The Beginning

 dialogue assignment for UNIV 112... write a short story in nothing but dialogue. Possibly, one of the most difficult assignments I have had. I'm posting this, though, because (for whatever reason) I'm intrigued.

“Hey there.”

“…”

“I said, ‘hey there,’”

“…”

“Hey, buddy. I’m trying to say hello, over here!”

“…Hey…”

 “My name’s Dave.”

“…”

“What’s your name?”

“John.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, John! Where are you heading, this fine spring morning?”

“…”

“I said, ‘where are-‘”

“Nowhere.”

“Well how can you be going somewhere, if you're going nowhere?”

“I don’t know. Just… going. Doesn’t matter where.”

“Huh. Doesn’t sound too logical, does it? Well, me? I’m starting fresh. Yes, sir, starting fresh! My girl kicked me out. Something ‘bout not doing anything with my life or some bullshit, like that. Can you believe it? You know what I say, though? I say, good riddance. I’m gunna go out there and start fresh. Make a new name for myself. What about you? You starting fresh, too?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, you got about fifteen minutes to decide what you’re guna do with your life, then the bus is guna take you somewhere or another and you’ll be stuck.”

“I don’t get stuck.”

“I don’t mean stuck like stuck. I mean stuck like lost.”

“I don’t get lost.”

“Nah, everybody gets lost.”

“Not if you’re not trying to get anywhere.”

“Well, everyone is trying to get somewhere.”

“Not everyone.”

“Well, like me. I’m trying to start fresh, remember? I think I want to go to New York or California or something fancy like that, eventually, where everybody’s somebody. That’s where I’m trying to get. I want to be a somebody. What about you? You want to be a somebody, ‘cause everybody wants to be a somebody, so everybody’s trying to get somewhere.”

“Just trying to get away.”

“Away from what?”

“From everything.”

“Come on, John. Tell me.”

“I don’t think that’s really-“

“I’ll tell you a secret, and you tell me one.”

“I really don't think that's necessary.”

“Well, when I was younger, my grandpa used to take me down to the lake by his house, where we’d-“

“I said to drop it.”

“…”

“…”

“Well… you want to know my story, anyways?”

“Dave.”

“Hey, look at that! The bus is here! Alright, here we go! Starting the next adventure of my life, with my new pal John! No, I’m good to go, Mr. Bus driver. My buddy here has got my ticket covered.”

“What? No. I think you’re confused.”

“All that stuff you said about getting away made me think, John. I’m a grown man. Time to get out on my own. You’re alone. I’m alone. Two of us gotta stick together. And you look like you need a friend.”

“Seriously, I’m going to get on the bus now, and you’re just going to…go…”

“Go where?”

“Wherever you were going before this.”

“But… I got kicked out, remember? I don’t… I don’t have anywhere to go…”

“...”

“No, that’s okay. You’re right. You don’t need me tagging along. Said you were getting away from everything, but how can you get away from everything when you got dumb ol’ Dave following you around? Damn it, Dave.”

“…”

“No, no. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me. You can’t get lost if you’re not going nowhere, right, John? And I’ve got nowhere to go, so I’ll be just fine.”

“Don’t…”

“You were a good friend, John. Bout the best friend I coulda ever had.”

“I'm not…"
"Good luck, buddy. You take care of yourself. Don't worry about me. No, sir. Don't you-"
"Two, please.”

No Walls

my brother used to sit

outside on the roof at night

to live freely

with no walls

confining him

breaking

loose of authority and rules

his escape

he used to wait
until we were asleep

and creep

onto the ledge 

outside of his window
climbing up
the red brick walls
onto the steep ledge

of the roof

I would hear him drop

rocks down

onto the driveway

watching them crack 
open and I would

listen to his 
footsteps slipping

into sleep.

Just Write

            They all look at me, dumbly, as I go on about the literary worth of a poem whose title I can no longer remember. I’ve loved every minute of it. It starts out as a slam poem with poignant line-breaks, raunchy humor, and conflicting morals and ends with an internal dialogue between a man and the invisible angel and devil on his shoulder. This is a good poem. This is my kind of poem. I finish my spiel and look around the conference room at impatient faces, waiting to criticize. An awkward silence passes, then- “I didn’t like it.” “Definitely in the NO pile.” “There was too much in it.” “Not enough in it.” “Just bad.” Same thing happens with the next poem, and the one after that, and the short story, and the essay. What I like, they hate. What I hate, they adore.

