Secret Society

Hello Readers,
I'm thinking about password-protecting Pictures of Lilies so only invited people can read it. You'd probably have to create a google account and log in to see my entries. I would like to post here more often, but I'm concerned that publishing pieces on my blog will affect my ability to publish them formally later on.

Would you please comment and let me know if you'd be willing to sign in to read my entries? An alternative would be for me to email you my new posts (if you don't want to go through the hassle of creating a google account).

thank you so much for your support.

The Original

My computer broke this morning. Something was wrong with the hard drive, and I was afraid I lost the writing I did last night. I rewrote this story during my office hour (it appears as Witness in the next entry). I think it's interesting to see how memory works, so I figured I'd post the original here now that all is well.

I think I heard it. It was like a door slamming upstairs. Sometimes the doors slammed like that when it was windy and the language teachers left their classroom windows open. I was in the school after school, probably in the library. I was probably with my friends in the library after school like usual, but when I think back I think alone.

They found the body that night. This kid Hollis found it, this kid Hollis who had a unibrow that he smoothed over and over with his fingertips when he stood on the diving board about to do a dive. Hollis was on the prom committee. The prom committee was in the auditorium decorating for the prom. Hollis had gone upstairs for something, he went upstairs to find more decorations or something, into the dressing rooms on the sides of the stage that we only used during plays or musicals. He went upstairs and he saw the body, and he told Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Harrison went upstairs and he saw the body too. Later, months later, in our junior English class, Mr. Harrison read us a piece of prose he had written about that night. I don’t know what he wanted us to say about it. It was like he wanted us to help him carry it, or something, like he didn’t want to be alone with it anymore. He said the body was pale and slumped against the wall. He mentioned the blood. For years after I would sometimes imagine the body slumped against the side of the bathtub in my parents’ house. I would imagine it when I closed my eyes in the shower. I would imagine it like Mr. Harrison described it. I never heard how Hollis described it.

Hollis was “pretty shook up”. That’s what Carrie said the next day when we were posing for prom pictures at Cascade Park. Carrie said it matter-of-factly – of course he would be shook up. And then Veronica almost started to cry, but caught herself because of her makeup, and she said she didn’t know how anybody could enjoy prom now, now that this had happened. I was sorry it happened, but I didn’t know him and neither did Veronica. Veronica saying that was just trying to get attention like Veronica always did. She was actually lucky to get attention for being upset about the kid who died instead of the dress she was wearing, which was so slutty she had Carrie pretend to be her when they went to her blind date’s parents’ house to pick him up. The blind date was a freshman from another school. The blind date’s parents weren’t fooled.

They buried the body a week later. By then they had decided that he definitely knew that the wrestling team wasn’t going to get cut, after all. By then everyone knew about his migraines, that he was in frequent terrible pain. His casket was plain wood, and his friends wrote messages on it in Sharpie. They put bottles of alcohol in there with him, and a couple of joints, and CDs of Metallica and Iron Maiden and stuff. I wonder what his parents thought about that. I wonder how long it had been since his parents knew him that well.

The prom went on, in spite of this dead kid we didn’t know, this kid we could barely picture because nobody went to wrestling meets and he didn’t do anything else. The prom went on, and graduation, and college, and people got married and people had kids. Other people died. It was like we were all on a train going away from high school, and most people stayed on the train, but some people stopped. That kid was the first to stop. And I only had one thing to do with it, and that was this: I heard the shot.

Witness

I think I heard the shot. It sounded like a door slamming upstairs. Sometimes the doors slammed like that when the language teachers left their classroom windows open. I was probably in the library when I heard it. I was probably with my friends in the library like usual, but when I think about where I was when I heard it, I think alone.

This kid Hollis found the body later, this kid Hollis who always smoothed his bushy eyebrows over and over with his fingertips when he was standing on the diving board about to do a dive. Hollis was decorating the auditorium with the prom committee, and he went upstairs to get something, some crepe paper or something, and he found the body in a dressing room above the stage that we only used during musicals. Hollis saw the body and he went and got Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Harrison saw the body too. Months later Mr. Harrison read this thing he wrote about seeing the body. He read it to our junior English class. I don't know what he expected us to say. It was like he wanted us to help him carry it, or something, that memory. He said that the body was pale, slumped against the wall. He mentioned the blood. For a long time after that I would imagine the body when I closed my eyes in the shower, imagine it slumped against my parents' bathtub. I imagined it the way Mr. Harrison described it. I never heard how Hollis described it.

The next day when we were posing for prom pictures at Cascade Park, Carrie said Hollis was "pretty shook up". She said it like of course he was, anybody would be. Veronica almost cried but stopped because of her eye makeup, and she said she didn't know how we could enjoy the prom now, after what happened, but she was just saying it to get attention like always. She was lucky to get attention for feeling bad about that kid instead of for her prom dress, which was so slutty that when she went to pick up her blind date, who was a freshman at another school, she made Carrie pretend to be her. The blind date's parents weren't fooled.

