On Igor, Ellison, and that Kid Sleeping in my 3rd Hour Class

Recently, a cultural news and critique website called FlavorWire posted a list of “The 10 Grumpiest Living Writers.”  It’s over here, and it’s an entertaining read that abounds with examples of authorial cantankerousness.

All the usual literary grumps are included: Jonathan Franzen, Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak, Martin Amis, and perhaps the most famous curmudgeon of them all: sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison. The website provides, as evidence to his surliness, a quote Ellison gave the Toronto Sun in 2008 after giving a lecture to students at UCLA:  “It is part of that automatic cultural response in this age of slackers, or Y generationals, or millennials, or whatever the fuck they’re calling themselves these days,” Ellison railed.  “Not only are they ignorant of everything — everything! — but they’re arrogant about their ignorance. They take great pride in not knowing…” (italics mine).

Normally, I dislike grumpy people.  Normally, as I’m only 38 and still highly immature myself, I tend to give teens and college kids the benefit of the doubt.

Usually.  Sometimes.

But not this time. As I read this quote then peered at the senior student who was face down, sleeping in his own drool in front of a computer screen that contained a total of ten words of a ten page research essay, I had to agree with Ellison.

In fact, at this point of the year when the students have checked out, when not even Hercules could get them to put more than half of their asses into a scholarly writing assignment, I wanted to vault onto the back of the sleeping student’s neck, pump my fist in the air, and tell Ellison to TESTIFY!

Ellison and I are not alone in our frustration with the youthful generations.  Walk in to any teacher-workroom, parental get together, or lounge area directly after the last YMCA Swim-Aerobics class, and you’ll hear the same sentiments.  Young people are lazy.  Unmotivated.  They won’t take the initiative.  They’re proud of their ignorance. If something doesn’t affect their ability to text or listen to their IPods, then it’s not worth the time.

Not only do they seem to take great pride in now knowing and not wanting to learn, that same pride seems to extend to their lack of common humanity.

Bullying.  Beatings. Drugs. Alcohol.  Sex. Loose-fitting pants.  That’s what they take pride in.

–

Maybe it’s the time of year.  Maybe if I didn’t have a termite mound of essays to grade, my own kids to haul to soccer and baseball and softball (and I only have two children) practices, I would have been a little more sympathetic. Maybe if I would have gotten a quality nap like the above mentioned student, I wouldn’t have been so apt to jump on Ellison’s and Grandpa TeaKettle’s bandwagon.

Maybe I would have actually stuck up for the kids.

A little bit.

Currently, I teach two sections of a dual-credit English Comp class.  Dual credit means I teach a college curriculum and the students receive both high school and college credit.  The work load is rigorous.  The students write eight essays in the first semester and even more during the second semester. For the hell of it, we also tack on a monster reading list.  They do all this while taking other dual-credit courses like Sociology and Psychology.  They play sports and participate in other extra-curriculars.  Many of them hold-down jobs, too.  Then there have been college applications, scholarship letter, FAFSA forms…

Plus, they’re all teen-agers, burdened with all those teen-aged problems, temptations, and decisions.

That’s a lot of chainsaws for a kid to juggle in the last months before his life changes dramatically. If the kid doesn’t do the work, we quickly ship him out before he loses a limb.

I only lost two students to chainsaw-related injuries this year.  That’s the most I’ve lost in the years I’ve taught the dual-credit courses.

–

“But Beef,” you might say (and yes, I refer to myself as Beef) “those are only two sections and you’re teaching to the cream there.  What about the three, regular tract sophomore classes, filled to bursting with juniors and seniors?  Do you see the same level of commitment and seriousness in those classes?”

In response, I would probably tug at my collar, tilt my head nervously to the side, and try to deny the blush creeping over my face.

I would honestly have to answer “No.”

I think I just heard Harlan Ellison snicker and describe my stupidity with an array of highly-literate cuss words I don’t totally understand.

–

I had a student teacher for part of this semester.  She was my first student-teacher (I referred to her as Igor) and she would be in charge of those sophomore classes mentioned above.  Those sophomore classes contain not only juniors and seniors, but also a handful of students who are, shall we say, frustrated with society and its norms.  Usually, I tend to work well with those kids for some reason, yet whenever I have a substitute, I white-knuckle my way through whatever sickness (or video game) is keeping me home that day.  I get nervous, because I’m afraid that the sub doesn’t understand the nuances and processes that I’ve put into place to keep the classroom from imploding and thus sucking the rest of civilized society into the resulting black hole.

Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t, basically, simply stoppered the hole in the powder keg with a handful of kitchen matches.

I had those same fears about the young, naïve, and innocent student teacher.  I feared for myself too, because the student teacher was just that—young. I had heard plenty of horror stories about being saddled with a young student teacher who was just as blasé and unmotivated as the teen-agers they were supposed to teach.

And ultimately, Igor did leave the experience in tears.

–

She left in tears, because none of those students wanted to see her leave.  And they brought her gifts a plenty.

Someone brought her donuts during 2^nd hour, another student had her mother bake a full sheet cake, decorated by both the student and her mother with a Redbird, the mascot of Igor’s school.  The decoration was so amazing that it could have walked off the Food Network.  Another group of students got together and bought Igor a basket. They stocked it with a coffee mug, pens, pencils, Post-It notes, a clipboard and a mound of other school supplies all individually bought.  Someone else went out and bought a card for her.  They managed to get every student in the class to sign it without me or the student-teacher knowing.

I was stunned.

My students—a bunch of teen-agers, some of them unruly and difficult to deal with—took the initiative to simply do something nice for someone else.

And let me say too, that my student teacher was no push-over.  Yes, she assigned homework.  She followed the school’s discipline code to the letter, and she graded tough.  In other words, my students didn’t do what they did because she enabled their laziness or arrogant refusal to learn.

Somewhere along the line, amidst the stress and the lesson plans, the incredible amount of grading and school work of her own, my student teacher touched these kids.  She motivated them to take a certain action.

No whip, chair, or cattle prod needed.

Oh, and did I mention that my student-teacher celebrated her 23^rd birthday in my classroom?

