The Collected Stories of Diane Williams

by Diane Williams

  Weight, Hair, Length

  They had admired a bronze sphinx with an upraised paw and an elegant and extremely fine clock on skinny legs.

  The husband tried to buy a jug, enameled and gilded.

  A number of his parts are modern and wide. He looks well made for sustained and undemanding and justified in­dulgence.

  Cockeyed

  She was cockeyed on her settee—her face considerably close to the cushioned seat. She righted herself, but she dropped the book.

  She was sick and her mother had died of typhoid, her sister of parasitic worms.

  This had been one of the few occasions when she had been charming and tactful.

  There were bruises on the lady’s face and indications of other injuries upon her delicate structure.

  Her library table desk is made of sycamore, painted in the classic manner—the type of thing that seems peculiar.

  Highlights of the Twilight

  The clerk reminded me of my dead husband who used to say he was always going around all the time with his penis sticking out and that he didn’t know what to do.

  “Lady!” the clerk said.

  A little old lady jerked herself toward that clerk.

  A motley group of us was looking at a wristwatch and in­wardly I prayed I’d see a glow of dancing matter to lead me. I am another little old lady.

  “Mrs. Cook,” a clerk said, “are you here to have some fun?”

  This is a shop with a bird on a branch in diamonds and pearls, a ruby-eyed dog, a ram’s head, a griffin, a cupid in gold.

  “It’ll be entirely discounted if I understand you correctly—” my clerk said, “this is all that you want!”

  “I can’t afford it and I’ll have that one!”

  “You’ve broken it! You’ve ruined it!” the clerk said.

  I said, “Don’t look so awful,” but he had already so imprudently advanced into my hell-hole.

  The Newly Made Supper

  The guest’s only wish is to see anyone who looks like Betsy, to put his hands around this Betsy’s waist, on her breasts. He’s just lost a Betsy. He followed Betsy.

  In front of Betsy, who supports on her knees her dinner dish, you can see the guest approach.

  “You got your supper?” he says, “Betsy?”

  And Betsy says, “Who’s that in the purple shirt?”

  “That’s not purple. You say purple?” says the guest.

  “What color would you say that is?” says Betsy.

  “That’s magenta.”

  “I have to look that up. Magenta!” says Betsy.

  “That’s magenta,” says the guest.

  “That’s lavender,” says another woman who’s a better Betsy.

  Ponytail

  The woman secured her hairs together in a string. The child ate a donut. The woman suggested someone throw a ball. The woman fetched the ball, and then the woman fetched the child, and she bunched up a section of the child’s T-shirt, as she bunched up a section of the child’s neck, and she secured the child.

  Chicken Winchell

  The waitress who is badly nourished or just naturally un­healthy has a theory about why the daughter never returned.

  The daughter did return, for only a little stay, to ask which chicken dish her father had ordered for her.

  The mother experiences her losses with positivity. She even frames the notion of her own charm as she heads into her nor­mal amount of it.

  Yes, she confides in the waitress, both her daughter and her husband have disappeared, and yes, her daughter is a darling, but hasn’t she made it clear to her there isn’t a boy her age to admire her within a hundred miles?

  The mother roams home, wearing the fine check jacket and her black calf heels, alone.

  She sees the pair of doors of a little shop where they are selling magic and all kinds of things. Inside, the clerks with elf-locks are dressed for the cold. There is a bakery the mother thinks would be nice and warm. It is okay, and after that, she goes to the gift shop, and gets those sole inserts.

  Normally, the family’s frugal. They eat at home, buy gro­ceries.

  The mother’s legs are trembling, yet she has a good con­science and a long life.

  She used to weigh one hundred and thirty-five pounds. Now she weighs one hundred and fourteen pounds, but it’s been very hectic.

  As she sleeps, the telephone rings, wakes her, and she thirsts for a glass of water. She finds that one thing neatly, reasonably, takes her away from yet another.

  The Emporium

  I had stretched my body into a dart, inhaled deeply, and passed through the aisles at top speed and then a man with a red-nailed woman and a girl came up to me, and the man said, “You don’t remember me! I’m Kevin! I was married to Cynthia. We’re not together any more.”

  They had been the Crossticks!

  What he wanted now, Kevin said, was peace, prosperity, and freedom.

  And I more or less respected Cynthia Crosstick. I didn’t like her at first. She is not very nice. She’s odd, but that’s the whole point.

  I didn’t like my fly brooch at first either. It’s fake. You can’t get it wet. It’s very rare and the colors are not nice and I get lots of enjoyment from that.

  I picked up Glad Steaming Bags and Rocket Cheese.

  “It’s very cold. Do you want some lemonade?—” said a child at a little stand, “we give twenty percent to charity.”

  “No!” I said loudly, as I exited the emporium, although there might have been something to enjoy in swallowing that color.

  “Why is she crying?” the child had asked an adult.

  Why was I crying?

