I’m very interested in digital media. The idea of “hypertext” has already been done by writers such as Shelley Jackson (she was an instructor while I was at the New School, though I unfortunately never had a class with her) but I think there is more territory to explore. Indeed there are online literary journals but many of them are only able to publish as often as the print magazines do. It is a goal of mine to eventually add a publishing section to Bookish Us, with the intention of publishing a story per week at first and then more content if/when it takes off. I firmly believe that content rules and the more quality content you can offer a readership, the greater your readership will be. One difficulty I foresee, however, is the ease with which someone can pilfer your work if you post it online. For the unknown bloggers out there who regularly post their writing, I wonder how concerned they are with this; is it something that indeed happens with frequency or are my fears unfounded? I just don’t know.

The publishing elite generally regard print publishing as the only authoritative medium and web publishing as pure vanity. It’s true that anybody can publish on the internet because it costs nothing. Publishing in a journal, however, feels more meaningful because printing costs real money and therefore those who create the journal must be very critical of what they do and do not publish. It makes sense. But if an online journal were to gain a wide readership and provide only quality content, who’s to say it couldn’t be more authoritative than the classical journal? More readers troll the internet and read blogs than subscribe to journals. No, I don’t have facts or statistics to back this up. But honestly, could you argue differently? The internet is a beast and it’s not quieting down any time soon.

So I’ve decided to throw some of my own work up at the request of a friend. This is a piece that I usually read when I do readings; I recently read it at my friend Connor’s reading series Tuesday Funk. It is a short excerpt from my novel, A Fence We Can Climb, a story that I classify as midwestern gothic. My friend and editor, Tom, has told me I should remove this story from the novel but I’m so partial to it and always get such a warm reception with it, it’s very hard for me to kill this darling. I’m beginning to question whether or not this novel will ever see the light of day; it’s a very classical story, almost Biblical and definitely Shakespearean, but I wonder if it offers anything new. The more I construct my second novel, the more I see I’m inspired by Melville and Pynchon and since rereading some Donald Barthelme, I wonder if I should be thinking in a more post-modernist and humorist milieu. After all, I feel my humor is something that classifies me as a person and my writing really hasn’t reflected that.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy this piece. What I really like about this particular excerpt is its question/answer, back and forth storytelling cadence; it is very much indicative of a kid, any kid, telling a story. If you’d like to read more of my unpublished novel, you could always go to the New School MFA library and dig out my thesis (which is nowhere near as good as it has since become). Or you could just offer to publish it. I prefer the latter option.

Also, the crux of this story is true. Thanks to Michael McKeogh for the inspiration.

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Excerpt from A Fence We Can Climb, or The Dog Story.

After shoving the pump nozzle into the mouth of his tank, Gentry lifted the cradle and pushed a large yellow button on the machine. He squeezed the handle on the nozzle and using his forefinger locked it in place with the small length of steel just below the trigger. Hearing the fuel begin to course through the hose and into his pickup, he leaned back against the side of the truck bed and waited.

A young man stepped out of the station and called Gentry’s name. Looking up, Gentry waved and the man approached him.

“Hey there Gentry.”

“Heya Lou.” The two shook hands and smiled. Lou looked just a year or two younger than Gentry, still in school, and he barely had any hair on his face save for a thin strip on his upper lip.

“I’m glad you stopped in Gentry ‘cause I got a fucked up story to tell you.”

“Let’s hear it.” Gentry leaned harder against his truck and put his hands behind his head.

“So you been to my house and you know up behind it there’s that house on the hill, that big white bastard. This old jackoff Smokey lives there; well, he ain’t that much of a jackoff really except for in this story. He’s usually a pretty good guy.”

“I know him.”

“Yeah so this old jackoff’s got this mutt of a dog, real inbred sonnuva bitch, all spotted and lean and kinda nasty. And he lets this thing loose on his property and sometimes it comes down to our property and gets in our garage and tears our trash up out of the bags. Real fucking messy man. And my Dad makes me clean it up so I already hate this dog, you know?”