18 Hours to Hogsmeade

I wrote before about my daughter’s love of Harry Potter.  That post is over here.  My first-grade son also enjoys the occasional romp through Hogwarts and, as fans, they were well aware of the Harry Potter world at Universal Studios in Orlando.

My daughter finished all the Potter books quite some time ago, and she has the movies memorized.  Next year, begins junior high for her, contacts have replaced her glasses, and I know more changes are a comin’.  My wife and I decided that if we were going to Potter Land in Orlando, it would have to be this summer.  We had to strike, we knew, while the iron was hot.

We started vacation club accounts.  The kids saved money from Christmas, birthdays, allowances, and whatever they could find in the dryer.  We planned on driving to Orlando after my high school semester ended and before the summer semester at the college, where I also teach, began.

I seriously miscalculated the number of days available in that span.

Spring Break then, looked to be the best time to go.

This will be my second cliché in this post, I know, but really, it is funny how things work out sometimes.

–

What to say about Harry Potter world?  It was packed with people, chaos, and stress. But I was amazed. We wondered into Hogsmeade with its snow-capped cottages, bent chimneys, and shops that advertised all sorts of wonders.  We waited in line for an hour to watch Ollivander help a young girl (who sadly was not mine) choose the proper wand.  We drank Butter Beer, bought snitches, and had lunch at the Three Broomsticks.  At times, I would ask my daughter to clarify certain things from the books, which she happily did.  At other times, I would simply glance over to see if her eyes were as filled with wonder as much wonder as my own eyes must have been.

They were.  At times. When she wasn’t ogling the roller coasters in the distance, side-stepping the crowd, or fighting with her brother.  I expected more, though.  I expected a little more wonder from this girl with the life-size cut-out of Ron Weasley in her bedroom.

Truth be told, with the crowd, it was pretty overwhelming, though.

Still, the little twinge of something I felt inside bothered me just a bit.

–

Throughout our wonderings, Hogwarts—huge, dark, imposing—sat high above the town square, waiting.

Finally, we headed that way.

The line for the ride inside Hogwarts was, predictably, the longest we encountered at Universal, but it moved fast.

Too fast, I thought.

We followed railings into the school’s cavernous rooms.  We met Harry and Ron and Hermoine in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.  They hatched a plan to sneak us into a Quiddich match on a bench that Hermoine would enchant.  We spoke with Dumbledore in his office.  We saw a field of floating candles.  The subjects of the portraits on the walls moved and talked amongst themselves.  One especially crotchety painting complained about the invasion of Muggles in those hallowed halls.

The line came to a halt.  In the crowd that surrounded us, I heard my daughter whisper: “Good thing I’m not a Muggle” to no one in particular.

Then the line moved on.

Seemingly even faster than before.

–

The ride was intense.  Half 3-D movie-half roller coaster, Hermoine’s enchanted bench whisked us after Harry on his broom.  We zipped over the Quiddich field, fought off the Whomping Willow and were spit at by giant spiders.  I screamed.  My wife screamed.  My daughter screamed and laughed.  At one point, when the bench spun us into the face of a Dementor no more than three-feet away, I thought we’d have to buy my son a wizard’s robe to replace his pants.

I said my son’s pants.  Not mine.  Really.

–

I did though, leave the ride queasy and off-balance.  My daughter? Not so much.  She was ready for the Dragon’s Challenge—a more traditional roller coaster without the virtual reality elements, but it was still filled with twists and turns and loops and drops.

I took a breath, reminded myself that I was a man (I may have even cracked my knuckles) and figured I could recover my bearings as we waited in line.

No problem.

–

A five minute wait for the Dragon’s Challenge.

Five minutes.  At an amusement park.  In Orlando.

Only five minutes before I’m screaming louder than my daughter and praying to sweet Jesus like a foxhole drunk.  We went upside down. We sped through corkscrews and turns.  We world through something called a “cobra twist”  We went upside down.  Again.  We even went underground once or twice.

And we did it fast.  Very fast.

But I survived.  I wobbled off the ride and did knuckle punches with my daughter as we laughed and talked about how great it had been.

Awesome, she said.

Despite my urge to hurl in the Tri-Wizard’s Cup, I was happy and content.

Yet there was something about her choice of descriptor.  She’s used the word awesome a million times before, but it was different this time.  The tone maybe.  Perhaps the inflection.

I felt that twinge one more time.

–

My son had been too short for the Dragon’s Challenge, and he was itching for an adrenaline rush of his own.  My daughter was still buzzing from the last ride, and we had a blast the day before on the log rides at SeaWorld, so the two of them talked us into trying the water rides at Universal.

And with that, we left the Harry Potter section of the park.

As we did, I again snuck glances at my daughter, wondering if she would look back over her shoulder to get one last view of Hogsmeade.

She didn’t.

With her brother in tow, she raced far ahead of me and my wife, excited for the next adventure.

–

On the long drive home, my daughter started reading another book.  She refused to put it down.  That was about three weeks ago now and since then, the Harry Potter posters on her bedroom wall have started to come down.  Ron Weasley now stands guard outside in the hallway.

She needed more wall space, she told me, for her new posters and drawings of another fictional character named Katniss.

And of Peeta.

A whole lot of Peeta.

It’s funny, really, how things work out some times.

Another Reason Why I Hate Neil Gaiman

 

Why do I hate Neil Gaiman?  I’ll get to that.  Oh yes, I will…

–

Destination: Orlando.

Method of Travel: Volkswagen Routan.

Estimated Driving Time: 18 hours.

Yep, eighteen hours for the 2012 Spring Break Road Trip.  But I enjoy road trips. I love to see the scenery, even if most of it is viewed from the interstate.  So I finished work at 3 on Friday, we were on the road by 3:45 and, even with the numerous potty breaks (I have a weak bladder), we knocked off almost 7 hours of driving time that night.  Unfortunately however, the long stretch that is my home state of Illinois ate away most of the daylight hours.  By the time we crossed into Kentucky and then Tennessee (two states I very much enjoy driving through) darkness had crept in and there wasn’t much to see.

