I am haunted by a man and my memories of him. Although it’s not there every single time I close my eyes, it’s often enough to interfere with my thoughts and emotions. I even hate admitting that he had a role in shaping me, but he did.
My earliest memories of my dad are the best ones. He was a large and teddy bear like man who everyone seemed to love and wanted to be around. He would take me to work with him to show me off because he said he was so proud of me. I remember that he always had a joke for me, and I always laughed, no matter how corny it was. He could make the strangest and most pointless things funny, too—like the time he found a hand puppet of a beaver and he created this character. He seemed to put his heart and soul into the beaver we named Dil, and Dil became part of my family.
He was one of the goofiest people I ever knew. Dil was only one part of my dad’s goofiness. He would try funny voices or imitate actors and characters…or do anything to make my family laugh. He’d dress up for Halloween and take me trick-or-treating when I was little. He wouldn’t go as anything specific, but he’d put on a silly hat and wear makeup and be a big kid.
By the time I was 6 years old, I had a new baby brother. The laughing started to fade away from my father. His childish antics were replaced by what I can now recall being pity and loathing of his home life. Although it was more likely the financial troubles of having to now raise two kids, my dad in a short time changed dramatically. He wanted nothing to do with me; instead focusing on just my brother. One day my dad, my brother, and I were going for a walk when he pulled me aside and told me that I was the reason for all of his fights, his worries, his sadness. He didn’t try to put it nicely or in any way soften the blow. It was a dagger struck right into me. He put it bluntly that I was the source of all his trouble; and that there would be a divorce. I was only a child; seeing the face of someone that used to smile and act happy and childlike mutate into some vengeful person that despised me. Maybe it was easier to pin his own troubles on someone else instead of being a man and taking responsibility. I was so hurt and confused by what he said that I sank to my knees and started crying. Later on my mother assured me that nothing was my fault. Who was I to believe? I felt alone and scared about what might happen. I remember that day as being when my relationship with my father was shattered.
After that day, I noticed that the laughter stopped. He no longer had jokes for me when he came home from work. He didn’t go out of his way to make me laugh. He didn’t want to take me out for Halloween. He was doing most of that with my little brother instead. He would play games with Adam and joke around with him only.
As time went on, I became angrier at him. I would come home from school and be ignored by him. This only got worse when my brother had to be hospitalized. My brother was born with psychiatric problems and those problems came to a head causing him to be hospitalized for over a year. During that year, the tension between me and my father only got worse. One afternoon, when my mom was at work, my dad asked me if I missed my brother. All I could say, because I didn’t want to speak to him, was that it was too quiet without Adam. That wasn’t what my dad wanted to hear because he became angry and swore at me, and even slapped me. I remember yelling that I hated him…and he yelled back that he hated me.
After that day, I considered our relationship to be over. I was a teenager and could understand what hate was, and I knew that’s how I felt towards him. I spent the next few years avoiding any kind of confrontation with him. It stayed that way until my mother finally decided to divorce him. The news of my parents divorce was the happiest news of my life. I no longer would have to be careful and sensor myself in my own home.
Today, I look back at the years of pain, anger, and hate and realize that I wasted so much of my energy on a man who didn’t care about me. I now know in my head and my heart that he did not ever care about me, but only wanted to appear to be a good father. Appearances were what mattered, not having the feelings to back them up.
I try to distance myself from the man who haunts my past. I know that I look like him, and try not to see that face when I look in the mirror. I don’t want to see the reflection of a man that lost his smile; that pinned his problems onto others and would rather run from situations that face them. Every day I use that disdain, that hatred and cowardice to make me a stronger person. History repeats itself if you don’t learn from it; and I made a vow to be better than that.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Guidelines for Final Portfolio
Writing Portfolio - Due in class 12/10 or emailed by 12/17
General guidelines:
• The portfolio is meant to be a collection of your best writing from the semester, around 4-6 short fiction pieces and one critical piece. The stories can be any length. Quality counts more than quantity. (Highest possible score: 105 points = A+.)
