Black Eyed Mansion: Desperate Fires
By Eric Peterson
1,650 words
When you are young and desperate. Sometimes just good enough is good enough. It can seem better than just right. When you are older you learn, with
something's it's better to wait until you find just the 'Just Right'.
Goldilox. The Balance. Lagom. It's all out there. Waiting, while you
approach, while you are patient, while you dream. Did you hear the 'Fatherly Advice'? Not to
give up your dreams! American Dreams, American Nightmares, they are all part of the ride.
It pays to wait. Don't matter if you're talking about, finding that import version of Radio Birdman's first album. The right color of Made-in-America Chuck Taylor All Stars. Or the house that will be a home. Wait. Think. Consider. Big decisions. Little decisions. These are the stuff" of our lives. Waiting, avoiding impulse, that is a skill learned.
A house, that was the target, our current dream. Dreams: first had been a partner, then marriage, now the house. We saw the ad, somewhere. On-line, It must have been on-line where we found the ad. I photo shopped a new coat of pain, I mean paint on the exterior. I still have that somewhere buried in the dead files of my machine.
Whatever. The house, it was under the 200K mark. In the city limit.
Photo showed a shabby, but promising exterior. Dead lawn, it was waiting. Waiting for a rebirth.
FIXER UPPER. AS IS. NEEDS WORK. At least it didn't say possessed, haunted. There was
no use of the word UNBIDDEN, in the ad. It was for sale; its best
elements were on display. I could see the ugliness and the desperation already there. I
could sense that our desperation for a house might push us over the edge.
Jodie thoughts: cute, quirky, cool, darling, and ugly as sin. Said it
was: promising, compromising, surprising, odd, weird, strange, New
England!!! Cape Cod. Woods Hole west, Amityville sheik. The job would be fun. A job fun?
We could see bushes hacked away. Dead earth on either side of the door. The promise of planting new shrubs, hiding flaws of course.
On the market on a Sunday. Time running out. Lot's of time coming to a close. Leases were about to expire. Our jobs weren't about to pay any more, any time soon. Our
ability to buy a house, any house, that house, every house, in this
place was shrinking. Even as our lives grew.
We talked it. We didn't talk it. We nodded it. We glanced it. Unspoken.
Across silent dinners. Drunken late-nights, after being out with friends. We mouthed 'House' at each other. We knew we had to look.
Between dinners. Between work. Between appointments. We circled.
Twisted. Drove around, like sharks to the kill. We avoided it by only blocks. The neighborhood. We
came closer. Descending into the maelstrom. Crusin' close to the place. Driving haunted roads in, and shadow drives out. Never daring to get in sight. Never getting
right next to it. Never getting past it. Never getting to the property
line. Close. Never.
A week passed, on the market a whole week. That cheap, no sale, no notice on the web. I checked the ad daily. Click. Bookmark. File under house. Sub filed under
dreams. Jobs. Travel. Antique cars. Writers conferences. Grad Schools.
Dreams. Own, have, participate, see, try, think about. Sub file under miss. , no point getting to worked up over passion. Lucky to have what I have. What we have.
Saturday came, and we could not ignore it any longer. We rallied the
car, we cruised out, never looked back. No more circles. The circle was broken. They wanted us in
the circle. We broke the edge. We at least had to look.
Parked right in front. Passenger side opening into the ditch. No side
walk. Never live someplace with out one. Can you even live someplace that doesn't have a sidewalk? Sidewalks exist for A reason. The house, on the road, that should be the first hint of instability. Our car, in front of the mail box. Can't see
the front door from there. When is the mail was delivered this far out? Delivered late? I'm sure, I wondered about it.
Not in the ad. The Ditch. The massive evergreen's. Hanging heavy in the front yard. Three of them. Heavy with needles, green and dead. Heavy with, with,
something. The driveway? Rutted, Dusty. More Dust, thrown in for good measure. I looked over the property for tumbleweeds, and found none. A few rocks. A hasty second parking slot thad been thrown down. A uneven strip of gravel on the lawn.
