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Lori Williamson
Dr. Woolfitt
Advanced Fiction
1 March, 2016
Craft Essay: The Inevitable Parade
For my second workshop story, there are several things that I focused heavily on from
McClanahan's book on craft. The first main issue of craft that I focused on in this narrative is
point of view. The second is setting. I focused on many more elements of craft in my writing, but
these are the two that took up most of my thought while writing The Inevitable Parade.
In my writing, I usually opt for first-person point of view automatically. I believe that each writer
has an area of comfort when it comes to point of view, and this is definitely mine. When I began
this short story, I wanted to try my hand at something different (but not quite as adventurous as
first-person plural). Third-person-limited is the closest point of view to first-person, so it wasn't
as much of a stretch for me as others could have been, but it definitely caused me to think about
point of view a lot more than I normally would have. The story begins with a really strong
leaning into Richard Roscoe, the protagonist's perspective. Halfway through, I realized I was
giving less and less of his personal opinion in my writing. I referred back to McClanahan's Word
Painting during my work on this story in order to remind myself of what not to do in order to
avoid troubling shifts in point of view.
McClanahan says that P.O.V. should be established as early as the first sentence (154).
While I do establish the third-person right away, the next paragraph is where I believe you really
see that it is limited to Roscoe's perspective. She also says that radical or inappropriate shifts
trouble readers (157). So, in scenes that I wanted to show what was happening more than what
Roscoe was thinking, I tried to transition out from his thoughts seamlessly. Hopefully I was able
to do so without making the reader question the P.O.V.
The other area I really focused on in this short story was setting. Characters come easier
to me than plot does when I begin a story. I wanted to create a story whose plot was continuously
moving and easily mappable with a clear climax. I wouldn't call my story plot-driven, but after I
began, I quickly realized that I don't write more plot focused stories often because I have a hard
time establishing setting when the plot must be constantly moving along. I remembered
McClanahan's section on establishing setting in her description chapter, and I found a lot of help
in resorting back to that for tips on how to keep my setting alive while pushing the plot forward.
On pages 197-198, she gives a lot of tips on how to establish setting. The one I utilized most was
giving setting through the main character's eyes. I also tried to give scene summaries throughout
the story. In some instances, I used it to fill up space that I wanted to be taken as silence between
dialogue. I did this to avoid simply saying, "They were silent." In other instances, I tried to give
setting description to heighten dramatic events, such as the scene where Roscoe is picking a fight
with the man in the Yankee's jacket who blocks his line of sight at the parade.
As I revise, I'd like to work on establishing more sound and touch, and I'd also like to look into
synesthesia, which McClanahan talks about on page 82.

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Lori Williamson
Dr. Woolfitt
Advanced Fiction
29 February, 2016
The Inevitable Parade
There were no pockets in Richard Roscoes red overalls, a fact which made him insist
upon not wearing them in the parade. Of course he was denied.
Roscoe (he maintained that his first name should only be uttered by his mother and
lovers) wanted to imagine himself a war hero in the trenches of Normandy tucking a photo of his
beloved in some front pocket of a uniform stained with the blood of other men. For the purposes
of his fantasy, he could overlook the fact that his photograph was actually a set of car keys and a
tragically dated Samsung flip phone. He could not, however, ignore the fact that there was no
place to store them in his mandatory blend-in-with-the-balloon-or-quit get-up. He had to leave
them behind for the next three hours.
Three hours. Shit.
He guessed it didnt matter since he needed both hands to hold the rope attached to the
enormous Snoopy balloon he was marching beneath.
The parade hadnt started yet. Roscoe wasn't the only middle aged man in the group of
giddy Macys employees and giddy friends-of-Macys-employees (and the especially giddy
sponsors-of-Macys-employees-because-of-convincing-social-media-pleas). However, he was the
only unfazed one. Roscoe belonged in none of those categories. He was a member of a much less
enthusiastic crowd. He was handling the Snoopy balloon in the parade because his wrinkled but
chipper mother, a sales clerk at the Macys on 34th Street, suggested he do it.

