The following piece of prose was designed and executed to achieve written perfection. It was created by a diverse committee of experts in various fields related to writing, linguistics, the relational probability of the selection of various letters, vowels, consonants, diphthongs, words, word combinations and sentence structures, especially as those combinations relate to the perception of aesthetics of various readers.
By design, an English-speaking person of average intelligence will read the complete piece in 3.14159 minutes. Persons who read this in a significantly shorter time period have missed a great deal of the embedded meaning because of the various shades and degrees of connotation and denotation of words and word chains contained therein. Persons who require a longer period of time to read this are not English speakers, or, if English speakers, are not of average intelligence.
The rhythm and nuance of each carefully selected word will give the reader a deep sense of understanding and will also create an emotional connection with the reader in such a way that the indirect meaning of the words will necessarily be absorbed by said reader.
There once was a man from Nantucket, who kept all his clams in a bucket
He lost them one day
On his way to Bombay
And loudly exclaimed “Well then (CENSORED by the COMMITTEE)!”
Note how the rhythmic patterns are pleasing to the ear and note how the flow of words and stanzas are pleasing as well from a visual standpoint. These are all things that have been carefully studied and enacted by the committee.
Congratulations. Now that you have neared the end of the document, you are, by design, a more enlightened consumer of prose. Our studies suggest that reading this document the first time will result in minor changes to your intelligence quotient, but that continued reading, several times a day over the course of a six week regimen, will increase your intelligence quotient exponentially. This will make more sense to you, dear reader, upon subsequent readings.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
This is a Lie - Julie Farrar
This morning I put my head in a vise grip and squeezed until a tiny idea popped out of the top. Other days I take a rusty, jagged straight razor and hack away at my wrists until some words splatter out onto my computer screen. On good days I flagellate myself only at the beginning as an impetus to getting started; on bad days I feel like I should hire someone else to flagellate me all morning to get me to stay in my chair and type. My physical therapist says he’s done all he can for me right now. So I have to get to the gym to stretch and strengthen all the muscles it takes to sit at my desk and work because writing really is a pain in the butt. Deciding at the age of 50 that writing is what I want to do and what I really should have been doing all along is like deciding after half a century that I really should get up off the couch and climb a mountain next week (there are some days that seems like a better prospect). I read about the 20-somethings who just had their third novel or book of poetry published, or who took a minor savings account and launched a journal. They knew what they wanted and where they belonged and could start down that path unencumbered so that by the time they are where I am, they can have a lifetime of words on which to look back. So I’m playing catch-up and trying to learn on the fly. My older sisters think that I have it easy because I don’t have to work for a paycheck anymore like they do. But that’s a lie. There is nothing easy about writing all day, never knowing if the words will ever be read or if I’ll ever again know the satisfaction of earning a dollar from my own labor – or to legitimately be able to put down on IRS and other forms “writer” when they ask for occupation. It’s never easy to get out of bed on a warm spring morning and close a door to that day and close my mind to all that needs to be accomplished everywhere except in this little room at this little desk in the corner. It’s never easy being responsible only to yourself for what you accomplish. Now please excuse me . . . I have work to do.
This is What Scares Me - Anne Wright
Black oxfords on old women, you know the ones: thick stable rubber soles, round toes, hefty laces. The kind of shoes that hide twisted toes and bunions. Tops that come up just a little too high and press into the swollen ankle flesh. The kind of shoes that hide feet that once were smooth and pink, with perfect arches as high as a bridge and pretty painted nails in the season’s new color. The kind of shoes that took the place of the curvy pointy stilettos that helped reach up to kiss him are now grounded black oxfords, flat on the floor, helping the feet along, carrying the awkward body as it trudges along in its aged gait.
This is My Father - Joyce Roschinger
This is my father, nineteen years old, wearing an Army uniform, standing on the steps of a house in another country, wide eyed, big grin on his face, looking directly into the camera. This is my father standing by a grave in India smoking a cigarette. He washes the bodies of dead American soldiers before they are placed in boxes for the trip back to the states. This is my father who can't get a job because he was a demolitions expert during the war. But he gets a job as a welder and learns to build bridges and buildings. This is my father behind the barbecue in our backyard. He turns hamburger patties and burns his fingers as he unwraps corn on the cob. He squints into the camera. It is a summer day. This is my father, his voice rich and full and purple, fills up the room in the evenings with my mother, lingers in our bedroom after he says "good night". Other times, my father's voice spills out into the street and finds us playing in backyards. My father says he does not pray because he does not know how to whisper, even in church.
This is What Scares Me - Chris Callaghan
Past the field behind our small house in Compton, California is the Sacramento River. One day I plan to build a raft and float down it to the sea like Tom Sawyer. But that will be when I am older, eight or nine.
Today I am five and my sister and I plan an adventure. My sister is three years older than me and cruel; her mouth makes a smile when she beats me. Her fat legs straddle my skinny rib cage imprisoning my arms by my sides and she punches my flat chest and my bucktooth mouth.
She says she has the right to beat me because she is the Chief Explorer and I am only her slave, useful for carrying our equipment, but not necessary. I know better than to argue with her when her eyes are tinged orange with madness and her calm words are meant to dissect my heart.
The gravel beneath my back pushes through my dirty white T shirt. I can feel its marks on the bumps of my spine long before she lets me up.
“Now we will attack the castle,” she commands me. She points to the old water tower near the river. She force marches us to its base and I can see the rusted red and white danger signs on its side. One sign hangs loosely by a nail and whacks itself against the flat gray boards that make up the room beneath the tower.
We squat beside the room while she plans her attack, drawing her maps in the dirt with a stick and consulting with her officers. Slaves are not allowed to speak during this planning, but I am bored and make my own quiet game of throwing pebbles at a nearby stick. I count coup each time it hit it, I am winning.
My sister snatches me up by the front of my T shirt, “Now! You go first.” She orders me with a push. We sneak around the scary room under the round water tank until we come to the door set into the gray planks. She yanks open the door and shoves me into the darkness, where I stand frozen in fear as she slams the door shut behind me and leans hard against it. I can hear her cackling through my hysterical screams.
I whirl around and race to the door, spider webs cling to my eyes, nose, cheeks. I bang my fists against the door begging, “Please, please, please…” and she laughs harder. There are soft things with legs falling on my head, my arms, crawling on me. Through a sunlit crack in the wall I see hundreds of black spider bodies, the red hourglass looks painted on their bellies. I am locked inside that room for eons.
When she finally lets me out, my sister drapes her arm over my shoulder as we walk back to our house. Her arm around me makes it appear to the world as though we are friends, sisters. But we are not.
Fifty-seven years later I am still having nightmares about that day. But it isn’t my sister that torments my dreams; it’s the black widow spiders.
Today I am five and my sister and I plan an adventure. My sister is three years older than me and cruel; her mouth makes a smile when she beats me. Her fat legs straddle my skinny rib cage imprisoning my arms by my sides and she punches my flat chest and my bucktooth mouth.
She says she has the right to beat me because she is the Chief Explorer and I am only her slave, useful for carrying our equipment, but not necessary. I know better than to argue with her when her eyes are tinged orange with madness and her calm words are meant to dissect my heart.
The gravel beneath my back pushes through my dirty white T shirt. I can feel its marks on the bumps of my spine long before she lets me up.
“Now we will attack the castle,” she commands me. She points to the old water tower near the river. She force marches us to its base and I can see the rusted red and white danger signs on its side. One sign hangs loosely by a nail and whacks itself against the flat gray boards that make up the room beneath the tower.
We squat beside the room while she plans her attack, drawing her maps in the dirt with a stick and consulting with her officers. Slaves are not allowed to speak during this planning, but I am bored and make my own quiet game of throwing pebbles at a nearby stick. I count coup each time it hit it, I am winning.
My sister snatches me up by the front of my T shirt, “Now! You go first.” She orders me with a push. We sneak around the scary room under the round water tank until we come to the door set into the gray planks. She yanks open the door and shoves me into the darkness, where I stand frozen in fear as she slams the door shut behind me and leans hard against it. I can hear her cackling through my hysterical screams.
I whirl around and race to the door, spider webs cling to my eyes, nose, cheeks. I bang my fists against the door begging, “Please, please, please…” and she laughs harder. There are soft things with legs falling on my head, my arms, crawling on me. Through a sunlit crack in the wall I see hundreds of black spider bodies, the red hourglass looks painted on their bellies. I am locked inside that room for eons.
When she finally lets me out, my sister drapes her arm over my shoulder as we walk back to our house. Her arm around me makes it appear to the world as though we are friends, sisters. But we are not.
Fifty-seven years later I am still having nightmares about that day. But it isn’t my sister that torments my dreams; it’s the black widow spiders.
Veggie Love - Anne Wright
I like to watch. I work in the produce section of the grocery store and you would be amazed at the number of people, old ladies included, who come in just to handle the vegetables. Squeeze the cukes, Fondle the melons. Pinch the grapes. Sniff the tomatoes.
Always having been kind of psychic, sometimes I can listen in on their thoughts. If I focus above the soft moans and groans they’re emitting in what they think nobody can hear, I can make out the words.
This one little lady, who is always dressed all in black from her head scarf knotted under her chin, right down to her nun shoes, is one who gets really excited. When she walks in through the automatic doors she always heads for the cucumbers and zucchinis. If I get real quiet in my mind I can hear what she says. “Oh George.” She runs her hands across the box of green cucumbers. This time of the year they are especially fresh and firm. She will pick one out and place it across her outstretched palm. She pinches it between her thumb and index fingers, starting at the stem and working her way to the end, then cups her whole hand around it and squeezes. “George, you were the only one I loved,” she whispers in her mind.