  I had tried to hear the answer, but could not have heard the answer, without squatting—without my getting around down in front of the pair, bending at the knee, so that the proverbial snake no longer crawls on its belly.

  I should have first stooped over.

  The lemonade girl hadn’t mentioned the gumdrop cookies they had hoisted for sale.

  Just the mention of cookies brings back memories of Spritz and Springerle and Cinnamon Stars—party favors—attractive, deliciously rich, beautiful colors, very well liked, extra special that I made a struggle to run from.

  Protection, Prevention, Gazing, Gratified, Desire

  Vera Quilt knows the princes she says. There was some big event—a horse with plumes, and soldiers with ruby buttons, shiny helmets, and swords—when she met them.

  If there had been any doubt about my feelings for Vera, now there was not. I looked at her warmly.

  The air was cold and I mention this because this is a minia­ture world with levels of experience where people may starve to death.

  At some distance from us there was a mob of people—they’re wonderful people—and broad-leaved evergreens, and a flock of birds behaving normally.

  “Hoo!—hoo!” Vera began again.

  “Now, what do you want, Vera?” I said. Vera and I—we resolve everything in under an hour. She said, “I talked to my husband. It is too hard for me. I come home and it’s late and I am tired and he is tired.”

  And, truly, it’s as if people put big branches out on the ground so that Vera can practice climbing on them. You should know that her mind bubbles up in her brain, showing movement, lift! It comes about this way—her confidence, all of it that goes to make a woman.

  A large vein showing on her hand curves around her knuckle. She had a cuticle nippers in her hand. Her breath smelt of nothing. Her skull was quite large, but her coat and her skirt were short and there was, pinned to her lapel, a gen­erously sized gemstone flower basket that most people are assuming is a gift from the crown.

  “I’d rather not go any farther with you,” she said. “I am very tired.”

  “Exactly,” I said
.

  However, Vera and I had resolved everything in order to push on. She’s the best living woman. It was six o’clock, end of the day, as we smoothed farther into the unknown, which is sometimes described as a plot of evil—cliffs and or swamps overshadowing one another, hideous plateaus, and phospho­rescent glimmers. Vera protected, pocketed her nippers, and there are the conquests of happiness to be considered that must be produced in the future, and in a series.

  At the level of the street, we looked through the plate glass of the department store, a department store erected on the foundation of a princely court.

  Vera is young and she still has her woman’s flow and we take a glance at something to watch out for in Macy’s window that has bulk. This is no drop in the bucket. You must have heard of the expression—the apple of my eye?—And we know how to cry—Help!

  Vicky Swanky Was a Beauty

  You’d have thought her burden was worthy of her, although she shouldn’t keep trying to prove she has common sense.

  She’s Vicky Swanky. She addressed an envelope and wrote her name and address on it also. She is my ideal, my old friend.

  The letters of her script are medium sized with slim loops. Her ovals are clear. There were nicely turned heads.

  She is still going through a divorce and her children were running around there.

  “I forgot to take a shower,” she said. “Do you want to take one with me?”

  Since I didn’t want to do it, I said no, because I’d get con­fused, and this is too important.

  To repeat—I met up with Vicky Swanky whom I hadn’t seen in years—who said, “Why don’t you come over? I’ve had systemic lupus erythematosus and when you get through that—”

  In connection with sex, we lightened up a little then and we dumped some of it off the edge at a minimum. We could be put through a few strokes like everyone else amid the overall circulation of water.

  Human bodies are just not good enough!—and in this way we represented two weak powers.

  She has adult-sized fist-sized hands with smooth joints. She has smaller than normal hands. Her hands are not smaller than my hands.

  I brought Lee over in the late afternoon, the dog. He has the disposition to avoid conflict, is good-natured, and sets a fine example.

  It was getting busy concerning the basic meaning, the de­gree, and the quality. And by late afternoon, the snow was staying on the surface. No one knows that any better.

  Cruelly, I’ve seen nothing in the book I am reading—about me. I need to see specifically my life with pointers in the book.

  May I suddenly drop in on Vicky Swanky and ask for favors?

  Years ago Vicky Swanky was a beauty.

  Now, here, there were vases of blanket flowers, pancakes. I am so confused here.

  She served us pancakes and syrup and coffee and milk and butter. Her breasts were flat. Her hips were flat. She looked older than her forty years and she plays with all of us.

  She has a strange way of showing it. There was a skirmish. The plumber arrived and he said he’d have to remove every­thing from the nipple in the wall to the toilet. Vicky Swanky said, “Is it true? One would think perhaps you might. I thought so. You were right to tell me. I won’t enjoy it very much. Nat­urally enough I can find that out for myself,” she said.

  Carnegie Nail

  Doubtless, early on, in the ultra-fine beginning of the day, others were spectators as I withdrew into Carnegie Nail and I showed the coarseness of my nature in a new sense, for I kept my hands forever forward until at Mrs. Oh’s behest, Dee took them.

