I Knew You When

I KNEW YOU WHEN By Jami K. Dittus, M.F.A. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009 Major Director: Susann Cokal, Associate Professor, Department of English Four short stories and the first quarter of a novel revolve around characters sick with want, sick of and from the worlds in which they live. They crave connection with other people, often through indirect methods, but cant always manage the connections they make with other characters. Objects take prominence as connection to the real world, comforting and static when people cannot be. ILLUSTRATION OF A GIRL The account books were closed and Buddy had killed the last chicken. Most of what was left in the store was inediblelavender toilet water, dusty bolts of cloth. Mary tried to slip out without her father seeing. But he always saw. Youre needed here, he said as she opened the door. Where are you going? For a walk, Mary said, as she always did when her father asked. Her right foot was paused ahead of her left. She could feel the floor pushing up through the worn soles of her shoes. Better be a walk back to the house, he said. They lived just behind their store, hot and cramped, eight siblings taking shifts in the beds. That's just not far enough, Mary said. I need a little air. Please. Before he could say more, Mary was out of the store, her feet twitching forward. It was getting too cold to be without a coat, but Mary walked fast, and the air felt good after the stuffiness of the store. She wasnt lying to her father. She did need this. At the bus stop she hopped up and down, making her own heat, wishing she had a cigarette. * The security guard stationed just inside the door was Gus, her friends brother, and Mary thought he had it made, at eighteen, in a black wool jacket and cap. He opened 2 doors for lady shoppers, tipped his hat to the men, stood all day in service to the department stores palatial hulk. At sixteen, shed been working for years in her familys little store. They sold bulk grains and mothy flours, hideously large tomatoes grown out back in the yard. On a table near the back her mother mixed medicinal salves, and people came in holding babies and leading old folks, whipping off bonnets and hats to reveal scaly rashes on their scalps. Lately people could not afford what they used to, though, and mothers came in frowning and pleading to put this one on the books, thrusting their babies closer and closer under the nose of Marys mother, who could not at all resist the wounded and the weak, even at her own expense, or her familys. Her youngest child, just four, empty belly aching, took to dipping his fingers into the salve base and licking off the beeswax and olive oil. Mary wanted none of this. Her mother had tried to make her learn the salves: how to mix them, what to rub on peoples hands when they were cracked and raw. She saw the endless line of people that needed something, and her heart pounded, and she turned away, sitting on the floor in the storeroom looking at catalogs until her father found her. Necklaces, rings, things nobody needed, but her bare skin tingledshe wanted them. Miss 1933 Wears Rubies, said the print over an illustration of a girl, bracelets and rings slid over her gloved hands. Her lips neither smiled nor frowned. She wore a swimsuit and a fur coat, existed outside of weather or work. Her eyes were closed to such concerns, but Mary was sure that the weight of the sparkle she wore assured her of infinite possibility. The printed sketches were not enough. Mary wanted to see the sparkle for herself, and so here she was, at the entrance to the department store, with all the butterflies that her 3 girlfriends got over the strong-jawed twins down the roadJohnny and Johnbut she got them over what Gus guarded. The beautiful clothes and shoes, the silver and vases, the tinned candy tied with ribbon, and the way it all waited to be picked by ladies who could afford to pick it. Gus smiled when saw Mary. My girl, he said. He was already married, so what he expressed wasn't ownership of Marys heart or body, but something she carried with her on her clothes, in her eyes. It was the way theyd grown up. Shed known him before the uniform and the stiff, watchful posture of work. Together they had stolen biscuits from school and eaten them on the way home, hastily making sure no telltale crumbs remained on their lips. There was a lost and never-claimed coat that Gus hid for Mary when she came in, because her thin dress dabbed with work stains embarrassed her in here. He helped her slide on the coat, which was dark and fitted, and covered everything but a half-inch of dress hem. And look at these, he said, pulling out a pair of ladies gloves from his pocket. I found them on the floor of the lounge. Mary looked around before putting them on. Once they were on, though, she felt like she owned them. She noticed a sign set up on an easel, about a presentation in the ladies loungeToday Only. See Exquisite Treasures from Russia. Exclusive Opportunity to Own Rare Luxury. She touched her gloved hands together. The words exquisite and exclusive felt like they included her,