Sickness Of The Young (1) To Jay and Carolyn THE FARM THE TIGRESS 35 THE FATHER OF URANUS A SCENE FROM THE GULF WAR TWO SOLDIERS 103 CAT’S EYES THE HIT MAN COLD HARD NIGHT THE MAN AND HIS WIFE 139 ALIEN ABDUCTION RAT IN A MAZE DREAMSCAPE HAPPINESS IN NEW YORK CITY SEASHORE OF LAKE MICHIGAN By Mila Strictzer I wrote the first fourteen stories in April 2001, following an attack, in which I sustained an injury to my brain. I believe that I must have jarred my creative bone to produce so much in such a short amount of time. Since I have been trying to be a writer my entire life, I was able to quickly capitalize on my silver lined, dark cloud. After another year of editing and rewriting, followed by a few rounds of in-depth critique from Robert Strozier, a magazine editor from NYC (and my uncle), this collection has turned out not half bad. I first wrote some of these stories in Brooklyn a decade ago and then dug them up from the dead for this collection, but those shells have been done over as much as a Las Vegas stripper’s body. At least one of them goes back to where I grew up, in Central Illinois. The bulk of them, I first penned in Las Vegas. Bay Ridge, Brooklyn was always a good place to write, especially in the springtime, when there were few cockroaches. Park Slope was not a good place to write because everyone there claims to be a cultured artist of some type and that becomes stifling. Lower Manhattan was always a good place to write, especially poetry, but it was always so crowded that anything I wrote I usually scrawled onto a sticky. Brooklyn Heights was very fine for writing, as was far out in Queens or Long Island and off Main Street, Hoboken, New Jersey, except in the summer, when the rat population increased dramatically. Las Vegas is an excellent place to write, best during the long summers, when the sweat runs down the crack of one’s ass. The poems at the back predate the stories. Some of these stories are autobiographical -ish. In the end, however, people should always remember to allow the writer to pen his craft in peace or there will not be any well-written stories from our generation after we are all dead and gone. Mila Strictzer Las Vegas, 2002 By Mila Strictzer Fourth in order of composition. The huge, black rat ran out of the burning barn covered in flames. The rat tore around in confusion and then it disappeared into the bean field a few feet away. Daryl, our neighbor, yelled at his bird dog to chase after the rat, but the dog was already into the bean field, hard on the rat’s heels. For only a second, I saw the flaming rat and the dog tying to catch up to it, before both beasts disappeared into the waist-high field of beans. The beans moved above them like a wave, and I followed their trail, which mostly went around in circles. The old barn kept burning down to ashes, before our eyes. My father and I had been standing silent, watching it burn down, with Daryl. We were burning it because it no longer served any purpose. Just then, the bird dog caught the burning rat and fearsomely shook it back and forth. The bird dog’s white, patched-gray head rose slightly above the waist-high bean field, as if it were swimming with its prey. The eerily screeching rat, in pain and still on fire, was well stuck in between the bird dog’s jaws. The dog kept shaking the rat violently with its powerful jaws and neck muscles, tearing the rat to bloody, flaming pieces. It was growling low the whole time, as if it made him feel very good. I can still see my father tying up my mother in a long rope, in our roundabout driveway behind the farmhouse. He tied her all the way around her body, with her arms inside of the rope, all the way down to her ankles, as she was standing still. One never truly knows if they are insane. I told my invalid grandfather just before he died, because he had been complaining about not being able to remember things, that as long as you can remember not remembering, you are still okay. He died not too long after that. I never blamed myself. He was an atheist and went to his grave fearless. I always respected him for his courage to the end. So maybe if you can accept that you are insane, living in a so-called sane world, then it is not so bad. The farm stood on a large hill, in contrast to the surrounding flat, prairie landscape. The buildings were a strange, dark pewter color. The farmhouse was low and wide, covering the circumference of the front side of the hill, which faced the blacktop road below. There was a large yard in both the front and back and the front porch stretched around two sides of the farmhouse. The back door opened up to the roundabout driveway, which came up the hill, past the front part of the farmhouse, on the left. Farther behind the roundabout driveway, there were the barn and the horse’s coral and some other buildings. Behind those buildings were the backfields. That was all the property we owned. It started fine enough, I suppose. The basement was a very scary place. I would go there to explore the meaning of fear during the daytime and then dream about it at night. In the back room, there were old boxes packed with all kinds of stuff. The walls, the floors, and the ceiling were all cold, wet concrete. There were cobwebs in all the corners and hanging across the doorways. I had to run my hands through them every time I went down