The American Writer
Tom Eubanks
Humor, Storytelling & Observations on Writing
Contributors
Marri Bernier * Louis Kraft * Dan McGinley
Tracy A. Phillips * Lisa Snider
Entertainment - Enlightenment - Education
www.iUniverse.com
Cherry Road - Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Denny steps into the moist, circular trough he has dug around a dead cherry tree. He wraps a thick chain around its trunk, its reddish brown roots exposed, crosses the end link back over the chain and jams a big old trestle bolt through it. From his pocket he pulls out a nut the size of a peach pit and threads it over the end of the bolt to hold the chain in place. He mounts his tiny, green John Deere tractor, pops it into gear and slowly gives it gas. The chain rattles, stretching link by link, until a twelve-foot span of steel stretches between the tractor hitch and the nearly leafless tree.
The pitch of the tractor’s engine rises against the strain of tug o’ war. Denny lets off the gas, backs it up a foot or two, then guns it again, hoping to loosen the tree’s roots from the still wet soil. The tractor is jarred to a stop, the front wheels jumping off the ground. He tries again and again. Finally, the tree tugs loose. He drags it out and away as the black earth caves back into the hole.
Over the next hour, under a hot sun, he hacks off the smaller branches with an axe, saws the tree limbs and the stock into logs with a chainsaw, and then neatly stacks almost a cord of good cherry wood along the side of the house.
He is tired but satisfied with the afternoon’s work. He picks up a log, closes his eyes and smells the freshly cut end of it. The dead tree holds a lively aroma, and it brings a smile to his face, memories of cold nights in the old house with Mom and Dad sitting by a fire.
“Gettin’ high on firewood?” a voice asks from behind him. Startled, Denny spins around. A girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, pokes her finger to her temple in a pose of thought, her head tilted, her dull black hair falling around her bare, sun-burned shoulders. “That’s somethin’ I never thought of.” She wears a red- and white-striped crêpe tube-top, jean shorts and red rubber sandals.
“You spooked me,” Denny says.
She stretches the corners of her mouth in a quick reflex of sudden awareness and replies, “Sorry,” then shrugs.
He sets the log back on the pile. “What do you want?” he says, his eyes wandering from her comely features, down her sleek, pink body to the ring in her navel.
“Food.”
This surprises him. He thought she was selling cookies or magazines to raise money for girls softball or something. At first he doesn’t know what to say. He looks around for a clue to how she came to the top of his mountain. There is none. She has no backpack, suitcase, not even a handkerchief tied to the end of a stick.
“You a runaway or what?”
She rolls her eyes, cocking her hip to the side, and folds her arms over her breasts. “If it gets me something to eat, yeah. Otherwise, no.”
“How’m I supposed to take that?” he asks, feeling awkward, not trusting her, wanting her just to go away.
“It means no. But if it takes a yes to get some food, I’m willing to lie like a rug to get some.”
He senses that her honesty is cloaked in fraud, but he isn’t sure. “What do you want to eat?”
“Anything but”—she glances over the orchard—”cherries. We’ve eaten so many already; we’re goin’ to get the runs.”
“Who gave you permission to come on my property and eat my cherries?”
“Just hunger.”
“And who’s ‘we?’”
“My mother and me.”
Denny glances past the dolphin fountain, down the mountain to the road. No one there. “Where is she?”
“Down at the big white house beguine’ for food like I am.”
He shades his eyes and peers down at the Sturtevant house. When he turns back to her, she’s squinting, trying to see into his house through the window. He steps in front of her.
“Wait by the fountain. I’ll get you something to eat. But then you have to go.”
Her bland expression of apathy falls away. In its place comes a flash of disorientation, then self-conscious adolescence, as if his offer is a vicious insult.
“Do you want something to eat or not?” Denny asks softly, kindly. She nods and bites her lip. “What’s wrong?” She looks away, shoving her hands in her back pockets. Her eyes well with tears when she turns back to him. “What did I say?” She purses her lips and shakes her head. Her sudden sadness curiously and inexplicably affects his interest in her. Like peeling back the bandage on a stranger’s wound only to appraise its degree of healing.
“Thanks,” she says softly. She walks over and sits on the edge of the fountain, reaches out to feel the spray. Denny goes inside, keeping a look-out through the windows as he heads for the kitchen. In a large paper bag, he places a loaf of bread from the freezer, a half jar of Skippy peanut butter, a box of raisins, almost a full bag of pretzels, two sleeves of Ritz crackers and—the real sacrifice—the rest of his Oreo cookies.
He finds her standing in the fountain, eyes closed, leaning her head back against the dolphins, the cool water flowing over her body. Denny clears his throat and offers the bag of food. She opens her eyes.
“Feels so good.” She glances at the bag but doesn’t take it. “Stayed at the beach a couple days, and I got burned.” She looks down at the pinkish skin on her chest, touches it gently, her wet hair plastered to her head.
“Here’s some food,” Denny says, still offering the bag.
Carefully, she steps out of the fountain, pulls her hair back. Denny watches and surveys the swell of her breasts, winning a peek of modest cleavage as she raises her arms and wrings water from the hair on the back of her head.
She’s not much older than Tyson, he scolds himself, glancing away and setting the bag of food on the flat rim around the fountain.
She draws a rubber band from her pocket and binds her hair into a ponytail, saying, “Thanks a lot for the food—and the dip in your fountain.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, looking at his wrist for the time and finding only the white skin where his watch should be. He remembers he left it on the tractor before he started the tree removal. “I have work to do. So, uh, have a nice day.”
He goes into the garage and stands inside the door out of view to wait for her to leave. He waits for a few seconds, and then slides along the big door and peeks around it. The girl’s face zooms back into his. They both jump away from each other and shriek.
“Don’t scare me like that!” she cries.
“Me scare you? Why’re you spying on me?”
“Me? You’re the one pretending you have something to do in here when all you’re doing is hiding out.”
He snorts. “I wasn’t hiding. That’s ridiculous. Why should I hide from you? I wasn’t hiding.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“None of your business. This is my barn. This is my property.”
“You were hiding.”
“Why the hell would I hide from a little trespasser?”
She winces. “I’m not a trespasser.”
“Okay. A moocher.”
