New Yorker Stories

Here is a list of new yorker stories that were also 'notable' in the best american short stories series. some have links to the stories!

http://emdashes.com/2007/10/the-best-american-short-storie.php

Aimee Bender story, Lemonade

On the way to work today I read a short story by Aimee Bender in Tin House called Lemonade. I will leave it on the front desk today for you to peruse. The voice in the story reminded me of some of Jason's stories. It takes place in a mall in southern california and reminded me of younger days.

Hatin' on Hemingway

We didn't really meet last week, slacker bastards that we are. Should we try for this Thursday? Let's bring something substantial if we can, not one measly poem like I did last week.

Use the light bulb prompt, if that is still held in favorable esteem at this point. Also, let's do the Hemingway-six-word thing, kind of as an exercise. I'm sure you all have heard of it, but if not, basically just write a six word story. For example:

"For sale: baby shoes, never used."

This "story" is said to be one of his best. I agree, only because the less Hemingway I read, the happier I am.

Melodica action

This is for Kat's future band:



Cuz this is ostensibly a literary writing blog, here are the lyrics to the song (I honestly have no idea what she's saying in the opening, it's just pure conjecture):

5, 6, 5, 6, 7

now we dance so why the way you work it
mama song so c'mon
so I can see you work it baby
you holdin back I love the way you work it
you hear that beat and that's the way we play it

break it down and move that lil body baby
break it down come and try to work that booty

we got the hardest beats yeah we bringing it to you
and every time we jamming hear that beat coming through
with all that noise we makin be the heaviest sound
with the noise we making yeah we'll rock the whole town

keep banging on the door
cause we can't hear a thing
keep shutting down the power
cause we can always sing

we got the hardest beats yeah we bringing it to you
and every time we jamming hear that beat coming through
we got it here, there, we got it everywhere
i got it, you got it, we got it everywhere

keep banging on the door
cause we can't hear a thing
keep shutting down the power
cause we can always sing

break it down and move that lil body baby
break it down come and try to work that booty

love to make noise (go team!)
got the whole neighborhood (go team!)
go team!

keep banging on the door
cause we can't hear a thing
keep shutting down the power
cause we can always sing

break it down and move that lil body baby
break it down come and try to work that booty

love to make noise (go team!)
got the whole neighborhood (go team!)
go team!

Heh, I'm going to see them tomorrow. So psyched.

Aaron Koppel's poems

Here are a few poems from my friend Aaron who joined us at Milady's.

Boone’s Crossing

There is rock, and here is rock
With no stems at the seams.
A forest hidden in fruit,
My branches to the lanes.

Median.

There is rock, and here is rock
That faintly holds the root
Of this cedar pole.
The city vacates my wiring,
Sprouting past the borderland.

White Russians

I edge my foot out to the night
And, as he falls draping drunk all against me,
I remove my fists from pockets
To strike him, to make him quit,
Forming the shape of a star.
He’s got to quit. He’s got to quit again and again.
Look through the wound.
There’s the lining of his cheek,
Left with tonight’s milk and what else.
The line of cups follow me home,
They make me live in half circles.

Three Ideas - none a story

I.

There was a country with the abbreviated name MR—it does not exist yet—where at the age of 18 the government sent a citizen a Pocket, which was a nylon bag with room for one person and a bag of things needed in a day. People commuted from their homes to work over a long distance and for the train ride they zipped themselves into a Pocket. It enabled a person to control their Senses (sight, smell, and hearing). Inside a Pocket, one could sit, stand, lie down, slump, and even walk, somewhat awkardly though. It was easy to get on and off. There were snaps all along the sides like pullaway sweatpants worn by basketball players and the whole thing cinched up into a built-in compartment the size of a medium flowerpot but weighed as much as a book. To put on, one placed it at their toes pulled a string from the top of the bag, like a thread from a spool, placed it on their sleeve and the Pocket shimmied up to the collarbone after which one placed the headpiece on like a helmet. They were like many cars in a larger car. The pronoun, 'it,' resurged in use.

II.

Penny had an artist boyfriend the year before who called her "Oxidize" but there are always love interests who claim parts of you for themselves. Sometimes Penny was one of those love interests; she gave names to parts of him too. She really wanted a baby. She found a website called "Baby week by week" and commented on the message board once pretending she felt a curious quickening. There were quicktime videos tracking the cartoon fetus week by week. The umbilical cord wasn't rendered convincingly and looked like a triangular tube but perhaps that is what one really looks like.

III.

The east-west light turned green and the first cab in the block-long queue was kept behind the crosswalk by a hem of pedestrians when the rain started, which one in twelve people noticed though more suspected imminent. Finally the cab pushed through and the pedestrians became two groups. The train terminal was 3 blocks south of this intersection. The pedestrians in the crosswalk, no longer pooled at the curb, were headed there. The taxis were full of people wearing shoes for posing and paying, not for walking and wearing in. The ears of the pedestrians perked, taking in the patter of rain drops now; the drones of traffic flooded their ears showing the eyes the metal, rubber, concrete vastness that was as waterproof as a pond.

The pedestrians formed a voice and one word emerged, the word as moving as a song but sounded a quick demand. The cabs shrank back, the frames falling onto the axels so their tires blocked the windows and the drivers were stuck inside. The sideview mirrors braked the tires, the cabs like strangled dogs, and the will of the pedestrians brought them to the subways. The subways took off from the station before any of the cabs’ tires realigned beneath the doors, the east-west light turned green, and the cars drove again.

It had been a lovely day flowering from an October morning of shortened but accessible sun rays dancing on the city activity to a midmorning wig of low lying clouds that confined the spires and roof gardens like a hat worn to church that lasted until the hour preceding dinner. That hour would blow up in gusts, shutting people indoors while they ought to be sleeping and full.

A Snoopy Without It's Head

(An older story I've been toying with recently but pretty appropriate for Halloween. Not for the prompt though... Still saving that one.)

I uncovered the photo album last summer in our basement. It was in a box under the vacuum cleaner box that my father bought for Mother’s Day several years ago. My mother never used it, preferring to still get on all-fours to wipe our hardwood floors. But the box served a useful purpose, holding some Howlin’ Wolf records and hiding various odds and ends my parents had collected.

