--IF I’M GOING TO BE ALONE, I WANT TO BE ALONE WITH YOU

…I have been trying to get published in SmokeLong Quarterly for at least eight years and it finally happened yesterday, with this essay:

 SmokeLong Quarterly

☰

Will You Please Not Be Quiet, Please?

 

 For Raymond Carver

By Len Kuntz

He was already dead when I found him. There was no one to call. My stomach filled with acid, my head spun. So I sat down, right there in the bookstore row, and read—This Is What We Talk About When We Talk About Love—until my eyes bled.

I was spellbound.

This was before flash fiction even had a name.

Others had known him before me, and I found this disappointing. Couldn’t someone have introduced us? How is any fair writer supposed to make their way without Ray?

From him, I learned to take risks, break writing rules. I learned how to get lowbrow enough to seem highbrow, how to surprise a reader without gimmickry. Ray used small, soft words that could cut your heart out and apologize at the same time. He mentored me through print—stories, poems, essays and other scraps I dug up. He himself learned from Lish—how to edit and kern the way a leather artisan tools animal figures into a belt, getting the goat’s startled expression exactly wide-eyed, making the mare’s flared nostril’s sweat.

Who’s to say definitively where flash fiction originated? I do know that most of Carver’s stories—written before his death in 1988—came in under 1,000 words, four or five pages. They embody all the elements of great flash writing—urgency, compression, language with music in it, plots that take the turn you didn’t see coming, story starts that are immediately compelling such as this from Gazebo:  

That morning she pours Teacher’s over my belly and licks it off.  That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.

In just two sentences, Carver thrusts us into the action and kick starts our imagination. We at once have all kinds of questions: Who is this woman? How did she go from having a sexual (albeit kinky) appetite in the morning to nearly killing herself only hours later? What does the narrator think about all this? Was he the cause? And then there’s the specific mention of Teacher’s, which is the name of a liquor company that makes Scotch Whiskey. Why did Carver pick Teacher’s and not some other brand? Inherent in the name is symbolism, and so we’re left wondering what part that will play in the story.

Another example comes from the opening lines in Where I’m Calling From:

J.P. and I are on the front porch at Frank Martin’s drying-out facility. Like the rest of us at Frank Martin’s, J.P. is first and foremost a drunk.

Here we learn that two apparent friends are in rehab for alcoholism, and that the place is called Frank Martin’s. Why Frank Martin’s? How is this place different from other institutions? What circumstances compelled the pair to seek help? Was it their own volition, or did a marriage or career end due to alcohol abuse? Will they be successful in their recovery? Are they hopeful, despondent, angry?

In every piece, Carver is fixated on brevity and intensity, two keystones of flash fiction writing. This, coupled with the fact that most of his titles are compelling enough to catch a reader’s eye—The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off for instance, or The Furious Seasons—each of Carver’s works is as much a sizzling story as it is an instructional for any would be writer. From top to bottom, from title to conclusion, Ray teaches us about the best writing has to offer.

His characters, sometimes named, sometimes not, are always fully individualized, people we recognize at once, but don’t necessarily trust to do the right thing. It’s as if Carver is taunting the reader to Hang in there. Let’s just see what this character ends up doing. I think he’s going to surprise you. And so often he does.

In the late ’70s there were Mailer and Bukowski, and along with Carver, some tagged them a writer’s Rat Pack, but truthfully, Ray never fit in. He had the drinking part down, yes, but he was as shy as a breeze, soft spoken, whispering when he talked, the way one might to a lover. With his voice, as with his writing, he made you pay attention.  

His stories shined a light on small town suffering and broke-down places. He was a quiet king, and anytime I sit down at a keyboard, he’s nearby, always, whispering in my ear, “Take your time.  It’s all about making the words sing.”  

 

Top of Form

 

 

--LIFE IS MOSTLY MADE OF EDGES

 

Dear Annie,

             I’ve been trying to write this letter to you for a while now, and even though I am currently myself a writer full-time, I’ve had a lot of difficulty finding the right words to use and I’ve worried that what I have to say will sound either flat or scripted, or even irrelevant.

            Nevertheless, I wanted to share some personal thoughts with you.

