Thursday, December 20, 2007
I have moved to a better place
If you would like to see more about me, check out my active blog at http://tfooq.wordpress.com
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Penguins with few changes
It was around noon, as Jeffers welcomed the harsh grind and first drag of the day, when he and Mike decided to hide out at the zoo. Jeffers smelled the ripe elephant shit carrying over the zoo walls in the heavy humid air, and he flicked the finished cigarette out the window of his mother’s 1982 Oldsmobile as he stopped next to a meter.
“You got fifty cents, man?” Jeffers asked, digging into the left pocket of his jeans for any quarters among the seven bottle caps from the night before and a day-old tissue.
“Dude, they never check this shit,” Mike said, his hand on the door handle. Just too cheap to pitch in, Jeffers thought as he turned his search efforts to the ashtray full of pennies.
“I would just feel better if I didn’t have to worry about it, you know? I mean, I know they probably won’t check it, but they could, so I would rather just pay it and not have to care, you know?”
Mike rolled his eyes and got out of the car, shaking his head. Slamming the ashtray shut, Jeffers thought, asshole.
He put the only quarter he found into the meter and turned the warm metal knob.
“45 minutes, plenty of time to see the penguins and the hippos or something.” Jeffers pushed the button on his key chain and his mother’s car beeped twice. It didn’t actually have a security system, but Jeffers had found this 20-dollar speaker thing that made it sound like it did, so he bought it for his mother’s birthday.
She didn’t really get it. Still wearing the oversized Tweety Bird shirt she had slept in the night before, she inspected the Viper-con v3.0 in her slightly fattening hands and tried to say she liked it, but Jeffers knew better. He still feels a slight sting of embarrassment every time his mother wears that shirt.
Mike hopped, like some kind of gymnast, over the bar that turns to count every person that enters the zoo and landed on the inside facing Jeffers, who just pushed the bar with his hands to let it count him. He shook his head at Mike, who was waiting for some sign of approval.
“Why are you so lame today, man?” Jeffers just glared into Mike’s eyes as a response and reached into his pocket for the half-smashed pack of Camels.
“Whatever, man,” Mike said.
Half his cigarette was done and a fishy tin smell grew as Jeffers and Mike approached the penguin exhibit. A boy with a Cardinals hat and Umbro shorts swung from the handrail leading up to the big glass sliding doors. His father stood next to him, talking to a little girl who was holding his pinky finger in the palm of her hand. The man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“If I ever become a camera dad, please shoot me,” Jeffers said, leaning so he could speak straight into Mike’s ear as they approached the end of the line.
“Oh, don’t worry, man, I will. I can do that for you.” Jeffers shot Mike a very large smile as he hoisted himself onto the handrail next to the family, the bar pressing heavily into his butt cheeks.
A large woman in a wheelchair rolled by, heading towards the monkey house, a man with a fanny pack pushing her.
“You can’t pay for that tire, can you?” Mike asked, leaning with his forearm resting on the railing.
“Of course not, man, of course not.” A spot of bird shit on the black asphalt beneath Jeffers’ feet looked like a raindrop running slowly down a window, he thought.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman in a khaki, button-down shirt began, and Jeffers lowered himself from the rail.
The simulated Antarctic air behind the glass doors pinched Jeffers’ bare arms as he stepped onto the gray stone ground inside. A hollow echo of squeaking shoes, voices and the deep hum of the air conditioner droned under the black rafter sky and between the smooth stone walls — a child giggled from somwhere at the other end of the exibit.
A small penguin stooped on one of the stones poking out above the line of people moving through, and Jeffers watched as a young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders reached out to pet it. The penguin’s neck stretched as it moved its head back and opened its mouth. The girl yelped as the penguin snapped its beak on small girl fingers. Elbowing Mike in the ribs, Jeffers said, “Dude, did you see that? That penguin just lashed out and bit that girl. It was awesome.”
“No, man, I missed it.” Mike was looking over the shoulder of an old woman in front of him to the pool where the king penguin exhibit was.
“Oh, you missed it, man, it was great.”
Mike pushed into a small gap between the old lady and a fat woman with a green visor, and Jeffers followed him to the penguin lake. The glass between the people and the penguins only went as high as Jeffers’ pecs, so he rested his arms along the top. The water level was about three inches below the glass, so the stench of penguin went straight into the back of his nostrils — the mixture of cold salmon and morning breath slid down the back of his throat, and Jeffers swallowed it.
Ten or so penguins huddled on the flat rock landing on the other shore of the pool. The larger ones stood in the middle and didn’t move at all. They didn’t need to. They just stood there. Others waddled slowly around the circle, going nowhere in particular.
Someone knocked Jeffers off-balance and his chest bumped against the cold, thick glass.
“Hey, watch where you’re going, friend,” he said to the crowd moving behind him, unsure exactly who had run into him. An old lady in a wheelchair with a quilt on her lap and narrow spectacles looked up at him and smiled as she was wheeled by. The young girl, still on her fathers’ shoulders, floated above the crowd. A young black man had his hand around a woman’s shoulder. A man in a Ram’s jersey took a photo of a woman with a baby, asleep under a bundle of blankets — blue, cotton and oh so soft.
A splash, and Mike smacked Jeffers in the arm and pointed.
“Dude, did you see that? This penguin tried to jump out of the water but it ran into this other one that was already up there and it fell right back in.” When Mike laughed, his mouth opened all the way and he bent backwards, and Jeffers realized that he was kind of a lanky guy.
“No, dammit. I missed it.” Jeffers searched the lake — the group still huddled, one was under water, one got ready to dive. None of them were doing anything. Nothing at all.
“Oh shit, look at this one.” Jeffers said, pushing his body next the glass. His legs and feet tickled and went weak. “It’s so close.”
A penguin on the surface of the water kept perfectly still as it drifted next to the glass. Not a single ripple left its pitch-black body.
“Touch it, dude,” Mike said, looking Jeffers straight in the eye.
And Jeffers did.
He reached his arm out and held his fingers just above the surface of the water. As the penguin moved under his hand, his fingers grazed the penguin’s skin. The tight, wet surface was rougher than he had expected and slimy water gathered on his fingertips as the penguin flowed under his touch as though he were not even there.
“You got fifty cents, man?” Jeffers asked, digging into the left pocket of his jeans for any quarters among the seven bottle caps from the night before and a day-old tissue.
“Dude, they never check this shit,” Mike said, his hand on the door handle. Just too cheap to pitch in, Jeffers thought as he turned his search efforts to the ashtray full of pennies.
“I would just feel better if I didn’t have to worry about it, you know? I mean, I know they probably won’t check it, but they could, so I would rather just pay it and not have to care, you know?”
Mike rolled his eyes and got out of the car, shaking his head. Slamming the ashtray shut, Jeffers thought, asshole.
He put the only quarter he found into the meter and turned the warm metal knob.
“45 minutes, plenty of time to see the penguins and the hippos or something.” Jeffers pushed the button on his key chain and his mother’s car beeped twice. It didn’t actually have a security system, but Jeffers had found this 20-dollar speaker thing that made it sound like it did, so he bought it for his mother’s birthday.
She didn’t really get it. Still wearing the oversized Tweety Bird shirt she had slept in the night before, she inspected the Viper-con v3.0 in her slightly fattening hands and tried to say she liked it, but Jeffers knew better. He still feels a slight sting of embarrassment every time his mother wears that shirt.
Mike hopped, like some kind of gymnast, over the bar that turns to count every person that enters the zoo and landed on the inside facing Jeffers, who just pushed the bar with his hands to let it count him. He shook his head at Mike, who was waiting for some sign of approval.
“Why are you so lame today, man?” Jeffers just glared into Mike’s eyes as a response and reached into his pocket for the half-smashed pack of Camels.
“Whatever, man,” Mike said.
Half his cigarette was done and a fishy tin smell grew as Jeffers and Mike approached the penguin exhibit. A boy with a Cardinals hat and Umbro shorts swung from the handrail leading up to the big glass sliding doors. His father stood next to him, talking to a little girl who was holding his pinky finger in the palm of her hand. The man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“If I ever become a camera dad, please shoot me,” Jeffers said, leaning so he could speak straight into Mike’s ear as they approached the end of the line.
“Oh, don’t worry, man, I will. I can do that for you.” Jeffers shot Mike a very large smile as he hoisted himself onto the handrail next to the family, the bar pressing heavily into his butt cheeks.
A large woman in a wheelchair rolled by, heading towards the monkey house, a man with a fanny pack pushing her.
“You can’t pay for that tire, can you?” Mike asked, leaning with his forearm resting on the railing.
“Of course not, man, of course not.” A spot of bird shit on the black asphalt beneath Jeffers’ feet looked like a raindrop running slowly down a window, he thought.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman in a khaki, button-down shirt began, and Jeffers lowered himself from the rail.
The simulated Antarctic air behind the glass doors pinched Jeffers’ bare arms as he stepped onto the gray stone ground inside. A hollow echo of squeaking shoes, voices and the deep hum of the air conditioner droned under the black rafter sky and between the smooth stone walls — a child giggled from somwhere at the other end of the exibit.
A small penguin stooped on one of the stones poking out above the line of people moving through, and Jeffers watched as a young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders reached out to pet it. The penguin’s neck stretched as it moved its head back and opened its mouth. The girl yelped as the penguin snapped its beak on small girl fingers. Elbowing Mike in the ribs, Jeffers said, “Dude, did you see that? That penguin just lashed out and bit that girl. It was awesome.”
“No, man, I missed it.” Mike was looking over the shoulder of an old woman in front of him to the pool where the king penguin exhibit was.
“Oh, you missed it, man, it was great.”
