I Thought You Were Someone Else
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University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2011 I Thought You Were Someone Else Maria Milazzo University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Milazzo, Maria, "I Thought You Were Someone Else" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 1776. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1776 I THOUGHT YOU WERE SOMEONE ELSE by MARIA MILAZZO B.A. Rollins College, 2004 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2011 Thesis Adviser: Lisa Roney © 2011 Maria Milazzo ii ABSTRACT I Thought You Were Someone Else deals with violence, family, love, art, and gender. The author examines these issues as well as what makes a creative work fiction or nonfiction by creating a multi-genre collection of seven short fiction stories and five short nonfiction pieces. Fictional stories feature protagonists similar to the author and protagonists who could be considered completely different from the author. Nevertheless, the protagonists in these pieces, whether they are real or fictitious, all experience grand realizations concerning their identity and surroundings. Essentially, they realize they are not who they thought they were. A young boy realizes he likes destruction; another comes to terms with love and romance. A father deals with his homophobia, while another older man examines his life of violence. Young women cope with getting older and struggling to create families. Others realize that their needs will never be met. All stories deal with growth, change, and discovery, thereby allowing the author to unearth details about identity and how it is shaped and evolves. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This collection of fiction and nonfiction would not be possible without the guidance and help of my thesis director, Lisa Roney. Lisa’s eye for detail and ability to see the larger picture throughout this process helped me focus my writing and energy to create a piece of which I cannot be more proud. Aside from being a mentor, Lisa became a great friend to me over the last two years. Additionally, I have to thank the other faculty members of UCF’s MFA program as well, namely Darlin’ Neal, Susan Hubbard, Pat Rushin, and Jocelyn Bartkevicius, all of whom saw multiple revisions of these pieces and provided me with insightful and intelligent feedback so that I could develop and hone my skills. I would also like to thank the students of the MFA program who provided me with great feedback and friendship. I am grateful to Jonathan Kosik, Alex Pollack, Ashley Inguanta, and Rachel Kolman for always being available to review my manuscripts, in and out of class. Perhaps my greatest achievement in the MFA program is my friendship with fellow writer Jaclyn Elgeness who has become not only a wonderful editor, but also my best friend. I don’t think I would have had such a wonderful collection without her there every step of the way. I’d also like to thank my non-MFA friends who have encouraged me from the beginning: Yana Keyzerman, Pete Fuller, Nick Gardiakos, Tina Gardiakos, Austin Schiff, Joanne Snook, and Marshall Respress. Finally, I must thank my parents for not only giving me content to write about, but also supporting me, even when they thought that getting an arts degree was ridiculous. I owe them everything. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS SNAKE HUNTING ........................................................................................................................ 1 THE KING OF EVERYTHING ................................................................................................... 20 THE PRACTICAL USE OF THE ENGINEERING SECTION IN THE STILLWATER PUBLIC LIBRARY ..................................................................................................................................... 37 A JOKE THAT ISN’T FUNNY ................................................................................................... 54 THE MAN WHO PUNCHED A LION........................................................................................ 70 THE RELATIONSHIP DISAPPEARING ................................................................................... 81 PRODUCT OF THE TIMES ........................................................................................................ 86 CALCULATING PROBABILITIES.......................................................................................... 107 THE TOY.................................................................................................................................... 124 THE NAMES OF CHILDREN .................................................................................................. 135 BALLET ..................................................................................................................................... 149 SHOOTING CHICKENS ........................................................................................................... 151 APPENDIX A: WRITING LIFE ESSAY .................................................................................. 161 APPENDIX B: BOOK LIST ...................................................................................................... 172 v SNAKE HUNTING The road stretched, a canvas opening to a landscape of native Central Florida pine trees and saw palmettos. I sat in the passenger seat of my parents’ white mini van, next to Dad. My brother Michael sat on his knees in the back between the front two seats. He was much taller and almost four years older than me, so he didn’t need the height of a regular seat to be able to see the back country—a paved road winding into the wilderness, surrounded by deep green and brown brush. We rode with the windows down, the wind from the van’s movement blowing my long, brown hair up into the air. The heat was thick and comforting. Mom sat in the back with Michael. The cicadas sang their loud dusk songs, echoing off the pine trees. Dad turned off onto a side road of sandy dirt. No one was around except for the wilderness and the four of us. The van pushed forward, barely making any sound, because we were only going five miles per hour. Dad hunched over the steering wheel, squinting his eyes beneath his rectangular glasses as if he were in pain. His faced was scrunched up, calculating, surveying, observing. I tried to imitate him, but at nine years old and sixty pounds, I could barely see over the dashboard, so I crouched on the passenger seat, folding my legs beneath me. The road stretched and curved, its ridges and bumps in tune with the cicadas. A black ribbon squirmed in the sand. “What’s that?” I said and pointed. Dad stopped the car and put it into park. He grabbed a white pillowcase from the space between us and got out of the van. Michael and I jumped out, too. Mom lagged behind, scared that the snake was venomous. I led Dad and Michael to the spot of the road where I’d seen the black snake. “Where?” Dad asked. The snake was gone, but the picture of its satin black, ess-curved shape lingered in my mind. “I thought he was right here,” I said, nervous that Dad would think I was just a kid and didn’t know anything about spotting snakes, although I had been practicing with him for a few years. “He’s there,” Michael said and moved forward. Dad followed, I followed, Mom followed. Its body covered in the weeds and sand, a shiny black snake head peered up at me, its tongue flicking inside and out, testing the air. I knew the snake was a racer, just a black racer, a typical Florida snake, but I was still excited to see it. My heart pounded faster as Dad, Michael, Mom, and I edged toward the snake, surrounding it. The area was mostly deserted, with only a few houses sprawled out between acres and acres. I wondered if this was the first time the snake had ever seen a human being. Dad bent down, the white pillowcase clutched in his hand, and the racer darted off, a ripple of black water weaving in and out of the grass. The snake disappeared into the woods, away from the roads, away from the houses, away from us. Dad turned to go back to the van. His moustache, not yet grey, looked like a frown, but he wasn’t unhappy. Snake hunting was his favorite sport. It was Michael’s favorite sport and mine, too. We didn’t hunt snakes to kill them. We hunted them for pets and for fun. For education. Dad introduced us to the hunt. He always kept strange animals when he was a kid. He once 2 owned a crow, one a friend of his found in the wild. Joe the crow. Dad took care of Joe because Joe had a neurological disorder; he would faint and fall, blacking out for minutes at a time. Dad loved him like a regular pet. And the crow grew to love my father, too, and his mother, a woman who died way before I was born. Joe also liked to gather all the bright-colored toys in the neighborhood and place them on my father’s roof. And drink beer. The crow loved to drink beer. So Dad had experience with wild animals. After he came back from being stationed in Germany during