A SUPER GOOD PROJECT UPDATE THAT IS PLEASING TO THE EYE

Well I guess my blogpost STYLE has been called in to question.

More "like prose" is what I've been told I need to make these.

I knew writing limericks was the wrong way to go. Look where it got me.

So here it goes.
or, should I say, here it prose.

We're on the path. We've got some scenes in the works and we have a shape and a direction. Things are looking good. We have one basically complete scene.

What more do you want, Martyn? Johnny?
Prose enough for you?
No?
Well, here's the full text of one of my favorite short stories, A Serious Talk by Raymond Carver. How's that for prose?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VERA'S CAR WAS there, no others, and Burt gave thanks for that. He
pulled into the drive and stopped beside the pie he'd dropped last
night. It was still there, the aluminum pan upside down, a halo of
pumpkin filling on the pavement. It was Friday, almost noon, the day
after Christmas.
He'd come on Christmas day to visit his wife and children. Vera had
warned him beforehand. She'd told him the score. She'd said he had to
be out before six o'clock when her friend and his children were coming for

dinner. They had sat in the living room and solemnly opened the pres-
ents Burt had brought over. Other packages wrapped in shiny paper and

secured with ribbons and bows lay stuffed under the tree waiting for after
six o'clock. He watched the children, Terri and Jack, open their gifts. He
waited while Vera's fingers carefully undid the ribbon and tape on her
present. She unwrapped the paper. She opened the box and took out the
cashmere sweater.
"It's nice/' she said. "Thank you, Burt."
"Try it on," Terri said to her mother.
"Put it on, Mom," Jack said. "All right, Dad," Jack said.
Burt looked at his son, grateful for this show of support. He could ask
Jack to ride his bicycle over some morning during these holidays and
they'd go out for breakfast.
She did try it on. She went into the bedroom and came out running
her hands up and down the front of the sweater. "It's nice," she said.
"It looks great on you," Burt said and felt a welling in his chest.
He opened his gifts: from Vera a certificate for twenty dollars at
Sondheim's men's store; a matching comb and brush set from Terri; three
pairs of socks, and a ballpoint pen from Jack.

HE AND VERA drank rum and coke. Terri looked at her mother and
got up and began to set the dining room table. Jack went to his
room.
Burt liked it where he was—in front of the fireplace, a glass in his
hand, the smell of turkey in the air.
Vera went into the kitchen. Burt leaned back on the sofa.
Christmas carols came to him from the radio in Vera's room. From
time to time Terri walked into the dining room with something for the
table. Burt watched as she placed linen napkins in the wine glasses. A
slender vase with a single red rose appeared. Then Vera and Terri began
talking in low voices in the kitchen.

He finished his drink. A small wax and sawdust log burned on the
grate, giving off colored flames. A carton of seven more sat ready on the
hearth. He got up from the sofa and put them all in the fireplace. He
watched until they flamed. Then he finished his drink and made for the
patio door. On the way, he saw the pies lined up on the sideboard. He
stacked them in his arms, all five, one for every ten times she had ever
betrayed him. He got out of the house with the pies. But in the driveway,
in the dark, he'd dropped one as he fumbled with the car door.

