Hey. Um…
Hey there.
I’m not really good at these sort of things, so I suppose I’ll start at the beginning, or maybe, more like the middle. Or.. yeah. Anyhow, my name is Michael, and this is my story.
I guess I’m not all that much of a story teller- I’m really more of a musician than anything. Give me a six string with a long neck and some thin object to pick out a tune, and I’m good to go. But give me something to say in front of a group of people… and this happens.
I freeze up.
More than just a little stage fright- we’re talking the Titanic iceberg kind of frozen. No sound, no words, the occasional glottal stop. Yeah, I can sing. I have a voice that was once compared to Springtime, but I can’t just spontaneously walk into a room of people and start to speak.
I guess I can trace the problem back to high school. We’d just moved into town, my father and I, after mom ran off for Mexico with some Latin lover with a Ferrari and an unpronounceable name. The Mexican had just shown up at the house one day, a black haired Adonis, towering over me by at least two feet with the thickest gold chain I’d ever seen around an even thicker neck. My mother bustled out in a flurry of suitcases, her curses and laughter the only goodbyes.
It was just the two of us now, and we were still kind of in shock about the whole desertion. I mean, she didn’t even like burritos for Christsakes, and there she was, heading South of the Border to a life of refried everything. So I was already feeling kind of raw, and I had a great case of 14-years-old going for me to boot.
I inherited smallness from my father. Maybe that’s why she left him, you know? Maybe it carries over into… eh… other areas. But he’s a seriously tiny man, just barely over five foot with thick glasses that make his face seem hollow. He’s like a fucking elf, only with a bottle of scotch instead of good cheer. So I’m small… short, really. But graceful, like a sapling, not stubby and thick like my father. I suppose that’s the one thing (other than her credit card bills) that my mom left behind- a slender build. I can be grateful for that. Really.
I don’t know what I expected from my first day of high school, other than maybe a bit of general apathy and a healthy amount of anonymity. We’d moved into the city after all, and Central High was certainly not a tiny place. Whatever I might have expected, I was dead wrong. My smallness, far from affording me the opportunity to hide, was a beacon to every jock, jerk, and jackass in the building. By the end of my first week, I’d been the victim of nerd baptismal twice, and didn’t have a cent of lunch money left.
I had these dreams all through my four years of Central. My mother would come back from Mexico, like a barefoot peasant goddess, in a white blouse and colorful skirt. Her unpronounceable lover would claim me as his own son- and I’d rise up from my bed, reborn. I’d be tall, and swarthy, and full of exotic grace- with the cheerleading squad clambering over me, and the jocks giving me a healthy degree of respect. Sometimes I was the star quarterback, sometimes Valedictorian. But always, I woke up… small, pale, and with a terrible case of acne that lasted the better part of all four years.
I remember the first time I picked up a guitar… my father had been harping on me to get some sort of after school activity, so that I’d look good for colleges. He wanted to get on with his life, or what was left of it, which was hard to do with me still staying at home and hanging like an albatross around his bank account. I wasn’t smart enough for Chess Club, or athletic enough for Tennis, or interested in Science. Band seemed the way to go. We were encouraged to try out all the instruments, to see which one ‘fit’.
The drums were just too loud for my taste, and to me, reed instruments have this damn disturbing phallic quality. Not to mention, I didn’t have the lungpower for a good blow anyhow- trumpets were right out. So there it was, the guitar. The one they’d had for an example in the band room was acoustic and battered, and badly out of tune. But when I picked it up and ran my hands down it, I got a real shiver up my spine. It felt right, like I was reaching some sort of epiphany.
My father said no.
Band cost a hell of a lot of money he didn’t have. Instrument rental, for one. Then there were fees up the ass. Why couldn’t I be smart and take up chess? But now, it was in me- the desire to have something to call my own, something that set me apart. I wasn’t eating lunch anyhow, so I started just saving up my money at home. Sure, it meant taking a few more hits, but eventually the guys that were rolling me over for lunch money got the picture that I was tapped out and useless. Only took about three black eyes and a chipped tooth. Still have that chip, in my tooth. It’s like a badge of honor.
I bought my first guitar from a pawnshop. I was sixteen, and the feeling of it in my hands was so damn orgasmic. I couldn’t wait to take it home and give it a few strokes. To my surprise, the sound that came out of her was nothing like music. Apparently, it took more than saving up sixty dollars to be a guitar player. Frustrated, I flung it in my closet for the next year and a half, to be buried under all my future disappointments.
