9) That’s if they had come home with him one time on the bus. Perhaps it was when the boy stayed out on a winter night, working on the yearbook at school, knowing that if you take the pictures no one looks at you.
10) That time his father didn’t snore in his chair while the hockey game played. He sat on the couch beside the woman from work. She was powdered and fresh and he had just parted his hair. They drank rye and Coke from plastic glasses.
11) The boy can’t imagine this. Did he hear laughter the next morning from the kitchen? Is that how his mother sounded? This woman was likely too thoughtless to be like his mother. His mother’s laugh must have been the kind that could never be mistaken for mocking.
12) The kind of laughter that one hides behind walls shouldn’t be so spring-like. It shouldn’t bounce up out of the still morning, as his mother’s might have. Not if it’s going to be loud and wake him up. He trusts himself when he’s sleeping — if he was startled, then it’s because something was startling.
13) He can’t remember if he was startled or if he woke slowly, smiling, and then was startled when the dream wasn’t true.
14) Then there is no factory. The bus route changes and the boy’s father doesn’t take the bus. On the days when he leaves the house, he walks. He’s got all the time in the world. He leaves early and walks downtown. It takes almost an hour.
15) In this hour, once a week, he may meet anyone at all. Maybe one of the ladies from work lives along his way. She sees him coming and times perfectly her entrance through her front gate onto the public sidewalk. Hello, she says. Hello, Miss, he says, and they both smile. They speak quite nicely to each other. You are beautiful, his father even says, and she can tell by the light in his eyes that he means it.
16) The unemployment office is hard on blossoming romances and a couple of things can happen. Maybe one of them gets another job. There is no need for the long walks. They decide they will meet anyway, in the evenings or on the weekends, but the first time is too awkward. Nobody is asking for a handout, but one wants to talk about work and one wants to talk about hoping to work.
17) I will make you dinner, the woman says, but she knows the man will not walk all that way for a handout. It’s not a handout, because she wants to whisper to the man when they’re alone, and she would prefer to go to his house and eat there. She could meet the boy. They could see how it goes. But it never goes further, and the boy and the woman don’t meet. This is probably a mistake.
18) What’s more likely, because his father could get a job if the woman could — his father knows almost everything there is to know, you should see his books, you should hear the answers he tells the TV — what’s more likely is the woman did not want to keep walking. It came to be winter and the bus went right by them. Let’s take it, she’d say. But the boy’s father is far-sighted. He knows what money is worth when there is none. He knows it’s worth less when there is some. He knows nothing lasts, and anything can happen (look at the factory and how it is gone when all the people still buy the things that the factory made, and he reads in the paper how much money they make), so as long as his legs last he will use them.
19) She used to look sadly at the man in the street as she whisked by on the bus. She couldn’t speak to him at the Unemployment Office because she felt sorry for him — a man like that must drink his money away, or at least he’d be able to afford the bus. She decides it is best for everyone.
20) Or maybe the woman said her name was Linda, the first time she came out onto the sidewalk. His father is a decent man. He tried to be friendly. I can’t be in love with two Lindas, he thought. Linda was the boy’s mother. Next thing you know she’ll be in the kitchen, trying to make soup. Next thing you know she’ll be in the boy’s room. She won’t have red hair and she’ll be looking over his shoulder saying what’s this you’re typing? Why aren’t I in the story? Why don’t you come with us out into the sunshine?
21) The boy’s father wouldn’t let the fake Linda make the boy do anything he didn’t want to. Whoever named you was mistaken, he would type, as this confused woman looked over his shoulder, you’re not Linda at all.
Whose Origin Escaped Him
PETE WALKED INTO THE KITCHEN AND, without turning on the light, opened the cupboard and pulled out a coffee mug.1He put the white mug on the counter; one side was slightly pink in the light of the red digital clock at the gurgling coffee maker’s base.2 Out of habit, he looked out the kitchen window as he walked to the fridge for the cream.3 Once at the fridge, he opened its door and stared inside, forgetting what he was there for.4 He stared at the cream, then took it out, pushing the top edges backwards, which accordioned the ragged wet mouth of the carton open in a tired diamond, then he poured himself a little cream, returned the carton to the fridge and closed the fridge door.5 He took his coffee out of the kitchen, through a short hallway, and into another room.6
Turning on his computer, Pete stared at the screen, waiting for it to go through its startup routine.7 He picked up a scrap of paper and read the writing on it; this quotation he had been searching for, he could not get it out of his head, but what was the origin?8 He needed the information and would google it again, for the one-hundredth time.9
The phone rang and Pete picked it up and listened for a minute.
“I know that,” he said.
While he continued to listen, the computer finished its startup routine and he thought he might change his desktop.10
“I know,” he said, and hung up the phone.
