My Business Papers

I separate the discipline of writing, and the art of writing, and I set them like two irons out to the horizon, to the inconvenient northerly direction of colder moneys. It's been a while since it was my job to write at work, but I find myself again pondering the keys as my fingers linger over their printed plastic concavities. Clicketty-clacketty, the keyboard goes, and I am a train running over the rails. Not one, single, wooden railroad tie is important in itself. Or perhaps each is, but I pass them, take them for granted.

This is business writing; I make business papers. I leave nothing to the imagination. I run everything firmly along the bolted ground. Are these clicking letters noteworthy? Why do I line up these words, like miles behind me, in neatness, in rows, toward a distinct end? They don't make someone think; the thoughts are all had. They can make someone notice but can't make them see. The information is placed here, to go directly there, without mystery.

Is this my creative time, when my words may go where they will go? No. Will more destinations be opened up to the mind than the number of places I am refusing to let it go? No. This is the time when I must write linear thoughts into rectangular formats, bolding the main words, and adding the figures together, till there's nothing left to be thought about, on the subject, no hope but to change the subject to something entirely more interesting.

It takes all the art I can muster not to create - not feel around for inspirations - not grow, not change. Stick to the rails,

clicketty-clack, click-clack,

for the rails go only one

(click-clack)

direction, only one

(click-clack-click) place.

Clicketty-clack, click-clack, click-clack,

and that's my reader's destination,

click-clack, click-clack,

and I will put him to sleep with the swaying (click-clack) of the rectangular four-walled boxcar, with its right-angled, locked doors, and its dusty, uniform furniture.

When my passenger wakes he will wish to step down to the platform and stretch his legs, and thank the sky and the air for still being merely there in every explorable direction. He will want to do anything but ride on a rail. He will seek any activity but reading.

But till said arrival, necessarily, I will clicketty-clacketty-clickingly tick out and away to the hard iron skyline of my business papers.

Of wild mint and berries, a bouquet of grace

It’s hot, and I’m hot, my gray tank top is clinging to my back and my calves are spattered with mud from the water-logged trails of the forest I just left.

It’s cooler in there, under the countless leaves of countless trees, where ferns grow thick and moss clings to bark and stone and sunlight falls in patches. But I ended up on the wrong trail and it dumped me out here, on a winding road in the hot sunshine of a July morning just before noon, still blocks from home.

I have to hurry, which just makes it worse, because I have $2 left of this week’s grocery allotment and I want to spend it at the farmer’s market behind the bank; it closes at noon.

And I’m frustrated because I had so many good plans for this morning. I was going to hike up the ridge behind my house, find a bench or boulder to rest on, and commune with God surrounded by His handiwork, then head back down to home before the morning was gone.

But then I had three paths to choose, and I knew the left one went home but I’d been there before so I took the center – and now it was late and I never found that boulder and my own silly head narrated every step and made the silence loud.

It is the flowers that I notice first; white and lacy and, while common, pretty in a simple way. I pause to pick first one, then another, trying not to bruise their stems while I break them off, trying not to crush them with sweaty palms.

Then I see the berries, mostly red but some black, sweet with the taste of childhood summers spent fighting the fire ants and green brier for dewberries along the fence. I step further into the ditch to pluck one, and it was the smell that caught my attention this time.

The entire ditch is growing mint, tall and spindly but so aromatic as I crush the leaves, taste one, and feel the heat recede at its freshness. I’ve been dreaming of mint ever since an enterprising organic farmer handed me a leaf at an organic farmers’ market in Pittsburgh. I’ve been dreaming of planting it against the house, where nothing grows except weeds because it’s rocky and the water pours off the roof and beats down anything that tries to grow up.

And the rest of the way home I’m happy, steps lighter, smell of fresh mint added to my small bouquet giving me energy I didn’t know I had.

I’m still not sure how something as small as wild mint and fence-row berries could make my day, but they did. I spent the rest of the walk home dreaming of chilled white rum poured through crushed berries and garnished with mint; planning future visits to gently pry a few of the plants out of the ditch, carry them home; wonder how many cups of berries that one bush will give me, if there’s enough to freeze or just to top my morning yogurt-and-granola.

Now I’m still dreaming of that drink – I had to head in to work this afternoon and it wouldn’t do to mix those – and I’m also thinking how even though I’d failed to spend any time with Him this morning, anytime reading that Bible I carried through the woods or even talking with Him while I walked (my head chattered too much even for that), He still gave me the little things to make my day beautiful.

