This is the Part Where You Laugh by Peter Brown Hoffmeister Page A
Authors: Peter Brown Hoffmeister
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these people are living, how she’s living right now, how the elements are always on her, how it’s too hot or too cold, or the rain’s soaking through everything, or the sun’s cracking it open. And on days like this I can’t even find her, and I worry where she could be because there are worse places than these homeless camps. There are the condemned houses out in West Eugene, the motels near Highway 99, rooms with a dozen people passed out, some on top of others, the floor littered with needles, broken bottles in the bathroom. And I can’t save her from that. I can’t even find her.
Biking home, I stop at a traffic light, put my foot down next to a woman at the corner of the 76 gas station. Her cardboard sign reads:
GOD GIVES FOOD AND SHELTER
I give her all the food in my backpack.
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses
Princess #29 (First Draft)
Princess Catherine Yurievskaya, you sit tall in your photograph, your thick hair pinned up, your head tilted with the weight of it. You are in a formal dress, but I will cut that off of you with a pair of scissors. I don’t want you to be formal forever.
You became a professional singer in France after you left Russia, and you will stand next to me in your slip, dressless, and sing while you look out the window of our house in the country. I will rub lotion into your hands as you sing in French, and when I turn your palms up, I will see the lines of your life extending like a cottonwood tree over a river.
The fighting of the Whites and the Reds passed your city and you wandered between the armies. You walked for miles, hungry, alone, your face like a young girl’s even though you were 39 years old at the time of the Revolution. No one knows your age now, and to me, you are ageless. I cannot see the lines around your eyes or the creases across your forehead. Your lines vanish like disappearing ink.
You were wronged at birth, born to a mistress of the tsar, illegitimate and unrecognized until Alexander II married your mother when you were two. For a year you were the favored child. A toddler. Then the emperor was assassinated and that favor went away. Was that your one blessed year? I want to give you another year like that. Then another year after that.
You will ask me to take off your slip and pour lotion on your back. You will ask me to rub your body as I rubbed your hands, next to the window. I will cover your skin in lotion, the glistening of the lotion like jewels under the moonlight.
You will ask me to lay on top of you and be still, the weight of my body holding you solidly to the earth.
NERDS
Creature folds the pages and puts them in his pocket. “What do you think?”
“Honestly? I think that one was kind of sad, man.”
“Yeah, I know,” Creature says. “When I read the true details about her life, she seemed super sad. Only two family members attended her funeral.”
“Only two people?”
“That’s what I read. But what do you think about the pages?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a writer.”
“Well, did you like it?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I was interested the whole time, so that’s a good sign, right?”
Creature pulls the pages back out of his pocket, unfolds them, and looks at them again. He says, “ ’Cause I’m not sure if this entry fits with the rest. The tone’s a lot different on this one.”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe that’s okay, right? I mean, I’m not a writer, but everything doesn’t have to be the same, you know?”
Creature leans his head back and thinks about that. Then he nods and puts the pages back in his pocket.
I say, “You really like reading about Russian history, huh?”
“Yeah,” he says, “it’s super interesting. I never knew anything about Russia until I read a few things online last year, and now I’m hooked. The Revolution was crazy. How they executed the Romanov family and all that? It was like a purge, like an extermination.”
“And you put some of those facts in the
Biking home, I stop at a traffic light, put my foot down next to a woman at the corner of the 76 gas station. Her cardboard sign reads:
GOD GIVES FOOD AND SHELTER
I give her all the food in my backpack.
The Pervert’s Guide to Russian Princesses
Princess #29 (First Draft)
Princess Catherine Yurievskaya, you sit tall in your photograph, your thick hair pinned up, your head tilted with the weight of it. You are in a formal dress, but I will cut that off of you with a pair of scissors. I don’t want you to be formal forever.
You became a professional singer in France after you left Russia, and you will stand next to me in your slip, dressless, and sing while you look out the window of our house in the country. I will rub lotion into your hands as you sing in French, and when I turn your palms up, I will see the lines of your life extending like a cottonwood tree over a river.
The fighting of the Whites and the Reds passed your city and you wandered between the armies. You walked for miles, hungry, alone, your face like a young girl’s even though you were 39 years old at the time of the Revolution. No one knows your age now, and to me, you are ageless. I cannot see the lines around your eyes or the creases across your forehead. Your lines vanish like disappearing ink.
You were wronged at birth, born to a mistress of the tsar, illegitimate and unrecognized until Alexander II married your mother when you were two. For a year you were the favored child. A toddler. Then the emperor was assassinated and that favor went away. Was that your one blessed year? I want to give you another year like that. Then another year after that.
You will ask me to take off your slip and pour lotion on your back. You will ask me to rub your body as I rubbed your hands, next to the window. I will cover your skin in lotion, the glistening of the lotion like jewels under the moonlight.
You will ask me to lay on top of you and be still, the weight of my body holding you solidly to the earth.
NERDS
Creature folds the pages and puts them in his pocket. “What do you think?”
“Honestly? I think that one was kind of sad, man.”
“Yeah, I know,” Creature says. “When I read the true details about her life, she seemed super sad. Only two family members attended her funeral.”
“Only two people?”
“That’s what I read. But what do you think about the pages?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a writer.”
“Well, did you like it?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I was interested the whole time, so that’s a good sign, right?”
Creature pulls the pages back out of his pocket, unfolds them, and looks at them again. He says, “ ’Cause I’m not sure if this entry fits with the rest. The tone’s a lot different on this one.”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe that’s okay, right? I mean, I’m not a writer, but everything doesn’t have to be the same, you know?”
Creature leans his head back and thinks about that. Then he nods and puts the pages back in his pocket.
I say, “You really like reading about Russian history, huh?”
“Yeah,” he says, “it’s super interesting. I never knew anything about Russia until I read a few things online last year, and now I’m hooked. The Revolution was crazy. How they executed the Romanov family and all that? It was like a purge, like an extermination.”
“And you put some of those facts in the
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