Why Write Fiction?

(November 24, 2002)

I'm at that advanced, scary, twitchy stage of tired where, thanks to coffee, my brain is asleep but my body can keep cleaning and packing. I've just packed a box that contains one box of Dr. Evil Sour Frickin' Gummies, a mushroom elf, three Barbies dressed like rock stars, a disco ball, a Mardi Gras feathered mask, a tambourine, several teddy bears, and five wooden cats. I didn't even know I owned five wooden cats. One that I got in Paris sits on a shelf and does nothing. Another looks like Casey and lays on the floor doing nothing. Two are bookends, and the last is kind of like a desktop paper holder thing. Where the fuck did I get that.

I labeled the box "stupid shit."

(Gift from Yitzak)

I got all these packing boxes at Fresh Pond, behind Staples. There's always recycling dumpsters behind big stores like that. My advice to anyone moving is to go to stores that sell office supplies, electronics, books, stuff like that. No boxes from stores that sell chemical stuff (like paint or art supplies) and no food or drink stuff. Why not? Like Hub said over breakfast today, "I'd say go to Dunkin Donuts, but everything I packed in that one box still smells like jelly."

So, in the recylcing dumpster behind Staples, I'm rooting through the boxes and I find this sort of...well, it's most definitely a suitcase.

A heavy, black plastic suitcase with stickers on it that say stuff like "Caution: Blonde Thinking." I had to actually move it to get at the good boxes. I heaved it out, put it on the ground and loaded as many boxes into the car as I could, all the while watching surreptitiously to see if any criminals have left the set of Law and Order to come pick up a drop of drugs or money, and of course they'll have to shoot me in the head for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But no one came.

I took the suitcase home, hoping there wasn't anything dead inside.

There wasn't.

There was a hairbrush, a box of Cheezy Snak Crackers, a telephone...not a cell phone. A whole entire telephone. Some yellow corduroy shorts and a polyester lavender nightgown. A lot of receipts, cancelled checks, and scribbled pieces of paper.

One of those quilted blank journals filled with chunky, round writing and entries dated between 1983 and 1984.

About a dozen bumper stickers from a radio station called THE SHARK, 102.5. And a music instruction book, a torn ticket to a Nelly Furtado show last March, and what seems to be an original script, with notes. A job application. Most of the papers looked to be from Maine and New Hampshire.

What a weird ass collection of stuff.

What I needed was the name and number of the owner. The job application, checks, and the script all had the same name on them. This chick Karen. She wrote the script, and her name was on the checks along with what must be her husband's. While Hub looked at me with his "How The Hell Do You Get Into These Things" face on, I called every phone number these documents offered. They were all different, and they were all either out of service or answered by someone who didn't know Karen. Except one, a Maine number.

"This is WHO? Who ARE you?" said a gravelly man's voice.

"I'm calling from Boston," I said again. "Is Karen home?"

"You have to tell me WHY. What do you want," he barked. "Do you need to get paid for something?"

"No no, nothing like that. I found something that I think she might have lost."

"Is it a passport?"

"No," I said. I started to get the feeling that this was far from the first time this man has gotten this phone call. So, I decided to just tell him about the suitcase. When I told him I'd found it in a dumpster, he kind of sighed and his voice got quieter.

"She's mentally ill," he said. He gave me a Fed Ex number to use to mail the suitcase to him. "Thank you, this is very thoughtful of you."

She's mentally ill? Karen travels to other cities and leaves her stuff in dumpsters?

So what do you think. Do I or do I not read Karen's journal.