I think I was looking for porno magazines. Years ago, my friend Roger told me his Dad had a stash in the attic. When I went over, the magazines had mysteriously disappeared and I was disappointed that my hymen-covered eyes would have to be broken some other day. I called Roger an ass for getting me all hyped, but he said his mom had made muffins. They weren’t really muffins, just flour, sugar, and eggs baked in a muffin tray, so maybe they were technically muffins. I asked Roger’s mother if I could call them muffins. She said, Do they look like muffins? Don’t they puff out, tops raised to the air? But I said, They don’t taste like muffins. And to this she said, Don’t you have better things to worry about?

But this talk happened years ago, back when I still recited, “Circle-circle-dot-dot-now-I-have-my-cooties-shot-you-snottypants-so-go-away-never-do-I-wanna-play.” I may or may not have been looking for porno magazines, which may or may not have been provoked by a decade-old conversation with Roger’s mother. But I always was a curious little boy, born in the year of the monkey, and I did find the photo album.

In one photo, two young boys stand next to each other. One is smiling. I showed my father the photo. Ahh yes, he said. That is me. I asked him if there was a story attached to the photo. He said, What do you think?

My father is a riddler and a puzzler. He’s not a confusing man; he simply asks many questions to which I always have an answer. It’s because I’m an answerer, but this is not quite the same as a wise person my father said. If you want to know answers, do the crossword puzzle. If you want to be wise, read the funnies.

But you were such a stupid child, you never even laughed at Charlie Brown. I remember reading it to you one night before bed, and you peed in your pants. I asked, Why did you pee? Are you a dog, one that pees wherever he likes? And you said, I am a monkey. And monkeys are wise. That night, I told your Ma to stop spooning you that oxshit.

Me, I always dreamed I was Snoopy. I once bit brother’s eyelashes off, pretending I was The Ace and his eyelashes The Baron. Daniel didn’t tell Baba that I had killed the Nazis. When Baba asked why he had no lashes, brother said, I think I look beautiful without them.

Brother always was a beautiful boy. I still miss his face. I imagine he would have made an even more beautiful girl, that was how pretty his face was. But boys with pretty faces also cry much, for it is only in the eye that beauty water can be made. Daniel cried often, but he did not cry on that day. He thought I was making him more beautiful. But he cried many other days.

The day of that photo was one of the days he cried. It was our first Halloween in this school, and in this school, instead of just giving you the teeth-rot, the teacher told us that we were going to play dress-up for Halloween and we would have to walk in a rectangle (four sides, but not a square we echoed back to her) inside the playground fence for the Babas and Mamas who would wave and smile with their teeth and take our photos. We would get to leave at lunchtime to go home and change into our costumes. We practiced walking a week before. Teacher told us, Straighten your posture. No talking. Hands to yourself. Smile with your eyes.

I found my costume in the Classifieds page after the funnies. It was a Snoopy costume, but without a head, and I told my mother I wanted it. I liked the idea of Snoopy having my eyes and my face and my ferocious Jap-killin’ teeth.

Mother did not smile. She cut out a picture of Snoopy from the comics section and taped it to her sewing machine. She said, I can make it for you. She asked brother what he wanted to be. He said, I want to be a jail person.

My costume was quite simple. It was like bunny-rabbit pajamas, those one-piece outfits that you zipped up in the front. Even my feet were covered, and Mama sewed on white fur and a ribbon around the neck for a collar. But for Daniel’s prisoner costume, my mother spent more time. She found one of my father’s old black suits. She wanted to sew white stripes on it, but Baba said the coat still held many memories for him. So, instead, Mama used glue to stick on the strips to the jacket and slacks. She said it would wash right out, but we still shouldn’t tell Baba we borrowed his suit. She was so proud when it was done. She even stuffed a black sock to make a ball that would be chained to his leg, like the ghost from that movie.

I could tell brother wasn’t happy with it. It wasn’t very pretty, but he never was one to speak out. I almost told Mama that I had saved enough money that we could just buy Daniel a real prisoner’s costume, straight from Woolworth, but I actually stole the money from the Church, so I didn’t tell…

I took the photo from my father’s hands and lightly wiped away the dust, imagining my Uncle Danny.

Halloween day soon came, and at lunch, they went home to change. Daniel stared at the inmate’s outfit, unsure of what it was. That day was quite warm, so it had melted some of the glue that held the white lines together, and the paste drip-smeared all over the jacket, leaving cum-like stains in formation and stripes in disarray. It was a mess, but his mother stood in the next room, setting up the camera to capture their first American Halloween, awaiting his beaming smile.

Daniel grimaced as he shrugged on the too-big jacket and watched as the stripes slid as if lubricated down his pant leg. He walked into the next room and smiled for his mother, teeth splaying sunlight, but it was obvious to all but his mother that he seethed and teethed inside.

My children are beautiful thought the mother and she clicked the image into eternity. I feel ugly thought Daniel as he looked at the sewing machine bench where his mother spent the past two nights after work making his costume. And with those thoughts, the two boys trudged back to school while the one woman went back to work at the factory.

…we came to school just as the parade was going to begin. Brother walked to his class line and I walked to mine. We circled the garden, and I watched brother begin to gasp for air; there was a spot on his throat that if you watched carefully, you could see the storm clouds gather. The spot where an older boy’s Adam apple would be would heave in, then out. Soon, his eyes bled beauty potion, and he became more and more pitiful. He cried more and more. The older children began to point and laugh at the crier. They called him a girl and one of them came by and stole his black sock ball-and-chain. Teacher asked brother to stop crying, but he could not stop. He wanted to cry, he needed to cry. They brought me over to ask him why he was crying. I almost told them the reason, but he told me not to. By the time he finished crying, the parade was over and all the parents had finished their smiling and waving and cooing.

I led brother to his feet and held his hand, guiding him back home. His tears were in the concrete playground now, feeding the pavement. I walked in front, brother and my Snoopy tail hanging behind me.

And then the older kids came.

They held in front of them the fake ball-and-chain and waggled it in front of brother. Brother ran forward to get it, but the boys tore the sock into strips. When he tried to get back the sock, the boys circled him. All of a sudden, I found a foot in the back of my calf and down I went down like an elephant. On my knees, I saw a bigger boy enter the ring. He was a strong boy, tightly muscled, and it was said that he had stayed back for at least two years.

