fiction

story up this week at smokelong.com

go read it.

West Side Wednesday

Today was a solo day. Out on Jackson Ave amongst the strip malls, drive-thru restaurants, and Wal-Mart hangers on. But I was prepared, had the gear already at my house, and an idea of how long and what to expect.

If only for the loneliness of a day like today the ipod was in my pocket and the wire ran inside my shirt and up the collar. Inside Chick-fil-A Justin Townes Earle's new album shielded me from the continuous onslaught of Christian Rock. It took two times through to finish but, since I left the house at 6:45, the exciting but mellow tunes eased me into the day. They're all smiles there but creepy and I wish they wouldn't talk to me so much.

By the time I reached High Point coffee it was time for J. Roddy Walston and the Business. I danced a little with a squeegee in my hand. Over my shoulder I noticed two women talking. I was unable to hear but I'm sure they were talking about my dancing. What else could they be talking about at that hour. Outside I had to stop a car and remind him to order at the speaker before pulling forward. I don't know what causes it but it's happened so many times, there's something about me standing in the way that makes people forget to order and to rush to run me over.

At Cocomo's, one of Oxford's 17 Chevron stations, all serving a variety of breakfast biscuits and hearty plate lunches, I had to crank the volume on The Gaslight Anthem because the cashiers had the radio on and that Kid Rock song about summers, where he sings about Skynard and then steals their rift and later steals a Warren Zevon rift was on. Go ahead and click the link, it isn't actually Kid Rock.

Outside Cocomo's I had to disturb the dozen or so grasshoppers hanging out at one of the windows. When I did one of the grasshoppers flew off the glass and hit me in the face. This would be the moment that a Zen monk would talk about enlightenment if a Zen monk had been there.

like getting hit by a truck

I didn't have a beer before going for a bike ride tonight and I very nearly paid the price. But today a full size(oversized) American made pick up truck with a campus parking sticker on the back passed me no more than six inches from my shoulder. I flipped him the bird but he never touched his breaks. The very next car, a yellow suv, scooted over a bit but the rear bumper on the right side was dangling off a foot and a half. I still don't know how that flapping plastic didn't put me on the ground.

I think reading Cara Hoffman's novel So Much Pretty would have about the same kind of wallop as getting hit my one of those trucks. I haven't read the entire novel yet, though I saw many of the early pages while it was still called Butterfly, but from the parts she's read to me over the phone it's a hard hitting and intensely written novel.

You can pre-order the novel here, but as a guy who works in an independent bookstore I'd encourage you to take the author, title, or ISBN to your closest indie bookstore and have them order it for you now.

Do it.

above the fold

after working most of the day and then shopping at Kroger for groceries and playing with Joe Lon, I drank a beer on my front porch while reading a Raymond Carver story and listening to a few John Prine songs.

possibly I did one thing out of order but when I finished the beer I put on my lycra shorts and my fancy shoes and took the road bike out for a short ride. out of my neighborhood I turned left and headed up College Hill Road.

it was a little after six and thus the driving home from work crowd had already passed but there were still cars passing me. some of them scooted their driver's side tires into the other lane, some didn't, and some were especially diligent and patiently waited behind me until it was safe to pass.

this concern for cyclists isn't normal around here but on the front page of today's paper was an article about how drivers and cyclists are still working things out on the road. if you read the article and not just the headline it said that drivers aren't following the three foot barrier. maybe the folks on my ride had read the article and didn't want to be the dumbass that hit a cyclist on the day it was in the paper.

i'm thinking about writing a letter to the editor asking them to print that article every two weeks.

Is 7pm too early to go to sleep on a Tuesday

It's been that kind of day. Shit, it's been that kind of week and it's only Tuesday. But I say the week started on Friday when Joe Lon, my dog, had a heat stroke. I rushed him to the vet, afraid that it was too late and was told by the vet that they were doing everything they could but the prognosis wasn't good. On Saturday I visited and Joe Lon was walking around and on Sunday he came home. His hind legs were so sour that he had trouble standing up but now he's dying to play but I'm holding him back.

Sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning the compressor on my house's AC unit blew up. Sunday was a sweaty night and when the repairman showed up Monday afternoon he said it'd be about two grand to fix and the part wouldn't be in until Friday.

