Mini Sledgehammer | Sledgehammer Writing Contest

Mini Sledgehammer: St. Johns Booksellers Birthday Edition

Posted on June 27, 2011 by writer

Before her store celebrated its birthday this past Saturday, June 25, Néna Rawdah messaged us to ask if we could work with her to host a Mini Sledgehammer as part of the celebration: “If you’re up for it, that would just round out the day for me.” How could we turn down something like that? Not that we’d want to anyway–we heart this Portland bookstore and appreciate the many ways it supports us, and all of its neighbors.

What a great turnout! Writers and friends of writers both. We judges had to debate the many merits of the four submitted stories, which ranged drastically in tone and topic. In the end, though, we were unanimous: congratulations, Brynn Tran!

Thanks so much to everyone for coming out. Those who did also learned that that evening launched our second permanent Mini Sledgehammer series. Now join us every second Thursday at 7 p.m. at St. Johns Booksellers!

***

Prompts:
Character: A cute girl bass player
Action: Nibbling on a pen or pencil
Setting: Over yonder
Phrase: King me!”

***

The Professor

By Brynn Tran

She could taste the salt on her upper lip, feel it stinging her right eye. The setting sun burned orange and she glared at it as she dragged the cumbersome case up the gravel road. It was hot. Too hot for eight in the evening. To hot to drag her bass over every dusty, dry hill. Too hot to hurry. Her car thought it was too hot, too, and gave up three miles back. Now her makeup was running and her hair was plastered in golden snakes to her forehead, and all she could see was a mire of green-black retina burn. She glared at the sun, daring it to set. “Fuck you, sun,” she said.

A figure shimmered in and out of existence between heat waves over yonder, perched atop the next hill. The girl hesitated. “Hey,” she called. The figure’s head snapped to. “You have a car?” she asked, immediately regretting it. If he had a car he would be in it, anywhere but here. It was unusual, standing alone in the middle of nowhere. Then again, she was the one with a tube top and a fourth of a string quartet.

“Not anymore, miss,” the figure replied. The notebook he was holding snapped shut, and his pen played about his lips. He smiled wanly. “Are you headed over there?” he jerked his thumb over the crest of the hill and, as the girl approached him, the lights of a town winked at them both.

She felt like a triumphant checker. King me, she thought. Please.

The man laughed good-naturedly at her relieved face. His eyes crinkled up at the corners, a cool blue, like a teacher the girl had once known. He reminded her of her high school orchestra conductor and she reminded herself why she was walking. This was her dream. All she wanted was to make it. To make it big, to make it to this one gig and be golden.

“Let me carry that for you,” said the man. He reached over and took the bass from her. She suddenly felt lighter than air. Perhaps it was his cologne. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Jen,” said the girl. “You don’t have to do that, really.”

“I insist,” said the man. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

“I’ve got a show tonight with my band. There’s gonna be some big names there. Producers, that kinda thing.” Jen was getting ahead of him, speeding up. She figured she had about twenty minutes to make it to that great hulking blob in the distance. Since it still looked like a blob, it would likely take much longer. “So… what are you doing out here? Writing?”

“Sure,” he said. “Notes. Observations. That sort of thing.”

What could he be taking notes on? Jen wondered. There was really nothing for miles, except the town.

“I’m a scientist.” It was as though he knew her thoughts. “A professor,” he added, as an afterthought.

“Where do you teach?”

“Oh, I don’t teach anymore.”

“Why?”

Jen whirled at the sound of a heavy clatter and found herself staring down a cool blade. A knife – no, a scalpel. Her instrument rocked from side to side where it fell. It was the only sound. She didn’t scream. She didn’t even breathe. His icy fingers gripped her by the hair.

“Why?” the Professor parroted. “Because I’m starting my own project,” he said.

The obsidian scalpel flashed. She didn’t even scream.

Very carefully, the Professor lifted the latches on the case and removed the bass. He placed it on the side of the road. Then he folded up the girl, stuffed her inside, closed the lid, and continued on his way towards the lights of the town. The sun slipped below the horizon.

