Shaking

Speaking of Townie with author Andre Dubus III

Wayne Cresser — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:07:09 +0000

Townie is a memoir by Andre Dubus III, most notably the author of House of Sand and Fog, and The Garden of Last Days. It begins in the late 1960’s with the upheaval of divorce, that of his parents, writer Andre Dubus II, and his wife Susan. Susan is left with their four children: Andre, his older sister Suzanne, younger brother Jeb and even younger sister Nicole. The story tracks young Andre’s struggle to find a self, a voice and more importantly, a way out of 1970’s down-on its-heels Haverhill, Massachusetts, a fading Merrimac River mill town plagued by poverty, drugs and violence.

After moving from one place to another, the beleaguered family comes to roost in a reasonably roomy house in a reasonable neighborhood in Haverhill. However, paying the rent and other basics, leaves their mother, who returns to school and earns a degree in social work, with nearly no money for anything else. Andre’s father is in the picture. In fact, he’s ensconced across the river at Bradford College, where he teaches writing and shares various apartments with faculty colleagues, earning not much more than enough to pay child support and keep an old car on the road. He sees his children but is shy around them and uninvolved in their lives.

The first scene in the book is telling. The sixteen year old Andre meets his father on the elder Dubus’ birthday for a jog. All he’s got for footwear is a pair of Dingo boots so he borrows his older sister’s sneakers. They are a least a size too small. He runs for what seems like “three days” to him. When it’s over, her takes the shoes off: “My feet were swollen and it was hard pulling them off, the skin of my heels scraping, both socks wet and red. I peeled them away to see all ten toes had split open like sausages over a fire.”

First there is the visceral quality of the imagery, at which Dubus excels. Then there is the introduction of three of the memoir’s most sustained and effective motifs. One, the author’s constant desire to tell his father what his day to day is like, to break that “invisible membrane” that Dubus contends exists between people, in this case the father and son, and finding himself unable. Two, the instinct to protect the ones he loves, in this case his mother, “Where’s your shoes?” his father asks incredulously. “I shrugged. I didn’t want mom to get in trouble,” he answers. And three, the idea that there is no gain without pain, an ethic that Dubus will apply to building his body and eventually boxing to overcome the fear that has made him a victim of bullies and toughs up to this point in his life.

When Dubus learns how to break the membrane, it is to throw punches and fight back, to protect the innocent like some vigilante character from the kind of vengeance movie that was popular in the 70’s. His interactions with his father become more frequent when Dubus attends high-toned Bradford College, where young Dubus’ leather jacket and ponytail mark him as the “Townie” of the title. There he and his father pal around, but he can’t break the membrane of intimacy necessary for the kind of unburdening he desires. He’s becoming a man who can stand on his own but he needs to tell his father how it was for him.

After an accident leaves his father paralyzed and Dubus gets involved in his father’s care, the exchanges between father and son are charged with more mutual appreciation, humor and love. Andre Dubus II dies in 1999, at the age of sixty-two, without young Andre ever finding the right time to tell his father what growing up across the Merrimac was really like for him and the rest of his family.

So perhaps it will be surprising, given the circumstances, that Dubus brings such affection to anatomizing the relationships, none of them simple, between all the strands of family, the tone of the times from the disaffected 70’s through the turn of the millennium, and even rusty old Haverhill, without sparing the reader the cost of any of it to the mind, heart and soul of the writer.

Shaking recently had the special opportunity to ask Andre Dubus III a number of questions about writing Townie. We were interested in some of the memoir’s major themes, the screen adaptation he is writing for the book, and some final thoughts on the setting of the book.

***

Shaking: As a child of divorce with three siblings and an academic father, the family situation in Townie really resonates with me. I remember that on the material level it felt bad, but worse on an emotional level, like nothing could be done to help us if dad didn’t come back. I felt that in your description of the moves you made right after your father left, ending up on Lime Street in Newburyport. Is that the level of desperation you were trying to relate? I mean, “Slime Street” certainly paints a picture.

Dubus: So much of my writing process, be it fiction or creative non-fiction, especially in the first drafts, is semi-conscious and largely intuitive, so a part of me was not trying to capture “desperation” so much as the total experience, as I remembered it years later, of being the oldest boy in dangerous neighborhoods, small and weak and afraid, but having somehow internalized that it was up to me to be the man in the house now, a role I was clearly unsuited for. Looking back at the scenes I wrote, I believe I included the one of my father confronting Clay Whelan’s father for this reason: It was clear to me, at that moment, that my father was not going to be able to protect me at all. He wasn’t a fighter, and he wasn’t around, though I was grateful to him for trying.

Shaking: In the New York Time’s review of the book by Darcey Steinke, she says Townie reads in many ways like one long rebuttal to “The Winter Father,” a story your father wrote, about a dad leaving, and as he drives away he is called a bum by one of his kids, just as you describe your younger brother Jeb doing as your father drove away. Unlike the father in the story, who is able to reconnect to and reassure his kids not long after, you suffer years of deprivation and emotional uncertainty. Was Townie a conscious effort to set the record straight?

Dubus: Not at all. In fact, I hadn’t read “A Winter Father” in years and forgot that that scene of the son throwing the rocks and calling the father a bum was even in that story. I also, once it was clear to me I was writing some kind of accidental memoir, had no intention of writing about my father in any way. Why? Because I knew there was some unplumbed shadow between us, and I did not want to betray my father, a man I love and miss very much, who’s not even here any longer to defend himself. But if I’ve learned anything from writing all these years, I’ve learned this: the writing is larger than the writer; if we’re writing honestly and deeply enough, it will take us places we could not possibly imagine beforehand; the horse knows the way.

Was I consciously trying to set the record straight? No. But, in many ways, the entire book is the conversation I wanted to have with my father and never did. I wanted to set the record straight with him, no one else. Did I say how much I miss him?

Shaking: You say early on in the book that when your father went, so went your mother’s lifeline to the world. All your father’s friends went with him. For me, that raises two questions, one, being so far from her Louisiana family, was there any discussion of pulling up stakes and just moving all of you back to Louisiana despite her father telling her not to if she ever got divorced and two, do you think that the choice of family friends to side with your father was a reflection of the times or a reflection of the writer/teacher culture of your dad or what?

Dubus: If there ever was a discussion of pulling up stakes and moving south, I never heard about it. I think, though, that there was not. Years later, my mother told me she just couldn’t go home; her marriage was the failure her parents feared it would be.

I don’t think my father’s friends staying with him was a sign of the times, the late ‘60’s, because I see that kind of ex-spouse dumping happening with newly divorced people in my own life in 2012. I do think, though, that the overwhelming majority of my parents’ social life was tied to the small liberal arts college where my father taught. When he left, he remained employed there, and my parent’s friends became his friends only. It still makes me sad for my mother to remember this. She was just as charismatic as he was and a lot prettier and maybe smarter, too! (He would agree with me, by the way…)

Shaking: Townie, among other things, I think, is a coming of age story, but one, to paraphrase one of Hemingway’s characters, which has nothing to do with dates and calendars. You’re a published writer, celebrating the sale of your first book with your mother and sister Nicole in Key West one minute, and sending a young man to the hospital after fighting in a Miami airport the next. By this point you’re pushing thirty and you’ve been fighting like this since you were fifteen. What kept driving you to behave this way even after you had started to find your voice as a writer? Did you see yourself as the great avenger of the innocent victim or was something else going on?

Dubus: Good question, one I hope is at least partly addressed in the book. I guess the honest answer, to use a cliché, is that old habits die hard. The truth is, to this day, nothing makes me angrier than injustice and cruelty and the strong dominating the weak. In that scene at Miami International Airport, I was absolutely incensed that those two men had terrified that woman, and I did want to teach them a lesson, BUT I had also just left a conversation with my mother and sister that had something to do with my father which had triggered a rage in me begging for some kind of release. As I write in the book, I believe I was right to have stepped in and tried to help that lady, but there was no need for me to exact physical revenge on those two men to accomplish this protection. I did that for me more than I did it for the woman I was trying to help. But that fight was also the beginning of a turning point for me, spiritually and philosophically, which is why it’s in the book; while I got pats on the back from the cops and a few men who’d seen me do what I did, I knew intuitively that what I’d done was wrong to the core and that this path I was on could go nowhere positive.

