One summer night Gina and her husband, while their kids were sleeping, drove to the Taylor Airport. It was a single landing strip in a pasture next to a gray steel building and a few scattered hangars for the ranchers' planes. Hank cut the lights and parked behind one of the hangars, and Gina looked back to see if there were any car lights on the county road, anyone who could have seen them go in. All she saw were the blank outlines of the mountains against the night sky.
The landing strip was butter smooth, out of place compared to the dirt roads they took to get there. They lay down in the exact middle of the strip, head to head. Gina's feet pointed towards the west, Hank's to the east. Their shoulders were each other's pillows. The stars were brutally bright, almost blinding. On her back, her cheek nuzzling Hank's, the only thing in Gina's field of vision was the sky and the blinking tower light that functioned to signal planes. She had the sudden urge to take all of her clothes off.
It felt as if the earth were pulling her down and the stars were pulling her up. Floating. She touched the asphalt with her palms to anchor herself. Hank began murmuring about the days before the kids were born and reached back to cup her face in his hand.
They left the landing strip to have sex in the grass next to the car. Gina got earth and grass in her fingernails.
Gina was reminded of the time she posted an ad to Craig's list that her dog and her children were for sale and that all reasonable offers would be considered. She had stopped to post it in the middle of cleaning the downstairs bathroom, while they still lived in the city.
They saw headlights and heard a car passing in the distance. Hank helped her put her shirt back on and she leaned into his hug as they pressed themselves against the building and giggled. The car passed and they returned to their position on the landing strip, feeling the pull of the stars until they were ready to return home.
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
A Beginning for Gina Frye
Gina Frye showed up to her second day of work with a black eye and an angry red scratch on her face.
Taylor was one of those mountain towns you could walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes. Gina left work late to walk Second Street, to feel the mountains all around and hear the few cars on Main mixed with the sound of geese landing on the river. The sun had just set and it smelled cold, like the first wet snow of the season was thinking about showing up. No skiing within a hundred miles, so the tourists here rested in cheap motels between destinations.
The quiet heightened Gina's senses and put her on edge. Last week she'd left her job in Denver and moved her husband and two kids to Taylor to become the City Manager. Downtown Denver was a comfort, and you walked noise-wrapped most hours of the day, a cop on every corner. Taylor blanketed her in a silence enhanced by small sounds. The crunch of her boots on crushed gravel, the sounds of the bar on Second on a Tuesday night. She heard a car door slam and glanced back in the dusk, watched a woman carrying groceries disappear into a tiny home.
Gina smelled beer and turned, and saw a man lurch out the back door of the Second Street bar into the alley directly in her path. He wasn't tall, but he was solid and suddenly the bar noises seemed to drown out every other noise. She glanced to the back door of the bar, shut tight against the cold. Gina took her hands out of her pockets and stepped to the right, meaning to walk around him, and she saw his eyes snap to her face, saw the sneer.
He unbuckled his belt and slid it off through his belt loops. "Hey, come here," he said, and it was like one of those movies playing in her head where she knew he was thinking it would be over quick if she didn't struggle.
She felt sorry for him.
He held the belt in his right hand and reached for her with his left, but she moved towards him, into the smell, and yanked the belt from him. She held the leather with both hands and struck him in the face with buckle.
He stumbled and went low knocking her to the ground. She brought her knees and elbows in. He punched her face, twice, two quick blows that cut out all noise. Everything went dark except for his sneer and she noticed he was wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt with no coat. She pushed out with her knees and hit the drunk in his sternum. He fell back and she extended her leg, kicking his face, hard. She broke his nose and blood exploded.
She jumped up and wrapped the belt around his neck, sliding the leather through the buckle tight. She backed up to a dumpster, dragging him by the belt, by his throat. Blood seeped into his shirt, his pants, and he stumbled up once but she had him off-balance and he fell backwards. She hung the belt leather by a buckle hole onto a bolt on the dumpster lid, and he hung there a little, choking. After he blacked out she found an old furniture mover's blanket in the weeds next to the dumpster, sticky with mud. The blanket covered him up to his neck. She took the belt off the screw and let him slump to the ground, then she loosened the buckle around his neck.
Adrenaline was coursing through her, loud in her ears. She turned and scratched her face on the screw, ripping a gash near her bruised eye. She walked into the bar and used her cell to call the sheriff, then she called her husband.
The drunk was identified, a man from Kansas on a motorcycle trip to California, fresh from losing his job and a domestic violence conviction. She felt relief at that, as if it wasn't Taylor itself attacking her but some distant, freak event that wasn't likely to happen again.
In the coming years Taylor's brutality would manifest in more subtle ways.
Taylor was one of those mountain towns you could walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes. Gina left work late to walk Second Street, to feel the mountains all around and hear the few cars on Main mixed with the sound of geese landing on the river. The sun had just set and it smelled cold, like the first wet snow of the season was thinking about showing up. No skiing within a hundred miles, so the tourists here rested in cheap motels between destinations.
The quiet heightened Gina's senses and put her on edge. Last week she'd left her job in Denver and moved her husband and two kids to Taylor to become the City Manager. Downtown Denver was a comfort, and you walked noise-wrapped most hours of the day, a cop on every corner. Taylor blanketed her in a silence enhanced by small sounds. The crunch of her boots on crushed gravel, the sounds of the bar on Second on a Tuesday night. She heard a car door slam and glanced back in the dusk, watched a woman carrying groceries disappear into a tiny home.
Gina smelled beer and turned, and saw a man lurch out the back door of the Second Street bar into the alley directly in her path. He wasn't tall, but he was solid and suddenly the bar noises seemed to drown out every other noise. She glanced to the back door of the bar, shut tight against the cold. Gina took her hands out of her pockets and stepped to the right, meaning to walk around him, and she saw his eyes snap to her face, saw the sneer.
He unbuckled his belt and slid it off through his belt loops. "Hey, come here," he said, and it was like one of those movies playing in her head where she knew he was thinking it would be over quick if she didn't struggle.
She felt sorry for him.
He held the belt in his right hand and reached for her with his left, but she moved towards him, into the smell, and yanked the belt from him. She held the leather with both hands and struck him in the face with buckle.
He stumbled and went low knocking her to the ground. She brought her knees and elbows in. He punched her face, twice, two quick blows that cut out all noise. Everything went dark except for his sneer and she noticed he was wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt with no coat. She pushed out with her knees and hit the drunk in his sternum. He fell back and she extended her leg, kicking his face, hard. She broke his nose and blood exploded.
She jumped up and wrapped the belt around his neck, sliding the leather through the buckle tight. She backed up to a dumpster, dragging him by the belt, by his throat. Blood seeped into his shirt, his pants, and he stumbled up once but she had him off-balance and he fell backwards. She hung the belt leather by a buckle hole onto a bolt on the dumpster lid, and he hung there a little, choking. After he blacked out she found an old furniture mover's blanket in the weeds next to the dumpster, sticky with mud. The blanket covered him up to his neck. She took the belt off the screw and let him slump to the ground, then she loosened the buckle around his neck.
Adrenaline was coursing through her, loud in her ears. She turned and scratched her face on the screw, ripping a gash near her bruised eye. She walked into the bar and used her cell to call the sheriff, then she called her husband.
The drunk was identified, a man from Kansas on a motorcycle trip to California, fresh from losing his job and a domestic violence conviction. She felt relief at that, as if it wasn't Taylor itself attacking her but some distant, freak event that wasn't likely to happen again.
In the coming years Taylor's brutality would manifest in more subtle ways.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Left-handed Art
My sister tells me her dreams.
Dream #1: An African Warrior is living in her garage. She asks him, "Do you eat here, do you sleep here?"
Dream #2: She finds two severed arms, severed above the elbow and below the wrist. They have hanging tendons. She picks them up and finds that they are floppy and hilarious.
This is the story that came out of my brain, after she told me her dreams.
Two Sisters are walking down the street. One is dressed conservatively in sleek black and white, and she's wearing heels. The other is in earth colors, wears flip-flops, and is wearing a scarf that serves no purpose.
The two one-armed Sisters link elbows and walk into a garage. It is the Warrior's lair.
One Sister giggles.
The other frowns. She wants to scratch her nose but she can't.
The garage has throw rugs on the hard concrete. There are beautiful tribal wall hangings and a round wooden table, with three high-backed upholstered chairs. The sisters take seats across from the African Warrior.
She leans in, ten lacquered nails resting on the table.
"How do we become warriors?" the flip-flopped Colorful Sister asks.
"Fuck everyone."
"Fuck everyone?" the high-heeled Black and White Sister asks. "My boss, men, women, hermaphrodites, my husband, my girlfriend, everyone?"
"No," the Warrior says. "Fuck everyone. Their opinion of you doesn't matter."
Black and White Sister stares. "Do you realize we have two arms? Between the two of us? When we tell the stories of how we lost our arms, people form opinions of us, as if they hadn't already been thinking nasty horrible things when they see our one arms. I lost my arm in a slow-speed chase of an ice cream truck last July. My arm got stuck in the freezer in the back of the truck, and the music was so loud, the driver didn't hear, and everyone who saw me running behind the truck thought I was an overenthusiastic ice cream lover, and they thought I was screaming for ice cream, and all they did was wave at me. My sister here, she went zip-lining in South America, fell sixty feet into the waiting maw of the jungle below, and lost her arm to flesh-eating bacteria."
Black and White Sister and the African Warrior look expectantly at Colorful Sister. Colorful Sister smiles serenely and says, "I understand."
"What is it you understand? Not to go zip-lining in South America again? Not to wander into strange people's garages?" Black and White Sister is red-faced.
"Fuck everyone." Colorful Sister extricates her arm from Black and White Sister and high-fives the Warrior.
"Now we will draw severed arms, and give them personalities." The Warrior leads them to a section of the garage splattered with paint.
Black and White Sister crosses her arm. "I came for enlightenment, I came to feel better about my situation, and you want us to draw?"
Warrior and Colorful Sister kneel on the floor and begin mixing finger paints. Fleshy colors mostly.
Colorful Sister quickly sketches her arm onto the canvas and just for giggles, draws it severed at the wrist. She draws a forearm with an elbow really, and some silky tendons hanging out where the fingers should be. It is whole, beautiful, all by itself on white canvas, glowing, no hint of flesh-eating bacteria anywhere.
Black and White Sister kneels down and mixes her finger paints. She sketches a hard form, almost a 3-D boxy stick arm, with five strong fingers, all in a fist, except that the middle finger is raised high, tall and proud.
The Warrior beams.
Black and White Sister surveys her work with satisfaction. "So you eat here, in this garage?" she asks.
"Yes," the Warrior says, gesturing to the stove in the corner.
"You sleep here?"
"Yes," the Warrior says, gesturing to a mattress with neatly folded blankets behind a colorful hanging tapestry.
Black and White Sister looks at Colorful Sister. "I don't get your Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, One Hundred Years of Solitude symbolic notion of life and why you dragged me here."
"Fuck you," says the Colorful Sister.
The Warrior beams.
The Sisters hug, thank the Warrior, and leave the garage, arm in arm.
Warrior's husband comes out from behind the colorful tapestry. "I'm glad they're gone. I wasn't going to get in the middle of that."
Dream #1: An African Warrior is living in her garage. She asks him, "Do you eat here, do you sleep here?"
Dream #2: She finds two severed arms, severed above the elbow and below the wrist. They have hanging tendons. She picks them up and finds that they are floppy and hilarious.
This is the story that came out of my brain, after she told me her dreams.
