Focus Fiction

The Painting, it is Not a Painting!

2012-02-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

“No!” cried the subject; “It is not me!”

“Of course it is not you,” agreed the painter. “Of course it is not you. It is but brushstrokes on a canvas. It does not breathe, as you breathe. Nor does it hurt, as you hurt. Nor feel, nor think. It has not your memories. It does not have your fears. Nothing you have ever felt, has it ever felt.”

“No! None of that at all!” agreed the subject. “How, then, can you say the subject you’ve placed on the canvas is me? When it is not me?”

The artist shrugged. He does not concern himself with such matters, any more than the water concerns itself with the rivers.

“It looks like you, doesn’t it?” the artist asked his subject.

“Yes,” the subject said, brushing his hair away from his brow. “It does look like me.”

So, don’t worry about it, then.

This Troubled Utopia

2012-01-19T12:23:00.001-08:00

The experiment turned 20 today, and it was a 20-year-old disaster.

It came out a jumble, a hash of all that should be melted into the twisted form of something that should not be. If you saw the experiment in person, you would turn away. Because the experiment was the attempt to create a human being, but resulted in a monster. Especially on its face, where lips and eyes and mouths, teeth and eyelashes, appeared at random. Not a human being, but a human being as viewed through a kaleidoscope. A failure.

The experiment was born 20 years ago today, and they gave it a name. They called it Utopia.

At the age of 20, Utopia could not speak a single word, and was deaf, and was blind, and could not ingest food without an intravenous feeding tube due to its failed digestive system. However, it should be noted that The Utopia Experiment has been lauded in dozens of science journals throughout the world as evidence of science’s ability to create human life through laboratory practice.

World University won the drawing as the place at which Utopia would present itself on the 20th anniversary of the experiment. The drawing should have been a blessing, but was instead a curse upon the troubled institution that was World University. Located on the mottled outskirts of a formerly prosperous city, World University had itself fallen into grievous disrepair. Its main conference center lacked any charm and was now bare and ugly, and attendees had to scope out chairs that would not buckle under their own weight. Faculty and staff members of World University of course received competitive salaries, along with generous benefits and travel budgets, but these expenses had impoverished World University of maintenance funding. So, when Professor Lies and his prized experiment, Utopia, appeared at World University, they were forced to do their 20th Anniversary presentation under minimal lighting, with skeleton-crew staffing, and no refreshments for the guests.

Meeting Professor Lies in the backstage area, before the presentation was to begin, was Professor Truth. Very unpopular in academic circles, Professor Truth rarely gained an audience with World University administration. And when he did, he was dismissed as a skeptic and a crank.

He had largely given up on trying to logic with other academics, but the Utopia Experiment had failed so magnificently, Professor Truth simply had to choice.

“You cannot do this,” he said to Professor Lies. “You cannot parade this failed experiment before the world and act as if it were a success! Because it’s not. You have failed in creating a human being, and as a scientist you must acknowledge this!”

The other professor waived him off. Nonchalantly, he commanded a staff attendant to replenish his snack trey and top off his champagne glass.

Then, leaving Utopia and Professor Truth behind, Professor Lies emerged onstage to confirm to an adoring audience what an unbridled success the Utopia Experiment had been.

And received a standing ovation.

The Hottest Day Ever in Hell

2012-01-06T11:12:00.001-08:00

He should not have reached for the apple.

As Judd Warren continued his eternal crawl through the corridors of damnation, a few short feet away he saw the tempting fruit, and remembered what it was like to taste its flavor and savor its juices. During his time on Earth, Judd had scarcely ever eaten an apple. But now, with a savage thirst clawing at his throat and bitter hunger gnawing at his flesh, the apple seduced him.

The hot ground seared Judd’s knees and palms as he made his way toward the apple. Within it, there would be refreshment. Relief to his thirst and hunger. The flesh of the apple, placed upon the Earth by the very Hand of God, would bring him a reprieve from the nightmare that was his afterlife. Slowly, knee by knee, palm by palm, Judd Warren advanced toward the apple. And when he reached it, he took it in his hands and felt a sensation he had not experienced since landing in this godforsaken place: The sensation of cold!

The apple, cool to the touch, sent waves of relief through Judd’s body. Ecstatically, he rubbed it against his face, its dewy surface cooling the torrid air that forever tormented him. He rolled on his back, clutching the small item in his hands, and said a brief prayer.

“Thank you, God, thank you, for this blessed fruit of Your orchard. May I enjoy it, and may it bring me mercy!”

With that, Judd rolled back onto his knees, and raised the apple to his mouth. Pressed it against his teeth, unbelieving of his good fortune. With another brief prayer of thanks, he bit into it.

But he did not taste fruit, nor savory juices. Instead, as soon as he broke its skin with a greedy bite, upon his face burst the legs of thousands of ants, as a whole colony of the insect emerged from the apple. He drew the fruit away quickly, and saw countless ants covering his hand and felt their sting as they bit into him, just as he’d bitten into the apple. But the ants weren’t just on his hand; several had made their way into his mouth, and bit his tongue and the inside of his cheeks. Scores of others made their way down his throat and into his lungs as he gasped for air. He coughed frantically, trying to evacuate them from his body. But they had found their place in him, and in him they would stay.

His animal instincts then took over, and Judd attempted to leap up and run away. There would have been no point in running from the ants already inside him, but regardless of that Judd barely made it above his knees before slamming his head against the Ceiling of Hell. As one of its many horrid features, Hell is only two-and-a-half feet tall. One cannot run through hell, or even walk. In Hell, all souls are forever forced to crawl.

Judd Warren lay in his back, and let the ants run their course through his body. A sensation that surely would have brought him terrified misery in life proved in Hell to be one of an endless string of indignities, all of which one must accept as part of one’s damnation. As Judd lay there, the putrid scent of brimstone wafted into his nose. “Brimstone,” as written in scripture, is no more than a florid euphemism for sulfur. And sulfur is the very element that gives a noxious odor to many earthly things such as rotten eggs, or the scent that follows when a human being passes gas. So, from Judd Warren’s experiences we now know that Hell is hot and cramped, and smells like a fart.

As he lay on his back, awash in the heat and flatulent stench of Hell, Judd reverted to a stream of thought most common among those condemned to the place: He recalled the sins of life on Earth that brought him there. Thought of them, stirred them around in his mind like a rotten stew, and mentally drank the putrid soup by the ladleful. And when reviewing those pungent sins, the first name that came to mind was one he hadn’t even known in life, but was made gravely aware of following his damnation. It was the name of Ashley Atkins.

Ashley Atkins, age 6, was a first grade student at Lilly Lake Elementary School in Stillwater, Minn. Ashley had mastered coloring at the age of 4, and in recent months began creating pictures from her own imagination. Her preferred subjects were primarily flowers and drawings of herself standing alongside her family. As with most children her age, her human subjects consisted of circle heads with dots for eyes and noses, a curved line for the mouth in the shape of a smile, and stick depictions for the torso, arms and legs. She still had difficulty portraying her father’s beard, and in all her drawings rendered his face as a scribble. Her father found this charming, and proudly displayed several of her drawings in his office at work. On the last day of her life, Ashley had learned to draw both a capital and lowercase letter “A,” which she was delighted to know signified the initial letter in both her first and last names. She came home from school that day with a full sheet of paper peppered with “A” in both of its forms, some of them with smiley faces penciled into the lowercase white spaces.

After school, a classmate’s mother drove Ashley and several friends to a birthday party in a neighborhood on the other side of town. The children received door prizes at that event, Ashley’s being a small Mickey Mouse figurine. She grasped the tiny statuette gleefully, as her little brother was a huge fan of the cartoon rodent, and this would add to his collection of memorabilia. At the party, the children had ice cream cake and played games including musical chairs and pin the tail on the donkey. During the proceedings, Ashley noticed that one of the boys at the party, Ricky Wells, was very funny and she liked it when he acted silly. She also detected in herself a strange feeling that came over her whenever she thought of Ricky. That feeling, which she could not yet understand, was love. Puppy love, but love nonetheless.

Ashley’s group left the party at 6 p.m. At 6:12 p.m., the driver of a red sports utility vehicle ran a red light and smashed into their car at a 53 mph rate of speed in a 30 mph zone. Everyone else in the car died. Ashley survived, but sustained brain and spinal injuries that would leave her paralyzed and unable to speak or care for herself for the remainder of her life. Ashley would live to the age of 47, but never again would she feed herself, use the bathroom on her own, or draw another flower.

The other car’s driver, with a blood alcohol content three times the legal limit, was a 38-year-old unemployed advertising salesman named Judd Warren. By the time he was pronounced dead at the scene, his soul had already been sent unceremoniously to Hell.

Judd ran that red light in early December, 1974. In the years and decades since, he saw scenes from Ashley Atkins’ life before and following the accident. Through the supernatural retribution one receives in Hell, Judd witnessed the moment a police officer and Ashley’s church pastor arrived at her family’s front door, and how at the very sight of them her father collapsed in a torrent of grief. Images of Ashley as a middle-aged woman being fed by her prematurely elderly mother. Visions of her brother bawling in shame as cruel classmates teased him about his vegetable retard sister. Judd Warren did not know Ashley Atkins in life, but in death was forced to review every moment of her tortured existence.

But Judd Warren’s nightmare visions only begin with Ashley Atkins. Just as cruelly, he recalled moments from his own life in which he himself played a starring role. The moment his wife appeared before him dressed and made up for a dinner party, and how Judd had looked at her contemptuously and said, “You look like a clown with all that makeup on. Go wash it off, or everybody will laugh at you.” He recalled the power he drew from the crestfallen look on his wife’s face, and the sadistic power he drew from it. How he denigrated her every attempt to make a meal, to clean the house, to decorate for the Holidays, until finally she resigned herself to a life of lying in bed eating potato chips and considering means of suicide. And beyond that, there is one memory Judd recalled above all others. The moment his 12-year-old son, who had forever struggled in school but fought hard to overcome it, triumphantly entered the living room one day to show Judd the “A” he’d gotten on a math test.

Without looking away from the television, Judd had said, “Hmph. Must have been an easy test.”

Judd Warren will forever remember these things, because these are the things one remembers in Hell.

Agonized, as he had been for decades, Judd cried out, “Oh, Lord! Oh Lord, I beg forgiveness! Please release me from this Hell! If I had my life to do over, I’d do it differently! I’d life a life without sin! I know now that you are my Creator, and I know You sent Your Son to die for my sins! Free me, oh Lord. Free me!”

Lying on his back, Judd felt a hot blast of flame sear his flesh. This made him realize he’d been laying atop one of the openings into the Hottest Circle of Hell. He turned about and peered through the opening, at the souls condemned to eternity in that most exquisitely miserable sphere of the afterlife. He looked down through the opening, at the bodies that rested on a netting of barbed wire and thorns, the sharp points digging into their flesh as they roasted over an open pit of flames.

Scorpions swarmed upon their backs as they cried out in misery. Many of them had been there for a hundred years, and many others for a thousand, or two thousand. And many, many others for only a single year, or even just one day. This was the worst punishment of all - to begin eternity anew, in the Hottest Circle of Hell.

Judd lifted his head away from the opening, as the heat had grown too intense. Viewing instead the corridor in front of him, Judd noticed a light in the distance. Not the usual crimson shade one ordinarily encounters in Hell, but rather a light of bright white, with perhaps a tinge of blue. He looked upon this light just as he’d earlier viewed the apple, as something that might bring him relief. In Hell, one always reaches for relief. In Hell, one always reaches for the apple.

Scampering toward the light, Judd felt the heat decreasing with every forward inch. The bright white, slightly blue light grew larger, and the heat formerly beneath him and around him diminished. Slowly, as the square of light came toward him, inside it he saw a vision. There was a man standing within the light. An old man, bearded, cloaked in a white robe. Smiling and benevolent, the gentleman beckoned him forward.

And now, Judd Warren found himself in the white room. Beside the old man was a counter, upon which sat a pitcher of clear liquid with ice cubes floating atop it, and next to the pitcher sat an apple. Judd breathed deeply of the cool air in the room, relief settling pleasantly into his lungs. Still crawling, he realized that for the first time in decades he had room to stand.

Judd rose, but his legs trembled at the effort and quickly gave out from under him. Swiftly, the old man rushed to him and took Judd in his arms, holding him in a tender embrace. “Be strong, my child. Be strong,” the old man said. With those words, a newfound strength made its way into Judd’s legs. The muscles quickly gained assurance, and when the old man released him he was able to stand for the first time in what seemed like forever.

“You called out to me,” the old man said, lifting the pitcher from the counter. “Do you know how rare it is, especially here, that people call out to me? They curse me; they condemn me, but never - never! - do they call out to me.” He offered the pitcher to Judd and gently encouraged, “Drink, my child.”

Judd took the pitcher in his hands, but with a measure of fear. Would this be another trick, like the apple? Would it not be fresh water, but salt water, or vinegar, or caustic acid? In a land where nothing could be trusted, could he trust this?

“Don’t be afraid, my child,” the old man said in a soothing tone. “Drink, but drink slowly. Now that you have accepted me, there will be water for you forever.”

“But how did you find me?” Judd asked. “And how did you find me here, of all places?

“I found you when you called out to me. I am here, in the bowels of torment, because I am everywhere. I created you, created you with love, and look upon you as one of my beloved children. And when one of my children calls out to me, I answer the call. Even here. Especially here. Now drink.”

Judd raised the pitcher to his lips, and cautiously took a single swallow of the liquid. With great relief, he savored the familiar taste of water. It spread through his body like a healing, magical elixir. His lips, brutally cracked from years of heat and dehydration, became smooth and whole. Every parched cell of his body sprung back to life. Like a plant, withered and brown, Judd now felt the fresh bloom of a gentle springtime ripen within his body.

“Thank you, my father,” he said, setting the pitcher on the counter.

“No,” the old man said, “thank you. Thank you for calling to me. Thank you for finding me. My child. My dear child,” he said, and again gathered Judd in an embrace. Judd breathed deeply of the old man’s essence, a rich scent of lavender and talc. In that embrace, in that scent, he felt forgiveness. The forgiveness of his family. The forgiveness of Ashley Atkins. The forgiveness of all eternity, releasing him from his sins.

“You are hungry, my child,” the old man said after releasing Judd from his loving grasp. Pointing to the apple, he said, “Eat. With no fear, eat.”

Judd reached for the apple, no longer fearful of it. With no thought on his mind but joy, he bit into the fruit, and rejoiced at its taste. So sweet. So luscious, he savored the juices as they coated his throat in tart, delightful refreshment. So wonderful was the flavor, he closed his eyes and savored it. Savored not only the sweet taste of the apple, but the even sweeter taste of forgiveness, of knowing that his eternity in Hell had come to an end, and that he might now find a peace that had forever eluded him in this wasteland of damnation. His eyes still closed, he meditated on his good fortune, and the everlasting power of redemption.

When Judd opened his eyes, he was no longer in the white room. Instead, he found himself in the garage of his former home on Earth. It was a scene he remembered well. He had just returned home from work, and was about to enter his home. In his past life, he always found himself angry in this scene, fresh from a fight with his employer, and ready to find his wife lying in bed, and Judd himself eager to pick a fight with her, and with his son. But this time, in his new life, it would be different. No matter what he found when he entered his home, he would accept it with joy, and would do all he could to enjoy every moment of this new life given to him in blessed forgiveness.

Judd walked into his home and barely recognized it. In his past life it had been dreary and unkempt, with mounds of debris scattered throughout and a the pale gray pallor of misery hanging in the air. But when he walked into the house now, he found it immaculately clean, and the smell of delicious cooking coming from the kitchen.

“Hello?” he said, still uncertain of what he’d find.

“Hi, honey!” his wife called from the kitchen. Seconds later, she made her way into the living room and greeted Judd with a bright smile. When she appeared, Judd nearly recoiled at the sight of her. Beautiful and glamorous, she bore no resemblance to the miserable shell he recalled from his last time seeing her.

“I made your favorite,” she said. “Roast beef with onions and peppers! And I found a special garlic bread recipe. I’ve already had a piece,” she said with a naughty smile, “and it’s delicious!”

“Oh honey!” Judd said, rushing to her and planting on her lips a long and impassioned kiss. He held her tenderly and with great love, gently messaging her back and savoring the gentle warmth of her lips.

“Well now!” she squealed when their embrace ended. “Good day at the office?”

“Wonderful day at the office,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes and noticing how they sparkled, finding himself drawn into their welcoming depth. “The house looks wonderful. And the dinner,” he drew air sharply into his nostrils, “Mmmmmm! Smells like it was made by the best chef in all creation. Because it was! You made it, and you are the best cook, the best wife, just the best! I love you so much!” Judd said, lavishing her in all the love he’d neglected in his previous life.

“Well, aren’t you the sweetest!” she rejoined. As she spoke, their son appeared at the top of the stairs. He, too, looked different. Where the boy had always been of wrinkled clothes and ruffled hair as Judd remembered him, the young man before him was dressed razor-sharp and groomed to perfection.

The boy bounded gleefully down the stairs, waving in his hand a piece of paper. When he reached the landing, he handed the paper to Judd. It was a multiple-choice test, with a bright red “A” emblazoned at the top. Next to the “A,” also in red, was written “100 %!!! Great Job!”

“Pre-Algebra,” the boy said proudly. “I aced it!”

“You sure did!” Judd enthused, wrapping the child in his arms.

Releasing him, he looked upon his wife and child as he never had before, with abundant love, jubilant happiness, and endless gratitude. In this spirit, he spoke:

“I need to tell you two how much I love you. Both of you. This life we have, it’s paradise. The food Mom cooks for us, how clean she keeps the house, it’s the best life we can live. And you,” he nodded to his son, “You’re the light of my life. Enjoy this time you have, and don’t waste it. Don’t waste it on anger, on jealousy. Don’t let trouble get the best of you, because this life is fleeting. And the time will come when we’ll have to answer for what we did here on Earth. Did we live our life well, or did we waste it? Please, please, don’t waste it!”

Judd’s wife and son now embraced him, and together they held onto each other for one glorious moment. When it was through, Judd said, “So, I guess it’s time for dinner!”

“It is!” his wife said, but with a hint of unease in her voice. “Before we eat, though, doesn’t it seem a little warm in here? Should we maybe turn on the air conditioning?”

“Hmm,” Judd said, noticing that the temperature was a bit uncomfortable. “Okay, I’ll turn on the air. You guys go ahead and start eating. Don’t wait for me, I’ll be there in a minute!”

His wife and son scampered off to the kitchen, while Judd made his way to the den, where he would find the thermostat. He bumped his head when he got to the corridor - which was strange, because he had never bumped his head there before. Making his way to the den, he scraped his head against the ceiling and noticed that the walls, which had been a perfect eggshell white, had taken on a red hue. Then, he was surprised to smell the unmistakable odor that occurs when someone passes gas. He bumped his head against the ceiling again, and ducked, bumped it again, ducked further, and the air grew hotter, and Judd kept bumping his head, and ducking, once more and again, until he found himself on his hands and knees, surrounded by walls of crimson red, the nauseating scent of flatulence searing his nostrils, and suffering intense heat.

After those few moments of domestic bliss, Judd Warren found himself once again in Hell.

Rapidly, a snake slithered toward him. When it came within a few feet, he saw it bore the same head as the old man he’d seen previously. The one who had offered him water. And an apple.

“Haaaaaa!” the Serpent roared. “You fool! You stupid drooling idiot! You thought I’d let you out of here? NEVER!!! You are right where you belong! You’re in Hell, and you’ll be here forever! And when forever has come and gone, you’ll still be here!”

“But, no!” Judd cried. “You were so kind! You gave me water! You gave me an apple!”

“And you ate it! Like a fool, you ate it!” the Serpent said. “You believed my lies, and I am the King of Lies. I am the King of Hell!” he bellowed. And with that, the floor opened up beneath Judd, and he found himself in a freefall, plunging toward the netting of barbed wire and thorns upon which hung suspended the souls of those condemned to the Hottest circle of Hell.

Judd fell, and fell, and the flames grew hotter and hotter, and then he finally landed. The thorns and barbed wire bit deeply into his flesh, and the intense heat from the flames shot up and licked him with their fiery tongue.

And so Judd learned to eternally regret the moment he entered that white room where he thought he could ever find relief. The moment he thought he could find solace in Hell. Because, in Hell there is no solace. In Hell, there is only deception, and lies, and suffering. In Hell, there is no relief, no reprieve. Judd Warren had believed the lies told to him there, and thus was sentenced to the Hottest Circle of Hell. A place where one wants desperately to cry, but there is no water for tears. Judd wished he had not believed the lies, but once done there is no turning back. He should have realized that before trusting in words spoken to him in Hell that it would condemn him to forever roasting above this fiery pit. He never should have believed, and should not have taken that pitcher of water.

He should not have reached for the apple.

Last Day on Earth

2012-01-05T11:50:00.001-08:00

The kid was trouble.

The final bell had rung at Edward Sanders High School. A long row of school buses snaked around the parking lot in a trail of yellow and black. The mild cacophony of chattering students died down as an army of book bags approached the bee-colored vehicles awaiting them, to be whisked away into an afternoon of doing homework or of not doing homework, depending on the person carrying the book bag.

Mrs. Paine gathered up the paperwork that sat before her on her desk, consisting mostly of student science essays written about the Gaia Hypothesis. She quickly regarded the name which had made its way onto to top of the pile - Sheila Morrissey. Ah, Sheila Morrissey. She was a bright girl, bookish but popular, and Mrs. Paine always enjoyed grading her work. Stuffing the stack of papers into her manila envelope, Mrs. Paine hoped all the students’ essays would be as good as Sheila’s, with the quality of Sheila’s own essay still unknown.

Then, uncertain of whether she’d heard footsteps or seen something through the corner of her eye, Mrs. Paine looked up to see a student standing in her classroom doorway. A student by the name of James Thumbolt. Or, Jimmy Thumbs, as the other students called him.

The kid was trouble. Always cracking wise, more concerned with flirting with the girls and passing notes than concentrating on class, and always turning in papers obviously paraphrased from Wikipedia. Students like James Thumbolt discouraged Mrs. Paine, because he didn’t care about her class and she knew he would go on not to care about life.

But here he was, standing in her doorway. So Mrs. Paine smiled at him, a bit off guard, and said, “Hello, Jimmy. Can I help you?”

Jimmy Thumbs sighed heavily, slumped his shoulders as if all the materials in his book bag had just turned to lead, and asked, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Mrs. Paine agreed, and Jimmy Thumbs ambled his way over to the seat directly before her desk, and asked, “Could you tell me about the Gaia Hypothesis?”

Her eyes widening in surprise, Mrs. Paine said, “You just turned in an essay about the Gaia Hypothesis! And you’re asking me about it now?”

“I am,” Jimmy said, his eyes suddenly wise and concerned. “Because, ya know what? When you taught the class, I was goofing off and not paying attention. Being disrespectful. And that paper I turned in? It’s crap. So give me an ‘F’ on it! Because that’s what I deserve. An ‘F.’ So, now, could you tell me about the Gaia Hypothesis?”

“Um, well...” Mrs. Paine said, taken aback as this disinterested student suddenly showed such devoted interest; “The Gaia Hypothesis states that the Earth acts as a self-regulating complex system, keeping in balance all things such as the salinity of the oceans, the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere, and the populations of all animal species. The Gaia Hypothesis states that the Earth looks after itself, for the benefit of everything that lives upon it.”

Jimmy Thumbs collapsed back in his chair, as if his mind had just been satisfactorily blown.

“That’s awesome!” he said.

Mrs. Paine waited for a further statement, but none came. Instead, Jimmy remained settled back before her, absorbing knowledge as he never had previously in his life. Finally, she asked the question that had been resting in her mind ever since he’d entered her classroom a few moments prior.

“Can I ask why you want to know this?”

“Because,” Jimmy said, gathering himself up and leaning towards her in his chair, “A long time ago, when I was, like, 12, I wrote down this random date, January 5, 2012. Just picked it out of the air, okay? And I thought, what if that’s my last day on Earth? It seemed so far-away then, like a day that would never come. And, over the years, I thought about that day, and I started to believe that really would be my last day on Earth! And I thought that would be the day I’d tell everybody off, the day I’d break all the binds holding me down. But then I thought, no! Why does it have to be negative? Why does it have to be a bad day? Why can’t it be a good day? A day I make friends with the people I hate? A day I learn stuff I didn’t know before? If it’s my last day on Earth, can’t it at least be a good day?”

Jimmy Thumbs left Mrs. Paine’s classroom and drove home. And when he got there, he tidied up the kitchen, told his mother she looked pretty, taught his little brother how to play a “D” chord on the guitar, and attacked his homework with more devotion than he ever had before.

And when he went to bed that night, he understood that January 5, 2012, was not his last day on Earth, but in many ways his first.

The Prodigal Father

2011-12-15T07:25:00.001-08:00

I figured she was with the law, or maybe social services, when she came at me that morning I was hustling change outside of the soup kitchen. Whoever she was, she hadn’t spent much time in this part of The City. This part of The City covers you in dust and grime, stains your fabric so deeply it ain’t never coming out. But this woman, she was fairly young and very pretty. An outsider. ’Cause not too many of the women around here are young, and ain’t none of them pretty.

Lotta people think it’s a fool who spare-changes outside of the kitchen; all you got there are more poor people. Not so. You also get the do-gooder types who come by to make a donation. I can spot the do-gooders a mile away. When I do, I point at ’em and give them a friendly wave, then ask for their spare change. For some reason, the pointing at them catches them. Politicians do it all the time.

Not much luck on that morning, though. Do-gooders pass me by, tourists pass me by, college kids pass me by. So all I’m left with are the same beat-down faces I see every day. They’re not even people, just ghosts of the people they used to be. This part of The City is a haunted house, and it’s filled with ’em.

Right before the pretty lady came up to me, I had a brush with one of these ghosts. Don’t know what his name is, but he’s known around here as “The Doctor.” That’s a laugh; the only thing this figure has a doctorate in is being a sketchy wreck. He’s old and he’s nervous, twitchy like a guilty cat. Guess in some long-ago life he was a doctor with a family practice. Before the bottle took over, that is (amazing how many happy stories turn the corner with the words, “Before the bottle took over”). He passed me by with a “hello,” but I ignored him like I always do. I don’t want nothing to do with this guy, and there’s a reason: He and I look so much alike, we could be twins. Crucial piece of street knowledge, here: Never partner up with someone who looks like you. Because we’re animals out here, and we’ll do whatever it takes to get ahead, or even just survive. There are stories of people finding a look-alike, learning all their benefits and where they collect them, and then killing them and collecting all their photo ID’s. And these ain’t just stories; it really happens. I know for a fact it happens.

After I succeeded in brushing off the Doctor, that’s when this young lady came up to me. Let me tell you, she was like a diamond in a dustpan. Neatly cut dress just long enough not to be too short, nylons, and the black hair on her head sitting so neatly it might have been arranged by the very hand of God. She caught my gaze right away, and when our eyes connected she smiled and kept on walking toward me. Toward me.

When she finally got up to me is when I asked, “Spare change?”

“Oh,” she said, her voice high and playful. Her hand fished around in her purse and out came a $10 bill, which she dropped in my cup like it was nothing. Nothing to her, maybe, but to me it was everything! To me it was a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes. I smiled at her, and almost made the mistake of baring my teeth. But I don’t ever show my teeth, because there aren’t many left and the few survivors aren’t doing so well.

So I gave her a closed-mouth smile, and she met it with a broad-toothed grin. And I’m here to tell you, that smile was like a Christmas present. Her teeth so white and pure, her eyes like WELCOME signs. That smile invited me into her soul, and asked me to take off my shoes and stay awhile.

But then her look turned somber. She had something to say to me. There was a silence, and it floated around like a storm cloud before she spoke. Then, the lightening struck.

“My name is Katherine Neer, and I believe you’re my father-in-law.”

Her words hit me like a superheated nuclear blast. Neer. Whenever I hear the name Neer, I know it’s someone from the past. Someone from when there was money, and lots of it. Someone certain there was a time in my life when it wasn’t the wreck it is today, confidently remembering a time when I was successful, and had a business and a wife and a son and I would no sooner be a street person than I would grow wings and fly. And whenever I think someone might bring that past money into the present, I do everything I can to encourage it.

“Is your name William Neer?” the pretty lady asked.

“Yeah, William Neer. That’s me.” I had to bat down a huge grin that just about spread across my face. William Neer, that’s me. William Neer, with the rich son.

She just about exploded in joy. Took both of my hands in hers and did a slight hop into the air. Right then, she looked like a little girl, and a happy one. I smiled, and maybe even opened my smile enough to let her see my teeth, because who doesn’t like to make a pretty lady happy? It had been years since I’d made anyone happy.

“So, you're Katherine Neer. Do you go by Katherine, or is there a nickname you go by?” I questioned, my voice as pleasant as it could be.

She leaned closer and lowered her voice to a whisper that I guess she didn’t want The City to hear, and said, "You can call me Kat!”

“Nice to meet you, Kat,” I offered, a little bit touched she’d told me her nickname. So now she had invited me into her life. I thought how nice it would be to spend some family time with her, see her when she wasn’t all gussied up but maybe just in a pair of jeans and a T-Shirt. Maybe we could watch a football game together. Play some cards. Eat potato chips.

“Nice to meet you too!” she purred. “My husband wondered if you were still in the area. I hope you don’t mind, but he hired a private investigator.”

I shrugged. No, I didn’t mind at all. Long as the private investigator didn’t find out anything I didn’t want them to know.

“Good!” Kat continued. “So, the thing is, my husband wants to meet you. He’s done well for himself, and he wants to meet you. He heard you were living...” she paused uncomfortably, and I could tell she didn’t want to embarrass me by stating the obvious.

“I’m living on the street,” I completed her sentence for her.

“Well, okay,” she said, thanking me with her eyes. “So, he wants to meet you. And if you’d accept it, he’d like to take care of you.”

He’d like to take care of you. Those were the words I’d been waiting to hear all along.

“Would you be willing to meet him, if I bring him here tomorrow?” she asked.

“Of course, I’d be willing to meet him,” I answered. Of course I would!

Her eyes sparkled as she nodded and said something, which I couldn’t hear because at that very moment a police car passed by with its siren blaring, followed by a fire truck and its insistent HOOOONK HOOOONK that rattled my head with its volume. Kat smiled as the commotion made its way down the street, then repeated the words she’d just said:

“I’ll bring him here tomorrow.” The honeyed tone of her voice soothing my eardrums from the cacophony which had just passed. “He can’t wait to meet you!”

“Sounds like a plan,” I nodded.

“Sounds like a plan,” she agreed, and extended her hand. I pressed mine against hers, but only long enough to be appropriate without letting it linger. I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

She left with a wave, and I watched her walk away and fade into The City landscape, past the dumpsters and the hustlers, the drifters, the losers. Watched her become just another piece of scenery, but one who stood out for her beauty and grace. The kind of figure that makes me jealous of anyone who knows her, because she lives in a world where there’s peace and there’s love and there’s beauty, because she’s one of the people who goes shopping and spends money on stuff she doesn’t need, she comes from a world where there’s luxury, but it’s a gated world, and I ain’t allowed in. But in this moment right now, when she came up to me and said she was my daughter-in-law, all of a sudden the gates opened. She let me into that world, and our handshake made it official. And when she brings her husband to me tomorrow, he and I will reminisce about that time, that long-ago time, when I was his father and he was my son. And he would call me “Dad,” and he would forgive me. Forgive me and forget how I’d abandoned him. And he’d promise to take care of me, just like he remembered me taking care of him when he was a little boy and I was his daddy. He’d take care of me, and do it with money, and that money would fall like a shower from the sky.

I slept that night in my usual place, under a cardboard box spray-painted black so no one could see it in the darkness. I did this, because at night The City falls asleep and has itself a nightmare. It’s a nightmare where some people turn into zombies, some turn into vampires, but all of them turn into evil. In darkness, when The City has its nightmare, no one is safe. Because if you have something, if you have anything, The City will kill you for it. In darkness, when the city has its nightmare, it’s the sound of car alarms and shattering glass. Of screaming, and sometimes of dying. Of people losing their lives over a five-dollar bill. It’s a world you hide from, the way I hide, under my black cardboard box. Under that box, I don’t have to be a part of the nightmare. I’m just a part of the night.

They came at me the next day. Kat and her husband. She, bright and beautiful as she’d been the day before; and he, a fine-looking young man, well pressed and shining with success. A tailored suit, trim build, styled up like a leading man from Hollywood. This was the man who was going to take care of me. This was the man who was going to bring me money.

Both Kat and her husband smiled as they came up to me. But as they got closer, the man’s smile darkened. By the time we were face-to-face, he wore a stone-cold frown.

“This guy isn’t my father!” the young man said. The look on his face quickly faded from disappointment to full-on disgust. He looked at me the way you’d look at an insect, but with none of the fear and twice the contempt.

“Of course I’m your father!” I said, but it was weak. Because I knew I’d been caught.

“Well, if you’re my father, what is my name?”

That killed it. That’s when I realized my mistake. I knew William Neer, knew him very well. Ran with him for several years. Listened to his stories about how his son had married a beautiful woman who everybody called “Kat.” And whenever we went anywhere together, listened to people remark on how alike we looked. I learned all about William Neer, learned about all his benefits and where he collected them. I learned everything there was to know about William Neer, but I never learned his son’s name.

I should have found that out, before I killed him.

The Next Day

2011-12-04T11:11:00.000-08:00

Blue is the new red!

And, omigod, I’m like, that is soooooooooo kewl, because, my mom? Okay, my mom is, like, so queer. Not really, I totally love my mom, but she’s queer. Like, the other day? She, like, goes to The GAP and buys me this red sweater like the one I wore in my class picture. And I’m, like, ewwwwww! It’s from The GAP and it’s red! And she’s all like, “So, Vanessa, do you like your new sweater?” And I’m like, “Oh, Mom, I soooooooo love my new sweater and it is sooooooo pretty! But, like, did you save the receipt? Because then we could take it back and go to The Deb and buy a blue Head Games hoodie, AND THAT WOULD BE SOOOOOOOO KEWL!!!”

Okay?

Because everybody’s really sad about what happened to Caitlin. And I think the cops should go to Caitlin’s house and totally arrest her mother for murder because what Caitlin’s mother did to her was so totally cruel that she should be the one who’s, like, dead and stuff.

Because, okay, this one day? We all went over to Caitlin’s house to watch a movie - which is waaaaaay queer, because her stupid mother made her invite us all over so she could, like, see what we talk about and stuff. Anyway, her mom’s all trying to be kewl, and then she says the stupidest thing, like ever! We’re talking about music, and Caitlin’s mom goes, “Have you guys heard the new Justin Bieber song? It’s so dope!”

“Justin Bieber?” “Dope?” You have got to be kidding me! But, omigod, she really said that!

And the next day? Cadence and Ashley were talking about it in the girls’ bathroom, and I guess Cadence did this...what do you call it when somebody acts like they’re somebody else? Anyway, Cadence acted like she was Caitlin’s mom, and goes, ‘Have you guys heard the new Justin Bieber song? It’s so dope!’ in that annoying Caitlin’s mom accent! Then she snorted, exactly like Caitlin’s mom always does, and I guess it was soooooooo funny!

But Caitlin was in the bathroom, and heard all of it!

And I guess Caitlin ran out of the school, and was, like, so totally crying. And Cadence and Ashley felt soooooooo bad for, like, a full minute! Because even though everyone in the world was laughing about it behind Caitlin’s back, they were the ones who blew it! Stupid.

But this part is, like, serious. I guess after Caitlin ran out of school, she got this senior named Leif McGuire (who must be a total dirt bag, because I’ve never heard of him) to drive her out to Bridge Street.

And then Caitlin walked out to the middle of the Bridge Street Bridge and, like, JUMPED!

I’m not even kidding!

Okay, and omigod? Now I have to tell you about Elliot Vicar...and this is, like, so totally bad because what happened to Elliot was kind of my fault. I feel soooooooo bad! Well, like, I don’t feel bad, but I feel bad.

Elliot was, like, this loser. Not, like, a dirt bag loser, but just this weird guy nobody really liked. Some of the guys would hang around him, but they totally just bought pot from him. And, omigod, this is soooooo gross, but my locker was only, like, two away from Elliot’s, and one day he starts talking to me! And I totally have to be nice to him, because my mom says God loves you when you’re nice to losers. And I think - you know what?- maybe if I’m nice to him he’ll give me some pot for free because I’m pretty and he likes me. And once I get the pot, I can smoke it with Rich Hendry - this stoner who is, like, soooooooooo hot!

So Elliot asks me over to his house - which is so gross I totally want to puke. But I said yes, so Elliot would give me some weed. And when I get over to Elliot’s house, he totally has all these candles set up all over his room. And Amy Winehouse is playing on the stereo! Amy Winehouse? She’s like, so gross and dead. And, omigod, it turns out that Elliot totally lives in this bizarre Amy Winehouse fantasy world! He’s got all her CD’s, posters, and even this stupid copy of Back to Black on vinyl album, and totally bragged about buying it on e-bay for $50. Fifty dollars, for an album? Oh yeah, I’d brag.

And then he goes on and on about all this girly stuff, about how he volunteers at the Women’s Resource Center at the college, how his favorite channel is Lifetime, and on and on, until I’m like, Ug! When I go to hang around with a guy, I don’t want to hang around with a girl!!!

I kept dropping hints about getting high, and if he knew where I could get some - as in, I practically had to paint a sign and smack him over the head with it - when, finally, I just had to ask, “Do you have any pot you could give me?”