I had to be at work at 7am today, earlier than I care to be, and I wasn't able to get all the things done this morning that I needed to and still be on time to work. I forgot my belt and phone and the boss was on a bike ride when I reached the job site. But a coworker loaned me a window AC unit that I installed during lunch. It kinda works but is incredibly loud. Better than sweating through the night, I guess.

Is it Saturday yet?

Maybe you've been wondering where I've been. More than likely you haven't notice. I'm fine with either. But in case the inside look at the wonderful world of window cleaning is what you want------------>

Two days ago the house we cleaned at had a dog name Margret Thatcher. The woman called the dog Thatchy most of the time but when she really needed the dog to mind, Margret Thatcher came out of her mouth and the dog listened.

Last week I had a new adventure in window cleaning. Lately we've been getting calls from the University about their buildings. We've had to bring a guy down from Memphis to do the rope work. Thanks to John Douglass I got to repel of a 5 story building and clean windows. It was really tough but I'm hoping to get some more experience soon. Ivor Hansen is the window cleaning badass of all time. But I'm coming for him.

All signs point to a very hot summer down here. But don't worry mom, I'm drinking lots of water.

good morning blog people

You probably read the post a couple ones down about my story The Wire Out.

Contest winner, blah, blah, blah.

Well here's the link to read it. Yeah.

Fried Chicken & Coffee

from the vault of my rapidly balding head

We must have worked there in the first couple of months I was cleaning windows though I don't remember it exactly. The house looked normal and nice from the front, a good sized porch, an interesting paint color, and a metal roof. But when I walked around the back of the house I saw a swimming pool and noticed that the fence didn't divide the yard from the house next to it. I asked my boss about it. He told me the guy's mother and father lived next door. So it was like a compound or something-plastic playground and tricycles littering the yard-right in the middle of town and people didn't know it.
The homeowner didn't pay me any attention. He kinda knew my boss, maybe their kids played soccer together, and in general he seemed like he was too cool for school. Whatever-it wasn't the first time a homeowner didn't talk to me and it ain't the last. I was probably 250 lbs during that first visit, now fast forward two years or so and I was down to 180. We had been back to the compound at least once in the two years but homeowner I guess didn't notice because he called one day and asked my boss if he could get on the roof and hang a decorative star on the side of his house. Then he told my boss that he'd prefer if he did the hanging and not the guy that worked for him (meaning me) 'he's pretty big and I'm worried he might fall through' he said. My boss only told me this because I had slimmed down and had a sense of humor. But fuck that guy.
The other day I heard someone mention they had seen the homeowner out in his yard walking with a cane. 'I'm pretty sure he had a stroke,' this guy said to me. I'm not saying there's such a thing as it or if I believe in that kind of thing-it starts with a K and ends with an A, but don't be talking shit about fat people. Buddha had a belly.

can't she say something

I realize that I haven't post anything in a while and the other day while wandering our town square I got to thinking why. It turns out that I haven't really been pissed off by anything lately, at least nothing that lasted long enough for me to make it home and decided to type.

Now that doesn't mean that I'm not bored, because I am, even though I'm working full time. I haven't had a good conversation in a bit and my current writing project is stalled so maybe I need somebody or something to piss me off. Where's Sarah Palin when you need her?

More New Fiction News

Late last night word came through the internet that my story The Wire Out was won second prize in The Barry Hannah Memorial Contest at Fried Chicken and Coffee. They'll be publishing it in the new future and of course, dear blog reader, I'll be letting you know when that happens.

The story started as an assignment at Goddard for The No Masters No Gods informal class. Later at that residency several of us were driving between Plainfield and Montpelier when I spotted a man working on the highway holding the stop/go sign. Then the next day Darcey asked us to describe something without naming it in her Lucid Detail workshop. I described that guy, then put some things together.

Badass & Sexy

How many times can I say 'if it weren't for $300,000 second home condos I'd be unemployeed' and not feel like a sellout.

The 200 Washington Complex isn't exactly one of my favorite places. It's half a mile or less from the square and a block from campus but it's filled with out of towners who live elsewhere part of the time. One of my least favorite customers lives here. We call him the enemy and in the previous post I've put a link to a story I published about him and as luck would have it the day before that story went live we were summond back to the enemy's place.



