Hieroglyphics

Pictorial characters abound in the winning entry of our second annual Fiction Contest.

Here's my father, pointing out Venus: "Look, Gordon, there on the horizon. The evening star. It's not really a star; it's a planet. Later, I'll show you the Big Dipper and Orion."

I'm five, maybe six. We've spent the day filling his pickup truck with junk from the house and bringing it to the dump. (That's our project while Mom's away visiting her sister.) We've made three trips, cleaned out most of the basement and the attic, but on our return trips have brought back enough to clutter half the front porch. "Who would throw this away?" Dad asked at the dump, plucking a copper lamp from the rubble. "All it needs is a good polish and some rewiring. I'll show you how this weekend." I'm definitely six then because that's the day we found the bat sleeping in the attic.

There's a bump on my father's finger, the one he uses to point at things, right at the base of the fingernail. He got it when he was a kid by turning his bicycle upside down, cranking the pedal, and sticking his finger into the spokes. I don't know why he did that but I can see him doing it as if I were there with him.

Here's Ginger, weekend bartender at Lucky Dog Bar, pulling me a beer from the tap, wearing a ribbed white tank top, a wineglass-shaped sweat stain nested between her breasts. Here's Rock & Roll, her boyfriend (that's his real name; he'll show you his birth certificate if you ask him), beating people at pool at the back of the bar, watching Ginger, making sure nobody flirts with her too much. "Easy, friend," he'll say every once in a while, quiet, so you know he means it.

My favorite story about my father doesn't even have him in it. This was a couple of years ago. Some friends of mine and I had arrived early for a movie and were first in line. We'd been waiting outside in the cold for quite a while, and the line had gotten very long. The theater doors were about to open. Latecomers buying tickets decided to cluster near us on the sidewalk, obviously hoping to drift in with the first of us when we were finally allowed inside. Annoyed by these potential line-cutters, I said to my friends, "If my dad were here, he'd tell those people"—and here I adopted his voice: "All you people get to the back of the line." I said this to my friends, just as an example of how my father and I are different, but as soon as I said it, everyone who had been milling around hoping to sneak in ahead of us trotted down to the end of the line like good soldiers.

Here's my friend Dan Hand, Archer Long Distance Service's top seller, hurtling across the barroom just the same way he hurtles across the office: like it's on fire and he's trying to make friends with the flames. "What's the word, Gordon?" he shouts at me as he passes my desk, my barstool. He's smiling; the guy's always smiling. All's quiet, I tell him. "Let's shake things up then," he says, gliding past me, past the next desk, the next bar stool, and the one after that, greeting everyone by name, saying a few words to everyone. Everyone likes Dan.

Rock & Roll owns the Lucky Dog, but it's Ginger who does all the work. Rock & Roll spends all his time destroying people in game after game of pool, watching to make sure that nobody hits on Ginger. It's a delicate situation: Ginger hits on everybody, a fact that Rock & Roll has yet to notice. A patron of the Lucky Dog who may feel inclined to return Ginger's flirtations must at first gauge just how focused Rock & Roll is on his game, keeping in mind that Rock & Roll once put Bill Grief into the

hospital for dropping a tip down the front of Ginger's shirt.

Gerry Ekus is playing a game of pool with Rock & Roll now, and Dan Hand's waiting to play. So is Joel Nuedecker. They all work at Archer Long Distance Services, like me. We cold-call people all day long, trying to get them to switch from whatever long-distance service they have now to Archer. Dan Hand is the best at it. The best.

I was always amazed at what my father could get people to do, either with charm or with anger. He could make the gas station attendant who had just closed up turn the pumps back on so we could get five dollars' worth. He could sweet-talk old ladies into changing seats in the movie theater if there were no two seats together. When we were out driving, he would chase down people who littered. I'm talking actual car chases here, weaving in and out of traffic, screaming and swearing, until the litterers pulled over. In the passenger seat, I'd watch the confused drivers turn and look at us in bewilderment. I felt sorry for them. I'd been here before. I knew how this story ended. They'd be going back for that McDonald's wrapper or Coke can, my furious father supervising their every move.

Rule #1 in the Archer Long Distance Services employee manual is "No" is not an option. Never take "no" for an answer. Ever. "No" means "Maybe." "I'm not interested" means "Tell me more." All employees must keep Archer's list of rules tacked up to the walls of their cubicles. Our bosses walk back and forth behind us all day, making sure we don't break any. If, when I call you, I'm pulling you away from your dinner or your bath or your lover or your favorite TV show, remember that I'm not allowed to take no for an answer in those first five minutes we speak. This is not an apology. (Rule #24: Never apologize. Express disappointment and irritation if you sense doubt. People don't like to offend and are more likely to stay on the line if they think they've hurt your feelings.)

