A Fistful of Essays: Volume 1

Approximately one year ago, five writers living in various locations around the world joined together with the common goal to publish essays and stories on a literary website. After numerous hours brain storming, typing, and editing, we are proud to present a compilation of those efforts; our best writing from 2009-2010: A Fistful of Essays: Volume 1.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout the year. This one is for you. And of course, Enjoy.

Open publication - Free publishing - More the proofread

Prompt 2: The sound that wouldn't quit

The next prompt from The Pocket Muse: "Write about a noise -- or a silence -- that won't go away." Here I go! I'll try to post within a week (I'm supposed to be finishing my Manifesto, too). Feel free to join in the promptyness, and let us know your results!

Pocket musings -- the first result

It's been a few years since I wrote fiction. Here, in response to the prompt I referenced in my last post, is my answer to writing about someone who is pretending to be something he is not.

-------------------------------------------------------

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHgrrbblfhhhhwhaaaaaaa!" Kevin screamed as he rattled the bars of the cage and bared his teeth, only wishing that foam could seethe from between his lips. Red strobe lights flashed and thunder boomed, and fat rats poked their heads out around the feet of the girl and who Kevin presumed was her boyfriend. A mysterious moistness hung in the air -- was it from some rotting posthumous being? A brewing storm? A steaming pile of fresh sewage?

All that was missing, Kevin thought, was the proper stench.

The girl practically knocked the guy over as she jumped into his arms. It was pretty dark, but Kevin could see the guy's stiffness after he, too, jolted slightly. His girlfriend didn't notice, though, probably since he clamped his mouth shut and didn't let out a comparable, blood-curdling shriek. She also didn't realize that their weight ratios were not properly proportioned for him to take her weight.

Kevin had worked at the haunted house from the time he first remembered dressing up for Halloween. He was four, and very much against his mother's wishes he picked out a grim reaper costume. But she calmed down eventually. She figured as long as she read him some more uplifting books before bed at night, he'd turn out fine. After all, haunted houses were a family business, of sorts -- his parents and older brothers had been witches, corpses, skeletons and mad scientists for decades. When he was little, he delivered bottles of water to the haunted house workers throughout their shifts. He graduated to rat duty -- sitting behind a wall and thrusting a fake rat on a stick out a hole. And now, as a vastly matured and worldly 16-year-old, he was running one of the main scare attractions: the jailed felon. Not just a regular old felon, of course, but one painted in creepy Halloween paint -- bloodied, wasting away, abnormally gross teeth, dressed in tatters, nothing to do except shriek and scream in agony.

Kevin had become quite suited to the haunted house work over the years; he only wished the hours and the season were longer, so he didn't have to concentrate so much on the less satisfying, everyday life of the teenager going to school. In the haunted house, he was king of the spooks.

So in the haunted house, Kevin did everything he could to make himself more terrifying. By Halloween weekend, naught a person had stifled his screams when he walked by Kevin's post, much to the jailed felon's delight.

Then there was Jean Jacket Patches. Lots of people had jean jackets, but JJP had apparently hand-sewn several animal-print patches on her jacket. Kevin's encounters with the haunted house guests were brief, but he was good at giving a quick read as they turned the corner to his lair. Kevin could see a glint in JJP's eyes that was different from the other people; it was a strength gained from some experience in her life, perhaps very traumatic, perhaps very risky. Either way, he could tell this would be the ultimate test of his spook skills to even slightly startle JJP, much less melt her soul; it seemed like instead of wanting to be scared, she wanted to prove that the Halloween house horrors were no match for the fortitude she had acquired.

Thirty seconds later, Kevin walked out the back entrance of the haunted house. His eyes welled up with tears of shame as he peeled off his costume and threw it in the trash, among the greasy wrappers and styrafoam cups. He'd met his match. JJP had sensed him even before his act commenced. She had talked to him. How?! Why?! What right did she have to break the barriers within the hallowed ground of the haunted house. Did she have any idea what that blasphemy meant?! Or, Kevin thought, did nobody understand that anymore?

