Construction Site- Work in Progress. Please Excuse the Mess

I am preparing to submit my first story for publishing. I figured I'd take Stephen Kings route and submit something so that I can finally get a rejection letter to tack onto my wall, then crazy great ideas will come to me from my magic rejection letter and I will be famous and I will write best sellers about crazy clown and blood covered proms and people will love me but be a little scared of me but then I'll write a book about a guy driving his tractor across America which will show them that I'm regular too sometimes but then at the end the tractor eats him.

Anyhoo...

This is a work in progress. Please don't judge me on it. It is a draft of a vignette, one of many that I will have inserted into various areas of my novel once it is written. This one is about a lunch date with a posthumous William Saroyan. Each will be about an encounter with various celebrated writers that have influenced my writing. Unless you are me, I ask that you do not read this at all. I'm only using the blog to view it from another perspective so I can make the needed changes.

I had to turn down the radio to be sure I heard it. Seconds pass by and they sound again, three small knocks at the front door. He’s early. I open the door and invite him into my apartment. With a nod and a slight bow he steps in. He is only in his early twenties now, still relatively obscure. He hasn’t shaved and he needs a haircut. Wearing a simple black suite with a white collared shirt and thin black tie, his jacket hangs off his stooped shoulders in a slovenly manner. The collar of his shirt is loose around his neck. He stands relaxed but a bit uneasy. He has the presence of a rockstar. In a way, he is one. To me, at least.

He’s not as tall as I expected but still he looks huge standing in my studio. I point him toward a seat and turn toward the stove to finish preparing our meal. My apartment is small but it does have two rows of tile that border a sink and a stove. This is my kitchen. This is where I am. Across the room he quietly takes a seat on the floral loveseat by the window. At night, I remove the cushions and pull on a rod within the frame of the couch at which then it then turns into a bed. But now it is a sofa and he is sitting on it. He is very quiet. I imagined he would be this way. From time to time I cast a discreet eye over my shoulder to see if he is still there. He is. He sits politely with his knees together and his hands folded in a prayer, tucked between his thighs.

When I am finished with the preparations, I turn from the stove and step into the living room with our food. I hand him the paper plate holding his grilled cheese sandwich and side of sliced apples. He dips his head as a thank you. I take my seat on the opposite side of the couch and pass him his beverage, an oversized wine goblet filled with milk.“They’re the only clean glasses”, I offer apologetically. He gives me a reassuring smile. He doesn’t mind.

I take my seat on the other end of the couch and our lunch commences. My flower print sofa is small. The plates holding our food balance precariously on our laps. He fidgets a little, not knowing where to set his milk. Our knees touch. Sensing his discomfort, I make a suggestion of sitting on the rug in the middle of the room. This, he agrees, is a good idea. So we sit, our legs criss-crossed under themselves, on my vintage shag rug in the middle of the room. With our milk set on coasters of stacked textbooks, we quietly finish our sandwiches, washing down large bites with swigs of cold milk. All to shortly, the food is gone. Silence resumes. I ask him if he would like some more but he gestures a full stomach and declines. I gather our paper plates, the centers in the beginning phase of transparency from the butter I used to grill the sandwiches, and stuff them into the trash.

Back at the circumference of the rug, we sit patiently, quietly digesting. The silence, at first, is sweet but then at length turns awkward. He, being a man of little words, holds back not knowing what to say. I, being a woman of big useless ones, hold back afraid I’ll say too much. I suddenly remember something I have that may remedy this situation. With a point and a pat, I signal for him to stay seated while I run up to the linen closet beside the kitchen sink. Two years ago, my brother, in an extreme lapse of character bought me a gift at random. It was a stationary kit that you usually find in those specialty nature stores, with the geo stones and the didgeridoos and such. He was at Costco. The entire kit, paper, envelopes and even the paste were all made of raw materials. The pages were thin strips of tree bark boiled and pressed individually. A medley of small leaflets and sticks were fossilized onto each page. Some even had tiny little bugs squashed on them. Every piece was uniquely crafted and prepared by hands of tree people in the Amazon. At least that’s what it says on the front of the box. The Made in China sticker on the back seems a contradiction. I doesn't matter, I hold it close to my heart. With so many organisms fused onto each page, whatever you write seems to teem with life. I like life. My brother knew this to be a character trait that I would exhibit from time to time, life-liking. When he saw the kit he was moved by enough sentiment to put down whatever box of beef jerky or Hungry Man Meals he was holding and purchase the gift for me instead. For two years this has sat stored in the linen closet beside the kitchen sink. This will do.

