November 30, 2004
Gondola
On the last vacation Nick and I took, my skis got stolen at the top of the mountain and the gondola had to carry me down with a family of sightseers who'd just ridden up for a look at the view.
I'd told Nick to go on and ski, I'd be okay. Our marriage was ending, but not at the point where you're certain, so you look around at other people and see all their damn happiness, and you try to figure out what why they're together. We'd spent the morning riding the chairlift in silence.
Two days before we'd left for Colorado, I'd seen Nick with his old girlfriend, Rochelle, in the parking lot at Sav-A-Center. They were sitting in her car. She was behind the wheel and his head was leaning on her shoulder, so she must've had her arm around him, to cradle him like that.
We had four more days at Steamboat Springs.
I sat on the cold bench in the metal capsule and bumped my boots together to stay warm. The family with me in the gondola shared a giant hot chocolate the father had bought for the ride down. I looked out the window for someone else to fuck because jumping ahead was what I did when my heart got broken. My father taught me to always hold a piece of myself back - like a dignity chit - so that I'd have a running start with the next person.
I watched one guy slalom his way down like he had nothing to think about but the sound of his edges. That's what I wanted, because all I thought about when I skied was not falling. He made a racing stop that threw up a wall of sparkling snow, and looked back at our gondola in the sky. As we passed over him I leaned out the window and gave him a big-arm wave. He smiled and took off, planting his pole at the beginning of every elegant turn. All for me? I hoped I'd see him again. He had on a black jacket with thin yellow stripes down the arms.
I recognized Nick's electric blue hat from a distance, and I watched him zig-zag down the hill, stabbing the snow to start his turn, just the way we'd been taught in our lesson. He looked good, like he was somebody else's.
Five years ago, I'd asked Nick to marry me to keep him away from Rochelle. They'd snuck around together the summer of my junior year in college, while I was studying calligraphy in Venice. They'd gotten pregnant and had an abortion. My first night home he came to my dorm and told me. He cried. I wanted to hurdle over the crime and solve the case. He looked so relieved when I proposed, and I hung on that. It felt grand to be so forgiving.
The gondola cricked under the towers that kept the cable in the air. The incline had gotten steeper, and the whole village was displayed in front of us like a brochure. The family bunched together and asked me to take their photo.
I liked tall buildings, ferris wheels, the good look you got from that far up, but about half way down I panicked, because I couldn't survive a fall that high.
Did he take Rochelle from the back like he did me? Did she like it? I hated doggy-style, felt more mounted than involved. His dick was curved and my uterus was tipped. We didn't fit. I wanted him to face me but didn't want to complain. Some nights I prayed it would be our last time. Nick thought I was frigid, and he wanted to go to a sex therapist but I told him we'd be okay, what we really needed was a mechanic.
Wind pushed against our gondola and I was finding it hard to breathe. The kids shifted their weight from side to side to make the car rock more and I looked at their mother and winced.
"Be still," she told them.
I cold-sweated through my layers and hung onto the bottom of the seat. The mother began to sing "Edelweiss", the father and kids harmonizing like Von Trapps, which made me feel better.
The skier I'd waved to was at the bottom of the hill, unbuckling his boots. I walked up to him. "Did I keep you waiting?" I said. He looked up and smiled, said, "Yeah." He had a raccoon tan from his goggles.
We went to his room and kissed for a minute, and then he pushed my head down to his dick, held my face there until he was done. He fit in my mouth better than Nick. I never asked his name although this wasn't all that I wanted. I told him that and he said, "So, next time, say something."
At the lodge that night Nick and I drank Irish coffees and watched the band play. He was so quiet. We hadn't argued much in the marriage. I guess we were conserving our energy for the next relationship.
The skier walked over to our table and brushed the back of my head with his arm. He tapped Nick on the shoulder and asked to borrow his lighter, and Nick said, "Sure, keep it."
"Give it back," I said, and grabbed it out of the skier's hand.
"Why didn't you write me in Venice?" I'd never asked Nick. The question made me sound twelve. The skier inched away from our table like we were toxic.
The band had taken a break and the bar was all chatter. Nick stared at his drink. He didn't say, which kept me frozen. I'd sent him letters from Italy, written on light blue airmail paper, scripted in sepia ink. I was a love sick virgin with pretty handwriting. He'd written back toward the end of the trip, but by then I'd taken my father's advice and hooked up with a guy from New York. We took a train trip to Trieste and had sex in a narrow bed. His jeans smelled sour. I went back to Venice alone, walked the twisty streets, crossed those incessant bridges, envied the couples. And then I went home to see if Nick still loved me.
The band members were back, warming up, teasing us with bits and pieces of the next set. I lit the candle at our table with Nick's lighter and looked at his face, his nice brown eyes. My marriage proposal had been careless, vengeful, a pissing contest and not as plain as love.
In the Sav-A-Center parking lot, in her dark green Corolla, Nick's head fit so sweetly on Rochelle's shoulder, resting there in the warm crook of her arm.
I wished I had just loved him as mine.