Like so many other people, I was a friend and big fan of your father’s.  We went to Pasco High School together and then later we were in the same fraternity, Sigma Chi, at Washington State University.

I moved to Pasco the day before my junior year started.  I didn’t know a soul and I was very shy back then.  Pasco is a small town and people who live there all grew up together, going to elementary and middle school, bonding and making tight connections.  I felt like an alien.

However, your dad befriended me, even though he had nothing to gain by it.  As I said, I was really introverted back then, almost terminally shy.  Your dad was the opposite of that, so gregarious and accommodating with everyone.  It was rare to see him not smiling.  He had a big, toothy grin that was immediately infectious.  The girls all thought his dimples were adorable, plus they loved the idea that he had hair like John Travolta--long, parted down the middle and feathered.

I spent quite a few afternoons playing basketball at his house and for several years we went to the hydroplane races together on the Columbia River.  Invariably, your dad knew everyone that lined the riverbanks and he’d spend most of the day saying Hello and catching up instead of watching any of the races.  He didn’t care about boats—people were what mattered most to him.

I was with your dad for a wedding the day before Mount St. Helens erupted in May of 1980.  We were in Pasco and when we woke the next morning the sky was an eerie plum color, almost as if it was bruised and in pain.  There was no social media back then, so we were fairly certain a bomb had been dropped somewhere.  Driving back to college in your Dad’s Chevy Nova, we heard the news about the volcano on the radio.  As soon as we did, as if on cue, ash began to fall, thick as snow but lightly gray colored, like dust and lint shook loose from a vacuum bag.  Your dad loved music, and he had an 8-track of Jimmy Buffet, so he played the song with the lyrics, “I don’t know where I’ma gonna go when the volcano blows.”  We put it on repeat, singing along as loud as we could, hardly able to see out of the windshield since it was so covered with ash.

As you already know, most of us called your dad “Rockin’ Rod.”  In high school he somehow landed a gig as a DJ on the local radio station in Pasco.  He worked late evenings, but we’d stay up, call in and request really obscure songs that your dad would play and mention our names in the dedication.  We thought that was pretty cool.  We were friends of a celebrity and this celebrity proudly let everyone listening know that we were, indeed, friends of his.

There was a group of us who were pretty close for a while—Rod, Justin, Rene and me.  Your dad dubbed us “The Four Musketeers” and he always grinned wide whenever he used that moniker.  It made me feel special, included, as if I belonged to this unique tribe or club reserved for only a few lucky people.

I have so many wonderful memories of your dad.  I could go on and on.

Annie, I can’t even try to imagine what you’re going through, but I did want to tell you that your father was a great man--not that you don’t already know it.  Anyone who can leave such a lasting imprint on the hearts of others has lived an incredible life, just as your dad did.

When I think of him, he’s smiling.  He’s wishing everyone else the best and he genuinely means it.  He’s showing all of us how to live life in full, teaching us how to be better than we ever thought we could be.  There’s a welcoming glow in his eyes that says, “I’m here if you need me.”

Sincerely,

Len Kuntz

             2/25/17

 

 

 

--TRY NOT TO GET UPSET.  LET IT ALL GO BY.  HOW BAD CAN IT BE, IF WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE?

  

…I don’t know if most people check their Junk email folder, but I do because sometimes there’s something there that isn’t junk, like a story acceptance.
This morning when I looked at it there were four different offers for discounted rates on Viagra, Levitra and Cialis.  It was nice of them to send me such bargains, yet, luckily, I don’t need any of those pills.  I’m sorry for the men who do, but at least they have options.

…On Friday night I spent the evening watching Dawes perform live for three full hours.

It doesn’t matter all that much, but I looked out at the crowd and couldn’t see a single black person.  I wonder why black people don’t like Dawes because I’m pretty certain Dawes likes black people.
Nonetheless, it was a pretty damn good concert.  Better than good.  Maybe the best one I’ve ever been to.  I knew the lyrics to just about every song and they even did me a solid by singing “Good Night, Maria,” in its entirety, meaning ten full minutes.  I was a happy boy.
That is one great piece of writing.

…I’m reading “What We Carry” by Dorianne Laux for about the tenth time.  I was fortunate enough to meet her at AWP.  I hope to someday write poetry that is half as good as hers.

