ABSTRACT WAGE THIS WAR by Curtis Dickerson in the Following
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ABSTRACT WAGE THIS WAR by Curtis Dickerson In the following collection of short stories, I aim to further define the political institutions which prevent oppressed peoples from obtaining equality. While many of these stories use humor, the majority have what I believe are very serious political implications, including the oppressive nature that religion, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and income inequality often inject into human interaction. I believe that literature can be a real world force of change, and with this collection, my intent is to share the lives of characters coming up against barriers and power structures which also exist in our world, so that through their (hopefully entertaining) struggle, we may better understand our own. WAGE THIS WAR A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of English by Curtis Dickerson Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2014 Advisor: ___________________ Dr. Joseph Bates Reader: ____________________ Prof. Eric Goodman Reader: ____________________ Dr. Stephanie Dunning TABLE OF CONTENTS Get In My Mouth ……………………………………………………… 3 Acknowledge My Sacrifices …………………………………………… 17 Convergence …………………………………………………………… 29 Little Christian Wonders ……………………………………………….. 30 Agent Craig Meltzer …………………………………………………… 37 Then Piper ……………………………………………………………… 48 Eat Whatever the Fuck You Want ……………………………………… 52 A Brief Aquatic Feeling ………………………………………………... 57 The Coveted 18-to-35 …………………………………………………... 69 Outside the Glow ………………………………………………………. 72 Keep My Mind Busy …………………………………………………… 83 ii! ! The clouds and the stars didn’t wage this war the brooks gave no information if the mountain spewed stones of fire into the river it was not taking sides the raindrop faintly swaying under the leaf had no political opinions --Adrienne Rich iii! ! GET IN MY MOUTH My new girlfriend is not like my ex-girlfriend. My new girlfriend does not like to pretend that she is an ancient princess warrior and scream battle cries in the shower. She does not break into my apartment and rearrange my books by color. My new girlfriend has never once called me a Mouth Breathing Product of Incest Incapable of True Human Emotion. She has never called me A Shit's Shit, A Literal Shit That Other Shits Go to See How to Become More Shitty. She calls me things like Nice, things like A Handsome Man, Considerate, and Very Good in Bed. When I unlock my door after going for groceries, I see my ex-girlfriend, who calls me things like A Walrus With a Defective Penis, or That Special Class of Person Who is Too Stupid to Know How to Drool, sitting on my recliner eating my special chips. Why are you eating my special chips? I ask my ex-girlfriend. Those are my special chips. Lay off Lenny, my ex-girlfriend says and takes another handful. You still owe me rent from October. I don’t feel comfortable with my landlady breaking into my apartment and eating my special chips, I say. I don’t feel comfortable with my pockets being eight hundred dollars lighter. There is a lesson that I have learned through this process and that is this: Do not date your landlord. My ex-girlfriend rolls up the bag and gets up to put it back into the cabinet. I sit in the recliner she had been sitting in and try to figure out how to get her out of my apartment without also paying her. I do not have the money. She knows I do not have the money. Why don’t you take that job your brother offered? my ex-girlfriend asks. Then you can pay me back and I can stop bothering you in ways only an ex-girlfriend would know how to. Because I don’t want to work for my brother, I say. (My brother is an idiot.) (My brother is not kind to his wife. My brother’s wife takes care of their children almost exclusively. My brother avoids his taxes and he does not recycle and he is rude to our parents.) You need to figure out what you’re going to do Lenny, my ex-girlfriend says. She leaves my apartment and now I am alone and I am wishing partly that she had not left. I do not own a television and I am not in a reading mood and my apartment has a way of amplifying the silence the longer you sit here. 1 I am tempted to grab the special chips but something about her eating them has tainted them and they are not as special as they were when they were unopened. Perhaps I should work for my brother (even though he is an idiot). Maybe work is supposed to be not fun, whether your boss is just a person you work for or whether your boss is your (idiot) brother. At our dinner, at our date night, because we are the sort of couple who has regular date nights, my current girlfriend is radiant. She looks like a movie star, the kind of person people turn around to look at again when she walks past, and there is me, my arm in her arm, looking back at them, letting them know that, yes, I am tapping this. My penis has been inside this several times to significant acclaim. I am able to satisfy, I am able to fulfill this gorgeous creature's needs so you should step off, man in stupid baseball cap, his friend who is wearing shorts even though it is too cold. How was your salad? Are you finished? I ask, because I am polite. Yeah, I'm done. Thank you, she coos, like a bird, like an angel. You sure you're not more hungry? I don't want to leave if you can still eat. I'm full. I ate too much. Well, if you're ready to go I'm ready to go. I snap for the waiter, because I am suave and want to show my new girlfriend in little ways how suave I am. He brings the check and I pay for my meal and my girlfriend's salad and we drive back to my apartment where I suspect I will be rewarded for my generosity with sexual favors. Do you want a drink? I ask. Gin, my new girlfriend says. I like gin. My favorite thing about my new girlfriend is the way we fool around on my couch. Usually this means that I will be getting laid, but I very much like this first stage, where I reach up under her shirt and my fingers sort of find their slots in my new girlfriend's ribs, sort of like the handles of a bike. When I do ride her, like a bike, her little rib handles get squeezed, and sometimes I squeeze too hard and she sort of gasps, but when that happens I imagine that I have reached in between her ribs and have poked her lungs, and that poke of mine though my new girlfriend's ribs has expelled the air from her lungs back into the rest of the air. When I am riding her, like a sort of sex captain in a hurricane, I am in complete control of her and her pleasures. 2 But my favorite thing my new girlfriend does, the thing that really drives me wild, is when she swallows after giving me head. She is ok at giving head, I am satisfied, even if it does take a little long, but when it is time for me to finish, she holds on like a suckerfish to the end and will not let go until every last drop is extracted into her mouth and down her throat and into her stomach, which is a nice feeling on more than one level. My new girlfriend likes it too, she says that afterwards she sometimes feels more satisfied than if we had had full blown sex. Honestly like seriously that's the most delicious thing I've had all day, my new girlfriend says afterwards. Happy to oblige, I say, because I am. I am very happy to oblige my new girlfriend’s sexual whims. What did you even eat? Did you eat something spicy before we had dinner? Nope. Had a tuna sandwich for lunch. It's not that. My new girlfriend gets out of bed without her clothes on. She bumps against my night table because she makes us keep the lights off when we are doing it and I can hear her feeling around on the ground for my t shirt, which she wears and walks around in without any bra or panties, which is something that I love and rarely do I wash those shirts so that her smell stays on them after she has left. I hear her go into the bathroom and close the door and then light comes out from the outline of the door and the bedroom is less dark. I look disgusting, my girlfriend says, after using the restroom, after washing her hands, after turning the light off, after opening the door, after getting back into bed. I caught my legs in the mirror. It looks like a normal person's torso being lifted up by a super fat person's legs. Why do you say that? I ask, since you are not supposed to talk about a woman's weight. Oh please, you see me. I need to lose maybe thirty pounds. Thirty pounds seems like a lot to lose. Well, I have a lot I need to lose. You look fine, I tell her. I tell her that she looks fine a lot, because she does look fine.