IGKTW - Round 4: Marshie (Long!) (833 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: Negroes
Rating: 1.88 on 31 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2006-05-19 19:01:55 EDT
IGKTW - Round 4: Marshie
+PROLOGUE+
I sit in my isolation cell and watch the guards pass beyond the bars.
I want them to see a tired man. An old man. A beaten man.
The guards know me as Amos Nigh, an old black man locked in solitary since time out of mind for some forgotten crime. There are only fifty or so inmates, here in Corietta State Prison. Corietta is virtually unknown today, as it's just a lockdown for some very old men, who did bad things a long, long time ago. No supermax here. No ma'am. Just flaking masonry and rusting iron here on the edge of the swamp, thirty miles or so from where you and I were born and raised in Blue Hollow. This crumbling building holds those who were once the worst Louisiana had to offer. Now we are just old. Locked away more because of our reputations than any threat we might pose today.
During the day I play music and read and educate myself as best I can. I hear crickets and owls at night. I heard countless birds during the day. I smell the flowers of my youth. I smell the marsh mallow. These things give me strength. These things help me do my time.
The youngest of the guards is twenty-three years old. The oldest is forty-six. If you mashed them together and had a guard who was sixty-nine years old, that imaginary man might just be old enough to remember me as I was then.
Before I allowed myself to be locked away in this place.
My window is a one foot square barred opening high on the wall. I pause, and toss some lunch leavings, bread crusts and a bit of oatmeal cookie, up and outside. There's often a coon out there. I hear her foraging at night. I smell her. I hear her when she speaks in what we would think of as the language of an imbecile. I see her in my mind. Fast, clever, and always desperate to feed her young.
They called me a coon. Long ago. They called me a coon, and that is what I became. And I went on the hunt.
I close my eyes, shut out the dust motes swirling in the little shaft of sunlight piercing my cell. I inhale warm summer air and smell the taint of rot and the perfume of flowers, the smell of the swamp. I strum my guitar and hum a melody, some wordless lilting fragment from my youth.
I sit and wait and do my time, for you.
For you, Marshie.
(1)
I was there the night you came into this world, Marshie, and I was there when you departed. I wait for you still.
I was a boy, very young, when there was a call from down the road, a good old fashioned holler. I followed that dirt track around the curve of the swamp with my momma, who midwifed many of the residents of Blue Hollow into this world.
I waited outside your home, a one room tarpaper shack lit gold inside by oil lamps. I sat on the porch steps with your daddy. My daddy was long gone. I looked at your daddy wringing his hands and looked up at the stars and tried not to hear the woman inside because she was making some downright horrible noises.
I soon heard you crying, then momma was at the door, pale and sad, calling your daddy inside.
I sat by myself, and soon I heard your daddy crying too.
"Ev'body crine," I remember calling through the door. "Momma, why ev'body crine?"
My momma came to the door and said, "This baby's momma done died. It happen, some time, God call 'em on home."
In momma's arms was a little baby. That was you, Marshie. Momma was using a bit of cloth to wipe your face clean. You had your birthmark then just like now, of course. It was the first thing I noticed. A little smear of dark on your pale skin, like a stroke from a paintbrush dipped in caramel across your left cheek. It was shaped like the wing of a bird.
"Yaweesha," your daddy said. "Ah'ma go bring her to Yaweesha!"
Momma turned away from me and said, "You hush now, Franklin. That ol' woman ain't nothin' but a flim-flam artiss an' you know it too!"
"She can bring mah Lily back. She can, ah know it."
"That's all jus' nonsense," my momma said. "Woman takes payment for playin' with powders an' roots that don't do nothin'. You got a little girl to care for, Franklin. You can't be acting the fool."
Your daddy sounded real sad then. "It ain't real? The hoo-doo?"
"Nevah have been, nevah will be," momma said. She turned back to me. "Amos, baby, you should run on home now. I still got lots to do here and its grim work for a chile to see."
The door was pulled open. Your daddy shoved by my momma in a spill of golden light and walked out of the house. He went to the edge of the swamp and just stood there, listening to the crickets and the bullfrogs.