“A moocher. Okay. A moocher. Fine. Then I’ll just finish what I came in here to do.”
“And that is?”
“To mooch some gas.”
“For what?”
“I’m thirsty,” she retorts sarcastically. “What do you think? Our car. Ran out of gas and pushed it off into the trees.”
“My trees.” She rolls her eyes. “You mean the station wagon?”
“Yeah. The one you drove right by without even a—”
“Don’t say it. Not if you want my help.” She bites her lip. “You have a crappy way of showing gratitude. You need to watch how your Mom bums food and gas. She has to be better at it than you.”
The girl looks up into the rafters as a way of demonstrating that she has control of her anger, then calmly turns and walks away. As she passes the fountain, she drops the bag of food into the water.
Denny charges over, thinking, Not the Oreos!
Absolute Constructions: A Marriage of Separation
I married my wife nearly 36 years ago. I still recall my father--who is an ordained minister and married us--invoking God to join the two of us as one. I immediate thought of sex, of course, since that's how my male mind works. After 36 years of marriage (38 years of commitment), I understand that this concept has a lot more to do with our souls than our bodies. Especially now that our bodies have doubled (that means the two of us have actually become four, I think).
In studying my writing and learning how to write more concisely, I discovered a technique for joining two sentences into one. Absolute Constructions. The word "absolute" is being used here in the strict Latin absolutus, meaning "made loose." Loose? As in loose clothing? Loose woman?
(Okay, testosterone just rushed all reason and sent me back to believing that we're still talking about sex. Pause. Reflect. I'm fine. Let's go on.)
After further investigation, absolutus also means "separation." Now that's weird. To marry two sentences, I'm using a grammatical device that means "to separate."
Absolute constructions consist of a noun and some form of modifier, usually a participle, which is a word that shares the characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. Being a modifying phrase, they generally come at the beginning of sentences and modify the whole second clause.
All things considered, living with my wife beats the heck out of living with myself.
The italicized phrase is the absolute construction. It modifies the second clause. The second clause will always be a stand-alone sentence.
Now if the participial phrase at the beginning modifies the subject or object in the second clause, it is not an absolute construction; it's non-absolute. Here are some sentences to show the difference:
1. Speaking of rewards, where's the nearest Baskin Robbins shop?
2. In order to fully appreciate this blog, you must have a sense of humor.
3. Darkness having fallen, my wife found me quite handsome.
4. After wrapping herself in cellophane, Jessica decided she had a transparent personality.
So which of these four sentences are absolute? Number 1 and 3. In both cases the italicized phrase modifies the whole second clause. Whereas, in number 2 and 4, the phrase modifies only the subjects "you" and "Jessica," respectively. That's the only difference between an absolute and a non-absolute construction.
What's great about this grammatical device is that I can easily conjoin two sentences. So:
Thirty-five copies of my novel have been sold. I am considering going back to work in the circumcision factory for ten bucks an hour plus tips.
These two sentences are modified as:
Thirty-five copies of my novel sold, I'm considering going back to work in the circumcision factory for ten bucks an hour plus tips.
A savings of two words. That's about 7.5% of the sentence. If I do that over the course of an entire short story, I will pare down the word-count. If I'm writing with a limit on my words, such as writing for Flash Fiction, where the limit is 1000 words, 7% to 10% reductions in the number of words without changing the meaning is a big deal.
Separating the modifier from the second clause is great way for me to marry two sentences as one. Until death do us part.
Cherry Road - Chapter 2
Chapter Two
On Sunday mornings, the little town of Ventana Springs, population 5,555, appears deserted to the casual traveler, the occasional tourist interested in soaking in the hot springs of the Ventana Gorge west of town. If they listen, though, they will hear the singing in all four churches; if they pay attention, they will see that in both cafés and in Hatkoff's, the only coffee shop, nearly every booth and stool is filled. Cruising through town on Highway 22 in his cherry red Ford flatbed truck, BRINGLESON FARMS stenciled in white on the doors, Denny considers the people of Ventana Springs. He tries not to fool himself. He knows them well as life-long strangers, folks who know his name, even wave to him, but who have perfected reticent friendliness to a level that scares away newcomers yet sustains the homebred population.
It is only 9 o'clock; Bayler's Market opens at 10. He parks in the lot and walks to the Rivière Rouge Bistro at the corner of Pomelo Street and Highway 22. Nowhere in Ventana Springs was there a better place for breakfast. No one seems to notice Denny as he seats himself at the two-person table at the front window. Tidy, sky blue dwarf bell flowers mix with light yellow daisy-like flowers in a slender white vase. Denny sniffs. They smell like chocolate.
There is soft conversation, rattling newspapers, silverware clinking. He stares out the window and seemingly from nowhere hears the voice of Rita Ornelas, the owner.
"Herbivore or carnivore?" she asks, a hint of playfulness in her eyes and a trace of a Mexican accent in her speech. She displays two small menus for him to choose from.
"Omnivorous," he replies, taking both.
"I like a man who likes variety," she says, folding her arms. "Would you like to hear the specials?"
"Sure."
She cocks her head and recites, "I have a wonderful ratatouille omelet with zucchini, Japanese eggplant and sweet peppers sautéed in a fruity olive oil, tossed with basil and tomatoes and filled with an assertive provolone cheese."
"Assertive," Denny echoes. She nods. She carries an exotic attractiveness with her manner, even at 40, but her perky accent makes her sound much younger, as does her slim body and brown, wrinkle-free complexion.
"I have Mexican scrambled eggs cooked with jalapeño chilies, tortilla pieces, scallions and smoked cheese," she continues, "and of course our house special, French toast made with sweet, light challah bread."
Denny nods more intent on Rita's fresh appearance than her repertoire of recipes. He hesitates, glances at the menus, hands them back and says:
"Cream of Wheat, white toast and coffee."
She pauses, glancing away, nods almost ceremoniously and floats through the rest of the diners. Denny is always impressed by how efficiently Rita runs her business, quietly giving orders to the three young Mexican girls who help cook, wash dishes, and bus tables. Only Rita comes in contact with the customers. Only Rita works the cash register. Through the opening to the kitchen, Denny catches the eye of Rita's chef, Lacoste, known only by his last name, as he whirls the order wheel to a ticket. Lacoste waves and goes back to work.
