[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Anna gave me this prompt: "It was a joy just to see her fly." I gave Debbie this prompt: "Getting everything you want has nothing to do with anything." -Thom Yorke]
"Why don't you see if Tom can do it?," I heard as my heart sank. My wife was trying to include me, constantly assuring her daughters that while I wasn't Daddy, I was someone, and I could occasionally be of some use. Jessica knew I ached to help, and while we all felt our way along in this new world family unit, she was always trying to shoehorn me in. I appreciated the effort, but I couldn't shake the feeling they just didn't want me there.
Marissa was there, standing at the door of our bedroom, her body half hidden by the door as if she didn't want to be seen. The older one of the two girls, she had her mother's impervious outer walls and sheltered, soft center, with the red, tangled hair of a Pixar heroine and the temperament that went with it. I was pulling my shoelaces taut, ready for a post workout afternoon of chores and televised sports.
"Uh, Tom?," she said softly.
"Yes?," I said. It was like defusing a bomb with her. Hormones and all that didn't help, but there was another anger there, a rage against the universe that nothing ever seemed to quell. I never knew quite what to say, so I kept my statements even and neutral.
"Can you...uh....can you rebound for me? I need to shoot." Marissa was determined, against all odds, to make the high school varsity as a freshman. She seldom admitted to wanting anything, because wanting implies weakness, that there is something lacking.
"Of course."
She disappeared from the door without a word. I tied my sneakers tight and followed her downstairs. I raised my eyebrows at Jess as I walked by, who caught my eye and gave me a quick thumbs up before returning her focus to her younger daughter and her struggles with math.
It was a pleasant day, still warm with the shadow of fall sneaking in along the sides. I heard the familiar echoing bounce of the ball on our driveway. Marissa, her hair pulled back, was bouncing the ball with grim determination near where the free throw line would be. She shot me a look as I walked out, already impatient to start.
She pushed a shot up from her waist, and it bounced away hard from the backboard. I nearly winced at her form, all full of mismatched effort and strength. She kept shooting, and I started fielding the errant bounces and feeding them back to her, strong bounce passes so she could shoot again without pausing. She was tall, almost as tall as me, but newly so, her brain still unsure where all of her limbs were. She was not content, frowning as the ball bounced away, hard and graceless.
After 8 or 9 straight misses, I said softly, "Would you like a little advice?"
Her hair was beginning to stick to her shirt, her cheeks red with exertion. "OK," she said uncertainly.
"Hold the ball like you're going to shoot," I said, and she did. I adjusted her form, getting her to hold the ball out away from herself. I recalled my ancient time at Dave Cowens' Basketball School, all the drills about footwork, about clean releases and flipping the ball off of your fingertips. I gently guided her elbow into the right position, correcting her when necessary. Her mouth was set grimly, but she followed my advice.
She kept shooting, and I kept retrieving the errant ball and feeding it back to her, keeping her rhythm going. The ball started making a different sound, the lighter, gentler ring of a shot that was carefully placed. The shots started to fall then, her first make greeted with a half smile and an open mouth, and then the swish of more baskets falling.
She was getting her feet underneath her, going up strong, seeing the ease that jumping gave her. She went up straight and strong, flicking the ball instead of forcing it, her elevation making it increasingly easy to make shots. I watched success reinforce good habits, her joy at each made shot increasing as I slipped the ball back to her for another try.
I encouraged her to move around, letting her brain make the calculations automatically, the different angles and trajectories subtly adjusted. I reminded her gently to keep her arms out and her head up, to let her body gain the muscle memory of successfully jumping. I started to sweat, marveling at her energy, her hair whipping around in dark ringlets now, leaving moisture behind in the air like a boxer.
I kept her going, watching her face tighten with effort and try to hide a small smile as she made shot after shot after shot. I cheered her, trying to tread the line between praise and sucking up. She was gliding now, her body moving elegantly in space, the sweat equity paying off in practiced, smooth grace. I could see her colt thin legs moving with assurance and strength. She was getting it.
"Lunch!," my wife called from the doorway, and Marissa was gone, her last shot falling with a puff through the white netting, her confidence so high she didn't need to watch it. I caught the ball as it fell through, watching her take the steps in one long bound, her ponytail. slick with sweat, trailing behind, a last reminder of the effort expended. I felt certain I had taken a step closer to her, even though she would probably never admit it.
It was a joy just to see her fly.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
SPE: "It's Alright Ma"
{For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Stacey gave me this prompt: "Bills to pay."