The champ had lost, sacrificing the proverbial belt to a new contender. A piece of Kevin hoped there was another contender out there, but the rest of him feared that nobody would ever be able to break the seemingly impenetrable shell of someone like JJP.

That night, Kevin went into the bathroom he shared with his brother and sister and brushed his teeth. After a few minutes, he loaded up his toothbrush with more paste. He brushed some more. Then he looked up at his reflection in the mirror. He pinched his lips shut, and used his tongue to push the mass of foaminess forward as he blew outward and started to open his mouth. He let out a ferocious roar. The foam settled on his lips and around his mouth, and after a few moments, deflated. Kevin silently watched it dripped down his chin.

---End---

Pluses: There is a beginning, middle and end; I incorporated some visual and descriptive elements, which is something I don't often do. Minuses: It probably lacks development -- even though it's concise, I think there could be a little more development while still not going overboard with connections and what have you. But is the foam theme too much? I wanted to be kind of clever, somehow. When is clever not to obvious, not too obtuse, but just right?

I will tell you that I originally wanted to have Kevin kill somebody who was walking through the haunted house, but I felt I would have had to develop some intense reason why he wanted to kill, like he had some major bullying problems at school. I tried to do this pretty fast and just let the ideas flow, and once I went into getting bullied it seemed really dull and it got too long.

Any comments, on anything? I think it will really help me to keep on with this, and feel free to join me if you'd like. I'll post the next prompt in a separate entry.

Pocket musings

Creativity sometimes doesn’t come easily to me (read my previous Proofread essay on inspiration). Maybe all the straightforward, fact-y journalism has just gotten me out of practice, but I’m constantly fighting to get it back or generate some more.

So a few years ago, I picked up The Pocket Muse at the dangerous-to-wander-aimlessly Barnes and Noble. It was a big leap for me to buy it like that — I didn’t read any reviews online (gasp!), didn’t know the author or anything she had previously written. I didn't know whether it would be better than the many other books offering the same types of creative writing prompts and practice. But the author's bio picture was of her and her cat; I had seen that kind of picture before, of a person I actually know and admire and who kind of inspires me. So I flipped through a few pages and swiped my debit card through the machine and that was that. The book looked/looks really cute on my shelf. But I never used it.

Until last night, when, as I'm getting more into writing in different forums, I opened to the first prompt page. I read “What are you waiting for? If not now, when?” And I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to write something about that, or if it was just an intro-type thing, and that’s when I realized I’m being way too uptight. Quit overanalyzing, Allison -- stop the inquisition!

All right, what the hell -- I’m going to try some of the prompts and observe the creative juices flowing. First up: “Write about someone who is pretending to be someone or something that he is not.”

I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, please help: How do you work your creativity muscles?

Inspirations

Kicking off our Manifesto theme is Matt's essay entitled Facebook-ifesto!.
While the dialogue is fictional, the inspirations are real. Almost a little too real. Don't Youtube the video referenced in this piece; you cannot un-see such horror.

Enjoy.

Facebook-ifesto!

The First Sunday

“It’s a shame that you didn’t show up earlier to the party last night.”

“Hey. I made it to our weekly coffee date on time. Cut me some slack. Was the ratio of popped collars to normal collars outlandish?”

New Theme: Manifesto

Karl Marx wrote his principles of Communism. The United States' founding fathers Declaration of Independence announced the separation of the thirteen colonies from the British Empire, and the rights of the people of the new United States of America. Even Ted Kaczynski penned "Industrial Society and Its Future" -- the Unabomber Manifesto -- in which he chronicled what he saw as the disastrous effects of the industrial revolution.

We at The Proofread don't exactly want to take after Ted Kaczynski, but we have opinions -- lots of them. So, we'll bring you our manifesto-themed essays, some outright declarations and others requiring some between-the-lines reading. And because manifesto contains the word "fest," we expect reading our coming works will be like a party. Rock on.

