University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2009 Middle Ground: A Novella And Collection Of Short Stories Laurie Uttich University of Central Florida Part of the Creative Writing Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Uttich, Laurie, "Middle Ground: A Novella And Collection Of Short Stories" (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4074. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4074 MIDDLE GROUND A NOVELLA AND COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES by LAURIE RACHKUS UTTICH B.S. Illinois State University, 1989 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2009 Major Professor: Patrick Rushin © 2009 Laurie Rachkus Uttich ii ABSTRACT This collection of fiction—a novella and a collection of short stories—focuses on the commonality of the human condition. While we create separations for ourselves by focusing on distinctions such as, religion, class, gender, and race, we are, I believe, spiritual beings sharing a human experience. My work tends to explore these distinctions and our motivations for embracing them. In the novella, Middle Ground, two sisters in alternating narrative voices share the story of their parents‟ struggles with separation, sobriety and cancer. Their voices, as distinct as their perspectives, explore the landscape of a family, the borders between forgiveness and acceptance, the self-preserving act of looking beyond imperfections and weaknesses, and the realization that truth is an illusion and flawed love the only certainty. The short story collection consists of eight pieces. Many of these stories explore characters in a state of recovery—a brain tumor operation, a death of a spouse, a shot to the head where a bullet rests and reminds—and plot occurs as these characters attempt to move on. They meet sandhill cranes who cry out in pain for the death of another, lovers who speak in italics, vets who swear that the blasted silence is louder than King Kong screaming in your ear. They sit with shrinks who lie, sleep with poets who stray, compete with incarcerated ex-husbands who were “man enough” to put a gun to a woman‟s head and pull the trigger. They are nothing—and everything—like all of us, and readers are invited to join the characters beside the mirror of our collective Middle Ground. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I could not begin a page of acknowledgments without mentioning my parents who instilled my love of reading, nurtured my need to write, and supported my desire to make a living at it… even as I bartended to cover the rent in the early years. I thank my husband who spent hours in the pool with the kids, so I could “get this down before it‟s gone forever” and plodded through manuscripts he pretended to understand. I thank the funny, smart women in my life who offered babysitting, dinners and bottles of wine as I attempted to finish this coursework while working part-time and raising three small boys full-time. And I thank my “writer friends,” a select group that gently reads my work and fiercely supports my art: Hunter Smith, Karen Lehman, Mary Ellen Gallagaher, Paul Miller, and newcomers Mark Pursell and Jessica Ryan. What can I say? With all the literary options you have—and your own active writing lives—you still volunteer to read my work in all its flawed and fragile stages. Bless you. And, that said, this collection of work would never have existed—in any form— without the creative writing faculty at the University of Central Florida. I walked into my first class at UCF, pushing forty and clutching a manuscript about my kids, of all things, and Lisa Roney first found a glimmer in my ramblings and then made UCF a home for me. Without her encouragement, I might not have continued the program and I would have missed working with Susan Hubbard who told me to be dark (even as she insisted I was “ready”), Jeanne Leiby who gave me opportunities to edit and pointed out my writing tics (who knew I used “would” forty-seven times in one page?), Jocelyn iv Bartkevicius who encouraged me to “dig deeper” (without her Crazy Talk would never have made it out of my memory), Toni Jensen who graciously added one more thing to her newcomer plate, and Pat Rushin, of course, who read a chapter of my novella over a weekend and willingly took on the direction of this beast of a thesis from a stressed-out, would-be writer he‟d never formally met. Your belief in my work—your openness to all my weird stuff and your intuitive ability to “get” it —has allowed me to consider myself a fiction writer. (And although I‟ve been writing stories for thirty-five years, this is the closest I‟ve come to trusting the title. Thank you, Pat.) v TABLE OF CONTENTS WHAT WE TELL ........................................................................................................... 8 JAMES AND JESUS ON I-24 ...................................................................................... 22 DEATH CUSTOMS (DDC 393) ................................................................................... 35 30 TO LIFE ................................................................................................................... 45 THE LITTLE POET ...................................................................................................... 53 GRAY MATTER .......................................................................................................... 68 SAY WHAT YOU MEAN TO SAY ............................................................................. 84 YOU ALWAYS DID BELIEVE IN STUFF LIKE THAT ............................................. 86 MIDDLE GROUND ..................................................................................................... 98 Weeds ....................................................................................................................... 99 Hell and Kentucky Fried Chicken ............................................................................ 105 Sparkle Snow .......................................................................................................... 110 French Kissing ........................................................................................................ 115 Uncle Pete‟s Parrot .................................................................................................. 121 Date with Daddy...................................................................................................... 125 Daddy Comes Over ................................................................................................. 135 Aunt Celeste and Daddy‟s Beer ............................................................................... 141 Mama‟s Sick ........................................................................................................... 146 Daddy Comes to the Hospital .................................................................................. 151 Mama Moans ........................................................................................................... 154 Family Decisions ..................................................................................................... 158 Leaving Mama ........................................................................................................ 160 vi Daddy‟s Back .......................................................................................................... 163 Train Ride ............................................................................................................... 165 Aunt Celeste and Chicago ........................................................................................ 167 Aunt Celeste's Bathroom ......................................................................................... 173 Leaving Chicago ..................................................................................................... 177 The Ride Home ....................................................................................................... 181 A New Millennium .................................................................................................. 185 An Excerpt from “Words out of a Wasteland: A Memoir” ....................................... 189 WRITING LIFE .......................................................................................................... 194 READING LIST ......................................................................................................... 198 vii WHAT WE TELL Early April This is what we don‟t tell your mother: everything bores you now. Sex at home, between the sheets, even with candles and wine and some complicated move, it doesn‟t matter. You don‟t want it. It has to be in an elevator or under a table in a restaurant or behind the A & P, especially if that checker you flirt with is working second shift and sliding cans of peas and creamed corn across the sensor as you push into me, each thrust, I imagine, in perfect sync with the beep, beep of her register. And we don‟t tell your mom, Elaine—a tired,