Thursday, October 18, 2012
SPE: "Crippled Inside"
[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Jester Queen gave me this prompt: "Cold air blew in from the front of the house, and I knew before I went into the kitchen that the door had been open all night." I gave Eric Storch this prompt: " 'Sometimes I don't consider myself very good at life, so I hide in my profession.' --Kurt Vonnegut"]
I didn't have many visitors. On a hot day, my mailman would sit and drink some ice water with me, and I had a few neighbors who would check in on me. But generally speaking, I was alone most of the time. It suited me well enough. I had always been a solitary sort of person, even when my house was crowded. My wife was stolen, first her soul, then her body, by breast cancer, and then my son left to chase his dreams, living with 4 other animators in a rented house outside St. Louis. So I was alone, mostly, and that was by choice. Mostly.
So when the cold air blew in from the front of the house, I knew before I went into the kitchen that the door had been open all night. I knew I hadn't left it open- my nighttime ritual involved shutting all my doors and windows, then giving both doors a ritual tug to be sure they had latched. I didn't lock them anymore- there wasn't anything for anyone to steal, and our neighborhood was quiet and paranoid enough so that any unusual visitors would stick out.
I had glanced at the clock as I walked through the kitchen. It was 3:45, bringing to mind the old Fitzgerald quote about how, in a deep dark night of the soul, it is always 3 o'clock in the morning. I didn't have to be anywhere in the morning, but this time of the night always troubled me. 2 o'clock is somehow still part of the previous night, and 4 o'clock always belongs to the next day. 3 is a hermaphrodite, half here and half there, and when I find myself awake at that hour, I am always haunted by a vague anxiety, a feeling that nothing good can happen.
I came into the front room and stopped short when I saw her. She was sitting in my recliner, which faced vaguely towards the television, her legs crossed primly at the knee as if she was waiting to be called on. She was in that indeterminate spectrum of age- she could be a tall 12 year old, or a slim lass of 20. Her legs were bare, and she wore only what I assumed was a nightshirt, along with those comically functionless boots that were still in fashion- too slight to be any real protection, and too common to be truly fashionable. It wasn't freezing- in my New England boyhood, we'd call this a warm winter day. But it was too cold to be outside in nightclothes.
I shut the door gently, continuing to look at her as she sat. Her hair was a rat's nest of disorder, tufts and tangles galore. I could see her nipples pushing at the fabric, taut and hard, but her face was a mask of dreamy unconcern. I knew two things that would produce that face, being stoned and sleepwalking, and I assumed it was probably the latter. I had lived with a sleepwalker in college, and we all got used to steering him back to bed at all hours of the night.
"Hi," I said, my voice syrupy from sleep. She didn't react, simply kept staring at my television like she was waiting for someone. She looked familiar. I knew she belonged in the neighborhood, but which kid belonged to which house was a daily puzzle that I never exerted myself enough to solve. Emily, I think her name was.
"Emily?," I tried. "Honey? You're in the wrong house, sweetheart."
Nothing. She could be an android before you pressed the on button. Not happy, not sad, just blank emptiness.
"Emily?"
Silence.
I walked over to the couch and picked up an Afghan my wife had knitted years ago. I walked over to her and tried to wrap it around her shoulders. She was still unresponsive, so I settled on draping it over her as best I could. At least I couldn't see her nipples anymore. What kind of thoughts were running through her head? Was she escaping from something? What made someone walk through the cold into a stranger's house? I knew the old wives' tale that you couldn't wake up a sleepwalker without causing insanity was false, but I didn't want to wake her up even so. She would be entitled to be panicky, waking up in a stranger's house, barely clothed.
I dialed 911, keeping an eye on her as I waited. Once I explained, the dispatcher chuckled.
"Oh, Emily? Yeah, this isn't the first time. About once a month, she escapes whatever traps her parents lay and gets out. She's visited everyone on the block at least once. I guess it's just your turn tonight. Hold tight, an officer is on the way."
I set the phone down, looking at her empty, open face. Her face was flushed red, probably from the wind as she walked. I knew intellectually she had a disease, no more or less than an ear infection, one that would probably clear as she aged. But I had a sick feeling, a deep disquiet that something was wrong with my nocturnal intruder.
The police knocked politely as I pondered. The officer at the door was a young looking man, slightly tense, giving me a long hard look. We exchanged greetings, and I stepped back, letting him and his partner, a squat, muscular looking blonde woman, into my house.
"There she is," the woman said lovingly. She walked in front of me, scooping the girl up as if she were a sleepy toddler. One of Emily's boots fell to the floor as the officer lifted her up. Her toenails had ragged dots of polish on them. I picked up the boot and handed it to the male officer.
"Is this her blanket?," the woman said.
"No," I said. "It's mine. Let her keep it."
"OK," she said. "I'll give the parents your address. You should get to know each other."
With no more strain than lifting a case of soda, the woman walked past me carrying the girl.
I looked at the male officer. "Pedersen," his uniform said.
"Do you think she's OK?," I said. "She's not being abused or anything?"
"I thought that, too," he said. "My partner, there, had a long talk with her the last time we had to pick her up. She swears up and down everything is fine. Until she says boo, there's not much we can do about it."
"Aha. Well thanks for coming out."
"No problem. Thanks for not shooting her."
"Good night, Officer."
"Good night. And lock your door," Pedersen said.
The three of them left. My heat cycled on, trying to eliminate the chill. I thought about her foot, bare in the still chilly air, so vulnerable. My heart ached briefly for all the lonely people I could not protect, and then I sighed and turned the TV on.
That Thing That I Do? I'm About To Do It Again.
"Yesterday it was my birthday-
I hung one more year on the line-
I should be depressed-
My life's a mess-
But I'm having a good time."
-Paul Simon
"Have A Good Time"
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
100 Word Song: "Gone"
(Lance, who is nobody's fool, and whose blog can beat up my blog, allowed his infinitely patient better half, the lovely Bobina, to select this week's 100 Word Song, Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars". Since I am an Oldy McOlderton From Oldville, I assumed that this would be another of the selections that I had never heard of, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had in fact heard it. It was one of those, "Oh yeah, THAT song" situations. This story is called "Gone". )
It was one of those moments cat owners know. The house was quiet, and Bella jumped up onto the bed, eyeing me suspiciously. I was dressed, but just laying there, passively resisting my to do list.
"Do you want to come have a rest, baby?," I said, speaking softly. She was very skittish. She looked into my eyes.
"Do you want to lay here with me?," I said.
My phone rang. It was sitting on the bed, and as soon as it vibrated, she was up and off, down onto the floor and jetting into the kitchen.
"Damn," I thought.
It was one of those moments cat owners know. The house was quiet, and Bella jumped up onto the bed, eyeing me suspiciously. I was dressed, but just laying there, passively resisting my to do list.
"Do you want to come have a rest, baby?," I said, speaking softly. She was very skittish. She looked into my eyes.
"Do you want to lay here with me?," I said.
My phone rang. It was sitting on the bed, and as soon as it vibrated, she was up and off, down onto the floor and jetting into the kitchen.
"Damn," I thought.
Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge: "Folsom Prison"
The inimitable Velvet Verbosity survived her first round play in game, and is fully prepared to win the Division Series of Blogging. This week's challenge comes from another of my favorite Vs, Kurt Vonnegut, and his advice that every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. This story is called "Folsom Prison".