Always having been kind of psychic, sometimes I can listen in on their thoughts. If I focus above the soft moans and groans they’re emitting in what they think nobody can hear, I can make out the words.
This one little lady, who is always dressed all in black from her head scarf knotted under her chin, right down to her nun shoes, is one who gets really excited. When she walks in through the automatic doors she always heads for the cucumbers and zucchinis. If I get real quiet in my mind I can hear what she says. “Oh George.” She runs her hands across the box of green cucumbers. This time of the year they are especially fresh and firm. She will pick one out and place it across her outstretched palm. She pinches it between her thumb and index fingers, starting at the stem and working her way to the end, then cups her whole hand around it and squeezes. “George, you were the only one I loved,” she whispers in her mind.
Sex - Katie Burke
Sex changes everything. I can be stuck in any given rut, going about my days at siren-blaring speed, trying to make dents in my endlessly indomitable task list. I do some writing, tie down the flying sails at the legal practice, return my emails, floss my teeth, and finish my Netflix DVD, mailing it out right afterward, so the next one will arrive soon.
And then, from out of nowhere, I can meet a man. A great man. A sexy man. A man with a voice so deep and male, I am instantly transported in imagination to the moment when our voices intertwine between the sheets, my deep, low moans remaining no match for his lower, masculine noises.
One day I’m dutifully pumicing my feet and doing a little reading before bed, and the next, the low talker and I are foregoing all duties and exploring and stroking each other’s bodies, smoothing away the other’s locks of hair, expressing our love for one another, however fleeting, premature, or manufactured that love may be.
Task list? What task list? I’m just hoping not to get sued for malpractice, and I’m vaguely aware that I must call a few friends, so they’ll get the word out that a search party is unnecessary. I’m still flossing my teeth, but now it’s for the sake of sexual desire, not obligation. And now I’m also shaving my legs, applying moisturizer all over, spritzing perfume in naked places before I clothe them, and blow-drying my hair in the morning, rather than running out of the house with Wet Dog Syndrome.
And I’m writing more than ever; though I have less time, creative energy is oozing from each pore and leaking out onto the page, almost faster than I can arrange it into something delightful and entertaining.
Sex is the answer, though I’ve forgotten the question. I look and feel alive. I’m beautiful, powerful, magnetic, and dynamic in the world. The increasingly rough spots at the bottom of my feet must wait for the next sexless era; duty is calling, and I’m turning the ringer off the phone.
And then, from out of nowhere, I can meet a man. A great man. A sexy man. A man with a voice so deep and male, I am instantly transported in imagination to the moment when our voices intertwine between the sheets, my deep, low moans remaining no match for his lower, masculine noises.
One day I’m dutifully pumicing my feet and doing a little reading before bed, and the next, the low talker and I are foregoing all duties and exploring and stroking each other’s bodies, smoothing away the other’s locks of hair, expressing our love for one another, however fleeting, premature, or manufactured that love may be.
Task list? What task list? I’m just hoping not to get sued for malpractice, and I’m vaguely aware that I must call a few friends, so they’ll get the word out that a search party is unnecessary. I’m still flossing my teeth, but now it’s for the sake of sexual desire, not obligation. And now I’m also shaving my legs, applying moisturizer all over, spritzing perfume in naked places before I clothe them, and blow-drying my hair in the morning, rather than running out of the house with Wet Dog Syndrome.
And I’m writing more than ever; though I have less time, creative energy is oozing from each pore and leaking out onto the page, almost faster than I can arrange it into something delightful and entertaining.
Sex is the answer, though I’ve forgotten the question. I look and feel alive. I’m beautiful, powerful, magnetic, and dynamic in the world. The increasingly rough spots at the bottom of my feet must wait for the next sexless era; duty is calling, and I’m turning the ringer off the phone.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Think I Thought I'd Never Do - Joyce Roschinger
There were boyfriends, lots of them, who lived in different cities, with different interests, and different spins on the word "relationship". She wanted someone who knew his way around the kitchen, good in bed, could hold his own at cocktail parties and entertain himself when she was not around. She wanted someone for a week, a month, six months at the most, for drives to the beach, in the middle of the night on the back of a motorbike. She met a musician, dated a photographer, and slept with a firefighter. But it was the minister who was good in bed for six months.
It's Under the Bed - Mark Maynard
It’s under the bed. A large, clear plastic tub with a green lid. It is full of loose photographs from my life, from childhood up until my wedding. This is my young life. This is my single life.
These photos cannot be albumized. Memory cannot be categorized by people or events. The mention of certain phrases or the first few notes of an old song can trigger in my mind a crystal clear photograph of a person or a moment spent.
So these snapshots sit blended together in their airless memory bank, and occasionally, when I rummage under the bed for a flashlight or a last minute greeting card from my wife’s matching plastic bin that shoulders against mine for space in the darkness, a new photo will jostle its way to the top so that when I reopen the box, and old friend has clamored to the front of memory.
There is a picture of a much younger me with a pretty, curly haired girl in a headband, both of us standing together on a sled run. It used to remind me of the times she and I, neighbors growing up, used to spend together – we’d walk for miles in our neighborhood, travel with each other’s families, once I even tried to teach her to drive a manual transmission. She and I were always close and now, when we talk infrequently, what would have been small talk between neighbors becomes revelatory, the small stories in our lives magnified by time and distance.
There is another photo of me, dancing with my aunt at my wedding. We are both having great fun. This picture shows little about the moment and everything about our relationship. Neither she nor I are much for dancing, yet it was a chance for us to share a moment together during a very special time in my life. The picture does not reveal the cancer slowly growing in her body, a blast of unchecked cell growth that would metastasize in her brain so that her eyes would eventually lose muscle control and cruelly cross as I sat across from her at her small home in Hawaii years later and made small talk, not knowing how to properly say goodbye to someone for the last time.
These photos cannot be albumized. Memory cannot be categorized by people or events. The mention of certain phrases or the first few notes of an old song can trigger in my mind a crystal clear photograph of a person or a moment spent.
So these snapshots sit blended together in their airless memory bank, and occasionally, when I rummage under the bed for a flashlight or a last minute greeting card from my wife’s matching plastic bin that shoulders against mine for space in the darkness, a new photo will jostle its way to the top so that when I reopen the box, and old friend has clamored to the front of memory.
There is a picture of a much younger me with a pretty, curly haired girl in a headband, both of us standing together on a sled run. It used to remind me of the times she and I, neighbors growing up, used to spend together – we’d walk for miles in our neighborhood, travel with each other’s families, once I even tried to teach her to drive a manual transmission. She and I were always close and now, when we talk infrequently, what would have been small talk between neighbors becomes revelatory, the small stories in our lives magnified by time and distance.
There is another photo of me, dancing with my aunt at my wedding. We are both having great fun. This picture shows little about the moment and everything about our relationship. Neither she nor I are much for dancing, yet it was a chance for us to share a moment together during a very special time in my life. The picture does not reveal the cancer slowly growing in her body, a blast of unchecked cell growth that would metastasize in her brain so that her eyes would eventually lose muscle control and cruelly cross as I sat across from her at her small home in Hawaii years later and made small talk, not knowing how to properly say goodbye to someone for the last time.
You Shouldn't Have - Trina Wood
You shouldn’t have called that late afternoon to ask if I wanted to come over and work on a few prints, the ones you took of my belly pushed taut, outlines of a foot nearly poking through ivory skin. You shouldn’t have brushed closely against my back, hairs rising on my neck in response to your smell, the warmth of your breath on my shoulder. You shouldn’t have run downstairs to bring up an icy cold pilsner to quench my thirst on that warm late summer night, so smooth running down my throat, memories of standing near the edge of Tenaya Lake, listening to spirit voices on the wind travel over the water and rocks in front of us, sharing a beer at the end of a tiring day. You shouldn’t have told me I deserved more than what I had, more attention, more time, more loving, they should have been given to me in abundance and I began to mourn their loss. You shouldn’t have reached over the beer I held clutched in front of my chest to taste the foam on my lips, to open the reaches of your mouth, slight bitter sweet, to pull the resistance out from my body through the opening where my tongue searched for reassurance, hungry in its longing.
You Shouldn't Have - Julie Farrar
You shouldn’t have let Dad bring home that dog that went against everything the allergist had said we might try. It wasn’t small, it wasn’t short-haired, it didn’t stay off the furniture. You shouldn’t have given in so quickly to the pleadings of “We’ll take care of it. We promise” when your mom-intuition told you that you would be the one sitting on the floor all evening brush brush brushing her and cutting out the mats from that cotton fine underbelly hair. You shouldn’t have gotten that job at the high school office that had you the first one there in the morning and the last to leave at night. You and your other female office secretaries (not today’s glorified “administrative assistants”) were paid nothing and respected less by those men who ran things. You shouldn’t have stayed there as your illness progressed and your energy ran down. But your presence brightened the days of so many and my only path to glory and recognition in my dweeby days of high school came when kids said “Mrs. Farrar is your mother? Cool.” You should have been in charge of something much more significant than the switchboard. But maybe you shouldn’t have done that job as well as the job at the department store dressing models for fashion shows to put extra money aside for our wonderful Christmas and birthday presents and to make sure that at least your book-crazy youngest child got to go away to college if she wanted to. Your only reward was when designer Bill Blass told you he liked what you were wearing as you crawled on your hands and knees backstage looking for lost shoes and accessories. All of your hard work should have enlarged our tiny ranch home with the family room you had sketched on a stray piece of graph paper one evening or bought you that lovely bungalow in Bedford Oaks with the fireplace that Dad said no to because he always said no to spending any money unless it was a dog for the kids or a school trip to Washington D.C. or a car for his girls to run around in. Maybe you shouldn’t have said no to those doctor visits when you first started having trouble breathing. You could have taken a couple of days off of work to check it out. You know the other ladies in the office would have covered for you without complaint because they knew that you would take on their load when it was needed. Someone else in the family would have made sure to get to the nursing home to see Granny on the days that you would have been in treatment. No one would have begrudged you that little bit of selfishness. Yes, you should have stopped smoking long before it got to this. And Dad should have stopped after the diagnosis – you should have insisted – but by then there was not much left that could change the course. But mostly you shouldn’t have given away everything that you had to everyone else. You should have saved just some small corner inside for yourself, with a little energy to follow your own dreams. You shouldn’t have been you because maybe you would have still been here with us.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Can't Buy Me Love - Juliette Kelley
Street’s first philosophical paradox came at age twelve. On the Meet the Beatles album one of the tracks was Can’t Buy Me Love while on the other side was a cover of Chuck Berry’s Money is All I Want. How could her favorite band actually put both songs on the same album without forcing every fan’s hand. She pondered this juxtaposition at least a thousand times during that dry Sacramento summer as a theologian would try to grasp transubstantiation. It just didn’t make sense to her.