Roma, Roma Ma(nifesto)

The article cuts off half way through (whaat? we have to pay for online content?).. but you'll get the gist. Poor Gaga's wig must be singeing...

Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex

Camille Paglia for the Sunday Times

Old is New

For our Rewind set, I am turning to this 2007 essay about the Gnarls Barkley album St. Elsewhere. A couple of reasons: I continue to adore this record, and the specifics of this essay still, I think, reflect my thoughts. And, the lead singer is enjoying another well-deserved moment in the pop music sun, so this seemed like a good time to return to some of his earlier jams.

So anyway, hopefully you enjoy. Excuse the slightly academic tone; this was, indeed, written for a class...

...Just Like Me

We pay psychiatrists hundreds of dollars an hour. We shovel-feed our children anti-depressant drugs by the mouthful. Mental problems sit at the forefront of our minds (no pun intended). Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 album St. Elsewhere dives into the depths of our thought process, emerging with a striking look at how our minds work and the up-and-down nature of our personalities. The album’s ever-changing mood and sound remind us that our consciousness is in a constant state of flux, while the album’s lyrics explore a broad range of mental issues. A catchy beat may have made the second song, “Crazy,” one of the most popular songs of the year, but when one scratches the surface a bit he finds more than a made-for-radio album.

The Happy-Go-Lucky Flirt

After exploring his college computer, Matt finally rediscovers an old essay worth publishing on the Proofread. It is about flirting. Or more precisely, how he justifies his obliviousness to flirting. It was written four years ago, but besides who he was dating at the time, not too much has changed.

Check it out here

Enjoy.

Proofread Throwback

I was rummaging through my old essays on my college computer when I happened to find the old logo from the past incarnation of The Proofread. And then instead of actually finding an essay, I decided to update our look. It is kind of like Mountain Dew Throwback, except without sugar and less references to hillbillies.

A new Rewind essay will be up later this week.

Enjoy.

P.S. Comments and suggestions about the new layout are appreciated.

Zombie revival

Zombies. First they were slow (Night of the Living Dead (1968)). Then they were fast (28 Days Later (2002)). And now they like to party.

This week Tara brings us her firsthand account of a (mostly) real night of the living dead.

Eat it up.

The Perks of Being Un-Dead

Walking along Washington Avenue during the early morning hours of October 19, it isn’t likely one could miss the blood. Little spatters and streaks and puddles that weave between the sidewalk cracks and cloud the corners of store windows, fading on the edges as finger paint does. It oozes into the sleepiness of a Minneapolis Sunday so subtly that the usual Monday traffickers might not notice them at all. Fall breezes had dried up the sticky smatterings overnight, returning with the day to taunt the Avenue’s cars and bars and street signs, and to awaken the blood -drenched strips of cloth and Kleenex that cluttered it. In less than a minute, the mischievous wind had given legs to those little horrors, whisking them into a flimsy, disgusting dance; a nauseating tribute to some happening that must have been momentous but can only be conveyed halfheartedly by its vague yet enticing entrails.

What one wouldn’t encounter on this morning stroll are the many thousands of photographs and boozy memories that had been born alongside the dancing horrors. But even without them, the breeze would betray their secret, for it would not carry with it the smell of death or carnage. In fact it couldn’t, because the blood crusted on Washington Avenue is not real blood, and the only crime it traces is perhaps not even a crime at all. You see, the dark but not-so-stormy night of Saturday, October 18, marked the fourth annual Zombie Pub Crawl, the attendees of which could be accused of nothing more than partying too hard and leaving their “bloody” litter behind. The “blood” being of any combination of make-up, imitation blood and fake ooze contained in all sizes of tanks, tubs and tubes – all of which could be purchased at Twin Cities Magic & Costume Co. in St. Paul for 10 percent off with a printed coupon from Zombie Pub Crawl IV: Spawn of Death’s official web site. “Go Get Zombified!”

And Zombified they were. Young and old, sober and not, from every corner of Minnesota and beyond, the undead marched in droves.