When I return, I place the kit in the center of the rug. I dismantle it piece by piece until it lays complete between us. From his expression, I gather that he understands but is hesitant to start, so I take the first step. I take a page and pen onto my lap and begin to write. I get one word down, Hello, and and find myself at a loss. I don’t know how to open. Peripherally, I sense him peering over my bent head and onto my lap for a preview. Feeling a little self-conscious, I scoot around so that my back is turned toward him. He gets the hint and pretends to be occupied by a spiderweb in the corner ceiling. My pen’s voice comes back and I began to write. I start by handing him the first letter.

Thank you for coming.

He accepts it with a gracious smile and grabs his own pen and paper.

Thank you for inviting me.

I pick up another piece, on this intend to express great praise of his work and accomplishments. You write so well.

With a new page he writes a thank you and returns,

You make really good grilled cheese.

Next, I confide of my sincere adoration for him and his work. Of how when I was young and my pre-teen peers were crushing on more mainstream figures such as Leo Dicaprio or New Kids on the Block, I had him.

He writes that he is flattered, also he thinks he is sitting on a tack.

I divulge that my appreciation was so absolute that I actually stopped reading his work once I realized he had died. With the understanding that his death would put a stop to his writing, his literature could now be categorized as a limited resource, one that I could not bring myself to exhaust. He writes back,

Death does that sometimes.

This last one makes me laugh a little. I feel relaxed enough to show it with a slight giggle. I'm not that nervous anymore and I don't think he is either. He is becoming more comfortable despite the alien surroundings. With our initial timidity lost in the volley, we open up. I write him a joke and he laughs openly, heartily even, and chuckles to himself in anticipation of my response to the one he is writing in return. The mood shifts, growing somber while we discuss the state of the world now and the state of the world while he was growing up, then lightens again once we discuss children. Music, science, travels and tennis, no subject remains untouched. Some notes passed are 2 or 3 pages long while some may have only a word or two in response:

Peanut Butter

Once in a while only a smile face or caricature is drawn:

}:Q

I ask him what was the most trialsome part of being a writer.

He thinks about this one for a minute before answering. Finally, he nods and smiles to himself as he hands me the paper that has written,

The first word.

He explains further,

Once you find the right one,the others just follow.

He illustrates using his finger to draw a line across his front, tipping an invisible line of dominoes.

Ernest Hemmingway once expressed that being a writer was easy, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." Bleeding is easy. Its actually uncontrollable if you hit the right artery. The begining, making the initial cut from where the blood will pour, is what is agonizing. Like a heroin addict I've tapped my veins dry, looking for the lifeline that would make the right words spill from me like gold coins spilling from a sack. Inhibited by the vunerability that inevitably results from putting so much of myself into my work, the incisions have always ended up being too timid. To be a true writer one must stab themselves in the heart. Once in a dream, a faceless voice whispered from behind my shoulder into my ear that it is the word that flashes itself at you from behind your eyelids each time you blink. I was then instructed to close my eyes and look. When I did I woke up.

What word did you start with?

Sleep.

The mention of the word looks to have reminded him of something. He thinks again and hands me another.

Rememberance, he continues then hands me another sheet somewhat absent-mindedly.

Horizonitally wakeful amid universal widths....

His head is cocked at an angle and he nods lightly as his eyes stare off to the right, looking as if he was gradualy recalling the words of a song.

...practicing laughter and mirth, satire, the end of all, Rome and yes of Babylon...

What happens next is hard to describe. A rebirth of sorts. It is as if I am witnessing something long in repose since his death being resuscitated. He writes and writes. His notes become increasingly lenghthened. I realize that he is gradually becoming unaware of my presence. He isn't handing the sheets to me anymore but rather fills the page as much as possible and tosses it aside and starts on a new one.

I pick up one of the finished pages. It is completely filled on each side. I realize shortly after I begin reading that I know these words. I knew them before I touched the page. I know what he writes no later than when the ink falls from the pen. My heart hurts. I feel a peculiar type of hopelessness. Like the type you feel when you look out on a snow peaked moutain range on an impossibly clear day. Sad because you had nothing to do with the creation something so irreversibly beautiful.

