Scribble and Strum

Here's "The Red Fox Fur Coat", a favorite story of mine, first heard on Selected Shorts about a year ago in the episode "What do Women Want?". Go here for the reading; it's first story of the show. (Then, I recommend sticking around for John Updike's "Wife Wooing" growled lustily by Alec Baldwin, and Katherine Mansfield's eerie "The Woman At the Store" acted by Peter Gerety. Yeah, that was a gooood episode.)

( The text... )

I'm reading a collection of short stories by Russell Banks entitled The Angel on the Rooftop. Excellent, poignant stuff. I was drawn to the collection after hearing a podcast reading of this story:

Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story
by Russell Banks

1

TO BEGIN, then, here is a scene in which I am the man and my friend Sarah Cole is the woman. I don't mind describing it now, because I'm a decade older and don't look the same now as I did then, and Sarah is dead. That is to say, on hearing this story you might think me vain if I looked the same now as I did then, because I must tell you that I was extremely handsome then. And if Sarah were not dead, you'd think I were cruel, for I must tell you that Sarah was very homely. In fact, she was the homeliest woman I have ever known. Personally, I mean. I've seen a few women who were more unattractive than Sarah, but they were clearly freaks of nature or had been badly injured or had been victimized by some grotesque, disfiguring disease. Sarah, however, was quite normal, and I knew her well, because for three and a half months we were lovers.

( Here is the scene... )

Mmm. I've read the piece two or three times, now, and it hits and lingers with me each time.

"So where? Where would you go?" The woman rested her chin on her fingers. How beautiful, Gerry thought. That is a perfect face. He poured some cream into his coffee and gave the question some thought.

"Gee, I don't know. I mean, I never really gave it any thought. There are just so many. Places, I mean. Sometimes, I think 'Why would I ever want to leave New York? This is New York! THE city, you know? Other times, this place gets me so frustrated I think, 'You'd better get me a ticket out of here, pal, or I'm going to burn something down!'" He laughed, gave his coffee a stir, and stared out the diner's window. Beyond his reflection was the familiar street-crew paving on a bright, busy, summer day. They'd been working outside the eatery for two weeks. "You know? You know what I mean?"

The woman nodded and smiled, and Gerry returned his attention. "Well, if you just had to leave," she explained. "Had to. Let's say you were on the lam. For arson! Ha! Where would you escape to?"

"Huh. Well, my family--great-granddad and them--are from England, so I guess I'd go there." Gerry rubbed his neck and looked down into his sandwich, suddenly growing a little uneasy at the admission and attention he was giving this person. They really hadn't known each other for long.

"Ah... So London, then! Big Ben! Buckingham Palace!"

Gerry shook his head and smiled. Sure feels like I've known her for years. "Ha--no, no. Too big, too big. Ha, ha. My family's from one of the littler places like, um... Pickle-shire or something like that."

"Pick--PICKLEshire?!"

The woman laughed loudly and snorted, which drew attention and disapproving
looks from the elderly a few tables away--the diner's only other pair of customers. Damn, that's a gorgeous laugh. Gerry shrugged shyly, chuckled humbly at his gaffe, then lifted his spoon and affected an air of false haughtiness. "Yeah, ha. Pickleshire, England: A most, um, well-preserved village."

"What? Wha--oh! Hahaha..." The woman let out a grand, girlish laugh at this and pounded the table jovially. Silverware jumped and clattered, coffee splashed. The older couple was not amused. The woman excused herself from the table as she dabbed her teary cheeks with a napkin. "Well-preserved...ha, hmm." She smiled, got up and smoothed her dress, then headed toward the restroom, hip-brushing Gerry's shoulder on the way by.

Gerry sipped his coffee and sighed. God-damn, she's attractive. And smart. Seems young. She laughed at that crap joke? I wonder, is there a chance of... No, no. Wait... Do I have a chance here? No... No. NO, Gerry. With a heft of breath he gazed out the window. At the street crew, his sorry job framed oddly in the image of his face--the weathered mask of a single, lonely, fifty-year old man. That's you, Gerry. That's your family. He glanced at his watch: 2:24. "Damn it". Wiped his mouth. Drummed his fingers. Lunch break was nearly over, he realized, and soon he'd have to get back on the jackhammer or help Hutch with the mixer. Mr. Sandler had said he needed all the overtime he could squeeze out of him this week... No time. Never enough time. Gerry looked at the old folks at their corner table, silently chewing their meal and sharing a scowl at some slight he couldn't figure. He measured the man's gnarled, overworked hands as they shakily held down and sliced an omelet, just barely clinging to their purpose. "Damn. Wouldn't want to be that guy."

Wait. Gerry looked at his hands. AM I that guy? Gerry sat rapt for another minute, turning his palms over again slowly. He then quickly brushed their callouses over the legs of his jeans and snapped out of reverie.

Gerry smiled.

"No. There is time."

Soon, there was the comforting click of heels. Gerry erected a grin and looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the young, mysterious woman who'd chosen, out of the blue, to eat her lunch with him. Instead was their soggy waitress Harriet, who smiled, jabbed a slip of paper into his chest, then nudged her head toward the exit.

"Here's your bill, sugar." She chuckled with a forced spunk, habitual and dry. Harriet wasn't fooling anyone and she knew it. Didn't care. Couldn't, not anymore. "Lady had a rush in her, huh? Haha... She ran outta here pretty quick! Hoo, you musta said somethin' to get to her, right?" She nodded. "Mmm-hmm. For sure. Somethin' real baaad. That musta been some dirty joke, Gerry! Hahaha!" Her joints cracked.

"Dirty joke? Wait, what? She's gone?"

I've been killing time at work, reading some of my favorite stories available on Google Books, and fell deeply into these paragraphs from Leo Tolstoy's "Albert":

All the unappreciated minutes of that time, one after another, arose before him, but not as insignificant moments of a fleeting present, but as arrested, expanding, reprobating forms of the past. He contemplated them with joy and wept, — he wept not because the time had passed which he might have employed to better advantage (if that time were given back to him, he would not undertake to make better use of it), but because that time was past and would never return.

The recollections arose of their own accord, and Albert's violin kept saying one and the same thing. It said: "Past is the time for you, for ever past the time of strength, of love, and of happiness, past, — and it shall never return. Weep for it, weep all your tears, die in the tears for that time, — this is the one, best happiness which is left for you."

Mmm. That's the beginning. This story gets me every time.


The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy

This is one of my favorite short stories. Absolutely brilliant writing. I first heard it read by actor Harris Yulin on Selected Shorts, a podcast I consider to be one of the best things available on the internet. Here's a link to the reading (it's the third and final story in the episode "Brave New Worlds"): Click

( And here's the story itself: )~

I love it. The story is from the Saunders collection In Persuasion Nation.

I recently finished reading Tobias Wolff's short story collection In the Garden of the North American Martyrs. Such great stuff. Mr. Wolff is an amazing writer who produces stories highlighting the everyday, often hidden, depth of ordinary folks. The tales are subtle and understated, often with kicks that feel like nudges until thought upon. He makes it look easy. If I were a better writer, I'd be able to better communicate what his writing does for me and why I imagine he'll forever be one of my favorite authors.

One of the websites I occasionally visit is American Literature. They have a Short Story of the Day feature that can be just the thing if you need a quick fiction-fix. I was delighted to find, the day after I'd finished Garden, one of Mr. Wolff's stories from the book as a selected offering. "Hunters in the Snow" is its first second story, if I recall correctly; it sets a tone for a lot of what follows it.

Anyway, here's a link. Read if you'd like:

"Hunters in the Snow"

If you do, please let me know what you think. I'd love to discuss.