Talk, talk, talk...

I am probably irritating. I talk. A lot. Probably too much. And I ask a lot of questions. Because I am interested; I want to know. This personality trait led to a fight with the Mister the other night. We had an argument as couples do. Or rather I had an argument. He sat across the table silent until I grabbed my glass of wine and headed upstairs to my office, more frustrated than angry. I am often frustrated with him. I think my frustration stems from his unwillingness/inability to answer me: why are you mad? Why are you so cranky? This is a trait he shares with my father. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized that it takes far more strength to hold your tongue than to unleash it; the knowledge, however, does not mean I forgive my father his silence. And so I’m reluctant to let Stanley off the hook. I am articulate—I can tell you at any given moment exactly what I’m feeling and why or why I’ve done/said what I did. Not so with him and this both frustrates and angers me.

Coco, our ailing, aging, Lhasa Apso has taken to drinking inordinate amounts of water. She drinks almost to the point of compulsion. But she won’t pee. We walk her for blocks and many, many long minutes and still nothing, not even a dribble. It frustrates me because I want to know why she is drinking so much, why she does not feel the need to pee. I pee. A lot. I pee almost as much as I talk. I cannot imagine what it is like to not pee for 12 hours at a stretch. I worry that she is in distress or in any sort of discomfort.. I’m a worrier and a fixer but I can’t fix what I don’t understand. And she can’t talk.

When I write, I almost always know my characters’ motivations for their actions. In real life, not so much. I am a lover of words but more than that I believe in words.

In the last few weeks, I’ve read over the body of my work as I was getting ready for the paperback release of Damaged Angels and doing first round edits on Unbroken. I’ve realized silence, the inability of some to articulate what they are feeling is a recurring theme in my writing; certainly it is the central theme in the forthcoming Unbroken.
In Unbroken, main character Lincoln tells us:

My parents, unable to change me, had instead, silenced me. When they’d stilled my hands, they’d taken my words, made me lower my voice to a whisper. Later, I remained silent in defense, refusing to acknowledge the hateful words: Braniac. Sissy. Faggot.

In What Binds Us, Matthew and Thomas-Edward almost miss the chance for love because each is afraid to tell the other he loves him.

The men and boys in Damaged Angels are often inarticulate, sometimes able to outrun their demons but never able to talk to them, to negotiate a truce, an end to the hostilities. This is most true in “Spam,” in which Billy’s father mirrors, uncomfortably, my own father, as I search for the source of his silence:

Sensing defeat, but unable to surrender, Billy turned to his father. “Dad?” One word, but in that one word was a plea of grand eloquence.

His father glanced at his mother. “Your father says, ‘No,’” Teresa informed her son. Then to her husband, “Isn’t it time you left for work?”

He nodded, rose, kissed the proffered cheek.

“Dad?” Again the plea, febrile desire.

His father turned to look at him. With his eyes, he asked him to understand. And then he was gone, a lone white figure fading into the whiteness of the morning.

Do not misinterpret the silence of Billy’s father. Do not think him a foolish man. Or worse, an indifferent one, for in truth, he is neither. Nor has he always been a man of silences. In fact, it was not until some months into his marriage to the girl, Teresa, with the hair of combed fire, that he lost his words.

As for the Mister and I, we are fine. I was sleeping when he left for work the next morning but he kissed the top of my head as he does every morning to wake me. As I lay there half-awake I realized we are not two characters in a romantic novel, are instead just two guys with common goals and similar sensibilities, but very different personalities who love and respect each other, who are trying to build something lasting.

I am a talker. Sometimes I need to listen. But in order to listen, I need Stanley to talk. Sometimes.

For the full story on the paperback release of Damaged Angels, see Beaten Track Publishing’s blog here: http://networkedblogs.com/JZhC2

www.larrybenjamin.com