The man opened the door for his wife and, seeing Duke Hudson, kept it open. Duke walked faster but called out, “You don’t have to. It hurts, y’know?”
“Take your time,” said the man, remaining at his post. The old man still hurried, and you could see Duke had a crick in his step, the kind WD-40 can’t fix.
[To those who believe racism is dead, I present an essay that I discovered at school. Riddled with poor thinking and writing, the paper represents (to me) the clouded judgment of xenophobia. It is only too bad the student forgot to write their name at the top.]
[I found the essay wedged into a scantron machine. Why remains a mystery, although I suspect the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree of knowledge.]
[On top is an A+.]
[I do not think the grader read too closely.]
[The title is: “Mark Twang.” This could have been clever if the paper discussed his use of regional accents. The paper does not.]
Mark Twain creates the Americana in his book Huckleberry Finn is a Harsh Mistress. Americana is the word America with a Mexican “na” added to make it sound fancy-like, which is what those Mexicans is doing, trying to make America into a lady.
[The paper’s blatant racism begins here. It never ends.]
Humanities sounds like Humanish which is what other races are. Human and ish. Mama says they’s brains are bad. Mama says my brain is not bad. Mama says brains are like gum in our heads; the less we use them the less they get chewed up.
[The student finally returns to the subject.]
Mark Twain was born Hannibal Missouri but he changed his name to Mark Twain after he chopped an apple tree “in twain.” Mark Twain was a cat in disguise which he admits when he says: “No one knew I was a cat in disguise.”
[Oddly, this student has learned the proper use of direct quotes, quote marks, brackets, etc.]
Mark was so poor he could only afford one suit, and he bleached it white so it wouldn’t look dirty. What surprised me the most about Mark Twain was that photographs existed in the Middle Ages. Sometimes black and white people were friends, other times they were slaves, and other times they were just pictures.
Now Mister Mark was committed to treating other races equally as inferiors, as can be seen by Jim. (My teacher won’t let me use his real name because it’s too controversial. One of our daily grades was to color it throughout the book with expo markers.) But Mark calls him the n-word over and over again, no matter how many times Jim makes good decisions. That’s because Twain treats all races equally as inferiors.
[What?]
In conclusion, finally, suddenly, conclusively, Twain said there’s nothing wrong with racism when he says “I had no aversion to slavery” and that he is “not aware that there [is] anything wrong about it.” Plus “God approved it.”
[This is missing context. Mark admits this was his thought process as a child, but he greatly improved his understanding by adulthood.]
I try to hate everybody the same, except I don’t hate Mama, only when she’s pooping in the garbage disposal.
And that’s my biografy.
[This marks the student’s one and only spelling error.]
[The paper ends with a couple doodles of the sink.]
The room was used for secular reasons. Union meetings, pro-dev seminars, documentary screenings, a Women’s Book Club. One day out of the week, however, the room became a sacred space – one of those churches you see packed in with animal hospitals and loans offices in a mall strip beneath the knees of a freeway. This church didn’t have block letters above its door announcing “The Church of the Risen Christ” or “Corner Ridge Pentecostal Assembly” or “All Faiths Ministry – Our Service is Heavenly!” Instead, block letters read “Community Center” and offered a 25% discount on weekends.
The church met Saturdays. Its congregation were Pacific Islanders from Samoa or some other island. Whatever it was, if you confused the family with a neighboring island like Tonga, they would curse you lightheartedly in their language, either Samoan or Tongan. Most of them weighed four hundred pounds; their cells, which had found clever ways to store energy on long journeys at sea, had not adapted well to America’s heart-stroking, hip-expanding eating patterns. Still, they laughed.
We knew about the family since they would come by Depression Alliance (we met on Tuesdays after Bingo Derby). We’d eat their coconut rice and joke about turning our meetings into Overeaters Anonymous, although we were a little unsure about the Pastor, at least until he revealed he was having trouble finding women. Someone said to try the zoo and we laughed – a connection made, some raw commonality.
From the Santa Barbara Hounds Case Files
Case File #86 #87
See previous cases here.
