So the story could involve a shooting and let’s face it, every story should involve a shooting.
Or else someone who can make sense of things.
Or else a quick and resolute conclusion.
Example of story that involves a shooting or someone who can make sense of things or a quick and resolute conclusion:
The park is empty. The man is not contemplating anything. The woman is not pregnant. The dog is not walking and the circle is not circling.
The gun is where any can find it.
LONG WALKS, SHORT PIERS
THE MAN CONSIDERS CALLING THE WOMAN ON THE TELEPHONE but the woman is never home. The man had called earlier and left a message. He does not want to call again without hearing from her first. The man is waiting for the telephone to ring and is considering what he should do while he waits. The woman is busy. She says this to him, she says, I am busy. The woman works a full-time job, a part-time job, has one dog, two cats, a dying grandmother and six close friends with whom she is always gallivanting here and there.
The man decides to shower. It is after noon and the man has been out of bed for five minutes. The man is naked and bleeding from his lip. Sometimes the man will bite himself in his sleep. The man takes a gauze pad from the medicine cabinet and wedges it between his lip and gum like chewing tobacco. Last night the man drank scotch and threw up. The man did not want to drink scotch but there was nothing else to drink. He didn’t know how the bottle of scotch ended up in his cupboard or how long it had been there. The man didn’t think the woman left the scotch in his cupboard because the woman doesn’t drink. He offered her a glass of wine once and she said to him, I don’t drink. The man responded by saying more power to you. Neither the man nor woman understood what he meant by that.
Last night the man sat at his kitchen table and poured himself shot after shot of scotch. This is the only way he can drink scotch. To him scotch tastes like fermented bile, like poison. This is why bartenders ask drinkers, What’s your poison? because of the way scotch tastes. The man lined up three shot glasses on the table, always keeping at least one glass full. The man drank shots of scotch and watched a baseball game on a six-inch black-and-white television. Every time an out was recorded he’d drink a shot. For every strikeout, homerun, or double play he’d drink two shots. Whenever he had to drink two shots he made sure to pour another right away so there wouldn’t be three empty glasses in front of him. He did not want to see three empty shot glasses on the table. That was his one rule for the evening. He kept the scotch bottle to the right of the three glasses. The man didn’t care who won or lost or whether or not it was a good game. Middle of the fifth the man considered driving to the liquor store so he wouldn’t have to keep drinking the scotch. The man figured he’d throw up if he kept drinking scotch. Instead he stayed at the kitchen table, watched a beer commercial, cursed at the television and kept drinking. The man watched the whole game, which featured nineteen strikeouts, three homeruns and two double plays.
The man removes the gauze pad from his mouth. The stain on the gauze pad is more pink than red and it resembles the outline of some small European country. The man thinks there might be something wrong with his blood. That he might be anemic or diabetic. He pours himself a glass of water and swallows three aspirin. He swallows each pill separately instead of all three at once. He gags while swallowing the third pill. He pours himself another glass of water and climbs into the shower. He always showers when he has thrown up the night before or wants to call the woman on the telephone but doesn’t because she is probably busy. In the shower he cleans himself with a washcloth and then uses the same washcloth on the tile. He cleaned this way the first time because he forgot to bring a separate rag for the tile into the shower with him. The man did not want to have to get out of the shower and dry off and go to the hall closet for a rag. He did something similar once when he forgot to bring a towel into the bathroom. That time he left a trail of water from the bathroom to the hall closet and had to mop it up afterwards. This was after he’d already slipped in the hallway and cracked his head open. The gash was deep and he bled for hours. This blood was rich and red and looked like the blood of a healthy virile man. The man should’ve gone for stitches but he did not want to get stitches again. Last year the man had to get stitches for his eye when a bartender punched him. The man cannot remember why the bartender punched him though he assumes it was justified. It was not the first time someone had punched him in a bar. The man did not want to have to drive to the emergency room and explain himself to another doctor so this time the man mopped up the floor with his head bleeding. One hand pushed the mop around the hallway and the other held a towel to his head. After every third or fourth push he’d examine the blood on the towel. He did not know what to look for, what any changes in color or volume might indicate. He was dizzy as he did this and thought he might pass out and die. He stumbled to the nightstand in his bedroom and on a yellow legal pad wrote the words I knew it in barely legible script. The man cannot remember why this was important to him, to write this down. He suspects it had something to do with his interest in suicides and the notes suicides leave behind. The man has borrowed several books from the library concerning famous suicides. He does not allow himself to think about his own note for long and has never mentioned the incident to the woman. A week later he tore out that page from the legal pad and threw it away. The man remembers this every time he forgets to bring a washcloth or rag into the shower with him.
The tile man told him he should clean the tile with white vinegar and warm water. The tile man did not say if he should do this once or regularly so the man has cleaned the tile every day now for a week. He keeps a jug of white vinegar on a mat outside the shower.
What he’d tell the woman if she were home is that he has new tile. She said something about the tile the last time she was over. She said, There is mold on this tile. The man said to her, I am allergic to penicillin myself. The man did not know what else to say so he said that. They were in the bathroom when they said this to each other.
You should do something about this mold, she said.
I’ve been meaning to, he said. I keep forgetting, he said.
It makes people sick, mold does, she said.
After the conversation in the bathroom he walked her to the door. He almost put a hand on her shoulder but remembered the woman does not like to be touched. She did not say this out loud but the implication was clear. She had flinched when he put his arm around her at a movie, then she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, and the maneuver concluded with her leaning on the opposite armrest. He put the hand in his pocket instead. The man suggested they go to the shore next weekend or the weekend after that. The woman said she was busy. She said her friends and her were taking a class together and going for coffee afterwards.
Every time he has reached the woman on the telephone she says to him, What are you doing? and then says That’s good after he says Nothing much. The man does not like the way the woman conducts herself on the telephone, like she is reading dialogue from a script. He wants to say, I am talking to you on the telephone when she asks her question but never does. Instead he says, Nothing much, because he cannot think of anything else to say.
What are you doing?
Nothing much.
That’s good.
One day he hopes to ask her what’s good about it. He doesn’t know how she will answer or if she will answer at all. She will probably say That’s good to whatever he says. He never considers asking her what she is doing. The man knows the woman will relay this information voluntarily. He knows it will have nothing to do with him and then she will tell him she is busy.