Evelyn had squeezed herself into a little box. It was more like a cattle chute, actually. Nobody was there to prod her onwards except herself and an imaginary clock that told her she had to keep going. She didn’t know where the chute led, and the light flashing off the metal siding distracted her so that she mostly forgot what was behind. But the feeling of the metal shifting beneath her feet, the sunlight blinding her as she turned the narrow bends, led her to suspect that there wasn’t anything at the end of that chute but a steep drop-off. Maybe there was a pit down there, filled with all the other people who had gotten to the ends of their own cattle chutes.
She remembered the slide at her elementary school playground. It was spiral and fitted together with metal scales that burned bare thighs when the sun was out. Bare-kneed children jostled one another at the top, pressing hard at her back when it was her turn so that she had to let go. She’d hear a boy launch just behind her and would be stricken with the realization that there was another girl just below. She’d think to herself that there was a fifty-fifty chance that at the bottom of the slide, she’d feel the rubber of her shoes smacking against that other girl’s head. And there was a fifty-fifty chance that the boy behind her would smack into hers.
Once, she had tried to slow herself down. Her shorts that day were riding up as she flew down the slide and she found that, by pressing her bare thighs against the metal, she was able to slow down the velocity of her own pudgy body. The friction created a resounding farting noise that her classmates claimed could be heard all the way over to the baseball diamond. The boy behind Evelyn had banged into her anyways, and then kicked her in his haste to turn and scramble back up the slide, complaining loudly about the smell. The other kids teased her cruelly about it until the snow came and buried the slide from view. Eventually they all forgot it ever happened and Evelyn never did it again; never tried to brake or control her speed. But now it seemed that she had been in the cattle chute for some time and she was starting to get worried about what she’d hit when she got to the end.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
ex-wives
“One last thing folks, real quick. I want to you to complete a simple exercise with me here. I want everyone to close their eyes, go ahead, close them. Now I want you to visualize yourself five years from today. Where are you working? Where are you living? Who else do you see in your life? What do you do in your free time? Are you happy, are you successful? Open your eyes.” The face looked up at us like he had something monumental to share.
“Now go get it.”
The face beamed at us from the front of the lecture hall. Silence. Then a smattering of half-hearted applause echoed more forced than enthusiastic.
“Alright ladies and gentleman, that’s all I’ve got for you, you’ve all been a terrific audience, good luck with finals.” Anything more that he may have said was lost as eight hundred college students and a handful of professors got up to exit the auditorium. It was Friday afternoon, after all, and people had places to be. A couple of business school overachievers rushed to the front, eager to shake hands and make connections. Pricks.
What a fucking tool. Standing up there with his immaculate suit, his shit eating grin. I hated him before he even opened his mouth. Lecturing us about responsibility and drive. I wonder how much the school shelled out for this waste of time. I almost laughed out loud when he asked us to close our eyes and visualize our future, but then I realized that most of my fellow students were actually participating. Was I missing something?
Well, at least with most of my fellow scholars buying into this guy’s rubbish, I got the chance to fully appreciate that brunette one row back. Short dark hair, edgy, definitely the artist type. I bet she had dark eyes to match too, hot. I think she was in my dorm freshman year, but as with most of freshman year, that memory was a little fuzzy. I wonder what she’s into. If there was ever a time in my life when I needed to meet someone new, this was it.
“aye, Lonnie, what’s up man?” I turned towards the voice coming from the back of the auditorium.
“ah Kristian, not much mate, how you doing?”
“much better now that we’re done with that schmoo, and I’ll be better still when you buy me that that pint I won last night.” He said, grinning from ear to ear.
“fuck you, you Aussie fuck, let’s get drunk.”
Kristian. Orignially from Melbourne, Australia; he’d come to the university on some sort of crew scholarship. Kristian had lived in the freshman dorms, one floor above me with the rest of the athletes. This Aussie transplant was ambitious enough to get kicked off the crew team a month into his first semester of college for drug possession. Caught with marijuana three times in one month; weed he bought from me. Since then we’d been pretty solid friends the last four years or so, having our share of fun, usually staying a half-step ahead of trouble. While he’d lost his scholarship, he’d managed to avoid being kicked out of school, they figured the loss of athletics punishment enough. Kristian came from a rich family, generations of Australian sheep farmers or some such rubbish, and his parents were more than happy to pay for him to stay and get an American education. Kristian saw it as a chance to sleep with every American college girl he could meet, and with his boyish good looks, and that damn accent, he succeeded a lot more than he failed.