Shaking: You talk about breaking the membrane, the invisible barrier between people. With sex and love, you say, people do that willingly, joyfully even, with the violence that you knew you were capable of after you knocked Steve Lynch’s front teeth down his throat, breaking the membrane was a different thing altogether. Could you clarify how that worked on you and ultimately what you came to understand about that? I’m thinking about that kid who went from being small and afraid to the teenager “who looked in the mirror now and saw the boy who hadn’t backed down or run or pleaded. I was smiling at him, and he was smiling back at me.”

Dubus: Hopefully, my answer to this is already in the book. The membrane insight was semi-conscious in my fighting years, but I was always aware how much nerve it took to step into that moment of physical violence with another human being, a blind act of faith that this will all work out somehow, that leap into the unknown. It felt strangely familiar, and I knew years later it was not unlike that much more loving and positive physical intimacy that is consensual sex. The reason I was proud of that teenage boy – that night I knocked the bully’s teeth down his throat- is because in a fight situation there’s no waiting for permission to break that invisible membrane around the other; you just break it, and if you do it first, and with the right moves, you most likely will come out ahead.

Shaking: I wish you would explain the title of the memoir to our readers since the divide between the rough and depressed streets of Haverhill, where you and your siblings are growing up in the 70’s, and the manicured greens of tony Bradford College , where your father teaches, writes and lives, right across the Merrimac River, feels like such a load for you, especially in the presence of Andre Dubus, your “Pop,” to whom you can’t explain the daily rigors of poverty, drugs, and fighting in Haverhill and how these things are affecting your brother and two sisters.

Dubus: The title is actually not the original one I’d written. The original was River, Fist, and Bone. I liked this one, but it ran into some resistance from my publisher. It was my editor, the brilliant Alane Salierno Mason, who came up with Townie, and I liked it immediately because in one word it addresses what in many ways the entire memoir is about, that chasm between our lives across the river and what my father was living on his green, walled-in campus. It’s the conversation with him I never had and wished I’d had before he died. I believe he died never fully knowing what our childhoods were really like, and while I did not write this book for him – I suspect I wrote it for it – I’m glad I finally leapt into that chasm, creatively.

Shaking: You announced last November, I think, that you’d be writing the screenplay for Townie. Could you fill in some of the detailsof that undertaking? For instance, do you plan to work with Vadim Perelman, as you did in House of Sand and Fog?

Dubus: At this point, it looks like I’ll be co-writing this with a professional screenwriter, a man who works closely with the producer who’s optioning the book. (She co-produced Revolutionary Road, among other notable projects). Anyway, I’m going to go into this slowly and carefully. It wasn’t easy, on an emotional level to write this as a book; I’m going to be doubly careful to try and be as honest and fair as I can be in this adaptation. I’m feeling very protective of my family in this process.

Vadim and I are friends, but I haven’t heard from him on this one, though he was interested in possibly adapting my novel, The Garden of Last Days, but that’s been optioned by the Scottish actor, Gerard Butler.

Shaking: In the third and final section of the book, which is called Holy Head, there’s a scene between you and your father. He’s wheelchair bound now after being hit by a car after he’d stopped on the highway to help some people in trouble. AND YOU WRITE: “Pop had made his peace with his crippling. Once, sitting straight in his wheelchair, he’d look over at me in his small dining room and said, “I’d stop on that highway again. Even knowing what I was going to lose, I would.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve learned so much.”

What now do you think he meant by that?

Dubus: A few years ago I stumbled across this prayer from the Russian novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “God, I always remember to thank you for the roses, but I keep forgetting to thank you for the thorns. Thank you for the thorns, God. Thank you for the thorns.” I think my father was saying that he’d learned so much on a spiritual level from all the physical suffering he’d endured as a man in a wheelchair that he couldn’t imagine having learned it in any other way.

Shaking: One of the abiding motifs of Townie, something the reader should appreciate deeply by the end, is the litany of Haverhill landmarks, that palpable sense of place, you create with such lines as, “I’d drive straight through the intersection, the Basilere Bridge on my right, Bradford shimmering on the other side,” and the bars, boxboard factory, train trellises, the Avenues, Captain Chris’s Restaurant. I’m thinking if somebody dropped me into Haverhill, I might be able to find my way around. What finally is your take on that town? How do you feel about it now?

Dubus: Well, I love that town the way Solzhenitsyn loved the thorns! It is also home to some people I’ve known since I was a kid, people I love as much as my own family. It’s also changed for the better in many ways since I lived there in the 70’s. That said, it still depresses me a bit when I’m there, though I suspect that has to do more with me than with it.

Shaking: Final question, when you, your brother and your lifelong friend Sam are digging the hole for your father’s coffin, your mother comes with sandwiches and you observe, “that many times over the years, my mother had told me Pop had been the love of her life. “He was a self-absorbed son a bitch, and we could never stay married, but he was the one.”

My question is do you think that your father’s self-absorption was just the other side of insecurity? Several times he puts lines from stories you tell him into his own fictions, and he’s perhaps too proud of your ability to fight. He flirts with co-eds when you’re at Ronnie D’s together, when you know he’s got another wife and new kids at home. What do you think he was trying to prove there?

Dubus: Man, this question would take an entire book to answer, one my father should probably write, not me. But, as you know, he died thirteen years ago next month, and I’m so grateful he left behind his masterful body of work. The honest answer is this: I have my theories about what he was trying to prove with his infidelities, etc., but I truly believe every human life, contrary to what so many self-help books tell us, is a nearly impenetrable mystery. I think you’re right that my father – charismatic and brilliant as he was – was also deeply insecure on many levels, but that’s just the beginning of who he was, and I’m hesitant to try and reduce him further. Our job as writers is simply to paint the gray, to try and capture the mystery – not solve it – as honestly and clearly as we can. I’ve tried to do that with Townie and my fiction.

Townie is now in paperback, published by W.W. Norton & Company.

Wayne Cresser is co-founder and editor emeritus of Shaking. His recent fiction can be found in All the Livelong Day (Motes Books) and The Ocean State Review, and in the next few weeks and months in The Sound and Literary Art Book and The Written Wardrobe at ModCloth.com.

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My War: Killing Time in Iraq

Rehann Rheel — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:37 +0000

My War: Killing Time in Iraq
By Colby Buzzell
Berkley Caliber, paperback

The mission flag in Iraq has been lowered, and the last of the troops are on their way out. A war that has existed for a decent part of my life has come to an end at last. Apropos to this enormous conclusion, I’ve decided to talk about My War: Killing Time in Iraq, a memoir written by Colby Buzzell.

In his late twenties, Colby looked back at his life and realized that he was almost thirty and had done absolutely nothing with his life. So he decided to join the Marine Corps…and ended up in the United States Army instead. Despite a rough start, Colby eventually became a machine gunner and was sent over to Iraq. With nothing better to do in his free time (of which is had a considerable amount), Colby divided his attention between a plethora of books, his journal, and his blog. It is the creation of those last two that made this book possible and provides readers with an insight into a country where violence has become a part of daily life.

I’ll admit that I was completely shocked by how much I enjoyed this book. I almost exclusively read fiction, and upon hearing that it was a memoir, I had my doubts. I guess have this stereotype that stories about real people are boring and dry. Sort of like reading a textbook (and I read enough of those already, thank you). But Colby’s tale is anything but dry; it’s colorful, and in more ways than one.

Take, for instance, the tone. Colby Buzzell, as a member of a counterculture, is disrespectful, anti-authority, and very “I don’t give a shit.” As such, he isn’t afraid to swear. A lot. I’m pretty sure more f bombs were dropped in his memoir than actual bombs were dropped in Iraq. But that’s one things that makes him seem so real. When people are in the moment, experiencing very genuine emotions, they really don’t give a thought to censoring their words.

And Colby’s story isn’t what you’d necessarily expect from a war memoir. Though he of course mentions the time spent “on the job” completing assorted missions, the memoir is more of a focus on what’s it’s like to be a human being in Iraq. Readers get an understanding of what exactly soldiers have to go through, and the hypocrisy of the whole situation. For example, Colby writes:

“Another good example of when knowing some Arabic was helpful is when we were doing a dismounted foot patrol through a low-rent part of town or something and everybody was just staring at us uncomfortably, you’d just bust out the smile and the wave and say, ‘Salaam aleikum.’