The leader picked my brother up by the ear. The ear is very flexible: it was like make-believe, seeing it stretch almost to the moon before brother screamed. I tried to stand up but two boys easily held me down.

The leader punched brother and down he fell. The leader quickly unzipped his pants and peed all over the strips of black sock on the ground. He peed like a human, his aim direct and true, soaking the cloth. He then picked up the strips and shoved them in brother’s mouth, tying one long strip around his head. Then they proceeded.

Brother could not cry, so I cried for him. I watched as the boys held him down, his delicate frame trampled by them. I tried to shut my eyes, but when I did, the two boys would punch me in the face. Blood dripped from my nose, staining the sidewalk. I yelled for help, but it was as if we were on the moon, no bakeries around.

Brother cried but he did not tear. His eyes were drier than week old buns. He vomited, then threw up, then vomited again into the piss soaked sock covering his mouth.

Stop, please stop, I said.

I turned the photo over and put my hands to my eyes. I stood there, quiet. Then angrily, I asked my father, Why are you telling me this? I don’t need to know all of this. What are you doing? He took off his glasses and adjusted his tufts of white hair. I was just looking for a memory, a token of yesterday I thought of telling him; not this, no not this at all, but the thought traveled down to my Adam’s apple and lodged itself there. I expected the riddle to come, but he surprised me nonetheless. He leaned back in his chair and said, You were born in the year of the monkey, and monkeys should be more than just answerers. He abruptly folded his glasses with a distinct “click” and walked towards the stairs, taking them very slowly, one at a time, rocking back and forth like a wobbling sailboat.

Famous dude

Um, so Michael Ondaatje is doing a reading tonight at 7:30. $7 with a student ID. We should probably go...

The Asian American Writer's Workshop link has all the info.

Actually, Celeste is having a poetry reading in Clinton Hill tonight too, at 7. It's free, and involves wine and beer. We could go to that instead?

Meeting...

OH P.S. should we aim for having a meeting on Friday this week? Does that work for everyone?

Sitting against a tree

This has nothing to do with the light bulb prompt... but I may post something of that origin soon.

-------------

Sitting against a tree

They’re not branches, just
unraveling trunk—
like a frayed shoelace
that won’t go back into its socket,

what good is it to me?

Yes, at regular intervals
I unbutton my pants to piss on the world,
>>>>but don’t we all:
>>>>being neither astronauts
>>>>nor poets.

Coffee and Water

An oh-so-splendid poem from our very own
Literature from the Axis of Evil.

-----
Coffee and Water

Tarek Eltayeb of Sudan; trans. by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

A hundred times a day, he says,
"I'll have to return. Here, there is no mercy.
There, there is kindness and warmth and..."
Then he falls silent.

I ask him, "There?
Where is that?"
He points somewhere.
His face is expressionless,
and he does not say anything anymore.

I take his hand.
We go to a cafe
and sit down at a quiet corner table.
I order coffee for him
and water for me.

I speak to him in Arabic
and mix water into the coffee.
He is annoyed, "Are you crazy?"

He tries to remove the water
from the coffee.

He tries to.

He tries to get the water back
into the water.

The Zach Braff thing I mentioned

I know some of you all like this Braff fellow. Some people don't. I fall in the latter group. But I think even you all who like him can recognize the fact that he is super annoying sometimes. As recorded in this wonderful little short by Danny Chun (written with a 35 minute limit):

Ever Gracious
by Danny Chun

I am at Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's sold-out show at the El Rey, but my interview subject is not a member of the band. I'm told he is backstage, though, so I head there. My eyes not yet adjusted, I nearly collide with Mark "Cobrasnake" Hunter, who is telling friends about how his new mustache once belonged to the face of Confederate Officer and KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.

"I paid out the butt for it but getting it grafted onto my face didn't hurt at all."

"Very nice," borats his friend. "Sexy time." Peals of laughter erupt from Cobrasnake's girlfriend, 9-year-old scenester princess Cory Kennedy, who is practically swimming in her magenta "CLIT HAPPENS" t-shirt....

[continue reading at Riff Market (NSFW) or MySpace (safe)]

Summarizing Rex Morgan, M.D., and The Androgynous Teen (Sept 23 - ...)

• sep 23
  I need a father figure... "Let's do this!" (part 1)
  
• sep 24
  This is a love without name... "Let's do this!" (part 2)
  
• sep 25
  I know a secret place for yall...
  
• sep 26
  I got the lowdown from Spock.
  
• sep 27
  You're cooler than Britney...
  
• sep 28
  We're going fishing.
  
• sep 29
  Yup, I know how to fish.
  
• sep 30
  Babygirl, you're so gullible.
  
• oct 01
  Gettin' ready to go fish.
  
• oct 02
  You don't trust me???!!!
  
• oct 03
  Heehee, whoops, nearly forgot to tell you.
  
• oct 04
  Oh, it'll be vacant.
  
• oct 05
  You two are going to be alone?
  
• oct 06
  Saying goodbye. (And MAJOR foreshadowing.)
  
• oct 07
  Kids these days...
  
• oct 08
  But I need my radio and safari outfits!@!@!
  
• oct 09
  Sulk sulk (part 1)
  
• oct 10
  Txting my BFFs bout ur lameness.
  
• oct 11
  Let's be friends!
  
• oct 12
  Sulk sulk (part 2)
  
• oct 13
  I'll get you a gun... we cool now?
  
• oct 14
  I'm so smart. And you're not.
  
• oct 15
  I'll read the map!
  
• oct 16
  Dude, I'm no girl.
  
• oct 17
  Buying some sodas.
  
• oct 18
  About to forget the map...
  
• oct 19
  I forgot the map!
  
• oct 20
  Sorry, I forgot the map...
  
• oct 21
  I'm such a loser, I forgot the map.
  
• oct 22
  I'm such a screw-up, I forgot the map.
  
• oct 23
  I'm so sad, I forgot the map.
  

TBC...
[links: The Comics Curmudgeon; Rex Morgan]

Proportion Prompt Response

He texted me at work, “I’m going to cook for you tonight. Maybe some pasta. Be prepared.”

