Dock

I got to the dock late, Gil had already started fishing for the eels, slid crushed horseshoe crab over his thick, calloused thumb onto a rusty hook and I wasn’t hungry, who’s fishing for eels, anyway? I see Kern but Massy isn’t there, he’s had domestic troubles, spirits depleted and women lining up his stairs shouting—shouting ‘til truth is told. I can’t see so well, it’s getting dark and the reeds are tall here, willowy reeds that slap your face when you climb down with your rake and cull and dreg the day. Then I think of that convict in Great Expectations and the thick drift of his body in the shallow waters towards shore but these fellows wouldn’t get the reference and I wonder if I could talk about weekend bouts in hell, little deaths in back alleys of bars and stints in small jail and all my days stumbling home, smelling like oysters cause these oysters were the most famous oysters in the world but no more now, that was years before, in our grandfathers’ tuxedo times, oysters on the half shell and consommé broths held up under tight chins but now me and these guys, we had a twelve pack of Molson between us and a bottle of Smirnoff and I wanted to go to the bar because often it pays to lay low and easy and not get into creative talk about misfortune and tricky tides and whose boat is king but they weren’t interested, more interested in the dusk light and air around them and the smell of the salt and eels and I wondered about them really, since when do these guys with their salty palms and silly cigarillos care about light and I thought, maybe they’re done, maybe we can’t hold on to any of this anymore—this one whale town and it’s jiggery, sunken gait and sallow wooden fences, strewn with aged buoys and weak neighbors who walk the oyster shell driveways and brush the tips of beach plums with their soft fingertips—wasn’t like them to miss an opportunity to gab on the broken curb, smoke pouring from gristled lips in front of the bar and we’d know who gutted Stripers that day, what ya got for dinner? What ya got for home? Or how many Quahogs were raked and whose girl had left or abandoned the day, left the mix of salt and sunshine dim, forgettable but heavy in the still tide. Now, there’s Massy coming towards me, thin, ropey calves and shaded jaw, herring for bait in hand but a rash on the forehead, spreading towards his cheeks and Kern is whistling now, making fun of him, rashes from eating old shrimp bait and jabbing me with his elbow, nodding towards the old tackle box we all seem to share. Tonight, I want eels, cooked in butter and shallots with a risotto and I want Roan to swim up on the shore after dusk, in her striped bikini, throw a damp towel down in the watery, rocky sand and throw the conch shells she’s collected on my lap and we’d watch nothing on TV, nothing at all, after all summer is here and should remain, should remain forever, soaked in our skin and damp clothes. Breath deep, this night air—this dark rumored air that I pretend to know but I’m miserable now and can only think of broken men on jetties, poles sagging in elbows, cloudy water over ankles, and my poor cousin sifting the shore for bits of crab and sea glass and sometimes I just want to lie and drift with the ebb and flow of nothing less than this quick night.

Can also be read here at: http://www.fictionaut.com/stories/shelagh-power-chopra/dock

Boyfriends

I found this photo recently online and decided this about summed up every creepy boyfriend my friends, sisters, and I have ever had. It’s a summary in two parts: the guy in the background is the quirky, geeky boyfriend–the one you meet at a pawn shop or Hungarian animation festival, the one you think is intriguing and eccentric, full of dry humor and colorful, quirky thoughts. He wears ugly wool winter hats in drab yellows even in the summer (like the fellow in the photo) and carries random objects around with him like leaky pens, glass vials, spam sandwiches or the 18th century hunting manuals he’s always reading. He likes to state bizarre ideas out loud; use obscures references and has odd facial tics you find amusing.

I had the perfect archetype of such a boyfriend; when we first met he wore white sport socks pulled up to his knees (no, this was not the seventies) and small white tennis shorts. He was thin, not quite junkyesque, but still an annoying thinness, his thighs seemingly barely larger then my forearms. His hair was tousled, loose curls falling everywhere; large brown glasses perched over a rather simple, strong face. One friend later said he was a young Mick Jagger, she was right, his lips were full, sensuous even, his face smooth and verging on handsome but he was the typical nerd, his physicality foreign to him–disposable, a body he threw on every day, carelessly draped over his frame as an afterthought.

