We never use the hallway light so the tealeaf walls are steeped in dusk though it is the middle of the afternoon, and the sangria carpet just looks like mudpie. I rap on the faded but still glossy Benny Beaver’s bucktooth, and his door coughs a series of short, hollow, muted notes. A grunt is issued from the other side and I open the door.
His room reeks of boy – there’s no term more apt for that unique pungency. It makes the air thick and heavy and I postpone gulping it in as long as I can, which isn’t long. I offer to buy him lunch (or breakfast since he’s been conscious less than an hour) as a means of changing venue, but he declines. He’s “too lazy” to get dressed, which would explain his 3 pm getup of flannel pajama bottoms and a bleached wifebeater were I not already aware that this is also his 10 pm getup and his 7 am getup and every getup in between.
His walls are Pabst Blue Ribbon blue, and the single drop curtain is the color of deep ocean from space. The dresser, the shelves, the floorspace not occupied by furniture, and the half of the bed he’s not currently inhabiting are all mounded over with clothes that are in need of laundering whether or not they’ve been worn recently. The television screen lights the room and sports commentators buzz to make their voices hoarse until he mutes them.
“Sec.” He lopes his six-foot-three-inch, well-muscled frame past me to the kitchen and returns with a small mixing bowl, a spoon, and an already working jaw; even on my feet, it’s only after he’s seated that I can see over the rim to the cereal. “Aight, go.”
Straight and to the point, he mumbles unornamented responses between mouthfuls of Fruit Loops and 2%. “Bout 2:30.” “Bulls Celtics.” “Meat, mostly.” “The gym.”
Sharing a womb lets you skip formalities. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mandate intimacy, and since monosyllables don’t sell, I prod. To no avail.
Tell me about your friends. “Uh, Jamo… Zack… Craig.” Uh, tell me about them. “Iunno, they’re chill.” What do you do together? “Baseball.” Positions? “Drinking game, not with the bat.”
It’s not that he’s withholding; he is a man of few words. Still, if he had a wall clock, its marking of seconds would deafen and arrive hours apart.
He burps, no, belches. The creak of the metal bed frame as he stretches to place the bowl on the television stand. Long, satisfied sigh. He chortles softly, offhandedly launches into a gut-buster involving the sliding door of a green minivan, a five pound bag of Russets, and a field full of Holsteins. Paints the scene: the boonies way out off State Street, once you get to the gravel and dirt roads, the driver slowing to forty, you leaning out of the gaping hole in the side of the van and chucking spuds straight at the longhorn’s domesticated cousin.
My eyeballs explode in their sockets. He doesn’t notice.
He admits it was not an isolated incident. He vehemently denies potato-launcher involvement. “That’s cheap fun right there. And it’s not like it’s going to hurt the cows, man we were just feeding them.” So cows eat potatoes? A shrug of the shoulders. “Yeah, why not.”
Apparently that’s true. Cows love potatoes.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
What They Don't Tell You About Laughter.
The average adult laughs seventeen times daily, which is roughly equivalent to two minutes and thirty seconds on an exercise bike. Laugh it up for twenty straight seconds and you may have done the equivalent of rowing for three minutes. Vigorously. Yes, exercise is good for you.
But maybe the gym is safer… for all involved.
What they don’t tell you about laughter is that the brain thinks it’s dying.
Fifteen facial muscles contract. The epiglottis half-chokes the larynx, leaving the comically afflicted subject gasping for air. The tear ducts sometimes activate (science has yet to definitively determine why), whence comes the tragicomic combination of laughter and tears.
As a response, the brain sends out serotonin, which helps to regulate mood (it’s the reason Prozac works), and endorphins, which act in the body as painkillers, just like morphine. The chemicals produced by the simple act of laughing increase immune function: B cells and T cells (special kinds of disease-fighting white blood cells) and gamma interferon (that thing House prescribes nearly every episode).
Alright, so laughing actually heals you, whether it’s due to incongruity, relief, or schadenfreude.
That is, if it’s you doing the laughing.
But maybe the gym is safer… for all involved.
What they don’t tell you about laughter is that the brain thinks it’s dying.
Fifteen facial muscles contract. The epiglottis half-chokes the larynx, leaving the comically afflicted subject gasping for air. The tear ducts sometimes activate (science has yet to definitively determine why), whence comes the tragicomic combination of laughter and tears.
As a response, the brain sends out serotonin, which helps to regulate mood (it’s the reason Prozac works), and endorphins, which act in the body as painkillers, just like morphine. The chemicals produced by the simple act of laughing increase immune function: B cells and T cells (special kinds of disease-fighting white blood cells) and gamma interferon (that thing House prescribes nearly every episode).
