Read the following science fiction piece by Kurt Vonnegut. We'll discuss the following questions in class:
1) We currently have 27 amendments to our constitution. What is the significance of Vonnegut saying it’s the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments that make everyone equal? In other words, what might all those other amendments between now and 2081 have been for?
2) Given the communications technology we have, anybody who wants to can probably get a decent idea of what’s happening—good or bad—all around the world. We’re the first American generation in which even our poorer citizens have access to this kind of technology. Does that affect our obligation to help those in need? Put another way, can you think of a particular international problem that warrants more attention from the U.S., simply because we know about it?
3) Going along with that, can you think of a particular problem that we should stay out of, due to how much it might cost us—essentially, a situation in which we must compromise our morals in some way?
4) Let’s take that same line of thought and apply it to domestic policies—like the basic goal of ensuring equality for all. The philosopher Frederick Nietzsche one said, “The thirst for equality can express itself either as a desire to draw everyone down to one's level, or to raise oneself and everyone else up.” What’s the danger in aggressively trying to make everyone equal?
5) Same topic, different angle—what’s the danger in taking no serious action to fight inequality?
6) When Hazel suggests that George mess with his handicap, he says: “If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?” Remember what fallacy this is? If you don’t know the name, just try to figure out the basic flaw in his logic.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Poems raising social issues
English 103
Fall, 2010
I once had a professor tell me that if you hooked everybody in the room up to a polygraph test and asked the question, Are you going to die one day?, everybody would answer yes, but the polygraph would say that everybody was lying. In other words, very few of us actually believe that life is finite, that we're anything but indestructible and destined for greatness. That's not necessarily a bad thing; ignorance is bliss, after all. On the other hand, having a deeper understanding of the human condition--while troubling--can also give you a deeper, richer appreciation for the world around you.
The same can be said for the goal for your next paper, a "Researched Argument." By identifying a problem--not just something nebulous and distant that you don't really care about, but something you're genuinely concerned about or invested in--and maybe even trying to come up with a solution, we learn more about our society, more about ourselves, and most importantly, more about how to express ourselves in such a way that we might actually get somewhere.
With that in mind, read through the following poems—some openly controversial, some more subtle—and try to get a feel for what these are saying about identity, society, and/or human nature. In other words, whether the poets take an aggressive, humorous, or laid back approach, what issues are boiling beneath the surface?
Suicide Song
by Tony Hoagland
But now I am afraid I know too much to kill myself
Though I would still like to jump off a high bridge
At midnight, or paddle a kayak out to sea
Until I turn into a speck, or wear a necktie made of knotted rope
But people would squirm, it would hurt them in some way,
And I am too knowledgeable now to hurt people imprecisely.
No longer do I live by the law of me,
No longer having the excuse of youth or craziness,
And dying you know shows a serious ingratitude
for sunsets and beehive hairdos and the precious green corrugated
Pickles they place at the edge of your plate.
Killing yourself is wasteful like spilling oil
At sea or not recycling all the kisses you've been given,
And anyway, who has clothes nice enough to be caught dead in?
Not me. You stay alive you stupid asshole
Because you haven't been excused,
You haven't finished though it takes a mulish stubbornness
To chew this food.
It is a stone, it is an inconvenience, it is an innocence,
And I turn against it like a record
Turns against the needle
That makes it play.
Soldiering
by Daniel J. Langton
A gun on either side of me, a pond
with blood and foam, shit and corpses in it;
among the lily's pads, empty boxes
of bullets, bandages and processed food;
a quiet made up of too much blatant sound,
grass and weeds smashed by up-to-the-minute
shards of metal riven to find the fox's
hole I dug to do some transient good.
It is morning in her bedroom, soon she'll
dress and wander to her coffee, safe as sun,
while I huddle beneath a canopy
of shells, not sea shells, not the bursting shells
of peas, just chunks of murder left undone.
War is mere death, love made a man me.
Gone
by Douglas Goetsch
It’s easy to want someone dead.
Take this guy who removed
the muffler from his Harley,
now tearing down the block
at 3 a.m., or the dickhead
flicking a lit cigarette from his car
to the sidewalk. Something tells
me the woman tossing chicken
bones under the bus seat, now licking
her fingers, is of no use to the world.
Doubtless if they were weeping
in confessionals over their small
though highly revealing offenses,
or scribbling apologies in journals,
I’d feel differently. And don’t get
me wrong: I’d rather not be the one
to gun down the Harley guy—
though there are excellent sight-lines
from my fire escape. I’d just
as soon he plunge quietly into
a tectonic gap in 7th Avenue,
volunteer for long experiments
in orbit, beta test those new
exploding cell phones.
I never feel this way towards kids
I teach in the detention center,
though when they’re older, fully
tattooed and towering over me
with hardened contempt, hollering
back to one another as they march
in gangs through the subway car—
yeah, maybe then I’ll want them
gone. They tell me they want to die
young, draw graffiti that translates
to leaving a good corpse. They brag
to one another about throwing
their pets off the roof, and how
badly their stepfathers beat them.
When I was six my father’s father
shuffled to where I was playing
on the living room rug, took my
head in his hands and rammed it
into the coffee table. I later was told
he’d been down the hall trying
to take a nap and heard me laughing.
I was six and he flung my head
into a table. He’s dead now. What else
do you need to know about him?
A Certain Lady
by Dorothy Parker
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, —
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me — marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go….
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
My Dad
by Ryan Croken
I was standing out looking over the field,
and my dad called and he asked what I was doing,
and I said I was waiting for the crop circles to appear,
and he said “oh, I saw that on the news,”
and for a moment my dad and I
were nearly in agreement
about something.
Her Soul
by Ryan Croken
Gave
To God
Her soul,
God
said: “Ok
I don't need
This
But Ok.”
Waiting
by George Bilgere
When the guy in the hairpiece and the dark suit
asks me if I want to see my mother
as she lies in a back room, waiting,
I remember her, for some reason,
in a white swimsuit, on a yellow towel
on the sand at Crystal Lake,
pregnant with my sister,
waiting for me to finish examining
the sleek fuselage of a minnow,
the first dead thing I had ever seen,
before we went back to the cottage for lunch.
I remember her waiting up for my father
to come home from God knows where
in a Yellow Cab at 2 a.m.,
and waiting for me in the school parking lot
in our rusted blue station wagon
when whatever it was I was practicing for ran late.
I remember her, shoulders thrown back,
waiting in the unemployment line,
waiting for me to call, waiting for the sweet release
in the second glass of wine
after a long day working at the convalescent hospital
where everyone was waiting to die.
And I remember her waiting for me
at the airport when I got back from Japan,
waiting for everything to be all right,
waiting for her biopsy results.
Waiting.
But when the guy in his ridiculous hairpiece
asks me if I’d like to go back there
and be with her in that room where she lies
waiting to be cremated, I say No
thank you, and turn and walk out
onto the sunny street to join the crowd
hustling down the sidewalk,
and I look up at the beautiful white clouds
suspended above the city,
leaving her to wait in that room alone,
for which I will not be forgiven.
Little League
by Paul Hostovsky
When the ump produces
his little hand broom
and stops all play to stoop
and dust off home plate,
my daughter sitting beside me
looks up and gives me a smile that says
this is by far her favorite part of baseball.
And then when he skillfully
spits without getting any
on the catcher or the batter or himself,
she looks up again and smiles
even bigger.
But when someone hits a long foul ball
and everyone's eyes are on it
as it sails out of play ...
the ump has dipped his hand
into his bottomless black pocket
and conjured up a shiny new white one
like a brand new coin
from behind the catcher's ear,
which he then gives to the catcher
who seems to contain his surprise
though behind his mask his eyes are surely
as wide with wonder as hers.
A Day in the Life
by Marge Piercy
She is wakened at four a.m.
Of course she does not
pick up, but listens
through the answering machine
to the male voice promising
she will burn in hell.
At seven she opens her door.
A dead cat is hammered
to her porch: brown tabby.
Hit by a car, no collar.
She hugs her own Duke of Orange.
