Where the Writing Is

Posted on July 26, 2002 in Writing

I’m back to note taking. Spending time trying to understand the mind of the main character as he experiences a flashback.

I wonder how much other stuff that I read rubs off? My current novel is Them by Joyce Carol Oates. If it is having an effect, I think it’s making me desperate to write something funny. (God she is depressing! And anyone who believes in an America where little girls remained untouched until they were married needs to read that book. And the works of Herbert Asbury. The world of our ancestors wasn’t very nice. Kidnappers usually waited until girls reached an age when they could be prostituted, though. They enticed them with sweet talk and then delivered them to what they called a “bull pen” where the child was forcibly made into a small woman and introduced to what they called “the life”. So much for the good old days!) If I was reading something by Hardy, I would probably be rolling on the floor laughing at the stuff I scribbled.

I do much of my work at Tully’s, as readers know. People come in all the time and when I am not macheting my way through narrative text, I watch them and take notes.

The troubles with observing people in a coffee shop are many. I’m a shy fellow and usually talk to just the barristes. You can’t call out to the customers and say “Come on over here so I can get a good look at you. Could you remove your shirt/blouse and other garments so I can get an idea of your build? What are you thinking about? What have you been doing all day?” You have to move fast and discreetly. Sometimes I make an actual rough sketch — a few crossed lines in the margin. The fiction writer that I am must imagine them wearing different clothes and different personalities. I take memories and put them together as they never were.

I’ve picked up a couple of new bodies this way. One of them — the one I am most excited about — seemed to be a salesman making his pitch to a tiny blonde who wore nothing but tight black clothes and shoes. I could tell from the length of his back and the way he leaned into her that he was a giant. My notes read in part:

He wears a loose jonquil shirt with a V-neck collar, one side folding over the other. Pressed diluted olive slacks…..A long skinny face. His shirt looks tired. He keeps a pair of glasses in his pocket. Bites his upper lip when he’s listening [but] has a comment he wants to make….he wants to register his impatience but he’s letting her talk until she hesitates a second too long and then he interjects like a football running back finding a place through the defensive lines [or] a star forward making a break. He leans forward, let’s his words charge into his audience, through her defenses, into her brain. He gestures, clutches his fist, explodes his hands like they were star bursts. He probably runs. Maybe he played basketball. He makes the company look goo, healthy, able to survive the wrestling match, take the customer to the mat for the pin. SELL! That’s the spirit. SELL!….Put’s his glasses on. Eyes probe straight forward, rushing through the lenses to make the block, score the points, make the money. When he is thinking, he holds his pen and points it in the air like it was daydreaming….Holds his arms flat out, marking the dimensions of a box in which the deal can be placed. He pulls at [phantom] levers, stretches strings, waves the sales brochure. The hand goes to the master’s jaw as he stares right at the customer and yet relaxes — comfortable aggression. He’s making his point.

He’s got the look and feel of a character, but I don’t know how to use him.

My other find strikes me as either a stuck-up Christian or a schemer. He’s a bona fide block head in the shape of his head and the cut of his hair. His taste in clothes and the funky way he carries himself just call out for a demented juxtaposition. He comes to chat up the chubby blonde barriste. Every day. He made a special point to come by on his day off, which was Wednesday, when he knew she was working. He didn’t come yesterday. He knows her schedule, I think. She was talking to a coworker about how she wanted to become a mother by the age of 24. After she finishes college. I suppose he wants to be the man.

I’ve got a suit for him. Some clothes. And a job. I know what I am going to do with this one.