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You’re going to want to read every short story in Paul Tremblay<\/a>‘s collection, In the Mean Time<\/i><\/a>, but here’s the thing: You can’t read them all at once. Heck, you can’t read more than one or two stories like “The Teacher,” or the really<\/i> unsettling ones like “The Blog at the End of the World” and “It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks,” without your subconscious kicking back at you later that evening while you sleep. (Try “The Two-Headed Girl<\/a>” on for size; it’s disturbing, but not quite<\/i> as disturbing as some of the others—it even has its darkly funny bits.) I first met Paul when he read at the Center for Fiction<\/a> in 2009, and I knew he had some awesomely weird stories in him, but I didn’t know then that they were anything like these. And it seems like we readers might not be able to appreciate his voice were it not for one story in one college class, as he explains here…<\/p>\n I hope this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sound trite, or like some sort of put on, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not overstating when I say that Joyce Carol Oates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d changed my life.<\/p>\n I was 21 years old, a second semester senior, and taking my first college lit class. My excuse is that I was a mathematics major. Well, a double major: math and humanities (long and mostly boring story as to how that happened), but yeah, my humanities consisted of a hodge-podge of philosophy, history, and music courses, plus the one lit class. Of course, some of my best friends were English majors (including my future wife, Lisa), but the proud math undergrad that I was obnoxiously proclaimed that English majors\/professors\/hangers on just made it all up. The truth was I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t confident in my own critical reading ability and I certainly wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a reader of my own free will.<\/p>\n Oddly enough, math guy was totally mesmerized by Professor McLaughlin. It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hurt that he was cool enough to be a fan of the Dead Boys, Mission of Burma, and Husker Du. He knew how to help connect me to the text through music. And, of course, he had us read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the story that made me fall in love with reading, and shortly thereafter, writing. <\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never forget my first, simple, visceral reaction to the story: I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know there were stories\/books out there like this. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n I was initially struck by how the story\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s structure was deceptively simple. The characters and plot were all built off of dichotomies.<\/p>\n Connie is fifteen years old and is as thin and pretty as her older sister isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. She goes out with her sister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friends ostensibly to see movies and hang out at a mall plaza, only that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing, what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re up to. Connie spends her time talking to and hanging out with boys. Connie is a kid. But she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a kid. Connie is described as pale and smirking at home, but bright and pink on these nights out. <\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way when she was at home and another way when she was away from home.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n On one of these evenings, a black-haired boy stares her down, points at her and says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gonna get you, baby.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/i><\/p>\n One Sunday morning, her family (big sis; her shrewish, overbearing mother; her balding, aloof, and harmless daddy) offers her a choice: go to a dumb old family barbeque, or stay home alone, dry her hair in the sun, and daydream. Connie chooses to stay home.<\/p>\n The boy from the parking lot, the one who pointed at her, shows up in her driveway in his gold-painted convertible and with an odd friend in tow. The boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name—along with a groovy numerical code (well, groovy to this math geek, anyway)—is painted on the car too. ARNOLD FRIEND. Arnold tells Connie that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cute, that he wants her to come for a ride with him. Connie is intrigued, but also doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trust him. Arnold becomes increasingly threatening with his persistent request to come for a ride.<\/p>\n So, there I was, the second semester senior math major, and the story ran me over, and more magically, it cracked the critical code for me. Here was a story full of A or B choices. Or, to get all mathematical, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call it a story in binary code. In binary simple Os and 1s are used to encode practically infinite collections of data and any manner of complex symbols, letters, and instructions. <\/p>\n All those Os and 1s in Oates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story represent, possibilities, choices made and not made, and their string of consequences; intended and unintended, or unforeseen. <\/p>\n I was sitting there, 8 A.M. in McLaughlin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s class full of mostly freshman, thinking: This guy Arnold Friend, is he an old friend or is he an old fiend? At first glance he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s her age, but no, maybe he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s older, much older. There are lines about his mouth and eyes. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taller than Connie, which she likes, but maybe he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shorter. He walks and stumbles onto the porch as if his boots are stuffed. His friend in the car, maybe he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s older too. A \u00e2\u20ac\u0153forty year old baby.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/i> Connie is protected only by the thin screen door she stands behind. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not protected. She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lock the door. She resists Arnold\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ominous requests and threatens to call the police, but for most of the story, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an empty threat. Arnold talks of love and gentleness, and of his own threats. He promises he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go in her house as long as she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t call the police. He promises he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hurt her family if she comes with him willingly. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s choice and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not choice. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no violence on the page, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s there. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s there. <\/p>\n This seemingly simple story expanded rapidly, exponentially before my eyes. All those Os and 1s. All those possibilities. <\/p>\n Rereading this story now \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is alive with the menace of possibility, which is the power behind all the very best works of short fiction.<\/p>\n Gonna get you, baby\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You’re going to want to read every short story in Paul Tremblay‘s collection, In the Mean Time, but here’s the thing: You can’t read them all at once. Heck, you can’t read more than one or two stories like “The Teacher,” or the really unsettling ones like “The Blog at the End of the World” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4100,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions\/4100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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eighteen<\/strike> cough cough<\/i> years later, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a much more accomplished reader and, hopefully, a somewhat accomplished writer, and I appreciate the beauty and nuance of her prose, the expert pacing and characterization, the biblical and classical references, the symbols, the clever revealing of details and the hiding of others. But the story, that story man, it still crackles with a raw sense of true menace.<\/p>\n