Was No More

I've finished attacking the word was and completed (for now) the Ethan story.  That project proved to be a great writing exercise.


To be sure, the story goes on.  Ethan remains one of my best friends.  When we reconnected a year or so ago after having not been in touch since the mid-1990s, it seemed as if no time had passed.  But of course it had and we've had all kinds of fun catching up and creating new stories.  For now, the story of our shared youth is captured here on its own page.  Whether he likes it or not.

Thank you, Ethan.

It's a Well Worn Metaphor

Nemesis

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. 

In the afternoon I put it back again.

         - Oscar Wilde

Chisels, hammers, saws.
The occasional screwdriver.
To drink.
Erect, tinker, scrape, demolish.
Thank goodness for the cutting
And the pasting.
Mind the printed word. (Minding!)
The characters ever evolving,
Love them, hate them, manipulate.
Them or me?
This manuSCRIPT is my Moriarty
Or is it Voldemort?
I'd dare to say its name
If it had a title.
The trouble is.....
It does not know what it wants to be.
Nor do I.

What's driving you mad these days?  Come on...distract me!


P.S.  Ohmygawd I love MaudNewton who shows us things like this.  She's a friend of a friend, BTW.

Little Love Stories. Part Three. The Girlfriend

July 1985 

We decided to stay in Muncie that summer. Ethan was taking classes and I got a job at Sears in the mall. We moved into neighboring studio apartments in the basement of a columned colonial on University Avenue. The landlady, a gruff old bird named Mrs. Blix, claimed that David Letterman lived there when he was a student at Ball State.  She'd tell anyone who'd listen about what a slob he'd been.

Although we had two studios next to each other, Ethan and I shared his, which was nicer and bigger. We filled our days with giddy, young love, shared a twin bed and didn’t mind so much. We got addicted to reruns of Hogan’s Heroes and M.A.S.H. and when those shows weren’t on, we played a computer version of Monopoly on his Commodore 64.

We were playing house and it was lovely.

******

Someone was knocking on the door. Ethan and I lay paralyzed for a moment. What if it was Mrs. Blix? We'd assured her that slept in our own beds. She’d been adamant that unmarried people would not be “fucking in her house.”

Ethan sat up, not sure what to do. I climbed over him. “I’ll hide in the bathroom,” I scampered across the room, and shut the door behind me. I pressed my ear to it to hear.  I could hear a woman, but it didn’t sound like Mrs. Blix’s gravelly voice. I pushed my ear harder against the door. My heart pounded and I was annoyed that I couldn’t make out the words.

I cracked the door a little and peeked out. I couldn’t see Ethan, but I could hear him. He sounded nervous. No, he sounded really nervous. I opened the door a bit more and leaned out. He was there, leaning against the wall, the door partially opened in front of him. His bare chest stood out in stark contrast to his navy blue sweatpants. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and smiled at the person in the doorway.

The door blocked my view so I couldn’t see to whom he spoke, but I heard the voice clearly enough.  It belonged to a young woman – and she sounded cute.  I decided to make my presence known. I swung the bathroom door open and sauntered across the room to sit on the bed so that the person in the doorway could see me.

Ethan swung around.  I saw a cloud of fear pass over his face, his smile frozen. I gave him a stony look.  My heart beat double time and my pulse assisted by drumming in my ears.

Ethan turned slowly back to the young woman at the door. She stood there smiling with her open, friendly face. Her dark eyes were muted by her glasses. She wore her shiny brown hair in a chin-length bob and had decked herself out in a navy blue slicker with matching rain boots.  Little ducks dotted the ensemble.  I hated her.

Ethan still didn’t react. I cleared my throat and waited.  The young woman looked from him to me. We were waiting for him to make the next move.

“Um, right. Um, um……,”  It was painful to watch. “Um, this is Cynthia,” he stammered, gesturing to the slicker chick whose smile grew wider as she nodded my way. 

“Ah, uh, um…..Cynthia is in my photography class. She just stopped by to say hi.”  It came out in a rush.  He cast his eyes to the floor.

I tried to smile. I waited, my eyebrows raised, my eyes snapping shut and open, shut and open.  Ethan turned back to Cynthia. My mind was already racing with questions. How did she know where he lived? How did she find the exact apartment? What the hell was she doing here at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday? In the rain? And what was she wearing under that slicker with its little duckies and matching rain boots?

Ethan shook himself, as if to try to deflect the angry vibes shooting in his direction. He finally found his footing, sort of. “Um, heh, um, Cynthia, this is, is…….is um The Girlfriend,” he managed. The second the words were out of his mouth, he winced.

