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Carroll Dashiell is not just a jazz musician. He is the chairman of Carroll V. :
Dashiell. Jr. Productions, and president of CVD Records; composer, arranger, an
sectitie far the CVD Ensemble; and an instructor at East Carolina UniversityTs
as ;
School of Music. He has been recognized for excellence in the music industry by
receiving numerous awards and has performed with the Boston Pops, National
symphony, and Washington's Philharmonic Orchestra. Dashiell has toured with
~0 Mi les, and Jennifer Holiday,
ice Hi ephanie Mills, Maceo Parker, Ray Charles, |
He cunglin wencar on several recordings as bassist with Muse recording artist
Buck Hill and Capitol (Blue Note) Records recording artist Bobby Watson and
Horizon. And, of course, there are his own recordings with the CVD Ensemble.
+
by Kris HOffjer
You were obviously introduced to several different types of
Kris Hoffler: So, how'd you get started? music early on. Did you start out playing jazz, classical, or R&B?
Well, | started with the viola and then moved to violin and bass.
When | really got into everything, | was playing classical
bass. | came up in the DC. Youth Orchestra Program, a classical
program in which you got your foundation and training. By
the time | was sixteen, | had played all of the Beethoven
symphonies and things like that. So, my foundation really
started out very classically.
Carroll Dashiell: Well, | always like to tell the story that during
the summers between the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades,
| grew a little bit and started developing my girth here (points
to his stomach). Anyway, | was playing viola and violin in
elementary school in the Washington D.C. public school
system and because of my growing so much (laughs), the
Music teacher switched me to bass. His story was that | was
the only one large enough to bring the bass from the third when did you start exploring other areas of music?
floor storeroom to rehearsal, so he suggested | switch to
Well, as | got older | started EW
bass. So, | started playing, and! really started enjoying it. © Playing electric bass. | was doing
some of those R&B bands, you know, local bands ar
ound
town. | ended up performi
50, your music interest doesnTt come from your family? I Moonlighters which WETS i eg wtb spay Cc
m ee .
?,?an, is your family musically inctined? ee area. Ironically, my mentor Arthur Capehart was the trum-
Well, actually everyone in my family is _ ft ii family pet player and the arranger in the group, and he got me the
sings or sang. In fact, ITm probably the only o gig with the band. So, he was Playing in the group and
Balk vocal group called The adh
pee eee ae de vera to The Dixie Hummingbirds, 4!Tanging the writing for the ban
ospel Travelers,
ctually gave up a jazz
and my mom sang classically. She a
career hecause she didn't want to do some of the things You mentioned your mentor. Who was he, and what kind
that time. So, music was u and your music?
pe " " ri sya | was growing up. On any of influence did he have on yo yo
always going on i
oven piece playing in Arthur Capehart was my junior high school band and orchestra
given day, you could ose eta tg the afternoon. director, and he just really inspired me, you know, to keep it
we igus ty 4 we hear some of the gospel things and going. | had started playing sports in junior high and was
eter gets ace PMi. know, some of the big dance stuff spending more and more time in the gym. He told me, oLittle
cure ong wt pial oi nstantly going on all the time. buddy, you gotta get out of that gym and come in here and
at night. So it was constant, co practice that B-flat major scale. | mean that's the only way your
going to be able to do this.? And to this day | remember that.
rrangin d, and | got to EAL ag
him in his group. That was a great thrill for me.
|
i
5
THE REBEL
So, what did you do when you graduated from high school?
Well, when | came out of high school, | had several scholar-
ship offers from universities around the country, but | had
decided that | was going to Boston University because, you
know, the affiliation. | was going to go up there and study,
but | decided to take a tour of Japan with the Washington
Philharmonic Orchestra during the summer. The orchestra
was actually an appendage of the D.C. Youth Orchestra
Program, so we had a lot of the faculty and different groups
playing. Anyway, | toured Japan with them and realized that
| was going to get back beyond the date when | needed to be
in Boston. | decided that | really wanted to make this tour
because it was something greater, you know.
Certainly.
Well, | thought that | would go to Howard for, you know, a
semester or a year, and then I'd transfer to Boston. But, man |
got there, and | just loved what was going on musically. was
doing mostly jazz, but | was still doing some classical things
at the Kennedy Center in D.C.
Could you give me a year on that?
| think that must have been T78. Yeah, yeah, that was T78. |
was eighteen then, and it was really kind of funny because |
got there, walked into rehearsal, and it was incredible. The
first rehearsal of the freshman class that year was Greg
Osby, Gary Thomas, Chucky Royal, and Wallace Roney. That
Jerry Allen, an incredible pianist, was there too She was al
a singer at that time. | mean, that was an incredible ad =
that year. Yeah, all those guys have gone on to be jazz great
and the industry is looking to them to Carry on the badives
So, I guess Howard is where you were really exposed to
more jazz and started doing more jazz.
Well, yeah. Actually, | kept doing classical, but a funny thing
had happened: | realized there is authenticity in every stylistic
characteristic and every style, but itTs all music. And one of
the things that | decided | wanted to do was to become the
complete musician, but also the complete bass player. | always
wanted to strive to be able to do a classical gig and be thought
of as a classical player, not a jazz player just making the classical
hit. | also wanted to be able to do a jazz gig and be thought of as
a jazz player and not a classical player trying to be...
| A jazz player.
edse i same thing with the commercial music and
ne = en know. So, thatTs what really keeps me going
re antly shifting gears, and itTs very difficult to do
- You Know, to go from a jazz gig and then to play for an
orchestra, or to go from
| ( playing with Gladys Knight i
with the Fifth Dimension. | mean, itTs a wide mea a
Anyway, at Howard | was still doing classical, but | was doing
more jazz, more and more jazz, and more and more commercial
stuff. It was at that point | said, oWell, you know, wait a minute.
| really would like to take this time since ITm here to really
learn as much as | can about jazz too.? So then, | started doing
that more and more and it just became great, you know,
just became great.
You mentioned being able to oshift "i
gears.? Is that what
try to teach your students? or
Yeah, thatTs kind of what | do with my teaching. ItTs what | try
to convey to my students. The other thing that it does is :
make them much more marketable. There are times when it
doesnTt matter who somebody is. | mean, there are times
when the phone doesn't ring for Winton Marsalis. | mean, as
great as he is, there are times when itTs just going to be a
slow time, and thereTs nothing going on. Winton, of course,
would say, oNah, thatTs not true,? because heTs booked up for
like 20 years from now, you know. But that happens, and if
you try to strive for that direction, then when that classical
was the freshman class, you know, and myself.
gig doesn't come then maybe thereTs a jazz gig someone will
call you for. Maybe thereTs an R&B gig, a commercial gig, or
an electric gig. So, you can have quite a few different options.
ItTs very difficult to do that though. You have to really have |
checks and balances. | mean, thatTs the only way you can do it.
Right. For people who mi
ght not rememb
men, could you talk about them some? rabies ie oa
Yeah, well they were all just great musicians. Greg Ausby
played first alto sax; Gary Thomas played first tenor and
toured with Miles (Davis); Chucky Royal played trombone;
and Wallace Roney played trumpet. There's a great story :
remember about Wallace when we were all at this jazz festi-
val. We didnTt know if Miles was going to show up, so
Wallace was asked to play all of MilesT parts. Well, as Wallace
was rehearsing MilesT parts, Miles walks out on stage.
Wallace was like, oMiles, man we didnTt know if you were
oing to make it,? and then Wallace starts packing up his
things. Well, Miles was so impressed by Wallace S playing
that he insisted Wallace stay and play the festival with him.
Man, you know, it was like a passing of the baton.
nicl siege eo bit | hope my students get from me
late : 7 " a lot from them all the time, and | use it
? stennily sade It's hard at times because of where we are
i ago bs y, you know; everybody wants to label every-
g- YOu Know, it's like, well for instance, alternative music
So, thatTs really what | wan
t, to be as compl
You know, I'll be on a gig and ITm like plete as possible.
crap.? Then 1Tll say, oMan, letTs do it ag
can perfect it, or try to perfect it, whi
~Ah, man! | sound like
ain.? You know, just so|
ch | never do.
Okay. So, you really wouldnTt consider yourself
just a jazz artist? 64>
THE REBEL
| sit in the dirt with my back against the old Chevy, still
squinting the sleep from my eyes and watching the sparse
highway traffic blaze by. | rub my bare feet across the
sandpaper ground and scratch my name in the dirt with
a stick. Nikki.
Payton, wide awake like the sun itself, stands right at the
foot of the billboard, with his back to me and his arms held
up in a big v, staring up at the thing like itTs some piece
of artwork.
oLook,? he says, putting on a thick cowhick accent and
hitching his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, owe shoul-
da been at cowpatty JoeTs.? He breaks out laughing like itTs
the funniest thing heTs ever heard. oI kill me,? he always says.
o| wish you would,? | always joke back. | pick up a dirt clod off
the dry orange earth and chunk it at him. He dodges it just
before it would have smacked his bare belly. It crumbles on
the ground behind him.
Payton proceeds to strut around the car yelling an assort-
ment of oYee HaTs? and oRideTm cowboys.? He walks the ten
feet from the car to the highway and stands in the middle
of the road with his hands on his hips.
| stand up and walk about halfway to him.
oYou need some sort of mental adjustment,? | say.
oYee Ha,? he yells back.
Then Payton just stands there for a few seconds, suddenly
unaware of this reality. A gut-rusted Pinto clatters by, blow-
ing his tousled blond hair back off his shoulders. And | swear
to God he didn't even see the thing. | say nothing.
| tuck the curls of my too-long bangs behind my ears and
walk out to the road. The black asphalt scorches my feet and
| step back onto the dirt. | look right up into the sky's hell
and run my tongue over my dry lips. Salty. | remember seeing
places like this in books when | was a kid. | used to think it
was the most beautiful land there was. That was because my
favorite color was orange. It sure as hell isnTt any more. This
place is dead. Even the dirt is dead. And God Almighty, every-
thing is orange. Orange must be the color of death.
| hadn't even noticed that Payton had begun to walk away.
| didn't follow him just then. ITve become good at reading
his eyes and his body over these past few months. | watch
his tall thin frame move farther away and suddenly feel the
need to run after him. | manage just to walk. He stops and
kneels down by the edge of the road. HeTs not himself any-
more. No oRideTm Cowboys.? | worry when heTs like this. |
stand over his shoulder and look down.
An elephant tusk.
oHow did this get here?? he asks, his eyes like dark green
pools of fear.
| know what heTs thinking of.
Payton has these secrets. They're not in this reality. | think
PaytonTs a wolf child"brought up by animals in some jun-
gle"some rain forest in his mind. He tells me he dreams of
lions and elephants and that the lion drives an old green
Pontiac and stalks in his sleep.
| try to be funny, oMaybe the circus just went by,? | say. But |
know it probably didn't. | donTt know how the hell it got here.
| don't know how the hell we got here.
oYou think,? Payton says real quiet,? that some things can
make themselves real??
In my mind | see this elephant with one tusk missing.
12
o| don't know,T | say. | look back up the road at that damn
billboard, all bright and neon up against the orange dust.
| turn back to Payton and touch his shoulder. He holds the
tusk out in both hands. | try to reassure him. | say, oLions canTt
drive Pontiacs.?
But | wonder if maybe they can. Maybe they carry brief-
cases and work in big buildings and maybe they stumble
home at night, late at night, and yank little boys up out of
bed and scream about how the peanut butter is still sitting
open on the counter. And maybe sometimes elephants do
lose their tusks. Maybe they walk away from them and
never come back.
oNikki,? Payton says to me, othis means something.?
He walks past me back toward the car. All | can do is stand
there and watch him. He gets in the front seat and just sits
there, looking at that tusk, and | know heTs thinking of things
that he doesnTt want to be thinking of. | walk back to the car
and get in beside him. | donTt know what to say so | just sit
there with him and watch him. His face is wrinkled and
angry and then soft and sad. | brush my sandy hair out of my
face, pull my feet up onto the seat and hug my knees to my
chest. It gets hotter and | feel little beads of sweat roll down
inside my shirt.
Then | see something coming in the distance. A brilliant
glare on the highway"sunlight on a windshield. As the old
pick-up gets closer | can hear it whine and rattle. | look over
at Payton, but he doesn't seem to notice. The truck slows as it
approaches us. It pulls off on the edge of the road across
from us and a squat, dried-up old man gets out. | squint my
eyes to get a better look at him. His skin is tough and dark"
pruned up by this land, | guess.
He waves, crosses the street and calls, oYou kids need
some help??
The man reaches the car, puts his knotted hands on the
edge of the rolled down window, and says again, oYou kids
need some help??
oWe're out of gas,? Payton states, still sort of distant, but
speaking at least.
oHey, looka there,? the man says, omy tusk, you found it.?
Payton comes alive then. oThis is yours?? he asks.
oIt must of fallen off my truck,? the old man says, smiling.
| look closer at the manTs pick-up and see that all sorts of
things hang from several bars across the back. Lots of hub-
caps, but weird stuff too. Bent up rusted metal things, all
twisted and rotted, what looks like a weather vane, and a
couple of windsocks"bright green and blue, they look very
out of place amid all the orange"they look alive.
Payton squeaks open the car door and steps out. | hurry
out of my side and stand there next to the closed door, look-
ing over the top of the car at the two of them.
oThis is yours?? Payton asks again, holding the tusk out
in his hands.
The old man is silent for a second and then says, oIt
means something.?
A tiny wind blows by and stirs up the dust. ItTs still orange
and dead. The two of them stand there with the tusk
between them.
oWell,? the old man says, oyou kids need some gas and |
got plenty back at the house.?
We follow him over to his truck and | try to get PaytonTs
attention, but heTs lost somewhere. As we near the truck |
see other things hanging from that rack"antlers, big brown
feathers and three mismatched tennis shoes. | wonder if
maybe this is a bad idea.
Inside the truck the whining and rattling is much louder
and the old man says, oI was just on my way to have that
looked at.? And thatTs all he says until we step inside the
front door of his tiny shack fifteen minutes later.
oJust make yourself at home,? he says. oITm going to put
some soup on the stove, you two look hungry.? He disappears
around a corner.
The place is full with things hanging from the walls and
the ceiling and itTs all | can do to see it all. Payton and | just
stand there and look around, Payton never loosening his grip
on the tusk. | know heTs waiting for the old man to speak of
it again.
| see a medicine wheel and a dream catcher"huge and
round with a web in the center and feathers and bright strips
of leather dangling all around it. I've read about these"bad
dreams get caught up in the web before they can reach the
sleeper"only good ones get through. | wish Payton had a
dream catcher. He is so silent and | begin to worry.
oAre you OK?? | ask.
oHe knows something, Nikki,? Payton says and there is an
eagerness in his voice that sounds too close to desperation.
An odd smell drifts in from the next room and | fear that
itTs the soup. | look at Payton and he wrinkles his nose. | laugh
a little and inside | sigh with relief that Payton is returning
to normal.
The old man comes back in with the soup; itTs green and
it smells even worse up close. We canTt refuse it so we sit
and eat and actually itTs not too bad. The man begins to tell
stories about people we donTt know and his eyes get a little
13
hazy and he laughs and laughs"sometimes close to hys-
terics. | think maybe | won't eat any more of the soup. Just
in case. He goes on for almost and hour and | can tell that
Payton is getting restless. The man has said nothing more
about the tusk.
o| had an aunt,? the old man says, othat shot a guy because
she thought he was the anti-Christ.?
oThought he was the anti-Christ,? Payton says and looks
at me out of the corner of his eye, oyou donTt say??
oSure did,? the man continues, opulled a gun right out in
the middle of the supermarket, groceries went everywhere.?
oWhat happened to her?? | ask.
oNo one reported her,? the man says causally and takes in
a mouthful of the green soup.
oNo one reported her?? Payton asks.
oEverybody else thought she was probably right,? the
man says.
Payton sighs his frustration sigh. oYou don't say,? he
Says again.
oThe guy was pretty weird,? the old man says.
Payton gets up suddenly and walks to the other side of
the room and | know heTs had about all he can take.
| try to change the subject to something a little more sane.
oI like that necklace,? | say and the old man reaches up
to touch the long yellow and brown strand around his neck.
oThey're ghost beads,? he says, othey keep the evil
spirits away.?
oDo they work?? | ask.
oOf course,? the man says.
Payton gestures around at the dream catcher and the
medicine wheel"| didnTt even know he had noticed them"
and says, oYou really believe in all this stuff, why??
The old man gets up, the wood beneath his feet 65>
Honorable Mention Untitled Denise Hughes Honorable Mention Rivers Kevin Evans
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Honorable Mention Untitled Denise Hughes Honorable Mention Rivers Kevin Evans
THE REBEL
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oHoney, | sertously donTt need this
shitoDo youeunderstand?e? Linas
VOICe Was Sharp andtorcedaNoah
to hold the phone away trom
nis ear. She was Getting wrbit
pissed, but Noah had just
climbed ®ut of bed. and Was
not afraid.? You canTt ga.on with
this condescending attitude. |
wont put up with it. You. fuckinT
move dawn here and expect
me to just like, oh man,
jor sure. Right.?
Rwite
es eee
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Novel aier- lem) oma elisa qicelallam@ar-iie
ms Kole) ene F-NalhaMuet-Vailalm ier lmomaal=
matter here, baby! Damn, how
am | supposed to know when
you re in a serious mood over
the phone. ItTs not like | can see
your facial expression, he said,
almost laughing.
oWhat the hell are you talking
about??
Noah knew that being caught
daiial.dialemeleuen ele Comar-lemelejaccia
many aman killed, so he decid-
ed to change the subject. oHey,
ITm not such a bad guy. | helped
lead a Friday night service last
al(e] lemme (ey-Lamar-\emelelacclamaliaan
ste |r (0) 0-1 aT om (olor) 20T-
[oXe Ul =eu Gre) ale) (aler-ale)am ce)
Slare)i-lemacicelulelamaaromecigale)(omele
in San Rafael as a Sunday
school teacher where luckily,
the kids were cool. He wasnt a
genius, but he was smart
enough to get out of his par-
ents house and get his ass a
job in Santa Cruz so he could
be with Lina. She was getting
her undergrad degree in fine
arts at UCSC, and he was root-
alee) malas
balloons for five-fifty
: al Dol aie § : .
try to change the subject, " :
Barnaby Jones,? Lina insisted.
She had a certain obsession
with the early-eighties and
spoke and wore falovaaiiaremacelan
the era as much as she could.
~Although it was a bit too :
warped for some people, Noa
~ was in love with her sense of
humor. oLook,? she continued,
oif you're going to be living
down here...?
. | : P had
oIf Tm going to be what:
otisten, We need to base our
relationship around the four
equalities of Margaret Fuller's
~Great Law Suit. Are you
ready?? :
oWhat? What is all this?
Who?? | .
oListen. The first one Is, house-
Id partnership.?
sp sot live in the dorms...
h, no, thatTs cool. So you re
oie come down here and
scrub my toilet and shit,
right??
oAl right, maybe we should
forget that one.
oWait, no...? a
oShhhh, the second is ~mutu-
al idolatry, even though that
one is bad because wed
just end up worshipping
each other as being
more than what we
actually are.?
oLike being addicted.?
~ oYeah, right. The third...?
oWell, ITve been addicted to you
for a long time,? Noah said grin-
ning as he looked over the phone
at his egg breakfast.
oOh, sweetheart,? she said sarcas-
tically, othe third is intellectual
companionship and the fourth is
religion which is a combination ) i
the first and third.? »
oWait... what??
~And that will make us two comple-
mentary halves of a whole. AinTt that
great honey??
oYeah, great, great, that sounds like a
real plan.?
Noah was slightly confused by some
of the things Lina was learning up
at that school, mostly because he
knew he wasnTt able to share the
excitement with her,
oHey, well, like | was saying, |
helped lead Friday nightTs service
over at Kol Shofar.?
oDid you get paid?? |
a's (-1| Mavomm ol¥han dal-W '-Vo)o)mat-Youe} :
killer sermon. He was talking all
about how when you go out par-
tying you're just dancing around
_ the golden calf rather than
climbing Mount Zion to see the
ten commandments with
Moses.? Noah didnTt hear much
of a response, oYou know, the
story about how when
Moses came
down
23
~+
nee tae = ss ~ i aes a Saati neenees "_" T
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Tyme) (eemseletale(svem@ il come mie tiale
recording, bursting from
with the commandments earphones that hadbeen ,,
and all the Jews were dancing tured up too loud. Noah f
ei cel hale Mdal-mere)(e(aame-li alate! reached to tun off the me yeene
partying and shit and th faucet, but was suddenly
7 ey distracted by the sound of a
didnTt care about any- second voice, his own. He let the water run and
thing. Well, Rabbi oHell yeah. I'ma Solid Gold calf |) up theo and began
Spindell was like, ~when dancer!? Noah'svoice joked. doing the dishes. A glass
you look back at partyin g, it Neve Lam aler- tee mal voice faintly slipped off the cairo elare
was fun, but it didnTt get through the receiver sitting shattered on the sa
es ao on the counter. He wasn t splintering over the tiles.
y nywhere, but if you Uheem im atom arco malaise malelalenre thin shard lodged deep
work and set goals, then you he waited and found himself _"intohisleftfoot.He
are climbing your mountain EWrelaiaremalsiaveneci acta dls remained still and finished
and it will take you places.? Solid Gold joke. the dishes as the blood
oYeah, that sounds cool,? Lina oYeah,? Lina continued, o/ spread around the edge of
said slightly detached, oSo can just see you at a party ek ee
are you gonna keep dancing wit Dion Warwick pump- Salimiamale T-shirt a vee
around the calf or start ing the keg for you. lal shorts, Noah skiers ie a :
climbing the mountain?? WEG alm ecelaliarep nen i seat toppers ai
Well, when | heard the Nrorlabeoltl (eM als-tmalceeiuamyelas 7 peep niet A aml ad
sermon | Was SO amped EWlel alate along with her. He . that house for a while. Noah
to + and like study, picked up the phone and hadn't been living at five-fifty
we if | laretel any classes, began to shout oLina, Lina Hobart Street for more daria
a or like work real hard or stop talking for a second.? three weeks. The rent seemed
Rs someening, but when | iat Waeltllemaleimale-tmaliaamnlsii like an incredible deal. He lived at
oe got home Just acked | ht ded soi + the edge of a cliff overlooking the
= a couple bowls. You Siar uaT Senees 89 Ver hoardwalk and woke every morn:
= know how it is.? Noah omimemone es. ing to the sounds of screaming
=e put the o)atedarene Viale hale Well hey, Noah's voice said, roller coasters. The house had
= reached for a pan he had I gotta £0, but wh don t that teetering beach town look
BS accidentally left on the stove youcome down later... of drafty sun-bleached beams
= after finishing his eggs. The oYeah OK. | was thinking of taking held together by stucco and sat
a pot handle was hot and idatem olec-me leu am-lalem-ielselariiars like a scab on an exposed knee
ae burned his hand. The skin yOu. of land that soaked its troubled
= lacieclald\mavlaalcea atiie as he o and wear that ti ht foot in the ocean. He are oe
aa ran cold water over Vitordachalemithalentacvabhar you planted three pot plants igh ne
as the burn. Tote) aero exelele hal closet UP sige sapped
= Noah could hear LinaTs Noah held the phone in front of Me nb busted. The garden
Bee YONGE through the phone, him, frozen. was really only a strip of soft dirt
= which was lying like an oNoah, since when do you like along the front of the house while
ey overturned beetle with its that chirt so much?? she asked, _ the rest of the yard was of dried
i legs in the air, over the Sallmerelelarelares oYou have comin blades and nangencns i small
Sa SCT as interrupted only by a
Bi isi ee gg The really weird fetishes, let me th hah a post Ae
ae ve as it tell you. pang » dirt at
& shook from the coiled 7 know, I know, I gotta stabyed deep im inh
3 phoneline that danced» GOs owe you. i gg
e V wig ine opposite wall. | love you.? The dark soil was aero)
ee eah, Id Say /m more oT know. S?,?e you rele) 4 hetween his toes. Noah
= of a gold calf dancer Mist Walelare meson aaron elale)ale
= ta helbedheptih 3 Noah could hear the dial tone
= Noah was not on the other malate }iavemealceeCe lam dalem: tare (er Ua alae
end. mind. Barely moving, he hung
a ae eS Soe ee ee ee a ae cae aamematless Sats .
ae ~ot y: oe on nan yt . = pig ie mation St pre re ba i al "
es chasipntinicebaaiigatiactersnestteinel ENN FT Ts laa NTS te ee eT i ae vat A AN PRN ek GROAN HS Pn Pes ie as righ cet ne cpt iy) ig eg ae ee ire a oe ies hia
5 aoa Se ean te PR ee Le Sr . . intiiactien - : A
te age. wa
rt
~-guched down and inspected the pre-
cious leaves. One of the plants had
~ just begun to bud, and he was
beginning to worry that the old-
balloons for five-fifty
wrinkled face lit up.
again, but he w
as angry about the Wialelis
e was really beside himself
est was a male. He knew the only a
way to yield a good harvest was to ThereTs no way a dog or any Tale thing. | mean h
give the plants all of his loving. He could pee with old five-fifty staring and the company even tried to bargain
would sit out caressing and whis- down atTm.? . with the new owners, but things worked.a
oWhat? This house?? bit differently back then, especially if you
were a Jap. 50 as it turns out, the new
pering seductive poems to the
curved creased babies with their
tiny hairs until the urge to rip the
virgins out of the ground and
smoke them on the spot would
become too much to bear. Then he ©
+would have to leave. His breath was
subtle and warm against the leaves
in order to give them moisture. He'd
pet them gently, hoping to arouse an
persuade them towards maturity.
He whispered closely into the leaves, 4.
oQh god, yeah, baby. You're s© hot.? ng Put nothing that would keep me
You have got it going on, mama,
but was interrupted bya
sound from behind him of
footsteps slowing down
and stopping. He closed his
eyes, thinking it might be a
cop. oI canTt believe this,?
he thought, ocould | be the
one sucker, out-of-towner,
who gets busted for
growing??
He turned slowly with a look of
disappointment as his eyes
focused on a dog's penis. NTey ake
face sagged. The penis was, of
course, connected to the rest of
the dog, but it was quite large
~ and the dog had its leg lifted in
an attempt to urinate in Noah's
front yard.
