The College Papers: Orange Juice and Basil (Short Story)
tags:
literature, short stories, the college papers, writing
The following is the first installment of The College Papers. This is a collection of all the short stories/poems I wrote during college. Most of these I wrote outside of class; actually, I only completed 2 short stories my entire college career, and I did…
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1 commentWhat Purpose do the Literary Periodicals Really Serve?
tags:
Literary Magazines, Literary Periodicals, Little Lits, Short Stories
A month or so ago, Lev Asher, on LitKicks hosted a discussion on hardcover versus soft, contributors included agents, publishers, writers and reader/consumers. It was good discussion. Informative. Offered some new ideas. I’d like to see a discussion like that on literary periodicals. There seems…
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November Bookworms Carnival
tags:
Bookworms Carnival, carnivals, short stories
The Bookworms Carnival for November is up at my blog, The Armenian Odar Reads. This month’s theme is short stories. So if you are looking for new stories and new authors, if you are looking for new bookbloggers or if you have nothing better to…
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leave a comment Recognition at Last for Stuart Dybek
tags:
fiction, short stories
A few weeks ago I found a first edition hard-cover of Stuart Dybek’s I Sailed With Magellan in a bin of unwanted books selling for a dollar apiece. A week later, Dybek won the Macarthur Foundation “Genius” award, worth $500,000, and on its heels, the…
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Hair Trigger
tags:
fiction, short stories
Nates accountant convinced him to declare bankruptcy on The Gallery and sell the inventory. A lovely Indian girl just out of college made the telephone calls. Luckily, feeling as bright and intuitive as Nate usually did during the day-time, he remembered that he should retrieve Alisons drawing cabinet. The Gallerys demise would leave Alison more adrift than ever.
After the accountant he rode in a hired car for an appointment with his source. He had just read about a popular sleeping pill that occasionally compelled people to eat in their sleep. Like sleep walking, except it was sleep eating. It sounded like the answer for Alison. She needed more sleep and healthy food.
His cocaine connection lived in the suburbs along Lake Michigans north shore. The security system fed directly into the local police station; thats how confident the man was, rich beyond suspicion. Cocaine dealer or not, nothing rattled the man. Handsome and urbane in soft, understated casual clothes, he impressed Nate as the most comfortable, efficient person on earth. Nate hated to ask him for sleeping pills, but no one else would meet the request so graciously. And over the years Nate had proved a consistent, tactful, and ever more successful dealer.
Afterwards, the driver, whom Nate paid in cash and tipped with a vial, dropped him off in front of The Gallery. When he told Alison the store was bankrupt, her eyes brimmed.
Its for the better, honey, youll see. This weekend we can take a vacation.
Her eyes grew round. A vacation!
I mean, at home, just you and me. But I promise, next month, Ill arrange things so we can go away for a week.
He had already stopped at the apartment, arranged his supplies, and locked up. He had parked his truck in front of The Gallery, by a fire hydrant but so what. He hauled the drawing cabinet into the back. Alison remembered James guitar; the rest was for the bank.
At home, Nate thought that since Alison was chronically sleep-deprived, she might want to try a sleeping pill. But she jumped up and wrapped her legs around him to kiss him. She said that as long as she slept at night, she wanted to play all day. Then she dressed in a pale T-shirt dress, with ruching along the hips that added to her shape, and matched him line for line. Nate removed his pants and socks but left on his boxers and shirt.
They romped around the place, snorting up too many lines to count, clutching at each other and laughing. Nate said, Wait a minute. Lets up the ante, and he retrieved his gun from the drawer in the dining room.
Put that down. Only guys think guns are sexy. You want danger, lie down here. Alison jumped on top of his swollen body and tried to wrap her hands around his neck. He tore her hands loose and bent the fingers back. He slapped her face until tears formed at the corner of her eyes.
*
At Trevors Cycles, James was asking Wardell what he should do next.
Were looking good. Go home.
Wardell would say, Looking good, no matter what he was looking at. But the store was looking great and after tomorrow it would look better than it ever had.
Turning right on to Halsted and racing several blocks, James stopped short. The Gallery was dark. Rolling his cycle up to the front window, he peered inside. From the nearby streetlamps, he could tell the store was empty.
Before he stepped inside the kitchen he called, Hello! Nate, Alison! Its James! He called as loudly as he could, but to compensate for his speech problems, his shout was kind of soft. He wheeled his bicycle into his room and could hear Alison crying. She was saying, Dont, you bastard. Stop! Youre hurting me.