I'd told Nick to go on and ski, I'd be okay. Our marriage was ending, but not at the point where you're certain, so you look around at other people and see all their damn happiness, and you try to figure out what why they're together. We'd spent the morning riding the chairlift in silence.
Two days before we'd left for Colorado, I'd seen Nick with his old girlfriend, Rochelle, in the parking lot at Sav-A-Center. They were sitting in her car. She was behind the wheel and his head was leaning on her shoulder, so she must've had her arm around him, to cradle him like that.
We had four more days at Steamboat Springs.
I sat on the cold bench in the metal capsule and bumped my boots together to stay warm. The family with me in the gondola shared a giant hot chocolate the father had bought for the ride down. I looked out the window for someone else to fuck because jumping ahead was what I did when my heart got broken. My father taught me to always hold a piece of myself back - like a dignity chit - so that I'd have a running start with the next person.
I watched one guy slalom his way down like he had nothing to think about but the sound of his edges. That's what I wanted, because all I thought about when I skied was not falling. He made a racing stop that threw up a wall of sparkling snow, and looked back at our gondola in the sky. As we passed over him I leaned out the window and gave him a big-arm wave. He smiled and took off, planting his pole at the beginning of every elegant turn. All for me? I hoped I'd see him again. He had on a black jacket with thin yellow stripes down the arms.
I recognized Nick's electric blue hat from a distance, and I watched him zig-zag down the hill, stabbing the snow to start his turn, just the way we'd been taught in our lesson. He looked good, like he was somebody else's.
Five years ago, I'd asked Nick to marry me to keep him away from Rochelle. They'd snuck around together the summer of my junior year in college, while I was studying calligraphy in Venice. They'd gotten pregnant and had an abortion. My first night home he came to my dorm and told me. He cried. I wanted to hurdle over the crime and solve the case. He looked so relieved when I proposed, and I hung on that. It felt grand to be so forgiving.
The gondola cricked under the towers that kept the cable in the air. The incline had gotten steeper, and the whole village was displayed in front of us like a brochure. The family bunched together and asked me to take their photo.
I liked tall buildings, ferris wheels, the good look you got from that far up, but about half way down I panicked, because I couldn't survive a fall that high.
Did he take Rochelle from the back like he did me? Did she like it? I hated doggy-style, felt more mounted than involved. His dick was curved and my uterus was tipped. We didn't fit. I wanted him to face me but didn't want to complain. Some nights I prayed it would be our last time. Nick thought I was frigid, and he wanted to go to a sex therapist but I told him we'd be okay, what we really needed was a mechanic.
Wind pushed against our gondola and I was finding it hard to breathe. The kids shifted their weight from side to side to make the car rock more and I looked at their mother and winced.
"Be still," she told them.
I cold-sweated through my layers and hung onto the bottom of the seat. The mother began to sing "Edelweiss", the father and kids harmonizing like Von Trapps, which made me feel better.
The skier I'd waved to was at the bottom of the hill, unbuckling his boots. I walked up to him. "Did I keep you waiting?" I said. He looked up and smiled, said, "Yeah." He had a raccoon tan from his goggles.
We went to his room and kissed for a minute, and then he pushed my head down to his dick, held my face there until he was done. He fit in my mouth better than Nick. I never asked his name although this wasn't all that I wanted. I told him that and he said, "So, next time, say something."
At the lodge that night Nick and I drank Irish coffees and watched the band play. He was so quiet. We hadn't argued much in the marriage. I guess we were conserving our energy for the next relationship.
The skier walked over to our table and brushed the back of my head with his arm. He tapped Nick on the shoulder and asked to borrow his lighter, and Nick said, "Sure, keep it."
"Give it back," I said, and grabbed it out of the skier's hand.
"Why didn't you write me in Venice?" I'd never asked Nick. The question made me sound twelve. The skier inched away from our table like we were toxic.
The band had taken a break and the bar was all chatter. Nick stared at his drink. He didn't say, which kept me frozen. I'd sent him letters from Italy, written on light blue airmail paper, scripted in sepia ink. I was a love sick virgin with pretty handwriting. He'd written back toward the end of the trip, but by then I'd taken my father's advice and hooked up with a guy from New York. We took a train trip to Trieste and had sex in a narrow bed. His jeans smelled sour. I went back to Venice alone, walked the twisty streets, crossed those incessant bridges, envied the couples. And then I went home to see if Nick still loved me.
The band members were back, warming up, teasing us with bits and pieces of the next set. I lit the candle at our table with Nick's lighter and looked at his face, his nice brown eyes. My marriage proposal had been careless, vengeful, a pissing contest and not as plain as love.
In the Sav-A-Center parking lot, in her dark green Corolla, Nick's head fit so sweetly on Rochelle's shoulder, resting there in the warm crook of her arm.
I wished I had just loved him as mine.
November 23, 2004
College Photographer Of The Year
There is a lot to say grace over on this site. Take your time, and be pounded by the beauty and truth of these images, these rooms and places, these faces.
(thanks to Susannah Breslin for the link)
Close To Where You Live
Dottie's father was a pediatrician, and she'd torn a note from his excuse pad and written herself a reason to stay home for the next few days. Pink eye.