Momma looked angry.
I said, "Momma, why he got a knife?"
Then momma looked scared. "Hold dis baby, Amos," she said. She went down the steps and she was going to say something, when your daddy raised his hand and ran the knife across his throat.
It was dark, and I couldn't really see the blood, but I saw ripples where it hit the water. I remember being amazed by how far his blood reached out into the swamp.
Your daddy fell down and my momma went to him, but there was nothing she could do.
You started hollering again, so I bent down where some wildflowers were growing and picked a marsh mallow. I whirled it in front of you and you went quiet, enchanted by the pink petals.
That's how you came home with us, and how momma named you Marshie.
I know momma was always honest with you, letting you know that even though you called her momma, you had once had a real momma and daddy who loved you and that sometimes fate can be a nasty thing.
We were raised together, and you always thought I was more of a brother than anything else. I loved you from the moment I saw you, only I loved you in a way I shouldn't have, I suppose.
I loved you and watched over you through school, and I was there in case anyone got out of line when you started seeing boys, and when things didn't work out, it was to my secret joy. I loved you as you became a woman, and loved right up until the time you were killed, in the summer of nineteen thirty-six.
You know I did my best, but I couldn't protect you from the Buckalew brothers. For that I will be forever shamed.
The Buckalew brothers were as dirt poor as most of what they considered the "po' niggahs" in Blue Hollow, but where most of the Negroes in our little town were hard-working and God-fearing, the Buckalews were drunks. They stole from us, and beat on us, and harassed our woman in ways that were simply unacceptable, but what could we do? They were white, and the law was on their side.
I once asked my momma, "Why them Buc'loos so mean to us?"
"They ig'nant, honeychile," she said. "They don't got the intellec' of a thinkin' man nor the grace o' God, neither. Pity them, baby, an' pray fo' them. An' stay out o' their way."
Of course, being contrary, I ended up doing the exact opposite of what my momma suggested. I hated them, and cursed them... and hunted them down for you.
For you, Marshie.
(2)
It was October.
The leaves were turning, and in the little garden out back we had some collard greens and pumpkins and squash. We had some sweet potatoes curing, and you and I had helped momma can and put away all kinds of fruits and vegetables from earlier in the season.
We were helping momma in the garden. Some days I got work with Mr. Macandale at his junk yard hauling scrap, but this day I was home. You were home too, always at home where it was safe, and I remember we were looking ahead to a few slices of the blueberry pie cooling in the open kitchen window.
You know I never eat blueberry pie any more?
Momma's pies spoiled me, I think.
You were going down the road to Epperson's. We needed a few things from the general store on the far side of the swamp, so you followed that curving road that took you past the abandoned tar-paper shack where you were born, waving no-see-ums and mosquitoes away from your pretty face.
The face I knew so well would have been in shadow as you walked east, as it was late in the day and the sun was a little lower in the sky, warming your backside through your shift. The shift was cotton, old and shapeless and cornflower blue. You were barefoot and smiling and had your hair tied back with a strip of pale yellow cloth.
You called back over your shoulder and asked if I wanted some licorice snaps since you knew I was a fiend for them even though I was no longer a child.
And you were no longer a child either. It was funny how I could look at you and lust for you and appreciate you at the same time... meaning I loved the way your breasts jiggled when I got you laughing and sometimes when you were scrubbing the floor or working in the garden with your bottom jutting up in the air some hot and heavy thing filled me up from balls to brainstem and I felt like I was going to explode like an over inflated balloon. Yet that same body could bring me to the edge of weeping just because you were so beautiful, the way you'd raise a slender arm to wipe sweat off your brow, the curve of your hip seen through a cotton shift when you moved between me and the sun, so a delicate and graceful, you made me realize there had to be a God to make such a wondrous thing.
You were golden in the sunlight, smiling, letting out a laugh, and before the day was out I would curse the Lord God and His only son Jesus Christ and all the Saints and Angels in Heaven for what happened to you.
"Ah get ya'll a box o' snaps, Mosey," you said.