The fence? Cyclone rust. Looking like it survived more than the wind,
but less than a car at 10 miles an hour. Rickety, dirty metal alloyed foolishness. King chain, dog
wire, what ever you call it. Ugly prison camp grade dusty looking faded Grey links of brittle aluminum. Sagging like the whole of the property under the strain of neglect, time, and the soul crushing slide into 'aw fuck it' land.
We stood at the end of the drive. We never got past that point, there
wasn't any reason. I don't think either of us wanted the fight. Wanted to waste the time. There
was an overwhelming sense of futility, Gloom, Doom and mostly A Sadness emanating from the place. A Sadness could be seen in every part of the exterior, from the
heavily burdened pine trees, slowly dying from the inside, fat with
boughs like love handles. The wandering walkways, leading to Nowheresville. Surely they were as lost as the people that walked them, surely would be.
Finally over the roof we could see the outstretched arms, branches,
tentacles, of a great old one, a Silver Maple. Looming ominously over the whole of the plot, on
which the house rested. It's hanging branches drooping low, it's shattered stumps thrusting into the sky. All testament to the fallen arms, now gone. The bulk cast a shadow over the world. A world tree leading to nowhere.
We did our Gawking, looking, pointing. Wanting, wishing, for as long as we could stand to stay. Every moment we stood was a moment closer to weeping in
sorrow. Every moment, a moment closer to ultimate despair. 'It's not the one,' A line I used often 'It's a house,' Jodie was more interested in having, than having it right.
'We don't have the skills to fix it,'
'Who would?'
'I can't believe that people live this way. Who would live like that?'
try to change
the subject, sometimes that worked
'Well are we gonna look?' Jodie ignored my rejection of the house.
'No, I don't...'
'You never do, it's all wait, wait, wait with you? Are you ever going
to stop
waiting and start taking?' She cut me off, she was starting one of those talks.
'Thieve me. Believe Me,' Nonsense I non-sequiter out, I know I've
already lost.
'Not working, speak in words, or-' mad, I knew that tonight would be
really good, or really bad, tomorrow would be more of the same. Hot or cold, no Goldilox. Best chance, make up with her right here, now.
'You think so, you avoided this place, as much as I did. All this week we danced around looking, now we stand here, and 'I nodded my head toward the not dream house. Jodie, about to say something, shut up quick. I knew a X factor had slipped into the mix.
A man walked out of the house, he stopped, looked at us for a moment.
He gave a slight shake of his head. He approached one of the car's on the property. This one, parked in the driveway, he opened the door, removed something and headed back into the house. Watching him enter that place, I wanted to reach out and scream 'don't go in there'.
He looked, well semi normal, partly defective, looked like he needed as
much fixing as the house. I don't know why I thought that, or if I was even correct in my assessment. It might have been the shoulders, or the walk or that shake of the head.
I don't know.
'Let's go,' discussed, Jodie dragged me away. I drive, in the car,,, we argue.
'We need a new place,' we've had this fight before, were on auto-pilot.
'We need the right place, something that is an investment, a livable
place,'
'We didn't see the inside! It's in our price range. Fixer upper, that
means that we could create a new life in the place. Create a world of our own.'
'Not there, not yet, in time we'll find the right place,'
It was over, for now, for this time. We will replay it again and again.
Over time, over and over, and maybe for as long as we are together.
Car, Drive, Silent wife, each of us, burning with desire(s). Desire for
something we don't have, and can't seem to find. Nagging desire. Fire, illuminating only a place of dead roads, leading to dead ends.
Behind us, a Dead house. Elseworlds, Dead Earths. A house, the wrong house. Glimpsed under the shadows. We saw it, stared into it's eyes.
Unconsciously, we peered into the soul of that house. A house of the damned. A prison for the future.
A containment unit for pain, gloom, and loss. A Black Eyed Mansion.
First one I truly saw.
Postscript: The book came out years later, I knew right away it was
that house. The one we looked at in Ann Arbor. I read the book, and I was glad we didn't bother to
walk its grounds, and check it's floor plan. I showed the book to
Jodie. She cried. She said 'Everyone should weep tears of fire at the thought of that
place'.
Copyright Eric Peterson 2004
Notes: I think I'm going to try and post a short story or two for the readers of my journal... enjoy, let me know what you think of this....
