My uncle had a collection of butterflies in his study. He seemed flattered that I would abandon the fourth or fifth game of Horse to look at them, even when my older cousins were playing, and so he would always take the time to point them out and name them for me.
That’s a Mallow Skipper, he said, clicking his flinty little nail against the glass.
This was a buckeye. That one was an Orange Tiger. This one, the Duke of Burgundy. His favorite was the Painted Lady.
They aren’t moving. Are they sleeping?
No, they’re not sleeping. They’re not living either.
Huh?
They’re dead.
They looked very alive to me. They looked more than alive. Their wings were still neat, and flat, still beautiful tiny churchwindows. They were the most alive things that I had ever seen.
Oh, I said. But I didn’t believe him. I had decided that they were asleep.
(I had trouble with this as a kid! One day I think I came to the conclusion that, as long as it wasn't crushed or crumpled, a butterfly was still technically alive.
Yes, I am terrible at biology.)
6/25/10
"Follow me," the wiseman said, but he walked behind.
“You’re gonna be here when I get back, right?”
fuck you old man his inside parts screamed, like glass on a glacier on a newborn. fuck you and your questions, fuck you and your answers, fuck you and the ego autofellatio that you dress up so keen and clean and pretty as fucking compassion, fuck your God or your Self or your Peddling of Either and fuck your merchandising of purpose and your optimist’s reality kaleidoscope and your circumstantial pie-in-the-sky spin-cycle and your shit mosaic and y“Right?”
Harold looked up from his seat on the stone bench. The old man had been talking to him since three o’clock in the morning, when he had found Harold springloaded like a trackstar on the cinderblock underbite of the bridge. He had talked him down and then kept on talking, and Harold had calmed. It was now sunrise.
But it was also cold and foggy, and Harold had thought coffee sounded nice.
“Hey-yeah, no problem man. I’ll be right here.”
“Ya promise?”
i’m jumping off this bridge the minute you walk away you narcissist fuck
“Promise.”
fuck you old man his inside parts screamed, like glass on a glacier on a newborn. fuck you and your questions, fuck you and your answers, fuck you and the ego autofellatio that you dress up so keen and clean and pretty as fucking compassion, fuck your God or your Self or your Peddling of Either and fuck your merchandising of purpose and your optimist’s reality kaleidoscope and your circumstantial pie-in-the-sky spin-cycle and your shit mosaic and y“Right?”
Harold looked up from his seat on the stone bench. The old man had been talking to him since three o’clock in the morning, when he had found Harold springloaded like a trackstar on the cinderblock underbite of the bridge. He had talked him down and then kept on talking, and Harold had calmed. It was now sunrise.
But it was also cold and foggy, and Harold had thought coffee sounded nice.
“Hey-yeah, no problem man. I’ll be right here.”
“Ya promise?”
i’m jumping off this bridge the minute you walk away you narcissist fuck
“Promise.”
In with the old...
It didn’t matter that his tongue and his head had rusted over, and been swallowed up in a glowing opiumquilt in his seat behind the counter - nothing had changed. Not really. The knuckles were still evil and warped in the belly of his fist, all radiatorbite and wirehum with remember Jacey and his hammer, Jacey and his and plucking the muscles and the sinews to thrum ginger ache all up and down his arm.
Not the rotted meringue of the streetlamps, or the gravel of the radio, or the scarecrow burlap of his overwashed jeans. Not the beggar who had perched like a relic in the groin of 21st and Harrington and grinned up at him with a mouthful of caramel decay and quoted Caesar Octavius. O, Antony! The sound deephooked in his mouth, so unlike the Houdini rainbow trout at Camp Knocknaree, and left a taste that might have been bile or ambrosia or black tar heroin.
Not the guillotine windowsills of his nursery or snowsoft kindling of boyhood lies or the spiderugly scar beneath the dragonfly lips of his first porcelain fuck. Slow dogs would still be clots of fur and gristle, and crop up richly in the underskeletons of immaculate Chevys. And would still abandon the carnivorewet smell of themselves in the ribbed grilles until the slurring mercy of a hot rain, or garden hose. O, Antony!
He sank his molars into the velvet of his cheek.
The round world should have shook lions into civil streets, And citizens to their dens!
This was worse than all the rest.
Hear me, good friends -
(Actually a pretty old thing from like, January, but I just blundered across it and kinda wanna prod at it and do somethin with it and that would be fairly difficult if I were to forget its sprawling 229-word existence.
Fancy-Nancy lines ripped straight from Antony and Cleopatra. BILLY SHAKES, BRO, I OWE YOU ONE. )
Not the rotted meringue of the streetlamps, or the gravel of the radio, or the scarecrow burlap of his overwashed jeans. Not the beggar who had perched like a relic in the groin of 21st and Harrington and grinned up at him with a mouthful of caramel decay and quoted Caesar Octavius. O, Antony! The sound deephooked in his mouth, so unlike the Houdini rainbow trout at Camp Knocknaree, and left a taste that might have been bile or ambrosia or black tar heroin.
Not the guillotine windowsills of his nursery or snowsoft kindling of boyhood lies or the spiderugly scar beneath the dragonfly lips of his first porcelain fuck. Slow dogs would still be clots of fur and gristle, and crop up richly in the underskeletons of immaculate Chevys. And would still abandon the carnivorewet smell of themselves in the ribbed grilles until the slurring mercy of a hot rain, or garden hose. O, Antony!
