9: Finley

This story is the 9th part of the Griffin filmmaker series. It follows Eight by Eight.

Griffin writes down the facts of Finley, the character of the eponymous film, the director’s ninth. Growing up, trouble in school—bad grades, poor attendance, disciplinary problems—then trouble with the law, parents divorcing when he was a teen. The actor needs to have a thin, wiry physique, an almost jagged line presence that wears black well. This is character driven, he writes, this is shot in black and white. Strip it down from the excess of Eight by Eight. Make people forget that one ever happened.

Helena sees his notes, says, you ever considered starring yourself? You could be like Orson Welles. What do you mean, he asked. This character you’ve sketched—it’s you. Why don’t you add in precocious son, charming and lovely wife who hangs over your shoulder, gives critical bits of advice even when not asked?

She walks away and he’s left with white sheet of paper, the thin line scribble of his handwriting. He thinks then writes, wife meets untimely end, car accident, terminal illness. Later that night, he’ll wake up, Helena motionless by his side, her breath the sparsest of whistles, go to his desk, cross that line out. A cheap shot, humor too dark.

Six years later, when she does die from a terminal illness, he’ll have forgotten about this scribble that existed for a handful of hours. Months after she dies, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and remember, think, was I that callous, flick on a light in the early morning hours, comb through his papers. He’ll see the words crossed out, letters dangling on a long black line. I’m sorry, he’ll say, then he’ll cry, he’ll turn off the white light, he’ll lie awake in darkness.

The day after he writes those crossed-out words, he’s at his desk, thinking, visualizing. She’s right: Finley is me. I’ll fast forward. I’ll make him me, older. He calls his casting director, tells her, look for thin, wiry, line-like. Find me in fifteen years. Also, a female, to be his wife. Charming and lovely. Stark eyes that see deep.

The film plays in his mind before a shot is ever taken. The world returned to black and white. A man that will be him, alone. Right now, this man is a hollow, two-dimensional shell, unrealized, no brain, muscles, blood, soul, organs. A scant line of existence.

Iceland, Please Come Back

Iceland, it wasn’t bad enough your banks fell apart the last couple of years and you wreaked financial havoc on yourselves and Europe (complicated economics stuff—you’ll have to look it up for the rundown), but now you’re back, with that recent volcanic ash spewing from your alien landscape (and those big black clouds look like an alien invasion). This ash has been heading south/southeast, blanketing England and parts of other European countries, grounding flights from and to the continent, posing a health hazard, and turning day into night. The experts are saying that there’s no sign of it letting up and the jetstream looks to continue in the same direction for at least a few more days. Up until now, we’ve all been comforted knowing there’s this little rock way up there called Iceland and there’s people living there and that we hear from you every now and then in commercials with blue-eyed kids standing in misty fog beckoning us to come visit. But now you’re all out there and we’re not liking it.

The name of this belching volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, sounds like you’ve just decided to go nonsensical or else to fling obscenities at the rest of us (all apologies if this name has some special meaning). Thanks, Iceland, thanks. Look, thanks to National Geographic and public television, we know your country is beautiful, the geography otherworldly. Who wouldn’t want to visit? We know that you guys offered to take Bobby Fischer off the rest of the world’s hands before he passed away. An off-his-rocker chess grandmaster would love the cozy far-off confines of your land, and we’d have been happy for his exile. We know that you gave us singer Björk and that ridiculous swan gown/costume thing she wore at the Oscars that one year, which gave us something to talk about every year when it’s Oscar season and Oscar fashion miscues must be discussed. She’s made some intriguing music over the years and I think the rest of us assume that most of you are just as delightfully a tad off-kilter like she is.

Charming stuff all of this, sure, but the rest of us down below need something more. Or less. In North America, we have Canada. A large part of it is cold and covered in ice, much like your land, and they’ve inflicted Doug Henning, Howie Mandel, and Celine Dion upon the rest of us, and their love of hockey and curling makes no sense, but they haven’t been responsible for tossing a wrench in world commerce or shutting down a continent’s air flights. You might be thinking, well, they just haven’t tried hard enough, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

In case you haven’t noticed, your country was created as geographically isolated in a severe sense. Looking on a map, we can see that you’re way up there, beyond where anyone could reasonably think anybody could live and live productively. You might be thinking, that’s exactly why we’re here, you urban-dwelling, pollutant breathing sardine whose lifestyle and culture is doing more to destroy the world than we ever have. Perhaps you’re right in some sense, but, what I’m really getting at here is, you’re too far away from the rest of us. Come back to us. It makes the most sense for you to move to Norway, but I’m sure Ireland would be happy to have you come too and besides, you’d only have to change one letter in your country name. Also, could a few of you find your way to Portugal? They’re a bit homogenized there and frankly we haven’t heard much from them since the 16th century.

Whether you stay or leave, we realize there’s nothing you guys can do about volcanoes (at least we think that’s the case). But you have power over other things, such as your names. Maybe they make sense to you guys and Norwegians, but I think the rest of us are confounded. Your best known writer is named Halldor. Two of your most famous artists were named Einar and Ásgrímur. You have a movie director named Baltasar. I propose that prospective Icelandic parents be required to put down the J.R.R. Tolkien tomes and pick up a copy of The Baby Name Bible. You can pick up a copy from Amazon for about 1,389 kronur (though no one's going to deliver it anytime soon because of your volcano issue). Do us all a solid, and before you crack open that book, know that no one’s naming their kids Gladys, Edna, Earl, or Floyd anymore.

Look, I realize you’re all relatively decent world citizens. We’ll never forget how you all did us a big one hosting the Reykjavik Summit. That meeting between the U.S. and the Soviet Union represented a big breakthrough in relations between the two countries and was the likely impetus toward halting nuclear proliferation. Thanks, dudes, but that’s been more than 23 years ago now. It’s time to throw us a bone again.

There’s an old Icelandic proverb that says Kálið er ekki sopið þó í ausuna sé komið, which translates as, the cabbage has not yet been sipped even though it is in the ladle. I don’t even know what that means, which just furthers my point here. Come back to us, in all ways. We’re not asking you to eat at McDonald’s or name your sons Ethan. You can still be as delightfully kooky as we already think you are. Just come back to us. We need you here, even if it’s just so you can explain that awful Björk swan outfit to us.

Timeless and Proud

My hair was gray and thin, my skin wrinkled and leathery, my mind a slowly dulling tool—okay, I was getting old. I was a well-accomplished citizen in my lifetime, including planning my town’s downtown revival as well as being a prime benefactor of the refurbished local theater and hospital. But my time was running short. The mayor came to me one day, offered me this: we make a memorial statue of you in the town square, complete with commemorative bronze plaque and lush garden. That’s great, mayor, I said should I approve schematics, artists and designers? He said, no, you don’t understand—we’re going turn you, your body, into the statue. We’ll bring in a gorgon, let her give you the ol’ stone stare, and voila, you’re memorialized for all time. It’s quick, painless.

Now recently, after various tests and consults, the doctor had told me I had about six months to live. My lungs were failing, my ticker was weakening, my kidneys were becoming more like the beans of the same name. He said, you can do some treatments, get hooked up to the best technology, take the best medications, and maybe we can stretch that out. I didn’t like the sound of that. I was pushing 80. My outer form, while not at its peak, looked much more healthful than what was happening inside. Maybe now it was time to check out before I became skeletal, a bad cartoon.

So I told the mayor, let’s do it. Later that day, he called me, said Medusa’s coming in on Thursday. I said, wasn’t she killed and beheaded by Perseus, and he said, yeah, in the Greek myth, sure, but this is real life. I was to come to the town square at two the next day, make sure all my affairs were in order. Last will and testament, my mail cut off, bills paid in full, services cancelled, etc. All of it a somber affair. I had no heirs. My wife had died 11 years ago, so not much to reconcile. That afternoon, the sky blue and sunny, I went to a local diner for my last meal, ordered their biggest porterhouse, regular Coke, fries covered in gravy, and a double-sized peanut butter sundae with triple peanut butter for dessert. Some of the younger townsfolk weren’t aware of who I was, the things I had done for the community. I said to my waitress, who had blue hair and multiple facial piercings, that I was going to be turned to stone not too long. Yeah, aren’t we all, she said, flipping her eyes.