“It would totally ease up a tense situation, make us not seem as threatening to them, and they’d smile back and say, ‘Aleikum salaam’ (the return greeting). And that barrier between you and them would kinda go away. Then you got one of your interpreters to politely ask them where the fuck are those goddamn weapons caches that I know you fuckers are hiding?”

It’s moments like these that really hit you hard. Colby’s more than honest, he’s blunt. And that characteristic can be felt in the emotions created by Colby’s truths; the fact that the truth isn’t mitigated makes them all the stronger. Time and time again, Colby will tell us what the Army wants civilians to know and then and goes and tells us what they don’t want civilians to know. Such moments are so pervasive that My War sort of makes CBS News seem like a work of fiction.

______

Rehann Rheel was a Fall 2011 Shaking intern.

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Shaking Talks to Marion Winik

Rehann Rheel — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:00:15 +0000

While visiting York College of Pennsylvania to give a reading, Marion took the time to sit down with me and answer some questions. In a closet. I’m kidding, of course, but only barely. The room in which we seated ourselves is not only window-less, but quite small–calling it cozy would be a rather generous sentiment. Thanking the heavens that I do not suffer from claustrophobia (and hoping that Marion doesn’t either), we found our respective seats and began to chat.

Marion Winik is an assistant professor at the University of Baltimore. Her published books include The Glen Rock Book of the Dead, Above Us Only Sky, and First Comes Love. Many of Marion’s essays have also been published in magazines, including O, the Oprah Magazine; The New York Times Magazine; and Harper’s Bazaar.

If you’ve never read anything by Marion Winik, I must tell you that 1. You should, and 2. Her writing style makes it seem less like you’re reading something and more like you’re sitting down having a cup of coffee with a friend. “I’m never going to be a person who writes something that you can’t understand, like poetry you have to figure out. No, I want everyone to be perfectly clear on what I’m saying. I want it to be understood.”

Marion was wearing her black cowboy shirt complete with white tassels and black boots, and I wondered if she were ready to lasso a new essay or a bucking bronco. Considering I’d just gotten to the part in First Comes Love when she and Tony move to Austin, her choice of dress was very appropriate. It almost felt as though the woman before me had stepped out of the book that was nestled in my bag. As it turns out, the Marion I met in the essays I read is very much like the Marion of reality in that she is very conversational, honest, and more than willing to answer questions about herself. For which I was extremely grateful. This being my first interview, I was relieved to be talking with someone who was more than willing to share.

I nervously start off with the basic must-ask questions, trying to get a sense of who exactly Marion Winik is. So, naturally, I ask what music she’s into. Leaning back into the chair with her legs crossed, Marion responds, “I’m from the Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, Prince, David Bowie era. And I don’t think you can ever outgrow the music that you love when you’re young, so they’re all still really powerful for me.” I nod my head, firmly in agreement. I AM still an MmmBop fan after more than 13 years, after all. This common ground helps put me at ease, the qualities that make Marion’s writing so conversational taking the pressure off. Suddenly, I’m not interviewing a published author for my internship but chitchatting just for the sake of chitchatting.

Being a voracious reader, I am always on the look out for new books. And of course authors are some of the best readers. So I ask Marion what books are currently resting on her nightstand. This is apparently a very good question to ask, judging by the excitement that permeates her answer. As she responds, she eagerly leans forward in her chair. “I’m a book reviewer,” Marion explains, saying that she doesn’t often get to choose the books she reads (as Literary Studies minor, I totally get where she’s coming from). “I’m in the unusual position of having five books I’m dying to read.” These highly anticipated titles are The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, We The Animals by Justin Torres, Pulphead by John Jerimiah Sullivan, A Regular Guy by Mona Simpson, and Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir by Joyce Johnson. Her enthusiasm has me looking forward to semester break, to a time when I can add these to my nook and sit back and read. For fun.

Okay. So Marion Winik is into jamming to Prince, reading (tons and tons) of books, and writing her own. But what other things float her boat? The answer: Scrabble. Scrabble and cooking. Of the former, she says, “I’m really into a Scrabble and I thank god I’m into Scrabble because it’s something that I like to do that’s not bad for you and you do it with other people.” Of the latter, “The creativity of cooking is nothing like the creativity of writing, but you are creating something and I just love the earthiness of it and the sensuality of it.”

Now that I’ve got an idea of who Marion is as a person, I change gears to become acquainted with Marion the author. I find out that Marion has been a writer since her childhood. When she looks back at her old stuff now, she says, “Sometimes I’m too clever for my own good; I can see that in the stuff I did in high school.”

Marion’s writing has changed a lot from those days. Her first genre of choice was poetry, of which she had two collections published. As an adult, she found her niche in creative non-fiction. “Poetry had a lot to do with adolescence and coming of age and having people be able to know what was in my heart. And once that level of psychological development was over, my work, my gaze, became more outward. Creative nonfiction also has to do with letting people know what is in your heart but there’s also a lot of looking around.” Her explanation makes perfect sense to me. I can see a parallelism between the development of her writing and the development of the human being. After all, don’t human beings often go from self-centered, apathetic teenagers into world-conscious, concerned adults?

Her writing process has also changed over time. Take, for instance, her preferred time of day to write. “It’s funny how things keep changing, ‘cause I normally would have [said] I like best to work early in the morning. I’m starting to not feel that much…now I don’t care what time it is. Maybe it’s just when you’ve been doing something for decades and decades, you know, it’s less…it’s so natural to me to be writing in some or another it’s what I’ve done with a lot of my time—for 53 years. So the whole thing is less elaborate.”

Writing is clearly something precious to Marion, if she hasn’t tired of the trade after doing it for 53 years; 53 years of honesty, of sharing, of telling everybody everything. For me, writing about myself is such an enormous feat—and when I have accomplished this miracle, I can almost never share it. As I read some of Marion’s stories, I was constantly amazed at how honest she was, how willing she was to share with the reader who she is. It was mystifying. But Marion casually swats away the word “brave” in any reference to herself, saying that it’s natural for her; it’s just the way she is. However, she does admit that, “Some things did take courage. I felt nervous writing First Comes Love after Tony died. To tell our experiences without having him there to agree or disagree on it felt scary. So I often had moments of thinking ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘This is just too much’ and ‘Nobody will like this’ and ‘People will think this about me.’ But you know—because I’ve been down the road so many times now—I just think, ‘Well, if I’m thinking that, it probably just means that this is really good stuff.’”

It’s almost as if Marion signs a full-disclosure agreement with her readers. All the roads she’s taken—the ones that’ve led to joy, and the ones that’ve led to pain—are right there in black and white. All the Marions of the past, waiting to be met. “It’s kind of weird. All these different version of me are so out there and so alive. Like I’m such a different person than I was when I was younger, and that younger me that was…so reckless and so self destructive is such a live person because she’s so captured in all these stories. So I’m sort of coexisting with these versions of myself that are not really all that much like me anymore.”

This aspect has caused more than its fair share of problems, of course. Imagine having everything you’ve ever done in a nicely covered book just waiting for someone you’re arguing with to use it as a reference. “It does make it complicated to be living with every version of yourself that ever existed,” Marion reflects with a laugh.

Later that day, I attended Marion’s reading on campus. It was hosted in the gallery of Wolf Hall, which was just the right size—small enough to be intimate, but much larger than where we’d had our interview. For seating, there were metal folding chairs and an assortment of benches—a group of seats as eclectic as the readings Marion had chosen. As she read, tears of both laughter and sorrow were brought to my eyes, and sometimes I barely knew which was which. As a special treat, she read the title piece from her next book, The Little Sweetheart of the Boston Strangler, which is currently unpublished. I couldn’t help but feel disappointment when she’d finished reading. It’s a very familiar feeling of disappointment, one I experience every time I finish a really good book. Needless to say, I anxiously await the day I see her new book in stores—just a taste was most definitely not enough.

______

Rehann Rheel was a Fall 2011 Shaking intern.