You used the nickname you gave me when we were small, since momma was always saying to me, "You jus' mosey along now, Amos," to keep me away from the troubles a young boy can get himself into.
"Ah got me some pennies all o' mah own in mah pocket," you said, jingling the change in pocket of your shift. "We can share. Haf's fo' me an' haf's fo' you."
"You got a deal, girl," I called back.
You walked down the road and around the curve of the swamp and I wouldn't see you again until the sun was down and the night was cold and your blood was on my hands, tacky as molasses.
And I cried then, for you.
For you, Marshie.
(3)
It was coming on dark when momma finally said something.
When you hadn't been back two hours after I last saw you I started getting edgy, thinking something had happened, thinking I should have gone with you.
Momma was making a nice thick broth from chicken bones. It had peas and potatoes in it, and salt and pepper, and she had baked a loaf of heavy brown bread to go with.
"Marshie shoulda' done been home by now," momma said.
It was quiet in the house, the single level house with three rooms that was most of my world. We had no phone, one old radio, and only two electric lights, but electric was expensive, so we were just as content to light lamps and read, momma with her scriptures and me with my Mark Twain books and ratty periodicals like Life and Opportunity. The last was a flat out amazement to me. The copies I had were all beat to hell after being passed from black hand to black hand year after year until they near fell apart. It was called a 'Journal of Negro Life,' and it was made by some Negroes up in New York, refined men with lots of schooling.
That night I was too keyed up to concentrate on reading, and back then I had to concentrate hard, as reading was still a chore.
"I know, momma," I said. I was busting to run out the door, and momma could see it on my face.
"Go on then," she said. "Find her. But you best be careful out on the raod after dark, you hear me Amos?"
"I hear you, momma," I said, already stepping through the door.
The air was turning crisp compared to the hot summer we'd just sweated through. It was chilly, but it put most of the bugs to rest for the night.
I smelled wood smoke.
As I started out an old truck went by, blatting and misfiring, heading for the edges of town.
The Buckalew brothers.
Lamont Buckalew was driving, and squeezed in beside him were Clifton and Walter, his brothers. As they passed by they were all laughing and carrying on, and as they saw me Walter pointed out the window and gave me a big grin and shouted at me.
"Get out the road, stupid coon!"
I kept my head down, watching the truck out of the corner of my eye, watching as it went down around the bend and out of sight.
I walked all the way down to the dark windows of Epperson's and didn't see a sign of you.
There were lights on upstairs, though.
I stood on the big porch outside the general store, wanting to hammer on the door, as I knew Sam Epperson and his wife Dell lived in the apartment upstairs. But I was also afraid to make a fuss. Even though this was my home town and I'd known Mr. Epperson most of my life, a Negro banging on a white man's door coming on dark, no matter what the motivation, is still a Negro banging on a white man's door coming on dark.
Turns out I didn't have to wake Mr. Epperson after all. He opened up a window right over my head.
"Who's down theyah?"
"Iz me, Amos Nigh, Mistah Eppe'son, suh," I said. "Sorry for intah'ruptin' yo' eve'nin suh, but ah be lookin' fo' Marshie. She ain't come home yet."
Epperson rubbed a hand across a face as white and round as the rising moon and said, "L'il Marshie ain't home?"
I heard Dell Epperson murmur something. Sam looked over his shoulder and snapped, "Marshie ain't run off with nobody, woman. She's a good nigger and a sweet child."
Looking down again, he said, "Sorry, Amos. She came in earlier today, ah do remember that. She bought some canning wax an' some cheesecloth an'... and some licorice snaps—"
"Yessuh, Mr. Eppe'son," I said.
"But she left an' went home, boy. She paid for her goods and left."
"Ah see, Mistuh Eppe'son," I said. "Thank you, suh. Ah be goin' home now, an' keep lookin'."
"Night, Amos," Epperson said, and he closed his window.
The thought of trying to contact the county sheriff never crossed my mind. The realization that Epperson never offered any more assistance than he did never crossed my mind either. As white people in Louisiana went, Sam Epperson was friendly and fair. He did have white customers, though, so he couldn't exactly drop everything to hold some scared nigger's hand.
