Webster's Dictionary defines dictionary as: "a reference book containing words usually alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciations, functions, etymologies, meanings, and syntactical and idiomatic uses." Beginning your story or essay with a quote from a dictionary is nearly the most clichéd and hackneyed way to communicate to the reader that he or she will be indulging in a piece of sophomoric crap. There may be a childish elegance to writing as bad as a freshman, but to write as bad a as a sophomore is merely embarrassing. Actually sticking to the definition, examining it and using it as a kind of thesis, while salvageable from the standpoint of dignity, is nevertheless very very boring. Most people end up abandoning the word altogether, except in a conclusion written straight from Dave Berry Guide to Writing Great! Indeed, the only thing more hackneyed and embarrassing than to begin with a dictionary definition is to reveal, at some point, that the narrator's mother is dead. Mine is. She died when I was 12, in the throes of puberty, which is the excuse I use for being such an asshole to women, and also my hope for salvation. When they found her crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, so ambiguous, maybe suicide, maybe an accident, maybe murder, you'll never find out until I confront my father at the end of the narrative, but where was I? oh, yes, when they found her, it really really brought on a sudden and permanent case of self awareness. God god god I am so self aware now. I mean, how could I not be? I said, and let me just quote me: "When they found her crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, ... it really brought on self awareness." That disconnect is vital. I didn't say when I found her, or when they told me they found her... because you know I am going to explore it again and again and again, come at it from every angle, and if you chop out those pages and put them next to one another, you can see how each one is bigger than the one before it, desperate struggles between existentialism and homosexuality. God, I want to fuck Camus. And Bret Easton Ellis. I mean, I'm 29. Or 49. I am defiantly something-9. I didn't actually attend the Iowa Workshop, or earn an MFA. But you'd never know it. Check out how I descend into that sort of masterful tale-weaving. Thrill to it, fuckers. The sentences without verbs. The occasional misuse to a preposition. Sparks your ears. Forgotten pronouns. Eskimo. When you can sum it all up with a one word sentence, you've got them teetering at the top of the stairs, and a follow-up run-on sentence is a climax of contusions, concussions, and other elegant acts of alliteration. God, if I was gay and had nice abs, I'd fuck me. My dad was in my room, crying. I wish I could tell you it was the only time I'd seen him cry, or the first time, but in a subtle twist of irony, I will report that dad cried all the time. Mostly movies, sometimes sit-coms. Tonight, on a very special Blossom. Uh oh, better get the TP (we never wasted money on Kleenex). There he was. "Son, Cooper, oh, god, Son?" He blubbered and I was scared and creeped out at the same time. Then I remember the words "mother," and "stairs" and "they said she didn't suffer," and something about Carol. I think Carol is the name of that girl in the photos all over the house, the one mom talked to on the phone sometimes. Carol? Found out later there was a sorority girl and a townie and a car and bottle of something stolen or homemade and a need to reject a rich father and a Catholic sensibility and a wedding and 6 months later a trip the hospital and 16 years later another one but this one was on purpose, and 12 years later my dad crying on my bed and he hadn't even been watching M*A*S*H so I knew something was bad. I'm afraid I can't say anything more than that, because I need to use ambiguity to give you the same vague curiosity that I had. Now that I've gave you just a hint, you know what it was like for me at the time. Isn't that clever. Oh, crap, I almost forgot to tell you about the OPT. That's not "opt," but "Oh Pee Tee." The OPT is the One Pure Thing, that charming little object, that small morsel of innocence. The serial killer's teddy bear, the secret tree branch where the abused child hides, the locket my dead mother gave me which I never seemed to throw out or put too far away into storage. Except it wasn't a locket--for me, the OPT was a diary I had kept when I was 6. Just 20 pages or so, some of it on colored pencil. Notice how this is all reportage, and none of it seems to forward a plot? It seems I've so focused on the moods and themes and auras of my life, I've forgotten that every narrative needs some action. A reason to read, as it where. I mean, every fucker has a story, or a background at least. In as much as the English language has these things called gerunds which more or less guarantee that it is impossible do be not doing any thing at any one time, at the very least, you're either lying down, standing up, sitting, kneeling, hanging plunging, or what have you, so too is it impossible to exist without here having been in some kind of realm to have existed in. Crap. Okay, one time I met my grandfather. He'd shunned us all, of course, when mom got knocked up by the loser from the wrong side of the frontage road. I was 20, it was 8 years after the thing with the stairs. The phone. "Hello?" A pause. "I'd like to speak to Cynthia." Another pause. "Who?" Another one. "Jackson? Put my daughter on the phone." "No, this is his son" It was weird because I knew my mom's name, but she'd always been mom, and even dad referred to her as "your mom." And her name hadn't been spoken in 8 years, and it wouldn't have been, because I was born in an era when Cynthia was a horrible name to paint on a child, and so none of my friends where called that, and none of the women I treated horribly where called that. But finally I figured this out, and at the same time I figured out this guy wanted to talk to my dead mother, I realized he must be her father, and I realized this guy hadn't spoken to her in at least 8 years, and no one had, and he didn't know she was dead. "Is your mother at home?" The voice said. Like I was some little kid and this salesman wanted to find someone with a credit card. "My mother is dead." I said, and hung up the phone. Then I went and did some drugs and slept with some fairly decent women who's souls I didn't care about. A few days later, I walk into the house in the afternoon. It was a Wednesday, classes had been cancelled because of a gas leak or a bomb threat or one of the deans was caught with a junior or something. I don't remember. I walk into the house, and I'm kind of creeped out cause the door's open and I think maybe dad's home. So I walk as quietly as possible into my room, and there's this man there. "Hello?" And he just keeps standing there, as if he has very right too, like when someone comes in on a cop who's leafing through a diary and they get all indignant but the cop doesn't give two figs because he's a cop, right? And he IS reading my diary, my OPT, and my first instinct is to cry! Like my dad! "Who the hell are you?" "I'm Cynthia's father, boy. Show some respect." That was easy. I walked up and popped him. I'd never hit anyone my whole life, but it was instinctual. I planted my left foot, shot my fist forward, and snapped my wrist back right at the point of contact. Hit him square in the forehead. He fell down, dropping my book, and I grabbed it and stood over him for a minute. I could see the anger fighting with the fear on his face. The guy was taller than me, heavier than me, probably could have pasted me six ways till Tuesday in his prime. Maybe I was the first person who'd ever had the guts to hit him. Then I went into the living room, found something typical in a decanter, and sipped it until dark. At some point the old man left, and dad came home. He had a look on his face. He'd been crying. He seemed startled to see me. "Was... was your grandfather here?" "Yep." "Did you hit him?" "Yep." "Cooper, why?" I just started at him for a while. "Coops, he's pressing charges!" "Did you kill my mom?" I said. Dad just burst into tears.