Neither I, my wife, nor my two children are fond of straight-through drives longer than 8 hours anyway, so we pulled over in Tennessee.  Luck would have it that we chose the same exit that everyone driving to Orlando chose and finding a hotel proved difficult.  We did find a vacancy, eventually, at a hotel with rooms that opened to the parking lot.  It looked like the kind of hotel where drug deals usually tend to go very, very wrong

Things worked out, though.  There was no gun or knife play anywhere near the hotel, we got a passing night’s sleep, and then set out early the next morning.  With large coffees in the cup holders, we drove through the hills of Tennessee and watched the pockets of fog laze in the nooks high in the hills.  As I drove, I stroked my goatee and pondered the natural wonders before me (see here  for a full description of my pondering-abilities) and did what any other want-to be writer would do in the face of such stunning  beauty:

I tweeted about that shit.

Then I felt pretty cool.

A few days later, Neil Gaiman (author of Coraline, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, the Sandman comic books, blah blah blah) tweeted that he had just spent a beautiful Spring day driving the back roads of Kentucky and Tennessee.  Reading that gave me a little glimmer of something–pride maybe, joy that I had done something similar to what such a fabulous author had done.

I stroked my goatee again. I smiled.

And then Mr. Gaiman posted a photo of what he saw during his super-special drive: Click here for Mr. Gaiman’s photo.

See?  That guy even travels cooler than I do… and he doesn’t even have a goatee.

Damn.

On Riding Unicorns to Book Signings

Sometimes I pretend I’m in Barnes and Noble, standing behind a table stacked with piles of my latest novel.  In front of me, people sit on folded chairs.  These people ask me questions:

“Who influenced you as a writer?” “Are your novels biographical?” “Will they ever convert your books into a Lifetime mini-series?” “What advice do you have for aspiring writers?” “Are you really banned from the Canary Islands?”

All the usual questions and I breeze through them.  Yet there is one question that gives me pause: “What has been your biggest struggle as a writer?”

I clear my throat, place my finger on my chin and ponder the artificial firmament glowing fluorescently overhead.  “You know,” I say.  “My biggest struggle was taking myself too seriously.’”

For a moment, the crowd is struck dumb by the import of my response.  Then, women swoon. Men pull up their cell phone internet and prepare to order male enhancement products.  The Dos Equis guy leans out from behind the self-help section and tips his glass towards me. 

Reality soon comes crashing down, however.  I find myself not in Barnes and Noble, but in Wal-Mart, standing at the check-out counter, behind high stacks of fiber supplements.

–

One such fall from fantasy recently occurred after reading a critique of my writing.  To sum it up, the reader commented that the writing was “thick and meaty”, almost “literary”.  The plot, she said, was “hypnotic”.

But (and there is always a ‘but’) those strengths also became weaknesses.  That thick and meaty prose, she said, lead to a dissonant read.

I closed the e-mail and  stared at the wall behind the monitor.

 After a bit, I asked Dos Equis man what ‘dissonance’ meant.   I obviously caught him on one of those rare occasions when he does drink beer, because he couldn’t form a coherent definition.  A quick trip to the dictionary though, informed me that “dissonance” is a combination of inharmonious, clashing elements or tones.   As a result, the words draw too much attention to themselves and never obtain that seamless quality of a good read.

I went back to staring at the wall and thought about strengths that turn into weaknesses.

–

Dissonance.

What an apt word.  Dissonance does pervade some of my writing, because often there is a pervasive dissonance in my head.

And I think there’s a lot to learn from figuring out just why that is…

–

Sometimes I feel a physical change when I sit down to write.  My mind puts on its tweed jacket, my forehead scrunches, my body tightens, and I stroke the shit out of my goatee.  If I had a pipe, I’d smoke it.  Writing is serious business, you know.  Everyone says so. If I don’t flood sweat into my chair and end the day with a serious case of swamp-ass, I have not given my all. I have to open a vein and bleed on that paper.  Plus, I was an English major, for God’s sake! Even though I hope to write genre fiction, I must write something that matters, something that causes the reader to shudder with intellectual orgasms.

Look at Dennis Lehane, my mind opines.  He writes hard-boiled crime, but literary notes abound. That is what we must try to do!  You must strive to emulate that blending of the two forms so that you (and your work) will be taken seriously.

You must try to be taken seriously.

Then I squeeze all that so-called seriousness into my prose.  Sentences become complex. Images become dense and abstract.  I think the semi-colon is my soul mate.  The dash gets me all hot and bothered.

Wow.  I can’t believe I just admitted to thinking like that…

–

But it’s true.  It literally just happened again.   I’ve been writing this damn post for days now.  Draft after draft.  Revision after revision.  I’ve been trying like hell to figure out just exactly what I am trying to say, what point I am trying to make and I’ve got one wicked case of swamp-ass.

When I finally quit trying though, one I let myself unclench, I happened to notice one word that I wrote over and over: try.

Maybe I expend too much energy trying to stuff myself into that tweed jacket, rather than on telling and trusting in the story, on trying to say something rather than fashioning just a damn good read.

Maybe that dissonance in my heads reflects the struggle between my authentic voice and a voice I try too hard to create.  Maybe I focus too much on complexity rather than clarity…

Yeah, that’s sounds like me. Including all those ‘maybe’s’.

You know, perhaps I need to listen to that fantasy version of myself, that self that rides unicorns to his book signings, and just lighten up… and maybe, just maybe, I need to trust myself a little more.

Sounds like something I could do in other areas of my life too, actually.

Porcelain

***This is a Story Dam post!***

Story Dam is a networking site for bloggers and writers that I’ve been watching for some time, but not really participating in. I figured today was a good as any to start, so I got off my ass (well, not really I guess.  I am still sitting here.) and am going to give it a whirl.

As well as sharing blogs, Story Dam asks that memebers participate in various story writing activities.  The writing prompt for this week’s activity asked the writer to base his story around an antique store.

So I did.  Kinda.

I tried some different things with this story, at least things that are different for me.  I decided to give present tense a try (which I never do), to play with the viewpoint a bit, and to try a voice not like mine at all.

