Dreams do come true! Check it!
0
Now, I can post the link to my first published short story. I swear I will write about the entire experience sometime soon.
Cliff note version:
Tom Spanbauer challenged me to write a scene for my larger project based on an actual recurring nightmare I used to have. I took the opportunity to write that scene in a workshop with a former Dangerous Writer, David Ciminello, who happened to be teaching at the Attic Institute here in Portland Oregon.
While I was taking that class, a friend wanted a couple of copies of the Chronology of Water (COW) signed, and I, being big in britches and short on humility, bragged that I was sure I could get the books signed. I contacted Lidia Yuknavitch, the author of COW on her Facebook Page and told here I was trying to figure out a way to get a few books signed. I said I was working on a plan for a fellow Dangerous Writer to get them signed in a workshop she was going to be teaching, but if that didn’t work, would she be willing to meet up somehow. She was really cool and gave me her address. And even though Lidia seemed not to be worried, I promised her I wasn’t a stalker. But can any of us really make that claim? Like you have NEVER stalked someone? Not even once? Liar.
Plans fell through for the friend to get the books signed , so I messaged Lidia again and told her what my car looked liked and described myself as a big boyish dyke, or something like that. I told her I would wait outside her class that weekend at Crow Arts Manor, which is housed inside the Milepost 5 Art community. I went about an hour early, because you know how weekend workshops are. They get usually convene early. Not knowing at all what the layout of the place was, when I got there I discovered that there was a possiblity that Lidia would coming out of one of at least 5 exits. I waited at the corner of 81st and NE Oregon, so I could see at least two different exits. After about 15 minutes, I got paranoid that I looked suspicious, like a drug-dealer. Or a stalker. I decided to figure eight through the blocks a few times. I parked again, then circled again. Then repeated that a couple more times.
It was fifteen minutes after the workshop should have been over I thought for sure I had missed her leaving. I stayed parked in the middle of the road and down the street, not far from a corner that I would not have gone around had I decided to circle again, I saw what could only have been Lidia. Long blond hair, sure stride, and a lot more books than most people would carry without a bag. I cranked the wheel and picked up pace. I rolled up alongside called her name. Lidia looked over and smiled. I told her who I was and she hopped in the passenger seat like she knew me. We talked for a few minutes about whatever. She laughed and told me it was her first drive-by book signing.
Instant kismet.
Forward to the next time we met.
I went to a reading at a local literary cafe. Lidia sat with us, and we laughed and talk and drank hard cider. I had sent my story to Lidia to look over, so I took this opportunity to ask her what she thought of it. Lidia said she really liked it and said she could see what I was trying to do with it. She gave me the name Roxane Gay and said that Roxane was the co-editor of this really kick ass Lit Mag, Pank. Lidia said I should contact Roxane, so I did.
I sent Green Man.
I sent Green Man.
Yes, I sent it. The first story I had ever sent.
Green Man was accepted a few weeks later, and it just came out a few weeks ago.
I was going to just copy the link and say, here you go, but I couldn’t. I had to give context.
Then I wanted to regurgitate some gummy sentiment about how we are all dependent on each other, and that there is always hope.
I also thought about how much technology absolutely helped me here, and that no matter how isolated and cynical I feel sometimes having the majority of contact with people these days through Tumbltwitbook, I keep that little spark of whatever it is alive in me so that I can push through into tomorrow even when I don’t want to.
Or that maybe I was just so lucky to have all of these events come together magically, like it was a miracle from some force greater than ourselves.
The truth is, it is one story. A series of stories, really. Stories of my life that are minimally fictionalized, so that I can present them with some level of coherence. None of us can remember things exactly as they happened, and it is even a stretch to remember things as we experienced then thorough our own filters.
Some of that stuff is locked up so tight that it only comes out in nanosecond blips of recognition when a certain smell is in the air. Nanoseconds that leave you wiping memory’s condensation off the palms of your hands and onto your jeans until the memories either evaporate with the hundred proof whiskey you choke down or you are able to piece them together on paper and give them a place to be. Once written, inside feels wrecked. Dissected. Dismantled. Dis-integrated.
Until you put the pieces back together again.
Then again, maybe that’s just me.
So, here it is. Green Man:
Queering Me
Posted: 4th September 2011 by dboi admin in Random ThoughtsTags: Coming Out, dangerous writers, Fiction, queer
Below are the first two paragraphs of a piece I am currently working on as a side project of the work I am doing in Dangerous Writers. I started writing “Queering Me” when I got the scholarship from the DW Army (Thank you, all you Dangerous Writers) to go to David Ciminello’s class at the Attic Institute, here in Portland. The class was called Writing Our Queer History. Instead of continuing this piece when the class started, I decided to write “Green Man”. Now, I am working on this piece again, so I wanted to share a sample.
