from: "And Then" (novel)

“Who’s that?” Clayton inquired, nodding to the blond sitting at a table full of finely dressed people.

“That’s Corrine Valmont.” Monroe clarified. “She just left St. Agnes.”

“Is she a nun?”

“No, a widow.”

“Oh.” Clayton shrugged. “I’m surprised no one’s drooling on her yet, with the face she’s got.”

“You’d be surprised.” Monroe chuckled with a smirk. “But I’m not interested.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” He turned his friend to spot the dance floor. “She’s already got me hogtied.”

Monroe smiled at her with a bright, unassuming smile.

“That’s Ruth Saxe, her sister.” Monroe clarified, still smiling. “She’s got the fiercest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Clayton frowned.

He had caught sight of her as she swung around to the tune of the music. She was dancing with a weasel of a younger man, who looked as green as grass. Her hair was flying around her face, and she was laughing—a deep, hearty laughter. She was free, and flirtatious, and everything he had recalled.

Clayton held back the sensation of fury and melancholy that suddenly rose up into his throat.

“I see you’ve found her.” Monroe smirked, catching him around the shoulder. “Hotter than hell, ain’t she?”

“The man who plays in that fire is an idiot.” Clayton muttered, removing his friend’s grasp. “I need another drink.”

“Indulge yourself while I fetch the sister.” Monroe chuckled, easing away, and heading towards Mrs. Corrine Valmont.

Clayton shook his head, and moseyed over to the refreshment table. He nodded to the scotch, and the negro fixed him a glass. He held it in his hand for a moment, before tossing it back and swallowing the entirety in one gulp. He was about to hold it out for another, when someone wheeled him around and he suddenly found himself in the presence of Monroe and Mrs. Corrine Valmont.

She was pretty. It was a womanly, worldly, unexciting kind of pretty. Her hair was pulled neatly back. Her dress was prim. She smiled as if having been in uninterrupted happiness for centuries. Clayton mustered a weary grin.

“Mrs. Valmont, I’d like to introduce you to my oldest friend—fresh from the North, I may add—Mr. James Clayton.”

“How do you do, Mr. Clayton?” She inquired lightly with a smile.

“Nearly drunk, but I can’t complain.” Clayton replied with a shrug.

“The man’s a jokester for sure.” Monroe chuckled, giving his friend a little nudge.

Corrine still smiled as if she hadn’t heard the remark.

“Are you from here, Mr. Clayton?” She asked.

“Pattersville, born and raised.”

“Not far, then—it appears you are a local boy indeed. How did you like it up North?”

“It was only Tennessee. Mountainous. All that.” He replied without much effect.

“Lovely…” Corrine nodded, trying to remain interested, but catching his blasé.

The sound of the music suddenly caught them all with a loud beat, and the dancers were whipping around—to Clayton, they appeared as good as blurs in an abstract painting.

Auburn hair suddenly swept around and around, and Ruth flew from the crowd and out of the arms of the youngster who danced with her. Clayton raised an eyebrow. She spun around, and around, and suddenly found herself tripping right into his arms. She was dizzy, and disoriented, and laughing without looking up. Then, slowly, she brushed her hair from her eyes.

She stared at him for a second, and he stared at her.

Her face grew white, suddenly, and she startled back as if fleeing from a ghost.

“Ruth! Dear lord, catch your breath!” Corrine laughed, grasping her sister’s hand. “Ruth, Mr. Monroe brought a friend tonight. This is Mr. James Clayton.”

But Ruth’s eyes were on the floor. She didn’t answer.

“I believe we’ve met.” Clayton interjected, his tone marked.

“Oh, good!” Corrine giggled. “It saves an introduction.”

The sound of the band kicked up again.

“Miss Saxe, would you like to dance?” Monroe asked Ruth, keenly. “I know you’ve been dancing all night, but I was hoping you could spare one more for me.”

She didn’t say anything, but grabbed his hand as if it were for life, and he took her to the floor.

Corrine turned to Clayton with a bemused smirk.

