Sudden Fiction

Don't ignore these guys and this genre.

I'm reminded of it as I slog through the boring, smug life of Frankie Bascombe, as told by Richard Ford.

What the hell was Ford up to, trying to out Updike Updike?

I got more out of this opening story by Dino Buzzati in Sudden Fiction International than I've gotten in two evening of dealing with poor Frankie's angst and, I guess, Ford's leavening of American emptiness.

Don't get me wrong.  I like a lot of Ford, particularly the stories in Rock Springs, but Frank Bascombe is a dolt whom I don't want to read about.

This little, meaningless diatribe is like a Sudden Book Review, ain't it?


TS

Opening Day

I've said for years that the season is too long.

Start it later and end it sooner.

Right?  Ha!






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Time Warp

Photo by RP Thomas

The ‘57

Tex may have been first to notice,

though the topic was debated

in Noble Coffee, that the old Fury

had recently reappeared in town.

The philologist Carl Hicks said

something that seemed profound—

to himself if not Harry Reems—that

curiosity is the trick of a mind sated

By decorous ambiguities. A Fury

with the driver dead, Hicks stated

with his usual air of confounding

obscurity, cannot be driven unless

Old Martha has risen from her grave

and given it a fill-up at Phil’s station.

Reems reached for the honey this

time, his mind chilled by the gravity

Of Carl’s oration. We should visit Phil,

Harry suggested, riven by the philologist’s

logic. Stirring his cupful, he looked

up at Talent’s town clock; it read 7:57.


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Crime Scene

Photo by RP Thomas

Thief

Every small school has a football star—

Talent is no different in that regard—

a kid who shines under the lights

on Friday nights, thrilling the home town

crowd of moms and dads who yield to this

sacred rite of passage, when 200 yards

rushing ensures the rightful purpose

of their lives—and the dad may drink or

be an insurance man, and the mom may

have a secret plan to escape the deadening

sameness of everything, having once

dreamed of something else.  Boomer’s

mother hadn’t a clue that her son was sporting

failure in school—that his head was filled with

schemes to steal things that weren’t his.

Thus one night after the big game, when Big

Mike and Rolo were away at Lizzie DeLay’s,

Boomer and his friend Ben Browner stole

into the junkyard after midnight, found the

mechanic’s stash and a few of his  meager

treasures, and trashed the bus in their anger.

TS 

Levine

Essay of the day, from Andrew Levine.

Good stuff.






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Tex's Blues

Photo by Charles Lucas

Tex’s Old Café Blues

Don’t ever work the grill in the old café.

There are better ways to spend your days.

The good old days will soon slip you past,

and a job like that it just won’t last.

If you cook something up it should be real good.

Cook enough to feed the whole damn neighborhood.

Serve it one time with a real fine wine,

just don’t spend your whole life on the cookin’ line.

The old café will be the end of your time.

Let it and you’ll turn hard to crime.

You’ll never make money or get very far,

except to spend your pennies in the next door bar.

There are better things to do.

Work a job that is a better you.

Take time to catch a simple clue.

Don’t do things that make you feel too blue.


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Fixing the Hole

Photo by RP Thomas

Rex Dern

As far as Rex Dern could tell

everyone meant well at Tex’s Tavern,

but he was sick of it all.

A more selfish man he couldn’t recall

than his friend Ted, whose swell

of agony hit him like a tsunami of fear.

Day in and day out he sits there,

usually on the same stool if he can

arrange it, dropping tears into his beer.

Goddamn, Ted'd shot many a man

in his war, as had Tex in his, but neither

one could make sense of it; far be it

That the U.S. government ever admits

wrong doing, so it falls on them to one

day fix things. Rex knew neither would,

Nor could. Their faith in illusions was

too strong; he saw anything beyond

breathing as but a mercenary's song.

Rex dragged himself up from his desk

and looked out the window. Tomorrow

he’d cash his last unemployment check. 


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A Day in the Life

Photo by RP Thomas

A Talent Day

As Big Mike turned an Allen wrench, he smelled

the stench of something rotting in the trunk

of a gray Olds towed in the day before,

while Rolo rolled 'round under the good old

bus.  Over at Tex’s Tavern, the wag Ted

said, “Lizzie, I’ll have another.” Lizzie

shook her head, sending Ted into the men’s

room to piss and rethink his strategy.  

In Noble Coffee, Carl Hicks was laying

it on thick, explaining the various

uses of metaphor in the Good Book.

Harry Reems frowned and shot Hicks a grim look.