He said no, and then I had to sit around and listen to Amy Winehouse until I just wanted to die. And when I finally said I had to go, I think he, like, wanted to kiss me or something. Ewwwwwwwwww! I got out of there so quick you wouldn’t even believe it!

And this is the part I’m, like, embarrassed even to talk about.

So, the next day? We’re all at the lunch table and Elliot comes up to us. Which is, like, so unbelievable, because the losers just know not to come to our lunch table! But Elliot comes up to us, to me, and is like so completely beet red you would have laughed sooooooo hard! And, he can just barely speak, but he opens up his book bag and whips out his Amy Winehouse album and says, “Here. I wanted you to have this.”

Oh. My. God. This was so sad I didn’t even want to laugh, but you could tell everybody else did. And I’m thinking, Well, thanks, but I hate Amy Winehouse and I don’t have a record player anyway because I’m not five million years old!

So I said, “Thank you,” but, like, everybody could fully tell I didn’t mean it. Then I just totally ignored Elliot and flirted with Pete Coletti, this totally cute junior who plays drums in a rock band. Elliot stood around for a couple of minutes, totally embarrassing the hell out of everybody, and then left and went to sit at the loser table where he usually does.

When all of us walked away from our lunch table, I totally left Elliot’s stupid album behind because...whatever. I don’t care about Amy Winehouse. I don’t care about Elliot.

Halfway across the cafeteria, we all turned around and saw Elliot had gone back to our table. When he saw I’d left his stupid album behind, he, like, crumbled! And it was so sad that it was funny, so all of us just busted up laughing. And Pete Coletti - he’s so funny! - says so all the caf could hear, “Guess you get to keep your album!”

And when Pete said this, Elliot totally burst into tears! Then he ran for the doors, but I guess he couldn’t see, because - I’m not even kidding - he ran right into the wall and fell smack on his ass!!!!! Omigod, it was the funniest thing you have ever seen in your life and we all laughed soooooooo hard!

And so, I guess I don’t have to tell you what happened the next day. The second teenage suicide in two weeks. And then everybody goes on TV and talks about Elliot like they were his friends. Even the people who hated him talked about him like he wasn't a total loser, even though he was!

It's not fair that Elliot should get all that attention even though I have so many more friends. But now everybody's all freaked out about teen suicide, and the city has put a full-time cop on Bridge Street until they get a chance to put the fencing up.

So that’s why I’m here, at the Center City Tower.

And before I came here? I totally hugged my mom and told her I loved her. Because my mom is so kewl. We got into a fight yesterday about something so queer I won’t even go into it, but I, like, totally love my mom. And you always see these shows where parents talk about how the last time they saw their kid they got into this huge fight and that’s the last memory they have. So I made sure to hug my mom and tell her how much I loved her and how she’s so pretty. Because I do love her. And she is pretty.

Okay?

They say when you jump, the whole world rushes up to you in, like, two seconds, and you see your whole life flash before you. I kinda hope that happens. Cause then I can go back to my 13th birthday party - when dad was still around, and everybody was paying so much attention to me, and there was this great band playing Fall Out Boy songs (I know Fall Out Boy are queer, but I loved them when I was 13). I hope I get to live that again on the way down. And maybe, when I get up to heaven? Maybe it can be my 13th birthday party forever.

They say this is easy. All you have to do is jump, and that’s it. I guess they’re right. Cause once you jump, there’s only, like, two seconds before the world rushes up and takes everything away. And then, like, it’s over.

Okay?

So here I go...

The Great Awakening

2011-10-26T11:21:00.001-07:00

She reached out in desperation and took hold of his hand. Held it, cradled it, as if it were something newly born, or something sick and teetering toward death.

“You can’t go,” she said. “It wouldn’t be smart. It wouldn’t be right. There’s still so much ahead for us, so much we have left to do!”

Sensing his discomfort, she released his hand and gazed mournfully upwards, as if praying to the heavens above. For a moment, her beauty overtook him. Her eyes, so deep. Her hair so dark, so ravishing. Dark like a starless night. He had not known her beauty when he found her. She had just been a name in a phone book, one among many. But a female name, and one he’d hoped would be beautiful. He recalled hearing her voice that first time, so deep and raspy, but gentle as felt. Gentle as velvet.

Jeremy Dixon settled back on the couch. He, too, let his eyes wander above. Not to the heavens, but to the slats of light that filtered in though the Venetian blinds. There he saw dust particles suspended in the air - some of them floating gently like parachutists, but others still like suicide jumpers on a bridge, waiting to fall and to die suddenly in the waters below.

Dust particles that gathered everywhere, even on the sign that hung above her door. DR. DEBRA HOOK, PHD. PSYCHOTHERAPIST.

Jeremy had noticed the dust many times before, just as he’d noticed the clutter in her office. Her desk, which looked like someone had dumped a box filled with paperwork and bubblegum wrappers atop it. Her office carpeting, and the ghetto of crumbs that sat upon it. Her wastebasket, forever filled with coffee cups and yet more paperwork. Regardless of the mess, Debra Hook kept herself well-dressed and polished. Perfect. A couple of visits ago, Jeremy Dixon put this all together and recognized, The only thing she takes care of is herself.

“It’s my insurance,” Jeremy said. “It’s tapped out. I’ve reached my limit on psychotherapy. Everything I pay now is out-of pocket.”

“I know,” Debra Hook said, then recoiled slightly as if she’d just revealed something she shouldn’t have. “I mean, the people in accounting let me know. Stupid people in accounting. Like I would care about such a thing!”

“Right,” Jeremy said, then drew deeply his next breath as he chose his words carefully. Thought about how, just earlier that day, he’d worked out the finances for a family vacation. Worked it out against the mortgage, the money to fill the oil tank, groceries, little Jenny’s braces, and the money he spent here, in the office of Dr. Debra Hook. With everything side-by-side, he had to do a value comparison.

And his time on the couch of Dr. Debra Hook did not fare well in that analysis.

Jeremy sat up in the couch, after so many months of lying there like a dying cancer patient. Squared his knees, his head, his body with hers. For once, they were equals.

“Thing is,” Jeremy said, “I’m on a budget. Bills. Expenses. Taking the family out to dinner once in awhile. I’m on a budget - and sitting around talking about my problems can’t be in it anymore.”

Dr. Debra Hook’s eyes widened. Then her head collapsed into her hands, a dark overgrowth of hair falling over her fingers. Slowly, she lowered her arms, and confronted Jeremy with her anguished, and beautiful, face.

Then, a disturbance.

A scuffle had broken out in the reception area. Though Jeremy Dixon and Dr. Debra Hook could not see it, they heard it. A male voice crying, “But I need to see her! I need to see her now!” And a female voice countering, “No! You can’t!”

Puzzled, Jeremy and Debra looked at each other. Then the voices grew closer, until the door swung open and an unshaven, unkempt man burst through.

The man looked like a scarecrow - eyes sunken, frazzled clothing, his hair a motley disarray, eyes red and raw from crying. Jeremy Dixon remembered one time hearing someone use the phrase “Wrapped up and put away wet.” That’s what he was seeing before him right now.

“Doctor,” the Scarecrow Man pleaded, “I need to see you RIGHT NOW. There’s so much we need to talk about!”

Dr. Debra Hook waved him away, as if swatting a fly. Her lips curled up like a dog, ready to attack. With narrowed eyes, she beheld him.

“Leonard, I can’t see you right now,” she said to the scarecrow. “I’m with a patien...I’m with a client. And you’re three visits behind on your payments. I can’t see you right now.” Her words rang cold and careless. Flat. You are nothing to me.

Effortlessly, Dr. Debra Hook picked up her office telephone and punched a single number. Then, with the same deep and velvety tone Jeremy remembered from first hearing her speak, she said, “Bruno, there’s a problem in my office. Take care of it. Now!”

The scarecrow stood before them, mouth agape, eyes brimming. So many hours he’d spent on her couch, talking to her. Wanting her. So many fantasies, unfulfilled. So many confessions, rehearsed and delivered, and received in soothing tones. And now, as she rejected him, so much disappointment. So much heartbreak.

Then, with a clattering noise, a very thick and muscular man entered the office of Dr. Debra Hook.

“Which one?” asked the man, presumably named Bruno.

“Him!” Dr. Debra Hook barked, pointing at Scarecrow.

With hands of steely assurance, Bruno grabbed the Scarecrow. Pulled his shirt from his waistband, and left it dangling above his belt. Clenched his fingers upon the lesser man’s chest, and guided him hastily out of the office of Dr. Debra Hook. There were cries. There were whimpers of protest. But faced against the power of Bruno, the Scarecrow had no choice but to disappear.

And as the Scarecrow vanished, Jeremy Dixon himself looked to the door. With regret, but only briefly, and with sorrow only for the hours he’d wasted on her couch, Jeremy said “Goodbye,” and quickly made his exit.

And then, with all of the room empty other than herself, Dr. Debra Hook stands alone. Alone, she glories in the fluttering pulses of the hearts she has broken. Alone, recalls the confessions. Her clients, begging her salvation. The payments, falling like manna from the sky, from the men who beg her reassurance.

As the silence clears, a large man enters her office. A specimen thick and muscular. He regards her, then takes her into his arms. Their embrace is heated. For a moment their lips lock, and moist juices flow between their mouths as their bodies draw close in a fervor of passion.

They release. Timidly, Dr. Debra Hook’s husband Bruno regards her left hand and asks, “Where’s your wedding ring?”

“Oh, honey, that?” Dr. Debra Hook rejoins. She looks at her left ring finger, embarrassed, and admits, “I took it off when I washed my hands!”

And, fleetingly, she dashes off to retrieve it.

The Hero

2011-10-21T10:20:00.001-07:00

Clyde Fellows got sick one day, and on that day he got really sick. Emily Fellows would always remember the instant it struck him, because Emily Fellows was Clyde’s wife, and one never forgets the moment they realize the love of their life has gone insane.

A steamy mist rose from their lawn that innocuous Wednesday morning, an effect of the previous night’s rain turning to vapor under the dawning sun. Emily hoped for a rainbow as she poured Clyde a bowl of his favorite breakfast cereal. Lucky Charms. That a grown man should not eat children’s cereal for breakfast remained a longstanding argument in the Fellows household, but had grown tired and threadbare like a worn-out rug. Let him eat his little-boy cereal if it made him happy. For that matter, let him indulge in his lifelong obsession with comic books and superhero mythology. Clyde was a kind and gentle man and a good husband, so Emily took his boyishness the way other wives take their husband’s snoring.

Emily heard Clyde’s footsteps descending the staircase at precisely 6:58 a.m., a weekday event so regular at the Fellows household it could have been used to calibrate clocks. The sound of his footsteps made Emily smile. In their first conversation of the morning, he would often tell her about the dreams he had the previous night - some of them so elaborate they played out like blockbuster Hollywood movies. Or he’d tell a joke. Perhaps he’d describe a new plan he had to take on the day. Nearly everything to come out of her husband’s mouth had a positive ring, and for this reason she loved him dearly.

“Good morning, sweetness,” he said, his voice not far away.

“Mmmm,” Emily sighed. “I’ve poured your cereal,” she said, and turned about to greet him.

And promptly, Emily dropped the bowl to the floor. Immediately her feet were soaked in a wet mess of milk, fortified whole grain cereal bits and marshmallows in the shape of pink hearts, yellow moons, green clovers and purple horseshoes.

“Oops!” blurted Clyde, who stood before her in a full Superman costume.

Emily could not gasp. She could not breathe. She could only marvel as the man who might someday father her children stood before her in red boots, a skin-tight powder blue jump suit, and crimson underwear briefs worn on the outside to match the blood-red cape that hung from his back.

“Honey...” Emily uttered; “What...the...hell?”

Clyde looked down on his costume smugly, surveying himself with a smile that was not proud, not satisfied, not contented. It was insane.

“I must report to the Hall of Justice," Clyde said. "The lecherous Dr. Freeze has taken hostage a busload of innocent schoolchildren - schoolchildren! - and plans to cryogenically suspend their bodies for future use as slaves in his militant army! I must stop him, using my superhuman powers!”

“Uhhh...” Emily breathed. “Oh my Christ!”

Planting his fists on his hips and looking every inch like a surreal and demented man-child (in a Superman costume!), Clyde nodded to the window. “I must go,” he said decisively. “They’ve come for me.”

Emily looked out the window - the window through which just moments ago she’d hoped to spot a rainbow - and beheld a sight that shocked her nearly as much as seeing her husband greet her that morning in an-adult sized pair of Underoos.

Outside in the driveway sat idling a 1955 Lincoln Futura with an overhead valve V-8 engine and scalloped tailfins, jet black and polished to a high sheen. On the hood of the car was a black-on-yellow cartoon logo of a bat. The doors of the vehicle opened - both of them also with the bat design, and out stepped two grown men, one dressed in a black leather outfit, hooded with bat ears coming out of the head, the other in green ankle boots, bare legs leading up to green underwear, and a red vest with an “R“ emblazoned on the heart.

Emily shrieked.

“Fear not, my love; I must join them!” Clyde trumpeted as he rushed outside to greet the visitors. Emily followed, and as the two figures astride the Bat Car came into focus, she saw them to be two of her neighbors, a pair of men viewed as “quirky” in their little hamlet. The man in the leather bat costume was Randy Horowitz, and his sidekick was his domestic partner, David Flagg. They waived amicably as Clyde and Emily approached, though on their countenances both wore expressions of stone-faced gravity.

“You’ve heard, then?” Randy in his bat costume asked Clyde.

“I have,” Clyde answered, adjusting his cape. “We must stop Dr. Freeze at once, and save the fate of those schoolchildren!”

Randy and David nodded in solemn agreement. Before anyone could speak further, they turned their heads to the sky. Emily looked above as well, and saw a tiny human form floating among the clouds. As it descended, Emily made it out to be the figure of a woman in a seated position, as if she were flying in an invisible airplane. Closer and closer she came, and finally hovered a few feet above the ground. Then she rose, and appeared to exit her invisible airplane.

From the unseen vehicle emerged a woman dressed in knee-length jeans shorts and an American Flag T-shirt that hung loosely about her torso. Hitched to her belt were the coils of something that appeared to be a yellow lasso.

It was another neighbor, Mary Parise, an artsy type of good cheer who had amassed a small fortune designing Web sites. Her raven hair hung in modest ringlets about her shoulders, streaked in red, with her most striking feature being her emerald eyes that seemed to hold within them secrets of deep and precious value.

She smiled, revealing two rows of impeccably white and straight teeth.

“Nice outfit,” Randy admired.

“Thanks,” Mary said. “Hell of a lot better than that stupid unitard they had me wearing!”

They all enjoyed a brief laugh, before a businesslike conformity settled on all their faces. “So,” Mary said. “Dr. Freeze.”

They all nodded.

“No time to discuss, I say we just go after him!” Mary concluded.

They all nodded as a group, and quickly departed to take on the task at hand. Mary promptly returned to her invisible airplane and in a heartbeat ascended into the sky, while Randy and David sped off in their Bat Car. Following that, Clyde performed a maneuver Emily could not believe - he pointed one fist to the air, took a few powerful steps, and left the ground in flight!

Clyde felt the flurry of wind against his ears, breathed deeply of the air as it rushed into his lungs, and enjoyed the empowering freedom of what it meant to fly! It’s an exhilaration shared by skydivers and hang gliders, a sense of having the world at your fingertips and everything below in your hands. This is my world, and it is mine to control. So often, flying above the Earth, Clyde wanted to swoop down on every household, every bank and every building, every human soul walking the streets, and save them. To take the wrong and make it right. To turn the evil into good. To save the world, by saving every single soul.

As Clyde flew toward the center of the city, he saw hovering above it the floating battleship of Dr. Freeze, the entire vehicle painted a sinister ice blue. And beneath that, a yellow school bus, which Clyde knew to be filled with the schoolchildren destined to be the future slaves of Dr. Freeze.

Clyde swooped down until he was only feet away from the airborne battleship of Dr. Freeze. On deck sat the villain himself, his eyes glinting cruelly at the busload of children below. The evil doctor’s minions ran like ants through the corridors of the ship, and Clyde knew most of them had once been schoolchildren themselves. Get them when they’re young. Such was the motto of the evil Dr. Freeze.

“You will not sacrifice these children, nor will you make them your slaves!” Clyde shouted at the evil warlord before him.

“I will!” Dr. Freeze hollered back. “I shall freeze them! I shall make them my own! And I shall-”

“You will not!” Clyde protested.

“Let me speak!” Dr. Freeze protested. “These children shall be mine! I will capture their souls! They will forever do my bidding, and they shall - ”

“They will not!” cried Mary, from her invisible airplane.

“Let me speak!” Dr. Freeze repeated. “I shall be their master! I shall be their God! I shall - ”

Before another word could leave his mouth, Randy and David pelted Dr. Freeze’s ship with white-hot laser beams from their Bat Car. At the same moment, Mary swung her golden lasso at the vehicle’s propellers, and, catching them, sent the ship wobbling unsteadily in the air. An expression of frantic horror crossed Dr. Freeze’s face, as Clyde rushed in below and grabbed the ship from its undercarriage. He felt the cold, the frozen, metal in his grip, and with abandon threw the ship to the ground as if it were a balled-up piece of paper.

Dr. Freeze’s evil floating ship of horror exploded on impact with the Earth, but at a safe distance from the school bus. As Clyde watched the carnage, he noticed that he had cut his hand in the battle, and blood now flowed freely from his palm.

He lowered himself to the ground, where Mary, Randy and David awaited him. In a solemn moment, a round of congratulations circled among them for defeating this evil villain.

Mary caught sight of the cut on Clyde’s hand.

“You should go to the hospital and get that taken care of,” she said.

Although he was a man of steel, Clyde agreed. The cut was a vicious one, and even Superman is not above needing the occasional medical attention. With dignity and with grace, Clyde Fellows left the scene of the rescue, and made his way to the hospital. Once there, he took a seat in the emergency room, like any common patient.

And that’s how they found him, in the Urgent Care Unit of the River Bend Psychiatric Hospital. His tearful wife Emily sat by his side, as the middle aged man with the name of Clyde Fellows, inexplicably dressed in a Superman costume, rocked gently on the bench and mouthed under his breath the words, “I am Superman. I am Superman. I am Superman.”

The first person to meet them was the psychiatric nurse, Mary Parise, who often sat in reception. She guided them in patiently, even as the crazy man in the Superman costume pointed at her and shouted, “Wonder Woman! Wonder Woman!”

Dr. Randy Horowitz and Dr. David Flagg entered the room soon after. There were rumors about them in the hospital lounges. They supposed the thing they had together would come to be known eventually, but for now they would keep it a secret and let it come out in their own time.

Dr. Horowitz regarded the man in the Superman costume as he sat rocking on the bench, still muttering, “I am superman. I am Superman. I am Superman.”

“Hello, Mister...” Horowitz let his voice drop off.

“It’s Fellows,” Emily said. “This man’s name is Clyde Fellows, and he’s my husband, and he thinks he’s Superman!”

Abruptly, Clyde sprung up straight from the bench and pointed a finger at Horowitz. “Batman!” he hollered. Then, at Dr. Flagg, Clyde pointed and shouted, “Robin!”

“Okay,” Dr. Horowitz said, and gently guided Clyde Fellows away from his seat. To Emily, he said, “I’m going to take your husband into a private counseling room. Just so I can get the basics. If it’s okay with you, I’d just like it to be him and me.”

Emily waved them off, tears sending rivers of mascara rolling down her cheeks. As they left, so did she - off to get a bite at the hospital dining hall, to eat a sandwich and read a newspaper and maybe forget the hell her life had just become. They passed the reception desk, with Clyde offering Nurse Parise a congratulatory "Good work, Wonder Woman" as they left.

With them gone, Nurse Parise leaned back in her chair and offered a defeated smile to Dr. Flagg.

“Dr. Friese was just in here,” she said, rolling her eyes at the mention of the hospital administrator who was hated by every single person he’d ever met.

“Oh God, Dr. Friese,” Dr. Flagg said, resting his arms on Mary’s desk.

“He was all hot and bothered because the elementary school wanted to send a busload of kids over here to see what we do,” Mary said. “I thought it would be a good idea, but of course he got all freaked out about it. And every time I tried to tell him why it would be a good idea, he’d cut me off and say, ‘Let me speak! Let me speak!’ the way he always does. What a dick.”

“I know,” Dr. Flagg said. “He was yelling at me the other day.”

“About what?”

“Who knows? You know how he is. He just yells.”

As comfort, or maybe as consolation, Mary Parise placed her hand atop Dr. Flagg’s. Not too long, but long enough so each could catch a brief flash of heat from the other’s skin.

“You’re alright, Wonder Woman,” Dr. Flagg said.

“You’re alright, Robin,” Mary Parise said. And together they shared a laugh. It was a quiet moment, but tender and one they would remember for years to follow because the moments to remember aren’t the ones filled with drama, nor those of pomp and circumstance, but the ones that are simple and sweet.

Things Remembered

2011-09-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

A man just released from prison walks like a creature in the clutches of fear, and that’s how Dave Edgerton walks. Sometimes he’ll keep a straight posture, but too straight, as if his shoulder blades were pinned together, his head pivoting like a periscope atop his neck. You almost expect the ping! ping! of a sonar navigation system to bounce out of his ears. Other times he’ll crouch deeply into his own body, like a running back protecting a football. Either way, Dave Edgerton walks the walk of the frightened. It’s a shameful stance for any grown person to take, but one born of necessity, out of the fear you might suddenly find yourself with a knife in your back, and the person you thought was your best friend holding the blade.

Fifteen years he’d been in prison, served of a seven-and-a-half to 15-year sentence. Would have been seven-and-a-half years if Dave had exhibited good behavior in prison. But Dave Edgerton’s behavior in prison had not been good.

The old pink Cadillac pulled into the rustic little shopping center where Dave’s family ran the Things Remembered Portrait Studio. That’s how they’d made their fortune, taking pictures of families under soft lighting for display above fireplaces and in office desktops. Happy families, as the Edgertons themselves might have been if they hadn’t been saddled with Dave as their black sheep.

“Thanks a lot, Ma’am,” Dave said to the elderly lady who’d picked him up about a mile from the bus station, a brief ray of sunlight glinting off the crucifix that swung from the rear view mirror. “But, really, you shouldn’t be picking up hitchhikers!”

“Call me Miriam!” the sweet old woman said, almost sung. “And don’t worry about me,” she said. Then, lowering her voice as if she were keeping a secret from the Lord, whispered, “I don’t pick up everybody!”

Dave smiled. Good thing she’d picked him up, or it would have been a long walk of 20 miles from the bus station to the portrait studio. His release from prison had been remarkably unceremonious: A guard handing him a civilian outfit of pants and shirt to change into, Dave scratching his signature on some release paperwork he hadn't bothered to read, and an officer handing him a bus ticket and five crisp $20 bills with the words, “Good luck to you. Hope you stay away from this place.”

Out of the bus station and with the first few breaths of free air in his lungs, Dave did the only thing he knew to do: Stuck his thumb in the air and hoped some good-natured soul would come by to help him in his journey. He did an unbelieving double-take when the Mary Kay car pulled over for him. He ran to get inside, afraid it might be a candy-colored mirage that would disappear should he touch it.

Once inside the car, the rather sweet smell of freedom was replaced by a thick cloud of perfume, skin lotion and cosmetics that spring from a Mary Kay lady just as surely as the smell of grease comes off a car mechanic. He made small talk with the Mary Kay lady throughout the ride, mostly listening to her patter on about the world of cosmetics sales. Dave coaxed her on with questions to keep her talking and on topic, guarding against any window of silence through which she might slip in a few questions about him. Dave hadn't thought to develop much of a back story for himself, and feared it might be impolitic to inform this kindly woman that she’d just picked up an ex-con fresh from serving hard time for armed robbery and attempted murder.

“Fair enough,” Dave said, exiting the car with a wave. Once again, he noticed the difference between the atmosphere inside the pink Mary Kay bubble and outside. During his short time in the car, he'd grown used to the smell and had even taken a liking to it. The air outside seemed less happy, less fulfilled.

Years ago, I would have hated her, Dave thought of Miriam, the sweet old woman who surely didn't realize she'd just nearly risked her life. I would have looked down on her and her Jesus swinging from her rearview mirror. But she’s a good soul, that Miriam. She helped me along.

And now here he was at the Things Remembered Portrait Studio, the business his parents had opened in 1979. The place looked pretty much the same as it always had, a wagon wheel on the grass right near the entrance, the building a familiar wooden structure probably with a few new coats of paint. Dave was sure when he got to the building there would be a small tile of cement right next to the door bearing the hand prints of himself, his sister and their parents, in the same spot where they’d placed it the day the business opened. The hand prints, with the identifying placards underneath, DAVID SR., DELORES, DAVE JR., LISA.

Dave supposed he should have contacted his parents to let them know he was getting out, but had figured he’d be better off sticking with the element of surprise. He imagined talking with his father, or his mother, or his sister before his release, and envisioned the arguments he would have gotten into with any one of them. Somehow, arguments found a way of following Dave around everywhere he went. Rather than potentially starting his life of freedom off on a bad foot, Dave planned to ambush the family unannounced. All the World War II history books he'd been reading in prison factored into his strategy. Hit them like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, or the German blitzkrieg bombing raids on London. Crash in on the family like a fiery missile. Give them no choice but to offer help, if only to get him away.

Approaching the door to the business, the butterflies gathered up in his stomach. It’ll be okay, Dave assured himself. They’re your family. Just smile and talk about good things. Tell them you love them and that you missed them. Even though he hadn’t spoken to them since his trial, and hadn’t even made contact with them at his sentencing. His last conversation with them, etched forever in his mind, was of yelling at them, “You’re not my family! You were never my family!” He remembered it, and was sure they did as well.

Standing at the door, about to enter the studio and utterly unsure of what he’d find there, Dave took a quick glance down at the piece of cement where they’d all laid their hand prints all those years ago, hoping it would bring back good memories.

Instead, it brought something close to shock, with a fair amount of hurt mixed in.

There weren’t four hand prints on the block, but three. Underneath them, placards reading, DAVID, DELORES, LISA.

Dave’s handprint was gone. His father’s placard didn’t say DAVID SR., just DAVID. He knew this was his father’s handprint and not his, because at the time he had insisted his placard read DAVE, not DAVID. Dave kneeled closer to inspect the cement, to see if they’d altered it to remove his hand print, but no. There was no corruption there, no sign of alteration. Just the three names, without his.

Regrouping himself, Dave opened the door.

Sitting at the front desk was a woman, older but not yet elderly, that he recognized immediately as his mother.

The woman looked up and smiled politely, but there was no recognition in her face whatsoever. Merely the pleasant countenance any business owner might offer a stranger entering their store.

“Hello, young man,” the woman - his mother! - said. “Welcome to Things Remembered. May I help you?”

Dave’s eyes widened, and with everything he could he held back the outrage now hammering at his throat. He let the silence hang a minute, long enough for a shadow of fearful concern to cross his mother’s brow. Finally, he spoke:

“Mom, it’s me!”

The woman sprung back in her chair and abruptly crossed her arms over her chest. Had she forgotten him? Or had they disowned him, vowing never to treat him as a member of the family again? Even so, you’d think she’d recognize him. Prison had not changed him that much; he'd maintained the same build as before, and if nothing else the sound of his voice should have brought him back in her memory.

No, the woman sitting at the front desk did not know him, and the only thing he saw in her eyes was fear.

“David!” she called, not to him but obviously to his father.

A door to a back room swung open, and out stepped a man and a younger woman. His father and his sister, Lisa. The past 15 years had hardly changed them at all. If anything, his father looked better now than before. More relaxed, and probably 30 pounds thinner. Gone was the drained look of a man at constant battle with his rebellious son, often finding solace in a nightly dosage of beer and cheese burgers.

“Yes?” his father asked. After setting his eyes on Dave, the older man advanced toward him. “Can I help you with something, son?”

Son, not used in the way a father addresses his child, but the way an older man addresses a younger man. Any younger man.

Dave registered the thought that he had not yet announced his own name since entering the portrait studio. If this were all part of some morbid attempt to erase Dave from the family memory, there was still no possible way his parents or his sister could forget that there had been another member of the family at some time, and that his name had been Dave.

“Don’t you remember me? I’m your son!”

Dave’s father shook his head in wonder, as if the family had never had a son any more than it had ever kept a pet aardvark. “Son,” his father said, then corrected himself, “Sir...I’m afraid there’s been some mistake. My name is David Edgerton, and this is my wife, Delores. And this is our daughter, Lisa. We don’t have a boy. We don’t have a son.”

As his father spoke, in the corner of his eye Dave caught sight of a family portrait taken in 1985. It hung from the wall now, just as it had the day they’d framed it. Then, it had been a picture of the four of them - two parents, and two teenagers, one male and the other female, sitting for a family portrait.

But now, there were only three people in the picture - two parents, and their daughter. There was no way the picture could have been altered to remove Dave; he simply had never been in it at all.

But hadn’t he? He remembered the day they took that picture, how the photographer had to cajole him to smile.

Again, the words from the last family argument came rushing back to him, “You’re not my family! You were never my family!”

He remembered saying those words, never expecting they’d come true. He remembered also all the times he’d hurt them, struck out against them, stolen from them. How could he now expect, with any decency, to be a part of the family again, given that when he was a member of the family he’d rejected them all so cruelly?

“Um, I’m sorry,” Dave finally acquiesced, looking again at the family portrait he‘d once been a part of, but was no longer. “I guess there has been a mistake.”

Without another word, he left.

So now, Dave Edgerton walks.

With the frightened walk of a prisoner, Dave Edgerton walks away rejected from a family he never accepted. Again extending his thumb, now with no idea where he'll go or what he’ll do when he gets there. He’s been assigned to a halfway house in town, but he knows he’ll only find more losers and criminals in such a place. He’d hoped to make a new start with his family, but that option has vanished just as surely as Dave's handprints disappeared from the cement block outside the portrait studio.

So Dave Edgerton walks. Away from a past he rejected, and into a future laced with uncertainty. No different from moving away from one town, and into another. Hoping all the trouble that found him in the last town will stay away in the new one. Hoping, in this new town, for things to be different.

Hoping for things to be better.

Fitting

2011-09-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

Squeeze, honey, Erin Freeport said to herself. Just squeeze.

Drawing in a deep breath, she pulled her entire body inward - shoulders, arms, legs and feet - and again tried to guide the stubborn button on her dress through its hole. The button peeked through - nearly halfway, to Erin’s delight - but there it stalled, and would not land in place.

“Dammit! Bad button!” she whispered, staring at herself in the mirror of the women’s dressing room. Only 10 minutes before her shift at the Players Lounge, and her uniform wouldn’t fit. For all her nine years working at this high-end cocktail bar, dread of this moment had lurked in the back of her mind. No, not all nine years, really; just the past two or three. That was when the uniform, which had slipped on so comfortably when she’d taken this as her first job out of high school, showed signs of tightening around her curves. This moment, when the uniform no longer fit, was one she’d seen happen to many of her former coworkers, but had never expected to happen to herself. It was a moment specifically forbidden in the employee handbook.

Erin saw the guideline written in her mind’s eye, as if the handbook were open right in front of her.

“ALL EMPLOYEES MUST CONTINUE TO WEAR THE SAME SIZE UNIFORM AS ON THEIR INITIAL DATE OF HIRE. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION.”

She remembered reading that line on the day she signed her contract. This was not something buried deep in the fine print, either. It was right up top, along with the rules governing attendance and forbidding drinking on the job. But still, she’d laughed it off, never imagining a day when her uniform wouldn’t fit. Todd, the owner, had laughed it off along with her. “It’s just a formality,” he’d said. “Keeps the girls from getting fat.”

Funny, it had seemed then. But now it was life-or-death.

Squeeze, Erin told herself again. Slowly, her thumb trembling, she tried to push the button into place. And, again, it stalled.

It was the second lowest button on her dress, held resolutely apart by her hips. Her hips. She thought of her mother - her jovial, pear-shaped mother, she of gargantuan hips and competing thighs. And pictures of her mother as a teenager, just as thin and willowy as Erin had been. Memories came back, though, of her mother entering her forties, of one Thanksgiving and her mother gleefully licking batter off the wooden spoon, tucking stray pinches of stuffing into her mouth, and Erin noticing how thick her mother had grown around the midsection. I’ll never let myself get like that, Erin had thought.

As Erin stood before the dressing room mirror at the Players Lounge, she heard the door swing open. She panicked momentarily - Was it Todd? Please God, don’t let it be Todd. But she knew it wasn’t. Indecent and creepy as Todd was, he at least always had the decency to knock before entering the girls’ dressing room.

When the opening of the door was followed by the click! click! click! of high heels, Erin new it was Kitty, the young girl who worked the shift with her. Kitty, the sleek and raven-haired goddess yet to celebrate her twentieth birthday. Kitty, who Erin hated but swore not to hate because it was a hatred of jealousy, a hatred envious of Kitty’s youth, a hatred Erin swore she’d never bear toward the younger girls because years ago the older servers had born the same hatred toward Erin. Still, though, Erin could not always bat down her anger toward Kitty, the way the younger girl rolled her eyes whenever Erin tried to give her advice, and sighed resentfully whenever asked to do an extra amount of work.

“Hey!” Kitty said as she made her grand entrance into the locker room, tucking her precious blackberry into her purse. With her eyes she regarded Erin, standing helplessly in front of the mirror, the one crucial button on her uniform still unfastened. Without question, Erin knew that Kitty had sized up her plight. The younger woman gave Erin a look of outward sympathy, but beneath that lied a glimmer of undisguised delight.

Squeeze, Erin reminded herself again, and once more pushed the button through its hole, guiding it gently, praying to every god ever worshipped that somehow it would fit.

And, miraculously, this time it did!

As the button fell into place, Erin breathed out a sigh of grand relief and let her body relax. All the muscles which she’d drawn so closely together, she let expand and a rush of welcome liberation flooded her body. All of her fears extinguished, she once again felt like herself.

And that’s when tragedy struck.

Erin felt the uniform loosen suddenly around her hips, and she knew immediately what had happened. The ping! of the button hitting the floor verified her fears - she’d popped out of her uniform!

She’d forgotten that Kitty was in the room, but was cruelly reminded when her young coworker let out a stifled shriek.

“Omigod!” Kitty wailed, “Did you just bust a button?”

There was no denying it - Erin had busted a button, and with it, she’d busted her career serving drinks at the Players Lounge. No going back now; no longer was she struggling to fit into her uniform, she’d broken the damn thing. Over and out. At the age of 27, Erin was now officially too much of a fat old lady to serve drinks to the rowdy sales reps and blackberry junkies who populated the Players Lounge.

A knock came at the door, as it did every day before the shift started. Todd.

“Are you decent?” he called, as he always did.

Kitty looked to Erin to supply the answer. Resigned, Erin called out, “Yeah, we’re decent.”

And in sauntered Todd - the man who had signed Erin to her contract with the Players Lounge, and was surely about to fire her. Impeccably dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, he smiled at them with his rows of teeth, impossibly white and straight. How much Erin had admired him when she first met him, and over the years had grown to hate him. All those long, closed-door meetings he had with the female waitstaff - and, truth be told, many of them with Erin herself. But that was years ago. Todd had lately taken to merely barking orders at Erin, or ignoring her entirely. But today, he would not ignore her.

Almost as soon as he walked in, he noticed the popped button on her uniform. Before he could say anything, Erin said it for him.

“I popped a button on my dress.”

“Okay,” Todd nodded. “You know what that means. You can go ahead and leave. We’ll mail you your check.”

After nine years of service, all she got was, We’ll mail you your check.

Turning to Kitty, Todd said, “And you know what that means! You’re the head server tonight!”

Kitty purred in delight, and let her body pulse in rhythm to the music playing outside in the Players Lounge. Todd wasted no time in joining her, wrapping his hands around her young and writhing body, as together they swayed to the muffled voice coming in from the dance floor.

“Tonight, we're going hard, hard,
Just like the world is ours,
We're tearing it apart,
You know we're superstars, we are who we are!”

Dejected, but not surprised, Erin changed back into her street clothes. Tears welled up, though, at the thought of how one chapter in her life was ending, a chapter when she was young and thin and full of dreams. And how she was unsure of what the next chapter would be.

Blithely, Todd and Kitty took no notice of her whatsoever. Instead, they continued their erotic gyrations as the singer purred,

”We're dancin' like we're dumb,
Our bodies going numb,
We'll be forever young, young,
You know we're superstars, we are who we are.”

As Todd and Kitty danced, they did not notice Erin leave for the parking lot. No, they were too caught up in the moment. And anyway, girls leave the Players Lounge all the time, never to come back.

When the song ended, Todd congratulated Kitty on her new position as head server at the Players Lounge. He dismissed himself, so she could quickly and effortlessly change into her uniform. Looking at herself in the mirror, Kitty grumbled to herself that the uniform seemed a little bit loose, and the wrinkles hid her curves. But it didn’t matter, because she was young and sexy and hot and was sure to make great tips as the head server at the Players Lounge.

Plus, the uniform did make her look hot, and it would always fit her well.

Always.

Justin

2011-07-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

The teenage girl - Denise Lilly, daughter of Frank and Mary Lilly - stormed out of the house. With a final few choice words she slammed the living room door behind her, leaving her parents stranded in the brittle silence that often follows a loud family fight.

