Work is Work: A Short Story

As a child my mother told me to never turn down a job. Work is work Dalia. You take what you can get, you don’t complain, and you don’t let those smarts get the better of you. My mother’s voice rang through my ears as the four-wheeler whipped past another set of dense vines. The air of the Borneo rainforest saturated my lungs as if each breath I took carried with it three gallons of water. Dr. Ortega, a slender dark haired woman who organized the trip to these dense forests, desperately tried to communicate with the driver of the truck.

            “Do you know where we’re going?” She focused hard on the man’s face; it was the look she reserved for undergraduate students who forgot to leave their sophomoric ideas of biology in their high school labs. “Dalia, give me the backpack.” I turned toward the thirty-pound sack separating me from Jeremy, another biology grad student who was wondering what he was doing on this tribal escapade. I shifted in the seat, my skin slowly tearing from my pleather cocoon. Heat made my limbs stiffen as I slid the canvas backpack to Dr. Ortega. She plopped the sack on her lap and dug for the crinkled map. The paper wilted as soon as it hit the wet air. She continued to fight with the driver pointing to a series of red circles.

            My head dropped back, my eyes closed and I rested for an hour allowing the shadows of the forest to overtake me.

***

            I saw Dr. Theodore Reynolds’ picture in Scientific American when I was thirteen. I memorized his face telling myself that one day I would join him in the wilds of Borneo. The photograph showed a man in his late forties kneeling down beside a baby orangutan; his kaki shorts were frayed and dirty yet his demeanor and stature showed signs of a professional scientist, ready to get dirty only when the time required it. The man beside Dr. Ortega was not the same man I memorized twelve years ago. His bright Hawaiian shirt contrasted the dark green background of the rainforest, and worst yet he let his hair grow out. No longer cut and coiffed, greasy strands of dark brown hair hung in front of his face, the rest was sloppily tied back by a yellow cord.

“Dr. Reynolds,” I approached him with my hand out.

“Call me Teddy, you’ll be here for a while so ya’ might as well get used to me now.” He said gripping my hand. As he held my hand I realized a terrible stench rising from his clothes. He seemed to emit a musty animal smell. I wanted him to let go.

“Yes. Well Dr. Reynolds, I just wanted to tell you that I’m excited to start working with you for the next four years.”

“I’m glad, um Dalia right?” I nodded. “Okay, Dalia here’s your kit: plastic sheet, test tubes, pH strips, you know the normal things you’ll need when you collect orangutan urine.” I held the plastic box in my hand, not sure exactly what I was supposed to do with it.

“Excuse me? Dr. Reynolds?” He began to walk away from me leaving me with the box. “Dr. Reynolds? Teddy!” He quickly turned around with an eager grin plastered on his face; a few extra hairs fell from his makeshift tie. “Urine? As in pee? From the orangutans?”

“Yes.” He began to turn around away from me again.

“But, I’m supposed to study reproductive hormones in female orangutans.”

“Yes, and how can you do that without fresh samples?”

***

Work is work Dalia.

            Jeremy folded the plastic sheet taut as I held an oversized test tube at one end.

 You take what you can get.

            We both watched as fresh yellow liquid dribbled down the clear plastic lining.

 You don’t complain.

            Lucy, an adolescent orangutan who was recently discovered to be fertile, observed us with a smirk on her face as we hairless apes collected our data.

And you don’t let those smarts get the better of you.

Jeremy continued to fold up the plastic sheet. I set the tubes into the test tube rack and closed the plastic box Teddy handed me three years ago. Jeremy leaned over and kissed the top of my head, our stench of orangutan urine mixed together. We breathed in the stink of our work, and headed back to camp, with Lucy laughing at us as we left.

Marcia: Character Development

Her hands gripped to the sides of the metal waste bin. That morning she realized Bio lab dissections and morning sickness were not the best combination. Her lab partner held back her hair, yet his desperate attempts not to watch caused thick red strands of hair to fall in front of her face. She couldn’t bear to look at the poor frog, his little claws grasping out toward her as if it needed her to help him. She remembered the reason she was there, she wanted to help animals, and if familiarizing herself with the dead corpses of a hundred frogs was what she would have to go through she figured it was worth the suffering.

            She pinned the flaps of skin to the dissection tray, trying frantically to not allow the smell of formaldehyde to cause her to gag. She remembered her sister laughing at her every time she had to stop and look at an animal. She was always looking for a way to help them, whether it was a squirrel or the neighborhood dog, she tried to help those who weren’t able to speak. As her lab partner wrote down the position of the liver, she reminded herself that she was going to be a veterinarian someday.

