Of a Picture from the Pennsylvania Woods

12/09/2007 8:24 AM – 8:56 AM

It is a picture, really, just a moment, a scene. Many of my stories start with one, but this one has been lingering in my mind for years and I haven’t written of it before. Perhaps because I never wished it to be fiction. It came to me somewhere south of Williamsville but north of Harrisburg. I can’t really narrow it down more than that. I was walking on one of the side-roads that I favored during that little adventure. It was little traveled but paved.

The trees grew close enough to the road that their branches mingled overhead at times. The day was sunny though, and cool. It was the morning, not yet eleven. Scattered along the side of the road were boulders that occasionally I would sit upon and rest. It was soon after I had gotten up from one of these and had started walking again that the picture came to me. It did not come to me fully formed or in a flash, but pieced itself together as my feet found their way across the cinders and rocks that made up the margins of the road. I have no doubt that it was born of weariness and little money, but such unflattering origins do not declare the picture void.

There in a car that is like a jeep but not a jeep, perhaps a little Rav or a Sidekick, rides a young man of about twenty-five (older than I was at the time but not by too many years). The top of the jeep that is not a jeep is down. The young man is worn but clean. His clothing is newly bought and washed: jeans, white-tee-shirt, new sneakers (Chucks, I think). Behind him, lying across the back seats, is a small duffle bag packed with new clothes, for the most part, variations on what he’s already wearing. Beside him is a drink of some sort, non-alcoholic but fizzy. As he reaches over to pick up the drink, he absently pats a briefcase that sits on the passenger’s seat. It is a metal briefcase, the kind with long curved grooves across its sides. Inside the briefcase is sixty-thousand dollars. We can’t see it as the briefcase is closed, but we know it’s there: thirty-thousand dollars packed neatly into one side, thirty-thousand dollars packed neatly into the other. How he got the money has always been a mystery to me. I think that it was obtained legally and it is without a doubt, his. But I do not know how he got it. I know that he had a little more, but he’s spent it on clothes, the jeep that is not a jeep, and clearing himself of his debts. He picks up the drink, unscrews the top, drinks, screws the top back down, puts it back in the cup-holder and pats the briefcase again. Up ahead, on the side of the road, he sees a dirty and forlorn little creature, scuffing his feet through the cinders and rocks that make up the margins of the road. I turn and move further off the side of the road. He nods to me as he passes. I nod in return. He drives on and I know exactly where he’s going. Wherever whim takes him, without a backward glance.

Of Chairs and Turkeys

12/07/2007 6:52 AM – 8:54 AM

In banishing Joe for arriving at Calvinistic Determinism, he was banishing conclusions based on independent thought and study. I do not agree with determinism, at least not without extensive modification, but in banishing independent thought and study, he was banishing me. I say this not for malice, the past being irrevocable, but merely for the context of the metaphor.

The metaphor was this: a chair balanced on three, then two, then one leg on the edge of the stage. Balanced being an inaccurate word because it was held to keep from falling. The sitting on the chair was to represent an act of faith. I don’t remember if the metaphor was to run toward the sensible or the irrational, but I suspect, based my knowledge of the speaker, that it was toward the sensible. On this point I diverge, faith being a leap, not of the irrational but the arational, not the stupid but the blind.

The metaphor of the chair surfaces again from time to time, generally in a context quite different from its original presentation. I, writing this, sit in a chair. This chair has held me many times before. I would predict that it will hold me many times again. If I am wrong, I will most probably suffer a few bruises and scrapes, but the metaphor remains intact. I could, if I wished to adhere to a stance of strict skepticism, forego the use of chairs all together. We find in these mundane trivialities the refutation of strict skepticism. But I have before seated myself in chairs that broke beneath me. And this has to do not strictly with the fatness of my ass (though that, no doubt, played a large part). We are left with these fragments which we attempt (without due rigor) to assemble into a whole: 1) chairs break, 2) chairs 99.99% of the time do not break. Here we introduce a second metaphor, provided not by Joe but by Nassim, the metaphor of the Thanksgiving turkey.

Since the turkey has been alive, it has been tended to and coddled by a farmer. Its dwelling, food, warmth and socialization have all been provided to it by the farmer. Perhaps there is within the turkey some instinctual distrust of man, but this grows less and less with each passing day as all of his needs are met by the farmer. As the turkey approaches his second Thanksgiving, he grows more confident and secure in his position of love and trust in the farmer. Seeing a wild turkey skulking furtively by the farm, cold and hungry one rainy November night, perhaps our turkey feels sorry for him and wishes that he might welcome his brother into the fold, but the gates are barred and he has no opposable thumbs with which to lift the latch, and so he returns to his contented scratching and pecking. When the farmer arrives to carry the turkey away, he may at first be discomforted by the upset to his routine but he has no reason to suspect any ill from the hands of the farmer and, with his head on the tree stump and the axe in the farmer’s hand, he still trusts that the outcome will fall to his favor. All things considered, it was a good life for a turkey. He lived contentedly, died at peace and tasted very good, stuffed with spiced bread-crumbs and served with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Both the turkey and the sitter-upon-chairs share what Kierkegaard would loath to hear called the irrational. And so I do not. I call it the arational, which spellcheck informs me, is not a word. But while the turkey may be forgiven his foolishness, seeing as we do his very small brain and limited experience, the sitter-upon-chairs does not escape our withering glare unscathed. He has knowledge of the fallibility of chairs, and yet for reasons of comfort and convenience, he continues to sit upon them unthinkingly, save for a few scarce moments when he notes that his ass is particularly fat and the chair particularly frail. But in both cases, there is an arational will to believe. There is simply not enough information to arrive at a conclusion about the nature of the farmer or the chair. The necessary subtext of all conclusions is a leap of blind faith. So. Jesus loves me, this I know, for my Mommy tells me so. Little ones like me belong, I am weak and he is strong. “Every day, I wake up and step on a land-mine,” says Ray Bradbury. As do I. And isn’t it a lovely day for a frightful boom?

Say Kid, You Wanna Buy a Monkey?

No, but seriously – who wants to proofread a novel? (the inflection of that last sentence is identical to the one where you say, “who wants chocolate chip COOKIES?”) A novel which is mine. It’s not a new one. It’s the old one. The one that I’ve been saying was crap. It wasn’t crap. Just parts. Those parts have been cut. So now it’s much shorter on crap and just plain shorter in general. So you can read it in, like, two days. If you do want to proofread it, email me at (start magi-text) spikedotdunnatgmaildotcom (end magi-text now). Jonnie, who has been kind enough to read the damn thing about a billion times and done a smashing job of it, has discovered that hidden deep within the recesses of MS WORD is an option called “Comment.” It’s under “Insert.” This allows the reader to point out my obvious flaws and mock me for it without actually changing the text, thus forcing me to confront my demons myself. My therapist assures me that this is the proper thing to do. She does however, also force me to wear women’s shoes and recite the pledge of allegiance at the start of every session, so I do wonder about her efficacy at times. Also, if possible, I’m trying to figure out a “blurb” of about 200 words as they say in the “biz.” If anyone can figure out one for this thing, he or she will get a cookie (subject to taxation in the state of New York, offer void to anyone that does not live in my immediate vicinity and cannot supply the cookie themselves – I’m not supporting any damn, dirty hippies).

PS – does anyone know any literary agents? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? …damn, dirty hippies…