At the town square, there was a small crowd gathered, everyone wearing the same pair of cheap-looking black sunglasses. There was applause and shouts of my name as I got closer. The mayor’s assistant handed me a pair, said, wear these until it’s time. A black Escalade pulled up. The driver, wearing the same sunglasses, hopped out, opened the back door. The sound of hissing snakes preceded Medusa, head full of wiry asps, eyes beaming like small stars. She wasn’t like the way she had been depicted in mythology books and in that Harryhausen movie. She had legs instead of being snakelike below the torso, wore contemporary slacks and blazer, and her body had a slight copper tint revealing barely visible scales. Her face was smooth and like a normal woman’s. An unfortunate squirrel at the base of a nearby blooming dogwood caught her gaze and became a lawn ornament. That sent a chill down my spine, filled me with second thoughts.

So, who’s the lucky duck, she said, her voice raspy like she’d been smoking a pack a day the last 2,500 years. I might be eternal but I ain’t got all day.

I stepped forward, swallowing, raising my hand, as she looked me up and down, the snakes on her head looking at me also, their heads bobbing side to side. Great, she said, I like the occasional civic gig. Works of mine are spread throughout some of the finer municipalities. Gotta tell you, though, being used for hits, lovers’ revenge type deals—much more lucrative. She looked around, said, who’s in charge here, let’s get this show moving!

The mayor stepped forward, said some nice words about the town, me, as I stood by his side. I smiled, thinking about days gone by, contemplating the beautiful sky and warm breeze, the chirping birds. My wife, who said to me once, they’ll make a monument to you some day in this town. Memorialized for all time, I heard the mayor say. He held up the plaque that would go at my feet, the base of the statue I was to become. He finished, shook my hand and patted my back, and there was applause. I was guided over to where I would become a statue. Several people worked with me to get me into a good pose—timeless, they said, timeless and proud. I could hear Medusa off to the side, out of eyesight, carrying on a phone conversation.

So, my moment had arrived. I kept my eyes closed and my body still as my sunglasses were removed. I felt the crowd buzzing around me, collective holding of breath. I heard Medusa’s voice. Think about forever, she said, her voice now smoother, think about some happy moments in your life, and when you’re ready open your eyes.

I remembered the ribbon cutting of the refurbished theater and my wife, beaming, by my side. The first production was The Glass Menagerie and we sat in the front row, enchanted, smiling and clapping. Then we walked home, the streets lazily chugging with cars, chimes tinkling in the wind, as we held hands. Wonderful times.

I opened my eyes, ready. I stared into the gorgon’s twinkling sun eyes, felt rigidity move through me, tickle the wide smile on my face, the firm pull of going home.

Police Blotter

As part of a plea bargain deal, Christian Bell, a career criminal charged and convicted for numerous crimes, agreed to allow his name be used in police blotter text for crimes that don’t involve him. In place of words such as “someone,” “a person,” or “a gunman” you will find the name “Christian Bell.” Some recent entries include the following:

In the 100 block of North Bridge Road, a man told police that Christian Bell, who was wearing a ski mask, approached his car and told him to get out. The victim said he tried to grab the gun and began driving away. The victim said Christian Bell appeared to lose his balance and his shoes came off his feet. Christian Bell then stopped to put on his shoes and ran away eastbound.

A neighbor called 911 to complain that Christian Bell was throwing potatoes through car windows.

The actual Christian Bell is male, though as part of the agreement, there is no distinction as to whether or not the perpetrator is male or female. Some illogical if unsettling entries include

Christian Bell, a female teenager, grabbed the hair of another female teenager and threw her on the ground in the 500 block of Northeast 37th Street. The girls were arguing about something that was said on the Web site myspace.com. No one was charged.

Christian Bell was charged with robbery after she reportedly bit a clerk and stole jewelry from a Main Street business in the downtown district.

Likewise, there is no distinction in regards to the number of perpetrators, so there may be multiple perpetrators named Christian Bell. So, there has to be an implied suspension of disbelief to absorb the following:

Two 14-year-olds named Christian Bell reported that they were robbed at knifepoint and that their ice skates were taken. It later was determined that both Christian Bells were lying. They recanted their statement and said that they left the skates in the bushes near a business on Broadway, but when they returned, the skates were gone.

Three youths named Christian Bell were spotted wrapping a car in Saran wrap. When approached by police, the three Christian Bells fled but one of the Christian Bells was apprehended.

The plea bargain deal requires that the name Christian Bell be used as substitution for a period of 18 months. After that time, there will be a 90-day period where the name Christian Bell will be used to identify new entrants into the witness protection program. After that period, the name returns to Christian Bell for him to use as he sees fit, pending violations of probation.

8: Eight by Eight

This story is the 8th part of the Griffin filmmaker series. It follows Overshadow.

1
In his eighth film Eight by Eight Griffin thought he could play with the number, have a little fun, go tongue in cheek. Eight guys on a caper, told in eight vignettes, the number eight keeps appearing in the film. For lack of better wording, the critics ate him alive. Griffin generally knew when he had a stinker and was caught off guard with this film, thinking it would be well received. He got halfway through the reviews he had in front of him and stopped reading. No good words. Say something nice to me, he asked his wife, breaking an evening’s silence. She lifted her head, said, you’re brilliant, an amazing husband and father.

2
He calls the paper looking for the critic and keeps getting the run around. This is Griffin, he tells the person on the phone, the director of Overshadow. I just want to ask him a question, is all. No, I’m not mad at him. Well, I’d have preferred a four star review, not two and a half, sure—look, he used a particular phrase, and I’m just curious to know what he meant. Is that a new policy, not taking questions, I mean, come on, this is a paper, he’s a member of the press, he skewers my film for all the world—okay, skewers, that’s a bit too much, sounds bitter. Well, to be honest, I think he missed the point of what I was doing, maybe he was having a rough day or something. Hello? Sure, you can transfer me to voice mail.

3
He didn’t sit still. He stared off into space. He moped. Helena watched him all day, suspicious of his moods, knew he was holding something back, but didn’t say anything. At night, they climbed into bed, he slipping between the covers like he’s afraid of disturbing the world, and she said, okay, what the hell’s wrong? What do you mean? All day, you’re sulking, you’re contemplating, you can’t mask it. He closed his eyes, sat upright, exhaled deeply. Do you think Forever East glorifies cult leaders? That’s what this guy said. I tried to play it evenhanded, be dispassionate if you will— You’re walking around like you’re in mourning, she said, laughing, and you’re worried about what someone thinks of your movie. Well, yeah— You’ve been doing this long enough, she said, toughen up, for crying out loud. She switched off her nightstand light.

4
In Revolution/Illusion, Griffin puts his political chops on the line, the article reads, and he decidedly shows himself as a rank amateur, not even a convincing illusionist like the main character in his work. Sitting in his office, windows open, hears the sounds of the city: car alarms, slamming doors, roaring engines, unintelligible chirping of people talking. He drops the article on the desk in front of him. His eyes closed, he hears his wife’s voice: don’t listen, they’re envious, they don’t understand. He opens his eyes. Outside, the city still, tall buildings drawn against bluest sky, swirls of white cloud that twist, disintegrate.

5
Helena, tired and body feeling broken, rested on the couch, her form a curved line. On the table before her were newspapers, clippings, magazines holding opinions on Sodium Pentothal. Her husband down the hall, the baby cries growing softer as he hushes, as the creaking wood of the rocker provides a music. At first she held the materials, intent on weeding out the bad reviews. I can protect, she thought, I can ease. But the accumulation of words became too much. The thoughts not so black and white, good and bad. She placed them down, closed her eyes, felt the firm pull of sleep.

6
There’s a moment he knew he used to feel just before opening the pages, just before eyes hit letters of text. A tingle on skin, heart rate increasing, stomach floating like helium balloon. That moment before the thoughts were real, just before he’d been elevated or dropped, a nonexistent pause in white space. Did he lose it after Negative, Richard’s birth? The title will show his name, the film, perhaps a quick description. It’s the possibility, the anything. Then the words, the flood of judgment.