I wasn’t sure how to read the 'be prepared.' I guess I read too much into it. Clearly, I was not prepared for the smell of burnt pasta when I came home after dark, nervously opening the door, announcing in a louder than normal voice, “Hey, I’m home.”

I guess it’s only on TV where they sprinkle rose petals on the floor and have Barry White on in the tape deck in the background and oh, here he comes, look at him in his beefy shirt, about to sweep me away and dump me onto our downy, beautiful mattress, but WAIT. Before that, we have a lovely five-course meal, some fresh-baked bread. Mmmm. Followed by some a nice platter of cheeses imported from Romania. And then the main course, the pièce de résistance, the famed pasta. Beautiful, freshly strained or however it is they do pasta. Topped with those littleneck clams I love. Balanced by the lightest touch of alfredo sauce and complemented by this heavenly Sauvignon Blanc that could only have come from the Wine God guy from up above. And julienned carrots. Because you can’t possibly screw up julienned carrots, and if all else failed from my dream of dreams, then at least he could cut some carrots and put them on a plate.

But here he was, fiddling with the remote. With the smell of burning pasta hovering over us, which if you haven’t smelled it before, is like the smell of babies in a toaster.

“Heya hon. I rented Scent of a Woman cuz I know you like the Chris O’Donnell guy.”

That did not explain why our apartment smelled like burning infants.

I motioned to the pot on the stove.

“Oh yeah, I had to go Radio Shack. The remote wonked out on us. And I couldn’t switch it to widescreen without it.”

He went back to the prayer card-sized manual for the remote. In the background, Al Pacino stalked around on screen, looking very much like a runway-thin giraffe. My fiancé muttered to himself, “Maybe it’s not the right code…”

So that’s how I ended up with a full-screen version of Scent of a Woman being paired with the noxious scent of dead children in my apartment.

MTA lit

http://www.thesubwaychronicles.com/

While I was watching DS$

note from author: this is during commercial breaks of primetime abc and before i fell asleep on the couch. work in progress.

The electricity went out

i can't fall in love when i'm 15 again so i tell my students to

this is a list of things

wireless in my living room, a working laptop

i have

write about something that isn't me.

write something supernatural

PROPORTION

who populates this story? a cast? one person? between two people, within one person, or between society and person
who is the narrator? omniscient?
what is the story?

production
proficient
pronounce
protect

por
porpoise
portend
por favor

tion
shun

(pyramid structure, symmetry?)
3, 3, 4
pro, por, tion

sort of Submission

I know we were talking about not necessarily posting the sprawled crap we came up with in the 2 hour thing--but I somehow created something concrete so here it is, just for the records. Maybe we all could post highlights, if any?

---------

Proof of it
can be found
in various grandmothers'
recipes--
the way the cupcake
sinks into your teeth.

Meticulously leveled teaspoons
of ammonium:
this is what she calls
Love.

2-hour prompt

Proportion.

This is inspired by an article in the Dining In/Out section of the Times today, which informed me that I don't put enough sauce on my pasta, contrary to what has been in fashion for the past 30 years or so. And neither do you, unless you've always been a slobbering, overindulgent, out-of-style American.

Anyway, I was thinking that "proportion" might be a fruitful concept for everybody as a freewrite, or as a more structured exercise--if not, perhaps you can come up with your own concept and run with it.

So... we should meet tomorrow evening to share our work. Sam has someone coming in town on Friday, and I'm booked til after dinner and drinks with cousins of mine that night. Does this work for the rest of you guys?

Suggestion

If for some reason we can't conjure up anything by Wednesday or Thursday, we should set this prompt aside temporarily (since I love it so) and schedule the 2-hour timed prompt instead. This way we can get one more full writing group meeting in before Nathan goes to the land of Borat.

In the meantime, WRITE!

Alligator Lounge, anyone?

Beer Purchase = Free Pizza (a whole 8 pieces, not some wimpy ass triangle!)

The beer is reasonably priced, since it's out in Brooklyn, and it's not overwhelmed with the intimidation of people who are dressed hipper than you.

Prompt-diggity.

Scenario:

You (or not you) are in an abode with only one lamp, absolutely no overhead lighting, and there are multiple rooms. This can be a temporary situation, a permanent choice, fodder for conflict, an indicator of indifference--whatever sets your heart alight.

Unrealistic due date: Monday the 15th. Just convince yourself that something very very bad will happen to you or a loved one if you don't complete the assignment by this ever-looming date.

Raye, H, and Esteban

At this moment in Greensboro, North Carolina, Raye is not conscious of her boobs or that H is looking at them; she may as well have her eyes closed—she’s already deaf— walking down lamp-lit Fir Place over grates clogged with fallen leaves and soggy acorns; the atmosphere is a lightless funnel and then the acorn heads rolling under her flip flops add chaos literally and on a symbolic level. She is about to arrive home from the hospital with her ex, H, having just left Esteban, her man, in the ICU.

H is seeing Raye’s boobs in the orange light, amused that Raye called her of all people to come to the hospital. She has smallish secondary sex traits and she does not even consider what she did with Raye a Relationship. She is walking Raye home for these_____ reasons, although she hasn’t been to her apartment since they stopped messing around. But Raye keeps walking imperiously, no words, like H is a lap dog. But she seems quiet in a remorseful way like she’s lost in an amusement park with a blank cotton candy cone. H doesn't know why since Esteban didn't even come close to dying.

So then H has to take her hand off her cell phone, out of her pocket, face Raye, and say, “Do you want a hug?” which gets Raye started.

“I’m just so frustrated,” she says. “I am one thing, I’m realizing. I want virile, you know? That’s why I couldn’t keep stinking ourselves up like that all private with no one knowing you weren’t just spending the night. Like, take care of me. I know I sound. Sound psychotic, but sometimes that’s what honesty is. This isn’t about me being disappointed in your boredom baggage or Esteban’s ability to check out of his life with sports or injuries or friends or whatever. It’s like why did I have to call you? I mean, I’m so glad you’re here. Thank god, of course. Really. I just feel interminably koala-y. Like munch munch munch on one tree except, ha, I’m BI! I’m just clinging to this sexual Rapunzel role. I don’t take care of others and don’t want to—with religious conviction. I take care of my hair like it’s an upsettable infant and my abs like they’re twin toddlers, always rollicking away. I mean, I’m so glad you’re here. You always make me feel at equilibrium. When I’m alone I feel so quiet but loud in my head like an actual psychotic. So remind me that I’m into this little girl role, histrionic for affection, and whatnot. You were right. And I’m asking for punishment. That’s also what really frustrates me. You were fucking right. I just want a big dick in my life. I can’t baby myself.”

