Reading lists

I've started reading Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed. I had to read this book for a college course I took one summer during my undergraduate years. Damn, that was a long time ago. And, yes, I was taking a summer course... for fun. I am that nerdy.

Need more evidence... last night I went to see They Might Be Giants in concert for the third time. Again, Yes I am that nerdy.

Anyway, since I am re-reading Mumbo Jumbo, or reading it for that matter. I believe that week I probably skipped over it, being enmeshed in a couple of other books, and, it being summer, enmeshed in the pursuit of girls. But, being the obsessive listmaker that I am, below are the books that I had to read for that class... not in order of their assignment:

Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges (some of the stories)
Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs

Time's Arrow - Martin Amis

Sixty Stories - Donald Barthelme (some of the stories)

Mumbo Jumbo - Ishmael Reed

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (first section: I have yet to complete this book, 13 years later)

I am convinced there was a seventh book we had to read, but I cannot think of it right now.

Searching through my bookshelves, I stumbled across books that could have been listed in the Postmodern Literature course, but were actually part of a Sports in Literature course I had to take. The books for that class were:

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. - Robert Coover
End Zone - Don DeLillo

The Natural - Bernard Malamud

Best American Sports Writing 1995 - editor, Dan Jenkins

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner - Alan Sillitoe (film we had to watch)

That's all I can remember for now.

My obsessive brain has had enough.

Lipstick

He couldn't believe her.
He just couldn't.

Introduction to "Lipstick"

Lipstick is a piece of micro-fiction. Micro-fiction is a sub-genre of flash fiction, where as flash fiction stories are generally 1000 words or shorter, micro-fiction stories are generally 250 words or shorter.
This piece in particular is 7 words long.
I wrote this piece when I was 19 or 20, I can't remember now. At the time I was writing in a journal: a lot of bad poetry, sketches, and lines that happened to float into my head. This story comes from one of those college journals. Originally I thought it could be a poem, but as a poem, I believed it seemed too deliberate, too direct, too "look at me I'm a poem with deep meaning". I decided recently that it could stand alone however as a piece of micro-fiction.

The title of the piece stems from a need to not want to be too deliberate, too heavy-handed. I have an idea of what I believe is being discussed, or perceived, but I don't want my interpretation to interfere with anything else, especially when the words used are so open to suggestion. I toyed with the idea of calling the piece Trust but that eliminates a lot of non-fidelity issues, and infers what it could be about. I wanted the title of the piece to be as abstract as the piece itself. I didn't want the title to portend that it could be a heavy piece: it is only seven words after all. I like the idea that the characters are not defined by age, by culture, by class, by race, by relationship. by anything other than one is male, the other is female. It doesn't take sides either, at least not explicity, although it is definietely from one person's point of view.
THe title Lipstick comes from my own idea of what the story is about, the issue at hand, but I don't want to get into why I decided to call it that. I don't want my own perception of the story to interfere with the reader's interpretation of it.

So, now that I have written a piece infinitely longer than the story itself, I hope all you hypothetical readers out there enjoy this story.

Thanks

Cough Drops, Part V

Storage

The previous owners had never cleaned out the storage shed, and from the looks of it, neither had the owners before them, or the owners before them, or the owners before them. The only way of measuring what belonged to whom was to think that if it had never been cleaned out, whatever was at the bottom or at the back belonged to the original owners, or whoever had built the shed.

After a few days, all the following had been removed: two lawnmowers, one with a broken starter rope, and blades jammed with moldy grass clippings, the other with a grass catch and a broken key; a drafting table; folding chairs, rainbow striped cushions ripped and stained; a dead, petrified squirrel; brass lamps without bulbs; hedge clippers; boxes of board games, pieces missing from some, and mixed together; a box of many-colored dice; comic books, spines disintegrating upon touch, some over fifty years old in cellophane wrappers; a greasy, car engine; wicker baskets, sides of two goopy and stained blue from what once were blueberries, but over time had turned the sides into gelatinous branches; large leather chests, filled with holed sweaters, musty smelling fur coats, winter jackets, Swiss-cheesed socks, ripped, grease stained jeans; one chest filled with love letters, National Geographic magazines, tax paperwork, photographs; broken rakes; deflated basketballs; baseballs; stumpy baseball gloves; dog leashes; rifle racks; troughs and feeders for animals; plastic bamboo plants; lawn flamingoes; plastic Tiki gods; books, greened with mold and moss, pages crunched together as if protecting the secrets within the words; cracked trash barrels; bicycle chains; concave bicycle tires; ropes; a tire swing, leaves and spiders’ webs inhabiting the inner part of the tire; firewood stacked to the ceiling and halfway down one of the walls, underneath, scrawled into the concrete floor, a heart, initials J.H + S.L; a metal workbench; antique dinner plates, those on top, cracked and leaf-stained; a soldier’s uniform; empty cardboard boxes nested inside empty cardboard boxes; broken computer printers; gutted computers; Eisenhower lawn signs; army posters; a volcano-shaped ashtray, Hawaii spelt in lava along its side; stuffed eagles; a collection of pipes.

