Stranded in Strange Waters

Stranded in Strange Waters

Idiots’Books Volume XXXI

Idiots’Books

Idiots’Books

Idiots’Books 100 South Queen Street Chestertown, MD 21620 ISBN 978-1-61658-898-4 Idiots’Books Copyright © 2011

Stranded in Strange Waters

By Matthew Swanson Illustrated by Robbi Behr

To not connecting the dots

1.

We are tilling the earth, lifting and churning the dirt in the fields. There is the constant need for wheat. Someone has to empty the ashcans, pull back the morning blinds, scatter the petals for young girls on their wedding days. Someone has to do these things, and most of us are busy with love affairs and tax returns. There is no time for abstract thought today. Lift that rock and put it over here.

2.

We are staying at the Hotel Imperial, hoping to gain another perspective. Shirley wants to try the pool, but JoAnne is preoccupied with the mini-bar. I argue that both are possible. The afternoon is just beginning. We feel tiny on the vast beds, and yet we are content.

There is a warmth, the sound of birds, no sign of war. My love for Shirley is different from my love for JoAnne, but I lack the vocabulary to make either one believe it.

3.

About a hundred little arrows let us know that this is a one-way road. And then, out of nowhere, one arrow points in the opposite direction. Maybe now we’re entitled to ride our rented tandem bicycles east instead of west, suggest Jon and Ruth and Morgan and Amanda. Not at all, says the tour director. I’ll have this arrow turned around at once. Wouldn’t it be better just to paint it over, suggests Jon, to say, Paradise, 5 miles? Not only would people go the way you want, but also they’d be in more agreeable moods.

4.

Sometimes we ask ourselves where the good news is to be found and wonder if it’s printed in tiny newspapers read by other species.

Perhaps it’s why the rabbits are so happy, the cows so lackadaisical.

We’d like to learn that language, but the stern immediacy of our current crises takes the fore. There are fires to consider, mudslides to adore, daily dire events in other people’s lives to help us feel a little bit more grateful for our own humble suppers.

5.

As the rain begins, we open the windows. The oven heat of the house is gone in seconds. Redlipped girls craving kisses show up outside and array themselves on garden benches. They’re eager and inviting—full of questions I can’t answer. A migraine fouls my mood, and I send them away. Later, I am sorry I have done it.

6.

On the telephone with Warsaw: Can you give me an update on the situation there, Lech? Well, no, I can’t. Everything is either classified or unknown. Plus, I’m busy with some sausages. Well Lech, can I have the phone numbers for some Polish girls, at least? All right, all right, he says. But only if you promise to never call me here again.

7.

Our wigs have not been powdered adequately, and so we are unhappy as we wait for our grapefruit.

Mildred was to have spent the morning sitting in the sunlight. I had planned to take the poodles for a long walk. Who can say if the power shift between the wig people and me and Mildred will have any larger bearing? Will the quality of light, for example, be affected?

8.

Linda and Loopy could not be parted. We thought of them as one.

They wore the same muumuus and ate the same salads and collected the same ex-husbands. When they disagreed, they pretended they had meant to. When they found themselves on common ground, they toasted with champagne.

They were constantly drunk and never endearing.

9.

At the top of the hill, we have a commanding view of the countryside. We see the sprawling fiefdoms and the serfs who weave and stitch the polyester blend. They are productive because we play soothing music through massive speakers mounted on the trees.

We feed them balanced meals and pave their roads with nontoxic tar.

They smile and love us dearly and don’t want other jobs.

10.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN STOP I AM THE VICTOR AND YOU ARE THE VANQUISHED STOP I CANNOT AND WILL NOT LET GO STOP PERHAPS NOW YOU REALIZE THE ERROR OF YOUR WAYS STOP FROM DOWN THERE, IT’S PROBABLY DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO SEE HOW MUCH I AM ENJOYING THIS STOP I WILL NEVER EVER STOP STOP

11.

Five-gallon canisters of flammable liquids fill the garage. Greasy rags abound. The twins are out there, rubbing sticks together like Indians.

The volunteer firemen are busy at the spaghetti supper. I’m sure that Dad and I would be concerned, but we’re inside with the radio on.

Seven innings gone and the home team up by five. The dog too tired to beg. Dad asleep in his recliner.

I am dreaming of the way things used to be before we got so happy.

12.

Six months into his bachelor march, Jones turned around to have a look.

There was Sally, smiling as if they’d never parted. It’s as if we never parted, said Jones, forgetting all the bad times, feeling tender and connected. We never did, said Sally, recalling every jostle, jar, and bump. She heaped Jones with scorn and served him the papers and then hurried home to dally with the postman.

13.

The seven winners of the Man of the Minute Competition were dismissed and the loser was asked to stay on stage and talk about his vision for the world. He cleared his throat and told us that the only thing he feared was fear itself, that a stitch in time saves nine, that even a penitent muskrat can’t be trusted with your firstborn.

We cleared our throats and spoke into the microphone. We’d made a mistake and gave him the crown.

This man was our champion.

14.

A family sits down to a hearty supper. They are not hungry. In fact, the children are all fat. A fat lazy dog lies in the corner. We are on tiptoes, looking through the kitchen window. Pies are cooling on the windowsill. In times like these, we wish we were less honest men.

15.

Margot requests that we meet to discuss my treatment of Muffin.

I don my best suit, rehearse my sweetest phrases, ply Margot with Grand Marnier. It is clear in a moment that her preparation is superior. I have no answer to her charts and graphs, her photographs and fiber samples. Muffin gloats from the overstuffed recliner as I unfold the rented sofa bed.

16.

