ForewordI wrote a 3-part post some 3 weeks ago entitled
"Mark Your Territory", about my experience with the landlady of a room I rented for 5 weeks in a boarding house in New Or.leans. That woman, "Ms. Clara", had to be the most eclectic person I'd ever met, and I based one of the characters in my story ("Elba") on her.
I began working on a story sometime last year entitled
Leaving Jersey. I wrote it as part of a writing class assignment. The instructor wanted us to write something involving a person leaving a place or situation, never to return again. She wanted that character to walk through the room, reminescing about that place and all that had happened there, etc...
I decided to write about a young woman named Danielle who was leaving an abusive relationship in New Jersey, and returning to her hometown of Atlanta, Ga. Danielle is a minor character in my
Sweet Heat manuscript, and is the best friend of the heroine in that manuscript. My heroine had mentioned that Danielle had left New Jersey because "she couldn't stand the cold weather."
I wrote that some 2 years ago, and I remember reading that line again, thinking... "That aint' the real reason why you left NJ, man!"
I always wanted to explore the reason why, and the class assignment gave me the opportunity to do so.
Well, in New Jersey, Danielle had a next door neighbor named Elba. She was a Jewish woman, I believe (haven't quite figured it out yet), about 60 years old, who lived alone. Very unassuming, just an older woman living her life day to day. She assists Danielle in getting herself together and getting away from this abusive relationship with her boyfriend Maurice. Then, she decides to catch a ride with Danielle to Georgia to "visit some cousins". Danielle is reluctant, but shares the ride to Georgia with Elba.
They have MANY convos in the car on the way to Georgia. I'm in the process of scrapping a few of those convos and condensing the story. This is a section that is going to be scrapped, but I thought it was worth posting.
It made me... think.
So, here's an excerpt of Elba talking in the car with Danielle about an experience with one of her five ex-husbands. It is nighttime. They are on the highway, near Georgia. I think they are about to cross over into GA from the Carolinas. At any rate, they are a couple of hours from their destination. Elba has convinced Danielle to let her drive. Danielle gets a chance to rest, but they talk during this time. Elba relays a story about her 4th husband, Sanchez Quintero. The story is told in first person point-of-view by my protagonist Danielle.
excerpt from
Leaving Jersey:
"No More"
Elba flipped on the blinker and glanced in the sideview mirror. She got in the next lane in an effort to get around a pack of 18-wheelers. “Maurice reminds me of my fourth husband Sanchez Quintero.”
"How so?" I asked.
“Oh, he was a gorgeous man. He was from New York City. Brooklyn, if I'm remembering correctly. Family was from Puerto Rico. Loved himself some acid wash jeans and a nice tight white T-shirt. And had the body for it, if you know what I mean.”
I shivered. The thought of a woman as old as Elba describing some man’s sexual prowess was not something I wanted to hear.
“Humph. He also had a thing for mean dogs. Pit bulls, Dobermans, and such. Gave them commands in spanish. Use to feed them raw meat laced with gunpowder. Sanchez said it made them more vicious, and that’s how he liked them.”
"I thought you didn’t like dogs, Elba. And you married a man with dogs.”
"Hell, I can't stand dogs," she said.
She wasn't lying about that. A downstairs neighbor in our apartment building had a Chihuahua. The dog was friendly enough, but Elba avoided the sweet lovable animal like Superman avoided kryptonite. It would've been funny had it not been for the way she would walk slowly past the animal, with her body all pressed up against the walls, a look of pure terror on her face.
“Hate 'em," she said. "And that’s funny, because I loved the mutts and hounds that my relatives in South Georgia raised. Those wonderful dogs were one of the many highlights of my summers there.”
I shifted in my seat to get a better look at her. Her face glowed in the headlights of the oncoming cars. “So what happened to make you hate dogs?”
“Sanchez and his vicious dogs happened. That’s what happened.”
I continued to look at her. She was staring straight ahead out at the open highway, her hands gripping the steering wheel like it was going to fly out the window at any moment. I could see her bottom lip quiver in the moonlight.
“I’ve been treated bad by some of my men, Danielle, but only Sanchez knew how to invoke complete and utter terror. He would sic those ravenous creatures on me, and then call them back when they were a split second from landing on me.”