“Actually, my name is Lisa,” I said quietly from the bed.

********

I paced the room while Ethan escorted Cynthia out.  My mind was whirling with invectives and questions, but mostly invectives. I’d already made up my mind what was going on. Cynthia was what Ethan did while I worked.

I heard the door open behind me. I wrapped my fingers around the first object I could find on the bar that separated the kitchen from the living area. Ethan moved fast, but not fast enough.  The Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup can connected with his forehead before he could speak.

Part 1
Part 2

Little Love Stories. Part Two. Still Life

February 1985

"Hurry up! I’m freezing!”

“Hang on. These are going to be good, I think.”

I took a deep breath and waited. Counted to ten and waited. Waited some more. What was taking him so long?

I regretted my offer to pose. What had I been thinking?  I was a fidgeter, not made for this kind of thing. And Ethan!  I had no idea he could be such a perfectionist, twisting my body this way and that, giving direction, adjusting the lighting. Meanwhile, I was topless and my nipples were hard as the icicles that hung off the eaves of the house.

“Stay right like that,” he whispered, backing away a little and aiming the Nikon at my bare breasts.

I was torn between wanting to get this over with and wanting to look down to see what he could see.  As I sat frozen and stiff, trying not to think about which body part itched more, it occurred to me that I had ceased to be flesh and blood, the soft, pliable girlfriend who shared his bed and secrets.  I had crossed into that other place as his subject. His eyes roamed over my body with a precision that didn't mesh with the desire that normally accompanied his response to my naked breasts.  He studied me like the artist he was.  I could have been any body.  Any. Body.  I could have been a bowl of fruit, a jug of wine, a mandolin leaning against a wall. I shivered.

“Now you’ve got goosebumps,” he said, leaning down to adjust my right shoulder ever so slightly. “You must be cold.”

I didn’t want to tell him what had made my skin go all prickly.

Later, we sat on the worn  blue carpeting while he repacked his gear. I slid my foot underneath him and wiggled it.  “I love you.”

He didn’t miss a beat as he continued to dismantle the lighting.  “I love you, too.  Want your pay?”

“And that would be?” I asked, pushing my foot further under him and goosing his butt with my toe.

“Dunkin Donuts, of course!” he yelped as he grabbed my foot between his legs an held on to it.

I tried to wriggle away, lying down and stretching to reach the tee shirt just beyond my grasp.

He let go of my foot and lay on top of me.  "That was pretty cool, seeing you like that."  He was so warm.

Like that. For days after I would wonder if he meant like that naked or like that posed. Or both. When I finally saw the photos, they took my breath away. He’d captured a beauty I did not know I possessed. Until I saw those photos, I'd thought my breasts awkward, too large, unappealing.  At that moment, though, I wanted to stay there, feeling his weight on me.  I knew where that would lead though and my roommate was due home shortly.

I reluctantly pulled away and tugged the shirt over my head.  "Donuts, remember?"

Part one.
(Not in the manuscript.)

Little Love Stories. Part One. Ethan.

(Not part of the manuscript.)

I've Been Waiting for a Girl Like You

December 1984

All the girls were ready to go. Now it was the waiting time. We crowded into the dorm’s common area and fidgeted and primped, using one another’s faces as mirrors. The unasked question – Do I look all right? No.  Do I look good? That was what we all wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.

Thursday night Must See T.V. provided the background to all the nervous activity. Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers….After Cheers ended, we would shift, anxious and anticipating, toward the door. It was almost time for the Thursday Night Club.

As a college freshman, I was being introduced to all kinds of new social activities. This was no longer my small hometown where I had to forever worry about getting caught by someone who would tell my parents. Caught doing what? Anything. Everything.

I sat, a little distracted, facing the television. Through the slotted wall behind the t.v., I saw the door open and in he walked. Ethan. I'd been watching for him.

I can’t remember now if we made eye contact and, damn it, I can’t find any journals from that time (I think I’d briefly stopped writing), but the minute he walked through that door, I felt electricity. I knew it was silly, this guy was just some kind of player, a lady’s man. When he sang Foreigner’s I’ve Been Waiting (for a Girl Like You) to me the night before in this very room, he was just goofing around, right?

I sensed him somewhere behind us. I peeked over my shoulder and saw him standing behind the row of seats, his eyes on the television. He glanced my way and snapped a grin. He may have wiggled his eyebrows. I’ll never know for sure because I whipped my head around to face the t.v., my face burning with embarrassment. Caught looking!

