Winter 2010

Congratulations to Kirk Boys and Raphaela Weissman! The pieces they read at the winter quarter student reading made us laugh, sit up a little straighter and, finally, squirm in our seats. Pull up a chair and read all about it.

Kirk Boys "Number Forty Six-"
Raphaela Weissman "Haircut"

Kirk Boys wrote "Number Forty Six-" in Wilson Diehl's essay class. The class explored a variety of essay styles, but it was the time lapse essay titled “Community College” that got Kirk thinking. Believing that even the most talented writers suffer from tremendous insecurity, Kirk wanted to take that insecurity and visit it upon an aspiring author and his internal battle regarding his decision to attend a writing conference.

"Number Forty Six-"

Making Application

Should I apply? Should I apply, knowing I am putting myself out there? There’s a good chance I won’t get accepted. How am I going to feel if I don’t get accepted? I ask myself. All these questions, no, not questions, more doubts, than questions. You know, I say to myself, this is glass half empty shit.

I think. What if I got accepted? I could get accepted. I could get accepted and find out I am out of my league. This would not be the first time. This has happened to me before. There I go again with the empty glass. Well, besides it is expensive. You’ve got your airfare, conference fees, food, liquor and your conference goer’s odds and ends like bug spray and such. It will be well over a thousand dollars, well over. I contemplate. I could spend all that money and find out, find out what? I could find out that I’m no writer.

I don’t care, I’ll make application. Christ, real writers gird their loins. They face rejection head on. That is how you grow. I need to look up what it means to gird.

The Decision is a Go!

These doubts, they’re normal. It’s perfectly normal to have doubts. Besides, you are good enough. For Christ’s sake, you are good. You can do this. Shit man, you can do this! What is it they are always saying, “To have never tried is to…? Shit, I can’t remember how that goes, but it’s bad. I remember that. The end of the saying is bad. And it takes courage to lay it out there. It takes courage to put your dream on the line. I am going to do it. I am going to lay it out there. I am going to send my very best work and then, then we will see.

I can just hear it now, “This guy is an amazing writer. A-mazing, Hell yes, we want him. We want him at our conference! We want him to come here and share his work, to share his writing, his insight. This guy is a treasure, a find. He reminds us of Carver or Ford; this guy is David Guterson in sheep’s clothing.

I send the application and the deposit check too.

Wait for Word

It’s hard to wait. Waiting drives you crazy. I’m thinking it’s a short drive in my case. I should have sent a different piece of my writing. What if they don’t get it? What if I am too esoteric? They could think I am too esoteric; that has happened before too. I need to really understand that word: esoteric. Then again maybe they didn’t like it. Maybe that’s why this is taking so long? They don’t know how to break the news to me? Maybe they are running behind? Those conferences are always running behind. I haven’t heard, because they’re running behind. Should I call? Should I call and see? I could call and see if they got it. I hope they call soon. I don’t remember putting my phone number on the application? What is going on with me? Man, this is hard.

Word

There’s room, they think. I am on the waiting list. I haven’t been accepted, exactly, no, I am not accepted yet, but I am only one away. There are forty five spots; forty five writers get to be workshopped at the conference, no exception. All I need is for one person to drop out, or drop dead or have a conflict.

“You’re close; you are so close,” the nice lady says. She sounds so sweet. Her southern drawl is charming; no, no it’s more than that. It is endearing. “Do you realize we only have forty five slots? You’re in slot forty six,” The pleasant southern lady says. “That’s very good, oh my yes, that is very good. You are so close. There are so many writers, all wanting to come to our conference. If it were me, if I were you, I would get your full check for well over a thousand dollars in the mail right away, right away. That larger check reserves your spot. Believe me. This is an experience you will always treasure. There will be so many good writers; you will get your work looked at. There will be plenty of people to look over your work, to critique it, important people too. I would write the large check. Rush to the mailbox and send your check.” She is so sweet, so southern.

“Checks in the mail,” I say to her, “My check is on its way.”

