Interragtio Obscura

Still mining out old writing. This is an interview I did with someone. They are all his words, except for the words I supplied ("eating," "breathing," "puking,").

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In telling you this, I fear that you are categorizing me. "You're a number 10 Sanghuin." Or something equally absurd. A friend tells me that on a scale somewhere, flamboyantly gay men are "Trendy Orange," and he tells me that he is "Charming Blue." I don't even know what to do with that. I'm not really trendy, but I like the color orange. Or I'm an EEDPT, an extraverted something something something. That is what worries me. That you'll understand me too well.

- Breathing: born, Millington Tennessee.

- Peeing: doing it outside makes me feel like a man.

- Wounding: my uncle is baby-sitting me, and I gather that he isn't really too interested in babysitting me, so he puts me up on a window-sill, and it is high up, so I can't get down, and he just leaves me there and exits the room.

- Loving: there is love in my life, especially Disney movies, especially Jungle Book and Dumbo.

- Eating: raw tomatoes and cooked parsnips.

- Voting: 2004? Kerry, because I'm a staunch democrat and I think he is the better choice.

- Creating: today I want to have children. They will be raised in the city.

- Fucking: I let somebody pee on me once…but I didn't like it. He did. I was just being adventurous.

- Adoring: dogs.

- Killing: cats.

- Puking: the musical CATS.

- Remembering: my dreams. When I get stressed, I dream I am being chased by tornados with personalities, like they have faces.

- Admiring: the character Sally Jessie Raphael, though she ought to be dead by now.

- Regretting: not attending my sister's wedding. I say I am in a show and can't make it. This is a lie.

- Sleeping: can't literally do it all day, but I do like to sleep periodically on rainy days.

- Daring: emotionally, no, intellectually, no, physically, no, socially, yes.

- Believing: handwriting analysis does exist, but it is not accurate.

- Loathing: Paris Hilton. Isn't she everything that is wrong with America? She gives us nothing and we make her famous.

- Wondering: where have all the flowers gone? Weren't they paved over for a parking lot or something?

- Annoying: babies. And special, too. They're annoying specifically because they're so special. They can't be ignored, and that makes them special and annoying.

Is that it? Are we finished?

Wonder of the World

There was a period of time during which I wrote many visions of Armageddon. The following is one of them.

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WONDER OF THE WORLD

by Kyle Kratky

It came like a great rush of water or lightning. It came like a colossus; a force of nature, it fell upon the city like a crashing wave.

There was at first a massive sound, something like a horrible scream-in-the-wind. Glass shattered and danced on the ground like a thousand fireflies sputtering out their last show at the sudden, spiraling end of summer. Birds took flight, making it only a short distance before very immediately falling to the ground dead, the sound and the fury too great. Dogs howled and the ground rippled like water, sending fractures in highways across the world.

The sound spread across the city in an instant, blanketing the buildings, streets, parks, schools, and people.

Then there was a silence. People flailed and slumped, some falling to their knees, some slamming on their automobile brakes, but entrenched all in the inescapable feeling of a great impending something-or-another.

And then it happened. The sky itself, the very firmament above the city, began to fall.

The denizens of the metropolis – and, subsequently, the world – responded differently, some running for cover, others standing in numb, silent marvel. Children dropped their toys and books and looked up, staring at what would never have been believed, had it not actually happened.

The religious cried out prayers to their gods before their fate—a weight heavier than steel and thicker than molasses—toppled onto them. But there was no God or Allah or Shiva to hear the prayers. Their words, like the troposphere above them, were empty.

It was beautiful and terrifying.

A yawning, colorless void stretched itself out beyond the spinning, falling pieces of blue and white. The entire thing was cut into spiraling fragments of azure, periwinkle, and ashen cream.

The whole world thought in poetry for those final moments.

The trick came in the perception of it all. The pieces fell quickly, but something about the human mind makes one think things are happening slower than they truly are, resulting in later remarks such as, “If only I had reacted faster,” or “I was too slow to stop it,” when, in fact, the event happened so quickly and without precursor that any prevention or logical reaction would have been impossible. Though none later remained to comment on the falling sky, if any had survived there would undoubtedly be ambitious citizens making such claims.

“If only I had reacted faster, maybe I could have saved my daughter.”

“I was too slow to protect my father.”

It would have been impossible to stop it, of course. People should have known about this, they should have known the sky would soon collapse. Earth had tried to warn them about their cars and their factories and their landfills. The melting of the ice, the growth of the bugs, the increase in disease. It tried to tell them, but they were involved in other, more important things, and did not have the time. In the end, Earth decided to simply rend the sky in pieces and start anew.