The pint he was referring to had been won last night at the bar, when he’d made the wild accusation that our server absolutely had to be wearing black panties. Kristian makes wild accusations like this sometimes, and I called him on it. Proceeding to chat up our server all night, he disappeared into the bathroom with her just before bar close. This was the first I’d seen of him since. Fucking Australian accents.
“safe to say you had a decent night?” I asked, knowing full well the answer I get as we left Wiley Hall and crossed the street towards Grandma's bar.
“fuck me mate,” he fairly moaned, “I think I met my future ex-wife,” Kristian was always meeting his future ex-wives. “speaking of though, you talk to Tasha?”
“naw man, I’m too mad. Anything I say now would come out a lot worse than it should.”
That bitch.
“dude, she cheated on you. You walked in on her and the other dude getting dressed, I would have cut his fucking head off. I’m not sure she deserves your understanding on this one.”
He had a point.
"fuck it man, maybe you should buy the first round."
“Now go get it.”
The face beamed at us from the front of the lecture hall. Silence. Then a smattering of half-hearted applause echoed more forced than enthusiastic.
“Alright ladies and gentleman, that’s all I’ve got for you, you’ve all been a terrific audience, good luck with finals.” Anything more that he may have said was lost as eight hundred college students and a handful of professors got up to exit the auditorium. It was Friday afternoon, after all, and people had places to be. A couple of business school overachievers rushed to the front, eager to shake hands and make connections. Pricks.
What a fucking tool. Standing up there with his immaculate suit, his shit eating grin. I hated him before he even opened his mouth. Lecturing us about responsibility and drive. I wonder how much the school shelled out for this waste of time. I almost laughed out loud when he asked us to close our eyes and visualize our future, but then I realized that most of my fellow students were actually participating. Was I missing something?
Well, at least with most of my fellow scholars buying into this guy’s rubbish, I got the chance to fully appreciate that brunette one row back. Short dark hair, edgy, definitely the artist type. I bet she had dark eyes to match too, hot. I think she was in my dorm freshman year, but as with most of freshman year, that memory was a little fuzzy. I wonder what she’s into. If there was ever a time in my life when I needed to meet someone new, this was it.
“aye, Lonnie, what’s up man?” I turned towards the voice coming from the back of the auditorium.
“ah Kristian, not much mate, how you doing?”
“much better now that we’re done with that schmoo, and I’ll be better still when you buy me that that pint I won last night.” He said, grinning from ear to ear.
“fuck you, you Aussie fuck, let’s get drunk.”
Kristian. Orignially from Melbourne, Australia; he’d come to the university on some sort of crew scholarship. Kristian had lived in the freshman dorms, one floor above me with the rest of the athletes. This Aussie transplant was ambitious enough to get kicked off the crew team a month into his first semester of college for drug possession. Caught with marijuana three times in one month; weed he bought from me. Since then we’d been pretty solid friends the last four years or so, having our share of fun, usually staying a half-step ahead of trouble. While he’d lost his scholarship, he’d managed to avoid being kicked out of school, they figured the loss of athletics punishment enough. Kristian came from a rich family, generations of Australian sheep farmers or some such rubbish, and his parents were more than happy to pay for him to stay and get an American education. Kristian saw it as a chance to sleep with every American college girl he could meet, and with his boyish good looks, and that damn accent, he succeeded a lot more than he failed.
The pint he was referring to had been won last night at the bar, when he’d made the wild accusation that our server absolutely had to be wearing black panties. Kristian makes wild accusations like this sometimes, and I called him on it. Proceeding to chat up our server all night, he disappeared into the bathroom with her just before bar close. This was the first I’d seen of him since. Fucking Australian accents.
“safe to say you had a decent night?” I asked, knowing full well the answer I get as we left Wiley Hall and crossed the street towards Grandma's bar.
