Playing Fair and Being Kind

THERE’S A SMALL HOTEL

Writing is a useful tool to explain our surroundings to ourselves. Thinking is alright but writing is where we have to really think hard and put into words what it is we are experiencing, sensing, absorbing unwillingly, and regurgitating in front of other people. Putting things on paper is a good way to make sure that what is in our brain gets reviewed several times in the process of transferring thought to hand. Sometimes writing is simply making a record of a fantasy. Regardless, fantasy or not, we record our existence for others to experience.

I’ve learned to write in my own style having lived and listened to others who have come before me. Let’s see if I can come up with a few examples of my teachers. Admiral Rickover is one. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is another. Bukowski certainly. The beat poets, Gregory Corso for one. Rainer Maria Rilke, Hemingway, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard for sure. Then again many of the subjects just write themselves; that’s a way of saying that it’s easy for me to revert to a place in history where I was comfortable and at ease with my own way of conversing, zits and all. Included in this conversation would be the magical realism style. Now there is a topic that could go on for pages and pages stretching into years and years.

Recently I’ve learned of magical realism, a style of writing that tells me that there are other dimensions of experience that cannot be easily explained. Perhaps you have had a deja vu experience or prescient episodes that could not be explained. I have. I’ve had several that unnerved me but I just accept as simply unexplained. Reading Garcia Marquez has given me permission to write about similar magical realism with confidence. A writer friend has suggested others who write in this style. I’ve found their books and I feel a kinship with them all. Let’s see who I can remember. The one I’ve already mentioned is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then Jorge Borges, Etgar Keret, Isabel Allende. I’m sure there a many more. Here is a story that I wrote that illustrates magical realism.

OSCAR

Oscar was on his third cup of coffee and his eighth restart of the poem that was ghosting in his mind. Playing in the background was a late classical period piano concerto by some Italian composer. It all seemed so scripted. A struggling writer at his keyboard; in bathrobe, in the quiet of a Maine morning by a body of water in Spring; coffee cooling on the side table; classical music on the radio.

Cliches notwithstanding the poem was not coming together. Oscar entertained the thought of switching the words to a short story with ambiguous breaks but his mind was resistant in all directions. Oscar sat back in the old recliner, picked up the coffee mug and took a large mouthful. He let the tepid stuff squeeze into his throat and down the hatch. He liked the theme but he wasn’t too crazy about the images piling up in his imagination. He needed to write it all down and begin the process of tossing aside those parts that were weakest and non-supportive of a central thread. Good thinking, Oscar, he mused. Oscar put down the mug and hit the save button one more time.

Oscar placed his hands on the keyboard anticipating a thought to come and then he sat back in the big chair again, heaving a great sigh. His mind cluttered with a hundred patterns of words but none of them cogent. Oscar absently pulled at the hairs on his chin. Ouch! He felt a tiny lump just right of center under the hairs. It was tender and Oscar gently felt with his index finger a small swelling. Odd…this is new, he thought. His mind was now off the pile of words on the computer screen. Oscar needed to go find a mirror to check this little nuisance. He stood and walked across the great room. The bathroom had a mirror with light bars all around it and that’s where Oscar headed. He carried his mug with him and as he passed the kitchen counter he left it next to the sink.

Oscar pushed into the bathroom, flipped the lights on and leaned in toward the mirror. He examined the area where he had felt the small lump. He had just recently trimmed his beard so the examination took no time at all. There it was. He had feared that a tick had burrowed into the sparse jungle on his chin but no, there was only the tiny swelling of the skin under the hair. It was still tender but now that he was looking directly at the area he felt less discomfort. Oscar parted the hairs and noticed the skin was a shade darker than the surrounding surface.

Oscar straightened perplexed. Hmm, he thought. The small lump now seemed larger. Gently Oscar again probed the hairs on his chin and felt the spot. It was quite hard and when he pressed the lump he could feel something else. The lump was elongated and seemed to continue in two directions under the skin. Oscar noticed now that the shade was darker than just a few moments ago. Whew! Damn! This is really strange. Oscar was confused and thought about calling his doctor. First he’d need to examine the damned thing so he could talk intelligently about it with whomever answered his call.

Oscar took off his bifocals, wiped them on the lapel of his bathrobe and again leaned toward the mirror. Goddam! There was a black thing just under the skin and it seemed ready to poke through. Indeed it was elongated and Oscar thought it was a living thing and he began to freak out. Jeezum fucking Crow! What is it? Oscar opened the medicine cabinet and took out a pair of tweezers and found an alcohol wipe. When he closed the cabinet door he immediately noticed the black thing was now really protruding from under the skin and it was readily visible from a distance. Oscar could feel his heart beating and there was definitely a sense of dread taking over.

