Gloves Off: Saul

Objects and the Subtext of Anal

Today We’re Going to Take a Longer Look at Anyone Better by Saul Aguilar

To read the story as originally published, please click here.

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Anyone Better

By Saul Aguilar

With my hand out the window, the diamond on my wedding ring reflects the afternoon sunlight. I’m driving, and we’re on our way to the Grand Canyon. Traveling north just outside of Williams, Arizona my soon-to-be ex-husband and I have been arguing for the better part of the morning. Our marriage counselor encouraged us to take a road trip together and see if we can work out some of our problems. I agreed reluctantly because that’s what good Christians do, they stick it out no matter how unhappy they are. Zac, being the optimist, thinks we’ll still be together after this.

My Input: Top marks for clarity. We know everything up front, the entire situation. That What’s at stake is similar to the warring couple in Stephen King’s The Children of the Corn. But can you see how that might pose a hindrance? If a reader isn’t hooked by this exact situation, can you see how that reader might instantly drop out?

Can you keep us guessing for a little longer? One charm of Minimalism is how it baits us forward without explaining the big picture. We might not be hooked by a hetero couple with bonding issues, but we’ll be hooked by inexplicable physical actions such as covertly dropping a valuable diamond out the window of a fast-moving car.

Sexist pig that I am, I immediately forgot that the narrator was driving. But if you hit on that fact with a couple details—the feel of the hot steering wheel, the gas pedal, etc.—then I’ll retain the fact that she’s driving.

Consider that if you’re too specific and complete in your setup, you rob your story of some mystery. How would it work if you just introduced a valuable¹ object and put it in peril? The diamond ring, for instance. Play with it in the sunlight. Feel the harsh, buffeting stream of dry air—don’t give us abstracts like Williams, Arizona, and Christians—just swim your fingers through the air… and maybe lose the ring. It slips off. Or it almost slips off. As a writer, Saul, you have a flare for clarity, but that clarity can be focused on the ring and the fingers and something happening.

Can you trust that specifics like the ring, the feel of the wind, the slipstream will keep us engaged while the context of the story develops? Again, your clarity is awesome, but can you hold back from telling the entire situation?

And… do you see how putting the diamond in peril—it falls or not—neatly sets up the husband’s fall at the end? Foreshadowing can make the incredible seem inevitable.

The argument started last night when I asked Zac not to get drunk. I wanted to stay in and get some sleep, but he insisted that the locals needed to hear the word of God. So we went to some shitty, hole-in-the-wall dive bar. And once he was drunk enough to babble incoherently on the virtues of faith, he handed me his phone and said, “Make sure you get this next part.” Anytime he does anything he deems worthy of praise he makes me record him. Then the next day he’ll upload it to social media with hashtags like #PreachingTheWord or #InstrumentOfGod or #TheyKnowNotWhatTheyDo. He wants the world (and God) to see how influential he considers himself to be.
#EyeRoll

My Input: Again, all clear, but you’ve already gone into a flashback, and if the reader isn’t hooked by the first paragraph’s situation then moving to the recent past… gets iffy. Can you see that you’ve told us the situation instead of demonstrating it? To revisit my old analogy, the stripper has walked out fully naked and asked, “These are my genitals, any questions?” Keep the mystery a little mysterious, okay?

As another option, can you work the pole a little? Can you demonstrate solid core muscles and glossy hair before you even pinch the fingertip of your glove? Action carries its own authority, and the reader’s mind is hooked by compelling action.

You’ve now introduced a device—the phone—that will allow you to revisit any moment from the past. Can you use that phone from the get-go? For instance, hold the phone in the hand with the ring. Perhaps lose the diamond ring. Even film the ring being lost so we see that the ring’s being deliberately cast off?

In subsequent scenes, the narrator can still be in the car, in the desert, and the phone can be our device for revisiting every previous event—possibly even the marriage counselor and Mark. We can see the botched “takes.” We can see events that are clearly being recorded in secret by the narrator.

While passing through Kansas City, Zac gave this man on the street a dollar and made the man do about twelve different takes just to make sure people online saw what’d he done. Meanwhile, I’m there recording the whole time waiting for him to get the perfect angle. Me, mouthing the words “I’m sorry” while Zac isn’t looking. #KillMeNow

Shortly after we started this stupid cross-country road trip, we had to stop at the grocery store. This old lady, real grandma looking, she couldn’t reach something off the top shelf. Zac offered to get it for her and when she went to thank him he snapped at her, “Not yet, lady. Wait until my wife records this.” The woman was so startled she had tears in eyes.
#JustLunaticHusbandThings

This week-long car ride, it’s supposed to make me love him. But how do you love someone you’ve never loved? I’ll wait it out. When we get to San Francisco, I’m calling my lawyer to finalize the divorce.

