Sunday, March 8, 2009
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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