“fuck me mate,” he fairly moaned, “I think I met my future ex-wife,” Kristian was always meeting his future ex-wives. “speaking of though, you talk to Tasha?”
“naw man, I’m too mad. Anything I say now would come out a lot worse than it should.”
That bitch.
“dude, she cheated on you. You walked in on her and the other dude getting dressed, I would have cut his fucking head off. I’m not sure she deserves your understanding on this one.”
He had a point.
"fuck it man, maybe you should buy the first round."
Monday, March 12, 2007
Poke You In The Eye With It. My Shadow, That Is.
I had broken the spell of the man’s obession with my shadow. Travis stood now, crestfallen, against the brick and mortar tavern. A flourescent Budweiser light flickered behind the darkened glass at his shoulder.
“Susan,” he muttered, “Susan Whist.”
“We’ve all got our dark sides. I’m no different from anyone else,” I said.
The chocolate brown t-shirt he wore would have blended with his skin had it not been for the fresh stains of moisture beneath the collar. He spit once, now, but without the energy to expell the gob forcefully, it dribbled down his chin. I watched it slip into the shadows of his jawline.
My friend Bill emerged for a cigarette, noticing us as he cupped the lighter in his hand. “Everything ok out here, Susan?” he asked, with a wary edge to his voice.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Yeah, I think so.” Travis mimicked me. “Sho’ nuff, Bill. Everything be jess’ fine.”
“He givin’ you a hard time, Susan?”
“Naw. It’s ok.”
“’Cuz if he is, I can take care of him for you.”
Travis spit again, leaning over his belly this time, to spatter the pavement. “Watcha think, Susan? Black man can be dangerous once ya take the malt liquor outa his hands.”
He stared me straight in the eye now. Hurt. Defensive.
“Go on Susan, you know all ‘bout black men, don’t you? Why don’t you tell Bill here what all you know about black men?”
“I don’t know anything about black men, Travis.” I shrunk away from him, wishing Bill would go back inside. “Bill’s got better things to do.”
Exhaling, Bill flicked his cigarette into the gutter. “Susan, c’mon inside with me. I’ll buy you a beer.”
Travis slid heavily against the wall, intentionally blocking the windowless door. “How’s that commercial go? Love the shade you got? Not so hot.”
“Travis, just leave it alone. It’s nobody’s business but yours and mine.”
“That’s right. But tell me, Susan, what is it that you don’t want Bill here to know? That you like to dick-tease black men? Or that you’re a goddamn racist whore?”
“Allright, that’s enough. Susan, c’mon inside.”
“Shut up, Travis. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Susan. Inside. Now.”
Bill made as if to nudge Travis aside, but Travis had already stepped away. He walked purposefully into the street, despite approaching cars, and began to weave back and forth, as if he could not make up his mind to stay or go.
“Travis. Get outa the street!” I called, “The light’s green, dammit. Let those cars go!”
But Travis planted his feet wide, ignoring the cars that edged up cautiously behind him. The sound of automatic locks being flipped was audible.
“I’ll go, Susan, soon as you tell Bill and me why you ‘don’t feel right’ about bringing a black man home to your mama.”
“Travis.”
“Go ‘head, Susan. Tell us.”
“Fuckin’ A, Travis.”
“We’re listening.” Travis shrugged his shoulders. “You waiting for them to roll their windows down too?” He asked, gesturing towards the cars, “Want me to axe ‘em to roll their windows down so they can hear?”
Bill lit another cigarette. His moment to come to the rescue had passed for the time being.
“You fuck. Fine. You wanna fucking know why? Fine. It’s not your goddamn skin color, that’s for sure.”
“Ok Susan, it’s the dick isn’t it? You afraid I’m gonna poke your mama in the eye with it?”
“Travis, I’m not bringin’ anyone home who can’t pronouce the fucking word ‘library.’ It’s not your goddamn skin color; it’s the shadow it casts. So don’t you goddamn get off callin’ me a racist whore. If you goddamn call me anything, you call me a classist ho, you mysogynistic fuck. And if you don’t goddamn know what that means, why don’t you go fuckin’ axe ‘em at the liberry.”
“C’mon Susan. Let’s go inside.” Bill took me by the shoulders and swiveled me towards the door.