Cough Drops, Part IV

Inscription

Little Johnny Hartmann was told not to touch the concrete at all while it was still setting. At. All. Little Johnny Hartmann had a history of not doing what he was told to do, though, or of doing those things that most kids wouldn’t do because they knew better. Like the time he ignored the “Beware of Dog” signs on the outskirts of Farmer McKinnon’s and had to run all the way home with the seat of his jeans and underwear ripped open, all the neighbors and classmates seeing his behind. Or the time he was told not to play near the big hickory tree in the back of the yard, the tree that separated his parents’ yard and the woods beyond, because there was a giant bees’ nest in it. So, while playing catch with himself, he threw the ball as high as he could and it ended up drifting into the hickory tree. He climbed up thinking he could reach it, not wanting his momma and pa to know that he had been playing near the tree. He dislodged the ball from the leaves it was stuck in, but on the way down, it rattled the beehive. He wasn’t able to open his right eye for two weeks; and that happened one week before school had started.
If they told Little Johnny the only thing he wasn’t to do, or told him the only thing he wasn’t to ask or talk about due to sensitivity and respect, that was the one thing he would do, the one thing he would ask about.
So his parents really had no one to blame but themselves for the inscription in the concrete of the storage shed.
Little Johnny was the smallest in his grade by half a foot, thus creating the second reason for his name, the first being that his pa was Big Johnny. Being that small led to obvious difficulties, but also had some advantages. Anytime a ball was trapped in a hard to reach spot, or a tiny crevice needed to be explored, Johnny was always the first volunteered by the other students, and sometimes by the teachers themselves. One day after school, a kickball was sent careening down the edge of the field and rolled into a sewer drain, lying about ten feet inside. The hole was too small for anyone to squeeze down except Johnny. The only options were to retrieve the ball, or to stop playing the game altogether, the second option not being realistic at all. As such, Johnny was called upon. He was on the far side of the field, trying to coax a squirrel out of a tree with a stick and a rock when the other students came to find him. He threw on an invisible cape, and followed the other kids, running with his arms outstretched and bent backwards as wings, for better wind resistance, and jumping over the crocodile pits and dodging the gunfire that somehow the other students never saw. He arrived to the sewer drain to the encouragement of his fellow students, and mortal beings.
“What a weirdo.”
“Freak.”
“Just get the ball, Hartmann.”
Johnny whipped his invisible cape behind him, like the women on momma’s programs whisking luxurious hair out of their faces, and dove into the sewer drain. The drain was mostly parallel to the ground, and he crawled his way down until he reached the ball. With the ball tucked under his arm, he began crawling his way backwards when his jeans got caught on one of the jagged edges and ripped halfway up his pants leg to his knee, scraping and cutting his knee. He screamed out in frustration, but kept moving, eager to be done with his expedition. He turned his head backwards to see how far he had to go, scraping his head against the top of the drain. Dust and some black gunk dripped down onto his face and, before he could see what it looked like, he wiped at his face with his arm, smearing the black in a smudged line across it. Moments later he came out, jeans ripped, face blackened with grime, to the applause and eternal gratitude of his students.
“Nice jeans, Hartmann.”
“Nice face.”
“Why don’t you guys thank him?” This from Sue Lovely, who was walking home with a friend; Sue Lovely who sat two seats in front of him in most classes, who lived two doors down from him; Sue Lovely who, when he was not out saving the world in his head, Johnny was saving from imminent danger and she repaying him with the eternal gratitude only shown through kissing.
Johnny smiled at Sue, and handed the ball over to the players. He ran back to his tree, face red, to get his book bag.
When he got home, he ran inside to his room, changed his pants, and scampered into the bathroom to wash his face. Once done, he jetted back to his room to grab from his bag the stick and rock that he had been using to coax the squirrel, and went to run outside.
“Johnny!” his mother implored from the din of the television set.
His feet screeched in a thud into the door. “Oh. Hi, mom.”
She greeted him with the usual eyeball roll, reserved for when he tripped or clattered into the furniture. He was convinced her eyes would freeze in that position. She took a deep breath, and stated, slowly with a measured beat after each word, “Your father poured the concrete for the storage shed today. It hasn’t set yet. So don’t go playing over there.”
“Okay. No problem.” His hand reached up and pushed the door open.
“Johnny!” His mother implored again, head checking to see if her programs had returned. “Now, what did I just tell you?”
Johnny answered in the same measured, word by word manner as his mother. “Don’t play by the concrete of the storage shed.”
His mother looked at him, eyes unblinking, the swooning violins of the end of a commercial break in the background, then smiled. “Okay.”
And off Johnny went outside.
During the walk home from school, Little Johnny had been convincing himself that Sue Lovely now saw him as the superhero he knew himself to be, that she dreamed of Johnny swooping in from the sky, picking her up, one arm under her shoulders, the other under the crook of her knees, and flying off into the sky, burying his mouth into hers as they flew into and out of the clouds. He was convinced of this. He had been trying to keep his thoughts of her to himself, not telling anyone, despite his wide-eyed stares in class, his playing catch with himself in front of their house, how he always went around the block toward the Lovely’s house when momma sent him to the store, even though the store was in the other direction. And despite his increasingly angry and repeated denials to this fact when classmates accused him of liking her, their accusations persisted. But now, in light of her stance for justice, her assertion of gratitude for his rescuing of the kickball, he was convinced of it. What better way to show the world how he truly felt, too, than to write it, scroll it, inscribe it on a tree, sidewalk, under a bridge. He would carve their initials somewhere for the world to see, since there was no more denying her feelings.
At that moment, he looked down. His rambling walk had taken him around the yard, and to the edge of the storage shed, the liquid concrete floor. The concrete had appeared just at the moment that he needed a medium for his masterpiece, his avowal of love to the Lovely. With a dramatic twirl of the stick, he plunged it into murky mold of concrete, sketching a heart with initials J.H. and S.L. emblazoned inside, and a flourish of curved lines beneath the initials, coming to stop just above the point of the heart. Now everyone would know that he and Sue Lovely were meant to be one.
As he looked down at his handiwork, the smitten smile on his face faded quickly into terror as his mother’s voice punched him in the stomach.
“Johnny! What are you doing?! What did I just tell you?”
But he hadn’t touched the concrete; the stick had.

