It's all about starting at the beginning.
But that's not how I remember it.
It's all a series of fragments, repetitions, pattern formations.
When there are no words or the pain, let
your imagination change when you're known to plan.
And this is when it landed in the freedom of the water.
Her ring around her rock is locked in the smoke.
Remember it?
Our stories?
Say you better come up with one you can live with.
Smelly face.
Flower.
Christmas tree.
Claudia, go upstairs.
Go!
Just let me know when you finish.
You can do this all night.
Fuck!
I think you feel nice, Claudia.
I really think it will.
It picks you right up.
The same with me Belle.
Come on little Belle, same with me.
You know the lyrics.
You lost and gone forever.
It was my voice.
Who left?
Sometimes I think it arrived on paper.
I wrote pictures.
Slides.
I'm gonna change it for you.
I didn't feel like someone else.
I wrote words to go on to.
What is your daughter?
No, daughter.
To safety.
To girls.
Take my skin off.
I had her.
My mother.
Her hair.
Her skull.
Her story.
I want to prize for that story Belle.
And your daddy.
I want an art prize for this drawing.
How come she
won't?
My sister.
My adoration.
My sister.
How come?
I mean, you look like a bone in that.
Don't be sex, sure.
It does nothing for you.
Look at me.
Trying to look like a man.
My sister.
Taking everything.
Before you were even born.
In the house.
Alone in my room.
My arm would take.
My sister is gone.
My mother is gone.
My father designs houses in a room next to my smoking.
I wait for five a.
I pray.
To swim.
My baby girl.
I can't believe it.
All right.
Line up, ladies.
We in.
You know the drill.
One lick for every pound you're over.
Horace.
And a girl.
You don't know this.
One for you, freshman.
So we'll make it count.
How
many miles does it take?
To swim.
To himself.
How many?
Fucking.
So you really want this, huh?
Okay.
You only got a three-quarter ride.
Hey, they wanted you.
They would have offered the whole nine yards, huh?
We're delighted to offer a partial scholarship.
Half.
You're better than that.
Last one.
In my head I swam lapsed.
Didn't even get one full ride.
Don't blame me.
They don't want you that you don't belong.
They could taste blood.
The answer is no.
Why?
Because he could.
What?
And I was here.
Hey, look at me.
Look at me.
I only want the best for you.
I knew you could feel it.
That pink muscle pushing.
And pushing.
This should all be out there, woman up.
Oh, that's worse.
Hey, Lydia.
You need a hand?
I'm a coach from Texas Tech.
I decided to meet you.
Let's talk.
I'd like to have you on our team.
I almost loved her.
There's a gold bell.
You should be ashamed of her.
This is control.
You don't know my fault.
My bedroom holds away from the dark of my body.
It smells like my sweat.
I'm chlorine.
Hey.
Can't sleep, huh?
Yeah, me neither.
I
Want to talk to you.
Listen, I'm sorry I've been so hard on you, lady.
I guess I just...
really worry about you out there.
Things I'm going to be different when you go to college.
I want you to listen to me.
He narrated what boys would do to me.
How they put their dirty hands up my skirt and finger.
Fuck me.
Follow my tits.
Suck there.
How disgusting boys would be.
They're him.
They're hips wanting in and up.
And they're dicks.
And his... me sitting next to him.
Feeling the heat then.
Without even looking.
What you doing out here?
There's a matter with you, huh?
I want you to hold that up.
I guess I'm saying to me.
What did you just say?
Fuck you.
Motherfucker.
Get this fuck out of my way!
All I thought was
my own wide open cunt.
It's open as a mal.
Screaming.
Motherfucker!
I didn't
know a girl body could do that.
Shoot.
Come.
My
Own fault is mine.
My own space.
Mine.
My
Own freedom.
Like something pressed so far down in the body.
It had to explode.
Yuck!
Why do you think you going?
You going nowhere?
So far from my father.
So far.
So far from my father.
I love
your hands.
I love your voice.
It's my father and my brother who have the real voices.
I was here in my head.
Really?
What are they saying?
