Seeing Golodbuggy’s machos on my shelf

Seeing Goldbuggy’s matzo’s on my shelf/ I
see pretty Goldbuggy herself standing beside the box/ she
smiles at me seductively, & I

slip in beside the matzos trying
to be a Jew/ Goldbuggy picks me up by the
nape of the neck & throws me in the zoo/ I

become the zebra Doodledeyaba proud of
my stripes, but they take me for a jailbird &
put me in Sing Sing where I

sing the blues/ it
entertains the inmates but not the screws/ they
beat me near to death, which is how I pay my dues/ it’s

all too boring, so anything to amuse/ I
I write this poem to spread the news/ Doodledeyaba
gets a byline & they beat me up again/ I

become a jailbird with wings &
as a chicken fly the coop, but
chickens can’t fly/ I

fall into the Colonel’s pot/ it’s
free in California & I smoke all they’ve got/ now
I’m flying high over KFC/ the more I smoke, the

more I’m free, but I hallucinate I’m God, &
Goldbuggy kicks me in the crotch/ that
destroys my divinity, & I drink all of her scotch/ they

take me to detox in her matzo box/ they
make me throw away my dirty clothes &
smelly socks/ now

I’m a humble bum, a
stumblebum/
Ho Hum!/ I

live in the matzo box till
Goldbuggy eats me/ I
love & adore her &

don’t wear
DIRTY
SOCKS ...

!

Medical progress? We live forever!

Medical progress? We live forever!
Walking cadavers in the street.
Bless our worn out feet & futile legs.
Praise the wheelchairs & walkers, &

the television we watch all day, as
our children push us to the bathroom
for our hundredth daily pee, &
we thank them for wiping the drool from

our lips & the resentment they hide with
angry smiles, & when our grandkids change
our diapers, their joy is couched in
silence, & each morning when they

bring our breakfast & remove the potty from
beneath us before wiping our ass, they
kiss me gently &
wish me dead ...

!

“APPROPRIATE” (Rated G)

Those 50’s fright film trailers?
Always with (usually a woman’s) scream?
Closeup of turned head
Scream
Affectation out the butt, but it’s America
Loud works
What if the head was that of an SA stormtrooper,
Screaming at a realized Paradise?
FEEL The Warmth of Love!
FEEL The Benefits of Cooperation!
SEE Men be Vulnerable!
SEE Women be Decisive!
WATCH IN TERROR as EARTH Finds PEACE!
Hands are clasped in Human Friendship,
From Which NONE MAY ESCAPE!!!
And, the stormtrooper screams, again
I feel his pain
I’ve been screaming since the Soviet Union fell

Mistress

She snuck into your wallet
As you laid asleep.
She took the photograph
Of your wife inserted in there.
She studied her face,
Then looked into the mirror
Where she could figure out
How to imitate her look.
A bit of sanity is lost.
She knew it was quite extreme.

She laid back in bed beside you
With the fantasy of marriage.
She was wearing the eau de toilette
That you were familiar to.
She must be mimicking her whispers
With scripted terms of endearment.
She showed him how she mastered
Running her fingers through his hair,
Just like how you were caressed before,
But she knew it was unoriginal.

Will she be forgiven
If her fierce kisses were of insecurity?
Will she be understood
If her closet was same as someone else?
Will second remain second
If she was a copycat of the first?

She spoke to the dolls
As if they were your children.
She noticed the ring around your finger,
Then she looked at her hands -
No, not a ring to match yours.
And each time the alarm clock sounded,
She knew you would have to be returned.
But she would still prepare your favorite -
Ham and cheese omelette.

Her fierce kisses, insecure -
You know they are forgivable.
Her closet, same as someone else -
You know it is understandable.
Her, being copycat of the first,
Sadly, second remains second

Taxing Policy: The
“Miracle of the five loaves
and two fish”

Some congressional wizards claim
we can have our cake
and eat it too,
that budgetary dough will keep on rising
no matter what they do.
Now surely, such deduction’s fancy,
they must’ve cooked the books,
for if our cake miraculously replenishes
why raise dough at all?

Prime Times and Prime Questions

can 7/12’s be a prime number
like even twos
or odd numbers for our lives:
37, for instance, a few years
from the husk of living,
or 41, one year after,
and you’re still growing.
Perhaps 19, a prime year,
or 23, between characters,
29 and 31, consonants
and accent marks, all of the noise
we wish to forget but have
to remember, all of the seasons
drawing down on the fraction
of who we are.

The Lady’s a Chameleon

The Lady’s a chameleon with golden or jet black
hair and blue or dark brown eyes. Her beauty
is devastating and breathtaking, for she is
drop-dead gorgeous

with her young silky skin. Yet sometimes she is
an Old Lady who staggers toward you in a
shiny metal walker, or with a slender
black cane.

Beware! When she smiles at you, look the other
way. When she reels down the street, don’t
reach out to save her. If you touch her,
you will be swept away,

for she is a femme fatale. She is the Darkness
and the Void.

She’s the Lady.

BIO

Dr. Mel Waldman is a licensed New York State psychologist and a candidate in Psychoanalysis at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies (CMPS). He is also a poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. After 9/11, he wrote 4 songs, including “Our Song,” which addresses the tragedy. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines including HAPPY, SWEET ANNIE PRESS, CHILDREN, CHURCHES AND DADDIES and DOWN IN THE DIRT (SCARS PUBLICATIONS), NEW THOUGHT JOURNAL, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, HARDBOILED, HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, ESPIONAGE, and THE SAINT. He is a past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature. Periodically, he has given poetry and prose readings and has appeared on national T.V. and cable T.V. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, American Mensa, Ltd., and the American Psychological Association. He is currently working on a mystery novel inspired by Freud’s case studies. Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, a mystery novel, was published by iUniverse in February 2006. It can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. Recently, some of his poems have appeared online in THE JERUSALEM POST. Dark Soul of the Millennium, a collection of plays and poetry, was published by World Audience, Inc. in January 2007. It can be purchased at www.worldaudience.org, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. A 7-volume short story collection was published by World Audience, Inc. in June 2007 and can also be purchased online at the above-mentioned sites.

Time space

I recall being born a man   but I graduated
as a woman    or at least less a man than before
Good times roll in my twenties   and as a housewife
in my thirties     soccer times in the van with grass stains

My name is me, and I was born
a while ago     do you remember
what we were talking about 20
minutes ago   something at the starbucks
We are running late for the movie     it’s your fault
I can’t find my shoes   look in the closet  my breasts
hurt, and I am milking  this reminds me of growing up
on a farm  in a story I read some time ago

Jermaine Harmon Bio

    Jermaine Harmon enjoys going to the dentist, loves mashed potatoes and supports gay marriage. Harmon received two things while living in New York City 1) his MFA in creative writing from The New School, and 2) his first real broken heart. He has had poems published in Tableau and Sandstorm. After graduating from The New School, Jermaine was chosen to participate in the Cave Canem regional workshop lead by Jacqueline Jones LaMon. He is currently living in an oil and church town named Midland, TX getting fat and writing poetry – plotting a returning to New York in the near future to pursue poetry full-time

How Many More

In the church of my youth,
stained glass saints stared above our heads.
Their inspired mouths asked silent questions
our ministers and Sunday School teachers
answered with platitudes
empty as collection plates
after the money was counted.

Wall plaques raised two-dimensional Stations
of Christ’s agony,
reminders that we all must suffer
before we die.

“Why?” we asked our teachers and ministers.
They answered, “Because we are human.
Because of Original Sin.”

Jesus the Good Shepherd tended his flock,
looked down upon us and blessed us
from the church’s largest window.
After Catechism and Confirmation,
we accepted His sacraments,
the unleavened wafer dry,
the wine warm.

The next day
we went back to school,
back to work,
no better in heart,
no worse in mind,
until we learned
why the 38th Parallel was important;
until we learned the true meaning
of “advisors” in Southeast Asia
and of our own “military industrial complex.”

Now we remember where we were
November 22, 1963;
April 4, 1968;
June 6, 1968;
September 11, 2001.

How many more candles must we light,
how many more prayers,
how many dollars
and how many lives must we give
before the lion lies down
with the lamb?
How many?

John T. Hitchner bio

    John T. Hitchner is a graduate of Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and Dartmouth College. He has also studied at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and at the New York State Summer Writers Conference. Presently, he teaches Coming of Age in War and Peace at Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire.

How I Loved Myself On Drugs

Oxycontin, oxycodone, hydrocodone,
nodding on narcotics, boatloads of soul,
incandescent cataracts. I’m the genius of Sigma Chi,
your latin lover, a 300 bowler, I’m the devil
beating his wife in a thundering rain
six miles south of the Oopalaussa River,
hoping to hit Kentucky before dark.

Down below the pine line, listening for southern accents,
I found Tom Petty’s nephew in a Walmart Supercenter.
He was fresh out of morphine, he was nodding too.
We were listening for Anna Nicole, for son Daniel,
we were hoping of hopping a boat for Nassau.
Dr. Drew, Dr. Phil, Dr. Ruth, John LaPook, C. Everett Koop,
the former surgeon general of The United States of America,
recommended masturbation and was fired.
Or was that Jocelyn Elders?

The bottle let me down.
I caught the dragon.
I flipped the monkey the bird.
There’s a hole in Mommy’s head
where all the money goes.
Down the drain, up the chute,
over the lips and through the gums.

Toadlickers, gluesniffers, paint thinners, mouthwash, aftershave,
tonight we celebrate our love.
A stumblebum beneath a radiator
freeing the petcock for the green antifreeze.
I confess I hate myself.
I’m the ugly one, the mistake,
the unaborted fetus.
I still remember my first qualude in 1972,
how I loved myself on drugs.

As Disraeli Gears Plays

conversing
with jesus
over
green tea
i ask him

have you ever
read the bible
cover to cover?

noshing on
a little debbie
he replies

nope
not once,
i prefer
contemporary
non-fiction.

Lawrence Gladeview Bio

    In 1983, Lawrence Gladeview was born to two proud and semi-doting parents. After two middle schools and losing his faith in catholic high school, he graduated from James Madison University, majoring in English and having spent only one night in jail. He is a Boulder, Colorado poet cohabiting with his fiance Rebecca Barkley. Lawrence is one of two editors for MediaVirus Magazine, and more than sixty of his poems have been featured, or are forthcoming in various print and online publications. You can read more of his poetry on his website, Righteous Rightings.

The Life Of The Living Dead

This is the day in which the LORD has made.
“Why did GOD create me?”, I cannot say.
As a child, I had a mouthful of blisters, along with constant
diarrhea and severe stomach pains.

Since I’ve grown up, these problems have only intensified.
Lingering thoughts in my head to commit suicide.
You’ll never understand, since you’re on the outside.

With the shame of my illness, I avoid people at all costs.
Anxiety and depression snuck in, making me feel abandoned by the
world and lost.
I feel as though I am an island unto myself, never liked or understood
by anyone else.
I am tired of he pain and constant hurt.
I am tired of the doctors just guessing and giving me medications
that don’t work.
I am tired of those who don’t understand, looking at me with
doubtful eyes and an evil smirk.

So to those who do not believe me, let me words some day come
true...I hope GOD has established a place in HELL for each one of
you!

Dead Beats

1.
Pale / fat
alcoholic Jack,
married to his mother
till death did he part.
Never wanted to be a Beat /
secretly desired
to be one of those lame,
middle class cats
he professed to despise.
Now they teach
“On the Road” and
“The Dharma Bums”
in college classrooms.
Guess you made it after all.

2.
Handsome Neil,
like a modern day Adonis,
rushing from coast to coast
via thumb or broke down / jalopie,
fueled on weed and speed /
lover of men and women.
Broke all their hears /
a regular Casanova De Sade,
found frozen
on some railroad track
in Mexico.

3.
Sunken eyed / wraith thin
junkie street hustler punk,
Herbert Hunke
who cut a swath
through New York’s seedy underbelly.
What’d ya think
of your intellectual friends
who lifted you
from certain obscurity
and an early death
to mythic status /
supporting you until
your death as an old man
safe and secure in your own bed?

4.
Burroughs you old fuck /
heard you read once,
gravelly voice grating
like nails on a chalkboard,
a match
scraping against sandpaper.
High priest
of the Beat generation.
Unrepentant junkie / faggot /
murderer,
got blood on your hands
just like your buddy Lucien.
What was June thinking
just before you put a bullet through her head?
Guess you took that to your grave.

5.
Ginsberg / sex obsessed
Buddhist rabbi of lost angelic hipsters
who bled poetry from his asshole
who fucked Neil and Burroughs in the ass
who sucked off Jack and Lucien
who supported Hunke when he was old and dying
        and no longer able to steal for a living
who wept salty buckets of crocodile tears over Neil’s ashes
          (he never really loved you, it was just a reflection of your own obsession)
who loved men but wanted so much to not be queer
who wrote Howl for Carl Solomon
          and Kaddish for your dead, mad mother,
whose words birthed a generation of crazed poets
who should have called White Shroud “White Cloud”
            so I could have wiped my ass with it
who loved Peter above all others and who betrayed you on your deathbed
            by going out to buy a stolen bike
            instead of watching over you as he promised.
Allen may the Buddha go with you.
Without you we’d all still be writing
                                                tight rhymes in iambic pentameter.

Pretty Lady’s Daughter

Civil rights
Question
What right
One had
Emmitt Till
My father name
He said so
Bluntly
Sincerely
I think she’s
Cute
Now I am mom
And she loves
Him
Still

Just Can’t Breathe

in memory of my Uncle Pete
you will be missed

over the years
with all of our problems
I’ve felt like I’ve been drowning

and when I’ve felt
like we’ve been in the clear
life began suffocating me

I know this sounds selfish
but I just can’t take this anymore
I just can’t breathe

I’ve served my country
led a good life, my family loves me
but these demons tell me it’s time to go

this torment follows me wherever I go
this pain called life ages me
I wheeze, fall down on one knee

I need to take a nap
but I’m afraid to fall asleep
that’s when I’m vulnerable

will I gasp for air
when you collapse my lung
will I feel my chest cave in

or will I know that you’re right
and know this is my time
and just say farewell in my sleep

on a spring day

in the garden my daughter’s
fresh soft feet tread

lightly, as if avoiding inflicting
and pain upon the bed of mulch

too young to know her body
will never stand a chance against

the iron muscles this world pumps
relentlessly, too young, in her

white sundress, to know one
can never be too young.

She smiles as the ferns graze
her porcelain legs, their verdure

running thick in the lazy morning
air, and I cannot help but

wonder if the smile I too feel
is anything but an open declaration

that I cannot face the truth,
that I gave birth to a daydream.

