doesn’t. The experience changed me. I can feel it down in my cells. Either that, or I’m so tired that I’ll believe anything. The day is beautiful as the sun comes up. There’s a tiny bit of mist clinging to the ground near the trunks of the trees. Dew sparkles like little diamonds scattered in the grass. Only the birds and squirrels take advantage of the morning Eden. They’re up and at work while the rest of the world is still shaking off sleep.
A few houses down, I see Mrs. Dando come out of her little ranch house. She doesn’t even glance up at the gutter that needs fixing. It’s the right behavior—don’t waste time thinking about a silly gutter when life has so much to offer you—but I know she’s coming at it from the wrong attitude. She has given up. She believes that everything is going to turn out rotten, every time, no matter how she tries to fight. What she needs is a swift kick to the head to wake her up. She needs to seize control of her pathetic life and make something of herself. She needs to chase her dreams, and if she should fall flat on her face, then at least she will have gone down trying. She needs someone to educate these facts into her soft, doughy countenance at the end of a clenched fist. She needs the sharp blade of reason to pierce her…
“Honey?” Judith asks.
“Yeah? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“You were grinding your teeth,” she says. “I could hear it all the way from the bedroom. You were grinding your teeth and almost … growling.”
“Huh,” I say. “I don’t know. I was lost in thought.”
“When you’re done with this prison story, do you think you could work on something happy for once? Maybe you could write about the new zoo they’re building in Lewham?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I say. I didn’t even know there was a new zoo coming. I’m just agreeing to agree. “Go back to bed, honey. You have an hour before you need to get up.”
“Okay,” she says.
She leaves me again. Mrs. Dando is gone. She’s off in her little yellow car.
It occurs to me that I want to write the story of Mrs. Dando and her pathetic life. I want to write about someone who teaches her a lesson. Maybe that will be the fiction I write tonight. I’ve already given myself permission to do it. It might as well be about her. It occurs to me that I told Judith that, “I’ve got to get the poison out.”
That wasn’t entirely accurate. I’ve got to get the venom out. A poison is something you ingest, and you might regurgitate before it kills you. What I’ve got inside me is something my body manufactured. It’s a product of me, and I want to expel it from my body so that I might hurt someone else. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to think that I want to express the venom so that if I were to bite accidentally, I wouldn’t have the accidental capacity to kill.
What a strange analogy.
Don’t they milk cobras and rattlesnakes so they can make antivenin with the extract? Perhaps that’s the image I’ve been hunting for.
CHAPTER 11: BALCONY
T HE NEXT DAY WASN ’ T as bad as James had feared. He woke, ate, and sat down to write. Everything seemed fairly normal and comfortable. The day after that was miserable. He woke a little early after rolling in his sleep. He was unable to get comfortable with the throbbing in his legs.
With the subject top of mind, he used his extra time to begin unpacking his exercise equipment. He was pretty sure the apartment below was vacant, but he would ask Bo the next time he saw him. James preferred to avoid conflict whenever possible. He didn’t want to be introduced to his downstairs neighbors when they complained about his noise.
It wasn’t until he sat down that he realized how much pain he was in. There wasn’t enough aspirin in his apartment—maybe not in the world—to relieve the dull ache in the backs of his legs. The worst spot was right where his calves met the backs of his knees. When he spent
A few houses down, I see Mrs. Dando come out of her little ranch house. She doesn’t even glance up at the gutter that needs fixing. It’s the right behavior—don’t waste time thinking about a silly gutter when life has so much to offer you—but I know she’s coming at it from the wrong attitude. She has given up. She believes that everything is going to turn out rotten, every time, no matter how she tries to fight. What she needs is a swift kick to the head to wake her up. She needs to seize control of her pathetic life and make something of herself. She needs to chase her dreams, and if she should fall flat on her face, then at least she will have gone down trying. She needs someone to educate these facts into her soft, doughy countenance at the end of a clenched fist. She needs the sharp blade of reason to pierce her…
“Honey?” Judith asks.
“Yeah? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“You were grinding your teeth,” she says. “I could hear it all the way from the bedroom. You were grinding your teeth and almost … growling.”
“Huh,” I say. “I don’t know. I was lost in thought.”
“When you’re done with this prison story, do you think you could work on something happy for once? Maybe you could write about the new zoo they’re building in Lewham?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I say. I didn’t even know there was a new zoo coming. I’m just agreeing to agree. “Go back to bed, honey. You have an hour before you need to get up.”
“Okay,” she says.
She leaves me again. Mrs. Dando is gone. She’s off in her little yellow car.
It occurs to me that I want to write the story of Mrs. Dando and her pathetic life. I want to write about someone who teaches her a lesson. Maybe that will be the fiction I write tonight. I’ve already given myself permission to do it. It might as well be about her. It occurs to me that I told Judith that, “I’ve got to get the poison out.”
That wasn’t entirely accurate. I’ve got to get the venom out. A poison is something you ingest, and you might regurgitate before it kills you. What I’ve got inside me is something my body manufactured. It’s a product of me, and I want to expel it from my body so that I might hurt someone else. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to think that I want to express the venom so that if I were to bite accidentally, I wouldn’t have the accidental capacity to kill.
What a strange analogy.
Don’t they milk cobras and rattlesnakes so they can make antivenin with the extract? Perhaps that’s the image I’ve been hunting for.
CHAPTER 11: BALCONY
T HE NEXT DAY WASN ’ T as bad as James had feared. He woke, ate, and sat down to write. Everything seemed fairly normal and comfortable. The day after that was miserable. He woke a little early after rolling in his sleep. He was unable to get comfortable with the throbbing in his legs.
With the subject top of mind, he used his extra time to begin unpacking his exercise equipment. He was pretty sure the apartment below was vacant, but he would ask Bo the next time he saw him. James preferred to avoid conflict whenever possible. He didn’t want to be introduced to his downstairs neighbors when they complained about his noise.
It wasn’t until he sat down that he realized how much pain he was in. There wasn’t enough aspirin in his apartment—maybe not in the world—to relieve the dull ache in the backs of his legs. The worst spot was right where his calves met the backs of his knees. When he spent
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