Friday, October 31, 2008
Fiction Outtake: Needing Candy (The Early Days)
Warning: This outtake contains lots of foul language and men in women's clothing. Happy Halloween!
"Trevor, you may not go trick-or-treating!"
"Aww, Mom, why not?"
Mitchell dove for the safety of his room. If Ma wasn't going to let Trevor out of the house in spandex pants and a vest, she sure as shit wasn't going to let him out. Not with his hair spray painted orange and while he was wearing one of Amy's old bras. Aim would kill him when she saw him in her only long skirt, too. Hopefully she'd stay up at school tonight and hit up those stupid frat house parties she'd been raving about. As if he'd go to college, let alone join a fucking fraternity.
Trevor showed up a minute later, looking glum. "Mom threatened to barricade the door."
"Did you ask if we can hand out the candy?"
Trev shook his head. "She's on to that trick, dude."
"So let's fuck with her and really hand out the candy."
"What are you going to do about your hair?"
Mitchell shrugged. "We've got a gig tonight, right?"
"And no candy to throw during it." Trevor sat down on the bed and dropped his chin into his hand.
"Eric'll cover for us."
Trevor sat up and snapped his head around. He narrowed his eyes at Mitchell, who raised his eyebrows in surprise at the extreme reaction and waited. "What happened to pulling our own weight?" the bass player demanded. He jumped up and started waving his arms around, occasionally pointing at Mitchell. "We're a band and we rely on each other but that doesn't mean we slack off. It means we all work our asses off to be the best fucking band we can be. That doesn't mean you sit on your pampered ass and wait for Eric to show up with the fucking candy. That means you use my escape route out that window of yours and we go fucking trick-or-treat so we have something to give our fans, dumbfuck!"
"Not in a skirt," Mitchell said calmly, picking at a fold. Really, he thought, these things weren't so bad, once you got used to them. It was sort of free inside there, not all caught up inside a denim casing like a sausage or something.
Trevor jumped up and down, his eyes screwed shut, his motorcycle boots thunking on the floor. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Nothing. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Fuck off. I'm the one giving a fuck around here."
"No," Mitchell said, sitting up and adjusting the bra. They'd stuffed it with socks, of course, although Trevor had sniggered and suggested using underwear. It didn't matter what was in there; Mitchell now had a much better idea of why they called them knockers. "It's not about whether or not I give a fuck. It's about how long we have to wait to pull off my plan."
"Oh, a plan," Trevor said with an exaggerated sniff and wag of his head.
Mitchell stared at the ceiling and asked whoever was hanging out up there
for some patience. "Yes, a plan, you dumbass," he said. "It's simple. We hand out candy. One to the kids, one to us. By the time we need to split, we're set."
"And how are you planning on getting that past Mom? You know she won't go for it."
"It's simple. Either we take it, or we eat it. Remember what happened last time you hit a sugar high?"
"Fuckhead."
Mitchell laughed. He stood up and held his arms out. "So tell me. Do my boots go with the skirt?"
For more Scandalous happenings, check out this week's Sunday Scribblings. And, as always, I invite you back to my website where you can learn more about Trevor and Mitchell and where you can gain easy access to see more of them in action.
"Trevor, you may not go trick-or-treating!"
"Aww, Mom, why not?"
Mitchell dove for the safety of his room. If Ma wasn't going to let Trevor out of the house in spandex pants and a vest, she sure as shit wasn't going to let him out. Not with his hair spray painted orange and while he was wearing one of Amy's old bras. Aim would kill him when she saw him in her only long skirt, too. Hopefully she'd stay up at school tonight and hit up those stupid frat house parties she'd been raving about. As if he'd go to college, let alone join a fucking fraternity.
Trevor showed up a minute later, looking glum. "Mom threatened to barricade the door."
"Did you ask if we can hand out the candy?"
Trev shook his head. "She's on to that trick, dude."
"So let's fuck with her and really hand out the candy."
"What are you going to do about your hair?"
Mitchell shrugged. "We've got a gig tonight, right?"
"And no candy to throw during it." Trevor sat down on the bed and dropped his chin into his hand.
"Eric'll cover for us."
Trevor sat up and snapped his head around. He narrowed his eyes at Mitchell, who raised his eyebrows in surprise at the extreme reaction and waited. "What happened to pulling our own weight?" the bass player demanded. He jumped up and started waving his arms around, occasionally pointing at Mitchell. "We're a band and we rely on each other but that doesn't mean we slack off. It means we all work our asses off to be the best fucking band we can be. That doesn't mean you sit on your pampered ass and wait for Eric to show up with the fucking candy. That means you use my escape route out that window of yours and we go fucking trick-or-treat so we have something to give our fans, dumbfuck!"
"Not in a skirt," Mitchell said calmly, picking at a fold. Really, he thought, these things weren't so bad, once you got used to them. It was sort of free inside there, not all caught up inside a denim casing like a sausage or something.
