The Ground Intro

This is the intro to a short story I’ve been working on, called “The Ground”. I hope you enjoy it.

**

From the low hanging clouds that stretched from one end of northern Alabama sky to the other, huge drops of rain splashed against my motorcycle helmet that was a little too big for my head. My speedometer said I was traveling at 70 miles per hour, but despite the thunderstorm, cars and semis were racing past me. The spray of water and the powerful wind left in the wake of the larger trucks caused my motorcycle to wobble beneath me. I felt the fear of death for the first time in my life. The fear was primal, something way down inside me, like hope or lust.

I was riding north on I-65 and on the right I saw a farmer leading two cows out of the rain, into a red wooden barn. I thought of Noah, catching and taming all those animals, leading them to the ark. I imagined myself back then, back when the rains of The Flood started. I imagined myself, not inside the ark with the animals and the righteous, but outside as the rain started, grew stronger and collected in to puddles, then ponds. That religious nut, Noah, had said the rain wouldn’t stop, and when I realized he was right, I screamed and banged on the side of that boat, feeling the water rise around me, to my waist, my chest, my neck. When I realized it wouldn’t stop, I clawed at the boat, digging my fingernails into the wood until my fingertips were raw and the water rose to my chin, then my lips, then the skin beneath my septum, then into my nostrils. The water streaming through my windpipe judged me unfit for the next world, the one with color. The next world that started out with two of everything: Two dogs, two mosquitoes, two polar bears. In that world, there would be no question that the chicken came before the egg.

I looked down at two rubber tires, gripping the wet road beneath me. The rain was driving in to the skin on my neck and arms, soaking in to my t-shirt and jeans. When I moved my feet around, I could feel rain squishing between my tennis shoes and socks. Ahead, I saw a dead opossum in my lane. As I approached it, the stench mixed with the moist smell of rain and started a parade of unpleasant memories, which I assumed to be my judgment.

I remembered the time my high school girlfriend came to my house wearing denim overall shorts, her hands deep inside her pockets. She asked me if it was true that I had cheated on her and then why. I lied to her, but she pursed her mouth and hit my ear with her fist. She turned and walked to her car with her fists clinched. She was crying as she drove away. The shame of seeing myself in this memory was blunted by the sweetness of the sin that came before it and which still lingered vividly in my mind, 15 years later, as I rode a 1986 Honda Rebel through the rain, past a dead opossum.

I remembered the time, years before, when my little brother, Jonah, appeared in our living room dressed in black pants, a red leather jacket with zippers everywhere and a white glove on his right hand. He strutted to the stereo, started a tape and danced Michael Jackson’s whole routine from the Beat It video on the hardwood floor in front of us. He finished his performance, which I knew he had been rehearsing for weeks, and stood before us. I laughed and my parents clapped. I could still remember the tears that pricked at his eyes and how he stood there with that white gloved hand dangling at his side, weighing my laughter against my parents praise. That was the first time I hurt someone on purpose and there was nothing in that memory to numb the pain of it now.

I pulled off at the next exit and parked my bike at a Citgo station. Inside the door, I stood next to a 4 foot map of Alabama and bit in to a scalding hot, gooey bean and cheese microwave burrito. Moving my thumb and forefinger against the map, I calculated that I had traveled about 175 miles since I left Monroeville, Alabama six hours earlier. Six hours ago in Monroeville, the sun was still shining and there was no water pooled in the red clay dirt above my brother’s grave.

 

The Hidden Glass

My task: Imagine an accident. Write 3 versions of the accident: a one-sentence summary, a one-paragraph summary, and finally a scene.

Warning: Kinda bloody.

***

At 11:57am yesterday, a black Cadillac Escalade collided at full speed with a navy blue Saab that turned left into its path at the intersection of Carmel Drive and Guilford Avenue in Carmel, IN. 