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For Jefferson, yeah? she said to him months prior. They were talking on the phone. It
was Thursday night. Jefferson was at his mothers and Roscoe was alone.
Yeah, ma.
Roscoe hated parades. It was the crowds that did it for him, especially when the weather
started getting colder. All the kids with snotty noses being wiped on mittens and sleeves, hot
chocolate being spilled on shoes and atrocious Christmas-themed graphic t-shirts. It was
detestable.
The time between agreeing to handle the balloon and the parade had not lessened his
hatred. As he stood in the middle of his crew with his hands around the rope, he thought of
twenty ways to quickly assemble a noose and hang the blonde woman to his right who kept
yelling three rows back to another lady. She couldnt wait to see the look on Marks face when
he notices me.
Mark would not notice her. No one notices the balloon handlers.
Despite himself, Roscoes motivation in even being there was the thought that seeing his
son see him would make things better. Things being the cold, the suit without any pockets, the
separation of him and his wife, Joanne: the mother of his son and the eternal love of his life.
He thought of her upon waking and dreamed about her once a week, though hed later tell her
she was in his dreams nightly. White lies wouldnt get you to Hell. His own father taught him
that.
He thought that seeing Jefferson on the street holding hands with Roscoes mother, Ida,
would reinstate the buzz in his chest that once rivaled the buzz in his head. He imagined seeing
Jefferson there, on 6th Avenue with a red ski cap and a pink nose. He imagined his smile, the
frantic wave to gain his fathers attention. Roscoe forgot about the cord in his hand. He tuned out

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of the conversation about Mark, and stopped contemplating murder techniques for his blonde,
balloon-handling neighbor. Instead, he imagined his son and the pride hed have when he saw his
father. Roscoe was a part of the parade. It was a big deal.
A month earlier, Jefferson asked his Father what they were doing for Thanksgiving.
Dad, what are we doing for Thanksgiving? Jefferson said.
Roscoe usually only had Jefferson Thanksgiving evening for a brief moment. This year,
Joanne was going to Colorado to meet Daves parents. Dave was the new guy. They werent
engaged or anything. She just wanted to have a trip for the two of them before introducing the
new family to her son.
Dave wore white sneakers with his jeans. Roscoe hated Dave.
Roscoe balked when Jefferson posed the question. Dont you remember? I told you. Im
holding Snoopy in the parade. Remember?
Jefferson remained emotionless, laying down a pair of sevens on an old edition of
Esquire magazine on the coffee table. Oh, yeah. Cool.
Really? Roscoe asked his son. You really think so? His son, at seven, still had trouble
focusing. He was studying his cards. Roscoe wasnt paying attention to his hand.
Yeah, I love the parade! I like the SpongeBob balloon.
Roscoe lowered his eyebrows. What, you dont like Snoopy? He aint cool?
I like Snoopy, too. Jefferson was rearranging his matches.
Hey, alright. Alright! Roscoe was smiling now. Jefferson looked up, eyebrows raised.
Alright, your Dads in the parade! Roscoe laid his hand down. Screw Spongebob. He was
holding a balloon in the Macys Fucking Thanksgiving Day Parade! And his son was going to
see him. Going to be proud.

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Hey, Dad, its your go. Jefferson was laughing. Or it seemed like he wanted to laugh,
rather. Roscoe could never tell with his son.
Oh, he fumbled for his cards, looked at his hand, you got any aces?
Go fish.
So, yeah. Despite the raucous noise happening around him, despite the buzz his head was
getting from the chill and all the annoyances that thrive in the colde.g. the snot, chapped lips,
snow-dampened sockshe couldnt help but feel a little giddy himself. The buzz in his head
could only be beat out by an image that kept tinkering around in his head. It was his beaming
son.
He was focused on that image when the detestable woman to his right nudged him.
Hey, here we go! It would take less than sixty seconds to ambush the woman. Roscoe just
nodded once. Then, they started marching.
The march began at the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West and would end on the
corner of 7th Avenue and 34th Street. Jefferson and Ida were supposed to be standing near Bryant
Park, close to the end of the parade. Roscoe had insisted on a spot at the beginning of the route.
His motives were purely selfish; he wanted his son to see him sooner rather than later so he could
ditch the balloon the first chance he got. He figured the amount of balloon handlers shoved
beneath Snoopys privates could handle the heft without him. Especially if they were all as
dedicated as the ladies surrounding him.
Oh, look! Would you look at that? Look at his shirt! The blonde woman was referring
to a boy standing out front of a storefront with what looked like his parents and two sisters. The
kid was wearing a Peanuts sweater. Because her hands were being occupied by the balloon, she
had to resort to her head to point, and Roscoe thought she may have been relying on it too