Johnny Cash looked out into a sea of hard, expectant faces. His people said he was crazy. But he felt music was a calling. It was a way to bring a bit of someone else's experience to you, and to make you feel it, to make you own it. It wasn't preaching, but it was close. He wanted to bring it to all of God's children.
The hot air had dried his throat. He looked at a guard, standing offstage with a billy club.
"Could I get a glass of water?," he said into the mike, and the inmates cheered.
Johnny Cash looked out into a sea of hard, expectant faces. His people said he was crazy. But he felt music was a calling. It was a way to bring a bit of someone else's experience to you, and to make you feel it, to make you own it. It wasn't preaching, but it was close. He wanted to bring it to all of God's children.
The hot air had dried his throat. He looked at a guard, standing offstage with a billy club.
"Could I get a glass of water?," he said into the mike, and the inmates cheered.
10 Questions From Gill Hoffs
My other brother from another mother, Matt Potter, editor in chief and majordomo at the literary magazine where all the cool kids hang out, Pure Slush, asked me to participate in one of those tag you're it blog things. Longtime readers will note that this is not typically the cut of this blog's jib these days, but since the request came from the esteemed Mr. Potter, this blog hopped to it. What follows are Ten Questions, originally promulgated by another of this blog's favorite carbon based life forms, Gill Hoffs. The questions pertain to what this blog hopes will be this blog's next novel, which this blog intends to attempt as this blog's NaNoWriMo 2012 project.
What is the working title of your book?
I don't know. Titles are funny. Sometimes they are so obvious that you can't help it, and other times you can't think of anything that isn't stupid or repetitive. I stole a song title for my first book, so I may just do that. Let's call it "A Long December" for right now.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
A pen pal gave me the idea, based on events from her own life.
What genre does your book fall under?
Probably the same thing all my books fall under- "So Called Literary Fiction". "Fiction With Pretensions," perhaps?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
That's unclear at this time. Certainly young people, or young looking people. I'm thinking a Zooey Deschanel type, only slightly more serious looking.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
"Former lovers narrate their lives through an exchange of letters over the course of years."
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Hahahahahahahahahaha. Seriously. No. Self published, of course. I'm nowhere near good enough to expose my work to outsiders.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Ideally, November 1-November 30, 2012.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Well, "Herzog", obviously.
I kid, I kid. I don't know. The only author I compare myself to is Nick Hornby, but that's a grievous insult to him.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
When my pen pal described her relationship, the whole structure hit me like a ton of bricks. It seems like an obvious book to me, and I'm kind of surprised I've never read one like it. Of course, there may be 200 like it, but I've just never read them. If you have heard of one, please put it in the comments, so I can slit my wrists with confidence.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
I'm not sure. I never think anything I do is any good, so I'm not comfortable asserting something that may or may not interest you.
What is the working title of your book?
I don't know. Titles are funny. Sometimes they are so obvious that you can't help it, and other times you can't think of anything that isn't stupid or repetitive. I stole a song title for my first book, so I may just do that. Let's call it "A Long December" for right now.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
A pen pal gave me the idea, based on events from her own life.
What genre does your book fall under?
Probably the same thing all my books fall under- "So Called Literary Fiction". "Fiction With Pretensions," perhaps?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
That's unclear at this time. Certainly young people, or young looking people. I'm thinking a Zooey Deschanel type, only slightly more serious looking.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
"Former lovers narrate their lives through an exchange of letters over the course of years."
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Hahahahahahahahahaha. Seriously. No. Self published, of course. I'm nowhere near good enough to expose my work to outsiders.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Ideally, November 1-November 30, 2012.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Well, "Herzog", obviously.
I kid, I kid. I don't know. The only author I compare myself to is Nick Hornby, but that's a grievous insult to him.
Who or What inspired you to write this book?
When my pen pal described her relationship, the whole structure hit me like a ton of bricks. It seems like an obvious book to me, and I'm kind of surprised I've never read one like it. Of course, there may be 200 like it, but I've just never read them. If you have heard of one, please put it in the comments, so I can slit my wrists with confidence.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
I'm not sure. I never think anything I do is any good, so I'm not comfortable asserting something that may or may not interest you.
SPE: October 17,2003
[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Barb Black gave me this prompt: "The first cold, crisp day of autumn always reminds me of," and I gave Jester Queen this prompt: " 'Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.' -Semisonic, "Closing Time" "]
{ In the very first moments of October 17,2003, New York Yankee Aaron Boone hit an 11th inning home run off of Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield to win the seventh and deciding game of the American League Championship Series, 6-5. This ended Boston's 85th consectutive season without a World Series championship, and the Yankees moved on to the World Series.}
[This is poetry, I guess. It's incredibly hard, and I give full credit to any and all poets in the audience, especially my home girl Marian. It's called "October 17, 2003" ]
October 17, 2003
ITunes is new.
Iraq War too.
I'm 32.
If it's high,
let it fly.
If it's low,
let it go.
Swing and a drive
Kept Yanks alive
Wakefield walks slow
Heralds the snow
{ In the very first moments of October 17,2003, New York Yankee Aaron Boone hit an 11th inning home run off of Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield to win the seventh and deciding game of the American League Championship Series, 6-5. This ended Boston's 85th consectutive season without a World Series championship, and the Yankees moved on to the World Series.}
[This is poetry, I guess. It's incredibly hard, and I give full credit to any and all poets in the audience, especially my home girl Marian. It's called "October 17, 2003" ]
October 17, 2003
ITunes is new.
Iraq War too.
I'm 32.
If it's high,
let it fly.
If it's low,
let it go.
Swing and a drive
Kept Yanks alive
Wakefield walks slow
Heralds the snow
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
SPE : "Forgive Me, Richard Dawkins"
(For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Grace O'Malley gave me this prompt: "Archaeopteryx, Inc." I gave Wendryn this prompt: "And everything was going so well, too.")(This is called "Forgive Me, Richard Dawkins")
I didn't have any illusions about my desirability as a mate. I looked like a substitute teacher, which is what I was, rumpled and slightly pasty like a donut left in the box for 2 days. My novel was in what seemed like its millionth set of revisions and rewrites, and my prospects for a career in any field dimmed quickly as each month passed. I felt like a fading star, watching from the bench as younger, stronger players celebrate a victory. "This is what happens when you chase your dreams, kids," I wanted to tell my students.
I went into the online dating world not out of any burning desire for a mate, but more to shut my mother up. Her cries about the extinction of our "line" had fallen on deaf ears thus far, but as 30 years old neared in the windshield, her arguments became less easy to ignore. It would be nice, I convinced myself, to have someone to go to museums and movies with, and to have someone to talk to other than my mailman, my editor, and the crusty nonentities in the various teacher's lounges across the county. So I bought in, and before long, I was exchanging slightly flirty emails with Jamie, a brunette with a severe looking face, her hair pulled back with hip glasses and an Roman nose.
We agreed to meet at the library on Columbus Day, a day off she shared as a bank manager. The floors were cool marble, and outside we could see a fall storm chopping the river into whitecaps. I had one of my better dress shirts on, and she wore a long, dark, modest skirt with tan boots and a big white sweater. We walked together, looking at the different exhibits, making aimless small talk and evaluating each other's mannerisms as we maneuvered around whiny toddlers and moms pushing strollers.
We came into a large hall filled with fossils. She stopped in front of a diorama showing a bird like creature, glaring at us from a foam branch. It reminded me of Snoopy playing vulture.
"Look," she said cheerfully. "They made that one look like a bird."