There
was an old Chicano
man standing with the dog. He
had on a yellow fisherman's hat
and introduced himself as Carlos.
Noah said hello, as he crouched and
felt one of the more mature leaves
between his thumb and finger.
oThis hereTs Mf. Kneehighs,? the
elderly man said pointing his walk-
ing stick at the dog, which by now
was shaking a bit with its eyes slight-
ly popping out of its head. The dog
had been balancing there with its leg
in the air for at least a minute and
hadn't let loose a drop of pee.
oNice dog,? Noah smiled. oAm | mak-
ing him nervous??
oOh no,? Carlos chuckled. His head
swung slowly around like the wise
moon across the sky as his
oHell yes, son. I'd be lying if | told you |
could piss in this yard.? CarlosT forehead
turned into a. row of worried lines as he
said it.
Noah looked up at the house. It did have
a certain face to it. The double front
doors sat like a mouth slightly off center
while two:windows up top looked dow
q on Noah and the plants. He guessed
they looked like eyes. oYeah,? he said
oye been living up on this point since
oHey,? Noah interrupted, ogreat story. Nice
hesitantly, oI can see a face or some-
from pissing.? The dog's face was begin-
fisherman and
had a child, a boy. Now this boy was after
this balloon he
one of those helium-filled balloons and
apparently he was
tied to it. The thing led the boy up the
y stairs an
pointed his walking stick up at the win-
dow above Noah. oThe boy climbed out
that window an
rather than the balloon floating up and
off into the sky li
him up to the top, that point there in the
his wife living in this house
had let out of reach. It was
trying to grab the string
d out that window there.? Carlos
dup onto the roof. Now,
ke itTs supposed to, it led
ning to turn blué along with certain other
middle and without looking where he
parts of its anatomy.
knew there were no hedges around the
house.
Carlos saw him looking and spoke up a bit
louder, oWell now, they cut down all them
hedges, but ya see, they still never found all
them balls!?
meeting you.? His knees
cracked as he stood up and wiped himself
off. oI think you might want to take
that dog to the vet,? he said and started
to go back into the house.
oAll right, now, hold on! In... in World War
Two...?
Noah propped the door open and leaned
against the entrance. He just stared at that
poor dog while Carlos finished his story.
oYes, now, in World War Two there was a
Japanese couple living in this house. His
name was Ken Yamura and he was runninT
one of the boats down in town and he had
raised enough money to buy his own boat.
He had the name written in Japanese let-
ters. You know his type. He was always mak-
ing sure people knew he was a Jap"like we
would forget. Well, he and his wife lost that
boat and this house during the war. They
were relocated to the horse stalls up there
in Richmond and after the war ended they
never did get their land or that boat back.
Now, | donTt know how things were handled
with the new owners and this and that, but
Yamura left town and nobody
ever saw'M
25
was going the boy stepped off the roof
before the boardwalk was built. These homes and landed on his neck. The boy passed
here were built by the owners ofthe fishing 2" and the family moved out soon after
companies for their ship captains so that they
would have a nice standard of living anda
view to come home to. More people than |
care to count have moved in and out of this
old house. I've fiad ten dogs and none of them
was ever able to piss in this yard, nor any
other dog ITve ever known of. That goes wit
such that were lost in its hedges.?
Noah looked around just to double check. He
Ever since then, there hasn't been a
renter I've seen stay for very long.?
oWhoa, thatTs crazy,? Noah said a bit
stunned. oYeah, thereTs a loft up there,?
he stepped out away
from the door Pv alel
~ pointed up at the
hout mentioning all of the footballs and
window. oThe upstairs is like a loft that
works as a bedroom. It's really not that
big inside.? He looked up at the point of
the roof, judging the fall. The thought of
it sent a shiver through him, Mr.
Kneehighs finally gave UP and looked
anxious to try the next yard, oWell, it was
nice meeting you.? |
oNice to meet you too,? Carlos smiled tip-
ping his yellow fisherman's hat. oCome on,
Kneehighs,? they both wandered on their
way, both walking with the same limp.
Noah disappeared through the double
doors imagining them to be a huge mouth
and wandered into the living room and up
the wooden stepladder into is loft. The
head of his be stared out of one window
while a card table that made a home for
his computer peered out the other.
Between them was his dresser from which
he genre: 3 towel and undres e
walls of the loft were smearT with photos
Pra mire Ali cut-outs of friends and
other beautiful people. He tried to have
more classy pictures of women on his
walls so that they wouldn't seem so
sleazy, although their ony purpose was
to provide a vent for his sleazy side. His
favorite and most tasteless was 4
length poster of a glam-rocker name
Samantha Fox. The poster featured Ms.
Fox wearing nothing more than an elec-
tric quitar over her s oulder. There were
red, white, and blue sparks behind her,
raining down on superimposed grew
flames. He kissed his fingers, touc el
them to Samantha Fox's
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| knew my childhood was over as soon as | saw the
chocolate Garfield on the kitchen table Easter
morning. No bunny? No hollow rabbit made of
>)
had chocolate?No ?,?G1sLOGiisi nue 0
¥yayimace over as the true awfulness
} a 4
| e ? .
of its taste flaunted itself on my tongue: How +H
the hell do you vivisect a flat chocolate Garfield:
- " tanding at the thos
Happy Easter!? Mom said. She was S e creme-col
oven, frying ?,?99°> and looking entirely a engi any secognizallia a Ea the ones w
someone who had just squashed the last 0! y mem | didn't Miia o but A was a ithout
F innocence flat. : | ied | wiped some er Aa silly point in m ack of my Easter ~ee
oHappy Easter, | replied, still GaZe?"?- ket was kind of a reli y Maturity los sket.
| d looked aga". Garfield was ish? ico relief, the cact; ing the b
sleep out of my eyes and loost g 1 2s 4 n that embarra asting off of a as-
still there. | came home for this? \looke | CO ) acred. Or so | thoy eo me. But the b child
wearing boxer shorts and an Elvis t-shirt. sy = about Dad? ght. Wait. What ~ tunny Lae
wasnTt naked, and these were clothes Ire fre table s uh?? My vocal chords ct: at she
| presumed | wasnTt dreaming. | looked 4 ura ~i themselves to my hi ie hadn't quite r
one last time. Garfield grinned back at me. 7" Get up and od e brain Minction Wt
Garfield. at your daddyTs ourself some coffe
ostill sleepy? Mom asked. Apparent) she mi to take your ba Oto work today, scan boy. |
noticed my blank stare. ; ac bit ne. im.? Parents out to Eas Be a and me
Te le a iano No my chair a stea - least that was a word ies
the best | could muster. |collapse : ing cup of li rd.l rose and
in which | had eaten breakfast for the ete part ae looked bad by = awar eness. My ee myself
4 of my twenty-four year>- It seemed inl oe the wondered why | so serviceable. When " coffee
. oWell, | told you not to stay out SO ye 7 pe 9008 Sly aay ed the bad guy cy got it
night. You'd better wake up. Your daacy g ag 4 Suits. Evil just mak ecause thebadigtl P Instead of
called in to work this momin, so its just you they js pictures of D es you a sn ysialways have
fant y :
| took a si si quite as mer
and mekodays
How could she do this? No bunnyT It was
always a bunn Some ye?
bOInt ca synapses,
4tandparents. This PST nN focus. Dad
ad. '
VG
THE REBEL
rm wife, then (whe
clerk for another fami!
Now bound to a wheelch
cessful knee surgery, Ma Brett
stews and worries herself sic
slightest difficulty suffered
ber of the family. Alone ar
fully take care of herself,
rest home and adds po
already considerable |
for Mom's weekly vis
are special. On holic
iT
eTren
in the
) often, ~ Pa see her son.
1d, a me oHey, Peggy!?
nN W nail oHi! Happy Eas
e nule oWhere's Way
witho oHe had toT
1 n oOn Easter!
a\c oWell, thre
yard last we
you know
havin. If t
row, the
oItTs j
hard
coul
IH
SUT La
because ITm
ind that sin
n seeing son
t. At seventy
00 much aboT
IheyTre both
:Ts hair never qui
Pa hunts, fishes, and reads. Ma cooks, sews, and reads. The last time Pashad paicany.great interest in me was the
idn't get to do Christmasiatter | turned twenty-one, when he ac
1} ] | ha ] . ; ; T} ; i
Read ng 1s their one shared activity. | ney «
' much of it when they were young, but now they read any the Fuller Family Christmas Rite of Manhood to me
thing they can get their ands on. ItTs a little strange to see This doesn t involve pain, nor is it a great ceremony. In fact,
Ma in her gt sale a: dress (| donTt think the woman has itTs quite subtle. As a male child in the family reaches legal
ever worn pants), apron around her waist, taking a load off drinking age, Pa mixes him an alcoholic beverage (usually
by sitting down to read a Zane Grey westerm. ItTs even Mountain Dew and Jack Daniels) and he drinks with the men
stranger to see Pa sitting in his manly brown easy chal while the womendix the Christmas punch. At this point, the
7 under the mounted heads of deer he killed himself, reading male child has become a full-fledged adult, and is now
one of MomTs romance novels. But there tney expected to buy presents tor everybody. Despite this, he still
7 Theyd been waiting for us, and by the time the car calls all of us oboy it for Pa to ask about my love life was
stopped rolling, they were out the door and ready to go. unprecedented. He must have been really bored.
'S Maybe ie not so slow afte! all hugs al d kisses were oUN. repiied. Back to ape anqguage
oOh, he was seein a little giri aown there,T Mom interjected
excl langed all arou!l id
| It's te to see you, Miss Ellie. Hey Mark. Come on my behalf. oBut sheanoved away
Hey PeggyT e. Hey N
gimme some s suga r Well. - wheres W i\ ne? Hey Peggy H1. Ine COnNsSeNSUS around the tab eC Was tnat this Was too Dad
Miss Brett. How you doin, boy? Where's Wayne? and much sympathy was heaped upon my shoulders. | nod
| hugged and shook hands and exchanged pleasantries all ded and smiled sad Thanks, | murmured at some point
quite natura! y For some reason, | ve always Te!lt Clos to Ma »0 you aint got anotner girl yet ~a again. Damn, wnat
and Pa Fuller. Not that they know much about my life: both Was Going O!
~4 é a ise ] 1 h35] at ving once they oAh well no Ne have heen Ath cqgme- hody
sides of my family have this bad habit of prying once they \n, well, W ive beentnendly with some- body,
get the slightest inkling ot anything imrerestina gOIng on Out, well al ae il Wa | iney smelled DIO" Ye
. ae
don't mind shat Ve
~ing my private life with them, but after a Tew Really? First thing | ve héard about it. WhatTs her nam«e
?
Is she nice? WhatTs she look like? How old
holidays filled with constant grilling about whatever git Where's she from?
? . . . - > A/ : P che 1-? a\T, f VO hear IP xy? ry
or friend | had mentioned in passing | decided the it it just wasnt is she? What's she do? How lona i Deen seein ner? You
> 7 ie 1? NI | | ~ ] i T -"
worth the aggravation. bein good? N jood, pe. | want me some greatgrand-
+
We a the Fuller house and drove into town to finda children. Why don't you get off the stick and get married?
restaurant for dinner. This restaurant businesswwvasia New oWhoa! Mom again. oHess still i1 ool, yall. He d
nnovation, Normallyywe gathers at Maand Pa Fuller's want to be gettin married no time soon, De"you
3D) house for a huge family spread, well-attended mainly because ~No! | blurted out. Overload. | began eyeing the exit:
y 4 Ma Fuller only made hey necial coconut bunt ¥ rabbit ake ~oAhen m too busy takina classe nd te ching t¢ WOTTY
nce a year, and everybody w unted a piece off the eal iDOUT Mar}riage N ry ist taking It one day at a time
),
nt But with my brothet ving nC rrlotte mamy uUsTN \ cCne T¢ netter thay rnina
n need of the extra cash that pulling a holiday snitt at the Well, | you teachin? Ma Brett this tims
: tractor plant could give them, our family was reduced t VI r Calnignt jot me smart students th
hive Tor this vears ce ebratio1 t seemed like 1 waste OT EMESTET. ' ry ATTN ri { it they re OM }
$0 time to cook for just five people, so we wert ff to the LiIOng told ner tl ame tning at Cnristmas
10 restau-rant without any bunny rabdD ike. No bunnies. It YOu got any ine Casual racism OT my Tamily
4
in} was becoming a motit. always sets my teetn on eage
lis We chose 1 1t at the Golden Corral steak Nousé So mucn ATVTT real i Te
for my attempts to stay away from red meat The Golden vVECTl, | tney a
an LOTTal 1S OT f those restal nts ti ttracts middle-class Good. If anyone Dut my grandmother asked me that kind
LU OTic O liOS* VLAaAUTATILS AL al
ly Southerners like flies. The place just fills up with nicely of question, !d Jump down their throat. But in the interest of
ay dressed crew-cut families, especially on Sundays Especially ramiy unity ist sat there ana tried t ) change the subject
1 after church .. Not bein } possessed of a crew cut, and not looked at Ma Fuller." What's Uncle Charles do Ng today, Ma??
ell being particularly ae in dressing nicely or religion, | ~Workin at the Prison. They dont let the convicts out for
stick out like a gangrenous thumb caste!
Mi As we were maneuvering Ma Brett into the building, a re like it ther
ute little girl came bouncing by in a bonnet and Easter 1ont thin: bul 1 jot
lress. | smiled at her, but her father took one look at me and eal
ive yanked her away by the arm hefore she could respond what you do Tor Tun gown tne
: looked at the two-dimensional cardboard Easter Bunny ttle girl to mess around ii?
ed taped to the salad bar and remembered where | was.Jts the oUhfiaWell,| hang ofan my fi
children | really feel bad for. vigSane stuff ... 1 dancg
We ordered and took our seats. Dinner conversation Was oDanging to me, though imping around in a large
nd minimal at first, mostly dealing with the relative attractiveness group of people and venting our frustrations about how
ne of the waitresses and a quit k argument over Wn0 Was - :
si@ ting the bill. Then it happened. riage. | don't believe in institutions in general. In fact, | donTt
20, boy, you got siatcase 4 airl down there in Greenville peeve It u nyt }. ON, and my tTmiends are most
-y
|
ae
It was Pa Fuller who struck the first blow. This was unusual! pot-smoking vegetarian musicians who really enjoy 65>
33
ht
A distinguished professor who has taug
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Sorbonne
and written several books and widely anthologized essays,
Lillian Robinson joined the English Department faculty
at East Carolina University this fall.
34
summa mmm " mm
LIULW9]¥ LLUeY :|}apOW
suayryny uokig :ydeiboj}oyud
PIR Oe ee
eee
om Si
THE REBEL
Denise Sutton: You're coming to ECU and students reading this
interview may wonder what kind of teacher you are and what
your classroom is like. How would you describe a successful
class? Lillian Robinson: What makes me think that a ¢ s has
worked? | had a student in a general education course on
women in literature write in her journal of responses to
literary readings owhat | have learned in this course.? | hadn't
asked them to write what they learned"owhat | have learned
In this course is that women can Support one another
and work together That's part of it certainly. | think
overall what | like to see is something a colleague
wrote to me that had to do with a self-study being
. , :
1, + se YoY) ¢ ct) 11AQ¢ . T + iY)
cond uctec l by tne women LUaTeS DTOGdTam in My
VAUA . ~
absence. She wrote, oYou would love what's going on
it the oment omen usil Cf Yr OYall tl gure
out something a IT The tual ~| think that is what
im really about: Ti | tnat tne ire disc
nHlir for fi 1u it thir } it ha 17
ry Na t OT 17 T l ] T eT as
enough, but itTs a beginnii NedipnadedT
connection betwedi what you do in the classroom
and your research? |e book project |'m work
OT { i cy | i I LTISTY
I Na ind ; 1 [ CU
TO [na 17 t ? ? rYTviry ? V
TOT | Nal prote ne ¥reTeNCeE
was Called oC] anqging Vi1Trect I n the Study OT
American Literature and | was asked as the keynote
eaker to concentrat nN multculturalism and
ren I mM ) Na On 1 y i C tne Austit lexas
urport and the Cal dy T aSk rr ve Vvnere | Was
TH\ nq TO told | ry + ing! nicn proDaDily
not the at er he usually got. He a é Nat |
is going to be don | Naliand a d lave
him me vel nN) Tt iT | 1D¢ IT mult
ult la m and ren | | TO! | | nq |
rote t turned it that he as a
Vietnam vet with a very pragmatic sense that there is a
they who send you to southeast Asia and that they have
an agenda In so doing. He said, oHow come theyTve send
ing you to Thailand to talk about feminism when the
whole economy over tnere depend prostitution? It
is x ToTty-Nve ntnen | | ind Said the nrst
tning tnat ime to the to} y | id: oBecause they
think what professor iy d nt matter. At the othe
end of the flight, my dinner partner my first night in
Banak K, Said to me, | want | take you to see the SCX
shows. When | seemed to demur he added. oYou have to
do this. You have to go there the way you have to go to [the
ncentration camps at} Dachau. | accepted that invitation
because it was so serious. But at a lighter moment in our
rsa ted across the table to a well-known
terary tneorist, Jonathan Arac, who was also there for
tt nference. | said, "You know there's something omc tey
about being a professor of cultural studies at this m nt
n nistory. In tne real world, you as the resident seh
male, would Nave take! Onatnal iside and Said, ~You
want me to show yYOoutne town? And hesa id \ vith 1 grec it
eT isness, Well itna 1 me if he wants to, but
36
you re the one | have to take. ItTs important for your feminist
work.? So | was between these two pillars, all of a suddem?"?
On the one side oWhat professors say doesnTt matter? and
on the other side oImportant for your feminist work.? | alsé
realized he had given me the first sentence for an article!
later wrote for The Nation. | am now collaborating with
that man, Ryan Bishop, who's trained as a cultural anthro:
pologist, on a book to be called Night Market: Thailand im
Postcolonial Sexual Cartographies. Part of doing this book
has to do with the idea that perhaps oneTs feminist
work can make what academics say matter. Of
course, a lot more than books is required. What elsé
is necessary has to do with activity on the part of
those women there. ITve gone half way around thé
world from my classroom. But there's always for me 4
connection between my.own research and writing and
what goes on in the classroom. They have the samé
kind of motivations in terms of using your brains
and learning to use the rich resources of the inst?
tution and of the different academic disciplines t@
answer the questions and through answering
those question trying to meet the human need$
that have become clear to us through feminism
How has studying the sex industry in Thailané
changed or made you reconsider or think
differently about some of your own feminist
ideas? | have an article coming out called
oSubject/Position? to be published in a collectiom
Bad Girls, Good Girls: Women, Sex, and Power iff
the gos. It's an attempt to look cross-genera
tionally at feminist attitudes towards issues Of
sex, violence, and power. The representation
of sexuality and the institutionalization of
sexuality that comes out of commercial se%
both here and in Thailand, affects me a
someone who is attempting to overcomé
her sexual alienation. Female sexual subje@
tivity is just beginning to be born and 4
great many social phenomena can poison that birth. If
the early days of the womenTs movement we talked
about not wanting to be represented as sexual objects
And as people who were coming out of the historical
experience that is now called the Sexual Revolution@
whether it was really all that sexual or all that revolution
ary remains to be seen, but it was a lot better than thé
50s, let me tell you"we thought just resisting being
objectified was part of it. But the other way, turning that
around and trying to find your own sexual subjectivity
is newer and, as | say, a very fragile phenomenon. $@
that institutions that get in the way of that have t@
be confronted and challenged ... The fragility of the notion
and the reality of female sexual subjectivity and thé
necessity of combating the alienation internationally that
blocks its development all inform my work. In the introdué
tion to Sex, Class, and Culture, you talk about writing feminist
criticism, as, it seems to me, a politically active feminist. How did
theory and political activism connect in your work as a gradu
ate student, as a Sie: and then writing feminist criticism?
Counting from 1960 | was in the Movement. But | don!
just mean he womens movement. Politics, being
vist
en.
nd
1s0
le |
[ae
id
gender specific: an intrerview with lilian robinson
nN the
Ll
eant first working the Black Freedom
and then in the New Left and Anti-Vietnam
Movement. Although | should say anti-war in gener
al because in the early 60s | was also involved with the
against nuclear weapons. So my assumptions,
|, were always activist assumptions. { Secondly,
in concert with the rest of
movement, m
Movement
\A/>
VVal
movement
nrst of al
they were ideas | developed
the New Left: counter-institutional assump
moved into feminism as well. The
women's movement, particularly, created a number
American
which
tions,
of counter-institutions of this sort"battered
rape hot-lines, rape crisis
alternative gynocological and child-
birthing centers"the idea being that we would
meet need and maintain the structure of
the organization according to feminist principles in
setting
womens shelters.
centers,
a social
a non-hierarchical, egalitarian
where there was no distinction of power
the need and the
woman helping to meet the need. This is
typically American approach in
use labor, and of
itTs also a traditionally feminine
and not only feminist"approach based on
between woman in
a VeTYy
making
COUTSE
of volunteer
vomenTs commitment to volunteer labor. It
nad the strength of being able to maintain
fem as well as the weakness of
ist control
ilways remainit ie small, local, and not neces
lly serving the people most in need. ItTs
BABY, sa as well as counter institution-
is what
unter
al and vulnerable to burn-out"which
nappens when you're completely run by a bunch
of volunteers. What about the role of the university
in regards to the womenTs movement as well as your
experience as a graduate student"a student writing
feminist criticism? Higher education was the only area
in which we perceived a social problem that was not
being met by existing institutions, but that could
not * Baa a counter institution. Here
1 New Left leader Rudi Dutschke called
taking the sti march through the institutions? would
have to be exercised instead. We realized you had
to work within the existing institutions because they
had e libraries. You
met
vnat the Germ
be
the power to certify, they had th
nnot create your own womenTs university. ITve said
that th are moments for all of us where we
would much rather work at Sojourner Truth University
or Simone de Beauvoir College. We had to try, therefore,
ate the same kind counter-institution, insofar as
tain feminist principles for ourselves, while sur-
fiving and developing within the dominant institution.
much more a European model. ThatTs how they
run battered womenTs shelters and feminist gynocological
, for instance, in France, where I've lived and where |
had my child. They say, oThe society isnTt meeting our need,
we will get society to meet our need. We are citizens!,? and
still try to maintain feminist control as we do. { Literary stud
les as a piece of the institution and a piece that provided
where | was. It was the place, therefore,
way literary studies was
icTe
> mam
T}
: ;
iTWiS 1S
Cafe
theory was the place
where | saw a need to change the
the time when all these thi
of feminist literary criticism written
understood.
in my head and life but in
The Ais piece of feminist theory tl
ngs were happs
at | read at
ning,
the world, was also the first
in the tieth
not only
piece
twen cen
tury, Virginia Woolf's A Room of OneTs Own. Woolf's approach
to how to understand the material siti
society is
1ation of women ir
based on answering the question
about women
in fiction. So there was a precedent, and the first thing that
37
| did was with the enormous arrogance of my age at
27, | decided | was going to rewrite A Room of OneTs
Own to take account of those things that Woolf
didn't know that had happened since. | did it as
a personal celebration of the fortieth anniversary
of the lectures at Cambridge that gave rise to A
Room of One's Own. So in the Fall of 1968 | wrote a
long essay reprinted in Sex, Class, and Culture called
oWho's Afraid
particular thi
of A ats of OneTs Own?? The
ngs that | thought that Woolf
didn't know about was, one, the present state
of activism around issues of imperialism and,
two, the sexual revolution. | donTt think |
understood the extent to which the group to
which Woolf belonged were also sex
| kr
about sexuality and tl
ual radi
cals. But | thought lew something different
le way that would play
into our reading of texts and our maki
differe ight
that anything to do with ee
the oppression or the remedy for oppression,
but rather that there was this central text that
deed a > connection of texts to the
material lives of women. After all, Woolf is asked to
asks the
ad OT a
nt world. So it wasnTt because | thx
discourse had
was in bout the
address women fiction and she
question, Why are women not there? which leads het
pparently like
are women poor?? There seems now to be a complaint
about the younger feminists"the complaint that they
study and write feminist theory but aren't politically
active in the womenTs movement. What do you see as the
major difference between the feminists of this generation
and the feminists ade th 00d | don't think either
group can be
in basic
to other, a non-literary questions oWhy
generalized about without tremendous
stereotyping nae place. But | think that younger
feminists have an incomplete and distorted sense of
history, the history that ITve lived tl rough. The history
of radical social movements in the United States and
the repression of those movements is such that each
generation of radicals in some sense is convinced it is
the first. So what do you do when you have a half gener
ation only slowly becoming an actual full generation that
in fact knows itTs not the first be
is still doing it. We donTt have
We Lge no ti sis of radicalism. We
make change in enti in a radical
soe ~s le repression has always bee he high
period of radicalism in the U.S. was fate 1910s, next after that
was the 1930s, then the 1960s. Each of those essenti: lly built
upon their predecessors. Within
cause the other generation
like that
t know how to
any tradition
don't
wit movement
so severTe. |
feminism we had a long
period of negation. | learned the word feminism growing
up as the name of an historical movement that was over 78>
7 | O N I ¥
>
Liffany Shakelford
The Yellow Line screeches to a halt
and menwith attaché cases
dart for thé proscenium that leads to
sunlight and family imports
which get very good gas mileage.
My father, released from the pentagon,
marches off the train. White polyester sticks
to the back of his legs and plastic identification
cards jingle from his thick neck as he feels for
his keys and heads into the heart of the suburbs.
Night falls and somewhere: NATO disintegrates,
the U.S. Embassy is bombed in Beirut,
a orescue mission? is launched on Greneda,
and two Soviet MIGS are shot down in Libya.
Barely dawn and the screaming alarm
jolts my father from sleep.
He goes to the kitchen, drinks decaf,
and puts stamps on envelopes. The whir
of a power shake in the blender wakes the dog.
The clock on the microwave blinks 6:55.
He tucks The Post under arm, and slams the door
hard, its resonant echo
the only proof he was ever there.