The scraps of sky fell quickly – in spite of the brief-lived opinion of their velocity – black, jagged shadows quickly growing larger and larger below.

Everyone stared at it: the greatest, most terrifying wonder of the world.

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Yep. Armageddon.

I think I thought it was good writing to be conversationally vague. "a great something or other?" What?

a little solo work

Best if read aloud.

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Train of Thought

by Kyle Kratky

I’m departing from St. Louis, departing from the Amtrak station, my sister Laura, Laura with the golden hair, Laura with the snaggle tooth, Laura calls it the Amshack station. It is a twenty square-foot shack with faded white aluminum siding and one station attendant. The lone attendant seems to have been holed up there for months. He is always unshaven, his hair is always tousled, and he has an emptiness in his eyes that suggest his burden has exceeded what he thought it would be. Sissyphus, Atlas, Jesus, they have nothing on the Lone Attendant. This is what greets people traveling via train to St. Louis: a sullied shack and a hollow man.

I stake my position on the train next to a trendy woman with Hillary Clinton hair and a Saks Fifth Avenue bag. I make sure I am sitting upwind of the family with two babies so as not to get their scent, and I am out of view of the eight year olds trouncing about offering to sing Christmas carols to whomever will listen.

In four minutes and thirty-two seconds the socialite next to me is snoring snores that would scare off half of Jurassic Park. It takes only two minutes and twelve seconds more for the caroling children to begin scurrying by me every fifty-four seconds singing a different carol: In the space between the shouted lyrics of “Thumpitty thump thump” and “Then one frosty Christmas Eve,” I can hear a Gap/Old Navy collegiate fullback two seats over talking on his cell phone about the hot piece he banged last night, talking like he wants the whole train car to know, and maybe he does, probably he does, but this shit always happens to me on the Amtrak.

The train is forever departing twenty-two minutes late, arriving forty-six minutes late, stopping to let freight trains by, and as I sit and gape at the streaks of green, orange, and yellow zipping by carrying diapers, cars, and machinery off to distant suburban Candylands, a tidal wave of anxiety engulfs me like there will be no tomorrow, no tonight, like my train will never arrive in Chicago, like we’ll get hijacked by Bedouins or raided by bandits or bombed by the ever present “TERRORIST THREAT.”

I don’t travel. I’ve never had the money to voyage to London or Florence, and I am not brave enough to risk Thailand or Tanzania like adventurous world travelers. Study abroad seems counterproductive to my career goal to build theatre contacts here in Chicago, and youth hostels are too much like Space Camp (where I never slept and rarely ate) to excite me.

I have never wanted to be a migrant worker, and the whole Razor’s Edge experience is too Zen to me. I am roaming the countryside, moving bales of hay for food and meeting Buddhist monks who compare my life to a cosmetic device (“Your life balances upon a razor’s edge,” they whisper ominously, hoods drooping over their faces, the scent of myrrh in the air burning my nose), and all the while I am trying to stifle my laughter, trying to withstand the heat, trying not to kill myself from loneliness when I am alone or out of desperation when I am not alone.

Because I’ve tried meditation, you see, and I can’t seem to “harness the calm.” (Harness the calm, that’s what my friend Rachel says, Rachel with the suburban life, Rachel with the "life partner" named Kyle.) I can’t do it; because when I tell my mind to harness the calm, my thoughts collide and start playing etymological leap-frog with the words floating in my head.

Harness: cattle, black angus cattle, shoved in cages, killed, eaten, slaughtered, bloody faces, familiar places -- Gillian Hastings, my short don’t call her short she’s not short she’s special and beautiful best friend Gillian Hastings -- Hasty pudding with the little medallions in it, it is sweet and pungent and my Aunt Kim made it -- Aunt Kim in Oregon with the money and the parakeet and the piano, sending my mother nice gifts but they truly hate one another because they are sisters and -- O Sisters, my sisters, we’re drifting, building our own lives and I can see the kinship, the closeness washing out to sea as Angela buys her son a new DVD player, as Laura begins to take the tarot cards too seriously, as I lie about how I can’t come home on Thanksgiving because of a show, that’s right, right -- right, wrong, Einstein sips brandy and sits in an easy chair in my anterior lobe, telling me that light is both a particle and a wave and it bends when it passes at a finite speed near to an object with large mass, with large gravitational force, and if the whole universe is held together by four inexplicable forces, forces that could cease arbitrarily at any moment, then how the fuck am I supposed to clear my goddamned mind and harness the calm especially since there is a German-born Prince of Physics, a Guru of Science, Father of the Atomic Age sipping brandy in my brain?!

