Aubrey Ference by Russell Bittner

by admin on October 23, 2009

‘Aubrey Ference.’

 

As I perch upon a curb and watch the waste of a city wash by bit by bit beneath my feet on its way to the sewer, I spot a name on a page—and put a sole out to stop it.

 

The name means nothing to me—and yet everything—at the same time.  I’ve never known an ‘Aubrey’ or a ‘Ference,’ though I wish I had.  Had I at one time been so fortunate, I might now not be crouching on a curb.

 

Seconds later, I catch the last notes of Respighi’s ‘The Pines of Rome’ from some boom-box behind me and, at the same time, a voice raving in the crowd.  “That tune grabs me by the throat,” is what I hear.

 

My own memory prevents it from grabbing me by any such thing.  I once danced to it on a cabaret stage while we—the girls and I—pretended to fuck.  It was a long time ago:  young girls; old Europe; my youth.

 

‘Aubrey Ference,’ meanwhile—to my now older, less lascivious ear—looks like something part chemistry, part poetry.

 

Had I once been more able—at least able enough to find and keep an ‘Aubrey Ference’—I might not now be crouching curbside.  I might instead have a job, a condominium, and kids.  Might have a job, wife, condo, kids and a career.  But I now have only a curb—from which I watch the evidence of ‘Aubrey Ference’ drift by, ready to disappear if I lift a heel.

 

I don’t.

 

Instead, I spread her piece out on the sidewalk, pat it down, allow it a final gasp of fresh air – fresher, certainly, than my own last gasp—and read.

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Last Exit by Russell Bittner

by admin on August 30, 2009

In our continuing showcase of the work of Russell Bittner, we are pleased to present the short story Last Exit.  Although Last Exit does not appear in the collection Stories in the Key of C.  Minor. which is now available for sale, it clearly displays the literary talent of Russell Bittner.  Click the icon below to purchase the collection, or continue to Last Exit.

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Last Exit

We look at the menu, but it’s only a formality.  We already know what we’re up against:  a Siren of a thing this restaurant calls ‘Love Boat,’ which is a collection of sushi-and-sashimi-for-two the three of us have never been able to resist—and so, we’re not about to now.

We chat, just like old times, and the two of you occasionally squabble.  Normal for siblings, I think.  And I’m quietly thankful for the familiarity—which still has the nice ring of ‘family,’ even if the rip tide of ‘concept’ is moving steadily, irrevocably, out to sea.  I feel myself drifting with it, but trying to hold fast to pylons for the duration.

‘Love Boat’ finally arrives, and we dig in.  Eager mouths attach to this love-in-a-boat, and the earlier testiness disappears from the table.  My two babies are now just taking on fuel against a cold February night.  I love their greediness, which is a father’s delight to be able to satisfy.

But my delight is on a clock, and that clock has now ticked out.

We conclude with Green Tea and Red Bean ice cream:  exotica beyond mere flavors or colors in this frigid time of year.  I ask for the check, lay down a cool hundred—my last for the privilege of a ‘Love Boat’—and we stand up to leave.

“You’re going straight home?” my little guy asks.  I lie, tell him “yes.”  We walk two blocks to their front gate, and his sister, my daughter, says “g’nite.”  He knows, however, that an entrance to the park is just another block away and insists on walking me to the subway stop.  It’s a park, he knows, in which one can easily lose oneself on a winter’s night—a park asleep, a park apart, a park of no necessary exit.  There was a time, he knows, when I walked–sometimes slept–there late at night, quite apart, looking perhaps for a last, fast exit.

We walk to the subway stop.  He waits at the top, I imagine, until he’s heard “goodnight” from me and a click from the turnstile—until he knows I’m going home.

“I’ll call you,” is the last thing I hear from him, and I know he means it.  This is his watch, and he’ll want to verify that I’ve gone nowhere else, not to any last exit, nowhere but home—at least tonight.

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In the Animal Kingdom (a Thanksgiving Story)

by admin on August 27, 2009

As we continue to highlight the work of Russell Bittner, we are proud to present the short story In the Animal Kingdom (a Thanksgiving Story).  This story is a powerful and moving family drama set around the Thanksgiving dinner table.  At this time you can also purchase Bittner’s Stories in the Key of C.  Minor. by clicking the icon below.