He sank his molars into the velvet of his cheek.
The round world should have shook lions into civil streets, And citizens to their dens!
This was worse than all the rest.
Hear me, good friends -
(Actually a pretty old thing from like, January, but I just blundered across it and kinda wanna prod at it and do somethin with it and that would be fairly difficult if I were to forget its sprawling 229-word existence.
Fancy-Nancy lines ripped straight from Antony and Cleopatra. BILLY SHAKES, BRO, I OWE YOU ONE. )
6/23/10
BADHOUSE
Chiles had seen vultures in upstate New York, nine years ago, on the way to his uncle’s geriatric lakeshack. A fox or cat or something brown had been snagged in a trap or fence or fight, and managed to scrape away through a field only to end up in a puddle of itself. Its sides flapped up and down, quick as quick was quick, and Chiles found it desperately funny because he did not know what it meant. He was six. And found it even funnier when in flew the big pigheaded birds: with their hooked mouths and poodley necks and raggedy everything else, because they looked so silly, and why in the heck would a bunch of poodleybirds want to play with a huffy puffy foxcat?
That’s what we look like now, thought Chiles. A hive of goddamn vultures.
A stranger would have disagreed, and with a clear head. The couple that was due that afternoon would say the same. Whether it was the husband’s or the wife’s plumbing that had sprung a leak was irrelevant. If they wanted a mouth to feed, or a feather in their cap - a nice Well Look How He Started Out And Look How He Came Up - they would get it, all wrapped up in a tidy boy-shaped package.
And they were all such beautiful boys. Bright, strong, clean and groomed boys. But lean-eyed and dead with an identical hungriness. None of them looked around, because none of them wanted to see their own.
The only one trying to talk or hold eyes with the boys was Mr. Rigley. He patted one on the shoulder.
“Doin' good, Hathers?”
“Yeah.”
“Looking sharp, pal.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Chiles gambled and glanced over. Hathers looked ready to vomit.
“How’re you today, Samson?”
“Just fine, Rigley.”
“Mr. Rigley.”
“Mr. Rigley. Sir. Sorry.”
A car was droning somewhere nearby, and Chiles watched his eyes ratchet onto the window.
“Chiles, how'saboy?”
There was a blackbird outside, picking and flittering around on the razorwire fence.
“Chiles? Chiles, you in there?”
There was a clatter of laughter that died off quickly.
The blackbird dropped out of sight, onto the ground. Chiles wondered if there was a foxcat down there.
The seat next to him lurched as it was suddenly filled. “Chiles, you havin’ a problem with Houston, pal?”
More laughter this time, more relaxed.
There was now little to watch outside of the window, except for the fence. Chiles had seen plenty of that but did not look away. “Sir?”
“I said, how are you feeling today, son.”
“Like an ant in the fucking sugarpot.”
Every head turned, every sick pair of bright strong clean eyes snapped onto the boy and the man next to him.
Chiles recoiled just slightly, as if recalling his manners. He pulled his face from the window and looked at Mr. Rigley. “‘Sir.’”
(Wow I have no idea if any disciplinary centers operate as orphanages on the side, but dammit, it just happened.)
That’s what we look like now, thought Chiles. A hive of goddamn vultures.
A stranger would have disagreed, and with a clear head. The couple that was due that afternoon would say the same. Whether it was the husband’s or the wife’s plumbing that had sprung a leak was irrelevant. If they wanted a mouth to feed, or a feather in their cap - a nice Well Look How He Started Out And Look How He Came Up - they would get it, all wrapped up in a tidy boy-shaped package.
And they were all such beautiful boys. Bright, strong, clean and groomed boys. But lean-eyed and dead with an identical hungriness. None of them looked around, because none of them wanted to see their own.
The only one trying to talk or hold eyes with the boys was Mr. Rigley. He patted one on the shoulder.
“Doin' good, Hathers?”
“Yeah.”
“Looking sharp, pal.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Chiles gambled and glanced over. Hathers looked ready to vomit.
“How’re you today, Samson?”
“Just fine, Rigley.”
“Mr. Rigley.”
“Mr. Rigley. Sir. Sorry.”
A car was droning somewhere nearby, and Chiles watched his eyes ratchet onto the window.
“Chiles, how'saboy?”
There was a blackbird outside, picking and flittering around on the razorwire fence.
“Chiles? Chiles, you in there?”
There was a clatter of laughter that died off quickly.
The blackbird dropped out of sight, onto the ground. Chiles wondered if there was a foxcat down there.
The seat next to him lurched as it was suddenly filled. “Chiles, you havin’ a problem with Houston, pal?”
More laughter this time, more relaxed.
There was now little to watch outside of the window, except for the fence. Chiles had seen plenty of that but did not look away. “Sir?”
“I said, how are you feeling today, son.”
“Like an ant in the fucking sugarpot.”
Every head turned, every sick pair of bright strong clean eyes snapped onto the boy and the man next to him.
Chiles recoiled just slightly, as if recalling his manners. He pulled his face from the window and looked at Mr. Rigley. “‘Sir.’”
(Wow I have no idea if any disciplinary centers operate as orphanages on the side, but dammit, it just happened.)
6/19/10
What is this I don't even
Maddy was on her third cup of chamomile tea and page thirty-five of Thais of Athens when her daughter’s bedroom door groaned open and sleepy feet pattered out. Her teacup clinked against its saucer, crashingly loud in the quiet house, as Maddy cut a glance to the granddaddy clock:
3:43. She licked her thumb to turn the page.
