Last Word on New Orleans, I Swear

At least until my next visit.


You might find this hard to believe, but I found several instances of Wood Injuns on my visit to the Big Easy.


Seems no matter where I go, people want to put me in feathers.


Can't call these cigar store Indians, because they ain't. These are two tourist-trap gift shops and a bar. New Orleans, shame on you for these blatant acts of Native Kitsch.

When I go back, I'm going to flash my Tribal ID and demand royalties.

I'm Back, Baby! (Sort of)

Now I remember what it felt like to be in the grip of a story.

To find my way back to writing fiction, I needed to give up the project I had on the front burner before my marriage fell apart - the third draft of Scratch the Dead Places, the final draft, which is really fucking good, if I say so myself. Unfortunately, parts of Scratch are a little too close to reality.

My second-burner, part two of the Ming trilogy, is in the safe terrain of almost pure imagination. It also hasn’t compelled me in the slightest. Even if they use different processes and have different views, most authors agree that when the story stops, it’s because you’ve taken a wrong turn. I know exactly what parts two and three entail. I have whole scenes just ready to type like dictation, but the main character – Levi – just isn’t speaking loudly enough.

Instead of either of these big projects, or beginning yet another short story (in keeping with the writing queue as kitchen metaphor), I dug way back in the freezer.

How long has The Block been there? I know sixty-four pages of a WordPerfect second draft were written in October 2006, that the original was written on a floppy disc then transferred to a hard disc, before CD-ROM, before jump drives.

Re-reading the eighty-seven pages of the third-draft in MS-Word (although since none of these versions were completed, calling them “drafts” pushes kindness into the realm of fabrication; let’s call the hundreds of pages devoted to The Block on floppy, hard disc, and CD-ROM false starts), I was surprised by how good it is. I never finished it because it felt too easy. It’s basically one story of hundreds I used to tell myself as a child to pass the lonely hours. When you live with a story for that long, you stop thinking it could have value for anyone except yourself.

The Block has been the perfect medicine because it is easy. I know exactly where it’s going and who the characters are (if not necessarily how they get there), and it’s all made up.

It’s also unpublishable. Even though books can get away with a lot of things movies and TV shows can’t because of the audience’s smaller scale, I can’t imagine a publisher tackling the legal hassles associated with having Barbie as the main character.

Supposedly one writes with an ideal first reader in mind. With this story, I’ve rediscovered myself as my first reader and it feels just fine. Whether anyone else ever reads it…

But the feeling I refer to in my opening sentence is not the joy of using imagination instead of reality to push the cursor, but the frustration involved in having a job. Short stories are one thing, but tackling a novel in the space between sleep and work is tough. If writing was sex, it’s interrupting foreplay to pay bills. If writing was food, it’s knowing how delicious the main course will be but trying to fill your stomach by nibbling appetizers because you’ll never be served. If writing was art, it’s penciling an outline, mixing the paints, dabbling a few colors, then cleaning your brushes because you know everything will dry before you find time to finish.

I wish there was a grant for authors who’ve written a Young Adult fantasy Bildungsroman with an adopted Chinese girl as the protagonist, which is the first of three, who need a few months off to hammer out the rest of the trilogy.

Maybe I should look for a sugar momma.

So Much for Writing for Money

On Monday I spent a pleasant hour grocery shopping at the Publix in Coral Gables. I never realized having a car to load up with groceries was a privilege until I didn’t have a car to load. Maybe I went a little nuts – four kinds of apples instead of my usual two; twenty-pound litter instead of fourteen; 18-pack of eggs instead of a dozen; regular bacon and Canadian bacon; milk, Indian River orange juice, Bolthouse 100% Carrot, Bolthouse Green Goodness, and V8 – but I had a trunk to fill. Besides, my fridge was nearly empty. I promised Becky fruit smoothies for breakfast. It would be nice to have a few juices to choose from for blending, not to mention opening the fridge and seeing nothing but food instead of glass shelves and light.

“Nope,” the cashier says when I run my card. Her tone is curt, matter-of-fact, smug.

“Really? I just deposited my check on Friday.” I run my card again.

“Nope.” This time she shakes her head to emphasize her point, and she still comes off smug. I imagine as a cashier in Coral Gables, she eats shit from customers all day. If rich folks are good at one thing, it’s making people behind counters feel worthless. This is Yvvone’s chance to turn the tables. Derisive laughter courses just beneath the skin of her professional demeanor.

“It’s the only account I have…” I trail off, mortified. I don’t carry cash, and I cut up all my credit cards when I got into debt in the mid-nineties.

I’m no longer worth eye contact. Yvvonne suspends the transaction. She asks the bagger to put the cart in the freezer.

Watching the cart (my cart-my cart-my cart) being wheeled away, my heart sinks. Minime’s flea treatment isn’t working, but she won’t be getting spray or shampoo anytime soon. What else was in that cart? A Greenwise London Broil like proof we were meant to eat meat. A California Cabernet Sauvignon. Several ears of sweet Florida corn. The strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, quince (seriously), and banana which would have gone into the smoothies I promised Becky.

There are also little splurges I don’t usually allow myself because my backpack only has room for the necessities (and yes, the wine is a necessity because I opened a bottle last week and the empty space in my wine rack picks at the OCD part of my brain while I’m trying to sleep). Like chips and salsa. A pack of chocolate chocolate chip muffins. A tin of Smokehouse Almonds.

