Raven's Song excerpts

about Raven’s Song:
Raven’s Song is the story of Raven, a 15-year old girl who has been sent away to a boarding school by her parents in order to safely hide her away from her stalker ex-boyfriend Tiyon. Raven is miserable because she is interested in art and the school she has been sent to specializes in math and science. She also feels ashamed that she ever got involved with Tiyon, who had a long history of emotional problems. One day she discovers that Tiyon has sent her a letter at school. One of her friends had been tricked into giving him her new address. Now realizing her cover is blown but not wanting to transfer schools again, Raven decides to take things into her own hands. She will get revenge. She will stalk him. But will her obsession with getting revenge take over Raven’s life?


Hands


His hands were long with spindly fingers. His arms were gangly and covered in dark circular scars. Burns from the tips of his mother’s cigarettes. Whenever she was angry—because she couldn’t find work, because of rats and roaches in the apartment, because he looked like his father, or just because Tiyon was her son–he became her ashtray. The arms, he thought now, were a good place to burn. They could mostly be covered with sleeves while school was in session. And it kept the caseworkers out of their business most of the time.

He was drawing in his art class. He was no good at it. He told his friend Chanara that the futuristic military base he’d done looked more like a deformed mushroom on a pogo stick. She laughed. He was good at that, making girls laugh. That’s all he ever was to them, a clown. At school, a clown. At home, an ashtray. Never quite human.

She sat across from him. She had small hands, like a little girl. Hands the right size for dressing dolls and petting hamsters. Small, drawing hands with a callous on one finger from years of holding pencils too tight. And that meant one thing: either she liked to write or to draw. Looking at her single-minded concentration and the way she held the thick Ebony pencil in her hand, he figured it must be drawing. But he couldn’t tell, since she sat across from him, whether her picture was good or bad, since it looked upside-down to him. Freshman. Fresh meat. Easy prey. He could tell.

So he got up and went to her side of the table.
“Mind if I have a look?” He asked.
“Well, okay. I mean, I’m not finished yet, but if you want to see it—“
He could tell she was one of those types who could never quite bring themselves to say “no.” He could tell she was his kind of girl.

Raven writes about Tiyon

He was sort of like the character in a movie that none of the other characters seemed to understand. And you want to help them, but you can’t. Nothing you do will ever be able to effect them at all. That was how I felt. And it frustrated me.
“He is not a monster. He is misunderstood.”
That is what I used to tell myself. I read his poems. They were about being lost in a terrible storm with no one to hold his hand and nothing to shelter him. I was so stupid. I fell for it. I drank in all the crazy lies he told me. Even when he said the bomb threat was not his fault. I know he’s crazy. I know he did that for me. And that’s what really made me hate him. I hate him from the bottom of my heart. I don’t care. Nice little church girls can hate people, too. I hate him as much as he thought he loved me. I hate him form the bottom of my heart.



the bomb threat

Our school was on the news that day. He’d called the school and said there was a bomb inside. They made us all stand across the street. My father didn’t want to let me out of the car. He was getting ready to drive away when I saw somebody standing on the roof, waving his arms like he was crazy.

He yelled out my name.

“Raven! Raven! I’m doing this for you!”

Over and over again. My father turned and gave me a look I’ll never forget.
And I heard kids asking each other, “Who’s Raven?”
So now they all knew.

Raven in 3rd person
She wears mostly black, walks alone, with a distant expression on her face. She does not want to he here, but knows she should be grateful. Her old biology teacher has pulled some strings, and now there are strings attached, and so she is all caught up in string. Sometimes she tries to humor herself, pretending she is an undercover agent on a mission, and that’s why she has to check in with the security guards three times a day. It’s a deadly mission, and headquarters has to make sure their spy is still alive. It is a game she can only play with herself about 5 minutes at a time. She cannot get too close to anyone here. She sits at a different lunch table every day. She does not want to make friends here. She feels she can trust no one.

Two months into the term, in October and very close to Halloween, she gets a card in her mailbox with writing on it that is indistinguishably his. Opening it makes her feel sick, but she can’t not open it either. So she does. There is a cartoon drawing of black cats, ravens, and pumpkin heads. It is still addressed “My Dearest Raven,” just like always.



Raven’s Poem about Tiyon:
Elegy for your Memory

I let your memory die
yet your memory
still haunts
the empty chambers
of my mind.

Your memory is embedded
in my mind
like arsenic deposits
in fingernails--
a grave reminder that I
ingested something
poisonous.

And every night
you visit me--
a poltergeist
who rattles my thoughts
like dishes.

You’re mad at me
because I left,
because I let
my feelings for you die
like your memory.

I hardly remember
your voice anymore
and I wonder
if you died
like your memory,
your haunting memory.



