Granted, on a few special occasions, (some) writers will do their duty and glam up: suits, ties, matching socks; lipstick, earrings, hair that's actually been styled. They put in an appearance; they eat, they drink, they mingle. On site and on view, they smile, they respond, they make small talk or pontificate as the occasion demands, valiantly attempting to forget that unfinished sentence, that character lacking stolid proportion, that fifth egregious title seized upon but not quite discarded in the last frantic work hour before primping began. They do their best (and repeatedly fail) to disguise an intense longing to be back at their desk and in the duds they favor over all others because in those duds they fulfill their fondest desire: they write.
Make no mistake: your typical writer-wear is not what anyone, owner included, would classify as the chic and the fancy. Into this category fall the flannel shirts, ripped and tatty Ts, inexorably stained sweat pants, baggy-seated khakis, flip flops and fraying tennis shoes trash-targeted by well-meaning family and friends. These are the worn thin, familiarly scented, cozy-feeling rags that have by design or coincidence insinuated themselves into the writing ritual, the clothes we associate with productivity and bliss. (That we wear the same outfits trashing plots and villanelles and bemoaning our linguistic limitations is beside the point. The glory moments prevail. Besides which: can one really blame apparel for sub-par writing?)
One of my fellow scribes is bonded to a denim work shirt, circa 1968. Another swears his father's fedora helps set the mood. At least three others compose and revise in bulky bathrobes. Not to forget the poetess who, one particularly brutal Massachusetts winter, began to associate inspired progress with the open-finger gloves she wore while typing. When summer arrived as summers will, even to northern Massachusetts, those gloves turned itchy. No matter. Be-gloved she wrote on, June, July and August.
Years ago I fixated on the top half of a pair of insulated underwear scrounged from my parents' attic. Since then, the escalating fierceness of my attachment and dependency has prompted me—a klutz with a needle, a person with zero sewing skills—to take up darning. Sleeve, shoulder and elbow holes I've stitched into lumpy ridges. I even hand wash the thing to keep it intact.
Superstitious, fetishistic behavior, but where's the news there? Writers are a fetishistic, superstitious bunch. They cleave to their writing routines, desk arrangements, bulletin board artifacts. They have their writing chairs, their writing implements. So why not their writing garb? It's a wild freefall, writing. So why not dress for comfort?
Kat Meads's most recent book is the novel Sleep. She lives and works in California.
360 Degrees of Failure by Kathleen Lynch |
I was assigned detention duty. The detainees shuffled into the room accompanied by the wafting scent of defiance. “What were their offences?” I silently asked myself. We took our places, and began serving our term, one hour. I sat down behind an unfamiliar desk, in a stark room devoid of any sign of personality or creativity. “The perfect setting,” I mentally noted. I began to correct some papers, and gazed up at them through my bangs. I was not supposed to speak to them so I began to work, and then gave the appearance of working. I began tapping my Adirondack #2, chewing it, letting my teeth sink into the softness, there is nothing quite like chewing a pencil. The taste is exactly like the smell. I found myself staring at them, and was greeted by those “disgusted by you” looks. I realized all of a sudden where I was sitting and catching a brief mirror of myself in the window, I gave myself one of those looks. The “I am disgusted by you, too,” look. I was ashamed for succumbing to this vapor of mediocrity that permeated this room and building. This façade that pledged fostering lifelong learning to all its students embarrassed me and I believe that they sensed it. Not just in me but at the everyday charade. For they were not the achievers, the norm, the accepted… they were the hollow. But not the empty.
I wanted ice cream. I looked up at them and realized that I longed to sweep them out of this room, into my car and take them to the local ice cream place. Once there I would fill their too-thin bodies with The Bucket, the four-flavored delight dripping with “your choice of three toppings, whipped cream, wet nuts, and the maraschino goddess.” Hoping perhaps to fill the empty place that brought them here to begin with. I wondered if they would eat ice cream defiantly, or if the cold exterior shell would begin to soften and we would just find ourselves smiling, then giggling at those around us, and at life in general. We would perhaps begin to tell stories, revealing little bits of ourselves, taking bites of one another's sundaes. I can imagine one of them saying that, “No, I have never had a sundae before at the ice cream place… Sometimes I get them in school though,” they would add thoughtfully.
There was no Breyers in the freezer of these homes. The concept of home was sketchy. There was no warm mommy, for if there had been, their eyes would never had turned so blank, so shark-like, so void. I would wrap them in ice cream if I could, with clouds of whipped cream, wet nuts and extra cherries. I would bathe them in it, let them sleep in it, for it is one of life's pleasures that resonates the soul.
