Tote

by J. Boyer

One of the benefits of going to a writers conference is the tote you get, thought Plumly. Normally these were first-rate totes, as totes go, heavy cloth, good stitching, a logo that could knock your socks off, but that’s not what he had in mind by “benefit.” What he had in mind was that when the girl said, “Here is your badge, and here is your tote,” he got to respond, “Wow, that’s a pretty nice tote, is it free?” and she said, “Well, it’s included.” She was young and pretty, she might have been one of his students, and he didn’t want this small exchange to end before it had to, so he said, “The tote is included?,” not because he didn’t hear her or because he was unforgivably stupid, but mainly because when her hand brushed his own as she handed him his badge he remembered how much fun it was to say the word “Tote.” It came back to him in a flash, as if out of nowhere: Tote’s a pretty good word. It was better said aloud than said silently though. It wasn’t the kind of word you said to yourself. Silently, Tote could be just about any one-syllable word you only get to use occasionally, like “crash” or “nip” or “pontificate,” though “Pontificate” of course has more than one syllable. Said aloud though, Tote was over the top.

Try it. Say Tote.

Not like that. Say it the way Plumly just said it. Say it out loud.

See?

Plumly used to have an old 78 rpm record when he was growing up of Paul Robeson at Carnegie Hall singing Old Man River, a song that greatly benefits from the word “tote,” though there of course it has to do with barges and manual labor, and it’s not something you get free at a conference. Or get to say for no apparent reason.
Plumly remembered that his mother used to say “tote” and he probably used it once or twice himself when he was growing up, at the beach, say, as in “Mom, aren’t you forgetting your tote,” but Tote wasn’t a word he’d used for a long time and he was surprised by how welcome was the chance to use it in a sentence, as in, “That’s a pretty nice tote—for being free.” It was just one of those words, you know? It had some heft, and lately a lot of things in Plumly’s life seemed devalued of heft.

It was one of those words that made him think had he chosen a different career
or lived a different life he might have had the chance to say it a lot. Tote.

Right? Hear it?

When the girl behind the counter turned away so she could help others with their registration package, Plumly thought to himself it was a shame you couldn’t work a word as good as Tote into a casual conversation at least once or twice a day, every day of your life, you’d probably be the better person for it. But most of us aren’t living that life, we’re living lives where we find ourselves using words that aren’t much fun to say aloud, such as “perpendicular.” Now there, thought Plumly, is a word better kept to yourself.

Perpendicular. Paralegal. Paragraph. It must have something to do with all those Ps. They’re just no good on the tongue. Poets can probably think of a way to find some music in words like that. Not Plumly though. Maybe if he practiced. But then poets probably have a leg up in this particular case because Poet begins with a P, and they are always introducing themselves as “Hello, I’m Cynthia—or Aaron—or Nakeesha the poet.” Not that he’d ever actually heard a poet do that kind of self-introduction. How would it sound? They probably could if they wanted to though. Leave it to a poet to know better.

Face it, when’s the last time you heard some famous poet say something like, “Hello, I’m W.H. Auden, the famous poet”? Auden knew better. Too many Ps. That’s what made Auden as good a poet as he was. He knew that one P is one too many. But Plumly was willing to bet a full semester’s salary that Auden used the word Tote a lot. Plumly had never made a study of this, but he bet Auden included the word Tote in several of his poems. Auden probably saved these from publication, and only used them at his readings. If so, thought Plumly, smart move.

Plumly bet Auden said things to Yeats like, “Fucking great tote you’ve got there!”, just for the fun of saying it. That’s the kind of life he had. Tote came up a lot. Any time Auden felt like it.

No one should be a paralegal, if you asked Plumly, and it was risky to be too perpendicular, but that was another matter.

Tote. There it was again. He’d said it aloud. Completely out of nowhere.
It was taking on a life of its own as he walked toward the convention hall to see if his books were being displayed, and that was okay. He could think of ten
people right off hand who didn’t deserve the life they had, all of them his younger colleagues at the college where he taught, all of them sitting pretty, and if Tote wanted a life of its own, Sobeit, fine by him, have at it. Take the whole enchilada. You’re a lot more deserving than they are.

Tote. What could he tell you?

He was sorry now he hadn’t used a great word like Tote when he was still talking to his ex-wife, or with the Iranian man who owned the dry cleaners they used before she moved out and took an apartment of her own, or the paralegal they used when they went to revise their wills once they parted. And not something awkward either, like “Repeat after me: Tote.” Though that would have been okay for the Iranian man. He was just learning the language.

It’s probably not going to happen though, thought Plumly. His was the sort of life right now where he only got to say the word Tote once in a while, mainly when he went to conferences, which was probably just as well. He was old enough now so that he had more totes in his closet than he had life left to live, and he’d grown smart in a way that could only come with age, and filling up your closet accordingly. Plumly was smart in the way that made him jump at the chance to say the word Tote whenever he got it, because there was no way to be sure when it would be the last chance he got, Tote. See? He wasn’t taking any chances.

Tote. He said it again, and for no apparent reason. Pausing before the door to conference hall, he thought, It’s not like I think I’m getting a second chance at life after this one’s behind me, so I’m making the most of the time I have left.

“Here, hold my tote for a minute, will you, I’ve got to use the restroom,” he might say to a stranger, or, “My tote has a side-pocket, that’s better than the last one I got,” or maybe he’d be speaking to one of his poet friends later in the day and he’d say “Fucking great tote you’ve got there.” He’d see if they got the literary reference.

When he headed home in a couple of days, he’d probably be taking the great tote he got at this conference onto the plane with him. If so, he was planning to keep it on his lap. Maybe it would start a conversation. Who knew? In the meantime, he’d try to think of some alternative life where you don’t have to force things by putting a tote on your lap. Or maybe he’d just wait until a few things clear up in this one.


J. Boyer teaches in the Creative Writing Program of Arizona State University.