From the roof of the enemy's place. My first winter with The Window King we sprayed bleach on every piece of white you can see here, and more. I ruined a pair of pants doing it.



I don't understand why so many people with so much money want to live so close to each other. I've literly gotten lost in the 200 Washington Complex even though it's only a circle, but everything looks the same. Over and Over again.

The Enemy came out and shook my hand when we first arrived. He was pleasent and decent, women his own age probably call him dapper. They might even whisper to each other about why he stays with that pill popping wife of his. After finishing his place a series of events led to the money shot. 1. We had to clean the place across the way from the enemy. 2. The Window King had to go to the accountant's office and thus moved the van. 3. The Enemy sat on his porch, chewed a cigar and read. 4. I climbed the roof of the opposite condo.

AND THUS-----

New Fiction

Hey y'all,

I've got a new thing up at Muscadine Lines. It's called The Enemy Sat Shotgun and as soon as I finished typing this I'm going to work up a post about my most recent adventures with The Enemy, including photos.

Blood Brothers by John McManus

When you have a minute read this gnarly story from my friend John McManus:


Blood Brothers at Fried Chicken & Coffee

Riding Home From Work

Today I was riding home from work and listening to outlaw country on Sirius. They were playing Steve Earle and when the song finished Mojo Nixon came on and was yelling about how they created that station so he could play Steve Earle's Copperhead Road any time he wanted. Then he said "if I want to I can play a black banjo player from North Carolina." The group was called The Carolina Chocolate Drops and the song was really good so after playing with the dog and taking a seven minute nap I searched for them on the net. Needless to say I was pretty damn stoked with what I found. The first is a promo video of them talking about their new record, the second is just a live performance.

When Worlds Collide And Morning Comes Twice A Day Or Not At All

I intended to take my camera with me to clean windows to better document the events of the day but I forgot. I guess I'll have to paint the picture with words.

Last night when the window king called and said we were working at the Whitwell's house I became suspicious. While he was giving me directions to the house he said I had been there before. And though the directions weren't very good I found the house this morning. The window king was already on the job, taking apart storm windows and assessing the day, so I parked, put on my work belt and geared up. He came outside and told me where to start and whatnot and as he was walking back inside I asked him if this was the Whitwell's whose son wrote a book. "Yes," the window king said.
Flash back to October: I had been working at the bookstore for a couple of months and a self published book by a former Ole Miss student hit the shelves. I don't want to judge a book by the cover but we all do it so here it is.




For those of you that don't know, that's the former Ole Miss mascott, a bottle of ?Jack Daniels, and a scantaly clad women with a sword. So be it-he's a lawyer/lobbiest and if he writes a book and pays to publish it then go for it. But then his 'publicist' called the store. She told me that Quentin was doing a reading down the street from the store and wanted to see if someone could help carry books up a flight of stairs. I told her that there was only two of us in the store and that we couldn't get away. She got saucy.

Twenty minutes later the 'publicist' called again and tried to find out if someone from the store was going to go to the event and sell the books. She said that she had talked to someone a few days before and that someone was supposed to be there. I said I would ask my boss about it as soon as she was out of a meeting. The event wasn't at our store and when another employee got back from dinner break he said he had been told to go sell some books. So if the cover of the book or the synopsis on the back didn't make me hate the guy, then his 'publicist' surely did.

Fast forward to this morning: I was working the outside, listening to the jams on my ipod and made it all the way until the third window before I spotted a copy of the book inside the house. It wasn't hard to spot, it's purple if you don't remember.





But the rest of the day went alright-other than the neighbor blasting techno from 300 yards away and making it hard to hear the White Stripes and the grumpy ass maids running the vaccum and making it where I couldn't hear my Willie Nelson. If By Whiskey-It's about Obama baby.

spring break

So it's spring break in Oxford and the university campus is all quiet except for the machinery of the workers and unfortunately I'm one of those workers. Cleaning windows on campus is way better when the kids are gone but I'm not all that excited about window cleaning season starting. We've spent the last two days working on the two business school buildings, which were incredibly nice/expensive inside. Many of the windows required us to rent a giant man lift but that work was left to my boss. I haven't been on a ladder in months but yesterday I found myself 25 feet up in the air. It was more than a bit sketchy.