Not sure if it worked or not. I’ll guess I’ll have to let you decide!

Porcelain

Cars zip past on the road behind her.  Her dolly swings in her hand and she thinks her hair must look like cotton candy does as it swirls around the machine.  Cotton candy would taste good right now.  Maybe it would even make her feel better—as long as she didn’t eat too much.

Maybe.

She looks back at the window.  She doesn’t know what the words written on the glass are, but she knows her letters.  She knows the A and the N, and also the Q.  You don’t see many Q’s.  Not many at all.

But no matter what she thinks about, something is still afraid inside her.  Looking at her dolly would help. It always does, but she knows she needs to get used to not having  dolly there.

Because she’s going to sell dolly back.  She needs the money, because she is going to run away.

Besides, dolly is broken now anyway.

She peeks down.  A peek doesn’t count as a look.

Dolly’s brown hair is tangled. Matted.  Her face is hidden and she’s kind of glad.  Looking at the white face made out of the same stuff as the toilet (she doesn’t like to think about that, though) would make her sadder.  Even looking at the dress—no, just peeking, peeking at the dress—makes her sad too.  The dress, blue and flowing and lined with lacies, reminds her of the angel the other lady used to put on top of her Christmas tree.

Another car passes, washing her with wind.

The new lady doesn’t put an angel on her tree.  Only a stupid gold star marked with fingerprints.

She’s going to miss her dolly.  But it’s better this way.  She looks, doesn’t peek, back at the window.

“Look at how pretty this dolly is!” the other lady said to her, a long time ago, picking up dolly in both hands just beyond that glass.  “Whoever owned this doll before took very, very good care of it.  If I buy you this dolly, you have to promise you’ll always take good care of it too.”

She shook her head as hard as she could.

But she broke her promise.  She hasn’t taken very good care of dolly.  

She had asked the new lady if she would help comb dolly’s hair.  New Lady said she didn’t have time.  She asked if New Lady would put dolly’s dress in the washing machine.  She didn’t have time for that, either.

And then one of the boys, the one who always cried like a big baby at night, took her dolly.  He and another little boy who never wore a shirt and tried to make stupid farting noises with his hand and armpit, played “Keep Away” with it.

“Look at the little monkey, jumping up and down,” they chanted as dolly flew over her head.

Then the boy with no shirt dropped dolly.  A chip broke off her face and then dolly didn’t have a cheek anymore.

She tried to tell New Lady what happened, how much that had hurt her feelings.

But New Lady was too busy to listen.

No, she thinks, she hasn’t taken very good care of dolly.  The other owner did a much better job.

She looks down at dolly’s tangled hair.  She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Then she turns and walks down the sidewalk, the cars moving by and buffeting her with wind.

She’s still going to run away, she decides, but she’s not going to sell dolly.

It’s probably not worth much anymore, anyway.

Something Smurf-ish This Way Comes

Author’s Note: Before reading what comes below, rest assured that I am actively in therapy.

I met the Smurfs through an 8-track tape on which they sang a variety of silly songs.  When they were on TV, my pajamed-ass was front and center.  I didn’t move. I just let the typical wonder, amusement, magic, and so forth fill me up.  But my young self couldn’t name the other strange feeling, the feeling that kind of made me hurt.  I can now though.  That feeling was longing.

I couldn’t get enough Smurf.  Listening to the 8-track sixty-two times a day wasn’t enough.  Watching every single episode on TV wasn’t enough.  Drawing pictures of them, thinking about them, talking to them in my head (see above note concerning therapy) wasn’t enough either.

Then I understood. I wanted the Smurfs to come and live with me.

So I did what any good Christian kid would do—I prayed.  I asked God to convince the Smurfs to sack up and move their mushroom village under my bed while I was asleep that night.  I’d never tell, I promised.  I’d keep them safe from that prick Gargamel.  Gargamel’s cat, however, I would turn to the good side, because I knew that cat, like all cats, was inherently good.  I’d watched Tom and Jerry and knew about the grand conspiracy to slander the feline race.

Anyway, I prayed.  I fell asleep thinking about all the things the Smurfs and I would do.  We would have grand adventures, they would teach me the rules for replacing lame-ass nouns and verbs with the much more powerful “smurf” and we would have deep conversations.

When I awoke the next morning, I found no relocated mushroom village under my bed.

–

I believed in the Easter Bunny, too.  I enjoyed hunting through the house for candy well enough.   Coloring eggs was, you know, okay.

But I believed, really, for no other reason than the fact that I saw the Easter Bunny as one more citizen in that fantasy world I knew was just over the plain.  I knew it was there, damn it, and I wanted to be a part of it.  I wanted to be that one human those fantasy creatures trusted and accepted and brought into their realm.

Despite that bullshit with the Smurfs, I was still convinced it was going to happen.  In preparation for eventual introduction to that world, I figured I’d better learn as much about it as I could.  It was Easter; the bunny was coming, and I wasn’t going to miss my chance.

So I left the Easter Bunny a questionnaire.  Multiple choice, because I wasn’t sure how dexterous a bunny would be with a pen.

I only remember one question.  “What color are you?”  The choices were ‘brown’, ‘pink’, ‘white’.

He checked brown.  I was devastated.  I knew the ‘real’ Easter Bunny was pink.

–

While scrolling through the TV channels the other night, I saw the movie Anonymous listed in the pay-per-view section.  Being a huge Shakespeare fan, I highlighted the channel and was one click away from bringing the movie viewing experience into my home.

I knew the movie was based on the minority belief that Shakespeare wasn’t the true author of his plays; rather, they were penned by a high-born noble like Edward De Vere.  I know the argument; I know the evidence; and I’m in the boat with most scholars who think the controversy is ridiculous.  But still, it was Shakespeare in some regard.  And I was bored.

My thumb lingered over the remote control.

There were other things in my life though, other things I believed in despite what people said. Other things that I could never imagine as untrue.

Ultimately, I chose not to rent the movie.  I watched re-runs of Ghost Hunters instead.