7
Griffin clipped this passage from a review: “In Raging Life, Griffin’s second film, the director adds to the promise revealed in his debut two years previous. Cinematographic virtuosity meets a compelling, straightforward tale that is timeless in its existential nature. A mixture of arthouse sentiments and the best of Hollywood heart-tugging sentimentality—Griffin is clearly on his way to defining his own chapter in cinema.” He framed it, hung it near the front door of his apartment. The first time Helena came to his apartment, she stopped to look at it. This is affirming, he said, standing to her left, this is what lifts my head during difficult times. She nodded, smiled.

8
He’s at the festival the morning his first film, The Thirst, debuts. Head light, body achy from impending illness. Swirls of people move like blown shrapnel. Booths selling programs and t-shirts. The smells of grilling meats. Competing background music from speakers and live instruments. Why am I here, he thinks, this is a mistake. He thinks about the film’s opening sequence. A glass of water, the ripples disturbing the liquid, shot in black and white. They’re going to kill me. He looks in front of him, sees that, in the flow of people, a temporary empty space has emerged around him. He stops, looks around, then closes his eyes. I’m here, he thinks, I’m here, just before the space is obliterated.

Two more TSRF works @ Camroc Press Review

Two of my Thinly Sliced Raw Fish pieces, “Dale Murphy" and "Clearing the Table," are now up at Camroc Press Review. The permanent link for these stories at CPR is here.

"A Story About Glass” and “The Letters” appeared at Camroc Press Review in January, found here.

Thanks again to CPR editor Barry Basden for publishing these pieces at his excellent site.

Spring Rolls

M declared to the world, no more spring rolls, a placard holding those words dangling from his shop door, no explanation given. His four star eatery, his cuisine of culinary envy, the linchpin of many diners’ lives. The favorite—shrimp, covered in basil, mint, cilantro, and fish-lime sauce—gone. It wasn’t just a menu thing; spring rolls were the menu. It wasn’t about restaurants; he insisted he’d be content keeping open a menu-less collection of tables if people still came. I’m done, M told his wife. She begged him to reconsider, even suggested he sell the menu rights to someone else, but he wouldn’t. Why, on her knees, but he had no answer for her. It’s like burning money, you fool, what will we do now. Her last words before storming away. Hungry crowds swelled outside the shop, their questions variations on the wife’s. The inevitable happened—M, coming to the shop late to erase his presence, was taken at gunpoint by masked assailants. In a dark room, they demanded, again and again, why, and reconsider, and he said, I owe you no why, and no, each time, which did not satisfy them, as they kept demanding, their voices and postures turning to murder, as he remained calm, the picture of order.

Stephen Dixon, Writer's Writer

Stephen Dixon is a writer who is well published and well respected, but whose books are tough to find in conventional bookstores and who isn’t exactly a household name. His novels Frog and Interstate have been finalists for the National Book Award. He’s published close to 30 books of fictions, and his books have been published with many different publishers (though he was with Henry Holt for about 10 years, including for Frog and Interstate). Some of the general criticisms of his writing have been that he’s rambling and tedious, often using spare punctuation and sentences and paragraphs that run for pages, and his work doesn’t have much in the way of plot.

Here is praise of Dixon by author Jonathan Lethem (from the McSweeney’s website, here):

Stephen Dixon is one of the great secret masters — too secret. I return again and again to his stories for writerly inspiration, moral support and comic relief at moments of personal misery, and, several times, in a spirit of outright plagiaristic necessity: borrowing a jumpstart from a few lines of Dixon has been a real problem-solver in my own short fiction. And I will also treasure forever his manual-typewritten and scrawled manuscripts, and editorial notes, sometimes with food stains and torn edges, on the one occasion when I played the role of his editor (he offered stories, free of charge, to Fence magazine, when it was pretty much unknown) — Dixon is the last great messy correspondent. Please read him, you.

If you’ve read Stephen Dixon’s work, love it or hate it, you’ll realize that he clearly has a unique style and voice. In a way, his writing seems to be what a writing teacher would tell you how not to write (side note: Dixon himself was a long-time writing instructor at Johns Hopkins). Here’s a story of his at failbetter.com (they also have a good interview with him in a different issue, here.

From a 2003 interview with One Story, the entirety of which can be found here.

[Q]What is the best bit of advice about writing you have ever gotten?

[A]What George Plimpton told me in a letter when, many years ago—I think it was 1966, and I’d sent him a story for a Paris Review contest and a novel for Paris Review Editions (its first incarnation): “You’re not a novelist and maybe you’re not a short story writer as well.” I won’t say this is good advice for every writer, but it sure got me to write even harder than I was. It got me going in a way that flattery or praise wouldn’t have: I knew I had to inure myself against all criticism of my work and just write what I wanted to write and take the consequences, and also to write better than I was doing.

Beyond enjoying his writing, I’m partial to Stephen Dixon for several reasons. One is that he taught in the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars for years before retiring a couple years back and has made the Baltimore area his home, so to me he is a local writer. Another is that interviews with him tend to delve into his process and work ethic, which I find fascinating and in a sense affirming as a fellow writer. Basically what you find is a writer who has his own way of doing things and has been persistent for decades and isn’t overly concerned about whatever it may be that’s happening around him. He’s an innovator who seems oblivious to movements or theories and is just writing the way he feels he should be writing. You get the sense of a writer who, after writing for decades and being widely published, is still scratching and clawing to get his work in print.

I remember reading an interview with him in Poets & Writers back in the early 1990s, which was my first exposure to Stephen Dixon as the person who’s the author (I had already read some of his works by then). I no longer have that magazine, but do recall some of the essence of it. He recounted one of his biggest regrets from early in his career, which was agreeing to have part of a story he sold altered. Another was basically the sense that the best thing about his writing career is that he has done things his way and that he found his niche on his own terms.

As a writer, it’s hard not to be inspired by Dixon and his ethic. There is a thin line between being sure of what you’re writing and not being concerned with critics and just being plain obstinate and not listening to advice that may be helpful. If you’re writing, I think you have to be able to ride that line and know when to be hardheaded and know when to relent and heed advice.

7: Overshadow

This story is the 7th part of the Griffin filmmaker series. It follows Forever East.


0
As a teenager Richard told his parents he recalled certain memories from his early years. In his crib, shadows in red light in his room. That’s the nightlight you used to have, his mom told him, a red caterpillar. I remember some instances of waking up and crying and being afraid and no one there. We always came to get you, his dad told him, if you woke up crying. Do you remember me or your mother rocking you to sleep, balancing you on our chests while we were half-asleep ourselves? No, he said, that’s something I don’t recall. His parents looked at each other and smiled.

4
At a film festival the boy sat under the chair as he watched his father answer questions at the long table. Boring, he thought, sitting here watching people talk. It’s a festival, his dad had told him. There’s fun things to do, people come to watch new movies, hear people talk about movies. Son, people are coming here to see daddy’s new movie. Is there anything I’d want to see, he asked. Well, tomorrow, there’s animation—cartoons. Sort of like what you watch at home. Tomorrow is so far away, he thought, using the top of his head to lift the chair slightly.

5
He’s walking down the street alongside his mother. She’s tall to him and he looked up at her hair and there’s light shining through the strands at the top. People were walking around them, toward them, in many different directions. He said things to her, mom, can we get a hot dog, mom, can we get ice cream, but she shakes her head no. Sometimes he felt like it’s just the two of them, when dad was off making movies. A white puff of cloud blocked the sunlight. Her hair was no longer illuminated. She looked down—in her eyes he saw worry. Later that day, he drew this picture with crayons, made rain come from the clouds.

6
Richard, his dad said, the film’s called Overshadow. Home at the dinner table, dad with notepad at his side, scribbling illegible cursive in between bites. Mom’s there, attentive, looking back and forth at the two boys in her family, smiling when Richard looks at her. The film’s about a particular man’s quest to, well, it’s for adults really, see, it’s a man, and there’s his father who was a big advertising executive and he’s seen only in flashbacks, and he’s trying to compete, well, see, there’s, um, Helena, can you explain it to the boy? It’s about a man trying to be better than his father, she said, her words a burst of sound, her face a grin looking at dad. A slurp of milk, an oops as a small shower of macaroni and cheese hits the floor. Why would someone want to do that, the boy asked. Mom looked at dad and they both tilted their heads, popped their mouths open. They didn’t answer.

