Struck.2

“Why do you have matches?” she said, pulling her hand from the pocket, holding the wooden sticks. “Used matches. Why do you have USED matches in your pockets?”

I looked over at her, standing there next to the tree, wearing my winter coat. “Where did you find that?” I asked.

“The matches? In your pocket, I said.”

“No, the coat. Where was the coat?” I stood up straight, trying to brush the dust from my hands.

“In the trunk. There’s a blanket in there too. You cold? Maybe you should wear the coat and I should wrap up in the blanket.” She looked at me, her gaze innocuous. I thought I’d lost that coat. I hadn’t seen it for months and then forgotten about it in the summer. The girl crossed her arms, hugging the jacket close around her throat and bounced on the balls of her feet. The blustery wind swirled up the skirt of her dress. Her bare legs and sandaled feet were looking pink and raw.

“Or maybe I’ll take the blanket and you change the tire,” I said. “You didn’t bother to get the jack? Or the spare while you were rummaging in my trunk?”

“Oh. No. You think we can change the tire?”

“Yeah. There’s no reason we can’t.”

“I’ve never changed a tire before. I’m not really sure I know how.”

“The hardest part is going to be getting the lug nuts off. They were machine tightened the last time the tires were rotated.” I kicked the tire and then looked up at her.

She was staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve never heard you talk about tires. You sound so smart.” She smirked, like she was being sarcastic, but didn’t move.

“Ok, let’s get the tools and get you home, shall we?” I said, crunching over the gravel to the trunk.

“I really appreciate you giving me a ride, you know,” she said, taking the lug wrench when I thrust it at her.

I just grunted.

I stood next the car, trying to figure out how to do this without completely ruining my clothes. My knee was already raw from kneeling on the gravel. “Give me the blanket.” My skirt was longer than hers. I reached between my legs to grab the back of the skirt, and pulled it forward to tuck it into the belt at the front. It was an awkward arrangement, but hopefully I wouldn’t rip the fabric when I knelt down. She handed me the wooly, moth-eaten blanket from the trunk. I decided I’d rather be cold than wrap up in the greasy thing. I put it down on the ground next to the car and knelt down to place the jack.

I started pumping the lever on the jack. The car started to rise. Very slowly. She watched for a few seconds, then started rummaging through my pockets.

“So why do you have used matches in your pocket?” she asked.

“A little busy right now,” I said.

“‘Scuse me.”

I managed to get the tire off the ground and switched to the lug wrench. I looked down the road, hoping for a car, but I couldn’t see anything. The wind whipped my hair around into my face. I couldn’t get the nuts to budge. A sharp scraping noise startled me and my hands slipped from the lug wrench. My shoulder hit the side of the car.

She stood holding a lit match up to the sky, one hand shielding it against the wind. Her eyes moved to me. “Sorry.” She shook out the match and raised her hand to flip it onto the gravel shoulder. She hesitated, looking at me again. She gingerly pinched the tip of the match to make sure it was out and then tucked the match into the jacket pocket.

After a few more minutes of futile struggle with my bare foot (my sandal slipped on the metal lever), I stood up and gestured for her to have a go.

“What?” she asked.

“We need to get it to turn and loosen the nuts. You have a go.”

“You look sweaty.”

“It’s hard,” I said, leaning against the car and rubbing my shoulder.

“You want the coat?”

“No, I’m ok right now.” I switched to rubbing my foot to warm it.

She wrinkled her face, trying to tuck her whispy skirt between her thighs. She blew out one breath, gave me a worried glance, and leaned in on the wrench. 

A Book A Week: House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, Random House, 1999 Via the First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, 2000 (with movie tie-in cover)

A tax error, which sounds very trivial, sets in motion this tense, elegant thriller. Kathy Nicolo is a recovering addict who lives in a house she inherited from her father. A hard-won stability starts to slip away from her when she is abandoned by her husband and the county tax office evicts her for non-payment of taxes. Sheriff Lester Burdon witnesses her eviction, just doing his duty, but afterward he can’t get Kathy out of his mind. Colonel Behrani is an Iranian refugee, once wealthy. Here in the U.S. he patches together jobs that are embarrassing to him in order to maintain the illusion that he is still wealthy. Taking a chance with the last of his savings, he bids on a house at a county auction, hoping to flip it for a profit and begin to rebuild both his wealth and pride. 

This story is knotty, the characterization excruciatingly detailed and realistic. As the lives of these three people—each desperate for something—become tangled around each other and this house, the tension becomes suffocating. When the eruption finally happens, the outcome is shocking. I don’t want to spoil the ending, so I’ll just say that I found the final few pages puzzling. While the resolution for two of the characters is undeniably tragic, I’m less certain about how we are to view the conclusion for the third, which, though dramatically changed, feels somehow safer. 

Check in to the comments and let me know if you’ve read this one and what you think about the last few pages.

I have not seen the film, and as I’ve grown increasingly sensitive to depictions of violence the past few years, I’m not sure I could watch this one. If you’ve seen the movie, what can you say about the level of violence? How graphic is the ending?  

Struck

What good were matches that couldn’t stay lit in the breeze as I tried to light the two candles under the tree. The two candles that tried, unsuccessfully to light a celebration.