Two Sisters are walking down the street. One is dressed conservatively in sleek black and white, and she's wearing heels. The other is in earth colors, wears flip-flops, and is wearing a scarf that serves no purpose.
The two one-armed Sisters link elbows and walk into a garage. It is the Warrior's lair.
One Sister giggles.
The other frowns. She wants to scratch her nose but she can't.
The garage has throw rugs on the hard concrete. There are beautiful tribal wall hangings and a round wooden table, with three high-backed upholstered chairs. The sisters take seats across from the African Warrior.
She leans in, ten lacquered nails resting on the table.
"How do we become warriors?" the flip-flopped Colorful Sister asks.
"Fuck everyone."
"Fuck everyone?" the high-heeled Black and White Sister asks. "My boss, men, women, hermaphrodites, my husband, my girlfriend, everyone?"
"No," the Warrior says. "Fuck everyone. Their opinion of you doesn't matter."
Black and White Sister stares. "Do you realize we have two arms? Between the two of us? When we tell the stories of how we lost our arms, people form opinions of us, as if they hadn't already been thinking nasty horrible things when they see our one arms. I lost my arm in a slow-speed chase of an ice cream truck last July. My arm got stuck in the freezer in the back of the truck, and the music was so loud, the driver didn't hear, and everyone who saw me running behind the truck thought I was an overenthusiastic ice cream lover, and they thought I was screaming for ice cream, and all they did was wave at me. My sister here, she went zip-lining in South America, fell sixty feet into the waiting maw of the jungle below, and lost her arm to flesh-eating bacteria."
Black and White Sister and the African Warrior look expectantly at Colorful Sister. Colorful Sister smiles serenely and says, "I understand."
"What is it you understand? Not to go zip-lining in South America again? Not to wander into strange people's garages?" Black and White Sister is red-faced.
"Fuck everyone." Colorful Sister extricates her arm from Black and White Sister and high-fives the Warrior.
"Now we will draw severed arms, and give them personalities." The Warrior leads them to a section of the garage splattered with paint.
Black and White Sister crosses her arm. "I came for enlightenment, I came to feel better about my situation, and you want us to draw?"
Warrior and Colorful Sister kneel on the floor and begin mixing finger paints. Fleshy colors mostly.
Colorful Sister quickly sketches her arm onto the canvas and just for giggles, draws it severed at the wrist. She draws a forearm with an elbow really, and some silky tendons hanging out where the fingers should be. It is whole, beautiful, all by itself on white canvas, glowing, no hint of flesh-eating bacteria anywhere.
Black and White Sister kneels down and mixes her finger paints. She sketches a hard form, almost a 3-D boxy stick arm, with five strong fingers, all in a fist, except that the middle finger is raised high, tall and proud.
The Warrior beams.
Black and White Sister surveys her work with satisfaction. "So you eat here, in this garage?" she asks.
"Yes," the Warrior says, gesturing to the stove in the corner.
"You sleep here?"
"Yes," the Warrior says, gesturing to a mattress with neatly folded blankets behind a colorful hanging tapestry.
Black and White Sister looks at Colorful Sister. "I don't get your Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, One Hundred Years of Solitude symbolic notion of life and why you dragged me here."
"Fuck you," says the Colorful Sister.
The Warrior beams.
The Sisters hug, thank the Warrior, and leave the garage, arm in arm.
Warrior's husband comes out from behind the colorful tapestry. "I'm glad they're gone. I wasn't going to get in the middle of that."
Sunday, May 5, 2013
The Gap
You are a powerful woman. Uncompromising, strong, everything I want you to be. But you are feminine - caring, unsure, vulnerable. This tension is unique to you. Say it in your writing. Your voice is valuable. - Papa, Christmas 2007
Here are the items she brought to the meeting: pen, notebook, Droid, and water bottle. She was excellent at dissecting a conversation, especially when those in authority were pontificating. Ignoring out-loud thinking and capturing her assignments on paper was her specialty.
The other managers were there, all men smooth and leaning back casually in their leather chairs, tossing out half-formed opinions and receiving thoughtful nods from the men higher up the food chain.
Neanderthal idiot goons, she thought, keeping her ankles crossed and an attentive smile on her face.
The discussion turned to fundraising. Mike from marketing, bless his heart, spoke up first.
"Sponsorships are essential to our next five years. I cannot stress how much our financial sustainability depends on alternative funding sources in these economic times."
Jim was next.
"To build on Mike's excellent statement, I would agree and also add that we need to think outside the box."
Then Ted.
"Yes, I agree with Jim and Mike and their valuable insight. We need to think outside the box and find unconvential alternatives."
She put her pen down.
Robert said, "We'll have to train our workforce to think outside the box. They don't do that very well."
Murmers of assent flowed around the table like the wave at a baseball game. There was a high five at the other end of the table.
She couldn't stand it anymore. She cleared her throat and said, "I think we need to put a request for proposals out for retailers to sponsor our delivery trucks statewide. I've analyzed the return on investment and if they give us a million dollars they can reasonably expect eight hundred thousand impressions."
As she was speaking, Robert and Jim turned in their chairs toward the CEO and leaned forward. Other than that, no one moved, and no one made eye contact with her.
Four seconds of silence passed.
Ted said, "I agree with Robert's excellent point. We can no longer afford to be the only ones with unconvential thinking. We need our entire company thinking about how to raise funds right now."
"Now is that a training problem, or a talent problem?" Jim asked.
Resigned sighs rippled through the room, making her guess that they thought the company's talent problem was hopeless.
Robert pointed his finger high into the air and said, "What about - and this thought just hit me now - what about our fleet? What about all that blank space on our trucks? I bet we could find a corporate sponsor who wants a piece of that."
Ted leaned forward in his chair.
The CEO said, "Robert, that's an excellent idea. How much do you think we should go after?"
Robert said, "Oh, I would say about one million dollars would get us back on our feet for now."
"I like the idea Robert. Get a team together and let's see what you can do. Give me an update in a week."
Her pen slipped to the floor. She rose out of her chair and bent to pick it up, then thought better of it. She stood, squared her shoulders and spoke.
****************************************************************************
Here are the items she brought to the meeting a week later: a cup of coffee and her Droid. As she sat down Robert handed her the sponsorship status report.
The CEO strolled in and parked himself in the seat next to her. "How are they doing, Rachel?"
"I've got a good team, Frank. We're on track to put out the sponsorship bid on Friday. We've got two potential funders on board already."
Robert said, "Sir, your decision to make Rachel our supervisor was the best you could have made. She is wholly engaged in ensuring a successful outcome on this project."
"I agree with Robert," Ted said.
Jim and Mike looked a little sick.
Here are the items she brought to the meeting: pen, notebook, Droid, and water bottle. She was excellent at dissecting a conversation, especially when those in authority were pontificating. Ignoring out-loud thinking and capturing her assignments on paper was her specialty.
The other managers were there, all men smooth and leaning back casually in their leather chairs, tossing out half-formed opinions and receiving thoughtful nods from the men higher up the food chain.
Neanderthal idiot goons, she thought, keeping her ankles crossed and an attentive smile on her face.
The discussion turned to fundraising. Mike from marketing, bless his heart, spoke up first.
"Sponsorships are essential to our next five years. I cannot stress how much our financial sustainability depends on alternative funding sources in these economic times."
Jim was next.
"To build on Mike's excellent statement, I would agree and also add that we need to think outside the box."
Then Ted.
"Yes, I agree with Jim and Mike and their valuable insight. We need to think outside the box and find unconvential alternatives."
She put her pen down.
Robert said, "We'll have to train our workforce to think outside the box. They don't do that very well."
Murmers of assent flowed around the table like the wave at a baseball game. There was a high five at the other end of the table.
She couldn't stand it anymore. She cleared her throat and said, "I think we need to put a request for proposals out for retailers to sponsor our delivery trucks statewide. I've analyzed the return on investment and if they give us a million dollars they can reasonably expect eight hundred thousand impressions."
As she was speaking, Robert and Jim turned in their chairs toward the CEO and leaned forward. Other than that, no one moved, and no one made eye contact with her.
Four seconds of silence passed.
Ted said, "I agree with Robert's excellent point. We can no longer afford to be the only ones with unconvential thinking. We need our entire company thinking about how to raise funds right now."
"Now is that a training problem, or a talent problem?" Jim asked.
Resigned sighs rippled through the room, making her guess that they thought the company's talent problem was hopeless.
Robert pointed his finger high into the air and said, "What about - and this thought just hit me now - what about our fleet? What about all that blank space on our trucks? I bet we could find a corporate sponsor who wants a piece of that."
Ted leaned forward in his chair.
The CEO said, "Robert, that's an excellent idea. How much do you think we should go after?"
Robert said, "Oh, I would say about one million dollars would get us back on our feet for now."
"I like the idea Robert. Get a team together and let's see what you can do. Give me an update in a week."
Her pen slipped to the floor. She rose out of her chair and bent to pick it up, then thought better of it. She stood, squared her shoulders and spoke.
****************************************************************************
Here are the items she brought to the meeting a week later: a cup of coffee and her Droid. As she sat down Robert handed her the sponsorship status report.
The CEO strolled in and parked himself in the seat next to her. "How are they doing, Rachel?"
"I've got a good team, Frank. We're on track to put out the sponsorship bid on Friday. We've got two potential funders on board already."
Robert said, "Sir, your decision to make Rachel our supervisor was the best you could have made. She is wholly engaged in ensuring a successful outcome on this project."
"I agree with Robert," Ted said.
Jim and Mike looked a little sick.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Fran's First Town Meeting
Oliver sat in the back like he was watching a trainwreck.
Rio Luna's courtroom doubled as the Town Council's meeting place. The five men huddled behind the judge's bench, shoulder to shoulder, squeezing their chairs together to fit behind the large wooden block. The gavel was pushed aside but the message was not lost on Fran.
The Chairman had a shaggy gray moustache, the hairs of which floated when he talked. The other council members nodded up and down along with the Chairman's voice.
The issue was paint. To be specific, paint the Chairman called gaudy and "not at all in the spirit of the Rio Luna town philosophy of conduct." The person in question was young, and female, and new. Not really new, because she was born in Rio Luna, but new because she decided to paint the bar a different color after she inherited the business from her deceased father. New because she had just added a small renovation to her bar and was serving coffee in the morning.
The paint was neon and the style was semi-Victorian, and the few tourists that flew through Rio Luna on their way to Vegas preferred it, rather than the old cafe with vinyl seats.
And the old cafe was owned by the Chairman's brother. Fran took her coffee at the bar.
The young bar owner, in her twenties, poor thing, was rubbing her thumbnail with her index finger, over and over again, and was looking sideways at the council, making eye contact, but keeping her head averted all the same. Her testimony was fractured and nervous, and no one in the meeting remembered what she said.
Fran sat at the folding table behind the podium, put together in her button-up dress. To her amazement, the only emotion she could muster was amusement.
The Chairman finished speaking, and said, "Well, Fran, unless you have a response to that, I will call a vote to close the bar. I think we've all decided."
Fran said, "Two words come to mind." She pointed at the Chairman. "Pontificator." She pointed to the other four men behind the judge's bench. "Sycophants."
The court room was silent. Fran wasn't sure if they were stunned or if they needed a dictionary.
Rio Luna's courtroom doubled as the Town Council's meeting place. The five men huddled behind the judge's bench, shoulder to shoulder, squeezing their chairs together to fit behind the large wooden block. The gavel was pushed aside but the message was not lost on Fran.
The Chairman had a shaggy gray moustache, the hairs of which floated when he talked. The other council members nodded up and down along with the Chairman's voice.
