Thread: On the Margin--short story in progress

Pretty choppy. And I had to stop as I lose momentum (have rough first drafts) and need to research things to make them less 2-d. Although I have experience in mental health research.

Could use feedback on:
1. pace/rhythm
2. plot--how I can tighten/untighten
3. other things that need work
4. how it might rank for competitions

Last week, Carl saw G-d two days before he checked into what he told me “classified as a four star hotel.” When I spoke to him before the accident, he told me his small store was really over. He’d closed the doors last month and they just put up the reappropriation signs. I’d wish I could’ve been even as infinitesimally useful as G-d could have been. The good influences are always those that are so unseen they make others think they are functioning on their own. But the economy reared its invisible hand. And Carl had to find a way to get a job. I suppose my own increasingly popular role was to offer plotted lies and pointed truths. I’ve got to see the future, the past and do more than nod and grin in the present. It always seems to be on my head when things go wrong. Perhaps I am confusing heads and consciences.

After Carl had been admitted, the head psychiatrist called me. “Your patient appears to be confused.” He said. “He’s living in some fantasy of luxury. He even thought the pills we gave him were complimentary mints.” Calls like these are implicit cues for my authority. “Why are you giving him pills so soon?” I asked. “He’s gotten himself into a tight spot. Give him time to come around.”

“We know what we see. His cognition is truly impaired.” Of course, my authority is always subject to theirs.
HIPPA prevents me from saying too much about my patients. If I transpose details in my own personal formula and present the truth as something other people need to understand and learn from, I violate neither my code of honesty nor health regulations. Fake names are the most basic start. As with the keepers of the deepest secrets, I have to be creative.

Carl used to sell plants for a living. His shop occupied one of the quieter corners of the main street through town. Often, people would come to him looking for low maintenance plants. More frequently, they’d come or return with their shriveled plants and ask him about redemption and resuscitation. One lady came in with her carnation and literally asked about reincarnation. He sometimes took special requests. Another lady once asked him if he could find some redwood seeds. She said that wildflowers from Northern California presumably didn’t grown in northeast terrain. The town where he worked, we’ll call it Rose, marked a border between the suburban, richer spreads of the state and the more claustrophobic, poorer spaces of the city. There was no backyard where Carl lived for him to test-drive his plants. Instead, he would pot them to create indoor gardens that he moved onto his porch in the spring. After some time, they mysteriously died.

More than five hundred patients had come through my doors. 300 had left. I’d been practicing for 10 years. The easiest problems to deal with were those about passing fears
The first time that Carl came to see me he scoffed at my real and fake plants. My real plants had been propped up with scotch tape so the plants’ branches wouldn’t sag, even though the plant had already lost its healthy elasticity. My fake plants were placed to take attention away from my debatably dying real plants. They were obviously immortal, which, by default, made them an eye sore for those who had good eyes. Asides from Carl, no one really noticed.

Residency was the first time we dealt with what they call really sick patients. These are the patients that have no hope, but whom we have to persuade to have hope. In a record-breaking flood, Rick had lost: the book on Renewable energy that would give him tenure, the belongings that used to remind him of his recently deceased wife, his garden that had taken 20 years to plant and nurture, and his dog that served as his closest relative. The list flowed out of the blank space on the hospital’s symptom intake form. Seeing no prospects for regrowth, Rick had gone to the vast, rushing river and tried to jump. A passer-by on his way home from work spotted Rick edging towards the river with outstretched arms, and tackled him before he could jump. That’s how he found his way to become the subject of our expert care.

During his first sessions, Rick only talked about his dog. He’d tell them how he named her Marjorie after his past wife. Initially, we thought Marjorie was his new platonic woman friend. One of the residents carefully replayed a transposed history.

“Mostly, I took these notes as he talked non-stop. He said, ‘Marjorie had the cutest nose, and the most dazzling eyes, that was what first made me pick her out from the others. She was one fine lady. I could almost hold her in my hand when I first got her. She was one picky lady too! I had to groom her every two days. And make sure I got the chow that had beef in it. It might seem like she was a thankless creature, but she always gave me a goodnight lick on my cheek. Oh yes. Marjorie was the love of my life.”

It then became apparent. “Sometimes I nearly thought I could understand Marjorie. They had this great boutique with clothes in her sizes. “Petit Pooch” it was called. They had everything that looked like my wife’s clothes, except for the evening dresses. But my relationship with Marjorie wasn’t like that.”
I recall remarking how eerily detailed the story was. Everyone laughed.

