Dylan Hawkins

Smacked

(phone ring)

Hello

It didn’t surprise me that Brandon called so late, but there was a sign of angst in his voice. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I was concerned. Maybe for the right reasons. I still decided to pick him up though. I’m not sure if I noticed it, but on the way out I walked by the Pulp Fiction poster hanging in our TV room. Uma Thurman’s face is dead centered, silently staring back at us with penetrating eyes.

(CAR)

It was freezing out, and the full moon’s light was hidden behind giant nimbus clouds. It was hard to see where the road was taking me. (Pause)

The rain hit my windows with the force of sleet. Startling me with a chorus of “smacks” and “bangs” hitting against my windshield. The roads were slick and I probably shouldn’t have been driving.

I don’t remember the time, but it was probably well after midnight. (short pause)

I vividly remember the look on Brandon’s face when he got in the car. His eyes were swollen, red and puffed, like bruises after a boxing fight. He was  pale white, with beads of sweat swarming across his forehead and clinging to his upper lip. It was freezing out, but Brandon was sweating profusely   like he was stuck in a sauna. Brandon looked like he had seen a ghost as he was staring back at himself in the passenger side mirror.

He smelt like piss and vomit.  

I can’t remember if I asked him what’s wrong? (PAUSE) Maybe i was too scared to ask because truthfully, I didn’t want to know the answer. Instead I tried to remove myself, so I asked Brandon if he wanted to go home.

I still remember his response. He asked me to drive around for a bit so he could “cool off”. It was freezing out. I didn’t even question him, but I knew something had happened. I think I just wanted him to tell me when he was ready. Maybe I want to remember it that way. Brandon was speechless, but despite the lack of words, his face told a story that 1000 words could not.

I always wondered what made Brandon so quiet. The first few times we met, the only thing I could get out of him was his name. There was a withdrawn reluctance to open up. He was the hawk, perched on the telephone pole, waiting to see if the landscape was safe before he stuck conversation. (pause)

As a kid, Brandon sheltered himself from others. I wasn’t sure why he had intimacy issues with people close to him.

They say that rescued animals that were abused and abandoned tend to have issues developing relationships.

My brothers cat Benga is a rescue. It took me years for her to even let me pet her. Benga constantly pounced at me, with a hand cocked and dagger eyes that said, “back the fuck up.” I got the message. Until one day, when she realized my true intentions. But after that, Benga would still lash out when she was overwhelmed. It was her instinct to protect herself. She can’t fight it. Even now, when she knows my scent, and seems to love me, she has her moments. There is a constant hesitation to trust.

Bra ndan once told me that he when was 8, his father threatened to kill him and his mother because of their divorce. This turned out to be a dot on the line of strange appearances on the behalf of his alcoholic  father. His mom is remarried now to a nice guy, Bill. He treats her well and he even treats Brandon like his own son. But Brandon still seems to isolate himself from, and resent, Bill.

There’s a scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman overdoses after a night out with John Travolta. Anyway, John Travolta is panicked, his thug boss’s wife is dying under the protection of Travolta. Needless to say his night isn’t going to well. Travolta frantically rushes Uma to his dealer’s house and then it happens. Boom. Adrenaline rushes.

The numbing silence broke. Brendan told me he was with Tommy and his girlfriend. He pulled his shirt off and showed me what had happened. His chest was marked with with a ballpoint circle of red near the chest cavity. Dried blood smeared around the puncture. Brandon needed a shot for resuscitation. He was dead, but now he is alive.

***

            Brandon was still in awe, or still in some sort of haze, I couldn’t really tell, maybe it was both. I assumed that he must have done it before, but I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think that he was a user.

Again I asked Brandan if he wanted to go home. He reluctantly said yes.  I didn’t want to sound selfish, but it was late and I felt a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to handle the situation. Should I hide what happened, or do I need to tell someone for help. I was confused.

Benga always used to escape the house and run away from us, but one time she was missing for over a week. Eventually she came back, half dead, limping through the grass in the back yard. My brother had to nurse her back to health. Even after the near death experience Benga still pounced at every chance she had to get outside. I thought knowing the danger would prevent her from doing it again.