My Input: In the spirit of keeping objects present—and because we might already have seen the diamond ring cast off—can we revisit the ring in each of these flashbacks? That will give the ring building importance, especially in the light that we know its fate already. We’ll know that the ring is eventually lost, so we’ll be wondering why it’s been so easily discarded.

#

Growing up, religion was more of my parents’ thing. They believed it was important because their parents believed it was important. That, and I was conceived before marriage. And if you live in a small town in Middle America you better believe you’re marrying the woman you accidentally knocked up when you had sex with her against her wishes. This is how I came into the world.

But, even as a child, church seemed so superficial. At Sunday school, I got lectured on things like chastity, honoring thy father and mother, and homosexuality. I would sometimes argue with my dad about the futility of Sunday school. “In this house, you show love for God by going to church and Sunday school,” he’d say. I knew better than to argue with him too much, because I knew what he was capable of doing.

My Input: Good thinking, to go to flashback/backstory after a space break.

Can you unpack “against her wishes”? The phrase gets fobbed off so lightly. If you keep the light tone, but escalate the specifics: “When, for example, you push down that mousy girl, that Rosalie Nobody girl after scarfing bong water under the bleachers during the home game against the Kittitas High Badgers, it doesn’t enter your mind to wear a rubber.” A light tone + grim particulars buried in trivia = the reader forced to carry the horror.

Keep a light, throw-away tone while escalating the specifics. Hit that for a couple beats. Can you see how that would help set up the beating scene that follows?

My dad would beat my mom but never touched me or my sisters. Me being the oldest, I did my best to protect my mom. I’d stand in front of her when he readied his arm to punch her face. He’d shout, “Get out of my way, Aubrey!” Then I’d move, walk back to my room and quietly sob with my sisters. Then the next day we’d get up and go to church and act like nothing ever happened. Like the good people of God we were.

My Input: Very good intuitive move, to give the narrator a name within a context. Brilliant move. Especially within a violent context. Note how we seldom hear our name unless we’re in trouble? The way the father names the narrator is supremely better than the narrator naming herself. And note how doing this naming in dialog helps it land harder. An imperative command + a proper noun = Bravo! That’s a smart use of dialog.

And once you’ve depicted the father being a rapist and child abuser, do you see how the following summary might not be needed?

When you live in a small town, everyone knows your dad is an asshole. Kids eventually stopped asking why Mom had a black eye or why she limped after the night Dad hit her with a baseball bat. At church people proverbially looked the other way. Even when Mom reached out to our pastor for help, he just suggested she pray about it. And she did. She prayed all the way to the emergency room and never came out of the coma. The year after she died I went off to college.

#

My Input: Very smart, using a space break to return us to the present scene. What’s playing on the radio? Can you bring us back into the present scene with some on-the-body details? A scent in the dry air? Can you reintroduce us to the phone/camera?

Can you revisit the ring? Or put our attention on the now-bare finger? Maybe a band of pale skin where the finger is not tanned?

Instead of just “college,” can you name the narrator’s field of study?

The sun was about forty-five minutes from setting, and we still needed to refuel. “We won’t even get to see the canyon,” Zac said.

My Input: What’s forty-five minutes to this narrator? What’s her internal way to measure time?

“You shouldn’t have been trying to convert the world,” I said. He rolled his eyes and sunk into his seat even more.

“Just hurry, okay?” Zac pulled his Angels baseball cap over his face.

We pulled into a small gas station in Williams. Zac got out first and slammed the door just as I started to ask him if he wanted me to pay. The outside air smelled like the dusty shoebox of old letters I kept tucked away in the attic back home.

When I climbed out, Zac asked, “What’d you say?”
I mumbled, “Doesn’t matter.”
His eyes flashed. “What?”

Zac hated when I didn’t answer his questions in the way he wanted. Zac hated a lot of things about me. Our therapist called this one of his “personality quirks.”

My Input: Can you show us “hate”? What does Zac actually do that the narrator interprets as hate? If you can unpack Zac’s behavior, you’ll allow the reader to feel hated. When the reader makes that assessment, you’ll have the reader completely hooked.

