That Day on the River

I just found out my short story "That Day on the River" won honorable mention in this year's Oregon Writers Colony contest. Contest winners will take part in a reading Nov. 23, 2009 at Looking Glass Bookstore, 7983 S.E. 13th Ave., in Portland, Oregon. Here's the story:

That Day on the River

The day Twerp fell in the river I remember wishing I hadn't yelled at her like that. I mean some of us are just born a pain in the you-know-what; and the rest of us are, well, easier to get along with. We were up the Badger River in central Alaska on a family fishing trip, which we did almost every weekend in the summer. By “we” I mean Mom, Dad, my sister Twerp, my brother Twig and me.

The Badger is a dangerous river, cold and swift, with invisible whirlpools, backwashes and sweepers (low-hanging branches just waiting to scrape some poor kid off a boat). It was a nice day in June, though, so it didn't seem like a day when anything bad could happen. I was about ten years old, which meant Twerp would have been seven.

The ride to the cabin took a couple of hours. Once we got there, Dad tied the boat to the water pump, and I started fooling around with it. It was fun to pump the handle hard until river water gushed out all over the place. The minute I started having some fun, though, Twerp started horning in.

"My turn!" she insisted, trying to pull my hands off the pump handle. "You have to take turns."

"No I don’t," I said. "There's plenty of stuff to do around here. Go find your own fun."

"It's not fair," Twerp said, stomping her feet. To listen to Twerp, she was always getting the short end of some stick. "I'll tell Mom," she said. Now, there was nothing that made me want to do my sister's bidding less than her threats to take things to upper management. I maintained a firm grip on the pump.

"Mom!" Twerp yelled toward the cabin. "Twyla isn't sharing! It's my turn to play with the pump."

"Back off," I hissed. "Stop copying my life."

"Stop it right now, you two," Mom called from the top of the bank where she stood with a dishtowel in her hand. "I don't want to hear another word. Not one. Not on such a fine day. Twyla, you share."

"Let me, let me," Twerp said, pulling at my arm.

I could hardly see her, what with the sun shining off her teeth because she couldn't keep her big mouth shut.

"Oh, take your damn turn," I said before walking away. I didn't even bother to look back. Instead, I wandered out onto the boat to watch Dad. He was working on the motor. Several minutes passed before he said, "Where's Twerp?"

I shrugged my shoulders. What did I care, right, as long as she wasn't in my hair? But then I noticed the silence and realized something wasn't right. Twerp was never quiet. Never. Dad must have had the same idea I did. We looked at each other, then turned and looked back toward shore. There, by the water pump, all we could see were white bubbles in the water.

Dad pushed me out of the way and took what seemed like impossibly big leaps back to where Twerp had been. He stepped right on the duffel bags and tackle boxes and fishing poles, something that at any other time he would have yelled at us kids for doing.

What he pulled out of the water didn't look like anything living. It was all loose. The only things that looked familiar were Twerp's yellow boots.

I remember looking at them and then up at Mom. She must have come out to call us for lunch or something, but when she saw Twerp and Dad, her mouth fell open and stayed that way. Dad was holding Twerp upside down and pounding on her back. And that moment, for the first time in my life I realized what life would be like without her, how it would leave this big hole that we would have to walk around for the rest of our lives. And I realized how quiet everything would be. Too quiet.

Just then, Twig walked around the corner of the cabin carrying an ax. When he saw what was happening, he dropped the ax. It landed on the dirt and raised a cloud of brown smoke. Dad put his finger in Twerp's mouth and yelled, "Breathe, you little shit kicker. Breathe!" She must have heard him, because just then Twerp started to cough and choke, which made us laugh, which made her angry. Twerp hates to be laughed at.

That night, inside the cabin, after the sun had gone down and we’d finished eating dinner, we continued to sit around the table as Dad lit the Coleman lantern that hung overhead. The shiny table threw back the yellow light as, for the first time, Dad told the story we would come to call “The Day Twerp Almost Drowned.”
"Someone must have been watching," Dad whispered as he lit the first of the two bootie-shaped mantles. "Otherwise, how do you explain my turning around just then to check on Twerp?"

And we all nodded, knowing something mysterious had happened. We'd almost lost Twerp but she'd been saved. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Her braids were all washed now and freshly combed and she was wearing her flannel pajamas so clean and soft. She was enjoying all the attention, of course. Almost made you think she'd done the whole thing on purpose. Ever since the accident, she'd refused to leave Mom's lap, where she sat with a big smile on her face.
###

Pen in Hand

Blind spots

One day several months ago, a writer friend and I were taking a walk. He was telling me about how his father hadn’t loved him and how that relationship was holding him back, stopping him from writing.

