Neighobrhood Mums
A man, a dog, and a pair of stolen mums: a quiet act of neighborhood vandalism leads to an accidental tour through the strange, sacred, and slightly crumbling corners of American life.
This Story Got Me Called Racist in 2003.
It Still Does
Neighborhood Mums is the first short story I ever wrote. I was 30 years old at the University of Iowa and managed to get into an Iowa Writers Workshop seminar, having no real concept of what the Iowa Writers Workshop was (or maybe still is). They said, “Hey, write a story.”
So I did.
To give context: not only did I not know what the Workshop meant to the American literary world, I had no idea how I’d managed to weasel my way in. I was taking that class alongside an undergrad fiction writing course, a creative nonfiction writing course, and some weird logic math requirement1. This is after having recovered from a 1.23 GPA by taking courses at Kirkwood Community College down the road in Cedar Rapids.2
I also managed a pizza shop, working from 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. Friday through Sunday. I was a new dad—Abigail was two. Aaron wasn’t even a twinkle, let alone a thought. Let’s not forget the untreated, undiagnosed sleep apnea. And, I had no idea at the time who Denis Johnson, George Saunders, or Lorrie Moore were.
Neighborhood Mums has that early-2000s, everything-is-personal-and-nothing-is-sacred, post-9/11 weird-Americana tang. It’s me at thirty—fresh, really wet behind the ears, no literary agenda other than let’s really really learn how to write write along with that ability of raw observation, memory, and Midwest funk.
Looking back 22 years later at that sleep-deprived, overworked, math-fogged, pizza-slinging version of me3 I still can’t fathom how that was me tripping through the front door of literary Valhalla like someone stumbling into a Michelin five-star restaurant asking if they could borrow a spoon—then cooking a full damn meal.
NEIGHBORHOOD MUMS
I notice someone stole two large mums from the front flowerbed. The mums are brick red flowers, tall as my knees, with deep green foliage. I imagine the interloper with a huge plant in either hand, trolling down the sidewalk late at night with the moon shining on his back.
The occasional little girl snipping a springtime daffodil, or the poor college student picking a bouquet for his girlfriend never bothers me. But no one removes an entire plant. Let alone two. This is strange and wrong.