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Double Take/Points of Entry, Spring 2006

Copyright Debra Anne Davis 2006
 
Innocent Misrecollection
 
UFO Sighting
Dad was driving, as usual, Mom next to him, me in the back seat staring out the window. My head resting in the space between the window and the back of the seat, I was daydreaming about candy or stickers or Barbies or something. And that’s when I saw it, or them. Three spaceships, a bright red, a bright yellow, a bright blue, perfect spheres, floating in the sky over our heads. I blinked, I actually blinked (I must have seen that on TV), but they were still there. Just floating. Above this busy street, full of traffic. No cars were screeching to halts; no women were screaming and running down the street, tearing at their hair; no men were bravely reaching for their long guns. (TV again.)

But there they were, three balls floating in the sky

.I leaned forward and opened my mouth a bit, but I hadn’t thought of exactly how to break the news to my parents yet. Plus, I didn’t want to say something stupid, like the time I screamed from the back seat when I thought I saw a mouse race across the road right in front of the car. That time it had turned out to be just a small piece of paper. Dad was mad that I’d screamed; he didn’t like needless distractions when he was at the wheel. But when I explained that I was afraid he was going to unwittingly murder a mouse, he said that that was probably an okay reason to scream. But what about this time, with these space aliens? (Would they die from our human diseases when their evil long tentacles snaked out of their primary-colored ships?) Was this a piece of paper situation—or a mouse one? I looked again. They were still there, hovering and bright.

I decided that it was one of those times when it would be okay to distract the driver. I was just about ready to yell something like, “Daddy, there’s three spaceships up there, look!” And that’s when I saw the poles, black poles, hard to see at night, but we were close enough now. Hmm. Three balls on three poles. Then I saw the sign, “Parasol.” Duh. The three round things were the lighted balls that stuck out from the top of the Parasol Restaurant sign. I leaned back against the seat again. I’d been down this street a million times, even in my short eight years on Earth. How many times had I seen those lights? They had never seemed strange to me before. Why did I notice them this time, and not know what they were, and not figure out what they were even after blinking and thinking? I sat and pondered these questions for about thirty seconds; then I went back to thinking about sugar and dolls, the excitement completely drained out of my life—at least for the moment.

Anything Presented to the Senses
A few months ago I had jury duty. The judge gave us very careful instructions about listening to testimony and looking at evidence and thinking about whatever else the lawyers might present to us—“anything presented to the senses” was the phrase he used, a legal term, I’m sure, used to make sure everything’s covered (in case we were asked to touch or smell something perhaps, instead of just listening or looking). But the phrase struck me as odd—and perhaps profound. Is that what evidence is? Anything presented to the senses of the jurors by the lawyers during a trial? And is that maybe what life is, all the things presented to our senses by our surroundings during the time we’re alive? In a trial, it’s the way the jurors’ brains interpret the sensations of the evidence that decide the case; in life, it’s the way we interpret our experiences that make our lives what they are. But our interpretations can be shaped, distorted, “colored” by so many things: our mood at the moment, previous experiences, impulse, contemplation, discourse.

The judge told us we were to make our decision based on the facts. The facts could be found in the evidence. The evidence, in this case, included Polaroid photos (of the defendant and of a street, from two angles), medical records, police testimony, marking pen drawings on big pieces of newsprint, a cassette tape and a transcript of the tape. We were to look at and listen to these things, and our perception of these things would help us decide about guilt or innocence, about the correct interpretation of the evidence presented.

In the jury room it didn’t take us long, the twelve of us, to reach our decision. It was comfortably (or so it seemed to me) unanimous after about an hour. We’d all heard the same testimony, seen the same pictures and papers. But we had been forbidden to talk to each other (or anyone else) about it all. We’d sat there, next to each other in two neat rows for two days, listening and looking—silently interpreting: facial expressions, recounted and recorded conversations from months earlier, a map drawn with felt pens.

We all came to the same conclusion, but we didn’t all see the facts in the exact same way. The decision was unanimous, but there were a dozen interpretations.

Mink and Chanel
My face, buried in sleek and cool, French-flowery fur. I gently twist my head back and forth, back and forth. I smile and breathe in. I’m standing in my mother’s half of the closet, my arms wrapped around the two dangling ends of her mink stole, my hands pressing the elegant pelt against my cheeks and nose. I feel and smell the wonderment.