A few bar stools down, Dan Hand sits next to a woman I've never seen before. He's hunched over the bar, writing away like a madman. I try to catch her eye. "What's he doing?" I try to say with my eyes, all amused, like what is he, writing a novel? She smiles at me, but not the conspiratorial smile I'm looking for.

It's the smile an adult gives to a simple kid who doesn't quite get what's going on.

In my cubicle, at my desk: "To help you decide if Archer Long Distance is right for you," I say into the phone, "allow me to tell you about our sliding-scale rate system." It's all written down for me, everything I say all day long. Dan Hand explained it to me once. Every sentence contains a subliminal message: Archer Long Distance is right for you . . . Allow me to tell you . . . They're commands, Dan says. Put the right emphasis on them, and people will do whatever you want.

"She's deaf," Ginger says, suddenly right there across the bar from me.

"What?"

"She's deaf. That woman you're checking out. That's why your friend's writing everything down. She can't hear."

"Can't she read lips?"

Ginger doesn't say anything. Things aren't the way they are in movies. Deaf people in movies, they're always these amazing people. They can read lips, read minds, anything. I saw a TV movie about a deaf Olympic skier who solves crimes. In movies, there are no ordinary deaf people.

It's not just deaf people. Take my wife. She's adopted, but does that mean she's tracking down her birth mother for some inevitable tearful reunion? No. She doesn't care who her mom was. Honest. Movies aren't like that. Everything has to mean something in movies. This deaf woman here, at the bar, she's okay looking. I mean, not drop-dead or anything like she would be in a movie, but pretty good. If I weren't married, I might even take a shot myself—if I had any idea how to approach her. Tell her my name, I guess, and ask her for hers. What then? Once I'd established contact, where would I go from there?

(Rule #17: "I" becomes "We." Initially, it is important to establish a one-on-one exchange with a potential client, but as the presentation advances, the distinction between you and the company must be eliminated. Gradually discontinue use of the word "I"; instead, refer to "we" and "Archer Long Distance.")

Here I am on the deck with my father. It's a warm day in early spring, sunny, and we're sitting outside for the first time in ages. He's brought a bowl of chips out there, and we're eating them at the green metal table at the corner of the deck. All of a sudden he stands up and takes the bowl of chips across the deck over to one of the long deck chairs. I'm annoyed at this, and I let him know by dragging my chair over by his and setting up shop by the relocated bowl of chips. "Here, take 'em," he says after a minute. "You sure?" "Yep, take 'em back to the table." A few minutes later: "And could you try chewing with your mouth closed? The noise is really getting to me."

That was it. The joy of the day just drained out of me. The chip in my mouth felt like a turd. I waited as long as I could, went to the bathroom, and cried for ten minutes.

Here I am, Gordon Hammart, standing in the dark, touching the trunk of a house-high evergreen shaped like a ball. Looking up, I can see stars through the branches, some of the constellations my father taught me.

This is my favorite story about my father in which he actually puts in an appearance: He's driving me somewhere. Neither of us is talking. On the sidewalk a little down the street from us, there are two blind men, arms on each other's shoulders, shuffling along. My father sighs, rolls his eyes, shakes his head and says: "The blind leading the blind." That's it. He doesn't let on that he's making a joke. For many years I thought of that and was able to forgive him almost anything.

Dan Hand's playing Rock & Roll in pool now. Joel Nuedecker has taken Dan's bar stool next to the deaf woman. He's writing on a cocktail napkin, and the woman leans in towards him, looking down at the napkin and nodding as he writes. After a minute or two, she takes the pen and starts writing something on the back of a business card.

My father and I built a treehouse together when I was eight. That was the year my mother left. We went to the lumberyard and my father introduced me to everyone there, even though he was meeting them all for the first time himself. He told them that I was the architect and that he was just my worker. They all laughed and held their hands out, palms up, for me to give them five. I slapped all their hands, but I just wanted to buy the wood we needed and get out of there. I didn't like talking to strangers the way my father did.

It took us five weekends to get the treehouse built, and when it was finally done, when we took the stepladders away, I couldn't climb the tree. I couldn't climb the rope my father put up. He was disgusted, even though he didn't say so.

If I've ever called you, you probably already hate me for the way I talk, for the way I breathe. (Rule #37: Let the script pace you. Phrasing and breathing are disciplined and controlled by the script, not by you. Pausing for breath mid-sentence is less likely to result in a hang up than pausing for breath at the end of a sentence.) You hate it when it sounds like I'm reading from a script; and yes, the times we've talked, my words may have been scripted; but your words have been predicted, every last one of them. You think the company hasn't thought of what you're going to say? Believe me, it has. You're not coming up with anything we haven't heard before. We're ready for your excuses. I've got a flowchart that gives me responses to anything you might say. You're running out the door? Well, I understand that you're very busy, which is why I don't want to take up any more of your time than is absolutely necessary. . . . You're not in the market for this service? Well, that may be, but if you let me talk to you about the benefits that Archer has to offer you, I have no doubt that you'll see the advantages. ... No hablas Ingles? Uno momento, por favor ...

