On Nano-punishment AND another excerpt
Nov. 13th, 2006 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newlifeinstpaulI'm at Black Dog tonight.
My least favorite coffee house ever.
On my first and only visit here, I almost gave up on coffee houses altogther.
Back then, I was actually intimidated by the hustle and bustle of Dunn Brothers #1, too. Ha! Imagine that! Lucky me, I found the St. Paul Tee Gee's entirely by lucky mistake and the very friendly people behind the counter helped me find a little faith in myself. Come to think of it, I haven't chatted with the owner in ages. I wonder how she's doing...
So why am I here? At the most unappealing spot on the planet?
I need focus.
It's time to rid myself of all the distractions, push myself in the corner and bust up some word-count.
I'm back on Angel again. Imagining life as her is a bit much.
She's no Antoine Fisher, mind you--but life through her eyes?
I probably am best off in the corner while I write.
When I write and I'm really feeling the characters?
I bounce around in my seat. I grimace. I make the motions of the people I'm writing about--whether I'm screwing up my face, making a fist, talking--because I need to see what's going on in my mind. I might mouth half the dialog for mitre and flow and whether or not I can hear them saying it.
Oh yeah! I should do the second half of Chapter 3.
If you haven't read the first half, Here you go
. The conclusion is beneath the cut.
There are certain moments in person’s life that seem only to come in slow motion.
Perhaps it’s the singularity of the emotion or totality of the situation they’re facing. Could it be so encompassing, so overwhelming, such a mind-numbing monolith to them that nothing else can be seen? Maybe that’s why it casts a shadow over everything else around them. The rest of the world goes still and quiet. They can no longer envision anything or anyone else around them.
In Angel’s case, it wasn’t a single emotion. It was a roiling storm of them. Momma was gone. She didn’t know how long she’d be gone. Even why . How many nights had she cried herself to sleep already? There wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Nothing she could do would make it better. Nothing she could even ask to know about it. Now she couldn’t even keep her brothers and sisters quiet in the waiting room like she was supposed to. And now? Now? Her little sister was blaming her. Every worst nightmare she could imagine about Momma being true--except it was her fault.
The blood rushed to Angel’s face as it never had before. A searing heat streamed from the bottom of her neck to the top of her temples. Her clenched hands loosened. Hands that were once balled into fists of restraint opened, straightened and spread into claws of attack.
Angel looked into Betty’s eyes as she continued her tirade. Betty looked back and saw a fire she’d never seen before. Sure, they’d fought before. As the second-oldest child of the family, they butted heads often enough. But this was different.
“You wouldn’t even…” she was so surprised she couldn’t finish her sentence.
Angel’s eyes narrowed to slits as she snatched Betty’s accusing finger out of the air with a snarl. Grabbing and twisting her fingers, she pulled Betty eye to eye with her.
“Don’t…you…ever…” Angel began as her other hand began to clench once again into a fist.
Betty’s eyes widened in sudden terror and then…
WHAM!
Before she knew what had happened, Angel was flying across the room. While she took the time to muster a verbal answer, Betty was quicker on the draw with a hard shove to the chest. But given her emotions--the heat of the moment--it seemed to be in that everlasting, eternally-slow fashion in which the moment began. She could only watch as she felt herself float in opposite direction, arms flailing, already airborne at the wrong end of Betty’s extended arm.
She wondered what was behind her. The floor? Another bench? Maybe….
And then she hit it. Cold. So cold.
She bounced off the passing medical cart and doubled over on the floor.
Unfortunately, she hit it hard enough to knock it over. Dozens of vials and samples and clipboards of various handwritten medical charts flew through the air. The charts clattered on the floor just before the glass vials shattered on top of them, spattering various colored fluids everywhere.
Nurse Anderson couldn’t believe her eyes. Not only would samples have to be retaken--frail patient skin pierced once again, sunken eyes looked into and reassured all over, the tired and ailing awoken from the only sleep they may had in hours--but how much of the broken glass, urine, blood and feces was she going to be able to clean from the charts? How many prognoses was she going to be able to read now? And the doctors. They were going to be awfully happy re-writing their orders. Overjoyed.
