Formal Poetry.
Audenesques
Casey Ford, Winner, Rowe Award for Graduate Formal Poem
1. After “A Shock”
Auden was perfectly right.
Our world grievously shocks:
nothing now is so sacred
or delightful it can’t be mocked.
Still, I’m struck by what happened
to lower-working-class me,
born in ’75, that is,
the same as Chelsea Handler,
gregarious, codependent grandchild
of a Catholic, alcoholic Frenchwoman,
suspicious of nearly nothing
(except, possibly, Bible stories),
day-dreamer by sea at sunset,
hymnodist of seagulls feeding,
averse to confrontation,
disgusted by bullying and weakness,
when I, I, I, if you please,
at a Chili’s in Austin was
heckled by a waitress for praying.
2. After “Musée de Beaux Arts”
Seeing something shocking--
a boy falls from the sky--
the ploughman keeps ploughing;
ships in the harbor drift.
The Old Masters knew this:
humans suffer the same
now as they have always,
forsaken by their friends.
3. Trying to Poem, Distracted by Hens
Gossips peck at cookies;
their claws out over tea.
Divorced, demeaned, sniping;
screechy, astringent notes
of tunes squawked for ages,
songs that roosters ignore,
cackling about nothing
and shitting where they eat.
4. Eavesdropping, I Eat My Lunch
The daughter looks older than the mother
who spouts languid, homespun wisdom on
Martians and Venutians, advising
her Baptist girl to consider divorce.
They talk about mouthy kids, gardening,
the desecration of modern Holy Communion,
Mom’s new Calphalon roaster.
She assumes her daughter’s worry;
some of the age transfers
back to her furrowed brow.
She sits in silence punctuated by passing cars,
not moving for many minutes,
while the younger goes in for more tea.
The Bloom is Off
Casey Ford
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we…
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
-“The Sunne Rising,” John Donne (1572-1631)
Stirred from bed, I’m lovely to you now.
My unabashed petals blush, arousing you;
the earth and perfume of my scent summon
you, who press your face into my folds
and praise the sun for its work in my grace,
knowing that our time is running out,
my beauty brief, your desire erratic,
choosing red one moment, blue the next.
I begin to die from that first touch--
your brutal kiss has harmed me, cut me down
to so much less than what I might have been.
Though you will toss me out, I’ve value yet;
I’ll feed the fertile ground with fruited heart.
May wiser fingers pluck the future out.
Casey Ford, Winner, Rowe Award for Graduate Formal Poem
1. After “A Shock”
Auden was perfectly right.
Our world grievously shocks:
nothing now is so sacred
or delightful it can’t be mocked.
Still, I’m struck by what happened
to lower-working-class me,
born in ’75, that is,
the same as Chelsea Handler,
gregarious, codependent grandchild
of a Catholic, alcoholic Frenchwoman,
suspicious of nearly nothing
(except, possibly, Bible stories),
day-dreamer by sea at sunset,
hymnodist of seagulls feeding,
averse to confrontation,
disgusted by bullying and weakness,
when I, I, I, if you please,
at a Chili’s in Austin was
heckled by a waitress for praying.
2. After “Musée de Beaux Arts”
Seeing something shocking--
a boy falls from the sky--
the ploughman keeps ploughing;
ships in the harbor drift.
The Old Masters knew this:
humans suffer the same
now as they have always,
forsaken by their friends.
3. Trying to Poem, Distracted by Hens
Gossips peck at cookies;
their claws out over tea.
Divorced, demeaned, sniping;
screechy, astringent notes
of tunes squawked for ages,
songs that roosters ignore,
cackling about nothing
and shitting where they eat.
4. Eavesdropping, I Eat My Lunch
The daughter looks older than the mother
who spouts languid, homespun wisdom on
Martians and Venutians, advising
her Baptist girl to consider divorce.
They talk about mouthy kids, gardening,
the desecration of modern Holy Communion,
Mom’s new Calphalon roaster.
She assumes her daughter’s worry;
some of the age transfers
back to her furrowed brow.
She sits in silence punctuated by passing cars,
not moving for many minutes,
while the younger goes in for more tea.
The Bloom is Off
Casey Ford
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we…
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
-“The Sunne Rising,” John Donne (1572-1631)
Stirred from bed, I’m lovely to you now.
My unabashed petals blush, arousing you;
the earth and perfume of my scent summon
you, who press your face into my folds
and praise the sun for its work in my grace,
knowing that our time is running out,
my beauty brief, your desire erratic,
choosing red one moment, blue the next.
I begin to die from that first touch--
your brutal kiss has harmed me, cut me down
to so much less than what I might have been.
Though you will toss me out, I’ve value yet;
I’ll feed the fertile ground with fruited heart.
May wiser fingers pluck the future out.
Free Verse.
Je suis Jane
Casey Ford
-On the executions at Charlie Hebdo, Paris, January 7, 2015.
I took the train today--
that’s really nothing new--
I always take the train.
I write in my head,
think of my son,
listen to the hum of
rail, word, and city.
What’s new is my shoes--
one silver buckle
shines at each toe.
An early ray of sun
catches one, and it
sparkles in the aisle,
reminding me of you.
Maybe you’d thought to say
good morning just for me,
in just this flash of light.
So then I thought,
whatever I call you
is wrong, you’re only sun.
When the killers left
(me, left me alive),
my only thoughts of you were
why, and why, and why;
just these rolled around
my mind with gunfire echoes,
screaming men, and, last,
a pall of blood and awe.
We are gently moved
by ambulance and van
to sterile, greenish rooms.
I am cleaned. Questioned.
Released to my husband,
returned to the world.
Someone says he’s found
my shoes. I put them on.
I look down at my toes,
at the dull, blood-crusted
buckles, and up
to find the sun.
Trigger
Casey Ford
You start out so simple, but then you
add things, take some away--
pickups, oil stains, names of men
engraved by invitation or desperation
to be a part of your history, shallow
scratches in the memory of spruce.
A sonorous scar where your fingers
dug in, held on, year after year,
showing them what you are made of,
that song redeems shattered things,
or that it weaves a spell, at least,
which shrouds brokenness
in a blanket of folk reminiscence.
The Water Oak
Casey Ford, Winner, DeSchweinitz Award for Graduate Free Verse Poem
Seems patron of the yard--
stalwart, tallest, solid--
leaves that do not fall
without the roughest autumn wind,
the hardest winter freeze.
Fifty years it’s grown
through fires, electric storms,
floods, and hurricanes
that drove the nearest neighbors
out and out to stay,
but not this steadfast tree,
which bears up loyally
next to my old house.
Invisible from here--
its shallow, fragile roots.
Tenaciously it’s hung
by slender threads for years.
At its center, cats
sleep in a vast hollow
where its strength should be.
Also unseen—the future,
which certainly may bring
storms it cannot bear,
that will send it down,
smashing through the house
with senseless, hollow force--
forgetting how it strove
so long to stand up straight.
Casey Ford
-On the executions at Charlie Hebdo, Paris, January 7, 2015.
I took the train today--
that’s really nothing new--
I always take the train.
I write in my head,
think of my son,
listen to the hum of
rail, word, and city.
What’s new is my shoes--
one silver buckle
shines at each toe.
An early ray of sun
catches one, and it
sparkles in the aisle,
reminding me of you.
Maybe you’d thought to say
good morning just for me,
in just this flash of light.
So then I thought,
whatever I call you
is wrong, you’re only sun.
When the killers left
(me, left me alive),
my only thoughts of you were
why, and why, and why;
just these rolled around
my mind with gunfire echoes,
screaming men, and, last,
a pall of blood and awe.
We are gently moved
by ambulance and van
to sterile, greenish rooms.
I am cleaned. Questioned.
Released to my husband,
returned to the world.
Someone says he’s found
my shoes. I put them on.
I look down at my toes,
at the dull, blood-crusted
buckles, and up
to find the sun.
Trigger
Casey Ford
You start out so simple, but then you
add things, take some away--
pickups, oil stains, names of men
engraved by invitation or desperation
to be a part of your history, shallow
scratches in the memory of spruce.
A sonorous scar where your fingers
dug in, held on, year after year,
showing them what you are made of,
that song redeems shattered things,
or that it weaves a spell, at least,
which shrouds brokenness
in a blanket of folk reminiscence.
The Water Oak
Casey Ford, Winner, DeSchweinitz Award for Graduate Free Verse Poem
Seems patron of the yard--
stalwart, tallest, solid--
leaves that do not fall
without the roughest autumn wind,
the hardest winter freeze.
Fifty years it’s grown
through fires, electric storms,
floods, and hurricanes
that drove the nearest neighbors
out and out to stay,
but not this steadfast tree,
which bears up loyally
next to my old house.
Invisible from here--
its shallow, fragile roots.
Tenaciously it’s hung
by slender threads for years.
At its center, cats
sleep in a vast hollow
where its strength should be.
Also unseen—the future,
which certainly may bring
storms it cannot bear,
that will send it down,
smashing through the house
with senseless, hollow force--
forgetting how it strove
so long to stand up straight.
Short Fiction.
Frank
Michelle Lansdale, Winner, Pulse Award for Graduate Fiction
Still wiping the sleep from his eyes, Frank shuffles into the kitchen. His feline friend,
Max, rubs against Frank’s leg and meows for breakfast, but Frank only acknowledges the plea
with a few mumbled profanities and heads directly for the coffee maker.
