Thoughts From a Hermit from JohnPendolton on Vimeo.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Good Hurt
This story is by a good friend of mine, Andrew Swerlick. He started writing it sophomore year in our intermediate fiction class, but it's changed a lot since then.
You're cold, bitterly cold. You didn't think before you left. This weather needs gloves and a hat, long pants, maybe even a ski mask. The high today was 35, and now its nearly midnight, dark and bitterly cold. There's a slight wind, the kind that doesn't bite and scream, but the kind that holds the cold up against you like the hands of someone too long outside. The wind muffles everything but the slip slap of your feet on the pavement. You try to concentrate on your breathing. In. . . Out. . . . Mouth wide on the in, narrow to an O on the out. An O like a kiss you remember your old coach once said. . . No.... Don't think about kissing. Don't think about her and about them and about the way she closed her eyes as he kissed her neck, and ran his fingers over her shoulders and across her bare back. Don't think about how you bent down and picked up a rock, how the rock felt cold and hard and dry in your hands and how you let it fly without even thinking and how it smashed up against the window and how it rang out before the glass shards came crashing down. How her eyes snapped open and went from fear to the shock of recognition, to sadness and a sort of animal panic as she pushed him away and stood there in only her bra and underwear, staring at you, you staring back, but only for an instant, because that's all you could stand before you turned and ran back to your car, the wind muffling everything but the slip slap of your feet on the pavement.
Push that away and concentrate on your breathing. Control it like you couldn't then because you were nearly cursing, nearly shouting, nearly crying. In and out. Steady and calm. Concentrate on your form, straighten up your back, straighten out your fingers and find the rhythm. Slip slap. In and out. When the anger surfaces again push it down into the pavement. Run faster, leaving a little bit behind every time you slam down onto the sidewalk. Slip slap, slip slap, slip slap. The wind muffles everything, the cold numbs you.
You think about the message that was on your machine when you got home. How you played it while you pulled on your shorts, put on your running shoes, and pulled over your dry fit shirt.
"Oh god, oh god, I'm so sorry. Please call me I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this--Oh God."
You didn't call her. Instead you went out to seek refuge in the slip slap, in the bitter cold, in the wind that muffles everything, in the good hurt that leaves it all behind on the pavement. Will you call her? What will she say? . . . Hello? . . . I should have told you? . . . It was a mistake, I'm sorry? . . . I don't love you anymore? . . . I still love you? What will you say? Nothing? Everything? Will you cry, will you hang up, will you ask why, does it matter why? What can she say?
A horn blares and you stop. You realize you nearly ran a light. You step back onto the curb. A few cars stream past. You wait for the change, concentrating on your breathing. In . . . Out. . . You look around, and you realize where you are--realize that two streets up, on the same side of the road, is the turn off to her neighborhood. You nearly turn back, you nearly go home, but it's at least five miles back that way, and if you cut through, through the backstreets, past her house, and out again onto the main road, it's only two. You concentrate on your breathing and realize how labored it is, how cold you are and how the wind is picking up. These are your roads, and you've run this route a thousand times. The light changes and you dash across the street, finding rhythm again, tightening your form, concentrating on your breath.
You turn down her street. You pass her house and you glance to the side before you accelerate. It's two miles to home and you're sprinting, but you'll hold this pace even if it means breaking your heart. The hurt comes, the good hurt, the lactic acid that makes your legs scream to give in, but you don't. The wall comes and you push through it and you shatter it again and again and again. Every time the pain peaks, every time it crescendos, every time you are sure that you can't go on, you accelerate and the slip slap goes faster and the pain goes away for long enough before it comes back. You're spiraling down. You can't hold forever, but it's only half a mile now and you can hold for half a mile. You can hold for a quarter of a mile. And for a hundred yards. And for the last ten steps to your doorway.
You burst in through the door, doubled over and breathing hard. The phone is ringing, and just as you realize it, the answering machine kicks in. It's her. And you're standing there. Standing there with her voice playing, her voice begging "please, please, call me back, dear God, I'm sorry, God I love you, I'm sorry." You're not cold anymore. The house is hot and smothering. You're sweating, breathing hard, you're wheezing. Your legs and the backs of your eyes and your chest they all hurt, they hurt bad. You are paying now. This is the cost, but it is worth it, and you will not call her back. You will bend down and unplug the phone. You will stand back up and you will turn off the light. You will find that spot where it hurts so good, and you'll ride it for as long as you can.