there, searching intently for any spiders. In the room right before the far room, with all the boxed stuff, there was an old wooden workbench. On it rested the controls to the electric fence that surrounded the forty or so acres of field our horses lived in. There was a large red box with two orange indicators on it that blinked once every other second, when an electric pulse went out, all the way around the single strand of wire. Both orange indicators would light up together in a bright color that illuminated the entire, dark room for a full two seconds. I could even hypnotize myself by watching, the color was so intense. But I would always force myself to stop watching, because I would quickly remind myself of the spiders, who were watching me from the shadows and the corners. It was possible to touch a section of wire with the tip of a finger and get a brief shock. The shock was intense and fearsome. I did it a few times. An electric pulse would shoot up my arm like lightning, and the bones in my body shook something wicked. The kid who lived a few miles away grabbed the wire with his both of his hands once, and squeezed it tight. He was kind of fat and short, and I really did not know him too well. He only came over when I had nothing better to do. I mean, he was okay and all, but he was always fighting with his parents. But he must have been holding on when the pulse was not being sent out, because he turned and looked at me for one full second, smiling, like he was bragging that it was nothing. Then, the pulse must have really hit him because he tensed up something fierce and fell to the ground, soft-like. I saw the eyes in his head roll all the way back, so that all you could see was white, and I remembered that for a long time afterwards. I shook him a couple times, and called his name, but he was stone cold out. I had to run all the way home to get my mom, who called his parents, and they came and took him to the hospital. My mom was real nervous about the whole thing. He just kept lying on the ground the whole time, his right hand behind his head, as if he were dead or something. His mom was real mad, and I was sure he was going to get a beating when he woke up. This is what I did today: jacked off once, ate three well-balanced meals, smoked cigarettes, and debated with other insane people about the different hues of each of the nurse’s stockings for several hours. Perhaps what it means to be insane is to live a life where you have become completely pitiful. Nighttime has arrived in its usual monotony. I managed to get a few hours of rest during the day, but I am to be put back into the room and shackled. My wrists and ankles are caked with blood from fighting against the leather restraints during the long nights. Someone comes in the room every few hours or so to check on me, but they never do anything. Usually, they do not even come inside. They just stare at me for a few minutes, through the small, thick, double plastic window, and then walk away. I watch them watching me and wonder what they are thinking. Then I struggle and strain away the night, constrained by the shackles. In the morning, when the sun comes up, I lean my head back, as far as it will go, to stare at the Venetian blinds that block the sun’s light from my view and I wish I could see the sun clearly. But I am never able to. Still, to see the sun’s light streaming through the blinds is somehow enough. Can I really be insane? I mean, sure, it is possible. I am treated like an insane person. I line up every night to take my pills, but they do not seem to make much of a difference. The anorexic girls are insane. I am not lying about that. They eat three full meals every single day. Those trays are loaded up, man. If they cannot eat, the nurses force food down their throats. I mean, that is insane. I could not even eat all the food on those trays. They always eat very fast too. I guess they want to get over with it. One of the anorexic girls plays guitar so well. I have no idea if she is trying to copy Karen Carpenter or not. All I know is, I love to sit in her room and listen to her play on her guitar, and sing about whatever…they always fight a little but not too much for some reason, and then they swallow their food, so that at the end of it, their trays are empty. So do not fight the knife, is about all I can take from that. I had a secret place. There were three girls that came over sometimes. I do not understand why they always came over because I sure did not like them coming over all the time. They always seemed curious: wanting to know about me, my body, my mind, or anything else that they could get their greedy, little hands on. We were playing in the front yard and I tore off running way out to the backfield, more to escape from them then to lead them on, but they still followed me anyway. The field in the back was pretty big, it was way behind the horse’s field, and there was a narrow section of wood that you had to run down to get there. I ran as fast as I could through the trees. I was going somewhere, I knew where. I knew every step to take but the girls kept following me anyway. It is not too hard to follow someone on the prairie, if you can keep that person in sight for the whole time. Out from the woods, I ran down the backside of horse’s field and to the creek at the bottom. I was running like mad. I