©2002 Tiffany Gholar

excerpt from "My Island, Nueva Playa"

Somehow there is a terrible loneliness that comes form knowing that you are in love with a place that no one else can fully comprehend. I want more than anything to go back to my island. So we were saved, we were “rescued” by the Coast Guard. But it feels more to me like I was banished from a magical place. And I must be the only one who remembers taking showers outside in the rain, roasting the fish we caught over open fires, the hot sand feeling like dry, gritty fire under my bare feet until the cool ocean water melted it away. Because my parents have already forgotten. They’re too busy trying to figure out how much they owe to all these bill collectors. And to my brother. . . he’s just glad he’s back here in time to get all the latest video games. I’m the only one who remembers, I’m she only one who misses it, and that’s why I’m completely alone. Leaving Nueva Playa has left me heartbroken and it just might take me a lifetime to recover.

But you can believe I’m not about to find out the hard way. I’m going back there as soon as I can, even if it means swimming out into the ocean. It’s where I belong. It’s the only place where I belong.

©1999 Tiffany Gholar

For Fiction Friday

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key. Had it been Mrs. Hooper, after the developers purchased her late husband’s store in order to convert it into a trendy new Caribbean-Italian-Sushi fusion restaurant called Dine? Or Gordon, after shaking his head and saying farewell to the street here he’d watched his children grow up? The 2 guys in the basement apartment—what were their names?—Bert and Ernie, that’s right. Bert liked to feed the pigeons, before city ordinances were enforced to forbid that sort of thing in this neighborhood. Which was why the big yellow bird was the first one to leave. A psittacosis scare would definitely cause the property values to plummet. And his giant elephantine friend wouldn’t help the situation. So it couldn’t have been either of them who had given Alice the key. They were already gone by the time she arrived with her real estate agent to see the property.

Next to the stoop in front the building was a collection of trash cans. Alice thought she saw someone with bushy eyebrows and beady eyes peering out of one of the garbage cans. There was a lid on his head, and though Alice couldn’t be sure, she was almost certain he was a grungy shade of green. But maybe that’s what years of homelessness had done to him. Well he’d be gone soon enough. On the way into the building, she and the agent passed one of the current tenants, who’d be moving out soon.

“Hi, Bob!” Waved the real estate agent.
But Bob just muttered something about the stress of trying to find another rent-controlled apartment with the same kind of character as the one he was leaving.
“What’s the matter with him?” Asked Alice.
“I don’t know.” The agent replied. “Usually he is so chipper!”

A few weeks later when Alice returned to show the building to her live-in boyfriend, Eddie, a deaf woman who lived on the first floor said something to them in sign language that didn’t look very friendly.

“What’s going on with these people?” Alice asked. “Every time I come here, I get the dirtiest looks from everyone.”

Gordon must have heard her. Leaning from his second floor window, he explained, “things used to be a lot friendlier around here. Until local politicians like The Count started taking bribes from real estate developers. Mr. Hooper didn’t want to sell his store or the rest of his building, but a few months later he died under mysterious circumstances. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

“Gordon? Are you at it again with your conspiracy theories?” Called his wife from somewhere inside the apartment. Then she stuck her head out of the window next to his.
“Don’t believe everything he tells you. From my understanding, what really happened is The Count got some crooked cops to frame this kid Elmo for selling drugs behind Mr. Hooper’s store. And the city was able to use imminent domain because it was considered a drug house.”

“Oh, so my version of it is a conspiracy theory but yours is true?” Asked Gordon. “What about what they said about the Cookie Monster? That he sent Mr. Hooper some macaroons laced with arsenic? You know macaroons were his favorite.”

“Cookie Monster just doesn’t have it in him. He’s not really a monster, you know.” She replied.

The tales of the sinister goings on in this block were not enough to frighten Alice away from the building. The unit she eventually purchased had been gutted and remodeled. It had hardwood floors, exposed brick, and antique crown moldings that had been painstakingly restored. The rusting fire escape in the back had been converted into a beautiful iron balcony that would be perfect for her new Weber grill.

There was something very romantic about this place. And even though she was a stock broker and Eddie was a lawyer, they could live like artists here in this trendy new neighborhood that would soon become the envy of all their friends. She had moved to New York City from England after a bad experience with her crazy ex-boyfriend, an accessories designer who made eccentric hats, and an incident involving his Cheshire cat. She had no intention to leave. Whoever had given her the key to the building, it didn’t matter. The place was hers now.

Moving day had finally arrived. The movers had gone on ahead of her. She was trailing them on her new mountain bike. But somewhere along the way she had gotten turned around, so at a red light she asked the driver of a cab beside her,

“Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?”

Retail Hell: 60 Days' Notice

On May 17, 2005, Home Depot decided to close many of its Expo Design Centers, including the one where I worked as a fabric specialist in the décor department and had hoped to become a window treatment designer. We were given 60 days' notice. These are entries written during those 60 days, the last days of Expo Design Center.




7/1/05
[depression]
Nothing but apathy and resignation. Other than that, nothing at all. Disallowed from placing special orders and banned from customizing things, everyone has been reduced to selling the remnants of a once-great home emporium.

Now the days drag on. The slow ballads they play on the speakers—based upon the theory that shoppers spend more time in stores where slow music is playing—seem sadder now, and much more relevant. Especially "This Used to be My Playground."

I have grown tired of having to explain why the store is closing. I'm tired of them asking. I sit here now at a desk where I am probably not supposed to be sitting. I feel like I have nothing better to do. I've marched around the department several times. Most of the customers seem to not need my help. I do not feel motivated to try to sell things. I'll make the same amount of money no matter what.