She pictured her mother blunted and vacuous, sitting and smoking on her unmade bed drawing Street toward her. “Now remember Streeter Ann, love is more precious than anything on earth”. She stressed that it couldn’t be bought or wrangled out of anyone. Street assessed that was true because no matter what she did, her mother never looked as if she ever loved anything.
Then there was Grammy Queen. Grammy Queen had a cinnamon roll in Street’s mouth before Street could fully enter the house. Grammy Queen was always one to cajole and bargain for Street to do things for her, bad things mostly, like hosing the neighbors cat or gathering up dog shit in a bag to put in the collection plate at church. In return she would always give Street some money or a sweet treat or best of all let her look at her genuine “Nigger Toe”.
“Got if off Stanley Boom. Little fucker,” Grammy Queen would always laugh after saying fucker. “He had it comin’ though, he really did. I’ll tell you about it someday.” But of course someday hadn’t come yet.
She felt like Grammy loved her more than her mother did but her mother said she loved her more than Grammy did. That summer they all ran together like a bus accident. Now Street blamed the Beatles for even bringing up the question.
She pictured her mother blunted and vacuous, sitting and smoking on her unmade bed drawing Street toward her. “Now remember Streeter Ann, love is more precious than anything on earth”. She stressed that it couldn’t be bought or wrangled out of anyone. Street assessed that was true because no matter what she did, her mother never looked as if she ever loved anything.
Then there was Grammy Queen. Grammy Queen had a cinnamon roll in Street’s mouth before Street could fully enter the house. Grammy Queen was always one to cajole and bargain for Street to do things for her, bad things mostly, like hosing the neighbors cat or gathering up dog shit in a bag to put in the collection plate at church. In return she would always give Street some money or a sweet treat or best of all let her look at her genuine “Nigger Toe”.
“Got if off Stanley Boom. Little fucker,” Grammy Queen would always laugh after saying fucker. “He had it comin’ though, he really did. I’ll tell you about it someday.” But of course someday hadn’t come yet.
She felt like Grammy loved her more than her mother did but her mother said she loved her more than Grammy did. That summer they all ran together like a bus accident. Now Street blamed the Beatles for even bringing up the question.
Don't Forget This - Brooks Thrash
I can’t remember which I learned to be first: a cook or a writer. It’s tempting to make the case for these twinned selves, the caretaker and the showoff, as the Janus faces of my nature. Certainly the caretaker is manifest in how I cook: generously, prolifically, always doubling portions, tending towards roasts and pies and bread and stews: things that nourish, things that aspire to be but might stop short of gourmet perfection. Nothing too show-offy or beautiful. In short, my mother’s daughter. To continue with the metaphor, it’s easy to sketch the writer as the attention seeker, the quintessential middle child, the one who views the world as an audience who awaits her presence with bated breath. “Don’t forget to distinguish yourselves!,” Richard would proclaim, half in jest, as he watched us from the front step of our house in Sudbury. We’d be stumbling down the kelly green yard towards the bus stop, his three blonde progeny. We weren’t quite sure what to do with the benediction. We were, like anybody else, part ordinary, part special. It was the 80s. We lived in a Boston suburb. Our town was brimming with new, indulgent money – fat shiny issues of Gourmet and Bon Appetit clogged the neighborhood mailboxes, and everybody was always going skiing. We, the Martins, weren’t quite at that mark. We put on our rugby shirts and left the ski tags hanging on our CB parka through spring. We tried to blend in.
I’d already distinguished myself, quite strikingly and unapologetically, when I was in elementary school. In 1981, in the fourth grade, I started a project to keep occupied while the rest of the class was doing spelling and reading: I wrote a cookbook. The recipes were adaptations of foods that were mentioned in two novels by my favorite author, Louisa May Alcott: the sentimental, autobiographical masterpiece, Little Women, and its somewhat tepid (I was always a critic) but nevertheless narratively satisfying sequel, Little Men. A teacher drove me to the Concord, one town over from Sudbury; Concord had a nicer, more appealingly “old fashioned” library, and a substantial collection of American Victorian period cookbooks. I found recipes in cookbooks of the 1860s for the foods that Alcott mentioned, like molasses candy, steamed brown bread, and plum pudding. I made them in our kitchen in Sudbury, marveling at the old metrics of measure like “a tea cup of flour” and a “bird’s egg-sized lump of butter.” It was a form of play, as much as dressing up like Wonder Woman was a form of imaginative immersion in Super Friends – for as long as I could remember, I’d wanted to live in what I privately referred to as “the olden days,” and I was powerfully attracted to the attempt at verisimilitude that cooking old recipes represented.
I’d already distinguished myself, quite strikingly and unapologetically, when I was in elementary school. In 1981, in the fourth grade, I started a project to keep occupied while the rest of the class was doing spelling and reading: I wrote a cookbook. The recipes were adaptations of foods that were mentioned in two novels by my favorite author, Louisa May Alcott: the sentimental, autobiographical masterpiece, Little Women, and its somewhat tepid (I was always a critic) but nevertheless narratively satisfying sequel, Little Men. A teacher drove me to the Concord, one town over from Sudbury; Concord had a nicer, more appealingly “old fashioned” library, and a substantial collection of American Victorian period cookbooks. I found recipes in cookbooks of the 1860s for the foods that Alcott mentioned, like molasses candy, steamed brown bread, and plum pudding. I made them in our kitchen in Sudbury, marveling at the old metrics of measure like “a tea cup of flour” and a “bird’s egg-sized lump of butter.” It was a form of play, as much as dressing up like Wonder Woman was a form of imaginative immersion in Super Friends – for as long as I could remember, I’d wanted to live in what I privately referred to as “the olden days,” and I was powerfully attracted to the attempt at verisimilitude that cooking old recipes represented.
Don't Forget This - Mark Maynard
The woman at Schnabel’s, the world’s largest sporting goods store, waved a red plastic Frisbee at me. It was mine. I had won it by spinning the brightly painted plywood wheel of fortune that sat on an easel next to her black skirted table piled high with plastic water bottles, plastic bracelets and black embroidered Scnhabel’s polos, just like she was wearing (although I doubt most credit card applicants had the pert breasts to pull of the shirt like Darcy did). Darcy. Her nametag perched precariously above the shelf of her right breast like a climber trying desperately to stay attached to the side of Half Dome on a particularly difficult route.
I was pretty well tapped-out in the financial department and had come in to look at the handguns. That’s why I’d spent ten minutes at Darcy’s little table, to apply for a Schnabel’s credit card so I could run upstairs and afford a useable piece. I really didn’t need to spin the Wheel of Prizes, but if you’d seen Darcy in that polo, you would’ve lingered a bit at the table too. Even if you were in as big a hurry as I was.
Most people who buy handguns in places like this like to think that they need them for personal protection. Having the cold blackness of a Glock or the blued steel of a Smith and Wesson helps them sleep better at night. I needed a gun for a much less hypothetical situation and once I took my Frisbee from Darcy, I headed up the escalator that ascended slowly below the massive Ferris wheel that dominated the central atrium and headed up toward the massive firearms section of the store.
For some, browsing a gun section is much like a child wandering the aisles of a toy store. People were wandering up and down the glass display cases as if they were wandering through some sort of lethal jewelry store, leaving greasy fingerprints of desire above the more beautifully trimmed out weapons. Something about a pearl handled revolver or a smaller caliber “ladies” gun trimmed out in pink and leather made firearms into murderous impulse buys.
I knew what I was after.
I was pretty well tapped-out in the financial department and had come in to look at the handguns. That’s why I’d spent ten minutes at Darcy’s little table, to apply for a Schnabel’s credit card so I could run upstairs and afford a useable piece. I really didn’t need to spin the Wheel of Prizes, but if you’d seen Darcy in that polo, you would’ve lingered a bit at the table too. Even if you were in as big a hurry as I was.
Most people who buy handguns in places like this like to think that they need them for personal protection. Having the cold blackness of a Glock or the blued steel of a Smith and Wesson helps them sleep better at night. I needed a gun for a much less hypothetical situation and once I took my Frisbee from Darcy, I headed up the escalator that ascended slowly below the massive Ferris wheel that dominated the central atrium and headed up toward the massive firearms section of the store.