“You…you…FUCKING little BITCH!”
Nurse Anderson was horrified at the mess. She was angrier than even she imagined. But with all the shock and knotted frustration un-kinking into one vile, furious sentence, she was so ashamed for having said it. First of all, that was a young child writhing on the other side of the cart from the spill.
Second of all? She was pretty sure that tall, broad-shouldered man standing on the opposite end of the cart was the little girl’s father.
Abner was just as stunned as Nurse Anderson. And significantly more embarrassed./
Needless to say, the car ride home was inordinately long. No one spoke. .
Every stop at a traffic signal, every pause for a turn seemed to last an eternity. In a way, Angel wished the ride would never end. In another, it only seemed to delay the inevitable far too long. As soon as they got home…
“You know what to do when you get out of the car, Angel.“ As usual, Abner was staring straight ahead. He had a hard enough time containing and processing the usual mix of emotions after a hospital visit. Now this had to happen.
Angel swallowed and looked down at the floor.
“You’re in trouble…” whispered Harry from the other side of the rear seat bench. Actually, everyone was on the opposite side of the bench, squeezing each other as far from Angel as possible. When one of the kids were in trouble, the siblings tended to keep their distance. It was as if being marked for punishment was some contagious virus they wished to avoid. “Stop pushing me, Carlton!”
“You’re sitting on me! Move over!”
“Who else wants a whuppin?” Perhaps there was some truth to that.
“Nobody,” went the chorus. “We were good, Daddy,” squeaked Mary.
“Daddy…?” Angel began to plead her case.
“I don’t wanna hear it.”
“Betty said…”
“What did I tell you?” thundered Abner. “The only reason I didn’t clap you upside the head right there is because I’d probably kill you! I need to settle down before I have deal with all your…being a fool.”
Angel didn’t doubt that.
“And I don’t care what your sister said! I don’t care what she mighta done! Who’s the oldest?”
Angel sighed. “Me.”
“Yeah!” chimed Betty from the front seat, beside her father. Not only did she win the argument, win the fight itself in resounding fashion, she was now sitting in Angel’s usual seat. Still wasn’t enough.
“That’s enough, Betty.” Little sister sat back in the seat, but not before flashing a superior smirk.
“Who’s gotta look after her brothers and sisters when I’m gone?” Angel knew where this was going. She didn’t want to answer. “Who?”
“I am, Daddy.” She could no longer fight back the angry tears welling in her eyes.
“If you have a problem with your brothers and sisters, you come to me.” But how was that possible? Where was he? “Angel has to do what Angel knows is right.”
“^Yes, sir. I‘m sorry, sir.” There was no way to win. Much less wrestle back a stitch of self-respect.
Betty leaned back and turned around as she heard her sister choke back a sob. She wanted to see for herself…
“I said that’s enough!”
But that was a week ago. Not that it made much difference.
Abner broke off what almost seemed to be a tree branch as a switch to whip her. He did far more with his beating than move to correct his daughter’s mistakes. He leaned into each lash with the anger of a man put to shame. He drew back for the next with the fury of a cornered animal. Day after day without a good, hot dinner. Week after week trying to iron his own laundry without burning it. Almost a month of coming home with a sore back, kids everywhere and a house with every room a scatter-shot mess.
After the third or fourth stroke, Angel went black. She wasn’t sure if it was her body buckling from the pain, her mind trying to shield her from the emotional violence or her eyes simply refusing to see the twisted, horrid visual of her father‘s face.
He swung and swung until his small branch broke and his voice was hoarse from screaming. Tearing away from the house in his Cadillac, he drove where he could shed tears of his own. With no one--adult or child-- to see.
Most of the bleeding welts on her legs, arms and trunk had scabbed over now. She could almost sit comfortably, though laying on her back was still nearly impossible. Even the best of feather mattresses weren’t made to soothe those kind of wounds. To say nothing of the ones she harbored inside.