She waited under a shade tree across the street from the high school and watched her best friend go in. Carola threw Dottie a look over her shoulder, waved behind her head as she walked up the stairs to first period. For a second, Dottie worried that now she would get pink eye, that the lie might turn into the truth, but what she wanted was what she was doing.
Len would pick Dottie up in his Chevy truck and she'd help him work. He had a store front on Water Street where he sold vintage jeans, and twice a week he rushed to St. Vincent's Thrift before it opened so he'd have first pick.
He screeched into a parking spot and Dottie jumped in. They met in the middle and kissed. Her book bag was heavy and she dumped it on the floor. In the cup holder were two hot coffees. The jerky movements of him switching gears made the liquid jump, so Dottie held the Styrofoam cups in her hands and let her arms absorb the shock. She had never drunk coffee and was learning the taste. "Cultivating your palate," is what her mother called it, but Dottie figured it was more like tricking the brain.
Len dispatched her to the other side of the thrift store. They dug through the stacks of soiled and smelly clothes and pulled out the denim. Back at his studio, she'd help him work over the fabric, rub the knees with rocks, take a razor to the fly and belt loops to distress the smooth edges, then wash them over and over like forgiveness.
Len had jagged bangs that hung in his face and he dressed in layers - T-shirt, buttoned-down shirt, vest, jacket. His thighs were thinner than hers. This morning while she dressed she'd imagined his eyes on her, a reverse strip-tease. Pink bra and panties, faded Levis, green sweater, black boots. His shoes were Australian and fastened with Velcro.
"We struck gold," he said. They carried the jeans out in boxes and put them in the bed of the truck.
He drove fast, like tag without the touch, ran under two yellow lights, waited until the last minute to put on the brakes.
"Whoa, Nellie," Dottie said, pressing her feet into the floor. The boxes were sliding in the back. She didn't have on a seatbelt because he didn't. "Most accidents happen close to where you live," Dottie said.
"You learn that in driver's ed?" he said.
Last week her father had picked glass out of a child's face because his mother had been holding him on her lap. Dottie wanted to move back over to her side and strap in, but didn't want to hurt Len's feelings.
"Ever been in a wreck?" she said.
The red mini-van that ran the stop sign hit her side square on, the small leg of a cross. Dottie was covered by tiny bits of glass, sparkly, and drapey white bag sat in her lap. Her door had been bent and there was a tear in the arm of her sweater.
A young woman asked Len if they were okay. "I think so," he said. "I saw the whole thing," she said, "if you need a witness."
Dottie's face felt sunburned, and she patiently watched two men with shoulder patches pry open her door with a crowbar. Metal screeched. The EMTs had come so quickly, like they'd been waiting for this all morning. She wondered if any part of her was hurt.
She waited under a shade tree across the street from the high school and watched her best friend go in. Carola threw Dottie a look over her shoulder, waved behind her head as she walked up the stairs to first period. For a second, Dottie worried that now she would get pink eye, that the lie might turn into the truth, but what she wanted was what she was doing.
Len would pick Dottie up in his Chevy truck and she'd help him work. He had a store front on Water Street where he sold vintage jeans, and twice a week he rushed to St. Vincent's Thrift before it opened so he'd have first pick.
He screeched into a parking spot and Dottie jumped in. They met in the middle and kissed. Her book bag was heavy and she dumped it on the floor. In the cup holder were two hot coffees. The jerky movements of him switching gears made the liquid jump, so Dottie held the Styrofoam cups in her hands and let her arms absorb the shock. She had never drunk coffee and was learning the taste. "Cultivating your palate," is what her mother called it, but Dottie figured it was more like tricking the brain.
Len dispatched her to the other side of the thrift store. They dug through the stacks of soiled and smelly clothes and pulled out the denim. Back at his studio, she'd help him work over the fabric, rub the knees with rocks, take a razor to the fly and belt loops to distress the smooth edges, then wash them over and over like forgiveness.
Len had jagged bangs that hung in his face and he dressed in layers - T-shirt, buttoned-down shirt, vest, jacket. His thighs were thinner than hers. This morning while she dressed she'd imagined his eyes on her, a reverse strip-tease. Pink bra and panties, faded Levis, green sweater, black boots. His shoes were Australian and fastened with Velcro.
"We struck gold," he said. They carried the jeans out in boxes and put them in the bed of the truck.
He drove fast, like tag without the touch, ran under two yellow lights, waited until the last minute to put on the brakes.
"Whoa, Nellie," Dottie said, pressing her feet into the floor. The boxes were sliding in the back. She didn't have on a seatbelt because he didn't. "Most accidents happen close to where you live," Dottie said.
"You learn that in driver's ed?" he said.
Last week her father had picked glass out of a child's face because his mother had been holding him on her lap. Dottie wanted to move back over to her side and strap in, but didn't want to hurt Len's feelings.
"Ever been in a wreck?" she said.
The red mini-van that ran the stop sign hit her side square on, the small leg of a cross. Dottie was covered by tiny bits of glass, sparkly, and drapey white bag sat in her lap. Her door had been bent and there was a tear in the arm of her sweater.