“My sister certainly isn’t shy around many people, Mr. Clayton.” She giggled. “I wonder what’s gotten into her.”

“Perhaps the fear of God.” Clayton murmured, turning to the table and nodding to another drink.

Back to Breathing.

I have not written a poem, a story, a novel...in so long...

I attribute this great block to being entirely too content.

When a writer is too content, a strange thing occurs:

Life suddenly becomes this day-to-day routine of work, activity, and sleep. They aren't too happy, they aren't too sad. They are nestled contentedly between the fullness of both polar emotions. It is an equator of sorts.

This equator is possibly the worst thing that could ever happen to a writer.

I am a writer, and it has finally happened to me.

I sit around every day, waiting, hoping some crazy tragedy or fit of elation comes to me. My best work has come from the deepest moods one could never wish to possess. My best lines were penned in my darkest despair, or my highest ecstasy.

I used to be an utter nihilist. My entire life was centered around my own pleasure. I took what I wanted, I threw away what I didn't want. I played music night and day, I took drugs and snorted anything I could get my hands on. I had my fill of men and women. I chanted from the Book of the Dead. I cried in misery for nights on end, fearing death and illness. I couldn't have looked in the mirror and seen anything uglier if I had squinted harder.

I was a hot paradox of emotions, an utter freak, and I could not have felt more alive--more free from chains.

NEVER, when I have been contented, did I write anything memorable.

I am in this limbo today. It makes my heart heavy to only think about it.

My financial life is stable. My romantic life is stable. Everything is so stable, stable, stable--bland, bland, bland...

My pen is like my very breath.
My breaths give me life.
I want to be alive again.
I want to be in pain again, or flying again.
I want something so vivid that it haunts me in dreams.

I want my identity back.

Blaine.

Blaine is my father.

The only compliment I could ever give him is that he is an excellent provider--and that is the entirety of the good things that he has done for me in my life.

I don't believe I have fully loved him for the majority of my adulthood.

A lot of people would be quick to judge me for whining about a man who paid for my livelihood until I was out of high school, and who kept a roof over my head and all that. A lot of fathers, one would say, haven't done so much for their children.

I'm not speaking about a lot of fathers, I'm only speaking about one. And I'm speaking about him from a place that is very personal, because I have always been too ashamed before.

One who provides is not always deserving of the title of "father".
I'll tell you why.

Ever since I was very little, my father has been physically and emotionally abusive to both my sister and I.
He has never been this way to my mother, only his two daughters.

His physical abuse ceased when I became old enough to understand that when he hit me, yanked me or grabbed me, I was supposed to call 911. I told this to him one day as he came at me in a rage, and since then he has never once touched me in anger.
I was about thirteen when this ceased.
I had been contemplating the courage to stop him for a few years by that time, because we were always taught "abuse" was punishable at school. They would lecture us about calling 911, if we knew someone was being abused. I would look around at everyone, wondering if they knew I was a child who was constantly physically and verbally assaulted in my own house...I would wonder if they were going through the very same things, and if they were thinking of trying to stop it.

When I did have the courage to stop it, I understood all the dynamics of what was going on.

He would prey on my sister and I because we were weak little girls. When I was young, I thought these outbursts were my fault entirely. I was a rambunctious child who was not easy to manage, and when he would attack me I felt that it was my punishment for misbehaving. He would often leave me bruised in a corner, with my mother yelling at him for "going too far".

She never helped me escape him.

It made him feel like a man to take all of his own anger, disappointment, and rage out on his two very young daughters--beings who could not fight back.

As I got older, he was exclusively verbal and emotionally abusive. This continues to this very day.

I'll be berated for being lazy, dumb, and useless--when I am putting myself through school, working and attending class five days a week. This happens nearly three out of every five days I see him.

I've grown eerily accustomed to it all, standing up for myself often, which leads to fighting.

When a dog is provided a kennel and food, but is still constantly beaten--does one actually think it won't bite back?