But now, she mostly ached for Momma.
And Betty would have to pay.
My least favorite coffee house ever.
On my first and only visit here, I almost gave up on coffee houses altogther.
Back then, I was actually intimidated by the hustle and bustle of Dunn Brothers #1, too. Ha! Imagine that! Lucky me, I found the St. Paul Tee Gee's entirely by lucky mistake and the very friendly people behind the counter helped me find a little faith in myself. Come to think of it, I haven't chatted with the owner in ages. I wonder how she's doing...
So why am I here? At the most unappealing spot on the planet?
I need focus.
It's time to rid myself of all the distractions, push myself in the corner and bust up some word-count.
I'm back on Angel again. Imagining life as her is a bit much.
She's no Antoine Fisher, mind you--but life through her eyes?
I probably am best off in the corner while I write.
When I write and I'm really feeling the characters?
I bounce around in my seat. I grimace. I make the motions of the people I'm writing about--whether I'm screwing up my face, making a fist, talking--because I need to see what's going on in my mind. I might mouth half the dialog for mitre and flow and whether or not I can hear them saying it.
Oh yeah! I should do the second half of Chapter 3.
If you haven't read the first half, Here you go
. The conclusion is beneath the cut.
There are certain moments in person’s life that seem only to come in slow motion.
Perhaps it’s the singularity of the emotion or totality of the situation they’re facing. Could it be so encompassing, so overwhelming, such a mind-numbing monolith to them that nothing else can be seen? Maybe that’s why it casts a shadow over everything else around them. The rest of the world goes still and quiet. They can no longer envision anything or anyone else around them.
In Angel’s case, it wasn’t a single emotion. It was a roiling storm of them. Momma was gone. She didn’t know how long she’d be gone. Even why . How many nights had she cried herself to sleep already? There wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Nothing she could do would make it better. Nothing she could even ask to know about it. Now she couldn’t even keep her brothers and sisters quiet in the waiting room like she was supposed to. And now? Now? Her little sister was blaming her. Every worst nightmare she could imagine about Momma being true--except it was her fault.
The blood rushed to Angel’s face as it never had before. A searing heat streamed from the bottom of her neck to the top of her temples. Her clenched hands loosened. Hands that were once balled into fists of restraint opened, straightened and spread into claws of attack.
Angel looked into Betty’s eyes as she continued her tirade. Betty looked back and saw a fire she’d never seen before. Sure, they’d fought before. As the second-oldest child of the family, they butted heads often enough. But this was different.
“You wouldn’t even…” she was so surprised she couldn’t finish her sentence.
Angel’s eyes narrowed to slits as she snatched Betty’s accusing finger out of the air with a snarl. Grabbing and twisting her fingers, she pulled Betty eye to eye with her.
“Don’t…you…ever…” Angel began as her other hand began to clench once again into a fist.
Betty’s eyes widened in sudden terror and then…
WHAM!
Before she knew what had happened, Angel was flying across the room. While she took the time to muster a verbal answer, Betty was quicker on the draw with a hard shove to the chest. But given her emotions--the heat of the moment--it seemed to be in that everlasting, eternally-slow fashion in which the moment began. She could only watch as she felt herself float in opposite direction, arms flailing, already airborne at the wrong end of Betty’s extended arm.
She wondered what was behind her. The floor? Another bench? Maybe….
And then she hit it. Cold. So cold.
She bounced off the passing medical cart and doubled over on the floor.
Unfortunately, she hit it hard enough to knock it over. Dozens of vials and samples and clipboards of various handwritten medical charts flew through the air. The charts clattered on the floor just before the glass vials shattered on top of them, spattering various colored fluids everywhere.
Nurse Anderson couldn’t believe her eyes. Not only would samples have to be retaken--frail patient skin pierced once again, sunken eyes looked into and reassured all over, the tired and ailing awoken from the only sleep they may had in hours--but how much of the broken glass, urine, blood and feces was she going to be able to clean from the charts? How many prognoses was she going to be able to read now? And the doctors. They were going to be awfully happy re-writing their orders. Overjoyed.
