The Ox

That is the title to a brilliant yet depressing short story by British writer H.E. Bates. I was born in 1961, the Year of the Ox, according to the Chinese zodiac. It is the first story of his collected "Thirty-One Selected Tales"...written in the 1930's. Yes, it is the same author I raved about from the short story "Fuchsia". In this one there is an understated emotional resonance that just got under my skin. The plot unwinds like a slow moving ox, but it has a power that sucks you in, keeps you reading because his words sparkle the plot like gems. A plot synopsis does not do it justice.
The first two paragraphs...

The Thurlows lived on a small hill. As though it were
not high enough, the house was raised up, as on in-
visible stilts, with a wooden flight of steps to the front
door. Exposed and isolated, the wind striking at it
from all quarters, it seemed to have no part with the
surrounding landscape. Empty ploughed lands, in
winter-time, stretched away on all sides in wet steel
curves.
At half-past seven every morning Mrs. Thurlow
pushed her great rusty bicycle down the hill; at six
every evening she pushed it back. Loaded, always,
with grey bundles of washing, oilcans, sacks, cabbages,
bundles of old newspaper, boughs of wind-blown wood,
and bags of chicken food, the bicycle could never be
ridden. It was a vehicle of necessity. Her relationship
to it was that of a beast to a cart. Slopping along beside
it, flat heavy feet pounding painfully along under mud-
stained skirts, her face and body ugly with lumpy
angles of bone, she was like a beast of burden.

She lives with her husband who was injured at war and has a silver plate in his head. He was a hedge cutter, but often his silver plate would cause such pain as to create a madness, driving him to drink. They had two sons, ages nine and thirteen. They secretly dispised their mother. She saved money for their future...by hiding it under her mattress. The money was everything to her, like a limb of her body, a part of her soul. Then her husband kills a man in a drunken rage and steals her money. He is caught and pays the penalty for his crime. She decides to have her boys stay temporarily with her brother's family and his mother "with shrill eyes and ironed-out mouth who could not hear well." Her boys decide to stay with her brother. She keeps asking her incarcerated husband "where's the money?"He looks at her with blank unknowing eyes.  He does not know. Her brother does and exclaims in a rage "Done with it? What d'ye suppose he done with it? Spent it. Threw it away. Boozed it. What else? You know what he was like. You knew! You had your eyes wide open." And through all of this, losing her husband, her two children, she continues on exactly as she always has for the last fifteen years. After she hears from her boys that they want to stay with her brother, she make the long trek home with her bicycle. The last page is heartbreakingly beautiful...

She went out of the house and began to push the
bicycle slowly home in the darkness. She walked with
head down, lumbering painfully, as though direction
did not matter. Whereas, coming, she had seemed to
be pushing forward into the future, she now felt as if
she were pushing forward into nowhere.
After a mile or so she heard a faint hissing from
the back tyre. She stopped, pressing the tyre with her
hand. 'It's slow,' she thought; 'it'll last me.' She
pushed forward. A little later it seemed to her that the
hissing got worse. She stopped again, and again felt
the tyre with her hand. It was softer now, almost flat.
She unscrewed the pump and put a little air in the
tyre and went on. 'I better stop at the shop,' she
thought, 'and have it done.'
In the village the cycle-shop was already in darkness.
She pushed passed it. As she came to the hill leading up
to the house she lifted her head a little. It seemed to
her suddenly that the house, outlined darkly above the
dark hill, was a long way off. She had for one moment
an impression that she would never reach it.
She struggled up the hill. The mud of the track
seemed to suck at her great boots and hold her down.
The wheels of the bicycle seemed as if they would not
turn, and she could hear the noise of the air dying once
again in the tyre.

Writing like this is why I'm taking a temporary break from writing poetry.
I have so much to learn...