Mary started toward the door, her cheeks a hellish red as if she‘d just been slapped. Like the mother of any young adult, she considered herself the veteran of many parent-child battles, and the victor among more than a few. But not this time. There were still words, retorts, left unspoken. Plenty of them. And before her daughter left for good and this conflict entered the family history books, Mary planned to add a few responses of her own into the record.

With a calm raising of his hand, Frank murmured, “No. Let her go.”

Mary froze in mid-stride, gathering herself as much as she could. Deep breaths, she reassured herself, drawing up the calmness she ordinarily summoned in her weekly yoga class, a tranquility which should have prevented fights such as tonight’s from ever happening at all. Deep breaths. Yes, she supposed it would be better to let Denise go for now, rather than allowing the argument to spill out onto the front porch and into the driveway. In front of the neighbors.

In front of Justin.

“She owes me an apology,” Mary vowed, her words hanging in the living room as she and her husband watched their daughter descend the porch blissfully, as if nothing had happened. Waving flirtatiously to the driver of the car idling outside, waiting to retrieve her for an evening of dinner and a movie.

And so it was, with hopeless abandon, that Frank and Mary Lilly watched their daughter enter the car awaiting her with a driver they could not see, its headlight a pair of brightly glowing eyes that briefly filled the living room, then faded to the red embers of tail lights at the end of the street as the vehicle took their daughter off on an adventure that should have been a cherished milestone in her brief and blossoming life.

Her first date.

With his daughter Denise gone and his wife, Mary, placated, at least for the moment, Frank turned the evening’s events over in his mind as if they were a puzzle, or a math problem he’d attacked with all the appropriate formulas, yet somehow gotten wrong. And, what had gone wrong?

Justin is what had gone wrong. Not Justin himself, as Frank was sure Justin was a perfectly nice boy, or, young man, since tonight’s revelation made calling Justin a “boy” seem altogether too archaic and wrong.

It was Friday evening at the Lilly household. Something of a sacred time for the family - the one point of the week where mother, father and daughter agreed to shut out the rest of the world, and turn their attention solely on each other. “There are two kinds of people in the world,” Frank would often murmur in a joke that somehow never grew old; “Us, and everybody else.” Friday night was the Lilly family’s time for “us.”

On Friday nights, Frank would forget about his construction business, expel from his ears the dull hammering of nails, wipe from his memory the blueprints and timelines that crossed his desk each week, absolve his memory of the constant din of commands hollered above the roar of a buzz saw, and enjoy drawing deeply into his lungs air that did not smell of paint.

Mary, too, cleared her mind of the week’s adventures managing a roadside diner called “Feeding Frenzy.” Happily gone were the week’s conflicts and mutinies among the wait staff; the clang of ceramic plates in the sink; reminding her eldest customer Mr. Coffer for the hundredth time that No, Mr. Coffer, you can’t smoke at your table, you haven’t been able to since 1994; the chaos of lunchtime and the drawn-out emptiness of the afternoon; the continuous, serpentine hiss of food frying on the griddle.

Even Denise managed to put her week at high school aside, although she personally treasured her teenage years and prized school for all its high drama. Frank and Mary counted themselves lucky that at least they’d been blessed with a good kid who managed to make something of her youth. Denise was the bubbly, popular type of girl Mary always envied in high school, and Frank pretended to deride but secretly feared. Feared, because you can’t get too close to these people, they’ll hurt you. Or at least that’s what he thought at the time of his own youth. But looking back all these years later, and after parenting one of these bright and bubbly kids nearly into adulthood, he’d come to understand that people such as Denise will not hurt you, because hurting is not in their soul.

Friday night with the Lilly family, and this one perhaps a bit special. At least for Denise. The seed of this special night sprouted earlier in the week, on Tuesday, when the boy in her class called Justin asked her out on a date. Of course, for the past few weeks Justin was far more than a boy in her class. From the day he’d first sat down next to her in Advanced Algebra II, he’d assumed a role in her life approximately as important as the sun, the sky, the Earth and the seas, to the seven trillionth power. A five minute conversation with Denise would reveal Justin’s favorite band (Mumford & Sons); movie (Cloverfield); TV shows (Burn Notice in primetime; Seinfeld in reruns); and the position Justin played on the football team (running back, though he’d make one helluva wide receiver if stupid Coach Neilson would ever give him the chance to prove himself.

Justin, Justin, Justin. That had pretty much been the depth of Denise’s conversation most of the school year. Couple this with the promise she’d been given when she was a very little girl that she could date once she turned 16, simple calculation points to who would be the lucky man to bring her out for her first evening outside the house.

Denise had turned 16 on Monday, and lo and behold Tuesday brought the request for a date with Justin. Denise first approached her mother, who rather enjoyed sharing a girlish giggle with her daughter over the matter. Once the initial frivolity died down, Mary felt it was her duty to lower her tone and caution, “Your curfew is 11 o’clock. Have fun, but don’t give him anything to tell his friends about.”

Denise nodded, with a sudden stillness that convinced Mary of her seriousness. “Besides,” the girl assured her mother, “Justin’s not that kind of guy.”

Mary shook her head dismissively. “They’re all that kind of guy.”

They idled away the rest of the afternoon with pleasant girl talk, Oprah supplying inoffensive background noise as they awaited Frank’s return home from work. They talked mostly of an upcoming visit from Mary’s family - there would be her mother and father, maybe a stray aunt of uncle, and possibly a cousin or so. Good people, although Mary and Frank had been husband and wife for so long, and from such a young age, the two often joked that they’d more raised each-other than had their families back home. Mary, especially, felt distant from her parents and the family she’d known as a child. She and Frank had lived in New Hampshire going on 30 years, knew all the local expressions, and spoke as if they’d lived there forever. Mary’s family, though, came from a different place, and seemingly almost a different time. For generations, her family had hailed from the nether reaches of Ohio, a part of the state so close in accent and attitude to its southern neighbor, it might as well just give in and call itself Kentucky. As such, you acted differently around Mary’s family. You didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. You didn’t start eating until everybody had been seated and grace had been said (“and they’ll probably want you to say it, Denise, so think of something”).

Despite the formalities, Mary looked forward to her family’s arrival. The years were growing longer and there were only so many left; time to make as many memories as possible while everyone’s was still intact.

“And who knows,” Mary confided in her daughter just as the setting sun faded the sky to darkness. “Maybe if things work out with you and Justin, you can invite Justin over for our family picnic!”

Denise nodded excitedly. “That would be wonderful!” she squealed. “They’ll love him.”

Frank arrived home just past six, with less than an hour to go before Justin came by to pick Denise up for their date.

And that’s when Denise dropped a bomb she probably didn’t know was a bomb. Although, why would she mention it if she didn’t think it would matter?

Her announcement came as she again promised to make curfew, and told her parents to wait up so Justin could meet them after their date.

“Before you meet Justin, there is something about him you should probably know,” Denise said.

Her parents’ eyes perked up in unison, as if invisible antennae had just sprung up from their heads.

“Justin’s black,” Denise said.

With those two words, a lifetime of theory suddenly clashed up against reality. They’d always promoted racial tolerance in their home, and encouraged Denise to read books by black authors and experience black music (except rap, which was forbidden in the Lilly household). Martin Luther King had long been praised as a hero, though the family did nothing to recognize his birthday every year. They advised Denise to respect African Americans and their culture, but lived in a section of the state nearly devoid of African Americans and their culture.

Unfazed, Frank dismissed the information with a shrug. “Why even tell us? So Justin’s black. If he’s your friend, and he treats you like a lady, I don’t care if he’s green.”

Mary, though, did not join her husband in support. In fact, she bit her lower lip and cleared her throat the way she did when she wanted to say something but couldn’t. Frank and Denise both looked at her, awaiting her response.

“Well,” Mary finally said, “He can’t come to the family picnic. Don’t invite him over for that.”

And that’s when the evening exploded. Denise’s jaw dropped open and Mary walked away, soon with her daughter following her with a stream of accusations and threats. “How can you tell me he can’t come to the family picnic? You just invited him to the family picnic!” “Because I’m your mother, and when you grow up you’ll understand these things!” “Understand what? That you been lying to me all my life?” Back and forth, crisscrossing and zigzagging, their voices growing louder with each sentence and Frank, poor Frank, trapped between his vow always to side with his wife in family arguments but how could he now, when his wife was so damn wrong?

Headlights in the driveway. Justin’s headlights. “What, are you going to tell me I can’t go now? Because Justin’s black, and you don’t want your daughter to be seen with a black boy?”

“No,” Frank cut in quickly, “Of course you can go. Go and have fun. We’ll wait up. Tell Justin we look forward to meeting him.”

“I’ll tell Justin you look forward to meeting him,” Denise said. “But mom’ll probably be standing there in a white sheet and a burning cross!” And with that, the teenage girl - Denise Lilly, daughter of Frank and Mary Lilly - stormed out of the house.

As the headlights disappeared into the night and Frank first started to puzzle over how the argument had evolved, Mary repeated, “She owes me an apology. White sheet and burning cross! How dare she?”

“Honey, she’s a kid. Kids say things. Always have. The only difference is, you can’t smack ’em anymore.”

That got a laugh our of Mary, and Frank could sense her softening. She looked out the window, as if searching for her daughter, to bring her back and apologize to her, to make things right.

“I just worry about her, is all,” Mary said, drawing closer to the window, looking out into the night, into their neighborhood of well-trimmed lawns. A quiet neighborhood, where upscale cars sat in the driveways and neighbors looked after the houses of others they knew to be on vacation. “I worry she’s too innocent. The way a child is innocent.”

“But she is a child,” Frank said. “And a good one.”

He paused, choosing his next words carefully. His wife diffused from a fight that was still only moments old, he took pains not to ignite it anew. Finally, he ventured, “Are you sure you’re not just worried she’s going out with a black kid?”

“Maybe,” Mary sighed, slumping her shoulders in unspoken defeat. “It’s not so horrible to worry about. Sure, we’re enlightened in here, but out there,” she tapped her finger against the window, “out there it’s still 1954, don’t you think? Might as well be. There’s still prejudice. People don’t talk about it, but it’s still there. If the neighbors see Denise bringing a black kid home, you know there’ll be talk. You know there will be!”

“Are you sure it’s 1954 out there, and not in here?” Frank asked.

“Oh, hell, maybe it is,” Mary agreed. “I can promise you, when my family comes from Ohio and Denise brings a black kid to the family picnic, it will for sure be 1954 in here! My father’ll have a heart attack! And my mother, she’ll probably spit out her dentures! And did I tell you, Aunt Sarah will probably come? She tells stories, you know. If Denise brings a black kid to the family picnic, Sarah will go back home and tell everyone, everyone, that Denise brought a black kid who just got out of prison to the family picnic!”

Frank nodded and acknowledged his wife’s fears, trying to be neither dismissive nor altogether too encouraging. Playing Switzerland, as he often did with conflicts between the two females of his household. And though he didn’t agree with his wife’s fears, he understood them. These are maternal instincts, common throughout the animal kingdom, as fierce in humans as they are in wolves and bears. Not even maternal instincts; parental instincts. You watch over your young, hold them close. Make sure they don’t fall or get lost. Steer them away from danger and towards those places that are safe and warm. Look on nervously as they take their first steps, because at that moment a skinned knee is an earthquake, and rest easily only when you’re sure they can walk on their own. Wave them off to their first day at school, and hope they don’t get lost in the lunch line. Guide them through their tantrums, their rebellions, and at those times make a superhuman effort to understand them, and to forgive. Each one of these moments is a step, a milestone. Their first steps. First day at school. And only days later, it seems, their first date.

Denise Lilly’s first date had begun with an argument, as many first dates do, but as the evening wore on a calm settled over the family living room. Frank and Mary Lilly agreed they would greet Justin warmly, as he was adult enough to request a meeting with them after taking their daughter out. And Mary resolved to invite Justin to the family picnic, just as she had earlier, before she had learned Justin was black. She’d long counseled her daughter to be colorblind to race, and after some deep thought she’d deemed to take her own advice.

And so they sat, she and Frank, in the glow of their television set, watching as the clock ticked ever closer to 11 p.m. And as that hour drew near, at exactly 10:52 p.m., a pair of headlights pulled into the driveway. And after a few brief moments, Denise and a young man walked through the door.

Denise and a young man, that is, because this young man could not have been Justin.

The young man who accompanied Denise through the door, was white. Fair skinned and blond. With the chiseled good looks of a Paul Newman, and the devil-may-care swagger of a Leonardo De Caprio.

“Hi!” Denise purred as she greeted her parents. Ignoring their dumbfounded stares, she added, “This is Justin.”

The young man shook their hands and gave them each a warm “hello,” though he could tell by their cockeyed reception something was amiss. Quizzically, he looked to Denise for an explanation.

“Oh,” she said dismissively, “I told my parents you were black.”

Justin, now united with Frank and Mary, joined them in confronting Denise with their disbelief.

“Oh, relax!” Denise said. “This was an acting exercise I read about on the Internet. You're supposed to tell a lie and see if you can get people to believe it!” Now she set forth a triumphant giggle, satisfied that she’d pulled the ultimate hoax off on her parents with an affinity so natural someone should notify the Oscar committee.

“And you totally fell for it!” Denise joyously continued. “Especially my mom. Oh my God, she’s all like, ‘Well, he can’t come to the family picnic!’ It was hysterical!”

Now, they all laughed. Mary, perhaps a bit uncomfortably. But also with a sense of relief. Because it had all been for nothing. First, her fears about Justin attending the family picnic, but also the fears of her daughter getting involved with a black kid. For nothing! And so, she laughed. Right along with Frank and Justin, who was not black and was so deliciously, handsomely, white. Nothing to worry about at all. And the family picnic, what a joy it would be to have him there! He and Denise’s grandfather could talk about football, and her grandmother would just eat Justin up for his good looks. And surely, Aunt Sarah would fall in love with him. And she would return home with stories that Justin wasn’t just a player on the football team, but that he was captain of the football team!

It would be a wonderful day, when Mary could introduce Justin to her visiting family. A wonderful day, when she could show Denise, all grown up, to people who hadn’t seen her in years. And standing right beside her, Denise’s delightful new boyfriend Justin. Mary couldn’t wait to show him off.

Couldn’t wait.

Dearest Lisa...

2010-09-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

He was old and she was young; his hair, a grandfatherly gray, hers a youthful black. He had founded this company and worked here for 15 years; she’d only started a couple of months ago. It was no sin of his to fall in love with her; perfectly natural, in fact. But what had be been thinking when he sat down to write that letter to her? And what the hell had been on his mind this morning when he took that letter and placed it in her mail slot?

Love, that’s what had been on his mind. Love, and the hope that she might be flattered, or at least touched. The possibility of a new romance. The worst that could happen, Doug Shumlin thought as he wrote the letter to Lisa Porter and addressed it Dearest Lisa, was that she might reject him and let the matter fade into memory.

Except, that was not the worst that could happen. The worst that could happen, it turned out, would be for her to reveal the contents of the letter to all of her colleagues, his employees, right here in the workplace, in front of God and everyone.

That was the worst that could happen, and here it was, right now, happening.

“Did you mean what you wrote in this letter?” asked Lisa, her eyes narrowed into slants of anger mixed with confusion.

She waved the envelope in Doug’s face as the other employees gathered around her desk. Doug had been making his morning rounds, as he did every day, and stopped by Lisa’s desk hoping she would acknowledge with a blush the letter he’d left for her. The letter that read,

Dearest Lisa,

You may have noticed yesterday, during our working dinner, that I have developed feelings for you. Strong feelings, which I would be dishonest to keep hidden. I understand I am an employer and you are the employee, and such relationships are often considered improper. But there is nothing improper about my thoughts for you. It goes beyond your youth and your beauty, and reaches deeply into your soul, and mine. Love is a rare and precious matter of the heart, and I felt its first flutter last night as we worked on next month’s sales strategies. I will not bury my feelings for you, nor keep them locked away in place of shame and secrecy. No, I must expose them to the light, and hope that you share them, and that you and I can develop a fondness for each other that may bring joyous years to our lives.

Love,

Doug

Lisa held the letter in her hand, brandished it like a rock she wanted to throw at him. The fellow employees regarded it warily, still unaware of its contents. For all they knew, it might be a letter of reprimand, or termination. Thankfully, Lisa had not yet embarrassed Doug by revealing it to be an old-fashioned love letter, something a clumsy schoolboy might pass on to a girl in study hall.

Doug wished now he could take that letter back, though he had poured his very soul into writing it. He attempted several drafts, each one with shaking hand. Discarding one after the other; the penmanship too shaky in this one, the language too flowery in the next. Hunched over his kitchen table, a picture of his recently deceased wife looking down from the mantle. Doug silently begging her forgiveness, but asking her permission to move on. As one season passes, so another must begin. His wife’s death had been a long and painful winter, disease taking her and squeezing the life out of her, suffocating her, leaving her a withered husk of bygone beauty. Nights spent at the hospital bed, tending to her needs, sharing memories and reminiscent laughter, because all they had now were memories. These were the darkest days of their winter, hopeless and frigid. Doug had begged in these times not only for her forgiveness, but his own as he watched his bride die and his love for her die with her.

And soon enough she was gone, and their years together became a memory. Lisa had come into his life shortly thereafter, and lit within him a passion he hadn’t felt in years. Her sassy wit, her youthful dress, her habit of slyly winking after making a joke. As he trained her on the job, maybe spending more time with her than was proper, he felt his feelings build. More so, day by day. And last night, as they’d dined together under soft lights, he’s felt the winter of his sadness blossom into spring.

And so he wrote the letter. The letter she now held angrily in her hands.

“Do you love me, like you say in the letter?” she demanded, as all the employees gasped.

“Lisa - ” Doug began.

“Do you?” she cried.

“Lisa I didn’t mean for this to come out in public!”

“Oh, you didn’t?” she rejoined. “If not in public, where, then? In private? In secret? Was I supposed to be some floozy you took to a motel room on Friday, and then bragged about to all your golf buddies on Saturday?”

Doug did not speak, but only gulped for air.

“If you love me, say it now! Say it in front of everybody. Because I won’t be your secret. I won’t be your mistress!”

The sound of her voice is angry, but as she finishes speaking, it fades. Fades to dusk, fades to darkness, and then fades to nothing.

Fades to nothing, because none of this is happening, not at Lisa’s desk. Not in front of the others.

Rather, we join Doug Shumlin as he writes the letter, poring over every word, splashing his romantic dreams onto the page, finally to sign his name and seal his passions in an envelope.

And here he is, the next morning, about to drop the letter into Lisa’s mail slot. His fingers burn with raw nerve as he realizes that once he drops the letter into the mysterious abyss, retrieval is out of the question.

So he retrieves the letter before he drops it. Puts it back in his pocket. Takes it back to his office and rips it in half, then into fourths, and drops the remnants into his waste basket.

He tries to stomp the letter down in his memory as the other employees begin arriving for the workday. He’s nearly forgotten it as he makes his daily rounds, wishing each of the employees a good day as he circles the office.

“Good morning, Lisa,” he says, as he passes Lisa Porter’s desk.

“Good Morning, Mr. Shumlin!” she beams. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he says, as he crosses back to his office, when the tattered remains of a romance that could of been sit, ripped into quarters and awaiting disposal in his wastebasket.

Fine.

Unfinished Sympathy

2010-08-26T07:14:00.001-07:00

Her name was Elizabeth Bruenner, but everybody called her Betty Busybody. She was the office manager/receptionist/lady in the boss’s back pocket, and when you saw her coming, you better find someplace else to be. Because if somebody gets a nickname like Betty Busybody, she probably earned it, and you don’t want none of her stink.

Joey Nebbins walked into the office the usual way he does, his feet at a quiet shuffle and eyes to the ground, sporting the bad posture that had caused his mother to call out, “Straighten up!” from about the moment he could walk. Straighten up or what? he’d always wondered. Are the posture police gonna come and take me away?

But Joey Nebbins walks into the office, slumps in, and catches a glimpse of himself in a window, all bent over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame experiencing a crisis of self-confidence, and straightens up a little. Not all the way, but enough.

Miss Betty Busybody sees him and approaches, pain on her face. She zips right on up to him and latches on like a fly caught up in flypaper, and Joey Nebbins takes a moment to wonder whether he’s the flypaper and she’s the fly, or visa versa, but not that it matters, because either way he’s stuck.

She pats him on the arm, looking deeply into his eyes, and says, “Joey, I’m sorry,” in the tone of a school nurse speaking to a sick child. Tilts her head in sympathy, gives his arm another quick pat, and flutters off without giving Joey the chance to ask why, precisely, is she sorry and about what?

Joey takes another few steps, makes his way around the office, and sitting there at a desk across from his own is David. Joey has worked face to face with this man for years, but only knows his name is David. They’ve never spoken more than a few words in passing. Like next-door neighbors in some crowded housing development, they see each other every day, but have never entered into the world of personal rapport. Hardly ever exchanged words, really. But today, David looks up as Joey takes his seat. Joey smiles and says “Good morning,” but David only stares deeply into his eyes and says, “I’m sorry.”

Then David’s eyes burrow into his own computer screen, signaling the end to the conversation, and Joey is left to wonder why David is sorry, and about what?

The morning continues, and every ten minutes or so someone walks by Joey’s desk and tells him they are sorry. Each of them leaves before Joey has a chance to ask them why they are sorry, and about what?

He considers following them and asking why they are sorry, but remains seated and silent, letting their apologies wash over him.

Around noontime, Joey makes his way to the lunch room and accidentally bumps into the cleaning lady. Not hard, just a brief brush of the shoulders, and without looking up the cleaning lady says, “I’m sorry.”

This gives David a glimmer of hope. After a morning of people telling him they are sorry for no reason at all, at least the cleaning lady is sorry for something tangible, for the accident of brushing into him.

Or maybe she’s sorry for the same reason all the others have been sorry for the rest of the day, that inconclusive thing for which people have been apologizing without giving an explanation. Joey wonders if it is for the one thing, or for the other.

The question bothers you, and troubles you throughout the day.

The Jason Box

2010-08-17T11:25:00.001-07:00

They were young and bubbly, as only college girls can be, but also responsible. Daksha, the adorable young Indian one, met them at the door after having spent most of the previous night packing and moving and cleaning the place up.

Bill and Evalynne Goode, the married couple scheduled to rent the place for the summer, had said they would be there at 8 a.m. And just as the clock flipped from 7:59, there they were, on the damn nose, a detail that touched Daksha’s heart warmly. For the past two years, this place had been her home. Sure, it was your typical college pad where the water sometimes ran the color of rust and the neighbors partied late into the night, but it had been hers. It pleased her to see the place going to a good family.

“Hellooo!” Daksha beamed, warmly shaking Bill Goode’s hand and taking Evalynne into an embrace. The older woman patted Daksha on the back but did not wrap her arms around her as she would have liked, affirming Daksha’s longtime conclusion that Evalynne Goode was none too taken with the hugging ritual.

“Hello,” Mr. and Mrs. Goode returned in harmony, pleasant smiles carved almost identically onto their faces. The smiles were genuine; in private they’d spoken of Daksha, of how kind and together she seemed, and how glad they were to move into a home of which she had been the most recent caretaker.

Meagan, Daksha’s roommate, bounded down the stairs in sweatpants and a tee-shirt. Hair ruffled, college cool, and ready to go.

The two young women exchanged parting pleasantries with the married couple, e-mail addresses and a few housekeeping tips tailored especially for this home’s personality, and made ready to leave.

“Oh, one thing,” Daksha said in parting, “There’s a box of stuff I left upstairs. Just a small one. You can throw it out if you like.”

The Goodes looked at her questioningly, but Meagan gave her a knowing glance.

“The Jason Box?” Meagan asked.

“The Jason Box,” Daksha confirmed. Then, to the Goodes, she elaborated, “There was this guy who lived down the street, a literature major,” sight distain in her voice, “and he was always making me all these CD’s and giving me books and stuff. The music, I couldn’t get into - it was old stuff by guys who can’t sing - y’know, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, stuff that I just never listened to, and the books were just weird.”

The Goodes both nodded, Evalynne perhaps a bit more sympathetically. She’d suffered through many of the same “gifts” when she’d been in college.

“So, anyway,” Daksha continued, “I didn’t have room for the box, but I didn’t want to just throw it away. I felt bad. Well, I didn’t feel bad, but I felt bad. So I left them behind just in case maybe you wanted them.”

“Thank you,” Bill Goode said approvingly. “I like that stuff, I like old guys who can’t sing.” They all laughed. It was a pleasant way to say goodbye.

A knock on the door came around 3 o’clock that afternoon. It was a mousy looking young man with the poorest posture Evalynne had ever seen. Observing his thick glasses and ill-fitting clothes, she knew who it was without him having to say a word.

“Hi,” the young man muttered, “My name’s Jason.”

“Hi there,” Evalynne said warmly, but careful not to be patronizing.

“Um, one of the girls who used to live here - Daksha? - I gave her a bunch of CDs and books and stuff. I wanted to know,” his voice shrunk even deeper into itself, as if he were about to ask a question to which he didn’t really want the answer, “Did she leave them behind?”

“No,” Evalynne answered without a pause, “She took them with her. Is that OK? I have her contact information, if you need them back. I can have her bring them by.”

“No,” Jason said, clearly relieved and maybe even a little joyous. “I wanted her to keep them. I’m glad she took them with her.”

He left, and Evalynne congratulated herself for telling a minor lie that might very well have saved the young man’s soul. But it wasn’t really a lie at all; maybe it was just silence. And silence can sometimes be a great healer; especially when its failure to inflict a wound leaves one without the need for healing at all.

Upstairs her husband assembled the computer in the space that had once been Dashka’s bedroom, but was now to be his study. And from the portable stereo, a nasal and beloved voice from long ago, belonging to a man named Bob Dylan, intoned,

“My love winks, she does not bother,
“She knows too much to argue or to judge.”

Financial Services Corpse

2010-07-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

The zombie burst into the employee break room with a howl, sending splinters of wood flying from the shattered doorframe.

“MINE!!!!” cried the heaving mountain of death as he descended upon the petite corpse quietly eating at one of the tables. He grabbed her plate of maggots in worm sauce away from her, but not without a struggle. The female zombie batted him about the head and jammed a sharp fingernail into his eye, sending forth a stream of puss that splattered on the greasy linoleum floor.

“LIKE HELL!!!!” came her banshee scream, as she grabbed him by the ears and sunk her teeth into his face. He tried to push her away, but so tight was her grip that the two of them left the break room together in a wild struggle, she hanging from his face as he tried to pull her away by her hair that came out easily in wispy handfuls and fell like dried straw to the floor.

Tom Zombie sighed. He had seen this sight played out numerous times before. Boss Zombie, who controlled this sodden hellhole of a workplace, and his secretary, Rhonda Zombie, engaged in their usual lunchtime battle over their noonday sustenance.

Tom took it, as he usually did, as a sign for him to get back to work.

Their workplace, located in the flatlands of the American Midwest only acres away from the cornfields and faded barns that give the region its identity, is known as Financial Services Corpse. There is no pride to be found anywhere in this agency, housed in a building of cracked windows and cluttered hallways. It is a miserable place filled with decay and the smell of spoiled meat that emanates from its workforce, all of whom are animated corpses. The business is notable, however, as one of the first institutions in the country to employ a staff consisting entirely of Undead-American professionals.

There is a long story explaining how zombies came to be a part of this country’s workforce. Long ago it came to be known that most residents of the cemetery could be reanimated when pumped with just the right combination of electricity and amino acids (for a crude but fairly accurate portrayal of this process, view James Whale’s 1931 film Frankenstein).

Once brought forth from the grave, it was discovered that zombies make a far more reliable labor pool than their living counterparts. Zombies do not call in sick, being that they are already dead. Similarly, zombies rarely if ever have personal problems because, being that they are already dead, the entire concept of “personal problems” dissolves into a haze of putrid irrelevance. Thus, dependability can be counted as their primary asset.

However, zombies have another advantage that far outweighs all others. That is their lack of a soul, and all the troublesome compassions that go along with it. For reasons unknown, zombies do not recall any of their experiences while walking the earth as living human beings. Thus they do not recognize such mortal emotions as sympathy, kindness or good will. This makes them ideal candidates to carry out professional duties that living human beings might find difficult, such as those performed by the employees of Financial Services Corpse.

At Financial Services Corpse, the primary business divisions are Corporate Downsizing, Collections and Foreclosures. Each of these enterprises requires exactly the type of soulless, inhuman detatchment that makes zombies such a valued component of the American workforce.

Tom Zombie works in the Foreclosures division of Financial Services Corpse, and is one of the most productive members of that team.

In human terms, there is nothing so sad as ejecting a family from its home. This is the place where they have lived for years, forged friendships and raised children. Any human being (or, at least, any one who isn’t just weird) would have a hard time telling a family they must leave their beloved home. Not so with zombies. They simply read the order from the bank, call in the family listed in the RESIDENT box, and tell them they must vacate the premises within a given amount of time. The closest they come to sympathy is to inform the family that they do have other available options such as staying with relatives, seeking out available homeless shelters, or, barring all else, living in a car or under a bridge. Zombies, blessedly soulless as they are, do not think through the realities of what it means for a family to live in a car or under a bridge (or, for that matter, with relatives).

Tom Zombie has prepared himself especially well for his role in Financial Services Corpse’s Foreclosures department. There is a growing library of success literature for the professional zombie, all of which he has read and studied scrupulously. Upon his desk you will find volumes such as Die and Grow Rich, How to Eat Flesh and Influence People, and, Tom’s personal favorite, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Zombies. All of these guides provide amusing and informative reading, and lend Tom great aid in carrying out his professional duties.

Such as the one Tom is about to undertake.

Returning to his desk, Tom Zombie finds waiting for him a family of three - a single mother, and two small children. The mother holds one of the young ones, a baby boy of 9 months, on her lap, patting down his first tufts of hair. The other one, a boy of about 5 years, squirms restlessly in a chair.

Tom takes a seat at his desk without looking at them directly. Instead, he looks at their case file - which is, after all, far more important than the people themselves. After reviewing their information and all relevant documents, Tom looks across his desk and asks the woman in a bloodless monotone, “You realize your home is in foreclosure?”

“No!” the boy proudly rejoins, “Our home is in Kansas!”

And so it goes. From the woman’s side of the desk, there are protests and tears, pleas and promises. From Tom Zombie’s side of the desk, there are numbers. And numbers. And numbers.

Vacate your home within two weeks, or you will be forcibly removed. Locks will be placed on the doors. Anything left inside the home will become property of the bank.

The conversation ends and the family leaves the building, without anyone showing them to the door. Inside Financial Services Corpse, business continues on as usual. Outside, in the parking lot, the mother and her children pile into the car. She starts the ignition, and an electronic tone informs her that her gas gauge is on EMPTY. The woman rummages through the seat cushions to find some change that she might use to put fuel in the tank.

In the booster seat beside her, the woman’s 9-month-old son cries. Because he is hungry.

No...Not Really

2010-07-02T10:09:00.001-07:00

You’ll find the New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Goffstown, a little more than three miles southeast from the village center. The squat and unimposing structure of flesh-colored brick opened in 1989 to house a capacity of 105 members of the state’s female criminal element who have not, or cannot, or goddamn won’t be reformed.

Look inside the chain-link fence and spiraled razor wire that constitute the facility’s border, and you’ll see a well-trimmed square of grass, measuring about two acres, including a small patch of sand intersected with a volleyball net. Drive by on a sunny day and you’ll see the inmates outdoors in their shirts of red or green, the older and more hardened ones seated on benches, smoking and gossiping through clenched jaws, while the younger, more vibrant ones play volleyball. Observe the ones playing volleyball and you’ll hear girlish laughter as their ponytails bounce in the sunlight. These women could be anywhere - out in the sun, enjoying a vacation, as if they were free.

Most of the women, you’ll find, are not violent criminals. Rather, they’re prisoners - now, literally - of their bad habits. They’re here, mostly, because of drugs - directly, for possession or distribution; or indirectly, on charges such as forgery, theft and prostitution. In this sense, the facility serves largely the same purpose as most other penal colonies on the planet Earth and especially in the United States. The New Hampshire State Prison for Women is a place where society locks away its drug addicts.

One of the inmates you’ll find in the prison is a young woman named Julia Ormsby, 22, who became a guest of the state following an ill-advised attempt at prescription forgery.

Carrying a set of false identification papers and an even more false claim of back pains, Julia could not believe her good luck one day when a physician left her alone in his office, the doctor’s prescription pad laying out in full view. Snatching up a couple of blank pages from the pad, Julia headed straightaway to the pharmacy with an example of forgery so obvious it would have embarrassed a 6-year-old.

Met with a dumbfounded look at the Rite-Aid counter, Julia discovered a flaw in her plan when the pharmacist literally gasped while viewing her illicit script. Ten minutes later, the arrival of four uniformed officers alerted her to the fact that her caper had gone deeply and irreversibly wrong.

That is the story, much abridged, of how one of the inmates you might see in the exercise yard of the New Hampshire State Prison for Women got there.

She casts an unremarkable figure, Julia Ormsby, a small, dark-haired presence in a green shirt who might be a college student or a young housewife, were she not held captive behind the chain link and razor wire. Sometimes you’ll find her fully engaged in the volleyball games, spiking the ball with gleeful athleticism. Other times she walks the grounds alone, humming to herself the melodies of Aerosmith songs or reciting lines from a book of poetry she’s memorized. “Are thou pale for weariness, of climbing heaven and gazing on the Earth, wandering companionless?” she’ll intone, quoting Shelley and wondering how a poet writing in so distant a place and time could know her soul with such intimacy.

Julia’s parents come to visit her every other Saturday, making the hour-plus drive north from suburban Boston in an effort to show their daughter that someone on the Earth still cares for her. Every drive, they vow to keep their visit positive, and to speak with her of only good things. Mostly, they stick to their promise with some degree of success. But it’s always a sad journey, dredging up memories of all the other times they’ve come to visit their institutionalized daughter, or to get her out of a bind, or explain away her misbehavior. During one of these drives to New Hampshire, Mrs. Ormsby quietly recognized that not once had they ever attended any event on their daughter’s behalf that was positive. Never a dance recital. No theatrical performances or athletic competitions. No, with Julia it was always trouble. Trips to the vice principal’s office. Visits with lawyers or bail bondsmen. Retrieving her from police custody. You’ve been cursed with a bad child, Mrs. Ormsby considered. And that’s what Julia was, damn all thoughts to the contrary. A curse.

During their drives to New Hampshire, the Ormsbys mostly listened to the radio, peppering the white noise with brief and uncomfortable dialogue. These conversations themselves resembled games of volleyball, in which Mrs. Ormsby would serve with a thought about Julia, while her husband returned with something else entirely. I talked with Julia’s lawyer, and I guess she’s been fighting again at the prison, her mother would say. She needs to settle herself, or she can forget about getting any time off for good behavior.

Mr. Ormsby would reply with his thoughts on the tuning color of the leaves. Foliage looks good this year, he’d say. Always makes the drive a little more pleasant.

Mrs. Ormsby would comment, I joined an online support group for mothers with daughters in prison. Dropped out of it, though; it was just a place for people to bitch about their daughters.

Grunting with interest, Mr. Ormsby would rejoin that the Patriots were rebuilding their defense this year, which was good, but they’d really need to work on their running game if they wanted to get points on the board.

Then they’d arrive at the prison, feeling only hints of a sadness long ago diminished at visiting their daughter behind bars. Julia would always be behind bars, and both of them knew it.

They cross the prison threshold, greeted by a corrections officer who extends to them a metal tray. “Pockets, please,” he says, smiling for some unknown reason. Because, one supposes, people smile at each other regardless of circumstance. Even in bad times, if only to garnish heartbreak.

The officer buzzes them in, and together Mrs. and Mr. Ormsby traverse the short distance to the visiting room. They do not talk, letting the echo of Mr. Ormsby’s footsteps and the defeated click of his wife’s heels break the silence for them.

They do not know it, but they are about to walk into an earthquake. There is a secret in the Ormsby family, one they’ve kept hidden from Julia all her life. Or, more precisely, from the time she was three years old. They do not know, even now, that today will be the day the secret is broken. But somewhere, it was determined long ago that today would be the day of revelation. Somewhere, it was written.

They enter the visiting room to find Julia, her face full and bristling with fresh scars. Their daughter has remarkably numerous scars for a young woman, a girl, her age. Scars, those places on your body where the world bit you. Julia has too many. She’s been bitten far too often.

You’ve been fighting again! her mother intones.

Silence from Julia.

Haven’t you? Mrs. Ormsby interrogates.

Julia points to a split lip with her index finger. What do you think?

From there, the argument escalates. Accusations fly. An angry query of Why can’t you get along with anybody? clashes with an equally exasperated, Why can’t anybody get along with ME? The raised voices continue, back and forth like gunfire exchanged by the two women, with Mr. Ormsby and a corrections officer as spectators.

Why don’t you say anything? Mrs. Ormsby shoots at her husband. She’s been fighting again. Don’t you have anything to say?

Shrugging, Mr. Ormsby begins, I don’t really care if...

Well, maybe you would care if she were YOURS! Mrs. Ormsby cries.

And with that sentence, a lifetime of suspicion is confirmed. Julia recalls countless family reunions where she, a dark-haired child, played with all her red-headed Ormsby cousins, her father’s hair just as red as any of theirs. Just like all the aunts and uncles. Just like everyone else’s. Julia recalls the sense, growing stronger as she aged, that all of these people are related to each other, but she’s not related to them.