Buyer’s Remorse

“Are you sure you want to go? What if they treat you like a Nobody? What if they act as if number forty six is shit? What if they treat you like shit? I think you’re going to regret doing this. That is a lot of money. Spending all that money, when they could treat you like a Nobody, like shit. Really…you want to do that? Is that what you want to do?” My wife asks.

She doesn’t sound nearly as sweet as the lady on the phone, the lady from the conference, the conference down south.

“I am going out and spend well over a thousand on myself; I am going to get some new outfits. I am going to buy some furniture. I am going to get some plastic surgery too. I am going to spend two or three, even more thousands. That’s what I am going to do.”

Hmm, she seems okay, my wife seems okay with me going.

Arrival-Fitting in

There is a woman at the airport. She crawls into my shuttle van. She seems nice.

“Is this the van to the writing conference,” she asks? She tells me she is going to the conference, too. She tells me she is a Tennessee Williams Scholar. She asks me what I do. I tell her I am a writer. She looks at me as if perplexed. She says that she teaches poetry in the Bay Area, prep school, some small college stuff. We are on the van together. We are sharing the van. She will be a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the writing conference.

“What is that?” I ask. I don’t understand exactly. I ask, “What is your number though?”

“I am a Scholar. I am a published Scholar. There are Fellows and, of course, the authors, too,” she says. “I don’t have a number, I don’t think?” She acts confused.

She’s nice though. She doesn’t know I am number forty six. Forty six isn’t bad. Hell, forty six is just one off, I think. I hope someone dropped out, someone got sick, got cold feet or missed their flight. I really want to be forty five! I want to get workshopped.

Conference Workshop Day One

“Those who are auditing, those who aren’t getting workshopped, please take a seat against the wall. I only want those that have writing to be critiqued, to sit at this table.” This is for the Group 1 Authors workshop; if you are in the wrong room, if this is not your workshop, I suggest you find the right one.” A baseball capped and famous author announces. I am in the midst of helping him arrange the tables in a circle.

I am not in the circle. I guess the word is out. I am number forty six. I am an auditor. I am alone against the wall.

Conference Readings

We all gather in the performance center every night. People who belong here, Authors, Scholars, Fellows, read their work. I always sit near the back. I don’t want to raise unwanted attention. I am no better than a fart in an elevator here. I am lower than a snake in a wagon track. I am shit. I am Forty Six! The Authors and Fellows read, then there are the Scholars, and then there are the Tennessee Williams Scholars and then there are the top forty five, the Workshoppers and every stinking one of them is good. They write like angels or demons, or like the best damn forty five writers in the country. Shit!

Conference Wrap-Up Party

There is so much frivolity. Authors and Scholars, New York Publishers and Agents and Editors and Fellows and Scholars, all those who belong, they are all drinking; they are celebrating. What a great conference they have been a part of. They all have so many great memories, the crazy parties alone. There are speeches, jokes and music, poems for the occasion and rich, fatty southern food. Those who write prose talk poorly of the poets and the poets do likewise to the prose writers. It is all so crazy good. Everyone is so talented. I watch. I laugh. I sit near the fringe at a table with some other auditors, people like me. They are numbers Forty Seven and Forty Eight. We look at each other and we say, “What’s in a number?” and “If only someone had been sick, if only?”

Back of the Bus and Home

Up at 4:30 a.m., I am packed, too early for Good-byes, just bleary eyes. I need to catch the bus, the long bus ride to the airport and home. It is raining; the sky threatens worse. Already I have begun to rehearse my story. To say to my wife, “Hell yes, it was worth it.” To say to her, “Being number forty six was a good experience. After all, I was just one away, after all.” But no one said much of my writing, those few who saw it. There were other auditors. Number Forty Seven, she might have been a smidge better than me, too. And Forty Eight, he got screwed; he was really good. Then there was me, but I was one of the top. I was one of the top three auditors for sure. I am convinced of that, so close.