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Graphic Design First Place Cocosmic candy bars Amanda Love
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Graphic Design Second Place Indigo Bay Catalog Tina Catoe
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Graphic Design Honorable Mention WilsonArt promotional Nei! Everette
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Illustration Second Place Reaching Toward Beauty Eric Terry
41
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jonathan peedin
43
And that was what we said, too. Whenever we went home to
our little towns and someone said, oECU? Isn't that a big
party school?? we would answer:
oIt is, but ITm in the theater department, which was where
Sandra Bullock trained.?
We'd never met her"shed been long gone before most of
us were even out of our braces"but we were so proud of
her. And so jealous, even though in the backs of our minds
we knew she didn't actually train here, just spent less than
two years taking general college requirements before hitting
the road for LA. and a movie with Keanu, but we never said
this out loud. After all, this was were Sandra went, so there
must be something about the school that raised it above the
substandard state school it sure seemed to be.
Everyone caught the bug, even me, a theater person on
loan from the English people (| was there for writing, and
was concentrating in writing for the stage). Even now, star-
ing at her magic name, | think about how inadequate ITve
written it. It should be SANDRA, or XSANDRA*
Also, by the end of our junior year I'd gone from being a
freshman trying to convince my comp TA that | was a good
writer to the actuality of my play being produced by the
theater department. It was the next to last week of rehearsal,
jonathan peedin
THE REBEL
and | leaned back in my seat and watched my own words
being volleyed around the main stage on our first night out
of the rehearsal room.
The play was called The ChameleonTs Dish, and it was the
sort of play you'd expect a twenty-year-old to write. | donTt
want to get into what it was about; this doesnTt concern the
play. Rich, my director, sat beside me, making random notes
on his legal pad and trying to play the part of director in
case anyone was watching. Every now and then I'd get a
glimpse of what he was writing: oPick up bread? or oCall Mike
about Thursday.? But he was a good director, or good
enough, so | couldnTt complain.
Rich held a tricky position among us: on one hand revered
because he'd been here with Sandra, had spoken with her,
ate lunch with her, acted with her. On the other hand, ten
years of being at East Carolina had turned him into some-
thing of a shithead.
~Andy, what do you think about JustinTs delivery of that
line?? Rich leaned over in his seat, his breath thick with the
Tic-Tacs he popped with religious enthusiasm.
oIt, uhm, it was fine.? | looked up from the script | was edit-
ing, my first screenplay, almost finished.
Onstage, Justin (playing Adrian) sat at the little table on
stage, pouring himself a drink and ignoring Dana, in the
part of his mother, as she warned him where he was headed
if he didnTt watch out. Around them, the newly constructed
set loomed in browns and khakis, in sepias and siennas.
| would give you a few lines from the play, but seen from the
distance of time, The ChameleonTs Dish is now as embarrass-
ing to me as my seventh grade scribblings. Besides, | barely
remember the play, and, having no copies within immediate
reach, I'm sure the constraints of memory and the imperialism
of imagination would cause me to wildly misquote.
Walking on-stage to defend JustinTs character from his
mother is his girlfriend Regina, played by Katrina.
Katrina, dark-haired and fair-skinned, a beauty in the old-
fashioned sense. Katrina, the prize of the theater department
and a dark jewel laying in the plastic gutter of East Carolina.
Katrina, who moved with such an unworldly grace that one
could not watch her doing anything as human as, say, getting
a fork in the cafeteria or dropping a class or clipping her toe-
nails, without mourning that such a creature should have to
stoop to our level. Katrina, my secret girlfriend.
44
Wed started dating after auditions, after the cast list had
come out with her name on it. We tried to keep things quiet
about us so no one would accuse me of asking Rich to cast
her because | wanted to go out with her, and so she would-
n't look like someone who would do anything to get a part.
Also, | was a little nervous to let news of our relationship
get out because, after almost three years of being single, |
didn't know what to do with this puzzling new beautiful girl
that wanted me. It was an embarrassment of riches. Girls
that looked like Katrina didnTt date guys who looked like me.
What did | look like? | donTt know. My parents never took a
lot of pictures and considered camcorders a waste. So, aside
from the mug shot | saw in the mirror every morning, |
rarely encountered my physicality. The gestalt, the entirety
of my body in all three dimensions, was a mystery.
(Based on the looks of other girls I'd dated, | assumed |
was reasonably attractive, but | had a theory"never backed
up by anyone, but still suspected"that | was kinda odd-
looking. Not really bad or funny ... just weird, a little off. Like
if Katrina and | passed myself, | would whisper to her, oThat
guy doesn't look quite right.?)
Well, whatever | looked like, | knew this: Katrina was dat-
ing way below her class. This wasnTt just some aesthetic
paranoia, either; it was fact, and | accepted it. People looked
at us and asked each other, oHow did he get her?? or oWhat's
she doing with him??
That night after rehearsal, | asked her the latter ques-
tion""What are you doing with me??"as Sandra and
Keanu's huge faces looked down on us from the Speed
poster on her wall. oAfter all, ITm not exactly the kind of guy
you usually go out with.?
oYou listen to me,? she said, oThat's exactly the kind of guy
| want.?
| suppose | did listen to her. Either that or | was so scared
of her | became mute. She was fascinating, in her own way.
Katrina and her stories were a glimpse of a way of life I'd
only guessed at: the long rehearsals every weeknight, the
web of inter-theater politics, the drunken cast parties, the
staggering odds they were quietly staring down.
oBesides,? Katrina laughed, oITm hedging my bets. | mean,
with the talent between the two of us, one of has got to be
going somewhere. We'll just take the other one along.? Then
she kissed me with smiling lips.
I'd been having daydreams about being with Sandra
Bullock. No, donTt get me wrong ... they weren't sexual,
they were just little, unconnected scenes about meeting
her and becoming her best friend. | guess you'd call them
platonic fantasies.
In these daydreams, | looked different. Not better, really,
Just more like a writer. You know... little wire frame glass-
es, a high forehead, shorter and more compact body.
Always wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes.
For special occasions, like the party | met Sandra at, ITd
throw a suit jacket on.
Also, | was a young, up-and-coming screenwriter in
Hollywood, my first script having been a big independent
success. Kinda like Quentin Tarantino circa the video release
of Reservoir Dogs (not this new, bloated Quentin that canTt
go anywhere without Tarantinoboppers following him).
Sandra and | are introduced at a party, and | tell her, blue
eyes flashing behind my glasses, that we went to the same
university. We spend the evening, drinks in hand, laughing at
East Carolina, at its pretensions, at all those kids thinking
they're going to get somewhere with their ECU degrees, and
our friendship is made.
The next day | had to wade through campus to see my
advisor, Nick Byars, and to get there | have to walk in front of
the bookstore, the busiest part of campus, during the
busiest part of the day.
(Nestling safe in my backpack was the rough draft of my
screenplay, which I'd just printed up in Austin computer lab
that morning, and | was getting ready to slip it under Nick's
door to see what he thought of it.)
Nick wasnTt just my advisor, he was my mentor, he was the
friend of all serious writing students ... at ECU that consisted
of me and a female grad student.
But to get to him | had to walk past all those identical
jocks, male and female, with their identical outfits (a hat
with a teamTs logo, a No Fear shirt, denim shorts, and Nikes),
identical bodies, identical looks. | swear, sometimes the only
Way to tell all the sportos apart was from the different
shades of their knee braces.
| pretended | was from a big city and kept my eyes
straight ahead, and strode past the former cheerleaders
who didnTt worry about college until they realized their
extra-curricular activities alone weren't going to get them
into Chapel Hill. Past the leftover high school football play-
ers who didnTt get the scholarships to the big schools they
expected. Past the kids too rich to have to worry about
going to a good school. Past all those physical therapy
majors and past the elementary education people. Past the
New Jersey girls whose mothers sent them here to get a
taste of the Southern Belle lifestyle before they had to go
back up North and take their job in data entry. Past the frat
boys and sorority girls who collected together on the week-
ends and tried to make themselves numb to whatever pain
their privileged lives have accrued.
Past the kids from all over the state huddled together in
little groups, saying oThis is a good school, itTs not so bad?
while they realized that the decision to come here, good or
bad, is with us forever.
Coming here hadnTt been much of a decision for me: high
school was a shaky construction of days reading books never
required for class, nights editing the school paper, weekends
working obsessively on my juvenile fanzine. | learned a lot
more than any of the honor students ever did, but my GPA
was abysmal. | refused to sink below the university level, and
East Carolina was the only one that would take me.
But at the end of my sophomore year, a year before The
ChameleonTs Dish, I'd gotten a couple of impressive things
on my transcript and a glowing recommendation from
Nick tucked in my top desk drawer, so | started looking for
another school to go to. After asking around about good
undergraduate writing schools, | found out that there were
none to speak of. The general consensus of my professors
was that your undergrad years could be spent anywhere, as
long as you worked hard enough on your writing to get
into a good MFA program.
after sandra
eric terry
, &
:
| couldn't comprehend two more years at ECU, though, in-
state tuition or not.! applied to the University of lowa, on the
logic that if their graduate program was the best in the
country, some of that would have to trickle down to the level
| would be at. Besides, | knew | was going to grad school
there, | might as well get used to the area.
But the sudden tripling of school costs frightened my par-
ents, especially on the grounds of something as suspicious as
otraining to write.? We had three huge fights about it, the
last culminating in my father throwing me down into a chair
and pointing a finger in my face. oYou're not going,? he said
between tight lips, his face red. oPeriod.?
So | stayed at ECU and told myself that it didnTt really mat-
ter where | got my bachelorTs, and that this way | could still
save money for grad school at lowa by going to a state school.
Maybe | should have just thrown my stuff into a Jansport,
hit the road, and made it into lowa City in time for transfer
orientation. | would have lived in an apartment even rats
would avoid, and worked in a factory at night, and gone to
quality writing classes. There are thousands of schools all
over the country, each with their own obest writer ever.? Who
are they? No oneTs ever heard of them.
Then again, maybe somewhere, everywhere, there were
whole groups of writers my age better than me who would
see my adolescent scribblings and oartistic? strivings as
funny, or even worse, quaint.
Nick wasn't in his office, so | get down on one knee and
open my bookbag. Nick and | weren't best friends or any-
thing, but his influence on me was in his existence itself.
Nick got a bachelorTs degree from ECU, yet he still had his
novel (To The Tune of Fortune My Foe, HarperCollins, 1992)
published, and to critical acclaim at that. ThatTs what made it
a little easier, gave me a little hope.
Sometimes | desperately wished | could tell Nick every-
thing | thought about him, and the other half of the time |
was glad | kept my mouth shut. How would he have reacted
THE REBEL
to news that | was jealous of him, that if | could kill him
secretly and take over his life | would? That everyone on the
Internet chat-line | frequented"and a lot of anonymous peo-
ple back home"thought my name was Nick Byars, and that a
lot of them had omy? book and have praised me for it? (My
advisor blessed me with a novel without an author photo.)
And the way the girls looked at him in class! But why not?
Nick was one of the young and the published, and he was
cute, thin, single.
Once, in a letter | eventually tore up and threw away, |
tried to tell him about the dreams"actual night dreams,
not like the Sandra stuff"where ITm sitting in one of his
classes, rather impertinently opening my mail. Phone bill,
letter from a friend, and then the bright, pure, piece of
Paper was in my hands. A studio had bought my screen-
play, as if studios buy scripts from young unknowns with-
out an agent. | started crying and Nick puts his hands on
my shoulder. | say, oItTs beautiful.?
o| know. | know it is.?
The screenplayTs too thick to fit under his door, so | put it
back in its manila envelope and lean it against his door.
Nick's door, as minimalist as his writing style: his name above
the office number, a photocopy of the cover of his book, and a
photo of Nick and Tobias Wolff from some conference. | fished
one of my playTs newly printed posters out of my backpack
(oEast Carolina Playhouse presents The ChameleonTs Dish by
Andy Carmine? and the dates in front of a vaguely abstract
ink drawing on a heavy cardstock. Very nice.) and slip it under
his door, as a sly hint.
Leaving General Classroom, | reminded myself that life
wouldn't drastically alter if | sold my script. | knew | wouldn't
be magically transported to a some other place. I'd still be in
Greenville, I'd still be at ECU ... which, in turn, would still be a
substandard Southern school giving away reams of worth-
less degrees, and I'd still be here. But | would have done
something. | would have made it.
| walked past the Bookstore again, trying to imagine Nick
and myself as undergrads together, roommates, and Sandra
as our mutual best friend, but nothing came. | couldn't imag-
ine Nick as anything but a professor, and | could imagine
Sandra at ECU ... eating at Mendenhall or Jones (the new, Art
Deco, Todd Dining Hall wouldn't have been built yet), dread-
ing Prem SeghalTs formidable Intro. to Bio. course, watching
movies at Hendrix Theater with a quiet resolve. The only
thing | could imagine her doing was driving a campus transit
bus, trying to stay above fifty miles an hour or she'd be stuck
here, forever, in our lives.
Nor could | imagine her putting up with the evangelists
who wander onto campus occasionally. | keep my eyes
focused ahead as the evangelist screamed at me that we
were all homosexuals and godless and worse, and yelling
that learning is a trap of the devilTs, that we were all going to
hell. | used to fight with them, but whatTs the use?
An early roommate of mine worked for Campus Security,
and once had to escort a violent preacher off-campus (he
tried to attack a History major who'd challenged his oproof?
that Jesus had been a white man). I'd asked my roommate
why we even let preachers on campus, and he told me that
state-run universities are tricky matters as far as trespassing
is concerned. oLegally,? he said, oECU is just one big sidewalk.?
In another daydream, Sandra and | are at the Safeway, stock:
ing up on health food and dehydrated noodle meals (as if
Sandra does her own shopping!) In the dairy section, | put
mucho containers of yogurt and a box of Rice Dream milk
substitute into our basket, while people down the aisle look
at the two of us and whisper. Sandra holds up a packet of
Kraft Lite Singles, reading the back. oYou think this is fat
free?? she asks.
The beauty of work, of production. Putting ink on paper,
mortaring together the paragraphs. The siren call of a
blank page. The way the words itch at your fingers. Keep
working, keep writing.
The night after dropping my script off to Nick, | was in my
dorm room revising it again. The changes | made felt gigan-
tic; | was embarrassed I'd given it to him in the shape | had.
On the wall behind my monitor, enlarged a hundred times:
was an excerpt from CheeverTs journals: oSo | think work,
work, work"that will be the solution to all my problems.
Work will give meaning to my unhappiness. Work will give
reason to my life.?
Sometimes | believe Cheever meant it to be the over-the-
top statement that it is, sometimes | think itTs my mantra.
The answering machine turned on, making the sound of
two bones clicking together ... 1 turn off the ringer on my
phone when | write, but I'd forgotten to turn the volume of the
answering machine down, so | heard a stanza of Lou Reed and
John CaleTs oWork,? my scratchy answering machine message:
Andy said a lot of things,
| stored them all away in my head.
Sometimes when | canTt decide what | should do
| think: What would Andy have said?
He'd probably say oYou think too much,
that's ~cause thereTs work that you donTt want to do.
It's work!
The most important thing is work!
It's work!
The most important thing is work!
~ a
yk
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id
anette
are oet OS PON Eire Se ed by Sal ee a ee nee ot BES ta
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after sandra
The thing beeps at me, then says in Katrina's voice: oAndy,
| know you're there. Pick up.?
oHey, baby, howTs your evening?? (My eyes still on the
screen and right hand still working the mouse.)
oYou're into setting, right??
oWhat??
oSetting. You're a writer, you know all about setting.?
o| ... have no idea what you're talking about, Trina.?
| heard her sigh. oPlay along, Andy, play along.? She said it
the way an actor makes an urgent aside to the audience,
that bright whisper.
oYeah ... yeah, ITm into setting.?
oOkay: my roommate's staying over at her boyfriend's, in
the microfridge a bottle of Sutter Home left over from the
Twelfth Night cast party this weekend, me in a pair of
panties and a nightie ...?
| smiled at her, though | know she can't see it over the
phone. oActually, this is more exposition than setting ...?
o... and in my hot little hand Dana's copy of Fire On The
Amazon.?
oWhat's that?? | laughed.
oWell, it just happens to be the next-to-last film Sandra
did before Demolition Man.? She was proud of herself.
oOh ... is it good??
o| donTt know. ITm waiting for you to come over and watch
it with me.?
oOh, | really canTt. Not tonight.?
oWhy not??
oI've got some writing ITve really got to do.?
oFor class??
oNo, for me. ITm going to try to send my script out by finals.?
oWell ... oh, guess what DanaTs getting!? She didnTt wait for
me to answer. oThe Australian version of Speed!?
oThe one with ten extra minutes??
oYep.?
oThe movie's a little over-long as it is ...? Now | was walking
a dangerous path.
oYeah, but this is footage of her, mostly.?
oReally??
~Apparently, thereTs a whole love scene thatTs cut out
between the bus exploding and the subway scene. Dana says
that on the back of the box they misspell KeanuTs name.?
oHow do they spell it??
oKeana. So are you gonna to come over or not??
oWell ... | really have some work to do-?
oYou gotta take some time off. How else are you going to
get writing experience? Otherwise you'll just be writing
about writing.?
oLook, this is my only night off from rehearsals.?
~Andy, this is our only night off from rehearsals.T
oBut 2
o| wasnTt making that stuff up earlier. Okay, I've got on a
Pair of sweatpants and one of your shirts, but | can change.?
oTrina, | really ...?
oPlease??
oSure,? | said, finally. oSure. |Tll be over in a half an hour.?
| walked over to her room, my stagnant hands thrust into
my pockets. | first saw Katrina at a one-night-only perfor-
mance of a touring British companyTs production of one of
those Greek plays | was supposed to have read once and
eric terry
never did. From across the lobby she was so beautiful she
depressed me.
My date that night, a nursing student | never went out
with again, saw me staring at her and told me her name.
They had lived on the same hall as freshman. oYeah, sheTs
beautiful, I'll give her that,? she'd said. oBut she just doesnTt
seem healthy. Look at her cheekbones, her eyes. SheTs a mar-
vel of modern medicine; put her in a time period where
influenza is more prevalent ... she'd be a goner.?
After dropping the future nurse off at her room | was still
so taken by Katrina | wandered across campus against the
currents of the freshmen headed to the bars downtown,
hopelessly wishing to be able to write something like her
and feeling too much like Morrissey.
A few months later, | saw her picture in The East Carolinian
(our shockingly amateur school paper) sprawled at the feet
of Charles Catherine, the theater departmentTs Uberstud
with a jawline you could cut glass with. Apparently Katrina
had found herself starring in the departmentTs new play, an
old Italian tragi-romance that brings the money in.
| cut the picture out and taped it on the top of my hard-
drive, as an incentive to work. (See, ever since | was barely
pubescent, ITve had the notion that, much in the way people
think the other senses compensate for a lost one, my writing
ability would compensate for my lack of natural beauty.) |
wondered what it would be like to be hard and cute, to have
a beautiful girl at my feet.
On the night of our first date, just after auditions, we ran
back to my room because | had stupidly forgotten the tickets
in one of the hundreds of outfits | had considered. (We were
going to a play ... what else?) | dug through my laundry, mor-
bidly embarrassed, certain she would go back to her 82>
suosied Awiwo}
He bought a forty pound bag of Chatham dog food. He car-
ried it on his shoulder into the house, and as soon as the pig
saw him it started to squeal. The sight of any kind of food
made it do that. Mickey chased it into the bathroom and
shut it in there while he hid the bag in the spare room down-
stairs. He put it in the closet behind some shoe boxes. Then
he let the pig out.
It was a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. HeTd bought it for his
girlfriend a year and a half ago. The baby ones were so cute.
Natalie had seen one at the zoo and fallen in love with it. So
Mickey spent $500.00 dollars on one for her birthday, (that
was back when he had money). The man who sold it to him
neglected to mention that full grown miniature pigs are
just as beady-eyed, bristley, and ugly as the
regular-sized kind. He didnTt have any
adults on display, for good reason. The pig
started out with a name: Nelson. Natalie
was afraid the pig wouldn't like her new,
smaller apartment, so she left it behind
when she left to go to Florida. After that,
the pigTs name was forgotten.
Uncle Peter came in after Mickey put
some Hamburger Helper on for dinner. He
was a tall man as well as fat, with beady eyes
a lot like the pig's. He had three-fifths of
liquor in a bag under one arm and two
three-liters of Coke under the other. It looked
like he planned to bring some guys home
after the bar closed. He smiled at Mickey when came into the
kitchen to put his things in the refrigerator.
~Ah. Such a good boy. Got dinner going and all.? In this con-
text, Peter used the word oall? as an American would use
oeverything.? It had the same stress and meaning. He'd been
in America for 15 years and hadn't managed to lose his British
speaking style. When he was drunk, it was even worse.
Women in bars were attracted to Peter because they were
suckers for his accent. Unfortunately, he was likely the most
scott pope
49
foul-mouthed and rude woman-hater to be found anywhere,
so he couldn't keep them around long.
oCTmere,? the Englishman would slur.o read palms. Would
you like me to read yours?? Sucked in, young girls would
always offer him an upturned palm. Peter would peer at it for
a moment. oMy goodness,? hed say. oYou're going to have an
orgasm tonight.? If he didn't get slapped right away, he'd run
his fingers through his beard, squint, and say, oI see a man
with a beard putting his face between your legs"? he never
got much further than that. He did it just to be an asshole.
oWhere are the kids?? Peter asked as he sat down at the table.
oDonTt know. Haven't seen them since this morning. Guess
they went somewhere after school.?
oITve got to put a stop to that,? Peter said
as he sighed and rubbed his eyes. He
looked tired. He always looked tired. oCan't
have Tina getting picked up for shoplifting
again. ThatTs embarrassing, that is.? Ironic,
thought Mickey, coming from a man who
isn't too proud to piss under the table
where he sits in a bar. Peter spattered
Mickey's pants leg that way one night.
Peter opened a bag of potato chips and
the pig began to squeal. oFor fuckTs sake,? he
said, and put a handful of them on the floor
so it would shut up. Mickey stirred the ham-
burger helper one last time before he
chased the pig into the bathroom.
oWhy did you let it leave this mess?? Peter asked when he
came back. The hamburger helper had begun to smoke and
stick to the skillet. oWhat?? he asked, irritated. Couldn't the
man even turn the stove down? Peter pointed to the chips on
the floor. oOh,? said Mickey, turning on the exhaust fan. o|
wish you wouldn't feed him like that. It just makes him worse.?
oGot to do something to make the bugger be quiet.?
Living with Peter was frustrating, but he didnTt ask for
more than seventy-five dollars a month rent. This was 74>
THE REBEL
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What would you do
if the wallpaper engulfed me?
Or the vacuum sucked me up
and choked me in its dusty entrails.
Would you notice
the sun dancing,
through the stained glass,
onto the empty side of the bed?
Would you spend lunches talking about me
to the Doberman and the angel fish
dusting that picture where ITm
laughing with my mouth wide open.
Or you could calmly comb your hair
as you check your teeth for spinach.
Then click off my table lamp, lock the doors
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I'm thinking about Dom
in my story, and what t
is a regular guy. Dom is
lot like me.
So ITm thinking about
but most of all ITm think
| heard of who dreamed
only to die without havi
cursor is impatient. It bli
itTs time itTs time. The cur
writers with writer's bloc
| do my typing at the loc
place. | used to type at ho
suit me. There were too m
way. I'd too often find mys
and then the clicker, and b
ing some cut-for-TV.movie
ing women and their up-a
carwash company. | had to
channels before | went
overnight }
" " meg coraaer a
- CRA aE mane tnc mann dpe ler os : tne eer et i ee a ee ee
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es an ee
~ The only two times | smoked pot and the one time | tried LSD, Charlie
was there. He was the master of ceremonies. He bought the stuff. He
i taught us how to use it. He even guided our reactions to it. That time
with LSD, he had Ben and | stare at a Monet painting for an hour. It
was worth it though because damned if | didnTt see one of those
water lilies move. Drugs aren't all what CharlieTs about though. He
also believes that we should save the dolphins, that we should
think globally and act locally, and that we should visualize world
) peace. All this | got by reading his bumper.
If | donTt type something for five minutes or so, my screen
dissolves into a Far Side cartoon. There are five of them. They
appear in a random order. They are very funny the first time
you see them. Now, if | remember in time, I'll hit the space-
bar every few minutes just to avoid the cartoon. On some
~ nights | donTt need to resort to this. Sometimes, the sen-
fg tences just flow out of me and I'll go all night without
t seeing one of them talking cows.
Tonight though, the sentences just aren't com-
ing. No flow. ThereTs just the blinking cursor, the
whir of the computer's hard drive, and the occa-
sional cartoon. | try to imagine what Dominick,
fe | my character, is doing in that alternate uni-
~ verse while ITm thinking of something for
| him to do next. Does he pause in the
middle of action, frozen in time? More
likely, he twiddles his thumbs or some-
thing, looks up at me and says, oWhat the
' hell's the problem? ItTs just a story for Christ's
sakes.? | judge the feasibility of writing a story
in which absolutely nothing happens. The idea
starts to look good. Real good.
oBill.? Charlie calls me from behind the counter. |
jump. Nearly had forgotten about old Charlie.
4 oYeah, what?? | feign annoyance at the interrup-
tion. ItTs really a relief.
o| rented that movie Sliver,? he says, holding the
box up to prove it. Charlie has a pony tail, which
makes him look like a hippie, and a receding
hairline, which makes him look like an old hip-
pie. He says, oIt's got Sharon Stone,? in a whisper,
even though weTte the only ones in the store.
oI've seen that one"pretty good,? | lie. If
someone has already shelled out the money for
a movie, ITm not going to be the one to tell
them that it sucks. Plus, | know Charlie probably
just rented the movie to see naked people.
Whatever its shortcomings, Sliver does have
naked people.
oI'm gonna go in the back to watch it. Can
you keep an eye out for customers and stuff??
He asked me to do this all the time. The store
didn't get much business after midnight, and
Charlie saw little reason to hang around the
counter. One time, | had to go in the back to
wake him up before his manager arrived in
the morning.
oSure. What's going on with this?? | notice the
usual mechanical noises coming from the big
copier. In the last couple of weeks, | had learned
reali time
copier for three-thousand copies. A digital counter says that
we have only 2594, now 2593, 2592, 2591, and so on to go. |
remember to thank Charlie later.
| pluck a copy off the output tray. Charlie was right; the
copies are for a pizza place, DinoTs Pizza. According to the flier,
DinoTs is gearing up for an end-of-the-semester extravagan-
2a. Pizza. Pizza. Pizza. | notice the flier is good for o$1 off any
small pie.? Being a spontaneous type of guy, | pick up the
phone, dial the number on the flier, and soon | have a pizza
on the way. The extravaganza starts today, | say to myself
with a chuckle. The flier promises Fffffast delivery. | can wait.