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In the Animal Kingdom

(a Thanksgiving story)

“Mammalian life is social and relational.  What defines the mammalian class, physiologically, is … the possession of a portion of the brain known as the limbic system, which allows us to do what other animals cannot:  read the interior states of others of our kind.  To survive, we need to know our own inner state and those of others, quickly, at a glance, deeply.”  From “Programming the Post-human,” by Ellen Ullman.

 

I sit here now as I sat here then.  He’s not here now; he wasn’t here then.  The only difference between now and then—fifteen years ago—is that I know the difference.

Then?  Then, I had a child’s imagination, a child’s belief that all things were possible—even the impossible—perhaps because I had no knowledge of im.  Im is a prefix that comes with age, with experience, with rejection and failure.  Slowly.  More quickly if you have nothing worth rejecting.  Then, im comes at you without mercy.  And very quickly, you can no longer even see the word “possible” without its attendant im.

But that was fifteen years ago—when I was a mere child—with a child’s imagination, a child’s belief, and a child’s still imperfect vision.  None of which could really distinguish between im and him.  And him was what I’d been anticipating for almost a whole year.

Today, the greatest of all days on the American calendar, is Thanksgiving—now as then.  No other holiday—he’d said it himself many times—can compare.  It’s the day on which we all come home, wherever home may be.  Sometimes, that home is just a heartbeat.  But so long as a heart is beating, it yearns for home.  And home is what we come to—on Thanksgiving.

 

 

 “What time is Papa coming?” I shout from where I’m sitting next to the front window.

“Six o’clock,” my mother shouts back from the kitchen.

“And if he doesn’t?”  I ask.

“He’ll be here.  We agreed.  And if there’s one thing your father is, it’s punctual.”

To myself, I think:  I know.  It’s the German in him.  He can’t help himself or being punctual—whatever ‘punctual’ means.

“It’s the German in him,” my mother shouts, unprompted.  “He can’t help himself.”

My sister looks at me.  I look back at her.  We’ve both heard the words many times before.  At a quarter to six on a cold and wet November afternoon, there’s little comfort—dry or warm—in hearing this same old harangue about my father and his people.

  [click to continue…]

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Something Special / Stories in the Key of C Minor

by admin on August 21, 2009

Big news:  Russell Bittner’s fiction collection, Stories in the Key of C. Minor. published by Faraway, is available for purchase for just $10.96.  An ebook version is also available for $5.00. 

Six stories, all of which start within a five-mile radius of 350 5th Avenue, the address of the Empire State Building, the original “Ground Zero.” With this first book of five short stories and one novella, Russell Bittner believes that worlds can be discovered and described in a dewdrop, in a teardrop, in a leaky faucet—and that all that’s required is a good magnifying glass, keen powers of observation, and a feel for how language might be made to form a picture in the reader’s mind. NYC—fugheddaboud Brooklyn—is home to scoundrels and angels, derelicts and daredevils, high flyers, low flyers and every kind of flyer for every kind of service one human being is able to coerce, cheat, beggar or beat out of another. Russell captures that here in the key of C Minor—the key of melancholy.

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.></a> </p> <p>Russell Bittner's novella

The novella “Something Special,” which Faraway has been serializing in chapter-long installments throughout August is also now available as a single, complete file, for your reading convenience.  Preview Russell Bittner’s talent in “Something Special,” then click here to purchase the book Stories in the Key of C.  Minor.

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Something Special, Chapter SIX

by admin on August 19, 2009

And now for the final chapter of Russell Bittner’s novella, Something Special.  Bruce returns to his modeling agency in New York, where the press has picked up the story of a New Yorker’s death by bear mauling out in Yosemite.  Will Bruce be held accountable?

Back in New York, and after having alighted from the Lexington Line at the 34th Street stop on my brisk way to Monday morning work, I stop in at a newsstand and buy a copy each of The National Inquirer, Star and The Globe.  I figure if there’s a story—and if anyone’s going to cover it—one of these three mavericks will.  Grist for the tabloid mill originating anywhere west of the Hudson is not going to find its way into The Post or The Daily News—unless and until, that is, someone discovers that the grist belongs to one of our own.  Then, of course, she’s suddenly one of ours—so it’s big news.  But I know it’s my duty to Angie to make sure that never happens.  It would be a hell-of-a career boost, no doubt, but Angie can’t really use that kind of boost just now.  I suspect, even before opening any of the three papers I now carry folded under my arm, that her rather short-lived career is all played out.

