milk crates and worn camp chairs around a fire. There were fireflies at the edges of the light, and mosquitoes.
Excitedly, over canned beans. In the late evening:
-“It was nothin’ but a glint under the water from the setting sun when my Charlie saw it. It’s just me and my Charlie here. He’s the first one ever to have seen it.”
Charlie nods his head in agreement. Then speaks.
- “’Bout two months ago. Out in the middle of our bend. It was the square outline of a sunken houseboat. The light has to be right or you won’t see it. And I swam out to it and I dove down.”
He flicks his wrist towards the river with the worn steak knife he used to open the can of beans.
-“And tell him, Charlie, what we found.”
-“Well, first thing I found is a houseboat, square and sound looking, just sittin’ there on the bottom as if it was made for it. No gash in it or nothing. So the door was open and I swam through it into the kitchen and found everything as it should be, as if it’d never sunk, as if it weren’t underwater. The trash bag waiting by the door as if ready to be taken out. Post-it notes still stuck to the side of a cabinet, waving all sleepy-like in the current. The fridge still working cooling away the water inside it…”
-“Even the toilets, my Charlie says, even the toilets flush, or try to flush. Make a swirl in the room like they trying to swallow the whole damn river. Whole houseboat is like that. Still working like the day it was made. Ain’t it nothing but magic?
She stares at me. I look down at my can of warm beans to avoid her stare. She presses,
-“You like them beans friend? Them beans is from the houseboat. Charlie found them just sittin’ in the cupboard yesterday.”
-“We figured they wouldn’t miss ‘em. I been taking things from that houseboat since I found her. It ain’t true looting. I’m sure the couple wouldn’t mind it. Lots of this camp come from that houseboat. Tarp and tent were in the hallway closet. Took a bunch of blankets that we dried out and are real warm. That grill was mounted on the front deck. We got so much of the houseboat up here now it’s like we’re rebuilding her right here on the shore.’”
-“A Couple?” I ask, confused.
He looks at me with surprise then regret on his face. He looks at his partner as if asking an apology and permission.
-“Charlie ain’t never told nobody about them but me. But seeing as he let it slip, we might as well tell you. Charlie say there’s a couple down there, in the living room”.
Charlie takes over, speaking slowly.
-“Yeah, Woman young and pretty, just a laid out on the couch as if she’s sleeping. Pale man sittin’ Indian style on the carpet at the foot of the couch, as if he’s giving her room to sleep. Both their hair all black and wavy in the water.”
-“And no decay, right Charlie? Dead two months sure, skin all cold but not a critter in sight. Eyes closed just like they was takin’ a nap. Like they got tired of watching the tube and just closed their eyes and took a nap. Nothin’ but magic. Charlie thinks it must have been a gas leak, don’t you Charlie?”
-“Yeah, no signs of struggle. Must have just passed out from the gas and floated down the river til some eddy took ‘em and twirled ‘em down into the middle of our bend. Done swam all around that boat though and can’t find a reason why she would have sunk. No gash in it or nothing.”
Charlie looks down into the small fire and moves a half burned mesquite branch with the toe of his boot. The woman looks at me as if waiting for me to speak.
-“It’s amazing,” I say. “I don’t know what else to say. Sounds amazing.”
-”It is. It’s nothin’ but magic.” She is eager. “I can’t swim down just yet. I’ve been sick, you know, on the inside.” She waves a hand below her belly. “Charlie’s been nursing me back to health. But I can sure see the glint of it in the water off the bend there.”
She is leaning forward in her camp chair, legs together. She looks well into middle age with a creased but clean face. Her clothes are dirty. I hadn’t noticed how thin she was. Charlie is still looking down at the hot base of the fire. It’s hard to look pale in the red-orange light of a fire, but the woman still looks pale.
