CHUCK CHONSON: AMERICAN CIPHER by ERIC NOLAN A
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CHUCK CHONSON: AMERICAN CIPHER By ERIC NOLAN 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 2003 Copyright 2003 by Eric Nolan To my parents, and to Nicky ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my parents, my teachers, and my colleagues. Special thanks go to Dominique Wilkins and Don Mattingly. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................................................................................iv ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................vii CHAPTER 1 LIVE-IN GIRLFRIEND, SHERRY CRAVENS ...................................................... 1 2 DEPARTMENT CHAIR, FURRY LUISSON..........................................................8 3 TRAIN CONDUCTOR, BISHOP PROBERT........................................................ 12 4 TWIN BROTHER, MARTY CHONSON .............................................................. 15 5 DEALER, WILLIE BARTON ................................................................................ 23 6 LADY ON BUS, MARIA WOESSNER................................................................. 33 7 CHILDHOOD PLAYMATE, WHELPS REMIEN ................................................ 36 8 GUY IN TRUCK, JOE MURHPY .........................................................................46 9 EX-WIFE, NORLITTA FUEGOS...........................................................................49 10 ABANDONED SON, PHUC CHONSON..............................................................52 v 11 HOMELESS BUM, DEVON..................................................................................58 12 EX-GIRLFRIEND, REGINA..................................................................................61 13 MIME, SQUIGGLES..............................................................................................72 14 EX-GIRLFRIEND, EVA GALET...........................................................................77 15 PROSTITUTE, VINEGAR......................................................................................83 16 PROSTITUTE, CIMMANIM..................................................................................89 17 BLUES MUSICIAN, TROT VERSION.................................................................93 18 EX-GIRLFRIEND'S FATHER, PAYNE CAVE...................................................100 19 EX-GIRLFRIEND, TAMMY CAVE....................................................................108 20 FORMER AQUAINTANCE, KRILL CRIMP......................................................115 21 FRIEND, ROLPH..................................................................................................122 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 131 vi 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 CHUCK CHONSON: AMERICAN CIPHER By Eric Nolan May 2003 Chair: Padgett Powell Major Department: English This is the beginning of an unfinished work of fiction. The story is not found yet, and the plot is not found yet, and the reason for writing it is still unknown to the author. There is no driving force behind the story, and the main story is abandoned on almost every page and a tangential story hogs the stage. Don't think that the author doesn't know this. He was trying to do something. The opening moment in the second book of Gogol's Dead Souls--the exact place where Nabokov believed the book began to be unworthy of being read--the narrator informs us that Chichikov, the hero of the book, is gone and that we are left alone once again in a remote corner of the country. Instead of ending the story, the narrator says, "Ah, but what a corner!" and the story continues for another hundred or so pages. I would like this thesis to begin in that same frame of mind. vii CHAPTER 1 LIVE-IN GIRLFRIEND, SHERRY CRAVENS Pascagoula, Mississippi I know you're Mister Seniority over at the Sociology Department Lounge, but in this house your tenure just got revoked. I told myself repeatedly that you weren't going to remember my birthday, and that you wouldn't remember that my birthday is the same day as our anniversary. And that this year it fell on Easter. I hadn't seen you in a few days and over and over I tried to prepare myself for the doped-up Chuck Chonson who appears like an oncoming truck through a bad morning fog. Who, wearing a dirty American-flag bandana and hauling a case of peppermint schnapps, doesn't seem to recognize me or the children. As I heard the door struggling to open this morning, I knew who it was on the other side and I believed in my heart that you'd have a present for me. I believed that you'd have your hair combed like you used to and that maybe you'd be wearing the same tweed jacket that only a few months ago was your favorite. "I was just on a business trip," you were going to say. "I left a note on the fridge. You must've just overlooked it, darling. I'm sorry about that tiny drinking spree--it's simply a defect of a good, hardworking man, and I wish you didn't have to witness it. Here is a new silverware set I brought back from New York." Even though I knew better, I rushed to 1 2 unlock the door, then heard you puke, then re-locked it and double-locked it, then doubled over and began to cry. "Mariee! Mariee!" you were screaming and then Shamus and Lowey rushed downstairs in their pajamas, and you know how impressionable they are. They saw me crouched in the corner and then they started crying too. I whispered to them: "Daddy's been drinking. Don't move." You were screaming, "Mary! Mary!" and banging on the door and then Shamus got up enough nerve to yell at you to go away and you screamed back, "Shut up!" Then to me, "Sherry, Sherry, I love you, I love you, I love you, I want to fuck you, I'm sorry!" I could hear you crying and puffing and I knew you were in a blackout and I started to feel sorry for you and I looked over at Lowey hiding behind the vase and Shamus trying to pull him out and I started to feel sorry for all of us, as a family, and my mind shut off to the chaos around me and, because I was looking at the wall, I began to think that we could use a paint job. Maybe green, like a forest green. Or maybe just a nice forest-landscape wallpaper. With birds in it. I thought of how much you like wallpaper, and how much you like the forest. It seemed like the perfect combination, but then I remembered back when we lived in the Ozarks and I remembered the time that you dragged me along camping with you up Magazine Mountain and all we did was munch on cactus you brought and throw up and talk with God and those loser friends of yours. So then I said fudge the paint job and the wallpaper, then I started thinking about my job, and how much I like it. I started thinking about how I like putting on the uniform, slowly and respectfully. The mask, then the tank, then how Howie would pick me up in the bug van, and how we'd go all over the county spraying at the little creatures that didn't belong where they were. Then I had a deep thought--Who am I to judge bugs? What if I am not 3 where I belong? And why is it that Shamus and Lowey hardly know their dad anymore? They have so many problems already that you can see pain in everything they do--they eat spaghetti politely and they play in their sandbox without making noise. Then bang, bang, you tried again on the door and my thoughts got shaken out like sand from a shoe. I stood up to unlock the door with a clear head and let you in and tell you that I'm sorry, but then I heard another beer can open and I knew that you weren't going to remember a damn thing. After a session of studying my insect text books, which seems now to be my only escape, I told myself that I'd give Chuck Chonson another chance. I told myself that this Chuck Chonson who is banging up my flower garden is not the one that I know, and is not the real Chuck Chonson, either. These last three months have been so distorted. I mean, you had it. Five years without drinking a drop. I had nothing to do with that either--I am so confused--why would you just throw it away? You think you can keep preaching to those confused students while you act like this? You should just see how the cashier looks at me when I go to the bank. She knows, Chuck. How the hell can she know? And if she knows, this whole town probably knows as well. You think I liked it when the country-club lady called me up telling me that you stalled out the car in a sand trap? You remember that one? Don't even think that I'm going to put up with this any longer. We got this house with our own washing machine and dryer, and Shamus and Lowey get pretty much all the video games that they want, and we're a good family. Those squash lessons with Shamus, and those times you used to get your ukulele from the attic and make up songs using Lowey's name--didn't they mean anything to you? 4 So I sat down on my mother's treasure chest and actually made a list of every bad thing you did to me since you drank again, just to see them in front of me, instead of swimming with them up in my brain. The first thing I wrote down was that you turned me on to peyote. That was a bad thing. For some reason I didn't associate the words hallucinogens with drugs. I can still see the colors. The first handful didn't seem to be working for me, so I sneaked another bunch into my mouth, then you were mumbling about the weather in the desert being pliable. Your face melted and my skin boiled. I kept hearing an eagle behind me then looking back quickly and everything took twice as long to move as usual. You locked yourself in the attic, leaving me alone with the twisting tables and the kids who'd scream in my face. The outdoors were seeping into the kitchen and I was trying to clean it up with a wet rag.