I gave Kirsten Piccini this prompt: ' "I have found that...imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience." --Steve Martin'}
(To steal an idea from Esquire's Charles P. Pierce, optional soundtrack for this blog post here.)
[In a departure for This Blog, to steal Mr. Pierce's locution, this is a nonfiction piece.]
"Money doesn't talk, it swears."
I open my bank account web site with a hollow nausea in my stomach. It's never a pleasant process, paying the bills. It falls to me because, well, it's my job. I hate it less than my spouse, so I do it. Every household has tasks that have to be done to keep the family unit functioning. Some are merely annoying, some are time consuming, some are physically hard. Like Rita Rudner points out, at some point things become your job, and this is one of mine. Paying bills isn't hard, just mentally exhausting.
The math is simple enough. A second grader can add and subtract. To add and subtract larger numbers, it's simply the same operation, iterated over and over. It's simple, at its core. Money in, minus money out, equals what is left. There are mildly complicating factors- repeating automatic payments for car insurance, gym membership, tuition. But even those complications are locked into my brain with cement- the first of every month is a bad day, the 20th is another rough one. I expect these bumps in the financial road, one anonymous computer talking to another in the night, money disappearing in one place, reappearing in another, teleportation made real, with Mr. Scott nowhere to be found.
I have been paid, throughout my life, in weekly or biweekly installments, each allotment arriving on schedule, my employer deciding my worth and pumping in my lifeblood, each pay period a tiny gust of wind into my sails. Silently, another bank computer blinks somewhere in Phoenix or Boise or Charlotte and suddenly, my account swells, another expression of gratitude for my toil, my aching legs, my ruined feet. Not a lot, but enough. Enough to keep me coming back. Not so little I quit for greener pastures, not so much my employer spirals into insolvency. Just enough.
I've tried to imagine what it must be to be a comedian, or a musician, or an author, sudden paydays interspersed with long, fallow periods where you must wonder, like a stranded sailor, if another breeze will ever blow. I would be rendered insane with the insecurity of it, I think, but then I realize you can get used to anything, so I would probably get used to that. So much of life is what you can endure. And also, you can ask former employees of Lehman Brothers how insecure security can be.
It's the ultimate sin, the final taboo. People would rather show you their genitalia than their bank statement. We don't talk about what we make, my employer reminds me periodically. As far as I know, they have no means to enforce that provision, save perhaps for firing me. And they may do that anyway. To reveal what you make is almost pornographic, a revealing look at you, the way we measure how we're doing, the way we keep score. What you're worth is what someone decides to pay you, period. Nobody wants to show their hole cards. We're all bluffing, pretending we are worth more than we are.
LeBron James is paid a little less than $200,000 per regular season game this year. Someone has that money, and they have decided he is worth it, therefore he gets it. (And if the man who paid it to him didn't recoup the money in t shirts and hot dogs and tickets and foam fingers sold, he surely wouldn't get it.) To paraphrase the great baseball writer Bill James, "Would you rather the owners just keep it?" To argue that LeBron James shouldn't be paid five or ten times what a teacher or a garbage man makes is to argue that the rain shouldn't be wet. It would be convenient if it were, it would be helpful, it would be nice. But it isn't so.
I don't want it to be this way. I'm no Communist- I like buying a meal at a restaurant as much as the next person does. But your worth as a person isn't the same as your earning power. It shouldn't be. People are capable of artistic achievement, selfless devotion to others, acts of greatness and beauty and sensitivity and gorgeous, unvarnished truth. You can't buy a hug (at least, not a sincere one) or a child's laugh or a sunset or the smell of lilacs. Money is not the central value of human life. But when you're balancing your checkbook, it sure seems like it is.
I hate money. I hate the way it makes me feel, I hate the way I can't seem to grasp it. I hate the way I never seem to have enough of it. I hate the way it disappears, the constant feeling of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the constant slippage, the feeling that you are that old plate spinner on a variety show. Always behind, always filled with insecurity. I should be able to manage this, but I can't. It's just math. But the numbers never say what I want them to say, what I need them to say. They never say that I'm OK, that I can rest easy, that I can buy a 5 dollar used paperback without being consumed by guilt, that I deserve happiness, that I am a good provider, that I am making it. The numbers never say that I'm good.
"Money can't buy me love"
I gave Kirsten Piccini this prompt: ' "I have found that...imagination sometimes has to stand in for experience." --Steve Martin'}
(To steal an idea from Esquire's Charles P. Pierce, optional soundtrack for this blog post here.)
[In a departure for This Blog, to steal Mr. Pierce's locution, this is a nonfiction piece.]