What is this?! This is supposed to be my thing. I’m the writer and the editor and the English fanatic. And I’m good at it! So, why is there a table of senior staff members biting their tongues at my critiques? Am I losing it? Do I really not have any literary taste at all? What about my writing? Oh, God, my writing. Am I that bad??? They are going to edit my submissions, next week! This is not okay. This is not going to be good. Can I take them back, before they see them? Maybe I should just stop and quit, now.

            Snap out of it! You were the editor, last year. The editor, damn it! You know your stuff! You have a reputation to uphold. This is the dream! This is what you do. This is who. you. are. Screw the magazine and they editors and the critics and red pen and and the cross outs the NO pile and write. Write and write and don’t stop for anyone or anything. This is how it’s done. They’ll love you, or they’ll hate you… just as long as they feel something. Just. Keep. Writing.

Lullaby

(best speech assignment for FI 112)

            My father is the typical manly man, who considers “good reading” to be Dick’s Sporting Goods catalogs and NRA magazines and watches the Ultimate Fighting Championship religiously. He would rather spend a day hiking in the mountains than a week relaxing at the beach. He is popular among my friends for the enormous gun safe in our living room, the two Boa Constrictors that take up residence next to our television, as a sideshow of sorts, and biceps that are much too large for a 55 year old man who has lost the majority of his hair, not to mention a noticeable portion of his hearing. My childhood was spent wrestling on the front lawn and practicing martial arts on judo mats in the living room.

This being said, my father and I have profoundly different tastes. He watches westerns, while I prefer tragic romances. He takes three-minute showers while I indulge myself with thirty-minute soaks, taking four times as long to get dressed. His opinions are finite, while I avoid decisions as a general rule. He is strongly Republican, while I chose to be labeled an “independent.” To him, spontaneity is a dangerous lack of organized thought, while I am a firm believer of fate leading the way. He prefers the concrete. I prefer the abstract. If you were to create my father’s opposite, you would get me. As overly analytical and dangerously emotional as I am, he is just as lost for words when it comes to the sensitive and touchy-feely. This is where the problems occur.

My father would have been satisfied with a daughter who wanted to discuss politics and fishing or go hunting, which involves no talking at all. Instead, he received a feminized version of a chattering teeth toy. I am forever seeking approval for my continuous trains of thought, all of which are, simultaneously, my number one priority- a collision of explosive emotion that is beyond overwhelming for my father. We learned, many years ago, that the safest tactic to avoid our daily civil war was to just skim the surface. Don’t ask, don’t tell, and, if you must tell, do so in such a way that completely annihilates all possibility for disagreement. Stick with light jokes and previously approved topics. I was convinced that my father hated me. He argued against my reasoning for every thought I had, so I rejected any attempt he made for a truce. Eventually, we both stopped trying.

My father works the evening shift, and does not come home until after midnight, each night. Being a man whose habits die hard, even in my adolescent years, he would peak into my room to check on me when he came home, as he did when I was a child. One night, when I heard his key turn in our front door, for no obvious reason, I buried my face in my pillows and pulled the blankets tightly around my neck, feigning sleep. I saw a sliver of light sneak its way from my doorway onto my bed, as my father peeked into my room. Surprisingly, he fell for the act and inched the door open, carefully stepping into my blackened room. Once, he had maneuvered through the dark, successfully reaching my bedside, his hand reached out and blindly made its way to the side of my head.

My father stroked my hair gently, like he was touching a china doll, afraid to leave even a scratch, and tucked a curl behind my ear. “I love you, Mary,” he whispered. “You are smart and funny and pretty, and I am proud of you. You are a good girl, and I am proud to be your daddy.” Leaning forward, he kissed me on the side of my face and walked out of the room as silently as he had entered.

