BOO!

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

One of the many hurdles facing a new ghost is that of passing the only test that matters so far as specters are concerned—the test of haunting. That may seem to be an obvious statement, or worse, but it is not nearly as obvious as it appears. The difficult is not that of finding someone to frighten, but of being frightening. We cannot know whether The Whispering House is the first haunting conceived by the ghost of Thomas Brady, a hardware salesman killed when he slipped on black ice and cracked his skull on a concrete retaining wall, but it has all the markings of a debut production, and not for the better. Visited upon Ralph and Nola Walker, a youngish couple with two small daughters (Adrienne, nine, and Carrie, seven) who recently moved into the house, the haunting has sinister moments, certainly, as the whispering seems to emanate from the walls themselves in a kind of vibratory effect, and Brady’s preferred method of appearing in a room (glowing brightly for one moment, fading, and then coming up again in a slow glow) can be genuinely eerie. But the sense of foreboding is often stronger than the actual sense. Near the bottom of the staircase, for example, Brady’s ghost hisses “Beware your first step, mortal.” Would this admonishment not have been better delivered at the base of the stairs? Addressing an inhabitant of the house as “mortal” introduces a staginess that undermines the rest of the warning. Brady’s ghost knows its mission, certainly, as shown in his adroit handling of the upstairs bedrooms, especially the children’s rooms, and his sense of humor surfaces at unexpected moments. “A world of pain,” whispered as either Ralph or Nola approaches the master bedroom’s large picture window, is an execrable pun, but it seasons the haunt with wit. There is a conspicuous shortage of situational frights (the closets positively cry out for them), and Brady’s lack of skill in deploying even the most rudimentary theatrical effects—his phased appearance is a rare exception—hampers them further. Perhaps the most egregious failure concerns the wall. It marks the perimeter of the backyard and connects to the house just beneath the children’s bedroom.  Brady died there. And yet, his ghost can do nothing more at that site than a perfunctory “Boo!” a tepid exclamation that has not carried any charge since the days of Le Fanu. Perhaps the next haunting will uncover more of Brady’s ghost’s talents. Until then, it is hard to resist the rather unkind notion that Brady died in vain. The limits of the entire haunting are perhaps best summed up by a remark made by Adrienne to her sister: “I feel like I’m supposed to scream or something but I can’t figure out why.” 

NOT INVITED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The window shows us a world full of children, all expecting the adult world to intrude at any minute, some anxious, a few humming with excitement, all agog. It is a world where everything is new. One child is cooking, working from a recipe given to him by his mother, and her mother before her. Neither of them is among the adults outside the window. All the ingredients required for this recipe are easily obtained and the process of making it well within the capabilities of even the most ordinary cook. This child is that, at best. Required for proof: one dozen prawns, the yolks of three hardboiled eggs, three ounces of butter or margarine, two teaspoonfuls of curry powder, two teaspoonfuls of mayonnaise, two tablespoonfuls of well boiled rice or couscous, a dash of lemon juice, two dashes of cayenne, six pitted olives, two slices of stale bread. The child, the cook, cuts both slices of bread into cubes. The child, the cook, melts two ounces of the butter or margarine in a frying pan so that the cubes of bread are fried a golden brown. The child, the cook, puts the egg-yolks in a shallow bowl with the curry powder and the butter and beats them together until they are a paste. The child, the cook, dices both the prawns and olives, at which point they are mixed in with the rice or couscous and the curry paste. The child, the cook, seasons with lemon juice and cayenne. Those at the window, a group of adults representing various professions in town, watch this entire process playing out, right up through the end of the preparations, at which point the child, the cook, turns to another child and asks her to try what he has made. She shrieks with laughter and runs away. It is left to a third child, a quiet type, to sample the dish. She approves of it and tells the others, who trust her, that they should come to the kitchen to eat. The child who has shrieked and run away draws the blinds so that we adults can see no more.

QUESTIONS FILL THE FORGE

Which better earns our trust, the camera or the paintbrush? The works of Maya Loomis, currently on display at the Forge Gallery, explore this quandary with a great deal of panache. Take the centerpiece of the show here, which documents the Lopez-Wood fight of a decade ago. Loomis's photographs spotlight Lopez. They have no choice. His magnetism and power are indisputable. He tracks Wood around the ring like a lion stalking its prey. The larger man, Wood, shows smaller to the lens, to the point where when Lopez finally puts him on the floor, viewers will be forgiven for thinking that he has already been felled three or four frames previous. Loomis's paintings, by contrast, depict a stiffening conflict in which Wood gains both stature and tragic grandeur over the course of the rounds. He is more than a sacrificial lamb. He is an aspirant, fire in his eyes, almost reaching his adversary with his jab. When he falls, he does justice to the canvas, in both senses, so vigorously that the equivoque can be forgiven. Are we to jump to the conclusion that Loomis, the painter, engages in a wishful thinking that Loomis, the photographer, repudiates? Or are we to question the accuracy of the so-called documentary artifact, the image directed to film and then made visible by chemical process? Put another way: which Loomis, as it were, throws the knockout punch? Certainly, it is distressing to be stranded between the two parallel sets, and the question carries over to Loomis's other works, which use the same strategy of discrepancy to portray scenes from horse races, tent revivals, and corporate board meetings. Questions fill the Forge, and the answers are nowhere to be found, unless a sharp eye manages to locate the square white card near the front of the gallery, smaller than either the photographs or the paintings. It is a notice of full disclosure: “All events represented in these photographs and paintings, from the Lopez-Wood fight to the Stiles Corporation shareholders meeting, from the Verbena Stakes to the Holiness Hurricane, were invented wholesale by Loomis, who was in turn invented by the author Laura Morris, a pseudonym.” Most attendees never see this card, and just enjoy the show.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

EVERY INDICATION

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

There are a number of things to be learned from the striking document posted on the outer wall of the school, and the first is that we should practice restraint as we process the incidents it describes. The anonymous author, who self-identifies as a student and goes by only by the letter “A”—likely a first initial, though it is rendered here with no period—says that he or she arrived for morning class five minutes late as a result of a broken shower at home (“Water came, but in frigid form, and it was impossible to step into without the body recoiling powerfully”). A was met at the school gate and denied entry by administrators, who used as justification A’s friendship with another student, L, who had in previous weeks made a stray remark construed as threatening the safety of a teacher. A continued to insist on entering the school, at which point L was retrieved from class (“Math, I think, where numbers masquerade as truth”) and both students were given detention under the supervision of Coach Tepper (“Once a titanic figure in state baseball, now put out to pasture in the form of semi-retirement and ‘disciplinary consulting’”). Tepper, frustrated with his own lot, treated the students shabbily, subjecting them to foul language and worse. The vivid description of Tepper’s conduct during detention (“his meaty hands seemed close even when far, and his voice was like a trap that had been set”) contains the only consequential clues as to the sex of the author, though they are not definitive. After two days of detention, A and L were released. The document could easily remain mired in a world of grievance, and it would be powerful on those terms—there can be no question that the document is honest and accurate, and that the events it describes are deeply unjust ones—but the author hints at, and then insists upon, the joyful embrace of life, what he or she terms, in exuberant capital letters, the BIG BEING. This is the first lesson of this piece of prose. The second is that D is a writer of the first order and force, one who goes at life with a bounding energy that must be experienced first-hand to be fully believed. The school administrators, both those who are culpable and those who are not, have already been urged to reprint and distribute the piece throughout the school. There is every indication they will do so.