Julia recalls an episode when she was very young. There’s a man and a woman standing at the altar of a church. The man wears a formal suit, the woman a dress. It’s been a fun day, with Julia playing among a host of children, and how funny it was that they all had red hair. Just like the man at the altar. It’s a vague memory, unconfirmed by any pictures in a family album, but suddenly it comes rushing back. The woman in the dress was her mother. And the man in formalwear, the person who would become her father, but wasn’t.

Well, maybe you would care if she were YOURS!

Mr. and Mrs. Ormsby drive home in silence. There is nothing to be said. As with any family in their situation, this moment was bound to present itself at some time. And that time came tonight.

Mr. Ormsby spends the drive recalling all the troubles they’ve had with Julia over the years. The nights he’d spent comforting his wife, secretly knowing his own pain was not nearly as acute as hers. And he wonders, I’ve kept Julia as my daughter, but is she my daughter? Other men have daughters. Some have triumphed, some have gone astray. These feelings I have for Julia, are they really a father’s feelings?

The answer came to him quickly, and with a detachment that shook his soul.

No...not really.

Planning Counts for Nothing, Chump

2010-06-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

The piano fell from the sky swiftly and without warning, landing in a great cacophony of splintering wood and popping strings. As the commotion died down the piano sat shattered on the sidewalk, while a dissonant chord lingered in the air and a man lay dead beneath the rubble.

“My God! Did you see that?” cried one Bystander, standing only feet away from the wreckage.

His question went unanswered; in fact, he may as well have been speaking to himself. All others on the sidewalk strode briskly along, ignoring the fallen piano and the man buried underneath. Afraid, perhaps, to get involved in such a calamitous event. Or, more likely, simply happy the piano had not fallen on them.

“Somebody help him!” the Bystander cried, pointing to the legs of the man trapped under the piano. The pedestrian crowd continued undisturbed, making their way around the ruined piano and the man underneath as if they were a simple obstruction, nothing to be bothered with or even noticed, if one could help it.

The Bystander wanted nothing more than to save the man trapped beneath the piano, but knew that he himself could not. The Bystander, you see, was a convicted felon. Convicted of what, you may wonder? Don’t trouble over it, for in the world he lived in - and the world you live in, and the world I live in - convicted felons are all the same. Whether it be for premeditated murder or a youthful misadventure, convicted felons bear no identity other than that of being a “convicted felon.” It’s an albatross the Bystander had carried around his neck for most of his life, and one that prevented him from initiating any contact with the police. Even to help a man who had just been ambushed by a falling piano.

The Felon looked to the heavens, wondering where the piano had come from. All the buildings in the area sat 50 yards away from the sidewalk - which meant, if the piano had fallen from a building, it must have somehow been launched half a football field away from its starting point. A physical impossibility.

Had there been any airplanes passing by? If there had been, the Felon had not noticed - naturally, not checking the sky thinking, “I should check for airplanes, in case a piano falls out of one of them and kills a pedestrian here on the sidewalk!”

No, the Felon had not checked for airplanes - nor, for that matter, giant rain clouds with clusters of droplets patterned black-and-white, black-and-white to mimic the ebony and ivory of piano keys; nor had he noticed a pterodactyl in flight, its membranous wings flapping gracefully overhead while clutching in its talons a piano it would randomly release and allow to land on the unsuspecting man walking on the sidewalk below.

The felon had not noticed any of these things. Possibly because they were mythical or impossible - clouds produce water and snow, sometimes drizzle, but never pianos. Pterodactyls no longer exist, and when they did were not known to drop musical instruments from the sky; and an airplane - who ever heard of an airplane releasing a piano onto the busy streets below?

The felon, then, had not checked the sky for any item that might produce a piano, because he had grown up in a world where pianos simply don’t fall from above.

But now one had. And a man lie dead beneath it.

Other pedestrians continued on, unaware or willfully ignorant of the wreckage on the sidewalk, while the Felon circled around it. With keen attention he noted every detail of the piano which had descended so cruelly from above - its keys, binary in their darkness and light, some splayed individually among the rubble, others gathered in clusters, as if clinging to each other; the felt hammers, each one strangely still intact, as if waiting to be reassembled into an entirely new instrument; the strings, mostly a mangle of odd spirals and irregular columns now glistening on the sidewalk like twisted metallic riverbeds; and finally the wooden frame, once likely polished and majestic, now a motley heap of splinters, of shards, of sawdust.

That was the instrument. The piano, ruined from the fall from the sky. But what of the man who lay beneath?

The Felon could see only a snippet of the victim - a few inches of pant leg, a glimpse of flesh, and a brief peek of a sock. The sock caught the felon’s attention - a stately gray, patterned with golden diamonds, a sock that had not been purchased randomly at a discount store, but rather selected with great care from an assortment of fine garments. The Felon imagined the man, now lying lifeless beneath the piano, had once stood in a fine clothing store with the woman he loved, taking great care to procure these socks, those which would compliment his feet with the highest elegance.

And below the socks, the shoes. Highly polishes and stylish, with a gently crafted heel, leather tassels on the tongue and intricate wing tips. These were the shoes of a man who had been a great success in life. One who had planned every detail of his existence literally from the shoes on up, to reflect the self-image of his own success. But in the end, where had it gotten him? Nowhere. Because this man, clearly highly accomplished as evidenced by no more than the lowest eight inches of his body, was still liable to die under the weight of a piano falling randomly from the sky.

The Felon considered this, and somehow took it as redemption for his own life, which had mostly been wasted in a haze of bad decisions and failed opportunities. You can work and slave and prepare all your life, but planning counts for nothing, chump; he mused.

Harsh words, and maybe not even true. But certainly to be considered. Plan for the future, but don’t be a prisoner to it. Because whatever that thing in the sky is, it’s up there. Waiting. Call it fate, call it destiny, write a thousand synonyms and draw any one of them out of a hat. Whatever it is, it’s up there. Waiting. It might come down as sickness or loss. Regret for an irretrievable mistake. It’s up there, maybe in a cloud or aboard a plane, or clutched in the talons of a mythic pterodactyl. When it lands, it might not take the form of a piano, but it will take the form of something no one can escape.

When it lands, it might land on you.

On you.

A Million Little Dreams

2010-05-11T09:44:00.001-07:00

YOU WILL WIN!

Walter Dunn had the dream a week ago, after the last Instant Millionaire lottery drawing. He remembered the face of last week’s winner as they showed him receiving his check on TV. A poor schlub in a jumpsuit with his nametag stitched onto the breast. All his life, the man had obviously been poor. But with that single winning lottery ticket, he had climbed the ladder to fortune!

Just as Walter would, when he purchased the ticket that would make him next week’s Instant Millionaire.

The dream Walter had that night confirmed it, of a downy-winged angel handing him a golden ticket and whispering into his ear, “You will win!”

For the first time in his life, the next day Walter bought a lottery ticket. His father had always warned him against playing such games of fortune. “The only dollar you’ll ever win at gambling,” the old man had said, “is the dollar you leave in your pocket!”

Walter had long held these words to be gospel truth, and they may have saved him a fortune during the course of his life. But surely his father had never seen the angel of Walter’s dreams, nor heard the dulcet-toned promise whispered in his ear, “You will win!”

Proudly, Walter showed his wife the lottery ticket the next day, and told her of his dream. Far from sharing his excitement, his love instead regarded it with a mixture of confusion and distain.

“Oh, Walter,” she said sadly, “why take the money we need to live, and waste it on a dream?”

“But it is not a dream!” Walter insisted; “It is a million dreams. This one dollar I spent will come back to us in a windfall, and I have plans for each dollar we’ll make when we win the lottery! A million little dreams!”

There was a magic to Walter’s words. As had happened so many times before, Walter’s wife fell under its spell. He told her of how they would spend the money - not foolishly, as so many others did, no, no, - but wisely. First to pay off the mortgage. Then to acquire proper healthcare. Some, of course, would be put away for their children’s education. The rest would go into savings. And suddenly, all the bills that had plagued them from week to week, nipping at their hells like a pack of yapping dogs, would be of no worry.

53-81-12-33-62-94-70

Those were the numbers darkened on Walter’s ticket. He and his wife leaned anxiously into the television set as the lottery hostess announced them the night of the drawing.

Unbelievably, each of the first six numbers emerged in perfect order, just as they appeared on Walter’s ticket! With the drawing of each figure, their hearts raced as fortune approached. First they could feel it, then smell it, and finally they could taste it! The sugary, candy-sweet flavor of fortune in their very mouths! The only number left to be drawn was the 70.

Then, the hostess announced the final number...

“Seventy...”

Walter and his wife shrieked, but not so loud they could not hear the hostess conclude, “...three.”

73!

“This is not fair!” Walter howled. “We all but won! Right up to the last digit! If the last digit had been a zero, and not a three, we would have won!”

"But, the last number was a three, and not a zero. So we didn't win," Walter's wife said, shrugged and rose from the couch.

Walter remained on the couch, certain somebody had stolen something from him. And maybe someone had. Not just one thing, but many things. A million of them, perhaps.

Bested

2010-04-27T13:26:00.001-07:00

On the day police busted Charming Charlie Goodwin — the criminal, the dope peddler, the felon — there should have been parades in the street and a giant headline in the newspaper proclaiming the city to be safe at last.

And, in a just world, the arresting officer would have been Troy Dubois, the street detective who spent the better part of his career seeking to break the Goodwin Crime Family. But Detective Dubois’ efforts proved fruitless; Charming Charlie’s father, Harry Goodwin, died the death of a millionaire in his Hawaiian estate, and his son continued the criminal empire with flamboyant arrogance.

Detective Dubois toiled for hours late into the night at the police station, running down leads and cross-checking bank accounts until his eyes went blurry. This went on for years, and every time Dubois felt himself about to effect an arrest, Charming Charlie had a way of making his operations disappear. One day there’s be a drug warehouse counting its inventory by the ton, the next day — POOF! — officers would raid an empty building. A house of prostitution, trafficking in girls as young as twelve, would carry on its operations brazenly on a busy street. But when officers burst through the door, they’d find a quaint antique shop with an elderly woman behind the counter who insisted on calling them “dearie.”

The day police finally busted Charming Charlie Goodwin, it was not for his massive drug operations, nor anything else so exotic. Charming Charlie Goodwin went down on a simple traffic stop.

Distracted while changing the station on his car radio, the legendary crime boss ran a red light with a marked police cruiser in plain sight. Patrolman Nick Allen, a 22-year-old rookie who had been with the force less than two months, calmly executed the arrest that would bring one of the city’s most longstanding crime syndicates to its knees.

The police station shook in disbelief once news of the arrest hit the wire. “They busted Charming Charlie?” one officer cried in shock.

“Yeah, got him on a traffic beef!” announced the dispatcher. “Patrolman Allen got him.”

Immediately, everyone’s thoughts turned to Detective Dubois. The poor old gumshoe had grown old trying to break the Goodwin Family. Dubois had retired from the force a couple years back, and had been shuffled away somewhere to work in the court system. No one would say it out loud, but common knowledge was that it would kill Dubois to know some greenhorn officer had snatched away his lifelong dream.

Charming Charlie Goodwin went into court the next day. An elderly bailiff escorted him to the stand. Walking down the aisle, Charming Charlie smirked, knowing his expensive legal team would have him back on the streets before nightfall.

And the elderly bailiff, the name TROY DUBOIS written on his name tag, tried to walk with as much dignity while fighting down the notion gnawing at him that his entire life had been wasted.

The Fugitive

2010-04-24T08:55:00.001-07:00

The Horder household vibrated with chaos every Sunday morning before the family left for church. The oldest daughter, Gwendolyn, had learned long ago it was best to be risen, showered and prettied-up before anyone else had even gotten out of bed. Gwen could then relax over breakfast as Mother commanded the family through their Sabbath rituals like a general barking orders on a battlefield.

Ruthie! Hurry up and iron your dress! Matthew, brush your teeth but don’t eat the toothpaste — it’s not candy! And Jacob — WHERE’S JACOB? Prudence, go find Jacob!

And so on and so forth until the Horder children, all seven of them, had been properly washed, fed, scolded, and readied for church.

One Sunday, though, Gwen snuck off for a quick bathroom trip before the family departed. Seated in the bathroom, she slipped into a slight daydream while listening to the song of a bird outside the window.

Until, that is, the roar of the garage door stirred Gwen from her listless peace.

They were leaving without her!

Gathering herself up, Gwen raced outside just in time to see the family Volvo rounding the corner out of the neighborhood. She thought about chasing them, but no. They were gone.

Back inside the house, Gwen immediately surrendered to the Devil and opted to do something absolutely forbidden in the Horder residence: To watch secular television. In all her 14 years of life, Gwen had never seen a program not presented on one of the Christian broadcast channels.

For the next hour, Gwen watched a program called Law & Order. And seeing this changed her forever. Because this program seemed to be broadcast in a foreign language, or at least one in which Gwen could only understand four out of every five words. In between words she understood were words like “hustler” and “junky.” Images of violence, stabbing and bloodshed, men wrestling joyously in bed with women who were not their wives, and teenage girls getting into cars with men who were not their fathers.

Mother, Father and the rest of the family returned home from church that day after spending the entire service - from worship to the sermon right through fellowship hour - without noticing their daughter’s absence. But when they entered their home to find Gwen on the couch, her eyes transfixed on the Christian Broadcast channel, they realized their error.

“Oh, honey!” Mother said, as she and Father collected the motionless girl into their arms. “We’re so sorry we forgot you!”

Gwen hugged them in return, and uttered gracefully, “You don't have anything to apologize for; I'm the one who made the mistake. And, I promise, I’ll never miss church again!”

Hours later, while leading the other children through Bible study, Gwen could not help but tell the others what she had seen that day on the television. The Godlessness, the lust, the sin that hangs like a cloud over the outside world. The children listened, enraptured by Gwen’s tale.

One detail, however, made them disbelieve Gwen’s story of what she said she saw on the television. According to Gwen, throughout that entire hour of programming she watched, not once did any of the characters mention Jesus. None of the children said it to Gwen’s face, but most of them figured her television story to be make-believe.

A whole hour, and not once did anyone mention Jesus?

That couldn’t be true.

The Art(ist)

2010-04-09T09:11:00.001-07:00

Perfect.

As Robert the Robot put the finishing touches on his hand-drawn portrait of Tracy Carver, Tracy’s husband, Drew, snuck behind the easel to steal a look. And when Drew saw what Robert the Robot had done, he froze.

My God, thought Drew, a lifelong frustrated portraitist who taught visual arts at the local community college. This cannot be.

Drew allowed Robert a few final jots on his work, as the robot expertly dashed in a couple of eyelashes above Tracy’s eyes. Eyelashes. In all his years of painting portraits, Drew had never thought to compose eyelashes. And now he stood shameful witness as this robot, who had never painted anything before in his existence, created them with the expertise of a master.

“There,” Robert the Robot said. “I believe I have completed this project satisfactorily.”

“Yes,” Drew said. “You have.”

“Oh, let me see!” Tracy exclaimed, popping up from the wicker chair where she’d been sitting for the criminally short time of 15 minutes. Drew almost wanted to block her from viewing the portrait. Because when she did see it, the results would damn sure expose her husband as the mediocre talent he’d always feared he’d been.

When Tracy viewed the portrait, she could do nothing but gasp. “Robert!” she cried; “It’s brilliant!”

And so it was. In one quarter of an hour, this robot with no previous experience in the art of portraiture had created a rendering of Tracy Carver that few artists could produce after a lifetime of study. Using a single black felt-tip pen, Robert had captured the very essence of Tracy’s being. A subtle tip of her head, shading and emphasis that captured her bone structure flawlessly, her clothes drawn with wrinkle-for-wrinkle precision, her dimpled smile portrayed in a manner that brought her utterly and completely to life.

“Robert,” she intoned, gently caressing his stainless steel shoulder, “How did you do it?”

“I followed the instructions provided by the software,” Robert the Robot responded in his mechanical inflection which Drew suddenly found maddening.

In a way, this might have been Drew’s fault. Hell, it was Drew’s fault. It had been his idea, after all, to try to get Robert to draw a picture. For kicks, he’d loaded a series of art instruction CD ROM’s into the robot’s E-drive. All the secrets of the masters, supposedly, were revealed within those discs. Drew himself had studied them, but came away noticing little improvement in his own work. True art, he’d told himself, comes from within. Genius is not something that can be learned, he’d assured himself. It’s a gift from God.

So he’d decided to perform an experiment, using their household robot Robert as the guinea pig. Let him absorb all this information, the tricks and the techniques, and see what he could produce. The results would surely be primitive. A robot made of nothing but steel and circuitry would produce something perfunctory and mechanical, of course. Nothing close to what could be achieved by human hands. Drew considered it a test of man vs. machine — a modern-day John Henry competition — and in the end, man would surely prevail.

Until, that is, they saw the finished product. And it was devastating.

Drew paced the floor, shaking his head. Sensing his distress, Tracy comforted her husband with a warm embrace and a stroke of his head. Then, entirely unconsciously, returned to look again at the portrait Robert had just created.

“It’s a wonderful portrait, Robert,” she said. “Very flattering!”

“Thank you,” Robert answered. “I synthesized a number of your facial expressions from my memory banks which I thought would be most pleasing. I am happy you enjoy it.”

Drew chortled. “Enjoy it! Do you realize, Robert, that you’re a genius? This isn’t the work of a machine, it’s the work of an artist! You keep doing work like this, you’ll put the rest of humanity out of the arts business for good!”

Robert the Robot paused a moment, in an instance when he seemed to be actually thinking, and not simply processing data. Drew and Tracy had long wondered if their household robot had a human component, and this portrait removed all doubt.

Which made the next words to come from Robert so confusing.

“You need not worry, sir. I will not put you out of business, for I shall never paint again.”

Awestruck, Drew and Tracy responded in a tandem, “WHAT???”

“I shall never paint again, because I can paint perfectly,” Robert continued. “Art is not perfect. Art is flawed. In real art, there are mistakes. There are errors. I cannot make mistakes, but mistakes are a hallmark of humanity. I cannot create art, because machines cannot create art. Humans must create it.”

With that, Robert the Robot left the living room and went about his routine housecleaning chores. Neither Drew nor Tracy argued with him, but they did hang his hand-drawn portrait of Tracy above the fireplace. Every now and then, they would see Robert the Robot looking at it, and could tell he was proud of it.

You could just tell.

Hurt

2010-03-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

Monty panicked.

The door to his building had just opened, and footsteps were now ascending the stairs. The owner of those footsteps, whoever it may be, simply must not see what sat before Monty on the kitchen counter. If they did see, it would bring certain punishment. Possibly a trip back to prison.

One footstep. Two. They came quickly; so quickly Monty could barely think. He felt like the villain in some wild west movie. The sheriff had found him, and the dogs were at his door.

Three footsteps. Four. Damn, how many footsteps were there? Quick! Think!

In one lightning-speed motion, Monty grabbed the bottle of vodka he’d bought that day and stuffed it into one of the supermarket grocery bags. Dammit! The bag wasn’t tall enough, and the top of the bottle stuck out plain as a wart. Risky, but it would have to do.

There was a knock. Monty responded with a quick “C’m in!”

The door to his apartment opened. Standing 10 feet away from Monty was Ethan Hollowell, the proprietor of the sober living facility Monty had been staying in since his release from prison six weeks ago. It was Monty’s first night in unsupervised housing. For the past month and a half, Hollowell had watched him like a prison guard.

“So, Tom,” said Hollowell, with a look in his eyes Monty tried not to judge as suspicion; “how’re things going?”

“Call me Monty,” said Tom Montgomery. All his life, he’d been called Monty. When someone called him Tom, he thought they were talking to someone else.

“You know we don’t use nicknames here at Sober Living, Tom,” Hollowell answered. Which was fair. Some nicknames carried hidden gang meanings or references to past crimes. But Monty? Only a holy roller like Hollowell could find a problem with that.

“Things are going well,” Monty said, holding up a slab of spareribs. “Making myself some ribs tonight. Candied Sesame Ribs. Saw the recipe in some magazine back in the joint. Candied ribs! What’s not to love?”

“Aw, sounds delicious!” Hollowell said, moving in a little closer. If he had looked at the grocery bags, which were now within arm’s reach, the vodka bottle would have popped up and said “Hello!”

“Did you get all this stuff at the grocery store?” Hollowell asked.

No, idiot; I got it at the bank, Monty thought, but answered, “Yep! Stopped at the grocery store this afternoon.” And the liquor store.

“Sounds good,” Hollowell said, extending his hand. Dude was always wanting to shake hands. Whatever. Monty shook with him. Hollowell moved toward the door. “Alright, just checking in,” he said. “Enjoy your supper.” Supper. Money hated people who said supper and not dinner.

But that’s the kind of guy Hollowell was, really old fashioned and full of The Lord. Hollowell ran the church services at Sober Living, and was always preaching even when he wasn‘t in the pulpit. Any conversation with Hollowell was Jesus this and Jesus that. You just felt like saying, Okay, could you please shut up for one minute about your imaginary best friend Jesus?

Monty waved, a nonverbal encouragement for Hollowell to get the hell out. “Thanks for stopping by! Come visit anytime!” Except when I'm unpacking vodka.

Hollowell returned the wave, and with a quick “God Bless,” was out the door.

His footsteps descended the stairwell — not nearly so quickly, it seemed, as they had approached — but with each creak of the floorboards, Monty felt his blood pressure relax a measure or two. Damn, though, that was close.

Looking at the bottle of vodka, just the tip of it peeking out among the other groceries, Monty considered flushing its contents down the toilet, where they belonged. That vodka is nothing but sewage, nothing but poison, he told himself. About as useful to have around the house as a vial of cyanide.

Planning to follow through with that notion, Monty took the bottle in his hand, but paused. Oh, it felt so good there. So right. Forget about flushing it down the toilet; now he wanted to unscrew the top and take a big swig, right from the bottle’s mouth. No soda, no mixer at all; just pure firewater goodness. Oh! Nothing better.

But no. He opened the top cupboard above the stove and placed the bottle there, promising himself not to retrieve it that evening. Closing the cupboard, the bottle became invisible, as it should be.

Still staring up, the words of a song entered Monty’s head. It was a song from a CD he’d borrowed repeatedly from the prison library. Johnny Cash. One of the last songs the Man in Black ever recorded, his voice as deep and gravelly as the grave awaiting him. The song was called “Hurt.” Johnny didn’t write it — the songwriting credit on the CD went to a guy called Trent Reznor, whoever the hell that was — but it didn’t matter. For Monty, the song's lyrics could have been written in stone, by the sure hand of God.

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real

Monty shook his head and shuddered. A wave of prison memories flooded his mind. Thinking of the hours he’d spent in his cell, listening to the song over and over again. Sometimes, to combat the loneliness and boredom, he’d bite himself or bang his head against the wall. Even though pain wasn’t good, at least it was something. I hurt myself today to see if I still feel.

Monty then tried to block those memories out, reminding himself of what Suzanne had told him. Don’t think prison thoughts, she’d said. Think freedom thoughts.

So instead of thinking about prison, Monty thought about Suzanne, his counselor from Community Transition Services. That was the outfit that helped released convicts acclimate back into society. Suzanne was a kid, couldn’t have been more than 20 years old. She lived right here in the counselors quarters at Sober Living, and studied for a degree in social services at the college downtown.

The idea of Monty cooking his own meal Originated with Suzanne. She’d said, “Your whole life in prison, you’ve been dependent on others to make your food. Celebrate your freedom by making your own meals. Trust me; it’ll be good for you.”

Made sense. And another thing Suzanne had told him made even more sense, the part about quitting drinking. She’d told him to think of his drinking self as a different person from his sober self. She even convinced him to give his drinking self a name. Drunk Monty, they’d call him. Suzanne had loved that.

“That’s right!” she’d said. “Think of your drinking self as Drunk Monty. And when you want to take a drink, that’s just Drunk Monty talking! Drunk Monty wants you to drink, he needs you to drink, because if you don’t, Drunk Monty will die. Let him die! What has drunk Monty ever brought you besides trouble?”

Suzanne’s words had made sense, even if they were coming from a kid. So on his first day out of supervised living, after he’d gotten his driver’s license and bought a near-dead Toyota off the used car lot, Monty had gone straight to the grocery store and picked up the ingredients for Candied Sesame Ribs. To make his own meal that night, his first meal as a free man. But driving back from the store, Monty had decided to take a different route home. One that would take him right by the State Liquor Store. He wouldn’t stop at the liquor store, of course, he’d just drive by it. To prove he could.

But when he did drive by the liquor store, something in the old Toyota’s machinery had forced the steering wheel to take the right turn off the highway. After he’d parked, some other force, dark and mysterious, lured him into the store and made him purchase a cheap bottle of vodka. Or maybe the force wasn’t so mysterious at all. Fact was, Monty knew exactly what is was. It was Drunk Monty, and that ol’ rascal had won the fight without even throwing a punch.

Just because he’d bought the liquor, though, didn't mean he had to drink it.

Putting the bottle of vodka strictly out of mind, Monty set about preparing his meal. Laying the ribs on the foil-lined baking pan. Seasoning them first with salt, then garlic powder. Dousing them with barbecue sauce, lightly, then maple syrup. Finally, sprinkling them with sesame seeds. Voila! He recalled the pictures in the magazine, specifically the one captioned your ribs should look like this before cooking. And sure as all hell, that is precisely what his ribs looked like. The meal he’d dreamed of preparing for so long was about to become a reality!

And already, even before cooking, did it smell good! The aromas of garlic powder, barbecue sauce and maple syrup blended together in a glorious harmony that triggered his mouth to salivate. Oh, this was gonna be good!!!

God, he was hungry. He recalled the recipe had called for the meal to be cooked at 350 degrees for an hour, but screw it. Why not 450, for 40 minutes! With his stomach grumbling and mouth watering, no way could he wait a full hour before sitting down to this succulent feast. Besides, if he cooked it as instructed the smell would get the better of him, and he’d wind up eating it half-cooked anyway. So he set the oven to 450, and waited for it to preheat.

Waiting for the oven to preheat naturally left Monty with time on his hands. And to fill that time, his thoughts turned instinctively to the bottle of vodka. But — ah, no! — he would not take down the bottle. Or, maybe, could he take it down? He could take it down, couldn’t he, as long as he didn’t drink from it?

No, Sober Monty cautioned.

Why not? Drunk Monty asked.

NO!!! Sober Monty pleaded.

Screw you, Drunk Monty concluded. And with that, Monty (whichever one you please) opened the cupboard and took down the bottle of vodka. Just to look at it. And so he did. Studied the label, with its calligraphic lettering. How noble and elegant it looked, even if the liquid inside was the cheapest rotgut available on the commercial market. Also on the label was some mythic animal, possibly a dragon or a griffin, an animal that would surely take flight if Monty imbibed of the magic potion contained therein.

And then something happened that nearly ruined everything.

To explain this, we should mention that the Hollowell Sober Living House is located directly next to the Town Safety Complex, home to the local police and fire departments. Hollowell purchased the location because it came remarkably, almost obscenely, cheap.

The property came so cheaply because anyone who lived there was subject to the constant blaring of emergency sirens, day and night. Anytime the fire trucks went out on a call, the eardrum-shattering blare of the station air-horn signaled the event.

The fire station must have just gotten a call. Because as Monty stood in his kitchen, cradling the bottle of vodka that he was not going to drink, his thoughts were interrupted by the roar of the fire station air-horn

BRRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

The noise jarred Monty electrically, as if he’d just been tasered, and sent the bottle flying from his hand. In midair, the bottle did an acrobatic maneuver worthy of Olympic recognition; a triple-axel backflip that sent Monty scurrying for the catch! But he could not catch it, and in slow motion watched the bottle tumble toward the ground. And as the bottle fell, Monty imagined how badly he needed it, and if the bottle shattered and its contents spilled all over the floor, he would get down on his hands and knees and lap it up like a dog. It was no accident he stopped at the liquor store that afternoon. He’d stopped there because he wanted a drink, and dammit if he wasn‘t going to get one!

The bottle landed on the floor, and at the moment Monty expected it to crash . . . it bounced harmlessly, its shatter-proof construction immune to the effects of gravity.

The vodka was safe!

From there, with no thought whatsoever, no debate at all between himself and Drunk Monty or anybody else, Monty picked up the bottle from the ground, broke open the lid, and drank.

The liquid bubbled into his mouth, hot and welcoming. Upon swallowing Monty half-expected the violent reaction that usually accompanies one’s first taste of straight, hard alcohol. Expected it, but it didn’t come. Instead, what did come was warmth and joy. Soothing, medicinal. Anesthesia for his troubled soul. So good, he wanted to give the one shot he’d just taken a little booster.

“No!” he said aloud, at such volume he wondered if anyone had heard him. Quickly, he screwed the cap back on the bottle and placed it in the cupboard above the stove.

The stove. He must put the food in now. Yes, he would let the ribs cook, and while he waited hope his one taste of alcohol wouldn’t show up on his mandatory weekly urine test. It wouldn’t, would it? Not one shot, certainly.

The pan of ribs went into the stove. Another step toward his goal of cooking his own meal. He would tell Suzanne about it when they met on Tuesday. It was so wonderful, he would say. Felt so good to be free and independent. And she would smile in approval. He wouldn’t tell her about the bottle of vodka. Of course not. No one needed to know about the bottle.

The bottle.

One more shot. He’d take just one more shot, and that would be it. Forever. Then he’d flush it down the toilet, all of it. To the last drop. And never touch alcohol again. Because, already, he felt his senses blurring. Reaching to the cupboard above the stove, he took the bottle in hand. And while it was there, resting so comfortably in his grip, why not take another shot? Before flushing it, just one more shot?

It went down so smooth. Like sweet mountain spring water, leaving a sensual tingle on his lips and working a deep-tissue massage on every nerve in his body. You are here, you are at the gates of heaven. Ignore any voice that tries to pull you away. This is your destiny, child. Another shot, another step toward glory.

Monty was now in his living room, sitting on his couch. No idea how he got here. But, luckily, the bottle had traveled with him. Immediately, he put aside his previous foolishness about flushing the vodka down the toilet. What good could it do there, when there was so much good it could do here?

Time to enter the bottle. Not just drink from it, but become a part of it. Live inside it. Surrender to the bottle, and dive. Dive!

He pulled the his neck back and let the liquid rush down his throat, bubbling up, and he took it in gulp after gulp, greedily, ravenously, letting the booze enter his heart, his gut, his soul, his blood! And now it was his blood! Now it was his life!

And now you are numb. Now you feel nothing but sheer bliss. Problems? Now you have no problems, at least none that can’t wait until tomorrow. Because now, you are inside the bottle.

Inside the bottle, Monty Montgomery is not a loser. His bad decisions have been erased from the sands of time, washed away by the strong tide of alcohol. Inside the bottle, Monty Montgomery is not a prisoner. Inside the bottle, Monty Montgomery is free, the ruler of a world as real to him as any other in the known universe.

Let’s visit that world, shall we?

Inside the bottle, the multimillionaire business tycoon Monty Montgomery lives in a palatial mansion on the western coast of the United States. He’s there now, lounging poolside, the sweet smell of barbecued ribs wafting pleasantly through the air. Monty basks in the gentle sunlight that warms his face and casts sparkles of shimmering gold upon the swimming pool. His butler, a dignified fellow dressed crisply in white, offers him a beverage tray. “Another martini, sir?”

“Why yes, I will have one,” answers the millionaire Monty Montgomery. “But just one.”

Suzanne is there. She’s dressed casually, cutoff jean shorts and a purple Tee shirt. Her feet in flip-flops, toenails painted metallic blue.

“It’s so good to spend time with you,” she says, the sunlight lending bold relief to the freckles on her face. She, too, is holding a martini glass. She and Monty share a toast, and their glasses clink amid the sound of their laughter.

“Good to spend time with you as well,” says the world-famous entrepreneur Monty Montgomery, calling on his butler to bring him another martini. Yes, he has decided to have one more. But just one.

“There is something bad I do when I drink,” Suzanne says, a devilish glint in her eye.

“Oh, and what is that?” Monty returns mischievously.

“I like to smoke. Do you have a cigarette?”

“Why, of course, my lovely,” says the suave country gentleman Monty Montgomery, and offers her a hand-rolled cigarette of the world’s finest tobacco.

He lights it for her with a flourish. She rewards him with a smile of gratitude and reclines on a poolside lounge chair. So relaxed, so beautiful, like a model out of a magazine advertisement, if only there ever were a model as glamorous as Suzanne. She sips from her martini glass, as the trail of smoke drifts from her cigarette, white and billowy like a cloud.

Monty observes the trail of smoke, and shortly discovers something disturbing. It’s no longer white, but black, like the smoke from a fire. And it grows, from a thin white trail to a dark and poisonous funnel.

Suzanne takes another drag from the cigarette, and from her mouth emerges a black and toxic cloud. Suzanne looks alarmed and panics. Their poolside rendezvous no longer peaceful, it is now the scene of something fiery and dangerous. She tries to scream, but the sound that comes forth is not human, but mechanical.

BRRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

There is shattering glass and chaos, as a giant masked monster breaks into the bottle and grabs hold of Monty.

“Fire in the stove, one adult male in the living room!” the monster shouts, and for some reason slaps Monty across the face. Jarred to wakefulness, Monty inhales a mouthful of smoke and lets it out in a series of desperate coughs.

“He’s responsive. I’ll get him out,” the masked monster says. Monty is lifted from the couch and marched through the smoke-blackened apartment. He wonders what happened to his poolside afternoon with Suzanne as the monster leads him downstairs and into the outdoors.

And outdoors, it is a circus. Circus Time! Flashing blue lights and red lights, with clowns dressed as firemen and police! How wonderful, they’ve given Monty a circus! Monty smiles ecstatically, even dancing a jig in the bright and flashing lights, grinning at all the wonder of this happy-time circus day.

Then the cold air hits him, and Monty observes the scene with a different eye. These are not circus cops, not circus firefighters. These are real police officers, real firemen. He looks at the building, and sees a cloud of smoke coming out of one of the windows. The window of his own apartment, the one he moved into today. His first day as a free man.

Oh. No.

There’s a crowd outside, and Monty recognizes most of them. They’re the people from Sober Living, some of them prisoners who’d arrived there with him on the bus six weeks ago. Some of them look at him scornfully. Others laugh. They all know what happened. Monty’s failure has just been broadcast to all of them, and might very well have killed them.

One familiar face emerges from the crowd. It’s Hollowell, the owner of Sober Living house. The man who came to visit him earlier this afternoon. If he’d seen the vodka, none of this would have happened, Monty thinks. Then corrects himself. No, if you hadn’t drank the vodka, none of this would have happened.

Hollowell is now face to face with him. Monty steels himself against the tirade sure to come. Holy-roller as Hollowell is, he‘s sure to cast judgment on Monty‘s carelessness.

“Tom,” Hollowell says, and pauses. A moment goes by, and Hollowell concludes by saying, “I’m glad you’re alright,” and wraps Monty up in a hug.

Officers and firefighters crowd in, but Hollowell wards them off. “Listen,” he says, nodding toward Monty. “He’s been drinking. Can we just, maybe, leave him alone for a minute? Just let him sit down, maybe relax? Just a minute?”

The cops back off. Hollowell guides Monty to a space on the curb and steadies him to the ground. “Just take a breath, Tom. These guys will have some questions for you, and you and I can talk tomorrow, but for now just take ’er easy,” Hollowell says, and with a quick pat to Monty’s shoulder disappears into the crowd.

Sitting on the curb, Monty has a moment to consider what he’s done, and who he is. He’d a lunatic, that’s who he is. A robot, programmed to enact his own destruction. Once again, he’s been given the keys to freedom, and used those keys to stab himself directly in the heart. Just like every other time.

Looking up into the crowd, Monty sees another face. Suzanne’s. Their eyes meet, and he can see that she has been crying. He wants to approach her, ask her forgiveness, and tell her he’ll be better next time. But he doesn’t, because he knows the words would be empty. This was his next time, and like every next time, he’d destroyed it.

Monty looks to the ground, and sees a single ant crawling about in the gutter. That ant, which might fall through the storm grate at any second, is Monty’s only remaining friend left in the world. As he watches the ant crawl about, the words to that Johnny Cash song come back to Monty’s mind. And because he can’t sing those words to Suzanne, or Hollowell, or anyone else, Monty sings them to the ant.

What have I become?
My sweetest friend;
Every one I know
Goes away in the end.

You can have it all,
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt.

Luggage

2010-03-20T09:16:00.001-07:00

Stephanie Price had promised to pick up her sister Carrie at noon for the family get-together, but arrived at Carrie’s condo sometime around an hour late. And when she finally did show up, she entered without knocking, because that’s the kind of inconsiderate bee-itch Steph could be, so get used to it, okay?

“Hellll-ooooooo!” Steph called out, wiping her shoes on the welcome mat but not taking them off. Carrie was so totally anal about everybody removing their shoes when they came to her place but Steph always refused to do it because, Jesus, what is this, Japan or something?

“Oh sure, just let yourself in, your highness,” Carrie muttered to herself while washing dishes in the kitchen. Knowing Steph couldn’t hear her above the running water but sort of hoping that she did.

“Hi, sweetie!” Carrie called out after shutting off the water. Unconsciously, she groomed her hair while walking to greet her sister in the foyer, because Carrie Price always had to look her best for everybody, even Steph.

But it didn’t matter, because by the time Carrie came out to meet her sister, she found Steph glowering and obviously angry.

“Good lord, you’re not bringing that, are you?” Steph said, pointing to a suitcase sitting only a few feet away from the door, right where Steph was sure to see it.

“Oh, I am!” Carrie exclaimed excitedly, clasping her hands together. “You won’t believe what I have in there!”

