Monthly Archives: October 2023

#7 –  The Advantages of Invisibility

Think About It

I find it a bit… amusing, I suppose.

The way that they disregard me when I try to make even the lightest conversation. I order my coffee or bagel or drink (if I’m feeling particularly festive) and my attempt to engage with them is met with that pained expression of paralyzing ennui. As if I’m sharing the history of socks. They seem incapable of humoring me for even a moment. 

I’m not sure when this happened; when I became so ignorable. It’s not an entirely unpleasant thing though.

It does leave me questioning whether this is how I treated those who were thirty years my senior when I was their age though. When I was sure I knew it all. I probably did, to some extent. Treat them that way, I mean

“Here’s your latte,” says the barista, the milky skin of her face like polished porcelain, her t-shirt displaying words that are important to her but to me are gibberish. I nod and say thank you as I gather my drink and she lobbies back a perfunctory smile.

I decide to sit down and enjoy my drink for a little while before heading out. I move toward one of two empty spots and gingerly pull the metal chair from its spot cozied under the table. I know from experience here that to pull it abruptly will cause a horrific noise that’s counter to any sort of relaxation. Unfortunately, the woman taking the other seat is not privy to the same information. Or is at least insensitive to the possibility. The resulting nails-on-chalkboard sound of the metal legs scraping against the concrete floor stirs my nervous system in much the same way that visiting the hospital did when Uncle Vance was dying and his long-suffering flesh castle was about to collapse.  

Uncle Vance was, for all intents and purposes, my father. He was a writer. And a well-known one, at that. He’d found particular success with a provocative memoir he penned that may or may not have been factual. This was back in the days, mind you, when facts held sway. Anyhow, I read the memoir once. Can’t say I remember much about it. What I do remember is that Uncle Vance had unusually small teeth. He was missing his left canine too, which gave him the appearance of a perpetual second-grader. It was a strange visual juxtaposition to his unfailing ability to casually spew messages mixed with ultra-far-right politics, unabashed racism, and, oddly enough, a deep knowledge of Icelandic folklore.

Oh, how I used to beg him to share some of those exotic stories with me. “Please, Uncle Vance,” I’d say. “Will you tell me the one about the caribou and the glacier?” I’d ask. Of course, I had no clue if there was any actual story about a caribou and/or a glacier. I just assumed the odds were in my favor. 

He never did share any of those stories. Not once. 

In retrospect, I didn’t like Uncle Vance. When I was suddenly orphaned and shipped off to live with him and my Aunt Adele at the age of four, I assumed that I did like him. After all, he was going to be replacing my father so I’d have to like him. Because that’s what you do, right? You normalize your caregivers’ behavior so you have a fighting chance in this world. Then when you’re strong enough to stand on your own two feet, you take a more critical look. If you’re lucky, you still like them. Or at least respect them. Neither was the case with Uncle Vance. Maybe if he’d read me one story, just ONE story, things would have been different. But, well, you can’t go back in time.

I take a long and languorous sip of my latte and glance out the window at the shiny grey streets. It’s been raining for three days here in Seattle. It feels to me as though the dampness has seeped through my skin, soaked my muscles, and is now threatening to water-board my bones for no good reason. I’ve been here enough times to know this isn’t unusual. Still, I don’t care for it. The young baristas behind the counter giggle and swap stories about their respective drinking adventures last night. I miss those days. But not as much as I thought would. 

My mind wanders back to that pivotal visit with Aunt Adele thirty years ago. She’d called me because she was going to be in Phoenix and wanted to share a story with me about Uncle Vance. My first instinct was to resist, as I certainly didn’t want her telling me something that might change my opinion of him for the better.

“You have a brother,” she said to me that warm and sunny afternoon. The beams were stinging the sun-damaged skin on my arms.  

“Oh, Aunt Adele,” I said in what I can only imagine was a condescending tone. In my 26-year-old worldliness, I assumed she was either having a stroke or suffering early-onset dementia. “That just can’t be.”

“Oh!” she waved her hand across her face and flashed me a wide regular-sized tooth grin. “I should clarify. You have a stepbrother, actually. And, as it turns out, a cousin too.”

“I do?” I was confused. 

She nodded and then got a little smaller. I’d always had an affection for Aunt Adele. She was usually big and boisterous and I knew that if she’d had Icelandic folk stories to share, she would have. But whenever Uncle Vance was around, she shrank into herself. Every. Single. Time. That day, she was doing it in his absence.

“His name is Patrick,” she began. “He was born with Down syndrome and sent to a training school in Seattle just before you arrived,” she said, shrinking further into herself as though Uncle Vance were right there.

I sat there, dumbfounded. Patrick was never once mentioned in Uncle Vance’s memoir. That much I remembered.