After putting coffee on to brew, Frank continues his morning routine by heading towards
the front porch to snatch the morning paper. He knows the paper is already on the porch because the paperboy always aims directly for the front screen door. Frank has learned to listen for the double thud of the paper hitting the door then the wooden porch floor, and he always postpones getting out of bed until he hears these sounds. For Frank, there’s no sense in rushing things these days. He hustled and bustled his days until well past retirement age, and now—now he knows a man can’t escape his own mind no matter how fast he moves. Perhaps if he’d have known that when he was younger he wouldn’t have busted his butt so hard, but now his bones creak, his fingers are mangled with arthritis, and he’s succumbed to old age. On top of all his physical ailments, he has all day to think about his life and things he’s seen, things he’s done, and things he’s said. Ironically, there are some things Frank knows he shouldn’t think about—like the last time he saw his daughter and the fight they’d had. Frank believes that he brings that foul memory back to life every time he thinks about it, and some things are better when left to die.
As Frank bends down to pick up the paper, he scans the lawn for neighborhood kids. He looks at every shrub and tree as he listens for giggles and whispers from mischievous neighborhood kids.
“Can’t be too careful,” he says, remembering that he had a heck of a time washing
squishy, stinky tomato out of his pajama bottoms from the last prank the kids made.
“You won’t catch me off guard again,” he mumbles while gritting his teeth and adjusting his gold, wire-rim bifocals, “I’m on to all of you.” He raises his voice and adds, “And I know where all of you live! You hear me Johnny Lee Walters? I’ll call your mama if I find dog shit on my porch again! ”
Frank listens for a short time, then, satisfied that there are no kids lurking in the yard, Frank makes his way back into the kitchen. He pauses long enough to give meowing Max a cold stare and says, “Fine, furball, I’ll feed you now, but after that you can run off and chase mice, or scratch fleas, or whatever it is you do all day.”
He scoops the last of the dry cat food into Max’s bowl and adds “cat food” to the grocery list he started last week. It’s Thursday, which means he will make a trip to the grocery store. He doesn’t want to chance having to make a trip on the weekend when the store is crowded with people. Frank doesn’t like people.
Frank steals a cup from the still-brewing pot of coffee and finally makes his way to his worn recliner. As usual he opens the newspaper to the obituaries and begins scanning the page for familiar names.
“Well, shit,” he says to himself, “Will you look at that? Ol’ Clarence kicked the bucket. Last time I saw him was about a month ago at the post office; he didn’t look like he was sick or anything. I’ll be damned.”
Looking back at the newspaper, Frank wonders if Clarence knew he was going to die or if death was a total surprise. “Says here that he died peacefully in his sleep with his family at his side. Lucky son-of-a-bitch.”
Max rubs against Frank’s leg and meows. “You might have nine lives, but I have to keep the Reaper at bay at all times,” Frank says, “Only way to do that is to sleep with one eye open and one foot on the floor. That old bag o’ bones will only come ‘round when you least expect him. Most people don’t even think about death—when or how it will come—but they should; they should think about it every day.”
Sighing deeply, Frank folds the newspaper and turns toward the window. He stares out at the old oak tree in his front yard. He stares blankly, without even a blink, until two scampering squirrels break his trance. One squirrel chases another around the trunk, and they both spiral up before settling on a branch. Like a dancing couple, one squirrel moves away and the other follows in quick, balanced movements, but the conversation ends when one scampers further on the branch, runs down the rope tied to a tire swing, and crawls inside the tire.
Max rubs against Frank’s legs then pounces onto the window sill. He sits tall, and his tail swings side to side, keeping in time with the grandfather clock pendulum.
Memories float to the top of Frank’s mind as if they’ve been loosed from mire into a crystal clear pool of water. For a few moments he stares out the window, then he chuckles “I remember when I hung that tire for Allona’s girl. What was that…six, seven years ago? Yeah, that girl must be about fourteen years old now. Swings ain’t of no interest to teenage girls.”
Until now, Frank had forgotten about the tire swing. For years he’s looked through and around it as though it weren’t even there. But seeing the squirrel inside it now reminds him of the last time he saw his granddaughter on the swing. He remembers sitting in his recliner, watching his granddaughter out the window as she put Max the cat inside the tire and spun it around. She had the same strawberry blonde hair as her mother and the same long, skinny legs. Allona sat on the sofa next to him as he stared out the window as they argued. Frank remembers the tear running down her cheek:
“I know that Dad,” Allona cried, “What do you expect me to do? You don’t like Ben and he knows it. Everyone knows. He’s my husband, Dad—my husband! We don’t come around here much because you can’t go for more than half an hour without making one of your snide remarks about my husband—which, by the way, are racist and hateful. You used to try to hide your feelings, but that stopped after mom died. What’s so different now that she’s not here?”
Sitting in his recliner, Frank stares at the floor. His shoulders drop a few inches, then he echoes Allona’s question as a statement, “What’s so different.” Neither of them say anything for a few seconds, then Frank raises his eyes to meet his daughter’s and continues, “What’s so different you ask? My life. That’s what’s different. Everything is different. Ever since your mother died, the food I eat tastes bland and the colors I see are faded. But you’re too busy with your own life to know about that. Busy and selfish! I’ve never met a more selfish person, and I’m disappointed in the choices you’ve made. I’m ashamed of you.”
Frank knew how hurtful his words were the moment they left his mouth, but he continued, “I begged you not to marry him, Allona, but you did it anyway. You always get what you want. I don’t need you here, Allona. Go tend to your own family and leave me alone.”
Her saddened blue eyes pleaded for affection, but Frank placed walls around his heart that not even his own daughter’s love could penetrate. Allona glared at her father as he watched his granddaughter. After a long pause of silence, Allona wiped her tears away and said, “Alone. That’s how you’ll die, Dad: alone and scared. If I were you, I’d think about that. As for me, I’m going to carry my selfish-ass home to my family. If you ever decide to accept my husband as part of our family then give me a call—maybe I’ll answer. Think about this: it’s not just his skin color is different from yours; it’s that he thinks differently than you, and that’s what pisses you off the most. You think everyone should think and act just like you. Get over yourself, Dad.”
She slammed the interior door first, then the aluminum screen door. To this day the latch on the screen door does not catch like it should, and on windy days the door reminds Frank of the day his daughter walked away. For the first couple years after she left, Frank would pick up the phone every few months; he even dialed six of the seven numbers once, but that’s as far as he could go.
After finishing his coffee, Frank picks Max up and tosses him out the front door.
“I gotta run my errands, and I don’t want cat crap in my house when I get back,” Frank grumbles.
***
Frank steps outside unto the heavy Texas humidity. He mumbles, “It’s hotter than a whore house on nickel night. I should have moved north when I was young.”
Frank backs the old, rusty Chevy out of the driveway and heads to the grocery store with the windows down. The AC hasn’t worked for at least a year.
On the way to the store, he grumbles all kinds of things about all the kids on bikes and dogs off leashes. Many of his thoughts begin with “When I was a kid...” or “My parents would have whipped my ass…”
Frank pulls up to the only four way stop on his route and notices a boy on the sidewalk, The boy is so busy kicking a skateboard around that he doesn’t notice the old man staring at him. Frank leans over and winces at the teenage boy.
“Why the hell are your pants so tight, boy? For a minute a thought you were a girl!”
Startled, the boy cups his hand behind his ear and replies, “What’s that mister?
Frank says louder, “Your pants! They’re too tight! Are you a pansy? Get some man-pants, dumbass!”
The Chevy’s muffler rumbles as Frank pushes on the gas pedal, but he still hears part of the boy’s words before they fade away, “Screw you, old man! How about you s…”
Frank grins victoriously as he sticks his arm out the window and flips the kid off.
***
For Frank, the worse thing about going to the market is all of the people; happy people, laughing people, families, children –oh, dear God, all the children. But most of all, it is all the “hellos and how-are-yous” that really get under Frank’s skin. Frank does not understand why people are so nice to each other when they really don’t like one another, not really.
“I’ll just get in and out of here real quick,” he says as he pulls into the grocery store parking lot.
He pulls his grocery list out of his shirt pocket and decides he does not need a shopping cart:
POTATOES
STEAKS
GREEN BEANS
MILK
CORN FLAKES
COFFEE
CAT FOOD
Frank grabs a bag of cat food and then heads to the produce section where he picks out two baking potatoes and a couple handfuls of green beans. After that, he makes his way to the meat department. While he is trying to find the cheapest package of steaks, something catches his eye. Frank looks up and spots a woman who looks familiar. She is standing over the chicken wings, and her reddish locks are covering her face.
Frank sees that this woman moves like Allona, and she stands with one ankle crossed behind the other—just like Allona stands.”
Franks heart begins to race and he quickly looks back down at the steaks and fumbles through the white styrofoam without checking the prices. Nervously, he looks toward the woman again, but he still can’t see her face.
Thoughts flood his mind quickly. Maybe he should walk over to the woman, but what will he say? How will she react? Will she hug him or hit him? Will she cry? If she would just turn around!
An elderly gray-haired lady sarcastically says, “Excuse me, please” while reaching across Frank for a package of steaks. Frank realizes that he’s blocking the lady’s way, so he quickly grabs the first package he touches. He moves away from the steaks and closer to the redheaded woman. He doesn’t say anything to the gray-haired lady—he doesn’t even give her a dirty look.
Inching his way toward the woman, he still not sure she’s Allona. Beads of sweat begin to form on Frank’s forehead, and he wishes he had grabbed a shopping cart. At least he could use it to hold on to. He slowly moves closer to the woman, inch by inch. He’s scared, excited, and worried, all at once.
With her back toward Frank, the woman pulls a cell phone out of her purse.
“Hello? Yes, this is Sarah,” she says.
Frank feels devastated. His heart rate begins to slow and his shoulders feel heavy. He stares at the floor for a long moment until he realizes he’s standing in the middle of the aisle and people are looking at him strangely.
At the checkout counter, Frank doesn’t laugh or make a smartass comment when he reads the headlines of a tabloid:
“I Had a UFO Baby.”
****
Frank turns the key in the ignition and lowers the windows. The air smells like melting tar and sweat. Before putting the Chevy in reverse, Frank sits and thinks about his daughter. He thinks about Clarence. He thinks about his wife. He thinks about death. He thinks about time and how quickly it passes.