Seeping, groaning, limping, drooling,

squirting, spooking, gnashing, stalking,

spitting, grimacing –

Reapplying, reattaching,

retracing, resonating, reeling,

reentering, repositioning, repeating –

“Braaaaaiins!”

From the Stone Arch Bridge, a group of four zombie cohorts could hear the cry. Rising from what they knew to be the legendary Gold Medal Park, a grassy knoll next door to the Guthrie Theater, it came from the hordes of living humans who were gathering to “undeaden” before the commencement of the ZPC. The sound of those monstrous voices mingling caused the foursome to quicken in walk – er, stalk – and let out their own zombie cacophony in reply:

“Muurrrrrrm... Guuuuuugg…Braaaaaiins!”

Their humor wasn’t well-received.

“Don’t worry, they’re not real,” one man said to the wide-eyed little girl he pushed in a stroller. His gaze was more menacing than the hooligans who had provoked it.

The guilt must have made Justin Michlig’s skin melt. Decked in a plaid shirt which appeared to have been used as a napkin for someone’s bloody fingers, Justin stopped shortly after the encounter to peel off a plastic scar from above his left eyebrow. He tossed it onto the bridge in distaste – much to the delight and horror of another child crossing the zombies’ staggered path. Wary to scare the pudgy, black-haired boy, the gang compensated for their deviltry by straightening their backbones and smiling sheepishly. Their teeth had been made as rotten as their faces.

“You look kinda dumb!” the pudgy boy called, causing a surprised eruption of very human cackles. Quickly gaining composure, John Pozniak, a pale, shortish zombie with a bolt sticking haphazardly out of his forehead, mustered for the child his signature shriek – the sound of which was something in between a pterodactyl and a whistle.

The child gobbled it right up.

Meanwhile, more zombie frenzies – fiercer now – flared in the distance.

From somewhere within the fray, which swallowed up Jake, Justin and John with frightful ease, Heather Esperson and her own band of zombies undeadened, slathering their pretty, upper-twenty-something faces with gauzy white cream and rimming their eyes to the cheekbone with filthy-grey rings of costume eyeliner. In a frightful flurry of “scabbing” fingers and dollar-bin brushes, they transformed like squirming caterpillars into a larger, more hauntingly graceful version of the laughing corpses they had been during their college days in Winona, Minnesota. There they had been few in a tiny fistful – 50 zombies maximum – of marching, boozing, breathing shadows of un-death.

In those days, Heather and her friends were just glad to be around those of “similar humor – as in they all enjoy wearing makeup and getting drunk.” But as age can not elude un-death, the draw of the Minneapolis ZPC for the Winonians was not the alcohol.

“Some people feel they have to be drunk in order to justify wearing a costume and makeup in public… But I think I have reached a point where I’m just happy to be dressed up… with a bunch of other creative people that find it fun as well.”

Such creativity!

And not even on Halloween!

For many of the zombies, it’s the makeup and costumes that have them staggering back year after year. Some are a little grayer. Some are a little greener. Some are a little whiter. Some have dripping blood. Some have exposed bone. Some have worms or ripped skin or rotting flesh. “It’s fun because there’s no generic zombie,” said Jim Berg of Twin Cities Magic & Costume Co. –

Just

zombie

babies

zombie prom queens zombie police officers zombie workmen zombie clowns zombie athletes zombie Jesus zombie scientists

zombie Michael Jackson zombie photographers

zombie wedding party

zombie pirates

zombie doctors zombie Hooters girls

zombie housewives zombie soldiers zombie bikers zombie bakers zombie bumblebees zombie Statue of Liberty

zombie hoboes:

“Will work for Braaaaaiins!”

Avid horror fan and two-time crawler William Earl Wheeler led the pack.