• You should include the story (or stories) you submitted for class discussion. Ideally, it should be a revised version based on comments you got in class. (40 points)
• You can include a new story that you didn’t have a chance to or chose not to bring to the workshop. (would share the 40 points with the other story)
• You should include 3-4 of the short writings that you did in class or as homework. These should be revised final drafts. (40 points)
• It is OK to include both the original and a revised version of something if you’ve made substantial changes. If you do this, clip them together and date each draft. If you just fixed some grammar or cut out a sentence, then just send the new version.
• For the critical piece, write a personal response (about 2 pages, typed) to ANY ONE of the stories we read during the semester—either a published story or a student story. Choose a story you felt strongly about, one you loved or hated or that made you think. Describe the techniques the author uses, what you liked or didn’t like, what you learned about writing from reading this story, and what you would change about it if it were your story. (10 points)
• Include your image notebook (Prompt 3 from 10/8.). You can turn in the actual notebook if you want, OR just type out some pages from it. (10 points)
BONUS: Take one of these images/snippets and expand it into a short story or scene, around 300-600 words. (5 points)
• You can bring your portfolio to the final day of class if it’s ready. If you need more time, you can send it by email.
• If you need anything returned to you, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope.
General guidelines:
• The portfolio is meant to be a collection of your best writing from the semester, around 4-6 short fiction pieces and one critical piece. The stories can be any length. Quality counts more than quantity. (Highest possible score: 105 points = A+.)
• You should include the story (or stories) you submitted for class discussion. Ideally, it should be a revised version based on comments you got in class. (40 points)
• You can include a new story that you didn’t have a chance to or chose not to bring to the workshop. (would share the 40 points with the other story)
• You should include 3-4 of the short writings that you did in class or as homework. These should be revised final drafts. (40 points)
• It is OK to include both the original and a revised version of something if you’ve made substantial changes. If you do this, clip them together and date each draft. If you just fixed some grammar or cut out a sentence, then just send the new version.
• For the critical piece, write a personal response (about 2 pages, typed) to ANY ONE of the stories we read during the semester—either a published story or a student story. Choose a story you felt strongly about, one you loved or hated or that made you think. Describe the techniques the author uses, what you liked or didn’t like, what you learned about writing from reading this story, and what you would change about it if it were your story. (10 points)
• Include your image notebook (Prompt 3 from 10/8.). You can turn in the actual notebook if you want, OR just type out some pages from it. (10 points)
BONUS: Take one of these images/snippets and expand it into a short story or scene, around 300-600 words. (5 points)
• You can bring your portfolio to the final day of class if it’s ready. If you need more time, you can send it by email.
• If you need anything returned to you, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Writing Prompt for December 3 : Learning to Love You More
Learning to Love You More is an interdisciplinary arts web site designed by artist Harrell Fletcher and writer/filmmaker Miranda July. They invited all kinds of people to participate with writings, photographs, drawings, recordings and performance art. The site is no longer active, but Fletcher and July have published a book collecting some of the best work from the project, and you can still see the original prompts and responses online.
For this assignment, visit the learningtoloveyoumore.com site, read some examples other people have posted, and do one of the following exercises: #14, 35, 37, 42 (substitute a different year, unless you're Gian!), 52 or 53. Or try more than one, if you're inspired!
You can also do one of the non-writing exercises, as long as you pair it with a writing exercise. For example, you could pair #18, "Recreate a poster you had as a teenager," with #53, "Give advice to yourself in the past."
As Fletcher & July say in their intro to the book: "Sometimes it is a relief to be told what to do. We are two artists who are trying to come up with new ideas every day. But our most joyful and even profound experiences often come when we are following other people's instructions. ... Sometimes it seems like the moment we let go of trying to be original, we actually feel something new--which was the whole point of being artists in the first place."
Follow the instructions, have fun, and let your creativity bloom!
For this assignment, visit the learningtoloveyoumore.com site, read some examples other people have posted, and do one of the following exercises: #14, 35, 37, 42 (substitute a different year, unless you're Gian!), 52 or 53. Or try more than one, if you're inspired!
