#9 – Number Nine

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged

The MANY men in my family tried to raise me with indifference to gender, teaching me how to change a tire, throw a punch, build a fire, that sort of thing. I think they may have overshot though. No, I didn’t blossom into adulthood as a pyromaniacal auto mechanic with a penchant for getting into fights. First off because I’m not the type to blossom. But also, I am cursed with what some folks call “dainty wrists.” I do, however, have a closet full of men’s blue mechanics’ shirts complete with an embroidered name tag that says Sam – which happens to be my name. And these shirts comprise the majority of my wardrobe. 

I mean, I’m not a complete pine stump barbarian when it comes to fashion. I do accessorize them with various items as they fit my mood and/or weather. Plaid shorts or skirts, fish-net stockings, army boots, leather jackets, maybe a big blocky cardigan. It’s not a look you find in glossy magazines and I get glances from women as they pass me by. Especially young women who are my age – these denizens of fashion who regard the current trend of paint-splattered shirts, torn jeans, and all things neon as haute couture. Leg warmers? Come on. And yet I’m considered a fashion faux pas.

“You’re a pretty girl,” my mom always says in regards to my wardrobe. “I don’t know why you think you have to try to prove a point.”

“I’m not trying to prove a point,” I always respond, although I suspect she’s right. I probably am trying to prove a point. I just don’t know what it is yet. I’m 22 though. I reckon I have some time to figure it out. 

“You could go to college and start over,” she also always says, leaning in closer and staring into my eyes, like she’s certain college will solve all my wardrobe malfunctions. 

“Start over?” I always ask. “Start over what?” I’m not trying to be obtuse. I really don’t understand her line of reasoning.

She never gives me an answer though. She simply sighs and up into the air go her big burly hands – the kind that could effectively build fires, change tires, and throw punches – and which she did not pass down to me. Then she walks out of the room. 

It’s not a productive conversation, to say the least. But I guess productivity has never been our thing – my mom’s and mine. She has a much more productive relationship with her dog, Stanley. I suppose he’s easier to understand. Even though they don’t speak the same language. Though I’m not sure we do either.

The shirts – the ones I wear every day – belonged to my dad’s much younger brother, Sam. As a peacenik and a conscientious objector who managed to stave off shipment to Vietnam, he asked that I never refer to him as Uncle Sam. Fair enough. 

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, Sam was hands down my favorite family member. He took me on excursions from our small rural Illinois town to Chicago several times over those years. 

“Ya gotta see the bigger picture, Samantha,” he said the first time we went. I didn’t know what he meant, but Chicago was bigger than anything I’d seen up to that point. The biggest thing I’d seen in our sleepy town was the 1976 Bicentennial parade that went down Main Street when I was eleven – half my age now. Some of the girls in my school rode their bikes in that parade. I never understood girls. Even then. I’d preferred Matchbox cars to Barbies; insects to jewelry; mud to perfume. And with only two older brothers, I felt distinctly out of touch with my fellow uterus-bearers. I remember being taken that parade day though by the shiny red and blue streamers sparkling in the sunlight and the white ribbons in my classmates’ sun-kissed blonde hair and feeling a tinge of jealousy that I didn’t understand. 

“The small-minded folks with their narrow scope, they’ll eat you alive,” Sam said that day. “Chew you up and spit you out just as soon as they’d rat out your own mother for hanging the wash wrong.” I remember wondering what that meant, but assumed it was some brand of brilliance that required decoding I wasn’t yet sophisticated enough to possess. 

That may have been what made Sam my favorite. I sensed that he was different; that he also struggled with conventionality. He’d worked for years as a steady and reliable mechanic at Lloyd’s Body Shop. Then one day, he moved into a trailer outside of town and started taking on work as a shade tree mechanic. When I was fifteen, he began to disappear for weeks at a time – wandering off to California, northern Canada, and eventually Thailand. I was envious. I suppose at the time he thought that traveling to some far-flung place seemed like a good idea. I had no idea he was trying to get away from himself. 

When I was 17, he pulled me aside at our family’s annual July 4th reunion and began ranting about the inhumanity of man toward man, along with some other garden-variety rhetoric that had become all too common for him. “Ya know,” he paused. “Lennon said that nine is the highest number in the universe.” He smiled. 

“Yeah?” I said, unsure of the Lennon to whom he was referring. I wanted so much to understand his world and still thought that when I got older and grew up, I would get it. 

Sam nodded and a smile crossed his face. “Yeah. Cuz after that, Samantha,” he whispered, his eyes off in some dreamy place, “you go back to one.” He held up one finger, then twirled it a few times and tapped the tip of my nose. He got up and walked away. The Lennon to whom he was referring was, of course, John and not Vladimir, which is spelled differently anyhow.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that would be my last conversation with Sam. He disappeared a week later and his body was found two weeks after that. The coroner deemed it a suicide. It wasn’t until weeks later when leafing through one of his heavily illustrated journals that I learned about the voices. 

