Book Blitz: Speak to Me With Tenderness, Howard Sun by Heather Fowler
This is an excerpt from a piece called “Speak to Me With Tenderness, Howard Sun.” In it, our protagonist Lisa combats her growing fascination with an incredibly attractive yet awkward male co-worker who uses multiple personas on Facebook to interact with her. She starts to feel paranoid, not know who is really whom. Her discovery of Howard Sun’s veiled interest is not without a certain irritated and baffled series of exchanges. Read the footnotes to get an insight into what I was thinking as I wrote this piece!
Then came the escalating gifts—two Hershey’s Kisses on her desk one morning that he denied leaving her though she had watched him place them there, the unexpected daffodils, memos he wrote to reduce her workload, that mix CD that floored her since it was full of the sort of well-spoken love songs she couldn’t even imagine him listening to—and just the other day, he had invited her to a football game. “I have two tickets,” he said. “Want one?”
“To go together or apart?” she asked.
“Either way.”
“Well, I’m not going to any football game by myself, so decide what you mean.”
“We could drive together, I suppose,” Howard Sun replied. “But I may have to leave early.” [1]
“I hate football,” she said. “But I’ll consider it.”
Though the game was four days away, two days later, Howard did not come up and check in to say, perhaps, “So, Lisa, are we going or not?” He could have normalized this nonexistent inquiry further by stating something like, “These tickets are expensive and I want to ask another friend.”
They didn’t end up going together. Neither did he go, she found out soon enough. He came to her desk, after she left work, and dropped a poem by Longfellow on her keyboard. This is why, once she decided that he did indeed love her, despite all the bullshit, non-shit he said, it did not surprise her that she would catch him staring at her longingly, only to look away when caught. It also did not surprise her that he would begin, via her Facebook page, to create numerous alternate-personas with which he could “get to know her.” [2]
They were not obvious at first. Sometimes, in fact, more than one of “them” spoke to her on the same day. Each held a trace of Howard. He wanted this small link—he wanted her to know them, yet wanted her to simultaneously not know them. It wasn’t that she didn’t have real Facebook friends, but she also had several of his ghosts, and with more than one thousand friends to her credit—she posted music a lot and people liked that, she guessed—she did not think she could ever eradicate all of his shadows even if she wanted to, and yet, these questions the strangers would ask!
Each reeked of him, though the similarities were weblike and intuitive—so she could not, after a while, explain how she knew that a teenage-girl horror writer was him, freak mystic zealot was him, crazy-obsessive where’s-my-gone-lover was him, nature-nut save-the-environment was him, freaky sex magazine page was him, aspiring poet who never read was him—but she knew.
Every new Howard she talked to would do something weird: Friend her when they had no friends; display a quote that sounded like a fuck off to her patent non-reaction to his mix tape; address something she and Howard had just spoken about, staplers, dreams; or even simply show art or book taste that, in combination with whatever they said first, second, or third, spelled out his name like a flare from an airplane. Howard Sun, are you Emily Peabody from Detroit, Michigan? [3]
Sometimes, he would scheme coordinated themes with his personas and she’d clue in on a new linked identity. Clowns one day, for example. Another day, fashion.
Not that he would admit it. Not that it wasn’t making her feel crazy. Not that it wasn’t wasting her time to reply to “strangers.” In the end, she concluded it was a big situationist experiment, as he’d claimed many times over their scattered lunches throughout the last three years he was into as a sort of unplugged lucid dreaming. And he would one day write a book of essays about it. So this idea made all the more sense when the “shadow” people asked her questions that he had narrowly alluded to in
previous cryptic emails.
Still, she had hardly enough time for real people, much less the shadows of a co-worker she could only suspect was head over heels in love with her, and so she resolved to confront Howard. She had, after all, just enough ammunition to make it appear that she knew more than she did, having strolled past his desk during his bathroom break and seen such a shadow page displayed wherein Shadow Dimwit Non-Reader Poet Fucker [4] had said: “You’re just so kind, Lisa. So lovely. I wish I lived in your town because I would take you out for sure. I would recite Yeats to you, though I think he’s overrated.”
She had replied (all this visible on Howard’s screen): “I hate romance and all stupid pricks who want romance. Sorry.”