I'll bite back, and I'll keep fighting it until I don't ever have to see him again. I've already made very clear decisions about how I would like the relationship between my parents and my children to be. I cannot, and will not, subject them to the erratic behaviors of people who have no idea how to channel their feelings.

I don't want to blame him entirely. I know there must be a problem inside of him that he is unwilling to address. His behavior is entirely too unexplained for me to say he is an evil person, and not regretful of his actions. He is too quick to apologize after the things he's done, his conscious tells him that what he just did was very wrong--he simply does not know how or why he did it. It's a blind rage he goes into when he acts this way...

However, in the same instance, I cannot pity a grown man who has had an entire adult life to fix it.

Had he seen a doctor, or had he even took precautions to not loose his nerve at the drop of a hat...he and I's relationship would be so much better than it is today. I would not have so much distaste for him, had he at least tried to better himself.

I'm a woman now, so I must deal with these things with a woman's judgement--and pray to god that I'm doing it all the right way.

Such is where I find myself today.
I've been provided for, but maltreated by one of the people entrusted to love me unconditionally.
I'm biting back in the best way that I can, with patience and acceptance of what has happened--and a resolve for it never to repeat itself in my future.

The Embrace

Her feet trumped against the cement as she pulled her worn faux leather purse harder against her shoulder. She stared up at the billboard with glistening eyes, blocking herself from sending signals to her glands to prepare more tears. The reflex to bite her bottom lip announced itself again, and she gasped as a car sped by--the driver, furious, waved his fist at her.
It was a warning.
Walking too close to where the sidewalk met the blacktop would cause something worse.
She knew where she wanted to go, but getting there in one piece was the challenge. She only halfass wanted to keep herself together, after all.
She stopped glancing ahead, she looked down at the sidewalk as if it made it easier to stomp along unnoticed. The air felt heavy, as if it was going to rain.
She was intending to fix a dilemma that had started fifteen months before, a dilemma that had perhaps affected her more than any other. It had all started in the front of the window of a boutique store. It had all started in front of a copy of Gustav Kilmt's "The Embrace".
He had walked up and stood next to her.
He was drinking something frothy and pretentious.
She wasn't going to pay any attention to him, until he turned his head to her, and told her "your concentration is nice...I've never met a woman who could stand in one place for ten minutes, and enjoy it."
He had asked her if she wanted to come along with him to a vintage camera store.
It had taken off from there in the normal fashion, or as normal as she had known all of her other relationships to be. He was over so often her cat had come to regard him with disdain instead of viciousness. They shared icecream from a carton, while watching trashy reality television. They had sex in the most random instances, on the most random and awkward surfaces imaginable.
The months rolled on.
The arguments intensified, and perhaps over the most miniscule things.
How to place the mugs in the cupboard. How to make the bed. How to fold towels.
She began to take the long way to work, just so that she would have more time to think about what was happening to her. His apologies after every fight were daunting to her. His willingness to correct whatever void was between them intimidated her. She was comfortable with keeping him at arms-length. The way he was making her feel was bewildering her in the worst way--she wondered if she was even cut out to be in love, or even understand what it meant.
Just as soon as she had confidently decided she was freaking herself out over nothing...
He took her to a small restaurant on the river, beckoned her to dance with him on the boardwalk under the moonlight, and...proposed marriage to her, on bended knee.
Before a proper resignation could be mustered, she turned around and left him kneeling there. She walked right to the bus stop, and went home to her cat. She sat down on the sofa until five in the morning, staring at the black screen on the television, and contemplating if what had happened was not actually a figment of her imagination.
No one had ever done anything like that in her twenty-eight years. No one had expressed the vulnerable nature of a man on his knee. No one had offered her a piece of expensive jewelry that had so much responsibility attached to it.
She wanted to feel sorry, but she couldn't in those odd and incomplete moments.
Her life before him had been so different, after all.
She was the one who had laughed confidently with girlfriends over martinis, saying she would never get married--marriage was for boring people. She had indulged herself with idle and snarky pleasantries, like leaving little dirty notes in her favorite books at the library, and going bra-less to the market just to see how many people would notice.
And now...
Now here she was, a month later without having spoken a single word to him.
Yet she was moving, and she was clearly on the verge of something profound.
Her hair was unkempt. She was mismatched in attire. Her eyes were watering.
And this is how she had found herself the morning she had woken up, and found his side of the bed cold and empty. The cat was perched worriedly on the sofa, staring at her mistress as if to say "...where is the fellow who scratches my head every morning?"
That was the first incident that rocked her uncomfortably.
The rest followed suit very quickly.
There were no towels folded weirdly in the drawers. The place was entirely too clean. The smell of men's cologne and aftershave didn't clutter her bathroom. The pair of shoes he'd left behind sat at the door, not moving an inch day after day.
Her mornings were filled with anxiety, her afternoons with annoyance, her nights with loneliness.
So she decided she had to see him again, and that all of those questions would be answered with the very sight of him.
If she loved him truly, she'd know.
If she didn't love him, she'd know.
All he had to do was open his door, and she would just know.
That's why she was here, climbing up the three flights of stairs to his apartment door. And that's why she was clutching her purse in anticipation, as her quivering finger rang the doorbell. She supposed this was why her eyes were still watering, and her eyes were threatening to flood rivers again.
She jumped slightly as the knob turned.
She stared at him as he opened the door, and stood there with a weird look on his face. And they stood there, looking at each other, as if half expecting one or the other to say something to break the silence in the hall.
But, the problem was...she couldn't say a thing.
The answer she had come for was never more apparent, and it left her speechless at the sight of him there. Her mouth gaped open like a guppy.
He put his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her into him.
Her cheek pressed against his shirt, and as if by reflex, her eyes closed and she inhaled--smiling, and struck dumb by the scent of his laundry detergent.
His lips touched the top of her head, and in those auspicious seconds she received the one thing she wanted since that night--
him, back.