There are no fears that we can’t face when we feel like this, headless but heartstrong, blind but intuitive. Just yesterday the earthquake shook the village and took the clergymen. You’d think we would be lost. Perhaps we are and do not know. But we have yet to find a question that can’t be thrown into a bag and weighted down with stones and thrown into the sea. We don’t need to know the actual answers. Not when we feel like this.

17.

The people are dancing on the tables. Now that the revolution has ended, we are free to speak our minds, they say. Let’s have a holiday! Motorists drive the roads at speeds well exceeding the legal limit. The people complain: Where are the policemen when we need them? Where is the structure in our lives? A vigilante mob digs a hole in the road. All the cars fall in and pile up. The people fill the hole, and peace returns to the pretty village.

18.

It started in the woods outside of town. Someone said a dog had carried it in like a burr. Soon all of us had it. It spread like an interesting lie. There was no cure, no recourse but submission. We tried to pray but forgot all the verses. We burned the books and sacrificed the livestock. The last person standing looked around with a passing nostalgia. The way things used to be was as distant and as close as the far side of a narrow canyon.

19.

Colonel Pur vis was odd but compelling, queer but convincing, daft but effective. None of his men dared quarrel or question. The man was a pillar, a prophet, a legend.

They say as a boy he strangled a hyena using nothing but a handkerchief. As a man, he once paid another man a compliment and actually meant it.

20.

He rides not like the wind, the Pancake Cowboy. He thuds along like a ruckus. We pull out our forks when we see him coming. We each need a bucket to catch all the drool.

He is hungry. His arms are sore.

His poor horse died in the desert.

He needs both hands to hold his pole. He cannot draw his sidearm.

We knock him down and feast like wolves. We do not share a single bite. He does not complain, the Pancake Cowboy. He wanders off to find another griddle.

21.

We long to spend every moment together, and when we do we are irritated. When we are parted, we weep like trapped cats. The answers seem easy until we try to tie up the loose ends and find our fat fingers are incapable of making fine knots. And so we go on as we have, striking a chord in the vast empty space of our love, citing the echo as proof of our enormous happiness.

22.

There were three minutes until the apocalypse. Most of the neighbors were running around with steaks hanging out of their mouths or ducking behind bushes with other people’s husbands. Barbara wanted one moment of peace before the end. She shooed the children out the door and turned off the television. As the sirens cut the air, she found her calm for a splinter of a second. It was just enough.

23.

I hope that you have made arrangements for the hereafter, says Mum. After considering the alternative, your father and I have opted for an early departure.

The Samuelsons have put their retirement into assisted living. The Rosenweigs have moved to Tampa.

The Graingers wither in denial.

But we are ready to go now. We have purchased a lot of rum and cheesecake. This should do the trick for Dad, considering his heart.

I shall require your assistance with the bullet for me.

24.

We wandered into the wrong part of town. The buildings were crooked and the light oozed up through the cracks in the floor. We knew we’d never make it to the christening on time. And so we did not try. We turned our noses to the wind, pursuing scents that pleased us in the early years. We wound up in an even darker place, staring down the damaged world, daring it to send us back unchanged.

25.

We tried to be polite. Daphne claimed the thing she’d made was art and we wanted to believe her. We smiled and oohed and pointed. The wine smoothed out the edges in our skepticism. As she described the meaning she’d intended, we almost saw it—the point, the passion, the idea. She led us there with eagerness and metaphor. We waded through our doubt and wound up stranded in strange waters somewhat shy of the other side of the river.

Idiots’Books

Idiots’Books

This Idiots’Books creation is the product of collaboration between Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr. Matthew wrote some paragraphs and handed them to Robbi to illustrate. Robbi drew some pictures and handed them to Matthew to write accompanying text. Half of the book Idiots’Books is well-written and poorly drawn. The other half is brilliantly drawn and poorly written.

Matthew Swanson is a writer/harmonica player/lover of episodic, nonlinear non sequitur who prizes voice over plot, white space over detail, idea over character development, and burritos over everything else.

Robbi Behr is an illustrator/commercial salmon fisherwoman/brutalizer of pen nibs who loves line, induces splatter, and draws best when her brain is on hiatus. She draws best 95 percent of the time.

They live in a barn in Chestertown, Maryland.

Also by Idiots’Books

Facial Features of French Explorers (Vol. 1) Death of Henry (Vol. 2) Ten Thousand Stories (Vol. 3) Man Joe Rises (Vol. 4) Unattractive and Inadequate (Vol. 5) Richard Nixon (Vol. 6) Understanding Traffic (Vol. 7) Dawn of the Fats (Vol. 8) The Contented (Vol. 9) The Clearing (Vol. 10) George Washington Slept Here (Vol. 11) Last Day (Vol. 12) The Nearly Perfect Sisters of the Holy Bliss (Vol. 13) The Vast Sahara (Vol. 14) The Baby Is Disappointing (Vol. 15) Let Me Count the Ways (Vol. 16) Animal House (Vol. 17) After Everafter (Vol. 18) Floating on the Ocean (Vol. 19)

Jericho (Vol. 20) The Last of the Real Small Farmers (Vol. 21) Tarpits and Canyonlands (Vol. 22) Nasty Chipmunk (Vol. 23) The New South (Vol. 24) From the Inside Out (Vol. 25) The Makers Tile Game (Vol. 26) Six Degrees of Francis Bacon (Vol. 27) Babies Ruin Everything (Vol. 28) Homer Was an Epic Poet (Vol. 29) An Inconclusive Passage in the Life of Bushy Washington (Vol. 30) For the Love of God A Bully Named Chuck My Henderson Robot St. Michaels: The Town That Somehow Fooled the British

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Stranded in Strange Waters Copyright © July 2011 Idiots’Books Vol. 31 www.idiotsbooks.com See also: www.robbibehr.com

Idiots’Books

Idiots’Books

Idiots’Books