Almanac

one

Fingers fell flat, five little sausages draped in sweat-clung soil. Bones that should have known better tried lifting flesh and skin and fat, set against themselves in twitching protest and dug deeper into the soft dirt spread in circular mounds around freshly planted seedlings. Grow, Little One, he said and chuckled at himself. The soft green head of a tomato vine and all he could do was wait.

Coughed silently as his shoulder managed to work itself around, a single bent knuckle casually tracing the arc of a gardener’s rake and then stopping. Mud eats tomato slices with cottage cheese. Mud eats cherry tomatoes out the carton, maybe dips them in sugar. Bites it in half, dips it in sugar, sucks out the juice. Gooey seeds ran down her cheeks. He wiped them off, even now. You ain’t changed, Mud. A little girl makin a mess of yourself.

I ain’t got pigtails no more. I can wipe my own face. And she grabs the paper towel out of his hand. It rips in two and she speeds away. He’s left holding the frayed edge of the towel, and he twists it around his fingers tight until it hurts. This happens at the last family reunion, and no one sees the resemblance. She is her mother’s daughter. One day in the high chair, Mud beating the table with her little plastic spoon and her mother yelling at him, rah war rah, don’t do your thing, and Mud beats in rhythm and screams and thinks boy, will he do me wrong.

two

The sunken cushion took him with a wheeze. He leaned forward, ran his tongue along the back of his teeth and down the roof of his mouth, slowly pushed air through the thin, tight gap of his lips. He opened the scrap of paper, squeezed his left eye shut and watched as the numbers broke apart and danced across the surface. He ran the fracture along each digit individually, turning them to jumbled shapes he could never hope to understand, folded the paper again, lifted the edge of the telephone, and slid it back underneath.

I’d like to call my son. Been two years and
the car’d be long gone in normal circumstances
by now. Fallin apart to begin with. I’d like to
call my boy. He’d take Mud by the hand and she’d
squeeze him tight and together they rigid like a
pile of cinder blocks. Stone cold eyes. Who you
callin daddy. Why you gonna hurt Mud like this.
She still misses Mama.

He called his son and it rang six times and then clicked to a machine. Well, uh, he said, this is your father. Just wantin to know how things been. He hung up and ate a pizza covered in hot peppers and sausage and he ate it slow like his life depended on it. And then he called Mud and it rang six times and then clicked to a machine. Well, uh, he says, this is your father. Just wantin to know how things been. Called your brother but no answer. I want to right things between us. So I called him. I’m going to apologize to him. Make things right. He hung up and drank some bourbon and then it was time for bed. Thought through the window he could see the tomatoes shimmer in the moonlight but of course this couldn’t be true.

three

Mud nowhere for seventeen days. Where could she have been. She could have been home but not answering his calls. So he went on the train to her home and would maybe call up her brother on speaker phone while he was there and things would be right. Halfway there and the pain. Inched away from the woman beside him. On a train, and she slight, skirt, long dark hair. Eyes across the rain-splattered window. Who she was missing. The man who caressed her sides and married her in a courthouse. The man she never really loved, but he was hers the same and she did not same him. He elsewhere. The same wife of someone new. Look at this, he was dying, and this woman was smooth syrupy thighs leading to what he knows he eats and smells and swims inside. His arm is frozen, and his body is soaked, and he doesn’t want this woman to help him.

four

He fixed himself against the shelves, his palm numb along cold steel, brittle nails tapping feverishly against the cellophane wrapped noodles by his side. He closed his right eye, counted ten small square tiles at his feet, took comfort in this reliability, counted ten more, and dodged a woman pushing her young daughter by. Her arm darted past his head and came back with a package of ravioli, her face shrunken by the smell coming from this crumpled nuisance of a man. His gaze met the confused stare of the child pulling away from him. He felt his mouth open, and he was almost sure words spilled out.