A young couple has entered while | was on the phone. They
walk over to one of the five copiers in the customer area.
SheTs wearing a too-short tee-shirt. The guy has his hand
under it, on the small of her back. They look over their shoul-
ders to make sure no one is looking. | turn away quickly, then
turn back in time to see them bend forward and put their
faces on the glass. Then, right there under the fluorescent
lights, they copy themselves. The guy plucks the copy off the
output tray (learned that term from Charlie) and shows it to
the girl. They collapse into each other in laughter and make
Way for the exit. Just before they get there, the girl hooks her
Pal by the neck and gives him a kiss on the cheek. A flock of
giggles follows them out the door.
| go back to the machine. The stack on top is already about
three-inches thick. | clear it. | reckon another half-inch and I'd
be screwed. oJust clear the copies,? Charlie had said, belying
the importance of what he wanted me to do. Considering the
Way that machine kicks out copies, | figure the output tray is
the only thing keeping me from getting buried in DinoTs flyers.
| started writing this story about Dominick three months
490: January 2nd, to be exact. The story was one of my New
Year's resolutions. | had always promised myself to start writ-
Ng as soon as | graduated college, as soon as | had
some time on my hands. Well, | graduated in
May, moved back to my hometown, and got ,
4 Job a month later working part-time at Mail ihe
a video store. Months go by. | work Wi
twenty-five or so hours a week, go
drinking with some guys two or
three (sometimes four) nights a
week, and rest my brain the rest
of the time. December comes
around. At Christmas, | see the
friends | went to high schgel
with. oWhat have you been
doing?? they ask.| canTt think
of a good answer, so | nad my
head and say, oOh, ITve been
having a good time.? Same of
my friends are like me, but a
Couple of them are already into
their careers. That scares the hell
Out of me. One of my pals is mar-
ned. I've never had alsenious girl-
friend, and sheTs already married.
ThatTs when | decidé to start writing,
try do something with my life. | contin-
o?,? to work the secOmd shift at the video
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oHey guys,? | mumble, squeezing in between Tom and Doug,
A half-dozen squinting faces look up from their microwav-
able meals. They nod quickly at me, so quickly that the
sale) aco)al- le) ol le-mcoM oleic mdal-Mol"ellalaliaceMe)mas(-e-Caalelamaar- ts
turns their faces back down to their meals. | recognize two
or three of them, but weTre at Mercy General, a hospital
Tom, Doug, and | usually donTt run for, so most of the other
paramedics are strangers. oHey Daniel,? | imagine | hear a
few of them murmur.
Doug makes a slow performance out of looking at his
watch, a sturdy gray sports affair with a Velcro strap.
oWhere you been the last twenty minutes??
58
a ewer eee se ore a a ae ES hE BE LALO DE TILES TOOL LES ESE Sree aeieaner cen RATA ET TS eae en nn ee : 7
Tom, slumped forward in his seat, takes another bite of his
hard little burger while keeping his eyes locked firmly on the
napkin dispenser. | hurt his feelings earlier, shined a brief
light on the darkness of his inflated masculinity, and itTll take
a while for him to speak to me again.
o| was filing the report on that kid we brought in.? Which is
true, mostly. Tom and | finished the paperwork on the way
over here, and | filed it as soon as we got in. That way we won't
have to fuck around with it when we get off. | want to go
home as quickly as possible, as soon as my shiftTs done.
oFor twenty minutes??
| unroll my paper bag and the mystery of my lunch lays
revealed before me: tuna fish on Bunny Bread, bag of LayTs
potato chips. No surprise, really; | made it myself. oWell, |
called Becky, too.?
oAt three-thirty in the morning?? DougTs still not giving up,
and | start to wonder if maybe there's some trace of what
I've really been doing left on my face. A wet eye, maybe, or a
nose a little too red to be a spring cold.
oChrist, Doug, we have some shit to work out. We're not on
the best of terms right now.?
Now Tom looks over at me, that one weak corner of his
mouth pointing up to his already thinning hair. oShe still got
you whipped??
oSomething like that.? | unwrap my tuna fish, my fingers
peeling back thin layers of plastic wrap to reveal the cold
meat inside. But I'm not hungry, so | wrap it back up.
Tom shakes his head sadly and pushes his chair away from
THE REBEL
the table with as little contact as possible, as though the table
itself disgusts him. oWhat kind of shit she pulling on you now!
This | don't need. oJust, you know, the usual stuff.?
oSo she was nagging you??
o| guess so, yeah.? The truth is that | wasnTt even talking t0
Becky, that sheTs probably a limp warm body in our soft little
bed, curled around three-year-old Danny Jr, whom she sleepT
with on the nights |Tm out. The truth is | just spent the last
fifteen minutes inexplicably crying my eyes out in a stall all
the way up on the seventh floor visitorTs bathroom, where |
was sure no one would find me. Fast and baffling tears | wa?
too stunned to wipe off, so | just let them roll off my cheek
and into the toilet.
oDaniel,? Tom puts his arm around me, his earlier gripe wit!
me apparently forgotten, oyou can't let this go on. You gotta
let her know shit like that just donTt flush, you know?? |
| hear Doug sigh lightly beside me, and | say, oYeah, | know.
oNow, ITm not saying that sheTs not a fine young lady ...
that she is, you are one lucky bastard. But if any bitch gave ?"?
half the shit your womanTs giving you ...? He cocks a small
finger over his thin shouldero... shed be out the door faster
than you can say ~Put up or shut up.?
Doug heaves his thickening body out of the seat. oTBout
time to hit the road, don't you think?? Doug always defers
even the simplest decisions to me, a reminder that even
though heTs a few years older than me and been a paramedl
for two years longer, the higher-ups still made me ambulan
chief instead of him. He can have the job for all | care, thoug!
the extra buck-fifty an hour is nice.
oJust about to say that myself,? | say, standing and lobbing
the tuna fish and chips into the middle of the table. oIf any-
one wants this, itTs yours.?
Tom tilts his head back, giving Doug and me a generous
view of his diminishing hairline, and finishes off his Dr. Peppe!
He closes his fist around the can, and it crumples over in the
center as if it were in pain. | half-expect him to crush it again$
his forehead. oYou guys go on ahead,T he calls to us, o| gotta
go take a piss.?
Doug says over his shoulder, ~Just hurry it up. | donTt want
to sit in the ambulance for twenty minutes waiting on you
to pull the pud.? A few snorts from the table,and|Ismile. _
oTwenty minutes, hell. | got it down to a science ... it does!
le
dit
ne
ng
pel
1?,?
ins
friday night
ire more than forty seconds, tops.? Tom disappears into
a room while Doug and | keep walking, quiet for a
ek ?,?. Lonely footsteps in antiseptic halls.
a ont everything worked out with Becky?? Doug finally
KS, and ITm relieved to help end the silence.
Yeah, yeah ... everything's fine.?
wae ambulance unloading dock, itTs a cool and starless
ie a reea.m.isa deadly time, the last hour of night
fii coe moming, but as somber as every other minute
rAd ee put together. When | first started working
Pi: feo ~ of my first partners"back when they only put
mit " in an ambulance"told me that if you can make
hemes ©, you re up all night. It also just so happens that
an ; Clock is the halfway point for my shift.
sine : s all downhill from here,? | say out loud, just to have
: g to talk about.
ae ed no way you could have saved that kid,? Doug
Paso ai heTs been stirring it over in his head
hecaianiaeca g for me to say something, say anything, so
vide eee Doug. He hit the dashboard pretty hard. He
Dols toe - before we even got there.?
seem tink s : sie at his feet. o| was just telling you. You
eds a donTt know. He moves aside the plastic-coat-
thigh dia Issors hanging diligent and ready on his right
No. ten nzips the pocket right behind them.
poe ee - pide I've been doing this for two years now. |
and dake ine edeirag some little kid died.? | cross my arms
eae Pe young to be a screamer, though.?
Mites anh Say anything. He pulls his cigarettes out of
neni ~a a them out of the Ziplock bag. We put our
pants nea at " bags so that even if we get blood on our
detstene: : es won t be ruined. But itTs odd that Doug
look ci ell, since heTs a driver.
Whe las ne at him, at the solid face dotted with stubble
though? hy AB ~How old you think that kid was,
oHell ; P S Curious.
and takes pei know ... five ... six?? He lights up his cigarette
With e ag. You want one?? The crimson tip jumps
Pica of the three syllables.
the setae a es | take a deep breath of the spring air,
Me. Air to be Inhaled and exhaled thousands of times before
onsen 0 2 as a scream, or a laugh, or the sigh of an
lettin th ne last gasp before nothing. oI hate my job,? | say,
J the sigh run out of my mouth.
th
Ci
ths ae iy nes as | could be with that kidTs report, because
tell i La ie chases if they want it, and you just don't
UP mess in th at their little kid died a screaming, drugged-
Belek Mt back of an ambulance, you know?
©n most of the me ambulance chief, Doug would put down
'd do that too " bad runs that they just died on impact.
The live mit ut ... well, thatTs a lot like lying, isnTt it?
aren't dead. | ht the worst. | donTt just mean the ones that
some people in ean the ones that are awake and shit. We get
UP seven inche our ambulance with their abdomens opened
still screamin S ais they're still not unconscious. Still awake,
And what : at Tom and me that they donTt want to die.
?,? we going to do? We're trying to hold them
61
down, trying our best to get a needle in that flailing arm.
| know that sounds awful, but listen ... we learn in para-
medic training that when you're hurt that bad"like maybe a
steering wheelTs gone most of the way through your chest, or
you got some windshield on your face and a nice chunk of
Nissan in the gut"when you're hurt that bad you've got so
many endorphins pumping through you and you're in such a
state of shock that you donTt even know where you are ...
you're not just seeing that tunnel you're through the tunnel
and floating around in the dark, waiting for the angels to
come get you, you know?
| grab the handles of the stretcher, three inches below two
black Converses moving independently. oYou ready?? The two
words shoot across the stretcher to Tom, who's just finished
strapping the guy down with a quiet, professional air. There's
a small crowd around us, and weTre both playing the parts of
paramedics, giving them the show they want.
oHell, yeah,? he says, getting out of my way so I can slide
the guy up into the back of the ambulance, and | can't help
noticing that itTs a lot like putting a large cookie tray into a
huge white oven. Tom and | hop in behind the stretcher.
oWe're in. LetTs go!? | pull the two doors closed behind me
just as Tom shoves the intercom button.
oLetTs get the fuck out of Dodge.? He accents each word,
almost singing them into the little plastic grid, and for
emphasis taps on the Plexiglas window separating us from
Doug. Almost immediately the siren comes on, jerking the
ambulance forward into the street.
An off-duty cop driving over near Tryon heard gunfire and
found this guy screaming on his stomach at the car wash
behind First Baptist of Charlotte. My guess is the guy walked
by something he shouldn't have been anywhere near, and
got a couple of bullets for it.
He must have just gotten out of one of the clubs around
here. HeTs wearing jeans about ten sizes too big for him and
a Beastie Boys shirt ... even has the earring in his nose anda
bleached-out flat top, all combed forward. | didnTt know the
Beastie Boys were still around.
oWhat | want to know is why the stupid fucker was out in
this part of town at three-thirty in the morning.? Tom starts
rigging up an LV., oblivious to his patient.
oJesus Christ, Tom, will you keep it down? The guy's con-
scious.? HeTs staring at the ceiling, and though his eyes are
unsteady, you can tell they're focusing.
oEspecially if heTs white,? Tom mutters over the wail of
the siren.
The guy's hit twice, once in the small of his back and once a
little higher up to the right. The bullets went through him; he
has these blood stains on his shirt like two slowly blooming
roses. Thankfully, he isnTt moving that much; that lower bullet
probably took out a good part of his spinal cord. In fact, he
should be dead already, but the stubbom tenacity of life has
him by the throat, earnestly holding him back from death.
Ten seconds and not even a mile later, he opens his mouth
and starts gasping like a fish on the floor. His tough right lung
must have finally collapsed, | think.
The siren shrinks away from the scene, and all | can hear
is that rough breath being pulled into him. | canTt move; | just
hold the needle full of sedative that ITm about to put in 79>
THE REBEL
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Um, no, not really. And I'll tell you one other
thing thatTs funny: a lot of my friends out in
L.A. want to say that ITm doing jazz. Then
there's a contingent that say, oWell, heTs
doing commercial.? Then thereTs a contin-
gent of friends in New York that say, oWell,
why are you in education? Why are you
teaching?? So, you know, itTs very, very
mixed. And itTs a hard category to really kind
of fall into. | just want to, again, try to be as
complete as possible. It keeps me happy
that way too. ITm constantly, constantly
shifting gears. | can never get complacent
because thereTs always so much to learn,
you know.
ThereTs a story about Miles Davis and what
he said when he first heard Charlie Parker. He
was like, oMan! ITve got to do that.? Do you
have a similar instance? Is there someone
you can say that about?
Well, | canTt really say that itTs one person. |
think that because | was introduced to
music early on and because | basically lived
it before | actually started playing | got used
to hearing quality. | mean, so when listen-
ing to music, | hear the good and bad in
everything. So, | think that just being
around music and listening to a high level
of music really inspired me to do that. |
mean, there are people who | like to listen
to, and there are people who inspire me. For
instance, | enjoy listening to bass players
Ron Carter and Stanley Clark. You know, Ron
Carter for upright making the instrument
thought of in a different light as opposed to
just the background instrument, and
Stanley Clark because he was one of the
first people to bring recognition to the elec-
tric bass as far as being not just, you know, a
background instrument.
There are so many other musicians. ITve
always loved Duke EllingtonTs music. But
like | said, there were a lot of people. My
mentor Arthur Kaypot really instilled in me
practicing and playing. ThereTs my high
school band director Peter Ford. | mean, |
had a lot of good teachers who really were
instilling in their students more than just
~Okay, go over there and practice your ,
scales. There are my parents, you know, for
introducing me to art and music and listen-
ing to all those different things. So, | had
many influences, but | canTt really say that
there was just one person.
You just mentioned some of the jazz greats,
but | was wondering what you thought
about some of the young guys in jazz today.
| saw Christian McBride here a couple of
years ago, and he was great. Do you think
they're contributing to the development of
jazz ,or do you just think theyTre pushing the
envelope?
THE REBEL
Well, | think in some instances yes, and in
other instances no. For instance, Christian
McBride: heTs an incredible bass player. Uh,
however, | do think that there was and
sometimes still is a push by the record
industry for youth...
- To make a hit.
Right. To make a hit. You know, because itTs
popular, or they feel they can reach a
different audience. Now, | think the inten-
tions were initially great because it (jazz)
had kind of died down, and they said, oWell
letTs take advantage of the youth.? When |
say advantage, | mean take advantage of
the youth in embracing them into a new art
form. Unfortunately, | believe they may have
tagged some of the younger players a little
too soon, maybe a little bit before they were
ready. Consequently, what happened then
was the age group of musicians in their late
thirties and early forties were overlooked. |
mean, they're a group of musicians that are
incredible. They do get some of the profits
they should, but theyTve been overlooked a
little bit for the sake of trying to embrace
the younger guys. They donTt have as much
experience as some of the older guys, and
well, sometimes thatTs unfortunate. But, like
| said, you have some that are great.
LetTs go back to your teaching. You've
played with musicians like Stephanie Mills
and Ray Charles; you've recorded with
James Brown and Vanity; and youTve per-
formed in orchestras conducted by Aaron
Copeland"why teach?
| think itTs very important for performers to
have ohands on? experience in academia.
Who better to learn performance practices
from than the people doing it? | mean, the
students can ask you, oHow did it feel when
you were rushed off the plane and got into
the limousine with Ray Charles?? It seems
that with teaching we are trying to make
everything a science, but thatTs not the way
it is with the arts. But, | learn as much from
my students as | hope they learn from me.
| get turned on by my students when
they're practicing or they're playing some-
thing that we've been working on, and you
see the light switch go off. Man, that turns
me on as far as, you know, motivating me.
To see that desire they have for just striving
for something: | mean, that'll motivate me.
Is there any one thing in particular that you
try to convey to your students when teach-
ing the history of jazz?
Well, one of the things that | try to teach in
my classes is to always appreciate the
artistry of the performer. | mean, there are
some incredible classical performers who are
great, but equally there are some incredible
64
jazz performers that are just as proficient
on their instruments, and now we have
more and more venues to present jazz in.
You know, we are now playing in the con-
cert halls as opposed to the back alley clubs.
Um, | constantly try to sit down, talk to
students, and ask them, oWho do you like?
Why do you like them? Who is it that you
don't like?? | had a conversation with a stu-
dent earlier today about Michael Jackson,
and she was saying, oOh, | love Michael
Jackson. | think he's a wonderful singer. Hes
one of the best singers in the world.? And I
said, oWell, | respect your opinion.? Howevel,
| said, oLetTs really talk about Michael
JacksonTs singing.? Then one of my other stv
dents said, oWell, you know, heTs a great
entertainer.T | said, oYeah, heTs a great entet
tainer, but letTs take it another step. Hes
really an incredible business person, a gf
entertainer, etc. We can £0 all the way -
the list, but vocalizing ts not what | considé
one of his fortes right now.?
eat
You know, what Michael Jackson does with
his music is genius and the fact that he can
couple that with the business side is incred-
ible. | mean, hereTs a guy who had four or
five primetime interviews going on in one
week. | mean, thatTs more primetime inter-
views than most people get in a lifetime.
Anyway, in some of the classes | tell ~em,
oDid you realize that every time you listen
to oYellow Submarine? that Michael Jackson
is getting paid?,? and they're like, oNah!
Really?? (Laughs)
Was there a particula
r reason i
teach at ECU? aes
Well, | knew the university would still allow
me the opportunity to perform. It works well
because it keeps me fresh, and itTs good PR
for ECU. Plus, | had been on the road for so
long that | was tired, and | wanted to come t
an area that is family-oriented. You know, |
wanted to spend more time with my wife
and four kids; | wanted to be at home with
my family. | just feel blessed to have come to
ECU and share what | know.
Did you stop touring because you wanted to
be with your family?
Well, | still tour some. | played at the
Jamaica Jazz Festival last year. But, | was
spending too much time away from my
children and wife. Being at home with my
children and being actively involved in thel!
lives is important. I've been blessed becaus
| still get calls to go out. It keeps me motl
vated. | donTt want to get complacent.
Do you think you will ever give up teaching
and go back to touring more?
bs.
Br
>qt
yw
det
th
ed-
d to
ny
theif
aust
oti-
hing
ig the teaching part of it and per-
wc Adil of it. Having one without the
i og = t think I'd be happy. Plus, now
working : more jazz musicians that are
Saat. es and | think thatTs
Pet cael 8 that is very important. | think a
ae of teachers need to be active
> In order to bring that or those
?,?xperie
nces from m
canis the performance into the
tage
8?,?0us for the student to find out from a
Perso
hime the gig last night what
a ohac to read it in a book. Who
gig thar hae oe what Ron Carter did ona
CON gaan arter, you know? When you
im teach, in the classroom, and you have
ons z ng the thing saying, oWell, this is
screwed he last night. You know, | really
Vola: ~A a head on this tune.? | mean,
Opposed +, at from the performer as
Writing the be critic or the scholar who's
more perfa, Ook. So, we're getting more and
great. mers into academia, which is
ie works Out great for the student
~?,? itTs hands on. 9
Orange is just...
a and walks to Payton. Again | just
atch them.
hi chictelsa man reaches out his old
hie and and touches Payton on the
von "ied and says, oIt doesnTt matter what
Pan In, as long as you believe.?
ried, ee olds out the tusk. oYou said this
Th omething,? he Says.
: pap: man looks Payton real straight in
pain tt means whatever you need for it
wit vi the old man says. He turns back
cy) ?,? far end of the house. oI'll get
cst he Says and leaves the room.
a i 0a stands there and | think that
ocak ns ly mad. | expect him to say how
vik " that we stayed here all this
e just aan that. But he doesn't. It seems to
a at he wanted to hear. Just enough.
and dis, the car the old man fills the tank
road. Pa Ppears back down the dry orange
and a yton says nothing. He starts the car
the ann out onto the road and slip past
and | ket He holds the tusk to his face
skin. He ne . what it feels like against his
tighter ie ds it out the window, gripping it
and th an ever"like he would break it"
?,?n he just lets it go.
© blaze past Cowhand JoeTs and Payton
Sticks his h
« ead :
Yee Ha? out the window and yells,
dr
sh
th
t
andi see that elephant again
Pear inte e lion and the Pontiac disap-
aka titi | think sometimes you
Ou. And | hs of the things that let go of
ink that some things can make
em
a Selves real, and that orange is just the
Slor of dirt. 9
y
00m i+?
. | mean, itTs so much more advan-
easter under the lens
pre-marital sex and think that gays should
be allowed in the military, or anywhere else
they want to be for that matter. Some of my
friends are gay! Hell, some of them are black,
too, and then thereTs that girl | met with the
pierced clitoris who dances nude a few times
a year to pay for her textbooks. Don't worry,
though. | didnTt have sex with her; beyond
what ITve already told you, sheTs not very
interesting. SheTs just messed up, like every-
body else | know. So much for the future.?
oYeah, | used to dance. ThatTs a good way
to meet girls.?
oOh, hush up, James! You got plenty of time,
Mark. DonTt you go rushin off into nothin.?
| may be the family weirdo, but | don't
have to be that weird to them. They have
enough to object to about me without
knowing the hard stuff. In fact, they have just
enough. As the meal was winding down,
conversation turned to my hair. They didn't
like it. | just sailed as Mom pulled out her
standard defense one more time and the
grey heads around the table nodded assent.
| like the concept of grandparents, the
loving elderly people who lavish you with
affection and teach you how to fish. ItTs the
reality that | have problems with. How do
you grow up in their eyes without disap-
pointing them somehow? And how do you
cope once you have disappointed them and
they begin to stick you into adult holes that
donTt exist in your world? | just smile and
nod. Anything to avoid hurting them.
After Mom and | got home, | sat on my old
bed and stared for a while at my flat choco-
late Garfield. Maybe he wasnTt so bad. After
all, he reminded me a lot of Easter itself. A
two-dimensional sell-out with a food fetish. |
hated him, too, and taking him apart piece
by piece was going to be fun. | opened the
package and took a bite off his big toe. Bad
chocolate. Bland and artificial and all the
things that chocolate should not be. Perfectly
bad. The kind of atrocity that makes me
appreciate the real thing all the more. A
65
balloons for five-fifty
belly, and made his way qown tothe bathroom.
The shower was like venom on his foot as
the water bit into the wound. His hand was
till numb from the burn and callused from
hammering nails and sweating in the fog up
at the mansion where he worked at his other
job. As he clenched andreleased his fist, he
thought of Lina's laughter over the phone
while it laid on the counter, He didnTt know
what to do. If he told her, what then? What if she
didn't believe him. He decided it wasn't worth it.
Noah dried off, got dressed, and bandaged his
foot He packed a bowl in his long glass bong
and waited for Lina to show. He sat in his old
used green recliner and stared out the sliding
glass doors that led to the back yard. The yard
was small and enclosed by a wooden fence that
had faded into streaks of gray from years of
harsh sea air. He rested his sore foot on the glass
table centered in front of the chair and the
withered leather couch he had brought from
his parentsT old den. The living room was car
peted from wall to wall with a retro style pat
tern that was worn through to the mat near
the front door, It opened to an equally ugly
patterned garden of tile that served as the
kitchen and dining room. Next to the bath
room door he had a fridge and a stove with
gas burners and everything, He even hada
computer with an e-mail account that he
used to send updates to his father and some
times to leave little notes for Lina, Noah was
n't exactly from a rich family, but he wasn't
poor. That weed cost money. He ate pretty
well and came and went as he pleased. He
Oo
was happy
Lina was Noah's girl. She was beautiful. So
emptiness and confusion, He was one with
his feelings for her. Her beauty was what
kept him going, Her soul was what made
her and him. He knew he should get his
own. but there would be time for that after.
He loved her
Lina showed up around three o'clock, The
Mork and Mindy shirt was tight. It looked
good stretched across her thin figure and
breasts. The sight of it made him feel that
maybe he would vomit. He forced a smile. Her
mocha skin radiated in the cool shadows while
her mouth glowed white and perfect. She
walked around the green chair and stood in
front of him with her hips and head slightly tilt
ed at the same angle. She flipped her dread locks
back over her shoulder and slid her backpack off
onto the floor, Baggy designer jeans hung loosely
to her smooth hips like flowing robes.
She looked good. Every time he saw her, Noah
felt a slight tingling in his spine Sometimes
act. Her beauty was so intense, He
would feel like he wasn't quite attrac
tive or deserving enough to have a
girlfriend like Lina and would
become reserved and
eager to please
her
decide that being allowed to act like an asshole Wer
something he had earned.
you been doing all day? Being a critter?? she
asked and bent over to examine the blackened bow!
hanging from the bong on the table. She then fell
go outside.?
ol know, but you've been fuckinT lurking in
here all day. Don't you want to get out of
here??
oHey, man. | went out and checked
Oh, DUDE,? she said sarcastically,
beautiful. She often filled him with feelings of
he didnTt quite know what to do or how to
His days with her were filled with constant dread of loos-
ing her. He usually did everything he could not to disturb
or annoy Lina until it began to eat a way at him, Being
with her sometimes seemed like a chore and he would
Noah said, taking the masks
from Lina and letting them
fall to the floor. oLetTs use the
balloon. Dude, this old man
came by when | was checking
the plants and told me about
this kid who was led off the roof
chasing a balloon.?
oWhoa, dude. Did he die??
oYeah, man.?
oRandom.?
oYep,? Noah said with an assuring
voice, oFully random, dude.?
oBrutal,? she said, pausing to look up
at the roof. oWho was he??
oThis kid, dude. A long time ago.?
oNo, the guy who told you the story??
oOh, this old guy named Carlos.?
oThat's cool. Well, do you want to go out
and make this scarecrow??
oYeah cool, let me just put on my flip-flops.?