She cannot let him out.
She has her car locked
in a neighbor’s garage,
safe from pipe bombs, but
she must walk there. She drives
to work by a circuitous route.
Never the same way twice.
Outside the clinic three
men walk in circles with photos
of six-month fetuses.
They surround her car.
They are forbidden the parking
lot but police don’t care.
They bang on her hood.
As she gets out, they bump
and jostle her. One thrusts
his sign into her face.
She protects her eyes.
Something hard strikes her back.
Inside she sighs. Turns on
the lights, the air
conditioning, the coffee
machine. The security system
is always on. The funds
for teenage contraception,
gone into metal detectors.
She answers the phone.
“Is this where you kill babies?”
The second call a woman
is weeping. The day begins.
A girl raped by her stepfather,
a harried mother with too
many children and diabetes,
a terrified teenager who does
not remember how it happened,
a woman with an injunction
against an abuser. All day
she takes their calls,
all day she checks them in,
takes medical histories,
holds hands, dries tears,
hears secrets and lies and
horrors, soothes, continues.
Every time a new patient
walks in, a tinny voice
whispers, is this the one
carrying a handgun, with
an automatic weapon, with
a knife? She sits exposed.
She answers the phone.
“I’m going to cut your throat,
you murderer.” “Have
a nice day.” A bomb threat
is called in. She has
to empty the clinic.
The police finally come.
There is no bomb. The
doctor tells her how they
are stalking his daughter.
Then she goes home to Duke.
Eats a late supper by the TV.
Her mother calls. Her
boyfriend comes over. She
cries in his arms. He is,
she can tell, getting tired
of her tears. Next morning
she rises and day falls
on her like a truckload
of wet cement. This is
a true story, this is
what I know of virtue,
this is what I know
of goodness in our time.
A Work of Artifice
by Marge Piercy
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
Breaking Silence - For My Son
by Patricia Fargnoli
The night you were conceived
your father drove up Avon Mountain
and into the roadside rest
that looked over the little city,
its handful of scattered sparks.
I was eighteen and thin then
but the front seat of the 1956 Dodge
seemed cramped and dark,
the new diamond, I hadn't known
how to refuse, trapping flecks of light.
Even then the blackness was thick
as a muck you could swim through.
Your father pushed me down
on the scratchy seat, not roughly
but as if staking a claim,
and his face rose like
a thing-shadowed moon above me.
My legs ached in those peculiar angles,
my head bumped against the door.
I know you want me to say I loved him
but I wanted only to belong—to anyone.
So I let it happen,
the way I let all of it happen—
the marriage, his drinking, the rage.
This is not to say I loved you any less—
only I was young and didn't know yet
we can choose our lives.
It was dark in the car.
Such weight and pressure,
the wet earthy smell of night,
a slickness like glue.
And in a distant inviolate place,
as though it had nothing at all
to do with him, you were a spark
in silence catching.
The Thumb
by Peter Schneider
In a nanosecond David lost his thumb,
the one his mother painted
with pine pitch when he was four
to keep him from forever sucking it.
Unable to distinguish human flesh
the McCormick silo filler
sliced it off—
nail, bone, knuckle—
and blew it skyward
an ounce of humanity
in a thousand tons of silage.
Taken by surprise
David suppressed the truth.
Before the rush of blood
he held up the stump
saw the clean cut
grey bone marrow visible
and thrust it in his mouth
where the memory
of childhood security lay.
Then he swore,
tears rushing to his eyes, and ran
holding the stump with his good hand
blood oozing between his fingers.
Joe, a huge bulk of a man
and a constant neighbor,
jumped from his wagon
caught David like a child
held him to his chest
not intimidated by blood
or the tears of a grown man.
The Five Stage of Grief
by Linda Pastan
The night I lost you
someone pointed me towards
the Five Stages of Grief
Go that way, they said,
it's easy, like learning to climb
stairs after the amputation.
And so I climbed.
Denial was first.
I sat down at breakfast
carefully setting the table
for two. I passed you the toast---
you sat there. I passed
you the paper---you hid
behind it.
Anger seemed so familiar.
I burned the toast, snatched
the paper and read the headlines myself.
But they mentioned your departure,
and so I moved on to
Bargaining. What could I exchange
for you? The silence
after storms? My typing fingers?
Before I could decide, Depression
came puffing up, a poor relation
its suitcase tied together
with string. In the suitcase
were bandages for the eyes
and bottles sleep. I slid
all the way down the stairs
feeling nothing.
And all the time Hope
flashed on and off
in detective neon.
Hope was a signpost pointing
straight in the air.
Hope was my uncle's middle name,
he died of it.
After a year I am still climbing, though my feet slip
on your stone face.
The treeline
has long since disappeared;
green is a color
I have forgotten.
But now I see what I am climbing
towards: Acceptance
written in capital letters,
a special headline:
Acceptance
its name is in lights.
I struggle on,
waving and shouting.
Below, my whole life spreads its surf,
all the landscapes I've ever known
or dreamed of. Below
a fish jumps: the pulse
in your neck.
Acceptance. I finally
reach it.
But something is wrong.
Grief is a circular staircase.
I have lost you.
To A Daughter Leaving Home
by Linda Pastan
When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.
Fall, 2010
I once had a professor tell me that if you hooked everybody in the room up to a polygraph test and asked the question, Are you going to die one day?, everybody would answer yes, but the polygraph would say that everybody was lying. In other words, very few of us actually believe that life is finite, that we're anything but indestructible and destined for greatness. That's not necessarily a bad thing; ignorance is bliss, after all. On the other hand, having a deeper understanding of the human condition--while troubling--can also give you a deeper, richer appreciation for the world around you.
The same can be said for the goal for your next paper, a "Researched Argument." By identifying a problem--not just something nebulous and distant that you don't really care about, but something you're genuinely concerned about or invested in--and maybe even trying to come up with a solution, we learn more about our society, more about ourselves, and most importantly, more about how to express ourselves in such a way that we might actually get somewhere.
With that in mind, read through the following poems—some openly controversial, some more subtle—and try to get a feel for what these are saying about identity, society, and/or human nature. In other words, whether the poets take an aggressive, humorous, or laid back approach, what issues are boiling beneath the surface?
Suicide Song
by Tony Hoagland
But now I am afraid I know too much to kill myself
Though I would still like to jump off a high bridge
At midnight, or paddle a kayak out to sea
Until I turn into a speck, or wear a necktie made of knotted rope
But people would squirm, it would hurt them in some way,
And I am too knowledgeable now to hurt people imprecisely.
No longer do I live by the law of me,
No longer having the excuse of youth or craziness,
And dying you know shows a serious ingratitude
for sunsets and beehive hairdos and the precious green corrugated
Pickles they place at the edge of your plate.
Killing yourself is wasteful like spilling oil
At sea or not recycling all the kisses you've been given,
And anyway, who has clothes nice enough to be caught dead in?
Not me. You stay alive you stupid asshole
Because you haven't been excused,
You haven't finished though it takes a mulish stubbornness
To chew this food.
It is a stone, it is an inconvenience, it is an innocence,
And I turn against it like a record
Turns against the needle
That makes it play.
Soldiering
by Daniel J. Langton
A gun on either side of me, a pond
with blood and foam, shit and corpses in it;
among the lily's pads, empty boxes
of bullets, bandages and processed food;
a quiet made up of too much blatant sound,
grass and weeds smashed by up-to-the-minute
shards of metal riven to find the fox's
hole I dug to do some transient good.
It is morning in her bedroom, soon she'll
dress and wander to her coffee, safe as sun,
while I huddle beneath a canopy
of shells, not sea shells, not the bursting shells
of peas, just chunks of murder left undone.
War is mere death, love made a man me.
Gone
by Douglas Goetsch
It’s easy to want someone dead.
Take this guy who removed
the muffler from his Harley,
now tearing down the block
at 3 a.m., or the dickhead
flicking a lit cigarette from his car
to the sidewalk. Something tells
me the woman tossing chicken
bones under the bus seat, now licking
her fingers, is of no use to the world.