Rita brings the hot cereal with a creamer full of milk, a slab of butter and a dip-cup of brown sugar.
"Anything else, Denny?" she asks.
"No, thanks. Oh, wait. Could you use any cherries?"
"Cherries."
"Black cherries."
"How much do you have?"
He hesitates. "Two lugs."
"I'll ask Lacoste. Maybe he can use them in the desserts."
"Sure."
"I'll let you know."
"I need to know before I leave. What you don't take, Bayler's will. I just thought you might like some."
"Thanks for asking," she says, her eyes jumping from his face to his bowl of cereal. "I'll let you know."
"Don't feel obligated," Denny says, but she has already drifted away to another table.
He finishes breakfast and pays Rita at the cash register beside the front door. She thanks him; he waits.
Rita's eyebrows arch. "Something else?"
"The cherries."
"Oh, yes, the cherries. I'm sorry, Lacoste already bought fresh peaches and apples."
Denny shrugs. "No problem."
"It's better to come by on Thursdays."
"I will next time."
She nods and something in her face reflects a sudden realization she has. She starts to speak but doesn't. Denny walks out the door. He's barely to the corner when Rita calls to him to wait. He realizes he has forgotten to tip her and reaches in his pocket for a dollar. She trots up to him and says, panting:
"Next Saturday I'm throwing a little party—a fête champêtre, as Lacoste calls it—for Kay."
"Kay? Kay Bayler?"
She snickers. "Yes, Kay Bayler. Would you like to come?"
"What time?"
"Eight."
"Sure. So what's the occasion?"
"Moving away."
"You are?"
"Kay is. Going to Santa Cruz."
He feels a lump in his throat but manages to ask when.
"End of September, early October."
"Oh."
"Something wrong?"
"No," Denny says, trying to hide his despair. "No. I'll just miss her. She's a nice lady. Buys lots of my cherries."
"Okay, then. I'll see you next Saturday." She gives him her address, and he hands her a dollar.
She smiles curiously and says, "There's no cover charge, Denny."
"It's a tip. I forgot to leave a tip."
She takes it, thanks him, trots up to her bistro and waves at him before she goes back to work.
***
Bayler's market has only eight aisles, but it is well-designed and has the look inside of a clean, well-stocked country store. The fruits and vegetables are prominently displayed down the center, their colors gleaming under the natural light streaming through skylights overhead. The store is still cool and nearly void of customers this Sunday morning, having just opened. The smell of fresh-baked bread wafts from the tiny bakery in the back corner.
Denny sets two lugs of cherries on the floor beside the fruit display.
"What're you doing?" a gruff voice asks.
Denny turns to find weasel-nosed, snake-eyed Sam Hozzle, the oldest and meanest green grocer in the world, brandishing a short broom.
"Delivering cherries."
"We don't need no damn cherries, who told you to deliver more cherries?"
"Uh...no one, I thought—"
"Then take 'em outa here, go on," he growls, leaning his broom against the display.
"Is Kay here?" Denny asks, trying on a little assertiveness.
Sam hooks his thumbs in the sides of his long, green apron. "'Course she's here. Now get them cherries outa here."
Denny walks past Sam and into the back. He finds Kay seated in her tidy cube-shaped office behind a desk the size of an end table. In fact, Denny often wonders if that isn't what it is. She wears a blue, straight-cut, unfitted shirt and black tight-fitting Wrangler jeans. Her short brown hair is parted on the left and a wave dips low over her forehead and back over her right temple. The beauty of her face is the way her eyes and nose and mouth are perfectly proportioned without making her look too sculptured.
She looks up and her smile accentuates dimples in her high-boned cheeks. Her blue eyes have a sparkling, sleepy look to them. "Hi, Denny, what're you doing in town on a Sunday?"
"Came in for breakfast, brought some cherries."
She wrinkles her slender nose. "Oh."
"You don't have to take them."
"No, no," she says, standing, holstering her fingers into her front pockets. "That's okay. I'll put them in the cooler and sell them later. They'll keep, won't they?"
"Few days, sure. But if you don't want them, I can take them back, it's no problem, I just picked too many for the fruit stand yesterday and had a few lugs left over and thought you might want them." He shrugs. "No big deal, I can store them."
"No, really. I want them. Get Sam to help you."
"Thanks. I think they'll sell fast. They're pretty plumpy."
She looks down at the long, folded printout covering her entire desk, a gooseneck lamp beaming brightly over the lists of product. "Sounds good."
There's an uncomfortable pause. Kay sits down again, folds her hands on the printout.
"Okay, well, I guess I'll see you next Saturday," Denny says, backing out of the doorway.
"Okay, but call me first. I may not need as many lugs with these you've brought today."
"I know. I mean the party. At Rita's."
"Oh, the party! Yes, of course. You talked to Rita."
"Had breakfast at the bistro."
They both nod.
"I'm glad you're coming."
"I'm sorry you're going."
"The party's for me," she explains, pressing her hand over her breasts.
Denny doesn't at first understand. "I know, Kay. I meant going to Santa Cruz."
She rolls her eyes. "Oh, God, I'm going nuts—of course, right. Yeah, I'll miss...everyone here. I'll miss the store, the work...everything."
"What happens to the market?"
"Sam'll take over until I find someone to buy it."
Rushing images invade Denny's brain: Sam, armed with a shotgun, blasting lugs of cherries right off the back of Denny's flatbed; Sam, beating Denny over the head with his broom, strangling him with his apron.
"What's Sam got against me?" he asks suddenly.
She blinks, glances away, and then shakes her head. "I didn't know he did."
"He does. Every time I deliver, I have to go through him like some...some displaced New York wise guy."
She laughs, covering her mouth. "Hell, that makes me The Godfather—Godmother! I'm sorry to laugh, but that's just Sam. He treats everybody the same. Even me. I'll talk to him."
"No, don't."
"Not about that," she adds. "About buying your cherries after I'm gone. I've bought my cherries from your family for four years. No one else'll get the business, I promise."
"Thanks."
She takes up one of the printouts, signaling her intent to return to work.
"See you Saturday," she says.