I blinked and focused, for the hour was up. Three hundred and sixty degrees of failure. I never spoke to them. I am just another wall they face everyday. My eyes are misting over, I open my mouth to speak, but only exhale a quiet sigh. Dismissed.
I left the building and drove to pick up my son. We pulled into the driveway and I looked into the rearview mirror and watched him looking out his window. When I began to back out of the driveway he came to and asked, “Where are we going, Mommy?”
I turned and my eyes smiled at him, “To get ice cream.”
Kathleen Lynch writes from Farmington, Maine.
Over Easy by Carol Howard |
I was a graduate student, studying dolphins and living in a funky cottage near the ocean. Every Saturday morning, I'd do my laundry at a laundromat next door to a small, breakfast-only restaurant. I'd load my clothes into the washing machine and then go next door for breakfast. By the time I finished eating, my clothes were done in the washer. After shoving my laundry into the dryer, I'd go for a walk along the beach or around the yacht harbor. When I got back, my laundry was dry.
I was such a regular at the breakfast joint that I got to know Kathy, the waitress, fairly well. One morning she asked me if I'd be interested in cheap rent. I was. The person with the rental unit was co-owner and cook at the breakfast place. She wasn't working that day, but Kathy said she'd recommend me to her.
Kathy later told me she'd tried to describe me to the cook, to pinpoint me among their array of regular customers. “Marine biologist, over easy,” she said. That tickled me—to be defined as much by how I like my eggs as by my career choice.
“Marine biologist, over easy” also was an apt description of my career status. Not that I found it easy. Rather, I'd been flipped over only lightly in that particular frying pan and was still rather runny in the yolk.
I guess my career path more generally has tended toward the runny. I studied psychology, speech pathology, and science writing before I turned to marine mammals. And I didn't stop there. Though I still love dolphins and the sea as much as ever, I'm now making my living as a writer.
I guess that makes me a writer, over easy. Except my customary egg choice has changed. So make that writer, scrambled. I doubt I'll ever be a hard-boiled writer. Coddled would be lovely, but I'm not counting on it. Maybe if I could publish more books I'd be sunny side up about it all.
I've often envied those people who seem to know from the age of five (or college age anyway) exactly what they want to be when they grow up and then go about being it. I just never figured out how to make that work.
I like to think I am defined by the breadth and depth of my experiences, not by any given title. Or perhaps it's that we carry many titles. Most often these days I describe myself as a writer—or science writer. But I probably am identified at least as often as “Hannah's mommy.” I'm also Joel's wife. And Renie's sister and Bob Howard's daughter and Lisa's friend and Shambles' owner. The woman who runs the coffee stand downstairs in my office building knows me as a “tall decaf.”
I am writer, biologist, mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, pet owner, coffee drinker, egg eater, beach walker. Some of it over. But not easy.
Carol Howard lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of Dolphin Chronicles (Bantam Books, 1996) and is a member of the Feckless WOE writing group.
Seeing Friends by Paula K. Speck |
I heard that a college roommate played a cameo in a feature film. Having missed it in the theaters, I waited impatiently for it to come out on video. But I had to run the movie twice to recognize him. Where is his hair? When did he get that stoop?
Ahead in a line at the bank. The back of that woman's head pulls out of memory a friend's once-familiar face. She turns, and it's a different person, a stranger. This stranger's face coexists for a moment with the face of my friend, the face I remember, like one slide clicking down over another. Without meaning to, my eyes have lingered on her face too long, my mouth has been open to speak, and my hand has moved fractionally upward to wave before dropping to my side again. She turns her back, annoyed. I hitch up my purse straps and turn toward the exit.
I wonder if I lived so long that the faces of all my friends have been handed down to strangers.
Paula K. Speck is a lawyer and former Spanish teacher who has lived in Mexico, Argentina, Texas, and now, Silver Spring, MD. Her essays have been published in many journals and two have been “notable essays of the year” in Best American Essays 2003 and 2004.
Not This Time by Cristie Marcus |
The waiter took out one of those nifty, crumb-collecting tools and in a few wrist-swaying motions, swept the white linen table cloth, depositing the knife-like device, crumbs and all, back into his shirt pocket. He placed two dessert menus down and asked if they'd care for coffee and perhaps an after dinner drink.
“I'll have an espresso,” said James. “A double.”
“Nothing for me,” Sheila smiled.
She skimmed the menu, knowing full well she would not order anything more. The meal had been extraordinary, and extremely expensive.