Doubtless if they were weeping
in confessionals over their small
though highly revealing offenses,
or scribbling apologies in journals,
I’d feel differently. And don’t get
me wrong: I’d rather not be the one
to gun down the Harley guy—
though there are excellent sight-lines
from my fire escape. I’d just
as soon he plunge quietly into
a tectonic gap in 7th Avenue,
volunteer for long experiments
in orbit, beta test those new
exploding cell phones.
I never feel this way towards kids
I teach in the detention center,
though when they’re older, fully
tattooed and towering over me
with hardened contempt, hollering
back to one another as they march
in gangs through the subway car—
yeah, maybe then I’ll want them
gone. They tell me they want to die
young, draw graffiti that translates
to leaving a good corpse. They brag
to one another about throwing
their pets off the roof, and how
badly their stepfathers beat them.
When I was six my father’s father
shuffled to where I was playing
on the living room rug, took my
head in his hands and rammed it
into the coffee table. I later was told
he’d been down the hall trying
to take a nap and heard me laughing.
I was six and he flung my head
into a table. He’s dead now. What else
do you need to know about him?
A Certain Lady
by Dorothy Parker
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, —
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me — marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go….
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
My Dad
by Ryan Croken
I was standing out looking over the field,
and my dad called and he asked what I was doing,
and I said I was waiting for the crop circles to appear,
and he said “oh, I saw that on the news,”
and for a moment my dad and I
were nearly in agreement
about something.
Her Soul
by Ryan Croken
Gave
To God
Her soul,
God
said: “Ok
I don't need
This
But Ok.”
Waiting
by George Bilgere
When the guy in the hairpiece and the dark suit
asks me if I want to see my mother
as she lies in a back room, waiting,
I remember her, for some reason,
in a white swimsuit, on a yellow towel
on the sand at Crystal Lake,
pregnant with my sister,
waiting for me to finish examining
the sleek fuselage of a minnow,
the first dead thing I had ever seen,
before we went back to the cottage for lunch.
I remember her waiting up for my father
to come home from God knows where
in a Yellow Cab at 2 a.m.,
and waiting for me in the school parking lot
in our rusted blue station wagon
when whatever it was I was practicing for ran late.
I remember her, shoulders thrown back,
waiting in the unemployment line,
waiting for me to call, waiting for the sweet release
in the second glass of wine
after a long day working at the convalescent hospital
where everyone was waiting to die.
And I remember her waiting for me
at the airport when I got back from Japan,
waiting for everything to be all right,
waiting for her biopsy results.
Waiting.
But when the guy in his ridiculous hairpiece
asks me if I’d like to go back there
and be with her in that room where she lies
waiting to be cremated, I say No
thank you, and turn and walk out
onto the sunny street to join the crowd
hustling down the sidewalk,
and I look up at the beautiful white clouds
suspended above the city,
leaving her to wait in that room alone,
for which I will not be forgiven.
Little League
by Paul Hostovsky
When the ump produces
his little hand broom
and stops all play to stoop
and dust off home plate,
my daughter sitting beside me
looks up and gives me a smile that says
this is by far her favorite part of baseball.
And then when he skillfully
spits without getting any
on the catcher or the batter or himself,
she looks up again and smiles
even bigger.
But when someone hits a long foul ball
and everyone's eyes are on it
as it sails out of play ...
the ump has dipped his hand
into his bottomless black pocket
and conjured up a shiny new white one
like a brand new coin
from behind the catcher's ear,
which he then gives to the catcher
who seems to contain his surprise
though behind his mask his eyes are surely
as wide with wonder as hers.
A Day in the Life
by Marge Piercy
She is wakened at four a.m.
Of course she does not
pick up, but listens
through the answering machine
to the male voice promising
she will burn in hell.
At seven she opens her door.
A dead cat is hammered
to her porch: brown tabby.
Hit by a car, no collar.
She hugs her own Duke of Orange.
She cannot let him out.
She has her car locked
in a neighbor’s garage,
safe from pipe bombs, but
she must walk there. She drives
to work by a circuitous route.
Never the same way twice.
Outside the clinic three
men walk in circles with photos
of six-month fetuses.
They surround her car.
They are forbidden the parking
lot but police don’t care.
They bang on her hood.
As she gets out, they bump
and jostle her. One thrusts
his sign into her face.
She protects her eyes.
Something hard strikes her back.
Inside she sighs. Turns on
the lights, the air
conditioning, the coffee
machine. The security system
is always on. The funds
for teenage contraception,
gone into metal detectors.
She answers the phone.
“Is this where you kill babies?”
The second call a woman
is weeping. The day begins.
A girl raped by her stepfather,
a harried mother with too
many children and diabetes,
a terrified teenager who does
not remember how it happened,
a woman with an injunction
against an abuser. All day
she takes their calls,
all day she checks them in,
takes medical histories,
holds hands, dries tears,
hears secrets and lies and
horrors, soothes, continues.
Every time a new patient
walks in, a tinny voice
whispers, is this the one
carrying a handgun, with
an automatic weapon, with
a knife? She sits exposed.
She answers the phone.
“I’m going to cut your throat,
you murderer.” “Have
a nice day.” A bomb threat
is called in. She has
to empty the clinic.
The police finally come.
There is no bomb. The
doctor tells her how they
are stalking his daughter.
Then she goes home to Duke.
Eats a late supper by the TV.
Her mother calls. Her
boyfriend comes over. She
cries in his arms. He is,
she can tell, getting tired
of her tears. Next morning
she rises and day falls
on her like a truckload
of wet cement. This is
a true story, this is
what I know of virtue,
this is what I know
of goodness in our time.
A Work of Artifice
by Marge Piercy
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.
Breaking Silence - For My Son
by Patricia Fargnoli
The night you were conceived
your father drove up Avon Mountain
and into the roadside rest
that looked over the little city,
its handful of scattered sparks.
I was eighteen and thin then
but the front seat of the 1956 Dodge
seemed cramped and dark,
the new diamond, I hadn't known
how to refuse, trapping flecks of light.
Even then the blackness was thick
as a muck you could swim through.
Your father pushed me down
on the scratchy seat, not roughly
but as if staking a claim,
and his face rose like
a thing-shadowed moon above me.
My legs ached in those peculiar angles,
my head bumped against the door.
I know you want me to say I loved him
but I wanted only to belong—to anyone.
So I let it happen,
the way I let all of it happen—
the marriage, his drinking, the rage.
This is not to say I loved you any less—
only I was young and didn't know yet
we can choose our lives.
It was dark in the car.
Such weight and pressure,
the wet earthy smell of night,
a slickness like glue.
And in a distant inviolate place,
as though it had nothing at all
to do with him, you were a spark
in silence catching.
The Thumb
by Peter Schneider
In a nanosecond David lost his thumb,
the one his mother painted
with pine pitch when he was four
to keep him from forever sucking it.
Unable to distinguish human flesh
the McCormick silo filler
sliced it off—
nail, bone, knuckle—
and blew it skyward
an ounce of humanity
in a thousand tons of silage.
Taken by surprise
David suppressed the truth.
Before the rush of blood
he held up the stump
saw the clean cut
grey bone marrow visible
and thrust it in his mouth
where the memory
of childhood security lay.
Then he swore,
tears rushing to his eyes, and ran
holding the stump with his good hand
blood oozing between his fingers.
Joe, a huge bulk of a man
and a constant neighbor,
jumped from his wagon
caught David like a child
held him to his chest
not intimidated by blood
or the tears of a grown man.
The Five Stage of Grief
by Linda Pastan
The night I lost you
someone pointed me towards
the Five Stages of Grief
Go that way, they said,
it's easy, like learning to climb
stairs after the amputation.
And so I climbed.
Denial was first.
I sat down at breakfast
carefully setting the table
for two. I passed you the toast---
you sat there. I passed
you the paper---you hid
behind it.
Anger seemed so familiar.
I burned the toast, snatched
the paper and read the headlines myself.
But they mentioned your departure,
and so I moved on to
Bargaining. What could I exchange
for you? The silence
after storms? My typing fingers?