“The biggest lure of the Zombie Pub Crawl is dressing like a zombie... Sometimes you need to step outside the box, the comfort zone or the every drone of a life stuck in a rut. Try something new, change a parameter or cause a little jolt in somebody’s life to make an impression. It does not have to be a bad impression, but an impression to get a smile, a laugh, a chat or even meet somebody as a friend. This event can, and [it] has done that for myself and friends in my group. Even though it's scary to some, morbid to others; yet to us it's unique and built around people that love to be very open-minded.”

It started with 15 people four years ago, and the hype has groan and groan (and grown). “I hear ZPC: IV was estimated around 1,500 zombies,” Wheeler said. “The hype is real.”

By the time evening sets in on October 19, the blood along Washington Avenue has lost its squeamish sheen. Makeup has been washed down drains in torrents, and shredded, stained and scandalous costumes alike have been tossed away or hung behind very-human suits and scarves and Sunday best to await next year’s crawl. Thousands of pictures have been posted online, which will decorate Facebook pages and Flickr websites until Halloween snapshots come to haunt in their place.

At the bars, it’s business as usual.

Except you can’t moan for discounted drinks.

Rounding the Bases

Adolescence: The bane of most people's existence -- except for those privileged cheerleading captains like Sarah. No, not our Sarah Steadland. The other Sarah. First-name-only Sarah.

Our Sarah reflects on a mere ten minutes of her adolescent life, which you'll find by essay's end evolved into more than just a game.

Bon appetit.

I Never

“I never smoked pot,” Alyssa stated as a few fingers around the circle went down (but not mine). Not a very exciting disclosure. Marijuana wasn’t a big deal at Andover High School. Some people did it, some didn’t. Shrugged shoulders all around. On to the next revelation.

“Sarah, you’re next,” Ashali said, nodding to the other Sarah, the more important one. I was Sarah Steadland, she was just Sarah. I couldn’t wait until I was the cheerleading captain and everyone called me by just my first name. But for now I was just an insignificant freshman, lucky to be on the varsity squad but still a freshman nonetheless.

In case you’re not familiar with this ritualistic coming-of-age game that the nine of us girls could be seen playing on that afternoon of 2003, I’ll briefly explain “I Never” to you. These days, it is considered one of many options for college students in need of a game to play when they have a case of beer and not much to talk about. But back then, when we were still on the younger side of our adolescent years, “I Never” was basically a slumber-party game. It wasn’t quite as widely known as “Truth or Dare” but way more interesting, due to its lack of the “I’ll take...Dare” cop-out option. In “I Never,” you sit cross-legged in a circle and hold up your ten fingers. You go around the circle and each person says something they have never done. Whoever has done it puts one finger down. The first person to lose all ten fingers loses. Or wins, if that’s how you see it.

So it was Captain Sarah’s turn. She made an “Ummm.…” sound as she mysteriously glanced about the circle in thought. I couldn’t imagine there was much Sarah hadn’t done. “I never had sex in a car.”

“Oh, good one!” Erica gushed as she slowly put a finger down, demonstrating for all to see that she had totally done that. “You should try it. Me and Ry do it all the time in his truck.”

I tried to look impressed by the other captain of our squad. That’s half the game, you know, reacting to each statement through body language. It’s a tough skill to master, the “Well I haven’t done that yet, but maybe I’ll consider trying it in the future” look. It doesn’t matter if the person’s talking about screwing in a car or purposely cutting off a chunk of their tongue. You absolutely have to look cool with it.

“I never went on a date with Ross King,” said Ashali, clearly targeting Sarah, who smiled smugly as she put yet another finger down. Sarah was quickly losing.

After Erica’s turn, it was going to be me. I went through a mental list of all the crazy things I hadn’t done and panicked a little. A lot rested on this. A newbie on the varsity hockey cheer squad has to seem cool to her superiors, which my pale wallfloweriness didn’t do for me. I thought of the things I was proud not to have done by the age of thirteen (broken my 4.0 GPA, gotten drunk, been grounded) and tossed those out. Yawn. I knew sex was all they wanted to talk about, but I wasn’t about to tell them I hadn’t even kissed a guy yet. God, I can still feel the pain of that moment, the judgement I knew was going to be unleashed upon me no matter what I said.