Mike pushed into a small gap between the old lady and a fat woman with a green visor, and Jeffers followed him to the penguin lake. The glass between the people and the penguins only went as high as Jeffers’ pecs, so he rested his arms along the top. The water level was about three inches below the glass, so the stench of penguin went straight into the back of his nostrils — the mixture of cold salmon and morning breath slid down the back of his throat, and Jeffers swallowed it.
Ten or so penguins huddled on the flat rock landing on the other shore of the pool. The larger ones stood in the middle and didn’t move at all. They didn’t need to. They just stood there. Others waddled slowly around the circle, going nowhere in particular.
Someone knocked Jeffers off-balance and his chest bumped against the cold, thick glass.
“Hey, watch where you’re going, friend,” he said to the crowd moving behind him, unsure exactly who had run into him. An old lady in a wheelchair with a quilt on her lap and narrow spectacles looked up at him and smiled as she was wheeled by. The young girl, still on her fathers’ shoulders, floated above the crowd. A young black man had his hand around a woman’s shoulder. A man in a Ram’s jersey took a photo of a woman with a baby, asleep under a bundle of blankets — blue, cotton and oh so soft.
A splash, and Mike smacked Jeffers in the arm and pointed.
“Dude, did you see that? This penguin tried to jump out of the water but it ran into this other one that was already up there and it fell right back in.” When Mike laughed, his mouth opened all the way and he bent backwards, and Jeffers realized that he was kind of a lanky guy.
“No, dammit. I missed it.” Jeffers searched the lake — the group still huddled, one was under water, one got ready to dive. None of them were doing anything. Nothing at all.
“Oh shit, look at this one.” Jeffers said, pushing his body next the glass. His legs and feet tickled and went weak. “It’s so close.”
A penguin on the surface of the water kept perfectly still as it drifted next to the glass. Not a single ripple left its pitch-black body.
“Touch it, dude,” Mike said, looking Jeffers straight in the eye.
And Jeffers did.
He reached his arm out and held his fingers just above the surface of the water. As the penguin moved under his hand, his fingers grazed the penguin’s skin. The tight, wet surface was rougher than he had expected and slimy water gathered on his fingertips as the penguin flowed under his touch as though he were not even there.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Landing (first draft)
The Mississippi River smelled like shit, as usual, and Jeffers straightened his ankles so he wouldn’t twist them as he stumbled across the tops of the uneven cobblestones on the Landing. The lights from the Casino Queen docked on the other side of the river reached-out half the way to him and blinked and morphed as the wind blew ripples in the surface of the water. Some asshole behind him honked. There is no sidewalk, ass-face. He picked up a rock and threw it side-armed into the river. It didn’t skip, at least as far as he could see on the black shit water. He had just that week seen video on the news of a barge that sunk, but being this close to the river, he thought about how much it would suck to have to swim in it. They got the people off, though.
His watch glowed 11:46. Mystery Science Theater will be on at midnight. He could just turn go back, but he told Mike he’d come out. Why did he say that? These bars always suck, everytime.
The heat from his coat-covered body rushed out of the neck of the thick, feather-filled mess and Jeffers realized it was a little too warm out for a coat. No one else there is going to have a coat, or at least not one this big, are they? Definitely not. Jeffers unzipped the coat and put his arms in his jeans pockets, pushing the coat around to his back as he stepped onto the main strip of bars and clubs on the Landing.
And there was Mike. And he was already drunk. And he had a group of other drunks with him, and they all looked at him.
Jeffers took out a Bronson-$2.50-a-pack cigarette and lit it. Dried wood that people keep in stack in their backyards for fireplaces. Ashes.
Jenny. Mike didn’t tell him she would be there.
“And Chi walks right up and gets in this cop’s face and says, ‘Hey, why don’t you just go eat a fucking donut, cop.”
Oh God. Mike, you ass, who are these douche bags?
“Hi, Jeffers, what are you doing out? It’s good to see you.”
Jenny’s jacket said Heartland Ravens in that 80’s baseball jersey style, and her lips had glitter.
“Hey.” Jeffers made eye contact with Mike. “This fucker made me come out here, but now I’m glad I did.”
“Oh God, man, are you serious?” said this guy with one of those fake mechanic jackets with the nametag on them that says Sam.
“What do you mean, friend?” Jeffers said. Turning to face this Sam guy. Sam could hardly keep eye contact, obviously a little drunk.
Mike touched Jeffers’ arm and looked him in the eyes. Jeffers turned back.
“I mean, with that line. You do you really talk like that?”
Blood sprayed slightly from Sam’s face as Jeffers’ fist smacked into his nose, and Jeffers could feel the cartilage bow under his knuckle, but it didn’t snap. Sam turned his back to Jeffers and fell to the ground, his hand quickly covering his bleeding nose as three other guys rushed towards him from the sides to keep him from falling on his face.
“You see what happens, mother fucker, you see what happens?” Jeffers felt Mike’s hand gripping his right arm above the elbow as he pulled Jeffers away from the crowd that had formed around this bloody Sam. Jeffers could feel Mike’s fingers touching the bone in his arm, and as soon as he started walking away, he yanked it out of his grip.
“Lay off, man, I got it, I’m cool,” he said putting his hands in the air to show he was safe.
“I know, man, I know. We should just get out of here. I don’t feel like dealing with cops tonight.” Jeffers agreed and stepped up his rhythm. He thought about the blood spraying and looked at his right hand — a line of blood had already dried on the top of his middle finger and some drops had fallen on the back of his hand. With his left hand, he caressed one of the drops — crusty under his fingertips.
His watch glowed 11:46. Mystery Science Theater will be on at midnight. He could just turn go back, but he told Mike he’d come out. Why did he say that? These bars always suck, everytime.
The heat from his coat-covered body rushed out of the neck of the thick, feather-filled mess and Jeffers realized it was a little too warm out for a coat. No one else there is going to have a coat, or at least not one this big, are they? Definitely not. Jeffers unzipped the coat and put his arms in his jeans pockets, pushing the coat around to his back as he stepped onto the main strip of bars and clubs on the Landing.
And there was Mike. And he was already drunk. And he had a group of other drunks with him, and they all looked at him.
Jeffers took out a Bronson-$2.50-a-pack cigarette and lit it. Dried wood that people keep in stack in their backyards for fireplaces. Ashes.
Jenny. Mike didn’t tell him she would be there.
“And Chi walks right up and gets in this cop’s face and says, ‘Hey, why don’t you just go eat a fucking donut, cop.”
Oh God. Mike, you ass, who are these douche bags?
“Hi, Jeffers, what are you doing out? It’s good to see you.”
Jenny’s jacket said Heartland Ravens in that 80’s baseball jersey style, and her lips had glitter.
“Hey.” Jeffers made eye contact with Mike. “This fucker made me come out here, but now I’m glad I did.”
“Oh God, man, are you serious?” said this guy with one of those fake mechanic jackets with the nametag on them that says Sam.
“What do you mean, friend?” Jeffers said. Turning to face this Sam guy. Sam could hardly keep eye contact, obviously a little drunk.
Mike touched Jeffers’ arm and looked him in the eyes. Jeffers turned back.
“I mean, with that line. You do you really talk like that?”
Blood sprayed slightly from Sam’s face as Jeffers’ fist smacked into his nose, and Jeffers could feel the cartilage bow under his knuckle, but it didn’t snap. Sam turned his back to Jeffers and fell to the ground, his hand quickly covering his bleeding nose as three other guys rushed towards him from the sides to keep him from falling on his face.
“You see what happens, mother fucker, you see what happens?” Jeffers felt Mike’s hand gripping his right arm above the elbow as he pulled Jeffers away from the crowd that had formed around this bloody Sam. Jeffers could feel Mike’s fingers touching the bone in his arm, and as soon as he started walking away, he yanked it out of his grip.
“Lay off, man, I got it, I’m cool,” he said putting his hands in the air to show he was safe.
“I know, man, I know. We should just get out of here. I don’t feel like dealing with cops tonight.” Jeffers agreed and stepped up his rhythm. He thought about the blood spraying and looked at his right hand — a line of blood had already dried on the top of his middle finger and some drops had fallen on the back of his hand. With his left hand, he caressed one of the drops — crusty under his fingertips.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Penguins Revised
It was around noon, as Jeffers welcomed the harsh grind and first drag of the day, when he and Mike decided to hide out at the zoo. Jeffers smelled the ripe elephant shit carrying over the zoo walls in the heavy humid air, and he flicked the finished cigarette out the window of his mother’s 1982 Oldsmobile as he stopped next to a meter.
“You got fifty cents, man?” Jeffers asked, digging into the left pocket of his jeans for any quarters among the seven bottle caps from the night before and a day-old tissue.
“Dude, they never check this shit,” Mike said, his hand on the door handle. Just too cheap to pitch in, Jeffers thought as he turned his search efforts to the ashtray full of pennies.
“I would just feel better if I didn’t have to worry about it, you know? I mean, I know they probably won’t check it, but they could, so I would rather just pay it and not have to care, you know?”
Mike rolled his eyes and got out of the car, shaking his head. Slamming the ashtray shut, Jeffers thought, asshole.
He put the only quarter he found into the meter and turned the warm metal knob.
“45 minutes, plenty of time to see the penguins and the hippos or something.” Jeffers pushed the button on his key chain and his mother’s car beeped twice. It didn’t actually have a security system, but Jeffers had found this 20-dollar speaker thing that made it sound like it did, so he bought it for his mother’s birthday.
She didn’t really get it. Still wearing the oversized Tweety Bird shirt she had slept in the night before, she inspected the Viper-con v.3.0 in her slightly fattening hands and tried to sound like she liked it, but Jeffers knew better. He still feels a slight sting of embarrassment every time his mother wears that shirt.
Mike hopped, like some kind of gymnast, over the bar that turns to count every person that enters the zoo and landed on the inside facing Jeffers, who just pushed the bar with his hands to let it count him. He shook his head at Mike, who was waiting for some sign of approval.