Brandon never learned from his mistakes. He would take chances on the smallest things. Brandon was prescribed klonopins to reduce his stress, but instead of taking them properly, he would drink on them. Everytime I’d see him nodding off around his 5 beer. Barely able to keep his eyes open. I always thought alcohol disabled his emotions, it numbed him. I may be wrong though. Maybe some people just like the high. I doubt it though, I think he just temporarily masks the issues.

I too rely on vices when I am stressed. We all do. It’s in our nature.

Distraction. Something to remove us from reality.

Some escapes from reality are good, but why do we do things that we know will cause us harm.

My father used to be an alcoholic, well i should say he is an alcoholic, recovering and sober for over 25 years. I am 22 and my brother is 25. One of the things he used to say about drugs and alcohol is that people do it, because it works. We can suppress the problem, and hide it inside us, regardless of what it is. I tend to think this applies to more than just alcohol.  

People joke that “Heroin addicts are always talking smack.” I laughed when I first heard someone say this popular joke, but there’s a dark truth to the playful pun on words. Once you are in, you get stuck. I always wondered what makes someone try something that’s highly addictive. It’s difficult to see the value in dancing on thin ice.

Brandon never told me why he did it, or if it was his first time. Maybe things are best hidden behind the curtains, but maybe not.      

In “Reading on the Air,” Jonathan Kern advises the audio essayist to write the essay for our own voice. He states that “We have some people on air who, in the heyday of radio, would not have gotten jobs – they don’t have pretty voices – but they write for their own voices in a way that makes them good storytellers” (132). In Joshua Wheelers, “Ugly Pew” he does not have a voice that can captivate an audience, like say a Morgan Freeman, or a David Attenborough. Having said that, he writes the piece to fit his style, and his voice. (133)

Wheeler also is effective in a few other strategies mentioned in Kern’s article “Reading on the Air.” Kern states that that we need to speak conversationally. He ask the audio essayist to question if they would say something, that they’ve written, to their mother’s or friend. He also mentions that we need to pace ourselves, slowdown in the margins, and to enunciate our words, to help show words of importance (135/135).

An example of these is provided in “Ugly Pew,” at 8:30-9:25, when Wheeler states that “sometimes people just want to die.” I don’t know how to exactly describe his emotional state, but there was almost a blank sincerity within his words. He then goes on to describe a scene with his mother in an extremely frank and matter of fact account of the event. Within each pause, it allows his audience to grasp the severity of the information being told. He continues by recollecting a statement he made to his mother. While in church, Wheeler told his mother bluntly that her daughter wanted to die. After a long pause, Wheeler recalls that he braced for some sort of emotional reaction, but instead she braced herself, and then they sang together. Eventually, his Mother acknowledges her daughter death. Wheeler pauses and describes her deep breath as a slight ascension from reality, but once his mother exhaled she was grounded in their tragedy. The pauses not only help the listener follow the story, they also really make the reader analyze the events that just transcribed. When articulated so casually it is easy to overlook to tragedy and sadness within the story.

I think that I can incorporate some of these pauses for transitions for my piece. I also tend to read quickly, so putting slow down in my margins may not be a bad thing. I also think that I am going to focus on how I sound in my piece. Kern states that standing up can be effective when recording your voice. I will also try to evoke deeper meaning by emphasizing specific words in my essay. I think that the way and how we say things is almost more important than what is actually stated. Something that sounds smooth but is rude, is almost more effective than something that sounds course, but is polite.

After reading David Antin’s essay, “The Theory and Practice of Postmodernism: A Manifesto,” I noticed that many of the features of a radio essay are captured within this essay. Kern States that, “A reader who becomes confused at any point in the sentence or elsewhere in the story can just go back and reread it – or even jump ahead a few paragraphs to search for more details. But if a listener doesn’t catch a fact the first time around, it’s lost. (26)” Because of this, in a radio essay the writer needs to dispense the information he releases in bite-size chunks. Stylistically, this is exactly what Antin is doing in his essay. Each sentence is written in small snippets. Antin does this so that no information is lost or forgotten when the listener hears the information read. Antin also leaves spaces after reach sentence, allowing the reader to pause. This also allows the listener to take a moment to grasp what has just been stated to them.

