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Tag: memoir
Untitled Night Club Poem
by Marc Alexander Valle
The multicolored lights. Bodies grinding and a few fist fights. Anything but actual dancing on the dance floor.
Groups of girls huddled in corners. I see young men walk over. They’re dressed in the style of ‘loose and baggy’ or ‘bad boy I don’t care what any thinks’.
The endless beat and bass. I vibe to the music just in case. They might see that I’m not like them.
The problem with the nightclub was that it was just like my head. Stimulation, movement, nonstop noise and chatter.
The problem was that I believed that these people were somehow more advanced than me. They could socialize and talk better than me.
The problem was with Beethoven. When we were in high school, these people were moving through the bases of dating. When we were in high school, I listened to the 9th for the 9th time, wondering if I would ever create something so sublime in my lifetime.
The problem was with movies. The problem was with filmmaking. The problem was with following your dreams. Which means the problem was with me.
If I could find a time machine and talk to a younger me I’d tell myself, “You have no interest in making art that slow and working as a team. Find another medium.”
The problem is that the world is incentivized to see reality in black and white, and as much as I tried to fight I could only see reality as an explosion of light.
So after one more visit to the nightclub, I decided that time would be more well spent behind a word processor. Written words always had a habit of flowing my way even when they came in cluttered.
Clubbing was no way to find myself. Clubbing was no way to find my niche. Trying to find your place with everyone in a place where everyone is trying to forget is the perfect way to lose your mind and maybe even your convictions.
Beethoven wrote that. Right after he wrote the 9th.
The Olive Tree
I had a roommate in college that couldn’t get used to it. Frank would walk in and say, “How come you’re always just looking at the wall when I come in?” I wanted to tell him that I was actually staring at the corner between the ceiling and the wall, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. I was socially inept back then, but I wasn’t that helpless.
But I would just lay there and think, feeling an immense sense of sadness about my life. I wanted to get away from who I was without losing my heart, my mind, and my beliefs. Daydreaming provided a drug-free buffer from a world that didn’t get me but still couldn’t get rid of me.
It really seemed to bother Frank though. It was the way he’d say it. Not with malice, but not jokingly either. Like he’d caught someone smelling their own underwear. In time, whenever I heard him approaching the door, I’d sit up and find something to do in order to look occupied. It was like working a minimum-wage job and hearing the boss’s keys jangling around the corner.
I still do it today when I hear Yvonne walking upstairs yet she’s one of the few people who’s ever understood me. It’s another little complex of mine that I’ve picked up like a common cold, and I don’t see it leaving my body anytime soon.
It takes love and it takes guts to undo what’s been done by an idiot. But we only have less than a lifetime to undo it. And there’s no shortage of idiots.
Chauvet-Pont-D’Arc by Marc Alexander Valle
One of my earliest memories of your grandmother is learning how to spell words. She would draw a picture and write the word beneath it. I asked her multiple times to run this lesson for me, and every time she did do it for me, she’d place a cup of juice with Vienna Fingers on the kitchen table by my side.
There was something about a visual representation of an idea that blew my mind. I’d ask her to draw different words to see what they look like. By then, I’d seen every one of those objects in artistic depictions, but there was something magical about your grandmother doing it before my eyes. She knew the world in a way that I couldn’t yet process, and the drawings solidified her power in my mind.
Sometimes I swear I can feel abstract ideas as tangibly as I can feel the keys on this computer. I can perceive their texture and their weight. Sometimes I can see the cost of manifesting them into the world, and sometimes I can see their consequences. This phenomenon has fueled my art and maybe my humanity.
I’m sure there’s an earlier memory of your grandmother somewhere in my unconscious. I’ll keep it there until it needs to be replaced, and I’ll keep the memory from you until something more pressing needs to be said. I’ve learned that it’s better to see loved ones at their greatest moment if you can help it. For everything else, there’s Vienna Fingers and juice.
by Marc Alexander Valle
It’s Always in the Corners (Latest Draft)
I let him hit me. Not punch me and not “I let him” as in “Sure! Go ahead and hit me” but I let him hit me. He’d push my head with an open hand. I told him to stop, but he didn’t. He’d hit me more than I’d like to admit, and sometimes I even told myself we were really friends.