***

I was eating a sandwich at my desk yesterday, catching up on Facebook when right outside my office window a blue Saab turned left in front black Cadillac Escalade which was driving at full speed through a green light. There were three teenage girls in the Saab. The only one who was hurt was the girl in the front passenger seat who had a cut on her face from the impact of the airbag. There were also three people in the Escalade. The woman who was driving also had cut on her face from the airbag and her six–month-old daughter had cuts from broken glass. Her five-year-old boy, who was unrestrained in the third row of the truck had a broken neck and spinal injuries. 

***

I heard a honk then breaking tires then the crunch of metal colliding with metal and looked up from my desk to see glass spray in all directions. I saw the head of the driver of a black Escalade lunge forward toward her steering wheel, the muscles in her neck tightening and her mouth stretching out into the shape of an oval. She forced her eyes shut then disappeared behind the airbag as it burst in to her face. Her Escalade was coasting straight toward me but slammed in to a silver light post 10 feet outside my office window. 

To her left was a navy blue Saab spinning clockwise and coming to rest abruptly against the bank of the sidewalk. The back passenger door had been crushed by the impact and the girl in the front passenger seat was holding her face.

I stood up and put down my meatball sub. The woman in the Escalade reached her hands up to her bloody face, pulled them downward then together, siphoning blood on to her low-cut blouse and inside between her breasts. Once her face was clear she ran to the rear passenger door. Through the missing windshield I could see a baby in the backseat with her mouth open in the same oval shape as her mother’s.

Though the accident happened right in front of me, I took me two minutes to jog out of my office, 200 feet down a corridor to a rear exit, then around the back of the building to the scene of the accident.

Outside I heard emergency vehicles approaching. Three girls in soccer uniforms emerged from the Saab, all wearing white jerseys with the word “Carmel High School” in blue script and black shorts with black socks pulled up over their calves to just under their knees. The driver sat on the sidewalk, sobbing in to a cell phone.

I heard the Escalade woman screaming, “Jesus Christ” over and over. I ran to her and she thrust her baby at me then climbed over the bench in to the third row of seats. The baby was wearing blue jeans and a loose fitting pink onesie with a yellow duck on the chest and the words “Daddy’s Little Ducky” written beneath. I inspected her and noticed what I assumed to be her mother’s blood on the onesie. The baby howled as her mother yelled at someone in the backseat.

Traffic was backed up 50 cars in all four directions as the two cars, four of the passengers, broken glass, a navy Saab bumper and I were blocking north to south traffic. Cars traveling east to west could pass through the intersection, but were stopped to watch.

I cradled the screaming baby against my chest with my left arm beneath her butt and my right hand against the back of her head. I bounced myself gently up and down and said in to her ear, “It’s going to be alright, Ducky.” She shrieked and clawed at my face, so I patted her back once with my right hand. When I did, I pushed shards of glass, hidden beneath her onesie, deeper in to her skin. She arched her back and howled and I fought back the vomit I felt rising in my throat.

 

Ode to The Onion

I stowed my bag, then put my iPhone, noise canceling headphones and a copy of The Moon and Sixpence into the pocket in front of me. Delta flight 33, a non-stop from JFK to LAX, is my favorite flight that doesn’t land on an island in the South Pacific. I was in 17C, an aisle seat in the exit row and planned to spend the next six hours with my legs stretched out, reading a whole book in one sitting. I ran my hand along my arm from shoulder to wrist admiring the feel of my white linen shirt, wondering if they sell linen socks and boxers in SkyMall. 

I catalogued passengers boarding the plane, wondering who would be next to me. Model, great-grandma, librarian, peanut vendor, pomade, Kathy Bates. When I saw Clinton DeShields turn the corner onto the plane, I knew he would be in 17B. Let me be direct about this. He’s enormous. I heard his breathing from 20 feet away and smelled the sausage gravy on his breath from 10. As he waddled down the aisle, he looked up at each row number then down at his ticket. He stopped next to me and we looked at each other.

“I’m in B,” he said, pointing at the seat next to me. I didn’t say anything, just stood up.