He watches two blackbirds fighting over french fries that someone must have tossed out of their car. The birds tear the fries with their beaks, eating small pieces at a time. Every once in a while a car drives by, almost hitting the birds, but the birds frantically fly away just moments before the tires squash them. The birds always go back to the place where they were as if nothing disturbed them in the first place.
“Stupid ass birds,” he says.
After a few minutes of watching the birds, he purses his lips, sits up straight, and says, “I won’t feel sorry for myself. I know what I need to do, and I’m the only one who can do it. What could it hurt to call just once? What is the worst thing that could happen? The worse is already done, right? She was always a forgiving child.”
Frank puts the Chevy in reverse and heads home with the sun shining in his eyes.
Feeling hopeful, Frank back tracks the route he took to get to the grocery store.
“Hell, maybe they’ll even come over for dinner this weekend,” he thinks.
Nearing the four-way stop, Frank doesn’t see the skateboarder crossing from the left until the last second. He has just enough time to turn sharply to the right and avoid hitting the boy, but the old Chevy slams directly into a telephone pole.
****
When he opens his eyes, he is staring at the pale blue sky; everything appears blurry and sounds echo for a few seconds, then he sees two people standing on either side of him—one man and one woman. Both of them are wearing light blue uniforms.
Frantically, Frank asks, “Where am I? What’s going on?” His ribs hurt when he talks. He tries to sit up but two hands gently force him to lie back down.
“Easy,” the man says, “try not to move.”
Once again, Frank tries to sit up.
The woman says, “Hey! Did you hear what my partner said? Lie still. We’re just trying to help you!” Turning to the man, she says, “Looks like we got ourselves a feisty one.”
The man replies, “Nah, he’s not that bad, are you Mr. Arnost? He’s just scared. I would be too.”
The man says, “My name is Dave and this is Amy. Let us help you, ok?”
Frank nods his head in agreement.
Amy says, “You were in an accident, Mr. Arnost. We’re paramedics, and we’re going to take care of you.”
“You look familiar,” Frank says to Dave, “Do I know you?”
Dave chuckles, “I don’t think we’ve met, Sir, but I get this a lot. People say I look like a young Mohammed Ali. Do you think so?”
“That’s it! Yes, you look just like him.”
“Are you in pain, Mr. Arnost?” Dave asks. Frank nods his head.
“Where is the pain? Point to it for me,” Amy says. Dave points to his head and touches his right ribs.
“Let’s get going,” Amy says, and she and Dave move on either side of the gurney and begin wheeling Frank towards an ambulance.
Amy jumps in the driver’s seat and flips on the siren. Dave begins taking Frank’s vitals.
“Call my daughter,” Frank manages to say.
“What’s that? Say that again?” Dave says.
“Call my daughter, please.” “Her name is Allona Jackson, and her number is on a piece of paper in my wallet.” Frank reaches for his pocket and finds it empty.
Dave holds the wallet in front of Dave’s face and grins, “How do you think we identified you? Let us get you to the hospital first, Mr. Arnost. I’ll call her after we get you checked in, I promise.”
Frank’s face reddens, “Call her now. Right. Now. You got that, or are you too dumb to understand English?”
Dave locks eyes with Frank. They stare at one another until Frank finally looks away.
“Look,” Frank says calmly, “I have not talked to my daughter in years, you understand that? I need to talk to her. I can barely remember what her voice sounds like. She’s all I have, or had, or whatever. Trust me, I don’t like asking for your help, but I don’t have much of a choice. What do you say? Help an old man out?”
Dave replies with a smile, “Fine. I’ll call. I don’t want you to start crying like a little girl.”
Frank shoots Dave the finger.
****
“Ok, brother. The doctor should be here soon. Our job is done, so I’ll see you on the flip-side,” Dave says as he hands Frank the TV remote control.
Frank replies, “That jackass skateboard kid—is he ok?”
“Not a scratch on him.”
“Good. I’m glad he’s alive, but that little asshole almost got me killed, didn’t he?”
Dave chuckles, “You’re lucky you’re alive. That telephone pole doesn’t like you much.”
Frank pulls the hospital sheet up to his chest and says, “So she said she’s on her way?”
“Yep. She said she’d be here in ten minutes and that was about five minutes ago.”
“Did she say if anyone was with her?”
“She didn’t say,” Dave says as he salutes Frank and begins closing the door behind him.
“Leave it open, will ya’. I think I’m clusterphobic or whatever you call it.”
Dave laughs, pushes the door open, and whistles a tune as he walks away.
The smirk leaves Frank’s face as he looks at the bandage on his arm. He touches his face, feeling for the bandages under his eye and on his forehead.
Frank sighs and flips the channel just in time to hear Archie Bunker say, “Well woop dee-doo, Meathead!” Frank laughs.
Suddenly, the hospital staff begins shouting and moving quickly outside Frank’s door. A young, female nurse enters Frank’s room, “Looks like you got yourself banged up pretty good. My name’s Gina, and I’ll be your nurse. Right now, I just need to get your vitals.”
“What’s going on out there?” Frank asks.
“Looks like another auto accident.” the nurse replies. The two don’t speak again until the nurse begins removing the blood pressure cuff. “One-sixty over ninety. That’s a little high, but you’ll live.”
Frank doesn’t reply.
“I was about to say that your doctor should be in soon, but it looks like this auto accident is priority, so you might as well get comfortable. You may be here a while.”
“Great,” Frank replies, “Listen, my daughter is on her way. Keep an eye out for her? She’s tall and has long red hair.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks,” Frank replies as he returns his attention to Archie Bunker.
After a few minutes, Frank hears more shouting. This time a male shouts, “But she’s my wife! I have a right to see her!”
“Mr. Jackson, you cannot go in there. Doctor’s orders!”
Frank quickly throws off the hospital sheet, moves off of his bed, and rushes toward the doorway of his room. Shocked, he watches his son-in-law and a nurse argue. Frank wants to walk toward Ben, but his feet won’t move. A man in a long white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck walks up and puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder. The man speaks calmly and quietly. Finally, Ben lowers his head into the palms of his hands and sobs. The doctor motions to a nurse who escorts Ben to a waiting room.
Frank begins maneuvering down the long hallway toward the direction the doctor came from. His feet feel weighted, and his heart pounds the seconds away. He reaches the room just before the nurse pulls the sheet over Allona’s face. Frank collapses into a chair outside the doorway.
Frank hears the staff talking, “Speeding…red light...so sad.” He wants to scream, or run, or evaporate. At first he tries to hold back the sobbing, but there’s no use.
Frank knows Allona was headed to see him. He knows that it’s because of him that she was speeding. He didn’t have time to say anything. He didn’t have time to make any apologies. But most of all, he didn’t have time to ask for forgiveness.
He thinks about their last argument. He thinks about all those years he went without calling her. He thinks about his granddaughter. He thinks about his wife. He thinks about death. He thinks about time and how slowly it will pass.
Hometown Drive
Ian Lange
“Oh for god's sake, this is ridiculous,” I screamed at the motionless cars filling all three lanes of traffic in front of me. I hit the radio knob to turn it off. The “thrilling” promise of being stuck in traffic for a few hours at best was making the commercial laden music much less tolerable. It had been raining most of the day, and typical Bridge City had flooded again at the major intersection that was the town's center.
In the passenger seat, Naomi was just as unhappy at the situation as I was, but she seemed to be more bored than anything else. I don’t think she had ever been in this town before today. I can’t say I blame her. The stark landscape of the place didn’t look any better from the dreary weather.
“This is it! This is the reason why I don't cut through this town anymore,” I continued to rant, “There's a popular highway running right through the heart of this town, and no one has yet to deal with the water that chokes it every time a bit of water pools up! I don't understand why I didn't move away sooner.” I leaned back in my seat, feeling resigned to inch long advances.
Naomi turned away from the rain trickling down her window, and she asked, “How long ago was it when you left?” With those impossibly green, inquisitive eyes fixed on me, Naomi had found her traffic entertainment.
Now, I’ve done it. The microscope that was Naomi’s curiosity had been turned on me. Not that I wasn’t flattered she found me so interesting. I just feel awkward talking about my past at times, especially the years spent in this town. Plus, I wasn’t sure if digging up old memories would kill time or make me an angrier driver – perhaps both.
“Hmm. It feels like a lifetime ago. Well, damn. I can’t remember. Maybe ten years ago.”
“You can’t remember anything?”
“Well, if I look at a building I can,” I said. It's funny how fast I can forget things like that. I mean, this place is where I practically grew up. I glanced around and saw a familiar fast food joint. Before thinking I blurted, “Ok, see that McDonalds over there to the left just in front of the dinky Walmart? I broke up with my first girlfriend Janie there.”
“Oh really,” Naomi said leaning on the console between us. Her right eyebrow had shot up almost into her pulled back dirty blonde hair. Something told me she meant that more as a statement rather than a question.
Real smooth. The first memory out of your mouth is about your ex. In my defense, the gas stations all around, half of which were new, didn’t exactly help provide an abundance of memories.
“Yup. I chose the joint because I could get up immediately after telling her the bad news and drive away from any crazy theatrics she might try on me.” Back then, a clean getaway was all I was interested in.
“Did she?”
“Actually, no. She was sort of calm if a little upset.”
“Maybe she saw it coming.”
True, I guess Janie did have a clue. It makes sense. After the breakup, we still used each other for booty calls over the next couple of years. Even one of my friends shared she believed we'd get back together if the sex kept happening. Oh God! She did try to fake a pregnancy near the end. Had she been calm at the breakup because she was planning that all along? I guess I'm lucky the scare tactic didn't work – even luckier that she didn't have a real pregnancy!
“This traffic is never going to move,” I moaned, changing the subject before Naomi made me spill my guts. Several cars in front of me started moving and turning onto a small street, angled away from the center of town.
“Where are they going?”