Love,
dangerousboi
Queering Me
The first time I saw her was through a dirty basement window. I say I saw her, but all I really saw was a knot of bodies rolling around on the waterbed. A knot that eventually stopped rolling and got down to the business of fucking. Missionary. I knew he hadn’t been fucking her for long, or she’d up on her knees and he’d be fucking her from behind. Me on my knees outside the basement window watching. All fours in dirt and catshit. Fucking strays.
Wasn’t so hard crawling in here. Didn’t think about getting out. But that must have been an hour ago. I am starting to sober up. My mouth tastes like a bottom of a birdcage. I am starting to not want to watch. But I keep watching. I want to know if he loves her like he loves me. Tears and snot and sharp. Sharp smell sharp. And the fucking boxwood scratching my arm to hell when I try to back out up. I burp acid and swallow. Knees of my white Levis soaking up just enough mud to make stains I still can’t forget.
Left Right Wrong
Four years old sitting in the front not driver’s seat of the car. The sky-blue, green on the inside car. That day, the sky matched the car’s outside, but inside the car felt like rain. That was the last day we had a car. It was just me and Mom. I didn’t know it was the last time me and Mom would be in sky-blue car. If I knew, I wouldn’t have made her cry.
That day, the sky-blue sky day, Dad took the car to give to his new wife, our old neighbor. Dad’s new wife my, mom’s old best friend. Dad’s new wife, my old best friend’s mom. It was just a few weeks ago that Dad had moved out. Mom said Dad had already taken everything. I guess when you think everything is what you don’t have anymore, there’s always more something to be took.
My old best friend, Mom’s old best friend and mom’s old best friend’s new baby of my Dad’s on the way. Dad’s been gone now since the the fourth of July. Just before my birthday. Fireworks everywhere. Baby’s supposed to come at Christmas.
Dad said he needed the car so new wife could get groceries for new family. Dad’s new family. Dad’s new family and sky-blue car and their brand new house just a few blocks away from our duplex.
Mom, me, and my three brothers, Ron-Jon, Nate and Blake. Dad’s old family. We need to get groceries, too. Except Ron-Jon, he doesn’t need groceries on account of he died before he was ever born. But he’s still family. I wonder if Ron Jon will stay with us or be in Dad’s new family? Maybe both, since he don’t take up no room.
So I guess Old family is us five. Seems like our car needing with five is more than new family’s car needing with just four. Even counting Ron-Jon, and even with one more coming. Besides Dad’s new baby isn’t here yet, and who’s to say it’ll make it here alive? If it does, it’ll take up less than me, because I am four and it will still be zero for a whole year after Christmas.
Seems car needing didn’t have a whole lot to do with car keeping.
No car. No Dad. Best friends gone. Me and Mom, we were sad. I cried when she cried. Mom said we were best friends now. I don’t know if my brothers were sad. Didn’t see them cry. Or I didn’t notice, for being busy with being sad with mom and all.
But before sad, mom was happy. Before that sky-blue sky day.
There I was, four years old sitting in the front not driver’s seat of the sky-blue green on the inside car. Mom was driving. I remember my hand palms open looking at each other, and me looking back and forth between them trying to remember both their names.
Looking at Right hand first.
“Right.” I said.
Looking at other hand. Nothing. Couldn’t find the word.
Again to Right hand.
“Right.” I said.
One more try at other hand. Looking. Willing. Nothing. Still not remembering its name. The name I learned at Sunday school.
“Mom.” I said and held out hand whose name is Right.
If this one is Right. I said.
My eyebrows scrunched down into a vee right between my brows. I reached other hand out toward Mom.
“Is this one Wrong?” I said.
Mom laughed and laughed and didn’t stop laughing until her laugh was all run dry.
Then mom pulled the car over. Left the engine on.
No, Sweetie. Mom said. That one’s not Wrong.
Mom turned sideways in the front seat that is driver’s seat. Mom’s tears, they weren’t run dry. Came right up and filled up the underneath eyelids on her face. Tears, they came up and stayed there and didn’t spill. I wondered if I could make my eyes cry but not spill.
