Crap Memoir
Fall 2003
Comp 490 Writing Supervision
Saharan
Rain Is Never Gentle
Richard Balwdin
September 2003. Lea, Richard, Adam, Monty, Tony, and Joey began meeting once a week to talk about writing and the projects they were working on. The meetings would begin late in the afternoon, in Flagg Hall, in a room with tilt-a-whirl chairs and candy-wrappered floors. They would continue in the alley, against the half-wall, coats pulled up around their throats, hands cupped to keep cigarettes from going up like flash paper.
(Only 145 cigarettes left in the carton.)
Their projects evolved as the sun swung through October, November, December. Their conversations grew philosophical.
How, exactly, does one embrace a toilet in a men's room in a bar? Name fifty-five nasty things that could happen to that nasty bitch Marlene. Does Jason have any balls? Do mages really have a sense of humor? What the hell is tajine, anyways? What the hell is a guy with a bag full of Speedos doing in a laundromat?
Somewhere between December and February, Cigarette 26 was vaporized. Tommy'd survived circumcision. Joey's disappeared, leaving everyone wondering if he'd ever been there, really. Flagg, overheated and flourescent, had given way to the wind-tunneled winter-darkened alley. From there, it was a small step to Wednesday afternoons in that pretense of a green house, where, under artificial spotlights, that bitch Marlene continued her creeping subtext. Someone wondered if this is the place you go when you die. March. April.
From some inexplicable reason, the conversation always turned to crap memoir.
I am privileged to have overheard.
Ssalamu lukem.
Rick Henry
April, 2004
... If the moon had atmosphere, it would look like Morocco. The landscape was stippled with otherworldly rocks and dust, but the blue sky stymied any comparison to outer space. This predesert had been my companion for the past day and a half, as our minibus from Hotel Ali made its way to the Sahara. Dust, thrown from the scored tires, settled on traveler and object. A crack started on the driver's side of the windshield, our metaphor for the trip, slowly creeping to the right side of the glass map....
... Do you know how sweat seems to puncture through your skin and crystallize on your face just before you vomit? Like someone showered you in dabs of hot glass. I feel my stomach begin to rise to my throat and just as they connect, my mouth erupts with poison Three, four, five heaves and I'm soaked. I lay my head down on the rim of the toilet bowl and breathe....
... He stands over the bathroom sink, scrubbing his large, tough hands -- the hands of a piano player, his fingers short and thick, his palms peculiarly wide. He spins the bar of soad between his hand. The suds bubble over the soap and run down his fingers. Try as he may, he cannot wash away his shame. He cannot wash away his regret. He refuses to look at his reflection in the mirror that hangs above the sink, knowing he would only be disappointed. He tries to wash it all away....
... He had a system. First and foremost, Jason knew when the guy dropped off his film, that he was a mark. He would asterisk their name on the list to be developed. Popping the film into a canister as soon as possible, he then made certain they were not wandering around the store (he had nearly been caught once by a man who idled in the antiperspirant aisle). When the negative came out, he would pretend to examine it for scratches. Holding it up to the light, he could generaly make out the content of the photos and if he saw something that peaked his interest, he would press for a duplicate print. After the pictures developed, he took them into the corner where he had stashed extra envelopes for this purpose. He would simply split the pictures into the two envelopes and file them. One under the real guy's name. One under Terry Leach, Gary Cater and the like....
... The bog was dark even in the middle of the day. The canopies of the towering marsh trees shrouded everything in shadows. The bark of the trees matched the black silt their roots took hold in. A small squatty hut blended into its background, a small vein of rising smoke was the only thing that gave away its camouflage. The hut was located at the base of the oldest and largest of the surrounding trees....