***

Brynn shares about herself and her story: “I just turned eighteen and graduated from Lakeridge High School in Lake Oswego, and I’ll be attending Reed College next year to study English. The Professor in this short story is actually a character I made in my creative writing class this year, who I had no intention of writing about. The ironic thing is that his last name is St. John.”

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Mini Sledgehammer: June 2011

Posted on June 16, 2011 by writer

If you’ve ever thought the judges have an easy job choosing these winning stories, you’re very wrong. Three of us debated for a very long time this month–so many of the stories were incredible! We finally decided on Amy Seaholt‘s story, and it was thrilling to watch her reaction. It was as if she’d won a game show!

Thanks so much to everyone for coming out. We hope to see you next month, and the month after, and of course at the main event in September.

***

Prompts:
Character: A water park attendant
Action: Adjusting a telescope
Setting: An eerily empty freeway
Phrase: “You’re never going to believe this.”

***

Untitled

By Amy Seaholt

Justin’s shift ended at 7 p.m., though Raging Waters stayed open until 9. His dad said it was called that because the waters were raging with bacteria. Justin always chuckled at this, not because it was funny, as his Pop thought, but because it came from a man who only cared to shower once every few days and who Justin knew didn’t properly wash his hands after using the toilet.

Justin was far too old to be attracted to any of the high school kids who would flip their ponytails or snap their gum at him in an unpracticed attempt at flirting. They seemed to think that the job held some glamour. Or maybe they were just looking for free admission to the park.

Anyone his own age thought that it was a menial position and that he was incapable of impressing any girls with it. He knew this was true, so he didn’t tell anyone he knew at the State college about it. He even took pains to wash the chlorine smell from him as completely as he could before going to classes.

When Susan, his biology lab partner during summer term, got close to him to do a fetal pig dissection, he felt sure that she wouldn’t smell the chlorine over the formaldehyde. She had a good nose.

“Do you lifeguard?” She had asked.

“Yes, part time,” he replied, not wanting to go into more detail.

Where?

He pretended not to hear, he was so focused on the pig.

“Where do you lifeguard?” she asked again.

“Oh, just a place.” He was trying to be vague.

She narrowed his eyes at him. “Why are you avoiding the question. Do you work at Raging waters or something?”

He gave a slight nod.

“I used to love that place! I went about ten times every summer as soon as my parents would let me go by myself.”

Shhh! We’re going to get behind what everyone else is doing. He said. It was the first time he really noticed her long, smooth brown hair, wide eyes, her long neck. She was cute.

“I think it’s cute.” She said. “I just work at Starbucks. Boring.”

It was the cute comment, and that he was thinking the same of her at the same time, that gave him the courage to ask her out.

“You’re never going to believe this, me being a professional water park attendant slash biologist, but I know a cool place where you can see billions of stars. You have to get out of the city, though. You want to come with me sometime?”

Her eyes crinkled up when she smiled.

So after Justin’s shift ended at 7 he took a long shower to get rid of the chlorine smell and the stray bacteria that his father would suspect was there, and he picked up Susan for the drive up 99, then 70.

They spoke about high school for a while, and he explained that he had taken Dr. Greene’s astronomy class during the previous semester and had really gotten into it. Now he liked to take time-lapse photos of the stars. He was a little worried, revealing this to her, but she listened intently and the conversation was so easy that time passed quickly. Before he knew it he was pulling over.

“You can’t stop here, it’s the middle of the highway!” She had another one of her grins that pinched the edges of her brown eyes.

“Don’t worry. Nobody comes this way this time of night.”

He got out the tripod and telescope and began to set it up. “What do you want to see first. Saturn? The Orion nebula?”

“Yes. Any of that.” She said genially.

The more time he spent with her the more relaxed he felt. It was going really well.

“Okay, he said. Come down here and take a look.” He indicated to the telescope.

She bent her head to the eyepiece. Can you see it ok? He asked. She said it was a bit blurry. As he adjusted the focus he inhaled the fragrance of her curtain of hair. His heart beat a little faster and he wondered if he should kiss her. His palms began to sweat and he could feel himself getting red.

At that moment, headlights, coming fast, swept around the bend. His nerves already on edge, he failed to warn her, verbally, to move out of the way. Instead, he yanked the telescope up and pulled her arm to direct her to the edge of the road. Except that he did it too quickly, out of order, and slammed the telescope sight into her beautiful brown eye, tumbling her to the side of the road.