Click here to find out.  Need to catch up?  Click here for previous chapters.

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Something Special, Chapter FIVE

by admin on August 17, 2009

In this penultimate chapter of Russell Bittner’s novella Something Special, we see the results of Bruce and Angie’s late afternoon walk to the lake, and Bruce’s final machinations to make Angie a famous model, after all.

Three hours later, a fine dinner tumbling in my belly while a cognac and coffee wait within easy reach, I sit in perfect contentment on a loveseat in front of a blazing fire in a cavernous room of a fine hotel.  This loveseat—like its twin just opposite me—is set at a ninety-degree angle to the fire, and I turn my head to look across the room and out the floor-to-ceiling windows at curtain call upon curtain call of large, billowy snowflakes—and then re-focus on the pitch black emptiness just out of range of the hotel’s lights.  The flames of the fire in front of me, I note with some relish, reflect ghoulishly off the windowpanes—orange specters dancing for my perusal and with no other care in the world but that I should be entertained.

 

Click here to read the rest.

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Something Special, Chapter FOUR

by admin on August 15, 2009

As Bruce’s jealousy and disappointment grow over Angie’s dalliances with another young man at the hotel in Yosemite, dark plots begin to form in his mind in chapter four of Something Special.

I go immediately to our room in the expectation that a contrite Angie, finally reconciled to her ungratefulness, will be awaiting my arrival—hat in hand, as it were.  I have every intention of extracting whatever price she’s willing to pay, penitence being as much at the pleasure of the aggrieved as it is at the pain of the transgressor.  I have no idea who this young man might be; still less, any concern about his welfare; least of all, a thought about his retribution or damnation.  The only compensation I wish to gain for this whole sordid business is Angie’s complete submission—that she should beg me to deliver her from her misguided need to look anywhere but to me for guidance, inspiration, and yes—transcendence.  I and I alone will be her redeemer, I’m thinking as I open the door—.

There’s no one in the room.  “Angie,” I call, half-expecting to hear a tearful “Yes, Bruce?” from somewhere within, but I hear only the sound of my own voice.

The thing now is to remain calm, think clearly, act decisively, I think to myself as I get undressed and pull back the bed sheets—but not before setting up my alarm clock with its luminous numbers and hands facing my pillow.

I’m solidly asleep long before both hands on my alarm clock reach twelve, and I have no idea how much time has passed when I first hear sounds outside our room, catch a glimmer of light from the hallway as she slips in through the door, then listen to her labored breathing as she waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.  I half-open one of my own and note the hour:  3:00 a.m.

Click here to read more.  To catch up, read chapters one, two, and three.

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An Interview with Russell Bittner, Part 2

by admin on August 14, 2009

Earlier this week we featured the first part of an interview with author Russell Bittner.  Bittner’s novella, Something Special, is being serialized on www.FarawayJournal.com throughout the month of August.  In this second part of the interview, Russell talks more specifically about his own work–the themes that appear, his settings, and the publishing process for his first book, Stories in the Key of C.  Minor.

FARAWAY: What are some common themes that appear in your work?

 

Love.  Loss.  Loneliness.  The three L’s.  There’s no school I know of that teaches us how to acquire, keep or divest ourselves of any of them.

 

FARAWAY: How did you become interested in or why did you choose these themes?

 

Experience—the famous school of experience.

 

FARAWAY: Many of your stories take place in or around New York.  Can you describe using New York as a setting?

 

I don’t have any special feeling about NYC.  I’m not particularly fond of Manhattan, but it’s where I went to school, it’s where I worked for many years, it’s where I still sometimes play.  My girl still attends the LaGuardia School of Music & Art, and my boy just finished up at Beacon and is now off to Wheaton College in Massachusetts next fall.

Subway Trestle by Russell Bittner

Subway Trestle by Russell Bittner

 

Unfortunately, the moment I come up from the subway tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan, I always first hear—and then feel—this great sucking sound, and it’s always going straight for the greatly diminished contents of my wallet.  Manhattan is all about money.  Without great gobs of it, life in Manhattan ain’t much fun.