I think that’s a little piece of grace, don’t you?

(Photo credit: by me. The nectarines have nothing to do with this post, they just didn't want to be left out. More of my forest adventures are detailed here.)

The Baker Hotel

On July 4th, Taylor, Ryan and Ali broke into the condemned

Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas.

The following was inspired.

Mistress

taylor

Fingertips placed gingerly on the rim of his glass he looked up at the bartender who appeared as formal as his freshly pressed tuxedo. He imagined that his head would topple off were he to loosen the bow tie for him. He took a final, deep swallow of the whiskey sour. Nodding once when the bartender glanced his way he stood, turned with an over pronounced elegance, and made for the ballroom. He spotted her across the vastness of the room. She felt his eyes on her but would not meet what she knew all to well to be his solemn gaze; a gaze lacking invitation, deep wells of regret hidden behind a stern grey assurance. Regaining his composure, slackening the tightness he felt at the temples, he crossed the luxurious Oriental rug with an air of royalty. He brushed past her without a word or side glance and approached the lobby's front counter.


"I'll have a room for the night," he said in a rich, careless monotone to the clerk who promptly presented him with the correct key in a correct manner of submissiveness.

She was waiting in the elevator when he stepped into the compartment, languidly dangling a cigarette from her thin fingers.

The operator, in a cracked voice, asked, "Which floor sir?"

Her limpid eyes locked on the key in his hand for a moment and then onto the elevator attendant.

"Seven," she answered for him.

Her voice contained a hint of laughter, was so smooth and sweet that the operator almost overlooked the mocking sneer that played on her lips briefly. Theodore looked at the key in his hand and back to the numbers changing above the sliding doors as they slid quietly past the five floors that separated the lobby from the room. As the lavish compartment shuddered to a halt the young man announced the seventh floor and prompted the shining doors to open with a few well rehearsed flicks of his wrist. Theodore exited first, tucking a crisp, rather large bill in the pale-faced operator's front shirt pocket. She snickered softly under her breath at the tip as she crossed the threshold onto the rich carpet of the hallway. Theodore trembled with an anger absent in his face's unshakable demeanor and marched with military formality towards the room at the far South East wing of the building, his building. At the door he turned to face her for the first time. She smiled and took her own key from her handbag. With apparent fatigue he followed her into the room, modest in size but exquisite in its decor. He sank into a rocking chair of glossy oak and plush brown upholstery. From the side table he lifted his reading glasses and a newspaper.

She cleared her throat and lit one of the cigarettes she kept in the drawer of the nightstand. Refocusing strained attention from the column he had been pretending to read, his gaze fell on her leaning back on her palms, her fingertips pointing away from her, the cigarette dangling from the permanent smirk she wore when they were alone. She crossed her legs and assumed a sloppy pose made enticing only by the cut of the black dress she wore with absolute confidence.

"Why do you keep this up Teddy?"

"I couldn't tell you really. I've been made a fool and I've been controlled. Truth be told I loathe you. You make my skin crawl. The air is thick with some sort of evil when you're around and though I cannot for the life of me reconcile the wrong done when I'm with you there's some latent terror of what would happen if I broke it off and sent you packing."

The corners of her mouth turned sharply upward into a smile that revealed both her overly white teeth and her malicious intent.

"I've broken you. One day everyone will know that you gave to my every whim. They'll know that I owned you."

She rose quietly with unmatched grace from the bed and seemed to glide to him.

"Mr. Kennedy is even lovelier in person than on the television. Don't you think so?," she asked returning to her innocent tone, and settled into his lap.

He cringed as she kissed his temple, her lips brushing against the frames of his glasses. She removed the spectacles, taking note of the lipstick smudged on the arm, and proceeded to set them softly onto the side table as she leaned forward to lie her head on his shoulder. She felt him quiver with unease and smiled inwardly at her ability to make him do so.

"Get out," he said suddenly, "it's done."

