THE THINGS HE LEFT BEHIND Thesis Submitted to the College Of
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THE THINGS HE LEFT BEHIND Thesis Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Master of Arts in English By Jenna Marie-Claire Gomes, M.A. UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON Dayton, Ohio May 2018 THE THINGS HE LEFT BEHIND Name: Gomes, Jenna Marie-Claire APPROVED BY: Meredith L. Doench, Ph.D. Faculty Reader Lecturer of English David J. Fine, Ph.D. Faculty Reader Assistant Professor of English Christopher J. Burnside, MFA Faculty Reader Lecturer of English ii ABSTRACT THE THINGS HE LEFT BEHIND Name: Gomes, Jenna Marie-Claire University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. Meredith Doench The Things He Left Behind is a short story cycle inspired by the consequences of war and the power of legacy. It follows a young soldier, Felix Rocha, through the eyes of the many friends, family, and strangers that he impacted throughout his short life. The character is based off of a real-life soldier, Felix Del Greco, who was the first Connecticut National Guardsman to be killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The incorporation of artifacts into the story is meant to mix fiction and reality; to present to the reader both the real Felix and the fictional Felix. As Tim O’Brien famously said, “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” This short story cycle is meant to make a lasting impact on the reader, leaving them with the question, “What are the things that I will leave behind?” iii Dedicated to Felix M. Del Greco Jr. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks are in order, beginning with Joe Pici. Though he was not able to see this project through to the end, I have him to thank for the inspiration, the inception, and the will behind writing many of these stories. Thank you to Meredith Doench, for taking over as my main thesis advisor and giving me invaluable advice as a published author, as well as confidence in my own writing that I didn’t know I had. To Chris Burnside, for jumping into this project when I needed you most, and for continuing to push me as a writer. You helped point me in the direction I needed when I was “stuck” on my last few stories. And to David Fine, for being the very first person to read my rough draft, for understanding everything I was trying to accomplish without even telling you, for all the impromptu office stop-bys, and, of course, for making me frame my pictures. Thank you to the whole team as a whole, you were all essential moving parts of this piece I’ve created, and the combination of all of your advice has helped me to create this piece that I am so very proud of. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .……………………………..…………………...………………....…...... iii DEDICATION ………………………………………...………...………………....…... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .………………………....………..……………………....... v PROLOGUE ………………………………...…………………...………………..…..... 1 THE MENTOR ………………………………………………………...……………..... 2 THE COMRADE ………………………………………………………...…………... 15 THE EX ………………………………………………………...…………………...... 20 THE COUSIN ………………………………………………………...……………..... 3 2 THE SISTER ………………………………………………………...……………….. 3 8 THE FRIEND ………………………………………………………...……………….. 4 6 THE STRANGER ………………………………………………………...…………... 5 1 THE SON ………………………………………………………...………………….... 6 1 EPILOGUE ………………………………………………………...…………………. 6 4 AFTERWORD ………………………………………………………...…………….... 6 5 A NOTE ON SOURCES ………………………………………………………...……. 6 7 vi PROLOGUE "I'm at work. It's summer, everyone has gone, I'm alone and not expecting to, I am here thinking about you. It's 2007. Jesus. I'm reading all of these and trying not to cry. I'm reading a letter Gov. Rowland wrote, referring to you as a "hometown hero." I remember your now seemingly prophetic small town hero sweatshirt. I see you beaming at the state of Connecticut, YOUR state of Connecticut, flying the flags at half staff for you. But maybe you're not beaming, maybe you are too modest for that. Maybe you take it with a reserved sense of duty and that, it's done not for praise or adulation, but because it is the only right thing for your country. And of course it was never in vain. You were outspoken and stood proud with your views, never backing down, never flinching, but accepting reason, compromise. Stoic and dependable, you were the friend and man everyone should be. Your music, as unfinished as it was, stays with me, images of you scribbling and filling notepads....All of which I readily feel should be published. The world shouldn't just know you, they NEED to. To get a taste of you, they need you to fill their bones with your person, your thoughts, your love. Maybe I'm not making sense, I just wish you were here, bouncing ridiculous philosophies and theories off me. I want you here not just for your friends and family or for those whose lives you touched from the saddle of the Stone Ghost and more, but also for everyone that never met you. I imagine you listening to thousands of Springsteen bootlegs you've never heard. I see you belting out the most perfect songs , and everyone around you intently waiting for your next lyric, your next story. 