18
Two weeks after his mother died, he confronted his father. The man, aging years in months it seemed to him, sat at the table surrounded by stacks of paper. You would think you’d have more to say, Richard said, standing on the other side of the table, arms crossed. Mom’s dead and it’s like you don’t give a crap, it’s just business as usual. His father closed his eyes, gently removed his glasses and placed them unfolded on the table before him. He looked up at him. Richard, we don’t need this right now, I know you’re upset. We, Richard said, we, since when are we, we? You are Griffin, the film director, and it’s you, you and your stupid movies. Son, you don’t understand. You don’t get it. I cried before she died, I cry at night by myself, I cry. When you fall in love and marry and have a family and the person you’re with is taken from you, get back to me and let me know just how painful it is. By instinct his dad looked to his left, the place where mom used to sit, where she reassured, filled in the blanks, was peacemaker and wise voice, and froze at the emptiness. Richard watched him do this then walked away, back to his room, shutting the door with a sedate click.

23
He’s walking home from a friend’s house, a trip he’s made dozens of times before. Slight buzz wearing off. The smell of baking bread from a round the clock bakery then cooking oil and ginger and seafood from an Asian eatery. He feels his stomach rumble, making him hungry, decides to wait until home for food. Passes a nightclub bustling with crew cuts and black dresses, an oblivious intoxicated couple almost stumbling into him. Then, a street of blank stare windows, silence. He could hear his father’s voice: this city, its moods, it takes your breath away. Inhales. He thinks, the man’s been through enough. Fueled by alcohol, he thinks as he’s thought before, tomorrow, I’ll tell him many things. I’m sorry for my teenage years. I know it’s been difficult with mom dying, with this terrorist group, and the media onslaught. I’m ready to go back to college. I’m ready to follow in your footsteps. A shadow crosses his pathway. A shot cracks the night. He’s thinking, mom, we miss you, before he realizes that this shot was his, that he’s lying on the ground.

Juke Box Hero

The writer decided to stop writing, pick up a guitar. He strummed and poked, the motions made nonsense noise. When he was a teenager, he wanted a guitar, but mom, said, no way, the noise is too much, the house is too small, you’ll give up in about two weeks. Drums? Please. So, instead, he sat in his room and blasted the same loud music recorded by someone else that he would’ve played if he had a guitar, and wrote stories about how mom made too much noise, how the house they lived in sucked, how she gave up every two weeks, and how his life sucked because he never got a guitar. Older, mom now gone, he wrote stories that were apologies for being such a jerk. I’m out of apologies, he sang while playing discordant notes, now I have nothing but noise.

6: Forever East

This story is the 6th part of the Griffin filmmaker series. It follows Revolution/Illusion.

The format of this story is taken from Lydia Davis's short story, "Jury Duty," appearing in her collection, Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, and subsequently in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis.

Q:
A: The pleasure’s mine.

Q:
A: You know, it thrills me to no end. We’ve been married six years, my son Richard is four and he’s already his own little person saying he wants to make movies like dad, and, well, life is good. I’m doing what I want making films and I got all that and life is good. Helena, I say she’s an angel to me and that’s no lie. There can’t be many women who could put up with being married to me.

Q:
A: Sure. Forever East follows the world of a fictional cult leader, from his point of view. The place is a compound on the eastern coast of Australia, the world headquarters for this fictional cult, and we follow the life of the cult leader in pseudo-documentary style, using handheld cameras and grainy film shots when we’re alone with him, and using more standard methods when there are others in the scene, to pull the viewer back into a standard film narrative.

Q:
A: Generally, so far, through six films now, we’ve been able to send only what we have to for filming. We sent a crew of about nine to eastern Australia to film scenery. We did pretty much the same thing with the previous film, sending a crew to the tropics. With the magic of film, the digital technology we have at hand, we can have actors film their scenes here at the studio downtown and effortlessly put them into the scene. Fifteen years ago, such a thing would’ve been looked down, not considered “art.” Now it makes the most sense. I can’t afford to send 75 people across the world for six weeks.

Q:
A: Cheating? No, hardly. I’m making use of modern film techniques to produce what I hope is considered art. I’m not going for mindless thrills, big box office turnouts. The latter, if it coincided with what I was doing—well, how could I complain?

Q:
A I love this city. I could be based somewhere else, or have no place to call home, but I’m here and I’m proud. It’s been good to me and my family and I’m eager to give back where I can. For me, this is my paradise.

Q:
A: I can’t control what the awards people do. I do what I do and if they want to acknowledge me, that’s fantastic. If not, well, I’ll be working on another film. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. I think it would be nice if some of my crew got some recognition. They work hard. They have the eye for bringing these things to life.

Q:
A: I can only hope I’m influential in a good way. We all run the risk of some kook taking what we’re doing too far. Look at Salinger and Kubrick. Do I think I’ll be a target? I can’t answer that. My best reply is, I won’t be so important.

Q:
A: No, I don’t view my films as political, but represent human issues, things people have struggled with, are doing so now, and will struggle with in the future. Fifty years ago, ideas of oppression, fighting the system, the pain we inflict on others wouldn’t have been considered “political.” Being oppressed has been an issue for thousands of years. How is that political? I’ll reiterate what I always say: I’m not political.

Q:
A: Well, people who criticize me in that fashion are just out to score points, make a name for themselves, get people worked up to get themselves money or political power. I’ll admit, filmmaker is an easy target for such a thing. I’ve heard Griffin and pretentious in the same sentence before. Part of the territory.

Q:
A: I’ll admit I’m not familiar with that criticism or that person. I guess I should be flattered. If someone’s that adamantly against me, I must be doing something right. Beats apathy.

Q:
A: Okay, perhaps I should be familiar with that person and what he’s espousing. I have to say, it’s a bit of blindside to throw that out, the film not even released a week, saying it supports cults and their leaders. Look, this fictional cult leader, like the rest of us, is a flawed human. He has good characteristics and downright bad ones. I thought we were going to talk more about content, more about process? Didn’t realize I’d be playing defense.

Q:
A: I’m not answering that question. It’s ridiculous, an invasion of privacy, Just a minute ago, you were pondering my agenda; well, I ask, what’s yours?

Q:
A: Look, I apologize if I came off as abrasive.  Helena says I have a tendency--

Q:
A: No one said anything about wanting softball questions, about this being easy. Challenge me. Just don’t throw garbage at me. I don’t want to be part of some political scrum.

Q:
A: Sorry. We’re done. Goodbye.

Fortune Cookie

P deduced that, in infinite fortune cookies, somewhere your true fortune lies. He visited Chinese restaurants around town—their number seemingly infinite, growing exponentially as he dined. P went alone, with friends, dates, family members. Sometimes two or three places per afternoon or evening, collecting as many fortune cookies as he could. Drew up charts, equations to calculate the worldwide eatery number, which would lead to the number of fortune cookies that existed at any one moment. Variables—they likely recycle the same messages, said a friend. Consider how many are just for laughs, how many are meant as true fortunes, what’s the overlap. In his apartment P collected untold piles of them, rooms slowly disappearing in crinkly plastic and a light fried brown, shifting plastic the sound of devouring bug hordes. A friend said, you have many fortunes but know none; you need to open one, see what it says. He said, why not. So he opened one, cracked the cookie in two, saw a blank strip of paper, heart sinking. The friend: never seen that before; what are the odds? P chuckled, wondered what a blank fortune meant, what it did to his equations. He resolved to open no more, consumed by the fear of blinding whiteness, division by zero.

Hasenpfeffer

The king orders Yosemite Sam, bring me some hasenpfeffer. Sam gets that devilish rootin’-tootin’ grin, grows a thought balloon populated by Bugs Bunny chomping on a carrot. His firing six shooters propel him off the ground. Maybe this is the time it all comes together, he thinks, varmint makes his way into said stew. Sam hadn’t acquainted himself with the historical works, though, and their harsh inevitable truths: Wile E. never gets the Roadrunner, James Bond always escapes the evil genius trap, Sisyphus never manages to keep that boulder stationary.

Sam doesn’t know he’s an eye blink away from the real world. One day he could wake up and see that Bugs Bunny is his boss, the man who plunders his bank account, the cad who steals his love.