 

Brooklyn is another story.  If I had to pick one place in these United States to raise a family (the caveat being that this statement does not apply to all sections of this borough), it would be Brooklyn.  Three of my stories have a Brooklyn setting.  A fourth takes place at a midpoint between Manhattan and Brooklyn—namely, “Waltzing Matilda.”  “The Poet & the President” takes place in Manhattan, albeit involves a fictional Brooklyn resident.  Only my novella, “Something Special,” has no mention of Brooklyn whatsoever.  It starts and ends in Manhattan, though takes place principally in Yosemite National Park.

 

Brooklyn is small town writ large.  It has something of everything—and maybe more of it than anyplace else—including an enormous desire and energy to get off it and move into Manhattan.  It probably also has more aspiring artists (both fine and con) than any other place in the known universe.  Writers here are more plentiful—and cutthroat—than gangsters.

 

But as a place for kids, it just doesn’t get any better.  We all wear our 718 (area code) T-shirts with a kind of “Up yours!” pride—although the underlying sentiment is more of “I’d really rather be up yours than up mine.”

 

FARAWAY: Out of all of the stories in this collection, In the Animal Kingdom seems the most personal, the most laden with emotion.  It deals with a son grappling with his parents’ separation.  Was this a personal theme for you?

 

You’ve “outed” me, Daniel.  “In the Animal Kingdom” is—with a heady dose of imagination—virtually autobiographical.

 

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday—largely, I think, because it’s about family reunions.  I grew up in a large family (the fifth of six children), and people were always drifting off to college.  However, Thanksgiving always brought them back—and least for a dinner.

 

When I realized I’d lost my own newer family and that I’d never have the privilege of a reunion with them again, I wrote this story.  It was a purgative of sorts.  It remains just that.

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Garden in Winter by Russell Bittner

 

FARAWAY: Can you describe how writing a novella differs from the process of writing a short story or novel?

 

It’s longer.  Other than that, I don’t see any difference.  A novella is not an excuse to get slipshod with language any more than a poem is.  The last thing you as a writer want is to lose your reader’s attention.  Do that, and you might as well go fishing.  (Fishing, at least, has a better chance of putting something on the table.)

 

FARAWAY: What advice would you give to our readers about getting published?

 

Make friends with Daniel Sawyer—or with someone like him.  Publishing is a risky business.  There are, happily (for writers), a number of people in it who aren’t in it for the money.  If they all were, most of what passes for “literary fiction” would never get published—or if it did, only after a writer’s death.

 

There’s a great line in the script of “Shakespeare in Love,” and I firmly believe Tom Stoppard was having a private little giggle when he wrote it.  The producer of “Romeo and Juliet” says at one point in answer to the question “Who’s he?” (with an accusatory finger pointing directly at Shakespeare):  “Oh, he’s nobody.  He’s the writer.”

 

The fact of the matter is just that.  The writer is nobody…until he’s somebody—and those somebodies are rarer than water skies on ducks’ feet.

 

FARAWAY: We have gone about publishing Stories in a way that differs radically from traditional publication.  It is technically self-published.  What are your thoughts on the moniker “self-publication”?

 

It’s like kissing your sister.  I’m quite fond of my sisters—well, at least of one of them—but kissing her is not my idea of a Saturday night spectacle.

 

Do I really think anyone gives a hoot about a collection of short stories by an unknown writer?  No.  Everything I’ve ever heard or read speaks against it.  But here we are—and there’s no turning off the spigot. 

 

FARAWAY: In my opinion self-publication represents a large part of the future of publication.  With the decline of printed newspapers and the popularity of blogs and websites that offer do-it-yourself services, more people than ever will be able to publish their work, although they might not be able to secure the audience that a traditional publisher could get for their work.  What do you think of this trend?

 

For both our sakes, Daniel, I hope you’re right.  I’ll certainly do my bit to move this book even though the idea of self-promotion would be preferable only to having my teeth drilled without benefit of Novocain. 

 

FARAWAY: What are your thoughts on the process that we have gone through to make Stories available to the public?

 

I couldn’t be more grateful.  You, personally, have done far more than I could ever have expected or even desired of a publisher.  Do I wish you were independently wealthy and could be both publisher and benefactor?  Of course.  But wishes are born in heaven, lived on earth, die in hell.  I’ll be quite content to see these stories between two covers and out of my notebooks—where, but for a few publications here and there—they might otherwise have died.