I struck the matches against a rock under the tree. The first one sparked to life, burning their light into my eyes, so that I still saw the flame in the darkness, even after the breeze swirled in to put it out. Why did I keep trying? The wind did not want those matches to be lit. The wind did not want me to see your face, looking at me and the tiny cake with embarrassment, then contempt. Or was it the other way around? The wind would not let me light the candles and tried hard to stun the matches the moment they were struck.

One match, the last one, I sheltered in my hands, guarded it from the meddling wind, when I looked over the light, smiling in triumph, at your face, not looking at me, but at your shoes, your mouth twisted into something. Something ugly and not looking at me. I knew that you wouldn’t eat the cake. I knew that you wouldn’t look at me again the way you had looked at me before.

The flame scorched my fingertip, and with a reflex, I shook out the light. Smelling the smoke of the burnt wood, but not trying to strike another, not wanting to see the emptiness in your eyes or the twist of your mouth as you stood there, leaning against the tree, your hands deep in your pockets against the cold wind, not trying to help me, not offering to hold the cake, not interested in a celebration of anything between us.

Coward.

That’s the word that came to me. You stood there. A coward. A spineless jerk who couldn’t even afford me the respect of saving me this humiliation. I came here with this romantic plan. With this cake. With these matches. Against the wind. Against the rain. I smiled and laughed as match after match went out and into my pocket, one of them singeing the lining because its ember still burned.

Coward.

In that instant—in my embarrassment—I hated you completely. Just like that.

“I guess it’s too windy,” I said. All the laughter and the joy was blown out of my voice by the wind.

“I guess so,” you said. Even in the dark I knew you weren’t looking at me.

The Dogs of Summer

The weather in this part of Texas is a little warm. And by “a little warm” I mean that we’ve been hanging out around 100F/38C for weeks. With no rain. This weekend the weather gurus are forecasting a hop up above 104F/40C before gliding back into the recent pattern. We’re experiencing a very dry (as in no rain) summer, in addition to a dry (as in slightly less humid) spell of air (possibly thanks to Hurricane Irene sucking all of the moisture from the atmosphere of the Western Hemisphere), but this is not a dry heat. This is air that might be able to support sea life.

August (and by “August” I mean August and September, which are virtually interchangeable, weather-wise) is traditionally very hot in this part of Texas. That fabled time of year when people talk about the air going out of everything. By which they mean that the brisk daily sea breeze sort of peters out, letting that moist air lay down upon your skin like a damp blanket that’s been tossing in the clothes dryer for a few minutes. August is the month that people Endure in this part of Texas. Endure for the promising possibility of beautiful weather and flip-flops in October and November. Endure for the potential gift of wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the sunshine on Christmas. 

So in August, we move our bodies very slowly, to conserve energy. We travel from shady spot to shady spot, and if we are dogs, we pant. We move our brains very slowly, because the hot haze seeps in and makes complex thinking difficult. We hold dripping wet glasses full of ice water to our foreheads and dream of that cool October breeze that will stir us from the lethargy of August.

*** 

Editor’s Note: Two hours after I wrote this piece, out of the (hot) clear, blue sky, rain clouds rolled in. For about an hour I watched the sky get very dark, the clouds build into black castles of vapor. The wind blew very hard, pushing around the dust that had nothing to hold it to the ground. I wondered if this storm could be all bluster and no punch. The temperature dropped significantly. The straight wind started swirling. A few big, fat, rain drops made dots on the sidewalk, then evaporated in seconds as I watched them. I looked at the sky and wondered if the dots would be connected. I gave up and went in the house. The plink, plink, think of raindrops against the kitchen vent hood drew me to a window to witness the most beautiful downpour I’ve seen in a long time. A light to moderate rain fell for almost two hours, complete with thunder and lightning. Another booming storm woke us during the night, and another tripped in as the kids were going to school this morning. As far as drought goes, this is just a drop in the bucket, but we’ll take it. And this rain only changes our August behavior slightly. As we hold the dripping glasses to our skin, we will also be swatting mosquitoes.

ABAW: The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

Still catching up. 

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, Penguin Press, 2011 (library copy)

When the Washington Post published an excerpt of this memoir in January, a mommy-war firestorm erupted. I read the excerpt, and some of the responses, mainly out of curiosity. Chua tells the story of raising her two daughters in what she calls a Chinese parenting style, like a Tiger Mother, limiting sterotypical Western childhood freedoms and demanding a lot from them, even as very young children. The most controversial bits are Chua’s admissions of hyperbolic parenting rage (calling her daughter garbage once, rejecting their homemade birthday cards, threatening to burn their stuffed animals.)

Now that I’ve read the book, I think the controversy is blown way out of proportion. Chua’s writing style is dry, and very funny. Her biggest target in the book is herself, and she presents her story of parental adaptation honestly. The take-home message from Chua is that like all other parents, she thought she was doing the right thing. Some things her children have done vindicated Chua’s choices, some things castigated them. Whether she was too strict or too demanding, she expected as much or more from herself as from her daughters, and the loving response of Sophia tells us more about the metatruth of Chua’s parenting than anything else. Sophia’s letter to her Tiger Mom.