I stood behind her. I was looking at the way her hair, let down in a beautiful corona, fell across her shoulder. She wasn't the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but she would probably crack the top 20, and she seemed to enjoy my company.
"I'm sure it's all based on logical deductions." I tended to over lecture, treating everyone within earshot like they were a student.
"What is?"
"The colors, the bone structure. It's all based on the fossil evidence, and logical inferences and deductions."
"Fossils," she said dismissively. "Whatever. You don't really believe in those, do you?"
I stopped short. She took a step or two away from me.
"Believe in them?" I was trying to keep my voice down, but some disbelief crept in. "I don't have any alternative to believing in them. They are real, as real as the floor we are standing on."
"Those scientists don't really know what happened."
"Well, no," I said. "They weren't there. But they can make really good guesses."
"I never believed in any of that stuff."
"What stuff? Science?"
"No," she said, chuckling. Her laugh was musical and her eyes danced. "No, all that evolution stuff. There's no way they really know that."
She took another step away, towards a display of bones, showing the progress from a dinosaur limb into a bird wing. I didn't know what to say next. I thought about the comedian Dana Gould, who has a joke about dealing with his father's irrational beliefs. "What am I supposed to say? He thinks gay people give off heat!"
I stepped closer, so I wouldn't be yelling across the exhibit at her. She went to high school and college. Or she said she did. I traced the curves of her hips and waist through the skirt and sweater. She was attractive, even under the layers. There was no denying that. I mentally weighed the possibility of pretending to listen to her lunacy in the hopes of getting her into bed. I knew I could do it. But could I live with myself?
"They're pretty sure," I said more quietly. "Plus all the evidence points in that direction. That's the beauty of science- if you have a better theory, the floor is open."
We stopped again, looking at the tiny flecks of bone with the drawings showing what they would look like at full size.
"Where do you think the fossils come from, then?"
"Oh, I believe the fossils are real," she said. "I don't think there's some company, some Archaeopteryx, Inc, going around the world, placing fossils everywhere. I just don't think that we know all that much about what things were really like. It's a lot of guessing."
I looked down at the floor. The soft brown toe of one of her boots was pointed right at me. It's really good guessing, I wanted to say. Guessing based on all the available evidence. On carbon dating. On ice core samples. On...science, for goodness' sake. I was no paleontologist, but I knew enough to know that they weren't just guessing. She really was pretty, and she looked willing. Weren't there enough things in the world to talk about, other than the fossil record?
"I guess you must be getting pretty hungry," I said, trying to sound suave.
"I am, actually. Do you want to go grab a bite?"
"Absolutely," I said. She walked out of the exhibit, back towards the lobby and the cafeteria. I followed, watching her hemline twitch as she walked. There was a tiny line of lace across the bottom of the skirt, and it made the fabric look like it was dancing as it fluttered along. Forgive me, Richard Dawkins, I thought.
I didn't have any illusions about my desirability as a mate. I looked like a substitute teacher, which is what I was, rumpled and slightly pasty like a donut left in the box for 2 days. My novel was in what seemed like its millionth set of revisions and rewrites, and my prospects for a career in any field dimmed quickly as each month passed. I felt like a fading star, watching from the bench as younger, stronger players celebrate a victory. "This is what happens when you chase your dreams, kids," I wanted to tell my students.
I went into the online dating world not out of any burning desire for a mate, but more to shut my mother up. Her cries about the extinction of our "line" had fallen on deaf ears thus far, but as 30 years old neared in the windshield, her arguments became less easy to ignore. It would be nice, I convinced myself, to have someone to go to museums and movies with, and to have someone to talk to other than my mailman, my editor, and the crusty nonentities in the various teacher's lounges across the county. So I bought in, and before long, I was exchanging slightly flirty emails with Jamie, a brunette with a severe looking face, her hair pulled back with hip glasses and an Roman nose.
We agreed to meet at the library on Columbus Day, a day off she shared as a bank manager. The floors were cool marble, and outside we could see a fall storm chopping the river into whitecaps. I had one of my better dress shirts on, and she wore a long, dark, modest skirt with tan boots and a big white sweater. We walked together, looking at the different exhibits, making aimless small talk and evaluating each other's mannerisms as we maneuvered around whiny toddlers and moms pushing strollers.
We came into a large hall filled with fossils. She stopped in front of a diorama showing a bird like creature, glaring at us from a foam branch. It reminded me of Snoopy playing vulture.
"Look," she said cheerfully. "They made that one look like a bird."
I stood behind her. I was looking at the way her hair, let down in a beautiful corona, fell across her shoulder. She wasn't the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but she would probably crack the top 20, and she seemed to enjoy my company.
"I'm sure it's all based on logical deductions." I tended to over lecture, treating everyone within earshot like they were a student.
"What is?"
"The colors, the bone structure. It's all based on the fossil evidence, and logical inferences and deductions."
"Fossils," she said dismissively. "Whatever. You don't really believe in those, do you?"
I stopped short. She took a step or two away from me.
"Believe in them?" I was trying to keep my voice down, but some disbelief crept in. "I don't have any alternative to believing in them. They are real, as real as the floor we are standing on."
"Those scientists don't really know what happened."
"Well, no," I said. "They weren't there. But they can make really good guesses."
"I never believed in any of that stuff."
"What stuff? Science?"
"No," she said, chuckling. Her laugh was musical and her eyes danced. "No, all that evolution stuff. There's no way they really know that."
She took another step away, towards a display of bones, showing the progress from a dinosaur limb into a bird wing. I didn't know what to say next. I thought about the comedian Dana Gould, who has a joke about dealing with his father's irrational beliefs. "What am I supposed to say? He thinks gay people give off heat!"
I stepped closer, so I wouldn't be yelling across the exhibit at her. She went to high school and college. Or she said she did. I traced the curves of her hips and waist through the skirt and sweater. She was attractive, even under the layers. There was no denying that. I mentally weighed the possibility of pretending to listen to her lunacy in the hopes of getting her into bed. I knew I could do it. But could I live with myself?
"They're pretty sure," I said more quietly. "Plus all the evidence points in that direction. That's the beauty of science- if you have a better theory, the floor is open."
We stopped again, looking at the tiny flecks of bone with the drawings showing what they would look like at full size.
"Where do you think the fossils come from, then?"
"Oh, I believe the fossils are real," she said. "I don't think there's some company, some Archaeopteryx, Inc, going around the world, placing fossils everywhere. I just don't think that we know all that much about what things were really like. It's a lot of guessing."
I looked down at the floor. The soft brown toe of one of her boots was pointed right at me. It's really good guessing, I wanted to say. Guessing based on all the available evidence. On carbon dating. On ice core samples. On...science, for goodness' sake. I was no paleontologist, but I knew enough to know that they weren't just guessing. She really was pretty, and she looked willing. Weren't there enough things in the world to talk about, other than the fossil record?
"I guess you must be getting pretty hungry," I said, trying to sound suave.
"I am, actually. Do you want to go grab a bite?"
"Absolutely," I said. She walked out of the exhibit, back towards the lobby and the cafeteria. I followed, watching her hemline twitch as she walked. There was a tiny line of lace across the bottom of the skirt, and it made the fabric look like it was dancing as it fluttered along. Forgive me, Richard Dawkins, I thought.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
100 Word Song: "Helpless"
Lance, the greatest thing to come out of Georgia since Bear Bryant, gives us Mumford and Sons "I Will Wait" for our 100 word songfulness this week. This story is about someone who did not wait, and it is called "Helpless".