The issue was paint. To be specific, paint the Chairman called gaudy and "not at all in the spirit of the Rio Luna town philosophy of conduct." The person in question was young, and female, and new. Not really new, because she was born in Rio Luna, but new because she decided to paint the bar a different color after she inherited the business from her deceased father. New because she had just added a small renovation to her bar and was serving coffee in the morning.
The paint was neon and the style was semi-Victorian, and the few tourists that flew through Rio Luna on their way to Vegas preferred it, rather than the old cafe with vinyl seats.
And the old cafe was owned by the Chairman's brother. Fran took her coffee at the bar.
The young bar owner, in her twenties, poor thing, was rubbing her thumbnail with her index finger, over and over again, and was looking sideways at the council, making eye contact, but keeping her head averted all the same. Her testimony was fractured and nervous, and no one in the meeting remembered what she said.
Fran sat at the folding table behind the podium, put together in her button-up dress. To her amazement, the only emotion she could muster was amusement.
The Chairman finished speaking, and said, "Well, Fran, unless you have a response to that, I will call a vote to close the bar. I think we've all decided."
Fran said, "Two words come to mind." She pointed at the Chairman. "Pontificator." She pointed to the other four men behind the judge's bench. "Sycophants."
The court room was silent. Fran wasn't sure if they were stunned or if they needed a dictionary.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Carrying On
Fran opened the door into her home and heard voices. She walked through the dining room to say hello to Oliver, to ask what he was doing home so early. Then the woman's laugh drifted through the closed kitchen door, and Fran stopped.
Cabinets opened and closed, dishes and silverware were set on the table, the water ran in the sink and was quiet. The smell of cold roast and pickles and the sound of Oliver's low, pleased grumble made it to Fran, all the way to the dining room.
Fran would have rather caught them in bed.
She nudged the door open and walked into the kitchen, pretending to be surprised, as if she were the one who had something to hide. The woman was a young beatnik, dressed impossibly in long blue striped pants and a flowered blue shirt, and bare feet. She was standing behind Oliver as if to be ready in case he needed more food, or salt, or a refill on his coffee. They were not touching.
"I thought you volunteered at the school on Tuesdays," Oliver said to her, an accusation.
"I had a headache," Fran said.
Fran had always imagined hippies smelled bad and didn't comb their hair, but this young woman smelled like lavender and had long, silky brown hair tied neatly with a scarf. Fran could see a soft freckled shoulder and no bra strap. The woman gathered Oliver's empty plate and placed it in the sink, and without a trace of shame, set to doing the dishes. The plate, the fork, the cup and the dish towel found their homes while Oliver and Fran looked on, as if they were watching the theater.
It was Fran, not Oliver, she addressed. "Tears will build up in your ears if you don't cry them out, and then you won't hear anything." She touched Fran's face and left, and they both watched her climb into her little white Ford Falcon parked across the street and drive away, still barefoot.
It was the only day in their entire marriage that Fran did not make dinner. She lay in the lavender-scented bed and listened as the children came home from school, while Oliver boomed that their mother wasn't feeling well and he would take everyone out for hamburgers and shakes.
In the twilight of their lives, in one of her deliriums, Fran would take electric pruning shears to her husband, but they never spoke of it.
To read more about Fran and Oliver, and the electric pruning shears episode, click "Fran and Oliver" on the right, or search for "The Toe," one of my fiction stories.
Cabinets opened and closed, dishes and silverware were set on the table, the water ran in the sink and was quiet. The smell of cold roast and pickles and the sound of Oliver's low, pleased grumble made it to Fran, all the way to the dining room.
Fran would have rather caught them in bed.
She nudged the door open and walked into the kitchen, pretending to be surprised, as if she were the one who had something to hide. The woman was a young beatnik, dressed impossibly in long blue striped pants and a flowered blue shirt, and bare feet. She was standing behind Oliver as if to be ready in case he needed more food, or salt, or a refill on his coffee. They were not touching.
"I thought you volunteered at the school on Tuesdays," Oliver said to her, an accusation.
"I had a headache," Fran said.
Fran had always imagined hippies smelled bad and didn't comb their hair, but this young woman smelled like lavender and had long, silky brown hair tied neatly with a scarf. Fran could see a soft freckled shoulder and no bra strap. The woman gathered Oliver's empty plate and placed it in the sink, and without a trace of shame, set to doing the dishes. The plate, the fork, the cup and the dish towel found their homes while Oliver and Fran looked on, as if they were watching the theater.
It was Fran, not Oliver, she addressed. "Tears will build up in your ears if you don't cry them out, and then you won't hear anything." She touched Fran's face and left, and they both watched her climb into her little white Ford Falcon parked across the street and drive away, still barefoot.
It was the only day in their entire marriage that Fran did not make dinner. She lay in the lavender-scented bed and listened as the children came home from school, while Oliver boomed that their mother wasn't feeling well and he would take everyone out for hamburgers and shakes.
In the twilight of their lives, in one of her deliriums, Fran would take electric pruning shears to her husband, but they never spoke of it.
To read more about Fran and Oliver, and the electric pruning shears episode, click "Fran and Oliver" on the right, or search for "The Toe," one of my fiction stories.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Detour
Does God care more about the piss-ant town in the desert or the city, where the full-on press of people touch shoulders while their eyes bore into the sidewalk?
Fran wondered. Her husband's mind was closed to her. If she had to say whose mind she knew better, Oliver's or God's, she would say God's. She couldn't imagine Him up in the sky inhabiting every mind at once, shifting from Japan to China to Utah, and then deciding after weighing all the options to settle His gaze on her.
She sat on a cliff above the town, shoes off, toes in the grit and pebbles. It was noisy, but it wasn't. She thought she heard the highway twenty miles north, maybe a jake brake every once in a while. Western Kingbirds rushed the sun and lingered in the shade.
She smelled sage and sneezed.
If she were a betting woman, she'd put money on Him checking in on New York City, or at least somewhere on the East coast. She pondered the things all women ponder when they have a free moment:
apples
bananas
spaghetti (if she were back in New York the Italian deli would have the fresh pasta and marinara and she'd pick up some bread to go along with it)
but canned is fine, just fine
iron that shirt (and why Oliver started wearing plaid is beyond her)
organize the cupboard above the stove
send her daughter a birthday card (thirty two years already?)
psyche herself up for time with Oliver on the sofa tonight (she'd try not to be obvious about the fact that she'd rather be in the den reading a book)
butter
lemon
coffee cake
provolone
rye bread
batteries.
She traced a message for God in the sand, in case He happened to look there, then slipped her shoes on and walked to the grocery store.
Fran wondered. Her husband's mind was closed to her. If she had to say whose mind she knew better, Oliver's or God's, she would say God's. She couldn't imagine Him up in the sky inhabiting every mind at once, shifting from Japan to China to Utah, and then deciding after weighing all the options to settle His gaze on her.
She sat on a cliff above the town, shoes off, toes in the grit and pebbles. It was noisy, but it wasn't. She thought she heard the highway twenty miles north, maybe a jake brake every once in a while. Western Kingbirds rushed the sun and lingered in the shade.
She smelled sage and sneezed.
If she were a betting woman, she'd put money on Him checking in on New York City, or at least somewhere on the East coast. She pondered the things all women ponder when they have a free moment:
apples
bananas
spaghetti (if she were back in New York the Italian deli would have the fresh pasta and marinara and she'd pick up some bread to go along with it)
but canned is fine, just fine
iron that shirt (and why Oliver started wearing plaid is beyond her)
organize the cupboard above the stove
send her daughter a birthday card (thirty two years already?)
psyche herself up for time with Oliver on the sofa tonight (she'd try not to be obvious about the fact that she'd rather be in the den reading a book)
butter
lemon
coffee cake
provolone
rye bread
batteries.
She traced a message for God in the sand, in case He happened to look there, then slipped her shoes on and walked to the grocery store.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Ankle Biters
The horrid thing about giving birth was that the world expected her body to retreat into a certain round softness. Fran ripped the pins out of her hair and tossed the long strands aside, then hiked up her skirt and went down on all fours in the grass behind her garden shed. She did ten push ups, quick. Her first baby was only six months old but Fran wanted to shed her alien layered slabs of fat. She jumped up and studied herself in the shed's window. She saw no difference. All she had to show for her exercise were two bites on her ankles from the little black ants that managed to crawl unnoticed up her bare feet.
There's nothing sexier than a woman's ankles. And a red-checked skirt haphazard in folds, and dark brown hair flipped over one eye. Fran in the sunlight posing in front of the shed window - unaware that Oliver was inside the shed searching for his old favorite hammer to fix the creaky stair - was to Oliver tastier than moon pie and cold milk.
Later that evening they made baby number two.
There's nothing sexier than a woman's ankles. And a red-checked skirt haphazard in folds, and dark brown hair flipped over one eye. Fran in the sunlight posing in front of the shed window - unaware that Oliver was inside the shed searching for his old favorite hammer to fix the creaky stair - was to Oliver tastier than moon pie and cold milk.
Later that evening they made baby number two.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Toe
I found it in the desert, west of town. I saw Fran driving the old blue truck, loaded down with tree limbs and dead branches, and then I saw her climb out and pitch the stuff off the side of a shallow arroyo. It was seven in the morning, and I was walking before the heat had a chance to start baking the trail.
The toe was severed clean, like a surgeon had sliced it with a very sharp saw. It was the big toe, with a yellowed nail and a hairy toe knuckle. The bone was surrounded by meat that had dried some. It reminded me of a steak I’d forgotten about on the counter a couple of weeks ago; the desert air had sucked out the moisture and left dried, raw flesh, rough to the touch and darkened on the edges like jerky.
It rested on the sand, next to a tree limb with leaves already curling from the approaching heat.
I wondered if toeprints were like fingerprints, and if the victim could be identified from the whorls on the pad of the appendage. Did Fran know she had a toe in her truck?
I liked Fran. I did handyman work for her and her husband Oliver about once a week. Painting, mending fence, cleaning the gutters – whatever they needed. Fran always told me I was “a fine young man, but too skinny,” so she fed me dinner often: fried chicken, thick mustard potato salad, green butter beans and apple pie. I’d be shoveling in the garden and she’d take my dirty hand in her frail, spider-webbed one, and tell me to stop and eat. Sometimes she would forget my name was Chris and call me Allen or Bill, but I never corrected her. She was in her eighties, after all.
I shrugged off my backpack and got a sandwich bag full of grapes. I sat on the sand with my back to the sun so my face would be shaded. An ant found the toe, and began chewing on the fresh end near the nail. I finished the grapes and put the toe in the bag.
I kept the rest of the hike short and on the way back, I looked down where the toe had been resting. A column of ants were milling about, probably confused that the meal one of them had found was gone.
I took the toe to Tom. He was the local sheriff, the only law enforcement for fifty miles or so. I figured a severed toe was worth reporting, but I wasn’t sure what Tom could do with it.
Tom didn’t touch it at first, just sat with his arms crossed and looked at it through the plastic bag. “And where did you say you found this?”
“On my hike,” I said. “You know the trail that goes west past the arroyo?”
“Did you notice any footprints, or anything unusual about the area?” Tom asked. “There could be a whole body up there.”
“Just the toe, nothing else,” I said. “I don’t think there’s a body up there.”
“I’ll have to check it out,” Tom said. “Do you think you could take me to the spot?”
I don’t know why I lied to Tom. It just sort of happened. I took him well short of where Fran had dumped her tree branches. I made him believe I’d found the thing about three hundred yards up the trail off the paved road. Tom knelt down and looked at the footprints on the path, mushed up and vague in the sand, and took a sample of dirt in the place I’d told him I found it.
