David Klein's Blog, page 60

It Takes a Thief

At an angle across the road from my home is a two-family rental house and a freestanding workshop owned by a local homebuilding company. The view from my window is not an eyesore but neither is the property a delight.

The building company uses the shop to fabricate custom work and to store materials. The rear of the shop faces a waterline buried under a packed dirt walking path. Between the path and the shop is a hiding ground of construction debris.

Weeds spring up among spare bricks and leftover slate tiles and unused concrete blocks. Black drainage tubes coil like a nest of giant snakes. There’s a sad pile of scrap lumber, and orphaned iron railings, and cracked windows and damaged parts.

It really is a bit of a mess.

I can’t see this jumble from my house, but if I walk or run down the waterline path, which I often do, the trash and the treasure both are on display.

Forty pounds a pop is out of my comfort zone.

For me, the treasure comes in the form of four concrete blocks that I could use to construct a solid base for a new rain barrel I’m going to install. I could buy blocks at a building materials store. They’re cheap. But it’s the time of COVID-19, shopping is on an as-needed-only basis, and re-use of materials is environmentally better than buying new.

Or I could ask. I know the owners of the shop and am pretty sure they’d be happy to give me a couple of blocks.

I don’t ask. I’m going to sneak over by way of a dark night and help myself.

I start cooking something up.

The next day at the end of my run I stop there and choose the four blocks I want and I arrange them in a line so I won’t have to dig them out and make guesses when I come back at night.

There are two ways to get there from my house. Walk around one block and take the entrance to the waterline from the road, then go past the first house, then the rental house, then arrive at the rear of the shop. About 200 yards. The other way is to cut between two houses, mostly lawn with a few leafy maples, and 50 yards shorter, but you have to walk on the same side as the entrance to the two-family, and they keep lights on and are usually around in the evening.

I should wait until later, after the neighborhood is asleep. No, I’ll be asleep then too.

Four concrete blocks. About forty pounds each. Could I carry two in one trip, make two trips total? One in each arm, like suitcases. They were heavy. I was unsure.

At full dark I head there over the long way, along the road, my eyes adjusting. No cars, no people. I turn left onto the waterline trail, walk along the rear of the houses, beyond the yellow pools of their suburban floodlights.

Behind the shed the blocks are lined up in the grass, their gray faces glowing. I squat and pick up one and then the other, one in each hand, and so heavy I head straight for the shortcut between the two houses instead of taking the long way as planned.

Just before I’m in the pass between the houses I set down the blocks to rest and catch my breath. Headlights appear on the road. A van sweeps into the parking area. It’s going to stop on my side.

I pick up the blocks and push through the darkness and then the light. I duck under a maple and almost lose my footing in the depression between land and road, but I pass unnoticed. I set the blocks down again. My heart is pounding and my shoulders and arms tingle with fatigue but my hands are the worst from trying to keep a grip.

I lift again and make it the rest of the way across the street and up my driveway. I drop the blocks. Their weight had overwhelmed me. I hate the thought of making another trip.

The van has parked and shut off its lights. I return by the long way again. As I’m getting close there’s someone on the side porch of the house next to the shop knocking on the door, opening the metal screen and knocking again, this time hard on the frame. It must be the driver of the van. I’m thirty yards away in the shadows and can’t be seen.

The door to the house opens and whoever was banging disappears inside. I think they do. They might be standing just inside the door. I listen for a minute.

There’s no way I’m walking between the houses now. I have to go around. This time I slide a forearm through the gap in each block and lift them that way. A lot easier. I need only one rest stop on the way back.  

Now I’ve got my blocks. And lessons learned. One: Should have used a wheelbarrow. Two: It takes a thief.

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The Delight of Youth

Somehow, this is a photo of me, and not of my son.

It wasn’t taken when I was eight years old but just the other day using one of those crazy filters on Snapchat.

That’s one delighted kid in this photo. It’s a joyful version of who I wish I’d been as a child.

Now instead of a special effect, I need to discover the real effect, and somehow look like this in my current life (except 50 years older).

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Sweet Home Alabama?

