Stories

The kids want to climb a mountain.
The plan, convincing the others.
Deciding what to bring.
Driving away, leaving him behindÐroad trip.
Assigning a character, feeling misidentified.
Facing a wild animal in the woods.
Asking for help while on a journey.
Having a flat tire in the middle of nowhere.
Driving through country you've never seen before.
Driving and counting churches, Hooter's, or McDonalds'.
Two random travelers meeting each other and going together.
Deciding they don't know where they're going.
Being in love instantly.
Listening to a song and looking for the signs.
In one of the Dallas/Fort Worth midcities:
ªHow much longer will you wait?º asked Courtney.
ªI'm done now,º Alex's voice cracked.
ªHey, look, I'm sorry. You kept your promise, you were there. He's not coming. You're fr
ee now. James ins't worth it. What will you do now?º
ªTell myself a story and then tell it to other people, and revise it over and over
until everything makes sense or I'm tired of repeating it.º
ªI mean, where will you go? Nothing's keeping you in Texas any longer. Are you ready
to go back home?º
Alex laughed to himself: And where is home exactly? he thought but didn't say out
loud because wasn't he a year or two too old to be angsty although it would have s
ounded right especially said to Courtney who was two years younger and whose boy
friend was in a Screamo band. Just say it no you know she means your street addr
ess in the Northeast United States no have your dramatic moment come on you said
the thing about the story just now you're standing alone in this park waiting for
someone who doesn't care about you anymore or maybe does but isn't coming anyway ha
ve a moment have a breakdown.
ªNo. I don't know. I guess I'm leaving.º
ªCome over.º
CRAIGSLIST Seeking someone to drive from DFW area to somewhere in Florida someti
me in the next week or two. If you're in your twenties and have no idea what you're
doing and maybe like Hole or reading uh, Yiddish folksongs, Snapple, other rando
m stuff, that's cool. 420 friendly.
Somewhere in Louisiana:
Dear Diary,
What a ridiculous way to start a journal entry. Oh well. Anyway, I can tell alre
ady that the beginning of this entry is a cop out. And it is continuing to be a
cop out. I could have jumped into all those feelings I presumably have inside of
me. I could have just said the problem. Stated it clearly for you, dearest diar
y, haha. Well, we know I'm not like that. I need to make you guess. It doesn't mean
as much if I have to tell you. You're a notebook though. You won't guess. There won't
be any courting from you. You won't work for it. Well, what if I confess and then
it isn't so magical anymore? What if that feeling I want to wrap in words looks co
mpletely mundane once I can actually look at it in its overalls of language? Ove
ralls of language? Oof. Who wears overalls anyway? You know what I mean. Er, I k
now what I mean. I don't know what you know about me. Could I anyway? Could anyone
, ever? Oh Jane, there you go, getting real philosophical. But let yourself have
it. Drink another shot or two. Pa won't notice a missing drop of Johnny. Then aga
in, if he noticed anything wouldn't it be a missing drop of Johnny? Don't be in that
place where you've drunk just enough that you can snap out of it if you really ha
ve to or want to. Speaking of Johnny. Haha well never mind. Don't judge me.
I'm so sick of everyone around here. Sometimes I think about that Coke machine at
the front. I said to Johnny Do you ever wonder what other people think about tha
t thing? It must be like a blast from the past for them and here I'm so used to it
. He said What people? The ones who come into the store to pay for their gas. Do
n't no one pay any attention he said, they drive off the highway prob'ly only thinki
ng about their gas. Why else they'd come off this exit `cept if they live `round here
and if they did they prob'ly not the type to've noticed it really. Ain't that the trut
h? I'm grateful for having been born here, don't get me wrong. It just can't be where
I stay forever.
I started writing this thing:
I put the song on the tape player and looked at him waiting anxiously for the si
gns. The signs of what? That we are the same on the inside in some important way
. That we feel the same things. ªAre you waiting for the signs?º he asked. Well my i
nsides suddenly felt hollow. I smiled and he smiled. I hugged him.
Barf. Is it some sort of curse that I should hate everything I write once it's wri
tten? Wait wait haha, no. I want to get to my point. Sometimes there's a chord cha
nge in a song you love, right? Maybe some key modulation, haha, yeah, you know w
hat I mean now right? And when it happens and you're smoking a cigarette with your
best friend you look somewhere into the distance and smile and feel it. You kno
w someone who can't understand that can never understand anything about you. And t
hey can't love you, at least not in that way you want someone who isn't blood to lov
e you.
Somewhere on the road in Alabama:
ªDo you mind if I put some music on?º asked Alex.
ªGo for it,º Jane answered.
Alex slid a CD into the car radio. A song began to play. The car sped down what
could have been any highway at all. The wind boomed through the Volkswagen's cabin
. Alex looked at Jane and Jane looked out the window at the Gulf, her hair blowi
ng everywhere. She was smiling. She turned around and, looking at Alex, said, ªsom
etimes I just want to give her a hug, you know?º
ªI love you,º Alex said looking at the road and then at her and then back at the roa
d. He wasn't sure he should have said it.
Jane was quiet for a minute. ªI love you too.º
Ideas I like: a forgotten stain on a carpet of unremembered origin.
I like the idea of something being over on the other side of a mountain, maybe s
omething unknown and mysterious.
Mourning for the paved over wild heart of the continent. Sadness that there is n
o more magic, I wonder what it must have been like to look up at the moon withou
t knowing what it was. So I want to write things that make other people miss tho
se things too and wonder about them and I want to find them if they're still out t
here.
When the dark was frightening, magical and full of mystery.
Description of looking through Craigslist ads. Revelation that he's a chaser.
Bar/club scene with trannies go/go dancers drug dealers prostitutes.
Rape scene, ªwelcome to the clubº.
Standing at the train station thinking about how simple it is to walk a few step
s forward.
Reflecting on how life can be described by physical movements and distance in re
lation to other things, in relation to ªyouº.
Reflection that if life is just physical movements, those movements may as well
feel good.
Smoking a cigarette and meeting someone weird, strange, unusual.
Drive-by name-calling.
Neon lights, loud music, drag queens.
Picking up trash.
My life is night. Night is my life.
Wanting to just know, but then not wanting to know.
Isn't that what freedom means? Isn't this bravery? You're the ones who don't think you're
world views through to the empty end.
I was paying attention as a boy.
I liked Huckelberry Finn. I liked that there was something to discover.
Having a dream, a completely innocent dream.
Self-hatred, self-destruction, but absolutely stunning rationalization.
Fiction has more dimensions than reality.
Falling asleep in someone's arms, on someone's lap. Who's lap? Where? Dreaming of what
? After what's happened.
Three steps, taking two and wondering have I moved closer or farther. Always thi
nking about this person.
White lies can be the most insidious.
The Law had strangled all Creation, touching everything, no escape. After the Co
llapse it began to unravel. It vanished, in fact. Things stayed together on mome
ntum, but Human Nature pulled and things fell apart.
Someone who wants to stay someplace because he doesn't really have any place bette
r to go to.