{"id":844,"date":"2012-06-27T14:00:40","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T21:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/fiction\/?p=844"},"modified":"2012-06-27T14:00:40","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T21:00:40","slug":"toy-chests-an-excerpt-from-trawling-oblivion-a-novel-by-eric-beeny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2012\/06\/27\/toy-chests-an-excerpt-from-trawling-oblivion-a-novel-by-eric-beeny\/","title":{"rendered":"Toy Chests, An Excerpt from Trawling Oblivion (a novel) by Eric Beeny"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clipping his nose hairs, Merrill imagines he\u2019s disarming a bomb, telling himself in the mirror, \u201cDon\u2019t cut the blue wire.\u201d
\n     In the shower, Merrill puts his head against the tile wall beneath the shower head, the water spraying down his neck and back. He looks at his penis. He puts his ankles together, spreads his feet a little, making his penis look like a butterfly with feet for wings, toes for feathers. Butterfly feathers. \u201cWhere will you go?\u201d he says. \u201cTake me with you.\u201d
\n     Like tourists they drive around the city they live in, looking at things, taking pictures of them, of themselves near those things.
\n     They drive down to the marina, take pictures of themselves by the rocks, by the ice cream and hot dog stands, by the naval memorial\u2019s decommissioned battleship and submarine docked in the harbor\u2014however many people they killed\u2014, by the seagulls pecking bread crumbs they tossed, by the lighthouse.
\n     They go to Rosa\u2019s pre-school, Merrill\u2019s, take pictures of themselves near the signs out front.
\n     They drive past the baseball stadium, neither of them at all impressed by or interested in sports, take pictures of themselves with the team mascot, a man wearing a striped jersey over a bison costume\u2014the jersey number, Merrill\u2019s age.
\n     They drive past the Memorial Auditorium as it\u2019s being torn down, where the hockey team used to play, imagining the view from the offices of the HSBC tower across the highway, the crane claws tearing the stadium down like a bomb going off in slow motion (thankfully, all those people made it out in time), never really exploding\u2014a gaping wound, infected, getting worse.
\n     They drive past a tax services office and a woman stands outside dressed as Lady Liberty, silver-green paint on her face, in her hair, the crown, the torch, all of it.
\n     \u201cWant to take a picture with her?\u201d Merrill says.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cNo.\u201d
\n     \u201cHow come?\u201d
\n     \u201cShe might grab me and never let go.\u201d
\n     Merrill hugs Rosa tightly.
\n     The building Rosa, her sister Amelia, and their parents live in before their parents buy a house is tall. Eight stories. They live on the top floor, fourth apartment.
\n     The elevator is scary. One day, Rosa gets her finger caught in the elevator door as it closes. Her father helps her get her finger free.
\n     Rosa\u2019s fingernail gets all black and purply and begins to slide off her finger, slowly. It comes off one day before school. Her finger looks weird without it. \u201cGross,\u201d Amelia says.
\n     At the bus stop, Rosa and Amelia wait in a vacant lot where a house was torn down years before they were born.
\n     Amelia says, \u201cGross,\u201d over and over. Rosa throws a rock at Amelia. The rock hits Amelia in the back and she falls. The bus comes as Amelia runs away, crying.
\n     Rosa watches Amelia run away, screaming for their father. The bus waits with its doors open. Rosa looks at the inside of the bus, at the driver.
\n     She doesn\u2019t ever want to go back home.
\n     Rosa and Merrill run next door to Rosa\u2019s backyard, and into the little plastic Fisher Price house. The little plastic Fisher Price house is white and the little plastic Fisher Price front door is blue.
\n     Inside the little white plastic Fisher Price house, sunlight squeezes through small, empty windows. The warm air feels hard and hollow, smells like plastic.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cOkay, you\u2019re my husband, and I\u2019m your wife. We\u2019re happily married, and we love our daughter.\u201d
\n     \u201cOkay,\u201d Merrill says. \u201cWhere is she?\u201d
\n     Rosa says, \u201cI\u2019m still pregnant.\u201d
\n     \u201cOh,\u201d Merrill says, scratching his head.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cI\u2019ll go to the hospital and have her. You wait here, and I\u2019ll be back.\u201d Rosa runs out the little blue plastic Fisher Price front door and across the yard into her bigger, real house. Merrill stands and waits in the little white plastic Fisher Price house.