Before I could decide, Depression
came puffing up, a poor relation
its suitcase tied together
with string. In the suitcase
were bandages for the eyes
and bottles sleep. I slid
all the way down the stairs
feeling nothing.
And all the time Hope
flashed on and off
in detective neon.
Hope was a signpost pointing
straight in the air.
Hope was my uncle's middle name,
he died of it.
After a year I am still climbing, though my feet slip
on your stone face.
The treeline
has long since disappeared;
green is a color
I have forgotten.
But now I see what I am climbing
towards: Acceptance
written in capital letters,
a special headline:
Acceptance
its name is in lights.
I struggle on,
waving and shouting.
Below, my whole life spreads its surf,
all the landscapes I've ever known
or dreamed of. Below
a fish jumps: the pulse
in your neck.
Acceptance. I finally
reach it.
But something is wrong.
Grief is a circular staircase.
I have lost you.
To A Daughter Leaving Home
by Linda Pastan
When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.
"Blood of Dresden" by Kurt Vonnegut
Read the following nonfiction piece, written by Kurt Vonnegut, a celebrated American author, about his experiences in World War II. Vonnegut was a POW in the German city of Dresden while it was being bombed by Allied planes.
Famous Quote Activity
Famous Quote Activity
Read these famous quotes, all of which have to do with identity—religious identity, personal identity, national identity, etc. Many of these are controversial. Try to paraphrase the author’s statement. Then discuss whether you agree or disagree. How could you go about finding evidence to back up your view? Note: all of this is potential fodder for your Argument papers!!!
1) “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
2) “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” —Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
3) “The unexamined life is not worth living.” —Socrates (469 BC-399 BC)
4) “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” —Wilhelm Stekel (1868-1940)
5) “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” —Barry Switzer (1937- )
6) “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” -Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
7) “What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from.’” —Marilyn vos Savant (1946- )
8) “You can be loyal to Jesus just as you’re loyal to your own country. But you’re not serving your country if you think it’s necessarily the best of all possible countries. That is doing a disservice to your country. It is refusing to be critical where criticism is proper. So of religion. Every religion should be self-critical or else it soon degenerates into a self-righteous hypocrisy. —Alan Watts (1915-1973)
9) “A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.” —George William Curtis (1824-1892)
10) “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.” —Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
11) “There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him—early.” –Mark Twain (1835-1910)
12) "Not all that glitters is gold. Not all who wander are lost." -JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)
13) “We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.” F.H. Bradley (1846–1924)
14) "Learn the rules, and then forget them." —Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
15) “An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain - the equality of all men.” -Ignazio Silone (1900-1978)
16) “I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs.”
–Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
17) “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” —Blaise Pascal, a Catholic philosopher (1623-1662)
Read these famous quotes, all of which have to do with identity—religious identity, personal identity, national identity, etc. Many of these are controversial. Try to paraphrase the author’s statement. Then discuss whether you agree or disagree. How could you go about finding evidence to back up your view? Note: all of this is potential fodder for your Argument papers!!!
1) “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
2) “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” —Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
3) “The unexamined life is not worth living.” —Socrates (469 BC-399 BC)
4) “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” —Wilhelm Stekel (1868-1940)
5) “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” —Barry Switzer (1937- )
6) “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” -Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
7) “What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom ‘to’ and freedom ‘from.’” —Marilyn vos Savant (1946- )
8) “You can be loyal to Jesus just as you’re loyal to your own country. But you’re not serving your country if you think it’s necessarily the best of all possible countries. That is doing a disservice to your country. It is refusing to be critical where criticism is proper. So of religion. Every religion should be self-critical or else it soon degenerates into a self-righteous hypocrisy. —Alan Watts (1915-1973)
9) “A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.” —George William Curtis (1824-1892)
10) “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.” —Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
11) “There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him—early.” –Mark Twain (1835-1910)
12) "Not all that glitters is gold. Not all who wander are lost." -JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)
13) “We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.” F.H. Bradley (1846–1924)
14) "Learn the rules, and then forget them." —Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
15) “An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain - the equality of all men.” -Ignazio Silone (1900-1978)
16) “I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs.”
–Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
17) “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” —Blaise Pascal, a Catholic philosopher (1623-1662)
MLA Citation Lesson/Crash Course
Citations and Plagiarism
(aka How to Look Smart and Not Fail a Class)
For full guidelines, check out The Brief Penguin Handbook. Here’s a crash course, though. For MLA internal citations, list in parentheses the author’s last name (or the editor’s last name, or one of the editors’ last names, if there are multiple authors, like in a textbook), plus the page number for written sources and the paragraph number (if possible) for online sources. The period goes after the last parenthesis. Like this:
However, there is one exception—when you give the author’s name earlier in the sentence.
If there’s no author, just list the name of the website or source (example: ABC News).
For MLA citation on a work cited page, you can also use the citation generator found on http://www.palomar.edu/dsps/actc/mla/. For you own information, though, this is how it’s done:
Article in a Printed, Scholarly Journal:
Jacobson, Elmer. “10 Causes of Global Warming.” Newsweek. pp. 23-42. March 3rd, 2006.
Internet News Site:
Last name, First name. “Name of Article.” Name of site. Date of last update. Date you accessed the site.
Twin, Alexandra. “Fed Can’t Save Stocks.” CNN. October 8, 2008.
Warning: if you type this then press “enter”, it’ll turn the web address into a hyperlink. On a PC, press control and Z at the same time to undo this.
When you have more than one source, list them alphabetically on your Works Cited page.
*
OK, and now an important word on plagiarism…
Plagiarism is basically using someone else’s ideas, research, statistics, or descriptions without giving them proper credit. Note: It’s possible to cite something and still commit plagiarism!
Whenever you cite something but don’t use quotes, you’re indicating that you’re paraphrasing (i.e. significantly changing something into your own words), or referencing some raw fact or idea you used. If what you cite as a paraphrase is actually identical—or close to identical—to the original, this constitutes plagiarism and results in a failing grade, just the same as if you copied a paper or paragraph directly off the internet.
Remember, you have to cite EVERYTHING you put in a paper that you didn’t already know/that isn’t common knowledge. If you use the author’s/website’s/article’s words directly, you MUST put them in quotes with an internal citation immediately after. In general, a student who shows me their rough draft but tells me that they “haven’t put their citations in yet” is immediately on my radar because it’s much easier (and safer) to put in your citations as you go.
Again, if you give an internal citation WITHOUT quotes, but you haven't really changed the phrasing very much, that’s just as bad as providing no citation at all. So if I find that phrase (or a very similar one) online or in an article, you’ve technically plagiarized. And you fail.
Don't panic—just take a look at this short example to show you what I mean. If you have questions, ask me (or the Writing Center). Here’s a fictitious passage by John Smith, from paragraphs 14 and 15 of Ancient History:
The biblical story of Noah is by no means the only story of an ancient, cataclysmic flood. In fact, many religions and peoples from the Greeks to the Aztecs have similar stories; this leads scientists to speculate that some sort of ancient cataclysm might actually have occurred. Some scientists further speculate, based on geographical evidence, as well as patterns in the distribution of these myths, that the flood was caused by a massive meteor strike in the Indian Ocean in 2084 BC. Such a meteor strike would have triggered great tsunamis and other destructive climate changes.
This calamity was relatively mild compared to other cataclysmic changes our planet has endured, though. You may have heard that a meteor strike caused the death of the dinosaurs, but did you know that most scientists and paleontologists agree that there have been at least five mass extinctions in the history of our planet, each resulting in the loss of at least 50% of animal species around at the time of the extinction?
Here are two examples of situations in which the above passage is cited. The first constitutes plagiarism; the second does not.
Plagiarized Version (which results in failure):
There are many stories of floods in the ancient world. The Greeks and Aztecs have similar tales, which has led scientists to think that some sort of ancient flood actually took place. Some even speculate, based on geographical evidence and patterns in the distribution of these stories, that the flood was caused by a massive meteor in the Indian Ocean in 2084 BC. Such a strike would have triggered tsunamis and other climate changes. However, this was not the first time life on earth was nearly wiped out; in fact, most scientists agree that it’s happened at least five times (Smith, 14-15).