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Silence Anonymous

Kristopher Jansma — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Every Thursday night I sit quietly on a folding chair with five Silence Addicts in room B-11 under the Episcopal Grace church on Broadway. The room’s walls and floors are covered with orange shag carpeting – amateur sound-proofing done years ago by the minister’s son, who apparently planned to record a Christian acoustic-rock album there. The members of Silence Anonymous and I softly sip coffee and smile at one another. No one speaks. Some are blissed-out – in true soundlessness for the first time all week – while others already seem agitated, knowing that, soon, they will have to break this peace and begin whispering about their struggles. Step One is admitting that they do have a problem and that their lives have become unmanageable.

Unlike these five, I am not an addict. Like most people in this city, I move from silence to noise and back again, on and off throughout the day, without much care or notice. I shower each morning and enjoy listening to my waterproof radio; they each only ever bathe in the tub – the constant spray of water echoing off of the tiles is like torture to them. On Saturday nights I typically go out with my friends to crowded bars and listen to music in the close-quarters of the Mercury Lounge and Joe’s Pub; these people sit at home with all the windows shut tight and covered with old pillows and comforters. I like to write pieces like this one down on Broadway in a bustling coffee shop and to clear my head I catch a movie in a public theatre while others around me chatter on; they spend hours in the city’s least popular museums and libraries, rushing away when they hear approaching footsteps. I go to work each day at New City Magazine and sit in my open cubicle, while the noises of the whole office assault my ears each day; they stuff envelopes for non-profits at home, sit for other people’s cats when they’re on vacation, and write code for websites in basements, alone.

Only recently I find myself bothered a little more by the footsteps in the apartment above me, the sound of pigeons in the alley, the hum of my laptop’s fan and the click of these keys as I type.

We continue to sit quietly.

Genevieve Warren, this SA group’s leader, allows three minutes of silence at the beginning of each meeting. She understands that, for many of the members, this small fix of total quiet is all that motivates them to find their way to B-11, through roaring sidewalks full of chattering people, over bridges and tunnels filled with honking cars, or on humming subways and screeching buses. This little orange room is twenty-square feet of sanctuary, she understands, in the wide, cacophonous world.

Silence Anonymous is not exactly like any of the familiar support-groups, though it shares their basic Twelve Step foundations. For one thing, there has never been a settled-upon name for its members. In other meetings, people stand up and say “Hi, my name is Bill and I’m…” something… an alcoholic, a compulsive gambler, an overeater. Various terms have been tried out – Calm-ers, Quiet-holics, Silence Addicts… but no consensus has ever been reached. The medical term for someone with a fear of noise is phonophobic, but nobody likes this term, because they aren’t afraid of noise, so much as they are driven desperately to fixes of pure and lasting silence. In this way they are closer to Narcotics Anonymous – the group’s name is derived from the substance desired, not the pathology of the desirers.

This particular SA group has been gathering for three years now – but only Carl has been there from the very beginning. Only he remembers Frieda, the previous group-leader. All the others have only worked with Genevieve. This is the only chapter for Manhattan and the four outer boroughs – not because there aren’t many more sufferers, but because they tend to seek seclusion. The more I cover these meetings the more I spot them: the ghostly lady down the hall in my apartment who never says hello in the elevator; the guy at my office who all day long wears earbuds, from which I never hear a single note; the man in the blue suit that goes to the 24-hour grocery store at 4 AM when he knows almost no one will be there.

Genevieve Warren is a social worker – a patient young woman who wears colorful shawls – and besides me, the only person in the room who is not addicted to silence. On her advice I’ve never declared myself as a reporter; I remaian observer, silent and anonymous.

Genevieve speaks in a calm level tone that has taken years to perfect. A single raised syllable can send a newer member scrambling for the door. Everyone in the room has rushed out at least once: panting, clasping their hands to their ears. The rule is that you can leave at any time, but you have to close the door behind you, otherwise the anxiety can crash over the whole group like a wave.

Even the coffee is brewed before they arrive – the percolator agitates.

The chief obstacle, as you can easily imagine, is how to foster group unity when they are, largely, mute. Genevieve encourages everyone to speak “out-soft,” as opposed to “out-loud.” Of course, a few have taught themselves sign language, but Genevieve strongly discourages it except as a last resort. The temptation is too great – a whole silent language? Where one can be perfectly understood without a single decibel of noise? She pushes them to write or draw on the white board, which is carefully stocked with No-Squeak markers, and so often the meetings become like extended games of charades, although the term “games” may be misleading. These people’s tales are beyond terrible – long sagas of bruised relationships and fractured families and of incredible stretches of silence-abuse and lonely years of shaky withdrawal.

Many have tried to run off to live in the depths of the woods where even the babbling of brooks, the cries of birds, and the rustling of leaves betrays them.

Carl, having been there the longest, is the de facto second-in-command. He lives his life as an example to the others, to give them hope that someday, they too will be able to live in an apartment without soundproofing. They too can own a washer and dryer, or watch television without the close-captioning on. They can make cappuccinos with real steamed milk. But even Carl still has bad days.

“Last week I found this set of ear-plugs here in one of my old coats,” he says softly, patting his side pocket. “I was going to throw them away, but then I thought, ‘I’ll keep them. Just in case.’ But then all day at work, I just couldn’t focus. I kept thinking I could put them in, just for a second. Just until the guy in the break room turns off the radio…” He winces, the memory still painful, “But then I thought about Ralph.”

Ralph was a member until four months ago, when his apartment building caught fire with him inside it. He was sleeping with his earplugs in and never heard the alarm.

Carl grits his teeth. “I went and flushed those damn plugs right down the toilet.

Everyone nods, knowingly.

Alice and Jonas pat their hands together noiselessly, which is how they clap. After another sweet moment of silence, Genevieve coaxes Jonas to share.

Jonas is the newest member. He’s only been coming for three weeks and he’s still in really bad shape. He goes up to the board and writes “My name is Jonas and I am an addict,” then turns with a wan smile and waves his hand at the group. Everyone waves back. Jonas seems exhausted; everyone can tell he’s only barely made it in. He looks hesitantly at Genevieve, as if hoping that she will let him sit down again, but she reaches a soothing hand out of her shawl and lays it on his shoulder. A small, silent squeeze.

With his eyes closed, he draws a screwdriver on the board. Everyone stirs silently. Teresa is so upset that she actually releases a tiny, but audible, peep – quickly clamping her hand over her mouth as the others suck in sharply. For a minute it seems like there might be a cascade, but then it settles as everyone breathes deep, inaudible breaths.

Jonas mimes the rest of his story. Cradling an imaginary screwdriver in his hands, running his fingers along its length, raising his shaking hands to his left ear – knuckles white in anticipation of both the pain and the sweet release to follow. Self-deafening. Nearly everyone has been at this dark door before, at least once. The only one to go through with it is Gerald, who sits across the circle. We all look at him, because Gerald is living proof that these extreme measures are not worthwhile.

It happened before he joined SA. Gerald was a lab technician at a hospital. He snapped one afternoon, locked himself in a supply closet, and jammed a lancet into his left aural canal. He passed out from shock before he could get to the other ear and then collapsed. It was two hours before someone found him. Not only did he suffer a bad infection, but it grazed the lower part of his temporal lobe and now he has problems remembering names. Worse, to this day he still hears a constant drone in the damaged ear. He’s said it is unmaskable. Undrownable. He will never know silence again. It is a fate worse than death, most of them would agree, but with support, Gerald soldiers on.

Jonas breaks down and Gerald gets up and crosses the circle. He takes Jonas into his big bear arms and hugs him. It all lasts for just a few moments before they part, but both men seem relieved. They are each trying hard not to sniffle.

Next up is Alice, who is only twenty-three. She grew up in an all-deaf-community outside of Rochester, with two deaf parents. In the past, she’s told us about how her parents, like a lot of people in the community, refuse to see themselves as handicapped. They see deafness as a lifestyle choice, which is empowering, but many have a lot of trouble raising children who turn out not to be deaf. She’s told us before about friends of hers, whose parents had surgeries done on them in secret to destroy their ear drums in childhood – some with means just as crude as the screwdriver. Her own parents could not bring themselves to do it. Still, they never quite accepted her ability to hear, and she was always the black sheep of the family. For years and years she pretended not to be able to hear, and spoke only in sign language, and her parents were uneasily happy with this arrangement.