I went back the way I had come. The beauty of twilight is deceptive, since the light is fading and you can't see a damn thing. Now that it was night, and a three-quarter moon was shining down on me, I could see a lot more.
And what had been hidden by twilight and shadow now glowed like a pearl on the side of the road. It was a licorice snap, a white one.
I picked it up and quietly said, "Marshie?"
I stepped off the road looking for you.
For you, Marshie.
(4)
I found two more licorice snaps glowing in the moonlight. There might have been others, but only a white one and a pink one caught my eyes.
The smell of wood smoke was stronger here, far from the road, and the ground was damp and marshy.
There was a sickeningly sweet smell, and the bitter scent of charred wood, and beyond some tall grass I saw the blackened trunk of a cottongum, a water tupelo. They were everywhere in the swamp.
I pushed the grass aside and saw something clinging to the bell-bottomed tree trunk. My foot got snared and I stumbled. I shook my foot free and looked down. Blue cloth. Blue cotton, cornflower blue.
My heart started hammering away and it was like it was pushing runoff from the icehouse through every part of me.
I saw a swatch of white, smaller. I was confused, wondering why a pair of perfectly fine underpants would have been left out here. They were underpants a girl would wear. I saw something red and yellow. It was a can, and it reeked of gasoline.
I think I tried to say something. 'No,' maybe.
It came out the sound of a whipped dog, the wail of a ghost in a spook story.
I went to the tree and found you, Marshie.
Did they have their way with you, baby? Did they force themselves on you and into you before they used a knife that left your beautiful face ragged and turned your lovely pale skin into lifeless flaps that hung like torn canvas? Did they screw you, thinking niggers ain't nothing but animals but they're still good enough to fuck? Did they do that before they hammered spikes into the cottongum and hooked two lengths of chain on the spikes to hold you fast against the trunk? Did they call you a high yellow nigger and a nappy headed bitch and a coon before they poured gasoline on you and burned you?
Were you still alive when I passed by on the road on the way to Epperson's, smelling wood smoke and thinking it was coming from a pot-bellied stove?
It looked like the fire had gone out quicker than the Buckalew brothers would have liked. Your feet and your pretty little toes were untouched, as were your small, fine hands, as they were behind your back, fingers that made a thrill course through me whenever you touched me.
From the knees up you were ruined, though, at least in front. You looked almost like you were wearing a dark shroud.
The tree behind you was black and charred. A few feet above your head it was untouched.
I held your face in my hands, and part of it came away, sticking to my fingers. I screamed, and somewhere in the swamp a bird cried out.
I recall saying your name again and again. I remember the way the half-burned tree cracked and popped as it cooled. I remember a coon watching me with bright eyes.
I remember screaming again as I realized the fire had not gone out after all, it had gone deep, burning inside the trunk, and in the blink of an eye it was as bright as day as the fire erupted into the night, racing along every limb and branch.
When fire started to rain down on me, I had to leave you, Marshie.
The tree burned and fell in on itself, turning you to ash and returning you to the earth.
I remember walking down the road, past my home, past the dark and silent home of the Buckalew brothers, and stopping at the door of the hoodoo lady. Miss Yaweesha.
I remember telling the old woman what had happened, telling her everything and crying because there would be no justice for you.
And I remember old Miss Yaweesha telling me she could fix things, for me and for you.
For you, Marshie.
(5)
"What you doin' Miz Yaweesha?"
"Shut up yo' mouf, man," she said. "An' strip nekkid. Now."
She made me sit in a rickety chair by her fireplace. The room was dark save for the bright glow of embers.
I felt removed, numb. She made me sit naked, so I sat.
The old woman went to a desk by one wall and leaned over in the shadows, dipping a pen in ink and scribbling something on a scrap of butcher's paper.
She got a bowl that looked like it was made of bone and poured powders into it. She dribbled liquid into it, dark liquid from a small flask.
"Spit heah, boy," she said, holding her hand under my chin. Covering her hand was the butcher's paper with scrawls and squiggles on it.
