[stylist] Writing Exercises from Patricia Foster

[Priscilla McKinley]

Chris,

I just read  your piece, and I think it's great, especially the last
part after Vicky acknowledges you.  You make your readers feel as
though they are right there, feeling what you felt.

While you said you don't plan to do anything with this, this could be
a section in a much longer piece, perhaps a memoir.  Nice work!

Priscilla


On 10/27/10, Chris Kuell <ckuell at comcast.net> wrote:
> Here's my response to the 'first' exercise.
>  First Love
>
> By Chris Kuell
>
> When I was 10, we lived in the suburbs outside of Cincinnati, in what my
> parents referred to as a subdivision. Streets ran periodically north and
> south, east and west, and were named after trees or presidents. Everybody
> had a uniform quarter acre lot, with only five or six basic designs among
> the hundreds of homes. Variations usually involved putting the garage on the
> left, then in the next identical house, putting it on the right. Shrubs or a
> Japanese maple made another clone unique. It was a great place to be a kid,
> mainly because it was totally blue-collar families, with lots of other kids
> to play with.
>
> On one side our neighbors were the Steinhaus family, Dot and Ed, who often
> shared beers and played cards with my parents. They had two kids, and I once
> started a fire with their son Mark, but that's a story for a different day.
>
> To the other side were the Mann's, an older retired couple with four kids,
> all of them grown; three already out on their own. Their youngest daughter's
> name was Vicky. She must have been 19 or 20 at the time, and we barely knew
> she existed until she came home one day in a gold Firebird, with a mythical
> fire-breathing creature adorning the hood. Every kid on the block noticed
> the car, including me. But, unlike the others, I also noticed Vicky.
>
> Our backyard had a chain link fence, because we always had a dog or two, and
> my parents didn't believe in caging them or putting them on a run. So, they
> had freedom and we had to watch where we stepped. What I remember most about
> my tenth summer, was that our backyard had a clear view into the Mann's
> backyard, and Vicky liked to sunbathe on her days off work.
>
> I would find any excuse to go out in the backyard, play catch with Fatima,
> our basset hound, or toss Frisbee to myself, all the while checking out
> Vicky in her lemon yellow bikini. Her long ash blonde hair, her bronzed
> skin, and boobs. Not at all the same kind of boobs my mom or Mrs. Steinhaus
> had; Vicky's boobs made me sweat, made blood flow through my body in new and
> interesting ways. I couldn't get over how Vicky could just sit out there,
> oil coating her tender flesh, so exposed, virtually naked.  It fascinated
> me, and left me wondering why I had the strange feelings I did.
>
> When her parents weren't home, Vicky's friends would come over. Several
> young ladies would hang out, soaking up the sun with Vicky, listening to the
> radio and laughing about things I couldn't overhear.  Occasionally a long
> haired guy or two in short cut off jeans would come over as well, acting
> cool in their mirrored sunglasses. I noticed the guys usually smoked, and I
> would observe Vicky taking a puff or two. It didn't really surprise me,
> after all, she was an adult. However, I did notice she only smoked when the
> guys were around, and she would laugh in a silly way that was different than
> when only girls were there.
>
> As far as I know, Vicky lived in her own world and had no idea I even
> existed. I would wave to her sometimes as she drove by, or speed after the
> golden Firebird on my bike, but she never acknowledged my attempts at
> friendship.
>
> One day, I was tossing baseball in our side yard with my older brother
> David. He was pitching, and I was catching. David was a pretty big kid, and
> he could really hum a baseball. We didn't have a catcher's mitt, and my palm
> hurt from taking so many hits, protected only by a thin layer of leather.
>
> I had just tossed the ball back to David, when Vicky came around the corner
> of the Mann’s house. She carried a soda, her hair loose around her
> shoulders, wearing the type of short shorts and a virtually translucent tube
> top that was fashionable in 1972 and undoubtedly labeled obscene today. She
> looked straight at me and smiled wide, with flawless teeth and eyes bluer
> than any color paint than I had in my paint by numbers kit.
>
> "Hi," she said, and my heart stopped.
>
> I wanted to be cool, grown up, say, "Hi Vicky. Gonna catch some rays today?"
> Or, maybe, "Damn, Vicky, you're lookin' foxy today".
>
> I wanted to tell her how I thought of her at night. That I daydream about
> rubbing oil on her lusciously tanned body. That if she ever needed anything,
> I mean anything, just call out. I wanted to sing to her, like David Cassidy,
> "I think I love you."
>
> But I didn't. Instead, a sixty mile and hour fast ball bounced off my right
> temple and I had to be rushed to the emergency room.
>
> I got quite the egg on the side of my head, and I suffered chronic headaches
> for about three months. But, it was worth it, just for that one second where
> Vicky and I were connected, when her attention was focused completely on me.
> The first time I felt special in a way that family can't make you feel. A
> different kind of love, one that blurs out everything else in the world. One
> worth taking a crack to the skull for.
>
>
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