“No!” Steph declared resolutely, her shaggy hair bobbing with the shaking of her head. “No, no, no, okay? Every time we have a family get-together, you bring your stupid suitcase with you, and it ruins the whole time for everybody. Could you just not bring it this year?”

By this time, Carrie had grabbed hold of the suitcase handle, and wheeled it into the living room. Her immaculate, straight-out-of-Country-Living living room. Steph followed her involuntarily and flopped down heavily on the couch, not giving a damn if she ruffled Miss Perfect’s cushions in the process.

“Look,” Carrie said, carefully unzipping the suitcase. From it she withdrew a manila folder, and out of that came a series of 8x10” laminated photographs. She handed them toward Steph, who at first attempted to wave them away.

“No, I don’t want to see them,” Steph said. “Whatever they are, just, no.”

“Oh, you just have to see them!” Carrie said breathlessly, taking a seat next to Steph. She held one of the photos before her sister’s eyes, leaving Steph no choice but to look.

It was a picture of Cousin Natalie, taken at last year’s Halloween party. Natalie, in a witch outfit that could be at best be described as slinky, was seated upon the lap of Doug, the young man Carrie had brought as her date for the evening. Both grinned brightly in the picture and Doug, dressed as a pirate, had a glint in his eye anticipating the booty he expected to reap by evening’s end. As the picture might predict, Doug left with Natalie that night.

“These were on Natalie’s Facebook page!” Carrie scolded indignantly. “Can you believe that? She steals my date, that tramp, and broadcasts it to the whole world on Facebook!”

“So you printed the pictures and had them laminated?” Steph asked, her voice laced with a suggestion of how deeply weird she believed her sister to be.

“Yes I did!” Carrie nodded, placing the pictures back in the folder. “And I’m going to show them to Natalie, first thing when we get to her mother’s house! And I’ll make sure her mother’s there to see!” Returning the folder to the suitcase, she rummaged around the compartment and proclaimed, “And wait till you see what else I have in here!”

Steph rose from the couch, knowing exactly what Carrie had in the suitcase — a collection of items compiled over the past year, each one hard evidence of some offence another member of the family had committed against her. Carrie held these bitter mementos close to her heart, studied them carefully, rehearsing the speeches she would give to the person attached to each item. She gloried in her suitcase, and the resentments she kept there. They were her hope, and her revenge. The rest of the family avoided Carrie and her suitcase of bad memories, while accepting them as part of who Carrie was. Carrie was, after all, a member of their family.

To accept anyone as part of a family, one must also accept the luggage they carry.

Trouble

2010-03-10T10:08:00.001-08:00

Criminals are born, not made. Police Chief Jim Devine had seen this proven time and again, and lived by it. Show him a criminal with a long rap sheet, and he’d show you someone who’d done a lot of time in detention as a kid.

That’s why Devine kept a discrete list of children, some as young as 7 years old, who were known to be troublemakers. The ones considered bad news by their teachers and the neighborhood parents. The kids who fought, who talked back. Who stole, the ones who got caught cheating. Devine kept an eye on these kids, because he knew a decade or even less down the road, they’d be riding in the back of his patrol car.

Joey Faxon, an apple-cheeked little darling of 9, was the latest of Clearwater’s young angels to get his name added to Chief Devine’s list. Kid had been a problem in the classroom since daycare, for Chrissake, and some patrolmen had even gone down to the elementary school a couple times to settle schoolyard bouts with Faxon in a starring role.

A couple of weeks ago, Little Joey hit the big leagues, attempting to shoplift a bag of Ho-Ho’s from Clancy’s Corner Store. Too bad Golden Gloves Faxon had chosen Mr. Clancy’s kid as an opponent in one of his recent playground brawls. Mr. Clancy had his eye on Faxon as soon as the boy entered the store, and with uncontained glee called the station when he noticed the plastic wrapper sticking out of Little Joey’s waistband.

The cops had given Joey the full America’s Most Wanted treatment on that one, taking him into the station for booking, questioning and fingerprinting. During the process, Devine regretfully found himself thinking, hold onto those prints; we’ll need them someday. None of this put a dent in the kid, though. He even laughed a couple of times and chirped proudly, “I’ve got a record!” Damn, kid, you don’t even know what you’re saying. Jimmy’s mother Stella sat there for the whole thing, her eyes beet-red from crying. And well she should cry, because she knew, and the chief knew, and everyone in the damn station knew, this kid was on the bad road. Headed for trouble.

Not too many weeks after The Great Ho-Ho Caper, a call came into the station one Sunday afternoon. With both of the patrolman out on rounds, Devine had been there to answer it. He’d sighed miserably when the words STELLA FAXON lit up the caller ID box. What now, Joey?

“Clearwater Police,” Devine answered.

“My son! He’s in the well!” came the anguished response, which Devine recognized immediately as belonging to Stella Faxon. It was a voice grown old and gravelly before its time from too often raising itself to wayward children or boyfriends.

“Your name?” Devine asked, even though he clearly knew the answer.

“Stella Faxon.”

“OK Stella. Is your son hurt, do you know?”

“No,” Stella responded; “He’s just...you know...” she trailed off.

“I know,” Devine answered, packing kind reassurance into his voice. He didn’t even have to ask the location of the well. He already knew it, the one off the corner of Driftwood and Pine. A drainage pipe, with a built-in ladder conveniently leading down. Teenagers skinny enough to fit through it often climbed down there to smoke pot. There would be no problem getting Joey out of there; it led to a culvert less than fifty feet away at the other end of the street.

“Alright, Miss Faxon, hang tough. This is the chief. I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

“Call me Stella. Please,” she asked.

“Alright Stella. Hang tough. See you in a few.”

Devine left the station in his cruiser, enjoying the usual surge of pride he always felt when going out on a call. Most chiefs in the region were glorified desk jockeys, a position of which Devine did not begrudge them. They’d earned it. But in a smaller town like Clearwater, the chief needs to be on the ground. That’s how you learn the trouble spots and flashpoints. The hangouts and the hiding places. The faces of the neighborhood - good and bad alike.

Cruising into the Faxon’s neighborhood, Devine thought of Stella. Her, and the women like her. The waitresses and the cleaning ladies. Factory workers. Slaves to Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. Devine mused that he'd spent most of his professional life cleaning up after their husbands and children. Joey's father was long gone, like most of the men in these women's lives, replaced by a steady stream of losers who'd stay with her til the moment her money, or patience, wore out. Stella worked as a waitress, hustling tables at a rib joint in one of the town’s deepest and darkest corners. She kept bad company after work, at a biker bar with a growing reputation as the hub of the local amphetamine trade. Stella's name itself had appeared on more than a couple of tip sheets. Devine dreaded the day they’d have to bust her, because even if she did deserve it, she didn’t. After a lifetime of struggle and bad decisions, that’s where she’d wound up. Sharing her bed with a stream of no-accounts, caring for a troublemaker son. She didn’t deserve it. No one does.

Devine rounded the corner of Driftwood and Pine, the rundown houses and fleabag apartment buildings staring him down like junkies made of brick and mortar. Overturned garbage cans and threadbare furniture on the sidewalk, awaiting the city trucks to carry them onto their final resting place, the city dump.

Chief Devine saw the two of them standing amid the debris - Stella Faxon, and nestled below her shoulder, her young son Joey.

The two seemed at peace with each other. Stella, stroking her son’s hair, wiping tears from her eyes, and hoping. Hoping this would be the last time. Hoping for a bright future, which Chief Devine himself knew would probably never come. No, he’d seen this movie before. There’d be more trouble with Joey Faxon. Tons of it.

Exiting his patrol car, Chief Devine greeted Stella and Joey with his brightest Officer Friendly Smile.

“Everything OK here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Stella answered promptly; “Everything’s OK.”

Chief Devine made a show of removing his report pad and pen from his breast pocket, held the pose for a moment, and returned them.

“Ya know what, Joey?”

“Huh,” Joey answered, casting his eyes to the ground.

“Look at me, son,” the chief commanded. Joey responded by meeting his gaze.

“I’m not going to write you up for this, OK? But do me a favor?”

Joey and Stella regarded him with equal anticipation.

“Give your mom a hug,” the chief commanded.

And the little boy did. Wrapped his arms around his mother, an embrace she accepted with gratitude and relief. Mother and child, both glad to have this turbulence behind them. The way Stella held her son, nestled him in the soft of her neck, Chief Devine could see her remembering the highlights of the boy’s life. His birth. His first steps. His first words, which might well have been “mamma,” or, “I love you.” Remembering those times, remembering her baby, and hoping the worst was behind them. Chief Devine observed this, and indulged himself in the hope that it was true, that the worst was over.

It wasn’t.

The call came into the station 12 years later, after Joey Faxon had become a man, and the neighborhood of his youth had devolved into a full-fledged slum. It was the owner of Clancy’s Corner Store calling. There had been an attempted robbery. And a shooting.

“I think I killed him!” Mr. Clancy shouted at the dispatcher through the phone. “But dammit, he deserved it! He’s been trouble all his life!”

Receiving the report from dispatch, Chief Devine didn’t have to ask who the shooting victim was. Thinking back on that stolen package of Ho-Ho’s, and the incident at the drainage well, and dozens of other reports that had come since, he knew.

Standing in Clancy’s convenience store, watching the technicians photograph and document the details of the dead body lying on the floor next to the beverage refrigerator, Chief Devine silently removed a name from his discrete list of neighborhood troublemakers. And it hurt. Because the only thing worse than adding a name to the list came at times like this. When you removed them.

When They Grow Up

2010-03-04T10:49:00.001-08:00

It would have been so much easier if Dad had been angry. Then Lou could have just yelled back at him, and they’d fight, and get it all out of their systems and forget about it.

But, no. Dad wasn’t angry, at least not on the surface. Instead - you could see it in his eyes, the downturned corners of his lips - Dad was just disappointed. Sad even. Had Lou ever made his father sad before? Well, sometime during his 16 years of life he must’ve. But never like this.

Standing under the soft lights of the living room, Dad held the glass pipe up at eye level, making it the only item in the world standing between himself and his son. Dad eyed the object with heartbreak, and when he transferred his gaze to his son, the heartbreak remained.

“Is this yours?” Dad asked. His voice trembled, and Lou felt more guilty and sick than he had ever before in his life.

“Yeah,” Lou said, lowering his eyes to the ground. His father’s shoes were freshly polished. Man, I hope he wasn’t thinking about this when he polished his shoes, Lou thought, then almost laughed at his own absurd musing.

“WHAT’S IS FOR?” Dad asked, the edge in his voice forcing Lou to raise his glance back toward his father’s.

“Honey —” Mom broke in.

“NOT NOW!” Dad shot at her, the first time Lou had ever heard his father raise his voice to his mother. “What’s it for?” he repeated.

“Oh, Dad,” Lou breathed, wanting to make excuses, wanting to explain, but realizing there was nothing he could say now to patch over the wound in his father’s heart.

“It’s for smoking pot,” came Lou’s candid response.

Dad sighed deeply, lowering the pipe to his side, his body deflating. Now it was Dad’s turn to look at the ground, at his own polished shoes. He’d buffed them earlier that morning in preparation for the business trip he was scheduled to leave for today. An important business trip, in which Dad was supposed to meet with his board of directors. He’d found the pipe only moments ago, left carelessly on a stool in the garage. And now, the business trip didn’t seem so important anymore. Not important at all, really. If he could, he’d cancel the whole thing. Stay home, take a couple days off, and take his son fishing. Then they could talk, talk about the dangerous world his son was entering, about how you don’t need to get involved with this shit, son; no good will ever come of it. Dad had always told himself, if he ever had to chose between his professional and family life, family would come first, always. In theory, what a noble thought that was. But in reality, he had an important business trip waiting and an hour’s drive to the airport. His plane would depart in an hour and twenty-five minutes.

“Honey,” Mom said, “I know. I know this is hard. Damn hard. But we’ll make it.” She took both of their hands, her husband’s and her son’s, and squeezed them.

“We’ll make it,” she repeated, releasing from her grasp the two men she loved most in the world. “You go on your business trip. I’ll deal with him,” she pointed a stern finger at Lou. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Go. Good luck on your trip. Just, just don’t think about this, and when you get back we’ll work it out.”

Dad kissed her. Not a peck on the cheek, but a full-on lip kiss. It made Lou squeamish to see his parents engaged in such intimacy, but right now that’s what they needed.

Releasing Mom from the embrace, Dad took Lou into his arms and held him tighter than he ever had before. Speaking gently as he held his son, Dad could only say, “Son...” But no words were to follow.

“Have a good trip, Dad.”

“I will,” Dad said, though the darkness in his tone forecast nothing but troubled thoughts the whole time he was away. They said goodbye as a family and Dad disappeared into the garage, the spot where only moments before he’d made his heartbreaking discovery.

With Dad gone, Mom and Lou stood in the living room. Listened as their beloved and disappointed man slammed shut the car door, the opening and closing of the garage door, and the car driving Dad off to the airport.

Then, with Dad safely gone, mother and son burst into mirthful laughter.

Mom collapsed onto the couch, her body shaking with gales of relief and glee. Lou playfully socked her on the arm, and gathered her up, rubbing his knuckles gently on her head in a make-believe noogie.

When they’d finished laughing, Lou said, “Oh, you so owe me!”

“I know!” Mom giggled. “I owe you huge. Anything you want. Anything!”

“What were you thinking, leaving that in the garage for Dad to find?”

“I wasn’t thinking!” she rejoined. “I was friggin’ high!”

“Christ,” Lou said, taking a seat next to her on the couch. A self-professed “math geek,” Lou had never smoked pot in his whole life. But picking up on approximately a billion clues which his father had somehow missed, he had long known of his mother’s fondness for what she called “the herbal remedy.”

They’d had this moment planned out long ago - that if evidence ever turned up and logic allowed for it, Lou would take the fall for her. That moment had just come and gone with a grace more merciful than either could have imagined. Thank God for that business trip.

“Seriously, though,” Lou said. “Once, okay? Once I did this for you. But don’t, please, start gettin’ all careless. Don’t be rippin’ mad bong hits all over the place thinking I’ll just cover for you, ’kay?”

“’Kay,” she agreed, dutifully. They nodded in agreement. Then, a hint of devilishness crossed the boy’s eyes.

“Y’know, I’ve never done that stuff before,” he said.

“I know, honey,” Mom acknowledged, and kissed him on the forehead.

“So,” he said, “How about ’bout settin’ me up with my first hit?”

“No,” she answered definitively, leaving no room for discussion.

He raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“You’ll understand when you grow up,” Mom said, and stuffed the glass pipe into her purse.

I Am Famous; You Are Not Famous

2010-02-21T12:39:00.000-08:00

A drop of sweat fell from the forehead of Jesus the Gardener. It landed upon the soil, forming a bead that quickly dissolved into the dirt. Panting, he wiped his forehead with a hand bleeding from cuts and encrusted with sodden Earth.

Crouched on his hands and knees, he allowed himself a rare moment of anger and pounded his fist against the ground. Wordlessly, he allowed a day’s worth of frustration to run through his mind. All day I’ve been slaving like a mule, like an animal, and now I’m even watering the Earth with the sweat of my brow!

With that he leaned back on his haunches and tilted his head toward the California sun, which beat down from the sky like a murderous heat lamp. He loosened himself, let the tension leave his body, and breathed deeply. IN, ever so slowly, and OUT. IN, the moisture of the damp soil, the rich aroma of freshly cut grass, letting the smell become a part of his being. His lungs full of this robust Earthy medley, he breathed OUT the anger, the resentment, the bitterness that had enslaved him throughout the day.

All his life, Jesus had loved nothing more than to be in touch with the Earth - to nourish it, to seed it. And when those seeds grew, to make them beautiful. Make them sing.

Jesus had heard it said many times, “Find a way to get paid doing something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” These words held true on almost every job he worked. He’d built up a thriving business over the years, so successful word-of-mouth alone brought him more work than he could handle. Work such as his was hard, it’s true; but at its best, it also brought honor and more than a little joy.

Sometimes, that’s how it went. But not today. On today’s job, there would be no joy. Today, Jesus worked the land of one of his most fearsome and demanding clients. The property, nestled on a hillside in a section of town that had long ago lost its glamour, belonged to a famous movie actor. Or, at least, one who had once been famous. Or, anyway, an actor who had appeared in a couple of movies.

An actor named Johnny Celebrity.

When you mowed Johnny Celebrity’s lawn, you did not merely cut the grass. You cut and crosscut the grass. Then you inspected the lawn thoroughly, as a scientist examines a strain of DNA, to ensure that not a single blade had been left uncut. You trimmed the hedges, and then carefully caressed them with your hand in search of any twig that may have gone untrimmed. And, worst of all, were the rose bushes. Jesus dreaded the rose bushes beyond anything, because you did not simply trim them and water them. No, you scrutinized every flower, every petal, to make sure no dead petals remained. Jesus had to do this by hand, because removing dead petals is work far too delicate for a glove. Jesus would gently separate the branches, and the thorns would stab at his hands, sometimes breaking the skin. The agony of tending the rose bushes brought out the worst of Jesus’s anger, forcing him to remind himself, You are the child of field hands and farm workers, and you’ll make more money in this day’s work than many of your ancestors made in a year. So if the work is too hard, be a man about it. Confront it. Conquer it.

These thoughts sustained Jesus throughout the day, helped him finish the job of pleasing a client as demanding as Johnny Celebrity. Because finishing such a job was the mark of a true man, the badge of a professional. And when he finished, he could be tired to the point of exhaustion, with arms and legs so weak they might as well not be there at all. Take his arms, take his legs, and it wouldn't matter. Because he had finished the job, and finished it well.

Now that he was finished with his day’s work, Jesus the gardener carefully packed up his tools and brought them back to his van. He then returned to the back yard to survey his handiwork, and let a satisfied smile cross his face. So perfectly had he completed this job. Everything so well-trimmed and groomed, so immaculate. For all the hell it was to work for a client such as Johnny Celebrity, Jesus prided himself on delivering to this most difficult customer the same quality he brought to his most kind and appreciative.

Then there was a sound, a rumbling. Unconsciously, Jesus felt the muscles of his stomach tighten like those of a frightened child. It was the sound of the creaky old garage door opening

Johnny Celebrity was home.

Jesus stood calmly, awaiting the star’s inevitable appearance on the back porch. He knew, there would be no compliments from Johnny Celebrity today. No congratulations on a job well done. From Johnny Celebrity, there would be only complaints and abuse. And Jesus would endure them. Just as he endured the heat of the sun, the thorns on the rosebush, the strain on his arms and legs that made them feel as though they'd fallen off his body. It was all part of the job, and the job paid very well.

Behind him, Jesus heard the opening and closing of a door, as Johnny Celebrity stepped onto the back porch.

Johnny Celebrity is beautiful today, as he is every day. He is tall and thin, thin like a pencil. He’s dressed casually, yet still the very height of fashion. Off-white pants, a matching light jacket and a black T-shirt. A golden necklace with a cross dangling on his chest. Sunglasses. He always wears sunglasses, so the world cannot see his eyes. He is 36 years old, but he might be 26. Or 46. Whatever his age, he bears the irrepressible stamp of youth. Johnny Celebrity is cool. Or, anyway, cooler than you.

“Hello, Mr. Johnny,” Jesus the gardener said.

Johnny Celebrity did not answer. He stood like a statue, his eyes invisible behind the sunglasses as he surveyed the landscape.

Finally, he spoke, asking Jesus the gardener a question.

“Are you finished?”

“Yes, sir," Jesus answered. "I’ve been working all morning. I worked especially hard on the rose bushes. I know you like -”

“ARE YOU FINISHED?” Johnny celebrity cut him off.

Silence settled in between them. Unconsciously, Jesus raised a finger to his mouth and gnawed nervously on a fingernail. Conscious of this behavior, he quickly removed the finger from his mouth. I will not let him make a child of me.

“Because I’m seeing something right now that disturbs me. Disturbs me greatly,” Johnny Celebrity said. “Do you know what that is?”

Silence.

“If you’re finished,” Johnny Celebrity continued, “if you’re truly finished, then thank you very much for leaving a pair of garden shears by the rose bush. I’ve always wanted a pair of garden sheers, and thank you very godamn much for leaving them for me!”

Jesus looked at the rosebushes, and there they were - a pair of gardening shears he’d left behind.

“Oh, sir, I -”

“Did you mean to leave them there?”

“Sir, I’m sorry, I-”

“NO!!!” Johnny Celebrity nearly shouted. “I did not ask if you were sorry. Did you not understand me? Are we having a little No Hable de lo Englesio problem here? Let me ask again. Slowly, for you: Did you. Mean to leave. Your garden shears. On my lawn. Like a careless. DICK???”

“Sir, no. I did not mean to leave my gardening shears here. It was forgetfulness on my part,” Jesus said. “I apologize.”

Johnny Celebrity sighed, disgusted. “Jesus, you need to understand something. I am famous. You are not famous. And you cannot treat my property like it is your own personal storage area. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

Johnny Celebrity nodded. Even though he did not move his head, he seemed to nod. He has a way of doing that.

“Go,” he said. “But don’t take your gardening shears. Because they are mine.”

And with that, without argument, Jesus the Gardener disappeared.

The gardener’s absence left Johnny Celebrity alone to take in the opulence of his own property. Yes, Jesus had done a wonderful job today as usual, but the magnificence of Johnny Celebrity’s estate does not stop at the landscaping. It shines out also from the genuine marble walkways, the ceramic birdbaths hand-carved into finely detailed cherubs. Brightly colored windsocks made of durable silk blowing faintly in the breeze, their chimes ringing out a glorious melody. Anyone surveying this lavish scene would have no choice but to assume its owner to be a very rich person.

Or, conversely, a very foolish one.

Johnny Celebrity had built his estate on paychecks that stopped coming in long ago. There had been a time when the money didn’t just stream in, it poured in. Gushed in. Rivers of money, torrents of it. And just as the money had fallen upon him like water, he’d let it wash away like water, down a long and very posh drain. Johnny Celebrity had been a rich man once, but was now a poor man surrounded by mountains of expensive garbage.

Johnny Celebrity returned to his house from the porch. There had been a message waiting for him inside. Probably a creditor, but maybe a job offer. Half nervous, half excited, he opened the porch doors by turning a doorknob made of genuine silver.

Why silver? For the love of God, why silver? Such waste.

Johnny Celebrity spotted the blinking light on his answering machine, and a faint spark of hope flared in his heart, an encouraging sign from above that the voice recorded on the answering machine would bring good news and not bad.

And as the message came from the machine, his prayers were answered.

“Johnny,” came a clipped but cheerful greeting out of the speaker. “Showbiz here. Call me.”

Yes!!!

The voice coming out of the speaker belonged to Johnny’s agent, a high-powered industry figure known as Mr. Showbiz. And when Mr. Showbiz calls, you know it’s good news. Because Mr. Showbiz is money. Mr. Showbiz gets you jobs. Mr. Showbiz gets you paid, baby, ’cause he’s out there gettin’ things done and makin’ things happen. When Mr. Showbiz calls, you know you got the part. Because Mr. Showbiz doesn’t call to tell you no, Mr. Showbiz calls to tell you YES!

Johnny returned the call, and the line rang directly into Mr. Showbiz’s office. After a single ring, the line clicked open with the jovial greeting, “Showbiz here, whatcha got?”

“Um, hello,” Johnny said. “It’s Johnny.”

“JOHNNY!” Mr. Showbiz rejoined, and in his voice the very essence of joy and success. Mr. Showbiz is happy to hear from you! In his voice, there is YES! “Johnny, great to hear from ya, man! I got a part for you. You open?” he asked.

Containing his own excitement, Johnny said, “Well, I’ll have to check my schedule, see if I'm open,” and let a few seconds slip by while he pretended to check his imaginary schedule - a schedule which he, and Mr. Showbiz, and anyone with any knowledge of Johnny Celebrity's career, knew was quite open indeed.

“Well, I think I could find time for a new project. Is it a movie, or TV?” Johnny Celebrity asked.

“NEITHER!” Mr. Showbiz fired back. Because that’s how Mr. Showbiz rolls, honey. He ain’t here to shuck’n’jive ya. If he ain’t calling with a film or TV role, he won’t pretend he is.

“Broadway?” Johnny Celebrity asked, his voice faltering now that the two mediums in which he had any experience were off the table.

“NOPE!” came Mr. Showbiz’s answer.

“Well, what is it, then?” Johnny Celebrity asked.

“OK, let me tell ya something,” Mr. Showbiz said, his voice working hard to clear-cut the forest of doubt he heard in Johnny's voice.

“Thing is - and I'm being brutally honest here - I can’t get any of the studios to work with you anymore,” Mr. Showbiz continued. Johnny's heart sank audibly on the other end of the line.

“You know why?” Mr. Showbiz queried.

“Why?” a deflated Johnny Celebrity asked, preparing for the same lecture on unprofessional behavior he’d gotten throughout his career.

“Because, Johnny, you’re a genius!” Mr. Showbiz said, just about sang, over the telephone. Johnny Celebrity beamed as the words he’d just heard worked their inevitable magic on his heart.

“A genius!” Mr. Showbiz continued. “You’re a monster talent, Johnny - I’d put you right up there with De Niro. Brando. Poitier. Dustin Hoffman. Hell, Philip Seymour Hoffman! And you think there aren’t nights I don’t lie awake wondering how all those lightweights managed to find work when the great Johnny Celebrity - Johnny Celebrity! - can’t get the proper recognition? Tell ya the truth, Johnny, it hurts me. I cry about it sometimes.”

Johnny made a sound into the phone - you might say he grunted, or, more appropriately, purred, into the mouthpiece.

“So I was thinkin’, Johnny, to hell with Hollywood!” Mr. Showbiz exclaimed, as if the idea had just struck him that very moment. “I mean, if all the Hollywood muckety-mucks won’t have you, because you’re too good for ’em, then to hell with ’em! And, anyway, Johnny, I always thought your name belongs among the great stage actors, the - ”

“But I’ve never done any stage acting!” Johnny cut in.

“I know, but follow me on this, Johnny. I always thought your name belonged among the great stage actors, the masters of the floorboards like the great John Barrymore! And that’s why I’ve arranged for you to read for a play, a soon-to-be-masterpiece of the avant-garde titled ‘I Am a Man, I Am Not a Man.’ It’s a great role, Johnny, and I am beyond certain that you’ll get the part. So, tell me, Johnny, are you in?”

“You want me to read for the part?” Johnny asked, deflated. “Audition, like an amateur?”

“No, Johnny, not like an amateur,” Mr. Showbiz corrected, his voice dropping with grave seriousness. “Like a professional. Because when the show's over and the house lights go up, the crowd's left the building, and there's only a couple people still left out there in the audience. See ’em? All that’s left are the people who care, the people still willing to give you a chance. That’s when a professional gets up on that stage and says, ‘I’ve been there before and I can get there again! I've climbed to the top of the world, and this is how I got there!’ And when he's done he gets the part, because he believes in himself. C’mon, Johnny, believe in yourself! Get the part!”

Johnny inhaled deeply, as if gasping for his final breath while drowning in a sea of desperation, and finally answered.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

And that is how Johnny Celebrity, the once-famous movie star, or the once-almost-famous movie star, or the never-really-ever-famous-at-all-jerk-who-is-mean-to-his gardener, wound up in a dingy little theater in a shady part of town located between a Sunoco gas station and a Hooters restaurant, reading for a role in an obscure art-house production called “I Am a Man, I am Not a Man.”

Johnny recognized some other actors there, and those he didn’t recognize, he assumed, were amateurs. But the ones he did recognize had stories similar to his. Burned bridges and squandered fortunes. Greatness, or near-greatness, or mere adequacy, now collapsed into obscurity. Grasping for one final chance to reclaim something that might never have been there to begin with.

An actor stood onstage, poised with the razor-sharp posture of a trained stage veteran. Johnny recognized him. He had done some obscure films once, then television roles, and finally commercials. Johnny had seen him a year or so ago in an advertisement for breakfast sausage. The actor had been dressed as a cloud for that role, and was sort of the star of the spot. His key line, Johnny believed, had been, “I only eat cereal. Cereal is cold and wet. It‘s a cloud thing. You wouldn’t understand!”

Now, the actor who had played a cloud in the sausage commercial paced the stage, script in hand, and commenced to read the monologue.

“I am a man, but I am not a man!” the actor proclaimed, stage lights glaring off his bald head. “I am only what you see! I am nothing but a collection of sights, each one meaningless by itself. But together, those sights make me a man!” He paused, for dramatic effect. The director wrote something in his notebook. The producer exited the auditorium to take a call on his cell phone.

“I am a man, but I am not a man!” the actor continued. “If I wear a hat, I am a man wearing a hat. If I have a moustache, I am a man with a moustache. But remove the hat, shave off the moustache - shave it off! - and you would not call me a man without a hat, a man without a moustache! You would simply call me a man. And what if you removed an arm? I would be a one-armed man! And the other? Remove the other arm - remove it! - and I would be an armless man! And if you took away my legs - Take them, take them away! - I would be a man with no arms. No legs. A man, but not a man,” Mr. Sausage Commercial Rain cloud Guy concluded.

The man bowed, half expecting applause, but none came. Rather, the director made another note on his pad and said, “Thank you.”

And then, the word Johnny Celebrity had been half hoping for, half dreading, came from the director‘s mouth.

“NEXT!”

Johnny mounted the stage, trying to appear cool and professional. He had never stood under stage lights before, and they beat down from above like the California sun. For some reason, the harsh lights brought to mind Jesus the gardener, working all day in the hot outdoors, only to be scolded for leaving his garden shears on the lawn. But now, at this moment, Johnny mustn’t let the stage lights bother him. He mustn’t even notice them. This was his one chance, his last chance. His career, his legacy, his life, hinged on this performance.

“I am a man, but I am not a man!” Johnny proclaimed, in a manner he was certain put the previous actors to shame. He ran through the next few lines, pouring his very soul into every syllable. Then progressed onto the meat of the monologue.

“If I wear a hat, I am a man wearing a hat!” he said. Inexplicably, he felt a slight weight assert itself upon his head. He brought his hand there, and feeling about found that a hat had somehow found its way onto his head. This could not be! He had not been wearing a hat, yet now he found one sitting on his head.

Unfazed, he continued, “If I have a moustache, I am a man with a moustache!” Johnny felt a slight bristling on his upper lip. Unconsciously, he raised his hand there. Shockingly, he found hair there. He now had a moustache, though he severely distrusted moustaches and had never had one all his life!

Fearfully, he spoke the next couple of lines, and said, “And what if you removed an arm? I would be a one-armed man! And the other? Remove the other arm - remove it! - and I would be an armless man!”

As he spoke these lines, each of his arms disappeared with the corresponding text. The script fell to the ground, for Johnny Celebrity now had no arms to hold it. He stood onstage, an armless man, too terrified to speak the next line even though he had it memorized. But these lines, which all his life had only been words on a page, were now real. The hat, the moustache, his arms, these were only props of language, meaningless words on a page. Only supposed to be, at least. But now they were turning real.

Fearful as he was to speak the next line, he was more fearful still not to. Finally, with as much passion as he could muster, Johnny Celebrity uttered the final lines in the monologue:

“And if you took away my legs - take them, take them away! - I would be a man with no arms and no legs.”

With that, Johnny Celebrity’s legs disappeared out from under him and all that was left of his body - a head and torso with no appendages - came crashing to the floor with a giant THUD. Lying on his back, armless and legless, the back of his head smarting madly, Johnny Celebrity had no way to move. He wanted badly to call out for help, but he knew there was no help. There was only him, an armless and legless man lying on the stage. He could not move, and could not see whether anyone was coming to help him. The only thing he could see at that moment were the stage lights above, shining down on him bright and hot, merciless; unforgiving; but still - in the world he’d created for himself, those stage lights however brutal, were the only things he had.

The Campus Beast

2010-01-23T08:24:00.000-08:00

Professor Johannes Vorkman was drunk. And not just drunk, but legless, leathered, pickled and looped. Because Professor Vorkman was a professor of English literature, and why use one word when several would do?

“Truth is what we seek, and truth is what we speak!” he proclaimed loudly, holding his wine glass high in the campus bar for all his colleagues to see. The rouge liquid swirled around in the glass, some of it running over onto his hand, puddling up on his wrist and running down his shirtsleeve like a trail of blood. Encouraged, he drained the glass and slammed it down on the table. The glass tipped over, leaving in its place a perfect crimson circle.

Slowly, the glass commenced to roll off the table. Sylvia Smart, a professor of civil engineering who had found herself unfortunately seated next to Professor Vorkman, stopped it with a single finger and placed it upright again on the table.

Why do I come here? Professor Smart wondered to herself as Professor Vorkman let out a silent burp that delivered an acrid gust into her nostrils. She remembered, when she’d first joined the faculty of Autumn State College, how giddy she’d been to be invited to one of these Friday night get-togethers. Now, she considered them nothing more than a chore, no better than circling typographical errors on a careless student’s term paper.

But these Friday gatherings of professors at the Watchtower Room had become habit, and she went every week. Always restricted herself to one beer. Budweiser, out of a can. To hell with wine glasses; leave them to elitist drunks like Vorkman.

“Truth!” Vorkman continued. “We must speak truth! And the truth is, I think I’d enjoy another glass of wine!”

“Um, Professor Vorkman?” came a dissenting voice from the other end of the table. It was Professor John Koski, a professor of engineering and a founding member of Autumn State College’s nascent Industrial Arts Department. “Really need another wine? Maybe rest for awhile?” he asked gently, pointing to the wine glass Professor Smart had just saved from certain destruction.

“Well, I say I would like another wine!” Vorkman trumpeted. “And, my good fellow, I don‘t think I need a shop teacher to tell me when I’ve had enough!”

Koski acquiesced, allowing the shop teacher insult to pass unnoticed. He knew, many of the faculty at Autumn State College resented his presence. The college had long been all filled up with the humanities, English, philosophy, art history and the like, and had very deservedly earned the diminutive nickname Egghead State College. Koski took the resentment in stride; sorry if his students might actually find jobs after leaving the ivory tower.

“Another!” professor Vorkman signaled to a young college girl working the bar. Dutifully, the young woman poured his glass full and set it down for him to retrieve.

By then, Professor Vorkman’s interest had wandered. He scooped the remaining potato chips from a bag he’d smuggled in, and shoved them into his mouth, licking his fingers as he went. Then he tossed the empty bag into a wastebasket above which hung a sign reading, “Please dispose of all FOOD containers out of the room. Thank you.”

“No, you can’t do that,” Professor Smart cautioned, her eyes growing a bit motherly and scolding. “The sign says so!”

Professor Vorkman regarded the sign, and read it aloud: “‘Please dispose of all FOOD containers out of the room. Thank you.’” Then he scoffed, “That sign doesn’t even make any sense! It’s a grammatical disaster!” Looking at Professor Koski across the table, he asked, “Did one of your shop students write that?”

“Actually no,” Professor Koski said, and the table went silent. Vorkman had been needling at Koski all semester, and all the professors at the table thought this might be the moment when their tensions would finally came to a head.

Allowing a pause for dramatic effect, Professor Koski concluded, “Most of my students probably couldn’t even write that!”

The table exploded in laughter, with Vorkman and Koski sharing the first lighthearted moment of their professional careers. In the spirit of the moment, Koski tipped his glass to Professor Vorkman. Wanting to return the gesture, Vorkman realized he had no glass to tip. Excusing himself, he made his way to the bar to retrieve the wine glass awaiting him.

Professor Smart met eyes with Koski, and unconsciously brushed her hair away from her face. She had glorious eyes, Koski noticed, artfully enhanced with subtle makeup.

“Don’t...don’t worry about him,” she said, nodding toward Professor Vorkman. “That ‘shop teacher’ stuff. He’s just,” she searched for a word, and finally muttered, “He’s a beast.”

Professor Koski liked the way she said beast. It was low and guttural, maybe a little sexy. It made him think of Godzilla.

Godzilla was a monster lizard that could crush the city of Tokyo with its bare feet. Johannes Volkman was a dotty old professor of English who couldn’t even follow the directions printed above a wastebasket.

So, really, there was nothing to worry about.

Dead Language

2010-01-08T09:51:00.001-08:00

The elderly couple at the bus stop stared each other down like a pair of dying hyenas, each one waiting for the other to drop. Tina Benzito, a young kindergarten teacher fresh out of college, watched them distractedly as she prepared that morning’s activities for her class. Tina tried to maintain focus while doing work at the bus stop, but the quibbling pair were simply too entertaining to ignore.

As usual, the aged couple were engaged in a fight. There was no way to tell for sure they were fighting, as they spoke in a foreign language, but their terse words spit out in a mysterious tongue bore the unmistakable cadence of strife.

“Zu dan pinmay sop lindpik!” the old woman said to her husband, jabbing at him with her gnarled, purple fingers. (Translated from their native Gahn language, her words meant, “You didn’t save money for rent!”).

“Deey!” the old man responded, pushing her fingers away and pretending to spit upon them. “Pinmay lindpik du dert pae lunt chas pikmun!” (“Big deal! Paying rent is only a poor man giving money to a rich man!”).

The woman, whose puckered skin bore a striking resemblance to a grape on the very cusp of becoming a raisin, deepened her frown in mock sorrow. “Zu da soth mun! Sothee du flod slet!” (“You are a lazy man! Too lazy to make his own bed!”).

With that the couple mutually turned away from each other, signaling the end of their conversation.

