TUESDAY: Who I Was

BY PATRICIA DUTT

Copyright is held by the author.

MY WRITING teacher, Malcolm Mills, worked so hard that he burned through an entire red pen every few weeks, most of it on my assignments. I wrote a lot. I could not stop writing. Every morning without fail I woke at five and I wrote. I described the birds tweeting and whistling as they hunted for food, the lone tree frog peeping for a mate, the sun rising over glacial hills, even the rain patter hitting the tarp that covered my woodpile. I wrote at night too, writing away as if I was on an Odyssean voyage to vast, far-away lands. Other times I imagined myself being in space, weightless, looking down on good ole earth, longing for the familiar. I started writing after my beloved high school girlfriend won a story contest and wouldn’t you know it, a week later she dumped me, giving me a look that said I was an idiot, that I wasn’t good enough for her and never would be.

I wrote about everything from the sauerkraut, mustardy cheese sandwiches I ate for lunch to the unhappy couples who couldn’t agree on where to plant a Japanese Maple. I worked as a landscaper and wrote about that too, and where I was in life’s grand plan, and where I wanted to be. When I signed up for the course at the community college, and saw that word, cree-a-tive, in the course description, I thought: Jesse ain’t gonna’ go wrong here.

I told Malcolm I was a writer. He looked skeptical especially being that I came to class directly from work, my boots shedding mud clods and my body pores unapologetically secreting BO, and competing with the cloud of second-hand cigarette smoke that surrounded me.

In March, because of the virus, the class went virtual, and Malcolm, relentless in his duties and determined to be a good teacher, set up in-person office hours at a park shelter beside Cayuga Lake. Malcolm was around my age, mid-twenties, and he had a lot to offer a guy like me who had never had much formal training in writing. If the shelter was occupied by the AA or NA crowd, then we sat on foldup chairs beneath a maple tree. We wore hoodies underneath our down jackets, and sometimes wrapped ourselves in blankets. Winds from the lake would make us shiver but I was used to working in the cold; Malcolm was not, and for that reason alone I admired him.

“Jesse, I would watch your use of ain’t.”

I nodded, hands in my coat pockets, waiting for more advice.

“It would benefit you to read the literary canon,” Malcolm said.

Snowflakes drifted in the sky. One landed on my nose.

“Cannon? What’s that?” I glanced lakeward, noting the low lake level. The snow up in the hills hadn’t melted. I looked up and down the shoreline at the weeds, the honeysuckle, the gargantuan weeping willows, then to the swerving asphalt path dotted with walkers. One tall skinny kid rode by on a maroon motorized skateboard.

“What does a cannon have to do with writing?”

“The canon means a group of people,” Malcom said. “In this case writers of esteem with recognized reputations.”

I’d never heard the word cannon used in that way, and this just reaffirmed my belief that I could learn a lot from Malcolm.

“Who the fuck is the canon?” I said.

Malcolm flinched and I pulled down my mask, just long enough so that Malcolm could see my famous Brad Pitt smile. Malcolm, who was overweight and pale, had this haircut that was a cross between Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and a Gregorian monk. He wore the polyester pants favored by the down-and-out bottom-rung rehab types. I sensed a poltergeist rattling around in that pedantic head of his, screaming to get out.

Malcolm cleared his throat. “The canon represents authors who have spent their lives writing and are well-known.” His myopic, bespeckled eyes jolted heavenward into the snow-infested sky. “Shakespeare. Socrates and Homer. Faulkner and Steinbeck.”

“Ain’t they all dead?”

“Yes, Jesse, they are dead.”

“Who the f —” I stopped. “Who cares what dead people have to say?”

“They’ve been with us for so long. Their influence is huge. They’re cultural touchstones. Everyone’s heard of Shakespeare, right? How many people have heard of Jesse Meyers?”

“Gocha’.”

I heard ducks quacking along the lakeshore, searching for food.

“No wonder I’m not getting published. I haven’t read the canon.” I looked quickly at Malcolm, straight on, catching what I imagined to be a smug smile, but how could I tell being he wore a mask? More likely it was my own insecurity.

“Malcolm,” I said, “don’t you think it’s time to let someone else make the rules? Shakespeare was the man in the 1500s, but now? How could he know what would be important today? What words would matter? Like ain’t. Ain’t that my shovel you got there in your truck? Or, I ain’t in your space, Jesse. You blind? I got ain’t running through my head day and night, and it needs to come out. How can I not not use ain’t?”

“Just not, Jesse. I’m just telling you how it works.”

