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Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced withwith permission ofof thethe copyright owner.owner. Further Further reproductionreproduction prohibited without permission. permission. THE LAST FIFTEEN MINUTES

by

Lvdia Jane Morris

submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Master o f Fine Arts

m

Creative Writing

Chair. mau

Kermit Moyer

D•[ rts and Sciences

Date

2000

American University

Washington, D.C. 20016

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 1401041

___ __<&> UMI

UMI Microform 1401041 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE LAST FIFTEEN MINUTES

BY

Lydia Jane Morris

ABSTRACT

These five short works of fiction address a series of common themes and motifs

within contemporary American literature: withdrawal and alienation, a loss of the self,

and the search for essential meaning in both life and human interaction. ‘Fish and Other

Problems'’ is the story of a young woman stranded in Arkansas after her car breaks down.

The post-modern 'T o Whom It May Concern” reads as a letter written to a recent ex­

lover. A graduate student in the throes o f an identity crisis is the focus of “Why I Quit

Smoking,” while the events just after a rape—as if such an incident could be withstood

with the aid of an instructional manual—are documented within “See Spot Run.” Lastly,

elements of “Fish and Other Problems” are revisited within “For George,” an angry

portrait of a one-night stand.

(I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my thesis chair, Glenn Moomau; my other thesis committee

members, John Hyman and Kermit Moyer; the chairs of the graduate creative writing

program at American University, Richard McCann, Myra Sklarew, and Henry Taylor.

In addition, I would like to thank Stella and Gwendolyn, A.B. Paulson, Sekou

Sundiata, and my family.

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ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... iii

Short fiction

1. FISH AND OTHER PROBLEMS...... I

2. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN...... 27

3. WHY I QUIT SMOKING...... 31

4. SEE SPOT RUN ...... 46

5. FOR GEORGE ...... 53

iv

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Where was she going all by herself?

Gwen's mother had prepared a short speech for her in case people, men in

particular, were to ask her any questions: “My father recently died and I inherited his car.

I am driving it from my hometown of Orlando, Florida, to Seattle, Washington, where I

currently live with my boyfriend.”

On the phone, her mother knew right away. “Honey, have you started smoking

again?"

"I just called to tell you I’m in Little Rock.”

“You're a little what?”

i'm in Arkansas. Little Rock, Arkansas.”

“Oh! That’s wonderful, Gwendolyn. That was certainly quick! You're not

speeding are you? Your father always said that that car ran best at fifty-five.”

“I'm not speeding. I promise. And why is everything about Dad?”

“What are you talking about?”

"All I’m saying is he’s dead.”

“I know that. I, o f all people, know that. And I don’t appreciate your tone.”

"What tone?”

“That tone you get when you’re mad.”

I

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Gwen's mother sighed. “I wish you weren't smoking again.”

"I know.”

"I was so proud of you when you quit last year. Remember when you were eight

and you drew me all those non-smoking signs, and then posted them all over the house?

And I did quit, Gwenny. I haven’t smoked since—”

"Since I was ten, Mom. Two years after that.”

“Gwenny, that is not my point.”

"Stop calling me that! I'm not five. My name is Gwen, or Gwendolyn. Look, I'll

call you when I get to Texas.”

“Texas? Oh, honey, I know you’re an adult—that you think you are an adult—but

this is silly. You should have taken a few maps. Your father had, I have, lots of maps."

“I don’t want maps. I know where I am going.”

"That's not enough! You need to have a plan!”

"I just get on major highways that go west or north. I’m in no hurry. I like driving,

and I'm not speeding.”

"But, Gwenny—”

Hanging up was the first comfort of the day. It marked the completion of yet one

more unpleasant task. After talking to her mother, Gwen couldn’t bring herself to call her

other home, the home she shared with Matthew in Seattle. With hours on the road each

day, it was hard not to think idly about Matthew, even though there wasn't much to

speculate about. He was in Seattle, working, taking care of their cats (really they were

Gwen’s cats) and, most likely, stoned out of his mind. She and Matthew had met only

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. two weeks after Gwen first moved to Washington. She didn’t quite know or understand

how, two years later, they were still dating, living together even. Though Matthew did

work long hours as a waiter, which gave Gwen a lot of time at home alone, and the times

that she did want company it was nice to have someone on call.

Gwen checked out o f the Little Rock Hampton Inn at noon. When she had

checked in the night before, the main staff had been off-duty. She was handed her room

keys and told to pay before leaving in the morning. The lobby, drenched now in the

morning's natural light, was pink. Pink chairs, pink carpet, pink couch, it reminded Gwen

of her childhood bedroom—the room that she and her father had repainted green when

she was eight, much against her mother’s wishes.

"Gwen doesn’t like pink, not all girls do.” Her father had explained to her mother.

“It’s not pink, it’s peach,” her mother had retorted.

"And that’s just it! She’s having nightmares that she’s been swallowed up by an

enormous piece of fruit,” her father continued in a feigned serious tone.

This wasn’t true, but Gwen nodded anyway. “I’m stuck in the peach pit,” she had

told her mother, proud of her quick addition to her father’s tale. “I’m stuck and I can't get

out!”

"My, oh my, all the way from Washington state!” the hotel manager commented

after looking at Gwen’s driver’s license for a period o f time that she felt was far too long.

“What are you doing in Arkansas?”

"Yes, what am I doing in Arkansas?” Gwen asked herself now in her car as she

followed signs back to Interstate 40. “Goodbye, Are-can-saw. Art, can you saw?

Goodbye, Arc kin saw. See saw. I saw. Arkansas.” And soon, “Arkansas is a state for

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driving, driving through, driving through...." Gwen sang softly for half an hour while

contemplating the road. So straight, so flat, so expansive and open, and yet nothing.

Vacancy. She could get there—anywhere, nowhere— faster if she sped up a little.

A deeper push on the accelerator made an eerie click. Several useless thrusts and

stabs and Gwen was losing speed. In the left lane, with another car on her right, she had

no choice but to ease onto the left shoulder and stop the car. Reaching into her overnight

bag, she grabbed her bank envelope and then got out of the car to properly take in her

surroundings. To her right was the highway as far up and down as she could see. To the

left was the same, except for a small business o f some sort on the other side o f the few

cars that raced past. She sprinted across the three-lane highway towards the business. An

enormous young woman guarding a long counter looked up as Gwen walked in.

“Lfm, hi. My car just broke down.’"

"Yeah?" The woman picked up a donut and started licking the powder off it.

' You got Triple A?”

"‘Well, no. But I guess I need a tow truck, so maybe you have a phone book?"

"Yeah, I got one." The woman didn't move to get it though. She reached for a

napkin and began wiping the donut dust off her chin instead. “You want it?"

"Yes, please. Where am I?"

"Home Works," the woman said, handing over a telephone book the size of a

hotel Bible. “Page fifty-two if you want to see our ad. We do home remodeling. You

know, construction-type stuff."

Gwen's hands began shaking, and looking through the book required too much

attention. "Look, do you have any suggestions? I don’t really know exactly what to do."

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“My brother Clark could probably help you out, he knows a lot about cars. He's

out on assignment right now though. Have a seat. He’ll be back any time now. He just

called."

Gwen looked around for a chair and saw that there weren’t any. She leaned up

against a display of garden hoses and tried to calm down. It seemed to Gwen that most of

her time was spent waiting or wishing for things that never happened. She used to wait

for hours for Matthew to call. But the simple fact was that Matthew wasn’t good at

calling back, or even calling when he said he would. After three months of scolding, he

had caught on a little. “Hi. It’s me. I’m calling you back," he’d say with distaste and

resentment, as if the mere fact that he was calling more than made up for his tone.

There was a sound coming from behind the fat woman, who had turned around so

far that the twisted rolls of flesh showing through her blouse made her look like a

tremendous screw. “Clark, I think you better come out here!" she bellowed to the wall

behind her.

A small door hidden behind the counter opened revealing a back oftice. Out

stepped a tail middle-aged thin man. He didn’t appear to notice Gwen at all; instead, his

attention went directly towards the obese woman. “Norma! Stop sucking the jelly outta

my donut! It’s bad enough that you’ve just about licked it clean! That’s the last time I

ever—”

"Never mind about your donut, Clark.” Norma pointed at Gwen. "This girl needs

your help."

“Oh, Miss, I am truly sorry. I didn’t see you there. I’m Clark Haley. I’m the

owner of Home Works, how can I help you? We are having a special on those hoses you

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are leaning against"

'Um, actually, my car broke down.” Gwen stood and shook Clark’s outstretched

hand. “See, my father recently died and I inherited his car. I am driving it from my

hometown of Orlando, Florida, to Seattle, Washington, where I currently live with my

boyfriend.”

“That’s quite a drive. Yes, it sure is. Quite a drive.”

Gwen waited for him to continue, but it seemed as if he had nothing left to say.

Perhaps she had not made herself clear. “Uh... my car... it broke down. Right out there.”

Gwen pointed through the window. “See, it broke down, and I was wondering if you

knew of anyone who might be able to fix it or maybe tow it.”

“Well, huh, I might,” Clark said thoughtfully and then turned his attention to his

assistant, who was now removing donut residue from her chin with a Post-It Note.

“Norma, could you please tear yourself away from that very important business-related

task, go back in the office, and see if you can’t find me my list of important numbers?”

Norma moved sinuously off her stool and, after shooting a hot look towards

Clark, disappeared through the half door. Clark leaned once more over the counter that

separated him from Gwen. “I’m sorry' about that. My sister can be a bit discourteous at

times. I don’t think she likes working here. Not that she doesn’t have a great job, because

she does. Clark Haley takes good care of his employees.”

Gwen smiled at this remark in hopes of conveying some sort of appreciation or

belief, even though nothing in the world seemed less interesting, or more horrifying, than

Clark and Norma.

“Now, tell me, what seems to be the trouble with your car?” Clark idly stroked the

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counter top with his index and middle lingers.

"Well, it was driving fine and then all of a sudden the accelerator just stopped

working."

Clark began nodding slowly and Gwen took the time, as his head bobbed up and

down as if on a mechanical spring, to look around. These were the things she might need

to tell the police later—the name o f this business, a physical description of Clark and

Norma.

"Sounds like a fuel pump problem, though it may be as simple as a clogged filter.

Best thing we can do is get in my pick-up and drive over to Bob’s.”

"Bob?”

"Bob Jackson. He owns a repair shop. Don’t you worry. I’ll just go see if Norma's

found the phone number, and we’ll get going.”

Newspaper headlines flashed through Gwen’s mind: "Missing Girl!” "Missing

Girl Found Dead in Ditch Alongside Interstate 40!” “Norma, the Largest Woman in the

World, Exposes Brother as Molester and Murderer!”

She could hear her mother being interviewed on Hard Copy or 20 20: “I told her

to take a map! I don’t know what she was thinking, driving that old car across the country

without a map, without a plan! I told her!”

Clark was back in less than a minute. “Well, I called over there and the line was

busy. I say we just drive over.”

Gwen nodded. “So, what’s the name of this town?” She asked Clark as she

followed him through the hidden door, through a small tidy office, past Norma, and then

out o f the building.

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“This here is Clarkesville. It’s a small town, but I like it. Bom and raised here,”

Clark answered while unlocking the passenger-side door of a large red pick-up.