Fran had me whitewashing the fence and moving paving stones that afternoon. Oliver, in his eighties himself, waited until the shade had found the front steps before he ventured out. He was dressed as usual in a white button down shirt and high-waisted pants with suspenders. The cane was new, though.
“Oliver, did you hurt your leg?” I asked.
“Just an accident,” Oliver said. “Can’t stay young forever.”
I noticed he had one shoe on. A white sock covered the other foot, and I could see the bulky outline of a bandage underneath.
Fran poked her head out of the door, and I smelled pot roast. “Chris doesn’t want you to start in on your stories, dear. He’s hungry. Come and eat.”
The potatoes were buttery and the carrots tender, but all I could think about was the big toe.
We finished dinner and Oliver and I sat on the porch while Fran cleaned up the kitchen.
“How did you lose your big toe, Oliver?” I asked.
Oliver drew in his lips and gripped his cane before him with white knuckles. “Did Fran tell you? I didn’t think she’d remember.”
“I saw her dumping tree branches out of her truck, and I found the toe. I gave it to Tom.”
“Why would you do that? What in the hell will Tom do with a thing like that?” Oliver asked. His hands shook.
Something metal clattered to the floor in the kitchen, and Fran screamed. I rushed in and saw Fran holding her arm, blood everywhere, and her carving knife on the linoleum at her feet. Oliver limped to her and pressed a kitchen towel into her wound. She cried and fought against him, and then Oliver began to cry. It was the most bizarre scene I had ever witnessed: Fran seemed not to be in pain from her cut, but terrified of her husband of fifty years, straining against his arms so that the veins showed in her neck, as if she didn’t recognize him.
“Shhh, honey, quiet, it’s me,” Oliver was shouting over her screams, tears on his cheeks.
After about two minutes, but what seemed like an hour, Fran stopped moving and stared at Oliver as if he had just walked in for his dessert. Her expression was calm, almost happy. We bandaged her arm and took her to the bedroom, where Oliver stroked her hair until she fell asleep. He led me out to the front porch. “If you tell Tom, if you tell anyone she lopped off my toe with the electric pruning shears, I will cut something off you myself.”
“What is wrong with her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Could be Alzheimer’s or some type of dementia. That’s what our doctor in Flagstaff said. We didn’t catch it until the advanced stages.” Oliver paused, and closed his eyes. “The doctor thinks she’ll pass soon.”
“Pass? As in die?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it. She was active. She had cooked our dinner that night, worked in the garden all day.
“Chris, there’s a lot you don’t see. She’s moved those paving stones three times now. She forgets. She gets mad at me, and comes at me.”
“How about help? A nursing home or something? All these accidents…”
“That wouldn’t work. Now drop it. And like I said, if you tell anyone, I’ll take the pruning shears to you myself.”
Then Oliver sighed, big. I should have written down the words he said: “Every moment with her is a gift. The times she’s smiling at me, the times she doesn’t know who I am and the times she wants to hurt me. Sometimes around dusk she starts crying and she can’t stop, and the nights when I can comfort her, when she knows me, I hold her until she falls asleep. The nights she doesn’t know me, well, I just sit outside the bedroom door until she cries herself to sleep. When she’s out for the night, I sit on this porch and drink beer and watch the moon and I feel as lonely as anybody has ever felt. When she passes away – and she will, soon – I’ll sit on this god damn porch and drink beer and watch the moon and feel lonelier.”
I picked a time of day I thought they would like, when the sun was setting in the west and almost down and the stars were just starting to come out. The sand crunched under my hiking boots and I could almost hear the spiders wake up to start their nighttime skitters. Broken, tinder-dry branches formed a pile up ahead, and I took the paper bag marked “Evidence” out of my backpack. Tom had looked at me funny when I asked for the toe, but he hadn’t done anything to investigate the case and wrote me off as just a weird kid wanting a souvenir. The toe was defrosted from its time in the chest freezer at the sheriff’s office and almost exactly as I had found it a year before. I placed it on the sand near the branches, and said a silent prayer for Oliver and Fran, dead within two weeks of each other, lying in graves in the Rio Luna cemetery.
I don’t know why, but it felt right to let the ants pick the bone clean, to carry Oliver’s toe piece by piece to their hill.
The toe was severed clean, like a surgeon had sliced it with a very sharp saw. It was the big toe, with a yellowed nail and a hairy toe knuckle. The bone was surrounded by meat that had dried some. It reminded me of a steak I’d forgotten about on the counter a couple of weeks ago; the desert air had sucked out the moisture and left dried, raw flesh, rough to the touch and darkened on the edges like jerky.
It rested on the sand, next to a tree limb with leaves already curling from the approaching heat.
I wondered if toeprints were like fingerprints, and if the victim could be identified from the whorls on the pad of the appendage. Did Fran know she had a toe in her truck?
I liked Fran. I did handyman work for her and her husband Oliver about once a week. Painting, mending fence, cleaning the gutters – whatever they needed. Fran always told me I was “a fine young man, but too skinny,” so she fed me dinner often: fried chicken, thick mustard potato salad, green butter beans and apple pie. I’d be shoveling in the garden and she’d take my dirty hand in her frail, spider-webbed one, and tell me to stop and eat. Sometimes she would forget my name was Chris and call me Allen or Bill, but I never corrected her. She was in her eighties, after all.
I shrugged off my backpack and got a sandwich bag full of grapes. I sat on the sand with my back to the sun so my face would be shaded. An ant found the toe, and began chewing on the fresh end near the nail. I finished the grapes and put the toe in the bag.
I kept the rest of the hike short and on the way back, I looked down where the toe had been resting. A column of ants were milling about, probably confused that the meal one of them had found was gone.
I took the toe to Tom. He was the local sheriff, the only law enforcement for fifty miles or so. I figured a severed toe was worth reporting, but I wasn’t sure what Tom could do with it.
Tom didn’t touch it at first, just sat with his arms crossed and looked at it through the plastic bag. “And where did you say you found this?”
“On my hike,” I said. “You know the trail that goes west past the arroyo?”
“Did you notice any footprints, or anything unusual about the area?” Tom asked. “There could be a whole body up there.”
“Just the toe, nothing else,” I said. “I don’t think there’s a body up there.”
“I’ll have to check it out,” Tom said. “Do you think you could take me to the spot?”
I don’t know why I lied to Tom. It just sort of happened. I took him well short of where Fran had dumped her tree branches. I made him believe I’d found the thing about three hundred yards up the trail off the paved road. Tom knelt down and looked at the footprints on the path, mushed up and vague in the sand, and took a sample of dirt in the place I’d told him I found it.
Fran had me whitewashing the fence and moving paving stones that afternoon. Oliver, in his eighties himself, waited until the shade had found the front steps before he ventured out. He was dressed as usual in a white button down shirt and high-waisted pants with suspenders. The cane was new, though.
“Oliver, did you hurt your leg?” I asked.
“Just an accident,” Oliver said. “Can’t stay young forever.”
I noticed he had one shoe on. A white sock covered the other foot, and I could see the bulky outline of a bandage underneath.
Fran poked her head out of the door, and I smelled pot roast. “Chris doesn’t want you to start in on your stories, dear. He’s hungry. Come and eat.”
The potatoes were buttery and the carrots tender, but all I could think about was the big toe.
We finished dinner and Oliver and I sat on the porch while Fran cleaned up the kitchen.
“How did you lose your big toe, Oliver?” I asked.
Oliver drew in his lips and gripped his cane before him with white knuckles. “Did Fran tell you? I didn’t think she’d remember.”
“I saw her dumping tree branches out of her truck, and I found the toe. I gave it to Tom.”
“Why would you do that? What in the hell will Tom do with a thing like that?” Oliver asked. His hands shook.
Something metal clattered to the floor in the kitchen, and Fran screamed. I rushed in and saw Fran holding her arm, blood everywhere, and her carving knife on the linoleum at her feet. Oliver limped to her and pressed a kitchen towel into her wound. She cried and fought against him, and then Oliver began to cry. It was the most bizarre scene I had ever witnessed: Fran seemed not to be in pain from her cut, but terrified of her husband of fifty years, straining against his arms so that the veins showed in her neck, as if she didn’t recognize him.
“Shhh, honey, quiet, it’s me,” Oliver was shouting over her screams, tears on his cheeks.
After about two minutes, but what seemed like an hour, Fran stopped moving and stared at Oliver as if he had just walked in for his dessert. Her expression was calm, almost happy. We bandaged her arm and took her to the bedroom, where Oliver stroked her hair until she fell asleep. He led me out to the front porch. “If you tell Tom, if you tell anyone she lopped off my toe with the electric pruning shears, I will cut something off you myself.”
“What is wrong with her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Could be Alzheimer’s or some type of dementia. That’s what our doctor in Flagstaff said. We didn’t catch it until the advanced stages.” Oliver paused, and closed his eyes. “The doctor thinks she’ll pass soon.”
“Pass? As in die?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it. She was active. She had cooked our dinner that night, worked in the garden all day.
“Chris, there’s a lot you don’t see. She’s moved those paving stones three times now. She forgets. She gets mad at me, and comes at me.”
“How about help? A nursing home or something? All these accidents…”
“That wouldn’t work. Now drop it. And like I said, if you tell anyone, I’ll take the pruning shears to you myself.”
Then Oliver sighed, big. I should have written down the words he said: “Every moment with her is a gift. The times she’s smiling at me, the times she doesn’t know who I am and the times she wants to hurt me. Sometimes around dusk she starts crying and she can’t stop, and the nights when I can comfort her, when she knows me, I hold her until she falls asleep. The nights she doesn’t know me, well, I just sit outside the bedroom door until she cries herself to sleep. When she’s out for the night, I sit on this porch and drink beer and watch the moon and I feel as lonely as anybody has ever felt. When she passes away – and she will, soon – I’ll sit on this god damn porch and drink beer and watch the moon and feel lonelier.”
I picked a time of day I thought they would like, when the sun was setting in the west and almost down and the stars were just starting to come out. The sand crunched under my hiking boots and I could almost hear the spiders wake up to start their nighttime skitters. Broken, tinder-dry branches formed a pile up ahead, and I took the paper bag marked “Evidence” out of my backpack. Tom had looked at me funny when I asked for the toe, but he hadn’t done anything to investigate the case and wrote me off as just a weird kid wanting a souvenir. The toe was defrosted from its time in the chest freezer at the sheriff’s office and almost exactly as I had found it a year before. I placed it on the sand near the branches, and said a silent prayer for Oliver and Fran, dead within two weeks of each other, lying in graves in the Rio Luna cemetery.
I don’t know why, but it felt right to let the ants pick the bone clean, to carry Oliver’s toe piece by piece to their hill.
Friday, May 14, 2010
My Story on The Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Blog
http://rosecitysisters.blogspot.com/2010/05/43-conclusion.html
Check out my short fiction piece on The Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Blog.
This is a short piece from a much longer story that just won't get out of my head. It's been fifty pages, it's been five. I come back to it again and again (kind of like an old boyfriend). Submitting this 700+ word piece was my way of saying goodbye to it for a while.
I'm sure it'll be back though.
Check out my short fiction piece on The Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Blog.
This is a short piece from a much longer story that just won't get out of my head. It's been fifty pages, it's been five. I come back to it again and again (kind of like an old boyfriend). Submitting this 700+ word piece was my way of saying goodbye to it for a while.
I'm sure it'll be back though.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Short Story - The Chevy and The Smart Car
http://crazycoppertop.blogspot.com/2010/03/chevy-and-smart-car.html
I finally did write that short story - here it is.