When I was five years old, my mother was by far the most glamorous, beautiful, and fragrant woman in the world. When she would get dressed up to go out to a night club with my dad, she would wear lipstick and eyebrow pencil and special clothes—including…her mink stole. I loved that stole, not a jacket, not a scarf, but a long swatch, meticulously crafted to rest just behind the neck, glide over the shoulders, and brush its tips just below the waist. (Except of course when I would secretly try it on—then it hung heavily, the shoulder piece curving over my elbows, the ends tickling my ankles.)

And Chanel No. 5. Her special perfume, floating in a cloud around just her. Not like flowers exactly or anything else so earthbound. Like the smell of special tree buds from Heaven—but a mysterious, slightly naughty Heaven. (The scent of Chanel No. 5 would cling to the mink even later, when the stole hung hidden away in the closet.)

My princess mother would step lightly into the room, kiss me goodnight, and leave me with someone lesser, a baby sitter or older sibling, while she stepped away into a magical night. Of course I would cry, not because I would miss her exactly but because I would miss the sensations—the smooth, soft fur, the luxurious perfume.

I vowed that when I was a grown-up, I would have a mink stole and a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and then life would finally be perfect and mine.

Now I am a grown-up. I would never in a million years hang a mink stole in my closet or on my body. I’ve heard what they do to those cute little animals, anal electrocution or something. I own no fur (though I do own leather shoes and eat meat regularly) and never will.

I did buy some Chanel No. 5 once just after college, spending most of my life’s savings, about $40, on a bottle about two millimeters tall. I smelled it—ahhh…. It did bring me back. I daubed some on my wrists and behind my ears (as I’d seen my enchanting princess mother do). I even daubed a bit in my cleavage. Now I was ready for a hot date with my boyfriend.

Except. Somehow, the Chanel No. 5 just wasn’t the magic potion it had been. It did indeed smell exactly the same as I’d remembered—but (and why hadn’t I thought of this?) I found that I couldn’t have sex while smelling of my mother’s perfume. It didn’t represent what I thought it did. It wasn’t romance and freedom—it was Mom. (Oh, did I mention that about ten years after her Princess stage she became my Demonic Evil Witch mother, imposing insane rules on me, screeching and babbling and glaring at me constantly?) The feel of the mink, the fragrance of Chanel, those were the touch and smell of my childhood, the past; they didn’t fit in my present the way I had thought they would. How could I have been so utterly naïve at five years old? Or even at 23?

Chop/Chop
I think I was about 23 also when this happened. I was invited to my best friend’s parents’ house for dinner. I always enjoy hanging out with Sally’s family. Everyone treats me like an honored guest; we use cloth napkins; her mom always tells me I “look good.” For this particular dinner, Sally’s dad was grilling outside. He brought the meat in on a large platter, and everyone was served—the honored guest, of course, receiving hers first. I cut into the meat and took a bite. It was amazing. I’d never had such a wonderful pork chop in my life. It was tender and juicy and succulent and all the things people say about delicious meat when they’re trying to describe a taste using only words. I cut into the chop again, tasted more deliciousness, complimented the chef profusely. Chewed and smiled and cut again. Then. Sally’s brother said, “Dad, these are really good veal chops. Where did you get them this time?” Veal? Veal! Oh my God, for the first time in my life, I was eating veal. I hate veal, or at least hate the idea of veal. Eating the meat of an adult pig, that’s one thing—but a baby cow? No way.

I moved my fork around, ate some vegetables, then sampled the wine. Picked up my knife again … took a bite … it was disgusting. Yu-uuck. Previously, my brain had interpreted the sensation passing over my taste buds as a new and special kind of pork, but now my brain had no choice but to recognize what this sensation really was, the remains of a little calf that had spent its life behind the bars of a force-feeding prison. (I’d seen photos.) I ate no more of the chop, now that it was a veal chop. (I realize I’m a big fat hypocrite for being willing to eat pork but not veal, for wearing leather but not fur, for feeling an emotional attachment to mice and minks but not to, say, chickens. I don’t know what all this says about me, or what to do about it; I just wanted to let you know that I know.)

About a month ago, I was again the honored guest at Sally’s parents’ house. At least a dozen years have passed since the veal chop incident, and I’ve had many a happy veal-less dinner there since. In the years since that time, though, Sally’s father has had a stroke and has been working hard to regain his ability to walk and speak. He sat at the table with us this night, but it was his son who had prepared the meal. After the plates had been cleared, Sally’s dad stood to say goodnight. He rested his palms on the table; wearing crisp blue and white striped pajamas, he was still a dignified man. He saw around the table his kids, all adults now, and said each of their names as he looked at each of their faces. And at the two grandkids who were there—he said their names aloud and smiled his goodnights to them. Then, he looked at me, who he has known casually for decades, and he took a leap. “Laurie,” he called me. Before I could stop myself, I replied, “Close!” Shit. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut and smile back at him? What harm would there be in letting him think he’d gotten my name right, too? I hoped my response didn’t sound condescending, because it was pretty close after all.