Yet, as the smell of the dead corpse in front of her rose to her nostrils she lost all color in her cheeks. Her lab partner looked at her incomplete horror and simply pointed to the wastebasket that was conveniently placed next to her feet. Her red hair flipped in front of her face as she lost the battle with the nausea building behind her throat. She ended lab that day away from the dead frog. 

Donald: Character Development

Crimson streaks of acrylic paint rinsed down his sweaty palms, pooling at the base of his gold wedding band until finally dripping to the base of the cool metal sink. He rubbed the bottom of his chin, feeling the rough silver stubble as it scratched his fingertips, trying to remember the last time he slept beside his wife. He fumbled around the studio, stumbling over broken glass bottles of Stoli and castoff canvases until he reached the beige filing cabinet. After a quick kick to the bottom drawer, the top flew open revealing thousands of collected magazine clippings, posters, and photographs each carefully alphabetically catalogued in this drawer labeled “INSPIRATION.”

He thumbed through the pictures until he reached “S,” there he pulled out a crinkled photograph of a toothy young boy. He stared at his younger self, holding a Star Wars lunchbox his father proudly standing next to him as he waited for the bus to take him to his first day of school. The only time he could recall receiving such praise from his father before the man left. He threw the photo to the side; there was no point in reliving regret.

He lost himself years ago; he had that type of personality. Whether it was obsessing over science fiction, his paintings, or another bottle of vodka, he managed to, through his obsessions push away the ones he loved, that was a fact he knew; and with each obsession came impending failure. He continued to search through the drawer until he came across another photo, this one more recent. His wife sat on the faded leather seat of his motorcycle, a beat up old thing he bought from a Vietnam Vet when he was seventeen. Her raven hair caught in the Arizona breeze, she smiled at him, and in turn she became a new obsession for him.  A sly smile spread across his face.  

"Virtue Was No Defense:" Creative Non-Fiction, Memoir

The chalky gravel stings my knees as I leave red bloody impressions on the playground floor. Aaren stands over me, her foot hovering inches away from my face.

“Are you gonna cry? Cry baby!” she screams at me.

Her foot lurches forward, stopping short just in time for my face to turn into the pebbled surface. I cry. I want her to leave me alone. Five school days, five pushes, five daily sessions in the office, enough to leave a second grader battered and scarred for life.

 “You’re worthless.” She shouts, “You’re nothing.” curled against the ground, caught between the soggy imprint I’ve left on the ground and Aaren’s Disney tennis shoes, I take her insults. “ You’re not even worth the gum on my shoe.” She scrapes her worn sole against my wet skin, and leaves me, her heels blinking away into the play park.

I sat there for fifteen minutes; my friends stared at me not knowing what to do next. I breathed in the chalky pebbles, each dusty inhale permeated my lungs. I gripped to my knees, the sweat burning the cuts left by Aaren’s constant bullying. I wanted to be able to heal.

***

I stared at the pizza in front of me, scraping the yellow-white cheese from the top of its greasy dough. Next to me, Delaney rolled the cheese into a ball.

“Watch this,” she said with a toothy grin. She threw the cheese towards the floor, once hitting the tile surface it bounced back almost immediately, landing perfectly in her small six year-old hands. This is how lunchroom rumors are formed. One silly kid does something stupid like bounce pizza cheese on the floor and two minutes later, the entire school thinks that the pizza’s made of rubber.

Aaren sat across the cafeteria, hovering over the bouncing cheese ball, glaring at me with those dark eyes. She hated me I could feel it. She hated my hair, my clothes, my laugh. She chose to hate me. I shifted slightly in my seat, my left knee scraped against the freshly placed Sesame Street band-aids on the opposite leg. Her smile hid behind her long stringy dark hair. I walked over to empty my tray; as I dumped the dissected pizza I caught a glimpse of her smile, pieced between the greasy sections of hair.

The next thing I saw was a hand striking the Styrofoam tray in my hands. I looked down for only a second, when the sauce soaked dough landed on my shoes. She seemed to have transported from the chair across the room to torment me.  Her dark strands grazed my brow.

“Why do you make such a mess?”

I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. I just keep looking down.

“Why can’t you ever say anything?”

***

            June 26, 2000, my sister turned two. My family and I poured over cake and ice cream while we handed the toddler bright packages. With cake smeared on our mouths, we played with neon finger paints leaving orange smudges on the kitchen table. Kathleen’s tiny fingers framed the page, leaving stained fingerprints shaping flower petals and raindrops. The chocolate frosting mixed with her brand new paints, leaving the neon colors muted and murky in their jars.