It took years for me to grow out of my self-righteous teenage state, and at least as long for my dad to begin to understand it, and, even then, agreeing was uncommon, but from that night onwards, I would wait. I would stay up late and wait for him, so that I could pretend to be asleep and listen to his tuneless lullaby, just to have some kind of verification of the feelings we both knew to be true but had not, yet, learned to express. We have taught each other and learned from each other, growing up together. I don't live in that house, anymore. I don't need to be checked on or tucked in. Phone calls suffice for communication, during the times that I am away. When I do come home, my dad will still come in to check on me, like he used to, and sometimes, I still pretend to be asleep… just in case.

Facebook

 UNIV 112 assignment about giving up technology for a day

I will not use Facebook. I will not use Facebook. It doesn’t matter if he commented on my status or if she likes my picture. Anything they post on my wall, they can tell me in person. I will not use Facebook. If they’re in a relationship today, they’ll be in one tomorrow… well, probably.  I will not use Facebook. No need to poke back until tomorrow. I can comment twice in the morning, if I need to. The videos will still be up, and if I didn’t know them well enough to know it was their birthday already, they probably won’t notice if I comment a day late. I will not use Facebook. If they’re going to chat me, they have my number. If they don’t have my number, they don’t matter that much anyway. I will not use Facebook. They won’t withdraw the friend-request if I take a day to respond. Maybe, I’ll seem busy and more interesting, if I wait. I will not use Facebook. The events won't be over. The groups will still exist. My inbox won't erase and my notifications won't disappear. Status update:   
Mary Searls "will not use Facebook."............ oops.

People Watching at the Gas Station

 Realized the extent of my people watching. Decided to document one. Possible inspiration.

White female.

Age difficult to determine due to excessive of plastic surgery: Mission accomplished.
Approximately 50 years?

Thinning blonde hair, dried from dye, needs to be washed.

Thin and frail, yellowed fingernails (probably a smoker) that need to be cut.
Metric ton of mascara.
Painted on eyebrows.

Purchase:18 lottery tickets.
Desperation.

White male.
Approximately 35 years.

Short. Boney.

Thinning blonde hair.

Leathery skin. Wrinkled. Darkened.
Smells of smoke.

Worn jeans, stained white t-shirt.

Purchase: Looks at the cashier and holds up 4 fingers, then ten.
Pump 4, 10 dollars worth of gas.
Mute.

Black female.
Approximately 25 years.

Short, thick stature.

No makeup, messy braided hair.

Loud, low voice.

Loose gray t-shirt tucked into “mom jeans.”

Determined to joke about the service with every person in line.

Purchase:1 mini pack of fig newtons, 6 pack of cheap beer, 1 cigar, 1 gallon of water.
Recipe for one lonely night in.

Until My Dying Day

           We sat in the giant purple love seat in my living room, and he kissed me, finally, during the closing credits. He could play the songs from the soundtrack, beautifully, on his black and white, pinstriped guitar. Sometimes, I would attempt to follow along, my fingers stumbling over the piano keys of the ancient, out-of-tune piano in his living room, but, usually, I would just listen, curling up next to him, snuggling into his shoulder and breathing in his scent of aftershave and cooking grease. We quoted the lines and knew every lyric.

We were in his little blue Scion, driving back from dinner at Bottom’s Up Pizza, listening to the radio. I knew he was going to play our song, when he clicked on the CD player in his car, giving me that look that I knew so well- narrowing his eyes a little, focusing in on me, the right corner of his mouth turning up in a slight smile. Track 7. “Never knew I could feel like this,” he began.

“Come what may

             Come what may

             I will love you,

             until my dying day.”

            As he sang the last two lines, holding my left hand in his right, steadying the steering wheel against his knee, he squeezed my fingers three times. I- love- you. I understood. From then on, it didn’t matter where we were, who we were with, if we could speak out loud or not- three small touches were all we needed. I love you, “until my dying day.” It fixed everything- every fight about his neediness or my lack of appreciation, my over-emotional temperament or his lack thereof. Three touches, three words, and all was forgotten.

At seventeen, it was easy to fall in love, easy to promise to give our lives to each other, easy to ignore reality and foresee only a happily-ever-after. It was easy to keep counting the days of our togetherness- three weeks, two months, four months and a week and three days, or some other obscenely insignificant number that made us feel the need to celebrate, as if we were surprised that things that worked out for long. As if we were waiting for things to fall apart.

Running Shoes

 Observation of a women in the salon. I was intrigued. Hope to put more emphasis on the shoes and their significance?