They're saying an amazing grace.
Voices of God.
Fuck me.
Do that.
Really?
Fuck me.
I want to fill up.
I wish I could go back and apologize.
Oh!
The way it's been gone.
And I know the peace will come.
Fuck all y'all!
Amen!
I've been searching for the dolphins.
It's just a regular James Taylor.
Singing his heart out here in Texas.
And sometimes I wonder...
Do you ever think of me?
This world may never change.
The way it's been gone.
And I know the peace will come.
Video.
How do you always do that?
It's funny you feel it.
It's such a fancy.
I wanted to learn how to take a joke.
You're so fucking sensitive.
This is probably one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen.
This is what I'm talking about.
It's like talking to a fucking doorknob.
When you say something, we say anything.
I'm being a fucking bitch.
So why don't you do something about it?
You're not a bitch.
Fuck you, bullet!
You know you fucking know me.
Phillip means love her of horses or
brotherhood.
Wake up, motherfucker!
Hey, Liz.
I'm gonna get out of here.
She's good.
Hey, man.
I shot that door.
Just drop the goddamn door.
I'm gonna see you in practice.
Yeah, I'm flunked out.
That's cool.
Huh?
I can still feel my face.
Addiction is in me, for sure.
But I want to describe something else to you.
Something smaller.
It's a smaller word.
Mama?
So small, I could travel to bloodstream.
Go away, Bill.
Stay away.
This isn't anything, Hori.
I'm not talking about anything.
Dorothy?
I'm sorry.
Sorry.
Lydia.
You can talk to us.
It helps.
Trust me.
I'm not talking about anything.
You know, I always like to say...
Find meaning in life's traffic.
Through clearing spiritual barriers.
I'm
proud of you.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Hey.
Would you marry me?
Mm-hmm.
And children have their dreams to hold on to... Mm-hmm.
And how they fly, take us to the moon.
Yes, they flow from you.
They flow from you.
And they flow from you.
And women have themselves to hold on to.
And how they fly, take me by surprise.
They float from me.
And they float from me.
Oh, oh,
oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh.
You did so good.
Mm-hmm.
I made you some tea.
I don't want any tea.
What are we going to do?
Lydia, I love you.
And whatever you want to do, I'll support it.
That's it?
I need more than nothing from the most passive man on the fucking planet.
Sorry, I've been kind of sick.
You don't want anything, and you are killing me with or not wanting anything.
What were you thinking?
I don't know.
It's fucking impossible.
I can't stand how nice... I can't stand how nice he is, but...
I couldn't have killed it either.
I was thinking of...
maybe there's a world in which I...
I come and live with you and Eugene and take some classes where you're teaching.
I don't know.
Maybe we could start like a little...
family.
Yes.
I think my life with him is going to be like some sad, sad fucking country song.
Lydia.
I said yes.
Come home.
Okay.
Cool.
Because she left me once to save her own life.
What are you doing back there, huh?
Playing with yourselves?
What?
I bring them to the most beautiful scenery in
the world, and they're just playing grab-ass?
Look out!
The goddamn window!
Claudia, grab the hex harp on your mother's seat.
Come on!
Let's go.
Here you go, sweetheart.
For sustenance.
You don't want it?
Come on, honey.
Just have a little sip, it'll warn you.
Mmm.
Mmm-hmm.
Go and go.
Well,
thank God.
Where's the tree?
Hmm.
There.
That's the picture.
I'll go home.
Oh.
Come on in.
I'll get that.
Why, because I'm pregnant?
Yeah.
Here.
Thanks.
Mmm.
Fuck.
Ah!
Thank you, Claudia.
Do you remember when you used to make me do things?
Like...
Here.
Bite this apple.
It's sucking in my mouth.
Here.
Smell this ashtray.
Just blow it.
One.
Two.
Ash is all over my fucking face.
I would have done anything.
You were mythic to me.
I remember when I went downstairs after you moved into the basement.
And I realized how smart that was then, but...
I used to look at all of your stuff and used to touch it.
One time I found a razor blade and your purse cut myself on it.