I spit.
Miss Yaweesha came closer, close enough to kiss, close enough for me to smell her breath, as foul as rancid tallow.
She bit into my bottom lip and caught a drop of blood on the paper in her hand.
I heard her lift the lid off of a jar and smelled a strong liniment. Still holding the scrap of paper, she came close, and then leaned down. Her other hand was glistening with that strong liniment, and she began massaging it into my privates. The chair creaked loudly.
With just a few beats of my heart I was as hard as a pillar of stone. Miss Yaweesha's wrinkled hand grasped my hardness and stroked in, and in just seconds I spilled my seed.
There was heart in this, no emotion. My body simply reacted.
The old woman caught my seed in the scrap of paper.
She grabbed the bowl and began pouring the mixed powders onto the scrap of paper in her palm, making thick goo and then gummy clay. She stirred this with a short, twisted root and then pushed the root into the center of the mess and wrapped the paper around it.
My clothes were piled on a chair. She set the balled-up paper beside it.
"You want'n go back to the tree where yo' honey dahd. You want'n bury this in the ash. Cottongum trees done sprout from stumps, umm-hmm. When this tree sprout, grow again, drop seed, and that seed come full, your honey come back."
I shook my head. Couldn't that take years?
"How long?"
The old woman laughed. "Fifty year," she said, grinning in the ebb and flow of the ember light. "Sixty year. Maybe seventy."
She took me by the arm and I stood. She bent and started drawing a design in the dirt floor of her home.
"That las', fo' her." She said. "Now this, fo' you."
She went to the door and opened it.
"They call you coon?"
"Yes ma'am," I said.
The old lady reached beyond her door, waved her hand, and a frightened raccoon scuttled into the room.
The animal had its back up, and it was baring its teeth. I got a coon bite once, and they can be mean little things.
Miss Yaweesha gestured gain and the coon stepped onto the design she had drawn in the earth. The coon fell on one side, breathing hard.
The old woman bent down, and pulled open the animal's throat with just her fingers, ripping flesh and sinew as the little coon thrashed and bled out.
"Step ovah," She said.
I shook my head. I didn't understand.
She indicated the design, the dead coon. "Step ovah." She sounded annoyed. "Nevah seen crossin' foot track magic?"
I did as she asked. One step.
"It all be done," she said.
She picked up my clothes, almost throwing them at me.
I dressed, nearly falling over as I pulled on my pants. "What's done?"
"You part coon now," the old lady said. "You got coon life in you. Go."
I stepped outside her door.
"Ah ain't got no money," I said.
The old woman cackled as she closed her door in my face, saying, "Ah hates them white boys too, you dumb niggah."
I looked up at the moon.
I thought I should go home.
Instead, I went hunting, for you.
For you, Marshie.
(6)
I will not dwell on what I did to the Buckalew brothers.
I took no joy in it.
When I slipped into their home with so much stealth that not one warped old board creaked underfoot, there was no joy. When found my way through near total darkness and I grabbed hold of Walter's Adam's apple with my bared teeth and ripped away a sizable part of his throat and watched him bleed out to the accompaniment of a ragged whistle there was no joy. When Lamont jumped up and ran for the back door and I leaped at him and swiped at his eyes with my fingers and blinded him there was no joy. When I heard the click of a shotgun being cocked and slipped out the back door and up into a tree in the blink of an eye and waited for Clifton to pass under me and dropped down on him and broke his neck there was no joy. When I went back for Lamont and found him groping in the dark and closed in on him and tore open the tight flesh of his belly and watched him trip up on a swinging ribbon of his own guts there was no joy.
I found my way to you, Marshie, more by sense of smell than sight. I saw mice flee and hide under fallen leaves and heard their tiny hearts beating and smelled their fear. I buried the wad of paper-wrapped soft clay beneath still-hot ashes and then went to the swamp and washed myself free of blood.
It was three days before the sheriff showed up. My sister was dead and gone, and the Buckalews had been slaughtered.
I confessed, and apologized to momma, and I was taken away.