“I need to leave the armrest up. Otherwise, I don’t fit.” I nodded. He lifted the arm rest and sat down, taking a long time to attach the belt extension. When he finished, I sat back down. There was no way for me to sit in the seat without our shoulders, arms, and legs touching.

“What line of work are you in?” he asked.

“I’m a consultant.”

“Oh. A consultant. That’s pretty cool. Fashion? Interior design?”

“Technology.”

 “Not much on the small talk, huh?”

I reached for my headphones, which he interpreted as a cue to elaborate at length about his educational background. During taxi and takeoff, he relived his tenure as editor of the Yonkers High School Yearbook. During our ascent to 30,000 feet, he ate a Reece’s Cup and chronicled his two year stint as Chemistry major at Skidmore in Saratoga.

When the captain turned off the fasten seat belt sign, I unbuckled mine and stood up. He said, “I studied chemistry at Saratoga, but now I’m a writer for The Onion.” I sat back down. Writing for The Onion is my dream job.

“Seriously?” I asked. He nodded yes and I said, “I can’t believe this! My favorite headline was ‘Standard Deviation Not Enough for Perverted Statistician’. Oh and I loved ‘Time Invented to Keep Everything from Happening at Once’.”

“I wrote the one about the perverted statistician! I also wrote the one right after Bush got elected that said ‘Bush Declares That Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over’.”

“I can’t believe this! Let me buy you a beer. How does a Chemistry major get a job at The Onion?”

 

Dialogue Exercise: Part 2

Here’s piece number two. At best, I thought it sounded like I lifted it from an episode of The Office. At worst, I was annoyed that I couldn’t make it end.

*****

Are you excited about the conference tomorrow?

Yep. I’m flying out tonight and present tomorrow at 10.

Is this the first time you’re speaking there?

Yeah, I’m doing a demo of our credit risk modeling program. This is where the rubber meets the road, you know? Can you help me with a couple of things?

Sure. Oh, and what time are you leaving today?

Not sure yet. My flight’s at 6.

So you’ll need to leave the office at… what… 3?

I’m not sure yet. Ok, first, have you seen the projector? I want to take a backup.

Uh, the last time I saw it was in the conference room where it usually is.

I looked. It’s not in there.

Did you check the cabinet? When will you know what time you’re leaving?

I didn’t think to check in the cabinet. I have a call at 2:30 and I don’t know how long it’s going to last. Why?

No. Nothing. What else do you need?

What’s my flight itinerary number? I tried to get on delta.com but couldn’t reserve a seat because I didn’t have that number.

I have them email. I’ll forward it. Did I tell you I’m taking tomorrow off?

Yeah, you mentioned it. Are you doing anything?

Yeah, we were planning to take the kids to Nashville to spend the weekend with my parents.

Nashville. Sounds like fun! Do they live near the river?

Are you thinking of Memphis?

Is Memphis the one on the Mississippi? I thought it was Nashville.

It’s kind of a long drive. Takes about 6 hours.

Leaving tonight with the kids? Sounds like a nightmare. OK, one more thing. Can you add some sex appeal to my PowerPoint? Some moving words or something?

Moving words?

Yeah, you know how people make their bullet points drop in from top and slide in from the side?

I don’t… OK. But people don’t really do that anymore.  So if you’re leaving early today too…

People don’t do what?

Have those animations in PowerPoint . Do you mind…

Are you sure?

 

Dialogue Exercise: Part 1

I am intimidated by writing dialogue. Probably because of a combination of not having it as a natural strength, not being a great listener and not having written much of it.

This week in Stanford.edu W123, we covered dialogue. Armed with some good instruction and writing prompts (Jeff O’Keefe is a great teacher), I set out to face my fears and ended up writing more this week than I have in years. Most of what I wrote was embarrassing (think high school poetry). Also, I only got 4-6 hours of sleep most nights because I stayed up late either staring at a blank screen or writing stuff that ended up being pretty flat.

