This was the day I lost my soul and I suspect Stu did too, considering… We got our daily warm RC Colas at Mullens Grocery store. Mr. Mullens gave us a skeptical once over, trying to figure out what we lifted. We wore giant parkas, that could hide a dirt bike or whatever we could grab. Our frugal mother’s bought them extra-large hoping we could wear them from the fifth grade to high school, perhaps forever. Mine was dark blue and Mom already washed it, and it wasn’t even dirty. This was evident because the once fine furry texture around the stove pipe hood’s edge was all gray and gooey. Like globs of wet dog fur. Thanks, Mom. My cousin Stu’s coat was light green with yellow stitching. The hood still had the fake rabbit’s fur look–shiny and bristly. Maybe it was real rabbit fur? How should I know? I was only ten.
The streets were heaped with dirty snowbanks. Stu and I were pretty smart, full of ideas and little rackets. I clipped old Mullens for a Payday candy bar. I gave Stu half as we stood in the alley between the Texaco station and the dilapidated yellow house. The house was occupied by strangers from an unknown origin in the middle of moving to bring in more strangers—a seedy rental. Two white, rusty van doors were open, with boxes inside. I didn’t like how the two men stared at us when we went by, but nothing bad ever happened in our friendly little town.
Stew greedily shoved the peanut-coated caramel into his mouth. Words tried to come out, but they were an incomprehensible caramel glob, going around in his mouth filling in his cavities with orange goo and peanuts. Mom didn’t like how he chewed with his mouth open and coughed. She was always saying, “Now don’t let Stewart cough in your face, and don’t you tear up that coat!” Stu might be holding out, he was like that. The type that would eat an entire bag of Doritos in front of you, without offering. I’m sure a beef jerky was sliding around in his coat pocket. I thought Stu secretly smoked, too—maybe even pot.
The RC Colas were in our gloved hands. Stew’s gloves were red-knit and even cheaper than my silly work gloves. The kind that always stretched out at the wrist and snow got inside them. Our mothers always had us in the cheap junk, except our coats. We laid the warm unopened RCs down on the icy alley. These were the 16 ounce bottles that Mullens only sold warm. This was back when you needed a bottle opener. Stu like a giant crevice face, broke his front tooth off on a Coke bottle, but cousin Deak said it was a Budweiser.
This was our game of getting the warm pop, icy cold. It didn’t officially have a name, and it was more of a means to an end. The arctic version of, Kick the can, or bottle. The game was played when the temps dropped to zero, back in those good old days when I walked twenty miles to school after chopping a cord of wood. The streets were ice rinks that knew nothing about global warming. They were always a glare of dirty ice that caused cranial contusions after some slippery Dick Van Dyke ass-busting fall. We kicked those bottles of RC Cola down the street and by the time Stu’s red-sided house came blaring out of the snow. The pops were brain-freeze cold.
On that particular sub-zero day when the sky was frozen like a steel bar and the color of aluminum. I remember that because it was such a bad day. A day in which everything got broken. Our cheeks were little red balls full of clacking teeth. The RC bottles slid down the icy street like a slalom course riding up on the sides threatening to shatter into each other. Stu was beyond careless, and later in life will become a chronic alcoholic—a DUI guy. The kind that maroons his car on snowbanks, after knocking down a string of mailboxes.
He kicked his pop bottle with his roofing boots, an odd choice for a ten-year-old. It was years before the pants dropped on the black guys—baggin—and they wore them. Roofing boots look cool on them, but Stu’s are insanely clunky and unpredictable as he aimed directly at my bottle of RC humped up on a frozen sandbar in the middle of the street. The yellow house and the strangers watched us.
“Watch it you big dumb ass!” Too late the roofing boot with its extra climbing tread slammed into the RC bottle turning it into a streaking black missile heading right at mine. Well, there goes two more fizzing RCs shattering into the suddenly appearing subzero sunshine. While that minor tragedy took place, and we were arguing, something much worse was happening. The yellow house with the ever-moving strangers swallows us whole in the legerdemain rush of two silent shadows.
They found us two days later. Down in the basement, at least the furnace was on, our new parkas that our moms’ slaved and saved for were of course gone, and so were the two strangers. Who also took something else from us that was much more complicated.
#
It’s forty-some-odd, very odd years later. When January might seem like a chilly October, and sometimes it hits a balmy 65. Just as unbelievable as that day when the pop bottles shattered, and the two bearded devils picked Stu and me from our childhood like ripe fruit.
I always see Stu’s junk Dodge Neon parked at the bar like a rusty green epitaph. I know he’s got his head lying on his arms with empty shot glasses stacked around him. Young people walk by him and scoff because he’s the town drunk, and they are not. At least not yet, but just wait and see what trap life lays for you, Bubba. For now, Stu is the town’s ass for everyone to kick.
My approach is to see a therapist. The therapist is a money-grubbing sort that refuses to speak until I pay first, like a pay toilet. He has a funny handlebar mustache and I can tell he thinks it’s cool like he’s Heraldo Rivera. The talking pay toilet suggested I confront the past with a rather insane approach. Insanity is my wheelhouse, so I take it.
l drive a rusty white van and the two back doors are open and a box is in my arms. Two young boys stroll by in their big coats, chatting about everything and nothing. I don’t say, Hi. I’m afraid of young boys. I’m afraid of whatever got broken inside me, I might try to break in someone else. It is a strong feeling of Déjà vu and I want to scream, “Take a different street!” I’m living in the yellow rental house where strangers are always moving in or out. It is now a dilapidated white, but it will always be yellow to me. The house where everything got broken. What the hell was I thinking?