The New York City Bus<

    Simon Berry was a loner. It was understandable. He had been the only child of two elderly parents who had tried their best not to ignore him, but were not very successful at it. At times they left him home alone, having forgotten that he even existed. But he was not an unhappy child. He did not mind being alone, never felt lonely. As a child he had friends, well, not really, and as an adult he had even less. But he was a very calm, not at all unhappy, person. In fact, people were amazed at his calmness, “How can you be so quiet, so calm, after this happened,” or “that happened”.
    In fact, you might say, he had never felt a real passion for anything, except perhaps an occasional overwhelming desire for peanuts. In fact, his acquaintance with anger had never existed until he began taking the Second Avenue bus to work. There was no subway on this side of town—oh, yes, the Second Avenue subway would one day materialize—it had been a gleam in some politician’s eye for over thirty years and now, all these years later, it was still gestating in hopes of a successful delivery. In fact, you might say, Simon had never really felt the pleasure of red-hot anger at anything. Until, of course, when the wheelchair lady appeared in his life. After many years of pleasant, non-disturbing non-emotions, he had carefully learned to experience the feeling of what he considered truly justified hate. Generally speaking, he had no ill feelings for old people. Actually, he liked them. Though they appeared with their time-consuming canes and walkers, they had the decency to have their doctors’ appointments at off-peak hours. In fact, he was often amused at their psychedelic orange-red or Count Dracula black hair. It made him think of the joke that one knew when a woman was a widow, because at that time her hair changed from gray to black.
    But most of all, he hated the woman in the wheelchair. For the first time in his life he had learned the self-satisfying pleasure of red-hot fury. Why didn’t she die, he asked himself. Why doesn’t she stay home and take her medication, talk about her aches and pains with her physical therapist, and dribble over photos of other old people she couldn’t talk to anyway, because they were all dead.
    Why did he hate her? Because he told himself fiercely, she should not even be allowed to travel, except in a hearse. Every morning at rush hour, she came at exactly the same time he did, giving him a warm smile of recognition, assuming that he felt a typical New York kinship, based on years of taking the same bus at the same time with never a word of conversation except her cheery hello. He never answered, never smiled back, but it had no effect. She continued to smile at him each morning. She was always the first passenger allowed on the bus. All the other passengers waited patiently in the rain, or the heat, or the cold, or the snow, or whatever the gods had decided to test them with on this day, while the whole torture-boarding of The Lift began.
     First came the insistent beep-beep announcing that the lift was now about to be lowered, so that every one could fall back out of the way, and into each other. Once the lift had been lowered to the ground, a small flap raised itself up, then flopped down so that the wheelchair could roll itself up onto the lift. Once that was done, the flap raised itself vertically up into the air so the wheel chair could not roll off. When the lift was elevated to normal level, the bus driver rolled the wheelchair off the lift, ready to place it in its “assigned spot.” By this time Simon, who had never known real frustration in his life, was green with impatience. But the ordeal was not over. There was more to come.
    The “assigned spot” consisted of a three-seat section occupied by passengers who now had to leave in order to raise the evacuated seats back up against the wall to accommodate the wheelchair. While these unfortunate passengers were scrambling to see if there were still any empty seats in this rush hour frenzy, the bus driver maneuvered the wheelchair into that space, and was now required to bend down and strap first the back and then the front of the wheelchair so it would not roll around once the bus began to move. Having settled the old lady in place, the bus driver now went back to his seat, the would-be passengers still waiting outside patiently. He lowered the flap, then raised the lift and slid it back into its original position. During all this activity, the strident warning of the beep-beep continued its unwelcome symphony.
    At that point, the people, waiting outside in various states of panic and anxiety about being late to work, were now allowed to board the bus.
    Since the old lady left the bus the stop before Simon did, he had to relive the whole process once again. Simon could not help it—he loathed, detested, and despised the woman from that day forward.
    Simon owned a store of exotic plants from all over the world—a store that was the only one of its kind. He had learned, patiently, how to adjust water, light, heat and soil to each individual exotic specimen. except for one—the vermosa alynata. It was as if his very existence on earth would be justified, if he could only grow that one plant. But no matter how he tried, no matter how much it cost him to have the alynata sent to him from the far ends of the earth, it would wither away mercilessly.
    Today, he was thinking about Dr. Anna Mapes—the only person in the whole country—in the whole western hemisphere—who could successfully grow the vermosa alynata—in fact, make it thrive to the point where it propagated and produced little alynatas. Dr. Mapes’ fame was legendary. She had written volumes on horticulture that were assigned in every horticultural college in the country and in most of Europe. Her articles were so numerous that you could not open a horticultural magazine without one. He had tried time and again to contact her but to no avail. He would give every penny he had if she would tell him her secret. His secret fantasy was that she would be youngish and good-looking and they would start a romance—they certainly had the same interests.
    Turning away from his fantasy, Simon noticed Don Mills entering the bus and smiling as he rushed to sit next to Simon. Don had a small garden upstate and was eternally grateful to Simon for gardening hints since he, himself, had been born totally without a green thumb despite his love of plants. He had bought plants from Simon for years, all of which, despite Simon’s thorough, patient instructions, had preferred to commit suicide rather than live anywhere near him. Still, Don loved to talk to Simon about plants and listened rapturously as Simon began to tell him about his fruitless efforts to grow the alynata.
    Just as Simon was explaining about his last hopeless attempt to contact Dr. Mapes, the old witch in the wheelchair near them, said “Excuse me, I couldn’t help hearing—” Simon stopped breathing for a second. There was no way she was going to make a friend of him or whatever she wanted at that moment. He growled as calmly as he could, “Madam we are deep in a very important conversation”. Then, he couldn’t help it. He finally let out all his fury at her, “See your doctor. You obviously need some stronger medication”, and turned away to talk to Don. She said nothing, just subsided back into her wheelchair quietly. As he watched her subside, a dark cloud of suspicion wafted its way through his head. Oh no, he thought, she couldn’t be, never, never.
    When it was time for her to get off the bus, always the stop before Simon had to, the whole agonizing rigmarole started all over again. The driver stopped the bus, let the passengers outside wait in the heat and humidity today, unbuckled the straps on the wheelchair and proceeded with the time-consuming operation of helping her exit the bus. Simon felt good. It was the first time he had ever shown fury to a woman, or anyone for that matter, and it was exciting, and, he felt, righteously, a very justifiable experience.
    The next day, as he waited in line for the bus—there she was, she never skipped a day, but again that tiny worm of suspicion raised its ugly head, and sure enough—she wheeled over to him and, handing him an envelope, said, “I am Dr. Anna Mapes. I heard you discussing the vermosa alynata yesterday and in this envelope is its seed and the instructions you will need to grow it, and, I am sure, you will, of course, follow them precisely.”
    He took the small package, but stood there stunned, not knowing what to believe. Dr. Mapes continued, “There is one secret ingredient you must never forget to include. You are aware, I am sure, that plants like to be talked to. Some say this is because we exude carbon dioxide when we breathe and plants need it to survive. How true this is, I do not know. But I know the alynata is extremely sensitive to the human voice. And you must speak to it kindly and lovingly every day for a few minutes, or it will shrivel up and die immediately. I don’t know why it has such sensitivity to the human voice—I have researched it for years, but cannot find the answer. Your voice is the most essential ingredient in fostering its growth. Good luck with it—I have included my card in the envelope; call me if you should have any problems.”
    With that she turned away and went to the head of the line in order to board the bus which had just come up, and to start the whole torturous process once again.
    Simon just stood there in disbelief, not knowing what to make of the whole thing. As it happened, he never saw her again. The next day she became violently ill, and died a few days later.
    Despite his doubts, Simon followed her instructions assiduously, and the plant began to grow. And each day for a few minutes, in a kind of therapy session, he would tell the plant about his activities of the day before. He continued doing this day after day, and, as he did so, he found that he started to talk to other people in the same way he spoke to the plant, and as they began responding, he discovered that for the first time in his life, he now had a group of friends, and even, as time went on, a relationship with a woman, with whom he was talking of marriage.
    This continued for ten years, and then one day something terrible happened. Burglars had tried to break into the store. They had been unable to take anything, but had completely destroyed the custom-made brass knob and fixture on the door, which had been made for him in Italy, and was the only one of its kind. “Why did they have to destroy it?” he asked himself in anger, and he began to scowl and mutter, and wish all kinds of evil on the heads of the burglars. Then he panicked as he realized he was standing right by the alynata, and it had heard every word.
    He waited, not daring to breathe, for the plant to shrivel up and die. But nothing happened. It continued blooming as merrily as ever. The next day, he again waited to see what would happen, but the plant thrived happily and even produced a new bloom.
    Simon began to feel a bit suspicious, and the next day, he decided to try an experiment. He shouted and screamed, and used all the swear words he knew, both of them, but nothing happened. The alynata continued in perfect health.
    And then for the first time in his life, he was engulfed by a murderous rage he had never known before—for ten years, he had been the victim of a scam by a bag of bones in a wheelchair, and feelings of humiliation and shame, came over him.
    After that, Simon did nothing but go to his store, take care of the plants, and come home, never leaving the house for anything.
    After a while, friends began calling him, they missed him, and wondered if anything was wrong. His fiancée called to see if there was something she could do for him. For the first time in his life, Simon realized there were people who really cared about him, and, amazingly, people whom he cared about.
    Simon got out of bed and left the house to go for a walk around the block. He realized that on that day ten years ago, the alynata was not the only seed that Dr. Anna Mapes, world-renowned horticulturist, had planted. At that moment, there appeared an object in Simon’s eye that in any other human being would have been recognized immediately as a tear.

Stuffed in the Future

    For all levels of class it is now the custom to have the remains of the dead stuffed and kept around the house to be honored. Some aging folks even opt to die early at local Assisted Suicide Clinics to look their best when propped up on the couch, in the corner, or packed into the closet with dozens of generations with honor.
    This tradition of taxidermy has become so universal that it is considered indecent to be put to rest in any other way. Whenever an old fashion funeral procession tries to enter a graveyard for burial, protesters picket with signs of corpses being consumed by earthworms or rabbits eating gravestone flowers, which have human faces.
    The state even sponsors free stuffing/embalming for those who die with no surviving relatives. Yet often these corpses often end up littering the streets as if a mannequin factory had exploded. The misfit cadavers lay in heaps with odd expressions on their faces and seem to stare back no matter where one stands.
    Some of the mummies aren’t misfits but are discarded by disgruntled relatives. “Uncle Clyde used to make me play sick games with him. As soon as mother bites the dust his body will be floating down the gutter!”
    Soon there’s an overcrowding problem concerning the dead citizens. The living residents shuffle down the street either respectfully tip-toeing through them or kicking them aside, dried out arms and legs flying in all directions... Erie expressions hang on the faces of the dead: half smiles, wide eyes, open mouths of unseen horror.
    When the economy takes a dive the government abandons free taxidermy for the dead, and leaves the practice to private businesses. Many less fortunate families can’t afford a topnotch taxidermist and consequently their deceased relatives begin to rot after a couple years. The ghetto streets are filled with decayed bodies left out reeking, slowly being worn down by parasites and the elements.
    The smell of death and disease is almost visible in poor neighborhoods. On hot days fumes hang in the air like a fog. Life-expectancy drops in these sectors, consequently bringing more bodies snowballing into the streets. Soon citizens are climbing over great mountains of dead flesh, wearing hanker-chiefs over their faces, and waving off flies as they go about their business.
    Finally the city has to enact an ordinance that prohibits the keeping of a loved one’s corpse for more than three years... Bulldozers are dispersed to peel up and roll out the great mountains of melted bodies in the street.
    Careful records are kept to make sure that no one exceeds the time limit of keeping a loved one’s corpse. Once the three years is up Agents are sent out for house calls to make sure the corpse in question is placed on the disposal conveyer belt. The Body Belt, as it is called, runs under the city along side plumbing lines, sewage pipes, electrical wires, drainage gutters, and all other utilities.
    Sometimes, emotionally attached relatives hide their loved one’s corpse in the basement or in air vents and tell the agents that they disposed of the corpse early. But the Agents know how many bodies have plopped into the great cremation furnace downtown. If the number doesn’t match the house-call census they rip the place apart looking for the body: An old Guatemalan woman is cornered against the fence of her backyard by her six children and three Agents... She cradles her dead husband in her arms crying, his skull is coming apart in chunks, and maggots are pouring out over her sleeve.
    “Come Momma! Daddy’s beginning to stink!” the oldest son pleads.
    “Beginning too?” scoffs an old-time Agent, “He’s damn near mush!”
    “It’s okay, Daddy’s gone Mamma,” reasons one of her daughters.
    “Noooooo! I can’t let him go!” her accent from the old country fully shows itself in her distress. She pulls him closer and one eye pops out dangling from a thread of muscle like an UN-sewn teddy bear.
    They keep trying to bargain with her. Finally the old-time Agent looks at his watch, sighs, and waves his goons in to forcibly UN-latch the body from her grip. The corpse is ripped apart in all directions.
    The Bubonic Plague makes another cameo in history. The Pope declares it a Catholic Holiday because so many are left with nothing but faith. The opiate of the masses is back in business, on the shelves, in the vein, in the brain...
    The industrial slums... A vast wasteland of the third world:
    Orange sky, black smoldering Earth. Smokestacks of purple tumor clouds hold up the atmosphere with columns of excrement.
    Below in jagged structures of transparent yellow rust crawl those who’ve never known or heard of any better time to be alive... Narrow crooked streets and heaps of carts and rags strewn over mutated humanoids desperately trying to sleep it all away, but their dreams are filled with the same kind of smoldering imagery. They have stained and crooked teeth, stubby fingers with little sliver fingernails like crescent-moons, and skin with tanned glossy wrinkles that crack like the film on top of soup that’s been left out in the air too long.
    Buildings loom in the sky like hundred-story gravestones full of ant tunnels for harvesting the future: the artificial eggs of the species. Language in many of these urban areas is reduced to tongue clicks, quick little hums where each note corresponds to a letter sound, especially “Ya” and “Na” for agreement and disagreement, thus reducing language to a kind of rapid binary code: The exact subject of these conversations is only understood by the pitch of the notes, and a strict concentration on the eyes of the speaker. When two beings bump into each other on a verbal level they exchange opinion indexes extremely rapidly, checking the ratio of agreement and disagreement to discern compatibility.
    Those that wish to preserve the old upper class way of life have isolated themselves in large pink domes that resemble glistening fish eggs. Under the domes are buildings made of complex alloys which glow translucently from what little sunlight they’ve absorbed from the dark imposing atmosphere. The entire domed city is decorated with jelly-lace and decadent undersea sparkles, which grossly over compensates for the unspeakably dark world outside.
    The upper class now has a limited population to profit from: each other... So marketing agencies are extra competitive. Advertisements pop out of first aide kits like spring-snakes on April Fools Day. Pre-recorded slogans are played over and over above sensitive sleepers in the air vents of condos. Tiny billboards bounce out of the bras of city sponsored hookers, the tiny signs dangle on the end of pierced nipples as clients stuff twenties up their cunts. Patients who have gone in for surgery UN-knowingly wake up with tag-lines tattooed on the back of their eyelids and jingle chips implanted in their heads. Companies paste their logos across street signs to get their names dropped during lawsuits concerning the car accidents.
    Here in the domes there is no such thing as bad publicity, here where they eat each other’s mental shit to survive. They’re all hooked up to the same root vine of blood-rust and red clay... Trunks to the fertile mainline... Center of the Earth lava orgy... The Body-Belt of Nature ejaculating out of seeds and volcanoes and swallowed back to the core layer by layer for the future.
    And the past:
    The first far-reaching mammal to have opposable thumbs used them to swing from tree to tree, but also used the finger’s new-found flexibility to masturbate.
    Masturbation is the cradle of this cruel civilization. Only after this did Prometheus steal fire from the stars, did tribes bully animals into domestication, begin artificially planting seeds, and begin writing to keep track of the harvest and trade.
    Civilization all stems from the simple impulse to take things into your own hands.
    Double dicked iguanas they imitate
    Double jointed jerk to artificially ejaculate
    Double persona inseminated in the imagination
    Opposing thumbs led to ideals of duality and balance
    Compartmentalization was adaptation to survive the domestication & Unite the ugly inner animal with the new evolution...
    Masturbation led to self-release, self-control, freedom from dependency on ones own species... index-finger independence. Opposable thumbs create duality, a friction to invert sexuality. The hand tricks the body into thinking that it is reproducing: Bone-spider deceiving the life force...
    Is this the first form of birth control, population control, self-control, control over pleasure... Over the fate of one’s own species, a discrimination over which way to evolve?
    Fantasies fan the brain, to copulate new dimensions, hallucinations that enter our plane, and become physically real... Manifest themselves between eyelid peels.
    Show a universal face
    Ejaculate into space
    Tripped the door dimension
    Tricked the center propulsion
    The laws of nature were abandoned, and the laws of civilization were concocted. Then great phallic monuments to our-selves were erected: Buildings, radio towers, mushroom clouds...
    Our fathers set the ball in motion. Segmented the land, circumcised man. Domesticated and fattened the cow, separated eternity from the now. The history of the world spilled out over his belly. Evolution altered forever. Time is what’s for diner.
    When we were born it was already the future.

