Charlotte Bacon - A private state: stories

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title	:	A Private State : Stories
author	:	Bacon, Charlotte.
publisher	:	University of Massachusetts Press
isbn10 | asin	:	1558491147
print isbn13	:	9781558491144
ebook isbn13	:	9780585142005
language	:	English
subject	Women--United States--Social life and customs--Fiction.
publication date	:	1998
lcc	:	PS3552.A27P7 1998eb
ddc	:	813/.54
subject	:	Women--United States--Social life and customs--Fiction.

Page iii A Private State Stories Charlotte Bacon University of Massachusetts Press Amherst

Page iv This book is the winner of the Associated Writing Programs 1996 Award in Short Fiction. AWP is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to serving American letters, writers, and programs of writing. AWP's headquarters are at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Copyright 1998 by Charlotte Bacon All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America LC 97-14672 ISBN 1-55849-114-7 Designed by Kristina Kachele Set in Granjon by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Printed and bound by Thomson Shore, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bacon, Charlotte, 1965 A private state : stories / Charlotte Bacon. p. cm. Contents: Live free or die Arizona Luck A private state Safe as houses Pacific Accidentals Mercury Monsoon Open season Mrs. Pritchard and Mr. Watson. ISBN 1-55849-114-7 (alk. paper) 1. WomenUnited StatesSocial life and customsFiction. I. Title. PS 3552.A 27P 7 1997 813'.54dc2197-14672 CIP British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available.

Page v For my parents.

Page vii Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge "Other Voices" for permission to reprint, in slightly different form, "Open Season." I would also like to thank Phillips Exeter Academy for the George Bennett Memorial Fellowship, which gave me the time and quiet needed to write or revise most of these stories. Louise White and Rebecca Carman have my great appreciation for their patient reading and kind encouragement as the book took shape. Finally, I want to thank Brad Choyt, who understands how important it is to try and get the words right.

Page ix Contents Live Free or Die 1 Arizona 19 Luck 33 A Private State 50 Safe as Houses 65 Pacific 83 Accidentals 98 Mercury 114 Monsoon 130 Open Season 147 Mrs. Pritchard and Mr. Watson 162

Page 1 Live Free or Die It is the first monday of february and mary ellen is teaching George Herbert to her smartest juniors. His work is chaste but ardent and far from snowplows that wake sparks from icy streets. When Mary Ellen imagines Herbert's Britain, it is always High Summer, safe and daisied. In New Hampshire, where Mary Ellen lives, people close their faces against the cold, as if they're wary of losing warmth and moisture through extraneous talk. Then again this is New England, where talk is lean even in a lush and dappled August. The juniors aren't, as they say, "into" Herbert, though they admire the poems where form imitates theme, such as "Easter Wings," whose stanzas seem to rise off the page like a pair of butterflies. Today, Tim, one of Mary Ellen's most pragmatic students, comments that form equals function, kind of like life. Mary Ellen envies Tim's sturdy cheer. Last fall, her husband Frank Marten, a veterinarian who hunts, began renting across town. In December, Mary Ellen found herself wearing pale sweaters and beige pants, a snow hare in transition. Now she cloaks herself in mohair shawls the shade of ptarmigans in winter plumage. She's moving as carefully as she can through a house where she still finds flea dip in dark cupboards. Mary Ellen says, "Tim, I have to disagree. Most of the time, life has even less coherence than a smashed bug." The students eye her then, tilting

Page 2 back on their chairs. "Don't tilt," Mary Ellen says reflexively. But it is hard to focus on the airy hope of "Easter Wings" again. Mary Ellen begins to explain the homeworkwriting a poem about anger in the shape of an arrowwhen Tim's chair crashes backward. He is on the floor and screaming. "What is it, Tim?" Mary Ellen shouts. "Where does it hurt?" Then at his wrist she sees a flash of bone and blood, but his face has shrunk to something dried and crumpled, like a currant. Someone moans, "Oh Jesus.''

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