Image This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The side of a store showing an advert for RC Cola with the image of a smiling little boy.
literally stories 
Christopher
Heartbreaking story about the suddenness of evil and its everlasting effect. Well timed and powerful.
Leila
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Hi Leila,
Thanks so much! I love the RC advertisement with the story! That’s really cool.
Christopher
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A brilliant if brutal start to the week! Adeptly mixes in the horror with sharp-eyed observations (loved the line about his mum washing his new coat) and the takes us somewhere, literally, surpassing and quite disturbing. Great stuff!
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Hi Steven,
Glad you liked the story! Those old parkas were really warm. I think the last one I had was in eighth grade, a hundred years ago. Then I moved up to my brother’s olive green army jacket. And I haven’t seen one of those in 90 years.
Christopher
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This starts out as an American childhood yarn but takes us somewhere much much darker and the things unsaid are powerful. This was very deftly handled I thought. Thank you – dd
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Hi Diane,
Thank you for the kind words. They are very inspiring. I was hoping for that void to be filled up with the imagination or maybe not…
Christopher
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Christerpher
Yes. The things most dreaded but left unsaid are always the most horrifying. And once everything is broken, it stays that way. As an extra, I got to learn a new word — legerdemain. (I had to look it up.) Thanks.
Gerry
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Hi Gerry,
I have to agree. When it’s broke, it’s broke, especially one’s spirit. I inserted legerdemain from a synonyms list for sorcery or something. I think it’s fun to use an unfamiliar word into fairly simple, hopefully clear prose. But only if it works, and that’s probably up for debate.
Christopher
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Oh. It worked! – g
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Christopher,
This is a realistic, sad story about the “suddenness of evil,” as Leila says, which is a great phrase to encapsulate what happens in this piece. I also agree with Diane and Gerry, the way the central incident is largely left unspoken is very effective. Like a Greek tragedy in that way, where the violence or the other main events often, or usually, happen offstage. Hemingway, perhaps America’s greatest short story writer after Poe in terms of craft, didn’t invent the iceberg principle, he stole (or borrowed) it from the Greeks; or resurrected it. Tennessee Williams also made great use of this technique.
The characterization in your story was really well-done overall. The narrator has a complex attitude toward his friend that seems to be a combination of affection and revulsion. The way the setting and descriptions were handled was convincing; there was just enough to get it across without overdoing it.
There are so many shady places and people in this world that we all do well to ignore it most (not all) of the time, or we’d all go crazy. But to ignore it all the time would be blindness contributing to the evil via passivity, as Hannah Arendt pointed out. Awareness is the first step any of us need to take. Too many people currently reside in a comfy bubble with their blinders on.
“The horror, the horror!” as Kurtz says with his dying breath in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Dale
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Hi Dale,
Thanks for your insightful and kind words. Yes “The suddenness of evil,” does sum things up. It’s funny when you’re in the wilderness of writing a story the elements aren’t always completely clear–even when it’s done. I like what you said about the Greeks and Hemingway–this is nothing less than educational. I love Edgar Allen Poe, but I forced myself to read “The Fall of the House of Usher,” I must have been half asleep, because I’m still not sure what that was about. I think one of my favorites is “The Gold Bug.” I felt the weight of that Gold Bug up in the tree–talk about concrete details! And his Detective Dupin, what a cool dude.
Now I want to watch “Apocalypse Now” again!
Christopher
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Christopher
I really like your description of writing as being in the wilderness where nothing is completely clear, even after “completion.” I’ve had pieces of writing which I came very close to destroying, only to have time pass, and I reread it again to find out it was one of the best pieces of writing I’d ever accomplished. Sometimes writing is scribbling or typing away madly, high on inspiration. Perhaps more often, it’s tearing your hair out and pacing around in frustration (or even confusion), on the bad side, or meditating in the deep state, on the good side, in a strange kind of trance-like condition that looks to everyone else like dissociated indifference to the world at large (i.e. laziness, especially to people like your boss or your ex-wife). Congrads again on publishing this excellent story.
Dale
PS,
My favorite four Poe stories are “Eleonora,” “Ligeia,” “Morella,” and “Berenice.” They go together as a group and also stand on their own as separate works. The themes are love and death, death and love (no one ever stays dead). Marlon Brando plays an awesome Kurtz!
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Thanks Dale!
This is to your message below for some reason I couldn’t respond to it. You only get so many chances I guess. Lol.
You know were in good company being in the wilderness. Because SK threw “Carrie” away and his wise wife fished it out and look at him now.
Yes I can totally relate to what you are saying about work that is just laying around teetering on the trashcan, which might be regretful. I think working on draft after draft of stories they lose their power. Sometimes I read my stuff and I’m like is this any good?
Also what you said about the disassociate state–I like that. That is a strange place to be. I’ve tried to write about that state of mind and it’s pretty hard. Sometimes when I’m feeling discouraged and the world is ragging on me I realize I haven’t been able to conjure up anything. The muse is on vacation. Then the harpsichord makes something like a real song note and a few paragraphs say, Hey this isn’t bad. And the sunshine of a good mood comes on.
