[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, The Baking Barrister gave me this prompt:' "Do you know how to say 'peace' in Italian?" he asked. "No, but I can say 'I love you' in 12 languages," she replied.'
I gave Kirsten Piccini this prompt: "How could I forget?"]
"Do you know how to say 'peace' in Italian?," he asked. He was doing The New York Times crossword, trying to ignore the silent phones they had placed in the center of the table. They were having a late breakfast, soft croissants with butter and jam, strong coffee, and reading. She was seated opposite him, her face in a book of Lorrie Moore short stories. She didn't want to look at the silent phones either.
"No, but I can say 'I love you' in 12 languages," she replied. They were dressed, but just barely. He was rumpled and unshaven, wearing an untucked blue dress shirt over dark jeans with black basketball sneakers. She wore leggings and soft suede boots, with a t shirt and a long cardigan over it all. Her hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun, one rebellious curl hanging over her eye like a comma.
He had urged her to come out for breakfast, arguing that the walk and the outside air would do them good. He also observed that a little activity would distract them from the call they were both waiting for, the call that they both lusted for and feared. He finally won the day by pointing out that there was precious little to eat or drink in the house. They dressed quickly and decamped for the nearest coffee shop, a faux retro place that pretended to be old and dark, but wound up just looking like it was trying too hard.
"Oh? Which ones?"
"French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Mandarin, Cantonese, Danish, Tagalog, Basque, and Arabic."
"That's only ten."
"Well, English, too. And American Sign."
"Oh. What possessed you to learn that?"
She took a sip of coffee. "College. We did a project one year, where we tried to make a video with "I love you" in as many languages as we could find. I just found it fascinating, and I just decided to memorize as many as I could. I used to know over 30."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"You never cease to amaze me."
"I'm glad," she said. He took a bite of croissant and started chewing it. She returned to her book. The phones did not ring. Their coffees continued to cool. She got up and added some more cream to hers. She sat back down, crossing her legs again. People came in and out of the coffee shop. Kids chewed on sugary treats. Dogs waited outside patiently for owners to return. Time passed.
"Tagalog," he said.
"What?," she replied.
"Say 'I love you' in Tagalog."
"You don't believe me?"
"Just say it," he said.
"Mahal kita."
"Arabic."
"Ana Behibak." A woman with very pretty eyes, her hair covered, turned her head to look as she said it. The woman continued past with a bottle of water and a banana.
"How do I know you're not just making these up?"
"You don't believe me?," she said, her voice betraying a little hurt.
"I just don't know whether or not these are real."
"My word isn't enough?"
"Of course it is," he said. "I'm just giving you a hard time."
"Well don't," she said.
They sat together. The phones didn't ring. He finished his coffee and got up to get more.
She watched his easy physical grace over the top of her book, something that was once so appealing. He played baseball at a high level at the university where they met, until a slide from an Iowa State baserunner destroyed his left knee. He still carried himself like the star he was, and it made her stomach hurt to watch him now. Other women watched him when he moved, their eyes following him, then darting back to her and probably finding her wanting. She stared at the phones, willing them to ring. She wanted to know, whatever the answer was- not knowing, being suspended between the two poles, was killing her.
He came back and sat down. She watched him return to the puzzle, tapping the point of his pen on the paper.
"Mandarin?," he said.
"Shut up," she said as she got up from the table. She closed her paperback and put it into her bag, and grabbed her phone.
"You don't think I'd tell you?," he said. "When they call?"
"Shut up," she said. She walked into the back and went into the bathroom, closing and locking the door of the stall. She stood there for a moment, thinking about the call that hadn't come. She wanted to throw up, more for the mental purgation than the physical relief. She thought about a movie she saw once where someone made an escape through a bathroom window, then she thought about that Beatles song. She looked down at her flawed body, too small breasts and too large thighs and sweaty and matted and gross and bitter and nasty and pure, focused fuckedupedness, and she suddenly saw herself getting away from him, away from this, away from it all. She'd take all the pills in her handbag if she didn't believe she'd probably get that wrong too.
"Didn't anybody tell her?," she sang softly to herself. "Didn't anybody see?"
Nobody told her, she thought. Nobody saw.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
FFF: "Way Past Joking Time"
(The folks at Flash Fiction Friday apparently want us to hear the word of the Lord, because this week's challenge is about dem bones dem bones dem dry bones. This story is called "Way Past Joking Time")
No matter how tightly I closed my windows, the lights still came through. Flashes of red and blue leaked onto my ceiling, making all sorts of spooky shadows. I still felt sick, so sick that I almost never wanted to eat again. I was laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, watching a bubble of red light chase a bubble of blue around in a lazy oval. I had taken a shower and changed into pajamas, like my Mom said I should, but everything felt itchy and too hot and wrong.
They wouldn't leave me alone. First the police came through, a black woman and a handsome guy with a funny looking beard, telling me gently that they didn't blame me, that it wasn't my fault, and then going over everything again and again. In between police visits, Mom would come in and try to say something and just wind up blubbering, and then Dad would come in a few minutes later and just kind of stare, putting his hand on my shin for a minute, then getting up and leaving again. The police took all of Lindsay's stuff, even the pillow she was going to use, which was actually mine. But I didn't say anything.
Lindsay was the only girl I had met so far that was my age, and since I was the new kid, I hung on to her like a barnacle. We had been playing outside, our giggling too much for Mom, kicking a ball around and talking about nothing. Lindsay was taller than me and a little bit stronger, and she kicked the ball at me hard. She was that kind of person, the kind of person who would do something just because, just to see what you did. It hurt a little- the ball hit me high on my thigh, and it slapped against my stomach too. I was a little mad, but I didn't show it. Instead, I wound up and kicked it back, as hard as I could, half hoping I could sting her leg back.
The ball, a new one my Dad bought after the World Cup, went high, over Lindsay's head and over the gray fence that separated our yard from his. Our neighbor was strange. He didn't have any kids, and you never saw him doing anything like washing his car or mowing his grass or even walking around. He came and went at weird times, never home when the other adults were, and sometimes, when I couldn't sleep, I would stare at his house, waiting to see something happen- a light go on, the glow of a TV, something. Nothing ever did.
Nobody said anything, but you just got this feeling of wierdness, of ghosts and monsters and horrible things that might happen if you went in his yard. Grace Park, who lives across the street, said that she went up to his front door to sell Girl Scout cookies once, and they knew he was home, because they had seen him go in, but they knocked and knocked and he never came to the door. She said she saw bones in his yard when she walked in, but Grace tended to exaggerate sometimes. It was just weird.
Lindsay smiled at me after the ball went over. I started feeling sick right then, ready for another lecture from my Dad about how hard he worked for his money and how I should be more careful.
Lindsay said, "Dare ya to go get it!"
It was like daring me to flap my arms and fly to the moon. "No!," I said quickly. "Are you crazy?"
"Nope!," she said. She was a really good tree climber, and she was up and over the wall in a second. By the time I said "Don't!," she was gone.
I didn't hear anything at all after that. I figured she was going to sneak up on me and try to scare me, so after a few minutes, I gave up and went inside. I washed up, taking extra long, listening for her footsteps in the hall, determined that she wouldn't get me. I came downstairs, expecting her to jump out of a closet or come rushing out of the downstairs bathroom or to burst in through the back door. She never did.
My mother asked me where she was as soon as I came into the kitchen, and I spilled it all in a nervous rush. They told me never to go over there, and I never did, and I tried to tell them that I warned her and suddenly everything was exploding with movement and sound. My Dad got up and marched out the front door. My Mom called Lindsay's parents, and the Parks, and the Mitchells, and nobody had seen her. The police kept asking me if I heard a car go down the street, but I just couldn't remember if I did or not.
Dad came back, panting and red faced, and saying that there wasn't anybody there, and his car, a green van, was gone. Then Dad mentioned bones, too, and I knew Grace wasn't exaggerating. They called the police, and the lights came, and all the questions, and the madness, and the tears. I stopped listening to them, waiting for someone to ask me something. All I could see was Lindsay's sneakers disappearing as she dropped onto the other side of the fence, her devilish grin when she dared me.
