WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.160 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Megan. 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:04.260 align:middle line:90% That was sweet. 00:00:04.260 --> 00:00:12.735 align:middle line:84% My fiance threw away those Crocs for the very simple reason 00:00:12.735 --> 00:00:13.485 align:middle line:90% that they smelled. 00:00:13.485 --> 00:00:16.680 align:middle line:90% 00:00:16.680 --> 00:00:21.120 align:middle line:84% And she forbid me to buy a second pair for good reason. 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:24.120 align:middle line:90% But yeah, I love those shoes. 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:26.130 align:middle line:90% This is a bigger crowd than 210. 00:00:26.130 --> 00:00:30.810 align:middle line:84% So that's my benchmark, my 210 classes. 00:00:30.810 --> 00:00:34.500 align:middle line:90% This is, yes, my new book. 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:36.090 align:middle line:84% All those stories, as Megan said, 00:00:36.090 --> 00:00:40.530 align:middle line:84% take place in right in or around Vaughn, Maine, which 00:00:40.530 --> 00:00:43.260 align:middle line:84% is a town that does not exist really 00:00:43.260 --> 00:00:46.350 align:middle line:84% but is based on the town where I grew up, 00:00:46.350 --> 00:00:50.820 align:middle line:84% a tiny town in Maine on the Kennebec River. 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:53.310 align:middle line:90% And I've been trying-- 00:00:53.310 --> 00:00:54.990 align:middle line:84% I've been debating which story to read. 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:58.440 align:middle line:84% There's a story about adolescent-- a mock tragedy 00:00:58.440 --> 00:01:03.180 align:middle line:84% about adolescent love, which has some humor in it, 00:01:03.180 --> 00:01:10.410 align:middle line:84% or a story about an 83-year-old woman that's very depressing. 00:01:10.410 --> 00:01:12.310 align:middle line:90% Humor. 00:01:12.310 --> 00:01:15.060 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:22.620 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read the adolescent love story, which I guess-- 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:27.390 align:middle line:84% you would say is a little bit rated R. So just-- 00:01:27.390 --> 00:01:30.210 align:middle line:90% no more R than Steve. 00:01:30.210 --> 00:01:37.150 align:middle line:90% Steve is a walking R. OK. 00:01:37.150 --> 00:01:43.260 align:middle line:84% And it's a longer story that I've cut down. 00:01:43.260 --> 00:01:44.640 align:middle line:90% I've cut down severely. 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:46.470 align:middle line:84% Hopefully it'll still make sense. 00:01:46.470 --> 00:01:49.050 align:middle line:84% And I like the way Steve offers a little explanation, 00:01:49.050 --> 00:01:50.010 align:middle line:90% as poets often do. 00:01:50.010 --> 00:01:53.070 align:middle line:84% But what I like about Steve's explanations 00:01:53.070 --> 00:01:58.740 align:middle line:84% is that they seem blended into the poems. 00:01:58.740 --> 00:02:00.960 align:middle line:84% But I would like to thank Steve for the reading, 00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:04.180 align:middle line:84% and Megan and Frances and Gail for having us read here 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:04.680 align:middle line:90% tonight. 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:05.820 align:middle line:90% It's a real honor. 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:08.370 align:middle line:90% 00:02:08.370 --> 00:02:09.690 align:middle line:90% The story is called "She." 00:02:09.690 --> 00:02:12.200 align:middle line:90% 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:15.300 align:middle line:84% Oh, one more thing I'll say about this story, 00:02:15.300 --> 00:02:20.040 align:middle line:84% as I adjust this thing, is it's a little bit of a wonky story. 00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:21.870 align:middle line:90% It's a first person omniscient. 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:25.080 align:middle line:84% So those of you have taken my class, it's a kid-- 00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:27.360 align:middle line:84% a guy looking back to when he was a kid. 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:29.940 align:middle line:84% And he knows everyone's thoughts, 00:02:29.940 --> 00:02:32.250 align:middle line:84% which it's a little known fact that this 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:40.255 align:middle line:84% is true of people in Maine, that they're all omniscient. 