I’ve always had a negative perception of the southern states. I never much cared for Florida on my visits there. I have a low tolerance for heat and humidity. And then there’s that whole legacy of slavery.

But I just made my first trip to Birmingham, Alabama. In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, I chose to visit a southern state where COVID cases are spiking.

Why would I do such a thing? Only one reason: because my daughter is living there right now and I’ve been missing her something fierce.

Despite my preconceptions, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Birmingham, although sure enough, it was hot and humid. I sweat everywhere I went. And sure enough, I saw some things that disturbed me, such as a cluster of confederate battle flags planted in a field, a roadside billboard that said ‘We sell the Second Amendment’ with a large photo of an assault rifle, and political signs in support of Tommy Tuberville who is running for U.S. Senate on his claim to fame as a Trump sycophant and a former Auburn football coach.

Football is a big deal in Alabama, as is Trump. He won Alabama by a wider margin than any other state in 2016.

[image error]Some baby lost a pacifier at the botanical gardens in Birmingham. Unless this actually belonged to Trump.

But I also saw ‘Doug Jones’ for U.S. Senate signs. And although Birmingham is one of the most segregated cities in our nation, a number of the establishments we entered (masked, of course, like almost everyone else) had a racially diverse clientele—more so than in the town in upstate New York where I live. And there were beautiful neighborhoods and the landscape was more varied and interesting than I expected.

We visited the 16th Street Baptist Church where four young Black girls were killed in a Ku Klux Klan bombing in 1963. We stood on the site of protests against segregation, where Martin Luther King was arrested, in the city where he wrote his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”

[image error][image error]16th Street Baptist Church: site of a 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing.

The most important aspect of Birmingham was Julia. If not for her, I would not have gone to Alabama. If not for her, I might not have realized I could live anywhere. Because there’s really only one requirement that counts: love.

The weather, the history, the politics–none of that matters about Birmingham, or anywhere else. I could set down anywhere, as long as it’s a place where I can love and be loved. Thank you, Julia, for showing me this.

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Describe Your Novel in Two Sentences

So asked my agent, as she prepares to pitch THIS GAME WE PLAY to publishers. You must have that quick hook. Everyone is so busy. Everyone wants you to get to the point and wow them.

First pass:

A recent college graduate falls for a charming schemer. Her father becomes obsessed with preventing the marriage.

And I added this, for a longer description:

After an emotionally challenging year, Anna is spending the summer before law school working at a restaurant resort. She ends up seduced by the party life and by her manager, Kyle, who loves Anna but is also eyeing her inheritance to fund his ambitions. Art is the wildcard. He intervenes to protect his daughter, but doesn’t anticipate the dramatic impact his maneuvers will have on their lives.

Response from my agent:

Hi David,

                Close.  I’m thinking out loud here…

                ANNA  A young women in over her head living the party life

                KYLE    A charming and ambitious schemer just this side of dangerous

                ART     A father with a secret who is obsessed with keeping them apart no matter what

Will you give it another shot? 

My next attempt:

A young woman lured by the party life falls for a charming and ambitious schemer just this side of dangerous. Her father, harboring a secret and determined to protect his daughter, will do anything to keep them apart.

Then:

A young woman lured by the party life falls for a charming and ambitious schemer just this side of dangerous. Her father, holding a secret and determined to protect his daughter, will do anything to keep them apart.

Finally:

A young woman lured by the party life falls for a charming and ambitious schemer just this side of dangerous. Her father, determined to protect his daughter and conceal a secret, will do anything to keep them apart.

What do you think? Would you like to read THIS GAME WE PLAY?

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Today I Dug a Grave

In the back garden, behind the evergreens, past the vinca, I found a peaceful spot near the cedar fence. I shoveled out dirt and cut through roots and dug down as far as I could reach. It’s there I buried Storm.

His name is actually Thunder Lightning Rainstorm, named 16 years ago by two very young kids who grew up with this fine member of our family.

Storm was a lap cat. Sometimes you could hardly get seated and he’d be jumping up on you. He was also a bit of an anxious fellow, and at times we called him Nervous Nellie. In his younger days, he was a relentless hunter. And he liked to nork his brother, Pumpkin, three years his junior.

