Joel: So you know that Holly chick I’ve been talking about?
Pete: Oh, the married one?
Joel: Yeah.
Pete: You been seeing her a while. Couple of months – that’s gotta be a record for you.
Joel: Yeah, well she’s knocked up.
Pete: No shit! Is it yours?
Joel: I wish I knew for sure. Either way, I’m gone.
Pete frowns.
Joel: What? Her husband’s going to kill me if he figures it’s me, which he will if it’s mine because they’re both white and well, fuck, she’s just not fucking worth it. She’s going to be raising it alone one way or the other so what would you do?
I’ve had all kinds of bugs in my house: when I moved in we had pantry moths; it took two years to get rid of those. We’ve had flies, fruit flies … we even had a spate of lady bugs one year. Since spring this year, I’ve had an overabundance of snails slowly making their way around the front outside wall of my house. And now, this …
Two mornings ago I was in my kitchen, chatting with my son, when he pointed to the floor and said, is that a dead wasp? It was. They were. About two dozen of them, some still alive and walking around stupidly, but most were dead. They were all around my kitchen table, in the windows and on the table.
Yesterday morning I only found two, both dead.
This morning, I found out at least what was killing them. When I came downstairs to prepare Alex’s feeding pump at 5:30, I turned the light on. By the time I went back upstairs, there were a couple of wasps flying around the kitchen light over the table. I left it on, as I do, and went back upstairs only to realize I’d forgotten my phone. When I came back down, there were about half a dozen wasps, all flying around the unshaded incandescent bulb.
I deduced that the heat from the lightbulb is killing them. When I finally investigated, after Alex had gone to school–if I tell him about it, he’ll never sit at the table again–I found about a dozen, this time as many alive (but stupid) as dead. Problem is, I have no idea where they’re coming from.
So I’m guessing my best bet is to leave the light on, and hope they die when it gets cold outside. Because I ain’t hanging around in my kitchen to see where they’re crawling in while they’re alive and active.
Or maybe I’ll just go live outside with the snails.
Myrtle: I told him! I said to him, ‘If you don’t go and get that seen to, it’s going to get infected!’ But did he listen to me? And now look at him. All doubled over in pain, not able to get out of bed.
Edith: Well, all you can do is tell them. Paddy’s able to look after himself. He can’t have you waiting on him all the time.
Myrtle: I’ll be darned if he thinks I’m waiting on him! After he told me I worry too much and that I’ve become a fusspot. A fusspot! Do you believe he actually said that to my face?
Edith: Nerve.
Myrtle: He does have a lot of nerve. And now it serves him right. (pauses to glance out the window) I’ve loved that man most of my life and that’s the thanks I get.
Edith: He doesn’t deserve all you do for him, Myrtle. But what can you do?
Myrtle: You know, Edie, there was a time when I’d do anything for that man. Forty-five years we’ve been married, and we’ve seen it all. Well you know. How long were you married to Harvey, God rest his soul?
Edith: It would have been fifty-one years this week.
Edith squeezes the top of her cane, kneading it.
Myrtle: Now, Edie, I don’t want you to be thinking you’re doing something wrong. I don’t feel that way and my Paddy’s still alive! (looks up) Oh, this is our stop. Come on, Edie, the Chippendales await. Let’s go get ourselves a stiff one, shall we?
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Mark shakes his head and looks down at his hands, wringing them in his lap.
Angie: I told Jim to tell you.
Mark: He didn’t. (looks up to the ceiling and sighs) I go on one blind date. The first blind date of my entire life and … (looks back down at his hands) Sorry. It’s not your fault.
Angie straightens her skirt and turns to the window.
Mark: Listen, do you want to go to the movie anyway?
Angie: What for? I didn’t think you were interested …
Mark: I dunno. We can still have fun anyway, can’t we?
Angie:(smiles and reaches for his hand) I think so.
Mark:(takes her hand and squeezes it) Has anyone ever told you you have pretty hands?
Angie: No, but thank you.
Mark hands Angie her white cane and they get off the bus.
Being a writer, I’ve read thousands of articles and opinions on how we typically come up with the characters who appear in our fiction. Is there a typical way? Probably not, but being as this is stream of consciousness and I stuck that damned rule in there to say we can’t edit, … that’s all she wrote.
Anyhoo, back to the topic of characters. One of the phrases I read a lot is “giving birth to characters.” I can’t say that I do that. “Giving birth,” to me, implies that they’re brand new shells of people who rely on me to fill them up with experiences, emotions, ways of speaking, and things they’re likely to do and ways they’re likely to react at any given moment. For me, characters appear as already-formed beings. I don’t give birth to them as much as I discover them.
One of the ways I know this–one of the main ways I know this–is when they show me their accents. In this alone I can tell where they come from, whether or not they have a lot of money, their age, their demeanor. I suppose it’s not necessarily as much “accent” as way of talking. Inflection, grammar, whether or not they use a lot of cliches. That sort of stuff.
It’s not as though I have them hanging around in my head all the time. If they did, I wouldn’t get a thought to myself. Nah, they come and go. You’ll see them in my “Second Seat” series. Come to think of it, it’s almost as though I have a bus inside my head …
Andrea: So, she told me she’s, like, so skinny and when I get there? It’s like, who is this fat chick?
Lacey: Don’t you just hate it when people do that? They tell you one thing online …
Andrea: … and then I know! You find out they’re, like, nothing like they said they were going to be.
Lacey: It’s, like, remember that guy …
Andrea: Oh shit, yeah! That guy who told Billy he was straight and then …
Lacey: No, that other guy …
Andrea: Oh, the one who Martina met in the park? The one who, like, showed up with all this suit of armor and shit?
Lacey: Yeah, that one. Didn’t he …
Andrea:(laughs) Oh yeah, that’s right. He had to go to the bathroom and … (looks across the aisle at a middle aged man) What the fuck are you looking at?
Andrea sits back in her seat and pulls at the gum in her mouth, stretching it.
Andrea:(quietly to Lacey) Do you believe people these days? Jeez!
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