The show ended and we stood and stretched and collected our coats from the table where we’d stacked them. Ethan joined our little group and asked what we were doing next. Someone mentioned the Thursday Night Club. Did he want to go with us? I think it was Melinda who asked.

He said sure.  My breath caught in my throat, but I still was not going to let myself hope. What was the point?  Our gaggle of coeds included Melinda with her long legs and auburn hair. Deirdre with her China doll face, blond hair and perfect breasts and Cat with her exotic Asian beauty. This guy who would have had his pick wasn’t interested in me.

********

I’m that girl. You know the one. Cute, not pretty or stunning or unique in looks. Easygoing until you scratched beneath the surface and found a basketful of barely-controlled compulsions. Humorous as a defense more than anything. Accommodating. Too much so. Nice.  As if it isn’t enough to be a middle child, I’m a Libra, too. I’m the Rodney King of birth order and astrological signs. The world can be crashing down around us and I’m wondering aloud if we can’t all just get along.

I’m just nice to be around, but I'm not going to make your heart beat out a symphony, I'm not going to inspire poetry or wild flourishes of affection. I’m nonthreatening and non-confrontational. I don’t make sport of contradicting people.  I'm neither ornamental nor darkly compelling.  I'm the classic girl next door.  You'd do her, but you wouldn't die for her.

Someone once described me as the best girlfriend ever. In fact, that someone was Ethan, but he used the description about twenty-three years and five months after....., but now I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?

Anyway, I was that girl. Never the drop dead gorgeous one, never the unattainable ice queen. I was never the Queen Bee for that matter. I wasn’t exactly the side kick either. I was usually the third girl from the left with chestnut hair, friendly smile and large tits (not necessarily noticed in that order by the opposite sex). I just looked…nice. And maybe easy.  None of this mattered because I was convinced that I was not the reason Ethan was joining us.

I repeated this to myself during the frigid walk to the house where the Club was in full swing. I thought it over and over as I flowed in and out of little knots of students talking, played drinking games in the breakfast nook, smoked weed from a one-hitter in the basement, and danced to the Psychedelic Furs, if you can call it dancing.  It was more like dreamy swaying at that point.   

This guy Ethan - tall, handsome, charming Ethan – was not interested in me. And then we were standing together making small talk while we waited for our turn at the keg.  He smiled right before he leaned down and kissed me.

********

I awoke facing Ethan and was engrossed in memorizing his face when his dark eyes flew open startling me.

“What are you doing?”

I acted coy. “Nothing.”

"What were you doing?”

“Nothing.”

I watched his perfectly formed eyebrows knit together as he schemed to get me to tell him the truth. His skin was pale, his eyelashes framed his brown eyes giving them a wide-eyed appearance. “You were staring at me.”

I pulled back so I get a better look at him. His almost black hair was cut short and preppy, he had a long, straight nose and a strong chin that reminded me of Cary Grant’s with its subtle cleft. Without thinking I put my fingertip onto the cleft in his chin. “So what if I was. You’re not bad looking, you know.”

He tickled me until I squealed and then we settled down remembering that females weren’t supposed to spend the night in that wing of dorms.

“I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. You’re going to get me kicked out of here.”

I turned my back to him and curled into a fetal position. “Oh, well, I’ve had my fun with you….”

He tickled me again and then pulled me close.

We fell asleep again.  A little later, I lay with my eyes closed and felt his warm breath on my neck as we spooned together.  I became curious about the sounds outside and rose up on one elbow to look out the window. Moving the curtain aside, I squinted in the morning light and wondered what time it was. The snow that had been on the ground for a few days was shrinking back, giving way to the dead grass and mud of the worn paths around the dorm.

“The whole world is melting.”

I could feel his weight shift. “Mmmmmm. That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.”

I let the curtain drop back in place and turned to him.

Once more into the fray

Thank you for all the terrific feedback on the story so far.  Today I'm engaged in another rewrite.  I think this one will streamline the plot so that the story is more focused.  It also gives me a chance to reduce the characters by one, saving what I think is a compelling character for his own story, perhaps a short story.  And no, it's not the General, any General who is being sidelined.  It's a character you hadn't been introduced to yet.

Anyway, this is one of those days when I'm really having to force myself to keep my butt in the chair and sally forth at the keyboard.  I'd much rather enjoy the rainy day either by reading or by watching the new Foyle's War we dvr'd last night.  Speaking of which, one of my favorite English detectives went through a similar thing.  Fictionally writing nonfiction, I mean.

From this I take my inspiration.....

I can write it, I just can't read it.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up today.