As in:
When Caprice asked him to choose between Heineken and Yoo-hoo, Fenton pretended to study the question. Tilting backwards in a metal chair up against the brick wall in the kitchen, he looked pensively at his hands as he made a list, in the air, with his fingers.
“Heineken,” he said, after she’d already popped the cap off the bottle.
“You’re funny,” Caprice said.
“Do you want to dance?” he asked as she handed him the bottle.
“I would, but my boyfriend gets jealous,” she answered.
As in:
“Now, where did you say Janine was?”
Verla’s question was veneered with civility, but dripped with disapproving incredulity, “Okinawa?”
“She’s taking a class on ikebana, Japanese floral arranging,” was Carol’s short reply.
She hesitated and then continued.
“You use the presence of flowers to emphasize white space, I think it’s meant to remind us of the things we can’t perceive.”
Carol’s voice trailed off as she heard herself through Verla’s ears, rambling and dreamy-sounding.
Verla narrowed her eyes and drew her breath in slowly.
“So, she only uses Japanese flowers?”
Carol shifted her weight uncomfortably, eyeing the rows of shredded wheat in the grocery aisle behind Verla’s head and thinking of her lengthy grocery list and the weight of undone chores waiting for her at home. Carol loved her daughter Janine’s whims and her ability to completely engage a topic, but seeing the pinched face of her aunt, Carol knew Verla thought it another one of what she referred to as Janine’s “pursuits.”
“Well, really you can use any flower,” Carol began, “it’s more of a concept.”
As she spoke, Carol felt a flush of defensive pride for her daughter’s craving for exoticism in the midst of Midland, Texas.
“Or really, any plant, even the stems or leaves. It’s more about lines and forms and perception and showing the beauty of the plant.” She felt a bit like she’d recited the description from the junior college adult education guide, but felt that she’d somehow vindicated Janine.
Verla’s reply came so softly and slowly that Carol could barely hear her.
“Beauty of the plant” she repeated in a clipped tone. Verla suddenly reached forward and hugged her in an embrace that was as comforting as it was unexpected.
Drawing away, Verla smiled radiantly and exclaimed in an undulating Texan drawl: “Sugar, that sounds just beautiful. What a daughter you’ve got there. Well, I best be off, all my regards to Hal.”
Verla pushed her grocery cart down the aisle, leaving Carol standing in bemused confusion, unsure if she’d just changed her aunt’s life or witnessed blithe Texan hospitality at its finest. She reached for the cereal and decided the real answer was probably a bit of both.
—Jamie Borgan
Kempt
As in:
Because he’d never had a heart attack before, it was only after the third contraction that Jerome Archings lifted his foot off the gas and let the maroon Crown Victoria coast to a stop on the shoulder. A state patrol dispatcher would later remark, on her cigarette break, that he was “seventeen miles south of nowhere” in a corner of Adams County.
That’s where a young trooper had found him, head slumped against the steering wheel, his cheek already gray, his foot still on the brake. A rough-legged hawk looked on from a fence post. A murder of crows gambled on the pavement. Though nothing of the birds made it into the incident report.
From Jerome’s perspective it was a crisp, early winter day, though it hardly looked like winter in this part of the state. Before the pain there was a disorienting discomfort. It was the sensation of his digestive system rising into his chest, as though it were trying to leave the mortal universe ahead of the rest of him. Near the end, when it was clear that he was being reaped, as it were, from his life, several images of his sons and daughters passed before him, as though his mind were leafing through an album for the last time. He also heard his wife calling him to dinner. He could smell the pot roast, and almost taste the potatoes.
From the trooper’s perspective it was among the tidiest of death scenes. The car was spotless inside and out. In the backseat, arranged in small cardboard containers, were Jerome’s sales files. It was just one of his idiosyncrasies. The information was all on a computer, per company rules. And yet, as he had for thirty years, Jerome still kept paper files and traveled with them on his rounds to see customers throughout the Columbia basin. His latest stop had been to see the Mendenhalls in Asotin. They’d given him a bag of apples and a John Deere pen. He had tried to give them his cell phone.
“I just hate the damn thing,” he said, “but they make me carry it.”
Those were his last words.
From the tunnel of light that veered off in the general direction of Steptoe Butte, he looked back at the trooper inspecting his body. By then a mare’s tail of ice pellets had appeared to the east and for a few seconds it made a rainbow. Very impressive, he thought, of the trooper, with the crisp blue uniform and the classic thin-edged hat.
He also thought, from above, that it was a good way to leave, with everything more or less in order, and not having wrecked the car or mangled his body. Considering how deadly it had turned out, it was still all very kempt. And merciful.
As in:
“Of course you’re my muse,” Terry shouted back to Melinda, after she asked, aloud, whether she still inspired him.
“You better mean that,” she replied, her voice cutting through the soft din of the Mumbo Jumbo Muffin Shoppe. “I have a short fuse for false sincerity.”
This was day 168, without a break, except for weekends. The idea to be a daily deadline poet had come from one of his heroes, the whimsical Calvin Trillin. And to perform this art at Mumbo Jumbo during the mid-morning rush involved just the right mix of panache and difficulty, like riding a unicycle, and spinning plates, and crossing a busy street.
“I need words with spice, Mel,” he called out.
“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,” she called back as she turned to make a cappuccino.
Terry stared at his laptop.
“That’s good,” he exclaimed. “I can work with that.”
“Damn right,” she then said to the next fellow in line. “Down at the market they’ll just throw you a fish.”
“Of course,” the next fellow replied, as if this all made sense to him.
“Algorithm, logarithm, Marxism, catechism!” Terry now chanted with delight. “Parsley goes well with asiago cheese, but it won’t change your life!”
“Sounds good to me,” Melinda replied.
“You’re the best Mel,” Terry said, snapping shut the computer.
“Don’t be late tomorrow,” she replied. “And don’t forget my tip.”