had named it "Fred’s Creek." There was a tree across it at only one point. I ran up to it and flew over in about five quick steps. I was nowhere near to falling in. Far on the other side, once well-hidden by the tall grass of the backfield, I turned and watched with delight as the three girls tried to step their way very slowly across the felled tree without falling into the water. They were holding on to each other, which almost made them fall in the water even more. But they eventually crossed over Fred’s Creek without falling in and I met them on the other side, even though I did not want to. And I showed them my secret place. The secret place was tree that had fallen over on top of a fence made of three lines of concertina wire someone had put together a long time ago. The fence no longer encompassed anything. I told the girls to stop and wait. I climbed on top of the tree and said to them, "Now listen to me! This is the secret place, I can’t even believe you made it this far!" The girls looked at me as if I was some kind of god. One of the girls, the only one who was alright, I think two of them were sisters, but this one was not one of the sisters, said, "What are you going to do?" "I am going to show you how to talk to It!" The other two girls just looked amazed but the one kept on, "What is It?" I remember not being sure just how to answer that question, but I had answered her anyway, because I kind of liked her, "It lives in this field. It is here, everywhere around us. Can’t you feel It?" Then all three of the girls fell silent. "I will show you It, since you made it this far!" So I jumped off the tree that had fallen over and grabbed the fence post that was not in the ground anymore, and pulled it across my chest, as I leaned with my back against the big tree, so that the three wire strands covered over my whole body. Then I pulled down tight on the fencepost, and the jagged wire edges cut my body and dug into my skin. I felt the pain and raised my head up high and screamed at the blue sky above me. I could see the girls out of the corner of my eye jump back, startled, but they did not say anything. Then I yelled out loud, "This is It!" All three girls screamed, and then one of them turned and quickly bolted off, with the others following after her. The doctor is sitting there, just watching me. He is very tall and has that cripple-like walk some tall people have. His face is pock-marked and he wears thick glasses. He showed me a picture of his family for some reason. His wife is very good-looking and I can’t figure that one out. He is watching me because I do not speak, he tells me. What am I supposed to say? He is from West Virginia somewhere and I do not think I will talk. I am so med because I can’t write. You do not understand, if I try to write even one sentence, I can’t even control my hand to make the first letter. That has scared me about as deep as fear goes. I think that will cause me to get better very fast. The attic was a truly terrifying place. The reason was there was nothing up there except an old, wooden chair, far away in the corner, just sitting there. If I went up to the attic for some reason, I would usually go over to the small, dusty windows that were at either end of the room and stare out at the yard below because it always seemed like I was looking back through time. My friend ditched me one time while I was looking out the windows of time, but I did not even notice him leave. I said something, but there was no answer, and when I saw he was gone, I was so scared I could not even speak or move. Whenever I pushed up the platform door entrance to the attic and raised my head above, I always first turned to my left, no matter what, to see if the chair still sat there, and sure as hell, it would always be sitting there, ominously. I always hoped whomever or whatever had put it there would come back to take it away, so that I did not have to deal with it anymore. That chair is probably still there to this day. I will probably go to my grave and that chair will still be sitting there. My room was one of the rooms not too far from the room where the entrance to the attic was. It was not the biggest room in the farmhouse, by any means. But this other girl, not one of the three, whose father knew my father, she would come over sometimes. She was nice and we got along real well. She had long, black hair and I always liked to touch her hair, just a little bit, to run my fingers through her straight, black strands. But I was always a little shy, and she seemed to know it. Two big storm windows each faced north and west in my room. That girlfriend really was a girlfriend of mine, I was pretty sure, even though I never bought her a ring or necklace or anything like that. We had painted the walls together one summer, but we did not get to finish, so the walls were covered with this weird, orange painting scheme like something a couple of medicine men might paint. We would stare at the strange designs of the patterns at night, when we slept together. I mean, we did not sleep together, but in the same room when she would spend the night sometimes. I made her study those patterns before we would go to sleep, and she did not seem to mind studying them. And the strange patterns would fade in and out, especially when one of the fierce Illinois storms would blow across