The Harem

    On a rather cool evening in November one of the most famous western writers of all time stepped out from the airport terminal building and into the limousine furnished by the Heber City Writers of the West to bring him to their annual convention. He arrived by invitation to be the keynote speaker to the hordes of writers and wannabe writers attending the annual event for its second anniversary. Along with his luggage containing all his needs for the weekend, he carried another valise full of brand spankin’ new copies of his latest book. The convention committee had made a generous offer to reimburse him for his time and effort to be their keynote speaker, but he was not about to overlook the opportunity to sell as many books as possible during the weekend event. Arriving at the convention hotel, he saw attendees lining the entrance, smiling broadly with awe and adoration at his presence. Most of these onlookers carried clip boards and pens in order to capture every word the famous western writer spoke during his stay in Heber City.
    The crowd gave the writer a few instances of slow panic as he entered the hotel because he knew not what to expect once he was trapped inside. He hoped that the crowds were confined to the outside of the entrance.
    He strode up to the registration desk and was met by a comely girl in her twenties who held her hand up to stop him from putting down his credit card for the room charge. “Your stay here has been taken care of by the convention committee,” she said, and smiled almost lovingly at the famous writer. He thanked her and accepted the plastic key to his room that proved to be close to the lobby and dining room.
    Once in his room, the famous writer sat on the huge king-sized bed and leaned back. He relaxed for the first time since he had left Arkansas. He was not fond of flying because he found the seating uncomfortable and the flight attendants far too plain compared to what they had once been when he first began patronizing the airlines. He had just finished his second gigantic sigh while on his back on the bed when a knock came on the door to his room. He pushed himself up and went to the door. Opening it, he was met by a blond haired youth wearing a dark necktie and white shirt carrying a tray with a variety of colored juices in plain glasses.
    “Sir, I am here with your welcome tray. May I come in? I am Joseph Hatch. It is a pleasure to welcome you to Heber City and the Brigham Hotel.”
    “Come in, Joseph Hatch,” the famous writer said. You can leave your tray on the dresser. Would you happen to have any coffee?”
    “Sir we are inclined to discourage our guests from drinking coffee because of the caffeine in it.”
    The famous writer suddenly remembered the fact that he was in Morman country, and waved his hands to tell Joseph that it was all right if he didn’t have any coffee. The famous writer stood speechless as Joseph Hatch walked to the door to the room and left.
    The tray with all the juices on it remained on the dresser and the famous writer made use of the bathroom facilities before venturing forth to discover where and when he was expected to be during the convention.
    As he strolled around the main floor of the hotel looking for someone to inform him about the convention he noticed a bevy of five women in long dresses and wearing bonnets tied under their chins following him at a distance, but never going anywhere that he did not go. Once he stopped and looked around at them and was embarrassed by their beaming smiles. At last he found the convention registration desk where he learned that he was to speak after their annual awards banquet the following evening. Until then he was to feel free to enjoy himself with the members.
    The famous writer decided to look into what he would ordinarily have called the coffee shop but saw the name “Juice Bar” over the entrance. There was a group of men wearing cowboy hats sitting around a table talking. The writer decided to try and join them.
    The group turned out to be members of the Heber City Writers of the West organization so they made room for the keynote speaker at the table, and then began firing questions at him.
    “What are you working on now?” one of the cowboy writers asked.
    “The famous writer rubbed his chin for a moment, really not wanting to answer the man’s question because he knew it might cause some concern among the group of Mormans.
    “I am writing a novel based on the Morman Massacre,” he said.
    There was a distinct silence at the table until finally one of the cowboys, an older man in his seventies raised an eyebrow and pointed his right index finger at the famous writer. “I am Bishop Abernathy, Sir, and I must inform you that the so called Morman Massacre was done by a splinter group, not by anyone belonging to the Mother Church. There’s been too much falsehoods written about that happening and we would admonish you to find out the truth before you write anything about it.”
    The writer sat in an unbelievable state that anyone would question what he was working on and then have the absolute gall and nerve to tell him what to do.
    “Sir, I believe that you can substantiate that I always do thorough research on everything I write about. Besides, I am writing a fictional account of that event.”
    “Well, I can tell you that most of what has been written about that terrible happening has been fiction even though the authors have maintained that their work was non-fiction. I think one needs to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints to be able to understand the truth of it all.”
    “I think I would advise you not to lose sleep over what I might write about your Morman Massacre because I am hoping that it will be included in my collection of MASSACRES FOR MANKIND, that I already have a contract for.”
    The famous writer, understanding that he would not likely learn much from the group seated around the table in the “Juice Bar”, bade them farewell and hoping he would see them at the banquet. The five Morman beauties were waiting for him at the entrance to the “Juice Bar”. They stood in a single line and smiled coquettishly at him as he left the room and proceeded to his own room where he again collapsed onto the bed, and lacking anything else to do, fell soundly asleep. He did not awaken until the following morning.
    After a shower and shave the famous writer advanced into the “Juice Bar” and requested coffee. He was again met with the “house policy” of not allowing coffee on the premises, so he inquired if there might be a nearby restaurant that would serve him a breakfast coffee.
    “There’s a place a half block east run by a “Jack Morman” named Bert Smith who even serves beer and wine,” the waitress said. “I understand that he cooks a smart breakfast of sheep liver and eggs.”
    The famous writer left the Brigham Hotel and walked the half block east to The Borrego Burro Cafe. He was delighted to discover what the waitress at the Brigham had said was true to a “T”. He filled up on three cups of dangerously black coffee and a sheep liver burro smothered in red chile.
    After breakfast the famous writer of the West walked around the small city and discovered a car rental agency not far from the hotel. He made note of its location in case he found himself in need of a rental car. Back at the hotel that afternoon, the famous writer again felt uneasy with the five bonneted women following him wherever he went. He was relieved when it came time to get ready for the awards banquet. He went to his room and donned the tuxedo that he used for speaking engagements and left for the banquet room to find his place at the table full of dignitaries.
    The chicken dinner with dumplings was accompanied by juices and the desert was plum cake in a fruit sauce. The famous writer began to long for the food he was used to at home. The presentations of the PACEMAKER AWARDS for literary genius bored the famous writer to tears. He came close to making a P-call.
    The president introduced him with a fifteen minute adoration speech during which every book title he had ever authored got its due mention. The writer began to think he would have to listen to the plots of every story he had ever written before the man sat down and he rose to the occasion carrying his book bag full of his latest novel with him. He put the book bag on the table next to the podium and began his speech with the announcement that he had a good supply of books that he was willing to sign for any interested parties.
    As he looked up to begin the major body of his speech he saw the five bonneted women seated at a table that was next to the platform on which he was standing. All were smiling in their coquettish way. He made a note in his head to not look at them as he gave his speech about “How to write western literature that sells”. He had made the same speech many times so he didn’t need notes to refer to. As he watched all the members at their places at the tables he saw that they were not looking up to him, but at their clipboards and were scribbling down their notes as fast as they possibly could. He was tempted to recite the words to The Star Spangled Banner to see if they hesitated in their note taking, but decided that it might be inappropriate.
    Upon ending his speech he was gratified by the applause that seemed very genuine. He pulled his books out of the book bag and stood them up to show the audience that he was ready to sell books. The line quickly formed and the famous writer took out his ball-point pen and began signing books and collecting cash. The sixth customer asked if he accepted credit cards. “No,” the writer said, but I do accept cash.”
    The people in the line laughed at his humor that to him was not humor but a statement of pure fact. He sold out all his books within a half hour. The bills felt good in his pant pocket where he had stuffed them as they came in.
    The receiving line was long. The famous writer was not prepared for such and had to excuse himself to use the bathroom. The five bonneted women followed him to his room. As he stood over the toilet relieving himself he heard the knock on the door. Finished with what he came to his room for he went and opened the door. The women filed in without a word. The largest of them he presumed had been elected spokeswoman because she began to tell him why they were in his room.
    “We are all five eligible women and would like to invite you to become our husband. We have rented a house at the edge of town and would like you to come and see it after the festivities tonight. We are all schooled carefully in the arts of wifery and such and will spend the rest of our lives seeing to all your wishes and desires.”
    The famous writer considered running out of the room but instead he decided to clue the women into the facts of his life that he enjoyed in Arkansas.
    “Ladies,” he began. But was interrupted by the large one.
    “Please call us girls,” she pleaded.
    “All right. Girls, I appreciate your kind offer and I am sure there is a man out there somewhere who would jump at the chance to hook up with you girls. However, I am happily married back in Arkansas and my dear wife loves my barbequed brisket so much that if I was to take you up on your kind offer, she would be here on the next plane with a bucket of lye that she would hurl at all of you as soon as she got within reach of you. So I will spare you that traumatic experience and refuse your kind offer.”
    “But, but, but...”
    “Now, don’t be a buttin’ me girls, cause I mean everything I have said. Now, if you will please excuse me I am about to use the facilities again and I do not like to be observed.”
    “We will wait for you in the “Juice Bar” because we know that when you think about our offer you will accept it with gusto. And, by the way, Mary Jane, here is a really good editor.”
    The famous writer began unzipping his trousers as he stepped into the bathroom. The bonneted women at orders from the large one, left the room, closing the door behind them.
    The famous writer made a hasty yet important decision as he sat in the bathroom. He got back into the room quickly and packed all his belongings into the luggage that he had brought. The one valise that had held his supply of books remained empty and he left it behind in the room when he scurried out of the door and down the hallway to a side exit.
    From the Brigham he hurried the half a block to the car rental agency. He almost cried for joy when he saw that the office was still open. It didn’t take him long to rent a car to drive to the airport and off he went.
    It took just short of a miracle to get his flight moved up a day but he managed to convince the agent that he had an emergency. And the famous writer was not telling a falsehood by calling his situation an emergency because in his heart of hearts he considered the situation the most drastic emergency of his life.
    When he walked in the door to his Arkansas home and his wife of many years came to him happy that he had arrived earlier than expected he exchanged hugs with her and then stood there smiling. “I’ll thaw a brisket tonight and barbeque it for us tomorrow. How does that sound?
    That sounds like a perfect homecoming,” she said.
    “More than you’ll ever know,” The famous writer said. “And, I don’t think I want to be a keynote speaker ever again.”

Benny and the Badger

    Jake stood in the middle of the nearly empty room, her eyes drifting from the nail holes in the wall to the yellow chintz curtains still hanging brightly from the windows. Both were reminders of all she’d lost. She felt cold, hollow, not sure if it was the rain coming down in sheets outside or if she’d just settled into the bleak reality of a life without—
    “Hey, Annie?”
    Jake turned. Ben stood in the doorway that led in from the bedroom, practically filling the space with his six-four, two-hundred-fifty-pound frame. He held a large, brown cardboard box. Spines of books and gilt-edged photo frames peeked out haphazardly over the top.
    “It’s Jake,” she said, wishing she wasn’t so often forced to remind someone of her gender preference—wishing she could finally be what she wanted to be, was meant to be.
    “Oh yeah, I forgot, but I’m cool with that. Anyway, this is the last box.”
    She nodded and turned away again, her gaze drawn to the telephone sitting silently on the sun-faded carpet. She wanted to pick it up, find the dial tone gone, know that was the reason she hadn’t heard from Megan. She wanted a lot of things, but only one mattered now, the one thing she couldn’t have.
    Jake closed her eyes, wishing she could curl up in a corner, clamp her hands over her ears, and shut out the world. Either that or yank the goddamn phone from its jack and sling it through the window. Instead, she sighed and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

    Jake and Megan had been together for five years. Four years of college in Colorado, studying aeronautical maintenance, and one year after they’d moved to northern Georgia—the happiest years of her young life. It hadn’t mattered that neither of them had been able to find work in their field. They’d gotten jobs at Target, minimum wage at first, but Jake had worked hard and, before the year was out, she was on the management track. It hadn’t been about a career. For her, it was just about love and being able to provide for her partner.

    Mini-tsunamis from passing big rigs crashed onto the car’s windshield, interrupting the hypnotic thump of the wiper blades, each wave a painful reminder of the tears Jake had shed over the past few weeks. She sat slumped in the passenger seat, head resting against the glass, struggling desperately not to think.
    “Bad day for a funeral,” Ben said.
    Jake turned to look at him. Even squinting, trying to see through the rain-drenched windshield, he had the same, goofy half-grin that seemed a permanent feature of his open face.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.
    He flicked a quick glance in her direction. “Nothing. We passed a funeral procession a ways back. That’s all. You didn’t notice?”
    She leaned back against the window. He hadn’t meant anything. She was being too sensitive. And he was right, too. Why did it always seem to rain for funerals?
    Her funeral—something she’d given considerable thought to lately. Would Megan come? Would she cry? Jake ran one hand absently under her sleeve, feeling the scabbed-over ridges along the inside of her forearm. She’d cut herself as an adolescent, had started again in the last couple of weeks, but never too deep. Not deep enough for that. Not yet.
    Might as well be dead, though. They were headed for New Jersey, where she would move in with her stepbrother Ben, eight years her senior, Ben’s mom, and Jake’s father. There, she would go to work in another Target, just as if life went on as usual.
    “I’m sorry about Megan,” Ben offered.
    It was the first time he’d mentioned the breakup, although it had certainly been the elephant in the room for the past few days. Jake had spent two days crying on her father’s shoulder before he and her stepmother had loaded up the last of her furniture and pointed the U-Haul northward. Ben had stayed behind to help her with the rest of her personal belongings.
    “It’s all right,” she said. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t right at all. It would never be right again. Jake felt tears forming in her eyes and squeezed them shut. “She was bi, you know?”
    Ben nodded. “Mom told me.”
    That was what had made their relationship unique. Jake wanted, more than anything—well, not so much as she wanted to be with Megan, but she’d found that out too late—to become a man. She’d been saving for the operation since she started work, secure in the knowledge that Megan would love her regardless of her gender.
    Jake used the corner of her flannel shirt to wipe her eyes. “I’ll never find anyone else like her.”
    “You’ll find someone,” Ben said, “sooner or later.”
    “How would you know?” Jake said. She hugged herself and wept openly while Ben retreated to the refuge of navigating through the driving rain.

    Somewhere northeast of Knoxville, they stopped at a convenience store. While Ben went inside, Jake slipped one of the photos from the box on the back seat. It was of her and Megan at their graduation ceremony, smiling into the camera. She wished she were back there—that she could reverse time, do things differently, make amends. As she replaced the photo, she noticed the small book with the colorful cover, a children’s book, Benny and the Badger. She pulled it out and was flipping through the pages when Ben returned with sodas and snacks.
    “What’s that?” he asked.
    “It’s a book my dad gave me when I was little. Not sure why I kept it all these years.”
    Ben leaned over and inspected the front cover. “I never heard of a book about a badger.”
    “It’s about a kid who finds an injured badger and nurses it back to health, then one day the badger bites him.”
    “Whoa,” Ben said. “Does the kid have to get rabies shots?”
    Jake shrugged. “The book doesn’t say, just that Benny ended up letting the badger go.”
    Ben started the car and pulled back out onto the road. “I thought kids’ books all had happy endings.”
    Jake shrugged again. “Badgers are fierce, tenacious animals, not suitable for domestication. I’m sure there’s a moral lesson in there somewhere, probably something about being true to your nature.”
    “That’s cool,” Ben said.
    Jake wondered if there was anything Ben didn’t think was cool.