“That was one of the best meals of my life. But, James, Honey, you hardly touched yours, you feel okay?”
What was going on with James, she wondered; he never suggested going out to dinner, let alone to a place as snazzy as this. Course after delectable course had been elegantly served; the attentive wait staff living up to the impeccable reputation of the world famous restaurant. Everyone in the in the dimly lit room spoke in “best behavior” hushed tones, separately sharing the extravagant dining experience.
The waiter delivered the espresso. James twisted a lemon peel then dropped it into the tiny cup, the aroma strong and bitter. Sheila sipped her glass of Cabernet. They'd emptied the bottle of her favorite, Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon—1996—Napa Valley Vineyards, which was not that unusual for them; but, Sheila did notice, James seemed to drink faster and more than she.
“James, are you alright?” No answer. “Hey, Sweetie, what's up? You okay?”
James kept looking down stirring his coffee as the organic raw sugar cube dissolved. Suddenly the top button of his shirt popped off and shot across their booth, followed by the middle two buttons. James lifted his face to Sheila, his eyes red-rimmed and earnest. Within seconds, his shirt ripped apart, exposing his muscular torso. Then his skin began to split open.
Sheila put her hand to her mouth. Before she could speak, James' heart burst out of his chest, landing, in the center of the table. A red circle spread out around it on the white, crumb-free, table cloth. The rhythmic lub-dub, lub-dub of the pulsating heart was the only sound Sheila could hear.
Shocked, Sheila sat expressionless.
Then James' guts spilled out onto the table and oozed over the coffee cup and silverware, coming to a stop before flowing onto the floor.
I don't believe you, was all Sheila could finally say. She stared at the heap of moist, glistening entrails and organs, amazed at the different colors and textures.
“Sheila, doll, I'm spilling my guts here,” James pleaded.
“Yeah, James, that's what you said last time, and I'm not buying it. Not this time.” Sheila slid out of the booth. “Now pick up your guts, pack them away and take me home.”
Cristie Marcus writes all over the world, but lives in Santa Rosa, CA.
Sitting dockside on the waterfront one evening in Beaufort, NC watching the sunset. A local musician was playing Jimmy Buffet tunes while my boyfriend and I continued our never-ending argument. I sat, twisting my grandmother's onyx ring round and round my finger, wondering what was going to come of us. Distracted by my emotions and Jimmy Buffet's lyrics, not paying attention to what I was doing, I twisted a bit too much and off my ring went—right between the wooden slats of the deck.
My grandmother had always been one of my best friends. She knew all my secrets…and loved me anyway. She knew how much I admired her onyx ring and when I graduated from high school, she gave me one very similar to hers. I knew that it had been somewhat of a financial sacrifice for her, which only deepened the sentimental value of the ring. I don't think I had ever taken it off…until that night.
We used a flashlight to search among the slats but were not able to find it in the dark. We returned the next morning to look again. The owner helped us loosen up some of the boards around where we had been sitting, and we searched for anything shiny, anything resembling a ring, but had no luck. It seemed like a “sign” to me…stay in this relationship and you'll keep losing parts of yourself. Eventually we gave up looking. And eventually I gave up on the relationship.
Two years later I was visiting Beaufort again, this time with some close girlfriends. I found myself sitting out on the same deck…listening to the same guy playing the same songs. I began to tell my friends about that night, remembering how lost I had felt in that relationship, how much I had hated losing that ring and how it had seemed symbolic at the time. Sitting on that deck, I realized how much my life had changed since that night two years ago. I was graduating from medical school in a few months, had been accepted into the surgical residency I wanted…I felt as if my life was finally coming together. As if I were beginning to find myself. As I glanced down, I saw the sunlight reflecting off of something from between the slats of the deck. Leaning over, I saw something shiny lying in the sand a few inches below the deck. Using two straws like a pair of chopsticks, I patiently and carefully lifted my grandmother's onyx ring up out of the sand.
I could not believe it had been that easy. And yet, it really hadn't been. After all, it had taken two years. Maybe finding that ring was yet another “sign.” An indication that maybe I had not and could not ever really lose me. That I, like the ring, had been there to be found all along.
Kim Mallin lives in Isle of Palms, SC. Reach her at Kjog98@hotmail.com.
Forced Watch by Barbara Shine |
Mom's fingers have forgotten the piano keys; her feet no longer love a polka beat. She writes invisible lists with a fork and eats string beans with her hands. When she sniffles I hand over a tissue, which she folds into quarters and tucks under a sleeve while her nose drips unchecked. Mom seldom complains, but neither does she sing. Her pale blue eyes, faded from the deep, piercing, chocolate brown of young motherhood, seem free of worry, but they are likewise devoid of joy.