Doh, she thought. I guess I’m getting a little crazy honest with how irritating I find this subterfuge. What if Shadow Dimwit Non-Reader Poet Fucker was really some sweet guy, some nice guy that she had clobbered over the head due to recalcitrant, non-telling, situationist, freak magnet and devilishly handsome Howard Sun? She took a moment, actually a few seconds, to ponder this idea, critiquing her own cruelty. [5]
Then, as if a light bulb flashed on in her head, she reminded herself: Shadow Dimwit Non-Reader Poet Fucker is on Howard’s screen, dumbass. This means he is Howard. Howard is him. Howard/Alterna Boy SDNPF had then replied: “Wow. You’re pretty angry.”
She responded: “Yes, I’m actually a rabid bull-dyke lesbian with a preference for hard fisting and walks on the beach. Sorry. Quote me some Kathy Acker, mmmkay? *Grins* And I like my women strong as bull...” [6]
There was no reply that day. None.
[1] I really enjoyed writing this particular story because Howard Sun came to embody, for me, the most annoying kind of man in the world—one who will not confess his feelings. When I was writing this section, I wanted the conversation to mirror the kinds of conversations my female friends and I chat about—in frustration and bafflement—when we attempt to decide whether a man is or is not interested. I wanted the dialogue to contain both the woman’s frustration and her sense of continuously attempting to pin down the very issue of whether the man likes her—what is the reason for his offer of the ticket? I’m also playing here with the concept of how women sometimes agree to go to athletic events when many of us are really in it for the hot-dog and Pepsi and aftermath, for the time with the guy, no matter the season.
[2] There was a time in my life where I felt I was being “friended” by every strange profile on Facebook. My writing itself has spanned some wild topics about sex, love, LGBT issues, mental health, etc.—which means that, for whatever reason, the passive aggressive people online & online role-play gamers have loved to friend my account with more than one of their profiles. When I had 5000 people in my feed, I could often see very strange synchronicities and what appeared to be linked profiles exhibiting odd behaviors—these profiles got my attention because their owners spoke to me in cryptic message and in chat. It got creepy. A few aspects of this entered the story from my own experience.
[3] This is something odd but fascinating. I loved playing with gender in the writing for this piece—was Howard Sun actually Emily Peabody? Who would want a profile where one must pretend to be a middle-aged woman if s/he was not a middle-aged woman—what is going on there psychologically?—because the odd profile brings up a whole lot of questions I think people wonder about when they get weird Facebook friend requests or notice strange lurking profiles, ones that just never seem “authentically male” or “decidedly feminine.” There are people out there who create accounts to play with their desired gender identity. I’m not talking about authentically transgendered people—I’m talking the outliers. Sometimes, these profiles shock me in that they seem so false and yet other people buy into the hype and accept them at face value. Another thing I think is funny about this is that the oddest profiles often have international flirtations going live on their walls—but even these seem over the top. I didn’t hit that idea here with this story, but I did play with the idea of “types” and the lack of verifiable aspects of “people” on the net.
[4] I’m definitely having fun here with one of my personal pet peeves. I hate when people consider themselves poets and don’t actually read poetry—as if their minds will get polluted by other people’s work. I have never known a decent poet who doesn’t read and I am a poet—but the net culture does breed narcissism from men who post “poetry” that they think is brilliant due to pandering/non-picky fans and too many people clicking like on a bunch of words dumped together that aren’t artfully done as a poem. Okay, off the soapbox now. That part of this story is just a private joke between myself and other poet friends about how obnoxious this is.
[5] I’ve done this thing so many times—I think it’s a part of social networking—where you wonder if you are cruel to find a profile or post irritating, but then you decide you are validated and the post really is garbage—because there it is on the screen, reminding you of how you need to unfriend the randoms to get a better quality feed. I just read an article today about unfriending—it basically said that people unfriend others a lot for bad content. Yes. True. From our nearest and dearest, we tend to accept whatever photos of mold or odd quotations they offer—but from strangers, bad content often means instant goodbye.
[6] This part of this story always makes me laugh since I definitely think it is the moment Lisa has had it. She also communicates her willingness to perform cock and ball torture for desirous parties during this exchange, but that part is not included in this excerpt. Maybe this is the moment in the piece where I want the reader to chuckle and the deceiving profile to say, “DOH, CHECK PLEASE!” After all, our protagonist is forced to communicate with fake identities because the real Howard Sun won’t come out. It’s like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where Glinda the Good Witch says, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” to the munchkins. I think this is Lisa’s way of saying the same to Howard when she’s fed up with his cowardice, but a little more aggressively perhaps? Does she mean any of this? Of course not. But I get tempted to respond with overtly perverse answers when people say things to me that are clearly meant to mislead. Seems my characters do, too.
