LIFE IN IMPERFECT FORMS A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts by Alexander Todd Cox May, 2011 Thesis written by Alexander Todd Cox B.A., The College of Wooster, 2003 M.F.A., Kent State University, 2011 Approved by ____Varley O’Connor____________, Advisor ____Ron Corthell________________, Chair, Department of English ____John R. D. Stalvey_ __________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………..iv STORIES Life in Imperfect Forms……………………………………..…….1 Singularity…………………………………………………..……26 Fiercely Luminous Beings…………………………………….....43 You Too Shall Be King…………………………………………..56 The Getaway…………………………………………………..…68 Aunt Theodora……………………………………………..…….90 THE BEASTS OF THE EARTH (novel excerpt) Prologue: The Dog……………...……………………………....116 Chapter I: Conceivable, Sure…………….…………...………...124 Chapter II: Sharing the Womb…………..……………………...129 Chapter III: A Speck, and then the Terror…………..……...…...146 Chapter IV: The Taste…………..……...………………….........151 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Varley O’Connor, for her thoughtful guidance. Her commitment and enthusiasm was invaluable. Thanks also to my committee members, Eric Wasserman and Imad Rahman. Many of the stories in this collection have been read and critiqued in class by dozens of my fellow graduate students, yet there are a small number of generous friends who took time outside of class to offer additional insight and encouragement. Thanks to Tara Kaloz, Megan Erwin, and Bobbi Maiers. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Ed and Linda Cox, for their unconditional love and support, and for the endless supply of baked goods they sent home with me on weekends. iv LIFE IN IMPERFECT FORMS Things were going okay until Ruby Robinson clubbed her husband with a baseball bat. She waited for him in the bedroom closet, crouched under the wire hangers. He knew that she would be home but she waited in the closet anyway, perhaps to add some panache to the occasion. The husband walked into the bedroom at nine in the morning, after spending the night who-knows-where, and she leaped out, screaming something about God and Revelations. It was the neighbors three doors down who called the police. There had been smaller fights before this one, mostly involving openhanded slaps and the occasional throwing of silverware. But this time there was a baseball bat. Ruby clubbed her husband right in the shoulder, breaking his clavicle, then she clubbed him on the left knee, then she went outside and clubbed the hood of his truck. When the cops arrived, Ruby held out her arms for the inevitable handcuffs and said, “Justice has been served.” They took her to the station and they took her husband to the hospital and that was that. The house was empty. No one would be there when the kids got home from school. So of course Jan, the case worker, called Barb in one of her manufactured panics and told her what happened and begged us to take the kids again— just for a little while. She knew how challenging it was when we had them last, but this 1 2 was an emergency. Barb sobbed and nodded at the phone, as if Jan could see her nodding. Then she hung up and ran her palms down her soggy cheeks and gave me that half- pleading, half-wild look of hers and I said, “Barbara, I love you, sweetheart. This is a terrible idea.” And she didn't even reply. She acted like I had said something else entirely and walked over and gripped me with an earnest, lingering hug while I stood holding the piece of toast that I was about to butter and now the toast was at arm's length, cooling in my hand, rapidly approaching the point where butter would no longer melt on its surface. All I wanted was to butter that damn toast but the world, it seemed, had careened off course, off into the realm of hysteria. I took the day off work and we spent the rest of the morning kid-proofing our home. It felt like we were moving. Loose household items disappeared one by one; everything that could be broken or weaponized had to go. I packed up the tools in the garage and locked them away. When all the wrenches, pliers, and hacksaws were safely stowed, the pegboard behind my workbench looked like a piece of modern art with all of its empty tool-outline decals. Barb scoured the dining room, the den, the bedrooms collecting vases, lamps, candles, and potted plants. The plants went behind the shed. Everything else went to the attic. We debated the status of the kitchen knives and eventually stashed them in the cupboard above the fridge where they would be out of sight and out of mind but still accessible for cooking purposes. We emptied the medicine cabinet just in case. The boys 3 had yet to express an interest in tampering with pills or cough syrup, but there was no point in tempting fate. The sleeping arrangements would be the same as before. The older two would stay in the basement, where their destructive energies could be localized. The youngest would stay in the guest room. In all likelihood, he still had night terrors and bed-wetting tendencies. We had a strategy for this too: a fitted sheet went down first, then a sheet of plastic, then another fitted sheet, then another sheet of plastic, then another fitted sheet. When the screaming started, we could stumble into his room, give the kid a hug, peel off the top sheet-plastic layer, change his pajamas, and then stumble back to bed. Normally I'd take the first round, Barb would take the second, and if there was a third, well, we rotated on that one. Jan picked up the kids from school and took them home to pack. She pulled into our place around five. Barb and I walked out the front door and held hands as Jan's boat of a station-wagon crawled up the gravel driveway. Barb elbowed me in the ribs and said, “Smile. We need to smile for them. They need to feel welcome here.” So I grinned like a damn fool as I watched those three little moon faces peering at me from the backseat of the car. Jan parked at an angle and turned in her seat and said something sharp to the kids, something non-negotiable that was accompanied by severe finger wagging. Then she got out and the kids stayed put. Barb and Jan had been friends for years. We used to go to the same church, back when Barb and I still did that sort of thing. Our kids went to high 4 school together. When Kyle and then Caroline sailed off to university, we drifted out of contact with Jan. But then Barb was struck with her fit of empty-nest lunacy. She signed us up for foster parenting classes and since Jan worked for the County Department of Human Services, she suddenly fell back into our lives. I had always regarded Jan as humorless and aggressively pious, but as soon as she found out that we were going to be foster parents, she was suddenly thrilled and ever so proud of us. She reacted with such warmth that I felt compelled to look upon her more charitably. Jan was a single mother and when she talked to Barb and me, she addressed us as if we were some kind of hive mind. She even crushed our names into a single unit: Barbandgary. It sounded like a fancy dessert wine, like, I'll have the '87 Barbandgary. I'm told that that was an excellent year. So, of course, she walked over and hugged us both at the same time, one arm around each of our necks, and said, “Thank you so much for doing this, Barbandgary. I know these kids aren't easy to handle but they have nowhere else to go.” “Of course, of course,” said Barb, “we're so happy to help,” and she sniffled a little and I did my part by continuing to grin like a nutcase. “This will only be temporary,” said Jan, “I promise.” She filled us in on all the pertinent details. Ruby Robinson's arraignment would be next week. The husband was threatening litigation, but he might reconsider. The two were undoubtedly getting a divorce, which was for the best. He wasn't particularly nice to her or the kids. When the divorce was finalized and the charges were settled, Ruby could start another round of 5 mandatory parenting and anger management classes. If those went well, then the kids could start hourly visitations, and then weekends, and then, and then... “Then?” I said. “Then we'll take things from there,” said Jan. She leveled us with a hard, sober stare. “Look, you know how they are. Don't try to change them. They won't ever change. You just have to love them as best as you can.” She turned to the boys and this was the signal for them to get out of the car. They were startlingly thin and pallid. If anything, they looked smaller than when I saw them last, even though it had been more than four months. Michael, the oldest, the lispy motormouth, was wearing the New York Jets t-shirt I got him at a consignment store. Gabriel, the psychopath, looked calm, bored even. Raphael—little Ralphy—was sucking his thumb. All of their clothes and toys were stuffed into garbage bags, which Jan heaved out of the trunk.