The Caves in Oregon

gone out. He walks into the kitchen to find “the refrigerator bleeds.” Blood has oozed out, and onto the floor due to the excess amount of, now unfrozen, meat stored in it. At that moment, his wife, Becca, arrives home and immediately becomes angry at the scene she finds, crying out “I hate this house” and snapping at Kevin. The narrator goes on to explain that a “lava cave” runs under the town, and occasionally, the caves collapse, taking the electricity- and peaceful mind state of the characters- with it. The narration goes back a year ago, when the characters first got married, explaining their happy life together that has begun to deteriorate as their house does. Before, the couple loved the excitement of the wild life where they lived, but then they found out they were going to have a baby. One day, when Becca was four months pregnant, she and Kevin were sitting in the living room when they heard a scratching at the window. Kevin went to go see what it was, opening the door to a swarm of bats. They all flew into the house, creating a scene of chaos that lasted thirty seconds before they flew out once more, but the next day Becca woke up with cramps and lost the baby. The miscarriage had nothing to do with the bats, but they presented a bad omen and a turning point in Becca and Kevin’s relationship that began to be very cold.  

The description at the beginning of the story of the meat in the refrigerator was very graphic, describing the dripping blood as, “Little droplets gathering there, swelling fatly, and then, too heavy, they break from their purchase and race for the floor.” The description of this scene creates a juxtaposition to the more placid way he tells of the miscarriage, “she delivered, with a rush of blood, the baby that looked like a baby, a little girl, only too small,” simply stating what happened as opposed to going too in-depth as was done with the kitchen scene. This reversal of descriptions is an interesting technique. A miscarriage is thought to be more violent, but by already injecting a rudy scene into the readers head before any mention of it, the author is able to keep the emotionally lauded scene about the miscarriage more clean, not having to go into graphics, making it more bearable to read while still evoking the main ideas. 

The Woods

The story starts with the narrator, Justin, and his father in the woods. Justin is twelve at the time. They stop a mule deer tangled in the barbed wire fence. The animal is still alive at this point. However, the father insists that his son to kill the deer. The image of Justin killing the deer greatly haunts him throughout his life. It causes him to hate his father, the woods and hunting. However, when the father calls and asks the son to go hunting, the son agrees. The two men go into the woods with the father’s dog named Boo. Justin feels a little bit of resentment towards the dog because his father is paying more attention to the dog than to him. Boo then finds a body in the woods. From the site of the body, it is apparent that the body has been there a very long time. Justin wants to go and immediately get help and contact the police. However, Justin’s father puts it off until the next day. That night Justin hears sounds in the woods. However, he does not say anything, and internalizes his fear. The next day, the two men find another (newer)dead body. They decide that it is time to head home. Boo then runs across the river and disappears. Justin and his father then return to camp, only to find it tattered and destroyed. Justin begs to leave but his father will not leave without the dog. They find the a dog collar and blood in the woods. Justin suggests that it is Bigfoot that is lurking in the forest. The two men leave the woods scarred, but get away unscathed. 

The character development in this story is really strong. Justin's relationship with his father really grows throughout the short story. This is seen best when the father decides not to shoot the mule deer (this is towards the end of the story). The author paints such a clear image of the characters thoughts and actions, and, in addition, adds many sensory details. The story is told in Justin’s perceptive and in such a way that it appears as if he is telling you the story out loud. An example of the way he almost speaks to the reader can be seen when he says, “Have you ever noticed, when you lay your head to your pillow and listen- really listen- you can hear footsteps? This is your pulse, the veins in your ear swelling and constricting, slightly shifting against the cotton” (52).  Some of the strong character description is evidenced in the following quote, “Whereas I- with my freshly deodorized armpits, and my $100 safari jacket with Velcro compartments and all sorts of zippers and buttons........ did not feel nearly as comfortable (54).” This quote is so strong because in the sentence prior, it is contrasted with the father being, “natural and fearless” (54).  

The Woods

The story starts with the narrator, Justin, and his father in the woods. Justin is twelve at the time. They stop a mule deer tangled in the barbed wire fence. The animal is still alive at this point. However, the father insists that his son to kill the deer. The image of Justin killing the deer greatly haunts him throughout his life. It causes him to hate his father, the woods and hunting. However, when the father calls and asks the son to go hunting, the son agrees. The two men go into the woods with the father’s dog named Boo. Justin feels a little bit of resentment towards the dog because his father is paying more attention to the dog than to him. Boo then finds a body in the woods. From the site of the body, it is apparent that the body has been there a very long time. Justin wants to go and immediately get help and contact the police. However, Justin’s father puts it off until the next day. That night Justin hears sounds in the woods. However, he does not say anything, and internalizes his fear. The next day, the two men find another (newer)dead body. They decide that it is time to head home. Boo then runs across the river and disappears. Justin and his father then return to camp, only to find it tattered and destroyed. Justin begs to leave but his father will not leave without the dog. They find the a dog collar and blood in the woods. Justin suggests that it is Bigfoot that is lurking in the forest. The two men leave the woods scarred, but get away unscathed. 