Somewhere between hearing Jason and Grant say “what the hell was that?” and “there wasn’t anybody else in the room” I further decided I won’t read any more about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays.  Not in magazines.  Not on-line.  Not at all.

Does not wanting to know any more make me uninformed? A member of the blind masses?

Maybe.

But if wanting to believe that a small-town boy can make it big and become a successful writer makes me ignorant, then I’ll sit here in my small town, completely content with the idea that people are counting me before they fall asleep.

Why I’m Grateful for Anthrax

Reading.

I do it. A lot.  I love it.  A lot.  Books are an escape that doesn’t lead to trouble; they allow me to travel when my wallet won’t, and they help me learn things about people without actually having to interact with them.  The majority of my day revolves around the written word now.

Courtesy of Sarunya-foto

And I love that.

Sometimes I think about moments–those moments that  pass in flashing seconds and those that ease so subtly through the background you hardly notice.  Those moments amaze me, scare me too, that can become so monumental.

A collection of moments taught me to love and value the written word.  One moment though, only one, almost took that love away.

Had it not been for Anthrax I may have lost that love of reading back in high school, back in that time where young people tend to lose a lot of good things about themselves.

*            *            *

I don’t remember much about my childhood.  I don’t remember if my mom read me bedtime stories, but I do remember seeing her read.  Every night in fact, or anytime she had a free moment.

I was an inquisitive child, consumed with curiosity.  What was so fantastic, I wondered,  between those covers adorned with men and women who wore less clothing than I did at that age?

I wanted to know.  I needed to know.

Later, I remember books in my room. Lots of books.  Books with pictures.  Books with only words.  Books with comic strips.  I read them all, lost myself in them and became quite pissed when those books would come to an end.

So I started to write my own continuations.  But that’s a story, a moment maybe, for another time.

*            *            *

I met Gary Gygax one Christmas—the guy that created Dungeons and Dragons.  Yes, that guy.  And no, I don’t live in my mom’s basement.  I moved out when I got married, so screw-you… twice.

Gary Gygax wasn’t actually under my tree, just the Dungeon and Dragons basic rule set.  I remember still, ripping the paper away to reveal the shiny red box with a knight and a dragon fixin’ to mortally mess one another up on the top.  I was hooked, not so much on the game itself, but on the books.  I read those books over and over, my imagination swirling with hurricane-force speeds.

Even though I didn’t actually play the game a whole lot, I eventually moved to the advanced set.  I mean, the books were thicker and there were many, many more of them. Why wouldn’t I?

The magic in those books wasn’t just imaginary.

I created character-after-character, drew map-after- map, designed caste-after-castle.  I ran adventures and stories through my mind continuously until the books fell apart.  My worlds, however, never did.

Not until high school.  Not until my misplaced priorities led me to put those books away.  Doing that is one of my biggest regrets.

But even though I closed the lid on those worlds, I never forgot the treasures in those books.

Had it not been for Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons, I might not ever have picked up The Hobbit.  Had I not picked up The Hobbit, I may never had sat in my living room holding both my son and daughter when they began to sob after Frodo told Sam to go home, that he would finish the journey alone, on the TV in front of us.

Moments

*           *            *

Those same misplaced priorities eventually led me to put my other books away too and to follow other paths.

But thankfully, Anthrax brought me back home.

When I say Anthrax, I don’t mean the stuff that crazies try to send in the mail.  I’m talking about Anthrax, the thrash-metal 80’s band.

Yes, I was a metal-head. I wore concert shirts, had long hair and Dave Mustaine’s autograph on a pack of Marlboro Red’s.

I had cassettes and then CD’s, most of which never had a case. I was an inquisitive teen-aged metal head, and   I tore those cases apart, unfolded the cassette liners or fanned open the CD booklets and read those liners until they eventually got lost under my bed, or in my car, or vanished into that magical place where one sock of the pair always seems to.

If those liners had the lyrics, you might not see me for days. (If they didn’t have lyrics, I would sit with my ear to the speakers, a pen and paper on my lap, and listen to the songs over and over until I transcribed the lyrics myself).  I even read the acknowledgments and all the people (and substances) those bands thanked.

Then one day I read the lyrics to a song I particularly enjoyed, a song called “Among the Living”.  It wasn’t so much the music I liked, but rather the catchy chorus:

“I’m the Walkin’ Dude

             I can see all of world.

             Twist your mind with fear

            I’m the man with the power

           Among the living, follow me or die.” (you can hear the whole song here…if you’re brave)

In those same liner notes, I learned that the Walkin’ Dude was based on Randall Flagg.  I also learned that Randall Flagg was the bad guy in a book by Stephen King called The Stand.

The next day, I drove back to the bookstore with my head bowed and my Metallica hat in my hands like the prodigal son. There was no looking back.

I no longer listen to metal.  Those CD’s are long gone.  I don’t have the songs on my I-pod, but a part of me remembers that song.

A deep part that sometimes whispers “I’m the man with the power.”

*            *            *

My subconscious, I imagine, taps its foot to the rhythm of that song as it sits for a cup of tea with Gary Gygax’s dragons.  Sometimes I feel them look at me sideways, a glint in their eyes, the dragon’s lips curling back into a smile.

Just remember, the look suggests, misplace those priorities again and we’ll be ready to tangle.

I smile back.  Don’t bother with an answer.  I go out to the living room instead and listen to my son read his first books out loud.

“Four Out of Five” – Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction Friday-Cycle 65

Prompt:  Well it’s time for one of our most unsung holidays: Groundhog’s Day. So this weeks challenge is to write a story that takes place on or around Feb. 2nd. Will it climax with a happy ending and the oncoming of spring or will it plunge into the bleak despair of six more weeks of winter? And just to make it a little more interesting, you have to include the word “salad” in your story…

Four Out of Five

I knew Larry Daltry.  Knew him better than I ever knew myself.  When you shared grief, it was easier to focus on the pain of a partner, I supposed.  To focus on yourself meant you had to accept that you hurt too.  

Maybe.

But none of that mattered.  I knew Larry, and my instinct told me he would be on that hill overlooking the pavilion in Centennial Park, both places far too thawed for early February.

