Free Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts by David Shields, Matthew Vollmer Page A

battle this fire with now that the juice is spilled. She kinda frozen, an she lookin at the wall but she axin me, like in a whisper, one more time, what?
    God. Damn. Whas wrong with her hearin?
    MY PERMISSION SLIP. SO. I. CAN. BE. LONG. IN. HERE.
    God.
    What you think I want?
    But she never answer me, cause somebody done pull the alarm an the room filled with a loud louder than anything. Bunches a teachers an mister Principal they rushin in here now, with extinguishers, seein the desk an the flames but not me cause I am a surge cloud. An I walkin out the door, through the hall, down the stairs, an security rushin past me up em, not seein me cause I am invisible. An I come down here right to security’s desk where nobody’s at. Could walk out the front door. Fire department not gonna stop me from goin nowhere.
    But I’m gonna wait right here. Sittin in the comfy chair, at this empy desk, til security come back. I got plenty a time an this mic for the PA. Thas Public Address , for real, but this NOT your principal speakin.
    This. Is. Nessa. An today I didn do nothin.
    I’m jus a surge cloud, thas all.

7
    How to Become a Writer
    Lorrie Moore
    FIRST, TRY TO be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age—say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She’ll look briefly at your writing, then back up at you with a face blank as a donut. She’ll say: “How about emptying the dishwasher?” Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Accidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.
    In your high school English class look only at Mr. Killian’s face. Decide faces are important. Write a villanelle about pores. Struggle. Write a sonnet. Count the syllables: nine, ten, eleven, thirteen. Decide to experiment with fiction. Here you don’t have to count syllables. Write a short story about an elderly man and woman who accidentally shoot each other in the head, the result of an inexplicable malfunction of a shotgun which appears mysteriously in their living room one night. Give it to Mr. Killian as your final project. When you get it back, he has written on it: “Some of your images are quite nice, but you have no sense of plot.” When you are home, in the privacy of your own room, faintly scrawl in pencil beneath his black-inked comments: “Plots are for dead people, pore-face.”
    Take all the babysitting jobs you can get. You are great with kids. They love you. You tell them stories about old people who die idiot deaths. You sing them songs like “Blue Bells of Scotland,” which is their favorite. And when they are in their pajamas and have finally stopped pinching each other, when they are fast asleep, you read every sex manual in the house, and wonder how on earth anyone could ever do those things with someone they truly loved. Fall asleep in a chair reading Mr. McMurphy’s Playboy. When the McMurphys come home, they will tap you on the shoulder, look at the magazine in your lap, and grin. You will want to die. They will ask you if Tracey took her medicine all right. Explain, yes, she did, that you promised her a story if she would take it like a big girl and that seemed to work out just fine. “Oh, marvelous,” they will exclaim.
    Try to smile proudly.
    Apply to college as a child psychology major.
    As a child psychology major, you have some electives. You’ve always liked birds. Sign up for something called “The