Charactered Pieces: stories
Synopsis:
These are stories of hope amid the Zoloft and bar tabs that cushion our crumbling lives.
With Charactered Pieces, Caleb J. Ross presents a varied world of familial discord, one where a dead fetus evokes more compassion than its mother (“Charactered Pieces”); where two brothers offer the destruction of a family legacy as a birthday gift for their aging father (“My Family’s Rule”); where one brother’s love of Holocaust documentaries pushes his family through the aftermath of his assumed suicide (“The Camp”).
Charactered Pieces peels away the superficial armor of public life to reveal the flaws beneath and treats those perceived weaknesses not as hidden sources of pain but as reasons to celebrate life.
Praise
“Evoking a novel by Chuck Palahniuk or a film by Darren Aronofsky, Charactered Pieces is a multifarious patchwork of despair. From the misshapen protagonist of the title story to the gruesome climax of “The Camel of Morocco,” this collection is among the most profound and disturbing artifacts of our time.” -Daniel Casebeer, editor of Pear Noir! | |
| “Ross claims that his characters are not drawn from real people and yet these stories—about a jewelry saleswoman with a fetal leg growing out of her belly, a man who drinks the blood of a dead camel, or a budding Holocaust documentarian who dies in a mysterious incident involving a coat hanger—sound eerily similar to my own life. Chances are you’ll find yourself in here, too. Wicked, weird, and wonderful.” -Tim Hall, author of How America Died (Undie Press) | |
| “These stories change you, and not just a little bit. Try to forget them, tell yourself they’re not true, but it’s no use. Whether you want them to or not, they’re going with you.” -Stephen Graham Jones, author of |
Book Excerpt:
Facet
Years ago, the childhood years, Lori’s mother would break her daughter down in person. She scored Lori’s younger days with indirect criticism: “more makeup,” “not everyone wants to see your pockmarks,” “you could draw attention downward, if you were that sort of girl.” Now, after her mother’s face having been blown off by an unchecked prop gun on the set of a beer commercial, Lori and her mother communicate only by telephone.
“Tell me what you’ve sold,” her mother says with heavy, static breath.
“Nothing today,” Lori says.
“You have such lovely teeth. Try smiling.”
If pressed Lori might remember her mother’s eye color, but distance has dulled the hue. Blood doesn’t translate well through telephone lines.
Girdle
Lori holds a diamond the size of a corn kernel out to a woman with taut skin smeared in rose makeup. This woman wears a blazer like armor and exudes wealth on the scent of knockoff Clive Christian no. 1. The air tastes like rust; Krabel Jewelers doesn’t do enough business for a ventilation upgrade.
“Let me see a bigger one, hon,” the woman says. She points to a molar-sized gem, something Lori’s mother would describe as a gift only the right face can get you. Lori reaches down. “No, no sweetie. Lower. Below that tiny thing, honey.”
Lori dips deeper. Through the warped glass-back of the case, varicose veins net the old woman’s entire calf. The spindles wrap the skin, crawling into the dark bramble beneath the woman’s cashmere skirt. Lori bangs her forehead against the counter edge upon standing. The glass thunders in an otherwise silent shop.
When she returns to the woman’s accessorized torso, Lori massages the swelling on her head and stretches a smile, presenting the diamond.
“What do you think?” the woman asks with a rhetorical edge, her eyes already glossing over. “I don’t know.” She pays Lori’s injury no attention.
“I really think it works, but…” Lori motions with her body away from the front case toward a hidden cache under a sign reading Charactered Pieces, “…the honesty in me points this direction. I love the ring, but I think these might just love you more.”
They turn quickly toward the end-case. Lori checks her own waist, re-tucks her blouse into her skirt.
“These?” The customer’s face puckers.“These aren’t diamonds. They’re,” she stumbles into the words, “they’re half-diamonds, if that.”
“Just hold one of them up.” Lori pulls a gem from the upper shelf and matches its diminished sparkle against the flesh of her own plump hand. She flips it out into the woman’s gaze, smiling with teeth polished to a sheen the diamond itself could envy.
The woman bounces the diamond in her palm. She searches for imperfections, deep, though the cracks and flaws are obvious to even an unaided eye. Charactered Pieces is a euphemism Lori coined as a way to offload faulty stock. She begged her boss for the counter space, even used a few winks and a smile to grease his approval. So far, the only shoppers to embrace the term have been engaged teenagers reaching to validate a shotgun wedding. This Clive Christian faker, though, this woman browses with intent to sparkle.
Lori’s mother wore diamonds like they were purple hearts or merit badges, always resting her chin on an ornamented hand when speaking. Perfect eyes to perfect lips to perfect jewelry. Then the beer commercial gun shot. Even as paramedics kept her conscious, as crew members cleared the area of production equipment, Lori’s mother gurgled her lines through blood: “…Bavarian hops and a crisp finish…” She called it an embarrassing demotion when later she offloaded her private diamonds at pawnshops to pay for medical treatment. She doesn’t do modeling anymore.
Lori shields her gut with a faux-casual hand as the Clive Christian faker leans over the counter to inspect other gems.
“What piece are you hiding there?” the woman asks, dropping a Charactered Piece to the glass counter. The gem bounces twice before rolling to the floor.
Lori retrieves the jewel. She sees in this woman’s face a universal anticipation, an infectious excitement developed by and distributed through fashion magazines and runway shows and shop-at-home networks. This is the face of a woman Lori has, over the years, learned to enjoy disappointing. “Something special,” Lori says and lifts her shirt to reveal the underdeveloped left leg of her fetus-in-fetu sister protruding from her gut.
Topics/Categories:
deformities, Depression, Family, fiction
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Original Publish Date:
November 16, 2009
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