Nine Stories

For J.D. Salinger

I.
When I was nine, my best friend and I went fishing with his father. It was the first and only time I'd gone fishing and his father showed us how to cast. He bought a can of worms at the corner mart. He drank his beers and smoked a cigar, telling us, "Good job." And when my line fell into the water, and I said, "I think I got something," he wrapped his hands around mine, and together, we brought the fish from the water. He tossed it into a bucket and grabbed my shoulders and said, "You got one Curt." He laughed and guzzled the rest of his beer and his son, my best friend, looked away, pretending to spot something across the lake. When we left the lake, we forgot about the fish in the bucket. Alone, in a tiny, tiny lake. Waiting. For something.

II.
We told her to go up into the tree house. Climb the ladder. Go into the tree house. There is something there, waiting. And after she'd climbed the ladder and crawled into the tree house, we took the ladder away and laughed. But she didn't say anything. She was in the tree house, silently drawing invisible circles on the plywood floor. We called out her name. We told her to say something, but she didn't. She would have stayed up there forever. She might have been happier. But we told her to come down. Come down from there already! She climbed down the ladder and said that it was nice up there. And you said, "Whatever."

III.
Once, Mom took a drawing class at the library. When Dad saw the charcoal set she bought, he told her to quit the class, that we didn't have that kind of money. She drew one picture. It was a self-portrait. She used all the charcoal. All nine sticks to spite Dad. She took a piece of paper and covered it in charcoal. I can still hear the sound. The scratch. Her hand moving back and forth. Forever.

IV.
The first time I read, Catcher in the Rye, I was in the eighth grade. When I finished the book, I started chain smoking. I told people to leave me alone. That's how I met my first girlfriend.

V.
Earl. Town drunk. Bought all the neighborhood kids 25 cent corn dogs from his favorite bar, The Coffee Grounds. His only stipulation: say, "Thank you very much."

VI.
In 1996, when Fran swept into Ohio and Pennsylvania, the prison flooded. The wardens told us to remain calm. To settle down! But some people were screaming, saying that we were going to die. But the only things to die were the rats. They floated like woolly driftwood. In and out of cells. When the water receded, everyone watched in silence as the janitors swept the rats into a pile and out the door. "Where did they come from?" someone asked. And everyone looked for a hole in his cell to escape from.

VII.
The first time I watched Harold and Maude, I asked Grandma to marry me. She said I wasn't her type. "You're not quite young enough," she said.

VIII.
No birds ever resided in my bird house. But it was beautiful nonetheless.

IX.
A story is a tricky thing. It starts before you even realize that its started. It ends after it has ended. When you tell it, it is not the same as when it was told to you. It is most powerful the first time. It is most powerful the last time. When you say that you are going to tell a story, there is a pause. Because a story is a tricky thing.




Rest in Peace