A young woman asked Len if they were okay. "I think so," he said. "I saw the whole thing," she said, "if you need a witness."
Dottie's face felt sunburned, and she patiently watched two men with shoulder patches pry open her door with a crowbar. Metal screeched. The EMTs had come so quickly, like they'd been waiting for this all morning. She wondered if any part of her was hurt.
November 22, 2004
Funny Girls
Diana Grove is one. And she lives in New Orleans, like me, although Todd Zuniga found her first.
Can someone tell me, please, how to write stuff that makes people laugh out loud? Because I want to, too.
Can someone tell me, please, how to write stuff that makes people laugh out loud? Because I want to, too.
Please Stop Inventing
I thought bananas were perfectly packaged by nature, but no.
Sideways
Saw it, liked it. The wine talk's interesting and surprisingly personal. I didn't know pinot noirs weren't always red. Shows you what an oeonodummy I am.
Girls Enter The Lake
A beautiful and mysterious story by Gail Louise Siegel.
The Shore Magazine
I have a story - "Water Hitting Water" - in the online issue.
November 19, 2004
VidLit: Well-Told Tales
You'll need a dsl connection, but this site's a cool way to promote books. Click on Liz Dubelman's "Craziest" - an 8 minute short story about scrabble and grief that's v. moving.
November 17, 2004
Wordlessness
The Postcard Project
Is writer, Jennifer Amey's brilliant idea - the world's smallest magazine. One story (under 250 words), one illustration, once a month. If you send her a book of 49 cent stamps, she'll send you a postcard every month from Toronto. I love mail that gives and doesn't take.
November 15, 2004
Flirting
"Every night, the water rose around Marian Island and turned it from a peninsula to an island."
Sigh.
Just one beautiful line from another fine story by Claudia Smith on Opium this week.
(btw - I always thought I liked Todd Zuniga, but after meeting him in person this weekend, I know I like him.)
Sigh.
Just one beautiful line from another fine story by Claudia Smith on Opium this week.
(btw - I always thought I liked Todd Zuniga, but after meeting him in person this weekend, I know I like him.)
Night Train: Kings Park Reading
The tavern was crowded with townspeople and writers and friends, and how great it is to hear stories you might've seen on the page suddenly there like music, out loud and in the world. This is one of the pieces I read:
Carnivale
The car was small, red, a rented Honda Civic with unlimited mileage. It was November in the Midwest and my husband and I were going to drive through Oklahoma, cross the Texas panhandle, turn around and go back to St. Louis.
I liked looking at the side of Dean's face, his unhappiness, halved. We'd been fighting about everything, the kind of fighting, like siblings, where it's all pick and nag. Even talked about separating, but the word spoken out loud in the room, presented like a packed suitcase, was its own kind of separation. We'd decided to travel.
There was a fence streaming by on his side, and acres of farmland. Mother horses grazed while their colts pressed against them. We'd lost another baby, my third miscarriage, and I didn't want to try again with Dean but I didn't want anyone else either. I hated his disappointment and didn't know what to do with mine. Our seed was good enough to spark a life, but not enough to sustain one. We fucked, waited, succeeded. It was just a lima bean, but our hearts were cartwheeling. Carnivale from our necks down. Until I bled, called Dean at the office and told him we'd lost the baby. "Not again," he said, and I thought, that's my again, not yours.
I needed air, but it was too chilly to roll down our windows. Dry heat blew around my chest and legs. Dean kept his eyes on the road and I read a Jean Rhys novel, enjoyed her misery, held the book up near the dash because I get car sick.
The road stretched ahead for three hundred miles, but we had patience. The truckers didn't. Dean would stay too long in the left lane, forgetting to get out of the way, until some professional roared right up on our asses and blew us over to the right. That far up in Texas, it was mostly eighteen-wheelers, and I helped Dean find a good truck to stay behind, quilted silver, clean, carrying what we wondered? We drove up on the side so we could read the decal: Dole Pineapples. He was keeping it legal at 75 mph and we tucked in behind him, passed only when he passed. Dean called the 1-800 # printed on the back to tell the guy's company what a great job he was doing, what a credit he was to the open road.
When he turned into a truck stop in Abilene we followed him in for coffee and pie. Coconut cream for Dean, apple for me because I loved the crust more than the filling.
The trucker walked over, said, "I'm leaving. You two ready?"
Dean paid up and we followed our trucker out. He wore dark jeans, a Tennessee Volunteers T-shirt under an unbittoned flannel shirt, no hat, cowboy boots. He held the door open for us. "Thanks for the call to the home office. They let me know."
Dean blushed a little and I wanted to touch his hair, cool his face down with my hands. "I think we can take it from here," he said, "but thanks."
I spread the map over my legs like a blanket to see what town we'd hit next. There'd be miles of interstate and then three red lights, right through the middle of places that looked like sets from westerns and made you feel good, like you were getting not there, but somewhere.
(This ran in SmokeLong Quarterly
Carnivale
The car was small, red, a rented Honda Civic with unlimited mileage. It was November in the Midwest and my husband and I were going to drive through Oklahoma, cross the Texas panhandle, turn around and go back to St. Louis.