Made the fact that I had to pee her.
I, um...
I know that this is a... sacrifice.
No, what?
It's just you.
And you were so little.
Yeah.
Well...
This is one way to Frankenstein your life.
Maybe...
I've been waiting for this.
Breathe.
Hello.
Ah!
Okay.
Uh-uh!
Where
is she?
Can I hold her?
Ah, yeah.
I lips her pink.
They're pink.
Just throw it as far as you can.
It's not funny.
Get it.
Sorry.
She's all over you.
You're a fucking liar.
What lived and died between us?
Once me.
Still.
Goddamn, girl.
What do you think of a mermaid?
Yup.
You got something to say?
No way.
Come on!
You deserve this.
You don't want to come with me?
This is crazy.
I'm not even a grad student.
I'm easily strolling the English department.
You think Keezy gives a rat's ass about U of O rules?
You will regret not doing this.
They won't even let me enroll.
Bullshit.
I already told them about you.
These...
He's gonna love you.
You don't want to write a novel with Ken Keezy.
Hey, everyone.
Hey, everybody.
Hey.
All right, idiot.
Hi.
This is Lydia.
Say hi.
Hi.
Well, hello.
What do we have here?
A triple-aged hood seat.
I know what happened to you.
Dethis and motherfucker.
Jeff, you think you can roll one?
I always hate you sitting in a room full of writers.
The chair will be fine.
I want you all...
I want you all to be winners.
I want you to be warriors.
Warriors.
I'll give you the warrior test.
Ship floats.
Cream rises.
Ship floats.
Jerry Rubin.
Cream rises.
Fron Getty.
Lord Buckley.
Lenny Bruce.
The greats.
I want you to be great.
Shit, somebody has got to create our culture
for the next 50 years, and I want it to be you.
There are only two rules.
One, do not talk the plot of our novel to anyone outside this class.
Two, I comprise 50% of the class, so we only write
together because we will publish a parish together.
We got Nelson Auger on the fence.
The job of the writer is to pull the judge down onto the
dock, to make the almighty feel what it's like to be down low.
He'll be all right.
He'll never kill anybody.
So, go.
Right now.
Write some bizarre sentences.
Hey, where are you?
You can't take quailood before the class.
Now, disappear into your imagination.
Come on.
Disappear into your imagination.
Nobody's in the room, but you and that pan.
Here you are.
This is the shit.
I wrote Demon Box in here.
This room here is a creative room here.
It's a creative space.
Hey Bennett, do you need to bring the ludes with you, did you?
You know, those kind of drugs put you into your body, not into your mind.
Stick with the acid, psilocybin, St. Pedro.
Something to disintegrate your ego.
You've been hearing a voice from
what your voice becomes.
Oh, Jesus.
That's supposed to happen.
I got restless knees.
All right.
Let's get outside before the sun descends.
I want you to meet someone.
Come on.
Fuck you, God.
God got the commandments wrong.
I think there's 11 commandments.
And it should be the first commandment.
Have mercy.
Hey.
Lord, have mercy.
Just think if everybody had mercy for each other where we'd be today.
You see a man in the street and needs a few dollars.
Give it to him.
Mercy needs it.
But he wouldn't ask for it if he didn't need it.
Mercy.
Hire me to rewrite the Bible.
What are you, some kind of mermaid?
Yep.
You know when Jed died, my boy, I wanted this cease to exist.
And
everybody doesn't talk to me.
He said something ass-night.
Lord, I didn't say anything at all.
Nobody understands death anymore.
We used to be sacred.
So sacred.
Oh, shit.
No one's big enough to hold what happens to us.
No one is big enough to hold what happens to us.
You got something to say?
It's in your hands.
Oh, God.
Everything about my father within his hands.
About coordination.
The clay balance.
Dance.
Shadow and light.
Before my father was my father.
He was an artist.
And your daddy.
One of the brothers.
With this drawing.
Before my father was an artist.
He was an athlete.
Before my father was my father.
He was beautiful.
And she was.
Before my father was my father.
He was a boy.
