(no subject)
Last night I sat down and decided to just write and ended up with this.
She would have to get a job. Twenty dollars a week allowance was just enough to pay for gas and sometimes not enough, as she told her mother, not with rising prices after the London subway bombings, and all-in-all it was nearly two-twenty-five now. Is it really over two dollars? her mother asked incredulously, and cocked her head sideways against the back of the chair where she sat, immobile, her aching wrists wrapped in an ice pack and her swollen legs stuck straight out in front of her, feet resting on the coffee table.
She hadn't wanted to. There was nothing she was both qualified for and willing to do--she'd rather just be broke than work fast food, and department stores required perkiness. She was not perky. She was far from perky. She wanted a job in the library. That was her first choice. Indoors, surrounded by books--nice work if you could get it. And she could get it. If they were hiring.
One Monday morning in June of two-thousand-and-five she got into her car, turned it on, rolled the windows down, popped in a dubbed tape of Neutral Milk Hotel and backed out of her driveway. There were deer in the neighbor's yard. There were often deer running around after dark especially, because of the woods between her road and the college. They were tame deer. Sometimes one would stand in the road straddling the yellow line like a child trying to stand in two states at once, legs spindly and spread, tense, eyes glossy. It had only happened to her once.
She drove into the middle of town to look for a job. There was very little traffic. She parked behind the old bank building in the one area of her town that looked seedy: a few brick walls, some graffiti, broken windows. She had brought a boyfriend here once. They held hands and kissed against a wall covered in the clear bold purples and greens of someone's initials. He had square-rimmed glasses and a deep deliberate voice; if she wanted to hear it again she could, on the CD he’d burned for her of himself singing and himself playing guitar. They were beautiful songs.
His name was David. They had been together for two months, too long she thought now, because she’d been with him for his voice and known it from the start. One day they sat in a coffeeshop and David, she said, why are you smoking? You're singing tonight.
Because, he said, and took a drag, I want to. He nodded finally. She didn’t kiss him that night or again. You think you’re Tom Waits, she told him, keep your voice the way it is, put that out.
He finished it, finished his tea, didn't lean over to kiss her when he got up. It had been over for a while and they were just tying the knot at the end of a string of dead moments, hard looks, accusations. Later he sang all right but she wanted his voice as pure and beautiful as it had been the first time she heard it, unadulterated, with nothing carrying it through the air. She had clear reception on his voice, had tuned herself to receive every nuance of it, but his personality was fuzzy and unformed to her.
The initials were still there in the alley, four or five feet high, centered at eye level to her.
I'm not totally sure where all of this stuff came from, or why I decided to use unconventional dialogue formatting. I blame Joyce (I have to read Portrait of the Artist for school next year, and I actually started it yesterday).
She would have to get a job. Twenty dollars a week allowance was just enough to pay for gas and sometimes not enough, as she told her mother, not with rising prices after the London subway bombings, and all-in-all it was nearly two-twenty-five now. Is it really over two dollars? her mother asked incredulously, and cocked her head sideways against the back of the chair where she sat, immobile, her aching wrists wrapped in an ice pack and her swollen legs stuck straight out in front of her, feet resting on the coffee table.
She hadn't wanted to. There was nothing she was both qualified for and willing to do--she'd rather just be broke than work fast food, and department stores required perkiness. She was not perky. She was far from perky. She wanted a job in the library. That was her first choice. Indoors, surrounded by books--nice work if you could get it. And she could get it. If they were hiring.
One Monday morning in June of two-thousand-and-five she got into her car, turned it on, rolled the windows down, popped in a dubbed tape of Neutral Milk Hotel and backed out of her driveway. There were deer in the neighbor's yard. There were often deer running around after dark especially, because of the woods between her road and the college. They were tame deer. Sometimes one would stand in the road straddling the yellow line like a child trying to stand in two states at once, legs spindly and spread, tense, eyes glossy. It had only happened to her once.
She drove into the middle of town to look for a job. There was very little traffic. She parked behind the old bank building in the one area of her town that looked seedy: a few brick walls, some graffiti, broken windows. She had brought a boyfriend here once. They held hands and kissed against a wall covered in the clear bold purples and greens of someone's initials. He had square-rimmed glasses and a deep deliberate voice; if she wanted to hear it again she could, on the CD he’d burned for her of himself singing and himself playing guitar. They were beautiful songs.
His name was David. They had been together for two months, too long she thought now, because she’d been with him for his voice and known it from the start. One day they sat in a coffeeshop and David, she said, why are you smoking? You're singing tonight.
Because, he said, and took a drag, I want to. He nodded finally. She didn’t kiss him that night or again. You think you’re Tom Waits, she told him, keep your voice the way it is, put that out.
He finished it, finished his tea, didn't lean over to kiss her when he got up. It had been over for a while and they were just tying the knot at the end of a string of dead moments, hard looks, accusations. Later he sang all right but she wanted his voice as pure and beautiful as it had been the first time she heard it, unadulterated, with nothing carrying it through the air. She had clear reception on his voice, had tuned herself to receive every nuance of it, but his personality was fuzzy and unformed to her.
The initials were still there in the alley, four or five feet high, centered at eye level to her.
I'm not totally sure where all of this stuff came from, or why I decided to use unconventional dialogue formatting. I blame Joyce (I have to read Portrait of the Artist for school next year, and I actually started it yesterday).