I need to check out those stories by Poe. He is so brilliant It’s scary, excuse the pun, lol. The last 4 or 5 years I’ve been reading the classics. I love Chekhov then I bounced around to reading every free thing I could get on Raymond Carver and Joyce Carol Oates “Zombie” (shorty story version) sold me on her. Then I discovered Denis Johnson’s “Emergency” and all of those stories and actually went to the library, but whoever I read. I’m always circling back to Stephen King. I just love his work.
Your right Marlon Brando had it down for Kurtz!
Christopher
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Christopher,
Great description of how the muse comes on suddenly when you least expect it and brightens everything. In an instant, the gloomy depressive frame of mind gets transformed by the light bulb popping on into half-manic happiness and joy (and they call this “manic depression”!).
Denis Johnson’s JESUS’ SON is a truly great work. He literally reinvents the English sentence and what it’s capable of in this collection of 11 stories. All the stories are so short too, yet with so much life inside all of it. A short, small book that should be studied by all fiction writers, short, and/or long form. His novels (that I’ve looked at) tend to drag on and on and there’s a certain lack of clarity there. But this single book of stories secures his name in the pantheon of American fiction writers. As Poe said, he wanted to write a very short book that would say everything with the title of: MY HEART LAID BARE. Charles Baudelaire reinvented that idea in PARIS SPLEEN, a collection of flash fictions and prose poems that are akin to Johnson’s work in many ways.
Thanks for mentioning it! I also love Chekhov and Carver. I have trouble making it through a Stephen King book but I definitely admire him and the way he’s inspired so many people. I also ABSOLUTELY admire his political opinions and the way he’s so fearless about it. On that level alone, he’s truly great! We need all the anti-authoritarian voices we can get, and he doesn’t hide or stay silent about it, like far too many in this society are currently doing. “Heroic” is a good word for him on that level.
Dale
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Dale
Yes indeed the muse of the bipolar! That’s about right!
I read Train Dreams by D. Johnson and liked that. I just started “Tree of Smoke” about Vietnam an audio book from the library. I haven’t read all of Jesus’ Son. But what I have been able to read has been crazy good! One of his last stories, “The Largess of the Sea Maiden.” That was really good too. You’re right he is someone to study.
I love Kafka too, but I can’t bring myself to read “The Metamorphosis.” Not into cockroaches lol, but I know it’s a classic.
I’ll have to check out Charles Baudelaire. Thanks. I have been studying the short forms for awhile now. I also love everything Murakami writes–as far as short stories–haven’t read any of his novels. I’m not sure if I have the attention span for novels anymore. I’m hoping I don’t quit on “Tree of Smoke.” It’s narrated by Will Patterson he is doing a good job.
I’m an SK “Constant Reader” as he calls his fans. Yes I’m down with Steve too on his politics. He pretty much called it in the Dead Zone with his character Greg Stilton. And he prophesied COVID more or less in “The Stand.” He is a scary guy, lol, and yes he is brave.
Christopher
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Christopher
If you like Poe and Denis Johnson, you’ll almost surely like Charles Baudelaire. Charles started out as little more than an absolutely massive fan of Poe himself. He did little but spend his time smoking, drinking and reading Poe, making everyone around him, including his mother and her new military husband after his father died, think he was nothing but a lazy good-for-nothing who needed to get a job. Later, he translated Poe’s work from English into French. Baudelaire was fascinated by Poe his whole life long, not just his writing but also his life. He imitated Poe, in writing and life. He even claimed to pray, not to God or one of the saints, but to Poe, who he strangely (but accurately perhaps) considered to be a kind of saint, at least a saint of literature. Poe lost his mother like Baudelaire lost his father and he saw that as one of their many connections. They both liked hanging out in cemeteries and wandering around at night on foot alone.
Baudelaire had 2 big books. The first was FLOWERS OF EVIL, poems. The second, published after his death, was PARIS SPLEEN. The first book is great French poetry, but the second book reads better in English, since it’s prose. And the second book is probably more important. It’s usually billed as “prose poems.” But most of it is much more like short short stories, flash fictions, brief tales, fables, and modern parables. It’s outlandishly realistic and fantastically imaginative at the same time. They tried to send Baudelaire away across the seas (and they succeeded for a time) but he came crawling back to his beloved Paris, which he considered both a sewer and a place of holiness because of its “high culture” history. He also has an interesting book on hashish, absinthe, and opium. Like Poe and Stephen King himself, Baudelaire had substance usage issues. He died in his 40s (46), like Poe. He was just as poor (in debt) as he had been when he started out, also just like Poe and H.P Lovecraft.
Poe and Baudelaire understood the bipolar ride that is the writing life perhaps as well as, or better than, anyone! I’m pretty sure H.P. Lovecraft (who also died at 46) played the same role for Stephen King that Poe played for Baudelaire.
I read your story “A Starless Street Corner.” Wonderful work! The narrator, the setting, the people and animal, what happens, and the combination of humor, adventure, uneasiness, and dread, all reminded me very much of a story from PARIS SLEEN, in a good way! Your story is original prose, not derivative at all, but the resemblance is there too, which is great. It gives it an added level.
One of Baudelaire’s famous quotes is, “The devil’s finest trick is to trick you into believing he doesn’t exist,” which could almost be an epigraph to your story.