THE ENTIRE ROOM BECAME TUMULTUOUS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Last night’s recital found the living room of Mrs. Merritt crowded in every corner on account of Melissa Janson’s return. The program was a selection of sonatas and nocturnes, along with a cowboy song, a prelude, and an original piece called “The Fast Kitty Cat.” Janson had no part in the playing. Her hand, not yet healed from the injury she suffered while rock-climbing with her father and stepfather, was thickly bandaged. And yet, when she was brought to the attention of those present—the announcement came after “2 Sonatinas for Piano,” played by Kiki Johnson—the entire room became tumultuous, and so loud were the cries of approbation that Mrs. Merritt had to call for a temporary halt to the proceedings. Janson stood to thank the crowd but her voice failed her. Her apprehension was understandable, as the applause seemed to be celebrating not only the spectacular way in which she obtained her injury but the blossoming love between Bert Janson and Tom Richards, and while she certainly supported her father’s new life, her mother, who was peremptorily abandoned by her father in favor of Mr. Richards, was sitting right next to her. Melissa wavered in her speech and then wobbled on her feet. She gestured for assistance. Her mother half-stood, put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, and guided her back into her seat. Mrs. Merritt regained command of the room. Gina Scarborough took the bench and leapt headlong into “Jingling Spurs Humoresque” with an enthusiasm not matched by her aptitude.  

A LOYAL BIOGRAPHER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

One dog in the neighborhood, called Matty by humans, has been entrusted with remembering the life of another dog, called Arturo by humans. For the last two years, ever since Matty came to live in the yard next door to Arturo’s yard, the two dogs have been close companions, and Matty has heard most of Arturo’s stories, though they have been delivered in a different order than the order in which they originally occurred. Arturo’s account of his childhood, for example, has only recently been related, while stories about the last month have been presented almost as soon as they were experienced. Arturo, who is at least fourteen years old, is faltering to the point where he does not expect to see the new year, and so has been preparing Matty to act as a steward of his memory. At Arturo’s request, Matty will give special focus to smells and sounds, with ideas being of next import, and visual descriptions a distant third, largely because Arturo developed cataracts in his tenth year and his human owners did not tend to them in a timely manner, resulting in a period of four years and counting in which Arturo has seen mostly gray shapes moving through a lighter gray field. Arturo acknowledges that his life story may not differ greatly from that of other dogs, which is why he has elevated his ideas to a higher value, given that he has specific and uncommon thoughts about the nature of existence, and whether or the periods before and after individual existence are continuous with it in some spiritual manner. He believes they are. Matty does not, but will represent his friend’s beliefs accurately, as agreed. The fence between them, aluminum in composition, powder-coated black, with posts every six feet and pickets every five inches, has allowed everything to flow between them freely.

THE LORTON METHOD

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

David Lorton has almost completed the arrangements for Moira Royce’s visit to the city on December 4. She will travel in a new car recently purchased with monies obtained in her divorce. Lorton has expressed interest in the car, but he is much more interested in the divorce. Royce, a longtime friend of his and a former colleague at the JTC Corporation—she oversaw the department responsible for publishing tech specifications in a form digestible by the general public; he was an engineer—has also been a secret love interest of Lorton’s for years. When Royce was initially hired at JTC, she carried her maiden name, Howard, and after their first meeting (“Mr. Lorton,” said Umberto Pogglioni, “this is Miss Howard”), Lorton told a small circle of confidantes that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, “both inside and out,” he hastened to add, worried that focusing only on her appearance was a form of objectification, or at the very least diminishment, though he told an even smaller circle of confidantes that while he was in fact thoroughly impressed by her command of her department, her awareness of the corporation’s broader goals, and her expertise when it came to both American and Asian history, especially labor history, he was completely floored by her appearance, “knocked out loaded” as he put it. He planned to marry her, which he told no one. But he never made a move, and Keith Royce from the technology branch of the company made several, after which the two of them, Mr. and Mrs. Royce, sought a transfer to the JTC headquarters fifty miles away. No spots were open but Keith Royce opened them. Keith Royce was an aggressive man. Word filtered back through the grapevine that he remained aggressive, sometimes excessively so, and that he too often fell into a trough of dark depression. Lorton does not often feel depressed. He also has never been aggressive: he was not when he meant to marry Moira after that first meeting, and he still has trouble mustering any real force to give shape to his desires. The best that he can do is to timidly and repeatedly suggest that she meet him for lunch. She agrees immediately. “I’ll pick you up,” she says. “Hot new car. I think you’ll like it.” He calls ahead to the restaurant to make sure they have seating in the room that overlooks the lake. Then he waits outside for Moira to pick him up, his heart going like a greyhound that has never even led a race but still believes that he may one day win. 

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ARE SAYING THINGS ALL THE TIME

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Those who suffer from sarcasm—a term which covers a multitude of utterances delivered in a similar tone but bound together by a desire to minimize both the joys and the pains of the world—should find comfort, along with practical aid, in a slim new volume puckishly titled “A Clinic For the Cynic,” which is written in straightforward language devoid of jargon. The author is a teenaged girl, Etta Cogan, who is well-known as an authority on the subject. “Those who display a caustic outlook,” Cogan writes, “are frequently more attuned to their surroundings than others, though that does not necessarily extend to an awareness of the self.” This disjunction between perception turned outward and perception turned inward results in a loss of equilibrium. “Those who are sincere, or for that matter jovial,” the writer explained in a recent lecture, “find it difficult to imagine the state of a person who is caught between keenness on one hand and dimness on the other, without any ability to regulate.” This rupture often causes a squinting of the eyes and a parched tone that conveys a kind of desperate superiority, both of which serve as covers for various persistent fears, including fear of unworthiness, fear of illness, and fear of censure by others. “Hundreds of cynics,” Cogan wrote in an article that accompanied the publication of her book, “are saying things all the time that do not contradict views commonly held in society, and yet they are dismissed as members of an afflicted class. This simply makes them—makes us—more cynical, and makes us think that we will never again be seen in a good light.” Among the measures recommended by experts to cure or at least treat the cynic are love, prosperity, travel, and free play—that is, an open and inconsequential exchange of ideas. “All may work or none may work, and it is difficult to determine outcome before the application of any or all of these methods,” Cogan writes. The cover of her book includes an illustration of a young boy laughing and a teenaged girl standing behind him making an exaggerated “thumbs-down” gesture. It was drawn by the author.