00:02:40.255 --> 00:02:41.130 align:middle line:90% This is called "She." 00:02:41.130 --> 00:02:44.040 align:middle line:84% "Everything Natalie said seem to herself 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:46.450 align:middle line:90% to have been said better by him. 00:02:46.450 --> 00:02:48.330 align:middle line:84% He was less fond of speaking, however, 00:02:48.330 --> 00:02:51.090 align:middle line:84% than he was of hitting people in the face, which 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:52.950 align:middle line:84% seemed a more likely source of her love 00:02:52.950 --> 00:02:55.710 align:middle line:84% to those of us who were in speech class with him. 00:02:55.710 --> 00:02:57.660 align:middle line:84% It could be, we reasoned, she was in love 00:02:57.660 --> 00:03:01.800 align:middle line:84% with the kind of things he might say if he spoke more often. 00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:03.870 align:middle line:84% It was easy for someone like David Dion 00:03:03.870 --> 00:03:06.120 align:middle line:90% to be casual about fate. 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:07.380 align:middle line:90% He was still in junior high. 00:03:07.380 --> 00:03:10.020 align:middle line:84% But high school girls picked him up in their daddy's cars 00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:12.240 align:middle line:84% and had sex with him out at the pit. 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:16.050 align:middle line:84% No one I spoke to on a regular basis had even been to the pit. 00:03:16.050 --> 00:03:18.900 align:middle line:84% It was hard to guess how old he was if you didn't already know, 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:20.790 align:middle line:84% if he hadn't tumbled down into your grade 00:03:20.790 --> 00:03:23.592 align:middle line:84% from the grade above when he was held back. 00:03:23.592 --> 00:03:25.050 align:middle line:84% He couldn't be that smart you could 00:03:25.050 --> 00:03:26.703 align:middle line:84% tell from the way he grinded himself. 00:03:26.703 --> 00:03:28.620 align:middle line:84% But he was smart enough to know he didn't have 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:32.010 align:middle line:90% to be loyal to any one girl. 00:03:32.010 --> 00:03:35.100 align:middle line:84% In school, he sat two seats away from me in homeroom, 00:03:35.100 --> 00:03:38.280 align:middle line:84% where he spilled over his desk, stroking his thin mustache, 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:42.660 align:middle line:84% and cracking his knuckles, one handed, one finger at a time. 00:03:42.660 --> 00:03:45.210 align:middle line:84% In woodshop, we were partners making a gun rack. 00:03:45.210 --> 00:03:46.170 align:middle line:90% I made the rack. 00:03:46.170 --> 00:03:48.330 align:middle line:90% He kept it. 00:03:48.330 --> 00:03:51.007 align:middle line:84% He slouched back in his chair, his elbows on the sill, 00:03:51.007 --> 00:03:52.590 align:middle line:84% looking out the window from the corner 00:03:52.590 --> 00:03:54.450 align:middle line:90% of his eye like a prisoner. 00:03:54.450 --> 00:03:56.580 align:middle line:84% Not even the shop teacher said anything. 00:03:56.580 --> 00:03:58.350 align:middle line:90% They were related, kids said. 00:03:58.350 --> 00:04:02.010 align:middle line:84% He was related all over, mostly in the next county, where 00:04:02.010 --> 00:04:03.870 align:middle line:84% every other ice fisherman was an uncle, 00:04:03.870 --> 00:04:06.870 align:middle line:84% every other woman behind the cash register or not, 00:04:06.870 --> 00:04:08.550 align:middle line:90% and the rest, cousins. 00:04:08.550 --> 00:04:11.790 align:middle line:84% He could walk into any store out there and borrow 10 bucks. 00:04:11.790 --> 00:04:14.640 align:middle line:84% He owed everyone, even me, at least that much. 00:04:14.640 --> 00:04:16.769 align:middle line:90% I lent him $1 at a time. 00:04:16.769 --> 00:04:20.610 align:middle line:84% He rolled the bills into joints and smoked them or sold them 00:04:20.610 --> 00:04:24.000 align:middle line:84% for $2, making a few bucks, he said, for later at the bar. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.170 align:middle line:90% 00:04:27.170 --> 00:04:31.700 align:middle line:84% Before Dion, Natalie and Ron, her boyfriend, 00:04:31.700 --> 00:04:33.620 align:middle line:84% would walk down the hill after school, 00:04:33.620 --> 00:04:36.200 align:middle line:84% passing my house crossing the tracks on their way 00:04:36.200 --> 00:04:39.800 align:middle line:84% to the public library, which was where a lot of us went, 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:42.710 align:middle line:84% strange to say, when we had nothing else to do. 00:04:42.710 --> 00:04:44.840 align:middle line:84% They walked alone holding hands, had 00:04:44.840 --> 00:04:48.590 align:middle line:84% been going out since she was in sixth grade, he in junior high. 00:04:48.590 --> 00:04:51.590 align:middle line:84% In sixth grade, people kissed on the playground. 