Seminar in Creative Nonfiction

This is the story I wrote for my last class, Creative Nonfiction. I'm not very happy with it. I think I really needed to slow down in the telling of it. It seems rushed near the end, probably because I wanted to get done with it.

Matt Butcher
Seminar in Creative Nonfiction
January 11, 2006
No Room at the Women’s Shelter

We were out of pop. It was Friday night and I was just going to stay home and watch a movie on cable. My wife didn’t want to watch the science fiction movie so she was already playing Clue with our eleven-year-old daughter Morgan while the baby slept. I had a craving. The juice in the fridge wouldn’t do it for me. I wanted pop. And a Snickers.

Templeton’s US Gas was less than a block away. It was one of those independently-owned little hick gas stations with two pumps that stocked munchies, cigarettes, and live bait. I stumbled into the empty phone stall next to the door as I held it open for a lady leaving with a six-pack of Heineken. She had to maneuver around a small Labrador that was chained to the drainpipe.

Two female coworkers behind the counter of lottery tickets and beef jerky must have shared four hundred pounds between them. I’ve seen them a hundred times before being in here but still had no idea what their names were. They knew me from teaching at the local junior high. They had sweat on their faces and exasperation on their lips as they talked to the lady that was using their phone from over the counter. Hearing snippets of the phone conversation, the ladies kept grumbling to each other and tried to get the phone back. I walked to the coolers in the back, past the chips.

“Yeah, we’re stuck here,” the woman said into the phone. For the first time, I actually looked at her through the glass of the cooler as I grabbed a two-liter of Diet Pepsi. She was haggard with that blond hair that looked like fettuccine noodles left out overnight. A faded denim jacket covered her skeletal frame. When she turned around, I noticed the nicotine-stained gaunt face and the wide eyes. The brush of the front of her hair reminded me of a music video I saw back in 1983 or so. Pat Benatar, I think it was.

Next to her, almost huddled inside the jacket, was a girl that looked about fifteen. She stood with mouth agape and sunken cheeks, of which I made a quick stereotype of a teenager that did not have it all upstairs. I had seen that look before in girls in my English class that never wanted to be in school, and as a teacher, I knew the prospects weren’t too high. She seemed defeated. Even her hair had less style than her mother’s.

I walked quickly down the candy aisle and snatched a King-size Snickers before I could think twice about the fat content. As I approached the counter with my three bucks to pay, the women behind the counter were only too eager to run to the register to help me out. They wanted away from that woman that had borrowed the phone only to put a stranglehold on it.

“No, the shelter is all full, they told me,” the woman said into the phone. Suddenly, I wanted out of the building. If I were watching TV right now, I would have turned the channel on those pictures of third world children in poverty, out of helpless frustration or the fact that there was nothing I could do. I don’t understand completely the feeling of disregard. If I was driving home from work and a car accident had stopped traffic, I still would feel inconvenienced as I saw the ambulance come down the road. I once joked with my wife during one of these car accidents, some line I saw out of a movie, “Somebody better be dead,” and she hit me in the shoulder, saying, “Matthew, that’s not nice.” All I knew is that I would be glad once I got my change and was out of there.

I didn’t have the six cents over the two dollars in cash, so I had to give all three of my bills. I waited impatiently for the 94 cents in change. She had to crack open the quarter roll. Her long fingernails prevented her from easily taking out the four pennies. I watched the secondhand on the clock on the wall behind her move imperceptibly slowly.

The woman on the phone hung up and began talking. She didn’t talk to anybody in particular, just to anyone within earshot. “The shelter won’t take us. My girlfriend is going to try to get here but she’s in Seattle right now. How long will it take her to get here?”

No one answered immediately. Then the second worker chimed in with, “We’re across the Puget Sound here in Bremerton. It’ll take her at least an hour and a half, depending on exactly where she is.” She said this as she looked at the clock. It was nine o’clock already. They closed at ten. Where were they going to stay until then?

“Well, we can stay here until she gets here, but I gotta do something about the dog,” she said as she thumbed toward the Labrador on the drainpipe.
“You have a dog, Matt,” the lady on the register said as she finally dropped the change into my waiting palm.

I stumbled over my words for a moment. And I don’t stumble over them very often. I’m an English teacher, prone to adlibbing entire classes when necessary. I’ve given lectures with no warning and not stumbled over myself. Something about the situation made me nervous. “Yeah, I have Milo.”

“Is there any way that you could take my dog for the night?” the haggard woman asked. “We’re stuck out here and my girlfriend is allergic. He’s a good dog. We’ll pick him up tomorrow.”

She kept talking, pleading, telling me how good the dog was and that it was only for the night. There was no place to say no. I can see how the women behind the counter had given up the phone to her, even with the payphone outside. I looked at the workers and then remarked about how I lived right out the window there. They looked at me as if I was their only hope, as if I was the light at the end of that tunnel. I could see how they would have to stay with her past closing, waiting for some woman from Seattle who may not come at all. And it was just the dog.

“I can take the dog for the night,” I said. And I went home with a new dog.
Milo went berserk when I got home, tugging after a new dog. They dry humped each other for a while as my wife looked at me with bewilderment and mouth agape. My daughter, of course, thought we had a new pet.

“No, sweetie, the dog is just here for the night.” I finally looked at my wife, Amy. “Is that okay, hon? I got stuck with him. There are these…women…at the gas station that don’t have a place to stay or something. The women’s shelter is full and the women behind the counter don’t know what to do. I thought taking the dog for the night was small. They got stuck with the two women.”

My wife relented after my impassioned plea. I called it my good deed for the week. After settling Milo down with a new dog in the house, I finally started watching the movie. I was half asleep on the couch when a knock came from the door.