Back in the store, Denny discovers that Sam has loaded the cherries back onto his truck.
"What'd you do that for?"
Wiping his hands on his apron, Sam replies, "Told you to get them out of here, but you wouldn't listen."
"You can help me unload them again."
"Like hell."
Denny feels his anger rising at the old man, takes a deep breath to keep it down and sighs. "I'll do it myself."
"You do and I'll—"
"You won't do anything," Denny cuts in, voice raised. He walks out to the truck without another word and brings in the first two lugs stacked one on the other, sets them down on the floor beside the display. Across the aisle, Sam pretends not to notice, using his duster on a stack of canned peas. When Denny returns with another lug, the first two are gone.
An aggravated sigh whistles through his teeth as he decides his next move. Does he run to Kay? No. Does he quietly look for the lost lugs? No. Does he slap the old man around a little? Well...no. He decides to be communicative, civil, patient, like his mother and father taught him to be.
"Mr. Hozzle?"
"Whaddaya want now?"
"What happened to the cherries?"
"What do I look like, the goddamn lost and found?"
Denny ignores the comment altogether. "I'm going to bring in one more lug, four in all, Mr. Hozzle, because Kay wants them. If you want to hide them, if you want to toss them in the bin, if you want to piss on them, I don't really care, because I'm billing her."
Denny walks out. When he returns with the other, fourth lug, Sam is tossing handfuls of cherries into a large, plastic trash can he has brought in from the back. He could take the cherries to the trash, but he brought the trash into the store so Denny will leave with no doubt about their fate. Keeping his exterior calm, Denny sets the lug down next to the trash can.
"I'll make it easy for you," he says and leaves the store.
It takes the two-mile drive back home to cool him off. When he thinks about it, it makes him laugh out loud. The old fart's going to get an earful from Kay for throwing away perfectly good cherries.
He is still laughing as he slows to turn onto Cherry Road, and notices an old brown station wagon parked between two pine trees just off the highway near his fruit stand. Arizona license plates.
He parks where the road meets the highway and looks down the colonnade of trees to the heavy shade of the pines twenty yards away. The faded wood siding on the station wagon doors have begun to splinter, the paint on the hood discolored and slightly charred from the heat of the engine. It looks abandoned.
Denny lets out the clutch as he shifts from neutral to first and grinds the gears. As the truck lurches forward, he glances back at the station wagon.
A head pops up from the front seat.
Watching Hair Grow
Tomorrow I'll be participating in an unusual event for Ojai's WordFest in Ojai, CA. It's called Ojai-5. Five writers (I'm not one of them) will have five hours to write five original short plays, followed by five directors (I'm one of them!) directing actors for five hours of rehearsal, culminating in a performance of all five plays that evening at Theater 150, one of the two local theater companies in town. The concept is fascinating, since writing and rehearsing is a slow process.
What's more, there will be an audience. For the writing. For the rehearsal. And it's a contest. Yep. Not only does each production team (writer/director/actors) have to create an entire play, learn the lines and blocking, and then polish it to performance level in just two 5-hour sessions, but the audience will vote for the best of the five plays.
I'm glad I'm directing. Writing the play or learning the lines and blocking, and then performing it, is the tough part. Or is it?
Let me explain something about directing. If the play is excellent, the actors and writer get the credit. If the play is bad, typically the director is blamed. On occasion the writer will be blamed for a bad script, but that's usually by the actors and the director, who, before the reviews were in, thought it was a wonderful piece of theater.
But I'm off track.
This audience "participation" in the writing process intrigues me. Okay. I meant "confuse." I can understand the interest in sitting and watching a director working with the actors (although it's much like watching a movie being made: stop, go, stop, go), but paying to watch five writers sitting and thinking and scribbling? What exactly are they going to see? Nose-picking perhaps. Head-scratching, for sure. Glazed eyes looking into the near-distance of the room. And maybe even some sudden bursts of eyebrow-raising when a light bulb goes on inside a head.
It's kind of like watching a chess match. Without all the two-inch action.
I suspect it will be more like watching hair grow.
The Website for Ojai WordFest offers tickets to the 8 p.m. performance of all five plays for. . .five bucks. But if someone wants to come at 7 a.m. and watch for the whole day, beginning with the writing from 7 a.m. to 12 noon, it's $30. So do the math. Thirty dollars minus five leaves $25 for the ten hours of writing and rehearsal; split equally in half, that computes to paying $12.50 to watch hair grow.
Is that a bargain? I don't know. I've never attended a hair-growing event. Now, wait. If even one of these writers is bald. . . .
Cherry Road - Chapter 1
Chapter One
From the top of the hill, Denny watches Tyson duck under the wooden covering built over the cherry stand beside the country highway. The light, late-summer rain is not a surprise at all to him, nor is it unwelcome. Denny watched the wall of black rain clouds creep over the eastern mountains into the coastal hills of southern California, quickly cooling the air. The old red, vinyl-covered chair, its padded arms cracked, yellow-brown stuffing exposed, is out of place behind the tiny plywood fruit stand. It belongs in a den, beside a cozy fire.
Three lugs of black cherries sit in the trough of the counter that was built to keep them at a tilt. Travelers passing by could then see the plump, delicious cherries, and they would steer to the side of the two-lane highway and buy them by the pound. Tyson weighs them on a produce scale, its bucket corroded but clean, suspended from a hook in the overhang.
But this Saturday no one stops to buy the cherries, and the day drags along, until the drizzle begins.
Tyson, shaggy-haired, round-faced, is almost too pretty for a boy. He is small for his fifteen years, but strong from working out with his older brother Adam. He stuffs his book into his back pocket and loads the first pinewood lug of cherries into a long, wide wagon. Denny built the big wagon himself by taking wood from two up-rooted cherry trees from his orchard and meticulously assembled the smoothly sanded pieces with heavy stainless steel bolts and attached hard, rubber wheels from an industrial push-cart. Tyson thinks the wagon is a marvel of ingenuity.