  As a courtesy, to some extent, Mrs. Oh kept her cell phone conversation brief and her voice low.

  Mr. Oh sat unspeaking in an aimless, I mean, armless chair. He was less husky than I would have expected—composed, nonetheless, of curving segments. Then, as if by the flip of a lever, he fell from his chair.

  Others jumped around.

  Strangest of all, whoever enters Carnegie Nail is exempted from the bitterness of experience.

  Oh, Mr. Oh found his way back up to good effect while Mimi supported the shop’s potted, toppled plant.

  The damp day got me as I left, but I did not publicly con­demn it.

  At home Wanda appeared with our infant and the infant’s father—my husband—was seated in a chair that’s sufficient to defend itself.

  My next step surely was clear, for life presents the flowers of life. We’d been viewing the infant as if it’d been wrenched off a tree branch or a weedy stem.

  But the question is much more complex. A child needs to be cut down to its lowest point compatible with survival.

  Stand

  My friend said, “I fell in love with the neighbor.”

  I said, “Your husband fell in love with the neighbor?”

  My friend said, “No!” She said, “I fell in love with the neighbor!”

  She was counting her fingers. She said she couldn’t get the neighbor’s penis to do anything.

  As a matter of fact, I couldn’t get his penis to do anything either. It hung like a mop or it had a life of its own. How it came up in the first place, I don’t know. He couldn’t get my vagina—I wanted to say—to utter a word.

  But since one should always make room for fun, we all ate food and we laughed.

  The last time I saw my friend was when she was finishing her drink, gulping. Was it like the sound of the sea perhaps?—how the sea very slowly and with great effort laps but does not go down—I want to say—in one gulp.

  The last time I saw my friend’s crêpe de chine skin, her frizzy hair—her dark breasts that wriggle raw, I said to my­self, “You had enough?”

  Common Body

  So, I’ve got good news, but I also felt so bad I was crying.

  She’s so wrongly old and I’m her daughter, but can she still have children?

  Human Being

  Now I have a baby boy and a five-year-old girl.

  Being married, I thought I’d always be married to Wayne because he tried to be perfect. What more could he ask for?

  Rude

  There’s a cloth to wipe clear her muscular organ with the foam or the scum on it. People were talking too loudly. “You can’t tell grown up people what to do,” someone said. One person had fever, pain in the abdomen that develops normally like a sixth sense, and he wasn’t careful choosing a marriage partner. He is noted for his humor and his favorite color is dark purple.

  The physician covering him called him to report: “I find myself shocked and deeply hurt by your condition.”

  Mrs. Keable’s Brothers

  Her fate was being rigged for the rough surface. Nothing was omitted from her desirable world insofar as she likes Mr. Keable and other men in suits with short hair; patient service staff who smile; all the people with large, accurate vocabu­laries; big blossoms; logical arguments.

  If a poached egg, open and bleeding, could give us the color palette, let us color her home in with that.

  In the evening, Mrs. Keable’s brothers, arriving in a black Volkswagen, often visited. She had in the past been scared to death of them.

  As the sun comes up, it’s as if, for Mrs. Keable, there’s a slice of lime on any serving of her food.

  Arm under the Soil

  It might seem to me that Chuck and I have a very happy mar­riage, which I cannot, I cannot believe I believe that.

  I had gone out to look at what Chuck calls the dot plants—things out of proportion with the ground for which they are intended.

  They’re a focal feature to form the centerpiece among the many plants that are not valued. In the house, he has his cas­cade bonsai tree on a high stand.

  I could not get between him and what he was in front of and I found myself waiting on some joyous occasion.

  By the close of the d
ay, I had no idea how to be practical. I’d lost control of my life.

  Chuck tapped me, saying, “Who is that woman? What did she want?”

  It had been our neighbor. I wish she had been thinking highly of me, while her husband looked on, forlorn in the car. “Your quack grass!” she had cried. “Why don’t you just let me kill it for you?”

  They have a rock garden, steppingstones, a perennial bor­der, and then I could see that our weeds were menacing those.

  The suspense in that moment had drawn me in and I was fascinated to hear my answer to her that was delivered in a weepy form.

  In addition to the quack grass, we also have plantain, chickweed, thyme-leaved speedwell—curiously green and brown.

  I understand. Hunks and slabs of weeds are not enjoyable to view.

  Pressing the heel of my hand against my trowel, with a quick motion of the wrist and forearm, I repeat the motion. I am jabbing side to side. The tissues attached to the stem are softened enough for the root to be slipped out, so that I may remove my muscle section.

  Being Stared At

  I was ready during the reunion back at his house in April and I had a feeling he was present.

  Most curiously he had asked us to call him Uncle Chew and I’d been fond of him.

  The elderberry lemonade reminded me of when we were young inductees to the religious world and we sat around here. I was very impressed by the box lunch.