Well, write about that, I thought. Write about being rejected. That’s your story, your wound. It might not be the only thing you could write about, but maybe you need to write about that so you can write about other things.

But I didn’t tell him what I was thinking. Why? Because, in my experience, when it comes to our own stories, self-discovery is vital. It’s just not the same thing when someone tells us what they think we might need to write about. In addition, as my friend and I were walking along, I could actually sense his writer’s block. It felt heavy and solid, like it had a lot of history behind it and wasn’t going to move.

The whole incident made me sad, because, when it came to writing, my friend was just as talented as a lot of writers I know. But sometimes our stories are so close to us, so embedded into our bodies and psyches, that we can’t see them. That’s why they’re called blind spots, I guess.

Joseph O'Neill

I drew the above sketch while watching a TV show in which Charlie Rose interviewed novelist Joseph O'Neill, author of Netherland: A Novel. The story is about two cricket players (which is why you can see the words "play cricket" on O'Neill's forehead). When asked about his writing process, O'Neill said that, unlike some writers who compare writing to chipping away at a piece of marble to reveal a human figure, he makes random chips at the stone to see what happens.

Office supplies

The only things I like more than Pilot G-2 07 pens (Ah, the comfort of the rubber grip, the easy release of the black ink) are blank, 3-inch-by-5-inch index cards (Just the right size for cupping in the hand while jotting down a writing idea) and file folders (Buff color only, please, letter size).

Other people may prefer hanging out in coffee houses, dress shops or taverns, but I spend my off hours in office-supply stores, those big- and small-box outlets crammed floor-to-ceiling with all things clerical and writerly.

Heading down an aisle inside Office World or Paper Emporium, I breathe in the scent of 10-inch-by-13-inch mailing envelopes with their reinforced eyelets and long-life clasps. Then it’s on to the next row, where I fondle packages of red-edged address labels, Super Sticky florescent-green Post-it® notes and laminated maps of the world.

Extra-strong storage boxes that support up to 350 pounds beckon me on, followed by the perforated notepads, disappearing-glue sticks and bags of size 16 rubber bands. Who could bypass the pencil pillows, desk pads and leather-bound journals, the high-back chairs with lumbar support or ignore the briefcases (leather and plastic, with and without wheels), computers and printers, calculators and shredders, scissors and letter openers?

Eventually, I stumble out the door, feeling uplifted, as if life mattered somehow.

Plein Air

At about this same time last year, I took part in a Plein Air event during which writers and painters wrote and painted outdoors in the Columbia River Gorge. It took place on a beautiful day with the sun shining brightly overhead, but I was carrying with me a certain feeling of sadness, a result of something that happened the night before.

I’d gone out for dinner with a friend, a member of a writing group I’d belonged to for many years. After we ate and talked, Beverly was walking me to my car when she told me she thought our writing group might be ending, that the whole thing had run its course. I didn’t say so at the time, but I felt sad, to think what Beverly said might be true. In typical fashion, I dealt with it by making a joke, about how I would send an e-mail to the members with a subject line that read, “Writing Group Dies Slow, Agonizing Death.”

It was true. Signs of the group breaking up had been showing up for months, if not years. Still, for some reason, I didn’t want to give up on the group. In addition to the fact that I just liked hanging out with writers, many of the group members had become my best friends. So that’s what I was thinking about during Plein Air – about loss and endings and giving up; but although I was feeling sad, at the same time, I was aware of the bright sun overhead. And I wrote this poem:

Fallen Fruit

Narrow shouldered and
Bottom heavy
The ripened pears
Fell like copper buddhas
Onto the welcoming earth

Where they
Kept each other company
After having given up on summer
Allowing gravity to do its work

Offering comfort
For lonely souls
Passing by
Revealing secrets
Hidden in the shadows of branches
Reflecting the strength
Of the sun overhead

Free copies

One morning not long ago, I unlocked and opened my post-office box to find three thick, glossy copies of Oregon Home magazine stuffed inside, along with a copy of Oregon Home's Get Guide, and a kind note from the editor. The day before, I received two copies of Oregon Humanities, with a colorful cartoon on the front.

As I wrestled the magazines out of the small box, I gave thanks for one of the benefits of being a freelance writer — free copies of magazines.