“And there’s one more thing friend, secret and real special. Charlie ain’t even told me this ‘til bout a week ago. He says there’s kid toys all about the living room. You know, a real young boy’s toys. And he says there’s a door he hasn’t checked yet in the hallway cause it just don’t feel right to open it yet. Ain’t that the truth Charlie, that there’s another bedroom but it just don’t feel right to swim in there yet?”
-“That’s the truth, love.”
He glances over at the woman, then back down to the fire, then up at me. The woman speaks:
-“I tell you friend, that boat’s nothin’ but magic. I bet you…” Her voice lowers to a whisper “I bet you there’s a boy in that room, all cold and sleeping in a crib like his parents. Hair all wispy and wavy in the slow water. I bet he’s the palest most beautiful boy in the world. Don’t you think so Charlie? Don’t you bet he’s the palest most beautiful boy in the world?
Charlie looks down again at the fire.
-“I do, love.”
The woman’s voice lowers even further, takes on heavy intent. She is very eager, pressing words out with great effort.
-“And one of these nights friend, when Charlie feels right about it he says he’s going to swim into that room and find that boy and take him in his arms and bring him up here to the surface. And who knows with the magic in that boat if that boy won’t just take a deep breath when he hits the moonlight, like he’s been holding them breath them whole two months. And we’ll adopt him and keep him right here so he can grow up strong and be close to his other parents and dive down once in a while to see them all peaceful and sleeping, all young and in love like the day they was married. You think that’ll happen, don’t you Charlie? Like the day they was married.”
-“I do, love.”
She relaxes and sinks back into the camp chair, looking small and exhausted. Away from the direct firelight she looks ghostly white, whispish, like a moonbeam. Charlie stands up slowly from his milk crate, takes a small red blanket and tucks it around the woman’s shoulders. He comes back to the crate, sits down and begins to unlace his boots.
-“You close your eyes and sleep a bit now love, you’ve talked yourself out. Me and our friend here’s going to the river now and see about the houseboat. Would you like I bring you back one of the toys from the living room? I ‘magine I could do that for you.”
The woman answers weakly, as if from far away.
-“Oh thank you Charlie, thank you.” And to me: “He likes to go down in the moonlight, says there’s less chance of being seen that way. I like to sit by the fire and fall asleep to the sound of him diving down in the water.”
She closes her eyes and turns her head. Charlie and I walk towards the bend in the river. Charlie is barefoot and takes off his denim shirt as we are walking. His torso is hunched and hairy and covered in raised, pink mosquito bites.
-“You should take her to a hospital” I say as we reach the river.
-“I did. They did a bunch of tests then gave us pain pills and sent us back. Said it was bad. ‘Advanced’ they said. Said there was nothing for it. Been two months now.”
I pause, taken aback. Charlie pulls off his jeans and stands on the bank in worn white underwear, shoulders hunched against a cold I cannot feel. A half moon shines on the ripples of the river.
-“It’s a real nice thing that you’re doing for her, then” I say “with the houseboat and all…”
-“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about friend”
Charlie’s words are measured. He looks through me. I lower my voice,
-“I mean, there’s really no magic houseboat down there is there?”
An uncertainty, which is hope, makes my voice tail off at the end of the question. Still, as soon as it’s out I regret speaking. Charlie looks at me and then back down at his feet standing in the mud of the riverbank. He looks very tired in the moonlight. He slaps his arm at a mosquito and waits a long time before speaking.
“Listen friend,” He says, seriously, “All of us, we all do the best we can.”
He swallows. Then he lurches into the river from the riverbank and swims clumsily crosscurrent towards the center of the bend.
In other news, I've abandoned TV. Said I was going out for a pack of cigarettes...which made the TV ask me if I was picking up smoking, which justified my saying back to the TV, "see, you don't know anything about me. You never listen to me. I don't know why I'm in this relationship in the first place". The TV apologized, but I was angry and it wasn't enough. I unplugged her and put her in the closet. Facing the wall because I can't stand the blank look of reproach on her face. And, it's been good, so far. Lots of Hulu. Lots of rediscovering my love of music through Pitchfork and Pandora. Lots of writing excercises. Lots of being sociable. Maybe I'll sell her on craigslist. Maybe I'll just keep her in the closet. Maybe I'll destroy her with my antique ball-pen hammer. If I destroy it, you can blame it on Robert Bly's "Iron John".