She was holding her eye, lying on the side of the highway, he was hovering over her, as the intruding car came to a stop to see if all was all right.

***

Amy Seaholt is a realtor by day and a writer by night. She is learning that if you actually want to get published, you have to let people read your work. You can read a little of hers here: http://brandofcrazy.blogspot.com/. She lives in Northeast Portland with her husband and two young children.

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Mini Sledgehammer: May 2011

Posted on May 23, 2011 by writer

Apologies for the delay in posting this month’s winner. The three judges deliberated for a long time the night of the event–at least it was a warm and sunny evening so we could do so outside!–so I guess it only makes sense that the announcement would be the long time in coming.

***
Prompts:
Character: a woman of a certain age
Action: fleeing by bicycle
Setting: between here and there
Phrase: “Don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . ”

Congratulations to Pam Russell Bejerano, who wrote the following in 36 minutes!

***

Pam Russell Bejerano

The Bicycle

Margaret stood looking at the bicycle in the shop. It was the latest invention – the front wheel large with iron spokes, a tiny seat atop made of wood, and one small wheel behind. She had seen many photographs of them, but this was her fist glimpse in person. It was magnificent.

“May I help you, Ma’am?” Margaret turned and looked at the young boy, less than half her age. “Are you looking for a gift for your husband?”

Margaret smiled. She knew women were not allowed to ride such contraptions, but she also knew that this was hogwash. Women of a certain age, in her opinion, were young enough to be able to break such asinine rules, and old enough to enjoy doing so. How little the young knew.

“No,” she said, then quickly corrected herself. “Actually, yes. I am looking for a bicycle for my husband. But truly, you cannot convince me that these contraptions are not highly dangerous.” She shifted her parasol from one shoulder to the other, getting a better look at both the boy and the bicycle.

“No, no,” he said walking to the bicycle and wheeling it towards her. “They are truly safe. Watch,” he said, stationing the bicycle by the mounting stand. He climbed up, swung his leg over the seat, and placed his feet on the pedals. “Watch,” he said, then proceeded ever so slowly to move the bicycle down the road.

She watched him go, then watched as he turned the corner ever so carefully, and rode back to her, dismounting again at the stand. He smiled at her, as if it were the grandest achievement to have ridden such a thing between here and there, when in truth, here was there. Thoughts swimming in Margaret’s mind were of a much grander sort.

“I supposed you’re going to tell me I need to purchase the contraption to mount the thing as well?” she said, goading him.

“Of course not. It is just as easy to mount freestanding. Watch.” He moved the bicycle away from the stand, kicked out a metal rod that held the bicycle upright, and proceeded to climb up the back wheel. “See, just as easy?”

“And this?” she said, pointing to the rod.

“Watch,” he said, beaming at her. As he rode away, the stand flipped itself up.

Again, he rode to the end of the dirt road and turned slowly, then made his way back. How he would dismount was the only piece of information she was lacking. She watched carefully as he slowed the bicycle, removed one hand from the handle bar and placed it on the seat between his legs, then quickly leapt back and down to the ground.

“Simple as pie. Your husband will learn in no time.”

“Indeed,” she said. “And how much does this cost?”

“Well,” he said, gently taking her arm and leading her closer to the bicycle. “This is not your average model. These spokes, see here, how they are connected at the center? That’s the latest fashion, making the model much safer. And the pedals, see how they…”

“How much, I believe, was the question.”

The young lad stopped and looked at her. “The seat, see there? It’s fine Italian leather that…”

“My boy, if I have to ask you again, you shall lose my attentions permanently.” She stared him in the eye, unmoving.

“75 pounds, 10 shillings.”

“75 pounds? And 10 shillings?” she mocked, feigning shock. “For a contraption that will make one sweat to take it simply down the road?” she said, gesturing up the short distance of road she had traveled.

“Oh, but madam, think of all the places one could go!”

“Such as?”

