I look into the hole and I see things. Nobody else can see them because they’re not real, although they were once. The edge of the hole is apart a little where they cut the ring off her hand, making the hole look as if it’s filling up if you hold it right, or emptying out if you hold it upside down, like an hourglass. If it weren’t for the steroids the ring would be a ring and not a deformed horseshoe, but they had to cut it off in order to incinerate her. I can see the Bahamas, bright wavy lines through the scuba masks as we played on the sand where mortals cannot. I see Burlington, skinny dipping in the big lake as the two old ladies cheered in their winter coats and boots, clapping their gloved hands with a sound like a melon falling on the floor. I see our son in his plastic playhouse, frowning and trying to slam the shutters that kept opening back up, his scowl eventually turning to laughter as his fine blonde hair stood on end from the static. I see a trip to Disneyland where we successfully passed ourselves off as writers for Black Achievement Magazine with stolen press passes. I see the machines that have wavy displays and go “ping” in their respective places around the bed.
When I drop it I hear the splash of paddles on the Allagash and the sound of rocks scraping. I hear the muffler falling off the Saab in Toronto, alerting all around that we were dorks of the first order and were to be avoided at any cost. I hear the little snorts meaning she fell asleep before me, a courtesy I have rarely extended. I hear the surf on the rocks at back beach, gurgling through the larger rocks and pounding on the big ones. I hear the machines go “ping.”
If I hold it to my skin I feel warm sunshine on top of Cadillac Mountain in April as we stripped down to our shirtsleeves. I feel her hair tickle my nose as she put her head on that ratty old Carhart jacket I worked in. She said it smelled like me. I can feel the sweat on her face as we biked up the hills on the Evangeline trail, hot and cold at the same time. I can feel the faux silk sheets on the bed, and feel her belly move as we laughed about them. I can feel the machines click when they reset.
The ring goes back in the drawer, platinum quarter-round that rarely sees the light of day unless the spirits of melancholy summon it.
Very interesting reading 4 & 5 together: two different women, two altogether different styles, two different takeaways for the reader.
ReplyDeleteFour jokes and kids and wordplays and refuses to say anything straight. To me, the only thing in it I can hold onto is that blue Toyota--I understand the situation very well and some of the emotions maybe, but the writing keeps me at a good distance (the technical term for writing that does what you do here is, pardon me, 'frigid') and prevents me from taking it too seriously-- until that last line. That struck a chord of feeling, at least for me.
If anything, those last few lines of 4 feel like a warm-up for 5--looks like you wrote two at a sitting and went directly from 4 to 5.
5 is warm, 4 is frigid. 4 laughs off the sadness in a way where the sadness feels real and the laughs to do not but the laughs undercut the sadness. Which is not to say that a writer can't ever combine tears and laughs! Certainly not.
Here's what Edmund Gosse has to say as he introduces his book about his relationship with his father: "There was an extraordinary mixture of comedy and tragedy in the situation which is here described, and those who are affected by the pathos of it will not need to have it explained to them that the comedy was superficial and the tragedy essential."
But I don't think you succeed in doing that in 4.
5 is something else again. It works on the rhythmic assemblage of random details principle, a principle I love and adds up to plenty sad enough for any reader. What makes it more that just a heap of details is, of course, the ring you insist on, first and last.
Yeah, submit that one to the Eyrie for sure.