When the police came in and put all her stuff in bags, I watched them do it, making notes on a clipboard as they went, cleaning away her backpack, her clothes, her brush and her slippers and her stuffed toad and her One Direction magazine. My room looked like she had never been there, but I could see the absence, the space where she was supposed to be. I wondered why my kick didn't go straight, banging off the fence instead of sailing over it, or why I couldn't have gone with her across the fence, or why I hadn't just told Mom right away instead of waiting.
I didn't know what had happened, but it was way past joking time, which meant it had to be something bad. I stared at the lights some more, trying not to think about what it could be, not wishing that it had been me instead of Lindsay, but kind of wishing that it had been, too.
No matter how tightly I closed my windows, the lights still came through. Flashes of red and blue leaked onto my ceiling, making all sorts of spooky shadows. I still felt sick, so sick that I almost never wanted to eat again. I was laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, watching a bubble of red light chase a bubble of blue around in a lazy oval. I had taken a shower and changed into pajamas, like my Mom said I should, but everything felt itchy and too hot and wrong.
They wouldn't leave me alone. First the police came through, a black woman and a handsome guy with a funny looking beard, telling me gently that they didn't blame me, that it wasn't my fault, and then going over everything again and again. In between police visits, Mom would come in and try to say something and just wind up blubbering, and then Dad would come in a few minutes later and just kind of stare, putting his hand on my shin for a minute, then getting up and leaving again. The police took all of Lindsay's stuff, even the pillow she was going to use, which was actually mine. But I didn't say anything.
Lindsay was the only girl I had met so far that was my age, and since I was the new kid, I hung on to her like a barnacle. We had been playing outside, our giggling too much for Mom, kicking a ball around and talking about nothing. Lindsay was taller than me and a little bit stronger, and she kicked the ball at me hard. She was that kind of person, the kind of person who would do something just because, just to see what you did. It hurt a little- the ball hit me high on my thigh, and it slapped against my stomach too. I was a little mad, but I didn't show it. Instead, I wound up and kicked it back, as hard as I could, half hoping I could sting her leg back.
The ball, a new one my Dad bought after the World Cup, went high, over Lindsay's head and over the gray fence that separated our yard from his. Our neighbor was strange. He didn't have any kids, and you never saw him doing anything like washing his car or mowing his grass or even walking around. He came and went at weird times, never home when the other adults were, and sometimes, when I couldn't sleep, I would stare at his house, waiting to see something happen- a light go on, the glow of a TV, something. Nothing ever did.
Nobody said anything, but you just got this feeling of wierdness, of ghosts and monsters and horrible things that might happen if you went in his yard. Grace Park, who lives across the street, said that she went up to his front door to sell Girl Scout cookies once, and they knew he was home, because they had seen him go in, but they knocked and knocked and he never came to the door. She said she saw bones in his yard when she walked in, but Grace tended to exaggerate sometimes. It was just weird.
Lindsay smiled at me after the ball went over. I started feeling sick right then, ready for another lecture from my Dad about how hard he worked for his money and how I should be more careful.
Lindsay said, "Dare ya to go get it!"
It was like daring me to flap my arms and fly to the moon. "No!," I said quickly. "Are you crazy?"
"Nope!," she said. She was a really good tree climber, and she was up and over the wall in a second. By the time I said "Don't!," she was gone.
I didn't hear anything at all after that. I figured she was going to sneak up on me and try to scare me, so after a few minutes, I gave up and went inside. I washed up, taking extra long, listening for her footsteps in the hall, determined that she wouldn't get me. I came downstairs, expecting her to jump out of a closet or come rushing out of the downstairs bathroom or to burst in through the back door. She never did.
My mother asked me where she was as soon as I came into the kitchen, and I spilled it all in a nervous rush. They told me never to go over there, and I never did, and I tried to tell them that I warned her and suddenly everything was exploding with movement and sound. My Dad got up and marched out the front door. My Mom called Lindsay's parents, and the Parks, and the Mitchells, and nobody had seen her. The police kept asking me if I heard a car go down the street, but I just couldn't remember if I did or not.
Dad came back, panting and red faced, and saying that there wasn't anybody there, and his car, a green van, was gone. Then Dad mentioned bones, too, and I knew Grace wasn't exaggerating. They called the police, and the lights came, and all the questions, and the madness, and the tears. I stopped listening to them, waiting for someone to ask me something. All I could see was Lindsay's sneakers disappearing as she dropped onto the other side of the fence, her devilish grin when she dared me.
When the police came in and put all her stuff in bags, I watched them do it, making notes on a clipboard as they went, cleaning away her backpack, her clothes, her brush and her slippers and her stuffed toad and her One Direction magazine. My room looked like she had never been there, but I could see the absence, the space where she was supposed to be. I wondered why my kick didn't go straight, banging off the fence instead of sailing over it, or why I couldn't have gone with her across the fence, or why I hadn't just told Mom right away instead of waiting.
I didn't know what had happened, but it was way past joking time, which meant it had to be something bad. I stared at the lights some more, trying not to think about what it could be, not wishing that it had been me instead of Lindsay, but kind of wishing that it had been, too.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
100 Word Song/Master Class: "Baby Monitor"
[Our metal pal Leeroy, who has switched to a different viscosity of oil for the frigid winter months while picking up for his humanoid buddy Lance, who is busier than the condom salesman on Valentine's Day, brings us Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" for this week's 100 Word Song. In addition to that, Professor Sudden SAM teaches her first Master Class with a line from Julia Glass' "Three Junes", which is the first line of this piece, which a clever combination of both prompts called "Baby Monitor"]
Clever how the cosmos can, in a single portent, be ingratiating yet sadistic. "You can do this," the universe tells you, unctuous and smarmy. "Never mind the time required, the money, the energy, the life force, your complete lack of qualifications, you can handle this. If a teen in Arkansas can handle it, so can you." So you struggle onwards, greeting the 3am crying jags with a forced smile, pretending you are happy to see the tiny person when your every cell screams for sleep. You're tired, and frustrated, and you want to give up, but you won't back down.
Clever how the cosmos can, in a single portent, be ingratiating yet sadistic. "You can do this," the universe tells you, unctuous and smarmy. "Never mind the time required, the money, the energy, the life force, your complete lack of qualifications, you can handle this. If a teen in Arkansas can handle it, so can you." So you struggle onwards, greeting the 3am crying jags with a forced smile, pretending you are happy to see the tiny person when your every cell screams for sleep. You're tired, and frustrated, and you want to give up, but you won't back down.
VV: "Good Morning Good Morning"
Our friend Velvet, who is kind to old women and small children and always pays her taxes on time, slips us a 100 Word Challenge this week with the word "Surviving". This is called "Good Morning Good Morning".
She smiled at me as I came in through the front door. It was the same ritual, the unofficial beginning of my work shift.
"Good morning," I said to Dawn. "How are you?"
"Fine," she usually said, expertly balancing phone calls and incoming email, her blue eyes excited with the prospect of another day, plunging into life.
"Surviving," she said today. Her eyes were puffy, with dark circles. I searched her face for clues.
"How are you?," she asked.
"Fine," I lied.
I wanted to ask, but I didn't stop. I wasn't that kind of person, really. Neither was she.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
TWC: "Trials"
(My Trifectan friends, who agree with George Thorogood that "one aint enough, Jack, you better make it three", provide Trifecta Nation with the word "exhaust" this week. This is called "Trials".)
"We need to exhaust all the avenues here. There are combinations we haven't tried, and work is going on all the time. New biologics are being found. I was just at a conference where a French oncologist was showing off a new compound he was using on exactly this kind of disease. There are lots and lots of options."