“Well,” he said, rubbing his chin and staring at the giant wheel. “You could ride it as far as, let’s see…”

“Yes, just as I thought. An overpriced bundle of metal to get one no where.” She shifted her parasol off her shoulder and overhead, turned on a heel, and began to walk away, smiling. She knew she had him.

“Ma’am,” he said, running around to block her path. “Please, I assure you, this bicycle s sturdy enough, fast enough, it could take you even off to the next town.”

“And where might that be?” she said, feigning ignorance. “There?” she pointed down the road she was facing that bent some 100 yards down into the overgrowth. A back road, she also knew, that led to Sussex, some 16 miles away.

“Well, of course, though one would have to be highly skilled at the thing to be able to ride down that road.”

“Oh, well, then,” she said, turning the opposite direction to the other road that headed out of town. “This way?”

“Well, this way, certainly. I’ve ridden there myself.”

“Indeed.” She looked at him with wide eyes, as if entirely impressed with his prowess. “I’ll take it. But only if you can guarantee me my husband could reach the next town by that road,” she gestured down the shorter path, “on his first attempt.”

“Ma’am, if I may,” he said, looking at her. “Please, don’t take this wrong, but riding such a machine will take some time. If your husband wishes to go over to the next town, it may take some time to accustom himself to the thing. But once he’s done that, I assure you, he can ride as far as the edge of town if he’d so like.”

Insulted as a woman, and by her age. It was amazing how well the youth managed to do that in one fell swoop. She smiled, thoroughly enjoying herself.

“If you would, please, then. I’d like to buy that one.”

The boy turned to where her extended finger indicated. “That one?” he said, the look of surprise unhidden on his face. “But Maam, that’s our delux model. It might be better if your husband learnt first on this one, then, in time, if he still likes it, he could come back and purchase this one.”

“Are you quite through?” she said simply.

“Ma’am?”

“With your juvenile preaching. Are you quite through?”

“Uh, well, uh, yes Ma’am.”

“Good, because you’re tiring me. I want that one.” Again she pointed to the larger model still in the shop.

“Right. Well, give me a minute, please, I’ll be right back.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Unfortunately for the poor lad, by the time he was right back, she had hoisted up the folds of her skirt, mounted the cycle, and disappeared around the bend. Once out of sight and out of sound, she realized she had done it – she had fled her godforsaken life forever, and had done so in the most unexpected of ways – by bicycle.

She lifted her head to the sun, flew her feet off the pedals and out in front of her, and let out the most joyous, giddy yelp of her life.

***

Pam Russell Bejerano is a writer who works as an educator in Portland, Oregon. Pam has published a poem and one previous Mini Sledgehammer story, and was invited to read a short story at the Cannon Beach Historical Society. Pam is currently working on a novel to be completed in 2011. You can read more of Pam’s writing on her blog.

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Mini Sledgehammer: December

Posted on December 13, 2010 by writer

Ah, the holidays. Apparently it’s my time of year to be late for everything. Sorry for my tardy prompt posting. If you’re writing from home, monitor your time yourself, post your story on your own blog or website, and then leave your link in a comment below!

character: transit driver
action: surprising someone
prop: sparkly wrapping paper
setting: traffic jam

Congratulations to Fufkin Vollmayer, a first-time Sledgehammer participant, whose story ran away with the prizes!

***

“Untitled”
by Fufkin Vollmayer

My breasts are leaking and it’s rush hour in the rain and because of the rain the Muni metro shuts down. We’re in the big tunnel from downtown to the Castro and Javier is just making noise. It’s that gnawing noise familiar to every new mom, the kind that the nurse who posed as a lactation consultant explained to me, “See those little movements of his head and his lips parting, that’s rooting.” I stared at her dumbfounded, rooting as in a fruit tree or bulbs in the fall? so she went on, “Rooting means he’s looking for the breast, so it’s a good thing.”

Anyway the rain has shut the tunnel down and the overhead lights of the train flicker on and off, like a disco ball right inside the steamy crowded train that’s bound for the outer Sunset. Someone’s got Chinese takeout, because I can smell it from here.

Javier is revving up to a whimper and even though it’s crowded, all of us packed in like sardines and damp and mushy, I am going to have disengage him from the baby Bjorn, undo my raincoat and get my breast out. Out and in public. Maybe with the lights going on and off like last call, maybe no one will notice.

