Exclusive Story: Tania James’s Flash Fiction Illuminates the Whiplash of Aging
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In our age of TikTok clips and 180-character tweets, it makes sense that our literature would respond accordingly: Hence the rise of “flash fiction,” narratives compressed down to their dense cores, spinning rapidly and radiating energy like pulsars. Contemporary masters—Peter Orner, Joyce Carol Oates, John Edgar Wideman, Jamaica Kincaid—have gravitated to the form, finding an expansive freedom in the tight frame.
The author of two acclaimed novels, Atlas of Unknowns and The Tusk That Did the Damage, as well as a collection of short stories, Areogrammes, Tania James mines the creative possibilities of extreme brevity in “Going for Enfamil,” an homage to the experimental virtuoso Robert Coover (this story is dedicated to Coover’s “Going for a Beer”) and narrated in second person. In just under 500 words, she evokes the entwined lives of a mother and son and the complex world they inhabit. As any aging parent will tell you: It goes by so fast—you blink, and they’re all grown up. James puts a new twist on that platitude in “Going for Enfamil,” published exclusively by Oprah Daily. —Hamilton Cain, contributing editor
Going for Enfamil
You’re a new mom, it’s wonderful. You stroll the baby to the bodega, hoping they carry formula for newborns. While in line, the person behind you peers into the stroller and says with a kindly note of warning: “Savor it!” You fake a smile, reaching down to adjust the blanket when you realize the stroller is empty, and the baby—a toddler now—is beneath the counter, dumping packs of Big Red onto the floor, and by the time you’ve collected and returned all the Big Reds to their box on the shelf, you catch sight of a subtle movement out the corner of your eye and turn to your child, who looks at you guiltily, both hands deep in the kangaroo pouch of his hoodie, and haven’t you told him so many times that he can tell you anything? At your insistence he pulls from his pouch a shoplifted pack of cigarettes; “Cigarettes?” you say, “but you’re only 8!” “I’m 10, hello?” he says, scowling as you march him back to the counter, and exchange the cigarettes for an Almond Joy, which he eats joylessly as you both walk to the car, he taking the driver’s seat while you grip the door handle, yelling, “Red light, RED LIGHT,” while he says, “Mom, I know,” though what does he know of consequences, that is what you want to know, after your meeting with the principal, who has expelled him for selling handles of Irish whiskey from the back of his trunk, in the school parking lot no less, to which he shrugs and takes off on his bike to god knows where, certainly not home, where you sit up and wait until finally the doorbell rings, and there he is on your doorstep, in cap and gown—then, a tuxedo—then, his pajamas, frantically putting a baby in your arms, his baby, because his wife is in the car, already in labor with their second, and so you say of course, of course, and bundle the baby into the stroller before stepping outside and walking to the bodega, which is now a bakery, and where he is waiting alone at the corner table, his eyes red-rimmed.
You sit. You put your hand on top of his hand, his hand that is no longer wearing a ring.
Tell me, you say. Didn’t I say you could tell me anything?
You’ll just make me into another one of your stories, he says.
This stings, because he wasn’t just another story—he was the story. Instead you say, I won’t, I promise.
You talk, the two of you, and then settle into stillness.
You look over at your granddaughter, who, to your relief, continues to sleep in the stroller. Overhead the oak tree gently thrashes its leaves, drawing your gaze to the sky, the great baffling sweep of it. All around you is the smell of warm bread. You draw this into your lungs and savor it.
Tania James is the author of Atlas of Unknowns and Aerogrammes ( Knopf). Her latest novel, The Tusk That Did the Damage (also Knopf) was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and longlisted for the Financial Times Oppenheimer Fund Emerging Voices Award. Her next novel, Loot, will be published in 2023.
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