A Letter to the Hipster Next Door

Dear Hipster Next Door,


Hello, and welcome to the neighborhood.

I was going to bake some cookies and go next door to greet you formally, but it appears nothing I'm wearing is organic. If we're going to be literal, the shirt on my back is 100% cotton--therefore, technically, organic--but I'm pretty sure it was manufactured in a warehouse with a bunch of other like shirts...and so I'm assuming that dethrones it's "organicism".

It's okay, I'm just going to write this letter to you in hopes that we can be friends. I'm kind of scared you won't like me, though. I occasionally listen to Greenday, and I don't recycle.
And...I don't drink Pabst.

I'm too mainstream.

I know there are strategically warped-out pictures of you on Facebook doing cool shit--you know, like sitting in a field, or front row at some obscure concert. Damn, I wish I did awesome things like you.

I spend way too much time not focusing on being individualistic.

My profile picture is of me, you know, half-smiling and shit. I should be doing something cool! I need cooler friends, which is why I'm trying to make one in you!

In fact, I was thinking about how I could impress you...so I went down to the local thrift shop and picked up a fedora and some thick-rimmed glasses! I bought a tweed jacket for shits and giggles. And now, voila, we're primed to be the best of friends!

But...well...I still didn't think I was non-conformist enough...

So I went down to the local cafe and bought some auspicious coffee drink of frothy goodness. Then I opened up my Macbook and started blogging about my feelings concerning our political crisis, and how children in Uganda need shoes so everyone should buy more TOMS.

Just in case I was missing something, I surfed Reddit for an hour.

I know I seem to be a bit obsessive, but I just want to be a nonconforming, obscure beer-drinking, indie music-listening individual so freakin bad!

I'm even in the process of fixing my bike as we speak! Yep, that stupid gas-guzzling piece of shit you may have seen last week has been scrapped. I've decided to become an earth-conscious individual, and so I pulled out the old fix-gear bike of mine. I put some skinny tires on her and everything, and by the time I install a leather saddle she'll be as good as new.

Sheesh, this shit's long. I hope I didn't take up too much of your time!
I know you're probably busy blurring the gender lines, and all that.

Come by sometime! We'll make something vegan.

Yours Truly,

The Conformist Next Door