You can also do one of the non-writing exercises, as long as you pair it with a writing exercise. For example, you could pair #18, "Recreate a poster you had as a teenager," with #53, "Give advice to yourself in the past."
As Fletcher & July say in their intro to the book: "Sometimes it is a relief to be told what to do. We are two artists who are trying to come up with new ideas every day. But our most joyful and even profound experiences often come when we are following other people's instructions. ... Sometimes it seems like the moment we let go of trying to be original, we actually feel something new--which was the whole point of being artists in the first place."
Follow the instructions, have fun, and let your creativity bloom!
Monday, November 16, 2009
For Thursday, 11/19: Past and Present
Read Chapter 75 in What If? : "Transitions: Or White Space Does Not a Transition Make."
Then, write a short-short story or a scene that uses flashbacks in a way that deepens our understanding of a present situation or helps to define a character. The main story is happening now, but we see glimpses of something that happened in the past, something that brought your characters to this moment or that shapes how they react to the present.
When we think of flashback, most of us think of cinematic flashback: there's a cut or a fade, and suddenly we're in the middle of a completely different scene that plays out as if in real time (except maybe it's in sepia tones.) You can use this technique in fiction--for example, a space on the page or a heading--but you can also use short narrative flashbacks that may only be a few sentences. These are usually introduced with a transition phrase: "He remembered," "Once, they had...," "When she was five years old...", etc. Try experimenting with both kinds of flashbacks.
I passed out a story of mine, "How the Light Walks," for an example, because it uses several different types of flashback. Here is an excerpt from it with the flashback moments in bold and the transitional phrases in bold and italic.
* * *
We sat on the living room couch, shedding white doughnut sugar. My mother hated when I ate on the couch, but she was at work. “So,” said Ashley. “Any new guys yet?”
Six months between boyfriends was a long time for Ashley. So was six weeks. I shook my head.
“Is it like a San Francisco thing? They’re all gay there? You’re so pretty,” she said.
I made a face. “It doesn’t help when your nickname is Kiss of Death.”
She let that one fall into the side pocket, the way she always did. There were places our friendship didn’t go.
“You should wear your hair up more,” Ashley said. She told me about a store at the mall that had cheap hair clips. She looked at the Christmas cards my mother had on the coffee table. I saw her eyebrows go up when she saw the signature on the one with Santa in a Cadillac convertible, cruising a palm-lined boulevard.
“So how’s evil Stepmom?” she asked.
“She’s okay,” I said. I didn’t hate Lucille. That was my mother’s job. I didn’t even hate my father. I think he was trying to make up for things, in his way. When I started Berkeley he gave me a Corolla, a lease someone returned to the dealership almost new. It was what we talked about. “How’s that car running?” he would ask me every time I saw him.
My mother always said Lucille, with a sarcastic emphasis on the second syllable, like a Little Richard song. She said Lucille was a trailer trash name if she ever heard one. She imagined my father leading a glamorous, if tacky, life in the sun with his younger wife. But to me there was something sad about my father’s life now, his vitamins and running and granola bars. He tried hard but he wasn’t there anymore. Even when he was there he wasn’t there.
Because my father didn’t die shoveling snow. They took him to the hospital. He had a bypass. He lived. He had what he called a spiritual awakening and my mother called, sourly, a midlife crisis. He said when the paramedics were bending over him, strapping him to the stretcher, he thought of Lucille, and he knew: whatever life he had left he wanted to spend with her.
And so my father left us. He got better and he left, left for California where there was no snow and he would never again sink to his knees in a cold December driveway.
I didn’t see him for four years. He called my mother sometimes. They fought about money. She would hold the phone away from her mouth and ask me, “Do you want to talk to your father?” I always said no.
He visited for Christmas the year I turned fourteen. He and Lucille stayed at my grandmother’s house. She had forgiven him for getting divorced and marrying outside the church, because Lucille had given him a baby. Lucille sat there in the recliner, my grandmother’s seat of honor, holding their three-month-old son, looking sanctified.
My father had lost forty pounds and wore gel in his hair. “So, Pumpkin, how’s school?” he asked.