The night I met him he brought a crystal garden with him–those glass tanks where miniature colored stalagmite grow–we weren’t sure why but it provided a shrewd forewarning of his character to come–unseen quirks that would spring out from nowhere; creep out like slow weeds burrowing out from cement cracks. The terrible habits: peeing in the kitchen sink or arguing with himself–yes himself, the showers he seldom took, the collection of bugs covered in latex he kept in his basement, the photograph of the seventies star taped to his ceiling over his bed. Later after he left that night, my friend said, You’re going to go out with him, Yeah right, I said, and I did of course, it lasted for a few years, a sporadic strange relationship that had no real definition.

The other guy, the one in the foreground, repels you, leaves you with a drop of bile in the back of your throat but then little by little, he intrigues you–his slippery self comes round your way and slithers in and you stumble blindly towards him like a stupid moth to a flame. He’s a creep, you know it but don’t care. And underneath the layer of oil, swarm and polyester there’s that stiff layer of raw sexiness that exudes its terrible odor. He’s Mathew Mc Conaughey in “Dazed and Confused”, the Linklater film–the older guy who prowls around your high school and dates the younger girls. He’s Eric Roberts, the stalker and eventual killer in “Star ‘80″. He’s a boy my sister dated when she was fourteen; an older slick, redneck boy with long, oily black hair, shiny eyes and curled lips who harassed her on the school bus in the wild confines of the Virginia countryside. The guy who does the peace sign with his fingers, then out comes the tongue and he wiggles it between his two Fingers. This is the guy with the fingernails that are a little too long, with the smile that hints at a surplus of hidden tooth decay, with the perpetual outline of his penis pushing through his pants. He’s your best friend’s brother who hooks his thumbs in his jeans, leans back and stares at you at her dinner table. The guy that whispers perverted, crass things he wants to do to you in your ear when you walk by him in the hall. This is the guy you eventually sleep with, then later wonder why but do it again.

Where are these guys now?

Look, Cindy, I feel really stifled, I need to travel around town a little–meet some other chicks with pigtails.

Jonas wants to see other girls–this deep malaise is swarming over me. Not so keen on hopscotch today.

He’s an asshole–I hate that whole Dutch thing he has going on. Just ditch him.

I feel really good being alone now. It was messy and the mewling was pathetic but it was so worth it.

So, here’s a St. Paddy’s day story challenge up at Fictionaut. It had to include a few choice words such as “Paddy”, “Joyce” , “Ulysses”, “Clover”, “Padding” etc.. Of course you needn’t to have included all the words just to your choosing (said with my terrible Irish accent).

You can read it at Fictionaut or here:

The only reason why Paddy talked to me at all was because I quoted from Ulysses. The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea! I shouted as I shucked oysters for the dinner rush. We worked in the kitchen at The Lobster Claw; I was prep and he was a pearl diver; always hovering about the steel dishwasher, face steaming red and a halo of grime over his head. We’d chop and stir and scrub and spray and drink nips throughout the night—Paddy was another drunk from Dublin, just like the rest of us. Course, I was just a local drunk and he was import.

He bought a Monte Carlo off the fry cook—a sweet ride but it stank of wet dog and bait and after work, we’d drive down to the beach, get piss drunk and fall into the sea like drunken seagulls diving for food. Next morning, we’d check the oyster beds or go quahogging near the shore, dragging rusty rakes through the gray water. The thing about Joyce, he’d say, standing still in the shallow water, is there’s a lot of padding, a ton of beauty but none of the bullshit. Paddy thought all Americans were illiterate and he was right for the most part but I did manage to put down the first chapter of Ulysses the winter before, forced inside by the frozen sea.