Note, if Hank Williams is playing on the car radio—in a town called “Williams”—and the narrator walks in to hear Hank Williams on the radio inside the filling station… that could be a minor Minimalist thrill. It would allow the reader to recognize the coincidence and feel a little unnerved. Magic is beginning to happen.

“Did you want me to pay?” I threw my hands in the air.

He gave me a blank stare. When I realized he wasn’t going to say anything else, I walked into the gas station. There was no one inside. I peeked around the corner and saw a desk with papers on it. Hank Williams played on the radio sitting on top.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” Right then Zac walked in the door. “My husband and I just need some gas.”

Zac tapped on the bell near the register. A white cat with orange eyes jumped up from behind the counter. It rubbed itself along the back of the register as if it wanted someone to pet it. Zac reached his hand out to touch the cat but it hissed at him when got too close. “Fine, suit yourself, cat.”

I told Zac it didn’t look like anyone was here. He sneered,“You think, Aubrey?”

My Input: Very smart, the way this mirrors the father calling her by name.

Note, if the wedding ring is gone, this might be a chance for Zac to comment on that.

I glared at him, mentally counting down from ten to keep from snapping back. At count four I let out a full sigh.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“

“Let’s just find some gas and get me a drink.

#

My Input: So Zac backs down? Without attribution, I stumbled a beat.

I met Zac when I was a sophomore. A group of mutual friends introduced us. One of the perks of going to a private Christian school was the unmitigated access to religious zealots. They constantly felt the need to remind me that I wasn’t anything if I didn’t have a man by my side. Most of them came to college already in a relationship or already engaged. As a nineteen-year-old from a small town in rural Kansas, I didn’t have anyone else to lean on. So when they said he was perfect for me, I just went along with it.

Zac and I started dating about two weeks after we met. Before we even kissed, he had reminded me often that he wanted to wait until marriage to have sex. But I didn’t care about any of that. Honestly, I was just glad someone was interested in me. It’s not like boys were knocking down the door for a chance to take me, Aubrey Mayfield, on a date.

My Input: Please keep in mind the diamond ring. If it can be your through-line object, you might showcase it in a scene where Zac is giving it. By doing so you’ll force the reader to juggle the history of the ring, always already knowing how it’s to be resolved.

After a few weeks of touring the heavy-petting zoo, though I guess he couldn’t take it anymore because he decided that God wouldn’t mind if we “exploited a loophole,” seeing as how there was nothing in the Bible about anal sex. The first time we did it, he pretty much tore me in half. Or at least it felt that way. I eventually grew accustomed to walking differently.

Even though I still hadn’t experienced much in the way of feelings for Zac, I couldn’t argue that we got along. Sure, he annoyed me most of the time, but he also put up with me. After all, he was tall, light-skinned with blue eyes and blonde hair. He got good grades and loved his family. Odds were I wouldn’t find anyone better. So I suggested that maybe we move in together, but he refused. He was worried that his parents would disown him for living in sin. As if we weren’t already.

My Input: Consider that the narrator’s field of study can be Religious Science or Theology. This would give the narrator a body of knowledge through which to screen her world. Knowing exactly which Bible verses deal with sodomy would rack up some authority here.

Another perk of Christian college is being forced to go on international mission trips. This is where you go to someone’s country and talk to them about the virtues of Christianity. It’s like being a vacuum salesperson except you’re selling them something they can’t see, and you have to convince them that not only is it real, but without it, they’re incomplete. Naturally, Zac organized one where I could go with him. The destination was some remote part of South America. I guess at some point in our relationship I said it would be fun to go hike Machu Picchu but I don’t remember saying anything like that. I don’t even like to hike.

About two weeks before we were set to leave, Zac proposed to me in front of all the natives. They had no idea what they were clapping for when I said yes. Their feigned excitement was my feigned excitement. I was tired, angry, and I hadn’t slept in a bed in over two months. Part of me said yes only so I could stop being the center of everyone’s attention.

My Input: Yes, Peru is where we should see the ring appear. The reader will recalibrate the object’s history, all the while knowing that it’s to be lost in the desert. What’s important is the reader will always keep wanting to know: Why did she throw away the ring?

Can you step on the anal? Can you do so to the extent that we’ll wonder if Zac’s queer? That would cast the up-coming “best friend” in a new light. If Zac’s a little too knowledgeable about butt sex—“Push out! Breathe! It doesn’t hurt all that much!”—then we’ll wonder why he’s such an expert.