“As hideous as ever,” I said.
“You getting good marks still?”
“I just got a part in the spring play,” I said.
“Oh, look!” My father said. “Look, Mom, see how he curls his fingers up when he yawns?”
I didn’t say anything else.
For Christmas that year my father gave me a telescope and a book about the sky. “I remembered you always wanted to be an astronomer,” he said.
He was right. I’d wanted to be an astronomer when I was in the fourth grade. But it had been a long time since I’d thought about the stars.
* * *
Then, write a short-short story or a scene that uses flashbacks in a way that deepens our understanding of a present situation or helps to define a character. The main story is happening now, but we see glimpses of something that happened in the past, something that brought your characters to this moment or that shapes how they react to the present.
When we think of flashback, most of us think of cinematic flashback: there's a cut or a fade, and suddenly we're in the middle of a completely different scene that plays out as if in real time (except maybe it's in sepia tones.) You can use this technique in fiction--for example, a space on the page or a heading--but you can also use short narrative flashbacks that may only be a few sentences. These are usually introduced with a transition phrase: "He remembered," "Once, they had...," "When she was five years old...", etc. Try experimenting with both kinds of flashbacks.
I passed out a story of mine, "How the Light Walks," for an example, because it uses several different types of flashback. Here is an excerpt from it with the flashback moments in bold and the transitional phrases in bold and italic.
* * *
We sat on the living room couch, shedding white doughnut sugar. My mother hated when I ate on the couch, but she was at work. “So,” said Ashley. “Any new guys yet?”
Six months between boyfriends was a long time for Ashley. So was six weeks. I shook my head.
“Is it like a San Francisco thing? They’re all gay there? You’re so pretty,” she said.
I made a face. “It doesn’t help when your nickname is Kiss of Death.”
She let that one fall into the side pocket, the way she always did. There were places our friendship didn’t go.
“You should wear your hair up more,” Ashley said. She told me about a store at the mall that had cheap hair clips. She looked at the Christmas cards my mother had on the coffee table. I saw her eyebrows go up when she saw the signature on the one with Santa in a Cadillac convertible, cruising a palm-lined boulevard.
“So how’s evil Stepmom?” she asked.
“She’s okay,” I said. I didn’t hate Lucille. That was my mother’s job. I didn’t even hate my father. I think he was trying to make up for things, in his way. When I started Berkeley he gave me a Corolla, a lease someone returned to the dealership almost new. It was what we talked about. “How’s that car running?” he would ask me every time I saw him.
My mother always said Lucille, with a sarcastic emphasis on the second syllable, like a Little Richard song. She said Lucille was a trailer trash name if she ever heard one. She imagined my father leading a glamorous, if tacky, life in the sun with his younger wife. But to me there was something sad about my father’s life now, his vitamins and running and granola bars. He tried hard but he wasn’t there anymore. Even when he was there he wasn’t there.
Because my father didn’t die shoveling snow. They took him to the hospital. He had a bypass. He lived. He had what he called a spiritual awakening and my mother called, sourly, a midlife crisis. He said when the paramedics were bending over him, strapping him to the stretcher, he thought of Lucille, and he knew: whatever life he had left he wanted to spend with her.
And so my father left us. He got better and he left, left for California where there was no snow and he would never again sink to his knees in a cold December driveway.
I didn’t see him for four years. He called my mother sometimes. They fought about money. She would hold the phone away from her mouth and ask me, “Do you want to talk to your father?” I always said no.
He visited for Christmas the year I turned fourteen. He and Lucille stayed at my grandmother’s house. She had forgiven him for getting divorced and marrying outside the church, because Lucille had given him a baby. Lucille sat there in the recliner, my grandmother’s seat of honor, holding their three-month-old son, looking sanctified.
My father had lost forty pounds and wore gel in his hair. “So, Pumpkin, how’s school?” he asked.
“As hideous as ever,” I said.
“You getting good marks still?”
“I just got a part in the spring play,” I said.
“Oh, look!” My father said. “Look, Mom, see how he curls his fingers up when he yawns?”