LIFE’S PLEASURES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Returning to the workplace after a few days’ absence to find an open market in which employees had been secured body and soul by sharp-eyed dealers in reputation like Mrs. Keller and Mr. Lurie, Iris felt herself swept into a new disposition that murdered all her decency of thought. Keller had sought the loyalty of direct reports with what could only be understood as overt bribery, and Lurie had followed behind with a stick for those who had not lurched forward to take the carrot. Iris went home early, seeking not leisure but a clearer mind to consider the bargain by which the others in the office, many of whom she had formerly thought of as her friends, had agreed to dissolve their sense of self for the benefit of Keller and Lurie. She brewed herself a cup of coffee and sat on the stoop of her building, whistling, hoping the birds would whistle back with a solution to her plight, or at least advice on how to fly. Or did she want to fly? From an altitude, she would only see more evidence of misdeed. Keller had recently purchased a sports car. Lurie had bought a boat. A passerby later reported stopping to talk to Iris, hearing her phone ring, asking her if she meant to answer it, and describing the expression on her face as a cross between powerlessness and beatitude. “No,” she said, according to the passerby. “Not now or ever.” Her contemporaneous notes, consulted later, reveal that after speaking to the passerby, she went back inside to think about the week ahead, and what she would do instead of returnng to work, and how long her savings would sustain her, and then, as an afterthought, life’s pleasures.

LET HIS FRIEND HAVE A CHANCE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

On Sunday, Walter Reamer, ten, on his way home from the bagel shop, fell in with, around noon, his best friend Simon, going from the skate park to his grandparents’ house (to rake their leaves), in quite a compromised state, having tweaked his ankle, skinned his shin, bruised his elbow, and so forth. Walter took him in tow, and brought him to his house. By one, Simon was sitting on a comfortable couch with Walter and his parents watching what was, for Simon, a new comedy, though the Reamers  had seen it enough times to preview all the jokes before they happened, a practice they refrained from after Walter asked them to let his friend have a chance to discover them on his own. By two Simon’s parents had arrived to take him home and further administer his recovery. 

CLEAR AS A NEW WINDOW

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Yesterday, before Judge Speith, at Farnham Street, James Platt and Paula Hay, who are described on the booking report as a driver and an actor, respectively, were brought up on charges of conspiring to defraud Deborah Seymour, the Duchess of St. Somerset, of more than $500,000 by the counterfeit transfer of real property. The scheme involved Hay befriending Seymour in a tennis class and then confiding in her new friend the story of how she, too, bad been high-born but was brought low by the irresponsibility of others, particularly her father, and that if Seymour would only help her purchase one small private residence, she could reassert control of the entire family estate, at which time she would return to Seymour more than double the latter’s original investment. Platt, for his part, posed as a competing bidder for the residence in question, and supported Hay’s version of events. Seymour expressed interest in the purchase but then immediately contacted police, explaining that she, too, was a charlatan and that there was no such thing as the Duchess of St. Somerset, a title she had affected for years, but that no matter her own playful fantasies regarding aristocracy, she had never tried to defraud anyone else and was, as she put it, “clear as a new window” on the dishonesty of Hay and Platt. This argument resurfaced in court. “All of them are liars,” said Rita Osborn, representing the prosecution, “though one is an entirely harmless liar and two of them wished to cause great harm.” Some drama marked the day. A woman who had tried to interfere with the police during Hay’s arrest was noticed by an officer as present in court and pointed out, at which time she tried to flee. In her haste, she dropped a sheet of paper, on which was found a detailed blueprint of the courthouse and surrounding buildings, with all rooms, doors, and other means of access circled in red, and one particular rear alley also traced with a yellow highlighter, indicating an intention to assist in the escape of the two accused. The woman, who gave a series of false names, was arrested. A second dramatic moment occurred when a witness for the defense identified Osborn as an actual royal, the direct descendant of a long-since-exiled King of Ireland. “True,” she said. “But irrelevant.” 

IN THE SHADOW OF HIS FATHER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Lawrence Jenkins, an undersecretary at the Food Safety and Inspection Service, unveiling a statue in honor of his father and a pioneer in the department, said Sunday afternoon that the government was right to commission the statue; it was proper to pay tribute to the inspectors tasked with visiting restaurants, grocery stories, and even local greenmarkets, and how they comported themselves when the call came. Jenkins, speaking “in the shadow of [his] father”—the remark drew polite laughter though he looked sentimental as he said it—noted that “selfless pioneers like Al Jenkins and his colleagues never failed the people of this country when it came to defending them.” He expressed gratitude that statues like the one dedicated Sunday, which depicted the elder Jenkins turning over leaves in a crate of  spinach as another inspector, likely a trainee, looked on, were springing up across the country, both because they served to raise awareness of the importance of food safety and because they paid tribute to the many felled by what he called “invisible enemies.”He then listed some of the most common causes of food-borne illness, including Campylobacter, E.  Coli, and Listeria, reviewing their sources and effects, as well as issuing a warning regarding some of the likely pathogens of the future, including crimson polycytogenes and brackish hat-box bacteria. Jenkins concluded by requesting that those in the assembled crowd who had lost a loved one to insufficient food safety bow their head in prayer. Across the street, in a restaurant set to open within a week, mice scurried from side to side behind windows soaped opaque by workmen. 

AN ANCIENT TURNS ON THE RADIO, HEARS ROCK, THEN REGGAE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

It has been found that a succession of sounds produced by a solid rod upon a hollow bowl covered by a thin sheet of nearly any substance results in an exceedingly memorable pattern, more indelible in the mind than any regular schedule of visual markings or colors can possibly be. This phenomenon most resembles the movement of a clock, recurring with reassuring regularity. Or it can be regarded as relentless, a signal at intervals that proceeds no matter if an observer wishes it to do so or not. The perceptible world itself, like the warp of time through  which it is pulled through as weft, is thus segmented for the consideration of the mind that rests upon it, furnishing reality’s pulse in much the same way that the heart furnishes a human pulse. Life originates here, as well as the persistence of life. And yet, tiny variations in the spaces between signals are capable of fully altering the larger pattern, and in doing so inspiring all sentient entities in the vicinage to move in keeping with this new cadence. Without precision and yet by reason of the quickness of their response they become corroborators of this second rhythm. And if these features are biological features, I.e. if they have been pulled across the barrier between brain and blood, behold a body in thrall to meter! 

