Black and White

Dan thinks he is always right! No matter how elaborate, no matter how well spelt my argument seems to be, Dan always comes up with the perfect response. Why do I tolerate him in my life? It has brought me nothing but trouble.

The other day I wanted to have a cigarette. I’ve been smoking for seven years. We got into such a long debate over who controls whom—I the cigarette, or the cigerette me—that I had to go to the typewriter and punch-in an essay which came to the point that in the essay the cigarette began to talk back to me. Somehow the whole thing turned into a debate about sin, Heaven and Hell, God verses Satan’s temptations. Remember I am an atheist? It doesn’t matter who wrote the essay because Dan instigated it. Leave me alone!

That’s the trouble Danny. Every time I speak she takes your side. I can’t get through to her . . .  I just don’t know anymore. 

You need to learn to deal with things on your own. Not until you can go into your room or maybe take a walk through the park, by yourself, and resolve whatever it is that’s troubling you will you get anywhere in life. This has been your problem all along. Right now you shouldn’t even be talking to me. When was the last time you had just a day all to yourself—that was planned? I mean, actually dedicated to yourself, for yourself, by yourself?

I don’t like being alone. Sometimes I end up talking to myself while I walk and people think I’m crazy. And I know everybody talks to themselves but it still bothers me. Why do you care so much about what people think? But I hate those looks that they give me! I hate to feel below anyone, especially when I know most people are so cruel, so fucking empty and cold—air headed morons! I’m not talking out of the air, Dan, just listen to what happened a few months ago.

It was New Years’ eve and I was at Walgreens, shopping for some ladies things. The guy on line in front of me gave me this dirty look because I had Muggzy with me and he caught me whispering something in her ear. I was just telling her that all the pet stores were closed on New Years but he looked at me as if I were Susanna out of Girl Interrupted. Who the hell did he think he was!? He was buying Bicycle poker chips and a pack of Trojans. Some Trojan that gimp was! Little weasel with Prada shoes who probably cums in under a minute. 

Of what concern is he to you? New Years is always a lonely time, you can’t let strangers upset you like that. You have no idea what was going on in his mind—for all you know he may have been signaling to you that the condoms were for you, if you so desired. You know that with what you said it is ultimately inconclusive as to what the right inference is. Have you ever tried to write your thoughts out? Maybe you’ll learn something intriguing.

I’m trying to write my thoughts out on a piece of paper to learn something intriguing. That’s what Dan suggested, and though I hate listening to Dan, he has been right in the past. I do not know what I shall learn by doing this so I will smoke a cigarette. 

She found herself alone in a city indifferent to her presence. There were so many people in the city, that one more or one less, meant just that. Growing up she loved the movies. Woody Allen’s Manhattan was her favorite. The way the jazz filled the black and white streets sung especially to her. She set her mind on becoming a photographer in Manhattan. Black and white photography. She would go to school in Manhattan when she was eighteen. The city’s mysteries would furl around her like a warm fur coat that she would embrace—she would visit jazz clubs and go to poetry readings by famous authors from Spain and Argentina—she would meet a man and he would be enchanted by her as she would be by the city—they would walk around exploring, photographing, falling in and out of love again and again. She left her hometown with two thousand dollars that she had saved up while working in a grocery store in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

She didn’t have a high-school education, but she was no dummy. The city spoke to her when she stepped out of Pennsylvania Station, and, she fell in love. The streets were full of music. Artists sold their work at flea markets. In the streets and bazzars. There were so many people of so many different nationalities with so many different looks about them that she was sure she made the right decision. But it was expensive. Money went fast and returning home wasn’t an option. Her father was a bastard, whom she hated! So she fell in love. Twice. And both times she was lied to. Both times she found herself with nowhere to go. As a waitress, she earned enough to eat, but not to live. After two months she found herself living in Brooklyn where rent was a lot cheaper. Five years went to the wind. She was tired and no longer in love with the city.

She decided to change her name. She had changed her name a lot growing up. Before she came to the city her name was Red. But she no longer liked the way Red’s life was going. So she decided to make her name Black. It was a special name because it hid what she wanted no one to know: inside, inside, she still had a little white tucked away in the crannies of her heart. She wore a lot of black. Black in New York keeps people back. Black in New York also fits in. But inside, under her black, under all that black—all her underwear were white, with rose pedals. She laughed at them, even herself, but more, at them! That’s what she did. That’s who she was. But nobody liked her pictures. So she began to hide them as well. Soon she would die. She said this everyday over morning coffee, convincing herself, so as to get through the day, soon, one day when she least expected, some cosmic gift would end it all.

Sometimes she did not have enough to eat because people who had more than enough to eat did not tip enough. She had Muggzy to feed. She had Dan to feed. And she would never let them go hungry. They needed her. They depended on her. Black loved Dan and Muggzy very much. Muggzy was black and Dan was white. Together they looked like a yin and yang especially when they cuddled against her feet. She loved them very much. Even when they fought and made Black very angry, she loved them. And she knew that they loved her. Someday, Black said, they would all be happy like Amelié. They might even move to France, which seemed so much greener, and more purple. There she’d change her name to Violet. But then she thought about the name Violet and remembered that she hated that name though she loved violets.