After Erica’s turn, I still hadn’t come up with a good “I never” and they were waiting for me. “I never went to second base,” I blurted, trying to make it sound like I had at least done something, but not too much.

“What do you consider second base?” Sarah asked pointedly. I probably looked pretty bewildered. There’s more than one definition of the bases? I still feel bad for my 13-year-old-self in that moment. A heat that was the result of some combination of panic and humiliation was creeping up my face. What the hell kind of team-building activity was this? The older girls all gave me their opinions of what second base means at the same time. All I remember hearing is a lot of really sexual terms that my sheltered thirteen-year-old ears didn’t quite understand. What a way to spend our practice time. No wonder no one likes cheerleaders.

I sighed, then decided it would be easier, and less embarrassing, to change my statement. “Maybe I’ll just go with...I never had sex.” Their chattering stopped and their fingers went down. I was glad my turn was over. Looking back, I know I shouldn’t have stressed so much about the situation. I should have shrugged them off. “I’ve never kissed a boy. Big frickin’ deal. Put all yo fingas down, bitches.” Or I should have used the phrase “I never went to fifth grade.” It wasn’t until much later that I realized that my skipping of two grades was the best artillery I had in that game. But this was the peak of my vulnerability to peer pressure. Those tween years are a dark time, and no matter how much I wish I could tell a story about my triumphant casting-off of mean girl influences, this was a time when I bent my will to the influence of my superiors. No, I didn’t turn into a 13-year-old slut. This is just a story about ten minutes. Ten minutes that were so crucial to my adolescence, I still feel uneasy when I think about them.

As I listened to the next few girls brag about the things they’d done in their illustrious cheerleading lives, I realized that I was going about this game the wrong way. Those girls didn’t want to hear about the things I hadn’t done, they wanted to hear about the things I hadn’t done that they had. This game was more about fingers going down triumphantly than the weeding out of inexperienced players. This was one of those situations where “just be yourself and everyone will like you” probably wasn’t the greatest advice. I could feel my mentality changing as I sat there.

I looked down at the nine fingers I still had showing. As discreetly as possible, I tucked two more fingers into my fist. I laughed to myself when I realized if someone said “I never cheated at ‘I never,’” I would have to put another finger down. Thankfully, no one noticed, or at least said anything about noticing, me cheating until my next turn.

“Dude, Sarah, when did your fingers go down?” Ashali asked.

“I dunno, when did yours?” I replied nonchalantly. I swear those girls got easier to talk to after that.

For the next few years, I lied and I lied and I avoided topics until I, too, had my own stories to tell. It troubles me now that those quiet moments with high school boys were often done more for the sake of a story than for what they meant to me.

The Rewind begins.

The Proofread digs up a literary past that most of you have not witnessed.

Allison starts off our theme with an essay about a courtroom drama. It's from her college days, but old man time hasn't dulled these words.

Enjoy.

They Rode the Bus for Fun

My first few days as full-time custodian last summer reminded me of exactly why I decided to go to college. It was a combination of things that did it, really: the actual cleaning, yes, but more so the cattiness among the custodians, the boss’s air of superiority, and even the way the kids looked at me like it was explicitly in my job description to wipe their fecal matter off the walls. But I had received my official jury duty summons letter from the county months before, and had informed my boss that I had been called to a possible two-week term of civic duty. At that point, it was all I could do to pray that I would be picked, rather than be sentenced to scraping gum off desks, cleaning floor-to-ceiling Venetian blinds, and cleaning up after classroom pets. I didn’t consider that my passion for social justice would cause problems in a courtroom.

I was the opposite of most other candidates, who found it a burden to be called away from work or their families. During selection, they looked for any excuse to show bias toward the lawyers, the parties involved in the case, or the nature of the accident that was up for judgment. I, however, avoided any response to the preliminary questions that would jeopardize my chance of showing up at the courthouse every day for the next two weeks. I practically willed myself to be selected; my ultimate dream was to be sequestered for the entire summer.

