Weightless (work in progress)

[JaceSan]

I'm still not sure who's who. Is Margaret's daughter Emma the same Chrissy that was talking to the crow guy earlier in the story?

I'm sure it will make more sense when you've gotten most of each character's story out. If it's easier to write them in blocks that are intermingled then by all means write them out that way. You can go back and rearrange the blocks later. The important thing is to get the stories out and recorded.

Too many characters in a story can make it confusing. I'm reminded of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. Her follow up books, The Kitchen God's Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses had fewer characters and made the stories a little easier to follow.

[Chilimuffin]

it's true, the characters are confusing at the beginning. They do become clearer in the other stuff I have written (I'm currently editing it, but here's the next post). I think you'll see, so I won't say anymore. If it continues to be a big mess, however, then I'll definitely have to rework it. I am thinking of trying to keep it to exactly four characters, in truth, but it might be five. Hard to say.

here's the next bit, however. Yes, it starts off with something I posted ehre along time ago, reworked, which is partially where this all came from. So yeah.... here goes

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The center of the city is the warmest part. So that's where I huddle, chain smoking the cold away.

I'm hunting dragons tonight, armed with ash and fire. It sucks as camouflage, but chasing dragons isn't about fitting in. It's about connecting.

SingSong man walks by, mumbling crazed lyrics of old children's songs to himself as always. He's a tall frizzy birdlike castoff from the beginnings of punk rock, a Johnny Rotten refugee. I hear him drop into a tiny little voice, cracked high, as he stumbled by. the ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah? the ants go marching five by five, hurrah.......... I used to understand what he really meant by that, but I've been trying to forget for years. In a moment of lucidity, he asked me once if I still remembered screaming off the rooftops at three a.m. I did and told him, so he went on singing.

It's hard to scream off rooftops when you're too short to jump to the fire escapes. But aside from that, it's a good use of energy.

I smoke as much as I can afford, which depends on whether or not I want to eat. Each drag brings me a little closer to the language, words melted along inner city pavements that never knew I was there. Sometimes, I think that if I smoke enough, I'll remember what SingSong man is really saying, and we can go screaming together.

I like to chase dragons alone, because freedom is a solitary act. I can lie on the roof bare-assed and feel all the air. I can scream. I can push outside of my body and not have to worry about leaving it behind. I can wander onto the streets and make them all want me, and walk away. And besides, I?m too chickenshit to share. SingSong man would laugh if we could talk, but somewhere I know his secrets too. I know how he stares at himself naked in the public bathroom at four a.m. and wonders if he'll ever get laid again. I know he jacks off before he slides the needle in, just to get the blood flowing underneath that withered skin. I don't think he knows I used to pay so much attention to him, but then again, all of us had someone we singled out to watch.

I watch the drunken wannabe activists stagger home bellowing. Must be a new charity benefit, or at least a new restaurant. This town is all about where you give your money, and with whom. Some of them have organic, hyper-actualized women on their arms, just as drunk, or stoned. Stubbing out my cigarette, I wonder how many of them will remember the bad tantric sex of tonight when they wake up tomorrow morning. I wonder how many times these women will be able to fake it, put up with the alcohol breath and the slick grunting sweat before they become dissatisfied PTO moms who gossip about their repressed republican counterparts because they're too modern to let go and feel good.

It's one of those nights. Cynicism is all part of the game.

If I weren't on this street corner, I could dream about your hands. Those smooth artist hands. But here on the street's edge all the hands are begging, and the only memory is metal, smooth and slick, driving into my arm like the activist into his girlfriend. But the pleasure of the needle is all mine, I say to him, asshole. This time, at any rate.

I light another cigarette and drag away into the concrete at my back. SingSong man is cackling at the drunks, keening children's verses and Pink Floyd lyrics. Inside the language, I know he's lost the connection too, and is hunting dragons the only way he can. Smoke in my nostrils, I stare after him. In the center of the city, you can't live in other people's heads, you can only stay warm.

