DAY AND NIGHT

photo: David Gallagher

For my Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing course, I’m thinking about trying to combine some of my training in Journalism from the University of Missouri with the nonfiction prose style that I enjoy writing the most. What I’d really like to do is document a true “day in the life” of a 24-hour establishment here in Columbia, MO — by spending a full twenty-four hours there myself.

On The Front Line

The yellowed linoleum floors, for all their stickiness, could not hold me back as I walked expertly to the back of the Mizzou Market inside Pershing Commons and moved toward the counter against the far wall.  A dewy, pink-faced man stood at the register, his eyes obscured by the brim of his black uniform cap.

“I, um, I have a meeting with Daniel or Rita*?” I said, my voice inflecting at the end to make it half-statement and half-question, and he did not even glance up before directing me back out into the main lobby.

Go On, Fall In

I

You are wearing your favorite red cowboy boots when it happens.

Liz, your best friend from down the street, is with you, and jumps from the tree when she hears the first whistle.  Her hard, browned limbs fold in on one another like a daddy-long-legs as she hits the ground, and with a hop she is up again and standing on the grass.  She is three years older than you, fearless and always ready for an adventure.  Like a character out of a book.  You are always willing to tag along – playing Ghost in the Graveyard, writing and performing plays, climbing trees after the Rodeo Day Parade.

Your mother steps out of your house at the opposite end of the block, puts her thumb and forefinger below her tongue and purses her lips.  She is small, only five-foot-three, but the noise she makes is tremendous and you snap to attention as her whistle reverberates down Skyline Drive.  It seems to wash past the houses and trees in a slow wave, making sure to touch and glance off of every surface.  It passes through the honeysuckle, through the leaves of the tall oaks, past the small, spiny pods of the sweetgum.  The whistle rolls on slowly, insistently, with intention.  Slower than a neighbor’s car easing out of the garage.  Slower than the clouds passing through the late afternoon sun.  Slower than a four-year-old girl’s decision to jump from a tree wearing cowboy boots.

By Bread Alone

This piece, written for an Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction course at the University of Missouri, was one of the 2010 recipients of the Francis W. Kerr Writing Prize, denoting excellence in writing in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction.  Here it is reproduced in its entirety.

UPDATE:  As of May, 2011, I am happy to announce the publication of this piece in EPIC (vol. X), the University of Missouri’s undergraduate literary magazine.

Hummus and pita

“Do you go to parties?” reads the message, “Because I’m going to one tonight.”

Clicking back to his Facebook profile, you look for more revealing information.  His profile picture shows him sitting on grass somewhere, a front lawn maybe, his legs straight out and a smile emerging from beneath sunglasses and a mop of messy blonde hair.   There is a small speaker in the photo, one of those outdoor speakers made to look like a rock.  “I am not a creep,” he seems to say, relaxing there on the grass, and you believe him until you see that he is curiously listed as a Mizzou Alum and not a current student.

He has listed himself that way as a joke, but you don’t know this yet.