“Muh -” There was the high, cottony sound of a little girl’s yawn from the hall. “Mom?” A tousled head poked into the den, dim and squinting. The woman smiled.
Theresa had taken mostly after her father, in looks and in mind and in temperament, something that Maddy found herself crushingly grateful for each and every day. Very dark, very sober features. No excess of warmth to be taken as gullible, no ease of expression to be seen as exploitable. Which was a blessing, in and of itself - the girl had inherited not a shred of her mother’s ruthlessness.
Maddy closed her book.
“What’re you doing up, sweetheart?”
The girl shoved a blunt fist around her eye. “‘m sorry,” she mumbled. “‘d I wake youup?”
“It’s alright, baby.” Maddy had not slept in years. “What’s wrong? You thirsty?”
Theresa shook her head, making a bleary beeline to her mother.
“Too hot? You know you can turn on the fan.”
She shook her head again, and made to climb into Maddy’s lap. Thais of Athens was forgotten and dropped alongside the chair as concern tickled the back of Maddy’s throat.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Theresa had never been the type to seek security this way. Not since she could talk, at least. “You can tell me.”
Theresa squirmed. She seemed uncomfortable with being comforted.
“The house wake you up? Hm? You know that it likes to move around, sometime. Remember that all you got to do is upturn the horseshoe we got over the door, to give the rascal a little rattle, and it’ll settle down pretty --”
“There’s a monster in my room.”
The grandaddy clock groaned, just once. It was a quarter to four.
Maddy frowned. “Oh, sweetie...” Imagination had never gotten the run of Theresa, even when she was small - it seemed strange for it to flare up only now. “Sounds like you had a bad dream.”
Theresa shook her head and grimaced, but said nothing.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened? Hm? You can tell me.”
The girl was busy shooting cold looks, over her shoulder, at the innocent hallway. When she finally turned back Maddy’s breath caught at how much of her husband she saw. “I was at the lake again --”
-- at the lake again, with the cattails and the lilypads and the crumbled windmill and the telephone booth and the headless Nike of Samothrace, and other things, lots of things, lots of lots of other things that had been lost or left or taken, pieces of art and pieces of garbage and pieces of pieces of things, some floating in the water and some sitting on the shore and almost all of the lake covered in woolly fog except for the little bit where Theresa was standing.
She had taken off her shoes, if she had had them to begin with, and let just a littlelittlelittle bit of the water splash against her toes, and dreamygiggled at the maybe-there maybe-not feeling of it. Theresa knew this was a dream. And a good one, and why wouldn’t it be, because look how nice and quiet and calm it was, and look how many interesting things?
But she had made a strict rule for herself to stay out of the water. It was a very important rule. Theresa could hold her breath for a long time, and Theresa could swim like the sharpest shark, but she knewknewknew that this was not the type of water to do it in.
She was back on the shore and pulling and prodding at a glittering slot machine that was half-eaten by the soil (bar bar cherry) when she heard something warm and musical and beautiful, something alive and fresh and honeyed, somewhere out in the fog.
Theresa froze. There had never been music before. Had there been? She sat still and quiet and looked around to see if there was a musicbox or record player or radio.
And there were, there were a lot of them, but none that were on, and so the beautiful brassy daybreak sounds had to be coming from somewhere else.
Something moved - Theresa should have been nervous, she thought, maybe, but she wasn’t - and she saw that it was a chain, a very fine tiny little chain like the kind on a necklace. It wriggled just a little bit, like a worm, and Theresa smiled, because who had ever heard of a little bitty chain squiggling around on the ground? And without really thinking why, she reached for it.
The itty bitty necklace chain was an itty bitty necklace chain, but further down it was also a thicker chain like the kind that people hang pictures with, but further down it was also a thicker chain like the kind people walk their dogs on, but further down it was also a thicker chain like the kind people use to lock other people out, but further down it was a also thicker chain that Theresa couldn’t see much of because it was in the fog.
The chain went tight in her hand, and Theresa wondered why, and then Theresa panicked because she dreamyrealized that her arm had started pulling all by itself. It had started pulling and she saw the the chain got thicker and bigger and meaner and the wonderful beautiful sounds were getting closer, but she dreamyrealized that there was something scary about it too, and now she was pulling the chain with both arms and her legs were walking her closer to the fog and the chain dreamyfelt greasy and strange and it was wriggling again and she kept pulling and pulling and the sounds were so loud, because the fog could only cover up so much, and then it covered up even less, because Theresa could see a head coming closer to her while she was pulling and then she saw a face, too, one that was almost a face but too big and too heavy on the bottom and she looked for a body, too, but she couldn’t see one, maybe because it was still too foggy or maybe it was under the big bumpy lump that was moving, too, and then the music stopped and something rushed up and pushed a windy bundle of air in her eyes and something went cli-chunk! and Theresa --
“-- and then I woke up,” she finished, muffled by the crook of Maddy’s neck.
The deeper Theresa had gone into recounting the nightmare, the further she had curled into her mother’s lap, and the more anxiously Maddy had tried comforting her. She was rubbing circles on the girl’s back, even - Theresa had not tolerated such treatment in years.