You're cold, bitterly cold. You didn't think before you left. This weather needs gloves and a hat, long pants, maybe even a ski mask. The high today was 35, and now its nearly midnight, dark and bitterly cold. There's a slight wind, the kind that doesn't bite and scream, but the kind that holds the cold up against you like the hands of someone too long outside. The wind muffles everything but the slip slap of your feet on the pavement. You try to concentrate on your breathing. In. . . Out. . . . Mouth wide on the in, narrow to an O on the out. An O like a kiss you remember your old coach once said. . . No.... Don't think about kissing. Don't think about her and about them and about the way she closed her eyes as he kissed her neck, and ran his fingers over her shoulders and across her bare back. Don't think about how you bent down and picked up a rock, how the rock felt cold and hard and dry in your hands and how you let it fly without even thinking and how it smashed up against the window and how it rang out before the glass shards came crashing down. How her eyes snapped open and went from fear to the shock of recognition, to sadness and a sort of animal panic as she pushed him away and stood there in only her bra and underwear, staring at you, you staring back, but only for an instant, because that's all you could stand before you turned and ran back to your car, the wind muffling everything but the slip slap of your feet on the pavement.
Push that away and concentrate on your breathing. Control it like you couldn't then because you were nearly cursing, nearly shouting, nearly crying. In and out. Steady and calm. Concentrate on your form, straighten up your back, straighten out your fingers and find the rhythm. Slip slap. In and out. When the anger surfaces again push it down into the pavement. Run faster, leaving a little bit behind every time you slam down onto the sidewalk. Slip slap, slip slap, slip slap. The wind muffles everything, the cold numbs you.
You think about the message that was on your machine when you got home. How you played it while you pulled on your shorts, put on your running shoes, and pulled over your dry fit shirt.
"Oh god, oh god, I'm so sorry. Please call me I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this--Oh God."
You didn't call her. Instead you went out to seek refuge in the slip slap, in the bitter cold, in the wind that muffles everything, in the good hurt that leaves it all behind on the pavement. Will you call her? What will she say? . . . Hello? . . . I should have told you? . . . It was a mistake, I'm sorry? . . . I don't love you anymore? . . . I still love you? What will you say? Nothing? Everything? Will you cry, will you hang up, will you ask why, does it matter why? What can she say?
A horn blares and you stop. You realize you nearly ran a light. You step back onto the curb. A few cars stream past. You wait for the change, concentrating on your breathing. In . . . Out. . . You look around, and you realize where you are--realize that two streets up, on the same side of the road, is the turn off to her neighborhood. You nearly turn back, you nearly go home, but it's at least five miles back that way, and if you cut through, through the backstreets, past her house, and out again onto the main road, it's only two. You concentrate on your breathing and realize how labored it is, how cold you are and how the wind is picking up. These are your roads, and you've run this route a thousand times. The light changes and you dash across the street, finding rhythm again, tightening your form, concentrating on your breath.
You turn down her street. You pass her house and you glance to the side before you accelerate. It's two miles to home and you're sprinting, but you'll hold this pace even if it means breaking your heart. The hurt comes, the good hurt, the lactic acid that makes your legs scream to give in, but you don't. The wall comes and you push through it and you shatter it again and again and again. Every time the pain peaks, every time it crescendos, every time you are sure that you can't go on, you accelerate and the slip slap goes faster and the pain goes away for long enough before it comes back. You're spiraling down. You can't hold forever, but it's only half a mile now and you can hold for half a mile. You can hold for a quarter of a mile. And for a hundred yards. And for the last ten steps to your doorway.
You burst in through the door, doubled over and breathing hard. The phone is ringing, and just as you realize it, the answering machine kicks in. It's her. And you're standing there. Standing there with her voice playing, her voice begging "please, please, call me back, dear God, I'm sorry, God I love you, I'm sorry." You're not cold anymore. The house is hot and smothering. You're sweating, breathing hard, you're wheezing. Your legs and the backs of your eyes and your chest they all hurt, they hurt bad. You are paying now. This is the cost, but it is worth it, and you will not call her back. You will bend down and unplug the phone. You will stand back up and you will turn off the light. You will find that spot where it hurts so good, and you'll ride it for as long as you can.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Kelly Law
This is a character portrait I wrote sometime last year.