00:04:51.590 --> 00:04:55.190 align:middle line:84% But no one went out, went steady, held hands in public 00:04:55.190 --> 00:04:57.710 align:middle line:90% at that age, except them. 00:04:57.710 --> 00:05:00.170 align:middle line:84% Miss Hagel, the librarian, had no worries 00:05:00.170 --> 00:05:02.840 align:middle line:84% when they sat down to hold hands across the top of the reading 00:05:02.840 --> 00:05:03.810 align:middle line:90% table. 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:05.810 align:middle line:84% Others had to be watched and checked on, 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:08.750 align:middle line:84% would be up to nasty business in the stacks among the geography 00:05:08.750 --> 00:05:09.710 align:middle line:90% books. 00:05:09.710 --> 00:05:11.630 align:middle line:84% Ron and Natalie would only kiss each other 00:05:11.630 --> 00:05:14.180 align:middle line:84% for half a minute on the grass in front of the library 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:16.490 align:middle line:84% while waiting for his mother to pick him up for dinner. 00:05:16.490 --> 00:05:20.210 align:middle line:90% 00:05:20.210 --> 00:05:24.260 align:middle line:84% At first, it was hard to believe that Natalie had left Ron 00:05:24.260 --> 00:05:26.840 align:middle line:84% and that she was together with Dion. 00:05:26.840 --> 00:05:31.160 align:middle line:84% No one saw them holding hands or even talking in the daylight. 00:05:31.160 --> 00:05:32.870 align:middle line:84% Denise reported seeing them kissing 00:05:32.870 --> 00:05:34.530 align:middle line:90% in the dark behind the school. 00:05:34.530 --> 00:05:36.860 align:middle line:84% And she was the first to confront Natalie about it, 00:05:36.860 --> 00:05:37.970 align:middle line:90% about Ron. 00:05:37.970 --> 00:05:39.620 align:middle line:90% Ron's over, she said. 00:05:39.620 --> 00:05:41.370 align:middle line:90% How, Denise wanted to know. 00:05:41.370 --> 00:05:42.740 align:middle line:90% How did this happen? 00:05:42.740 --> 00:05:45.470 align:middle line:84% Natalie shrugged their shoulders. 00:05:45.470 --> 00:05:47.870 align:middle line:84% One afternoon, the basketball team 00:05:47.870 --> 00:05:50.090 align:middle line:84% stood on the court and their practice gear 00:05:50.090 --> 00:05:51.920 align:middle line:84% not bouncing the ball staring off 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:54.080 align:middle line:84% in different directions in disbelief 00:05:54.080 --> 00:05:56.510 align:middle line:90% that Dion had quit for her. 00:05:56.510 --> 00:05:58.430 align:middle line:90% Mr. Dawson, the coach, was late. 00:05:58.430 --> 00:06:00.020 align:middle line:90% He was never late. 00:06:00.020 --> 00:06:02.480 align:middle line:84% They couldn't believe Dion was with her right now, 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:06.290 align:middle line:84% maybe often his brother's car or at his cousin's house where 00:06:06.290 --> 00:06:09.620 align:middle line:84% both parents worked, or often Vaughn woods by the pond, 00:06:09.620 --> 00:06:12.140 align:middle line:84% or out by the pit waiting for it to get dark, 00:06:12.140 --> 00:06:14.900 align:middle line:84% or down by the river even, near the landing, 00:06:14.900 --> 00:06:16.640 align:middle line:90% waiting for it to get dark. 00:06:16.640 --> 00:06:19.670 align:middle line:84% Any of them would have traded places with Dion. 00:06:19.670 --> 00:06:21.530 align:middle line:84% The game of basketball suddenly seemed 00:06:21.530 --> 00:06:24.050 align:middle line:84% pointless next to the thought of his hand 00:06:24.050 --> 00:06:27.680 align:middle line:84% on her hip and she and her green slacks and yellow sweater 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:29.900 align:middle line:84% bearing her face in his flannel shirt, 00:06:29.900 --> 00:06:31.820 align:middle line:84% curling her fingers into his back, 00:06:31.820 --> 00:06:34.670 align:middle line:84% closing her eyes to hide even from herself 00:06:34.670 --> 00:06:36.710 align:middle line:90% how much she loved him. 00:06:36.710 --> 00:06:38.660 align:middle line:84% When Mr. Dawson arrived, the team 00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:40.340 align:middle line:84% was sitting on their practice balls 00:06:40.340 --> 00:06:42.470 align:middle line:84% and on the bench with their heads low. 00:06:42.470 --> 00:06:46.580 align:middle line:84% They hadn't noticed him come in, finger splayed out in the air. 00:06:46.580 --> 00:06:48.440 align:middle line:84% The game of basketball seemed to him 00:06:48.440 --> 00:06:51.740 align:middle line:84% a cruel drama written to parody his frustration. 