Hippies call it a higher plane, man. I know better. I know still that it's the only real plane, and you can get there any way you want. And once you do you'll get there any way you can. I grab the dragon by the tail. Tonight, I can see it, feel it tugging out through the top of my skull and clawing at my bone marrow.

I lean back and close my eyes. I can feel the smoke trail pulling at me, running words through my veins like I'm a Bell Atlantic grid. I?m all the light reflected in the statues that you build. Conversations and arguments flow through me, and I can see everything, glassy. I'm still too far away.

SingSong man walks past and whispers, "I was always watching you." But to me he's still singing, I'm still smoking, and the city is getting colder. All the little drunken ants go marching home, and I'm marching right behind them. Home is all alone, but unwatched. No one will see me jacking off to the thought of your hands, or dreaming about cold metal numbness on a rooftop screaming.

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Coyote, he's this crazy skin. He sits at night with his bottle and when he's real drunk, he howls at the moon. Like all of us, he's lonely, but he doesn't know where to go. He lives with this skin who keeps getting drunk and throwing Coyote out into the street at night. Eventually Coyote gets it in his head to sneak back into the house and tell the skin it's rude to throw people into the street.

But he gets there, and the skin is drunk and laughing to himself, talking to a woman who isn't there, crying on her picture. He calls her his angel, crooning, singing love songs to his lost reservation sweetheart.

Coyote, he's got a wax heart melting under that fur, so he feels bad for the drunk skin. He also knows angels, he used to have one of his own, but he got drunk and angry and now she's gone. And he knows this skin could look down into his whiskey and see why his angel's gone, so he feels sympathetic. So instead of yelling, Coyote hitch hikes out to the Rez to see if he can find the skin's angel for him, or maybe just to see.

And he gets there and she's plump with breasts like the moon and smiling with two kids and a quiet voice. And he doesn't know what to do, so he sits outside her window, drunk, and howls to the night until her husband wants to shoot him. But she comes out the door in nothing but a blanket and invites him in. And she feeds him and gives him a place to sleep and takes away his whiskey. Coyote knows she really is an angel, then, because he doesn't want it back too bad.

And Coyote spends some real time back on the Rez and she teaches him how to play with the children and how to smile and wag his tail and not to be so angry. He learns not to drink and he doesn't howl at the moon so much now that he's got a friend. Even her husband starts to like him. But eventually Coyote's got to get back to the city because that?s his real home and he needs to make money, but he wants to thank her somehow. So he takes it in his head that he came there with nothing and made something, so he'll take nothing and make something for her. So he goes around gathering up all these pretty bits of nothing, shiny things and brightly colored things and glues them into a statue of her, so she can see for herself that she's an angel. And it glitters and shines in the sun; it's the best he can possibly do. She cries when she sees it and tells him he's wonderful, and he's Coyote, so doesn't he know that already.

Coyote goes back to the city but he doesn't go to see the old skin, and he doesn't drink all that much anymore. He takes it in his head to make more statues, so he goes around collecting bits so people can see who they are.

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It?s one of my pasts, one of my favorite stories, although I suppose it's better if I don't pick favorites. It?s a blend of myth and modernity, this one, straight out of a novel. Of course, novels are real too. I sometimes think that doubt is like carrying all the novels in the world on your back - you're stuck in the mud no matter where you move. But if you read the books, catch the stories, believe them, then you don't have to carry the books around anymore. You can just have your faith and then you'll float. That's what I mean, even though you don't believe me. That's why you're on the ground and I'm weightless. I don't have to justify myself to you, your doubt does that for you.

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Keith killed himself the same year that our middle brother, Ryan, was an uncounted casualty in Somalia. Dad and my stepmom, Margaret, argued over the funeral. He was still an atheist, and she was still a Catholic. I still don't know how they ever got together, but she still seems to think she's the best thing he's ever had. Fortunately, they got married right before I graduated from college, so I never had to really deal with her.