To the teenager next to me, who’s silent and focused in some deep way on their i-Pod, I say, “Excuse me, I need to sort of elbow you to get the baby out.” He stares at me, maybe not hearing. Or hearing and not caring.

He doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t even blink.

Now Javier is crying, and it’s that piercing cry of the newborn, a bleat, a thin wail so primal and high, it’s excrutiating. Like some illustration out of the nursing manual, I leak into my thick padded nursing bra. Too late, it’s gone straight through to the shirt.

As I start to elbow the silent, sullen teen next to me, “I’m sorry, oh I apologize, shit,” and then as I accidentally hit him with my elbow, “Please forgive me.”

He spits out, “You can not do that no you cannot. I talk to the bus driver. Right now.”

Well, we’re stopped anyway, go right ahead. And with that, he pulls out an a white ear bud from his thick black skunk head style of hair and pushes his way up to the front. We’re not too far from the front, so he pounds on the driver’s bullet proof glass.

Finally, the driver, like a teller at a liquor store that doesn’t sell wine, only coolers and fifths and endless varieties of rum, she looks at him. She looks about forty or so, her brown institutional uniform, the one that I grew up looking at twice a day as I road the bus to and from school, her uniform is shiny from too much ironing. The yellow letters and MUNI insignia remind of a forest ranger. Maybe that’s what she is, a forest ranger and we’re all the wild life.

“She is doing something bad. Not right. Her, over there,” and the teen who’s taken both the ear buds out, puts his elbow into his chest because there’s not even enough room for him to give a full extended point.

The driver looks at me, and I dread what could be the inevitable break down. I know the look. Middle aged African American woman giving me, the blue-eyed white woman the once over. All those years on her bus when, as a teen myself, all I ever did was to keep the brothers who followed me, sat next me and knocked their knees into my thigh, and talked to me, Oh Miss White, what you doing? Lemme take you home.

Or maybe in my haze of no sleep and new baby and the lights dimming on and off like a metronome, maybe I am misreading her face.

The high crackle of the walkie-talkie comes through and she picks up the radio and listens to the report about the flooding in the tunnel, Uh-huh, how long? Well, we just wait then.

“So what you going to do about her,” i-Pod teen asks, again.

“Nothing.”

Javier starts a full forced cry. There are no other babies on the train, just big kids. Dark I want the dark to return, because then I can pull a Houdini move and maneuver Javier out of the Bjorn, under my jacket, up through the loose tunnel of my crappy shirt and close to his target. Get him and judging from all the faces on the train, the people who might be staring, get him nursing.

“No, not right.”

“Actually, it’s a public place.”

I smile and nod and shove Javier on to my boob and the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the latch, it happens.

We’re in the dark, and the closely calibrated trains, they’re all piling up. It’s gridlock in the tunnel as two trains in a row, with big round headlights, a full moon illuminating the pitch black darkness of the tunnel with no light, no light at all, the full moons are lighting them up. There’s a traffic jam and it’s completely silent.

The pneumatics of the door exhale as the driver sits there. The teen next to me, sits down again and bumps my arm and I’d totally forgotten about the package wrapped in crinkly wrapping paper that I’d shoved into my back pack, the birthday present for Granny Doe, the one I’d dragged little Javier out in the rain, out of his cocoon, to Macy’s, all to buy Granny Doe some plates to match her set from her wedding.

The driver now gets up and comes down the aisle, to avert the panic, “There’s flooding in the tunnel, a back up with an accident on the line outside, we’ll be moving in about ten minutes.”

As she passes me, she looks down, and looks at me and stares, “Well hello Karen, long time.”

“Excuse me?”

“How ya doin’?”

I stare and again that bovine look of stupidity must be overtaking my face, the one caused by exhaustion.

“It’s me. Deborah.”

“From Lowell?”

And she starts laughing and shaking her head and all the backstory that wound through the short fuse known as my brain, vanished.

“Yeah, you got it.”

“Hey. Hey Deborah.”