“Why are you so lame today, man?” Jeffers just glared into Mike’s eyes as a response and reached into his pocket for the half-smashed pack of Camels.
“Whatever, man,” Mike said.
Half his cigarette was done and a fishy tin smell grew as Jeffers and Mike approached the penguin exhibit. A boy with a Cardinals hat and Umbro shorts swung from the handrail leading up to the big glass sliding doors. His father stood next to him, talking to a little girl who was holding his pinky finger in the palm of her hand. The man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“If I ever become a camera dad, please shoot me,” Jeffers said, leaning so he could speak straight into Mike’s ear as they approached the end of the line.
“Oh, don’t worry, man, I will. I can do that for you.” Jeffers shot Mike a very large smile as he hoisted himself onto the handrail next to the family, the bar pressing heavily into his butt cheeks.
A large woman in a wheelchair rolled by, heading towards the monkey house, a man with a fanny pack pushing her.
“You can’t pay for that tire, can you?” Mike asked, leaning with his forearm resting on the railing.
“Of course not, man, of course not.” A spot of bird shit on the black asphalt beneath Jeffers’ feet looked like a raindrop running slowly down a window, he thought.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman in a khaki, button-down shirt began, and Jeffers lowered himself from the rail.
The simulated Antarctic air behind the glass doors pinched Jeffers’ bare arms as he stepped onto the gray stone ground inside.
A hollow echo of squeaking shoes, voices and the deep hum of the air conditioner droned under the black rafter sky and between the smooth stone walls.
A small penguin stooped on one of the stones poking out above the line of people moving through, and Jeffers watched as a young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders reached out to pet it. The penguin’s neck stretched as it moved its head back and opened its mouth. The girl yelped as the penguin snapped its beak on small girl fingers. Elbowing Mike in the ribs, Jeffers said, “Dude, did you see that? That penguin just lashed out and bit that girl. It was awesome.”
“No, man, I missed it.” Mike was looking over the shoulder of an old woman in front of him to the pool where the king penguin exhibit was.
“Oh, you missed it, man, it was great.”
Mike pushed into a small gap between the old lady and a fat woman with a green visor, and Jeffers followed him. The glass between the people and the penguins only went as high as Jeffers’ pecs, so he rested his arms along the top. The water level was only about three inches below the glass, so the stench of penguin went straight into the back of Jeffers’ nostrils. He tightened the muscles in his face for a few seconds as he adjusted to the smell — a mixture of cold salmon and morning breath. Ten or so penguins huddled on the flat rock landing on the other shore of the pool. The larger ones stood in the middle and didn’t move at all. They didn’t seem to need to. Others waddled slowly around the circle, going nowhere in particular.
Jeffers heard a splash and Mike smacked him in the arm and pointed.
“Dude, did you see that? This penguin tried to jump out of the water but it ran into this other one that was already up there and it fell right back in.” When Mike laughed, his mouth opened all the way and he bent backwards, and Jeffers realized that he was kind of a lanky guy.
“No, dammit. I missed it. Oh shit, look at this one. It’s so close.” A penguin on the surface of the water kept perfectly still as it drifted next to the glass. Not a single ripple left its pitch-black body.
“Touch it, dude,” Mike said, looking Jeffers straight in the eye.
And Jeffers did.
He reached his arm out and held his fingers just above the surface of the water. As the penguin moved under his hand, his fingers grazed the penguin’s skin. The tight, wet surface was rougher than he had expected and slimy water gathered on his fingertips as the penguin flowed under his touch as though he were not even there.
“You got fifty cents, man?” Jeffers asked, digging into the left pocket of his jeans for any quarters among the seven bottle caps from the night before and a day-old tissue.
“Dude, they never check this shit,” Mike said, his hand on the door handle. Just too cheap to pitch in, Jeffers thought as he turned his search efforts to the ashtray full of pennies.
“I would just feel better if I didn’t have to worry about it, you know? I mean, I know they probably won’t check it, but they could, so I would rather just pay it and not have to care, you know?”
Mike rolled his eyes and got out of the car, shaking his head. Slamming the ashtray shut, Jeffers thought, asshole.
He put the only quarter he found into the meter and turned the warm metal knob.
“45 minutes, plenty of time to see the penguins and the hippos or something.” Jeffers pushed the button on his key chain and his mother’s car beeped twice. It didn’t actually have a security system, but Jeffers had found this 20-dollar speaker thing that made it sound like it did, so he bought it for his mother’s birthday.
She didn’t really get it. Still wearing the oversized Tweety Bird shirt she had slept in the night before, she inspected the Viper-con v.3.0 in her slightly fattening hands and tried to sound like she liked it, but Jeffers knew better. He still feels a slight sting of embarrassment every time his mother wears that shirt.
Mike hopped, like some kind of gymnast, over the bar that turns to count every person that enters the zoo and landed on the inside facing Jeffers, who just pushed the bar with his hands to let it count him. He shook his head at Mike, who was waiting for some sign of approval.
“Why are you so lame today, man?” Jeffers just glared into Mike’s eyes as a response and reached into his pocket for the half-smashed pack of Camels.
“Whatever, man,” Mike said.
Half his cigarette was done and a fishy tin smell grew as Jeffers and Mike approached the penguin exhibit. A boy with a Cardinals hat and Umbro shorts swung from the handrail leading up to the big glass sliding doors. His father stood next to him, talking to a little girl who was holding his pinky finger in the palm of her hand. The man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“If I ever become a camera dad, please shoot me,” Jeffers said, leaning so he could speak straight into Mike’s ear as they approached the end of the line.
“Oh, don’t worry, man, I will. I can do that for you.” Jeffers shot Mike a very large smile as he hoisted himself onto the handrail next to the family, the bar pressing heavily into his butt cheeks.
A large woman in a wheelchair rolled by, heading towards the monkey house, a man with a fanny pack pushing her.
“You can’t pay for that tire, can you?” Mike asked, leaning with his forearm resting on the railing.
“Of course not, man, of course not.” A spot of bird shit on the black asphalt beneath Jeffers’ feet looked like a raindrop running slowly down a window, he thought.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman in a khaki, button-down shirt began, and Jeffers lowered himself from the rail.
The simulated Antarctic air behind the glass doors pinched Jeffers’ bare arms as he stepped onto the gray stone ground inside.
A hollow echo of squeaking shoes, voices and the deep hum of the air conditioner droned under the black rafter sky and between the smooth stone walls.
A small penguin stooped on one of the stones poking out above the line of people moving through, and Jeffers watched as a young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders reached out to pet it. The penguin’s neck stretched as it moved its head back and opened its mouth. The girl yelped as the penguin snapped its beak on small girl fingers. Elbowing Mike in the ribs, Jeffers said, “Dude, did you see that? That penguin just lashed out and bit that girl. It was awesome.”
“No, man, I missed it.” Mike was looking over the shoulder of an old woman in front of him to the pool where the king penguin exhibit was.
“Oh, you missed it, man, it was great.”
Mike pushed into a small gap between the old lady and a fat woman with a green visor, and Jeffers followed him. The glass between the people and the penguins only went as high as Jeffers’ pecs, so he rested his arms along the top. The water level was only about three inches below the glass, so the stench of penguin went straight into the back of Jeffers’ nostrils. He tightened the muscles in his face for a few seconds as he adjusted to the smell — a mixture of cold salmon and morning breath. Ten or so penguins huddled on the flat rock landing on the other shore of the pool. The larger ones stood in the middle and didn’t move at all. They didn’t seem to need to. Others waddled slowly around the circle, going nowhere in particular.
Jeffers heard a splash and Mike smacked him in the arm and pointed.
“Dude, did you see that? This penguin tried to jump out of the water but it ran into this other one that was already up there and it fell right back in.” When Mike laughed, his mouth opened all the way and he bent backwards, and Jeffers realized that he was kind of a lanky guy.
“No, dammit. I missed it. Oh shit, look at this one. It’s so close.” A penguin on the surface of the water kept perfectly still as it drifted next to the glass. Not a single ripple left its pitch-black body.
“Touch it, dude,” Mike said, looking Jeffers straight in the eye.
And Jeffers did.
He reached his arm out and held his fingers just above the surface of the water. As the penguin moved under his hand, his fingers grazed the penguin’s skin. The tight, wet surface was rougher than he had expected and slimy water gathered on his fingertips as the penguin flowed under his touch as though he were not even there.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
David’s Bill Raymond, My Father
David’s story took me a while to take in because it is written in the first person, but the narrator does not really become the focus of the story until the last few pages. For the first page or two, I was really confused by the story because I was not sure why we were so interested in the father and not in Howard (whose name we don’t learn until close to the end). It bothered me for the first few pages because it was not clear whether it was ever going to come back to Howard or if it was going to stay a faux-third person omniscient.
But then, once the dowsing comes into play, it starts to sound like some kind of miracle maker tall tale kind of thing. The way Howard tells the story of his father really makes him sound like a larger-than-life man as he recounts the way he thought of his father, or perhaps still thinks about him.
Another thing about David’s story that blows me away is the intricacies of the dowsing. David really thought the plot to this story out thoroughly. It was also executed extremely well. I could see the children running around trying pick out rocks and Bill sitting there separating them into different groups and the children getting so excited when their rock was complimented or something. I can see the whole ceremony, which is amazing because it is so complex. David has succeeded with this story beautifully.
But then, once the dowsing comes into play, it starts to sound like some kind of miracle maker tall tale kind of thing. The way Howard tells the story of his father really makes him sound like a larger-than-life man as he recounts the way he thought of his father, or perhaps still thinks about him.