\n     Every room Merrill stands in feels like a broken elevator. Lying in bed, Merrill begins to feel his DNA is made of barbed wire. He picks up a book, reads the word Shakespeare and thinks it says Speakerphone. Merrill takes his glasses off.
\n     Merrill feels like a twenty-nine year-old trapped in a thirty year-old\u2019s body. The older he gets, the more ape-like his hands. He looks out the window. The driveway is covered in bright green moss, like a toxic spill.
\n     The roof is covered in thick, furry, bright green moss like some grinch using itself as a blanket, the moss erupting in tufts beneath the shingles, curling around the shingles like muppet fingers around the lids of coffins, prying them open from inside. Maybe not coffins, Merrill thinks. Something more cheerful. Toy chests. Grinches emerging from all the roof\u2019s little toy chests.
\n     12:01am, January 1st. Rosa says, \u201cHappy Belated New Year.\u201d Merrill holds Rosa\u2019s hand crossing the street. They order food in a restaurant. Rosa says, \u201cI like how this tastes.\u201d She\u2019s eating octopus. Merrill looks at her food.
\n     \u201cIf I was the cook,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019d amputate all the octopus\u2019s arms and nail its body to a telephone pole.\u201d
\n     Rosa says, \u201cWhat?\u201d Her lip trembles. She thinks, I\u2019m going to die of prolonged youth.
\n     \u201cI\u2019d spray-paint it red and write the word STOP in whiteout across its belly.\u201d
\n     At home, Merrill shaves Rosa\u2019s legs in the bathtub. Rosa watches Merrill\u2019s face concentrating. Her mouth smiles. Merrill shakes the razor in the water, taps it against the tub, the foam from the cream dissolving into the warm water Rosa soaks in like marshmallows in hot chocolate.
\n     Merrill stands in the little white plastic Fisher Price house. He looks around. There is a little white plastic Fisher Price refrigerator, a little green plastic Fisher Price sink, a little red plastic Fisher Price stove and some plastic Fisher Price cupboards, all yellows, pinks, and blues.
\n     There are stuffed animals everywhere. The floor is made of grass. The grass goes up past Merrill\u2019s ankles because Rosa\u2019s dad can only take the lawnmower around the little white plastic Fisher Price house, like walking a dog.
\n     The little blue plastic Fisher Price front door swings open, and Rosa comes in holding a little cloth doll with a peach-colored plastic head and thick, brown strands of yarn for hair. Its eyes are blue, which match neither Merrill\u2019s nor Rosa\u2019s eyes.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cHere she is.\u201d She holds the doll up by one of its arms, the doll\u2019s other arm and legs flopping around as she shakes it.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cYou go outside. You\u2019ll be at work, and I\u2019ll stay here raising our daughter.\u201d
\n     \u201cOkay,\u201d Merrill says. He goes outside and closes the little blue plastic Fisher Price front door behind him. He looks up at Rosa\u2019s real house. It is big and has gray vinyl siding. There\u2019s a chimney, but no fireplace inside.
\n     Merrill sees Rosa\u2019s dad in the kitchen window. Rosa\u2019s dad gets a glass of water from the kitchen sink, sips from it. He looks out the window at Merrill, and walks away from the window. Merrill looks at the grass in the yard around the little white plastic Fisher Price house. It\u2019s short.
\n     An ambulance drives past the house with its siren on. Ice cream truck, Merrill thinks. He\u2019s suddenly overwhelmed by a vague sense that everything is going to be okay. It scares him to death.
\n     Merrill puts his glasses on, sits up in bed. It feels like Thursday. Not even Thursday. Sometimes, Thursday feels like other days. If Thursday could be any other day and still exist, Thursday, and, by extension, all other days, would disappear. It would never be Thursday. Thursday must only be Thursday.
\n     We need things to rely on, things that mean nothing without our desire to define them. We need things to name, things that need names. We are nothing without things to call things. All purpose is plucked from the arbitrary.
\n     Rosa walks into the bedroom where Merrill is lying in bed writing in a notebook and says, \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d
\n     \u201cTrying to quantify how many of my misconceptions might be true,\u201d Merrill says.
\n     Rosa lies down beside him, rubs her cheek against his arm. Her cheek itches. She says, \u201cProbably the worst way to discover you\u2019re allergic to something is to have an allergic reaction to it.\u201d
\n     \u201cWe\u2019re not getting a dog,\u201d Merrill says. \u201cThey only love you because they\u2019re hungry, and people want to believe it\u2019s real love so they pretend to themselves they\u2019re loved by someone to feel less alone, and they feed the dog.\u201d
\n     Rosa says, \u201cHow is that not the case with us?\u201d She reaches over him, turns off the lamp. Merrill continues writing.