I realize my eyelids are clenched. I push the negative thoughts outside of my mind. I focus on the writing. I open my eyes to see the floor of the room already hidden beneath a first layer of pages. He writes without letup. In fact, he is actually filling each page at an almost fictional rate of speed. The head of the pen cuts deeply into the paper creating an incessant scraping sound. His talent is filling the room. Why would a devoted fan pay so much to see their favorite musician play? Drive for hours to attend a reading from their favorite author? Is it because we, like little dogs, feast on the crumbs that fall from the table of the intellectually favored, the artistcally capable? Why are we so attracted to see them in action? What do we hope for? To feed off the overflow. To grow. To partake in an intellectual osmossis in our favor. If anything, this is what is occuring.

I feel sleepy. I close my eyes, and listen to the metal tip of the pen babble non-stop to the paper. My hearts pace doesn’t quicken but deepens its beat into a sounding bellow, the slow reverberating thump of a bass drum. I feel if I open my eyes I will see it suspended in front of me, glowing red, pulsing in 3D. Even with my eyes closed, I know things are changing. The effects of his writing, I can sense them, smell them. I feel simultaneously excited and sedated. Sleeping sweetly on a thundercloud. I sense the floor changing beneath me. I cannot feel the rug beneath my seat but cold hard hearth. The air is chilled. I open my eyes but my lids are heavy as if drugged. Within the two slits of visibility I see him still in front of me. Head down, shoulders hunched over the paper in his lap, he continues to write at full speed without letup. He writes from tip to tail of each page using all edges. When he’s done, he tosses it aside with one hand while using the other to replace it with an empty one from the pile with the other without even a pause. The air is freezing. Each exhalation of my breath coagulates and frosts in front of my eyes, temporarily smoking my vision like a fogged windshield. Through the smoke I see my flower print sofa slowely waver then dissappear into oblivion. In its stead I witness the manifestation of a fireplace appearing gauzily stone by stone. A flock of neon orange embers assemble within its dark mouth climbing into a petering flame. These things are changing. Its no longer summer, my windows are frosted, crystallized snowflakes are encrusted around each pane. In a mental rush I've been transported to a flat with the bare essentials of a bed, a desk and a typewriter. A young writer does jumping jacks to stay warm enough to write his prose on a cold winter Tuesday as a weak flame beggs hungrily for just one page out of the stacks upon stacks of books that the young writer just can't bring himself to burn.

This is all I can muster at the moment. I give in, close my eyes and am pulled peacefully into a rushing undertow of sub-consciousness. Asleep trustingly on a rocket propelled by the furious scraping, jetted by each word, each solitary organism birthed from ink, collectively forming a world of each sentence, a galaxy of each chapter, a universe of each story. The scraping stops. My jets quiet. Open space.

All is quiet but for the bellowing beats of my heart. I open my eyes half expecting to see a backdrop of black and glowing stars. I see him. He’s out of breath. His rib cage expands and inverts rapidly through his suit as if he’d just ran a marathon. He breathes in deep, trembling intakes from his nose as his mouth is in a tight clasp. I pull away to take inventory of my surroundings. The fireplace receded back into oblivion. My sofa is stationed as it has always been along the wall below the window. I hear a bird chirp and watch it fly past the rays of summer sun that shine unobstructed through my window. From the corner of my eye I notice something steadily approaching. From my blurred periperhal vision something white and unsteady grows in mass as it closes in on me. I turn my head to face the last piece of paper left being extended to me from my friend's trembling hand. His wild eyes look directly into me. Startled by his gaze, my heart ceases its loud rant, its tail between its legs, quieting its stomping down to a tap. A bead of sweat falls from his brow, onto an eyelash. He blinks, it drops down his cheek. A rabbit in his headlights, with a careful nod I gingerly accept that last words to be exchanged during his visit.

Your turn.

I look up and he's smiling. This makes me smile too. With just this small reaction of the facial tissue the tension has been shattered like a mirror hit by a mallet. He starts to laugh. This makes me laugh too. We laugh like hell for what seems like forever. I don't know we laugh so hard but it feels good. It feels like crying. Finally, we wind down. The guffaws simmer down to a few chuckles and weary sighs as as we gather our breath. I want to thank him, offer him appreciation for his visit. Thank him for reminding me life and of why I chose to write in the first place. So much to tell him but we have run out of paper. So instead, I offer my young friend a hand and a sad smile since I know the time has come for him to leave. My hand he accepts into his and my sad smile he mirrors. Hosting fading smiles we sit on the floor of a room completely covered, littered with sheet after sheet of prose, of life, and this is how it ends.