I liked looking at the side of Dean's face, his unhappiness, halved. We'd been fighting about everything, the kind of fighting, like siblings, where it's all pick and nag. Even talked about separating, but the word spoken out loud in the room, presented like a packed suitcase, was its own kind of separation. We'd decided to travel.
There was a fence streaming by on his side, and acres of farmland. Mother horses grazed while their colts pressed against them. We'd lost another baby, my third miscarriage, and I didn't want to try again with Dean but I didn't want anyone else either. I hated his disappointment and didn't know what to do with mine. Our seed was good enough to spark a life, but not enough to sustain one. We fucked, waited, succeeded. It was just a lima bean, but our hearts were cartwheeling. Carnivale from our necks down. Until I bled, called Dean at the office and told him we'd lost the baby. "Not again," he said, and I thought, that's my again, not yours.
I needed air, but it was too chilly to roll down our windows. Dry heat blew around my chest and legs. Dean kept his eyes on the road and I read a Jean Rhys novel, enjoyed her misery, held the book up near the dash because I get car sick.
The road stretched ahead for three hundred miles, but we had patience. The truckers didn't. Dean would stay too long in the left lane, forgetting to get out of the way, until some professional roared right up on our asses and blew us over to the right. That far up in Texas, it was mostly eighteen-wheelers, and I helped Dean find a good truck to stay behind, quilted silver, clean, carrying what we wondered? We drove up on the side so we could read the decal: Dole Pineapples. He was keeping it legal at 75 mph and we tucked in behind him, passed only when he passed. Dean called the 1-800 # printed on the back to tell the guy's company what a great job he was doing, what a credit he was to the open road.
When he turned into a truck stop in Abilene we followed him in for coffee and pie. Coconut cream for Dean, apple for me because I loved the crust more than the filling.
The trucker walked over, said, "I'm leaving. You two ready?"
Dean paid up and we followed our trucker out. He wore dark jeans, a Tennessee Volunteers T-shirt under an unbittoned flannel shirt, no hat, cowboy boots. He held the door open for us. "Thanks for the call to the home office. They let me know."
Dean blushed a little and I wanted to touch his hair, cool his face down with my hands. "I think we can take it from here," he said, "but thanks."
I spread the map over my legs like a blanket to see what town we'd hit next. There'd be miles of interstate and then three red lights, right through the middle of places that looked like sets from westerns and made you feel good, like you were getting not there, but somewhere.
(This ran in SmokeLong Quarterly
Listen Up
Do you know about this publication? Because if you don't you will click on this link and be happy and grateful to Tom Jenks and Carol Edgarian. The stories are brilliant and Adobe-formatted and free when you sign up.
Full Flight
Thanks to Tiff Holland and Poetry Daily for a poem by Bob Hicok that reminds us how powerfully exact words can be.
I'm in a plane that will not be flown into a building.
It's a SAAB 340, seats 40, has two engines with propellers
is why I think of beanies, those hats that would spin
a young head into the clouds. The plane is red and loud
inside like it must be loud in the heart, red like fire
and fire engines and the woman two seats up and to the right
resembles one of the widows I saw on TV after the Towers
came down. It's her hair that I recognize, the fecundity of it
and the color and its obedience to an ideal, the shape
it was asked several hours ago to hold and has held, a kind
of wave that begins at the forehead and repeats with slight
variations all the way to the tips, as if she were water
and a pebble had been continuously dropped into the mouth
of her existence. We are eighteen thousand feet over America.
People are typing at their laps, blowing across the fog of coffee,
sleeping with their heads on the windows, on the pattern
of green fields and brown fields, streams and gas stations
and swimming pools, blue dots of aquamarine that suggest
we've domesticated the mirage. We had to kill someone,
I believe, when the metal bones burned and the top
fell through the bottom and a cloud made of dust and memos
and skin muscled across Manhattan. I remember feeling
I could finally touch a rifle, that some murders
are an illumination of ethics, that they act as a word,
a motion the brain requires for which there is
no syllable, no breath. The moment the planes had stopped,
when we were afraid of the sky, there was a pause
when we could have been perfectly American,
could have spent infinity dollars and thrown a million
bodies at finding the few, lasering our revenge
into a kind of love, the blood-hunger kept exact
and more convincing for its precision, an expression
of our belief that proximity is never the measure of guilt.
We've lived in the sky again for some years and today
on my lap these pictures from Iraq, naked bodies
stacked into a pyramid of ha-ha and the articles
about broomsticks up the ass and the limbs of children
turned into stubble, we are punch-drunk and getting even
with the sand, with the map, with oil, with ourselves
I think listening to the guys behind me. There's a problem
in Alpena with an inventory control system, some switches
are being counted twice, switches for what I don't know -
switches of humor, of faith - but the men are musical
in their jargon, both likely born in New Delhi
and probably Americans now, which is what the flesh
of this country has been, a grafted pulse, an inventory
of the world, and just as the idea of embrace
moves chemically into my blood, and I'm warmed
as if I've just taken a drink, a voice announces
we've begun our descent, and then I sense the falling.
Bob Hicok
I'm in a plane that will not be flown into a building.