Gwen reassured herself that Clark’s intentions were benign. Although this sort of

help and attention given to a complete stranger—this ‘Southern charm,’ as Gwen’s

mother had labeled it in a warning—was something Gwen could not appreciate without a

fair amount of distrust and resentment. Only when alone did Gwen feel truly comfortable

and unencumbered. At Graceland, where she had stopped the day before, she had found

peace musing over shining gold albums and tight white leisure-suits tacked along long

hallways. The tour was delivered over personal cassette players that all the visitors were

given and Gwen liked this for two reasons. One: it gave her a socially acceptable reason

for avoiding eye contact and pleasantries with the other tourists. Two: when she got

bored, all she had to do was hit fast-forward.

The interior of the truck’s cabin was leather and the dashboard was a complicated

landscape of menacing levers and display panels. It seemed obvious to Gwen that Clark

was a member of some Southern mob. How else could he have afforded such a deluxe

vehicle? Home Works was essentially empty, in the middle of nowhere, and Norma

didn’t seem to have any customer service skills whatsoever.

"This is a nice truck,” Gwen said as Clark shut his own door and started the

ignition. Maybe if she flattered Clark he would spare her for ransom.

Clark began laughing so hard he could barely get out of his parking space. "What

a funny thing to say!”

"What do you mean?” Gwen felt her face flush in embarrassment.

"Well, it’s just that around here everyone has a truck. It’s nothing special."

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They were on the interstate now, and Gwen looked out at her car, silent and

abandoned, as the truck passed it by.

"There’s nothing all that nice about it,” Clark explained.

“Well, I think it’s a nice truck.”

“You ever been in a truck?”

“I have,” Gwen asserted emphatically.

“No reason to get bent out of shape.” To Gwen’s utter alarm, Clark began to pat

her left upper thigh. He was already driving much faster than she would have liked, and

now he was touching her. In slow mental flashes, she began to envision the inevitable

wreck. His body, no longer smooth and lanky but tom and twisted, perhaps half out one

window. And she, soaked in a mixture of both his and her blood, with maybe the rear­

view mirror stuck grotesquely halfway into her groin—and, yet, better that than Clark’s

hand.

"Tell me about it,” Clark said.

"About what?”

"Tell me about this truck you spent so much time in.”

“Oh. My dad had a truck.”

"What happened to it?”

Gwen shifted uncomfortably. Clark was definitely driving much faster than was

necessary. Perhaps her mother was right; perhaps there never was a justifiable reason to

speed. Accidents happen quickly and without cause all the time. Her mother was

definitely right.

Thinking o f her mother only made Gwen feel guilty. The previous evening’s

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conversation began haunting her. She knew she could have been more polite, that her

mother always had the best of intentions, even if at times they were pathetically

misguided. It was her mother’s good intentions about her poor eating habits that upset

Gwen the most. After days of eating nothing but nonfat frozen yogurt, Gwen had woken

up the Saturday morning before she left her mother’s house in Orlando for Washington

intent on having pancakes for breakfast. Her mother had walked into the kitchen just as

Gwen had found the pancake mix. “Oh, Gwenny,” she said, “are you about to make

pancakes?"

“Why?”

“I thought I’d make us waffles is all,” her mother had replied.

"You have waffles. I’ll have pancakes."

“Honey, don’t be silly. It’s your last meal before you go, and if the two of us are

eating at the same time, and in the same place, then we should be eating the same thing."

Gwen rolled her eyes and her mother continued, “What’s wrong with waffles? You used

to love them before you began this crazy diet of yours—"

"Never mind. I don’t have time to eat breakfast anyway. You make some waffles

and I’ll go finish packing.”

Gwen’s mother had cut her losses at this prospect. “No, no, sit down, I’ll make us

some pancakes."

Gwen had sat down at the large mahogany kitchen table and begun to review her

father’s funeral bill, which was being held in place with a heavy salt shaker—the Eiffel

Tower. Her mother collected salt and pepper shakers. She had national and international

monument shakers, geometric glass shakers, ceramic and plastic figurine shakers. ..

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Gwen thought the collection was insipid. But a few o f the larger shakers did work well as

paperweights.

"The funeral was pretty expensive, huh?” Gwen had commented, holding the bill

in her hands.

""Look!” Gwen’s mother exclaimed pointing enthusiastically to the side of the

pancake-mix box. “It’s the recipe for German apple pancakes! I have always wanted to

try those!”

" Mom? Did you hear me? How are you going to pay this?”

“Remember how your father used to love apples? He used to buy so many that

we’d never get through them all. Even after they began to turn brown all over and smell,

he'd insist they were still fit to eat—”

"‘I don’t want apple pancakes. How are you going to pay for the funeral?”

"Remember what he used to say? He’d say, ‘Those apples are perfectly fine! We

could make apple sauce with them!’ Your father was such a funny, such a sweet, man.

Oh, Gwenny, I know this must be so hard for you, you and he—”

"Look, Mom, all T want is pancakes! Plain fucking pancakes! I don’t want

waffles! I don’t want German shit the Germans probably know nothing about! I want

pancakes!” The nastiness of her own voice startled her, but once she started, she couldn’t

stop. "Can’t we just stick to the plan? Do you even remember the plan? The plan

involved pancakes! There were no waffle irons in the plan! There was no fruit in the

plan! The plan! The plan! Remember the plan?”

Her mother’s voice had been soft and slow. “Okay, Gwenny, if that’s how you

feel. There’s no need to yell. I’ll just make the apple pancakes for myself and you can

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make some regular ones for you.”

'What? We couldn’t each eat something different at the same time! At the same

table! In the same house! In the same state!”

“Hello? You still with me? What’s that about this state?”

Gwen looked over at Clark. “Oh, I guess I’ve been driving so much I kind of

think out loud sometimes,” she answered softly, embarrassed.

Clark smiled, revealing a showcase of perfectly sized, perfectly white, straight

teeth. "We were talking about your father’s truck. What happened to it?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s still parked in the garage.”

“You guess? You should look.”

"Well, I didn’t. And I don’t know when I’ll be home again. My father's dead. I

only went home for the funeral.” Gwen tried surreptitiously to look over Clark’s arm at

the speedometer. He had placed his right hand back onto the steering wheel and she

couldn’t see anything except the gas gauge because o f it, but she was sure he was driving

at least twenty miles over the speed limit. “Look, I don’t care if it’s in there or not. I don’t

want that truck. It’s old and, anyway, it reminds me of my father. ”

“I guess you weren’t a Daddy’s Girl then.”

Who spoke like this? A ‘Daddy’s Girl’—who or what was that?

"Now, quit that eye rolling. I just mean, if my father died I would be clinging to

everything,” Clark continued. “For instance, I’d want his old shirts. He had some great

shirts. I remember when I was a kid, he’d read Normie—that’s what we used to call

Norma, Normie—he’d read Normie and I stories at night. I’d rest my—”

“Normie and me,” Gwen interrupted.

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“What?”

"It's ‘Normie and me,’ not ‘Normie and I.’”

“Okay. Well, he read stories to Normie and me, and I’d rest my head on his

shoulder. See, what I was saying was that I’ll never forget that smell. The smell o f his

shirts, musty and sweaty—”

"You just think all that because your dad is still alive. If he were dead, you

wouldn’t want to have anything to do with those sweaty shirts.”

“Now I am doing you a favor here, driving you over to Bob’s. Let’s not get nasty.

I’m just trying to make conversation with you, I don’t need grammar lessons or—”

“I’m just saying that even if I were a Daddy’s Girl, I wouldn’t want that truck.”

Clark nodded and for once kept his eyes on the road. Gwen shifted in her seat and

tightened her seatbelt in perverse anticipation.

In the silence, Gwen began to wonder what Matthew would think if he could see

her now travelling at dangerously high speeds next to an older man in a big truck. O f

course, Matthew hadn’t had any major concerns about Gwen’s road trip. “How long are

you gonna be gone for?” was all he had asked.

“I don’t know, I’ve never driven across the country before.”

“Too bad you didn’t inherit the truck. A truck woulda been cool,” Matthew had

said as he extinguished his cigarette into a glass full of moldy juice. “You’d be cruising

cross country in a truck—”

“My dad’s car will be fine. It’s in better condition.” Gwen had replied.

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” Matthew lit another cigarette. “So, when you get back, are you

ever gonna let me drive it?”

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“I can’t believe you’re asking me that. My father just died and you want to know

if you can drive his car!”

"Baby, no, no, that came out wrong.” Matthew dropped his new cigarette in the

rotting juice and began massaging Gwen’s leg.

"I wish you would dump that lemonade out. It’s disgusting.” Gwen had said

between sobs.

Now, in Clark’s truck, all she could think was that at least Matthew hadn’t tried to

talk her out of the trip like her mother had. But that was when Matthew thought she was

driving alone.

Gwen looked over at Clark. He was handsome in a stiff way. His skin was smooth

and his hairline was in good shape. He had a short military-type haircut, and despite the

fact that they were in what she could only describe as the middle of nowhere, Clark had a

preppy, athletic look about him.

“Well, we’re almost there,” Clark said.

"Oh, good. I was beginning to wonder.”

“Is that what you were thinking about? You sure did look lost in thought,” Clark

said, steering the truck onto an exit ramp.

“I’m sorry. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day. I’m distracted and cranky.”

After a right turn onto a practically dirt road, Clark made another right into a

parking lot. There were three buildings, all attached—a convenience store, a barber's

shop, and, on the end, Bob Jackson’s Auto Repair Palace.

"Palace?” Gwen asked as they got out of the truck.

"Heh, well, that Bob has quite a sense of humor. You’ll see when you meet him.

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Except I don’t think that’ll be now, looks like the place is closed.”

Gwen’s tension increased and began to mix with frustration and distrust. “I

thought you called over here. What sort of place closes at four? In Seattle, even in

Orlando, everything is open until at least six, usually seven.”

' Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore!” Clark said mockingly. And then more

seriously, “I’m sorry. I did call. It was busy. Bob must have just left. Here, let me call a

tow truck, and then we’ll find you a hotel for the night.” Clark reached into his back

pocket and pulled out a cellular phone.

“Where’d you get that?”

"This?” Clark lifted the phone up to his forehead and then outwards in a strange

salute. "Well, I got it in Little Rock. We’re not all hicks out here, you know.”

“Little Rock? I thought you lived here.”

" I do. But this isn’t the only Home Works. I’ve got three of ’em. One here, one in

Little Rock, and one down in Pine Bluff. And this here phone is a life-saver because it

seems like I’m always on the road having to call each and every one of my shops, or

Norma for that matter.”

Gwen got back into the truck as Clark made the towing arrangements. She

reached into her dress pocket and pulled out her bank envelope. There was a little over

four hundred in cash and exactly three hundred in traveler’s checks. It was times like this

that she wished Matthew were around. Times when simple tasks such as managing her

money, estimating the cost of an unexpected hotel room, car repairs, trusting a total

stranger—it was exhausting.

Yet the fact was. and she knew it, that Matthew would be of no help right now.

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He would be angry, as if the car’s breaking down had been her fault. He was like that

about bills too. Somehow the bills were Gwen’s fault. They would show up in their

mailbox each month, Matthew would take them up to their apartment, and soon they’d

wind up on the floor, mixed in with his wet towels and dirty clothes. Some made it into

his backpack. The backpack was the worst. It functioned like a roach motel; things made

it in but never back out. Eventually the perpetual anger would surface. “What do you

mean the phone was turned off?” as if this was an unexpected turn of events and yet

Gwen’s fault nonetheless. At some point, Gwen concluded that relationships were built

on, sustained by, terrible accidents of judgment that turned into, at best, bad habits,

routine, and false comfort.