Heather Fowler is the author of the story collections Elegantly Naked In My Sexy Mental Illness; This Time, While We're Awake; People with Holes; and Suspended Heart.
Fowler’s work was named a 2012 finalist for Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award in Short Fiction. She received her M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University. Her stories and poems have appeared in: PANK, Night Train, storyglossia, Surreal South, Feminist Studies, The Nervous Breakdown, and others. Please visit her website: www.heatherfowlerwrites.com
Excerpt:
Then came the escalating gifts—two Hershey’s Kisses on her desk one morning that he denied leaving her though she had watched him place them there, the unexpected daffodils, memos he wrote to reduce her workload, that mix CD that floored her since it was full of the sort of well-spoken love songs she couldn’t even imagine him listening to—and just the other day, he had invited her to a football game. “I have two tickets,” he said. “Want one?”
“To go together or apart?” she asked.
“Either way.”
“Well, I’m not going to any football game by myself, so decide what you mean.”
“We could drive together, I suppose,” Howard Sun replied. “But I may have to leave early.” [1]
“I hate football,” she said. “But I’ll consider it.”
They didn’t end up going together. Neither did he go, she found out soon enough. He came to her desk, after she left work, and dropped a poem by Longfellow on her keyboard. This is why, once she decided that he did indeed love her, despite all the bullshit, non-shit he said, it did not surprise her that she would catch him staring at her longingly, only to look away when caught. It also did not surprise her that he would begin, via her Facebook page, to create numerous alternate-personas with which he could “get to know her.” [2]
They were not obvious at first. Sometimes, in fact, more than one of “them” spoke to her on the same day. Each held a trace of Howard. He wanted this small link—he wanted her to know them, yet wanted her to simultaneously not know them. It wasn’t that she didn’t have real Facebook friends, but she also had several of his ghosts, and with more than one thousand friends to her credit—she posted music a lot and people liked that, she guessed—she did not think she could ever eradicate all of his shadows even if she wanted to, and yet, these questions the strangers would ask!
Each reeked of him, though the similarities were weblike and intuitive—so she could not, after a while, explain how she knew that a teenage-girl horror writer was him, freak mystic zealot was him, crazy-obsessive where’s-my-gone-lover was him, nature-nut save-the-environment was him, freaky sex magazine page was him, aspiring poet who never read was him—but she knew.
Every new Howard she talked to would do something weird: Friend her when they had no friends; display a quote that sounded like a fuck off to her patent non-reaction to his mix tape; address something she and Howard had just spoken about, staplers, dreams; or even simply show art or book taste that, in combination with whatever they said first, second, or third, spelled out his name like a flare from an airplane. Howard Sun, are you Emily Peabody from Detroit, Michigan? [3]
Sometimes, he would scheme coordinated themes with his personas and she’d clue in on a new linked identity. Clowns one day, for example. Another day, fashion.
Not that he would admit it. Not that it wasn’t making her feel crazy. Not that it wasn’t wasting her time to reply to “strangers.” In the end, she concluded it was a big situationist experiment, as he’d claimed many times over their scattered lunches throughout the last three years he was into as a sort of unplugged lucid dreaming. And he would one day write a book of essays about it. So this idea made all the more sense when the “shadow” people asked her questions that he had narrowly alluded to in
previous cryptic emails.
Still, she had hardly enough time for real people, much less the shadows of a co-worker she could only suspect was head over heels in love with her, and so she resolved to confront Howard. She had, after all, just enough ammunition to make it appear that she knew more than she did, having strolled past his desk during his bathroom break and seen such a shadow page displayed wherein Shadow Dimwit Non-Reader Poet Fucker [4] had said: “You’re just so kind, Lisa. So lovely. I wish I lived in your town because I would take you out for sure. I would recite Yeats to you, though I think he’s overrated.”
She had replied (all this visible on Howard’s screen): “I hate romance and all stupid pricks who want romance. Sorry.”Doh, she thought. I guess I’m getting a little crazy honest with how irritating I find this subterfuge. What if Shadow Dimwit Non-Reader Poet Fucker was really some sweet guy, some nice guy that she had clobbered over the head due to recalcitrant, non-telling, situationist, freak magnet and devilishly handsome Howard Sun? She took a moment, actually a few seconds, to ponder this idea, critiquing her own cruelty. [5]
Then, as if a light bulb flashed on in her head, she reminded herself: Shadow Dimwit Non-Reader Poet Fucker is on Howard’s screen, dumbass. This means he is Howard. Howard is him. Howard/Alterna Boy SDNPF had then replied: “Wow. You’re pretty angry.”