My friends The Atomic Swindlers have a really cool video here for their song Electric Star Girl
By Eric Peterson
1,650 words
When you are young and desperate. Sometimes just good enough is good enough. It can seem better than just right. When you are older you learn, with
something's it's better to wait until you find just the 'Just Right'.
Goldilox. The Balance. Lagom. It's all out there. Waiting, while you
approach, while you are patient, while you dream. Did you hear the 'Fatherly Advice'? Not to
give up your dreams! American Dreams, American Nightmares, they are all part of the ride.
It pays to wait. Don't matter if you're talking about, finding that import version of Radio Birdman's first album. The right color of Made-in-America Chuck Taylor All Stars. Or the house that will be a home. Wait. Think. Consider. Big decisions. Little decisions. These are the stuff" of our lives. Waiting, avoiding impulse, that is a skill learned.
A house, that was the target, our current dream. Dreams: first had been a partner, then marriage, now the house. We saw the ad, somewhere. On-line, It must have been on-line where we found the ad. I photo shopped a new coat of pain, I mean paint on the exterior. I still have that somewhere buried in the dead files of my machine.
Whatever. The house, it was under the 200K mark. In the city limit.
Photo showed a shabby, but promising exterior. Dead lawn, it was waiting. Waiting for a rebirth.
FIXER UPPER. AS IS. NEEDS WORK. At least it didn't say possessed, haunted. There was
no use of the word UNBIDDEN, in the ad. It was for sale; its best
elements were on display. I could see the ugliness and the desperation already there. I
could sense that our desperation for a house might push us over the edge.
Jodie thoughts: cute, quirky, cool, darling, and ugly as sin. Said it
was: promising, compromising, surprising, odd, weird, strange, New
England!!! Cape Cod. Woods Hole west, Amityville sheik. The job would be fun. A job fun?
We could see bushes hacked away. Dead earth on either side of the door. The promise of planting new shrubs, hiding flaws of course.
On the market on a Sunday. Time running out. Lot's of time coming to a close. Leases were about to expire. Our jobs weren't about to pay any more, any time soon. Our
ability to buy a house, any house, that house, every house, in this
place was shrinking. Even as our lives grew.
We talked it. We didn't talk it. We nodded it. We glanced it. Unspoken.
Across silent dinners. Drunken late-nights, after being out with friends. We mouthed 'House' at each other. We knew we had to look.
Between dinners. Between work. Between appointments. We circled.
Twisted. Drove around, like sharks to the kill. We avoided it by only blocks. The neighborhood. We
came closer. Descending into the maelstrom. Crusin' close to the place. Driving haunted roads in, and shadow drives out. Never daring to get in sight. Never getting
right next to it. Never getting past it. Never getting to the property
line. Close. Never.
A week passed, on the market a whole week. That cheap, no sale, no notice on the web. I checked the ad daily. Click. Bookmark. File under house. Sub filed under
dreams. Jobs. Travel. Antique cars. Writers conferences. Grad Schools.
Dreams. Own, have, participate, see, try, think about. Sub file under miss. , no point getting to worked up over passion. Lucky to have what I have. What we have.
Saturday came, and we could not ignore it any longer. We rallied the
car, we cruised out, never looked back. No more circles. The circle was broken. They wanted us in
the circle. We broke the edge. We at least had to look.
Parked right in front. Passenger side opening into the ditch. No side
walk. Never live someplace with out one. Can you even live someplace that doesn't have a sidewalk? Sidewalks exist for A reason. The house, on the road, that should be the first hint of instability. Our car, in front of the mail box. Can't see
the front door from there. When is the mail was delivered this far out? Delivered late? I'm sure, I wondered about it.
Not in the ad. The Ditch. The massive evergreen's. Hanging heavy in the front yard. Three of them. Heavy with needles, green and dead. Heavy with, with,
something. The driveway? Rutted, Dusty. More Dust, thrown in for good measure. I looked over the property for tumbleweeds, and found none. A few rocks. A hasty second parking slot thad been thrown down. A uneven strip of gravel on the lawn.
The fence? Cyclone rust. Looking like it survived more than the wind,
but less than a car at 10 miles an hour. Rickety, dirty metal alloyed foolishness. King chain, dog
wire, what ever you call it. Ugly prison camp grade dusty looking faded Grey links of brittle aluminum. Sagging like the whole of the property under the strain of neglect, time, and the soul crushing slide into 'aw fuck it' land.