The silence should have allowed Tina to continue with her school planning, but she paused in fascination at the bickering duo. As usual, she wondered what they were saying with those inscrutable syllables. She tried to picture the old man and woman as young lovers, a task almost impossible given their current state of decay. She wondered, most of all, what was their story.

Their story, and we will keep it brief, is thus:

Several decades ago, they had been residents of a war-torn country. Their young lives, like those of all their countrymen, had been filled with bullets and bloodshed. Every day brought the death of another villager, most often at the hands of yet another villager. Corruption and violence ran amok. Under this lawless environment, you literally slept with all of your prized possessions tied into a bundle and clutched tightly to your chest. Because that prized bundle might be stolen by anyone, from marauding thieves to your own brother.

The elderly couple now at the bus stop had been married, or what was considered “married,” in those bygone days. Their culture had no legal concept for marriage, but instead used the term “Lozon,” which translates to, “She trusts him not to kill her, and he trusts her not to steal from him.”

Through a series of events far to complex to describe here, the couple were taken (our language calls it “rescued”) from their village and brought to America. Their decades here had been filled with trouble and poverty, and their love disintegrated with the years. Now they were like many couples whose lives had largely passed away unhappily. Saddened by their current condition, they looked deep within their own history to where they might have made better choices.

Both of them had long ago learned to speak English, and reserved the use of their native Gahn language only for times they were fighting in public. So, they spoke mostly in Gahn.

One thing neither of them knew, and Tina surely did not know, was that circumstances had long ago changed in their native country. The warfare and bloodshed continued, but all the tribes had been split up over dozens of battles and enemy conquests. Now, in no civilization on Earth was the language of Gahn ever spoken, and no texts existed to preserve it. The old man and the old woman were literally the only two people on the planet ever to use it, and then appropriately enough only to fight.

With the bus due to arrive in moments, the woman ravaged her purse in a desperate search for change. Finding none, she called out, in Gahn, “Dan pinmay! Dan pinmay weide!” (“No money! No money for the bus!”).

The old man offered nothing to his wife but a contemptuous glare. He then retrieved a pack a cigarettes from his pocket and lit one with defiance.

“Pa!” the old woman said. “Zu dan nim Lozem!” (“You are not my husband!”). And with that, strode determinedly off. She appeared to walk with a limp, but really it was just a loose heel to her shoe which she had vowed to have fixed last year. Or perhaps the year before, for it’s difficult to keep track of such things.

The old man walked off as well, blithely puffing his cigarette and kicking stones into the gutter as he marched off toward a destination unknown.

Tina, now alone at the bus stop, returned to her morning planning. She jotted down a few notes cheerfully and thought of many things, but surely did not realize that she had just heard the planet Earth’s final conversation ever to be spoken in the ancient language of Gahn.

The Driving Test

2009-12-29T10:21:00.001-08:00

A personal call came to my office a couple weeks ago, and I knew something was wrong the moment the receptionist announced the caller.

“It’s Anya.”

Anya, my wife. Who never calls me at work. Ever. Not because we have any rule on the subject, except that Anya feels as a “grown-ass woman” she ought to be able to navigate the day without calling her husband at the first sign of household crisis.

With Anya on the line, I knew there was trouble. And with my father having arrived at the house earlier in the week for a visit, I had a fair idea of what the trouble might be.

“Put her through,” I said, at least happy to anticipate the sound of her voice on the other end of the phone. She would begin the conversation with a casual, “Heyyyyyyy!” as she had done ever since we were teenagers.

The line clicked over, and as expected the first word was, “Heyyyyyyy!” but this was not casual. There was an edge to her voice now, something a little too close to panic.

“Wassup?” I asked.

“It’s Dad,” she said.

Dad. A bit of family history, here: Anya and I were married at the age of 21, after six years of dating. For reasons that would require far too much family history here, Anya had largely been absorbed into my family during those years. Her own parents had been, at best, distant from her all her life. So when she spoke of her own father, she said “my Father.” And when she spoke of my father, she said “Dad.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to keep an even tone but dammit if my vocal chords didn’t ratchet up at least a notch or two. “What’s going on with Dad?”

“Well,” she said, hesitating. Which was not a good sign. At all. And there was something else in her voice, something a little more disturbing. And that thing was embarrassment. Whatever it was she was about to tell me, it came with a little bit of shame.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Just, what about Dad?”

“He’s...he’s lost.”

“Uh,” I said, and with a little more coaxing and cajoling the story came out.

Dad had gone off to our local mall that day, no doubt with a detailed list of things he wanted to purchase written meticulously in the pocket notebook he carried with him at all times. But one thing he had failed to note, apparently, was where he had parked his car.

Poor Dad. After trolling the shopping center for a good part of the day, he realized he didn’t even remember which door he’d first entered. After leaving the mall from some random exit and observing the parking lot, he might as well have dropped there from outer space. Rows and rows of automobiles stood before him, his car potentially hiding in any one of them. He walked the parking lot, confused and frustrated under the hot sun, until finally abandoning the effort and checking in with mall security. That’s when he called Anya. And Anya called me.

“Okay,” I said, more than a little relieved. “Just ask him the first thing he saw when he walked into the mall. Trust me, he’ll remember. Then, take him to that place, and go out the nearest exit. Have him walk out to the middle of the parking lot, and hit the panic button on his key chain. Hopefully that’ll set of his car alarm.”

“Okay,” Anya said, hopefully. “I’ll call ya back.”

She did, twenty minutes later. My plan, completely improvised on the spot, had worked. Dad found his car and was on his way home from the mall, minus maybe a little pride and a touch of shine from his shoes, but dignity intact.

On my own drive home, I thought about the annual driving test our state required of all motorists lucky enough to have celebrated their 80th birthday. Dad was scheduled for his second such test next month, and had already mentioned it a couple of times during his visit. I could tell, he was not looking forward to it.

We passed our evening pleasantly, not mentioning that days’ incident in the parking lot. Not that it really was an incident. People get lost in parking lots every day. Thirty-year-olds get lost. Hell, for bubble-headed teenagers, it’s practically a rite of passage. I had thought about comforting Dad with these thoughts, but decided that any talk of the issue should come from him. And none did.

So, instead we watched Jeopardy. And as usual, the old man ran the table on every category. Who else can tell you the Norman Rockwell Museum is located in Rutland, Vermont, or that the Library at Alexandria was burned in 48 B.C.... Dad can tell you, that’s who. Because there are billions of facts in the universe, and Dad has a firm grasp on just about all of them.

Before bed, Dad, Anya and I retired to the back porch. Me, with a Bud Lite, and Dad with a bourbon and coke. Anya doesn’t usually drink, but on that night joined Dad in a bourbon and coke.

That’s when Dad dropped the bombshell.

As the three of us settled under the moonlight, crickets chirping and cars whizzing by on country roads, Dad said nonchalantly, “I’m not going to take the driving test.”

Anya and I looked at each other, then at him. He chuckled, always enjoying getting a rise out of us “kids.”

“Screw it,” he concluded, “there’s excellent public transportation where I live. You can catch a bus just about anywhere. And, you know what?”

What? we let the silence ask.

“I don’t goddamn enjoy driving anymore! Not like I used to, and not at all, really. The cars out on the freeway, they drive so fast. But are they really driving faster, or am I maybe just getting a little slower? And not just on the freeway. Hell, the other day, right in the middle of town, I didn’t even bother to stop at a stop sign. Just drove right through it, la-dee-da, until some youngster blasts his horn at me and shakes his fist. And, if he hadn’t been paying attention, there would have been an accident. And there have been more than just a couple things. There have been a lot, really.”

His tone had not been confessional, or even regretful. It was all matter-of-fact, a recitation of his life. To hear him say this didn’t make me sad, because it didn’t make him sad. It was all a fact of life, a symptom of the passage of time. Just as one passes the age of playing football and water skiing, Dad seemed to figure he had passed the age of driving a car.

Dad drained the last of his bourbon and coke, the ice crystals tingling in his glass. He set the glass down on the wicker table and let two dewdrops race their way down its foggy surface, sighing as he cast his eyes toward the evening sky.

“Stars are out tonight,” he said, wistful and relaxed.

Anya purred in agreement, taking the final sip of her bourbon and coke and setting her glass down next Dad’s.

“They say if you counted all the stars in the sky, there would be a dozen for every grain of sand on Earth. And today, when I was looking out at all those cars in the parking lot, I might as well have been looking at all the stars in the sky. And I just didn’t feel like I could take ’em all on anymore. Maybe I never could. Maybe I just stopped denying it.”

After he had spoken, I noticed Anya had placed her hand over Dad’s. She let it rest there a minute, patted it a couple of times, and with the gentleness of the wind passing through the trees, said, “It’s okay. It's okay, Dad.”

The Loving Assassin

2009-12-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

He stumbled toward her with blurry eyes and a garbled moan, like a giant baby who was just now learning how to walk.

A giant baby. That’s what Doug Holden was, and Janet Mansfield was surprised it had taken her so long to think of him as such.

“Maaaaa!” Doug cried as he took Janet into his arms. She did not return the embrace, but instead put her hands up, palms forward, to keep him and his smell from enveloping her fully.

“Yes, Douglas, it’s good to see you, too,” Janet said, pushing him away before he’d even relaxed his hold. Have I ever pushed him away before? she wondered. She must have at some point over the years, when he came to her stinking and drunk as he was now. But never before so consciously, nor with such force of intent.

Doug’s body odor filled the lobby of Hope House, the homeless shelter Janet ran on the back streets of this small town that had somehow become a city. In the 20 years of Hope House’s history, Doug Holden had been one of her most steady guests. Whenever he was drunk and in trouble, which was always, Doug knew there was always a door that would open for him, with warm tea and a bed inside, and that place was Hope House. Doug had been in his mid-twenties when he first came here, at a time when he still had teeth and a future, but was enduring a series of events he had called “a rough patch.” Doug was in his mid-forties now, with no teeth and no future, and as the years wore on that rough patch had become his life.

Another visitor to Hope House, this one dressed crisply in a suit and a tie, stirred uncomfortably on the couch. It was Al Brasden, chairman of the town council, on his annual visit to renew Hope House’s variance to operate in a residential area. It was a formality, but a heartbreaking one at times such as these, when Al was forced to confront the downfallen husk of a person he’d known in his youth.

“Al,” Janet said, then corrected herself, “Um, Councilor Brasden, you know Mr. Holden, don’t you?”

“Of course!” Brasden said, rising and shaking the hand of the stinking vagrant who’d just entered the lobby of the local drunk tank (which, face it, is what the Hope House was), trying not to remember Doug Holden as the talented athlete who’d commanded so much of his youthful respect and envy, and fighting harder still not to look at the decayed and missing teeth which had once configured such a winning smile.

“We went to high school together!” Brasden concluded, but did not mention Doug Holden’s stint as a star running back, because Doug Holden had now reached a point in life when his glory days were but a cruel reminder of what could have been.

“OK, good,” Janet Mansfield said, even though absolutely nothing about the current situation was OK or good. “Now, Doug, there’s a room for you here, the one you usually stay in. But, you know we have rules about drinking.”

Doug straightened in protest. “I ain’t been -”

Janet cut him off with a raised hand, and with her eyes said, Don’t even bother lying to me.

Silenced, Doug waited for her to continue.

“So,” she said, “there’s a room for you upstairs. Your usual room. Go there. Sleep. Read. But no drinking. And when you come down later, there’ll be some dinner for you.”

Doug had already reached the stairwell by the time she finished her sentence.

“Great!” Doug said, climbing the stairs painfully, with knees that had jumped off too many rail cars, spent too many nights curled up in doorways, and had grown old before their time. “It’s good to see you again, Al!” Doug said, carrying himself away as swiftly as he could before Al could answer.

“Well,” Al smiled.

“Well,” Janet replied, her voice carrying through the lobby of Hope House, over the natty furniture and outdated appliances, a dusty piano that hadn’t been played in years, photographs taken mostly in this very room of visiting dignitaries who came here to show that they cared about the people.

“Yes,” said Al Brasden, chairman of town council, the wonderboy attorney who had argued cases to the state supreme court before celebrating his thirtieth birthday. “As the town council’s representative to the zoning board, I’ll have no problem recommending that they continue your variance to operate Hope House. It’s wonderful work you do here!”

Janet nodded a “Thank you,” but the lackluster gesture conveyed a reticence, something she wanted to say but couldn’t. Until, finally, she spoke.

“Al?” she asked, a childlike nervousness quivering in her voice.

“Yes?”

“Could you not continue my variance?”

The words came down hard and emotionless. Al Brasden sat up, shocked. His lawyerly instincts wanted to question her, but his personal affection for her held him back. Whatever she wanted to say, she would say. He needn’t force it.

“I hate this place,” Janet said, whispered, as if afraid Doug Holden Might hear her upstairs in his drunken sprawl.

“I’m not doing anybody any good here,” she continued in a low tone. “If anything, I’m hurting people, and I can’t deny it anymore. All my life, I’ve been helping people. Or thinking I’ve been helping them. But am I, really? Or am I hurting them? Am I killing them? They go out there, people like Doug Holden, they go out there every day, and they fail. And they fail and they fail and they fail, until the failure becomes a part of their blood. A part of their bones. But the failing doesn’t worry them, because they know they can always come here, to Hope House. Hope House? There’s no hope here, none! It’s just a place for them to sleep off their latest drunk, to gather up and go back into the world, where they can go out and fail again! And then they come back here. Stop, rewind, and repeat. I’ve helped these people all my life, and I’ve grown old doing it, but I haven’t helped a single person. I’ve just given them a place to sleep. And when I die, when I sleep, I guarantee you not a single one them will come to my funeral!”

Al Brasden nodded. He’d heard this speech before, from dozens of other frustrated public servants. He felt for them. The bleeding hearts. The do-gooders. Those who hoped to change a world that would not, and could not, be changed.

“I understand,” he said, looking into the eyes of Janet Mansfield, eyes that were sunken and defeated and just needed a damn break, already. “If you want to end this, just don’t show up for the meetings. Don’t turn in the paperwork. Let it die.”

Let it die.

The words rang in Janet’s head long after Al Brasden had left, leaving her with nothing but the loud snoring coming from Doug Holden’s room upstairs. Let it die. How easy, and relieving, that would be. But as the day faded into night, Janet Mansfield dug out the paperwork that would allow her to continue operating Hope House for another year. Because there would always be people like Doug Holden, people who went out there and failed. And so long as that was the case, there should, and must, also be people like Janet Mansfield to take them in.

Honest Bob

2009-11-28T09:03:00.001-08:00

She was poor, and maybe a little bit worn out. You could tell by the patches on her jeans, the flip-flops she wore for shoes, and a face that bore more worry lines than one her age had a right to. Poor, but strong. Struggling poor. This is hard but I can make it poor.

“Does anyone know when he’s supposed to get here?” she asked of the two other customers sitting in the dealership's dimly lit lobby, red neon light from the parking lot’s HONEST BOB’S LIKE-NEW AUTO sign flashing across her face.

“Said he’d be here at five to close up shop,” said an older gentleman, seated on a couch as ripped and ragged as most of the cars out on the lot. On the wood-paneled wall above his head hung a clock with hands reading 5:37. Employees still buzzed about the garage and parking lot. Honest Bob had probably told them they'd all be going home at five o’clock.

The third customer in the lobby, a stubby and scarred man who had spent most of his time there reading the newspaper and muttering to himself, tossed the paper noisily onto the coffee table and said, “Well, whenever he does get here, there’s gonna be hell to pay! Tell you that right now.”

Then, looking at the woman, asked, “What’s your horror story?”

The woman visibly relaxed her posture. She felt like she’d done nothing recently but complain to anyone who would listen about the used car she bought. With every telling, her audiences seemed to grow less enthralled. Here, at least, were some people who hadn’t heard her story.

“Well, the car I bought, it isn’t working out quite the way I wanted it to,” she said, her statement met by a chorus of sympathetic grunts.

“I mean, it’s kind of my fault,” she acknowledged, pointing an index finger toward herself. “I took the car for a test drive, and Honest Bob was right there beside me, and the thing stalled out at the first three stoplights we came to! ‘Ya just gotta pump the gas,’ Honest Bob told me, and he was right. But you shouldn’t have to pump the gas every time you come to a stoplight!

“We got back to the lot, and Honest Bob told me that if I bought the car, he would have one of his best mechanics fix it just as soon as he was available. It’s been two weeks, but no mechanic. But Honest Bob told me the mechanic would be here this afternoon, waiting for me. At three o’clock,” she concluded, looking up at the clock.

“Huh!” said the stubby man, rising from his seat. He wore a beige jumpsuit with the name HENRY stitched above his left breast pocket. “Sounds just about like what happened to me!”

None of the others in the lobby gave any cue for him to continue. So he continued:

“Saw an ad in the paper, ‘HONEST BOB’S LIKE-NEW AUTO. WE PAY CASH UP-FRONT FOR YOUR USED CAR’ Well, things been a little tight for me lately, and rent’s more than a little past due. So I bring my car to Honest Bob. And he tells me what a fine car it is, and he can’t wait to sell it for me. And I say, ‘Great! Where’s my cash?’ And Honest Bob tells me he can’t give me cash up front, not today, people in accounting won’t let him. But if I leave my car he’ll sell it for me and give me a call when the cash is ready. So I left my car. No phone call. And no cash. And no rent! And now, I don‘t even have a car!!!”

He scanned the room for sympathy, with none coming immediately. The woman, feeling he at least deserved compensation for the story, if not the car, clicked her tongue compassionately and shook her head. Satisfied, Jumpsuit Henry took a seat.

Looking to the older gentleman, Jumpsuit Henry asked, “What about you? How’re things ’tween you and Honest Bob?”

The older gentleman chuckled. It was a deep, smoky sound, matched perfectly to the horn-rimmed glasses on his weathered face. “Well, I reckon my dealin’s with Honest Bob have been just a little bit like your’n.”

The woman brightened. She loved it when people said “reckon.” It’s something people say in old movies.

“Tell,” she encouraged.

“Oh, the usual,” the older gentleman said. “Just like you,” he nodded to the woman, “my test drive weren’t the best it coulda been. But back on the lot, ol’ Honest Bob tells me to buy the car and drive it around for a week, and if I ain’t satisfied, I can bring it on back for a full refund. No warrantee, though, just his word. So I drive the car around a week, an’ it’s the same piece ’a junk I drove off in.

“So I call a few times for the refund, but ol’ Honest Bob ain’t been available. So I just bring it back here tonight, thinkin’ maybe things would go better if we got face to face. But...” he trailed off.

It was then the woman noticed above the older gentleman’s head, beneath the clock, a sign reading ALL SALES FINAL, and recalled seeing several other signs with the same message about the premesis.

There was silence. Then, perhaps to fill the void or maybe to console himself, the older gentleman offered, “But it don’t matter.”

The woman and Jumpsuit Henry regarded him curiously.

“Hell, we all got the exact deal Honest Bob left us with!” the older genleman said. “I buy a car I know ain’t right, expectin’ a refund, meanwhile there’s signs all over this lot sayin’ ALL SALES FINAL.

“And you, pretty lady,” he nodded to the woman, “no offense meant at all, but you rode outta here with a junk car, and now you’re stuck with a junk car! Forgive me for not findin’ any surprise in that.

“And mister,” he tilted his head toward Jumpsuit Henry, “you brought in a car expecting cash up front, but Honest Bob took the car without givin’ you the cash! And now you got no car and no cash. Ain’t that just the way Honest Bob left you?”

Jumpsuit Henry straightened in his seat and cleared his throat, preparing a rebuttal. But no words came. His eyes darted about the room, and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing.

“I just don’t know,” the older gentleman said. “Ain’t we all just stuck with what Honest Bob gave us?”

Outside on the highway, a trucker drove by and blew his horn. It echoed across the parking lot, and into the lobby where sat three people bathed in the blinking red glow of a red neon sign reading, HONEST BOB’S LIKE-NEW AUTO.

He is Not the Father, He is the Son

2009-11-21T09:08:00.001-08:00

Mr. Savage, the father of sophomore Dave Savage, stood in the doorway of Principal Schirling’s office, staring with the laser beam intensity of a comic book super-villain. Over the telephone, Mr. Savage’s tone had been terse and clipped, the voice of a person who doesn’t have a lot of time and would rather you just got to the goddamn point.

His appearance in person bore that out. Tall and steely, Mr. Savage looked like the type of person who in younger days might have strutted around the weight rooms of suburban health clubs urging unsuspecting patrons to “Feel my muscles. Feel them!”

Principal Melvin Schirling stood to greet Mr. Savage, noticing himself to be at least a head shorter than the student’s father. Which was not unusual; at five feet seven, Principal Schirling stood at least a couple inches shorter than most men. Shortness was so much a fact of his life that he’d lost awareness of it long ago, and wondered when the last time was he’d been self-conscious about his lack of stature.

Staring up into the don’t-piss-me-off eyes of Mr. Savage, Principal Schirling grasped just how small men such as Mr. Savage made him feel.

“Mr. Savage, welcome,” Principal Schirling said, extending his hand with the nagging fear that Mr. Savage might just crush it in his grip.

“Principal Schirling,” Mr. Savage said, and clutched the principal’s hand in a grasp that was firm but not crushing. And smiled. It was a bright, winning smile, friendly and respectful. Not what Principal Schirling had expected from Mr. Savage’s telephone voice. “And call me Leonard,” Mr. Savage said. “Mr. Savage is my dad’s name.” An old joke, but one Principal Schirling appreciated. We’re in this together, Mr. Savage said with his tone.

“Please, have a seat,” Principal Schirling said, pointing to the chair before his desk, the only one in which Mr. Savage could possibly have a seat.

Still standing, Mr. Savage looked at a picture hanging on the wall. A crayon drawing of a family standing in front of a house. A man, a woman and a little girl. All smiling.

“One of the students draw that?” Mr. Savage asked.

“No,” Principal Schirling said, caught off guard and more than a little charmed. “That’s my daughter’s. Drew it for art class. She calls it, ‘My Family’.”

“Hm. Kid’s got talent - good eye for perspective, between the people and the house,” Mr. Savage said, admiration in his tone. “Tell her somebody complimented her on it today, alright?”

“I will,” Principal Schirling said as Mr. Savage settled into the chair. Now the two were at eye level, which made Principal Schirling more comfortable.

“So,” Mr. Savage, Leonard, said. “Hate to say it, but you get a call from the principal’s office, it’s not usually good news. But the kid’s grade’s are okay. So is he into something bad? Wrong crowd? Drugs? What?”

There, that was the tone Principal Schirling more expected from Mr. Savage. Charmless and to the point.

“Well, Mr. Savage...”

“Leonard.”

“Well, Leonard, to be perfectly frank with you, your son’s a bully.”

“A bully?” An expression crossed Mr. Savage’s face somewhere between recognition and pride. He knew this about his son, and in unconscious ways probably encouraged it.

Principal Schirling now fell into an old habit, of which he had many times tried to rid himself. Looking at Mr. Savage, he imagined what the man might have looked like as a boy. There was humor in his eyes, but cruelty. Within his smile, a sneer. Beneath his friendliness, a mocking joy of oppression. Take thirty years and fifty pounds off of this guy, and he was no longer the father, but the son.

The exact sort of child who bullied Melvin Schirling.

“Who’s he bullying?”

“Well, there’s one student in particular,” Principal Schirling said. “His name is Percival. Percy, they call him.”

“Percival?” Mr. Savage said. “Percy! Well, with a name like that, no wonder he gets picked on! Hell, you should have his parents in here!”

I have, Principal Schirling thought. I’ve seen his father cry about his son’s tormenting.

“Well, Percy has a problem,” Principal Schirling said. “And I can tell you about it, if you give me your word not to discuss is with your son.”

“Oh, not a word about it,” Mr. Savage said, edging up in his seat. This is gonna be good.

“Percy has a problem with bladder control. He pees his pants.”

Mr. Savage exploded in laughter. He reeled back in his chair, fists slamming against his knees; you could tell this was the funniest things he’d ever heard and something he couldn’t wait to share with the guys on the golf course.

Against his will, Principal Schirling laughed too. Gripped the edge of his desk, and in a completely unprofessional way, laughed. Because Percy peed his pants, and it was damn funny. And people like Mr. Savage used to tease Melvin Schirling when he was a boy, and for once it felt good to be on the side of those who were laughing, and not being laughed at.

“They call him Percy Pissy-pants,” Principal Schirling said in a hushed tone.

“Too funny,” Mr. Savage said.

Principal Schirling regained himself. Looked out his office window to make sure that no one had seen the apparent revelry going on inside. No one had. His secretary, as usual, was away from her desk. He would have to speak to her about that. And about surfing the internet.

“It happens when he laughs,” Principal Schirling whispered. “Whenever Percy laughs, he loses control of his bladder, and pees himself. His parents tried putting him in adolescent diapers, but the kids in gym class were brutal.”

“I bet,” Mr. Savage rejoined, a smile on his face that really shouldn’t have been there.

“So the kid, Percy, walks around all day, trying with all his might not to laugh. He’s gloomy. Doesn’t even dare to smile. That’s no way to go through life.”

“No way at all,” Mr. Savage said, that smile still lingering.

“So,” Principal Schirling said, “If you could tell your son to maybe go easy on Percy...”

“I will,” Mr. Savage said. “I’ll tell him to go easy on Percy Pissy-pants.”

They laughed. Because it is fun to laugh at people, and not be laughed at.

Mr. Savage went out into the hallway, just as classes were changing. He saw some students who must have been friends with his son, because he recognized them and bantered with them, and bidding them goodbye gave them all high-fives. Making his way through the hallway, he looked utterly at ease with the students there.

As if he were still one of them.

The Voter

2009-11-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

When you go to vote at Oppenhiem Middle School, you need to be careful climbing the stairs to the all-purpose room. The stairway is in decay, and if you linger too long on any one step you can feel it buckle under your feet. So when people go there to vote, they make sure to go up single-file and not have two people on one step at the same time. Just like the school kids do during the day.

I love to vote. That whole thing with the stairs at the middle school, it’s just part of tradition. It always makes me chuckle, just like it did when I went to vote yesterday.

I thought about David Agrifiotis, our school board chairman, as I walked into the voting area. Mr. Agrifiotis (or, rather, Dr. Agrifiotis) was up for re-election. When he ran four years ago, he said fixing up the schools would be his number-one priority. He even mentioned those stairs as one of the first things he’d take care of once he got into office.

After all this time, though, it’s a shame the stairs haven’t been fixed. But Dr. Agrifiotis had been doing his best; why, just last month, he went to a conference in Hawaii to learn more about repairing school infrastructure! I bet he learned as much at that conference as he did at the one in Las Vegas!

It was with great affection that I thought of Dr. Agrifiotis while making my way into the voting area, and considered how much I hoped he earned a second term in office. After all the wonderful promises he’d made, and the diligent research he’s done, the school system will surely be flawless by the end of his next term.

Along with providing us the opportunity to vote our outstanding leaders into office, voting day is also exciting because it allows us to see our elected leaders in person. I was very fortunate yesterday, as one of the first people I saw when entering the voting area was our beloved town father, Mayor “Diamond” Jim O’Malley.

Mayor O’Malley is also up for his second term in office. Just like Dr. Agrifiotis, Mayor O’Malley has accomplished many wonderful things during his first term.

Most importantly, Mayor O’Malley was able to “clean up City Hall.” Mayor O’Malley accomplished this within his first two weeks of office, by firing all the City Hall staff and replacing them with his business associates and members of his own family. What brilliance of leadership! Why waste the taxpayers’ money on a bunch of people who don’t know how to do their jobs, when Mayor O’Malley could replace them with people he’s known and trusted his whole life!

It was with great joy that I cast my ballots for our School Board Chairman, Dr. Agrifiotis, and our beloved town father, Mayor O’Malley, in yesterday’s election. I know that they will do wonderful things, and keep their promises, and next year when I come to vote I will not have to be careful climbing the stairs to the all-purpose room at Oppenhiem Middle School.

The Bystander

2009-10-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

They waited in the quiet apartment, knowing only a few moments would pass before the woman was to be murdered.

There were two of them in the room - The Student, and the Master of Time. The Student was a young man of 22 years, handsome if bookish. The Master of Time occupied the body of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, black hair resting majestically atop her firm shoulders. Those who came across the Master of Time often expressed surprise at her appearance. Her response, generally, was to ask, “If you were the Master of Time, would you assume the body of a wrinkled-up old man?”

The Master of Time had granted a rare request to The Student, one to which she hardly ever acquiesced: He had asked that she take him back to a particular moment in history. She would have refused, as she almost always did, had she not been so intrigued by the time and place The Student suggested:

Friday, March 13, 1964; Queens, New York.

The Master of Time knew, of course, the incident to which The Student referred, but as an indulgence let him explain:

“That was the date Kitty Genovese was murdered on a New York City street, in full view of at least 38 people who could have helped her,” The Student said. “But no one saved her from the attack! Instead, they just let her die. I want to go back there, I want to be there, because I want to save her!”

“So be it,” The Master of Time said, and immediately transported herself and The Student to Austin Street in the Kewes Garden section of Queens. March 13, 1964, approximately 3:30 a.m. It was there that a young bar manager named Catherine Genovese was about to be beaten, murdered, and raped, in precisely that order.

The Student and the Master of Time materialized instantly in an apartment which had been vacant on the date of the murder. As they appeared there, The Student looked out a window in bewilderment.

“It’s...it’s dark outside,” the student mused.

“Yes, it is,” the Master of Time concurred.

“But, I always thought the attack happened, I dunno, in the daytime, for some reason,” he said.

The Master of Time wanted to laugh, but suppressed it given the circumstances. “No, Kitty Genovese didn’t get assaulted and murdered in broad daylight in front of throngs of people; even though the legend sort of paints it like that. No, this happened in the dead of night. Kitty worked at the 11th Hour Club a few blocks over, and she just got out of work a 3 a.m. She always hated walking from her car to her apartment so late at night, always afraid that something like this would happen.”

The Student nodded, a touch of his illusion varnished by the truth.

Then the screams started.

“That’s her!” The Student cried, and bolted to the door. “I have to save her!”

As The Student rushed toward the door, a muffled scream came from the parking lot. The words were inaudible, but later reports would state Kitty Genovese had screamed, “Oh my God! He stabbed me! Please help me!” as Winston Mosley, a married father of two who by day worked as a machine operator, repeatedly thrust a knife into her body.

The Student lunged for the door, eager now to halt the events outside. But as he grabbed the doorknob, it would not turn. He pulled violently, but the door did not budge. Desperately, he crossed the room and tried to open a window, to call out and scare off the attacker, but found it was clamped shut.

“Leave her alone!” The Student hollered, but in vain. The screams outside continued unabated.

Frantically, he turned to the Master of Time, who sat solemnly in a reclining chair by the door.

“Why can’t I go out there? Why can’t I save her?” he pleaded.

“And change history?” the Master of Time asked. “Change what happened on this night, and all the things that have followed since? Why can’t you just go out there, and blithely change the history of the world?”

She let the question hang in the air for a moment before answering it herself.

“Because you can’t,” she said. “All that has happened, has happened.”

The attack on Kitty Genovese continued for about another half an hour, and at the end of it she was dead. And she will forever remain so, because ours is a world where the past is cemented in time; and regrets, however noble, remain a futile waste.

TRUE NORTH - Or, Why You Can't Buy a Drink in Barrow, Alaska

2009-10-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

Even indoors, you had to raise your voice to be heard above the wind.

It came in gusts of up to fifty miles an hour, so hard and mean you feared it would knock the building over and take you with it into the frozen arctic ocean. When the gusts reached their highest pitch, they howled like a wild animal, like one of the polar bears nearly every sign in town told you to steer clear of.

We sat in Brower’s Cafe, one of exactly five restaurants in Barrow, Alaska. The cafe had a homey feel, like a lodge at a ski resort, with wood paneling and pictures of whaling expeditions on the walls. Even as the warm fire in the hearth sent orange shadows dancing across the small dining room, I shivered. Maybe I was still thinking of the snowmobile ride I’d just taken with Atanarjuat, my Inupiat tour guide (you didn‘t call them Eskimos around here). Through most of the ride, I considered how easy it would be to get lost on this endless frozen wasteland, and how impossible it would be for anyone to find us.

Barrow, Alaska. Ukpeagvik, or “Place to Hunt Snowy Owls,“ in the native Inupiat language. The northernmost settlement in the United States, three hundred and thirty miles up from the Arctic Circle, stranded and frozen in Alaska‘s northern slope. Not a tree or any other vegetation to be found for 200 square miles. No wonder the wind hit so hard, with nothing to hold it back.

No roads connected the village to any other place on Earth - you either had to fly in or take a barge during the two months out of the year the ocean wasn’t locked in ice. I’d come in from Fairbanks on Alaskan Airlines earlier in the day. Atanarjuat met me at the airport. We made a quick trip to the town’s only grocery store, where I’d noticed how everyday items were priced like rare commodities. Milk was $7.99 a gallon, bananas $2.09 a pound, and a quart of ice cream, $8.99. I had thought about commenting on the prices, but figured anytime you go to an out-of-the-way place, you pay out-of-the-way prices.

From there we went off snowmobiling. We had fun, speeding along the snow and ice, but I wondered how Atanarjuat was keeping track of our location. It had been dark then, and had remained dark until now. It was early December, and would stay dark until just before February. No sunlight for two months.

Another blast of wind hit against the window, howling like one of those damn polar bears against the sky, which was now black and starless.

I looked at my watch. It was 2:35 in the afternoon. The locals had a way of telling when it was “night” - you could see the Aurora Borealis.

Our young waitress approached our table, a small woman of classic Inupiat beauty dressed in comfortable animal hide clothing and little ornamentation other than a whale tooth she wore as a necklace. Most of the Inupiat girls wore that as tribute to the animal that had sustained life in the village for centuries. I knew the girl‘s name was Aakaan. Her father, Kaluuraq, whistled lightly as he prepared food in the kitchen.

“Can I get you boys something to drink?” she asked, her voice subtly exotic and friendly.

“Tomato juice, here,” Atanarjuat said; “it’s good for virility.” He winked devilishly at Aakaan.

“Oh, you,” Aakaan laughed, swatting him with her notepad. “And you?” she turned to me.

“I’ll take a rum and Coke,” I answered.

Her eyebrows went up a little and she bit her lower lip nervously, finally looking to Atanarjuat for help.

“She can get you a Coke,” he said, “but you’ll have to go back to Fairbanks for the rum. Dry town, here.”

“Oh, man,” I laughed. “Coke’ll do, I guess.”

She walked away, with Atanarjuat and I both following her with our eyes. Then my gaze turned back to him.

“Dry town? Out here in the middle of nowhere? What’s the story?”

“Lots of reasons,” he shrugged, seeming to study the grain on our wooden table before speaking further. It was characteristic of Atanarjuat's behavior this afternoon, but strange: Ever since we sat down at this restaurant, he seemed to be holding something back from me. I wondered what it was he wasn’t saying. Hell, maybe it was just his stoic Inupiat nature, if indeed he had one.

“For starters,” he said, “it’s against Alaskan law to sell alcohol anyplace where the population is half-native. So there’s your answer right there, I guess.”

I accepted this with a nod, and looked out the window into the black sky.

“Does it still bother you to be in darkness during the daytime?” Atanarjuat asked.

I shrugged. No, it really didn’t bother me. I had read up about this town before I came here, and knew what to expect. The endless night of winter, the cold, and the frigid wind. These are things any well-informed sixth grader could probably tell you about life in Northern Alaska. But what I hadn’t expected was the isolation. Not merely the feeling of being cut off from the world, but of not even being a part of the world. The feeling took hold as we flew out of Fairbanks. After the site of that normal American city passed from view, looking down from the airplane in the darkness was no different than looking up into the sky. There was nothing to see down there. No civilization, no lights, no highways, only a dark and frozen wilderness. Then came the sight of Barrow, a modest collection lights presenting itself as the secluded village at the very top of the world.

“Dunno,” I said. “You must get used to it after awhile. The darkness.”

Atanarjuat nodded. “Yeah, you get used to it. Only if you live through it for a couple of years, though. Really, it’s not as weird as the Midnight Sun.”

The Midnight Sun. I’d heard about this, the time that begins at exactly 1:06 a.m. on May 10, when sunlight increases to 24 hours per day, and remains in the sky until August 2, when it again sets, but then for only 1 hour and 25 minutes.

“Yeah,” I said, “that must be...different.”

“That’s something nobody ever really gets used to,” Atanarjuat said, glancing at his menu. “’Cause those months, where it’s daylight all the time, the sun does the weirdest thing. I’ve seen a time-lapse film of it, and the sun just circles around in the sky, like it’s lost up there or something. And you think - the whole time that’s happening, everywhere else in the world they’re having days and nights. It gets dark other places, and people go to bed. Gets light, they get up. But here, we just live with the sun, spinning around up there. No nights, it’s just day all the time. Weird, man.”

“Weird,” I agreed.

Unexpectedly, a door to the restaurant opened. That’s when I recalled just how hard the wind had been blowing. A great WHOOOOOOSH!!!! came in through the open door, blowing napkins off the tables and rattling the silverware. One of the whale expedition photographs went askew in the gust. Aakaan, who had been folding napkins, reached up and straightened it without a thought.

A wiry Inupiat man entered, forcing the door closed behind him. He smiled at Atanarjuat, who grinned in return, and the new arrival also waved at Aakaan. She smiled brightly.

“Atqiluaraq!” she beamed. “Where have you been?”

“Here and there,” he said as casually as his entrance would allow. “Thirsty, though.”

“Thirsty?” Aakaan asked. “What can I get you?”

“Irish Whiskey, straight up.”