He could be pushed out of his cartoon into the sitcom of real life, scrubbed and cleaned and dropped into middle class life. Be forced to shave his beard. Ditch his Western gear for neutral suits and polo shirts. Shelve his raging pistols for lawnmowing and golfing foursomes. Become the face in the crowd. A tame automaton. One day, he thinks, I’ll make it back, give that rabbit his comeuppance. For now, though, everyone’ll call him plain old Sam. Buy him a diet soda.

Rocket Ship

The rocket ship launched today. We were going to go see it since it was just a few miles away but got lazy and decided to sit home and each French toast and drink coffee. The day was toasty warm and sunny and it was one of those where you just want to open windows, clean the counters and floors with something that smells like lemons, blast loud music filled with guitars and horns, throw away the clutter of former lives. We did some dishes but gave up on cleaning, let the music play and followed with something instrumental. We knew when the rocket launched when windows, plates, and pictures rattled, when we heard the sky crack open. It was on tv but we didn’t turn it on. The day wore on. We decided, let’s make drinks. The sky grew orange, the day thinned. We imagined those astronauts orbiting, their capsule spinning through cold space, as they performed their astronaut tasks. There will be more and more rocket ships. Soon there will be geosynchronous gridlock. Maybe one of these times we’ll make it to a launch. Maybe inside we already have all we need.

5: Revolution/Illusion

This story is the 5th part of the Griffin filmmaker series.  It follows Sodium Pentothal.

Dear Prof. J——

For some time, I’ve tried reaching you through the contact info listed on your course syllabus but haven’t been successful. I searched and found this mailing address for you. I hope it’s still good and you get this. I hope you haven’t completely disappeared.

If you don’t remember me, I’m the woman who sat in the back row of your “Early 21st Century Film Cinematography” class last fall. I had blond hair with pink streaks and was probably the only one in the class not a film major (bearded John, who sat next to me, once said I should’ve been a slasher-film casualty). I probably always looked sleepy but that’s because I worked nights at a 24-hour café. On final exam day, I was the last one to finish. I hadn’t really studied for that exam (that B- was a miracle!) because I was burned out by that point and really all I could think about was school ending, the holidays, and just chilling.

Anyway, that last day we ran into each other outside as you were leaving. We went for some drinks after. I knew something was not right with you that day. You weren’t the person I’d seen all semester. But you loosened up with some drinks (dark beers to my vodka tonics). The day was cold and windy and snow was blowing sideways. We talked film, your passion, and poetry, mine. Around seven o’clock, I had to go. I could tell you were a little tipsy. Then you told me about what happened earlier that day, about how the board members interrogated you, questioned your political opinions, the films you taught, even suggested you led a questionable lifestyle, then fired you. You were upset. I thought you were going to cry. I really had to go. Now I regret that I left you like that. It seems you’ve disappeared and things have gotten worse and you should’ve just come with me that night.

Just before the spring semester began, I wrote the board as well as sent an editorial to the campus paper protesting your termination. The editors there had heard about your firing (and the other firings) and were eager to make a statement. Then, a few days later, they called, left a message saying they couldn’t print my letter. I was aghast, and even more so when I picked up the paper and found zero talk about it. It was like nothing had ever happened.

It didn’t end there. After the spring semester, I’d attained enough credits for graduation. Except I applied to graduate and discovered I had a case of academic dishonesty pending against me. News to me! They refused to disclose the nature of the case, claiming “underlying circumstances.” They’d inform me when they were ready to proceed. It’s August and I’ve heard nothing. I’ve recently discovered there are 47 others at the college who are in similar academic limbo. Then, last week, I heard about what happened in San Francisco, as I’m sure you did. I immediately thought of you. There are stories of people being detained. There are soldiers patrolling streets. Things have been building for some time and I’ve just noticed. I’m scared.

On that last day I meant to tell you that your class moved me. That sounds dumb to say, but after your lectures on director Griffin and his fifth film, Revolution/Illusion, I felt a sense of films suddenly making sense. Just last week, I re-watched the film and cried. I still have notes from your lecture: “The night landscapes of fog, grainy darkness were otherworldly, the opposite of daylight settings, and this is where the action happened, this is where the island revolutionaries plot. The magician, he’s trying to stay out of the fray but they’re circling, they’re pulling him in. In the end, he finds common cause with the revolutionaries. He can’t help it.” That film is fifty years old and it speaks to me. I’ve watched some of his other films and they too resonate with current events.

This summer, I’ve been distraught. I’ve spent daytime hours in my room, writing poems. Now I realize how dumb that’s been. I’m 26. It doesn’t appear I’m getting a college degree. My parents at first told me to buck up and walk proud but they stopped saying that. They just let me sulk now. I think they realize the direction things have gone. If you see me now, you might not recognize me. I’ve shaved my head and have eliminated the pink. My father says I now look like a female soldier from one of those old sci-fi movies. He tells me to be careful whenever I go somewhere.

This coming Saturday night, there’s a meeting at X—. Writers, poets, artists, filmmakers, concerned citizens. We’re about 20 strong. We formed as a group to protest these abuses, what happened in California, the rise of new tyranny. If you get this, know you’re welcome to attend. They know about you. They would want to see you.  If you don't attend, please, just let me know you're okay.

I’ll end here saying, I can’t help but think of the magician in Revolution/Illusion. He’s a relic from the past, like you said, wearing a red velvet coat with tails, black hat, and handlebar mustache. He performs old tricks like pulling rabbits from hats, sawing cocktail waitresses in half, hanging upside down and escaping from straitjackets. I can’t help but see you as him—you, the instructor before real live students, teaching about the old films. It sounds dumb but it feels like we’re all stepping through that fourth wall now. We’re all characters from films. We’ve turned a dark corner and there’s no going back.

B——

Transcriber, Backwards

More backwards fun, following on the heels of A Particular Sunset, Backwards from two weeks ago. Perhaps I should institute Backwards Wednesday as a regular feature.

So again I’ve taken a small work and reversed the sentence order. This time it’s Transcriber, another work from Thinly Sliced Raw Fish.  To clarify, I’m not just picking a story at random and saying, voila!  I’ve gone through a bunch of them that don’t make sense in reverse.

So, here’s the new “backwards” story:

Through the open window a jeep backfiring, scents of sea water, pork roasting in a pit. He laughs. Her piano player’s fingers—they’d have to be bent, broken, rendered unusable. He is the end. The man from the sea. He imagined her hands of concrete bone moving across pages, leaving ink trails. Smooth skin the color of wet sand. Young, she could be his daughter. The colonel sees her in the chair, sitting erect, staring straight ahead. A man emerges from the sea. She wrote by hand their book of revolution.

Here’s the original, in case you didn’t click the link:

She wrote by hand their book of revolution. A man emerges from the sea. The colonel sees her in the chair, sitting erect, staring straight ahead. Smooth skin the color of wet sand. Young, she could be his daughter. He imagined her hands of concrete bone moving across pages, leaving ink trails. The man from the sea. He is the end. Her piano player’s fingers—they’d have to be bent, broken, rendered unusable. He laughs. Through the open window a jeep backfiring, scents of sea water, pork roasting in a pit.

(One thing I did notice doing this is that I made an error posting this work originally. The words in italics were supposed to be that way in the original version but weren’t. I’ve changed them at the site and used the intended italics for this experiment.)

Parts of Me

There are parts of me scattered everywhere. My feet were found in one Portland, my arms in another. I’m not the victim of some crazed slasher but rather my own undoing, like a tornado blasting a jigsaw puzzle. My thumbs turned up in Shreveport. My teeth, still a full set, thankfully, in Miami. Too many places, too many things, too willing to divide—I couldn’t keep it together.

For years I've felt, I’m falling apart. My heart not in San Francisco but Santa Fe. There’s word of my pancreas in Battle Creek. Hurry, I’m told, it’s about to be preserved in formaldehyde, shelved as a specimen alongside fetal pigs. I stumble across the map, recollecting myself one piece at a time. If you see a part unattached, please, hold onto it. I’m coming. I’ll be there soon.

Zinfandel

He kept reaching for zinfandel that wasn’t there. These twilight years, these medicated days. He lived in a state-subsidized box, adorned with square window. When Ellen was alive, together they would sit by the window, watch rain hit the glass. She liked to drink zinfandel too, in their lives before, on weekend spring afternoons.