Another thing about David’s story that blows me away is the intricacies of the dowsing. David really thought the plot to this story out thoroughly. It was also executed extremely well. I could see the children running around trying pick out rocks and Bill sitting there separating them into different groups and the children getting so excited when their rock was complimented or something. I can see the whole ceremony, which is amazing because it is so complex. David has succeeded with this story beautifully.
Kate’s untitled
Kate’s character Charlie is moving. He is incredibly real to me and something is seriously bothering me, and I am concerned for him. He “tries to ignore the almost gooey noise his tires make in the slush,” but obviously hasn’t. The slush bothers him. He wants things clear — he likes dry concrete. He hates when his pant legs get wet. I feel like I can make inferences about his character because he is there.
And he has lost something or someone. And now he is stiff and he squeezes things — a lot. Kate has created a time bomb and I am afraid for him.
I am interested in the bit where the phone is ringing and he is freaking out on the couch. Kate writes a sentence for the space between each ring, which creates an interesting tension as the reader reads it because it takes longer to read the line than it would take for the phone to ring again. In this way, it blows out time and makes the reader very uncomfortable, which is exactly how Charlie feels at that moment. I think it’s brilliantly written.
Kate has an incredible way of making her words work for her to allow the reader to feel as she wants them to.
It is also amazes me how well Kate has created a male character. She obviously thought a lot about him because I buy his maleness throughout the whole story. I think a moment that really sells it to me is during the rings when he is freaking out: “He closes his eyes tries to keep the image in his head, tenses and moans stretches and then collapses second ring.” The build-up and relieving release is such an inherent male action that I almost started to wonder if he was masturbating or something instead of having a panic attack (or whatever it is).
And he has lost something or someone. And now he is stiff and he squeezes things — a lot. Kate has created a time bomb and I am afraid for him.
I am interested in the bit where the phone is ringing and he is freaking out on the couch. Kate writes a sentence for the space between each ring, which creates an interesting tension as the reader reads it because it takes longer to read the line than it would take for the phone to ring again. In this way, it blows out time and makes the reader very uncomfortable, which is exactly how Charlie feels at that moment. I think it’s brilliantly written.
Kate has an incredible way of making her words work for her to allow the reader to feel as she wants them to.
It is also amazes me how well Kate has created a male character. She obviously thought a lot about him because I buy his maleness throughout the whole story. I think a moment that really sells it to me is during the rings when he is freaking out: “He closes his eyes tries to keep the image in his head, tenses and moans stretches and then collapses second ring.” The build-up and relieving release is such an inherent male action that I almost started to wonder if he was masturbating or something instead of having a panic attack (or whatever it is).
Al’s Wynona Sketches
When Wynona shaves for her husband, I had to jump up and go to a mirror to try this out because it intrigued me enough. I found, of course, that it isn’t true. You (at least I can, maybe if you had some oddly-shaped face you would be different) can still see well enough in a mirror with one eye closed to shave your face. However, the point is not that it’s not true, it’s that it made me get up and check. There is something incredibly interesting here, and I wonder if it can be used to aid the story. You give a physical detail that can be easily checked by the reader that is wrong. Because the reader thinks it is wrong, there is a strong reaction to proved him/herself right. Therefore you have created a strong reaction. However, this strong reaction could very quickly turn into distrust for anything the narrator says, which would be great if you have a lying narrator or something, but that would be really bad if you are counting on that trust.
“It was in the way the woman walked: swinging down the drive, all hips, in a bright lime sundress that Wynona wanted but would never wear …” — brilliant. This (part of a) line does so much so quickly. It paints a picture of the woman through the eyes of Wynona, but it also shows that woman move, or at least the way Wynona sees her move. It also shows that Wynona judges people and pays close attention to what they are wearing and then thinks about what would happen if she were wearing that. That is a lot of work for so few words, and I feel that this is Al’s strongest ability (and what a great ability to have).
“It was in the way the woman walked: swinging down the drive, all hips, in a bright lime sundress that Wynona wanted but would never wear …” — brilliant. This (part of a) line does so much so quickly. It paints a picture of the woman through the eyes of Wynona, but it also shows that woman move, or at least the way Wynona sees her move. It also shows that Wynona judges people and pays close attention to what they are wearing and then thinks about what would happen if she were wearing that. That is a lot of work for so few words, and I feel that this is Al’s strongest ability (and what a great ability to have).
Bess’ Men of Business
I am assuming this story is part of what Bess described in class last week about thing that happened to her family that no one believes, which is an interesting idea to work with because, as a work of fiction, that is exactly what the readers are going to do — not believe it (as fact). So I think there is a fun game to play here, and using your name only adds to it because, as a work of fiction, every character is just that — a character. So even if this is supposed to be Bess and Bess went through all these things, the character is still the character Bess in Men of Business.
To contrast this story with the last one — it’s entirely different. There’s no movement, where the last one was about movement. The environment is built and the warehouse created and filled with big machines. The goons are given large necks.
However, it is not the actual story I am interested in because this story happened to some other dude (the father). I am interested in the voice Bess has created — the way she stereotypes the Italian mafia man or what she admires in her father. It is, after all, in the first-person.
To contrast this story with the last one — it’s entirely different. There’s no movement, where the last one was about movement. The environment is built and the warehouse created and filled with big machines. The goons are given large necks.
However, it is not the actual story I am interested in because this story happened to some other dude (the father). I am interested in the voice Bess has created — the way she stereotypes the Italian mafia man or what she admires in her father. It is, after all, in the first-person.
Matt Holland’s opening for a story
I like the name Tucker. A lot of good chances to make that sound really cool. It also works really well for a character who is socially awkward because he name kind of stutters, and as far as I can tell from the story, Tucker is a little socially awkward. He has no friends that are willing to move out with him? I guess that probably happens in small towns, though.
One detail that hit me hard was the fact that he is unable to save up making $300 a week. What is this guy doing with it? I want to read more just for the fact that he seems like a socially awkward guy who lives with his parents who somehow goes through almost $300 a week in a small town.
When you followed the line about 19 year-olds having apartments on part-time jobs with him being 22 and at home, I think there is an interesting cross in the close third. I don’t know at this point if it was intentional or not, but when this detail presents itself, it is almost as though he has betrayed himself and given away that being three years older is not the solution to his problems, as he has been telling himself. This is an interesting problem for the character and I am interested to see how he handles it.
One detail that hit me hard was the fact that he is unable to save up making $300 a week. What is this guy doing with it? I want to read more just for the fact that he seems like a socially awkward guy who lives with his parents who somehow goes through almost $300 a week in a small town.
When you followed the line about 19 year-olds having apartments on part-time jobs with him being 22 and at home, I think there is an interesting cross in the close third. I don’t know at this point if it was intentional or not, but when this detail presents itself, it is almost as though he has betrayed himself and given away that being three years older is not the solution to his problems, as he has been telling himself. This is an interesting problem for the character and I am interested to see how he handles it.
Elise by Gillian Chisom
I have a feeling that everyone is going to talk about affect in the story and how Elise does not feel real, and I agree that I cannot touch this character. You start the story with her climbing a tree, but we never know how the branches felt on her skin or if she ever slipped a little or if something got caught. She just climbs to the top real fast.
However, that’s all I want to say about that as I think you know what that is all about. I would like to talk about story as kind of a follow-up to last week’s discussion. The problem in the story is that her mother wants her to marry a rich a dude, but she wants to marry for love. However, she is convinced to go ahead with the marriage because she is afraid of losing her fine things and the house and stuff. I think this is an interesting problem and it has a lot of potential. The fact that she goes through with it shows that she values things and her nice home enough to dedicate her life to some guy she doesn’t know just to keep it. That seems to be her internal struggle — I want stuff, but I also want love.
You try to make this clear in the last page or two, especially with the house of cards metaphor. However, I think you have everything set up for a powerful internal struggle, but it doesn’t come across (maybe because of the lack of the character’s affect) or maybe because we don’t see enough of her attachment to things and places enough to realize how strong of a pull it has on her. I think a great chance for this is the tree. We see her in the tree and we know she has climbed this tree many times before, but we don’t understand that this tree is so important to her that she would marry a guy for the rest of her life just to keep it.
Or maybe the child in her is just afraid of change. Maybe she hangs on the tree for it’s motherly comfort and couldn’t stand to let it go.
I feel like there are things missing that you have already done the mental work to fill in, it’s just not written. I think you know what her face looks like or what she is holding in her hand when she thinks, “If her father had been alive …” I feel like her character is very close to coming alive and that this story is in position to be very powerful.
However, that’s all I want to say about that as I think you know what that is all about. I would like to talk about story as kind of a follow-up to last week’s discussion. The problem in the story is that her mother wants her to marry a rich a dude, but she wants to marry for love. However, she is convinced to go ahead with the marriage because she is afraid of losing her fine things and the house and stuff. I think this is an interesting problem and it has a lot of potential. The fact that she goes through with it shows that she values things and her nice home enough to dedicate her life to some guy she doesn’t know just to keep it. That seems to be her internal struggle — I want stuff, but I also want love.
You try to make this clear in the last page or two, especially with the house of cards metaphor. However, I think you have everything set up for a powerful internal struggle, but it doesn’t come across (maybe because of the lack of the character’s affect) or maybe because we don’t see enough of her attachment to things and places enough to realize how strong of a pull it has on her. I think a great chance for this is the tree. We see her in the tree and we know she has climbed this tree many times before, but we don’t understand that this tree is so important to her that she would marry a guy for the rest of her life just to keep it.
Or maybe the child in her is just afraid of change. Maybe she hangs on the tree for it’s motherly comfort and couldn’t stand to let it go.
I feel like there are things missing that you have already done the mental work to fill in, it’s just not written. I think you know what her face looks like or what she is holding in her hand when she thinks, “If her father had been alive …” I feel like her character is very close to coming alive and that this story is in position to be very powerful.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Sketches 3
1.
Hi, Jeffers, how are you?
Fine.
You know, I made you.