Alright, so laughing actually heals you, whether it’s due to incongruity, relief, or schadenfreude.
That is, if it’s you doing the laughing.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Mack Lobell
While Silke Horneer was swimming her way to a world record in the hundred meter breaststroke, Mack Lobell was cantering over the finish line of the mile-long trot for a first-place finish and a world record of his own. Yes, on the day of my first worldly breaths, two world records were shattered and formed anew.
If I had to relate to one of those victors, it would be Mack. While I’ve never competed in a harness race for trotters, I can’t swim either. It’s not that Mack is so close to my age (he was three when he set the world record). Yes, Silke and I both have two of the same chromosome. We also have the same number of chromosomes, while Mack has nine pairs more. But genetics has nothing to do with our stories. It’s the rest of Mack’s story that echoes mine. It’s because my life and Mack’s are both the same kind of Love Song…
The Triple Crown of Harness Racing for Trotters consists of the Yonkers Trot, the Hambletonian, and the Kentucky Futurity. In 1987, Mack had won the late-June Yonkers and the early-August Hambletonian with ease. The Futurity, held at The Red Mile in Lexington, was his only remaining obstacle to achieving what no horse had done since Super Bowl swept the races in 1972. And he liked The Red Mile. Going into the final leg of the triad, he was undefeated that year, and still held the previous year’s title of Trotter of the Year (which he would receive for ’87, too). His world-record-breaking trot came less than two weeks after his win at the Hambletonian, and was followed by a month’s rest and training. He was heavily favored to take the Crown.
And in the crisp morning air of October 2, 1987, Napoletano, sired by Super Bowl and Mack’s nearest competitor at the Hambletonian (finishing six and a quarter lengths behind), ascended from second in a final-quarter coup, overtaking Mack Lobell and ending his dream of attaining the Crown.
Mack’s owner sold him to a Swede, who let him win a few more purses in Europe before he put him to stud.
I don’t know enough about horses to know if Mack could have felt the gravitational pressure to perform, or resentment towards his trainers and their demands, or even disappointment at his loss, but I can’t imagine he didn’t. He must have. He must have been inconsolable.
It’s the only thing that makes sense, experientially.
If I had to relate to one of those victors, it would be Mack. While I’ve never competed in a harness race for trotters, I can’t swim either. It’s not that Mack is so close to my age (he was three when he set the world record). Yes, Silke and I both have two of the same chromosome. We also have the same number of chromosomes, while Mack has nine pairs more. But genetics has nothing to do with our stories. It’s the rest of Mack’s story that echoes mine. It’s because my life and Mack’s are both the same kind of Love Song…
The Triple Crown of Harness Racing for Trotters consists of the Yonkers Trot, the Hambletonian, and the Kentucky Futurity. In 1987, Mack had won the late-June Yonkers and the early-August Hambletonian with ease. The Futurity, held at The Red Mile in Lexington, was his only remaining obstacle to achieving what no horse had done since Super Bowl swept the races in 1972. And he liked The Red Mile. Going into the final leg of the triad, he was undefeated that year, and still held the previous year’s title of Trotter of the Year (which he would receive for ’87, too). His world-record-breaking trot came less than two weeks after his win at the Hambletonian, and was followed by a month’s rest and training. He was heavily favored to take the Crown.
And in the crisp morning air of October 2, 1987, Napoletano, sired by Super Bowl and Mack’s nearest competitor at the Hambletonian (finishing six and a quarter lengths behind), ascended from second in a final-quarter coup, overtaking Mack Lobell and ending his dream of attaining the Crown.
Mack’s owner sold him to a Swede, who let him win a few more purses in Europe before he put him to stud.
I don’t know enough about horses to know if Mack could have felt the gravitational pressure to perform, or resentment towards his trainers and their demands, or even disappointment at his loss, but I can’t imagine he didn’t. He must have. He must have been inconsolable.
It’s the only thing that makes sense, experientially.
Monday, March 30, 2009
The Nutcracker.
His body is smooth, hard wood. He tells me that, at birth, he was bathed in the shade of sunset, then his belly and paws in that of fresh milk by a nameless, faceless Malaysian child. I will call her Idayu, though doing so will not feed her tomorrow. She glued on his grizzly-colored cotton afro, his firm whiskers, the tuft of bleached hair that protrudes from his chest, his fine bamboo tail. These trappings make him more cartoon character than King of the Jungle. In this we are kindred. But do not believe his painted smile; his jaws were fashioned for destruction.
He was to have been a congratulatory gift.
