Casing the Joint

The Master's Artist welcomes guest poster Heather Goodman

“This is the same daughter-in-law who stole your grandmother’s china right from your house?” a woman in the table behind mine says.

I dig my Nancy Drew notepad from my purse to jot down this tidbit.

A second voice chimes in. “Wait. She stole your china? Why?”

“To sell it on Craig’s list, if you can believe that.” This from the offended woman, apparently.

I consider asking my lunch partner to switch seats with me to better see the facial expressions and hand gestures. But I don’t think I could hear as well from her seat.

“Did she tell you that?”

“No! Get this—you know how I love finding odds and ends on Craig’s List, right? Well, I just happened to see this china that looked exactly like my grandmother’s, so I clicked on it out of curiosity. I didn’t even know mine was gone at that point.”

“How did you not know?”

“I keep it packed away. We only use it on special occasions. Anyway, when I clicked on it, I saw more pictures, and there’s this one that has a chip in it exactly like mine. Weird, right? But even then, I didn’t think it was mine.”

I can practically hear her arms flying. My friend is telling me her own story. I smile and nod to keep up appearances.

“What are you doing?” my friend asks.

“Something I forgot to do. I need to remember it,” I tell her. I want to tell her to shut up so I can hear the story about the daughter-in-law. I miss how the woman discovered the Craig’s List china was hers.

“Did you talk to her about it?” one of the women asks.

“I want to get back to the fake pregnancy story. How long did she fake it?”

Fake pregnancy? That settles it. I’ve found a new character. A short story, maybe? What makes a woman fake a pregnancy?

“For a whole nine months! We didn’t find out until the memorial service we held for the fake baby.”

Oh, man. This is good stuff.

A character in the Neil Simon play, “Barefoot in the Park,” says, “There are watchers in this world and there are do-ers. And the watchers sit around watching and the do-ers do.”

Writers are watchers. Worse than that. We’re thieves, and any good thief knows that he spends the majority of any job in the reconnaissance. We’re casing the joint, and later, we’ll come back and steal bits and pieces of your life for the sake of our own art.

(Writing sounds noble until you put it like that.)

The woman gardening in her evening gown, the child who refuses to travel senza tiara, even how my friend mispronounces cannabis so that the emphasis is on the second syllable—treasure I stash away. Scruples? Those are something I once stole for a character who volunteers at a hospice.

Novelist Stendhal believed that a novel worked as a mirror along a road. To reflect humanity, we must properly observe it. Which means that any good writer is first and foremost a good observer.

In other words, we do our reconnaissance.

Heather A. Goodman stakes out her neighborhood incognito. You can glimpse some of her results at www.heatheragoodman.com.

Comments

[Nicole]

Yup, H. Well done.

[michael snyder]

"To reflect humanity, we must properly observe it."

Very well said (all of it, not just that line...)

The only thing I'd add is, that to properly observe the world we need to stay awake. Thank God for great writers and coffee!

[Elaina]

I am so glad to know I'm not alone. :) I do this. Constantly. Complete with notepad an all. I also found that the newspaper for my small southern town provided similar opportunities like those I witness firsthand.

One of my favorite stories involved a "Northerner" that retired in a small fishing/sailing village across the river from me. The classic quote was, "He was the only Northerner I could call a friend." I wrote it down. But I probably didn't need to because I'll never forget the story.

[Madison Richards]

Love this Heather! Your humor and truth pair up beautifully!