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Flannery O'Connor Imitation February 26, 2006 - 1:29:40
Wow, it's been awhile. I'll update you as to what's going on in my creative life before I give you something new to read.
I'm in TWO creative writing classes this semester, which means that I've been so busy writing that I haven't had time to put any of it up here. It's running a poem a week, one of these things that I'm going to put up every other week, and four short stories that have to be done by the end of the semester.
"These things" are little mental exercises that involve writing imitation works of about three pages in the style of a famous author. They're not only a good way to play around with style, they're great for playing around with plot. Condensing plot to three pages and still having it make good sense is a fun task, as you'll see here. This one's based on famous early-1900s authoress Flannery O'Connor.
___________Transition Line_____________
Simon Churchwood stumbled into the sleepy little town late one afternoon. Truthfully, he drove into town in a rusted-out Chevrolet, but it felt more like a stumble. Simon had been in the habit of stumbling into and out of things his entire life-- he had never been quite able to deal with life as it came to him, and rather was forced to stagger from town to town, from situation to situation, always hoping that he wouldn't accidentally stumble into trouble. More often than not, this is exactly what happened to him. Simon's pockets were heavy with the results of his latest misadventure, and the last three towns boasted signs on every corner asking if the populace had seen this man? Simon wasn't in the mood to deal with any new problems. He needed a place to hole up for the night, and no more complications in his already complicated afternoon. Pulling up into the parking lot of a rundown joint affectionately called the “Sundown Motel,” Simon stuffed the money from his pockets under the seat, grabbed the pistol laying on the seat next to him, stuffed it into his pants, buttoned the first button on the tattered suit jacked he was wearing, and left the car.
Inside the motel, a little old woman sat behind the front desk. The woman was probably at least as old as the Sundown Motel, but she wasn't telling. She idly picked her teeth as she leafed through the pages of a beaten-up Gideon Bible. Simon pushed open the door like he meant business and strode inside.
“We don't rent rooms to niggers,” said the little old woman, never looking up from the Bible.
“Pardon me, ma'am, but that seems like an awful thing to say to a man down on his luck,” said Simon. “It's fifty miles to the next town. I don't suppose I could crash on one of the couches in your lobby for the night?”
“We don't let niggers sleep on couches, neither.” The woman dislodged something particularly disgusting from between her teeth and flicked it in Simon's general direction. “Bad for business if a coon's hangin' round when the customers show up.”
Simon grinned nonchalantly. “I notice you're reading God's Holy Scripchers.” He edged a bit closer to the desk and added, “I'm summat of a religious fellow myself.”
“Is that so?” The old woman looked up from the Bible then, for the first time, squinting through heavy spectacles at Simon.
“Why yes, ma'am, I believe in the power of the Almighty God to cleanse the sins of man,” said Simon. “I believe that He has given to his children all the tools needed to purify themselves, and that the most pow'rful of them tools is the Holy Scripchers.” He looked down at the floor solemnly.
“Well, at least yer a proper ed-you-cated nigger,” the old woman said. Her small, sharp eyes darted across his figure. “But we don't rent rooms to ed-you-cated niggers, neither.” She sniffed as if this particular kind of nigger was especially below the esteem of the Sundown Motel.
“God has punished me,” Simon said, seeming to ignore the comment. “He done punished me for the sins I have committed. I am a very dangerous man, ma'am, and it would be best for you to know that. God has punished me, and he is punishing me now.” Simon ground his heel into the floor of the hotel, as if crushing an insect. He continued to stare downward.
“God is punishin' you fer bein' a nigger above his station,” said the old woman. Her voice rasped, and Simon reached into his coat and down to the pistol lodged in his belt-line. “God is punishin' you for bein' a filthy black man in this fine motel. You isn't worth the coat you're wearin'.”
“The Bible says that no man can know the mind of God, ma'am. That's what the Holy Scripchers you're readin' right there say.” Simon's hand clenched on the stock of the gun, and he drew it and pointed it square at the woman's head. “I reckon that means that no woman can know the mind of God, either. You sure don't know what God's punishin' me for, I'll give you that.”
“Oh my Lord!” The old woman's eyes and mouth opened wide, three gaping holes in her horrid wrinkled old face. “Jesus... Jesus.”
“That's right, ma'am,” said Simon. “That's right.”
The woman moved as if to leave her chair, and Simon turned the gun away and fired a neat hole through the clock hanging just behind the woman's head. “I don't think you ought to move, ma'am. God is punishing me for what I done, and you don't know a thing about it. Don't you move.”
The old woman fell down with her head on the Gideon Bible in front of her, cursing and praying and sobbing in the same breath. “Jesus save me,” she gasped. “Save me from this awful man.”
“Don't pray for him to save you from me, ma'am,” Simon said coolly. “Alls I want is a room for the night. Just a room to lay my tired head. You don't need to be saved from me.” He turned the gun and laid the cold barrel against the back of the old woman's skull.
The old woman turned her head, just a fraction, and stared at Simon, peering at him from between the pages of the Bible. “Oh, God, Jesus. You... you're not just some nigger. You're... you're like a prophet of God. A prophet sent to the wilderness. Elijah.”
Simon stared at her intently. His finger closed tight over the trigger of the gun. “I am just a man, the son of a man. I'm no prophet. Just wanderin' the country, gettin' punished for my sins before God.”
“You been sent by God to preach the Word to the lost in the wilderness.” The old woman was crying now, her tears staining the pages of the Gideon Bible. Her wild eyes looked out at Simon. “Jesus. You ain't no nigger at all.”
Simon pulled the trigger, then, and the Gideon Bible ran red with the blood of the old woman. He turned, shook his head, and left the motel to start the long drive to the next town.
- LeBlanc
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