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InterText Vol 03 No 04
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InterText Vol. 3, No. 4 / July-August 1993
==========================================
Contents
FirstText: Into Gray Areas ...................... Jason Snell
Short Fiction
Nails of Rust_............................... Ridley McIntyre_
It's All Things Considered_...................... Rod Kessler_
The Loner's Home Companion_.................. Philip Michaels_
Time To Spare_................................... Adrian Beck_
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@etext.org gaduncan@halcyon.com
....................................................................
Send subscription requests, story submissions,
and correspondence to intertext@etext.org
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 3, No. 4. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
(either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1993, 1994 Jason
Snell. Individual stories Copyright 1993 by their original
authors.
....................................................................
FirstText: Into Gray Areas by Jason Snell
============================================
The moment the woman pulled the cross out of her shirt and
showed it to me like a jewelry model on the Home Shopping
Network, it hit me.
I, a good old-fashioned agnostic, was very close to becoming a
latter-day L. Ron Hubbard, author of pulp science fiction and
billion-selling cult mind-control -- uh, self-help -- manuals.
I had written a religious epic for the screen. And nobody had
told me.
A few years ago, I began a descent into movie hell that few
could understand. You know how you have some friends that you
learn to trust, and others you have to keep watching, wary that
they'll do something to screw you over if you're not careful?
Here's a tip for you: if one of your friends wants to work as a
director, toss 'em in the second category. Better yet, toss them
in the deep end with a 50-pound bag of Cat Chow tied to their
ankles.
One of my friends wants to be a director. And that fact, mixed
with my delusions that I'm a writer, pulled me down into a level
of hell usually reserved only for child molesters and the
management of the Cincinnati Reds.
Five years ago, a story I wrote won my high school's annual
short story contest. "Into Gray" (which appeared in Quanta, Vol.
1, No. 1) was a decent tale, I suppose, about miserable people
living miserable lives after a nuclear holocaust. (The high
school students of the '90s, of course, write short stories
about miserable people living miserable lives who end up on
_Donahue._)
A year later, a friend of mine -- you guessed it, the director
-- said he wanted to make my story into a movie.
And, sap that I am, I went along with it. I was fascinated with
the idea of seeing my words translated on the screen, and told
Director-Boy I'd be glad to write a screenplay, even though I'd
never really written one before. Before my freshman year in
college had ended, I had mailed off a screenplay. Heck, I
figured, I can't write a script worse than "Howard the Duck,"
can I?
The problem wasn't that Director-Boy was a Christian. It was
that he was a _weird_ Christian, a member of the Church Of
Nipsey Russell, Scientist or some similar faith, and he had
evidently decided to devote his film career to God, Family, and
the Green Bay Packers.
I wrote one draft of the screenplay, and gave it to Director-
Boy. When I got it back, it looked quite different. My cynical
science fiction story had turned into a religious epic, rife
with crosses and rainbows and praise to God. All that was
missing from it were Charlton Heston and a rousing halftime
number from Up With People.
My favorite scene from this screenplay? A woman -- dead and
rotting in my story -- smiles and shows a little girl a
glittering cross around her neck. "This is important, too!" she
says, pushing the cross toward the camera.
Cursing Director-Boy, who had evidently decided that he was also
Better-Screenwriter-Than-Writer-Boy-Boy, I took his Christian
Epic re-write and re-wrote it again from there. I sent the
crosses to Gehenna. I banished the rainbows to a pit of
hellfire, where the savagely tormented soul of the Lucky Charms
Elf awaited them. I de-emphasized Director-Boy's reliance on
mime.
The next time I got the script back, things had really changed.
My original story, which had looked a bit like a mediocre
"Twilight Zone" episode, had turned into something out of a bad
"Star Trek" episode. I could only hope we could find an actor
whose toupee was half as talented as William Shatner's.
All of the references to God were still in there. And like the
first version, these references weren't even subtle. Characters
would begin addressing the camera about how lucky they were to
have accepted Jesus as their own personal savior, and if they
hadn't, they'd better right after the movie was over or they'd
be sorry.
I figured that at the rate religious language was appearing in
the screenplay, pretty soon the Gideons would be placing it in
hotel room drawers. I changed all of the Christian references
back.
Well, almost all of them.
I did, however, swallow hard and allow one reference to God in
the dialogue, right at the end. I bowed to the pressure of
Director-Boy, the same guy who kept sending me books about how
Jesus would save my soul and my life. The guy who mailed me
pamphlets that explained how George Bush and the Rockefellers
(except Jay, that Democrat bastard) were part of the Trilateral
Commission, a secret yet well-known group that was planning to
form a world socialist government.
I caved, like the spineless weasel I am. I decided to put in the
God references and let the world socialist government put
Director-Boy to death when they finally come to power.
I took every scene I felt was a mistake to add and tried to at
least make it as good as I possibly could, only to find it
changed by the next version I saw. I continued to fight against
overt preaching in the film, but that was about it. My story had
essentially been taken from me.
I had read a lot of stories about writers in Hollywood, and how
their works were changed when they got into the hands of
producers and directors, but I never thought it would happen to
me with one of my friends from home. But the story of Alan
Brennert, an award- winning TV writer who had worked for shows
like _L.A. Law_ and the new _Twilight Zone_ rang true for me.
Brennert recalled having a story with plot elements X and Y.
When a fellow from the network saw it, he asked him to change Y
to Z, since Y wasn't really important anyway. So Brennert,
agreeing that Y wasn't that vital, dutifully changed it to Z.
Then the network guy came back and said: "Great! Now just get
rid of X and we'll be fine."
That's how I felt. Slowly, the entire thing was slipping away.
Most of all I remember one chilling summertime conversation I
had with Director-Boy, in which he suggested that if I didn't
like what was being done with the script, he would simply "not
make 'Into Gray' " and instead make another film, presumably the
exact one we were working on. The message was clear: I had
nothing to do with this film. It wasn't really mine anymore. If
I didn't want to be involved, he'd take the work that he'd done
-- the work predicated on something that _I_ had created, not
him -- and run with it himself.
I said nothing. I turned in the newer version of the screenplay:
shorter, serviceable, and secular. Because I said nothing, the
film remained "Into Gray."
But just as 007's mentor M did after Bond misused his gun in one
of those movies starring the cross-eyed Timothy Dalton,
Director-Boy revoked my License to Write after my second
re-write. He and a friend of his, some guy named Ray -- why is
it that there's always somebody named Ray involved in these
things? -- re- wrote the whole thing again.
I never saw what they had done until the final cut of the film
was completed. I don't remember much of my first screening,
sitting alone in my room in front of the TV set. But I do
remember that woman pulling the cross up and holding it in front
of the camera, a motion you'd expect to see from Michael Jackson
with a can of Pepsi or June Allyson with a box of Depends.
This Film, the motion said, Is Brought To You By the Church Of
Bad Screenwriting.
Flash to 1993. Director-Boy wanted me to write a new screenplay
for him, based on two of my stories ("Gnomes in the Garden of
the Damned," which appeared in Quanta Vol 4, No. 1, and "Mister
Wilt," which appeared in InterText Vol. 1 No. 1). And I did it.
I wrote it, all fifty pages of it, on the last weekend in June,
a hot and sunny weekend that I spent inside, typing on my
PowerBook.
Why put myself through the torment? First of all, Director-Boy
has left the Church of Nipsey. For all I know, he might have
joined the Trilateral Commission and even now is planting secret
mental radio antennae in the minds of unsuspecting Americans. Or
perhaps he's taken up golf.
But more than that, I was just intrigued about how the film
might turn out. "Gnomes in the Garden of the Damned" is about a
pagan ritual involving Slurpees and lawn gnomes. "Mister Wilt"
is about a crazy old man who believes everyone's in on a satanic
conspiracy. I couldn't _wait_ to see how he can convert that
into a Christian message.
If he manages to do it, however, I may have to kill him. No
great loss -- after all, once the world socialist government
comes to power, murdering directors will no longer be a crime.
In fact, I'm expecting a _reward._
Jason Snell
-------------
Jason Snell edits InterText when he's not writing film projects,
working as an intern at a computer magazine, or befriending
rabid squirrels. He's just finished his first year at UC
Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. he and his girlfriend
Lauren live in Berkeley, where Jason considers writing more
fiction and enjoys using his Macintosh PowerBook. He also likes
to drink iced tea and mention monkeys as often as humanly
possible. If you'd like to see a copy of "Into Gray: The Movie"
-- no _way._
Nails of Rust by Ridley McIntyre
===================================
...................................................................