The knocking startled her. She dropped the bank envelope onto her lap and

screamed. It was Clark, now looking rather sheepish, tapping on her window with those

same two fingers he had graced the counter with earlier in Home Works. Gwen rolled her

window down.

"Sorry to scare you. I just wanted to let you know that the tow truck is on its

way.”

"Okay.”

“So, you can get out here and wait for your car to show up, or you can let me take

you over to a hotel and then check on your car here in the morning. It’s up to you, except

I don’t know how you’re going to get to a hotel later. I mean, getting your car is o f no use

now if you still can’t drive it.”

"Oh, well, if you don’t mind taking me then I guess I better do that then. I mean,

get to a hotel. But, if it’s okay with you, I better call my mother first.”

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"Sure thing,” Clark said, passing the cell phone through the open window.

It only rang once. "Hello?” answered her mother.

“Hi. It’s me. Just wanted to let you know that 1 am in Arkansas still. The car

stopped running and—”

The response was wonderfully melodramatic, just as Gwen had expected. First, an

enthusiastically frightened "Oh, my God!” Then, a large shattering crash.

"What was that noise?” Gwen asked dryly.

“I dropped my iced tea is all. What, what do you mean the car broke down?

Where are you?”

"I’m in Arkansas.”

“Where’s the car?”

i t ’s here in Arkansas too.”

“God damn you, Gwendolyn Stiles! What’s going on?”

Anger. Gwen had not expected anger. "I’m okay. The car is being towed and I’ve

got a ride to a hotel.” Gwen looked over at Clark, now standing at the barber’s shop

entrance. His eyes were focused on the dusty concrete, and Gwen sensed an abstracted

urgency. Talking to her mother only brought her mistrust of Clark back to the surface.

“Mom, I’ve got to go. My ride is waiting and I don’t want to be rude.”

“Your ride?”

“Yes, a man who lives around here is taking me to a hotel.”

"A man? What man? You’re driving around with a man? Gwenny, have you lost

all your sense? How do you know he’s not some lunatic?”

“I don’t. I suppose that is a possibility.”

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“What is wrong with you? Why all this flippancy?”

"Look, he's just a nice guy. It’s the South. People are just super friendly here.”

Gwen wondered who she was reassuring. “How ’bout this, if you don’t hear from me

again later tonight then call the FBI, break a few more glasses, whatever.”

At the first sound of a response, Gwen hung up and then smiled in Clark’s

direction. It seemed important that she give the impression that she and her mother had

had nothing more than a casual, but informational, chat. “Thanks again for driving me all

over the place,” she said nervously as Clark settled into his seat.

“No problem. Actually, it’s on my way home.” Clark backed out slowly, and

Gwen found herself once more over-concerned about her seatbelt. The interstate was still

relatively barren despite the fact that everywhere else it was presumably rush hour. Clark

seemed distracted as he drove. He was quiet and driving at a speed that felt slower. The

speedometer remained out of view and Gwen began a guessing game. Maybe fifty?

"So what’s it like to live in a town named after you?” she eventually asked in

search of a conversation.

“You just lost ten points.”

"What? How’s that?”

“Well, don’t think I haven’t been asked that before! I’m just surprised you didn’t

bring it up until now.”

“Oh. So what is it like?”

"What’s it supposed to be like? Clark was my father’s name, and my mother

wanted me to follow suit—or something like that. It only made her feel bad later.”

“How’s that?”

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“He took off when I was eight Normie, Norma, was only five. Took everything

with him, too, the truck, even the dog. Never wrote, never called, no explanation. Three

years later, we got divorce papers in the mail from some lawyer in Kentucky. My mother

signed them, sent them back, and that was that’'

‘Tm sorry.”

“Yeah, well, it’s life. How’d your father die?”

“He fell off the roof.” Gwen paused, but Clark kept his eyes on the road. “He was

up there cleaning out the gutters.”

“So, what, did he die on impact then?”

“No, he died a week later.”

“In the hospital? What a rough way to go. If it were me, I’d want to die on

impact."

“Actually, he died while getting the mail.”

“I thought you said he fell off the roof.”

“Well, yeah, he broke his leg in two places, so he had surgery. Afier that, he had

to spend a lot o f time at home. He hated that. He was one of those people who always had

to be doing something. He had to be useful. Anyway, one day my Mom went to go check

in on my Dad’s store—so she was gone all day. She left him alone, and I guess, they’ve

guessed, he wanted to get the mail. Our mailbox is at the end o f our driveway, which is

gravel. He tripped. Crutches don’t work well on gravel.”

“And?”

“He had a concussion. Mom found him. She almost ran him over when she

pulled in. Though I guess it wouldn’t have mattered—he was dead when she got there.

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Personally, I think she should have stayed home. What’d it matter if no one was at the

store, you know?”

"Well, it happened. No point in blaming her now.”

Gwen looked out her window. The scenery had changed. They were no longer on

the interstate and to her right there was a post office, a convenience store, and a flower

shop. And then the town was over. The road turned into a mere divider between

expansive farms.

"I guess if I had to choose, I’d pick the hospital over the driveway,” Clark said

suddenly.

"Yeah, well iff had to choose, I’d rather my father just ran away,” Gwen said.

Clark opened his mouth as if to respond and then closed it. The farms passed and

soon another town surrounded them. This time, a bar, a grocery store, and a small hotel.

"This is it,” Clark said absently while slowing down.

"Thanks for all your help. I guess I’ll just take a cab over to the palace in the

morning.” Clark laughed and Gwen continued, “There are cabs around here, right?”

Clark smiled and resumed his laughter. “Yes, and I’ll bet there’ll even be a phone

in your room so you can call for one in the morning.”

Gwen smiled briefly, awkwardly, and then opened her door and stepped out of the

truck.

"Need any help checking in?”

“No, I’ve got it. Thanks again.”

“Listen, I don’t mean to be forward, but I doubt the hotel is gonna fill up. You

want to go grab some dinner before you check in?”

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“Dinner?”

"Yeah. I could use a bite, and I hate eating alone.”

"Well, I don’t really eat,” Gwen said, leaning into the open truck cabin, the door

firmly and rigidly grasped in her right hand.

"How about you come and watch me eat then?”

Gwen was speechless. Her mother, and even Matthew, had been religious in their

efforts to feed her. Since her father’s death she had lost fifteen pounds—her clothes had

become baggy, and she found a profound comfort in this. The loose jeans and shirts

became hiding places; even oversized sundresses offered a certain desirable amount of

obscurity and reclusively. Yet Clark was seemingly unconcerned, even uninterested.

"Look, haven’t I proved by now that I’m a nice guy? I’m not out to do anything

but help you out. I promise, you’ll be back in no time.”

"Okay,” Gwen said hesitantly as she climbed back into the truck. “But I’m not

really hungry.”

“It’s been noted,” Clark said, starting up the truck. “We passed a restaurant about

a mile back, let’s just go there.”

“All right, what kind of food is it?”

“I thought you weren’t eating,” Clark said with a wry smile.

"I’m just curious."

i t ’s your typical Southern fare—you know, a lot o f meat and starch all covered

in sticky gravy. Though I’m sure you could get a salad. You know, in case you change

your mind.”

Dusk was upon them, and Clark turned on the headlights. The road looked

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gave up on the speedometer game and focused her attention on Clark’s profile. There was

something beautiful about him. His eyes matched his hair; both were brown, like his

shoes and belt. His features were even, and he had the sort of handsomeness that came

from the absence o f physical flaws. Gwen had heard once that true beauty was best

defined in terms of proportion. Matthew’s eyes were too close together she had decided

on their third date. From that point on, it had bothered her. She couldn’t look at him

without noticing it.

The real problem with Matthew didn’t involve his eyes though. At least, not

directly. The bigger problem was that he had no foresight—no plans for the future. When

they’d first met, Gwen had assumed that Matthew was just in a rut. He talked all the time

about going to college for music or writing once he had the money. That was one of the

reasons Gwen suggested they live together—so that Matthew could save some money.

But instead, as he moved in all of his belongings and she heard the romanticized stories

about each of his prized possessions, it became clearer and clearer that Matthew was on

the road to nowhere.

Eventually Matthew refused to quit his job to go to school, ft came to be that that

school would be nothing more than a waste of time. He argued that his job had all sorts of

room for advancement. “Never mind that your paychecks are always late and you haven’t

been given a raise in over a year!’’ Gwen had responded.

“You still with me?” Clark asked poking Gwen on her side beneath her seatbelt.

”Yes, I am.”

“It’s getting dark, huh? Guess you’re glad this day is finally over.”

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“I suppose.”

"Tell me the bright side. You must have had some good times on the road.”

Gwen thought back on her trip so far—the cold, over air-conditioned, sterile hotel

rooms; the many king-size beds, the comforters o f which always matched the drapes,

beds that she had crawled into in her loose jeans and baggy sweaters, too tired to undress;

the sudden awakenings from dreams of her father slowly dying atop a majestic apple and

peach gravel driveway, which only led her to worrying about her car—had she locked it?

Should she check? And then there were all those awkward and stilted conversations. She

couldn’t for the life of her remember the assigned mantra given to her by her mother. Her

name simply did not feel right. "‘Gwen—that is, Gwendolyn. It’s a nickname. I mean,

Gwen is a nickname. Stiles, Gwendolyn Stiles,” she told many desk clerks. What did it

matter that she didn’t include the part about the boyfriend and her father’s death? No one

cared. Why did her mother think that anyone cared?

"Well, there was Graceiand. I liked that,” Gwen said to Clark at last.

"Yeah? Why?”

“I don’t know why. The thing is, I’m not really an Elvis fan, and the tour was

expensive—like fifteen dollars I should have spent on gas or on another horribly cold

hotel room. I guess I just liked the anonymity; I liked blending in. I mean, I didn’t really

look like the other tourists, at least I hope I didn’t.”

“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t! I was there last spring, and they were all crazy. One

lady I saw was actually wearing a shirt that had little colored light bulbs sewn onto it.

They flashed, ‘Elvis Lives’ over and over. It was a riot, really crazy.”

Gwen could picture this woman in her flickering logo shirt. She saw this woman

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as herself, the lights green and red, blinking alternately and endlessly like a stoplight that

couldn’t quite make up it’s mind. “Where do you live? Near here you said?” she asked in

an effort to displace the image.

"Yeah, about a mile south. If you’d like, we could eat dinner there. I could

impress you with my fish.”

“I told you, I’m not eating.”

"No, I didn’t mean I could cook fish. I meant I could show you my fish. I have

two tanks of live tropical fish. It’s a hobby.”

"Okay,” Gwen said before thinking about it.

“The plan, ladies and gentleman, has officially changed,” Clark said while

laughing. “We are now on course to Clark Haley’s beautiful estate.”

"Do you always refer to yourself in the third person?”

“What?”

“I just mean, isn’t it bad enough that you live in a town practically named in your

honor? I’d hate to think that it’s gone to your head.”

“You’re a funny girl, you know that? I mean, when you’re not spacing out or

being nasty, you’re a funny girl.”

"A regular Barbra Streisand,” Gwen retorted as Clark made a left after passing the

flower shop she had noticed earlier.

“Now, don’t you get a swelled head! Barbra has quite a following.”