NO SHORTAGE OF DELIGHTS

If you look up “frip” in the dictionary, you will not find it. But if you purchase a razor, a glue stick, a magnifying glass, and a smooth stone, and then turn to the page with headwords “fricassee - fritillary,” you can add it in and remedy a historical injury. Frip is a verb that means to briefly consider and then discard, and while it is generally used in connection with an idea (“As a youth, he read Marx and fripped Communism”), it can also be employed in a material context (“He fripped a steak but instead opted for a salad”). The word was originally coined in the late 1920s as a portmanteau that combined elements of “flip” and “grip,” and was most famously used in the speech that Gilbert Broad delivered to the nation (and the world) on the eve of our entry into the Second World War: “Peace, briefly in our sight, was fripped then lost, and we are the worse for it.” The word fell away through the late forties, when it was often confused for a profanity, and today it is nearly forgotten.  “Frip” is but one of many delights in the new Oracle Dictionary of Lost Words, published by Murray/Young Partners, the reference house also responsible for the  Encyclopedia of Mathematics and the Illustrated Treasury of Botanical Oddities. Even before reading this dictionary, one presumes from Murray/Young’s other books that it is unlikely to fall into dullness, and it does not disappoint. From the first word here (“Abix,” which referred to the space in a church between the narthex and the nave, particularly if it contained a low railing) to the last (“Zultona,” a corruption of “sultana” that came to mean any gesture made in wasteful wealth, as in “That diamond-encrusted coffee mug is quite a zultona”). There is no shortage of delights here, though there are some conspicuous omissions: the editors give out “locturne,” a one-person rowboat, and “miyation,” the state of shivering; but miss some of the most fragrant terms from the past century, including but not limited to “trampage,” “kabill,” “dight,” and “johntressing,” all of which were held dear by language enthusiasts and then let go: in a (lost) word, fripped.

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

ROUSED TO ACTION

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

John Valliere, age nine, has of late become a celebrated personage in the neighborhood, having risen into view not for the reasons that traditionally elevate boys of his age (achievement in sports or in the classroom, or, at the other end of the pendulum’s swing, mischief or worse) but for his remarkable skills as an orator. Each Saturday, at noon, Valliere stands on the front porch of his house and delivers an address, and while crowds were initially small, consisting only of Valliere’s best friend Luke and Luke’s dog Moose, the speeches have since acquired a following in the neighborhood. Three weeks ago, Valliere lectured on military valor. Two weeks ago, the topic was the quality of a baby’s laughter. Last week, Valliere lamented the frustrations of childhood, where boredom cannot be gainsaid by the practices so commonly employed by adults, including travel, intoxication, the spending of money, and what he called “physical outlets of the pleasurable type.” This last sparked controversy, as it struck some of those present as a reference to sex, inspiring the delivery of a petition to Valliere’s parents that condemned Valliere for “dirty words and thoughts” and demanded that all future topics be cleared with the neighborhood association. Valliere believed that his parents would support him unconditionally. He said as much to Luke, who spread the word through the neighborhood. But Valliere’s parents took the opposite course, punishing him by denying him use of his game room and phone for an undisclosed amount of time. Early in the week, Luke was seen entering the house twice, once with a comic book, once with a bag that appeared to contain Valliere’s favorite type of sandwich, a ham and cheese. A third visit was attempted, but he was turned away at the door by Vallerie’s mother. This was on Wednesday. Valliere was not seen Thursday or Friday, though neighbors claimed to hear yelling in the house. As such, there was a very real sense that this week’s lecture would directly address the matter. Valliere came to the front lip of the porch at noon. The full text of his remarks appears below:

Excuses, invented on the spot, elaborate tales of self-justification, intentional misdirection, full-bore deception—lies surround our lives. It is fair to assume, on general evolutionary principles, that our capacity to identify lies has value for our survival. But this is no longer about general principle. It is about my own personal survival, as I have been the victim of a pernicious accusation regarding the content of last week’s address. Calling the charge disturbing is an understatement. Calling it slanderous is perhaps more to the point. The lie was manufactured. It was deployed, as weapons often are. And then it was used again and again, not by its original designer, but by secondary and frankly second-rate adults who should know better. Adults! Or, if they would prefer the more affectionate honorific, which I will now intone with the greatest sarcasm possible, grown-ups. These so-called grown-ups are the enemy of truth. Though they affect authority, though they claim to posses the moral basis, they are in fact the most frightened of beings, worried constantly about finding the next dollar or being respected at work or, in the case of one of them, even talking to his first wife on the telephone once a year during the holidays for fear that my mom will give him hell for it. Yes: hell. It is a word I know and a concept I also know. Hell, hell, hell. I do not wish to stand too long here today. I do not trust these people to protect what little freedom I have left. But I will be back next week, undeterred, unbowed, with more explicit instructions about how to throw off the yoke of these grown-ups. All I will say in closing is this: collect any and all unstruck kitchen matches that you can find.

Next week’s remarks will be published in full as well. Luke and Moose were in attendance.

FIRM SIGNS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The amazing quest of the quartet of eleven-year-olds in the flat fields of Gretna, Nebraska, is nearing its close. At any moment there may be dramatic and thrilling developments. A disused refrigerator carton which recently disgorged a sheet of bubble wrap, an instruction book, and assorted documentation was turned on its side, following a startling theory devised by two of the four that any craft of their invention can speed across the galaxy and back while appearing not to have moved at all. The inventors discovered this principle while pretending to be the fastest people in the world, announcing that they were about to run all the way around the globe and back to their original spot, after which they simply stood still. The ship is docked near a picnic pavilion, the largest in the park. It has not been used all day, although there are firm signs that suggest that a picnic is coming. One boy about the same age of the intergalactic voyagers is carrying in bags of chips and packs of buns, and when the grown-ups arrive the pilots confidently expect to smell meat grilling.

NEGOTIATIONS ARE ON FOOT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

South Gorham, the hometown of Lynn Bonner, author of “My Parents Are Out of Town” is making arrangements to celebrate the sixteenth anniversary of her birth on April 9. The work, which was drafted in third period and passed in fourth, was intended for Bonner’s classmate Rose Pickett. The note’s title was coextensive with its contents. Pickett, who had the previous week been involved in the planning of a party that would include, in her own words, “boys, bottles, and bumping,” had decided, along with Bonner, that the event would be held at one of their houses at the end of the first weekend of the month, and that the exact location would depend upon the whereabouts of parents, specifically whether or not they were likely to be on site as monitors and dampeners. Bonner, the first to check on her parents’ plans, learned that they planned to be in Osborn visiting Bonner’s mother’s sister, and that they would likely spend the night before driving back in the morning. Pickett, upon receiving the note, scribbled a line and a circle one over the other, a crude approximation of an exclamation point intended to convey excitement. Among the other events Pickett is planning is an hour-long closed-door session for Bonner and a boy whose identity has not yet been settled upon but who will definitively not be Bonner’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Jared. Negotiations are on foot with a number of young men who have expressed an interest in attending the party. Among the names are Stuart, Nate, and Harlan. 

ADEQUATELY SUPPLIED WITH ANECDOTES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A pet can be too much discussed as well as too little. There are some gaps in Bandit’s life story, especially prior to last year; but from that time onwards we are adequately supplied with anecdotes. There can be no doubt that Bandit  liked to sit on the patio, and that when strangers approached the fence he barked in a tone most felt was more delighted than angry, and that once in late spring he took advantage of an unlatched gate and squirted out onto Tresser Road, at which point he approached a woman who was, despite her dark blue shorts and light blue shirt, not a mail carrier, and sniffed inquisitively around her feet. Many in the neighborhood also note his determination to dig a hole between the stones of the front path and his repeated destruction of the flowerbeds toward the back of the yard. These actions do not submit easily to analysis, which may partially explain their repeated retelling, and yet there are those among us who tend to become irritable when Bandit’s character and intentions are re-litigated without any material change in the record. 