* After we fail at something, it's usually our first instinct to
try and redeem ourselves. For that redemption, we look to our
loved ones first. Perhaps, instead, we should look inside
ourselves -- no matter what the dangers. *
...................................................................
Is it possible to wake up after the nightmare,
to discover it was just a dream?
-- Rachel Twin
She found the third corpse headless and set upright against the
gates of the State Park. Beyond the steel of the gates, she
could hear the cold wind moaning through swaths of needle trees.
A soft scream in the darkness. She dipped her fingers into the
bloody stump of dead throat, sniffed at cold wet salt. A fresh
kill, no more than two hours old. She could feel the red
congealing over her fist. Flowing into the cracks in the skin
across the back of her hand where her identity had been branded.
As a commissariat's riding locust came to land behind her, she
was searching through the clothes of the corpse for clues. She
couldn't read the memory of the body alone. All it gave her when
she touched it was the shock of sudden death. Without the head,
her readings were useless. She could only use what she knew.
"Identity?" the commissariat demanded. She showed him her hand.
He looked closely at the sigils scarred across the veins and
tendons. "Yverin. A headhunter. Lost girl." He looked up.
"Disgraced?"
"Retired," she lied. Those who had lost a hunt were forced to
live in shame. Yverin had lost too many. But once the taste of
the blood was inside her, no matter how she was making her money
at the time, she had to catch the man. This target was locked
now-- she couldn't give up even if she tried.
He let go of her and stepped over to inspect the body for
himself. "What have you discovered?"
Behind his impossibly tall silhouette, the huge locust clicked
mandibles in disgust. Headhunters were too deep in the dirt for
most state commissariats. But its rider was of the opinion that
they had their uses like all things. Murderers and thieves, for
instance.
"Nothing," she replied. "Killed a couple of hours ago. No head
for a trauma memory reading. Skin reads no more than the death
itself." She wiped bloody fingers across the corpse's sleeves.
"He must have been a wealthy man, though," she said. "These
clothes are quality brushed silk."
She stood out of the way while the commissariat memorized the
scene for evidence. Then he lifted the body and threw it
regardlessly across the saddle of his locust. Without so much as
a look at Yverin he climbed on. The huge insect, with rider and
cargo, pulled off into the muddy orange sky.
"I just opened up another horse. Want some?"
She nodded. In a series of tunnels and archways under the clean
house towers of the city someone had built Dream Arcade. At
Keith's stall, he had access to a boiler and was cooking horse
meat with a hose-like steam gun. He blasted at a piece of
freshly- slaughtered flesh and she watched it gray under the wet
heat, the skin splitting and the fat popping and boiling away.
He let her carve a fist-sized chunk out of it with a bladed
meat-scoop.
Keith's usual trade was in spikes. That was why Yverin was
there. The SCD had run some tests on the wounds the three
corpses had, after they drained all the fluid out of them, and
each one came up the same; that some kind of sharp, double-edged
spike had severed those heads, and whoever killed them had spent
a lot of time and energy cutting through those necks.
Today, though, Keith was running the food, using some of his own
meager stock to cull the horses with. They sat down on a floor
made of crumbling concrete to talk and eat.
"So, I hear the commissariats have a stalker on their hands?" He
touched his face as he spoke. His fingers dancing through a
language of their own over his light-deficient gray skin. It was
a way of communicating to the deaf-mutes that congregated at
Dream Arcade for warmth and shelter. A major epidemic before
Yverin's lifetime gave birth to hordes of children who could do
nothing but see and feel. The dance expressed their emotions in
such a beautiful fashion. Yverin remembered crying when she
first saw them speak.
Keith had to force himself to learn the dance when he first came
to Dream Arcade. Now it was habitual. Even when talking to those
from the city above he danced. "Has the target locked? You
looking to make some money out of him?"
She nodded, her blue eyes alight with the fire of commerce.
"Three dead so far," she said to him. "Kills them by tearing off
the heads with a bladed spike. Pushed through the throat, then
hacked outward each side."
Keith coughed on his horse meat. "Spare me the details while I'm
eating, please!"
Yverin smiled. "Sorry. I came to you because the blade would
have to be new. The cuts are really clean. Sharp."
He shook his head. "I haven't had a bladed spike on my stall for
a long time. I follow the trends. Everyone wants to cut people
up with shark hooks. Spikes are on their way out."
"Fuck."
She ate some more horse meat. Keith started rummaging in a sack
at the back of the stall and found some stale bread and a skin
bottle with some hot sauce in it. He poured some sauce over the
meat to make it taste more edible. He offered her a husk from
the bread and she began alternating between the two.
"Anyone else sell spikes like that?"
Keith's fingers moved over his face non-committally. "Everyone.
But if it's as sharp as you say, then it could be custom-made.
Spikes are more made for stabbing, you know? You'd need perfect
metal to form that kind of edge."
She shut her eyes tight in thought. In the darkness behind the
lids she could see flames and burning steel. A pouring black
orange metalfall the color of the day sky.
"What can you see?" Keith asked.
She softly kissed his fingers one by one in gratitude. "The
source," she said.
The SCD sent a runner after her at the State Steel Factory. She
made no excuses for suddenly breaking off her tour of the works.
She wasn't getting anywhere anyway.
They had found another body. Headless, just like the others.
Another male. Outside the State Asylum. Someone had mistaken the
crumpled rag-doll of a man for an escaped inmate. Now, one of
the inmates had claimed he saw the murder.
"Tall," he said. "So tall." The inmate's eyes remained
permanently fixed in front of him. Whenever he turned to look
her way, his whole head moved. He shifted against the chains
which ran from two rings through his palms to the cell wall like
a restless riding locust, constantly fidgeting his head to see
around him.
"What did you see?" she asked him.
"You a girl. Not nice to tell you." His voice had a serrated
edge to it. Sound that grated her ears. Sawing through her mind
as he spoke. Outside, the commissariat watching the door left to
complete some other task. She knew they were laughing at her at
the end of the octagonal corridor. The headhunter trying to
interview the lunatic. They had put her up to this.
"I'll give you a choice then. The commissariats have gone." She
moved closer to him. The kneeling man arched his back to face
her as she towered over him. Moving closer. Close enough that he
could breathe her scent, but out of reach of those big chained
hands. "You tell me what you saw, or I'll rip your fucking
jawbone off."
She was hot. Hot enough to carry out that kind of promise. He
backed into the wall, a soft shake in his buzzsaw voice. "You
won't catch this one, headhunter. He changes his shape. He can
be anyone he likes. He'll kill you first."
She was squinting at him. He never moved once.
She called for an attendant. They unlocked the door and she left
the madman laughing softly to himself in the cell. She sensed
without realizing at first what her nerves were trying to tell
her. The target was in the room all the time.
But she had to leave now. Had to set the trap first.
His death had to wait.
Richlane ran her hands through the short curls of Yverin's soft
black hair. She closed her eyes and felt the girl's fingertips
tracing down over the nape of her neck. Across her back. Under
her arms. Hands cupping her breasts. The air in Richlane's dark
room breezing from an open window to a curtained archway beside
the bed where they lay side by side in unashamed nakedness.
"Paint me, Yverin," Richlane pleaded. Her short copper mop of
hair fell down across her face. "Sweeten me."
Yverin reached out and painted her skin with gum. Sugar sweet,
they could smell it as it dried against Richlane's hips; sweet
glue congealing over the flat of her stomach. Her skin
temperature rising under the touch of the brush. She gasped as
Yverin brushed over her nipples. Richlane's chest swelling
beside hers. Her breath quickening.
She returned the brush to its pot and breathed over the girl's
freckly skin. Soft breath over soft flesh, drying the glue,
forming a second skin across her body. Her back arched away from
Yverin as she leaned over her and tore the gum from her. It came
away from her first in large pieces, and then after in smaller
flakes where the gum had formed around her light body hairs. She
fed her shedding skin to Yverin, who let the flakes dissolve on
her thin tongue before swallowing. A sweet musky liquor down her
throat. They kissed then. They held each other and kissed for
what seemed like forever.
A day passed. She woke up in Richlane's arms and left her a note
painted in gum across her stomach. She promised to get back
before the next nightfall. She knew the girl would understand.
They never saw much of each other when Yverin had a criminal to
sell.