    The rain ended somewhere in Virginia, and darkness settled over the Appalachians like a purple blanket. Jake slept fitfully, interrupted by visitations from her former lover—laughing, pouting, sensuous, and finally, the dispassionate, indifferent Megan that had moved in with a boy from the store. Jake awoke to find her cheeks wet. She wiped her eyes with a sleeve and asked, “Where are we?”
    “Near Roanoke,” Ben said, yawning. “Got miles to go before I sleep.”
    Jake glanced back at her travel bag tucked neatly behind the driver’s seat. “You want some pills? I’ve got some left over from when we were in college, you know? Studying for exams?”
    “Ah, yes,” Ben said. “Benzedrine, little white pills, bennies—my namesake, by the way—drug of choice for college students and long-haul truckers. Yes, indeed, Jake, I do want some. I want them very, very much, but I think, for now at least, I’ll decline your offer.”
    Jake smacked herself in the forehead. She’d forgotten what her dad had told her about Ben’s problem. It started when he was in college, had continued on and off, through jail and near overdoses, until he went on methadone a few months back.
    “I’m sorry, Ben, I forgot about the drug thing.”
    “Don’t get neurotic about it. I live with it every hour of every day.”
    “I am neurotic,” Jake said. “It’s what I do best.”
    “And I’m fucked up,” Ben said. “Or maybe just fucked.”
    “Do you want me to drive some?”
    Ben glanced over at her, gave her that goofy grin. “In your condition? No way.”

    They got coffee at a drive-through outside of Charleston, West Virginia, and chatted to help Ben stay awake. He carried most of the conversation, and Jake was okay with that. It kept her from thinking so much.
    “For about a year, after I dropped out of college, I worked a barge on the Tennessee River. Ten days on the river, ten days off. The whole time I was on the water, I was clean. I mean, if you got fucked up on the river, there were all sorts of ways you might get killed. But as soon as I got off, I’d go directly to my source, spend all my pay on drugs, and stay high ’til I had to go back.”
    Ben blew on his coffee to cool it. “It doesn’t sound like much of a life, I know, but it was all I needed.”
    “Why’d you quit?” Jake asked.
    “Got stopped with drugs in the car, did a little jail time, lost the job.”
    “You have a girlfriend when all this was going on?”
    Ben was quiet for a moment. “Sort of, I guess. Mostly we just shot up and stayed high. Not much sex was involved. When we did it, it was kind of like an afterthought.”
    “Huh,” Jake said. Maybe Ben and the girl, whoever she was, had the right idea. “That was the problem with me and Megan.” She wasn’t sure why she brought it up. Maybe it was the darkness, the dim glow from the dash lights, the warm, hushed intimacy of the car’s interior. Whatever the reason, she felt better almost as the words left her lips. “I never felt right making love with her like a woman. I wanted to be able to love her like a man would’ve. I put it off, found reasons not to have sex.”
    Jake sighed but continued, “I even spent a lot of the money I’d saved on gifts for her, to help make up for .... Well, you get the picture.”
    Ben nodded. “You were working against your goal to try and keep what you had.”
    “In the end, I lost on both fronts. Now I’m behind on the operation money, and I don’t have Megan either.”
    “Bummer,” Ben said. “I feel for you, man.”
    Jake raised an eyebrow. Apparently her losing Megan was one thing that wasn’t cool.

    Jake guessed the confession was balm for her soul because she fell asleep again, and this time it was without Megan’s troubling specter. When she awoke, they had picked up I-78 in Pennsylvania and were closing in on the Garden State. Bands of pink light lined the horizon and tractor-trailers whizzed by like angry hornets.
    “How long now?” she asked.
    “Couple of hours, then home, sweet home.” Ben smiled at her, a tired smile but a genuine one. “It’ll be cool, having you around. I never had a ... brother.”
    Jake couldn’t help smiling, too. Ben was all right. Goofy, yes, troubled, sure, but all right.
    “Why’d you do it, Ben?” she asked. “Why’d you take drugs?”
    “It was the easy way out,” he said. “I didn’t hurt anymore. I just felt numb. That’s the way I liked it. Still do, as far as that goes. But I try—every day, you know?”
    She thought maybe she did. She had her dad, a good man who understood her and accepted her the way she was. Now she had a family, too—not exactly the Cleavers, but one she figured she could live with.
    And she still had her dream. She was like the badger—she’d hold on as long as it took.

In Passing

    She never really fell in love, not what she thought of as love, what everyone thought of as love: a glorious losing of herself in a boy. No matter how much she liked a boy, he was never life to her. There was no one she yielded her mind to, put above herself to serve and forget all else for. Always, some part of her was detached, so she thought she never was in love. If she did not have to give up so much of herself, it might be easier to fall in love. As it was, she drew a dream man out of books, a Renaissance man like Sir Phillip Sidney. The dream was of an adventurer-scholar, a type she knew did not exist in nature.
    She had anticipated being in love with her first lover. What she thought of as love never happened. She waited, but finally her virginity became a social embarrassment and she gave it up for the experience.... Pete Blackhorse was a Comanche. He wrote poems and tales with a haunting rhythm that connected his rhetoric to some mythic race memory. So young, he already drank too much. He wore the mantle of the damned and doomed, the ruined gift, the too young dead. When he made the act of life on her bloodily, death was already on him and she knew it, though it did not happen until five more years. She embraced in him every romantic concept of the spirit too fine for grosser earth, scattering brilliance like largesse, defiant and spendthrift of itself, haunted by tragedy in the midst of joy, Byron and Keats and Shelley.
    Then she passed by a drunken Indian in a street in San Antonio and did not know him until her lover said, “Didn’t you used to go with Pete Blackhorse?” She looked back stricken, but there was no more recognition in his eyes of the Anglo woman who looked at him with open horror than if that time had never happened. She saw it register on him that the white lady was staring at him.
    Appalled as much by her own not knowing as by him as he was, she turned away and so never knew if the memory of her broke in on him....

Fatal Secret

    No one ever seems to talk much about colons. I imagine most people know they have one but it’s never a popular topic of conversation. I’ve never heard anyone say, “I don’t feel well; I think something is wrong with my colon,” or “My colon aches, I must have eaten some bad seafood.” But the colon plays a very important role in digestion and it would be hard to live without.
    As a twenty-seven-year-old girl, I didn’t know much at all about my colon. I had actually never even thought about it. I went to the doctor regularly, got check-ups, visited my gynecologist once a year. My doctor never asked me how my colon had been doing, so why would I have worried about it? When I started having pains in my chest area, I thought about my heart. I felt I was too young to have a heart attack. My doctor told me I was fine and not to worry, “probably just indigestion.” When I noticed an excessive amount of blood left behind in the toilet, he told me not to worry, “probably just hemorrhoids.” I listened to my doctor, did what he said for two years. He was the expert. Even when the pain continued and the bleeding got worse. I changed my diet and hoped for the best.
    Becky Samson, a girl I worked with at the bank had a heart attack one day and had to be rushed to the hospital. She recovered thanks to her “guardian angel” who is really just an extremely skilled cardiologist, Dr. Boros. He told her the attack was brought on by work-related stress. As soon as she told me, I knew what was wrong with me. Everyday at the bank in the commercial real estate department was stressful. I’m going to have a heart attack, too, I thought. So, ignoring my doctor’s advice, I did something. I got Dr. Boros’s number and made an appointment. He really was as amazing as Becky said. He ran every test he could and discovered my heart was in perfect condition. I was relieved.
    He referred me to a gastroenterologist, Dr. Rudik, to find out what was causing my symptoms. Dr. Rudik was not quite as pleasant as Dr. Boros but I hoped he could find out what was wrong. The first time I saw him, he insisted I have a colonoscopy. That, I was not looking forward to. (They put a tube and a camera inside you, colon first.) But after it was over, Dr. Rudik diagnosed me with Crohns disease. All I could think of was what an awful sounding name it had. He had no idea how I got it and he told me there is no cure, only medication to ease the symptoms. There was no way to know what would happen next.
    Over the next few days I researched and read everything I could find about the disease. I discovered the disease was characterized by ulcers in the wall of the colon and often resulted in diarrhea and weight loss. I was excited about the weight loss; at least something good would come out of this. But the diarrhea and the other symptoms were embarrassing. It wasn’t a diagnosis I wanted to share with anybody.
    The next week, the bank’s commercial real estate department was dissolved. The bank had been sold to a larger bank that had its own real estate department which was being downsized as a result of the horrible economy. The new bank didn’t keep any of the old employees except those that were needed to make a smooth transition. And I was not needed.
    I spent months looking for a new job to no avail. The jobs available were few and they were extremely outnumbered by the people searching. After much consideration, I decided to go back to school and fulfill my dream of becoming a doctor. Maybe then I could treat myself. I applied to a few medical schools and for a lot of student loans. I was so happy when I got accepted into my first choice. I had three months until school started.
    The Crohns acted up a lot, mostly because of stress but also because I ran out of medication and my health insurance expired. I had no money to pay for new insurance and with my preexisting condition, I was unlikely to get it anyway. But all I needed to do was stay healthy for a few years and then I could take care of it.
    I loved school but it was hard to keep up when I was constantly running to the bathroom. I was too ashamed to tell anyone about my disease. I managed to make it through two years of medical school. On the first day of my third year I collapsed. The disease had left me weak and the diarrhea left me extremely dehydrated. My teacher called an ambulance and I was taken to the hospital. I managed to tell the doctor about the diagnosis before losing consciousness.
    Six days later, I woke up. The doctor told me there was nothing that could be done. The Crohns had advanced throughout my intestines, making surgery impossible. Now, at thirty-one years old, I know what will happen next – death. There is nothing I can do but wait for death. And all because of an angry, ignored colon.
    It feels so strange, knowing I’m going to die. The doctor doesn’t know how long I have but without a working colon, it shouldn’t be long. I have to keep tubes attached to me and a bag that holds my waste. As if I wasn’t embarrassed enough before.

    I’ve missed too much school to try to go back and I don’t want to go with these tubes. I’ve taken a part time job editing for an on-line medical journal. With my two years in medical school, the job is perfect for me and I can work from home. I feel weak and the three hours a day I work is all I can handle anyway. Right now I am editing an article about Crohns Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. I wish I had read this five years ago when my symptoms started. I had never even heard about either disease back then and I used to love to read health magazines and women’s journals. I thought I knew everything about women’s health. I was so wrong.
    I am bothered that the article doesn’t focus on just Crohns. It is a disease worthy of its own article but when I did the research I noticed it is always lumped in with other bowel-related diseases. My death should be enough to show it can stand alone.
    I love editing. I wonder why I didn’t find this career years ago. I had always thought of becoming a writer or an editor but work at the bank was so stressful I had no motivation to do anything else. Working at home is awesome. It gives me plenty of time to play with my dog, although we can’t go on long walks like we used to before I got sick. I think I like editing even more than I would being a doctor. It’s funny how I have found my perfect place in life just as I learn it has to end.

    Tomorrow my best friend, Ashley, is coming over so we can spend some time together. She saw me in the hospital but doesn’t know how serious it is. I have to find a way to tell her I am dying and a way to say good bye to the best friend I have ever had.
    Ashley and I have known each other since we were children. We were inseparable growing up and through college. We were roommates in the college dorms and got an apartment together after graduation. Ashley met Jim the next year and they got married and had a child, Evan. I don’t see her as much as I used to but we make sure to never let too much time go by without getting together. She was the first person I saw when I woke up in the hospital.
    Evan is my godson and I adore him; although he made me see that I probably don’t want to have any children of my own. Evan is eight years old now and in third grade. He is so excited because this summer he is going to play little league baseball. I told him I would be at all of his games. Instead, I have to explain to him why I will probably not even get to see one.
    Now, I have to talk about my colon. I think about it every day. Now, I have to face death. I try not to think about it. But I must face it soon, it is a fact I cannot edit. And I must say goodbye to my friend while I still have the chance.