I can’t remember what made me dig it out again- I think I was drunk at the time, and that was reason enough, really. I was seventeen then, and had a job after school bagging at the Quick Mart. My father’d grown sloppy with the keys to his cabinet, and didn’t care what I drank as long as I gave him money for another bottle. Yeah, I was drunk, I remember now. I’d been drinking tequila, and thinking about my mother. She’d sent a postcard that year, for my birthday. First time in three years I’ve heard from her, and it’s a fucking tourist-card. There’s a Chihuahua on the front, in a sombrero and a putrid rainbow of a poncho, with the legend “Viva El Mexico”. On the back, she’s written in her careful hand “Feliz Cumpleaños”.
I was pitching the card in my closet, but it wasn’t buried enough. I wanted it to go down deep, under the coat that I’d outgrown, and the badminton racket I’d never used, and … there was the guitar. Because I was drunk, I picked it up. I picked it up and strummed, any old way, but the sound was beautiful to me now. Maybe it was the tequila talking, but I felt connected to the moment in a way I hadn’t felt connected to anything in so long. I strummed until my fingers bled, and then I passed out next to it in a pile of my own vomit.
It wasn’t an auspicious beginning to my musical career.
I started using my money in more constructive ways than just drinking, paying for guitar lessons from this neighborhood guy that was in a band. By the time I got out of college, I was good. Damn good. Had a real knack for it, and I started writing these songs. They were about feelings, and mushy shit like that, but they were mine. I wouldn’t sing them for anyone. Hell, I wouldn’t play them, unless I was drunk.
College made me a lot more functional. There were weird people there, just like me. People who never connected before, coming together over how fucked up they were. On rainy days, the lounge was full of people just telling these stories. And I was there, with my guitar, and that was the first time I let it out in public… the songs, that I wrote. By the time I finished, everyone was quiet. There was this silence that hung in the air, and I felt them all staring. Then there it was… like thunder breaking, applause. The guy from debate club was slapping me on the back, and some girl with hemp in her hair was slipping me her phone number. I was in among the out.
But I still can’t talk to them. Not about anything real. I can sing, and I can make casual conversation, but any time I try to talk about something more than the weather and how’s your cat, I get paralyzed. But I’m playing in clubs, and I’m making a name for myself, only the name is Miguel because Michael just isn’t all that stage worthy.
I’m dating the girl with the hemp in her hair, only she’s calling me a fucking faggot because I can’t have sex with her without calling it making love. She wants me to make her feel dirty, like the songs do. I can’t do anything but borrow moments, because I know she’s never really mine. We break up after she throws me a birthday party and I won’t play the guitar for the amusement of her hippie friends. As she’s walking off the porch into a sudden spring downpour, I punch my hand through the front window and watch my blood rain its own river. “Feliz Cumpleaños,” I shout before slamming the screen door and wishing I could cry.
Out of college, I’m in a band. I’ve got a nine to five as a cubicle slave, and here, I am truly anonymous. I had half expected to be baptized in the water cooler, and have my co-workers shake me down for vending machine cash during breaks. But I drifted among them like a ghost, and they never even looked down. I didn’t mind so much…in fact, I kind of liked it that way. I didn’t have to talk about anything other than being out of toner, or the fact that I’d finished typing the work that had landed on my desk.
When the band made it big, I was unprepared for the success. Everyone wanted to know me now, and everyone wanted to be my friend. And they all wanted me to talk…about something, about anything. Reporters and groupies, hanging on my words, but I still can’t speak.
I got invited back to my old high school, to make a speech. I go up on stage, and it’s the same stage that I got my diploma on, some ten years ago. I’ve got note cards, so I can’t screw it up… I’ve got a writer now who takes care of these things. See, I’ve had dreams like this before, where I’m at school giving this talk- and suddenly, I’m in my underwear and everyone’s pointing and laughing. Today I feel naked as I step up to the podium.
I check my pockets, and I can’t find the notes. And then the pockets disappear. And I’m in my underwear, and yeah, it’s another one of those dreams. In the audience, front row center, is my father. He looks pretty good for a guy who died of cirrhosis three years ago, and he’s got this expectant look on his face, waiting for sound to come out of me. I’m small, and fragile again, and I look out, getting ready to say anything when my mother tangos in with her Mexican and the Chihuahua from the postcard following. So they’re all sitting there now, and waiting, even the Chihuahua.
And this is the part where I usually run, screaming from the stage to the sounds of laughter and boos, and occasionally, the pelt of ripe fruit. This time is different. I open my mouth, and words, spoken, come forth…
“So you’ve discovered, then that high school is not much different than the real world. We’re all still out there, the losers and the jerks and the jocks and the cheerleaders, and we’re all trying to make it, the best we can. We all hurt. We’re all disappointed. We’re all frozen inside, and there’s nothing like a great bout of apathy to help you never thaw.”
