Monday @ FlashFiction.Net: Roman Interviews Ron Carlson on Writing and Bigfoot
I Am Bigfoot
Ron Carlson
That’s fine. I’m ready.
I am Bigfoot. The Bigfoot. You’ve been hearing about me for some time now, seeing artists’ renderings, and perhaps a phony photograph or two. I should say right here that an artist’s rendering is one thing, but some trumped-up photograph is entirely another. The one that really makes me sick purports to show me standing in a stream in Northern California. Let me tell you something: Bigfoot never gets his feet wet. And I’ve only been to Northern California once, long enough to check out Redding and Eureka, both too quiet for the kind of guy I am.
Anyway, all week long, people (the people I contacted) have been wondering why I finally have gone public. A couple thought it was because I was angry at that last headline, remember: “Jackie O. Slays Bigfoot.” No, I’m not angry. You can’t go around and correct everybody who slanders you. (Hey, I’m not dead, and I only saw Jacquelin Onassis once, at about four hundred yards. She was on a horse.) And as for libel, what should I do, go up to Rockefeller Center and hire a lawyer? Please. Spare me. You can quote me on this: Bigfoot is not interested in legal action.
“Then, why?” they say. “Why climb out of the woods and go through all the trouble of ‘meeting the press,’ so to speak? (Well, first of all, I don’t live in the woods year round, which is a popular misconception of my life-style. Sure, I like the woods, but I need action too. I’ve had some of my happiest times in the median of the Baltimore Belt-route, the orchards of Arizona and Florida, and I spent nearly five years in the corn country just outside St. Louis. So, it’s not just the woods, okay?)
Why I came forward at this time concerns the truest thing I ever read about myself in the papers. The headline read “Bigfoot Stole My Wife,” and it was right on the money. But beneath it was the real story: “Anguished Husband’s Cry.” Now I read the article, every word. Twice. It was poorly written, but it was all true. I stole the guy’s wife. She wasn’t the first and she wasn’t the last. But when I went back and read that “anguished husband,” it got me a little. I’ve been, as you probably have read, in all fifty states and eleven foreign countries. (I have never been to Tibet, in case you’re wondering. That is some other guy, maybe the same one who was crossing the stream in Northern California.) And, in each place I’ve been, there’s a woman. Come on, who is surprised by that? I don’t always steal them, in fact, I never steal them, but I do call them away, and they come with me. I know my powers and I use my powers. And when I call a woman, she comes.
So, here I am. It’s kind of a confession, I guess; kind of a warning. I’ve been around; I’ve been all over the world (except Tibet! I don’t know if that guy is interested in women or not.) And I’ve seen thousands of women standing at their kitchen windows, their stare in the mid-afternoon goes a thousand miles; I’ve seen thousands of women, dressed to the nines, strolling the cosmetic counters in Saks and I. Magnin, wondering why their lives aren’t like movies; thousands of women shuffling in the soft twilight of malls, headed for the Orange Julius stand, not really there, just biding time until things get lovely.
And things get lovely when I call. I cannot count them all, I cannot list the things these women are doing while their husbands are out there in another world, but one by one I’m meeting them on my terms. I am Bigfoot. I am not from Tibet. I go from village to town to city to village. At present, I am watching your wife. That’s why I am here tonight. To tell you, fairly, man to man, I suppose, I am watching your wife and I know for a fact, that when I call, she’ll come.
From A KIND OF FLYING: SELECTED STORIES by Ron Carlson. Copyright © 2003, 1997, 1992, 1987 by Ron Carlson. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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It’s been three years since that class, and his stories have stuck with me ever since. His collection A Kind of Flying is almost always at arm’s length (and great for reading between all of the assigned literature throughout the semester). And recently, he was kind enough to answer a few questions for me both on writing and on his flash fiction piece “I Am Bigfoot:”
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The story is by far the most unusual interpretation of Bigfoot. How did you come to decide on the absurd (and hilarious) characteristics for your Bigfoot?
I wrote this tiny monologue after I had finished “Bigfoot Stole My Wife.” I wrote the monologues in the first place because of my love of the tabloids, especially the English tabloids which really put ours in the shade. When we have “Elephant Smashes Trainer’s Head,” they have “Elephant Smashes Trainer’s Head Flatter than a Teacake.” That is all you need to know about powerhouse writing right there. When I wrote this monologue (“I am Bigfoot”) it started with him behind an FBI Informant screen and he appeared as a shadow behind it; it was a joke—and then as he talked it shifted.
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How far apart were the two stories written? And was there always a plan for “I Am Bigfoot,” or did it spin out of the first story?
The tabloid monologues—and there are twelve or so—all sort of grew out of each other. I wrote “The Tablecloth of Turin” because of a moment in “Phenomenon” and so on. I wanted to put a beating heart in each of these tawdry headlines and see what would happen. They’ve been performed widely across the US and some were done a few years ago in Iraq. Most of them are in my selected stories: A Kind of Flying.
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Do you plan each story to be a either a short story or flash fiction, or does it depend more on the demands of the story?
The story itself determines its length and I usually know right away before the bottom of page one. If it wants to open up and go, I encourage it.
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What do you feel are some of the limitations and/or benefits of writing flash fiction?
Sometimes, flash fiction depends on language or cleverness and we miss the beating heart. I love a witty or dark little piece, but what we’re aiming for in work long or short is that real contact with character.
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How would you describe your writing technique?
A spillage. Then I mop like crazy.
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Where do you go for ideas or inspiration?
Absolutely everywhere. There is too much input. But, I primarily love the specific moment observed in a way that feels like experience itself. So, some small event in the day which taps my empathy or imagination in a way that is oddly personal.
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Roman Colombo is an MFA student at Rosemont College and received his bachelor’s degree in English-Creative Writing from the University of South Florida in 2008. He tries to write in as many genres as possible but loves prose, stage, and graphic novel the most. He has completed one novella, Trading Saints for Sinners (which can be found in the USF library), a Noir-play, Tampa Burning, and is now working on a military heist novel called Izzy’s War as well as three graphic novels. He is exhausted.
posted on 12 Oct 2009, 3:02 PM
Love this:" Sometimes, flash fiction depends on language or cleverness and we miss the beating heart." Yes, absolutely.
posted on 12 Oct 2009, 3:13 PM
I love the same line Kathy Fish loved! Roman, I enjoyed the interview!
posted on 12 Oct 2009, 6:05 PM
Wonderful story! And what a little treasure chest of an interview.
"If it wants to open up and go, I encourage it."
"...what we're aiming for in work long or short is that real contact with character."
And hey, you gotta love the man's technique!
Thanks for this, Roman.
posted on 12 Oct 2009, 8:31 PM
Roman: good interview, I like the humor, thank you for the intro to Carlson, and what is that woman whispering in your ear?
posted on 13 Oct 2009, 9:01 AM
Kathy named my favorite line but I also really enjoyed: "A spillage. Then I mop like crazy."
"Bigfoot Stole My Wife" remains one of THOSE stories, impacting me so much. Sort of like the people who talk about where they were when Kennedy got shot, I remember where I read and re-read that beautiful story.
Great stuff, Roman and Ron.
posted on 13 Oct 2009, 9:02 AM
GO, haven't you seen "Lost in Translation"? He ain't gonna tell.
posted on 14 Oct 2009, 1:58 PM
David, I had the same feeling with this piece even while I was reading it.
And Gabriel, Whatever she's whispering, I seem to be very happy.