The slippery middle ground

I'm a big proponent of balance. I think probably most people are, too, if you get them to open up enough. Somehow I kind of doubt most people enjoy being one-sided and ornery; certain things kick up your dander for a bit, but once the crazy emotions subside you realize it's much more beneficial (and feels good for longer periods of time) when you come to a reasoned, balanced viewpoint.

I'm usually hesitant to write at any lengths about political stuff because, A. I don't follow it all that closely, B. I don't usually have firm opinions (I'm almost always able to see reason in multiple points of view), and C. what political knowledge I do have comes from The West Wing, which (although awesome) is not real.

So I'm not going to write at length about political stuff. I'm just going to re-post President Obama's speech last night on immigration, because I think it's one of the more thoughtful and balanced responses to a contentious issue that I've heard in a while. Try, even though it's hard, to block out all the one-sided opinions this speech will bring out of the woodwork and simply listen to the words. (Or, read them, here's the transcript). Entertainment thrives on winners and losers, one party vs. another, and those things are fun in the right context. But when it comes to serious stuff, me vs. you is not just boring, it's insane. Think about why sportscasters and athletes are always only able to say the same things over and over...

For some reason it seems like a lot of folks dislike President Obama (despite the economy not imploding, gas being under $3 a gallon, more of our troops being at Home and not abroad...the list goes on) but I'm again not really sure about what it seems like. It's tough being moderate. Everybody's shouting at you to pick a side, when the real world isn't me vs. you. What it seems like is a lot of loud people with rigid opinions not liking him.

The thing about loud people is that they shout because they don't want to give anyone the time to stop and think about what it is they're actually saying.

Alright I wrote a little more than I intended; please feel free to yell about that.

Pay Attention, Read, Think, Thank You

There are days when I'm convinced everyone's crazy--I'm sure you've experienced this sensation--when in reality I'm just paying attention to the wrong things. Probably I'm a little bit crazy.

I was at a Halloween party and overheard somebody, drunk, say, "Literature just ain't what it used to be!" which is a truly awesome thing to say. I'm assuming they meant that literature is no good now, compared to...who knows when. But part of me wants to believe they were making a literal comment on the fact that 'literature' (whatever that all encompassing word even means) is constantly evolving. In which case, yes, people alive and writing now are certainly different people than those who wrote before. Well said!

But without booze in the veins, thinking less cynically/sarcastically, I'm now choosing to focus on the fact that at a Halloween party, with sobriety compromised, somebody was talking about books. Neat!

Anyway, should you ever find yourself of the opinion that today's writing isn't on par with the great writers of the past, just know that you are crazy and have probably completely given up searching, which is sad. I try to read and write every day; while I don't think everybody really needs to do that, if you are going to have bold, all encompassing opinions (that party was not nearly the first time I've heard the "ain't what it used to be!" argument), you really ought to go out and read a ton first.

So I figure I should share some of the billion wonderful stories I've stumbled on over the years--here's a start with something from The Kenyon Review from 2003. This story is about two Turks running a struggling pizza and kebab shop in Dresden fifty years after Allied planes pretty much erased the city. They encounter neo-Nazi skinheads and drunks who defile their restaurant on a nightly basis. Then they meet one otherworldly young woman.

As far as I'm concerned these are real characters, written ferociously one minute, then intensely compassionate the next. Check out some of these sentences:

"When one of the skins came into the shop, Amar felt the hummingbird in his ribs trying to fly its way out. The skinhead’s vomit-brown pants were ripped from knee to foot, he smelled of kerosene, and he had tiny beads of dark blue in the piss-yellow whites of his eyes."

"Dresden, parts of it with a new veneer of cobble and mortar, except everyone knew about the cracks underneath and, more important, about how the stones had not been sturdy enough before. Dresden, with its streets snaking through his veins, from the days when he pushed the lunch cart, which had become the restaurant, which threatened to become a bankruptcy of empty bricks. Dresden, and Amar never even went to the church, which the Germans refused to refurbish, where the angels still kept their broken faces, but he knew all about it. After Amar put Benji to bed, those angels wrinkled up their concrete half-noses at him as if they were about to whisper. Amar was not sure if it were he or their rubbled tongues that never allowed them to speak."