Before Andrie’ was cast as our Cowardly Lion, he was the baritone who kept my warbly soprano in tune. For that feat alone, he deserved thanks.
So when the nutcracker lion took up residence in the win-by-claw-capture toy-bin-slash-rip-off at my place of employment, I had to make him mine. I ignored the Dorothy of the same series despite her freaking adorable but slightly demonic-looking miniature Toto. Resident Diva of the Arts Tessa would inevitably become Dorothy, and though I didn’t want the part (I would never choose home over brains or heart or courage), I couldn’t stand to recognize her theatrical superiority.
Yes, the appearance of the six-inch nutcracker actually predated casting, but Andrie’ was a shoe-in for the Lion. First of all, kid could sing. Second, he looked the part: almost a pair of hands higher than me, liberally and evenly muscled, padded more than lightly with chub. Most importantly, he was the principal’s son and would get whatever he wanted, to which I had no objection because what he currently wanted was nothing he shouldn’t be given otherwise.
I must have sacrificed twenty bucks worth of quarters to The Claw trying to buy its freedom, always to no avail.
I had all but given up hope when Services The Machines Guy came to trade out the inhabitants of the glass case. I pled with him to sell me the lion. Instead, he made it a gift, and at my explanation of the gravity of his present, he produced the Dorothy from his bag and said he hoped I got the lead.
I never gave Andrie’ his present; the Dorothy Casting Scandal of ’05 caused most of us seniors to boycott the production (the lead did not, as expected, go to the Resident Diva, but to a girl whose only qualification was her skin color). Under those circumstances, it seemed gauche to semi-randomly gift a nutcracker, especially to a casual acquaintance. So he sleeps caged beneath a sky of white-and-red-polka-dotted paper, in his original purple packaging, in a box under my bed, right between my botched attempt at a Cameroonian Passport mask and the tiny crystal unicorn wrapped safely in tissue paper with his severed front hoof, across from the Dorothy and her demon-eyed dog.
He will never show his capability, never serve his purpose, never fulfill his promise.
So long as I keep him Cowardly, so long as I keep him caged.
He was to have been a congratulatory gift.
Before Andrie’ was cast as our Cowardly Lion, he was the baritone who kept my warbly soprano in tune. For that feat alone, he deserved thanks.
So when the nutcracker lion took up residence in the win-by-claw-capture toy-bin-slash-rip-off at my place of employment, I had to make him mine. I ignored the Dorothy of the same series despite her freaking adorable but slightly demonic-looking miniature Toto. Resident Diva of the Arts Tessa would inevitably become Dorothy, and though I didn’t want the part (I would never choose home over brains or heart or courage), I couldn’t stand to recognize her theatrical superiority.
Yes, the appearance of the six-inch nutcracker actually predated casting, but Andrie’ was a shoe-in for the Lion. First of all, kid could sing. Second, he looked the part: almost a pair of hands higher than me, liberally and evenly muscled, padded more than lightly with chub. Most importantly, he was the principal’s son and would get whatever he wanted, to which I had no objection because what he currently wanted was nothing he shouldn’t be given otherwise.
I must have sacrificed twenty bucks worth of quarters to The Claw trying to buy its freedom, always to no avail.
I had all but given up hope when Services The Machines Guy came to trade out the inhabitants of the glass case. I pled with him to sell me the lion. Instead, he made it a gift, and at my explanation of the gravity of his present, he produced the Dorothy from his bag and said he hoped I got the lead.
I never gave Andrie’ his present; the Dorothy Casting Scandal of ’05 caused most of us seniors to boycott the production (the lead did not, as expected, go to the Resident Diva, but to a girl whose only qualification was her skin color). Under those circumstances, it seemed gauche to semi-randomly gift a nutcracker, especially to a casual acquaintance. So he sleeps caged beneath a sky of white-and-red-polka-dotted paper, in his original purple packaging, in a box under my bed, right between my botched attempt at a Cameroonian Passport mask and the tiny crystal unicorn wrapped safely in tissue paper with his severed front hoof, across from the Dorothy and her demon-eyed dog.
He will never show his capability, never serve his purpose, never fulfill his promise.
So long as I keep him Cowardly, so long as I keep him caged.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Truthiness!
Truth… it’s certainly elusive. I’ve always had problems with truth, and I refer you to my first blog if you think I’m lying. And that says nothing about my problems with Truth, which (though probably not unrelated to my issues with truth) are relatively far removed from this assignment.