Until Alice fell in love with a bright young physics student at the University named Winston, and saw him in secret for months. She had lied to Winston; told him that she was deaf too. He had learned sign language and bought himself noise-cancelling headphones so that he could understand her world better. For a time, she was deliriously happy, but eventually the day came when Winston clasped his hands together in front of his heart and signed “Will you marry me?” She signed back yes, knowing she had no choice but to finally bring him home to meet her parents.

There was an epic, silent fight.

How could she be with a man that could hear? How did they intend to raise the children? Didn’t she respect their way of life? Hadn’t they always done everything they could to make her happy without sound? Why did she feel she needed to go outside their world to find her happiness?

“What is happening?” Winston kept asking, forgetting to sign, as they signed faster than he could read. “What is the problem with these people?”

Alicelost her temper and then she lost everything.

“Their problem is you’ll never understand this world.”

It was the first time she’d ever slipped up in front of him. She had denied being able to hear for so long she nearly believed that she couldn’t. Winston, feeling betrayed, stormed off; Alice ran away from home and never returned. Now she lives alone inAstoriaand every day she longs for the intense silences of childhood.

“I lost my job,” she whimpers softly. She’s been temping at Phillips & Hargrove, a Midtown law firm. “My boss told me to photocopy a 2200 page report. He said I had to stay in there and watch it run, so it didn’t jam.”

There is visible shifting in the circle at the mere thought of being shut up in a tiny room with the violent loudness of a photocopier.

“Did you explain your problem to him?” Genevieve asks.

Alice ferociously chews her hair in response. Only rarely is anyone able to explain silence-addiction to employers, co-workers, or even family members. There are all the usual difficulties with discussing dependencies, plus few have ever heard of it, so people tend to think it is made up. But beyond this, discussing it means just that – a discussion – which might be quite loud, as we “normal” people tend to raise our voices when we’re confused or skeptical.

There is a rabid scribbling on a pad, as Teresa brings up, as she always does, her feelings that SA members should be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but this is a dead-end. Everyone is loathe to have doctors officially label them as hyperacoustic, or phonophobic, and the SA program does not encourage this. Their disease is their compulsion for silence, not a fear of noise. The distinction is subtle but vital. An alcoholic craves the obliteration of the drink, more than they fear sobriety itself. Just as an alcoholic can be legally fired for being drunk on the job, so can a Silence Addict be fired for letting their cravings for silence interfere with their ability to do what their own jobs require. Most of them have had a hard time finding quiet jobs – Teresa makes a living now as a librarian; Gerald is a groundskeeper. Carl processes claims for the IRS. Jonas is a freelance copy editor, communicating via email and text message only, always working from home.

Alice agrees to sit with Genevieve after and go over the help-wanted ads for a little while, looking for jobs she might be able to handle at this stage in the game. Alice is young and headstrong, still convinced that she should be able to lead a totally normal life. Genevieve has told me, privately, that each week she worries Alice might not come back. Older members like Teresa tend to be unintentionally condescending, and Alice has been steaming for weeks. Usually being angry with someone involves noise – shouting, banging, screaming… but it’s far more terrifying to watch someone like Alice do it in total silence: pulling at hair, opening her mouth wide but making no noise at all, blinking furiously, flashing middle fingers silently in the air.

Alice returns to her chair to sulk and Teresa stands up. She is Gerald’s wife, a tall Hispanic woman who grew up in the Bronx. She met Gerald in B-11, just about a six months ago and a month later they had a beautiful wedding up in Maine, out on a little island past another little island, in the middle of a wide wooded clearing. Carl and Ralph both came up. Ralph had become aUniversalLifeChurchminister, and led the entire ceremony without a single word. Instead of saying “I do,” they put their ears to each other’s hearts, and listened to the ever-present pumping. A reminder that God doesn’t want them to live in a silent world. Heaven isn’t a silent place, Teresa maintains, whenever the discussion turns that way. In the afterlife that she believes in, she wants to be able to rejoice in the music of the spheres and the trumpeting of the angels.

Teresa has good news tonight, from the wide smile on her face. She slides her hands along the sides of her belly and Gerald grins proudly. They have been trying to conceive for six months now, with no luck, but tonight it seems they have made a breakthrough.

“What wonderful news!” Genevieve says, so excited that she comes dangerously close to the upper-decibels. Jonas begins to scratch at his arm, but his eyes are transfixed on Teresa’s belly.

But immediately, Alice wants to know, “How are you going to raise it?” There’s a heavy, knowing edge to her whisper.

Jonas’s toes begin to tap.

Teresa looks to Gerald for strength and speaks softly. “We both grew up here in the city. Crowded tenements with thin walls. Noise all day and all night. Big families. Crying babies. Barking dogs.”

Jonas is shivering now. Genevieve sees it happening. She offers him a hand from under her shawl, but he is too distracted by his growing craving to notice.

“Gerald’s uncle has a cabin out in the Tetons. It won’t be perfect, right? There’s coyotes, lots of wind, loggers… and no SA groups outside ofJackson Hole. But we don’t want our child to grow up in the city like we did.”

Alice sneers and then at full, normal volume says, “If you love her, you’ll let her live in the real world.”

That’s all Jonas can take. He breaks for the door, throwing himself through it, not even getting it to shut behind him and the noise of radiators banging in the other basement rooms suddenly echoes through our little room. Even I find myself getting a little antsy at the invading sounds.

Carl is Jonas’s sponsor, so he stands up, nods confidently to the others, and goes after him. They need to be sure Jonas doesn’t try to repeat his earlier attempt. Alicelooks deeply sorry for having shouted – she keeps mouthing the words “I’m sorry” to the others. Everyone turns to Genevieve, looking for some order to be restored.

“Teresa, Gerald, that’s truly fantastic news. I know that you will both be wonderful parents and that you will do what is best for your child. Can we all agree to keep the discussion open? Alice, maybe next week you can share your thoughts with us in greater detail?”

Alice nods quickly. Genevieve is a master – just ten minutes ago it seemed like they might never get Alice back again, but now she increased Alice’s stake in the group, made her feel that she can bring her experiences to bear on the lives of Teresa, Gerald, and their unborn child. This is how it works. This is how a community is forged.

A weird silence, even for this group, fills the room. All eyes turn to me. I’m the only one in the room who hasn’t spoken. Again. This happens every night and yet I am inevitably so taken up in their stories that I forget I will always be the last one.

“You have to admit you have a problem,” Teresa says soothingly. “It’s a hard step but you have to take it first.”

The thing is, I do have a problem, though it isn’t an addiction to silence. I have an addiction to them.

For months now I have been coming to these meetings, listening to their stories. I think about them all week long. I know that next week, in line at the bakery I will be worrying about Alice and trying to think of who I know that might hire her. I’ll shudder whenever I pick up a screwdriver and remember how Jonas looked tonight. I’ll be out with my girlfriend and wondering if Gerald and Theresa’s child will be a boy or a girl. I’ll be looking out for Carl, especially, as he is the most likely of them all to be out and about in the wide, loud, world. I’ll lie awake at night thinking about what I’ll do if I run into him at a bar, or in the park. Would I tell him the truth?

I want to tell them all the truth, right there, in B-11. That I’m an imposter. A spy. A voyeur. That I won’t be coming back next week because my story has been called in by the powers-that-be at New City Magazine. But I can’t. If they knew the truth, they’d be furious and feel betrayed. It would reverse so much of the progress they’re making tonight, and that they’ve made all month. Sick with silent guilt, I stand up and gave them each a soft wave in farewell.

Gerald, Teresa, Alice, and even Genevieve all wave back, thinking I am about to begin my confession.

“I—” I begin to speak, struggling to keep my tone low. “I just want to thank you all for letting me be a part of your group these past few weeks.”

I’ve interviewed death row inmates, international celebrities, and ten-term Congressmen. None of them has ever left me this tongue-tied. I stall out and, red-faced, sit down.

Gerald reaches over and takes my hand. “You’re going to be OK,” he says, “You’re so young. God. I think how different my life could be – how much time I wouldn’t have wasted – if I could have seen my problem so young.”