I killed them. I killed them for you.
For you, Marshie.
+EPILOGUE+
I play at being old.
You see, I have to stay young. What would be the point if I was old when you came back to me, baby?
Whatever old Miss Yaweesha did to me, it was renewable.
Every few years I lure a coon close with stable scraps. I lure it close enough that even though it is beyond my sight, I am able to take it with a gesture. I reach for it, beyond the walls of my cell, and it becomes a part of me, and grants me a few more years.
I have heard the guards talk about the scattered bones outside my cell. It is a mystery to them.
I sprinkle ash in my hair and rub dirt under my eyes and let myself grow a little fat, a little slack.
In solitary, the guards rarely get close. They see what they want to see. When I go outdoors for an hour of exercise each day I simply breath fresh air, nothing more.
When I come out of the shower I slump and walk slow, act feeble. They see what they want to see. To them I am very old.
But the day is coming, Marshie.
The day is coming when you will return. On that day, I'll know, because you will be a part of me. On that day I'll leave this place and come to you. The mystical powers of a coon. Sounds a hoot, doesn't it? But coons are clever, and quick. Coons are survivors.
I will survive, until you come. Then I'll touch that birthmark on your cheek, the one shaped like a bird feather.
Until then, I'll play my music and abide and try not to get the blues, sweet baby.
I'll wait.
I'm waiting still.
I'm waiting, and doing time, and holding close to my love for you.
For you, Marshie.
User Reviews
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-05-25 17:42:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow, that was a damn fine story.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-05-25 08:17:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I can't believe I read all of that so early in the morning.
Well done, Jack.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-24 00:17:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I meant it about myself, actually. Had I intended to insult you, I probably would have been more descriptive about it.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-24 00:13:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-24 00:07:07 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-23 23:51:58 (#)
Ranking: 2
Ass.
__________________________________
Yes'm, and you may kiss mine. Stupid bitch.
_______________________________________________
ooooooppppssss! I'm drunk. Maybe you meant 'ass' about yourself for the 0.
If so, I humbly apologize. . .
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-24 00:07:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-23 23:51:58 (#)
Ranking: 2
Ass.
__________________________________
Yes'm, and you may kiss mine. Stupid bitch.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-23 23:51:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ass.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-23 23:51:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"You were golden in the sunlight, smiling, letting out a laugh, and before the day was out I would curse the Lord God and His only son Jesus Christ and all the Saints and Angels in Heaven for what happened to you.
You walked down the road and around the curve of the swamp and I wouldn't see you again until the sun was down and the night was cold and your blood was on my hands, tacky as molasses.
--------------------------
That's what I'm calling bad foreshadowing. Not the prologUe. There was nothing wrong with the prologue.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-23 20:03:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-23 14:44:37 (#)
Ranking: 1
This is only a +1 because damnit, Jack, that foreshadowing was just plain clumsy. It didn't need to be there at all, and it was doubly jarring because the rest of the story was so good. I mean, we KNOW something Bad is going to happen. We KNOW that the narrator has mentioned the Buckelews for a reason, and the sister is pretty obviously involved somehow. Don't insult the reader's intelligence by implying that we can't figure out what's going to happen on our own.
The foreshadowing also caused finding out what exactly happened to Marshie have less impact. With the foreshadowing, we're already expecting that, ok, there's going to be a lot of blood, and oh, he's mentioning woodsmoke, she's dead and probably burned. Without it, there would still be that hope that maybe she's still alive, and GAAAAAAAAK no she isn't. It lets the reader identify more clearly with the narrator's shock and horror as he finds her.
See?
______________________________________________
Call me crazy, but I saw nothing wrong with the prologue. . .
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-05-23 16:07:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-23 14:44:37 (#)
Ranking: 1
This is only a +1 because damnit, Jack, that foreshadowing was just plain clumsy.