I had a heart attack. I almost died.
As a matter of fact, I did die. But
I had a spiritual rebirth. I woke up
in a hospital, and I was alone, and
I thought, what sort of man am I that
I can wake up alone and almost dead.
A dead man, that’s who. My daughter
came by later, see, I have one daughter,
her mama died a long time ago. She
wanted to see my will. See, there were
two things. I was smoking—no, there were
three things. I was smoking, I was
drinking, and I was having a fun time
with a lot of women. This was my second
chance to get it right. Now, my daughter
been living with this for some time. She
seen me drinking, she seen me come home
with these women. What kind of home did
I make for her? Now she’s older and ain’t
got no job. She gets some money from her
boyfriend, but she always needs money
from me. And of course I ain’t got much.
And I said to my daughter in the hospital,
Mud, I can’t see you, You’re all blurry.
And I thought about crying. A grown man
crying because he can’t find his glasses.
But this was my state. I almost died. Now,
Mud, I says, you treat people irresponsible,
they’ll be irresponsible. I’ve been irresponsible
by you. Your mama’s gone, and I have those other
women, and your brother don’t trust me since
the thing with his car. You’re gonna have to
trust me. I’m gonna give you 100 percent of
my love. Sometimes I only gave you 70-30.
Sometimes I’m sure it was only 60-40. But now
it’s gonna be 100-0. And she came up close to
me, so I can see her—I can see things right
up close. She has her mama’s eyes—boy. Big and
soul and they cut right through you. She says,
Daddy, you gotta save some love for yourself.
I don’t want 100-0. You gotta save some love for yourself.

five

The girl didn’t care about nothing, but the mother, he was a poor forgotten man and she’s finder’s keepers, eh? She invited him over to dinner and he brought a salad and vinaigrette. She makes a good lasagna and the wine was red and fruity. He don’t drink wine but he did tonight and the woman took him to his bed and he knew that little girl was up there sleeping but does it matter that she was sleeping. Mud never slept. After he was in the bed with this woman he got out of it and he called his son and there was no answer, but it was 2 in the morning.

Mud, he calls Mud, he calls her and says Mud I do have love for myself but it is really for you it is not meant for me and please take it I can’t it will do me no good and these women think it will be for them and it will do them no good and Mud says come home and I’ll come home and we’ll talk about this and they go home and the sun is rising and dew on the cherry tomatoes. They pick the tomatoes with the sun creeping up over the roof and they are silent except when they go for the same tomato and their fingers touch. He squeezes her hand and she squeezes the tomato and it bursts in her hand and she scrunches up her face and thinks oh that’s gross and he laughs and runs the hose over her hand only she never picked up the phone.

This was a joint writing experiment I did with Bill last summer.

Making it easy for you

Below is a letter I sent to my representative, senators, and President Obama. The letter calls for a public option in the current health care reform proposal. Health care reform without the public option will be essentially ineffective, and a waste of time and money. Please notify the powers that be that you would like a public option for health care. You can copy my letter and modify it accordingly.

Below is the information about contact information for representatives, senators, and the president.

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Below is the letter:

Dear XX,

The current health care system is hurting America. Costs are continually on the rise. More than one in three Americans are uninsured (http://www.familiesusa.org/issues/uninsured/). My husband and I are self-employed, which means we must pay for insurance independently. So, I know from experience that the health care industry only cares for those who have enough money to keep up with the cost of hefty premiums. Because we are not insured through a corporate employer, our insurance is much too expensive for far too little coverage.

The current economic crisis our country faces only adds to the injustices imposed by the current health care system. Some of my closest family members, including my mother, who in the past has suffered from cancer, have lost their insurance coverage because they lost their jobs. I live in constant worry that they will be caught without insurance when they need it most, and essentially their lives will be ruined, if not needlessly shortened.

I understand that widespread healthcare reform will not be without cost to the American taxpayer; however, I feel that the proposal to raise taxes on those who make more than $250,000 per year is an appropriate measure to help recoup the cost. This tax raise would not affect small businesses, and it will in effect work to roll back the tax breaks given to the wealthy under President Bush.

I have much hope for the current health care reform proposal. It will save the average American thousands of dollars every year, and it will allow health care access for every American, not just for the wealthy, and not just for those lucky enough to have an employer who pays for coverage. Finally, although opponents to the bill try to scare American citizens by claiming the bill is much too expensive, in the long run the bill will in fact save Americans money by lowering the costs of health care.

Recently President Obama has tempered his demand for a public option. Please tell President Obama that the true wishes of millions of Americans like me are being drowned out by the cries of the uninformed, the money of corporate lobbyists, and the unproductive chaos taking place at so-called "town hell" meetings across the country. Millions of Americans like me want the public option, and in fact insist that it be included in any health care reform bill.

This is a time of singular importance in American history. For far too long, corporate lobbyists have swayed our government's agenda more than the American people have. Please help lead the way in taking back our unalienable rights. Without access to health care, millions of Americans are being denied their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Please pass health care reform now, and please insist that it includes a public option.