Trevor jumped up and down, his eyes screwed shut, his motorcycle boots thunking on the floor. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Nothing. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Fuck off. I'm the one giving a fuck around here."
"No," Mitchell said, sitting up and adjusting the bra. They'd stuffed it with socks, of course, although Trevor had sniggered and suggested using underwear. It didn't matter what was in there; Mitchell now had a much better idea of why they called them knockers. "It's not about whether or not I give a fuck. It's about how long we have to wait to pull off my plan."
"Oh, a plan," Trevor said with an exaggerated sniff and wag of his head.
Mitchell stared at the ceiling and asked whoever was hanging out up there
for some patience. "Yes, a plan, you dumbass," he said. "It's simple. We hand out candy. One to the kids, one to us. By the time we need to split, we're set."
"And how are you planning on getting that past Mom? You know she won't go for it."
"It's simple. Either we take it, or we eat it. Remember what happened last time you hit a sugar high?"
"Fuckhead."
Mitchell laughed. He stood up and held his arms out. "So tell me. Do my boots go with the skirt?"
For more Scandalous happenings, check out this week's Sunday Scribblings. And, as always, I invite you back to my website where you can learn more about Trevor and Mitchell and where you can gain easy access to see more of them in action.
Labels: creative writing, fiction, holidays, Mitchell, Sunday Scribblings, Trevor
Friday, September 21, 2007
Susan Speaks: Yom Kippur
Tonight marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar. When I was little, I was taught that it was the holiest, but my current rabbi insists that the holiest is the weekly Shabbat. I suspect he's right.
Tonight, Jews around the world will get up from dinner and begin a 24-hour fast (okay, most will) that will help set the day apart. It is a day filled with prayer and reflection, a day for thinking on our lives, what we did wrong, what we can do better. It is serious and somber, which is so different from the many joyous celebrations that Judaism is filled with -- although it sounds as if it's not nearly so somber in Israel.
It is said that at the end of Yom Kippur, when the ram's horn shofar blows one final time, the Gates of Repentance will close. These metaphoric gates opened on Rosh Hashanah ten days earlier; this signalled the beginning of the period of reflection and, you guessed it, repentance.
However, Yom Kippur has come to have a different meaning for me. I was pregnant with #2 when my book club read Lilian Nattel's brilliant The River Midnight, a book about a small village -- shetl -- in Poland. The story centered on the midwife; the life centered around the temple.
Thus, when the midwife went into labor as Yom Kippur began, the townspeople left the temple. Instead of listening to the sacred Kol Nidre song, they listened to the midwife's cries of pain.
This doesn't sound like something that should resonate with a person. Yet the scene as Nattel wrote it was absolutely stunning; it drove home the beauty of the shetl and the importance of community. It haunted me, who's always been more than a bit of a loner.
Plus, as I said, I was pregnant when I read the book. Upon finishing it, I looked at a calendar. My due date was only a few days after Yom Kippur. What were the chances…? I mean, really?
The evening of Yom Kippur, when the Kol Nidre prayer is sung, came and went.
The next afternoon, when I picked up my son from day care, I realized that yep, the daily Braxton-Hicks contractions were back. Same time, every day; the Tour Manager and I had been laughing at how very regular they were. These were stronger, though. And when I got home and put my son down for a nap, I listened to that little voice inside. The one that knows these things.
I called the Tour Manager at work, just to be safe.
Just before five o'clock on that Yom Kippur afternoon, I called my parents. They were on their way out the door to attend the concluding services when they heard the phone ring. Knowing I was due in days, they answered.
My daughter was born at ten o'clock that night, well after the Gates of Repentance were closed.
Yet I still equate the holiday with my little girl. I probably always will; she is, in her own way, my own Yom Kippur baby.
One day, I'll hand her my copy of The River Midnight and see if the connection strikes her as deeply as it struck me. But until then, as everyone in temple around me prays for forgiveness and redemption, I'll be remembering the joy of a new beginning.
A note for those of you who noticed: I called the Kol Nidre both a prayer and a song. In kabbalistic beliefs, the Hebrew words for prayer and song have the same numeric value. Thus, prayer equals song, a belief I personally think is totally underutilized. Thankfully, my rabbi agrees and we are a congregation that sings. A lot.
Tonight, Jews around the world will get up from dinner and begin a 24-hour fast (okay, most will) that will help set the day apart. It is a day filled with prayer and reflection, a day for thinking on our lives, what we did wrong, what we can do better. It is serious and somber, which is so different from the many joyous celebrations that Judaism is filled with -- although it sounds as if it's not nearly so somber in Israel.
It is said that at the end of Yom Kippur, when the ram's horn shofar blows one final time, the Gates of Repentance will close. These metaphoric gates opened on Rosh Hashanah ten days earlier; this signalled the beginning of the period of reflection and, you guessed it, repentance.
However, Yom Kippur has come to have a different meaning for me. I was pregnant with #2 when my book club read Lilian Nattel's brilliant The River Midnight, a book about a small village -- shetl -- in Poland. The story centered on the midwife; the life centered around the temple.