I finally did write that short story - here it is.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Chevy and the Smart Car
Zed sold his truck. The 1984 Chevy Silverado with the smooth brown and red leather bench seat and stick shift. Girls would scooch left to press their thighs against him while they bumped down dirt roads. The truck smelled of fall hunting trips: thick pregnant pine needles, red clay and sagebrush stuck in the undercarriage. All the work he'd done. A homemade scissor lift for the front end, crossover steering, a built 350 with 700 trans and 205 transfer case. Gone. For her.
Her lips, her jelly bean-colored high heels. Her power. The sex. Jesus.
Janelle had a good job, an education. She was a lawyer for the local city attorney's office. They met at a bar one night. She was smart, funny and held his hand the right way. At first she called him country boy, admired his farmer's tan, called the elk and deer in his freezer the "lean, organic alternative to beef."
And unlike any other woman he'd been with, she was passionate about her causes. She had her own life and it fascinated him to be blasted by a real opinion backed up by genuine thoughts. She took up the cause of breast cancer research. He missed a couple hunting trips to do some 5k walks where he wore pink over his camo pants. She marched with him, lacquered nails gently steering his elbow, walking next to the right people, the ones with political connections. She hadn't had cancer, nor had anyone in her family. The mayor had just gone through chemo for it though, and it was a way in for Janelle - a conversation starter.
She asked him to move in while they were waiting for their food at a taco stand: "This weekend my schedule's clear - bring some boxes over and I'll clear out some space in the medicine cabinet."
She lived on the hill overlooking downtown, in a three story modern jangle of metal and wood. He sold his house. She demanded that his guns and hunting gear go into storage, because "the camo doesn't fit the modern decor in this house." He drove his Chevy an extra twenty miles to the job site every day where he worked on the pipelines running natural gas from farm fields south to the big city.
Zed was watching Wheel of Fortune one night in her (their) cavernous media room. "Darling, look at this adorable Hummer!" Janelle waved the Hummer dealer's catalogue in front of his face.
He cringed. It was pink. A pink Hummer H2 with 22 inch double duece chrome rims. The phrase "sport utility truck," made him throw up in his mouth a little bit every time he heard it. "Beautiful," he said. "How much does something like that cost?"
"It's a statement, silly. It's not about the cost. I'm the chairwoman of the Tri-Town Breast Cancer Awareness Group. When they see me in this, people will know I care." Janelle wrapped her perfumed arms around him and whispered, "The salesman is adding a strut front grill. And they are making sure the bed is fully rhino-lined for your deer hunting trips."
Zed said, "Well, that's great. But I'll just take my old Chevy for the trips. We don't need to mess up your new Hummer."
Janelle slid her hand up his thigh. "Well, I was thinking...." She licked his ear. "We don't need two trucks. And yours is so old and nasty. I hear the brakes creaking when you come home from work."
"That truck is my baby, baby girl." Zed parted her lips with his tongue and put his hands under her shirt. "Let's talk about this later."
Hunting seasons came and went, and Zed didn't get to go. Too many political functions where he was hanging on Janelle's arm. November elections put a new mayor in office. One who wanted to implement a city-wide energy savings environmental plan. Janelle bought a Smart Car. The model was called "ForTwo" because, literally, only two people could fit inside. And they couldn't be tall people. The car was silver, shiny, tiny. She pinned a napkin-sized American flag to the antenna.
The night she came home with it, she didn't tell him until after they'd spent some sweaty time on the kitchen floor. Zed held her and stared up at the ceiling while she ticked off its features.
"I've had GPS navigation and Onstar installed in case some jerk in a gas-guzzling SUV hits me and causes serious injury," Janelle said. "And honey, can you whip up a survival kit that will fit in the trunk? I need something to hold me over until the ambulance comes - I just know that I'll get in some horrible accident."
"Sure, I'll get you an Action Packer and some gauze, sweet thing," Zed said.
"What are we going to do with those horrible big trucks?"
Zed didn't say anything.
"I mean, it doesn't look good for the next City Attorney to be driving around in a monster."
"You can park Pinkie in the garage," Zed said.
"I'm going to sell that horrible thing," Janelle said. "I don't know what I was thinking. But I want to get a good price. In the meantime..." and she dug her fingernails into his abdomen, "we need to downsize." Then she climbed on top of him and bit his chest and he forgot to answer.
Janelle did some research, and discovered that a 1984 Chevy Silverado in excellent condition was considered a classic by some, and she arranged for Zed to meet a buyer the next week. The buyer smacked him on the back and the tears Zed had been holding back shot out of his eyes.
That's how he ended up sneaking out at four in the morning with a pink Hummer H2 to pump gas so none of his buddies would see him. The gas station attendant gave him funny looks, so Zed kept his head down under his camo ballcap and his eyes fixed to the ground. He'd get to work about 4:30 and park a quarter of a mile away behind an old gravel pit, and walk in with his lunch.
After work one day he took the thing up to the forest service roads and got into some muddy two-tracks. Brown globs covered the pink mostly, even on the roof. Zed saw a cliff in the distance, drove off-road straight for it, gunned the engine, and fantasized about jumping out at the last second while the vehicle flew through the air over the edge. He put on the brakes in the slush and the mud at the last second, and stared out at the sunset. What about next year's hunting trips? What would his buddies think when he threw a deer in the back of this pink beast? What the hell was he doing, sneaking in to work? Filling up a gas tank once a day at four in the morning?
So the next day he called the buyer. Told him he'd do a straight up swap - Zed's $50,000 Hummer for the $9,000 1984 Chevy. Maybe it was the money, maybe it was the choke in Zed's voice that convinced the guy, but it worked.
Then he bought a ring. A simple gold band. It bounced in its box on the red and brown leather seat.
They pulled in the driveway at the same time: the Smart Car and the Chevy. He got out of the truck, gathered her up in his arms and threw her over his shoulder, ignoring her stream of words:
"What is that truck doing here? Where's the Hummer? What are you doing? This is a five hundred dollar suit!"
Zed tossed her on the bench seat, peeled out of the driveway and headed for the mountains. "Come here, darlin'," he said. He pulled her over the stick shift so that she was almost in his lap. "Shut up until we get where we're going."
It was his favorite hunting spot. A road that ended in sagebrush with a view of the red rocks below. He snaked his hand under her - she jumped - and he brought out the box. He killed the engine and showed her the ring. "Will you?"
Janelle looked at him for a minute. She smiled, a real, genuine smile. Then her lower lip puffed out and her mouth took over: "I like the platinum with the princess cut diamonds, five of them, set in a curve..."
"Take it or leave it," Zed said.
Janelle slid out of her heels and rested one bare foot on the dash. The truck engine ticked. She looked at him, at his truck, at the ring. "I suppose you want me to bear your children, too?"
"Just a passel of 'em or so, sweetheart."
Her lips, her jelly bean-colored high heels. Her power. The sex. Jesus.
Janelle had a good job, an education. She was a lawyer for the local city attorney's office. They met at a bar one night. She was smart, funny and held his hand the right way. At first she called him country boy, admired his farmer's tan, called the elk and deer in his freezer the "lean, organic alternative to beef."
And unlike any other woman he'd been with, she was passionate about her causes. She had her own life and it fascinated him to be blasted by a real opinion backed up by genuine thoughts. She took up the cause of breast cancer research. He missed a couple hunting trips to do some 5k walks where he wore pink over his camo pants. She marched with him, lacquered nails gently steering his elbow, walking next to the right people, the ones with political connections. She hadn't had cancer, nor had anyone in her family. The mayor had just gone through chemo for it though, and it was a way in for Janelle - a conversation starter.
She asked him to move in while they were waiting for their food at a taco stand: "This weekend my schedule's clear - bring some boxes over and I'll clear out some space in the medicine cabinet."
She lived on the hill overlooking downtown, in a three story modern jangle of metal and wood. He sold his house. She demanded that his guns and hunting gear go into storage, because "the camo doesn't fit the modern decor in this house." He drove his Chevy an extra twenty miles to the job site every day where he worked on the pipelines running natural gas from farm fields south to the big city.
Zed was watching Wheel of Fortune one night in her (their) cavernous media room. "Darling, look at this adorable Hummer!" Janelle waved the Hummer dealer's catalogue in front of his face.
He cringed. It was pink. A pink Hummer H2 with 22 inch double duece chrome rims. The phrase "sport utility truck," made him throw up in his mouth a little bit every time he heard it. "Beautiful," he said. "How much does something like that cost?"
"It's a statement, silly. It's not about the cost. I'm the chairwoman of the Tri-Town Breast Cancer Awareness Group. When they see me in this, people will know I care." Janelle wrapped her perfumed arms around him and whispered, "The salesman is adding a strut front grill. And they are making sure the bed is fully rhino-lined for your deer hunting trips."
Zed said, "Well, that's great. But I'll just take my old Chevy for the trips. We don't need to mess up your new Hummer."
Janelle slid her hand up his thigh. "Well, I was thinking...." She licked his ear. "We don't need two trucks. And yours is so old and nasty. I hear the brakes creaking when you come home from work."
"That truck is my baby, baby girl." Zed parted her lips with his tongue and put his hands under her shirt. "Let's talk about this later."
Hunting seasons came and went, and Zed didn't get to go. Too many political functions where he was hanging on Janelle's arm. November elections put a new mayor in office. One who wanted to implement a city-wide energy savings environmental plan. Janelle bought a Smart Car. The model was called "ForTwo" because, literally, only two people could fit inside. And they couldn't be tall people. The car was silver, shiny, tiny. She pinned a napkin-sized American flag to the antenna.
The night she came home with it, she didn't tell him until after they'd spent some sweaty time on the kitchen floor. Zed held her and stared up at the ceiling while she ticked off its features.
"I've had GPS navigation and Onstar installed in case some jerk in a gas-guzzling SUV hits me and causes serious injury," Janelle said. "And honey, can you whip up a survival kit that will fit in the trunk? I need something to hold me over until the ambulance comes - I just know that I'll get in some horrible accident."
"Sure, I'll get you an Action Packer and some gauze, sweet thing," Zed said.
"What are we going to do with those horrible big trucks?"
Zed didn't say anything.
"I mean, it doesn't look good for the next City Attorney to be driving around in a monster."
"You can park Pinkie in the garage," Zed said.
"I'm going to sell that horrible thing," Janelle said. "I don't know what I was thinking. But I want to get a good price. In the meantime..." and she dug her fingernails into his abdomen, "we need to downsize." Then she climbed on top of him and bit his chest and he forgot to answer.
Janelle did some research, and discovered that a 1984 Chevy Silverado in excellent condition was considered a classic by some, and she arranged for Zed to meet a buyer the next week. The buyer smacked him on the back and the tears Zed had been holding back shot out of his eyes.
That's how he ended up sneaking out at four in the morning with a pink Hummer H2 to pump gas so none of his buddies would see him. The gas station attendant gave him funny looks, so Zed kept his head down under his camo ballcap and his eyes fixed to the ground. He'd get to work about 4:30 and park a quarter of a mile away behind an old gravel pit, and walk in with his lunch.
After work one day he took the thing up to the forest service roads and got into some muddy two-tracks. Brown globs covered the pink mostly, even on the roof. Zed saw a cliff in the distance, drove off-road straight for it, gunned the engine, and fantasized about jumping out at the last second while the vehicle flew through the air over the edge. He put on the brakes in the slush and the mud at the last second, and stared out at the sunset. What about next year's hunting trips? What would his buddies think when he threw a deer in the back of this pink beast? What the hell was he doing, sneaking in to work? Filling up a gas tank once a day at four in the morning?