Sincerely,
XX

other fish

you’s the newest freelance talent with no professional graphic design experience, but the agents at the agency are quite young, and that makes a difference at an interview. they met him on the bus and they had an mp3 player the size of their clits and you seemed to fancy it.

they use the 145 to get to work, and you uses it to get to school. they work because they are graduated; you goes to school because he wants to one day be graduated. he wants others to measure themselves by the volume of his smile. they found you charming when he blushed and said, i wouldn’t be high heels, that’s for sure. (the question had been, if you were a shoe, what sort of shoe would you be?) they interviewed him on the bus, and the bus moved fast down the road, and they could not know that in two months the line would be cut. they are young, and they believe nothing possible.

they hired you as a freelance talent, called him and said, boy do we have a client for you. the client was a big advertising firm. it was you’s first gig but he did so well the agents called him up and giggled with their legs hanging wide open. you thought maybe he could drop out of school. something felt right.

but the agency is unorganized; the agents dissipated. for that first gig, the name they gave you was all wrong. outside the building was an electronic list of names and numbers, and you’s contact name was not there. he didn’t know where to go. he found the office a half hour late. when he told his agents what had happened, they apologized and he gave them a second chance. they gave him another wrong name. you threatened to move his talent elsewhere.

now the agents email him and say they are going to get it right this time. they give you a medium gig, and the right name, but when the two weeks are up they don’t find him any more work for awhile. eventually the agents text message him while they are eating carrots and hummus and they say, here’s another big one: go to such-and-such address, ask for such-and-such person, you’ll be working on such-and-such catalog. and by the way, they cut the bus line, so we have to move on.

the news of them moving on devastates you, because he is just getting used to the idea of being their steady talent. he feels lost and he cries and vows to end his life, maybe by mixing cough syrups, but the next day you goes in to work. he doesn’t expect much from the experience. he expects to hate himself all day and die a little on the internet. he tells the security man on the first floor that he’s the new freelancer, he’s supposed to see mister such-and-such. the security man writes you’s name on a sticker, slaps the sticker on you’s blue polo shirt and says, go up to the fourth floor and ask for mister such-and-such.

you exits the elevator and on the grayish fourth floor is this woman. she is a silhouette in front of a window, looking down, composing a letter. she looks a tad lovely. but there is something more.

this woman says she don’t know no mister such-and-such. she has pale skin that is iridescent at the hairline. the hair is pulled back and up tight in a bun. when he moves closer to her desk, you sees the softness of her cheeks and the openness of her eyes, and he smiles though the plan was to not do so.

you says, i’m freelancing… in production.

this woman is large, wears a navy blue suit and a maroon paisley ascot. she returns the smile but seems unsure of its necessity and says, what kind of production, this is a big company and we got more than one kind of production.

at this point the game is new, and you hasn’t lost hope. she could be forgetting the name, or she may be flirting but it is too soon after losing his agents to think about any sort of free trade arrangement.

they didn’t say, you says.

well there ain’t no, she scrunches her face, no mister what? who are you looking for?
you doesn’t mind her rough edges. they scratch his cheeks and make him feel secure, her honesty thick like her body and something to touch. it is a risk, but you decides to fall for her.

mister such-and-such.

this woman must decide quickly if a freelancer is the sort of walkie-talkie she wants in her holster. can she call up her army with this? she still wants to learn, and she wants to teach, and the hair has grown ten years in a bun and wants to grow down. she gives in to you’s descent and for a time they are happy. mister such-and-such don’t usually get in until eight-thirty, says this woman.

they said to come up here, you says. i can wait until he comes.

and so you waits for years, and he decides that all he needs to learn, he can learn from this woman, the contents of her ether being syrupy and more lush in his mouth than all the words of bound philosophy. but she wants him to graduate. she knows he needs more, and she convinces him of the same. she secures him, and in her security he springs on.

you forgets he had agents, and he forgets he was waiting. he dozes, wrapped in this woman’s soft, raw body, and he has a vivid, green dream but wakes up and the dream he forgets as well. in the forgetting, he remembers something he used to want, and he says to this woman, how long now until mister such-and-such gets in?

this woman picks her nails. the grogginess is gone, and you can overlook her deficiencies no more. she once kept her nails manicured but she doesn’t have time for that anymore. you wishes she had better hygiene. sometimes her nail shards tear holes in the bottom of his socks.

they must have given you the wrong name, or the wrong department, or the wrong floor. i don’t know what you thought you would find here.

it is happening again, and you had thought this time would be different. he had looked at the woman, and she was radiant, and he had found direction. can you please call down? you asks, wanting her to look at him. they gave me this sticker. they seem to know mister such-and-such and where i’m supposed to go. she hasn’t looked at him for some time.