He pushed her off his lap and stood straight with newfound courage. The part of him she believed to be broken stood snarling before her and she knew that very moment that she loved him this way. When he stood for something he was a god. When he approached life like he approached business, with a raw masculine ferocity that swallowed up any pretense of calm and the storm began in his eyes, he was the image of Ares before trembling masses. He was rigid with decision and his eyes were merciless. She tried once to meet his contemptuous gaze with a submissive glance but found that she was in fact broken despite her best efforts. Rising to her feet with all the dignity she could muster she said goodbye and leaned in to kiss him. Theodore side-stepped her attempt and strode to the door, swinging it open.

"Get out. Now."

She, without gathering her belongings, walked, crestfallen, through the door and faced him for the last time as he slammed the heavy oak panel in her face. Shame and fear washed over her as she stepped back onto the elevator.

"To the roof please Jim," she nearly whispered to the operator.

"Here you are ma'am."

She quickly and quietly removed her earrings, a gift from Theodore, and slipped them into Jim's front pocket with Teddy's tip. As she stepped off the elevator crisp air hit her face, streaming with tears, and she wept openly. She stared out over Mineral Wells perched on the edge of the cupola bathed in midnight moonlight.

World Enough, And Time

ryan

Viscerally

ali

Sixteen stories of stately brick call us back to an abandoned alley for a couple quick glances tossed across the shoulder before a deft scramble over the wall with its mute NO TRESPASSING frown, running low through weed-eaten courtyards and graffiti-streaked tunnels to lie bellies flattened against the cement spine of its bridge as a siren wails its presence by. Light foot dash forward to shimmy up a column and - pause, dangerously poised, before - jumping over the teeth of a locked iron gate, to squeeze through the slip of the top of a doorway, finally boots-first through a broken window, the kaleidoscope of dismembered glass and full-length mirrors and heavily sagging ceiling shifting underneath tenderly-placed steps into the unknown dusk of what we later learn was the once-swank Brazos Club.

Layers of unbelieving understanding starting to unfold as we creep reverently on past a forest of strangely sobered arches, through dense carved doors in a segue to the soar of the lobby, its chandeliers still swinging like a first loose tooth by one frail nerve, drapes still swooned across windows slicing light into mote-thickened arcs, rugs still smooth as a lick of pomade against the span of its echoing stretch - we fling our voices out in glee and pull them back in whispered awe.

Outstretched hands and feet now feeling out the staircase, pocket knife first, up by one swirl to the lobby's upper ledge, emptied out beside the blinded eyes of iron-lidded elevator shafts dropping silently to stomach-felt depths.

Rooms petal off by function only dimly hinted at, here by a densely rust encrusted typewriter in a jumble of otherwise unidentifiable machinery, there by glass doors folding inward for all the eye like phone booths, us gingerly pushing with our toes at a pile of chairs, running our fingers through the dust icing fitted marble counter tops, casting our questions up at the globed dome of what must have been another ballroom.

With our hints we gather artifacts, typewriter keys tucked in pockets and ashtray bowls carried under arms, the crowning find a lone rocking chair of scrolled arms rolling into curled legs holding straight the perfect line of a brown upholstered back - letting ourselves out the window, histories clutched tight to the chest in a shifty gait past the pit of the pool across the naked stretch of the lawn, our car and triumph a short leap over the chainlink fence beyond. Dangling precariously along the edge of discovery when a car turns the corner, slows, windows rolling down and heads popping out flinging questions - parried to find them harmless observers, envying our bravado and eying our treasures, parting with a word of warning.

Five minutes later sliding into a dinner booth, still dusted with asbestos and exultation -

"Do you know anything about that abandoned hotel around the corner?" we ask the waitress with barely veiling innocence.

"Oh yeah. It's famous around here... people are always trying to break in, but they have someone watching it all the time. It's automatic jail time, if you get caught."

We smile, and order our drinks. In the parking lot, in the dark, a chair rocks slightly.

Prometheus


Oh life -- forbidden flower
by destiny compelled
to grace our mortal bower
so near yet still withheld.


Too long thy dancing feet have fled,
oh all elusive bliss;
ensnared -- when man thy hand has wed
and tasted of thy kiss.


By arts profane and sacred
your secrets are revealed.
Your love shall meet our hatred
and we, in turn, be healed.


Now captured in the moment,
enshrined in walls of time,
your light, our hallowed sacrament,
albeit Adam's crime.


Once flowing through our fingers,
now held within our hand,
your setting ray but lingers
above our radiant land


and tarries o'er Olympus,
whose crimson shoulders rise
drenched by years of living death
where Prometheus dies.