Story # 3
The Palest, Most Beautiful Boy in the World
I dreamt of a pair of riverside beggars, man and woman. Itinerant wanderers who had camped on the slow bend of an s-curve on some offshoot of the Mississippi. We were uneasy friends and sat on plastic milk crates and worn camp chairs around a fire. There were fireflies at the edges of the light, and mosquitoes.
Excitedly, over canned beans. In the late evening:
-“It was nothin’ but a glint under the water from the setting sun when my Charlie saw it. It’s just me and my Charlie here. He’s the first one ever to have seen it.”
Charlie nods his head in agreement. Then speaks.
- “’Bout two months ago. Out in the middle of our bend. It was the square outline of a sunken houseboat. The light has to be right or you won’t see it. And I swam out to it and I dove down.”
He flicks his wrist towards the river with the worn steak knife he used to open the can of beans.
-“And tell him, Charlie, what we found.”
-“Well, first thing I found is a houseboat, square and sound looking, just sittin’ there on the bottom as if it was made for it. No gash in it or nothing. So the door was open and I swam through it into the kitchen and found everything as it should be, as if it’d never sunk, as if it weren’t underwater. The trash bag waiting by the door as if ready to be taken out. Post-it notes still stuck to the side of a cabinet, waving all sleepy-like in the current. The fridge still working cooling away the water inside it…”
-“Even the toilets, my Charlie says, even the toilets flush, or try to flush. Make a swirl in the room like they trying to swallow the whole damn river. Whole houseboat is like that. Still working like the day it was made. Ain’t it nothing but magic?
She stares at me. I look down at my can of warm beans to avoid her stare. She presses,
-“You like them beans friend? Them beans is from the houseboat. Charlie found them just sittin’ in the cupboard yesterday.”
-“We figured they wouldn’t miss ‘em. I been taking things from that houseboat since I found her. It ain’t true looting. I’m sure the couple wouldn’t mind it. Lots of this camp come from that houseboat. Tarp and tent were in the hallway closet. Took a bunch of blankets that we dried out and are real warm. That grill was mounted on the front deck. We got so much of the houseboat up here now it’s like we’re rebuilding her right here on the shore.’”
-“A Couple?” I ask, confused.
He looks at me with surprise then regret on his face. He looks at his partner as if asking an apology and permission.
-“Charlie ain’t never told nobody about them but me. But seeing as he let it slip, we might as well tell you. Charlie say there’s a couple down there, in the living room”.
Charlie takes over, speaking slowly.
-“Yeah, Woman young and pretty, just a laid out on the couch as if she’s sleeping. Pale man sittin’ Indian style on the carpet at the foot of the couch, as if he’s giving her room to sleep. Both their hair all black and wavy in the water.”
-“And no decay, right Charlie? Dead two months sure, skin all cold but not a critter in sight. Eyes closed just like they was takin’ a nap. Like they got tired of watching the tube and just closed their eyes and took a nap. Nothin’ but magic. Charlie thinks it must have been a gas leak, don’t you Charlie?”
-“Yeah, no signs of struggle. Must have just passed out from the gas and floated down the river til some eddy took ‘em and twirled ‘em down into the middle of our bend. Done swam all around that boat though and can’t find a reason why she would have sunk. No gash in it or nothing.”
Charlie looks down into the small fire and moves a half burned mesquite branch with the toe of his boot. The woman looks at me as if waiting for me to speak.
-“It’s amazing,” I say. “I don’t know what else to say. Sounds amazing.”
-”It is. It’s nothin’ but magic.” She is eager. “I can’t swim down just yet. I’ve been sick, you know, on the inside.” She waves a hand below her belly. “Charlie’s been nursing me back to health. But I can sure see the glint of it in the water off the bend there.”