Dan told me to write my thoughts out and I might learn something intriguing. I trust Dan because he is very smart. I love Dan very much. Tomorrow I will photograph him with Muggzy on the Hudson River Park. I’ve found a homeless man who sleeps by a great Oak tree that overlooks the water. When the sun sets behind the stout buildings of the New Jersey skyline in the summer-time, the light bounces on the waters of the Hudson river like Pollack’s paint that I saw in the museum, illuminating white sparks like specks of ice on the dark blue waters. I got the angle just right the other day as I captured Dan and Muggzy amid the dark blue river, making a perfect background for the homeless man sleeping beneath the great Oak tree with these long outstretched arms. A couple with a beautiful navy-blue stroller covered in purple-silk lilies got caught in the corner of the shot, and right in the middle, Muggzy and Dan rolled around in the grass. Tomorrow may yet prove to be far away. What do you think Dan? 

New York harbors shades of grays.

Tomorrow may yet prove to be far away.


I want an honest, tough critique. You all have you’re own literary philosophies, I have mine and I’m not afraid as I’m serious about this game. I’m not playing it just cause it’s fun anymore. Spare the pen and spoil the artist. Go on, let me have it. Please.

Well since no one’s posting a critique I’ll tell you what I think.

It starts way too slow and lacks a real hook. Further, the italicized writing for such everyday drab conversation is a bad juxtaposition. I do not know how to solve that problem, whether to, for example, get rid of the italics all together. I was going for two characters talking to each other, both of whom are made clear to be the same narrator at the end of the story. I don’t think I rendered the effect at all.

The character has odd bursts of emotions that aren’t really explained. No back-story is given; and questions like why she dropped out of high school are left unanswered, so one questions why they were even posed in the first place.

Aside from being an oddball crazy character, a high school drop out atheist with a taste in arty intellectual films (very strange), she remains a stick figure.

The whole piece tries to make up for it at the end with some poetically dished out image at the end to show that perhaps suicide is not the option, perhaps New York is still beautiful, but nevertheless leaves a lot lacking to render any real emotional significance. There is no interaction with other characters which makes for no contrast and real individuality for the main one. It probably is not even made clear that Dan, her cat, is her talking to herself.

Her psychology is not adequately explored which seems to be the only real storyline in the piece as it is character driven rather than plot.

To have a story she needs to be placed into a plot situation where she interacts with other characters, has some sort of conflict with them, and her psychology is really laid bare before the reader to analyze. Perhaps then, there might be a short story – but given the current state of the character, quite probably a bad one.

Further criticism would be very much appreciated.

TUM, I have every intention of getting to this, I want you to know. I’ve printed it out and it’s sitting here on my desk, under a pile of work that needs done by Monday. But I’ll squeeze some time in, I promise. I stopped reading your second post after the first sentence 'cause I don’t want it to affect my thoughts.

“I’m not playing it just cause it’s fun anymore.” I hear you, believe me.

I’ll have a look too. But I’m a bit drunk right now.

TUM,

I know in your second post you talk about plot and wanting to make it more of a story. Although I can understand that, it seems to me that might be the wrong direction. I say that because, as I read it, this piece is not so much a story as it is a character sketch. As a story it has failings. But as a character sketch, I think it works. Could you get into her background more? Well, maybe. It’s important to leave some holes though. If you sketch out everything, you’ve left nothing for the reader to do.

I think the italics works. I think it would be difficult to follow without them.

I think you can add some drama and, at the same time, a little more sympathy for the main character by expanding her thoughts on suicide. I’m having trouble relating to her, and consequently I’m left a bit indifferent. That might be difficult to overcome (I’m nothing like her, after all, although I do find myself talking out loud to my cat). But everybody can understand and sympathize with paralyzing depression. So you might want to fortify that part a bit. The story can stand to be a bit longer, anyway, a bit more developed.

Other than that, my only complaints would be minor, sentence-structure stuff. Some of it seems like it could be polished a little more, and made a little more subtle. I dislike exclamation points, for example, even in someone’s thoughts. What it you toned down some of the internal dialogue? Take this…

I don’t like being alone. Sometimes I end up talking to myself while I walk and people think I’m crazy. And I know everybody talks to themselves but it still bothers me. Why do you care so much about what people think? But I hate those looks that they give me! I hate to feel below anyone, especially when I know most people are so cruel, so fucking empty and cold—air headed morons!

…and maybe have it read a little more like this:

I hate being alone. I end up talking to myself. When I’m out walking and I do this, people stare. I can imagine what they think. Crazy girl. Loser. Why do you care so much about what people think? I hate the looks. I begin to feel as though I am beneath them. Beneath them. I know them – cruel, empty, cold…

I like her more like this. She’s not yelling. She’s not angry. She seems more sad, and scared of society than mad at it. More nuanced. Hence more sympathetic. Maybe? Make me care about her, TUM.

I don’t know if I’ve been any help, but these are my thoughts, such that they are.

Rainey, you’ve been a great help. Thank you so much for taking the time and care to offer such a dilligent, insightful critique. I’ve learned a lot – a lot, a lot.

I don’t think I’m interested in salvaging this character and potential storyline, but I will be able to take everything I’ve learned into my next attempt. I really don’t understand this character, do not know where she came from, and likewise, did not expect the reader to.

The notes on style are excellent. Thanks again. (I will keep the last image though, work it into something else). I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but I really like that photograph. I think it just needs less lyricism to render the effect as black and white as I would like it to be.

Yes, yes, keep the last image. I like it too.

I imagine the hardest thing to write is the point of view of a character you don’t understand. It would be interesting to think about this story written third-person. Might be a whole different thing.

At any rate, you’re welcome, TUM. Anytime.