The tree is cold, rough. My fingers lightly brush its bark; its branches drape loosely all around me, almost touching the ground. Someone on the street wouldn't see me, but I can see enough to know if someone passes. I can climb this tree.

They're taking turns with the deaf woman, I guess, Gerry, Dan, and Joel. Here's the set-up: One of them plays pool with Rock & Roll, another hangs out by the pool table, and the third sits next to the deaf woman, writing out small talk. She's got three little stacks on the bar, these three conversations she's got going.

If she goes home with one of these men, I bet it would be interesting to read that conversation. What combination of words was the right combination? I was always envious of men who could say exactly the right things to a woman they had just met and end the evening by going to bed with her. What are those perfect things that they were saying? At work, there's a script, the words on the page lined up in perfect order, words I've repeated so many times that they're all lined up inside me too, all in the right order, just waiting to be said. Out here, though, what words would I choose?

With my wife, it was easy. We met at a party in college; she came up to me, said: "Did you know that when John F. Kennedy died, Congress voted that Jackie Kennedy would never again have to pay for mail service? Whose idea was this? We're really sorry about your husband but, hey, no more stamps!" It's still like that. She says things for me to think about and then I say what I think. I never have to come up with anything on my own.

When the deaf woman goes to the bathroom, she leaves her conversation stacks on the bar. Dan, Gerry, and Joel get into an argument about which one of them is going to go home with her. Dan's married. Rock & Roll's yelling, Hey which one of you is going to play me next? Nobody's paying attention to me. I walk over to the jukebox, past the stool where the deaf woman had been sitting, and snag a business card off one of the piles. Standing at the jukebox, I look at it. It's the deaf woman's business card. She's Linda Johnson, interior designer. There's an address on the card, a residential street. She must work out of her home. I turn the card over and recognize Gerry Ekus's tight, neat handwriting: It's actually in probate court—I can't reveal where it is.

Standing under the evergreen in Linda Johnson's yard, I can see a light on in an upstairs window. She went home alone, but she took her stacks of conversations. If I were to climb this tree, maybe I'd be able to see in her window, see what she was doing. Maybe she's sitting on her bed, the business cards and cocktail napkins spread out all around her, three conversations stretching out from her like spokes on a bicycle wheel. Maybe she collects conversations. Maybe she tapes them to her wall, or puts them in a scrapbook. Maybe her conversations last forever, while everyone else's just drift away.

My wife knows what I'm thinking and feeling, even when I don't. She's the only person I've ever met who can do that. "What's wrong?" she asks me on the phone when I call to tell her I'll be late. Nothing, I tell her, and she doesn't believe me. I think she's mad, even though she doesn't say so.

(Archer Long Distance's Rule #63 is Don't be a robot! When making your presentation, do not adhere so closely to your script that you sound stilted. Be flexible enough with your presentation to sound natural and attentive to your listener.)

Maybe she doesn't keep the conversations separate. Maybe she shuffles them together or throws them into the air and lets them fall around her like confetti. Maybe she scatters them across her bedroom floor, making a patchwork of words and sentences that don't go together in a straight line anymore.

Standing with my hand flat against the trunk of the evergreen, looking up through the branches at Linda Johnson's window and the night sky above that, I can see the three stars that make up Orion's belt. I'm off script now. Can you tell?

About the author:
Greg Tulonen's work has appeared in The Florida Review, The Madison Review, and Time Out New York. A member of the class of 1991, he lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with his wife and son.

About the judge:
A short story writer and Bread Loaf alumna, Barbara Ganley cofounded the Bread Loaf Young Writers' Conference in 1984 and joined the Middlebury faculty in 1989. She teaches courses in creative writing, composition, contemporary Irish literature and film, and arts writing in the Writing Program and the Department of English; she also directs Middlebury's Project for Integrated Expression. Interested in the intersections between writing forms and genres, she specializes in the integration of technology into the humanities and writing classrooms, with a focus on weblogs, multimedia writing, and digital storytelling. Also a passionate student of Irish culture and writing, Ganley spends as much time as possible with her family on the west coast of Ireland, where she has sited her novel-in-progress.

About the contest:
Middlebury Magazine's annual fiction contest is held each spring, with the winning entry published in the summer issue. Current Middlebury students, Middlebury undergraduate alumni, and alumni of the College's graduate programs (the Language Schools and the Bread Loaf School of English) are invited to submit unpublished manuscripts of 3,000 words or fewer. An advertisement for the third annual contest will appear in the winter 2005 issue; the deadline for submissions is April 1, 2005.

In addition to the winning entry printed in this issue, three short stories were chosen as runners-up: