Every Writer Needs a Muse: Mine was Viva

Viva used to come over and get naked.  She was our next door neighbor, a roley-poley girl.  I didn’t find her attractive–I was too young–but she would cut up apples in wedges and put salt on them.  Then, she would serve them up to me on a porcelain plate.  They were pretty good.  So, I would let her come over and get naked.

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Viva was my introduction to fiction; with Viva, I became a real honest-to-goodness writer.  She was game for anything.  So I let her become my muse.

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We would play in my unfinished garage, among the stacks of undelivered Reader’s Digests.  Stacks and Stacks.  My brother was addicted to working—he had three different newspaper routes and was always looking for extra cash.  So he picked up this Reader’s Digest Route.  But the stacks kept growing.

 

They kept growing.

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And growing.

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I don’t think he ever delivered them.  They became a forest—like the trees in Where the Wild Things Are…or some installation at a fancy museum.

 

 

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Viva was always trying to escape her house.  She was a child of divorce.  Her father was a drummer.  They didn’t own; they rented.  There were always wine bottles at her house, which smelled like cats and cigarette smoke.  I know:  that year, my teacher kept on asking us to bring empty wine bottles to school for craft projects.  But my family didn’t drink.  So I would come over to Viva’s house and get her father’s empties.

There were always empties.

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“Do you know what Viva means?”  her father asked.  He was really cool-looking for an old man:  bearded and lanky in that seventies polyester-shirt way.  “It means life in Mexican.”

 

Viva came over and we played soap opera.  She would take off her clothes and then I would pretend I was shocked to catch her in a compromising position with a stranger—a dark, handsome stranger–and then I would accuse her of infidelity.  I would point my finger at her–lightning in my eyes.

 

The scenario was always the same—her lounging in an imaginary bath tub.  Me:  angry as all heck, busting in.  She:  begging forgiveness.  I was a regular playwright.

 

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Once, my brother came in and caught us.  It was my fault:  I had forgotten to lock the door.  He was really stern.  “If you want to get naked, you should do it in your own house.”  Viva hid behind the towers of Reader’s Digests, and made the pile of magazines tremble in terrible shame.

 

Then, Viva moved away.  And there were no more apples with salt.  Sometimes, I will eat apple wedges with salt and think of Viva—my first muse.  I’m eating apple wedges right now and guess what I’m thinking.  I’m thinking that Viva means life.

6 thoughts on “Every Writer Needs a Muse: Mine was Viva

  1. Khanh – You’ve told us so much about Viva’s past and backstory just from those vivid descriptions – very effectively done! And you remind me of how powerful our memories can be. Just the apples brings so much back to you and I think we all have those triggers.

    • Thanks so much, Margot. That’s a high compliment from a real honest to goodness published mystery writer. I’m glad you approved. I’m pretty much a glutton for approval. It’s a terrible character defect.

      You’re right about the apples. I started writing this piece, mainly because I decided to eat apples in this way. It had been a million years–so it was kind of like a less glamorous version of the Proustian Madeleine for me…

  2. I like that your first muse was so innocent. You turned her nakedness and her escape from her unstable home into a game of imagination. But I guess that’s a muse’s job – turning your life into fiction.

    I wonder though, if she was your first muse, how others have there been? And who/what is your current muse?

    • Of course, there have been other muses. Then, I went through a period where I thought muses were sexist. Oh, grad skool! Currently, my wife and life partner is my muse but she’s not taking anything off just for apples. I have to bribe her with cheesecake!

    • Thank you, Nicky. This is a great compliment coming from a real published poetess whose own work has been hailed as a major contribution to American letters. I am humbled by your awesomeness. Are you just yanking my chain?

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