Dale
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Christopher,
I have an essay on Kafka coming 12/15 and a story about Van Gogh coming out 11/12 in LS, plus more later in the winter, most on Sundays. Check it out if you get a chance!
Dale
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Dale
Hey thanks for checking out my story and your comments! I always feel a thrill when someone likes my work, and it sounds like an honor to be compared to Charles Baudelaire. I’m definitely going to check him out. I haven’t read many French writers besides Guy Maupassant. I like him very much. I enjoy the foreigners perspective on life. The differences, mostly geographical and political, and the deep similarities spoken in different languages sort of astounds me. Like how people around the world are really just alike. At least in the desires of human nature.
The way you describe Baudelaire is excellent–creating a sense of genius and lunacy. Like Poe himself. Praying to Poe is pretty out there…But Poe does seem to be as you say, “A saint of literature.” Nice line! And taking on Poe’s lifestyle is also a strange devoted twist. “Paris Spleen” what a title! That sounds dreadful and interesting.
Yes I will read your essays on Kafka and Van Gogh. One of my favorite writers and probably my number one artist. I’m sure your essays will be very good, because I can tell you have a real working knowledge of literature, which is very cool!
Christopher
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Christopher,
Awesome that you’ve read Maupassant, he’s kind of like a French combination of Poe and O. Henry.
My favorite short story by him is “The Horla,” which is such a great, great piece. So much of what comes after is contained in this one tale, including a lot of both science fiction and horror/terror, not just literature but also movies. His horror stories in general seem to me much better than the rest of his excellent work, at least in English translation.
Thanks for checking out my upcoming Van Gogh and Kafka pieces. I have things on Bob Dylan, Picasso, and William S. Burroughs already on the site. Pieces on The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Bukowski, Hemingway, Howlin’ Wolf, and Kris Kristofferson also already accepted by the genius editors of LS.
Thanks again!
Dale
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Dale
Yes, in my quest to write better I have delved but really just skimmed Maupassant. Hopefully I wasn’t embellishing too much, lol. I read “The Necklace” and a few others. One story about some murderous drunks was very good. “The Horla,” sounds crazy. I didn’t know he wrote Sci Fi and horror– right down my alley! Reminds me of Phillip K Dick. “The Second Variety” is fantastic!
I like all of those people you mentioned. Iv’e never read an article about Kris Kristofferson. He was wild-man in “A Star Is Born which turned out way different then I thought. I thought it was some sappy romance, but no it was great! I will check them out, I like reading about famous people.
Christopher
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Christopher,
That is absolutely cool that you started such a wide-ranging reading project not just for itself but in a quest to become a better writer.
The King talks all the time about how reading is the first step in good writing, always. (He also says the same thing in his book on writing.) Too many writers these days don’t know, or care about, this lesson, it seems to me. They will be the ones whose writing remains far less impressive in the long term, no doubt. Steve also famously reads a lot of classic writers, like John Keats, Percy and Mary Shelley, Robert Browning, Robert Penn Warren, James Dickey (who wrote the novel “Deliverance”), etc., and H.P. Lovecraft.
And I can say that SELF EDUCATION is always, always the most important kind, by far. (Shakespeare educated himself.) I have a PhD in literature and creative writing, but that was just a job, for the most part. Most of what I truly know I taught myself, by far, through reading, listening to music, studying painting, analyzing films, etc. I probably read about writers’ lives as much as I read their work, since writing, when done truly well, is a way of life, no matter where you get your financial support from. (Wallace Stevens was a lawyer, T.S. Eliot was an editor, William Carlos Williams was a doctor who delivered thousands of babies including one of Hemingway’s, Ezra Pound endlessly borrowed from his father and hit up anyone he could think of, Bukowski worked as a lowly clerk for the Post Office until it almost drove him permanently insane by his own admission, Kerouac lived with mom, Van Gogh was supported by his brother after miserably failing at every job he ever tried, etc.)
I’m a huge fan of Philip K. Dick, his fiction, his life, and his weird religious and philosophical writings called “the Exegesis,” which is a massive, half-mad, totally brilliant book of thousands of pages, only a small part of which is published. It’s not a book that can be read end to end by any sane person but it’s fascinating to dip into here and there. I love PKD’s dedication to the art of reading, as well as the art of writing. He, too, read almost as much as he wrote, and sometimes much more for very long periods of time. I can’t always make it through his novels or even his stories. But everything he wrote has that flash of genius about it. I once had a long email correspondence with the famous sci fi/horror writer and poet Bruce Boston. He talked about how everyone in the sci fi world considered PKD to be a madman at the time. They said the same thing about Vincent Van Gogh!
My essays on Kristofferson and the other folks all have a few autobiographical flourishes to keep it interesting, where I talk about how I was affected by the art of these famous people as a fan of their work. I’m only writing about people I can relate to somehow on the personal level, which keeps it more interesting. I have an essay on Stephen King that’s only about half finished. Also one almost finished comparing the short stories of Hemingway with those of Edgar Allan Poe, especially “Indian Camp,” “The Killers,” “The End of Something,” and “A Very Short Story” with “Ligeia,” “Morella,” “Berenice,” and “Eleonora.”
