NOTE: Photo by Clipdrop.
I am a person of many rituals — I would say that I habitually ritualize all sorts of things — but one conceit that hasn’t dulled with repetition is the line separating Mardi Gras from Ash Wednesday. I suppose I was inspired by friends’ account of this moment on Bourbon Street in New Orleans; when midnight strikes, the party is shut down all at once, with street sweepers pushing the wild kids from the street, curbing the broken beads and beer into stale puddles. Mind you, this isn’t how most New Orleanians celebrate their signature holiday; most of the wild kids come in from out of town. Nor is New Orleans the original or default template for a Carnival party; cities throughout the south and the Caribbean, not to mention Venice and Rio de Janeiro have their own distinctive and spectacular Carnival traditions, while cities like Saint Paul, Minnesota have developed more recent traditions. One of the common threads binding all Mardi Gras celebrations together, however, is the contrast between winter excess and winter austerity.
And so, sometime late last Tuesday, I sat down with my wife and my older daughter, watched the wonderful penultimate episode of Freaks and Geeks, and sipped a fruity cocktail out of a half-coconut I’d sawed open. (“Why do you have to drink that out of a coconut?” I think my wife asked. “Because I get to drink it out of a coconut!” I answered.)
When midnight struck, and the kids were asleep, I went outside, disassembled the beads-and-mask kiosk we’d put out for our neighbors, took down the multi-colored Christmas lights studding our plane tree, and packed the rich food and drink away in our fridge and freezer. I lit a candle, started a fast, and finished cleaning for the night.
After a Carnival season of delightful excess, the following calm of Lent comes as a relief. Forty days of diligence and introspection is not something to be dreaded, but to be appreciated for its clarity and dutiful labor. If Mardi Gras suggests a lurid sunset on an unexpectedly balmy February evening, then Ash Wednesday is the bracing gray of a February morning.
It’s been a busy few months for me, with more busy months ahead! In addition to life — kids, clients, house, and writing — which does not stop, I’ve been promoting my new novella Hollywood, recently published by Lethe Press. Lethe describes the book as “a new American myth for readers who enjoy a bit of madness in their weird fiction.” And I’ve described it as “a love story with a bit of magic.” I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I’m also undertaking a book tour this winter/spring to promote the novella, including stops this next week in Detroit (Next Chapter Books, with Kelsey Ronan) and Flint (Totem Books, with Jan Worth). Other stops will include Brighton, Hamtramck, and Chicago. And if you’d like me to make a stop in your town, let me know! All of the details are available at https://www.connorcoyne.com/hollywood/.
I also want to address, briefly, the matter of this Substack. Because I have let my paid subscribers down in the last year. I promised you one short story per month, and this update’s very brief story will be the fifth. My excuses are sundry and predictable (see the sentence “In addition to life” above), but you paid for my writing and I owe it to you; I’ve got some catching up to do! I just wanted to acknowledge that and let you know that I’m bumping these updates to the top of my ToDo list until I get all caught up!
THE ACCIDENTAL GARDEN
Reluctance was the word of the day when Ross moved across town into the kinda run-down cottage house. It was a downgrade from the other place — the high-rise — but he couldn’t afford the rent there anymore, and besides, this was closer to work.
Ross didn’t mind that the cottage was smaller; the aging appliances weren’t a big deal, either. The main source of Ross’ reluctance was the school that abutted the back of this new home. It was an abandoned school, and whenever Ross drove past it the next block over, he was disturbed by the smashed windows where jagged glass thrust up like fangs, and by the heavy darkness that hung thick on the other side.
Worst of all, at the back of his own modest lot, at the terminal point of a thin brick path that twined between two apple trees, there was a small metal gate that connected Ross’ yard with the school yard. Ross didn’t like that at all. Through all the winter months, he cloaked his reluctance in his own bright light. He drew his curtains tight against the hidden desolation. Whenever he left the house to shovel the sidewalk or scrape the snow from his car, he squinted in the direction of the path and the apple trees, worried about what was there and all that it represented. Even though he got used to the little cottage, and came to enjoy its tickling drafts and creaking ways, he couldn’t get used to that vast, vacant structure as his nearest neighbor.
One day, in late May, Ross finally pulled the rusty lawnmower out of the shed behind the cottage, and started mowing the shaggy, overgrown lawn. First, he mowed up near the house, then followed the lawn back between the apple trees to the final gate. For the first time in months, he looked beyond it toward the unkempt grounds, the empty school. Before, he had seen fire-scorched windows, frosted ruts, the devastation of winter. But now, the grass was tall, spotted with shoots of coneflower, mottled by sprawling mounds of clover. All about clustered a hundred tufts of milkweed, heavy with flower, ready to burst, and few early butterflies flitted drunkenly among the first timid blooms. Vines crawled across the school, lustrous and green, and they transformed it utterly. Before, this had been what the humans had given up. Now it was a shape, a structure, a thing to be climbed, an earth’s thing reclaimed for the earth.
Ross stopped the mower and looked out upon the grounds of the school. He was alone with it, and the sun beamed down, and the wind tugged through his hair.
He stood there for a long time, watching and listening.