"How at night Amar took Benji home and made him dinner and cleaned his corduroys and played imaginary games with a child’s rules, flexible and fantastic, as if every event would turn out OK as long as Benji had a little more time to think."

Anyway, swim on over and READ: Daniel A. Hoyt's 'Amar' in The Kenyon Review.

Down in Ol' Virginny

Ms. Melvin Ralsh and I are taking a trip down to the homeland, Fairfax, VA! It's been a little while since I've been back home. I'm a bit of a Civil War nerd and for some reason didn't nearly appreciate the historical turf I grew up on while I was there. One of the first major skirmishes of the war happened at the Fairfax City Courthouse, only a couple miles from my parents' house. During that skirmish, the first Confederate officer was killed, and Quincy Marr Drive in my subdivision is named for him.

Anyway, I wrote this short story as a fun exercise, and it's moderately based on that courthouse skirmish, though is mostly fiction. Check 'er ouuut.


Home Again
by Kevin Walsh

                On the occasion of I find myself here on this besparkled floor of the formerly Fairfax County Courthouse turned battalion headquarters, here with my fine brother who may soon bleed to death.

                Well the first thing we did was disobey Pa, who has this terrifying way of getting angry only in short bursts of the most intense fury. Reminds me of like the time me an’ Gilly forgot whose turn it was to milk Henrietta, for like a week, then there was that awful mess. Anyway Pa made it perfectly clear enlistment was not an option of viable character, owing to there was so much to be done around the farm anyway what with us forgetting milking as it is, and so forth; and furthermore we weren’t even technically old enough to be enlisting. But we did anyway.

                The Rebs aren’t exactly bursting at the gullet on a banquet of able-bodied boys, but it’s early yet. Both sides still hanging back at the barndance, too scared to mingle more than a few whoops and hollers. Of course you got the seriously better funded Union boys yonder ‘cross the river with actual ammunition fer their guns, which is what one might call Essential. So no way the Johnnie Rebs were about to turn down a couple able-bodied farm boys with finely tuned arms and legs.

                So Gilly and I we sneaked out with Pa’s rifles and ended up being I think two of about twelve fellers with ammo. The rest were getting themselves orientated in the art of rattling a saber or bayonet loud enough to scare away a seriously better equipped Union boy should one come riding over yonder. And but they stole our Minies anyway for so-called ‘professional marksmen’, who in reality couldn’t hit a cows behind with a shovel if it walked right in front of ‘em.

                That night we got hiked off to picket duty, which actually wasn’t so bad. Me and Gilly stationed all clandestine-like, which was just like we used to pretend play. They gave us a bullet each for emergency recourse and said when all else fails to fire that Minie then holler n run like a whipped mule. They hiked us up Little River Turnpike, maybe a quarter-mile up thinking that’d be the road the Union boys might venture, on the so-called ‘lowest of low chances’ that there’d be any barnstorming that night. Normally you got a couple dozen or so on picket duty, but nobody figgered any attack was imminent.

                Well let me tell you it was a god-damned ambush and by all rights should have been a complete massacre except owing to the fact of the Union boys can’t shoot neither. Me an’ Gilly were dug in playing Spit when Gilly tells me to shush and did you hear that. And what we hear sounds like a god-damned stampede of Savages, I ‘member Pa telling us about the War of the Indians and how you’d hear ‘em whooping it up from miles away, sounding like they was already all around you and ready to turn yer noggin into a gruesome headdress. But well informed of the knowledge that our forbearers had brutally removed most of the Savages already, Gilly and me figured this was the big Union line finally making a first push toward Richmond on nearly the eve of Independence Day. A symbolic push to flatten us dissenters. And it was.

                Well sort of. Gilly yelled a ‘Halt!’ but the words stuck in his barely post-pubic throat at too high a register, and something went ZING right past his ear, then little pockets of dirt danced all around us. The hollering got to an unkind decibel of great proportions and, well, I am ashamed to say I fired my one shot and then high-tailed it down the Turnpike back to the courthouse as was strongly suggested. Unfortunately my brother of blood Gilly did not make it back with me, to which I was unawares until my pulse stopped ringing in my ears after sufficient time. Before collapsing I squeaked out ‘the enemy is upon us!’ and Capt. Marr, who commanded the Warrenton Rifles, tried to rouse his boys, on whom you could smell the stench of true fear.