It's a SAAB 340, seats 40, has two engines with propellers
is why I think of beanies, those hats that would spin
a young head into the clouds. The plane is red and loud
inside like it must be loud in the heart, red like fire
and fire engines and the woman two seats up and to the right
resembles one of the widows I saw on TV after the Towers
came down. It's her hair that I recognize, the fecundity of it
and the color and its obedience to an ideal, the shape
it was asked several hours ago to hold and has held, a kind
of wave that begins at the forehead and repeats with slight
variations all the way to the tips, as if she were water
and a pebble had been continuously dropped into the mouth
of her existence. We are eighteen thousand feet over America.
People are typing at their laps, blowing across the fog of coffee,
sleeping with their heads on the windows, on the pattern
of green fields and brown fields, streams and gas stations
and swimming pools, blue dots of aquamarine that suggest
we've domesticated the mirage. We had to kill someone,
I believe, when the metal bones burned and the top
fell through the bottom and a cloud made of dust and memos
and skin muscled across Manhattan. I remember feeling
I could finally touch a rifle, that some murders
are an illumination of ethics, that they act as a word,
a motion the brain requires for which there is
no syllable, no breath. The moment the planes had stopped,
when we were afraid of the sky, there was a pause
when we could have been perfectly American,
could have spent infinity dollars and thrown a million
bodies at finding the few, lasering our revenge
into a kind of love, the blood-hunger kept exact
and more convincing for its precision, an expression
of our belief that proximity is never the measure of guilt.
We've lived in the sky again for some years and today
on my lap these pictures from Iraq, naked bodies
stacked into a pyramid of ha-ha and the articles
about broomsticks up the ass and the limbs of children
turned into stubble, we are punch-drunk and getting even
with the sand, with the map, with oil, with ourselves
I think listening to the guys behind me. There's a problem
in Alpena with an inventory control system, some switches
are being counted twice, switches for what I don't know -
switches of humor, of faith - but the men are musical
in their jargon, both likely born in New Delhi
and probably Americans now, which is what the flesh
of this country has been, a grafted pulse, an inventory
of the world, and just as the idea of embrace
moves chemically into my blood, and I'm warmed
as if I've just taken a drink, a voice announces
we've begun our descent, and then I sense the falling.
Bob Hicok
November 10, 2004
All Aboard!
Here's a quick-moving train of stories by writers I am lucky enough to call my friends. Four from a new web/print site called The Shore Magazine.
Claudia Smith
Grant Bailie
Roy Kesey
Pasha Malla
Bob Arter
John Warner
And this caboose, because everyone needs more Grant Bailie.
Claudia Smith
Grant Bailie
Roy Kesey
Pasha Malla
Bob Arter
John Warner
And this caboose, because everyone needs more Grant Bailie.
November 09, 2004
What I Just Read: You Are A Dog
I am afraid of dogs and this fear is something intrinsic in me that I wish I could change. If I'd read Terry Bain's book "You Are A Dog" sooner - or better yet, if I'd had the book read to me when I was young after being traumatized by that great Dane who knocked me on my butt - I might be able to offer my face to a dog to lick. I know, now, what licking means to a dog. How else can they know you? From a distance? There is no distance with a dog. That's cats.
"They (your people) taste better than you do. Why do they taste so good? And furthermore, since they taste so good, why do they not lick themselves. It must not nag them as it nags at you. It seems to make no sense that they would not lick themselves, so when given the opportunity, when their skin is bare and you are nearby, you lick them. Some of them will tolerate this, but some of them will not. She Who Will Not Tolerate Licking will push you away and yell "Gross. Knock it off you stupid mutt." Whatever that means. You suspect she doesn't want you to lick her anymore,which still doesn't make any sense, so when given the opportunity, when her skin is bare and you are near, you will lick her. You are not deterred for long, since she often leaves the tastiest parts of her skin exposed, and you do not have the willpower to stay away. You want her to know how important it is to lick the places on her body that remain unlicked, and you will lick until she pushes you away again. "Are you stupid or something? Knock it off!" It is a kind of love-tap that she gives you. A gentle nudge. You know that this is her secret joy, so in a moment, you will begin again. Her guard is about to come down. She has almost forgotten that you are nearby. There it is. You see it. A sleeveless arm."
My fear has always seemed unfixable. I didn't grow up in a family that cared about dogs, (why didn't they?), so what little I could learn from the pets of friends and relatives was spotty, vicarious, start and stop. What I missed out on was not just having a dog to love, but being on the receiving end of dog love, which, if you read this gift of a book, you will understand to be pure, uncontrollable, constant but always fresh, never begrudging because dogs have nothing to hold back and everything to gain. And this seems a lesson that's not too late to learn.
When I finished "You Are A Dog" my heart felt pried open. Great books make you less afraid of yourself. They touch sad, dark places and offer you their warm hand. I went to the back porch and talked to Eddie, our chocolate Lab. "Hey, boy, what're you doing?" I opened my palm to him and he didn't bite, he licked, like it was nothing new, like I'd always been okay with this. It felt nice, wet, like forgiveness, except that he never held not-licking against me. What I understand now is that to Eddie, trust is grass, sniff, kibble, water, sky, birds, ball, fetch, more fetch, nap, wake, new day, his people, me.