Her voice was smooth and soft, like I imagined her hair would be. I wondered what she would say if I asked her if I could touch it. It would probably be against the rules. It was fastened on top of her head in a tortoiseshell clip, and it framed her face with very gentle waves. A strand or two had come loose, and I could see them bounce about as she moved her head. She kept her knees tightly together as she faced me, her hands open and flat on the tops of her thighs. I looked guiltily at the tiny dark triangle where her skirt gapped between her knees. The line of the hem was razor sharp. A pencil skirt, I remember hearing someone call it. Her toes pointed straight at me in her modest black shoes.
"May I have your permission to apply for one of the trials Dr. Patel is running downstairs?"
No, I thought, I've had it. Just let me go. Give me some painkillers and let me off of this ride, and I'll go have a jam session with Kurt Cobain in heaven. It's my decision, and I just want all the foolishness about appointments and drugs and infusions over with. No. It's over.
I looked into her eyes, brown and wide and earnest, and I could see how much she wanted me to say yes.
"Sure," I said without realizing it. I never could say no to a pretty face.
"We need to exhaust all the avenues here. There are combinations we haven't tried, and work is going on all the time. New biologics are being found. I was just at a conference where a French oncologist was showing off a new compound he was using on exactly this kind of disease. There are lots and lots of options."
Her voice was smooth and soft, like I imagined her hair would be. I wondered what she would say if I asked her if I could touch it. It would probably be against the rules. It was fastened on top of her head in a tortoiseshell clip, and it framed her face with very gentle waves. A strand or two had come loose, and I could see them bounce about as she moved her head. She kept her knees tightly together as she faced me, her hands open and flat on the tops of her thighs. I looked guiltily at the tiny dark triangle where her skirt gapped between her knees. The line of the hem was razor sharp. A pencil skirt, I remember hearing someone call it. Her toes pointed straight at me in her modest black shoes.
"May I have your permission to apply for one of the trials Dr. Patel is running downstairs?"
No, I thought, I've had it. Just let me go. Give me some painkillers and let me off of this ride, and I'll go have a jam session with Kurt Cobain in heaven. It's my decision, and I just want all the foolishness about appointments and drugs and infusions over with. No. It's over.
I looked into her eyes, brown and wide and earnest, and I could see how much she wanted me to say yes.
"Sure," I said without realizing it. I never could say no to a pretty face.
100 Word Song: "Distance"
(Our friend Leeroy,whose electronic door I have not darkened in a while for no good reason, along with his carbon based life form friend Lance, present us with Billy Idol's "John Wayne" this week for the 100 Word Song. This is called "Distance".)
Modern technology brought her voice right next to me, but I could still feel every single mile that separated us.
"I'd save you all this suffering if I could."
"I know," she said. She sounded like she had just finished crying. Or was just about to start.
"There's nothing I can do?"
"Not unless you have $12,900."
I didn't. "I'm sorry. I feel helpless. I hate feeling this way. I want to save you. That's what I am supposed to do. I'm a guy."
"I'm not looking for a hero," she said softly. "I'm just looking for a friend."
Modern technology brought her voice right next to me, but I could still feel every single mile that separated us.
"I'd save you all this suffering if I could."
"I know," she said. She sounded like she had just finished crying. Or was just about to start.
"There's nothing I can do?"
"Not unless you have $12,900."
I didn't. "I'm sorry. I feel helpless. I hate feeling this way. I want to save you. That's what I am supposed to do. I'm a guy."
"I'm not looking for a hero," she said softly. "I'm just looking for a friend."
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
SPE: "Better Than Us"
[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, kgwaite gave me this prompt: "Pick a four-syllable word you don't know out of the dictionary. Write a word around that prompt."
I gave Ankita this prompt: "My father's theory is: Listen, if someday you're going to tell someone to dig a ditch, you should know how to do it yourself." -Donald Trump Jr.]
(This prompt puzzled me a bit. It's almost metaphysical. I probably have a dictionary somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure where. More puzzling is the idea of it. There aren't a whole lot of words, in my experience, that I don't know, or haven't heard and have a general idea of the meaning of. Further, once I find the word and read the definition, I know it, thus negating the intent of the prompt. So I settled on "sequestration", mostly because it fit.)
Staff Sargeant Kelly poked her head through the door. That was unusual- we could go through a typical day without exchanging more than a dozen words, which suited us both just fine. Her hair was pulled back tight, and I could see the hint of makeup around her eyes.
"Colonel?," she asked. I wasn't doing anything of deep importance, but I was busy enough to be slightly annoyed by the interruption.
"Yes?"
"A Ms. Doreen Clarke is here to see you, sir."
"She doesn't have an appointment," I said uselessly. She knew that as well as I did.
"No, sir. Who is she, sir?"
I sighed. I knew Doreen would wait all day if she had to.
"I served with her late husband." I took a deep breath. "Show her in, would you?"
"Yes, sir," she said, her head ducking away. The door opened to reveal Doreen, the picture of middle aged health in a tan pencil skirt, flat black shoes, and a muted green blouse, all clean and pressed and neat looking. One thing military wives learn to do, I thought, is look put together.
"Doreen," I said warily. "How are you?"
She walked in and sat in my office chair without being invited. "Allen," she said evenly, "we need to talk."
I swallowed. "OK."
"Where is it?," she said. "I haven't gotten anything since August."
"I know," I said. I started to walk across my office. I had a Redskins calendar hanging on my olive drab file cabinet, with Sunday's Eagles game circled. I had two tickets down low that I had won in an office pool. "I had been meaning to call and explain."
"Explain?" Doreen said. "Explain what? What's to explain?"
"Sequestration." I stared out the window onto a parking lot, watching a bird come down and begin to wrestle with a discarded potato chip.
"What? You mean the budget crap that's on the news? That?" She uncrossed her legs and then recrossed them. She was leaning back now, her face skeptical and questioning.
"Yes," I said. "They're all over me, questioning every cent. I can't squeeze out overages like I used to. The cuts are coming, and we don't know how deep yet, so we are all down to skeletons. Bare bones on everything. I can't play fast and loose with numbers right now."
"Which means what?" Doreen said acidly. "Bottom line it. Am I just SOL? Or what?"
I smiled at the acronym. "Of course not," I said. I reached down for my briefcase, pulling it up onto my desk. "I told you I owe Robert my life," I said. "And I take care of people who take care of me."
"You did," Doreen said. "And I believed you."
"It's true, Dor," I said plaintively. "It is true."
"Don't call me that," she spat. I took out my checkbook and my Mont Blanc, one of the extravagances I allowed myself.
"A check, Allen?," she said in disbelief.
"I don't carry that kind of cash around, Dor," I said.
"Fine," she said.
I wrote the amount and signed it, noting it carefully in the register.
"What are you writing in there?," she said. "Bastard child?"
I swallowed again. "I use acronyms all the time. Marie is used to it by now. Besides, she never looks at the checkbook."
"Am I going to have to chase you every month now?"
"No, Dor," I said. "Doreen," I quickly added. "No. I'll make sure it is there on time next month."
"It better be," she added. "I don't want to have to go through channels."
"We discussed this, Doreen," I said, putting a little iron in my voice. "It's better she thinks Robert is her father. She ends up worse off if we do it that way. We all do."
"You do, certainly," she said, and then smiled grimly. "I know, Allen. You're right. I just hate lying to her."
"I do too." I tore out the check and came around the desk to give it to her. She stood up quickly, snatching it from my hand without ceremony. She folded it once and slid it into her purse.
"Just mail it next time," she said.
"OK," I said. She started to walk across the room. She still had the strutting, hip swinging walk of the young woman she was, all those years ago at 29 Palms. She stopped and looked back at me, her voice as cold as the onrushing autumn breeze.
"Aren't you even going to ask how she is?"
"How is she?"
"Elizabeth is fine," she said evenly. "She's going to be a better person than either one of us turned out to be," she said, opening the door and then letting it slam shut behind her.
I gave Ankita this prompt: "My father's theory is: Listen, if someday you're going to tell someone to dig a ditch, you should know how to do it yourself." -Donald Trump Jr.]