                What I did then was climb the highest tower I could find, of which there was only one in the courthouse, so as to survey the scene. Except owing to a blanket covering the stars and moon there was very little light other than the flashes of rifles and the oily streak of a lantern or two. What I could see was all chaos punctuated by Capt. Marr’s prodigious yelling, until the yelling ominously stopped and boys in gray coats started in to flailing about like a herd of sheep given chase by a coyote. What saved us were the good folk of Fairfax City, taking battle into their own hands and firing volleys out darkened windows at the lunatic band of Union boys, whom I have no proof but I know what a man looks like when he’s riding a horse completely wallpapered, and these Union boys were drunker than all get out. It’s a wonder they didn’t slaughter each other with their own wayward volleys.  

                I want to say the Union boys made three charges and were repelled each time by the aforementioned superbly pinpointed locals. Though what they were after I couldn’t clearly tell. There couldn’t have been more than 20 of ‘em, but they certainly kept the locals busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest for a few hours. At some point I collapsed once again in the tower and only woke up when the sun’s rays peeked over the maples across the Turnpike. What I felt was not pleasure or gratefulness at being alive. There was no metaphorical attributation of the sun’s rays being the Lord Himself’s fingers tickling the feeble consciousness of my mind, or what not.

No, I just felt like a coward. Plain and simple.

I went down with the other privates to search the area for Capt. Marr. It took an hour of scourin but we found him face up in a delicate patch of clover, honey bees buzzin round his ears. His eyes were still open, absent of that special light and staring off into whatever awaited him in the middle of the night. His hands were locked stiff across his breast covering a horrific purpley bloom, but no open wound the eyes could see. One of the privates speculated an indirect hit, probably even friendly fire in the chaos of the Union boys’ drunken assault.

I wanted Home and I wanted it bad but all I could think of was my lost brother and what a coward I’d been the night before. I took another search party out by our picket station and searched all up and down without finding any trace of poor Gilly.

You know how the old stories of war and battle talk about things happening so fast that even with horrific events there isn’t time sit and let the sadness wash over you? Well that’s a goddamned lie I’m here to tell you. There is nuthin but time to sit and reason why; there is also time to do and die, as the poem goes. Please let it sink in that battle is hour upon hour of boredom punctuated by the flashes of rifles in the dark and barely time to act at all. It’s all instinct, and yours truly’s instinct was to cut and run. Then you get nothing but nightfall to ponder your cowardice.

I volunteered for picket duty this time, determined to prove some amount of worth to myself at the very least. And maybe there would be the slim chance of Gilly’s reappearing from behind enemy lines. I had the slimmest of hopes he was hiding until the cover of dark. So I got out there with my new pardner, who didn’t have much to say, which is fine by me. I’d rather a silent sentry pardner than somebody chatterin on and on about their miserable life til the rooster calls.

In the quiet you got all sorts of time to have yerself a good think. I thought about how we had disobeyed Pa and what a wreck he and Ma must have been back at home. I thought about the time Gilly came back from farmer Payne’s lot with this practically sparkling herb he called True Divination, and we mixed it into our pipe tobacco then I promptly went and got Pa’s wagon stuck in Woody’s Creek. Gilly heard me hollerin Help! Help! due to figurin I’d broken many a bone, the fear catchin me like wild. Turned out not a thing was wrong with my body and Gilly pulled both me and the wagon out of the creek like it was nothin.

He always kept his head cool no matter what was going on, and no matter what might have been churning inside him. This here is real sad and he never much chattered about it, but he had a little love fever for farmer Payne’s daughter Millicent for a real long time. Always took over fresh herbs and vegetables for their family when we had extra (which was often), but I know it was under the guise of seeing her. Farmer Payne was always trying to set her up with some needle-nosed suck-up at the church he ran up the hill, so half the time Gilly went over there some Catholic numb-nuts was sparkin her up a storm. Then last winter Millie took to a raging fever and went so quickly it’s like the Lord Himself scrubbed her from life’s record. Gilly didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye, went over one night to an empty bed haloed in her fever-sweat. 