She is leaning forward in her camp chair, legs together. She looks well into middle age with a creased but clean face. Her clothes are dirty. I hadn’t noticed how thin she was. Charlie is still looking down at the hot base of the fire. It’s hard to look pale in the red-orange light of a fire, but the woman still looks pale.
“And there’s one more thing friend, secret and real special. Charlie ain’t even told me this ‘til bout a week ago. He says there’s kid toys all about the living room. You know, a real young boy’s toys. And he says there’s a door he hasn’t checked yet in the hallway cause it just don’t feel right to open it yet. Ain’t that the truth Charlie, that there’s another bedroom but it just don’t feel right to swim in there yet?”
-“That’s the truth, love.”
He glances over at the woman, then back down to the fire, then up at me. The woman speaks:
-“I tell you friend, that boat’s nothin’ but magic. I bet you…” Her voice lowers to a whisper “I bet you there’s a boy in that room, all cold and sleeping in a crib like his parents. Hair all wispy and wavy in the slow water. I bet he’s the palest most beautiful boy in the world. Don’t you think so Charlie? Don’t you bet he’s the palest most beautiful boy in the world?
Charlie looks down again at the fire.
-“I do, love.”
The woman’s voice lowers even further, takes on heavy intent. She is very eager, pressing words out with great effort.
-“And one of these nights friend, when Charlie feels right about it he says he’s going to swim into that room and find that boy and take him in his arms and bring him up here to the surface. And who knows with the magic in that boat if that boy won’t just take a deep breath when he hits the moonlight, like he’s been holding them breath them whole two months. And we’ll adopt him and keep him right here so he can grow up strong and be close to his other parents and dive down once in a while to see them all peaceful and sleeping, all young and in love like the day they was married. You think that’ll happen, don’t you Charlie? Like the day they was married.”
-“I do, love.”
She relaxes and sinks back into the camp chair, looking small and exhausted. Away from the direct firelight she looks ghostly white, whispish, like a moonbeam. Charlie stands up slowly from his milk crate, takes a small red blanket and tucks it around the woman’s shoulders. He comes back to the crate, sits down and begins to unlace his boots.
-“You close your eyes and sleep a bit now love, you’ve talked yourself out. Me and our friend here’s going to the river now and see about the houseboat. Would you like I bring you back one of the toys from the living room? I ‘magine I could do that for you.”
The woman answers weakly, as if from far away.
-“Oh thank you Charlie, thank you.” And to me: “He likes to go down in the moonlight, says there’s less chance of being seen that way. I like to sit by the fire and fall asleep to the sound of him diving down in the water.”
She closes her eyes and turns her head. Charlie and I walk towards the bend in the river. Charlie is barefoot and takes off his denim shirt as we are walking. His torso is hunched and hairy and covered in raised, pink mosquito bites.
-“You should take her to a hospital” I say as we reach the river.
-“I did. They did a bunch of tests then gave us pain pills and sent us back. Said it was bad. ‘Advanced’ they said. Said there was nothing for it. Been two months now.”
I pause, taken aback. Charlie pulls off his jeans and stands on the bank in worn white underwear, shoulders hunched against a cold I cannot feel. A half moon shines on the ripples of the river.
-“It’s a real nice thing that you’re doing for her, then” I say “with the houseboat and all…”
-“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about friend”
Charlie’s words are measured. He looks through me. I lower my voice,
-“I mean, there’s really no magic houseboat down there is there?”
An uncertainty, which is hope, makes my voice tail off at the end of the question. Still, as soon as it’s out I regret speaking. Charlie looks at me and then back down at his feet standing in the mud of the riverbank. He looks very tired in the moonlight. He slaps his arm at a mosquito and waits a long time before speaking.
“Listen friend,” He says, seriously, “All of us, we all do the best we can.”
He swallows. Then he lurches into the river from the riverbank and swims clumsily crosscurrent towards the center of the bend.
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