Yeah. I don’t know. I think I made myself.
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
So how do you feel, like, inside right now.
I feel stiff. I feel like that Looney Tunes skit, “Duck Amuck,” where it’s just Daffy the whole time and that hand comes out of the screen and draws the things around him or erases his mouth, you know? I feel like I am not made.
Well, I’m working on that.
Yeah, well come on, I want to get going, you know?
That’s what I’m doing.
What do you want to do tonight?
I don’t want it to be night, you know, I want it to be at the zoo. Except every time I go to the zoo it is hot as hell. I want it nice, like, you know when you hold your arm out and you can’t feel the temperature — there’s no hot or cold anywhere on it — like that.
All right, we can try that.
And I like the penguins.
It’s cold as hell in there, though.
Yeah, but it’s okay because it’s the penguins. It sets the mood really well because they are supposed to be cold.
Why do you like penguins so much?
I don’t know. I guess it’s the way they are always moving. And they have that new set-up where you can get really close to the tank — so close that you can reach over and touch them if you want, though they hate that.
Have you done that before?
Sure did. The first time I saw them they didn’t have that girl who stands in front of the display, so I just reached inside and touched one that was swimming on the surface of the water. (He shows the way he let the penguin slide under him fingertips as he speaks)
Do you want to do that now?
All right, let’s do it.
2.
Jeffers’ grinned out of the side of his mouth a little when he saw that the line to see the penguins was not very long. It must be because it’s so nice out, he thought, usually it’s so hot people are in more of a hurry to get somewhere cold. But it was so nice on this day he did not even have to use the bottle of suntan lotion his mother keeps in the center panel of her ’88 Oldsmobile. Jeffers’ heels stung with every step and he could swear he felt a slight vacuum in the middle of his stomach, but none of that mattered as the line for the exhibit neared. A boy with a Cardinals hat and Umbro shorts swung from the handrail leading up to the big glass sliding doors of the building. His father stood next to him, but was facing the opposite direction talking to a little girl holding his pinky finger in her palm. The man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“If I ever become a camera dad, please shoot me,” Jeffers said to his buddy Mike as they approached the end of the line.
“Oh, don’t worry, man, I will. I can do that for you.” Jeffers shot Mike a very large smile as he hoisted himself onto the handrail next to the family — the bar pressing heavily into his butt cheeks.
3.
A small penguin stooped on a ledge next to the entrance to the exhibit, and Jeffers watched as a young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders — her father looking the other way — reached out to pet it. The penguin’s neck stretched as it moved its head back and opened its beak. The girl yelped as the penguin snapped its beak on small girl fingers. Elbowing his buddy Mike in the ribs,
“Dude, did you see that? That penguin just lashed out and bit that girl. It was awesome.”
“No, man, I missed it.” Mike was looking over the shoulder of an old woman in front of him to the pool where the large penguin exhibit was.
“Oh, you missed it, man, it was great.”
Mike pushed into a small gap between the old lady and a fat woman with a green visor, and Jeffers followed him. The glass between the people and the penguins only went as high as Jeffers’ pecks, so he rested his arms along the top. The water level was only about three inches below the glass, so the stench of the penguin water went straight into the back of Jeffers’ nostrils, and he tightened his cheek muscles for a few seconds as he adjusted to the smell — a mix of cold salmon and morning breath, he thought.
Mike smacked Jeffers’ arm with the back of his hand and pointed to where Jeffers had just heard a splash.
“Dude, did you see that? This penguin tried to jump out of the water but it ran into this one that was already up there and it fell right back in.” When Mike laughed, his mouth opened all the way and he leaned back — his head back — and Jeffers thought he looked lanky for a second.
“No, dammit. I missed it. Oh shit, look at this one. It’s so close.” A penguin swimming on the surface of the water had come close to the glass where Jeffers and Mike stood moving slowly as though it were looking at something in the water below it.
“Touch it, dude,” Mike said — looking Jeffers straight in the eye — and Jeffers did. He reached his arm out and held his fingers just above the surface of the water. As the penguin moved under his hand, his fingers grazed the penguin’s back — the tight, wet surface was rougher than he had expected and Jeffers realized that the penguin was a lot longer than he thought it was as it flowed under his fingers as though he were not even there.
4.
Jeffers shivered hard right before he pulled open the glass door of the convenient store. Once inside, the rug sloshed under his foot as he stomped the snow off his shoe. His sock was wet with cold that had somehow made it under his foot, and he just wanted to get home.
“Marlboro Reds in a box,” he said to the cashier as his fingers searched his pocket for a dime to make 35¢.
“$3.43,” the dark-bearded cashier said.
“What? Why is it more?” Jeffers pulled his hand out of his pocket and let it dangle loosely down his leg.
“New tax. Just happen.” The man said, holding his hand out.
Jeffers glared at the man’s hand before pulling everything out of his left pocket to see if he had any more change. A used tissue, Marvin the Martian keychain with keys and three pennies. Jeffers dropped his shoulders and glanced at the Kool cigarette ad hanging from the ceiling above the cahier before reaching into his right pocket to pull out another one-dollar bill.
5.
Jeffers jumped on the couch, landing flat on his back — his head resting on a decorative red pillow with a flower pattern sewn onto the front in white thread. He bit down on the half-unwrapped granola bar and grabbed the TV remote from the scratched wooden coffee table. The large grains from the bar crushed softly between his molars as they turned to mush, and Jeffers craned his neck to look at the clock — too late to buy some string cheese. He peeled off the rest of the wrapper and crumpled it as small as he could before throwing it on the old brown shag carpet — he wrenched the second half of the bar into his mouth. Chewing with very large, slow bites, the bar shrunk and shrunk to a pool of grain.
6.
Jeffers slugged the shit out of the inflated clown standing in front of the Hotwheels and G.I. Joes in the toy store by his house. The plastic curled around his fist and touched his wrist before sprawling on the ground and sliding a few feet. Jeffers checked over his shoulder as the sand at the clown’s feet raised it back up — fist in the face again, and Jeffers giggled in his chest slightly. The clowns were $14.95 — a little too much, he thought. Maybe as a gag? Still too much.
7.
The steam downtown rose from the sewer lids, whisping and spreading whenever a car rode over it, but always forming again. Jeffers noticed a group of black kids, probably not older than 13, on bicycles riding around the large fountain with a statue of some dancers in the middle. They circled the fountain — one boy with a speed-bike lapped the others, heckling. Light from the Wendy’s sign across the street shining through the legs and arms of the dancers flickered as the forms circled. An arm moved, or maybe not.
8.
The Mississippi River smelled like shit, as usual, as Jeffers straightened his ankles so he wouldn’t twist them as he stumbled across the tops of the uneven cobblestones on the Landing. He was going to this bar turned club thing his buddies were at — he picked up a rock and threw it side-armed into the river. It didn’t skip, at least as far as he could see on the black shit water. He had just that week seen video on the news of a barge that sunk, but being this close to the river, he thought about how much it would suck to have to swim in it. They got the people off, though, he remembered. The lights from the “Casino Queen” docked on the other side of the river reached-out half the way to him and blinked and morphed as the wind blew across the surface. Some asshole behind him honked — there is no sidewalk, ass-face.
9.
Casey purred under Jeffers’ heavy hand — fur pushing through between his fingers, tickling a little as they touched the tender connection to his palm. Jeffers moved his pinky over to Casey’s black ear and rubbed it gently at the point where the cartilage meets bone. Casey rubbed his head against Jeffers’ finger. Picking the cat up, Jeffers held him close to his chest, rocking him like a baby. Casey wriggled a little, jumping out of Jeffers’ hands and running to the doorway. He stopped and looked back at Jeffers.
“Oh come on, I’m sorry. Don’t leave, Casey, come here. I won’t do it again.”
But Casey turned the corner and ran behind the wall in the next room.
10.
Blood sprayed slightly from Sam’s face as Jeffers’ fist smacked into his nose, and Jeffers could feel the cartilage bow under his knuckle, but it didn’t snap. Sam turned his back to Jeffers and fell to the ground, his hand quickly covering his bleeding nose as three other guys rushed towards him from the sides to keep him from falling on his face.
“I told you not to fuck with me, mother fucker, and now look at you — you see what happens, mother fucker, you see what happens?” Jeffers felt Mike’s hand gripping his right arm above the elbow as he pulled Jeffers away from the crowd that had formed around the bloody college kid. Jeffers could feel Mike’s fingers touching the gone in his arm, and as soon as he started walking away, he yanked it out of his grip.
“Lay off, man, I got it, I’m cool,” he said putting his hands in the air to show he was safe.
“I know, man, I know. We should just get out of here. I don’t feel like dealing with cops tonight.” Jeffers agreed and stepped up his rhythm. He thought about the blood spraying and looked at his right hand — a line of blood had already dried on the top of his middle finger and some drops had fallen on the back of his hand. With his left hand, he caressed one of the drops — crusty under his fingertips.
Hi, Jeffers, how are you?
Fine.
You know, I made you.
Yeah. I don’t know. I think I made myself.
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
So how do you feel, like, inside right now.
I feel stiff. I feel like that Looney Tunes skit, “Duck Amuck,” where it’s just Daffy the whole time and that hand comes out of the screen and draws the things around him or erases his mouth, you know? I feel like I am not made.
Well, I’m working on that.
Yeah, well come on, I want to get going, you know?
That’s what I’m doing.
What do you want to do tonight?
I don’t want it to be night, you know, I want it to be at the zoo. Except every time I go to the zoo it is hot as hell. I want it nice, like, you know when you hold your arm out and you can’t feel the temperature — there’s no hot or cold anywhere on it — like that.
All right, we can try that.
And I like the penguins.
It’s cold as hell in there, though.
Yeah, but it’s okay because it’s the penguins. It sets the mood really well because they are supposed to be cold.
