Crew Cuts

42 WLT JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2015 special section flash nonfiction featuring brian doyle 42 josey foo 44 lia purpura 45 vikram kapur 46 dmitry samarov 47 In September 2012, WLT featured very short—often-called “flash”—fiction. Turning to a less-explored but related form, WLT here collects five very short nonfiction pieces—all under 1,000 words. In their preface to The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction, Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney distill good flash nonfiction writing down to “the writer’s experience of the world made small and large at the same time.” In his introduction to the Field Guide, editor Dinty W. Moore traces the history of the form back to Heraclitus, through Michel de Montaigne, on to Benjamin Franklin, through the burst of energy provided by flash fiction, and then to contemporary writers William Least Heat Moon, Eduardo Galeano, Michael Ondaatje, Abigail Thomas, and Naomi Shihab Nye. “All along the way,” Moore says, “brief nonfiction has attempted to capture the reader’s attention and imagination in the first few words, and to hold it— uninterrupted—until the final period.” A memory, a letter, a hike, a resuscitation, and a series of walks: each essay here takes us through both physical and emotional landscapes and provides a flash of insight. Together, they provide a glimpse of this rapidly developing genre. Crew Cuts by Brian Doyle THERE WERE FOUR OF US BOYS who needed crew cuts so our dad stuffed us into the station wagon to go get crew cuts. Our brother Seamus died when he was a baby so he does not need a crew cut. Sometimes two of us brothers leave the slightest space between us in the car for Seamus but we do not tell anyone because our dad’s face will tighten under his crew cut like someone turned a knob in his face. He was at work in the city when Seamus died and he had to leave work early in the afternoon when you were not supposed to leave work yet and he came all the way home on the train from the city not knowing what was the matter only that something was so badly the matter that our neighbor called and said tersely Jim come home right now and when dad got home he found his first son his namesake dead he just died in his stroller one moment our mother was tickling his fat chin and the next he was a spirit traveling on unimaginable paths into the Limitless Mercy of the Lord. Someday we will meet him again. Our grandfather said so. He had a crew cut also. When he died we asked grandmother if the Lord would give him crew cuts now and she said we were vulgar cruel boys and we should be ashamed of ourselves and she went to her room. She sulks, she sulked, she will sulk. Seamus was too young to have a crew cut but he might well have a crew cut right now this minute unless he has not aged at all or has aged in unimaginable ways in the Halls of Heaven. Crew cuts are one dollar each but four for three dollars. Our oldest brother goes first because he is in a hurry. He is joining the Navy. He is always in a hurry. He pays for his own crew cut and rushes out of the barber shop. Our dad’s face gets two notches Sometimes two of us brothers leave the slightest space between us in the car for Seamus but we do not tell anyone because our dad’s face will tighten under his crew cut like someone turned a knob in his face. WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 43 TOP PHOTO : SOFÍA BORIOSI BOTTOM PHOTO : JERRY HART tighter. Next up are us two brothers who sometimes leave room for Seamus. We are so close in age that we are treated like twins most of the time. We climb into adjacent chairs and the barber goes back and forth from one to another to entertain our youngest brother. The barber makes a tiny mistake while he is laughing with our dad and he nicks my sort...