Gravity Changes
Page 14
The artist progressed through space shuttles and submarines, limousines and motorcycle sidecars, garbage trucks and the Disney World monorail, until she couldn’t think of any more vehicles.
Next she drew a port-a-john in the plane’s place. Inside, though you couldn’t see through the plastic walls, a woman hovered herself over the toilet seat, skirt hiked and bunched in her hands, never letting her flesh graze any surface, the thin stream of urine and the soles of her shoes the only things to connect her to the port-a-john at all. Then there was a closet, ripped right out of the house it came from, the bare wood of the joists exposed, electrical wires dangling. A child hid inside, pressed into the corner, draped by his hanging clothes. In the nonexistent rest of the house, the sound of his parents’ yelling, the concerned, persistent yip of their small dog, the slamming of doors.
The artist drew coffins like flocks of birds.
Sleeping bags like swarming insects.
She drew her own apartment, and inside the window, which used to overlook the Towers, she drew herself at her desk drawing that very picture of her apartment.
Without meaning to, the artist gradually let her drawings approach the Tower. The first object to impact, to mark a starburst of shatter on the Tower’s silver façade, was a Victorian mansion like the ones in the town where she grew up. Painted pink and cream, the house reminded her of a birthday cake.
Another house collided more deeply, shattering windows and sending down a rain of shards. Next came a Walmart, crumpling like a cardboard box while steel and glass exploded around it. The Chrysler Building met its fate, the art deco top the only part still intact. The Space Needle was completely destroyed. It could have been any building at all.
One time a coal mine, just a huge hunk of rock, tunnels hidden within.
A McDonald’s playground, bursting like bright plastic confetti.
Pregnant women, giant-sized and stories tall, rendered in gory splatter.
After months of drawings, the artist ran out of objects that contained people. She’d hurled every vehicle, building, tent, tree house, article of clothing, room, wagon, hut, and hovel. She’d inked caves, tunnels, prison cells, showers, tubes, the undersides of bridges, shipping containers, crates, and cribs. There was only one thing left she hadn’t drawn, the one thing she knew she shouldn’t: the other Tower.
This collision wasn’t like the rest. She let it happen slower, so instead of exploding, the structures mashed, starting at met corners, grinding away. The energy of the collision spent itself at the midpoint, and the two halves aligned. To anyone looking, it seemed like only one Tower standing there, waiting for the second plane.
2
There were several technical difficulties in constructing a skyscraper completely out of pillows, but the architect was adamant and his reputation great enough that no one would openly oppose the plan. When it was finished, the Pillow Tower rose to a thousand feet and contained over a million pillows. No one could go inside, of course, but everyone came just for a look. The most common comment from those who first beheld it: It makes me feel sleepy.
When the storm came, the Pillow Tower absorbed the rain and became so heavy it could no longer support itself. It toppled, shedding pillows from all sides across whole city blocks. Even wet, they were just pillows, and no injuries were reported.
3
The children watched the news like everyone else. To the boy, the smoke looked thick and solid, like a black snake slithering out of the hole in the Tower. The girl was younger and had no grasp of the size of what was happening. Everything was exactly as big as it appeared on TV. The Towers could fit easily in her hand.
The games the children played changed after that. First, it was soldiers and terrorists. The boy, brandishing a crooked stick for a gun, made the girl pretend to be a terrorist as he hunted her around the yard. When they played with other children, no one else wanted to be a terrorist, so the girl was always the one being chased, alone by herself. Sometimes the other children called her Osama, sometimes nasty phrases they’d heard their parents use. The little girl got good at running and nobody could catch her anymore.
The boy introduced a new game called Towers. He would step up to one of the other children and push them. The trick was to fall with your arms held tight to your sides, though anyone who tried smacked their head against the ground. The boy mastered the game first. He would arch his body like the rocker on a chair, toppling at the lightest push and rolling back from his thigh to shoulder, barely bumping his head.
It took the other children longer, but they figured out the technique, too. The girl, however, refused to play. She thought the way that her brother fell was nothing like the way a tower would. A tower couldn’t curl itself. A tower had no head to cushion.
One Saturday after morning cartoons ended, several of the children lingered in the living room, trying to think of something to do. The boy suggested Towers. No one else really wanted to play. The fun of it had been in learning how to fall, and now that everyone could do it, what was the point? Not everyone can do it, said the boy, pointing at the girl. The girl said she didn’t want to.
Come on, Osama. Are you scared? The way he said it was mean, the ess hissed between his teeth and the final A bit off at the end. To the girl, there was a difference between being scared and not liking the game, but she also didn’t like being called names. I’ll be the Tower, she said, and stood upright in the middle of the room.
The boy shoved her, too hard, and instead of simply tipping she lifted off the ground. She kept her body straight and rigid, like she was rodded through with rebar. Her head hit the corner of the coffee table and she lost consciousness.