Why do you like penguins so much?
I don’t know. I guess it’s the way they are always moving. And they have that new set-up where you can get really close to the tank — so close that you can reach over and touch them if you want, though they hate that.
Have you done that before?
Sure did. The first time I saw them they didn’t have that girl who stands in front of the display, so I just reached inside and touched one that was swimming on the surface of the water. (He shows the way he let the penguin slide under him fingertips as he speaks)
Do you want to do that now?
All right, let’s do it.
2.
Jeffers’ grinned out of the side of his mouth a little when he saw that the line to see the penguins was not very long. It must be because it’s so nice out, he thought, usually it’s so hot people are in more of a hurry to get somewhere cold. But it was so nice on this day he did not even have to use the bottle of suntan lotion his mother keeps in the center panel of her ’88 Oldsmobile. Jeffers’ heels stung with every step and he could swear he felt a slight vacuum in the middle of his stomach, but none of that mattered as the line for the exhibit neared. A boy with a Cardinals hat and Umbro shorts swung from the handrail leading up to the big glass sliding doors of the building. His father stood next to him, but was facing the opposite direction talking to a little girl holding his pinky finger in her palm. The man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.
“If I ever become a camera dad, please shoot me,” Jeffers said to his buddy Mike as they approached the end of the line.
“Oh, don’t worry, man, I will. I can do that for you.” Jeffers shot Mike a very large smile as he hoisted himself onto the handrail next to the family — the bar pressing heavily into his butt cheeks.
3.
A small penguin stooped on a ledge next to the entrance to the exhibit, and Jeffers watched as a young girl sitting on her father’s shoulders — her father looking the other way — reached out to pet it. The penguin’s neck stretched as it moved its head back and opened its beak. The girl yelped as the penguin snapped its beak on small girl fingers. Elbowing his buddy Mike in the ribs,
“Dude, did you see that? That penguin just lashed out and bit that girl. It was awesome.”
“No, man, I missed it.” Mike was looking over the shoulder of an old woman in front of him to the pool where the large penguin exhibit was.
“Oh, you missed it, man, it was great.”
Mike pushed into a small gap between the old lady and a fat woman with a green visor, and Jeffers followed him. The glass between the people and the penguins only went as high as Jeffers’ pecks, so he rested his arms along the top. The water level was only about three inches below the glass, so the stench of the penguin water went straight into the back of Jeffers’ nostrils, and he tightened his cheek muscles for a few seconds as he adjusted to the smell — a mix of cold salmon and morning breath, he thought.
Mike smacked Jeffers’ arm with the back of his hand and pointed to where Jeffers had just heard a splash.
“Dude, did you see that? This penguin tried to jump out of the water but it ran into this one that was already up there and it fell right back in.” When Mike laughed, his mouth opened all the way and he leaned back — his head back — and Jeffers thought he looked lanky for a second.
“No, dammit. I missed it. Oh shit, look at this one. It’s so close.” A penguin swimming on the surface of the water had come close to the glass where Jeffers and Mike stood moving slowly as though it were looking at something in the water below it.
“Touch it, dude,” Mike said — looking Jeffers straight in the eye — and Jeffers did. He reached his arm out and held his fingers just above the surface of the water. As the penguin moved under his hand, his fingers grazed the penguin’s back — the tight, wet surface was rougher than he had expected and Jeffers realized that the penguin was a lot longer than he thought it was as it flowed under his fingers as though he were not even there.
4.
Jeffers shivered hard right before he pulled open the glass door of the convenient store. Once inside, the rug sloshed under his foot as he stomped the snow off his shoe. His sock was wet with cold that had somehow made it under his foot, and he just wanted to get home.
“Marlboro Reds in a box,” he said to the cashier as his fingers searched his pocket for a dime to make 35¢.
“$3.43,” the dark-bearded cashier said.
“What? Why is it more?” Jeffers pulled his hand out of his pocket and let it dangle loosely down his leg.
“New tax. Just happen.” The man said, holding his hand out.
Jeffers glared at the man’s hand before pulling everything out of his left pocket to see if he had any more change. A used tissue, Marvin the Martian keychain with keys and three pennies. Jeffers dropped his shoulders and glanced at the Kool cigarette ad hanging from the ceiling above the cahier before reaching into his right pocket to pull out another one-dollar bill.
5.
Jeffers jumped on the couch, landing flat on his back — his head resting on a decorative red pillow with a flower pattern sewn onto the front in white thread. He bit down on the half-unwrapped granola bar and grabbed the TV remote from the scratched wooden coffee table. The large grains from the bar crushed softly between his molars as they turned to mush, and Jeffers craned his neck to look at the clock — too late to buy some string cheese. He peeled off the rest of the wrapper and crumpled it as small as he could before throwing it on the old brown shag carpet — he wrenched the second half of the bar into his mouth. Chewing with very large, slow bites, the bar shrunk and shrunk to a pool of grain.
6.
Jeffers slugged the shit out of the inflated clown standing in front of the Hotwheels and G.I. Joes in the toy store by his house. The plastic curled around his fist and touched his wrist before sprawling on the ground and sliding a few feet. Jeffers checked over his shoulder as the sand at the clown’s feet raised it back up — fist in the face again, and Jeffers giggled in his chest slightly. The clowns were $14.95 — a little too much, he thought. Maybe as a gag? Still too much.
7.
The steam downtown rose from the sewer lids, whisping and spreading whenever a car rode over it, but always forming again. Jeffers noticed a group of black kids, probably not older than 13, on bicycles riding around the large fountain with a statue of some dancers in the middle. They circled the fountain — one boy with a speed-bike lapped the others, heckling. Light from the Wendy’s sign across the street shining through the legs and arms of the dancers flickered as the forms circled. An arm moved, or maybe not.
8.
The Mississippi River smelled like shit, as usual, as Jeffers straightened his ankles so he wouldn’t twist them as he stumbled across the tops of the uneven cobblestones on the Landing. He was going to this bar turned club thing his buddies were at — he picked up a rock and threw it side-armed into the river. It didn’t skip, at least as far as he could see on the black shit water. He had just that week seen video on the news of a barge that sunk, but being this close to the river, he thought about how much it would suck to have to swim in it. They got the people off, though, he remembered. The lights from the “Casino Queen” docked on the other side of the river reached-out half the way to him and blinked and morphed as the wind blew across the surface. Some asshole behind him honked — there is no sidewalk, ass-face.
9.
Casey purred under Jeffers’ heavy hand — fur pushing through between his fingers, tickling a little as they touched the tender connection to his palm. Jeffers moved his pinky over to Casey’s black ear and rubbed it gently at the point where the cartilage meets bone. Casey rubbed his head against Jeffers’ finger. Picking the cat up, Jeffers held him close to his chest, rocking him like a baby. Casey wriggled a little, jumping out of Jeffers’ hands and running to the doorway. He stopped and looked back at Jeffers.
“Oh come on, I’m sorry. Don’t leave, Casey, come here. I won’t do it again.”
But Casey turned the corner and ran behind the wall in the next room.
10.
Blood sprayed slightly from Sam’s face as Jeffers’ fist smacked into his nose, and Jeffers could feel the cartilage bow under his knuckle, but it didn’t snap. Sam turned his back to Jeffers and fell to the ground, his hand quickly covering his bleeding nose as three other guys rushed towards him from the sides to keep him from falling on his face.
“I told you not to fuck with me, mother fucker, and now look at you — you see what happens, mother fucker, you see what happens?” Jeffers felt Mike’s hand gripping his right arm above the elbow as he pulled Jeffers away from the crowd that had formed around the bloody college kid. Jeffers could feel Mike’s fingers touching the gone in his arm, and as soon as he started walking away, he yanked it out of his grip.
“Lay off, man, I got it, I’m cool,” he said putting his hands in the air to show he was safe.
“I know, man, I know. We should just get out of here. I don’t feel like dealing with cops tonight.” Jeffers agreed and stepped up his rhythm. He thought about the blood spraying and looked at his right hand — a line of blood had already dried on the top of his middle finger and some drops had fallen on the back of his hand. With his left hand, he caressed one of the drops — crusty under his fingertips.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Workshop 1 responses
Gillian’s “Maid of Honor”
Gillian writes in a very, very close third person. The reader in inside Susan’s head, feeling her emotions almost immediately and continuously throughout the whole story. Being this close, she catpures the feeling of what it was like to be in senior year of high school as a college-bound student, something everyone in this class, at leaast, can relate to. Because we are so close, I buy her feelings of trying to get close to her sister because the desperation to try to clean things up at home before leaving really comes through, even though she never mentions it.
Gillian seems to have a good hold on her character, Susan, and it seems like she could probably put her in any situation and be able to document what she does. She is clear about what Susan is looking at. For example, when she says, “She stared moodily out of her window. Across the street, several elementary-school kids were playing a game of hide-and-seek, their outlines glowing slightly in the fading light of the late-summer sun,” the rhetorical eye creates a very clear image of what she is looking at. I can see the backlit kids across the street as though I am looking through a window. She set up the image well so that you cannot help but see it the way she wants it to be seen.
The dream sequence confused me a little. I know it’s a dream and it is supposed to be confusing, but I did not really buy that the dream happened. Maybe I am just skeptical of dream sequences, but I felt that the dream was not given context. I am not sure if this is a day dream or if she is asleep in her room or what. I love the description at the end that says, “Susan doubled over with sobbing, great heaving breaths coming all the way from her stomach, bringing her insides to her throat until she was sick, retching, vomiting her sorrow onto the polished floor.” The idea of vomiting sorrow is hard to swallow, but because she adds the modifier “polished” to the floor, I suddenly have an image that I can hold on to, as surreal as it is.