ESSAYS TO BE MORE IMPORTANT

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

In spite of the arduousness of the present era, Hartwell’s Foundation has been able to deliver an inspiring summary of the work of this past year. More than three hundred fictional characters were sent into reality, either for a day or in the case of a dozen or so, a full week. The cost of these excursions has increased considerably since Hartwell’s inaugural campaign more than fifty years ago—the first class of twenty, selected through a mix of juried nominations and a popular vote, included Romeo, Columbo, Gudrun Brangwen, Dino the Dinosaur, Nancy Drew, Blanche DuBois, Tattycoram, Becky Thatcher, James Bond, Holden Caulfield, Frederick Wentworth, Porky Pig, and Rochester. While each character could be inserted into reality for only $500 that first year, the arrangements and accommodations now exceed $3000 for each character. And yet, it was still possible to manifest as factually existent the members of this year’s class, which drew from books (including Easy Rawlins and Janey Smith), comic books (including Archie Andrews and Lobo), movies and television (Newman), video games (Diddy Kong), and even the lyrics of popular songs (Angelina of “Farewell, Angelina,” Jessie’s girl, and others). A review of the process found that diversity, while it has improved considerably over the past decade, remains less than optimal. There has been a proposed change to the selection process which would focus less on the popular vote and more on short essays by the characters. Still, the organizers continue to insist on the importance of the initiative. The week-long program in particular, they argue, is often revelatory, giving the characters insight into factual life that they would otherwise never have had. It seems to be especially memorable for the most fanciful characters. Dino, for example, was so taken by his experience that he joined the Board of Directors and has been an instrumental part of the program ever since.

TRUNK SHOW

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The whole botanical drama needs only a single day in an American forest. The red spruce has neither the stature not the history of a hero. A plain, unassuming tree, a he-balsam at the southernmost end of a row of red spruces, becomes, through the force of history, the chief spirit of the forest. A line of white pines holds sway over in the corner of the forest, some rising high enough to subject the spruces to near-constant shade. One morning, a fire coughs itself to life; a white pine is killed, and the honor of the pines must be avenged. With no evidence, a languid white spruce is accused of starting the fire. His punishment is settled upon. He will be forever ostracized. There is only one alternative; the red spruce, if he is satisfied of the white spruce’s innocence, must either locate the guilty party or himself agree to be shunned. There is no question as to which tree would be of more value to the community, but the red spruce is adamant. The white spruce is innocent; he must take its place. There is a stern disagreement between him and the other red spruces, who argue with great persuasiveness that this particular white spruce, the shame of the forest, has already lost its value to the other rooted residents of the forest.  But the red spruce persists; a hero in spite of himself, he is ready to forgo all future communication with other trees. One tree will be in charge of keeping the others from interacting with him, the red spruce just to the north of the matryr, and he is convinced by the red spruce to his north to decline this position of enforcement, understanding full well that this will result in his excommunication as well. This, then, results in a strained circuits of motives and persuasion, the original red spruce pleading with the northernmost to allow the middle tree to carry out the orders of the group. At last the obstructionist relents. He agrees that the middle tree must bend to the will of the rest. The original red spruce is renounced. In the silence, the northernmost tree feels the terrible significance of what has taken place, and refuses to speak to any of the other trees. The middle tree has silence on either side, silence forever. The white spruce that did not start the fire does not understand enough to be either grateful or horrified. The pines have watched this all with sadistic amusement. 

ESME RANKIN, SNAPPY DRESSER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The first short film is a typical example of this earlier state of Esme Rankin, in which she moved forward through time conventionally, each moment succeeded by the next. It might be included in this new collection to demonstrate by force of contrast the shift she has made into a more idiosyncratic and even insurrectionary approach toward sequence, one that preserves junctures but disrupts their manner of succession, sometimes jumbling them, sometimes reversing them. Where once she progressed from morning to afternoon, and then again from afternoon to night, she now more often begins in night and passes through afternoon before arriving at morning. Her day is still rendered as an accumulation of points along an arrow, but the arrow has been spun and spun again. What she sacrifices as a participant in common experience she gains as a source of awe. At the same time, she has extended the gamut of her formerly rather restricted wardrobe, adding brighter colors and more daring styles. 

SHE “GOT” THEM ALL

Ada Cable enjoys an enviable reputation as a woman who does impressions, via her elastic voice and face, of countless others. What distinguishes her impersonations from those of the majority of performers who devote themselves to a similar task is that she does not apply her skill to the famous, but to those around her. She is on intimate terms with her subjects, the practitioner of an art akin to that of Gertrude Howard, a stage performer from decades earlier who would select people from the audience and then mimic them exactly. But Cable does not work onstage. She is a street performer who remains mostly in her neighborhood. Moreover, she is not identifiable as a performer at all. She makes her way down sidewalks, unassuming in stature, dressed like any other young woman, and is not considered noteworthy in any way until she decides to be. Thursday afternoon last on Cubestorm Avenue, she offered a prime example of her talent as she strolled from Pinlack up to Fow. Along the way, she began to stop one pedestrian and then the next, each of whom she imitated perfectly, capturing every vocal and physical mannerism. She “got” Dr. Arnold David, who has a distinctive heavy-lidded gaze and a voice that, while not exactly high, can leap upward in times of excitement. She “got” Maxine Bravos, whose unique accent commingles the heritage of her parents, Mexican and German and Eastern European. She “got” Lucy Robinson,  who is double-jointed in her thumbs and has designed a repertoire of gestures around that fact.  She even “got” Jason Warner, the local druggist, who has virtually no distinguishing characteristics. “My wife tells me I’m the most ordinary man ever,” he said, a sentence that Cable repeated with eerie precision, somehow able to compose her face to reproduce his anonymous good looks to such a degree that Cable’s wife, standing nearby, burst into tears. More than twenty pedestrians in all were stopped, simulated, and sent away forever dazzled. Walks of this nature, repeated on Spate Avenue and Plick Avenue, are supplemented by a series of similar performances that she calls “invisible imitations,” that is, exactly copying the mannerisms and intonations of people of her own invention. Here, she may at one minute inhabit the twangy Southern rhythms of an elderly preacher, and at the next the broad flat Midwestern diction of a middle-aged classics professor whose impending sabbatical year is filling her with a sense of excitement as she contemplates a dissipated carnal summer with her partner. It is no matter to Cable that these are fabricated rather than actual subjects. Her abilities are every bit as wondrous, and the sense here is the same, which is the belief that it is the actual personages in attendance rather than Cable herself. Throughout she proves that she is emotionally moved but not moved aside by her subjects. She has said that she hopes to expand her palette even further and is considering impersonating landscapes: the fetid greens and browns of a marsh, the shadow-catching white of a new snowfall. No doubt she will prove herself once again with this new challenge. 

