Flash Fiction III—Gawd!

Yes, I did buy tickets for the midnight showing of “The Hunger Games” on Friday. I bought four for Saturday, too.

Mother, that’s ridiculous. Britney and I are going with Ali and Stef and I said I’d order the tickets online because I’m the only one who has an iPhone.

You need the iPhone because it has the app for buying tickets.

I don’t know why their phones don’t have the app; I don’t invent these things.

Gawd! I don’t have an attitude.

Daddy said he’d drive us.

Yes, I assume that means both ways.

I have no idea. Can’t you bring us?

I swear, you never once mentioned a half-marathon. I would have remembered that.

I totally would have remembered. Why isn’t it on the family calendar?

In red? You wrote it in red? No one can read red pen.

I don’t have an attitude. Gawd!

Well, what time will you be done do you think?

What? I was just asking!

Never mind; maybe Jen’s mom can drive us.

That’s because she’s not coming with us on Friday night; she’s going with other people on Friday night.

I don’t know what other people. Other people, that’s all.

There’s no way that was “a tone.” I don’t even know what “a tone” means.

I don’t know, it just wasn’t, that’s all.

Have you ever even run a half-marathon before?

Really? When have you been doing that?

Isn’t it cold out that early? And dark? Aren’t you afraid to go out in the dark? What if you, like, broke your ankle or something and no one could see you because the sun wasn’t even up?

Mom, I don’t think you should go out running in the middle of the night like that.

No, it’s completely different than going to the midnight showing of “The Hunger Games.” There’ll be a million people there; you go out all by yourself. You need to be careful in this world.

No, really, I mean it, Mommy. Things could happen and that would be tragic.

I’m not crying. I just had a little chill, that’s all, and so my eyes are watering.

I don’t need a hug. Gawd, you’re so weird!

Flash Fiction II—Money In The Bank

She always works a double on St. Patrick’s Day. “You’d be an idiot not to,” she says to Meghan.

“I’m an idiot, then.”

“I don’t mean you,” though she does. Meghan barely leaves the house on St. Paddy’s, another idiot thing.

The key thing is to have two pairs of shoes; one for each shift. Oh, and don’t forget the spare in the car. She’d learned this the hard way the year it snowed and she had to dump her puke-spattered sneakers in the trunk before driving home. Even with the heat blasting she felt the frostbite ruining her toes.

They come in just after her uncle turns on the sound system and unlocks the door. Five of them, with rugby shirts, striped green and white. Five Jameson shots ($6 each), three green beers ($2.50) and two Guinness drafts ($4); they look good for three rounds, minimum. “This one’s mine,” the smallest of them gives her $60, says to keep the change.

“You’re a sweet colleen,” he says later. “What’s your name?”

“Colleen.”

The ones who can hear over the Pogues or the Chieftains “hooooooahhh” as if she’s gotten over on him. She does not move away from his hand on her ass. When the next chorus of “Danny Boy” breaks out she sings along with them all the other St. Patrick’s Day Irish.

She has over $4K in her pocket (always in her front pocket, never the purse). Eddie the bouncer walks her to the car. There will be more tomorrow after the credit cards get run. When she gets home she and Meghan share a Guinness while Meghan rubs her feet. “It’s the red hair,” she says.

“It’s the name.”

“Money in the bank.”

“Maybe I’ll work next year.”

“You’d be an idiot not to.”

Flash Fiction 1—Trespass

I don’t know what’s going on over there in that church and I certainly don’t know what’s going on over there in that apartment. The newspaper says she was walking around at that power plant naked, trailing my grandbabies behind her and calling up to the sky for forgiveness. The girls were naked, too.

She’s just had bad luck. All her life, bad luck. Bad luck before she was even born. But I don’t blame myself and I surely don’t blame her. She isn’t bad. Maybe I do blame that preacher. Maybe I do blame that girl who brung her to that church the first time; spent just as many hours in that place praying and singing and waving her hands in the air but she didn’t have the kinds of troubles my daughter had and she should have known troubles like that are not helped with prayers and songs and walking home with no shoes on your feet with your girls who are just 4 and just 11 following you and it was after midnight. That girl should have known. That girl should have gotten someone to drive my Greta and those babies home. That girl should have called me when Greta grabbed her children’s hands and pulled them out the door with her into the dark, into the cold.