I flew in from Philadelphia, landing in Cleveland only a few hours before the funeral. I didn't have time to change at Margaret?s house, so I threw on some work clothes in the funeral home bathroom. I went in like a bum, according to Margaret, and came out every inch the ACLU lawyer my dad was so proud of.

"My daughter fights for all the freaks," he'd always say, with my stepmother frowning at him for his impropriety. They?d met when Dad moved to Cleveland to get away from Mom?s memory. The way she fussed over everything, I could see that she made an easy distraction.

Her daughter, my stepsister, Emma, was there too, which was odd, but I didn't say anything. She was the same age as Keith, and she'd hung out with him and his friends after he dropped out of college. There'd been a problem, though. One of his friends had abused her or raped her or something - no one knew the details except her, the guy, and Keith, who felt so guilty he fell into the depression that eventually killed him. So none of us were particularly glad to see her, even Margaret, who only saw the impropriety of her presence.

Emma just stood off to the side of the grave, looking strung out, while the rest of us ignored her. We all filed past her silent stare after our last goodbyes to the handfuls of dirt. One of Keith's friends muttered "bitch" at her as he walked past. I wanted to defend her, say it wasn't her fault Keith felt guilty, or that she'd gotten hurt. But my own grief and loss clogged my throat. She just stood there, as if she didn't hear. As we were climbing into the funeral limos, I looked back in guilt. I saw her light a cigarette and squat down beside the garish stone angel Margaret had ordered as a gravestone. I couldn't see her expression.

I think she moved out west after that. I never saw her again, and Margaret pretended she never existed, focusing all her rules on Dad until he died. The she joined a weird religious cult and stopped talking to all of us, so Emma wasn't missing anything. Dad used to ask about her when the Alzheimer's kicked in and he was feeling almost religious. I always said she was fine.

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[JaceSan]

Tracks?

[Chilimuffin]

a packet of oreos to you for your brilliant deduction (I have no milk, however - I'm allergic to milk.. sorry).

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"Get a life - go Online!"
-Dismay

"You know I wasn't born I was spat out at a wall
And nobody even knew my name
The sun hatched me out, cradle and all
On the corner of First and Insane."
--Shawn Colvin

[JaceSan]

So, Emma is the addict from Tracks? I like the middle part of this installment. I was wondering where you got the title from.

[erisesoteric]

Heyla chicky babe. *ducks*

Good stuff, keep it coming.

I REALLY like this story.

[Chilimuffin]

Actually Jace, to be totally honest, I was the addict from "Tracks." Emma is not my alter ego, however.... but like all writing folk, a bit of me is in all the characters, eh? hee

------------------
"Get a life - go Online!"
-Dismay

"You know I wasn't born I was spat out at a wall
And nobody even knew my name
The sun hatched me out, cradle and all
On the corner of First and Insane."
--Shawn Colvin

[JaceSan]

Tracks is one of the stories I saved to disk a couple of months ago. I'm glad to see it appear in your current work. The piece is very powerful and vivid. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Chilimuffin]

In no particular order.......

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We don't talk about the story he told me, but I spend a lot more time with him now. It means having the shakes more, but I'm learning to live with that. He gives me all the cigarettes I want, at least - he's making real money as an artist, so he can afford it. He's been doing private sculptures for rich folks in the suburbs, taking the bus to the edge of the city and then walking to their gated mansions. They tell him their life stories and he brings them sculptures of themselves. They're eating this up, because there's nothing like having someone else pay that much attention to you to make you feel good. Maybe that's why I spend so much time with him. Maybe it's cause I know he's been telling me his story all along and it's nice to be the person who pays attention to the listener. Maybe it's the cigarettes.

Today he tells me about the rich woman he's collecting bits for now. Raised in a single mother home where she wasn't allowed to cry, both sisters dying in a plane accident in the seventies, and she never cried.

"Sad."

"She doesn't think so." Crow picks an abandoned earring and puts it in his pocket.

"What does she think?"

"That she's strong."

"But that's not true."

"It is to her."

