before pedestrian became pedestrian, it lived in seventeen chapters of a novel i thought i was going to write called the depressed pedestrian, a title i still quite like. depres/pedes – i thought i was quite bright. i was 21 years old, and definitely not a writer, except for the writer-like quality that i lived in an attic. i’ve already told you that i was a not-writer when i wrote pedestrian, but i was at least a not-writer with beginner’s luck and room and the want to grow. i’ve toyed with sharing this reveal with you before, but until today have decided against its favor. [actually, hilarie and kelly are hearing about the origins of pedestrian for the first time, just as you are now. surprise.] like the reading of an old journal entry one feels he has far matured past, i came across these seventeen chapters the other day, and between cringes, felt another feeling more satisfactory. there was the realization that pedestrian was a story that has lived within me for a long time, a story that i have needed to tell. now, as the story becomes closer to being told, i am content to share a piece of its elementary form with you. unedited. warts and all. and still, i am so so so so so embarrassed.
a few notes…
lincoln booth was lincoln booth, but an alarmingly disparate version. more dependent. snarkier. more aggressive.
mona mills was a different mona named mona callus. she was a real bitch. every little thing she did was not magic. [but mona’s not in this chapter.]
the south was the midwest.
and on what you will read, “the 8th wonder” is a restaurant, “cindy” is a waitress.
**
chapter 5.
It is pouring sheets of rain when I leave The 8th Wonder. I left Cindy a thirty-dollar tip on my three-dollar bill. I somehow doubt she’s any happier than with her pocketful of dimes.
As I walk towards my car, the rain running down me contributes to puddles. There is an umbrella in my trunk. I open the trunk and a cascade of water flows in. The umbrella almost floats. I take it out, shaking it fruitlessly. It opens, but it won’t dry. I hold it out, not above me. I let myself soak. I am being more than I am. I am pretending to find beauty in nature.
In my forced finding, fondling, of nature, I am blinded by the sign. To the rain’s regret, I am distracted by something other than its barrage. The sign is the fourth I’ve seen since I’ve gotten to town. Pornography destroys lives! This is what the sign says. It’s actually a billboard, one of at least four sterilizing the roads Somewhere in the Midwest. The blinding ability of the sign rests in its apparent newness. The way the sign has been unscathed by the sun, I can imagine the Holy Rollers dousing it with SPF Jesus. The actual sign itself is white, but it looks more bleached than painted. The words are in red, an obvious choice. The word Pornography is emblazoned with flames descending from the P, g, and y, and ascending from the r and h. It looks like the advertisement for a carnival ride or the kind of World’s Biggest Bale of Hay landmark you see a sign for every ten miles until you get there. A rainbow leading to the light. The only thing missing would be the lights themselves. Knobby bulbs, embellishing the lettering, blinking on a circuit.
Drenched, I decide pornography hasn’t destroyed my life. Nor has it improved my life. I can say positively that my attitudes towards pornography are neutral.
I am not the kind of person that goes looking for signs. My work here is done. As I finger my car keys, I realize two things. The first being that I haven’t locked my car, as I’m currently parked Somewhere in the Midwest, a community of neighborly safety. The second being that I am neither the kind of person that goes looking for keys. This sign/key-seeking kind of person, however, does exist. In abundance and stupidity. I wonder if Cindy looks for such idols, and if so, if she has fallen victim to one as as literal as the anti-pornographers’, one she couldn’t help from seeing every working day. I consider her burning the only porno tape she ever built up the gall to buy. The black plastic morphs until it resembles something entirely different. Maybe she does too.
I turn my back on the sign, feeling a coldness on my neck that makes me think a curtain of rain has succeeded in shielding the warning. I don’t look to check. I want to, but I don’t. There isn’t any wind, but I throw my umbrella into it anyway, like caution. I climb into my car, limb by limb, ringing out my clothes before I enter fully. I reach into the glove compartment, and pull out four transparent orange bottles. I look at my watch, and see that it is two-thirty in the afternoon. I make a stupid choice, and choose the white oval-shaped pill. Actually, I choose two. I place the pills on the back of my tongue, and roll down the window of my car. My mouth is as open as a codfish, and I drink the rain. I swallow. I sit slouching in the driver’s seat for fifteen minutes thinking about nothing worth discussing. It is two-forty five in the afternoon, and I want to dream. I hear the rain let up. I open the glove compartment to return the bottles. I feel the side of my head hit the dashboard.
chapter 6.
“This is almost a dream.” This is what the sign says. “This is almost a dream.” The words are written in green, a not-so-obvious choice. It is not a billboard, and indeed fits the description of what a sign should be. Two feet long, one foot wide, planted into the ground on a wooden stake. All that exists is the sign and the ground. And then I decide to join, entering into the frame like Adam did the Garden. Me, the ground, the sign. Me and the sign, both grounded. We are at a standstill. We are in a showdown, twenty feet apart. If I had a gun, the sign would be dead. I am not the kind of person that goes looking for signs.
I turn my back on the sign, and hear a sound that promises me I have made a bad decision. I embrace my decision and await the consequences, the repercussions to accompany the din. Nothing happens, and I do not move. The sound starts to resemble that of an air-raid siren. I look up for something worth dodging. Nothing is falling, so I do not dodge. I wonder how long the blaring will last, or at least how long I’ll continue to hear it. I decide it will last forever, and that this moment could be my perpetual hell.
**
so so so so so embarrassed, but still.
yours.
n.gray
Southern Gothic Productions 