“It’s what Vance thought was best.”

I wanted to ask her why she didn’t fight for her son. Why she didn’t just gather up Patrick and run away. “It was 1966,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I didn’t really have a say in it. Because that’s just how… things were done back then.” 

Perhaps I should have been more aghast or felt betrayed that day. Instead, I was excited. My family tree had been relatively bare. This added an important branch. And who was I to judge Aunt Adele anyhow? She’d done her best. 

I really want to believe we are all doing our best. The young people who overlook me now, the ignorant noise-makers, even Uncle Vance. His best was just plain lousy and putrid. 

I finish my coffee and place my mug in the bus tub. I nod at the barista, but she doesn’t notice. That’s okay. Before I step out into the rain, I check to be sure I have brought both books with me from the hotel. My brother loves it when I read to him. And I firmly believe we should all be willing to share stories – Icelandic or otherwise.

* (excerpts from The Atlantic magazine)

#6 – Welcome to Armantrout!

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

Here in Armantrout, we take great pride in our town. Everyone you pass on the street will greet you with warmth, friendliness, and wide-eyed smiles that occasionally border on questionable mental illness. Plus, you’ll be gobsmacked by the beauty of our homes and businesses that bear a playful mix of Cisterian, Anthropophagy, and Herodian architectural styles – the latter of which is an homage to the Roman customer lord of Judea. Obviously.

A visit to Armantrout places you among an exclusive class of uniquely-minded travelers. In fact, our town has been likened to Florida by travel writers from the greater Eufaula, Alabama area as well as around the globe. As a case in point, Lester Leafblower from the esteemed travel journal Why Go There? eloquently stated, “Armantrout is not a place that makes anything and it’s not really a place that does anything – other than bringing in more people.” Just like Florida.

Also like Florida, Armantrout is a site to behold at any time of the day and in every season. The most popular time to visit, however, is during our annual Straw Festival in mid-March. Aquatic sea turtles aside, we’re proud to celebrate what we deem the world’s greatest invention – developed in 1864 by Armantrout’s own Benjamin Bendy. Don’t ask for ‘no straw’ with your beverage here! If possible, the best time to arrive in Armantrout is in the late evening when you can drive Bendy Boulevard along Loch Straw and observe the wind-torn whitecaps whispering and roiling while a vicious, grudge-holding moon creeps slowly across the sky. It’s all very poetic. You might even catch a glimpse of our own legendary Loch Straw monster. There are those who believe this is nothing more than a floating barge of plastic bottles given Armantrout’s “short-sighted and abysmal recycling program” (Leafblower, Lester, Why Go There?, issue #29, p. 63). But any Armantroutisian will tell you differently. So you should believe them.

While downtown Armantrout boasts major attractions such as the world-renowned Cow Museum and the illustrious Just Umbrellas! shop, it’s the now-defunct carnival site just beyond the city limits that seems to draw the most visitors. Or maybe ‘squatters who are untroubled by the cracks in the wall that seep cold air and centuries-old secrets that would make anyone shudder’ is a more accurate description.

Whatever the case, the majestic Bendy Mansion is a perfect specimen of the Anthropophagy (translated as human flesh consumption) architectural style. Working from a rather provocative belief system in 1800s Brazil that promoted consuming pilgrim oppressors to accomplish self-governance, the mansion is now epitomized by mechanical primitivism with striking dream-like symbolism. What’s more, if you’re a ghost hunter, you’ll be delighted to know that the mansion is haunted by the soul of the carnival’s resident World’s Smallest Man who had just laid bare his body and the real truth of its deformity before being trampled by a herd of cows.

So come and visit our little slice of paradise.

If you favor the quietude of isolation – away from the quick-witted quips and subsequent quicksand of human interaction that can so swiftly and skillfully swallow you whole, then Armantrout is just the place for you. Contact Belinda Bendy-Straw at the visitor’s bureau today to add Armantrout to your bucket list!

#5 – Still Untitled 

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

“I’ve worked as an au pair, a private tutor, a ranch hand, a cook, a teacher, a flea-marketeer, a clerk,” Tasha began before I interrupted her.

“A butcher?” I asked. “A baker? A candlestick maker maybe?”

She slowly smiled, cocking a brow. “Something like that.”

“You obviously have a wide range of… interests,” I said and she stared past me. 

“Bored, mostly,” she responded flatly.

Tasha was an extraordinary specimen of a human being. Long and sinewy with bone-straight orange hair that cascaded down her rib cage, she reminded me of a giraffe. I wondered whether her tongue was that strange black/blue/purple hue that paints giraffe’s tongues yet defies being named. I propose Giraffe Tongue. It only makes sense.