“Ah, the side road! It might be longer, but we’re moving,” I said with renewed hope and energy as I flicked the turn signal on and stomped the gas pedal to catch up. A minute or two of blissful movement later and I was queuing up behind the other cars to make the turn off the street.
“What other places do you remember?”
“Well, over there on the left next to the dentist office is Bridge City Bank. I once had the nerve to walk in there, sit down with the loan officer, and ask for five thousand dollars so I could custom build a computer. I thought I needed it for the computer science major I was pursuing at the time. The guy's face was priceless, even if he turned me down.”
“What!?” Naomi began laughing uncontrollably.
“Eh, I was young. What kid doesn’t want a supercomputer for video games?”
“You’re still like that. I’ve seen that monster of a computer on your desk.”
“Probably explains why I'm still driving this rust bucket I call a car from back then too,” I said, suddenly remembering when the bank had tried to take all the money in my savings account. The bank claimed the account was “inactive” because I hadn’t withdrawn or deposited a single cent for an entire year. Combine that little scandal, the rejected loan, and the account’s almost non-existent interest rate, and it wasn’t long before I closed the account. I still don’t understand why they did that. It just seemed like a cheap way to cheat those who prefer to forget a stash of cash until a rainy day.
I finally turned off the street and back toward the center of town, crossing a couple of fingers as I drove. “Hell yes,” I yell as I see the shorter lines of cars, “Looks like this is the shallow end of the swimming pool, judging by how quick the line is moving.” Soon enough, it was my turn to surf the car across the water back onto the highway, and I was feeling better already. That is, until I saw the Market Basket store on the strip mall to the side.
“Blech.”
“What?”
“That grocery store on my left. I spent eight years working there with almost nothing to show for it.”
It's a shame that store, well the whole company really, is still operating. I used to be so happy working there, thinking I was getting decent pay and not being overworked. I took pride as a college kid working my way through a degree, believing I was helping out locally and being responsible instead of mooching off unemployment or something. Holy shit, was I ever so gullible.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the entire time I was running around worried about all the back stabbing and power struggles done by both coworkers and managers. The store must have gone through at least four store managers and seven co-managers while I worked there! “
“Yikes”
“Did I ever tell you one of the supervisors had the balls to tell everyone at a meeting the company was in the red until the insurance money from Hurricane Ike bailed them out?”
“No”
“Yeah. I guess he was trying to spin it to mean we had to work extra hard to keep it that way or some bullshit. I was ecstatic when I gave my two weeks notice. And what did I get out my time with Market Basket once I finally left? My work shirts, which half of them were paid for out of my own pocket, and a good dose of reality if I want to be optimistic.” I shuddered while thinking about the poor bastards still working there – likely for the rest of their lives.
Naomi interrupted, “Didn’t you go to school here?” She was looking at a two story monstrosity on her side of the road.
“Yes and no. I graduated from what is now their junior high school – the former high school building. What you’re looking at is where my junior high used to be until they tore it down.”
I pushed down on the gas a little harder. Just seeing the modern building made me realize how I had been between generations throughout school: too young to have seen the various programs and buildings in their prime, yet too old to hang around and enjoy the new versions.
Even my memories hadn't been given the proper time to exist. They were all bulldozed over a year or two after I graduated – like where the new high school’s gym is on top of what used to be the junior high lawn. I remember reverse clotheslining a bully on that patch of grass. I’m not sure how or why it started, but in any case, he was a moron for running into my arm while I stood still! Now instead of a monument to my brief heroism, it’s just a spacious shell where kids are forced to participate in awkward exercises and apathetic cheer rallies.
“Come to think of it, they rebuilt the elementary school I attended on the other side of town as well.”
Well, shit. I won't be able to visit the room where a girl kissed me –on the cheek– for the first time. That memory always brings a smile. I was still afraid of cooties, so she had to chase me around the room before trapping me against a door. The resource center is gone too. There’s nothing to show where I had gone every day for special classes to overcome the learning disability the school thought I had – whatever it was.
“We’re finally past most of the traffic,” I sighed with relief. I loosened my grip on the steering wheel. I hadn't realized I was holding it so tightly while driving by the school.
It's eerie knowing all of the evidence of my past schooling was gone as if it never existed in the first place. It makes me wonder how easy it'd be for me to be erased – forgotten and irrelevant. This town is like a corpse what with the lack of greenery, the worn out buildings, and the massive and sterile highway cutting right through the entirety of the place. Even stranger, it’s still alive and trying to grow judging by the traffic, the constant rotation of new soon-to-be-closed restaurants, and such. It’s more like a zombie shuffling on behind me, reminding me about a past long left behind.
“Ah, there's the bridge. That’s the end of Bridge City.”
“It seemed like a nice place,” Naomi said as she turned the radio back on. The car had become too quiet.
Maybe I love this town on some deeper level. But then again, I notice I'm not slowing down on my way out either.
“Yeah.”
Michelle Lansdale, Winner, Pulse Award for Graduate Fiction
Still wiping the sleep from his eyes, Frank shuffles into the kitchen. His feline friend,
Max, rubs against Frank’s leg and meows for breakfast, but Frank only acknowledges the plea
with a few mumbled profanities and heads directly for the coffee maker.
After putting coffee on to brew, Frank continues his morning routine by heading towards
the front porch to snatch the morning paper. He knows the paper is already on the porch because the paperboy always aims directly for the front screen door. Frank has learned to listen for the double thud of the paper hitting the door then the wooden porch floor, and he always postpones getting out of bed until he hears these sounds. For Frank, there’s no sense in rushing things these days. He hustled and bustled his days until well past retirement age, and now—now he knows a man can’t escape his own mind no matter how fast he moves. Perhaps if he’d have known that when he was younger he wouldn’t have busted his butt so hard, but now his bones creak, his fingers are mangled with arthritis, and he’s succumbed to old age. On top of all his physical ailments, he has all day to think about his life and things he’s seen, things he’s done, and things he’s said. Ironically, there are some things Frank knows he shouldn’t think about—like the last time he saw his daughter and the fight they’d had. Frank believes that he brings that foul memory back to life every time he thinks about it, and some things are better when left to die.
As Frank bends down to pick up the paper, he scans the lawn for neighborhood kids. He looks at every shrub and tree as he listens for giggles and whispers from mischievous neighborhood kids.
“Can’t be too careful,” he says, remembering that he had a heck of a time washing
squishy, stinky tomato out of his pajama bottoms from the last prank the kids made.
“You won’t catch me off guard again,” he mumbles while gritting his teeth and adjusting his gold, wire-rim bifocals, “I’m on to all of you.” He raises his voice and adds, “And I know where all of you live! You hear me Johnny Lee Walters? I’ll call your mama if I find dog shit on my porch again! ”
Frank listens for a short time, then, satisfied that there are no kids lurking in the yard, Frank makes his way back into the kitchen. He pauses long enough to give meowing Max a cold stare and says, “Fine, furball, I’ll feed you now, but after that you can run off and chase mice, or scratch fleas, or whatever it is you do all day.”
He scoops the last of the dry cat food into Max’s bowl and adds “cat food” to the grocery list he started last week. It’s Thursday, which means he will make a trip to the grocery store. He doesn’t want to chance having to make a trip on the weekend when the store is crowded with people. Frank doesn’t like people.
Frank steals a cup from the still-brewing pot of coffee and finally makes his way to his worn recliner. As usual he opens the newspaper to the obituaries and begins scanning the page for familiar names.
“Well, shit,” he says to himself, “Will you look at that? Ol’ Clarence kicked the bucket. Last time I saw him was about a month ago at the post office; he didn’t look like he was sick or anything. I’ll be damned.”
Looking back at the newspaper, Frank wonders if Clarence knew he was going to die or if death was a total surprise. “Says here that he died peacefully in his sleep with his family at his side. Lucky son-of-a-bitch.”
Max rubs against Frank’s leg and meows. “You might have nine lives, but I have to keep the Reaper at bay at all times,” Frank says, “Only way to do that is to sleep with one eye open and one foot on the floor. That old bag o’ bones will only come ‘round when you least expect him. Most people don’t even think about death—when or how it will come—but they should; they should think about it every day.”
Sighing deeply, Frank folds the newspaper and turns toward the window. He stares out at the old oak tree in his front yard. He stares blankly, without even a blink, until two scampering squirrels break his trance. One squirrel chases another around the trunk, and they both spiral up before settling on a branch. Like a dancing couple, one squirrel moves away and the other follows in quick, balanced movements, but the conversation ends when one scampers further on the branch, runs down the rope tied to a tire swing, and crawls inside the tire.
Max rubs against Frank’s legs then pounces onto the window sill. He sits tall, and his tail swings side to side, keeping in time with the grandfather clock pendulum.
Memories float to the top of Frank’s mind as if they’ve been loosed from mire into a crystal clear pool of water. For a few moments he stares out the window, then he chuckles “I remember when I hung that tire for Allona’s girl. What was that…six, seven years ago? Yeah, that girl must be about fourteen years old now. Swings ain’t of no interest to teenage girls.”
Until now, Frank had forgotten about the tire swing. For years he’s looked through and around it as though it weren’t even there. But seeing the squirrel inside it now reminds him of the last time he saw his granddaughter on the swing. He remembers sitting in his recliner, watching his granddaughter out the window as she put Max the cat inside the tire and spun it around. She had the same strawberry blonde hair as her mother and the same long, skinny legs. Allona sat on the sofa next to him as he stared out the window as they argued. Frank remembers the tear running down her cheek:
“I know that Dad,” Allona cried, “What do you expect me to do? You don’t like Ben and he knows it. Everyone knows. He’s my husband, Dad—my husband! We don’t come around here much because you can’t go for more than half an hour without making one of your snide remarks about my husband—which, by the way, are racist and hateful. You used to try to hide your feelings, but that stopped after mom died. What’s so different now that she’s not here?”