I'm helpless while a sculptor I cannot see or dissuade chisels away the sharp corners and tender bulges that made my mother unique. Her features and personality, even her voice, tend toward the smooth sameness of her nursing-home peers—just one egg among a crateful. Yet, whoever remains when the sculpting is done, I must find a way to single her out and to love her more than ever.
Barbara Shine is a freelance writer and workshop leader in Virginia's rural Northern Neck region. To reach her, visit www.bshinewrites.com.
Love Tycoon by Kim Bromley
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My friend Romy is the Bill Gates of love. She's married to a movie-star handsome man who loves her desperately, beyond all reason. Eighteen years ago they met in a café in St. Germain de pres and have been passionate about each other ever since. He raised her kids with her, stayed home when she jet-setted around the world for Nike, and performs oral sex like his life depends on it. She would do anything for him.
Three months ago her college boyfriend called out of the blue. “I always loved you,” he said. This was his opener. It went from there. To date she hasn't slept with him (see above) but she'd like to. It's a good thing that phone calls and e-mail don't take up warehouse storage space. ‘Cuz they would need one.
Romy was always a righteous bitch about men who cheat. “How can you love two people?” she would say. Now she is humbled by the embarrassment of her riches; she has more love than anyone knows what to do with. “You can love more than one pet, more than one child, and more than one parent,” she tells me, “but in this society you can only love one lover.” Or not, it would seem.
Meanwhile, a woman I work with poured her heart out to me one night on the way home. Her car was in the shop and my compassion was on my sleeve. Aileen, the woman I work with, is looking for love. I think about Romy and how she could open up shop. Aileen has joined clubs, frequented bars, and combed the internet. She has had over three hundred first dates. Not one of them turned into a second date. Over three hundred. I am aghast. She's nice, petite, attractive, smart, and very kind. She's a little annoying to listen to, but who of us isn't? I met a woman once who could easily pass for a man, and was married to a man she browbeat as though he were her errant servant. Incredible. And yet, Aileen can't get a second date.
Romy knows she should tell college man that they can't communicate anymore. She knows it would kill her husband if he knew she was in love with them both. She cannot stop herself. “There should be a socialist system for love,” I tell her. “I agree,” she says, “but you can't tell love what to do.” Love is more powerful than money. Romy is a love tycoon and has the most juju of any woman I know.
Kim Bromley, Marin County, CA.
Once I got to town I drove down to check out the old coffee shop. Progress has happened. What was called Willy's is now a vacant lot. There were a couple of cars parked there, but it wasn't a parking lot—just a vacant lot.
As I sat in the car across the street, I wondered when Willy's had been torn down. Probably the result of changing habits. The neighborhood still looked pretty much the same, slightly seedy, but it was always slightly seedy. People were busier now, didn't have time to go down to a coffee shop for an hour, drink some coffee, talk to whoever was there.
You and I spent a lot of time there, a long time ago. Break time, after work time, before work time. Remember how Willy kept an eye on you, making sure were able to handle yourself? I can still hear him, in his Austrian accent, warning you about one guy or another, trying to tell you those young guys just couldn't be trusted. You'd smile at Willy, thank him, wink at me, telling me I didn't have to worry about those other guys.
There was that low counter with even lower stools, but we always liked the small table at the back. Formica, sort of a dull white, with a chrome rim. Chairs were green leatherette and chrome, very modern. The table was by a window, and in a trick of memory, it seems it was always raining outside that window, the black pavement shiny.
One day your hand was resting on the table, and the nail on your ring finger had a little notch in it. I remember thinking what my ring would look like on that hand. I had years to find out.
You rarely ate anything at Willy's. Just coffee, cup after cup of black coffee. I had an odd habit, looking back. I'd get a little bag of peanuts at the drug store, and eat them along with a cup of chicken noodle soup. Peanuts and soup, black coffee. All that salt, all that caffeine. But we were young, and it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except you and me together, always to be together.
A man walked down the street, and got into a car in the vacant lot. He looked across at me, kind of shrugged, started his car, and pulled away. A simple act, but it reminded me what we had done, We pulled away too, first across town, then across the country. Willy's faded as our life took on new places, new people, new vistas. Funny how now I decided I had to come back, see Willy's, park across the street, find a vacant lot. How many years has it been?
It's not so much the lengthening number of years but the shortening distance. Why are those distant years now becoming so vivid? Why are those memories coming back so strongly? And another thought as I gaze across the street, and see what used to be. How many heartbeats were there together? How many heartbeats alone?