I thank him, earnestly, and everyone stands to join hands for the final circle. We recite the Twelve Steps in a chorus of whispers. Right during Step Eight – we will make amends to those we’ve harmed – Jonas and Carl re-enter the room and join the circle. Both look exhausted, but Jonas seems glad to be back.

We start the recitation over. There is another round of hugs and the meeting ends.

Everyone breaks into small, soft, satellite conversations. Alice and Jonas flash sign language mischievously in the corner, as she tries to cheer him up. It seems to be working – Jonas is shy butAliceis pushy enough to get through. Carl wants to hear more about the baby from Teresa, so the older folks gather around to whisper about pregnancy tips. Carl dares to press his ear to her stomach to hear the fetal heartbeat. They talk about trying to put headphones on her belly and playing music.

Genevieve finds me by the white board, watching.

“This is your last night?” she asks quietly. She knows it is. “Will you miss us?”

I will, and I nod vigorously. It always takes me a moment to remember that I don’t have to use non-verbal communication with her.

“When will the article be out?” she asks, meaning the article.

“A few weeks, if my editor doesn’t jam me up about it.” I look out at the small, soft-spoken family. Everyone is not alone for the first time in seven long days. “You think they’ll be pissed off when they read it?”

Genevieve nods. “They will.”

“I won’t mention that you knew I was a reporter,” I whisper quickly.

She smiles. “I will tell them myself. We can’t have secrets.”

“They’re not going to understand,” I sigh.

“They’re capable of so much more than they think they are. It’s important to let the world know that they’re out there. It’s important not to hide who they are and not to let their addiction define them. What’s the Twelfth Step?”

“‘Having had this spiritual awakening, we try to carry this message to others,’” I say.

“If we get even one new member because of your article, then it’ll be worth it. Even if they ask me to leave the group.”

Genevieve takes my fingers into her ever-patient hand and we gaze out over the five of them, many of whom have unknowingly slipped into fully audible speech in their excitement to be around others like themselves. It won’t last long. Soon they’ll catch themselves and clam up. Soon they’ll say goodbye and slip out – sad to go, but happy to know that tonight they’ll be able to get to sleep – some without ear plugs – and dream of conversations with forgotten family members and a future that is brighter, better, and full of sound.

__________________________________________________________

Kristopher Jansma is a writer and teacher living in Manhattan. His debut novel, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards will be published by Viking Press in 2013. He has studied The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and has an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. He is a full-time Lecturer at Manhattanville College and also teaches at SUNY Purchase. Recently, his short story “A Summer Wedding” won 2^nd prize in The Blue Mesa Review’s 2011 Fiction Contest, judged by writer Lori Ostlund. His essays and fiction can also be found on The Millions, ASweetLife.org, The 322 Review, Opium Magazine, The Columbia Spectator, and The (Somewhat) Complete Works of Kristopher Jansma. You can also find him on Facebook.

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There and Back Again: An Author’s Tale

Rehann Rheel — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:38:12 +0000

Try, for a moment, to imagine a world without J.R.R. Tolkien. There would be no Frodo, no Shire, no Gandalf. But what else would disappear without this author? By my thinking, if Tolkien goes, so goes Prachett, Pullman, and…Rowling. Sure there were other fantasy authors during Tolkien’s time (the Inklings wouldn’t have been much of a club with only one person, after all). But Tolkien was a revolutionary when it came to this sort of thing. And a world without dragons, wizards, and Platform 9 ¾ is most definitely not a world I want to live in.

On January 3rd, 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein in a part of South Africa to Arthur Reuel Tolkien and Mabel Suffield Tolkien. When Tolkien was only three, his father died rheumatic fever. Just nine years later, his mother died of acute diabetes.

Despite his difficulties, Tolkien was still able to attend Exeter College in Oxford, where he studied English Language and Literature. Afterwards, Tolkien held jobs such as Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Rawlinson and Boworth. In addition, Tolkien made many literary contributions. He produced A Middle English Vocabulary. He translated “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” “Pearl,” and “Sir Orfeo.” And, of course, he wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, its prequel. But I think one of Tolkien’s most important works is probably his lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.”

Okay. So, I’ve read a lot of books written during the Regency era (I know it may seem like I’m getting off topic here, but just give me a second). And one thing I’ve noticed in a few of them is a disregard—more than a disregard, a disrespect—for novels. Whenever someone actually admits to—gasp—reading novels, the reaction they receive is usually something like this: “Hold the phone. You actually READ that trash?”

Before Tolkien wrote “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” the fantasy literature was to the 1950s as a novel was to 1800s. Though Beowulf is viewed today as this literary masterpiece, back then it was just a bit of history. People of the time completely ignored the fantasy aspects of the piece, considering it childish for dealing with non-existent monsters instead of real enemies. But Tolkien argued against this take. He believed that such things as the dragon and Grendel were actually key points, that critics should take a closer look at these characters. He saw that these characters were more than fictional creatures that scared the bejesus out of people. They had meaning. Without this revolutionary standpoint, high school students would almost surely be wondering “Beo-what?” and The Boy Who Lived might be The Boy Who Was Never Created.

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The Red Sari

Karen Salyer McElmurray — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:54:05 +0000

Cody Black says that running away isn’t about highways and strangers you care about more than friends, that it’s about something else inside you that you love so much it hurts, hurts enough to haunt you the rest of your life. And I’ve told him that I was haunted only when I pleased and that roads out equaled horizons, and horizons meant you could be anything at all. But he was right. I was haunted. Even nearly twenty years later, Ruby was a ghost for me in one more rented room. I’d seen rented rooms a plenty. In Florida. In Arizona, and all the way to the great Northwest. Up in New England, then back places south again. Folks I’ve met have wondered at me. Me, a woman alone, traveling the roads here and back and away, but it’s simple. I wanted nothing to do with Kentucky, with the place that made me, even if some days it was memory that kept me going.

I’d worked my shifts plenty of places and used my sixth sense to picked the customers who needed bad advice the most. They always looked hangdog, the ones I’d pick. They’d nod at me, real serious, after I’d slip my card underneath their drinks. Waydean Loving. Prophet Extraordinaire! I’d meet them later at the bar and nod and say yes and yes all over again as they went on about wedding rings lost in the weeds or husbands that were as bad as the day they’d married them. Cards, just an ordinary old poker deck, were twenty. Tarot, my special tiny deck with Queens and Kings of Scotland, was thirty. And for fifty, I’d hold hands with them and wait until one or the other of us said they felt vibes flowing from skin to skin to skin. What should it feel like, some mascara-clotted woman would say and I’d tell her to keep her eyes shut, that it would feel something like an electric fence in a meadow, and I’d study her. I’d think about what it is Ruby would do and that’s where the difference in me and the past came through. I’d tell this blonde-headed woman and her glitter nails just what I wanted her to know, none of it necessarily the truth.

Telling futures brought Cody Black to my room at the Red Sari, a room that smelled of carpet and fresh-made dal. Live kind of plain, don’t you, girl, Cody said that first time I brought him up there. He pointed at my suitcase in the corner and the dresser with my moon-and-stars box. The second time he visited I showed him post cards. Ones I’d gotten from Della over the years, and also a picture of me and my 1967 Dodge Dart and the torn out-page from an old ladies magazine I kept like it was gospel:

Pages 18-23. Ladies Stories, Serialized. May 12, 1947. Far from Home. Chapter I

It was a cold, November night in 1890 when I woke to some sound I didn’t know. I thought it was Nethaladia whispering fortunes her sleep. It’s been fifteen years since she stepped off the boat from Germany and more since we wed but she still wakes me with predictions about love or fear or not. I moved closer to her and hid my face in her hair. Outside on the porch, I the moon was gone. Shadows moved. I knew the woods were full of trees of heaven

The third time we sat around on the carpet in front of the television with the sound off as I laid out my best deck of cards for a Celtic cross. He wasn’t haven’t a bit of it. Waydean Loving, he said. You don’t know what you’re up to for breakfast tomorrow, not to say where I’m headed in a year and day. He laid back on the floor and laughed until I was mad enough to kick him out for good. But I didn’t.