The plane takes off for home. I think about my wife and her new outfits and the new furniture. I wonder if she had her appointment with the Plastic Surgeon. I think about just who I am, where I am going with all of this. Somewhere over Montana I think about number One Hundred and Forty six and how he or she must feel. Like crap, I bet. I bet they feel pretty worthless. They probably wish they were me. Well, chances are there is no One Hundred Forty Six, but I think of them just the same. I was there. I sent in my check, I took my shot, the dream may have withered, but my wife looks great, and we have a new sofa.

Next year…next year I will be at least one better than this! I will be forty five, maybe lower. I just know it, I hope. It was worth it, the parties alone.

Am I right?

Raphaela Weissman's character, Billy, was born in Pete MacDonald's class, which challenged her as a fiction writer to move away from the world of fictionalized autobiography and focus on characters who are entirely foreign to us. "We all have murderers inside us," Pete said, "and we all have good people, too." Apparently, inside of Raphaela, there's a bitter, bigoted drugstore clerk from northern New Jersey; it's a credit to Pete's class that Raphaela can proudly say that she loves Billy and can sympathize with him on a level that's deeper than his offensive opinions and general tackiness. This particular story came from a prompt, which asked to describe the day that led up to a character being involuntarily committed to a mental hospital; Raphaela is looking forward to discovering what Billy will do once he's there.

“Haircut”

He had been in the city, visiting his sister Angie, and on the way back to New Jersey he stopped to get a haircut. He found a place near NYU, a little outside of his price range, but nice inside, clean, not like the bullshit he had to deal with in Bergen County, the filthy-floored strip mall discount places or the Black places where you think the guy’s going to shave your ears off because he’s so busy yelling to his friends that he’s not watching what he’s doing. This place was soft and sleek and white; quiet music was thumping, and everyone who worked there was thin and dressed in black; they glided around the floor like dolls moving on a track. The girl who greeted him had blonde hair—fake blonde, too blonde, one of those smart-girl dye jobs. Her fat black glasses—maybe those were fake, too. Stupid hipsters, Billy thought. They look down their noses at the women of his world with their fake tans and fake tits, but nothing about them is real either. They’re just better at lying about it and sneering.

The hipster introduced herself as Scarlet; Billy wondered if that was even a real name. She brought him over to a sink and washed his hair from what seemed like a thousand miles away.

“This way,” she said when she was done, and led him to a chair, no small talk, no nothing. Billy hoped that didn’t mean she thought she had her own brilliant idea. He didn’t come here to be someone’s art school project. On the plus side, she was running her hands through his hair a little, which felt nice. Billy was tempted to close his eyes.

The hipster cleared her throat, then leaned in close to him. This was getting kind of good. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” she whispered, all choked and strange. “You have lice.”

Then she didn’t say anything, and Billy just sat there with his wet hair. Did she want him to say something? Lice? What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” Billy said. “What did you say?”

“Yeah,” said the girl, drawing the word out so it was like a slug falling out of her mouth. “I’m not sure what to tell you. I guess if you want, I could shave your head…”

“Shave— what the fuck are you talking about? I don’t have lice.” They were all looking at him now; with their fake glasses and their baby skin, tattoos, pouts, lopsided hair, their fucking intentionally ugly clothes, they were like hungry wolves, all so delighted to have someone to stare at, so happy for a reason to kick him out of their bullshit orgy of cool.

“Actually,” the girl said, “you do.”

“Fuck you,” Billy said, standing up and ripping off the plastic smock. “You dumb bitch. Get a real fucking job, why don’t you.” The skinny guy at the front desk stood up as he walked towards the entrance and said something about paying for a shampoo. He tried to chase him out on his little fairy legs, but Billy was too quick for him. Before long he was back on the PATH train, surrounded by the people he was used to—as the train moved deeper and deeper into New Jersey, the beautiful baby skins emptied out and the car filled up with the hopeless and the ugly; half these people would be at the store later, Billy thought. I bet those hair fuckers back there don’t even know where New Jersey is.