(This prompt puzzled me a bit. It's almost metaphysical. I probably have a dictionary somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure where. More puzzling is the idea of it. There aren't a whole lot of words, in my experience, that I don't know, or haven't heard and have a general idea of the meaning of. Further, once I find the word and read the definition, I know it, thus negating the intent of the prompt. So I settled on "sequestration", mostly because it fit.)
Staff Sargeant Kelly poked her head through the door. That was unusual- we could go through a typical day without exchanging more than a dozen words, which suited us both just fine. Her hair was pulled back tight, and I could see the hint of makeup around her eyes.
"Colonel?," she asked. I wasn't doing anything of deep importance, but I was busy enough to be slightly annoyed by the interruption.
"Yes?"
"A Ms. Doreen Clarke is here to see you, sir."
"She doesn't have an appointment," I said uselessly. She knew that as well as I did.
"No, sir. Who is she, sir?"
I sighed. I knew Doreen would wait all day if she had to.
"I served with her late husband." I took a deep breath. "Show her in, would you?"
"Yes, sir," she said, her head ducking away. The door opened to reveal Doreen, the picture of middle aged health in a tan pencil skirt, flat black shoes, and a muted green blouse, all clean and pressed and neat looking. One thing military wives learn to do, I thought, is look put together.
"Doreen," I said warily. "How are you?"
She walked in and sat in my office chair without being invited. "Allen," she said evenly, "we need to talk."
I swallowed. "OK."
"Where is it?," she said. "I haven't gotten anything since August."
"I know," I said. I started to walk across my office. I had a Redskins calendar hanging on my olive drab file cabinet, with Sunday's Eagles game circled. I had two tickets down low that I had won in an office pool. "I had been meaning to call and explain."
"Explain?" Doreen said. "Explain what? What's to explain?"
"Sequestration." I stared out the window onto a parking lot, watching a bird come down and begin to wrestle with a discarded potato chip.
"What? You mean the budget crap that's on the news? That?" She uncrossed her legs and then recrossed them. She was leaning back now, her face skeptical and questioning.
"Yes," I said. "They're all over me, questioning every cent. I can't squeeze out overages like I used to. The cuts are coming, and we don't know how deep yet, so we are all down to skeletons. Bare bones on everything. I can't play fast and loose with numbers right now."
"Which means what?" Doreen said acidly. "Bottom line it. Am I just SOL? Or what?"
I smiled at the acronym. "Of course not," I said. I reached down for my briefcase, pulling it up onto my desk. "I told you I owe Robert my life," I said. "And I take care of people who take care of me."
"You did," Doreen said. "And I believed you."
"It's true, Dor," I said plaintively. "It is true."
"Don't call me that," she spat. I took out my checkbook and my Mont Blanc, one of the extravagances I allowed myself.
"A check, Allen?," she said in disbelief.
"I don't carry that kind of cash around, Dor," I said.
"Fine," she said.
I wrote the amount and signed it, noting it carefully in the register.
"What are you writing in there?," she said. "Bastard child?"
I swallowed again. "I use acronyms all the time. Marie is used to it by now. Besides, she never looks at the checkbook."
"Am I going to have to chase you every month now?"
"No, Dor," I said. "Doreen," I quickly added. "No. I'll make sure it is there on time next month."
"It better be," she added. "I don't want to have to go through channels."
"We discussed this, Doreen," I said, putting a little iron in my voice. "It's better she thinks Robert is her father. She ends up worse off if we do it that way. We all do."
"You do, certainly," she said, and then smiled grimly. "I know, Allen. You're right. I just hate lying to her."
"I do too." I tore out the check and came around the desk to give it to her. She stood up quickly, snatching it from my hand without ceremony. She folded it once and slid it into her purse.
"Just mail it next time," she said.
"OK," I said. She started to walk across the room. She still had the strutting, hip swinging walk of the young woman she was, all those years ago at 29 Palms. She stopped and looked back at me, her voice as cold as the onrushing autumn breeze.
"Aren't you even going to ask how she is?"
"How is she?"
"Elizabeth is fine," she said evenly. "She's going to be a better person than either one of us turned out to be," she said, opening the door and then letting it slam shut behind her.
Friday, February 15, 2013
TWC: "Chicken Little"
Those aficionados of Tex Winter's triangle offense at the Trifecta Writing Challenge made their weekend challenge another 33 worder, this time about the word "hyperbole". This is obviously inspired by very recent events in Russia, but partial credit goes to my brother in law @couchoud, who reminded me of Chicken Little this morning on Twitter. Appropriately, this is called "Chicken Little".
"Is it still hyperbole," she thought as her tea sloshed onto her bare thigh and the light streaked across the gentle blue sky and her walls rattled, "if the sky really is falling?"
"Is it still hyperbole," she thought as her tea sloshed onto her bare thigh and the light streaked across the gentle blue sky and her walls rattled, "if the sky really is falling?"
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
SPE: "Inadequacy Theater"
[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Ankita gave me this prompt: "Friendships that went sour."
I gave Venus Moon this prompt: "Do not escape. Light up the road by being more intensely upon it." -Galway Kinnell ]
It's like a metaphor for my life, Dara thought. I never know where to stand.
Dara was meeting her older sister for lunch, the way they did every month, first Thursday, 12 noon, same Panera Bread that was equally inconvenient for both of them. Dara had placed her order carefully, balancing what she really wanted with what her sister would find acceptable, finally settling on a soup and salad that would leave her hallucinating about brownies by 3 o'clock. She had walked down the small corridor to the scrum by the pickup window, and she was standing, waiting for her name to be called.
It was an awkward little knot of people, a few young mothers holding tiny toddler hands, two college girls slouching against the wall in leggings and boots, a pair of overdressed salesmen, and Dara, shifting her weight from side to side, feeling her hips twinge as she leaned, waiting her turn. She watched the college girls pecking at their phones, one showing the other something on the phone's screen which provoked a stream of giggles.
Dara tried standing near the salesmen, the most adult seeming of the group, but the feeling of their eyes on her body caused her to turn away. She looked at one of the mothers, a mousy, nervous looking brunette. She tried a small smile at her toddler, who immediately ducked behind her mother's thighs. She didn't hate children, but children didn't seem to trust her one bit. She had no instincts around them, no sense of what they wanted. She didn't intend to broadcast anger, but her face seemed to do it anyway, and children could see it. She found a patch of wall and stood as still as her heels would let her, willing herself small and unnoticed, staring at the clock on the wall above the cooks' heads.
Dara could hear her sister's voice, chattering away behind her, probably already ensconced in a booth, laptop open, planning playdates or trips or fundraisers or some other child related task. No matter how early Dara left her office, Big Sister was already here, nibbling at a sandwich, making calls, silently judging. Sara was 18 months older, almost to the day, and she did everything first. The shining example of modern achievement, Dara's sister was smarter and taller and better looking and such an exemplar that Dara just started answering to "Sara" in school when the biology teacher couldn't get it right. She sometimes mused on the unfairness of that- their parents really couldn't make her a Beth or a Kate or a Maureen? Instead they took golden Sara's name and just changed one letter, hoping the magic would rub off? While Sara led the perfect life, Dara just bumped along, stubbing her toe as she went.
One of the college girls got her lunch, causing the other girl to fall silent without her partner in crime. The other girl had dark eyes, constantly flashing between her phone screen and the vaguely Hispanic looking cook that was putting up the orders. Dara watched her, rocking gently from side to side, quietly envying her freedom, having the world in front of you, having a multitude of paths and options and possibilities. One of the suited men on her other side moved forward when his name was called. She could smell a bit of his cologne as he moved past her. Dara remembered the yearning of being young, the neediness and the fear that you wouldn't find anyone, followed by the fear that you would. One of the mothers, a pretty Asian girl holding a dark haired baby with enormous eyes, stepped forward to get her meal.