For some, browsing a gun section is much like a child wandering the aisles of a toy store. People were wandering up and down the glass display cases as if they were wandering through some sort of lethal jewelry store, leaving greasy fingerprints of desire above the more beautifully trimmed out weapons. Something about a pearl handled revolver or a smaller caliber “ladies” gun trimmed out in pink and leather made firearms into murderous impulse buys.
I knew what I was after.
Don't Forget This - Jackie Davis-Martin
Uncle Andy had said this to Reni: You are Croatian. Don’t forget this. Uncle Andy had said this to Reni: You must learn the language from your mother, from your grandmother. It’s a great thing to be bilingual. Uncle Andy had said: You are going to play the accordion. It’s a beautiful instrument. Tell your mother I’ll buy you one, that she can arrange lessons.
Uncle Andy had said you will play the accordion and learn the dances and maybe you can go to Duquesne University and be a part of the great Tamburitzas.
Uncle Andy would have pulled the hassock toward the chair in Grandma’s living room where Reni might be reading and told her he wanted to give her advice because he loved her. He was the only adult who took the time to create advice and deliver it one on one. She was eight, then nine, then ten, and Uncle Andy, who lived upstairs from Grandma, didn’t have children. He lived with Aunt Helen who had lovely plastic jewelry that she allowed Reni to play with; she let her sit at her vanity, the square drawers on either side of the velvet bench bulging with plastic fruits on chains, dangling earrings, bracelets you could line your arm with. Then Aunt Helen moved out and Uncle Andy was going to get married again. He still had time for advice. You are Croatian; it’s your heritage. Don’t forget this.
Reni’s impression of Uncle Andy was the same as her mother’s: he was full of bull shit; he always thought he was Clark Gable just because he had the dark hair and moustache, the big ears; he freeloaded off Grandma, living in the apartment upstairs but seldom paying any rent. He thought he knew it all. Uncle Andy was Reni’s mother’s older brother.
“He’s not going to buy her any accordion!” her mother scoffed to her dad as they drove home.
“I don’t want to play the accordion,” Reni said. It was an instrument she hated. She told Uncle Andy she liked her clarinet just fine and he said she’d never get into the Tamburitzas with a clarinet.
“Well, don’t worry,” he mother called over the seat. “We are certainly not going to see any accordion from Andy.” Her mother turned to her dad. “That man is marrying a woman over twenty years younger than himself!” Reni leaned forward to hear more. She liked the new girlfriend, Lu; she was lively and pretty and laughed a lot. But all her mother added was, “What on earth does that girl Lu see in Andy? Besides a good time!”
Sometimes Uncle Andy would grab Reni by the hand and pull her to the kitchen linoleum. “Let’s do a little soft shoe, kid,” he’d say, and hum “Tea for Two.” He had a big bass fiddle downstairs that he’d take out of its canvas and strum, leaning around it, maybe singing, too. “See? When you learn the accordion, we can play together,” he told Reni.
She took piano lessons instead which her parents paid for. Uncle Andy thought those lessons were part of his plan. “She needs to learn the keys,” he said. “It’s a good start.”
Sometimes Andy would drive up to Reni’s house with Lu in his convertible, for a visit. “How’s the Croatian coming?” he’d ask Reni. “To be bilingual is something you will never regret.”
Reni said she didn’t know any Croatians. Uncle Andy snorted. What about her entire family—on both sides, he added, nodding to Reni’s dad. Reni said they all spoke English.
Lu sat on the arm of Andy’s chair then, impressed with his love for his family, leaning over him with love.
“Oh that girl!” Reni’s mother exclaimed later. “What she’s in for!”
Uncle Andy forgot about the heritage that Reni wasn’t to forget. Uncle Andy and Aunt Lu had a couple kids of their own. The kids spoke a little Croatian as toddlers because Grandma took care of them a lot, but then forgot it all. The kids never played the piano or accordion or bass or even the clarinet. Uncle Andy never gave his own kids, as far as Reni could tell, all the advice that they were never to forget.
Uncle Andy had said you will play the accordion and learn the dances and maybe you can go to Duquesne University and be a part of the great Tamburitzas.
Uncle Andy would have pulled the hassock toward the chair in Grandma’s living room where Reni might be reading and told her he wanted to give her advice because he loved her. He was the only adult who took the time to create advice and deliver it one on one. She was eight, then nine, then ten, and Uncle Andy, who lived upstairs from Grandma, didn’t have children. He lived with Aunt Helen who had lovely plastic jewelry that she allowed Reni to play with; she let her sit at her vanity, the square drawers on either side of the velvet bench bulging with plastic fruits on chains, dangling earrings, bracelets you could line your arm with. Then Aunt Helen moved out and Uncle Andy was going to get married again. He still had time for advice. You are Croatian; it’s your heritage. Don’t forget this.
Reni’s impression of Uncle Andy was the same as her mother’s: he was full of bull shit; he always thought he was Clark Gable just because he had the dark hair and moustache, the big ears; he freeloaded off Grandma, living in the apartment upstairs but seldom paying any rent. He thought he knew it all. Uncle Andy was Reni’s mother’s older brother.
“He’s not going to buy her any accordion!” her mother scoffed to her dad as they drove home.
“I don’t want to play the accordion,” Reni said. It was an instrument she hated. She told Uncle Andy she liked her clarinet just fine and he said she’d never get into the Tamburitzas with a clarinet.
“Well, don’t worry,” he mother called over the seat. “We are certainly not going to see any accordion from Andy.” Her mother turned to her dad. “That man is marrying a woman over twenty years younger than himself!” Reni leaned forward to hear more. She liked the new girlfriend, Lu; she was lively and pretty and laughed a lot. But all her mother added was, “What on earth does that girl Lu see in Andy? Besides a good time!”
Sometimes Uncle Andy would grab Reni by the hand and pull her to the kitchen linoleum. “Let’s do a little soft shoe, kid,” he’d say, and hum “Tea for Two.” He had a big bass fiddle downstairs that he’d take out of its canvas and strum, leaning around it, maybe singing, too. “See? When you learn the accordion, we can play together,” he told Reni.
She took piano lessons instead which her parents paid for. Uncle Andy thought those lessons were part of his plan. “She needs to learn the keys,” he said. “It’s a good start.”
Sometimes Andy would drive up to Reni’s house with Lu in his convertible, for a visit. “How’s the Croatian coming?” he’d ask Reni. “To be bilingual is something you will never regret.”
Reni said she didn’t know any Croatians. Uncle Andy snorted. What about her entire family—on both sides, he added, nodding to Reni’s dad. Reni said they all spoke English.
Lu sat on the arm of Andy’s chair then, impressed with his love for his family, leaning over him with love.
“Oh that girl!” Reni’s mother exclaimed later. “What she’s in for!”
Uncle Andy forgot about the heritage that Reni wasn’t to forget. Uncle Andy and Aunt Lu had a couple kids of their own. The kids spoke a little Croatian as toddlers because Grandma took care of them a lot, but then forgot it all. The kids never played the piano or accordion or bass or even the clarinet. Uncle Andy never gave his own kids, as far as Reni could tell, all the advice that they were never to forget.
Waking Together - Chris Callaghan
Often they slept spooned, one snugged behind the other. Sometimes she was the hugged spoon, sometimes he. They had no rule or habit about it. Whether before or behind, it was the touching that held importance. Though even when there was a foot of space between them in the bed, they were still connected, by breath, by snore, maybe just their hair touching. It might have been the mere knowledge that if you flung your arm across the bed you’d hit a comforting lump of living flesh.
If she awoke before him in the mornings, she might spend time just staring at his skull, the bones in his face, his silvery hair, before he opened his eyes and stared back at her. Five minutes or ten could pass staring each other full awake before they mumbled “morning”, threw the covers back and began their day.
Arthur no longer shared her bed and now when Alberta woke in the morning it was her cat, Max, who stared her awake. She still said “morning” but Max’s reply was a rumbling cat word that loosely translated meant, “time to let me out.”
She threw back the covers and began her day by letting Max out the front door for his daily rounds. She stood in the doorway for a time looking out at the day and thinking, “God, Arthur, dead ten years and I still miss you.”
Then she closed the door.
If she awoke before him in the mornings, she might spend time just staring at his skull, the bones in his face, his silvery hair, before he opened his eyes and stared back at her. Five minutes or ten could pass staring each other full awake before they mumbled “morning”, threw the covers back and began their day.
Arthur no longer shared her bed and now when Alberta woke in the morning it was her cat, Max, who stared her awake. She still said “morning” but Max’s reply was a rumbling cat word that loosely translated meant, “time to let me out.”
She threw back the covers and began her day by letting Max out the front door for his daily rounds. She stood in the doorway for a time looking out at the day and thinking, “God, Arthur, dead ten years and I still miss you.”
Then she closed the door.
Waking Together - Bonnie Smetts
It’s one thing waking up next to somebody you don’t know and can’t remember how you don’t know him. It’s another thing to be remembering that’s exactly what your momma’s done her whole life. Which is what’s kept me from waking up next to too many people I don’t know. Sometimes I wished my momma’d been different, so that I didn’t have so many opportunities to think of her. I’d wished that I’d been able to be reckless, like my momma. But each and every time I’d do that, I’d wake up thinking of her. And the boyfriends. And them laying all over the living room, not that you could call it that but they sure was living in there. What a mess and my momma only straightening up when someone new might be stopping by.
By the time I was 14, I was waiting until after dark, way after dark to be coming home. And it sure’d been easier if I could have been waking up next to somebody myself so that I didn’t have to be going home, tiptoeing over my momma and her boyfriends. But that’s the way it was. And that’s why I got a job at the diner. That was after I’d broken up with Roy for good and before I could bear to be his friend. The diner stayed open until midnight, and then I’d volunteer to be cleaning up for the next morning. And that’s when I started talking to a customer. Not rules about talking to customers, rules I’d have later on in my job.