“Keep going, Malcolm. I’m all ears.” Malcolm could not see my smile, but it was in my eyes, in my arched left eyebrow.

“You need to learn grammar. Structure. It helps if you read. You should read every day. It matters who you read, like Cheever. Toni Morrison. Louise Erdrich and Obama.”

“The ex-president? He writes?”

“He does everything.”

How the hell did the guy have the time to write a book? I heard water moving and saw one of the university’s rowing teams speeding by, six rowers spaced out in a boat made for twelve, wearing masks, the coach in a white motorboat out front, shouting into a bullhorn: “Watch that shoulder. Don’t raise it so high!” The long paddles broke the water’s gray surface, and the bodies moved forward in unison, then backward, a dance of backs and arms. Any activity rose to the spectacular after being inside most of the winter, or outside, alone.

“Is that all I have to do, Malcolm?”

“Jesse, your stories: they need work. You’re a nice guy, but not everyone is cut out to be a writer.”

I nodded, hiding my hurt feelings. I understood the innuendo. Once Malcolm got started though, he couldn’t stop. He said my stories were chaotic and meandering. Every other sentence had an exclamation point, as if asking for attention. I changed POV, unacceptable in a short story. What the hell was POV? Had we gone over that in class? Maybe, when I left the zoom to get another cheesy sandwich. For sure I had gaps in my education, still, it felt like he was springing new requirements on me every time we met. Creating a story felt big, like building a house: pour the foundation, knock those two by fours together, and make damn sure everything is square. Then it had to be different.

“Malcolm, buddy,” I said. “Best teacher I’ve ever had.” The only teacher I ever listened to. “Can you tell me one thing that I’m good at? There must be something that I’m doing right? I mean, you’ve read enough of my stories, poems, essays, memoirs and what not.”

Malcolm puffed out a sigh. He put his hands in his pockets. The wind blew his few strands of hair across his wide forehead, and in profile he looked like a pirate, or captain Ahab, someone with power outsized to the situation.

“Play,” he finally said.

“Go out and play?”

“Your stories have a certain amount of playfulness. The sex scenes have potential.”

“No one writes sex scenes like me.”

Just then a heavyset woman wearing black and purple spandex jogged by about twenty feet from us. Not my type, but the sinuous rhythm of her body parts could be interpreted as seductive. I saw Malcolm’s eyes, gleaming like pyrite crystals in a hunk of black shale. His eyes followed her until she danced out of view.

“You’d like to talk to her, wouldn’t you, Malcolm?”

He stared into space, waiting for her to magically reappear, as if all he had to do was click his heels together. Then we both looked out at the lake, the lowest branches from gargantuan willows sweeping aside the snowflakes. “Why do you want to write?”

“There’s all these voices in my head. They come up especially strong when an idea haunts me.”

“Un-huh.” I got the sense he was re-evaluating the self-assured guy that I presented myself as.

“I’m writing this story about a woman, and I want it to work.” Eva. The lodestone. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Tall and slender, she could carry a five-cubic foot bag of mulch over her right shoulder like it was a pillow. Most women who tried the landscaping crew quit within the week. Eva held her own. She volunteered for the snowplow crew, which was perilous work, hidden hazards everywhere even with the fluorescent driveway markers.

Another boat of determined college rowers split the lake’s surface. There was a fisherman rowing a green canoe, his hat jangling with lures. At the prow was a black lab wearing a safety-yellow life jacket, perched like a wise ole being, apparently calling the shots.

Malcolm and I made an agreement: he would advise me in the manner of grammar, structure, plot, etcetera, and I would coach him on the fine art of communicating with women.

***

It was May. The weather had warmed up enough that sometimes I felt as if I wasn’t even working, especially if Eva was around, although she did not acknowledge my presence. I kept writing. Malcolm kept emptying his red pen onto everything I gave him and meeting me outside in the cold and the rain, although we no longer needed the down jackets. There were more runners at the park. Soccer nets appeared and the playing field were dotted with chunks of mud and kicked-up grass. A handful of frisbee players emerged from the woods, and the high school running team came down from the hill, and they stayed in line. Malcolm continued to give me essential advice in addition to a list of Hemingway’s and Faulkner’s books. We got into philosophical discussions, but role playing was really where we connected. Then we switched roles, and those small exercises sharpened my skills too. My scenes began to come alive, and Malcolm began to think differently about conversations.

“Malcolm, Is this seat taken? Prosaic. No. Yes-no questions never lead to anywhere.”

