X.Y. Coetzee's Stories

All where

2007-05-26T00:37:38Z

I must be remembering it all wrong.

We were on a vanishing road, and even inside the car there was was more sky than car. My wife was sunburned and kept talking about avocadoes and paint.

At once a man stepped into the road and then men were everywhere. He was almost a freight box on one end, with customs markings painted on his side in stencil.

But then this has to be the same day. Because that is when my wife said, “Why don’t they call it all where? It’s the same thing. You know: everywhere, every single where, each and every last where. All where.”

This is when a gang came up behind the man and attacked him: the freight box, still in the road. Two of them held him while another stripped him naked. Then they were all around, like wasps, beating him. I could see the cut above his eye from there.

But that was Arizona, and my wife and I fought about this in upstate New York, fought because I didn’t do anything, not even from the car. I didn’t say a word. Yes, I must be remembering it wrong.

Twenty minutes in Nicklesville

2007-05-24T13:23:00Z

I rent the car from Enterprise, a ridiculous sedan that smells like fake cherries. It has a radio with jazz presets, and five wheels you forget the moment you park. Then you spend time the next morning in the hotel parking lot, comparing license plate numbers to the one on your key chain, one at a time: salesman’s haiku. All those matching cars in colors that look like smoke, and somehow I am the only one not sure which vehicle I need. And not sure if it matters, either, what with all these matching cars.

That I have time to see him is even more denial. The idea is to drive two hours down and two hours back, spend an hour in his study, sorting through it all. I even let myself think that we would have time for coffee. He would grind beans suited to the day. He would serve milk, sugar and bon bons, in coordinated dispensers.

I could have said before, but the reason I do not like traveling is because I am not good at it. I miss the I-16 east merger, and stay on 475 south, adding fifteen minutes to my drive.

Telegram to Florence from Tripoli, Summer 1952

2007-05-23T23:17:02Z

DEEPEST LOVE ,

DISREGARD EARLIER TELEGRAM STOP

LATIF IS A MALE NAME STOP REGRET MISLEADING YOU AND REGRET 10 OF MY 18 YEARS OF DRINK STOP

HEAT HERE HAS BAKED ME TO A DIFFERENT COLOR , AT LEAST MY HAIR IS BLACK AGAIN , STILL I GUESS I DO NOT HOPE AS WELL AS THE REST STOP

“REST STOP ” HA HA STOP

MAYBE I SHOULD TAKE A CRACK AT DOING THINGS THE WAY DON MIGUEL DOES THINGS STOP

I REGRET THAT TOO STOP

THIS IS BECOMING A COSTLY APOLOGY STOP

WILL BE IN PARIS SOON , TRY COFFEE , UNDERSTAND THAT DARK IS THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA THERE STOP

I AM , AS ALWAYS , YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT &C STOP

ENZO STOP

PS STILL DYING LAUGHING STOP

(Hand-written in ink along the bottom: “Caffeine-free Diet Coke, Lean Cuisine spag., Lean Cuisine lemon chicken, produce, smile when you pay!”)