Today I offer Renee Lajcak’s essay, read by the author. Why? Because Renee writes sometimes to be read, and sometimes to read aloud, because she enjoys performing her pieces. “There’s a difference in how I write for spoken word,” says Renee. “I use shorter sentences, more repetition. On the page, you can be more abstract. For listeners, I keep it visual, ‘in your face’.” She enjoys having some control, through her stress and intonation, over how her audience (readers transformed to listeners) takes in her stories.

I remind her that writing for readers, we use tools like punctuation and spacing to suggest how readers can “hear” our stories, even if encountered on the page. It’s an interesting conversation for writers to have! Which punctuation conveys what? Does an em-dash suggest something different from a semi-colon?

Can we find ways to convey intonation through word choices, as Alexandra Fuller did in Cocktails Under the Tree of Forgiveness when she wrote, ”Don’t talk to me about behaving,” Auntie Glug says, giving one of her badger growls. “Bugger that.”? Or will we be like Renee, and choose to release our stories into the world through our voices and bodies?

By Renee Lajcak

I worked for 23 years at an English language school on Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin. Our students were adults, coming from all over the world. When the afternoon classes let out at 5pm, groups of students would hang out in front of the school, especially on Friday when they were making weekend plans. One Friday, a big hairy drunk lumbered into the crowd of students and took a liking to a new Japanese student with very little English. The delicate young woman got panicky and skittered back inside the school to the safety of our receptionist, Patty. The drunk man, on the other hand, lingered in front of the school, peering through the windows, waiting for the girl.

I decided to go out and talk to him. Growing up with an alcoholic father and spending a lot of time in bars since childhood, I was used to talking to drunks. My modus operandi when dealing with them is to gently offer a future solution, however tenuous. I politely and carefully explained to this bleary-eyed man that the school would open again on Monday, and he could come back again then. He was satisfied with this, nodded, grunted, and stumbled away, never to be seen again. Problem solved.

But for Patty, my simple solution seemed like magic. She often told the story of how she was ready to call the police, but I single-handedly took care of the tense and potentially dangerous situation. Every time she told the story, the drunk grew 2 inches and gained 20 pounds. She made me sound like David fighting off Goliath. An unbefitting description, true, but I secretly got a kick out of feeling like some sort of hero.

As receptionist, Patty was the “mother” for many of our international students, welcoming them in the morning, asking about their lives, even inviting them to her home. She was a Minnesotan-Scandinavian, orderly and conscientious woman that lived a rather traditional, safe life with her husband and children. One day, I told her I was planning to go out to hear Milwaukee legend Jim Liban play the blues at the Crystal Corner Bar on Willy Street. She furrowed her brow and asked in a tentative voice, “Isn’t that a dangerous place? Where bikers go to drink?” In opposition to her intention, this did not make me second-guess my planned night out, but rather made me glory a bit in the perceived risk. Actually, I’m a rather cautious and deliberate person by nature, so to be seen as doing something dangerous made me feel black-leather cool.

The next morning, I told Patty all about my night out in the den of iniquity. She listened to me intently. “Patty , the music was SO good! Liban even played his harmonica while walking on top of the bar! I was standing on the floor listening, and a group of bikers were standing right behind me. And then, right in the middle of a song, there was a loud crash! And the whole bar went quiet. A biker behind me had broken a beer bottle!” Patty gasped. I continued, “And you know what happened next, Patty?” Patty was on the edge of her wheely-chair now. “You know what those bikers did?  They . . . got a broom and a dustpan and cleaned it up!”

WWII General George S. Patton said, “Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.” In Patty’s eyes, my risk-benefit analysis was sometimes close to rash, with the risks being too big for the expected payouts. But in reality, the risks were small, and she had the ability to make the benefits feel more than worth it.

©2025 Renee Lajcak

Renee is a newly retired English language teacher who has taught in several Asian countries but now enjoys her woodsy backyard the best.  She loves the connections made through storytelling and teaching conversational English, but writing about memories allows her to go inward to contemplate the good, the bad and the ugly.  But mostly the good.