A high school class has come in, cheerleaders and jocks, and I see faces that reflect my tormentors from years past. I want to stop speaking, to run again, but now the words are like a flood…
“And you think you’re so special right now- so important. All your life, you’ve been the beautiful ones. Ten years from now you’ll have broken marriages, and broken hearts, and you’ll look back on your glory days and tell boring stories that your children won’t care about. And one hundred years from now, we’ll all be dust. So take your life, for what is and what it’s not- and live. Just stop for a moment or a lifetime, stop with the endless cycles of hurt and hate and bitter and broke, and just open your mouth and speak. Speak up in rage, or in exaltation, but speak. Silence is only fool’s gold. Regret…
And I close my eyes a moment, before opening them and looking back out into the audience. They’ve all disappeared, except my mother. There’s tears in her eyes, and she’s mouthing “Lo siento…”
Without looking back, I walk off the stage, and go home. There I pick up my guitar, and I start playing a Mariachi beat… just before the alarm clock rings.
And my name is Michael again, but still I cannot speak. Todavía yo no puedo hablar.
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I honestly cannot find anything wrong with this story. Micheal’s thoughts are well detailed and expressed, like I was reading his diary.
Good story. Just a couple suggestions:
The part about smallness (p.1-2)- I get it, and I think the first statement (without the ‘into other areas’ nudge nudge) will suffice.
You saved up lunch money for a guitar, then just threw it into the closet for a year and a half because there wasn’t some automatic music magically emanating from it when you touched it? This could use some elaboration- needs to be more to this to make it believable.
I enjoyed reading. Just a little polish needed to make it shine. Thanks for a good read.
Very good story, I loved following Micheal through the years. I think your flow is great, and the story itself is very interesting. Great job.
Very real and easy to identify with..high school, “wann’a be famous dreams” but also the sadness of a absentee mother and fear of ‘deep’ communication.I wanted a little more ‘tension’ between characters..or maybe some mystery or a moral theme but overall was a great read.thanks
This short story is great. It talks of a struggling young musician whose `voice` is his music because of his shyness. The way you interweave Michael`s background with his feelings is excellent. The description of how he first decides that the guitar is his instrument is very good. Thank you for showing me how a young person`s dream can come true.
More of an essay than a story. Personally I look for some more detailed character interaction. It’s the old saw from your dream: show, don’t tell. Think about bringing in the hemp girl or another character from college to make your theme stronger. It’s well written, as journaling or essay, but think of ways to draw the reader in deeper. Or think of continuing until the character is forced to speak. Make something happen out of that.
Keep it up. You right well and organize the train of thought well. Take that to the next level and add some character and interaction and this could be a great story.
You left out an ‘i’: ‘But now t was in me-’. Nothing major but you should correct it.
If you’re not going to talk about California, if it is not really necessary to mention it, do not do it at all.
Overall, me encanta, eres un muy buen escritor. (I assume you can understand if not: I love it, You’re a very good writer.) I love you’re style and rhythm.
The progression of the plot was slow, but you finally got somewhere. It showed personal growth, if only in his dreams. It might be good for him to get out of bed and still be unable to speak.
I was kind of surprised that he dreamed of his mother’s Mexican boyfriend becoming his savior or hero, and not his dad. That seemed kind of out of place, or maybe I missed the explanation of why he would not put his dad in that role. Maybe you could emphasize his lack of respect for his dad more clearly.
But now t was in me. = now it was
fagot = faggot
How about some physical description of the main character and the other kids beyond him just being short and having pimples. Did he have tatoos and metal. Did he wear tight-fitting black pants and assume the Goth look?
Overall, I think it was an interesting read and it was easy to follow the progression of the story.
‘My mother bustled out in a flurry of suitcases, her curses and laughter the only goodbyes.’ This is a really great line…you say and imply so much about her character with just these few words.
‘My smallness, far from affording me an opportunity to hide, shone like a beacon to every jock, jerk, and jackass in the building.’ Another great, insightful line. Funny and effective, too.
‘But now t was in me’—-typo
‘I considered that chip a badge of honor.’...I know, it’s just a personal curiousity, but this line makes me want to know how the narrator feels about it now. ‘I still do.’ ...or… ‘It’s fixed now.’ Just a silly suggestion, but it did raise the desire to know that for me.
‘By the time I get to college, I’m almost good with that guitar.’—-starting with this paragraph, ou have done a complete tense shift, from past to present. This is someone speaking to a live audience, though, so such a person might do that; or else we have caught up to the present in the story. I’ll read on…No, by the second sentence in the following paragraph you’re back to past tense.
The brief paragraph about the hemp hair girlfriend is wonderful! ‘She wants me to make her feel dirty…’ and ‘I can’t do anything but borrow moments…’ Very poetic and revealing about the relationship; again, with such few words! I envy that talent you have :) I can’t say anything ‘simply and effectively’ ...you have shown a pure gift for it.
It ends in a dream. Interesting. When he finally says something, he says something important-to himself. Nice. Also, the English teacher yelling at him in the dream; that was a great touch :) This was fun! Thanks for the read :)
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