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The Loosestrife Man....
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The Loosestrife Man.... I read a story online from a magazine featuring local writers, and I liked one story especially so I emailed the writer to tell her so. She had written the story about her ex-husband. She returned kind of a smart assed response and I liked her even more. So this is the first thing I read that PD had written. It was my introduction to her. She said she'd like to meet someone to go to the movies with her, and maybe fuck her once in a while. We got married and we're still married. Once in a while we go to the movies, but she doesn't complain. THE LOOSESTRIFE MAN What passes for affection these days is a note taped to the refrigerator door which reads, "I've left you. If you follow me I'll call the cops." All Alice ever wanted was a man who brought her flowers, so when the red azalea appeared beside her back gate, planted in a place she never would have chosen, displacing innocent earthworms and heaving rich black dirt across the concrete walk without a trace of apology, she ignored the alarm. Prince Charming and Prince Alarming are always the same guy anyway. Botanical invasion was at least a creative sort of seduction. Hey Baby. Can I plant your yard? Except, whoever it was, he never asked. The first time, it didn't really matter. Who questions a violation that ends in spring? It didn't really matter the second time either, when all those Emperor tulips materialized along the driveway where no one planted them, or the third time, when a lilac bush shoved its purple head inside an open window that was clear and square just the day before. But the fourth time, when she opened the back door to find half the sod taken up and replaced with at least fifty unrecognizable varieties of exotic flora, Alice ran to her best friend. "A man is planting flowers in my yard without permission." "Have you asked him to stop?" "I never see him." "How do you know it's a man then?" "Who else would do a thing like that?" In June, birds came. Lots of birds. Who could blame them? Half the damn plants had berries, and of the others, half again were asking for it some other way. The birds spilled seeds on the ground and the seeds attracted mice and the mice attracted cats and red-tailed hawks and other creatures Alice never saw, only heard, brushing against the Amazon foliage and uttering small, strange cries whenever she turned away from them. Some of the seeds sprouted and new strange plants crowded in amongst the dominant strange plants, unleashing horticultural chaos. By August, a rasping sound at the screen turned out to be a pumpkin vine accompanied by an opposum coachman, both demanding to be let in. Alice ran out the front door and headed straight for the police station. "There's a pumpkin vine trying to get in my back door. A man put it there." "Um. Okay M'am. Is he threatening you in any way? Does he have a weapon?" "Have you ever seen a pumpkin vine?" Hacking her way up to the porch, Alice knew before she even opened the door, that her kitchen was now all about fruit where fruit does not belong. Tomatoes on the toaster, apples and pears stacked higher than the answering machine, the yeasty smell of grapes gone bad. Wading through a pool of rotting cherries and sweating torrentially she made it as far as the TV in the living room, which clicked on easily despite the little lizards clinging to the antenna the better to catch drosophila with their sticky curled tongues. "Today in a bog near Three Rivers, scientists dredged up what appears to be the fossilized remains of a strangled man. Local botanists found the corpse while trying to contain a stand of purple loosestrife, the beautiful but invasive plant that has been choking Midwest waterways since it was introduced here in the late 1980s." Alice grabs a watermelon from its seeping place on the recliner and hurls it at the screen. It’s hard to start a fire in the midst of fermentation, but where there is a woman there is a way. Sometimes, only blood will do, and broken glass, and plenty of it. Alice spills flour into the mash and cereal into the wound and stamps her feet and screams and kills rats and bats and dogs and hyenas and herons too, but no one hears. Ants come and crickets come and cockroaches come until the scraping of wings against chiton against mandibles against shattered bare bone mutates into a din and a dinner more terrible and shrill than any typhoon. In the silence that follows the first hard frost, Alice folds linens and stacks them neatly in her cedar closet side by side. Under the spell of winter pine and a fresh hot iron all things are made smooth and warm and dry again. She presses her face against the cold clean pane and breathes her mark upon the glass and writes in finger, "Never again..." She is leaving now. Do not try to follow. Become a member now and get a free tote bag. |
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Good heavens! A classicist has apparently married a magical realist! One can only imagine what the results of their combined creative efforts might look like! Stop in, read, and offer comments at my "swinging as seen in the media" blog, "Confessions of a Lifestyle Man" humorlife, which is also the home of the monthly virtual symposium. New post: The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic
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Good heavens! A classicist has apparently married a magical realist! One can only imagine what the results of their combined creative efforts might look like! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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10/23/2014 11:09 pm |
Excellent new picture. I kept wanting to say that all evening, but was wrapped up in conversation. I can't expect that article to be a true account of her experience... yet, it inspires me in a way that was just the trick. Looking forward to Spring, again. May end up in jail for it, though 
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It was true. You can't make that shit up. It was all loosestrife. True in a way that facts can't convey. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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This is a lovely read, B, even though I can relate to the intense rage and near psychosis in the paragraph where Alice grabs the Sugar Baby watermelon. That's the magnitude of my daily dose of frustration... When it doesn't happen, I keep imagining that there's something I forgot to do because I still have energy left over. I got a chuckle out of humorguaranteed's comment... Ironically, he hasn't yet seen fit to comment on my blog, unless it's before he requested acceptance into my friends network and was so long ago that I've forgotten. I think HG is just very busy. I'd like more of his time too, but I'm retired and have lots of time. I have to remind myself sometimes that my friends have lives. I can sit on my porch with my dog and greet them when they have time to stop by. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I'm not the jealous type. Protective, maybe. I share her blog and her writing because I want everyone to love her. Lady, in this story the line between fact and fantasy is so blurred that the real seems fantastic and the fantastic real. This guy was an OCD collector and landscape designer who was creative enough and eccentric enough that the local papers featured him from time to time. He wasn't steamroller invasive, but he was insidious and relentless, hence the title. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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What a great read! I wonder if she still wants a man to bring her flowers? Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I won't tell anyone if you won't. I openly envy that style. It's what drew me in. I guess envy is not the right word- I admire it. I can't do it and I marvel at it. That's not an admission of failure, I just don't think that way, and can't express myself like that. We all have differences- I can remember poetry and quote it, but I'm hopelessly without rhythm to create it. On the other hand, you should just watch her try to change a flat tire or drive a nail. It is fucking awesomely hilarious. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thank you. It still seems like a miracle to me. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I KNOW I responded to your comment, NoMo, but it disappeared. WTF? I do all the planting- the plants don't survive her care...and now I know where my comment went! I used the "K" word for what she does to plants! She tries to plant once in a while, but it doesn't often work- plants are so needy- feed me, water me, prune me. I can't buy her flowers because the cat eats them. His motto is: Roses are red, Violets are blue, If you buy her more flowers, I'll eat them too. Let's see if I can get that past the English Lit majors who are moonlighting as censors. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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How did I not see this when you first posted this? I liked it. Crazy and insane. Kk The observant make the best lovers, I may not do right, but I do write, I have bliss, joy, and happiness in my life, Kitkat Come check out my blog KItkat1415 check out this post by me Adventures In Body Grooming #39 April Topic Link: What Lies Beneath If April Showers Oh Bloody Hell What Kind Of Weather Turns Me On Bloggers Symposium 40
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How did I not see this when you first posted this? I liked it. Crazy and insane. Kk Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Write on and it's very cool!  Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thank you Lola. I just know you and my wife would love each other. This short story put me over the edge. She had poetry in her soul. I can't do it, but I love it when I see it. It is never too late for any of us! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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This is a great read. I enjoyed it. Thank for pointing me back to it. 
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This is a great read. I enjoyed it. Thank for pointing me back to it. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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