On weekends, we’d drive down the main strip in Hyannis and harass the local girls. These girls with their checkered tights and fishermen for fathers—they could spout off random rock songs, singing high, squeaky soulless melodies into the night as Paddy and I poured Guinness down their throats. I ended up with Rita—a pudgy, punk rocker who smoked cloves and worked on the Island Queen and Paddy got Genna because Paddy always got the posh ones—it’s my education, lad, he’d say, I’m a patron of the arts. Genna was from a gated community in a nearby village where the boys held Lacrosse sticks and the girls wore just a hint of lipstick and she was off to Smith that Fall and Paddy always tried to impress her with his lyrical tongue. Oh Paddy, she’d coo, say the Pope put petrol in his paddy wagon. He’d humor her and put on his heaviest lilt and she’d kiss him deliriously.

Then we’d be down at the beach again real late, stripping off our clothes to play statue; running around naked and drunk and someone would yell stop and you’d freeze. Paddy loved this game, except when the cops came and we’d hide under the wall, naked and shivering as they shined their flashlights round the beach. We’d pass out, then wake up in the salty morning air; the girls sleeping nearby on dewy towels. Paddy would stretch out, black hair all awry, the sun hitting his rosy nose and he’d sing to the horizon, …by the sea, by the wonderful sea, you and me.., and he’d dive straight into the calm water, swim so far out I’d lose sight of him.

Still kicking myself for selling the pink eyed rabbit. He was pretty scary. And the strange, large white cat is for sale as well, although I will most likely remove the listing from the shop and keep her (her name is Kathy and her story is here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33081433)

Here are a few I’ve found recently:

The rabbit was kept in a wooden hut behind the house. Her husband had built the hut, taking great care in its construction. It was her daughter’s rabbit and she seldom took notice of it, often forgetting about it entirely until she would hear a brisk scratching from the backyard. This usually meant the rabbit was hungry and if not for the scratching, she’d often forgot to feed it. She’d go out to the hut, throw some pellets in the corner of the hut and leave. Not stopping to pet the rabbit or talk sweetly to the little creature.

When her daughter returned home from school in the afternoon, she’d run to the hut and let the rabbit out and it would run wildly all over the back yard, shitting mercilessly. Sometimes it would slip through the back door, as it was often left open by the daughter, and run around on the rug, chewing wires and getting stuck under radiators. Why don’t you ever let him out, mother? She’d ask. He’s cooped up in that hut all day! She’d apologize and simply tell her daughter that she had forgotten about the rabbit and tomorrow she would be sure to let him out to play.

But day after day, she would forget and her daughter would complain and tell her how mean she was. All you want to do all day is write your books. You don’t care about anything else, you don’t care about Jeffy, he needs exercise and proper food, look how thin he is! Yes, yes, I know, I’m sorry but I have a deadline and Rabbit is sure to understand. Why can’t you call him Jeffy like Daddy does. Oh, is that its name? Yes mother, how can you forget?!

Her daughter gave up on her and simply asked her father to take over. So when her husband returned home for lunch, he’d feed the rabbit and let it out for awhile. You could at least give the rabbit more food, honey, after all he is a living creature. We’re all living creatures. You, me and Sally. Rabbits reproduce too much, a little less of them in the world would make it a much better place. And he ruins my yard with his silly little droppings and disrupts any sort of equilibrium we have around here, she said and continued to type away, trying to finish her novel about suffering and lust in monastic orders.

When her daughter returned home that day she couldn’t find Jeffy. Where did he go mother? she asked, frantically searched for him everywhere. I don’t know, Sally, I need to finish this and she turned away from her and typed frantically, an oily patch of sweat forming above her brow. Sally and her father searched the neighborhood all evening but still couldn’t find Jeffy. When they returned, her mother was gone and there instead sat Jeffy, in her chair before the typewriter, licking his little white paws. The paper in the typewriter read, “Rabbit left hut.”

Can we start a rebirth of Victorian Utopian societies like they had in the late 1800s? Full of elegant, malaria-ridden ex-pats who love seances and use the latest exercise devices made out of that new glorious product, “rubber”!