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heavily. She kept jerking it toward the boy in a way that made her jowls hit the lower layer of her
outdated bob haircut. Roscoe didnt want to acknowledge her, but he needed the jowl-swinging
to stop.
Yeah. Yep. He said, glancing over his shoulder long enough for her to know that he had
heard her and seen the boy.
Well! She said, eyes bright. We are going to make his day, huh? And then she
laughed as if shed told a joke. As if she were a comedian. As if she werent fifty pounds
overweight and sporting the haircut of someone twice her age.
Roscoes grip on the rope in his hands tightened. The line was moving slower than hed
expected.
If were lucky. Was his response to the woman, who continued to search the crowd
desperately, probably for Mark.
Roscoe began blocking out the marching bands and the squealing children just as he'd
learned to block out the sound of his chirpy mother. He didnt make eye contact with his
neighbors, or with the patrons of the parade mashed into blocked-off sections on the sidewalks.
He looked straight ahead, right into the ass of the Elf on the Shelf. Roscoe had to try especially
hard to block that out, mainly because he hated the mischievous elf. Hed never tell Jefferson
that some shithead elf had eaten all the candy in the house or turned over the potted plants or
ripped up his homework. It was stupid, and it was more than a white lie. He would never morethan-white-lie to his son.
The first half of the parade flew by once Roscoe stopped paying attention. He resurfaced
when a Dunkin' Donuts cup crunch under his left shoe. He looked down at the cup as he marched
over it. There was whipped cream staining the street. Roscoe drank black coffee. He suspected

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that only the woman to his right would drink a drink that loaded with whipped cream.
Disgusting.
"Oh, forty-first already?" Roscoe heard the blonde's voice and looked up, realizing he
must only be two blocks from Jefferson. Two blocks from this being worth it. He puffed out at
the chest as much as he could with his hands stretched toward the balloon. The image came into
his mind again. His son in a red ski cap, smiling at his dad.
"Boy, something's put some pep in your step," the blonde woman said.
Roscoe didn't notice the annoyingly shrill quality of her voice. "My son's up there," he
said.
"Ah!" She giggled. "I'll bet he can't wait to see his daddy."
Roscoe didn't respond, but he gave way to the movement turning up at the corner of his
lips. Jefferson was going to be so surprised to see him there, beneath the balloon. It would make
up for all the school plays and basketball games he missed when he was in jail those couple of
times. It was petty charges that did it, and they weren't real. Roscoe didn't write bad checks. He'd
told Ida both times and both times she'd gotten him out. But Joanne wasn't as easy to convince.
She wait weeks before she let Jefferson see Roscoe, much less stay with him. But he'd not been
in any trouble for the past several months. It'd been a good run, and Jefferson was finally going
to get to see his dad without all the other stuff that kept getting in the way.
The Snoopy balloon was in front of some hotel when Roscoe saw them. They were still a
ways off. For the most part, they blended right it. Ida had on her navy coat, the sole reason she
carried a lint roller on her person all winter. Her brown hair broke in a straight line at her
eyebrows and went on to curl around at her shoulders like it always had. She was squinting
through horn-rimmed glasses at the little boy that stood next to her, in a blue puffer jacket. The

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only outstanding thing, the thing that caught Roscoe's eye, was the hat. An orange toboggan was
pulled tight around his son's ears. The only red on his body was his nose, which was being wiped
at by Ida. Roscoe felt a twinge of surprise at the sight. He'd imagined a red hat. Not orange. His
nose twitched, but he kept marching toward them.
As he passed the people in front of the towering buildings on his right and left, he felt
jitters spreading out across his chest and into his arms. His brain was at the front of his forehead.
Roscoe thought he might should call out to them, but he'd wait a minute longer. He was getting
closer. As soon as he was in front of them, he'd holler out, just in time for Jefferson to glance up
from Ida's tissue covered hand and get a good look at his dad.
Roscoe didn't have to holler, though. Before he was immediately in front of them, the
woman to his right screamed.
"Mark! Mark!" She was doing an awkward thing with her body, jumping as she walked
so that she looked like a toy with the batteries going dead or one of those tan popping bugs
Roscoe used to play with in the windowsill as a kid. Roscoe stared in amazement at the
movement of the large woman's body for a moment before searching for his family again.
Jefferson was looking right at him.
There were two moments prior to then that time seemed to literally stand still for Richard
Roscoe. The first was when he was a boy and he wrecked his father's pickup into their porch. He
was practicing stick shift in that precious span of time when he was dropped off the school bus
and his parents were still at work. The second time was when Joanne first walked through the
double doors of the Catholic church they were married in. Joanne was Catholic. And even though
her sleeves looked like white bee hives, she was an angel coming through those doors, smiling
slowly, yellow curls bouncing around her dimpled cheeks. And nowJefferson staring at him

