It’s been almost twenty years since I first read ‘Vitamins’. So much has happened to me since then, I’ve read so many books, and written so many pages of fiction in the vein attempt to recreate what I first found thrilling in that story, it’s strange now to look back that far. It struck me differently this time around, I’ve never heard a man’s penis referred to as a “hammer”, but Carver places that word in the mouth of a Vietnam Vet who treats everyone around him like shit, and blames his time in Vietnam for his bad manners. There is a racist undertone to this story, not so much coming from Carver, but more like a taste of the parlance of the day.
This story takes place in the Pacific Northwest somewhere near Portland OR, and revolves around our narrator who is living with a woman who sells vitamins door to door. Patti has looks that are more or less left to the imagination and a crew of women who work for her. When Carver describes this coven, details aren’t important, he just leaves you with little morsels, the rest you can figure out yourself.
Our narrator runs into Sheila (a part time lesbian who has fallen for Patti), after a particularly hard night of drinking, in his kitchen while he’s nursing scotch and milk with two ice cubes. Sheila gets the unvarnished truth from Carver, and it sends her on her way to Portland. I could see a man protecting his investment, but to be honest, Patti and our narrator who share a crumbling existence revolving around getting shitfaced are only making excuses to stay home from work. Another girl who works for Sheila crosses our narrators path and catches his eye, Carver slips this woman in under Sheila’s nose, and we know for sure that she will become this week’s prime rib.
By the time Carver takes our hero and this new found beauty out to a bar on the wrong side of the tracks we don’t know for sure if he’s going to put truth to the term, “the grass is always greener”. I suspect that these stories will get stronger as I go over them, the lack of compassion, and the subtraction of the superfluous, make the searing emotions he’s cooked to a crisp jump off the page.
-JR
Recent Comments