Maybe in the Everglades, where we could hold meetings at the “Rock Bottom Bar”. There’s an old Naugahyde stool with your name on it, a sign that reads, “Some call it “Tourist Season” so why can’t we shoot them?” and a pretty swell guy who sings Hank Williams covers.

A few recent photos of the area.

It made me think of the books I read as a child. If I didn’t read those books the world would be a funny, sunny place filled with angels, butterflies and pretty photographs of carousel animals. Thank god for Edward Lear, whom I discovered as a kid in my grandfather’s study–the same grandfather who corrected my wretched pronunciation of the French poet, Rimbaud, after I rambled on how much I loved him. “Rambo, my dear,” he said and took another sip from his gimlet.

queerifloria-babyoides

So, I’d sit on his old Chesterfield sofa, glance curiously up at the human skull on the shelf and rest my feet on the dog skins on the floor then read Lear for an hour or two. I especially loved his Latin botanical series: “Nonsense Botany” where he drew nonsense superfluous plants and gave them fake Latin names such as “queerifloria-babyoides”, the above illustration.

More of his work can be seen here: http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/nb.html

A year or two later, I discovered Edward Gorey who of course was influenced by Lear. My heart beat a thousand times when I first saw a bearded, gray haired fellow reading, “The Black Flag of Anarchy” (I kid you not!) while working as a teenager at an ice cream joint on Cape Cod. There he was sitting at the counter, wearing a long, woolly fur and simple white tennis shoes. I knew it had to be Gorey, aside from the coat, he had on several rings (he had a thing for large, strange brass rings in the shape of odd looking animals) and a lovely, little golden earring in his right lobe.

I nervously glanced at him but said nothing, I was too shy. I prayed he would return the next day so I could bring in my copy of “Amphigorey” for him to sign and sure enough he did. I approached him and shyly asked him to sign my book. He said, of course or something to that effect and promptly signed it. And that was that.

After that, I merely poured him coffee day after day and never engaged him–simply too shy. I lost that copy of Amphigorey and although I received other things signed by him later, I’m always a little sad I don’t have that one anymore.

Here’s to Gorey and Lear!

I pilfered this post from my old blog and wanted to post it here again as I love this photo so much. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I found it as it was so long ago.

“Prom Night ’62: Alone with Mr. McNamara” should have been the name of this photo. I wanted to write about it but wasn’t sure why, not because of the kitschy aspect; that itself is of course fun but not the most interesting part of the photo. It may be the oddly symmetrical nature; the brick pattern on the wall in relation to the well, the conical ruffled dress and upward sweep of the pine trees.

There’s a few elements going on: the staged setting is at once congruous and incongruous to each of its props; she’s standing at a well, made of a brick-patterned cardboard within another brick enclosure, a river of gray crepe paper is draped over more brick and just beyond the door opening is yet another brick ensemble. Brick leading into more brick–a sort of sloppy Ikea display or a tossed sketch in Escher’s trash bin. It’s hard to tell if it’s really a set of stairs or another background–did she come through there? Or was she always there?

Not an uncommon prom photo, perhaps of the time, but it’s somewhat sinister, the unharmonious mixture of artificial materials and the girl–smack in the middle, dressed to kill, not a hair out of place, perfect pink with white gloves and a tiara. It’s as if her geometry teacher had wandered in the room and said “Hey let’s have a photo!” The girl looks caught in the headlights–somehow she ended up alone with Mr. McNamara.

“Beautiful, beautiful, you’re a perfect inverted Isosceles triangle”. He says and sighs then runs his hands over the ruffles of her dress. We need to get her out of there quickly! A mad rush from stale colors and pencil worn fingers! She steps back and falls into the well, pink taffeta slips over the edge and she is gone. The teacher is alone now, he looks over inside the well, it’s empty, a slew of old straws, paper cups, popcorn and corsets litter the bottom.
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