Weeks passed. Rick continued talking about his dog as the clinicians attempted to counsel him to grieve about other things and to move onto thinking about any kind of future. Like good students, we followed theories. We used Kubler-Ross’ 5 stages of mourning as undying truths, and kept waiting for Rick to become angry with someone. That’s how it went. Somehow you transitioned from disbelief through anger to acceptance. We were the receptacles of emotions. We were the catalysts of beliefs. Or we were supposed to be. Just as Rick was supposed to vent and then have some tiny scrap of hope to hold onto, like a small flicker of a candle on an autumn night.

Some of the older residents would pass on incidentally a tradition that persisted in the hospital. In the break room, the residents would huddle over their lunches and swap stories in between bites. Rick was an endless topic of conversation.
“Maybe like his wife Marjorie barked at him!”
Or, “Is anyone wearing the pants in that relationship?”

Fortunately, I liked to take my walks on the hospital grounds during this time. Comic relief was the medicine we used to stay strong.
The patient happened to poke his head in once to see where his doctor was. Someone was saying something about teaching an old dog new tricks.
Opportunity knocks. He caught the last part and, understandably, it seemed like any universal good joke to break the awkwardness. Rick joined in the undying chorus of laughter before his doctor could get his propriety reflex to propel him into motion. Sometimes I felt like a priest would be better suited for this job.

At least, they call the people who promise to cure you in forty days or less in exchange for sums of cash charlatans. Those who preserved their hearts, through whatever laughter or continuous miracle inspiration, used that word, which I can’t even mention, sparingly. Most sessions were sprinkled with well intentioned words like rehabilitation, recovery, full health, terms that became unexpectedly(unhealthily) subjective.

It is our job to make the subjective objective and then backtranslate to our patients to make our help relevant. The city booted us patients faster than we could get them better. A few who left us had families that put relatives before anything, religion that buoyed them in times of need. Most who left got discouraged that they lacked insurance and we could only see them for so many sessions. Got discouraged by the enormity of things that reared their heads as soon as they got home. Mired in regrets, failed dreams and oppressively hopeless situations, most were dislodged from the present.

Carl began shaking a trowel at the hospital staff. Carl’s girlfriend had rushed him to the hospital and dropped him off as if he were a child going to daycare. He’d been slurring his words and muttering the names of absurd, nonexistent plants. He’d entered the world of wishful thinking, but he wasn’t drunk. So they admitted him to the world of thinking done by someone else.
Just twenty years ago, the city still had those hospitals that lock you up if you’re crazy as if you’re in jail. The walls kept those mentally and emotionally unfit from reminding society that everyone has a little bit of crazy in them. They were quarantined in a place that appeared too antiseptic for extreme feelings of any sort. Sometimes the patients did get out on the cornfields, and most often used these rare moments of freedom to make love in the cornfields out back. Today, mental health hospitals don’t keep you against your will, if your will is even known or knowable.

Carl was being protected against his own will for his own good. Sometimes the patient never knows what’s best for themselves. That’s a stock response. One of the clinicians had edged their way towards Carl and nearly had two of his fingers lopped off as he detoured his attention. Two other clinicians tackled Carl from in back. Carl protested that his girlfriend had stuck him here after a fight over money. “Did you use the trowel on her too?” A concerned clinician insinuated. “For your information,” Carl said, “she took my card, and by now I assume, my remaining money, and told me to plant a new life somewhere. Get it? She’s the one who duped me.” He broke into sobs. A tissue box appeared.

There’s a trick to imagining the future. You’ve got to understand that the past does not define who we are, but that the present is a crossroads where we’ve all landed. You can’t forget history, but that doesn’t mean it has to be proof for an uninspired replica of what’s happened for what has yet to come/happen. That’s why my job is to get people to tell adaptable stories.
The community mental health center where I used to work serviced the second and third generations of families that landed there decades ago. There are adults on welfare, overwhelmed by tending to their elders on disability. Sometimes the adults come in with their children. Sometimes the adults have sacrificed this opportunity to return so their children can have a chance. The children, barely taller than the doorknob, saunter in, fists jammed into pockets, scowls fixed onto their faces, shielding themselves with their indifference and irritation at the world. So, I would ask them to tell me about things like silly bandz and hip hop stars, and they came alive when they could talk about a world apart from here, about something other than themselves. I give them stickers. As they paste a dinosaur or a shark onto their arms, I challenge them to think of the animals that deserve to be rulers in some animal world. Surely, not predators. They spill out tales of fights at school, where they defend some kind of honor. I say “Sometimes words are more powerful than fists.” They ask, “What words?” I say, “Ones that make good points.”