"Money doesn't talk, it swears."
I open my bank account web site with a hollow nausea in my stomach. It's never a pleasant process, paying the bills. It falls to me because, well, it's my job. I hate it less than my spouse, so I do it. Every household has tasks that have to be done to keep the family unit functioning. Some are merely annoying, some are time consuming, some are physically hard. Like Rita Rudner points out, at some point things become your job, and this is one of mine. Paying bills isn't hard, just mentally exhausting.
The math is simple enough. A second grader can add and subtract. To add and subtract larger numbers, it's simply the same operation, iterated over and over. It's simple, at its core. Money in, minus money out, equals what is left. There are mildly complicating factors- repeating automatic payments for car insurance, gym membership, tuition. But even those complications are locked into my brain with cement- the first of every month is a bad day, the 20th is another rough one. I expect these bumps in the financial road, one anonymous computer talking to another in the night, money disappearing in one place, reappearing in another, teleportation made real, with Mr. Scott nowhere to be found.
I have been paid, throughout my life, in weekly or biweekly installments, each allotment arriving on schedule, my employer deciding my worth and pumping in my lifeblood, each pay period a tiny gust of wind into my sails. Silently, another bank computer blinks somewhere in Phoenix or Boise or Charlotte and suddenly, my account swells, another expression of gratitude for my toil, my aching legs, my ruined feet. Not a lot, but enough. Enough to keep me coming back. Not so little I quit for greener pastures, not so much my employer spirals into insolvency. Just enough.
I've tried to imagine what it must be to be a comedian, or a musician, or an author, sudden paydays interspersed with long, fallow periods where you must wonder, like a stranded sailor, if another breeze will ever blow. I would be rendered insane with the insecurity of it, I think, but then I realize you can get used to anything, so I would probably get used to that. So much of life is what you can endure. And also, you can ask former employees of Lehman Brothers how insecure security can be.
It's the ultimate sin, the final taboo. People would rather show you their genitalia than their bank statement. We don't talk about what we make, my employer reminds me periodically. As far as I know, they have no means to enforce that provision, save perhaps for firing me. And they may do that anyway. To reveal what you make is almost pornographic, a revealing look at you, the way we measure how we're doing, the way we keep score. What you're worth is what someone decides to pay you, period. Nobody wants to show their hole cards. We're all bluffing, pretending we are worth more than we are.
LeBron James is paid a little less than $200,000 per regular season game this year. Someone has that money, and they have decided he is worth it, therefore he gets it. (And if the man who paid it to him didn't recoup the money in t shirts and hot dogs and tickets and foam fingers sold, he surely wouldn't get it.) To paraphrase the great baseball writer Bill James, "Would you rather the owners just keep it?" To argue that LeBron James shouldn't be paid five or ten times what a teacher or a garbage man makes is to argue that the rain shouldn't be wet. It would be convenient if it were, it would be helpful, it would be nice. But it isn't so.
I don't want it to be this way. I'm no Communist- I like buying a meal at a restaurant as much as the next person does. But your worth as a person isn't the same as your earning power. It shouldn't be. People are capable of artistic achievement, selfless devotion to others, acts of greatness and beauty and sensitivity and gorgeous, unvarnished truth. You can't buy a hug (at least, not a sincere one) or a child's laugh or a sunset or the smell of lilacs. Money is not the central value of human life. But when you're balancing your checkbook, it sure seems like it is.
I hate money. I hate the way it makes me feel, I hate the way I can't seem to grasp it. I hate the way I never seem to have enough of it. I hate the way it disappears, the constant feeling of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the constant slippage, the feeling that you are that old plate spinner on a variety show. Always behind, always filled with insecurity. I should be able to manage this, but I can't. It's just math. But the numbers never say what I want them to say, what I need them to say. They never say that I'm OK, that I can rest easy, that I can buy a 5 dollar used paperback without being consumed by guilt, that I deserve happiness, that I am a good provider, that I am making it. The numbers never say that I'm good.
"Money can't buy me love"
Thursday, March 07, 2013
SPE: "It's All Too Much"
{For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Debbie gave me this prompt: Use these sensory words in a piece: cool, yellow, fresh, sweet, and crackle. I gave Anna Ellis this prompt: "It's funny how everything was roses while we held onto the guns." -Guns N Roses}
The condensation beaded up on the side of the cool glass, the drops racing each other down the side to the growing pool of moisture on the counter. Diet Coke, plenty of ice, a slice of fresh yellow lemon, and a splash of whiskey. Or two. I could see Sophie's head from where I was standing, her fluffy red hair exploding from the neat ponytail I placed it in this morning. I didn't like her watching television, but the color and the sound kept her attention for a few minutes.