Agents Involved: Wilder, Percipheles
November 11
Wilder, while working as a custodian at Does Pueblos HS, was contacted by several teachers about a recurring incident in the Social Studies faculty restroom. The situation was reported as a daily “pee puddle” causing discomfort to female staff. One eye witness described the event as “some guy keeps spraying everywhere except the bowl.” Wilder took the case. HOUNDS!
I.
In an alternate dimension where people speak English. A scene between dissatisfied lovers who’ve recently begun sleeping in separate rooms.
HIM
Let’s do it.
HER
I need to pee.
My 16mm black & white short film “Bare Romance” debuted at UCSB’s Reel Loud Film Festival 2012. Worked with some wonderful people, and a few wonderful naked people, plus the band Each Peace who performed live at the show (per Reel Loud tradition).
SYNOPSIS: An avant-garde comedy about a naked guy (Zach Lemke) who shows up at a party and feels ostracized and different because he’s naked.
Mister Fire Fire
Leagues ahead, as if justification for the old man’s suffering, was a boat. How could refuge exist out here in the abandon? The red dust and crags. Would he find whale bone, and coral, and mermaid skulls, and impossible Lemuria?
He drew near the boat. A thing of wood and shadow, like a coffin, or a cradle. Beneath its keel, he said, I’ll lose them. Or maybe despair waited for dry bones to rest on canine prayers.
A starving Colt 45, unholstered. The storm-stained old man fingered pockets, finally slipping a solitary shell into the loading gate. It would probably end up lodged between his eyes before biting his pursuers. It’d been a long ride through the desert, and when the horse died, a long hike.
The Boss slammed a slag of printed emails onto Gary’s desk, knocking over a picture of his wife.
“Pervert!” she shouted.
Gary froze like rugby players in the West Andes. This was exactly how he pictured a sexual harassment lawsuit beginning (although technically they began a little earlier, with the actual sexual harassment). But who was the prosecution? The women in the office intimidated him so badly he avoided speaking with them. Nor could the Boss be his offendee. She was less woman, more wyvern, with liver spots the approximate size and shape of actual livers.
The emails relieved him – temporarily. They were customer complaints, mostly exclamation marks and misspelled words, certain passages highlighted in salmonella pink. It was regarding the bridge.
“Thirty-two,” the Boss said on the verge of gargling. “Thirty-two complaints including a letter from the Chamber of Commerce regarding that damn bridge.”
Gary reviewed the papers. “Is it an instability problem?”
“Your bridge,” she said, “is putting sexy thoughts into people’s heads.”
A train stop and three occupants. The benches look like grills for our asses. I’m cooking. Temp is what? 99? 103? You can see the swelter in the air. It reminds you of the word “billowing” which is a ridiculous word. The heat’s cooking these benches, prepping my ass to be put on a patty. Train. In the distance. Tiptoeing towards us like bare feet on hot pavement. The blue rocks next to the tracks are shaking. The word clang comes to mind, which sounds like an ethnic slur.
INT. TRAIN
I’m huddled between a chubber in a tie and the meanest blonde I’ve ever wanted. The power lines and electric boxes zoom past – the industrial zones – the other trains – I could be the future. A mound of shatter zips past. Ragnarocks! I imagine a universe constructed with jigsaw pieces most of them lost. A blue spot here, a smiling red there, and gaps in the teeth. I wish the stars were a tapestry, the sun a boiled egg, this train the moon. I want to get out but I can’t (I’m stuck between animal and fiction). Instead barn doors swish, toilets go plunk!, and finally, finally, finally the next stop rolls up.
Creativity isn’t a disembodied head mulling through the multiverse: coldly indifferent, logical, wilting. Creativity isn’t a spade in hand, a pot the other. It can assimilate, steal, kill, and certainly rape. A square is a rectangle, but not. However, we forget that the circle is more natural, a pagan beauty. Creativity itself is not creating. It needs arms, legs, torsos, abdomens, stingers, hair. It’s not freedom, not prison. It walks behind your eyes, away from prying thoughts, below moving blades – where shadow is light. Creativity can be in the stocks and still be stronger. A shopkeeper who doesn’t sell, a werewolf who won’t bite. A rose that listens to the road and makes no sound.
Where was Freud at Pompeii? This train’s taking me to death.
Desmond, Write 