“You…you…FUCKING little BITCH!”
Nurse Anderson was horrified at the mess. She was angrier than even she imagined. But with all the shock and knotted frustration un-kinking into one vile, furious sentence, she was so ashamed for having said it. First of all, that was a young child writhing on the other side of the cart from the spill.
Second of all? She was pretty sure that tall, broad-shouldered man standing on the opposite end of the cart was the little girl’s father.
Abner was just as stunned as Nurse Anderson. And significantly more embarrassed./
Needless to say, the car ride home was inordinately long. No one spoke. .
Every stop at a traffic signal, every pause for a turn seemed to last an eternity. In a way, Angel wished the ride would never end. In another, it only seemed to delay the inevitable far too long. As soon as they got home…
“You know what to do when you get out of the car, Angel.“ As usual, Abner was staring straight ahead. He had a hard enough time containing and processing the usual mix of emotions after a hospital visit. Now this had to happen.
Angel swallowed and looked down at the floor.
“You’re in trouble…” whispered Harry from the other side of the rear seat bench. Actually, everyone was on the opposite side of the bench, squeezing each other as far from Angel as possible. When one of the kids were in trouble, the siblings tended to keep their distance. It was as if being marked for punishment was some contagious virus they wished to avoid. “Stop pushing me, Carlton!”
“You’re sitting on me! Move over!”
“Who else wants a whuppin?” Perhaps there was some truth to that.
“Nobody,” went the chorus. “We were good, Daddy,” squeaked Mary.
“Daddy…?” Angel began to plead her case.
“I don’t wanna hear it.”
“Betty said…”
“What did I tell you?” thundered Abner. “The only reason I didn’t clap you upside the head right there is because I’d probably kill you! I need to settle down before I have deal with all your…being a fool.”
Angel didn’t doubt that.
“And I don’t care what your sister said! I don’t care what she mighta done! Who’s the oldest?”
Angel sighed. “Me.”
“Yeah!” chimed Betty from the front seat, beside her father. Not only did she win the argument, win the fight itself in resounding fashion, she was now sitting in Angel’s usual seat. Still wasn’t enough.
“That’s enough, Betty.” Little sister sat back in the seat, but not before flashing a superior smirk.
“Who’s gotta look after her brothers and sisters when I’m gone?” Angel knew where this was going. She didn’t want to answer. “Who?”
“I am, Daddy.” She could no longer fight back the angry tears welling in her eyes.
“If you have a problem with your brothers and sisters, you come to me.” But how was that possible? Where was he? “Angel has to do what Angel knows is right.”
“^Yes, sir. I‘m sorry, sir.” There was no way to win. Much less wrestle back a stitch of self-respect.
Betty leaned back and turned around as she heard her sister choke back a sob. She wanted to see for herself…
“I said that’s enough!”
But that was a week ago. Not that it made much difference.
Abner broke off what almost seemed to be a tree branch as a switch to whip her. He did far more with his beating than move to correct his daughter’s mistakes. He leaned into each lash with the anger of a man put to shame. He drew back for the next with the fury of a cornered animal. Day after day without a good, hot dinner. Week after week trying to iron his own laundry without burning it. Almost a month of coming home with a sore back, kids everywhere and a house with every room a scatter-shot mess.
After the third or fourth stroke, Angel went black. She wasn’t sure if it was her body buckling from the pain, her mind trying to shield her from the emotional violence or her eyes simply refusing to see the twisted, horrid visual of her father‘s face.
He swung and swung until his small branch broke and his voice was hoarse from screaming. Tearing away from the house in his Cadillac, he drove where he could shed tears of his own. With no one--adult or child-- to see.
Most of the bleeding welts on her legs, arms and trunk had scabbed over now. She could almost sit comfortably, though laying on her back was still nearly impossible. Even the best of feather mattresses weren’t made to soothe those kind of wounds. To say nothing of the ones she harbored inside.
But now, she mostly ached for Momma.
And Betty would have to pay.
