Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #39: "Ferity"

One of my favorite short stories in The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, which is a book of tales about the Vietnam War, is one called "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," a story about an American soldier who brings his girlfriend over from the United States to Vietnam. She is the "typical" American-type girl and adapts well to living in an army camp, but soon she begins hanging out with a group of Green Berets and disappearing for long periods of time. Her boyfriend eventually finds out she has joined the "Greenie" squad and is going on search and destroy missions with them. She begins wearing a necklace of severed human tongues and shows no remorse in killing and torturing the Viet Cong. She has gone from being the sweet, wholesome Suzy Creamcheese type to being almost an animal. In the environment of Vietnam, the girl has gone feral.

The dictionary definition of "feral" is "existing in a natural state, not domesticated or cultivated; wild;  having reverted to the wild state;  of or characteristic of wild animals; ferocious; brutal." We talk of animals (especially cats, it seems) as "going feral." They run away, cease being pets, and revert, more or less, to a state of wildness. My story "Ferity" is about this happening to a young woman who is an executive—though her reversion to wildness is not as extreme as the character in the story by O'Brien. Nevertheless, it is a decisive factor in her life. Writers have stories they like

Feral cat

more than many of the other stories they write. This is one of my favorite stories and, I think, one of my very best. Dealing with the subject of ferity opened a new window of insight into human experience. Exploring the topic proved enlightening.

The story centers on Gillian, a stockbroker who works at a frantic pace in a firm that demands all but her soul. She has done very well, both in the business world and the social world and is living the dream of many:  she is worth a couple of million, owns luxury cars, and spends weekends with her boyfriends on Marco Island and in Monaco. But at her friend Calli's bachelorette party, she is depressed and morose. Calli later asks her what the trouble is and Gillian shares her dissatisfaction. Calli suggests she go off alone to spend time in a remote cabin her family owns in Minnesota. There, she says, Gillian can "get feral."

Calli's talk suggests only clichés to Gillian. She does not particularly want to "get back to nature" or imitate Henry David Thoreau. Still, she hasn’t taken a vacation in two years and has just pulled off a lucrative deal with clients in Switzerland, so the firm owes her. Calli drops her off at the cabin and she begins to explore ferity.

Soon she hikes in the woods and sees foxes mating. She eventually drops off the layers of convention, as well as her clothing (for a naked hike in the deserted woods). She is able to feed a deer an apple, sleeps, like Odysseus, covered with leaves, and bathes in an icy stream in the morning like an ancient Native American warrior. She begins to understand what Calli had tried to make her see. She begins to understand her wildness, her ferocity—she begins to get in touch with ferity.

In the midst of all this, her boss begins to call her. She ignores his calls, but when she talks to her parents, she discovers he has called her parents trying to get through to her. He has also called Calli and, when she refused to make contact with Gillian, cussed her out. She surmises that a hostile takeover is transpiring where she works. And she owns the six percent of stock that can determine which way the deal will go.

Gillian ignores the calls both of her CEO and of the stockholder trying to get control of the firm. She goes to a country-western bar, meets a young man, gets laid, but like the vixen she saw making love in the woods earlier, then sends him on his way. When she returns to work, she has leverage, power, and a vital chip to play in determining the future of her workplace. She also has attained a degree of ferity. She is wild. She has cast off domestication with all its prescribed behavior. She is a much more dangerous animal.

The story appeared in Earthspeak, no longer in print, but they do maintain an archive. The story is in issue #3. You can find the issue here.

For other titles check out my Writer's Page.

And a happy New Year to all!