I am aware that I have memories that have never happened to me. I see places and people, I hear voices and background noise, and I know these things never took place outside of my brain. Does that make them less a part of me? Maybe it makes them more a part of me than what really did happen, because they’re my own creations, not dependent on the rest of the world to bring to fruition. If I can convince myself it happened, if I can see it happening in my head just like any other memory, is it less real? Possibly, but does that mean it’s not true? Not necessarily. While I would include them in the same thesaurus entries in the interest of being thorough, I don’t know that I consider reality and truth synonymous. (The situation is complicated by the fact that I have only spatterings of memory before the age of twelve, and no explanation for the Grand Canyons of time between remembrances.)
As I said in class, I think it’s perfectly fine to invent so long as you inform the reader that it’s invention. That said, there are a few additional qualifiers. According to Jennifer, invention is okay iff:
1. You don’t feel like you have a good enough grasp on the truth well enough to successfully pass it to the reader, like you only half-caught it. If you have a clear memory of something, you’re obligated to give that to the reader.
2. The invention contributes to the truth of what happened, as you see it/saw it/remember it (those all have different shades of meaning; pick whichever you like). Substitution of facts because “this just sounds better” or “but it makes a great metaphor” does not fall into this category.
3. Omission is perfectly acceptable, because no writer has the mental faculties to simultaneously observe every aspect of any situation, and no reader has the time or the interest to read about every aspect of any situation. This applies to things you deem “insignificant” to the story you want to tell, not things you would like to forget happened because they are “inconvenient” to the story you want to tell.
I’m sure I have other thoughts on the matter, but that’s a general picture. You can infer the rest, because I’m not up to writing a treatise tonight.
Though this is an issue worthy of one. While I respect the creative freedom of the artist, if someone is going to outright lie to me I want a disclaimer and an explanation, or I want it called fiction. I’m extraordinarily gullible, but I haven’t gotten used to being duped, and I still don’t like it.
In my memoir, I avoided dialogue because I didn’t think I could capture the voice of the semi-antagonist, Josh. It would have been lies, and his was not a voice I wanted to fuck up. His voice is so integral to understanding him that getting it wrong would have been worse than the omission. If it really matters and/or you can’t get it close to right, I say recreating dialogue has to fall on the invention side of the line. But, since I did include a few lines not in my own voice, I guess I invented.
I like to think I got the facts mostly right, as I included only the ones I was reasonably certain were real. In my character descriptions, I used details I had observed myself or that the subject himself had acknowledged, and I admitted when I was making an assumption (I felt I had the most success in mixing the two: “[He] competed in Bible quizzing competitions and I’m sure he won them.” You get an understanding of the subject and an understanding of the speaker in one phrase.)
I like to think that my imagined section took care of the creative bones in my body, but I only felt I could include it because experience tells me that’s the direction the conversation would have taken had other forces not changed the circumstances.
In revision, I’ll have to be more fair to the spatial aspect of the story; I essentially ignored physicality to focus on other issues. I feel like I need to re-establish contact with some of the other players, to make sure I’m not grossly misremembering anything important. What’s I think is most important is that I will have to be much more careful about language control. I ended up conveying undertones that were never there, which I have to find in order to remove. So if anyone wants to help me with that, I’d appreciate it.
I am aware that I have memories that have never happened to me. I see places and people, I hear voices and background noise, and I know these things never took place outside of my brain. Does that make them less a part of me? Maybe it makes them more a part of me than what really did happen, because they’re my own creations, not dependent on the rest of the world to bring to fruition. If I can convince myself it happened, if I can see it happening in my head just like any other memory, is it less real? Possibly, but does that mean it’s not true? Not necessarily. While I would include them in the same thesaurus entries in the interest of being thorough, I don’t know that I consider reality and truth synonymous. (The situation is complicated by the fact that I have only spatterings of memory before the age of twelve, and no explanation for the Grand Canyons of time between remembrances.)
As I said in class, I think it’s perfectly fine to invent so long as you inform the reader that it’s invention. That said, there are a few additional qualifiers. According to Jennifer, invention is okay iff:
1. You don’t feel like you have a good enough grasp on the truth well enough to successfully pass it to the reader, like you only half-caught it. If you have a clear memory of something, you’re obligated to give that to the reader.
2. The invention contributes to the truth of what happened, as you see it/saw it/remember it (those all have different shades of meaning; pick whichever you like). Substitution of facts because “this just sounds better” or “but it makes a great metaphor” does not fall into this category.
3. Omission is perfectly acceptable, because no writer has the mental faculties to simultaneously observe every aspect of any situation, and no reader has the time or the interest to read about every aspect of any situation. This applies to things you deem “insignificant” to the story you want to tell, not things you would like to forget happened because they are “inconvenient” to the story you want to tell.