“Damn.”
“Damn is right. I still have nightmares of yellow teeth dripping with saliva, sharp as knives, an inch from my face." She held her hand flat and open real close to her face. "Sanchez never hit me, but him siccing those dogs on me was all he needed to do to frighten me to the bone.”
“I can’t imagine such a thing, Elba.”
“You don’t want to imagine it.”
Her voice quaked and she blinked rapidly. I handed her a tissue.
“My heart’s racing right now just talking about it. Feels like it all happened yesterday.” She took a deep breath then exhaled. “I can still smell the foul breath of those dogs. And it’s been over twenty years since I’ve gotten away from Sanchez.”
“And how did you get away from him? What happened?” I asked.
She chuckled. “I wish I could say that I just packed up and moved to another state like you’re doing now. But it didn’t happen like that.”
I fidgeted with my wrinkled tissues. Packing up and leaving Maurice was a hard thing for me to do. It took a lot of courage that I didn’t know I had. I would guess that she ran in the middle of the night, but it didn’t make what I was doing any less important. Her being quick to help in the midst of my ordeal should have been evidence of that.
“Those same dogs that attacked on command were my saving grace,” Elba said. “One day, Sanchez was in the dog pen feeding the ugly pack. I was standing there outside the makeshift pen holding a tray of raw meat, as I usually did for the evening feedings. They were hungry beyond the norm. I was suppose to feed them when Sanchez was at work, but hell, I got tired of that shit. I let the damn dogs starve out there in the hot ass sun all day. I just told Sanchez that I fed them. I gave that extra meat away to a needy family in the neighborhood.
"Well, like I said, we were standing out there. It was so hot that I could feel the heat from the ground through my cheap sandals. I was standing there thinking about going down to the shoe store, when the dogs turned on Sanchez."
"What?"
"Yeah." She snapped her finger, then tapped the steering wheel. "Just like that. It all happened in the blink of an eye. Sanchez pleaded for help, but I just stood there."
"And you didn't think to help him?"
"Sure, I could've helped him. I knew the commands to call the demonic savages off of him. Heard Sanchez use them time and time again. But I just stood there, whispering the attack command:
“Ataca. Ataca.”I stared at Elba. Her face glowed white as the moon, as if the memory of it all drained the blood out of her face. Imagining her standing there in the hot sun, gripping a tray of raw meat, watching the cause of her terror being attacked by the very weapons that had so often been used against her was enough to make me nauseous.
She glanced at me then back at the road. “A sight to see, it was. The leader, a big white male pit bull was the worst of all. His name was Cocaine. Use to be a sweet puppy, but Sanchez made him bad. Cocaine actually tore off one of Sanchez’s hand. He walked up to me, right up to the fence, and stood there with that bloody hand in his mouth and stared at me while the other dogs continued attacking Sanchez."
Elba sped up a bit to get around another car. She pointed two fingers at her eyes. "I mean, that dog just stared at me, looked me straight in the eyes. It was if Cocaine’s eyes were saying ‘No more.’”
“Oh God, Elba.”
"'No more.' That's all I could see in his eyes. 'It's over. No more.'"
I didn't say anything. What could I say? Dogs don't talk. Not even with their eyes.
“Me and that dog, we just stood there staring at each other. And I’d probably still be standing there right now if it wasn’t for the next door neighbors running out of their house to see what all the commotion was about. They called the police. Threw rocks at the dogs to get them off of Sanchez. It took them a long time to move me from that place and into the house. Took them even longer to get that tray of bloody meat out of my hand.”
“That’s horrible. I can’t imagine going through any of that.”
“Danielle, you don’t want to ever go through anything like that. Ever. I can still feel the cold blood of that meat on my hands.” She sniffed hard. "Shit, I can steal smell that damn blood. Took me a long time to get to the point where I could take meat out of a package and make my dinner."
"That's too much to deal with." I said. I tore my tissue in half. "I can't let my stuff affect me to that point. And I won't."
She sighed hard. “Yes Danielle, you and I are a lot alike. More alike than you’d ever know.”
I smirked before I could catch myself. Where was that coming from? I was nothing like her. “Elba, I’ve been through some horrible things in my life, but nothing as horrific as what you just detailed.”