Tyson loads the other two lugs. He pulls the heavy wagon up Cherry Road, as the drizzle changes to cold, pelting rain, turning the pebble-strewn dirt into slick mud. The road takes him south then curves east up the hill for a hundred yards through sycamore and oak trees before it straightens. At this spot, a rock driveway branches north to the Sturtevant house, which can be seen from the highway. Cherry Road climbs to the top of the hill through the orchards for an eighth of a mile and abruptly stops. Perpendicularly to the end of the road, another rock driveway leads south to Denny Bringleson's indigo Victorian house, its looping, curving eaves and edges painted white. Tyson said it always looks like a giant playhouse.
The driveway circles a gray and black-speckled granite fountain in the form of two leaping dolphins. Tyson pulls the wagon passed it several yards to a brown barn that has no design or decoration as the house. He slides open the door, pulls the wagon inside and unloads the cherries onto the wide shelves inside the giant white cooler, kept precisely at 60 degrees. All three unoccupied horse stalls are clean, the dirt floors raked smooth. He parks the empty wagon in the tidy tack room in back. The concrete floor is spotless. The walls are void of anything equestrian. It is now used for storing equipment unrelated to any animal. Denny comes to the door, smells the fruity cherry aroma from the surrounding orchard, the earthy, staleness of old wood, rusted steel.
Tyson turns to leave the tack room.
"Ah, jeez," he says, with just a hint of the Minnesota roots on his tongue, planting his hand over his heart and huffing, "you scared me, Mr. Bringleson. I didn't even hear you come in."
Denny Bringleson, arms full of kindling, chuckles. "Sorry, Ty. Oh, and I'm sorry I didn't get down there to help you. I was fixing a leaky shower nozzle and didn't notice it was raining. Don't be mad at me."
"I'm not, sir."
Denny looks down at his boots for a moment. "Come on, I've asked you not to call me that. It's Denny. Just Denny. You make me feel old when you call me sir. I'm only twenty-eight, Ty."
Tyson nods.
He invites Tyson inside. Tyson seems pleasantly surprised and says, "Sure."
Denny rolls up the sleeves on his blue flannel shirt and builds a fire in the wide, stone hearth. He pokes and nudges the short, pudgy logs as if how they burn is part of the room's accent. Denny works from his knees, occasionally brushing back from his forehead strands of his long straw-blond hair. The strength in his lean muscled back and shoulders, even after a twelve-hour day working in the orchard, makes him feel even younger than his years.
He pulls out a round hassock and tells Tyson to sit by the fire, while he goes to the kitchen to make him hot chocolate.
"Didn't sell no cherries," Tyson calls to him.
"Some days are like that. I'll take them to Bayler's in the morning. She only wants six lugs, but I bet I can get her to take nine."
Bayler's is the only market in Ventana Springs, two miles north. Kay Bayler, the owner, loves Denny's cherries. Denny loves Kay Bayler. She is four, maybe five years older than he is, and she has never married, has, in fact, never been seen in the company of a man other than her twin brother Jay. Denny finds every opportunity to make a delivery. And when he has no fruit for sale, he schedules frequent trips to her store employing a voluntary forgetfulness that allows him to go back to make additional grocery purchases. Denny does not fool himself. Long ago he identified this awkward compulsion as a craving for the companionship of a woman.
As Denny gently spoons off the brown curdled layer from the mug of hot chocolate, he watches the drizzle through the kitchen window as it falls over the cherry trees. He thinks of how the years of working hard in his father's—and now his—orchard, without the benefit of parents who would want to have more than one child, who would understand that just spending a few hours with kids his own age in school was hardly enough to cultivate relationships, seems to have propelled Denny to the present. He regards his life as a leap from one side of a chasm to the other. And peering back down into the deep abyss, the recollections are invisible.
In recent days, Denny has decided to begin collecting the moments and hours of his life, to bravely turn his back on the gorge of emptiness.
He delivers the hot, sweet drink to the boy by the fire. Tyson thanks him, blows on the steaming beverage and sips.
"That's good," he says. Denny smiles and flops into his brown armchair, propping his feet up on the edge of the hassock on which Tyson sits. Before, he would have found work for himself instead of relaxing beside a fire with a boy half his age for company. But now he was making an effort to live.
"What time is your Mom picking you up?" Denny asks.
"Five."
Denny glances at the triangular analog clock on the far end of the mantel. He is disappointed to see it is four-forty-five. "Are you hungry?"
"Nah. I'll get something when we pick my brother up at Burger Joint."
"How's Adam like working there?"
"He doesn't."
"I worked there for a month when I was seventeen."
"Really? I didn't know that."
Denny grins. "That's why I told you."
Tyson rolls his eyes. "God, I say some dumb things."
"It wasn't dumb. Normal reaction to something you probably could care less about but are too polite to say so."
Tyson doesn't understand exactly what he means by that, but it sounds like a compliment.
"Are you going to need me next Saturday?"
"Sure. Oh." Denny reaches into his pocket, pulls out a ten dollar bill and hands it to him.
"What's this?"
"Your pay."
"But...but I didn't sell anything."
"That's not your fault."
"But then you're out the money. I sold seven lugs last week and you paid me ten bucks."
"You aren't on commission, Ty."
"I thought—"
"Just take it. You worked five hours. Two bucks an hour is slave wages. Besides, I've broken Federal labor laws. It's not even minimum wage. I'm a criminal. Take it as hush money."
Tyson giggles and says, "Okay, okay. But next week—"
"Next week I'll pay you ten bucks again."
"What if I sell everything in, say, an hour, two hours?"
"Still ten bucks. Per diem rate."
"Per what?"
"Diem. Per day." Tyson nods. "If I have other work around here, are you interested?"
"Sure. Until school starts. Then I'll have football practice and stuff."
Something drops to the floor. It's the paperback book. Denny picks it up, reads the title.
"The Secret of Passion Castle." He reads the back of it. "You like mysteries?"
"Yes, sir—I mean yes."
"Me, too."
Tyson clears his throat. "Wasn't your mother a writer?"
"Yes. Children's books."
"Must've been weird having your Mom read you bedtime stories that you couldn't fall asleep to because she wrote them and it might hurt her feelings."