Sitting in his recliner, Frank stares at the floor. His shoulders drop a few inches, then he echoes Allona’s question as a statement, “What’s so different.” Neither of them say anything for a few seconds, then Frank raises his eyes to meet his daughter’s and continues, “What’s so different you ask? My life. That’s what’s different. Everything is different. Ever since your mother died, the food I eat tastes bland and the colors I see are faded. But you’re too busy with your own life to know about that. Busy and selfish! I’ve never met a more selfish person, and I’m disappointed in the choices you’ve made. I’m ashamed of you.”
Frank knew how hurtful his words were the moment they left his mouth, but he continued, “I begged you not to marry him, Allona, but you did it anyway. You always get what you want. I don’t need you here, Allona. Go tend to your own family and leave me alone.”
Her saddened blue eyes pleaded for affection, but Frank placed walls around his heart that not even his own daughter’s love could penetrate. Allona glared at her father as he watched his granddaughter. After a long pause of silence, Allona wiped her tears away and said, “Alone. That’s how you’ll die, Dad: alone and scared. If I were you, I’d think about that. As for me, I’m going to carry my selfish-ass home to my family. If you ever decide to accept my husband as part of our family then give me a call—maybe I’ll answer. Think about this: it’s not just his skin color is different from yours; it’s that he thinks differently than you, and that’s what pisses you off the most. You think everyone should think and act just like you. Get over yourself, Dad.”
She slammed the interior door first, then the aluminum screen door. To this day the latch on the screen door does not catch like it should, and on windy days the door reminds Frank of the day his daughter walked away. For the first couple years after she left, Frank would pick up the phone every few months; he even dialed six of the seven numbers once, but that’s as far as he could go.
After finishing his coffee, Frank picks Max up and tosses him out the front door.
“I gotta run my errands, and I don’t want cat crap in my house when I get back,” Frank grumbles.
***
Frank steps outside unto the heavy Texas humidity. He mumbles, “It’s hotter than a whore house on nickel night. I should have moved north when I was young.”
Frank backs the old, rusty Chevy out of the driveway and heads to the grocery store with the windows down. The AC hasn’t worked for at least a year.
On the way to the store, he grumbles all kinds of things about all the kids on bikes and dogs off leashes. Many of his thoughts begin with “When I was a kid...” or “My parents would have whipped my ass…”
Frank pulls up to the only four way stop on his route and notices a boy on the sidewalk, The boy is so busy kicking a skateboard around that he doesn’t notice the old man staring at him. Frank leans over and winces at the teenage boy.
“Why the hell are your pants so tight, boy? For a minute a thought you were a girl!”
Startled, the boy cups his hand behind his ear and replies, “What’s that mister?
Frank says louder, “Your pants! They’re too tight! Are you a pansy? Get some man-pants, dumbass!”
The Chevy’s muffler rumbles as Frank pushes on the gas pedal, but he still hears part of the boy’s words before they fade away, “Screw you, old man! How about you s…”
Frank grins victoriously as he sticks his arm out the window and flips the kid off.
***
For Frank, the worse thing about going to the market is all of the people; happy people, laughing people, families, children –oh, dear God, all the children. But most of all, it is all the “hellos and how-are-yous” that really get under Frank’s skin. Frank does not understand why people are so nice to each other when they really don’t like one another, not really.
“I’ll just get in and out of here real quick,” he says as he pulls into the grocery store parking lot.
He pulls his grocery list out of his shirt pocket and decides he does not need a shopping cart:
POTATOES
STEAKS
GREEN BEANS
MILK
CORN FLAKES
COFFEE
CAT FOOD
Frank grabs a bag of cat food and then heads to the produce section where he picks out two baking potatoes and a couple handfuls of green beans. After that, he makes his way to the meat department. While he is trying to find the cheapest package of steaks, something catches his eye. Frank looks up and spots a woman who looks familiar. She is standing over the chicken wings, and her reddish locks are covering her face.
Frank sees that this woman moves like Allona, and she stands with one ankle crossed behind the other—just like Allona stands.”
Franks heart begins to race and he quickly looks back down at the steaks and fumbles through the white styrofoam without checking the prices. Nervously, he looks toward the woman again, but he still can’t see her face.
Thoughts flood his mind quickly. Maybe he should walk over to the woman, but what will he say? How will she react? Will she hug him or hit him? Will she cry? If she would just turn around!
An elderly gray-haired lady sarcastically says, “Excuse me, please” while reaching across Frank for a package of steaks. Frank realizes that he’s blocking the lady’s way, so he quickly grabs the first package he touches. He moves away from the steaks and closer to the redheaded woman. He doesn’t say anything to the gray-haired lady—he doesn’t even give her a dirty look.
Inching his way toward the woman, he still not sure she’s Allona. Beads of sweat begin to form on Frank’s forehead, and he wishes he had grabbed a shopping cart. At least he could use it to hold on to. He slowly moves closer to the woman, inch by inch. He’s scared, excited, and worried, all at once.
With her back toward Frank, the woman pulls a cell phone out of her purse.
“Hello? Yes, this is Sarah,” she says.
Frank feels devastated. His heart rate begins to slow and his shoulders feel heavy. He stares at the floor for a long moment until he realizes he’s standing in the middle of the aisle and people are looking at him strangely.
At the checkout counter, Frank doesn’t laugh or make a smartass comment when he reads the headlines of a tabloid:
“I Had a UFO Baby.”
****
Frank turns the key in the ignition and lowers the windows. The air smells like melting tar and sweat. Before putting the Chevy in reverse, Frank sits and thinks about his daughter. He thinks about Clarence. He thinks about his wife. He thinks about death. He thinks about time and how quickly it passes.
He watches two blackbirds fighting over french fries that someone must have tossed out of their car. The birds tear the fries with their beaks, eating small pieces at a time. Every once in a while a car drives by, almost hitting the birds, but the birds frantically fly away just moments before the tires squash them. The birds always go back to the place where they were as if nothing disturbed them in the first place.
“Stupid ass birds,” he says.
After a few minutes of watching the birds, he purses his lips, sits up straight, and says, “I won’t feel sorry for myself. I know what I need to do, and I’m the only one who can do it. What could it hurt to call just once? What is the worst thing that could happen? The worse is already done, right? She was always a forgiving child.”
Frank puts the Chevy in reverse and heads home with the sun shining in his eyes.
Feeling hopeful, Frank back tracks the route he took to get to the grocery store.
“Hell, maybe they’ll even come over for dinner this weekend,” he thinks.
Nearing the four-way stop, Frank doesn’t see the skateboarder crossing from the left until the last second. He has just enough time to turn sharply to the right and avoid hitting the boy, but the old Chevy slams directly into a telephone pole.
****
When he opens his eyes, he is staring at the pale blue sky; everything appears blurry and sounds echo for a few seconds, then he sees two people standing on either side of him—one man and one woman. Both of them are wearing light blue uniforms.
Frantically, Frank asks, “Where am I? What’s going on?” His ribs hurt when he talks. He tries to sit up but two hands gently force him to lie back down.
“Easy,” the man says, “try not to move.”
Once again, Frank tries to sit up.
The woman says, “Hey! Did you hear what my partner said? Lie still. We’re just trying to help you!” Turning to the man, she says, “Looks like we got ourselves a feisty one.”
The man replies, “Nah, he’s not that bad, are you Mr. Arnost? He’s just scared. I would be too.”
The man says, “My name is Dave and this is Amy. Let us help you, ok?”
Frank nods his head in agreement.
Amy says, “You were in an accident, Mr. Arnost. We’re paramedics, and we’re going to take care of you.”
“You look familiar,” Frank says to Dave, “Do I know you?”
Dave chuckles, “I don’t think we’ve met, Sir, but I get this a lot. People say I look like a young Mohammed Ali. Do you think so?”
“That’s it! Yes, you look just like him.”
“Are you in pain, Mr. Arnost?” Dave asks. Frank nods his head.
“Where is the pain? Point to it for me,” Amy says. Dave points to his head and touches his right ribs.
“Let’s get going,” Amy says, and she and Dave move on either side of the gurney and begin wheeling Frank towards an ambulance.
Amy jumps in the driver’s seat and flips on the siren. Dave begins taking Frank’s vitals.
“Call my daughter,” Frank manages to say.
“What’s that? Say that again?” Dave says.
“Call my daughter, please.” “Her name is Allona Jackson, and her number is on a piece of paper in my wallet.” Frank reaches for his pocket and finds it empty.
Dave holds the wallet in front of Dave’s face and grins, “How do you think we identified you? Let us get you to the hospital first, Mr. Arnost. I’ll call her after we get you checked in, I promise.”
Frank’s face reddens, “Call her now. Right. Now. You got that, or are you too dumb to understand English?”
Dave locks eyes with Frank. They stare at one another until Frank finally looks away.
“Look,” Frank says calmly, “I have not talked to my daughter in years, you understand that? I need to talk to her. I can barely remember what her voice sounds like. She’s all I have, or had, or whatever. Trust me, I don’t like asking for your help, but I don’t have much of a choice. What do you say? Help an old man out?”
Dave replies with a smile, “Fine. I’ll call. I don’t want you to start crying like a little girl.”
Frank shoots Dave the finger.
****
“Ok, brother. The doctor should be here soon. Our job is done, so I’ll see you on the flip-side,” Dave says as he hands Frank the TV remote control.
Frank replies, “That jackass skateboard kid—is he ok?”
“Not a scratch on him.”
“Good. I’m glad he’s alive, but that little asshole almost got me killed, didn’t he?”
Dave chuckles, “You’re lucky you’re alive. That telephone pole doesn’t like you much.”
Frank pulls the hospital sheet up to his chest and says, “So she said she’s on her way?”
“Yep. She said she’d be here in ten minutes and that was about five minutes ago.”
“Did she say if anyone was with her?”