He heard Nate say, You love it, bitch. You love it and Im not letting go until you admit it.
James sidled into the dining room quietly. Nate was pulling Alisons long hair from the nape of her neck so hard she was bending backwards. She fell and he hauled her up. After pressing her into a corner, he slapped her. First her face, one side and the other, then her body. When he grabbed her neck in one hand and she gasped, pounding his chest, so that he bellowed even as he was smacking her, James noticed the Glock on the dresser. The safety mechanism was not where he could find it. The gun was nothing like Wardells forty-five.
Still, Nate was butting his head into Alisons thin body and she was screaming. James pointed the gun low, at Nates feet, and pulled the trigger. He stumbled on the carpet, which was askew and uneven. A fold he didnt expect caught his toes, throwing him off balance so that he pulled the trigger again.
Simultaneously with the explosion, blood blossomed from Nates lower backside. Alison shifted to the side, screaming at James. Dont you know anything? She swore and wept and shrieked. James glanced back as he hurried away, seeing blood pooling as Nates hand slid down the wall. Halfway out, hopping on his cycle, he could still hear Alison screaming, Murder! James, you murdered him!
Tears blinding him, he raced back to the cycle shop. Wardell was working at the computer still, utility lamps burning.
Before James reached the door, Wardell had already hurried outside, taking the boy by the shoulders as he extricated himself from the bicycle. What is it? Whats happened?
Whatever it was, Wardell could not understand a word Jim said. He flew apart, scattering like a tray of beads on cement. Deep breaths, now. Take deep breaths.
Before long James managed to explain what hed done. Chances are, Jim, you did not kill him. And if you did, there are different ways to consider it. My own bias is that you did a favor to humanity. Objectively, theres self-defense, Alison-defense, one mans life or two othersYou know what? Call your father. Get yourself under control and call him up.
James splashed cold water on his face. He felt surreal, as if he had left his body and was floating around, free of the world. But he did what Wardell said.
He called his father. Hello. This is James.
Hello James.
Im in trouble.
What kind of trouble?
I might have killed someone.
So you need a lawyer.
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The Subtle Artistry of Keith Lee Morriss Testimony
tags:
A Public Space, Keith Lee Morris, short stories
Keith Lee Morris short story, Testimony, in the latest issue of A Public Space (03) is among the best Ive read, which is saying a lot, since I have been reading mostly short stories for a year. On the surface, it is a straightforward tale in which a first-person narrator, under questioning in court, relates a tragic chain of events. But on closer look, one can see how the story gains its exceptional power thanks to the writers artistry with perspective and voice.
The first-person voice puts us in the head of the narrator, Michael Bond, while he undergoes questioning as states witness in a murder case against his friend since childhood. After establishing the courtroom, jury, judge, and lawyers through Bonds eyes, the author tells the story of the crime through a series of third-person questions, questions posed ostensiblybut not explicitlyby lawyers for the prosecution. At the same time, the narrator thinks of questions he hopes no one will ask him, only to discover that by alluding to them on his own he has dredged up memories and allegiances extending beyond the crime. The more the narrator tries to push the inquiry back and search for excuses, the more the fault lines in his defense appear.
Although the author has presented the lawyers as discrete characters, the use of the disembodied third person questions here is not merely a literary device, but a classic form of self-protection. Sitting on the witness stand, Michael Bond relies on that third person interrogator who, of course, is himself, to bring about a more tolerable perspective. For him and most readers, however, the technique achieves the opposite effect. Driving the story from a deliberately removed position brings about an unexpected and horrific immediacy.
The murder case involves four young men: One the leader, who is on trial, two followers, including Michael Bond, and a fourth, the murder victim, who always stood apart from the group. Through the voice of Bond, the friends competitive posturing feels nearly innocent at first. Their joking one-upmanship is not so different from a bravado all but endorsed in the United States, except that the friends happen to be methamphetamine users. Keith Lee Morris slowly turns their bantering behavior until we see its underside. The consequences of a sporting aggression matched by a cool-guy attitude are irrevocable.
By the end the narrator finds his moral failing sickening. One young man has died, thus the legal trial. The remaining three live on, but ruined, and the narrator has realized, too late, that had he seized the moment he could have changed their fates.
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