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas

FELLED

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

A message from Rantown reports that Olivia Milam, the well-known singer, was injured in an automobile accident early Wednesday morning. The accident concerned only one vehicle, Milam’s red convertible. At the corner of Defense and Rawls Streets, the brakes of the car seized suddenly and Milam was propelled out over the windshield. She landed against a fumigation tent that surrounded a house on Rawls Street, and miraculously suffered only minor bruises. As she stood, she set her foot down upon a Superslick Banana Peel, a novelty item manufactured by the Laffs and Larks Company of Blakely, and fell hard into a low retaining wall, bruising her head and neck. Despite her injuries, Milam was able to make the night train from Rantown to Leat. Word had by then circulated of her mishap, and she stood on the platform and addressed the assembled reporters. “Recovery is not something that happens,” she siad. “It is something that is made to happen.” She demonstrated by smiling broadly, and then by lighting up a cigarette in imitation of her famous pose from the cover of her classic second album, Pattern Lightning. Though she had been only an occasional smoker most of her life, something about the cigarette on the platform pleased her more than she expected it might. She purchased a pack in the club car and smoked most of the way from Rantown to Leat. Toward the end of the journey, she abruptly lost her taste for it and, putting finger behind thumb, flicked the lit cigarette, her last if not the last of the pack, out into the night. It ignited a patch of furze that bordered upon a powder magazine in Shakelike Camp, near Stafford Heights, spread rapidly, and caught a stack of cases containing munitions, which exploded. Two in the vicinity were killed, a young soldier named Elsa Turpin and a civilian named Hanson Shanks. Shanks was the son of C. Beckett Shanks, the owner of the national chain of novelty shops that had sold the Superslick Banana Peel that had felled Milam. He did not remark upon the irony at his son’s funeral, as he did not know of it. Milam, who knew of it, did not remark upon it either.

ORIGINALLY INTENDED AS A RIDE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Sue Jenkins has learned from Greta Yang that a woman down the block has been subjected to six months’ ostracism for insulting her own mother during a holiday dinner. In a conversation conducted in the middle of the street, a situation made possible a result of the total absence of traffic resulting from the scheduling of the biannual block party—it featured, as usual, grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, homemade cookies and cakes, a few basic carnival games, an inflatable castle in which the block’s youngest residents were invited to jump, and a pony that was originally intended as a ride but which evinced enough irritability that it was instead paraded up and down the street without any children on its back—Yang informed Jenkins that the unnamed neighbor had for years hosted a monthly dinner for her parents, siblings, and assorted other family members. Most went well, or well enough. But in late summer, an otherwise civil dinner took a turn for the worse when the host accused her mother of harboring resentment over the host family’s use of of their vacation home upstate. “Based on what Dorrie Venable said,” said Greta Yang, “it sounds like the mother made a series of comments about how the other sister always invited the parents to their vacation home while this one didn’t. And this sister took offense because the parents were at her house already, right? So the woman turns to her mother and says something horrible.” Sue Jenkins, according to others present for the conversation, placed a hand on Greta Yang’s forearm and wondered aloud about the precise nature of the insult. Greta Yang shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said, “and I don’t think Dorrie does either. She heard about it from Isabel Rodriguez, who heard about it from Sue D’Elia.” At this, Sue Jenkins snorted derisively. “Not surprised,” she said. She had always believed, she told Greta Yang that gossip was a pollutant, and she had long held the opinion, she told Greta Yang, that Sue D’Elia “produced more hazardous waste than anyone else around.” Looking around quickly and dropping her voice, but still speaking loudly enough for the others present to hear, she added that she had heard that Sue D’Elia’s husband Bradley was no longer living at home, and that he preferred to spend his nights with his younger girlfriend, but noted that news of that sort was exactly the kind of thing she would never repeat. She didn't consider herself that kind of person, she told Greta Yang. The pony passed by at that moment, and something about its appearance ended the conversation. The two Sues, who live around the corner from one another, have met on occasion but have not had any real interaction that extended beyond pleasantries, and the chances of that now seem remoter than ever.

A COMPELLED CHANGE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Ashley is the latest member of the family to revise her official clock, to the extent of shifting it forward ten full minutes. The change was hinted at, then formally requested, and finally demanded by her parents and sister, who grew impatient with always waiting for her when dinner reservations were pending, or when the start of a movie was growing uncomfortably close. The transformation was given a sense of ceremony by scheduling it on the New Year. When the television hosts counted down to midnight, Ashley officially reset her sense of things. “No longer will we be standing on five of the hour and have her emerge to say something about a quarter of,” said her father, Morton. Her mother, Abigail, concurred: “When it’s seven o’clock, it’s seven o’clock, not ‘Mom, I’m yelling down from upstairs to find out what time it is and when do we have to leave again?’” Ashley notes that she was, in the process of speeding ahead to accord with family time, deprived of the right to live those ten minutes. “It’s hard to say what could have happened,” she said. “Could I have met someone who ended up being the most important person in my life? Or maybe I would have had a thought that would have changed the world. We will never know.” Ashley’s sister Annabelle is next to be adjusted, as she is routinely four or five minutes ahead of schedule, and her anxiety as she waits for the rest of the family to catch up, which is often accompanied by fidgeting and sighing and sometimes even unkind language, has been deemed nearly as stressful as Ashley’s tardiness.

SPEAKING VOLUMES

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Suppose a magician were to offer you the finest books of the future, which would they be? Some spring to mind immediately—Shriner’s “Requiem” and the “Spirit Blossom” of Kikelomo that President Davis-Campbell will help to popularize; the Clarke “Off Morals” into which Orem will look before she writes her moving memoir, and the other copy of that same work that Mowry will see Jurevicius kiss; the “Patter Queen” that Tremaine will send to Li; the review copies of “Wantonness” that will be used by Turrell and Madda for the notorious “Circular” and “Meadowlight” broadsides; the “Scripture Unfettered” that will be pass into the hands of Anna-Maria Saenz; the book that will be owned by Derek A. Kohlmeyer, the American collector, “where Rubiano, Shalabi, and Dayhoff are bound together, all three in one, with Manohla Surrency’s notes like vegetation in the margins”; the copy of Vinciguerra’s “The Part Of The Inquiry” that T.L. Caughman will take in his coat when he accompanies Flythe to the inauguration, and out of which they both will read; the Dardar’s “Ceesay” that Holloway will speed through without stopping, and his Kilcrease’s “Something of Value” the only book Bhalla will ever allow to “rouse him before sunrise without resentment.” This last book, by the way, will find many champions, but none so influential as Ophira Duer, who will, in her essay on “Sadeghi’s Library,” consider a rather singular copy that will be misprinted and will have, bound up in it, stray pages of Warsaw Johnson’s “Arriving To Take The Position.” At Duer’s sale, it will be bought by one Malcolm Bourbeau, and afterwards will be presented to the Alphabetical Society, so that it will be consulted regularly by Dani Dallman in the creation of her monumental “Speaking Volumes.” Dallman’s own handwritten notes, scribbled on napkins, most paper, some cloth, will join a private collection in Seattle and enjoy pride of place until its owner, flying a private aircraft in aggressive twirls over Commencement Bay, is lost.