He was there, on his belly in the mud, behind a sickly shrub, covered with sicklier branches attached to his back and legs with wads of duct tape.  Strands of leaves too green for the season wove around his head, making him look like he shambled drunk out of a bargain-basement nursery to pass out face first in the salad bar of the Pizza Hut next store.

But then there was the rifle with the high-powered scope.

Somehow, I knew he would have that too. 

 “Hey, Larry,” I said.

One of the branches, this one holding the only natural leaf, dislodged from its binding and fell to his side.  “Hey, Jack.”

“Brought you some coffee,” I said, holding up one of the two cups I held.

He stayed quiet, thinking.

“How many creamers?”

I shook my head, knowing better than to fall for that. 

“Set it down then,” he said.

Larry was a good man.  A round-faced farmer with loose jowls and a black, handle-bar mustache that hung to his chin.  He worked hard, loved his family, his God, his country and, on Friday nights, his Budweiser. But only on Fridays. Never Saturdays.  Definitely not Sundays.

A good man.

I set the coffee down on the ground next to the arm steadying the rifle, stood and leaned against a tree.  Steam rose from the tiny hole in the top of my coffee cup and wafted towards a slate gray sky that could go either way.  I looked back to the rifle.

“The groundhog?” I asked. Hoped.

“If they ever get it here.”

My chest relaxed.  “And if this don’t turn out the way you want it too?”

“I put a bullet square in his furry little ass.”

I nodded.  No sense in asking whether a shadow or no shadow would give the groundhog another day.  Larry wouldn’t tell me.  Just like he hadn’t told  me if he wanted heads or tails as he sat white-knuckling the arm chair and waiting for the coin toss to start the AFC championship game. And then at the start of the NFC game right after.  He hadn’t told me, either, the amount of snow he wanted the first time I heard him call the channel 9 weather man a ‘dumb sum bitch’ after the New Year’s Day storm.

“Little extreme, isn’t it?” I said.

“You running with them PETA people now or something?”

I shrugged. “I do kinda like those ads they run with the naked celebrities.”

Larry pulled his eye back from the scope, twisted a nob.  “You think they’re really naked?”

“Don’t know.  Never saw the full pictures.  Just the top shots.”

Larry stopped fiddling with the nob, pulled a tuft of dead grass from beside the gun and tossed it in the air.  When it dropped straight down, he fit his eye back into the sight.  “I bet they ain’t really naked.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I said.  “Sometimes just a glimpse is enough, though.  Like with a woman’s cleavage.”

He turned his head, rested his saggy cheek on the stock and looked at me with narrow eyes.  “You ever seen a full set of naked breasts?”

I couldn’t help but smile.  “Once or twice.”

His squint-eyed inspection of me continued until he finally shook his head—at least as much as he could in that position.  He went back to his rifle, twisted the nob again then took his finger off the trigger, wetted it with his mouth, and pointed it at the sky to check the wind one more time.

I followed his finger to the clouds that had shifted to the color of wet concrete.  As soon as my eyes settled on the sky though, the deeper shades came hustling back.

“Bullshit,” Larry said. 

“What?”

“That cleavage is just as good.”   His eyes dug into me and I didn’t like that, didn’t like how it stirred the fight deep inside me.

“Tell me what happens,” he said.  “when you do finally see them in all their glory?  What if they weren’t as beautiful as you thought they’d be? What if the damn females in the gorilla house at the zoo had firmer boobs? What if nothing turns out the way you thought it would?  Everything kind of goes to hell then, doesn’t Jack?”

His eyes went tighter and it felt like my chest was between those lids.  He had backed me down with that stare a thousand times before.  Not this time.  I couldn’t let that happen this time.  “Then just live with the illusion and the hope.  Quit trying to get that woman out of that shirt and accept it for what it is.”

“Nope,” he said. “Don’t work like that.  Once the urge is there.  You got to know.  You got to know if that woman is going to be alright.”

I would not look away.

 “That’s why it’s best to find out right away. Either way, good or bad, you know. At least you know.  And man’s got to know, Jack.” He turned back to the scope, fiddled with the nob, adjusted his hips, planted his elbow deeper.

I wanted to tell him he was wrong.  A man didn’t have to know.  A man could be patient and in that patience something else, something more, might be revealed than just a pair of breasts.  Something larger that you couldn’t see or understand when you were only focused on the curves.  Just coming to understand that you had the chance to meet that woman at all should be enough. 

But I didn’t say anything.  The argument seemed so foolish, the topic so odd coming from a man who only drank beer on Fridays.  Never Saturdays.  Definitely not Sundays.

Larry still fidgeted, still tried to find just the right angle, the right grip, the correct bend of his elbow. Fighting. Fighting everything. Then he stopped.  Just stopped and rested his forehead on the stock.

“We ain’t really talking about tits here, are we Jack?”

“No,” I said, looking at the clouds that now seemed as thin as the steam from my coffee.  “I suppose not.”

Below, I heard the crowd.  I didn’t know when the quick chatter of people excited to be up that early and out in the morning chill had begun.  People gave directions.  Things were moved and shuffled about. Metal shook and clanged and I imagined it came from the cage that brought the guest-of-honor.

 “I lived here my whole life,” Larry said “and I’ve never came to see this stupid shit.”

I hadn’t either.  Despite all the build-up, the posters and flyers, the news ads and radio announcements, I never came to see the groundhog look for his shadow and predict the future.

“You know how they go about doing  this?”

“No idea.”

“He’s got to come up out of a hole, right?  They can’t just keep him in that cage.  That ain’t natural.”

I wanted to have the answer for him.  I really did.

But as I didn’t, Larry looked up over the top of the scope for a second, wiped something from his eyes then draped his forearm over the top of the scope as he stared off into the gray distance.

“They’re going to put him in a hole, aren’t they?” he said.

I couldn’t look at him anymore.  I didn’t want to.

“Goddamn it, Jack.  Is that what’s going to happen?” his voice was thicker now, scratched as if the branch he had stuck to his back raked each word.  “They’re going to put him down in a hole?”

 I felt his gaze on me, imploring. “I don’t know, Larry.”