Some time ago, I started to believe that it began in Algebra class, and that I was Tourette’s-and-facial-tic-free until I sat in front of Axel Sidezski that sophomore year of high school. I don’t remember having or feeling the tics before then, and for years I felt shame for knowing that I let him do that. It took many more years to begin to understand why I did.
I googled searched Axel the other day, asking two questions: Is he still the same? And is he doing better than I am? I searched for 10 minutes, and I only found white-page profiles of other Axels. Nowhere could I find that parted, reddish-blondish hair. Nowhere could I find that smirk.
I made a promise to myself long ago. I told myself that I would write things and create things of immense beauty. I told myself that if the Axels of the world ever came back, I could do one thing better than they could, one thing no person can take away.
Is he still the same and is he doing better than I am?
I don’t even think he’d remember my name.
My Drawings from an Unfinished Illustrated Short Story
Stuck
When something doesn’t go Emile’s way, he says that it’s stuck. When he can’t open a door, it’s stuck. When a ball or toy is lodged under something, it’s stuck. When he can’t push his carriage across the sidewalk, it’s stuck. When an object is too heavy to lift and throw outside of his playpen, it’s stuck. Stuck no longer means stuck to him. Anything that serves as a source of frustration and forces him to solve a problem, anything that he can’t control and must learn to overcome, anything that he can’t manipulate and must learn to leave alone, all of it is stuck. With that said, I have a possible name for my future book of stories and essays that I’m writing for Emile. The World Is Stuck.
Daybreak on the Banshee: A Flash Memoir by Marc Alexander Valle
Please, I welcome FEEDBACK. Feel free to comment.
First published in Potato Soup Journal on October 20, 2019
Daybreak on the Banshee
by Marc Alexander Valle
The women cried and wailed and prayed behind us, and my 7-year-old mind thought the dead body would look like something from the movies. I never saw a dead body before, and I was certain that it would look like a skeleton from a cartoon or at least Freddy Kruger. It would definitely be something that comes out only at night.
I stepped forward with my father and older brother towards the casket. All the conversation and noise in the room became silent inside of my head. I could only hear my thoughts, and all I could think was that I had to let dad step forward first and to be careful.
The toy soldier in my pocket poked into my thigh, and I readjusted it.
“What’s wrong?” my father said.
I looked up at him. “Nothing.”
I peered into the casket, and took in a deep breath.
It was my adult cousin, the one who lived down the street. No skeleton or wounds or blood or winkled skin. Just my cousin. It reminded me of a wax figure. My cousin. Then the silence fell to the back, and I could hear the wailing and the prayers of the woman once more.
“That’s it?” I said to my dad.
“Yeah,” he said. “Quiet.”
I felt compelled to go into my pocket and leave my cousin the toy soldier amongst all the flowers. I didn’t dare.
Death had only been a concept to me. Outside of television and movies, I only had urban legends. There was the time they found a dead body down at the end of the street in tall weeds. My older friend, Vic, said that it was done by a serial killer, who broke free from the Allentown State Hospital. He said that the escapee planned on killing all of the adults and torturing the children to exact some form of revenge. Despite my father’s assurance against this claim, I feared a man was roaming the streets with a gun that night. I couldn’t sleep. They ruled it suicide the next day, and I was relieved.
There was the story of the boy, who drowned in the Lehigh River next to Bucky Boyle Park. They said he swam too close to the whirlpool that swirled in the center, and he couldn’t swim back. For that reason, they told us kids to not even so much as step into the water.
Then there was the story of the boy, who fell out of a window in our former Brooklyn apartment complex. They said his ghost haunted the court yard. I had nightmares about him until we moved.
The wailing and the prayers grew even louder, and it began to make me sick to my stomach. I had enough of looking and standing still.
I looked back up to my father.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.
“Quiet,” he said, then took my hand and we walked away.
Back in the car and on our way home, my father reminded me and my brother that although our cousin was dead in the physical form, he was still alive in spirit. And that spirit is everlasting and although we cannot see him, he’s still with us. The moment he described my cousin, I imagined the translucent ghost of Christmas past from a TV version of Christmas Carol.
“Do you think Freddy Kruger could beat a ghost?” I said to my older brother.
“I don’t know,” my brother said.
“Cause Freddy’s got claws,” I said.