"Don’t rain on my parade,” Gwen remarked as tritely as possible.

Clark smiled and rolled his eyes. “You know, you still haven’t told me your

name.”

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“Is this your house?” Gwen asked to deepen the mystery as Clark made another

left.

"Yes, it is, Miss Streisand—should I just call you that? Yes, Barbra, this is my

home.”

The house, white and small, stood in isolation—almost submerged in the

surrounding woods. There was no garage, just a widening at the end of the driveway in

which to park the truck. Clark opened his door, stepped out, and then reached out to

Gwen.

“What?”

“Maybe you should come out my side. I think I parked a little too close to the

trees on your side.”

Gwen took his hand and edged cautiously over the long leather seat. Finally, she

saw the speedometer, dark and perfectly still at zero. Clark’s hand was softer and

smoother than she had expected it to be. She let it go as soon as her feet felt the ground.

Clark smiled awkwardly at her rebuff and then led the way to his front door.

“The fish, I’ll show you the fish first,” he said as she followed him through a front

hall, past a carpeted staircase, and into a den.

The room was dim, except for an ethereal glow coming from two large tanks set

in the room’s back wall. Gwen passed Clark and kneeled down to look closely into the

tanks. Bright and exotic fish were swimming on all levels. Some near the top, others

close to the multicolored plastic rocks that covered the tank’s bottom. The water was a

deep shade of aqua, and slowly everything began to blur into blue. Gwen stood and

turned away in sudden desperation, and yet there was no escape—an eerie reflection

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engulfed the room in a combination of flickering and phosphorescent marine lights and

shadows.

"Is something wrong?” Clark asked as slow tears began to trickle down Gwen’s

face.

"It’s just... it’s just that when I was ten... my father—”

"Yes?”

"He took us to Hawaii. My mother made fun of me. It’s the fish.”

"Made fun of you? What fish?”

"The fish. When you go swimming there, they swim all around you. You can’t get

away. I was horrified; I spent most of the vacation on the sand. My mother... she made

fun of me. But my father said it only seemed like the fish were close, that they wouldn’t

touch you, that you could swim and they’d ignore you. He said that they were more afraid

of me than I was of them. He was right—it’s silly really to be afraid of fish.”

"It’s not so silly,” Clark said as he pulled Gwen to him. "It’s okay, Barbra. You’re

okay," he repeated over and over as he ran his fingers through her hair with one hand and

held her close to him with the other.

"Don’t you understand? My father’s like the fish. He’s still so close—so close and

yet not touching.”

She could feel his head nodding, and the gentle rocking, the closeness, jarred her.

She stepped away from him abruptly and began to wipe the tears from her face and neck.

“My name is Gwendolyn,” she said, embarrassed.

"That’s a beautiful name,” Clark replied softly, and she wondered how she’d ever

get home.

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I ve decided that I am not really crazy. After all, how could I be crazy when I am

getting so much done? In just the past two days I have cleaned the bathroom, done the

laundry, visited my father, and watched quite a bit of television.

Earlier today in Safeway I found myself yelling out loud. I wasn’t yelling at

anyone in particular. I was just yelling. I was saying, “Don’t do that!” and, “Who do you

think you are?” I also yelled, “Oh? Oh yeah?” It wasn’t all that bad really, except, like I

said, I wasn't yelling at anyone in particular. In fact, I didn’t even know I was yelling

until some old lady holding a bag of Birds Eye frozen carrots said, “Honey? Are you all

right? Who are you talking to, dear?”

This is how desperate I’ve become: I’ve started reading the Bible. In fact, I’ve

started reading the Bible about ten times now. The problem I’m having, the reason I keep

starting over, is that none o f it feels true. It reads more like a collection o f myths. And

you too seem like a myth now that you are gone.

By now you are saying, “Judith, Judith, Judith....” If my name were Marge you’d

say: "Marge, Marge, Marge. . . what is this crazy letter all about?” And this is where

Marge says, “I don’t know. This is just how I think these days. I am just writing down all

of my thoughts."

You see, it all started about a week ago. The man o f my dreams went to Italy to

27

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study philosophy, and it was all so dramatic because I never even got to say goodbye.

Well, okay, I could have said goodbye, but I started doing too many drugs. Right up the

nose. Right up Marge’s nose. Sometimes Marge didn’t eat or sleep for days. That’s not

the point though. I mean, what happened to Judith? Judith is the one writing this letter.

Judith is the one who really misses the man of her dreams. Judith really ought to stop

referring to herself in the third person.

What is Judith doing now? What am I doing now? It is early, ft is early and I am

having a quiet little nervous breakdown.

I am thinking about my job as a telephone surveyor. We are not allowed to accept

"I don't know" as an answer to any of the questions we ask. We have to say things like,

'Do you want a minute to think about this?" or '"Would you like me to read the question

again?" This usually turns an “I don’t know” into a defined response, which we forget

only moments later. That fascinates me: the way that no sooner does a thing have

importance than it’s forgotten—as if it were never of any consequence. You are that way

now-gone, over, unimportant, a frivolous unanswered question.

I think it would be especially dramatic if I ended this letter right here.

Look, there’s nothing to worry about. This is just a temporary phase. Currently, I

am just too lonely to partake in sobriety. The truth is, I am too lonely to do anything but

sit at home and listen to all of my favorite CDs. In fact, I am listening to music as I write

this. The music is helping. It takes the edge off things. I am no longer walking on glass

but Plexiglas with this music playing. It was only last week that I snorted a lot of cocaine

and walked back and forth for six hours straight listening to all of my favorite CDs. It all

sounded so brilliant. I was happy. It was like I was in love all over again. I was

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consumed. But I have since decided to stop snorting cocaine, just quit cold turkey as they

would say. (Who would say? I just said it, does that make me they? Ifl don’t feel like

me, how could I be they?)

I hope I am not boring you. Actually, if you must know, there is plenty more to

say, but I am not allowing myself to say it. In effect, I am holding my tongue for reasons

I cannot divulge. These are the things I will allow myself to say: I am missing you more

than I’d like to admit. I am not feeling all that well. Strangely, I have started doing illegal

drugs in my spare time. Subsequently, I don’t know who I am talking to anymore—you

or me or someone else.

And I hadn’t really thought of you in days, but then earlier tonight I went food

shopping with my dad, and we were at his house again, which was once my house too,

and we were unloading all the food we bought into what is now only his house, and he

looked at me in what is now only his kitchen, and he said, “My pants keep falling down!”

and so I looked at his pants and I noticed that the reason they kept falling down was

because the top button was missing, and they were navy corduroy pants, and you have

navy corduroy pants that are missing a top button, and they were always falling down,

and so I remembered that, and therefore you, and how did I feel? A little nervous

perhaps.

Look, don’t you go thinking that just because I wrote you this letter that I haven’t

forgotten all about you, because I just about have. You don’t matter now. Nothing

matters, and that’s why I started doing all that cocaine—because it made me forget that

nothing matters in such a way that I could appreciate it.

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I feel a little guilty for the hell I put you through, but you know what? I don’t

think the hell I put you through is really all that significant, because you shit on people ail

the time, and they get over it. And then you get all shitted on, and you get over it, and

then somewhere, at some point, you forgive. You and me, we can forgive each other for

shitting excessively.

It has finally come to me. You know what this letter is? It’s a letter of exegesis.

It's The Closure Letter. You should be shaking in your metaphorical boots because

finally there is truly nothing left to say.

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Group therapy will be fun. Introduce yourself as follows: “Hello, my name is:

______and I used to date a guy named Jon. That’s J-O-N not J-O-H-N. I share

this spelling detail only because he was always getting worked up about it. Jon had a few

other problems; most o f them involved me. One problem was my persistent use of the

word look.' Apparently, I say this a lot. I say: ‘Look, I don’t think you understand

what’s going on here... ’ or ‘Look, if you ask me... ’ or ‘Look, you’re really acting like an

ass right now ....’ There’s a point here: I start sentences with ‘look’ when I’m angry or

defensive. Oh, and Jon didn’t like it.”

***

The breakdown started innocently enough.

His name is Rupert. You met for lunch. Jon dropped you off at Wok and Roll and

planned to pick you up at your apartment after you and Rupert were through discussing

artist Chris Ofili’s elephant-dung paintings and contemporary American art. You and

Rupert had been paired together in a graduate art-history course to lead a class

discussion.

You were horribly uninterested in Ofili, in contemporary art, in Rupert. But you

couldn’t say that, if only because it was so true. And because one just doesn’t say such

things. One looks dull, ungrateful, and/or self-centered if one ever confesses disinterest.

31

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The handout—a photocopied article covering Ofili, his life and work, and The

Tumer Prize—that you and Rupert had been given to discuss and dissect was missing a

page. It was Rupert’s idea that you should go to the library, find the magazine the

photocopied article was from, and photocopy the missing page.

You said sure. What else could you have said?

And so after lunch the two of you drove to school. It was raining and his car’s

windshield wipers made more noise than you felt was necessary. Hideous, squealing,

numbing noise, too much noise to justify their purpose. Yet, over the scrape of rubber

across glass, he made small talk with you. Surely you appreciate this rain; V yo didn u ju st

move here from the Northwest? He was manipulating you. This transparent question

about Vancouver was only asked to make him look good. With just one question he

referenced a previous conversation the two of you must have had (Mundane Conversation

Number One when you apparently told him that you had recently moved from Vancouver

to Maryland). With his one insipid question—“Didn’t you just move here from

Vancouver?"— he feigned regard and interest.

But it is more than that; he so nobly gave you the chance to talk about you. Rupert

knew one of the great truths: ultimately we all want to talk about ourselves. Endlessly, we

want to talk about ourselves. We are so busy talking and thinking about us that we have

no time or interest to listen to you or them or him or her....

"Yes,” you said. Or you said more than that. You said the required and correct

number of words. The amount used when you are pretending to be interested and yet

being careful not to say too much for fear of looking self-important or self-absorbed. You

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answered: “Yes. Yes, I am used to rain. Yes, I used to live in the Northwest; I earned my

bachelors in sociology there.” Then you threw in: “I’m surprised you remember.. ."

It was your turn. You could have changed the subject, but you knew that if you

asked him one question, just one, that he would talk for the rest of the car ride.

Jon had to move. You and he had only been dating for five months. His lease had

been up, he had hated his roommate, he and you had not been dating long enough to

move in with each other, he needed his own place. He chose a large one-bedroom

apartment and bought brand-new furniture. And there you were—not exactly belonging

and yet there all the time on the periphery.

***

Look, you are a 25-year-old woman with no direction. No direction other than:

you'd like to get married. You say that’s all you want. You say that all you really need is

to be a housewife. Not a homemaker, not a domestic engineer, but a housewife. You want

one kid and a big house.

You want to be able to stay at home and plan out the day according to what’s on

television.

I 1 AM Murder, She Wrote

12 PM Matlock

1 PM Law and Order

2 PM The IBS Superstation Afternoon Movie

***

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Rupert let you out in front of the library. He said he’d park the car and meet you

in the lobby. Why should you both walk in the rain? You waited for him, wondering if

he’d come back. You wondered about what it would mean if he didn't come back. How

long would you wait before you figured it out and how much of a tragedy would it have

been?

He appeared shortly with an umbrella at his side. On it was a silk-screened

rendition of Monet’s Waterlilies. In the shelter of the library lobby, he shook it violently

and then fastened it closed with a thin fabric snap string. That string, the one with the

snap on it, might have been red.