It is important not to generalize. Not all the kids are already violent. I ploy them, “What kind of future do you want? What dreams do you have?” They tell me to have a backyard to play in where the grass is actually green, to have an endless supply of ice cream, to have a hug safe to keep the gangs from fighting.

Kids get in and out of trouble and can transform in a day. Their families move. They move. I lose track of them in the whirl of patients. Whenever I read the newspaper, I make myself forget the names I’m not supposed to remember. But I can’t forget the faces. And stories are too hard to forget. The news is often just repeats of what already was in deceptively different variations.

People come in because they have nothing to lose. Unlike the kids who I never see grow up, I have the regulars. One mother had put her five year old child on welfare because his eyes criss-crossed and he hadn’t talked yet. She told me how her mother had kicked her out of the house after she was raped. And as hard as she tried to make a living waitressing, there was a week every month when she visited the food shelter. She told me how she fixed this steely glare on her face even when small children smiled toothy grins her way. She told me secrets to maintaining dignity. And as she did so, she’d brush her designer coat—“picked from the salvation army bins”—and tell me she’d do anything to give her child a normal life. I’d take notes and nod when it really made more sense for the insurance to pay her instead of me. That look on her face, those words—I think that’s what people mean when they talk about love.
People’s problems are my business. The mental health center thrives when the city brings its woes and gripes through our doors, when it sweeps the pitied and poor out of sight. There used to be more mental health centers. Some of the centers squabbled with us about our taking their patients. We just happened to be in a central location near the gentrified houses and cluster of convenience stores. In this profession, success is married to prolonged symptoms that become problems once they’ve already happened/become visible.
Multiple times my place threatened to fire me for getting too involved with the patients. I’d write off bills. But they knew few people would work for so little.

A church sprouted where the old mental health center used to be. I would watch from the window to catch scenery during lunch hour and I would see guilt and remorse overflow the building as former patients scattered in. There were few that really believed that their souls would be pardoned, but they needed something they could call hope. They were far beyond our help.

Carl eventually was turned loose to his unemployed life. He came a few more times to see me, but there was nothing new I could add other than try and provide some hope. It takes me time to regenerate my belief in opportunity and the goodness of people. After work, I take the bus to the food shelter on the other side of town. I stand in the doors and search for the smiles on people’s faces. There are scowls that could send you off equally as angry. But there are the gentle, guarded still faces, that twitch sometimes with impatience and unused energy. It’s this thing I recognize as determination that makes me think of setting up shop here. Whatever their tough stories, these people continued to believe in something unseen/nonexistent. “Can I help you?” They ask. I shake my head and get on my way.

After my antics, they began to send me the more difficult cases. When the receptionist would read off the names of people I had, she’d widen her eyes and shake her head. I was fine with no disclaimers because I like to form my own first impressions. But I had never really thought about continuously bad impressions and what I would do. I never thought that I could not only be helpless, but that I might also not be able to refuel my hope, that I might kick people out of my practice. They never told me about Alice’s crimes.

Alice looked slightly off. Her makeup was smudged and her hair was frizzed in disarray. When she came in she glanced around in fear. And made it a point of drawing the blind on the window. “Do you know that they could be looking for us here? Have you seen any video cameras?” She asked. “Excuse me, who?” I asked. “Those Iranian terrorist spies,” she said. I just nodded as if I believed her and began to take out my pad. Her file narrated how years ago she’d been at the center because she’d lost her baby during child birth. Then she happily had a second child until she had a spree of shoplifting crimes and decided to send the boy to live with his aunt to have a better life. Through this time she had been a devout woman and it seems the staff who dealt with her encouraged this. One line describing her crimes that sometimes involved significant injury to the shopkeepers, struck me, “she has no remorse.”

“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here Alice?” I asked and motioned for her to sit down. She kept her eyes open, without blinking, for about five minutes as she positioned herself right across from me. I waited for her to take the lead and say something, but she sat there, legs folded, lips pursed, as if she were holding something vital within her. So, we started with the mundane. “Apart from those Iranian spies, how have you been?” There was no answer, so I asked what she was trying to protect.”

“You mean who,” Alice said. “I can’t tell you my secrets.” Alice picked up a pencil and started fake stabbing me. I reached out, grabbed her hand and the pencil pricked my skin. But I continued to keep eye contact and hold her hand with my own that had started dribbling blood onto the carpet. Sighing, I called the front desk. Until they came, we sat hands entangled.
I wondered what could have happened if I could’ve waited longer. There’s a quote that always haunts me as I am ready to point my client to the door, ready to burn the utopia section of the bookstore, ready to give up hope. “Tu entends, tu comprenderas.” If you listen long enough, you will understand. Isn’t it ironic that in America too many silences can be awkward?
From the waiting room, I called Alice’s old contact, her sister. When she finally picked up, I told her her sister was not acting right. She said, “I know. My sister and I haven’t spoken for years. I’m sorry, I can’t get involved. I need to protect the child.” I retorted, “But surely he must miss her?” She said, “When she passed him my way, I decided to not even tell him she existed.”