“Oh, sweetheart. That sounds like a terrible dream.” Would she be okay sleeping out here, in the den? Maddy was certain she could make one of the armchairs comfortable enough. There was a lovely quilt in the closet, assuming the house had not moved it. “But it was just a dream... okay? Lots of people have bad dreams, baby. It’s okay. You just have to--”
“It’s in my room,” Theresa whispered. The cold certainty in her voice pulled down hard on Maddy’s frown. “I could hear it, a little.”
“Baby... listen.” Maddy hugged her daughter closer. How to explain it? “Sometimes our minds pull up scary things, while we’re sleeping. And they can be very, very scary to us. But it can’t hurt us any. Cause it’s just our minds being restless, and just for a little b --”
There was a little unk sound as Maddy’s throat cinched up into nothing, and she stared down at her daughter. The cuffs of Theresa’s pajamas had been bitten off.
“... m?”
Theresa was still so young.
“Mom?”
She blinked, and looked hard at her daughter. First in the left eye, then the right. Theresa quailed at the intensity and Maddy looked away and inwardly scolded herself.
“Baby -” She gave Theresa a peck on the forehead and nudged her back to the floor, easily. Then steered the girl’s shoulders to level eyes with her again. Much more gently. “You remember that big thing mama used on those pests, awhile back?”
“The...” She bit her own mouth - pulled the insides of her lips between her teeth and pressed down. Names were hard, for her. “... the ox?”
“Mm-hm, the Ax, baby. I’m gonna need it. Can you find it for me?”
The girl’s eyes slid sideways as her face stiffened, lips moving silently. Maddy watched her, smiling faintly and patiently, but each inch and every shred of her nerves and her ears and her mind was crosshaired onto the hall, onto her daughter’s bedroom.
“Broom closet,” the girl blurted. She blinked, and looked surprised. “It’s on the top shelf, in the broom closet.”
Maddy smiled, inwardly terrified. So fast. When had she gotten that fast? “You’re so good at that, now. What a sharp little girl I got.”
Theresa giggled, bouncing on her heels.
A floorboard somewhere creaked.
“Now, then...” Maddy rose slowly and stretched. “You do your mama a favor, and keep her seat warm. And don't let my tea go to waste. I’ll be right back.”
The hinges of the broom closet chirped as Maddy pulled it open. There it was, the sturdy thing: right where she hadn’t left it. She would have to talk with someone about the house and its mischief.
“Um... back from what?”
Maddy’s hand closed hungrily around the familiar haft, and her lips pulled upward at the wonderful weight, and her heart swelled at the growl of steel on wood.
“From getting rid of bad dreams, sunshine.”
(man I can’t wait to be a mom and make my kids find all my murder weapons for me)
3:43. She licked her thumb to turn the page.
“Muh -” There was the high, cottony sound of a little girl’s yawn from the hall. “Mom?” A tousled head poked into the den, dim and squinting. The woman smiled.
Theresa had taken mostly after her father, in looks and in mind and in temperament, something that Maddy found herself crushingly grateful for each and every day. Very dark, very sober features. No excess of warmth to be taken as gullible, no ease of expression to be seen as exploitable. Which was a blessing, in and of itself - the girl had inherited not a shred of her mother’s ruthlessness.
Maddy closed her book.
“What’re you doing up, sweetheart?”
The girl shoved a blunt fist around her eye. “‘m sorry,” she mumbled. “‘d I wake youup?”
“It’s alright, baby.” Maddy had not slept in years. “What’s wrong? You thirsty?”
Theresa shook her head, making a bleary beeline to her mother.
“Too hot? You know you can turn on the fan.”
She shook her head again, and made to climb into Maddy’s lap. Thais of Athens was forgotten and dropped alongside the chair as concern tickled the back of Maddy’s throat.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Theresa had never been the type to seek security this way. Not since she could talk, at least. “You can tell me.”
Theresa squirmed. She seemed uncomfortable with being comforted.
“The house wake you up? Hm? You know that it likes to move around, sometime. Remember that all you got to do is upturn the horseshoe we got over the door, to give the rascal a little rattle, and it’ll settle down pretty --”
“There’s a monster in my room.”
The grandaddy clock groaned, just once. It was a quarter to four.
Maddy frowned. “Oh, sweetie...” Imagination had never gotten the run of Theresa, even when she was small - it seemed strange for it to flare up only now. “Sounds like you had a bad dream.”
Theresa shook her head and grimaced, but said nothing.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened? Hm? You can tell me.”
The girl was busy shooting cold looks, over her shoulder, at the innocent hallway. When she finally turned back Maddy’s breath caught at how much of her husband she saw. “I was at the lake again --”
-- at the lake again, with the cattails and the lilypads and the crumbled windmill and the telephone booth and the headless Nike of Samothrace, and other things, lots of things, lots of lots of other things that had been lost or left or taken, pieces of art and pieces of garbage and pieces of pieces of things, some floating in the water and some sitting on the shore and almost all of the lake covered in woolly fog except for the little bit where Theresa was standing.
She had taken off her shoes, if she had had them to begin with, and let just a littlelittlelittle bit of the water splash against her toes, and dreamygiggled at the maybe-there maybe-not feeling of it. Theresa knew this was a dream. And a good one, and why wouldn’t it be, because look how nice and quiet and calm it was, and look how many interesting things?
But she had made a strict rule for herself to stay out of the water. It was a very important rule. Theresa could hold her breath for a long time, and Theresa could swim like the sharpest shark, but she knewknewknew that this was not the type of water to do it in.