“You’re dumb,” he said. “Nothing can beat a ghost.”
I looked back out the window and noticed that it was a beautiful day. When I got home, I would go outside and play with Mitch. Mitch was fun, and he would let me lead. We’d race and play with our toys, and I’d give him the soldier that was scarping my thigh, and I’d tell him that I don’t think I like funerals.
It was a beautiful day. No clouds were in sight, and I could see a faint moon above, immersed in blue sky. A couple of sparrow streaked across it. A gust of air from my father’s window blew into my face. The sun touched everything. And there was plenty of time before dark.
by Marc Alexander Valle ©2019
Mav The Writer: The Lost Years
There’s a time in my life that I cannot write about. There’s no story there that would be of interest to my audience. I even get bored, thinking about it. From my teens to my very early 30s, I neither acted upon nor reacted to the world.
I did my thing. I wrote in various mediums, I went to karaoke twice a week, I read my work at open mics, I had my artwork in a gallery, I went back to school and earned my degree, I experimented in photography, and I worked various low-paying jobs with colorful people. But for the most part it was my lost years. I took no risks and barely ventured out of my comfort zone. I hardly dared to ask out females, fearing what they might have thought of me.
Is time ever really lost? Does the brain collect and process data and turn it into wisdom no matter the circumstance? And do movies, books, and music count as life experience?
I got into a shoving match in second grade, and it’s one of my sweetest moments. Some kid bullied my best friend on the playground. He was high up on himself, because all the girls followed him around during recess. I cursed at him and pushed him to the ground. All the girls came after me and yelled at me. The bully stood back up and cried. It felt good.
The world acted, I reacted, and in turn I existed. Beginning, middle and end.
We grade our lives on curves and our view of ourselves is rich with self-talk rebuttals.
I see no good in those years except that it makes my story different.
To excavate our lives for a happy ending can be a brutal endeavor, but a necessary one if the left foot is to move in front of the right and the right foot is to move in front of the left. I still can’t write a lick about that era.
The Santa Poem by Marc Alexander Valle
(Feedback is welcome)
The Santa Poem
My brother told me that Santa doesn’t exist. He showed me where all the gifts were stashed. G.I. Joes were everywhere. I felt a thrill throughout my body. Finding that Santa doesn’t exist is a double-edged sword. Your childhood is almost over, but now you have the advantage in gift begging. You can manipulate your parents into getting you what you want, and now you have someone to blame when you don’t get it. I’ll probably lie to my kids about Santa if I ever have any. When they find the gift stash, I’ll still lie to them. One Christmas, our dad made us leave a can of beer for Santa. He said that he wanted to see if Santa would drink it. The can was empty in the morning.
The Bucket: A Flash Nonfiction by Marc Alexander Valle
“Wax on, wax off,” I said. Tanya laughed. I continued with more impersonations.
After the fourth minute, it was indisputable. The second grade blackboard was clean. I would have to impress her another time.
“Alright,” she said. “Mrs. Reed makes us dump the water in the sink when we’re done.”
Tanya approached the sink. I followed.
“I got it,” I said, taking the bucket from her.
“Mrs. Reed told you how to dump it, right?”
“Yeah! Watch.”
I grabbed the handle with my left hand and lifted. It wobbled. I held the bottom with my other hand. All I needed was to get it above the sink, way above, as high as I could get it without getting water on the counter.
Tanya stepped forward, “Mrs. Reed said–
I tilted the bucket.
“Just make sure you pour the water sl—
I dumped all of the water into the sink in one shot. Nearly all of it splashed back.
Tanya backed off a step.
I backed off a few.
But it was too late.
“Oh my God! You got water all over my dress.”
I looked at myself, “Yeah, I got it on me too.”
“Why’d you do that? You were supposed to pour it in.”
“I didn’t know.”
Students got out of their seats, looking over.
“Ooohhh, weeee,” they said.
I turned to Mrs. Reed’s desk.
She was walking towards us. I placed my hands in front of me to cover the water.
The Bin: A Flash Memoir ©2018 by Marc Alexander Valle
“My mom says I gotta separate the laundry before we can play games,” Sal said. “Want to help?”
It was my first sleepover and this was new to me. My mom never let me touch the laundry. I said yes.
“Whites, darks, and lights,” he said. “That’s how you pile them up, Marc.”