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The appearance before a reptile certification board of the Taga, a mythical semi-divine being most commonly manifesting as half-human, half-cobra but, as a result of its ability to shift shapes and alter its appearance, just as often sharing its human characteristics with sea snakes of other types, ranging from the spiny-headed sea snake to the bigheaded sea snake, from the burrowing snake to the Port Darwin mud snake, from the Loyalty Island beaked serpent to the mangrove krait, its serpent component sometimes even extending into the mythical realm, where it can include but is not limited to Peach Dragons, Table Dragons, Shoe Dragons, Stone Dragons, and Winged Fire-Slipper Triple-Fang, has again been postponed owing to the fact that it has not recovered from the disappointment of last week’s judgment against it. The Taga was ruled by the board to have furnished insufficient proof that it should be classed as a reptile, a decision that its lawyer, L.T. Murphy, says has significant implications on its ability to live in peace among other creatures. Murphy, who appealed the decision and is attempting to schedule another hearing for late next week, points to several of his client’s traits that he believes constitute a compelling case for membership, including, on the non-human half of its body, a forked tongue, an absence of limbs, a cylindrical shape, and a vomeronasal organ. He stated that he believes that his client will eventually earn its classification, and that today’s judgment represents an error in biological classification if not “an outright and malicious injustice.”

OUT OF OFFICE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The defeat in last week’s mayoral election by the incumbent, Lawrence Rucker, is an annoying incident, because many of us supported him initially, and our reputation is involved in proving, by means of public statement, in the press, as well as through any other means and channels, that no imputations or calumny on our part contributed to his loss. We wish to replace that idea with another, which is that Rucker himself was the author of his own demise, and that moreover this was an intentional act intended to remove him from public office so that he could once again return to private business. None of us, it should be abundantly clear, supported the winning candidate, Elena Lenz. Lenz holds views that are in diametric opposition to our own. It is certain to anyone who follows local politics that Lenz would have been soundly defeated had Rucker not chosen financial gain over civic responsibility. A final note comes courtesy of Bradley Pollard, an early and steadfast supporter of the Rucker campaign, who had occasion to visit the Rucker house late at night, after election returns were reported, a winner was declared, Lenz had made her victory speech and Rucker had conceded. “I was dropping by to offer my condolences,” Pollard has said. “I wasn’t going to go in but I saw that the lights were on. Then I saw Phil standing in the middle of his living room, dancing like nobody’s ever danced. When I took a few steps closer, I could hear what I can only describe as jubilant music. Every few minutes, he would throw back his head and howl and pump his fists.” Mr. Rucker’s construction company immediately announced a number of new contracts for the coming year. 

FENDER BENDER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

It is not so much an account of the accident as a series of observations, strung together in no particular order, peppered with asides. It reveals a raconteur’s rather than an eyewitness’s knowledge of events, and is none the worse for it, since its intent seems to be entertainment rather than explanation. Mr. Adams relates with equal enthusiasm the makes and models of the automobiles involved, the clothing worn by the drivers, the unseasonably warm weather “that would even get a chicken sweating,” a sale at a nearby department store, his daughter’s promotion to a prominent position at a national shoe company, his late wife’s fondness for the word “tranche,” his own musings on whether klezmer or zydeco is a more energetic type of music, the zestful sayings of his buddies (“Vinnie, who was in the service, says ‘Lottie, dottie, everybody’ when he means absolutely everybody”), shards of local trivia and even the superstitions of his youth, such as his aunt’s belief that if a man with glasses entered the room while she was speaking, she had to repeat the last word while looking directly at him. Though several other bystanders are smiling, the patrolman is grim, as the account, while diverting and even charming, is of no use to him his effort to determine which car crashed into which, and why.  Whenever Mr. Adams discloses a relevant detail, such as a recollection of one vehicle speeding or a female voice yelling, he seems eager to hurry away from it and once again indulge in his fondness for filigree. 

WINTER HAS PLACED A CHILL ON HEARTS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

During the past few days the polar weather has done much mischief to romance. A rendezvous between Karen Kane and Alexander Norton at Landsdowne Park that carried great promise—his planned proffer of a trip away for the two of them, proposed at the spot where they first met, would likely have been their most exciting moment yet as a couple—was postponed from Friday night to Saturday. Unless an immediate change occurs, the rescheduled meeting is in jeopardy as well. This comes on the eve of several key moments in other relationships. Business in connection with the Jackson engagement and the Dufresne divorce are at a standstill, as neither party in either instance is predisposed to act favorably with conditions so frigid and bleak. Were it not for the remarriage of Jennifer and Harold Lewis, which no one believed would happen and most everyone still speaks of in hushed tones, as if afraid to break the spell, folks interested in matters of the heart would be puzzled to find any subject for conversation. As it is, the homes that are going up on Flying Fox Lane, the prices at which they will change hands, and the kinds of people likely to move there, young couples mostly, is the topic that comes closest, and as a result several people who previously showed no affinity for real estate have demonstrated, or at least feigned, an interest.

CONNOR LEAVES HIS POST

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Lively scenes were witnessed on Hickory Street last night, when some two dozen frightful apparitions besieged the bedroom of Timothy Pine. Pine, nine, had a sense that they would be arriving, and arranged for his older brother, Connor, to be in readiness, dragging a spare mattress in so that Connor could sleep on the floor until  he was no longer needed. Connor spent two nights standing guard without complaint, but late on Monday, he was called away by a friend, Alden, who wanted to walk into town and sneak into the theater to rewatch the last fifteen minutes of a movie, the final scenes of which had confused the boys, Connor believing that the hero had been a double agent all along, Alden insisting that he had merely pretended to be a double agent to survive an interrogation. The phantoms took advantage of Connor’s temporary absence to make a surprise attack. They seeped from below the closet door and from under the bed, a few even emerging from the clothing draped over the desk chair, and did considerable damage to Timothy’s peace of mind. He talked to himself rapidly at first, seeking comfort if not calm, and turned to more aggressive measures, pelting with balled-up socks the spots in the room where he believed the specters to be. When he could abide the situation no longer, he called out for his parents, who came down the hall at a pace too leisurely for his taste and turned on the lights, banishing all  wraiths and spirits. They escorted him to a place of safety and hot chocolate. Connor, arriving home a half-hour later, apologized before noting that now he understood the movie in full. 