We looked at each other, right in the eyes. Deborah who I went to Lowell with. Deborah who smoked pot with me down in the pit. Who brought her plaid thermos full of milk and bourbon to school. We used to laugh and laugh, could’ve been the pot, could’ve been finally figuring out the George Clinton’s liner notes, Some of my Best Friends are Jokes.

We laughed and Javier nursed and the lights came back and stayed on.

***

Fufkin Vollmayer worked as a journalist before kids and is finishing a memoir of the whole goofy enterprise known as single parenting, anonymous donor insemination, and having absolutely no idea on how to be a good mom owing to Really Terrible Parents (warning, alcoholism and mental illness and living in Reno, Nevada, are covered) in her upcoming book, “Because You Love Them Like Crazy.”

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Mini Sledgehammer: August 2010

Posted on August 10, 2010 by writer

We had a thin crowd here this month, but four of us here still had a good time writing. Congratulations to Elissa Nelson, whose story took home the prizes!

Prompts
Character: a new neighbor
Setting: locked out
Action: playing the cello
Dialogue: “busier than a one-armed paper hanger”

Julie is writing frantically, with a nine a.m. deadline in the morning, nine a.m. east coast time so this really has to get done now. It’s one of those articles you take because you need the money, and then you think So this is making a living from my writing, using my gift, my talent.

She interviewed a woman who’s started what is essentially a pyramid scheme, but the woman, Phyllis Camera, calls it entrepreneurial, and it’s for WorkingLadies.com, so it’s entrepreneurial, it’s not a pyramid scheme. If it was for Fortune, or Ms., it might be about pyramid schemes and using feminism and capitalism to prey on poor mothers who feel they should be full-time moms and have successful careers, simultaneously. She could tell them that’s not possible, but nobody’s supposed to tell them it’s not possible.

Phyllis is an older lady, and no, her last name isn’t Camera, it’s McManus, but Camera goes better with her business concept, which is about using adorable photos of children and pets to create serieses of postcards for all occasions.

Julie is trying to wax super-positive about the postcards—the story will be accompanied by a selection of images, including several of children in sweet and homemade costumes ranging from bumble bee to carrot (with the green top, of course—she had to look it up because what do you call the green top part? carrot greens of course). She’s crafting a description that includes “entrepreneurial and forward-thinking, without losing the caring vision of a loving mother, the vision which makes Mrs. Camera’s postcards endearing and universal” when the doorbell rings.

She doesn’t answer it. It’s eight p.m., she plans to stop for dinner once she finishes the rough draft—seven hundred words to go—but she can’t answer the door right now, she’s as much in her groove as she ever gets when she’s doing this kind of work, she has to stay in the groove, shallow as it is. Any little thing could bump her out, way out—

But the doorbell rings again. And then it rings again. And then a voice she doesn’t recognize yells, “Hello? Hello? Sorry if it’s not a convenient time but it’s freezing out here and I’m your neighbor, please help!”

She keeps writing. There’s other neighbors, it’s not like they live out in the country. This is Portland.

The doorbell rings again. “Please, I just need to use your phone. Nobody’s home over to the other side and they didn’t answer the door across the street and when I peeked in I saw there was just a little kid and I didn’t want to make some little kid home alone open the door for a stranger so I just came here. I know you’re home, I can see you out the side window typin’ away. Type type type. Please. Give me two minutes, let me in and I’ll use the phone and then I’ll sit quiet and wait for the key guy.”

Julie gives up. She might get more done once she opens the door than she’s getting done now.

She opens it. There is a very tall woman standing there. She adjusts her view. She realizes you open the door for a woman looking within a certain range of vision, and she had it wrong, because this woman must be over six feet.

“Hi, I’m Lydia,” says the lady. “I’m your neighbor.”

“Hi, Lydia. I know. I heard. You need to use the phone. I’m Julie and I’m on deadline and I’m way behind so please come in and use the phone but I have to keep working or I won’t get any more work from this magazine and you know how times are.”