…I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic of late.  So much so, that I got the nerve to dial up my old high school friend who I’ve not spoken to in close to 40 years.  My call went to voice mail, but I left him a message.

He was a person, through a chance encounter one day when I missed the school bus and was walking home, who completely changed the trajectory of my life, and most definitely for the better.
I called because I wanted to tell him how grateful I was/am for his kindness in befriending me.  I’m not sure if I ever did so when we together.
It’s incredible how one person can affect your life.

…I have another friend who journals daily.  When I was young, I kept trying to write in a diary but everything I wrote seemed insipid when I read it back afterward.  For instance, who cares about what the weather was like on a Monday or Tuesday?

This blog is the closest thing I’ve come to having a journal.

…I saw quite a few homeless people on the streets of Seattle Friday night.  I kept wondering how they got that way, whose son they were, if they had kids of their own, and if they did, what their kids thought, if they’d tried to help, if they’d tried really hard.

I can’t imagine having a parent who’s homeless, let alone a child of mine.
I read a book called “Under The Underpass,” or something like that, a while back.  The two authors spent a year as homeless people.  They said 95% of all homeless people are addicts of some sort and that you’re never to give beggars money because they’ll just use it for alcohol or drugs.  (They recommended giving them food of some kind.)  But only half of those I saw Friday night looked like addicts.  The other half just seemed very desperate and lonely.  It was kind of heartbreaking.  No, not kind of; it was definitely heartbreaking.
You really have to shelve your dignity in order to walk up to every person waiting in the concert line, pleading for spare change as if your life depended on it. 

…At dinner my son asked me what one piece of advice I would give to a twenty year old.  I had to think about it for a while.  There were a lot of ways I could have replied.  My counsel was to always be very curious, and to learn to ask good questions.  The thing was, though, he already is curious, and plus he’d just asked me a damn great question, so maybe I missed an opportunity there.

…New music arrived over the weekend, which is always a treat:

-Car Seat Headrest, “Tears of Denial” which The New Yorker says is “The kind of perfect, instantly familiar pop songs that echo in the background of your dreams.”
-Twenty One Pilots, “Blurry Face”
-Tove Lo, “Lady Wood”
-and my most sought after, Ryan Adam’s new one, “Prisoner,” which is supposed to be mostly about his breakup with Mandy Moore.
I’m going to have happy ears for quite a while.

…I have watched the ascension of a writer friend of mine for the last couple of years.  She’s become quite famous and even had a whole page in last week’s Entertainment Weekly devoted entirely to her likes, dislikes and guilty pleasures.

I’m genuinely very happy for you, Roxane Gay.
God, or the universe, is getting it exactly right by making you a star.

…Where I live there are a lot of coffee outposts along the road.  It always makes me think about Starbucks, and how they created not just a business, but an entire industry.  I wonder how many jobs Starbucks has produced.  I’m guessing millions.

I dislike Howard Schultz, personally, because of the way he sold The Sonics down the toilet, but I do admire other things about him.

…I love my office.  It’s where I spend most of my days.  I have an incredible view.  Sometimes--actually almost every day, around 2:00 until 4:00--the sun shines so bright that I can’t see my computer screen, and in order to write, I have to crouch down and make myself a gnome. 

I know, tough problems, right?

…I’m behind on watching “This Is Us.”  I watched two episodes last night and bawled my eyes out.  Then, to lighten things up, I watched an episode of “The Wonder Years” and again cried like a baby.  It was the one where Kevin’s stern teacher, a man Kevin is desperately trying to impress and get approval from, dies suddenly.  It was very, very sad. 

People who laugh at me for crying at “The Wonder Years” have never likely seen “The Wonder Years,” or if they have, they were reading a magazine during their viewing.
I have cried a lot lately and will likely cry plenty more this week.

…I am a big fan of the arts.  I think they shine a light on life and show us our lives, and other’s lives, in ways that we need to know, but don’t.  On Facebook (why am I even mentioning this?) quite a few people were bragging about not watching The Academy Awards.  It was as if not watching was their red badge of courage. 

