There’s something about the hobo pouring over Faust in the public library and reeking of piss. About the dribble of spit you wipe out of your beard while you whizz down a hill reckless and free (traffic signals be not for me). About the financial district seen over the tops of Postcard Row Victorians, downtown atwinkle and cold. About the jeans so tight you can see what brand of cigarettes he smokes. About the insecure girl you meet who tells you she’s slept with a Pulitzer winner and that she comes from a loving home. About the fact that, like New York, you’re always astounded when you meet a real native of this place. About squeezing into a thin hoodie against the fog, still sweating off the momentary sun. About the spit-clap of bus wires showering sparks into the street while the electric motor whirs. About the bike rider who pats my trunk when I almost kill him in Chinatown and asks me to please be more careful next time. About crawling down streets in your car at 4 AM and stopping at green lights because you wanted to change the CD. About chatting with the corner-store clerk at that very same intersection because he’s the only one who will. About loving that you’re not in that taller city anymore.
About knowing that the lease is up in three days and that soon you won’t have a pot to piss in and your food stamp card doesn’t recharge until another week and the residential hotels have no-vacancy signs and the exes are inhospitable or—worse—warm. There’s something about San Francisco.
Something about this place makes you know you will stay. When your lease is up and your belongings once again fit all too easily into the back of your sedan, you will not get on the Bay Bridge. Or the Golden Gate. Or those other two at the bottom of the Bay, whatever they're called. You will not drive to the Sierras and camp in Non-Designated Camping Areas. You know you will not drive to Laguna to live with your aging father and his two young “roommates,” or to your mother in the desert with her rock lawn and newspaper clippings (“I just thought you would find it interesting, is all”). You will neither pill your worry away nor construct mental dioramas of your romantic suicide attempt, which may or may not involve a note bequeathing all your possessions to the aforementioned hobo. You will do none of these things; not because you're afraid to, but because you don't need to. Not anymore.
You will wake up each morning for a month (because that’s how long you’ve had to prepare, you lazy fuck, you) knowing that when the day comes where you’re piling your roommates’ things into moving vans and helping them into their own smart, individual apartments, you will be all wry smiles and Marlboros when they repeatedly ask where you’re going from here.
“Lunch,” you’ll say, and you’ll mean it.
Because you won’t want to leave. For once. Because from your living room you can see City Hall shining through the fog. Because you can get fresh oysters for sixty cents a pop at the Sunday Farmers Market and have them on the grill in under ten minutes. Because the women in the Mission have more creativity in their flatus than you do in your, well, anything. Because you’ve vomited here. You’ve cried here. You've been plucked out of BART tracks by friends after a particularly morose and surly New Year's Eve party. You’ve walked your friends through murky troughs of shit here. It’s where your men are, and your women friends, your martyrs, your Mary’s.
You will not leave. Not because you have nowhere else to go, but because you want nowhere else to go.
It has everything you need right now. The people here are everything you'll ever want.
There’s something about San Francisco that makes you know it’s yours.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Writing
How much gets erased before it's even validated with punctuation?
Lament--you wicked fool--for those keystrokes that made only one pass of the ogre's eye.
Lament--you wicked fool--for those keystrokes that made only one pass of the ogre's eye.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
A bedtime story
Here's another story I wrote last winter during my miserable time in New York. I was about to go out one night and meet some friends, when I was taken over by the desire to tell this girl's story. Because I don't want to plant my ideas in your head, I won't tell you any more about it. But, I can tell you that it did not get the intended response from people, which means I still have a long way to go in terms of accurately portraying any sort of message. Feel free to give me helpful suggestions and comments.
The Godlist
"Hope ya ain’t goin’ far.” I didn’t answer him; I just climbed up into his early-nineties Ford dually and set my rucksack between us. He made another stab at conversation. “Pretty girl like yaself…dangerous to hitchhike, even around here. They’s crazies all around this side of the Sierras.”
“I know, but I’m not scared.” I said, looking right into his eyes for the first time since he shoved the truck down the highway. We made small talk, and I let little notes of laughter hang for awhile on his unfunny jokes. He commented on my intelligence, to add to his earlier “pretty” complement. They always did this, always tried to appear so kind.
I came onto him subtly, enough to let him know I was interested, but not enough to make him think I was for sale. He got the hint. After we passed a sign out of Lone Pine, California, cautioning “next services 77 miles” he called my attention to the nasa satellite array a couple miles east. Six upturned mushrooms big as freighters pushed their stalks up to the sky as the seti project’s search for Truth.
It was then—with my attention turned eastward—when he cut the engine and began his acting debut: “Oh, shit, shit! Goddamn this piece of shit—”
“What? What is it?” I knew the stunt.
“Goddamn truck run outta gas, all a way out here.” He really was making this too easy. His biggest mistake was pulling off on the frontage road, where he said we wouldn’t be hit by any drunk drivers. There was a muffled pop in my pocket as I eased off the lid.
He hopped out of the cab once we rolled to a stop. He’d call Triple A to get this whole mess fixed, he said. Good play, I thought, most girls have probably fallen for that. I saw his fingers mash nine digits into the cell phone’s key pad, knowing that Triple A is a ten-digit 800 number. He carried on a magnificent fake conversation, really an Oscar-worthy performance.
Jumping back in the cab, he flipped on the radio and scanned for awhile. The only station in range, propitiously, was an evangelical station. I asked him if he believed in God. He said, very openly and matter-of-fact, “Well, hell, sure. I think God’s in them mountains over there and in that little fishing stream we passed awhile back. Maybe God’s in these little moments that test your mettle, too.”
“What makes you believe in God? I mean, don’t get me wrong: I believe in God, too, of course, but I just want to know what keeps your faith.”
He drew in a sucking breath while he composed himself. “They was a time when God didn’t shine too brightly down on me, tho’ I think he coulda shined down with a spotlight and I still wouldn’a seen it, I was so damn sick,” he spoke dreamily, the way shy people pick one spot in space to stare at while they spill their guts. I didn’t interrupt him; I felt a gem coming. “Then it was all the beauty in this ‘ere world and the beauty God still shined down when I didn’a deserve none, that’s what brought me up on outta that hole. I started-ah livin’ his will and gettin’ right by him, the best I could anyway.
“That stuff’s fine, but what about the balance between good and evil and reckoning and judgment and all that?” I was flaring up now, his little sermon had let me down right when he was about to really get it. “That stuff doesn’t matter at all to you?”
“Oh, sure,” he sputtered defensively. “But, when ya get to be my age, ya start to see that it ain’t all black and white like they taught ya in sundee school. They’s good wolves and bad wolves in all of us. The one gets fed everyday, that’s the one gon’ win.”
I pretended to mull this over. It seemed appropriate. He decided the time was ripe to put his hand on my thigh. We both looked at it flopped there, helpless. I’m sure we had completely different thoughts on what would happen next.
He leaned in for a kiss, eyes closed. I maced his tear ducts and open mouth. While he flailed around, going on about, “What the fuck! Jesus!” I fingered open my cargo shorts pocket. A more cultured man would know that cargo shorts are suspicious on a girl who looks as good as I do. I took out the medicine bottle of ether and soaked my handkerchief in it as he groped along the door for the latch. I strong-dosed him, enough to keep him from moving so much but not enough to knock him out.
Opening my own latch, I climbed down and around to his side door to let him out. His weight helped the door flop open and he collapsed in the cloddy sand. After a few deep, controlled breaths, I worked on his face with my boots and at some point he stopped blocking.
Skulls are like piñatas: once you split them they practically dissolve. Pink bits and red and tooth squeezed out of the entrances to his caved-in face. After his pulse stopped, my rucksack of tools took its position on top of the sternum. I put on my gloves and fitted the surgical saw attachment to the cordless drill. I carved out his upper and lower mandibles and removed the soft palate; teeth are a bitch to get rid of, and on this trip I didn’t have access to an incinerator, though there were some smelting kilns up in Bishop if I really needed them.
Only one car passed in the half-hour and there was a high sandbank concealing me from the highway. I unzipped the vacuum-sealed pouch and removed the six-foot bag. From the other rucksack pocket I pulled out the Tupperware of Centenella larvae, which would dispose of 200 lbs of evidence in a few days. Before I zipped the whole mess up to throw him in the hole—oh yeah, I dug a hole after I removed his dental records—I plucked up his sausage fingers and dabbed one in the pools forming near his neck. I opened my notebook to the bookmarked page that read “Buckley Dewitt” at the top. Somewhere near the bullet points of “OCCUPATION” and “KNOWN RELATIONS” I smudged his gooey fingerprint, blowing lightly on it until the wet crimson lost its sheen.
Ten minutes later I climbed up to the highway. North to the right and South to the left. I opened to the back of my notebook, to “The Godlist.” Of the nineteen entries, I glanced at the remaining eleven. After crossing through “Buckley Dewitt, rape, Big Pine, CA,” my pen rested on “Othelia Downs, child molestation, Needles, CA.” I scampered to the southbound side of the highway and was about to thumb a ride when Mr. Dewitt’s cell phone rang in my cargo pocket. After contemplating the number appearing on the caller-ID screen, I answered.
“Oh, hello,” offered a warm-voiced woman, “someone from this number requested the emergency fill-up service. We’ve dispatched a tow truck from Bishop. Should be there within the hour.”
“Oh, thank you, but that won’t be necessary.”
“Is there still a problem?”
“There was, but I think we fixed it.”
The Godlist
"Hope ya ain’t goin’ far.” I didn’t answer him; I just climbed up into his early-nineties Ford dually and set my rucksack between us. He made another stab at conversation. “Pretty girl like yaself…dangerous to hitchhike, even around here. They’s crazies all around this side of the Sierras.”
“I know, but I’m not scared.” I said, looking right into his eyes for the first time since he shoved the truck down the highway. We made small talk, and I let little notes of laughter hang for awhile on his unfunny jokes. He commented on my intelligence, to add to his earlier “pretty” complement. They always did this, always tried to appear so kind.
I came onto him subtly, enough to let him know I was interested, but not enough to make him think I was for sale. He got the hint. After we passed a sign out of Lone Pine, California, cautioning “next services 77 miles” he called my attention to the nasa satellite array a couple miles east. Six upturned mushrooms big as freighters pushed their stalks up to the sky as the seti project’s search for Truth.
It was then—with my attention turned eastward—when he cut the engine and began his acting debut: “Oh, shit, shit! Goddamn this piece of shit—”
“What? What is it?” I knew the stunt.
“Goddamn truck run outta gas, all a way out here.” He really was making this too easy. His biggest mistake was pulling off on the frontage road, where he said we wouldn’t be hit by any drunk drivers. There was a muffled pop in my pocket as I eased off the lid.
He hopped out of the cab once we rolled to a stop. He’d call Triple A to get this whole mess fixed, he said. Good play, I thought, most girls have probably fallen for that. I saw his fingers mash nine digits into the cell phone’s key pad, knowing that Triple A is a ten-digit 800 number. He carried on a magnificent fake conversation, really an Oscar-worthy performance.
Jumping back in the cab, he flipped on the radio and scanned for awhile. The only station in range, propitiously, was an evangelical station. I asked him if he believed in God. He said, very openly and matter-of-fact, “Well, hell, sure. I think God’s in them mountains over there and in that little fishing stream we passed awhile back. Maybe God’s in these little moments that test your mettle, too.”
“What makes you believe in God? I mean, don’t get me wrong: I believe in God, too, of course, but I just want to know what keeps your faith.”
He drew in a sucking breath while he composed himself. “They was a time when God didn’t shine too brightly down on me, tho’ I think he coulda shined down with a spotlight and I still wouldn’a seen it, I was so damn sick,” he spoke dreamily, the way shy people pick one spot in space to stare at while they spill their guts. I didn’t interrupt him; I felt a gem coming. “Then it was all the beauty in this ‘ere world and the beauty God still shined down when I didn’a deserve none, that’s what brought me up on outta that hole. I started-ah livin’ his will and gettin’ right by him, the best I could anyway.
“That stuff’s fine, but what about the balance between good and evil and reckoning and judgment and all that?” I was flaring up now, his little sermon had let me down right when he was about to really get it. “That stuff doesn’t matter at all to you?”
“Oh, sure,” he sputtered defensively. “But, when ya get to be my age, ya start to see that it ain’t all black and white like they taught ya in sundee school. They’s good wolves and bad wolves in all of us. The one gets fed everyday, that’s the one gon’ win.”
I pretended to mull this over. It seemed appropriate. He decided the time was ripe to put his hand on my thigh. We both looked at it flopped there, helpless. I’m sure we had completely different thoughts on what would happen next.
He leaned in for a kiss, eyes closed. I maced his tear ducts and open mouth. While he flailed around, going on about, “What the fuck! Jesus!” I fingered open my cargo shorts pocket. A more cultured man would know that cargo shorts are suspicious on a girl who looks as good as I do. I took out the medicine bottle of ether and soaked my handkerchief in it as he groped along the door for the latch. I strong-dosed him, enough to keep him from moving so much but not enough to knock him out.
Opening my own latch, I climbed down and around to his side door to let him out. His weight helped the door flop open and he collapsed in the cloddy sand. After a few deep, controlled breaths, I worked on his face with my boots and at some point he stopped blocking.
Skulls are like piñatas: once you split them they practically dissolve. Pink bits and red and tooth squeezed out of the entrances to his caved-in face. After his pulse stopped, my rucksack of tools took its position on top of the sternum. I put on my gloves and fitted the surgical saw attachment to the cordless drill. I carved out his upper and lower mandibles and removed the soft palate; teeth are a bitch to get rid of, and on this trip I didn’t have access to an incinerator, though there were some smelting kilns up in Bishop if I really needed them.
Only one car passed in the half-hour and there was a high sandbank concealing me from the highway. I unzipped the vacuum-sealed pouch and removed the six-foot bag. From the other rucksack pocket I pulled out the Tupperware of Centenella larvae, which would dispose of 200 lbs of evidence in a few days. Before I zipped the whole mess up to throw him in the hole—oh yeah, I dug a hole after I removed his dental records—I plucked up his sausage fingers and dabbed one in the pools forming near his neck. I opened my notebook to the bookmarked page that read “Buckley Dewitt” at the top. Somewhere near the bullet points of “OCCUPATION” and “KNOWN RELATIONS” I smudged his gooey fingerprint, blowing lightly on it until the wet crimson lost its sheen.
Ten minutes later I climbed up to the highway. North to the right and South to the left. I opened to the back of my notebook, to “The Godlist.” Of the nineteen entries, I glanced at the remaining eleven. After crossing through “Buckley Dewitt, rape, Big Pine, CA,” my pen rested on “Othelia Downs, child molestation, Needles, CA.” I scampered to the southbound side of the highway and was about to thumb a ride when Mr. Dewitt’s cell phone rang in my cargo pocket. After contemplating the number appearing on the caller-ID screen, I answered.
“Oh, hello,” offered a warm-voiced woman, “someone from this number requested the emergency fill-up service. We’ve dispatched a tow truck from Bishop. Should be there within the hour.”
“Oh, thank you, but that won’t be necessary.”
“Is there still a problem?”
“There was, but I think we fixed it.”
Monday, August 4, 2008
A Flash Fiction Story
This is one of the flash fiction stories I wrote for a writing forum. Since I'm a fan of keeping all my work consolidated in one place, I thought I'd publish the stuff from that forum on my blog. Anyway, here it is.
Mommy Says Me
“I fulled up!”
“Charlie, eat your peas, please. Then you’ll be full,” the mother enjoined, apparently x-raying into the toddler’s stomach.
“Maw-mee!” the child blurted, “I dunnah like peas uhn! Muh-moh-ME!” His ejaculatory loathing dispatched all semblance of adequate language development, and he continued babbling incoherently into his dish. Perhaps because God doesn’t like peas either, Charlie’s father walked in.
“Duh-daddy?” pleading, “Mommy eat me peas!” Smugness spread across the boy’s face like a tattler exposing his classmates.
Even a tottering child knows tension in a room, knows its danger.
Her eyes darted to the sheaf of papers jutting haphazardly out of a manila file-folder on the countertop. His eyes followed hers, until he saw the subject of her attention. He took a quick, sucking breath and stammered, “Don’t.” A pause, then, knowingly, “Like this?”
Charlie, taking the sudden break in silence as proof of resolution, related to his ashen father, “Daddy, I says mommy I fulled up—”
“I’ll get better, for chrissake, Sue. Give it a chance, even.”
“—but mommy says me she fed up.”
Mommy Says Me
“I fulled up!”
“Charlie, eat your peas, please. Then you’ll be full,” the mother enjoined, apparently x-raying into the toddler’s stomach.
“Maw-mee!” the child blurted, “I dunnah like peas uhn! Muh-moh-ME!” His ejaculatory loathing dispatched all semblance of adequate language development, and he continued babbling incoherently into his dish. Perhaps because God doesn’t like peas either, Charlie’s father walked in.
“Duh-daddy?” pleading, “Mommy eat me peas!” Smugness spread across the boy’s face like a tattler exposing his classmates.
Even a tottering child knows tension in a room, knows its danger.
Her eyes darted to the sheaf of papers jutting haphazardly out of a manila file-folder on the countertop. His eyes followed hers, until he saw the subject of her attention. He took a quick, sucking breath and stammered, “Don’t.” A pause, then, knowingly, “Like this?”
Charlie, taking the sudden break in silence as proof of resolution, related to his ashen father, “Daddy, I says mommy I fulled up—”
“I’ll get better, for chrissake, Sue. Give it a chance, even.”
“—but mommy says me she fed up.”
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