SOMETHING to BE SAID for SAYING SOMETHING by THOMAS
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SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR SAYING SOMETHING By THOMAS SANDERS A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2017 © 2017 Thomas Sanders To Tarver Shimek ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For their invaluable instruction, patience, encouragement, and inspiration, I thank Kevin Wilson, David Leavitt, Jill Ciment, Amy Hempel, and Padgett Powell. For their ongoing support and unconditional love, I thank Carl, Gigi, Tye, Mimi, Jenny, and Elaina Joy Sanders. For helping me develop as a teacher and professional, I thank the University of Florida Department of English and the University Writing Program. For creating the ideal environment for my growth as a writer, I thank the University of Florida Creative Writing program, the MFA@FLA in particular, as well as all the funding bodies that made my time at the University of Florida possible. For hundreds of pages of thoughtful feedback and hours of critical conversation, I thank my friends and fellow MFA@FLA students. For the invaluable emotional support, I thank Tupelo Sanders. For being by my side, and for giving more love than I deserve, I thank Tarver Shimek. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................6 LIFE RECENTLY ...........................................................................................................................7 VFW Chapter 2811, Waldo Rd./NE State Rd. 24, Friday Night ..............................................7 The Knot .................................................................................................................................14 You’re It ..................................................................................................................................16 Who or What ...........................................................................................................................18 Granddaddy .............................................................................................................................19 Prescient Quotations from an Advisory Meeting on Life Post-MFA .....................................33 What Happened ......................................................................................................................34 Thirteen Ways of Looking at (and Hating) an American Robin ............................................39 SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR SAYING SOMETHING: SHORT AND SHORTER STORIES ................................................................................................................................47 Afterword ................................................................................................................................47 Something to be Said for Saying Something ..........................................................................49 Open Ended ............................................................................................................................51 As Seen on TV ........................................................................................................................55 Do we need another onion? ....................................................................................................71 ThunderShirt ...........................................................................................................................74 Or, I Gave Up .........................................................................................................................78 Familiaris ................................................................................................................................81 Wretch Like Me ....................................................................................................................103 IT WILL BE MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS: A NOVEL BEGINNING ..................................126 Section 1 ...............................................................................................................................126 Section 2 ...............................................................................................................................139 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................146 5 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR SAYING SOMETHING By Thomas Sanders May 2017 Chair: David Leavitt Major: Creative Writing This document is composed of two collections of short stories titled “Life Recently” and “Something to be Said for Saying Something,” as well as the beginning of a novel with the working title “It Will Be Money in your Pockets.” The stories that make up “Life Recently” are connected, meaning they share locations and characters. The stories in “Something to be Said for Saying Something” are not connected. The excerpt from “It Will Be Money in your Pockets” is intended to be the beginning of that novel. 6 LIFE RECENTLY VFW Chapter 2811, Waldo Rd./NE State Rd. 24, Friday Night “I’ve always wanted to drink there.” “Where?” “There.” I pointed to a low, single-story building fronted by two tanklike vehicles. My girl and I, we’d spent dusk bowling and shooting pool. “It’s open to the public,” I said. “See the sign in the window?” A neon Budweiser logo with the word OPEN beneath. “I never knew,” my girl said. She passes the building twice daily, to and from work. “Wanna go?” I asked. “Okay.” I pulled a U-turn. Then, lately, I’d felt confident, less anxious, less willing to let opportunities slip by. The turnaround was part of that. “Wow,” my girl said. “That was a super-confident turn. Badass driver.” At the front of the building, a locked door. We had to buzz in. My girl pressed the button and a moment later the door unlocked. When we entered, the normal bar scene paused. Everyone turned to look at us. The bartender, an older woman, asked what we wanted. My girl took off her sweater and made a move to sit at the bar. “A beer, I guess,” she said. “First, I need to ask,” the bartender said, “are you members?” 7 “No,” I said. “I didn’t know you had to be.” “You do,” the bartender said. “If you want to be served, you have to be members.” Regardless of fault, my kneejerk reaction is to apologize. A habit my girl hates. “Sorry,” I said. We started to leave. “I’ll sign for them.” This was a middle-aged man, the drinker closest to us. He wore black leather motorcycle chaps and a matching vest. I noted a pocket-sized Confederate flag patch stitched to the vest. “That’s fine,” the bartender said. “Sign that book over there.” She pointed at a guest book on a podium. “But you’ll be his guest. If he leaves, you have to leave too.” Once we signed, we took stools at the corner of the bar, the door at our back. Two men— the one who had signed us in and an older, front-toothless man with suspenders printed with Confederate flags—walked up to us. “Does anyone in your family serve?” Suspenders asked. “My brother,” I said. “What branch?” “Army. He graduated from West Point.” “Then you can join the auxiliary part of the chapter,” Suspenders said. “Not necessarily,” Leather said. “Has he served overseas?” “No,” I said. “They can’t join.” This came from a larger woman down the bar. She wore a large tie- dyed shirt and had a pair of Styrofoam to-go boxes stacked on the bar in front of her. Her voice was high pitched, like that of an adolescent boy complaining to his mother. 8 “Where is your brother stationed?” Leather asked. “Stationed in Alaska at first. Now he’s down in Oklahoma.” “Fort Sill?” Leather asked. “Fort Sill,” I said. “He won’t work,” said Leather. “He has to have served overseas.” His beer was bigger than the others I saw, a liter-sized plastic pitcher. He drank from the vessel as if it was a stein, sipping from the uncurled portion of the plastic lip. “How about granddads?” he asked. “You have any granddads who fought in wars?” We both did. “That works,” Leather said. “Take a picture of their gravestones and you can join.” We heard this often over the course of the night, a refrain repeated by various people in the club: take a picture of their gravestones. At first, the imperative seemed to legitimize our presence in that room—as much a reassurance of their own decision to let us stay as ours—but as the night went on and we kept hearing it repeated (and when they repeated the statement as we left), the directive seemed more genuine, a legitimate invite back. They had two beers on tap: Budweiser and Bud Light. We ordered Budweisers in frosty mugs. Turns out, cash only. Cheap, luckily—“Cheapest beer in town!” Suspenders declared. I withdrew a twenty from an ATM in a dark hallway. The club looked like other bars catering to local clientele. Not a hole in the wall—the layout felt spacious on the horizontal plane—but with a similar vibe: low lighting, drop ceilings, an L-shaped bar. Behind the bar bottles of cheap liquor and mixers were arranged in front of a mirror. The neon Budweiser sign blocked the only window into the room. 9 “I apologize for my friend’s suspenders,” Leather said. “They aren’t exactly politically correct.” This did not sound like an earnest