Screw them. 
(Actually, ours is a free country—or so I still think it is—so they can do what they want, post what they want, rant about what they want to rant about.)
But me, I watched the entire thing.
Even though there was that big fuckup at the end, robbing “Moonlight” of some of its well-deserved glory, I thought this year’s Oscars was the best ever.  Normally it’s remarkably bland and boring, and afterward, I’m always left wondering why I wanted to watch it so bad.
Jimmy Kimmel did a great job hosting.  He was spontaneous and funny, as well as authentic.
The Oscars is basically a recognition meeting where people get honored and then, in turn, thank everyone they know, which doesn’t make for great viewing, but this year they added some elements which really helped disrupt the otherwise mundane pacing.

…Tuesday.

Oh Tuesday, you dark and noisy, pissed off thunderstorm…

Tomorrow I drive to Pasco for my friend’s funeral.  I haven’t been to Pasco in 30 some years.  It will be an emotional day.  I will try to be strong, something I am no longer good at.
I will be attentive and listen carefully and try to learn as many life lessons as I can. 
If you believe, and even if you don’t, would you please say a little prayer for me, but especially say a prayer for Pam, Rod’s wife, and for 11 year old Annie, Rod’s daughter?
If you do me this favor, thank you so much in advance.

…Okay, enough scattershot thought.

It’s late, or early, I don’t know.
I hope you have a great week.
Maybe you could tell someone something you appreciate about them and why.  You’ll make their day. 
I don’t know many things, but of this, I am certain.

 

--THERE’S ONLY THIS.  THERE’S ONLY US.

 

…So I saw “Rent” tonight (technically last night, since it’s morning now.)

I’ve seen it several times before in the theater, as well as the film (which badly needed editing.) Yet it never quite moved me as it did this time.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe I caught more of the subtle symbolisms or maybe it’s the day we live in, but I cried more at this performance than I ever have during “Les Miserables,” which is saying something.
“Will I” (Lose My Dignity) is such a touching piece.  There are really only about a dozen words.  It’s very short and punctuated.  It’s so poignant and heart-wrenching, and the chorus raised every hair on my body.
Then there’s “I Should Tell You” and “Light My Candle” and “A Thousand Sweet Kisses,” which may well be the fifth most romantic song ever.
Anyway, I’m still spinning a bit.  Jonathan Larson was pretty brilliant.  It’s incredibly sad to think he died the day before his masterpiece premiered, and sadder yet to think of all he would have created had he simply lived an average number of years.

…It feels like I am being swept away, sucked down in the undertow of death, lately. 

I don’t want to be. 

“There is no future.  There is no past.”

…And, besides, it’s the weekend.  Who doesn’t love a weekend?

 

...Here are just a few things that make me pause.  Maybe they will you as well.

-“To me, being vulnerable is just another way of saying that one has nothing more to lose.” Bob Dylan

-“No death for you.  You are involved.” Weldon Kees

-“Until we lose ourselves, we’ll never find ourselves.” Henry Miller

-“I have becomes what I have always been and it has taken a lifetime, all of my own life, to reach this point where it is as if I know finally that I am alive and that I am here, right now.” Tobias Schneebaum

-“That we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.” John Berger

“Live life as if you are going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you are going to live forever.” Plato

 

 

--SHE SHOWED ME THE MACHINERY THAT OUR WORDS PROTECT US FROM, HOW SHE COULD KEEP ME IN THE MOMENT, HOW THAT’S ALL THERE EVER WAS

  

                                                 Thieves

 

          She steals.

