Ralph Pullins

Please tell me I am beautiful. Please fill my emptiness with your approval, tell me I'm valuable, tell me I'm worthwhile. Please. Ive put so much effort into this. Please tell me it isn't a waste. It takes discipline you know, and work to do this, to become this, it takes skill and practice and dedication and a willingness to be exposed, to feel open to criticism to judgement, to be consumed by the insatiable maw of your audience, and if you-re not careful you become a commodity. You become content. How much of myself do I have to reveal? What parts do you want to see?  How exposed, how vulnerable, is this enough?  Is this? When I started I thought I was unique, that people would love me for me, but I have found myself chasing something, showing parts that are private, that are meant just for me, and every new low I stoop to there is always someone there waiting, asking for more, asking to see it all, showing me that there is always a step lower, that there is no bottom to ...

 It is 6:18 in the morning, and I am going to work.  I've had only a few hours sleep, though I can feel the jittery electricity of a caffeine surge beginning to find its way into my blood.  It is raining heavily and it is still dark, though I can see the beginnings of sunrise somewhere off to the left.  I am on the freeway, travelling around eighty miles an hour, because this is Michigan and if you're not going eighty you're holding up traffic. There is construction on this section, though I have seen it a thousand times before because I travel exactly this route nearly every day.  And then-  Theres some water that had pooled up, some failure of the drainage, the construction left incomplete, and this is Michigan so the construction is never complete, so the water pooled up, and at eighty miles an hour the water catches the wheel, there's a pull to the left, to the concrete barrier still there from the construction, and the front left fender of the car catc...

Consider the huckleberry.  It is a stubborn plant, one that only grows above a certain altitude and in a particular climate, so they can be difficult to locate.  But where it does grow, it flourishes, so many people find themselves in a huckleberry patch in the summer, picking to their heart's content.   For those new to huckleberries, however, perhaps an introduction, a tutorial of sorts, is in order. Step One: If you want to find huckleberries, you have to go to where the huckleberries are.  So what you will have to do is load up your poor wheezing minivan with your family and friends, and drive clear the hell up to the top of a mountain, somewhere in the eastern part of the Pacific Northwest. You will drive up to the top and view several lakes which should be spectacular but will find yourself distracted by the wind, the smoke of wildfires and the looming specter of the death of your mother. Step Two: find a patch.  You will pack everybody back up in the...

 I want to show you something you said, and you pulled the fuse from your chest.  And I stood, I did, and I watched you light it and watched it burn.  Now watch you said, as I explode. I can't I say I can't stay, but what is there but to stay, to watch, what is there but to bear witness? And it burns, it hisses and sputters, but it burns. What can I do? Should I leave you alone? Is there a safe distance?  is there a way to not get hurt? Should I walk away, leave you to your violent end?  And of course I can't, and of course you know that. Watch this, you said, and lit the fuse. And I can't stand it, and I reach for it, I try to put it out, stop the burn, but it slips through my fingers, like smoke, like a ghost, I reach and you grab my hand and you say no.  Watch this, you said, and lit the fuse. There is an inevitability to it, the inevitable explosion the inevitable end, you lit the fuse and asked me to watch as you die; I want to show you something, you ...

This is a story I wrote a while ago, for an anthology put out by my now nonexistent publisher, and it is one of my favorite things I have ever written. It is rare, but sometimes, the words come out exactly how you want them to come out.  This was that, one of those magic and rare times where the song I wanted to sing just allowed itself to be sung.  The title is shamelessly stolen from an 800 Octane song off of their album Rise Again, a song that set me thinking about this story and how I wanted to tell it.    Paging Mr. Bronson  A story by Ralph Pullins I roll over and look at the clock.  4:43. In the morning.  I think of the call I received four or five hours ago, as if I hadn’t been thinking of nothing else while I stared at the ceiling and didn’t sleep.  I heave a sigh, hoping, but not really believing that I can get this heavy feeling off of my chest.  I sit up in bed, look over at my still sleeping wife.  Hell, I decide, might as ...