I wanted to say that I didn't know, but I did. Most everyone over here worried someone was cheating at home. We left someone behind, and we hoped they would stay true. It felt helpless. We're not good at helpless.
She stopped keeping Skype dates, then she started staying out of view, her face red, her shirts tight. When she said we had to talk, I knew what she was going to say.
"You said you would wait," I said into the ether.
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry."
I reached out and closed the window before she could explain.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge: "Whatever Was Wasn't Enough"
Velvet Verbosity always makes sure her replacement referees are fully trained. This week's word is "Beyond", and this story is called "Whatever Was Wasn't Enough."
Janet always wanted more. If you drank three, she would drink four. If you stayed out until four, she would stumble in at six. She was always looking for something just beyond the horizon, living in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. Whatever was wasn't enough. When she finally met Joseph, the male version of herself, everyone was sure that a flaming crash was to follow.
"You two have to slow down," they said. "You have plenty of time."
Janet put both hands on her belly and wished she had listened. By looking for something beyond, she found something else within.
Janet always wanted more. If you drank three, she would drink four. If you stayed out until four, she would stumble in at six. She was always looking for something just beyond the horizon, living in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. Whatever was wasn't enough. When she finally met Joseph, the male version of herself, everyone was sure that a flaming crash was to follow.
"You two have to slow down," they said. "You have plenty of time."
Janet put both hands on her belly and wished she had listened. By looking for something beyond, she found something else within.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
SPE: "Ethelred The Unready"
[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Jester Queen gave me this prompt: "The narrow world exploded with colors." I gave Diane this prompt: ' "Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel/ Was just a freight train coming your way-" Metallica, "No Leaf Clover" ']
I was laying down across the back seat, staring out the window on the driver's side, watching the world whip by. When I was little, I remember a similar view on long rides. I used to pretend that I was in a submarine, exploring the ocean floor. Brown utility poles and silver streetlights were the tentacles of enormous undersea beasts I had to steer around, and buildings were coral reefs where even more exotic creatures lurked. Back then, with my head at one end, I could barely reach across the seat to touch the other door. Now, I have to curl myself into a pretzel to fit in the same space.
My father, brown eyed, bearded, and firm in his convictions, had tried to engage me in conversation as the ride began, asking me questions I had already answered and telling me stories I had already heard, until my mother stopped her knitting long enough to finally cut in.
"Let her sleep, Jonathan," she said calmly. "We have hours to kill."
He lapsed into silence, finally giving up and starting an audiobook about English history. My father was the sort of person who turned anything into a chance to learn something, a trait as admirable as it was obnoxious. Relieved, I curled into a ball, pulling an afghan my mother made around me. I listened to stories of Ethelred the Unready, soothed by the metronomic clicking of my mother's needles, and stared out the window as the countryside passed by.
We had risen with the dawn, another of my father's less desirable traits, so early I just pulled my hair back and left without showering. It was remarkable how little space I took up- everything I would need for months, taking up the back of one SUV. I felt insignificant, curled up in my little biosphere, rolling along. I had brought headphones, and my own music, and magazines, but the hypnotic rhythm of the road thumping underneath us lulled me into a Zen stillness, staring, not sleeping, just being.
I had done all the things you were supposed to do, and signed all the things you were supposed to sign. It was all pretend now, answering the question "aren't you excited?" with the only possible answer, "Oh yeah!". The whole process was going on of its own accord, making me view my own life at a remove. I was going because that's what you do, because that's what my mother did, because that's what you need to do. Everyone says so. It was easier to just go along, a stick thrown into the stream.
I closed my eyes, listening to the change in tone as we took a long, slow curve onto a larger highway. The thoughts still came, unbidden and unwanted. What was I doing? I didn't want to go live with a bunch of women I didn't know. I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted everything to slow down, to let me examine my options and decide which one I really preferred. Everything suddenly got complicated, with real world consequences of your decisions that I didn't feel worthy of considering. I wanted to be asked what I wanted in a world that was determined to tell me what to do.
I stretched the afghan taut, pulling my knees apart, one up towards the roof, one pointed towards the front. My mother had been delightfully clueless about my social life, making sure I knew everything an obstetrician would before I was entirely positive I knew what boys were. She tried hard, which I appreciated, but she never knew what was happening, which was deliberate. There were things I couldn't say, thoughts that I knew weren't wrong but were too private, too internal, too real to be shared. I know they whispered about me. I know my mother and my aunts wondered why I never mooned over boys, didn't go to the prom, never flirted at the mall. I never told anyone what I was feeling, what I wanted, what I needed, because the answer was usually nothing.
I read articles all the time about silent privacy codes between roommates, about bolder girls having sex while their roommates slept. Older sisters told breathless stories about drunken hookups with boys, or even with other girls, about emergency trips to the Health Center for diseases or something worse. I didn't know if those things really happened, or if they were just a social exaggeration, like those stories about girls getting pregnant after sitting on public toilets. I found it hard to imagine how I would cope with all that.
I didn't feel like dealing with anything. When we visited campus last spring, the work seemed impossibly hard, the women impossibly long legged and tan, the boys so many different flavors of cute. I couldn't see those people as peers. They were gods, moving through but not among mortals, capable and strong, whip smart and comfortable anywhere. I thought hard about the boys, how they were no more than a couple of years older than the clods who used to sit next to me in US History, but they were so different as to be another species. I wanted to feel like I was one of them, to know their secrets, to understand what they laughed about, to feel the weight of their gaze, their overwhelming need.
I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly the narrow world outside the window exploded with colors. There were trees near the entrance, green and brown and a few leaves already golden, then grass, broad green expanses being carefully tended by tan men wearing ear protection and dingy t shirts. Then buildings, red brick and deep brown wood, and cars, green and yellow and black and white, Kias and Porches and Fords and BMWs. My eyes popped wide open and I sat up, the taste of panic rising in the back of my throat.
My father was muttering at the insanity of the traffic pattern, or lack of one, as he tried to figure out which of the roads led to my building. My hands immediately went to my hair, undoing and redoing my pony tail, immediately regretting my clothes and my shoes and my unshowered self. I wanted out, back to my old room with its smells and sounds and the flecks of paint from where I put posters up. I wanted everything to be simple again, where the most complicated problem you had was how to be at two different birthday parties on the same Saturday.
My father pulled into a spot, then shut off the engine.
"You ready for a new adventure, kiddo?," he said.
"Sure am," I said.
I was laying down across the back seat, staring out the window on the driver's side, watching the world whip by. When I was little, I remember a similar view on long rides. I used to pretend that I was in a submarine, exploring the ocean floor. Brown utility poles and silver streetlights were the tentacles of enormous undersea beasts I had to steer around, and buildings were coral reefs where even more exotic creatures lurked. Back then, with my head at one end, I could barely reach across the seat to touch the other door. Now, I have to curl myself into a pretzel to fit in the same space.
My father, brown eyed, bearded, and firm in his convictions, had tried to engage me in conversation as the ride began, asking me questions I had already answered and telling me stories I had already heard, until my mother stopped her knitting long enough to finally cut in.
"Let her sleep, Jonathan," she said calmly. "We have hours to kill."
He lapsed into silence, finally giving up and starting an audiobook about English history. My father was the sort of person who turned anything into a chance to learn something, a trait as admirable as it was obnoxious. Relieved, I curled into a ball, pulling an afghan my mother made around me. I listened to stories of Ethelred the Unready, soothed by the metronomic clicking of my mother's needles, and stared out the window as the countryside passed by.