“She didn’t say,” Dave says as he salutes Frank and begins closing the door behind him.
“Leave it open, will ya’. I think I’m clusterphobic or whatever you call it.”
Dave laughs, pushes the door open, and whistles a tune as he walks away.
The smirk leaves Frank’s face as he looks at the bandage on his arm. He touches his face, feeling for the bandages under his eye and on his forehead.
Frank sighs and flips the channel just in time to hear Archie Bunker say, “Well woop dee-doo, Meathead!” Frank laughs.
Suddenly, the hospital staff begins shouting and moving quickly outside Frank’s door. A young, female nurse enters Frank’s room, “Looks like you got yourself banged up pretty good. My name’s Gina, and I’ll be your nurse. Right now, I just need to get your vitals.”
“What’s going on out there?” Frank asks.
“Looks like another auto accident.” the nurse replies. The two don’t speak again until the nurse begins removing the blood pressure cuff. “One-sixty over ninety. That’s a little high, but you’ll live.”
Frank doesn’t reply.
“I was about to say that your doctor should be in soon, but it looks like this auto accident is priority, so you might as well get comfortable. You may be here a while.”
“Great,” Frank replies, “Listen, my daughter is on her way. Keep an eye out for her? She’s tall and has long red hair.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks,” Frank replies as he returns his attention to Archie Bunker.
After a few minutes, Frank hears more shouting. This time a male shouts, “But she’s my wife! I have a right to see her!”
“Mr. Jackson, you cannot go in there. Doctor’s orders!”
Frank quickly throws off the hospital sheet, moves off of his bed, and rushes toward the doorway of his room. Shocked, he watches his son-in-law and a nurse argue. Frank wants to walk toward Ben, but his feet won’t move. A man in a long white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck walks up and puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder. The man speaks calmly and quietly. Finally, Ben lowers his head into the palms of his hands and sobs. The doctor motions to a nurse who escorts Ben to a waiting room.
Frank begins maneuvering down the long hallway toward the direction the doctor came from. His feet feel weighted, and his heart pounds the seconds away. He reaches the room just before the nurse pulls the sheet over Allona’s face. Frank collapses into a chair outside the doorway.
Frank hears the staff talking, “Speeding…red light...so sad.” He wants to scream, or run, or evaporate. At first he tries to hold back the sobbing, but there’s no use.
Frank knows Allona was headed to see him. He knows that it’s because of him that she was speeding. He didn’t have time to say anything. He didn’t have time to make any apologies. But most of all, he didn’t have time to ask for forgiveness.
He thinks about their last argument. He thinks about all those years he went without calling her. He thinks about his granddaughter. He thinks about his wife. He thinks about death. He thinks about time and how slowly it will pass.
Hometown Drive
Ian Lange
“Oh for god's sake, this is ridiculous,” I screamed at the motionless cars filling all three lanes of traffic in front of me. I hit the radio knob to turn it off. The “thrilling” promise of being stuck in traffic for a few hours at best was making the commercial laden music much less tolerable. It had been raining most of the day, and typical Bridge City had flooded again at the major intersection that was the town's center.
In the passenger seat, Naomi was just as unhappy at the situation as I was, but she seemed to be more bored than anything else. I don’t think she had ever been in this town before today. I can’t say I blame her. The stark landscape of the place didn’t look any better from the dreary weather.
“This is it! This is the reason why I don't cut through this town anymore,” I continued to rant, “There's a popular highway running right through the heart of this town, and no one has yet to deal with the water that chokes it every time a bit of water pools up! I don't understand why I didn't move away sooner.” I leaned back in my seat, feeling resigned to inch long advances.
Naomi turned away from the rain trickling down her window, and she asked, “How long ago was it when you left?” With those impossibly green, inquisitive eyes fixed on me, Naomi had found her traffic entertainment.
Now, I’ve done it. The microscope that was Naomi’s curiosity had been turned on me. Not that I wasn’t flattered she found me so interesting. I just feel awkward talking about my past at times, especially the years spent in this town. Plus, I wasn’t sure if digging up old memories would kill time or make me an angrier driver – perhaps both.
“Hmm. It feels like a lifetime ago. Well, damn. I can’t remember. Maybe ten years ago.”
“You can’t remember anything?”
“Well, if I look at a building I can,” I said. It's funny how fast I can forget things like that. I mean, this place is where I practically grew up. I glanced around and saw a familiar fast food joint. Before thinking I blurted, “Ok, see that McDonalds over there to the left just in front of the dinky Walmart? I broke up with my first girlfriend Janie there.”
“Oh really,” Naomi said leaning on the console between us. Her right eyebrow had shot up almost into her pulled back dirty blonde hair. Something told me she meant that more as a statement rather than a question.
Real smooth. The first memory out of your mouth is about your ex. In my defense, the gas stations all around, half of which were new, didn’t exactly help provide an abundance of memories.
“Yup. I chose the joint because I could get up immediately after telling her the bad news and drive away from any crazy theatrics she might try on me.” Back then, a clean getaway was all I was interested in.
“Did she?”
“Actually, no. She was sort of calm if a little upset.”
“Maybe she saw it coming.”
True, I guess Janie did have a clue. It makes sense. After the breakup, we still used each other for booty calls over the next couple of years. Even one of my friends shared she believed we'd get back together if the sex kept happening. Oh God! She did try to fake a pregnancy near the end. Had she been calm at the breakup because she was planning that all along? I guess I'm lucky the scare tactic didn't work – even luckier that she didn't have a real pregnancy!
“This traffic is never going to move,” I moaned, changing the subject before Naomi made me spill my guts. Several cars in front of me started moving and turning onto a small street, angled away from the center of town.
“Where are they going?”
“Ah, the side road! It might be longer, but we’re moving,” I said with renewed hope and energy as I flicked the turn signal on and stomped the gas pedal to catch up. A minute or two of blissful movement later and I was queuing up behind the other cars to make the turn off the street.
“What other places do you remember?”
“Well, over there on the left next to the dentist office is Bridge City Bank. I once had the nerve to walk in there, sit down with the loan officer, and ask for five thousand dollars so I could custom build a computer. I thought I needed it for the computer science major I was pursuing at the time. The guy's face was priceless, even if he turned me down.”
“What!?” Naomi began laughing uncontrollably.
“Eh, I was young. What kid doesn’t want a supercomputer for video games?”
“You’re still like that. I’ve seen that monster of a computer on your desk.”
“Probably explains why I'm still driving this rust bucket I call a car from back then too,” I said, suddenly remembering when the bank had tried to take all the money in my savings account. The bank claimed the account was “inactive” because I hadn’t withdrawn or deposited a single cent for an entire year. Combine that little scandal, the rejected loan, and the account’s almost non-existent interest rate, and it wasn’t long before I closed the account. I still don’t understand why they did that. It just seemed like a cheap way to cheat those who prefer to forget a stash of cash until a rainy day.
I finally turned off the street and back toward the center of town, crossing a couple of fingers as I drove. “Hell yes,” I yell as I see the shorter lines of cars, “Looks like this is the shallow end of the swimming pool, judging by how quick the line is moving.” Soon enough, it was my turn to surf the car across the water back onto the highway, and I was feeling better already. That is, until I saw the Market Basket store on the strip mall to the side.
“Blech.”
“What?”
“That grocery store on my left. I spent eight years working there with almost nothing to show for it.”
It's a shame that store, well the whole company really, is still operating. I used to be so happy working there, thinking I was getting decent pay and not being overworked. I took pride as a college kid working my way through a degree, believing I was helping out locally and being responsible instead of mooching off unemployment or something. Holy shit, was I ever so gullible.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the entire time I was running around worried about all the back stabbing and power struggles done by both coworkers and managers. The store must have gone through at least four store managers and seven co-managers while I worked there! “
“Yikes”
“Did I ever tell you one of the supervisors had the balls to tell everyone at a meeting the company was in the red until the insurance money from Hurricane Ike bailed them out?”
“No”
“Yeah. I guess he was trying to spin it to mean we had to work extra hard to keep it that way or some bullshit. I was ecstatic when I gave my two weeks notice. And what did I get out my time with Market Basket once I finally left? My work shirts, which half of them were paid for out of my own pocket, and a good dose of reality if I want to be optimistic.” I shuddered while thinking about the poor bastards still working there – likely for the rest of their lives.
Naomi interrupted, “Didn’t you go to school here?” She was looking at a two story monstrosity on her side of the road.
“Yes and no. I graduated from what is now their junior high school – the former high school building. What you’re looking at is where my junior high used to be until they tore it down.”
I pushed down on the gas a little harder. Just seeing the modern building made me realize how I had been between generations throughout school: too young to have seen the various programs and buildings in their prime, yet too old to hang around and enjoy the new versions.
Even my memories hadn't been given the proper time to exist. They were all bulldozed over a year or two after I graduated – like where the new high school’s gym is on top of what used to be the junior high lawn. I remember reverse clotheslining a bully on that patch of grass. I’m not sure how or why it started, but in any case, he was a moron for running into my arm while I stood still! Now instead of a monument to my brief heroism, it’s just a spacious shell where kids are forced to participate in awkward exercises and apathetic cheer rallies.
“Come to think of it, they rebuilt the elementary school I attended on the other side of town as well.”
Well, shit. I won't be able to visit the room where a girl kissed me –on the cheek– for the first time. That memory always brings a smile. I was still afraid of cooties, so she had to chase me around the room before trapping me against a door. The resource center is gone too. There’s nothing to show where I had gone every day for special classes to overcome the learning disability the school thought I had – whatever it was.
“We’re finally past most of the traffic,” I sighed with relief. I loosened my grip on the steering wheel. I hadn't realized I was holding it so tightly while driving by the school.