After college, Zac got a job in Brooklyn as a junior attorney. So we picked up and moved to NYC a few days after our “honeymoon.” Although I wouldn’t exactly call volunteering in the remote parts of Western Africa a honeymoon.
#Disgruntled

The first few months of living together were somewhat normal. We were just another married couple in their mid-20s trying to do our best. Then Zac wanted kids. I wasn’t wild about the idea, but I dutifully obliged to his advances. Zac said I had to because the Bible said I had to. When the fertility doctor said we were spinning our proverbial wheels, Zac drank. And drank. And drank. The doctor told us his sperm count was too low and even if I became pregnant, his sperm were also defective and the baby would be dead before the second trimester. His balls were just a decoration. We could ask to have another man impregnate me, but he refused to hear any of that. He heard the bottle, though.

My Input: Now, if you’ve put the drinking into the context of the anally fixated husband… you have Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Your reader will recognize the dynamic and the reader will begin to make connections and fill in the blanks. Zac’s just a frustrated missionary queer full of self-hatred, and Mark’s always in the picture because, well, because.

I started fucking his best friend, Mark, because Zac gave up.

My Input: With the right setup, the narrator fucking Mark will seem inevitable. Off-stage everyone is fucking Mark. Mark has also been fucking Zac, but allow the reader to come to that conclusion. If you can plant the seeds for that dynamic, then Zac and the narrator will be unstated rivals for Mark. Do you see how all of your elements are already in place?

Good intuitive job. Can you see how your subconscious arranged all of this?

The possibility of “pregnant” now looms. How can you bring that to bear on the rest of the story?

Zac would shut down any attempt at sex or anything remotely intimate. Then he’d go downstairs and drown himself in bourbon. I didn’t care what he did. But it was when he became preachy during one of his benders that I realized he had a problem. Crying, drops of insecurity fell from his unshaven face. He said, “Aubrey, God has a plan—it’s not for us to have children. We are his children and it’s our responsibility to convert as many people as we can.” I nodded, then I text messaged Mark. Zac didn’t even notice I left that night.

One time after work I came home to find Zac smearing paint all over our walls. He said, “Don’t worry, Aubrey, it’s washable.” I wanted our house clean, but he took it personal when I asked him to get his socks off the floor. “Don’t want your ‘perfect little life’ to crumble because I didn’t follow your ‘rules.’” He stumbled backward two steps then lifted a bottle of Jameson and placed it to his lips. After several gulps, he said, “God spoke to me, Aubrey. And He said we are His children. There's no need to have children because we are His children.”

My Input: Can you revisit the diamond ring in this paint scene? Can Zac catch sight of it and bring it back to our attention?

Can you use the phone to touch on the affair with Mark? Once you introduce objects, they need to stay in rotation—the ring, the phone, possibly the paint or the dusty old box of letters. Each becomes a “memory cue” that keeps the past events in our minds. Those dusty letters need to play a bigger part.

Can you see how most people’s homes are just museums of memory cues, souvenirs that prompt stories/memories? We surround ourselves with memory cues.

I called a lawyer the next morning. I told Zac I wanted a divorce. But after arguing, I agreed to marriage counseling.

#

Zac was already hammered by the time we arrived at the Grand Canyon. I knew this because when he was drunk, he’d mumble things to himself. Mainly things I’m sure he didn’t want me to know. “She’s so needy. What about my feelings? It’s not as if I asked for a broken dick.” Then he’d gingerly sob until he passed out. Today I had to interrupt him. “Don’t you want to see the Grand Canyon, hun?” I slammed the car door loud enough to startle him.

My Input: If you’d consider it—and you’ve not already confirmed the Zac-Mark romance—can you have the narrator snipe, “Mark says it’s not broke when you’re with him”? A little confrontation might help seal the deal on Zac’s “accident.” To state the subtext baldy will force the plot to chaos.

He awkwardly got out but closed the door on his shirt and only realized this when he attempted to walk away from the car. None of this clued him in to how drunk he was. People were gathered here and there and were taking pictures and posting them to social media.
#ColorMeSurprised
“Hun... Honey. Do you see this?” Zac placed one foot in front of the other as if following some invisible dance pattern. He grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around. “I love you, honey. It’s show time.” Without replying, I grabbed the phone out of my purse and set it to record.

My Input: If you’ve chosen to lose the ring in paragraph one, you can have Zac ask, “Where’s the ring?” That would remind us of the narrator allowing it to drop out the window. Thus, Zac’s dropping into the canyon seems inevitable and organic when he falls.