I dug into one of the two bins that was closest to me.
This is dark.
Toss.
This is light.
Toss.
This is white.
Toss.
Until all three piles formed into mounds.
“You’re a liar,” he joked. “You’ve done this before.”
“Nah-uh. First time.”
This is dark.
Toss.
This is light
Toss.
This is white.
Holy snap! It’s got doo-doo on it!
Toss!
I backed away from the bin.
“What’s the matter?” Sal said, continuing his work.
“Nothing.”
“You’re not gonna help?”
“Yeah. I gotta go to the bathroom.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, can it wait? Just a little more, right?”
That had to be the only dirty underwear in there.
Maybe it was just a one-time thing.
“All right,” I said.
I stared at the bin. Another pair of white underwear stared back.
“It’s just clothes,” he said. “It’s not gonna bite.”
I couldn’t tell if it was soiled. It was too crumpled up. Not enough light.
I’ll grab the elastic. You can’t do boom-boom on the elastic.
“I’m done on my end,” he said. “Anymore?”
Maybe I can pretend I don’t see anything.
“What’s the matter, slowpoke?” he said, laughing.
I kept staring, debating, not wanting him to know that I knew.
“Marc, anymore?”
Bucket Ruckus: A Flash Memoir
“Wax on, wax off,” I said. Tanya laughed. I continued with more impersonations.
After the fourth minute, it was indisputable. The second grade board was clean. I would have to impress her another time.
“Alright,” she said. “Mrs. Reed makes us dump the water in the sink when we’re done.”
Tanya approached the sink. I followed.
“I got it,” I said, taking the bucket from her.
“Mrs. Reed told you how to dump it, right?”
“Yeah! Watch.”
I grabbed the handle with my left hand and lifted. It wobbled. I held the bottom with my other hand. All I needed was to get it above the sink. Way above. As high as I could get it without getting water on the counter.
Tanya stepped forward, “Mrs. Reed said–
I tilted the bucket.
“Just make sure you pour the water sl—
I dumped all of the water into the sink in one shot. Nearly all of it splashed back.
Tanya backed off a step.
I backed off a few.
But it was too late.
“Oh my God! You got water all over my dress.”
I looked at myself, “Yeah, I got it on me too.”
“Why’d you do that? You were supposed to pour it in.”
“I didn’t know.”
Students got out of their seats, looking over.
“Ooohhh, weeee,” they said.
I turned to Mrs. Reed’s desk.
She was walking towards us. I placed my hands in front of me to cover the water. It was useless.
Childhood Myths #1
“Why do I need new clothing?” I said.
“Cause you’re getting bigger,” my mom said.
“But why do I need new clothing?”
“Cause. It doesn’t fit you anymore.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Don’t you feel it getting tighter?”
Debunked myth # 1: Cloths don’t grow with you.
The Writer: A Flash Memoir
“Mr. XYZ?!” Mrs. Cart hollered in front of the seventh grade class, “You want to write about Mr. XYZ?! This is supposed to be a paper about heroes. Do you even know who Mr. XYZ is?!”
. . .
The plan was to write a term paper that made me look cool. I chose an unsavory character from history. One who I’ve referred to as Mr. XYZ. Mrs. Cart didn’t follow the plan.
Back home, I paged through the Encyclopedia Britannica, looking to please her.
George Washington. Boring.
Thomas Jefferson. Boring
Abraham Lincoln. Boring.
Axel Rose. Taken.
John F. Kennedy.
The theme music for the film JFK blared inside my twelve year-old head. Three months earlier, Oliver Stones’ film suggested my first non-fiction idol. I wanted to be him as much as Luke Skywalker. I now had details in my hands to support those feelings.
I wrote the paper on JFK.
I turned it in.
Mrs. Cart read it in front of the class, said something about my turning things around.
I had written every word to get back into her graces and it worked.
I had found an acceptable hero. One that I fantasized about being.
I crafted a narrative. I was adored for it.
. . .
I had sold out, compromised.
But remained true. At least to what I wanted to believe was true.
My journey as a writer began.
Bubblegum Complex: A Flash Memoir
Age 35
Third store I’ve been to and no sling bag. Now I gotta walk out this place empty handed, wondering if the clerk thinks I’m just here to steal.