A glass of zinfandel on the ledge, next to the cold window. On the nightstand, near the TV Guide, pill bottles, pictures of Ellen. But that drink was a phantom. His brain fired that same impulse; it would not go away.

He resisted telling the nurses his condition, fearing their voices changing to high-pitched tones suitable for children. More medications, new diagnoses of mental deterioration. Murray down the hall, a widower for a decade, often had contraband Coors. He’d sneak in, pockets stashed with cans. They’d talk: old baseball games, shared acquaintances, restaurants and cinemas long gone.

Beer wasn’t the same as zinfandel: it brought back memories of lonely nights in smoky bars, years before Ellen. He’d arrive home, collapse in bed, reach for Ellen, who for him didn’t exist yet. Now some mornings he’d wake and feel drunk, even though he was sober.

On the best days, there would be Ellen, sitting at the bed’s edge, smiling, holding a glass of zinfandel.

The Last Fish

The 50th and final post of Thinly Sliced Raw Fish is up today, here.  Thanks for reading and following along!

The Last Days of TSRF

The Thinly Sliced Raw Fish project is coming to a close. 48 posts already, with just two left. The last will be Tuesday, February 23. For all of those who’ve read any of the posts, thank you!

The site will stay up after the 50th post but I’ll turn comments into moderation mode soon after. I’ve seen too many dormant sites get flooded with garbage comments for discount drugs and other spam nonsense. I’d rather things not go that direction. Moderating will also help me see if anyone is still reading and has anything to say, so please, feel free to chime in there if you tune in late!

What’s next, you might wonder? There will likely be some more “project” type blogs in the future. I’ve got a few ideas and hope to get another off the ground by summer.

14: Gravity's Rainbow

Note: This story is part 14 of the Griffin filmmaker series (untitled so far). It follows Super 16 (part 13).   

A screaming comes across the sky. The words appear in silence on black screen, signaling the film’s start. Fade in, fade out, then a siren. The film does not focus on World War II like the novel but is a retelling set in present times. It’s not supposed to be faithful to the novel, Griffin said in interviews. That would be impossible.

***

One morning, Cam, one of Griffin’s assistants, walks into his office, says to the director, I’ve been trying to read this book but I don’t get it. Who told you to read it, Griffin said. Please, Cam, don’t try to comprehend it—I don’t want you to comprehend the book. No one understands the book. Just understand the script, my notes, my directions. But I bought copies for the entire crew. So, you’ve single-handedly revived the book and paper industries while sinking that of the doorstops and also risking mass brain cramps.

***

Griffin kept getting the prank calls, even after multiple phone number changes. He stopped answering the phone. Don’t answer the phone, he told his staff. He’s at home one day. Richard walks in, huffing and puffing, throws down a pile of books and clothes and food items he’d been carrying. Dad, why didn’t you answer the phone. I’ve been trying to call. He looks the boy up and down. Growing, rising to his peak, becoming a man, all of it undeterred by his mother’s death.

***

The movie drags on, filmmaking as glacial formation. Some cast and crew quit, are replaced, others leave, others go. The budget is metaphysics. Griffin sits at his desk most days until his eyes close, head dropping down to his arms, brain sliding into theta wave. He could go home but doesn’t. The movie premieres and he doesn’t attend. The reviews pour in and he doesn’t read them.

***

Helena went through chemo and surgery and more chemo and more surgery. Somewhat advanced stage, but beatable, said her doctor. She fought but grew weak, a frail skeleton by the end. He held her bony fingers. Pleads of I don’t want to die disappeared, as she accepted her fate. Stay close to Richard, were her last words. She hung on for awhile in silence. Just looks from her sunken eyes, shaking of her skeletal head, air shapes she drew with her slight fingers.

***

The thing was, he said years later when he decided to open up, I needed to get back into film making, and this was what was there. It wasn’t ready but I was a wreck and didn’t care. Really, it’s unfilmable. I was at a point where I didn’t want to make sense.

***

They’d spent time and effort CG’ing Grigori Octopus only to cut it. There the octopus was watching films. There it was being conditioned to attack on cue. It doesn’t work, he said. It’s laughable, stupid to see on film. So, the procedure, surgical removal, erasing all traces. For days after, the cast wore black armbands with an octopus likeness. Someone left Griffin a plate of octopus sushi. A few years ago, he thought, I could’ve laughed.

***

The actor playing Slothrop and the actress playing Katje have a real-life tryst during filming. They’re making out offset between shots, and once, both were missing for about 20 minutes, holding up filming a scene, eventually returning with mussed up hair, shirttails out of pants, begging to be too obvious. What actress Katje didn’t know is that actor Slothrop went through women like changing socks. For him, there were no boomerangs; he followed a straight line, leaving the previous woman in dust. So, he’d moved on, to Margherita. But Katje hadn’t. There were still romantic scenes to film. Katje would break in tears. Slothrop would be stone faced. Margherita would be perpetually applying makeup, seated legs uncrossed. We’ll do this over and over, Griffin said, we’ll do it until it’s right.

***

Three months before Helena died, Griffin said to her, don’t die on me. Please. You can’t die on me. He looked her in the face. She was becoming less and less but still she had definition, her face had not succumbed fully to the death mask of cancer. Whereas months before, when she said she will fight, she’s not going to die, now she said things like, you’ll keep on after me, you still have your whole life ahead of you. He thought but didn’t say to her, it’s all downhill after you. I’ll be in free fall. I’ll never be the same. His hair once dark and full now turned gray, falling out. Strong bones like Roman arches now victims of decay, reduction. A liver once living in peace now caught in open warfare. And damn those cigarettes, now back to one pack a day.

***

Somewhere a phone rings. It’s picked up. Static. Crackling. No one there. Another one. Nothing. The frequency building. One day at 10:14 p.m., the city phone grid was overwhelmed by a barrage of simultaneous prank phone calls. All over town, phones ringing, hellos, then nothing back, hanging up. The system crashed, was offline for an hour. Griffin heard about this, said, yeah, they’ve been doing it to me for years. A reporter on tv asks, what kind of mischief is this. The police commissioner says, we will find the culprits. Then the calls stopped.

***

The film ends with a missile bearing down on a major city. The point of view becomes the eyes of the missile, the shot becoming increasingly shaky, the sounds of velocity and movement moving from searing to white noise hiss. The missile breaks through clouds. It’s set to unleash hell. There’s silence and fade to black. Words appear on the screen. Now everybody—

A Particular Sunset, Backwards

Here’s an experiment I thought I would try: try reversing the sentence order in some of my works and see what happens (make the last sentence first, next to last second, etc.). I tried this with a few and it seemed to work best with “A Particular Sunset,” originally published as part of my Thinly Sliced Raw Fish project here.

Here’s the new “backwards” story:

The three of us in the hospital room and it’s more like sunrise, tired eyes and delirious smiles. Outside, snow and rain, white pellets tinkling against the window. The world a blur, sleeping an hour at a time. I remember her wrapped in pink blanket. Beautiful, certainly, but I didn’t understand. The sky orange and red, the day’s blue washing away. You described it as like a baby being born.

In case you didn’t feel like clicking the link, here’s the original:

You described it as like a baby being born. The sky orange and red, the day’s blue washing away. Beautiful, certainly, but I didn’t understand. I remember her wrapped in pink blanket. The world a blur, sleeping an hour at a time. Outside, snow and rain, white pellets tinkling against the window. The three of us in the hospital room and it’s more like sunrise, tired eyes and delirious smiles.

I think I still like the original better, though I don’t think the reverse version is that far off.

Blackened Catfish

I ordered the blackened catfish as they ripped the neon cactus and Stetson from the wall. Background sounds of crashing glass, chopping wood. A bulldozer’s rumble as my meal arrived, sawdust snowing down. Excellent as ever, I told the hardhatted waiter, one hand a forkful of fish, black beans and rice, the other a dark beer. Too bad you’re closing—where will I go for southwestern dining?

A wrecking ball shattered the wall, swung overhead. I looked around at the memories. The bar, devoid of liquor bottles and stools, where I held court with friends on weekends. One table where I proposed but was denied; another that hosted two first dates—both covered in debris. The front steps, now just broken bricks, where I tripped the first time in.