Mom’s eyes so empty. I held my breath and stayed there, still. Like somehow if I moved, her eyes might notice. Her eyes so deep and brown and a million miles away that if they did notice, they would swallow me up and we’d both be gone forever. But I couldn’t look away. Mom, she must have known too, because she didn’t let her eyes look at me. Made her eyes look down. Tears spilled then, and mom laughed. And I could breathe again.
I looked down at Mom’s hand, who took my Right hand, fit the whole thing it her one hand’s palm. Palm warm and a little sticky from tears backing up on account of not wanting to spill.
“This is your right hand.” Mom said. “The one you color with.”
I looked back up. Mom’s eyebrows did high backbends over her eyes and her nose sniffled. She was smiling the way she does when just one side of her mouth lifts up.
“Mom, I know that one’s name.” I said. “I just told you. Remember?”
“Ah, yes, I suppose you do.” Mom said.
She held on to Right. Then she took my other hand with her other hand and just held it. Held other hand and squeezed.
“This one’s name is left.” Mom said.
“Left.” I said.
Mom brought Right and Left together then, and cradled them in her hands.
“Right, the hand you color with.” Mom said. “And Left, the one that helps Right.”
Mom separated Right and left again pulled them up to her cheeks. Cheeks wrung out damp. She put one hand on each side of her face and held them there. She closed her eyes, and more tears spilled.
“Left.” I said again. “Like Dad left.”
Mom let go of Left and Right, and I pulled them back to my lap. Mom’s tears made Left and Right gray and spotty. I started to cry. I looked up. Mom was turned back around in the driver’s seat and started the car. Didn’t look at me the whole way home. Don’t remember her ever looking at me again.
I’ve known since then left from right from wrong.
djs rev. 7-08-11
Below is another excerpt from my larger piece. I am currently suffering from a mild case of Vertigo, and it is interesting writing when i can’t tilt my head back to think. 
Mom’s perfect started to unravel a little bit more, and she stood even stiffer. Stood the way she does just before she says if we don’t quiet down, her head’s going to explode. I didn’t have to see her face to know what it looked like. Her mouth would be drawn into that thin tight line again, and her jaw muscles would be popping in and out just below her ears, like she was priming a detonator. Mom didn’t have to say anything about her head exploding, either. She didn’t have to say anything at all. The keys in her hand pierced the tension with a single teeth aching jingle. I could tell it took everything in her not to say something back to Dad. Mom knew he had reached that point that no amount of talking was going to change his mind come hell or high water. Just then another uncurl sprung loose and fell over Mom’s ear. Wiggled like bait.
written by ds (dangerousboi)
I read for the first time tonight at DW. I am not “at the table” yet, but I there was space at the table, so I was allowed to sit there. Then, there was enough time to read, so E encouraged me and I read the homework I brought to turn at the end of class. The experience was great. My mouth was dry and tasted like nervous, but I did it! And everyone was so supportive and encouraging. Happy about that. I am too tired to write about everything, but I wanted to be sure to get this down somewhere, so thanks.
dangersouboi
This is an excerpt from my larger piece.
This is my attempt to go “on the body” and to speak to a decisive and pivotal moment of truth for the 4 year old main character in my story.
I try to be ” in the moment” and to add the element of “universal truths” in order to speak to the reader without ”reporting” the event to the reader.
I love the learning process. I hope you gain something from it, too.
Criticism and comments welcome.
From (currently) page 30 of “Stingray”:
“Let me see your head again. Mom said.
The mix of unclean and shame wormed up from my inside and settled hot on my cheeks. Mom holding on to me out in front of God and everybody going baboon through my hair. I wanted her to put her arms around me to tell me everything was ok. I wanted her hands to stop poking and to brush my hair down. I wanted her to say, it’s alright dear or how’s my brave little soldier. Say something sweet like a TV mom. She found the goose egg on the back of my head and pushed. Still no blood.
Oh, you’re alright. My not TV mom said. Now go on in the house with the boys.
No pain from the bump on my head, but my backside stung like punishment. That spot in my gut ached. That spot where I kept all my good. That spot that tells you everything is going to be alright after you go and do something like fall off a bike, and you come home and your mom tells you it’s all ok? Well, that spot stayed empty. Sore.”
i am very happy to say that i successfully transferred content from my previous wordpress site to my new full-on website. I have been absent from posting the past several days, because I am starting 3 different websites for 3 different people. I am an expert at finding things to keep me away from what I love to do best. Something about having a right to focus on me so much, feeling guilty for not making more money, something about not deserving… you know. It’s the same bullshit that goes on in the head of every writer and artist I know whether they are making money or not.