I’m sure I have other thoughts on the matter, but that’s a general picture. You can infer the rest, because I’m not up to writing a treatise tonight.
Though this is an issue worthy of one. While I respect the creative freedom of the artist, if someone is going to outright lie to me I want a disclaimer and an explanation, or I want it called fiction. I’m extraordinarily gullible, but I haven’t gotten used to being duped, and I still don’t like it.
In my memoir, I avoided dialogue because I didn’t think I could capture the voice of the semi-antagonist, Josh. It would have been lies, and his was not a voice I wanted to fuck up. His voice is so integral to understanding him that getting it wrong would have been worse than the omission. If it really matters and/or you can’t get it close to right, I say recreating dialogue has to fall on the invention side of the line. But, since I did include a few lines not in my own voice, I guess I invented.
I like to think I got the facts mostly right, as I included only the ones I was reasonably certain were real. In my character descriptions, I used details I had observed myself or that the subject himself had acknowledged, and I admitted when I was making an assumption (I felt I had the most success in mixing the two: “[He] competed in Bible quizzing competitions and I’m sure he won them.” You get an understanding of the subject and an understanding of the speaker in one phrase.)
I like to think that my imagined section took care of the creative bones in my body, but I only felt I could include it because experience tells me that’s the direction the conversation would have taken had other forces not changed the circumstances.
In revision, I’ll have to be more fair to the spatial aspect of the story; I essentially ignored physicality to focus on other issues. I feel like I need to re-establish contact with some of the other players, to make sure I’m not grossly misremembering anything important. What’s I think is most important is that I will have to be much more careful about language control. I ended up conveying undertones that were never there, which I have to find in order to remove. So if anyone wants to help me with that, I’d appreciate it.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
68? 71? 73?
He shines his flashlight through my passenger window, because apparently I haven’t pulled over far enough for him to stand at my left. The cars creeping by all know better than to travel more than 30 miles per hour for the forty-five seconds it will take them to pass through this town, even if they’re tempted to do five over because some asshole is tailgating them. I didn’t know he was a cop until he flicked on his lights. They’re still on, flashing scarlet and cerulean, but all I can see in my rearview is the blue, and the hollow globes of the cars sauntering past us into town.
I lean over, the seatbelt loath to release me, and shove against the window crank. It won’t budge. Because I’m pushing instead of pulling turn your brain on. I reverse the pressure and coax the window down most of the way.
“Why so fast? Late for sum’in?” The words are almost a chuckle. He marries the spout of the flashlight to his watchface as if to give it a close spotlight, then pumps the light up and down like cartoon characters’ eyes swell and retract. For some reason, this motion is obscene. The flashlight is obstructing his view of the watch as well as mine, but he’s made his point.
“No, sir, just going home to school.” because that made sense coming from home going to school you moron. His narrowed eyes dart back to his watch. “See I live in Salem, uh, my parents live in Salem, but I live on-campus in Forest Grove and I’m going back to school now.”
“Well I clocked you goin’ 68, 69 back you know that dip coupla miles back, an’ took me coupla minutes catch up with you. Your speedometer work?”
I look at it as if to ask it personally. “I assume it does… guess I just didn’t realize how fast I was going.” I know exactly how fast I was going. The needle covered the hash mark adjacent to the 80 at one point, because I had been trying to keep a hill between me and his blinding headlights at all times.
“Well le’s take a look at your license, and the insurance or the registration.” I dig out my wallet from the cavernous depths of my purse, hand him my ODL, and shutter open the glove compartment. “Zuh car yours?”
“Uh, in my father’s name. My sister’s name might also be on there.” I know for a fact that it is.
He confirms my father’s name while I search. I only have to sift through a few Express Lube scheduled maintenance printouts before I come to the insurance card. I check to see that it’s the valid one before I hand it to him.
“How d’y say the last name?” He is testing me to see if it’s really my license, or if I’ve at least studied it enough that I can lie effectively. I pronounce it for him, he repeats it back to me, mangling it less than my high school principal did as she handed me my diploma. I continue to shuffle until I find the envelope with the registration, just to prove I have it, but he declines it.
“Wherezat from, you know?” And my brain flashes to a scene from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. He’s been given a doozy, and he’s asking me for country of origin. No, he’s shining the light in my face.
“No, actually, I don’t.”
I do. It’s German, though my father’s adoptive parents are mostly French. We think it got changed to Terhune from Terhünen at Ellis Island. I also know my first name is Welsh for “white wave.” I tell him none of this, because to correct myself would make it seem like I’m lying to him instead of just scared shitless. He takes my license to run it, for which I thank him, because it will tell him I have a perfectly spotless record since I’ve never even been pulled over before.