I needed a few minutes. A few minutes without the yammering, the howling hole of need and want that was torn from me a year and a half ago and now sits, enraptured, purple and blue light playing over her perfect, even face. She looks just like my sister, my sister with a hint of my husband's strong chin and deep blue eyes. She's a head turner, far prettier than me, the kind of little girl that strangers stop to look at, with the unruly crimson hair that folklore promised would pay off in a ferocious temper.
I took a sip of the drink. Sophie's dinner was cooking, while I mixed cookie dough, piling the mush on top of itself in the large bowl, stirring and stirring to give myself something to do. I thought about spooning a load into my mouth, but I knew how that would end, a rush of delirious taste, joy and intense sweet flavor followed by guilt and a crushing depression, weeping in the bathroom while John sleeps blissfully in our bed. I shifted my weight uncomfortably, both hips hurting from a long day walking around in heels. No position felt comfortable. I longed to sit, but tomorrow was Friday, and the big cookie sale was Saturday, so I had to be ready.
I thought about Evie, perfect blond Eveline with her runway model looks, thousand dollar purses, and abs that seemed to spring back seconds after her kids are born. The way she asked me to make cookies, the implied answer already embedded in the question like a bomb. "You are making the chocolate chip, right? 8 dozen should do it, I think. Oh, thanks so much, hon!," she said, already clicking off onto another call before I could really form a thought.
"I'm too tired," I thought to the silent air after her call. "I'm too worn out from holding up work, and marriage, and this hurricane of mess and love and joy and anger," I wanted to say now, staring at my daughter, her thoughts miles away in a world where blue dogs yelped and salt and pepper shakers talked with a French accent and answers were found in notebooks. The oven pinged and I moved to remove her dinner, chicken nuggets and macaroni and carrots she wouldn't touch.
I had to arrange it the way she wanted, each third of her Elmo plate holding a single dish, nothing touching, her drink not too cold, her food not too hot. My father laughed and called her "The Tyrant", and we all laughed because that's what you do when a grandparent said anything because grandparents are joyful and fun, right? The remark cut into me, though, especially when I started turning it over, late that night, sitting by myself at the dining room table, drinking red wine, realizing that he was exactly right, children were tyrannical. Their demands were absolute, they could not be negotiated with, and everyone suffered if you defied them.
I picked up my drink, taking a long swallow, setting it down on a wrapper from a bag of chocolate chips that gave off a crackle. I had to change the oven temperature for the cookies, then begin setting trays full of cookies in there, tray after tray after tray, denying her repeated requests to try one, rushing her through bathroom and brushing teeth and changing into pajamas and brushing the hair and bed, battling at each stage until I am nearly senseless with rage and guilt.
And then John comes in, tired from work but full of affection, sweetly tucking Sophie in, then turning to me, expecting passion and love and sweat and the girl he married, looking for a champagne flute and getting an empty, cracked cup. It's all too much, I thought, hearing George Harrison sing it in my head. "It's all too much/for me to take..."
"Dinnertime, Sophie," I said.
"OK," she said with practiced annoyance at my interruption. .
OK? I thought, feeling my emotions redline like I was driving in first gear. I felt the hot bubble of anger in my throat. Do you have any idea what I have given up for you? What I do for you? What you made me? And I'm interrupting your precious program? The words formed, enraged sentences and obscenities forming in my head. I took a step towards her.
Just as suddenly as it started, it broke like a wave across my forehead. Of course she doesn't know. She's one. How would she know? She's all sensation and want, and she's still a little surprised the world is still there when she opens her eyes in the morning. I undid the bottom button on my blouse, which was uncomfortably tight across my middle. I looked down at her, watching intently as the clues are revealed, knitted together to answer the question posed at the beginning.
I let a breath out, then took another deep draw on my drink. O Sophie. Love of my life, despoiler of dreams. Tyrant, dreamer, imagined foe, red headed wonder. She turned to look up at me when the program broke for commercial. She didn't ask for any of this. I was deeply unworthy of such a perfect, pure love.
I heard the front door open, and the sounds of John coming through the front door. "Daddy!," she yelled, bolting from her seat and dashing for the door.
Yes, I thought, hearing the joyful cries, her high screech and his low rumble. Daddy.