I didn’t say anything else.
For Christmas that year my father gave me a telescope and a book about the sky. “I remembered you always wanted to be an astronomer,” he said.
He was right. I’d wanted to be an astronomer when I was in the fourth grade. But it had been a long time since I’d thought about the stars.
* * *
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Writing Prompt for 11/12: Bananagrams Challenge!
If you missed last Thursday's class, you missed a great game of Bananagrams (think Scrabble outside the board), but you can still do this writing exercise using the words our two teams created.
*Write a story - no limit on style or subject - using the words in the grid (either Bananagrams #1 or Banangrams #2).
*Use as many of the words as you can. Shoot for at least seven.
*Maximum story length is 2100 words.
*Write a story - no limit on style or subject - using the words in the grid (either Bananagrams #1 or Banangrams #2).
*Use as many of the words as you can. Shoot for at least seven.
*Maximum story length is 2100 words.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Ivory's story for Thursday, 11/5 class discussion
Here is Ivory's story for this week's class. Please read it and bring a copy to class. We will also be discussing Cynthia's story "Self Reflection," which was posted last week.
Ivory T. Jefferies
The Glitches of the Rich
They told me I would see what the unimaginable would be like and if I refused how being alone would feel. Feel for the rest of my life. They forced me into it. I had woke up that morning thinking it was going to be one of my boring, unnoticed days back in Adams High. Preparing my backpack with my usual peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich with the crust cut off, my thirty two ounce Poland spring bottled water, seedless green grapes and my mini Altoids for desert to cover the smell of peanuts, breath, and wheat bread. Put on my clothes that were ever so plain, just my usual jean jumper with a rotation of shirts underneath, today it was plaid. I had on shoes that the cool kids called skippies, they can in two varieties, either Velcro or laces. I hopped down the stairs of my mom’s one bedroom apartment to see her in the kitchen. The usual, she was there at the sink washing the dishes she just used to make a fully prepared breakfast, in her apron and work uniform under. It was pearly white for someone who washed them with bar soap and water and it had creases in it. She was the aide to a nurse’s aide and got paid just as little as the job sounds. We walked together every morning to the end of our street except she turned left and I turned right, always leaving each other with a “goodbye”, kiss, and “ I love you”. She thought I went straight to school, which I was suppose to but I didn’t. I went to Jenny’s house. Her mom and dad were always gone on business trips, so that’s when we did it. We would close the blinds and lock the doors, run all the way upstairs with the butter knife and jimmy the jewelry box on her mom’s dresser. When it came to fashion, glamour and riches Jenny always said “Imitators should be prosecuted they take all the real attention from me and other rich girls”. We would change into Jenny’s sister Leah’s clothes, put on the sexiest thing we could find along with her mothers jewelry, and walk to school in fashion like real girls should. We dazzled our way everyday up the front steps of Adams High into the hallways where we would strut and shake our butts while the jealous ones stared in amazement. I knew the hated us, and I loved every moment of it. I was on top. I was the one they wanted to be. Wasn’t I? Yeah, yeah I was uh huh yeah. The girls we stare with mouths dropped down to there shoulders and the guys would drool. I loved it when they did that. I eye stalked this football captain named Josh, he was so freaking hot. There he sat at lunch time in the middle on top of the table with his yellow and blue leather arm sports jacket, tight fitting v- neck t shirt that read Hanes below the neck when his coat was off, medium blue boot cut baggy jeans, and his estimated size eleven wheat timberlands. God knows how I wanted him. His eyes made my daydream of being on a beach, eighty degree weather and dazing into his crystal blue eyes like they were the ocean we should have been in to cool off. That’s what grabbed my attention about him, those eyes that Brad Pitt smile and the chiseled physique. He made me want every inch of him but when he approached day after day I played the hard to get bitch that didn’t have time for lame sports jocks. Jenny created this persona for me. Ring went the bell for class to start and lunch to end, I had to continue to suffer through chemistry lecture while staring at the back of Josh the whole class, but not this one. As I found my usual left back corner seat closest to the wall Josh came seductively in class greeting Mr. Michael’s with a “ Hey, what’s up?” to humor the class for