Dara knew she was the constant discussion point among her mother, her aunts, and her sister. They tossed around the theories, that she was working too much, that she didn't socialize enough. They half wondered if she was gay, before assuring themselves that it wouldn't matter if she was. Dara didn't know why she was single as she approached 35, why every cousin and a couple of her older nieces were marrying and reproducing like mad. Dara saw her own branch of the family tree as one of those stubborn stumps, the kind that it takes a backhoe to dig out. While the flowers surround her, there is stupid old Dara, immobile and resolute.
She was straight, that much she was clear on. Like many women her age, she had some same sex adventures in college, but she knew her own head well enough to understand what she was. Dating and relationships were just trivia, things she couldn't be bothered to concern herself with. She was human, she had needs like anyone else, but when she thought of the enormity of the task involved in actually finding a mate, her brain just locked up. It was simpler not to- her simple, quiet life felt like home to her, and she couldn't imagine sharing a bed and a kitchen and vacations with someone else. .
Nobody believed her. There had to be something wrong. When you refuse to follow the herd, you question their choices. Or it implies that you do. Why don't you want what everybody else wants? Dara really didn't care what anybody else wanted. She just wanted to read her books, listen to her music, and watch her movies, by herself. She wanted to live life on her own terms. She knew they didn't approve, but they thought she was missing out, so it was long lunches filled with probing questions that all centered on the big one: why aren't you just like me? And what does that say about my choices, if you don't make the same ones?
The Hispanic looking man said her name and cocked his chin at her. Dara stepped forward, feeling the other salesman's eyes on her hips as she moved. She took the meal she didn't really want, along with her sugarless iced tea, safe purchases to prevent her sister's criticisms of her body, and made her way to her sister's table, ready for another episode of Inadequacy Theater.
I gave Venus Moon this prompt: "Do not escape. Light up the road by being more intensely upon it." -Galway Kinnell ]
It's like a metaphor for my life, Dara thought. I never know where to stand.
Dara was meeting her older sister for lunch, the way they did every month, first Thursday, 12 noon, same Panera Bread that was equally inconvenient for both of them. Dara had placed her order carefully, balancing what she really wanted with what her sister would find acceptable, finally settling on a soup and salad that would leave her hallucinating about brownies by 3 o'clock. She had walked down the small corridor to the scrum by the pickup window, and she was standing, waiting for her name to be called.
It was an awkward little knot of people, a few young mothers holding tiny toddler hands, two college girls slouching against the wall in leggings and boots, a pair of overdressed salesmen, and Dara, shifting her weight from side to side, feeling her hips twinge as she leaned, waiting her turn. She watched the college girls pecking at their phones, one showing the other something on the phone's screen which provoked a stream of giggles.
Dara tried standing near the salesmen, the most adult seeming of the group, but the feeling of their eyes on her body caused her to turn away. She looked at one of the mothers, a mousy, nervous looking brunette. She tried a small smile at her toddler, who immediately ducked behind her mother's thighs. She didn't hate children, but children didn't seem to trust her one bit. She had no instincts around them, no sense of what they wanted. She didn't intend to broadcast anger, but her face seemed to do it anyway, and children could see it. She found a patch of wall and stood as still as her heels would let her, willing herself small and unnoticed, staring at the clock on the wall above the cooks' heads.
Dara could hear her sister's voice, chattering away behind her, probably already ensconced in a booth, laptop open, planning playdates or trips or fundraisers or some other child related task. No matter how early Dara left her office, Big Sister was already here, nibbling at a sandwich, making calls, silently judging. Sara was 18 months older, almost to the day, and she did everything first. The shining example of modern achievement, Dara's sister was smarter and taller and better looking and such an exemplar that Dara just started answering to "Sara" in school when the biology teacher couldn't get it right. She sometimes mused on the unfairness of that- their parents really couldn't make her a Beth or a Kate or a Maureen? Instead they took golden Sara's name and just changed one letter, hoping the magic would rub off? While Sara led the perfect life, Dara just bumped along, stubbing her toe as she went.
One of the college girls got her lunch, causing the other girl to fall silent without her partner in crime. The other girl had dark eyes, constantly flashing between her phone screen and the vaguely Hispanic looking cook that was putting up the orders. Dara watched her, rocking gently from side to side, quietly envying her freedom, having the world in front of you, having a multitude of paths and options and possibilities. One of the suited men on her other side moved forward when his name was called. She could smell a bit of his cologne as he moved past her. Dara remembered the yearning of being young, the neediness and the fear that you wouldn't find anyone, followed by the fear that you would. One of the mothers, a pretty Asian girl holding a dark haired baby with enormous eyes, stepped forward to get her meal.
Dara knew she was the constant discussion point among her mother, her aunts, and her sister. They tossed around the theories, that she was working too much, that she didn't socialize enough. They half wondered if she was gay, before assuring themselves that it wouldn't matter if she was. Dara didn't know why she was single as she approached 35, why every cousin and a couple of her older nieces were marrying and reproducing like mad. Dara saw her own branch of the family tree as one of those stubborn stumps, the kind that it takes a backhoe to dig out. While the flowers surround her, there is stupid old Dara, immobile and resolute.
She was straight, that much she was clear on. Like many women her age, she had some same sex adventures in college, but she knew her own head well enough to understand what she was. Dating and relationships were just trivia, things she couldn't be bothered to concern herself with. She was human, she had needs like anyone else, but when she thought of the enormity of the task involved in actually finding a mate, her brain just locked up. It was simpler not to- her simple, quiet life felt like home to her, and she couldn't imagine sharing a bed and a kitchen and vacations with someone else. .
Nobody believed her. There had to be something wrong. When you refuse to follow the herd, you question their choices. Or it implies that you do. Why don't you want what everybody else wants? Dara really didn't care what anybody else wanted. She just wanted to read her books, listen to her music, and watch her movies, by herself. She wanted to live life on her own terms. She knew they didn't approve, but they thought she was missing out, so it was long lunches filled with probing questions that all centered on the big one: why aren't you just like me? And what does that say about my choices, if you don't make the same ones?
The Hispanic looking man said her name and cocked his chin at her. Dara stepped forward, feeling the other salesman's eyes on her hips as she moved. She took the meal she didn't really want, along with her sugarless iced tea, safe purchases to prevent her sister's criticisms of her body, and made her way to her sister's table, ready for another episode of Inadequacy Theater.
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
SPE: "Slice"
{For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Kurt gave me this prompt: "When you cut into the present, the future leaks out." -William S. Burroughs. I gave Chelle this prompt: "If you have to decide, then the answer is don't do it. If you have a choice, then the answer is no." -Bruce Springsteen}
[Trigger warning: I have seen other blogs do this, and I think it's a non terrible idea. This story involves some pretty intense stuff. So if you're of a delicate constitution, you may want to look away.]
One of my earliest memories was of riding the subway with my mother. I think we were going to a museum. I remember how noisy the trains were, the squealing brakes, the mild electrical smell, the way the lights would flash off and on again as the train went around a curve, the enormous additional roar of a train passing going in the other direction, the constant rattling and groaning of the metal as it was pushed along. I remember all the people- men in suits, women in skirts and jackets with sneakers, students slouching in dirty jeans, all the adults looming around me, towering and enormous, as I held my mother's hand. I remember watching her engaging in a halting conversation with an huge woman in a patterned dress with a scarf on her head. They were talking, but I couldn't understand them. I remember thinking, with all the train noise and these nonsense words passing between them, that I might be dreaming, or maybe something was wrong with my ears.
I was crying by the time we emerged into the sun, my mother stopping and sitting me down and asking me what was wrong. I told her that I didn't understand what she was saying to the woman on the train, and I remember her explaining that she was speaking French, and that French was just another way for people to talk. I remember her telling me that little girls in France had kittens just like I did, only they called them a different word. It was such a shock to me, that the world that I knew was so malleable. I must have seen those Sesame Street sequences with Spanish in them, but for some reason this was the encounter that brought the idea home to me that my view of the world was not necessarily the only one. I spent the rest of the day, I was told later, torturing my mother with translation questions, learning about le chat and la voiture and la bibliotheque.