We had risen with the dawn, another of my father's less desirable traits, so early I just pulled my hair back and left without showering. It was remarkable how little space I took up- everything I would need for months, taking up the back of one SUV. I felt insignificant, curled up in my little biosphere, rolling along. I had brought headphones, and my own music, and magazines, but the hypnotic rhythm of the road thumping underneath us lulled me into a Zen stillness, staring, not sleeping, just being.
I had done all the things you were supposed to do, and signed all the things you were supposed to sign. It was all pretend now, answering the question "aren't you excited?" with the only possible answer, "Oh yeah!". The whole process was going on of its own accord, making me view my own life at a remove. I was going because that's what you do, because that's what my mother did, because that's what you need to do. Everyone says so. It was easier to just go along, a stick thrown into the stream.
I closed my eyes, listening to the change in tone as we took a long, slow curve onto a larger highway. The thoughts still came, unbidden and unwanted. What was I doing? I didn't want to go live with a bunch of women I didn't know. I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted everything to slow down, to let me examine my options and decide which one I really preferred. Everything suddenly got complicated, with real world consequences of your decisions that I didn't feel worthy of considering. I wanted to be asked what I wanted in a world that was determined to tell me what to do.
I stretched the afghan taut, pulling my knees apart, one up towards the roof, one pointed towards the front. My mother had been delightfully clueless about my social life, making sure I knew everything an obstetrician would before I was entirely positive I knew what boys were. She tried hard, which I appreciated, but she never knew what was happening, which was deliberate. There were things I couldn't say, thoughts that I knew weren't wrong but were too private, too internal, too real to be shared. I know they whispered about me. I know my mother and my aunts wondered why I never mooned over boys, didn't go to the prom, never flirted at the mall. I never told anyone what I was feeling, what I wanted, what I needed, because the answer was usually nothing.
I read articles all the time about silent privacy codes between roommates, about bolder girls having sex while their roommates slept. Older sisters told breathless stories about drunken hookups with boys, or even with other girls, about emergency trips to the Health Center for diseases or something worse. I didn't know if those things really happened, or if they were just a social exaggeration, like those stories about girls getting pregnant after sitting on public toilets. I found it hard to imagine how I would cope with all that.
I didn't feel like dealing with anything. When we visited campus last spring, the work seemed impossibly hard, the women impossibly long legged and tan, the boys so many different flavors of cute. I couldn't see those people as peers. They were gods, moving through but not among mortals, capable and strong, whip smart and comfortable anywhere. I thought hard about the boys, how they were no more than a couple of years older than the clods who used to sit next to me in US History, but they were so different as to be another species. I wanted to feel like I was one of them, to know their secrets, to understand what they laughed about, to feel the weight of their gaze, their overwhelming need.
I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly the narrow world outside the window exploded with colors. There were trees near the entrance, green and brown and a few leaves already golden, then grass, broad green expanses being carefully tended by tan men wearing ear protection and dingy t shirts. Then buildings, red brick and deep brown wood, and cars, green and yellow and black and white, Kias and Porches and Fords and BMWs. My eyes popped wide open and I sat up, the taste of panic rising in the back of my throat.
My father was muttering at the insanity of the traffic pattern, or lack of one, as he tried to figure out which of the roads led to my building. My hands immediately went to my hair, undoing and redoing my pony tail, immediately regretting my clothes and my shoes and my unshowered self. I wanted out, back to my old room with its smells and sounds and the flecks of paint from where I put posters up. I wanted everything to be simple again, where the most complicated problem you had was how to be at two different birthday parties on the same Saturday.
My father pulled into a spot, then shut off the engine.
"You ready for a new adventure, kiddo?," he said.
"Sure am," I said.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
SPE: Over and Over
{For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, kgwaite gave me this prompt: "The road construction was making it impossible to leave the city." I gave SAM this prompt: "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." - Samuel Johnson}
There was a forest of red lights in front of me, the frowning rear ends of Hyundais and Hummers, Kias and Corollas, all forced into equality by a traffic jam. The road was narrowing, down to a single lane, with city drivers showing their typical calm and equanimity by trying to squeeze into every square inch at the earliest possible second. I took a deep breath, trying not to white knuckle the steering wheel. There was nothing to be done, I told myself. All the other routes were worse- nearly every major artery had some project somewhere along it. All the road construction was making it nearly impossible to leave the city.
Up ahead, the cones and flashing orange lights and men with reflective vests were out. I knew they worked hard, because eventually the road got finished and they moved on to the next project, but when you passed by them like this, creeping and beeping, I couldn't help but notice how many of them weren't doing anything at all. It was almost mocking, how they stared back at us, knowing that we were there, trapped in our funeral procession. One of them, a tall, lanky guy who looked a little like Mark Sanchez, stretched in the sun, his perfect abs peeking out from under a US Army shirt, then climbed up into an enormous machine.
This journey was foolish. They were all dumb, but I could write volumes, compose page after page of epic poetry about exactly how stupid it all was. I told myself this, every hurried assignation resulting in another long, slow, shameful ride home, combined with promising myself that I would end it, endure the humiliation and rage and simply cut it off at the knees. Stop answering her summons, risking her rage and some twisted revenge fantasy but knowing it would be better to just let it die.
We were creeping forward still, inch by begotten inch, meekly falling into line. I watched the road grader, huge and imposing, flattening down some fresh asphalt. Everyone seemed to just be watching, staring as the big machine did its work. The gleaming flat blackness, shining in the sun, reminded me of riding my bike as a teen, finding a stretch of straight road in an industrial park, pushing myself as hard as I can, high on the thrill of speed. The minivan in front of me had a stick figure family on the back window, along with a decal of a ballet dancer. My mouth was dry.
It was a text message that started this episode. "Come get me," was all it said, and I was up, closing my laptop and sliding it into my bag with one practiced motion. I had the kind of job where you didn't have to always answer for your whereabouts precisely. People snuck in and out of the office all the time, and yet somehow things always got done. That was a blessing and a curse- if I had a more regimented office, the trap I had fallen into would have been impossible. But that's an excuse. I could have said no, should have said no. I just didn't.
She was a student, visiting in the office for two weeks over the summer so that she can get a tiny flavor of what her intended career may be like. We had a routine for our students, letting her sit on some meetings, helping on some projects, occasionally asked to research this or that stubborn item. She performed splendidly, easily fitting into the culture, dressing well, asking pertinent, cogent questions on occasion. All in all, a delightful experience.
Her last day was when the trouble started. I really have got to stop calling it that. The more I think about it, going over and over it like a movie I can't turn off, she was flirting the whole time, laughing too loudly, standing too close, gently touching arms and waists, longing looks across a conference table. I was just too dense to pick up on it.
The boss decided to take her out to a lunch that I couldn't make on her last day, so she came by my office. She was beautiful, long legs and rich auburn hair, an even, oval face with eager, questioning blue eyes. But they always are- people her age are made beautiful, mindless evolution demanding reproductive fitness regardless of society's wishes. After exchanging contact information, she just kept standing there, so close, exchanging small talk, making tiny hair flips, the pointed toe of her shoe making little circles in front of me on the rug.
I have long made a habit of excusing myself from all manner of horrid behavior, but what happened next cannot be adequately explained. I have said "I couldn't help myself," and "I was a slave to my lizard brain," and I have tried every other type of reasoning and justification I can come up with. I was drawn to her, my arms finding the curve of her hips, my hands the small of her back. She was eager and willing, and while I kept thinking that I should stop, that I should wait, that I can't, that we shouldn't, we didn't stop, and we didn't wait, and I could, and we did.