I can also HIGHLY recommend the short stories of editors on the site, Leila, Hugh, and Diane. All three of them have brilliant, wonderful, great short stories on the site that are worth reading, studying, thinking about, and rereading in a quest to write better. You can pick any of them, they’re all good. (I haven’t read all of them yet, but I can say they’re all good.) Leila and Hugh both have a very large number of stories on the site all good, which is totally impressive in their ability to be prolific while maintaining high quality. Diane has fewer stories but has also published many novels.
Your commentary is just as interesting to read as your fiction is. I’m totally interested in hearing more about your reading project/s, favorite writers & artists, how your writing is going, etc. LS is one of the best things going in the English language literary world today, and that’s no exaggeration. As Hugh has said many times, they care about the quality of the writing and nothing else, which is as it should be, and as it has always been with the best writers, like H. P. Lovecraft and Poe. That stance is a bold and brave existential act. Thanks for writing back!
Dale
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Dale
Wow that was a prolific response! I’m very impressed with your education! It seems effortless how you can transcribe your thoughts.
SK’s “Memoir… On Writing,” is where I first learned that to be a writer you have to read. Iv’e always liked to read, but it’s different now, since I have caught a terminal case of the writing bug. Lol. Now it’s doing my homework trying to absorb their words, bouncing around–had a subscription to the New Yorker for two years and I read a lot of those superstar authors. JD Salinger’s “Nine Stories”–great. “Signs and Symbols,” by Nabokov. I would love to write a story like that! Newer people like Colson Whitehead, Mary Gaitskill, and Neil Gaimen. Before that I got on a site called 75 Short Stories American literature. com. That’s where I learned about Ambrose Bierce, Kate Chopin and fell into reading the undeniable Mark Twain and his wonderful if not cutting satire. This is where I found PKD and even Confucius. Plus, like a bonus, commentary from Ben Franklin and George Orwell.
What you said about following their lives is so interesting like how Chekhov called for the Champaign, as was the custom, when nothing can be done… Yes I think Steve recommended to read everything, that’s sort of been my philosophy. Now it’s Shirley Jackson listing to the Lottery for the fourth or fifth time. Thanks for the recommendation of the LS Editors. I like their commentary very much Leila’s nature walk pieces are quite absorbing and bring a pleasantness. Hugh has a cracking wit and I find myself laughing. I read one story of his called “Five Bars” and I thought it was great! That is impressive about Diane’s novel. Novels are beyond me at this point. To hold someone’s attention like that seems like a monumental task of skill. I like LS a lot and find myself reading the stories, and the weekend pieces. Thank you for kind words and it’s great chatting with you
Christopher
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Probably happy what happened to the boys was not described, but I wonder what happened to the stangers. The end suggests appropriately abuse can be passed down through generations. The vivid incidental detail shows we can remember odd irrelvancies amidst the horrors. Well done.
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Hi Doug,
Thanks Doug, for your nice comments! You know, writing the story I never thought about handling those lecherous strangers. Now I wonder what could have been done? In “Mystic River” I don’t think those guys were ever caught either or mentioned. I sure remember that old dude with his hand on the seat with the cross on his ring. Yes, I think incidentals and oddities work well in writing.
Christopher
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Christopher,
It’s awesome that you’re also reading things like Confucius and Ben Franklin. One of my favorite books is “Tao Te Ching,” by Lao Tzu. Legend has it that he was about to disappear into the mountains forever as an old man, having given up on the world, when a guard on the road asked him to write down his wisdom before doing so. The book is short in terms of word count, around 5,000 words in an English translation. But it has so much in it that one can spend their life studying nothing but this, probably! A few gems are:
“Accept humiliation as a surprise. / Value great misfortune as your own self.”
“A good traveler leaves no tracks.”
“In studying, each day something is gained. / In following the Tao, each day something is lost.”
“Know Glory but cleave to Humiliation. / Be the valley for everyone.”
“Natural disasters are not as bad as not knowing what is enough.”
“The Tao is hidden deeply in all things.”
“True words are not fancy. / Fancy words are not true.”
(Charles Muller translation.)
I also love the writings of Abraham Lincoln. He wrote many thousands of items, all short, none long. His two greatest writings are under 300 words and just over 700 words (Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address.) Based on prose style alone he may be America’s greatest writer.
He learned his craft through self-education, obsessive reading of the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Scottish poet Robert Burns, Aesop’s fables, etc. MACBETH was his favorite play and he was also an obsessive reader of the popular humor writers of his time.
Rock on, or read on!
Thanks again,
Dale
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Dale,
Yes thanks. I kind of like my reading like my music. If it sounds good I listen to it. That is the only requirement. This is kind of off the wall… I got into listening to “Green Sleeves” the other day on You Tube, supposedly composed 500 years ago by Henry VIII for Ann Boleyn.Anyway, I like the eastern philosophies too, but I’m not well versed in them. I’m kind of fascinated with the Himalayan peoples…Hillary climbing Everest with Tenzing Norgay was great drama. “A good traveler leaves no tracks” That’s what the world needs! The “Tao Te Ching” sounds almost holy. I hear that about fancy words vs the simple. I went through that stage of purple prose. I think Steve’s suggestion on reading “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White helped me to realize clarity has to be a top consideration in writing. “Drain the swamp” as Professor Strunk said or maybe White.That is truly interesting about Abe Lincoln, another one of my hero’s. I knew he must have been a fine writer to write the Gettysburg Address–some of it edited on the train to Gettysburg. I didn’t know he had a large body of work. I’m not surprised he was such a fine President for those terrible times. Hope history isn’t repeating like Poe’s, “A Descent Into the Maelstrom.”