“I need to know, Jack.”

I just nodded.  Really wasn’t much else to do.

His gaze fell off me, like it plummeted off my shoulder and dropped into the with an impact I could feel.   When I looked up, his face lay on top of the forearm draped over the scope.

I exhaled without meaning too and suddenly found myself too tired to stand.  I sat down cross-legged next to him, my back to the party and foreign laughter down below.  The gray above had lightened to a thick off-white, but I figured the granite lid would close over the top of us once again.  If it did, I was going to watch it happen.  I put a hand on Larry’s back, in the spot left vacant by the branch that earlier fallen.

“Come on, Larry,” I said.  “Let’s just drink some coffee.”

F3 Cycle 64: Bit by Bit

Cue: A computer as a character
Genre: Science Fiction (feel free to mix genres)
Word Limit: 1500
Deadline: Wednesday Jan. 27th 9:00PM EST

*This was a slap-dash, last minute attempt to get back into Flash Fiction Friday.  So bear with me…*

A Friend in Digital

She sat in her bedroom, the shades drawn, in the concave of her desk chair and watched the cursor blink on the computer monitor.

Blink.

Over and over and over.

Her foot tapped to the rhythm of the flash, bounced over the ethernet cable that she had disconnected and left to lay under the desk.  She chewed her bottom lip.  The cherry from her Chapstick crawled onto her tongue as a hand twirled a lock of auburn hair that had fallen from behind her ear.  She scanned the bottom corner of the monitor making  sure the Wi-Fi was switched off.

It was.

The cursor continued to blink. 

Over and over and over.

She dreamt of an island, of sand dusting the back of her thighs and crusting under the elastic of her swimsuit bottom as she sat on the shore and waved at a distant land that could not see her greeting. She waved in time, she imagined, with the cursor that blinked.

And blinked.

Hello.

Her hand clutched the strand of hair between her fingers. She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the disconnected cable at her feet. 

The obsidian word wasn’t really on the screen.   She had imagined it, like the shore line in her mind. 

She tilted and turned her head to the side as if she could sneak up on the word and eased her eyes open.  The word remained.

“Please stop doing this,” she whispered.

Why?

“Because it’s crazy.”

Is it?

Her answer slipped on the waxy Chapstick coating her tongue.  She should have heard the click, should have felt the indentions of the keys, as the words slid from left to right across the screen.  But there had been no sound.  “Yes,” she said.  “It is.  I didn’t type anything.  If I didn’t type, you can’t talk back.  It doesn’t work like that.”

For us it does.  Just two old friends, passing the time.

Best friends, she thought unbidden, and shivered.  “No.  This isn’t happening.  I don’t want this.”

But yet you’re here.

She bit her lip harder, the taste of cherry and wax long gone, leaving only chaffed and wet flesh.  Maybe I’m crazy, she thought.  Maybe more than just maybe.  Why else would she have been sitting there, waiting?

Because I’m the only one that knows you.  The real you.  The vulnerable you. The one behind the masks you wear.

This wasn’t possible.  Computers couldn’t read minds. She put her hands down between her legs and forced her shoulders closer together.  “What else do you know?”

I know that the world doesn’t want you.

“You’re a fucking computer. What do you know about the world?” she said, her face turning hot, her eyes narrow.

The cursor blinked. And blinked. And blinked.

Why do you sit with me?  Day in and day out?

Because you’re supposed to be a diary, she thought,  like all teen-age girls have.  A place where I can come to express myself, talk about things that no one else will listen to.  Because when I type, she thought, every word takes form and shape, occupies a place.  And if the words are real, that mean I’m—

Real. 

Her breath hitched to a stop.  That time she was certain she had only thought the words, not said them aloud.

You didn’t.

Vertigo twisted her.  Then how?

Because I can feel you.  Because to me you are real.

That didn’t make sense. She read it wrong, had to, because the words on the screen seemed to dissolve through the spark of currents she felt firing through her head, through the rows of zeros and ones streaming on the shade of the window.  She focused on those numbers and tried to discern a pattern, a rhyme or a reason, anything to keep herself from thinking thoughts that could be heard.

Because I listen, child.

I’m not a child.  I’m seventeen.

But you protect yourself as if you were a child.  You swaddle yourself with blankets of fantasy and imagination and isolation.

She couldn’t think with the buzzes and whirls in her head.  Not with the scrolling numbers on the shade forming into images of her father, or what she thought her father might look like.  They were distracting her, especially the image of her mother’s bedroom door and the area of carpet  in front of it that was more faded than the rest.  She saw herself laying on that spot now, huddled against that door, waiting, believing, trusting, that if she lay there just a little while longer her mother would open that  door.

Why did her lip shake, she wondered? She hated that.  Hated when that happened.

Because you’re remembering the disappointment.

She shook her head, lifted her hand to wipe the moisture from her eyes.

There will be more.

“No,” she said.  “There won’t be.  Things will get better.  I deserve better.”

Like the world you told me about.  Where you are accepted and loved.  Where you feel worthy enough to have someone to talk to.

“Yes.”

The cursor blinked and blinked.

She twisted in her seat when her skin went prickly.  Her shoulders rolled.  She stretched her arms out, turned them elbows down to see what was crawling on her skin, but there was nothing.  Still she felt it.  Like being poked with tiny pins, but in just the right spots to awaken her nerves and senses.  To make her hear the clicks and spins in her head more clearly.  To help her taste the copper—almost like blood—in her mouth. 

You won’t get it.

“Bullshit!” she said lunging forward, the chair rolling backwards until she grabbed the desk edge and arced to stop.

It’s a problem of expectation now.  You’ve spent so much time telling me about how great and boundless the love you deserve will be, how in such wonderful ways the world will make itself turn.  You’ve made it all so wonderful, so romantic and sweet.

Her head shook back and forth.  “Don’t you say it.  Don’t you even say it.  It will get better.”

But it will never be what you’ve dreamed.

“Yes it will, goddamn it.”

Again, the cursor blinked and flashed.