There were three pieces which didn’t suck, so I’ll post two or three of them here this week. Here’s the exercise which served as the inspiration for today’s post: Write a 500-word scene that is entirely in direct dialogue. Have one character try to get something from another character (for example, a son begging his father to buy him a baseball glove) but create a clear subtext (i.e., the son really wants his father’s love and approval).

*****

Got a minute, Harry? I need to talk to you.

Sure. What’s up?

Can I close the door?

This must be serious. What’s on your mind, Wallace?

It… Well, remember when I told you at my review last year that I was writing a book?

I remember. Are you done with it?

No, that’s why I wanted to talk to you.

What’s the book about?

I don’t know yet, I haven’t started it.

You’ve been thinking about it a long time. Do you have any ideas?

I have some ideas, kind of. I need to… I’m having a hard time getting started because of how busy I am and working here and having a wife and all.

It must be the hand of God brought you in here to talk about this today. I was just thinking about that conversation last night. Listen, I might have a win-win proposition for you. My wife is the only one who knows this, but I’ve been trying to write a book for a while now too.

Seriously?

Yeah, a book about how I started this business by working evenings and weekends for two years while I was at the tire plant. How Georgie and me put it all on the line to quit our jobs and chase our dreams. How there were nights we put our babies to bed hungry and ten years later became the number one tire distributor in Northwestern Pennsylvania. It’s called “Where the Rubber Meets the Road”.

I’m, you know, sure that would be a cool book.

Well, therein lies the rub. The problem is I’m not a good writer. I get in a few paragraphs here and a few sentences there, but it doesn’t pop.

Doesn’t pop?

Right. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

I… yeah, believe me I know. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.

Don’t you want to hear about the win-win? Listen, you want to write a book but you don’t have an idea.

I didn’t say that.

You did. You want to write a book but you’re firing blanks, can’t get wind in the sails. I got wind. I got a crapload of stories that’ll give you that same feeling you get when you hear a plane full of people clap for a soldier who’s coming home from the war. I got a great title. Wallace, I want you to write it for me. You write great around here and I hear your blog is hilarious.

Hilarious? Who told you that? Harry, that isn’t quite what –

Here’s the win for you. I was thinking about our chat because yesterday a publisher came to have breakfast with me and my agent.

You have an agent?

You want to get published? I got a publisher. You want people to read your stuff? They told me this sucker could get picked up by Wal-Mart. Do you know how many people buy books at Wal-Mart? I’m willing to give you a 10% cut and full access to me and Georgie.

 

Setting Sketch

Here is my writing assignment for this week: Describe a character’s bedroom for us using the setting to reveal the character. What’s on the walls? What’s in the drawers? Is that surfboard leaning against a third-hand armoire? Is that a sewing machine buried beneath a pile of dirty clothes? Anything underneath the bed? Try to use all five senses. Finish your survey of the room by arriving at a single, especially important object that is connected to a secret that your character has hidden from almost everyone.

Here are my 500 words in response. Hope you enjoy.

***

A German aviator wristwatch with white numbers circling a black face ticked loudly on a mahogany nightstand tucked in the corner between Harrison Miller’s bed and the only window in his room. A breeze drifted through the open window, rustling the heavy khaki linen curtains, allowing sunlight to illuminate the room and cast the shadow of dancing curtains across white walls and the surface of his bed.

Next to the ticking wristwatch was a framed 5×7 – a candid of him, his wife and three boys standing on the dock in front of the candy striped lighthouse at Hilton Head, SC in 1960. Harrison stood in the center with a Winston between his lips, wearing a tight white t-shirt and plaid shorts that revealed his muscular chest, arms and legs. His smiling family leaned toward him. The colors in the picture were fading to one – the sky, the fire engine red stripes circling the lighthouse, the sea, trees, the crisp white of the boats all melting to a single grey.