Noah ran up the stepladder to his room,
slipped on his sandals, and grabbed his
hammer and a few nails out of his toolbelt.
it was nice out. Her skin radiated in the
sun leaving a shine over her face and legs.
Lina had brought out the stuffing and the
clothes. The supplies laid confused, wait-
ing for order.in the grass. Noah walked
around the side of the house and came
back with two sticks of bamboo, oThese
should work,? he said throwing them
down next to the pile.
The sun was dry on his hair and neck
while the cool sea breeze left a fine
layer of salt and chill. Noah laid the
smaller of the two sticks across the top
of the other to form a cross, He reached
into his pocket and brought out two
nails and propped one between his
trained lips. He laid the nailTs point on
the cross, took the hammer in his
hand, and killed it. He held it out in
front of him as.Lina watched patient-
ly. She crouched down beside him and
tilted the crossing stick which fell
limply to one side, Noah straightened
the arms and drove the second nail
through. oWhat'd you do last night??
Noah asked and put down the cross,
Lina began to stuff hay into the pant legs.
o| just studied, you know? For that test,?
Lina explained, oand hung out with Moniqué
and some other kids from the dorms for a
TL a
Monique was LinaTs lesbian roommate at
school. She was cool to Noah, but he thought
maybe she was just trying to get Lina into bed.
The two girls had become better friends, and he
thought that
Lina slipped out of her sandals. oHey, baby. WhatTve
back lightly into Noah's lap, twisting in his legs,
so that she dangled over the arms of the chair
oPretty much,? Noah gave her a little kiss
on the cheek.
She smiled. oYeah? ITve been studying my
ass off for this art history test on
Monday. It sucks.?
oThat sucks.?
~Yeah it does. ItTs so nice out. Why donTt we
You were just out there.?
n the plants earlier,?
oYou're a damn ironman. Critter,?
oWho are you calling a critter, heshen??
oHeshen? What the hellTs that??
oItTs you, granola.?
oOh, sorry, rabbi-weeded.?
oRabbi?! Yeah, thatTs cool, gangsta
bitch.?
oHey! | might be a gangsta, but | ain't
no...? she laughed, crinkling her nose.
oHey, | brought you a present,? she
reached down for her backpack, opened it,
and dumped out a pile of hay, some loose
pants, a shirt, some masks, and other
debris onto the floor,
oHey, great present, Lina,? Noah said,
laughing and pointing at the mess on the
ground,
oShut up, Noah. ItTs a scarecrow for your plants
dumbass, | thought we could put it together :
and stick it out front.?
oAw, thanks, baby,?
They kissed,
oI stole all this stuff from the theater depart-
ment. Look at this shit.?
Lina grabbed the two masks off the ground and
held them up for Noah to see. Mork and MindyTs
plastic heads bounced in LinaTs hands, each
with their own frozen smile. The masks were
slightly faded and chipped at the edges, but
still life-like and unnerving with their eyeless
stares. oWe can use one of these, or we can use
a balloon and just draw a face on it.?
oOh cool,?
jue
ht
ed.
{ he
maybe
une had started to talk to
onique about their relationship.
. I went to bed early,? she
: sured him, oI wasnTt into getting
ucked up or anything.?
fat Yeah, | went to bed pretty early
a ise tired from work. | almost fell
ie at the temple. | probably should
ce _ that house going to be big??
str _ letting some of the hay drift
ths @ breeze like shadows from passing
s so that they landed on Noah.
Pe Dude, itTs huge. It has the rad-
rie, and everything. Whoever is
?"? pie thing is loaded.?
on't know if | told
ae GOW if | told you or not,
a montane s girlfriend lives up there.
heat damn loaded. That is one
ae -a-rich neighborhood.?
yes, dude,? Noah agreed and
snat
Ched up a red balloon from the hay and
blew into j
28: = it, hard. The red grew with his
pregnant. The inflated head
Squir
med in the sun as Noah tied its end. He
held :
the end of it between his thumb and
fin e F
- " " the smooth rubber. He laid back
grass and watched Lina stuff the cloth-
ing. Th
?,? shells took.on life as she inflated
piycyenah you ever wonder what it was
e Mork when yo } .
aga you were little?
" on. IsnTt that weird that heTs like
. len and shit and they were going
= Didn't you ever wonder about like
sg gird were, like... HE WAS A
LIEN AND SHIT,?
ih IT,? she burst into
oWait. You mean like??
Yeah... YES. DonTt you want to??
Wait. What the hell? Well, what did
you have in mind?? Noah knew he want-
ed to, but wasnTt sure about...well, he
was never quite sure what to do when Lina
got like this.
"Yo , ,
a letTs useTm... wear them and like, see
itTs like, Noah. Come on, Noah,? Lina ;
pleaded.
T
ins aa back in the green chair and Lina had
ed up and spread around him. He was
her's.
sch her face close to his. oBe Mork.? She pushed th
Baits tne fuck, man. | donTt want you
ing me Mork while we're doing it.?
ao
Qh, come on, Noah.?
No,? he was serious.
threads of a cocoon. The insides of elbows
n with knees as the warmth
became wove
dies
and comfort found its home. Their bo
became one, connected, as masks were
forgotten. Their bodies had no eyes, Nor
did their eyes feel the pleasure. Noah
wn on her body as her breasts
thrust up into his. He let himself be drawn
in deeper. Her insides spread, sending
energy into him, through his body with an
g surge. His body curled and
hrough
It grew until it became
pressed do
increasin
flexed until the energy spread t
every hair on his skin, growing.
larger than his body, surrounding him.
There was nothing and then the ener-
gy flew back home. It was LinaTs. She
took it back. NEM ELS.
exhausted on top of her.
Lina rolled their bodies so that she was
on top of his and withdrew from him,
e mask up a bit and let her
down his body. She
looked down to
ming back at
mouth find its way
took in his body. Noah
see MindyTs blank smile bea
him ridiculously. He began to laugh. He
laughed until it was time to laugh louder.
d like that before.
~All righ
ight, fine. Whatever, but you'll wear it?? Noah had neve laughe
F) r
them wi
sacks Neibs'e lumpy flesh. Its skin was just
through on it all in, She slipped the bamboo
then te en
acc nein the blue and green plaid shirt
The ial $0 that it would hang upright.
with safet wy Ss wrists and ankles were sealed
through i pins, An additional pin went
attachin Hp : ied off section of the-balloon
head pe 0 the shirt collar. She held the
pulled am nd brought her face close to it. She
drew a sj arker from her pantTs pocket and
Noah | mple face with a huge smile.
aughed, oPerfect!?
He ho
We - and propped the scarecrow
into the co and hammered the bamboo :!!Na arched her back, lifting herself with
il, ) |
her elbows as her jeans slid over her
The sun
crow i . the balloon as the scare- smooth waist. Her clothing disa
Thanks, honey,? oe lo vine reveal liquid flesh in amb sani ,
around her , said and put hisarm "_ Noah wanted to kiss her a
ac
her soft belly and thighs against ght
and cheeks, but the mask was limiting. Hi
hands pressed against her waist, finding S
sie asked and put the mask in his hands
m " by hp pean it,? he said, chuckling
oar nad oe the elastic band
She grabbed the Mindy mask off the
ground and bounced up the ladder to
Noah's bed, Noah was behind her. As he
" off the ladder into the loft, she laid
ack on the bed and strapped on the
Mindy face. He grabbed at her ankles
pulling her down onto the floor.
Oh ho ho, nanoo nanoo,? he giggled
pulling at her belt. ait
The sun
began to set, driving a rising tide of
Shadow
dea " ms backyard fence, up the glass
, the lamps were lit along with a their way up over the lace straps. Cl
s. Clasps
few can
dies in the livi
Pane ag e living room, to fight the we ,
Dairy re released while t
stove, rab i wi Pasta boiled on the from shoes, LinaTs jah esas feet free
oI'm aze of steam. s explored his back
glad : u j T
bins dad ~ decided to use the balloon,? . shing his pants and underwear over his
oYeah, man jis he and down past his ankles. Noah lifted
, that story with the little boy is is head above hers to see shadowed eyes
behind the plastic veil. Mindy's eyeless face
freaky,?
oYeah aa
thet ak art ut | had some plans for smiled up at him bl
wicked sti Lina said with that little anikiy as he slid between
irk sh
NO good, "Didn's had when she was up to skin and hair, It was all
you ever wonder what it ee there was to know,
st past them like a butterfl
y
Was like t ;
0 be Mindy? Well, maybe not. But
through the
her thighs. His waist and penis knew her
They slept.
amed against Noah's face, caus-
nt and turn away from the
d to shade his eyes, but was
oing so by the crucifix made
The stand held the scare-
n, overlooking the
The tips of the stalks
The sun be
ing him to squi
heat. He wante
prevented from d
by the scarecrow.
crow high in the su
cornfield. It was huge.
swayed in their swirling mad dance on all
sides. There were No borders or roads in sight.
ircled above it, hungry for the corn,
waiting. The stalks of corn tickled lovingly at
its ankles from below, in thanks for the protec:
tion it offered. Noah's stagnant bodiless cloth-
ing had these crows fooled, He laughed with
confidence at the thieves, drifting longingly in
the breeze. He watched a thin cloud creep
across the: hot sun and was startled by a
blast of smoke and flame that spit from
the field like a striking rattlesnake. It
was followed by another, a bit far-
ther in the distance. The distant
blast emitted a thin missile that
disappeared quickly into the sky. The
missiles began to erupt from all direc:
ns, hundreds of them like dripping
aculations on the
The crows C
tio
blood, venomous e}
satin clouds.
Noah woke out of the fire and smoke,
or rather, half awoke. He laid in bed
next to Lina, cold with sweat. Lina
was floating, white. She seemed to
float in flowing streams in a fountain
of light that shown down or rose up
Noah
reached behind the computer to shut it off.
from their bodies lying angergee oNothing.?
the bed. She looked so beaut! 9 pri ae Noah thought maybe he was going insane. He
an angel. He thought he mus pane tried to reason what he had just read. He tried
awake. He tried to move, We i lust to make sense of it over and over in his head
the dream to the physical wor'e: while Lina was waiting for an answer. She was
as he was about to
found
f d epee imane?"? completely awake now.
himself pinned. ?"?
ing on
head aga ie oNothing. Hey,? Noah said while climbing back
its side, unable to meeeT. ing him. tt into bed and kissing her. oI had this dream just
to look up at what was pinn!
got up early to go to work.
He was careful not to wake Lina on his way
out. The long night had taken its toll on him
and most of the morning was spent watchi"'
little kids drink spilt soda off table tops
The afternoon brought promise. He on put
charge of the thirteen-year-olds, Noah's
favorite kids were in this class, and he mostly
just hung out with them. In the group there
dark legs now. | dreamt that | was a scarecrow.? ic aye it sige Kick
seemed as if a dark figure, slo him tina listened, smiled, and let her lids blink slowly annie whom were set on becoming
stood on either side of him, P a7 as Noah told her about the missiles in the oHey N ?
down to the mattress. He wanted to cornfield. i bewide Jonah said with his fake New York
He wanted to yell at whoever rs accent, olisten to this rhyme | mad
scream, Me ak oe fia it was like | was there to protect the crops from the lyrics,? e up. Peep
s standing on him o ge ' y,: ,
wa 8 a wate talls sprang the crows and other birds and animals that Yeah, Noah, check this out.? Max 2 |
salmon again ne dark figure Was would hurt the field, but that wasnTt even it, oitTs phat.? ssured him.
The legs, the dar
" ager heside him in the man. | was only there to protect the lies from Jonah slouched his shoulders with half-spread
gone. Wy broken by the being found out. | was there to scare away
darkness that was pit aed anything or like any person who would come
light from his compu er
ee and began to force out the words, letting
The green he ~
adi eflection oy uncover the destruction and senselessness of yes glaze over. o| nut hollow
haze of light left a Th
tips/aim f
: the violence. | was guarding it, but | ; or your dome/goes throug
eves. He , b bespepy ; 3
card table as abled over to. didnTt even realize it was there. | did- rain without h ittin shit/ya gone/| Zip
climbed out of ee a n't see it,? Noah whispered as beads of sweat up my fly still on bone.? jonah popped
he machine. : ;
turn off the i tina had gotten UP ate formed on his arms and stomach, out of his trance, oHaha, yeeeah! What's up, dudé
Noah suppose omething while Lina wiped her hands over his wet stomach. P,
5
played some games OF
Those lyrics are clean, huh??
he slept and had forgotten to turn tt off." gt hl ee ned Max just looked up at Noah and smiled.
ahead ~ae | : g down at us. It What?? Noah burst. oSonah, you did d
was a totally bizarre hee reached was so beautiful. It was like our love was up those lyrics.? ry ifs Bate) mie
Lina ca scan jhe sare oe off spreading in and out of each other, into the
aroun
° o| did too!?
i age that walls and through them out into nature and
switch, he srg a sai iets are esr. p he yap ae eae
remained on the screen.
Jonah,? Noah insisted, oyou
the monitor and began reading the screen.
barel i
out into you. It was like there wasnTt enough room for me insidemy ..., Hees hair under your
body, and | had to float on top of our energy looking pits, let alone NUTZ.? No
began to laugh h
pe down on us. | felt as i | could leave and go as far awa gh hysterically,
Date: Sat, 24 FEB. 95 4:45:10 west as other a and Aasiy still be iil ou pie looking to Max for support,
OAH@SRVM.CIS.EDU> s otner p " but little Max had
= NGLINA@UCSC VM.EDU> need to leave. | was all ready there. | love you.? ad a fixed
To: ;
Subject: 1SEE EVERYTHING
LinaTs face and eyes were glowing in Page past Noah
the shadows of the room. Her skin Rabbi S iis. ? ase
was a smooth cool fog against his lips ~Hig pines standing n
and cheeks as they kissed. Their eye- oorway. He didnTt
: I
I know this may come as a bit o) a hat pee a
Do you think I don t know wha ; ' ; look happy. Noah
have 67. y bly donTt Why the fuck don't I lashes mingled in reunion. Eyebrows 4, PPY. had to
going on. wa renee isit ou? Why are you always inched their way off into ears while " fast. He had been
ever come UP there to pice know you re fucking tongues tasted chins. ening around an idea
pe a cote come up there and beat the = ooh yeah,? Lina put her fingers in his in his head yesterday
around on '
y V y ry me at | idle Sk while he was waiti
uth and gripped his chin as she waiting for
j j u have ar respect sie)
abe out of jqueaae If oO
, be Lina and decided i
poly to him.! jaid close, smiling. Her | ed it was
ouTll tell me who it is and let me just talk padcwne . i smi o ferlips were now or never. He got him.
: rite mele) this to me. You thin like long jalapefo peppers a5 cai¢ 5 pj
canTt believe you WO hink I he spoke. oAfter that | had thi place of chalk and
pitch. You're so stupid. Did you really thin she spoke. oAfter that | had this
~ i Celelemlamicelilm@e) meal-eer
d , bal hi o ie
wouldn't know? Do you think rm that ~" e dream that | was on this top. oOK, guys, letTs have some
stupid? I can't believe I was making ~OV y
secret CIA special forces team quiet please. Take y
' our
and you were fucking me. Fuck you. that drove around gang ter- seats.? The room fell silent as
ritory in a bullet proof BMW with young eyes fixed on their nervous
tinted windows doing drive-bys on any §teacher.Noah
turned
MESSAGE DELIVERED gangsters we came across. It was like this chalkboard and Hab apie |
rie : ps of an
See a he read the screen. new tactic in fighting the drug war.|had "_ arrow. oWhat have | drawn up here??
pote ett? he nineiea o| didn't this big-ass gun, man. It was totally A golden blond with terrible teeth shduted
fucking write this!? He slid the mouse fuched - _ hashes an arrow, :
a ih he so that the blinking cursor was pete J i shag as he plage? Yes, thatTs right. ItTs an arrow. Now \
: tly in front of where + read omessage T at's why love you, baey what do arrows usually tell us??
phi A * He began tapping the delete but: | Tied fingers were revived by hairson " "To go," said a boy from under his rasta-col- :
: oMe the keyboard. it wouldn't erase. He end with electricity. : ored yamica. T
ih we to hit it harder and then began tosiam AS the lovers slept they yer ig airection,? suggested Max, omovement.? «
ad down on the keys until he noticed Lina each other, becoming one in the Right,? replied Noah, pointing at Max and 1
is 4 night. Only the sun could separate then the boy with the yamica oVery good.? H
vine: going on?? Lina whispered as Noah them the next morning, heb
then drew a second outline of an arrow on the
chalk board, this one pointing in the opposite
y
ing
a
ly
(ou
ur
No?
ts Ho
the
site
direct ~
2 on. a Te) rawn
, WwW, what hav
. eld a a
Iwo arrows,? Jonah laughed at the ieee
question
oRight, ric inT
» Tight, but what awe yin ru uthless
?Wha
re
thy dag
Ir pointing j
chika ng 'n opposite directions,?
oThay? girl in the front row sc :
The tbe Very good.? aaiies
~So bia . wats with puckered cheek
thee A : ave movement amaze) . :
moves peas ati. in while the ret
, ~ti life ri ia began to talk a bit fa
into uses orld around us is m
you Reviny be 66 out into the aia
chool « walk andt isi
~ alk
earning wet with our eg ie
aroused ?,? gain from the wo id oe
woke - At the same time the
ti sag us is affected by the
i bsidy : Meng world puts into
bien : rubbing his chalk in
a Ss aion
hy long one of the
Mei Py put into the ulate
ra ae! the chalk against the a
piled ow, if this energy, s .
ourane , Of life is flowing in o Py
Prt fs through our lives ther
pain ie are really only one :
direction. hig that points in bot
- 50 if we take th th
ese two
Somebod}
4
talking shi
it to
dude. Fuck this ein : be They were making him feel so uncomfort-
other shit. I fu rayT inTeach_ able. He wished he hadn't laughed. Blood
: ck a dudeTs shi rushed into his
up. tea? it up. F 2
i vt ctype the fet uck his world (xc e?"? hot like a crab
/ e. FuckinT ont . dropped into a ot.
dude.? tapping jaws, P P
sioaivs evs seineT
7 ' quinted in th
ean acdalial e yellow sun- :
ee yt the udeicn ofthat right. Fuck you think,
security er i a good nigga? Fool run up on me,
knee, so that he a4 ". blowyow! Shit.? The grouP exploded into
a, cal hin Me didn't want to hysterics: Noah rubbed his forehead as his
want i, oe to himself and didnTt headache grew and they laughed their
head either Up in = in the back of the hardest, laying back on their seats, jolting
yee by ra san pir he had been _ and kicking the Plexy glass windows.
ometi se. ee
-saeagemi 7 would.see the punch comin straight for that jugular baby.
sts apa ages aipeacniplarag thay © now what ITm sayinT? Ni th
id ished he never even got a glimpse pe now what ITm sayin § igga, then
punched hg Lows preferred getting I be like, pitch, I'll have that
~ as ex j j aE of ne
- himself. necting itand could fuckinT wallet, fuckinT cash, fuckin
e fi , eT? : ae
our gangsters laughed in sharp ugly Nikes, fuckinT links, shit, fuckinT I'll
take that ho, you be fuckinT
cack
les as the one with the yellowest teeth
and reddest tongue screamed out from YOU
-KNOW.
Wate les
sie te daTemareleleme)Malteel LC) meer lice m tla)
_ pit Starter Jacket. Noah hated the
es down here, but it was his only way of
etti
? ~ to work. He decided to try to ignore
grade some of his studentsT papers. He
arrows
and put th
em together,,,?Pulled Max's paper out from the fold
e folder and began
He began t
Mii O erase the arrows
ng gi He drew the svi a"
Mbp Points of the tw was lo
he | o overly pe
?,?n erased the a sree
a alks of th |
le o the overlapping pointes i,
the board. oNow clas
would he Still
(ole) 4] le hi
ots desi sas named Jay today. He's what w
ecauise of his limit andered if he wanted to kill himse! :
oesn't realize heT cgi Then | realized that he prob y
, s limited. Then | thought, what ith 7
, e did?
wan ?
t to? Then | remembered how limited |
WHAT-I-AM-
OTHA-FUCKINT-SAYIN!?
e gangster's bent reflection
finish his speech and laugh
e pretending to stomp
tedly on an imaginary
Noah watched th
in his sunglasses
uncontrollably whil
his foot down repea
yictimTs head.
A new voice squea
Noah's seat. oQui
me laugh. Bi
Damn, man.
oOh shit. Sorry, cuz.?
t across the isle from
ked from directly behind
t, nigga. You makinT
ked up this blunt.
We ha
ve??
Ther ? What Bn
© wa cause | ,
up blankly ah pause as the clacciniverse ~i ay. out what life is, what the
© blond oj ?,? teacher a . i other stuff like wh Pies
peed : nd th mitation he w what reality is. Hi
oItTs the le with snaggled niet the litnade by oo born with"my limitations ith is ahuge tanned man s@ |
That's J W of David!? GASPED, nas o char and my society. That time is real Noah about two rows towards the front. His
wily at ie, Noah burst out saber signal of our universe, that we a and face was crowned with a freshly trimmed crew
Xacthy ioe udents, o , pointin r than anythi pa re cut and a lon braided beard. The words oWEST
yri s, oVe ting thing because g S
Star 4; ght. w ty good, , cate, th 46 we can com * pi :
Its the si ?,? end up with the = . right at there is one path for everyone si SIDE were tattooed across his back in huge Old
; of each of le of all life, movin wish ght and wrong are two real thin : wat English letters loosely concealed by a tank top.
i i WS arenTt er. And notice that the ss someone's ideals. That there is a gs-"not Just The guy stared back at the gang, his eyes spilling
9) "S, but in only pointing in t n thing. Needless to say, | could word for every. "_" with anBe!
avid is all directio wo direc- there areai / ula go on forever, F
sign, y the symbol ns. The star of pes infinite amount of possibiliti Years of dealing with gangsters UP at San Rafael
Tou a Olof life, anditTs your Re ict as able to happen as sion allof High had made Noah immune to their obnoxious
alizations about our universe are a brand of terror, but these southern beach locals
precious, we were a bit harder to get used to. They seemed sO
that would allow them to kill
Symb re all Je
sym Ol, the ws, and this i
- if the plier of life.? het pie
" aid to i really got it or not oes
tended like it had teeter ee pe
hea that in ki ad been a ti Aloe
mite mea : d, | would like ai ao
do ans to be j : ort essay about . ttt
vt ofad. Hiei Or actually, if ol
6 abe rite abou ar
Milind hone of ie ut that, you can
; the sae. nee that
- Let me see a quick
S
Ow
Of h
ange} "4s. Who can
name an
ANgel-man
Suck that!
all know everythi
rything, we ju ~tund
: , we just donTt understand i
ve got to travel and talk to more "e seas
2,
The paper confused and left Noah feeling
pel ope _" After reading it a second
so pl sae ont out laughing. oThis
i ha ve , he whispered to himself.
" e Sunday school were so :
pt . He thought back to how craz
when his boss heard him talk '
ing about nutz with the kids but
was suddenly distracted by
one of the gangsters.
laid back, but in a way
without a tarnished conscie Whites float:
ing near a warm river-mouth.
Noah could hear 4 chorus of ch
lowed by fumbling as one of the g
his beeper. The clear plastic face cover POP
slid down the isle of the bus. Noah looked down ie)
a small ange! bla in the confusion
de that had fallen
and found itself against the white leather and dark
green stripes of his Adida shell-top sneaker. Noah
ressed his foot down gently on
the blade.
oShit, nigga. Where'd my face cover go? YO,
nigga. For real, man. My beeper broke,
man.I can't find the shit.? The gansste' began
to pace back and forth, up a
nce. Great
uckles from behirid, fol-
angsters dropped
ped off and
see
d down the isle,
a
"_
ike a caged beat oay yo! 1 know one a
yall saw my fuckin iece O
Noah smil
ferocious beat, thinking
oeucker,, almost laughing out loud.
66 ?
Hey, WEST SIDE asked, ooking for this??
down imitating the actions of
someone fixing the tongue on their shoe,
grabbed the blade off the ground, and put
it in his pocket.
oyou |
oyeah, man Hand over ?"?
The gang fell
the local. Noah slid away from the isle, propping his
back against the window.
7) es S|DE taunte
ofuck you.
. oplease hand over my shit.?
the bus.?
oWell youre in luck,? rattled the driver's VOICE,
far away, at the front of the bus, opnecause |?"?
letting YOU off right here. That means all
of you.
Noah could hear the b
i ang yelled obscenities at the driver,
Fuck you, freak-ass mother PT ea
cer leaned in on WEST SIDE like 4 drawn arrow.
oAy, man. Why donTt you give me back my
Oo ?
o
rakes hissing while the
DE handed him the plastic cover.
said, trying t°
ving his hand
int?
hat?? WEST SI
«my point, dude,? gangster
imitate WEST SIDETs voice while mo
in a stabbing motion.
WEST SIDE was no longer!
The gangster turned to Noah, blocking him in
putting his hands against the se
MAN, ITm missinT
was standing now, |
o1, Neel ctammered
proud of his play 0"
he walked along care
blade ope? and closing
figure out ho
figuring it out. As he approached
fve-fifty, the sun shone dowt
hot from directly above: it
attains :
my fuckin point
e face of the house. The roof
lean outward and shade its eyes. He let
the knife flip open. o| got your point,? he
cast shadows on th
seemed to
laughed to himself, The house seemed to under-
stand his joke. The house understood such
things. He could feel it watching him. oSo
you like Mork and Mindy do ya?? he
asked, almost to himself, but more directly
. line face of the house. The beams and
glass seemed to flex and darken as he
The rest of the gang
on Noah with frowning silence like wolves sniffing at
tame prey they ~dnTt wish to 4 approached. They seemed to watch him,
innocently, | get your point o| must be going crazy,? he thought
flipping the point closed in his hand. The
scarecrow smiled its huge awake smite at
He was 5°
keep from gmirking. The bus pulled slowly up to the cur
The rear doors sprang open, letting the warm, dry alt
from the roasting 5! ewalk, fill the stagnant hull. its housemate as Noah walked up. That
Sunglasses wen uickly into his pocket a5 papers were scarecrow Was definitely crazy. He
athered and Noah made his way off the bus In front of walked up fe a
the rest of the exiled shipmates. Once the ga" an alked up fearles*y and let the house
the rest of the world was behind him and forgotten swallow him as he dove into its cool
shadows:
lessly flipping the ange!
it again trying to
w it worked, nevet quite
just
us,? he thought,
The walls of the house, even the
wallpaper, seemed to be closing in
The low loft ceiling, the green all 3
around, seemed to curve and seal
= rien The air was completely
Hy
oUm, yeah, what the fuck was that one 2 ro aol Pigott
all about?? her voice wae sharpen'NB: 2+ the pet re ik nah o:
o1 don't know. | donTt know what | nee tne Inside ct araes
a balloon, Like the cricket slidi
inki j . din |
thinking. | just... 0 cket sliding on the table
oYou don't habe what the fuck n the smooth plastic waiting to and then looked at
Lina was gone. Noah gave her a call at
her room and she picked up. fs
oNoah?? her voice was dark and wilt-
ed in NoahTs ears. :
oYeah, hey, did you read my e-mal
message yet?? Noah could feel his
stomach tying into knots.
are you talking about? Well | donTt be released ready to serve, he
Waited.
know either.? ie
ms lease. I'm sorry. | W Ale
Ficrd.gegere | wrote that. |! didnTt The oe looked good. He
erro ° cracked open his tablet, touching
ede id the powder to his tongue.