He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, then turned the picture on the left side of his desk face down.11 He stood the picture back up and looked at it.12 He moved it as far as he could to the left side of his desk, then turned it to face the door of his little office.13
He stretched his back, pushing his arms up and away from his body, slowly opening his fists and spreading his fingers as far as they would spread.14 Then he shuddered almost imperceptibly and smiled.15 With his body loose he took a sip of his coffee and stared at his desktop.16 After returning his cup to his desk, he let his hand rest on the phone.17 Breathing deeply, he picked the receiver up and hit a speed dial button.18
“Hi. Sorry,” he said. After a slight pause he continued: “I can’t find it. I just don’t know where it is.”19
He closed his eyes and listened to the voice on the other end of the line.20
“Well, I can’t. If I don’t know where it is, it can’t be in the book. We need permission.”21
With the thumb and first finger of his left hand he rubbed his eyes through their closed lids as he listened.22
“I need it in the book. It makes sense. But the editor can’t find it either. Even if I find it, it’s probably too late.”
Still listening, he stood up from his chair and, without opening his eyes, lay down on his back on the floor, his closed eyes staring straight up.23
“I guess.”
It was as if he was sleeping, and his left eye leaked; a wet line ran from its corner down his cheek.24 He only felt it when it hit his ear.25
“When I think about it I suppose nothing depends upon it. It’s not an imagist poem.”26
He breathed deeply then opened his eyes.27 From his vantage point on the floor he looked up at the window. He couldn’t remember how much he would see from here, if it wasn’t dark; not much, he thought, because he couldn’t see even one star.28
“The story will survive without it. I know. I don’t know why it seems like such a big deal.”29
“Thanks,” he said finally and turned the phone off. It rang again.
“No,” Pete said. “Take the boy out of the story.” 30
“Mm hmmn.”
“I’m getting another call.”
“The boy stays in the story,” I said. 31 “Look around.”
1 The character Pete is unlikely to die, though stranger things have happened. In an earlier version of this story, Pete did die. In that case I felt an obligation to warn the reader, so he or she would not
feel cheated. If Pete is unlikely to die, perhaps no comment is warranted.
2 Here you expect the time, which is 4:34 am, to be mentioned, though it is not. There is also no need to explain how the coffee is made already, with the lights off, and Pete presumably just waking up.
3 This habit is from summer days, when he can see the trees outside. Maybe the birds are feeding. But he holds onto the habit in the winter because he also gets comfort from seeing his own reflection in the dark window. It is difficult to see, because all the lights are off, but he is practiced at picking his own form out of the dark. He feels, on most days, a kind of familial warmth as this character briefly appears.
4 His forgetfulness is, each time, for a different reason. Suppose on this day the form his reflection took in the window was a clue — it was too youthful or too old. It reminded him of an event in the past, or a worry for the future. Or suppose it had something to do with the present day, something to do with his tasks now, as a person in his kitchen, with a day of work to get to.
5 It’s impossible to let this go without comment. Notice how Pete becomes irrelevant as the narrator tries to be literary? Did she really make this character, name him Pete, give him a house and a partner, simply to describe him opening a box of cream?
Knowing human nature as I do does not help me understand this narrator. I have travelled throughout North America with a listening ear and open eyes. Things I’ve seen have been impossibly difficult and sad. Never mind. I don’t yet know how my own life will turn out.
I thought of having Pete write an elegy. I thought of telling the whole story through his sweaty flight to Edmonton. He wants to keep his ego out of it. He is afraid to fall in love with the sound of his own tears, or their shape, and it hurts him to turn red at a typo while delivering his elegy. He knows the only death especially about him is his own.
6 It will be clear, I hope, that the next room is his office. This room is a mess. There is one table with a computer on it. Beside the table is a filing cabinet and on the opposite wall two short shelves of books. The floor is covered with papers, loosely fitting the form of “stacks.” The impression is that at one time the furnishings had been chosen to give the office a spare, clean feeling — but Pete has been unable to maintain this feeling. This room is a mess, but the mess doesn’t extend to the house beyond. A door may be closed on this room and for Pete and his partner that is enough.
This morning as he sits down and turns his computer on, he has to move a scrap of paper from beside the mouse in order to set his coffee down. On this paper are the words “It’s midnight for the prairie hero.” Beside these words are less readable letters that ask “Where is this line from?” and more letters that say “FIND OUT.”
7 Possibly this is the closest thing to tension that we will find in Pete’s story: what is he turning this on for? Will this be enough? Maybe not. Maybe you are the only one still reading.
8 If I were Pete, I would be as lost as he is. I have put bits of my own life in here to help me relate to him. There are things he says which I have said, and so on.
9 Pete is not omniscient. The narrator could use her own omniscience to spell out the exact number of times he has googled it, but that sort of authorial intrusion quickly detracts from the gritty realism of this slice-of-life narrative. At least it does to me, when I read books like this.
(But, since we are here, it goes like this: he has been searching for this quotation for eight days, with a two-day break in there where he and his partner travelled to Edmonton in order to attend a funeral that was ridiculously unexpected. Pete could have googled it while at the hotel in Edmonton but the emotional toll this sudden death took on all of them would not allow it. In fact, it is only the deadline he faces, here, today, that has him back at it so early. So that means six days (not counting today because it is just beginning and the computer has yet to finish its startup routine). Each of those six days began with a google search and there were between nine and seventeen throughout the day. Every possible way of stringing these words together has been attempted (“It’s midnight for the prairie hero”; It’s-midnight-for-the-prairie-hero; and so on) for a total of seventy-three searches.)