Acceptable Version:
In John Smith’s book, Ancient History, he notes many intriguing similarities between the story of Noah and the flood, found in the Bible, and other flood myths throughout the world. He also points out that these similarities and other evidence has prompted scientists to theorize “…that the flood was caused by a massive meteor strike in the Indian Ocean in 2084 BC” (Smith, par. 14). However, our planet has endured worse. For example, there may have been “…at least five mass extinctions in the history of our planet,” like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs (15). Such events illustrate how fragile the ecosystem of any given species really is.
The Plagiarized Version is plagiarism because it isn’t clear what ideas come from the author of the paper,
and which ideas come from John Smith. Also, the phrasing is nearly identical in many places. The
Acceptable Version makes clear which ideas the author is citing, but more importantly, it also puts forth
some original ideas.
When in doubt, don’t just restate the passage you read; ask yourself why it’s important. Also, you can try
setting aside whatever source you’re quoting and restating it from memory. This is a good way to help put it
in your own words. Finally, never just drop a quote in a paper; always set it up first.
*
Now, a quick lesson on commas and semi-colons. This may not seem like a big deal but small mistakes in grammar really affect how smart your reader thinks you are. In other words, typos make you look stupid. They can also cost you a job in the real world.
A semi-colon and a period are basically used for the same thing—to separate two independent clauses (aka what could be a complete sentence). Commas, on the other hand, usually denote sequence or are used to separate independent and dependent clauses.
Exception: if you have a sequence that would normally be separated by commas (like items you bought at a store), but you want to group some of them, you can use semi-colons to separate the groups. Example:
While I was at the store, I bought skim and whole milk; white, wheat, and rye bread; and a big-ass box of frozen chicken.
OK, now for some practice. What should go in the blanks below: a comma or a semi-colon?
1) Poor class participation means a loss of participation points and unexcused absences for disruptive behavior ____ as a general rule, rude students cannot pass discussion-based classes.
2) I like pizza _____ it’s my favorite food.
3) Jonathan Swift doesn’t actually think we should eat babies ____ in fact, “A Modest Proposal” is a famous work of satire, or deliberate exaggeration to prove a point. In this case, Swift was illustrating the apathy of the rich towards the starving poor in 18th century Ireland.
4) I have lived in Osage, Iowa _____ Iowa City, Iowa _____ Carbondale, Illinois and Muncie, Indiana.
(aka How to Look Smart and Not Fail a Class)
For full guidelines, check out The Brief Penguin Handbook. Here’s a crash course, though. For MLA internal citations, list in parentheses the author’s last name (or the editor’s last name, or one of the editors’ last names, if there are multiple authors, like in a textbook), plus the page number for written sources and the paragraph number (if possible) for online sources. The period goes after the last parenthesis. Like this:
When it comes to grammar, the evidence is clear that, “readers equate correctness with the writer’s competence” (Bullock 80).
However, there is one exception—when you give the author’s name earlier in the sentence.
When it comes to grammar, Bullock believes that, “readers equate correctness with the writer’s competence” (80).
If there’s no author, just list the name of the website or source (example: ABC News).
For MLA citation on a work cited page, you can also use the citation generator found on http://www.palomar.edu/dsps/actc/mla/. For you own information, though, this is how it’s done:
Article in a Printed, Scholarly Journal:
Last name, First name. “Name of Article.” Name of magazine. page numbers. Date.
Jacobson, Elmer. “10 Causes of Global Warming.” Newsweek. pp. 23-42. March 3rd, 2006.
Internet News Site:
Last name, First name. “Name of Article.” Name of site. Date of last update. Date you accessed the site.
Twin, Alexandra. “Fed Can’t Save Stocks.” CNN. October 8, 2008.
Warning: if you type this then press “enter”, it’ll turn the web address into a hyperlink. On a PC, press control and Z at the same time to undo this.
When you have more than one source, list them alphabetically on your Works Cited page.
*
OK, and now an important word on plagiarism…
Plagiarism is basically using someone else’s ideas, research, statistics, or descriptions without giving them proper credit. Note: It’s possible to cite something and still commit plagiarism!
Whenever you cite something but don’t use quotes, you’re indicating that you’re paraphrasing (i.e. significantly changing something into your own words), or referencing some raw fact or idea you used. If what you cite as a paraphrase is actually identical—or close to identical—to the original, this constitutes plagiarism and results in a failing grade, just the same as if you copied a paper or paragraph directly off the internet.
Remember, you have to cite EVERYTHING you put in a paper that you didn’t already know/that isn’t common knowledge. If you use the author’s/website’s/article’s words directly, you MUST put them in quotes with an internal citation immediately after. In general, a student who shows me their rough draft but tells me that they “haven’t put their citations in yet” is immediately on my radar because it’s much easier (and safer) to put in your citations as you go.
Again, if you give an internal citation WITHOUT quotes, but you haven't really changed the phrasing very much, that’s just as bad as providing no citation at all. So if I find that phrase (or a very similar one) online or in an article, you’ve technically plagiarized. And you fail.
Don't panic—just take a look at this short example to show you what I mean. If you have questions, ask me (or the Writing Center). Here’s a fictitious passage by John Smith, from paragraphs 14 and 15 of Ancient History:
The biblical story of Noah is by no means the only story of an ancient, cataclysmic flood. In fact, many religions and peoples from the Greeks to the Aztecs have similar stories; this leads scientists to speculate that some sort of ancient cataclysm might actually have occurred. Some scientists further speculate, based on geographical evidence, as well as patterns in the distribution of these myths, that the flood was caused by a massive meteor strike in the Indian Ocean in 2084 BC. Such a meteor strike would have triggered great tsunamis and other destructive climate changes.
This calamity was relatively mild compared to other cataclysmic changes our planet has endured, though. You may have heard that a meteor strike caused the death of the dinosaurs, but did you know that most scientists and paleontologists agree that there have been at least five mass extinctions in the history of our planet, each resulting in the loss of at least 50% of animal species around at the time of the extinction?
Here are two examples of situations in which the above passage is cited. The first constitutes plagiarism; the second does not.
Plagiarized Version (which results in failure):
There are many stories of floods in the ancient world. The Greeks and Aztecs have similar tales, which has led scientists to think that some sort of ancient flood actually took place. Some even speculate, based on geographical evidence and patterns in the distribution of these stories, that the flood was caused by a massive meteor in the Indian Ocean in 2084 BC. Such a strike would have triggered tsunamis and other climate changes. However, this was not the first time life on earth was nearly wiped out; in fact, most scientists agree that it’s happened at least five times (Smith, 14-15).
Acceptable Version:
In John Smith’s book, Ancient History, he notes many intriguing similarities between the story of Noah and the flood, found in the Bible, and other flood myths throughout the world. He also points out that these similarities and other evidence has prompted scientists to theorize “…that the flood was caused by a massive meteor strike in the Indian Ocean in 2084 BC” (Smith, par. 14). However, our planet has endured worse. For example, there may have been “…at least five mass extinctions in the history of our planet,” like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs (15). Such events illustrate how fragile the ecosystem of any given species really is.
The Plagiarized Version is plagiarism because it isn’t clear what ideas come from the author of the paper,
and which ideas come from John Smith. Also, the phrasing is nearly identical in many places. The
Acceptable Version makes clear which ideas the author is citing, but more importantly, it also puts forth
some original ideas.
When in doubt, don’t just restate the passage you read; ask yourself why it’s important. Also, you can try
setting aside whatever source you’re quoting and restating it from memory. This is a good way to help put it
in your own words. Finally, never just drop a quote in a paper; always set it up first.
*
Now, a quick lesson on commas and semi-colons. This may not seem like a big deal but small mistakes in grammar really affect how smart your reader thinks you are. In other words, typos make you look stupid. They can also cost you a job in the real world.
