Tag Archives: nyc

Last Exit by Russell Bittner

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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.

In the Animal Kingdom (a Thanksgiving Story)

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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.

  Continue reading →

Something Special / Stories in the Key of C Minor

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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.

Something Special, Chapter FOUR

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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.

An Interview with Russell Bittner, Part 2

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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