In a corner facing empty walls was his writing desk. It was a simple table, made of natural wood, with four legs and a 2 foot by 3 foot working area. On the desk was a manual typewriter, a pencil holder with 12 white Bic fine point ink pens (the ones with a black cap) and two paper trays flanking the typewriter. The paper tray to the left had a few hundred blank sheets of paper and the tray to the right had a few hundred pages of unedited autobiographical short stories about his experiences serving as mechanic in Korea during the war.

In the top drawer of his dresser, which he had pushed inside his closet to make room for the writing desk, he kept a manila envelope with a collection of certificates: his birth certificate, marriage certificate, a certificate of appreciation for 35 years of service at Cummins Engine Company, his wife’s death certificate, and a $50 Home Depot gift certificate his grandkids had given him for Christmas last year.

Pushed up against a kitchenette counter was his dining table with two half-full cups of Folgers. Next to the cups was the Autumn Park welcome packet, opened to a picture of coffee drinking residents taken just as they burst in to laughter beneath the Café Yesterday sign which hung above the coffee machine in the dining area.

Between the kitchen table and his bed was a mobile nurse’s station. On top of it was a white cup with his heart medication, a plastic water pitcher, a stack of little blue cups and a binder with patient medical charts which the nurses who worked different shifts used to gossip about the residents.

At the foot of Harrison’s bed were two white nurse’s tennis shoes, with the laces still tied. Next to the shoes were her scrubs, a pair cerulean cargo pants with the draw string undone and the matching v-neck shirt.

 

By the Swings

I am taking a  creative writing class this summer. Some of the exercises are interesting, so I will post the output here from time to time.

***

I can still taste the blood in that weird place between my nose and the top my mouth. Dad and I climb into his old black Chevy pickup and the doors squeak loudly when we close them. He pulls out of the gravel parking lot and we drive past the school playground. Over there by the tall chain link swings on the edge of the playground is where I got in to a fight with Ricky Dawson today.

Ricky pushed my sister and called her a bad name so I punched him in the eye. He punched me back and hit me a lot more times. It felt like someone throwing rocks at my face, but I didn’t fall down and I didn’t cry until the very end. When he stopped punching me, I tackled him and we fought until a teacher pulled me off and took me to the Principal’s office. Before we went back inside, I looked back at Ricky and he was crying too and his lip was busted and there was blood on his Cincinnati Reds jersey.

When I told Principal Hewson what happened, he told me fighting’s wrong and that Jesus said that we should turn the other cheek. Then he sent me to the nurse’s office so she could clean me up and I could think about what Jesus said till Dad came to get me. When he got there, I could hear Dad talking to the Principal, but couldn’t tell what they were saying because I was still in the nurse’s office. Dad was mad when we left. He told Principal Hewson not to worry because he’ll make sure I get what I have coming to me when we get home.

I taste the blood as we drive away from the school, past the houses and the big green trees on Walnut Street. We drive past Clouse’s Grocery, the gas station then by cornfields which were just tilled and more trees. The Reds and Braves are playing on 700 WLW. My window is rolled down a little and I smell rain even though the sun is still shining. Dad turns off the radio and starts talking to me about the fight. It feels good to have my cheek and eye gently resting against the cool window while he talks. It also feels good to listen to Dad tell me that even though I’m only eight and Ricky is ten and bigger than me, Ricky didn’t win the fight and I’m brave and I can bet my ass that Ricky’s gonna leave Keira alone from now on.

 

The Former Truism

They didn’t say it to my face. They told me through sayings and proverbs and clichés and truisms like “gravity always wins” and “the only things certain in life are death and taxes”. They told me it couldn’t be done. That even trying would be an affront to nature itself.

But they were wrong. It could be done and this morning, it was done. I did it. I stood up to the self evident truth and challenged it to a duel. I spit on the ground at its feet, slapped its face with a glove, raised my clinched fists to signal my readiness for battle. In my bathroom at approximately 10:36am EST on Saturday June 27, 2009, I put toothpaste BACK in the tube.

 

Autumn Love

I am taking a  creative writing class this summer. Some of the exercises are interesting, so I will post the output here from time to tome.