I just don't see the point of doing anything anymore. They won't let me do what I was originally hired to do, so what's the point of doing anything else? Everyone else is going to work at a Home Depot store.



7/3/05
[bargaining]
This is not the same store that hired me. This is not the job that I applied for. This is the Twilight Zone version of Expo. No, not even. This place isn't even worthy of bearing the Expo name. This is a miserable place. I want to sell fabric. So much for that idea. This is no longer a design center. It is a furniture liquidation bargain basement. I am so tired of having to answer the same questions over and over People keep asking me why we're closing. We even have some clueless people here who didn't realize we're going out of business, despite all the big ugly signs everywhere that clearly say "Store Closing."

I don't want to work today. This is not my job. This is not my store. This is not what I signed up for. I'm so sick of retail. It's all been one disappointment after another. Maybe I should have never come here. What's the use of being here if I can no longer do what I liked to do? I don't care about any of this other stuff and I am sick of people asking me about it. I hate selling this furniture and I hate looking for drapery panels and I hate having to answer questions about drapery hardware when I've never so much as put up a curtain rod. I just want to sit here and get paid do do absolutely nothing. Might as well, since this store has done absolutely nothing for me since they announced it was closing.

Being here is pretty depressing. I don't like the environment anymore. Every day is like a funeral. The store is a shadow of its former self. Coming here is like coming to watch someone die. There is a sense of failure in the air, of dreams that never came to be. It is tense and hostile.

Everyone else is content to just move on to Home Depot, but I don't want anything to do with that. I hate the idea of the work I'd have to do there as well as the hours. Opening at 5 a.m. and closing at midnight—are you kidding me?

I just don't see the point of this anymore. I feel like a failure to be associated with a failed store. I hate this place. Why did they have to screw everything up?

I don't know where else I can go. I am so tired of working in retail, but then again it's nice to have the flexible hours. But I really wish I didn't have to work at all until I graduate.

I wish I didn't feel so angry and sad. But right now as it stands I feel as though I can't do anything right. And all around me are prosperous, successful people, our Lincoln Park yuppie customers. I feel like such a screw-up.

Look at these customers: a doctor giving a prescription over her cell phone, people with 4 & 5 kids playing tag in the closet department, all these pregnant women trying to build the perfect little nest for their new babies. . . Many of them are still trying to get additional discounts on things. Is it any surprise that I am trying to hide from them all in this little corner?



7/16/05
[anger]
It's amazing how this job turned from something I enjoyed into something I hate. Sitting here at the door wearing this name tag and this apron, I feel like I work at Wal-Mart. Nothing makes sense anymore. Everything has taken a turn for the worst and my job no longer makes sense.

So now I am sitting here by the door next to the registers and a long line has formed and customers are looking at me like they want to kill me because I am sitting here writing in this notebook and not ringing up their purchases. Well I don't care. I don't know how to use these weird registers and I can't ring their things up.

So let them get mad. It's not my fault they transferred all those cashiers to Home Depot. Besides, I even paged the department supervisor on duty about the situation and she seemed completely unconcerned about it. Now they are paging me to décor. For what? To answer some whiny customer's stupid question? If they took a minute to read our signs, they would be able to answer them. Things are in such disarray here. We don't have enough cashiers, enough shopping carts, or enough sales associates, and the copy machine won't even work. Cameron said that what happened to me reminds him of an episode of Good Times he saw last week, but I think, more accurately, that my whole life has turned into that show.



August 5, 2005
[acceptance]
Lately, it seems like it's too much and nothing at the same time. And so I sit here in the back, relishing the solitude. This small stockroom, with no surveillance cameras and walls that shield me from the scrutiny of prying eyes (not even someone traveling on the escalators can peer down into this room) is the perfect place for me. I've been sitting back here playing Bejeweled on my Clié, reading design magazines, taking little cat naps, and reading my affirmations. All around me I can hear encroaching voices of customers and other sales associates. I heard the cries of a wounded child, the rants of bossy customers, and even one customer who accused someone of not allowing her to purchase a kitchen display because she's Black.

So much, yet nothing at all. So much is going on out there, but it's nothing of substance, nothing that I want any part of. Our department has been reduced to an assortment of mismatched drapery finials, a few packages of curtains, one or two potted silk flower arrangements, and a mixture of odd single flowers. I do not see the point of "helping" people with these things when anyone with two hands can just pick them up and take them to the registers.

Everything is 80% off now. All of the good stuff is gone, including the book and magazines I'd planned to buy. Oh well. Couldn't afford it anyway. Every time that I think I'm out of the hole another bill comes along that''s more expensive than usual.




So this was the way my job ended, no severance package, no tuition reimbursement, just an expensive COBRA plan and a few months of unemployment checks. Later that summer, I installed window treatments for the first time. It was much more difficult than I told the customers it would be. Serves me right. I did go on to work in retail a few more times since then, but nothing as splendid as Expo was before we were given 60 days' notice. There will never be another Expo; I am trying to accept this.
So ends another dispatch from Retail Hell.