            The next morning, the cake was cleared; the wrapping paper was compiled and thrown away, with our artwork proudly displayed on the walls. I woke up with my mom sitting on the edge of my bed, tears beading in her eyes as she stroked my thick blonde hair. I couldn’t understand why she was crying. Yesterday was a happy day. I sat up straight, cocked my head to the right and hugged my mom’s neck. “Come with me, baby girl.” She whispered into my ear. I followed her down the stairs, hitting each corner and turn as I went, gripping hard to my mother’s hand. Dad held his arms out, picked up my small six-year-old body and plopped me on the couch. The green upholstery clung onto my yellow sleep shorts. I picked at the scars on my knees, left as permanent reminders of the last school year.

“Did you know this girl?” Dad asked me as he held the morning newspaper in front of me. Her face stood out. In the sea of words: “dead,” “father,” “stabbed” her dark eyes stood out on the black and white page. Her hair, usually strung out in front of her face hiding a sinister smile, was parted to the side, held back by a bow. She looked innocent, happy, and serene. This was not the same girl who pushed me to the ground, forcing me to hide under the wooden floorboards of the play castle one too many times. Tears began to stream down my face.

“Her father was a bad man, Alex.” My dad sat to the left of me, my mom was to my right as they began to bombard me with information of her grisly murder. “Last night he stabbed Aaren in the chest and neck. She didn’t survive. But they got him now, okay? He’ll be put in prison for a long time. Her sister’s fine; she’s going to her grandma’s or something. We know that you knew her. Alex, we just wanted you to know that she’s gone now. Alex? Are you okay? What are you thinking?”

            I stared long and hard at the floor. I studied its distinct markings, the shifts in color of the wood paneling. I tried to memorize each scratch, each dent, as I desperately tried to avoid answering this question. I looked into my dad’s pale green eyes while my mom caressed my head as six words were released from my lips.

            “What if I didn’t like her?”

***

            It was an ugly creature. Its orange and pink splotchy fur compressed where hundreds of kids pressed their snot-ridden noses into the plush exterior. It once had blue eyes. I could tell by the leftover paint left on the green felt circles pasted on his face, now they’re left empty. This creature was the face of sorrow. It was given to kids, like me mourning, frustrated, and confused. It was meant to be comforting.

“Whoever has Creakie Creature gets to talk okay?” The counselor for the elementary school said as she passed the disintegrating plushy to my friend at the far end of the room. There were four of us girls. We were considered Aaren’s “closest” friends. Funny I never considered her games as friendly.

We went around the room, each girl taking turns trying to understand what happened that summer.

Her father came home drunk.

Each girl clung to the plush toy as if her life depended on it. Once she was told to let it go, she would look down into the sad green circles. She would stare at it, trying to comprehend the idea of such evil residing in one man.

He stabbed his little girl in the chest and neck until she stopped moving.

Finally, Creakie Creature made it to my lap. I sat in silence, my eyes burned dry from my apathy. The counselor scribbled some notes into a yellow pad and stared at me for a good thirty seconds.

“Alexandra, it’s your turn to talk.”

What is there to say?

“It’s okay to be confused at a time like this. Just know that Aaren’s father was a strange man who didn’t know how to communicate his feelings well.”

Is this your way of having me talk? I’m not confused. I wished her to be gone, and now she is. I didn’t want it to be this way.

“Where do you think Aaren is now? Do you think she’s happier? Do you think she’s in a better place?”

What I’m I supposed to say now?

“I don’t know.”

***

            “I have absolutely no idea what to write about, Dad.” I pull my knees up to my chest. I’ve lounged around the apartment in my Batman boxers for six hours, trying to figure out what I could possibly write. Memoir. A memory. An event that can keep a reader interested for five to six pages. I’m nineteen. As far as I know I don’t have any.

            “I honestly don’t know hun, you’re just so boring!” My dad laughs on the other end of the phone. I just stare at my empty computer screen.

            “You’re not helping.” I kicked the white Zappos box at the end of the couch. Labeled at the top in gaudy pink Sharpie was “ALEX’S STUFF,” my mom practically threw it at me four months ago. I haven’t opened it since I moved away, inside were just a few old yearbooks, elementary school art projects, and most importantly journals.

            In 2000 my grandma gave me a purple velveteen journal from American Girl. At the time it’s empty pages were intimidating and exciting. Each page made way for my own thoughts and experiences to be shared through the broken English of a six year old.  Today the cover is drawn over with gel pens, the pages stained with crayon and marker, and perfect for research. I ran across a few passages about elementary school crushes, bullies, and projects. One struck my interest almost immediately.

