Mockingbird, Tomcat, Squirrel

In the fall of 2006 (if memory serves), I had the unbelievable good fortune of a semester-long writing workshop with Tim O’Brien. At some point, O’Brien assigned Irwin Shaw’s “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” a seven-page story, mostly dialogue, during which a marriage is shaken. When I arrived at Shaw’s closing line, I thought immediately of “Say Yes” by Tobias Wolff, a four-page story, also mostly dialogue, also revealing a fissured marriage. I’ve written about both stories here—but not about how they affected my own writing.

Which is to say: I went to work on a man-and-wife story, a dialogue story, during which one of the parties says the one wrong word that cannot be taken back. “In the Garden” surprised me more than once, mostly as regards setting—the yard and garden of a household on the bluff above Austin’s Shoal Creek, September 1982. I wanted setting to anchor my story, so I began with birdsong: “The mockingbird trilled again, like an answer to the silverware Blake had dropped on the garden table. The bird sang out and paused, sang out and paused again. It was lovely in the garden—a hint of cool in September’s air, the afterburn of Connie buzzing in Blake’s blood.” I knew that Blake was gay and mostly in denial, gay and euphoric because his sex life with Connie had rekindled. I knew their breakfast conversation would badly destabilize them. I wanted their backyard environs to be as alive as the two breakfasting there.

In the story’s second paragraph, a breeze snaps the umbrella over the breakfast table, Blake glances to the Austin skyline, and then—my first surprise—“Buster padded out of the yaupon hollies at the garden’s edge—a regal tomcat whorled in tawny gold and amber.” Buster, it occurred to me right away, was Connie’s cat, an un-neutered somewhat undaunted male. By the time Connie arrives for breakfast, Blake has a scratched forearm that triggers a friendly tiff between husband and wife. During which—my second surprise—Buster freezes in a hunter’s crouch while a squirrel chatters among Connie’s tomato vines. The mockingbird mimics the squirrel—my third surprise—and then I could see the story’s snapping point.

A roofer arrives to patch the roof. And complicate the story—nothing better than a third person to destabilize a situation. “Pretty as a pin-up,” Connie says—and turns the conversation to Blake’s history of staring at attractive men. One ill-considered remark after another, the conversation spirals out of control, Connie goading, Blake defensive, then adamant, then saying the one thing this marriage cannot hold.

Connie slumps on the lawn, deflated. Blake stands helpless as the roofer approaches. At this juncture the story wants—the story demands—something to express the tension.

  The moment arrived in a blaze of sunlight—the little squirrel yammering 
  from his perch among the tomatoes, the mockingbird dive-bombing like 
  a songbird turned hawk. Blake turned to a split-second blur of gold. Buster 
  swiped the mockingbird out of the air, leaped and snatched the stunned 
  creature in his teeth by the wing. Blake took one quick step. He delivered 
  a kick that sent Buster sprawling and knocked the bird flapping into the dirt. 
  Buster spun back in full hunting mode. Blake grabbed the tom and flung 
  him in Connie’s direction. She held on to her cat. The mockingbird fluttered 
  and flopped in a morning suddenly so still Blake could hear the whirring 
  of tires across the creek on Lamar Boulevard.

This moment pleases me because the sudden, unexpected violence, the triple surprise of mockingbird, squirrel, and tomcat intersecting, expresses the tamped down emotional violence Blake and Connie have ignited.

Look around, O’Brien said to us more than once. Discover what’s in the space with your characters? Use it. To which I might add: find surprise there.

Note:

Superstition Review published “In the Garden,” Spring 2011. Earlier this year, abruptly, Arizona State University cancelled the journal and shut down the website. I’ve posted the story on my website ⇒