“Why are you here?” she asked me, sliding sideways out of her reverie and returning to Earth. Or, at least, whatever this place was. It sure as hell didn’t feel or look like Earth. Scorched earth, maybe. Though there was no shortage of that around here. And yet, here I was again. I could never make sense of why anyone would call this place home. I always figured they had to be running from something. Of course in Tasha’s case, she didn’t have any other option.

A clattering broke the silence and Tasha shifted in her seat, looking perturbed. At the back of the house, her mother was banging pots and pans in the makeshift kitchen. “Whaton God’s green earth is she doing now?”

“Please,” I held up my hand. “One question at a time.” 

She pierced me with her chilling grey eyes, then bowed her head, watching her fingers twist in and out of one another as though they didn’t belong to her. “Fair enough,” she looked up. “So… what are you doing here?”

“I think you know why I’m here,” I said, easing back in the overstuffed chair, lighting a cigarette, and attempting to look cool – which may have worked had it been 1958 instead of 2016. Tasha crinkled her nose, pointed at the cigarette, and shook her head vehemently. I snuffed it out. “Your brother sent me to get some information,” I said, which based on the intel he’d provided up to that point, I suspected would produce an unsavory response.

“Hmmmmmmm,” she paused. “Well, you can tell him this for me,” she said. Then right there in the middle of the living room, she horked up – and with impressive showmanship – a sizable wad of phlegm and spit it at a picture of her brother on the table next to her chair. Her aim was spot-on. 

“Not sure I can relay the message with quite the same savvy,” I said, clearing my throat. “Certainly not with as much accuracy.” 

She shrugged. 

“Now, as for your mother,” I continued, “I haven’t any clue what she’s doing. Washing dishes? Making a pot roast?” I offered. “Cooking up some meth? I mean, it’s really anyone’s guess.” 

She ignored me. “You know what I hate most about my brother?” she said thoughtfully, pulling on a strand of her long hair. 

I did not. The truth was, I didn’t really know her brother. I’d only met him three days ago. And I certainly didn’t expect him to have a sister that looked like Tasha. He was obviously spawned from a different father because it had to be some sort of cosmic mix of DNA that created Tasha. And were it that she had true siblings, they’d have many of the same features but arranged in different and equally exotic ways. Because that’s how genetics works. Meanwhile, Jessie was a balding, standard-issue short and stocky dude with charcoal eyes like Frosty. Yes, the snowman.

She squinted her eyes. “He drives an expensive car but doesn’t seem to be in love with it.”

“Hmmmm,” I nodded. “Seems a perfectly logical reason to hate someone.” 

She dipped her chin and raised her brows to glare at me. “Believe me, he’s a first-class waste case,” she rolled her eyes. “Just like my mother.” She glanced toward the kitchen for a moment, then across the room. She nodded toward an ornate antique grandfather clock that stood in the corner, indicating she wanted me to look at it. I studied it for a moment. The face of the clock showed the different cycles of the moon – with each of the faces bearing a wayward smile that came across as both calming and unsettling. “My father,” she began, grabbing at her fingers again, her voice becoming a little smaller. “He used to keep the key for that clock on a small nail he’d hammered a little crookedly in that papered wall there. He’d wind the clock and set it going at the right time. It seemed like he did that every day.” She gazed off into the distance. “But that couldn’t be right. Could it?” 

I didn’t answer.

“Aren’t you going to write any of this down?”

“I don’t really write about grandfather clocks being wound,” I shrugged. 

A joker’s grin spread across her face. “You’re a smart ass.”

We sat in relative silence (barring the sound of her mother now humming in the kitchen) for a bit longer. I began to wish that her long-deceased father would resurrect himself if only to wind the clock and set it ticking. 

“I want to see what you’ve written about me,” she suddenly said. “So far, I mean. Based on what you’ve heard. And on what he told you.”

“Do you?” I asked. But I knew she did. They all did; always wanting to read about themselves. It was no different than a visual artist’s subject hungry to embrace an alternate view of themselves. To grasp an image that they themselves could never see. 

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “That’s why I said I did.” 

I laughed. 

“And what’s it called?”

“It’s still untitled.”

Tasha leaned forward and cupped her chin in her spidery fingers. “I have one.”

“I’m sure you do,” I said. “Which we can certainly discuss at another time. In the meantime,” I continued, handing her my old worn notebook filled with script and scribbles that were, in fact, all about her. “I’m truly honored that from within the boundary defined by your skin, you are choosing to peer out at my words.” 

She laughed and rolled her eyes like a young girl. “Definitely a smart ass,” she said with that same chilling smile that I’d come to know well. “We should get along just fine,” she mumbled while glancing over my pages.

I nodded and smiled.

“Until, of course,” she cleared her throat, and looked up at me, “we don’t.”

*(Excerpts from various fiction and non-fiction works)