Veronica didn't know that kid who died and neither did I. Neither did Hollis. All he did was wrestling, and nobody went to wrestling meets. Or matches. Or whatever.

But some kids went to his funeral, and they said the casket was plain wood and people wrote messages on it in Sharpie. They said people put bottles of alcohol in there with him, and joints, and Metallica and Iron Maiden CDs. I wonder what his parents thought about that. I wonder how long it had been since they knew him that well. They said he definitely knew before he did it that they weren’t going to cut the wrestling team after all. But he still did it.

We had the prom and we had graduation, we had college, and some people got married and some people had kids. It was like we were all on a train going away from high school and every once in a while the train stopped and somebody got off. That kid was the first to get off. And I didn't have anything to do with that kid, nothing at all except for this: I heard the shot.

New Collaboration

http://postcardfictioncollaborative.blogspot.com/

We plan to post pictures and prose responses once a month.

Summer Storm

Sunday morning. A storm gathers around my apartment. The light is not silver, but gray. The windows are dark as gloaming. Chromatic aberration: orange and blue along the panes' edges, through my old glasses.

The rain starts, a few clanging drops on the metal chimneytops, then sheets of it on the roof across the way -- the wind blows it into waves, wavetops fly off like steam. Our neighbors' bamboo tosses in their backyard below. The loudest thunder yet shakes our wood floor.

The lights are off in the apartment; I see the rose-colored lightning illuminate me -- my white t-shirt, my hands on the keyboard. Water runs hard off the roof next door, over the pipe that's supposed to catch it. The path of the courtyard is covered in water, the rain fills it in from one low brick wall to the other.

At the bookstore, Margaret and I would hurry out to stand in front of the big strip-mall windows to watch storms. They come on faster in Maine. Here we know half an hour in advance, at least.

The rain changes direction, soaks the screens so everything blurs. I can still see the movement of the waterfall over the drainpipe, a flicker like fire. A bit of diminished thunder, the last fireworks before the finale.

Back to a few clangs on metal, a splashing waterfall. The storm drags tentacles of thunder behind it, moving on.

Second Section of Other Prose/Poetry Collaboration

Running past instinct, I board the bus that will take me to the train back to my city. The mist is still low, it’s early morning. I try to name all the shades of green in the trees.

I stay awake until the bus crosses the bridge between this state and the next. When we were little, on our way to see our grandparents in Connecticut, we pushed our feet as far forward as they could go, under the seats – I’m in New Hampshire first! Then we threw our hands back – I’m in Maine last!

The train ride – dry yellow grasses, pebbled gravestone, broken-windowed warehouse, stacked boxcars. The bridge that says “Trenton Makes the World Takes” in orange lights. Finally, my city’s skyline, radio towers blinking red, Liberty One lit Eagle green, the Verizon building still tallest. Every new skyscraper has a company’s name.

The Comcast building is a hole in the ground behind the hotel where we live. I see it from our laundry room window, and I try to remember to take pictures of its progress, although I’m not sure why. Instinct.

My grandfather made an album of a new building’s progress in 1940. The album had thick black paper and the pictures were all black and white and small, two by three inches. My grandfather labeled the stages of the project in white pencil. That album was the one thing I gave away, donated to a museum in Hartford. It’s the one thing I should have kept.

Sometimes traffic on the wet street sounds like ocean waves. From the hotel balcony I try to pick out stars in the humid sky. My hands palm the damp metal railing. “It’s an emergency,” a crazy man once told me, “that I’m not with you.”

First Section of Prose/Poetry Collaborative Piece

When Leila leaves, she sees a playing card lying in the snow next to the steps. It’s bent in half, lengthwise. She nudges it with her toe, flips it enough to see that it’s the Jack of Hearts. Figures.

Anything can set her off when she feels this way – the thought of playing War with the kids slumps her shoulders. Jason always got mad when the Jack came around – he wanted a card named after him. So they took to calling the Joker the Jason. Leila wonders if the kids still play that way, still call it that.

The air is that dry cold, the kind that hurts the inside of her nose and makes it hard to breathe deep. She balls her hands in stretchy cotton fabric and wraps her arms around her chest, wishing she had more than this sweatshirt, which is so big for her that the cold air comes right up at the hem and fills the empty space around her body. Still, it was nice of Ron to let her borrow it. She puts her nose into the collar, to keep it warm and also to inhale the scent of man – car oil and woodsmoke and shaving cream.

Snow is crusted along the lip of the sidewalk, all the way down the hill. The sky is just starting to turn from flat grey to something brighter. It’ll be a pain to get her car down the icy incline to the main road. She’s glad she’s not parked right out front, though. She doesn’t want anyone inside to make a big deal out of her leaving. She’s just ready to go. Her head doesn’t ache yet, but she’s thirsty, and she feels the tension in her neck and between her shoulderblades. All day long at work she will roll her neck, stretch her arms out in front of her, crack her back, but it won’t do much good.

29th and Market

The red light can't dam Tuesday morning, each driver's need most urgent. The cars trickle through, trickle through, daring the broadside wave.

I wait on one bank, hoping to reach the other.