Out the window as I got up, I noticed two quick things. First, it was ten-thirty. Second, I noticed it was that woman and her daughter from the store. Those women behind the counter sent them here. They must be checking on the dog.
I opened the door and she immediately started in. “My girlfriend can’t make it now. Is there anyway we can just sleep on your couch here until the morning? I can call another friend in the morning. Or I can try calling her now.”

I already had the dog inside. I wondered what my wife would say. I wondered how I was going to get out of this. One good deed all of a sudden was becoming way more than I signed on for. It was as if I started giving my money to those commercials about those third world children and then those children showed up on my doorstep.

I invited them in to use the phone again. This was my second mistake.

“Thank you so much,” the woman started. “We will just make a quick phone call to make sure where our friend is. She said she was on her way, but maybe she got lost…” Her speech drifted off in my mind as Amy peeked around the corner. They tried calling this other friend but he or she was unable to be reached.
I didn’t know what the hell to do. While she tried the phone again, I went to Amy and took her to the backroom. “What do I do?” I whispered with waving arms.

“What are they trying to do?” she asked, continually peeking through the hutch in the living room.

“They’re trying to call some friend from Seattle. They got stuck here and the women’s shelter was full or something. They want to spend the night on the couch. How do I get ‘em outta here?”

“I don’t know. You can’t just say, ‘Get out,’” my wife said. She was trying to think of somewhere to put them.

We went back and forth for a few minutes. We couldn’t come up with a realistic excuse why they couldn’t stay on our sofa. It was eleven o’clock at night now. Anything short of drop kicking them out now meant figuring something out for them. It seemed actually easier to let them stay now. We relented and said they could stay on the sofa, telling them that we had to leave pretty early, Amy to work at the hair salon and me and the kids going to Morgan’s soccer game.
My wife, daughters, and I went to our bedroom after I pulled out the sleeper sofa for them. I didn’t fall asleep for hours. I left the TV on and kept getting up to check the house. I peeked out the door, just before it started to creak. I felt like somebody spending his life peeping out his own peephole at the world.
In the morning, they tried calling more people as I got my eldest daughter ready for her soccer game. Amy worked early at the salon that day so she had already snuck out the back. Phone call after phone call. She even had to call long distance a couple of times. Apparently, she was from Oakland, I had gathered.
“We have to go to her soccer game,” I told them finally, when we only had moments to spare to get to the elementary school. “The gas station will let you use their phone again.”

I kept getting that rapid, senseless talk again from her. “Well, my friend from Seattle said she got lost last night. She’s in Gig Harbor now and coming soon. She used to live in California near us.” Again, more useless information. I just wanted to know when they’d be out of there.

I finally picked up their two bags myself and brought them out to the porch. I had my daughters with me, one in her orange soccer uniform, one baby all bundled up on my arm. “We have to go.” I was adamant now. Somehow, the daylight made it easier to kick them to the curb.

I locked up and left them on the porch as I pulled away in the Explorer. My daughter finally asked, “Dad, what was that all about?”

I paused before answering. I could give her the truth, that I got stuck and didn’t know how to throw out a piece of trash woman and her daughter. I could tell her that I couldn’t come up with a good excuse or a good lie. “Remember when we read about Jesus saying to take people in because you never know if they are angels or not? Well, I just helped out a bit.” I just lied to my daughter. Angels don’t thrust themselves upon you. I doubt I would’ve helped at all if I weren’t forced against a wall.

I half expected them to be on my porch still when we got back. I saw the dog tethered to the drain pipe of the gas station as we pulled in. We went inside and stayed there. If they were angels, it was time for somebody else’s good deed. I reminded myself never to buy another candy bar from that place again, no matter how bad my craving.




Matt Butcher
Essay on Revision
January 26, 2006



After writing the piece the first time, I was actually quite proud of myself. For once, I actually finished a piece that I always wanted to write. That is one great thing about due dates. I never finish stuff when I am outside of class. I must have hundreds of little stories started but none of them are finished.
After I read the critiques from the other students and the teacher, I was depressed. Now there were a ton of changes to make to the real soul of the piece. The terrible part is that I agreed with all of them.
Trained in literature and criticism, I can dissect a text. After one fabulous freshman English teacher who taught me to separate myself from my text so that I can revise it, I can even rip apart my own stuff. Now it is just fixing it that is the problem.
I agreed with one major problem with my work. I agreed that it was rushed near the end. I know that I can set up a story. I have done that a million times. Somehow, I have noticed that I get bored with myself writing it, knowing where the story is going. When you know the end in your head, it seems hard to me to write the middle. I go into a story with all due readiness. Midway through, I falter and just want to finish the darn thing. I know that’s my biggest writing fault but I can’t seem to help it.
As I tried to revise the piece, what I found was that the majority of it was the feeling of being rushed. The critiques all said they wanted to hear more dialogue and know the character’s inner feelings. I tried my best to peeper it with some of that. To be honest, now I feel that it seems like it was done on purpose, that any of the creative spark was gone. I seemed to be forcing it into place. I agreed with it needing to be done though. However, now writing snippets of dialogue was tough.
There is one point about the story that I wanted to make but just didn’t come across too well. I didn’t want a sappy ending. This is a true story and I didn’t have a revelation about angels or being nice. I was put out by these people and wanted them the hell out of my home. Some inner moral code prevented me from kicking them out completely but I felt perturbed they were there. There wasn’t some final revelation. So I changed the title. I paused for about an hour on “A Little ________” but couldn’t find anything to fill in the blank. I needed something like favor or step that brings you to worse things, but couldn’t find an appropriate one. So I settled on the only reason I let them stay at all, “No Room at the Women’s Shelter.”