The Prologue Past
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University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2014 The Prologue Past Raymond McKee University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation McKee, Raymond, "The Prologue Past" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4858. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4858 THE PROLOGUE PAST by RAYMOND SHAWN MCKEE B.A. University of Central Florida, 2009 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2014 Major Professor: Jocelyn Bartkevicius © 2014 Raymond McKee ii ABSTRACT The Prologue Past is a collection of four essays and one novella which explore the past in different fashions. Memory, and the ability to reflect and find meaning in our experiences, is an important cornerstone of engaging the past. Decisions I’ve made, who I am, what I hope to become, and how recognizable or unrecognizable my past self is to the present are some of the mental fragments that ebb and flow throughout my consciousness on a near daily basis. What triggers these thoughts? I believe that memories—no matter how detrimental or pleasing, significant or forgettable—become a true anomaly of how our inner-consciousness operates or developments. With each day, the past facilitates a special part of our memory bank which we seldom have any control of. While the abilities of people to recall times, events, places, and experiences differ largely in capacity, we all undoubtedly share universal traits in the manner in which we hold onto our memories. I’m personally fascinated by the notion of unreliable memory or the inability to recall a past event in a concrete moment in time. I’m equally intrigued by what’s tied to our most vivid recollections of the past, involving adrenaline and emotion. Having no certifiable experience in neurology, my exploration of memory—and how it’s ascertained and utilized—is based on certain moments in my life presented in these personal stories, which range from childhood endeavors to adult conquests, seemingly linked together through particular themes of fear, loss, and hope. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you, Jocelyn, for your tireless commitment to these pieces and making them better. Your mastery of the craft is unmatched, and I feel honored to have received your guidance and expertise. Throughout this process, you’ve always been supportive and encouraged my strengths as a writer, and I’ll never forget that. Thank you for your guidance at The Florida Review, as well as your theory courses, which opened my eyes to the pushing the boundaries within genres. Thank you, Pat and Lisa, for your teaching and guidance. Your wisdom has helped me grow, and you both showed me ways in which my writing could always be better. Your classes have taught me the fundamental value of workshops, and I’m now a true believer. Pat, your fiction and screenwriting courses have shown me the limitless possibilities in both genres, and I can’t thank you enough. Lisa, your nonfiction workshop was invaluable, and it allowed me to reach a level that far surpassed my writings as an undergrad. Thank you both for your contributions to this rather lengthy thesis. I want to thank my family: my father and mother, my stepparents, brother and sisters, and everyone else who provided the material for these stories. I hope you can see what an inspiration each of you are to me. Thank you, Rosie, for having always been a good friend. Thank you to my colleagues and the outstanding faculty in the MFA Program. I’ve met so many great writers and wonderful artists, it’s hard to imagine a better writing program anywhere else. I won’t have it. And thank you to the U.S. Army for paying my tuition. Couldn’t have done it without you. I am grateful for the opportunity to have spent two and a half years reading, writing, and growing at UCF. iv “If we refuse to do the work of creating this personal version of the past, someone else will do it for us.” –Patricia Hampl, I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” –George Orwell, 1984 “That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.” –Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................. vii VOLUNTEER WORK .......................................................................................... 1 How Did I Get Here? ...........................................................................................................1 A Shock to the System.........................................................................................................4 A Not-Yet Winter Wonderland .......................................................................................... 12 The Mountains of Mordor.................................................................................................. 16 THE FRIENDS YOU KEEP .................................................................................27 ON BEING SERIOUS ..........................................................................................63 VARIOUS METHODS OF ROAD SURVIVAL ..................................................71 THE TIME DANCER: VOLUME I ......................................................................95 Chapter One: The Plan .......................................................................................................... 95 Chapter Two: The Research ................................................................................................ 111 Chapter Three: The Machine ............................................................................................... 119 Chapter Four: A Special Visitor .......................................................................................... 125 Chapter Five: An Effervescent Turn .................................................................................... 137 Chapter Six: Trouble in Yuma ............................................................................................. 159 Chapter Seven: The Early Years .......................................................................................... 189 Chapter Eight: Escape ......................................................................................................... 223 Chapter Nine: Young Love .................................................................................................. 236 APPENDIX A: READING LIST ........................................................................ 285 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: A car from my friend’s junkyard, similar in resemblance to the “ghost car.”............... 72 Figure 2: Photoshop version of my parents’ motorcycle photograph. Pictured: my younger sister, Amanda. ................................................................................................................................... 77 Figure 3: Dilapidated vehicle at my friend’s family-owned junkyard. ........................................ 80 Figure 4: More junk cars at the junkyard. .................................................................................. 84 Figure 5: The graveyard of forgotten vehicles. .......................................................................... 87 Figure 6: Stripped of the sum of their parts. ............................................................................... 93 Figure 7: McKee’s Timeline. ................................................................................................... 137 vii VOLUNTEER WORK Before I even consider joining the Army, I move from a rented two-bedroom home in Deltona, Florida where I lived with a friend from high school, to my father’s house in Cocoa. He and his wife, Marie, have an extra bedroom, and I’m sick of painting apartments in Orlando, so I apply for a job at the DRS Optronics in Palm Bay. DRS manufactures optics and navigation equipment for military jets, tanks, and other vehicles. Both my father and stepmother work there, and I hope that the family connections can make a difference. Whether or not they do, I’m ecstatic to discover that I get the position for stock-room clerk, and I promptly take my meager possessions and re-locate to Cocoa. I transfer community colleges from Daytona to Brevard, with a few semesters left to get my Associates Degree. I’m twenty years old, and everything seems to have fallen into place—for the time being. My girlfriend, Vicki—whom I’ve been dating for the past two years—and all my friends for that matter, still live in Deltona, but I visit her on the weekends, as well as hang out with friends from time to time. I possess no lofty goals or ambitions about what to do with my life. I know that I enjoy creative endeavors such as drawing, writing, playing music, and making short films, but I am not serious about anything. I am spread all over the place with one goal to the next. What am I working towards?