ALL the TIME in the WORLD a Written Creative Work Submitted to the Faculty of San Francisco State University in Partial Fulfillm
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ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD A written creative work submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of The Requirements for 3 6 The Degree 20lC . 333 V • \ Master of Fine Arts In Creative Writing by Jane Marie McDermott San Francisco, California January 2016 Copyright by Jane Marie McDermott 2016 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read All the Time in the World by Jane Marie McDermott, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a written work submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree: Master of Fine Arts: Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. f Creative Wj n§> Chanan Tigay Asst. Professor of Creative ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD Jane Marie McDermott San Francisco, California 2016 All the Time in the World is the story of gay young people coming to San Francisco in the 1970s and what happens to them in the course of thirty years. Additionally, the novel tells the stories of the people they meet along the way - a lesbian mother, a World War II veteran, a drag queen - people who never considered that they even had a story to tell until they began to tell it. In the end, All the Time in the World documents a remarkable era in gay history and serves as a testament to the galvanizing effects of love and loss and the enduring power of friendship. I certify that the Annotation is a correct representation of the content of this written creative work. Date ACKNOWLEDGMENT Thanks to everyone in the San Francisco State University MFA Creative Writing Program - you rock! I would particularly like to give shout out to Nona Caspers, Chanan Tigay, Toni Morosovich, Barbara Eastman, and Katherine Kwik. I wouldn’t have made it through the program without the love and support of my wife, Mary. Te amo. 1 ONE Every ear of com looks like every other ear of corn. Or at least it should - that’s what God intended. And every board run through the mill comes out looking like the board that came out before it. Uniformity, consistency. There is safety in this system - Indiana children learn this early on. It takes the guesswork out of life. Why waste time wondering “what’s next?” Only people who were different wanted something different. Why be different? Fit in, take your place. Buckle down, shoulder to the wheel, press on. It’s easy to believe that the world is flat in Indiana. Flat as in careful: don’t go too far, you’ll fall off the edge. Beyond Indiana lay mountains and oceans and alcohol and Democrats and fancy clothes. A decent person had no business even thinking about things like that. There was work to be done. But what was so great about Indiana besides the predictability of it, the sameness? The repetitive sun up, sun down of it day after motherless day? And what do you do if you think that maybe, just maybe, you want something else, something on the tip of your tongue that you can’t quite taste or say? Well, son, you’re out of luck; you’re in Indiana. Desire can only get a boy in trouble in Indiana. It can cause him that exceptional and gnawing pain that comes from yearning for things he cannot have but cannot find a way to stop wanting. 2 Hiram Maffey was bom in New Albany, Indiana. In 1933, he was eleven years old. Hiram was a God-fearing boy who loved his country and his parents, probably in that order. He was clean, decent, and hard-working - a true son of the Midwest. Hiram was capable with his hands, he did well enough in school liking best those subjects that would never do him any good - art and English - and he was good enough at sports. He was of average looks and height. Nothing about him made him stand out in any way. This was just fine with his parents, almost a source of pride, in fact. As far as they were concerned, Hiram was destined either for the plant or the plow just like every Maffey before him. But for Hiram a lack of a specialty, a talent, a certain something, hung heavy on him. Hiram feared that he was ordinary. It was a feeling that preyed upon him making him both afraid and ashamed. He wouldn’t know how to begin to even discuss it with his stem, stoic father. So he kept these feelings to himself where he had been taught that they belonged and considered the ways he could set himself apart. Was that sinful? He wouldn’t know who to ask. Hoosiers are bom frugal. Being careful with money and things was like a mantra in Hiram’s head. The word “waste” was always said like something to be spit out. “What a waste,” someone would say. And those who heard would nod and shudder a little as the word leached into the soil like battery acid leaving a little ring of poison on the ground as a reminder to everyone. It was the frugality of spirit that Hiram stmggled with. His parents meted out praise and encouragement like little dollops of special occasion food being careful not to give him too much. They saw no point in commending him just for doing what he was 3 supposed to do. As for encouragement, neither of Hiram’s parents was probably certain what encouragement entailed never having had much of it themselves. After what had happened when Hiram was quite young, his parents extinguished whatever was left of their emotions. When he was quite young, Hiram’s three older siblings drowned in a boating accident at a church picnic. Hiram was only three years old at the time and deemed too young to go out with the others in the canoe. Hiram’s oldest brother Cal was a strapping twelve year old and an experienced paddler. The day had been fine: light wind, just a few clouds, but just before lunch the wind picked up. Subtle, the way wind likes to be, but steady. People on the shore, including Hiram’s parents, ate watermelon and hot dogs and drank lemonade and pitched horseshoes without a care. Cal and his sisters Mabel and Agnes were far out onto the lake when their canoe capsized. No one heard their cries for help at first. By the time anyone could get another boat in the water and get out to them, the three children had drowned. All the while the congregation and their parents watched helplessly from the shore. Hiram had a vague recollection of his brother and sisters being laid out on the grass and his mother kneeling over them with her mouth open in a silent scream. People stood by in their Sunday best like wax figures. But more likely he had been told it and told it many times so the image was so vivid he could see it as if it was a memory. After his siblings died his parents crawled up inside themselves and never came back. Those stony, heart-broken folks were the ones who raised Hiram with and the only ones he could remember. 4 He grew up lonely. He was meant to be the youngest of four, but instead he was an only child of terminally sad parents. Hiram’s mother in particular made sure to gather up the pieces of her shattered heart and sealed them up tight so that no harm could come to them ever again. Poor Hiram. He didn’t know what he had done wrong to be the one left to live with these loveless people. Nothing he did ever elicited much of a response from them. Like nearly every boy of his generation and class as soon as Hiram was able, he got an after-school job. “We work, “his father told him as if it had been written in the Bible. Hiram saved some his money he earned as a delivery boy at the drugstore; the rest he gave to his mother who appreciated the contribution to the household however small. Hiram’s only indulgence was the occasional comic book. He justified these purchases by the discount Mr. Duncan the druggist gave him. They also provided something else that he was ashamed to admit: sometimes a boy just needed a little luxury to make life worth living. It was in the back of one of these comic books that Hiram Maffey read an ad that promised to give him the ability to amaze his friends and be the life of the party. Without telling his mother, he mailed a dime to a post office box in New York City for the advertised book entitled “ Ventriloquism Made Easy: Amusing and Instructive” by George W. Callahan1, a professional ventriloquist himself. 1 George W. Callahan was a ventriloquist bom in 1862 in New York. In 1884, he married Delina Rose, a bearded lady. Callahan wrote a number of popular pamphlets on ventriloquism. He died in 1894, aged 32, after a long illness. 5 Hiram waited to intercept the mail every day for what seemed like months. When the package came he secreted it to his room and opened it with reverence and awe. The book contained not only instructions, but illustrations! There was a photograph of a man in a suit, looking very respectable, holding a ventriloquist dummy on his lap. A ventriloquist’s dummy! The illustrations showed how to manipulate the dummy and techniques for how to position your mouth.