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through the screaming kids and clambering parents and the increasingly excited blonde woman
jumping beside himwas the third time.
Roscoe noticed his son's blue eyes, like his mother's. He could tell even across the
distance. His hair, toothe same blonde, virtually translucent. Not like the chemical crap
undoubtedly poured onto the head of the blonde next to him. It was pure, just like Joanne's.
Roscoe was noticing the roundness of his son's face, how none of the delicate features he saw on
his son could actually be attributed to himself, with his protruding, roman nose scattered with
blackheads, and his slit eyes. He looked at his son and didn't see himself at all. And a buzz
started in his chest, like a purr. The same tugging at his mouth that had happened earlier began
again. And before Roscoe could see his son smile back, a tall man in a Yankees jacket stepped
between them.
Roscoe stopped walking.
He had lost sight of his son, just as the Snoopy balloon was passing directly in front of
him. Roscoe was whipped back into time furiously, the sounds crashing around him as if they'd
been suspended in air for the entirety of his eye contact with Jefferson. Instead of his son, he was
staring at a tall, pale man in a Yankee's jacket. He had a kid several years younger than Jefferson
on his shoulders. The kid was laughing. His cap was red.
"Sir, you have to move," said the blonde woman. "We aren't there yet." The balloon
handlers behind him were starting to murmur, and the overall hum was an agitated one.
"Move," Roscoe said low enough that the word was easily lost in the chatter around him.
And then, "Move!" The word came unstuck and flung itself at the man in the Yankee's jacket.
And then, Roscoe was moving. He let loose of the balloon in his hand, and he heard the blonde
woman screaming, "Sir!" behind him as he marched toward the crowd to his right. He didn't turn

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around to see if she was doing the popping bug routine. His strides were long and unbroken; he
marched through the balloon handlers as if he didn't see them. And he didn't. He only saw the
man in the Yankee's jacket. The man with the kid on his shoulders in the red cap.
"Hey!" Roscoe crossed over from road to sidewalk, through a mess of colorful jackets
and moving bodies. "Hey, pal!" Several parade-goers in close proximity turned to see what
Roscoe was doing. The Snoopy balloon was still moving toward the end of the parade.
"I said hey, pal!" With no one between them any longer, the man looked down and
noticed Roscoe. His eyebrows drew in behind his dark-framed glasses.
"Me?" The man was holding onto his kid's ankles. Roscoe noticed this in particular
because he was eye level with the man's chest, which is where the kids shoes were. They were
Jordan's. Roscoe hated the man even more.
"You're blockin' my son's view," The man leaned toward Roscoe.
"Excuse me, sir?" The noise was filling up all the space around them. Roscoe hated
parades. He hated them.
"I said you're blockin' my son's view!" Roscoe lightly shoved the man with his fingers,
just for emphasis. The people around him were beginning to give a berth. Behind the man,
Roscoe's mother tightened her grip on Jefferson's hand and said, "Roscoe?" Roscoe didn't see his
mother or hear her. He couldn't see anything but the kid's Jordan's and he couldn't hear anything
but the bands playing on and off all around him. His nose was twitching.
The man's eyes finally opened all the way up at Roscoe's shove. "You think you can be
that tall and stand in the front, buddy? No," Roscoe pitched his voice louder this time. And he
shoved him again for emphasis. The man stumbled backward this time and wobbled, top-heavy
from the kid on his shoulders, who was now mumbling daddy, daddy, over and over again.

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"Roscoe, he has a kid on his shoulders." Roscoe's mother had come around the man.
Roscoe didn't notice.
"Sir, I'm sorry, I didn't realize--" The man was tripping over his I's like Roscoe used to
before they stuck him in speech classes during recess in elementary school. His dad used to make
him talk about his day and laugh when Roscoe stuttered through. His dad was always doing shit
like that.
"Well, realize, ok?" Roscoe shoved him back another step. People gasped around him. A
few men stepped closer to the commotion. "Realize, OK!"
Roscoe began pushing the man repeatedly. There were protests coming from all around
him as he kept pushing the man backward, causing him to reach up toward his son, scrambling
for a tighter grip. "Cut it out," he yelled at Roscoe. He was sucking in air rapidly, his chest heart
hitting his chest with a force that was met in his ears and the back of his kneecaps. Cymbals
crashed in unison, the finale to a song from a marching band who'd just passed directly in front
of where they stood on 6th avenue. In his head, the blonde woman was jerking her head to the tap
of the percussion players in the street. She was screaming "Sir!" with each hit.
A hand darted between the men, then, grabbing Roscoe's wrist and stopping the next
shove that would have forced the man against the brick apartment building behind them.
Roscoe's head snapped up from the Yankee's jersey toward the hand. It was attached to his
mother.
"Ma," Roscoe said.
Her eyes were colossal behind her horn-rimmed glasses, her mouth a tight, horizontal
line. She held to his arm. Roscoe staggered back from the man, giving him room to pull his
crying son off his shoulders and into his arms. The two hurried away from Roscoe and the crowd