People say it tastes like a con-
dom smells. Noah had done E
enough times to know that was
nonsense, but he always
checked anyway. oThis stuff
otook, please, just throw it away: Trash
the message... .
Noah was suddenly interrupted, as i
someone else had picked up the phone,
but had the same voice a> his own,
tastes like shit,? he said smili
«o ugh I should be up shit,? he said smiling
ae " e ften, at least you ec yep ga: table at Lina.
T al abat , she said with that
know what ITm think g) wicked'look in her eye, now a
bate) A in bit diluted.
the words P ? : ,
Noah i him. oWhat the fuck! Noah was determined to win her
back, He thought maybe he should
tell her about the phone calls and
the e-mail, but it would sound
ridiculous, oWhat do you know
about these pills??
They shouldn't be too smacked-out
or speedy. It should be real pure.
: ao 2 n
He began to panic. This ca
happening. Not now: Lina!
he began.tg sho tjnto the receive,
oLina! Lina:
oWhat? ? che screamed back at
him. oWhy are you screaming?
What the fuck is wrong with xy selges wiht Ga tears onto
ou?" moons, They w ;
sand up,? he pleaded with her of her?? y were free. Wasn't that nice
oJust hang up the phone. Don tlis- «4
ten to what ITm saying: ve sepa , t to do
ice took over, DIOCKINE |, . twan
eee eran Eee
need to come down here.
: nice. Moons? That's cool.?
Do you want to take them now?? As
oFine,? Lina seemed unfazed. Lina asked, Noah heard two distinctive
oMonique...? knocks coming from some '
whe
oMonique, ® Noah heard his voice kitchen as if someone where nh vg
blurt with a bitter tone. one of the cupboards.
oStop it, Noah. She gave me er Noah made a fist and rapped twice
ecstasy, and | don't know wha ee th the table in response to the
going on with you, but | think this Is rive and said, oYeah, OK. Do you??
what you need. !'m coming down.? Yeah, whenever. | mean, do you want
ee) et them? | kind of shoved it in
in the your face, but you are ki
Lina hung up. Noah fell back int you are kind of freak.
leather a owhat the fuck is god ae me out lately.? ~
on?? he thought. Blood cracked YAS) A ane spoke, Noah was distracted
swarmed through his body. nf e same knocking, This time he
He figured she had started talking to _" three of them.
Monique about him. He felt like he id d know, 'm sorry, My brain, dude. |
was losing control and wished it cou on't know what's wrong with
be just them, oIt was so much better me,? Noah said with slightly
when we didn't know any- diverted attention as he
body. It needs to be rapped three
this over the phone. Look, you
Lina with begging eyes.
ostop that,? she said smiling and
put her hand lightly over his fist. oI
know. ItTs OK. I've been totally
stressed out too.?
They kissed. ros
oDid you hear that? That knocking?
Noah asked, but could tell she was
ignoring him, patiently. oI love you.? He
let her eyes swallow him.
o1 love you,? she said. Her mouth faded
into sad lips. oLetTs take these now. OK??
Noah grabbed two sodas out of the fridge to
wash down the pills. They sat on the brown
leather couch and stared out at the sunset.
Noah went into the closet where the previous
tenants had left-a box full of earthquake sup-
plies. In the box, he found about a hundred
candles the size of small shampoo bottles.
Lina arranged them around the entire living
room and lit them.
owhen | was walking over here, "Lina said
while lighting a row of candles, oI met that
old man you were telling me about,?
oCarlos??
oYeah, that guy is crazy. Isn't he??
o| guess,? Noah replied. Noah wondered
what Carlos was doing wandering around
his neighborhood all the time. He
thought that maybe Carlos was planning
to steal his plants. oHe's just an old man.
You should hear him tell stories"a total
oyeah he is. He kept telling me | was an
angel. It was pretty weird, but | thanked him.?
oAn angel? Yeah, thatTs cool, | can see
that,? Noah said smiling.
An hour passed, and they still hadn't
felt a thing.
e free,? Noah though o .
4 4 . oa re) ¥
9 bud ins! e An vi a Linashe splashed the shards up onto his
g to feel it, Ne chest, pushing them down his body. Her
ugh. | hands found the point at which their bod-
was $0 refreshing to see NeVies connected and twisted the shards
had been 50 WO ~od aboulbetween them. She slammed her body down
e felt warm like a DFO on him, presnns him into the glass bed. Her
wer Te slowly th head fel forward vesting her dreadlocks fall
d stomac +A loosely above him, sen ing down a shower of glass
his spin nd touc into his mouth and eyes. oah slid his hands up ho T
egan to t ckle its way UP over her wet bell and breasts, black wit blood. throu to laugh aati use seem
4 out of his \ungs. His hands felt their way & o her neck pulling od gh the door, i e busted
down into his crotch an toward him with one, W Ne the other clutche? cay, hy The td the glow ¢
~nd theit Wa her chin, pushing away. ton air had
er fing ee hing aca They began to scream. Her knees swept the th re and had
al : 4 like shards up against Noah's sides and pressed e floor t Spread al
d up into his min them into his skin harder after each thrust. Up the lok e beams Ara nd 4
n engine: She grip ed at his chest smearing the blood ° SC . hal F) a ala
g fa g g ream a
t ski with hairs On end. over his skin as their teeth chattered. Their ed, » he
5 turn to Jell-O f ecrearns grew laudeT. Noah gazed peck oNy
ust low from the can les as it shone O her fe)
sO ool. sh Agua wet skin and glimmered from the encruste he could hone Oh m od,?
with, No? ee glass. The glowing light blurred as he sobbing, er choked voic,
esome Lina beg? came. His moans of pleasure turne ice) He looked t voice
p. oIt must be 5° cool to wor screams as he pushed up arching his back the bath 0 see her st
eh those kids: Rabb spindell and as he slammed down into im,let- Spittin KololaaWe lolol are anding at
? | for nooking you up ting her nails taste his heart. and 8. Her nose » Coughing and
is 00002 Lina turned on top of him and began ae she was st Was bleedi
with atts awesome ? ctide down his legs, away from him. yee like pn bed in uae
nf \t her fingernails Noah sprang UP and lunged on top of exp] O see eee ay looked as
pose Bee his ches like her, scattering glass and candles across a pioded Tare] Bebe toilet had |
ih ticks. He couldn't the floor. He pressed down on top of §alnst the wall thrown Lin
matcns $ ow he could her, feeling himself inside her. She con- ae Was spewin - Thick black le
ee i anything bad tinued to claw at the carpet and slid bsg | pipe h. Ani of the val
~ ut Monique or any- out from under him. Noah laid on the b om. She reach o the small
; eels Only love mat- ground, watching Lina crawl into the re Sudden] a Out to Noah
vl d oLina i; want you bathroom. He heard the sound of the nee on Me t an to run. She
to araw pie e. Draw shower running and decided to 8° 8 hard on her se mud, land-
anything you wan check on his plants. ae Ke) her feet neck She scram
dll get it tattooed ? oMy plants!? His thoughts were broken N against the nd flung her-
pre Noah,? she wept and sporadic, "| love them.? moan Saw the devi
holding his cheeks ub- His feet left a trail of dark footsteps as Hla gaia sing woh It was
ing eyes he made his way outside. The night Ith its a
we \ we so was cool against his stinging skin. He yoo you tou h h 4
Hiatt crouched down next to the plants and comma C er.?
ay fap H,? No felt one of the leaves between his oon a unged oone ae figu al
thunib and fingers: It felt so good, SO cked do ard, but wa
t WwW . was
iy vane bb gainst ic __ alive. He let gO and brought his face rom the loft ny a beam
Her lips felt igo tench. He down to kiss it and noticed his fingers cam pinned ine flamin
wn ash M a7 to find the had left a thick coating on the leaf. Bround. He slid con to the
looked in" ér teeth oNol ItTs ruined. Fuck,? he shouted nable to walk rom under it
only hal yas ae Noah noticed and cursed. He leaned back and cursed Way from Lina never looking
began ~y en chattering the sky and the moon. He could hear until she crow b
his OW an tO tear at hl \ ahves: 1P" the waves crashing in the distance and tore 7 £.cried out and
" down into d the sea. oShit,? he elped and Ww n
them. Sale reached curse T yelp rab al
Hy ants and pulle at him, hate. began to Cry. He was sorry for cursing a med hold ae
soon he Was inside her, thet Ovid the sea and the sky: He couldn't believe fap - pasied he ne wal
qailing like a flag! a alae" e a chwhat he had done. He only felt love. des rata ~" cele T ave | nue Ne
ed her High) Peed aw from his The tate cees me,? he cried at the OaNn could r protectio er,
S shouldeTs ard H and moon. oI'm going fucking crazy. The Hit ti B hter oF ene pa if r
sent t em : t ble, on +13 Pies ? a e. Ae) Ca a
seen Sans on 2 ng eo es scarecrow Iited Rune
He cou C abe in V iit 5
*; Jell-O skin, While Lina P os qzed at the moon, then his hands, data n, this idtaate 5 arm
stick fingers a i chars then at the bamboo cross in the gar- raised pC! blade in jeld
hem PU ah han ¢ as he thrustden. The bamboo stood naked behind me ope - The blad
stuc ith plood to e aca fromthe plants casting its thin shadow on Camed Nandt ce.
into her. she squirmed Ne had! sail 8 sli Own on Ij e point
peneath him, ipping their bodies the face of the house. oThe scarecrow,? Icing throughT
ound in the gis: the
a
oWhat have you done
* an could heat her screams:
NOF o? he seroamet. 7 iC)
! TINA!?
Lina tore away the pape
ed still on the round. Noah cra
way through the flames over er. Her
oni was 1 avy
(ome ater ove you.
happening- This can
cried, looking down
dropped
onto
er
face.
Holding her in his arms, he made
the floor to the doorway: The
lowed out above them as
He ran his hands along her cheeks
was $0 beautiful. He loved her.
Ahand reached down, grabbin
lar. Noah twisted around to
ing above him. The fireman slapPe
out of Noah's hand while hay flew
Noah's shirt a5 the fireman alee)
ferociously in
and fighters swarmin
pulled up with §
shouted, punching his
4 way maTs body 25 pleas
limp and gave Une" ostay away from het
his arms.
The red balloon ha
aroun
smiling at him, its smo
shining from the flames: As he
clutched onto het, he was $
to back and head.
round the ody put on a
stretcher and y wheeled out
of Noah's $! She was 89"
ve het.
There
Vee Lae MAU ele lclaMa@elealaalel a
Toya)
hters
rey i dale avey ts 8 ran into the s
t
plants, nar ik a into the ne The face
kitchen py palsy was left of ge ' crushing datas
shattered aro . The window above eM colel aa lale dala
hard earth, ss the mail box, waa computer lay
contrasting with rl es were immens a
in Noah's e blackness e, yellow and
Nee lamae, = were dead of the sky, All thin a
u S
against the a idalemvelt ate of heii g
«mags sei Aros ing firemen
elie) mails cf i matter reo ~S here
thereTs to remen plead 4 u??
re er val o many of them ed, oNaw, Chief,
yre helping.? and besides,
Noah peered throu
see a pac gh tdaTom tale elt
yard, pty least thirty dogs, ir Carte
front seat oe ieee while a police a on the
longer hear an a his rights. Noah seek In the
the th Ath A he wanted w Ti Te Mare
ith Lina. He knew sey to be in
was
gone. He
felt the rest leaving with h
er. Noah
shook inside the plai
sh MET e Ri aliat
i oe down, si
oo sticky hay fall in cl :
" " pulled away, As rei
oe soe sep in the darkness co
He could feel maith alga : is
Tarde (ome) mal ishi than tei
on hdlpengorpien. they could i is -
me eed feel himself losing Ai fey
his mind search . Risin " ; :
ipa oe him, looking t elder
igenage self inside, but co T chris ts
cot uldn't find the
ag he shouted.
deep into the
real time
pizza box. Vanessa snatches it with her right
hand, dropping her purse in the process. She
bends down to pick it up. Unfortunately, she
doesn't leave herself enough room, and"
crack"her forehead strikes the formica.
oAre you ok,? | ask and climb over the
counter. She wobbles back to her feet. The
red mark on her head promises to grow into
a real doozy of a knot.! put my arm around
her waist to steady her, noticing how well
she fills out her DinoTs shirt. Her eyes, still a
little dreamy, look into mine.
oWhatTs your name, cowboy?? she says
and then bursts out laughing. | guess that
means all of that seductiveness before was
just a game. ITm disappointed but tell her my
name anyway.
oYour Vanessa, | guess? | walk her over to
one of the seats in the lobby area. She seems
to have recovered, but | donTt want to take
any chances with her collapsing or something.
| sit her down in the chair, and, before | can
withdraw my hand, she grabs it and gives it
a quick squeeze.
She's sitting, ITm standing over her, and
my eye starts doing that thing again. | can
feel the little plastic sliver sliding around in
my eye. | blink, blink again, and then the lens
pops out. | look around wildly with my one
good eye. | find it in no time. The darn thing,
to my horror, has landed on her left breast.
My face changes to the red of a just-washed-
and-waxed fire truck.
Uncomfortable silence.
Vanessa looks down at the lens perched
just over her nametag. Her forehead wrinkles
itself in deep thought. (Well, as much as it
can wrinkle with that marble-sized knot
there.) She then looks up at me; the deci-
sionTs made. While she scoops up the lens
with her fingernail, Vanessa does not blush.
While she rises to her feet and pulls me in
closer, she does not giggle. While she cradles
my face in one hand and brings the lens
near it with the other, she says nothing.
She is now close to me, no more than
three inches away. | do my best to stand still.
The tops of my knees begin to sweat. Gently,
two fingers slide my eyelid open. Her eyes,
deep-forest green, seem impossibly large
now, like a closeup in a movie. | feel her breath
hot on my cheek. Everything goes blurry for
a second, and then itTs done. | close my eyes
to set the lens, open them again, and
Vanessa appears before me as clear and per-
fect as the Montana sky on a postcard. | take
in the landscape, hoping the sweat doesn't
show through my jeans.
Months later, we will be lying in bed in
the early morning.
ItTs now seven-thirty. The sun keeps us in
bed later each morning, later than we can
THE REBEL
really afford. She has a nine o'clock class. |
work at eight. Though, with the sun slanting
through the window, warming the covers,
and with the hard-wood floor surely frozen
beneath us, we figure we're justified in staying
in a little while longer. She holds my hand
under the blanket.
o| was thinking about that night again,?
she says. She doesnTt need to explain which
night. We cling to the memory of the night
we met. ItTs as if we feel that forgetting this
night would be forgetting the reason we're
still together.
| donTt know what to say, so | say what |
usually say, oKinda magical, wasn't it??
She rolls over to face me. Her free hand
rubs my belly. She likes to rub it and call it
her little Buddha. She says it gives her good
luck. | look at the ceiling.
oYou really thought | hit my head by acci-
dent, didnTt you? | did it on purpose.? | feel
the mattress shift as she slides closer. oSo
you'd rescue me.?
oWell, you think | dropped my contact by
accident.? We've had this conversation"or
one like it"many times before. Comfortable
as an old shoe. | glance over at her.oI can pop
this lens out at will,? | say and start blinking.
oNow, cover your mouth.?
oYuck.? She pretends disgust, then we
laugh together. She pivots on the bed, rolling
on her back, leaning her head on my chest. |
brush the black hair from her eyes. Now, we're
both staring at the ceiling.
o| suppose we should get out of bed
now,? | say. Her head rises and falls with my
chest, but other than that we don't move. |
slow down my breathing, taking in the air
slow and letting it out slower. ! want to grab
that phone and call in sick, so we can spend
the rest of the morning just like this. But her
head starts to feel heavy on my chest, and she
really does need to get to class.
| start to tell her that.
At that moment she leans forward and,
with her back to me, sighs. oYeah, | suppose
we should,? she says, hopping off her side of
the bed. She walks off to the bathroom, her
bare feet slapping softly on the wood floor. |
watch her disappear into the hall. My
breathing returns to normal.
| listen for the usual noises coming from
the bathroom. | hear nothing. No water running.
No rattling of the medicine cabinet. Twenty-
five seconds of silence. Finally, | hear the
shower curtain slide on its bar. For me to
hear that, she must have left the door open.
Grudgingly | push the covers off me. |
throw my leg over the side of the bed. | touch
the floor with my foot and jerk it back before
it freezes. The floor, a sheet of ice.
oOh, | forgot your change,? she says. I'm
stumped for a second or two, then | remember
the pizza. She walks back over to the purse,
still on the ground.
74
Momentum is a mysterious beast. | wonder
what killed it. | go over the usual suspects"
bad breath, nose hair, dandruff"while she
picks up the purse and starts going through
it. | start thinking about how much | should
tip her. ItTs mad, | know. A minute ago, we
were breathing on each other, and now ITm
wondering if pizza drivers expect the standard
fifteen percent tip. What is fifteen percent of
$5.30, anyway?
Then she interrupts my math with oHey,
weren't you supposed to have a coupon??
| had been practicing this line for a half
hour. oYeah, a couple of thous-? The words dry
up in my throat. Oh Jesus. | swing my head
around. ITve been staring dumbly at a lot of
things lately, and | do so again.
From the looks of things, the output tray
must have overflowed a while ago. A mass
of paper has piled itself there, so now, when
a flier shoots out of the machine, it hits this
pile and flies into the air " sort of a ski-jump
effect. oLooks like a fountain,? Vanessa says. It
really does. The plume of paper rises about
five feet in the air over the copier. The sheets
then drift down slowly, randomly, blown here
and there by vents. | bet no two of them sheets
landed in the same place. Vanessa then starts
to laugh: giggles at first, then some loud,
self-conscious-less, cackles.
| look at her. She mistakes it for a glare. ol...
can't... help... it,? she says, struggling through
her laughter. Even with tears streaming down
it, her face is somehow apologetic.
oNo, donTt worry about it. | donTt work
here,? | explain. The hilarity of it all hits me
then, and | join the revelry. Deep-down belly
laughs. My chest begins to hurt from a lack of
air, but | donTt care. | haven't laughed this hard
since high school. | fall into Vanessa as Vanessa
falls into me, and we become metaphors for
the fliers and tumble to the floor. A
nelson
because Mickey watched the kids while he
went out drinking in the evenings.
By the time Tina and Bobby got hungry
enough to come home, dinner was cold and
Peter was out at the bar down the street.
Tina had obviously been over at a friend's
house trying on make-up. She was wearing
so much eye shadow and liner she looked
like sheTd been punched in both eyes. Blush
angled in savage streaks across her cheek-
bones. Mickey laughed at her and she
stormed up to her room, mad. oDo your
homework,? he called after her. Then he
caught Bobby in the kitchen trying to mix
himself a whiskey and Coke.
oHey, wild man. What are you doing??
Mickey asked. Bobby started, not much, but
enough to spill Coke on the counter.
oI'm fixing a drink. | had a long day. My
Nerves are bad.?
oYou're only ten. ThatTs too young for bad
nerves. Wait till youTre 25 and bankrupt.?
What's bankrupt??
That's what happens when you take out
a big loan, like | did, to start a business. Then
f your business doesnTt make any money,
you can't pay back your loan. So you scream
iad and declare yourself bankrupt. Then
ne Dank leaves you alone, but they never
st you again, not for years. Anything big
amy to buy, like a car, you have to pay
oe for, which | donTt have, because | can't
kay full time job. Me, now, | understand
i bad nerves are.? He took the whiskey
9 ?,? away from Bobby and took a swig out
'S glass. oYou mix a fine drink, Bobby.?
ve had some fractions homework he
oon help with, so Mickey sat down at the
ea table with him. He worked the first
i ag Bobby, the next eight with him, and
ei the last ten by himself, while he
ae ?,?d the pigTs back with his sock feet
i ned st table. Then Mickey went upstairs
oa ?,? Now Tina was getting along with hers.
Could hear her talking on the phone, and
mh " to take slower, more careful steps
~an : ends of each stair where the carpet
ot a SO as not to make them creak.
me a for being so nosy, but Tina
; on ) checking up on. She hung up before
~ ss do any eavesdropping, so he went
teas Oor and knocked. oGo away,? she said.
the sing in anyway and sat on the edge of
Sea made bed. She was stretched across it,
. = Magazine pages on the floor.
cs p no wonder the girl was a delin-
Sei he bright pink walls of her room
ae ?,?d Mickey's eyes. The color was an
Pn that was impossible to ignore.
tt y who could get used to it would
ve to be a hardened character.
on stuffs bad for your skin,? Mickey
wack nd it makes you look silly if you go
Oard like that.? Her face was smudged.
oh 8ave him a contemptuous look, then
~nt back to looking at her magazine.
Yi ged wears makeup like this,? she
a she gave a nonchalant yawn, almost
Mt a pink wad of what looked like three
~o?,?s of Bubble Yum.
i pene date a girl who wore as much
a Ay got on. Any guy you get with your
oUp is dating you for the wrong reasons.?
Uke you're a dating expert.?
et the Hell's that supposed to mean?
oone plenty of dating.?
Not since Natalie.?
ih bankrupt. Women can smell a bad
record.?
Tina blew ab
bb
It back in. ubble, it popped, she sucked
nybody who dates you for your credit
rec : :
i. Ord is dating you for the wrong reasons,?
said.
o| m ~
Wish you'd put your smarts to use in
nelson
school instead of being a smartass,? Mickey
replied.
oWhy did you and Natalie break up??
Mickey sighed. oI wanted to stay here and
start a newspaper, she wanted to go to grad-
uate school in Florida.?
oNow that you donTt have the paper to
worry about, why donTt you go down there
after her??
oNo matter how smart you think you are,
you're still only thirteen. You just don't
understand the circumstances involved in
adult life. ItTs over. | canTt.?
oShe still writes you. You must just not
like her anymore.?
oDo your homework.?
Mickey went outside and stood on the
front steps to smoke a cigarette. It was the
kind of night weather forecasters were
thinking of when they came up with the
description ocold and clear.? The wind blew
down Mickey's collar, chilly as ice cubes. He
squinted against it, looking up at the stars.
He thought about how all the heat from the
planet was rushing up into that void.
oOh, Jesus,? he thought to himself. oHow
did | ever become such a loser?? He opted to
finish his smoke inside because the cold was
too brutal. The minute he stepped in, the pig
spotted him and started to squeal, mistak-
ing the cigarette in his hand for food. It
scampered out of the kitchen toward him,
and he had a sudden urge to kick it. Instead,
he put the cigarette out and sat on the sag-
ging couch with his head in his hands. The
pig grunted and went back to scouring the
kitchen floor for crumbs.
Mickey made the kids go to bed right
before he did at 11:00. At 2:37, when Peter's
crowd rolled in from the bar, he put in some
earplugs and tried to go back to sleep. He
couldnTt. He got out the last letter Natalie
had sent him. It had been forwarded from
his old address two weeks earlier. In it, she
went on and on about how warm and sunny
it was in Gainesville. She wondered how
Nelson was. She wanted to know how the
paper was doing. She asked if he was seeing
someone, and if that was why he refused to
write her back. Mickey started to have
another one of his crisis moments, when his
hands got sweaty and he got short of
breath. At such times he wanted to grab the
phone with shaking hands and call her.
Explain that he was lying to her the whole
time, that the paper had never done well,
and that he only got eight weekly issues out
before he went under. And all of those went
to print late. So much went wrong. He had-
n't broken down yet, though, and he wasn't
going to this time. He put the letter back in
the envelope, put that in a shoe box with her
other letters, and crawled back under the
quilts on the mattress in the corner.
In the morning Mickey got up and put on
a pair of dress pants and a blue oxford shirt.
75
He worked five hours a day for the City Daily
News doing telephone sales. He hated talk-
ing on the phone, he hated the people he
had to talk to who didnTt want to be bothered,
and he hated the days he made no sales
because everyone he called was at work. He
was not in the mood for what he found
downstairs. At first, he was puzzled. How
could so much mud have gotten into the
house? Then the smell hit him. Mickey had to
fight to keep from gagging. It was everywhere.
All up and down the hall, splashed across
the bathroom floor, and when he walked
into the living room he could see it was all
over the front of the couch. There was a trail
that ran from the kitchen, around the living
room, back to the bathroom, and around
again to the living room. More vomit than
he could believe could exist in one place at
the same time. What on Earth could have
happened? At first Mickey figured it had to
be the result of a chain reaction. One of
Peter's sorry-assed friends puked and the
rest were too drunk to get away before they
did. But it was a consistent brown color
everywhere, and it was all in a single trail...
Then Mickey found the note on the
counter. It was from Peter.
oAfraid someone must have given the ani-
mal too much beer. I'd let it dry out a bit
before you clean it up. When you get home,
scrape up what you can and scrub up the
rest. ThereTs a brush and rug cleaner under
the sink. You might need to get more.?
oGoddamnit,? said Mickey. He was torn
between the desire to kill Peter and the
desire to kill himself. He still didnTt under-
stand why there was so much vomit, either.