Matt’s “Birthmark”
Matt is playing with making a story incredibly real and tangible in it’s description of the world so that it possible to buy the one surreal item he throws in, the birthmark that falls off. “It was smooth at one point, but it has become rough like a scab,” he says at one point, and this image makes the birthmark something that the reader can feel because everyone has felt a scab before. It doesn’t, however, make the birthmark a scab — it only gives it texture and context.
The decriptions are purposefully understated and non-descript, but it is clear that this is a trait of the first-person narrator. It makes the story funny at times and creates a very awkward rhetorical figure. Sometimes, however, it hard to believe that the narrator would never open up more. He seems to be hiding his emotions, even though he is talking about a very soft moment in his life.
Another small contradiction that just bothered me a little, though it’s not a big deal, is that the birthmark is gross enough that people will not sit next to him on the bus, yet he was able to get a girl who not only went to a dance with him but kissed him, and on his birthmark, no less. This is a surreal moment in the plot that is very concrete for a lot of the rest of it, and that is why it is hard to swallow. I really liked the detail of the birthmark getting stuck on her lips — that idea made me feel pretty sick, especially with all the description of it being red, though not infected. It might not be infected, but it’s still gross.
Bess’ “Leap”
Bess has amazing control of her character’s motions. When her room floods, I can see her dancing like a ballerina, partly pecause the image was set up well beforehand by the description of the picture of the ballerina. I can imagine her swimming motions as she moves through the thick air that becomes like water in this surreal world.
She doesn’t, however, spend any time describing the surroundings. One effect of this is that Enna’s mtions really stand out like a studio picture or a theater stage where the background is plain in order to create a contrast between it and the subject. In this way it works well and I beautiful. However, the force of the flood and, thus, her fear of it is kind of lost because it is difficult to make a mental image of the nondescript cement room flooding. I am not even sure how big the area is, so it feels like watching a dancer on a stage, but you can’t tell where the stage ends. It’s a very interesting feeling, but it does really seem like it was done on purpose.
Al’s story
Al is very good at using the sound of his words to describe the action. He writes, “The wind changes outside nd the rain pats harder against the siding of the house,” and the sound of the S’s makes a light patter sound at strange intervals the way rain does.
When he writes, “Through the walls Wynona hears thunder or a semi-truck on Ogdem Avenue,” not only is the sound of thunder evoked, but the level of muffling caused by the walls is also added to the sound making even more tangible. It’s not the sound of thunder, which sounds like a lot of things — it is that sound from inside that could be either thunder or a big truck, but you honestly can’t tell which one it is. That sound is completely different than just the sound of thunder.
Kate’s “fruit”
Kate has incredible control of sensation so that she can not only describe something and make that object tangible, but she can also use what the narrator smells to build the rhetorical figure at the same time. She says, “It smells like over-ripe fruit and sweat and hand-rolled cigarettes like the ones my father smokes,” and not only does the sensation of the market get created, but also some depth of detail about her father. However, the most important thing the sentense tells the reader is that the narrator remembers the scent and relates it to her father’s cigarettes.
Like Al, Kate can make the sound of her words mimic the action she describes. When the car accident happens, she describes it saying, “I am snapped back by the belt,” which has an interesting, hard stop and start of a sound to it just like the pulling of the seatbelt across her chest.
Amanda’s “Pico de Perrico”
The play between yes and no is really interesting because it establishes a mood of distrust and tension between Alejandra and tía Olga. It also shows that Alejandra is the kind of person who would rather lie than cause conflict.
Amanda’s description of Alejandra running up the stairs is very interesting because it kind of comes out of nowhere. While all this drama with her aunt yelling at her, Alejandra is lost in thought about the feeling of the staris beneath her feet and the fact the she can nearly glide up them without making a sound. It is a clear mental filter that Alejandra has that tells the reader a lot about her character. It becomses clear that maybe she did leave the cage open and that maybe she did forget to feed it. And she does this while creating a very vivd and smooth picture of the simple act of walking up stairs.
Gillian writes in a very, very close third person. The reader in inside Susan’s head, feeling her emotions almost immediately and continuously throughout the whole story. Being this close, she catpures the feeling of what it was like to be in senior year of high school as a college-bound student, something everyone in this class, at leaast, can relate to. Because we are so close, I buy her feelings of trying to get close to her sister because the desperation to try to clean things up at home before leaving really comes through, even though she never mentions it.
Gillian seems to have a good hold on her character, Susan, and it seems like she could probably put her in any situation and be able to document what she does. She is clear about what Susan is looking at. For example, when she says, “She stared moodily out of her window. Across the street, several elementary-school kids were playing a game of hide-and-seek, their outlines glowing slightly in the fading light of the late-summer sun,” the rhetorical eye creates a very clear image of what she is looking at. I can see the backlit kids across the street as though I am looking through a window. She set up the image well so that you cannot help but see it the way she wants it to be seen.
The dream sequence confused me a little. I know it’s a dream and it is supposed to be confusing, but I did not really buy that the dream happened. Maybe I am just skeptical of dream sequences, but I felt that the dream was not given context. I am not sure if this is a day dream or if she is asleep in her room or what. I love the description at the end that says, “Susan doubled over with sobbing, great heaving breaths coming all the way from her stomach, bringing her insides to her throat until she was sick, retching, vomiting her sorrow onto the polished floor.” The idea of vomiting sorrow is hard to swallow, but because she adds the modifier “polished” to the floor, I suddenly have an image that I can hold on to, as surreal as it is.
Matt’s “Birthmark”
Matt is playing with making a story incredibly real and tangible in it’s description of the world so that it possible to buy the one surreal item he throws in, the birthmark that falls off. “It was smooth at one point, but it has become rough like a scab,” he says at one point, and this image makes the birthmark something that the reader can feel because everyone has felt a scab before. It doesn’t, however, make the birthmark a scab — it only gives it texture and context.
The decriptions are purposefully understated and non-descript, but it is clear that this is a trait of the first-person narrator. It makes the story funny at times and creates a very awkward rhetorical figure. Sometimes, however, it hard to believe that the narrator would never open up more. He seems to be hiding his emotions, even though he is talking about a very soft moment in his life.
Another small contradiction that just bothered me a little, though it’s not a big deal, is that the birthmark is gross enough that people will not sit next to him on the bus, yet he was able to get a girl who not only went to a dance with him but kissed him, and on his birthmark, no less. This is a surreal moment in the plot that is very concrete for a lot of the rest of it, and that is why it is hard to swallow. I really liked the detail of the birthmark getting stuck on her lips — that idea made me feel pretty sick, especially with all the description of it being red, though not infected. It might not be infected, but it’s still gross.
Bess’ “Leap”
Bess has amazing control of her character’s motions. When her room floods, I can see her dancing like a ballerina, partly pecause the image was set up well beforehand by the description of the picture of the ballerina. I can imagine her swimming motions as she moves through the thick air that becomes like water in this surreal world.
She doesn’t, however, spend any time describing the surroundings. One effect of this is that Enna’s mtions really stand out like a studio picture or a theater stage where the background is plain in order to create a contrast between it and the subject. In this way it works well and I beautiful. However, the force of the flood and, thus, her fear of it is kind of lost because it is difficult to make a mental image of the nondescript cement room flooding. I am not even sure how big the area is, so it feels like watching a dancer on a stage, but you can’t tell where the stage ends. It’s a very interesting feeling, but it does really seem like it was done on purpose.
Al’s story
Al is very good at using the sound of his words to describe the action. He writes, “The wind changes outside nd the rain pats harder against the siding of the house,” and the sound of the S’s makes a light patter sound at strange intervals the way rain does.
When he writes, “Through the walls Wynona hears thunder or a semi-truck on Ogdem Avenue,” not only is the sound of thunder evoked, but the level of muffling caused by the walls is also added to the sound making even more tangible. It’s not the sound of thunder, which sounds like a lot of things — it is that sound from inside that could be either thunder or a big truck, but you honestly can’t tell which one it is. That sound is completely different than just the sound of thunder.
Kate’s “fruit”
Kate has incredible control of sensation so that she can not only describe something and make that object tangible, but she can also use what the narrator smells to build the rhetorical figure at the same time. She says, “It smells like over-ripe fruit and sweat and hand-rolled cigarettes like the ones my father smokes,” and not only does the sensation of the market get created, but also some depth of detail about her father. However, the most important thing the sentense tells the reader is that the narrator remembers the scent and relates it to her father’s cigarettes.
Like Al, Kate can make the sound of her words mimic the action she describes. When the car accident happens, she describes it saying, “I am snapped back by the belt,” which has an interesting, hard stop and start of a sound to it just like the pulling of the seatbelt across her chest.
Amanda’s “Pico de Perrico”
The play between yes and no is really interesting because it establishes a mood of distrust and tension between Alejandra and tía Olga. It also shows that Alejandra is the kind of person who would rather lie than cause conflict.
Amanda’s description of Alejandra running up the stairs is very interesting because it kind of comes out of nowhere. While all this drama with her aunt yelling at her, Alejandra is lost in thought about the feeling of the staris beneath her feet and the fact the she can nearly glide up them without making a sound. It is a clear mental filter that Alejandra has that tells the reader a lot about her character. It becomses clear that maybe she did leave the cage open and that maybe she did forget to feed it. And she does this while creating a very vivd and smooth picture of the simple act of walking up stairs.
Sketches 2
Sketches 2
1.
Jeffers’ chest clenched tight and he dug his fingers into the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and he froze — just keep going, keep going, I’m not here, I’m not here — and he was slouched in his seat, making himself as small as possible, when had he done that? He tightened every muscle — including his eyes — and tried to drift by with the car like a log down a river. The yellow Volkswagen passed and Jeffers sat up and was glaring through the rearview mirror — Ignore The Environment, It Will Go Away — what a fucker.
2.