The staff greeted me with news from the police stations. They told me Alice had threatened a man, now hospitalized, with a knife. The police had already arrived and were beginning to wrestle Alice into handcuffs. I protested, “She’s not well. Can’t you see that? How can you just arrest her like that? What about her story?” An officer responded, “We take people away when they commit crimes.” I said, “She belongs elsewhere. She’ll be unwell there.” He looked at my bloody hand and said, “You should get that looked at.”

Though I went to the shelter afterwards, all the faces looked alike—they looked blank, they looked in need of someone to scrawl on them, something to feel. I wondered how many of these people I had seen, how many had been through our center. It made me wonder how many we could actually help, how many I actually genuinely understood. It made me realize I needed other plans.

I called in sick to work the next day. As if it were a regular day, I got up, dressed and out early. Before I was out the door, I packed a kitchen knife and made sure I had nothing identifying me as a psychologist in my purse.

I went to the grocery store to get some milk and to take care of a few other things. As the cashier was checking me out, before he had time to stop me, I pulled the knife out and pressed it against his neck. “Give me your money and then get down on the floor.” I said. He didn’t ask questions but gave me a strange look. I came in here all the time, he knew me as quiet. The police asked me why I did it as we rode to the station. “Justice,” I said.

Jail was like nothing I had ever experienced before. The women shouted as I walked by. My cellmate growled at me and got ready to throw her fist my way if I touched her stuff without asking. There were rules of so many kinds.

I first saw Alice when she got into a fight with one of the other middle eastern looking prisoners. “You’re spies, you’re spies.” She yelled and gave the woman a black eye. The guards pulled Alice off the other confused prisoner. The other prisoner spit on Alice. Then the guards pulled Alice away to the solitary confinement room where she was for several days.

When we had lunch, I tried to keep to myself. I snuck glances from my food to scope out the people. Many had their faces tightened, and could make limited gestures, as if matching the own limited sentiment they felt. Some looked like they were saving the rare emotions for special occasions.

The director of my mental health clinic came to visit me one day. He had seen an article starring me in the paper. “Have you gone crazy?” He asked. “You know I don’t like that word.” I said. “Still, how do you expect us not to fire you? You’re supposed to be a role model for our patients.” I said, “Is it really that simple? Is it really just that we art holier than thou? Look what happens to our patients.” I gestured around us. He shook his head. “Some problems are bigger than us. We win some, but sometimes we have to admit we aren’t powerful enough to save everyone. And besides, what do you expect to accomplish here?” “Listen.” I said.

Did I post my story in the wrong spot? If so, how might I move it without reposting?

Your first sentence, which in my opinion should be one of your best) was confusing...saw g-d? I think it is a person, not sure. I cleaned it up a bit and shortened your sentences. You have way too many fancy words, hon...keep it simple. And remember, less is more.

When I spoke to him before the accident, he told me his small store was over. He’d closed the doors last month. I wish I could have been more helpful. The good influences are always those that go unseen. But the economy reared its invisible hand and now Carl had to find a job. Fast.

I suppose my own popular role was to offer plotted lies and pointed truths. I’ve got to see the future and do more than just nod and grin in the present. It always seems to be on my head when things go wrong. Perhaps I am confusing that with consciences.

Thanks for your reply. Am I to understand that you found my story confusing and unsuccessful?

No, not at all....just make it flow a little better...I will read the rest when I can...I have just had surgery a few months back and can't sit down for long...please know, I think it could be good....

I am not an expert writer or editor so I am giving you a reader’s perspective and I will simply comment on what I did or did not like.

I have read the story from start to finish and in general I enjoyed reading it. It seems to have a natural flow that gives me the feeling as though I am sitting in a chair opposed the main character who is telling me about his job and his mind if wondering from one thing to the next in a way it would in a ‘normal’ conversation. This gives me a good feel for who the main character is and what his way of thinking is like. I like the way that your words create images in my mind of the lives of the different patients and I can almost see them right there before my eyes.

As far as the plot is concerned… I am not really sure where this story is going. I can more easily imagine this to be the first chapter of a novel, in which the main character is being introduced, than it to be a short story. What is the point of the story? Where do you want to go with it?

