by Larry Buhl
I’ve decided to call her mother from now on. BiMo sounds stupid.
My mother did love the ocean, which made me wonder why she ended up in Nevada. She never really explained that one. One time, when we lived near Houston, we took a trip to the coast. It had gotten dark. The sea was calm and the moon cast a beam on the ripples. She said she wanted to walk out on that beam, all the way to the end. I panicked and begged her not to try walking on the ocean, because she would drown. “I wouldn’t really do it,” she said. “Where do you get these ideas?”
We exited the freeway at Baker, California, home of the World’s Biggest Thermometer. Janet said she needed a restroom break and something for her headache. She stopped at a gigantic gas station/restaurant/convenience store. Carl spotted some tourist store across a dusty strip of nothing. There was a green alien head on the store’s sign. He asked if anyone wanted any “alien stuff.”
Janet looked at store’s sign and scrunched up her face in disapproval. “Alien-fresh jerky?”
“They have other things,” Carl said. He turned to me and asked what I wanted.
I felt a tickle in my throat. “Nothing, thanks,” I said, hoarsely.
They got out of the car at the same time. Janet left the keys in the ignition so I could enjoy the A/C and music. Alanis Morissette sang about being thankful, except the lyrics were about things that most people aren’t thankful for, like terror and disillusionment and dangling carrots. Thankful for disillusionment! My mother liked the song as I recalled.
Carl came out of the convenience store, looked at me and gestured toward the alien jerky store. Then he did the goofiest thing. He put his free hand on top of his head and with two fingers made a V while he bulged his eyes out. He was trying to be funny for my benefit, something my mother might have done in one of her better moods.
In the song, Alanis recommended “unabashedly bawling your eyes out.” I wondered whether this might be a message. My mother believed music had subliminal messages. Regardless, I blame Alanis Morissette for what happened next.
I experienced the beginning of one of those uncomfortable emotional swarms. Suddenly, the car was too small. I felt trapped. I couldn’t breathe. I got out and jumped up and down until I disappeared into a cloud of dust. I started coughing. The coughs turned into a chocking sob. For two minutes, maybe three, I bawled harder than I ever remember bawling. Now that I think about it, the words weren’t subliminal. For me, they were more of a command.
The song lyrics hadn’t told me to vomit, but that’s what I felt like doing. I dropped to my knees in the sand and dry heaved for a few moments. When it was clear nothing was going to come up from my stomach, I crawled back into the Lexus and continued crying.
A black SUV pulled up. Its darkened window rolled down. A woman with huge sunglasses stuck her head out and said something. I couldn’t hear. I suspected she was asking if I was all right.
I nodded. She kept staring at me. I mouthed, I’m fine. I aggressively shooed her away. By then I had stopped crying. I was a little peeved at having to explain myself to a stranger. Being peeved felt better. Familiar.
Carl and Janet came back the Lexus at the same, from different directions, as if they had choreographed their arrival. Janet huffed when Carl held up a bag of goodies from the alien jerky store.
“Two kinds of honey and an alien shot glass,” he said.
“Encouraging underage drinking,” she said. “Nice.”
“It’s decorative,” he said. Carl glanced back at me. I had wiped the tears from my face but my eyes must have been puffy.
“Desert,” I said, with a tight throat. “Allergies.”
Janet huffed. “The A/C in here is supposed to have a pollen filter. When this lease is up, I swear…” She didn’t finish her thought because she was merging onto the freeway and there was a long line of fast-moving trucks.
Carl showed me a jar of honey with a label featuring a cartoon space alien. He said it was local raw honey, and a spoonful every day would minimize pollen allergies over time. It’s something my mother might have believed.
I would try the honey. Couldn’t hurt. Bees were amazing, and even though I couldn’t save them, they would probably not go extinct for at least a few years.
“You said the honey has to be local,” Janet said. “That means it only works where it’s produced. He’s going to San Diego.”
Carl looked disappointed, so I lied.
“I read an article,” I said. “The author said the honey is effective if it’s made within three hundred miles or so.”
“That’s great,” Carl said. It was funny how the littlest things made him happy. I made a mental note not to break down for the rest of the trip. I wanted them to enjoy their pseudo-vacation.
Somewhere around Barstow, California, Janet vetoed Carl’s music. She said it was putting her to sleep. The rest of the trip was accompanied by vintage Brit pop. When “Walking on Sunshine” came on, I detected Janet bobbing her head. It was a good song. My mother might have liked it. The title wasn’t the best, because it suggested something scientifically impossible. But I didn’t mind that. The singer seemed very happy. Carl and Janet were not unhappy. And I was, for lack of a better word, fine.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I hope you enjoyed The Genius of Little Things. Please take the time to review it on the various retailers or your favorite blog.
Take a few seconds and visit my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/larrybuhlwriter, and “like” it.
And feel free to let me know what you thought of Genius on my site (http://www.larrybuhlbooks.com), and tell me if there’s anything about the reading experience that could be improved. (I’m thinking of constructive feedback, not something like, “I wish you’d written a mystery instead.” Because I’ve already written a mystery.)
LARRY BUHL
Larry Buhl is a journalist, screenwriter and playwright. He is a long-term contributor to Art & Understanding magazine and Yahoo News. His writing has appeared in Written By, Wired, The San Francisco Chronicle, Liver Health Today, Monster.com, Career Builder, New York Daily News, The Advocate, and others. He has reported for KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles and Free Speech Radio News. His play, Pilgrims, and solo performance piece, Chain of Desire, were produced in Los Angeles. He won the Carl Sautter Screenwriting Award in 1999. He lives in Los Angeles, grew up in Ohio, and was graduated from Northwestern University. The Genius of Little Things is his first novel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There have been many people who have encouraged me as a writer over the years. Here are some who have helped me with The Genius of Little Things in its many iterations.
Gail Hochman
Barney Karpfinger
UCLA Extension
Moose’s Purse
Kate Marciniak
Pamela Alster
Jenn Bray Weber
National Foster Parent Association
My family, and everyone who’s expected big things of me
Also from Larry Buhl
We’re Here to Help
a novel
Megan Armstrong, who supports a hearing impaired son and needy grandfather, needs a job in the worst way.
Then, she lands one—in the worst way.
While interviewing at Surge, Indiana’s only health insurance company, Megan witnesses a bombing that kills several employees. A week later, she’s hired.
As Megan uncovers clues to a potential cover-up, she fears that Surge is more than a rapacious, soulless, behemoth that overcharges for substandard products while grinding down its intimidated employees. Its depravity might be bottomless.
Torn between her need to support and protect her family and the drive to learn the truth about the bombing, Megan is offered a promotion that might put an end to all her fears, permanently.
We’re Here to Help is no ordinary “mom-in-peril fighting an evil corporation in a contemporary dystopia in Indianapolis” story. It is a dark comic mystery about how to serve your fellow man, wh
ile surviving in a world where it’s every woman for herself.
Available spring 2013
Please go to www.larrybuhlbooks.com for more information.
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