“Give me that stick!” screamed a middle-aged man with receding brown hair. Jeffers shifted his weight because his ass hurt from sitting on the bench for too long. He watched as a little girl dropped her stick and wobbled as fast as she could towards a large wooden seesaw — the balding man lunging after her. Jeffers’ took out a cigarette and lit it with the butt of his old one. Watching that man had stressed him out, and now his palms were sweaty and his face felt heavy and warm.
3.
Jeffers kicked the ball and it soared right under the goal post — the net behind the goal long missing. Mike stood up straight, turned and started walking after it, and Jeffers’ stomach started to feel sick. Shit, he thought, I am a dick. He hadn’t even thought about whether Mike was bored or not. Jeffers always did this — he would be really into something and suddenly realize that the only reason the other person is still there is because he must seem so excited and thrilled by it. Jeffers was embarrassed. He thought of the Christmas when he got his 18-speed bicycle and how he could not stop his face from smiling — the muscles in his cheeks sore and stretched.
4.
Hey, dude, what’s up?
Nothin’, man, how about you.
Nothing.
Cool.
What are you doing tonight?
I don’t know, um, I was supposed to go with Andy and them to this girl’s house at like nine or so, so I don’t know.
Oh, that’s cool.
Yeah.
Cool. Yeah, I think I might go over to Danny’s, you know, drink some beers or something.
That’s cool, man.
Yeah.
Cool, all right. Hey, man, I actually have to eat right now, so I’ll catch you later, okay?
Yeah, that’s cool. See ya, man.
Later.
5.
His palms itched from the shaking lawnmower handle in Jeffers Patrick Henry’s hands. The muscles in the arch of his feet were stretched and stung from the sharp angle his toes made on the ground as he pushed the machine forward. His head down, elbows locked, arms running by his ears — the lawnmower finally angled over at the top of the hill. A smooth wave of satisfaction ran down his arms to his spine from where it spread to every last muscle in his soaking wet body.
6.
His bare back slid on the sloppy bench. Jeffers Patrick Henry grabbed the steel bar in front of him and took a breath and pushed his triceps tight felt like they were not even attached to the bone that ran into his shoulder that felt gooey inside he thought his forehead pushing down on his eyelids so tight they squeezed his eyeballs into his head but his elbows straightened and he brought the weight down to it’s holding spot.
7.
“Can I take your order?” said the drive-thru menu.
“Hold on,” Mike said to the box. Then, turning to the backseat, he asked, “Dude, should I order a pizza vagina?” He stuck his tongue out when he grinned, which made Jeffers shift to the left. The guy can hear you, he thought, but he wouldn’t say anything. Mike was just doing his thing, he told himself.
“If you want, man, I just kind of want a bacon cheeseburger and a medium fry, and I don’t want them to spit in it.”
“Fine.”
8.
I’m very particular about my clothing. I work out, sure, but you can make yourself look a lot stronger if you just buy the right kind of shirt. Tight, sleeveless and dark is the way to go. But it can’t be trashy, either. It has to look like you made an effort to buy good clothing, but that this sleeveless shirt if the only shirt that would fit your massive arms. Obviously this isn’t true, but that is the idea of it. Don’t tell people that because they will know you’re lying.
9.
As Jeffers entered his room, he saw a pair of khaki slacks with big pockets on the sides by the knees sitting on top of the crumpled navy blue comforter at the foot of his bed.
“Mom, what’s the deal with this pair of pants?” Jeffers called down the hallway.
“They were on sale at Marshals so I bought them for you. If you don’t like them we can return them.”
Jeffers felt panic in his throat and down into his lungs. He knew they were for him, but he didn’t want them to be. He wanted them to be hand-me downs from his cousins or something so he wouldn’t have to tell his mother that she just wasted her time. Those pockets would be handy, he thought as he held them by the waist and let them fall down in front of his legs. No, man, these are embarrassing, he thought, and he threw them onto the bed.
10.
Jeffers’ shoes were size 12. They were white Nikes with black stripes and swirls all over the place. When he bought them, he thought they looked fast, but now the stripes really bug him. One stripe runs down the outside of the shoe and curves when it gets close to the toe before ending at the very tip. It looks tacky, he thought. These are the kinds of things that people ten years from now will be making fun of. Are they supposed to be futuristic or something?
He felt the toe of his show like they do in shoe stores and he could fit more than his whole thumb at the top. When he realized this, he sat up and let his arms drop — his shoulders shrugged. He had bought bigger shoes because he was used to buying bigger than he needed.
In grade school, there is always a competition to see who had the biggest shoes. In third grade Andrew had size seven and everyone thought he was so cool. Jeffers remembers sitting on the gym floor before gym class as Andrew’s shoe was passed from hand to hand as his classmates admired it.
And now Jeffers shoes are too big because of it.
1.
Jeffers’ chest clenched tight and he dug his fingers into the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and he froze — just keep going, keep going, I’m not here, I’m not here — and he was slouched in his seat, making himself as small as possible, when had he done that? He tightened every muscle — including his eyes — and tried to drift by with the car like a log down a river. The yellow Volkswagen passed and Jeffers sat up and was glaring through the rearview mirror — Ignore The Environment, It Will Go Away — what a fucker.
2.
“Give me that stick!” screamed a middle-aged man with receding brown hair. Jeffers shifted his weight because his ass hurt from sitting on the bench for too long. He watched as a little girl dropped her stick and wobbled as fast as she could towards a large wooden seesaw — the balding man lunging after her. Jeffers’ took out a cigarette and lit it with the butt of his old one. Watching that man had stressed him out, and now his palms were sweaty and his face felt heavy and warm.
3.
Jeffers kicked the ball and it soared right under the goal post — the net behind the goal long missing. Mike stood up straight, turned and started walking after it, and Jeffers’ stomach started to feel sick. Shit, he thought, I am a dick. He hadn’t even thought about whether Mike was bored or not. Jeffers always did this — he would be really into something and suddenly realize that the only reason the other person is still there is because he must seem so excited and thrilled by it. Jeffers was embarrassed. He thought of the Christmas when he got his 18-speed bicycle and how he could not stop his face from smiling — the muscles in his cheeks sore and stretched.
4.
Hey, dude, what’s up?
Nothin’, man, how about you.
Nothing.
Cool.
What are you doing tonight?
I don’t know, um, I was supposed to go with Andy and them to this girl’s house at like nine or so, so I don’t know.
Oh, that’s cool.
Yeah.
Cool. Yeah, I think I might go over to Danny’s, you know, drink some beers or something.
That’s cool, man.
Yeah.
Cool, all right. Hey, man, I actually have to eat right now, so I’ll catch you later, okay?
Yeah, that’s cool. See ya, man.
Later.
5.
His palms itched from the shaking lawnmower handle in Jeffers Patrick Henry’s hands. The muscles in the arch of his feet were stretched and stung from the sharp angle his toes made on the ground as he pushed the machine forward. His head down, elbows locked, arms running by his ears — the lawnmower finally angled over at the top of the hill. A smooth wave of satisfaction ran down his arms to his spine from where it spread to every last muscle in his soaking wet body.
6.
His bare back slid on the sloppy bench. Jeffers Patrick Henry grabbed the steel bar in front of him and took a breath and pushed his triceps tight felt like they were not even attached to the bone that ran into his shoulder that felt gooey inside he thought his forehead pushing down on his eyelids so tight they squeezed his eyeballs into his head but his elbows straightened and he brought the weight down to it’s holding spot.
7.
“Can I take your order?” said the drive-thru menu.
“Hold on,” Mike said to the box. Then, turning to the backseat, he asked, “Dude, should I order a pizza vagina?” He stuck his tongue out when he grinned, which made Jeffers shift to the left. The guy can hear you, he thought, but he wouldn’t say anything. Mike was just doing his thing, he told himself.
“If you want, man, I just kind of want a bacon cheeseburger and a medium fry, and I don’t want them to spit in it.”
“Fine.”
8.
I’m very particular about my clothing. I work out, sure, but you can make yourself look a lot stronger if you just buy the right kind of shirt. Tight, sleeveless and dark is the way to go. But it can’t be trashy, either. It has to look like you made an effort to buy good clothing, but that this sleeveless shirt if the only shirt that would fit your massive arms. Obviously this isn’t true, but that is the idea of it. Don’t tell people that because they will know you’re lying.
9.
As Jeffers entered his room, he saw a pair of khaki slacks with big pockets on the sides by the knees sitting on top of the crumpled navy blue comforter at the foot of his bed.
“Mom, what’s the deal with this pair of pants?” Jeffers called down the hallway.
“They were on sale at Marshals so I bought them for you. If you don’t like them we can return them.”
Jeffers felt panic in his throat and down into his lungs. He knew they were for him, but he didn’t want them to be. He wanted them to be hand-me downs from his cousins or something so he wouldn’t have to tell his mother that she just wasted her time. Those pockets would be handy, he thought as he held them by the waist and let them fall down in front of his legs. No, man, these are embarrassing, he thought, and he threw them onto the bed.
10.
Jeffers’ shoes were size 12. They were white Nikes with black stripes and swirls all over the place. When he bought them, he thought they looked fast, but now the stripes really bug him. One stripe runs down the outside of the shoe and curves when it gets close to the toe before ending at the very tip. It looks tacky, he thought. These are the kinds of things that people ten years from now will be making fun of. Are they supposed to be futuristic or something?
He felt the toe of his show like they do in shoe stores and he could fit more than his whole thumb at the top. When he realized this, he sat up and let his arms drop — his shoulders shrugged. He had bought bigger shoes because he was used to buying bigger than he needed.
In grade school, there is always a competition to see who had the biggest shoes. In third grade Andrew had size seven and everyone thought he was so cool. Jeffers remembers sitting on the gym floor before gym class as Andrew’s shoe was passed from hand to hand as his classmates admired it.
And now Jeffers shoes are too big because of it.
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