“Can I help you find something,” the clerk said.
“What?” I said.
“Is there something you need?”
Age 7
I headed down the aisle that led directly to the counter, clasping the piece of stolen gum. The exit was to the left of it, and I would have to pass Chadi as he stocked a carton of Pall Mall. But he turned before I could leave the aisle, making eye contact.
“What do you have?!” Chadi demanded.
I stood still, body pointing towards the exit, “Nothing.”
“Open your hand!”
“I don’t have nothing.”
“You steal from me?!”
“No.”
“Show me what’s in your hand.”
I opened my hand.
“Why you steal from me?!”
“I was going to give it to you later.”
“If you would have asked me, I would have given one to you. Why didn’t you ask?”
“I don’t know.”
I couldn’t run for the exit. I lived right around the corner. He could tell my parents. For the next minute, or maybe more, or maybe less, I let him scold me. He made me put back the candy and told me to leave.
“Next time I tell your parents. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Go.”
Age 35 continued
“No,” I said to the clerk.
I grabbed a travel-size shampoo and showed it to her.
“Thanks.”
I paid for it at the counter.
Outside the store, I stared at it.
Color protecting shampoo. What heck am I gonna do with this?
90’s Childhood Movie Theaters
I frequented several movie theaters growing up in Allentown, PA in the 1990s.
General Cinema was across the street from the Lehigh Valley Mall. This was the theater my brother and I went to most often. It was two and a half miles away from our house, but the theater had all the major studio releases.
General Cinema was the easiest theater to sneak in another film after you finished your first movie.
The Eric was a quarter mile from our house. This theater mainly played MGM, New Line Cinema and TriStar/Colombia films. This meant that they showed all of the Jean Claude Van Damm, Freddy Kruger and first generation Star Trek films.
The theater was right across the street from the Lehigh County prison, so we could hear the inmates play basketball from the upper floor. The Eric is now a social security office.
The Franklin was a second-run theater that formerly had been an adult theater called The Jannette. The theater was a block away from us. Their first film was Sister Act. People would talk and yell at the movie screen. There was an elderly usher, probably in his 70’s, that the kids would harass. I can still remember him chasing them around the theater and them making fun of his hair piece.
The Plaza was a second run theater at the Whitehall Mall. I still remember seeing Rain Man there. There was an arcade right next to it that was more like a second hand arcade, because they only had older games. Our dad would give us quarters to play games until the movie was about to start. The last movie I saw there was Babe 2: Pig in the City.
AMC was miles away from my family’s house. We would rarely go there, but I still remember their first films were Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Clint Eastwood’s Pink Cadillac. I can remember that these were the first two films because that opening weekend I was on punishment. My dad said that not going to see Indiana Jones was part of that punishment. We eventually went the next weekend, but we saw the film at General Cinema instead.
If cinema was scripture to me, then the movie theater was a cathedral. Each one was different and had its own character, but until this day I walk through these buildings in my dreams. I wait for a show to begin as though I’m about to watch the greatest motion picture ever made for the first time.
A New Theory
My 10-year-old self said to my 13-year-old brother, “So before our time there was The Great Depression. And before The Great Depression there was The Old West. And before that there was The American Revolution. And before that was medieval times. And before that there was Rome. And before that there were dinosaurs. And before that there was the Big Bang. And what was before that? Well, it must come from a time where there is no time.”
“What?” my brother said.
“It all has to come from something,” I said.
He didn’t hesitate, “Get out of here!”
The moral: Never hassle your 13-year-old brother with philosophical ruminations on the universe. Especially, when he’s listening to fart competitions on Howard Stern.
New Bike by Marc Alexander Valle*
New Bike
10-year old Devin Maguire held onto his BMX handle bars and stared at my new bike, “Your dad got that bike from a thrift store.”
“No he didn’t!” I said.
“Yes he did. I can tell.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yeah, cause there’s marks on it.”
“He got it from K-Mart.”
“Okay, which one?”
“The one down the street.”
“I know all the bikes at K-Mart. I didn’t see that one there.”
“Well, that’s where he got it from.”
“Did he tell you he got it from there?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Cuz, my parents don’t shop at thrift stores!”
When my dad came back from work, he told me that he bought the bike from a thrift store. The same store we’d been to several times that year.
Mavthewriter 