The Day the Robots Came to Town

“Hush up, boy!” implored Uncle Varnish. “Ah’m trine t’listen!”

Uncle Varnish guarded the door, rifle in hand, eyes having not blinked for days. He skittered over to the window, thrust the rifle into the jagged hole in the window he had made two days before, and pulled off two cracking shots. With each shot, he screamed, “Take that, y’ mettle sunovabitches. Goddamn robots,” his voice cracking with effort with the last word.

All the electricity had gone out in the town three days before. At first we thought the outage would last an hour or so, as they usually did. When it sustained to a half a day, our sense of novelty turned to concern, then to worry as Uncle Varnish started pacing, then to panic when he went to the attic and found the rifle. Three days on, with Uncle Varnish holding my dad, sister and I captive in our own house, we were down to near curdled milk and dried pasta.

Over the past three days, after firing, he would call us over to the window, finger jabbing out the window hole, trying to point to his victims and assailants, but all we saw were the clouded shapes of felled trees and the darting footprints of flashlights. We’d congratulate him, pat him gingerly on the back and wait for his chest to stop heaving and for him to sit in the folding chair propped against the door. Trina or I would bring him a beer, and go back to making dinner or playing cards, a holding pattern until Uncle Varnish’s next outburst.

This time after firing, though, Uncle Varnish slouched against the wall with a timbering thud. Trina and I jolted at the sound and saw Uncle Varnish staring at his shadow in front of him and the light blaring down at the table, lips fluttering in murmur, creaking sounds coming from his mouth. Dad, who was playing this hand with us, stood up and pulled the light string off over the table. He started turning off the lights as he slowly made his way to his fallen brother.

Dad sat down and put his meaty arm around Uncle Varnish’s brittle shoulders. He gently turned my uncle’s face towards his so they could look at each other. Calling him by his real name, my dad then said, “You did it, Vern. You got ‘em.”

Uncle Varnish stretched his arm around my dad’s shoulders like the scrawniest yoke, and creaked, “Goddamn robots.”

----- ----- ----- -----

Cough Drops, Part III

Pillow

This is the position she was usually in at this time of night: lying face down on her bed, door closed, pillow pulled tight around her ears, blocking out the noise from downstairs.