HE WALKED around the broken pie and headed for the patio door.
The front door was permanently closed since that night his key had
broken off inside the lock. It was an overcast day, the air damp and sharp.
There was a wreath made out of pine cones on the patio door. He
rapped on the glass. Vera looked out at him and frowned. She was in her
bathrobe. She opened the door a little.
"Vera, I want to apologize for last night," he said. "I'm sorry I did
what I did. I want to apologize to the kids, too."
"They're not here," she said. "Terri is off with her boyfriend and Jack
is playing football."
She stood in the doorway and he stood on the patio next to the
philodendron plant. He pulled at some lint on his coat sleeve.
"I can't take any more after last night," she said. "You tried to burn
the house down last night."
"I did not."
"You did. Everybody here was a witness. You ought to see the
fireplace. You almost caught the wall on fire."
"Can I come in for a minute and talk about it?" he said.
She looked at him. She pulled the robe together at her throat and
moved back inside.
"Come in ," she said. "But I have to go somewhere in an hour."
He looked around. The tree blinked on and off. There was a pile of
tissue papers and empty boxes at the end of the sofa. A turkey carcass
filled a platter in the center of the dining room table. The bones were
picked clean and the leathery remains sat upright in a bed of parsley as if
in a kind of horrible nest. The napkins were soiled and had been dropped
here and there on the table. Some of the dishes were stacked, and the
cups and wine glasses had been moved to one end of the table as if
someone had started to clean up but thought better of it. It was true, the
fireplace had black smoke stains reaching up the bricks toward the
mantel. A mound of ash filled the fireplace, along with an empty Shasta
cola can.
"Come out to the kitchen," Vera said. "I'll make some coffee. But I
have to leave pretty soon."
"W hat time did your friend leave last night?"
"If you're going to start that, you can go right now."
"Okay, okay," he said.
He pulled a chair out and sat down at the kitchen table in front of the
big ashtray. He closed his eyes and opened them. He moved the curtain
aside and looked out at the back yard. He saw a bicycle without a front
wheel resting on its handlebars and seat. He saw weeds growing along
the redwood fence.
She ran water into a saucepan. "Do you remember Thanksgiving?"
she said. "I said then that was the last holiday you'd ever ruin for us.
Eating bacon and eggs instead of turkey at ten o'clock at night. People
can't live like that, Burt."
"I know it. I said I'm sorry, Vera. I mean it."
"Sorry isn't good enough any more."
The pilot light was out again. She was at the stove trying to light the
gas burner under the pan of water.
"Don't bum yourself," he said. "Don't catch yourself on fire."
She didn't answer. She lit the ring.
He could imagine her robe catching fire and him jumping up from the
table, throwing her down onto the floor and rolling her over and over into
the living room where he would cover her with his body. Or should he
run to the bedroom first for a blanket to throw over her?
"Vera?"
She looked at him,
"Do you have anything to drink around the house? Any of that rum
left? I could use a drink this morning. Take the chill off."
"There's some vodka in the freezer, and there is rum around here
somewhere."
"When did you start keeping vodka in the freezer?"
"Don't ask."
"Okay, I won't."
He took the vodka from the freezer, looked for a glass, then poured
some into a cup he found on the counter.
"Are you just going to drink it like that, out of a cup? Jesus, Burt.
What'd you want to talk about, anyway? I told you I have someplace to
go. I have a flute lesson at one o'clock. What is it you want, Burt?"
"Are you still taking flute?"
"I just said so. What is it? Tell me what's on your mind, and then I
have to get ready."
"I just wanted to say I was sorry about last night."
She didn't answer.
"I think you're right about this vodka," he said. "If you have any
juice, I'll mix this with some juice."


She opened the refrgerator and moved things around. “There's
cranapple juice, that's all."
"That's fine," he said. He got up and poured cranapple juice into his
cup, added more vodka, and stirred the drink with his finger.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she said. "Just a minute."
He drank the cup of cranapple juice and vodka and felt better. He lit a
cigarette and tossed the match into the big ashtray. The bottom of the
ashtray was covered with cigarette stubs and a layer of ash. He
recognized Vera's brand, but there were some unfiltered cigarettes as
well, and another brand—lavender-colored stubs heavy with lipstick. He
got up and dumped the mess into the sack under the sink. The ashtray
was a heavy piece of blue stoneware with raised edges they'd bought
from a bearded potter on the mall in Santa Cruz. It was as big as a plate
and maybe that's what it had been intended for, a plate or a serving dish.
But they'd used it as an ashtray. He put it back on the table and ground
out his cigarette in it.
The water on the stove began to bubble just as the phone rang. She
opened the bathroom door and called to him through the living room:
"Answer that! I'm about to get into the shower."
The kitchen phone was on the counter in a comer behind the roasting
pan. It kept ringing. He moved the roasting pan and picked up the
receiver cautiously.
"Is Charlie there?" a flat, toneless voice asked him.
"N o," he said. "You must have the wrong number. You have the
wrong number."
"O kay," the voice said.
But while he was seeing to the coffee, the phone rang again. He
answered.
"Charlie?"
"You have the wrong number," Burt said. "Look here, you'd better
check your numbers again. Look at your prefix."
This time he left the receiver off the hook.