10 His desktop is unlikely to change in the course of this story. It is a grey picture of the sky somewhere. At the top left there is a sentence: “We must love one another or die.” In the middle of the screen, the sentence has been emended: “We must love one another and die.” At the bottom right, there is no sentence. All three are from Auden.
11 In this photo, he and his sister smile beside his aging mother. Thankfully, his mother was gone by the time his sister died.
12 It is impossible to judge. Here, he looks unmoved. He looks as if the people in the photo are unknown to him, but I am sure he is not cold. I know he is moved because of the time this takes. There is a period of at least thirty seconds which is unaccounted for by the narration, and during that time he thinks many things, like he wished he still smoked, like why does this deadline matter, like why it does matter, like did his sister say anything at the end and how did they know to call him?
13 This way anyone can see it when they walk by in the hallway, if they are moving between the bathroom and the kitchen or the living room, say. Also, he does not have to see it today, at least, while he works to the deadline.
14 I cannot separate his actions this morning from my own. He needs some kind of physical release. He needs to be free of his heart and feel something other than grief.
15 I understand this also. A smile is a physiological response, similar to tears, or a sneeze. When I was younger I would have doubted the significance of this. I would not have noticed. As the years pass, I feel more and more like an old man apologizing for stains left behind.
It’s just like here, right now, with Pete. Before his smile is finished he feels guilt, remembering his surprise and his sorrow at his sister’s death. What the smile means is he is glad to be alive, which on some level he takes to mean this absurd universe has made the right decision. He concurs. But before the smile is over he disagrees, and wants again to forget his body and its simple response to each little heartbeat.
16 This is precisely the occasion the Auden lines were meant for, I think. Though Pete is still angry at Auden for leaving the line out in the final version.
17 When I got the news of a loved one’s sudden death via the phone, I wanted to have that phone with me no matter what for the next few days. I kept it on the top of the back of the toilet as I showered. I held it when I was on the street, so that I wouldn’t miss any possible call of retraction. I was afraid the sounds of the street — the various languages, the irrational pings and gongs from the sculptor working down on the beach, the laughter of those odd little men who met each other every morning outside the Bread Garden — would somehow synchronize with the ring tone of my phone, and be unheard. In most cases that synchronicity might be enough to convince me there is order in this world, but in this case I needed, instead, my brother never to have died.
18 He is calling his partner. It’s not that his partner is intended to be male and the ambiguity may make the story more accessible to heterosexuals. It’s also not that his partner is a woman and the ambiguity is meant to show their non-gendered equality. It is just that, right now, it does not matter. Pete wants to press his head to the forehead of the person he loves for the same reason he would lie on the cool unfinished concrete after a long day at work in the sun as a teenager.
19 The quotation he is looking for. “It’s midnight for the prairie hero.”
20 Perhaps Pete’s partner responds more to his unstated grief than to the issue of the quotation.
21 It’s already very late in the process. Pete’s publisher needs permission for the use of the quotation. Pete has just finished a western with Leonard Cohen as his hero. It’s called Listen All You Bullets, and the line “It’s midnight for the prairie hero” is in a book in the story, and functions as a refrain repeated by the little boy in
the last chapter.
22 On the other end of the line, words are repeated. Pete has heard them before, as recently as last night when he was trying his best to fall asleep. The basic message is: but you need it in the book. It’s integral. It is the metafictive lynchpin.
23 It is not the end of the world if that line is not included. It may be a different story, but only slightly. It will be the same story, differently told.
24 He doesn’t bother with certain things anymore, such as wiping his eyes when these odd tears roll out. It’s not a function of his emotional state, but simply a matter of getting old and not worrying about anybody seeing anything. He knows how little attention he really attracts, especially when alone in his house.
25 Normally in this case he may rub his ear, but not now. He is too intent on the words coming from the phone: It won’t, really, change anything. The beauty of these stories is how far they’re removed from that dependence on traditional emotional strategies.
26 He is referring, of course, to the William Carlos Williams poem. We all supply our own meaning here. Something depends upon our tenuous connection to the grand scheme outdoors. We don’t know what it is, but we may die for lack of it.
27 He heard things like I’m sorry and the story and don’t worry; things that vaguely rhymed and all ran together.
28 Pete has never looked in this direction before. He has never been in this position. He is mistaken about the stars — that is no measure at all, since outside it is overcast.
29 Actually, Pete should not worry; the line in question is from one of his own poems. If he went through the stack of old little magazines in the northwest corner of his office, he would find a small mimeographed journal called Hostbox. On page 14 of issue 9, is a poem called “Prairie Realism,” which ends with the line “but it’s night time for the prairie hero” — not quite what he remembered, but close enough.
30 I said he should not worry.
31 The boy is already in the story. His inability to say what you want him to say means nothing.
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