Not this man, I think he was some kind of star somewhere or famous or something. He’d sit at the end of the counter, drink that godawful coffee left over from the night. And we’d talk. He’d tell me I should come with him to New York. Like I’d leave Nordeen. Now as much as I wanted to leave Nordeen, how in the world was I gonna be leaving with someone I didn’t even know, and I was barely fifteen. I could work at a diner but I knew even then that I needed to figure out a few things before I could go off with this guy. But I liked him and that’s when I decided to go home with, but only to the motel. He was doing research or something, staying in town for business. Now I can’t imagine what kind of business anybody’d have in Nordeen, but I believed him. And there I was in his room and I knew the routine. After all the loving I’d done with Roy. But I loved Roy, funny as that sounds. Me and Roy’d roll around his big bed and moan and scream out and make each other as happy as two people could be in Nordeen. As soon as we got to the room of motor inn, the man, like he’d taken magic pills or something, started ripping at me and coming up behind me and pulling me down toward the bed. Now he’d said he had some nice Bourbon and such. And I’m not exactly naïve but this wasn’t what I was gonna put up with. So I start to fight, I’m as spindly as a broken chair but I got a fire inside when something’s wrong. And no way in the devil’s hell was I gonna be waking up next to this guy. And so I’m pushing him away, and grabbing my clothes back on and then I know what I gotta do. I bite him. I bite hard into his leg and he’s yelling and hopping on one leg and calling me things even I never heard a person called. I had to walk all the way back to my momma’s trailer that night, and then step over her and some stranger.
By the time I was 14, I was waiting until after dark, way after dark to be coming home. And it sure’d been easier if I could have been waking up next to somebody myself so that I didn’t have to be going home, tiptoeing over my momma and her boyfriends. But that’s the way it was. And that’s why I got a job at the diner. That was after I’d broken up with Roy for good and before I could bear to be his friend. The diner stayed open until midnight, and then I’d volunteer to be cleaning up for the next morning. And that’s when I started talking to a customer. Not rules about talking to customers, rules I’d have later on in my job.
Not this man, I think he was some kind of star somewhere or famous or something. He’d sit at the end of the counter, drink that godawful coffee left over from the night. And we’d talk. He’d tell me I should come with him to New York. Like I’d leave Nordeen. Now as much as I wanted to leave Nordeen, how in the world was I gonna be leaving with someone I didn’t even know, and I was barely fifteen. I could work at a diner but I knew even then that I needed to figure out a few things before I could go off with this guy. But I liked him and that’s when I decided to go home with, but only to the motel. He was doing research or something, staying in town for business. Now I can’t imagine what kind of business anybody’d have in Nordeen, but I believed him. And there I was in his room and I knew the routine. After all the loving I’d done with Roy. But I loved Roy, funny as that sounds. Me and Roy’d roll around his big bed and moan and scream out and make each other as happy as two people could be in Nordeen. As soon as we got to the room of motor inn, the man, like he’d taken magic pills or something, started ripping at me and coming up behind me and pulling me down toward the bed. Now he’d said he had some nice Bourbon and such. And I’m not exactly naïve but this wasn’t what I was gonna put up with. So I start to fight, I’m as spindly as a broken chair but I got a fire inside when something’s wrong. And no way in the devil’s hell was I gonna be waking up next to this guy. And so I’m pushing him away, and grabbing my clothes back on and then I know what I gotta do. I bite him. I bite hard into his leg and he’s yelling and hopping on one leg and calling me things even I never heard a person called. I had to walk all the way back to my momma’s trailer that night, and then step over her and some stranger.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
It Was Almost Spring - Ariana Speyer
It was almost spring but there was no grass or anything coming up. Everything was still brown and black, mostly, but there was a softness in the air that made me hopeful. A feeling that you didn’t have to hold your guts in when you went outside to keep the world at bay. I remember the day exactly because she was wearing a hat, as if she knew spring was still just a mirage. She was sensible that way. The hat was furry, what you’d wear if you were out trapping animals or something. Lewis and Clark style. It was big, didn’t fit her small frame at all, and it stood out. She looked a little like an animal underneath it, sniffing out her next move. First it was on the street by the post office and then in the deli there she was again, ordering a sandwich, but not a normal sandwich. Something with chutney and alfalfa sprouts. The kid behind the counter didn’t seem to mind, he was hopping to. She can do that to strangers, make them want to please her. We had a moment by the register when I let her go ahead of me. I had actually dawdled a bit by the chips and magazines till her sandwich was done, then let her just make it in behind me. Funny to think I would do something like that. Doesn’t sound like me. And of course she was what I knew she would be, so grateful, and pleasantly happy to be in a little square dance with me, each of us holding our lunches. Finally, she and her hat went in front of me and paid, but she kept looking back at me like I was the best thing she’d seen in a while, and you can’t help but get caught up in that. You can’t help it. I felt like a dog who had found a new master, I wanted to slavishly follow her out of the store and wherever else she might be going. I managed to pay for my things and catch up to her on the porch outside, where she was standing in a little patch of sunlight with her eyes closed. Just standing. So I stood with her, feeling the new warmth in the air, and the warmth between us. It was something. Then she opened her eyes and turned to me as if she knew I’d be there and said something like, “Maybe we should eat together, since we seem to be on the same schedule,” and I put out my hand and told her my name and she told me hers. Emily. And then it really felt like spring, it felt like there was green everywhere, even inside me.
I Thought It Was Lost - Tia O'Brien
My mother had a knack for losing things. Like her clothes. Once, while sunbathing semi-naked by a pool, the wind picked up her bikini top drying next to her and plunked it down in the basket of a Mexican woman passing by. She also lost keys. When boarding the ship that would take my 18-year-old, college bound mother from Istanbul to New York City, her grandmother tied a red ribbon around her neck. “I’ve put all the keys to your trunks on this ribbon, Sevim. Do not take it off until you arrive,” she instructed her granddaughter, while gently kissing her cheeks. “You know how you lose things.” And there was the incident of the lost Green Card—the one that certified she was married to my American father and allowed her to live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C and raise three kids. Bureaucrats are very fussy about lost green cards and in spite of the pain of replacing it, she lost her card several times.
Somewhere along the way, my mother almost lost her country. After 60 years in America, people mistakenly believed she was content. But no amount of Americanizing could wash away the Turkish-ness that infused her being. My first memories of a map are of my mother pointing to Istanbul. “This is where I grew up,” she’d say, an idea so foreign that it wrapped her childhood in storybook-like wonder. By six, I could find the Bosporus on that map and describe how the waterway divided Istanbul into Europe and Asia, making it the gateway to the East. I also could describe how, as a child, my mother loved swimming like a fish in the Bosporus and Sea of Marmora, which lapped against Istanbul’s other coastline.
Our bedtime stories chronicled night her adventures-- and misadventures—growing up in the ancient metropolis. By the end of each tale, I wanted a pet lamb like the one she had while vacationing in a Black Sea fishing village. And I’d fall asleep imagining myself riding ferryboats across the Bosporus to school, along with the peasants, chickens and goats. Or being bold enough to befriend a peasant boy although my uncle sternly forbid it. Some tales were favorites that she had to tell over and over like the one about the runaway donkey. While vacationing on an island off the coast of Istanbul, she and a pack of cousins set off on a donkey ride. And of course, it was her donkey that took off on a wild ride of its own, with our petite mama clinging tight as he headed up the mountain, into a forest of sweet-smelling pines.
These tales brought to life what it was like to live through the birth of a new country-- modern, secular Turkey. She proudly explained that her class was the last one taught how to write Turkish in Arabic script and the first to learn the Western alphabet. Revolution brewed in her living room as intellectuals and literary figures gathered to debate change. Her parents were outspoken journalists, who’d advocated for the end of Ottoman rule and then helped form the young republic. When their feisty activism periodically landed her father in prison, her mother would step in and run their periodical until he was released. Years later, they were forced into exile. But my mom never mentioned details like prison stints or exile in our nightly stories. She had a way of sprinkling her own brand of fairy dust on life and turning tragedies into comedies.
Like the fact that my father, a foreign correspondent, had vowed that they’d live in Istanbul. But when World War II ended, she landed in an antiseptic American suburb, surrounded by the Betty Crockers of the 1950s.. My mischievous mother needed a bold spirit to transform this world into her own personal Turkish bazaar. Trust me. We were the only house flying the Turkish flag on the republic’s Independence Day. And the only kids who strutted across the stage during a school assembly in Turkish costumes, with odd scarves wrapped around our heads. Every couple of years, our house was re-incarnated into a miniature Kapalacharca, the grand bazaar in Istanbul. For weeks, women from the country club set would stroll through our dining and living room, inspecting items that my mother rounded up from friends’ basements and attics. When it came time to bargain over price, these women were dismayed to discover that they were no match for the diminutive lady with the warm smile. With the ease of a bazaar rug salesman, she had them handing over double the asking price.
Even after six decades in America, my mother couldn’t bring herself to become a US citizen. No amount of vacations swimming in the Sea of Marmara cured the homesickness. When she died at 86, she left no instructions about what was to be done. They weren’t necessary.