So the next day he called the buyer. Told him he'd do a straight up swap - Zed's $50,000 Hummer for the $9,000 1984 Chevy. Maybe it was the money, maybe it was the choke in Zed's voice that convinced the guy, but it worked.
Then he bought a ring. A simple gold band. It bounced in its box on the red and brown leather seat.
They pulled in the driveway at the same time: the Smart Car and the Chevy. He got out of the truck, gathered her up in his arms and threw her over his shoulder, ignoring her stream of words:
"What is that truck doing here? Where's the Hummer? What are you doing? This is a five hundred dollar suit!"
Zed tossed her on the bench seat, peeled out of the driveway and headed for the mountains. "Come here, darlin'," he said. He pulled her over the stick shift so that she was almost in his lap. "Shut up until we get where we're going."
It was his favorite hunting spot. A road that ended in sagebrush with a view of the red rocks below. He snaked his hand under her - she jumped - and he brought out the box. He killed the engine and showed her the ring. "Will you?"
Janelle looked at him for a minute. She smiled, a real, genuine smile. Then her lower lip puffed out and her mouth took over: "I like the platinum with the princess cut diamonds, five of them, set in a curve..."
"Take it or leave it," Zed said.
Janelle slid out of her heels and rested one bare foot on the dash. The truck engine ticked. She looked at him, at his truck, at the ring. "I suppose you want me to bear your children, too?"
"Just a passel of 'em or so, sweetheart."
Friday, February 19, 2010
My story on Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Anthology
http://rosecitysisters.blogspot.com/2010/02/38-bertinas-playlist.html
Hey ya'll,
Check out my story on Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Anthology. :)
Hey ya'll,
Check out my story on Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Anthology. :)
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Belinda's playlist
Belinda was a large German woman who sat hunched in her office most days. I dreaded asking her for a deadline extension on the paperwork. She always looked either insulted or angry when I asked for anything outside of normal routine.
Her office was in the basement, sandwiched between the custodian's closet and the men's restroom. She wasn't behind her desk, so I decided to wait. I sat in a rickety plastic chair shoved into the corner. It was the first real chance I'd had to study her work space. Usually our conversations were short verbal missives fired at each other while I was half-turned to go and her eyes were glued on her computer.
Haphazard cords fell from the back of her computer, which faced the doorway. There were no plants - no way they would survive in the windowless basement. One glaring ceiling light buzzed above; a dust-covered bookcase housed cracked plastic binders. Belinda had one picture on the wall: a yellow cat with distended claws stuck in window curtains, and a caption that read "Hang in there!"
I shifted - the plastic chair scraped the linoleum floor - and glanced back towards the doorway, wondering if I should come back another time. That's when I saw the diploma hanging above the door. A Ph.D. in Social Sciences with a concentration in economics from CalTech, 1995. Belinda was slightly above a secretary and far below a mid-level manager. She had worked at our company for fifteen years. It struck me that she was probably smarter than her boss and his boss put together.
I heard squeaking shoes and Belinda walked in - I stood up - she saw me and moved sideways. "What do you want?" she asked.
"I just wanted to keep you in the loop. I'll be turning in the StaffCo contract paperwork about a week late," I said. "We have some more negotiations to do."
Belinda was in a blue and green flower-print dress, long-sleeved. There was a ring of dust around the bottom of her dress where the fabric had slid through the muck of the linoleum. Greasy hair framed her red-splotched face. This giant German thought to dress herself in flowers from the early nineties. I choked down a panicked laugh.
"Any changes mean more work for me," Belinda said, and sat down behind her desk. She looked at her computer screen. "I'm sure you can appreciate that I don't have time to waive deadlines for every contract. The answer is no." And she put her hand up and motioned me out of her office.
Ugly, big, mean white lady. No imagination. No flexibility. Out of her office and up the stairs to my corner office with bright windows and plush carpet. Belinda had no decision-making authority. We both knew I would take as long as I needed to with the negotiations, and she would "forget" to process my paperwork until I had to come to her squat dirty office again to check its status. A game, an office power play. I was tired of it.
So I made her a mixed tape. Jon Bon Jovi, Bee Gees, Madonna, P!nk. Joan Jett. A little Slip-Slidin' Away by Paul Simon. A little Michael Jackson. Some Elvis Presley. I kept it light, dance-ready, upbeat. Some Queen seasoned with a little Hall & Oates. I grew up in the eighties, so I still call them mixed tapes. What I really did was go on itunes and create a playlist called "For Belinda;" then I burned it onto a CD. Since she had no way to play CDs in her office, I bought the cheapest CD player I could find: a Hello Kitty pink boombox for $9.99.
I figured at some point in the past fifteen years, she had been confident, maybe even well-regarded. The big bosses must have asked for her ideas. Little by little, she had been ignored. Her promise as a highly educated member of the workforce was forgotten; she was given menial tasks that required no brain power. She could either fight back, challenge her bosses to give her more meaningful work, or become bitter and protect the small responsibilities dumped on her in the basement. I figured she had chosen the latter.
I waited one night until she went home, and then placed her gifts on her desk. No "To...From..." note, just the CD and the pink boombox.
I waited a week, then two; continued my negotiations with StaffCo. I forgot about Belinda. StaffCo and I finally came to an agreement, so I made the long walk down the basement stairs to face her. I found her office - empty. Dust patterns showed where the computer had been, the phone...the diploma above the door. The only things left were the scuffed plastic chair and the cat poster.
I walked back upstairs and went to my boss. "Did you finally fire Belinda?" I asked.
"No," he said. "We promoted her. You need her for the StaffCo paperwork?"
"Yeah...," I said.
"Give it to Sandy until we can find a replacement for Belinda's old position."
I started to walk out of his office, and then turned and asked, "What's Belinda's new job title?"
"Senior VP of Marketing," he said. "She's a couple rungs up the chain from you now."
Senior VPs had offices on the sixth floor. I got on the elevator and rode up. I had to get past the receptionist to find Belinda - I made up an excuse about being summoned there for a meeting.
Belinda was pin-striped and well-groomed, not a hair out of place. Her skin was clear and smooth. She regarded me with a steady gaze, and smiled.
"Congratulations on your promotion." I hovered in the doorway and looked past her to the view of the city. Green plants in a tasteful arrangement on the windowsill framed the skyline.
"I'm just livin' on a prayer," she said.
I caught a flash of pink: the Hello Kitty CD player was nestled under her diploma on a gleaming mahogany side table. "You're halfway there," I said, and smiled back.
Her office was in the basement, sandwiched between the custodian's closet and the men's restroom. She wasn't behind her desk, so I decided to wait. I sat in a rickety plastic chair shoved into the corner. It was the first real chance I'd had to study her work space. Usually our conversations were short verbal missives fired at each other while I was half-turned to go and her eyes were glued on her computer.
Haphazard cords fell from the back of her computer, which faced the doorway. There were no plants - no way they would survive in the windowless basement. One glaring ceiling light buzzed above; a dust-covered bookcase housed cracked plastic binders. Belinda had one picture on the wall: a yellow cat with distended claws stuck in window curtains, and a caption that read "Hang in there!"
I shifted - the plastic chair scraped the linoleum floor - and glanced back towards the doorway, wondering if I should come back another time. That's when I saw the diploma hanging above the door. A Ph.D. in Social Sciences with a concentration in economics from CalTech, 1995. Belinda was slightly above a secretary and far below a mid-level manager. She had worked at our company for fifteen years. It struck me that she was probably smarter than her boss and his boss put together.
I heard squeaking shoes and Belinda walked in - I stood up - she saw me and moved sideways. "What do you want?" she asked.
"I just wanted to keep you in the loop. I'll be turning in the StaffCo contract paperwork about a week late," I said. "We have some more negotiations to do."
Belinda was in a blue and green flower-print dress, long-sleeved. There was a ring of dust around the bottom of her dress where the fabric had slid through the muck of the linoleum. Greasy hair framed her red-splotched face. This giant German thought to dress herself in flowers from the early nineties. I choked down a panicked laugh.
"Any changes mean more work for me," Belinda said, and sat down behind her desk. She looked at her computer screen. "I'm sure you can appreciate that I don't have time to waive deadlines for every contract. The answer is no." And she put her hand up and motioned me out of her office.
Ugly, big, mean white lady. No imagination. No flexibility. Out of her office and up the stairs to my corner office with bright windows and plush carpet. Belinda had no decision-making authority. We both knew I would take as long as I needed to with the negotiations, and she would "forget" to process my paperwork until I had to come to her squat dirty office again to check its status. A game, an office power play. I was tired of it.
So I made her a mixed tape. Jon Bon Jovi, Bee Gees, Madonna, P!nk. Joan Jett. A little Slip-Slidin' Away by Paul Simon. A little Michael Jackson. Some Elvis Presley. I kept it light, dance-ready, upbeat. Some Queen seasoned with a little Hall & Oates. I grew up in the eighties, so I still call them mixed tapes. What I really did was go on itunes and create a playlist called "For Belinda;" then I burned it onto a CD. Since she had no way to play CDs in her office, I bought the cheapest CD player I could find: a Hello Kitty pink boombox for $9.99.
I figured at some point in the past fifteen years, she had been confident, maybe even well-regarded. The big bosses must have asked for her ideas. Little by little, she had been ignored. Her promise as a highly educated member of the workforce was forgotten; she was given menial tasks that required no brain power. She could either fight back, challenge her bosses to give her more meaningful work, or become bitter and protect the small responsibilities dumped on her in the basement. I figured she had chosen the latter.
I waited one night until she went home, and then placed her gifts on her desk. No "To...From..." note, just the CD and the pink boombox.
I waited a week, then two; continued my negotiations with StaffCo. I forgot about Belinda. StaffCo and I finally came to an agreement, so I made the long walk down the basement stairs to face her. I found her office - empty. Dust patterns showed where the computer had been, the phone...the diploma above the door. The only things left were the scuffed plastic chair and the cat poster.
I walked back upstairs and went to my boss. "Did you finally fire Belinda?" I asked.
"No," he said. "We promoted her. You need her for the StaffCo paperwork?"
"Yeah...," I said.
"Give it to Sandy until we can find a replacement for Belinda's old position."
I started to walk out of his office, and then turned and asked, "What's Belinda's new job title?"
"Senior VP of Marketing," he said. "She's a couple rungs up the chain from you now."
Senior VPs had offices on the sixth floor. I got on the elevator and rode up. I had to get past the receptionist to find Belinda - I made up an excuse about being summoned there for a meeting.
Belinda was pin-striped and well-groomed, not a hair out of place. Her skin was clear and smooth. She regarded me with a steady gaze, and smiled.
"Congratulations on your promotion." I hovered in the doorway and looked past her to the view of the city. Green plants in a tasteful arrangement on the windowsill framed the skyline.
"I'm just livin' on a prayer," she said.
I caught a flash of pink: the Hello Kitty CD player was nestled under her diploma on a gleaming mahogany side table. "You're halfway there," I said, and smiled back.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Fran's Room
Janet, Fran's seven year old daughter, had gone into her mother's garden shed and cleaned everything. The flower pots, the spades and pitchforks and the seed packets were all neatly organized. It was early spring before the first planting, and Fran could only assume that Janet thought she would be doing something nice for her mother.