She was back on the shore and pulling and prodding at a glittering slot machine that was half-eaten by the soil (bar bar cherry) when she heard something warm and musical and beautiful, something alive and fresh and honeyed, somewhere out in the fog.
Theresa froze. There had never been music before. Had there been? She sat still and quiet and looked around to see if there was a musicbox or record player or radio.
And there were, there were a lot of them, but none that were on, and so the beautiful brassy daybreak sounds had to be coming from somewhere else.
Something moved - Theresa should have been nervous, she thought, maybe, but she wasn’t - and she saw that it was a chain, a very fine tiny little chain like the kind on a necklace. It wriggled just a little bit, like a worm, and Theresa smiled, because who had ever heard of a little bitty chain squiggling around on the ground? And without really thinking why, she reached for it.
The itty bitty necklace chain was an itty bitty necklace chain, but further down it was also a thicker chain like the kind that people hang pictures with, but further down it was also a thicker chain like the kind people walk their dogs on, but further down it was also a thicker chain like the kind people use to lock other people out, but further down it was a also thicker chain that Theresa couldn’t see much of because it was in the fog.
The chain went tight in her hand, and Theresa wondered why, and then Theresa panicked because she dreamyrealized that her arm had started pulling all by itself. It had started pulling and she saw the the chain got thicker and bigger and meaner and the wonderful beautiful sounds were getting closer, but she dreamyrealized that there was something scary about it too, and now she was pulling the chain with both arms and her legs were walking her closer to the fog and the chain dreamyfelt greasy and strange and it was wriggling again and she kept pulling and pulling and the sounds were so loud, because the fog could only cover up so much, and then it covered up even less, because Theresa could see a head coming closer to her while she was pulling and then she saw a face, too, one that was almost a face but too big and too heavy on the bottom and she looked for a body, too, but she couldn’t see one, maybe because it was still too foggy or maybe it was under the big bumpy lump that was moving, too, and then the music stopped and something rushed up and pushed a windy bundle of air in her eyes and something went cli-chunk! and Theresa --
“-- and then I woke up,” she finished, muffled by the crook of Maddy’s neck.
The deeper Theresa had gone into recounting the nightmare, the further she had curled into her mother’s lap, and the more anxiously Maddy had tried comforting her. She was rubbing circles on the girl’s back, even - Theresa had not tolerated such treatment in years.
“Oh, sweetheart. That sounds like a terrible dream.” Would she be okay sleeping out here, in the den? Maddy was certain she could make one of the armchairs comfortable enough. There was a lovely quilt in the closet, assuming the house had not moved it. “But it was just a dream... okay? Lots of people have bad dreams, baby. It’s okay. You just have to--”
“It’s in my room,” Theresa whispered. The cold certainty in her voice pulled down hard on Maddy’s frown. “I could hear it, a little.”
“Baby... listen.” Maddy hugged her daughter closer. How to explain it? “Sometimes our minds pull up scary things, while we’re sleeping. And they can be very, very scary to us. But it can’t hurt us any. Cause it’s just our minds being restless, and just for a little b --”
There was a little unk sound as Maddy’s throat cinched up into nothing, and she stared down at her daughter. The cuffs of Theresa’s pajamas had been bitten off.
“... m?”
Theresa was still so young.
“Mom?”
She blinked, and looked hard at her daughter. First in the left eye, then the right. Theresa quailed at the intensity and Maddy looked away and inwardly scolded herself.
“Baby -” She gave Theresa a peck on the forehead and nudged her back to the floor, easily. Then steered the girl’s shoulders to level eyes with her again. Much more gently. “You remember that big thing mama used on those pests, awhile back?”
“The...” She bit her own mouth - pulled the insides of her lips between her teeth and pressed down. Names were hard, for her. “... the ox?”
“Mm-hm, the Ax, baby. I’m gonna need it. Can you find it for me?”
The girl’s eyes slid sideways as her face stiffened, lips moving silently. Maddy watched her, smiling faintly and patiently, but each inch and every shred of her nerves and her ears and her mind was crosshaired onto the hall, onto her daughter’s bedroom.
“Broom closet,” the girl blurted. She blinked, and looked surprised. “It’s on the top shelf, in the broom closet.”
Maddy smiled, inwardly terrified. So fast. When had she gotten that fast? “You’re so good at that, now. What a sharp little girl I got.”
Theresa giggled, bouncing on her heels.
A floorboard somewhere creaked.
“Now, then...” Maddy rose slowly and stretched. “You do your mama a favor, and keep her seat warm. And don't let my tea go to waste. I’ll be right back.”
The hinges of the broom closet chirped as Maddy pulled it open. There it was, the sturdy thing: right where she hadn’t left it. She would have to talk with someone about the house and its mischief.
“Um... back from what?”
Maddy’s hand closed hungrily around the familiar haft, and her lips pulled upward at the wonderful weight, and her heart swelled at the growl of steel on wood.
“From getting rid of bad dreams, sunshine.”
(man I can’t wait to be a mom and make my kids find all my murder weapons for me)
6/12/10
We are neckdeep in the evening
and I am moonsick and ugly. There is a sparrowscattered corpse in the milkgleam of the hotel mirror, and perhaps if I am quiet and if I am lucky they will wander away. The ashtray is choked with splinters and sulphur and saliva and my matchbox is empty. At sundown, I drained the gardenmud of my marrow into crystal dinnerware that was stolen from an Easter banquet, and if the gunshot metronome of these carnivore streets sounds off once more then I will drink it down like a woman who needs it. Until then, I will lay trainwrecked in this arthritic chair, that has splinters, but no sulphur, but maybe saliva, and has in good chance aided someone in hanging themselves.
