Rooftop Poetry Club - Ted Pelton

Ted Pelton

Bio:
Ted Pelton is the author of three books, including the novel Malcolm & Jack (and Other Famous American Criminals). He has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in Fiction and an Isherwood Foundation fellowship. His work-in-progress, Woodchuck Stories, is being serialized in Brooklyn Rail. He teaches at Medaille College and is the Director of Starcherone Books, a non-profit fiction press.

Works:

I Am a Freak, by Mare Mikolum

Note: “I am a Freak” is a collaborative piece resulting from improvisations by six writers in Ted Pelton’s Fiction Workshop class at Medaille College in Buffalo, NY. Mare Mikolum is a pseudonym for Molly Platt [A] Rhonda Celeste [E] Michelle Fritz [I] Kara Hibbard [O] Lori Markham [U] and Margaret Keddie.

I am a Freak

Things always seem weird to me maybe it’s because I am a freak.

Father was a Carpenter

His father was a carpenter and he is a blacksmith. My father the king would never allow me to marry a blacksmith. He wants me to marry Prince Theodore. I hate Prince Theodore and his sarcastic attitude. He makes me feel unintelligent. Johnathan, the blacksmith, is kind and hard working, I value that. He's the talk of the town. The townspeople are saying that he slew a dragon not too long ago. The dragon's necklace hangs on the wall in his shop.

His Niagara

My mouth was his Niagara. Only through my lips did he see the rainbows, feel the mist of my breath. We rode on ferried tongues through the waves, breaking and floating. The next morning I'd felt like I wore one of those souvenir t-shirts that read "some creep went to Niagara and all I got was this lousy one-night stand."

I am a Freak

I am a freak because I have an intense fear of belly buttons. I always picture them randomly tearing open and spilling out all the insides. If anyone tries to touch my belly button I fall to the floor in a fit. My belly button is never cleaned out so there is a bunch of guck in it now. It smells.

Degree of Irritability

Tom can measure my degree of irritability on any given day by smelling my hair. If it smells like peppermint, I'm usually pretty easygoing. If it smells like my dad's dirty knuckles, he knows that just about anything will set me off. If it just smells like hair, then I'm not worth his time. Apparently my hair always smells like one of these three choices.

Father was a Carpenter

If the heavenly father was a carpenter, how come my life keeps falling apart? Back in college I broke my arm, then my ACL, now I have a broken heart after three years with this guy. He said his father was in construction and so was he. “Great!” I thought. “That’s gotta be a sign!” He lied . . . he was in demolition.

Have a Stroke

I wish he would have a stroke, cut himself, bury his face in a plastic bag or drunk drive himself into a tree. I saw him hold her hand, flirting with her and grabbing her ass today on campus. That bastard told me I was the only girl for him. He's a lying sack of shit, playing with my mind. I'll show him! I wonder if he really even cares about me? Would he care if I was one day gone? Maybe I'll drive my drunkin' self into a tree, maybe.

Bones Under the Skin

The metal rings in my notebook feel like delicate bones under my skin. When I touch them it feels like my finger is being guided by my muscles over the delicate bones in the hand that holds my pen. And sometimes when my writing is truly alive I can feel a pulse beating through the pages and hear a rush through the looping wires like the blood in my veins.

Enlarge My Mind

I always thought the rays from a microwave would enlarge my mind. Late at night while everyone was asleep I'd stare through the little dots shining through the dark and watch the crusty plate rotate round and round. In the silence of the night the only sound punctuating the air was the beeps of the buttons I pressed and the drone of the power radiating from the metal box, fertilizing my brain until you could smell the traces of food from my ears.

Have a Stroke

“Jesus ma, don’t have a stroke.”

Degree of Irritability

Some may say me degree of irritability is high today. You give me that seemingly innocent smile, and I puke a green disaster on your new shoes. You slightly begin to bend over to clean it up and I throw you into a somersault down the hall. Maybe next time you’ll think before you smile at a stranger.

His Niagara

"His Niagara" was the message on the bumper sticker on the back of his truck. I had noticed him for weeks but never worked up the courage to say anything to him. I'm going to this Halloween party this weekend and I know he'll be there. It will be hard because I don't know what he's dressing up as.

I am a Freak

I can easily rotate my hips 360 degrees, which is why I’m such a good gymnast, I suppose.

Enlarge My Mind

“But I don’t wanna enlarge my mind,” Kevin said with a sarcastic tone in his voice. He threw his backpack to the corner of his room. “Sit down and eat your Wheaties,” Mom yelled back. I walked over to the table and strapped his legs to the chair, Dad grabbed the cap and said, “Your sister’s been doing it her whole life, son, and she’s doing just fine in college now.” I plugged in the Mind Enlarging Machine and zapped away.