A semi-colon and a period are basically used for the same thing—to separate two independent clauses (aka what could be a complete sentence). Commas, on the other hand, usually denote sequence or are used to separate independent and dependent clauses.
Exception: if you have a sequence that would normally be separated by commas (like items you bought at a store), but you want to group some of them, you can use semi-colons to separate the groups. Example:
While I was at the store, I bought skim and whole milk; white, wheat, and rye bread; and a big-ass box of frozen chicken.
OK, now for some practice. What should go in the blanks below: a comma or a semi-colon?
1) Poor class participation means a loss of participation points and unexcused absences for disruptive behavior ____ as a general rule, rude students cannot pass discussion-based classes.
2) I like pizza _____ it’s my favorite food.
3) Jonathan Swift doesn’t actually think we should eat babies ____ in fact, “A Modest Proposal” is a famous work of satire, or deliberate exaggeration to prove a point. In this case, Swift was illustrating the apathy of the rich towards the starving poor in 18th century Ireland.
4) I have lived in Osage, Iowa _____ Iowa City, Iowa _____ Carbondale, Illinois and Muncie, Indiana.
"What Would You Have Me Do?" by Pia Ehrhardt
What Would You Have Me Do?
by Pia Z. Ehrhardt
We’d driven from Baton Rouge to Myrtle Beach to see my husband’s son. Rodney was twenty-one and had been working in South Carolina for the summer. Mornings, he strapped kids into go-carts at Sand Kastle Kingdom, and afternoons, he ministered on the beach. He was raised a Catholic, but during the divorce his mother joined an evangelical church and had him rebaptized when he was fifteen.
“Why’d you let her do that?” I asked once.
“How could I stop her?”
“A court order,” I said, but he didn’t answer.
Rodney had spoken to his father a few times by phone, hadn’t sounded homesick but like he’d be OK with a visit. He was waiting for us at the Pancake Shack with a pretty girl and got up from the table. He had on a kelly-green uniform from the amusement park and a Confederate baseball cap.
“Do you know the meaning of that flag?” Matthew, my husband, said, pointing to Rodney’s head.
“Yeah.”
“Then take it off,” Matthew said, extending his hand. He pulled his son close, and they clapped each other on the back.
Rodney introduced us to Marguerite. She wore dangly turquoise earrings, white denim cutoffs, and a black-ribbed tank top. They’d gone skydiving that morning. “The instructor taped us free-falling,” he said, wagging the video at us, a done deal.
Our five-year-old son, Logan, pushed his chair closer to Rodney’s and wanted to know if he could jump, too.
“No,” I answered.
Matthew asked the waitress to bring ice water. “At any point did you want to change your mind?” he said.
“Never,” Rodney said. “They train you by making you jump off a three-story building.”
Marguerite nodded her head, his thrill pal. “We smiled the whole way down, right, Buddy?” she said. “The Lord kept his hands under us.” She cupped hers to show us how.
Rodney ordered what he always ate, one egg sunny side up, grits, buttered white toast, but he’d started drinking coffee with cream and sugar.
“Remember how I used to trick you at breakfast with that rubber egg?” his father said.
Rodney shook his head. “I was a sucker back then.” He leaned over and shoveled food into his mouth like the plate was on fire.
Logan flooded his pancakes with syrup. “Dad tries giving me that egg.”
“You’ll learn,” Rodney said.
Logan forked food in his mouth as fast as his brother. “Quit eating like Vikings,” I said to them. Rodney gave me a dirty look that stung me. We’d never had a cross word, but I’d never corrected him. He’d always been someone else’s kid, and I tried to curry favor by staying out of his way, unless he needed me to run interference with his dad. Or wanted someone to listen to how things happened. When he was ten, eleven, twelve he’d recount long, detailed plots of the movies he’d just seen, backtracking when he messed up some bit of it. I was grateful that he thought I cared.
“You got taller,” Matthew said.
“Measure hands.” Rodney pressed his palm against his father’s, and his nail-bitten fingers hooked over Matthew’s.
“Do me!” Logan said, knocking over his glass of milk. He looked over at me, worried.
“It’s OK,” I said. I tried to downplay spilled drinks because my mother had berated me when I made a mess, but the first look on my face—“Can’t you be careful?”—is what Logan saw.
So did Matthew, who wiped up the mess, calm, because he knew what to do for this son. “The job’s going okay?” he asked Rodney, because we couldn’t talk about the religion, his zeal, the Real Work he’d come to do.
“I could live here,” Rodney said, splitting a piece of carrot cake with Marguerite. “Next, we’re bungee jumping off a bridge.”
Marguerite leaned forward. “They say it’s like suicide with your second chance built in.”
Matthew didn’t comment, just asked for the check. He was sure of what she would never know: his son was careful, shy, susceptible.
Rodney kissed Marguerite good-bye so he could show us to our hotel. He waited in the lobby while we changed into swimsuits because Logan needed to swim immediately.
“Throw me high,” he instructed his half-brother, and Rodney did.
“Easy,” I said, because the pool was kidney shaped, and I didn’t trust him right then with the one who was mine.
“Come here, little baby,” Rodney said, launching Logan again.
“I’m in kindergarten.”
“That’s enough,” I said.
Rodney had lost weight and had a deep tan and a washboard stomach. Every muscle was sharp cut. On whose watch did these changes happen? Suddenly there was a stack of reasons I would never again be with a boy like him: age, impropriety, religion, his disregard. I was forty, furtive, righteous, and angry at Rodney for proselytizing, angry at his father for letting the ex dunk a boy who used to be curious and rational, angry at myself for not riding out this troubling visit on a wave of near-mother love.
Rodney sat with his dad and me on the side of the pool. In the middle of his back was a rug burn in the shape of New Jersey that probably matched the states on Marguerite’s knees.
“Do you still think about medical school?” I said, because I didn’t want to give up.
“Bible college,” he said. “I want my own church one day.”
“So you’re not going to finish LSU?” his father said.
“They’ve asked me to stay on in Myrtle Beach and work with the youth group.”
Matthew was too quiet, so I took a breath, got ready to question Rodney, but Matthew touched my arm to protect Rodney, which made me jealous. My heart dehydrated. I might not always be a wife, but Rodney was a son for good.
“This area has a hundred and sixty golf courses,” Rodney said. Chamber of Commerce stuff because none of us played. His eyes were hidden behind dark wraparound glasses.
“Can I buy you a beer?” his father said.
“I don’t drink,” Rodney said. “I’m gonna need to get over to the beach for Sunset Service. I’m preaching, and I’d like it if you came.”
“I don’t think, son,” Matthew said. “Religion is personal.”
Rodney looked disappointed and like he had an answer to that reaction.
“I want to go,” Logan said, kicking water at his father.
“We’re gonna stay and swim,” Matthew told Logan.
“Here, pal,” Rodney said, handing the skydiving cassette to Logan. “Watch me on the tape.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, so it wouldn’t get wet.
Matthew poured the rest of his beer into a Styrofoam cup he could take up to our room. “Christ. It’s ugly here,” he said when Rodney was gone.
This place wasn’t a beach. It was one arcade built on top of another arcade across the street from dirty sand and waves.
Clouds darkened and drew closer. The heat index was 107, and I hoped a thunderstorm would let go on top of us and stop all the sun. Rain would drive us all back inside to turn off the lights, grab a pillow, and order a movie.
Logan, bored without Rodney, wanted to go up to the room and watch cartoons.
“What are we doing here?” Matthew said, sitting down on the double bed. “He’s gone.”
“Mom,” Logan said, digging in my purse. “Put in Rodney’s tape.”
The video was bleached out and grainy, but it took us through their training, the harnessed jump off a thirty-foot wall, them stepping into orange jumpsuits and slipping their arms through parachute harnesses, the patchwork of views from the open door of the plane, nervous laughter, muffled prayer, and then Marguerite jumped out first, her body starfishing through space. Rodney looked at the camera, and his face was pale.
“Go!” the instructor said.
“I can’t,” Rodney said.
His father moved toward the TV as if to reach through the screen and pull him inside.