The truth was Fran's garden shed was the only room that was purely hers, and she liked it messy. It was an antidote to spotless floors and the sparkling kitchen and pressed curtains. Dust bunnies did not survive, could not find a nest in the darkest closet corners of the house. Garden dirt was something Fran needed, so she let it creep into the shed and stay there, let the seed packets fall out of alphabetical order, kept cracked flower pots for their character. She had one pair of garden gloves, unused. Last fall her dirt-caked fingers had traced a design in the soft yielding muck that lived on one of the shelves. A sun, a river, a tree. A reminder for Fran in the spring of the peace the garden would bring.
Janet had wiped clean the design, the muck; had thrown out the cracked flowerpots.
It was the first grown-up talk Fran had with Janet, the first of many.
"Sometimes women need messes in their lives," Fran said as she hugged her daughter and wiped the tears. "This year I want you to help me in the garden and learn how good it feels to get dirty once in a while."
The truth was Fran's garden shed was the only room that was purely hers, and she liked it messy. It was an antidote to spotless floors and the sparkling kitchen and pressed curtains. Dust bunnies did not survive, could not find a nest in the darkest closet corners of the house. Garden dirt was something Fran needed, so she let it creep into the shed and stay there, let the seed packets fall out of alphabetical order, kept cracked flower pots for their character. She had one pair of garden gloves, unused. Last fall her dirt-caked fingers had traced a design in the soft yielding muck that lived on one of the shelves. A sun, a river, a tree. A reminder for Fran in the spring of the peace the garden would bring.
Janet had wiped clean the design, the muck; had thrown out the cracked flowerpots.
It was the first grown-up talk Fran had with Janet, the first of many.
"Sometimes women need messes in their lives," Fran said as she hugged her daughter and wiped the tears. "This year I want you to help me in the garden and learn how good it feels to get dirty once in a while."
Saturday, January 2, 2010
New Year for Fran
I wrote about Fran for the One Minute Writer's Fiction writing prompt today http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/2010/01/friday-well-saturday-fiction-new-year.html .
P.S. Lots of women leaving men-themed fiction on this prompt... interesting.
P.S. Lots of women leaving men-themed fiction on this prompt... interesting.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Fran's Night
Fran wiped the last of the dishes dry with her apron, then took the long red and white checked cloth from around her waist and carefully folded it on the washing machine, to be cleaned with the morning clothes. Oliver preferred clean linens whenever possible, even though he never bothered to step through the two-way swinging door into the kitchen to see her in her apron.
Dinner on the table at five thirty in the evening, sharp, Fran. Your husband needs his dinner after a long day. No mind that Billy and George and Janet have been pressing their tiny hands to her legs all day, tugging on her while she scours the house, does the laundry, makes their meals, and puts them into crisp clean sheets for naptimes. How many times did she change their clothes today? The five o'clock change, to ensure they were presentable for their father, was always the one that frosted her the most. Dinner and full wardrobe changes, just so Oliver wouldn't be bad news when he walked through the door.
All three children and their father ate dinner in the solemn dining room, rolled the buns, tested the bread. Tonight Oliver had sent the buns back, telling her they were too moist. He needed them dry to sop up his gravy. Damn jamoke in his suit all day. Had a secretary at work, and a maid at home. She popped the oven back on, and stood shaking while the bread warmed, then realized it would just overcook them. She grabbed the oven mitts and yanked them out. Damn jamoke. No noise from the dining room. The children knew better than to cut up in front of their father. She heated a cast iron skillet, brushed some butter on the bottom, and toasted the buns a little, hoping that would do the trick.
A deep breath, and a smile, and back into the dining room.
George had his pudgy fingers placed on the table, on either side of his plate like he'd been taught, and he beamed at Fran. "Thank you, Momma."
Fran's fake smile shifted into a real one. "You are most welcome, son."
"Hep me with my bread en budder?" Billy asked.
"Me too, Momma, me too," Janet echoed.
Fran slathered butter on Oliver's bread, and laid it carefully before him on his bread plate. She buttered the children's then, and for the first time during dinner, sat down at her place.
Oliver placed his hand on hers, and the warm spot grew in her chest, and without looking up from his dinner, he said, "Yes, dear, thank you." The jamoke was capable of illuminations every once in a while.
After small, quick bites of half her food, after the dishes were washed and dried and the table scrubbed, while the folded red and white checked apron rested on the washer, the children played quietly on the living room floor, Oliver read the paper, and Fran sank into the chesterfield, ankles crossed.
Ever since I wrote "New Neighbors," Fran has been bugging me to write more about her. She is a fascinating character to me. Seventy five years old, and today's post was one of her experiences in the fifties. http://crazycoppertop.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-neighbors.html
Dinner on the table at five thirty in the evening, sharp, Fran. Your husband needs his dinner after a long day. No mind that Billy and George and Janet have been pressing their tiny hands to her legs all day, tugging on her while she scours the house, does the laundry, makes their meals, and puts them into crisp clean sheets for naptimes. How many times did she change their clothes today? The five o'clock change, to ensure they were presentable for their father, was always the one that frosted her the most. Dinner and full wardrobe changes, just so Oliver wouldn't be bad news when he walked through the door.
All three children and their father ate dinner in the solemn dining room, rolled the buns, tested the bread. Tonight Oliver had sent the buns back, telling her they were too moist. He needed them dry to sop up his gravy. Damn jamoke in his suit all day. Had a secretary at work, and a maid at home. She popped the oven back on, and stood shaking while the bread warmed, then realized it would just overcook them. She grabbed the oven mitts and yanked them out. Damn jamoke. No noise from the dining room. The children knew better than to cut up in front of their father. She heated a cast iron skillet, brushed some butter on the bottom, and toasted the buns a little, hoping that would do the trick.
A deep breath, and a smile, and back into the dining room.
George had his pudgy fingers placed on the table, on either side of his plate like he'd been taught, and he beamed at Fran. "Thank you, Momma."
Fran's fake smile shifted into a real one. "You are most welcome, son."
"Hep me with my bread en budder?" Billy asked.
"Me too, Momma, me too," Janet echoed.
Fran slathered butter on Oliver's bread, and laid it carefully before him on his bread plate. She buttered the children's then, and for the first time during dinner, sat down at her place.
Oliver placed his hand on hers, and the warm spot grew in her chest, and without looking up from his dinner, he said, "Yes, dear, thank you." The jamoke was capable of illuminations every once in a while.
After small, quick bites of half her food, after the dishes were washed and dried and the table scrubbed, while the folded red and white checked apron rested on the washer, the children played quietly on the living room floor, Oliver read the paper, and Fran sank into the chesterfield, ankles crossed.
Ever since I wrote "New Neighbors," Fran has been bugging me to write more about her. She is a fascinating character to me. Seventy five years old, and today's post was one of her experiences in the fifties. http://crazycoppertop.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-neighbors.html
Saturday, October 24, 2009
New Neighbors
It was a strange house. Oliver and Fran thought when they moved to this tiny desert town that had gone bust when the military base shut down, and then more bust when the railroad rerouted, they'd see old houses, remnants of the rich days. Maybe old Victorians that needed some new paint, some restoration. A slim brick three-story here and there. And the insides would be linoleum from the fifties or maybe even hardware floors. Old kitchens with pearl white appliances and two-way doors leading to the dining rooms.
But the house they just bought had been updated a while back in the 70s by someone who believed too much in a style Oliver could only refer to as lima-shag, and the previous owners had also knocked down two of the kitchen walls, and every night Oliver could see Fran cooking for him.
Oliver was a well-groomed man in button-down sweaters, and Fran visited the beauty shop once a week to keep up her short curled hairstyle, and shag just didn't match them.
But their neighbors' house, it was the strangest. The kitchen and the living room formed one big room, and as dinner guests he and Fran were seated with glasses of red wine at some sort of gargantuan kitchen island, with flecked brown and tan granite countertops that looked like they belonged in a rock quarry somewhere.
Jack and Kate, their neighbors, were nice enough. He was a truck driver and she managed the local laundromat, and their three kids were all grown and gone.
"I'm so glad you could join us for dinner," Kate said. "I know it's difficult making friends when you move to a new town."
Oliver would have preferred scotch or a Bud but he sipped his wine and Fran said, "Thanks for having us. I know Oliver has been looking forward to the move for a long time."
Jack took out a bowl and scooped ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella cheeses into it, and then expertly cracked two eggs into the middle. He stirred the mixture while Kate poured some spaghetti sauce into a glass dish. "So Oliver," Jack said, "What brings you all the way to Rio Seco from New York?"
"The people," Oliver said. "Or lack thereof. I've always wanted to retire where there's lots of land. Plus, Frannie likes the stars. Hey, what do you think of the Yankees this year?"
Jack said, "Oh, Angels all the way for me. I like Jeter and Posada though. Where do you think the Yanks'll be when they retire?"
"Girardi has to find a couple new good leaders," Oliver said, and leaned forward. "He's gotta lose guys like Swisher and build a new team, or no more post-season. You know if we got the Angels to give up-"
"Pass me that spatula, will you hon?" Jack said.
Fran asked Jane, "Dear, would you like me to help you with dinner?"
"Thanks, Fran, but you two just sit and relax," Kate said. "You're our guests." Jack and Kate layered the lasagne - sauce, pasta, meat, cheese, sauce - back and forth, passing spoons and bowls.
Though Oliver had eaten a lot of lasagne in his 71 years, he had never seen how it was made. Seeing it made by a truck driver who should be watching baseball with him in the living room bordered on the surreal. Next to him, Fran fidgeted in her flowered dress on the barstool.
Kate put the lasagne in the oven and then sat at the kitchen island across from them. Jack took out a glass and poured her some wine, then he started slicing french bread.
Fran asked again. "Dear, why don't we finish up dinner and let these boys catch the end of the baseball game?"
Oliver put one foot down on the travertine floor, ready to bolt for the TV. He looked at Jack. No man, even one held in such a strong domestic choke-hold, could ignore the free ticket dangling in front of them.
But Jack stirred the melting butter and garlic on the stovetop and waved his hand. "Kate's had a long day, and besides, I'm better with the garlic bread, right honey?"
Kate just raised her eyebrows and blew him a kiss, then turned to Fran. "There's a Friday night book club in town if you're interested. I'm leading next week's on Ahab's Wife and we would love it if you would join us."
Fran looked at Oliver. "I could put something in the oven for you on Friday. Do you mind if I go?"
"Um, sure, Frannie." Oliver drained the rest of his wine.
After dinner, to Oliver's horror, all four of them retired to the living room to talk. He had been looking forward to the baseball game when Fran and Kate would do the dishes, but Kate insisted that she and Jack would be rude if they cleaned up while their guests were there.
As they left the house, the stars glared in the sky as bright as Manhattan, and Fran looked up and sighed. "I'm going to like this town."
Oliver held her arm and led her down the stairs. "I'm going to start Monday on the remodeling. We need some more walls in that kitchen."
Frannie patted him on the arm.
"For cabinets," Oliver said.
But the house they just bought had been updated a while back in the 70s by someone who believed too much in a style Oliver could only refer to as lima-shag, and the previous owners had also knocked down two of the kitchen walls, and every night Oliver could see Fran cooking for him.
Oliver was a well-groomed man in button-down sweaters, and Fran visited the beauty shop once a week to keep up her short curled hairstyle, and shag just didn't match them.
But their neighbors' house, it was the strangest. The kitchen and the living room formed one big room, and as dinner guests he and Fran were seated with glasses of red wine at some sort of gargantuan kitchen island, with flecked brown and tan granite countertops that looked like they belonged in a rock quarry somewhere.
Jack and Kate, their neighbors, were nice enough. He was a truck driver and she managed the local laundromat, and their three kids were all grown and gone.