Zac shouted, “Good people,” and climbed on top a large boulder. His words slurred like my father’s did right before he justified punching my mother in the mouth. He said, “Have you accepted Jesus,” stopping to hiccup, “into your heart?” He was hunched like an old man hobbled over his cane. People laughed. Some pointed at him. Zac cleared his throat and tried to stand up straight. “Good people of... where are we again, honey?”

I tried to stifle my chuckle from the audio of the recording.

My Input: How can you code “pregnant” into this moment? My go-to to suggest a pregnancy is itchy nipples. Other ideas? Remember: subtle!

“No... I mean, why aren’t you repenting? The sins of the Lamb of God have forgiven us of all our transgressions against him.” Zac hopped off the boulder, stumbling to regain his shaky balance. He planted his hands in the dirt to recover and then raised them the way a boxer does at the end of the fight he just won. No one bought it.

In a zig-zag fashion, Zac walked, tripped, and stumbled his way around the boulder to the edge of the canyon. People were pleading with him, “Hey man, let’s bring you over here.”

Zac snapped back, “Stay back, faggot! God loves you. Well, maybe.” He brushed his arm across his face to wipe the snot away. He turned to look at me, and I kept steady on the camera.

My Input: The ghost of anal haunts this scene. If you’ve built the Zac-Mark implication (subtly) then the word “faggot” should land like a cannon ball. It would be the unsaid finally being said.

“Be calm, my brothers and sisters. I am here, here, to help you find love. Love for God. Jesus spoke to me last night, and He said, ‘Zac, just because your balls are broken,’ as in, I can’t have children, He said, ‘just because you’re not a man and your wife has been fucking your best friend...’” Zac turned to me and said, “I knew all along. But I don’t blame you.” He looked at the crowd again. “God said, ‘You still have a purpose on this planet. And it’s to bring people to the Word.’”

My Input: To control the pacing of this long speech, would you place it in the context of the camera-phone’s screen? As the narrator struggles to frame the shot, we’ll be kept aware of her presence and her recording—and her naked finger.

The screen of the camera-phone would also limit the narrator’s awareness. If Zac suddenly vanished, the narrator could scan with the phone, trying to find him, not realizing for a moment that he’d fallen. Do you see how this confusion would give you a couple beats of time and chaos and screams before confirming the worse?

Thus the reader will know Zac has fallen before the narrator has grasped the truth.

I stood there for a moment reflecting on what I was witnessing, my gaze fixed on the horizon. Without a sound, Zac fell over the edge of the canyon. People gasped and immediately rushed to look. One man brave enough to get up close to the edge and lean forward said Zac hit the cliff wall and was probably dead by the time he stopped falling. I hit the ‘Stop’ button on the phone and walked over to where the man was leaning.

When I looked down, I saw Zac’s body on an embankment. He was face up. A single white dove came from around the bend and landed near his feet. It glanced around, walked up to Zac’s splattered head and began pecking at it.
#SingleAgain

My Input: Another tactic would be to look away from the phone and miss the horror—but know it’s recorded. Would the narrator have the strength to rewind and witness the fall and gruesome death? Would she upload the tragedy to social media? Would she text it to Mark? Again, the phone is a great device for accessing past events, but how do you morph the phone’s power into the future. By texting the death to Mark, what would that achieve for your narrator? Would it hurt Mark?

As another option, would you consider throwing the phone over the brink? The phone holds and represents the entire backstory with Zac—the burden—so discarding the phone in Zac’s wake would be a huge gesture for the narrator. And it would resolve another key object. It could form the suicide (Zac) the murder (the phone) and the witness (Aubrey) that feels so satisfying.

As always, a short story—ideally—should explode at the end into a huge new possibility. Your objects, primarily the ring and the phone, are great at bridging to flashbacks. But how can you use the video to imply a sudden, new future beyond the last word of the story? If you’ve built-in a possible unborn baby, how might that inform the ending?

The story shows a very good ability at identifying the purpose of each segment, and making each segment complete that purpose. Each flashback, for example, does its job. A magnificent job at structure.

(end)

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Thanks to Saul for putting his work out this week.

Now for a sea change: I’ll not take the first volunteer in the Comments below. But I will ask a favor.

I’d greatly appreciate it if Commenters would mention the distinctions that have most helped them get a handle on writing fiction. In this forum we look mostly at aspects of Minimalism: Working your objects, Big v. Little Voice, On-the-body, themes/horses, the Horizontal v. the Vertical, choruses, etc.

For me, each of these instantly became a useful tool. Which of these tools did you put to use, and which do you savor using the most?

1. Emotionally and financially valuable. A diamond wedding ring works on both counts.