After that she stopped being able to remember new things. When she wakes up every morning, her last memory is the moment her feet lost contact with the floor, the air the only pressure on her skin.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Bitter Oleander: “Unlearn to Seek”;
Black Warrior Review: “Children in Alaska”;
The Brooklyn Review: “Gravity Changes”;
Caketrain: “A Tinkle Is the Sound of Two Things Meeting but Failing to Merge”;
Cold Mountain Review: “The Loneliness of Large Bathrooms”;
The Conium Review: “The Eating Habits of Famous Actors” and “Sleeping Bears”;
Forklift, Ohio: “My 9/11 Story”
Hotel Amerika: “Cockpuncher”;
Outlet Magazine: “This Next Song”;
PANK: “Extispicy”;
Phoebe: “Little Gray Moon” and “Use Your Spoon”;
Pindledyboz: “The Tunnels They Dig”;
Quiddity: “Joan Plays Power Ballads with Slightly Revised Lyrics”;
Red Bridge Press Anthology of Writing That Risks: “When as Children We Acted Memorably.”
Hugs all around for the crew at Seersucker Live: Christopher Berinato, Brian Dean, Joseph Schwartzburt, Erika Jo Brown, B.J. Love, Gino Orlandi, Alexis Orgera, Ariel Felton, and Jenny Dunn.
The coffee is on me at Gallery Espresso, where I sat for untold hours and wrote almost everything in this book.
High fives to the Peacock Guild Writers Salon at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home, especially Alison Niebanck, Brennen Arkins, Jessi-Lyn Curry, Christy Hahn, and Paul Byall.
Firm handshakes to those who offered feedback along the way: Ariane Simard, Karen Russell, Aimee Bender, Michael Lowenthal, and the editors of the journals where these stories were first published.
A toast to these other supportive people: Catherine Killingsworth, Thomas Calder, J. R. Saylor, Billie Stirewalt, Aaron Devine, Joni and Chris at The Book Lady Bookstore, Traci Lombardo, Lindsay Chudzik, and Peter Conners and Jenna Fisher at BOA Editions.
Love to the whole family, and to that most significant of others, Stephanie Grimm.
And in memory of Jeremy Mullins and Kirk Lawrence, the two best creative collaborators a person could hope for.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zach Powers
splits his time between Savannah, Georgia, and Fairfax, Virginia. His prose has appeared in such journals as Black Warrior Review, The Conium Review, Forklift, Ohio, PANK, and Caketrain. He is the co-founder of the literary arts nonprofit Seersucker Live. His writing for television won an Emmy, and he writes about arts and culture for Savannah Morning News. Visit his website at ZachPowers.com.
BOA EDITIONS, LTD. AMERICAN READER SERIES
No. 1
Christmas at the Four Corners of the Earth
Prose by Blaise Cendrars
Translated by Bertrand Mathieu
No. 2
Pig Notes & Dumb Music: Prose on Poetry
By William Heyen
No. 3
After-Images: Autobiographical Sketches
By W. D. Snodgrass
No. 4
Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry
By Stephen Dunn
No. 5
To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry
By W. D. Snodgrass
No. 6
You Alone Are Real to Me: Remembering Rainer Maria Rilke
By Lou Andreas-Salomé
No. 7
Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee
Edited by Earl G. Ingersoll
No. 8
I Carry A Hammer In My Pocket For Occasions Such As These
By Anthony Tognazzini
No. 9
Unlucky Lucky Days
By Daniel Grandbois
No. 10
Glass Grapes and Other Stories
By Martha Ronk
No. 11
Meat Eaters & Plant Eaters
By Jessica Treat
No. 12
On the Winding Stair
By Joanna Howard
No. 13
Cradle Book
By Craig Morgan Teicher
No. 14
In the Time of the Girls
By Anne Germanacos
No. 15
This New and Poisonous Air
By Adam McOmber
No. 16
To Assume a Pleasing Shape
By Joseph Salvatore
No. 17
The Innocent Party
By Aimee Parkison
No. 18
Passwords Primeval: 20 American Poets in Their Own Words
Interviews by Tony Leuzzi
No. 19
The Era of Not Quite
By Douglas Watson
No. 20
The Winged Seed: A Remembrance
By Li-Young Lee
No. 21
Jewelry Box: A Collection of Histories
By Aurelie Sheehan
No. 22
The Tao of Humiliation
By Lee Upton
No. 23
Bridge
By Robert Thomas
No. 24
Reptile House
By Robin McLean
No. 25
The Education of a Poker Player
By James McManus
No. 26
Remarkable
By Dinah Cox
No. 27
Gravity Changes
By Zach Powers
COLOPHON
BOA Editions, Ltd., a not-for-profit publisher of poetry and other literary works, fosters readership and appreciation of contemporary literature. By identifying, cultivating, and publishing both new and established poets and selecting authors of unique literary talent, BOA brings high-quality literature to the public. Support for this effort comes from the sale of its publications, grant funding, and private donations.
The publication of this book is made possible, in part, by the support of the following patrons:
Anonymous
Gwen & Gary Conners
Steven O. Russell & Phyllis Rifkin-Russell
and the kind sponsorship of the following individuals:
June C. Baker
Christopher & DeAnna Cebula
Jere Fletcher
Melissa Hall & Joe Torre, in memory of Michael Hall
Sandi Henschel
X.J. & Dorothy M. Kennedy
Jack & Gail Langerak
Boo Poulin
Deborah Ronnen & Sherman Levey
Steven O. Russell & Phyllis Rifkin-Russell