To this day, I wonder what the voices sounded like for Sam. If they were men or women. Or maybe both. I wonder if any of them sounded like me. Maybe that’s a weird thing to wonder. But my middle brother hears voices now. He tells people they sometimes sound like Sam, but won’t reveal whether it’s our uncle or me. 

And no matter how old or grown up I get, I’m not sure I’ll ever know what to make of that. 

*(modified excerpts from Crying in the H. Mart by Michelle Zauner)

#8 – Negative Hands and Blank Slates

Extraordinarily Brief Stories for the Attention Span-Challenged,

By the time I awaken, the notifications have already started rolling in. Though it’s more accurate to say that they awakened me. Each jingling tone from my phone feigning flattery; inveigling into my unconscious until it too is forced to awaken. “Your input is crucial,” they say. Or “without you, I cannot form an opinion.” These are, of course, the interpretations from my unconscious who cannot actually read and whose intellectual meanderings are consistently either suspect or spot-on. 

Today, it is the former. 

I know my opinions don’t matter. I’m nothing more than a lowly assistant. I have no chops. No street cred. Not yet, at least. The notifications remind me of such. Because what they really say is REMINDER! BE AT THE SITE NO LATER THAN 6AM and YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE INSTRUMENTS AND TAKING OF COPIOUS NOTES, YOU WORM. Okay, they don’t call me a worm. The subtext is there though. 

I realize I have to pay my dues. We all do. It’s part of the deal. And I’m aware that I won’t always have to idly stand by and pretend to care when one of my least favorite post-docs waxes poetic about something like how a sequoia can withstand a thousand years of earthquakes, fires, and wind, to finally just one day fall. He states these observations in such a way that they come across as less a lamentation and more a sociopathic rant.

“Yeah, it’s a real shame,” I typically respond shaking my head and, in the case of tree at least, thinking that at 1000 years, the tree had a good run. My grandmother is not even a tenth that age and isn’t faring nearly as well. 

My phone chimes again. It’s mocking me. I’m sure of it.

REMEMBER TO BRING THE THERMOS

I roll my eyes. As if I’d forget the thermos. I know full well that the scientists can’t make any sweeping discoveries without coffee and that what the message is actually conveying is to remember to make coffee. I sigh. Again, paying my dues. 

I didn’t sleep well last night. It was all the excitement, I suppose, of being party to some of yesterday’s discoveries. Even so, I’ve never slept well the first night in an unfamiliar place. My sensory organs thrive on routine and are priggish about change. Particularly at night. My ears find solace in the muffled sounds of cars, people’s voices, and music fading in and out as the evening slowly stretches its long bony fingers across the city. Meanwhile, my nose is accustomed to the scent of exhaust from the aforementioned cars, the twinge of mustiness from my couch’s throw pillow, and the red and orange smells of warm Indian spices from my neighbor’s apartment by 7pm every day. (4:30 on those dusky winter afternoons). 

Last night, however, my ears were accosted by some rather ghostlike and inchoate owl calls as I pressed a stiff, white, science lab-issued pillow over my nose in an attempt to conceal the odor of wild rosemary and thyme growing just outside the tent. It wasn’t that it was a bad scent. Just strong. And unfamiliar. And it was making me hungry, if I’m honest. 

Then there were the negative hands. I hadn’t expected to be so taken by those ancient prints on the cave walls that had been there for thousands and thousands of years. There were so many hands in so many different sizes. There were large handprints stamped steadfastly at the entrance of the cave as if to say either ‘welcome’ or ‘stop.’ (The handprint was as unreadable as my unconscious.) Then there were somewhat smaller hands going along the side walls. Were they placed in celebration? In bondage? Did it matter?

What stayed with me the most were the tiny handprints on the ceiling of the cave. Clearly, an adult had hoisted a small child high up onto his or her shoulders, then slowly spit a warm mixture of water and pigment over the little hands to create those images. Many of my colleagues were atwitter by the notion that there is probably DNA in that ancient spit that begs analysis. I, on the other hand, was curious about how the child might have felt about that ancient spray paint spit on his or her hand. And would he or she have any notion that these prints would last well into antiquity? (The answer is: of course not.)

I sit up in my cot rather swiftly and three magpies picking at something outside my tent take immediate flight. I think of my mother and her love for magpies. She adored how they are drawn to shiny and sparkly things. My mother in her beautiful cashmere dresses; rhinestone-rimmed sunglasses embedded in her auburn hair. My mother who encouraged me to go into something – anything – more glamorous than science. Fashion perhaps. Even interior design would have sufficed. 

Glancing at the sky, I see the sun is on the horizon. It’s a brand new day. A chance to start over. In theory, at least. And there will be no A-line dresses or recessed lighting plans for me to consider. I’ll probably have mud on my shoes by 9am. Hell, I’ll probably have mud IN my shoes by 9am. And I wonder how feasible it is to strive for a blank slate each day. To start from zero. Tabula rasa. Because, yeah. Yearning for a blank slate crosses the ideological spectrum. But the truth is, sooner or later, even the newest places will face the same old problems. 

I stretch and yawn as I roll off my cot. 

Time to start making the coffee. 

*(modified excerpts from The Atlantic)    

#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)