Thus, when the midwife went into labor as Yom Kippur began, the townspeople left the temple. Instead of listening to the sacred Kol Nidre song, they listened to the midwife's cries of pain.
This doesn't sound like something that should resonate with a person. Yet the scene as Nattel wrote it was absolutely stunning; it drove home the beauty of the shetl and the importance of community. It haunted me, who's always been more than a bit of a loner.
Plus, as I said, I was pregnant when I read the book. Upon finishing it, I looked at a calendar. My due date was only a few days after Yom Kippur. What were the chances…? I mean, really?
The evening of Yom Kippur, when the Kol Nidre prayer is sung, came and went.
The next afternoon, when I picked up my son from day care, I realized that yep, the daily Braxton-Hicks contractions were back. Same time, every day; the Tour Manager and I had been laughing at how very regular they were. These were stronger, though. And when I got home and put my son down for a nap, I listened to that little voice inside. The one that knows these things.
I called the Tour Manager at work, just to be safe.
Just before five o'clock on that Yom Kippur afternoon, I called my parents. They were on their way out the door to attend the concluding services when they heard the phone ring. Knowing I was due in days, they answered.
My daughter was born at ten o'clock that night, well after the Gates of Repentance were closed.
Yet I still equate the holiday with my little girl. I probably always will; she is, in her own way, my own Yom Kippur baby.
One day, I'll hand her my copy of The River Midnight and see if the connection strikes her as deeply as it struck me. But until then, as everyone in temple around me prays for forgiveness and redemption, I'll be remembering the joy of a new beginning.
A note for those of you who noticed: I called the Kol Nidre both a prayer and a song. In kabbalistic beliefs, the Hebrew words for prayer and song have the same numeric value. Thus, prayer equals song, a belief I personally think is totally underutilized. Thankfully, my rabbi agrees and we are a congregation that sings. A lot.
Labels: holidays, Lilian Nattel, The River Midnight, Yom Kippur
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Thursday Thirteen #20 -- St. Patrick's Day Edition
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1. The year Trevor, who does have a bit of Irish in him somewhere along the line, put streamers on his Vincent and rode with a cycling group in the St. Patty's Day Parade. 2. The year Amy told Mitchell that the Riverview State Park had been formed to preserve the leprechauns and their pots of gold, so Mitchell took off for the park -- and got horribly lost in the woods. It took Patterson and a group of his colleagues to find the boy, well after sunset. Needless to say, Amy got into a bit of trouble. Mitchell didn't brave the park alone again for years. 3. Pam makes a ritual of dressing up for the holiday around her exercise class. For St. Patrick's Day, she wears those cheap cardboard top hats, green tails, green socks, black capri tights, and a green bra top. The tails come off at some point, but the rest stays on. 4. There was the time, early in the band's career, when they took the stage dressed as leprechauns. Complete with shorts that let bony knees hang out, and fake red beards. Pictures of this do exist -- in the scrapbook Amy keeps, of course! 5. The year that dark chocolate was first touted as having health benefits, Amy handed her patients some of those foil-wrapped gold coins that usually show up as Hanukkah gelt. Her older patients were horrified that a doctor would hand out chocolate. Her younger patients were amused. Her female patients laughed the hardest. 6. The staff at Chelle's newspaper once decided to dress in green to mark St. Patrick's Day. Chelle went out and found a green shirt and made herself a green skirt. It was quickly decided that Chelle looked like a green M&M, and that she should stick to black, white, and pastels in the future. Chelle hates pastels, but they do look good against her dark skin. 7. The year Daniel and Val began what became a yearly ritual: making shamrock-shaped sugar cookies for his grandmother. When Daniel's on tour and can't make the cookies, Val does. She sends half to Daniel's grandmother and half to him on the road. 8. The time Eric and his older brother Jared strolled into church in the middle of their father's sermon -- faces painted green and wearing full leprechaun clothing. 9. One year during the band's first tour -- the one they drove their way through -- Trevor poured a green beer over a blonde he was flirting with. She slapped him (the nerve!) and ran off. Trevor merely shrugged and said she apparently didn't know much about what made for good foreplay. No one in the band bought his bluster. 10. The year Val was still in culinary school and decided to make a traditional Irish dinner for Daniel and his grandmother, since her own family wasn't interested. It was one of her few disasters, if only because she didn't know enough about Irish food to make a palatable meal. 11. When Mitchell was six and Amy eight, she convinced him that their front yard was full of four-leaf clovers -- but they'd hide from bad little boys. Mitchell, of course, set out to prove her wrong. He, of course, failed at this. 12. A few years and a lot of culinary school later, Val finally managed to get the Irish dinner right. It's now something she does annually for Daniel's grandmother and her older sister, the only people who're interested in joining her in the tradition. 13. Life isn't complete without a Shamrock Shake or two for Daniel, Eric, and Mitchell, who sit and slurp happily as the tour bus rolls on… |
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Labels: holidays, meme, Thursday Thirteen