“CHICAGO UNION STATION is next ladies and gentlemen, Chicago Union station will be our next, last, and final stop for the evening.” And somehow, my five and one-half hour trip is over and I can see the Sears Tower looming at the threshold of the city like a mother waiting for her child who has been out long past dark. She is shaking a finger at me, scolding me, asking me, “Just who the hell do you think you are?”

One of the very fist things I ever wrote.

A Picture is Not a Promise Made
by Kyle Kratky

“Look.”

“I know.”


They stood on the balcony of the three-story townhouse overlooking Brighton Park. The trees swayed in the wind as the dog-walkers below released their charges for a liberating run. Some of the dogs barked loudly, but mostly they trotted along in silence, overjoyed by their release.

The two men stood for fifteen minutes, and their limited conversation was the first they had shared in over one month.

“I’ll miss this.” Matt indicated the park and the tree-lined street below. Jacob exhaled loudly, relieved that they were speaking again.

“Me, too,” Jacob said, gripping the rail. He shivered and drew his dark, long coat around his lean body.

That they were brothers was impossible to tell except when they were in the presence of their mother—people gasped and said things like, “Now I see it,” or, “It’s the eyes!" Their mother was their hydrogen bond, and discussion of her lately brought their temperatures to a boil.

They stood in silent conversation for a bit before Jacob made to move indoors.

“It’s getting colder. Autumn is here. Let’s go inside.” He turned, opened the French doors, and stepped inside, the wind chasing him in. Matt took a deep breath before following him in.

Jacob kicked at an empty wine bottle lying near the doors before sitting awkwardly on a large crate full of old picture albums and frames. Matt closed and latched the doors behind him, staring out at the sky. Jacob broke the silence.

“Listen, Rebecca and I are going to head up to Laughing Hills for a week or two. The leaves are changing; it will be beautiful.” Matt did not respond. “We want you to come.” Matt snorted. “She wants you to come, “ Jacob said, looking away. “She really cares about you, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah…I know.” Matt turned from the window and looked at Jacob. Outside, the dogs barked. After a moment, Matt crossed toward the hearth. He pawed at the old soot and ashes with his boot.

“I do, too. Care about you, I mean.” Jacob spoke without ease, his voice wavering and cracking. Matt smiled and looked back over his shoulder at Jacob.

“Well, shit. Mom cared a lot, too.”

“That's nice, Matt."

“Hey, do you think Rebecca cares as much as Mom did?”

“She cares an awful lot, Matt, considering how you've treated her, but listen: I thought we said—“

“I know,” Matt said, chuckling. “We said we wouldn’t talk about her. We said we wouldn’t.” He turned around and leaned against the mantle. “You said we wouldn’t.”

“Matt, I'm not here to play this game."

“Well, hurrah, hurrah, the game is on.” Matt cheered.

“If you are going to shout, Matt, I am not—“

“Fine, Jacob,” he interrupted.

“Okay?” Jacob replied.

“Yes, okay, fine, good, great, whatever.”

“Like I was saying, I don’t want to play this who-said-what-to-who thing with you, okay? I just want to…I don’t know. I just feel like we need to talk more. That’s all.”

“I thought we weren’t talking."

"Well, no, we haven't been."

"No," Matt interrupted, "I thought that's what you just said. I'm not talking, right, I'm yelling. Or something."

"Jesus, Matt!"

"What, Jacob?"

“It’s not about her, about Mom! That's not why I want to talk.” Matt took a step forward, his interest piqued. "Always the youngest. Take it to the most emotional, let's not concern ourselves with the actual logical considerations of what happens when someone dies."

The wind stopped blowing and the trees grew silent.

"It’s about Houndsburrow, the house at Houndsburrow,” Jacob said. Matt seemed taller.

“What about it?" Matt asked.

“Well, you know that Mom left it to both of us, half and half.”

“Fifty fifty.”

“Right.” Jacob took a deep breath. “Rebecca and I have been talking and she thinks—I mean, I think that we ought to…well, we think that we ought to get the place, Rebecca and I.” Jacob braced himself. Matt was sensitive about the house in Vermont.

“Why?” Matt asked. It was less than Jacob had thought he would get on first mention of the exchange.

“Well, Rebecca is due in three months with the next, and we already have Aimee and Alan. Our place is getting tight, and we’ve been thinking of moving up around Houndsburrow for a while now. It’s a very nice community with outstanding schools. The kind of place in which we really want to raise a family.”