We loved him, and he loved us, but Storm got old and ill, and then it was time.

I cried a little and I will miss him. He was a beautiful, loving cat.

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Tim O’Brien and Facing the “Moral Emergency”

During the pandemic, I’ve compiled a list of the “The Most Important Novels in My Life,” then started re-reading to see if they maintained their esteem over time.

Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” made my list for its haunting narrative of the author’s Vietnam experience and its structure as a series of connected stories. The piece I remember the most, and still cuts me every time I read it, is On the Rainy River.

O’Brien receives his draft notice and faces the “moral emergency” of his young life: report to the army to fight a war he was against or escape to Canada? He couldn’t make up his mind. He writes: “I feared the war, yes, but I also feared exile.”

The process by which he decides is wrenching and riveting—and shows us there are seldom easy answers to impossible dilemmas.

The nineteen-year-old O’Brien leaves his family and drives north through Minnesota. At a loss for what to do, he spends six days near the Canadian border with the proprietor of a fishing camp. He believes the brave thing is to go to Canada—it’s right across the river. He will stand for his principles. He will summon the courage to leave his life behind.

But he did not want people to think badly of him, as a coward, as a hater of his country—and shame and embarrassment led him to turn around, go back home, and become a soldier in a war he didn’t believe in.

I think about my own moments of indecision and ambivalence when confronted with a moral emergency. What is the courageous course of action? What is the right thing to do? It’s terrible not to know.

O’Brien’s writing reminds me that we all face the impossible. That alone is a balm. That alone helps me live with uncertainty and the consequences of my decisions.

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Where are All the Monarchs?

This is an update to an earlier post (below, dated June 16) when I lamented the lack of monarch butterflies. The update is this: they are here.

The season started a little later, but Harriet found many eggs on our milkweed, gave them to her friends, and raised a number of monarchs herself. A good year, after all, at least in the world of monarchs.

Still eating milkweedTransforming in the chrysalis



Loving the zinnias. This one hung around for a while.

FROM JUNE . . .

Last year at this time we were seeing butterflies all over our property. We had monarchs and swallowtails, more than we’ve had in years.

Harriet gave away forty monarch eggs she found on our milkweed plants, and she raised and released at least a half dozen monarchs of her own. She has fostered a network of butterfly-raising enthusiasts. They have a Slack channel.

This year: nothing. I haven’t seen one butterfly this season, not in my yard, not in all the acres of the Five Rivers Environmental Center, and I’m beginning to get a little concerned. Where are they? Is it just a pile-on during the age of covid-19?

Monarchs are a species in crisis, mostly due to industrial pesticide use in farming. The chemicals destroy milkweed, and monarchs will only lay their eggs on milkweed. That’s why every milkweed plant that springs up on our property is admired and counted. Some years we have more, some years less. Some years we see only a few monarchs–but we’ve never not seen any at all.

Monarchs are beautiful creatures and live fascinating lives, migrating between Mexico and the United States every year, requiring multiple generations in order to complete their journey. When you raise a monarch egg in a home habitat, you can witness the entire transformation of lifeform, from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis, to the emergence of the magnificent monarch.

And then you get to release the monarch into nature. What’s that like? Below is an excerpt from my novel, A SERIOUS LAPSE, in which the main character, Robert, releases a monarch that his wife had raised.

Godspeed to you, butterfly. Good luck. May you live full and well the entire length of your potential 40-day lifespan.

Although the sky had opened above it, and freedom beckoned, the monarch remained perched on its twig. For thirty seconds. For a full minute. Wings opening and closing, still testing. For another minute. And then—prompted by instinct or a stimulus-response mechanism, by whatever rudimentary or complex decision-making process motivates action—Sasha’s monarch (he considered it hers; Robert simply the doorman on duty), founded as an egg, fed and raised as a caterpillar, protected in its pupa stage, housed until it kicked free from the dark, tight chrysalis, transformed from the ugly duckling into the lovely swan—Sasha’s monarch did what butterflies do: it fluttered, rose and circled, zigged and zagged. It climbed in a spiral and vectored left over the garden, strafing the bee balm and the milkweed, flying over the forget-me-nots now forgotten with their delicate blooms shrunken and dried, gliding among the fruity orange and yellow day lilies, conducting a darting and dashing patrol of the entire garden, and finally soaring above the trees on an air current.