It's eerie knowing all of the evidence of my past schooling was gone as if it never existed in the first place. It makes me wonder how easy it'd be for me to be erased – forgotten and irrelevant. This town is like a corpse what with the lack of greenery, the worn out buildings, and the massive and sterile highway cutting right through the entirety of the place. Even stranger, it’s still alive and trying to grow judging by the traffic, the constant rotation of new soon-to-be-closed restaurants, and such. It’s more like a zombie shuffling on behind me, reminding me about a past long left behind.
“Ah, there's the bridge. That’s the end of Bridge City.”
“It seemed like a nice place,” Naomi said as she turned the radio back on. The car had become too quiet.
Maybe I love this town on some deeper level. But then again, I notice I'm not slowing down on my way out either.
“Yeah.”
Analytical Essay.
Dreamwork as a Process of Self-Identification and Ideological Subversion in Invisible Man
Casey Ford, Winner, Rowe Award for Analytical Essay
Thanks to e-book technology, we can quickly ascertain that Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man contains more than ninety occurrences of the word dream in many of its contextual possibilities. Nightmares also feature in the novel, although that term is used far fewer times. Several characters speak of “the American dream” and the overarching dream of equality, and the Narrator frequently describes people and events as dreamlike. More significantly, the Narrator takes us through a number of his dreams and nightmares in detail. By looking closely at several of these dream narratives throughout the novel, we see how, in various ways, they are pathways to the Narrator’s grasp of reality and of his own identity, and they are a means by which he is able to negate the identities imposed on him by the various ideologies in which he is immersed.
Freud says that dreamwork is the process by which the latent content of our dreams, or that content which we can only arrive at unconsciously, becomes the manifest content, or that which we can remember in the waking state (Freud 19). What we know of the Invisible Narrator’s dreams and nightmares constitutes the manifest content of them. We can assume, then, that the dreamwork has already been done and analyze what we read to determine how the Narrator achieves self-identification through what he can recall of his dreams.
Except for the dreams described in the Prologue and Epilogue, which we will discuss last as they occur last chronologically, the Narrator first describes a dream he has shortly after the battle royal scene in the first chapter. He dreams that he is at the circus with his grandfather, and he is carrying the briefcase he has just won in the battle royal—the briefcase which, in reality, contained his college scholarship, but in the dream, contains only an endless number of envelopes within envelopes. His grandfather tells him, in the dream, that the envelopes represent years, and he points to one, which the Narrator opens to find a note that reads, “To Whom it May Concern, Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” (33). This dream represents the point in the novel at which the Narrator’s identity is most opaque. He has always struggled with his grandfather’s legacy of “overcoming them with yeses” (16), or of being a meek-mannered person, and up to this point, the Narrator has lived his life with that same meekness, to the outward approval of the white people in his sphere. If we agree with Freud that dreams are “concealed realizations of repressed desires” (85), then this circus dream might represent the Narrator’s repressed desire to break free from his early adoption of submissive “yeses.”
The hospital scene in Chapter Eleven is not a dream narrative per se, but the Narrator seems to be operating more from the unconscious than from the conscious as he experiences a rebirth of sorts. He moves into half-wakefulness after the explosion at the paint factory, being triaged in the hospital and prepared for some sort of asurgical, personality-altering brain procedure, and he says, “My mind was blank, as though I had just begun to live” (229). After several electrical procedures, he awakens more fully and experiences a crisis of identity in which he can remember little about any part of his life. We might examine the hospital scene as a long lucid dream, or one in which the dreamer realizes that he or she is dreaming. One scholar discusses lucid dreaming as a heightened awareness of différance—which Jacques Derrida says results in continuous variations in meaning—and that “to wake up in dreams suggests transforming all signifiers and pushing one’s self-identity to the limits” (Lee). As the Narrator moves back into the conscious state, he experiences a wiping clean of his identical slate. In fact, the allusion to rebirth is unmistakable in that the doctors and nurses literally cut cords away from his abdomen and practically shove him out the hospital door into the cold world, where he must begin to create himself once again.
There are many other moments in the novel in which the Narrator functions and remembers as if in a lucid dream; significantly, he has this experience after Tod Clifton is shot. The Narrator leaves the subway and walks into the crowded streets where some boys who have robbed a five-and-dime are being chased by the storekeeper. A woman trips the storekeeper so that the boys can get away. The Narrator is empathetic to the boys and also demoralized by the looting and rioting taking place. Bearing the shock of Clifton’s shooting and the burden of guilt that all of his work for the Brotherhood has been ineffective, the Narrator reflects that “no great change had been made. And it was all my fault. I’d been so fascinated by the motion that I’d forgotten to measure what it was bringing forth. I’d been asleep, dreaming” (437). It is in dreamlike moments such as this that the Narrator is able to begin cultivating his own identity and subverting the ideology of the Brotherhood.
One motto of the Nazi party was “Deutschland, erwache!” (Germany, awaken!) In a discussion of dreams, Theodor Adorno talked about how following this command, to awaken, was actually to do the opposite; in dreaming we escape social antipathy (Žižek). If we apply this same idea to lucid dreaming and to the looser structures of being awake but not fully conscious, we might see how the Narrator moves through the rioting and violence of Chapter 25 in a dream-state in order to avoid the reality of what is happening around him and also as a means of finding his way out of the chaos with his identity intact. In the beginning of the scene, his temple is grazed by a bullet. This seems to push him into the dream-state, where he remains for the duration of the rioting. “A curtain of sparks…lit up the block like a blue dream; a dream I was dreaming…There was something I had to do and I knew that my forgetfulness wasn’t real, as one knows that the forgotten details of certain dreams are not truly forgotten but evaded” (526-8). The dream-state is a coping mechanism, a survival device—and not just his physical survival, but that of his entire identity, new, developing, and fragile.
One of the most crucial dream narratives in the novel is near the end of Chapter 25 when the Narrator stumbles, wounded, bloody, and disoriented, down a narrow passageway into a dark “dimensionless” room, where he knocks his head against a wall, adding injury to injury and slipping into a state he describes as “a state neither of dreaming nor of waking, but somewhere in between” (559). He dreams (lucidly, we will assume) that he is being held prisoner by all those men who had hijacked his identity at some point through ideology: Jack, Emerson, Bledsoe, Norton, Ras, and several nameless others. “I’m through with all your illusions and lies, I’m through running” (560), he says, and Jack asks him how that freedom feels, and he answers that it feels “painful and empty” (560). The conversation does not end there, continuing with several important ideas about spirituality, history, and the machinations of the world, but most importantly, in this half-dream, the Narrator finally claims his true identity.
In the prologue, our Invisible Man continues to dream, and one dream narrative here happens as, high on reefer, he listens to Louis Armstrong’s “Black and Blue.” More secure in his sense of personal identity, the Narrator is still searching for answers to his questions, and he is still troubled by questions about his past, although he is more willing to confront them. In his drug-induced dream-state, he talks with a freed slave woman who is ambivalent about her freedom, which ambivalence he says he can certainly relate to. The woman tells the Narrator that she loved her master—she bore sons by him—but that she loved her freedom more. He asks her about freedom—what it means, what it is, and he makes her sick with his questions. One of her sons begins to beat him, then the jazz takes over, filling his ears and head; he hears footsteps and thinks that Ras is coming for him. A machine speeds past, injuring him, and he awakens. What is most interesting about this dream, outside of its being rife with literary symbolism, is how it propels him fully into an acceptance of reality. He swears off drugs in favor of lucidity, a clear sense of time, and the ability to act immediately when called. “As Lacan put it, the Truth has the structure of a fiction: what appears in the guise of dreaming, or even daydreaming, is sometimes the truth on whose repression social reality is founded. Therein resides the ultimate lesson of [Freud]: reality is for those who cannot sustain the dream” (Žižek). In dreams, we heal ourselves. We may avoid reality for a time as a means of dealing with fear or pain, but at some point we must awaken from dreams so that we can act on the Truth to which they have led us.
Ironically, it seems that as the narrator begins to fully understand himself as invisible to others, he comes to visualize his true identity more clearly, and he arrives at this truth due in part to his understanding and working through his own dreams. Another irony present in the dreams of The Invisible Man is the manner in which, through dreaming and dreamwork, the Narrator subverts ideology, which Marx and Engels describe as “pure illusion, a pure dream…an imaginary construction” (154-55). His dreams turn out to be far nearer to reality than any of the ideologies to which he is subjected (Bledsoe’s) or which he accepts willingly (Brotherhood’s). Louis Althusser’s concept of ideologies is that through them, prevailing social structures and institutions inform the identities of human subjects, and this truth negates the humanist notion of self-determinism (1355). How fascinating it is to think that the elusive process of dreaming, which would seem to be less real than anything existing in the waking world, proves to be a vehicle by which the Narrator moves beyond ideology, which Althusser, agreeing with Marx and Engels, says is the true dream.
The Narrator seems, in the prologue and epilogue, on the verge of another revelation; he seems to be at a place where he feels as though his work has only just begun. Certainly he was sent underground by a great revelation, but he has more to learn. The process of moving out of ideology is arduous, and Adorno says it is impossible. However, as people who are at all times acted upon by the forces and machinations of ideology, we can maintain a spiritual and intellectual identity that is singular to ourselves. One way to access that identity is unconsciously through dreams. The Narrator may have broken free of the dogmatic snares of the Brotherhood, his memory of his grandfather, Bledsoe and Norton, and Ras, but he still seems, as demonstrated in the reefer dream, to be coming to terms with his past and how he will let that part of himself become part of his newfound “freedom.” When he asks, “Old woman, what is this freedom you love so well?” (11), it seems that he is still taking steps toward understanding that he has found his own freedom—a freedom from ideology.
Works Cited
Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, excerpted. In Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed. Vincent B. Leitch, ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 1335-1361. Print.
Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. New York: Modern Library, 1994. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. On Dreams. New York: Rebman, 1914. Print.