this woman places her pink, wrinkly hand over the phone but she does not pick it up. you is always so quick to go to someone else. he is weak under his smile. she is not going to give in to his timidity again. she says, but there’s no use in calling because i’m the security on this floor, and i don’t know mister such-and-such.
you sighs and looks at his watch. it is over, but he cannot go. the agency said i was to see mister such-and-such in production at eight o’clock.

mister such-and-such don’t usually get in until eight-thirty, this woman says. she lifts her hand from the phone and wipes away spit from the corners of her mouth. he is so young, but she can’t help him. not this late. it is too late.

you says, maybe there is someone else in production i can see. he looks at the phone. he wants to pick it up, but there is no one he knows to call. this woman is the security guard. he cannot call her.

we don’t have no production.

no production in the company, or no production on the fourth floor? you thinks she is playing mind games, and he can’t remember back to the time when he didn’t think this. he paces and chews his lips till they bleed blue. his whole cavity of guts emptying, emptying worse than it had before he came into her hallway.

you asks, can we please call downstairs? they said i should go to the fourth floor and so here i am. so i know i should be here. please, let me be here.

you grabs the phone. he’s been looking at it for so long that the touch of its cold plastic is surprising. his hands jitter but he does not drop it. i will be strong, you says. for the first time maybe.

it doesn’t matter to this woman. she grabs the phone and plays tug of war. she pulls one way, he pulls another. her fleshy arms sway like a violinist’s, and the veins and the stretched rivulets mesmerize you.

don’t touch my phone, she says, gritting her teeth.

don’t fuck this job up for me. you grabs the phone tighter, brings his face towards hers and remembers when he first walked off the fourth floor elevator and saw this woman sitting at the desk, and the window behind her illuminated the murky hall and her iridescent skin, and he thought her a tad pretty.

this woman pulls you’s arm into her body, twisting the hand around. you doesn’t believe she is hurting him. he looks at his contorted fingers, the tips turning mottled-red. she looks at you, and he is just a kid, and how could he know that something he does is so misinformed.

there ain’t no fourth floor, this woman says.

she releases you’s wrist, and he looks at his feet, and they are on nothing. he falls four floors for four years and when he hits the ground he is graduated. he cannot rise from the concrete; he is useless. then a schoolgirl on her way to school picks you up and tucks him in her backpack. one day, when she is old enough to understand such things, she will fill you with hot perspiration and measure the volume of her warmth.

this story was first published in elimae.

Novel Outtake #1

She is so young, and her father is dead, he has been dead for two years, a heart attack maybe, she is seven and doesn’t understand exactly such things, like what causes death, what causes seasons to change. What causes. Gardner likes to color pictures, she doesn’t know why, she likes pictures and she carries a little satchel to the office, and the only thing in the satchel is a coloring book, a pad of paper, and seven crayons.

She will be in the office all afternoon, it is the office of a man Mom knows. Mommy’s friend, he will take care of you this afternoon. Lineer. You know Lineer. Mommy’s wants you to be friends.

The office is at a big school, a university Mom says, Lineer teaches there. He is very smart. Gardner does not trust people who are very smart, though, she is very smart and she doesn’t trust other people who are also. They play tricks, probably. Tricks because who doesn’t like to make others feel dumb, even smart people. Especially.

Terrified, actually. Gardner is terrified of people. Not just the smart ones. There was her father, and there was Mom, and now there was just Mom. Mom drives to the university, it has lots of twisty roads and trees, and Gardner likes both things, she wonders if maybe this will be okay.

But the office is in a boxy building, it looks like her crayon box, only it is not bright yellow it is poopy brown, and they go inside the building, and everyone loves Gardner. They ask her her name.

Tell her your name, Mom says.

The woman she is supposed to tell has long blonde hair and skin so light you can see through it.
Gardner shakes her head, she won’t say her name. She pulls the little satchel—it is a denim satchel decorated with flower patches—she pulls it around her body and holds it up in front of her face.

Her name is Gardner, Mom says.

What a pretty name.

Gardner wants to crawl into her satchel and die. And then the crayons fall out of it, and she is too embarrassed to cry.

They go down a little hall, and at the end of the hall is a little room. It is not very bright, and Lineer is there, he sits behind a desk, and on the wall in front of the desk are three chairs that do not look very comfortable. He has deep dark skin and deep dark eyes that always surprise Gardner, she has seen him a few times before, and no wonder Mom hugs him, Gardner thinks. He looks very sad always with his deep dark eyes.