Christopher
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Christopher
Sometimes when I don’t know what to make of things, I look back in history to see what the people who were smarter than me said about it all. Leo Tolstoy and Walt Whitman, neither of whom were easily fooled, and both of whom are probably the greatest writers of Russia and the USA, both said that Abraham Lincoln was one of the world’s true, and very, very few, philosopher kings, much like Marcus Aurelius two thousand years ago. Plato believed the world could advance so that it would eventually be ruled by nothing but philosopher kings, forever. Sad to think how much he’d be rolling over in his grave, so to speak. (And it shows how wrong even a great mind like Plato, one of the greatest minds ever, can be.)
That was interesting what you said about, if it sounds good, you’ll listen to it. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that it can only sound good if it IS good, meaning that, if it’s BAD, it will sound bad…(kind of like a Donald Trump speech or post on his “Truth Social”).
Keep writing back whenever you get a chance, great to hear your thoughts!
Dale
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Dale
Yes history provides the road markers for the sharp turns. If people care to regard them. It looks as though the ice has gathered on the mountain roads tonight. “This is the land of confusion,” to quote Phil Collins.
Christopher
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A gritty and ultimately haunting tale. I was swept along by the nostalgic references before the traumatic event kind of ambushed me, as the abusers did the two kids. Stu’s destiny is heart-breaking. The closing image of the narrator observing two young boys near the van is eerie and effective.
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Hi David,
Thanks David! I’m so happy you liked the story. And I’m glad it ambushed you, lol. Not that it’s a funny story or anything…
Christopher
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Shifts effortlessly, unnervingly from sumptuous detail – “caramel glob . . .glare of dirty ice . . . orange goo” – to the stark & sudden “rush of two silent shadows”. Perhaps there’ll be a shudder of deja vu in some readers too, each with their own ‘house that will always be yellow’.
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Hi Honestly,
Thank you for your comments! I’m glad those details connected with you. That is music to my ears!
Christopher
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Harrowing and shocking, but as a piece of writing so effective and well-handled. The whole nostalgic run up is jaunty and fun, and so when the event comes it’s a real shock to the reader. The consequence of how this continues to impact decades later is heartbreaking, but has something that depicts some kind of survival, some kind of remote hope.
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Hi Paul,
Thank you for your comments! I’m glad you liked the story! Hearing these words is an inspiration to keep on keeping on at the writing game.
Christopher
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Hi Christopher,
Well this was quite the ride!!
I normally don’t like description but in your opening paragraphs, you enhanced and enticed us to where this was going brilliantly.
You gave us a few cracking lines within this: ‘Because he was the town drunk and they are not’ This was added to by the brilliant follow up!!!
The therapist and a pay toilet is probably a comparison that is too close to call out!!!
Such a simple line is ‘Chatting about everything and nothing’ says it all.
You have a way with words and most importantly – THE UNSAID!!!!! So many folks haven’t the confidence or skill to hold back and leave it to the reader, you have that confidence and that skill my fine friend!!!
Excellent.
Hugh
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Hi Hugh,
Thanks so much for your comments! This is high praise and I’m truly honored. I’m really glad I sent this story to LS.
Christopher
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Christopher
Your last post to me was so well written it gave me a chill. Or as Emily Dickinson said, took the top of my head off. She had her most prolific period during the Civil War.
Hemingway always said, in his writings, by the way he lived, and in his Nobel Prize speech, that there can be nothing more important than writing well, and truly, if you’re a writer at heart. This is now more true than it was yesterday, even. And reading good stories, essays, poems, books, is also more important than ever, because it leads to independent thinking, and an increase in one’s imagination, perceptions, intuitions, and ability to empathize (scientific studies have proved this many times) among other benefits, like creative enhancement. Everybody needs to start with themselves instead of pointing out the obvious foibles and flaws of everyone else all the time.
So Keep on rockin’, OR READING, in the free world, as Neil Young says! Or as Churchill said, “This is only the beginning.” You said you admire Honest Abe Lincoln. I was thinking about his iron, unshakeable resolve (and it was definitely his intention to end slavery as much as he could as a single individual while facing an entire, large, wealthy society’s opposition) (so unconcerned for his own personal safety that he wandered around D.C. without guard during the Civil War, and refusing guard is even what led to his end), and the fact that democratic humanitarian Stephen King has already had things to say on this, too.
Stay tuned for my short story “The Ghost of Van Gogh” this coming Tuesday (and my essay on Kafka in December) both of them good to read in an existential crisis that is only another challenge, although a big one! Keep writing back when you get a chance, interested to hear your thoughts.
Dale
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Dale
Thank you that’s high praise! So many great authors to read. Yes good points about reading. I think intelligence can take you only so far. Once a person learns to read they have the golden ticket. If they choose to use it. Steve K. mentioned honing the intellect by reading. and the writers edge as well–maybe good writing doesn’t happen without it. I like E. Hemingway. I think you mentioned “The Indian Camp” the other day and that’s quite good. I’ve tried to write like him before in the minimalist style. He certainly a magic maker with his short sentences. I need to study up on Emily Dickinson I’ll bet her civil war work is amazing. Ray Bradbury said to read poetry everyday if you were going to be a writer. Lincoln was incredibly brave. I read where they had to pull him off of the ramparts when the Confederate army tested Washington DC. Can you imagine the President of the United States picking up a rifle and fighting with the common soldier! Like Alexander T. G. leading from the front. Yes Lincoln hated slavery from when he was a kid. Seeing the black folks on the boats–sold down the river. His father share cropped Lincoln out so I think he felt like a slave. I don’t think he liked Daddy-o. Yes I’m looking forward to both your story and essay. I read Kafka over and over. I just finished “A Hunger Artist” again. I think his sisters perished in concentration camps–very sad–anything can happen…
Christopher
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It is interesting how the narrator seems to have a bit of feeling superiority toward, Stu but at the end teeters on the edge of becoming something much worse.