the flat, prairie landscape, and push up against the big storm windows of my room on the farmhouse. A small radio that was on the bookshelf, that I always kept on WLS, would sometimes warn of flash floods by playing out three long beeps, but my girlfriend would always say to not worry about it because we were on a hill and there was no way a flash flood would get to us. When she said to not worry, I always did not worry about it. And together, we would silently study those strange patterns on the walls in the dark, at my request. Daryl lived about two miles away and he was a very scary man. He was a Korean War veteran and just from judging it, I would say that he probably killed a lot of Koreans in armed battle, way back when. He was medium height and had a long face. His upper lip was a little too long, so that you always noticed that feature about him. He did not smile too much. My German shepherd used to chase Daryl’s cows. One day, to prevent my dog from chasing his cows, Daryl hooked up an electric collar around my dog’s neck. My dad was there too, on the front porch. It was a heavy contraption and Chris-that was my dog’s name-she was wagging her tail as Daryl hooked it up. Then Daryl said, "Alright dog, go and chase the cows!" Chris tore off down our driveway and turned right in one split movement down the road to Daryl’s field, where the cows were. She slid her body under the fence, as she always did. See, I used to watch her do it a lot. Then, sure enough, she started to chase the cows all around the field, as if she was herding them or something. She seemed to be having such a good time, too. Then My dad held the box up; it was long and rectangular, about five inches thick. See, my dad was always big on exaggerating things. But he pressed the red button anyway and kept laughing, pausing for a split-second to focus on his task, before he went to laughing again. A split-second later, I saw Chris curl over on her left side. She must have felt the pain really bad because she just kept on reeling over on her left side, with her head about touching her tail the whole time, as she shook a tiny bit, real fast-like. But she did not yelp loud or anything like that. Then my dog ran, real fast, back to our porch. I have never seen a dog run that fast before. She was moving very fast. My dog Chris ran straight back to my father and then sat at his side, wagging her tail, which slid over the wooden boards of the front porch very fast. My dad and Daryl laughed hard for several minutes. I had never seen my dad laugh like that before, and it made me kind of nervous. I returned to the farm many years later. There is an old man there now, living alone. He has beat-up cars piled up in the back yard. I guess I went back to find myself of some stuff like that. But the hardest thing of all to take was the realization that my memories are my own and no one else wants them. That was a very painful reality for me. The front porch railing was destroyed. I always kept a fence around my heart from the image of that undamaged railing in my mind. The windows to my old room were broken, the very same windows that had kept the fierce Illinois storms at bay. They were broken for so long I could not even find any glass on the ground below them. As I searched, looking downward, I was too scared to even look up, through the broken windows, at the walls that my girlfriend and I had painted. I definitely did not want to go up to the attic. It was all gone. The memories were gone, too. In their place were only nightmares. I stood, staring at the rundown farmhouse, gloved hands in pockets, mist slowly exiting from my mouth, and feet a pull at my side. I turned to look across the cornfield that jutted right up against the back yard. I remembered once trampling some of the corn in that field. Now, in the cold, fall weather, there was a thin veneer of white snow covering over a plowed field, which protruded through in brown splotches here and there. I had to go tell Daryl what I had done. So I made the long walk to his farm, an actual farm of several hundred acres. An equipment shed stood next to his house, always open. Inside, there were a couple of green John Deere tractors, a gigantic, red, International Harvester combine and a huge hay bailer next to it, that would scrape up the dry grass in the fall and make about twenty bails of hay that our horses would eat every year. A shiny, steel plow was adjacent to a disk. The disk’s pristine blades all slanted symmetrically. A fertilizer with its twelve or so crates, colored dullish yellow, slanting at the bottom where the chemicals came out was way in the back, behind a massive tiller and a cultivator that looked like a terrifying, many legged insect of some kind, scurrying across the fields. There was a lot of older equipment in the shed also. Almost sounds like Demeter or something, if you think about it. There was a big corral on the right, as you walked into the main yard. In it were two bulls. I went up to Daryl’s house and knocked on the screen door. The thin metal clanged in the heat. After a couple of minutes, Daryl appeared from within and opened the wooden, inside door. A warm afternoon, Central Illinois haze permeated everything thickly. He said, "Yes, son, what do you want?"
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Copyright © 2002 Mila Strictzer |