“So, you want me to give up my half? My fifty?”

"We'll give you two-fifty for it. Two-fifty for your fifty."

"Ha ha, Jake. Thanks a lot."

"Come on, Matt, you don't need the place like we do, and--"

"What, we can't fucking share the damn place? It's got six fucking bedrooms and a guest house!"

"Rebecca doesn't want--"

"Plus, you know, Jake, it’s all I have left of her.”

“Oh, please, Matt, don’t play that card with me.”

“I’m not playing any card, Jake. It’s all I have of her. The last thing I have of her. Besides all these photographs and shit. You’re the one who insisted that we sell this townhouse, and now I have no place to live, except Houndsburrow.”

“You have Emily,” Jacob urged.

“Oh, yeah, Emily will love that. I can’t even stay the night at her place, Jake; we always end up fighting over some dumb shit."

"I thought you two were doing well," Jacob said.

"Yeah, Jake, doing well for us means we can go out without screaming at each other."

"Weren't you going to propose to her?"

"That was four months ago, before she didn't come to my mother's funeral, Jacob, Jesus Christ!"

“Okay, I'm not going to fight with you, Jacob."

“I know, you're not gonna fight, you're not gonna fight, that's so freaking high and freaking mighty of you. these are my fucking feelings, Jake. I'm glad you can keep yours bottled up like the WASP Dad wanted you to be, but excuse me please for expressing myself now and then.

The dog-walkers had left the park below and only a couple remained.

“These are my feelings and they matter," Matt continued, "and you are asking me to give up Houndstooth so you can share it with that goddamned woman and build your picket-fence life without me.”

“Matt, let's be reasonable, I—“

“No, I won’t be fucking reasonable, Jake. Not how you want me to. You say 'be reasonable,' and what you mean is, 'Agree with me because I am right.' Anyway, I'm no the reasonable one. You are. Rebecca thinks so, Mom definitely thought so.”

“I beg your pardon?” Jacob said, taking several steps toward Matt.

“You beg my pardon?" Matt laughed. "Christ, you can be sanctimonious. Yeah, Rebecca and Mom. They both always thought you were the reasonable one, isn't that strange, how alike those two always acted?"

"Matt, what the fuck--?!"

"I mean, actually, Rebecca might like some of this art Mom’s collected, don’t you think?” Jacob was silent and trapped. “Yeah, and how about Mom’s clothes, I bet she’d like to pick some out, don’t you think?”

“Matt, don't you --” Jacob paused, trying to gain control of his voice, “How can you say that?”

“I mean, I guess you’re just fine with Houndstooth and your little fucking replica.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, come on Jake, let's be reasonable!”

"Fuck you, mother fucker."

Matt roared with laughter. "I think that term is maybe reserved for you, Jake." Matt’s voice cracked. “Did you think no one noticed? Did you think no one could tell?” Jacob stood silent, glaring at his brother. “She dresses like Mom; she thinks like Mom; she cooks like Mom! Jake, she even talks like her! ‘Teeny tiny!’ Why don’t you just dress her in Mom’s robe and you two can sit there on that god damned old couch by the door and wait up for me at night. Yeah, I'd love to come live at Houndsburrow with you, that would be fucking grand. Yeah, you really got yourself a catch, Jake, a fucking catch. I guess since the older model broke down, you had to buy the newer one?”

“Matt.” Jacob growled.

“Face it: you couldn’t fucking handle Mom’s health, so you ran off and found a younger, prettier, healthier one! That’s great, Jake. Happy fucking wedding, I wonder how the honeymoon worked. Did you sleep in the same bed even?”

Jacob rushed at Matt.

He slammed his brother square against the fireplace, Matt’s head connecting hard with the mantle. Matt let out a yelp and started flailing his arms against Jacob’s face. Matt ripped Jacob’s spectacles off of his face, and they flew against the far wall, where they shattered. Jacob wrapped his arm around Matt’s side as Matt pushed against him. Jacob resisted, but Matt was lower and had more leverage. He pushed hard and Jacob’s slick shoes slid on the wood floor.

With a little leverage, Matt jabbed Jacob in the ribs several times with his elbow before Jacob was able to free one hand and grab Matt by the hair. Jacob pulled hard as Matt groaned. Matt wrenched his head free just in time to fling his head directly back. The back of his skull connected squarely with Jacob's jaw. There was a loud crack. The two skated awkwardly across the room, still grunting and beating on one another until Jacob’s legs collided with the crate of pictures.