the five seconds the laughter lasted. He looked at me as I giggled and winked but I sat like little miss prissy and gave him the cold shoulder rolling my eyes. Through twenty five minutes of lecture I found myself asking to be engaged in conversation. He slid me a note that read, “Girl, why do you always play so hard to get, you know you want me and I want you, I’m trying to hook up. Sound like a plan? Circle yes or No”. My heart was racing and my prayers had been answered. I thought of every possible thing I could say without looking like a geek and replied, “No thank you, I don’t date skinny guys”. We both busted out laughing and no tolerance having Mr. Michaels shipped us right out to the detention room. We giggle and flirted once we left, getting lost in each others conversation. We even stopped for a drink at the bubbler and he helped me hold my hair back. I was so into him and him me, you ever have that feeling? It’s like in Lady and the Tramp when the boy and girl dog share the same spaghetti string! I was that Lady! I leaned in aggressively kissing him as hard and as passionate as I could, throwing my then lifeless body against his letting my lips do all the work as my tongue explored his big but dry mouth. He loved every bit of it; he took my hand almost tearing my arm out of the socket dragging me down the hallway to a place that he told me we could go. It was by the football field, attached to the shed but not in it. Josh said it was like a recovery room that players would lay in during practice so the coaches could monitor them. He bolted out the cafeteria side door, ran through the field behind the soccer net and walked to “the spot”, which he called it. I opened the door turned to him and initiated the kiss, he was all over me but he giggled so much I realized he was fooling around. Inside sat Kevin, Darren and Zack the other football players and also Josh’s friends that I didn’t like much. I told Josh who seemed to be more interested in his friends than me that we should go else where and hang but the three of them insisted this was the best spot and pulled me in between them. I felt uncomfortable. I wanted my mom. I switched back to bitch, bad girl mode but the three of them had me surrounded kissing me, touching me, and telling me inappropriate things in a language that mom says a man should never use with a woman. I tried to burst from in between them but felt vulnerable and in an attempt to flee I kicked Kevin, the one in front blocking my way to the door, so hard that he shouted. Josh punched him for screaming, bitching about people hearing and Zack had thrown me to the floor so hard that the skin on my elbow had broke from trying to stop my fall. The whispered and yammered at each other while I sat there agonizing at the excruciating pain my arm was in, that’s when they came forward. They tore my clothes off and placed to jewelry to the side as I fought as hard as I could without them hitting me. My nameless bra and panties were exposed showing the holes and soils of my youth, the inability I had to fill the thirty four A bra I had on, and I had cried the make up off that I had on. They had taken me out of my shell, the real me was revealed. A knock at the shelter door made only me out of everyone jump and the knock that I thought would come from my savior belonged to Jenny’s hand. They cracked up but I was extremely happy to see her, groveling like a bomb waiting for her to console me and steal me away instead she pushed me hard. She pushed me back down to the floor and I laid in confusion as they stood up above me like monuments. I asked, “Why would you do that? Aren’t you going to help me?” Jenny snapped her fingers a small commandment that told those three to finish me off. I looked at her and before I passed out at the thought of the rape she told me, “ Imitators should be prosecuted, you take all the real attention from us rich girls, enjoy your punishment”, with a wink and a smile as she stood back and watched as they took turns with my body. Four hours later, awaken by the schools janitor Ernest I jumped up screaming and crying but they were not there. I was alone how I use to be. I pulled some scraps together and dragged myself home to see it was only seven o’ clock; mom doesn’t get out to eight. I hurt everywhere and I cried when I thought of everything I could remember. I drew a hot bath. I got in and laid back. I scrubbed between my legs for as long as I could before it felt like rug burn. I had been used and abused and I had deserved it. I wanted no life. I had no life. I did not know where to start to live my own life. Jenny’s revenge had awakened me. I said to myself there is no reason to live any longer. They told me I would see what the unimaginable would be like and if I refused how being alone would feel. Feel for the rest of my life. So right there and then I drowned away my misery and that was the last time I felt alone, alone for one last time.