Fuchsia

That's the title to a short story by British writer H.E. Bates...from the collection "Thirty-One Selected Tales"...mostly from the 1930's. I had never heard of H.E. Bates until I listened to Tim Bowler's recent "Bolthole Bulletin". Tim Bowler has been writing some of my favorite psychological suspense novels with a degree of depth that is astounding for any writer. He talks about his writing, questions from readers, and what he is currently reading...H.E. Bates short stories! So I took his word and checked out five collections of his short stories. I've only read three of his short stories and it was amazing writing! It was after church and I was on my way to return nine library items, but I picked up one of the nine...yes...you guessed it...and randomly flipped to one of the shorter tales called "Fuchsia". I sat in the parking lot with the window rolled slightly down and read...
"He wanted to put his feet up on his own fireplace, but
he was aware that twenty-eight weeks of idleness
had lost him that privilege."
That's the first paragraph. It somehow sucked me right into this world...
"He was a heavy-boned man, with loose grey flesh and
awkward hands rather like dead crabs. Twenty-eight
weeks ago they had laid him off at the tannery."
This is the story of a man who feels he is losing his wife and his twenty year old daughter is now the bread earner. His daughter's angry "who do you think you are" sets him walking and thinking...but it is his encounter in the market place...with a single fuchsia flower "ballet girl" that holds his attention...
"For two or three minutes he held the flower in his
large crab-like hands and looked at it. The slender
upper petals, of clear cherry-red, were turned back-
wards. The lower petals were gathered thickly to-
gether like a skirt which swung lightly under the
vibrations of his unsteady hands."
And this beautiful story ends with poignant depth...
"He was looking straight before him into space, his
eyes alight for a moment with happiness, with a
momentary illusion it was clear they could not sustain."
I didn't have the heart to return this short story collection yet. I could tell there are so many more treasures to discover...

Superfluity

What is Superfluity? Do you need a flu vaccine? It's a large rummage sale that University Congregational Church puts on once a year. Countless church members and volunteers find time, connection, and fun putting together this huge extravaganza. It's a great opportunity to connect with others, get rid of stuff, and pick up what you might consider a treasure. Who knows what you might find. Perhaps that special book, a complete badminton set, a clarinet, or maybe a blender. It doesn't matter. Whatever captures your heard and mind. I came away with eight books, a movie, four folk CD's, a coffee grinder, and a blender. For me, the treasures are the books. One was The Kingdom and the Cave by Joan Aiken of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase fame. Her first book at age 17! What I really like is discovering books I've never heard of particularly from the 1940's to 1970's. Books like The Half-Crown House (1956) by Helen Ashton has a Greene Knowe L.M. Boston strong sense of character and place. Lovely in the Lee (1945) illustrated and written by Robert Gibbings and Lost Island (1944) beautifully set in Ireland and Polynesia. Sleep till Noon by Max Shulman (1950)is wonderfully illustrated by Bill Crawford with some very funny comic writing. I feel like my heart and mind is going to combust with excitement. Hmm. Maybe you shouldn't go after all. I want to read all the books I will collect,but I suppose it would be wise to get some sleep!

Check it out but make sure you're not too combustible.

Bald to Beard: 8 weeks later

The itchiness has lessened, and I just trimmed everything back at at the same level. It's still itchy...so all the people who say you get used to the itchiness are lying. It's just grown thicker...and not much longer. It feels like steel wool embedded into my skin...scratchy enough to scour a frying pan. I haven't figured out how to download my beard pictures onto this site, but I believe there's a couple on my facebook page. I do think the beard has changed my personality some. I'm more prone to crankiness, spontaneous and sometimes unwanted honesty, spontaneous generosity...and I'm not likely to give a reason for the good or bad I do. It does feel a bit freeing. It's odd to think that I might not have written "Blasphemy" without the irritation of my beard. I sent that to all my pastors...and one of them sat beside me while I was ushering at church this Sunday and tongue-in-cheek whispered "Heretic"...then went on to express how much she liked it. Heretic...hmmm...I oddly like the sound of that. Maybe the beard as an irritant can be a catalyst for change. In the meantime, let me know if there are any fry pans my beard can clean for you. ;-)

Blasphemy

I don't like April Fools Day. The whole pranks thing it's just for fun don't you have a sense of humor. Yes I do, but it feels more like emotional cruelty. And once you prank, the other person retaliates. Count me out. So I was not in a good mood...plus it rained all day...making me feel worse. I may regret this...
On that note, here's

Blasphemy

When Adam & Eve conceived God
The world was without form and void
So Adam & Eve conjured up in their minds
Something to blame of everything
And that was called God
And it was very good
Then God raised Caine
Created a flood to wipe out the earth
Tortured Job as a game with the devil
What Job didn't know was that God was the devil
Then God had a three way
And called it the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
Just to confuse the hell out of everyone
For God was Hell
And Adam & Eve felt bad conceiving God
Especially when God conceived Jesus
Who he tortured by killing him on a cross
And confusing countless generations
When Adam & Eve knew
The world was without form and void.

Denis Streeter 4/1/11