We went deep. “Give her that sly look that you have, Malcolm. Try: What did you do that challenged you today? Or: What did you hear today that reminded you of percolated coffee?”

 “Percolated coffee?”

“Catch her off guard.”

Malcom nodded as if I was the God of Conversation.

The questions needed to be open-ended: What was the best lesson you learned in life? Or, What other continent would you live on if you could? I cautioned him to avoid putting the spotlight on himself, yet use what he had. “The crooked teeth? You know how many women find that gap in the two front teeth attractive? Practice, Malcolm. Practice in front of a mirror. Those Willem Dafoe/Steve Buscemi teeth? Your redeeming quality.”

***

May turned into June, and June into July, and the breweries opened back up. The plan was to meet at Three Cats One Dog on the lakeshore at five-thirty before the customer limit was reached. We would put our skills to use in real time.

I pulled into the gravel parking lot, and the moment I walked inside (masked of course) I saw that you could no longer sit at the bar and chit-chat. There were white-painted feet on the floor indicating where to stand and where to walk. Transparent plastic shields everywhere sent the message that even talking could be dangerous. I ordered beers and fries and waited outside, where our gases and water vapor would be diluted by that fresh air coming off the lake. Rough-hewn picnic tables sprinkled the hillside that sloped down to the lake. The wood tables were so new they lacked the inscribed names and hearts with declarations of love.

I took the last empty table.

Malcolm soon appeared, wearing sunglasses and showing off his sharp black leather jacket, even though it was warm for a jacket. Noted: the absence of funky shorts with ankle-high white socks, the black velcroed shoes that channeled Frankenstein feet.

“Nice.” I gave him a confidence-boosting smile.  

We gazed about, enthralled to be in a public space with other people. It was so novel, so missed, that I felt my heart expanding. My eyes teared up. An acoustic guitarist sitting on an ad-hoc platform strummed away as if mourning the loss of the last guitar string on earth. Then some guy from the audience joined him and they started singing a rousing song about a little potato: We dig you up, you come from undergrouuuuuud. Meanwhile, Malcolm presented me with a must-read: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. I perused the book as Malcolm read my story. I watched his eyes and pen. Three violations on page one, then he turned to the second page and smiled, and on the third, he laughed.

My eyes took in the crowd: young people, old people; couples with strollers and lolling babies; dogs who obeyed the rules of society and there she was. I did not recognize her at first with the mask and her hair down. Two other women followed her as she made a bee-line for our table.

“Do you mind if we sit at the end?”

Malcolm looked up from my story. “We’re having a writing lesson here.”

“A writing lesson!” Eva said with mock surprise, raising her right eyebrow. I loved her eyebrows. They were thin and straight as an Allen wrench and always made her look like there was important business going on there.

“Go right ahead,” I said, giving Malcolm a look.

Malcolm ignored the newcomers and began his lofty explanation of why my story failed. I tried listening but was distracted by her laughter. I wasn’t even sure Eva recognized me. Then Malcolm spoke my name. The beers and fries arrived and the masks went down.

“I thought that was you, Jesse,” Eva said. “This is Ellen and Helen.”

“Well — Ellen and Helen,” I said. “Whatdya’ know!”

Then everyone raised their plastic cups in homage to the billions of pristine outdoor oxygen atoms that made breathing safe.

“We work at the same landscaping company,” Eva said to her friends.

“Nice to meet you all.” I rose and extended my elbow. “This here is Malcolm.” Malcolm wasn’t an elbow guy. He gripped his red pen and wrote away.

Eva looked at me through her strawberry blonde rivulets, like ribboned candy, and I silently declared my devotion. Malcolm continued to read and I nudged him, and to my surprise, he said, “Helen and Ellen. What do you two wonderful ladies do for fun?” He said it exquisitely, and ironically, and with that smile that he’d obviously practiced. The women laughed in the lighthearted way of grade school girls. Once Malcolm got started, and got that small nod of encouragement, you couldn’t stop him. The guy had subliminal Romeo genes. The three of them talked and giggled, and at some point, we re-arranged the seating. Eva sat directly across from me. I had not been this close to a woman in over a year.

“Are you a writer?” Eva said, nodding at the manuscript that Malcolm had pushed in my direction.  

“You’re looking at the next Hemmingway.” I grinned extravagantly, expansive and wide as the state of Rhode Island.

“You are?”

 “I am. I’ve read everything the guy wrote. The Ski Slopes of Kilimanjaro. For When the Bell Goes.”

She laughed.

“Every book. Steinway too.”

“Steinbeck?” she said, narrowing her eyes, but still smiling.

