Salon.com > Occupy Wall Street: Fiction

This Sunday

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

"This Sunday, let’s check out Occupy Wall Street,” Peter says, and it sounds just like last week when he turned to his wife and said, “This Sunday, let’s check out the Museum of Modern Art.” Going to MoMA was something Peter and Lisa had wanted to do since they moved to New York City two years ago -- that and eat a hot dog from Gray’s Papaya, get Korean barbecue at midnight, take a boat around the Statue of Liberty and go to a Golden Girls drag show (which was not nearly as funny as they wanted it to be).

“After we check out the revolution, let’s stop by Tiffany’s so I can return that knife set your mother gave me,” Lisa says. She is joking because that’s what this protest is to them. But it is also not really a joke, because Tiffany’s happens to be located very close to the protest. Lisa is very serious about wanting to return the knife set. She does not need sterling-silver knives to butter her toast.

“OK,” Peter says, because this is exactly the kind of thing they do on Sundays. They check something out that they have been meaning to check out while simultaneously doing an errand. That way, the errand doesn’t feel so much like an errand, and any fun they have along the way doesn’t feel entirely wasteful. “But wait, you’re going to bring the set? You want to hold it the whole time we're there?”

We Was Twins

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Used to be when the tour bus came down this way, it was to show the bull, or maybe just those columns in the Corinthian style plus sculpture overhead, “Integrity Protecting the Works of Man.” But me, I come on this ride for the light. The air. Wall Street air, kinda sweet. And the light slick with jaundice, which I know about cuz me and Bix was premature born and under the lamp for days. I been to the city five times and for each I take the bus, double-decker, and sit starboard. In the Navy, me and Bix was portside for being junior officers, so now I get my fill, though I know Bix would call me dumb for it. Last he thought about junior anything was the day we was discharged.

Mostly, when we meet, it’s at the McDonald's three blocks from his work. Says he eats there all the time, though he brings wipes like what Mer used to fix the baby, and usually he just gets tea.

Whole Foods Was Around the Corner

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

My roommate Stelline, back from Zuccotti Park to pick up some of her things, convinced me to go.

“Get off your lazy ass, Elizabeth, and do something.”

But I had done something that day. I had gone to brunch. I spent $22 on eggs benedict and coffee and, yes, I was $52,000 in debt and overwhelmed by this fact. I had graduated from college three years ago, had a degree in English. I was deeply embarrassed by my existence. I was terrible at being poor, hated the apartment in Queens that I shared with two other women. I was in between temp jobs and I hated temp jobs. I only wanted to read books, and one day to write one, but I didn’t believe that I actually could. I felt spectacularly unsuited for this world.

Whereas Stelline was radiant. Her hair was blue. Her nose was pierced. The earring in her nose was sparkly and blue. She was a lesbian. She was a social activist. She was fearless. Most of the time, she ignored me.

“What? Where are we going?” I said. “What are we going to do? I drank too much coffee. I don’t want to get arrested.”

“Shut up,” she said. “Come on.”

“I don’t want to get arrested,” I repeated.

“Of course you don’t.”

New fiction inspired by Occupy Wall Street

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There are thousands of stories in Zuccotti Park and the Occupy rallies nationwide -- in the lives of the protesters, the financiers who pass through them every day, in the tourists and onlookers who visit and perhaps find themselves changed.

We asked four writers to imagine a different angle and write a short story based on Occupy Wall Street. It follows our series this summer where we asked several novelists to put themselves inside Moammar Gadhafi's mind as Libya fell to rebels.

The stories include:

"The Stockbroker Who Deep Down Wanted to Join In" by Karen E. Bender

He loved working at Goldman Sachs because money helped order his world. But some old insecurities emerge when he comes face to face with a demonstator, in a story by the author of "Like Normal People."

"This Sunday" by Alison Espach

Was Occupy Wall Street just another tourist attraction to cross off their list? In a story by the author of "The Adults," a young couple visit Zuccotti Park, with plans to exchange a gift at Tiffany's afterward.