She walked to the State Commissariat Department tower. A huge
blade of grass among the tulip flower chimney-stacks in the
city's concrete field. This city was made from a plateau.
Hand-carved rock towering into the sky. What was once a huge
mesa which filled a landscape on the edge of the black ocean,
was now no more than a man-made plantation of concrete-shelled
blocks. A city of caves.
Down in the basement of the SCD tower, they had stored the
bodies of the dead. She talked to her only real friend in the
whole of the department. Avoiding the looks of contempt she got
from clerks and commissariats. Aria lived in a chamber carved
from solid concrete, like the city itself was. Walls ragged and
shadowy with gray chiseled topography.
"Anything interesting?" Yverin asked.
"New, but not interesting." Aria sat back on her bench. "The
lunatic's dead."
Yverin smacked the wall. The skin on her palm broke against the
sharp edges and she kicked it then, frustrated even more.
"Shit," she cursed. She looked over at Aria, who had her
quizzical face on.
"He was the best lead I had," she finally explained. "I was
hoping to go back there and take a reading from him. I was too
worked up to do it then."
Aria shrugged. "Sorry. He tried to escape. Tore his hands off
trying to pull the chains from the wall and bled to death. Damn
messy, from what I heard, too."
Yverin licked salt red from her palm. "You sound happy to hear
it."
"Well, it was original."
Aria smiled. Yverin couldn't help but join in.
Richlane worked at the Portside Cathedral. Portside was a
district made up of rusting metal fixed at angles to the
concrete and stone of the city. Through a stained-glass window
depicting The Fall, a bloody sun was setting fire to the black
ocean.
"It's beautiful," she said to herself. Then she turned as her
girlfriend entered the hall.
They met by the back pews. In the crux of her arms Richlane fed
a baby from a metal thermos flask and a pin-pricked rubber
nipple. She loved the work she did there. Half-way between
missionary and children's nurse. Like Yverin, she had her own
way of getting back at the wrongs of the world.
"Got your message," Richlane said. Behind her, at the far end of
this huge hall, the older children were watching the constantly
changing colors and warp of a large magic carpet high up on the
wall, transfixed as the weave-and-weft kaleidoscope spun them
some creation myth.
Yverin smiled. "Good. I didn't think I'd see you before tonight.
I had to leave in a hurry."
The headhunter reached out and brushed the back of her hand
against the baby's warm face. The thing gave out a sudden frozen
reading, like a psychic warning, that made her flesh creep. She
withdrew her hand sharply, reeling as if the child had snapped
at her.
"Any closer to getting your man?" Richlane sat in one of the
pews and took the empty bottle from the baby, preparing to wind
the thing with some coarse-handed back rubbing.
Yverin shrugged. "Dead end," she said. Richlane handed her the
bottle and turned the baby around to face the window. After a
few sharp taps on its back, the thing coughed up a trail of
thin, bubbling milk over her shoulder and onto the rusting floor
behind.
"I'd better get a rag," she said. The last words Yverin ever
heard her say.
She watched the girl carry the puking baby into a washroom and
then had to leave. The empty Cathedral seemed so suddenly small.
She could feel its walls shrinking in on her.
And silently left before she was crushed to death inside.
Inside a dream, Yverin swam in an ocean of oil. Thick and crude,
it moved like a crowd. Currents following the flow and ebb of
desire. She rode on those black waves.
Until she could see those heads floating in the blackness.
And on the horizon the heads grew larger. Their voices louder as
she swam to them to save them. But they were already dead. Long
dead now. And she could do nothing for them.
While they still had mouths they told their story.
"Looking for a head, headhunter?"
"You'll never catch this one, headhunter. He changes."
"He doesn't need a spike, fool. Look at his nails."
And they chanted: "Look at his nails. Look at his nails." Over
and over. And she was drowning then. The thick, crude, black oil
smothering her, pouring down her gullet. Feeding her and yet
depriving her of life. Until all she could see was black.
Richlane's mouth kissed her crude ocean lips. But she was just
another head. An empty soul playing savior.
Just another head.
She retched over the floor as soon as she woke up. She'd fallen
asleep in a seat at the SCD tower, and now she knew she needed
to be somewhere else. She couldn't tell if Richlane was alive or
dead. If that dream was a premonition or a direct communication.
All she knew was that the girl had somehow crossed the mirror,
the mirror of dreams, the mirror that only shows what you have
already seen and distorts it all, and she had entered into
Yverin's mind. And she knew Richlane was in trouble.
The Cathedral was deserted. A huge cave crumbling over time.
There was a pin-prick hole in the cover of the rusted roof and
rain was leaking through, dropping down to splash into a pool
halfway down the aisle, a thick red oily film rippling each
time. The floor was slowly giving way beneath it.
Yverin stepped over to where the Magic Carpet was running
through its colors and weft undulations. She watched entranced
as the carpet moved and flowed. A beautiful story unfolding in
its weave and folding over again at its edges. She felt her
nerves calming as it melted into another story.
And the baby screamed.
She ran through the main hall, down the aisle, searching through
the rows of benches until she found the thing, naked and alone
under one of the pews. It stared at her with old eyes, focused
on a point somewhere behind her face. She felt its reality just
in time.
As the nails slashed air she dove over the bench. Scrambling to
her feet, she dared not glance behind at the changing baby.
Growing, turning blind, then reforming and bubbling into
something new. Something foul and terrifyingly familiar. The
baby became Richlane.
Yverin gagged, running for the aisle, but Richlane's growing
hand, knuckles still soft, caught her ankle and began to wrap
itself around her. She grabbed onto the back of one of the seats
and pulled, her arms straining as she tried to free herself. The
fingers around her leg still growing, becoming thinner, worming
their way into the bottom of her pants and rising up her leg.
She tried to escape with one last tug, feeling her muscles tear
as she did. The fingers kept on growing.
She gave up. Turning to face Richlane, her skin was alive with
insects now, her tongue tasting nothing but raw shock scared
electricity. She had to get out of this, had to get away. Had to
convince herself that Richlane was dead. And there were tears
welling in her eyes, all the thoughts in her mind trying to hide
the feeling of those fingers climbing higher, thinning out into
skinnier and skinnier strings of wet flesh, pulling her down
into the gap between the pews and climbing for her cunt.
"Paint me, Yverin." Her voice was sugar in the air. "Sweeten
me." Richlane licked parted lips with a bloody sliver of tongue,
glossing them red. Her copper hair glinting like hot wire.
In her terrified state, all Yverin could do was attack blindly.
Her headhunter's instinct her sanity's safety net. She brought a
shaking foot round into her lover's head with all the force she
had inside her. All the anger and loss she could muster, focused
into one violent blow. Yverin's boot smashed into the changing
woman's soft-boned skull as a claw hammer would hit a peach.
Richlane jerked. The blow was hard enough to make her pull her
growing fingers back like slug antennae and she let go. Yverin
didn't wait to see if her kick killed the thing. She moved out.
Over the pews and into the aisle. Her booted foot trailing
bloodprints across the crumbling iron benches.
Stalking slowly behind on all fours, Richlane was changing once
again. The sound of bones cracking into place, flesh reshaping.
A whole new person emerging. Yverin caught sight of it as she
looked for something, anything, to fight it with. She turned in
amazement. She couldn't believe the audacity of the thing. It
had become her. In every detail. Naked, with her short curly
black hair and her light skin. And her identity branded across
the back of her hand. The sinews forming together as the thing
stepped toward her with a spiritual grace. It was monstrous, yet
so perfect. Its fingernails stretching out, claws of hard skin,
from the tips. Then retreating back to the hands, to leave one
behind. The edges so sharp. The point so brutal.
Look at his nails.
She couldn't move. She had run and it had caught her. She had
fought back and it refused to die. She'd run out of ideas now.
She refused to move.
It stepped to her. Into her. The soft flesh melting over her,
enveloping her. She had become one with herself. She backed
away, a gut reaction. The headhunter instincts kicking in once
again. Felt the oily raindrops running down her face. And when
the thing's eyes glistened black, eyes that could not focus, nor
turn away without a turn of the whole head, she saw the whole
world unfold before her. The shine of the nail ready to enter
her throat.
With everything she had left, she kicked down. Rust red water
splashing away. And her leg drove deeper down. The rusted floor
crumbled under them. The changeling took hold of Yverin and
began to melt. For an instant, they were one and the same.