          I watch her in the wine store.  Instead of going for a normal-sized bottle, she takes a showcased magnum of champagne shaped like a black missile.  Somehow it stays inside her flouncy skirt. On the counter is a silver platter with three, pie-shaped cuts of brie and a fan of domino crackers.  She filches the entire thing in one swift swoop.
          Outside I say, “You’re amazing.”
          She tells me, “You need to stop telling me that crap.”
          “But you are,” I say.
          “You just haven’t seen my dark side yet,” she says.
          “You won’t let me.”
          “Well, it might help if you had corrective lenses.”
          We’ve been dating for two years.  Her name is Ivy.  Ink-black hair, cut-across bangs, thin lips that go pink when she’s excited, which is all the time.  I love her so much that I eat razors trying to muster up the right things to say.
          At the book store, Ivy waves her arm around and looks at me with tear-soaked eyes.  “Just think,” she says, “someday soon, this whole place will be a Kindle.”
          She steals Charles Baxter’s entire collection, some Beatty and then every Anais Nin.
          “Where do you put all that stuff?” I ask.
          “You weren’t listening.”
          “Yes, I was.”
          “Ah,” Ivy says, potato peeling forefinger-to-forefinger in a Shame-on-you motion, “but you didn’t believe.”
          Ivy claims she has been culled, that someone excavated her against her will.  She won’t say who or anything else, just that.
Once, while I was kissing her, Ivy said, “Go ahead, stick your arm all the way down my throat.”  I chuckled until I realized she was serious, then my jaw locked up.  “Shove it past my tonsil bell,” Ivy said. “See if you can reach down into my belly.  It’s just a big ol’ empty room anyway.”
          I told her to stop screwing around.  I punched her soft on the shoulder as if we were both second-graders.
          “I know you think I’m making this shit up,” Ivy said, “but I’m not.  I’m gutted.  I’m hollow.”
          She grabbed an arm, tried to force my hand into her mouth.  I told her now she was scaring me.
          “Okay,” Ivy said, “but if you forego the proof, then just stop doubting me.” 
          There are things Ivy won’t share.  She only talks about today or tomorrow, the future, never yesterday or before.  The past, she says, is a black hole just like her, so I need to get used to skipping it, or else get a new girlfriend.  Ivy nibbles my earlobe as she warns me, secreting saliva, yet I can tell she means the threat.
          One day we stop by a school.  “Let’s break in,” Ivy says.  I don’t want to, but I’m more afraid Ivy will leave me than I am of getting in trouble with the law.
I crack a window at the building’s north end, and we rummage through desks and leftover backpacks.  We stumble into the hall.  When we get to the band room, Ivy lights up, her lips so pink they border on magenta. 
She jumps over rows of seats to get to the instruments up front, takes a trumpet, two bongos and a tuba.  I don’t know where they go, but she’s got them and they’ve disappeared.
        “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ivy says.
         At 7/11, Ivy steals a Slurpee machine.
         At a gas station, she steals the debit card instrument panel.
         At the pet store, she steals a school of fish and one obnoxious macaw.
         At the zoo, Ivy opts for a wiry monkey, then a rhino that bolts to the end of the fence where Ivy dangles a bag of unshelled peanuts coated in Dijon mustard.
         After each instance, I tell her the same thing.  “You’re amazing,” I say, wishing I had better words.
         She kisses me like a wire brush on the lips and I feel fire. 
         One night we lay on the bed.  I rub Ivy’s stomach through her Syracuse sweatshirt.  Her flesh is flat, pliable.  She says, “Go ahead, push.”
         So I do.  I obey. 
         My hand sinks.  I force further, worrying I’m hurting her, until Ivy smiles and says, “It’s okay, really.  I don’t feel a thing.”
         When Ivy rolls onto her side, I push also through her back until my hands would be touching if it weren’t for Ivy’s two skins.  “Told you,” she says.
          I blink.  My eyes burn.  I get it now.
          I roll my cheek up against her neck like a cat, remembering the times Ivy would flinch at certain pronouns, or whenever we were around bald men wearing wire-rimmed glasses and wrist tattoos.
          Ivy says, “Your cheek feels good on my neck, like an important cloud.  That’s the best place for it.”
          I want to explain that no matter how hard she tries, Ivy’s not going to be able to fill what’s been uprooted.  I’d like to tell her that damage doesn’t have to be permanent, that theft can be atoned or forgiven, and that the only reason our planet still spins is because of grace.
          “Hey,” Ivy says, “are you crying?”
          “I’m okay.”
          “What’s up?”  Ivy tries to cock her head around, but I burrow my chin against her shoulder bone like a metal bookend.
          “Steal me,” I whisper. 
          Ivy arches her back and I can see the flesh on her ear puckering.
         When I say it again--“Steal me, instead”—Ivy takes my hand and puts it to her lips, just holds it there, gripping it tight.

