Robert Butler - From Where You Dream - The Process of Writing Fiction

"Nobody gives a shit," she finally muttered. It hurt my feelings. I stopped talking and looked at her. Her long brown hair was wet and draped over her pale, freckled shoulders and back. I could see two big bright pimples in the field of freckles on her cheek and a row of blackheads on her nose. She drew her knees up to her chest.

"Quit looking at me, you fucking freak." She said it slowly and didn't even turn to look at me.

"What'd I do?"

"Everyone's all caught up in their own stupid shit. You talk and talk and talk about fucking nothing. Just like everyone else. No one cares about any of that shit." She put her head down on her knees and her body trembled, causing a tremor in the water. I could hear her muttering "nobody fucking cares" over and over. I stood up and started to pat her back but I was afraid to.

She lifted her head and snarled, "Get out!" and splashed water at me, soaking the bottom of my pants and the floor and her pile of clothes.

I hold my own arm straight up into the air and watch drops of water glide down it. I can hear my sister singing along with Marvin Gaye. I bring my arm down, clench that hand into a fist. It causes a dent behind the blue strokes of veins leading into the palm. Veins carry blood to the heart, and arteries carry blood away from the heart: I like knowing that. Sheila's knock on the door makes me jump.

* * *

When I get to the table, Sheila, Gracie, and Jack are already there. And the flowers that Paul brought are in the middle of the table. I feel hot, trapped. Has Sheila decided to come clean? The baby looks fine now and is patting the tray of her high chair and saying, "Annnh." Jack is spooning mashed potatoes onto his plate.

"You drown in there?" Jack asks.

Sheila jumps up. "I forgot the butter."

Jack strokes his beard twice, which he always does before he takes the first bite, three times at the end of the meal.

"Were you in there primping for your boyfriend?" He smiles across at me. I can only see half of his face because of the flowers. I notice the one red rose. The baby stops patting and regards me too.

I shrug. "No," I say like I'm guessing.

"Sheila's told me all about it."

"What?" I get busy putting meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas on my plate.

"About Paul," he drags the name out, making it two syllables.

Sheila puts the butter on the table and sits down. I look to her for direction but she won't meet my eyes.

"Your new boyfriend, Paul," Jack prompts. "The poor bastard brings you flowers and you forget him the same day," Jack laughs. "Fickle must run in this family." He leans and reaches for Sheila under the table. She just scowls and pulls away.

"Paul," I say and nod down at my plate.

"When do I get to meet him?" Jack asks, talking before he's completely finished chewing. I'm glad the flowers are obstructing my view of him. And his of me.

"I dunno. I think I can do better." I glance over at Sheila to see if she'll react. She doesn't.

"Well, aren't you something?" He looks over at Sheila, sniffs the air like a dog, grinning. "Are you wearing a new perfume?"

"No. It's the same kind I always wear." She won't look up at him.

He actually gets up and kisses her. She tilts her head away so he gets mostly cheek. He thinks the perfume is for him, which in a way it is, and the clean sheets, the clean floors, the vacant smiles.

He sits down, smiling. "You're too young to be serious about anyone anyway," he tells me. "There's plenty of time for marriage and babies when you grow up."

I spoon in another mouthful of mashed potatoes. They are lumpy and bland; my sister is an awful cook. Gracie starts opening and closing her mouth, watching my spoon. I reach over and spoon a tiny lump of the white paste into her mouth. She makes cooing noises around it.

"Paul's only after one thing," I say as clearly as I can. I feel like I'm in a school play.

Sheila gets up and turns the music up. "How was work?" she asks Jack.

"Fine," he smiles over at her. His job and coworkers are the bulk of the conversations at dinner every night. He looks over at me, dropping the smile. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh, you can tell. Any woman can tell that when a guy's only looking to get in your pants." I sit up straighter in my chair, toss my hair back over my shoulder.

"Sheila, I thought you said this Paul was a nice boy."

Sheila just glares at her plate. I spoon some peas into Gracie's mouth.

"Today he grabbed my titties. I told him to leave."

"Lilly," he says my name sharply and pauses like he doesn't know what to say next. "We don't need to have that kind of talk at the dinner table, young lady. Next time he comes around, you call me. I'll set him straight." He puffs up his chest and squares his shoulders like Paul might be looking in the window.

I nod.

"Idddy," Gracie says, letting some half-chewed peas fall to the tray where she smashes them with her palms. "Iddy Diddy Diddy Diddy."

"What is she saying?" he looks over at Sheila.

"Sounds like Daddy."

She's trying to say my name and they know it but I don't say anything.

Jack reaches over and ruffles her wispy hair. "Are you Daddy's girl?" He gets up and plucks her out of the highchair. He starts dancing her around the kitchen. She grabs his beard with both hands and watches his face, then she starts patting his cheeks as they dance around the table.

"You're too good for him," I stage whisper to Sheila, meaning Paul. "I'm not taking the baby out anymore. I'm staying here. We don't need him."

She looks up from her plate at her husband dancing around, holding the baby over his head now. She still won't look at me. She bursts into tears, scrapes her chair against the hard clean floor, leaves the table without a word to me.

ROB: I want to start by saying something about the coming-of-age story or novel, and in general about child narrators and children as central characters. Such narratives present a particular problem, because we're trapped in the child and she isn't old enough to have any other yearning than: What's next in this process of growing up? I've got to get out of childhood.

I don't know the details of your life, or any twenty-two-year-old's life. It's very possible that through your childhood and your adolescence — periods when we are driven by our senses — many of you have gone through serious stresses and turmoil. Some of those intense experiences are the generic struggles of young people, and it may be hard to get past the surface track of those struggles and down to the source of your serious ambition as an artist. That applies to all of us at some point. I came back from Vietnam when I had just turned twenty-seven, and wrote the terrible story you've all heard. Clearly, my unconscious was not ready to be accessed. If I had known the things I'm telling you, I would not yet have looked to Vietnam for my material.

There are no child prodigies in literature — there is no Mozart of fiction — and the great writers, at age twenty-two, are not going to have the vision of the world, or the emotional readiness, or the developed unconscious that they will have

at thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, or ninety. That's exciting for you; you've got a lot ahead of you. I just urge you to be patient with yourself. Try to work within the range you will chafe at, because it will feel narrow to you; but work within that relatively narrow range of your artistic authenticity, the intimations that are no longer therapeutic and no longer literal but are tapping into something that no one shares. Be patient with yourself and work through that part of your dreamspace.

I know you're all sitting here with your copy of Rita's story, saying, "Oh shit! Don't tell me this one didn't work!"

This works. It's a wonderful story, Rita. The yearning is really rooted in the central character's situation. This is one of those coming-of-age stories, which does limit you somewhat, but within that range you do it beautifully. You have created little moments that let us know Lilly's identity is involved— a larger identity than "I've got to get out of childhood; I've got to get through a tough family situation" — both problems she has. You have in fresh ways manifested those problems in fine moments of action, and that's a rare thing.