Whiting Award Winners
Since 1985, the Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, which are given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
At a party, I met a mercenary. He had fought Communists in Afghanistan before fighting Communists in Nicaragua. He described a process invented by the Russians to strip the skin off Afghan rebels. “It was psychological warfare disguised as chemical warfare,” he said. “The Moslem believes in the ‘pure warrior,’ sanctity of the body, that sort of thing. When he saw row after row of bodies with the skin peeling off, he went mad.” The mercenary drank his champagne. “A Moslem believes the skinless soul is doomed. Gone to hell.”
The important thing, I suppose, is that this weekend was the first one we spent that wasn’t entirely at the state fair or big-brother Disneyland. It was the first time Daddy sort of ignored me like the Doctor, and I must confess that I had a better time than ever before on these custody junkets. It’s heavy pressure, you know, to find your role four days out of the month, a little two-day run every two weeks with no rehearsal. I suppose it was no fun for him, either, being the director as well as actor and still not getting it right. But that weekend he seemed a lot more regular in a way it’s hard to describe. I think that woman (Mike’s mother) looked sexy, for one thing, but that is strictly my unhaired opinion. At school the word is, you don’t know what girls really are until you have hair, kind of a Samson thing, I guess.
“Three words,” Gaz said. “Motion. Picture. History.” He got up, circled the table as he explained his movie: en route to Earth from a distant solar system, the crew of the Valedictorian crash-lands on a hostile planet inhabited by bat-winged pygmies, lobster-clawed cannibals, two-headed vampires. “That’s where your stuff comes in. I’m going to splice up your movies with mine.” He went on about the mixing-up of genres, chop-suey cinema, bringing together East and West. “We’d be the ambassadors of international film!”
“What’s your thinking on this?” Checkers asked me in Tagalog. “Is this man serious? Is he just an American fool?”
“Ask how much he’ll pay,” I said, “get twenty percent more, give him the movies, and show him to the door.”
Every thing I own save the poor Beasts is in a heap here in the center of this room and if I mean to keep it whole I must before I sleep cover all against the leaking, rake old tins & leavings outside the door, burn a camphor stick against vermin, set my few mouse traps along the walls. And hope for better Weather & Strength in the days coming. I have put out in the night the 2 boys I found here, they had taken up living in the empty house. Those were Troubles I could not borrow, as I am scarce likely to make my own living in this poor place and coming West I have seen idle men Everywhere abut in La Grande and Boise and Missoula and in the Papers woeful news of the falling price of Wheat & Cattle both. They were polite & forebearing, for which reason I am sorry.
I
What a lucky beast I am,
when he cleans up nice
and nicks his perfect face.
I get to lick that face,
when he lets me.
In the cut’s opening
I get a taste of him
from the inside
out, which is all I have
ever wanted,
to be cell-close
to him. Praise the razor’s
overzealous arm;
the ease
with which it finds tenderness
in this man.
I couldn’t move. The ground was tiny, an aerial map, rich in detail, and the wind tugged at my feet. What were the commands? Arch, I whispered. Arch arch arch. That was all I could remember. I stood up, gripping the side of the opening, my feet balanced on the metal bar beneath the doorway, resisting the steady rush of wind. The jumpmaster shouted again. I felt the pressure of his fingers. And then I was gone. I left the plane behind me and fell into the air.
At a party, I met a mercenary. He had fought Communists in Afghanistan before fighting Communists in Nicaragua. He described a process invented by the Russians to strip the skin off Afghan rebels. “It was psychological warfare disguised as chemical warfare,” he said. “The Moslem believes in the ‘pure warrior,’ sanctity of the body, that sort of thing. When he saw row after row of bodies with the skin peeling off, he went mad.” The mercenary drank his champagne. “A Moslem believes the skinless soul is doomed. Gone to hell.”
The important thing, I suppose, is that this weekend was the first one we spent that wasn’t entirely at the state fair or big-brother Disneyland. It was the first time Daddy sort of ignored me like the Doctor, and I must confess that I had a better time than ever before on these custody junkets. It’s heavy pressure, you know, to find your role four days out of the month, a little two-day run every two weeks with no rehearsal. I suppose it was no fun for him, either, being the director as well as actor and still not getting it right. But that weekend he seemed a lot more regular in a way it’s hard to describe. I think that woman (Mike’s mother) looked sexy, for one thing, but that is strictly my unhaired opinion. At school the word is, you don’t know what girls really are until you have hair, kind of a Samson thing, I guess.
“Three words,” Gaz said. “Motion. Picture. History.” He got up, circled the table as he explained his movie: en route to Earth from a distant solar system, the crew of the Valedictorian crash-lands on a hostile planet inhabited by bat-winged pygmies, lobster-clawed cannibals, two-headed vampires. “That’s where your stuff comes in. I’m going to splice up your movies with mine.” He went on about the mixing-up of genres, chop-suey cinema, bringing together East and West. “We’d be the ambassadors of international film!”
“What’s your thinking on this?” Checkers asked me in Tagalog. “Is this man serious? Is he just an American fool?”
“Ask how much he’ll pay,” I said, “get twenty percent more, give him the movies, and show him to the door.”
Every thing I own save the poor Beasts is in a heap here in the center of this room and if I mean to keep it whole I must before I sleep cover all against the leaking, rake old tins & leavings outside the door, burn a camphor stick against vermin, set my few mouse traps along the walls. And hope for better Weather & Strength in the days coming. I have put out in the night the 2 boys I found here, they had taken up living in the empty house. Those were Troubles I could not borrow, as I am scarce likely to make my own living in this poor place and coming West I have seen idle men Everywhere abut in La Grande and Boise and Missoula and in the Papers woeful news of the falling price of Wheat & Cattle both. They were polite & forebearing, for which reason I am sorry.
I
What a lucky beast I am,
when he cleans up nice
and nicks his perfect face.
I get to lick that face,
when he lets me.
In the cut’s opening
I get a taste of him
from the inside
out, which is all I have
ever wanted,
to be cell-close
to him. Praise the razor’s
overzealous arm;
the ease
with which it finds tenderness
in this man.
I couldn’t move. The ground was tiny, an aerial map, rich in detail, and the wind tugged at my feet. What were the commands? Arch, I whispered. Arch arch arch. That was all I could remember. I stood up, gripping the side of the opening, my feet balanced on the metal bar beneath the doorway, resisting the steady rush of wind. The jumpmaster shouted again. I felt the pressure of his fingers. And then I was gone. I left the plane behind me and fell into the air.