She looks around the office. The little room is so sad, the little chairs with their beige plastic seats, one with a little rip, the little rip is so sad, Gardner wants to crawl under it and keep it company.

Instead she sits on it, Mom tells her to sit, so she sits and sticks her finger in the rip, and the inside is hard and fuzzy, she doesn’t like how it feels, so she quickly pulls her finger out. But then she thinks about it some more, and Mom and Lineer talk, and the more she thinks about it the more she liked how it felt to put her finger inside of the rip, and so she sticks her finger inside of it again, and yes, she likes it, and she keeps it there for some time.

Gardner, you haven’t said Hello to Lineer.

Hello, Gardner. Lineer leans over and holds out his hand and Gardner won’t shake, of course she won’t, she’s terrified of people and to touch them, forget it, that would be painful, she touches Mom but that is it.

She is too shy.

Soon Mom leaves and Gardner is too scared to think about what that means. She takes out her crayons and the coloring book and she colors. Lineer doesn’t say anything to her, but one time he clears his throat, and it is a loud sound, like an elephant perhaps, it is a loud sound that makes Gardner jump, and that’s when she sees that on his desk is a picture of Mom. It is in a black frame, and she looks very happy in the picture.

Your mom wants us to get to know each other, he says then. She thinks we’ll become fast friends.

Gardner doesn’t look at him, she is coloring a bicycle, she wants stripes on it, and doing the stripes in crayon is difficult, but really that’s not why she doesn’t look at him, but that’s what she pretends.

Lineer gets up and sits next to Gardner. He asks what she is coloring, and she moves her arm, just a little, so he can see. He says it is a sharp-looking bike. Gardner doesn’t disagree. Of course, she doesn’t agree either, she does nothing.

Your mom wants us to be friends because we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. You see, we love each other, and we’re going to get married.

Gardner doesn’t look up from her bicycle and she doesn’t understand what he is saying, she knows what getting married means but she doesn’t understand how that could happen when Mom is married to her father. Her father is her father, even though he is dead. He is her father and that was that.

I want to give you something, Lineer says, and he reaches in his pocket and pulls something out, and it is a necklace, and he holds it out in his palm and Gardner can’t help but look, and it is a pretty necklace, it has a red flower on it and it is pretty and she doesn’t believe he is giving it to her.

Let me tell you about this. See this flower? This is a pomegranate blossom.

Gardner has never heard of such a thing, it seems like a thing for grownups, it is nothing she thinks seems right for her.

The pomegranate is a symbol of death and obstacles, Lineer says. But it is also a symbol of knowledge and time. My dad gave this necklace to my mother.

He leans forward in the seat and holds the locket out closer to Gardner, and it is shiny red, and there are pearls in the center, and it is so pretty but Gardner is afraid to touch it.

See, she wanted real bad to have a child, but she couldn’t. They tried for years and years, and they couldn’t. So my dad gave this to her. He thought it would keep her hopeful. And you know what? It did. She kept trying. And eventually, they had me.

He smiles brightly, and he looks closely at the necklace, and Gardner looks closer, and then Lineer presses a little button on the side of it and it springs open.

And now I would like to give it to you. It’s a locket. He holds it over Gardner’s hand. Here, take it.

And now it is easier to take it than to not take it, and so she takes the locket and she peers closely inside, and there are two tiny images, and one image is of Lineer, and the other image is of William Able, her father.

Your mom gave me that picture, he says. I just thought, I’m not replacing your daddy. I’ll be like a second daddy. He’ll watch over you from where he is, and I’ll watch over you from here.

And maybe Gardner likes the idea of that, she looks at the picture of her father, and it is tiny and black and white but he still looks handsome in it, she recognizes the picture, it was one taken on his birthday, and he had been happy because Gardner tickled him.

Is he happy now, she wonders, can you be happy when you’re away from everyone and everything you know and love. Her father was a painter, and did he paint above, he wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t paint. Is he really watching her? Maybe he is. Maybe he is painting her picture, and maybe he is happy.

Would you like me to help you put it on?

Gardner nods, and Lineer has big fingers but it seems easy for him to help clasp the locket around her neck.

It looks beautiful on you, he says, and he smiles, and his deep dark eyes look so sad, and she doesn’t know why she does it, she would never do it, but she does it now, she reaches out and tickles the sides of this new Dad, this one-time stranger.





Gardner is one of the main charcters in a series of young adult novels I am currently writing. These outtakes are bits and pieces about the novels' characters and world. Most of these are free-writes or else background scenes and information that I wrote mostly for myself. But I thought it would be nice to share them here.