"I bet it just made her crazy like my mom. Her sister died too, and she's not strong." It's the most I've ever said about it, and his face doesn't change but I think he likes that I finally said something. He just shrugs and keeps on picking up trash. I pop a squat, light another cigarette and wonder how this rich strong woman's going to feel, having a sculpture of herself made out of trash.

"You want to come with me tomorrow?"

"What?"

"To the suburbs. You can remember things they say that I don't."

"I don't know. I haven't left this city in years."

"It's time to leave, then. Don't you need the money?"

"I need a new life... or at least a hobby."

"Try collecting. Come with me tomorrow."

"What, collect stories?" I can't believe we're having this conversation. It's so, well, friendly, that I'm staring at him. He's smiling. He's actually smiling.

"Why not?"

I stutter. I don't want to turn him down, I don't think. Do I? "It's not very, well, tangible, is it.... I mean, I can't put them on my wall or anything."

Crow just shrugs and picks up an old piece of goldish metal, looks like a bent housekey. But then he reaches over and drops it in my pocket and grins again. "All stories are real, Emma."

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What you don?t see, they don?t see, is that their stories are mine too. And I will eat them and realize them and live them all. You cling to your single past as if that?s something special, but it?s my past too, just like all my pasts are yours. You think you can control the telling of the past, but I?m the one who has all the power. I have all the endings, you see. Each past makes me lighter because I don?t cling to them. I take them back to the beginning, back to the source, and they?re light as air, these stories. And I sit on top of their lightness. They all ask me how I do it, the reporters and the scientists. How I levitate all day; how I keep from falling. The thing is, I can?t help it. I have transcended, and I don?t need the earth anymore.

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That's why I live here, where no one can see me. They're like you, like my sister, my daughter, my stepchildren, my husbands. Stuck to the earth, stuck in doubt. But I have faith now, and I can float. Don't you feel heavy looking at me? But can't you feel the stories, all the stories, and how light they are when you know the truth. You can wander away and scoff, but in the end I'll be right, and I'll know all your stories too. And if you try, you'll know all of mine. You only think I'm crazy now. They're all the same you know, in the end. Nothing is true. All stories are real.

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Anansi, the spider, married the most beautiful woman in the world because he was afraid of the dark. He took her to the edge of the world where dark hung like a curtain, and said, ?You are the most beautiful woman in the world; the sun won?t mind looking at you all the time.? And he gave her the edge of the dark to hold up so the sun could always get through under her arms, and he sat himself down at her feet.

But this made the other animals angry, that Anansi had sunlight all the time and they had it only half the time. So they went to the sun and said, ?Anansi is cheating you. He has his wife hold up the dark so you shine on him all the time. He makes you work twice as hard as we do. You should give his wife blisters to make her stop, and then Anansi will have to deal with the dark.?

And the sun was angry with Anansi and shone hot on Anansi?s wife and gave her blisters. And she cried and dropped a corner of the dark, so Anansi was in shadow. And he screamed in fear and jumped up and down and begged her until she lifted it back up again, and endured the blisters for his sake.

And the animals saw this, and they were even more angry. They said to each other, ?Look how Anansi treats his wife. The sun gives her blisters and he still makes her hold up the dark. He does not deserve to have the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife.? So while Anansi was sleeping under the arms of his wife one afternoon, the animals crept up silently and snatched her away before she had time to cry out.

And Anansi woke and his wife was gone and it was dark all around him because the curtain had fallen across him when his wife was stolen. And he moaned and wept in fear and cursed the sun, yelling, ?You have taken my wife! And the light! There is no sun; it is gone with my wife!?

And the animals began to feel bad for him. His wife had traveled far away and could not be brought back, and Anansi was all alone and crying in the dark. So the animals lifted the curtain and showed him the light to make him happy. But they told him that never again could he try to have more sun than anyone else??..

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[NecroFlash]

i like the connection you made between crow and emma, and her collecting stories.

i also like the anansi story.

very good, indeed.