            My gold crayon stood out on the purple lined page. Each word glimmered on the page. It hit me.

            Yesterday was Kathleen’s birthday. She’s two now. Oh, and Aaren died last night. Her daddy killed her.

            Its simplicity disturbed me.

            “Hey, Dad…”

Let’s Punch a Unicorn: Creative Non-Fiction

She peered over her wire-rimmed glasses as she swiped the book on the scanner. She doesn’t think it’s for me. Its red and black striped cover stood out in comparison to the other books on the counter. It was the bloody fist that did it. She thinks that I’m getting the book for my brother or my boyfriend or something. I pay, grab the book, and wait for my friend Tyler. Tyler is 6’1”, burly, and gay. The book he hold’s up to the bookstore cashier is The Last Unicorn. He gets the same odd look I did before. First the small girl with Fight Club, and now here’s this man with a book about unicorns.

 It’s not the first time I’ve received odd looks. For some reason people can’t believe that a girl can be so obsessed with a story. A story about men who were raised by their mothers and then form secret cults were they beat the living crap out of each other. A story about men being men, fighting men, eating manly man sandwiches, wanting to live on the edge so they can remember what it feels like to be a man. I’m not the one who buys the unicorn books.

In the car we laugh about the cashier.

“It’s fine,” Tyler says as he looks down at the medieval unicorn tapestry on the cover. I look at the bloody fist. “We could just say we were buying each others books.” He laughs and drives out of the parking lot. As we drove back to the dorms I couldn’t help thinking about that idea. Why would I have to have the unicorn book, and he have the manly book? Why couldn’t I have the man sandwich?

***

            She held the pink frilly training bra up to my chest. There’s no way I’m going to wear this thing. My mother holds up the small straps to my eleven year-old body. The small red hearts accentuate the femininity in the bra. The straps constrain me like a straightjacket. I can think of thirty different places I would rather be at, like the tree house behind Leon’s house.

Built between a boulder and a twisted tree branch, the tree house was our version of MI6 from the Bond movies. Behind the camouflage curtains, Leon would be James Bond, Jake would be some sort of villain, and I would always be the Bond girl who dies in the end. I hate being the Bond girl.

“Stop struggling, we won’t be able to find one that fits unless you stop moving.” I stand pin straight, allowing my mother to continue to find the bra of best fit. To me they’re all the same. They’re cold reminders that I am different from the boys. Bras are reminders that I am always going to be stuck as the Bond girl, the damsel, and the princess in all our games while they play hero. 

***

“Why do you have to be so much like a boy? Why can’t you act more like a girl?” My little sister looked up at me with painful frustration as she held her Barbie dolls. She stroked their blonde hair, dressed them in their gowns, and got each doll ready for the ball.  I shrugged away into a corner to read my comic books. Each scantily clad woman stares up at me from the page. Their perky breasts hardly able to be contained beneath their spandex gear, their sultry eyes glaring at their male counterparts, the sexual tension building with every fight. They use their gender to get what they want.

The male superheroes use brute force, yet the women have a different power entirely. They have their sex. Stronger than any hero these women were able to bat their eyes and make their enemies melt. And then they could go off and kick butt. I wanted to be one of these women. I set aside any aspirations I had to become an astronaut, an archaeologist, or a paleontologist to become a female superhero. I wanted to have the opportunity to hit something.

***

            I first met Tyler Durden on AMC. The two and a half hour movie took somewhere around four hours to watch. Tyler Durden’s rants about our materialistic society were interrupted with commercials for “Shamwow” and “Snuggies.”

            “May I never be complete.”

The Shamwow is superabsorbent, watch as it is able to absorb this gallon of Koolaid.

            “May I never be content.”

The Shamwow can be yours with one easy payment of $19.95!

            “May I never be perfect.”

Act now, and we’ll add another Shamwow to your order absolutely free (just pay shipping and handling.)

            Fight Club, both the movie and the novel, became a way of life for me. My world was exposed to the existentialist rants left from the frayed remnants of the mind of Chuck Palahniuk, and I could never return. I became more confident in my interests. I was unafraid to confront my own identity, question what identity I was buying into. I was open about myself, while I simultaneously hid my obsession. Most people don’t admit that their life’s mantra is found in between the bloodstained words of the controversial Tyler Durden. I knew the rules. I kept it a secret.