I ate slowly, savoring this last meal, as the ceiling became a cloudless sky. Brick and wood pieces drizzled down. Finishing the last bites, I asked about dessert. You’ve been a solid patron over the years, the waiter said, but now we must depart.

So I paid and left, as the last pieces rained down, the crew outside looking at me as if I were a funeral mourner. Progress, a man in hardhat said as I walked by. Hardly, I mumbled. The crumbled structure burped a cloud of dust. I watched, the beer and catfish tastes buzzing in my mouth, soon to fade away.

Christian Bell, Poet?

Back in the mid 1990s, before the Internet and when I was still fairly new to this writing thing, I wrote poetry in addition to fiction. I sort of fashioned myself as a multi-format writer, who would dabble in poetry and fiction and ultimately expand into screenwriting (for that big payday) and playwriting and perhaps even the occasional nonfiction piece. At the time it made sense, seeing as I had not disciplined myself long-term in any of the formats and being in my early 20s I was still young and the world was wide open.

In those early days, I was able to publish some poetry in my college’s literary publication, which, obviously, was a big lift to my early writing efforts and gave me some confidence that my writing was worth something. I had been sending around poems and fiction to various publishing outlets, racking up the rejections, and for awhile, the college mag was the only credit I had. I continued writing poetry and fiction until the late 1990s (screenwriting and playwriting never materialized, though I tend to irregularly write something nonfiction, like this blog post). At some point, fiction overtook poetry, likely assisted by a predominantly fiction writing group I was in at the time, enrolling in a graduate writing program, and finding quality fiction publications on the Internet. By the turn of the century, I was done writing poetry. For me, now, it’s all about fiction.

Now, most of the poems from back then look fairly embarrassing (as does a lot of the fiction, frankly). I doubt that any of them will appear on this site. Of course, the world is still wide open even in my late 30s; if I really wanted to, I could start writing poems again, or I could turn to screenwriting or playwriting or even become an essayist. While these are all fine pursuits, none of them has me wondering, what if? I can safely keep these things tucked in my past or leave them as things I didn’t pursue and be fine with that. If I abandoned fiction, I know I would be awake at night wondering just what the heck I was doing. Fiction, whether I’m any good at it or not, is what I feel I should be writing. I don’t have any misgivings about whether or not I’m doing the right thing.

In many ways, I think the poet version of me merged with the fiction writer (flash fiction is a good blending of the two) and now I’m just one writer, hopefully improved, hopefully continually improving.

4: Sodium Pentothal

This story is the 4th part of the Griffin filmmaker series, with the first 3 stories being The Thirst, Raging Life, and Negative.  For now, the order is restored.

Seventy nine days before Griffin’s fourth film, Sodium Pentothal, was released, the director’s son Richard was born. In a brief written statement, Griffin described the birth as exhilarating, a true miracle beyond description, as if there were the arc of a permanent, perfect rainbow standing in my vision. My beautiful wife Helena, an angel if there ever was one, is understandably exhausted but fine and recovering well from the procedure.

This statement was issued as a press release and distributed to the relevant media outlets; it was retracted and re-released to correct two misspelled words and the date of Richard’s birth.

***

In a private journal not made public until eleven years after his death, Griffin wrote about his son’s birth. He described himself in those weeks that followed as tired with his sense of time and place being altered from the new baby, lack of sleep, and caring for his wife. I wake up in the middle of the night, he wrote, baby crying for a feeding, and in that initial moment, can’t be sure if I’m in my apartment, the hospital, or some unfamiliar location.

The film I’m working on, he continued, is about the truth, pursuing it by force in contemporary society and how we twist ourselves to conform what we see as truth, ultimately leading to its perversion. But in moments with my child, my family, there is truth, pure and unforced. A profound delirium, this is, this new life, this miniature person. Easily, he wrote, I could float away and disappear.

In the initial release of Griffin’s journals, there were several mistakes. Sodium Pentothal was initially listed as his fifth film. In alternating places, the year in the birth entries was off by one year. The word “Pentothal” was misspelled as “Pentathal” in five instances. In later pressings, these mistakes were rectified. In the original journals, Griffin made various spelling and grammatical errors, as he wrote by hand and did not edit his entries. Before initial publication, the journal entries were edited, cleaning up such errors.

***

In moments not written about, Griffin would be holding his infant son as they rocked in a chair, their forms illuminated by the faint red glow of a caterpillar nightlight. Helena would wake and stand outside her son’s room and watch father clutching son in a still rocker. Her abdomen itching, her Caesarean scar pink and raised, the topography of motherhood.

The scene she witnessed was a replay of hazy moments from the hospital, the baby a symptom of physics, appearing in different arms every time she woke. She watched this scene, smiling as tired eyes weighed down, and felt a brief rush, thought that maybe she could do it all again.

In later years, Helena would revise her memory. She’d remember the red light as being brighter, illuminating the room more, and the caterpillar being more realistic than cartoonish. The child would be smaller, resting higher up on his father’s chest. Though she loved her son, she’d have no recollection of wanting to birth another but instead would wonder how she made it through with Richard, how she smiled when her brain and muscles were fatigued, how she said she felt happy when she wanted to run away, disappear.

Winding Down

My Thinly Sliced Raw Fish project is winding down. Today marks the 40th post. Only 10 more left! 

Read here. Less than 100 words.

Random Notes on J.D. Salinger

There’s a lot to say, and a lot being said, on the recent death of author J.D. Salinger. I don’t have much to say other than same random thoughts, as I’ve always seen Catcher in the Rye as middling and didn’t really get what the fuss was about. A professor I had in undergrad said you had to read the book as a teenager first to get it; I didn’t read it until my 20s and he was right. But I can appreciate the influence the work has had since its publication and that it stands as one of the great works of American literature. As a writer, I would feel almost neglectful not making mention of Salinger in his death.

***

I like Joshua Ferris’s brief article appearing at the New Yorker site, here . He raises a good point: what books after Catcher have been, as Ferris puts it, “as galvanizing, controversial, wildly popular, and accomplished”? He mentions some reasonable titles that are close but don’t hit the mark. I’d maybe throw in Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, but I don’t think it’s required reading or even widely read. I’m not sure anything is close, though, really.

***

Salinger is probably the epitome of that cultural phenomenon of author as recluse, coming before even Thomas Pynchon. James Earl Jones played a version of him in the film Field of Dreams (his name changed, and based on details of Salinger’s life, a more palatable person). Probably every movie that’s had the writer as hermit can thank Salinger for its portrayal.

***


There has been some indication that Salinger left behind numerous unpublished works. Who knows what is there and if it’s anything but the sort of unfinished miscellanea that often surface after an author’s death. Hopefully, though, if there are any insane orders to destroy these works, someone plays Max Brod to Salinger’s Kafka and ignores them. I understand the writer’s need for privacy and for someone to have their last wishes fulfilled, but when you’ve reached the level of a J.D. Salinger, the world should not be denied seeing whatever writings are left.

Yellowfin Tuna Honored as Nominee for the 3rd Annual Micro Award

My story "Yellowfin Tuna" has been honored as 1 of 8 nominees for the 3rd Annual Micro Award!  Congrats to the winner and the other 7 nominees.  In this case, it is truly great just to have been nominated and be in the company of other great writers!

"Yellowfin Tuna originally appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of JMWW.  The story can be found here. 

13: Super 16

This story is part of the Griffin filmmaker series (untitled so far) but is out of order. The first 3 stories are The Thirst,  Raging Life,  and Negative.  This story is part 13, taking place 16 years after the third story. I’m envisioning this series having 25 stories total. So, why the jump from 3 to 13? Well, I hit a creative stumbling block writing story 4, so I decided to hit fast forward to rejuvenate myself.

Static
It was the time when weird phone calls began. Griffin answered the phone; on the other end, a static crunch, and an antique sounding multi-level click. Somehow, he told his assistant, whoever’s calling is making it sound like they’re using some sort of phone technology from 50 years ago. Like they’re calling me from the past. Do they say anything, the assistant asked. No, he said. This person calls, stays on for about five seconds, and hangs up. In his studio he lit a cigarette. An on-again, off-again relationship that was once again in motion. Sunlight the color of faded newspaper filtered through the window. A puff of smoke drifted away, went from circle to rounded triangle to nothing. He stared at the phone on his desk, waited for it to do something.