After that, there was something a little more tired about Gilly. Like he was there physically but his moorings weren’t tied so tight anymore. I wish I’d been able to parlez with him but talking things out was never my strong suit. Things like that’d get me so uncomfortable, I’d just laugh in a way that isn’t funny and say something like “Well ‘least now you don’t have to worry about folks givin you guff for being Millie and Gilly.” Wasn’t too long after that that Gilly, known our whole lives to hold a skeptical and unpopular brain between his ears on the subject of religion, started in on joining up the Rebel cause mainly as a way to get a glimpse of, Gilly’s words, ‘the Lord Almighty Incarnate Himself Gen. Robert E. Lee.’ Which sounded exactly like the kind of balderdash that farmer Payne would spout and Gilly would make fun of behind his back.

But love fever is a gravitational force of its own and puts a man through the mill, especially on account of the object of your fever practically evaporating before anyone knows what’s going on. And I’d never been one to question Gilly before and certainly wasn’t about to in his time of low spirits. Now Gilly was in serious trouble and I needed to stuff all my courage together and help him.

It was at this point that my silent sentry pardner gave me a tap on the shoulder and a little “Did you hear that?” nod of the head in the direction of some woods up the Turnpike. I had in fact heard a rustling, so the two of us quickly fixed bayonets to go clandestinely investigate. Odds were it was some type of small animal, or a deer, but my body was filling with adrenaline hoping I’d get my hands on a Union boy for some old fashioned redemption.

We plopped down behind some thick brush and heard the noise again, but this night the moonlight was just strong enough to make out several figures against the tree line maybe 20 yards away. My pardner and I gave each other a look and held our ground. This was it, the second ambush, and one of us needed to warn the camp, except on account of what happened last night neither of us wanted to leave the other alone. One of the figures was slowly moving this way while the others seemed to lag back where they stood. When it got to about 10 yards away I gathered up my courage and aimed my rifle, shouting, “Halt there! Identify yourself or we’ll open the ball!” Normally you’d have 30 or 40 guys running a picket so I added a little bluff to my call-out, “We got a whole line of muskets trained on yer position, identify yerself!”

But nothing happened. The figure looked a little unsteady, but was moving even closer despite my warnings. I didn’t actually have any ammunition, though my pardner did. I told him to cover me and I went out from my position and started sneakin to where the figure was moving. I got close enough to where in the moonlight I could see the figure’s blue coat and kepi hat (ours were rag-tag forage caps). I didn’t know what the hell this Union muggins was doing but he was just about on my pardner’s position when the phenomenal crack of a rifle shattered the night silence and sent me into a momentary conniption. I charged at the Union boy with the whoop of a savage and got him right in the bread basket with my pig sticker. A couple more shots rang out as me and the Union boy sank to the ground. I felt a terrific rush, then terror at the reality of my actions, that I had actually just charged this countryman of mine with animalistic fury with the simple aim of ending his life. I felt quite peaked.

On top of the boy with my bayonet still lodged under his breast bone, a familiar scent hit me and I immediately recoiled stronger than any rifle. I dragged the boy over into a little clearing where the moonlight showed what my heart already knew.

It was Gilly, blindfolded, gagged and dressed up in a Yankee uniform.

Now they say we’re moving out, that the actual General Lee everyone seems to believe is some kind of walking deity is taking us down to Manassas where he’s staging a real build up of Confederate men with an actual battle plan. Only it’s a bit hard to know if either side really knows what it is they’re fighting for. Only time’s fullness can tell if there is something here truly worth fighting for; but right now there’s all this anguish for what seems like dumb macho pride more than anything else.

All I know now is poor Gilly here, dying of wounds committed by my hand, just wants a glimpse of the General before he passes on to wherever it is his girl Millie went. And I’ll be damned if he slips under before seeing him, even if it strikes me as a notion of insane proportions. But at least he believed in something before the end.

You hear that, Gilly? Stay with us just a bit longer, hold on tight brother, the General's comin to take you home again.