Another patrol car approaches from in front of me. I flash to the scene in every cop movie where the cop and the criminal lock eyes in slow-mo standoff as their cars meet in passing. Non-illuminated, impenetrable glass meets my stare. He glides by, then pulls a U-ie and falls into line behind the other police car.
The din resonance of a door shutting.
“Busy night?” I am not supposed to hear this. The first officer must know this, because his response is unintelligibly low. “Damn.” The second officer must not know this.
They chat loudly about some bullshit second-rate version of the Academy that is apparently only for pussies.
The night is wafting in through the window, inciting my right arm to goosebumps.
I am waiting.
“So how fast did you clock ‘er?”
“71.”
“Nice!”
“Yeah, know.”
A third police cruiser creeps over as if curious. It swings around and pulls in behind the other two. Another door latch announces its job complete.
I stifle the burst of insane laughter that threatens to gouge its way out of my throat. When there’s an accident in Salem, you can’t get one lousy black-and-white unless there’s a serious injury. I know this; I’ve got connections. I could drop names. But I don’t. I let him continue to invent numbers and talk pussies until he’s good and ready to return.
“Now I’m not gonna give you a lecture, this is a low base, and what happens is at night, you go 67, 68, you overdrive your headlights Now what that means is you get there before you can see it, so if a deer or an animal comes out”
“You don’t have time to stop.”
“there’s nothin you can do So at night you gotta keep it under 70”
“Oh, ’s good to know that figure.”
“Awright, now you do me favor an keep it under 70 ok”
“Yes, sir I will.”
“kay you have a good night.”
I think I got all that.
Footsteps, then the door latches bid each other goodnight, and the third cruiser heads back the way I came. The first saunters off and makes a right onto the first side street. The second lingers. I wait. The second flicks on his headlights, illuminating the ticket in my hand.
The ticket says 73.
I lean over, the seatbelt loath to release me, and shove against the window crank. It won’t budge. Because I’m pushing instead of pulling turn your brain on. I reverse the pressure and coax the window down most of the way.
“Why so fast? Late for sum’in?” The words are almost a chuckle. He marries the spout of the flashlight to his watchface as if to give it a close spotlight, then pumps the light up and down like cartoon characters’ eyes swell and retract. For some reason, this motion is obscene. The flashlight is obstructing his view of the watch as well as mine, but he’s made his point.
“No, sir, just going home to school.” because that made sense coming from home going to school you moron. His narrowed eyes dart back to his watch. “See I live in Salem, uh, my parents live in Salem, but I live on-campus in Forest Grove and I’m going back to school now.”
“Well I clocked you goin’ 68, 69 back you know that dip coupla miles back, an’ took me coupla minutes catch up with you. Your speedometer work?”
I look at it as if to ask it personally. “I assume it does… guess I just didn’t realize how fast I was going.” I know exactly how fast I was going. The needle covered the hash mark adjacent to the 80 at one point, because I had been trying to keep a hill between me and his blinding headlights at all times.
“Well le’s take a look at your license, and the insurance or the registration.” I dig out my wallet from the cavernous depths of my purse, hand him my ODL, and shutter open the glove compartment. “Zuh car yours?”
“Uh, in my father’s name. My sister’s name might also be on there.” I know for a fact that it is.
He confirms my father’s name while I search. I only have to sift through a few Express Lube scheduled maintenance printouts before I come to the insurance card. I check to see that it’s the valid one before I hand it to him.
“How d’y say the last name?” He is testing me to see if it’s really my license, or if I’ve at least studied it enough that I can lie effectively. I pronounce it for him, he repeats it back to me, mangling it less than my high school principal did as she handed me my diploma. I continue to shuffle until I find the envelope with the registration, just to prove I have it, but he declines it.
“Wherezat from, you know?” And my brain flashes to a scene from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. He’s been given a doozy, and he’s asking me for country of origin. No, he’s shining the light in my face.
“No, actually, I don’t.”
I do. It’s German, though my father’s adoptive parents are mostly French. We think it got changed to Terhune from Terhünen at Ellis Island. I also know my first name is Welsh for “white wave.” I tell him none of this, because to correct myself would make it seem like I’m lying to him instead of just scared shitless. He takes my license to run it, for which I thank him, because it will tell him I have a perfectly spotless record since I’ve never even been pulled over before.
Another patrol car approaches from in front of me. I flash to the scene in every cop movie where the cop and the criminal lock eyes in slow-mo standoff as their cars meet in passing. Non-illuminated, impenetrable glass meets my stare. He glides by, then pulls a U-ie and falls into line behind the other police car.
