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i'mpulse started as a class project at ucsd and became a small group of writers collaborating/sharing. i'mpulse is about creating a writing community and cultivating a habit of writing. it is about making the practice of writing spontaneous and i'mpulsive and inescapable.

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06 February 2006

Playthings: Light and time

There is a silence
swallowing me right now.
Moon has no shadow.

posted by InkSpot | 12:26 AM

1 Comments:

Blogger InkSpot said...

One time, when lauren and her mother were driving back to riverside from dad’s shop in san diego, a tire went flat. Lauren screamed because she had seen a squirrel leaping across the road.
“you killed it!” she screamed and screamed as margaret pulled the car over.
“what are you talking about? Jesus, can you stop screaming?” maggie, that’s what they called her at the office. Dad always called her marge, which pissed her off because it reminded her of her aunt in idaho who raised emu and wore mumu’s with patterns like table clothes and 70s curtains.
Lauren lept from the car as soon as it stopped and ran to the front, expecting to see blood and fur matted to the rubber bumper. It was clean and the chattering behind her told her the squirrel had survived this crossing.
“barely,” she whispered.
“this is when i actually wished your father was still around,” maggie said, doing her 50s wiggle walk around to the trunk to get the tire jack out. She was wearing a white skirt suit. There was grease on the spare tire and the rim was covered in brake dust. The cleaners couldn’t get the stains out of the suit.
Lauren had learned three important things that day. 1) leave an old mens’ shirt in the trunk so you can change your tire without getting dirty; 2) leave baby wipes in the trunk so you can clean your hands at any time, and 3) squirrels do not make the car limp continually when you hit them, only two bumps at the most if you hit them directly and had to roll over the body with your tires.
“i think you’re working too hard and taking that damn bus takes to long,” henry said, taking a long pull off of the golden can.
“it’s only about an hour and 20 minutes each way.” she mumbled and looked at the instructions she had left for cooking the casserole she put together that morning. It was supposed to be a beautiful one, with the six-dollar bundle of asparagus she had splurged on at the farmers’ market. Organic, green and tiny like pinky fingers with little triangles of pink tinted with purple. They were so fresh and perfect, only one stalk had a woody end that she snapped off.
She smelled the stalks before washing them, loving the scent of earth and the faint smell unique to asparagus. Something like urine. Better.
“Did you have some of the casserole?” Henry finally closed the refrigerator door. He had dark stains at his arm pits and doplets of sweat sprouting from his pores. It occurred to Lauren that maybe he was just hanging out in front of the open fridge for the coldness and not for the company, not to solve his daughter’s problems and certainly, definitely not the asparagus and pecorino casserole.
“Pumpkin, I’d be happy with sloppy joes everyday,” he’d told her once. It was meant to sound like a ‘thank you for all you do’ sort of thing but more closely resembled a request.
“Meat’s not that expensive. We can afford it,” he continued. Lauren had moved back in with him so she could go to school without worrying about how to pay rent, auto insurance, buy groceries, pay the utilities and still have enough money for her school books.
“Oh, I know Daddy. It’s just,” she searched for the right way to sell the idea of vegetarianism to a 45-year-old mechanic who was used to having a steak for his main course and chicken for his side dish, “studies are showing people live longer if they cut their conspumtion of red meat.” Yes, concern for his health. Altruism was the way to go.
“sounds like the farmers have too much competition on their hands,” he said in a knowing way.
“You feeling alright, dad,” Lauren asked, coming back to the kitchen and the faint onion smell of her father’s sweat. Watching him, she felt hot too in her designer jeans and gossamer hippie top. She had unfortunately been seduced by her mother’s fashion sense, paired up with her father’s practicality.
“Fine. Why?” He sat down at the table. His eyes were red. From working around chemicals all day, she thought to herself. He’d already had his after work beer and had moved on to the caffeine-free pick-me-up of a sugar ladened pop. Lauren didn’t need to peer into the garbage can to know Henry threw his first can in there and would, most likely, throw his second one in, too.
She made a mental note to dig the can out of the trash and transfer it to the recycle bin conveniently tinted a bright blue color. The green bins were for yard waste, like leaves and branches and the smashed bits of grass from lawnmowers. Not everyone had converted to the stylish rock gardens and prickly cacti paradise landscapes.
“You just look tired.” The room felt hot, like the middle of the Mojave at quarter to noon and the heat sharpened all the smells, gave them teeth and so they bit into her. The grease from Henry’s hands, the syrupy sweet of the pop, the overcooked quiche, and the linger scents of her father’s beer cans drifting in from out side. The always left a faint scent, no matter how many times she rinsed them out.
Henry’s hair was slick and matted from work and the grease on his hands was worn in to reveal some uniqueness of him. She knew, from when she was a kid, that his hands were think and rough.
He couldn’t sweat through his hands and that made the tips of his fingers like blunts pieces of quartzite she found in the mountains nearby.
“So, you down about school, or what?”
“No. I like school. It’s good.”
“And—? Jesus kid, I’m trying to have a conversation here, with my daughter.” Henry looked at her.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I feel like I forget how to talk to people sometimes.”
“Are you depressed or something?” He waited, holding the can close to his lips, mouth opened. He was sizing her up the way he had when she was a kid and her younger brother would run into the house crying, locking himself in the bathroom and not coming out for 20 minutes.
He called it his bullshit detector. It only worked with Lauren, thought. Every fiber of muscle tissue in her face was hard-wired to reproduce her internal state.
He went back to the can of soda, finishing it off in one gulp. He crumbled the can in his fist, threw it at the garbage can and said, “You should take a break from books and hang out with some friends,” before walking out of the kitchen for his after-work shower.
“I have some homework to work on.”
Maggie loved driving. “Always drive a manual transmission kid. That’s one thing I learned from your father. They’re cheaper to work on and they put you in control. Nothing feels sexier than knowing, by the sound of your engine, mind you, when to drive the tranie to another gear.”

12:04 PM  

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