***

At one point, you were documenting your observations:

11:52 AM: There are 16 stains on the bedroom carpet

2:16 PM: The pattern on the cat’s belly resembles the scales on a trout

12:08 AM: The many plantar warts on your heel form a star pattern

4:12 AM: There are more calories in instant mashed potatoes than in homemade

You and Rupert walked into the library. It occurred to you that while in a graduate

painting program for almost a year, you had only been to the library once before this.

You did not want him to know this. This man who spent most o f lunch explaining the

incompletely photocopied reading as if you had not understood it—as if he knew, in

general, in sum, so much more than you—you did not want him to know you were a

library virgin, a fake.

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Yes, you were positive that he thought he knew more than you, about not only art,

but the world. He made it clear—he already had a master’s degree in art history, this

second degree in painting was just so he could nurture his creative side. Furthermore, he

is older than most of his peers, you included. He came here to learn, to forge on in his

artistry' with the aide o f a mentor.

“Mentor,” to you, sounded like a kind of candy. Mentos. The fresh maker.

Perhaps he does know more than you.

“I came here to paint, to become a painter—an artist,” you thought not quite

aloud. But you didn’t know who or what a painter was. Perhaps you should have

continued study in sociology.

***

Do you sleep anymore? Probably not. There are restless naps. From the couch to

the bedroom to the couch. Places like the tub might appeal to you. The tub is like a

miniature, sterile grave. You may curl up in it, in the fetal position, in your pajamas, your

hair oily and in clumps. At first, it may offer a sort of comfort. Likely, you will get bored.

***

About that breakdown: look, you can’t be everything. You can’t be the lover and

the fighter. The winner and the loser. The zero and the sum. Doctors will tell you this.

Psychiatric doctors. Things you will know by the end are the DSM-IV numerical codes:

296.3 is Major Depressive Disorder, 300.4 is Dysthymic Disorder, and 300.3 stands for

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. You will also know psychiatric drug side-effects.

sweaty hands, vivid dreams, dry mouth, blurred vision, irritation, weight gain, rapid heart

beat....

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***

Initially, you told your friends you were depressed because graduate school was

consistently so trying and mundane. You said, “I just have no motivation. I spend week

after week with Jon in a faux married-life sham. School, my studio, my paintings... it all

feels like a waste o f time. Either that or it takes up too much time. I have meals to cook,

errands to run, and laundry to wash.”

'"Yeah?” your friends said in a tone you could not decipher. Maybe it was utter

disinterest.

You would continue. “I’m a wreck. I mean, I don’t officially live with this guy,

and so playing house is fine and good, but every once and a while I think, who am I? I'm

supposed to be a student, but I have blown off all of my work and I barely make it to

class.”

"Maybe you should go back to your apartment, go to your studio,” your friends

said. "Get some work done. Get back to yo u rspace,your life... you know?”

This was the problem: You had no desire to go back home. And, anyway, there

were meals to cook, errands to run, and laundry to be washed.

***

Being in the library made you spacey. You began to daydream, you envisioned

your life had you pursued graduate study in sociology: I would be somewhere else. I

would be in a different library, talking not about the contemporary art world but about

the nature versus nurture debate and how it applies to labeling theory. I would have less

to say about that than/ have to say about Ofili.

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Rupert took you, you followed him, to the library computer—the one that tells

where things are. One types in an author name, a book title, and the computer shows

where it is in the library. He turned to you and said, “How horribly patriarchal of me—

would you like to be doing this?”

***

Jon thought you would not adapt well to the housewife lifestyle. “You couldn't

live on M atlock and M urder, She Wrote alone. You need to have things to do. You'd get

stir crazy. Trust me, I know you,” he told you.

“Fine, I’ll volunteer. I’ll cook in soup kitchens,” you replied. “I’ll help the Red

Cross recruit for blood drives, we’ll have our one kid and I'll join the PTA. I’ll work a

little, and still have time to watch Law and Order every night.”

“Even I m w and Order would start to wear on you You need more. You want

more. " He whispered as he softly kissed you on the forehead, signaling that the

conversation was over.

I doubt it,” you angrily declared, resentful that he had taken on not only knowing

but telling you what you needed and wanted.

"Be serious. What are you afraid of?” he sighed, reinvesting his attention in the

discussion. “You’re actually saying that you’d stop painting? Why are you in a graduate

program for painting if you don’t want to paint?”

"Look, this is not about painting. And, anyway, I’d rather lose myself in

television than in the real world where no one gives a damn about painters and the arts.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “You’re starting to sound like those pretentious people in your

program. Calm down, you’re just in a slump.”

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“Don’t tell me to calm down. Work and school are exhausting—and then I think,

shit, this isn’t even the hard stuff, I don’t even have a career yet....’”

"Being a housewife, a homemaker, is a career though. It’s a lot of work. It’s the

hard stuff.”

But you disagree. After all, what’s left for the housewife to do? As Betty Freidan

pointed out long ago, machines do all the work now. You don’t mind vacuuming and

using a dishwasher, clothes washer, dryer—it takes no time at all.

***

Men are taught to take charge. You noticed that Rupert had done it—acted like he

was in charge, just walked up to the library computer like you weren’t even there. But

you had felt so useless that all it did was confirm your uselessness, not your gender, or

his gender, or stereotyped gender roles.

You said: “No, please, I am glad you are taking charge.”

And you were glad. You were so glad.

You went to the third floor. The computer had told you that the book was on the

third floor. Rupert knew his way around; he led you to a stairwell, he walked quickly up

the steps and you struggled to follow. It was then that you noticed you had to pee. You

had to pee very badly. You didn’t want to prolong your time with Rupert; the library

restroom wasn’t an option. In your head, you began to estimate how long things would

take. You had to find the book, photocopy the missing page, and then drive to your

apartment. Rupert had said he’d give you a ride home. All in all, it was an estimated

fifteen minutes until you got to your apartment’s bathroom. Then, you’d call Jon, pack up

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your last few belongings, get picked up, and go back to Jon’s apartment, back to your

easy life as a faux-house wife.

It was an afternoon, a weekday. There were a million things you should have been

doing, but you happened to have Jon’s large and new apartment to yourself.

So you sat down.

And it hit you: if you could, you would sit there, live there, forever. Especially if

that meant you wouldn’t have to do anything all day other than serve Jon. The first week

of unpacking his boxes, putting together and arranging his furniture, was oddly fulfilling.

Even washing the dishes, vacuuming, cooking extensive meals from scratch, lugging the

dirty laundry to Sudz-R-Us, scooping the cat liter—it was all strangely satisfying, even

enjoyable.

To your great surprise, no one could relate to your new and exciting lifestyle. Not

that you were talking to people much anymore.

“Look,” you said to your sister, “it’s not like I’m depressed or hiding from the

world. I mean, if you are going to hide from the world and your life, you would be hiding

in your own home—wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t you want more from life?” she asked.

“What more is there? A job? A degree that may or may not help me in a field that

no one cares about?”

"That not the point. It’s about you. You don’t want to lose you,' she implored.

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What did that mean, “Don’t lose you”? Such a stupid comment deserved an

equally stupid retort. “If I’ve lost me then I’m happier without me,” you replied. Not sure

of what it meant or if you even believed what you thought it might mean.

Or maybe that was not when or what happened. Sure, you had the apartment to

yourself. You sat down. But maybe panic struck you, not excitement. Yes, you were

sitting on Jon's very nice new couch and looking at all of his very nice new furniture and

thinking about how very nice and new it all was, how very nice his new apartment was....

And you were thinking that, really, it was like someone else's house—like some

friend's rich parents’ house. And then you thought, What if Jon and I get married? This

would he our furniture, our living-room furniture. And this deafened you, or stalled you,

or stopped you. You were sitting there on the very nice new couch thinking, Here I am in

my living room. And the fact that it was Jon's living room wasn't a factor because it

wasn't that literal a thought. See, you were not thinking, So this is as good as it or gets

Oh, God, so this is my —no,life it was that you saw your life flash before your eyes and

you still had no idea about you or your identity. You just knew you had lovely furniture.

And, really, it wasn’t even your furniture. Though you did help pick it out.

***

You were thankful to be back in Rupert’s car despite the fact that the rain had

stopped and you began missing the windshield wipers. It was only a fifteen-minute drive

to your apartment and the silence left things endlessly open. It occurred to you that you

didn't know how to talk anymore. You were good at very few things, mainly keeping

house. Conversations, other people, school, art making— it all eluded you.

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As if he was reading your mind and could feel your mounting anxiety, as if he had

it out for you, hated you as much as you hated him, Rupert asked: “Can I ask you a

personal question?”

Again, you felt manipulated. He was challenging you. You would look

unfriendly, closed, secretive if you said no. You said: “I guess so.”

He addressed you by your first and last name and then asked: “Do you consider

yourself a feminist?” Rupert likes to address people by their full names. Most people in

your painting program don’t know what to make of it. You decided long ago that it was

just another one of his intimidation tactics. A means of parodying familiarity and

friendship, a sham.

“No, I doubt it,” you said, then paused. “I mean, I don’t think I even know who or

what a feminist is.”

“Huh.” He responded in a tone you could not decipher—was it condescension,

disinterest, disgust?

You felt the need to defend yourself. Either that or vent your rising anger. “Why,

Rupert Thomas? Are you a feminist?” you snidely retorted.

“Why, yes, I think I am.”

Only five more blocks. Five more blocks and you’d be home, packing up the last

of your apartment to take to Jon's. Five more blocks and you would be out of Rupert’s

car.

Four blocks. You’d been serving him all day—letting him take charge, allowing

yourself to be called by your full name as if he were some sort of salesman, agreeing to

answer his ridiculous questions....

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Three blocks. You wondered about what he might say if you asked him a few

ridiculous questions. How is it that in every episode q/ Murder, She Wrote; Matlock; and

Law and Order that a case gets fully solved in just one hour? I f I had continued study in

sociology instead o f having pursued my supposed one true love o f painting, would

anything he any different?

Two blocks. You had to pee.

One more block and you’d be in your apartment. One more block and your

apartment. Your apartment. When was the last time you were at your apartment?

***

By at least the fifth week in therapy, it’s good to have a breakthrough. Choose

wisely. Stand up— in group therapy, in an individual session, in the middle of the weekly

doctor/patient lunch, whenever—and announce that you never wanted to quit smoking.

Get angry about it. Say, “Jon made me do it.”

Put your hands at your hips and lean forward a little. Start mimicking Jon in a

sardonic tone; explain that, “quitting smoking is the kind o f thing that you have to do if

someone you love asks you to... especially if you practically live with that person...."

Scream about how you tried to compromise—smoked outside only, tried to smoke

less, smoked late at night long after Jon had fallen asleep, showered after almost every

cigarette, brushed your teeth obsessively....

For the finale, end in a mixture of hysteria and gravity: “And then he handed me a

box of nicotine patches. He said, ‘it’s your choice, death or me.’” ***

The car stopped. “Here you are. Home sweet home,” Rupert sang.

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You opened the car door and then shut it again. You stayed in the car. This is

what you were waiting for, why didn’t you get out of the car?

"You know, I think it’s impossible to be a feminist,” you said while resettling into

the passenger seat. “I mean, think about it We live in a sexist society, we grow up in it

we are exposed to it every day. I say police/raw; I don’t say, policeofficer —like maybe I

should. And when I say "policeman’ I don’t even think about it I don’t think, ‘Oops, that

was gender specific, that was sexist.’”