The character development in this story is really strong. Justin and his father’s relationship really grows throughout the short story. This is seen best when the father decides not to shoot the mule deer (this is towards the end of the story). The author paints such a clear image of the characters thoughts and actions, and, in addition, adds many sensory details. The story is told in Justin’s perceptive and in such a way that it appears as if he is telling you the story out loud. An example of the way he almost speaks to the reader can be seen when he says, “Have you ever noticed, when you lay your head to your pillow and listen- really listen- you can hear footsteps? This is your pulse, the veins in your ear swelling and constricting, slightly shifting against the cotton” (52).  Some of the strong character description is evidenced in the following quote, “Whereas I- with my freshly deodorized armpits, and my $100 safari jacket with Velcro compartments and all sorts of zippers and buttons........ did not feel nearly as comfortable (54).” This quote is so strong because in the sentence prior, it is contrasted with the father being, “natural and fearless” (54).  

Crash

The story begins in the past-present and then seems to go back through the memories of the narrator. It begins when the narrator is told that someone named Karen has died in a car crash and then skips back to when the narrator is sixteen and moves on from there. He tells of how his life came to be up to the present (the start of the story, when the reader learns that Karen has died) He wanted to go to college, but instead ended up staying to work on the farm his parents own. This was partially because his parents needed his help but his mind was made when he met Karen, and she became pregnant. They got marred and the narrator started to work for his father. From there, the story continues to when their daughter, Hannah, is born. It is written in a way that captures the memory though each "memory just lasts a few sentences. For example, when describing his new job the narrator states "Karen liked it. I didn't, but preatended to for her sake. Later on I told dad, 'even though I'm sticking around, I don't have to like it.' 'Might try to,' he said." (213) The reader absorbs the character's life without the author having to go into too much detail. This quick writing style helps keep the pace of the story.
The change in time keeps the story original. It starts in the past but then goes back even further, telling of when he first met Karen. It continues from there and then jumps to jsut a few days before the narrator wrote this starting with "The other day Ma was writing some christmas cards" (214) The story then proceeds telling how Hannah wants to write a christmas card to her mother. At this point, Hannah is about three years old. The narrator describes his mothers face of pity and says  "for the past two years I got it everywhere I went." (215) telling us that Karen died tow years ago. Though the story thirteen pages long, it manages to cover years by using this technique.

When the Bear Came

When the Bear Came 

The story starts off when a bear comes to a town where, “nothing had happened in a long time” (225). Suddenly, there is news that a bear attacked two girls that were camping in the woods because they did not hang their food properly. The two girls are in critical condition in the local hospital.  The people in the town are on high alert and all want to kill the bear. One day, the narrator, Daniel, comes home and finds that the bear was in his house and destroyed some of his belongings. Daniel then tries to catch the bear.    

The story continues and talks about Daniel’s father, and how his father left the family. His father finds a girlfriend, and moves to a neighboring town. The father never really calls anymore. 

Then Daniel talks more about the bear. A bear is killed, and hung in town. However, this is not the bear that harmed the girls. Daniel then goes into the woods on his horse. He shoots his horse which and Daniel says to the horse, “I never liked you” (246). The bear then appears and starts eating the horse. Daniel then captures the bear with a rope, and is about to shoot and kill it, but decides not to. 

This story is especially rich in description. It was very well written, and contained much imagery and emotion. It was really interesting how the author tied in the story about the bear with the story about Daniel’s  family, and the father leaving. Many of the sentences are extremely powerful, as evidenced by the following sentence:  “The tent looked less like a tent and more like an organ excised by blunt scissors” (228).  Also really powerful was the ending. The reader anticipates that Daniel will kill the bear, because that is basically his mission from the beginning of the story. However, the story ends saying, “....I had found it, here in the peace of the dark woods, with only one slug and twenty feet of rope between me and absolution” (248). This more abstract and less predictable ending is more powerful and meaningful. 

A Refreshing Cup of Patriarchal Refreshment

Refresh, Refresh is from the narrative point of an adolescent named Josh. Josh, along with his best friend Gordon, lived in Tumalo, Oregon (a high desert town in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. Nothing distinguishes Tumalo except for the 2nd battalion, 34th marines base. Both Josh and Gordon's fathers, enlisted as part time soldiers, had been shipped off to Iraq. Gordon and Josh both admired their fathers for their raw masculinity.At one point in the story, Josh referred to his father as "Coors-drinking, baseball-throwing, crotch-scratching, and Aqua Velva-smelling."

Josh and Gordon, in contrast to their fathers, were skinny to the point of scrawny, which put them at a low point on the social totem pole. Gordon even recounts his embarrassing memory of being beaten badly by a varsity football player named Seth Johnson. The masculinity that the boys lacked was in-fact what fueled the symbolism in the story. Both boys missed their father's terribly and in their father's absence, aspired to become as brawny as possible as to please their fathers upon their return. The story is based around the theme of male approval. The boys lacked what they felt was essential to their classification in the male race and subsequently, took it upon themselves to appropriate their lifestyles.

Refresh, Refresh

The purpose of this blog is to discuss selected readings from the short story collection "Refresh, Refresh"by Benjamin Percy. This blog was generated by several students of Tenafly High School's creative writing program.