\n     \u201cDid you know,\u201d Merrill says, \u201cthat a gallon of gas is cheaper than a small hot chocolate at McDonald\u2019s?\u201d
\n     Rosa pulls the blanket over her shoulders, curls her legs, puts one hand under her pillow and the other between her legs, moves her head around on the pillow, yawns, says, \u201cWhat the hell is McDonald\u2019s?\u201d
\n     \u201cThere are so many McDonald\u2019s products I\u2019ve never tried,\u201d Merrill says. \u201cI\u2019m almost thirty and I grew up on three things. I\u2019ve really only ever eaten three things.\u201d
\n     \u201cWhat do you want for dinner?\u201d
\n     \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever really been hungry.\u201d
\n     Rosa yells, \u201cOkay,\u201d from inside the little white plastic Fisher Price house. \u201cYou can come home from work now.\u201d
\n     Merrill opens the little blue plastic Fisher Price front door and goes into the little white plastic Fisher Price house. \u201cHi, honey\u201d he says.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cWhere\u2019ve you been?\u201d
\n     \u201cAt work,\u201d Merrill says.
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re always at work. When are you going to come home on time and start helping me take care of our baby?\u201d
\n     Merrill goes to the little white plastic Fisher Price refrigerator and opens it. He pulls something out, something that isn\u2019t really there, something neither Rosa nor Merrill can see. Merrill holds it in his hand.
\n     \u201cYou\u2019re the one who wanted me to go to work,\u201d Merrill says. He cracks a tab on the invisible thing in his hand, makes a ppsshh sound with his mouth and brings the invisible thing to his lips. He pretends to drink from it.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cBecause we need things, Merrill. We need food and things for the baby, for our daughter. We need this house.\u201d
\n     \u201cWhat\u2019s her name?\u201d
\n     \u201cYou don\u2019t know her name? Your own child?\u201d
\n     \u201cLook, you\u2019re being silly. Can\u2019t we just forget this whole thing and make up?\u201d
\n     \u201cYou are so selfish. You think everything\u2019s about you.\u201d
\n     \u201cCan I hold the baby?\u201d
\n     Rosa says, \u201cYou\u2019ll probably drop her.\u201d Rosa turns her body around, her head still partly facing Merrill.
\n     \u201cNo, I won\u2019t,\u201d Merrill says.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cYou\u2019re not responsible.\u201d
\n     \u201cAm, so.\u201d
\n     \u201cI want you to leave.\u201d
\n     \u201cBut, I thought we were playing,\u201d Merrill says.
\n     Rosa says, \u201cI\u2019m not playing anymore.\u201d
\n     What day is this, Merrill thinks. He\u2019s just woken up. He doesn\u2019t know what to do. He has no energy to get out of bed and brew the decaf.
\n     He thinks, You have no choice\u2014you have to make a decision. Merrill walks into the kitchen.
\n     Merrill pours the milk into his cereal. The milk is almost empty, only a few dribbles left. He puts the empty gallon jug on the counter near the sink, goes back to the fridge and opens the new gallon of milk.
\n     He holds the gallon over the cereal bowl, afraid to pour it in, afraid to mix the two different milks together. He takes a deep breath, prepares himself for the possibility that, when the two different milks touch, they might explode.
\n     
\n\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013
\nEric Beeny <\/strong>(b. 1981) is the author of The Dying Bloom<\/em> (Pangur Ban Party, 2009), Snowing Fireflies<\/em> (Folded Word Press, 2010), Of Creatures<\/em> (Gold Wake Press, 2010), Milk Like a Melted Ghost<\/em> (Thumbscrews Press, 2011), Pseudo-Masochism<\/em> (Anonymosity Press, 2011), How Much the Jaw Weighs<\/em> (Anonymosity Press, 2011), and Lepers and Mannequins<\/em> (Eraserhead Press, 2011). His website is Dead End on Progressive Ave<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clipping his nose hairs, Merrill imagines he\u2019s disarming a bomb, telling himself in the mirror, \u201cDon\u2019t cut the blue wire.\u201d      In the shower, Merrill puts his head against the tile wall beneath the shower head, the water spraying down his neck and back. He looks at his penis. He puts his ankles together, spreads his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}