NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
The Cavendish Pie Shop has just opened for the day. I am waiting at the bus stop standing on a patch of cinders between the drainage ditch and Maxwell Avenue. Even though it snowed last night, Mrs. Rutherford is outside directing her help as they arrange a few small tables and chairs behind the railing that separates the sidewalk from the parking lot. Some one else is talking to Mrs. Rutherford and waving at me from under the awning. She beckons me over but I don’t want to walk across and miss the bus. It’s Diddlie. She has given up gesticulating and is now walking as fast as she can towards me across the parking lot, with a basket full of goldenrod on one arm. She shouts to me from across the road, something about the blog, but I can’t hear as a helicopter is going over. Now the rapid high-pitched, clicking and thundering of a passing diesel truck is followed by the sound of cars moving slowly in low gear. When the traffic subsides she runs across the road and shouts “Your blog is a mess!” I am not sure if she is irritated by the noise or by me.
“What do you mean?”
“Why didn’t you come over and talk to us?”
“I am waiting for the bus.”
“Where’s your car?”
“In the driveway.”
“Listen, I was reading thing of yours last night. I mean the blog.” She stands squarely in front of me frowning and accusatory, holding her basket with both hands. Yellow pollen powders the front of her pea coat. It rubbed off as she ran holding the basket in against herself. Her scarlet woolen scarf ripples by the side of her head in the gusts from passing traffic. “You have the same text in the posting called ‘Diddlie’s Place’ as in the posting called ‘Diddlie’s Disaster’. You also misspelled ‘cue’ in Quantum Cue. You’ve got, ‘q-u-e,’ it should be ‘c-u-e’ and there’s more.”
“Oh, thanks for telling me.” A passing motorcycle backfires as it roars past. Pausing for the noise, I go on as thinning blue smoke spreads slowly across the road until a speeding car excites it. “Where do you get those flowers this time of year?”
She ignores the question. “You should be more careful. Can’t you spell?”
“No, never could.”
“You’re a writer aren’t you?”
“Yes”
“Well you ought to be able to spell. I mean it is so basic”
“Writing isn’t just spelling.”
“When are you going to fix it?” I feel caught in some criminal act.
“I’m working on it.”
“No you’re not. You’re standing here leaving me in a crummy misspelled messed-up text.”
“Sorry about that. I mean, at home, this morning, I was working on it earlier.”
“Why don’t you just leave me out and simplify it a little? I think it’s too chaotic.”
“Are you going to tell me where you get the goldenrod?”
“No.”
“So what’s the secret?”
“There’s no secret, but I always have it when needed.”
“Do you buy it? I wish I could grow those things in February snow.”
The bus arrives suddenly, though its approach should have been obvious up the long straight slope from the south. The front doors unfold with a bursting hiss, over the rhythmical repetitions of the engine. No one is getting off and Diddlie steps up ahead of me. I don’t see her pay her fare. I pay mine as I get on. Can’t see Diddlie as I walk down the aisle past empty seats to sit near the exit half way down. After settling into a window seat, I find her next to me.
“You wouldn’t understand” she says.
“Wouldn’t understand what?”
“You don’t understand who I am.”
“What do you mean? I am writing you.”
“You said yourself you get lost.”
“So?”
“Forget it. Get it together, and stop embarrassing me.”
“Yes I will. It’s a big job for me Diddlie. Sorry you are embarrassed.”
“Why do you have to have all that stuff derived from other writers, or from physics,
Planck, Rutherford, the Cavendish Laboratory, and whatever? I mean who’s ever heard of them but a few scientists?”
“You have, it seems.”
“I can’t remember all that stuff from school, but I did a search and found Ernest Rutherford is a, ‘New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics.’ So what?”
“It’s another way to connect the story with the world.”
“It’s another way for you to show off. You think it’s so smart and literary.”
“So you think it’s just a snob thing.”
“Yeah, it’s nothing to do with the story.”
“You mustn’t take it so literally. All those references are there for your diversion and amusement.”
“I think you’ve lost the thread. I’ve told you that before.”
“My work is to find the way. I told you that before.”
“Okay how’s it going to end?”
“What do you mean?”
“In contrast with books, that is novels.”
“Novels end when the plot works out.”
“Yes and blogs?”
“Do they have plots?”
“That’s it. Do they?”
“Mostly they’re like diaries or notebooks; full of opinions, rants, and what ever else the blogger thinks of.”
“So there’s no knowing what to expect from a blog.”
“I don’t know. I don’t expect much.”
“Any way it is a new thing with interesting possibilities.”
The bus has stopped and the aisle is crowded with people getting on at the shopping center carrying bags and backpacks. The bus starts moving out but voices cry out to stop. The driver shouts something inaudible and opens the door. More passengers crowd on, pressing closer together in the aisle, some chatting in Spanish.
“You have too many characters.”
“There’s a lot of people in Fauxmont, a variety of people. I want to give some sense of that.”
“Okay, okay. Why don’t you call it the Fauxmont Pie Shop or something?”
“The Cavendish adds another theme, an additional layer of meaning.”
“So why not use references to sports, famous players, and games that people would understand?”
“I would if I knew anything about sports.”
Diddlie giggles saying “Sweetie you’re so out of it!”
“I can only use things that come to mind.”
“So first you blunder into a muddle then try and work your way out. Is that it?”
“It’s one way of putting it.”
“You ever heard of an outline, like in high school?”
“I remember that.”
“Who do you think is reading it anyway?”
“You.”
“Besides me. I don’t count. I am part of it and I want out!”
“No I am not leaving you out. You’re a central part of it.”
“Do you really think no one is reading it?”
“Don’t suppose anyone is. Haven’t any way to tell, really.”
“So I need not be so embarrassed? Is that it?”
“No I’m not saying that. A few friends have glanced at it and
left comments. Nothing embarrassing to you though.”
“Who has time to read it anyway?”
“Over two hundred spammers left coments.”
“Are they readers or even real people?”
“No idea, maybe a program capable of searching for key words on the net and inserting a generic comment.”
It is remarkably quiet. Diddlie coughs into her scarf and someone’s phone is ringing in the distance. There’s shouting and whistling outside, though I can’t tell what it’s about. She goes on.
“There are more people writing and blogging than reading you know. It’s a big ego thing.“
“Blogs give people a new opportunity to say something to the world.”
“Right, and who’s interested?”
Some one is shouting again. Looking up I see the driver is standing by the front door. “End of the line sir. Every body gets off here.”
The other passengers have gone. I move across the seat from the window toward the aisle and finding Diddlie is gone.
