ABSTRACT HICKEY, COLIN DANIEL. Punished
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ABSTRACT HICKEY, COLIN DANIEL. Punished. (Under the direction of Wilton Barnhardt.) The following collection of short stories is connected by one thematic thread; the inevitable and changing effects on interpersonal relationships of living in a violent and unpredictable world. Each of the thirteen stories, while varied in plot, setting, point of view, etc, is its own microcosmic representation of that theme. “Never That Easy” explores the effects on a family of losing a son to war. “Chicken Shit” is an illustration of a family divided by the contrast between the oppression of choices already made, and the freedom of personal ambition. “Commitment” is an investigation into the repercussions of incarceration on a relationship. “At the End of the Day” examines the potential violence that might befall an already violent couple, so as to illustrate the damage even “minor” violence between two people can cause. “Purified” investigates the possible repercussions of a pregnancy on a couple divided by what they want. “Ingrown Hair” explores the possible influences behind a philanthropic life. “Courage” reverses traditional biased gender roles in an exploration of what it means to be “courageous.” Another investigation into and representation of the vicious cycle of violence in which humans often find themselves trapped is “Stitches and Scars,” and the ends to which some will go to break the cycle. “The Drifter, the Fence, and the Tattletale,” is a description of one possible outcome of an intercultural affair. “Speedo,” shows how money can change relationships, both between people and with the self, at times for the worse. “Slingshot” is a coming of age story, when a boy’s relationship to the world is tested and altered. “Crime and Time,” as well as “Resolution,” explore the often enigmatic importance of family, real or improvised, in a person’s life. PUNISHED by COLIN DANIEL HICKEY A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts ENGLISH Raleigh 2005 APPROVED BY: ______________________________ _____________________________ _______________________________ BIOGRAPHY HICKEY, COLIN DANIEL Colin Hickey was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on December 16th, 1978. For a short time in his early childhood, he returned with his parents to New Jersey, where they were raised, as they were following possible employment, and perhaps running from the South. Shortly thereafter, though, they returned to North Carolina, having realized the error of their ways. Colin attended the Guilford County school system, and participated in a number of sports and after school activities, and also read voraciously. In 1990, when he was in the Fifth grade, he was awarded an Honorable Mention for a story he submitted to the Guilford County Writing Festival. While his affinity for reading remained, it was then that his desire to write became solidified. Mr. Hickey attended the Greensboro Day School for high school, where he continued his creative exploits, as well as being awarded All-State honors in Swimming and Lacrosse. In 1997 he enrolled in North Carolina State University, where his hunger for literature, language, and travel were fed, paradoxically only to make him hungrier. He was a member of the Lacrosse team, and also for a short time the Senior Staff Reporter for the student newspaper, “Technician.” In 2003, after a year abroad in Costa Rica, as well as Ecuador, Peru and Mexico, he graduated with a Batchelor of Arts in English Creative Writing, and a Batchelor of Arts in Spanish Language and Literature. In 2004, he enrolled in the Master of Arts in Creative writing at NC State. ii CONTENTS It’s Not That Easy…………………………………………………………………………1 Chicken Shit……………………………………………………………………………...20 Commitment……………………………………………………………………………..33 At the End of the Day……………………………………………………………………48 Purified…………………………………………………………………………………...66 Ingrown Hair……………………………………………………………………………..77 Courage…………………………………………………………………………………..93 Stitches and Scars………………………………………………………………………..98 The Drifter, the Fence and the Tattletale……………………………………………….111 Speedo…………………………………………………………………………………..124 Slingshot………………………………………………………………………………..134 Crime and Time………………………………………………………………………...145 Resolution………………………………………………………………………………157 iii Never That Easy The wet, salty gust forced Alice back against the wooden support beam that ran from six feet underground downstairs to the upstairs porch above her head. Cade was holding onto the railing with his back to her, his face to the wind. The outer bands had long since undulated by. It was cooler now, and as Hurricane Charley made landfall, the canals that furrowed