Not only this, but Antin uses language that comes out in ordinary speech. He doesn’t write things in an elegant and stylish way, but in a casual and commonplace way. This is much more conventional to the way we actually interact with people. He is not writing to an audience of millions, but just an audience of one; like regular conversation. Kern states, “exchange should remind us that real people don’t talk the way newspapers reported write. They don’t pack everything they’ve got into one long, dense sentence. We use sentence fragments. We add force to what we’re saying by speaking in short, repetitive sentences. We don’t do this consciously it’s just how people talk. (29)”

All of these methods are captured in every single line that is written by Antin. Each line is a fragmented piece of information, that is scattered and disjointed like regular thought. He repeats himself for impact. Most importantly he doesn’t lose the listener by doing all of this.

Although it can be found in almost every line, one example is the following.

“Our expert        carol has been an expert in anything domestic that we’ve ever done all our lives because we’re definitely not     carol has been our great expert on everything   gardeners carpenters    schools Eleanor calls carol                and its hard sometimes                 carol may have a new husband  and then she’s living somewhere else and you’ve got to find her    she is an expert on everything but men or maybe or she is an expert on men … (115)”

Each sentence is brief. The paragraph is jumbled with pauses and repetition. When it is read aloud it sounds similar to common conversation. It is also important to note that it also incorporates the active voice. “she is an expert on everything…” and “ shes living somewhere else…” All of these elements combined make this a clear example of a radio essay.

According to Sara Levine, a good essay leaves the reader, “feeling as if (they) have met somebody” (159). Throughout “The Self on the Shelf,” Levine attempts to “talk about how an essayists makes an impression” (160). One point that she makes is that generally essays make use of the “first person singular,” and that the essayist can be “spotted by the frequent flash of his “I” (160). Levine states that, “in many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself up other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.” (160)

“The Empathy Exams” does a great job of providing Leslie Jamison’s persona through her writing. The essay itself provides two separate stories that are woven together. One story consists of a created world, where Leslie works as a Medical Actor. These characters are constructed with little details, for the sole purpose of testing medical student’s knowledge. In the other story, Leslie introduces her own reality, revealing details of her actual life; linking her fictional characters stories to authentic experiences that have occurred during her lifetime. By doing this, Leslie exposes her true-self and personality through her writing.

The first example of this occurs when Leslie is interacting with med students. She states, “I want to tell them I’m more than just an unmarried woman faking seizures for pocket money. I do things! I want to tell them. I’m probably going to write about this in an essay someday!” (5). This comment is a clear indication that the authors real self is lashing to get out. While she pretends to be someone during the interviews, she can’t express the actual events that are happening in her life. To me, this quote provides a glimpse at her distress in her own reality.

After this initial comment, Leslie then digs into her persona, by providing glimpses of her life. While talking about an abortion, Leslie states,

“the sense that the end of this pregnancy was something I should feel sad about, the lurking fear that I never felt sad about what I was supposed to feel sad about, the knowledge that I’d gone through several funerals dry-eyed, the hunch that I had a parched interior life activated only by the need for constant affirmation, nothing more.” (12)

These comments reveals deep insights to the emotional state of Leslie. We see a personality within her writing, the person that she really is, Leslie’s sense of “I.” It continues her feelings of distress, and her lashing out for some sort of “affirmation” or empathetic understanding from others.

The last quote I will provide that glimpses into Leslie’s theme of distress and affirmation/understanding is found when Leslie comments on what she calls, a “stuttering tape” (23). Jamison states,

“Patient wants everyone to understand that this surgery is isn’t a big deal; wants everyone to understand she is stupid for crying when everyone else on the ward is sicker than she is; wants everyone to understand her abortion is also about definitely not about the children her ex-boyfriends have had since she broke up with them.” (25)

I think that these quotes provide a level of uncertainty and self-doubt within the authors persona. I also believe that they reveal Leslie’s need for affirmation from others and her need for others to understand the reasons behind her decisions and actions. Overall, I think Leslie does a great job revealing her persona through her writing.

Aldous Huxley states that, “the most richly satisfying essays are those which make the best not of one, not of two, but of all three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist.”(90). These three worlds, are what he describes as the three-poles, or frame of references, in which we can study the variability within an essay. Huxley then explains the type of essayists that live within each world.