The World

    “Slow down Mike,” his mother said. “You’ve got plenty to time before your Pappy arrives.” She turned back to the small, white television on the kitchen counter. Mike Schrader shoveled another spoonful of Cookie Crisp into his mouth, while she wasn’t looking. If he wanted to play with his He-man toys before Pappy arrived, he had to hurry.
    His parents were watching God’s Hour, a religious program. The program broke for commercial, and Mike’s mother turned back to him. Fortunately, he had just finished eating a spoonful of cereal, so she had nothing to say to him. His dad was taking a sip of his coffee. Mike put another spoonful in his mouth, and tried chewing on it and started to cough, spitting up the brown and black chunks on the yellow tablecloth.
    “Jesus! What have your mother and I told you about eating fast,” his father asked, tearing a paper towel off the rack and wiping up the chunks off the table. He smacked Mike in the back of the head.
    “Hey baby, are you going to take Mike to 7-11 after Sunday school and buy him a comic book?” She took a drag off the Pall Malls and blew the smoke out. Some of it got into Mike’s eyes, but he didn’t say anything. Mike remembered one time his father blew smoke into his eyes, and when Mike got up to leave, his father grabbed him by the arm and spanked him hard, yelling something about “respecting your elders.”
    “I do every Sunday, don’t I?”
    “Yes.”
    “OK, then I’ll do it today.” He took a sip of his coffee.
    She glanced back at the television to see if God’s Hour had come back on. It hadn’t, so she turned back to her husband. “I don’t think you should. His Pappy showed me this flier that was in the church bulletin, the one from James Dobson. It said something about a character in Marvel Comics who was the devil. These things are evil.”
    “What’s the name of the character?”
    “I don’t know.” She turned to Mike. “Do you know who it is Mike.”
    Still taking care to eat the cereal slowly, Mike said: “Mephisto. He was in the latest issue of Silver Surfer.”
    His mom’s eyes widened. “You actually have one of them?”
    He did, but he could tell from her reaction that it would probably be a good idea to lie. “No, a friend at school did though.”
    “That’s good,” she said, breathing a small sigh of relief. “What would your Pappy think if he saw that.” She turned back to her husband. “Why don’t you get Mike a pack of baseball cards instead?”
    “That’s a good idea. Mike, would you like a pack of baseball cards instead of a comic today?”
    Mike looked up from the now empty cereal bowl. “I want a comic book.”
    “Well you’re not getting one,” his Mom said, raising her voice. “What do you think your Pappy would say if he saw that Satan character? Don’t you care about what your Pappy thinks?”
    God’s Hour came back on, and his parents turned back to it. Mike watched it with them. Two older men, one wearing thick-rimmed glasses, were sitting by a fireplace. The man to the left of the fireplace held up a small, blue paperback book. “Reverend McFarland,” he began, turning to the other man with the thick glasses, “in your new book Rapture Watch, you lay out in what I consider a very logical fashion, how the signs of the impending Rapture are all around us. What other signs have occurred since the book’s publication? What events have given you alarm?”
    Taking advantage of the fact that his parents were distracted, Mike began eating the cereal faster, but as quietly as he could, as not to attract his parent’s attention. On the TV, Reverend McFarland adjusted his glasses. “Well, Reverend Smith, there have been so many events happening around the globe that have given me pause. There is a definite storm on the horizon. We have the situation in the Middle East, the push for a United Europe and the continued persecution of Christians the world over—-all of which point to the End Times. And here in America, we have a decision to make in November: elect this Michael Dukakis, and slide down the slope to Hell even further, or elect George Bush and continue the godly leadership policies of Ronald Reagan.”
    “Well spoken, Reverend,” said Smith.” They cut to commercial, which was advertising Reverend McFarland’s book.
    “Amen,” Mike’s mother said, stubbing her cigarette out in the orange ashtray. She reached for her Pall Mall package, took out another cigarette, and lit it. Taking a long drag, she turned to Mike and said: “if you get a comic book today, you’re not going to meet Jesus in the Rapture.”
    Mike looked at his mom, puzzled. “What’s the Rapture?” He heard this time used everywhere—at his house, at his grandparent’s house, at church and now on TV.
    “It’s when Jesus takes to Heaven all the good people, and leaves all the bad people behind. Your Dad, your Pappy, Granny and I are going to be raptured, and go to meet Jesus. But if you get a comic book, you’re not going to be raptured. You want to meet Jesus don’t you?”
    Mike nodded. From what he heard in Sunday school, Mike thought Jesus sounded like a pretty good guy—feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and so on. He thought back to the picture of Jesus that hung in the Sunday school classroom: a tall man with long black hair and a beard, standing amidst a flock of sheep, radiating goodness. Yes, he wanted to meet Jesus. “Yes, I do,” he said.
    “Good. Go to your room and play with your toys until its time to get ready.” Mike eagerly dashed to his room at the far end of the trailer, ignoring his dad’s admonishment to slow down. Opening the door to his closet, he pulled out the red duffel bag that held his Masters of the Universe toys, and began scattering them on the floor. Prior to this scattering, the room had been pristine clean—his mother made him clean it the night before. He arranged the figures in a wide circle.
    Then he reached into the closet and pulled out Snake Mountain and Castle Grayskull. Sitting down in a circle of toys, he wondered what kinds of scenarios he should put them in today. His scenarios were always more elaborate than the other boys in the trailer park, who were merely content to bang the toys together until they broke. Mike used dialogue and actually had plots to put his characters through. “Worlds,” he called them. Today he was going to create the best world yet, and then he would even show it to his parents.
    He began. First was Orko, the good court magician from another dimension, who he set up casting a spell on Webstor, the evil demon who crawled walls. As he set the two of them up, he remembered that magic, which Orko used, was a tool of Satan, which he learned in church; and Webstor was a demon, and they too were tools of Satan. He wondered if his parents would take them away too. He put the thought out of his mind, and continued posing the figures. He positioned Teela on the table next to his record player, and directly across from her, he set up her evil counterpart, Evil Lynn. Fisto was fighting Two-Bad, and Sy-Klone was getting ready to fight Stinkor. Mike set Clawful, the lobster man, against Man-At-Arms, one of the very few people who knew that Prince Adam was actually He-man. Then came He-man and Skeletor themselves, and he took great care with positioning them.
    “I’ve got you now Skeletor,” Mike said, doing his best impersonation of He-man.
    “That’s what you think He-man,” he said, distorting his voice. “I have formed an alliance with Hordak. You are no match for me!” Then he grabbed his Hordak figure and set it next to Skeletor. Mike then stood back and surveyed the whole sight. He was so proud of what he had created, and couldn’t wait to show his mom and dad.
    “Hey mom. Hey dad,” he yelled.
    “What?” His mom replied from down the hall.
    “Come here. I want to show you something.” He heard the two of them walk down the hall. They stuck their heads in the room. “Look, what I created!” He gestured towards the figures he had posed, and smiled.
    His mother looked indifferent, and took a drag off her Pall Mall. “That’s nice. Now get them picked up.” His dad said nothing, and followed Mike’s mother back to the kitchen. Frowning, Mike packed the figures back up in the bag, and put the bag in the closet. Walking to his bedroom at the trailer’s other side, he wondered what his Mom was going to make him wear. He hoped it wasn’t a shirt and tie, which when he rounded the corner to the bedroom, he saw that was what she had laid out.
    He groaned. “Mom, do I have to wear a tie?”
    She came out of the other bedroom, wearing a disbelieving look on her face. “What the hell has gotten into you today? Yes, you have to wear a tie. Don’t you want to look nice for Jesus?”
    Turning to face her, he said: “but whenever I see a picture of Jesus at Sunday school, the people around him are always wearing robes and rags, and he seems OK with it.”
    His dad walked over and backhanded Mike across the mouth. “You don’t talk to your mother like that, do you hear me?” His mother watched, and Mike put his hand over his mouth, hoping it hadn’t left a bruise. “Now get in there and get dressed.” Mike sobbed as he walked into his bedroom. His dad followed him to the door of the room. “And you quit that crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
    Still sobbing, this time silently so his Dad wouldn’t hear him, Mike took off his Superman pajamas, and put on a t-shirt, and then the dress shirt, his dress pants, and finally his clip-on tie. He walked out into the living room. His mom was sitting on the couch, and his dad on the edge of the recliner.
    “Mike, straighten up,” his Mom barked. “We’ve raised you better than this.”
    Staring at him intently, his dad said: “you’d better not have any smart talk for your Pappy. Or he’ll get the belt.” The belt. Mike heard plenty about it, mostly from his Pappy. Mike actually saw Pappy beat his cousin Brandy with it. Mike himself had never experienced it, but Pappy and a few other family members had threatened him with it, mostly when he was really bad. The threat of “the belt” was enough to bring him back into line.
    Now his Mom and Dad were watching another religious program, It Is Writen, this time on the television in the living room. Instead of two old men, there was only one. Mike was still hurting too much to pay close attention, but he caught something about “abortion” and “unborn babies” and “agents of Satan.” Then an image of a baby flashed on the screen, wide eyed and laughing. Underneath the baby was an 800 number, toll-free. On school mornings, Mike’s parents let him watch Cartoon Express on USA, and there were numbers to call there, but they were 900 numbers and cost money. He had begged his parents to let him call the Bionic Six hotline, just once, but they wouldn’t let him, and finally he got backhanded for his troubles.
    When the pain finally abided, he wondered why he had to go to Sunday school, but his parents didn’t go to church. They both talked about Jesus all the time. But he didn’t say anything; he didn’t want another backhanding. From outside, he could hear a car pulling onto the gravel driveway outside the trailer. It was his Pappy.
    “Your Pappy is here,” his mom said, getting up to go to the door. Opening it, she smiled, and hugged his grandfather, who then entered the trailer. His grandfather was a tall man, with thinning gray hair. He wore a blue suit with a red tie, and cowboy boots. “He’s been a little wise ass today,” she said, looking at Mike.
    He turned to Mike. Sternly, he said: “a wise ass?” He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a pack of Winston’s, and lit one.
    “Everything we’ve said or done today, he’s had some smart ass comment. His dad had to smack him. If he gets cute with you, pop him a good one.” Although he had never been beat with the belt, his Pappy had spanked him several times. One time, he scooped Mike up to spank him, and accidentally scrunched up the rare Punisher comic Mike had gotten off a classmate that day. When Mike cried in protest, he got spanked again, even harder.
    Pappy took a drag off the Winston. Mike wondered if he was going to blow the smoke into his eye. “Will do. You ready Mike?”
    Demurely: “yes sir.”
    “Bye Daddy.” She hugged and kissed Pappy again. “You be good Mike. I don’t want to hear about you getting smart with your teachers. Or we’ll bust your ass for sure.” Mike got into Pappy’s red pick up truck, and the two set off.
    The normal routine was to go straight to Sunday school from the trailer, but when they got halfway down Route 11, Pappy said: “shit. I forgot my Bible concordance. We’re going to have to go back to the house for a minute. Give you a chance to see your grandmother. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
    “Yes sir.” He really didn’t want to. Every Saturday night, Mike’s family went to his grandparent’s house for dinner. He hated Granny’s cooking, and last night he had turnip soup forced on him. He ate about four bites before asking to be excused from the table. Afterwards, he went into his grandparent’s den and watched Star Trek: The Next Generation. When she walked in and saw what he was watching, she yelled at him, saying that the guy who created the show didn’t believe in God, and she heard that on the PTL, and that he needed to watch something else.
    By the time they arrived at his grandparent’s house, Mike had to go to the bathroom. “Come on in Mike, your Granny would probably like to see you.” They entered through the back door, which led into the kitchen. There was no one there. Mike could hear a piano playing “Amazing Grace” in the living room. “Go say ‘hi’ to your granny.”
    “Can I use the bathroom first?”
    “Yeah, go ahead. But then go say hello.” Mike did as he was told, and after he was done in the bathroom, he walked into the living room.
    “Hi Granny.”
    She stopped playing, and looked at him. “Hey there,” she said, and he stood in silence, not sure what to say. He started at the piano, a baby grand, and remembered hitting the keys when he was younger, and getting spanked for it.
    “Will you show me how to play?”
    “Mike, we’ve been over this. Only sissy men play the piano. Jesus doesn’t like sissy men.” She never bothered to define what a “sissy man” was. “How are you doing in school?”
    “Good. We’re going on a field trip to the Science Museum in Roanoke on Tuesday. I can’t wait to see the dinosaur skeletons, and get some astronaut ice cream.”
    “That sounds fun, but don’t let them make you believe evolution is the truth. The only truth is the Bible.” He had heard about evolution from a variety of places: the religious programs his parents watched, the lessons in Sunday school, and from his teachers at school. At first, Mike thought the idea that humans evolved from monkeys was weird, but they way it was presented by his teacher, Mr. Reynolds, it made sense.
    Pappy came into the room, his concordance clutched in one hand. “Mike, are you ready?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s ‘yes sir,’” his grandmother said, stressing the “sir.”
    “Yes sir,” Mike replied.
    “Let’s go. We’re already running late.” Pappy walked over and kissed Granny. It was a short drive to the church, but it felt like it took forever. It was in a residential area, and Mike watched the houses roll by as the red pickup made its way down the road. He looked at the old CB radio Pappy kept in the truck, but hadn’t been used in years. Mike wanted to get on it, but he knew Pappy wouldn’t let him, and begging would only bring the belt. He wanted to get on the CB radio and ask someone, anyone, to take him away from here.

I’m an Abyss in Motion

    The psychiatrist has me sit on a day-bed. It has a hard leather material with a slight softness near the middle, where countless other patients must have lain. The psychiatrist has a peppery mustache and a pair of thin-framed glasses. He has a brooding serious face that he wears when he asks me to tell him the problem.
    “I want to tell a lie, any lie, that can give me a reason for me to believe my friendships mean something,” I say. “Perhaps I should explain. I was at the park in the middle of the night, swinging on a swing set, all drunk with an old friend of mine. I lied repeatedly about stories that I’ve experienced and lives I’ve lived and experiences I had. I told of my trip to South Africa with my father who was on a business trip. I said we had giraffe rides and ate with our hands in little huts next to unblinking natives. I used such moving detail and descriptive story-telling that it was believable even to myself. I began to have fun with it, making it a game that made me feel like I was playing a joke on him.”
    The psychiatrist nods while I talk, listening with a pen in his mouth. At times he seems as if he is about to say something. He takes the pen out of his mouth, juts his neck forward an inch, and noiselessly mouths some syllable before putting the pen back into his mouth.
    “And it’s hard to believe what’s real sometimes, when you can convince yourself of these things. And it doesn’t help that I read so much, that I read other stories that could just as well be true as anything that I hear in the news or from anecdotes I hear from friends. I can’t sleep sometimes because of it.”
    I take my hands out of my pockets, and fidget with them, rubbing my face, grabbing at the clumps of hair hanging over my ears.
    The psychiatrist looks at my hands and I see him suppress a yawn, water leaking out of his eyes. What a boring job he must have, listening to chumps like me.
    He doesn’t help, he just gives me a slip of paper with a certain amount of milligrams of a certain kind of multisyllable drug written on it. And I walk in the robotic automatic doors of the all-night pharmacy stores late at night, past aisles of seasonal Thanksgiving trinkets, past solid-colored cotton shirts on sale three for ten dollars, past shelves of candy bars, past cosmetic oval mirrors that make your face elongate for a second when you walk past them. I walk all the way to the back where mothers and children and old men wait in chairs in a corner section with industrial strength blue carpet covering the floor. I go up to a counter where young pharmacists in flowing white lab coats fetch me the multisyllabled drugs written on my now crumpled slip of paper. They check to see if my address and phone number are still the same before I leave. They aren’t, but I don’t care, I move around too much anyway.
    I swallow the pills and they numb me out for a while, or make me focus focus focus focus focus on one task, one task, one task, a project to get things done, get things done, get things done, done, things, getting done, get.
    And then the focus fades, fizzling out into my blurry mind again.
    “I often say things to others,” I tell the psychiatrist, “I always find myself repeating these little pithy sayings.”
    The psychiatrist pushes his glasses up with a finger and blinks at me.
    “Like when my friends are feeling blue,” I continue, “I’ll tell them something like, ‘Life is too short for that shit.’ Or I’ll tell them that living a nonreligious life requires a constant battle with meaning. I think I do it as much for myself as for others, though...maybe even more so for myself. Oh, how it’s so hard for me to handle changing beliefs bought on by this growing up thing. I feel like it’s not helping at all, how I reassess. I empathize with others. But I empathize with myself, too, do you know what I mean?”
    He nods. “I’m afraid our session is up,” he says, uncrossing his legs and getting himself up from his chair. He takes a pad of paper from his desk and comes back, scribbling something on there. “I’m writing you a new prescription. I believe you’re suffering from something far more serious than what I’ve originally assessed you as having.”
    I hear the rip of the paper as he tears it off his prescription pad and simultaneously feel the rip of my money from my wallet and feel the rip of my time from my life and the rip of my existence off this psychiatrist’s conscience. I try to make eye contact with the next patient in the waiting room as I leave, but she doesn’t let her nervous gaze leave the floor.

Books and Bareback Love

    I read so few books that when I finish one I feel queasy. It’s like I watched something die when I could have done more to help it.
    I buy a lot of them, I’m just the sort of person who takes months to finish a book. In my dorm room, scattered amongst the bookcases there are dozens of novels containing bookmarks in various positions. When I look at those novels I meet the prospect of an undiscovered country. I would hate to wake up one day and look at my bookshelf like a map with all its blank spaces filled in. I feel weird when I think about it. In truth, I can’t tell if my behavior makes me a sort of person or if it makes me a freak. Over time I’ve come to look at people as beings comprised of kinds. That makes it easier to assume I belong somewhere, even if it isn’t here.
    If I’m the kind of guy who only finishes a book every few months, I’m also the sort who has anonymous sex with other men. Tonight is particularly indicative of my kind because I’ve just done both.
    He was ten years older than me. He lived by himself in a townhouse with no furniture. The walls were dark and his bedroom floor was covered with wrinkled dress-pants. When I asked him what he wanted to do he said he wanted to give me whatever it would take to get me back again. That might have bothered me, but I was young and attractive and he was past his prime. I was used to it: I had done this sort of thing a lot.
    The floor was populated by self-help books about becoming a successful realtor. As he pulled me onto the bed, he didn’t turn on the lights so the gaudy covers were hard to read.
    The sex was fairly easy. I thought he’d be overly aggressive but he wasn’t. He kept his lips open the whole time so I would kiss him. It made him look like a fish. As he began to undo my pants I noticed that his lube wasn’t meant for condoms. Most people aren’t scared of HIV like they used to be but I was. As I silently resolved to only bottom if he wore a condom I knew that if he bottomed I wouldn’t want a condom either.
    That was exactly what he wanted. In the heat of it all I told myself that I probably already had HIV. This time wouldn’t make a difference. He felt amazing and it all seemed to matter less while we were doing it.
    Afterwards he looked at me the way they usually do. It was the same look I had given my ex-boyfriend the first time he didn’t use a condom: guilt festering into loneliness. I sat up. As I picked up my pants I saw a used copy of How to Make Your Up-Turn in a Down-Turn World.
    He asked me to save his number. I nodded, but I’d already decided to never see him again. I wondered if his silence meant that he could sense the pity I felt when I looked around his apartment. He’d be insulted if he knew that I had sex with men like him to see how lonely this lifestyle would become. Stepping outside, I wondered if he used to do the same thing.
    As I left his apartment I felt an intense urge to finish reading my books. I deleted his number and when I got back to my place I picked out a book and ordered a pizza on my cell-phone.
    Earlier that day the phone had awoken me from a nightmare. I don’t even remember the dream. I missed being able to wake up from a nightmare and put my arm around my ex-boyfriend while he slept. All my nightmares were about being forgotten, so doing that always made me feel better. In the past four weeks I’d had a nightmare almost every night.
    I started to read. After two hours, I read the last page and I was left with the same emptiness I’d felt when I pulled out of him.
    I looked over my shelves of books. I decided to leave them untouched. It was a fleeting thought that referred to men and book alike. But after two minutes I threw away the pizza box and grabbed another one. I did it because, as any idiot knows, there’s always another book.