“No,” H said, meaning relax. She had been tugging her pony tail up and down like a water pump and then stopped, wishing for a lollipop. “I don’t think you want that.” Raye seems unsatisfied and a touch haughtier now; she’s back to no talking. But H tries to baby Raye, always has, especially craving the gratification of being needed and going beyond herself to provide like a remarkably handsome welcome mat.

Because H's weakness is resignation and if she doesn’t feel connected—an electrical circuit is a fitting image, especially when Raye is the light bulb—then in a few years all these things might happen such as Harriet Carr becoming an alcoholic, then joins Al-Anon, where she makes friends, wears jeans with a broken zipper, writes and says I love you to her friends a lot, doesn’t find a boyfriend, and she’s getting better at rugby all this time, promoting deaf athletics, and she makes money at a company that takes the taxes out of her checks, which she spends when she has to, on birthday gifts, rugby tournament gas, the weight room at the Y, party supplies, generous things for others and basic things for herself like Vitamin E and an end table and the weight room at the Y.

"That was a lot of pressure. You are so strong," H says.

“Thanks.” They hug again.

When they get to the apartment, H makes a cup with her left fist and stirs with her right index finger and thumb the space in the other hand.

She gets a moment away to fill the electric kettle and, all the while worried about not being worried about Esteban, measures the tea leaves into mugs that say, “Benny, I love you!” Esteban will be fine if he stops getting concussions. Not to mention Raye had already emailed Esteban's family by the time the medics told her that his lung was punctured.

Raye sits down for the first time since leaving the hospital and her ankles are rolled out pushing her feet out of her sandals, stinking. She touches her forehead with the fingertips of her right hand and brings down the shape of the letter "y," over and over again, "Why? Why? Why?"

Now Raye's calm face is moving quicker, more impulsively. Her lips are taut and she mouths "His poor mother! Fuck, this really sucks." with forceful lips. H, Raye, and Esteban all rely on light for communicative and thus symbolic import, in contrast to air, the sole, unmemorable requirement for sonic transport. Raye’s hands are more familiar than her mouth, which H has felt with her own mouth, which she uses for touch more than talking. Raye’s hands are as familiar as her eyes, as her silhouette on the stairs to the outdoor amphitheater at school.
"Could've happened anywhere," H says. She is signing. "Really could've happened anywhere. Don't implode."

Raye mats the tears down on her face, hung to dry like rainy jeans. Tomorrow or the next day, whenever Esteban is awake, Raye will visit him in the hospital, order take-out with him, and from there “keep doing the things they do,” Raye muses in her post-outburst pragmatic, forward-looking tone. Like writing his International Business powerpoints unless H tells her she loves her, which she does. She’s clarifying, too, that she loves Raye’s hunger, anger included, fears at bay, sex up front, and Raye is touched so they mess around like they used to. Baby Raye, my rayby.

WALKOUT

1) The crowded train accelerated unexpectedly. A man with a large camping backpack, pillows and water bottles dangling from its sides like Christmas ornaments, shifted awkwardly and whacked the backpack into a large fellow. “Hey, buddy” the man said loud enough for the whole car to hear, “why don’t you take that thing off?” People looked at him disdainfully, like a tourist. He got off at the very next stop and had to walk 45 minutes home.

2) The scruffy man turned on his portable radio to listen to the baseball game. It was the bottom of the ninth. People crowded around to listen. “Annnnnd the Yankees win,” the announcer said. People cheered and jeered. A businessman angrily grabbed the radio and threw it out the train doors at the next stop. The scruffy man and the businessman locked arms, tumbling out the doors after the radio, dancing like spiders, trading awkward blows as everyone watched on, each subconsciously deciding in their minds how evil to make the businessman in the story for later tonight.

3) “And then I said to him, ‘But I promised my friends there would be lasers.’ So we did! We got a fucking laser for the party! Can you believe it? We were $4,000 in debt, we had charges on like eight credit cards, but he said, ‘We need to do this infomercial! We’ll pretend it’s a party, and people will dance, and we’ll sell the salsa DVDs. This is brilliant.’ I swear, he said it. This. Is. Brilliant. But the saddest thing is, the space we rented, it was all windows, so we couldn’t even use the laser! I know, the guy at the store asked me what we were using it for, and he told me about the windows thing. So we ended up just pointing the laser at the wall. It was ridiculous! We had smoke machines, and all his fat friends who are just awful salsa dancers, but we invited them anyway ‘cuz they’d make us look like good dancers in the video by comparison, this is his logic by the way, and then the guy who gave us the money for the project, oh man, got sooo scammed, I almost feel bad for him except I ended up getting a PSP for my Christmas bonus… Oh, I didn’t tell you that?! Yeah, we’re $4,000 in debt and he bought us all PSPs and video iPods! So yeah, the patron so to say and his friend were there, wondering where the fuck his two-hundred thou went, and here we are, we’d rented out this mini helicopter… Yes, no, no, yes. It was in the room. Literally. No, not literally like Joyce, but literally literally. No, he was not a midget. Yes, he sat in it, just like the real thing, except room-sized. It was in the room. And we let his friend fly it around ‘cuz we know he likes helicopters, and the patron guys eyes just lit up and, oh, we’re about to enter the tunnel, I’ll call you back.” She got off at the next stop and that was that.

4) She took up two seats. Another woman took offense. There was an argument and it did not end well.

5) Scrawled neatly into the window:

      Couldn’t be friends
      So you traded beds
      Then you came back
      But brought bugs
      What the fuck?