He got back to his apartment an hour before his shift started. He went to the bathroom and lifted his head up to the mirror, then pulled his hair apart and looked up at the image of his scalp. God dammit: he could fucking see them. There they were, little bugs, real bugs, just hanging the fuck out on his head.

Now that he could see them, he could feel them, too. He’d felt it before, but he’d thought it was dandruff, or some side effect of the gel he used. But that girl had known right away. She recognized, just as he did whenever he looked at those little teenage knock-ups he was forced to work with, that this was someone who was not like her. He’d been her living, breathing proof that she was a human being, clean, attractive, not covered in bugs. No one could say the same thing about him.

Billy went in early. The girl at the counter was the Mexican one with the huge bangs. She talked too much; not to him, though, thank God.

He was supposed to purchase any Eckerd’s items from her, since she was the other person on shift, but there was no fucking way he was going to give her that satisfaction. Billy had a system; he used it whenever he bought condoms here. He went to the specialty hair care aisle and found a bottle of the lice stuff, the one that came with the little comb, put it in his jacket pocket and walked to the break room. Then he hung up his jacket, put on his vest and nametag and walked back out on the floor. It was that simple. His supervisor Marcus was so stupid he’d never figure it out.

Besides, Billy thought, I am more than due some extra privileges around here. That was putting it mildly—Billy thought he should walk on walk on fucking water. He knew this store like the back of his hand—better, really—and he had the most cumulative experience of anybody there, including Marcus, since this was his second term as an Eckerd’s employee; he’d been transferred from the one in Union City after a misunderstanding with a customer who probably shouldn’t have been allowed to dress himself, much less make consumer decisions in a well-stocked drugstore. If it weren’t for that bullshit misconduct ruling stamped on his record, he would have been manager there by now, and if there were any justice in the world he’d be manager here, now, not taking orders from some well-meaning affirmative action hire and being treated the same as the thirteen-year-old strippers-in-training he shared the counter with.

The whole shift Billy’s scalp itched like a motherfucker. He could feel them moving, each individual foot. It felt like they were digging, burrowing their little bodies into his brain. Why me? Billy thought. He ducked over the register and buried his head in his hands. “Why me, God?” he said out loud into his fingers.

“Excuse me?” Billy looked up. A fat man with far-apart fish eyes looked back at him. He looked like a retarded hit man.

“Excuse you what?” said Billy.

“I— it sounded like you said something,” said the retard.

“No,” said Billy. He took the man’s Mentos and slammed them down on the scanner.

“Uh—” the retard was still talking. Billy ignored him. “I couldn’t find any razors.”

“That’s because they’re behind glass,” said Billy, handing the retard his change.

“Behind glass?”

Now Billy looked at the guy. Maybe he really was a retard. Or maybe he was just, what did they call it, hard of hearing. “Yep,” he said.

The retard seemed to really think about that one. “Why?” he asked finally.

Billy closed his eyes. His scalp was on fucking fire. “Store policy,” he said.

“What the hell kind of an answer is that?” snapped the retard, suddenly coming to life.

Billy clenched his fist; somewhere in the back of his brain, a voice screamed, No, Billy, don’t do this again, but it was drowned out by the lice, who were throwing a fucking community square dance.

“Hey!” Billy’s fist dropped as he watched Marcus march towards him from the back of the store, holding the lice shampoo in front of him like it was fucking Exhibit A. “Jacki, did he pay for this?”

One of the retard’s eyes got smaller, which made him look kind of scary. His mouth curled up and he let out a surprisingly womanly giggle. Billy could feel the bugs skipping back and forth as he reached under the counter and picked up the pole they used to reach stuff on high shelves.

Jacki screamed, and Marcus and the retard backed away and yelled things he couldn’t understand as he came around the front of the counter with the pole. “Please, sir,” he said, “allow me to show you our fine collection of razors,” then drove the pole though the display case, hook-first. The glass shattering was the loudest noise Billy had ever heard in the store, although Jacki’s sobbing was a close second.

Billy dropped the pole, sat down on the floor and scratched his head as if he was trying to break through the skin.