           

           

 

TONIGHT I ASKED ALL THE STARS TO PRAY FOR US

 

 

A Better Man

   for Rod Simons

 

It’s preposterous.

We only have these seconds, minutes and days.
They roll up on our cheeks
as acne or sweat
from sex that is not sex at all,
but rather love,
even if it’s puppy love,
even if it’s slippery and elusive.
And all those seconds, minutes and days,
they conspire, collide and clog in order
to simply stop your heart one day,
as sure as sundown,
and you are gone,
just like that,
no questions asked,
perished, banished for good.
All the old photos come out afterward.
“Remember this?”
“I think this was when you were really drunk and fell into that _____while he was laughing his ass off.”
“Remember when you lost your shit and car keys and _______  ________ saved you?”
We’re all going to die.
I get it, I do.
That’s why life holds meaning.
But the rationale doesn’t make it any easier.
Can I just whine a while,
say that
I’m sick to death of death,
that death can go fuck itself to death?
Take me, not him,
is what I’m thinking.
I’m ready.
He wasn’t.
He was such a better man.
Can someone come and tell me
where I’m wrong on this?

 

 

--MY HEART IS OPEN WIDE AND I AM ON YOUR SIDE

 

…This weekend I read a lot of poetry and finished a few volumes, including “On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths” by Lucia Perillo, which was one of the 100 Notable Books of 2012 as deemed so by The New York Times Book Review.

I had no idea what she was trying to convey in almost every one of her poems.  It was a smarter book than me, or else she was just being clever to fool her readers.
I dislike poetry that is so obscure, although hers wasn’t necessarily.  It was very specific most times, but the larger points she was making always left me lost and confused.
My one big take away is that art is truly subjective, or that I don’t know how to decipher cryptic language, let alone enjoy it.

…Pete the eagle has flown by a few times already.  It’s hard to tell if he’s a happy bird.  He’s pretty serious-looking.  I just hope he’s not too hungry.  Being hungry sucks.

…Geese are a paradox.  I love watching them fly in a V.  I love watching a group of them on land, because they really are picturesque.  However, I do not love them on my lawn destroying it.  Whenever I see them on the grass, I scamper from my desk downstairs to shoo them away.  Somehow, cute Lucy knows exactly what’s going on, or else she just senses my ire, because she’ll charge after me barking (she almost never barks) and will run out on the deck with me barking away (she’s pretty fierce for a six pound Shorkie.  actually she’s anything but fierce.)  The other bad part about geese is they are mean animals.  Inevitably the group will gang up on a lone goose, snapping at his wings.  I guess bullies exist everywhere.  I guess lots of people (and geese) think they’re hella tougher than everyone else and need to prove it.

…Anne Elizabeth did a little review of a story I wrote, four paragraphs down:

http://www.thereviewreview.net/reviews/lively-interchange-between-words-and-images
 

…One day a few years ago I saw this elderly couple at Safeway.  I just pulled my cart to the side and watched them for a while.  They were arthritic and hunched over, but still looked very much in love and dependent on each other.  Back at home that night, I looked across the lake and wrote this story, which I’ve performed at a few readings:

 

Center and Fringe

         
            I want you to lie to me. 

I want you to pull my hair and threaten to leave me again, tell me every soiled thing you loathe about me but, later, do a paint-by-numbers watercolor on my chest, inserting a subliminal message between the stripes of a rainbow.

            I want to cuddle with you on this bed of pine needles so scratchy we’d never be able to sleep, the frosty air cold enough to make our noses bleed, dribbling down our chins like scarlet fondue. 

I want the taillights glowing rat-eyed across the lake to be your eyes, fascinated by me on this winter’s night.  I want the cones of light reflected on the wafting water to be a cloud that morphs in undulation so that we can find new characters and objects in its wake, its center and fringe. 

I want you to see what I see, the people who own that light and the house where that light glows, the ones that have been together since before the war against Germany.  I saw them at Safeway yesterday.  She was testing a melon with her gnarled thumb while the brittle little guy manned the cart, hunched, grinning like a very happy gnome.

I want our skins to spot and sag together.  I want us to molt and refute what happened last weekend.  I want magical powers, the ability to make you stay put, to cause that car to miss you, take a different corner, let you live.     

I want to take it all back.