I do have to disagree with Terrib as I do actually like the fancy words (and with English not being my first language that sometimes does bother me in other texts) and I don't think your sentences need to be shorter. Certainly not all of them. To me if you shorten it that much it kinda looses the poetic/mysterious feel that some of the sentence have like this one 'The good influences are always those that are so unseen they make others think they are functioning on their own.’


I will go into the first part of the story more specifically to give you an impression of what kind of effect it has on me as a reader. I will only do a small part of it as it takes quite a bit of time for me to do. Let me know what you think.

“Last week, Carl saw G-d two days before he checked into what he told me “classified as a four star hotel.” I actually did like this first sentence, even though it confused me too. What I liked about it was that it made me feel curious about what it was referring too. When I realized (on reading the next paragraph – After Carl had been admitted) that it was referring to him being hospitalized into a psychiatric institute I went back to the first sentence and it gave me a ‘oh, that is what it was about’ smile. As a reader I like that feeling. What I did wonder about was ‘G-d’. Why did you not simply write God? You were referring to God, right? That part annoyed me, because although I enjoy puzzling about what a sentence if referring to, I don’t enjoy having to read it again simply because I don’t get a word. It pulls me out of a story when I want to be pulled in.

‘When I spoke to him before the accident, he told me his small store was really over. He’d closed the doors last month and they just put up the reappropriation signs’ Before what accident? Do you mean before he was admitted? Did he have an accident before he was admitted? Although I like puzzles, this seems to be a puzzle I don’t get an answer to and these two lines don’t seem to flow very nicely from the first one.

‘I’d wish I could’ve been even as infinitesimally useful as G-d could have been. The good influences are always those that are so unseen they make others think they are functioning on their own.’ I do like this idea of him wishing he could have been as useful in the way that he believes God could have been and I love the second line. I don’t really get from this bit though what it is he thinks God could have done to be useful.

‘But the economy reared its invisible hand. And Carl had to find a way to get a job. I suppose my own increasingly popular role was to offer plotted lies and pointed truths. I’ve got to see the future, the past and do more than nod and grin in the present. It always seems to be on my head when things go wrong. Perhaps I am confusing heads and consciences.’ This part seems okay with me. It shows the limitation he feels in his job and how they don’t match with what he feels he ought to do.

‘After Carl had been admitted, the head psychiatrist called me. “Your patient appears to be confused.” He said. “He’s living in some fantasy of luxury. He even thought the pills we gave him were complimentary mints.” Calls like these are implicit cues for my authority. “Why are you giving him pills so soon?” I asked. “He’s gotten himself into a tight spot. Give him time to come around.”’ I love this part. I have worked in the psychiatric setting myself as a psychologist in training and these lines created a real feel for me of what these kind of conversations are like. The same goes for the first lines in the next paragraph ‘“We know what we see. His cognition is truly impaired.” Of course, my authority is always subject to theirs.’

‘HIPPA prevents me from saying too much about my patients. If I transpose details in my own personal formula and present the truth as something other people need to understand and learn from, I violate neither my code of honesty nor health regulations. Fake names are the most basic start. As with the keepers of the deepest secrets, I have to be creative.’ Sorry, but what is HIPPA (maybe it’s just me not being from a different country and this is a normal concept to others)? What are you trying to say in this part? Is Carl explaining this and if so is he speaking directly to the readers? Or are you? I love the last line ‘As with the keepers of the deepest secrets, I have to be creative.’ It has a mysterious feel to it.

Thanks to both of you for your replies. Writing G-d is old habit since I used to go to a very religious school and we did not write God's name for any reason whatsoever.

I guess where I am really having trouble with much of my writing is in coming up with a plot not dominated by backstory. Plot has always been my weakness. I've been good at hiding this behind images and sentences such that I've gained success in HS writing. To move on, I know I have to work on these issues.

So, I had two more general questions that perhaps I'll look for answers to in other parts of the forum.

1. I am always afraid of losing my voice in writing. I create this through the cadences of my paragraphs. When I don't have that, my writing seems plain. I wonder if anyone else has encountered this and how they've dealt with it.

2. I'm working towards thinking more in terms of short story plots. But find that they lose the power they had when not in backstory. Does anyone have any tricks for thinking in terms of scene sequences and series rather than isolated moments?

I don't see this as a plot story, but as a picture story, if there is any such thing. The experienced fiction hands maybe can explain what I think I mean, which is tha you have painted a picture in precise detail. I don't see that it needs to go anywhere. There are some issues with number and usage, but nothing a good copy editor could not clean up quickly without touching the story itself.

I'm reminded of a line from an old movie, something about 'crazy is contagious'. That's the picture you paint.

Overall a good read.