The windows are wide open. I wish there were more.
The ceiling fan is shuddering like a whirligig reaper and makes me squirmingly anxious, and I would have shut it off long ago if this room were not a tropical hotbox of wetdream sweat and the thick humanstew of dopamine and adrenaline and drool. It is my own. And overripe and needly, and unfamiliar. I blame completely the trillion watt chandelier that was crumbled up into a confetti warship whose maiden voyage savaged the hymen of my jugular, and my carotid, and my renal and my femoral and then wedded them and then remolded them into glittering Venetian canals that spasmed with a goldmine Morse code, and laid me on the bed like a bride and tugged the drawstrings of my stomach to make me writhe and the harpstrings of my throat to make me giggle and moan and the puppetstrings of my mouth to make me smile and snarl and bite my pillow and my blanket and my arms, and I found that they all tasted of identical saltwaterjoy and morning and mourning, but first and above all else it was a bonemelting supernova caramelfuck with each and every crippled&blinded&maddened branch of an entire goddamned Pantheon, or maybe two, and if that is what is meant by a religious experience then I shall be baptized within the hour.
(there is a businessman in the room next to mine with the most beautiful lioncolored hair and the most gorgeous crooked hip who will approach me in the morning and ask that i keep it down at night
“I’m a light sleeper,” he will say
i will apologize
“It’s not a problem,” he will say “Sounded like fun.”
i will agree, mostly to be polite)
I have shrugged and slouched out of my skin like a naked snake, and I have stretched it tight between the posts of this hateful bed that sometimes dangles me above the toecurling delicacy of Sleep with a technicolor sadism, and though I have made it into an easel for my snakeskin canvas I have nothing to paint with, nothing but bad wine and stardust and gristle.
And if I could, I would piece together the afterbirthwreckage of myself and climb out an open window or walk out the bolted door to find something to make something from, whatever way lying around: a child’s watercolors, or a calligrapher’s pen, or a gangrenous box of chalk left outside in the pissing rain, but cannot, because I am moonsick and ugly, and dogmean and sour, and if I wander away I may strangle an angel or boil my loyal or wind up downwind of my own devilraw butcherperfume that drowns out the boys’ smell of sunshine morphine and the girls’ smell of candyshop diesel and the women’s smell of dangerous fruit and the men’s smell of the ditches of Eden and I can never do that because I could cry, I love them so awful, I could cry, I could drop right then onto the bonechip gutterdust street and weep like an open wound.
And by then the sun would break, and make a brilliant cannibal candle.
The windows are wide open. I wish there were more.
The ceiling fan is shuddering like a whirligig reaper and makes me squirmingly anxious, and I would have shut it off long ago if this room were not a tropical hotbox of wetdream sweat and the thick humanstew of dopamine and adrenaline and drool. It is my own. And overripe and needly, and unfamiliar. I blame completely the trillion watt chandelier that was crumbled up into a confetti warship whose maiden voyage savaged the hymen of my jugular, and my carotid, and my renal and my femoral and then wedded them and then remolded them into glittering Venetian canals that spasmed with a goldmine Morse code, and laid me on the bed like a bride and tugged the drawstrings of my stomach to make me writhe and the harpstrings of my throat to make me giggle and moan and the puppetstrings of my mouth to make me smile and snarl and bite my pillow and my blanket and my arms, and I found that they all tasted of identical saltwaterjoy and morning and mourning, but first and above all else it was a bonemelting supernova caramelfuck with each and every crippled&blinded&maddened branch of an entire goddamned Pantheon, or maybe two, and if that is what is meant by a religious experience then I shall be baptized within the hour.
(there is a businessman in the room next to mine with the most beautiful lioncolored hair and the most gorgeous crooked hip who will approach me in the morning and ask that i keep it down at night
“I’m a light sleeper,” he will say
i will apologize
“It’s not a problem,” he will say “Sounded like fun.”
i will agree, mostly to be polite)
I have shrugged and slouched out of my skin like a naked snake, and I have stretched it tight between the posts of this hateful bed that sometimes dangles me above the toecurling delicacy of Sleep with a technicolor sadism, and though I have made it into an easel for my snakeskin canvas I have nothing to paint with, nothing but bad wine and stardust and gristle.
And if I could, I would piece together the afterbirthwreckage of myself and climb out an open window or walk out the bolted door to find something to make something from, whatever way lying around: a child’s watercolors, or a calligrapher’s pen, or a gangrenous box of chalk left outside in the pissing rain, but cannot, because I am moonsick and ugly, and dogmean and sour, and if I wander away I may strangle an angel or boil my loyal or wind up downwind of my own devilraw butcherperfume that drowns out the boys’ smell of sunshine morphine and the girls’ smell of candyshop diesel and the women’s smell of dangerous fruit and the men’s smell of the ditches of Eden and I can never do that because I could cry, I love them so awful, I could cry, I could drop right then onto the bonechip gutterdust street and weep like an open wound.
And by then the sun would break, and make a brilliant cannibal candle.
6/10/10
Words about words, Cont.