I think the horror of that idea, my experience being subjective and not objective, never really left me. I understood the idea soon enough, that a truth uttered in innocence can turn to ashes upon hearing, that my thought never made its way into another's head without being mangled beyond recognition. I knew especially that boys, those mysterious, rough, dirty creatures that so stirred my blood, would not respond to my urgent pleas, their thinking not aligning with mine no matter how urgently I wished it. . At least, the right ones wouldn't. And later, after my body betrayed me, I had the opposite issue, lecherous peers and pathetic, lusty old men receiving messages I was not sending. I understood this, but I never really accepted it.
As a miserable, mopey young adult, bumping along, failing at school and in life, my parents tried the usual attacks on the problem, calling specialists, asking friends, engaging in long, drawn out talks as I wailed and moaned, essentially asking, in so many words, "What IS it? What do you need? What do you want? What can we do to help you out of this misery and into a life that suits our need to brag at cocktail parties?" Drinking didn't help. The drugs didn't help, they just made everything foggy and distant, and the talk therapy was so many words, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I kept thinking of Eliza Dolittle- "Words words words/I'm so sick of words!"
I could never communicate it, because the dread, the marrow deep fear that tomorrow is going to come, and that it is going to be just as meaningless and as gray and as flat as today, was somehow beyond my capacity to explain. It was too large for my mind to contain it, never mind try to convey it. I could say it is "like" this, or it is "as if" that, but in the old phrase sometimes attributed to John Lennon, talking about it is like dancing about architecture. If you have felt it, you know. If you haven't, I couldn't possibly show you.
So my latest therapist, Dr. Fox, asked me to make a collage, to explain how I was feeling in pictorial form instead of trying to use words. It felt stupid and childish, but to humor her, a pleasant little woman with graying hair who wore long Western skirts, I went up to my room with scissors and an Exacto knife, a glue stick, and a pile of magazines from the recycling pile. I started cutting out pictures, whatever caught my eye, ridiculous high heels on starlets, desserts dripping with fat and sugar, mansions behind white pillars, airplane seats reclined on transatlantic flights.
I was trying to excise an image of a comically large artificial breast from a picture, some glossy mess from Vogue or some such, when the craft knife's yellow plastic handle slipped on the slick page and, to my shock, I buried it in the base of the thumb on my other hand. I guess I have the average tolerance for pain- not having any basis for comparison, I wouldn't know. I certainly didn't relish discomfort, but at first, it was really the surprise of the blade entering my skin more than the pain of its entry. I watched, horrified, as blood rose swiftly to the surface on either side of the hard angled metal, quickly beginning to drip onto the open magazine page below. An ad for maxi pads, I noted with amusement.
I got the idea all at once, like one of those movies where the frame dissolves and you can see what the character was thinking. I remembered seeing a painting, David's "The Death of Marat," the main character murdered, dead in the bathtub, stabbed by a conspirator, and suddenly I could picture myself, naked, my skin loose and flabby, the water tinged pink as my blood leaks away into it, my arms hacked open with my own fury. Like any depressive, I had considered self slaughter, but had never summoned the will. As sudden as a flash going off, I could see it as if it had already happened.
There was a comedian I saw once, really late at night on HBO, who said that suicide, in an adult, was like someone walking out of a movie halfway through. It was possible that the movie would suddenly get better, but if you have hated the first 45 minutes, what are the odds that the second 45 are going to be a lot better? I had given life a quarter century, and it had disappointed me at every single turn. I couldn't go on, and as my thumb started to throb, I looked at the silver blade, vibrating as my hand trembled, and I smiled.
[Trigger warning: I have seen other blogs do this, and I think it's a non terrible idea. This story involves some pretty intense stuff. So if you're of a delicate constitution, you may want to look away.]
One of my earliest memories was of riding the subway with my mother. I think we were going to a museum. I remember how noisy the trains were, the squealing brakes, the mild electrical smell, the way the lights would flash off and on again as the train went around a curve, the enormous additional roar of a train passing going in the other direction, the constant rattling and groaning of the metal as it was pushed along. I remember all the people- men in suits, women in skirts and jackets with sneakers, students slouching in dirty jeans, all the adults looming around me, towering and enormous, as I held my mother's hand. I remember watching her engaging in a halting conversation with an huge woman in a patterned dress with a scarf on her head. They were talking, but I couldn't understand them. I remember thinking, with all the train noise and these nonsense words passing between them, that I might be dreaming, or maybe something was wrong with my ears.
I was crying by the time we emerged into the sun, my mother stopping and sitting me down and asking me what was wrong. I told her that I didn't understand what she was saying to the woman on the train, and I remember her explaining that she was speaking French, and that French was just another way for people to talk. I remember her telling me that little girls in France had kittens just like I did, only they called them a different word. It was such a shock to me, that the world that I knew was so malleable. I must have seen those Sesame Street sequences with Spanish in them, but for some reason this was the encounter that brought the idea home to me that my view of the world was not necessarily the only one. I spent the rest of the day, I was told later, torturing my mother with translation questions, learning about le chat and la voiture and la bibliotheque.
I think the horror of that idea, my experience being subjective and not objective, never really left me. I understood the idea soon enough, that a truth uttered in innocence can turn to ashes upon hearing, that my thought never made its way into another's head without being mangled beyond recognition. I knew especially that boys, those mysterious, rough, dirty creatures that so stirred my blood, would not respond to my urgent pleas, their thinking not aligning with mine no matter how urgently I wished it. . At least, the right ones wouldn't. And later, after my body betrayed me, I had the opposite issue, lecherous peers and pathetic, lusty old men receiving messages I was not sending. I understood this, but I never really accepted it.
As a miserable, mopey young adult, bumping along, failing at school and in life, my parents tried the usual attacks on the problem, calling specialists, asking friends, engaging in long, drawn out talks as I wailed and moaned, essentially asking, in so many words, "What IS it? What do you need? What do you want? What can we do to help you out of this misery and into a life that suits our need to brag at cocktail parties?" Drinking didn't help. The drugs didn't help, they just made everything foggy and distant, and the talk therapy was so many words, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I kept thinking of Eliza Dolittle- "Words words words/I'm so sick of words!"
I could never communicate it, because the dread, the marrow deep fear that tomorrow is going to come, and that it is going to be just as meaningless and as gray and as flat as today, was somehow beyond my capacity to explain. It was too large for my mind to contain it, never mind try to convey it. I could say it is "like" this, or it is "as if" that, but in the old phrase sometimes attributed to John Lennon, talking about it is like dancing about architecture. If you have felt it, you know. If you haven't, I couldn't possibly show you.
So my latest therapist, Dr. Fox, asked me to make a collage, to explain how I was feeling in pictorial form instead of trying to use words. It felt stupid and childish, but to humor her, a pleasant little woman with graying hair who wore long Western skirts, I went up to my room with scissors and an Exacto knife, a glue stick, and a pile of magazines from the recycling pile. I started cutting out pictures, whatever caught my eye, ridiculous high heels on starlets, desserts dripping with fat and sugar, mansions behind white pillars, airplane seats reclined on transatlantic flights.
I was trying to excise an image of a comically large artificial breast from a picture, some glossy mess from Vogue or some such, when the craft knife's yellow plastic handle slipped on the slick page and, to my shock, I buried it in the base of the thumb on my other hand. I guess I have the average tolerance for pain- not having any basis for comparison, I wouldn't know. I certainly didn't relish discomfort, but at first, it was really the surprise of the blade entering my skin more than the pain of its entry. I watched, horrified, as blood rose swiftly to the surface on either side of the hard angled metal, quickly beginning to drip onto the open magazine page below. An ad for maxi pads, I noted with amusement.
I got the idea all at once, like one of those movies where the frame dissolves and you can see what the character was thinking. I remembered seeing a painting, David's "The Death of Marat," the main character murdered, dead in the bathtub, stabbed by a conspirator, and suddenly I could picture myself, naked, my skin loose and flabby, the water tinged pink as my blood leaks away into it, my arms hacked open with my own fury. Like any depressive, I had considered self slaughter, but had never summoned the will. As sudden as a flash going off, I could see it as if it had already happened.