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Hi Tim,
Thanks for your comments! Yes that’s’ a good point–the narrator is somewhat twisted after what happened.
Christopher
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Christopher
It’s pretty wild that you mentioned Kafka’s sisters and how they died, because few people know (or care) about that, and I talk about it near the end of my upcoming essay on Kafka! (Also about Freud’s sisters, who died the same way…)
My short story that’s coming up on Tuesday is set in the same part of Michigan where Hemingway set “Indian Camp,” and his other Nick Adams stories. I also live pretty close to his boyhood home, and walk my dogs over there pretty frequently. I’m a big fan!
Lincoln’s bravery was beyond compare. The weight of what he carried on his shoulders, and still kept going, is amazing. Especially with one who suffered so badly from depression (or “melancholia” as they called it) like he did.
Emily Dickinson is great. I love what she does with brevity and compression. All her poems are extremely short, but they say so much in such a small space that you can’t even tell what the hell she’s saying until you’ve read it at least ten times. Then it begins to sink in, and as it sinks in, it’s like a sun rising too, and you can’t believe you never thought of that before, yourself, and you know she’s right about everything…never a false move, an unoriginal thought, or an unoriginal word usage even (at least in her best poems). And she did it all while embracing a solitude so complete only Thoreau and Kafka can compare on that level. She kept herself away from the world so she could write about it better. As brave as Old Honest Abe on every level, since she too suffered from depression! She was a complete recluse and he was/is the most famous American (except for Elvis and Marilyn) and yet they have far more in common than not, including a writing style based on brevity, compression, and original thought…
Dale
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Dale
Yes terrible days. The concentration of people never seems to end well especially in those Orwellian totalitarian states. While the Herman Goring types goes on a murderous shopping spree. Wow, that’s cool about walking your dogs by E.Hem’s boyhood home. As a writer that must be a reverent experience. Those stories about Nick Adams are great! I like E’s strange story “Hills Like White Elephants.” I’ve only read one of his Novels, “For Whom The Bell Tolls.” Who and Whom… always like Algebra II to me, lol, but I remember his description of a woman with “cool warm skin” and it took me there with the full power of literature. “Writing is magic” as Steve said in his book and I have to agree. And that kind of worries me about the ideas of talent as the innate substance people are born with–according to him. If talent is sprinkled like fairy dust what if its not there or can it be created through endless writing? Probably one of those unsolvable debates best left to the philosophers, lol. Or to be revealed in the next life, along with the shooters on the grassy knoll. Melancholia sounds more poetic maybe they should have stuck with that. Depression sounds like a jail cell “20.000 Leagues Under the Sea.” Back on Abe, Mary Todd gave Abe a lot of grief too being a spendthrift and her insanity, then over 600,000 thousand soldiers killed on his watch. Maybe the only worthwhile war there has ever been? I’m sure that I have missed out a great deal by not reading Emily Dickinson. I have read some of the era but mostly fiction. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne and of course Poe, being introduced to him in grade school. I like to read the criticisms of the greats on each other. Like a good ole throw down. Poe criticized and praised Hawthorne. I read a criticism of Poe by T.S. Elliot that I found offensive. Like someone knocking your favorite rock band. Nowadays it’s Stephen King climbing all over James Patterson. I rather like James Patterson, but maybe Steve knows best? Lol. By the way, that is a fantastic break down of Emily Dickinson. Almost a study guide to interpret her work. I didn’t know Emily D. was a recluse which seems fitting and sad. Her picture reminds me a little of Virginia Wolf, perhaps in the grainy black and white of it, but Emily is better looking. This must be a stream of consciousness jumping around like this, but It makes me wonder if Abe being the tremendous reader didn’t borrow some of her style or maybe he influenced her or both? Are you feeling anticipation on your short story on Tuesday? I know when ever i’m lucky enough to get something published it rather consumes me, then i’ll be checking the comments about a thousand times in some stalkerish way that makes wonder if the powers that be see all the hits from my IP and say this unusual.
Christopher
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Christopher
If you haven’t already done so, some time you should check out some of the stuff Herman Melville wrote about Hawthorne’s work, especially the essay “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” but also other things he said in letters. Melville’s essay/s on Hawthorne are some of the most interesting, best-written things by one American writer on another that exist in the canon. His essays on this topic are not just literature essays on Hawthorne, but more like a description of a world-view and a way of being through literature and art.
Yes, I know what you mean about obsessively checking one’s own writing and then getting paranoid about it! But I just can’t seem to help myself. And it’s probably part of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that goes hand in hand with the bipolar disorder. The writer who I read most these days is myself, both unpublished and published items, 99% currently unpublished (200 poems, a dozen or so stories, a dozen or so essays so far, plus LS comments, etc.) although that only started being true about eleven years ago (I’m 57 now). Until I was 46 or so, I read more than I wrote.