The din resonance of a door shutting.
“Busy night?” I am not supposed to hear this. The first officer must know this, because his response is unintelligibly low. “Damn.” The second officer must not know this.
They chat loudly about some bullshit second-rate version of the Academy that is apparently only for pussies.
The night is wafting in through the window, inciting my right arm to goosebumps.
I am waiting.
“So how fast did you clock ‘er?”
“71.”
“Nice!”
“Yeah, know.”
A third police cruiser creeps over as if curious. It swings around and pulls in behind the other two. Another door latch announces its job complete.
I stifle the burst of insane laughter that threatens to gouge its way out of my throat. When there’s an accident in Salem, you can’t get one lousy black-and-white unless there’s a serious injury. I know this; I’ve got connections. I could drop names. But I don’t. I let him continue to invent numbers and talk pussies until he’s good and ready to return.
“Now I’m not gonna give you a lecture, this is a low base, and what happens is at night, you go 67, 68, you overdrive your headlights Now what that means is you get there before you can see it, so if a deer or an animal comes out”
“You don’t have time to stop.”
“there’s nothin you can do So at night you gotta keep it under 70”
“Oh, ’s good to know that figure.”
“Awright, now you do me favor an keep it under 70 ok”
“Yes, sir I will.”
“kay you have a good night.”
I think I got all that.
Footsteps, then the door latches bid each other goodnight, and the third cruiser heads back the way I came. The first saunters off and makes a right onto the first side street. The second lingers. I wait. The second flicks on his headlights, illuminating the ticket in my hand.
The ticket says 73.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Mutation
It’s my goddamned left eye.
No, not the eyeball, that’s not the problem. There’s nothing wrong with it, aside from its 20/40 uncorrected vision and sometimes-dry cornea. Just like the right, it’s got a healthy macula and optic nerve, great fovial reflexes, and the last time I checked, the intraocular pressure was a perfectly normal 17.
I actually prefer the left eyeball to the right. Its iris has a more pronounced blunted-orange ring amid the swamp of jade that's flecked with charcoal gray, all encircled in steely blue. Think a blue-skinned, muted kiwi sliced open like a thunder egg, with a ring the color of bruised apple flesh poured roughly equidistant from the black center. The prominence of that sunburst makes my left eye look closer to the brown I’ve always wanted them both to be. Only the eye is too small to see any of that distinction, so it still screams the nondescript “hazel” to anyone except my ophthalmologist, who has examined it from less than three inches away. But I can deal with muddy messes for irises.
Yes, I’ll admit that I take issue with the paper-thin skin underneath it that allows the hue of two-day-old bruises to come through. No concealer I’ve ever tried can suppress the signs of a few too many all-nighters in my high school days. But normal people have those permabruises, too, and I can deal with them.
I guess the chalazion is a bit irritating, too. If I were to forego the eyeliner for a day and someone decided to squint at my left eye, they could see a small wart-looking bump disrupting the upper lashline about a fifth of the way in from the outside. But it’s not noticeable when it’s covered with makeup. It only irritates the cornea when it gets big, and over-the-counter artificial tears or Neomycin are readily available. And if I wanted it smaller or gone altogether, moist heat ten minutes twice daily for a week would do the trick. I’m just too lazy to care about something no one else will notice, and I have much bigger problems on my hands... er, on my eye.
It’s the green-blue vein lurking above my left eye that makes me feel like an alien.
It snakes across my browbone like a river, with peaks and valleys like the Cascades, finally disappearing beneath the ground and returning to its source a centimeter beyond the outer corner of my eye socket. It defies all attempts to conceal it; the shock of color seeps through like sunlight through stained glass. The only way I can get it to go away is to put my finger at the crest of my browbone and apply pressure. I watch the awkward color drain away, the landscape of my pasty skin temporarily untainted by the violent electric blue gash. But then I release the pressure, and it surges forth across the valley, jutting up and down like a bolt of sideways lightning. I can never get rid of it for long, and the method of removal itself makes me look like a moron. I can’t win.
Except in an oddity contest. This unsightly vein is the reason I have almost perfect control over my left eyebrow. So when I am intrigued, or skeptical, or expressing mild disapproval at the antics of children or freshman boys, I raise my left eyebrow.
And the first place his lips consecrate my face is just above my left eyelid. My left eyebrow creeps meekly up beneath the catalytic power of the most gentle of kisses. The warmth of his smile bores into my eyes, locked in his. I am the deer caught in the light of his celestial glow. He is marveling triumphant at the mystical powers he has over my body, and though he does not know it, they are many.