“So, what you are saying is that society and sexism affects us? Even if we don’t

want it to, it affects us and it’s naive to think otherwise?”

"Exactly. There’s no such thing as a feminist.”

"Well, that's not a new argument. Actually, in many feminist ideologies— ”

"Look, here’s a question for you. You don’t mind if I ask you a personal

question—do you, Rupert Thomas? Because what I want to know is: what do you think

about painting? Is it dead? Is it alive? What does is it mean to be a painter today?”

“True art can never die.”

"Define true art.”

"Art, true art, is an objection. Consider that most of us would rather turn the other

cheek, operate in elaborate self-made systems of denial that serve to protect us from each

other and ourselves. In my paranoid—or is it realistic?—view, this denial is American

mass culture’s lack of interest in work that asks questions, raises issues, makes one

uncomfortable, goes beyond the norm, challenges perception, problematizes common

sense, puts social conformity above intimacy, and makes connections rather than

confirms walls. Art, true art, is an objection to mass denial.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “Your fifteen minutes are up,” you said as you got out o f the car.

***

At last, you entered your apartment building. You hadn’t been there in weeks. Or

had it been months? There was an eerie but placating familiarity. You got on the elevator,

pressed the button for the fifth floor, got off the elevator, found apartment 515. Entered.

Your apartment was a welcomed nugatory void. There was your furniture, a bed,

a dresser, a desk, a kitchen table, two chairs. All that was ever truly yours, all that once

felt like you, was nowhere to be found. This was comforting. You sat down in sterility.

Within the week, Jon showed up with the majority of your belongings, your cat,

your television, and a Dear John letter addressing space and a mutual need for it. You

then decided to stay in your apartment for a full two months, hardly eating, never leaving

or even picking up the phone.

You gave up the burden of having to have a self.

***

Individual therapy will be an aggressive bore. Pace yourself. You have an hour.

Divide your activities into 15-minute segments. Spend the first 15 minutes reacquainting

yourself with the room. Ah, yes, your favorite chair. You have two to choose from and

you prefer the one on the left, the one that faces slightly towards the window. This way

you can space out on the trees and underbrush outside more thoughtfully than had you

chosen the chair on the right, which slightly faces the wall. Oh, and you’ll need to count

all of the clocks. There will be the one facing you when you sit. This one is yours and lets

you keep track o f the time. There is the clock that faces the chair on the right, and there is

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the clock behind you that faces the doctor’s chair. There may also be a clock on the

wall—you can never remember, you must always check.

Spend the second 15 minutes talking about your week. “Yes, I had no motivation.

Being back in school still doesn’t interest me as much as Murder, She Wrote. And,

furthermore, my professors are complete morons. One of them wears hideous calfskin

loafers with thick sport socks....”

Spend the third 15 minutes attempting to address why it is that you can’t figure

out what it is you want to “do” with your life. Striving to be a stay-at-home housewife is

totally unacceptable in these modem post-feminist times. To deny yourself a career is a

slap in the face to all women who once didn’t even have the option of a career. You could

have ignored the feminist double-standard, but even Jon looked down upon your

housewifely ambitions—even when you were sane and motivated enough to get his

dishes and laundry and cleaning done.

Spend the last 15 minutes pursuing your lost self.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 . SEE SPOT RUN

April 8, 1970 - August 25, 1991

You live in a town where everyone is vindictive. There, if you cross the street when the

light tells you not to, you get in big trouble. Your father is in jail because he couldn’t pay

his taxes. Your mother takes a lot of pills. Your older sister is a member o f the NRA.

Your younger brother likes to set things on fire.

How to cross the street:

Stand near comer.

Locate stoplight on opposite comer.

Examine closely.

If light is red: wait.

If green: cross at a reasonable pace.

June 30, 1995 11:03 PM

You are driving home from college. You graduated earlier this afternoon with a BA in

speech communication. You have been driving now for ten straight hours. It is hot and

you are tired. You are nauseous because you’ve had too much coffee. You long to take a

shower. On your right is a beach.

46

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June 30, 1995 11:32 PM

You are swimming in Long Island Sound. Over the water, in the moonlight, you see a

man taking off his clothes on the beach. He is now in the water swimming towards you.

You look to the main road; police cars are driving by with flashing lights blazing.

Pathetically, you dog paddle towards them. They are gone as quickly as they came. You

swim under water to hide yourself. This works well as you can come up for air when you

need to, and no one can see you if you are quick and quiet. Eventually you reach a dock.

June 30, 1995 11:55 PM

You are on a dock breathing heavily. You are looking at the man in the water, wishing he

would go away, that he was not swimming towards you.

July 1, 1995 12:01 AM

The man crawls onto the dock. He is inhuman in his strength and build. He is a rabid dog,

foaming at the mouth and ready to attack. With ease, he pins you down. You are too tired

to resist. He presses his hard penis between your thighs.

How to swim:

Relax, let body become one with water.

Begin by floating on stomach.

A kicking motion o f the legs will propel one forward.

A windmill motion o f the arms will improve speed.

For most, a course is recommended.

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June 30, 1995 5:36 AM

You are outside, walking blindly, in one of Connecticut’s beach-side neighborhoods. You

are looking at ail of the parked cars, at all of the street signs, at all of the houses, and you

are saying over and over: “I am in Connecticut. I am in Connecticut.” You start

wondering about what the hell you are doing here. What the hell are you doing here?

July I, 1995 9:41 AM

While walking, you begin to wonder about why it is you are so passive—constantly just

letting things happen to you. You think most people think you have major social skill

deficiencies, and that could be true, but you are not shy. You think this is why you are so

passive, you think too much. You think so much that you can’t make any decisions. You

think so much that you can never act, resist, or judge. You think too much about how you

think too much.

July 1, 1995 3:13 PM

You are in the parking lot of Captain Hot Dog, crying. You have spilled soda on your

shirt and there are French fries stuck to your shorts in puddles of ketchup.

How to cry:

Succumb to despair.

Allow tears to flow freely from eyes.

Blot wetness off face and neck with tissue.

Repeat as necessary.

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July I, 1995 7:16 PM

You check into the Holiday Inn.

July 1, 1995 9:02 PM

You are sitting on your hotel bed softly chanting, “here doggy-dog, here doggy-dog..."

You are remembering when you were eight and your father ran over your dog. You had

called for hours even though you knew he was squashed flat like a dried apricot at the

curb.

July 2, 1995 10:06 AM

You check out of the Holiday Inn shortly after throwing up your complimentary

continental breakfast of a donut and luke-warm coffee.

July 2, 1995 11:33 AM

You are in a public restroom. You are thinking about starting a collection of used

tampons. You start fantasizing about this aloud. After a lengthy discussion with yourself,

you decide the collection must be kept in the refrigerator. Then, you could have people

over, and you could casually ask them to get you a glass of milk, and they would open

your refrigerator, and lo and behold, there, next to the pickles, on display, would be all of

June, July, and August's bloodied remains.

How to check out o f a hotel:

Put all personal items in a bag to be taken with you.

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(Examples: clothing, car keys, wallet, checkbook)

Despite temptation, leave all non-personal items in room.

(Examples: towels and robe, television, alarm clock, hotel Bible)

Exit premises.

July 3, 1995 2:02 AM

You are sitting in a waiting room waiting. You are nervous. A white-haired woman in a

white coat leads you into a small office where four other people, also wearing white

coats, are sitting. You sit down and the white coats produce white paper and pens. They

start asking you questions. You try to answer but you have lost the ability to speak.

Slowly the white coats, the white forms, the white walls consume you and you lose

consciousness.

How to admit yourself into a clinic:

Do whatever you are told.

Examples: fill out forms, pee in a plastic cup, give blood.

Caution: any or all of this may evoke pain.

July 3, 1995 9:07 AM

You awake in a new white room, alone. There is a window in the center of the wall that is

opposite the door. There is a tray of food on a table that is adjacent to the bed. There is a

dresser in the far comer. Using maple syrup as paste, you spend the entire morning

mounting your pancakes and eggs onto the plastic mirror above the dresser. This is the

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first time in days that you feel any satisfaction, accomplishment, or purpose.

July3, 1995 12:07 PM

The white coats are visiting you again. This time they are speaking in another language.

Every other word is strangely encoded. You think o f your run-over dead dog. He knew

the meanings of only eight words: doggy-dog, come, down, fetch, swim, catch, no, and

din-din. You stick your fingers in your ears like a child and remain as still and lifeless as

possible. You are playing dead.

July3, 1995 10:12 PM

With perverse exhilaration and strength, you’ve thrown the bedside table at the window.

How to break a window:

Locate large and heavy object.

Stand approximately three to five feet away from the window.

Throw object at window.

With care, remove all shattered materials off floor and surrounding areas.

Attention: not recommended in the presence of small children.

July3, 1995 10:43 PM

You are breathing in cool night air through slightly cracked Plexiglas. You are conscious

now. You know where you are. You know what has happened to you. For the first time in

days, you are thinking clearly. You are probably thinking too much.

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July 4, 1995 7:31 AM

Through your window, you are watching traffic mount. The crisscrossing of congested

highway ramps reminds you of a can of worms, a plate of spaghetti, a dog’s tangled

leash, an opened speculum. You start to wonder about your car. You wonder about where

it might be. You begin daydreaming about driving.

How to daydream:

Select an image or activity.

Free associate.

Example: Picture a pure, bright moming.

See yourself behind the wheel.

Speed past convenience stores, super markets, clothing outlets.

Sense everything as open, assessable.

Think o f the road as a big video game.

July 4, 1995 8:00 AM

It occurs to you that once you were winning.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5. FOR GEORGE

George, this story is for you. Consider it a gift. It’s simple, really. This story is for

you because when I told you that I was a writer you got worried. I could tell you were

worried because you said something about hoping, and yet not hoping, that you would

appear in one of my stories some day. That, to you, is what I write—stories. Story after

story. But, if you want to know the truth, really what I write are not stories but quasi-lists

of all of my various violations. This may strike you as odd, perhaps funny. You may

simply not know what I mean. But, to me, George, there is nothing else. There is me and

there are my perceived violations.

I feel the need—as the writer you deemed me to be, as the writer I did not deny

myself to be—to begin this story traditionally. It’s important to me that you see how a

story is told, how it is written. Maybe then you will understand how every story is in fact

the record of a violation.

Please understand that to tell this traditionally I can no longer refer to me as "me,”

or to you as “you.’’ You must become merely “George” and “he,” and I must become

“she.” Like this:

To start at the beginning, the problem with George was really his simplicity. But

nothing can really be that simple. Maybe the real problem with George was that she

wanted him to be simple. Or maybe the problem with George had nothing to do with

53

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George. Maybe she wanted a simple situation (involving George), despite the fact that

such a thing is never possible. Situations— like people, like George—are not simple.

And to begin at the real beginning, the whole thing was really about fish. Yes,

fish. Or maybe women. Women and men. Relationships. One-night stands. And since

everything is always about death—well, life and death—those two elements should be

added too. Men, women, and fish all live and die. Honestly, it’s rather repetitive.

It’s hard to tell when, if ever, anything truly begins. Or when—ever—once it has

begun, it ends.