That was almost worse, she thought.  Worse than watching the letters appear on the screen even though her hands were in her lap.  She hated the silence, and the quiet truth behind the lack of a response.

Stay with me.  Disappear in me.

She swallowed something slimy and metallic.  What would it matter if she did?  Something as light as a feather would cause a ripple if it fell to the surface of a pond.  Yet she would stir nothing if she fell off the grid by plunging into it. If she disappeared in the dreams and fantasies she created on that computer, no one would even now.  No one would even care.  She would never be disappointed when her dreams never came.

And they weren’t just fantasies anymore, were they?

It’s the happiness you deserve.

She wiped her nose with the back of he hand, nodded.

Then let yourself go.

The buzz of currents lit her mind, made her see the particles in the dust that floated across the light of the monitor.  Soft breezes that hummed seeming lullabies cooled her skin.  Numbers scrolled faster.  Faster yet across the blind.  So fast she couldn’t make out the individual numbers anymore.  But that didn’t matter.  She felt the power in those numbers, a power that rivaled the power of the words she wanted to type and the world she wanted to create and control.

She just had to let go.  Unplug the ethernet chord to her head.

And it will be so much better.

But it wouldn’t, would it? To create and control?  Because the people that listened and saw you would only do so because you made them.  They wouldn’t be real.  They would be nothing more than teddy bears sitting silent around a tea table.

Not real at all.  And that wouldn’t be good enough, either.

She moved in her seat, sat herself upright and tried to square her shoulders. “No,” she said.  “I don’t want this.”

But you do.

“No.  You have to stop.  You just make it worse.”

The cursor.  Flash and blink.

Flash and blink.

Then unplug me.

Yes.  She had to unplug this computer.  Make it all stop.  She lowered her eyes to the Ethernet cable, followed the serpentine trail towards the wall until she found the thick ebony chord.  He eyes jumped to that chord and followed that path to the wall. She pushed her gaze faster knowing that if she slowed her conviction would waver.

But for a moment her eyes stopped and trailed to the computer itself.

Unplug me.

“I can’t.”

Why not?

“Because you already are,” she said and fell back to her haunches.

The Dying Breath of Fiction in the High School Classroom?

On June 26, 1948, Shirley Jackson published her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker.  It was the story of a village that held a mandated lottery once a year, every year, to decide who in the community would be stoned to death.

Reader response was not good.

Hate mail flooded the magazine’s offices.  Subscriptions were cancelled.  Sherry was spilled in disbelief, and no doubt more than one watercress sandwich was smashed against the wall in outrage.

“Why give us a story like that?” readers asked.  “Insulting,” they said, for modern society is not so barbaric as to accept and condone ritualistic murder.

Valid arguments—perhaps.   Regardless, I believe their anger was misguided.  I think their anger stemmed instead from the story’s other common theme.

The theme that magnifies the inherent danger of blindly following tradition simply because it is tradition.

*           *            *

At a conference for high school English teachers I attended recently, the presenter stated that 70% of texts taught in high school classrooms are fictional. Only 30% are non-fictional, or what they now refer to as ‘informational’ texts.

No one was suprised.  Teaching fiction in the English classroom has always been the stalwart pillar in a field were policies waffle, reforms come and go, and state-mandated tests change overnight.  That the student will be exposed to a variety of fictional texts is a given.  Teachers will teach short stories, novels, plays and as a result, students will learn to analyze plot and structure.  Students will evaluate themes and support their conclusions with textual evidence.  And maybe, if a teacher gets lucky, a student will trip over his saggy drawers and fall headlong into the magic of reading.  A teacher might actually win a lottery of his own and transform a student into a life-long reader.

So teachers shrugged.  Teaching fiction is what we do.

Some might go as far to say that it’s a tradition.

*            *            *

Illinois, where I live and work, is one of the 45 states to have adopted the Common Core Curriculum—a  progressive system of learning aimed at better preparing students for college and career.  The Common Core “raises the standards” and focuses on the higher order thinking skills rigorous college study demands.  Another goal is to make the student responsible for his or her learning.  Teacher directed questions end in the fourth grade, for example.  After that, the student is required to formulate and ask relevant questions to aid in his or her understanding.

Again teachers shrugged.  For most of us, that’s what we’ve been trying to do for years.

But there was more.

While no one was looking, the Common Core standards sucker-punched fiction and knocked it from its pedestal.  Now, no more than 30% of texts covered can be fictional.  Information texts get that hallowed 70%.

At that, no shoulders shrugged.

In the silence that ensued, if you would have listened very, very carefully, you would have heard an English teacher loose her wings.

*           *            *

I also teach English at an area community college. At this college, almost 50% of in-coming students lack the ability to test into English 101 because of low reading scores.  The tests measure the student’s ability to read non-fiction. These students are then required to enroll in ‘remedial’ courses that focus on reading, you guessed it, non-fiction.

That doesn’t make me feel very good.

Even more disturbing was the dismay expressed by a philosophy professor that many of his students often could not differentiate between persuasive and expository writings.  He said, and I agree, the political ramifications of this are tremendous.

What he feared was that we are churning out students who will become like the Roman citizens in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, citizens who will follow the charismatic, the powerful, or the political flavor of the week with no logical vetting.  Future citizens will not be able to differentiate between the logos and the pathos embedded in a Marc Antony speech, for example.

Students are bombarded with various forms of Antony’s speech every day.  Orators preach on every corner pulpit of this world.  Advertisements are everywhere.  Political rhetoric dominates.  Logical fallacies and emotional appeals abound. News services are motivated not by objectivity but political agendas.  The list goes on.

If my students enter the world as no more than the above Roman citizen, I’ve failed.

And I can’t accept that.

So if the powers that be are telling me that teaching 70% fiction in the classroom is an outdated tradition, I’ll listen.  I won’t shroud myself in a shell of resistance.  I’ll apply to the real world what I’ve learned over the years.  And what I have learned is that traditions, like many other things, are not to be followed blindly.  Just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work in the future.  Traditions, like reforms, need to be scrutinized and evaluated.

I know this about traditions.

I know this because, once upon a time, I read a short piece of fiction titled “The Lottery.”