Cody and I weren’t lovers yet, but we’d moved beyond the just-friends-wanting-to-kiss-but-not days. Nights we lay spooned on the queen-sized bed and I studied the varieties of tattoos on the hidden plains of his skin. Waterfalls made of purples and blues. Faces of rock stars. Cody was still young, twelve years younger than me, and I flinched when his hands reached to unveil me. He wanted to unzip, unbutton me in front the late-night television light of reality shows. I liked seeing him that way, his skin shiny, the expanse of his tattooed body in blue light.

“You’re beautiful, Waydean,” he said and kissed the ends of my fingers.

Those fingers against him, their bitten selves. “You’re are, too,” I said, to change the subject, but I heard him laugh.

“You don’t call a boy pretty, Waydean.” He turned on his back and I turned with him, touched the stubble on his face.

The truth was he didn’t have a pretty bone in body, but I’d known he was beautiful the first minute I laid eyes on him. Ahead of me in line for an application form for a job at Willy’s Wonderama, like I was.

Willy’s Wonderama. Museum Under Re-construction and We Need You! Help Save the Two-Trunked Elephants! The Hand-Dried Pygmies! The Albino Dwarves! And him. I’d seen his kind. More tattoos than I could count. Crown-of-thorn black vines leading to his upper body, a swastika on the right side of his neck, then the face of Jimi Hendrix on one upper arm. Across the application line I could see a few inky words about Peace and Love, and beside that, script that I thought said something about the Harmonic Convergence. But above it all, a face without a mark on it, the gentlest face I’d seen, with eyes as clear as amber.

“When I look at you, Waydean,” he said now, his voice more serious than I wanted. “I feel like I see all of myself.”

I didn’t have to answer. The cell phone I seldom used began to ring and I reached over to turn it off. I pulled the covers up around my shoulders.

“And one more thing,” he commented. He looked at me out the corners of his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Your cell,” he said. “I don’t know why you keep one.”

“Well,” I said and pulled the sheet up over my head.

“And dancing,” he said. “I couldn’t make you dance if I set your feet on fire.”

I stayed hid.

“I could say it was like you dropped from nowhere,” he went on.

“Could?”

“But then I’d want to know where nowhere was.” He tickled me through the covers. “And you’re not about to tell me that one.”

He was right. I knew his scents and I knew the paths his hands could travel. I’d lie next to him in my tee shirt and sock feet, let him run his hands up inside, around, down my back along the insides of my legs, but not my most secret places. I wasn’t ready to show him me, my nooks and crannies. My too-big feet, for one thing. The ones Ruby said were a gift from on high. She gave me silver nail polish for them. Kicked off her high heels and stretched her arms way up. Make them toes shine, honey, she said and grabbed my hands. She looked like a movie star, a goddess maybe. And me, my feet as big as whales. A gift? I didn’t think so.

“Don’t you think,” I asked Cody. I was lying with my arms beneath my head now and I let the sentence trails away.

“I try to, now and then.” He smiled in that lopsided way.

“I did have a question,” I said and I did have. I’d been thinking about music in the Old City on a Friday night. An Indian restaurant with a sitar and a dancer. I’d been thinking about fun and being antsy for that, of late.

“I’m listening,” he said, but he wasn’t. He was studying my face, his face so close up I could count the piercings, nose to ear and back.

“Never mind.” I sat up, the sheet around me.

“What are fixing to talk about that’s so hard?” Words drifted out his mouth like smoke, and that made me nervous. It was like an old romance movie.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

“I mean, I can tell.” He hold on to a strand of my hair.

“Tell what?”

“That you’re about to hit the road. On to the next pin on the map.”

“When have I said a word about that?”

“It isn’t about words, Ruby.” He studied me, nothing amused his face now.

“Then let the body talk.” I grabbed his hand, turned it palm up. “Your fortune, Cody Black.”

“We’ve been through that one,” he said and tugged his hand back.

I traced his lifeline anyway. “Right here, now,” I began.

“I know what you see.” He shoved the hand under the covers. “And I know good and well what you don’t.”

He’d been talking about that more lately. About us. Hinting at the future and me in any given conversation.

“Waydean Loving,” he called after me as I got up and headed toward the bathroom and a shower to drown him out. “You ever live up to your name? Ever love a living soul, for real?”

I turned on as much hot water as I could stand. Raised my face to it, felt it enter my pores. The truth was I didn’t know if I had ever loved anyone, least of all a man who wanted me. Wanted to touch me, not just the surface of my skin, not just the temporary color of my hair. I’d been there, done that. Boys. Boys with their spiky hair and their spikier tattoos. Their soft mouths and their questions.

“You gonna marinate yourself in there, Waydean?” He called to me from the next room and I hummed aloud to drown his words. Hold me in the morning time, hold me at night. That song about some place called Inez. The song I’d heard so often when I was a girl.

I hushed.

The water was falling in tiny pellets that stung, and I liked it. Liked how the wet heat made everything else drift off, his voice, the outside sounds of Knoxville streets and cars, drills and hammers and voices from the museum in my head each day. Jack? Hey, you. Where’s this one go? I raised my face to the water again and that was when I heard it the very first time.

Words with the rusty taste of Red Sari water. A Ruby voice. Just who are you, miss? My insides seized up and I shook my head. I’d worked a long day, yesterday, then been up all night, on the town with Cody Black. That was what caffeine and cheap red wine did for you. Made you hear things. Spoiled your dinner before you’d had it and left a bad taste in your mouth besides. I reached back, wrung out my hair and they hit me again like an ice-cold interruption in a nice, hot shower. Who or what, I mean? Words again, with my eyes open and the water pelting into them. Steam was so thick in the shower stall I had to push it aside to reach for the faucet. Words collided with the groan of the pipes as the water shut down. The shower trickled still, a tiny stream I never could shut off.

I stood on a towel, my eyes closed. I reached and wiped at the steam on the mirror above the bathroom sink, kept my eyes shut. I’d seen myself often enough and saw myself now. Hair dyed deep red and the roots already coming in, iron-grey and threaded with black. My eyebrows wild and unplucked. A hole in the side of my nose where a nose ring didn’t work out. A forty something woman, in a room somewhere new with a twenty-something man who wanted to be kind, and how mad that made me. So pissed off I didn’t open my eyes even when the voice circled in again. One word, this time. Inez. Inez. Inez. A steady drip of a word that wouldn’t quit. Aren’t you listening?

I shivered when the bathroom door nudged open.

“Look at the steam in there, Waydean. You alright?”

The door swung back but not before I’d grabbed a towel and draped myself with it. I stood drying myself off.

“Waydean?” Cody took a corner of the towel, raised it to my forehead, dried my eyes.

I was in a bathrobe and sitting on the edge of the bed and he was holding my face with his two hands and promising me he’d listen, not push me down some highway I wasn’t ready to travel, listen more about the roads I’d traveled without him. But I shut the motel room door after him, waited until I felt him gone. You’ll come to who you are, the rusty words said and I felt like crying as I turned them over inside my own mouth. I wouldn’t cry, not for her or anyone else. My skin was still tender when I made him leave.

But it didn’t quit, even then. She kept right on talking and I knew the words. I knew as well as I was breathing who had said them. Ruby Loving. Her, here. What had she said that last minute as I’d stood inside the bathroom steam and hugged myself. Palms and crystals and the irises of eyes. I shook myself hard, like a dog shaking off water, but I heard her voice again, plain as day. Love has power, girl, if you know where to look.

Love. I knew about that one. About love and crossroads and back roads and on from there. Love was a sign, a poster on a wall. Nothing, I told myself, to do with who and what I was. That wasn’t what bothered me most. It was how, after Cody left, I slept long and hard, and I dreamed and then woke hearing her again, a ghost-voice that made me shiver all over again. You’ll come to yourself, Waydean. And you’ll come back to me. And Inez. I’d heard that name often enough when I was a child, but it meant no more to me now than it ever had.

_____________________________________

Karen Salyer McElmurray is the author of The Motel of the Stars (Sarabande Books), nominated for The Weatherford Prize in Fiction, a Lit Life Novel of the Year, and named Editor’s Pick by Oxford American. She is also the author of Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey, recipient of the AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction, as well as Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. Associate Professor in Creative Writing at Georgia College and State University, McElmurray is Creative Nonfiction Editor for Arts and Letters: A Journal of Contemporary Culture. “The Red Sari” is from Wanting Inez, her newest novel.

