Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2012 In the place of forgotten things Genevieve DuBois Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, and the Fiction Commons Recommended Citation DuBois, Genevieve, "In the place of forgotten things" (2012). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 14078. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/14078 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. In the place of forgotten things by Genevieve DuBois A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Major: Creative Writing and Environment Program of Study Committee: Dean Bakopoulos, Major Professor Rick Bass Linda Shenk Norman Scott Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2012 Copyright © Genevieve DuBois, 2012. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Prologue: Hello My Name Is 1 1. Before the Birds Come 3 You 17 2. The Empty Days 18 The Dog’s Story 30 3. The Hearts of Dogs and Birds Must be Held in Both Hands 31 M- 41 4. The Bird 42 George 48 5. Memorializing 51 6. The Morning 61 M- 62 George 63 7. I’ve Come to See It’s Time to Go 66 You, Again 75 On the Bus 77 8. How to Get Lost on the Interstate 79 Memory #1 87 9. Don’t Forget Your Heart in the Overhead Compartment 89 M- 99 10. Fish or Something Like It 100 Memory #2 110 11. Neighbor Ladies 111 You and the Dog 121 12. The Belly of the Earth 123 M- 126 13. Things I Never Knew About My Mother 127 George 131 14. A Conversation with Jagger 134 You and the Woman 135 15. Listen 136 George 140 16. Art is Meant to Have Meaning 142 M- 156 17. A Conversation with Ruby 157 You and the Wood 159 ii 18. The Birdfall 161 The Place of Forgotten Things 167 A List of Dreams 168 George 169 19. The Way Things Fall Apart You Didn’t Know Could Break 173 George 181 20. North 184 M- 185 The Place of Forgotten Things 186 21. How to Leave a World Behind 187 You and the Woman, Again 192 George 194 22. Now That We’re All Gone, Alone 198 The Nine Lives of the Common Canary 206 George 210 You and the Tractors 212 23. Into the Woods 213 M- 215 Memory #3 216 24. Meetings 217 I Found You 220 In the Place of Forgotten Things 221 25. Echoes 222 Why Did I Feel He Was Right? 226 George 227 You and the Old Man 228 26. Reasons to Stay 230 M- 233 George 234 27. Even the Best of Us 235 You and the Monsters 239 George 240 28. A Bad Idea 241 Encounters with Burn and Dodge 245 You and the Last Day 248 George 251 You and the Last Day, Again 254 29. Into the Woods, and Further 255 George 256 iii 30. The Project 257 Burn and Dodge 263 31. Edges 264 M- 266 George 267 In the Place of Forgotten Things 268 32. A Note on Fire 269 Memory #4 273 33. Standing at the End of the World 274 George’s Last Day 280 M- 282 34. A Conversation with Clary 283 All of Me in the World 286 The Place of Forgotten Things 287 You Are Riding Away 288 The Dog Leaps Beside You 289 You Will Find a New Place to Keep All the Things That Have Been Forgotten 290 35. Home 291 1 Prologue: Hello, My Name Is On the news you see all the ways a world can end. You see the inhuman sweep of tsunamis fiery with debris and a woman bent over the body of a man and the bloody scrawl of sweat on the face of an unordained soldier and the glacial fjords on faces in cold rooms and all the sad and funny things people say and the internet videos they make about the things they find both sad and funny and who’s dating and what shapes they crack between their fingers at the table and what debris we can loot from their sidewalks and what we should watch and how we should listen and whole species of animal sinking silent into bone and slow changes in the chemistry of the Earth you do not want to understand and the molecular deaths growing in distant countries that could kill you (getting closer) and strangers that hate you and your pastel spring fashions and new galaxies discovered so far away the light that reaches you now is a billion years old, older than dust. So: you close your computer. You turn off the TV. You put away your handhelds and your PDAs and your tablets and your smartphones and various electronic products named after fruit and you go take out the trash, which is full and beginning to reek of Thursday’s salmon, parts both cooked and raw. Welcome to my world. I have green eyes. During the summer I live in a trailer in my parents’ backyard. I have two friends that I love and four more to whom I rarely speak. I am twenty-two. Usually I am single. I have been all my life neither first nor last when teams are being chosen regardless of the sport but somewhere in the middle where the bell curve of mediocrity begins to fall off. If I could have any superpower it would be to fly (which is more popular than invisibility but less popular than mind-reading). During the year I work across the street 2 from the hipster espresso bar (definitely cool) at the main campus library (somewhat less cool). I used to think I would be a photographer. I used to think I would travel. I like Italian food more than any other kind of food except Thai. I like peanut butter but not with jelly. I am hungry. 3 1. Before the Birds Come In the beginning there was too much grief. It floated in the house like an unemployed cousin overstaying his welcome, and no matter how obsessively Mom scrubbed the place still smelled of unwashed dishes and the bottoms of old shoes. Pops had died three weeks ago. In our comfortable ignorance of his continued existence, none of us were prepared for it. The last time Dad mentioned his father I was eleven and Dad said he was no longer worth the time it took to love him. Now Pops was dead and still Dad said nothing—nothing at all. He’d barely spoken a word since Pops’ housekeeper called us, repeating the words over and over in hysterical Spanish: he’s dead. He’s dead. Dad also stopped going to work at the firm even though he helplessly loved the numbers he worked with, maybe better than he loved us. The weather was strange that week: blowing hot then cold, clouds scudding across the sky so fast the shape of it changed one hour to the next, light fading in and out against the gold and dusky green of California hills. I was home for my last summer of college and time had the chewy consistency of all summers, the days blending into each other one set of headlines much like the next. Wondering what I was supposed to feel in the absence of my grandfather I watched Mom fuss over Pops’ memorial, folding the plans into the calls and prattle of her decorating business. I drifted. I waited for something to happen. The first day I remember beginning to end is this one, a Monday: the day the bird entered my life. That morning I stayed inside in the air conditioning in lieu of inhaling the dust off dry farms in my trailer—a little fifth-wheel camper that we used to haul on family trips as part of the Outdoor Education effort and was now relegated permanently to the backyard. One summer Dad had put up an ad and that same day I moved in. He took the ad down. 4 I made an omelet with onions and mushrooms and Colby cheese and was sitting at the table with yesterday’s crossword when Mom came in and said we had to go see the lawyer. To talk about the will. “No thanks,” I said. “I’ll stay here.” Most of the entries I could barely guess at. So I was making up words to fit the spaces. “You should come if you want anything to remember him by,” she said. How would some dusty knick-knack recall memories I didn’t have? The thought left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t even know if he’d liked me. “I don’t care,” I said and continued to say until finally: “He’s your grandfather,” Mom hissed to the side of my face. How was I supposed to argue with that? The first of five scenes from five nightmares 1. A heavy black sun rising beyond hills before me and the hard hot hurting it brings in my chest. A gaunt bear wandering the forest behind. A carpet of brown needles. This place: a wasting sickness.