These are the words she usually heard from downstairs: “You couldn’t wait for me to get home to eat?” “Maybe if you were home when we eat dinner.” “Maybe if you could cook, I would be.” “Fuck you, you drunk.” “Fuck you.” The rest were usually muffled.

These are the muffled sounds she would hear through the pillow: boots clomping up the stairs, a stagger and crash into her door, the frenzied rattle of her doorknob, the cracking of his body into his door jam, the squeak and absorbing thump of his bed.

Sometimes she would wait and go downstairs, sometimes she would pull the pillow off her head and lie on the bed, imagining herself living elsewhere, with horses.

Tonight , she would pull the pillow off her head and draw the comforting face of a boy from school on it, then press it tightly against her body to fall asleep.

Cough Drops, Part II

Broken Window

The broken glass covered almost every section of the basement floor. How could such a small window produce so many shards? If you had pieced all the broken pieces together, like a jigsaw puzzle, it seemed as if the window would have tripled its original size.
He paused for a moment, surveying the damage he had done; just as quickly, he scraped away the remaining shards from the windowsill, and turned his body around, stomach facing the ground, sticking his feet into the now empty hole. He would deal with the consequences later. It was a residential home, and in his twenty years of living here, no one had ever broken into the home, and no one was going to today, either, especially in the middle of the afternoon. Besides, if they were to break into the house through the now vacant basement window, they would have to be almost as skinny as he, which would be considerable given his slight physique. He snaked his way through the window backwards, legs first, pushing his body through until his arms could grip the concrete windowsill. He jumped down into the basement, ripped a piece of cardboard off the box sitting in the corner of the room, and placed it into the gaping hole. How could his parents be upset now? He had covered the hole, and now no one would be able to break into the house: they’d have to remove the piece of cardboard first. He walked out of the basement, ran up the stairs, found his keys sitting on the kitchen counter, and locked all the doors, before running outside to his car, late for work.

He and his friend Mike returned to his parents’ house after work, leaving the bag with the giant snake in the front seat of the car. He would wait to bring the snake into the house: time it perfectly to scare the hell out of his mom. Her car was in the garage when the pulled in.
They walked into the house. “Hi, Mom.” “Hi, Mrs. C.”
“Hi, Mike.” She looked over from Mike. “D---,” she began, “did you break the window this afternoon?” She already knew the answer as there was absolutely no one else home, and he had a history of intentionally benevolent accidents of this kind.
“Well, yeah. I locked myself out of the house and left my keys inside.”
One section of her hair turned gray almost immediately at this statement. “How could you do such a thing?”
“Well, I just took off my hat, put it up against the window, and punched.” He pulled his hat off and pantomimed a demonstration.
During this exchange, Mike was standing awkwardly by the front door. His mother looked at Mike with a look of wanted accord, looking for concurrence to her disbelief. She shook her head, exasperation floating off of it with each movement. “That was a rhetorical question. You weren’t supposed to answer it.”
“Oh. Um, sorry. But I had locked my keys inside the—“
“You could have come and gotten me at the school,” she continued.
“I was already running late,” he began equivocating. “By the time I would have run to the school,” (which was about half a mile away), “and gotten back, I would have been at least half an hour late. This was the only thing I could do. And I figured I would tell you and dad about it when I got home. I was going to try to fix it.”
His mother just shook her head unable to say anymore. “Mike,” looking at Mike. “You can head home now if you want.”
“Oh, okay.” During the exchange, Mike had stood off to the side, watching, equally stifling a laugh, and trying not to encroach upon Mrs. C’s anger.
“Mike and I were going to go out,” he began.
“Well, not right now. You can head over there after dinner.”
A swarm of relief landed on him. “Okay. After I fix the window?”
“No,” she said tersely, aware that his carpentry and repair skills were matched in ineptitude only by his honesty and goodwill; he was willing to attempt to fix the window, but who knew what it would look like when completed. “You can pay for the window.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later, Mike. Oh--- wait a minute, the bag.”
Mike shook his head. It didn’t seem like a good time for the snake.

Cough Drops, Part I

In what will be a recurring entry, I here begin an experimental story called "Cough Drops". Each entry will have its own subheading, but since I will be entering these on an infrequent basis, the title of the Blog entry will be "Cough Drops, Part ___" whatever.

I will try to add a picture corresponding to each entry.

Enjoy.

Cough Drops

“They aren’t candy, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” his son said with a half-mischievous smile, a glint in his eye. “Can I still have one?”
He looked down at his son with a closed-mouthed grin. “Yeah, you can have one.”