I don’t know what Greta needs to be forgiven for; maybe for making those children take off all their clothes outside, maybe for making them follow her through that marshy grass, no shoes on their feet, on a night when mittens needed mittens. That girl should have noticed the coats left behind, and the shoes kicked off by the folding chair that Greta knocked over when she jumped up to praise Jesus. I don’t know what was in that girl’s mind. She was on the local news talking about how she knew Greta was taking comfort in the Lord. I don’t know why they even showed that nonsense on the television. And where are my grandbabies now?

This Ought To Do Something

I decided that since I don't have hours to write I ought to try writing short things. So here's a challenge I developed for myself:

Write a piece of flash writing (fiction or nonfiction) every day for a month—-March 16 to April 16, 2012—-either based on a specific event in the news or in response to a writing prompt.

Each piece must be a maximum of 365 words.

I'll post today's piece separately.

Steamless

That is the only word I can think of to adequately describe my state of being at the moment. And so I've not been blogging, but I have to say that it's nice to know some people have noticed—and mentioned their having noticed.
I'll be back to this, soon.

Eggs, Sunny Side Up

September 28 is my father's birthday. It's been a very long time since I got to wish him a Happy Birthday and, though I always made sure to call him to do just that when he was alive, the fact is there were sometimes long stretches of silence between us. The fact is, also, that I loved him the best I could and he loved me the best he could, too.

I miss him, even though I can easily conjure up his voice and what he would likely say about most things. I miss the smell of him—bay rum, gin and tobacco.  I miss him so deeply my body vibrates from the pain of it, even though it has been almost 20 years since he died.

Here's a memory from the night JFK was assassinated, a major event for the country and for my family, though we didn't know it at the time: 
 

My dad made eggs and bacon for dinner that night, serving it up to Bobby, John and me in the kitchen. When my father fried an egg, the edges came out frilly and crisp, brown lace trimming the ivory whites; I poked at the yoke with the tines of my fork and spread the yellow-orange over the whites and onto the plate where it would mingle with the droplets of bacon fat, so I could sop it up with the crusts of buttered toast. I loved the way all the flavors came together in the final bites, and I adored the way the sweet taste of the orange juice he squeezed from real oranges settled on the salty slick in my mouth before washing it away completely. 

I really miss eggs like that. No matter how hard I try, they never turn out quite the same. 

What I Know About Love

I was honored to be asked to contribute to the wedding celebration of my dear friends Laura Fedele and Rita Houston. This is what I read:

For Laura and Rita

On The Occasion of Their Wedding (9/10/11)

We gathered on the granite steps of Greenwich Town Hall in the January cold, an insistent wind pummeling out of a crystal blue sky, snow squeaking underfoot. It was the kind of day when all the body wants, all the soul wants, is shelter. We gathered together in the full sight of the Universe, we gathered together with flowers and handmade signs and so much joy in our hearts. Sweet tears froze on our faces as we witnessed your bodies, your souls, legally bound in the shelter of marriage.

Now we gather again and again we are in the full sight of the Universe and again there are flowers and handmade signs and so much joy in our hearts. Again sweet tears flow freely as we witness your bodies, your souls, bound together again in this celebration of your love. 

Here is what I know about Love—it is everything. It is, in fact, the only thing, the shelter that our most essential selves require, the shelter built of cumulative moments of Yes. Love says, “Yes, I see you. Yes, I know you. Yes, I will show you who I am so you can see and know me. Yes, I choose you. Yes, I trust you with my heart. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

You are, each in your own specific, individual, magical ways, two of the strongest and most generous women I know and it is a wondrous, wonderful thing that you found one another. It is a wondrous, wonderful thing that you have chosen each moment of Yes from the first to this and beyond.

I rejoice, we all rejoice, that you two—who we all love so much—love one another so much.

You dwell together in the house where Love lives, the home you have built together, the home you fill with great music, great food, great wine, the home you share so generously with the rest of us, your family and friends, the community you have created. And the house where Love lives is the shelter of you, Laura, and you, Rita, and the new creature that is called “Houdele,” the magical co-creation made manifest through the specific alchemy of your shared love and your marriage.

Here is what I know about marriage—a true marriage is the shelter Love builds, a shelter made to hold two bodies, two souls, two minds, while also making space for the infinite distance that exists between even the two closest people. A true marriage requires strength, generosity, magic and a community that believes in and supports that marriage. A true marriage is made up of countless moments of Yes.

I know I speak for all of us when I say, “Yes, we see you. Yes, we know you. Yes, we believe in you. Yes, we support you. Yes, we love you. Yes. Yes. Yes.”