"Actually, I used to beg her to read them to me, but she was too shy to read out loud. Made me read them to myself in my room. I wasn't even allowed to read them in the same room she was in, because she was afraid, I guess, that I'd say something nice about it. And when I finished reading the book, I couldn't talk to her about it either. My Dad said she was afraid of finding out she was good at it. She worried if she thought she was a good writer that the writing would turn bad. That the stories wouldn't come to her anymore. She was. . .superstitious." Denny hands the book to Tyson. Tyson asks, "Mind if I ask you a personal question?" Denny shakes his head and turns to stare into the fire. "Your Mom and Dad. Did they. . .how did they die?" Denny's eyes glance over at Tyson. "I'm sorry, Mr. Bringleson, I shouldn't ask something like that."
Shifting in his chair, Denny twists one end of his mustache and lets a grin appear then fade. "Don't apologize. I understand your curiosity. The stories are still around. It's only been six months. I try not to think about them too much. But their absence from my life has been harder to ignore than I thought possible. I've tried everything. I tore down the house I grew up in, the house my father built, and built this one."
"In record time, my Dad said," Tyson interjects.
"Folks around here think I'm nutty."
Tyson shrugs. "If they lost both of their parents in one day, they'd be nutty, too." Tyson's eyebrows arch. "I don't mean that you are nutty, I mean...I—"
"I know what you mean, Ty."
Denny gazes into the fire again, folds his hands in his lap and sighs. "You like a good fire?"
"Yes, sir—uh, Denny."
"Me, too. Your Dad's a fireman, isn't he?"
"Yes."
Denny turns to Tyson and says flatly: "A fireman's son who likes a good fire. That's nutty."
* * *
Tyson's mother, Jan Ebberle, is twenty minutes late. Tyson runs out to the car before it even comes to a stop in the loop. Leaving the engine running, she piles out of her old Volvo mumbling apologetically, waddling around to Denny's porch wearing a summer dress that could double for drapes.
"Mom," Tyson says, getting in the car, "you'll get wet."
She ignores him and walks her short, heavy body up to Denny and steps out of the rain. Tyson slinks down in the front seat of the Volvo. Denny notices again how he appears to be embarrassed by his mother's appearance.
"Shit, I hope I didn't screw you up, Denny," she says, waving her pudgy hands in the air. "Couldn't get out of that goddamn office. We're doing our fiscal year corporate tax returns and my boss—head up his ass—puts it off, so now we all have to hop to it and—Jesus!—I hate the son-of-a-bitch."
"You mean Jerry Ruhman?"
"Oh," she giggles, "that's right, the son-of-a-bitch does have a name." She laughs, her large breasts bouncing under her rain-speckled dress.
"Didn't he sell the concrete-pumping business last year?"
"He was going to. Man owns four companies, but he just can't let go of his babies." She lowers her voice so Tyson can't hear. "Like one of his goddamn kids or something. Kids in their twenties, still livin' at home. Spoiled rotten."
Barely interested, Denny nods, looking up at the rain.
"Well, I won't keep you," she says, backing away. "Ty, did you thank Mr. Bringleson?"
"He thanked me."
"See you, Denny, thanks a lot, you're a dear."
As she shoves herself back behind the wheel of the Volvo, Tyson, a sick grin on his face, waves.
To be continued. . .
Cherry Road - Prologue
This story has lived with me for over a decade. I've decided it's time to tell it.
I will irregularly and sequentially post the next chapter of this new work in progress with the hope that I will receive honest and reasonable criticism. If you have something to say about it, though, please e-mail it to me at tom@tomeubanks.com, rather than posting it as a comment.
Here's the Prologue:
Prologue
The new warden of the California Correctional Facility at Raymont in the Central Valley will seem kindly and interested in what Denny Bringleson will say that early-summer morning. It will be the warden's second day on the job. It will be Denny's fourth year in prison.
Two guards will wander through the orchard with them, aiming trained eyes upon Denny, who is tall, muscled, clean-shaven and handsome, even in his prison blues. They will wander through the clean, cultivated rows of trees that provide fresh fruit to burglars, robbers, rapists and murderers. The warden will stop at a large tree, finger the leaves, lift a branch and peek under it.
"Ah, pears," the warden will say. "Nothin' like a cold pear on a summer day. We had an old pear tree back home that grew the biggest, crispest pears in the world. French name."
"Beurré Giffard, sir," Denny will say.
"That's it," the warden will exclaim, grinning.
"Biggest of the summer pears, sir."
"You bet. So when are these here ready to pick?"
"In a few days. They'll have to be stored for several more to ripen, sir."
The warden will nod. "Small fruit."
"Yes, sir. If they were larger, these would be the ideal summer pear."
"What do you call them?"
The name will come to Denny immediately, but, staring at the pale yellow pear, it will take him a quarter of minute to answer. "Tyson pears, sir."
"Tyson. Like the boxer, huh?"
Denny will not know what boxer he means, but he will nod anyway.
The warden will lead the way through the prison orchard. A guard will kick at the fat chickens pecking around the tree stocks. Denny will raise a pointed finger at him to tell him to stop, but he will catch his voice--and the warden's approving glance.
The warden will tell the guard to leave the chickens alone.
"Numbskull," the warden will say under his breath. To Denny: "Why aren't the chickens in the coop?"
"They eat the maggots, sir."
"Interesting. Boy, you know your stuff--what's your name?"
"Two-six-three–I mean, Denny Bringleson, sir."
"Fine orchard, Mr. Bringleson. Keep up the good work."
"Thank you, sir."
"Will you bring me some of them pears when they ripen?"
"Yes, sir."
"'Preciate it."
The warden and his guards will walk off towards the prison administration building, a single-story hunk of brown brick. When they are out of view, Denny will join his two companions in a far row of the orchard, where they will be raking dead leaves from under the trees.
"How'd it go?" one man will ask, leaning on his rake.
"I like him," Denny will reply.
The other man, a Mexican from Lemoore, will spit on the ground in a demonstration of hatred for a warden he will not meet.
"Finish this row," Denny will order, "then take your break."
The Mexican will turn away and begin to work; the other man will smile at Denny and say: "And where you goin', Den?"
Denny will ignore his question, and the man will sniff, knowingly smirking, then rake. Denny will angle off through the orchard, duck under low branches, until he reaches a quincunx of trees. He will breathe in the aroma of the crimson-black cherries that hang in bunches like sour memories.
To be continued. . .