What came next was just the feeding of an addiction. She calls, I come, I leave and feel guilty until she calls again. And then, like the dog chasing the rabbit at the track, I'm off again. I have to do it, it feels like, the way I have to eat or have to breathe. It is a compulsion. I feel an intense, grinding need while we are together. I don't know whether I am reliving my youth or spoiling hers, but whatever it is, minutes feel like seconds, and it is torture until we are together again. I feel slightly nauseous, like when I have had too much caffeine. My nerves feel raw.
Suddenly the traffic loosens up and I'm accelerating onto the highway. The speed after all that waiting feels like I'm making a jailbreak, fleeing from the authorities. I can feel the distance between us, willing her closer even as I hate her for having a hold on me. I know her exit, the tight turn onto the main road, and then the long, slow merging into the mess that surrounds the school. She is with two other girls, the three of them sharing a quick, hard laugh in confidence, as I wait for a bottleneck to clear in front of me.
Drive away, I tell myself. Get back on the highway and go home and get a hobby. Read a book. See a play. Take up yoga. Buy a gun. Do something appropriate for your age. Let her worry about graduation and her upcoming freshman year like her friends do, like people her age should. Let her find her own way in the world, and stop pretending you are anything more than a wallet with feet. Drive past her high school and don't look back.
But I pull forward, negotiating the confusion, pulling to the side along the sidewalk. I'm cursing myself as I do it, swearing under my breath, knowing that there is a wide gulf between what is legal and what is right. I stop the car, and I see her calves first, long and slender, and she is there, bright and alive and clear and smelling like the free summer breeze. She slides into the seat beside me and shuts the door, setting a lime green bag between her feet. I hate myself, and then she speaks.
"I want to go shopping," she says, and she takes my free hand, and I accelerate away.
There was a forest of red lights in front of me, the frowning rear ends of Hyundais and Hummers, Kias and Corollas, all forced into equality by a traffic jam. The road was narrowing, down to a single lane, with city drivers showing their typical calm and equanimity by trying to squeeze into every square inch at the earliest possible second. I took a deep breath, trying not to white knuckle the steering wheel. There was nothing to be done, I told myself. All the other routes were worse- nearly every major artery had some project somewhere along it. All the road construction was making it nearly impossible to leave the city.
Up ahead, the cones and flashing orange lights and men with reflective vests were out. I knew they worked hard, because eventually the road got finished and they moved on to the next project, but when you passed by them like this, creeping and beeping, I couldn't help but notice how many of them weren't doing anything at all. It was almost mocking, how they stared back at us, knowing that we were there, trapped in our funeral procession. One of them, a tall, lanky guy who looked a little like Mark Sanchez, stretched in the sun, his perfect abs peeking out from under a US Army shirt, then climbed up into an enormous machine.
This journey was foolish. They were all dumb, but I could write volumes, compose page after page of epic poetry about exactly how stupid it all was. I told myself this, every hurried assignation resulting in another long, slow, shameful ride home, combined with promising myself that I would end it, endure the humiliation and rage and simply cut it off at the knees. Stop answering her summons, risking her rage and some twisted revenge fantasy but knowing it would be better to just let it die.
We were creeping forward still, inch by begotten inch, meekly falling into line. I watched the road grader, huge and imposing, flattening down some fresh asphalt. Everyone seemed to just be watching, staring as the big machine did its work. The gleaming flat blackness, shining in the sun, reminded me of riding my bike as a teen, finding a stretch of straight road in an industrial park, pushing myself as hard as I can, high on the thrill of speed. The minivan in front of me had a stick figure family on the back window, along with a decal of a ballet dancer. My mouth was dry.
It was a text message that started this episode. "Come get me," was all it said, and I was up, closing my laptop and sliding it into my bag with one practiced motion. I had the kind of job where you didn't have to always answer for your whereabouts precisely. People snuck in and out of the office all the time, and yet somehow things always got done. That was a blessing and a curse- if I had a more regimented office, the trap I had fallen into would have been impossible. But that's an excuse. I could have said no, should have said no. I just didn't.
She was a student, visiting in the office for two weeks over the summer so that she can get a tiny flavor of what her intended career may be like. We had a routine for our students, letting her sit on some meetings, helping on some projects, occasionally asked to research this or that stubborn item. She performed splendidly, easily fitting into the culture, dressing well, asking pertinent, cogent questions on occasion. All in all, a delightful experience.
Her last day was when the trouble started. I really have got to stop calling it that. The more I think about it, going over and over it like a movie I can't turn off, she was flirting the whole time, laughing too loudly, standing too close, gently touching arms and waists, longing looks across a conference table. I was just too dense to pick up on it.
The boss decided to take her out to a lunch that I couldn't make on her last day, so she came by my office. She was beautiful, long legs and rich auburn hair, an even, oval face with eager, questioning blue eyes. But they always are- people her age are made beautiful, mindless evolution demanding reproductive fitness regardless of society's wishes. After exchanging contact information, she just kept standing there, so close, exchanging small talk, making tiny hair flips, the pointed toe of her shoe making little circles in front of me on the rug.
I have long made a habit of excusing myself from all manner of horrid behavior, but what happened next cannot be adequately explained. I have said "I couldn't help myself," and "I was a slave to my lizard brain," and I have tried every other type of reasoning and justification I can come up with. I was drawn to her, my arms finding the curve of her hips, my hands the small of her back. She was eager and willing, and while I kept thinking that I should stop, that I should wait, that I can't, that we shouldn't, we didn't stop, and we didn't wait, and I could, and we did.
What came next was just the feeding of an addiction. She calls, I come, I leave and feel guilty until she calls again. And then, like the dog chasing the rabbit at the track, I'm off again. I have to do it, it feels like, the way I have to eat or have to breathe. It is a compulsion. I feel an intense, grinding need while we are together. I don't know whether I am reliving my youth or spoiling hers, but whatever it is, minutes feel like seconds, and it is torture until we are together again. I feel slightly nauseous, like when I have had too much caffeine. My nerves feel raw.
Suddenly the traffic loosens up and I'm accelerating onto the highway. The speed after all that waiting feels like I'm making a jailbreak, fleeing from the authorities. I can feel the distance between us, willing her closer even as I hate her for having a hold on me. I know her exit, the tight turn onto the main road, and then the long, slow merging into the mess that surrounds the school. She is with two other girls, the three of them sharing a quick, hard laugh in confidence, as I wait for a bottleneck to clear in front of me.
Drive away, I tell myself. Get back on the highway and go home and get a hobby. Read a book. See a play. Take up yoga. Buy a gun. Do something appropriate for your age. Let her worry about graduation and her upcoming freshman year like her friends do, like people her age should. Let her find her own way in the world, and stop pretending you are anything more than a wallet with feet. Drive past her high school and don't look back.
But I pull forward, negotiating the confusion, pulling to the side along the sidewalk. I'm cursing myself as I do it, swearing under my breath, knowing that there is a wide gulf between what is legal and what is right. I stop the car, and I see her calves first, long and slender, and she is there, bright and alive and clear and smelling like the free summer breeze. She slides into the seat beside me and shuts the door, setting a lime green bag between her feet. I hate myself, and then she speaks.