Tired, Tex was upstairs in his office where

he now lived, writing three songs he deemed fair.


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First Trouble

Photo by RP Thomas

Young Lizzie

Before she stood with Tex that night in

San Antonio, Lizzie had never sang in front

of a crowd of rodeo riders and hangers-on.

Growing up in Port Arthur she’d heard all

about Joplin of course, named her horse

“Janis,” and vowed to get out of town as

soon as she could.  When she was ten her  

dad died and her mom cried until a bull rider

named Griffin came along.  Lizzie never

liked him and told him to “fug” off.  The first

song she sang was “Me and Bobby McGee,”

which she purloined from her Aunt Tillie’s

Pearl before it melted in the Texas sun.  

By 15 she was ready to run and no longer  

a virgin; Tillie took her to Austin to “settle

her down.”  Calling Lizzie wild and destined

for trouble, Tillie found a job In a cheap motel;

soon thereafter Lizzie’s life and everything else

she knew fell all to hell.  She dated a cowboy

punk who had a wife and baby at home, drank

until she was drunk as a skunk and began to

roam Austin’s streets on her own.  Just as

Tillie told her it would, her day did come;

Lizzie got a gun and held up a liquor store; in

Texas that’s a stretch, so Lizzie did her four.

TS

Clifford Brown

He played better than this frequently, but this is the only known footage of Clifford Brown, who died in an automobile accident at age 25.

One of my favorite players.


TS

Chance

Photo by RP Thomas

Ted’s Bad Dream

The wag Ted drank his fill

at Talent's Tex’s Tavern

before heading up the hill

to his house on Deemer Lane,

where he lived alone with

his demons and bad dreams.

In his old life he’d had a wife,

but that was a long time ago.

She’d ran off with a man named

Sam with whom Ted served in

Vietnam; his bad nights had

since gotten worse and he’d   

Laid a few mines down near

the wire, loaded his revolver

and stayed under cover until  

dawn, when he peered outside

and saw his neighbor Glenn

Nguyen mowing his lawn.  Oh,

Ted thought it odd—a sign from

God?—and went to his kitchen to

make coffee, before thinking again

and finally taking to bed with his

gun at his head; he spun the chamber,

pulled the trigger, and lived.

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How Tex Met Lizzie

Photo by RP Thomas

Tex’s Guitar

Tex played

his old Yamaha

now and again.

For ten years he’d

been a country

musician working

out of Midland;

roadhouses mainly,

playing Waylon and

Willie covers, with

some early Merle and

Earle thrown in.

That old guitar had

saved his life, he

told Lizzie Delay

the night he met

her in a juke joint

outside San Antone.

He was alone on the

bandstand when Lizzie

touched his hand; as

he picked the notes

of a George Jones song

Lizzie began to sing along,

and damn if she didn’t

sound a whole lot like

Loretta Lynn.

The next day Lizzie

joined the tour—this

was back in ’04, when

Lizzie was 25,

and Tex felt lucky

just to be alive.


TS

Post-Mortem on Nike U

The Duck bashers are out in full force on the interwebs.

Who are these people?  What makes them so vicious?

I doubt if it's much different anywhere in the land, but I just don't understand the negativity people manage to dredge up when their team loses. Or the chortling.

This is the part of sport I can't take. The blame game.

The naysayers are blaming Oregon's excellent and proven coach Dana Altman, the players, the officials, the cheerleaders and the bus driver for the loss last night.

Oh, and Nike.

Right, everyone is to blame, except Wisconsin, which happens to be a very good team that adjusted in the second-half and took advantage of its length to exploit Oregon's undersized and slow front line.

Great coaching there. If you didn't notice Oregon's front court crew was lacking all season you weren't paying attention.

Wisconsin noticed, that is for sure, if belatedly.

That's basketball.

When Oregon adjusted, or tried to, and packed the middle to stop Wisky's inside game, the back court suddenly had open opportunities, which they cashed in like a bundle of overtime bonus checks. That team could flat-out shoot it.

That's not the narrative though in the minds of certain types. The naysayers seem to be more interested in social science and psychology--bless you Harry Edwards, wherever you are.  Thank you as well, Ivan Pavlov, wherever you are.

John Canzano walks into the Oregon locker room and, surprise, sees frowny faces.  This bugs him, just as the smiley faces Oregon displayed in a football loss to Stanford this season bugged him.  You would guess this is his first college rodeo. He can't decide what he wants--calzone or pizza?--in the buffet line.