Kelly Law’s parents grew up in West Texas on cattle ranches and dreamed of moving north and settling among the Boston Brahmins. They made it as far as southern Virginia, bore one child, and named him Kelly. Back in West Texas he would have been stoned for that kind of name, but in Lexington it garnered dignity, and everyone assumed an eponymous blue-blooded relative, perhaps even a martyr in the Civil War.
He was handsome at the age of twenty, popular with men and more so with women. But tonight he’d had too much to drink, and nobody could get him to shut up about Cornell.
“This kind of thing would never happen at Cornell,” he said, pacing the hall and holding an unlit cigarette between two fingers like a gentleman. His dress shoes went tap tap against the hardwood floor. “The university,” he emphasized, stopping to steady himself with his hand against the doorknob of the coat closet, “would shut down if the bars closed.” Kelly lit the cigarette in one motion, took a drag from it and continued. “How is a man supposed to enjoy his night when there’s not a dram of liquor to be bought in the county?” He shook his head, brought the cigarette to his lips and let it dangle there. “I tell you, men, the fellows at Cornell know better than that.”
“I know, Law,” Sebastian sighed, “you told us already. Have a seat, alright? You’re making me nervous. My parents are asleep upstairs. And you’re really not supposed to smoke in here. Cigarettes, anyway. If you’d like to have one of my father’s cigars in the library that’s a different story.”
Kelly Law liked to be in an armchair when he smoked a cigarette, leaning back and crossing his legs at the knee. He’d point his chin to the sky and a thick gray rope of smoke would twist from between his lips into the warm light of the house. Kelly Law liked to talk euphemistically about his sexual exploits, and to him they were always women, never girls.
He boasted about things great and small, and somewhere along the spectrum was marked his keen sense of smell.
“I can always tell,” Kelly began, sticking his forefingers against Graham’s chest. Ash fell from his lit cigarette onto the tip of Graham’s shoe. Graham shook it off and stepped back from Kelly, plucking his hands into his pockets and drawing back his shoulders with a sigh. Sebastian eyed the little pile of ash scattered on the hall floor as Kelly swayed drunkenly.
“For Christ’s sake,” Sebastian cried, snatching the ashtray from the top of the secretary. “I told you, Law, if you’re going to smoke in here you have to watch the ash.” He thrust the brass ashtray into Kelly’s side. Kelly smiled at him sideways, took the ashtray, and tipped the end of his cigarette against it with a raise of the eyebrow. Then he lifted his palm and looked around the room, eyeing them one after another, the three other men and two women. “I can always tell,” he repeated, “if she’s wearing the same perfume as another woman I’ve been with.” He raised his eyebrows once more and took a drag from the cigarette. “Smell has a profound psychological effect on me. I could be a police dog, if I’d only screwed the drug possessors beforehand.”
“But haven’t you?” quipped Will.
“You’re repulsive,” Charlotte smiled.
Kelly stumbled over to Charlotte, his heels tapping against the wood floor, where she leaned smugly against a bookcase. He slipped one hand into his pocket and planted the other against the wall by Charlotte’s head. His hair fell over his eyes as he slurred, “You sure about that?”
Everyone in the room rolled their eyes, including Charlotte, who nonetheless continued to smile.
Kelly put the cigarette out against the moulding that lined the wall. Sebastian snatched up the ashtray from where Kelly had left it and clacked loudly across the room. “Law, what did I tell you,” he said, thrusting the ashtray once more against Kelly’s side.
Kelly took the ashtray and threw it across the room. It smacked against the wooden secretary and clanged loudly once, then several more times as it clattered to the floor.
“Oh my–” Sebastian gripped his skull.
“What’s your problem, Law?” Will aggressively loosened his tie and planted one hand on his belt.
“You’re going to wake his parents,” sighed Graham.
Audrey and Charlotte raised their eyebrows at one another.
Kelly laughed, bending over his swaying legs. He ran across the room, the slick soles of his shoes slipping against the marble, but when Will realized he was going for the ashtray he grabbed Kelly at the waist and yanked him back. Kelly’s feet slipped out from beneath him, but, struggling, he regained minimal balance and achieved a kick in the direction of the ashtray so that it clattered pathetically across the floor.
“That’s it!” seethed Sebastian. “Everybody out of here!”
Kelly Law’s parents grew up in West Texas on cattle ranches and dreamed of moving north and settling among the Boston Brahmins. They made it as far as southern Virginia, bore one child, and named him Kelly. Back in West Texas he would have been stoned for that kind of name, but in Lexington it garnered dignity, and everyone assumed an eponymous blue-blooded relative, perhaps even a martyr in the Civil War.