"I want to go shopping," she says, and she takes my free hand, and I accelerate away.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
FFF: "What I Know"
[The Flash Fiction Friday challenge this week is to rewrite a famous movie scene in 1969 or fewer words. I have chosen the most famous scene from one of my favorite movies, Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner's "A Few Good Men", the scene when Tom Cruise's Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee is questioning Jack Nicholson's Colonel Nathan Jessup about the death of Private William Santiago on the naval base at Guantanamo Bay. (It is the scene that contains the meme "you can't HANDLE the truth," which you have doubtless heard in some context, unless you spent the last two decades on a Martian penal colony.) This story is told from the point of view of Nicholson's character, and while I am confident my readers are smart enough to understand this, I feel bound to emphasize that these are not my views, they are the made up views of a fictional character.] [ This story is called "What I Know".]
It was hot in the courtroom, hot and stale in a way fans and air conditioners couldn't seem to stir. I could feel the sweat across the small of my back and on my thighs. I hadn't looked forward to making the trip to Washington for just this reason. Cuba was hot, sure, but Washington got hot the way no place else did. It was oppressive, miasmal heat- it made you wonder just what in the hell they were thinking to put the capital here.
It was offensive, leaving all my work behind to fly up here and have them act like I have to defend my command decisions. But here is where I was told to come, and when you've saluted the flag as long as I have, when they say come, you come. I knew what these lawyers were trying to do. It was that rotten little weasel Santiago, the inquiry into his death suddenly becoming a big affair, when really, it was just as simple as you please. I don't care what the doctors say- those slick lawyers have been throwing around buzzwords like acidosis and metabolism and all that crap I barely remember from high school biology. The lawyers were trying to make me responsible for Santiago's death, but truth is, he died of not being a Marine. Simple.
They told the kid to quit. Kendrick, Markinson, Dawson, everybody. Just leave the Corps and go home. Nothing to be ashamed of if you can't do it. Not everybody can be a Marine. It's hard because it has to be, so the men will be brave, and it's hard to make you a better man. Plenty of kids can't do it. Go home and ring a register, or go to community college. I'm not saying the kid deserved to die- I'm just saying he wasn't a Marine. No shame in that. Most men aren't.
But the little bastard stayed. He stayed, and he still couldn't hack it. He was terrible at everything- drill, PT, cleanliness, shooting. Every time we dressed him down about it, he apologized and promised to do better, but nothing would happen, the same sorry performance, on test after test after test. So if he wasn't going to go, we had to mold him. That's our job, right? Molding men? So I decided to work with the boy. I listened to Kaffee yammer at me, responding to his questions, wishing for just one stupid little breeze to cool off this stifling room.
Of course I knew the Code Reds were illegal. Everyone knew that. Division had ordered it. But whoever wrote that rule either had never faced bullets with his name on them, or had faced them so long ago all the fear had faded. When you're in it, when the man next to you is depending on you to do your job and you're depending on him, you take comfort in the fact that you know he's good enough. He was forged in the same fires you were, so you know he's made of something. That's the kind of toughness you must have in a forward area, that's the kind of toughness you need in a Marine, and that's the kind of toughness that Santiago would never have, and that's the kind of toughness Kaffee, for all his degrees, would never have on his best day.
Look at Kaffee, barking questions at me like I'm some kind of office flunky of his. I wonder about him. What kind of fire burns in a man like that? I can see the sweat gathering on his neck, asking me questions, one after another. They're easy to parry- I know where he is headed, and engaging in a battle of wits with someone this simple barely taxes my brain. I answer his questions slowly to help me think, but also because I think it irritates him. He's not half the man his father was. He may wear a uniform, but he's not a sailor.
I can't help but tense up when he gets close. I have these flashes of jumping up out of the witness chair, flooring the little prick with a right cross, seeing his head snap back, his perfect hair shaking, that golden nose breaking under the pressure, and then getting down on the floor and pounding his head into the floor until the MPs pull me off. Look, he's trying to prove there was no transfer order for Santiago with some nonsense about the tower chiefs at Andrews. How cute. What a child he is. I look at his eyes, the way they glitter and his nostrils flare when he thinks he's got me. Think again. Listen, boy, I've faced tougher enemies than you before breakfast.
He's going to ask me. I can feel it. All he has to do is ask me if I have violated a direct order, accuse me of a crime, and I've got him. Then he'll be on the defensive, and I can just smile and watch the little prick really sweat. He's walked into the trap now, I just have to spring it on him. It's like when you're in a foxhole, and you can't see anything, but you know they are there. It's just a matter of waiting for the enemy to move. Then you bring the rain.
I stare at Kaffee, turning aside his stupid little digs and asides and snide looks. Now he's honing in on the two orders, the one that Santiago wasn't to be touched, and the second sending him off the base. I make dozens of decisions every day, and I can't always explain them afterwards. It's a gut feeling. It's called leadership. It's not as simple as pushing papers. I look at his perfect, shiny teeth and wonder if he is involved with Galloway after all.
Kaffee is close, so close I could punch him, and the thought is so pleasant my arm twitches.
"Did you order the Code Red?," Kaffee finally says, his face inches from mine. No one moves, and I luxuriate in the silence for a split second. It's almost like being on stage.
"Did I order a Code Red? Is that what you're asking me? I think that's what you're asking me, Lieutenant, unless all the gunfire over the years has damaged my hearing. And the answer, son, is no, I didn't order a Code Red. I didn't order a Code Red because my superiors told me I couldn't. I transferred Santiago off the base because he had angered his unit, and because he was a substandard Marine. I did what I did because we exist on a small island with the Cuban Army staring at us, eyeball to eyeball, and to do any less than ensure that the men under my command are the very best they can be is a dereliction of duty. I make decisions all the time, and I admit that not every decision I make is a perfect one.
"Perhaps I should have taken Santiago into protective custody. Or perhaps he needed a more in depth physical exam to figure out why he was performing so poorly. I don't know, and I will go to my grave not knowing what I could have done differently to save Santiago's life. But Santiago is gone, and his death, believe it or not, affects me deeply. Every man I have ever lost does. It is the burden of command. It is not an easy one, but when you accept the rank, you accept the responsibility. I did not order the Code Red, Lieutenant, because I was ordered not to. And at Gitmo, we take orders seriously."
I smiled, watching the words hit home. Kaffee's expression was priceless, almost as good as if I had punched him. Even the dust motes in the air seemed frozen. Then everyone was talking at once, and I knew it had worked. Kaffee was in trouble now, because he had made the accusation without proof, and all I had to do was let things play out. There were things that Kaffee knew that I didn't. The only thing I knew about law was that I had to obey them, and I'm sure he knows every regulation backwards and forwards. But there were things I knew that he didn't, hard lessons about what are truths and what are higher, more important truths and how to distinguish between them. Kaffee didn't know that the integrity of the Corps is the freedom that makes the other freedoms possible. Kaffee doesn't know what I know.
It was hot in the courtroom, hot and stale in a way fans and air conditioners couldn't seem to stir. I could feel the sweat across the small of my back and on my thighs. I hadn't looked forward to making the trip to Washington for just this reason. Cuba was hot, sure, but Washington got hot the way no place else did. It was oppressive, miasmal heat- it made you wonder just what in the hell they were thinking to put the capital here.