Green-Wood Cemetery by Russell Bittner

Green-Wood Cemetery by Russell Bittner

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Something Special, Chapter THREE

August 13, 2009

We are now into the middle chapters of Russell Bittner’s novella, Something Special.  Read chapters one and two.  In chapter three, now in Yosemite, Bruce’s carefully-laid plan begins to unravel, and things take a dark turn.

I put on my hiking boots, get some advice and a map from Meredith at the front desk, and set [...]

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An Interview with Russell Bittner, Part 1

August 11, 2009

Russell Bittner, author of the collection Stores in the Key of C.  Minor. recently took some time to answer some of my questions about the art and craft of writing and about the publishing world.  In this first part, Russell describes his writing process, his thoughts on literature, and how he uses language to effectively [...]

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Something Special – Chapter TWO

August 9, 2009

In our continuing coverage of the work of Russell Bittner, we now present the second chapter of the novella Something Special.  Click here to read chapter one, or continue below:

Not even two weeks later, I’m sitting next to Angie as we begin our decent into San Francisco’s international airport.  She snores like a marmot, her [...]

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Something Special – Chapter ONE

August 8, 2009

Something Special is a novella-length story by author Russell Bittner that is featured in the new collection, Stories in the Key of C.  Minor.  It is about Bruce, a middle-aged agent for models whose plans to spend a romantic weekend in the wilds of Yosemite with his gorgeous protege Angie go horribly awry.  Written with [...]

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Introducing Russell Bittner

August 7, 2009

Russell Bittner is a New York-based writer, whose collection Stories in the Key of C – Minor is being published by Faraway this month.  To allow Russell Bittner to introduce himself to our readers, we asked him to describe his writing career.
 
There’s my “career,” Daniel, and then there’s my career.  The first is what enables [...]

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The Work of Russell Bittner

August 6, 2009

Throughout August, Faraway will be highlighting the work of Pushcart Prize nominated-author Russell Bittner.  Bittner’s stories, poems, and photography have been widely published online and in print.  To honor this author’s work, Faraway is proud to present a collection of six stories, including one novella, available online for purchase tomorrow.  The novella, Something Special, will [...]

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“Stories in the Key of C – Minor”

August 3, 2009

We are pleased to announce that a collection of short stories entitled Stories in the Key of C – Minor will be published this Friday, August 7.  By Brooklyn author Russell Bittner, Stories features five short works, plus the novella Something Special.  Incorporating the themes of love, loneliness and loss, Stories in the Key of [...]

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Coming Soon: Stories by Russell Bittner

July 18, 2009

Faraway is proud to announce the upcoming publication of a collection of short fiction entitled Stories by Russell Bittner.  Stories includes six short works, including the novella Something Special.  Stories will soon be available for purchase, while Something Special will be published in serial installments available for download right here on www.FarawayJournal.com.
Check back soon for [...]

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Faraway, Volume 2, Issue 3

June 30, 2009

The new issue of Faraway is online, featuring dozens of pieces by many new authors.  Click on the titles below to read the individual stories or poems, or click here to view the issue as a whole.

On the Other Promontory by Davide Trame
Winter Passage For Billy Collins by Michael K. Gause
Dwindling Times and Burden by [...]

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Silent Signs by Olga Zilberbourg

May 28, 2009

My sister Zoe, a travel writer, had just returned to New York City from Tel-Aviv or Riga or St. Petersburg when somebody told her I had three months left to live. The news struck Zoe as rather odd: nobody at the headquarters of the travel publishing firm where we both work could trace the source [...]

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Can I Get a Witness? by Eric McKinley

May 21, 2009

I opened the door without looking. You know how you do, like sometimes when you answer the phone without checking the caller ID. Then a week later you find yourself helping a friend move to a fifth floor walkup on a sweltering July Saturday, or attending your grandmother’s poetry reading at the nursing home. It [...]

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A Family Matter by Josh Mitchell

May 18, 2009

Christopher Caldwell crosses the space between the stove and kitchen sink for what could have been the fiftieth time tonight. He turns the faucet to fill the kettle he’s holding. Returning to the stove he starts to boil water for more coffee. He then hears the door open and close in the adjacent washroom. His [...]

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