--
Point taken, although I disagree most vehemently, missy! Sometimes I tell a tale straight out in a straight voice, and sometimes I 'get into' a character and let him or her tell it any way they see fit. That's what happened here. No notes on how or where the tale should go, no structure, no worries about style or prose, just storytelling.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-05-23 14:44:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This is only a +1 because damnit, Jack, that foreshadowing was just plain clumsy. It didn't need to be there at all, and it was doubly jarring because the rest of the story was so good. I mean, we KNOW something Bad is going to happen. We KNOW that the narrator has mentioned the Buckelews for a reason, and the sister is pretty obviously involved somehow. Don't insult the reader's intelligence by implying that we can't figure out what's going to happen on our own.
The foreshadowing also caused finding out what exactly happened to Marshie have less impact. With the foreshadowing, we're already expecting that, ok, there's going to be a lot of blood, and oh, he's mentioning woodsmoke, she's dead and probably burned. Without it, there would still be that hope that maybe she's still alive, and GAAAAAAAAK no she isn't. It lets the reader identify more clearly with the narrator's shock and horror as he finds her.
See?
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-05-23 14:16:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-23 01:21:45 (#)
Ranking: 2
After reading Coyote's, I thought there was no way I could 'drop a perfect 2' on yours.
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Outside of uber that phrase has the exact opposite meaning.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-05-23 14:15:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-05-21 11:17:32 (#)
Ranking: 2
This is one of the best pieces I've ever read on uber.
Just..wow.
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Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2006-05-23 09:34:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-23 01:21:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
After reading Coyote's, I thought there was no way I could drop a perfect 2 on yours. Prove me wrong, why don'tcha?
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-22 22:13:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-22 21:56:15 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-05-22 21:36:10 (#)
Ranking: 1
It was good, but in my opinion Coyote's was better. His writing is more stylish and well-constructed, and I always was a sucker for style.
_______________________________________________
As a fellow English major, I disagree. Both were excellent, and completely different
in both style and rendering. Style is dependent upon genre, even though I hate
that fucking 'g' word. . .
______________________________________________________________
I may have fucked up. I said 'fellow' thinking of C1ndy, not Circe. Sorry.
I don't know if you're an English major or not, but I know you are a great
writer, as is Jack.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-22 21:56:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-05-22 21:36:10 (#)
Ranking: 1
It was good, but in my opinion Coyote's was better. His writing is more stylish and well-constructed, and I always was a sucker for style.
_______________________________________________
As a fellow English major, I disagree. Both were excellent, and completely different
in both style and rendering. Style is dependent upon genre, even though I hate
that fucking 'g' word. . .
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-05-22 21:54:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-05-22 21:36:10 (#)
Ranking: 1
It was good, but in my opinion Coyote's was better. His writing is more stylish and well-constructed, and I always was a sucker for style.
---
No, she just wants to be fucked senseless by him, it's all right though, we understand Circe.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-05-22 21:36:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
It was good, but in my opinion Coyote's was better. His writing is more stylish and well-constructed, and I always was a sucker for style.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-05-22 05:19:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
An exemplar.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-21 11:37:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-05-21 11:17:32 (#)
Ranking: 2
This is one of the best pieces I've ever read on uber.
Just..wow.
________________________________________________________
Bullshit! EVERYTHING I write is... er...wait...
Bwahahahahahahahahahhaa!!!
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-05-21 11:17:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is one of the best pieces I've ever read on uber.
Just..wow.
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2006-05-20 08:32:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I loved this.
Submitted by DCWoody (user info) at 2006-05-20 05:16:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm surprised I read all that.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-05-20 00:14:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you are good. i am drunk. you are good.
gravitas says you're good too.
yey.
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2006-05-19 22:29:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read all that. Very good indeed!
Submitted by street-pirate (user info) at 2006-05-19 21:45:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
YES.
Submitted by knucklesnelson (user info) at 2006-05-19 21:14:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
GO PISTONS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-19 20:14:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This kicked major ass.
Submitted by horse87 (user info) at 2006-05-19 20:08:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2006-05-19 19:13:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Well let's just hope you roll your car on the way home
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-05-19 19:03:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Not only am I brain-fried from this, but my boss left work hours ago... and I could have left hours ago.
Instead, I worked on this.
Jesus.