Lee, Raymond L.M. “The Self, Lucid Dreaming, and Postmodern Identity.” Pomo. Dreamgate.com. 2002. Web. 20 April 2015.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. “The German Ideology, Part I.” The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. Robert C. Tucker, ed. New York: Norton, 1978. 146-203. Print.
Žižek, Slavoj. “Freud Lives!” Slavoj Žižek Faculty Home Page. The European Graduate School. 25 May 2006. Web. 20 April 2015.
Casey Ford, Winner, Rowe Award for Analytical Essay
Thanks to e-book technology, we can quickly ascertain that Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man contains more than ninety occurrences of the word dream in many of its contextual possibilities. Nightmares also feature in the novel, although that term is used far fewer times. Several characters speak of “the American dream” and the overarching dream of equality, and the Narrator frequently describes people and events as dreamlike. More significantly, the Narrator takes us through a number of his dreams and nightmares in detail. By looking closely at several of these dream narratives throughout the novel, we see how, in various ways, they are pathways to the Narrator’s grasp of reality and of his own identity, and they are a means by which he is able to negate the identities imposed on him by the various ideologies in which he is immersed.
Freud says that dreamwork is the process by which the latent content of our dreams, or that content which we can only arrive at unconsciously, becomes the manifest content, or that which we can remember in the waking state (Freud 19). What we know of the Invisible Narrator’s dreams and nightmares constitutes the manifest content of them. We can assume, then, that the dreamwork has already been done and analyze what we read to determine how the Narrator achieves self-identification through what he can recall of his dreams.
Except for the dreams described in the Prologue and Epilogue, which we will discuss last as they occur last chronologically, the Narrator first describes a dream he has shortly after the battle royal scene in the first chapter. He dreams that he is at the circus with his grandfather, and he is carrying the briefcase he has just won in the battle royal—the briefcase which, in reality, contained his college scholarship, but in the dream, contains only an endless number of envelopes within envelopes. His grandfather tells him, in the dream, that the envelopes represent years, and he points to one, which the Narrator opens to find a note that reads, “To Whom it May Concern, Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” (33). This dream represents the point in the novel at which the Narrator’s identity is most opaque. He has always struggled with his grandfather’s legacy of “overcoming them with yeses” (16), or of being a meek-mannered person, and up to this point, the Narrator has lived his life with that same meekness, to the outward approval of the white people in his sphere. If we agree with Freud that dreams are “concealed realizations of repressed desires” (85), then this circus dream might represent the Narrator’s repressed desire to break free from his early adoption of submissive “yeses.”
The hospital scene in Chapter Eleven is not a dream narrative per se, but the Narrator seems to be operating more from the unconscious than from the conscious as he experiences a rebirth of sorts. He moves into half-wakefulness after the explosion at the paint factory, being triaged in the hospital and prepared for some sort of asurgical, personality-altering brain procedure, and he says, “My mind was blank, as though I had just begun to live” (229). After several electrical procedures, he awakens more fully and experiences a crisis of identity in which he can remember little about any part of his life. We might examine the hospital scene as a long lucid dream, or one in which the dreamer realizes that he or she is dreaming. One scholar discusses lucid dreaming as a heightened awareness of différance—which Jacques Derrida says results in continuous variations in meaning—and that “to wake up in dreams suggests transforming all signifiers and pushing one’s self-identity to the limits” (Lee). As the Narrator moves back into the conscious state, he experiences a wiping clean of his identical slate. In fact, the allusion to rebirth is unmistakable in that the doctors and nurses literally cut cords away from his abdomen and practically shove him out the hospital door into the cold world, where he must begin to create himself once again.
There are many other moments in the novel in which the Narrator functions and remembers as if in a lucid dream; significantly, he has this experience after Tod Clifton is shot. The Narrator leaves the subway and walks into the crowded streets where some boys who have robbed a five-and-dime are being chased by the storekeeper. A woman trips the storekeeper so that the boys can get away. The Narrator is empathetic to the boys and also demoralized by the looting and rioting taking place. Bearing the shock of Clifton’s shooting and the burden of guilt that all of his work for the Brotherhood has been ineffective, the Narrator reflects that “no great change had been made. And it was all my fault. I’d been so fascinated by the motion that I’d forgotten to measure what it was bringing forth. I’d been asleep, dreaming” (437). It is in dreamlike moments such as this that the Narrator is able to begin cultivating his own identity and subverting the ideology of the Brotherhood.
One motto of the Nazi party was “Deutschland, erwache!” (Germany, awaken!) In a discussion of dreams, Theodor Adorno talked about how following this command, to awaken, was actually to do the opposite; in dreaming we escape social antipathy (Žižek). If we apply this same idea to lucid dreaming and to the looser structures of being awake but not fully conscious, we might see how the Narrator moves through the rioting and violence of Chapter 25 in a dream-state in order to avoid the reality of what is happening around him and also as a means of finding his way out of the chaos with his identity intact. In the beginning of the scene, his temple is grazed by a bullet. This seems to push him into the dream-state, where he remains for the duration of the rioting. “A curtain of sparks…lit up the block like a blue dream; a dream I was dreaming…There was something I had to do and I knew that my forgetfulness wasn’t real, as one knows that the forgotten details of certain dreams are not truly forgotten but evaded” (526-8). The dream-state is a coping mechanism, a survival device—and not just his physical survival, but that of his entire identity, new, developing, and fragile.
One of the most crucial dream narratives in the novel is near the end of Chapter 25 when the Narrator stumbles, wounded, bloody, and disoriented, down a narrow passageway into a dark “dimensionless” room, where he knocks his head against a wall, adding injury to injury and slipping into a state he describes as “a state neither of dreaming nor of waking, but somewhere in between” (559). He dreams (lucidly, we will assume) that he is being held prisoner by all those men who had hijacked his identity at some point through ideology: Jack, Emerson, Bledsoe, Norton, Ras, and several nameless others. “I’m through with all your illusions and lies, I’m through running” (560), he says, and Jack asks him how that freedom feels, and he answers that it feels “painful and empty” (560). The conversation does not end there, continuing with several important ideas about spirituality, history, and the machinations of the world, but most importantly, in this half-dream, the Narrator finally claims his true identity.
In the prologue, our Invisible Man continues to dream, and one dream narrative here happens as, high on reefer, he listens to Louis Armstrong’s “Black and Blue.” More secure in his sense of personal identity, the Narrator is still searching for answers to his questions, and he is still troubled by questions about his past, although he is more willing to confront them. In his drug-induced dream-state, he talks with a freed slave woman who is ambivalent about her freedom, which ambivalence he says he can certainly relate to. The woman tells the Narrator that she loved her master—she bore sons by him—but that she loved her freedom more. He asks her about freedom—what it means, what it is, and he makes her sick with his questions. One of her sons begins to beat him, then the jazz takes over, filling his ears and head; he hears footsteps and thinks that Ras is coming for him. A machine speeds past, injuring him, and he awakens. What is most interesting about this dream, outside of its being rife with literary symbolism, is how it propels him fully into an acceptance of reality. He swears off drugs in favor of lucidity, a clear sense of time, and the ability to act immediately when called. “As Lacan put it, the Truth has the structure of a fiction: what appears in the guise of dreaming, or even daydreaming, is sometimes the truth on whose repression social reality is founded. Therein resides the ultimate lesson of [Freud]: reality is for those who cannot sustain the dream” (Žižek). In dreams, we heal ourselves. We may avoid reality for a time as a means of dealing with fear or pain, but at some point we must awaken from dreams so that we can act on the Truth to which they have led us.
Ironically, it seems that as the narrator begins to fully understand himself as invisible to others, he comes to visualize his true identity more clearly, and he arrives at this truth due in part to his understanding and working through his own dreams. Another irony present in the dreams of The Invisible Man is the manner in which, through dreaming and dreamwork, the Narrator subverts ideology, which Marx and Engels describe as “pure illusion, a pure dream…an imaginary construction” (154-55). His dreams turn out to be far nearer to reality than any of the ideologies to which he is subjected (Bledsoe’s) or which he accepts willingly (Brotherhood’s). Louis Althusser’s concept of ideologies is that through them, prevailing social structures and institutions inform the identities of human subjects, and this truth negates the humanist notion of self-determinism (1355). How fascinating it is to think that the elusive process of dreaming, which would seem to be less real than anything existing in the waking world, proves to be a vehicle by which the Narrator moves beyond ideology, which Althusser, agreeing with Marx and Engels, says is the true dream.
The Narrator seems, in the prologue and epilogue, on the verge of another revelation; he seems to be at a place where he feels as though his work has only just begun. Certainly he was sent underground by a great revelation, but he has more to learn. The process of moving out of ideology is arduous, and Adorno says it is impossible. However, as people who are at all times acted upon by the forces and machinations of ideology, we can maintain a spiritual and intellectual identity that is singular to ourselves. One way to access that identity is unconsciously through dreams. The Narrator may have broken free of the dogmatic snares of the Brotherhood, his memory of his grandfather, Bledsoe and Norton, and Ras, but he still seems, as demonstrated in the reefer dream, to be coming to terms with his past and how he will let that part of himself become part of his newfound “freedom.” When he asks, “Old woman, what is this freedom you love so well?” (11), it seems that he is still taking steps toward understanding that he has found his own freedom—a freedom from ideology.
Works Cited
Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, excerpted. In Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed. Vincent B. Leitch, ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 1335-1361. Print.
Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. New York: Modern Library, 1994. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. On Dreams. New York: Rebman, 1914. Print.
Lee, Raymond L.M. “The Self, Lucid Dreaming, and Postmodern Identity.” Pomo. Dreamgate.com. 2002. Web. 20 April 2015.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. “The German Ideology, Part I.” The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. Robert C. Tucker, ed. New York: Norton, 1978. 146-203. Print.
Žižek, Slavoj. “Freud Lives!” Slavoj Žižek Faculty Home Page. The European Graduate School. 25 May 2006. Web. 20 April 2015.