Robert lost sight of the monarch through the gap in the tree canopy he created by felling the limb. He continued scanning the foliage and above the treetops and all around the yard. He wanted one more glimpse. Just one.

He saw movement on the other side of the pool, but it was only a small white butterfly, an ordinary specimen. He was hoping the monarch would stay close, live in their yard, breed and raise a family, but of course this could not happen. Monarchs are driven by migratory instincts. There is no such thing as the domesticated butterfly.

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I Have! A Punctuation! Problem!!!

I came up as a writer in the days when the exclamation point was a judiciously, seldom-used punctuation mark. It was to be placed at the end of a sentence in only extreme cases, as a shout of intensity or alarm when words alone cannot convey such powerful feelings.

Writers who overused the exclamation point were often derided. It was a lazy way to show emotion.

!

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

In the famed crime writer Elmore Leonard’s ten rules of writing, this is rule number 5:

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

Elmore Leonard

Leonard didn’t always follow this rule in his own novels.

I went back to my most recent novel, THIS GAME WE PLAY, to see how many exclamation points I used. The novel has 95,025 words, 8,477 sentences, and 55 exclamation points, for a rate of .006 exclamation points per sentence. That’s not many. And I honestly thought hard about each one I placed, so ingrained in me is the peril of this punctuation.

!

But I’m behind the times. The exclamation point has become almost as ubiquitous as the period, thanks to digital communications. And it’s not just a casual throwaway found on social media–even business communications are rife with this hearty mark.

The other day, I received this reply to an email I wrote to confirm a scheduled conference call:

Sounds good!!!

Confirming a meeting got me THREE exclamation points in response. That’s impressive. I hadn’t used any in my email.

The linguist Gretchen McCullough recently conducted a poll that asked how many exclamation points were needed to show enthusiasm. The most popular response: three exclamation points.

That’s because one exclamation point can no longer carry the weight of its role. This previously maligned punctuation mark has transformed from a shout of intensity or alarm to a gesture of friendliness or sincerity. We’re going to meet at 3 pm? Oh, that sounds good!!!

!

Still, I struggle. When I consider using an exclamation point at the end of a sentence or a text, I get a little queasy. I feel the sweat beading on my brow. I’ve always been a period guy, or even no punctuation sometimes if I’m writing a text.

This simple exchange tells all, when I got a text from someone I love very much saying she was COVID-19 negative.

I couldn’t come up with the exclamation point. I must be incapable of signaling my sincerity and enthusiasm.

I’m afraid my lack of exclamatory signalling through the exclamation point may be creating the wrong impression–that I’m not an enthusiastic person, or that I’m not sincere, not friendly.

Please! Say it isn’t so! I will try harder!! I will use the exclamation point anywhere!!! I will use it everywhere!!!!

Or maybe not.

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The Most Important Novels in My Life

I have set myself a task for 2020: reread the ten most important books in my life. To qualify for the list, the novel (or novella or short story collections; I’m including those also), must meet one or more of the following criteria:

It was so profound and meaningful to me that I’ve read the novel multiple times.It significantly influenced my own development as a novelist.The experience of reading the novel is inexorably linked to and illuminates a moment or period of time in my life.

It’s going to be challenging to pick the ten books. I’m not concerned that I’ve forgotten any important book, because if I have, then that book by definition wouldn’t qualify for the list. I’ve started with 25 titles, from which I must cull down to ten.

Why am I doing this? I’m interested in how the passage of time and accumulation of life experiences have changed how I feel about a book that I once placed on a high pedestal. Has the book stood the test of time? Have I? What’s changed?

For now, I’m listing my initial list of 25, in no particular order, and without explanation. When I get down to ten, I will provide context as to why I chose each one to read again.