November 08, 2004
Night Train Reading: Be There, Please
I'll be nervous, but it's nothing a glass of wine and a microphone can't help.
Orphaned Stories: Grip
Annie finds a note from Jay under the only rock in her garden. It's a fake she bought at the mall with a trap door for her house key. He's printed a single word in boxy handwriting on an index card folded small: Friday and illustrated it with wings.
At Bangkok Garden, Jay talks about birds, parrots and their habitat, how in the Amazon they look like flowers, not something to eat. That's how they defend themselves. He works in the aviary at the Audubon Zoo. He picks the caramelized shrimp out of his pad Thai, puts them on Annie's plate because he's allergic, and she pushes the pile around with her fork, afraid to squander the gift.
"Want to see how they sleep?" he says.
They drive to the zoo and walk into the glass house. Some of the birds recognize Jay and shake their feathers, others are wary and hold so still they looked stuffed, but every living thing is wide awake. A parrot screeches and flies low over their heads to another branch. "Better let them rest," he says.
They wake at dawn and eat leftover chicken in coconut milk for breakfast. Jay uncovers his parakeets' silver cages so they can sing to the morning light. Candy-colored birds swing on trapezes, jump from stand to stand, drink from the tiny water dish. While Jay cleans their cages, he lets them fly around his apartment and an orange parakeet lands on Annie's head. She holds still, not wanting to startle it and be shat on.
"Come here, June," Jay, says, snapping his fingers. "They're named after months." June lands in the palm of his hand and he sets her back in the clean cage. "Shower with me," he says to Annie. They do, and leave for their jobs without making more plans.
When Annie gets home from work, she checks under the rock for another word, but there's nothing. Too soon. She sticks a No. 2 pencil into the ground next to the stone as encouragement.
It rains for three days. Jay doesn't call and her brain roils like a high-school girl's. They shouldn't have fucked after the zoo visit. Deep black sky, night-blooming jasmine, monkeys calling out to each other like the Walton's before they settled down to sleep - all sucker punches.
She has drinks with a friend from the gym, takes him to bed to erase the sex with Jay. "How do birds sleep?" she asks him, hoping he knows.
The fourth day she puts on red lipstick and a black bra and panties. She fixes herself a curried chicken salad, slices a celery rib into thin arcs, cubes apples, chops walnuts. In what second did she fall in love and lose her turn? There was the date, the wariness, out at dinner: still her choice, small talk. Bird talk! The particularity of his concern for feathered things, which she took personally.
Annie must leave the quiet house, the dead phone, walk on the levee. When the door clicks shut she remembers she's left her key on the kitchen table. But the extra key isn't in the rock. Maybe a raccoon picked up the smell of her hands and jimmied the trap door open. Her neighborhood is infested with raccoons. During the day, they sleep in trees; at night, they root through garbage cans and eat leftovers.
Annie digs in the dirt but can't find the spare. She tries to break the small bathroom window with the pencil, which splits in half. She throws the rock hard and shields her eyes. It takes two tries before the glass shatters. Shards stick to the sleeves of her sweater, and Annie tweezes these out and lays them on her dresser like diamonds.
From the silver maple tree in her front yard, she hangs a pinecone stuffed with peanut butter and raisins.
On the computer, she looks for Jay, Googles his name, and his photo is there with the other keepers at the Audubon Zoo. A parrot named Poncho sits, cocky, on his shoulder, nuzzles his neck with her curved beak. Her head is bright blue and sleek, her body electric yellow. There are fifty websites devoted to the virtues of parrots. These birds attach themselves to one family member at the expense of the others. They scream when frustrated, and take offense at a dirty look. They sleep standing on their branches because all of their weight settles into their feet.
The front of Jay's house is quiet, the same table lamp on all night in the living room. Annie writes a word on paper that means more than sex and puts it under a smooth rock in his garden: again.
Large parrots can live to be eighty. Annie buys a bright green male with a red crown and names him Pedro. He says "Honey, I'm home" as soon as he hears her key in the door.
This is what Pedro says when Jay lets himself in with Annie's key. She's reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, and is first relieved, then startled, her instincts flip-flopped.
He says, "One of the toucans needed heart surgery and I flew with him to Miami."
The missing days fill in with answers and Annie goes to Jay, rests her head on his shoulder. Pedro squawks, yells something else Annie's taught him, "this bird flies" so they all know what he'd be doing in the Amazon. Annie drapes Pedro's cage with the dark cover. "Easy, bub," she says.
"Are you up for one of my famous kitchen sink omelettes?" Jay says later, lying next to her in bed, his foot grazing hers. Annie doesn't know hunger, only that her heart grips the branch.
At Bangkok Garden, Jay talks about birds, parrots and their habitat, how in the Amazon they look like flowers, not something to eat. That's how they defend themselves. He works in the aviary at the Audubon Zoo. He picks the caramelized shrimp out of his pad Thai, puts them on Annie's plate because he's allergic, and she pushes the pile around with her fork, afraid to squander the gift.