She responded: “Yes, I’m actually a rabid bull-dyke lesbian with a preference for hard fisting and walks on the beach. Sorry. Quote me some Kathy Acker, mmmkay? *Grins* And I like my women strong as bull...” [6]
There was no reply that day. None.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] There was a time in my life where I felt I was being “friended” by every strange profile on Facebook. My writing itself has spanned some wild topics about sex, love, LGBT issues, mental health, etc.—which means that, for whatever reason, the passive aggressive people online & online role-play gamers have loved to friend my account with more than one of their profiles. When I had 5000 people in my feed, I could often see very strange synchronicities and what appeared to be linked profiles exhibiting odd behaviors—these profiles got my attention because their owners spoke to me in cryptic message and in chat. It got creepy. A few aspects of this entered the story from my own experience.
[3] This is something odd but fascinating. I loved playing with gender in the writing for this piece—was Howard Sun actually Emily Peabody? Who would want a profile where one must pretend to be a middle-aged woman if s/he was not a middle-aged woman—what is going on there psychologically?—because the odd profile brings up a whole lot of questions I think people wonder about when they get weird Facebook friend requests or notice strange lurking profiles, ones that just never seem “authentically male” or “decidedly feminine.” There are people out there who create accounts to play with their desired gender identity. I’m not talking about authentically transgendered people—I’m talking the outliers. Sometimes, these profiles shock me in that they seem so false and yet other people buy into the hype and accept them at face value. Another thing I think is funny about this is that the oddest profiles often have international flirtations going live on their walls—but even these seem over the top. I didn’t hit that idea here with this story, but I did play with the idea of “types” and the lack of verifiable aspects of “people” on the net.
[4] I’m definitely having fun here with one of my personal pet peeves. I hate when people consider themselves poets and don’t actually read poetry—as if their minds will get polluted by other people’s work. I have never known a decent poet who doesn’t read and I am a poet—but the net culture does breed narcissism from men who post “poetry” that they think is brilliant due to pandering/non-picky fans and too many people clicking like on a bunch of words dumped together that aren’t artfully done as a poem. Okay, off the soapbox now. That part of this story is just a private joke between myself and other poet friends about how obnoxious this is.
[5] I’ve done this thing so many times—I think it’s a part of social networking—where you wonder if you are cruel to find a profile or post irritating, but then you decide you are validated and the post really is garbage—because there it is on the screen, reminding you of how you need to unfriend the randoms to get a better quality feed. I just read an article today about unfriending—it basically said that people unfriend others a lot for bad content. Yes. True. From our nearest and dearest, we tend to accept whatever photos of mold or odd quotations they offer—but from strangers, bad content often means instant goodbye.
[6] This part of this story always makes me laugh since I definitely think it is the moment Lisa has had it. She also communicates her willingness to perform cock and ball torture for desirous parties during this exchange, but that part is not included in this excerpt. Maybe this is the moment in the piece where I want the reader to chuckle and the deceiving profile to say, “DOH, CHECK PLEASE!” After all, our protagonist is forced to communicate with fake identities because the real Howard Sun won’t come out. It’s like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where Glinda the Good Witch says, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” to the munchkins. I think this is Lisa’s way of saying the same to Howard when she’s fed up with his cowardice, but a little more aggressively perhaps? Does she mean any of this? Of course not. But I get tempted to respond with overtly perverse answers when people say things to me that are clearly meant to mislead. Seems my characters do, too.
You can purchase Heather’s book here!
About Heather Fowler
Heather Fowler is the author of the story collections Elegantly Naked In My Sexy Mental Illness; This Time, While We're Awake; People with Holes; and Suspended Heart.
Fowler’s work was named a 2012 finalist for Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award in Short Fiction. She received her M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University. Her stories and poems have appeared in: PANK, Night Train, storyglossia, Surreal South, Feminist Studies, The Nervous Breakdown, and others. Please visit her website: www.heatherfowlerwrites.com
I absolutely love these kinds of posts. It so cool to get inside the author's head. There are so many people in history from whom I wish I could obtain footnotes to their stories!
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