Aakaan made way for the kitchen, shouting the order as she went.

I looked at Atanarjuat in disbelief. “Did he just order a whiskey?”

Atanarjuat nodded.

“And she’s getting him one?”

“Well, wait a minute,” Atanarjuat answered, hushed, allowing our new visitor to settle in a place in the corner, underneath a photograph of villagers gutting a beached whale.

“Yes,” Atanarjuat answered, “She’s getting him a whiskey.”

“Well, what the hell?” I asked. “What about this ‘dry town,’ stuff you were telling me? He can just walk in here and order a whiskey? Who is this guy?”

“He,” Atanarjuat said, motioning his head toward Atqiluaraq, “is the reason you can’t buy a drink in Barrow, Alaska.”

There was a pause, as I anticipated the story sure to follow. I raised my eyebrows.

“He died in 1974,” Atanarjuat said.

“WHAT?” I asked, allowing my voice to rise above a whisper. “The guy just walked into the cafe, ordered a whiskey, and you’re telling me he’s not here?”

“I didn’t say that,” Atanarjuat countered. “I said he died in 1974. Just because he died doesn’t mean he’s not here. We Inupiat, we make no distinction between those who have died and those who are alive. Everyone who has lived, ever, is alive to us. Look at how he’s dressed.”

I looked again at the man seated in the corner. He wore a light windbreaker and no hat. And even though he had just walked in from the Arctic Tundra, there was no snow nearby and no evidence he was even slightly cold.

“Okay,” I said, “What’s the story with this guy?”

Atanarjuat settled back in his seat, as if preparing to tell a story he’d told many times before. I now felt a certain kinship we hadn’t yet shared, as if he were about to let me in on what he'd been holding back all afternoon.

“In 1974,” Atanarjuat said, “the first snowmobiles came up from the mainland. And, back then, there was alcohol in the store and in the restaurants. There was even a bar where you could go and drink.” Atanarjuat’s eyes grew dreamy, as if recalling a fondly bygone time. “Atqiluaraq used to hang out at one of the bars, and had a group of friends he’d drink with. And one of them had just gotten a snowmobile. Atqiluaraq begged to take it out for a ride. By this time, they’d all had their share of whiskeys, and his friend handed him the keys.

“But Atqiluaraq had never much been outside the village, and had no experience at all navigating on a snowmobile. So he went off into the night on this gas-powered stallion, with no idea where he was going.

“When Atqiluaraq left the bar, it was dark and he thought he'd just go for a little joyride. Instead, he became disoriented. He made his way speedily out over the Arctic ice pack, beyond the visual cues of Barrow’s lights, and tried to turn around. By then, he couldn’t get track of where he came from. So he just drove. And drove.

“They say he might have driven as far as True North, and died there.”

“True North?” I asked, now engrossed in the story.

“True North,” Atanarjuat said, “It’s the magnetic north of the planet Earth. The closest point to the star Polaris. Further north than anything else on the globe. And once you’ve gotten there, nothing is East of you. Nothing is West of you. And, of course, nothing is North of you, because you are the North. You are True North. No matter which direction you stand, you’re facing South.

“That’s why you can’t buy a drink in Barrow, Alaska,” Atanarjuat said. “Because when you’re this far north of the rest of the world, this far North of everything, you can’t take the risk of people becoming disoriented. If they do, they could get lost, and die in True North.”

A ruffle erupted from Atqiluaraq’s corner of the cafe. He hung his head low, setting the newspaper he‘d been reading on the table before him.

A beam of sunlight filtered in through the window and sparkled against his hair.

Sunlight? How could that be? When Atanarjuat and I entered the restaurant, it was pitch black, and the sunlight wasn’t to come for months. But, as I looked at the windows, I saw natural light coming in through them all. And through one, I saw the sun.

“Hey, what’s that?” I asked Atanarjuat, pointing to the window. He refused to look up, and instead listened intently as Atqiluaraq and Aakaan began to talk.

“What’s wrong?” Aakaan asked, sitting at Atqiluaraq’s table.

“I guess they‘ve stopped looking for Atanarjuat,” he said, pointing to an item in the newspaper. “Him and that man he met from the mainland back in December, I guess they’ve given up the search.”

“Aw,” Aakaan said, bowing. Then, looking up, she murmured, “I didn’t know they were still looking for them. It‘s been so long since they disappeared.”

“Hm,” Atqiluaraq agreed. “I suppose I was still holding out hope.”

Atanarjuat looked up, and our eyes met in a sign of acknowledgement. The thing which he’d been trying to hide from me had finally been revealed.

“Hey, Atqiluaraq!” Atanarjuat said, nodding to the man across the room.

“Atanarjuat!” Atqiluaraq said, rising from his table and taking a seat at ours.

“Oh, your drinks!” Aakaan said, hurriedly rising from her table. The bright sunlight cast a heavenly glow against her lush, black hair. She disappeared quickly into the kitchen.

“So,” Atqiluaraq said, “I'd like to say I’m glad you joined me. Of course, I would have preferred later, but I suppose we all get here sometime.”

“I suppose we do,” Atanarjuat resigned.

Aakaan came to our table, carrying two drinks. Atanarjuat smiled as she placed his tomato juice before him, and Aakaan nodded regretfully at me as she said, “Here, this is the drink you asked for.”

I wondered how much of this could be real. The darkness, changing so quickly into sunlight. These strange people, who I didn’t know, sitting alongside me in this restaurant that I could not remember entering. Come to think of it, I had no idea how I’d gotten here. What had happened between the time we went off on our snowmobile ride and when we took a seat at this table?

And how, precisely, had I seen Atqiluaraq when he entered this place? Atanarjuat had told me the Inupiat could recognize the dead, but I am a white man. How have I been able to see him this whole time?

Here’s the drink you asked for, Aakaan had just said. Emphasis on the word asked. I had asked for a rum and coke, but she told me I couldn’t get one. Because a person can’t buy a drink in Barrow, Alaska. At least, no living person.

“Thank you,” I said, lifting the drink from the table.

I could smell the rum before the glass even touched my lips.

Captives

2009-10-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

They found Grandpa Dan’s body in the landfill yesterday. One of the sanitation workers saw a group of turkey vultures gathered around a pile of refuse and got suspicious. Those turkey vultures, with hundreds of pounds of crushing power in their gizzards, can eat anything from a weeks-old piece of French bread to the freshly decomposing body of a 54-year-old man. And usually, when you see a large group of animals that prey on dead things gathered together in one place, it means there is something large, and dead, nearby.

So that’s how they found Grandpa Dan.

Makes sense that they found him yesterday, as it was probably only three or four days ago that one of the city garbage trucks came and carted him away. And I guess it’s appropriate that they’d find him in a landfill, because in the world Grandpa Dan lived in - and the world I live in, and the world you live in - people like Grandpa Dan aren’t worth more than a big old pile of trash anyway.

Grandpa Dan wasn’t nobody’s Grandpa, just so you know. Fact, I didn’t know of him having any family at all. He was just an old homeless guy, been running these streets forever. They called him Grandpa Dan cause he was so old. The only possession he had was an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt embossed with the words, IF SOMETHING HAPPENED, I DIDN’T DO IT. The stink on that thing could’a peeled the skin from your face. I’m sure that’s the shirt they found him in.

Grandpa Dan loved the drink, and you can bet next Friday’s paycheck that’s what killed him.

Grandpa Dan used to troll around the Italian restaurant, see, and all the wait staff there sort of took a liking to him, or at least a pity to him. I’d never say this to Grandpa Dan - and don’t you tell nobody I said this, either - but he was sort of like their dog. A party comes in for dinner and don’t finish their meals, the waitresses would scoop it all onto one styrofoam plate and leave it outside for Grandpa Dan’s dinner. Same with the drinks. Somebody orders a bottle of wine but doesn’t drink it all down, they leave the bottle out for Grandpa Dan.

So, the other night, there must’ve been a big function where the people weren’t very thirsty, cause every ten minutes or so the waitresses would open up the back door and plunk down a half-drunk bottle of wine next to the dumpster. And Grandpa Dan would scurry on over like a rat (sorry, but there ain’t no other way to describe him), and finish off the half-empty bottles, one after the other. Those kind waitresses, they probably thought they were doing Grandpa Dan a favor. But by the end of the night, let me tell you that favor was hardly a kind one at all. Because after drinking probably twelve bottles of wine and eating three or four plates of table scraps, Grandpa Dan passed out in the alley covered in liquor and spaghetti sauce, and he went to sleep singing “Summertime, and The Livin’ is Easy.” Because it was summertime, and for Grandpa Dan the livin’ was easy.

Grandpa Dan passed out right next to the dumpster, but nobody noticed him there. Nobody, that is, except me. I saw him collapse into a ball on the sidewalk with his last refrain of “Summertime, and the Livin’ is Easy,” and I also saw when the careless wait staff threw the first bag of garbage on top of him. And I knew right then I should probably roust him out of there. Knew I should do something, but didn‘t do anything. Happens to everyone, right? We see a problem, but don’t bother to fix it. Seeing Grandpa Dan buried under all those bags of garbage the other night, was just a problem I didn’t bother to fix.

The garbage truck came the next morning. It stopped in front of the Italian restaurant, belching diesel and steam, and its front end loader scraped into the sidewalk, among the garbage bags where Grandpa Dan lay sleeping. The sound roused me from my sleep, and I looked at the garbage truck in foggy confusion, wondering if Grandpa Dan might still be under all the bags. But I was halfway into sleep, and decided it would be easier to close my eyes than worry about Grandpa Dan. So I closed my eyes, and drifted off, and heard a human being screaming. And recognized those screams as the voice of Grandpa Dan. But I was tired and just lay there and let it happen, figuring maybe I was dreaming it anyway. The jaws of the metallic payloader clamped shut, and the screaming stopped. And I went back to sleep, or maybe remained asleep, as the garbage truck took Grandpa Dan away.

I thought about it a couple of times when I woke up. Didn't really worry about it, just thought about it. But by the time the next day's afternoon faded into dusk, I’d mostly forgotten about it.

But there was an article about it in this morning’s paper, which is what made me remember the whole thing. I snatched up a copy somebody had left on a bench at the bus stop, not even expecting to find an article about Grandpa Dan. The only thing I look for in the paper is the funny pages and THIS DAY IN HISTORY, where you find all the things that went wrong on this day in years past.

Flipping through the pages, still moist and sticky after somebody spilled coffee on them, I came across the headline:

HOMELESS MAN DIES IN GARBAGE TRUCK HORROR

“Public Works officials have announced an investigation into the death of a man mistakenly killed by a city garbage truck,” the article said.

“The man, who sources say was homeless, had apparently fallen asleep among a garbage pile outside Rizzoto’s Italian Eatery. In retrieving stacks of trash bags outside the restaurant, a municipal garbage truck driver failed to notice the man among the debris, sources say. The incident led to the eventual death of the victim, who city officials have identified as a homeless man known locally as ‘Grandfather Dan’...”

I stopped reading right there. Grandfather Dan. Couldn’t these idiot newspaper people get anything right? Everybody who spent any time around here knew he was known as Grandpa Dan, not Grandfather Dan. Hell, maybe some hack at the police department gave the reporter the wrong information. Big surprise there. A man lives his whole life on the streets and gets carried away like a piece of trash, and the only time his name ever appears in the paper, they get it wrong! God. There is no justice. Anywhere.

I kept reading anyway. That's how I learned about the turkey vultures.

I finished the article just as the city was waking up. A dull fog rises out of the harbor, seagulls squawk in the sky above, and it’s the only time of the day I notice the smell of the city. It’s sort of like the inside of a garbage can mixed with oil and sewage and rain. Smell used to drive me crazy when I first got here. The stink bothered me all day. Now I only notice it in the morning, and then only for a few minutes. I’ve forgotten about it by the time the sun takes its rightful place in the sky.

I looked down at the paper, at the headline, HOMELESS MAN DIES IN GARBAGE TRUCK HORROR. Hell, maybe there was some justice in all of this. At least Grandpa Dan’s death got written up in the paper, even if they did get his name wrong. I’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of people die out here on the street. Their names never get written up in the paper, wrong or not.

A gust of wind blew down the street, ruffling the pages of the newspaper. I clamped my foot down to keep it from blowing away, and a stray empty beer can rolled on by before finding its way into the gutter.

That’s when I saw the girl.

She popped out of an alleyway about two blocks down the street. Couldn’t see anything of her features, but by the way she walked you could tell she was young and female, and that she wasn’t from around here. Nobody from around here carries themselves the way a young person does, not even the young people. Something in this neighborhood takes the youth out of people, and cripples their soul after a week or sometimes even after a single night.

The girl kept walking toward me on the sidewalk, and as her features grew into focus you could tell she was probably in her early twenties. She wore her hair swept halfway across her face, light brown cargo pants, sneakers, and a dark blue pouched sweatshirt with the word ELEMENT written across it diagonally. Her face bore a happy expression that almost resembled a smile.

Get out of here, I wanted to say to her. Why’ever you‘re here, get out! I think the same thing whenever I see young people in this neighborhood, especially young girls. I don’t want this neighborhood to do to them what it’s done to so many other girls who pass through here. The way this neighborhood holds them captive, and changes them forever. If you’re young and pretty, this neighborhood will scrape the beauty right off of you, and you’ll never be young and pretty again. I hate to see this neighborhood do to young people what it did to Grandpa Dan. Or what it’s done to me.

The girl got closer to me, now only a few yards away. No longer just some distant figure, now a fully fleshed out human being. One who didn’t belong here.

Then, something must have caught her attention, because her eyes went wide while looking at something that sat near me on the sidewalk. What was it? The newspaper? The beer can? What?

“Oh my God!” the girl cried out, and rushed over to me. Not to me, but to something near me.

“Hi,” she said, standing only a few feet away from me.

“Hi,” I said, waiting for what was coming next.

She pointed to a spot on the ground. I could not make out what she was pointing at when she asked, “Do you see a lot of those around here?”

I followed the direction of her finger onto the sidewalk, and finally saw what she was pointing at.

A dead bird lay on the ground, surrounded by cigarette butts and coffee grounds. It was a little critter, about four inches long, yellow, and with a black mask of feathers around its eyes.

“Um, you mean, that bird?” I asked.

“Mmm,” she said, “the bird.”

I shrugged. “Well, no. But, yeah. I guess. You see dead birds around here all the time. Just don't think about them. Or if you think about them, you don't worry about them.”

She nodded and stooped to get a better look at the bird. She took a pencil out of her purse, and with it gently jabbed the animal. She sighed, a look of pity in her eyes. “This one probably died last night,” she said. And stood up again.

She wasn’t smiling anymore. The edges of her lips pointed downward, along with the corners of her eyes. Her shoulders drooped, and she loked like she'd lost something that couldn't be recovered.

“Is there something special about that bird?” I asked.

She brightened a little.

“Well, it’s a common yellowthroat,” she said. “A male. You can tell it’s a male because of the mask. And this male must have been very popular with the ladies,” she said, the devil peeking out of her eyes, “because he has a big mask. For some reason, the female yellowthroats love a male with a big black mask!”

We laughed, because what she had just said was sort of sexy and sort of funny.

“I’m Eva Knowles,” the girl said, extending her hand. I shook it, making sure not to hold on too long, but for that short time knowing I'd never touch the hand of anyone so beautiful in all my remaining days.

"I'm with the university natural studies department," she said. "I'm doing a study on urban wildlife."

I nodded, not understanding half of what had just come out of her mouth. Without telling her my name, I asked, “So, Eva Knowles, what is it about this common yellowthroat that gets you so fired up? Or, is it just his big black mask?”

“No!” she laughed, playfully ashamed. “I’m interested in the common yellowthroat, males and females, because of what happens to them when they come into the city.”

“Oh?” I offered; “What happens them when they come into the city?”

“Well,” Eva said, “Common yellowthroat are migratory songbirds. They fly all over the world, using the stars as their guide. The same stars their parents used, and the same stars their parents used, and on and on, probably since before the first human beings.”

“Hm,” I nodded.

“The yellowthroat, and birds like them, have been doing this forever, flying by the stars. They trust the stars. But now, when they come into the city, they get confused because of all the electric lights. The streetlights, or the lights in the buildings, or splashes of light on wet marble...they see these lights, and they mistake the lights for stars!” Eva said.

“The lights hold them captive. They think they’re the same stars their parents flew by, when really they're not even stars at all! They get so mixed up, sometimes they'll follow the lights around the same building over and over again, for hours, thinking they're going somewhere but really just flying in the same circle. All this going nowhere tires them out, and that’s when they can’t fly anymore,” she said resignedly.

“That's when they die,” Eva concluded.

Eva bent down again and rubbed her finger against the dead bird's head.

And then something strange happened.

Its wings fluttered.

Eva sprung up from the sidewalk, looked at me in shock, and together we watched as the little bird we assumed was dead twitched and flitted on the pavement below. First its wings, then its legs, came to life. Then its eyes, as it almost seemed to look at both of us as we stood there and watched it. Then its voice came alive in song, whistling out a quiet, witchety-witchety-witchety, the song of its ancestors.

The bird hopped a few more times, now standing atop the newspaper I had been reading that morning. Right there, on top of the story about Grandpa Dan getting eaten alive by the garbage truck.

The bird then did what birds all over the world do to newspapers: It left a wet, oval-shaped stain atop the headline HOMELESS MAN DIES IN GARBAGE TRUCK HORROR.

The bird hopped about the headline a few more times, happily and relieved, flittering and joyous, finally casting his eyes toward the endless heavens above.

Then he flew away...

The Man With The Backwards Head

2009-10-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

The woman stepped out of the bed and breakfast to greet me, and right off I knew there was something wrong with her.

I came upon the bed and breakfast - it was quaint and painted light blue, with a wagon wheel leaning against the mailbox, tucked into this mountaintop Vermont village where the clouds seemed to hang within arms’ reach, floating gently among the chimneys and treetops like wisps of spun cotton.

“Hello!” the woman said sweetly. “Nice to have you here!“ She was young-ish, but not young. And by no means old. She wore her hair in a becoming style, and an unblemished apron hung about her waist.

She blinked.

There was something wrong with her.

It had been a long and arduous drive to get here. Unpaved roads, my car rocking and dipping with the unforgiving landscape, the undercarriage occasionally clanging against rock in a way that set my ears and fears on edge.

“Yes, nice to be here!” I said. I guessed. Saying that, though, a thought impressed itself on me that I had no idea why I was there.

“Won’t you come inside? We have a wonderful room for you!” She blinked again, and with that blink I realized what was wrong, or at least different about her.

She only had one eye.

It sat in the middle of her forehead, positioned perfectly above her nose. It followed the simple rule of symmetry present in all vertebrates: That all the body parts we have two of (shoulders, arms, legs) sit exactly opposite each-other in relation to our spinal column. And anything we have one of (nose, bellybutton, privates) runs right down the middle. So, it made absolute sense that this woman with one eye would have that eye placed directly in the middle of her head. In fact, it was perfect. So I followed her inside.

The interior of the bed and breakfast looked as though a camera crew from Country Living had just completed a photo shoot. Cushions tucked immaculately into all the furniture, a hardwood floor shined to perfection, and family portraits hanging from the walls in decorative splendor.

It took me a moment to notice all the pictures were upside-down.

By then it didn’t matter, though, as I felt a breeze at my back and turned to shut the door. The door would not close easily, though, so I put my weight into it and slammed it.

As the door came to its forceful close, a painting fell off the wall beside it. I gasped in embarrassment and quickly retrieved the painting from the hardwood floor, noticing there were numerous dents in the flooring where the painting must have fallen several times before.

It was a portrait of Jesus, a crown of thorns about his head.

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” the woman said. “That painting falls all the time, just about every time someone closes the door,-BOOM- down it goes!”

There was the stomping of feet descending the stairs, and then a man came down and looked at me from the stairwell. The man looked to be the woman’s son.

And there appeared to be something wrong with him.

Then I put it together. Although his face looked at me directly, below that sat the back of his neck, and not shoulders but shoulder blades, and below them his elbows, and the back of his hands, and his ass where the crotch of his pants should have been, and there at the bottom were the heels of his shoes, where the toes should have been.

This man, it was obvious, had his head placed exactly backwards atop his body.

“Here,” he said, “let me fix the painting.”

Somehow, he produced a hammer and a nail, and pounded the nail into the wall. All of this happening as he should have been turned away from me, but instead his back was turned toward me while his eyes looked directly into mine.

With the nail hammered into position, he hung the painting of Our Lord appropriately, and pounded the nail a few more times to secure its place.

But, mistakenly, he slammed the hammer into his thumb and quickly withdrew his hand, shaking it in agony. This error would not have happened if he had been able to look at his hands as he hammered the nail into place, but he could not. Because his head was on backwards.

“I really think I should be going,” I said.

Faintly, from behind me, I heard the woman say, “Oh, no, you don’t have to go!”

But I left anyway.

Driving away, I wondered if the things I had seen there would change me at all in the future.

Of course they would, I supposed.

Anytime you go anywhere, you leave a different person than you were when you arrived.

Snowman

2009-09-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

The snow came down in furious squalls, gusting wind whipping the flakes crazily through the air like swarming hornets. The blizzard reached its height, and you could not tell the road from the field from the sky. Everything went white, so white it might as well have been black.

Our car went off the road, and that’s when the crazy man jumped out of the snow and slammed his fists furiously against the hood of our old Chevrolet.

At first we assumed it was aftermath of the crash, perhaps rocks or clumps of snow raining down from a tree. But then we heard the screams.

“HELP ME!!! HELP US!!!”

We recoiled in horror, and instinctively clutched to each other. The pounding and the pleading continued, and the tighter we clung together the louder and more desperate it grew.

As he continued to shout, it sounded less as if he were saying "Help me," and more like "Go away."

Then, we looked out the window and saw him.

A mountain man, wild and bearded as you will only see in the wilderness of Vermont, drummed mightily against our car. Cloaked in the whiteness of the blizzard, easily he could be mistaken for a creature from out of the woods. Manically, he crossed over to the passenger’s side window, pounding on the roof and screaming even louder, “GO AWAY!!! GO AWAY!!!!!!”

(It now sounded absolutely as if he were saying GO AWAY, without any trace of HELP ME whatsoever).

His long hair hung in ragged strands about his head, pasted to his face with the wetness of the snow. He was close, so close that his breath fogged up our window, his rotten teeth looking as though they themselves might bite their way through the car.

For a brief moment we might have considered rolling down the window and asked him what the matter was, but any urge to help dissolved with each one of his desperate clobbers. Do not roll down the window. Do not help him. Just let him tire himself out. He’ll go away.

He did not go away, but as the snow cleared he did seem to tire out. He paced the perimeter of our car like a wild animal. Desperately we sat, neither one of us daring to speak. But through our minds ran fear and blame. We should not have ventured out into the snowstorm to begin with. After all these years, we still cannot recall why we took that car ride in the first place. In our youthful invincibility, we probably thought we’d run to the store and pick up some supplies before the storm set in.

But we hadn’t beaten the storm, and now we had gone off the road in some frozen village of the damned, with the very gatekeeper of this icy hell staring us down from outside our snow-covered sanctuary.

In the rearview mirror, we spotted a set of headlights. Without thinking, but steadfastly praying, we honked the horn frantically, flashing our headlights in tandem. All this commotion seemed to scare off our unwanted visitor. He darted off into the woods like an animal, leaving a rooster-tail of snow behind him as he fled.

The headlights belonged to a friendly farmer in a pickup truck, with a tow rope blessedly on hand. He hitched us up and had us out of the ditch in moments, letting us go with a kind, “You kids stay off the roads. They’re gonna be messy for awhile now.”

That was decades ago, and we’re no longer kids. Every week or so, we’ll drive by the spot of rural highway that was the setting for that long-ago nightmare. There’s a Dunkin Donuts there now. And most of the times we drive by, we don’t even remember what once happened there.

The Praying Boy

2009-05-09T13:21:00.001-07:00

The man and the woman stood face-to-face in the field, with a wheelbarrow and the setting sun between them, and you could tell they were fighting.

The woman, she was late into middle age but years of work had kept her body young, clasped her hands together in pleading sincerity. The man, of the same age but a little more stooped and beaten down by the years, raised his fists towards the heavens and shook them. He was making a point, and loudly. His hands came down a little, and a little more, and the woman took them in her own, and drew them to her sides. The man let them rest there. Then some gentle force wrapped them tenderly around her back, and his head rested into the crook of her neck.

Evan Kilborne and his wife, Corra, who only seconds ago had been cursing and shouting at each-other, now clung together in a lingering embrace. Seconds passed, and she rubbed her hands through his hair.

“Okay, fine,” Evan said, letting a smile lift his lips. “But he’s gone, and The Praying Boy isn’t going to bring him back.”

“Maybe so, maybe not,” Corra sighed. “But us fighting for sure won’t bring him back.”

With that, she grabbed hold of the wheelbarrow, returning them to the work at hand. Evan joined by picking up the shovel and lifting a small pile of manure into the wheelbarrow. That was their work for the day – to collect animal droppings from the field and bring them back to the fertilizer vat in Great Barn. It was hard work, and many found it tedious. Walking the field, row by row, following the livestock tracks and collecting the droppings, then pushing the wheelbarrow back and forth from the barn. Evan and Corra enjoyed it though; it gave them a chance to speak of idle things and take in the cool evening air.

Still, it was hard work that would have been much easier if their son Hess, instead of Corra, had been there to help. But Hess was gone, and maybe gone for good.

The wheelbarrow wobbled unsteadily on its front wheel as Corra pushed it, and nearly tipped over, but she caught it just in time. She bent with the effort, and as she straightened herself the bones in her back popped loudly with the strain.

“Wonderful,” Evan mused. “My son the no-account runs off to the city, and now my wife is breaking her back doing his work for him!”

“I’m not breaking my back!” Corra laughed, then pointed to a spot on the ground nearby. “There’s one!” she said, and Evan used the shovel to retrive the pile of muck she’d spotted.

It was an uncommonly large dropping, and it took Evan a couple of shovels full to get it all in the wheelbarrow. The few seconds allowed Corra’s mind to wander briefly back to their son, Hess, who they had not seen now for nearly a week.

Hess. She liked to think of him as an artistic sort, the type of boy not suited to this work, to this life. He had always enjoyed reading, which was looked upon favorably on the farm - it at least gave the workers something to think about as they toiled in the fields. Hess often thought up stories of his own, and would regale his friends with them as they gathered before bed in the bunkhouse. He thought up these stories, but had not yet gotten around to writing any of them down. His father, who regarded all matters of reading and writing to be the province of the lazy, took his son’s failure to write any of his stories down as proof of the boy’s idle nature. “His stories!” Evan would spit with distain. “He doesn’t even bother putting them to paper! He’s too lazy even to be lazy!”

A few weeks ago, it seemed, Hess and some of the other boys had hatched a plan to get rich in the city. There was one fatal problem with their plan, though - they didn’t have one. They wanted to go to the city and get rich, with no idea how they would go about doing it.

Hess and his friends ran out one night, and hadn’t been seen since. Evan and Corra had both heard stories of Hess in the city - how he was one step up from being a beggar, taking odd jobs just to put food in his mouth. One of the boys had even been caught stealing and wound up in the jail. Evan and Corra heard these stories, and knew it was only a matter of God’s good grace that similar stories didn’t start coming back about Hess.

But Corra had a plan on how to get Hess home. And maybe it was as silly and baseless as Hess’s own plans to get rich in the city, but in her heart she knew it would work.

She would ask the Praying Boy to return their son to his home.

Anyone who lived in their section of the country knew about The Praying Boy. He was as much a part of the landscape as the mountains and the churches, and people everywhere considered him just as much a work of God.

The Praying Boy had strolled the countryside for at least the past 200 years, maybe longer. And in that time he had not aged a day. He had remained young, 13 years old, a raven-haired child who walked gently from place to place, letting the wind carry him to where he could do the most good. And wherever there was trouble, wherever there was suffering, the Praying Boy would pray.

And with his prayers came salvation. A village would fall into sickness, and dozens would die, and The Praying Boy would kneel before the village and pray. Weeks later, the sickness would be gone. Crops would fail for a season, but with The Praying Boy’s blessing the next round of crops would succeed in abundance. There were stories of sick animals, rejuvenated by a single touch of The Praying Boy's hand.

The Praying Boy would always be there, and he would always be young. Dressed in his simple yellow robe, The Praying Boy would walk the countryside forever - and as long as he did, all suffering would be vanquished through his mercy.

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?” Evan asked Corra.

“Thinking about who?”

“The Praying Boy.”

“Yes,” she said, not even bothering to lie. “I am thinking about him, and how I’ll send him my thoughts. And you watch. Now that I’m thinking about him, really thinking about him, and sending him my prayers, Hess will come home. And we’ll have the Praying Boy to thank!”

“P’ah!” Evan spat out. He measured his following words carefully. As much as he thought The Praying Boy was nonsense, he loved his wife and didn’t want to crush her dreams, or make her feel foolish. But still, there were things that needed to be said. And, as much as he could, he would tell her.

“All these years,” he said, “people have believed in The Praying Boy. And...and good for them! They need hope, and The Praying Boy gives them hope. But when you take him away, when you forget about The Praying Boy, isn’t hope enough? When you fall, do you lie on the ground and wait for The Praying Boy to pray that you’ll get up? No! You get up on your own! A crop goes bad, and most times The Praying Boy won’t be there to pray for the next one to be good! You learn from last year’s mistakes, you take better care in planting, and the next crop is good. There is no life but the life we make, and The Praying Boy has no hand in it!”

The words brushed over Corra’s ears like a harmless wind. She had heard this speech so many times before she no longer weighed weather or not to believe it. She believed in The Praying Boy, whether her husband did or not.

And as they spoke, a very secretive annual event occurred several miles away from them.

A young boy dressed in a yellow robe walked along a desolate hillside. He was 13 years old, about to turn 14. His knees ached; he had spent most of the past year praying. As glorious and mysterious as he had thought this past year would be, he was glad to be done with it. He was tired of being a god, and couldn’t wait to get back to being a boy.

And so, on that desolate hillside, the boy paused for a moment and removed his yellow robe. Underneath it were his ordinary street clothes. He walked a couple of miles, passing people as he went, looking like nothing more than an ordinary adolescent youth carrying a yellow bundle of fabric in his hand.

Then, on another desolate hillside, he handed the yellow bundle of fabric to another boy of his approximate height and appearance. This other boy was 12, about to turn 13. He took the fabric and discreetly raised it above his head and then let it drop around his body. This other young boy walked for less than a mile before he saw people pointing to him and bowing in his direction. And one of those people he distinctly heard cry out, “Help me! Pray for me!”

Back in the field, Corra and Evan Kilborne continued to shovel manure into their wheelbarrow and bring it back to the fertilizer vat in the Great Barn. And now and again, their discussion would return to their son Hess, and how Corra planned to bring him back.

During these times, Evan exercised a level of restraint of which he was secretly proud. All these years, he had wanted to tell her, but never would.

He would never tell her about how he spent his 13th year, strolling the countryside in a yellow robe, and how he spent most of the year wanting to be free of it.

Because that yellow robe is a burden, and not only to the person who wears it.

Rain Days

2009-04-19T08:06:00.001-07:00

The young woman stared into the computer screen, a look of horror on her face.

“Oh my God!” she gasped.

The man seated across the desk from her raised his eyebrows. Not because he was interested, but because he was supposed to be interested. He had spent the past three hours with this young woman, the whole time marveling at the fact that he was old enough to be her father. Her very old father.

“Oh. My. God,” the young woman repeated, pronouncing each word as if it were a sentence unto itself, with the dramatic intensity of the very young. Sandy, her name was. Sandy Duval. She was 22 years old, fresh out of college. On her first day in the professional workforce, she wore a lacy blouse that generously exposed her midriff, her bellybutton adorned with a metallic piercing that spelled out LOVE in diamond-encrusted letters.

The man seated across from her was named Steve Kandall, age 59. This was Steve Kandall’s last day on the job after 37 years with the company. Sandy, who had spent most of the morning checking her Blackberry and fiddling with her body piercings, would be the one to replace him.

“Is there a problem with your computer?” Steve asked.

“Um, yes,” Sandy responded. “You can’t get Facebook on this computer! It says it’s blocked!”

Steve did not know what Facebook was, but he knew it wasn’t the company training Web site, which is where he had directed her to go. Which came as no surprise to Steve. All morning long, Sandy had scrupulously avoided concentrating on anything having to do with work. Mostly, she concentrated on Stan.

Stan was Sandy’s boyfriend. Stan played hockey. Stan was excited for her to have a job. Stan had taken an instant message last night from his ex-girlfriend Julie, and didn’t even tell Sandy about it; she’d learned of it only because her best friend Roxie sent her a Twitter about it. Roxie (whose real name was Roxanne but everybody called her Roxie) worked at Hooters, which was kind of degrading but at least it paid better than this place.

Steve had learned all of this through the course of the morning, while trying to train Sandy. So far today, the only questions Sandy had asked about work was whether it would be okay to send out her resume on company computers, and how many sick days employees were allowed each year. And whether employees were allowed to take off snow days, and rain days on days when the rain was bad enough to make it, like, hard to come into work.

And, exactly two hours and 12 minutes into her training, Sandy had already begun referring to the company as “this place.”

Steve took all this in with the mind of a man who had been fired two weeks ago, because he had posted this branch’s lowest sales numbers for two quarters running.

Steve took all this in with the mind of a man who had exactly $534.31 in the bank, and who had no further prospects for employment.

When Steve returned home from work at the end of the day, his wife asked him how his day had gone. Marvelous, he told her. His sales were up for the quarter, and he expected to get a big bonus at the end of the month. A big one. Maybe even big enough to take care of all the bills.

The following day, Steve dressed for work and left at his usual time. But he did not go to work. Instead, he went to the Cineplex and saw a movie starring Robert De Niro. Or maybe it was Al Pacino. Which of the two was shorter, De Niro or Pacino? Whichever one was shorter, that was the guy in the movie.

Put Bad Things Where Good Things Should Go. Save Yourself!

2009-04-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

He was young, the man walking toward Deara’s doorway. She had known him since he was a boy, and maybe still thought of him as a boy, but also now thought of him as a man, a very handsome man who would one day be very rich and powerful. The feeling she used to get when she saw him, the urge to bake him cookies and maybe tousle his hair, had given way to a desire to wrap her arms around him, to wrap herself around him, to mingle the full flower of his youth with the last fading embers of her own, and to find herself there.

There was a rustling upstairs. It was her husband.

“What’s going on?” her husband called. Or, croaked, which is more what it sounded like.

Trying to be as silent as possible, Deara scurried across the living room, past all the junk she’d collected there, and called up the stairwell in a very loud whisper (or a very quiet shout), “SHHHHHHH! It’s him! He’s coming!”

“Who’s coming?” came the croak from upstairs.

“SHHHHHH!”

Then came the knock on the door. Deara crossed the room and tried to be calm, straightening the wrinkles in her clothes and running her fingers through her hair, an unconscious act of preening she did every time the young man came to visit her. Usually, he came only on the first of the month, to collect the rent. Today was not the first of the month, but Deara knew the reason for the young man’s irregular visit. He was here to talk about the storm.

She opened the door, and there he was. Hollis Atkins III, her landlord. The son of her landlord, really. Hollis Jr. had handed all the landlord duties over to his son earlier this year, and transferred all the business holdings to his son’s name, but Deara still had a hard time thinking of the younger man as her landlord. To her, he was still a boy. A boy she fantasized about, and dreamed about, thought of how it would feel to hold him and feel his breath against her neck, his hands caressing the small of her back, but still a boy.

“Good to see you Mrs. Withers!” he said as the door opened, flashing his impossibly white grin, dimples cutting adorable niches into his cheeks. His collar was slightly rumpled; Deara wanted to straighten it, and while doing so to draw him closer to her. Which would have entirely inappropriate, but deliciously forbidden.

“Please, call me Deara.”

“Deara.” That smile!

During his regular visits, Hollis often came in to chat over a cup of coffee. They’d talk of inconsequential matters, of the latest entries in their reading lists, the local comings and goings, of Hollis’s latest adventures with his friends. But Hollis never talked about girls during these times, and Deara never spoke of her husband (who always stayed in the living room and never appeared even to say hello). It was as if, for those fleeting moments on the first day of every month, no other members of the opposite sex existed. It was only him and her. And during those visits, Deara never got the feeling that Hollis had dropped by solely to collect the rent check. Although her logical self knew, that’s precisely why.

“Oh, look!” Deara said, pointing toward the horizon. “The sun!”

Hollis turned to look, and together they caught a glimpse of orange peeking out through the cloudy horizon. The storm clouds were now thick in the sky, in varying shades of gray and white, some of them almost black, but just above the hills beamed through a brief burst of clarity, and within that the setting sun. An omen, perhaps. Or, more likely, a mere glitch of nature.

“Beautiful,” she said.

“Beautiful,” he agreed, his tone announcing he had come to discuss other things beside the setting sun.

Deara wanted to invite him in, but felt ashamed to do so with the house in its current state. She had spent the last few days literally turning the house upside-down. She’d carried all the items in the living room and the kitchen, the things she hoped not to lose in the storm, up to the attic. And other things, those which had been in the basement, were now splayed out in motley disarray across the first floor of the home. These were the things she could afford to lose if the storm brought any water damage. It was as if she had put all the bad things in a place where the good things normally went, and put the good things out of sight entirely.

Also upstairs, among the supposedly good things, was her husband. In a stressful time such as this, the last thing she needed was the arguing and criticism sure to accompany such an event.