“I read so gosh darn much that I get my titles mixed up. Authors too. I’ve been reading the canon.”

“I see.”

We got another round. Malcom treated. I was getting drunk, not hitting all my words, but Eva’s smile wasn’t You’re an idiot, Jesse; it was Tell me more, Jesse. To get a woman to laugh was like mana from heaven. Here I was, shattering the Mars-Venus barrier at neck-breaking speed.

Then Helen said, “Everyone seems to be writing.”

“Jesse’s scenes are full of intrigue,” Malcolm said. Jesse. Jesse Meyers. Malcolm was drunk, and clearly his discriminative powers had deteriorated, but any compliment Malcolm offered, I seized and savored, like a kid being led to the candy counter.  

“I’ve always admired writers,” Eva said.

“You have?” I said.

“That ability to make something out of nothing.”

“There’s never not nothing.” Side grin to Malcolm. “It’s all about observations. Like a boxwood hedge near the front door: some like the el-natural look, others want that severe buzz cut. Your boxwoods tell you who you are.”

“What kind of boxwood am I?” Eva said.

“Definitely you are not a boxwood.” Then I reflected on the word: a box of wood. Who would plant such a thing at their front door? “You’re a vi-burn-um.” Then I gave the entire table my Brad Pitt smile.

Har, har har.

“My mind is always writing: day and night, night and day,” I said to Eva. “At home, not at home, at work.”

“At work?”

“There’s so much going on. You think it’s a simpleton’s job? No. You’re always thinking. My life is in peril more than I’d like to admit. For instance, take four cubic yards of number twos in the back of Truck 42, one of the oldest trucks, the brakes squealing as you descend Hammer Hill? Thinking jeez: I should have tried out the damn brakes before leaving. Why didn’t I take the time? Because the boss was watching me, his predominant thought being, Time is money. Then there’s accidentally leaving the gate open and Fido escaping and having to spend an hour searching for a dog who has never had the opportunity to run free. And I’m sure you’ve heard about the inattentive landscaper who pulls into a gas station to get a soda, and as he backs out, some expensive penis-mobile (laughter from the women) sneaks in behind him.”

Everyone was quiet.

“Landscaping is a lot like writing.”

“Tell me,” Eva said.

“You need a good eye and a good ear.”

“That’s all?”

“For the start, then you go deeper. For instance, when customers ask me: Well, why did this cotoneaster die, and the one next to it live? I’ll scratch my head like I’ve never heard the question before, and ask them: Did you ever see The Bad Seed?”

 “I’ve never seen it.”

“See, Eva, once you really get down to it, there’s pacing. Removing the dead. Finding the right shape. There’s even theme and plot. Everything needs to fit. Writing and landscaping: you don’t really need them. But . . . they are acts of genuine love.” I twisted my neck from side-to-side and rolled my shoulders once.

“I see you do that at work.”

“Because I’m always looking down. I prune a lot of perennials and shrubs. Building walls. But also taking down walls.”

It was getting dark. We watched two bats do a ballet where the sky’s pink was melting into the blue. From across the lake, lights from the summer homes blinked on. Half of the picnic tables were empty, but there were more musicians at the bandstand now. There was a cellist and violinist. A flautist. Someone came up with a harmonica. The lead guy was singing Dire Straits’ Romeo and Juliet. We were all sitting at the table, quiet. The full moon had risen, and it made a path of light on the water to the shore.

“Then there’s the plants to consider,” I said. “Why doesn’t my holly have red berries? Males and females.” I nodded as if I knew everything there was to know about plants, then sat patiently, Buddha-like, waiting for more wisdom to leak into my brain.

“Sex,” she said.

“Malcolm says I write great sex scenes. Ain’t I just the best, Malcolm?”

“You is the best,” Malcolm said. “Heaty. Sultry. Steamy.”

Eva batted her eyes, and I had to laugh, and that got a laugh out of Malcolm, and the other women, and for the moment as we all stared at the illuminated moon and the glittering path that undulated on the lake’s surface, it did not matter so much that the world did not recognize me as a writer, as long as I knew myself as one, that was what counted, because I could not stop creating a world that excavated life’s elixir, and released those champagne bubbles that hit their mark and popped, just about everywhere.

***

Patricia Dutt’s short stories and flash fictions have been published in a dozen literary magazines. Her home is in central New York where she taught science and worked as a landscape estimator for many years. She’s working on her novel Weeds of The World and writes the substack Sustainability Notions (https://substack.com/@persistentpollinator). More information and published writing at patriciadutt.com.