VERA CAME BACK into the kitchen wearing jeans and a white
sweater and brushing her hair. He added instant coffee to the cups of
hot water, stirred the coffee, and then floated vodka onto his. He carried
the cups over to the table.
She picked up the receiver, listened, and said, "What's this about?
Who was on the phone?"

"Nobody," he said. "It was a wrong number. Who smokes lavender-
colored cigarettes?"

"Terri. Who else would smoke such things?"
"I didn't know she was smoking these days," he said. "I haven't seen
her smoking."
"Well, she is."
She sat across the table from him and drank her coffee. They smoked
and used the ashtray. There were things he wanted to say, words of
devotion and regret, consoling things, things like that.
"Terri also steals my dope and smokes that too," Vera said. "If you
really want to know what goes on around here."
"God almighty. She smokes dope?"
Vera nodded.
"I didn't come over here to hear that."
"What did you come over here for, then? You didn't get all the pie
last night?"
He recalled stacking pie on the floorboards of the car before driving
away. Then he'd forgotten all about it. The pies were still in the car.
"V era," he said. "It's Christmas, that's why I came."
"Christmas is over, thank God. Christmas has come and gone," she
said. "I don't look forward to holidays any more. I'll never look forward to
another holiday as long as I live."
"What about me?" he said. "I don't look forward to holidays either,
believe m e."
THE PHONE RANG again, and Burt was the first to pick it up.
"It's someone wanting Charlie," he said.
"What?"
"Charlie," he said.
Vera took the phone. She kept her back to Burt as she talked. Then
she turned to him and said, "I'll take this call in the bedroom. Would you
please hang up after I've picked it up in there? I can tell, so hang it up
when I say."
He took the receiver. She left the kitchen. He held the receiver to his
ear and listened. But he couldn't hear anything at first. Then someone, a
man, cleared his throat at the other end of the line. He heard Vera pick up
the other phone and call to him: "Okay, you can hang it up now, Burt! I
have it! Burt?"
He replaced the receiver in its cradle and stood looking at it. He
opened the silverware drawer and pushed things around inside. He tried
another drawer. He looked in the sink. Then he went into the dining
room and found the carving knife on the platter. He held it under hot
water until the grease broke. He wiped the blade dry on his sleeve. He
moved to the phone, doubled the cord in his hand, and sawed through
without any trouble at all. He examined the ends of the cord. Then he
shoved the phone back into its comer near the canisters.
Vera came in and said, "The phone went dead while I was talking.
Did you do something to the phone, Burt?" She looked at the phone and
then picked it up from the counter.
"Son of a bitch!" she said. "Well, that does it. Out, out, out, where
you belong." She was shaking the phone at him. "That's it, Burt. I'm
going to get a restraining order, that's what I'm going to get. Get out
before I call the police." The phone made a ding as she banged it down on
the counter. "I'll go next door and call them if you don't leave now."
He had picked up the ashtray and was stepping back from the table.
He held the ashtray by its edge. He was poised as if he were going to hurl
it, like a discus.
"Please," she said. "Leave now. Burt, that's our ashtray. Please. Go
now."
He left through the patio door after telling her goodbye. He wasn't
certain, but he thought he'd proved something. He hoped he'd made it
clear that he still loved her. But they hadn't talked. They'd have to have a
serious talk soon. There were matters that needed sorting out, important
things that had to be discussed. They'd talk again. Maybe after these
holidays were over and things were back to normal.
He walked around the pie in the driveway and got into his car. He
started the car and put it into reverse. It was hard managing until he put
the ashtray down.