About those fish: We have all seen fish. Like people, they come in all shapes,

sizes, and colors. And yet always we seem to be attracted to the bigger and more colorful

fish. We watch them in their tanks (rarely do we see them in their natural habitat) and we

wonder about them. We wonder why they don’t acknowledge us looking at them (even,

and especially, when we tap obnoxiously on their glass houses).

Basically, we know very little about fish. We conclude often that they are merely

a standard introductory pet. Goldfish are the easily disposable pets that we flush down

our toilets when they die. But there are other fish: there are the giant fish who live and

own the oceans and there are the beautiful, smaller tropical fish. The fact is that for some

people the goldfish is too common. These types of people might have huge tanks of not

only exotic fish (for this type o f person finds only the tropical variety worthy of

ownership), but tanks full o f egregious flora and other such nonsense. But, regardless of

the kind—tropical, oceanic, the simple goldfish—we watch them intently, try to figure

them out, and yet they remain a mystery. About the most we can do to rectify this is to

name the ones we come to care for. We name our pets because it both simplifies and

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establishes interaction. Names confer identity. Names set the precedent, the foreground,

for relationships.

Fuck the formality. Fuck tradition. Fuck the this-is-what-my-story-will-be-about

introduction. Let's just talk about how we met, George. Though, of course, you and I are

not talking. I am talking now to my audience, my reader—and you may or may not be

included. George, do you read? I saw copies of Penthouse in your bathroom. Isn’t there

some stupid line that guys like you say about pom—that you buy it for the articles?

Something about how you actually do read it?

I saw your Penthouse right after I used your toothbrush. Your toothbrush was

yellow. In fact, I saw the Penthouse while I was peeing. Urine is yellow. I was peeing in

your bathroom, right after I brushed my teeth, and I saw—not in but next to a magazine

rack piled high— many copies ofPenthouse magazine. And I sat there, peeing yellow

pee, and I wondered about that. George, how is it at all sexually satisfying to be sitting on

the toilet of all places and flipping through Penthouse?

T’m going to assume that you read more than just Penthouse. I am going to also

assume that you remember how we met. But, for my other readers, I should tell the whole

story.

We met on-line. I lived far away from here, and we met one day in cyberspace. I

was in the process of planning a move to Washington, DC. I was planning to relocate to

DC, and I thought that meeting you over the computer was a sign, a sign of a promising

move-to-be, as you emailed me that you lived in Georgetown. Georgetown, you wrote,

was a part of DC. Maybe it was not a sign. Maybe it was an evil omen.

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You sent me photos of yourself. I will never deny that you are a good-looking

guy, George. A devastatingly good-looking guy. And then you began to call me, even

though at that time I lived thousands of miles away. You called because I had given you

my number, because I wanted to know what a good-looking guy like you sounded like.

Too bad about that Boston accent.

And then, and so, I moved here. We went out a few times. If I ever had doubts

(and I didn’t), I was pleased to see that you were good-looking in person. Photos are one

thing, in person is another. Do you remember me, George? Yeah, the girl you met over

the computer, then in person. I am relatively tall. Or at least I wear shoes that make me

look tall. (Is that like lying if you wear shoes that make you look tall when really your

height is only average?) I have dark hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. (No lies here, George.

The hair is its natural hue, the eyes are crystal blue, and I wish I weren’t so pale.)

Do you remember that I am thin? I try pretty hard to be thin. But I have gained

weight since we last saw each other. I tell you this only because I feel you should know.

I'd hate to surprise you one day. You know, run into you unexpectedly somewhere

mundane, like at Safeway or in line at the bank. What would you say? Would you have

the guts to ask me if I have gained weight? Save your guts, George, I am telling you now

it is true. I think it might be as much as ten pounds.

And what did we do first? Oh, you came over to visit me. I hadn’t found a place

to live yet after my recent move. I was house-sitting for some out-of-the-country friends

of my family. Yes, I have a family. You never asked me about my family. It’s pretty big.

I have two siblings, parents, step-parents, aunts, uncles, four still-alive grandparents. It’s

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big and it’s probably dysfunctional. Everyone is divorced and remarried. No one shares

the same last name.

So you came over to my house, which was not my house but someone else's

house, and then we went out. You took me to a bar in Arlington, Virginia. You told me it

was a hot spot.

Really, George, who says "hot spot” anymore?

The bar was sort o f inside, sort of outside. The building itself was like a

warehouse. Outside, under a large parking-lot-sized metal awning we sat at one of many

picnic tables. You told me that this place (wherever we were) was one of many hot spots

that you frequented with your many, many friends. You went as far as to say that it was

odd that you were able to see me that night because usually you were so busy.

That was when I first suspected that you had a rather large ego.

We had drinks. Well, beer. You told me all about how you didn’t want to date

anyone. Why should you have to, you asked me. You said a lot of mumbo-jumbo about

your job being very important. Something about how you couldn’t afford to have a

relationship that distracted you from your number-one priority. You made it very clear

that your number one priority was your job. Did you feel threatened? Did you think I

wanted to date you? That I wanted you—to what? Quit your job, marry me, and live

happily ever after, even though you wouldn’t be happy because you would no longer be

associated with your number-one priority if we did all that? What were you thinking,

George?

I didn’t want to date you, George. I just wanted to sleep with you.

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After that stupid conversation, we left that dumb bar. You took me to your

apartment. You called it a house. You live in Georgetown. Think about that, George: You

live in Georgetown and your name is George. This can’t be helping that ego problem o f

yours.

Your house was a mess. In your bedroom, I couldn’t help but notice that the

sheets had imprints like two people had slept there the night before. There were two half-

empty (or was it half-full?) wine glasses resting on a very tall speaker. It occurred to me

then that for someone who didn’t want to be dating you were definitely having sex. Not

that I cared, George. Because, like I said, I never wanted to date you, I only wanted to

have sex with you. It occurred to me then that maybe you wouldn’t have sex with me if

you were having sex with someone else—though of course not dating anyone else. My

other concern at that time had to do with wondering whether I still wanted to have sex

with you if you were having sex with someone else. I’d hate to think, George, that you

sleep around.

Have you been tested for AIDS, George?

The thing you have to understand is that sometimes when we writers write stories

we have to add things that aren’t really true. Sometimes, all of what we write isn’t true.

Other times, parts are true and parts are, well, lies. I like to tell people (forget that it’s a

big fib) that when you took me back to my house-sitting house that you kissed me

goodnight. You did walk me in, back into that house that wasn’t mine. We each smoked a

cigarette out on the patio that wasn’t mine. It was awkward then. I was wondering if you

would kiss me. I was hoping you would. Did you, George? When I walked you to my

door that wasn’t really my door, did you kiss me goodnight?

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I feel I should tell you that as a writer I do lie. I lie all the time. I make stuff up for

effect, for drama, for the sheer stupid fun of it. But it’s not so much fun sometimes. I’ve

lived most of my life, George, as a suspected and often accused liar. Even before I

became a writer (as if one becomes a writer!), people always thought I was lying. I could

feel it. Maybe because I was lying, maybe not. What business is it o f yours? But my point

is that all this suspicion— well, it has made me paranoid.

I imagine, in my day-to-day life, that everyone I know thinks I am lying about

something, maybe everything. Do I really have a job? Am I really a student? Am 1 really

a writer? Is that boyfriend I’ve been talking about for the last three months merely a

fabricated figment o f my imagination? I dream sometimes— I feel I can tell you this—of

all my imaginary friends and co-workers, and fellow students, my boyfriend... 1 imagine

them all meeting. They would all meet just so I could prove to each and every one of

them that they all really do exist.

George, do you exist?

[Have you ever stopped to think about simplicity, George? Or do you think that

everything is complex? I am continually debating this issue—are things really as

complicated as I think (as I make them out to be) or is everything, is everyone,

extraordinarily simple? I mean, what was it I liked about you? What, for several weeks,

made me call you all those many times when you said that you would call me and then

never did? Was it simply that I am desperate? Am I weak? Was it not about me? For

instance, you are a very good-looking guy. You have a steady job. You have a home.

Maybe I liked that about you—your good looks, your job, your apartment. Yet none of

these things really attributes much to you or to the true nature o f our relationship. Instead,

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while these reasons appear simple, they may be too complex—maybe even made up. I

think, George, that sometimes I lie not only to everyone else, but to myself.]

It’s too bad you never read, George, because the English philosopher, John Locke,

wrote something interesting about basic truth— he was trying to define matter and finally

he concluded that he just couldn't do it, that he simply didn’t know. You are that way,

George—completely abstruse and indeterminate. If anything, all I can do is create

analogies. Example: If George were a fish, he’d be a satiated piranha.

But I don’t want to lose you, so I’ll get back to the story. Remember what we did

on our second date, George? I went and visited you at your precious workplace.

It’s good to meet the competition.

You were on the phone when I arrived. You were looking better than ever (you

look like a J. Crew model, the kind of clean-cut, handsome, and rugged man my sister

and I—yes, George, I have a sister—used to swoon over when we were both in high

school). But you really rubbed me the wrong way despite your consuming good looks. It

was so obvious that whoever you were talking to on the phone was a woman. And,

George, you just sat there holding one finger up to me in some sort of perversion of good

manners (as if to signal you'd only be a moment), while you went into flirt overdrive over

the phone. Right in front of me! You said trash like, "Oh we should definitely get

together soon... ” and “Thank you so much for saying so....”

If you must know, George, it was pretty sickening. It really was.

If you must know, George, I think your real number-one priority is you.

And so soon after we said our hellos, and then after you said goodbye to your

phone-sex maiden, I left. It could have been a graceful departure, but you said to me then:

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"Hey, I'll give you a call before the end of the week." And, of course, this pissed me off

to no end. I mean, it was like you were graciously scheduling me in. I got mad. Really, I

hadn't been mad until then. I looked at you with the kind of hatred that God might have

had in the Old Testament, and I said: “Yeah, we'll see if that happens."

And it didn't happen. I called you.

I called you because, while still house-sitting, I had a guest from my far-away

previous home visiting me, and I wanted to take her out At least that was what I told

you. I might have been lying. Yes, I told you that I didn’t know where to take my friend.

To put this in George-talk, to put it in a language that you might understand: I didn't

know of any hot spots other than that bar in Arlington. At least not yet.

It's a good thing I wasn't lying because you invited yourself along with my friend

and me for that evening. You gave me the address of a bar in Georgetown, told us to meet

you there at nine. We were there at eight-thirty. You didn’t show until nine-thirty. You

brought four male friends with you. I wondered if one of them was supposed to be for my

friend. Maybe you had some big testosterone plan involving you, me, my friend, one of

your friends, and sex.

George, even the best plans sometimes go awry.

I feel that perhaps I should start over. I am not sure whether, so far, I have made

myself entirely clear, and there are so many details I’ve neglected. In addition, I am

having trouble figuring out when things truly began between us. To be honest George, I

am not even sure if they have ended.

George, do you remember what I told you afrer you asked me if I was a writer? I

said, “I suppose I am a writer—whoever or whatever that is.” It occurs to me now,

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George, that I am not a writer. I am a liar. Perhaps, just to show you the many ways one

can tell the same lie, I will write this all over from a different point of view:

She met him over the Internet. He ran a construction company with two of his

friends. He lived in Georgetown, but he had a Boston accent (they moved from the

computer to the phone quickly). He was everything she hated and yet couldn’t resist. He

was what her friends called a player. He seemed to know just what to say and when. He

had gone to college in Utah (later she found out that he’d never actually graduated) and

was an active brother in a fraternity (and no doubt a date rapist wanted in twelve states).