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Boycott Chameleon Club Lancaster, PA

jharlacher — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:29:56 +0000

Greetings Shaking followers. This is my first foray into the Shaking blog, but I feel that I deliver an important message. This is a blog about music and literature. We value music as and artistic endeavor. For those of you in the Lancaster, PA region, the Chameleon Club may be synonymous with the live music experience. While this might be the closest venue to experience music locally, it is far from the best choice.

There are two main issues with this club. The first is the very real chance that you will not see the band that you have paid to see. It is a regular practice at the Chameleon Club to post a time that doors open and then delay that time for a half hour or more. This means that if you show up to see the opening band (or in the case of no opener, the headlining band), you may not be able to get into the club in time to see the band you came to see. Again, this delay supersedes any published door times, so you may think that by showing up 45 minutes early to see the opening band you are fine—you may be disappointed.

When you enter the club, you will be greeted to questionable sound quality. Much of this depends on the expertise of the soundman that your band brings. If they rely on the house soundman, cross your fingers. Once the band starts, you can be assured that you will encounter what can best be described as over-zealous security. Meat-head security guards will bowl over well-behaved bystanders in order to remove offenders who dance too vigorously or who engage in dancing that seems vaguely threatening. This means that folks at a hardcore show can be ejected for simply dancing or moshing as one would at a hardcore show. This also means that folks can be ejected for swatting flies too aggressively at a more jammy show. I’m betting that as I write this, bystanders are being thrust aside by security as skanking fans are being forcibly removed for dancing to Reel Big Fish.

I’ve been there and I’ve seen it. After hundreds of shows up and down the east coast, and quite a few in the mid-west, I’ve never seen a club that has this lack of regard for its patrons. Beyond the lack of respect for fans, there is a lack of respect for the musicians. When I complained this past Saturday night that I was not allowed into the club in time to see the beginning of Hank3′s set, I was told by security that I shouldn’t be concerned because I “only missed a few songs” and “he does three and a half hours.” The security guard concluded that my arguing was crazy in that I was only missing more songs. I think that any music fan understands that a live show isn’t just about what songs we hear. If it were only about the songs, we could easily stay home and listen to CDs. It’s about the experience of seeing a band live. I saw Hank3 in Baltimore three days prior to the Chameleon show. It was a different set. At one point during the show a handicapped gentleman was brought on stage to get a better view. I was able to watch his reactions. Later, the bass player connected with someone close to the front and stuck out his tongue. I don’t know what this was about, but I know it was part of my experience of the show. Finally, I knew from my vantage way in the back at the Chameleon that Hank3 had put together a different set for Lancaster than I had seen in Baltimore. By not allowing fans inside to see the entire set, and responding as if songs were the only commodity that matters, the staff of the Chameleon Club devalued the live music experience for both patron and artist.

If you are local, please like by page on Facebook. Search, Chameleon Club Boycott. Let’s show this club that music matters more than drawing warm bodies to purchase alcohol.

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R.A. “Stovetop” Lawson takes home Gulf Historical Association Prize

Wayne Cresser — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 23:02:43 +0000

Shaking recognizes R. A. (Stovetop) Lawson as the winner of the Michael V.R. Thomason Prize for best book on Gulf South and/or Caribbean History for 2010-2011. Lawson is one of Shaking’s own: one- time non-fiction contributing editor, contributor and friend of all things Shaking. Lawson won for his book, Jim Crow’s Counter-Culture: The Blues & Black Southerners 1890-1945 (LSU Press 2010). The prize was given by the Gulf Historical Association which annually recognizes the best historical scholarship about the Gulf South and Caribbean Basin.

In Jim Crow’s Counter- Culture, Lawson’s explores how by both accommodating and resisting Jim Crow Life, the blues musicians of the early 20^th century created a countercultural response to segregation. Their response, he contends, nurtured ideas of both individuality and citizenship. Lawson accepted the honor at the GHA’s 2011 annual conference meeting in Pensacola Beach, Florida last month.

You can read his latest blog here: http://shakinglikeamountain.com/2010/12/01/stoverop/

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Literary domains I own but haven’t used. Help.

the editors — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 14:00:48 +0000

This is a guest post by CalebJ Ross (also known as Caleb Ross, to people who hate Js) as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin and novella, As a Machine and Parts, in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contacthim. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the CalebJ RossblogRSSfeed. Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com /rosscaleb. Circle him on Google+.

A domain name can be enough to prompt some crazy ideas for a website. I imagine the owners of www.bookcoverarchive.com might have thought the domain an interesting mix of words and then later thought, “You know, we have something here. People like book covers. Let’s archive book covers.” (okay, they were probably more focused than that). Then there’s those whose intentions are pure, but end up with an unfortunate address.

I am certainly not immune to the lure of a good domain name. In fact, I still kick myself for not grabbing calebross.com long ago when I could have (interesting note: the reason I go by Caleb J. Ross is entirely because calebross.com was already taken; my identity has been determined by the almighty internet!).

Domain sickness does not stop with my name. I’ve registered a few others, which I’ll share here in hopes of finding good literary uses for them. If anyone wants on board to help develop one of these sites, contact me.

www.TheSocialMediaAuthor.com

I bought this one thinking I would capitalize on my growing position as what some would call a social media know-it-all (and most would call a social media annoyance). Those some people probably don’t care about me capitalizing on that position. So, this domain sits, unused.

What is the potential literary use? This site could be used as a hub or repository for social media information for authors. I imagine all of the blogs, podcasts, and online magazines that I read being aggregated in a single place for other authors to benefit from. How-to docs and videos would also have a purpose here. Aggregated Twitter streams, author website links, and even books on social media and interviews with their authors could all be collected at TheSocialMediaAuthor.com

www.NoirLiterature.com, www.NoirAuthor.com, and www.NeoNoir.org

I bought each of these wanting to someday use them to funnel readers of noir literature to some as-yet-built hub. My hope was that as the authors of The Velvet reading and writing forums continued to get better and more notable there would sprout a need for a distinct sister site.

What is the potential literary use? Obviously, the dream of a noir literature hub is what keeps these domains alive. Similar to what I would assume TheSocialMediaAuthor.com would be used for these noir themed domains could be a central repository for appropriate content.

www.BlogArticleWriters.com and www.BlogContentWriters.com

A friend and I thought of starting a content writing business that would allow independent writers to offer content writing services to companies and bloggers looking for unique, keyword rich content. Then we found out about www.TextBroker.com which already provides this service, very well, with many more bells and whistles than we were imagining. Once again, the internet defeats me.

What is the potential literary use? A lot of beginning writers (and far too many established authors) are out of work. Why not tweak the TextBroker.com model specifically for author blogs? Use these sites as always-on gathering places for authors willing to create guest post blog content for other authors. I’ve learned a lot on this 70+ blog tour and could surely help provide the boost a site like this would need.

www.TheLiternet.com

This is a new one. Once again, I imagined a literature hub with this site. It’s a clever enough name to be catchy, but I think the breadth of content implied by such a general name would require way too much time and knowledge on my part. For now, I’ll just park the domain and redirect to my homepage.

What is the potential literary use? Besides the obvious (mentioned above) I think this site could be a great resource, in a meta way, for the evolution of literature on the internet. How has the internet changed literature (both in content and form)? How has literature helped shape the internet? Of course the burgeoning ebook industry would have a natural place on this site.

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Shaking Intensified: Best Prose 2007-2010 is Available Now.

the editors — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:48:01 +0000

After months of empty promises and subtle allusion, we’ve finally done it. Here is Shaking Intensified: Best Prose 2007-2010. This anthology covers some of the best prose writing from our online-only years and marks our first venture into print. It also celebrates the end of an era, as we transition from Shaking Like a Mountain, an online journal of poetry and prose, to Shaking, a yearly print and ebook anthology and Shaking Online, an online lit journal/blog/archive of poetry, short fiction, essays, interviews, reviews, and anything else that shakes us.

Shaking Intensified includes work by Diane Dees, Rachel Unkefer, Libby Cudmore, Fred Shaw, Pablo Medina, Louis E. Bourgeois, Norah Piehl and more. With an introduction by novelist and Shaking fiction editor, Janice Eidus.

Currently, you can buy a print edition of the anthology at Amazon or through our direct store link; ebook and pdf versions will be available soon.

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