Just a boy.
Who found my mother.
Cut his tongue.
Before I hated him.
I loved him.
Look up.
You know, if you don't look where you're
going, when you're going to crash, you hear me?
And you get to the bottom of the hill and you just break enough to make a turn.
Okay?
Go.
Keep going.
Keep your head up.
You don't want a
chapter?
Hey.
Hello.
I'm a writer.
Thank you.
We are gathered because we want to see the results.
We want to witness the results of this experiment.
A collaborative novel written by us.
Please, let's welcome the first of the not so
merry pranksters to the stage to present Caverns.
Lydia!
Come on up.
Hello.
Hi, my name.
There you go.
Thank you.
Lydia's father.
What can I say?
I'm a great admirer of yours.
Lydia and I, we saw a cooklessness stand out.
Sometimes a great notion together and it's just great.
Great books.
You know, my...
Lydia, you hear her?
She can knock it out of the park.
Do you want me to sign that?
Thanks for coming, Dad.
Okay.
Two... Mike?
Please.
She's Mike.
The...
Day of life.
Yeah.
I've
seen a lot of writers come and go.
You've got this stuff.
You've got this stuff for you.
Here.
He comes to the most spiritual beach on earth.
Hold that.
You can hold it off.
You're gonna hold it all.
So...
So what's next?
Next.
What is next?
I
Wanna write the sound in the fury.
Of course you do.
Oh boy.
See if I can catch it.
Ready?
Yeah.
Ah shit.
Ah.
You're not writing on that going in.
Yeah.
It has no metaphor.
Okay.
Fucking metaphors.
Okay.
It's just a rock that fell.
I'm
gonna give the rock and I'm gonna go pee.
All right.
Oh yeah, there we go.
You got it.
That was the last time I saw him.
You can write girl.
I'm of the opinion that he drowned.
Caddy wants to fuck.
She's insatiable.
And because her neighbor boy man has a giant pants bulge and a sound that comes
out of him instead of language, she goes over to his house and she removes
all of her clothes so he finally fucks her.
And crushes her.
He fucks her to death and she loves it.
And she laughs until she cries and an ambulance has to come.
But it's too late.
That is the sound in the fury.
Try.
Look, I've already read the sound in the fury.
Were you working Faulkner or some college shit?
Maybe try something original.
God.
I hate them.
Hey.
What the hell does he know?
It is original.
It's a fucking pastiche.
Hey!
You wanna go to the coast?
I got his room.
Hi, Hannah.
We're actually gonna work on these this weekend, right?
Come on.
She'll fly to London.
Okay.
Oh.
I fucking dare you.
Time.
Anytime.
Anywhere time.
Anything.
Be careful.
To feel absolutely nothing.
I'm gonna grab some firewood.
Don't know anything I wouldn't do.
Is this like a...
a fuck trip?
What?
I never... I never had my pussy.
I
Wanted to stay like that.
Outside of any word.
You okay?
I love you.
I love
you.
I love you.
I really love you.
I'll see you later.
In water.
Like in books.
You can leave your life.
I remember a happy childhood.
We die, we swim, we race, we laugh like other people's children.
I remember first and last name, it's like He calls him creamless and the
ring, Coelabelle, wind, Coelabelle, and Coelabelle,
making song loops in my skull.
Come on
home.
Isn't that the kissing disease?
Don't be silly.
Everything's gonna be okay, Belle.
You'll see.
You're gonna feel better.
And your dad's gonna take real good care of you.
Aren't you?
We'll be all right.
Okay.
Mama's gonna go sell some houses.
All right, baby girl.
You just give it a couple of days.
It is language letting me say how four weeks can be years.
It is the yielding expense of a white page.
Have you shown these to anyone?
It's getting scarves.
People always ask me why my work is so dark.
What do you know about pain, Lydia?
Um...
I know that it matters to me.
I'm gonna take care of you.
Do you understand?
No, ask me for what you want.
That's not right, Angel.
Um... I... want... you too.
Hmm?
Knock it out of me.
Do you want me?
Where would you like to be with?