When he walked back to the bathroom,
though, he saw that the door to the spare
room was standing open. He went inside
and checked the closet. Sure enough, the
folding doors to the closet were open just
wide enough for something the size of a
small pig to get in. The forty pound bag of
dog food was ripped open and half of it was
gone. The pig was asleep next to it.
When Peter got home, Mickey was dizzy
from inhaling the fumes from four cans of
rug cleaner. He was also pissed.
o| guess it didnTt occur to you to clean this
goddamn mess yourself,? he said.
oI couldn't. | had to get to bed after every-
body left and get up at the crack of dawn. |
work for a living. Sorry.? Damn right you're
sorry, Mickey thought. A sorry sack of shit.
oThis kind of thing has got to stop,?
Mickey said.
oWell get rid of the bleeding thing, then,?
Peter answered.
oThis pig is more responsible than you
are, you alcoholic bastard! One of these days
Social Services is going to come after your
kids. What the Hell is wrong with you??
The pig was sitting in front of the TV, giving
Peter an accusing look, snout twitching.
PeterTs mouth hung slack for a moment.
oBollocks!? he roared, flecks of spit flying
from his mouth. oTheir mother left them for
me to raise on my own, sheTs the one who's
irresponsible! ITm doing the shagging best |
can"| work and pay bills and give all of you
a place to live. If you donTt like it, get out!? A
wave of whiskey breath reached Mickey
with this explosive reply. Either Peter had
been drinking behind the controls of the
crane he operated at work or he'd been
knocking back shots on the drive home. In
any case, he wasnTt in any state to be rea-
soned with. Mickey stormed upstairs.
He spread the day's paper out on the floor.
The only thing he found in the jobs section
that looked promising was something about
data entry for an insurance claims company.
He might be able to type fast enough for
that. It paid okay, but every time he called
the number for more information the line
was busy. Everybody else in town had the
same idea, apparently. There were few job
opportunities in the area, and he was too
broke to relocate. But he was sick to death
of Peter. If his folks weren't living in a retire-
ment home, he'd move in with them. That
was desperation.
The stairs started creaking loudly. That
meant Peter was on them. Either he was
feeling truly remorseful or he realized he
needed to be nice to Mickey because he
wanted to go out again. He didnTt come all
the way up the stairs, but stopped halfway
and called out.
oITm sorry, o he began. oItTs just that I've
had a long day. Next time | have the fellows
over I'll put the pig in my room. I'll leave you
some money on the counter downstairs,
alright? For the carpet cleaner you bought
and for cleaning up the mess.? Mickey didn't
respond. oBy the way,? Peter continued after
a few seconds, oCan | borrow your house
key? | lost mine at work today.? It was a
good thing Peter started his truck with a
screwdriver; he lost a set of keys every cou-
ple of weeks. When Mickey moved in three
months before, Peter had just had four extra
house keys made, one of which he gave to
Mickey, and now that was the only one left.
oHell, no. You'll lose that one, too,? Mickey
answered.
oHow am | supposed to get back into the
house tonight??
oLeave five more dollars downstairs and
I'll sleep on the couch and let you in when
you knock.? That made Peter grumble, but
not loud enough for Mickey to make out
what he was saying. Peter went back down
the stairs and yelled from the bottom: oYou'd
better not forget, you greedy little prat!? Not
long after that he slammed the front door
on his way out. It was cold in the upstairs
part of the house, so Mickey covered up with
the quilts on his mattress. He listened to the
heavy rain wash down the sides of the house.
THE REBEL
A couple of hours later, he woke when Billy
started kicking the mattress. Tina was standing
in the doorway.
o| tried to cook a pizza for dinner but |
burned it,? she explained. oWill you make us
something?? Mickey sat up and rubbed his
eyes. oSure,? he said.
The first thing he noticed when he went
downstairs was that there was no money on
the counter.
oWho took the money Peter left me?? He
demanded. Tina and Bobby answered him
with blank looks. oOkay,? he said. oI'm going
to make barbecued chicken with macaroni
and cheese. Maybe even biscuits. If that
money's not back on the counter by the
time | get done, me and the pig are going to
eat it all.?
Twenty-five dollars were waiting for him
by the time he pulled the chicken out of the
oven. He put the pig in the bathroom while
they ate. Afterwards, they sat in front of the
TV and watched a rerun of GilliganTs Island.
It was Friday, so Mickey didnTt make the kids
do homework. He was sitting with Bobby on
the couch and Tina was stretched out on the
floor propping her chin up with her elbows.
BobbyTs schoolbooks were in a stack on the
floor next to Mickey's feet. He pulled a frayed
spiral notebook out of the stack. It had a ball
point pen clipped to the front. Inside, he
found more doodles and crude drawings of
naked women than notes. He turned to the
middle, to a fresh page. It stared back at him.
Mickey took the pen off the cover and began
to write.
Dear Natalie,
| know itTs been a while since you've heard
from me.|'m not seeing anybody else. The
truth is, some days | have trouble believing
my lifeTs not over. | didnTt want you to know
76
what a failure | became almost the minute
you left. All those people that were so enthu-
siastic about working on my paper weren't so
enthusiastic when they actually had to do
something. | ended up doing most of the
work myself. | was exhausted. One of the
businesses | did advertising for wouldn't pay
up, and before | could sue | went bankrupt. |
did everything to keep it afloat. | had keg
party fund-raisers, borrowed money from my
parents"I guess you were right. | should have
waited to do it. | always loved you because
you were independent and capable of making
your own decisions, but | couldn't handle it.
When you came up with a new plan for the
future and an ambition, | felt like | had to
have one too. So instead of going to Florida
with you | insisted on staying here and ruining
my life. |. am sorry as Hell. | just thought it
was time to come clean and | wanted you to
know that | think you're going to be the
biggest opportunity | ever missed. You are very
special. 1 know you'll be successful. I'm sorry.
Love, Mickey
He stared at the page a long time after he
was finished.
oWhat are you doing?? asked Bobby, a
chocolate milk mustache across his upper lip.
oITm writing to Dear Abby. About you
guys,? he answered. Then he ripped out the
sheet of paper and crushed it into a ball
before he got up to let the pig out of the
bathroom.
The three of them lounged in front of the
TV until Tina went upstairs to begin her
daily three hour stint on the phone. Bobby
got out all his baseball cards and rearranged
them while he watched Starsky and Hutch
with Mickey. Then he made himself a sardine
and mustard sandwich before he disappeared
i.
a "_""""_" eee
upstairs himself. Mickey suspected the TV
was killing his brain cells"even the children
had enough sense to get away from it even-
tually, but he couldn't. It had him hypno-
tized. Around 11:00 he got his quilt and pil-
low from upstairs, stretched out on the
Couch, and pulled the pig up on the couch so
it could sleep next to his feet. It grunted con-
tentedly, made Mickey's feet nice and warm,
and soon he fell asleep watching MTV.
Peter started pounding on the door at 3:00,
Slobbering drunk. oSo damn hungry,? he said
as Mickey opened the door. A string of drool
made a wet line down the front of his shirt.
There's leftovers in the fridge, o Mickey
yawned. Then he put the pig back on the
i and gathered up his quilt and pillow.
eter collapsed on the couch. The TV was still
On. Mickey didnTt bother to turn it off before
he went back upstairs. It was very cold in his
~00m, but he pulled the quilt over his head
and managed to get warm enough to doze
Off again.
He woke up a little while later with a
ga great. Now ITm getting sick,? he
ren he heard the pig squealing
ogad Peter was probably eating a
Ashe potato chips or something. The pig
be inued to squeal, which was unusual
~Cause Peter usually fed it to keep it quiet.
nd cough got worse. Finally, he recon-
"he imself to the fact that he wasn't getting
~one to sleep any time soon. He uncovered
nti ?,?ad, reached out and turned on the
Pp. The room was filled with a smoky
oe he opened his door, more smoke
car in. Mickey couldn't see the bottom
ne ol Stairs for it. BobbyTs room was next
a Is at the top of the stairs, and thatTs
"ay Mickey went first. He shook Bobby
~afd, yelled his name, and he woke up
"ght away.
a house is on fire. We'll get Tina and
~ie we can make it out,? Mickey said as
aimly as he could manage.
Phe reacted by saying oShit.? He jumped
o bed and latched onto Mickey's arm.
Nene hard to get up either, but she
tie ed to grab some clothes and tapes to
x wt her. Mickey grabbed and dragged
ine mt the stairs. They held their hands
ii eir noses and mouths, but the smoke
ir " them choke. Mickey's eyes stung
4 ?,? could feel them watering so badly
os s streamed down his face. It was hard to
ne Tina bumped into a chair as they
oa their way through the living room.
the o4 let go of Tina and Bobby, unlocked
ee a with frantic hands, jerked it open,
to e three of them fell into the icy wind
ie i. ougping: oGet one of the neighbors
con Call gn. ITve got to get Peter.? Mickey's
blin was hoarse. Tina was already stum-
8 Out of the yard.
Bobby took off his T-shirt and Mickey held
at over his mouth and nose as he went
nelson
back in. He felt around for the couch, found
it, but didnTt find Peter. He realized he didn't
hear the pig squealing anymore and he
went cold all over. Where would a pig go in
this kind of situation? Mickey dropped to his
knees; he waved his arms frantically under
the couch. He connected with something,
dragged it out"Goddamnit, he could
already tell by the shape it was an old deflat-
ed football of Bobby's. He heard a grunt,
turned to squint through the smoke, and
saw the pig running out the open door.
Mickey found Peter sitting in the rocking
chair next to the TV. He called his name and
slapped him"hard too, from the shoulder"
but he wouldnTt wake up. Mickey thought of
all those times heTd dreamed of someday
slapping Peter like this. He did it a couple of
more times before he resorted to dragging
Peter out of the chair and across the floor.
Jesus, he was heavy. He started to wake up
as Mickey hauled him across the weather
stripping in the doorway. His pants were
halfway down his fat ass at that point, and
neighbors were beginning to collect in the
yard in night clothes and overcoats.
When the firemen arrived, they gave
everybody, including the pig, oxygen and
blankets to wrap up in. Mickey was starting
to feel self conscious standing on the lawn
in his thermal underwear bottoms and
nothing else. The firemen went inside,
messed around with a fire extinguisher for
a few minutes, and came out again. They
didnTt get the hoses off the truck. It didn't
look like they planned on going back inside.
it was over. One of them went to talk to
Peter, who was stretched out in front of the
birdbath. Tina and Bobby stood next to
Mickey, barefoot in the grass. He was proud
of them. They looked upset, but neither of
them was crying.
oWhat? oWhat?? Peter began yelling.
Another one of the firemen walked up to
Mickey. oHas he been drinking?? he asked.
oIsn't is obvious? Why??
oWell, the fire originated in the kitchen.
ThereTs not really much more than smoke
damage. Looks like somebody was frying up
some chicken and forgot about it.?
oYOU STUPID BASTARD!? Mickey shouted. He
pushed past the fireman on his way to Peter,
who was now sitting up. o| TOLD YOU THERE
WERE LEFTOVERS IN THE REFRIGERATOR!?
oItTs your fault anyway, you ungrateful git!
You should have made me something to eat
when | came in! You could see | was in no
condition to do anything for myself""
Mickey cut him off by trying to kick him. The
fireman got in his way.
Later on, he didnTt remember storming
into the smoky house and coughing violent-
ly as he stripped the bed of the sheets he
owned and crammed those on top of his
clothes in a box. On top of that he threw
five paperbacks, twelve CDTs and his
77
portable player and headset. Last went the
shoebox with NatalieTs letters and other
important papers. He carried all of that stuff
down the stairs and out the door, noticing
that the crowd was beginning to dissipate.
He put the box in the passenger seat of his
car. Then he found the pants he had been
wearing, feeling for them under the sheets
and other things. He pulled those out and
put them on, fishing his keys out of his
pocket. Then he thought to check his wal-
let. He had fifty dollars in food stamps and
thirty in cash.
The firemen were also getting ready to
leave. One was still on the lawn talking to
Peter. Tina and Bobby were sitting in one of
the fire trucks. They were red eyed and wore
worried expressions. oAre you leaving??
Bobby asked. The pig was next to him on the
seat, struggling to get away.
oI'm afraid so. ITm sorry. But | will be back.?
oWhere are you going?? Tina wanted to
know.
o| don't have any idea,? Mickey felt a shiv-
er run up his spine as he realized this. oBut
I'm going to call in a few days after | get
something worked out wherever it is | end
up. | want you guys to know where | am. If
Social Services turns up here one day, you
guys will have someplace else to go. |
promise.? He hugged them, then stood back
and took the pig from BobbyTs arms. Now he
was starting to get teary. Then he backed
away, and turned toward his car. oMickey,
wait!? Tina yelled. She climbed over Bobby
and jumped out of the truck. Her blanket
caught on the door and fell from her shoul-
ders. Her skinny legs were almost blue from
the cold. oTake this,? she said, and pulled two
twenties out of her shorts pocket. He took it.
olll pay you back as soon as | can,? he said
at the same time thinking he should be asking
where she got the money in the first place.
oYou be good.?
Once he was out on the highway he
wished he'd thought to put on his shoes and
a shirt. The heater didnTt work very well. He
was driving aimlessly, but he noticed the
Ninety-five south exit coming up. MickeyTs
breath began to come short and his hands
were getting the steering wheel slick.
Another crisis moment. Ninety-five south
went to Florida. He gripped the steering
wheel. No. Yes. No. At the last minute he
jerked the wheel and his tires screamed as
he turned onto the exit. The pig squealed as
it was thrown across the floor in front of the
passenger seat. Mickey breathed deeply for a
few minutes. Okay. Maybe this was all for
the best. It wasnTt the first chance he'd
taken, and swallowing a little pride was better
than dealing with Peter. She was a nice girl.
lf she wouldn't take him back, she would
give him place to stay until he could find a
new beginning for himself. She'd be glad to
see the pig, anyway. A
THE REBEL
g en der specifi C issues we fight for? Why do you think that so
many of the young students are conservative,
if thatTs what they really are? Or are they just
repeating what they hear from the media?
How has this
narrative been distorted? Who has told or
written the ostory of feminism??
Do you think that this other perspec-
tive or, perhaps some would call it a rebellion
against the earlier generation of feminists,
contributes to the momentum of the feminist
movement"keeps it alive?
What about other political
and social questions"issues that may not be
entirely focused on feminist concerns?
Why do think that so many
young college women donTt want to call
themselves feminists even though they
believe and support many of the feminist
78
turning back the clock on those issues that
affect individuals. When it comes specifically
to womenTs issues there are theoretical,
general, systemic reasons for the oppression
of women, but the oppression comes down
as experienced woman by woman. So itTs
one of the reasons why we can't wait for
certain large revolutionary changes to hap-
pen because individual women are raped,
battered, made pregnant when they cannot
have a child. Reforms have to take place.
Similarly, individual women find that their
lives cannot be lived as they imagined that
they could be without some kind of more
general systemic change. Is there a specific
time that you remember when you first real-
ized you were a feminist? \\y sister-in-law
who is my age has known me since we were
both teenagers. | was telling her an anec-
dote recently and | said, oWell, of course, this
was before | was a feminist.? She looked at
me and said; oWhat do you mean? You were
always a feminist.? So there was a level on
which | always assumed that there was a
great injustice done to women and that to
the extent that | could manage my own life
so as not to perpetuate that injustice, or not
have the worst aspects of it redound upon
me, | was a feminist. But there was no orga-
nized womenTs liberation movement for the
first ten years of my adult life"say my sex-
ually active life. Think of that: | was an adult
for ten years when there was no movement!
The difference was coming to understand, in
common with a number of my contempo-
raries, that the oppression of women was
systemic, that it was political, and that it
had to be addressed on the social as well as
the personal level. [This interview took place
on June 12, 1995. | would like to thank
Professors Karen Baldwin and Ernest
Marshall for their generous hospitality in
the use of their home for this interview, as
well as their company and food beforehand.
(Denise Sutton received her MasterTs degree
in English from ECU and is presently work-
ing toward her Doctorate in WomenTs
Studies in Boston.)] 4
friday night
him. Even Tom looks up from the LV. heTs
working on, staring at the open mouth hoard-
ing air. oHere it comes,? he mutters, looking
back down at his work.
The guy shuts his eyes, hard, balling them
up into two little slits. oIl wanna be Lou Reed!?
he yells, suddenly.
Tom looks up at me"!Tm paralyzed, can't
even shrug"and he jabs the LV. into the
guy's arm.
o| wanna be Lou Reed! | wanna be Lou Reed,?
The guy yells again. o| wanna be Lou Reed! |
wanna be Lou Reed! | wanna be Lou Reed!?
oShut up,? Tom mumbles at him, taping
the needle down to his left arm, but the guy
keeps yelling.
The more hoarse his voice gets, the higher
it gets, until heTs just squeaking it out: oI
wanna be Lou Reed! | wannabe Lou Reed!
lwannabe LouReed! IlwannabeLouReed!?
Then just his lips are moving, and | imagine
that only dogs can hear him. Finally, not even
his lips are moving.
| drop the hypodermic, move back against
the wall of the ambulance. | canTt get far
enough from the body; itTs as though we're
both magnets with the same polarity.
oWhat the hell was that all about??
DougTs voice is scratchy over the tiny intercom
speaker, as though heTs speaking through a
Brillo pad.
oWho knows?? Tom shrugs his shoulders
even though Doug canTt see him. He pulls
the tape off the guyTs arm. oYou can slow
down, Doug, heTs gone.?
oMaybe it was a friend or something.? My
voice is a little too high, and | swallow.
oWhat??
oMaybe it was a friend he really admired,
and he really wanted to be like him.?
| feel the ambulance slow down under my
feet, and | slide down onto one of the two
hard little seats against the side of the
ambulance. My sigh gets caught, and comes
out in four different parts.
Tom unstraps the guy and struggles with
rolling him over. The guy must weigh about
180, and TomTs just a little guy.
oHey, you wanna give me a hand here??
What | wanna do is lay down, but the one
bedTs already taken. oI can't.?
oWhat?? He gets the guy over far enough
to get his wallet out.
o| can't do it. | canTt touch him.?
Tom finds the driver's license and pulls it
out. oDaniel, just what the hell is wrong
with you, anyway??
o| donTt know,? | squeak, looking down. |
concentrate on the end of my boot, black
and scuffed. That way, my eyes donTt leak. oI
donTt know, Tom. This has never happened
to me before. Haven't you ever had this job,
all of this, just drive at-?
oShit!? Tom throws the wallet down on the
stretcher, right beside the pair of loose jeans,
and leans over the guyTs punctured back. oA
fucking organ donor!?
| sigh, and this time | get it all the way out.
oAll right, Tom, all right. I'll get the ice packs.?
And why do people have to die in the
ambulance ITm working? It seems like thatTs
all | can remember ever happening. Sure, we
get the calls where the people are already
dead when we get there or die after we get
them to the hospital, but the ones | remem-
ber when | go home at dawn are the ones
where they still got a piece of their skull back
on the highway and | have to use gauze to
scoop their damn brain back in their head
79
while they're still screaming and yelling at me.
See, when you're that close to gone you
won't pass out, and no matter how much
sedative | use, you're not going under because
your whole nervous system's fighting it, trying
to float on the surface of consciousness.
And you know, people do some pretty
weird things when they know itTs coming.
I've had old men curse God, and Doug once
had a housewife try to strangle him. TomTs
got a scar on his temple where some grand-
mother-type tried to take his left ear off.
Our next dispatch is pretty routine, a
body run. They always call an ambulance
anytime thereTs a body ... | donTt know why.
Just in case, | guess.
oIs every single fucking dispatch we get
tonight going to be a goddamn death call??
Tom leans beside me, his body covering the
n and b in oMecklenburg County Emergency
Medical Services.?
The three of us are smoking cigarettes in
the driveway of a three-story Victorian in
East Charlotte. A nice house, swimming pool
and everything. We can't leave until the
body does. Not because of regulation, but
because the coroner has us blocked in.
oSeems that way, don't it?? Doug flips
his cigarette onto the lawn, reaches for
another one.
| say: o| hope not.?
She was a single mother of three. She
locked herself in her garage and put an old
Joni Mitchell tape in her SaabTs tape-dectk ...
one of her kids found her when he came
back from the prom. ItTs that time of the
year, prom time. HeTs on the porch, a fat sev-
enteen year-old in a deconstructed tuxedo,
crying with two little girls around a shush-
ing neighbor. His sisters, | guess. A handful
of Charlotte police roam aimlessly around
the yard, occasionally going into the garage.
Sometimes they'll look over at us, and we all
three raise a hand.
oHey, Daniel, you doing all right?? Doug
asks the question out of the corner of his
mouth, because guys never ask each other
those kind of things face to face.
oYeah, fine.? | drop my cigarette to the
asphalt, crush it out. oJust, you know, think-
ing about Becky.?
oShit, man, don't let her do that to you.?
Tom shakes his head. oI never let a woman
screw me up.?
DougTs about to say something"| can
tell"when a gray, tired face peeks out of
the garage. oYou guys mind giving mea
hand with the body??
oShe a big one?? Tom laughs, not fifty feet
from the kids.
A weary smile. oToo big to get on the
stretcher by myself.?
| feel Doug and Tom both look at me. oYou
guys go on,T | say.
Tom walks on, shaking his head. Doug
pats me on the shoulder, and | hear him say,
oIt happens.?
They're not gone long, but | get a little
time to myself. | watch two of the police run
to a patrol car and pull out, lights on but no
siren. Only six cops left, and | smoke another
cigarette.
| think about a dream | had earlier, and |
wonder if Becky's up yet. ItTs four, and she
has to be at Wal-Mart at six to open up the
Eatery. | decide she isnTt up, and besides, it
would be rude to use the familyTs phone. I'll
call her in an hour, when Hardee's opens and
we stop for biscuits.
| think about something | learned in
paramedic training, and the tears come again,
though | donTt know what to do with them.
When you die from carbon monoxide poi-
soning, | remember, you turn cherry red, the
color of an Atomic Jawbreaker. | don't sob,
and after a little rubbing the tears learn to
stay away.
A news van pulls up to the corner"
Channel 9, WJDF Action News"and | wonder
what they'll broadcast on the six a.m. news
about this, if they'll give their still groggy
viewers all the details over their breakfasts.
Will they tell them what color the Saab was,
or the year model? Will they mention the Joni
Mitchell tape? If they do, will some dedicated
parent's group try to ban her albums?
By then the body's been loaded up, and Tom
and Doug stand before me again. My face feels
dry, but | donTt dare check it in front of them.
oFucking red like a beet.?
o| know,? | force out, trying to laugh.
oBurst capillaries under the skin,? Doug
mutters.
Tom spies a blonde professional thing
THE REBEL
crawling out of the news van, looking improb-
ably awake and alert. oGoddamn, look at that
little piece,? he whispers through two
clenched teeth.
| recognize her from the news, doing live
remotes in that pretty, sexless way female
newscasters have. | donTt remember her name,
if | even knew it. oThink you got a chance, Tom??
oHell, anyone with eleven inches always
got a chance...?
One of the cops, a younger guy, comes up
all at once, quick enough to laugh along with
Tom. We stare at him.
oYou boys having a good night?? he asks,
looking off to the side like heTs afraid some-
one might overhear us. His nametag says
Officer Watts.
oJust fine, if it weren't for all these death
calls.? | put my cigarettes back in the plastic
bag.
Now he turns to us, and | recognize him
from an earlier call. oYeah, tell me about it.
That little boy make it??
oNo, he died in transit,? Doug says for me,
watching Tom watch the newscaster adjust
her skirt.
Watts just shakes his head. oDamn shame.?
Now were all quiet, all of us watching
two of the cops amble over to the news van.
oGood morning, gentlemen,? | hear the
blonde say in professional soprano.
Watts looks down at the ground. oDamn,
I'm tired.?
Now | know what this is about. oTell me
about it.?
oMe and some of the boys were thinking
about waking up a little. You guys wanna
join us??
Tom and Doug won't answer; for some
reason, this decision rests on me.| know
theyT~d love to do a couple of lines and, hell,
so would | but tonight ... tonight's different.
oNo, I'm pretty awake as it is. You guys
want to?? | turn to Tom and Doug. Tom
laughs at something, shakes his head. oNot
tonight. | gotta watch myself.?
oYeah, same here.? Doug takes off his glass-
es and blows something off the right lens.
A shrug from Watts. More for him, | guess.
oNo problem. Just thought I'd offer, you know??
| look up at him, but he won't meet my
eyes. HeTs young, twenty-two tops. For him the
force must be an extension of high school,
only this time you get to shoot the bullies.
oTell you what, if you guys need a place to wake
up, you can use the back of the ambulance.?
o| appreciate it. You guys gonna be here a
while??
Doug slips his glasses back on. oLong
enough.?
The two cops that had been talking to the
newscasters walk back over. Watts looks
around. oEverything's cool,? he says, oWhere's
Bill??
Across the lawn, impossibly distant, | watch
the blonde as her cameraman replaces the
80
bulb on the light of his camera. oThis is shit |
donTt need,? | hear her say, and | donTt think
anyone else caught it.
| had a thousand dreams today; so many
that, upon waking at sunset, | had to sort
out which were real and which were, well,
just dreams. They weren't nightmares, really;
the dreams were pretty docile on the whole,
if overwhelming. It was as if my subconscious
just got cable, and my imagination stayed up
all night channel-surfing.
Sitting up in my bed, | watched the sky turn
the color of a bruise while | tried to remem-
ber all of them.
| remembered having a vivid dream that
Tom Petty died, and my friends attempted to
hide the news from me because in my dream
they thought it would tear me up inside.
| also dreamed that | woke up just long
enough to look out my window and see an
older man resting on my heat pump, leaning
his broad back against the blue aluminum
siding of my house. He had a large swollen
stomach and was sweating profusely, dab-
bing at his forehead with a fistful of paper
towels, while wearing the sort of traditional
German outfit you see in restaurants and
Octoberfests.
| dreamed that Danny was sick while | was
across town in a broken-down ambulance,
and | dreamed that my neighbor, an older guy
who sells tires at the Sears in the Eastland
Mall, was wearing a white tie that read, in
black thread: EverythingTs Going To Be All Right
Once We Get Rid Of Bad Elements.
| had a dream that | heard Becky talking
to someone, and when | got out of bed this
evening, she claimed that | had yelled for her
in my sleep and groggily asked who she was
speaking to.