Not having the money to pay for groceries means I don’t deserve indulgences.

Public will close in fifteen minutes. I call Wachovia, like there’s something to be done at 9:45 at night. The cashier, the security guard, the people waiting in checkout lines, the people waiting at lotto and for cigarettes, they’re looking at me while I dial. I’d like to say it’s my imagination, but the groceries went in the wrong direction. I feel like I’ve been gut-punched. I can’t dummy up. Couple my longing stare with the departing cart, and you’ve got the whole story.

A deadbeat, here in the Gables? their eyes say. How did he get in?

I don’t want to imply that there’s accusation in their flat, curious eyes,. They aren’t filled with the cashier’s schadenfraude either. Mostly it’s a but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I satisfaction.

For their benefit, I try to appear indignant. What I really feel is humiliated and useless. A banking error is all it takes to put me back in school (if you can call a deposit slip marked “funds will be available on 5/24” which should say 5/25 because Wachovia doesn’t actually make the funds available until midnight an “error” rather than “a deliberate deception designed to maximize overdrafts”), being judged by my peers and found lacking.

The bank isn’t responsible for one truth in my life; I turn thirty-eight this year and I still live hand to mouth.

The Need Machine

“I’m so bored,” Cleo Junior says, drawing the last word into a five-syllable whine.

It’s Becky’s birthday and we’re waiting for her mother so we can be seated at Benihana. It doesn’t matter that Becky’s father just took Cleo Junior behind the restaurant to look for fish in the Bay, and Becky and I just took him out back to look for fish, and I took him out to see the gardens, walk the railing, call Becky on my cell, and watch the diners through the floor-to-ceiling windows (although staring at people while they eat should not be encouraged, so we stopped); he takes every opportunity to let us know how profoundly bo-or-or-or-ored he is.

Really he’s upset that the world isn’t revolving around him, but around waiting for his abuela (we have reservations but they won’t seat an incomplete party). He also wants to break open the art kit which his bisabuela gave him earlier in the evening. We were expecting to be seated right away and for the “show” of the chef preparing our meal right in front of us to keep Cleo Junior entertained, so we didn’t bring anything to entertain him. The art kit is filled with tiny pieces, paints, glitter tubes - nothing we want opened in a busy restaurant.

Asking Cleo Junior to wait patiently for the chef show to begin is like asking a dog to meow.

I’ve heard children described as need machines. I’ve also heard it’s like having a tiny, cantankerous old man demanding constant attention. Waiting at Benihana, Cleo Junior is more like the latter, but with a severe case of Alzheimer’s thrown in. The second we stop doing, Cleo Jr. forgets everything that happened the prior second. His boredom is immediate, and total.

Driving with him to Orlando was a similar experience, but Becky and I managed to turn “are we there yet?” into a game. We made him realize how silly it was to keep asking, and a sly humor crept into his tone, making us all laugh. For a five-year-old, he’s got great comic timing. Waiting to be seated when Cleo Jr. is tired and hungry, there’s no way to bring him into the joke. You’re tired and hungry yourself. You want to laugh. You want to cry. You want to scream.

More to the point, you want to forget yourself, grab him hard, and shake him silly, yelling that he needs to stop whining before you give him something to whine about.

Finally being seated brings relief – something new! But although we take up six seats, they hold our meal until another party of two can fill the eight-top. When Benihana finds a couple, they have a problem with a coupon they've printed off the internet. Now we want to give the waitress, the manager, even the couple the old grab-n’-shake.

“We just entertained a five-year-old for an hour waiting for a table, screw the stupid coupon and give us alcohol, NOW.”

The look on Mini Cleo’s face when the chef arrives and starts dancing food over the flat-top? Priceless. He’s slaw-jawed, delighted beyond measure, wide-eyed with amazement. He’s laughing his face off. He’s got a toddler’s crush on chef Miguel.
These are the moments we love having him as the center of attention. He reminds us what it was like to discover everything for the first time. We remember the wonder of a volcano made from onions, of flipping shrimp tails and rice bowls.

Other tables smile at us, thinking to themselves, what a sweet boy. Looking at a five-year-old laugh over Benihana, it’s impossible to be cynical.

Cleo Junior barely touches the food, but at least he’s not bored.

God Is Dreaming Us Awake

That is to say, dreaming us into existence. When you're dreaming, your brain can’t selectively emote. Dreaming, you can’t tell the difference between stubbing your toe and losing your toe, or kissing and making love; it’s all agony and it’s all ecstasy. That’s why during our waking hours, we can’t understand why we found a dream so terrifying, or so funny, or so profound.

God dreams us awake and she can’t tell the difference between genocide in Rwanda and a teenager in Greensbarrow who just got dumped, the difference between a man locked up for twenty years for a crime he didn’t commit and a child never allowed from his own parents' basement for the same span, the difference between a drowning baby and a puppy run down in the street.

We think we can, of course. This causes misery. We suppress this misery most of the time, bury it in text messages and blogs, in opening weekend box offices and seasons premieres, in a new pair of shoes or the gourmet sandwich shop that just opened.

But our denial doesn't stop it. Tragedies quaint and Earth-rocking continue, and we turn a blind eye, just like God. She’s too overwhelmed, you see, when all we need is for her to wake up, so she can tell the difference.

In that respect, we are her image.