He was handsome at the age of twenty, popular with men and more so with women. But tonight he’d had too much to drink, and nobody could get him to shut up about Cornell.
“This kind of thing would never happen at Cornell,” he said, pacing the hall and holding an unlit cigarette between two fingers like a gentleman. His dress shoes went tap tap against the hardwood floor. “The university,” he emphasized, stopping to steady himself with his hand against the doorknob of the coat closet, “would shut down if the bars closed.” Kelly lit the cigarette in one motion, took a drag from it and continued. “How is a man supposed to enjoy his night when there’s not a dram of liquor to be bought in the county?” He shook his head, brought the cigarette to his lips and let it dangle there. “I tell you, men, the fellows at Cornell know better than that.”
“I know, Law,” Sebastian sighed, “you told us already. Have a seat, alright? You’re making me nervous. My parents are asleep upstairs. And you’re really not supposed to smoke in here. Cigarettes, anyway. If you’d like to have one of my father’s cigars in the library that’s a different story.”
Kelly Law liked to be in an armchair when he smoked a cigarette, leaning back and crossing his legs at the knee. He’d point his chin to the sky and a thick gray rope of smoke would twist from between his lips into the warm light of the house. Kelly Law liked to talk euphemistically about his sexual exploits, and to him they were always women, never girls.
He boasted about things great and small, and somewhere along the spectrum was marked his keen sense of smell.
“I can always tell,” Kelly began, sticking his forefingers against Graham’s chest. Ash fell from his lit cigarette onto the tip of Graham’s shoe. Graham shook it off and stepped back from Kelly, plucking his hands into his pockets and drawing back his shoulders with a sigh. Sebastian eyed the little pile of ash scattered on the hall floor as Kelly swayed drunkenly.
“For Christ’s sake,” Sebastian cried, snatching the ashtray from the top of the secretary. “I told you, Law, if you’re going to smoke in here you have to watch the ash.” He thrust the brass ashtray into Kelly’s side. Kelly smiled at him sideways, took the ashtray, and tipped the end of his cigarette against it with a raise of the eyebrow. Then he lifted his palm and looked around the room, eyeing them one after another, the three other men and two women. “I can always tell,” he repeated, “if she’s wearing the same perfume as another woman I’ve been with.” He raised his eyebrows once more and took a drag from the cigarette. “Smell has a profound psychological effect on me. I could be a police dog, if I’d only screwed the drug possessors beforehand.”
“But haven’t you?” quipped Will.
“You’re repulsive,” Charlotte smiled.
Kelly stumbled over to Charlotte, his heels tapping against the wood floor, where she leaned smugly against a bookcase. He slipped one hand into his pocket and planted the other against the wall by Charlotte’s head. His hair fell over his eyes as he slurred, “You sure about that?”
Everyone in the room rolled their eyes, including Charlotte, who nonetheless continued to smile.
Kelly put the cigarette out against the moulding that lined the wall. Sebastian snatched up the ashtray from where Kelly had left it and clacked loudly across the room. “Law, what did I tell you,” he said, thrusting the ashtray once more against Kelly’s side.
Kelly took the ashtray and threw it across the room. It smacked against the wooden secretary and clanged loudly once, then several more times as it clattered to the floor.
“Oh my–” Sebastian gripped his skull.
“What’s your problem, Law?” Will aggressively loosened his tie and planted one hand on his belt.
“You’re going to wake his parents,” sighed Graham.
Audrey and Charlotte raised their eyebrows at one another.
Kelly laughed, bending over his swaying legs. He ran across the room, the slick soles of his shoes slipping against the marble, but when Will realized he was going for the ashtray he grabbed Kelly at the waist and yanked him back. Kelly’s feet slipped out from beneath him, but, struggling, he regained minimal balance and achieved a kick in the direction of the ashtray so that it clattered pathetically across the floor.
“That’s it!” seethed Sebastian. “Everybody out of here!”
Which Volcano Are You Going To? is in beta mode.
I created this blog to be a communal creative outlet, a literary mag without the submission guidelines, postage and wasted paper. Nothing here is perfect; much of it is unfinished. No piece need be more or less than 25 lines, 1,500 words, what have you. The only qualification is that each item be authentic, honest, creative, and nuanced. In other words, no bullshit.
If you're interested, email acree.graham@gmail.com.
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