She felt the fall. The wind on the back of her throat in the
darkness like a rush dream. The scream catching in her lungs,
clawing to get out. The sea was hers. Her body in black tar
drowning. Her last sight before she went under and the currents
dragged her out was the sight of herself unfolding. Spiked
through the heart on a rusty shard of iron foundation, she saw
she couldn't keep hold of a shape. Yverin became an infected
flesh mass, opening out from herself until her very bones were
bursting. She turned inside out on that skewer, then fell,
formless, into the sea.
She rose again in a blaze of sunfire. The sound of locusts
etching the sky with an ever-clicking non-voice. The
commissariats shark hooked her out of the sea and lifted her
back to the flaking dockside. The screaming of the needle trees
a soft whisper in the city.
Yverin. Headhunter. Lost girl. She had become one with the other
side of herself. Now she was the same.
The sharpness of her fingernails digging into the rust.
Ridley McIntyre (gdg019@cch.coventry.ac.uk)
----------------------------------------------
Ridley McIntyre was born in 1971 in London, England and now
studies Communications at Coventry University. He hopes that one
day he will wake up in Miami.
It's All Things Considered by Rod Kessler
============================================
...................................................................
* Susan Stamberg was the first woman to anchor a national news
broadcast, NPR's _All Things Considered_. While her new book
_Talk_ details twenty years of her work, we bet you won't find
this episode in there... *
...................................................................
Susan Stamberg wasn't interested. At least her producer wasn't
interested. National Public Radio an 800 number in Washington.
"I'm sure your work is valuable," the woman--the producer--told
me, "but--"
"What about the genius grant?" I asked.
"Look," she said, "You writers have been done to death. This
year alone we've done Chinua Achebe, Ann Beattie, Carolyn
Chute--"
I held the phone away from my ear. This woman was a New Yorker,
now vexed and annoyed.
I caught up with her again while she was still reeling off the
names--Nancy Mairs, John McPhee, Sue Miller, and more. She
started slowing down only with Walter Wetherell and the two
Wolffs. Then she paused. "So tell me," she said. "What's so
special about you?"
The McGilley Family Trust awarded me megabucks because my
pioneering work in reaching past linearity in fiction is broadly
understood to mirror contemporary reality. I've reached past
linearity. Boy no longer meets girl. Or if boy meets girl, girl
meets train, the Sihks meet the Hindus, Barbara Bush meets Raisa
Gorbachev. Transitions become kaleidoscopic.
Susan Stamberg is braying. She asks, "People really like that?"
She's interviewing a Philadelphia baker, a man who bakes pastry
the shape and size of bodies. His customers line up to buy
wedding cakes in the image of the bride, and the guests are
forking into thighs and breasts.
If only I were a baker.
The phone rings. It's the Dean again. My friends know better
than to call when "All Things Considered" is airing. He'd like
me to reconsider. He'd like me to resign or take a leave for the
duration of my grant.
"Normal writers bolt from the classroom the moment they can
afford to," he says.
Say it's the influence of radio: all sound, no picture. Say it's
all voice. Did I convey what the Dean looks like? Or the NPR
producer? Or Susan Stamberg for that matter? Or me?
Susan Stamberg is interviewing an advocate of trans-species
sexual congress. The man tells her that such terms as
"buggering" are demeaning, prejudicial. He prefers the phrase
"animal husbandry." Susan Stamberg says "I see" in a tone that's
all skepticism. "But what about this sexual congress," she asks,
"from the standpoint of a particular horse or cow?"
The man explains that the animals involved tend to be smaller.
"The working lifespan of a loved animal," he says, "is from two
to fifteen years longer than that of an animal raised for
slaughter." The spokesman certainly knows his facts. He tells
Susan that the average pet dog in America never lives to see its
fourth birthday.
"I didn't know that," says Susan.
Susan Stamberg doesn't know that I exist.
My mother loved me as a child, loved me and listened to me. Even
my therapist concurs on this point. I am not looking for
approval. I'd be willing to talk with Susan Stamberg privately,
with the microphones switched off.
Some basic questions: Is this the next paragraph? What if you've
lost a page or if I've misnumbered the manuscript once again
(the secret of my technique)? Are we dislocated? Where am I,
after all? Where are you? Has the broadcast been prerecorded?
Another basic question: Does Susan Stamberg wonder about us,
just as we wonder about her?
Snapshots. I am in my narrow kitchen, standing over a sink
filled with dishes. The entire apartment smells of dried
eucalyptus, a decorative touch wasted on the radio audience. A
swedish ivy hangs in the window. The radio sits atop the
refrigerator--a Sanyo model RP 5225, a two-band AM-FM receiver,
its antenna broken off three inches above the casing.
But that's apocryphal. The water roars out the faucet and I can
never hear you above it, Susan Stamberg. I sit quietly at the
edge of my bed, fingernail in my mouth, listening on the
Panasonic clock radio.
My fourteen creative writing students are wired for sound in
Walkmen. It's 6:05 in the evening, and they're scattered around
the city, doing whatever it is they do--playing video games,
buying albums, skateboarding. They have to listen. It's an
assignment. They are frowning. It isn't their idea. What does a
radio show that has no music have to do with creative writing,
they ask.
They ask my department chairman.
They ask the Dean.
Come on, kids, I say. Smile for the mind's eye. That's right.
It's "All Things Considered."
Time could be passing. It takes a hurricane or a national
drought to prompt a weather report on this radio show. When the
air temperature drops and the leaves turn brown, we pull off the
screens and shut the windows. Without the sounds of traffic from
the street, the rooms grow quiet. We make an adjustment of the
volume knob.
Susan Stamberg is interviewing an astrologer who determines a
person's fate by the position of the stars at the moment of his
death, not his birth. He might have been born a Virgo but what
counts is whether he dies a Leo.
"Is there really a market for this?" Susan asks. "Well," the
woman says, "people are starting to insist that they be taken
off their respirators before they come to a cusp."
"You're kidding," Susan says, delight apparent in her voice. The
woman tells Susan that clients have to pay in advance. The
astrologer has been working funerals.
"Hm," says Susan. "Is that like giving a eulogy?" "Something
like that," the woman says.
"How would that sound?" Susan asks.
"Well," the woman says, "last week I did one for a woman who
died a Capricorn. 'Jane,' I said, 'went into her death with her
moon in Orion. No wonder none of her marriages lasted. People
dying with their moons in Orion tend to be interested more in
conquest than in consistency--"
"Wait a minute," Susan says. "Orion's not in the zodiac, is it?"
"It gets better," the astrologer says. "Her setting sign fell on
a direct tangent to downtown LA. No wonder she was so
histrionic."
"Her setting sign?" asks Susan.
"She should have stayed single," the astrologer says. "Um hm,"
says Susan Stamberg. "Now is there any way of knowing in advance
what your death sign will be?"
"Short of killing yourself?" the woman asks. The question hangs
in the air.
Even before the genius grant, the students and the Dean were
urging success upon me. One best-seller, they thought, and I'd
be launched away from campus forever. The students call my
methods arbitrary, but life is arbitrary. I shuffle the pages of
their stories before I read them. They ask tiresome questions
about plot development and story structure. I talk about
randomness and confusion. At the window of the classroom I point
toward the smoke stacks, the projects, the railroad tracks
drawing the eye to the horizon.
"What is verisimilitude?" I ask.
Tenure is a double-edged knife.
What is it about you, Susan Stamberg?
My therapist would prefer that her identity be respected in this
and my other work. So let us refer to her as Dr. Deidre von
Schien, M.D., her actual name, with all due respect. Her office
is a perch on the tenth floor of a high rise overlooking a city
square. She gets excellent reception. In her waiting room,
stereo speakers purr out classical programming. Is the point of
this to relax the client or merely to muffle the sound of the
previous appointment's therapy? If yours is a 5:00 appointment
and Dr. von Schien is running late, you will hear the co-hosts
give the lead- in for "All Things Considered."
Alternatively, you ignore the news and stare out the window down
ten flights to the crowds milling along Washington Avenue and
Pierce Street. Where were these multitudes just ten minutes
before? How is it that they're all so sure of their
destinations? What do they know that I don't know?
"So tell me," she asks, "what made you decide to go into non-
commercial advertising?" It's Susan Stamberg, finally
interviewing me.
"Because I'm an advocate of non-commercial radio," I say. She's
not fooled. "That's not the real reason, is it? After all, your
ads weren't broadcast on non-commercial radio stations."
That's true. Those ads cost a fortune.
"Sounds to me," she says, "like you were just trying to have
fun."
