Loitering: New and Collected Essays (32 page)

In
Mimesis
, Erich Auerbach’s book on the representation of reality in Western literature, he talks of the shift from antiquity to a New Testament style of realism. “To be sure,” he writes, “we must not forget that the transformation is here one whose course progresses to somewhere outside of history, to the end of time or to the coincidence of all times, in other words upward, and does not . . . remain on the horizontal plane of historical events.” I wonder, was our understanding of September 11 little more than a Christian homily, an escape from history, a romance secularizing the divine or lifting the legend out of the ruin—is that where it all went? All through the writing of this I thought of Shelley, who at eighteen sent copies of a pamphlet on atheism to every professor at Oxford. He believed a university dedicated to open discussion and the free exchange of ideas would be interested. He was kicked out. Next he went to Ireland, planning to begin a major rehabilitation of all mankind by organizing the Irish into a “society of peace and love,” perhaps a doomed enterprise. Next he was off to Wales, again with a pamphlet, this one called “A Declaration of Rights.” He enclosed copies in dark-green bottles that he sealed with wax and cast into the ocean; other copies he floated aloft, to be blown inland on balloons. Is it reasonable to think Shelley was eternally part of mankind in his
solitary foolish hope at sea’s edge? That his solitude was the mark of a deeper, broader inclusion? Or is this just poetic fancy? Watching the fireworks made me wonder. In general I don’t care for activities—fireworks or football or movies—where large groups of people gather and look at the same thing. This is probably just a queerness of temperament. Maybe I don’t like crowds. Regardless, the fireworks rose up, pulsing in our local cosmos. On the way home I stopped to watch the show with some kids who were heaped under blankets while the parents handled the pyrotechnics. Each explosion eclipsed the sky with dazzling colors and froze the onlooking, upturned faces like a strobe. All the kids kept pointing up, the way astonished kids will, as if I might not know where to look.

       
From
The Spirit of History

       
When gold paint flakes from the arms of sculptures,

       
When the letter falls out of the book of laws,

       
Then consciousness is naked as an eye.

       
When the pages of books fall in fiery scraps

       
Onto smashed leaves and twisted metal,

       
The tree of good and evil is stripped bare.

       
When a wing made of canvas is extinguished

       
In a potato patch, when steel disintegrates,

       
Nothing is left but straw and cow dung.

       
I rolled a cigarette and licked the paper.

       
Then a match in the little house of my hand.

       
And why not a tinderbox with a flint?

       
The wind was blowing. I sat on the road at noon,

       
Thinking and thinking. Beside me, potatoes.

—Czesław Miłosz

1
Where W = weight, Cd = drag coefficient, r = density, and A = frontal area.

The following essays appeared first in
The Stranger
: “Seattle, 1974”; “Loitering” (as “The Crime That Never Was”); “Whaling Out West” (as “Whaling”); and “Casting Stones” as (“Mary Kay Letourneau”). “Seattle, 1974” also appeared in
The Eleventh Draft: Craft and the Writing Life from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
, ed. Frank Conroy. “Any Resemblance to Anyone Living” and “Misreading” (as “True Believer”) appeared first in
Tin House
. “Documents” and “Catching Out” (as “Train in Vain”) appeared originally in
The New Yorker
. “American Newness” (as “Modular Homes”), “Winning” (as “Brick Wall”), “One More Paradise” as (“Biosquat”), and “Orphans” were first published in
Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors
. “Brick Wall” also appeared
in
Harper’s
. “Doo-Wop Down the Road” was published in Camela Raymond’s much-loved broadsheet,
The Organ
. “Salinger and Sobs” appeared first in
With Love and Squalor
, eds. Kip Kotzen and Thomas Beller, and was subsequently collected in
The Story About the Story: Great Writers Explore Great Literature
, ed. J. C. Hallman. A portion of “This Is Living” was published in
Money Changes Everything
, eds. Jenny Offill and Elissa Schappell. “Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg” first saw print in an anthology called
The Clear Cut Future
.

Copyright Notes & Permissions

“Communion,” from Sherman Alexie’s
The Man Who Loves Salmon
, used with the author’s permission.

“Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg.” Copyright © 1973 by Richard Hugo, from
Making Certain It Goes On: Collected Poems of Richard Hugo
by Richard Hugo. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

“Falling Man” photo © 2011 by Susan Watts / NY Daily News / Getty Images.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to begin by paying overdue tribute to one of the most naturally curious men I’ve ever known, Rich Jensen, for bringing the bold and visionary ambitions of Clear Cut Press to life. Like most writers, I’ve benefited from wise and tolerant editors everywhere, but because I have a weak spot for Seattle’s great alt-weekly,
The Stranger
, I can’t resist singling out some key figures by name: Matthew Stadler, Emily White, Sean Nelson, Charles Mudede, and Christopher Frizzelle. I’m not easy, and no one knows that better than Mary Evans and Jordan Pavlin, to whom I owe so much. For her quiet behind-the-scenes advice and guidance over many years, thank you, Jody. For offering an open hand, thank you, Lee Montgomery. For her friendship,
fierce intelligence, and keen eye, thank you, Sarah Fay. For their generous and always timely support I’d like to thank the Whiting Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lannan Foundation, and United States Artists. And finally to the whole Tin House family, who make so many things happen, I want to thank each and every one of you—Diane Chonette, Lance Cleland, Masie Cochran, Matthew Dickman, Emma Komlos-Hrobsky, Cheston Knapp, Holly MacArthur, Nanci McCloskey, Tony Perez, Thomas Ross, Elissa Schappell, Rob Spillman, Meg Storey, Jakob Vala, Michelle Wildgen, and, of course, Win McCormack—for making this book happen.

PHOTO © SARAH FRYE

CHARLES D’AMBROSIO
is the author of two collections of short stories, The Point and The Dead Fish Museum, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the essay collection Orphans. He’s been the recipient of a Whiting Writer’s Award and a Lannan Fellowship, among other honors. His work has appeared frequently in The New Yorker, as well as in Tin House, The Paris Review, Zoetrope All-Story, and A Public Space. He teaches fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.