Roommates

    Ben crouched intently over the toilet bowl, as if it held something of great interest. It had happened again. Teresa. Just yesterday he’d told himself never again, he was through with her. Then she’d come around tonight, horny as always, and he’d done her. His stepmother. Again.
    He vomited with a sound like an unclogging drain.

    The next morning, Ben slouched at the breakfast nook, entertaining a super-size bowl of cereal. He’d vomited himself hungry, it seemed.
    Across the kitchen, Teresa fussed with coffee and toast. She was blonde and tall, almost Ben’s six feet, and pretty in a priggish way, with high cheeks and a slender, heart-shaped jaw. She was English, and it showed: she wore her hair short and gelled, in that style popular amongst uppity Brit women and butch lesbians. She was thirty-nine, barely a decade older than Ben.
    She ambled from the counter, her curves alive beneath her blouse and skirt. “There ya’ are,” she said to Ben, and slid a steaming coffee under his nose. It smelled strong and good. Ben thanked her, and they ate in silence.
    It was always like this. They never talked about the fucking during the day, even with their eyes. The two just went about their lives: Teresa swanning around with her friends and spending Dad’s insurance money, and Ben leading his stagnant existence — like they weren’t embroiled in a quasi-incestuous affair. It was profound, really, the power of consensual denial.
    It had started six months ago, when Jim Milton, Ben’s venerable father, had died. It was sudden, a car crash on an otherwise mundane winter night. Dad, sober since Regan was in office, had been hit head on by a drunk with more DUI’s than he had fingers. Naturally, the drunk had walked, while Jim died on the spot. The first few days had been expectedly grim — Jim was only fifty-two, and well-loved by Ben and Teresa, his second wife — but the real havoc had come long after the fact, in the following months.
    Ben and Jim had been close, and not in the superficial way that’s thrown around all too often; the men had maintained a real relationship, were genuine friends. Behind this was a solidarity of both alcoholism and the death of Ben’s mother when he was twelve, and it was glue between them. The two were close enough to argue openly, then sit in a comfortable silence, if that says anything. Dad was Ben’s anchor to the world, the man who had seen him through losing first the woman they’d adored, then the vice they’d held nearly as high. So when Jim had gone in the ground, Ben had lost his compass — or, rather, his compass had become queered, like in the Bermuda Triangle.
    He compared it to going off to college at seventeen, the anomie of being away from home — except a nightmare version of it, one that would never end. Ben had spent the preceding five years as a struggling musician, pushing papers at Dad’s candy company by day and trying to Make It Happen by night. As of Jim’s accident, however, Ben hadn’t played a note, or done much of anything — besides his stepmother, of course. The accident had sapped whatever energy that had survived his exhausting five years of clambering for a record deal. He’d been faltering since even before the accident, when he was discovering the music industry to be both saturated and unforgiving. Ben was talented, no question there — he was a virtuoso on a half-dozen instruments, and able to compose in any scale and key, entirely in his head — but he had witnessed too many musicians of his caliber end up working day jobs, with nothing to show for their toil but bitter chips on their shoulders. That had been disheartening enough, but as soon as he had gotten The News, his music was over, and he’d known it then and there. For him, he’d buried not just his second biological parent, but every prospect of fulfilling his dream. During the funeral, he’d fought a screaming desire to join his parents in the ground, one that still waved hello every so often.
    The culpable nature of Jim’s death had compounded things, to put it lightly. The drunk who’d hit him was some forty-something rummy from the next town over, driving on a revoked license, his floorboards carpeted in beer empties. To Ben’s astonishment, the man had gotten off on a manslaughter charge and a slap-on-the-wrist three months in the pen — a rather poor exchange for the thirty-odd years he’d stolen from Jim, Ben thought. The sentencing had left Ben black with anger, and a savage desire to strangle, neither of which had helped things any. There was also a lunatic compulsion to get off the wagon, which Ben had been riding faithfully for all five of his hardscrabble years spent playing (the music had come at Dad’s suggestion, to replace his drinking-time with something productive; Jim’s substitute had been the now-thriving candy company). Ben had abstained from the bottle, at least, though that was about it. Nowadays, Ben’s activities included sleeping late, reading corny paperbacks, and biding his time in front of the TV. And Teresa.
    It had happened so fast, him and his stepmother, adding a sick dimension to his newfound hell. She and Dad had gotten married ten years ago, when Ben was nineteen and Jim was finally letting go of his first wife, Brenda. Teresa and Ben had always been on good terms, if a bit detached; she seemed decent enough, but there was a constant barrier between them, and they’d mutually kept their distance. To him, she’d always been “Teresa,” never “Mom”; but that was okay. He hadn’t really seen much of her those first five years of her and Jim’s marriage, having moved out before she’d moved in. It wasn’t until he’d sobered up and moved back home, so he could play full time, that he’d known her company at all, and even then there was a strict reservation between them — light-years from anything sexual, in any case.
    Then Dad died, and everything changed.
    They’d known a brief camaraderie immediately afterward, the two being bereft and heartbroken in the big house that Teresa now owned. There’d even been a couple hugs and almost-personal conversations betwixt them. But this never went far, especially as time wound on: where Ben had never really pulled out of his slump, Teresa had, and within a couple months. He supposed, a little sourly, that Dad’s insurance money had played a hand in that; Jim had years ago taken out a policy on himself, when the candy company had started moving, and thanks to double indemnity, it had worked out to nearly a half a million dollars after taxes. The money had been split between Ben and Teresa, per Jim’s will, and after those two dark months, she had begun spending her share. New car, shopping sprees for her and her friends, spa excursions, trips home to Mother England. She’d even gotten a poodle to carry under her arm, though that hadn’t worked out. Ben had thought Teresa’s indulgences a distraction from grief, maybe a kind of latent shock — when he thought about his stepmother at all, that is. They’d by then returned to their formal arrangement, the two little more than roommates, and disinterested ones at that. In the course of a day, their exchanged words could be counted on two hands.
    It was springtime when they first had sex, four months after Jim’s death. It may have been altogether different if not for the home’s single shower. It was a fact of life in the Milton household; Jim had built the place after Brenda’s death, and, being only him and his son, he’d seen no need for more than one shower. And he was right: they hadn’t needed a second, even when Teresa had come into the picture, since Ben was away at college. It only turned problematic upon Ben’s return home. The woman was fond of no less than two showers a day, each with an eternity of primping and preening afterward, and one of these came just before bed, which conflicted with Ben’s set-in-stone bathing time. So they had long ago worked out a system: Teresa would go first, then call out when she was finished. It was simple, and it worked, both before and after the accident.
    However, one night when Ben had gotten the call and gone upstairs, he’d found Teresa still inside. The door had been cracked, just enough to see through, and there she was, nude, and directly in line of sight of the door, prettying herself at the vanity. She had been facing away and bent slightly over the sink, her substantial breasts dangling, the light touching her coin-slot pussy. Ben had frozen at the sight of her: it was the first he’d actually considered Teresa a sexual creature. Between her being his father’s wife, his surrogate mother, and almost ten years his senior, his perception of her had never deviated into the realm of the erotic, so much that it was a shock to see her so exposed. In his mind, she had existed as an androgynous It, maintaining only a smooth patch of skin where genitals should be, not even on his radar as a potential sexual receptacle. But that had changed as he saw her that night, candidly disrobed in the invasive vanity lighting.
    Ben had lingered in the hallway, tattooed by a wedge of peach-colored light. She hadn’t noticed him — or had pretended not to — and he’d gotten a good, long look, watching her do her hair and brush her teeth. Though she was beautiful, and viscerally sexy, he hadn’t been particularly attracted to her, not yet; still, he hadn’t look away. When she’d finally pulled on a robe and started out, he’d sidled from the door in time to be at a plausibly safe distance, leaning angelically on the railing. She’d gone to bed, and Ben had taken his shower.
    He hadn’t really thought about her afterward. For him, it had been like observing some exotic creature in its natural habitat, still outside the arena of infatuation. As for the cracked door and her exhibition, he put it down to carelessness. A part of him contested this, of course, noting that she had called him well before she was ready (and that the door had been open a tad too much to be innocent); but he ignored it. He had enough to worry about without his stepmother tendering herself for him. Unfortunately, after a repeat performance the following night, it became hard to write it off to accident.
    It had happened the same as before: Teresa calling him up, and Ben climbing the stairs to find the bathroom occupied and the door cracked. He had at first stopped by the stairs, wanting nothing to do with her little game, but the next thing he knew, he was once more voyeuring her through the door, standing at length as to be a phantom. The scene had been identical: Teresa freshening up before the vanity, nude as the day she was born and bent over in a way that looked uncomfortable. Something inside Ben had answered the sight, and he’d greedily looked her over — not so much because he liked what he saw, but because it was there, and had been previously denied his scrutiny. Also like before, he’d stepped away before she left, and the two exchanged goodnights and went their separate ways.
    The third night had been the same, as were the next three, each aliment to Ben’s new fascination. He’d found himself fantasizing about her throughout his long and empty days, what it would be like to have her, the forbidden fruit. Also, he was helpless but to accept her apparent interest in him, whatever it may be; he’d broken up with a longtime girlfriend just before his father’s death, and had been celibate since, rendering him desperate for a woman’s attention. It was a vicious combination: blue balls, loneliness, and a pretty-good-looking English bird flaunting all she had, topped off by an excess of free time. It had eroded his better sense, no different than a drug.
    Still, his budding attraction had been anything but kosher, and he knew it from the start. Besides her being his legal mother, he had no real draw to Teresa, or anything beyond an animal desire to plant himself inside her, any port in a storm. It wasn’t even an Oedipus complex, or a fashionable propensity for older women; it was just some sick obsession materialized out of nowhere. Above all, it was maddening, being torn between the mind’s moral reservations and the body’s cravings. Aggravating things further was his wreck of a situation; starved for anything resembling pleasure, a part of him leapt at any hint of gratification, however thin or deviant it may be. It was ugly, and he hated it ... yet he’d felt unable to fight it, perhaps wielding a knife in a gunfight.
    This had gone on for a tortured week before turning physical. Ben became sexually frustrated, which was only heightened by his existing perdition, and he started dreaming of Teresa, bent over in her unladylike way; the visions soon spilled into his waking life, manifesting in lewd little daydreams. Life with her became awkward. More than once, they had made eye contact and something had passed between them, and it was clear to Ben what was on her mind. He had fought it valiantly, trying to repress his urges, to wait on the stairs instead of by the door; but it just wouldn’t stop. He tried masturbation, a hobby he’d abandoned in his teenage years, but that had only stoked his fires. So, when she called him upstairs on the seventh night, he’d barged in on her.
    He couldn’t remember actually deciding to go through with it. He had seemed to exit his body as he mounted the stairs, seeing himself in third person, and then he was elbowing open the door and stepping through. Teresa had twirled around, feigning surprise and doing a poor job of covering herself as Ben regarded her stolidly from the jamb. A pregnant silence had fallen, and after a long, speaking look, Teresa had lowered her hands, her face loosening into the dopey countenance of a child doing wrong. Simultaneously, Ben had started forward, his pants bulging.
    So fast. It was how Ben would always remember that night: how fast they’d gone from no prior physical contact to outright fucking; how fast they’d come; how fast he had been out of the bathroom and in bed when it was over. Teresa had again bent over the vanity, though now cocking a leg as to present her sex, with an air of rehearsal. Without a word, he’d proceeded to unleash himself and go to town, moaning sultrily. It would be the template for their every future encounter: either impersonal missionary or from behind, strictly vaginal, and sterile as their daytime relationship. They never kissed, never talked, never so much as met each other’s eyes. The sex was mechanical and utilitarian, more like a perverse doctor’s visit than a romantic engagement. They’d come, mutually, in less than five minutes, filling the house with bestial echoes. Then it was done, and, still wearing her shamefaced look, Teresa had left Ben to his shower, commencing their standing policy of It Never Happened.
    There was a release in it, though, no denying that. Especially that first night: he’d taken her brutally, thrusting and pounding like the house was on fire. It was the culmination of all the unpleasantry that had transpired since the accident — or, really, in his last decade: falling into the bottle while in college, his long battle for sobriety, his seduction and disillusionment with music, and, last but not least, Dad’s death (or murder, as Ben saw it). As he had slipped into Teresa for the first time, making her yelp like a bit dog, he had sensed all that pent-up hardship feeding the sex, pushing it to new heights. And when he’d finally popped, he could almost see it all spraying into her, the release raw and primal, like some ungodly birth. That had been the peak of it, however: not moments afterward, he’d felt empty and dirty, and sick with remorse, no less than if he’d killed the woman. And it had lingered, too, lasting into the night and the following day. It was both the best and the worst sex he’d ever had.

    And now it had happened again. Again. He’d lost count of both how many times they’d been together and how many times he’d sworn off her. The thought made the cereal do cartwheels in his stomach, and he turned abruptly from his bowl, patting his chest.
    Teresa looked up from her morning paper. “You okay, Benny?” she asked. She had always called him that, Benny, with her quick English lilt — Bini.
    “Yeah, fine,” he said, and spooned up another bite. Teresa nodded back to her paper, and Ben again had to marvel at their tacit agreement of ignorance. Just last night she’d been couchant in his bed, breasts flouncing, crying, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” And now ... that had Never Happened, as if their fornication was confined to some parallel universe, not existing unless acknowledged. Ben thought, Life is strange, and started back into his breakfast.
    But it did have to stop, eventually. He knew that. The sex was killing him, infecting him like a germ and leaving him perpetually drained. Yet his body would always respond when she succubussed into his room at night; he never had any problem performing. It reminded him of his drinking days, when he would depart on ruthless weekend benders. He’d feel like utter shit come Monday, looking like something run over by a truck, and you would think the last thing he’d ever want was another drink. But when the next weekend came around (or the next afternoon, as it was near the end), his inner dipsomaniac would jump at the thought, making him jones and salivate. It was different with Teresa, though, worse, because she wasn’t a bottle, couldn’t merely be put down. She obviously wanted this — wanted him — and now that he’d been giving it to her, it felt like his duty, like he’d be letting her down were they to stop. Also, he’d have to tell her no, and he didn’t know how that would turn out. What if she reacted badly? Kicked him out of the house? Or even blackmailed him ...?
    Ben studied her over the table, so blonde and kempt, a world apart from the vixen she became in their other universe. She was in highbrow pinstripes, looking like a frigid businesswoman rather than a borderline pervert. She had an incredible sexual appetite, he had to give her that; he’d never been with a woman who could go at it each and every night for months on end. And she always brought her A-game, too, like a whirlwind that can fuck. He could now understand why Jim had married her. The thought made him squirm a little.
    And what if he was to tell her now, right that moment? It was tempting. Ben had his willpower up, jibing with the caffeine from his morning coffee. He turned the idea over in his head, evaluating the consequences ... then decided against it. Oddly, it wasn’t because of any fire-and-brimstone that might result; the opposite, in fact. He all too easily saw her replying with a blank stare and saying, “Why, whatever are you talking about?” After all, their sex had Never Happened.
    He let it go, but then another thing pressed over his tongue: Why? Why him, her stepson? Or ex-stepson, if there is such a thing. Teresa wasn’t exactly in her prime, but she shouldn’t have any trouble picking up a fuck-buddy, especially with that fat bank account of hers. He again almost said something, but backed down a second time: to ask her would acknowledge their sin, and he didn’t know if he wanted that. Leaving it like this, it almost hadn’t happened, as if they could ignore the whole thing into nonexistence. It reminded him of that passage in 1984, about perception and shared reality.
    Ben silently finished his cereal, got up, and started the dishes. Teresa finished soon after, deposited her dishes in the sink — it was Ben’s turn — and then bade him farewell and left for the day. He heard her BMW purr from the driveway, and then he was alone.