From the street, Travis laughed, “My shadow, huh? Whaddya think, lady, you scared of my shadow too?” He drew his arms up above his head like a rearing bear and advanced toward the waiting car. The woman behind the wheel took fright and stepped on the gas, cutting across the curb in her haste to get away.
Travis chuckled as he swaggered away, “Shit, Susan. I’m scared of your shadow too.”
“Susan,” he muttered, “Susan Whist.”
“We’ve all got our dark sides. I’m no different from anyone else,” I said.
The chocolate brown t-shirt he wore would have blended with his skin had it not been for the fresh stains of moisture beneath the collar. He spit once, now, but without the energy to expell the gob forcefully, it dribbled down his chin. I watched it slip into the shadows of his jawline.
My friend Bill emerged for a cigarette, noticing us as he cupped the lighter in his hand. “Everything ok out here, Susan?” he asked, with a wary edge to his voice.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Yeah, I think so.” Travis mimicked me. “Sho’ nuff, Bill. Everything be jess’ fine.”
“He givin’ you a hard time, Susan?”
“Naw. It’s ok.”
“’Cuz if he is, I can take care of him for you.”
Travis spit again, leaning over his belly this time, to spatter the pavement. “Watcha think, Susan? Black man can be dangerous once ya take the malt liquor outa his hands.”
He stared me straight in the eye now. Hurt. Defensive.
“Go on Susan, you know all ‘bout black men, don’t you? Why don’t you tell Bill here what all you know about black men?”
“I don’t know anything about black men, Travis.” I shrunk away from him, wishing Bill would go back inside. “Bill’s got better things to do.”
Exhaling, Bill flicked his cigarette into the gutter. “Susan, c’mon inside with me. I’ll buy you a beer.”
Travis slid heavily against the wall, intentionally blocking the windowless door. “How’s that commercial go? Love the shade you got? Not so hot.”
“Travis, just leave it alone. It’s nobody’s business but yours and mine.”
“That’s right. But tell me, Susan, what is it that you don’t want Bill here to know? That you like to dick-tease black men? Or that you’re a goddamn racist whore?”
“Allright, that’s enough. Susan, c’mon inside.”
“Shut up, Travis. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Susan. Inside. Now.”
Bill made as if to nudge Travis aside, but Travis had already stepped away. He walked purposefully into the street, despite approaching cars, and began to weave back and forth, as if he could not make up his mind to stay or go.
“Travis. Get outa the street!” I called, “The light’s green, dammit. Let those cars go!”
But Travis planted his feet wide, ignoring the cars that edged up cautiously behind him. The sound of automatic locks being flipped was audible.
“I’ll go, Susan, soon as you tell Bill and me why you ‘don’t feel right’ about bringing a black man home to your mama.”
“Travis.”
“Go ‘head, Susan. Tell us.”
“Fuckin’ A, Travis.”
“We’re listening.” Travis shrugged his shoulders. “You waiting for them to roll their windows down too?” He asked, gesturing towards the cars, “Want me to axe ‘em to roll their windows down so they can hear?”
Bill lit another cigarette. His moment to come to the rescue had passed for the time being.
“You fuck. Fine. You wanna fucking know why? Fine. It’s not your goddamn skin color, that’s for sure.”
“Ok Susan, it’s the dick isn’t it? You afraid I’m gonna poke your mama in the eye with it?”
“Travis, I’m not bringin’ anyone home who can’t pronouce the fucking word ‘library.’ It’s not your goddamn skin color; it’s the shadow it casts. So don’t you goddamn get off callin’ me a racist whore. If you goddamn call me anything, you call me a classist ho, you mysogynistic fuck. And if you don’t goddamn know what that means, why don’t you go fuckin’ axe ‘em at the liberry.”
“C’mon Susan. Let’s go inside.” Bill took me by the shoulders and swiveled me towards the door.
From the street, Travis laughed, “My shadow, huh? Whaddya think, lady, you scared of my shadow too?” He drew his arms up above his head like a rearing bear and advanced toward the waiting car. The woman behind the wheel took fright and stepped on the gas, cutting across the curb in her haste to get away.
Travis chuckled as he swaggered away, “Shit, Susan. I’m scared of your shadow too.”
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