The Lie Detector – Madison Smartt Bell

Standing in the shower on morning back in 2008, the idea came to me to start this blog/project. One of many the reasons why I decided to take on this project was that I felt through the stories contained within these anthologies a jumping point for reflection and problem solving. A sentence, a character a theme of a story could send me down paths of exploration that would help me understand my past…or help me with problems I may be going through. The stories could be tools to open my thoughts and feelings. As an added benefit, I’d get a bit of an education - along the way, I’d be exposed some really cool authors. It’s 2012 and in a few months I’ll be into my fourth year in this space. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about my progress at that anniversary date.


Now let’s push forward and see what this next batch of stories brings.


I wrote the above because this particular story triggered a memory of mine dealing with apartments, shady landlords, lack of money and a lack of direction in my life.


I think it was the spring of 1996…or was it early summer? Thankfully, my mind has done a pretty decent job of erasing some unpleasant memories from that time in my life. I quit my job as a chef in a pretty popular restaurant in New Jersey due to the drug habits of a fellow chef. I wasn’t comfortable being associated with his lifestyle. I was living on a futon mattress in the house that my father and step-mother had just moved out of. The place was empty…except for my toiletries and some food in the fridge. Things like kitchen appliances, sofas, all the usual domestic features had been taken out by the movers a few days earlier. It was like I was living in an upscale crack house. Really upscale. So there I was, having just quit my job, needing to find a place to live. For the life of me I can’t remember how I even conducted my apartment hunting.


“So you don’t have a job?”


“No sir.”


“How do you expect to pay rent?”


‘Well, I’m pretty sure I’ll find a job soon and I’ll be able to pay you.”


“Look kid – I don’t think I feel comfortable renting out my place to someone without a job.”


--yeah, no shit – I wouldn’t have rented a place to me either.




The last part of my memory of that period of my life is me on the phone with my sister crying. I was lost. I had no place to go. She begged me to move back to Virginia. I resisted…I couldn’t return home. She offered to come up the next day to get me and my crap. I declined her offer. I was too proud.


Memory cuts to me loading my belongings into a U-Haul.


Something happened. Something right, something good.


I kicked my pride aside and moved back to Virginia. My sister saved me from…I suppose I’ll never know.


I was on the edge, and she pulled me back.


Finally, a sentence at the end of the story really wraps things up for me. It draws the painful past into the present day and forces me to face once again my very uncomfortable situation. One that plagues my thoughts every day of my existence.


“So maybe the lie was out there too, I thought, even if I couldn’t see it. It was just there, floating around with the other particles of the atmosphere, and everybody got a little piece of it, and it didn’t belong to anyone.”


And so here I am today. With these memories – stirred by a short story in The Best American Short Stories 1987. Thanks Madison Smartt Bell. You’re keeping me on my toes.

The Lover of Women – Sue Miller

 Thinking about this blog over the past several weeks and the entries I have completed and those I have yet to write, I realized that I haven’t devoted much time to writing about my mother.  Perhaps I am such that I needn't write about her because there really is nothing to write about and I tend to focus on very emotional subjects and she has not stirred the emotions in me that other subjects I have written about have done.

 Which is not to say that this is a bad thing and I don’t think anything more should be read into it.

 Perhaps there hasn’t been a story that has triggered me to think of her during my writing – until now. 

Funny how that works…isn’t it?

And so, this story comes along, and within it I find the perfect set of stairs to climb into a discussion with myself about my mother.

I really enjoyed this story and it’s one that will hang around with me for some time.  It wasn’t the relationship that the brothers shared or the relationship(s) that the brothers had with the family of sisters, but the relationship that the sons had with their mother.  These sections caused me to think of my mother and the mother son relationship I am seeing M and the boy develop.  A relationship so deep and intense, filled with such love and caring on a level that I will never have with my son -no matter how hard I try.

 

And I am fine with that. 

As a new parent, I think a lot about raising the boy and how much effort it requires to do a really good job at it.  I also think that it is getting easier and will get easier but also I realize that there will be new challenges that arise at each new developmental stage, presenting a whole host of new challenges for M and I and hopefully, over the years we’ll develop the ability to adapt to these changes quickly and deal with them without major disruptions.