First there are the personal essayists, “who write fragments of reflective autobiography and who look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description.”(88). Then there are the objective essayists, “who do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific or political theme.”(88). And finally, there are abstract-universal essayists, “who never condescend to be personal and who hardly deign to take notice of the particular facts, from which their generalizations were originally drawn.”(88)

Within Delft, Albert Goldbarth writes his essay within each world described by Huxley. Goldbarth introduces his essay through and objective pole. He does this by introducing Leeuwenhoek. By analyzing his contributions to the Microscope, the lens, and the discovery of bacteria, Goldbarth submerges into a scientific examination of the flea. One clear example of this is found in the following quote. Goldbarth states,

“The link between fleas and female hormonal roungs is most amazingly seen in the life of that very excellent specialist, the European rabbit-flea. It clusters on the female rabbit … Every stage in the rabbit-flea’s cycle – ovulating, the ripening of eggs – is triggered by hormone cues in the host-doe’s blood as she becomes pregnant.” (254)

Goldbarth then goes on to explain the history of the flea; how it once was the smallest visible object, our relationship to them, and even the sexual references to flea’s, such as “she’s itching for it” and even the “flearotica” tales.

This objective pole (and the sexuality of fleas), branches to the personal world, where Goldbarth mentions Cynthia. This pole incorporates a “reflective” style of writing, where the author takes a glimpse at a moment of his life. Goldbarth states that flea’s have only pestered him once by sharing fleas with them.

“So I picked fleas of her, chasing them with a fox hunt ardor, suffering my own pink frieze of bites around the ankles as necessary dues, and thanking the otherwise damnable cat for its smuggling-in of what seemed to be, in my godawful moon-eyed and drooly infatuee’s vision, a bevy of cupid’s helpers, each with its requisite arrow.” (255)

Finally, the author leaves us with the abstract-universal, when he mentions “Cupid” in the sentence above. Then, as the essay progresses he brings up Cupid again.

“Cupid, it turns out, is vexed when an ambrosia-lubricated convocation of the deities turns sleepy under Morpheus’s intervening, instead of orgiastic. He shoots an arrow, the arrow turns into a swarm of fleas, and before you know it, divine thighs and mammaries undulate winsomely from divine togas, with three days and nights of mad coupling resulting.” (261)

This is a story that is not personal, nor does it take note of the facts and the history/science behind things. Instead, it is used to describe something by generalizing it. It uses a description of why things happen without putting facts behind it. These three poles are woven together throughout the story in order to present the sexuality in three different perspectives. I believe that this is a glimpse at the trajectory that Goldbarth is aiming for when he combines these three worlds into one essay.

While reading “The Art of the Essayist,” by Arthur Benson, two quotes jumped out to me. The first comment is the following. “One does not go to an essayist with a desire for information, or with an expectation of finding a clear statement of a complicated subject … What one rather expects to find is a companionable treatment of that vast mass of little problems and floating ideas … evoked by our passage through the world… and above all by our relations with other people.” (40)

I found that this quote parallels with Annie Dillard’s reactions and descriptions following the phenomenon that occurred in “Total Eclipse.” Instead of giving sums of information or an elaborate scientific description of a total eclipse, Dillard provides several statements that summarize how the event made the people involved feel. Her descriptions depict relatable scenarios within ourselves and between humans, rather than providing complex information that actually portrays what an eclipse is.

Following the event, Dillard explains how she was still in awe, and at a loss of words. People in the hotel were saying “Did you see…? Did you see … Then somebody said something that knocked her for a loop.” (10) The student simply stated that the “little white ring … looked like a Life Saver.”(10). Dillard then goes on to say how she could not write a sentence, let alone use a word to describe what she had seen. She was “dumbstruck.” However, something so simple and unexpected brought her back to reality. I note this section because Dillard uses “companionable treatment” of an amazing event.

Dillard also does this in the last paragraph. Once again, instead of concretely describing the event, she explains how the event made her feel. For the reader, this is a much more relatable and sociable description. We may not know how an eclipse is formed, but we have a firmer grasp what it’s like to view an event. We can picture how astounding, shocking, scary, and draining a total eclipse is. Dillard states that as they drove away,

“We never looked back. It was a general vamoose, and an odd one, for when we left the hill, the sun was still partially eclipsed – a sight rare enough, and one which, in itself, we would probably have driven five hours to see. But enough is enough. One turns at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief.”(13)

The second comment Benson made is that “The essayist is the opposite of the romancer, because his one and continuous aim is to keep the homely materials in view; to face actual conditions, not to fly from them.” (42) Throughout the essay Dillard depicts the events with a gloomy realism.

