WRiTE CLUB 2013 – Bout 2

We are off to a rip-roaring start with the votes pouring in from all corners of the blogosphere for WRiTE CLUB’s first bout on Monday! Thank you to everyone who stopped by to make a selection and special thanks to those of you who tweeted, re-tweeted, and blogged about it. A reminder: the voting will remain open for Round 1 until noon on Sunday, and the winner will be announced in the Round 3 post.

However, not everybody is reading (or abiding) the rules.  I received numerous votes from people who have not signed up on the participation Linky List.  Votes from commenters who are not on that list WILL NOT COUNT towards determining a winner or the drawing at the end of the contest.  The list of commenters below fall into that category.  This is the last time I’m allowing people to retroactively add their names on the Linky List…from now on I will simply ignore the vote. 
John Purget
Zuesses Maximus
Cynthia
Ice Girl
Jennie Bailey
Nancy
Writerlysam
Katie Past
Damyanti

Hurry up now, find an open seat.  Things are getting a bit tight in here and it seems like the word about WRiTE CLUB has been making the rounds and tickets are going fast.  That's alright, we're all friends here so let's get cozy.  The action is about to begin once again.

So, without further ado....

Here are this bout's randomly selected WRiTER's.

Standing in the far corner, weighing in at 500 words and representing the women's fiction genre, please welcome to the ring……..Philangelus

Friday night I spend exactly as a woman of my stature should: on her knees in front of her mother's toilet.

And I have my niece with me. Won't my brother be proud?

Actually, Randy will be proud. After Amber phoned from school five times, I agreed to get her early. Then as I was about to leave, I got a call from my mom because the toilet was busted.

It says something about Amber's current social situation that repairing a toilet with her maiden aunt is the best game in town. She perches on the bathtub's edge, churning out one unending sentence about girls with nothing better to do than remind her of the ways she is their inferior.

"Hand me the wrench." Amber watches me tighten the shutoff valve and then flush to release as much water as possible. An inch remains, so I soak it up with a ratty Mickey Mouse towel.

Amber stops her monologue. "Where'd you learn to do this?"

"One of the best things a woman can do for herself is learn to fix a toilet." I huff as I rummage in the tool box for the WD-40. "For your sixteenth birthday, ask for a set of Craftsman tools and learn to use them."

My mother huffs. "She'd be better off learning to apply makeup."

"You need the makeup to bat your eyes at a guy so he'll fix your toilet. Skip a step." The inside of the tank is dry, and everything is lubricated. "This is the inlet supply for the tank. You'll remember to turn off the shutoff valve, right? Because that's important. Otherwise we'd all get sprayed when I do this." I disconnect the inlet supply and am rewarded with no gush of water. Wouldn't that be embarrassing?

Mom says, "A husband isn't good only for fixing toilets," and she walks out.

My mother was a single mom all those years. When she got my uncle to do maintenance or install a ceiling fan, I used sit by the wall listening to Uncle Mickey. "This is a circuit breaker," "You spread on the joint compound thin," "Let me tell you about the time I forgot to test to see if the wire was live," and all for an audience of one. He didn't realize I was deciphering how the world got put together, and that I could put together a world by myself when I rejected the one my mother had ready-made for me.

Amber says, "Did you study engineering?"

I laugh. "Most engineers can design a bridge but can't change their own oil." I know--I listen to their phone conversations while they're paying me to change it.  "I squeaked through college with a degree in Family Studies. I hadn't thought beyond graduation."

Shocked, Amber says, "They tell us to have a plan."

"No one told me that." Well, no one but Bucky, who spouted enigmatic speeches like "You're graduating in a month. Have you thought about getting a job?"

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And in the near corner, representing the adult short story genre with 498 words, give it up for ………Matilijas.




*Matilijas, Rohdea japonica--a perennial and native to California. It thrives in sun, is easy to grow, but difficult to transplant elsewhere.*

The July sun ran the thermometer up to ninety degrees by eleven that morning. The corn tassels drooped in the vegetable garden watered only two hours before, and even Elaine's curls clung lifeless against her forehead. She leaned back against the stone wall that still held some of the night chill, letting the long, leggy stems of O'Keefe-splendid poppies shadow her face.

The Matilijas, unlike the rest of the vegetation, looked fresh. Their wide open petals strained upward like true sun worshipers, unafraid and trusting. Elaine acknowledged their bravery and resented it at the same time. How she yearned to trade the pinched feeling inside herself for such openness and faith. Yet common sense had not abandoned her yet. Turning her face skyward in this heat was out of the question. She sat in the shade of the poppies, her knees pulled tight against her chest, her chin resting on top.

Between eleven and noon in the summer, Elaine always sat next to the rock wall, under the Matilijas, and, since she'd lived alone, she huddled under an umbrella in the winter when the Matilijas had been cut to stubble and sulked underground, waiting for their next season.

Winter-waiting was the most difficult for her. No Matilijas to see or touch, so she had to draw on memory of their gold centers and floppy white perimeters. She had to hold on to her belief that they would return in June. They always had.

The mail delivery came about the same time each weekday, and she didn't want to miss the snub-nosed blue and white truck with its messages from other places. One day a letter would arrive and it would change her life—no—bring her to life. Everyday she acknowledged that what she did now and had done for three years was not living. Since the accident she'd not worked, not met her friends, not left the house for more than groceries in town. She had become like a rooted thing, holding on to the earth. But it was only until the letter came, she knew . . . or she believed.

When the girls had been alive and the summer heated the asphalt to a shimmer, they’d joined Elaine under the Matilijas, and Elaine remembered how much fun they'd had together. Sometimes they'd pretend to be bandits or to be hiding from kidnappers, not daring to breathe as the evildoers crept past their hiding place. Elaine brushed her forehead, remembering the heat of those other summer days. On truly hot ones like this, they'd sip lemonade and make faces because Elaine refused to put too much sugar in the mix.

“Not good for your teeth, darlings!” she'd say.

The girls would sip the tangy juice, scrunch their faces and laugh. The Matilijas would nod overhead from the laughing and the bitter-lemon shuddering.


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You folks have your work cut out for you again.  It’s up to you to decide who moves forward to the playoffs.  In the comments below leave your vote for the winner of round 2.  Get your friends to join in the fun and make a selection as well.  The voting will remain open until noon next Wednesday (7/17). 

Remember, here in WRiTE CLUB, it’s not about the last man/woman standing, it’s about who knocks the audience out!