    The morning crawled past, and a jeering loneliness reared its head, becoming enemy. Ben had been alone these last six months, but the difference today was that he felt alone — a world apart from merely being so. There was a morbid sense of being cut off, set adrift in a degenerate personal sea that no one shared. His problems crowded him everywhere he turned, each a brick in his wall. His friends had respectfully allowed him to withdraw following Jim’s death, and except for a few polite phone calls, they might as well not exist. Ben would every now and then think of calling them up — Rod, mainly, a sometimes-bassist he considered a good friend — but it was just too awkward, not to mention delicate. He didn’t trust himself not to blab about Teresa, and he couldn’t risk having that in circulation, not for all the companionship in the world. He felt removed from society, perhaps humanity; it was how he imagined a convicted child-molester must feel.
    After watching TV since breakfast, as usual, he clicked it off and put his head in his hands, curling into Dad’s old oxblood couch. It was time to change, he decided. No more stagnating, no more wallowing, no more wasted days. And no more Teresa. He was going to pick himself up, go back to his music and life as a first-class citizen. The alternative was simply insufferable.
    These bursts of volition struck every so often, always when he was at his lowest, as though something was coming up for breath. They had, however, slowed down as of late: After his recidivism regarding Teresa, any attempt at change stirred a poison voice in his head, reminding him of his myriad failed resolutions. This time was no different, and the voice chimed in like an evil radio broadcast: You said that yesterday, it pointed out. You’ll do her again, and you know it.
    Ben shrugged it off, kneading his temples. The voice was wrong, and he could prove it, by resuming his job at the candy company, for starters. Dad’s second in command, a pleasant man by the name of Tom Harrison, had left Ben with a standing offer to have his job back “when he was ready,” with an intimation of promotion. Ben, apparently ready, reached for the phone.
    He grabbed the handset, raised it ... but his fingers refused to punch the keys. He was seeing his glorious return to the office: him mobbed by white-collar bodies and caffeinated smiles, each spouting empty consolations and kissing Jim’s ass, a forest of flowers and fruit baskets and Shoebox cards clogging his desk. Bullshit city.
    Ben hung up without dialing. Maybe the job was a little much right now. Maybe he should tackle the music first.
    He quit the couch with a leathery squeak, then padded from the living room and into the basement, where he’d constructed his studio. After a dark stairwell, the basement was a wide, low-ceilinged room partitioned in two. The larger half was the sound chamber, lined with anechoic foam, its peaks and valleys reminiscent of dripping water; it lent the room a high-tech appearance, very NASA. It was littered with Ben’s nursery of instruments: his grand piano; a rack of electric guitars and basses, hung like ties; an eight-piece drum kit smothered by cymbals and microphones. It all remained in situ from six months ago, like the armaments of some past war. In one corner was a round table topped with notebooks, one of them open. He sat down.
    The notebook was filled with lyrics from the preceding year, before the accident. He flipped through, watching them become progressively darker in reflection of his struggles in the music world. The later entries dealt with rejection and the discord of life’s circumstance, where diligence and talent by no means equate to success. He could remember who he’d been then, writing these things, and despite that old self having his own garden to tend, it was nothing compared to now, to the post-accident Ben. You don’t know what you had, he thought to that dead shard of himself, and tossed the notebook flippantly to the other end of the table. He would have to write new lyrics.
    He took a fresh notebook from a stack, uncapped a pen ... and then stared at a blank page for no less than fifteen minutes. He felt stonewalled, no different than his failed phone call. There was just nothing there, not even a diatribe regarding the burden of testicles. He slapped down the pen and instead went to his rack of guitars, thinking he’d just do some instrumental work.
    He took his favorite from its rung — a ‘67, all original Stratocaster — jacked it into a tweed Fender amp of matching vintage ... and then stood in that same blank haze, the amp hissing impatiently. He fingered a G chord, raked the pick down the strings ... then all at once tore off the guitar and shoved it back to the rack, the tumult burping through the amp. It was hopeless.
    He killed the amp and the lights and stomped back upstairs, to his wonted couch. Maybe the music was a bit much, too. Maybe he needed to end it with Teresa before he tackled anything else. She was, after all, draining him, with her sexual gymnastics and her weird head games.
    The poison voice spoke up then: If you backed down from the job and the music, what makes you think you won’t back down from her?
    The thought jarred him: he had no real answer. He’d flip-flopped so many times, a psychic scar had formed over his will, leaving it numb and dysfunctional. By day he would be steel in his resolve, vowing to send her away when she came calling that night. But when the time came and she crept into his bedroom, wearing nothing but a lacy thong, imploring his touch ... his plans would go out the window, his body itching for another dose of bad medicine. Every repetition thickened that mental scar of his, to the point that it seemed absurd to even try.
    “But not tonight,” he said aloud, to the empty house. “Not tonight.”
    The voice started to object, and he choked it off.

    Ben lay in bed, the sheet at his waist, the room dark save for a nightlight leftover from childhood. His bedroom was spartanly bare, just the double bed he’d had since forever, a writing desk, a dresser, and a couple cheap lamps. He used to have an acoustic guitar set out, but he’d put it away last winter. There was a foreboding to the room tonight, as if he were awaiting execution. He kept seeing Teresa making her entrance, ready to fuck him to sleep, only to blow up in disappointment upon being denied. What do you mean, no? she would spit, assuming the traditionally male role of aggressor. He could see her doing that; she had a dominant, masculine streak in her, especially in bed, which Ben liked (though he would never admit this, even to himself). He scratched his face though it didn’t itch.
    It was late and she was due. He passed timid looks between his alarm clock and the door, worrying a handful of sheet. She had called him after completing her shower, like always, and she’d been her usual rosewater self when she came out (after that first night, they’d relegated their flings to Ben’s bedroom; Teresa had a bad back). But who knew what lurked inside such a woman? Thanks to their dismal communication, he didn’t really know Teresa Milton at all, not so much as her maiden name, or if she’d reverted to it after Jim’s passing. The woman was a throbbing question mark, and he dreaded having to find out what was in that close-cropped head of hers.
    He endured another ten minutes, then heard footsteps. His body replied to this, all his blood going south in a kind of Pavlonian reaction, and he thought a stout NO! to his penis. It worked a little, turning off the faucet, as it were, but then she came in, and the faucet opened full throttle.
    She whispered inside, ghostly in the nightlight’s small glow. “Hey,” she said quietly, and Ben at once caught something in her voice — uncertainty?
    “Hey. Something wrong?” he asked, responding to that tentative note he’d heard.
    “You mind if I turn on the light?” she replied, not nearing.
    “No, go ahead.”
    She hit a switch, and that’s when Ben saw she was clothed — in a sheer negligee that left little to the imagination, but still a far cry from the dental-floss thongs she fancied. Then she lit over the bedside instead of pouncing him, and Ben sat up straight — something was definitely afoot. He didn’t know if this was good or bad.
    She fixed him with a tender look that was unlike her. “Can we talk, Benny?”
    “Yeah, sure,” Ben said, searching her for some hint of where this was going.
    “I’ve been thinking about ... us, and what we’ve been up to,” she said, a little ambiguously. Then, after a heavy pause: “I want to call it off.”
    Ben’s brow lightened, and he blinked several times — he felt to have been sprayed with cold water. “Call it off?” he said, not quite containing his surprise.
    Teresa sighed and looked away, her face hardening. “Please, let me explain,” she said, sounding harried.
    Ben realized she had mistaken his incredulity for disapproval. “Wait, hold up,” he interrupted. “I was about to tell you the same.” He sent her a smile.
    She brightened, making herself younger. “You don’t say?” Her accent pronounced itself in her relief, waxing cockney. She pointed at him. “You were going to ... tonight?”
    “Yeah,” he said, reflecting her repose. “It’s ...” He started to explain, and realized he’d made no preparations to do so.
    “It’s wrong, yeah?” she supplied, sounding the most candid he’d ever heard her. “I mean, it’s not like you’re my boy — mine, you know — but it’s still just ... wrong.”
    Ben nodded understanding.
    Another pause followed, and she interested herself in the floor, hardening again. “You probably think me some kind of whore, baiting you into rogering your stepmum.” Neither a question nor an accusation.
    “Not at all,” Ben said, and meant it. “I’m as guilty as you are. Everything’s been so upside down since the accident. I just kind of ...”
    “Lost your compass?”
    He refreshed his nod. “My words exactly.”
    “Yeah, same here,” she said, now appearing stupendously at ease. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I’d like you to know that.”
    “Me either,” Ben said. He’d been with three women in his life, and she was the third.
    “It’s just like you said,” she went on, looking pensively about the room. “I loved your Dad, very much, and when he died it sent me spiraling out into space. I went through this ... desperation, I guess you’d call it, where I started grasping for something — something, you know?” She made quotation marks with her fingers. “I tried the money at first, buying all those clothes and shite, and that worked a wee bit, but it was empty. Stupid. A Band-Aid over a bullet-hole, I thought it. So then I considered finding a new bloke, remarrying and all, but I wasn’t ready. Yet, at the same time, I still had this hole inside me, and I wanted so much to fill it — with anything, if you follow ...” She raised her head, appealing him with her eyes.
    “I understand completely,” Ben said, and he did. He then related his own private downward spiral, all the way from his climbing onto the wagon, to his failed aspirations as a singer/songwriter, to Jim’s death. He left nothing out, including things he’d only told his father. Only afterward did he realize he was having a real conversation with another human being, and Teresa, of all people, who had until then been little more than a cardboard cutout in his life. It changed his perception of her, much like when he saw her nude for the first time, except now she was a living, breathing person instead of a mere sexual receptacle. It was something like magic.
    “Oh, Benny,” she said when he was finished, and took his hand in a way that struck him as sincere. “Life is strange, idn’t it?”
    Ben had to laugh out loud. “I thought the same thing just this morning.”
    She joined him with a flutter of laughter, then said, “So we’re in agreement, then? No more naughty business?”
    “I think we are.”
    Smiling, she leaned in and printed a kiss over his cheek — their first, as it were. “Friends?” she said afterward.
    “Friends,” Ben agreed.
    She patted his hand and let it fall, then stood from the bed. “Goodnight, Benny,” she said, regarding him warmly.
    He returned her goodnight and she left the room, her negligee billowing against her. And with that, it was over. It hadn’t taken five minutes.
    Ben laid awake for a long time after, unsure if he had just imagined the whole thing.

    He awoke refreshed, a state alien to him these sordid six months. For a second he thought his and Teresa’s tête-à-tête was just a dream, as any significant event does in the twilight that precedes full wakefulness. Then he noted the marked lack of guilt staining his mind, and he knew it was real. He rolled out of bed and dressed, with a vigor almost childlike.
    He and Teresa took a hearty breakfast, and they actually talked, demonstrating that same old-friend interplay from last night. She hadn’t been bluffing, Ben thought; she really seemed to him a friend, as though their shared flirtation with deviance had formed a bond. It was surreally pleasant, something he thought he could get used to.
    They chatted long after breakfast was over, even while Teresa took her turn at the dishes. Then she left to do some errands and Ben was again alone. He was, remarkably, sad to see her go.
    He started for the couch afterward, purely by routine, but then caught himself and made for the basement, filled with stirrings of music where there’d been none before. His prized ‘67 Strat hung crookedly on its rack, still plugged in from yesterday’s disaster. He assumed it and cranked the amp, and within an hour, he’d written his first song in over 180 days.
    A bittersweet three-four ballad, it was about friendship achieved by the most unlikely of avenues, once-lovers come clean, discovery through loss and the comedy therein. After some deliberation, he called it “Roommates”.

Approximation

    “What about that new guy you’re seeing? Why don’t you bring him with you for Easter dinner? Your sisters and I would love to meet him.”
    She struggled to open the bag of Cheerios, her arm movement slightly impaired by the phone wedged between her chin and shoulder. “Well, Ma, his parents don’t really approve of our relationship. I don’t think kidnapping him on such a big holiday would go over so well.”
    “I understand baby, maybe next time. But for the record, they’re crazy if they don’t love you.”
    By the time Natalie convinced her mother that she really was very busy and needed to end their conversation, her Cheerios were soggy. She always ate Cheerios before her Tuesday picnics with Sam; he rarely packed enough for two, and when he did it was something abominable. She detested the pretzels, pre-packaged with their artificial cheese dip, the tuna and crackers, the bruised apples. She would tell him one day, perhaps hint at how nice it would be to make a meal of champagne and Brie. For now she was content with sharing his company and, if she was lucky, his grape soda.
    Normally the crunching sound of the cereal filled her brain and distracted her senses, but today only a muffled echo emanated from her jaw and she was forced to momentarily contemplate her situation. She closed her eyes, allowing the rhythm of her chewing to coalesce with the pulsing capillaries in her lids. “Nonsense,” she whispered, crossing the small kitchen to set the empty bowl in the sink. She let go of the bowl a half inch too soon, the impact of ceramic on metal causing the leftover milk to erupt skyward. Natalie slid back instinctively, her heels grating against the linoleum. Ignoring the mess, she glanced at the microwave. It was time to meet Sam.

    He was wearing her favorite shirt, a plain polo, unadorned by any logo, almost as gray as his eyes. He saw her coming and waved, a smile stretching across his face as she approached the park bench, their park bench. His fair hair appeared illuminated, the sunlight dancing on each strand. Natalie had never seen anything more perfect in her life.
    She seated herself, sliding her palms down her hips and under her thighs, positioning the folds of her dress to make herself comfortable.
    “You’re late,” Sam commented, his gaze focused on the playground in the distance.
    “I know, my mother called again,” she crossed her right leg over her left.
    He extended the lunchbox silently and watched as she scrutinized the contents. PB&J, slightly damp. Sunflower seeds. Chocolate pudding. Dried apricots.
    “You know honey, I’m still kind of-”
    “Full from breakfast? That’s cool, I’m pretty hungry,” he retracted the lunchbox and delved into it with his left hand, reaching for Natalie’s knee with his right. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he paused between bites, puncturing the hole in his flavored water pouch with the attached straw. “There’s this thing next Friday, I’m giving a speech at the school. It would be really great if you could be there. Plus you can meet my parents, they’re flying in the night before.”
    “I’m not sure what my schedule looks like, but I’ll do my best.” She smiled with her lips; the rest of her face was still uncertain. She rested her hand on top of his, directing her attention towards the children on the playground. As she watched them construct elaborate sandcastles, she was briefly overcome by the desire to walk over and smash them.

    She arrived four minutes late. The auditorium was filled to capacity, but Natalie preferred it this way. She located the last of the empty folding chairs that had been assembled along the back wall. She scanned the stage and found Sam, managing to make eye contact with him through her dark sunglasses. Natalie was complacent to let them rest on her nose, privately pleased that her anonymity could be somewhat preserved.
    Wedged between two other attendees, she soon found herself conversing with the woman on her right. She was only a few years her senior, perhaps thirty, perhaps thirty five. “So, which one is yours?” the woman inquired. Natalie was disturbed by the woman’s smile, her poorly applied lipstick polluting her otherwise gentle appearance. Waxy pink smudges littered her teeth.
    “Oh, I’m not a parent. Just here to see a friend,” she replied, forcing herself not to stare at the woman.
    “Well my son is going to speak. That’s him up there, in the gray shirt,” the woman gushed. Natalie felt her organs twist and swell inside of her, barely managing an “Excuse me,” to the woman before making her way down the aisle and out the double doors. Before they closed behind her, the principal’s voice was audible over the din of the crowd. His words followed her along the tiled hallway and rebounded off the lockers, surrounding her: “Welcome to Phillips Middle School. We are proud to present our eighth grade graduates...”