Hey, JC, the players were pissed in both cases, and could give a damn what you think. Reactions to losing are as varied as the humans who have them. Wasn't last night  a sign they cared?  I mean, come now, you were critical when a couple of Ducks showed a seemingly cavalier attitude in the Stanford football game and didn't appear to take the thumping to heart.

Those self-defensive and embarrassed smiles on the sideline were deplorable! A true sign of not giving a damn!  Right?

Which is it?  Be sad or be glad when you lose?  Hmm...the dilemma appears to be how to react to losing--a sticky-wicket open to interpretation. We can agree that acting out, picking a fight, is bad form.  After that words, if not fists, commonly fly. Though I agree we all need to be nicer to each other, sometimes it just doesn't work that way.

Somewhere in the ether there exists a reaction to a loss that Canzano must envision as proper, a method of dispelling heartbreak. It would be neutral, emotionless, cold, and something other than honesty and the truth of the moment would need to play out.

Would it be like an NFL or NBA locker room, where an outrageous salary for the night's work might salve the wounds?  Or would it be more like sitting in front of a keyboard and making shit up?

Who knows?

Oregon wasn't a "team?"  Bullshit again. Were they immature?  Must be, because only the writers and naysayers have maturity, obviously.

Oregon was a team with an inferior front line. There's no need to rip the players about that.  Anyone with an ounce of acumen should be able to admit that without blaming the loss on phantoms. Oregon wasn't going to win it all--by losing in the round of 32 the team is fair game for the writers and would-be pundits/coaches. To hear JC, this loss was all Oregon. Wisconsin had nothing to do with it--except they had a better team on this night.

Take it from a guy who has played on a few losing teams--me.  Great guys co-existed on those teams, with a few exceptions.  The few bad guys didn't cause the teams to lose.  A lack of size, speed and fundamentals did.

Good lord, get real...social relativism is a canard in sports most of the time. Feel-good stories about championship seasons, wherein a team of angels defeats the forces of darkness, are baloney.

Even the state champ has a dickhead on the team. Always.

It's embarrassing to be an Oregon fan at times, given the odd and hilarious paradox in Oregon athletics now. The thinking goes like this: Nike adversely coddles Oregon's players, which causes them to lose big games and act out.  Or...Nike coddles them, which means they should never lose while acting out.

Win and it's on Nike.  Lose and it's on Nike. The hue and cry is astonishing.  The middle ground, good sense, realism, have vanished. You know, because athletes act out, good and bad. You know, because that always happens and always has. Always will.

In a recent year, an athlete on Harvard's much lauded team was kicked out of school for cheating. Damn entitled punk.

Oregon took its loss hard.  Would you expect them to take it any other way?  If the players cracked a smile, they'd get ripped for that.

But nobody is taking this loss as hard as the fans who expect Oregon to win because it's Nike U, or those who think Oregon lost because it's Nike U.

Christ, it was a game between two decent teams, both of which have corporate backers and, most certainly, a bad egg or two.

Would you like some corporate cheese atop those rotten eggs...?

Short of some kind of national championship outside of track and field (which is miraculously unaffiliated with the famed running shoe company, ha ha) nothing will please the bandwagon fans--except when something pleases them.

Darn it.  I wish Oregon wasn't filled with so many bums.  I wish they'd take their beatings like real men.  I wish Nike would go away and we could have something else to blame.

You know, like other teams' fans do...


TS 

Meaning

Photo by RP Thomas

Post-Modern Talent

Everyone who lives in Talent

is a post-modernist according

to the philologist, Carl Hicks.

“I should know,” Hicks said,

clicking his pen as he prepared

to write himself into a corner.

“Having been a biologist as

well as a wordsmith, you’ve

studied our DNA,” said Harry

Reems, adding a touch of cream

to his coffee.  “I agree you should

know.”  By now everyone in

Noble Coffee had pricked up their

ears:  “So my fraudulent friend,  tell

me what post-modernism means.”

“Of course I will not!” Hicks huffed.

“For it is knowing that nothing is

 as certain as it seems! Nothing!”


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Landscape

Photo by RP Thomas

Landscape

In Talent, the edge

is always near,

civilization and the

wild enmeshed,

distance a provocation,

a dire warning and  

welcoming invitation;

the seer,

like a frightened deer,

may misjudge the scene

and move along a path

that wends downward for

a fraction of time before

climbing into unfamiliar

terrain, where green and blue

merge into something both

alien and true; sheer

terror, thence broken, becomes

new, confounding emotion.

TS