Innocent Misrecollection
Here’s something I wrote down in a notebook while standing in a toilet stall: “Innocent misrecollection is common.” As part of our jury instructions, the judge had told us not to be overly critical of the testimony from the witnesses. Even if they’re being as honest and forthright as they can be, he’d told us, people can forget, can get confused; they can misremember and so misstate facts, but not necessarily out of dishonesty. Innocent misrecollection is not a lie, he was telling us.

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what the judge had said—“innocent misrecollection is common”—because I held the phrase in my head, and then secretly wrote it down during a break. (I hid because I didn’t think they’d want jurors taking notes for their own personal essays, though the fact that I felt it necessary to furtively scrawl the phrase in a tiny notebook while crouching behind the cold steel door of a courthouse toilet stall probably just shows that I’m paranoid, or perhaps that I crave a sense of adventure and intrigue that is sadly missing from my otherwise ordinary and mundane life.) But what if he’d said something a little bit different, like “innocent misremembering happens often” or “innocuous forgetting occurs with frequency.” What if he’d said one of those lilting phrases instead of what I’ve told you he’d said? Would I be lying to you? Would you care?

We must allow this much: that, in courtroom witnesses, some degree of confusion, some degree, even, of distortion is allowable—“innocent” and acceptable. What about this, then? Truth in creative nonfiction. Nonfiction means it’s (uh…) not fiction, not “made up.” And creative means, well, created—not made up, either, but something different from a record, not quite “just” the event translated into words, not experience rendered directly as language. So, how much fiction is allowable in nonfiction?

This topic has really reached the level of a raging debate, at least for those of us in the tiny fraction of humanity that actually even thinks about this. In her essay “Memory and Imagination” (from I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory), Patricia Hampl writes

All right. Invention is inevitable. But why write memoir? Why not call it fiction and be done with it? …
My answer, naturally, is a memoirist’s answer. Memoir must be written because each of us must possess a created version of the past. Created: that is, real in the sense of tangible, made of the stuff of a life lived in place and in history. And the downside of any created thing as well: We must live with a version that attaches us to our limitations, to the inevitable subjectivity of our points of view. We must acquiesce to our experience and our gift to transform experience into meaning. You tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine.

Creative nonfiction is, we must agree, created. Is that really a “downside,” though? Memoirs are subjective, yes; limited, sure. But it’s their limitations that focus them: the memoirist tries to make meaning of the experience, not just tell what happened.

And that’s what I’m doing here, telling you stories of how I remember things in my life—not necessarily stories of how these things actually happened. I’ve told you about my memories of some things that have happened in my life; I’ve had to put those memories into words for you. When I close my eyes and think of these events from my past, I see pictures, smell fragrances, taste food; I feel soft, cool fur rubbing against a cheek much younger than the one that now (right this second) hovers over this laptop. But to share these memories with you (which is the entire reason I sit down to write at all), I have to find the phrases and the order that will create at least a semblance of these sights and smells, these experiences, in your mind.

As Hampl puts it, “Perhaps we all sense that we can’t grasp the whole truth and nothing but the truth of our experience. Just can’t be done.” And so, we just get on with it.

Lenny Hears a Bug
About five years ago my boyfriend and I decided to get a dog from the pound. We walked up and down the rows of metal cages while large or small, jumping or quivering, tooth-bared or doe-eyed dogs reacted to us each in his or her unique way. Finally we settled on Lenny, a big puppy, brown and black and tan, with floppy ears that, when we looked at them, made us believe we wanted to wake up early even on weekend mornings and go out late even on winter nights to walk this bundle of love and wet nostrils.

We took him home, and the three of us settled into a routine. Keenan would walk Lenny in the mornings, and I would take him out later. In the late afternoons, Lenny and I would wait for Keenan to come home from work. The second Lenny heard the tatatatatata of the VW Bug as it pulled into our driveway, his ears would unflop, his forehead would take a vertical jump and stay there, and he would shoot to the window sill, his chin sliding swiftly into place. He’d spot the Bug below, he’d twist himself a perfect 180o, and his feet would start their noisy, frantic, but comically (at least to me; for Lenny this was serious business) ineffective prance across the polished wood floor. He’d hurl himself down the stairs and at the door. His maniacally happy barks could probably be heard for blocks. Keenan, fully realizing (he’s not deaf) what awaited him, would slide his key into the lock (clank, tinkle tinkle) and open the door. Man and dog embraced, in their stooped and flailing inter-species way, and Lenny’s world was now complete.