The best I could get was a small, two-day civil case. Still, it was something, and I looked forward to a brilliant and unique educational experience.

Michelle was a 20-something-year-old woman who lived with her mother in a nearby town. She claimed she was injured on a city bus because of the driver’s recklessness, and was only asking for the bus company to pay her medical bills and a small amount of pain-and-suffering. Her mother was the only other person on the bus at the time of the alleged incident, and apparently this bus was the only bus left in America with no video camera on board.

Michelle and her mother were both “slow” – that’s the best way I can describe it. Had they had the means or awareness to get evaluated, they probably could have been diagnosed with some formal type of mental retardation.

Not only did these people have no jobs and no money, they also did not have a case. After two years of waiting, they finally got to testify about Michelle being hurt on the bus. Because of their mental capacities, the time lapse, and the amount of coaching they had probably received, it was easy to understand how they could mix up their stories. They just didn’t have a chance against the slick-talking bus driver. The same simple questions, repeated a thousand times, were repeatedly answered, “I don’t remember.” Despite definite responses given on their depositions months earlier, the prosecutor made them jumble and twist their stories around until I’m sure they couldn’t understand that their case was being severely worn down.

The verdict was plain and simple: The bus driver was not guilty. While it was plausible that Michelle probably had received some type of injury sometime (and as a result, substantial medical bills), negligent driving was not the cause. She and her mother would not receive any money.

But during the deliberation, most people had a hard time ignoring the knot in their gut — the one that kind of feels like a conscience — despite the strict order to bar any personal feelings from the decision-making. It was obvious that every person took their role seriously; it was important to be consistent with the law that has been solidified in our country for so long. But one woman summed up what all of us in that jury room were probably thinking, despite the evidence laid out for us: “I just feel like something happened on that bus.”

Maybe it was Michelle’s untamed hair, acne-ridden face, or Goodwill-bought clothes that did it for me. Maybe it was the nearly inaudible way both Michelle and her mother spoke. Maybe it was the way their eyes always gazed downward, showing an utter lack of self confidence, that convinced me that the suit wasn’t a charade to extort money from a bus company. Or, maybe it was the fact that I thought the bus driver was a sleazebag, and I wanted to make him pay.

But what had struck me most about Michelle and her mother was the reason they had been on that bus in the first place: for fun. It was one of the only things they articulated clearly and consistently during their testimony. A lot of people say that riding the bus is an “experience,” mostly for the variety of characters they encounter, but there is a difference between riding the bus for enjoyment and saying that riding the bus, when you have to do it, is fun. Nobody rides the bus specifically for their afternoon entertainment, except for “simple people” (as their attorney called them) like Michelle and her mother, who really had nowhere else to go.

I’m not stupid. I know that a legal system can’t be driven by sympathy; there isn’t enough money to go around for that. I know that some people lie through their teeth just to get money, and we can’t let feelings overtake the systematic approach to justice. But while I’m all for systems and organization and being logical, my stomach rarely lies. I still wonder about Michelle and her mother, which usually ends up bringing back that same sick feeling. I wonder, too, how I could feel so disgusting for doing the right thing; but somehow, on that day last summer, in an atmosphere that should embody all that is fair in the world, doing the “right” thing felt really, really wrong.

*Written in January/February 2007

New Theme: Rewind

If you could, would you go back in time to a particularly great experience you had just to live it again? Holla, of course you would! And we, your Proofreaders, will be doing just that during August, when our theme is “Rewind.” That’s right, we’ll be kickin’ it old school and bringing back some of our favorite already-written essays from class, workshops, that time we holed up in a tree house for two weeks on a creative-writing binge, etc. "Rewind" launches on Monday, August 2nd, so check back then. It’ll free you from constantly thinking in 140-character Twitter mode.

Fly-By-Night

The days are longer and the nights are hotter, but the ghosts of summer are not detoured.

Tara brings us a narrative of a summer haunting, worry, and faith.

Enjoy.