Readers should note that story below contains a particularly nasty word (which the person actually said). If you are offended by smoking, old people or the F word you should not continue reading this post.

****

Charlotte Kauffman massaged her wrinkled hands to ease the arthritis pain. She made a loose fist with her right hand and used it to knead the palm and fingers of her left hand. We sat in wicker rocking chairs, angled toward one another. The wicker made a muted squishing sound as we rocked in silence.

She had stopped talking in the middle of a story about how, in 1952, she decided to transition from acting to directing in what I discerned to be the Manhattan equivalent of community theatre. She constantly rubbed her hands together, stopping frequently to take a long pull from a Pall Mall. She had an elegant and mesmerizing routine of taking a drag from a cigarette, then quickly sucking in to her nostrils a small cloud of smoke which came from nowhere.

I noticed the silence and turned to see that a man named Dennis had captured her attention. He was wearing a black mesh hat with “82nd Airborne Division” written in gold thread on the front. He always wore this hat. He had an astonishing forest of silver and black hair in his ears and eyebrows. He wore thick metal framed glasses and a blue flannel shirt tucked in to black sweat pants. Because Dennis was so short, he was able to stand fully erect as he used his walker to shuffle around. I judged him to be very appealing to the ladies of Autumn Park who would invite him to sit and smoke and flirt.

He plucked yellow and pink tulips from the dirt and held them between his hand and the handle of his walker, which he then pushed back to the sidewalk. He scooted around the front of the porch to its entrance and toward Corrine who was sitting two wicker chairs away from me. She turned her head and pretended to not notice him until he stood in front of her. He pushed his walker aside and held out his white hand which quivered gently. She put her tiny, black hand in his. He pulled her hand to his face and put it against his nose and lips, closed his eyes, kissed it and gave it back to her. He gave her the flowers and she put them in a bag attached to her walker then thanked him by smiling with her mouth and eyes. Dennis motioned to ask if she would join him for lunch. She shook her head no. He motioned again. She reached her hand out and he helped her stand. Their walkers touched several times as they walked side by side through the narrow porch.
I turned back to Charlotte in time to see and hear her inhale a tiny bit of smoke in to her nostrils. She touched her chest gently with the fingers of her right hand and said “Oh that was fucking beautiful.”

 

Writing About Writing About Jesus

On the right hand side of my main page (here) just below the twitter updates is a section called “Tags” which contains a list of words I have chosen to associate with my posts. The more I use a word to tag a post, the bigger it appears in the list – I have written a lot about reading, but not very much about enchiladas. The tags section is visual evidence that I have tagged more posts with the word Jesus than anything else.

Yet I have intentionally not been talkative about what Jesus means to me. This is partially because I have had little to say beyond the feeling that my faith has spent the last several months in the shop for repair.

But there is an even bigger obstacle.

Jesus is hard to write about.

Whenever I try, I tend to scrap the effort because:

1. I produced a list of things I believe about Jesus. While the list could be interesting (Jesus was masculine), it is usually forgettable because I was hiding behind sarcasm (JEEzuz served Cheetos and KEWL-AID at the last suppr OMG LOL!!!!!) or a too-faithful reproduction of core beliefs from a church website.
2. The Jesus I wrote about is actually me with a halo.
3. I wrote the spiritual equivalent of an inside joke – requiring so much background, explanation and summary that the story reveals nothing interesting about myself or Jesus.

Since item #1 in the list above seems like the least of the evils, here is my spiritual output for the day. I would love to read your list too.

I believe that:

1. God is a hard worker and expects us to work hard too
2. God is creative
3. God always leaves opportunity for doubt
4. God is approachable
5. God reveals himself and his character through stories and history
6. Things are not as God would like them to be
7. Jesus is his solution for #6, but how is not yet fully revealed
8. Jesus’ death was a game changer
9. Jesus really walked out of that grave – also a game changer
10. God is love. But “God is love” is not as comfortable as we want to think it is