And there was the dream that | was at my
fatherTs family reunion, and while hitting on
a sister-in-law that my subconscious had
transformed from a sulking, chubby girl into
an irresistibly fertile vision, | looked in the
corner of the picnic shelter and saw my
younger brother Phil, dead nearly a decade
now from leukemia at the age of fourteen.
My sleeping imagination had somehow aged
him, and he sat forward in his folding chair,
too large and too quiet to be the Phil | knew,
nursing a Samuel Adams. He didnTt look up
at me, but he seemed comfortable"if not
entirely impressed"with his reincarnation.
She screams when Tom and Doug get her
out of the car, and she screams when they get
her strapped to the stretcher, and sheTs still
screaming once we pull out onto Providence,
headed toward Charlotte Memorial.
oJesus Christ,? Tom whispers, oJesus H.
Fucking Christ.?
Her whole left sideTs torn up pretty bad;
she'll lose that arm, easy. She might have been
coming back from some after-prom affair"
there was a big dress in the back seat"
when she ran the red light at the intersec-
tion of Providence and Sharon Amity in her
little blue Mustang and some guy in a Buick
hit her car on the driver's door going about
fifty miles per hour.
oWish she'd shut the fuck up!? Tom yells
over her screaming. Her right hand is tight
across her chest, gripping her mangled left
shoulder.
oGet her sedated!? | shriek back at him,
ripping open a pocket and pulling out a roll
of gauze.
Tom blindly reaches for a hypodermic.
oGoddamn ...?
SheTs a real sweater girl: you know, about
eighteen and probably plays lacrosse and
will end up joining a sorority in the fall. The
type that has friends who'll spray-paint her
name on the road where the accident hap-
pened, put little crosses of flowers by the
side of the road.
But itTs spring, so she isnTt wearing a
sweater, just this tight little T-shirt and a
short plaid skirt ... you know the look, where
the stockings come right up to just below
the hem, so there are just these two ribbons
of flesh right between skirt and stocking.
| want to help her, and | want to calm her
down, but | just stand there, gauze in a
frozen hand, watching her scream. By now
TomTs standing over her howling body, hold-
ing the tranquilizer. oDaniel, ITm gonna have
to unstrap her to get that right arm free.?
His voice isnTt steady.
oDo it,? | say, dumbly putting the gauze on
the stretcher, right beside her skirt.
| watch her feet squirm, one shiny black
shoe missing, as Tom unhooks the first of
two straps, the one across her legs. | donTt
know why he unfastens that one at all"we
donTt need to get at her legs"but he did,
anyway.
Her voice isnTt even hoarse, still shrieking,
and when he releases the straps on her
arms, she starts rolling back and forth on the
stretcher.
oShit,? | hear Tom mutter. He grabs for her,
and she goes crazy.
She starts flopping all over, just screech-
ing, throwing her legs and right arm around,
hopping and shit. BloodTs flying all over the
place, and somewhere | get the strength to
run to the head of the stretcher, and place
my hands right above her shoulders, still not
touching her.| stare at the pale, exposed
clavicle. All | want is to be able to hold her
down, let Tom help her, but | canTt. And |
don't know why.
Tom's trying to get the straps back on her.
oShut up, bitch!? heTs yelling, almost scared,
oShut the fuck up!? But sheTs still screaming,
not words, not even notes, just that scream
I've never heard anywhere but in the back of
ambulances. Her right arm swings up wildly,
and Tom turns away from it quickly.
oWhat's going on back there?? Doug asks
friday night
from the wall, but | canTt answer.
oGoddamn fucking cunt just fucking hit
me.? TomTs face is red, and heTs breathing too
hard. He squeezes all the sedative out the
end of the needle, and it makes a puddle at
his feet. He lets the straps dangle again.
The girl plants her feet right on the
stretcher, so hard ITm afraid it might tip over,
and pushes her hips up, arches her back up,
too. Looking upside down at me, her dilated
pupils dart like minnows across my face. Her
skirt gets bunched up around her waist (|
guess | should tell you she has on these
pearl white panties, the kind that are all
shiny and look like theyTre laminated) and
she plunges her right hand under the elastic
waistband of her panties, then crashes down
onto the stretcher. Her eyes aren't moving
anymore.
Tom drops the hypodermic and moves
towards the stretcher, almost chuckling.
oWill you look at that ...?
oDonTt say it,? | warn in a whisper, pushing
between him and the stretcher. | stare at her
for a second, take a breath.
Reaching out, | gently touch her wrist,
right beside the loose tennis bracelet. Slowly
| pull her hand out from beneath her under-
wear and lay it beside her skirt.
| turn back to Tom, standing beside me
with a red face and a swollen lip. oFill out the
report,? | say to him, teeth together. oPut
down that she died on impact.? A
after sandra
beautiful friends and have a good laugh
about her one date with the aesthetically
challenged. When | found the tickets, | looked
up, and she was staring at the books on my
shelf, three unpolished fingernails resting on
the picture. She never mentioned it.
Katrina met me in the lobby, her long
fingers gripping the videotape of Fire On
The Amazon, wearing one of my old Sonic
Youth shirts.
Later, we lay in bed, in our mouths the dull
taste of two wasted hours and a bad ecolog-
ical thriller.
oAre you happy?? she asked me, all soft
and dreamy.
oOf course. My play's about to go up, ITm
writing every day, I've got you ... everythingTs
great.?
oNo, | mean, are you happy,? she tapped
me on the chest, oright here.?
oUhm ... yeah, ITm happy. In a song, Billie
Holiday said-?
o| don't care what Billie Holiday said.? It
was the gentlest interruption ever given me.
o| want to know what you say.?
oITm happy. | mean it.?
oSometimes you don't act like youTre that
happy. | get worried about you.?
oWell, thereTs a big difference between
being happy and being content.?
She furrowed her perfect eyebrows, and |
smiled.
oIf you're content, you're ready to stay
right where you are. You donTt want to
change, donTt want to move forward. You're
ready to rest on your laurels. Not me. ITm still
hungry. But, then again, ITm pretty happy.?
(Actually, now that | look at that spring, all
| remember feeling was an overwhelming
sense of ... something. This is common for
me, not being able to tell if ITm, say, happy or
miserable. Maybe | just hate equilibrium.)
oWhat if | lose it?? | looked up over her
shoulder, at the ceiling. oWhat if | donTt make
it??
oHey ...? She touched my face, made me
look at her. oHey. Who's going to make it in
your place, then? All you ever do is write. |
donTt know any artist who works as hard as
you. Most of them are too busy hanging out
at the coffeehouse trying to pick up fresh-
men by talking about Kerouac or whatever. |
can't imagine anyone working harder.?
| turn my head away from her, bury my
hand in her hair. oHave you seen the posters
yet??
oYes! Rich showed me one today. They
look great.?
oCan you believe the schoolTs footing the
bill for them??
oHoney,? she strained up and kissed my
neck, oYou know you're going to succeed in
spite of this school, not because of it.? We said
THE REBEL
that a lot to each other, that spring. | guess it
was the closest thing we had to oour song.?
oNot if | donTt get to work.? | slowly swung
my legs off the bed, leaving Katrina behind.
oDon't go ... | need you here for a while.?
| struggled to get my pants on without
standing up. oItTs midnight, | have at least
two more hours worth of work on the script
tonight, and a class at eight.?
oPlease ...? Katrina sprawled out on the bed,
her hair making a Rorschach test on her white
comforter. | tried to make out an image.
o| really canTt stay, Trina.? | buttoned my
fly and zipped up.
oYou're going to wish you'd stayed tonight
when this summer rolls around.?
Katrina was going to spend the summer
in LA. with her gay uncle Charlie, where
she'd be reading for small parts that she
knew she wouldn't get, and looking behind
her back on every sidewalk and in every
store, hoping to see that bright shining face
that would smile that huge smile when she
sees her ECU shirt.) The more improbable
the trip grew, the more fervently she
believed in it.
KatrinaTs not from L.A. or New York or any-
thing. SheTs just from the suburbs of
Fayetteville, like most of us are ... me from
Pfafftown, outside of Winston-Salem, Rich
from a housing development on the outskirts
of Greensboro, Dana from Gastonia, just west
of Charlotte. | could go on and on. There were
no skyscrapers or crime or dirtiness in our
pasts, just football games, entire weekends
spent in herds at the malls, and hours, even
days, driving the same neverending circles
around town.
oYou're probably right,? | said, because she
probably was.
Walking back from KatrinaTs room | had
another one: Sandra calling me in the mid-
dle of the night, in tears. Her newest
boyfriendTs dumped her, and she needs
someone to talk to.
oI'll be there as soon as | can,? | say, fum-
bling for my glasses in the dark.
After | hang up, | throw on my pants, a T-
shirt, and a pair of Nikes, ignoring my socks
and underwear. My girlfriend Rebecca
(Gayheart, of Noxzema and Earth 2 fame)
rolls over in bed, but doesnTt wake up. | kiss
her broad forehead and drive to Sandra in
my little red convertible, the streetlights on
the windshield obscuring my face.
This part of the scene is sharp, clear. Why?
It took me a second to realize that what |
was seeing in my mind was an excerpt from
, o
SpringsteenTs oITm On Fire? video.
That night | had a dream about Buddha
appearing to me in a diner, all scruffy, wear-
ing last yearTs Banana Republic line and little
round glasses.
oAndy, you gotta stop this shit.?
oWhat shit, sir?? | asked.
He took a deep sip of his coffee. oThat
whole meat-eating shit. You gotta make
yourself pure. No more meat, no more dairy
products. Drink nothing but water.?
oForever?? | set my fork down.
oNo, no. For a month. A period of cleansing.?
| turned up a corner of my mouth. oWell ...
Okay.?
oAnd also, uhm, no sex. Sorry.?
oWhat??
oYou're having too much sex... itTs deplet-
ing your orgasm store.?
oMy ... orgasm store.?
oRight.? He shrugged at me, as if he were
saying Play Along. oOnce you deplete the
celestial sphere dedicated to storing your
allotted amounts of orgasms ... thatTs it.?
oITm running out?? This worried me.
oNo, you're just using them up too quickly.
Take a month off.? The Buddha turned his
fingers towards himself, like a used-car
salesman doing the good-guy routine. oTrust
me on this one.?
The next morning | told Katrina about it
over breakfast at Mendenhall, and she
looked down at my mostly bare plate. oSo let
me get this straight: you had a dream that
you and Siddhartha Gautama shared coffee
at Waffle House and therefore you're eating
toast and an orange for breakfast??
| was embarrassed, and | looked down at
the table, smiling. oI guess so, yeah.?
oHow about the sex? You gonna stop
doing that, too??
o| donTt think so. | donTt know.?
She sat back in her chair, smiling. oYou
don't know.?
| didnTt say anything, and she laughed.
oYou're so funny, sometimes.?
| ate the last of my toast, and went to the
front of the dining hall to get a few more
pieces. When | got back to the table, Katrina
pointed out an article in that dayTs East
Carolinian announcing that some vice-presi-
dent of a local company was going to be
commencement speaker that year, finally
killing the wild unspoken hope that we all
held close"no matter how ludicrous"that
it was going to be Sandra.
We didnTt talk about that, but instead
Katrina showed me another article, this one
reporting that our beloved invisible chancel-
lor got caught looking for a job elsewhere.
oAbandon ship,? Katrina called, osheTs
going down!?
Earlier in the year, before | started dating
Katrina, While You Were Sleeping had a sneak
preview at ECU. This was right after Christmas
break and a good six months before it came
out in the theater. We all knew that it had
been done by AT&T to hawk their ACUS ser-
vice to the students, but we in the theater
department liked to imagine that Sandra had
set it up just for us, her roots. We pictured her
? ") ete RW 6 ee we
behind a desk, gripping a pencil between her
perfect teeth, on a conference call to the head
of her studio and the On-Campus Services
Director for AT&T.
I'd gone to see the movie with Rich"
whod just then been assigned to my play by
the department's inner Star Chamber"and
Dana. Walking in, | had one of my platonic
fantasies about Sandra. | saw the two of us
dressed exquisitely and going to the pre-
miere of While You Were Sleeping together.
We smiled into the blinding flashbulbs, and
a reporter asked if this meant we were see-
ing each other.
Sandra looked over at me as | adjusted my
tuxTs bowtie. oWhy in the world would we
put up with all the hassles of dating when
we can be best friends instead??
On Thursday Rich called an early rehearsal
so that afterwards we can all run over to
the house he shares with his girlfriend Dana
to watch the MTV Movie Awards (Sandra
was up for, like, fifteen of them). The awards
show came on at eight, but we had to put up
with an hour of pre-show crap from Kurt
and Tabitha.
We kill the time by marveling at DanaTs
enviable Sandra collection: Demolition Man
in two mediums (a videotape and a shrink-
wrapped LaserDisc copy); three different
copies of Speed (a bootleg with Japanese
subtitles, the official release, and a promo-
tional copy sent to video stores with inter-
views of the stars); Love Potion No. 9; Who
Shot Patakango?; Religion, Inc.; Fire On The
Amazon; The Vanishing; The Thing Called
Love; a tape full of random interviews and
news stories taped off TV, and the prize of
her collection (though some would say it
was Rich, a living artifact from ECUTs
Sandra days): the highly coveted videotape
with all six episodes of the sitcom Working
Girl, based on the movie and with Sandra
in the Melanie Griffith role.
It was a party like every other party we had,
a place where the theater people could all
band together and be weird and artistic, pre-
tend our fathers aren't the foremen of mills,
or that our mothers donTt wear matching
sweatsuit sets decorated with puffy paint.
Katrina was with most of the party, in the
living room watching the Working Girl tapes
while waiting for the award show to actually
start. Katrina had seen the shows before,
and | had watched them with her, but | sure
didn't feel like seeing them again, so Rich
and | went back to the bedroom. We sat on
the edge of the bed reading psychosexual
subtext into a muted Weather Channel
while a group of sophomores quietly passed
a bong among themselves. An example:
oRadar images are inherently female, Rich
... huge bilious shapes flowing, bulging,
heaving across the screen.?
oBut look at their function: the images
after sandra
penetrate, they thrust themselves onto the
landscape.?
And:
oLook at the way she touches the blue
screen, runs her hands across the high pres-
sure front-?
oHigh pressure? Like turgor??
oExactly. Look at her motion towards the
scattered thunderstorms like they were
drops of her loverTs sweat running down her
stomach.?
Or:
oAndy, why is a man doing the European
weather? Too heady for the women??
o| think itTs the phallocentrism of Europe
itself ... the great flaccid penis of Scandinavia
drooping down to the scrotal sac of the
main continent.?
Later, during the Current Conditions seg-
ment, Rich tells me in a low voice that when
she was here he thought Sandra was gay.
o| mean, she never dated anyone. She
claimed to have a boyfriend back in Florida,
sure, but there were rumors ...?
For just a minute, | imagine Katrina going
down on Sandra, and then shake it out of
my head. However, | canTt help but think that
maybe she would do it. | mean, the way she
talks about her and all.
oMaybe she was too busy, you know,
working on her art to worry about dating.?
oChrist, Andy, grow up.?
Actually, very few people watched the
awards once on, mostly we just milled
around Dana and RichTs house, catching up
with people we'd lost touch with over the
course of whirlwind rehearsals for Twelfth
Night or The ChameleonTs Dish. Junior year,
everyone was busy.
The summer theater's disappointing
schedule had been announced just that day
(Arsenic and Old Lace, West Side Story, and
The Odd Couple) and the party was on the
verge of becoming one big bitch about that.
otf | wanted to be in worn-out moneymakers,?
| overheard a girl who'd auditioned for The
ChameleonTs Dish say while rolling her eyes,
oI'd go home and work at the community the-
ater this summer.?
Later, | got cornered in the kitchen by a
freshman"| donTt think | ever learned her
name"whom I'd met at a previous party
(the ocast and friends? barbecue for LiT!
Abner, of all things) who told me all about
the ocool shit? she was doing in her Intro. to
Theater class"tintro.!"and all the ocool shit
she'd done as president of her high schoolTs
drama club and how she thought it was ocool
as shit? that we were doing one of my plays.
oYou know,? she finally said, oI think itTs
just sad how low school spirit is in the the-
ater department.?
oOf course we don't have any school spir-
it. We donTt give a damn... thatTs why we're
going to ECU,? | muttered.
She may have answered me before she left
?
8 3
to hit on a bit part from Twelfth Night. | was
too busy hearing Rich, oblivious to me right
behind him, say, oYeah, KatrinaTs really moving
up in the world ... she used to just sleep with
her leading men. Now sheTs up to the writer.
Of course, | was sort of hoping she would
make a pitstop at director, myself...?
| left the kitchen and tried to find Katrina,
but she was enthroned in the dining room
by the kind of guys she'd been dating all her
life: the usual gang of cute, hard, sleek, the-
ater boys, including Charles Catherine. And,
far from making me jealous, to a certain
extent it almost relieved me. | was glad she
had fun, talked, flirted ... as if giving her up
to this pack of guys was somehow my
penance for trying to raise into their ranks.
| never knew what other guys thought
about me dating Katrina. Were they heart-
ened, knowing that if | could achieve such a
vision, they could too? Or did they mourn the
loss of another beautiful girl, no longer datable?
No matter what they thought of me,
Katrina forgot all about them when she saw
me enter the dining room alone. She slipped
past her attendants, leaving them all behind
for me. oWhatTs wrong?? she asked, leading
me into the relative solitude of the foyer.
oStupid party??
oRich knows. HeTs telling everyone.?
oOh.? She looked back over her shoulder,
distracted. oWell, itTs no big deal. We were
going to tell everyone anyway.?
o| wonder how he found out?? | asked,
knowing one of us had to have talked, and
that it hadn't been me.
o| mean, we were only quiet because it
was convenient, not because ... ITm not, you
know, ashamed to be-?
oSheTs coming on, everybody!? Dana yelled
from the living room, and Katrina and | were
caught in the flow towards the living room.
Katrina sat beside me on the floor, hold-
ing my self-conscious hand and ignoring the
sidelong glances by the other thirty people
in the room.
The category was Most Desirable Female,
and Sandra was up for it, her first nomination
of many for the evening. oAnd the winner
is...? RuPaul said, tearing open the envelope
with a quick slice of a long, perfect, nail,
oSandra Bullock!?
The room bulged with cheers, everyone
smiling at each other. Katrina leaned into
me, and | found myself kissing the top of her
head. The cheers died soon, though, when
the camera first found Sandra, smiling and
shaking her blonde hair in disbelief.
oDear mother of God,? Dana mumbled.
Sandra had dyed her hair blonde. Not
blonde like cornsilk or sunlight or brand new
class rings, but a brassy, tacky, trailer-wife
blonde, the color of yellow M&M's, the color
of | CanTt Believe ItTs Not Butter.
oWhy would she do this?? someone asked as
she made her way to the front of the crowd.
aft
beautif
about |
challen
up, and
shelf tl
the pic
Katr
fingers
The Ar
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Late
taste ¢
ical th
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andd
oOf
writin
great.
oNi
me ol
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Holid
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was t
olwa
ai
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hapr
oV
bein:
St
smil
uy
righT
char
reac
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(/
| rer
sen:
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mis
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it??
loo
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SF
From behind me, the freshman answered,
oMaybe it was for a movie or something,
who knows??
Dana, a little shaken, shushed the two of
them. oShe's about to speak.?
Sandra gave her little acceptance speech,
while we tried to imagine what director would
make her do this to herself. We knew she was
working on an untitled movie at the moment
with, of all people, Dennis Miller. From what
he'd heard, it had something to do with virtual
reality, that buzzword of the moment.
oThings change fast,? Rich whispered.
The party pretty much dissolved after
that, only the most dedicated Sandra enthu-
siasts staying on. Katrina and | held hands
and walked quickly back to the safe bubble
of campus, because the rest of downtown
Greenville is a slum they'll never show you in
the schoolTs brochures. Take a wrong turn
coming back from, say, the mall and you found
yourself in a suburb of Cracktown.
oYou didnTt want to go to the party, did
you?? Katrina asked me.
oI didnTt, but not enough to not go.? |
squeezed her hand. oI had some work | could
have been doing.?
Katrina laughed. oYou're like that Calvin &
Hobbes cartoon, where he clones himself
and makes the clone do all the work for him.
Except you'd make your clone go have fun so
you could write.?
oBut Katrina, ever since | was little, my
whole life has been about making it. | must
make it, | must do it.?
oWe can do it if you want.?
oGet your mind out of the gutter.?
We walked in silence for a long time.
Finally, just across the street from campus,
Katrina whispered. oAndy, why do you hate
yourself so much??
| was stunned, but covered it by declaring,
oMy art lives on a steady diet of self-hate.
Look, you donTt want me to not hate myself
at this point. If | didnTt, I'd be nice and happy,
but | wouldnTt want it anymore, | wouldn't
have my drive.?
oI donTt see what that has to do with liking
yourself.?
oId be your perfect little miserable boyfriend.?
In Women In Literature, | had another one:
playing Scrabble with a newly-blonde
Sandra (I just couldnTt get that image out of
my head) on a Saturday afternoon, sipping
fruit juice and nibbling on plain bagels on
her deck. That weekTs People had an article
on me and her (mostly her) and how, as far
as the reporter could tell, there really was no
romance between us. The article was called
~Just Friends. Really.? (something I'd said to
the reporter when he called asking about
my relationship with Sandra) and reported
that SandraTs new production company,
Never Mind The Bullock, had picked up my
new script. The end of the article speculated
THE REBEL
if Sandra would star in it. oEither way,? the
article had concluded, oit seems a safe bet
that the two friends will work ona film
together in the near future.?
Meanwhile, in Stripmall, U.S.A, two fifteen-
year-olds in bad makeup talked about us.
oHe really loves her. | know,? one said, the
way they would talk about a mutual friend.
oIs ghostable a word?? Sandra asked, not
looking up from her tiles.
The next day Katrina and | were back in
Mendenhall, eating dinner before our final
dress rehearsal. Sometimes it felt like half of
our time together was in the dining hall, at
that little table for two by the window.
| was eating some beans, a scoop of rice,
and a big glass of water. | felt pure, getting
all the toxins out of my body.
oThat canTt be good.? Katrina frowned at
my plate. oBesides, aren't you missing some
food groups or something??
oItTs fine!? | answered, a little too loud.
She raised her eyebrows at me.oUhm ...
Andy, is everything okay??
oPerfect.?
oItTs just that you seem a little distracted,
thatTs all.?
oJust, you know, worried about tomorrow
night." The ChameleonTs Dish opened on Friday.
oEverything will go fine, donTt worry.? She
finished what little fettucini was on her plate.
oDid you see the article on Nick in the paper??
oYeah.? There was an interview with Nick
in the Lifestyles section of The East Carolinian.
Apparently he sold the movie rights to his
novel. oDid you see that when his book came
out, it got thirty-six good reviews? ItTs just ...
itTs just overwhelming, you know??
oWhat is??
oThirty-six reviews, can you imagine?? |
looked down at my plate. oITm never gonna
make it.?
~Andy, | really donTt know what to do with
you these days ...? she started to say, but |
was already spitting the food out of my
mouth.
oWhat the hell! | mean, what the hell!?
The small piece of gristle curled on my plate.
oBacon! Bacon in my goddamn beans!?
oThey use it as flavoring. ItTs not like you
ate it ..." Katrina put her hand on mine, but |
pushed it off, then threw my plate off on the
floor before the tears came.
o| hate this fucking school.? | put my fore-
head in my hands.
Katrina stood beside me, rubbing my back
and whispering. oCome on, come on, letTs get
out of here. We'll go back to my room.?
| wiped my eyes. oWe got rehearsal ...?
olll call Rich. Come on, baby.?
She lead me out of the dining hall, past
the cafeteria manager telling me | have to
clean my mess up, and her hair spilled down
her back like ... like a waterfall of coffee .. no
not like that. It was like strands of the night
,
84
itself ... no, not like that, either. Christ, her
hair was like something.
After calling Rich and giving him an
impossible story of flat tires and dead bat-
teries, Katrina tried to make me feel better in
one of the only ways she knew how, but |
guess | just wasnTt into it. After a while she
slid off me, running her hand across my face.
oWhat's wrong? Look, ITm sorry about the
bacon, but you had no way of knowing-?
oItTs not the bacon. ITve just got a lot on
my mind.?
oLike what??
oJust ... just stuff. The usual.?
oDonTt think about it.?
o| wish | knew how.?
She rolled on her back, pulled me on top
of her. In the background, Clapton's
Slowhand album"the one with oWonderful
Tonight,? SandraTs favorite song"played on,
oblivious. It was just getting dark, and
rehearsals had started half an hour ago.
oIt's not just that,? | said, oWe really should
be at rehearsal.?
oEverything's going to be fine.? She
reached up, grabbing me around the neck,
but | just pushed her back, a little hard. oJesus,
Andy, be careful.?
| didnTt say anything, | just looked right at
her. She smiled at me lopsided, curious, but |
grabbed her shoulders and started shaking
her, soft at first. My lips were clenched, and
she just took it, staring at me with a hostile
curiosity when she could. Eventually | was
shaking her so hard she was springing back
most of the way back up and her head was
starting to drop back, limp, at the peak of
her rise. Her hair was a big swirling mess,
and her bed was rocking harder than when
we ever made love. Finally: oStop it.? Just a
command at first, as though she was tired of
putting up with this, but gradually more angry.
oStop it. Stop it! Stop it! Please, Andy, stop it!?
| slowed down, and lowered her back to
the bed. When | let go, she curled into a ball
on her left side, with her right hand covering
her face. The sheets were completely off the
bed, now, but Katrina was no longer nude,
but naked.
| found the comforter at the foot of the
bed and by the time | was covering her, she
was choking on her tears. oI donTt under-
stand,? she moaned as | lay beside her,
putting my arm over her. She didnTt relax.
oIdon't either.? "
oI'm so good for you.?
oI know. | know you are.?
~And you keep pushing me away ...?
Whatever else she said was lost, she was cry-
ing so hard. | looked past her head and
through the window. Outside, authors,
actresses, professors, artists, directors, and
others passed over us, their huge legs weav-
ing among the buildings, their heads lost in
the sky, and | just knew they were trying to
leave me behind ... small but happy. A
OPP LP OE Pa Pat
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The Rebel 1996
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