The condensation beaded up on the side of the cool glass, the drops racing each other down the side to the growing pool of moisture on the counter. Diet Coke, plenty of ice, a slice of fresh yellow lemon, and a splash of whiskey. Or two. I could see Sophie's head from where I was standing, her fluffy red hair exploding from the neat ponytail I placed it in this morning. I didn't like her watching television, but the color and the sound kept her attention for a few minutes.
I needed a few minutes. A few minutes without the yammering, the howling hole of need and want that was torn from me a year and a half ago and now sits, enraptured, purple and blue light playing over her perfect, even face. She looks just like my sister, my sister with a hint of my husband's strong chin and deep blue eyes. She's a head turner, far prettier than me, the kind of little girl that strangers stop to look at, with the unruly crimson hair that folklore promised would pay off in a ferocious temper.
I took a sip of the drink. Sophie's dinner was cooking, while I mixed cookie dough, piling the mush on top of itself in the large bowl, stirring and stirring to give myself something to do. I thought about spooning a load into my mouth, but I knew how that would end, a rush of delirious taste, joy and intense sweet flavor followed by guilt and a crushing depression, weeping in the bathroom while John sleeps blissfully in our bed. I shifted my weight uncomfortably, both hips hurting from a long day walking around in heels. No position felt comfortable. I longed to sit, but tomorrow was Friday, and the big cookie sale was Saturday, so I had to be ready.
I thought about Evie, perfect blond Eveline with her runway model looks, thousand dollar purses, and abs that seemed to spring back seconds after her kids are born. The way she asked me to make cookies, the implied answer already embedded in the question like a bomb. "You are making the chocolate chip, right? 8 dozen should do it, I think. Oh, thanks so much, hon!," she said, already clicking off onto another call before I could really form a thought.
"I'm too tired," I thought to the silent air after her call. "I'm too worn out from holding up work, and marriage, and this hurricane of mess and love and joy and anger," I wanted to say now, staring at my daughter, her thoughts miles away in a world where blue dogs yelped and salt and pepper shakers talked with a French accent and answers were found in notebooks. The oven pinged and I moved to remove her dinner, chicken nuggets and macaroni and carrots she wouldn't touch.
I had to arrange it the way she wanted, each third of her Elmo plate holding a single dish, nothing touching, her drink not too cold, her food not too hot. My father laughed and called her "The Tyrant", and we all laughed because that's what you do when a grandparent said anything because grandparents are joyful and fun, right? The remark cut into me, though, especially when I started turning it over, late that night, sitting by myself at the dining room table, drinking red wine, realizing that he was exactly right, children were tyrannical. Their demands were absolute, they could not be negotiated with, and everyone suffered if you defied them.
I picked up my drink, taking a long swallow, setting it down on a wrapper from a bag of chocolate chips that gave off a crackle. I had to change the oven temperature for the cookies, then begin setting trays full of cookies in there, tray after tray after tray, denying her repeated requests to try one, rushing her through bathroom and brushing teeth and changing into pajamas and brushing the hair and bed, battling at each stage until I am nearly senseless with rage and guilt.
And then John comes in, tired from work but full of affection, sweetly tucking Sophie in, then turning to me, expecting passion and love and sweat and the girl he married, looking for a champagne flute and getting an empty, cracked cup. It's all too much, I thought, hearing George Harrison sing it in my head. "It's all too much/for me to take..."
"Dinnertime, Sophie," I said.
"OK," she said with practiced annoyance at my interruption. .
OK? I thought, feeling my emotions redline like I was driving in first gear. I felt the hot bubble of anger in my throat. Do you have any idea what I have given up for you? What I do for you? What you made me? And I'm interrupting your precious program? The words formed, enraged sentences and obscenities forming in my head. I took a step towards her.
Just as suddenly as it started, it broke like a wave across my forehead. Of course she doesn't know. She's one. How would she know? She's all sensation and want, and she's still a little surprised the world is still there when she opens her eyes in the morning. I undid the bottom button on my blouse, which was uncomfortably tight across my middle. I looked down at her, watching intently as the clues are revealed, knitted together to answer the question posed at the beginning.
I let a breath out, then took another deep draw on my drink. O Sophie. Love of my life, despoiler of dreams. Tyrant, dreamer, imagined foe, red headed wonder. She turned to look up at me when the program broke for commercial. She didn't ask for any of this. I was deeply unworthy of such a perfect, pure love.
I heard the front door open, and the sounds of John coming through the front door. "Daddy!," she yelled, bolting from her seat and dashing for the door.
Yes, I thought, hearing the joyful cries, her high screech and his low rumble. Daddy.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
SPE: "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window"
[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.
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.
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."
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