6) “It was cold. Winter was nothing like the way it was at home. They joked, their backs ached and they ached to go back, but this was work, driving spikes, blasting rock, doing manly things. But many had died because it was dangerous, but that was ok, home was dangerous too, but over there, they died respected as men. Here, it was different. It was winter, and they were cold. They had asked for winter coats and gloves, but they had not gotten them. They were cold, it was winter, and they no longer joked about their backs aching, they were too cold to joke. Winter had only just begun, and then they decided, they would no longer work until their coats and gloves came. ‘Too bad,’ said the boss, and then they all died, pushed over the cliff. No work was done over the winter, and when spring came, others came and finished the railroad.” The little boy started to wail. “Why did you tell me this story Grampa?” “No, no, it’s not finished. It’s a joke!” Grampa gesticulated wildly in the air. “See, the gloves and the jackets, there were hundreds of them, all made from the finest furs and sheepskins, packed all ready to go… packed inside a railroad car! But they couldn’t get it to the men because they didn’t finish the railroad so the gloves and jackets couldn’t get to them! See!” Needless to say, the boy did not cease crying.

[Close your eyes. Real tight. Imagine there are 41 similar type things between here. Pretend that you have just read them. Ok. Open your… CHEATER!]

…

48) Two men were talking loudly on the subway car. They were talking about whether OJ still needed our love. The lady next to them rolled her eyes and smiled. A baby cooed in its stroller. When the officer who was in the next car over came in and approached the men, the men shrugged. One said something and soon the car was stopped, people backed away nervously, and soon everyone was late twenty minutes to their destinations except for one of the men who was hauled away for talking too loud and would not reach his final destination for quite some time.

49) He looked her way for quite some time. Finally, he unhooked the thumbs from his blue jean suspenders and approached her. “Hi Benny,” he said. Her friend piped up, “Her name’s Becky, not Benny.” He turned away and got off at the next stop, spending the rest of the afternoon wandering aimlessly with a smile on his face.

50) He sat there, dozing off until the fat lady leaned against. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” he asked. She breathlessly murmured, “I’m tired. Is it ok?” “No, it really isn’t,” he replied. He stared her down, and she stared at him. Later, as he was dozing off again, she leaned in again. He could feel the weight of her breasts, his arms supporting them like a spongy bra for the most infinitesimal of seconds. He got out, quickly at the next stop, and walked 45 minutes home, unsure how to feel.

Some Serious Water Drinking

(After staring at my screen for the good part of a rainy, late evening, I'm sad to say that I'm going to have to post something I've previously written. I'm blaming it on being sick on Sunday/Monday. Won't happen againz, I swearz it. Sorry sorry sorry.)

One afternoon, Jess challenged me to a water-drinking contest. I mean, we thought, it’s water right, water’s healthy, it’s hydrating, it’s liberating, so what harm could come from a water-drinking contest?

We had had beer-drinking affairs before, and those always tended to end up being quite pleasant. We would both start with a beer in each fist and start downing them like a Nathaniel champion. In fact, we got so good at it, that as the contests progressed, we hired other people to open our beers, that way we could save time and focus on what really mattered, downing that barley-refined liquid down our esophagi. Popping the top off the can, flipping the tab? No, that was a mundane pause to the real sport that lay within, and that kind of stuff was beneath us now. I mean, we were serious now. It might have been ok to open our own cans when we were younger, back in bush-league, but this was serious, and we couldn’t afford to slow the pace on account of a little aluminum tab.

After we were sufficiently expert at drinking beer, we moved on to milk. Milk had the convenience of coming in a quart-sized carton, which made the sidekick can opener superfluous, which was good, since me and Jess were spending quite a lot of money on actually buying the goods, and not really working so much as being employed, so it wasn’t like we could afford that much to pay someone else to open our goods anyway. We thought of charging admission to all our friends who came out to watch us have our contests, but eventually, me and Jess decided against this, seeing as that would be against the spirit of amateur competition, even though they do charge a buttload for tickets at the Olympics, but we felt morally superior to that, the Olympics being a commercialized blowfest and all, with everyone up on each other’s dicks (and each other’s pussies as well Jess reminded), telling each other how awesome they were, how special you all are, you really are, in like the top ‘point zero zero one’ percentile of human beings, and that if a meteor were to come and destroy the earth, you would be the ones who deserved to live in the super-secret underground bunker, NIMROD, not that you really should worry, since Darwinism favors you anyway and I’m sure your ‘point zero zero one’ percentile instincts would kick in, your killer spirit so to say, the one that serves you so well in Olympic competition.

Well, me and Jess could do some serious milk-drinking. We did some rough paper napkin math, and we calculated that we were definitely in the top ‘point zero zero one’ percentile of milk drinkers in the world based on age, ethnicity, gender, cultural standards of living, agility, twenty-meter dash times, lung capacity, brain capacity, gag reflex capacity, and index finger size. Me and Jess both had abnormally large index fingers that were especially suited for drinking milk. When asked, I said I was just blessed; I had my mother to thank for those genes. You can’t teach someone to be a great milk drinker I said; some are just born that way.

We knew we were kind of pushing the limits of what we were doing when we told Dale that we were going to drink the battery acid. Dale’s our friend, the one who usually supports us through everything. When me and Jess went through our first divorce, he held our hands and walked us through the process. When me and Jess decided we wanted to live among the cannibals in Micronesia, he was all for us having new experiences. We never really went to Micronesia; come to think of it, I don’t even know if cannibals exist anymore, though I’m sure they still do exist somewhere, there are all kinds of perverse people everywhere, but they probably wouldn’t congregate together, no, probably wouldn’t form like, you know, communities, being that they’re cannibals, but even so, it just goes to show you how great of a friend Dale was, seeing as he supported us in even something as crazy as living with cannibals in Micronesia. There could not be a more upstanding friend than Dale, and when we told him we were going to drink battery acid for our next contest, he threatened to call the cops.

We told him, now that truly isn’t in the sporting spirit, and other stock phrases, like ‘give it a rest’ and ‘be a good sport’ and ‘it’s all in the sporting spirit.’ When he had sufficiently calmed, he told us he would research the thing for us, and that he’d be on hand to monitor our contest, him being a good friend and all, and he’d hate to lose us as friends. We agreed, and the next day, Dale came back with a list of do’s and don’ts that he googled for us, and we agreed to not do anything too crazy and reminded each other that we weren’t competing against each other so much as we were competing against ourselves, and that we really shouldn’t go overboard and all-out and gung-ho and hari-kari and up and kill ourselves. Though we did agree it would be a great way to die, in the name of sport, a pure, uncorrupted amateur sport, though we also agreed having battery acid burn your internal organs would not be a great way to die.

We read some of Dale’s tenets and he made us sign a sworn affidavit. Seek emergency medical care immediately if either participant shows signs of unrest. If on the skin or within the eyes, flush with lots of water for at least 15 minutes. If swallowed—which we planned on doing—drink water or milk IMMEDIATELY—Dale said emphasis not added by him. If the patient is vomiting, continue providing water or milk. If available, drink 4-6 ounces milk of magnesia. For inhalation poisoning, remove the patient to fresh air.

We both agreed that we would each drink one ounce of acid per round, make-or-miss style, and we would only do a maximum of four ounces, not a drop more. If at any time, one of us backed out, we agreed not to think the other a coward, since this was serious business, playing with life and death and all. But on the day it was scheduled, it rained, and seeing as how we had to have it outdoors on account of the fresh air, we rain-delayed the event. We tried to find another date amenable to everyone who had promised to come out and watch, but there really wasn’t a good one, so we decided to postpone the event indefinitely.

One afternoon, Jess challenged me to a water-drinking contest. I thought that might be a good idea, to take a step back, let our bodies recuperate, but still do a bit of light training in the off-season in preparation for next year. Jess thought it should be a timed-trial, just like the beer-drinking contest, but I was enamored with make-or-miss. I told her that that was more of a test of endurance and strength and willpower, the true values of being a sportsman (and sportswoman she said), but she argued that I was only promoting make-or-miss, not out of moral righteousness, but because I was a little slow on the uptake, my handle markedly worse than hers. When I proved inflexible, she agreed to buck for it, odds or even, best of three. I asked her who bucks for things anymore these days, that was so bush-league, and that we’d be better off just consulting Dale. Dale suggested we flip a coin. We heartily agreed.

It was heads. Jess crumpled in defeat and I pumped my fists, but I knew that that was just the first round, the first battery of tests. I had the home-field advantage, but I still had to go out there and execute.

The day of the contest arrived. It was sunny and there was an excellent turnout. Being that this was my home turf, I elected to drink up first and get the nerves out of my system. I knew Jess wouldn’t be intimidated, she’d be prepared, so I decided to just drink it straight-up, no theatrics like I would use to psychologically play with and torture a lesser foe.

They say it was the fourth gallon is what did it. Obviously, I would reply, she only drank four gallons, it had to be the fourth gallon that sent her away and put her out of commission. The doctors said it was hyponatremia, and I said huh, and they said it’s called being dumbasses, but I told them that this was serious business and relayed to them Jess’s wish to die doing what she loved. But they said she wouldn’t die, it’s just that her sodium levels were way too low. She’d have to stay until the swelling in her brain got down before she could go, and I was glad, because there wasn’t anyone else like Jess who could compete like me. When she came out of the hospital a week later, me and Dale celebrated by taking her to the park, and it was there that we dumped the rest of the undrunk jugs of water, all twenty-two of them, dumped them one by one into the pond, and it was there, while dumping the water amongst the ducks, that I proposed marriage to her again.

Not quite sure how done this is (certainly rushed the ending to make the deadline), but read it as if it were done anyway.
-----------------------
There’s a dying pine tree on my walk to the bus stop, and I don’t like the looks of it. I move my legs a little faster so that I can no longer see the tree’s droopy, balding body. It’s a rare and disconcerting sight, a dead evergreen stuck in the ground.

I get on the bus, and I know we are going to pass that tree again. I close my eyes until I hear the doors open for the next stop. But then I wonder if I might have miscalculated. Maybe it’s after this stop, or the next. I don’t like to be paranoid, so I pull my t-shirt up over my face; this way, I can’t make the mistake of opening my eyes too soon.

I call Teresa when I get off the bus because that’s what I sometimes do when I have been drinking. I call to ask her about marriage again, but I can tell she doesn’t mean it when she says “probably.” I ask her to call me back when she is drunk so that I can ask her about marriage again—sometimes, when she is drunk, she says “probably” and she really means it.

She says she will call me back later; she does. But I should’ve just stayed passed out on the floor with my t-shirt pulled up over my face, because tonight she said to stop asking her about marriage when she is drunk or even when she is sober.

The dying pine tree stays on my mind. I dream that night; not in color, not in black in white; but in sepia, where blood and shadows are drained from all objects and beings—the discoloration of death.

I fear that everything has indeed been drained from everything. I pull myself out of the dream, only to find everything bathed in the ambiguous glow of a yellow nightlight. I’m too shitless to switch on a lamp because I don’t have any guarantee that the colors will be there when I do it.

Instead, I go outside where it is still dark. I walk down the street until it becomes another street, and another, and another. I just walk and walk. My legs are so tired that maybe I walked over the county line; but I don’t know for sure because I haven’t looked up for any signs.

I decide to take a break. Across the street, there is a mailbox to crouch against. I walk over, but as soon as I set foot on the lawn, a motion sensor light goes off and I break out running with my eyes closed. I keep running and running until I’ve fallen over too many times to not hurt.

My eyes still closed, I call Teresa.

Do you still see the colors? Do you still see the shapes? I ask her. She asks me what I think I’m trying to pull. I need you to tell me, I say. Please, just tell me if you see the colors and shapes, if they haven’t been drained. I tell her that she is the only one I can trust. She tells me that this is why she broke up with me, because I scare her, and then she hangs up on me.

I break my phone in half. Then I open my eyes because I know I can’t keep running with them closed. I can tell that the sun will be coming up soon. There won’t be anywhere to go after that. I start running west, buying myself some time. I just need to have a guarantee, that the colors and shapes will be there when the lights go on. But there is no guarantee.

And it is getting brighter and brighter, and every now and then I can see a light turn on in a bedroom. I run faster than I ever have, but I can only sustain the pace in my mind; my body collapses on a hill of crabgrass and weed killer, and I can only think enough to pull my shirt over my face before I black out.

I wake up with the sun in my eyes and my shirt off and my belly covered with dew. I see that there is color and there is shape, and I’m wondering how the hell it all got there; and then I see why. I am lying on the outskirts of a nursery. Somehow, things lined up in such a way that, even with my eyes closed, I was led to the only thing I needed.

There are acres and acres of trees lined up, straighter than you could ever imagine. When I line myself up at just the right spot, it looks like there is only one tree in front of me, when there really is a thousand. I stand there, as a point on a living line. There is so much color and so much shadow from the leaves, that I know this must be the source of rejuvenation. This is the source that replenishes what death will drain.

I put my shirt back on, because I can see people walking around and looking at plants. I walk toward where I think I might find water, because I know that I could black out again if I don’t find water soon.

Excuse me, this woman says. I think I want this dogwood—this is a dogwood, right?—can you take it to that red truck over there, the one with my husband in it?

I turn around and see the most perfect person I could see on a morning like this. She is a large woman with a bigger shadow than anyone could ask for, and her cheeks are covered in layers of pink blush. When she smacks her blue chewing gum, I can see that her tongue is same color pink as her cheeks.

Of course I take the tree to her car.

I start walking back to find water, but someone asks me to help load some large shrubbery into the backseat of his car. Of course I help him load the shrubbery.

It feels really good to help people load things into their cars. It is then that I realize that I have broken my phone in half and that that was the only place I had Teresa’s phone number. She is never the one to call me, so I will probably never talk to her again. And unless I find someone else to marry, no one will ever help me load things into my car—not the way that lovers do.

I start to feel it again—the discoloration—and I know what this means. I sit against a wall, even though I am getting covered in mud. I hear myself talking to myself.

There are some young girls in green t-shirts who are watching me from a greenhouse. I try to stand up, but I fall over like I am still drunk. The girls start giggling.

I get up again, and then I decide that I should marry one of them.

I decide to love the one in the green shirt with the rolled up sleeves. I stare at her and try to think of what I should call her. I decide I will call her Benny, and I approach her. "Hi, Benny," I say. Another girl pipes up. "Her name's Becky, not Benny," she informs me.

No, I tell them; it’s not, don’t you see? Benny, let’s get married tonight.

This time, the girls break out into laughter and they all scatter down the long rows of trees, and it’s okay because I know from the look in Benny’s eyes, she would’ve said probably and meant it.

I can feel myself spinning, and I can see Benny in the whitest wedding dress ever to have existed; and she is glowing so brightly that the shadows have gone away; and I think that this is what the tree must’ve felt like; and that there was nothing to be afraid of at all.

A Lesson on Sunday School Truth, with Parables

It’s a curse, where before there was no curse, that I’ve fallen in love. Like this.

I am not being impetuous. I am cautious like a tree is cautious. I am deliberate like honey. I cast glances like the sun casts shadows. I keep the requisite distance from the object of my desire, but I burn in the places where love burns, at the nape of the neck, in the gut, throughout the legs, but also in the head, where I know that the world will cast its aspersions for this love. It will try to skim stones off the surface of my skin, across my face, three, four, six times a stone. I am in pain from the thought of these stones, which come from without while this love comes from within. With me the external has always been more powerful than the internal, which I cannot touch, which I can only ever embody.

There’s one boy in the nursery I decide I love. I stare at him and try to think of what I should call him. I decide I will call him Benny.

Benny is a three-course meal. Benny is the flank of a roaming antelope. Benny is the absent portion of the crescent moon, the brazen curve of the crescent moon, the blue, charmed hue of the moon. Benny is the calm breathing of deep sleep, of a child long in sleep, of a colicky steam whistle. Benny runs with the sheep dogs. Benny runs with bells on his ankles. Benny runs with the electrons, is as small as the electrons, is so far away as to be as small or smaller than the electrons. I set my mind to working on ways to attract him.

I approach him, though he runs with the children, circles along a circular alphabet, around the earth, about the edges of the globe that’s tiled to the floor of the nursery. To keep up, I run. We are a laughing cavalcade, a covey of laughing quail. We are prone to fatigue, we are prone to collapse, we are a laughing heap in the middle of the globe.

There are the good teachers and the bad teachers and the teachers who have no sense of beauty and no sense of humor. I am a laughing teacher. I see beauty where others see utility or a pin board for a litany of human rights.

"Hi, Benny," I say. We have untangled our arms and legs, we have stood up, we have stopped laughing. The bell has rung. The parents have come, the parents are coming. Another girl pipes up. This girl has hair of burning thrush.

“Her name’s Becky, not Benny,” she informs me.

What does she think I am? Who does she take me for, this little four-year-old sunburst, this cog of weeds and fennel? “Who is teaching whom?” I want to ask. Who are the students, and who the teacher? Who presents reality in the classroom, in the nursery, to those whose minds are flawless imagination? Who sits on mats on the tiled globe like little rotten countries and who rises before and above like the light of day? Who is the Rosetta stone to the mute and confused, the priestly man in the priestly robes, with the valiant throbbing conscience, the bald head like the burning lamb of Moses?

Does she think I don’t know what it means to be Benny and what it means to be Becky and what the difference between the two is? Does she think that I have not lain, like the breath of some featureless god, between the legs of that snowcapped mountain only to suffocate on the foliage, only to wet myself from fear of the dark and of the noises of the dark cave? Where are the pomegranates, the promised wedge fruit? Or the branches of the tree, the manacled leaf, the chloroform, the dripping dew?

Whatever it is she thinks is true about the world, she cannot yet know that truth is a function of love and subject to its whims and monikers. I am here, floating above the world, to show these seeds how love transforms and saves us from the vulgarity of the truth of others, forced upon us; from the disgusting truth of another’s passion; from the crime of codifying one man’s love into a universal anything. To this other girl, Benny is just a girl--the four-year-old girl Becky--a purely contingent entity in her blunt domestic universe, a porcelain doll on her dresser. But to me Benny is a boyish palimpsest, the glowing coral swirl within and under sea foam and water, an uncompromised banana fruit.

Whatever it is she thinks she knows, what this other girl doesn’t know is that I got to within one consonant of the boy’s name just by looking at him, and that with the ease and patience of dawn, I’ll leave hardly a footprint when at last I sink into the soil.

from A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND

[I apologize to L. Ferlinghetti for failing to include the proper indentation, but I had to share the poem.]

14.

Don't let that horse
eat that violin

cried Chagall's mother

But he
kept right on
painting

And became famous

And kept on painting
The Horse With Violin In Mouth

And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
and rode away
waving the violin

And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across


And there were no strings
attached


--Lawrence Ferlinghetti