Homework 5/11

Rough Draft of Creative Nonfiction

Note: It's hard to keep the tenses straight when skipping around in time so much, sorry.

My mom tells me that my phone rang when I was gone. She points to the coffee table. I say ok but keep walking to my room. I swivel in my chair, check my email, look around at the motionless room. Only when I hear the shower turn on do I stand up and check my phone. Hey bud, it says. Today is Tito’s birthday. A picture of him was right under it. He is a short man, with wrinkled and baggy skin on his face to go with a smile wide like his sombrero. I started to ask when we would call him, looking at the fly across the room. My mom always that it’s my fault we have them, because I’m sloppy with food. I decide against killing it, it’ll die in a day. I click send but cancel immediately. He died last year.

I finally got to see him earlier that year, the first time since my sister was born. Earlier it was decided we didn’t want to have Luna fly there so young. Actually my step-mom decided, but my dad went along with it, and I didn’t say anything. My dad said Tito would be in the hospital a lot, but everyone else – Tita, my Tíos Roel and Rica, and my cousins – would be there. I go to my seat. 22A, a window seat on a 6-hour flight. The plane is crowded, and I step forward methodically, not bumping into anyone. I can see an empty overhead compartment right over where my seat is, the cool air from the overhead nozzle blowing onto my arm. I step to put my bag over my seat, and the tall woman in front of me reaches back to put her suitcase there. When I get to my seat, I look out to see a wing.

The days were long, but we were forced to spend most of them inside to avoid the humid heat of the valley summer. So we waited for the precious time between the sun beginning to set and darkness where all of us young and healthy enough to do so went to play baseball. I thought of when I was younger and played with a broomstick in a covered area next to Tito’s house. When I hit the ball Tito would say something to me. I don’t remember what it was. I would tell him don’t say that. Don’t say that he would repeat back to me. It’s getting dark my dad says after a strikeout. Let’s go in.

When Tito is not in the hospital he is in his green chair. It’s a lounge chair but it also rocks and also has an extendable footrest. There he drinks, dozes off, or watches old westerns. Today he watches one starring an old man and his entourage of brave young kids defend themselves and their herd from bandits. On the way to stopping them once and for all one of the kids falls into a stampeding herd of cattle retrieving another’s glasses. But they must keep moving or risk an attack by the nearby Indian tribe, and he is given nothing but a cross and a quick burial.

I used to think he’d die like in a storybook, with the whole family surrounding his bed. He would look around and tell us he loved us in a low raspy voice. Probably in Spanish, actually. Then he would close his eyes and breathe slowly until he stopped.

I got the call when I was walking back from school. Your Tito died he said. The flu he said. His body couldn’t fight it during the cancer treatment. The funeral is next weekend. Ok I said. Later that day I started to get calls and messages from relatives. He was a good man, they said. It’s a shame you lost him. I didn’t respond if I could get away with it.

Beef it Up (3 Promps)

1) Describe the narrator, or another character, as an animal, plant, vehicle, or kind of weather:
- My grandfather is (was) a average cactus, not tall but not small either. It is not particularly noticeable there, but it is there and is always there. One day it is not there, and then it makes all the difference for the room.
2) Describe three things with no similies:
- It was an armchair. It was also a rocking chair, with an extendable footrest. It was very soft with a green fabric on it. If you rocked too hard it would hit the back wall and an uncle or parent would get mad.
- He had a gruff voice. His main language was Spanish, but he spoke English well enough as well. Important because I can't speak Spanish, for several reasons. He wasn't tall, but not too short either. He had gray hair and was mostly bald. He often wore a large hat, and had a wide smile. He likes joking around.
- Tita doesn't have gray hair, she dyes it. She's a bit shorter than him and is a great cook. She's sick too but not to the same extent. She jokes too but her English is less clear and I don't always understand her.
3) Free-associate memories or things that come to mind when you think about your story:
- When family from Mexico would come and visit, they didn't speak English and it was pretty awkward for me. I watched a lot of Westerns, there was only one TV in that house and it was too hot to go out. They can be pretty good actually, but I don't think I would watch them without him and Westerns for me will be forever associated with him. Reminds me of how when I was little I didn't like learning Spanish because I was lazy, combined with my grandparents learning English I never learned Spanish. He used to say something that got little me angry, but I've forgotten what it was. I know I would respond with "Don't say that" because it would get repeated back to me years later.

Raw Draft

Beep beep. My phone went off, with a text message. It had a picture of my grandfather, Tito, at his house sitting in his chair wearing his hat with his smile. Below it my dad told me that it was his birthday. I started to respond, asking him if we were going to call him together. Then I remembered he had died earlier that year.
I started thinking of when I first found out he died. I knew he had been sick for a while, but he lived in Texas and I didn't see him more than once a year so it was hard to see. He liked sitting around and watching old Westerns then. The day he died I got an call from my telling me he died from cancer (technically really the flu but whatever). I didn't have any real response. Over the next few days other people, all related to me in some way, texted or emailed or messaged me about it, telling me how he was a good man and all that. As a rule I usually ignored them if I could, I didn't know how to respond. I didn't do much for the next few days at least, I didn't want to.
Some time later I flew into McAllen International (near the border, has a few hopper flights to Mexico, it's actually a tiny airport) and was driven to where he used to live. Only my grandmother Tita lived there now, I almost expected Tito to be there though. It felt empty without him, even though he did very little. His chair was empty. I didn't know what I expected.

Common Thread (part D)

I'm not sure if I can find any deeper theme or string among my writings. The only thing I see is they are about childhood but that seems to be unavoidable as that's basically my entire life.

Looking Over Notes (part C)

Nothing specific, but I think the instructions in How To Date... were really interesting and might be a possibility to write like. It was weird how sometimes it seemed like instructions and sometimes it was a specific story too. The part where he says that it probably won't work that way is very interesting too and seems like a bit of a break in character. The whole "monsters" thing seems very interesting, but I'm not so sure what to make of it. Another thing that seemed interesting was when someone (Brittany?) said that it seemed like it was written as if to make us not belong, but we still understood it.

Conversation with Author (part B)

(to Junot Diaz)

Something that stuck out to me when I was reading Drown was when, in Fiesta, 1980, Yunior was kind of awkwardly moping around at the end of the party, not really talking to anybody. That made me think of when I was younger, and wasn't very good at talking to adults, and when my family invited people over I would awkwardly pace around, grabbing a whole-wheat cracker here, get a sip of water there. While it is a short scene, it really makes me think about my (relative) childhood. I really think it is interesting how your stories can make me think of my (admittedly short) past. Another thing like that was the repeated use of cars with Yunior, which my classmates and I discussed at length in conversations. For some reason, it brings back memories of things that happened to me in cars. It's very interesting how your stories have this power.