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Adverbs
By Mary Trafford
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It is beyond coincidence that Andre Dubus can
bring out a collection of stories called Raven's
Croft and John Ravenscroft publishes his Dubious Collected Stories, ON THE SAME DAY, and both are printed on
paper, both have words of mostly more than one syllable, both have the page
numbers in the bottom right hand corner of the page.
Ravenscroft's lead story is called “Ostrich Central,” about the demise of an
on-line writer's group, Dubus's opener is “Death of an Emu,” followed by
“Mandarin Sunset,” where Ravenscroft writes in his story “Bird Watching
With My Mate Steve,” the phrase "man during sunset".
This is a message, people, something crossing the cosmos. It is God leaking, it
is the Jungian Collective Consciousness, a scarab beetle crawling where scarabs
do not crawl to whisper (metaphorically speaking) 'we are not alone,' 'There
are more things on Heaven and Earth, Prospero' (shit like that) and have you
played a DVD backwards to discover all the people walk funny?
"The trouble with writing is there simply aren't enough adjectives, and the
ones we have are boring. Then again, there's a bit of an adverb famine going on
too."
This is what John Ravenscroft says when I ring
him for the interview.
"Ring that bloke with a beard, that Dubus bloke with a girl's first name.
See how he feels about modifiers."
It is at this point that we realize Dubus and Ravenscroft both have silver
beards, both take a dump before breakfast, both like to look learned, leaning
towards the camera, and like their biopics in black and white.
There are forces at work here, people.
"Mr Dubus."
"Yes."
"Thank-you for speaking to me. I've been speaking to Mr—”
"The bum in Lincolnsire? Mr Dubious Collected?"
"He said to ask about adjectives. There's a world shortage…"
"It's that fucking Proulx woman, she gets them wholesale then packs them
into every fucking sentence. Why d'you think I write so spare, can't get an
adjective under two dollars!"
"Proulx?"
"The tenuous, tense, torture of Ave Maria hits the roof of rooves, the
arches, the archaic old man's mouth, a tonsilectomy, a scream, a sigh, squeezing
between holy edges, of his buzzing, chronic cleft holy palate, the church
abused, festered, festering, festooned with B flats, full, vile, vox humana, the
paternotster pastronising partially contradicting itself in a masturbatory
corner, the organs bellowing, organs mellowing, billowing, joyous discords,
discord, accord, virgins dripping, weeping, sweeping, as Maria, virgin mother,
that baby, never ripped from there, not a vagina, not an egress, legless, not
MARIA, and
silent eyes fix on varnished oak, vanishing oak, yesterday's superficial
scratchings, the vagina, the virgin, more scratching."
"That's Proulx?"
"No, she's worse, wanna hear some?"
"Is it part of the interview?"
"No, but I like to share my pain."
"Just a little then…"
"What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't."
"Not Keegan is it? Not that wanker: ' Jack Sherman's word today is miasma.
He is thinking of the morningfaint stench of misplaced semen, pussy, of feet and
toenails and armpits, visitors, paper, print, of red wine drying to a sediment
in glasses by the sink, the tiny ozones of television, carpetmites and spilled
coffee, aerosol-dampened shit, wash'n'go, exhaust fumes, tyre-slick, colours of
sirens, CD residue, atoms."
"Oh I don't know…"
"What? I suppose you like, ' Yesterday - (milieu) - Jack had thought of
lies, protestations, fabrications and confabulations, of subtle underdigging, of
sexgame alluding, of hurt and scathe and fluttering, the words first. He thought
of proximities, knees which parted, pale
hamstrings flashing, of stretches, openings, arms, mouths, legs (briefly),
fingers flexing, intellects and raw ape.' too?"
"Um…"
"Jesus, man, not you too? Let me guess, MFA from IOWA? No, you sound like a
Brit. So is it one of those faggot MAs from whatsisname, the Motion man over at
UEA? They get to you too? What happened to plain English, hey?"
"I…"
"Hey, bud, whateveryername. You don't know where I can get some cheap
adjectives? I can go 30 cents, four for a dollar, but I don't want ordinary. I
want a few of those bullshit modifiers, the sort Annie E gets. Y'know, " IN
the long unfurling of his life, from tight-wound kid hustler in a wool suit
riding the train out of Cheyenne to geriatric limper in this spooled-out year,
Mero had kicked down thoughts of the place where he began, a so-called ranch on
strange ground at the south hinge of the Big Horns. He'd got himself out of
there in 1936, had gone to a war and come back, married and married again (and
again), made money in boilers and air-duct cleaning and smart investments,
retired,
got into local politics and out again without scandal, never circled back to see
the old man and Rollo, bankrupt and ruined, because he knew they were.' Man,
that stuff so squeezes the literati tits. I could make a mint."
"It's very worrying…"
"Very, where d'you get the very?"
"Oh, at home."
"You got adjectives?"
"I was going to write romances."
"Give me your address son. I'm coming over."
____________________
I had a spot as Monica Lewinski's Dry Cleaner,
then worked PR for Saddam Hussein before taking up my current role as Peace
Ambassador for President Bush. As I have a lot of spare time (currently 7 Days a
week) I've started writing, recently started submitting...
Mary Trafford could be my real name.
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