You have a writing mind that can make the connections, or the correspondences, as Baudelaire and Wallace Stevens called it. Being able to see the connections this way, like where you compared the pictures of Emily D. and Virginia W., is the NUMBER ONE WAY to understand whether a writer has talent, OR NOT. Many folks don’t understand this importance of the ability to make, or SEE, the connections (the next step is expressing them in some kind of original way, far easier said than done). The connection-seeing extends to nature itself, like being able to see how a Siberian Husky resembles a lion when it stretches its paws, or how a cloud resembles a lake, or how a king resembles a pauper. Picasso’s work is nothing more than one vast, endless series of connections, one after the other over many decades and many thousands of works.
I used to spend HOURS and HOURS, across years, doing nothing but looking at, and comparing, side by side, the various photographs and pictures of Feodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. You can learn a lot about writing by studying and comparing the pictures of those two, even if you never pick up one of their written works. Also the pictures of Walt Whitman, the most photographed American of the 19th century after Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. (Whitman made sure he got photographed a lot, even though he wasn’t famous at the time, unlike the other two.) Comparing the pictures of Whitman, Lincoln, and Douglass can be an amazing lesson…best done over and over, here and there, when the mind is ON…spontaneously.
On the other hand, there’s only that ONE photograph of Emily (like there are only two photographs of Robert Johnson, both of which he took of himself). I’ve studied her picture for hours (like I’ve studied Johnson’s). Their expressions are amazing…
Hopefully America won’t plunge itself into darkness TOO FAR. But everything ends, even the idea of America (and I feel like that is what’s just happened). The world itself continues!
Dale
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Dale
I looked up the Melville Essay on Hawthorne but haven’t started it. I read one of Melville’s short stories “The Lightning Rod Man” that was great! It reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s opening in “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” On your final thoughts, I’ll pass it over to Don McLean, “Bye-bye, Miss American Pie.”
Christopher
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Christopher,
This story is great and terrifying on a first reading, but to truly be understood and “gotten” at the level it really deserves, it needs to be returned to later and read again, preferably more than once: many times, in fact.
This is one of the scariest horror stories I know of, a huge reason being that the villains, evil ones, or bad guys are not symbolic zombies or imaginary aliens from outer space or freaky monsters who bite your arm off like Pennywise (and he is truly creepy), but real live human beings. This story is absolutely fearless in the way it depicts nothing short of the horrifying end of innocence for two American kids. It resonates deeply on a personal level probably with more American boys and men than would be comfortable admitting it; and at the same time, it uses the technique of ancient Greek tragedy, leaving the actual horrors of it out of sight and off stage. There’s something about this delicate technique of fearlessness combined with removal that rings major bells for the sensitive reader attuned to the more subtle aspects of story-telling. At the same time, the story does come through strongly even for the casual reader!
Norman Rockwell painted slices of Americana that charmed Americans because they were so sweet and idealistic-looking it made everyone feel good about themselves and they could give themselves a pat on the back while thinking this really isn’t so bad. This story paints a slice of Americana that “tells the truth” about many things in America that are buried under the surface. One is cheese-factory fluff, puff stuff, the other is hard-hitting realism told in an almost mythical way, and yet through ordinary, everyday details, too. I’ll take the latter any day!
The two panels, or two parts of the story, are also extremely effective, and easy to miss how masterful on a first reading. The narrator has a general humanity to him that’s maximally life-affirming despite how scary (and real, and true to life) this story also is.
When the narrator draws a parallel between what stole their innocence then, and global warming now, in such a subtle manner, it becomes a very profound story-telling moment that can also be missed by the casual reader because of the masterful use of understatement, one of the most important, and hardest to truly master, literary techniques there is!!!!!
So congrads again, this tale is a great literary creation. I’ll say more about it in the future. I know Hemingway, another Midwesterner (like Bob Dylan, who is a Hemingway after Hemingway), would absolutely admire this story, as would, FOR SURE, Charles Bukowski, otherwise known as Henry Chinaski, aka BUK. I’m proud to know there’s a writer like you in my beloved (and hated at the same time, even if I can’t help it) Midwest!
Dale
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Dale
Wow! That is a great breakdown of my story! You have such a technical way of examining the elements that make a story. This is very good to hear, because sometimes writing a story, even finished with it, these elements may stay partially hidden in the writer’s subconscious. It’s the clear eye of the reader that clarifies for good or worse. But your examinations are powerful and professional, so I’m really grateful, a guy like yourself thinks well of my writing.
In this story I left out the Taboo and gory details. I think I would write about anything, but it would have to be in an oblique fashion. And if i’m lucky enough to stumble into Hemingway’s “Iceberg Theory,” or the unsaid, I’ll take that any day.
I really liked the sort of quaint picture that LS picked of the RC Cola kid. That Norman Rockwell view of society that you spoke of, but there might be something cynical in the kid’s smile. Or maybe that’s just hindsight? I think it’s really neat how they take the time to add these pictures to the stories. They make sense and are picked with care.
I have to agree with you those days of small town innocence (if there has ever been such a thing ) have slipped out of fashion especially in the arts. Maybe Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” said it all, and that’s why it angered so many people when it first appeared in “The New Yorker.”
Thanks again Dale!
Christopher
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