Angel.
Everywhere?
Take it somewhere.
Take the pain somewhere.
I'm not trying to creep you out.
I'm trying to be precise.
At the moment, my mother was whining.
Daddy was smelling my cunt.
I've reached my best moment now, he explained.
Now I was sure what he was referring to.
This is the moment of truth.
I'm going off, off, off, jacking it off.
My hands are gonna be broken from this one.
I don't even recognize my own body.
It doesn't matter.
I know you're mine.
I made you.
I'm making you.
I swore I'd live for pleasure.
My tongue is fucking enormous.
Feel it.
It's reaching down to my waist.
You're seeing your actual father in his moment of truth.
God Almighty, nothing matters.
You're my God.
My daughter.
I worship you.
I beg you to do it so I can please you.
Now look at it.
It's big in my corkscrewing hand.
Kiss it.
My father explained again.
I am fucking God and I made God.
Holy shit.
All I have to do is look at God and God is happy.
Because I've made God come.
God is in heaven.
I'm in heaven.
And I've died the whole world in heaven.
I'm coming all over your face.
I looked up his sperm.
Just make me sick.
What
the hell do you think you are?
My father's daughter.
You're one.
Most
of the time I was born in New York.
I felt nothing about myself.
I did that.
We drank the laugh.
We make fuss body paint shadows.
We make performance art.
We perform ourselves.
Fuck you.
We carve each other's names into our bodies.
We fuck septic.
I'm right in front of me there and I can see that there was nothing.
I don't ever realize what. I don't...
I want fucking marry you.
To my contour team.
I'm so happy this.
Two skittier six.
Underwater stories start itching.
And yelling begins a ribbon and drinking that flatter.
Go back to kissing women I know and kissing women I don't know.
And what is a couple over time but a line?
I'll show you the fucking line.
Your fucking bullshit is taking over the house.
It was taking over the house.
I didn't want to drink.
I wanted to write.
You're seven of the finish my dissertation.
You're eight.
I got a PhD.
You're ten.
You pretend.
You're seven.
You love me until I die.
You said we would die together in love.
Where are you?
There is the past.
You would love a woman like me.
Don't you dare.
The date of every day.
What?
The
day my daughter was born.
After I held the future.
Still born.
And pink.
And rose-lipped.
And rose-lipped in my shivering arms.
Little tragedies are difficult to keep straight.
Chronology convinces us we are moving toward a real place.
Swimmers to your marks.
A gunshot.
A gunshot released our tense flesh.
Fathers are often uncontainable while the little women swam for their lives.
Swim.
Hurry.
Come on, baby.
Harder.
Faster.
A cacophony of men swelling and pressing down on the wet motion.
How many times did I slip into the chlorinated depths?
Secretly hoping to shed this useless skin and emerge something.
And fibis.
And without gender.
This thing is...
this letting everything in.
And waiting to see what comes out.
It's creepy.
An idiotic.
It's starting to piss me off that I have to even think about that hole.
What I am saying is...
there is a woman in a room who is tired of looking down.
Leading.
Bury an itching.
An aching.
And tired of her leaving open.
With no hope of situring herself up.
It isn't that I want it gone.
It's that I want wanting to come from somewhere else.
There are moments between years of service with grateful.
Remind me why we're here.
I thought this was your idea.
I came here with you.
Delusion.
She begged.
I changed my name.
Kill.
Or suck the killing back.
And pump it.
Into this story of someone else.
My father lost his memory from hypoxia that day.
I did not kill him.
I did not save him.
I am learning to live on land.
Thanks.
But have
your parents read this story?
Enjoy New York.
You're going to get an agent.
This is so nice to meet you.
Thank you for being here.
Excuse me.
Do you have anything?
Stronger?
Thanks.
Carol Hochsmith, not in publishing.
It's pretty impressive what you did up there.
Thank you.
No.
Really.
It didn't look easy.
Tell me.
Is there any more where that came from?
Something a little wider.
You should send me something.
It's just that...
Something in me had been born...
Still.
It's a small stem we carry.
