[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, Ander.
That was strangely accurate.
Thank you everyone for coming out tonight,
and thank you to the Poetry Center and the Creative Writing
Department for having me.
It's nice to be back.
I started that book here, the colorful one,
and finished it when I left here and always
think about moving back here.
Tonight, I decided I was going to read this novel in progress.
So this is my second--
hopefully, second novel.
Two people have read it, so it feels
very comfortable to stand in front of all of you
and read the opening chapter.
The morning after another bout of rat-interrupted sex,
Arlen woke to the trills of the resident junco
on the cabin deck.
It was impossible for him to fall back asleep
once the junco began its loose, jingling song.
Next to him in bed, Hollis snored blissfully.
He reached for his phone and opened Google Earth.
He was zooming on the island of La Palma
and the Canary Islands, the darkest place on Earth,
when the notification arrived.
His box of Irish Spring was at the post office.
An old man at the Yacht Club that
harbored no yachts, only busted kayaks, promised Arlen the soap
would detract wood rats.
Arlen didn't hesitate.
The previous night, the scratching
started in the bedroom wall just as they were about to finish.
Ignore it, Hollis demanded, digging her nails
into his chest.
An image of the rat gnawing through the Redwood
and climbing up his leg into their bed occupied his mind.
He evicted the image until they were through.
Was it a mating song, the juncos?
Arlen tried to look it up, but on every site he visited,
pop-up ads for rodent traps and rodent proofing and rodent
exclusion took over his screen.
Hollis was in the shower by the time he finally set his phone
aside to use the bathroom.
She opened the shower door and reached out through the steam.
In her soapy hand, she held a shiny yellow slug.
How do they get so big, she asked.
The network, he replied, referring
to their working theory that behind the bathroom
walls, the only drywall in the cabin,
dwelled a massive network of mushrooms
that the slugs feasted on.
He'd come up with a theory after hammering a nail into the wall
for Hollis' necklaces.
Determining the nail was a little off center,
he removed it and out popped a tiny fruiting body.
I'm off to the post office, he said.
Meet me down there.
At our bench, she asked.
There were several benches scattered around town
and up the fire roads on the ridge
that they simply referred to as our bench.
In this case, our bench was the one
at the edge of the bay in front of the post office.
See you there, he said and grabbed his dress shoes
from the closet.
He'd bought the shoes for a friend's wedding almost 10
years ago and had rarely worn them,
but he was struggling with his latest manuscript.
And after reading about how an artist he admired
wore a suit to his studio every day as a way
to take himself and his work more seriously,
Arlen dug out the leather shoes and meticulously worked
the mildew out of the seams with an old toothbrush.
They look pretty good.
Not perfect, but suitable enough for a walk
down to the post office to retrieve
a box of three dozen bars of strongly scented soap.
As he left the cabin, Arlen spotted his octogenarian
landlord coming through the front gate.
The landlord had made a habit of these surprise drop ins
over the past year.
Morning, son, he said, like a grandfather
who charges market-rate rent.
He held out a hand for Arlen.
Arlen took the landlord's hand gently
and held it the way he would a soft animal.
From his jacket pocket, the landlord
offered Arlen what looked like a Glade plug-in.
For the rats, he said.
A neighbor, who had known the landlord for decades
described him to Arlen and Hollis
as deviously cheap for a man who has more money than God.
At the open house, before they rented the cabin,
they noticed the ants along the baseboards,
the rotted wood in certain dark corners,
the glistening slug trails across the shower tiles,
even the scat in the crawl space.
But they'd also been quite taken with the high ceilings made
of old growth Redwood, the usnea swinging
from the majestic live oak on the property,
and the peekaboo view of the bay from the kitchen window.
Plus, it was the only rental available.
And for them, owning was out of the question.
Thanks to the area's real estate boom, even this porous, rotting
cabin had its estimate at $1.7 million.
Arlen took the plug-in.
It emits a sound only rats can hear, the landlord said.
I have them in my house, and we have no problems.
He neglected to mention that his house is brand new.
The concrete foundation impenetrable to rodents.
Arlen slipped the plug-in into his coat pocket
and thanked the landlord.
He decided to take the road rather than the trail
down to the post office so as not to dirty his dress shoes.
As he started down the hill, a water department truck slowed.
It was Burton.
He leaned out the window.
How are your rats?
Everyone called the cabin the Shallow cabin
after the landlord, but somehow the rats belonged to Arlen.
