in 1991, a cash-strapped yugoslav government sold off several former soviet-era artifacts, including many gray-concrete office buildings. one was sold to some developer, who then picked it up, had it transported to my city, placed it on a street corner and opened it for business.
in 2005, i moved into a cube in this former eastern-bloc building.
the end.
***
i was reading a story in the new yorker on the bus ride in this morning, and it centered on infidelity, rape and turkey hunting.
i'm not a "writer," though i do fancy myself good enough to string a few sentences together now and then. it always amazes me that writers find something to write about -- something worth 4,000+ words, because every time i try to star that myself, i am stymied over what, exactly, i can say about something. to me, most things are self evident, or evolve slowly, over time.
so in this story, everyone involved has secrets about infidelity, and over the course of a hunting weekend in michigan, some of those secrets come bubbling out.
being a new yorker story, the protagonist is a manhattanite, married to a actress, and he's in a very unfamiliar territory -- turkey hunting with his macho father-in-law and several of the old man's friends. they've been doing more drinking than hunting, and after the turkey is shot, this exchange happens:
“You don’t like me, do you? You got a problem with me.”
“Jesus, how’d we end up here?” Mr. Jansen said. “Let’s just everybody shut up for a minute.”
Steve said, “There’s key shit Sandy doesn’t know and never will. Stuff about Katrina, and that whole saga, right?” He sniffed and spat through the window. “And yeah, every Friday about eleven, twelve o’clock you could always find Lindy’s car parked outside the massage parlor on Warren. Those Oriental girls, they look like teen-agers until they’re forty, eh Lindy? And you,” he said, turning on my father-in-law. “You—”
“That’s enough, Steve.”
“Hey,” Lindy said.
“And you,” Steve said to me. “You obviously got some kind of fucked-up agenda—”
but we never know what it is, another hallmark of "good" storytelling.
later, after the turkey is brought home and cooked, this exchange:
“Those aren’t bullets, for fuck’s sake,” her husband said. “It’s just shot, No. 6 shot.”
Sandy said, “I like to make believe my turkey was grown on a tree or bush.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t,” Mr. Jansen said.
“You liked that fancy squab in Paris plenty,” Steve said to his wife, working the hypocrisy angle that always seemed to crop up at the end of these discussions. It was as if the interminable debate—men on one side, women on the other—would end only when it swallowed its own tail.
“You owed me that squab,” Sandy said. She was drunker than the rest of us, or less capable of hiding it. “You owed me that squab for fucking Katrina.”
“Sandy,” my wife’s mother said.
“Ten years. Ten goddam years.”
and it all unravels from there. we learn all about everyone's infidelities, including the protagonist's wife, who has been having several affairs for years now, with her milquetoast husband just accepting it. the story ends with him and his wife out in the snow, with some sort of symbolism stuff about him not being close to her.
this story isn't poorly written -- it's very gentle and lilting with its descriptions of winter-time michigan, and some parts of the story ring true, especially when the guys pay someone to allow them to poach on another person's property.
my question: how realistic does the infidelity angle seem? to me, it rings hollow, fake and contrived. not to mention that most people don't talk like they're in an off-broadway drama or woody allen movie ... i might try rewriting this story myself. it'd be fun to try.