Oscar’s hand was shaking badly so he held the tweezers with two hands and gently grasped what looked like a piece of wire. The surrounding skin was split and Oscar’s chin displayed a loop of black wire protruding. Oscar pulled the wire very slowly and it came easily. As Oscar pulled some more he felt his whole right side disappear. There was no pain and no sensation whatsoever. Oscar’s whole right side was visible in the mirror but he could not feel anything from the middle of his body to the right. His whole right side was non-existent sensory wise. Oscar stopped pulling the wire and he fell over against the shower stall and crumbled to the floor.

Oscar’s mind was functioning at a lower level but he could determine that he needed to get to the telephone and call his physician. There was a number written on the telephone handset that would connect him directly with the group that provided him medical care. Oscar carefully but laboriously pulled himself with his left hand and leg out of the bathroom and across the great room toward the telephone. When he reached the telephone he was dripping with sweat and he had scraped away parts of his body during the process. Oscar was a mess but he finally had the telephone in his grasp. He checked the number on the handset and pushed the buttons on the keypad.

Oscar held the telephone handset to his left ear with his left hand. He was breathing heavily and just able to hold his head up by leaning against the base of the recliner. The telephone was ringing and he felt relieved that the number was working as expected. A few more rings and a voice at the other end announced, “Central Intelligence Agency Medical Group. Please enter your seven digit pass-code followed by the pound sign”.

Admiral Rickover, Hyman George Rickover, the father of Navy nuclear power. The admiral was a brilliant engineer. He was also a prick of major significance. I, and others, believe it was his ability to rule by fear that kept the Navy nuclear program accident free. Whereas other agencies have had nuclear mishaps and caused everlasting danger and damage to our planet Rickover had none. You can argue that point if you like but I will stand by my statement. He also was a stickler for precision. Manufacturers had to deal with this attribute of his. I recall that he demanded a leak rate of zero for the primary loop coolant pumps located in the reactor compartment. No supplier could guarantee a pump with a zero leak rate. Rickover needed to change the requirement to one drop in ten years. Then the manufacturers submitted bids for the pump. His leadership style and this particular trait affected the lives of people who came to him for work; who came to him for interviews to join his growing band of nuclear engineers. His prick-ness surfaced during interviews. The interviews are legendary, told and retold with admiration for his ability to scare the shit out of a young Navy officer candidate before, during, and after an audience with him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover

What’s this got to do with writing? Allow me to explain. One of the Admiral’s pet peeves was excess in communication. He wanted the facts, plain and simple. He eschewed superlatives, adverbs, and adjectives. For example the typewriter exercise sentence “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy black dog” would be written by Rickover as “The fox jumped over the dog”. He once rejected a young officer who, in an interview, answered a question with too much information. Rickover had asked him if he had any children. The interviewee answered, “Yes, Sir. Three children; two boys and a girl.” That was the end of the interview. The right answer would have been “Yes, Sir”. There are more stories that I’ll have to share in another section, but you get my drift. I’ll finish about Rickover with this brief story. Vice Admiral Rickover had a nickname, “Yarvar”. It was an acronym for ‘you are right vice admiral Rickover’. That says a lot I think.

Oh, by the way. The heading for this post is “There’s a Small Hotel”. It means nothing. The original title was “Juke Box Fury”, a song by Rickie Lee Jones on her album “The Magazine”. I wanted to connect magical realism to poetry and song lyrics. I couldn’t gather enough evidence to use the connection so I gave up on the idea. However during the process I was listening to Chet Baker play trumpet on an album he compiled and the song during that moment was “There’s a Small Hotel”. That title is a good example of what can send me off onto a writing spree. Maybe you can understand or identify with this. No matter. I am triggered into magical realism by most anything. My problem is I don’t jump to the keyboard each time so many potential stories are lost. Again, no matter.

So I’ve learned to tighten my writing. It is a constant effort for me since I love to ramble and to hear my own voice. In editing I go over the work looking to remove superlatives, adjectives, and adverbs. Whether or not I really do remove these items, the fact remains that I pay attention to the process.

This post is filled with loosely connected or disjointed thoughts. My most favorite style but not easy to read by anyone but myself. Good thing I’m not trying to sell anything, eh?

Be well and enjoy these lingering warm day of autumn. Wednesday I’m going to buy a battery for my plow/yard truck and also a set of studded snow tires for Beastie II. I keep the economy healthy once in a while. Take care. Thanks for getting this far.

Peace out.