THE PROCESS BECAME LESS SECRET

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Efforts are being made to revive the natural cartoon dye industry, especially as a suitable employment for retired cartoon characters and their families. In the early days, of course, all characters were black and white, sometimes in combinations that gave shades of gray. But there came a time when such a look had run dry, as it were, and artificial colors, let alone digital, were still a long way off, and so the characters began to seek out ways of attaining hues. Assorted lichens easily obtainable in the vicinity around the  studio—white, dark rock, and limestone—were used to make reds, yellows, and browns. Blueberry and elderberries yielded blues and purples. Green came from bareroot, and dark green from rubber rabbitbrush. Loganberries and brier produced deep orange, and pink came from a mix of maple-tree bark, calvatia cythiaformis, and Nadia blossoms. These plants were treated in a manner initially known only to the earliest characters, mainly anthropomorphized dogs and cats, along with the occasional anthropomorphized  pig or horse, but as time went on the processes became less secret, and certain other cartoons—clowns, stick-men, sailors, babies, goggle-eyed boxers, talking furniture, and the like—came to understand how to create colors. It became common. Today, those early characters look at belated adopters as if they would like to wash them out with acid, and the sight of a brightly-hued clown or baby is akin to heresy.

A PICNIC ON THE GRAND SCALE

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Three young immortals, who raced to the rescue of two small rowing boats caught in a squall off Microphone Island, were drowned Thursday afternoon but remained alive. The three were resting just below the sand, leaching ideas and energies from the earth itself, when they sensed the distress of the rowers and swam to the help of the craft, only to be overpowered by Poseidon Epactaeus. Two were flung back to land. The third was stunned as if struck. He drifted more than six miles out to sea, where he floated until life flowed back into him, at which point he rose and rejoined his compatriots on the shore. The families of the dead rowers were located, made to understand their loss, and comforted, at which point a celebration was then arranged in honor of the immortals. Some described it as a gorgeous garden party, others as a picnic on the grand scale.  

“THE SUBURBS ARE SO LOVELY AND SO QUIET”

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Amplification is still the dominant element in this lonely afternoon. A passionate desire for both company and significance pressures even the smallest sound  into service, and so a cat purring atop a hardback copy of “Blood in Bad Bederkesa” is heard as the roar of a nearby ocean, though land is all around for miles. The young boy on the street outside the window probably had no object except to test the accuracy of his arm by throwing acorns at a mailbox, and would have been more surprised by anybody that he was experienced as an enemy army. A report on the radio that morning is recalled as vastly satirical, though the tone was subdued and dead earnest. Equally exaggerated is the sole inhabitant of the house himself. When he lived in the city, he was measured enough in word and act. He was a  slow-pulse worker at the office, and then walked home through a welter of noise and color that did not dislodge him from his calm. But he moved away from the city, to this land of lawns and houses, a change that has done more than anything to inflame his mind against itself. He now wakes in terror of the silence that surrounds him, and grasps greedily at the first noise he hears, determined not just to have it reverberate within his mind all day long, but to make it matter, and he repeats the process with the second, third, fourth, all too aware that the sounds will taper off, that the terrifying silence will once again descend and the day will settle down into it. Now there is nothing to hear, and he is afraid. He counts the seconds, the minutes, his heart beginning to race. Is that the faint squeak of a pipe from somewhere within the torso of the house? He treasures it beyond all compare.

WARPE LAND

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Her home lies…miles further south, nearer the Carpatt...as they first drive in he surveys the scene and makes a proclamation…“warpe land,” that is…he actually says it, “that is”…she frowns…he has no awareness of its sound in the air around him…this “girdle of intolerable pretention,” as he once said of Shelley…“warpe land,” that is land reclaimed from the sea…she knows this…she has known it her whole life…still she nods as if he has taught her something…“nod as if in love and in love you will be”…he was her teacher…she his student…he taught her Keats and Wordsworth and Shelley too and then took her to bed…nearly a decade has passed…she is thirty…now she is his and he hers…it is, he says, a “skein of pronouns tangled by the years”…she sees his eyes somersault slightly when he turns a phrase and she permits him this pleasure as she permitted him the insight as they drove…this is not the first time she has brought him home…it is the first time without her parents alive...they stop at the house, now vacant...continue to the cemetery, not vacant...flowers are left behind, tears along with them...they go out walking past the hamlet of Biltonhaven…once it was a port for vessels that went to sea…time has made deposits and now it is separated from the ocean…“sand bank,” he says, in the same tone he used for “warpe land”…but she laughs now and shakes her head…no nodding...“no”…it is a wide band of rich alluvial soil bounded by the bank……it has rich mineral deposits…she says “bank,” again, “deposits” again…now she is onto something…he hurries ahead to escape what is clear to both of them is a victory on her part…rising into view is the dock tower on the other side of the river as well as trees…but the waters themselves are invisible…large ships pass across the horizon land as if pulled on stage-tops…but the waters themselves are invisible…“it is below the sea level,” he says…then he stops…she catches up to him…she stares at him…he has not moved since the word “level”…is he sick or worse?…he is searching for a word or phrase…this strange old man…he is licking his lips as if to bring it out…he looks at her to loosen his thoughts…she looks back at him…still staring…her eyes are wide enough to both frighten and inspire him…is it simple adoration or has she glimpsed something else?…impending eternity…he will not live forever…he will keep company with her…he thinks of her standing up from the bed…all of her strong youth apparent…the image stirs him and trips a wire in his mind…“sunk island,” he says…she presses against him and repeats what he has said…her strong youth apparent…it is not at all a depressing or dolorous land.

WILY OLD UNCLE PETROS

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Her beliefs remained docked in the same place, no matter how “wormy with decay” or “barnacled with inanity,” both fragrant phrases of her old Uncle Petros, a lawyer who in early middle age began to fancy himself a theatrical impresario and spent the last half of his life operating a repertory company in the town where he lived, which was also the town where she had been born and raised, the town where she had first tasted ice cream, the town where she had first tasted disappointment, the town where she had first let a boy taste her, the town where she had married, mated, mothered, the town she had eventually left, waving, from the rear of a departing railway car, after which she was off to the city, for a time as a wife and mother and then, rudely, shockingly, as a newly single woman, at once proud of her freedom and terrified of what might happen if she used it, and from that vantage her hometown was mostly a memory, real only when she called Petros, a weekly event of an hour’s duration that was devoted mostly to a digressive account of local events, which actors were giving him a headache, which ones were giving him hope, how he came more and more to see that the theater and the courtroom were one in the same, how he missed her, and here he always performed a pause and asked her if she missed him, by which he meant home, the shift in meaning not just hinted but made explicit, “by which I mean home,” he said, then performing a second pause, and each time the phrase made her misty, put her on the tip of tears, and she forced herself to say something harsh or sarcastic to fend them off, something about how he would soon die and she wouldn’t even visit for his funeral, and he laughed and told her that she didn’t mean it, that she was the same girl she had been at thirty or twenty or ten, that her beliefs remained docked in the same place, no matter how wormy with decay or barnacled with inanities, and then she was laughing too, and still crying, harder now, and while the call eventually ended, she had only a week until it all happened again, the same thing or something close to it, his gazette, his question, her sharp answer, his parry. The old man really had her pegged.