“You spend a lot of time talking about fear and anguish,” is what one of my English professors told me. She flipped curtly to the next page of my scrawls and almost knocked over her gargoyle statuette. “Your characters are all defined by what’s hurt them, or what scares them. Especially what hurt or scared them as children.”
I don’t think she meant it quite the way that I first took it - which is to say, evisceratingly - or at least not completely. Her wit was watertight and a challenge to keep a track of, even much later on in the semester, so there was a fair amount of give-and-take between her critiques and her... well. She was keeping her eyes on the words, at least. “Very aggressive imagery. Your sense of tone is good. A little unorthodox in places. But it suits your style well... somehow.”
By the end of the conference I was somewhere between The Self-Conscious Artist and The Dog Whose Owner Keeps Pretending to Throw a Ball.
Sure enough, after picking through a pile of my old stuff with a fresh(ly wept) eye, everything was about suffering. Murder, or abuse, or deceit, or mutilation, or grisly and long-winded thoughts thereof. Sometimes I hadn’t even had the patience to get through the exposition to start monkeywrenching the reader’s guts around. Was it really that difficult to wait, just a bit? Hammer some stakes, and get the lay of things? It’s like not I type on a cheesegrater.
“... It... was... a... dark... and... stormy... aw fuck it, thus began the beatings.”
Which, I mean... I guess the... enthusiasm is good. Right? Enthusiasm? I’m calling it enthusiasm. (Does wonders for Palahniuk.)
Still. That doesn’t give me any shape of excuse to be a mean kid with a magnifyingglass, and saunter over to Word like it's an anthill. The Greeks absolutely drooled over tragedy, but as I understand it, that just means that the protagonist’s terrible end is a foregone conclusion. The process of their arriving to the end of the road - that’s the real sticking point, as it is with a lot of fiction. With that, the audience is yanked through the emotional heart-wringer known as catharsis.( Also: hubris, and ampitheater, and Euripedes, and other vocabulary words that I had a quiz over in senior English.) It's cleansing, so they say. And I agree completely. The key difference between this and what I do is that, in tragedies, most of the tasty misery is preserved and saved for last. Anticipation mounts. Hearts tighten. And only after a painstakingly crafted chain of events, and weave of people, and ebb of emotion, does the downfall come to be.
Me? Fuck that. I want my dessert first. I like to pour it all on right here right now, right out of the gate, which makes for a little structural warping. So, sadly, I don’t think that I quite hit “Tragedian” grade. Probably stuck right around “Sadomasochist,” or “Middleclass Preteen,” or “Dick.”
And/or, it could be a ham-fisted attempt to drag the sympathetic reader in, kicking and screaming. (Ah, so “Attention Beggar,” then.)
Screaming’s good. Screaming’s enthusiasm.
(oh my god did I seriously just write about writing)
I don’t think she meant it quite the way that I first took it - which is to say, evisceratingly - or at least not completely. Her wit was watertight and a challenge to keep a track of, even much later on in the semester, so there was a fair amount of give-and-take between her critiques and her... well. She was keeping her eyes on the words, at least. “Very aggressive imagery. Your sense of tone is good. A little unorthodox in places. But it suits your style well... somehow.”
By the end of the conference I was somewhere between The Self-Conscious Artist and The Dog Whose Owner Keeps Pretending to Throw a Ball.
Sure enough, after picking through a pile of my old stuff with a fresh(ly wept) eye, everything was about suffering. Murder, or abuse, or deceit, or mutilation, or grisly and long-winded thoughts thereof. Sometimes I hadn’t even had the patience to get through the exposition to start monkeywrenching the reader’s guts around. Was it really that difficult to wait, just a bit? Hammer some stakes, and get the lay of things? It’s like not I type on a cheesegrater.
“... It... was... a... dark... and... stormy... aw fuck it, thus began the beatings.”
Which, I mean... I guess the... enthusiasm is good. Right? Enthusiasm? I’m calling it enthusiasm. (Does wonders for Palahniuk.)
Still. That doesn’t give me any shape of excuse to be a mean kid with a magnifyingglass, and saunter over to Word like it's an anthill. The Greeks absolutely drooled over tragedy, but as I understand it, that just means that the protagonist’s terrible end is a foregone conclusion. The process of their arriving to the end of the road - that’s the real sticking point, as it is with a lot of fiction. With that, the audience is yanked through the emotional heart-wringer known as catharsis.( Also: hubris, and ampitheater, and Euripedes, and other vocabulary words that I had a quiz over in senior English.) It's cleansing, so they say. And I agree completely. The key difference between this and what I do is that, in tragedies, most of the tasty misery is preserved and saved for last. Anticipation mounts. Hearts tighten. And only after a painstakingly crafted chain of events, and weave of people, and ebb of emotion, does the downfall come to be.
Me? Fuck that. I want my dessert first. I like to pour it all on right here right now, right out of the gate, which makes for a little structural warping. So, sadly, I don’t think that I quite hit “Tragedian” grade. Probably stuck right around “Sadomasochist,” or “Middleclass Preteen,” or “Dick.”
And/or, it could be a ham-fisted attempt to drag the sympathetic reader in, kicking and screaming. (Ah, so “Attention Beggar,” then.)
Screaming’s good. Screaming’s enthusiasm.