I shrug but she can't see that. She's in the studio in
Washington and I'm in the studio at the local affiliate, about
ten blocks from campus. That's how they do it when they have
time to set up an interview in advance. Otherwise they have you
talk into your phone but then the sound isn't as good.
I'm talking into a microphone at a huge circular desk in a room
that's apparently completely sound-proofed. The ceiling looks
like corrugated foam. One wall is all glass.
Susan Stamberg is evidently sitting in something called Studio
Five. I'm getting her through a big pair of earphones. I feel
like a Mouseketeer. The station manager sits next to me and
points her finger at the microphone when it's my turn to speak.
"Let me get this straight," Susan says. "You made up and paid
for an advertising campaign for products that don't exist."
"Well, they didn't exist," I say. "But someone is marketing
Realpoo now."
"Tell us about Realpoo."
"Realpoo is for people with hair," I say. "Try Realpoo and
champagne instead of shampoo and real pain."
"I like that," she says. "Try Realpoo and champagne....That has
a real ring to it."
I'm going to be known for the rest of my days as the man who
invented Realpoo.
There's an imposing clock on the wall with an unstoppable second
hand. But this interview is being taped for later broadcast.
They'll edit it. There's no point in being anxious about the
time.
When they air the interview, they'll also broadcast the jingle I
made up for another non-product, Powder-to-the-people. "Black
powder for the black, black people; red powder for the red, red
people; powder to the people!"
Susan Stamberg asks me to talk about the other non-products.
There's Blue Genes (for a truly depressive child). There's the
five-year renewable marriage license and the college degree with
an expiration date.
"But what about the other ones?" she asks. "The ones that sound
suspiciously like something else we know about?"
She's referring to Oil Things Considered (The Right Art For The
Right Spot) and Oral Things Considered (Why Pay Through Your
Teeth?)
"And isn't it true," she asks, "that in all these ads, which ran
for a week in your city, you listed our 800 number as the number
to call?"
"Well," I say, "I was just trying to direct people's attention
to the real non-commercial radio. You see," I tell her, "I
thought my ridiculous ads would make people question the whole
process."
"I don't know," Susan Stamberg says, sounding skeptical, "but
hundreds of calls came in wanting to buy Realpoo."
"Sorry," I say.
"I wonder," says Susan. "But you certainly caught our
attention."
"Your producer's?" I ask.
"Hm," she says. "What do you know about my producer?"
It's 6:20 in the evening and I'm at home with my Panasonic.
There I am on the radio and Susan Stamberg is asking me if all
of my non-commercials are going to make me rich. I stare at my
hands and listen to myself explain that if I'd had the business
sense to even register a trademark I'd be potentially collecting
thousands now. The stuff is already starting to go head and
shoulders with Head and Shoulders.
Real pain.
As it happens, the non-commercials ate up the McGilley Family
Trust money. Of course, I still draw a paycheck over at campus.
It's depressing to realize that when you're interviewed by Susan
Stamberg, you don't necessarily get to meet her.
I sit back on my bed and listen to the end of the interview.
Susan Stamberg says, "Fun's fun, everybody, but please don't
call our eight-hundred number in Washington, all right?"
There's a pause and then the sign-off: _And for this evening,
that's all things considered._
I get up from the bed and switch off the receiver. It's quiet in
my apartment, and then I hear the rumble of a truck outside. I
walk to the living room and stare out the window. It will be
summer again soon and boats will moor in the harbor. I walk into
my narrow kitchen and peek into the refrigerator. I feel a
hunger growing inside me, bit it's not a hunger food can touch.
A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Is there going to be life
after Susan Stamberg?
Rod Kessler (rkessler@ecn.mass.edu)
--------------------------------------
Rod Kessler commutes from Cambridge to Salem, Massachusetts, to
teach writing and edit the _Sextant_ at Salem State College.
Progress on his novel has slowed with the birth of his son two
years ago, but he gets to spend a lot of time playing horsey.
The Loner's Home Companion by Philip Michaels
================================================
...................................................................
* Ever had lots of spare time, a .357 Magnum burning a hole in
your pocket, and an unhealthy obsession with Heather Locklear or
Adrian Zmed? If you have (and who hasn't?), this guide is for
you. *
...................................................................
Somewhere out there in any city -- it could be Boise, Duluth or
even West Covina -- there's some sullen human being sitting in
front of the television set in a pair of boxer shorts and a
pizza- stained T-shirt. In one hand he's holding a can of
Budweiser; in the other he's holding a remote control.
_Sheriff Lobo_ is flickering on the TV set, but he doesn't pay
attention. He's only thinking about the world of hurt he's going
to do when he finally gets around to locating a clean pair of
socks.
This man is a moody loner. He has little ambition and even less
reason to live. The odds are high that sometime within the next
week, he's going to snap and start firing a scattergun into the
produce section of a local supermarket. But you have no reason
to pity or despise this particular moody loner because chances
are _you're one too._
Do you feel tired, depressed or irritable? Do you find yourself
driven to the brink of sanity by the trivial things in life?
Have you developed a taste for killing? Are you a recently
laid-off postal worker? If you answered yes to any of these
questions, then congratulations -- you are now an official moody
loner. If you answered no, then don't worry -- you'll get yours
soon enough. The moody loners will see to that.
Moody Loners Throughout History...
From Cain to Nixon
Since the dawn of time, moody loners have had a lasting
influence on society and culture, as they sulk about, ducking
down poorly-lit alleyways and filling journal after journal with
wretched poetry. _Anyone can be a moody loner!_ Housewives,
fathers, certified public accountants, teamsters, sniveling
graduate students and even major presidential candidates have
all, at one time or another, boasted more moody loners among
their ranks than you could shake a loaded handgun at. All you
need to be a moody loner is a pessimistic outlook, a tenuous
grasp upon reality and an alarming tendency to open fire upon
innocent bystanders. _It really is just that simple!_
But being a moody loner isn't just about assassinating
government officials, stalking famous Hollywood starlets and
terrorizing small children for their lunch money. It's oh so
much more... moody loners are valued members of the community.
Moody loners can contribute to many neighborhood projects like
block parties, neighborhood watch programs and frightening away
undesirables with large-caliber weapons. You don't have to be
imbalanced to be a moody loner, but it sure does help.
Famous Moody Loners
Hammurabi
Vincent Van Gogh
TV's Barbara Billingsley
Spiro Agnew
Beloved ventriloquist Senor Wences
Attorney General Janet Reno
Andrea Dworkin
Bob Costas
Illusionist Doug Henning
Abe Vigoda
DeForest Kelley
Catherine "Daisy Duke" Bach
Most of the original members of KISS
Art Garfunkel
Susan Faludi
Am I a Moody Loner? A Simple Test...
1. I am moody.
> Yes
> No
2. I am a loner.
> Yes
> No
Answer Key: If you answered yes to both of these questions,
congratulations! You're a card-carrying moody loner! If you
answered yes to only one of the questions, you're probably just
a member of the Libertarian Party, which is close enough as far
as we're concerned. If you answered no, don't despair. You'll
come to your senses one day.
But Am I Really a Moody Loner?
A Slightly More Difficult Test
1. Complete the following sentence: A bird in the hand...
> a) is good eatin'
> b) can get really messy
> c) is worth a bullet in the brain
2. You decide to leave a dead animal on the doorstep of that
special someone you've been stalking. Do you leave:
> a) a guppy
> b) an orange and white tabby cat
> c) a rhinoceros
3. You've just snapped and gone on a vicious, murdering rampage.
Where would be the best location to go on your killing spree?
> a) a fraternity rush event
> b) a public eatery somewhere in the United States
> c) the United States
4. What is your favorite leisure activity?
> a) sobbing
> b) killing
> c) sobbing after killing
Scoring: For each (a) answer, give yourself 10 points and
subtract 4 from the total. For each (b) answer, give yourself 3
points and divide by the square root of 564. For each (c)
answer, subtract 10 points, multiply by the average
circumference of the human skull and add your zip code to the
total.
If you scored no points: You are a perfectly normal human being
with absolutely nothing to worry about, unless, of course,
you're lying about your score in order to impress us, in which
case you're one sick puppy.
If you scored anything else: There's no denying it. You're one
severely messed-up individual. Manic-depressives probably shun
your company because they think you're "too unstable." Read on.