While finishing up today I was on a ten foot ladder when I spotted three Ole Miss custodial staff watching me from the inside. They had some windex and paper towels but they also had Wal-Mart versions of my equipment. I didn't enjoy being watched and I couldn't help but feel like I was the same as these GED-holding employees. (but they have health insurance) Just because we were seperated by a pane of class didn't give them the right to stare at me while I worked. Seriously people, don't watch people working it's fucking annoying. The male had a stupid grin on his face maybe because he had a pole in his hand and he was high on meth, but he 'cleaned' the high windows and then the two women cleaned the lower ones. I could have found some comfort in knowing that it took 3 people to do my job, but I didn't-they kept staring at me.

Later my friend Robin came out of her building and we chatted. She suggested I figure out some mind game to play to get back at the custodians. The best I could come up with was to convince them I had fallen and it was all their fault. But thinking about falling isn't the best thing to think about when you're 18 feet above concrete and while on the ground I couldn't figure out a way to look like I had fallen without actually falling. So I just cleaned, but damn it would have been great to freak them the fuck out.

Newish Fiction

Check out the new issue of Noo Journal for a little bit of fiction.

Hate Mail

good morning and I'm here to report that yesterday I received my first blog related hate mail. Actually it was a phone call and a call I made, but I knew what was coming. Jughead answered the phone and said 'dude' and then I said 'dude what's up' and then he said 'you have a blog? that is so lame!" Of course this is my former roommate who refered to my fantasy football as dungeons and dragons. And his name is Jughead so how much stock do you want to put into anything he says. He's living with his parents after five years as van tour guide-spending the glory years of his 30s figuring it out among the trees of Northern California. So he has friends but they all live in far away places and thus, as he tells me yesterday, he's been taking some dance classes with his mother. I had to laugh, then point out that he hasn't mentioned this before and then laugh some more.

So this is what we do when our friends don't live near us. I've got friends leaving town and friends who have already left. I've got friends from coast to coast and I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. I think this is getting old.

Paul Octavious does some crazy shit with books-more here.

Hoarders 'R' Us

I bought a box of granola bars at the store yesterday. Nature Valley Oats & Honey is the only kind for me.



This really isn't significant unless you know that I collect the granola boxes and I haven't bought one in six months or so. Several years ago I worked at the hotdog cart at night while I cleaned windows during the day. I would take a granola bar in my lunch most days and since I'm not the tidiest of persons I had a couple of empty boxes on the counter when I came home with my first giant stack of dollar bills. When I was looking for a place to store my new found riches the granola bar boxes were the perfect size. So I kept collecting and filling them with money.

The money's all gone, long ago, but the collection grows.

So what are you hiding in your closet???

You Can Shove Your $135

This little bit of news from my second hometown of Ft. Collins CO.

Crazy Bike Law Fines


And then there's this great video about this wicked cool plan in Portland OR

Bike Box!


Enjoy, yo

Barry Hannah passed away yesterday at his home here in Oxford.

Here is an interview with The Oxford American shortly after his final novel Yonder Stands Your Orphan was released.

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2010/mar/02/barry-hannah-19422010/

Here is a write up by Wells Tower in Garden & Gun.

http://gardenandgun.com/article/barry-hannahs-long-shadow

Old News

It wasn't me who said it tonight. I wasn't the one who said, "being in here right now makes me feel old," but I had thought it the night before. Maybe it was the place I was in but the music was bad and loud, and thou I think the me of ten years ago would have said the tunes were bad and loud, I had no desire to be there. Other than a couple of my friends were there.

And sometimes you stick your nose in places you know you don't want to be just to confirm you don't want to be there. Remind yourself of your preferences. A lot of people are leaving. One was the reason I was out last night and another I found out about tonight. But that's the way things happen, and nobody in the places you've come to expect them to be in. But the dog still licks me when I walk inside. And people are supposed to leave and I'll leave one day, yet that day isn't today or anytime soon. And there'll be days and nights when I don't feel so old.