There was a comedian I saw once, really late at night on HBO, who said that suicide, in an adult, was like someone walking out of a movie halfway through. It was possible that the movie would suddenly get better, but if you have hated the first 45 minutes, what are the odds that the second 45 are going to be a lot better? I had given life a quarter century, and it had disappointed me at every single turn. I couldn't go on, and as my thumb started to throb, I looked at the silver blade, vibrating as my hand trembled, and I smiled.
Monday, January 28, 2013
SS: "Cold Turkey"
I was thinking about John Lennon's "Cold Turkey". Supposedly he had been through withdrawal before, and that was what made him write the song. Nothing is like withdrawal, exactly- it's like women who say that nothing can be compared to childbirth. I suppose nothing could. But withdrawal wasn't just pain, it was a terrible restlessness, pain along with itching and nausea and diarrhea and a general sense of your body not belonging to you. You started to understand why people would kill, or abandon children, or walk away from careers, in order to avoid the feeling. It is as close as I ever felt to wanting to die.
I stared at the inside of the closet, the mops and cleaning solutions all around me, the precious box clutched to my chest. I fumbled with the flap, and then screwed the needle on top. I flipped up my scrub, feeling around for a bare patch of skin. I sucked in a breath when the needle pierced my skin, pushing the plunger down, feeling the sting and picking up the gauze I had dropped on the cement floor.
I felt relief, even though I knew that the drug hadn't taken effect yet. My breathing slowed, and I felt the tension release in my shoulders. I knew I was going to get caught, and I knew I was going to be fired again, but for that moment, for those few minutes as it eased its way into my blood, unknotting my guts, slowing the sweat on my brow, relieving the rush of my thoughts, I was an addict, I knew that, but as much shame as that engendered, the relief of knowing that the awful suffering was almost over, made me feel like I was flying.
SPE: "Eyes Of A Stranger"
[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Jester Queen gave me this prompt: "When it grew cold, I shut the door. But I left the window open, hoping possibilities might pour in with the night air." I gave SAM this prompt: "People say they love a lot of things, but they really don't. It's just a word that's been overused." -Bob Dylan]
She piles her hair up every morning, an enormous cantilevered bun secured by pins and stays and clips, only releasing it when she was home with me and ready for bed. It seemed like an enormous amount of effort, but I certainly enjoyed the effect it had. It was like she saved a version of herself, a Jen only I got to see, a long haired, raven goddess with locks unkempt and matted with sweat and smoke and hairspray and whatever other smells she had encountered. If I sat on the bed while she brushed it out, it was like a summary of her day- the grease of the subway, the hickory of the steak place where they went to lunch, the tobacco of the group of outcasts outside the back door through which she dashes to catch her train.
I came in and stood beside her as she sat there, fluffing and combing through her mane, releasing the codes of her day.
"Shut the door," she said. I listened for the "please" that never came, then turned and closed the door. She was always cold, anywhere up to nearly 90 degrees causing her flesh to pimple and the fine hair on her arms to stand on end. It was a warm night, but not really a hot one, and I would have been comfortable to lay on the bed and let the occasional breeze dry our skin. But I didn't even ask.
"What are you doing tomorrow?," she asked, getting up to wash her face. I watched her strip off her nightgown, to avoid getting it wet. I watched her bend over the sink, her breasts small and sad under her thin back as she cleansed and dried and moisturized.
"I have some research to do," I said. "Some microfilm that isn't digitized." My historical novel was coming together, but I felt like I needed more period detail, which would require a few hours in the library.
She sighed. "We haven't gone anywhere in a long time. Can't we go to the beach or something?"
I watched her straighten up, settling her nightgown over herself, tugging and adjusting, focusing her brown eyes on her reflection. I thought about the deadlines bearing down on me, the rewriting and the polishing, the days that were slipping away. I felt the yawning maw of failure behind me, one push and what passed for my career would slip away into nothing. I thought about the hard shoes she wore, the tight slimming pencil skirts, the two hundred dollar blouses, the late night phone calls and arguments that left her dinner congealing on the plate while I listened to half a conversation I couldn't understand. I thought about the power imbalance that I said never bothered me, her salary paying the bills, my occasional checks from articles and short stories sometimes buying dinner.
"Sure, if you want," I said softly. I didn't feel like I could refuse her. I never did. She came across the room and climbed into her side of the bed. She yawned and stretched.
"I'm exhausted," she said. She pulled the sheets up and pulled her hair together, then let it go, the flood of darkness blanketing the middle of the bed. I slid my arm around her trim waist, and brought my lips to her ear.
I was about to say something, when she said sleepily, "Not tonight. I have an early meeting."
"Good night," I said, and kissed her ear. I wasn't asking for sex. I was offended that she assumed I was. We used to click on every imaginable thing. More recently, I couldn't understand anything that was happening: it was like living with a stranger.
I turned away from her, staring at the closed window. I heard her slipping into sleep, her breath slackening and deepening. I felt hot already, but if I opened the window, she'd be awake in seconds. I thought about Paul Simon's lyric, "I like to sleep with the window open, and you keep the window closed, so goodbye, goodbye, goodbye."
She piles her hair up every morning, an enormous cantilevered bun secured by pins and stays and clips, only releasing it when she was home with me and ready for bed. It seemed like an enormous amount of effort, but I certainly enjoyed the effect it had. It was like she saved a version of herself, a Jen only I got to see, a long haired, raven goddess with locks unkempt and matted with sweat and smoke and hairspray and whatever other smells she had encountered. If I sat on the bed while she brushed it out, it was like a summary of her day- the grease of the subway, the hickory of the steak place where they went to lunch, the tobacco of the group of outcasts outside the back door through which she dashes to catch her train.
I came in and stood beside her as she sat there, fluffing and combing through her mane, releasing the codes of her day.
"Shut the door," she said. I listened for the "please" that never came, then turned and closed the door. She was always cold, anywhere up to nearly 90 degrees causing her flesh to pimple and the fine hair on her arms to stand on end. It was a warm night, but not really a hot one, and I would have been comfortable to lay on the bed and let the occasional breeze dry our skin. But I didn't even ask.
"What are you doing tomorrow?," she asked, getting up to wash her face. I watched her strip off her nightgown, to avoid getting it wet. I watched her bend over the sink, her breasts small and sad under her thin back as she cleansed and dried and moisturized.
"I have some research to do," I said. "Some microfilm that isn't digitized." My historical novel was coming together, but I felt like I needed more period detail, which would require a few hours in the library.
She sighed. "We haven't gone anywhere in a long time. Can't we go to the beach or something?"
I watched her straighten up, settling her nightgown over herself, tugging and adjusting, focusing her brown eyes on her reflection. I thought about the deadlines bearing down on me, the rewriting and the polishing, the days that were slipping away. I felt the yawning maw of failure behind me, one push and what passed for my career would slip away into nothing. I thought about the hard shoes she wore, the tight slimming pencil skirts, the two hundred dollar blouses, the late night phone calls and arguments that left her dinner congealing on the plate while I listened to half a conversation I couldn't understand. I thought about the power imbalance that I said never bothered me, her salary paying the bills, my occasional checks from articles and short stories sometimes buying dinner.
"Sure, if you want," I said softly. I didn't feel like I could refuse her. I never did. She came across the room and climbed into her side of the bed. She yawned and stretched.
"I'm exhausted," she said. She pulled the sheets up and pulled her hair together, then let it go, the flood of darkness blanketing the middle of the bed. I slid my arm around her trim waist, and brought my lips to her ear.
I was about to say something, when she said sleepily, "Not tonight. I have an early meeting."
"Good night," I said, and kissed her ear. I wasn't asking for sex. I was offended that she assumed I was. We used to click on every imaginable thing. More recently, I couldn't understand anything that was happening: it was like living with a stranger.