“Go! With me!” the man said, and he grabbed Rodney’s hand and they jumped out together and somehow caught up to Marguerite. The three jumpers held hands. The camera mounted on the instructor’s helmet caught the two newbies smiling, yes, but ready to pull the chutes, and the free fall that I had imagined was akin to fucking at ten thousand feet looked more like pained waiting. “Pull!” the instructor said, and everyone got jerked up by invisible strings. The float down was all release and joy, too personal for me to watch, so I looked at my bare feet on the thin carpet.
Theirs finally touched ground, and Matthew took a deep breath. “I think I could do that.”
“I could, too,” Logan said. He jumped high on the bed, his hands clutching imaginary parachute straps.
Again, I tried to understand how Matthew had given up dominion over his older son. “Does it upset you that you can’t tell him what to do anymore?”
“I don’t want to push him away,” he said.
“So what do you do with the worry?” I said, but the question was mean, a poke in a wound.
“What would you have me do?” he said, popping open a cold can of beer. I lived on the wrong side of the arc of this story. He’d forgiven Rodney and taken to the sky, because he lived in his boy and trusted he wouldn’t crash to earth.
The tape turned to static. “I’m afraid of heights,” I said. The truth: I’d always been afraid of how irrevocably parents love their children. Afraid of how terribly I loved Logan—so much I often forgot he was Matthew’s, too.
“Play it again,” Logan said, and I showed him the rewind so he could look at his brother and Marguerite skydive thirty more times.
Our window faced the water, and from up there we could see Rodney’s Bible group advance across the beach, how they interrupted two girls on their stomachs on bright blue towels. Someone staked a wooden cross into the sand.
“They’re encouraged when people shoo them away,” Matthew said. “It makes their work seem misunderstood and righteous.”
When he was fifteen, Rodney brought a book home from science class that illustrated how the human body flexed and bent and torqued, and he counted its odd-numbered proportions: five appendages to the torso, five fingers or toes on four of these, and five openings to the face. Our bodies made asymmetrical sense! He had me hold my arm out straight and with a stubby finger traced every muscle, tendon, and joint before he pointed out the twenty-seven bones in my human hand. Me, surprised and relieved to be touched on purpose by my stepson.
Lightning knifed the ocean, and thunder cracked. Logan ran to the window and counted, “Five-Mississippi, six-Mississippi.” People hurried off the beach. A lightning bolt hit the lifeguard stand, then another hit the beach. The hotel’s power went out. Three-wheelers arrived from every direction, and people ran back toward a girl on the sand in a red bikini. The crowd circled her with concern until medics pushed their way through. From our window, the danger was so clear; but out there no one was taking shelter.
Matthew ran from the room and headed for the exit; I grabbed Logan’s hand, and we started after Matthew down twenty-three flights, but it was slow going. “Wait for us,” I said, and Matthew paused on a landing, picked Logan up, and carried him the rest of the way in his arms. On the beach, many of the boys wore baseball caps. We couldn’t tell which kid was Rodney.
The lightning had stopped, but rain was coming down hard. I tried to keep Logan with me under the hotel’s overhang, but he pulled my arm, said, “I want to go with Dad.”
Matthew found Rodney next to the lifeguard stand, watching EMTs work on the injured girl. Marguerite held Rodney’s hand, and they closed their eyes and began, quietly, to pray. We stood off to the side and waited for them to finish.
“Do you know her?” Matthew asked.
Rodney shook his head. “They said she’s from Georgia.”
“Do you want to come back up to the room with us? Dry off?” his father said.
“I could make popcorn in the microwave,” I said.
“Service is at six-thirty,” Rodney said, and he extended his hand. “See ya, Pop.” He gave me a hug, and laid his palm out flat for Logan to slap.
We had breakfast together the next morning, dinner the next night, and Logan spent two days at Sand Kastle Kingdom, shadowing his brother. Logan rode the rides for free, and won yards of tickets in the arcade that he traded in for homework snatchers, bouncy balls, a spider ring for me, a sand globe for his father, a detailed planet earth no bigger than a Ping-Pong ball, which Rodney hung from the rearview mirror of his truck.
Our drive back to Baton Rouge was quiet. Logan slept in the backseat under an LSU blanket he’d brought from home. We were leaving Rodney behind, but I didn’t want to gig Matthew about what couldn’t be changed. He’d raised his son to be a freethinker. The interstate was crowded with families headed to and from their vacations, and double-decker tour buses, and eighteen-wheelers that stayed too long in the left lane. I kept my eyes on the road, and missed the boy who was never quite but always my own.
Ehrhardt, Pia Z. “What Would You Have Me Do?” Narrative Magazine. Spring 2006.
by Pia Z. Ehrhardt
We’d driven from Baton Rouge to Myrtle Beach to see my husband’s son. Rodney was twenty-one and had been working in South Carolina for the summer. Mornings, he strapped kids into go-carts at Sand Kastle Kingdom, and afternoons, he ministered on the beach. He was raised a Catholic, but during the divorce his mother joined an evangelical church and had him rebaptized when he was fifteen.
“Why’d you let her do that?” I asked once.
“How could I stop her?”
“A court order,” I said, but he didn’t answer.
Rodney had spoken to his father a few times by phone, hadn’t sounded homesick but like he’d be OK with a visit. He was waiting for us at the Pancake Shack with a pretty girl and got up from the table. He had on a kelly-green uniform from the amusement park and a Confederate baseball cap.
“Do you know the meaning of that flag?” Matthew, my husband, said, pointing to Rodney’s head.
“Yeah.”
“Then take it off,” Matthew said, extending his hand. He pulled his son close, and they clapped each other on the back.
Rodney introduced us to Marguerite. She wore dangly turquoise earrings, white denim cutoffs, and a black-ribbed tank top. They’d gone skydiving that morning. “The instructor taped us free-falling,” he said, wagging the video at us, a done deal.
Our five-year-old son, Logan, pushed his chair closer to Rodney’s and wanted to know if he could jump, too.
“No,” I answered.
Matthew asked the waitress to bring ice water. “At any point did you want to change your mind?” he said.
“Never,” Rodney said. “They train you by making you jump off a three-story building.”
Marguerite nodded her head, his thrill pal. “We smiled the whole way down, right, Buddy?” she said. “The Lord kept his hands under us.” She cupped hers to show us how.
Rodney ordered what he always ate, one egg sunny side up, grits, buttered white toast, but he’d started drinking coffee with cream and sugar.
“Remember how I used to trick you at breakfast with that rubber egg?” his father said.
Rodney shook his head. “I was a sucker back then.” He leaned over and shoveled food into his mouth like the plate was on fire.
Logan flooded his pancakes with syrup. “Dad tries giving me that egg.”
“You’ll learn,” Rodney said.
Logan forked food in his mouth as fast as his brother. “Quit eating like Vikings,” I said to them. Rodney gave me a dirty look that stung me. We’d never had a cross word, but I’d never corrected him. He’d always been someone else’s kid, and I tried to curry favor by staying out of his way, unless he needed me to run interference with his dad. Or wanted someone to listen to how things happened. When he was ten, eleven, twelve he’d recount long, detailed plots of the movies he’d just seen, backtracking when he messed up some bit of it. I was grateful that he thought I cared.
“You got taller,” Matthew said.
“Measure hands.” Rodney pressed his palm against his father’s, and his nail-bitten fingers hooked over Matthew’s.
“Do me!” Logan said, knocking over his glass of milk. He looked over at me, worried.
“It’s OK,” I said. I tried to downplay spilled drinks because my mother had berated me when I made a mess, but the first look on my face—“Can’t you be careful?”—is what Logan saw.
So did Matthew, who wiped up the mess, calm, because he knew what to do for this son. “The job’s going okay?” he asked Rodney, because we couldn’t talk about the religion, his zeal, the Real Work he’d come to do.
“I could live here,” Rodney said, splitting a piece of carrot cake with Marguerite. “Next, we’re bungee jumping off a bridge.”
Marguerite leaned forward. “They say it’s like suicide with your second chance built in.”
Matthew didn’t comment, just asked for the check. He was sure of what she would never know: his son was careful, shy, susceptible.