  

I am completely clueless as to how my mother raised my sister and me.  As a child, I wasn’t aware of the “raising” that she was doing, or how her actions…or inactions would play out in the years to follow.  I wonder if she realized what would or wouldn’t happen with everything she said or did.  Did she give it that intense of a thought or was she flying by the seat of her pants?  Will I look that deeply into what I say and do as the years go by? 

Does my mother look back on the years she spent raising us and have any regrets?

I can’t imagine that she could have expended so much – and I should say too that I can’t imagine me being able to expend the efforts and energy.

 But I want that to happen!

I know that there was a period of time where all she wanted was for me to open up to her.  I simply couldn’t do what she wanted because I was a moody-self-absorbed teen and young adult.  She wrote me letters pleading with me to share more of my life with her, she asked me repeatedly on our phone conversations (from college or when I lived away from home) to offer her glimpses into my life…and I simply wouldn’t.   As I moved into adulthood, I opened up…slightly, and it took several years of fully being an adult before I could open up – and speak to her as an adult should.

I now know how difficult this must have been for her.  She gave me everything she ever had – tried her hardest and I shut down on her.  She was concerned for my well-being as she said multiple times during those conversations and that concern just didn’t faze me.

 

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t given her in return what she deserves over the years but it’s too late at this point and I can only move forward on our current course (which is a good one) and let our lives play out.

My mother is now a grandmother and she has assumed that role with much success.  She spends too much money on the boy and at times I am concerned that she needs to pull back a little.  She is in a tough space in life being the caregiver for my step-father and she really doesn’t see us or her grandson enough.

I wish her life wasn’t so hard.  She deserves so much more.  These past five years have been incredibly difficult for her and her mental and physical states are suffering.  There is hope that as time passes, that her world will change for the better, after a period of severe sadness that I am sure will come after the passing of her husband.

She will be alone, and it will be the duty, I feel for the children to provide the comfort of a parent, to the parent, as she provided comfort to us during our periods of loss. 

I can only hope that we do a good job – she deserves it.  

Kingdom Come - Mavis Gallant

Bumping into Mavis once again. A stirring story. One that within the last couple of seconds, thinking about writing something for this story this story, has caused a flood of thoughts to pass and hopefully will result in a post that is more fitting to what this blog once was. Let’s be honest. I haven’t faithfully discharged my duties on this blog.

Taking stock of one’s life. Is one supposed to do this at my age?

It’s times like this, at 0426 in the morning when I am a little off due to the odd time and a story comes along like this one, where I get a little nervous about my place in this world, and what if anything I will ever amount to and finally, what sort of person will I be remembered as.

I pull back when I should be driving forward. I have the motivation – but then, I stop short. This can only serve to hurt me.

I should be, and it’s true, in some respects, happy with certain aspects of myself and what I have done with my life, but in others…I feel I am lacking.

I need to drive on and to find the motivation in myself to accomplish what it is that I am “here” for.

It’s stating the obvious that I need to be the one that makes this happen. I need to be the one sitting at a table writing. I need to be the one sitting at a table researching. I need to be the one exploring new avenues to enrich myself. I need to do this now.

We visited my father a couple weeks ago. He’s not doing well. His mind is getting worse. The disease is advancing and he is becoming less and less of who he was. We arrived just after dark on a Wednesday evening and as I carried the boy onto their back patio, I could see him through the window in his living room just sort of staring down at the floor. I don’t know if his wife was speaking to him and he was listening…or if he was lost in his head someplace. One evening, during our visit, I sat at a table and watched him struggle at the kitchen sink with the inability to figure out which handle protruding from the counter would cause water to flow from the faucet. I saw the frustration and confusion in his face for what felt to be the longest 8 seconds of my life as I silently coached him towards making the right selection. He walks from room to room not knowing why he walked into that room only to keep walking in hopes of quickly remembering why he walked into that room…so in the end, his journey becomes circular.

My father takes stock of his life often now, and this makes him very angry. He realizes that his mind is dying and that everything he spent his life working towards is vanishing. His friends never call him. His former co-workers never visit or call. It’s almost like he never existed, and he realizes this and it makes him sad.

I remember when he and his wife purchased their house. It was around 1996 and he was very excited that this new house had a room that would be his own office. The house is huge, and he was a little taken aback by the size. Showing me around the place back then, he talked of someday retiring, opening a private practice in the house and describing the set up in such detail as to mention the thought of creating a door that would allow his patients to enter his office directly. He wanted to write a book someday. He wanted me to help him write that book.

