A. L. Baumgartner
A. L. Baumgartner
Recent Stories
Baumgartner: Ordinary, extra-ordinary
PALACIOS, BOLIVIA — Beneath the breast bone, between the lungs, lies the heart. It is a fist-sized organ, the color of uncooked steak. It was extraordinary, as a child, to hear it beat: a stethoscope pressed between the shoulder blades, two fingers against the wrist. But how unextraordinary it became later, when I learned that 72 times a minute, it contracts at a signal from the sinoatrial node, pumping blood to the lungs then the arteries.
Baumgartner: Friendship, after the storm
I spent the summer in Saint Malo, my friend spent his in Lyon, and we met at the beginning of August in the south of France. But it was hot there, and the beaches were crowded, and he said, “Why not go to Paris?” So we went. We walked along the Seine and drank espresso from small cups and one afternoon, we visited Notre Dame.
Baumgartner: Our words, our thoughts, collected
Post-Modern Love
I have been caught in flagrante collecto — writing out a line from a book, cutting a poem from the New Yorker. Clipped from the page, a poem could be held in the hand, like a feather. It could be recalled, if memorized. I loved its smallness but marveled at its weight, as if the poet draws meaning from the line as a magician draws quarters from children’s ears. I admired such sleight of hand.
Baumgartner: A literary love
Last week, for the first time in several years, I went to church. It was not my parish, or even my denomination, but it was Easter, and the churchgoers were so numerous that the pews resembled sardine tins. The women wore their hats, decked with flowers, in the style of Churchill Downs. They leaned toward their husbands, careful not to disturb their headwear. Children stood on their seats in their Sunday best.
Baumgartner: Don’t hesitate to ask
Post-Modern Love
It went something like this: we met, we dated, we broke up. I said why don’t we be friends? That summer, he visited me in New Hampshire and spent the night on the extra bed in my room, like any other friend. But in the morning, when the alarm went off, he slid under the covers of my bed in his underwear and his too-big socks, the kind that soccer-players use to cover their shin-guards and kissed me.
Baumgartner: A gossiper’s defense
Post-Modern Love
On my 13th birthday, my mother told me that men talk about sex in locker rooms. Then she handed me a piece of cake. I ate, thinking of naked men, their bare feet against the tiled floors, their hair wet from the shower, as they snapped towels at one another and talked about breasts. I was horrified, and even though my breasts were not large enough to be the subject of locker room talk, I decided that if they could talk about me, then I could talk about them. That day, I became a gossip, and I have never since reformed.
Baumgartner: Seriously high standards
If I had composed the first epistle to the Corinthians, it would have said that love is not kind but mercenary. Or, at least it is at Yale. I have relationships for the same reason I attend classes: I expect to get something out of them. No one says it better than Marla Singer, when at the end of Fight Club she accepts a wad of cash from her schizophrenic ex-lover. “I’m not paying this back,” she says. “I consider it an asshole tax.”
The Laundress
The Laundress