Shit. She said too much. “Magazine! Wow! What kind of magazine! Gosh, you’re a writer. That’s great. I used to be a writer. I won first prize in the prose essay contest in ninth grade, it was in the yearbook and everything. I got a hundred dollars for writing an ad slogan once too, that was just ten words—the maximum was twelve words, did you ever know those slogans have to be so short? The slogan—it was for this dog food company, you’ve probably never heard of them, they went under pretty soon after my ad ran but not before they paid me my money—the slogan was Even Johnny loves Carnivore, the all-meat food for dogs! And there’s a picture of my son and his dog, Petey, and the caption says, Johnny and his dog, Petey, and Petey’s eating out of his bowl, and Johnny’s eating out of the can, and you can see it says Carnivore.”

Julie’s been holding the phone out since the part about the yearbook.

“Lydia, that’s fascinating, and I’d love to hear more after I finish this article. But really, right now, I’m so sorry, here’s the phone and I have to get back to work. Just let yourself out when the locksmith gets here. We’ll have to have tea sometime soon.”

“Thanks Julie. Sorry, Julie. Except I don’t drink tea, I only tried that chai stuff once and I broke out in these disgusting hives, all over my body, seriously all over my body, and the doctor said it was because chai has tea in it, and sometimes people are allergic to tea, and hives are a common reaction—“

“I’m sorry, Lydia, I HAVE TO GO WORK.” Julie doesn’t want to raise her voice but it’s a natural reaction when someone doesn’t seem to hear you.

She gets back to the article, is writing about Phyllis’s first customers and how they became her business partners, when she realizes Lydia is talking again. “He said I’d be busier than a one-armed paper hanger and I’d never heard that expression before, I thought it was something dirty, I don’t know what I thought he said, but I clocked him with the arm I always use to clock people except this time it wasn’t just my arm, it was my arm in a cast. Anyway I play the cello all the time except I couldn’t hardly at all that summer. Eventually I figured out how to move my fingers around but—“ she shakes her head.

Julie keeps writing.

“I mean, what do you do, you play the cello, it’s your artistic outlet, your calling, what do you call it, your vocation, the thing you do that’s meaningful, and are you going to let a broken arm stop you? Tom said it was too bad I didn’t break my face, but I told him if he talked like that I’d put a restraining order on him, and he said maybe that way he’d get some peace, and his nose was bleeding the whole time because I’d hit him so hard, back-handed, which isn’t such a big deal when your arm’s not in a cast.”

“Lydia, I’m going to have to ask you to wait on the porch if you can’t be quiet.”

“It’s thirty degrees!”

“I have to get my work done.”

“I wasn’t bothering you! You were still typing away!”

“Lydia. There are some magazines on the coffee table in the living room. Please, take a seat in the living room—the couch is really comfortable, or the rocker—have a seat and peruse a magazine.”

“You’re trying to get rid of me.”

Julie does not answer. She keeps writing. “Of Phyllis’s first three business partners, Helen chose to retire after she made a hundred thousand dollars, since her husband is independently wealthy and they decided to move to their summer home in Martha’s Vineyard” (is it in Martha’s Vineyard or on Martha’s Vineyard? that’s a question for the second draft, Julie)

“What the hell kind of magazines are these? You don’t have anything with people on the covers. What’s that about? Not even National Geographic! What kind of magazines do you write for? What are these magazines that just list a bunch of titles?” Lydia is up in Julie’s face.

“Lydia. I need to work.”

“Where’s your TV?”

“I don’t have a TV.”

“You don’t have a TV? Then how do you know about anything at all?”

“Please wait on the porch.”

“I’m not waiting on the goddamn porch.”

Julie doesn’t even think about it—if she thought about it she probably wouldn’t have done it. She clocks Lydia, hard, with her arm which is not in a cast, but she doesn’t back-hand her, it’s a full out fist. She doesn’t think she ever did that before. Lydia’s nose starts bleeding. Julie raises her fist again. “Get out of my house before I call the police.”

Lydia backs toward the door. She spits at Julie and turns and runs.

Julie wipes the spit off with her sleeve, and goes back to her computer.

Elissa Nelson is a writer and teacher, currently completing her first novel. She has published fiction and nonfiction in publications including The Sun, Slate, and Seventeen magazine, in addition to making zines since the early ’90s, and she just finished her first zine since 2006: The Hundred Most Influential Writers in My Life to Date, As Best I Can Remember and Mostly Not Including Zines #1.

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