00:06:51.740 --> 00:06:55.190 align:middle line:84% And now he was forced to be its director. 00:06:55.190 --> 00:06:57.380 align:middle line:84% They had only been together for a day. 00:06:57.380 --> 00:07:01.190 align:middle line:84% But it seemed to Natalie as if they had been together forever. 00:07:01.190 --> 00:07:03.350 align:middle line:84% There seemed no need to tell him anything. 00:07:03.350 --> 00:07:05.900 align:middle line:84% With one glance, she knew he knew 00:07:05.900 --> 00:07:08.120 align:middle line:84% the years they had not been together 00:07:08.120 --> 00:07:11.780 align:middle line:84% were little more than preparation for this moment. 00:07:11.780 --> 00:07:13.760 align:middle line:84% She could tell from the turn of his hand 00:07:13.760 --> 00:07:15.770 align:middle line:84% hanging out the window of his brother's car 00:07:15.770 --> 00:07:17.030 align:middle line:90% what he was thinking about. 00:07:17.030 --> 00:07:18.920 align:middle line:90% He was thinking about her. 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:21.620 align:middle line:84% When he looked at her, she had to look away. 00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:24.500 align:middle line:84% When he thought about her, she was thinking about him. 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:27.110 align:middle line:84% When he looked away, she looked at him. 00:07:27.110 --> 00:07:30.920 align:middle line:84% When she looked away, she could feel him looking at her. 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:33.140 align:middle line:84% She realized now that she had always 00:07:33.140 --> 00:07:35.870 align:middle line:84% been looking for him, even though they had always been 00:07:35.870 --> 00:07:39.260 align:middle line:84% in school together, sitting just a few seats away, 00:07:39.260 --> 00:07:41.520 align:middle line:84% standing across the playground from each other, 00:07:41.520 --> 00:07:43.850 align:middle line:84% he with his friends at the corner of the school parking 00:07:43.850 --> 00:07:47.600 align:middle line:84% lot by the dumpster, she with hers by the swing set. 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:49.670 align:middle line:84% She had seen him but not seen him. 00:07:49.670 --> 00:07:52.325 align:middle line:84% She had been alive but not alive until now. 00:07:52.325 --> 00:07:55.610 align:middle line:90% 00:07:55.610 --> 00:07:57.740 align:middle line:84% In the following days, she formed 00:07:57.740 --> 00:08:02.600 align:middle line:84% a list of things she wanted to have and do and be without Ron. 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:05.420 align:middle line:90% 00:08:05.420 --> 00:08:08.330 align:middle line:84% She wanted a boat but not any boat, 00:08:08.330 --> 00:08:11.780 align:middle line:84% a giant motor sailor they could take all the way down the coast 00:08:11.780 --> 00:08:14.053 align:middle line:84% to Florida, so big there could be a storm 00:08:14.053 --> 00:08:15.470 align:middle line:84% and they wouldn't even notice down 00:08:15.470 --> 00:08:17.210 align:middle line:84% in the cabin below where there would 00:08:17.210 --> 00:08:21.710 align:middle line:84% be a fireplace in a television VCR in one. 00:08:21.710 --> 00:08:24.410 align:middle line:84% Who would be sailing the boat, Dion wanted to know. 00:08:24.410 --> 00:08:26.010 align:middle line:84% They would hire someone for that. 00:08:26.010 --> 00:08:27.710 align:middle line:84% But the rest of their life was imagined 00:08:27.710 --> 00:08:31.040 align:middle line:84% in modest proportions-- dogs, golden collie mixes, 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:33.897 align:middle line:84% not pure at all, three children, a house 00:08:33.897 --> 00:08:35.480 align:middle line:84% where everyone had a bedroom and there 00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:38.600 align:middle line:84% was one extra for a guest, and some land with a view 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:40.159 align:middle line:90% of the hills around town. 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:43.039 align:middle line:84% She didn't want to live down by the river or so close 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:47.210 align:middle line:84% to a neighbor that you could see in their window at night. 00:08:47.210 --> 00:08:49.370 align:middle line:84% She had never thought of living anywhere else. 00:08:49.370 --> 00:08:51.470 align:middle line:90% He had thought of Montana. 00:08:51.470 --> 00:08:54.680 align:middle line:84% Montana, the word sounded chewed in her mouth. 