Larry Maxcy lives in the California desert, beyond the Inland Empire..
Spinning by Robert Kostuck
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Parents arrive to pick up their kids from Symphonic Strings rehearsals, and we're loitering outside the classroom at Osceola High School. Julie has her two littlest girls with her. Caitlyn, the blond one, is leaping up and down the hallway in pink tights and pink scuffed ballet slippers. She spins and spins, as if spinning were the most important thing in this life. The other girl has little wings, and she's twisting on her mom's hip, trying to glide down from a loose embrace, wanting to run with her sister. Julie brushes her hand over what's left of Lucila's black hair, smoothes it down the girl's back.
Lucila's left eye is covered with a blanket of soft, white gauze. Her right eye lacks perspective and darts wildly, trying to follow the movement of her high-voltage sister. The scar tissue begins at her collarbone and ends near the back of her head. The skin of her scalp and face is taut and thin, shiny and translucent; and her lips don't really look like lips anymore. She stares at me staring at her and blurts out, “Hello. Hello. Hi. Hi.”
She squeezes my fingers and we shake hands.
Caitlyn rushes by, twirling. Lucila squirms and whispers, “Mom. Mom.”
Julie touches noses with Lucila. “Not now. No running now. Your eyelids have to heal first, OK?”
I touch Julie's arm. “How old are your daughters?”
“They're both five years old.”
“That's a lot of work,” I reply cautiously.
“Lucila's from Columbia, we adopted her.” Caitlyn stops spinning and listens. “Well, it's not official yet—but I dare anyone to take her away from me. She's my daughter. She's been with us now for eight months. She was burned when she was one week old. The skin grafts on her left eyelid had fused together before we got her, so these eyelids are new.”
I stare at the girl's right eye. “Her eyelids? Both her eyelids?”
“Top eyelid and bottom eyelid. And some of the hair on her head was used to make new eyebrows.”
Lucila looks at me and directs my gaze to her legs. She touches her finger to a constellation of red scabs. “Bug bite.”
“She scratches herself,” explains Julie. “It's a nervous habit from being left alone in the orphanage in Cartagena for so many years.”
“Self-stimulation.” I've worked with autistic children in a special education preschool. I'm staring at Julie's eyelids.
“She's getting better. She doesn't scratch as much as she used to.”
“I'm impressed. You're a strong woman.”
“The best things in life take the most work,” she says simply.
Lucila's wings flutter like eyelashes, echoing her sister's dance of life. The two girls spin around their mother—moths around a candle, moons around a planet, planets around a star.
Robert Kostuck lives in Clearwater, FL.
Contact him at robertjohnkostuck@yahoo.com.
Verbal Burnouts Big Time! by Phylis Ann Warady
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The more I write the worse I talk. A tennis fan, I refer to Wimbledon as “Wimpledon.” I call my favorite sandals “Burgermeisters” but mean Birkenstocks. During a San Francisco earthquake, I phoned my daughter in Houston to tell her “Candlewick Park” sustained extensive damage. I once informed everyone within earshot at a social gathering that the actress under discussion had had "cosmic" surgery.
Off deadline, away from my computer, I'm a never-ending source of amusement to my husband. Once, seated beside him in our pickup, I said, "We need to stop at Longs and get some Excedrin for my hands." His response? "Your hands have a headache?" Of course, I meant Eucerin.
I don't write during the holiday season. Instead my two daughters, my son, and their respective spouses, plus four grandkids, visit. During this annual get-together, all wait with bated breath to hear what I'll say next. Or do I mean mis-say?
Picture this: A boxer dies in the ring after a brutal bout. His mother donates his body parts. My husband glances up from the sports page and asks, "What parts would they be, Phylis?"
"His heart, liver, kidneys," I tick off, then after a slight pause, add, "and his eyes, unless, of course, he has ‘Glockamorra.'"
My husband laughs so hard, he cries. He insists I tell Frank and Ann. When I do, Ann casts Frank a puzzled look and asks, "Is it a Mexican dip?"
I refer to this particular malapropism as the three Graces: Glaucoma, Glockamorra and Guacamole.
As I said at the beginning, the more I write, the worse I talk. Even I, the author of all these malapropisms, have no idea what I'll say next.
Phylis Ann Warady began to write when her three children were under age five and she needed to save her sanity. Nowadays, when not otherwise engaged in murdering the King's English, she writes historical novels set in Regency England. Her latest release is a large print edition of The Earl's Comeuppance (Thorndike Press).