I turned away from her, staring at the closed window. I heard her slipping into sleep, her breath slackening and deepening. I felt hot already, but if I opened the window, she'd be awake in seconds. I thought about Paul Simon's lyric, "I like to sleep with the window open, and you keep the window closed, so goodbye, goodbye, goodbye."
Monday, January 21, 2013
100 Word Song: "Lunch Date"
(My friend Lance, who is really a friend to all, issues a 100 Word Song challenge this week from a group I had never heard of, Tame Impala, and a song, "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards", of which I was equally unaware but which recalls solo John Lennon for me, a description about which I can only say me gusta.)
She was eating a salad, while I had a sandwich. The cafe was half full with couples like us, pretty women with glasses and men who didn't deserve them. I sipped my beer, trying to make it last, not wishing to fight about ordering a second one.
"Are you happy?," she said.
"Yes," I said. I was.
"You don't think we are growing apart? It feels like we're stagnating. It feels like we only go backwards."
I didn't mind going backwards, I thought. I liked the past. I understood it.
"I don't think so. Do you?"
She didn't say anything.
She was eating a salad, while I had a sandwich. The cafe was half full with couples like us, pretty women with glasses and men who didn't deserve them. I sipped my beer, trying to make it last, not wishing to fight about ordering a second one.
"Are you happy?," she said.
"Yes," I said. I was.
"You don't think we are growing apart? It feels like we're stagnating. It feels like we only go backwards."
I didn't mind going backwards, I thought. I liked the past. I understood it.
"I don't think so. Do you?"
She didn't say anything.
Trifecta Writing Challenge: "Brake Job"
(My friends at the Trifecta Writing Challenge, who agree with Gary Cherone that there are Three Sides To Every Story, issued their usual challenge with a multipurpose word, "Bitch".)
She always smiled when she handed us the keys. She was a pert little blonde, with wide blue eyes and a trusting mouth. Everyone had a crush on her, I think, and fights nearly broke out to volunteer to drive her back to the huge house behind the iron gates. It wasn't her sporty little car this time, but instead his, the big muscular Audi, which needed new brakes.
I drove her home this time, taking her up the hill in a Chrysler that was nice enough, but looked out of place in front of her magnificent home. She frowned as she got closer to the front door, as if the house scared her. She never said it directly, but she certainly gave the impression she was unhappily married.
"You'll call when it's done?," she asked.
"Of course," I said. "And I'll come back and get you."
"I'd like that," she said, flashing some thigh as she got out of the car.
I drove back down the hill, wondering why someone so beautiful would stay in a bad relationship, musing about what a bitch brake jobs were and how easy it would be to do the job imperfectly.
SPE: "Electron Blue"
(For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Andrea gave me this prompt: Write something inspired by this quote by Marguerite Duras: "It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.". I gave Kurt this prompt: "I don't think anger gets anything done." -Jeffrey Tambor)
He had a Chicago Blackhawks shirt on. I thought that was stupid, because he wasn't from Chicago and didn't even like hockey all that much. But it had become abundantly clear he didn't care what I thought any more. I didn't intend for it to end this way. I didn't intend for it to end at all, but I certainly didn't intend for it to end like this. He opened the bathroom door with my bag in his hands. He had yellow foil packets in his hands. "I knocked your purse off the table," he said grimly. "What are these?"
"Jesus!," he said. His face got red when he exerted himself, and his forehead was looking rosy and pink. He was standing inside the bathroom door, which was something that he hated when I did it. I was in the position one assumes in that room, looking up at him, a mixture of guilt, fear, and revulsion gnawing at my guts. Well, I thought ruefully, if I'm going to throw up, at least I'm in the right room.
"Do you even know what the truth is, Sherry? I mean, if that's even your name! Jesus! " He stormed out of the room again. He wasn't an angry person, generally. He had never blown up at anything like this before. I knew I had blown it, lost it forever like your keys falling into a storm drain. But I didn't see any good reason to get up, so I just stayed there. I had been caught in little white lies before, but I could tell this one had broken him. There wasnt any good reason for me to have those little packets from Planned Parenthood unless I wasn't what I had told him I was.
We met three months ago. I was genuinely in desperate straits at the time- that part was true. I was standing under an awning, an enormous red duffle bag at my feet. I didn't know where to go, so I was just standing there, staring at the rain that poured down all around, a hard, judgmental rain. I had three books, two REM CDs, and maybe 5 changes of clothes. That, plus what I was wearing and $37.21, was the sum total of what I had to my name. Stephen had changed the locks, throwing everything that he said was mine into the duffle bag and leaving it outside the door, and not answering no matter how much I pounded on the door.
So I wrestled the bag down to the street, and just decided to stand there until something occurred to me. I could call Maureen again, but I could tell she was getting tired of me. I didn't feel like listening to Jeff's lecturing, and Mom was, for lack of a better word, impossible. So I stood there. I guess I looked pretty pathetic, because Allan stopped dead in front of me about 10 minutes later.
He wasn't bad looking. Kind of dorky, with dark scruffy hair that curled, an uneven mass of facial hair. He was tall, with the kind of pot belly and pallor that writers and gamers get from spending too much time inside and inactive. It's not like I had anything to speak about as far as bodies go, but it's true- Allan was pasty and weak and sad, but very kind. I knew him in that way you know people in your neighborhood. I would see him at the pizza place, at the coffee shop, waiting in line at the post office. I knew he lived somewhere nearby- he had to, the amount I saw him. I never saw him with anyone, so I assumed he was single. Or gay.
Allan stopped and stared at me. I had a white band t shirt on, along with a purple bra that you could see when the shirt got wet, and some tan pants, and a pair of old sneakers that used to be pure white. Allan was dressed much more sensibly, a light jacket, some thick shoes that looked waterproof and warm, a black t shirt with the beginning of pi spelled out on it, and jeans. He stared at me for a moment.
"Hi," was all he could muster. "You look sad."
I probably did. That wasn't a lie either. "Yes."
"Waiting for someone?"
"Not really," I said. "No one is coming for me."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know," I said, and I started crying. The ability to cry almost instantly had served to short circuit awkward conversations with men before, but this was at least half genuine. I managed to sputter something about Stephen throwing me out and another woman and how I didn't know where to go, which was mostly the truth, and he gallantly offered his couch. I honestly didn't intend to work that angle, but once I saw that it was open, my instincts kicked in, and before I knew it, I was stripping inside his bathroom, taking a very hot shower while he washed and dried my clothes that I decorously handed out through the door.
The lies had accumulated gradually, little untruths that seemed harmless piling up like the stuff in a junk drawer you never clean out. A brother who died, a father in the Army, an abortion at 14, all little things that I slid into conversation to measure their impact in his soft blue eyes. I knew from the first moment I walked into his place that we were going to be lovers, but I let him do the work, pulling me out of my shell, establishing trust. I knew men like him needed a quest, a project they could work on and obsess over. Every time I lied, my stomach clenched, but I said it anyway, forgetting about the shame when his face softened and he embraced me.
I'm sure he probably thinks I don't love him any more. I would, if someone had done to me what I just did. But the thing was, I did. I cared about him. He was sweet, and so gentle, and his body wasn't perfect, but I had gotten used to it, the way it felt when he held me. I just couldn't stand my good fortune. I couldn't see how anyone could find me appealing, so I inflated and exaggerated and simply lied to make myself into the person I saw in his eyes. It was never a thoughtful matter- I didn't think about it, it just came out in a reflex like any other bodily function. I neverr had a plan, just a grifter's confidence that something would present itself to get me out of it.
When I heard him crying in the other room, I reassembled my pants and conspicuously washed my hands and face, staring into my reflection, drawn and thin with pain, wondering if I knew who was looking back. "Jesus," he kept saying. I came out of the bathroom, ringlets of hair near my face still holding droplets of water that refracted the light in the room. He was staring at the floor, his head in his hands, muttering "Jesus," to himself, over and over again. I was thinking about an REM song, the one on the CD that was going to end up in my bag again, the one where Michael Stipe sings, "you, you know where to run/you run electron blue."
I didn't know where to run.
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