WOODCHUCK AND HANK WILLIAMS ZOMBIE

Let us hear another story of Woodchuck.

One day in his travels Woodchuck saw a man whose western shirt was drenched in blood streaming also from his mouth.

In his teeth were small clumps of flesh and gore.

It was Hank Williams Zombie.

Woodchuck had heard shrieks and crying on his amble into the country town and had ignored them.

It was Woodchuck’s way to wander both in body and in mind.

As tall as the Zombie Woodchuck shrunk himself down to the size of the people who live underground.

The Zombie was Williams alright and not the son nor the grandson.

He wore a cowboy hat stained with blood and an entire western outfit heeled boots matching jacket and slacks powder blue in spots not drying reddish-brown string tie cinched up gait not so other-worldly as drunken-seeming.

Instead of a guitar he held in one hand a rifle by the stock.

Yet who would believe this creature next tilted back his head and yodelled oldle-oh-dee-odle-oh-dee-oh-de-odle which I cannot accurately reproduce here except to say that Woodchuck is said to have found it the most beautiful thing he had ever heard on earth and perhaps for this reason also the most unearthly detached and terrifying.

Hank Williams Zombie hitched his head front badly aimed his gun at Woodchuck and fired.

Woodchuck shrunk himself further so as to be an even smaller target.

When Woodchuck was this small the world was very distant far-off and toy-like

Woodchuck saw that the seemingly vacant town was not at all empty its residents merely hidden small like himself.

Hank Williams Zombie at this moment turned as zombies do in movies lurching without speed into a doorway left half-ajar and pulled out into the street a little human girl.

He put his hand or claw into her chest in one movement and ripped out her heart chomping it to his mouth like a soft peeled orange gushing with red juice over his thin cowboy lips and down his chin the blood ran.

Far-off to Woodchuck the blood ran over the hand and down the arm of Hank Williams Zombie globbed onto the pavement pooled there and got tracked further down the road as the zombie stalked off gun in one hand heart in the other to his mouth like one dead or drunken or unearthly.

Woodchuck took advantage of the creature’s turn away to resume his normal size and run to shelter behind a gas station building.

Again the zombie yodelled odle-lo-dee-oh-dee-oh-dee-oh-dee-lo-dee-odle-oh and Woodchuck out of sight now burrowed underground where he found his people cowering worse than they had with the sportsmen.

What is this thing they said to Woodchuck who paid no attention but sat down to be served food and beer.

The people were honored to host Woodchuck.

They remembered the stories they had heard of him.

They looked in awe at the box which held his penis.

And said let us smoke and think on these things.

Let us Google Hank Williams Zombie and see what we find.

They kept excellent connections underground not really what we call Google today but something we cannot explain but must trust how the story comes to us.

This all took place not yesterday or last year or even when your grandparents lived but in No-Time when all things happened that would ever happen.

All the people smoked and sweated and asked themselves what could be done with a raging death-in-life zombie seeing Williams had died badly and no one could say exactly where nor how drugged and drunk aged twenty-nine laying in the back seat of a car headed for a Hank Williams New Year’s party he would have played if not dead.

All agreed Williams had good reason to have gone zombie but none said a word because what was the use in bothering Woodchuck who was made by God with things one didn’t know anything about not of this world.

So they sat and smoked and Woodchuck looked out before him into the middle- distance with eyes that seemed unfocused or focused upon something no one else could see.

Later the people would know that Woodchuck was looking into the future and seeing what would happen not because the future has to occur in one way but because the future like the present unfolds as a series and must be played out.

They smoked and sweated for three days and at sunset of the third day Woodchuck stood up and left the hole never having uttered a word the entire time he was among the people.

Above ground now the streets were strewn with half-gnawed body parts and large swaths and small clots of blood everywhere one looked.

Woodchuck emerged from the hole and went to the clot of blood which three days before had been the little human girl whose still-beating heart Hank Williams Zombie had seized and chewed whole and Woodchuck began kicking the clot along the ground.

He kicked and kicked and the clot rolled in the grime of the streetand began to gather energy.

The dead material now gained life force through the motion Woodchuck gave it and the clot grew until it was the shape and size of the little human girl.

Woodchuck went from one clot to the next kicking life back into the dead blood and restoring them and did not rest when night fell but kept moving one to the next kicking.

It was at dawn of day four with a crowd of humans and people watching when Hank Williams Zombie reappeared staggering up the street at the opposite end of the town square.

Woodchuck stopped kicking.

Williams shouldered his rifle but lost his balance and fired wildly.

Woodchuck stood firm while bullets whizzed about.

Now the very air seemed to have changed.