(oh my god did I seriously just write about writing)
6/5/10
Don't trifle with no rifle
Dear Pop
Sorry I didnt write you until just now. They keep us way to busy here and there is no time for a poor body to stop and breath much less write home. If we arent cleaning something then they got us running and doing pushups or getting all our hair cut off like sheep in the summer time. You should see me now. I look like fish bowl with a body. Not a single thing they give me to wear fits right and my boots have made my feet very cruel and ugly with blissters. It is hard times for me but I hope everyone at home is fine. Please make sure Dottie is going to school every day because it is hard to be dumb in this world. Also please mail my true berth date here because my sergent thinks that I am really 18. This was a bad idea and no mistake of that. It is hard and I am always worn out even
with 8 hours of bed. Lights are out by 9 oclock and we are up before it is day and the sheets and pillows here are just awful for sleeping. I think farm animals are better off then us. Some of the rougher fellows will whisper nasty things and pull at themselfs under the covers, and then it is just to noisy and nasty to go to sleep. Thats not all that is noisy thogh. There are panthers and all shapes of night critters that squawl and from very close to the camp. Its awful for sleeping. If you was here Pop you would maybe feel it to. Even in a hot crowded room full of other people its like your the only one there and you feel like some dumb lump of meat shut up in a oven. It can get lonesome very easy in a place like that Pop. Sometimes its so lonesome you could just die. Pop please send up my birth cert
ificate so they will let me home. They do not beleive that I am 15 because I am too tall and I have to shave every morning. The first time I said it they were very decent and told me that it was allright to be scared, and that I was doing a wonderfull thing. I told them again and again and they got crabby and said if I keep being yelow they will tell the other men and then bet your bottom doller I am dead meat. There is a fellow here by the name of Pine with a missing finger who is old and is very decent to me. He says that theres nothing doing for nothing doing and thats the way things go. I think it is a good idea to stay away from any body who trys to tell you “the way things go” because they always seem to forget to put “I think” in the middle. Pine is a decent man but I think I will forget the things like that that he says. I will write again when I can. Remember my ceriticate and keep Dottie in school.
Love
Lewis
(Mmkay, nice had a nice juicy sabbatical to adjust to working full-time. (the pay is absolute tripe, and the job itself is absolute tripe, but it’s full-time tripe!) I will now talk about words.
GODDD THIS WAS HARD. Granite-hard. Triathlon-hard. Cookie-dough-or-cheesecake-ice-cream-hard. Loved shaping and working it up, but man. Tough. My surprise over the fact that it was so tough might have made it even tougher. I mean, I try my hand at a couple different voices - to personal satisfaction, if I may say - and it’s the adolescent, self-alienated young boy whose is the toughest for me? Me? What the hell.
One of my friends can flip through voices like she’s trying on hats. I’m dead jealous. I’m also convinced that she’s some kind of voice-Rubix Cube.)
Sorry I didnt write you until just now. They keep us way to busy here and there is no time for a poor body to stop and breath much less write home. If we arent cleaning something then they got us running and doing pushups or getting all our hair cut off like sheep in the summer time. You should see me now. I look like fish bowl with a body. Not a single thing they give me to wear fits right and my boots have made my feet very cruel and ugly with blissters. It is hard times for me but I hope everyone at home is fine. Please make sure Dottie is going to school every day because it is hard to be dumb in this world. Also please mail my true berth date here because my sergent thinks that I am really 18. This was a bad idea and no mistake of that. It is hard and I am always worn out even
with 8 hours of bed. Lights are out by 9 oclock and we are up before it is day and the sheets and pillows here are just awful for sleeping. I think farm animals are better off then us. Some of the rougher fellows will whisper nasty things and pull at themselfs under the covers, and then it is just to noisy and nasty to go to sleep. Thats not all that is noisy thogh. There are panthers and all shapes of night critters that squawl and from very close to the camp. Its awful for sleeping. If you was here Pop you would maybe feel it to. Even in a hot crowded room full of other people its like your the only one there and you feel like some dumb lump of meat shut up in a oven. It can get lonesome very easy in a place like that Pop. Sometimes its so lonesome you could just die. Pop please send up my birth cert
ificate so they will let me home. They do not beleive that I am 15 because I am too tall and I have to shave every morning. The first time I said it they were very decent and told me that it was allright to be scared, and that I was doing a wonderfull thing. I told them again and again and they got crabby and said if I keep being yelow they will tell the other men and then bet your bottom doller I am dead meat. There is a fellow here by the name of Pine with a missing finger who is old and is very decent to me. He says that theres nothing doing for nothing doing and thats the way things go. I think it is a good idea to stay away from any body who trys to tell you “the way things go” because they always seem to forget to put “I think” in the middle. Pine is a decent man but I think I will forget the things like that that he says. I will write again when I can. Remember my ceriticate and keep Dottie in school.
Love
Lewis
(Mmkay, nice had a nice juicy sabbatical to adjust to working full-time. (the pay is absolute tripe, and the job itself is absolute tripe, but it’s full-time tripe!) I will now talk about words.
GODDD THIS WAS HARD. Granite-hard. Triathlon-hard. Cookie-dough-or-cheesecake-ice-cream-hard. Loved shaping and working it up, but man. Tough. My surprise over the fact that it was so tough might have made it even tougher. I mean, I try my hand at a couple different voices - to personal satisfaction, if I may say - and it’s the adolescent, self-alienated young boy whose is the toughest for me? Me? What the hell.
One of my friends can flip through voices like she’s trying on hats. I’m dead jealous. I’m also convinced that she’s some kind of voice-Rubix Cube.)
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