He took the plug-in out of his pocket.
Old man Shallow gave me this.
Burton laughed.
You should get a cat.
I'm heading down to the post office
now to pick up a box of Irish Spring.
You know what I did when I lived in that cabin, Burton said.
Arlen regarded Burton as a kind of third presence in the cabin.
He'd planted the roses that lined the fence,
and his fish sticker was still plastered to the fridge.
I asked my mom for my inheritance early.
That's how I bought my property up on the ridge.
Have you thought about asking for yours?
My inheritance will come in the form of cruise ship points,
Arlen told him.
Burton looked confused.
What's the cash value of those?
Arlen continued walking.
Gotta get down to the post office to meet Hollis,
he said, knowing she would take the trail from their house,
the quicker path.
Think about it, Burton called back.
Never hurts to ask.
It's best in the long run to own.
Gives you more control.
Exhaust puffed into the air as he shifted into gear.
Further down the road at the Ross cabin,
a truck was parked outside pumping the septic tank.
The retired art teacher stood across the street
in her nightgown, arms crossed.
Do they have to come this early, she asked.
Arlen ignored her and continued walking.
It smells, doesn't it?
It's all the red meat these people eat.
Me, I'm totally vegan.
When they come to pump my septic,
it doesn't smell in the least.
It's because it's all vegetables.
Legumes.
Not this, she said, pointing at the truck, disgusted.
This flesh.
Arlen only wanted his package.
The less sleep he got on account of the rats,
the harder it was to feel like he had a grip on his work.
His book was about the local effort
to preserve the night sky.
That's why he was here, to research the movement,
not lose sleep to rats.
He wanted to use the initiative as an example of how communities
can band together to preserve what's precious,
but he'd recently begun to question
whether the heroes of his book batted around
big ideas about the cosmos simply
to prevent the construction of new condos.
More buildings means more people means more light, and more light
equals less sky.
People weren't that simple, of course,
but in a sleep deprived state, these people seem that simple.
He hurried past a septic truck, offering the nightgown woman
a neighborly shrug, and hoped the Irish Spring
could revive his manuscript, or at least buy him a few nights
of uninterrupted sleep.
This your car, Mr. Fiala asked, pointing at a forest
green Rivian with a bumper sticker that read,
Yeah, I'm DTF, Down to Forage.
Only a few weeks ago, Arlen had interviewed Mr. Fiala,
an amateur astronomer who owned a high-powered telescope
and was heavily involved in the night sky preservation efforts.
You've seen my car, Mr. Fiala, he said.
It's a rusted old station wagon.
So you're not staying at her Airbnb, he asked.
Mr. Fiala hated Mrs. Williams' Airbnb.
Arlen gathered during the interview,
that Mr. Fiala had maintained a decades-long crush
on Mrs. Williams, who had recently
fallen in love with a man from the city
and stopped spending time out here in the country.
If her guests complained about the grouchy neighbor
in their reviews, he likely reasoned, she'd think about him.
We've met before, Arlen reminded him.
I'm the writer.
Mr. Fiala could identify all the craters
on the moon visible through his telescope,
but he stared at Arlen like he was extragalactic.
And can I borrow a pen, he finally asked.
With Arlen's pen, Mr. Fiala scribbled
a note on a piece of draft paper he pulled out
of his back pocket.
Do not block driveway, he wrote in blocky script
and lodged the note under the trucks wipers.
Arlen knew for a fact that Mr. Fiala didn't drive.
His garage housed an old VW Beetle
where squirrels had long ago taken up residence,
storing thousands of acorns in the crevices
of the busted engine.
He returned the pen.
Have you been hearing this bell too, he asked Arlen.
This is the latest town controversy.
The new pastor had replaced the church bell with one
much larger and louder after an inspirational trip to Rome
last summer.
The local newspaper had run several op eds on the matter.
Arlen knew better than to involve himself.
The pastor walked through the gate of the Airbnb
with another man, who appeared to be his brother,
or someone he had fallen in love with,
the way people sometimes fall in love
with people who look like them.
Oh, Jesus, Mr. Fiala said.
Good morning, Fred, the pastor said.
It's not good for the wildlife, that bell,
Mr. Fiala said to the pastor.
Imagine someone invading your home like that.
Arlen fled, but the debate between the two men
continued behind him, their voices
carrying through the valley.
I understand beauty is subjective,
he could hear the pastor say to Mr. Fiala
before the septic truck mercifully barreled down
the road, drowning out their voices.