It’s not easy to get a body flown half way around the world. I worried that she’d miss her connection in Heathrow as she’d done so often. Which would mean missing the motorboat that we’d arranged to transport her casket to Buyukada, one of those islands off Istanbul that she’d loved as a child. But on this last trip, she was punctual, arriving on time even for her burial service in the courtyard of the tiny island mosque. (The daughter of atheists, she qualified for burial only if prayed over by an imam.) Here in the courtyard, my 12-year old daughter met all her Turkish relatives for the first time. And like I had as a child, she delighted in riding a horse-drawn carriage up to the top of Buyukada, the only way to get around on this car-free island. The carriage stopped at the cemetery gates, leaving my husband, daughter and I walking the winding paths until we reached a hillside. Here, my mother was tucked in the to earth under those sweet-smelling pines. And her view—a sweeping panorama of the sea, with Istanbul in the distance. What stunned me was that I felt no sadness as we left, just relief. It was as though I could feel my mother relaxing into the warm earth--Turkish earth, which meant that she’d found her way home.
Somewhere along the way, my mother almost lost her country. After 60 years in America, people mistakenly believed she was content. But no amount of Americanizing could wash away the Turkish-ness that infused her being. My first memories of a map are of my mother pointing to Istanbul. “This is where I grew up,” she’d say, an idea so foreign that it wrapped her childhood in storybook-like wonder. By six, I could find the Bosporus on that map and describe how the waterway divided Istanbul into Europe and Asia, making it the gateway to the East. I also could describe how, as a child, my mother loved swimming like a fish in the Bosporus and Sea of Marmora, which lapped against Istanbul’s other coastline.
Our bedtime stories chronicled night her adventures-- and misadventures—growing up in the ancient metropolis. By the end of each tale, I wanted a pet lamb like the one she had while vacationing in a Black Sea fishing village. And I’d fall asleep imagining myself riding ferryboats across the Bosporus to school, along with the peasants, chickens and goats. Or being bold enough to befriend a peasant boy although my uncle sternly forbid it. Some tales were favorites that she had to tell over and over like the one about the runaway donkey. While vacationing on an island off the coast of Istanbul, she and a pack of cousins set off on a donkey ride. And of course, it was her donkey that took off on a wild ride of its own, with our petite mama clinging tight as he headed up the mountain, into a forest of sweet-smelling pines.
These tales brought to life what it was like to live through the birth of a new country-- modern, secular Turkey. She proudly explained that her class was the last one taught how to write Turkish in Arabic script and the first to learn the Western alphabet. Revolution brewed in her living room as intellectuals and literary figures gathered to debate change. Her parents were outspoken journalists, who’d advocated for the end of Ottoman rule and then helped form the young republic. When their feisty activism periodically landed her father in prison, her mother would step in and run their periodical until he was released. Years later, they were forced into exile. But my mom never mentioned details like prison stints or exile in our nightly stories. She had a way of sprinkling her own brand of fairy dust on life and turning tragedies into comedies.
Like the fact that my father, a foreign correspondent, had vowed that they’d live in Istanbul. But when World War II ended, she landed in an antiseptic American suburb, surrounded by the Betty Crockers of the 1950s.. My mischievous mother needed a bold spirit to transform this world into her own personal Turkish bazaar. Trust me. We were the only house flying the Turkish flag on the republic’s Independence Day. And the only kids who strutted across the stage during a school assembly in Turkish costumes, with odd scarves wrapped around our heads. Every couple of years, our house was re-incarnated into a miniature Kapalacharca, the grand bazaar in Istanbul. For weeks, women from the country club set would stroll through our dining and living room, inspecting items that my mother rounded up from friends’ basements and attics. When it came time to bargain over price, these women were dismayed to discover that they were no match for the diminutive lady with the warm smile. With the ease of a bazaar rug salesman, she had them handing over double the asking price.
Even after six decades in America, my mother couldn’t bring herself to become a US citizen. No amount of vacations swimming in the Sea of Marmara cured the homesickness. When she died at 86, she left no instructions about what was to be done. They weren’t necessary.
It’s not easy to get a body flown half way around the world. I worried that she’d miss her connection in Heathrow as she’d done so often. Which would mean missing the motorboat that we’d arranged to transport her casket to Buyukada, one of those islands off Istanbul that she’d loved as a child. But on this last trip, she was punctual, arriving on time even for her burial service in the courtyard of the tiny island mosque. (The daughter of atheists, she qualified for burial only if prayed over by an imam.) Here in the courtyard, my 12-year old daughter met all her Turkish relatives for the first time. And like I had as a child, she delighted in riding a horse-drawn carriage up to the top of Buyukada, the only way to get around on this car-free island. The carriage stopped at the cemetery gates, leaving my husband, daughter and I walking the winding paths until we reached a hillside. Here, my mother was tucked in the to earth under those sweet-smelling pines. And her view—a sweeping panorama of the sea, with Istanbul in the distance. What stunned me was that I felt no sadness as we left, just relief. It was as though I could feel my mother relaxing into the warm earth--Turkish earth, which meant that she’d found her way home.
This Is Not Enlightenment - Joyce Roschinger
I am sitting here across from you this morning. You've asked m to come to your office. You're on the phone and your blackberry has gone off and is playing Riders of the Purple Storm. I hum along. You've called me into your office because I came in late to work again. Four times now in two weeks. You place your blackberry face down on your desk. And you begin by telling me what I already know. That I have been late four times in two weeks. I think about what I am going to say, I wait for an opening, but you are speaking in sentences and now I am going to have to raise my hand to ask permission to speak, but your sentences have turned into paragraphs and I stand up and say stop talking and listen to me but you do not hear me because you are speaking in paragraphs and you answer your blackberry and begin to write on a legal pad and you signal to me with your finger to wait but I beat you to it and I signal to you with my hand, I am finished, done, through, talking to you.
This is Not Enlightenment - Jackie Davis-Martin
You sit on the edge of the motel bed, hands gripping the mattress on either side, fearing that if you let go you will pitch forward, not to the floor, which is moving in uneasy waves, but to a place that’s more disorienting than where you are, the flat carpeting which you cannot recover from.
A man breathes there on the other side of the bed. You know him. Or, you thought you knew him, a little bit, enough to come here, enough to try something beyond your Newports. His name is Neil. He has dark hair and a strong chin; the bed sheet covers his long body, his feet, strange creatures of themselves, sticking out at the end. He needs his clothes on. You need your clothes on.
You see your dress hanging across the TV. The room is not dark; one lamp is still on, the ashtray full on the nightstand. The dress. You need to get to it. Something before the dress. The room reels again and you breathe in and out, surveying the area steadily. What are you looking for? You forget.
What you remember is you must get out of here. You have to be home; your kids are at home. You remember that. Home, what you picture and remember, the blue living room rug getting worn near the stairs, the two big chenille sofas, also worn, the kids with their music and chattering—all these seem to exist on a planet remote from earthly being, remote entirely from where you sit on the bed.
You must move. You push a little and fall, actually fall to one side like a floppy doll and slide to the floor. From there you lean toward the bed, kneeling, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep you recite and wait. The man doesn’t hear; he breathes deeply and peacefully. You need to wake him. You push his leg—it is a foreign affair, isn’t it, like a log, a piece of anatomy attached to this person who said You’ll really like it, you’ll relax.
You poke him again, three times. “Neil!” you call. “Neil!” When you say the name the word sounds dumb and you wonder whether you got it right. He makes a sound, like a grunt or a sigh but doesn’t stir. You do, though. You must, you must. You stand, grope your way—the edge of the bed, the dresser, the doorframe—to the bathroom. Will water help?
The mirror reflects someone you recognize, or thought you did. The eyes are too black, take up too much black. You push at the woman’s hair, pushing it into place. You have a purse somewhere, you had the new lipstick in it and the house keys. You need to get home, you need to get out of here. Here? Where are you? Outside, through the drapes, you see a parking lot, cars. Which is his, Neil’s? The big navy blue one, you think. You stare at the man on the bed, the one who has to drive the car. Did you have sex with him?
“Neil!”
Can you throw a glass of water? Maybe he’d wake up like a raging bull, and then what? You dress, get ready, steady and slow. You begin pulling, tugging, begging in earnest.
Eventually the man sits up, shifts his feet to the floor, grips the mattress as you did. He is trying to remember you, too.
Earlier that evening you thought the two of you were about as pretty as Barbie dolls in that restaurant with the ferns, you in the black dress with blue flowers, which you now have on again, the man in his suit, a lustrous blue tie. Time stands still for hours, it seems, as you try to drag the man into clothes, into an awakeness that will get you out of here.
Finally, you manage. He is in the car, the two of you are back in his car, the night surrounding you. The clock in the car says 10:17. It makes no sense; it seems to be a reasonable hour but days and weeks since you began this date.
You are not going to date Neil again, handsome as he is. You want to live long enough to see your kids and to tell Neil you will not date him again.
He starts the car and creeps it onto the road, the highway, heading in the direction of what he must know your house lives; some signs come into a blurry focus---exit 34--you remember that, but it’s so long, so drawn out and thick.
The kids, the kids. They went to a basketball game at their junior high; they’ve been home for a while. I’ll be home you had said. Other cars zoom past you on the highway. You and the man Neil creep along, near the side.
He pulls into your driveway and you gather your purse with its new lipstick and house keys and don’t say anything except Thank you thank you, meaning getting me here where I thought I’d never be again.
He is a little more awake. He thinks you’re thanking him for what he said would be a kind of enlightenment. He said you’d see everything clearly, that sex would be intense. You don’t remember sex, if you had it. You don’t care. That wasn’t enlightenment! You were not enlightened.
You wave him and his dark blue car away and open your door with more gratitude than you ever remember having and fall prostrate, like a Muslim, to the old blue carpeting, kissing it in gratitude, offering thanks for your return. Never again will you be enlightened.
