"the oven of america,” Gabriella Fryer

Today on Midwest Weird: “the oven of america,” by Gabriella Fryer.

Buy Gabriella a coffee in support of her work! Be sure to leave a message and note who it's for : )

Gabriella Fryer is a mother, wife, and writer located in New England, but she was born and raised all over the Midwest. She started her family in Illinois, and finds her writing often starts or ends in its familiar landscapes. Gabriella enjoys writing poetry, short fiction, essays, and creative nonfiction about magic, food, ecology, queerness, and the nonhuman.` Her chapbook, Muted Red, was published by Bottlecap Press and her creative writing can also be found at Gramarye, Crow & Cross Keys, 12 Willows Press, and Shemom Poetry Zine, among others.

Midwest Weird is an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions. We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.

---

Episode Transcript:

This is Midwest Weird, an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions.

We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.

Today’s episode: “the oven of America," by Gabriella Fryer. Read by the author.

I rub my body down with salt. I have to do this at least once per week (but preferably every night), or I can’t breathe properly and my ligaments and tendons start to break down. In this way, I am always on the brink of deconstruction– like the deconstructed duck tamale I used to get from this restaurant back home. It was once a duck and once a tamale and now it is neither; I became less human with every bite.

So, I soak myself in bath salts, coat myself in salty lotion, breathe in briny candles, and eat popcorn with “too much” cheese by the light of my pink lamp. It is slowly losing itself to my dresser and I let blood soak through my clothes and coat my thighs. I love that you’re not afraid of me in these moments– plus, it's a great lubricant. We do this in the name of science!

I was born in the oven of America. I know every region will insist it is the most american part of America. But we bake apple pie. And put peanut butter in basically everything, like scotcharoos and puppy chow. We have Chicago and Abraham Lincoln and tornados. We built our megafarms on the corpses of bison and the prairie. Billboards tell me I will burn in hell. Did you know that babies have fingernails at just 12 weeks? You would if you drove Interstate 74.

When I was a child in the midwest I was obsessed with ancient Egypt and mummification. We eat a lot of fried foods– this is an example of a true stereotype. I like to dip my fried foods in ranch dressing because that just makes sense. I think I am preserving myself from the inside out– saving my heartland. I think of my stillborn brother’s tiny body– he haunts me because he never ate fried foods.

I am afraid of large creatures in aquariums. I have a recurring dream that I am in a swimming pool so immense that I can’t see the ends of it anywhere. I can’t see the huge creatures in the pool but I can sense them. Have you ever had a dream like this? My youngest daughter slips out of my grasp while I half drown in the waves– waves growing larger and larger with each subterranean movement. I feel their power wash over my muscular thighs.

I have a dream my eldest daughter wants to drown herself in our pool. She prepares a sleeping bag to keep her weighed down. I keep her distracted long enough that she forgets about the heaviness of life.

When I went to summer camp– that year my mom worked at a YMCA in Indiana– I swam every day and was never afraid of drowning or if the chemicals in the pool would turn my hair green. I wore sunscreen in the morning and surely sweated it off by noon but I didn’t worry either about skin cancer or wrinkles. My hair turned bright blonde and my skin grew freckled. I ran through the woods playing capture the flag. A boy says he has a crush on me and I loved him in the way that girls love boys that have crushes on them. I ate McDonald’s cheeseburgers and fries and so much ketchup every evening on the drive home.

I worry about leaving people unloved and loving people too hard– this is the crux of the midwestern goodbye. Although I am loyal and fierce– I am not so many things. But somehow, all that salt seems to keep my negation and abjection in the vague shape of a human. I coat my skin in flour and consume large quantities of sugar and spice to make myself more feminine. And eggs, for protein and fat. I do this and still, I am a breaker of things, a breaker of people– when I run away, I leave a wake of disgrace. I am that tornado that flattened my parent’s house. This makes my love raw and patriotic: I want to consume you and be consumed. I will run away from you so I can run back to you. I will say “cows!” when we drive to your hometown and you will swerve into the ditch. I’ll collect all your ribs and pieces, arrange them– just so– on my baking sheet, and slide you into my oven. I can do these things because I was raised to.

I took my bloody meat and left a trail of colloquialisms all the way to New England. ope! Jeet? Yeah no– no yeah– no yeah no. I never noticed my accent until I moved away (this is the way accents work). Now, all I hear are my nasally vowels and weird r’s. Out here, away from home, the sound of my voice is distinct and echoing– I have become a strange kind of siren– transplanted from my flat corn fields into this watery landscape. There are no cows here.

I fear I am losing momentum– becoming more like that big fish in the Shedd Aquarium that you stop and point to with your oily fingers. There’s salt– but the cost of keeping my shape is inflated. There is more water beyond this pool but nothing to keep me: your favorite flower, a deer waiting to be shot. There are fields covered with mile after mile of pine trees. If this land were a fox, I’d run as fast as I can.

You cannot keep me from my american wasteland.

Gabriella Fryer is a mother, wife, and writer located in New England, but she was born and raised all over the Midwest. She started her family in Illinois, and finds her writing often starts or ends in its familiar landscapes. Gabriella enjoys writing poetry, short fiction, essays, and creative nonfiction about magic, food, ecology, queerness, and the nonhuman.` Her chapbook, Muted Red, was published by Bottlecap Press and her creative writing can also be found at Gramarye, Crow & Cross Keys, 12 Willows Press, and Shemom Poetry Zine, among others.

We’ll be back next week with more weird stories.

If you like what you hear, give us a rating or review in your podcast player!

And if you want your fiction or nonfiction to appear on Midwest Weird, send us your work! Read the show notes for a submission link.

Thanks for joining us. And stay weird.