"Want to see how they sleep?" he says.
They drive to the zoo and walk into the glass house. Some of the birds recognize Jay and shake their feathers, others are wary and hold so still they looked stuffed, but every living thing is wide awake. A parrot screeches and flies low over their heads to another branch. "Better let them rest," he says.
They wake at dawn and eat leftover chicken in coconut milk for breakfast. Jay uncovers his parakeets' silver cages so they can sing to the morning light. Candy-colored birds swing on trapezes, jump from stand to stand, drink from the tiny water dish. While Jay cleans their cages, he lets them fly around his apartment and an orange parakeet lands on Annie's head. She holds still, not wanting to startle it and be shat on.
"Come here, June," Jay, says, snapping his fingers. "They're named after months." June lands in the palm of his hand and he sets her back in the clean cage. "Shower with me," he says to Annie. They do, and leave for their jobs without making more plans.
When Annie gets home from work, she checks under the rock for another word, but there's nothing. Too soon. She sticks a No. 2 pencil into the ground next to the stone as encouragement.
It rains for three days. Jay doesn't call and her brain roils like a high-school girl's. They shouldn't have fucked after the zoo visit. Deep black sky, night-blooming jasmine, monkeys calling out to each other like the Walton's before they settled down to sleep - all sucker punches.
She has drinks with a friend from the gym, takes him to bed to erase the sex with Jay. "How do birds sleep?" she asks him, hoping he knows.
The fourth day she puts on red lipstick and a black bra and panties. She fixes herself a curried chicken salad, slices a celery rib into thin arcs, cubes apples, chops walnuts. In what second did she fall in love and lose her turn? There was the date, the wariness, out at dinner: still her choice, small talk. Bird talk! The particularity of his concern for feathered things, which she took personally.
Annie must leave the quiet house, the dead phone, walk on the levee. When the door clicks shut she remembers she's left her key on the kitchen table. But the extra key isn't in the rock. Maybe a raccoon picked up the smell of her hands and jimmied the trap door open. Her neighborhood is infested with raccoons. During the day, they sleep in trees; at night, they root through garbage cans and eat leftovers.
Annie digs in the dirt but can't find the spare. She tries to break the small bathroom window with the pencil, which splits in half. She throws the rock hard and shields her eyes. It takes two tries before the glass shatters. Shards stick to the sleeves of her sweater, and Annie tweezes these out and lays them on her dresser like diamonds.
From the silver maple tree in her front yard, she hangs a pinecone stuffed with peanut butter and raisins.
On the computer, she looks for Jay, Googles his name, and his photo is there with the other keepers at the Audubon Zoo. A parrot named Poncho sits, cocky, on his shoulder, nuzzles his neck with her curved beak. Her head is bright blue and sleek, her body electric yellow. There are fifty websites devoted to the virtues of parrots. These birds attach themselves to one family member at the expense of the others. They scream when frustrated, and take offense at a dirty look. They sleep standing on their branches because all of their weight settles into their feet.
The front of Jay's house is quiet, the same table lamp on all night in the living room. Annie writes a word on paper that means more than sex and puts it under a smooth rock in his garden: again.
Large parrots can live to be eighty. Annie buys a bright green male with a red crown and names him Pedro. He says "Honey, I'm home" as soon as he hears her key in the door.
This is what Pedro says when Jay lets himself in with Annie's key. She's reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, and is first relieved, then startled, her instincts flip-flopped.
He says, "One of the toucans needed heart surgery and I flew with him to Miami."
The missing days fill in with answers and Annie goes to Jay, rests her head on his shoulder. Pedro squawks, yells something else Annie's taught him, "this bird flies" so they all know what he'd be doing in the Amazon. Annie drapes Pedro's cage with the dark cover. "Easy, bub," she says.
"Are you up for one of my famous kitchen sink omelettes?" Jay says later, lying next to her in bed, his foot grazing hers. Annie doesn't know hunger, only that her heart grips the branch.
November 05, 2004
Tiff Holland
Is here. But I'm greedy, so I poked around in Google to find more of her poems, but there aren't enough, Tiff, so here's a flash fiction. And please write more.
November 02, 2004
This Is The Day
Please vote. It's your own private proof.
Look who You Are A Dog's Terry Bain found: Errol Morris.
And here's a ground's-eye view of the presidential campaign by Happy Baby's
Stephen Elliott that's smart, interesting and heartfelt.
I don't know how to tell you how hard both of their books hit me, but in a couple of days, I'll try.
Look who You Are A Dog's Terry Bain found: Errol Morris.
And here's a ground's-eye view of the presidential campaign by Happy Baby's
Stephen Elliott that's smart, interesting and heartfelt.
I don't know how to tell you how hard both of their books hit me, but in a couple of days, I'll try.
recently
Another Sweet Holiday Gift Idea.
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Awww.
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A request for Jim Shepard.
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Pia's Nifty Gift Ideas.
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My Favorite Runners.
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Story Quarterly Contest.
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Clickable:
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You Try and Choose.
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Pop Up Books.
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Container Houses.
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aviary
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Pia Z. Ehrhardt.
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