He is the Nino to my Amélie. It has to be destiny that I find someone who can tolerate, even grin with pride at the abomination that besmirches my face. Even if he’s not looking anywhere else. He’s not looking at the rest of me. There must be something wrong. He’s not staring at my chest like they usually do. No, he is different, he is my Nino. He was made for me, made for all of me, including my disfigured eye. The look he is beaming at me is that of an infant when his chubby, naked feet touch grass for the first time: marvel, wonder, infinite curiosity.
And then he cranes his neck back down to bless the other lid. He wants a duplicate expression of his power.
Panic. He won't get it. Because, not having a companion mutant vein, the right eyebrow can’t move independently of the left. They can move together, pulled up by the skin below the hairline, or the left can move by itself. But the right is powerless.
The rest of my body is powerless.
No, not the eyeball, that’s not the problem. There’s nothing wrong with it, aside from its 20/40 uncorrected vision and sometimes-dry cornea. Just like the right, it’s got a healthy macula and optic nerve, great fovial reflexes, and the last time I checked, the intraocular pressure was a perfectly normal 17.
I actually prefer the left eyeball to the right. Its iris has a more pronounced blunted-orange ring amid the swamp of jade that's flecked with charcoal gray, all encircled in steely blue. Think a blue-skinned, muted kiwi sliced open like a thunder egg, with a ring the color of bruised apple flesh poured roughly equidistant from the black center. The prominence of that sunburst makes my left eye look closer to the brown I’ve always wanted them both to be. Only the eye is too small to see any of that distinction, so it still screams the nondescript “hazel” to anyone except my ophthalmologist, who has examined it from less than three inches away. But I can deal with muddy messes for irises.
Yes, I’ll admit that I take issue with the paper-thin skin underneath it that allows the hue of two-day-old bruises to come through. No concealer I’ve ever tried can suppress the signs of a few too many all-nighters in my high school days. But normal people have those permabruises, too, and I can deal with them.
I guess the chalazion is a bit irritating, too. If I were to forego the eyeliner for a day and someone decided to squint at my left eye, they could see a small wart-looking bump disrupting the upper lashline about a fifth of the way in from the outside. But it’s not noticeable when it’s covered with makeup. It only irritates the cornea when it gets big, and over-the-counter artificial tears or Neomycin are readily available. And if I wanted it smaller or gone altogether, moist heat ten minutes twice daily for a week would do the trick. I’m just too lazy to care about something no one else will notice, and I have much bigger problems on my hands... er, on my eye.
It’s the green-blue vein lurking above my left eye that makes me feel like an alien.
It snakes across my browbone like a river, with peaks and valleys like the Cascades, finally disappearing beneath the ground and returning to its source a centimeter beyond the outer corner of my eye socket. It defies all attempts to conceal it; the shock of color seeps through like sunlight through stained glass. The only way I can get it to go away is to put my finger at the crest of my browbone and apply pressure. I watch the awkward color drain away, the landscape of my pasty skin temporarily untainted by the violent electric blue gash. But then I release the pressure, and it surges forth across the valley, jutting up and down like a bolt of sideways lightning. I can never get rid of it for long, and the method of removal itself makes me look like a moron. I can’t win.
Except in an oddity contest. This unsightly vein is the reason I have almost perfect control over my left eyebrow. So when I am intrigued, or skeptical, or expressing mild disapproval at the antics of children or freshman boys, I raise my left eyebrow.
And the first place his lips consecrate my face is just above my left eyelid. My left eyebrow creeps meekly up beneath the catalytic power of the most gentle of kisses. The warmth of his smile bores into my eyes, locked in his. I am the deer caught in the light of his celestial glow. He is marveling triumphant at the mystical powers he has over my body, and though he does not know it, they are many.
He is the Nino to my Amélie. It has to be destiny that I find someone who can tolerate, even grin with pride at the abomination that besmirches my face. Even if he’s not looking anywhere else. He’s not looking at the rest of me. There must be something wrong. He’s not staring at my chest like they usually do. No, he is different, he is my Nino. He was made for me, made for all of me, including my disfigured eye. The look he is beaming at me is that of an infant when his chubby, naked feet touch grass for the first time: marvel, wonder, infinite curiosity.
And then he cranes his neck back down to bless the other lid. He wants a duplicate expression of his power.
Panic. He won't get it. Because, not having a companion mutant vein, the right eyebrow can’t move independently of the left. They can move together, pulled up by the skin below the hairline, or the left can move by itself. But the right is powerless.
The rest of my body is powerless.
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