2007 and it's getting harder every year. I've got some time to kill till I see you again, but I know you're keeping things interesting wherever you are.” Anonymous, 8/1/07 1 THE MENTOR 2 In 1981, a friend helped me find The Boss. I remember we were at a Boy Scout overnight in the middle of thick Connecticut woods and were stuffed four boys to each three-person tent. We were in complete isolation, which is a funny thing about Connecticut. It’s a small state and it’s densely packed until you get to the middle of nowhere. That’s where the woods go on for miles and if you don’t mark your way you’ll live in the woods forever. And when you’re in there, you can feel the thick smothering you. Especially when you’re in a humid tent with a bunch of other preteen boys. I was wide awake, breathing in the mosquito-air, when Andrew Jackson (I’m not shitting you about that name) pulled a glorious Sony Walkman out of his stuffed backpack and motioned for me to climb over the sleeping boys between us. I use the word “glorious” to describe this thing because it is truly the only word that captured my awe. Or maybe “divine”. “Holy”, even. The truth is, a Sony Walkman cost an ugly penny back in ’81 and the closest I had ever seen one was through the glass of a game store window. “I stole it from my dad,” Andrew Jackson whispered, “And he listens to Bruce Springsteen . Have you heard of him?” He took my silence as a “no.” “My dad’s gonna be so mad if he finds out I took it,” said Andrew Jackson. At that point, the little bastard was egging me on. But it worked. He had already captured my attention with his brand-spanking-new Walkman, but it was 3 Andrew Jackson’s rebellion that incited my interest. Not only was I going to listen to a tape from a portable tape player , but I was going to be an accessory, too. Andrew Jackson slapped the headphones over my ears and pressed a button on my Walkman. The harmony of “The River” drifted hauntingly into my ears. I remember thinking that “HARMONica” was a good word for the instrument because it hummed the “HARMONy” so well. The lyrics weren’t anything I could understand at the time, of course. Loss, heartbreak, stagnancy. But I loved stories. And I felt like I was listening to one, the ones my dad talked about that meant something. Even though I didn’t grasp the true depth of it, the words-on-top of words moved me. I didn’t feel like I was listening to a song anymore. I felt like I was listening to someone’s soul. It wasn’t because I was a particularly intelligent nine-year-old that I had that thought; it was because The Boss could make you feel things like that. In 1986, The Boss helped me find my first girlfriend. She was just my friend at first, the kind of friend that sits in front of you in Social Studies and lets you peek at her quizzes. Her name was Marianne but I called her Mary. One day I asked her to hang out after school and used two weeks of allowance to get us ice cream. On the walk back to her house, I wanted to ask her to be my girlfriend, but instead I made her listen to Bruce Springsteen. I studied her as she listened, her eyes narrowed and her hands pressing the headphones tightly over her ears. She liked it. She liked him. “Will you be my girlfriend?” “Okay.” She liked me. 4 Time wore on like it does when you’re fourteen. We would make the trek from school to my house almost every day, knowing that my dad wouldn’t be home from his landscape job until the sun went down. We would go upstairs to my room and sit on the bed and kiss without tongue. And the soundtrack, all the time, was The Boss. One of these days, Mary and I were sitting on the bed. She was playing with her hair as I cued up “Hungry Heart.” She kept trying to put a braid in her hair but the different pieces kept slipping out. She started to cry a bit, but I didn’t want to embarrass her, so instead of asking if something was wrong, I just tried to braid her hair myself.