Ivory T. Jefferies
The Glitches of the Rich
They told me I would see what the unimaginable would be like and if I refused how being alone would feel. Feel for the rest of my life. They forced me into it. I had woke up that morning thinking it was going to be one of my boring, unnoticed days back in Adams High. Preparing my backpack with my usual peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich with the crust cut off, my thirty two ounce Poland spring bottled water, seedless green grapes and my mini Altoids for desert to cover the smell of peanuts, breath, and wheat bread. Put on my clothes that were ever so plain, just my usual jean jumper with a rotation of shirts underneath, today it was plaid. I had on shoes that the cool kids called skippies, they can in two varieties, either Velcro or laces. I hopped down the stairs of my mom’s one bedroom apartment to see her in the kitchen. The usual, she was there at the sink washing the dishes she just used to make a fully prepared breakfast, in her apron and work uniform under. It was pearly white for someone who washed them with bar soap and water and it had creases in it. She was the aide to a nurse’s aide and got paid just as little as the job sounds. We walked together every morning to the end of our street except she turned left and I turned right, always leaving each other with a “goodbye”, kiss, and “ I love you”. She thought I went straight to school, which I was suppose to but I didn’t. I went to Jenny’s house. Her mom and dad were always gone on business trips, so that’s when we did it. We would close the blinds and lock the doors, run all the way upstairs with the butter knife and jimmy the jewelry box on her mom’s dresser. When it came to fashion, glamour and riches Jenny always said “Imitators should be prosecuted they take all the real attention from me and other rich girls”. We would change into Jenny’s sister Leah’s clothes, put on the sexiest thing we could find along with her mothers jewelry, and walk to school in fashion like real girls should. We dazzled our way everyday up the front steps of Adams High into the hallways where we would strut and shake our butts while the jealous ones stared in amazement. I knew the hated us, and I loved every moment of it. I was on top. I was the one they wanted to be. Wasn’t I? Yeah, yeah I was uh huh yeah. The girls we stare with mouths dropped down to there shoulders and the guys would drool. I loved it when they did that. I eye stalked this football captain named Josh, he was so freaking hot. There he sat at lunch time in the middle on top of the table with his yellow and blue leather arm sports jacket, tight fitting v- neck t shirt that read Hanes below the neck when his coat was off, medium blue boot cut baggy jeans, and his estimated size eleven wheat timberlands. God knows how I wanted him. His eyes made my daydream of being on a beach, eighty degree weather and dazing into his crystal blue eyes like they were the ocean we should have been in to cool off. That’s what grabbed my attention about him, those eyes that Brad Pitt smile and the chiseled physique. He made me want every inch of him but when he approached day after day I played the hard to get bitch that didn’t have time for lame sports jocks. Jenny created this persona for me. Ring went the bell for class to start and lunch to end, I had to continue to suffer through chemistry lecture while staring at the back of Josh the whole class, but not this one. As I found my usual left back corner seat closest to the wall Josh came seductively in class greeting Mr. Michael’s with a “ Hey, what’s up?” to humor the class for the five seconds the laughter lasted. He looked at me as I giggled and winked but I sat like little miss prissy and gave him the cold shoulder rolling my eyes. Through twenty five minutes of lecture I found myself asking to be engaged in conversation. He slid me a note that read, “Girl, why do you always play so hard to get, you know you want me and I want you, I’m trying to hook up. Sound like a plan? Circle yes or No”. My heart was racing and my prayers had been answered. I thought of every possible thing I could say without looking like a geek and replied, “No thank you, I don’t date skinny guys”. We both busted out laughing and no tolerance having Mr. Michaels shipped us right out to the detention room. We giggle and flirted once we left, getting lost in each others conversation. We even stopped for a drink at the bubbler and he helped me hold my hair back. I was so into him and him me, you ever have that feeling? It’s like in Lady and the Tramp when the boy and girl dog share the same spaghetti string! I was that Lady! I leaned in aggressively kissing him as hard and as passionate as I could, throwing my then lifeless body against his letting my lips do all the work as my tongue explored his big but dry mouth. He loved every bit of it; he took my