She wears white, Nike running shoes and sits up straight and tall, as best as she can, despite the rounded contour of her back, with her hands folded politely in her lap.

She wears no jewelry at all, except a thick, golden, diamond-studded band on the third finger of her left hand, which is a little too loose. I imagine it fitting perfectly on plump, youthful fingers fourty or so years earlier, when it first found its way to her. Although that ring is the only ornament she wears, her earlobes hang down heavily, proof of too many decorated evenings out, now in her past.

Her hair is thinning, and the color is fading into a pure white, dusted lightly with speckles of salt and pepper. Her part is a perfect line, extending from her forehead to the middle of her crown, separating her hair into two exact sections, each brushed down carefully and tucked neatly behind her ears, ending just at the nape of her neck.

There are bags under her eyes, puffy and wrinkled. The crevices in her skin trail down to her cheeks and lips, thin and pink, and finally to her neck, which disappears into a blue, cotton blouse, paired with white cotton Capri’s, matching perfectly with the blue and white running shoes she wears, out of which I can see just a glimpse of paper-thin skin covering two bony, fragile legs.

The running shoes are what intrigue me the most- so white and clean, obviously never used for their intended purpose. As she makes her way to the register, to pay for her haircut, she takes shaky, careful steps, each foot deliberately placed. Heel- toe. Heel- toe. She looks at her shoes, wiggling her toes in them every now and then, admiring them, as her ankles tremble under the stress of standing. Occasionally, she reaches down to retie the laces or straighten out the tongue just so, so conscious and protective of her running shoes, which, I am sure, were never bought to run in.

Dear No One

One day

we’ll take midnight walks

down the streets

of my neighborhood

barefoot

in too much of a rush

to be alone

to bother

with tying laces

One day

I’ll spray lavender perfume

on my chest

and wrists

to keep you close

but you’re favorite scent

you’ll tell me

is the way the nape

of my neck smells

when you kiss it

One day

you’ll know

how to hold my hand

fingers twisted together

with my thumb over yours

the way I like it

One day

you’ll know

that a kiss

on my forehead

is the cure

for every stress

every headache

every long day

One day

I’ll press

your palm against mine

and think

about how tiny

my hand looks

in yours

and how, despite my

5 foot 8, 150 pound frame

I feel delicate

One day

you’ll count

all my freckles

even remembering the one

on my little toe

determined to memorize

each constellation

mapped out

across my skin

One day

Tupelo Honey

It was the late shift, at the hospital where my mother was working. Ideal, if you want to get out of doing work, but the most boring shift of the day, with all the patients sleeping, all the visitors gone for the day. The nurses sat around with little to do.  They began to draw labs from each other, honing their skills, they may have convinced themselves, but merely fighting boredom is closer to the truth. Each lab came back negative for this and that, as expected.

One of the nurses handed my mother the results to her test. They all looked at each other in disbelief. The labs were for fun only; just to keep their hands busy and their minds entertained with impossible ideas. This is why my mother could not believe that she was pregnant.

“You’re joking,” she said over and over. Having only been married for a year, she hadn’t planned for anything like this, until things had settled down and there was enough time, not to mention money, to bring another life into the mix. “You’re joking.”

My mother signed out of the hospital, terrified and trembling as she walked across the parking lot to her car. She unlocked the car, opened the door, and sat staring at the steering wheel. It took a few minutes to get her head, to begin to comprehend the immenseness of what had just taken place, before she turned on the ignition. As soon as she turned the key, the radio clicked on and “Tupelo Honey,” by Van Morrison, began to play. “She’s as sweet as tupelo honey,” he sang to her, reassuringly. She says that this was the moment that my name was spoken to her, “by an angel,” she tells me

When my mother would put me to sleep at night, or when I would crawl into her lap crying, she would sing the lyrics to me. Even now, as I live away from her in my own world, living my own life, she reminds me every now and then:

“You can take all the tea in China

Put it in a brown bag for me

Sail right around all the seven oceans

Drop it straight into the deep blue sea

She’s as sweet as tupelo honey

She’s an angel of the first degree

She’s as sweet, she’s as sweet as tupelo honey

Just like honey, baby, from the bee”