“The world which lay under darkness and stillness following the closing of the lid was not the world we know. The event was over. Its devastation lay around about us. The clamoring mind and heart stilled, almost indifferent, certainly disembodied, frail, and exhausted. The hills were hushed, obliterated.” (7)

This scene is by no means romantic, beautiful, or portrayed to in an attractive form. It is barren, raw, unpleasant, but accurate way. This is a trait true to the essayist. This style is continually depicted throughout the essay, but another good example is found later in the story. “The white ring and the saturated darkness made the earth and the sky look as they must look in the memories of the careless dead.” (9) Overall, Dillard seems to use the qualities of an essay displayed in the previous two quotes by Benson.

Joan Didion’s “On Keeping a Notebook”, appeared to be a clear example of essayistic style writing. The first thing that jumped out to me was Didion’s description of what makes a writer. It almost appeared to be an excerpt directly pulled from “Toward a Collective Poetics of the Essay.” She states, “I write entirely to find out what’s on my mind, what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I’m seeing and what it means, what I want and what I’m afraid of.” Didion then adds, “All writing is an attempt to find out what matters, to find the pattern in disorder, to find the grammar in the shimmer… The scene that you see in your mind finds its own structure; the structure dictates the arrangement of the words. . . . All the writer has to do really is to find the words.”(21)

I found this quote to parallel many of the comments made by Montaigne and Gass. That is, that essays are not shackled to constraints like methodical writing, they are “disjointed” and “broken” and it “seeks to mirror (our) mind in action.” (xvi). In other words, as we write an essay, our “mind finds its own structure” and our thought process is built through the act of writing and thinking (not preemptively).

Too build off the point above, I would also note that Didion jumps around from point to point. Each paragraph seems separate, but it is actually a loose transition between ideas, similar to our actual thought process. A good example of this is the transition back and forth from her notebook, to her reconstruction of when she wrote these events down in the first place and how they make her feel now. It is almost a back and forth dialogue throughout in order to conceptualize meaning. I would cite a single example, but the essay is riddled with them. One of Gass’ explanations of an essay really captures what I think the writer is trying to do. He states, “It turns round and round upon its topic, exposing this aspect and then that; proposing possibilities, reciting opinions, disposing of prejudice and even of the simple truth itself.” (xx)

Another piece I will comment on in relation to essay style is the conclusion. At the end there is no true final thought, or suggestion of meaning. The entirety of her writing is left for interpretation by the reader. There are obviously subtle comments, but they are merely the writer’s way of questioning her own assumptions, and even questioning ours. Having a last sentence that leaves wonder and lacks finality seems to fit the essayist style. Howells states that the difference between an article and an essay is that articles lead to “premises and conclusions,” while essays are “wandering airs of thought.” (xix)

Personally, I found the essay to be extremely interesting and thought provoking. I think the transitioning was extremely effective in making the reader question not just the text, but their own experience in life. While the essay is largely written as a self-reflective story about why Didion uses a notebook, it is also for the reader. It questions basic human nature, and our need to capture events that happen in our lives.

There were two statements she wrote that caught my eye. The first quote is about remembering events inaccurately. Didion states, “Very likely they are right, for not only have I always had trouble distinguishing between what happened and what merely might have happened, but I remain unconvinced that distinction, for my purposes, matter.” (23). I agree. Whether we perceive something accurately or inaccurately isn’t what matters. What matters is how it made us feel. Ultimately the real event is less true to our perception because the emotions we felt are triggered by our initial perceptions. The second quote I like was in regards to reliving our old emotions. She states that it is troublesome to not let out our old-selves out from time to time, “otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” (26)

As a final comment, I found her ability to align her emotions with the audiences pretty amazing. To end on a quote, Gass states “The unity of each essay is a unity achieved by the speaker for his audience as well as for himself, a kind of reassociation of his sensibility and theirs.”