Oak Island were like gun barrels down which nondescript projectiles of housing and landscape rifled. Alice wanted Cade to turn around and look, to check and see if she was okay, but she knew that he would not. She fingered the promise ring he’d given her exactly a week before everything fell apart. She rotated it once. It was a sign, she sometimes thought, of his eventual rehabilitation from all of this. Or maybe, she thought more often, only a sign of what was. She peeled her back from the beam and stumbled upwind as if she were fighting a 1 raging river, to where he stood. When she touched him he tensed up before putting his arm around her without looking. After looking at his face for a moment, she squinted into the wind to find what exactly he was looking at. She pulled a strand of hair from the corner of her mouth. A piece of white lattice launched and flipped in the air on the other side of the canal, lined with homes similar to Cade’s, and scooted along the lawn before wedging itself under a stairway. She heard a trashcan bellow and scrape along the concrete on the other side of the house. The docks groaned. “There goes power,” Cade said when the sky lit briefly, followed by the sound of a cannon blast. “Sucks,” she said, squeezing him tighter. “No it doesn’t,” he said, without looking at her. She had to let go of him to steady herself against the increasingly sustained bursts of wind. Beside them, the Venetian blinds on the double doors to the kitchen rose steadily and someone tapped on the window with a knuckle. Alice could see Cade’s mother mouth “power’s out,” through the glass. Alice nodded her head and the blinds went slowly back down. She wanted to go back inside. Another door, behind them and shielded from the wind, opened. She heard the clapping blinds hit the frame as Jeff came out. Neither of them turned around. “Your dad told me to tell you to go get the weather radio,” Jeff said. Still neither of them turned around. “Windy,” he laughed. The porch shook when he was forced to take a loud step backwards to keep from being blown over. “Cade?” he said. 2 “Those people’s sprinkler’s on,” Cade said to Alice, pointing. About five houses up, on the other side of the canal, Alice saw what looked like smoke from a campfire lashing in the wind. “Cade?” they heard Jeff say again. “I heard you,” he said. He turned his back to Alice. She watched him look at Jeff before he shimmied along the railing, down the stairs, and into the garage beneath them. She did not like Jeff. She needed him, yes, but she did not like him. She could see from the corner of her eye that he was looking at her. She met him two months before she met Cade, a year that felt like two ago, and Jeff’s passive aggressive persistence to almost always be around, even after it was clear she had moved on, was often oppressive. She introduced him to Cade as a friend, and they’d gotten along all right for a while. Cade’s nonchalance toward Jeff annoyed her sometimes. He wouldn’t even poke fun at Jeff, like she did, for failing out of med school the previous semester, saturated with drink. “No power,” Jeff said. He’d fought his way to the railing when Cade was out of sight. He made like he was supporting her, put his arm around her waist. “No shit,” she said, using her left hand to pull herself to a corner column and away from him. A very large piece of clear plastic slinkied down the canal, rustling. Cade was thick-wristed, built like a running back. Alice liked how hard he was when she held him, despite the fact that now his stature felt less like able protection than annoyance. Jeff was taller, perhaps even handsomer. But there was something in his demeanor, a frailness in his wet eyes, that made her feel sorry for him. And she needed him. He was the only one who could talk to her about the Cade she’d fallen in love with. 3 “No rain,” Jeff said, squinting and looking up at the uniformly ominous sky. “I know,” she said, letting go of the column as the wind let up. “It’s weird.” She heard the door behind them open again. She turned. It was Cade’s father, his head poked around the corner. He looked like Cade except his hair was gray. His eyes had the exact same stultifying stare. “Where’s Cade?” “Radio,” Jeff said. “Ah,” he said, looked at Alice, and disappeared. “I’d have taken my boat out of the water,” Jeff said, leaning in front of her to look, instead of behind her. She moved back. “You don’t have a boat. They know what they’re doing.” “Mrs. Parker sure does,” he said, leaning his face down and smiling, too close to hers. “She started in on the wine as soon as the power went out, said she doesn’t want it to get warm.” “Huh,” she laughed. Cade used to make her laugh so hard her face hurt.