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that had turned inward toward the spectacle on the sidewalk. Roscoe's breathing slowed, and he
remembered what he'd been forgetting this whole time. Jefferson. Roscoe looked down, and he
saw his son. Jefferson was behind Ida. His phone was against his ear. Roscoe didn't need to ask.
"Who? Who is that?" Roscoe asked. Jefferson's blue eyes were round, rounder than the
man in the Yankee's jersey had been when he finally heard Roscoe.
Ida put a hand on Roscoe's cheek in an effort to direct his attention back to her. He stayed
on Jefferson.
"Son, who are you calling?" He tried to smile, but he knew it was no good. His cheeks
wouldn't turn up. Not with his nose twitching the way it was.
Roscoe wondered for a moment if Jefferson was going to laugh. He couldn't tell, as usual,
but his son had near about the same look on his face. He wanted his son to laugh. He wanted his
cap to be red, like he imagined. He wanted to keep looking at him and seeing anyone but
himself. Jefferson did not laugh. Instead, he began to cry, the phone still pressed to his ear.
Ida let go of her son, and as Roscoe began backing into the crowd of peoplemost of
whom had become invested in the actual parade once againhe only heard his son's sobs. Then
he heard, "Mom, mom, mom." Joanne had picked up.
Ida, after calling out to Roscoe twice, let her son slip into the crowd and down 6th avenue.

At 10 pm Thanksgiving night, Richard Roscoe was doing what he always did on

Thanksgiving night after Joanne had picked Jefferson up. An Arby's roast beef sandwich was
sitting on a straightened aluminum wrapper in front of him. A mess of curly fries were spilling
from an overturned box onto the wrapper. Roscoe took off the top bun of his sandwich and
plopped a tangle of the fries onto the roast beef. He ordered an extra fry so that he could still
have one to eat on the side, dipped in ketchup from his own bottle in the fridge. He'd have to

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keep asking for extra packets if he wanted enough to suffice his needs, and he hated having to rip
open the stupid things anyway. So he kept plenty of crusty-capped Heinz bottles in the fridge.
Heinz and Heineken, the only things that consistently filled Roscoe's fridge.
Roscoe ate his sandwich staring at the floral back of the linoleum seat across from him.
He wrapped everything up in the aluminum wrapper and threw it away before washing
his hands in the kitchen sink. His phone buzzed on the table. He took his time drying his hands
on a yellow dish towel strewn across the counter before picking it up.
"Yeah," he answered.
"Roscoe?" Ida's voice was timid like it was when she'd bailed Roscoe out of jail.
"Hey, ma."
"How's everything?" He gave his living room the once over. A roach crawled across the
wall opposite his futon.
"Peachy, Ma." He only heard the television in the background on the other end. None of
the voices matched the one he was listening for.
"Your father used to say that all the time, you know," Ida said. Roscoe took a deep breath
through his nose. "Well, I was just calling to say goodnight. And that Jefferson is okay now. Just
shook up at first."
Roscoe rubbed his eyes. "Okay," he said.
"Okay," Ida confirmed. "Well, that's it."
"Okay." He bounced his foot off the wall slowly.
"I love you, Richard."
"You too, Ma." He flipped the cover of his phone down.

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Roscoe shuffled into his bathroom, cutting off lights as he moved through his tiny
apartment, trying not to notice the cards left in their go-fish position on his living room table. He
flipped on his bathroom light and stared at the face he saw. It was all familiar. The roman nose,
the slit eyes, the narrow-set mouth and perpetual stubble. It was all familiar, but not because it
was his. Because it was his father's. Just like his father's.
The only solace Roscoe felt that night came as he was falling asleep imagining his son,
who looked just like his mother.