It was offensive, leaving all my work behind to fly up here and have them act like I have to defend my command decisions. But here is where I was told to come, and when you've saluted the flag as long as I have, when they say come, you come. I knew what these lawyers were trying to do. It was that rotten little weasel Santiago, the inquiry into his death suddenly becoming a big affair, when really, it was just as simple as you please. I don't care what the doctors say- those slick lawyers have been throwing around buzzwords like acidosis and metabolism and all that crap I barely remember from high school biology. The lawyers were trying to make me responsible for Santiago's death, but truth is, he died of not being a Marine. Simple.
They told the kid to quit. Kendrick, Markinson, Dawson, everybody. Just leave the Corps and go home. Nothing to be ashamed of if you can't do it. Not everybody can be a Marine. It's hard because it has to be, so the men will be brave, and it's hard to make you a better man. Plenty of kids can't do it. Go home and ring a register, or go to community college. I'm not saying the kid deserved to die- I'm just saying he wasn't a Marine. No shame in that. Most men aren't.
But the little bastard stayed. He stayed, and he still couldn't hack it. He was terrible at everything- drill, PT, cleanliness, shooting. Every time we dressed him down about it, he apologized and promised to do better, but nothing would happen, the same sorry performance, on test after test after test. So if he wasn't going to go, we had to mold him. That's our job, right? Molding men? So I decided to work with the boy. I listened to Kaffee yammer at me, responding to his questions, wishing for just one stupid little breeze to cool off this stifling room.
Of course I knew the Code Reds were illegal. Everyone knew that. Division had ordered it. But whoever wrote that rule either had never faced bullets with his name on them, or had faced them so long ago all the fear had faded. When you're in it, when the man next to you is depending on you to do your job and you're depending on him, you take comfort in the fact that you know he's good enough. He was forged in the same fires you were, so you know he's made of something. That's the kind of toughness you must have in a forward area, that's the kind of toughness you need in a Marine, and that's the kind of toughness that Santiago would never have, and that's the kind of toughness Kaffee, for all his degrees, would never have on his best day.
Look at Kaffee, barking questions at me like I'm some kind of office flunky of his. I wonder about him. What kind of fire burns in a man like that? I can see the sweat gathering on his neck, asking me questions, one after another. They're easy to parry- I know where he is headed, and engaging in a battle of wits with someone this simple barely taxes my brain. I answer his questions slowly to help me think, but also because I think it irritates him. He's not half the man his father was. He may wear a uniform, but he's not a sailor.
I can't help but tense up when he gets close. I have these flashes of jumping up out of the witness chair, flooring the little prick with a right cross, seeing his head snap back, his perfect hair shaking, that golden nose breaking under the pressure, and then getting down on the floor and pounding his head into the floor until the MPs pull me off. Look, he's trying to prove there was no transfer order for Santiago with some nonsense about the tower chiefs at Andrews. How cute. What a child he is. I look at his eyes, the way they glitter and his nostrils flare when he thinks he's got me. Think again. Listen, boy, I've faced tougher enemies than you before breakfast.
He's going to ask me. I can feel it. All he has to do is ask me if I have violated a direct order, accuse me of a crime, and I've got him. Then he'll be on the defensive, and I can just smile and watch the little prick really sweat. He's walked into the trap now, I just have to spring it on him. It's like when you're in a foxhole, and you can't see anything, but you know they are there. It's just a matter of waiting for the enemy to move. Then you bring the rain.
I stare at Kaffee, turning aside his stupid little digs and asides and snide looks. Now he's honing in on the two orders, the one that Santiago wasn't to be touched, and the second sending him off the base. I make dozens of decisions every day, and I can't always explain them afterwards. It's a gut feeling. It's called leadership. It's not as simple as pushing papers. I look at his perfect, shiny teeth and wonder if he is involved with Galloway after all.
Kaffee is close, so close I could punch him, and the thought is so pleasant my arm twitches.
"Did you order the Code Red?," Kaffee finally says, his face inches from mine. No one moves, and I luxuriate in the silence for a split second. It's almost like being on stage.
"Did I order a Code Red? Is that what you're asking me? I think that's what you're asking me, Lieutenant, unless all the gunfire over the years has damaged my hearing. And the answer, son, is no, I didn't order a Code Red. I didn't order a Code Red because my superiors told me I couldn't. I transferred Santiago off the base because he had angered his unit, and because he was a substandard Marine. I did what I did because we exist on a small island with the Cuban Army staring at us, eyeball to eyeball, and to do any less than ensure that the men under my command are the very best they can be is a dereliction of duty. I make decisions all the time, and I admit that not every decision I make is a perfect one.
"Perhaps I should have taken Santiago into protective custody. Or perhaps he needed a more in depth physical exam to figure out why he was performing so poorly. I don't know, and I will go to my grave not knowing what I could have done differently to save Santiago's life. But Santiago is gone, and his death, believe it or not, affects me deeply. Every man I have ever lost does. It is the burden of command. It is not an easy one, but when you accept the rank, you accept the responsibility. I did not order the Code Red, Lieutenant, because I was ordered not to. And at Gitmo, we take orders seriously."
I smiled, watching the words hit home. Kaffee's expression was priceless, almost as good as if I had punched him. Even the dust motes in the air seemed frozen. Then everyone was talking at once, and I knew it had worked. Kaffee was in trouble now, because he had made the accusation without proof, and all I had to do was let things play out. There were things that Kaffee knew that I didn't. The only thing I knew about law was that I had to obey them, and I'm sure he knows every regulation backwards and forwards. But there were things I knew that he didn't, hard lessons about what are truths and what are higher, more important truths and how to distinguish between them. Kaffee didn't know that the integrity of the Corps is the freedom that makes the other freedoms possible. Kaffee doesn't know what I know.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Trifextra: "In Shadow"
{Those fans of Earl "Pitching, Defense, and Three Run Homers" Weaver over at Casa Del Trifecta Writing Challenge want us all to write 33 words only based on or involving the Rule of Three. This story is called "In Shadow".}
"You have big shoes to fill," he said. Caitlin sunk down. She wasn't an athlete, or a beauty, or popular, like her older sisters were. Being Caitlin, it seemed, wasn't enough.
"You have big shoes to fill," he said. Caitlin sunk down. She wasn't an athlete, or a beauty, or popular, like her older sisters were. Being Caitlin, it seemed, wasn't enough.
100 Word Song: "Wednesday Morning, 3AM"
(My Georgian homeboy Lance, the Lando Calrissian of bloggers, continues on with the 100 Word Songs, even as his metal buddy Leeroy is resting up at the Robot Hospital. [It's probably just a computer virus. *rimshot*] {Hopefully, Lance didn't send him to the droid repair shops on Cloud City.} This week's song is the Counting Crows' "Come Around", and this story is called "Wednesday Morning, 3AM.")
She was sitting on the curb. I could see her shoulders underneath the gauzy film of her nightgown. I was standing because I didn't know what else to do. She was shaking as she stared down at the charred remains of a photo album. There was a snowfall of burned flakes of paper on her lap and on the ground around her. She didn't even have shoes on. The lights lit up the neighborhood in a kaleidoscopic mess of red, blue, and white flashes.
"These are pieces of us," she said, "pieces of the people we have been."
She was sitting on the curb. I could see her shoulders underneath the gauzy film of her nightgown. I was standing because I didn't know what else to do. She was shaking as she stared down at the charred remains of a photo album. There was a snowfall of burned flakes of paper on her lap and on the ground around her. She didn't even have shoes on. The lights lit up the neighborhood in a kaleidoscopic mess of red, blue, and white flashes.
"These are pieces of us," she said, "pieces of the people we have been."
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