Pedal Commuting

If the rain stops and the streets dry some then I plan on riding my bike to work in the morning. It's been nearly a year since I last rode into town for work. It used to be my savior, those three or four miles, where I was alone and pedaling. Riding woke me up in the morning and evaporated all of the stress and frustration of the day's work on the way home. And it gave me the energy that I've missed.

I've got a new job and thus a new route-but I've still got my helmet. (mom) Please scoot over a couple of inches if you're trying to pass me and wait until after you've passed to honk and waive. No I don't know Lance Armstrong & I'm not going to race in the Tour de France, but I'll feel like a kid once I've clipped into my pedals. I'm not going to stop at the three-way stop by the airport and if the guy in the giant red truck yells at me again I'll probably let him hit me so I can collect a big fat check and he can join the Aryan gangs in parchman.

A Flannery A Day...

A month or so ago I purchased The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor and it has been sitting on my shelf while I tried to figure out how to read it. The book is thick, roughly 500 pages, and I knew that if I tore into it I wouldn't appreciate all the stories as individual works of art and they would meld into each other. Finally, the other day I decided that I would read one of Flannery's stories a each day until I finished the book. There are 31 stories so I've got a month of great stories to digest.

I'm only a couple of days into my mission but thus far the stories and my plan have been great. If at all possible I've tried to read the daily story in the morning and thus I have the opportunity to think about it all day long. Several times I've found myself standing around at work with nothing going on and I ask myself which story I read that morning. Then I replay the story in my head. This process seems way better than reading a bunch at one sitting because each story is clear and separate in my head. And since the collection is organized chronologically I will get to witness Flannery's progression.

Right now I'm reading the stories she wrote while working on her MFA in Iowa, they are good but don't yet have the violence of her later work. I'm excited to reach those.

If this goes well I'll consider doing the same for another author, possibly Carver or someone else you suggest.

Assessing While Walking The Dog

A real estate agent wanted to show my house this afternoon and thus Joe Lon and I had to leave the house for a couple of hours. We went to the dog park, but it was mud coated and I had just cleaned my house, so we didn't stay long. Then we went for a walk around town.

I've taken Joe Lon on a variety of adventures, mountain biking, doggy wrestling, puppy playtime, driving to Georgia, but what we haven't done until today is walk on sidewalks with cars going by. It was a struggle, the restricted walking, for the both of us especially while I was talking on the phone. At the gettin' down Moses woods I hung up the phone, let Joe Lon poop and then we started back.

Because I was on the phone and began to notice how many houses I had passed on my walk that I had been in to clean the windows. I could have been a tour guide on those couple of streets. There was the house with the couple of dogs-one of which bit me on the calf. It's the only time I've ever been bit and it took damn near all I had to not kick the dog the next time they called us. Around the corner was a guy who we've done work for several times in the last four years. So he had seen me before, but when he called my boss about getting on the roof of his porch and nailing a giant decorative star on the wall he wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to be me that got on the roof. He was worried I was too heavy. But this guy lives next door to his parents and from the street there houses look like they are separate but the backyards are fenced in together so it kind of looks like a creepy polygamist Mormon compound.

Next door to that guy is a house that has a really bad mildew problem, we're over there several times a year. But I heard from someone that the man of the house is a bit of a nudist so every time I'm over there I'm afraid I'm going to catch a little swinging richard action. Across the street is a couple from Minnesota. When I told them I was from Athens GA the woman told me she had a great story. She then proceeds to tell me that she and her husband conceived their first child in Athens Ga. They also have one of those eight foot long pools that pushes the water against you when you swim so you don't go anywhere. Next to the Minnesotans lives a woman that I swear has it bad for my boss.

Further up the street is a man who once told us that his little dog likes everyone but queers. That's the guy that reminds me I'm living in Mississippi. There were other stories on that street but since it's taken me longer to write this blog than it did to walk from the woods back to my truck-parked in front of the house where the mini horse lives, I'll go ahead and wrap this up. But while thinking about all of this I was reminded of a time when a friend asked me what I would do-how I would relate to this town when I no longer cleaned windows. I don't have an answer and I would prefer not to think about it any longer.