00:08:54.680 --> 00:08:56.390 align:middle line:90% God, she said, shaking her head. 00:08:56.390 --> 00:08:58.790 align:middle line:84% Other places-- Gardner, Farmingdale, 00:08:58.790 --> 00:09:01.760 align:middle line:84% Monmouth-- those places, the only other places she knew, 00:09:01.760 --> 00:09:02.780 align:middle line:90% were bad enough. 00:09:02.780 --> 00:09:05.600 align:middle line:84% Imagine what people were like even further away. 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:08.180 align:middle line:84% No, she wanted to go to Florida though, 00:09:08.180 --> 00:09:11.360 align:middle line:84% not to live just to go there as the Nasons did every winter, 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:14.630 align:middle line:84% taking their daughter Julie with them so that she came back 00:09:14.630 --> 00:09:17.923 align:middle line:84% with a tan, even if she did look like a squirrel. 00:09:17.923 --> 00:09:19.340 align:middle line:84% And no matter what time of year it 00:09:19.340 --> 00:09:21.590 align:middle line:84% was, Natalie would have fresh flowers in every room 00:09:21.590 --> 00:09:25.400 align:middle line:84% of the house, this idea from her mother of how people really 00:09:25.400 --> 00:09:28.870 align:middle line:84% lived, and a horse in a red barn for her daughter, 00:09:28.870 --> 00:09:31.120 align:middle line:84% and light blue carpeting in every room-- 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:34.300 align:middle line:84% our room, she said, with a canopy bed. 00:09:34.300 --> 00:09:36.520 align:middle line:90% But he didn't know what one was. 00:09:36.520 --> 00:09:40.480 align:middle line:84% It has a kind of roof, like a tent, she explained. 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:42.670 align:middle line:84% He didn't see the point but pictured it anyway-- 00:09:42.670 --> 00:09:45.430 align:middle line:84% a bed with a tent in a room that already 00:09:45.430 --> 00:09:49.510 align:middle line:84% had a ceiling and above that a roof. 00:09:49.510 --> 00:09:51.100 align:middle line:84% He had pictured a cabin in Montana 00:09:51.100 --> 00:09:53.392 align:middle line:84% where you could look up and see the nails from the roof 00:09:53.392 --> 00:09:54.580 align:middle line:90% shingles coming through. 00:09:54.580 --> 00:09:56.080 align:middle line:90% And lavender, she said. 00:09:56.080 --> 00:09:57.760 align:middle line:84% No one would be allowed to smoke. 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:00.100 align:middle line:84% Every room would smell of lavender, like me, 00:10:00.100 --> 00:10:02.620 align:middle line:84% she said, and pressed her wrist to his nose. 00:10:02.620 --> 00:10:06.520 align:middle line:84% This was the smell of their future. 00:10:06.520 --> 00:10:10.240 align:middle line:84% Well, none of us had been in love, not really until now. 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:12.310 align:middle line:84% Anything we had called love came back to us 00:10:12.310 --> 00:10:15.760 align:middle line:84% as mockery in the face of this sudden flight from reason. 00:10:15.760 --> 00:10:18.070 align:middle line:84% My friend Andy had said he was in love with Missy. 00:10:18.070 --> 00:10:20.950 align:middle line:84% And it was a shame Missy was not in love with him. 00:10:20.950 --> 00:10:23.500 align:middle line:84% A daily lament rose from him like the steam of the heat 00:10:23.500 --> 00:10:25.510 align:middle line:90% from the pipes at school. 00:10:25.510 --> 00:10:29.990 align:middle line:84% Andy's mother hit the counter with her fist in their house. 00:10:29.990 --> 00:10:32.530 align:middle line:84% They're too young, she said, talking about Natalie 00:10:32.530 --> 00:10:33.400 align:middle line:90% with Dion. 00:10:33.400 --> 00:10:36.070 align:middle line:84% And we knew she was talking about their tongues running 00:10:36.070 --> 00:10:38.170 align:middle line:84% along the inside of each other's teeth 00:10:38.170 --> 00:10:41.920 align:middle line:84% and the suddenly anxious too tight grip of her hand 00:10:41.920 --> 00:10:44.260 align:middle line:84% between his legs, and the taste of each other's skin, 00:10:44.260 --> 00:10:47.440 align:middle line:84% and the smell of each other's bodies, and the feel of him 00:10:47.440 --> 00:10:49.450 align:middle line:84% slipping inside her, and her settling down 00:10:49.450 --> 00:10:52.510 align:middle line:84% over him, the shape of her mouth, the shape of his. 00:10:52.510 --> 00:10:54.400 align:middle line:84% She was talking about their bodies 00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:56.650 align:middle line:84% but thinking about the words they had used. 00:10:56.650 --> 00:10:57.730 align:middle line:90% Everyone knew. 00:10:57.730 --> 00:11:00.340 align:middle line:84% Love, finally growled, as if the creature 00:11:00.340 --> 00:11:04.050 align:middle line:84% itself had risen from her dreams to take over her kitchen.