UPDATE: I’ve re-read some on this list of 25 and updated their status below

UPDATE 2: I may not get the list narrowed to ten, but am offering reviews of those I have re-read.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, John Irving . Prob won’t crack top ten. I think I liked THE CIDER HOUSE RULES and A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY better.AMERICAN PASTORAL, Philip RothSELF-HELP, Lorrie MooreA FARWELL TO ARMS, Ernest HemingwayA VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, Jennifer EganTHE SLAP, Christos Tsiolkas THE EXORCIST , William Peter Blatty. Quite a read, but may not belong on the list.DUNE, Frank HerbertCAT’S EYE, Margaret Atwood THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING , Milan Kundera. Such an important novel back then. I still appreciate its influence on me. THE ROAD, Cormac McCarthyIN THE GARDEN OF NORTH AMERICAN MARTYRS, Tobia WolffLITTLE CHILDREN, Tom Perrotta SMILES ON WASHINGTON SQUARE, Raymond Federman . My introduction to experimental fiction. Belongs on this list.10:30 ON A SUMMER NIGHT, Marguerite Duras. Off the list, didn’t stand the test of time. Pretentious, obtuse, overwritten. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, J.D. SalingerA PALE VIEW OF THE HILLS, Kazuo Ishiguro LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, Gabriel Garcia Marquez . Likely top ten. It’s the writing, stupid. Many have imitated, but there’s only one GGM. BELLEFLEUR, Joyce Carol Oates THE HOURS, Michael Cunningham . Top ten. A pattern here: it’s the writing. And the structure. LEGENDS OF THE FALL, Jim Harrison . Specifically, the novella “The Man Who Gave Up His Name.” Grandfathered onto this list. THE THINGS THEY CARRIED , Tim O’Brien. Just an incredible and authentic work. Also: IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS. MARIETTE IN ECSTASY, Ron Hansen . Likely top ten. The writing and language is incredible. The setting of the convent like another world. THE ACCOMPLICES, Georges Simenon . Certainly not a great novel, but it is a short, fascinating character study that made a strong impression on me.WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE, Raymond Carver

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I Took A Mental Health Day

Anyone who’s read my recent posts on how I am learning to accept or about my reactions to our most effective president, knows that my mood is in a state of damage and disrepair. To help fix things up a bit, I took a mental health day yesterday.

For me, mental health is often improved by paying attention to my physical health—by engaging in physical activity, by acting young, by playing games.

I started at 7:00 a.m. on a humid, overcast morning playing two hard sets with my tennis friend, also a David. He’s a bit younger than me but a great partner and opponent: we’re mostly evenly matched and we bring similar temperaments to the court: play to win but enjoy the experience and don’t get hung up over losing.

I chased him the entire way on the first set, always behind a game, and ended up losing 6-7 in a tie breaker. Second set we were tied 3-3 and at this point I’m tired and my back is aching from the way he’s been running me back and forth and forcing me to lunge for balls. Somehow I win the next three games, largely due to his errors rather than my superior play, and take the set 6-3. We never play a third set, and rarely play a tiebreaker. I’m happy to have the split.

Home for a shower and breakfast, then an hour drive to visit Jim, who lives on a creek in a lovely setting. We relax with a bowl, get into a deep discussion on Black Lives Matter, and then it’s time to play games, these games less physical than tennis because he’s recovering from ankle surgery.

We start with croquet, the sport of old men, on a long pitch we set up in his yard overlooking the creek. He’s also the perfect partner: we play to win, but we also advise each other on shot selection and strategy.

I take the first game, he gets the second. Another satisfying split. We sit by the water and watch the geese and the birds, then we uncover the pool table in his shop and start in on that. We split the first two games and play a third. I make a lucky shot and sink the eight ball on my first attempt.

Then it’s home to Harriet, who has worked hard all day while I took my mental health day, and my mood has already improved so much I don’t feel that guilty. We decide it’s date night. We choose a black-owned restaurant to support, order Nigerian takeout, and walk to Washington Park where we put down our blanket and eat dishes we’ve never tried before and drink a beer.

Later, we watch an original Star Trek episode, which I haven’t seen in years and find campy and amusing. I fall asleep during the show, which I rarely do while watching anything. It must be because I’ve finally relaxed, my mind has settled for now, and that’s what mental health day is about.

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