Tips For Beginning Moody Loners
Novice moody loners are always at a loss when they begin their
careers as troubled loners living on the fringes of a cold and
unfeeling society. Should I be a vigilante or a crazed citizen
driven over the edge? Should I write my poems in blank verse or
in iambic pentameter? And what about selling the rights to my
life story to some exploitative TV show? Good questions. And no
matter how daunting it all may seem at first, just remember:
You're a moody loner. Things are supposed to daunt you.
Beauty Tips For The Loner In All Of Us
_Stop sleeping._ Toss and turn each night. Walk the streets in
the seedy part of town just like Robert De Niro in Martin
Scorcese's 1975 motion picture _Taxi Driver._ This will give you
a seedy, unwashed appearance, not to mention a sallow
complexion. After a few days without sleep, you'll look as bad
as you feel.
_Don't comb your hair._ As a moody loner, you should be far too
troubled with the nefarious plot of society against you to worry
about whether your cowlick is matted down. Forget about your
hair completely -- this will give you a look similar to that of
Jesus Christ or David Crosby, either one really. It's this type
of look that moody loners have yearned after for generations.
_Brush after every meal._ This will help you keep that healthy
smile.
_For God's sake, stop smiling._ You're supposed to be oppressed
by the weight of the world's problems. Quit acting like
everything is all shiny and happy, when we know very well that
any minute now, you could be on the floor in the fetal position
weeping profusely.
_If you happen to hear any voices in your head,_ do exactly what
they tell you to do, no matter how outrageous or morally
repulsive. After all, the voices know best, and it's simply
better to give into their unseemly demands right away, rather
than allowing these inner demons to peck away at your very
existence. Remember -- those voices are a whole lot smarter than
you. They've been to college, you know.
Moody Loner Exercises
_Keeping a rambling diary._ Every moody loner has to keep a dog-
eared, incoherent record of their half-baked thoughts and
sinister desires. It's mandatory -- otherwise how will big shot
Hollywood producers make an exploitative TV show about you?
You'll be a laughingstock among your fellow moody loners, and
considering that these people never laugh, that's slightly
embarrassing.
Try this simple exercise. Write about a painful childhood
experience and why the government is to blame for it. Make sure
your essay is at least five hundred words, typed and double-
spaced. You'll be marked down for spelling errors. Begin.
Sample: It was at camp, and I kept wetting my bunk bed because I
was so worried about the government's inadequate health care
policy. At night, the other kids would come to bunk and beat me
with bars of soap and oranges that they have shoved into their
socks. And that only made me wet my bed more. As I recall, one
of the kids looked like Nixon, with his beady eyes and evil
desires. He kept shouting at me and hitting me and taunting me
about forced busing. That was when I swore revenge against him,
the Lutheran Church and the aliens that were programming their
wicked actions.
_Writing deranged fan letters to Hollywood superstars._ Every
moody loner has to write a ton of obsessive fan mail swearing
dog- like devotion to some overrated actor or actress. You have
to do it, or else no one will understand why you went on a
12-state killing spree. Some good celebrities to write fan mail
to include the silver screen's Jamie Lee Curtis, celebrity
impersonator Fred Travelina and entertainment legend Englebert
Humperdink.
_Weeping._ Every moody loner has to fall to his knees sobbing
for no good reason whatsoever. It's part of your contract, right
after that bit about wearing faded army flak jackets whenever
you go out in public. Weeping is pretty easy. All you have to do
is think of something sad like a lost puppy dog or the motion
picture Ishtar. You'll be drowning in your own tears in no time.
_Composing bad poems._ Every moody loner has to compose ream
after ream of wretched poetry. You have to because... well,
because I said so. The poems can be about anything, provided
that they are without rhyme, meter or any redeeming literary
value.
Sample:
I see you there, my love
Talking to someone else, who is not me.
I see the both of you laughing, laughing at
me! Damn your eyes.
So I shot the two of you in the kneecaps,
And I ate the last piece of key lime pie,
the one your mother baked us
Right before she got the rickets.
And it made me happy
So there.
Some Parting Advice
Being a moody loner has its disadvantages. You don't get invited
to many parties, people tend to run in fear from you and the
only time you ever receive any real attention is during the FBI
manhunt after that unfortunate incident at the Galleria over the
weekend. But on the positive side, you save a fortune on
Christmas cards and after awhile, those voices inside your head
can say some real deep things. Lately, the voice I've been
hearing -- let's call him Frank -- has been telling me that
Billy Ray Cyrus was Satan's valet.
Now normally, I would be skeptical, but Frank's usually right
about these things -- at least he was right about Suzanne Somers
and her involvement with the global communist conspiracy. So I
figure Frank and I go pick up some ammo and maybe a couple of
mortars, and we...
Uh, anyhow. You understand what I'm saying.
Philip Michaels (pmichael@sdcc13.ucsd.edu)
---------------------------------------------
Philip Michaels has just completed his junior year at UC San
Diego. He is the executive editor of _Spite_ magazine, and the
news editor of the UCSD Guardian newspaper. This piece
originally appeared in the first issue of _Spite_.
Time to Spare by Adrian Beck
===============================
...................................................................
* Having friends you've known since childhood can be
mind-bending. Nobody can hide from all the stupid things we all
did as kids. And now, even after all this time, they probably
know you better than you know yourself. *
...................................................................
I can never walk on concrete. As a kid, splits and slivers of
pain shot up to my knees when teachers made us march on the
sidewalk; the feeling stays with me today through grocery stores
and parking lots. Dirt and grass are always easier and more
honest, softer. When my mother took me for shoes, once a year, I
would look for ones that felt like I was walking on the ground,
but I never found them. Jogging shoes are close, but my feet
fall around them. I find myself walking on their sides, the
soles rolling out from underneath my feet, and needles of pain
piercing my shins.
So I roll over and stare at the concrete floor from the height
of the mattress, trying not to drag the blankets with me. The
floor stares back, waiting. I know if I get up barefoot my legs
will hurt the rest of the day. My shoes are on the other side of
the bed. In between sleeps David, who doesn't have to get up for
another two hours.
I don't want my legs to hurt because today I have to go to see
Willy. And Willy can't just sit there and talk to people -- he
has to drag them along with him through the concrete floors of
his converted warehouse, showing them this and that as they try
to explain why they've come to see him, and that makes things
worse. Willy doesn't seem to think that people might go out
there for some reason other than just to see him. No life exists
for him outside the warehouse. Newspapers might as well be
science fiction.
I stand carefully, tiptoe through the door to the bathroom, snap
on the lights.
I futz with my toothbrush until my teeth are clean and my breath
scrubbed -- and now I am ready to think. I pull on some socks
and pants, then snatch a sweater up from next to the bed,
reasoning that they are all equally clean. I try to lock the
door quietly as I leave. David doesn't want to be reminded about
my going to see Willy.
Skipping over a fence, I follow the weeds along the side of an
irrigation ditch and wonder if today -- a rather warm, cloudy
day -- is strange. If it is, then I think that everything will
go all right with Willy. If not, then we'll have to get drunk
again.
Willy and I grew up together -- as much as myself and anyone
could grow up together. Our fathers built airplanes. They
originally worked for the same company in the same division, but
mostly they worked as a team. We were born in Oklahoma and moved
on from there, switching companies, following the contracts. It
was great fun for me and Willy -- we'd pack each other's things,
playing in an adventure only we shared. I remember the faces of
new children in elementary school, trying to find a place for
themselves in the middle of a year, trying to learn the new
names and places. Willy and I never went through that. Moving
wasn't a terrible thing for us because we were together. It
wasn't moving at all -- it was just finding a new playground.
That changed when Willy was moved up a grade. Then the only
times we saw each other were during recess -- and Willy'd get
teased for hanging around the younger kids' playground with me,
even more so because I was a girl. Eventually Willy stopped
coming over, and then, the next year, our fathers had a falling
out. His family moved again and mine stayed behind.
Since then I've always thought of Willy as being ahead of me,
both because he skipped a grade and because he got to move one
more time.
Maybe he's still ahead of me.
He says he thinks my hair has grown. I run my fingers through it
-- I hadn't given it any thought, but I guess it has. His is
just growing back, so I don't say anything.
He wheels around through the doorway, taking me out into the
cool air of the main area. The crates and cardboard boxes are
all where he left them, the fluorescent orange spray-paint still
scrawled everywhere, labeling things. _Chair. Doorway. Mess._
Willy was always one for organization. The Caterpillar forklift
is still in the corner, zebra-striped with purple, the telltale
shimmer of grease beneath it. We'd never managed to get the
thing running, not after all these years.