Film School
Griffin’s thirteenth film, Super 16, was shot, as its name suggests, using 16 mm film. The goal, Griffin indicated, was to create the grainy view of indie filmmaking similar to his early short films. The locations move from desert to city to traveling carnival. The hero flees—from mistakes he’s made, from his father’s homicidal ancestry that’s made him a pariah. Griffin spent weeks upon weeks tracking down appropriate cameras, all of them vintage, and stores of film. Members of his crew sighed, blustered, shook their heads. All this technology and here we are. He gave lectures on film perforation, aspect ratio, and camera aperture. During a break, Griffin overheard someone mumble, I hadn’t realized I’d signed up for film school again. Film school, Griffin whispered, then chuckled.

Juvenile Crime
One afternoon Richard was brought home by a police officer. The lobby buzzer, a stern male voice, distorted, way too close to the intercom. He and his friends were rooting through dumpsters behind an electronics store. While the officer was there, Richard kept his eyes frozen downward. Griffin listened to the officer. The boy gets a warning this time; I leave it to you, sir, to discipline him; I don’t want to see him again. Silence after the officer left, then, Dad, I’m sorry, we were just looking for old stuff. They junk old and broken music players. Amplifiers, speakers, even turntables. It’s trash to them, Dad, why should they care. Griffin nodded his head, placed his right hand on the boy’s shoulder, knew it was wrong to sympathize with his plight.

Stereoscope
Griffin came home from filming one day, saw Helena sitting on the couch wearing his antique pocket stereoscope. She looked up, her face like that of a Terry Gilliam film scientist. This is fascinating, she said, holding up the stack of cards with side-by-side images. Various city skylines in black and white, the series of long-gone carousels, human male and female anatomical sketches revealing muscles, nervous system, internal organs. This one, she said, holding a card in the air, is just creepy. He sat next to Helena, put on the stereoscope and looked at the images until they became one. It was the card of a dead guy in a coffin, dressed in top hat and tails, hands clasped together and pennies on his eyes, his face dusty and lips broken and riddled with lines. This is how we all end, he remembered thinking the first time he saw it. Helena’s hand touched his arm. He looked up, his eyes blurry for two seconds until regaining focus.

Prank Call
Griffin jumped out of bed, sleep interrupted by a ringing phone, and stumbled to the living room. He picked up the phone—crackling, what he thought was someone inhaling, then the phone clicking in silence. He bit his lower lip, gently placed the phone on its cradle. He dreamt he was in western ghost town, hot air laden with crunchy dust, and walked into an abandoned saloon that had a billiards table. In the living room, he turned, saw his son Richard sitting on the couch in the dark, which made him jump. Why does someone call like that, Richard asked. Griffin, his heart racing, sat down on the couch. He heard a floorboard creak, knew Helena was behind them, sleepy, head leaning against the wall.

Vintage Underwear
The common thread of Super 16 reviews was that the film was a throwback to earlier Griffin, reflecting the art house sensibility of The Thirst and Raging Life, with the expert cinematographic hand of Negative, and a contrast to more recent fast-paced bombs-and-guns fare such as Black Thursday and Jokerman. In an interview, he said that, yes, with this film, he intended to get back to basics, live in the past to rediscover the old fun. He joked he told everyone to think old thoughts, put on your vintage underwear, and tell tales by candlelight to your friends and family. You’re smoking again, someone pointed out. Yes, he said, inspecting a lit cigarette at arm’s length. It’s all part of the experience.

Family History
About six months after Super 16’s release, Helena went to the doctor because of pelvic pain. I’m worried, she told Griffin the night before, I have a grandmother and an aunt who… It’ll be fine, he told her, rubbing her shoulders from behind, though she sat slumped in her chair. Let me cheer us up, Griffin said, disappearing into a closet. Here, let’s film home movies! He held up a Arriflex 16SR camera, leftover artifact from Super 16, its bulky body like car parts, the front a square abyss. She laughed, put her hands up. This is Helena, he said, the woman I love, mother of my son, still lovely after all these years, and she needs to lighten up. Say something for posterity, he said, holding the camera insistent. She lowered her hands, looked straight into the camera holding back laughter, said, turn the damn thing off. Which he did. The next day he was at home while she was gone. Writing but not really. He looked at the phone. Ring, why don’t you? Then it did.

The Unbearable Burden of Being It

Michael Solender of the excellent Not From Here, Are You? blog has bestowed upon me a Circle of Friends Award, which means, yes, I'm "it."  So, now I get to pass it along to five bloggers.  I think this is how the Grammy Awards are handed out.



Anyway, I've decided to send it along to a nice wide range of excellent writers you may or may not heard of. Go check them out!  Add them to your favorites if you haven't already.


Boudreau Freret

Peggy McFarland

Jim Dempsey

Skycycler

Laura Eno

Counting to One Thousand

This woman sits down next to me, starts telling me things about myself she shouldn’t know. My name, the hospital where I was born, the time I was standing on the beltway shoulder and thought about just walking out. I should’ve been freaked out but wasn’t. She was old, wore too many clothes, and her body creaked. She mentioned my first day of kindergarten, when I stood outside after the bell rang and cried. I said to her, I could already count to one thousand then, remembering my teacher who walked me into class holding my hand. Yes, I know, she said, grasping my hand, her fingers like plastic pens.

Monte Cristo

The day after he kidnapped her, made her the victim her friends always said she’d be, he brought her first meal: a Monte Cristo. He left her tied to a chair in the motel room, ESPN turned on to high volume. He returned, untied her, opened the Styrofoam container. She looked at the sandwich then at him like he was insane. A deep fried sandwich, ham, swiss, turkey, covered in powdered sugar, raspberry preserves on the side, a big order of fries. He shrugged his shoulders. Hungry, she scarfed it down, furiously scraping the cup for every last raspberry drop. It gave her heartburn. It was the best thing she had ever had. She wanted another two days later. They moved from town to town. He bought them for her when he could find them. He stopped tying her up, stopped playing the criminal. After two weeks they were in love.

A year later, after they fudged their way through kidnapping charges, they married. Why a Monte Cristo, she asked once, of all things? It was said to be Princess Diana’s favorite, he said. A meal fit for you, a princess. Had you considered killing me, she asked later. Never, he said. But the criminal was back. Again she was the victim.

Two TSRF works @ Camroc Press Review

Two of my Thinly Sliced Raw Fish pieces, “A Story About Glass” and “The Letters,” are now up at Camroc Press Review. The permanent link for these stories at CPR is here.

These stories originally appeared at my companion blog, Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, a project site where I'm posting 50 works of fiction each under 100 words, with a new post appearing every other day.

"A Story About Glass" originally appeared here.  "The Letters" appeared here.

Thanks to CPR editor Barry Basden for publishing these pieces at his excellent site.

Multiple Sclerosis

When I was a teenager, Annette Funicello scared the crap out of me. It wasn’t the Mickey Mouse Club or those beach movies with Frankie Avalon but seeing her in a wheelchair, crippled by multiple sclerosis. What’s her life, a lingering paralyzed consciousness that ends in death. Contorted arms and legs, sculpted back into fetal position. Then I learn, no one knows how anyone gets it, it just happens. Great. That’s going to happen to me, I told my mom, I’m going to wither away and die young. It’s not going to be you, she said, you’ll be fine. But I didn’t believe her. One day I’d feel tired or lose my balance riding my bike or my throat would feel weird swallowing and I’d say, here it comes. I’d forget about it, see a jar of Skippy and think of Annette Funicello all over again. No college for me, no career or having a family because I’ll be wheelchair bound. You’re being paranoid, mom said. Am I—Lou Gehrig’s disease and muscular dystrophy don’t make me feel this way. It’s a visceral fear, I said, like my mind knows to fear what’s to come. You keep worrying about it, you’ll get it, she said. There’s nothing I can do for you. Her walking away, shutting me up. That’s about when I’d go to my room, read a comic book. Superman, again saving the world from Lex Luthor. I’d glance out the window, see airplane trails slicing up the sky.