He was probably a Republican too. He had a lot of catch phrases, stupid little things he’d

say over and over—mantras, if you will. It would take months before “absolutely” and

"I'm a skier not a Mormon” finally echoed, for the last time through her head late at

night.

They met in person for the first time while she was house-sitting. He came over,

picked her up, and took her out for drinks. He had two beers. She had one. He said her

name a lot when talking to her. She knew this was a sales strategy, and she wondered

what he was trying to sell. It was hard not to picture him at one of his job sites wheeling

and dealing, saying the name of his potential buyer over and over as he described in

detail why aluminum siding would be better than wood, why that bay window wasn’t

really needed, how a screened porch would keep out bugs, until he’d made the sale. This

was standard operating procedure, she was sure. Well, Bob, I can see how you'd be

concerned about those water marks, but when I look at your gutters I see a few simple

and, keep in mind, affordable solutions....

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And three weeks later she was drunk and in his bed. Though first she was in his

truck. And before even that, she had been with him in a bar with a girlfriend o f hers and

four male friends o f his.

He had a big red truck. It was brand new, and he bragged about it endlessly, but

always in a subtle and off-the-cuff manner. He would only refer to the truck in passing,

never would he say out-right that it was an amazing machine—which was clearly what he

thought. Instead, there were numerous, yet pseudo-casual, references to the excellent

mileage, alloy wheels, and turbo-charged engine. He had taken her into the truck to listen

to CDs on the stereo that he had told her all about (as if the topic had come up naturally)

when they were in the bar earlier.

Long after “Stayin’ Alive”—during the fifth track of the Saturday Might Fever

soundtrack, to be exact—he made his move. When you are drunk, in a small confined

space, and all you can hear is the Bee Gees, little good can happen next. It was out o f the

truck, in their underwear at this point, and into his bed that he took her.

[George: How deep is your love? Am I more than a woman? If I can’t have

you....]

There were problems with George. One wouldn’t want to say that there were

problems with her because, after all, she shouldn’t be portrayed as a victim. She knew

what she was doing. Victims are violated. Victims don’t know what they are doing. It’s a

game, and she, like him, was a player. She knew the rules, she just didn’t know if she was

winning or losing.

We meet these people, in bars, over the computer, at our workplace, at school,

and we have expectations. An expectation can be as simple as: I expect that we fuck and

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never talk again. Her expectations were along the lines of: let’s fuck, not think much o f it,

and talk again, maybe even fuck again. It’s unclear really what George’s expectations

were, or if he ever stopped to draw any up. She told him, the morning after, that she

didn’t expect that just because they had had sex that they were now dating. God forbid.

She had this convoluted idea that if she let him know where she stood—which

was only really a corroboration of where she thought he wanted her to stand and her own

vague notions about George (that he might be an asshole)—that he would call her within

the week.

He never called. She eventually called him.

None of this really makes a story. See, George, a story has definition—a plot, a

climax. (I hope you noticed that we are back in first person now.) The thing is, George,

guys like you are a dime a dozen, and confused women like me practically grow on trees.

Excuse the cliches. My point is that people meet all the time, get drunk, and fuck like

rabbits. Oops, there’s another cliche. But we did fuck like a couple of rabbits.

The story is all the parts in between, George. The story is what happened between

the bar, the truck, and the morning after. Come to think of it, even what happened after

the morning after is material for a story.

So, to start at the beginning (and pay attention, George, because my crazy, lying

writer-self is at it again and from now on, or at least for a while, you will no longer be

referred to as "you,” but once again as "George”):

I met George five months ago. First, we communicated on-line through e-mail.

We sent each other photos, and soon we were talking over the phone. Eventually we

made plans to meet. He was everything he said he’d be, everything he had been in the

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photos—tall and thin with short brown hair and hazel eyes. He did the typical out-dated

manly stuff like holding doors open for me, walking around to the passenger side of his

truck to let me in, and he paid for everything.

To truthfully start at the beginning, one must acknowledge that, sadly, all George

and I had were a series of moments. [George, please excuse this tangent, but I think it

might be important.] I first learned about moments last year when I took a class on death

and dying. It was a required course for my college major. One o f my classmates was

devastated by the death of her dog—a death that had taken place a full year before. She

still regularly put food in his bowl.

One guy claimed to have been in a rap video. Two weeks after the video was shot,

the rap star had been killed in a drive-by shooting. He simply didn’t understand how such

a thing could have happened. His words stick with me now: how could that have

happened> [Can you hear it too, George? How do you think such a thing could have

happened?]

Another girl had lost a friend in a car accident. She’d been in the passenger seat

when the semi drove right into them. She said a helicopter came to take him away to a

nearby hospital. He had died during the flight. She was there when it happened—holding

his hand thousands of feet above ground. Later, in class, she talked for what seemed like

hours about the moment before the semi hit them. She talked incessantly about the

moment right before he died. She talked about how she had to pee before they got into his

car but didn’t stop to do so because they were in a rush. She had an elaborate theory

based on a series of events that didn’t happen.

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Her theory went like this: if she had stopped to pee, they would never have been

around when the semi ran the light and then ran into them. She talked a lot about

moments. The moment she decided not to pee, the moment right before the semi totaled

their car, the moment her friend was moved from the wrecked car into the helicopter. She

seemed to think that if one moment had been just a little different, every moment that

followed would have been different too.

[ originally thought that George and I had essentially only shared one moment—

our one-night stand. But I saw him again afterwards. [Remember that, George?] We went

to a bar called Cactus Cantina. Sitting on high stools, across from each other at a very

small table, with Mexican sombreros and tapestries suspended dangerously above us, I

asked George if he knew who or what lived in glass houses. He looked at me blankly.

"Never mind, it’s just a silly cliche,” I said and ordered another drink. I had two

margaritas, one lime and one strawberry, both frozen, no salt. He had three Coronas.

Did I mention his name? He lives in Georgetown and his name is George. I hate

to be repetitive, but this connection between his name and the part of town he lives is

crucial in that his ego defies normal proportions.

Oh, George, this is all getting so confusing! Are you still with me? I’ll tell you

where I am now. I am in your apartment. Or I am imagining that I am. You have a huge

fish tank in your basement. Two o f them in fact. When I slept over at your place, after we

left our friends at the bar, after I gave my friend money for a cab back to the house-sitting

house I lived in back then, after we made out in your truck... after all that, I never slept. I

sneaked out of your bedroom at four in the morning crying, trying to figure out how I

could leave right at that moment and yet still see you again in the near future.

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Do you know what Sylvia Plath said about neuroses? I doubt this was covered in

any issue of Penthouse, so I’ll just tell you, George. Sylvia wrote that to be neurotic one

must want two mutually exclusive things. Well, I did not want to be with you at that

moment, and yet I did not want to be away from you either.

So maybe it’s neurotic, George, but I feel I must explain: I did not want to be in

your bed next to you with your arms around me even though I must admit that a part of

me liked it. See, I wanted mutually exclusive things in that there were two essential

problems. The first problem was that I was convinced the only reason your arms were

wrapped around me was because, in your sleep, you were thinking I was someone else.

The girl that you drank the wine with, molded your sheets with—did you think I was her?

The second problem was that I wanted to be in my own bed. Problem number two was

particularly horrible as I did not have my own bed at that time. All I had was a temporary

bed that I had slept in in the house that I was taking care of for the friends of my family

that I was house-sitting for. Remember that, George? Remember that I was house-sitting?

So I sneaked out o f your bedroom and looked at the fish in the basement. This

was my moment, George. I was alone and I had time to reflect upon how the moment I

was having could have been very different if any given moment previous to it had been

tweaked just a little. Like maybe I should have never gotten into your truck. After all, you

had a CD player in your living room, and I’ve heard the Bee Gees before, surely that’s

enough. And, what if the moments in the bar had been different? What if I, what if you,

had not drank so much? What if I had caught a cab with my friend instead of going home

with you?

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But that is not how it happened. Instead, I found myself crying and looking at

your fish. You really should take better care of your fish. The tanks are obscenely dirty,

and looking into them only made me cry harder since it made me think about the fish I

bought for my brother last Christmas. That fish died.

Please excuse another tangent, George, but I feel it is necessary. You see, I

happened to be watching when my brother’s fish died. It started swimming very oddly—

like on its side. Its gills were not working in a consistently rhythmic way, and gradually

the gills stopped moving completely. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the fish floated to the

water’s surface.

So here I am in your basement— now or then, for real or in a lie, what does it

matter really? I am thinking about my brother's dead or dying fish (dying in the active

sense as I am reliving it) and I am now on a mission: I must save the fish. I found fish

food. I mistakenly dumped about half of it into one of the glass houses. It was amazing.

Fish—disgustingly, brilliantly, brightly-colored fish—started coming out and under from

everywhere. I didn't realize how many hiding places there were.

It was exhilarating and nauseating all at once, if you want to know the truth.

I feel I should add, George, that it was hard for me not to remember, in addition to

my brother’s dead fish, my long-ago trip to Hawaii. I wouldn't swim in the water because

the fish swim all around you there. To be quite honest, it made me very nervous. I was

horrified, so scared that I spent most of my vacation out of the water. My mother told me

that I was being ridiculous. My older sister made fun o f me.

It is rather silly, really, to be afraid o f fish.

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George, this story is essentially defunct. There is no defined beginning or ending.

To make matters worse, the moments in between, the moments that embody the story, are

inconclusive at best. The fish cannot be made relevant and yet the fish are very important.

I have visions o f an ending in which all the fish die by morning because I overfed them in

the middle of the night. I have other visions in which I am able to parallel the fish with

myself, the story’s narrator, who is lost and confused— who doesn’t even have a home.

But the story has other problems. That is to say, there are other details that cannot

be satisfactorily placed. For instance, there is the conversation I had with you, George, in

the bar before you took me home with you. We had been talking about your fish (whom I

had yet to "meet” and of whom you were very proud). And you said to me, "You know

what they say about fish?" And I said, "No, what?" And then you said, "That a woman

needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," to which I replied, "That's not a statement about

fish, that's a statement about women."

Very few conclusions can be drawn. To speak of the narrator as a separate entity,

the one and only thing that holds true is that, for her, everyone is George—a person or

people whom she cannot relate to. But, if everyone is George, then who is she? Who am

I? Maybe we are all George, me and her included. One would certainly hope this is not

the case. Though, George, it does offer an excellent explanation for your aforementioned

inflated ego.

To relieve you of any undeserving power or credit, George, maybe the whole idea

should be amended altogether into the following and rather simple possibility: we are all

fish. We are all fragile and delicate, and yet horrifying at times.

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Yes, we are all fish, and so I think my analogy was accurate—you are a piranha.

But, George-the-piranha, you made a mistake: I am not a goldfish. I am not easily

disposed of.

Okay, so maybe we never had that silly conversation about the fish and the

bicycles. But remember what I said about writers—that we can lie and get away with it?

That we do it for effect? For the sheer stupid fun o f it? What can I tell you then, George?

So maybe I told a few lies; my reader will never know. I doubt that even you remember

the specifics of our dates anyway.

You'll be pleased to know, George, that your story, this violation, is now

complete. Regardless o f when it started or when it ended, I have nothing left to say. If

you’re confused, if I lost you long ago, let me sum it all up for you: All I ever wanted was

to have sex with you. All I ever wanted was a place to call home. All I ever wanted was

one true moment.

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