***

            My roommate paints Santa Claus on my nails. Last night she painted candy canes, and the night before I sported rainbows that looked like they fell straight from “My Little Pony.” Chocolate smears our mouths as we watch chick flicks. This is what we call a “girl’s weekend” in our apartment. It’s one of the last we’ll have before we all split for a month for winter break. We’ll make up for it later when we come back and watch all five “Fast and Furious” movies with pizza and beer. We have no idea what we call those weekends.

            We have no roles to fulfill. We have no stereotypes we have to buy into. The smell of acetone and chocolate keeps us company. As an English major with a minor in WEST (Women’s and Ethnic Studies) my mind is constantly on a roll. Reading into every statement, every character, and every motion made in every movie we watch. It’s a curse.

            “Who owns Fight Club?” Kyle, a friend of Stacy’s, my other roommate, looks at our extensive movie collection. He stands there in almost disbelief as he sees peeking from between Lion King and Mary Poppins is the masculine manly man sandwich itself.

            “It’s mine.” I say not looking up from nails, as Jenna magically draws a fluffy white beard on my middle finger.

            “That’s so weird. Cool. But weird, you don’t look like the type of person who would watch that kind of stuff.”

            I look up, not knowing what to really say. It has been an ongoing love of mine for the last four years now. I wanted to start my own fight club in my friend’s basement. Her mother didn’t quite approve. I smile, look him dead in the eyes.

            “I don’t really talk about it. It’s the first and second rule.”    

Wake: Alternative Creative Non-fiction

I

            On Saturday, Jenna talks in her sleep. She rambles on about kittens and twisty slides, or chocolate covered rabbits. Her mouth gapes open, her arms stand still at her sides. She wakes up late morning or early afternoon. She bolts herself awake and stares at a blank face in the glossy mirror. She walks away. She makes lunch and focuses on her homework. She lets her black pen scribble economy notes and preps herself for her next test.

            Jenna doesn’t have a license. She stays at home and focuses. Focuses on cleaning, focuses on school, focuses, focuses, focuses. She focuses on anything she can so she doesn’t think that she’s trapped in her own apartment. She cooks and cleans and for a few moments allows herself to live in her miniature domestic dream. She pulls her hair tight away from her face so she can focus on being mom for the three of her roommates.

            Jenna prefers to wear sweats. She saunters down prison painted walls. She turns into her own bedroom ready to slumber again for hours. Ready to breathe in the night air, comforting each silence with the soft feel of polyester fleece on her neck. She allows herself to talk to her dreams, mumbling to the galaxies as she drifts off to sleep.

II

            On Saturday, Sara barely opens her eyes. She keeps them shut, afraid to allow her corneas to be exposed to the searing sunlight. She hides her head under ebony satin for hours until her head begins to hurt. She steps off her mattress, letting the rayon grip at her toes. She stares at a blank face until she decides it’s time to get ready. Her boyfriend waits at his apartment. She smears jet-black over her eyelids, and allows her ethnic beauty to shine.

            Sara drives a clunker. It slams into every crack and pothole in Colorado Springs, leaving her with a few flats and a scratched bumper. She cusses under her breath, and stares at the other drivers envying their new autos. She pulls in to his apartment.

            Sara wears tight jeans and combat boots.  She dresses the way she wants to, pulling an oversized slashed t-shirt over her head. She preps herself. She’s ready for whatever may come, ready to experience love, heartbreak, and redemption all in one night. Her roommates don’t see her until mid-Sunday morning.

III

On Saturday, Alex face-plants onto the floor. She lets the rough industrialized carpet scratch her skin, and waits before she has to go to work. She stares back at a blank face for twenty minutes before slapping two pounds of fake on to her visage. First a layer of creamed foundation perfectly formulated for super white women like her, a dusting of “classic ivory” powder, along with a sprig of rosy healthy blush, line of ebony Egyptian kohl and she’s done. She waits. She sits. She wastes time before shoving off to work. 

Alex drives a stick. As she drives her "golf cart" around in a sea of monster trucks, she receives odd looks. She switches seamlessly from first to second to third. At every stoplight she catches glimpses of people cranking their necks to see if she’s really driving a new manual. Her fingers caress the shift, her foot rests on the clutch, and she flies past nosey busy bodies.

            Alex wears five-inch heels when she feels like it. It may make driving a stick difficult but she doesn’t care. She clanks down hallways, turns on her heel and struts. She walks out into the milky moonlight ready to howl at the stars until mid-morning. Ready to take on the night and embrace the cool midnight air, all while wearing those five-inch heels.  Alex falls asleep around 11:30 P.M. Shoes off, face plastered on her cotton pillowcase, breathing in her own drool.