Specimens from My Midwestern Life, Slides 1-5

 "I am an Eve in this northern garden"

                Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, "Philly in the Light"

As the semester has gotten away from me and prevented my original plan of steadily posting book reviews and literary commentary on this blog, I have instead begun collecting these snippet pieces of flash fiction from daily life here in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, a Midwest in which I live and to which I often wonder if I do, can, or will belong. 

Here I present the first five slides for this speculum of driftless Midwestern life, as told from the queer perspective of this Southern flower following the movements of his particular sun (and I don't hate [Wisconsin], I don't hate it I don't hate it I don't hate it). Oofta, y'all. 

#1—Bar, 9/16/2020

 So, I'm sitting at the bar tonight. A guy comes in, mid-40s, khakis and button-up, a little rumpled, like Willy Loman before he goes home to his loving kids. He strikes up a conversation; he's a high school science teacher near Madison. Kids these days. Oh, you work at Platteville? What do you teach?

 I tell him I'm an English professor. He starts telling me about how he read Flannery O'Connor in high school and Lord of the Flies, "A Rose for Emily," and do I think kids are prepared for college and do I just have to dumb down everything for them?

 I mention I study Faulkner. He explains how he really loves Vonnegut, which leads him to explain how when he was younger he was at this bar and the bartender was hot . . . at which point he starts using feminine pronouns for this hot bartender and continues ranting about books that he seems to think are important and are all by white guys, except O'Connor. I manage to get in a word or two, that I study southern lit. I've written a book on Faulkner actually.

 He keeps going, finally explains how, "You know, we all turn into Willy Loman" and gives me that smile of solidarity among men or whatever.

 And I look back at him, and say, "Well, or Blanche Dubois."

 And he doesn’t get it. He just keeps smiling that pathological smile of solidarity, keeps on insisting we are all Willy Lomans. Finally, his pizza is ready; he finishes his Bud Light and leaves.

 I fucking hate Arthur Miller.

 

 #2—Porch, 9/19/2020

 It is a cool Fall evening in Platteville, Wisconsin, in the state that supposedly supplied the most troops to the Union army in the Civil War. I'm drinking my Evan and Sprite on my wraparound porch and watching YouTube videos because I am classy. It is not quite 11:30.

While texting friends who live in Arkansas and North Carolina, I hear a loud crash, the distinctive sound of cars colliding at high speed. I live two blocks from Water Street, which is also a state highway, which is also a few blocks north of Historic 2nd Street and all the bars.

 Whatever has happened, it has happened there.

 I sit my drink down on the porch table I inherited from a friend. I sit my computer beside it. I rush down Madison to Water. As I do, I hear a car driving through the roundabout clearly dragging its bumper as it flees the scene. While I do not see the car, I make a note of what I've heard and what direction it sounds like it is going.

 A block down Water towards downtown, a car is across the road, completely shattered.

 However, by the grace of God, it was just parked on the road and empty when it was hit. No one is injured. The police are arriving. Several folks have come out to see what has happened, many have called the cops. I immediately tell the officer that the other driver headed north dragging their bumper. A second police car rushes north to track them. Others verify what I've said.

 At which point I look at the house that this now shattered car was parked in front of. It is plastered with Trump/Pence signs. The owner of the shattered car walks out to talk to the police officer.

 He is wearing matching stars-and-bars sweatshirt and shorts. He had been sleeping when the crash occurred.

 And I think, "OMG, it's Miss Rachel Tension and I've just stepped into To Wong Fu!" because that is easier than thinking, "@#$%^&%$@*@#*%" which is what actually crossed my mind.

 

#3—Bar, 10/24/2020

 And he walks into the bar and bears hugs me and says, “I’m in a wedding. And they were like, ‘we’ve got coke!’”

 So I make the obvious joke: “Oh, it’s like all those parties I went to in Mississippi in my youth.”

 And he hugs me tighter. The night had started out around 8 with pizza and beer while the Badgers played. By morning, we will all be kings and the world will be perfect.

 “Bohemian Rhapsody” comes on the jukebox. Planets align in the driftless stretches of Wisconsin tonight.

 

#4—Parking Lot, 11/1/2020

 So yeah. That moment when you pull up to Wal-Mart and have no sooner opened your door—still in the parking lot—when you hear the married couple getting out of their car next to yours talking about somebody at her work or something and the first words you hear are “f*g f*g f*g” and so you remember that right now those usually simmeringly anti-gay microaggressions from your own work that have been going on a debauch lately towards macro toxicity levels and LGBTQ+ rights are again on a ballot for an election in two days that may or may not lead to wholesale fascism in a country that also locks kids in cages and gasses protesters and shoots unarmed people in addition to not being too keen on queer identities even if we don’t make the first story on the news.

 So you walk up and down the cookie aisle for 10 minutes, leave without groceries for the week, and find yourself wanting to explain to people “this is why I sleep so much right now” because if it wasn’t already too much then it started to feel like too much when today of all days I had to hear that word one time in the Wal-Mart parking much less three times in a row and, so, for today at least, I’m done.

 

#5—Bar, 11/14/2020

 When you are sitting at the bar on a very slow night. And then the farm boys come in. And they are lit. And for about 30 minutes it’s a party even if the Badgers game is sort of boring. But one of the farm boys gives you that look. And that’s okay ‘cause you had already been giving him that look. And he looks. And you look. And he looks again. And you still lookin’. And you are like, hey. And he’s like, I’m here with these guys. And you are like, I know. And he’s like, cool. And you are like, I’m here a lot. And he’s like, uh, yeah. And you are like, just saying. And he’s like, “What’s the score of the Badgers game?”

 And they leave to go to the next bar. And nothing was said except that thing about the Badgers game. But the whole conversation really did take place in about three seconds of gestures with eyebrows and innuendo. Just another Saturday night.

To be continued . . .