“So,” Hollis said, “I just came by to make sure everything was, you know, okay before the storm. If you needed any help...” he trailed off

“No,” Deara said, “no. Thank you.”

“And your husband?”

“Oh, he’s upstairs. I needed him gone.”

Hollis raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“Gone, I mean, while I was moving stuff. You need to concentrate, you know.”

“Right,” Hollis said. His eyes scanned the room before him, perhaps out of voyeurism or maybe something deeper. To get a glimpse of her life that he didn’t ordinarily see during their monthly visits.

There wasn’t much to see at all, really. Some stray glassware, useless trinkets that had once been Christmas gifts, cleaning supplies, a disassembled exercise bicycle. Things you might find in the classified pages of a newspaper, or at a yard sale. Things that could very easily be considered garbage, depending upon how close one placed it to the sidewalk.

Deara followed Hollis’s survey of the room, and noticed one item she’d forgotten to take upstairs. It was a picture of herself and her husband, taken a few days before their wedding. In the picture, Deara’s husband was younger, and Deara was young. She looked up at him lovingly in the picture, thinking of the wonderful life they’d share together. It hurt Deara to look at that picture now; she always wanted to reach through the fame and warn her younger self against marrying an older man for security and money, when the marriage would bring her neither. But the picture was just a picture, and she hadn’t bothered to bring it upstairs. And she wasn’t sure if she would.

“So,” Hollis concluded, “You’re all set for the storm?”

“Yes,” she said.

And he walked off.

She watched him go, off toward that tiny speck of sunlight buried beneath the clouds on the horizon, and wanted to follow him. To ask if she could go with him, wherever it was he was that he would seek shelter from the coming storm. But, no, because there was a chance he would say yes. And then, wouldn’t she be doing the same thing to him as had been done to her? A young person, swept away by the love for someone of a different age, to see themselves grow older while their lover grew old, and to feel love turn to regret with the cruel passing of each year.

Deara looked again at the picture of herself and her husband, taken so long ago, when even he still bore some bloom of youth, and wondered if she should place it upstairs.

She wondered briefly, but turned again to watch the young man walk away into that glistening sliver of sunset.

As They Prepare for the Storm . . .

2009-03-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

The wheels of the old cart groaned as the three servants pulled it across the field toward the riverbank.

Old and rickety, with splinters breaking wildly through its surface, the cart would have buckled under the weight of this heavy load of sandbags even when it was new. But now, retrieved after years in storage, the cart nearly panted with the effort of carrying such a burdensome load. There was a good chance, and each of the servants feared it, that the bottom would give out and add a giant load of loose sandbags to their already lengthy list of problems.

But the old cart held steady, and groaned. And the men groaned with it. Together, the four of them - the three servants and the decrepit old cart, acted as one suffering organism, trying to get the sandbags to the riverbank befor the storm hit.

“Huhhh” sighed one of the servants. It was Step, the youngest. He’d been pulling carts and piling sandbags all day. The bones in his legs felt as if they’d been hollowed out and filled with water, and with a few handfuls of ants added in. He felt those ants, as if they were real, swimming around inside of his hollow-water legs, every now and then biting him for no other reason than the sheer hell of it.

“I’ll be glad when this is over,” said Step, wanting to wipe the sweat from his brow, but fearful that the cart would wobble if he let go. “Happy. When it’s over.”

So continued the pulling, and the groaning. They must get the cart to the riverbank, and unload the sandbags. Then another group of servants, equally exhausted, would empty the cart and stack the bags against the rising river.

There was a bad storm to come, the plantation elders had been saying for the past few days. A murderous one, and they warned it would bring death and drowning. The human beings only knew about it when the first terrible reports came in from the west; but by then, the animals were already gone.

About two weeks prior, the animals started disappearing from the countryside. First the large wild beasts, the deer and the moose, fled the open pastures and took refuge in the forest hills. The wolves and coyotes followed soon after, packs of them, braying and charging, fleeing toward the higher ground.

Shortly after, even the domestic animals such as horses and cows climbed upon the highest patches of dirt on their land. You could see them if you passed by the farms, herds of them gathered on their modest mounds. Waiting.

Even the smaller animals, the rodents and raccoons, burrowed into the earth. And hid.

It was about then, the sky took on a green hue, the pallor of death. Moisture gathered upon the earth in a sickly steam, and seemed to fuse with the olive-tinted clouds above.

And there was silence. No longer was there even the twitter of birds or the chatter of insects. Even the smallest of animal life seemed hopeful that the disease-green monster in the sky might not notice them if they just kept quiet.

That’s when orders came down to the servants that they should fortify the land against the storm.

“Yes,” Step said, to no one other than himself,” when this is over, I’ll be happy.”

The slight and angry voice of another servant answered him. “Pah! ‘I’ll be happy when it’s over!’” the voice mocked. It was the voice of Snave, an old and bitter servant who was also pulling the cart. Really, Snave wasn’t so much pulling the cart as walking alongside it while touching it with his hand.

“This will never be over!" Snave screeched. "And even when it is over, all we’ll get to do is bring back all these sandbags and clean up the mess! We’re no better than horses! And that's how they think of us; as horses!”

As the pulling and fussing continued, the three servants and the cart climbed a slight incline. At the end of it, they came into view of the riverbank, where teams of servants were already stacking sandbags.

“Huhh!” Step sighed with relief; “Almost there!”

A third voice, deep and low, grunted in agreement. This was the voice of Heed, a servant slightly older than Step but not nearly as old as Snave. It was he who had been doing most of the pulling throughout the day. And, for that matter, the night before. He clasped the cart tightly with his strong hands, the thick muscles of his arms providing most of the force.

“Almost there is right,” Heed said. “And we’ll build a wall with the sandbags, and the wall will protect us. Protect us, and the plantation.”

“Ha!” Snave cried out. “Protect us! That’s probably the funniest thing I’ve heard all day! The sandbags won’t protect us from anything at all! We’re servants, and the best the sandbags can do is protect us from being flooded servants! And those people down there?” he pointed to the riverbank, to the servants fortifying against the storm; “All they’re doing is building the walls to their own prison!”

As he spoke, the wind picked up slightly.

It was a harbinger, a gentle one, of the worst storm any of them would ever see.

The Plow Horse

2009-03-14T11:18:00.001-07:00

The whistling. That’s how you could tell Doro was in the servant’s quarters. Because of his whistling, and his singing, and his flitting about. There was never any singing in the servant’s quarters, nor whistling, or any joy at all. Unless Doro was there.

The servant’s quarters. A fairly run-down building where shingles hung haphazardly from the roof and the paint screamed out for a whitewash the way a thirsty animal brays for water. The people who entered the servant’s quarters came mostly with their heads hung low. And if they talked, it was only to themselves and it wasn’t really talking at all. It was muttering.

Unless that person was Doro. He would burst into the servant’s quarters joyfully, as he burst everywhere joyfully. And where most people who entered the servant’s quarters would limp to the kitchen and joylessly slurp down a bowl of gruel before collapsing into their beds, Doro would ecstatically bound into the very same kitchen and savor his bowl of gruel, which he called “gourmet soup!” and run from bed to bed, chatting up his cabin-mates, and sometimes make them smile against their will.

Doro had a way of doing that. He would make you smile, even if your soul had no smile to give. He would drag it out of you, as if clobbering you over the head with a rainbow.

And Doro would polish the furniture. Like an idiot tying a ribbon around the neck of a pig, Doro polished the furniture in the servant’s quarters.

And that’s what he was doing now. Polishing the furniture, with a bottle of oil he’d secured from the Master. While the other servants curled deep in their beds and covered their ears, Doro polished the furniture. And whistled.

“Why must you whistle?” asked a voice from within one of the beds.

It was the voice of Snave. One of the oldest of the servants on the plantation, Snave spent every moment of life outside of work in bed. And even when he was at work, he looked as if he belonged in bed. He dragged himself from chore to chore in misery, complaining at every request. For anyone who ever asked Snave, “How are you today,” Snave would respond, “Not Well. Today, I am not well.”

Doro went about polishing the furniture, and whistling, but paused long enough to answer, “I’m whistling because I want to be in a place where there is whistling!”

“Whistling is for fools!” Snave said.

Doro whistled. And polished.

“And why must you polish?” Snave asked. “Don‘t you see, even in your leisure time, you continue to be a servant! You spend your time outside in the field, toiling for the Master. And when you come inside, instead of resting, and condemning your life of servitude, you come in here and polish the Master’s furniture!”

“No,” Doro said, pausing, “I’m not polishing the Master’s furniture, I’m polishing my furniture. This is my home. This is where I live. And I want the place where I live to be a place where the furniture shines! I want the place where I live to be a place where there is whistling. Because whistling, and brightly polished furniture, makes me happy!”

“But don’t you understand,” Snave countered, “you are a servant? And a happy servant is still a servant?”

“No,” Doro said, “A happy servant is still happy.”

And Doro continued polishing. And whistling.

Outside in the field, an old plow horse happily chewed the grass. The horse had outlived its usefulness, and the next day was scheduled to be sent to the glue factory. But for the moment the horse was content to chew the grass, unaware of the fate awaiting it the next day.

Tomorrow, it would die. But today, chewing the grass between the servant’s quarters and the masters house, the plow horse was happy.

The Revolutionary, or Maybe an Empty Pizza Box

2009-02-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

Andrew Dodds is old and has body odor and wine breath and there’s something about him that makes him look just stupid. Maybe it’s the Army jacket he wears - he’s a famous war protestor from the ’60s who would literally die before joining the armed forces, but for some reason he wears an Army jacket. Or maybe it’s that silly beret parked atop his head that has become his “trademark,” even though it just makes him look pretentious. Or maybe it’s the that sloppy long hair and beard. Back in the ’60s, I guess long hair and a beard were signs of rebellion. But now that Andrew Dodds is himself in his 60’s, what the hell is he still rebelling against? His mom?

No, wait.

That’s not how I wanted to start this story.

Andrew Dodds was one of the leaders of the 1960s antiwar movement. With his fiery rhetoric and passion for peace, Dodds led a bloodless rebellion that brought the protest movement to millions, both in campus speeches and demonstrations that gained national news coverage.

Wait a minute - what the hell was that crap? “Fiery rhetoric?” “Bloodless rebellion?” That makes Andrew Dodds sound like some kind of hero or something.

That’s not how I wanted to begin this story, either.

How about this:

Andrew Dodds is a chump who ate my last piece of pizza.

There. That’s more like it.

As part of our American History Series, the college hosted a speech by this washed-up old 60’s protestor at the Student Activities Center last night. His name was Andrew Dodds. I guess he was some kind of big deal back in the antiwar movement. He’d do things like host parties where male students would burn their draft cards and the coeds would burn their bras. Or they’d raid campus administration buildings to protest the war - like, I suppose having a bunch of smelly hippies sleeping in the bursar’s office at Goddard College would really make Johnson want to withdraw the troops.

Anyway, Dodds’ speech last night at the Student Activity Center went OK, though not a lot of people showed up. By “Not a lot of people,” I mean nobody. The only students there were the ones from the Student Activities Committee, myself included, who wasted everybody’s student activities fees on having this joker come to speak. I had sort of fought it; I’d wanted to hire a band and have a dance. Oh, sorry. A band would have actually sold tickets.

But instead, we had this boring old fart come in and basically reminisce at us from the stage for 45 minutes. His speech didn’t even have a theme or anything. It was just a bunch of his stories from the 60’s. The professors, who were the majority of the audience, loved it. But us kids just sort of stood around and made fun of him with our eye contact. None of us even knew about half the things he was talking about.

Anyway, I’ll keep things brief here. Because Andrew Dodds was a boring old hippie who didn’t even have a place to sleep, I agreed to let him stay at my place. Why? Because I have a living-room futon that doubles as a bed. I’ve since made a note to myself never to tell anybody about the futon.

Dodds and I went back to my place after his speech, and he was still all riled up and wanted to keep right on talking about the ’60s. So I just had to be a jerk and sort of half-listen to him. But whenever he’d talk about all his stupid old bands, like The Doors and The Who and Bob Dylan and the frikkin’ Stones and all that crap, I just tuned him out and acted like I didn’t know about them. Of course I know about them. I just hate them, okay? The only decent band to come out of that lousy decade was The Beatles, and that's only because, y'know, they were The Beatles.

We ordered a pizza, and finally we found something we could agree on - The Works. which was cool. I like anchovies, but I didn’t bother suggesting that. Nobody likes anchovies except me anyway.

We tried to watch some TV, but Jesus, with this guy everything had to turn into a dissertation about how much better everything was in the ’60s. I turn on a Seinfeld rerun, and all of the sudden he’s telling me about Greenwich Village back in - you’ll never guess - the 60’s. Saturday Night Live comes on, and he has to start telling me about Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In during - prepare yourself - the 60’s.

The 60’s, the 60’s the goddamn 60’s. I felt like telling this guy, why don’t you and the 60’s go get a motel room or something?

So the next morning I come into the living room and see the legendary ’60s radical Andrew Dodds sitting on my futon, eating my last piece of pizza.

Okay, wait a minute. Wait just a goddamn minute. When I went to bed, there were two pieces of pizza in the delivery box. Two. Let’s do some really basic math here. Two pieces of pizza. Two guys. One guy gets one piece of pizza. The other guy, the guy who let you stay at his place, gets the other piece. Do I need to wheel in Stephen Hawking to count this out for you?

“Dude?” I said, letting my inflection show that I was really pissed the hell off.

“Yes?” asked Andrew Dodds the Sixties Socialist Revolutionary Who Can’t Even Share The Last Piece of Pizza.

Yes, he said. Not yeah, but yes. I hate people who say yes when they really should say yeah.

“Did you eat the last piece of pizza? The last piece of pizza?”

“Why yes,” he tried to look embarrassed, “I guess I did.”

Oh, man, did I feel like just lighting right into this guy. Telling him, Jesus, here you are talking all about peace and love and all this crap you accomplished back in the 60’s, the 60’s, the 60’s, the 60’s, the 60’s, the 60’s, and how you wanted to save the world with your peace and love and your horrible music, but forty years later, forty years later, you can’t even muster up enough communal love to save the last slice of pizza! Don’t you even understand how ironic this is?

I wanted to say these things, but I didn’t. Because there’s some stuff you don’t bother telling people.

Because they wouldn’t understand.

Freedom, If You Want It

2009-02-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

The Warden walks the halls of the prison, each footstep echoing hollowly into the concrete silence.

Jails have a reputation as noisy places, and sometimes rightfully so. Places where inmates taunt and rattle the bars, where repressed criminal energy cries out in agonized screams. You’ll hear this in prisons where a large number of the inmates claim to be innocent, or that they arrived there unfairly. In those prisons, most of the inmates want to get out.

But not here. In this prison, the captives sit complacently in their cells, with no desire for release.

This is the Prison For People Who Don‘t Want to Be Free.

Of the hundreds of souls held here, each could leave any time they wanted to. Their crimes were minor and nonviolent. Mostly, the convicts in this prison are here because this is where they are happy, and people are happy to have them here.

The Warden looks into the cells as he passes them, and some of the prisoners look back. Others don’t. Either way, they’re all the same. Broken souls. Resigned. Content to spend their days idly, while the world outside doesn’t so much pass them by as exist in another dimension altogether.

As The Warden makes his last turn in the hallway, a voice calls out. It’s a voice The Warden had heard many times before, and with whom he’s had the same conversation again and again.

“Warden,” calls the voice from inside the cell.

The warden stops. And looks in. And sees the same sight he sees every day when he passes this cell. A small man, seated on the floor, his eyes hollow and sunken, curled into a near-fetal position.

The man in the cell is sucking his thumb.

“Yes?” The Warden says.

The man takes is thumb from his mouth and says, “Please, Warden, call me by my full name.”

“Right,” The Warden says. “Yes, Tommy Thumb-Sucker?”

Tommy Thumb-Sucker smiles. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” The Warden says. “So, what can I do for you?”

Tommy Thumb-Sucker sits up, a look of indignity on his face. “What can I do for you, WHO?”

“What can I do for you, Tommy Thumb-Sucker?” The Warden indulges.

“Let me out of here!” Tommy Thumb-Sucker pleads, taking a few noisy pulls on his thumb. A line of spittle dribbles down his chin.

“I’d be happy to let you out,” The Warden says, “but only if you quit sucking your thumb.”

“Okay,” says Tommy Thumb-Sucker, removing his thumb from his mouth. “There. I’ve stopped sucking by thumb. So, uh...” he cocks his head toward the wall, signaling the out-of-doors.

“Well, I can’t let you out just like that,” The Warden explains. “You need to show me that you’ve quit sucking your thumb for good, not just at this instant.”

“But I need to be let out,” says Tommy Thumb-Sucker. “Don’t you see? I know there is a world outside of this prison, and I need to be there! Right now!”

The Warden smiles. He’s heard this story so many times before. And from many other inmates besides this one. People who promise to abandon the behaviors that got them here, to embrace a life without their addictions, their habits and follies. All these people swear to reform, but hastily return to their old ways.

“I know what you’re thinking,” says Tommy Thumb-Sucker, his thumb surprisingly absent from his mouth. “You think I’m lying, that I’m just saying what I think you want to hear. But it’s not true! Because I’ve changed, I swear it! And that world, the one out there? It needs me. There are people who need me! There are experiences I don’t even know about, but I want to open my eyes. I can’t stay here forever. It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to them!” he cries.

“Fine,” The Warden said. “I’ll let you out. Tomorrow. Just show me you can go one day - one day - without sucking your thumb, and I’ll let you out.”

“But I can’t wait one day!” Tommy Thumb-Sucker protests. “I have to go now!”

“Not now,” The Warden said. “Tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow, today!!!” Tommy Thumb-Sucker says, collapsing again into his near-fetal position. A look of complete hopelessness crosses his face as he shrinks into himself. He looks lost, childish, as if his only chance at freedom has been cruelly snatched away.

Forlorn and rejected, he reverts to doing the only thing he knows how to do.

He sucks his thumb.

The Warden departs, and within a few steps his thoughts turn to other matters. Tomorrow’s meeting with the governor. The rising cost of prison meals. The man in the fourth block, who pleaded to be released and promised never to pull out his hair again, though he’s made himself bald to the eyebrows.

The Warden walks the halls of the Prison For People Who Don‘t Want to Be Free, the sound of his footsteps interrupted occasionally by a single moist and sloppy sound.

The sound of a grown man sucking his thumb.

The Book of James

2009-02-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

Ch’k Ch’k Szn stared into the eyes of the green swamp monster, and the green swamp monster stared back.

Standing waist-deep in the hot, syrupy water, Ch’k Ch’k Szn felt the sensation of fish swimming by him, grazing his thighs, his legs and ankles, their slimy touch sending tremors of nerves throughout his body. Many fish in this swamp had teeth, and a school of them could chew your flesh to the bone in a matter of seconds.

But only if you disturbed them. Most fish, or any other animal, will not attack a larger animal unless provoked. So when confronted by a creature of the swamp, Ch’k Ch’k Szn knew not to engage it in fight. There was a phrase for this in the Ch’k Ch’k language. “Zxu dres xa lledza.” Or, “Do not force the kitten to be a lion.”

Ch’k Ch’k Szn faced the same problem with the tiny green swamp monster that sat less than two feet away from him on the water. The creature was docile, motionless. But if Ch’k Ch’k Szn tried to force it away, it might unleash whatever powers nature had granted it to battle enemies. So Ch’k Ch’k Szn stood in terrified stillness, not fighting off the swamp monster or the fishes swimming below the water’s surface.

The creature scared Ch’k Ch’k Szn, and left him in bewilderment. By appearances, it looked like what might result if a mouse and a fish were to have a baby. Ch’k Ch’k Szn had a fairly good idea of what the creature before him was. Most likely, it was a thing they called a frog.

Weeks before he’d come here, to this remote tribal village, he’d briefly read about some of the threats he might encounter here. Frogs, the book warned, could be some of the most poisonous animals in the wetlands. Some of them, however, were harmless. He recalled that a frog’s danger could be gauged by the color of its pigmentation. There were mild, dull-green colored frogs, like this one, along with more vivid, brightly colored frogs. He searched his memory in vain to recall which type of frogs were poisonous, the dull green ones or the vivid ones.

So Ch’k Ch’k Szn stood motionless and did not disturb the creature before him. Do not force the kitten to be a lion.

All Ch’k Ch’k Szn could think of at that moment was what a disaster this journey had been, and how he wished he could turn back time. If he could return to his comfortable home in the city. Return to that time when he had friends and family and a warm bed at night, when he had food and the contentment of civilized life.

If he could return to the time when he was James.

The idea of coming to this place occurred to James sometime late last school year, when he began studying his tribal heritage. He was of the Ch’k Ch’k people, those who had been taken from the swamplands about a century ago to come to live in the city as slaves.

That had been a different time, one of cruelty and brutality. Things were much different now. The Ch’k Ch’k, as it turned out, had a gift for learning and for study. Now, many of the Ch’k Ch’k whose grandparents came to the city as slaves had become successful in areas as prominent as business and medicine. James’s own father was a professor at one of the city’s leading universities.

As a rule, the Ch’k Ch’k rarely spoke of their former tribal life.

James, however, had come to resent the comforts of city life, and to admire his Ch’k Ch’k ancestry. While his people were no longer servants to the people of the city, James still considered them slaves. They had foregone the ways of the tribe, and instead adopted the city man’s ways. Why, James wondered, was it better to sleep in a bed, as the city man did, instead of laying down on the bare earth, as the Ch’k Ch’k did? Why buy food at the store, when the Ch’k Ch’k came by their meals more honestly, reaping and killing their food by hand and cooking it over fires of their own making?

So James decided to return to his tribal origins, hundreds of miles away from his home in the city. James’s family, and all the former slave Ch’k Ch’k, lived in the dry, arid land of the mid-continent. James, with all the knowledge and wisdom of a 20-year-old, determined he would return to the swamps of his tribal ancestry, and change his name to Ch’k Ch’k Szn, or “Man of the Ch’k Ch’k.” James’s father, with all the wisdom and knowledge of a university professor, agreed to let him.

On his train journey away from the city, James brought along a book about the Ch’k Ch’k to read. It was a book of Ch’k Ch’k myths and folklore, a book of stories and proverbs. As he read that book on the train, it occurred to James that it might be the very last book he ever read. Surely, there would be no book reading in the swamp of the Ch’k Ch’k. And with that realization, he already began to regret his decision. A journey into the land of the Ch’k Ch’k would take him away from the world he truly loved, which was the world of books.

Now, standing in swamp water and staring into the eyes of a potentially deadly enemy, Ch’k Ch’k Szn regretted that he had wasted his time reading a book of myths and folktales on his journey into the swamp. It was a book filled with “Xha-xha,” or “cloud knowledge,” as the Ch’k Ch’k called it. To the Ch’k Ch’k, cloud knowledge was information that was fun and entertaining to think about, but would not help a person catch fish.

As he had come to learn upon arriving at the Ch’k Ch’k swamp, life here was all about catching fish. Of all the conversations held among the Ch’k Ch’k, at least 90 percent of them were about catching and storing food.

When Ch’k Ch’k Szn arrived here, the native Ch’k Ch’k cowered and ran from him. They had never seen a man from the city before, but oral history had told them to beware of the city man. They called people from the city (or anyone who wears clothes) “Szn biyn swirn,” or “Man who wears skin that is not his own.”

So Ch’k Ch’k Szn had shed his clothes to gain their trust, but still they stayed away. The whole time he had been here, he had lived his life alone. He learned which foods to eat by observing which foods the animals ate. He slept at night in the sand, and often awoke to find himself covered in slugs. And when he dreamt, he dreamt mainly of returning to his home in the city.

And, here he was, standing in the swamp, staring into the eyes of the swamp monster. And the swamp monster stared back.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Ch’k Ch’k Szn spotted a man standing at the edge of the swamp. It was one of the elders from the village, one who had lived long enough to grow strands of gray hair and lose all his teeth. The elder stood there, observing Ch’k Ch’k Szn and his encounter with the frog. He was tall, like a statue, and could have been forged of steel. Or carved from wood.

With savage grace, the village elder pointed at the frog and said, “Zhe tsan ji, ji tsan zhe.” Literally, this meant, “It belongs to the swamp, and the swamp belongs to it.” This was the Ch’k ch’k way of saying a creature was not poisonous, and it would do no harm. It also meant the animal was safely edible.

With this knowledge, Ch’k Ch’k Szn drew a deep breath, and dove underwater to catch the frog. Like one animal chasing another, he went after it.

And, unfortunately, disturbed the fish...

To Fall is Not to Fail

2009-02-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

The Wise Man lived high atop a hill, in a place far away from the city. Not so far away, though, that he could not be found. Many came to visit him, to learn of his knowledge, to feel the tight grip of urban life relax into the gentle embrace of the country, to hear the angry clatter of car horns give way to the twitter of birds. For many, that very calming of the senses by itself made the journey worthwhile.

There was no road or driveway leading up to the Wise Man’s cabin. Anyone who wanted to see him had to make the climb by foot. That, too, would bring them wisdom.

One day, a young Seeker came to visit the Wise Man. He made the entire journey from the city on foot. As he walked, he imagined the great truths he would learn at the Wise Man’s table. He brought a notebook along. Already, he’d decided he would transcribe the Wise Man’s sayings into a book, and that book would bring knowledge and wisdom to all the world.

The Seeker would never acknowledge it aloud, be he also imagined the book of the Wise Man’s sayings might also bring him riches. The Seeker imagined himself writing a classic on the order or The Prophet or The Celestine Prophecy, and with that book he would gain riches and literary celebrity.

Such good fortune was not his main objective, of course, but rather a fortunate consequence of his journey (and one that had taken strong hold in his imagination).

On this particular day, however, the Wise Man had little interest in dispensing wisdom. Rather, the Wise Man wanted to focus his attention on a moth he had discovered that morning.

While out for his morning stroll, the Wise Man had come upon this remarkable winged creature, and was immediately stricken by its size and beauty. The animal’s wing span was easily as large as the Wise Man’s hand, and was colored of burnt orange and earthy brown, with fiery antenna and legs sprouting from its body. The giant moth sat placidly still and gentle, yet looked as though it might carry the whole world away under its fiery wings.

The Seeker had already begun the climb towards the Wise Man’s cabin. He was surprised by the steep incline, and the rugged terrain. It had been careless of him not to bring a backpack to carry his notebook and water bottle. But that had been his decision, or his oversight, in beginning his journey, and now he would have to suffer the consequences. Hopelessly, he set down his water bottle. But not his notebook. He would need that in order to record the great sayings of the Wise Man. So on he trudged, occasionally having to clasp his notebook between his middle and ring fingers while using his thumb and index fingers to grab hold of a tree for balance. More often than not, he would drop the notebook and watch it scuttle a few feet down the hill, forcing him to recover it and make up his lost steps.

At his cabin, the Wise Man was admiring the moth. It was a cecropia moth, the most glorious but doomed of all animals. Glorious because of its beauty, but doomed because of its biology.

The cecropia moth spends most of its lifetime as a caterpillar. In that stage, it grows to a formidable size feeding off the underside of the leaves where it makes its home. There, the caterpillar is mostly consumed by other animals of the forest, serving and a juicy and protein-rich meal.

When the cecropia moth emerges from its final molt, as an adult, it is magnificent. The burnt-orange, giant wings. Electric and beautiful, it casts an indelible image on the memory of anyone lucky enough to ever see one.

But the cecropia moth is doomed, because in its adult stage it has no mouth. Unable to eat, the animal is condemned to starve within a week of beginning its mature life.

“Poor angel of the Earth,” the wise man said to the moth. “You survived the stage of life where you are food to the forest, but now - so beautiful! - you face the cruel fate of starvation!”

Perhaps hearing the Wise Man’s words, or simply in response to the gentle mountain breeze, the cecropia moth folded its wings, and released them. This would be one of the few physical actions the moth would ever take in its life. Unable to receive nourishment, any effort the cecropia moth extended burned precious energy which it could never replace.

Piquing his ears, the Wise Man heard a rustle in the distance. From his years in seclusion and receiving visitors, he knew it was the sound of someone coming to see him. But no, not today. He could not allow himself to be taken away from this rare opportunity to enjoy a cecropia moth.

So the Wise Man spotted a rock at the edge of his yard, and kicked it down the hill. Perhaps this would scare the visitor away.

Climbing the hill, the Seeker saw a good-sized rock come tumbling down. He wondered what could cause such a disturbance, but continued trying to make it to the Wise Man’s cabin.

Sensing the visitor still continuing up the hill, the Wise Man grabbed a large boulder in his hand, and tossed it down the hill to offer the stranger a more forceful scare.

The Seeker saw the rock flying off the hill, and realized that it had not tumbled downward naturally. Someone had thrown it! Now, the Seeker felt he must make it to the Wise Man’s cabin, to inform him that some lunatic was standing on his property throwing rocks into the forest below.

As the rock continued down the hill, it gathered momentum and shook loose other underbrush in the forest. Other rocks came tumbling with it, along with branches, and leaves, and more rocks, all of them gaining speed. And mud, and dirt, and still more rocks! Until the Wise Man and the Seeker alike heard the rumblings of a mudslide!

The Earth gave way beneath the Seeker’s feet, and carried him down the hill with the rest of the rocks and debris. He tried to fight the force at first, but soon succumbed to the energy of the disturbed forest, allowing himself to be carried down to the bottom of the hill.

The Seeker picked himself up from his fall, feeling nothing more than regret. At such an instance, when one’s hopes have been snatched away so cruelly, it is impossible to see the larger picture. That the failure to climb a hill might itself offer a lesson. And possibly a blessing.

The Wise Man felt remorse for what he had done to the person coming to visit him.

It’s too bad it’s come to this, the Wise Man thought. But if he had been careful, he could have seen the signs.

Atop the hill, outside the Wise Man’s cabin, the cecropia moth folded its wings one final time, and peacefully died.

On the roadway below, walking away from the unpaved hill leading to the Wise Man’s cabin, the Seeker passed by the very same road sign he’d seen before beginning his journey upward:

CAUTION: BEWARE OF FALLING ROCKS

Family Secret

2009-01-31T19:37:00.000-08:00

Nathan Kimball put the newspaper aside, and pretended not to be reading it as his wife and daughter walked into the room.

“Doesn’t she look precious?” Nate’s wife, Susan, said of their daughter Caylee, all dressed up like a princess to go trick-or-treating.

“Precious?” Nathan said, leaping from the couch and scooping the little girl up in his arms. “Precious doesn’t begin to describe how lovely” (Caylee giggled) “how adorable” (Caylee giggled harder) “and how absolutely princess-tastic this young lady looks!”

Caylee cried out in joy and planted a delighted kiss on Nathan’s forehead.

Nathan tried not to look at the newspaper sitting on the coffee table. If he looked at it, maybe his wife would look at it. And if she looked at it, at the picture of the teenager on the front page, she would know.

“Do I look like a princess?” Caylee asked.

“I don’t know,” Nathan returned; “Do they make princesses as pretty as you?” He lowered his daughter to the floor, but crouched to retain eye contact.

“Yeah. Cinderella!” Caylee said.

“Well, maybe Cinderella’s as pretty as you. Maybe. But, as far as I know, you’re the prettiest princess on this block. Ya think?”

“Okay,” Caylee said. Both she and Susan giggled.

Nathan stood to face his wife, and smiled as he looked her in the eye. Doing so, he felt like the biggest phony in the world, ever. Because, not five feet away from him on the coffee table, was evidence that he was the worst father, the worst husband, the worst man ever to walk the face of the Earth.

The evidence was right there, in the picture of a young man who stared into the camera with his eyes half-closed, narrowed in anger, a doo-rag on his head and a sneer on his lips.

WEST SIDE YOUTH DIES IN ROBBERY ATTEMPT, the headline read.

“A teenager with a long criminal history died of a single gunshot wound while trying to rob a convenience store Saturday night,” the story said.

“David Hoggins, 18, entered the West Side Foods store on Second Street at approximately 11:45 p.m. and handed store owner Majid Kaarzi a note demanding money, according to police. Kaarzi pretended to reach in the store safe, but instead emerged with a handgun and shot Hoggins dead at point-blank range, according to police spokesman Glen DuBois.

"Hoggins had been released from juvenile detention the previous day after serving time on a weapons charge, DuBois said.”

Although Nathan Kimball had never mentioned it to anyone, and even David Hoggins' mother probably didn’t know it, the picture on the front page of the newspaper was unmistakable: David Hoggins was Nathan’s son.

The affair happened just after Nathan and Susan’s marriage. As much as Nathan loved his wife, he missed the playing around that his bachelor days allowed. So one night on a bar crawl, Nathan got together with Amy Hoggins. She was a local good-time girl, a waitress who wore too much makeup and perfume but had a good soul. And that night, at the OK Saloon, the magic erupted between Nathan and Amy. A couple of games of pool, a few slow dances to the juke box, and suddenly they found themselves in a tucked-away storage room Amy knew about.

The time they spend there was steamy and sexy and more than a little bit dirty. The two of them emerged from the storage room with Nathan’s friends miming applause. A few months later, Amy had a swollen belly. Nine months later, a baby. And five years later, a little boy who was a Xeroxed image of Nathan Kimball.

But, knowing Amy’s lifestyle, it could have been anyone’s. So Nathan kept away from them, but watched as David grew into a young thug. And as he saw Amy grow older and haggard, and watched David become a full-fledged juvenile delinquent, Nathan couldn’t help but feel a little joy in having gotten himself into a world of trouble while avoiding the consequences entirely.

“Okay,” Susan said, “so, me and the little princess are going out trick-or-treating.”

Nathan gave them a nod of approval. “You two be good. And have fun.”

“We will!” Caylee the Princess said, and disappeared with her mother out the door.

After they had left, Nathan picked up the newspaper and stared at the image of David Hoggins, which might as well have been a picture of Nathan at 18. He started to read the article, but stopped a few sentences in. Why bother?

Instead, he took the newspaper out with the contents of the kitchen garbage can, which was overflowing and needed to be emptied anyway. Approaching the dumpster outside, he scared away a feral cat that had been licking up some tasty discards from the Chinese restaurant next door.

Nathan tossed out the garbage bag, and threw the newspaper into the recycle bin after catching one final glance at his own likeness on the front page and the headline, WEST SIDE YOUTH DIES IN ROBBERY ATTEMPT.

As he made his way back to his own front door, Nathan was already thinking about something else.

The Importance of Broken Things

2009-01-30T19:34:00.000-08:00

One day not long ago, or maybe very long ago, a philosopher scrubbed the kitchen table of a wealthy family. She did this because philosophy does not pay the bills, but scrubbing kitchen tables does.

Joleen Worden stood above the kitchen table, attempting to remove a spatter of egg yolk that had hardened on the table’s surface. Dried egg yolk presents a daunting challenge to domestic servants, or “maids,” as Joleen preferred to be called. Once solidified, egg yolk takes on a defiant life of its own, one not easily extinguished. Perhaps the unborn chicken contained in the yolk will not, and cannot, surrender the final evidence of its failed existence.

Joleen poured upon the egg yolk a mixture of scalding hot water, scouring powder and bleach, and scrubbed. Steadying the table with her free hand, she attacked the stain mercilessly - because that stain is your enemy, sister, and you gotta KILL It, and kill it dead. Joleen put her whole body into the effort, listened as the Brillo sponge went SHWUGGA-SHWUGGA-SHWUGGA against the surface of the table. A lock of hair fell onto her face, but she resisted brushing it away. Because the stain was the enemy, and it demanded all her attention.

SHWUGGA-SHWUGGA-SHWUGGA - cried the sponge against the table. She would kill the stain. Vanquish it. Destroy it, make it something that existed only as a part of history.

Yes, Joleen Worden was a maid, whose main objective in life, right now, was to remove the remains of an unhatched chicken from a kitchen table. Joleen was no longer a philosopher, if ever she was one.

There had been a time when Joleen’s primary vocation in life might have been “philosopher” - a student of philosophy, anyhow, if not a teacher. For years, her life had been one of books and isolation, a life of study. She had learned the rules of logic, of tautologies, semantics and symbiotics, of existentialism and nihilism - which was really just a fancy way of saying not giving a damn.

The only life for a philosopher is one of academia, Joleen came to learn. A life spent inside of an ivory tower, but really an ivory prison. A place where your own thoughts hold you captive, where life itself exists on the printed page. A world where people speak of things they have never experienced, but have only read about in books. The people of academia discuss, but never do. Joleen didn’t want to read about life, she wanted to live it. And live it freely.

So Joleen became a maid. And she scrubbed.

SHWUGGA-SHWUGGA-SHWUGGA

Joleen felt the egg yolk give way beneath her hand.

SHE HAD WON!!!

But, just as the yolk detached from the table, Joleen’s hand broke free and connected with a plate sitting a few inches away.

The plate sailed off the table and landed on the hard ceramic floor, bursting into dozens of slivers.

CRASH!!!

And so the plate met its natural end. As a thing that can break, the plate fulfilled its final destiny - which is, to break. If a thing, by its very design, is prone to break, then that thing has every right to break. In fact, it must.

All living things must someday die. All fragile things must someday break. The end equation of life - for youth, there is old age; for freshness, there is decay; for wakefulness, there is sleep.

Joleen swept the broken shards of the thing that had once been a plate into a dustpan, and emptied the contents into a garbage pail.

Outside, a bird snapped up an earthworm into its beak. The earthworm wriggled as the bird took flight, but was soon swallowed and digested - ultimately to emerge as a white splatter of bird dropping on a rich person’s car.