“Yes, you can laugh, because it is a funny thing. But me and you, Danielle. . ." She wagged a finger at me. "We are a lot alike.”
“Whatever you say, Elba.” I pulled another tissue from the travel pack and began taring it into tiny pieces.
“We love to stand in the middle of a messy house playing with matches soaked in gasoline. Then when the whole house catches fire, and goes up in smoke, we’re sitting there all surprised right in the middle of it, shocked to our very core.” She opened her mouth in surprise and stared around the car as if she didn’t know how she’d gotten there. “We stand there in all our confusement whispering ‘I don’t understand what happened. Poor me! Why did this happen to me?'”
“Confusement,” I repeated. “I haven’t heard that word in a long time. I don’t even think it’s a real word.”
She laughed. “It’s the only word that I can find to describe the feeling of sitting there, of how we are around our abusive men."
I frowned. “Wait a minute, Elba. What are you trying to say with this gasoline and match thing? Are you trying to say that I am the cause of my own problems?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Because I have no control over what happens to me.”
I sucked in a deep breath after I said that.
Elba didn’t say a word.
She just loosened her grip on the steering wheel, sank back in the tattered seat, and stared out at the open highway.
AfterwordNow, I've been digging around in my little story for a good year or so. I pick it up and I put it back down. I have huge red question marks in the margins, as if to say, "I wonder what THAT is all about? Let's think on this."
I'm at a point right now where I get sick and tired of analyzing stuff, and I just want to write. (I need to get out of that mode real quick!). But I can't help thinking about a few things here.
At any rate, this Elba character is very complex and intriguing. My instructor wants me to keep writing about her
("I worry about her, LadyLee!"). Me and other students stand out in the parking lot discussing her
("That damn Elba is crazy as hell, LadyLee!").
But it highlights one of my weaknesses, one that runs quite thick through much of my long stories and/or manuscripts. I always have minor characters that are way more interesting than the major characters. And I have NO idea how to correct that. NONE. Maybe after a good ten more years of writing classes, I will have an "a-ha" moment.
So I will do this: I keep on writing and figure that ish out some other time.
(I am so lazy. Racer X wants to slap me silly right about now. LOL!)
So this is one of Elba's many tales. Let's just say, uh, this is the very
tame part of Elba's story.
LOL!!
I myself like this character very much. She has so, so many layers.
Hmmm... more. to. explore.
One sentence stuck out in that whole excerpt...
". . . I have no control over what happens to me."How many times have you found yourself saying that? Well, not really saying that, but, looking at the state you are in, and thinking something similar? Of course, we have all kinds of unforseen events happen in our lives. This life is full of not only our triumphs, but trials and tribulation do tend to abound.
But these days, I myself am having to look at situations going on in my life and ask myself:
Is the cause of this problem I'm having...
Is it caused by some "enemy"?
Or could the problem be
"inner-me?"Hmm... I can tell you, speaking for myself, "inner-me" is sometimes my worst enemy. My refusal to change, my outright *gas face* atmaking the necessary corrections and not wanting to accept responsibilites for my actions... I tell you, I for one KNOW that my triflement lays just beneath my skin. And I fight it everyday (when I get the notion to do some self-improvement, that is).
I'm not sure what Danielle's isshas are, and have written some 100 pages of
Leaving Jersey in an effort to find out. I'm getting closer, though. Shoot, she ain't the blame for some dude busting her upside the head. (Although, I do know women who for some odd reason like getting knocked around.) I do think Elba, at her age, is able to look back at a few things and find the differences. Danielle, well, is in a state of getting it together, and maybe she will think about it later. I suppose.
Just a thought. Too much info, and a bit confusing, but I am thinking to myself here. Take what you will from it.
I'm not so sure Elba was just standing there holding that tray of meat, in shock over Sanchez getting attacked. I think she planned that craziness. And standing there whispering "
Ataca. Ataca." She'd been thinking about that alllll day, especially when she was giving that meat to the uh, needy family down the street.
More to explore, explore, explore... That's for sure.
So, that was just a little sumthin, sumthin for your holiday.
Have a great and safe Memorial Day Holiday.
"10 big girl scoops, Chayse!"
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