The crate fell over, spilling out hundreds of photographs, old picture frames, and several large, bound photo albums. The contents spread beneath them as the men toppled over onto the pictures, some of the frames cracking and popping open.

The two wrestled as Matt managed to flip Jacob into a supine position on the floor. Straddling his older brother, he began to hit him repeatedly in the face. Again and again he struck Jacob, blood falling from Matt’s hands onto the pictures littered around them.

Jacob shielded his face as Matt's blows grew lighter. Matt shuddered and began to openly weep.
“I loved her so much; why couldn’t you? Why couldn’t you stay? Why couldn’t you help, God, why couldn’t you help? She was sick and in pain, so much fucking pain, she wanted you and weren’t there—you asshole, why couldn’t you stay? She loved you so much…” Matt lost all his strength.

He broke down, sobbing into Jacob’s chest.

Jacob opened his eyes and placed his hands on his brother’s back. At his brother’s touch, Matt jerked upright and raised his fist to strike Jacob again. Jacob cringed and covered his face, but no attack came.

Matt slid off to Jacob's left and picked up a photograph that had caught his attention. Jacob, perplexed, rolled over, sat up, and looked at the photo Matt held.

“What is it?” Jacob asked.

“It’s that day. The day after Dad left. That day in Brighton Park, remember?” Jacob slid up behind Matt, and, wiping the blood from his face, he looked over Matt's shoulder at the photograph.

“Oh, yeah…I was fifteen. You were --”

“Eight.”

“Right. And you had seen the homeless man sleeping on the bench.”

“And I wanted to give him food, so we…” Matt began to cry once more, letting the photograph fall onto the pile memories. He buried his face directly into Jacob’s shoulder. Jacob picked up the photograph, remembering the day twelve years ago when their mother had not been ill, and they had all lived together in that same townhouse full of Italian art and flowers.

“So,” Jacob resumed up the story, “we made him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ham salad. We took it to him, along with s bottle of wine and a bottle of sparkling grape juice, a large blanket, and some potato chips, and we ate with him right there in the park.” Matt sniffed and lifted his head. His face was shiny and wet, his eyes bloodshot and tired. “We wanted to get one of the dog-walkers to take our picture, remember, but Mom didn't want to be in it.”

“Right!” Matt laughed through his tears. “It was just the three of us.”

“Right.”

“Yeah, and I remember the sun was really warm and the breeze was cool and there were all those birds --”

“Oh, yeah,” Jacob said. "The birds. How had I forgotten the birds? There were thousands. They almost blotted out the sun; a giant cloud of birds.”

“Beautiful.”

“Yeah. Beautiful.” The two sat and stared at the photograph for a long time before speaking.

“I’m sorry I broke your glasses, Jake.”

“It’s okay. They were cheap.”

The children were out of school and now played in the park below.

Jacob placed his hand on Matt’s head and leaned against him. “You know…you don’t have to come up to Laughing Hills with us to vacation. It’s really not that—“

“No, I want to. I really want to.” Matt looked up at his brother and smiled. "But we have to talk about Houndsburrow."

"No, I'm sorry I even suggested it, Matt."

"No, listen, Jake--"

"It was really more Rebecca's idea than my own."

"I think I want you two to have Houndsburrow for yourselves.”

Jacob sat up. “Are you sure, Matt?"

“No, I'm not sure. Not yet. But I think I want you to take it. At least for a little while. I’m going to take these pictures instead,” he said, holding up a photograph of an elegant dancer with strong shoulders. Then Matt spoke in such a way Jacob had never heard his younger brother speak.

“It can't just be like this. We can't go back to the park with that smelly guy and Mom and the birds and all that. It is going to be hard.” Jakob took the picture from Matt and sat in front of him. He held his little brother’s hands, and he was flooded with emotion. Jacob looked at him, this man, only twenty-five years old, who had been forced to take care of a dying woman: a young man who knew more about pain than most people would in their entire life. Jacob could see the age and ache in Matt’s eyes. For the first time he felt guilty -- for everything, not just for running when their Mom got sick. For the first time he felt alone. For the first time, he felt like he didn’t know Matt.

“A picture is not a promise made, Jacob.”

Jacob cried, and lunging forward, he held Matt tightly. Matt firmly placed one hand on Jacob’s back and the other around his neck, cradling his crying brother. His head buried in Matt’s chest, Jacob only said one thing. “I'm sorry, Mom..."


Matt cradled his brother, and all the Pietas in the world wept.

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Upon review, maybe not so bad.

I've just unearthed loads of old stuff, so I'll be editing and posting a lot over the next week or so.