That’s your enlightenment.
A man breathes there on the other side of the bed. You know him. Or, you thought you knew him, a little bit, enough to come here, enough to try something beyond your Newports. His name is Neil. He has dark hair and a strong chin; the bed sheet covers his long body, his feet, strange creatures of themselves, sticking out at the end. He needs his clothes on. You need your clothes on.
You see your dress hanging across the TV. The room is not dark; one lamp is still on, the ashtray full on the nightstand. The dress. You need to get to it. Something before the dress. The room reels again and you breathe in and out, surveying the area steadily. What are you looking for? You forget.
What you remember is you must get out of here. You have to be home; your kids are at home. You remember that. Home, what you picture and remember, the blue living room rug getting worn near the stairs, the two big chenille sofas, also worn, the kids with their music and chattering—all these seem to exist on a planet remote from earthly being, remote entirely from where you sit on the bed.
You must move. You push a little and fall, actually fall to one side like a floppy doll and slide to the floor. From there you lean toward the bed, kneeling, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep you recite and wait. The man doesn’t hear; he breathes deeply and peacefully. You need to wake him. You push his leg—it is a foreign affair, isn’t it, like a log, a piece of anatomy attached to this person who said You’ll really like it, you’ll relax.
You poke him again, three times. “Neil!” you call. “Neil!” When you say the name the word sounds dumb and you wonder whether you got it right. He makes a sound, like a grunt or a sigh but doesn’t stir. You do, though. You must, you must. You stand, grope your way—the edge of the bed, the dresser, the doorframe—to the bathroom. Will water help?
The mirror reflects someone you recognize, or thought you did. The eyes are too black, take up too much black. You push at the woman’s hair, pushing it into place. You have a purse somewhere, you had the new lipstick in it and the house keys. You need to get home, you need to get out of here. Here? Where are you? Outside, through the drapes, you see a parking lot, cars. Which is his, Neil’s? The big navy blue one, you think. You stare at the man on the bed, the one who has to drive the car. Did you have sex with him?
“Neil!”
Can you throw a glass of water? Maybe he’d wake up like a raging bull, and then what? You dress, get ready, steady and slow. You begin pulling, tugging, begging in earnest.
Eventually the man sits up, shifts his feet to the floor, grips the mattress as you did. He is trying to remember you, too.
Earlier that evening you thought the two of you were about as pretty as Barbie dolls in that restaurant with the ferns, you in the black dress with blue flowers, which you now have on again, the man in his suit, a lustrous blue tie. Time stands still for hours, it seems, as you try to drag the man into clothes, into an awakeness that will get you out of here.
Finally, you manage. He is in the car, the two of you are back in his car, the night surrounding you. The clock in the car says 10:17. It makes no sense; it seems to be a reasonable hour but days and weeks since you began this date.
You are not going to date Neil again, handsome as he is. You want to live long enough to see your kids and to tell Neil you will not date him again.
He starts the car and creeps it onto the road, the highway, heading in the direction of what he must know your house lives; some signs come into a blurry focus---exit 34--you remember that, but it’s so long, so drawn out and thick.
The kids, the kids. They went to a basketball game at their junior high; they’ve been home for a while. I’ll be home you had said. Other cars zoom past you on the highway. You and the man Neil creep along, near the side.
He pulls into your driveway and you gather your purse with its new lipstick and house keys and don’t say anything except Thank you thank you, meaning getting me here where I thought I’d never be again.
He is a little more awake. He thinks you’re thanking him for what he said would be a kind of enlightenment. He said you’d see everything clearly, that sex would be intense. You don’t remember sex, if you had it. You don’t care. That wasn’t enlightenment! You were not enlightened.
You wave him and his dark blue car away and open your door with more gratitude than you ever remember having and fall prostrate, like a Muslim, to the old blue carpeting, kissing it in gratitude, offering thanks for your return. Never again will you be enlightened.
That’s your enlightenment.
The End of Things - Ariana Speyer
When she spit out the food I made her, I’d say that was the end of things. I even knew it at the time. I made a cinnamon roll and by accident used too much salt, and she spit it out, as if I had been trying to poison her. Then she looked at me quietly, as if I had done it on purpose. Then I tasted it, but I didn’t want to spit it out, like she did, so I swallowed it, almost choking as I did, but I got it down. “You used salt instead of sugar, Arnie,” she told me. “Why can’t you pay attention?” Susanne had asked me why I couldn’t pay attention before, many times. I guess it was a pattern. Why couldn’t I pay attention when I tramped wet shoes in the house? Why couldn’t I pay attention when I dried the laundry and everything came out a little smaller? Why couldn’t I pay attention when I had an orgasm before she did? I never knew the answers to those questions, I just felt like I was human and, that being the case, I was going to make some mistakes, fuck up now and then. Doesn’t everyone? Susanne certainly did. She even cheated on me. I was a little older than her, well more than a little, 15 years, so I thought she had some wild oats to sow. I thought I was okay with that. But I wasn’t. His name was Dan, he drove a truck and had sideburns. Dan burned a hole through us that I tried to patch with kindness. I wouldn’t do that again. I don’t feel kind anymore. Dan pushed us toward the ledge and then for a year, or two, we were just waiting for the next thing to push us over, toward the bottom. We even had good times that year. Went on a trip to the Caribbean and everything. Had good sex. Maybe because we both knew. So the cinnamon roll came as only a slight surprise. When she spit out the food I made for her, I had a sense of, I’ll never kiss that mouth again, that mouth that spits out my food. I’ll never want to hold her. That was the end of things. It just snuck up on me one Saturday afternoon and I took a few bags and went away on Monday.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
It All Happened at the Same Time - Anne Wright
While the man in the checkered coat stepped off the sidewalk and twisted his ankle, and the rider of the mottled appalloosa cleared the hedge at the horse show, and the teacher erased the blackboard for the last time that day, the street sweeper made a pass in front of the house, and the Vietnamese fisherman pulled up his crab pot; as the little lady in the pink housecoat walking her Chihuahua jerked his leash, and the kid’s feet touched the tanbark at the bottom of the slide, and the man inserted his key in the battered padlock on his storage locker, the cook cracked an egg into the frying pan and the yolk broke; the woman in dirty gloves snipped the end of the rose stem, and the 777 pilot snapped his seatbelt around his hips, the croupier raked all the chips toward himself; that was the moment the boy hugged the girl with his sweaty hands and she pushed him away.
The Taste of Memory - Julie Farrar
I’ve tried it originally in my Mom’s army surplus heavy aluminum roaster that she used on a regular basis. I’ve tried it in the cast iron skillet of my husband’s grandmother. I’ve tried it in a Teflon-coated electric skillet. I’ve tried it in a brand new $200 extra large All-Clad skillet. I’ve tried it on both electric and gas burners. And until the day I die I will be chasing the taste of my mother’s fried chicken. This is my life’s Holy Grail. Nothing fancy ever went into Mom’s cooking; it was basic comfort food all the way. She’d pull out that round roaster that I’m sure she got during the war and use it for stews, and roasts, and chicken. And one way or another there would be gravy for the potatoes. How hard could it be to recreate her fried chicken? Half of my life was spent sitting in the kitchen talking to her while she cooked dinner after work. Here’s the flour. Here’s the salt, pepper, and paprika to mix in the flour. Wesson Oil spit and splattered onto to the stove as she placed the chicken pieces in the pan, breasts in middle where it was hottest and the remaining pieces tucked tightly around the edges.
But what magic voodoo did I miss? Flour, salt, pepper, paprika, oil. It all seems so simple. In the hands of my mother those simple ingredients produced a culinary masterpiece. As I would bite into my favorite, the drumstick, burning steam that had been hiding underneath crisp skin would erupt toward my upper palate like a geyser. Juices would explode in my mouth and I would hear a distinctive “crunch” as my teeth clamped down to the bone. I would bathe my hand-mashed potatoes in a milk gravy made from the bits of skin that stuck to the bottom of the pan as she turned pieces during the cooking. So not only would I be lucky enough to eat the chicken, I could ingest it in liquid form as well.
It all seemed to simple. But in thirty years of trying I’ve never achieved that chicken nirvana. “This tastes really good,” my husband compliments me on yet another attempt. “I appreciate that, but it’s not right yet. Just wait until I figure it out. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.” And so I keep trying. This time it’s too greasy. This time it’s burned. This time it’s not crunchy enough. Another time the gravy is flat. Or too thin because there weren’t enough crispies stuck to the bottom of the pan (a fault of this newfangled non-stick cookware). Everything else she’s made I’ve recreated. I have handwritten notes I made of chili, stew, and chicken casserole recipes when I’d call her from college for help. But nothing for fried chicken. How much oil to use? What temperature for the burner? Lid on or lid off? How often do I turn? Do I change the heat as it cooks? All these intangibles are lost forever.
My sisters are no help because this is not their meal. This was my meal that Mom made for me. She made it when I asked. And she made it every year for my birthday. And she let me help by shaking the freshly rinsed pieces in a paper bag filled with flour. And I thought that I would have plenty of time to learn the bits of magic she worked on the chicken. And I was wrong. So I keep trying, waiting for that one time when again I bite into a drumstick and feel the top of my mouth burn and hear the distinctive crunch as the juice flows over my tongue and down my throat. And Mom will once again sitting at the table with me.