“We got raccoons that do the same thing,” said Gentry.

“So the other day, a week ago maybe, this dog comes on down to our property and my little brother Michael is out playing in the yard and he sees this dog and wants to pet it, you know? He squares up to pet this dog and the dog squares up to inspect this little kid and Michael reaches his hand out to pet it and this old mutt bites at his fucking wrist. The dog almost bites my little brother’s hand off.”

“Well shit.”

“Tell me about it. So my Dad calls up Smokey and he calls up the cops while my Mom cleans Mikey up. She’s a nurse, you know? And Smokey tells these cops that come on by that Michael provoked it. He says this little five year old kid musta pissed his dumb old dog off because he ain’t never done anything like that before. He’s a good dog, Smokey says. And these fucking pigs buy every bit of it. I mean, course they do. Smokey’s all VFW and he gives money to the sheriff and he’s got one of those support your cops stickers on his bumper.”

“Yeah I know him.”

“Right. So my Dad’s pissed but he’s a reasonable man. After the cops leave he tells Smokey he wants him to put that dog down. Says he’s caused us too much trouble, he fucks with our garbage and now he’s fucking with our family. Know what Smokey says? He says Fuck You. He ain’t putting that dog down. Okay, my Dad says. Keep him on your property. Put up a fence and don’t ever let that bastard come near our property ever again. Smokey says nope. He ain’t doing it.” Lou looked over his shoulder at the station and then looked back to Gentry and scratched his upper lip. “He ain’t fucking doing it.”

“Your dad beat his ass right there?”

“Nope. My Dad’s crazier than that. The next day after work my Dad fries up a pound of bacon for dinner, makes it with lots of butter and oil, real greasy. While we’re eating this bacon and some eggs my Dad is over at the sink with all that left over grease and he’s got himself one of those sponges for washing your car. You know what I mean? Those sponges that’re as big as your foot. Bigger even. You know ‘em?”

“Yep.”

“So he soaks up as much grease as he can into that sponge. This thing is all dripping and brown and it smells great. Over at the sink he’s squeezing it hard and letting all that bacon water drip back into the skillet and then he starts wrapping rubber bands around it. He’s got about a hundred rubber bands in a pile on the counter and he’s just wrapping them around this squeezed sponge so that when he’s done with it the sponge is the size of a hotdog. Then he’s rolling it around in the grease again so that the sponge is soaking up even more of it and when he’s finally done with it he tosses the sponge on a paper plate and sticks it in the freezer.”

“The fuck man?”

“I know I know; just listen. So later that night my Dad sees Smokey let that old mutt out to take a shit or whatever and he goes into the freezer and takes the sponge out and unwraps the rubber bands off it and I’m telling you this thing looks just like a little hotdog. Little and brown and frozen and smelling like bacon. And we go outside and walk up the hill a little and soon as we’re close enough my Dad throws this thing over by where the dog is and we take off back down the hill. And once we’re home my Dad tells me, Lou, set your alarm for sunrise and I do it. Next morning real early we climb up that hill again and laid out there on the grass is that dog and its stomach is huge and right down the middle of its belly the skin is split and dark red and black and dried over and there’s already maggots and worms eating its guts and on the grass by its mouth is a bunch of dried puke with blood and hair in it and it’s obvious this thing was in pain when it died and I could hardly look at it. And you know what my Dad said to me?”

The nozzle clicked off and stopped pumping gas on its own but Gentry didn’t make a move for it. He listened to Lou with his head turned to the side.

“What’d he say?” said Gentry.

“He said Louis, this dog coulda killed your brother and we did the right thing by getting him first. It was painful, yeah, but how do you think your brother feels?”

“That story is pretty fucked up.”

“What’d I tell you?” He grinned. “Oh shit,” said Lou looking back to the station and noticing a customer waiting at the counter. “I gotta go man. Don’t worry about the gas Gentry. I’ll just tell my boss it was a drive-off and I didn’t catch the plates.” Lou reached out and shook Gentry’s hand and ran back to the station pulling his jeans up as he went.