"I'm so glad you could join us for dinner," Kate said. "I know it's difficult making friends when you move to a new town."
Oliver would have preferred scotch or a Bud but he sipped his wine and Fran said, "Thanks for having us. I know Oliver has been looking forward to the move for a long time."
Jack took out a bowl and scooped ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella cheeses into it, and then expertly cracked two eggs into the middle. He stirred the mixture while Kate poured some spaghetti sauce into a glass dish. "So Oliver," Jack said, "What brings you all the way to Rio Seco from New York?"
"The people," Oliver said. "Or lack thereof. I've always wanted to retire where there's lots of land. Plus, Frannie likes the stars. Hey, what do you think of the Yankees this year?"
Jack said, "Oh, Angels all the way for me. I like Jeter and Posada though. Where do you think the Yanks'll be when they retire?"
"Girardi has to find a couple new good leaders," Oliver said, and leaned forward. "He's gotta lose guys like Swisher and build a new team, or no more post-season. You know if we got the Angels to give up-"
"Pass me that spatula, will you hon?" Jack said.
Fran asked Jane, "Dear, would you like me to help you with dinner?"
"Thanks, Fran, but you two just sit and relax," Kate said. "You're our guests." Jack and Kate layered the lasagne - sauce, pasta, meat, cheese, sauce - back and forth, passing spoons and bowls.
Though Oliver had eaten a lot of lasagne in his 71 years, he had never seen how it was made. Seeing it made by a truck driver who should be watching baseball with him in the living room bordered on the surreal. Next to him, Fran fidgeted in her flowered dress on the barstool.
Kate put the lasagne in the oven and then sat at the kitchen island across from them. Jack took out a glass and poured her some wine, then he started slicing french bread.
Fran asked again. "Dear, why don't we finish up dinner and let these boys catch the end of the baseball game?"
Oliver put one foot down on the travertine floor, ready to bolt for the TV. He looked at Jack. No man, even one held in such a strong domestic choke-hold, could ignore the free ticket dangling in front of them.
But Jack stirred the melting butter and garlic on the stovetop and waved his hand. "Kate's had a long day, and besides, I'm better with the garlic bread, right honey?"
Kate just raised her eyebrows and blew him a kiss, then turned to Fran. "There's a Friday night book club in town if you're interested. I'm leading next week's on Ahab's Wife and we would love it if you would join us."
Fran looked at Oliver. "I could put something in the oven for you on Friday. Do you mind if I go?"
"Um, sure, Frannie." Oliver drained the rest of his wine.
After dinner, to Oliver's horror, all four of them retired to the living room to talk. He had been looking forward to the baseball game when Fran and Kate would do the dishes, but Kate insisted that she and Jack would be rude if they cleaned up while their guests were there.
As they left the house, the stars glared in the sky as bright as Manhattan, and Fran looked up and sighed. "I'm going to like this town."
Oliver held her arm and led her down the stairs. "I'm going to start Monday on the remodeling. We need some more walls in that kitchen."
Frannie patted him on the arm.
"For cabinets," Oliver said.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Chicken Legs and Cherry Lips
My god damn friends have always called me Chicken Legs. I play football, I lift at the gym six days a week, but they focus on my stick legs and thin ankles. My legs are actually covered in black hair and kind of disappear into my socks, so I see their point, but I hate the nickname. I'm seventeen and never had a touchdown with a girl, and if I told those bastards on Monday that I got Cherry Lips to take her pants off, I'd be king. At least King Chicken Legs.
My first mistake happened after dinner, at the Cinema Royale, the only movie theater in our small town. The movie theater is gothic, a place where vampires would totally set up shop if they happened to want to invade Streaterville. The seats are so old they are actual red leather, and the floor has decades of popcorn and pop gunk and my sneakers usually stick like I'm walking on some high gravity planet or something. But that's not what gives the Cinema Royale character. It's Goiter Lady. She ancient, like 60 years old, and she's got a big brown mole in the middle of her right cheek, and a huge, huge cantaloupe lump sticking out of the left side of her neck. She wears low-cut sweaters, and smokes in the ticket booth. Red lipstick on her cigarettes.
"Goiter?" I said. "I don't even know her."
Cherry Lips didn't laugh at this joke after I'd payed for the tickets and led her by the arm to the line for the popcorn. Cherry Lips didn't even crack a smile.
Cherry Lips has alabaster skin and orange boingy-boing curls. I'd like to boingy-boing her in my Ford after the movie. Actually, well, I'd never tell my friends this, but Cherry Lips is kind of a mystery to me. She's beautiful, quiet, but clever. I'd be happy sitting next to her while we looked at the stars. I could never read her face, and the only reason I was able to overcome my nervousness and ask her to the movie was that last week in math class she let her guard down and flashed me a smile when the math teacher said something funny without meaning to.
It was a horror movie. The kind where the really hot blonde chick decides she needs some time to herself, to think about her relationship with her equally hot boyfriend, so she goes to her grandmother's summer cabin by the lake way up in the woods. It's fall, though, so no one else is around, and she's reading a book on the porch and the autumn leaves are falling and of course a hideous hottie-eating killer is watching her from the bushes. A perfect movie for Cherry Lips to get scared and hold my hand, or bury her curls in my shoulder. Chicken Legs don't matter in a movie theater.
Hot Blonde Chick stripped to her bra and panties, and walked through the tiny cabin, turning off all the lights. The camera meandered down to the lake shore, where the evil dude was crouched in the moonlight, inspecting something. The moonlight was bright in the movie, and Cherry Lips and I leaned forward, both at the same time. Cherry Lips reached for my hand, and leaned in to me, poised to find refuge in my chest should she need to hide her eyes. The silver glow from the movie moon revealed a strange object on the ground.
Bird feet. No. Chicken legs.
The camera panned out to show a neat line of headless chickens and ducks, alternating. Duck, chicken, duck, chicken. The deranged guy was licking blood off his knife.
To my horror, the glare from the screen set the hairs on my legs in stark relief, and I saw Cherry Lips looking down at my ankles, the spindly joints which at that very moment were being dwarfed and devoured by my socks. I saw Cherry Lips recoil slightly. I had to save the moment, I had to do something to break her gaze, to save my chances.
"Let me take a quack at this," I leaned over and whispered. "The killer was the ugly duckling in school, and his fowl actions are his way of telling the world to cluck off."
Time ticked slower as each new horrible bird reference came out of my mouth. I was watching from above, unable to stop myself. Cherry Lips moved progressively farther and farther away from me until she was almost hugging the empty seat next to her. Her nose crinkled at the top and she stared at me, transfixed, as if she were wondering how I functioned in society at all. I was wondering that myself. No other seventeen year old guy in the history of the world has ever crashed and burned so spectacularly.
Then Cherry Lips did something I have never seen her do, in my whole time of staring at her from kindergarten all the way through junior year in high school. She locked her eyes on mine, and laughed. I saw her creamy teeth and red tongue and dimples in her cheeks. Actual dimples.
No King Chicken Legs for me, of course. Not even a silent sweet moment under the stars. When I tried to kiss her good night after the movie, she swiveled her head and I tasted a cold earring and not those lips I'd looked forward to. But she shook my hand, and told me we should hang out more often.
I think I have a shot.
My first mistake happened after dinner, at the Cinema Royale, the only movie theater in our small town. The movie theater is gothic, a place where vampires would totally set up shop if they happened to want to invade Streaterville. The seats are so old they are actual red leather, and the floor has decades of popcorn and pop gunk and my sneakers usually stick like I'm walking on some high gravity planet or something. But that's not what gives the Cinema Royale character. It's Goiter Lady. She ancient, like 60 years old, and she's got a big brown mole in the middle of her right cheek, and a huge, huge cantaloupe lump sticking out of the left side of her neck. She wears low-cut sweaters, and smokes in the ticket booth. Red lipstick on her cigarettes.
"Goiter?" I said. "I don't even know her."
Cherry Lips didn't laugh at this joke after I'd payed for the tickets and led her by the arm to the line for the popcorn. Cherry Lips didn't even crack a smile.
Cherry Lips has alabaster skin and orange boingy-boing curls. I'd like to boingy-boing her in my Ford after the movie. Actually, well, I'd never tell my friends this, but Cherry Lips is kind of a mystery to me. She's beautiful, quiet, but clever. I'd be happy sitting next to her while we looked at the stars. I could never read her face, and the only reason I was able to overcome my nervousness and ask her to the movie was that last week in math class she let her guard down and flashed me a smile when the math teacher said something funny without meaning to.
It was a horror movie. The kind where the really hot blonde chick decides she needs some time to herself, to think about her relationship with her equally hot boyfriend, so she goes to her grandmother's summer cabin by the lake way up in the woods. It's fall, though, so no one else is around, and she's reading a book on the porch and the autumn leaves are falling and of course a hideous hottie-eating killer is watching her from the bushes. A perfect movie for Cherry Lips to get scared and hold my hand, or bury her curls in my shoulder. Chicken Legs don't matter in a movie theater.
Hot Blonde Chick stripped to her bra and panties, and walked through the tiny cabin, turning off all the lights. The camera meandered down to the lake shore, where the evil dude was crouched in the moonlight, inspecting something. The moonlight was bright in the movie, and Cherry Lips and I leaned forward, both at the same time. Cherry Lips reached for my hand, and leaned in to me, poised to find refuge in my chest should she need to hide her eyes. The silver glow from the movie moon revealed a strange object on the ground.
Bird feet. No. Chicken legs.
The camera panned out to show a neat line of headless chickens and ducks, alternating. Duck, chicken, duck, chicken. The deranged guy was licking blood off his knife.
To my horror, the glare from the screen set the hairs on my legs in stark relief, and I saw Cherry Lips looking down at my ankles, the spindly joints which at that very moment were being dwarfed and devoured by my socks. I saw Cherry Lips recoil slightly. I had to save the moment, I had to do something to break her gaze, to save my chances.
"Let me take a quack at this," I leaned over and whispered. "The killer was the ugly duckling in school, and his fowl actions are his way of telling the world to cluck off."
Time ticked slower as each new horrible bird reference came out of my mouth. I was watching from above, unable to stop myself. Cherry Lips moved progressively farther and farther away from me until she was almost hugging the empty seat next to her. Her nose crinkled at the top and she stared at me, transfixed, as if she were wondering how I functioned in society at all. I was wondering that myself. No other seventeen year old guy in the history of the world has ever crashed and burned so spectacularly.
Then Cherry Lips did something I have never seen her do, in my whole time of staring at her from kindergarten all the way through junior year in high school. She locked her eyes on mine, and laughed. I saw her creamy teeth and red tongue and dimples in her cheeks. Actual dimples.
No King Chicken Legs for me, of course. Not even a silent sweet moment under the stars. When I tried to kiss her good night after the movie, she swiveled her head and I tasted a cold earring and not those lips I'd looked forward to. But she shook my hand, and told me we should hang out more often.
I think I have a shot.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Friday Fiction
Twelve rows of corn. That's all I have in the field behind my house. I lost my wedding ring in the corn. I was on my back looking through neon green corn leaves to the blue sky. The sky had me wondering...it was completely empty and I stared for several minutes and got dizzy. My head was somewhere else and I must have played with my ring too much. It's gone and now I'm sifting through the dirt looking for the diamond glint.
There's a callus on my palm directly underneath my ring finger. I rub the callus over and over with my thumb and get on my knees and get dirt in my fingernails.
He'll be home soon.
There's a callus on my palm directly underneath my ring finger. I rub the callus over and over with my thumb and get on my knees and get dirt in my fingernails.
He'll be home soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)