Author Profile: T.C. Boyle
Photo by Pablo Campos
"Writing is a habit, an addiction, as powerful and overmastering an urge as putting a bottle to your lips or a spike in your arm. Call it the impulse to make something out of nothing, call it an obsessive-compulsive disorder, call it logorrhea."
T. Coraghessan Boyle from an autobiographical essay This Monkey, My Back
The context of the above quote is more interesting than the quote, because he was actually talking to a friend, who had startled him by saying he was retiring at age 49, about when he would retire. He ends by saying, "Have you been in a bookstore lately? Have you seen what these authors are doing, the mountainous piles of the flakes of themselves they're leaving behind, like the neatly labeled jars of shit, piss, and toenail clippings one of John Barth's characters bequeathed to his wife, the ultimate expression of his deepest self? Retire? Retire from that? Sure, we'll all retire, all of us, once they drain our blood and pump the embalming fluid in."
Translation: T.C. Boyle will be writing till embalming fluids flood his right common carotid artery. Or perhaps just prior.
Tom Coraghessan Boyle (born Thomas John Boyle and also known as T.C. Boyle and T. Coraghessan Boyle) is often my favorite novelist and short story writer. Yes, I'm a bit fickle when applying that moniker. Since the mid-1970s he has published thirteen novels and over a 100 short stories in eight collections. He won the *PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York. Since 1978, he has taught as a Distinguished Professor of English in the University of Southern California's English Department.
I've read eight of his thirteen novels. My introduction to T.C. Boyle was his second novel, Budding Prospects, from 1984, a hilarious story about Felix, an ex-hippie consciously escaping the bullshit hippie ethic for a disastrous get-rich-quick scheme involving the illicit cultivation of marijuana. The irony of the story is that even one not bent on the success of Northern California marijuana cultivation finds himself rooting for Felix, silently pouring onto the pages encouragement for the plants to grow.
This will likely sound simplistic and immature of me, but I have to admit that what grabbed me about Boyle's writing was his ability to use language. I'm so glad I have my Nook now, because I have the Look Up Word link I can use while I'm reading a Boyle novel or short story. Some of my favorite words I found in the pages of a Boyle novel. And not only words, but the word for a thing or a part of a thing. Boyle has a propensity for identifying some design feature, part name, or pedestrian thing with its name, where most of us might just call it what it does. Boyle doesn't just call it a gear, he tells me it's a worm gear, which, after I look it up, I find looks like a screw and turns an ordinary disk-shaped gear. But the visual enhanced my reading experience. Instead of ticking me off that I had to occasionally look up something while reading his fiction, I was fascinated by the skill at which he raised my interest of something integral to the details of the story but not to the whole of it.
Boyle's self-described obsessions--"the search for the father, racism, class and community, predetermination versus free will, cultural imperialism, sexual war and sexual truce"--his Ph.D. degree from the University of Iowa in Nineteenth Century British Literature, and his B.A. degree in English and History from SUNY Potsdam molded the mind that created novels about historical figures and older times but also about those blessed souls we call "baby boomers." When not taking me to Northern Westchester County, New York in the 17th Century, and then 1949 and, finally, 1968, in his novel, World's End, or to the early 20th Century in his fiction/fact-based novel about architect Frank Lloyd Wright in his 2009 novel The Women, he's taking me to California and New York in the mid-2000s in his novel about identity theft in Talk Talk.
Historical personages find themselves in his novels. Mungo Park, the African explorer, in his first novel, Water Music (1982), which took me to London, Scotland and Africa to find the source of the Niger in 1795; John Harvey Kellogg (of Kellogg's Corn Flakes fame) in 1907 Battle Creek, Michigan, in his 1993 novel The Road to Wellville, which was made into a 1994 film starring Anthony Hopkins as Kellogg; Stanley McCormick, the hopeless lunatic son of the renowned Chicago reaper manufacturer, which is set in the years 1905-1925 in Montecito, California (where Boyle also lives) in Riven Rock; Alfred Kinsey from 1940-1950 in Bloomington, Indiana; and artist Hu Tu Mei in 1980s Georgia (American South) in East is East.
Boyle creates characters that are timeless, but he also knows how to take historical figures and put them under a microscope and show me the timelessness of the human experience. When I read about Mungo Park or Frank Lloyd Wright in a fictionally-driven, fact-engulfed story, I found myself having no problem identifying with their conflicts, just as I was engaged by the obstacles raised in his The Tortilla Curtain (illegal immigrants), Drop City (the reality of alternative lifestyles), and Talk Talk (identity theft).
Boyle's 13th novel, When the Killing's Done, which was released on February 22, 2011, takes place off the coast of both his and my home in the Channel Islands. On Boyle's Web site at www.tcboyle.com he describes the story:
It is set in the past decade on the California Channel Islands, where a rather testy turf war was fought between animal rights activists and the biologists of the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy over the elimination of non-native species of plants and animals, and this provided the inspiration for the book.
I just this week learned of his new book and plan on reading it in the next week or two. I look forward to reading it, because I know he'll treat the subject with an even-handedness that is steeped in story not in philosophy or political agenda. That the story is so close to home--literally--adds to my eagerness and urgency to read it.
Finally, here are T.C. Boyle's previous twelve novels:
Water Music (1982)
Budding Prospects (1984)
World's End (1987)
East is East (1990)
The Road to Wellville (1993)
The Tortilla Curtain (1995)
Riven Rock (1998)
A Friend of the Earth (2000)
Drop City (2003)
The Inner Circle (2004)
Talk Talk (2006)
The Women (2009)
*From the PEN/Faulker Foundation: "The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is a national prize which honors the best published works of fiction by American citizens in a calendar year. Three judges, chosen annually by the directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, select five books from among the more than 300 works submitted, making this the largest peer-juried award in the country. The winning writer and four finalists are honored at a ceremony held in Washington at the Folger Shakespeare Library in May."
Categorically: Author Profile
- Short-Short Stories (150 words or less short fiction)
- Short Fiction (short fiction)
I've been considering this for some time now and I've decided to add a fifth category: Author Profile. Here I'll write about an author I admire. Or don't like at all. Or an author who brings out the ambivalence in me. I'll talk about his books, his life, whatever interests me about him--or her.