Arlen stepped to the shoulder to let the truck pass.
Above him, squirrels chased one another playfully
on the massive oak tree that framed
the bay on the stretch of road.
Arlen paused to admire the view.
He hated how he still fell prey to the town's
unquantifiable beauty, a beauty that
made the impossible cost of living here
and even the nosy neighbors seem worth it.
Back on the road, he stepped in fox scat
thick with huckleberries.
Cursing his luck-- this is precisely why he hadn't taken
the trail--
he dislodged the scat with a fallen branch
and walked the short remaining distance to the post office.
He held the door open for the landlord's wife, who
had in her hand three envelopes, his rent check, plus-- he
guessed-- rent checks for the other two properties
she and the landlord owned.
Did you see my husband this morning, she asked Arlen.
He had a gift for you.
Yes, Arlen said, the little machine.
They work like a charm for us.
She pointed her key at his chest,
and the Mercedes behind him chirped.
She touched his shoulder gently.
Be well.
He wasn't sure if she'd ever touched him before
or who the last person besides Hollis was who had touched him.
Did the landlord's handshake count?
Inside, he opened his PO box to retrieve his yellow package
slip, but it wasn't there.
At the desk, he asked the postal worker about his package.
Her name was Lorraine, and aside from Hollis,
she was his favorite person in town.
Hollis was just in here, she said.
She picked it up.
Then she leaned forward and whispered,
so you guys are trying?
All gossip flowed through the post office,
and he didn't love that Hollis had divulged her secret
to Lorraine, and perhaps he now realized,
to their landlord's wife as well, who would certainly
tell her husband, who would, in turn, very likely raise
their rent if ever a third occupant manifested themselves.
Still, Lorraine's well-meaning question
made it all seem more real.
We are, Arlen confirmed.
I'll be praying for you, she said.
And even though Arlen never prayed and wasn't sure
how he felt about other people praying on his behalf,
the small gesture filled him with not hope exactly
but some kind of connectedness, the way
he felt when the bay was framed a particular way
in the ancient oak tree, or when he gazed up at the stars
on a cold, clear night.
Hollis was waiting for him at their bench.
You beat me, he said.
I took the trail.
Arlen looked down at his dress shoes.
Smart.
These came, she said, holding up a pregnancy test.
Oh, Arlen said, realizing that this was the package Lorraine
had mentioned.
And, not this month.
Arlen let the frustration bubble up inside him, then pass.
Oysters, he asked.
A cold plunge in the bay followed by a couple dozen
oysters with cheap champagne had become a ritual of sorts
in these long months of trying.
You shuck the oysters yourself, cutting them out
of their calcareous homes.
They are surprisingly affordable.
Hollis nodded.
Lorraine thinks the soap is caught
in one of those loops, where the system isn't sure
where the package lives.
She said she'd look for it on the truck this afternoon.
After the cold plunge, after the two dozen oysters,
after the hike all the way up the ridge
to their secret Huckleberry spot,
they descended the fire road back to the cabin,
talking all the while about the cost of fertility treatment,
and whether that process was even feasible
with the unsold book.
And Hollis' plans to attend nursing school.
And by extension, how feasible it even was to have a child.
But then they stopped talking because they already
knew the answers to all these questions, or more precisely,
the questions were irrelevant.
Talking about them at this point was just
a way to feel in control, and what they wanted
had nothing to do with what they could control.
That night, Arlen dreamed of a completely dark sky
with no stars.
He was on La Palma in the Canary Islands,
perhaps, looking through the observatory's massive satellite,
when one by one, the stars began to appear.
Holes of light that the rat scurried out
of having gnawed through the black sheet of night.
Where had they come from, the rats, he wondered in his dream.
What was that bright place behind the dark sky?
Hollis woke him.
I heard something, she said.
In the wall?
No, up there.
She pointed at the roof.
They went outside and stood on the deck,
trying to spot whatever it was Hollis heard.
Just when they'd given up, a bobcat
landed soundlessly on the railing, her tufted ears
illuminated in the moonlight.
She turned towards them, something cradled in her mouth.
Hollis grabbed Arlen's arm.
Our rat.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Can we have one more big round of applause
for Josh and for Thomas.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
And a round of applause for Ander Monson,
for the broadsides, and for reminding us of our purpose,
and by extension, for the MFA Program more generally
and for these collaborations.
Thank you guys so much.
Paco, thank you.