But poor Lenny. He never quite figured out that Keenan could be in the apartment while that sound was outside. Every time he heard the first few sputters of a tatat—, his floppy ears poked up, his legs carried him to the window, his chin brushed the sill, his eyes searched the driveway. And then he’d look back over his shoulder (or whatever it is dogs have instead of shoulders) and, sometimes, see Keenan lying on the bed, reading. He’d look again: out the window, at the bed. By then the sound of the passing Bug would have faded out, and Lenny would still feel a dim confusion—though by now he wouldn’t be quite sure what it was that had caused the confusion in the first place. Soon enough, he’d return to his emotional and mental status quo. Until the strange phenomenon occurred again. Out the window, at the bed, out the window again. Alas, poor Lenny: He sensed the concrete evidence, but he didn’t know how to interpret it.

If Lenny wrote a personal essay, what would he say about this situation? Wait: If Lenny wrote a personal essay?! you say…but let’s just imagine, for a moment, that he has been granted magical powers: He can write (in English). However, he still has his dog brain, and he knows nothing, for example, of Post-World War II auto production, patterns of international trade, even the invention of the gasoline-powered engine—much less the invention of the wheel. (Bear with me here.) He doesn’t know, in short, that more than one VW Bug exists in the world. Perhaps Lenny would come up with some sort of explanation for the perplexing situation: “The sound of a Bug means Keenan will walk in the door in two minutes; yet sometimes Keenan is here in this very room with me; these circumstances can coexist, and I’ll now explain how….” I’m not quite sure what his explanation would be, but if he had one, would we accept it as true? He wouldn’t give the explanation we would give, which is simply that there are thousands of VW Bugs in the US, and maybe a dozen or so that frequent our neighborhood. No, Lenny would have some other explanation, perhaps involving human cloning, the hallucinogenic powers of Milk Bones, or even warps in the time/space continuum (I think to dogs time and space are not quite the linear concepts they are to humans). To us, Lenny’s explanation wouldn’t be correct. But to him it would be. Now here’s the question: Would Lenny’s essay be nonfiction?

Truth
At eight, I saw spaceships in the sky, if only for a couple of minutes—my brain registered the experience; it’s a memory I have. I know what it’s like to realize there are Martians on Earth. Were the romantic feelings about perfume and fur I had at five wrong because they turned out to represent something so different from what I had thought they did? Do my taste buds have a positive or a negative reaction to veal? Well, both; and I could tell you how. Are my senses of sight, smell, touch, and taste unreliable? (Could anyone possibly say that Lenny, who could hear the pA-pA-pA-pA-pAA of an utterly terrifying moped from three blocks away, had a faulty sense of hearing?) No. My eyes and nose and hands and mouth all function the way they should. But my mind takes the information presented to my senses and interprets it, “makes sense” of it. My mind then stores these interpretations as memories, my memories, bits of logic and emotion that I may reevaluate from time to time—that I may re-remember, remember again or remember in a different way—endlessly as I travel through my life.

I sent an early draft of this essay to Sally, and she said that the dinner we’d had with her dad was actually lamb kabobs, not veal chops (does veal even come in chops?), and that at the time I’d told her that I thought it was beef, not pork. She remembers her dad got the recipe from the newspaper. I trust her memory on this more than mine, since it was her dad after all, and also because of that convincing detail about the newspaper recipe. But I chose not to revise that section in this essay, to straighten out the detail of kabobs not chops, beef not pork, mostly because I don’t believe I need to: When I sat down and wrote about that dinner, I remembered veal chops, and so that detail is a faithful description of my memory at that time.

Literary nonfiction is about telling about the memories of real situations. And memories change all the time. Writers who feel the impulse to write nonfiction are people who want to tell their readers stories about their own lives. We don’t want to make up plots and characters. We want to tell readers about our reactions to our own experiences—the ways we feel about things that have been presented to our senses. We want readers to find out something about us. But we don’t want to bore anyone to death, either (at least, most of us don’t). We know we don’t need to give all the details. We know we can improvise a bit, also. And we realize that innocent misrecollection is common, for all humans, for cops and court witnesses—as well as for writers of personal essays.

Yet still, creative nonfiction does tell truth. Each piece endeavors to recreate an experience—an impossibility in itself—because the writer wants to share the meaning of the experience with her or his reader. Each piece, sincere, factual, and flawed, tells a personal, an emotional truth

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