But what magic voodoo did I miss? Flour, salt, pepper, paprika, oil. It all seems so simple. In the hands of my mother those simple ingredients produced a culinary masterpiece. As I would bite into my favorite, the drumstick, burning steam that had been hiding underneath crisp skin would erupt toward my upper palate like a geyser. Juices would explode in my mouth and I would hear a distinctive “crunch” as my teeth clamped down to the bone. I would bathe my hand-mashed potatoes in a milk gravy made from the bits of skin that stuck to the bottom of the pan as she turned pieces during the cooking. So not only would I be lucky enough to eat the chicken, I could ingest it in liquid form as well.
It all seemed to simple. But in thirty years of trying I’ve never achieved that chicken nirvana. “This tastes really good,” my husband compliments me on yet another attempt. “I appreciate that, but it’s not right yet. Just wait until I figure it out. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.” And so I keep trying. This time it’s too greasy. This time it’s burned. This time it’s not crunchy enough. Another time the gravy is flat. Or too thin because there weren’t enough crispies stuck to the bottom of the pan (a fault of this newfangled non-stick cookware). Everything else she’s made I’ve recreated. I have handwritten notes I made of chili, stew, and chicken casserole recipes when I’d call her from college for help. But nothing for fried chicken. How much oil to use? What temperature for the burner? Lid on or lid off? How often do I turn? Do I change the heat as it cooks? All these intangibles are lost forever.
My sisters are no help because this is not their meal. This was my meal that Mom made for me. She made it when I asked. And she made it every year for my birthday. And she let me help by shaking the freshly rinsed pieces in a paper bag filled with flour. And I thought that I would have plenty of time to learn the bits of magic she worked on the chicken. And I was wrong. So I keep trying, waiting for that one time when again I bite into a drumstick and feel the top of my mouth burn and hear the distinctive crunch as the juice flows over my tongue and down my throat. And Mom will once again sitting at the table with me.
And the Award Goes To... Mark Maynard
It’s coming up on twenty years now that I have been hanging out from time to time in bars, almost fifteen of them legally. And in that course of time I spent many of my younger years trying to get the attention of women, trying to be the one guy that females would cull from the herd of eager-eyed, cologne splashed men who spent an inordinate amount of time deciding which white button-down oxford to wear with which pair of bluejeans.
Now I am happily married, and spend my time in bars (infrequently as it is) more interested in whether or not the bartender notices me so that he can take my drink order expediently and mostly unaware of the other women in whatever establishment I find my self imbibing in.
And from time to time, I will occasionally notice a wayward female glance settle upon my countenance for a fleeting moment, and this flatters me and stokes my male ego momentarily; this safe moment of shared eye contact that each party realizes will go no further than a smile of acknowledgement.
So imagine my surprise last Saturday night to find myself the lucky winner of female attention, the only one culled from the herd I happened to be traveling with at the time.
We were in San Francisco’s Tenderloin to see a punk band play at a theater that dated back to the vaudeville days and when we arrived at the box office, tickets in hand, we saw that they were still offloading equipment from the trucks. We had already passed a number of decent bars on Market St., but my brother Tommy insisted that for nostalgic reasons we should drop in on Joe’s, a real classic joint somewhere in the vicinity.
There, right across Turk Street from the theater’s backstage dock was a classic corner bar. One door, a strip of aluminum framed windows fronting the street and a line of patrons populating every stool. Tommy walked up to the doorman who happened to be wearing a flannel shirt and a blue veterans baseball cap with the yellow embroidered lettering of a naval vessel that has most likely been scrapped for razorblades, and asked him if this fine establishment was Joe’s. The elderly gentleman watching the door got a sad look on his face and commiserated to my brother that Joe’s had recently burned to the ground. Tommy told him that was too bad and motioned the other five of us into the watering hole where he proceeded to procure each of us a cold bottle of Bud.
As we walked in the door we were greeted by the universal looks of “you don’t belong here” from each and every stool. Eventually, each head turned away from us to sulk back to it’s own visual reference point somewhere above the bartop.
The six of us stood awkwardly behind the stools in a little walkway between the bar and the windows, a blue linoleum highway that led directly to the filthy tiled bathroom that smelled of piss, mold and disillusionment.
We sipped quickly from our frosty bottles and quietly pointed out to one another the haphazard vertical walking pattern of a large cockroach making his way across an old whiskey label mirror behind the bartender’s head.
An aging, partially toothless barfly was heading to her empty stool around the far corner of the bar and had to walk behind our squad of invading infantrymen one by one. Fortune’s sweet eyes had favored me this night, for while each of us offered a similar opportunity, it was my ribcage this delicate wilting flower of the night decided to give a squeeze with her gnarled fingers, making me jump with such force that the King of Beers began foaming out the neck of my cool bottle. She took three steps past me and my other compatriots before turning to give me a twinkling red-eyed wink and a partially toothed smile as she turned the corner and settled onto the vinyl stool that still held the impression of her ample behind and spindly thighs for her until her return.
Now I am happily married, and spend my time in bars (infrequently as it is) more interested in whether or not the bartender notices me so that he can take my drink order expediently and mostly unaware of the other women in whatever establishment I find my self imbibing in.
And from time to time, I will occasionally notice a wayward female glance settle upon my countenance for a fleeting moment, and this flatters me and stokes my male ego momentarily; this safe moment of shared eye contact that each party realizes will go no further than a smile of acknowledgement.
So imagine my surprise last Saturday night to find myself the lucky winner of female attention, the only one culled from the herd I happened to be traveling with at the time.
We were in San Francisco’s Tenderloin to see a punk band play at a theater that dated back to the vaudeville days and when we arrived at the box office, tickets in hand, we saw that they were still offloading equipment from the trucks. We had already passed a number of decent bars on Market St., but my brother Tommy insisted that for nostalgic reasons we should drop in on Joe’s, a real classic joint somewhere in the vicinity.
There, right across Turk Street from the theater’s backstage dock was a classic corner bar. One door, a strip of aluminum framed windows fronting the street and a line of patrons populating every stool. Tommy walked up to the doorman who happened to be wearing a flannel shirt and a blue veterans baseball cap with the yellow embroidered lettering of a naval vessel that has most likely been scrapped for razorblades, and asked him if this fine establishment was Joe’s. The elderly gentleman watching the door got a sad look on his face and commiserated to my brother that Joe’s had recently burned to the ground. Tommy told him that was too bad and motioned the other five of us into the watering hole where he proceeded to procure each of us a cold bottle of Bud.
As we walked in the door we were greeted by the universal looks of “you don’t belong here” from each and every stool. Eventually, each head turned away from us to sulk back to it’s own visual reference point somewhere above the bartop.
The six of us stood awkwardly behind the stools in a little walkway between the bar and the windows, a blue linoleum highway that led directly to the filthy tiled bathroom that smelled of piss, mold and disillusionment.
We sipped quickly from our frosty bottles and quietly pointed out to one another the haphazard vertical walking pattern of a large cockroach making his way across an old whiskey label mirror behind the bartender’s head.
An aging, partially toothless barfly was heading to her empty stool around the far corner of the bar and had to walk behind our squad of invading infantrymen one by one. Fortune’s sweet eyes had favored me this night, for while each of us offered a similar opportunity, it was my ribcage this delicate wilting flower of the night decided to give a squeeze with her gnarled fingers, making me jump with such force that the King of Beers began foaming out the neck of my cool bottle. She took three steps past me and my other compatriots before turning to give me a twinkling red-eyed wink and a partially toothed smile as she turned the corner and settled onto the vinyl stool that still held the impression of her ample behind and spindly thighs for her until her return.
A Story With the Words - Lust, Lipstick, Loss, Locked - Carol Arnold
I’ve lost a lot of things in my life, but the loss of my trailer key was just too much. It’s funny how things start with something simple like that and before you know it they get complicated. One thing leads to another and, if you’re like me anyway, you end up in trouble.
So there I was locked out not knowing what to do when Joe waves from his Fifth Wheel. I didn’t want to kick the door in just yet, so I thought maybe I’d go over to Joe’s to see if he knew how to jimmy a window or something. Ok, I have to admit I might lust after Joe now and then, in fact smeared on some new lipstick just before I went over, but nothing had ever happened between us before, so how did I know that day would be different.
The problem was, as soon as he opened the door, I saw he was drunk. Now, I don’t like drunks, my father being the biggest one of all, so any lust I had for Joe before he opened the door melted like bacon grease in a frying pan. As soon as he sees me he grabs me and plants a big kiss on my mouth, slobbering all over like he’s one of those big old St Bernard dogs. It wasn’t long before I realized he humps like one too, a big old bumbling goofball. I could’ve pushed him off with one finger if I wanted, but decided not to. I thought maybe I could get him to sober up for the next time, so I decided to go through the motions and see what happened. Something happened all right and here he is sitting in my lap, a big old baby boy, drooling on me just like his Papa.
So there I was locked out not knowing what to do when Joe waves from his Fifth Wheel. I didn’t want to kick the door in just yet, so I thought maybe I’d go over to Joe’s to see if he knew how to jimmy a window or something. Ok, I have to admit I might lust after Joe now and then, in fact smeared on some new lipstick just before I went over, but nothing had ever happened between us before, so how did I know that day would be different.
The problem was, as soon as he opened the door, I saw he was drunk. Now, I don’t like drunks, my father being the biggest one of all, so any lust I had for Joe before he opened the door melted like bacon grease in a frying pan. As soon as he sees me he grabs me and plants a big kiss on my mouth, slobbering all over like he’s one of those big old St Bernard dogs. It wasn’t long before I realized he humps like one too, a big old bumbling goofball. I could’ve pushed him off with one finger if I wanted, but decided not to. I thought maybe I could get him to sober up for the next time, so I decided to go through the motions and see what happened. Something happened all right and here he is sitting in my lap, a big old baby boy, drooling on me just like his Papa.
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