Leora

Another piece from the Writer's Toolbox archives. I played the "protagonist game." There are four wheels: one with protagonists, one with a goal, one with obstacles, and one with an action. Each wheel is spun and then, using the four choices you must write for the allotted amount of time. When the time is up, the writing is done. Here's how it went for me:


 
February 17, 2009

Protagonist: Leora, who loves to visit Israel

Goal: to be the strongest

Obstacles: Don, the jailbird

Action: gets special training

The sweat dripped down past Leora's brow and into her eyes - she had been on the treadmill for a straight 45 minutes non-stop. It was about time that one of the gym trainers should come over and tell her to either slow down, stop to get a drink of water, or simply be blunt and tell her to get off so one of the impatient super-moms could get a chance to squeeze their workout in before their little rug-rats made a scene in the play area. Leora wished she was in Israel again, Americans seemed so plastic, so fragile, so shallow.

She was ten years old when she took her first trip to Israel. The sun, the sand and the community were all wonderful, but what Leora loved the most was getting to know her "foreign" family. She couldn't believe she had gone ten years without ever meeting her maternal grandparents, her two aunts and Uncle Hymie. Her cousins Brenda and Leo were unlike her "American" cousins; they seemed to have a depth to them and a strength that was unmatched by those she had grown up with. Leora did not have a lot of friends back in Brooklyn, she considered herself a "shy girl," and did everything she could to avoid being picked on each day: the strength she saw in her foreign family members was not only something she wanted to emulate, it was something she needed to emulate. Since that first trip, Leora took every opportunity possible to return and over the last seventeen years that amounted to over twenty trips, with another one planned for this summer.

After a glare from Lydia, the gym manager, Leora got off the treadmill, stretched and made her way over to the showers. She planned on running once she got home anyway, she could never get a full workout in this place, not what she needed. She felt weak, although her physique would be enough in any debate to let that argument fail. No matter how much she ran, swam or worked out, Leora still felt like that weak little girl fighting not to be picked on. It was a ridiculous notion at her age and with all her experience: she was 27 years old, a graduate of the New York City Public School system, with honors, a graduate of City College with a B.A. in Jewish Studies and a minor in Sociology and, to top it all off, for the last five years, Leora was working the streets as a beat cop for the NYPD after graduating "Top Jock" of her female Academy cadets. Leora had no reason to feel weak, no reason to think she was weak, but it was never enough for her to be strong; Leora needed to be the strongest.

As Leora left gym she was annoyed to find she had missed two called from Josh, her new partner from work. He was cute, confused and way too excited about his new job - she remembered those feelings, but that didn't make them much easier to deal with. He probably saw some story about a pickup on the news and wanted to know her opinion on the way it was handled, what she thought he should do in that situation and then he'd probably want to bounce a couple of ideas about how this crime could have been prevented off of her; this kid had no idea how to take a day off. She decided to just call him back without even listening to his voicemail, "Hey Josh, what's up?"

"Did you read the blotter today?" of course. Leora wasn't surprised: shop-talk.

"No, I try to actually take the day off, Josh. You know there is such a thing as burn-out, you need to be careful," she tried to put her mentor tone on, but was pretty sure some of her aggravation was leaking through.

"No, I know, Lee, I know I've got to take the time, but this is different. They picked up Don last night."

"What?" Leona heard the anxious tone in Josh's voice, but still had no idea what he was talking about.

"Lee," Josh continued, exasperated, "two weeks ago... Don, Donny, Gutu... the shitbag that we collared outside of O'Malley's..."

Leora paused.

"Lee? He threatened you. He was back in Brooklyn last night and, if they still have him he's still here," it was quickly becoming obvious that Josh was worried.

Leora needed to reign him in, with only two months on the job it made sense that he still took every threat to heart, but this boy needed to grow a thicker skin, "Josh, listen to me carefully, " she paused for effect, "stop reading the god-damn papers. Stop taking every-fucking-thing every wacko says to us to heart and for the love of god let it be."

Josh was confounded, "But I..."

"Enough Josh. Go do something. Do something that has NOTHING to do with you being a cop. Give yourself the night off and I'll see you in the morning."

"Lee?"

"What Josh?" it took everything in Leora not to hang up on him right there.

"I don't like this guy."

And that was it. She hung up on him. Poor Josh, so much like little weak Leora from elementary school, maybe he should be sent off to Israel. Even so, he did have a point, there was something different about Don - the way he waited for Josh to be off interviewing a witness, the way he turned on her, looked her in the eye and pushed his body up against her as he spewed out the words that had, as much as she didn't want to admit it, haunted Leora ever since, 'Pretty Officer Carter should watch her steps in B-Town. Donny owns this place, Donny knows her face and Donny's real good at e-rase.'" As she relived the moment, Leora felt the goosebumps rise up her back.