THAT BRIGHT & BEAUTIFUL DAY By Martin Wiley A Thesis Submitted To The Graduate School-Camden Rutgers, The State University Of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master Of Fine Arts Graduate Program in Creative Writing Written under the direction of Paul Lisicky and approved by __________________ Paul Lisicky __________________ Lisa Zeidner Camden, New Jersey, May 2012 i ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS That Bright & Beautiful Day By Martin Wiley Thesis Director: Paul Lisicky That Bright & Beautiful Day is a magic realist novel submitted to the MFA in Creative Writing program at Rutgers-Camden. The novel examines the contemporary anti-war movement, as seen through the eyes of a Black young man named Eshu; he is named after the Yoruba god of language and mythmaking, and believes that he is an incarnation of that deity. Eshu watches his friends as they become more involved in protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and fins himself slowly being drawn in. After an act of civil disobedience goes horribly wrong, Eshu tries to protect his friends through the use of his “powers,” and accidentally provokes an even greater tragedy. Told mainly through flashbacks, the novel is Eshu’s attempt to make amends. ii Table of Contents Prologue 2 Remember To Write It Down Late 7 It Is Important To Remember This 21 A Little Too Philly For That 23 Once You Tell It, It’s Yours 33 Of Course, She Was An Expert At This By Now 40 A Different Kind Of Weight 44 She Thought She Was Looking At Paradise 50 The Ballad Of The Weeping Man 56 A Love Supreme 74 Is It Still Love When It’s Refused? 95 Because This, You See, Was Jonas 104 Roots 108 Oh, Elegant Woman! 122 5 Minutes In Heaven 141 For The Man At The Counter 153 I Think That We Know What They Need 160 The Nature Of Stories 170 iii Home Is Like A Virus 175 Such Simple Actions 183 Looking Out Into The Bowl 193 To Get In The Right Mood 218 What Grew Within Him 228 They’re Still Talkin’ About It 236 We Don’t Deserve This 252 The Dying Embers 262 This Way, Young Bull 265 This Halted World 272 He Was There 277 Empty, To Be Empty 283 All The Flames He Had Stared Into So Deeply 285 We Got The Rest 296 Not Even The Wind Was Alive 301 The Song Of The Bloody Woman 312 Epilogue 318 iv 1 “People sit and they look at my albums like a problem, they try to solve em. They don't know, it only leads the way to a bright more positive day. By itself, it's NOT the bright day Sit up straight, and hear what I say Fear and ignorance, I'm down for stoppin this, but the bright day is your consciousness…” KRS-ONE “i am doing a dance/& you can watch/but it’s not entertainment you artists are so damn serious/dont you ever have fun?” Ntozake Shange for Christy 2 PROLOGUE “I am but a messenger Born to blow up…” The Roots My parents called me Eshu, after one of the gods of the Yoruba. They came up with this at the beginning of the end of the Seventies, as they had been late to the whole “Black is beautiful” thing and tried to make up for it with me, and rather than adding some extra letters into an already existing name and ending up with J’Marcus or Shawan they decided to go all out and picked, essentially at random, from a book called “50 Great African Names, Vol. 2.” They had no idea what the name meant at first and I don’t think it ever really mattered much to them. They didn’t have it in them to think that if you call something, it might actually come. Eshu, god of language and mythmaking. Do names matter? I would prefer to say no, but the fact that I am telling this story lets me know, better than I would like to, that they do. Before I could even speak I was set up to be a storyteller, a passer on of half-truths, vague misconceptions, and awkward innuendo. This was an extra hurdle not faced by my friends who were named after saints or national heroes or even The Son of God, people and beings who were if not well known then at least understandable; my name and namesake marked me as strange when I said who I was—and how does one explain that you are a trickster and a liar, but in a holy way? Eshu, yes, the power of a name, the 3 signifying monkey, the holy con man, the god who brought words to man and deciphers the speech of the higher gods so that mortals can comprehend—are you seeing now why I knew my role, well before I even met Adrienne and Jonas? Don’t worry, we will not be long before we head into the actual story. Allow me this moment of stage setting, introduction, dress rehearsal—whatever. My intention is to start the story where it hurts—and since all stories must either start at the beginning of time or resort to being joined in medias reas then I get to get it going wherever I want. Now, I could aim for some new contemporary style and start the story a few hours before everyone wakes, hovering over my characters as they slumber. I don’t know. How much would be learned by telling you that Jonas constantly shifts in his sleep, shuffling around the bed like an upturned beetle, or that his girlfriend Maria, ah Maria! who despite never seeming to move, somehow inches her way along his side of the bed, until she is ultimately wrapped around him, swaddling him with her body, as his legs dangle off the side? How much would it set up Adrienne if you knew that she snored, softly, and only when she slept alone—and that she sometimes giggled as she dreamt? Would we discover enough to make up for the endless hours of nothing, for the solidity of sleep, for recording all of those soft and untranslatable sounds that sneak from lovers’ mouths as they dream together? Or should I go forward to a night yet to come, to Maria slipping under the sheets, tears slowly siding down her face, Jonas catching each one with his lips, his fingers, his tongue, his flesh whispering softly to hers? This is, you must understand, an American story. I, of course, through an 4 accident of time and birth, am a true American, which is to say liar, or at least exaggerator, a self re-creator—and I say this with full love and appreciation of the wonders of my nation’s style. Only my America could birth Mark Twain, Biggie Smalls, and Lady Gaga, a fact that should cause relentless jealousy in anyone that’s paying the slightest attention. And I say my America, because who else could this land belong to but a god of language, and of lies? Yes, Adrienne, Jonas and I, we three are Americans, real Americans—or rather, we are the real America. The Spirits of ’76, the timing of our births was reason for a nationwide celebration, bicentennial, the re-Birth of a Nation, an attempt to re-believe in the country, in its power and its truth—and if we’re being truthful then what is America if it is not rebelling? If it is not rebellion? Know this: as Adrienne slid down into her mother’s birth canal a re-built giant schooner slipped into the Philadelphia harbor, an early tide of cheers from the viewers standing at the waters edged rocking the sides of wooden ship, its sails snapping and crackling as it tried to join the crowd in its joy. Above it a defiant Cooper’s Hawk soared, no bald eagles today, it was swiftly joined by another, and Astaire-like they dropped down low swooped back up and danced across the blue ceiling and kept watchful eyes on everyone below. And the boat could only look back and smile. Now, there were other ships, in other harbors, in other cities, but this was a return to the beginning, to the birthplace itself; the nation’s DNA is scattershot blasted from all corners of the globe, its life was conceived in the woods of Virginia and the waters of Boston’s harbor, but it entered our world here, in Philadelphia (and we have never been allowed to forget it). And as Adrienne’s head poked out into the hospital room and from 5 there the planet, the people shouted and waved and the hawks cheered, the boat came to a halt up against the dock and the two of them made it home together. But—a few months earlier, when those first bangs of fireworks sneaked out, red and blue (the whites weren’t ready yet) taking over the sky, those first ones fired off prematurely, Jonas snuck out as well, two weeks before his due date. It was a time for a celebration, for a reclamation—the battles of Vietnam ended, at least as far as we were concerned, Nixon out of power, his legacy destined to ensure that no president would ever dare to lie to his people, and that the people themselves would remain vigilant forever and ever and on. So why wouldn’t they celebrate? Slip some sparks out early, set the sky afire with gunpowder and soot and coloring; nothing says “I love you, America!” like blowing some portion of it sky high.