Shame of wanting something good.
You did it.
You don't get it.
Hey, what are you doing?
Keep it moving.
Hi.
Chop and block.
Peer review.
Who wants to go first?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Really helpful.
You know, you can't look the wrong way.
Your one is just as important as your own.
You have to... It has to hurt, but I'm excited for you.
Something small and specific caught in my eye.
An important detail.
A bruise on the bridge of her nose.
Letting me know that her eyes were blue, like mine.
Hey!
How much?
I pay her pimp a hundred dollars.
I ask her in.
I tell her to sit down.
In the story, I say...
This is what it feels like to be me.
A woman who teaches English.
Looking down at a woman who sucks dicks all day.
She sits on my couch.
Smoking.
When I look at her, I think she looks like Mary.
Whenever I see an image of Christ, I picture Mary so drawn and gone,
I'm tired and angry to the point of emaciation that she can barely wear her own face.
In the story, I say...
What am I gonna do?
Teacher?
This is what me, an addict, upwardly mobile, given something
as infinitesimally small as words to believe in, thinks.
I'm looking at her.
Offer words.
People will say to me all the time.
Did the things in your short stories actually happen?
Isn't that the question?
When it comes to life?
Did this really happen to me?
Andy.
I don't know.
The things that happen to us are true.
The writing is a whole other body.
I was hoping we could discuss my manuscript.
Oh, of course.
Yeah.
I also want to loan you my car.
Saw you were taking the bus.
I happen to have two cars.
Hey.
You can tell a lot about a person from seeing them in the water.
Thank you.
For what?
It's a lot of me swimming here.
I've read a couple of your stories.
I know that swimming is a huge deal.
I always want my students to just run.
You know, I wanted to say I've seen you a couple times before.
Yeah, I read about Ken Keezy teaching at U of O when I was
abroad, and I applied to the program, but it already happened.
No shit.
Yeah, I know.
And I've seen you stomping around to create a fighting department.
I was in the reading you gave a grilling.
Oh, that's weird.
That was a weird day for me.
Why?
My father.
Was my...
My father... My father?
Was abusive.
My father.
How's that?
Sexual?
Well...
It sucks.
I hope something carmically fucking happened to him.
Yeah.
Kind of, actually.
I did.
Excellent.
It was a long time ago.
I was a totally different person then.
So who are you now?
I'm your teacher.
You can teach you how to take my car.
I
Don't quite know how to tell you what it feels like.
Watching the little woman swim for her life.
I mean...
Are you fucking insane?
No.
I can see the mother in you.
There's more to your story than you think.
Ha ha!
Look
at this.
Look at the shorts.
Huh?
Mmm?
Whoa!
What about the room?
They said it would be ready tomorrow, for sure.
I must have been a weird ride.
Thank you.
Don't ever.
I'm good.
Yeah.
Hi, Dad.
Hi, Lou.
No, it's me, Slidio.
I know that, Gail.
I read that book.
Do you know who wrote it?
Yeah.
You.
That's right.
Did you read all of the stories?
Yeah.
That was one about swimming.
I like that.
Thank you.
All right, flattering of me, though.
That's random.
You know, I'm one of prize for that story.
I got to go to New York.
Well, isn't that something?
It's beautiful here.
Is there a real home you have here?
Well done.
Well done, you.
The safest memories are locked away in the brains of people you can't remember.
Oh!
Oh, get her mic.
Get her mic.
No, I don't.
You're too good, you son.
I'm under water forever.
It ain't go down.
Look, I'm doing my name.
He knows
and ears and into my brain.
Ah, Miles.
How many times?
Have you seen mama swimming and swimming laps?
Lots of times.
Have you ever noticed that I've never got water in my brain?
Water's never gone into my brain.
You want to see?
What's this?
Tell me how much water goes in my brain, okay?
See?
I have a very important game.
I'm gonna put my whole head underwater.
And we'll look at each other underwater.
What game is this?
It isn't enough.
The key is...
make up shit.
I'm not speaking out of my asshole when I say this.
Come in.
The water will hold you.