It may have been the sun growing brighter and hotter in the morning sky at that moment and it may also have been emanating from all of the newly living creatures Woodchuck had brought to life who glowed and smiled happy and alive as a warmth began to envelop one and all.

The zombie seemed to respond to this and take on some life-feeling.

It began then to sing.

You’re looking at a man who’s gettin kinda mad.

I had lots a luck but it’s all been bad.

No matter how I struggle and strive.

I’ll never get outta this world alive.

And then for a time all was silence as the warmth of life as those who tell this story say enveloped us all.

Woodchuck walked down to the other end where Hank Williams Zombie stood motionless.

He pushed over the zombie with one arm.

Williams Zombie fell and crumbled in ash.

Woodchuck took the gun and broke it in one movement over his knee then began to dance on the ashes of the Hank Williams Zombie.

The people joined and all of the creatures of the town restored its horses cows sheep cats birds squirrels rats toads insects and humans all danced a dance to drums and beat the dust of the Hank Williams Zombie back into the earth where all dead things go.

Day into night people kept on dancing and whooping until they began to look around and no one could see any sign of Woodchuck.

Then a child said I saw him wander off and the people knew Woodchuck had left to travel again.

There is a moral to this story.

It shows why today though the humans do not have such things to fear as they once did in towns in the country you will find that they have no hearts and they are numb and murderous raging and brutal insensible as the dead.

It is because long ago their hearts were eaten by the Hank Williams Zombie who was then reduced to dust by Woodchuck who danced to drums until he wandered away.

ELK SLEEPS WITH HIS OWN WIFE BY MISTAKE

Woodchuck had a friend named Elk with whom he had adventures.

Elk had a wife with whom Elk did not get along.

One day Woodchuck visited holding the box containing his penis as always.

Is that a gift for me said Elk’s wife.

Did you hear that said Elk later to Woodchuck.

She just said that to get at me.

She knows perfectly well what you have in that box everyone does.

She is always aggravating me.

Let’s have a drink.

So Woodchuck and Elk went drinking and Elk began flirting like he always did.

Elk had very big antlers and liked to show them off to girls when he drank.

Soon Woodchuck had nothing to do so he thought about Elk’s wife who was very good looking herself.

Maybe he did have something to give her.

Where is that no good husband of mine said Elk’s wife when Woodchuck appeared back at her door.

Woodchuck said nothing.

He did not need to.

This began an affair between Elk’s wife and Woodchuck.

Elk’s wife wanted revenge on Elk but she did not want to get caught so she was very worried when Woodchuck arranged to meet her.

Is that him or that she would start at the slightest noise.

They agreed that some plan was needed which was arrived at the next day.

Woodchuck had again gone drinking with Elk and when Elk went off after some tail he saw.

Woodchuck doubled back to Elk’s house.

He was greeted at the door by a very pretty woman he didn’t recognize.

It’s me said Elk’s wife and she revealed how she had changed her hair and make-up and clothes to look like someone else.

But by this time Woodchuck’s penis was getting bored.

One day when Woodchuck and Elk were drinking it saw something new and wandered off.

By the time Woodchuck returned to the box where he had left it carelessly the penis was gone without a trace.

Woodchuck knew what trouble could result and so left immediately to go after it.

Ah that Woodchuck said Elk to himself.

It’s always the same with him and his penis.

Well I’m not having any fun now so I might as well go home.

In the meantime Elk’s wife of course had dressed up again both so that if Elk came back and found her with Woodchuck he would not recognize her and because she knew Woodchuck and his penis enjoyed new things.

So when Elk arrived at his house he found his wife in disguise.

Who are you he said.

I am one of your wife’s friends said Elk’s wife playing along thinking that really her own husband must recognize her and it was silly to try fooling him.
Elk flirted I didn’t know my wife had any friends as pretty as you.

Soon they made love.

But afterward Elk asked his wife her name and she realized it wasn’t play.

Elk hadn’t known it was her.

So you sleep with other women she said.

I didn’t sleep with any other women said Elk.

But you thought I was another woman when you slept with me.

Elk turned and ran away but Elk’s wife was also a good runner and she chased him through the woods.

They would stop and argue and then they would run and they got angrier and angrier.

They had argued before many times but this time Elk grew so mad he wandered into a broad clearing.

There an avid sportsman killed Elk with a single bullet in the center of his chest from a tree stand at the farther end of the field with the most well-engineered hunting rifle ever designed to that time a shot a Marine sniper would be proud of.

Today Elk can be seen still but never by the likes of you or me.

His head is mounted with antlers well-displayed in an exclusive club for immensely wealthy and powerful men in one of our large cities where now with marbles for eyes dead Elk still has the bewildered look of when he realized he had slept with his own wife by mistake.