"Wanna go up and see Chez Viola?" he asks, pushing himself
along. "Been a while."
Chez Viola is an old supervisor's office overlooking the main
floor of the warehouse. Willy had converted it to a den of
iniquity with a television and an old mattress thrown into one
corner.
I hesitate and cast a glance towards the windows of the old
offices. I couldn't see the tattered lawn furniture we'd
arr
anged there. "Can you?" I say. "I mean..."
"No," he says, a statement of fact. "I suppose not."
We go along almost like we're in a museum, look but don't touch,
alarm sensors everywhere. I'm amazed they let him come back
here, after everything. You'd think they'd take him somewhere
else, a residential program, or at least send someone here with
him to make sure he was all right. But I guess they won't. Willy
is an adult. We both are now.
"The docs says my ship fucking well came in. Say it's
fashionable, being an artist and all. Van Gogh, you know. Robert
E. Howard. Got it made now."
"Oh."
Willy stops, looking at a styrofoam panel leaning against a
door, the outline of a human figure melted into it. "Is it a
strange day yet?"
I don't know what to answer. "I don't know," I say lamely.
"Probably not." Inwardly, I kick myself.
Willy waits a minute, taking in the white-on-white.
"Uh huh," he says, and turns away.
Willy sets the bottle down on the tar roof and slowly wipes his
mouth with the back of his hand. As I reach for it a truck -- a
pickup, four-wheel drive -- rumbles over the old train tracks
that cut the road leading to Willy's warehouse. Dust flies up, a
mandala without a god, then shifts in the setting sun.
"Want some Codeine? They gave me some Codeine."
"No thanks."
It was a pain in the ass trying to get him up here. We'd started
at five and the sun doesn't even start to go down until about
seven this time of year. Neither of us said anything about it --
our conversation skirted the task at hand.
I liked the roof because it sunk a little under my weight; he
liked it because he could see all around the building, king of
his hill.
It was strange to carry him up, then pull the chair along
afterwards. He's so light there's almost nothing to him. I
remember the time I broke my hand and Willy had pulled me back
to the house, out of a snowstorm on the way home from school.
Probably saved my life then -- kept me from going into shock,
then freezing to death.
He might figure this makes us even.
I take a swig from the bottle.
"The trust money is gone now," says Willy, looking towards the
gold-tinged, treeless mountains. "Looks like things are pretty
much over."
"The bills did it?" I ask.
"Yeah. Ate it all up and more." Willy snorts. "Looks like I
gotta go out and get a _job,_ now."
"Shit."
"Yeah. Shit. Pass the -- yeah, thanks." The shadow of the bottle
falls across his face. He doesn't look much older -- I hadn't
expected that. I wonder if it's just the light.
"Do I look older?" I ask suddenly.
"What?" He sits up a little, eyeing me like a traitor. "You
think you're growing up on me or somethin'?"
"Just asking."
"Well, then." He settles back down, pulling the shadow of his
baseball cap over his eyes. "I guess. Your hair's longer. Older
women're supposed to have long hair. How're those gran'
chillin?"
"Oh, fine," I say, nodding. "Fine."
"Glad to hear it."
We sit a while; I prop my feet on the lip of the roof. I know
the amber fluid is settling into me but I can't feel it and this
worries me a little. I reach for the bottle.
Willy sighs.
"If you need a place to crash, I've got space," I say. "Staying
here might not be a hot idea."
"Really?" Willy squints at the sunset. "So how's David?"
"What?"
"How's David?"
I take a breath. "Zonked."
"That all?"
"Pretty much." I rub my eyes. "He quit smoking for New Year's."
"Mmmm." Willy sets the bottle down again. "Thought he gave it up
for Lent year 'fore this."
"He did."
"Then the Lord's an Indian giver," he smiles, teeth glinting
with the sunlight. "And we'll all get our souls back come
Judgment."
"You already got yours back once, though."
"Yeah," He fumbles around inside his pocket and fishes out some
tablets. "Reckon so. Sure you don't want any?"
Dear Libby-
Don't worry about the sleeping pills anymore.
They're all under the sink in the upstairs bathroom,
in the plastic Safeway bag. I'm feeling better and
have sorted things through-you don't have to worry
about the pills anymore.
Today I bought a gun.
Willy
That had been last year when we were living together, before
David had moved in. Before there was a need for him to move in.
I can still see the napkin stuffed in my old 1953 Royal
typewriter, the one that had survived the Blitz, undoubtedly --
the one still sitting where Willy had left it.
David had taken the note out that night, after I'd gone.
It took me a long time to realize the Blitz happened before the
typewriter had been made.
The night had been bad enough already; cold wind ripping at the
walls and the TV reception flickering, snow imminent. We still
hadn't picked up from New Year's, although I'd finally swept the
broken glass. The popcorn had long since been crushed into the
carpet; now it was only the slight yellow of butter that
distinguished it from plaster dust. Bowls and glasses and cups
were everywhere -- a dark coffee stain in the doorway. I hadn't
been doing anything but reading -- I'd managed to get in and get
some tea and settle down without once looking at the old Royal.
It's like that some days. Sometimes you can sit at it for hours
and hours, watching the paper go through it as if someone else
were typing. Other times you can't even look at it, like you
can't look at your parents or your grade school teacher.
Of course I'd gone straight over to the warehouse, running
lights and sliding on the ice in David's Chevy. Willy'd crawled
to the doorway, towards the phone, when I got there. I stared
for a long minute before I did anything. The first thing I
wondered was if they'd ever be able to get the stain out of the
carpet.
"They let him _out?_"
"Sure. He can't pay anymore so they had to let him go."
"And..." David stopped, running his fingernails through his
hair. I watch expectantly over the rim of my cup. "But is he all
right?"
"They plugged the hole. Looks fine to me."
"Oh, for Christ's sake -- " David disappeared into the
kitchenette, his sounds filling the place his body had left.
"And he's back at the warehouse?"
"Mhmmm."
"Wonderful."
I sip and set the cup down. "Why? Does that bother you?"
"Bother me?" David's head and a shoulder re-emerge from the
kitchen. "Oh, no, why should it? I mean, it's only where he did
it the first time -- "
"You make it sound like there's going to be a second time."
"Well, what if there is?" He looks at me a moment, seeming
pleased with the silence. It carries on further and its weight
shifts back to his shoulders. David fidgets and turns back into
the kitchen. "You'd think they'd send him someplace else," he
says finally.
"Where?"
"I don't know -- some loony bin."
"They sent him home, David. The warehouse is his home."
"Yeah, well they still should lock him up."
"He can't afford it," I say, and take another sip.
Sometimes we'd go to a schoolyard in the evening or in the
summer -- when nobody was there. It was strange to see the
asphalt, the jungle-gyms, the tires, the paint, the sand, all
sitting there without kids to scrape their knees and bleed on
them. We'd decided that's what playgrounds were for -- for kids
to bleed on. Blood was like frustrations and playgrounds
prevented kids from taking theirs out on teachers. We came for
similar reasons. We'd walk around, eye the basketball hoops --
shorter, closer to the ground now than they had been -- and talk
about things. Comic books, Christmas, anything. Even home. We'd
talk about Willy's dog, his parents, my parents, the trees, the
people in the houses next to the school. We'd talk about
superheroes and cartoons, how to build a better Lego
rocket-ship.
I suppose it was from watching TV we'd learned about plot
twists, about melodrama. I think that if you kept every aspect
of our lives -- cars, cigarettes, drugs, schools, moving -- and
somehow stripped out radio and TV and books -- no, just stripped
out the pulp, the trash -- that you'd find we wouldn't have been
rebellious, that we never would have done what we did. No more
sprained ankles jumping off the roof because Willy thought he
was the Six Million Dollar Man. No more imaginary tantrums or
tears over fights. It would have been wonderful and we would
have been children, the children our parents meant us to be.
As it was, melodrama ruled our lives. It satisfied our need for
attention, gave us the means to the corruption and decadence we
were looking for. And when we found it, we learned how to use
it. We became subtle, which translated to "bright" and "gifted."
We did well in school, even as we moved, confident in our
sophistication, our superiority, our ability to draw in others
with our frightening darkness, our secrets. It was ours, it was
all we had.
And now look at us.
I set down the paper, thinking it looks very chic against the
paint-spattered bench in the warehouse. Willy smiles, then
tosses an old paint tube into the trash. He's cleaning --
company is coming.