hand almost tearing my arm out of the socket dragging me down the hallway to a place that he told me we could go. It was by the football field, attached to the shed but not in it. Josh said it was like a recovery room that players would lay in during practice so the coaches could monitor them. He bolted out the cafeteria side door, ran through the field behind the soccer net and walked to “the spot”, which he called it. I opened the door turned to him and initiated the kiss, he was all over me but he giggled so much I realized he was fooling around. Inside sat Kevin, Darren and Zack the other football players and also Josh’s friends that I didn’t like much. I told Josh who seemed to be more interested in his friends than me that we should go else where and hang but the three of them insisted this was the best spot and pulled me in between them. I felt uncomfortable. I wanted my mom. I switched back to bitch, bad girl mode but the three of them had me surrounded kissing me, touching me, and telling me inappropriate things in a language that mom says a man should never use with a woman. I tried to burst from in between them but felt vulnerable and in an attempt to flee I kicked Kevin, the one in front blocking my way to the door, so hard that he shouted. Josh punched him for screaming, bitching about people hearing and Zack had thrown me to the floor so hard that the skin on my elbow had broke from trying to stop my fall. The whispered and yammered at each other while I sat there agonizing at the excruciating pain my arm was in, that’s when they came forward. They tore my clothes off and placed to jewelry to the side as I fought as hard as I could without them hitting me. My nameless bra and panties were exposed showing the holes and soils of my youth, the inability I had to fill the thirty four A bra I had on, and I had cried the make up off that I had on. They had taken me out of my shell, the real me was revealed. A knock at the shelter door made only me out of everyone jump and the knock that I thought would come from my savior belonged to Jenny’s hand. They cracked up but I was extremely happy to see her, groveling like a bomb waiting for her to console me and steal me away instead she pushed me hard. She pushed me back down to the floor and I laid in confusion as they stood up above me like monuments. I asked, “Why would you do that? Aren’t you going to help me?” Jenny snapped her fingers a small commandment that told those three to finish me off. I looked at her and before I passed out at the thought of the rape she told me, “ Imitators should be prosecuted, you take all the real attention from us rich girls, enjoy your punishment”, with a wink and a smile as she stood back and watched as they took turns with my body. Four hours later, awaken by the schools janitor Ernest I jumped up screaming and crying but they were not there. I was alone how I use to be. I pulled some scraps together and dragged myself home to see it was only seven o’ clock; mom doesn’t get out to eight. I hurt everywhere and I cried when I thought of everything I could remember. I drew a hot bath. I got in and laid back. I scrubbed between my legs for as long as I could before it felt like rug burn. I had been used and abused and I had deserved it. I wanted no life. I had no life. I did not know where to start to live my own life. Jenny’s revenge had awakened me. I said to myself there is no reason to live any longer. They told me I would see what the unimaginable would be like and if I refused how being alone would feel. Feel for the rest of my life. So right there and then I drowned away my misery and that was the last time I felt alone, alone for one last time.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
For Thursday, 11/5: Second Person (Two Shorts and a Short)
Reading assignment for 11/5: read Jamaica Kinkaid's flash fiction story "Girl," on p. 289 in What If?, and Pam Houston's short story "How to Talk to a Hunter," on p. 362.
Both stories are told in second-person narrative voice, but each with a very different style and approach.
Your writing assignment is to write a story in the second person. It could be flash fiction length, like Jamaica Kinkaid's story, or longer, and can be about anything. The only requirement is to stay in the second-person voice.
If you're having trouble getting started, try doing the "How To" exercise on p. 280 in What If? Have fun!
Both stories are told in second-person narrative voice, but each with a very different style and approach.
Your writing assignment is to write a story in the second person. It could be flash fiction length, like Jamaica Kinkaid's story, or longer, and can be about anything. The only requirement is to stay in the second-person voice.
If you're having trouble getting started, try doing the "How To" exercise on p. 280 in What If? Have fun!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