The first author profile will be of T.C. Boyle--one of my all-time favorites. Just not tonight. I want to put in the time to really do him justice, so I'll post T.C. Boyle's profile this weekend, so look for it.
Why Write When I Can Stab Myself with a Ticonderoga Pencil (Re-published)
Thomas Berger wrote: "Why do writers write? Because it isn't there." But Stephen King said it best: "A writer writes." And me? I write because I'm a writer. I'm a writer because I write. Yes, I'm actually slapping my head and realizing I coulda had a V-8.
The reasons writers write are as diverse as the diversity of writers. But there is a common fuel, I believe, that all writers must have to drive this artistic engine. Writers may crave to convey their thoughts, to ink those electrical connections, to entertain, or optimistically--and naively--strive for fortunes. But the fuel running this machine is passion.
Recently, a writer wrote me that the reason he doesn't write much anymore is because he's not good enough. "Good enough." My heart sank. Because he had the passion. I used to see it. And read it. He was--is--a good writer.
So what happened?
Several years ago, I was writing nearly every day. I had so much passion for writing, my engine never ran out of gas. But then I began sending short stories to magazines for publication. And they were rejected. Repeatedly. One story titled The Day the Bears Flew I sent out 19 times over a 13-year period. I kept all the rejection slips. I don't know why I kept them. I may as well have stabbed myself in the heart with a Ticonderoga pencil. Because my passion for writing began to leak out. Slowly. Insidiously. And as my passion dwindled, so did my expectations, my confidence, the purpose for having a writing life.
Before I knew it, I was finding ways to avoid writing, then searching for activities to replace writing. For the next 15 years, I wrote in splurts. I became a dabbler. Passion was replaced by an ache of knowledge that I could write something significant and I was ignoring the opportunities. I ached to write something so entertaining that readers would tell others they had to read this story by Tom Eubanks. But the engine just wouldn't turn over anymore.
And then I made a discovery that changed everything for me. I discovered I could write for myself. Call it graphomasturbation. Call it flogging the keyboard. Call it what you want, but I began writing for myself and not for an "audience." Not self expression--selfish expression. And passion returned. Because I am the magnet for it. I am the home, the dwelling place. Without me, my passion is meaningless air.
Just as I have to sleep, I have to write. I couldn't tell you why. But I know that I love that I have to write. The rewards are so hard to see sometimes. The rewards can be indistinguishable from consequences when I have written something that is rejected, criticized or, worse, ignored. I wonder sometimes if I write so I won't be ignored. Or forgotten.
It's interesting to think about why I write, but, honestly, why I write doesn't matter to me anymore. What matters is that I write. If I don't write, that passion, that indescribable purpose to put thoughts into precious, treasured words has to go somewhere. And when that finite accumulation of desire dissipates into the heavenly ether, what then? What will my life be like without it? I admit it: I'm afraid of living without passion.
But I want to share my passion. Give it away. Freely. Like a food bank for creative expression.
I encourage the writer who concluded he wasn't good enough to steal a whole loaf of passion from the food bank and take eat. For writing. Eat it, like communion, take it in. It will feed him. And he will write.
It's about I (and Me)
When I began writing this blog, I made a conscious decision to write about how I write, what I've discovered about writing, what writing means to me, what entertains me and what's funny to me. I learned a long time ago that I can't please everyone.
In this blog, I don't instruct and I don't give "you" advice. I avoid the word "you," as in "you should do this" and "you should do that." My ego is fairly intact, but I do not believe I'm in any position to tell the readers of The American Writer what they should do to write well. That's why the word "you" is not found in this blog, except in quotes or some other unavoidable point of view, but never to tell "you" what "you" can do, should do, might do.
I began to think about this approach to blogging after reading blogs where some writer and blogger carried on for two-thousand words about what he thought I should do to accomplish this or that, what I should do to write better, what I should do to get an agent or market my books. And I wondered, Why should I listen to this guy? Who the heck is he? Does the by-line read "by Ray Bradbury," or "by Sandra Dijkstra (Dijkstra Literary Agency)"? If not, why should I accept what this guy tells me as the best way, the best advice, the best course of action?
My answer: there is no reason, except that he acts like he knows what he's talking about. Well, anyone can start blogging and telling everyone what they ought to do to be a better writer.
So what good is reading these blogs--including this one? I don't know. I write it for me and not for anyone else. I know, I know, I've railed in posts about not getting comments, but that's just my own little demon asking, "Why the hell spend all this time writing this blog two or three days a week?"
Here's my best answer: it's about me. Not "you"; not even "us." Before I discovered that half-naked women with great bodies hung out at gyms and were just too distracting for me to take working out seriously, I actually worked out. Before I discovered that I could save money by "practicing" my golf swing on the first nine holes rather than spending time at the driving range, I used to hit a bunch of balls before playing. And now, before I begin publishing everything I write, I'm writing this blog to train my mind, sharpen my creativity, and keep my perspective tuned in to the correct way to write.
I used to teach private investigation at a couple of trade schools in Los Angeles. I discovered that when I taught wannabees how to follow someone, I first needed to figure out what I did to do it successfully without losing the subject, "burning" the subject, and without killing myself in a major traffic collision as I ran red lights and drove like a maniac to keep up and not be seen. By figuring out what and why I did what I did, I was able to fine tune my skills and have instant recall in difficult situations following my subjects. So "teaching" something to someone else helped me to be one of the top surveillance specialists in southern California.
I began blogging after I self-published my novel, Worlds Apart, because I'd learned from a wealth of research that it was a good way to market my novel. But it didn't take me long to find out I had fun writing it. It didn't take long to realize that it forced me to research writing techniques, workshops, approaches to writing, and I began to re-learn things I'd forgotten about grammar, punctuation and other writing techniques. And, best of all, the commitment to write this blog motivates me to write. That's a huge benefit for me.
I'm committed to writing.
I decided to write this piece today, because I want my readers to know that I'm not an expert, I'm not some writing guru, and I'm never on some quest to tell everybody how and why and what and when about writing anything. In fact, I'll bet I've been wrong about a few things.
If I like it, I write it. If I believe it, I write it. It's about "I." And I never forget it.