And now. All of that is gone. He sits in his office amongst his tall shelves of collected books and art moving one stack of magazines and papers onto the top of more magazines and papers only to move yet another stack of papers onto another stack of papers.

This last visit really caused me to pause and think about my mind and where it will be in 20 years. That’s about how long I have if the disease hits me when it struck him. I picture this giant clock ticking over my head and with each year, the hands move closer to a detonation point.

I feel that I am running out of time. And I am doing nothing to solve this problem.

Favor – Elizabeth Tallent

I was rather happy when this little story popped up in the collection. I really enjoyed Tallent’s previous story “Ice” which appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1981 and which I wrote about back in February 2010.

Tallent has a nice way of carrying the reader through a story. Rich descriptions, twists of words within the dialogue that I really enjoy.

So much has changed in my life since February of 2010. It was that month that M and I decided that we were ready to take on the challenge of becoming parents. Our challenge was met, we are fortunate enough now to be the parents of a little one that has made us the happiest of people.

When M and I first arrived in America, I was returning as a man who was newly married.

It was my duty, I felt, to provide.

I felt that I had certain responsibilities as a husband. It took a little time for me to settle into my new role, and I felt that I had that time, as I had no idea as to what I really needed to do.

We lived in a crummy one bedroom apartment in a sketchy section of town and we were very happy when we made the move to a more stable location and a larger apartment. We plodded on through our daily grinds – M and I both working...and then M taking on the challenge of earning a degree while working. We each had our own lives within the life we shared together. A large part of the personal life that I created was within the time I spent reading. I also spent plenty of time alone out on the roads during my runs. M enjoyed watching her favorite movies and the “free time” we had before the boy now seems enormous.

Looking back over the ten years that we were married before the boy came along, I can’t say that I was placed into any position similar to that of the husband character in this story. I’m good at compromise and weighing out the time devoted to my responsibilities both at work and at home. Sure, as one would expect, there are minor things that M has to get on me about to complete but nothing that really gets under her skin. If marriage and fatherhood has taught me anything, it is that you must put others before yourself. The well-being of those you love the most should be your primary concern. We should endeavor to make those around us as comfortable and pleasant in this world as possible because really, it’s rough out there.

The Prince - Craig Nova

I wish that throwing away secrets were as easy as the Prince was able to dispose of his uncle's dirty little book.

I have a secret that I wish I could just throw away into a trash bin. It's nothing too scandalous but one that has haunted me and sat heavily on my heart for 17 years. It deals with my education.

Sorry… it's not that juicy.

How often do I think of it?

Far too often I feel.

At least several times a week...for 17 years.

It is a matter of shame for me.

How can I unburden myself from it?

Perhaps what I am doing now is one way. Working through it.

The Prince lost everything in his life. I doubt my losses would be as massive. I honestly don't know what my losses would be but I am sure that once the secret is revealed, there will be a few people that could be hurt and they will be restricted to family members...which makes it even worse...which is probably why I am holding this secret.
As I put my feelings down about this secret, testing the waters of allowing it some freedom, I have chosen to place it on a medium that my family doesn't even know exists.

I have been writing here and working through some of my issues with my life since 2008. M knows that I collect these books, and she sees that I read them but she has no idea what I do with them after. I've often thought about the day when one of them discovers this little corner I've carved out.

So, a little shameful secret - does it feel like a black hood such as the Prince felt descend over him?

It does on occasion...and I'm so afraid that when the secret becomes too strong, the hood will not be able to be removed.

The Afterlife – John Updike

A fine enough story by Updike I suppose. I go through phases with him. There are times when I can’t get enough of his writing and with this story; he isn’t driving me back to his work. I found it hard to relate – to any of the characters in this story and for it, I found myself pushing myself to read faster so that I could put another story under my belt.

As I sit and write these sentences, I am struggling to do just that – I can’t seem to write anything about this story.

I will say this about Updike. He forces me to look at my life, my marriage, my history with women and my future with my wife, and my son…with a much closer eye than perhaps I would have ever done had I never stumbled across his works. I enjoy his style, I find his writing very readable and I always feel comfortable reading him, and I feel certain gentleness about him.

Updike is all over these volumes and in my collections of short stories and I can’t possibly expect to enjoy every one of his works.