"Neat, huh?"
"How did they find out about you?" I ask, lifting myself up onto
the tabletop.
Willy smiles again, examining the bristles on an old blackened
brush. "I told 'em. Rolled right out to the pay phone and told
'em."
I laugh at this -- I can just see Willy popping quarters into
the phone to call up the newspaper, his voice very deep and
controlled. He looks up and me, grinning even wider. "S'right,
Libby. That's exactly what I did."
"So who're they sending?"
"Their Arts and Leisure editor. I'm hot shit -- I get the
editor."
"Wow."
"Publicity, babe. That's the way it works."
I nod as Willy bumps around the table to examine a series of
jars, layers of pigment and solvent neatly cross-sectioned in
the glass. "Why did I get into this shit?" he says, pulling
coagulated brushes from each. "Spray cans are better. Point 'em,
squeeze 'em, toss 'em when you're done. Disposable." He squeezes
fluid out of the bent bristles, staining his fingers, wincing.
"No such thing as red sable spray paint."
"Rips up the ozone, Willy."
"Yeah, so does farting. Ozone's disposable too." He passes me a
jar. "Dump this down the sink, will ya? I don't gotta save old
turps no more."
I take it and walk across the floor. "So why're you rejecting
your old spirits?"
Willy sits back, carefully examining the tabletop. "Gonna be
rich, Libby. Then I can get _clean_ turps, brand new, straight
from the ozone layer."
I dump the jars and watch the mud swirl down the sink. "How're
you figuring?"
"You got me thinkin' last time. They say Van Gogh was addicted
to turpin."
I turn, bringing the jars back over and remounting the table.
"Yeah, so? Maybe he ate his paints and shot himself. Big deal.
He's dead."
"The man sold a sunflower for 37 million, Libby."
"Nuh-uh," I say, seeing where this is leading. "Whoever owned
that painting sold it for 37 mil, probably after paying ten
bucks for it."
"I intend to improve upon that example."
I sigh. "You're fucked up, Willy."
"Not yet. Which reminds me -- " He fiddles with his shirt
pocket, produces a plastic bag. "Gotta do something about that
before Ms. Bradburn arrives." He reaches for a matte knife.
"Oh, man." I don't want to sound whiny, but this is really
pushing things. "You aren't -- this is the paper you're talking
about."
"I sure as hell am." He wipes his mixing surface with a rag.
"Marketable. Gotta have that crazed look, that beyondness.
Angst." He spills a little of the powder onto the tabletop.
"Shit, Willy." I stand, reaching for my jacket. "I'm leaving
now."
"You'll miss the birth of a star. Brightness -- " He gestures.
"Glitter. The smell of fresh turpentine."
"Get lost."
"Love ya too, Libby." He smiles, I know, behind me as I walk
towards the door. Out the window I see the sedan pulling up over
the train tracks, turning towards me.
Willy should stop watching soap operas.
It's nice. Not the most prestigious place, but nice. Not that
I'd expect somewhere prestigious to carry his line of shit,
anyway. I see pieces I remember from years ago, remember fumes
burning into my sinuses up in Chez Viola.
Oh man.
"Excuse me."
I turn, facing a woman with cropped hair, a jumpsuit and boots.
I can hear her earrings clank against her neck -- she smells
like a boutique.
"I'm sorry, you'll have to leave. The show isn't open."
"Guest of the artist." I give her my best condescending smile.
"Elizabeth Francis? Surely it's on your list." If I had a
cigarette -- if I smoked -- I would have exhaled then. Not into
her face, but close enough that she'd know. As it is, I blink
twice and put a hand on my hip. She ruffles through the
clipboard.
"Yes. I'm sorry. The reception is back in the acquisitions room,
through -- "
"Yes, I know where it is -- thank you very much."
As I walk through the gallery I notice the air. Stale, but
underneath it all, the faint smell of the warehouse, the freon
and grease.
I decide the show, for that reason, will be a success.
Willy is surrounded by men and women in suits. They're holding
cups and standing in a tight circle, twittering with nervous
laughter. Willy isn't wearing a hat and you can see the dent
where his skull doesn't quite fit together. He introduces me and
the heads of the circle collectively turn, nod politely, then
lock back into place with Willy at their center. I'm reminded of
a car crash -- the fascination of blood. I step back and get a
glass of something, then lean against the for wall. I pick up a
pamphlet, pretend to peruse it, and wait for Willy to need a
ride home.
Stability, I think, isn't really the thing that's been getting
to me like it's been getting to Willy. What gets to me is
concrete. Not just the stuff that you walk on, sending ice picks
up your legs, but the kind they heap everywhere around you, the
kind that tourists pay money to lock themselves inside. All
everyone seems to want are little concrete crannies to
themselves. Doesn't seem to matter what the people do in other
crannies, as long as their music isn't too loud and they don't
smell too much. Concrete, after all, blocks smells.
But it is stability that Willy is after. He wants an immortality
aside from children; an adoring public, and an end to his guilt.
He wants it in himself and in people, in living things. It's not
that he doesn't want challenge -- he realizes that is what
drives him -- but that he wants the freedom of affluence.
He would make a good philosopher-king.
Me, it's concrete. Forget the people, the money, the prestige --
all of it. The only thing I really want is concrete. Pure gray,
machine-formed, shipped in bags, concrete. Because it occurs to
me that the reason buildings are made of concrete is its
stability.
A VIVACITY IN ART -- THE STORY OF A SURVIVOR
----------------------------------------------
By MARILYN BRADBURN
Chronicle Arts Editor
Art today -- styrofoam, installations, screaming
sirens and flashing lights in galleries, artists
strapping themselves together for years as a performance;
feminism, mysticism, photo-realism, post-modernism,
corporate sponsorship, post-structuralism... To many,
it seems that the art world has entered a phase of
unprecedented decadence where a Master's degree is
required to understand childish scrawls and where charcoal
smudges are artistic allusions on the level of James
Joyce. How can someone outside the artistic elite garner
anything from this jumble of fluorescent meaninglessness?
Does art still have the potential to communicate, or has
it become too esoteric to be relevant? Has it gone too
far?
Enter William Finnel, artist-at-large.
Over a year and a half ago, Finnel walked into a pawn
shop and bought a revolver. On returning to his studio
that evening, he shot himself in the head. Discovered by
a friend, he was rushed to St. Mary's Hospital where his
life was barely saved.
"I didn't have the guts to do sleeping pills," Finnel
said this week in an interview. "I wanted something fast
and sure, so I bought the gun."
This uncommon sense of immediacy and purpose has always
pervaded Finnel's life and his artwork. Particularly in
his work since his attempted suicide, his art is furious
with animation, vivacity -- an unmistakable life.
"Physical therapy was hell," he says. "I guess that
gave me a lot of motivation to do anything besides that."
Finnel remains paralyzed from the waist down, but has
otherwise has made a remarkable recovery, according to his
doctors. According to Finnel himself, he's "a living
miracle of modern medicine."
The experience has fused an incredible power into his
work, a power unlikely to be found elsewhere in the art
world today. It's rare to see such force, such emotion and
truth from any one person without the agenda of a movement
or minority bonded to it. There are no value judgments here,
no political agendas, but instead the view of an individual
within a society, both before and after an incredible trauma.
"So many other [artists] see themselves as being the true
answer to the world's problems. Me? I don't got no answers...
I just know what I've been through."
The result is art that undeniably speaks to our age, to
people rather than art historians -- art that
uncompromisingly communicates its intent and content.
William Finnel's latest show, "Blood and Napkins" may be
seen at Girlin Galleries, 27600 Lake Avenue, through
September 7.
I carefully cut the article from the newspaper, using a pair of
mending scissors I have left over from my mother's sewing kit. I
admire it a moment, turning it in the light, to see if it will
vanish like a hologram on the cover of National Geographic.
Things published, put on paper like that, have a tendency to
vanish if you look at them a certain way. I don't particularly
want this to vanish, but I'm not sure I trust it either.
I press it firmly between the pages of a paperback I bought a
few years ago, then put that in one of the boxes sitting on the
mattress. I know it will be safe there -- I've never read the
book..
Adrian Beck
-------------
Adrian Beck is a freelance editor, photographer and researcher
for several publishing firms in the Pacific Northwest. He can be
reached in care of gaduncan@halcyon.com.
FYI
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Miles away from help, Frank was attacked by a pack of wild poodles.
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