We stood at the end of the drive. We never got past that point, there
wasn't any reason. I don't think either of us wanted the fight. Wanted to waste the time. There
was an overwhelming sense of futility, Gloom, Doom and mostly A Sadness emanating from the place. A Sadness could be seen in every part of the exterior, from the
heavily burdened pine trees, slowly dying from the inside, fat with
boughs like love handles. The wandering walkways, leading to Nowheresville. Surely they were as lost as the people that walked them, surely would be.
Finally over the roof we could see the outstretched arms, branches,
tentacles, of a great old one, a Silver Maple. Looming ominously over the whole of the plot, on
which the house rested. It's hanging branches drooping low, it's shattered stumps thrusting into the sky. All testament to the fallen arms, now gone. The bulk cast a shadow over the world. A world tree leading to nowhere.
We did our Gawking, looking, pointing. Wanting, wishing, for as long as we could stand to stay. Every moment we stood was a moment closer to weeping in
sorrow. Every moment, a moment closer to ultimate despair. 'It's not the one,' A line I used often 'It's a house,' Jodie was more interested in having, than having it right.
'We don't have the skills to fix it,'
'Who would?'
'I can't believe that people live this way. Who would live like that?'
try to change
the subject, sometimes that worked
'Well are we gonna look?' Jodie ignored my rejection of the house.
'No, I don't...'
'You never do, it's all wait, wait, wait with you? Are you ever going
to stop
waiting and start taking?' She cut me off, she was starting one of those talks.
'Thieve me. Believe Me,' Nonsense I non-sequiter out, I know I've
already lost.
'Not working, speak in words, or-' mad, I knew that tonight would be
really good, or really bad, tomorrow would be more of the same. Hot or cold, no Goldilox. Best chance, make up with her right here, now.
'You think so, you avoided this place, as much as I did. All this week we danced around looking, now we stand here, and 'I nodded my head toward the not dream house. Jodie, about to say something, shut up quick. I knew a X factor had slipped into the mix.
A man walked out of the house, he stopped, looked at us for a moment.
He gave a slight shake of his head. He approached one of the car's on the property. This one, parked in the driveway, he opened the door, removed something and headed back into the house. Watching him enter that place, I wanted to reach out and scream 'don't go in there'.
He looked, well semi normal, partly defective, looked like he needed as
much fixing as the house. I don't know why I thought that, or if I was even correct in my assessment. It might have been the shoulders, or the walk or that shake of the head.
I don't know.
'Let's go,' discussed, Jodie dragged me away. I drive, in the car,,, we argue.
'We need a new place,' we've had this fight before, were on auto-pilot.
'We need the right place, something that is an investment, a livable
place,'
'We didn't see the inside! It's in our price range. Fixer upper, that
means that we could create a new life in the place. Create a world of our own.'
'Not there, not yet, in time we'll find the right place,'
It was over, for now, for this time. We will replay it again and again.
Over time, over and over, and maybe for as long as we are together.
Car, Drive, Silent wife, each of us, burning with desire(s). Desire for
something we don't have, and can't seem to find. Nagging desire. Fire, illuminating only a place of dead roads, leading to dead ends.
Behind us, a Dead house. Elseworlds, Dead Earths. A house, the wrong house. Glimpsed under the shadows. We saw it, stared into it's eyes.
Unconsciously, we peered into the soul of that house. A house of the damned. A prison for the future.
A containment unit for pain, gloom, and loss. A Black Eyed Mansion.
First one I truly saw.
Postscript: The book came out years later, I knew right away it was
that house. The one we looked at in Ann Arbor. I read the book, and I was glad we didn't bother to
walk its grounds, and check it's floor plan. I showed the book to
Jodie. She cried. She said 'Everyone should weep tears of fire at the thought of that
place'.
Copyright Eric Peterson 2004
Notes: I think I'm going to try and post a short story or two for the readers of my journal... enjoy, let me know what you think of this....
My friends The Atomic Swindlers have a really cool video here for their song Electric Star Girl
a good read.
how you be?