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I woke up this morning with a story going through my brain. I am writing it down so that I don’t forget! Will definitely have to work on it, as I think it has legs!! Enjoy!
I like frat boys. And boys visiting Bourbon for the first time from Kansas and Colorado. Usually they’re attending their best friend’s bachelor party, here for spring break or simply on that once in a lifetime road trip. And what am I? Well, I’m that local girl that they still dream about even after they’ve sunk back into their everyday life. When they’re sitting in their cubicle, or retelling the story about their trip to New Orleans (they’re all the same); even when they’re lying beside their girlfriend of going on six years now. They still dream about me. About us. About our night together in New Orleans. I’m their story.
I wasn’t always this way. And yes, I still love love as much as the next woman. But somewhere along the line, this way became easier. I always know the outcome this way. I’ll meet a cute guy in The Quarter; he’ll not be able to believe his luck. A local girl is into him. Generally I like to look like a bit of a bad girl, black corset top showing off my Day of the Dead shoulder tattoo, jeans and some funky heels. I usually wear my hair down or piled messily up, and depending on my mood, I may be the sexy smart girl by wearing my nerdy glasses. Boys love this look. Especially the ones with popped collars and too much product in their hair. I am not the girl that they date back home so of course they go for it. I am just about the antithesis.
If I’m not in the bad girl sort of mood, I’ll either go completely prepped out with my own popped collar unbuttoned a little too low with khaki short shorts or a mini and expensive looking sunglasses holding back my hair. Then it’s a nice surprise when the out of town boy gets to see that this girl who does in fact look like someone he would date back home, really is a bad girl when she takes off her shirt.
Like I said, I’ll always know the outcome this way. I’m not a prostitute, or promiscuous really; I honestly don’t get past some flirting and a kiss most of the time. This is just how I fill that need for male attention now. It is so much easier than having a boyfriend; I always know what will happen. We will hangout all night, and maybe part of the next day or so, but he always goes home. Some have promised that they would write, or call or come back to NOLA; whatever. And actually, a few of them do. But for most of them, I am a fantasy. Someone their girlfriend will never find out about. Someone their parent’s will never have to disapprove of. Someone who will not pressure them for a ring, or a promise or a relationship at all. I am just there. In New Orleans, and that’s where I will always be. He can dream about our time together as often as he likes; it wasn’t polluted with all of those relationshipy things that poison passion, lust, love. In that sense, we were perfect. If we were real, we wouldn’t be perfect, so that’s how we like it. It’s that promise of what could have been that is delicious. That keeps us smiling when our everyday life is boring, constrictive, or downright bad.
I was shaken a little when I heard, but that’s just it–I was shaken, a little. Not utterly destroyed, not hurt, not really–much, come to think of it. Just shaken. As for you, and me, and US, well, I’ve put that all in a nice little box, wrapped it in kraft paper, using plenty of tape, and tied it all together using string and a neat little bow. Right now, that box is still in the middle of the floor, but soon I will tire of tripping over it and will put it on a shelf. As time passes, I will add more things to my shelf, and eventually, well this box, the US box, will get pushed all the way to the back, with plenty of other boxes in its way. I am sure I will come across this box again one day, probably several times since it will always be on my shelf, but only when I am looking for it.
I want to take another stab at this piece of writing that I was working on a few months ago:
When Old Lady Sweet died they found a chest full of frozen tomatoes. Not canned, or quartered, or macerated in any sort of way, just whole Big Boys and Early Girls, some still on the vine, their skin shriveled and papery as lanterns. And they were solid; froze all the way through the consistency of croquet balls.
Clearing out the icebox and chest freezer fell to the man next door. Nathaniel had lived next to Miss Sweet for near thirty years, exchanging pleasantries, surplus casseroles and zucchinis in August (they both lived alone) and fruit cakes at Christmas. The tomatoes weren’t the strangest thing he’d seen. Peculiar, yes, but folks leaning that way always seemed a bit more interesting, rather than “off.” He supposed that in a whirl of embarrassment she had bagged them all up and placed them in the freezer, not wanting to unload them on her neighbor already full to the gills with his own Nebraska Weddings—in his opinion, the only tomato worth giving a second thought. She couldn’t just throw them out now could she?
So there they sat. Frozen in threes and fours placed in paper sacks and stacked neatly in the left corner making a tower almost clean to the top. What was he to do with them? He knew damn sure he didn’t want to drop them—that would break your toe quicker than anything.
(It is originally found here.)
This may be my favorite thing that I have written, particularly the first paragraph. But what to do with it? Should something have happened to Old Lady Sweet? That seems a bit conventional. And, she was an old lady. I don’t necessarily want to go killing her off. I was thinking that she died just because she was old. I could make the majority of the story take place in flashbacks…that could be interesting. Maybe Old Lady Sweet and Nathaniel had interesting lives when they were younger. Did they cross? Maybe. Or, I could go a completely different direction. Maybe some young couple moves into Ms. Sweet’s old house, and Nathaniel watches them. Hmmm… Gears are spinning. That’s good.
I suppose I need to narrow in on a time frame for the story. If the two of them were young during WWII, then this would be late seventies/early eighties? I don’t know if I like that. Maybe they were young now, and it takes place in the future (not dystopian or anything like that). Or, just sort of “anytime”. However, I would like there to be something big–a shared experience that they both had when younger. Sort of like Hurricane Katrina for me. Something that happened to many people, that many people who were not directly involved at least knew about and experienced from the outside. WPA? CCC? Right after the Depresssion? So much to think about.
I have no idea where the idea of Old Lady Sweet came from. I woke up thinking about her one morning. I can see the garage. It is in the humid, hot South, surrounded by her immaculate yard (reminds me of how grandpa kept the garage and garden).
Is this how ideas come to “real” writers? Hmmm…
