Excerpt from “Little
Egypt” by Georgia Jeffries
Photo by Gay Degani
A scream came from somewhere. Did it belong to her? When she was in the maternity ward panting through twenty-two hours of labor, she never heard her own voice. The other mothers were moaning, wailing, pleading for any painkiller the nurse could deliver. Not her, not then. When her boy was born she closed her eyes and transported herself to another planet far, far away where there was not a weak-willed woman in sight. Another scream wrenched the air. Deeper this time. Primal.
Herbie
looked over his shoulder just as the young black man attacked, pummeling his
body like a speed bag at Gold’s Gym.
Ginger fell back, smashing into a wall of fine spirits and fashionable
cosmopolitan glasses on the mirrored display.
By the time she found her balance, Dante lost his. Her son lay on the floor, his limbs jerking
like a mad marionette.
The
first time Ginger saw such a sight was in Vegas when a high roller on a winning
streak suddenly jackknifed into overdrive after tipping her five hundred
bucks. He whirled around like a
spinning top then collapsed on the poker table.
Chips sprayed across a surprised dentist from Des Moines who held a full
house, but thanks to Lady Luck, was about to win big because the guy with the
royal flush suffered a seizure. What
were the odds?
The
second time she saw that same strange dance her only child almost died because
she was too stoned to know what was happening.
Tonight, she knew. Kneeling next
to Dante, she turned him over just like they taught her. Grabbed the bar towel
to elevate his head. Pressed her ear to
his heart to make sure he was breathing.
And then she felt her hair being torn by its roots as Herbie dragged her
from her son’s side.
The Rochelle Staab Questions asked of Georgia
What
was the weirdest thing that ever happened to you in Los Angeles?
My weirdest day in L.A.
was my first. Almost nine years old and
burning to see Disneyland, I arrived in the back seat of my parents’ Buick on
our first family trip west. But Sleeping
Beauty’s castle had to wait. The premier place on my folks’ travel agenda? Forest Lawn Cemetery. Early in the morning we were at the head of a
long line to view the rainbow colored stained glass depiction of The Last
Supper. Afterwards we were ushered along
with a million other tourists into a vast hallway to see “the largest canvas
painting in the world”, The Crucifixion of Christ. In the afternoon we made it across town to
ogle the famous footprints embalmed in concrete in front of the Chinese Theater. I wasn’t too impressed with the feet in the
cement. But I do remember a beautiful wild-haired
woman sauntering down Hollywood Boulevard like she was the queen of the world. She wore tight belted short shorts, ankle-strapped
wedgies and the skimpiest midriff top I had ever seen. Wow. Jesus
at dawn, Jezebel at dusk. Peoria
couldn’t hold a candle to the City of Angels.
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| Available at Amazon |
Do
you have a yet-to-be-realized L.A. dream?
More than one. But dreams are like birthday wishes. If you tell, they won’t come true.
Why
write short stories? Why write at all?
What’s in it for you?
I love the short story
form and those twisted cliffhanger endings that grace the best. Why write?
Why not? All those words are
mirrors of our experience and hard-won survival techniques on planet earth.
What
is the biggest challenge in writing to theme?
I don’t write to
theme. I write to character. “Little Egypt”, my short story in LAst
Resort, was finished several months before SinC/LA members were invited to
submit our work to the anthology competition for consideration. Synchronicity in action.
Are
the characters in your story based on you or people you know/met?
All the characters I write
about are faceted reflections of people who have crossed my writer’s path. Everything is story material.
Los
Angeles is a patchwork quilt of different neighborhoods. Why did you pick the area you used for your
story, and how did the neighborhood influence your writing?
“Little Egypt” is set in
Hollywood – as much metaphor as it is geographical location – until the
protagonist decides to escape to a safer place.
The “neighborhood” moves with our main characters.
Are
there scenes in your story based on real life – yours, hearsay, or a news story
you read?
A little of each, leavened
with a whole lot of imagination. Plus
I’d been wanting to write about a mother and son, each wounded by injustice,
saving each other.
What
came first, the character or the plot?.
Character always. See above.
While
you’re writing: music (what kind?), dead silence, or…?
I like to listen to birdsongs
in the trees outside my writing room window.
Otherwise, silence please.
Favorite
writing quote—yours or from someone else…
Mine: The writing life is
a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself.
William Faulkner: “The
past is not dead. It is not even
past.”
Your
writing ritual begins with…
Tall cups of tea, Earl
Grey with vanilla almond milk or cherry sencha straight.
About Georgia Jeffries
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| Photo by Maia Rosenfeld |
Georgia
Jeffries cracked TV’s glass ceiling as a writer-producer of multiple Emmy-Award
winning series, the first individual woman writer honored with a WGA Television
Award for Episodic Drama. She created
original pilots and movies for HBO, Showtime, ABC, CBS, NBC and is now adapting
the NY Times best-seller, 72 Hour Hold. In addition to her short fiction, she is
currently writing the novel, Malinche
for Adaptive Books. A professor at USC’s
School of Cinematic Arts, she just completed a supernatural thriller based on
the true events behind her aunt’s murder in the Illinois heartland.
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