Rodney kissed Marguerite good-bye so he could show us to our hotel. He waited in the lobby while we changed into swimsuits because Logan needed to swim immediately.
“Throw me high,” he instructed his half-brother, and Rodney did.
“Easy,” I said, because the pool was kidney shaped, and I didn’t trust him right then with the one who was mine.
“Come here, little baby,” Rodney said, launching Logan again.
“I’m in kindergarten.”
“That’s enough,” I said.
Rodney had lost weight and had a deep tan and a washboard stomach. Every muscle was sharp cut. On whose watch did these changes happen? Suddenly there was a stack of reasons I would never again be with a boy like him: age, impropriety, religion, his disregard. I was forty, furtive, righteous, and angry at Rodney for proselytizing, angry at his father for letting the ex dunk a boy who used to be curious and rational, angry at myself for not riding out this troubling visit on a wave of near-mother love.
Rodney sat with his dad and me on the side of the pool. In the middle of his back was a rug burn in the shape of New Jersey that probably matched the states on Marguerite’s knees.
“Do you still think about medical school?” I said, because I didn’t want to give up.
“Bible college,” he said. “I want my own church one day.”
“So you’re not going to finish LSU?” his father said.
“They’ve asked me to stay on in Myrtle Beach and work with the youth group.”
Matthew was too quiet, so I took a breath, got ready to question Rodney, but Matthew touched my arm to protect Rodney, which made me jealous. My heart dehydrated. I might not always be a wife, but Rodney was a son for good.
“This area has a hundred and sixty golf courses,” Rodney said. Chamber of Commerce stuff because none of us played. His eyes were hidden behind dark wraparound glasses.
“Can I buy you a beer?” his father said.
“I don’t drink,” Rodney said. “I’m gonna need to get over to the beach for Sunset Service. I’m preaching, and I’d like it if you came.”
“I don’t think, son,” Matthew said. “Religion is personal.”
Rodney looked disappointed and like he had an answer to that reaction.
“I want to go,” Logan said, kicking water at his father.
“We’re gonna stay and swim,” Matthew told Logan.
“Here, pal,” Rodney said, handing the skydiving cassette to Logan. “Watch me on the tape.”
“I’ll take it,” I said, so it wouldn’t get wet.
Matthew poured the rest of his beer into a Styrofoam cup he could take up to our room. “Christ. It’s ugly here,” he said when Rodney was gone.
This place wasn’t a beach. It was one arcade built on top of another arcade across the street from dirty sand and waves.
Clouds darkened and drew closer. The heat index was 107, and I hoped a thunderstorm would let go on top of us and stop all the sun. Rain would drive us all back inside to turn off the lights, grab a pillow, and order a movie.
Logan, bored without Rodney, wanted to go up to the room and watch cartoons.
“What are we doing here?” Matthew said, sitting down on the double bed. “He’s gone.”
“Mom,” Logan said, digging in my purse. “Put in Rodney’s tape.”
The video was bleached out and grainy, but it took us through their training, the harnessed jump off a thirty-foot wall, them stepping into orange jumpsuits and slipping their arms through parachute harnesses, the patchwork of views from the open door of the plane, nervous laughter, muffled prayer, and then Marguerite jumped out first, her body starfishing through space. Rodney looked at the camera, and his face was pale.
“Go!” the instructor said.
“I can’t,” Rodney said.
His father moved toward the TV as if to reach through the screen and pull him inside.
“Go! With me!” the man said, and he grabbed Rodney’s hand and they jumped out together and somehow caught up to Marguerite. The three jumpers held hands. The camera mounted on the instructor’s helmet caught the two newbies smiling, yes, but ready to pull the chutes, and the free fall that I had imagined was akin to fucking at ten thousand feet looked more like pained waiting. “Pull!” the instructor said, and everyone got jerked up by invisible strings. The float down was all release and joy, too personal for me to watch, so I looked at my bare feet on the thin carpet.
Theirs finally touched ground, and Matthew took a deep breath. “I think I could do that.”
“I could, too,” Logan said. He jumped high on the bed, his hands clutching imaginary parachute straps.
Again, I tried to understand how Matthew had given up dominion over his older son. “Does it upset you that you can’t tell him what to do anymore?”
“I don’t want to push him away,” he said.
“So what do you do with the worry?” I said, but the question was mean, a poke in a wound.
“What would you have me do?” he said, popping open a cold can of beer. I lived on the wrong side of the arc of this story. He’d forgiven Rodney and taken to the sky, because he lived in his boy and trusted he wouldn’t crash to earth.
The tape turned to static. “I’m afraid of heights,” I said. The truth: I’d always been afraid of how irrevocably parents love their children. Afraid of how terribly I loved Logan—so much I often forgot he was Matthew’s, too.
“Play it again,” Logan said, and I showed him the rewind so he could look at his brother and Marguerite skydive thirty more times.
Our window faced the water, and from up there we could see Rodney’s Bible group advance across the beach, how they interrupted two girls on their stomachs on bright blue towels. Someone staked a wooden cross into the sand.
“They’re encouraged when people shoo them away,” Matthew said. “It makes their work seem misunderstood and righteous.”
When he was fifteen, Rodney brought a book home from science class that illustrated how the human body flexed and bent and torqued, and he counted its odd-numbered proportions: five appendages to the torso, five fingers or toes on four of these, and five openings to the face. Our bodies made asymmetrical sense! He had me hold my arm out straight and with a stubby finger traced every muscle, tendon, and joint before he pointed out the twenty-seven bones in my human hand. Me, surprised and relieved to be touched on purpose by my stepson.
Lightning knifed the ocean, and thunder cracked. Logan ran to the window and counted, “Five-Mississippi, six-Mississippi.” People hurried off the beach. A lightning bolt hit the lifeguard stand, then another hit the beach. The hotel’s power went out. Three-wheelers arrived from every direction, and people ran back toward a girl on the sand in a red bikini. The crowd circled her with concern until medics pushed their way through. From our window, the danger was so clear; but out there no one was taking shelter.
Matthew ran from the room and headed for the exit; I grabbed Logan’s hand, and we started after Matthew down twenty-three flights, but it was slow going. “Wait for us,” I said, and Matthew paused on a landing, picked Logan up, and carried him the rest of the way in his arms. On the beach, many of the boys wore baseball caps. We couldn’t tell which kid was Rodney.
The lightning had stopped, but rain was coming down hard. I tried to keep Logan with me under the hotel’s overhang, but he pulled my arm, said, “I want to go with Dad.”
Matthew found Rodney next to the lifeguard stand, watching EMTs work on the injured girl. Marguerite held Rodney’s hand, and they closed their eyes and began, quietly, to pray. We stood off to the side and waited for them to finish.
“Do you know her?” Matthew asked.
Rodney shook his head. “They said she’s from Georgia.”
“Do you want to come back up to the room with us? Dry off?” his father said.
“I could make popcorn in the microwave,” I said.
“Service is at six-thirty,” Rodney said, and he extended his hand. “See ya, Pop.” He gave me a hug, and laid his palm out flat for Logan to slap.
We had breakfast together the next morning, dinner the next night, and Logan spent two days at Sand Kastle Kingdom, shadowing his brother. Logan rode the rides for free, and won yards of tickets in the arcade that he traded in for homework snatchers, bouncy balls, a spider ring for me, a sand globe for his father, a detailed planet earth no bigger than a Ping-Pong ball, which Rodney hung from the rearview mirror of his truck.
Our drive back to Baton Rouge was quiet. Logan slept in the backseat under an LSU blanket he’d brought from home. We were leaving Rodney behind, but I didn’t want to gig Matthew about what couldn’t be changed. He’d raised his son to be a freethinker. The interstate was crowded with families headed to and from their vacations, and double-decker tour buses, and eighteen-wheelers that stayed too long in the left lane. I kept my eyes on the road, and missed the boy who was never quite but always my own.
Ehrhardt, Pia Z. “What Would You Have Me Do?” Narrative Magazine. Spring 2006.
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