Because Of You

    We sat down backs to the fridge feet on the cabinets. Mellissa was putting nutella on some sort of cookies; Eric and Randy were watching Steven play some stupid golf game on the xbox. We were just talking shooting the shit, when I saw something in your eyes, something was wrong. I asked you what was wrong, you responded, “Do you promise, no, swear not to tell anyone?” I agreed. “I’m going to die” you told me, “I’m not going to be back next semester, in fact I’m going to be dead by Christmas. I haven’t registered for classes, I’ve stopped going to classes, and I’m just not giving a fuck anymore.” I asked you why you were going to be dead, genuinely worried. “I have a disease. Its incurable. The doctors say its not good, I’m not going to make it to Christmas. That’s why I make jokes about not having long to live. Please don’t tell the others, I don’t want them to worry about me.” I agreed.
    The next few weeks we cracked jokes about fucking girls so you wouldn’t die a virgin. We talked about death and the afterlife and who would show up to our funerals. We had both joking and deep philosophical conversations. I didn’t know how much that short conversation we had in his dorm carefree and innocent would cause me, because on December 23^{rd,/sup>, 2010 at 6pm you killed yourself with a gunshot to your head.}

    You knew. You knew that because I had done it before I would be helpless to help you. You knew that if you told me I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Just after thanksgiving you told me you weren’t coming back. You told me you’d be dead by Christmas. You told me you were sick, that you had been diagnosed with an incurable disease. Depression is not an incurable disease. You told me. You can’t tell me goodbye, but you can tell me your going to die? And I can’t tell anyone because I don’t want to be blamed for not stopping you. You’ve left me with this giant burden that I can’t share. After all of our conferences and telling me I was like your little sister you...
    I’m listening to the others talk about you’re saying goodbye to them. They’re all saying how they would ask you what’s wrong and you would say, “I’m fine.” Or “I can’t tell you about this one.” Or “I don’t want to scare you.” But you told me. I don’t know whether to be mad or honored. I’m mad for not asking others about you being sick. I knew you were going to do something stupid. I guess because I told you I had attempted in the past you assumed I understood. But I don’t. I don’t think I ever will.
    I wish you had left something to explain, a written note, a voice mail, a video on your computer. I took your book. I hope nobody notices, but I needed something to remember you by. I took your “Brave New World”. You had it locked away, so it had to have meant something to you. I wish I had reacted to the information better. I wish I had done so much. I miss you. A bunch of us are getting tattoos in honor of you. I designed it. I’m proud of it. It’s a Greek Cross with the words “It Takes Heart” going through the middle with your name and death date. It’s a lot like the design you were going to get, I found it on the first page of your biology notebook. I’m watching everybody cry. Erin, Jessie, Annie, Emily, and Andy are either crying or on the verge of tears. Eric and Randy are mad at you and I don’t blame them. Johnny is hacking out a lung on the floor, typical. We all drank to your memory. Bitch beer. Vanilla vodka & coke. Coors.

Who is on a Crusade here?

    Note: all italicized passages are quotes from other sources. (Because these passages often contain quotes from others, we have chosen it italicize large blocks of quotes from other sources.)

    Periodically a pair of Jehovah’s Witness women come to my door to give me pamphlets, and every time I come to the door I have a phone in my hand because I am busy working. They see that I am busy, give me copies of Awake! and The Watchtower, I thank them profusely, and they go on their way.
    Now, The Watchtower is generally a little too overloaded in quoting Scripture, so I usually look to the “Watching Your World” section of Awake! to see what spin they have on news stories. But in the November 2010 issue of Awake!, they probably dedicated close to half of the issue to Atheism.
    And I thought, usually they are trying to convert believers, so this should be interesting...
    Well, I started reading the articles, and... I think I’ll just start quoting what I’ve read, and then give you my opinion as I read it.
    On the Table of Contents page, it stated: “Some of the world’s leading atheists are on a mission: They want to convert you to their way of thinking. But is their reasoning sound?” As I read this little blurb, I thought two things... One is that I have met atheists, and none of them have ever tried to change other people’s opinions (usually people’s opinions are so rooted and unchanging that even if their beliefs don’t make sense it’s still insanely difficult to change their minds). I also thought that if atheists base their thinking on science (which is often more provable than any religion, where you have to have faith and lack of evidence to believe in something), then yes, their reasoning probably is sound.
    Humph. I found issue with their statement before I even get to their articles. This should be interesting.

    Part One: ATHEISTS on a CRUSADE
    Okay, it’s time to start with the first article: “ATHEISTS on a CRUSADE”. Their first paragraph talked about atheists “actively, angrily, passionately trying to persuade the religious to change their point of view” (which, as I said before, is something I have never seen). But the second paragraph started with a quote: “The world needs to wake up from the long nightmare of religious belief,” said Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg. Okay, we have a Nobel laureate stating an opinion. Thanks for sharing it with us, Awake!. But after Awake! finished quoting atheists in paragraph two, they started the third paragraph with: Religion has aided the cause of the new atheists, as people have become fed up with the religious extremism, terrorism, and conflict plaguing the world. “Religion poisons everything,” says one leading atheist.
    Well, thanks for point that out to us as well. (Maybe I don’t have to really make commentary, if Awake! is just going to share the atheist view with everyone.) But they do have a point: Catholic churchgoers fear the sexual safety of their young boys. Some branches of Christianity seem too far-fetched for most (like Mormons marrying multiple wives). Other religions (sorry for bringing up the radical Islamists) have such a problem with equal rights for women (as short-lived as women’s rights has attempted to be in America) or Capitalism in general that they think it is right and noble to die while trying to kill as many Capitalist Americans as they can.
    Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t think about religions starting wars, since Christians historically have killed so many people... Off the top of my head I think of the Muslim conquests, the French Wars of Religion, the Reconquista, the Crusades (and I won’t start singing the Inquisition song from Monty Python’s Flying Circus). It seems that most all religions are littered with mass bloodshed to try to prove which religion should reign supreme.
    But wait, the next paragraph makes a statement that I can support for their religious argument (though it is still only an ethical question, not a religious one). Awake! goes on to say: While the new atheists reproach religion, they revere science, some even claiming that it disproves the existence of God. (Wait a minute, I think: nothing disproves the existence of something that is never proven.) But does it? In fact, can it?
    No, Awake!, it cannot. I think that is one of the basic things we learned in Philosophy 101 in school. Something like this cannot be disproved.
    Then again, it cannot be proven either.
    If you were worried that Awake! would spend the entire article talking about the positive points to atheism, have no fear: their last paragraph turned into a question-asking section about which side you’d rather take, including asking if an atheist world would make more sense. They only use their last sentences to lead you into their next article...

    Part Two: HAS SCIENCE DONE AWAY WITH GOD?
    I turned the page for article #2 from Awake!, and started reading about the British philosopher Anthony Flew, who was highly respected as an atheist by his peers. “Theology and Falsification,” his 1950 paper, “became the most widely reprinted philosophical publication of the [20^th] century.” (Really? I thought the atheist Ayn Rand’s philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged was reprinted a lot more.) Awake! even went on to say that in 1986 Flew was called “the most profound of the contemporary critics of theism.” But the magazine went on to explain that Flew changed his mind, because of science.
    Okay, that one kind of gets me... Science is what usually pulls people away from theism. Something doesn’t jive here. But Awake! explained his reasoning (or lack thereof): He became convinced that the universe, the laws of nature, and life itself could not have arisen merely by chance.
    I turned livid when I saw this line. No, that sentence is NOT a natural progression, logically and historically (you know, based on science). A fully developed and fully functioning human being as we see it today did not just happen instantaneously. (But if you learned anything in school you would have known that, but there I go, relying on science again.)
    But you know, I shouldn’t have stopped that quote from Awake! right there, because that passage above was immediately followed by their question: Is that a reasonable conclusion?
    Well, apparently I don’t think it is, and I hope that someone who uses their brain would come to the same conclusion.

    So before I went to the subheading: How Did the Laws of Nature Arise, I went on line to see if there was any more data about this article, and the first thing I found was an article from Atheist Geek News about the magazine article (available online at http://www.atheistgeeknews.com/from-the-awake-magazine-has-science-done-away-with-god-1578.htm). “The Atheist Geek” points out that real scientists don’t agree with Flew’s interpretation of the data. But the one important point I missed that Atheist Geek News included was that readers [of Awake!] are salivating at the opportunity to tell atheists like myself that it was science that gave a prominent nonbeliever like Flew his change of mind rather than blind faith.
    Let me reiterate that – this man did not decide to believe in God, but this non-scientist questioned the science. Good point.
    As I read this article, it went on to make points I have already discussed, about how humanity started on this planet. “The Atheist Geek” states: The article [Has Science Done Away with God, in Awake!] makes another small misstep when it tells us that Flew “became convinced that the universe, the laws of nature, and life itself could not have arisen merely by chance.” Actually, this is something that theists, deists, atheists, and scientists can all agree on. To my knowledge, the scientific community has never told us that these things came about “merely by chance.” That’s a huge (and convenient) oversimplification. The real truth is that scientists still aren’t sure how the universe began, so no one is saying too much definitively about it at this point. Except creationists, that is.
    In “How Did the Laws of Nature Arise?”, Awake! Magazine instantly brings up physicist and author Paul Davies, who states “When it comes to . . . questions such as ‘Why are there laws of nature’ the situation is less clear. These sorts of questions are not much affected by specific scientific discoveries: many of the really big questions have remained unchanged since the birth of civilization and still vex us today.”
    As soon as I read this, I went back to Atheist Geek News, because they started to research what Davies said in full context. The paper being quoted in this article is online, but the Atheist Geek thought it’s important to note that Davies also said this in the same paper: “To be sure, we don’t know how life began, and we are almost completely ignorant about the origin of consciousness. But just because science doesn’t have all the answers at this time doesn’t mean that there is no satisfactory scientific account available. Curiously, the origin of the universe, which might seem to be the hardest of the three origin problems, is possibly the easiest. Cosmologists actually have a credible theoretical framework based on quantum mechanics and gravitational theory that can describe how a universe might originate in a big bang.”
    Basically, the quote in the Awake! article would probably lead most readers to believe that Davies–as a physicist–thinks that these problems cannot be explained by science, or that he–as a physicist–thinks the only way to answer them is to say “God did it.”
    Because we cannot explain something, it must be a God. Wow, I can’t explain how a car runs (because I haven’t done the research), so a God must make a car run... Sorry, that car statement might seem over the top, but in earlier history societies created gods for all of the things they could not explain – there was a Sun God, a Rain God, and so on. Since people have evolved and have found explanations for why these basic natural events exist (which even includes why societies no longer fear comets as harbingers of doom because of an angry God, once again using the concept of god to explain what we do not have the answers for), we do not assume that a single God controls these things. Since we do not know what happens after death (and we want to believe that procreation and bearing children LIKE us is not the only way we can live on), we still hold on to this notion of a God to explain to us that no, it’s not all over when we die. You can be happy forever with Jesus.
    As an editorial writer, I can understand deciding to cherry-pick quotes from a source to get your point across, but both myself and “the Atheist Geek” note how extensively Awake! Magazine chooses to only selectively quote people they are basing a few articles on in their magazine.
    Now, since I am commenting on their selectively quoting others, I will try to go over everything in their writing (because I don’t want to leave anything out and give you a false impression)...
    So, since Awake! seems to quote things regularly that do not necessarily support their argument, maybe I should let them continue to quote away... Because I also found Flew being quoted from them in their article, since Flew wrote in 2007: “but that these regularities are mathematically precise, universal, and ‘tied together.’” Well, the laws of nature are not half-hazard. There are laws we all understand and abide by in the universe, so of course all things that happen in nature are mathematically precise.
    I do appreciate in these articles that Awake! Magazine ends a lot of its listings with questions, because it is so easy to answer their questions rationally, instead of assuming the answer they want everyone to come to. Awake! asks: The question we should ask is how nature came so prepackaged in this fashion. (I thought that was pretty much answered. Sorry. Are they asking why gravity works the way it does, or why celestial objects travel in the orbits they do? Really?) But Awake! follows this question with their conclusion: This is certainly the question that scientists from Newton to Einstein to Heisenberg have asked—and answered. Their answer was the Mind of God. These men come to this opinion, like every opinion stated about religion (religious comments are opinions, since there is no proof, it is an opinion). If an opinion gains more and more scientific evidence to support it, it may become a theory (like the Big Bang Theory), but until there is evidence to support the conclusion, it is merely an opinion.So let me go on with what the article has to say. Awake! then states:
    Indeed, many highly respected scientists do not consider it unscientific to believe in an intelligent First Cause.
    And they’re right — they even brought up scientists like Newton and Einstein. But their second sentence in that paragraph started to ruffle my feathers: On the other hand, to say that the universe, its laws, and life just happened is intellectually unsatisfactory. Hmm. I’m sorry if something naturally happening (you know, getting to the laws of nature thing) is “intellectually unsatisfactory” to you, well, too bad. When people try to answer meaningful questions like these, they don’t look for answers that you will merit as “intellectually satisfactory.”
    Okay Janet, don’t get too angry, maybe their copy gets better if you read the rest of their three-sentence paragraph... Awake! finishes their thought by stating: Everyday experience tells us that design—especially highly sophisticated design— calls for a designer.
    Humph. If any of their quoted atheists were trying to state that people just spontaneously came to be in the form they are in today, you might have a point. But that was NEVER the argument, so this is a completely irrelevant sentence. If these atheists relied on Darwinism (like Richard Dawkins may, whom Awake! mentions in the next section) as evolutionary theory (and Darwinism is Natural Selection, which is different from evolution), they would most definitely not agree with the conclusions this magazine draws.

    Ah, but now we get to
    Part 3: Which Faith Will You Choose?
    Wow, I haven’t even read the paragraph, and I am angry at the world “faith” used. Atheists don’t rely on the religious notion of faith, so... Oh, there I go again, jumping to conclusions. I should read what they have to say before I blurt out my opinionated thoughts.
    The first sentence states that nobody (atheists or theists) relies purely on science. (Okay Janet, type the rest of their sentence out before you comment...) Both involve faith—atheist in purposeless blind chance; theist in an intelligent First Cause. This magazine has searched for the most denigrating-sounding words to describe that atheists don’t count on somehow living after their death to justify their existence. Atheists don’t have faith in things there is absolutely no concrete or physical evidence of – which by definition would be “blind faith.”
    Speaking of “blind faith,” Awake! then goes on to state that the new atheists promote the notion that “all religious faith is blind faith,” writes John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, England.
    Well fine, let me be a pain in the butt and get on the Web and see if I can find any sort of definition for the phrase “blind faith.” And crap, there is a band called “blind faith,” and that takes up a ton of listings, as does (lucky me, living in Chicago) the Blind Faith Café, with “innovative vegetarian cuisine” (okay, I might not go there, but as a vegetarian it’s cool to see a link like that appear).
    Sorry for that, let me get back to defining “blind faith.” Dictionary.com defines it as belief without true understanding, perception, or discrimination. But let me look a little further... apocalipsis.org contained blindfaith.htm, which stated that A popular definition of faith is “Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence”; this is what people commonly call blind faith, however that is not biblical faith. A better definition is “The belief in the historic truthfulness of the Scripture narrative, and the supernatural origin of its teachings, sometimes called historical and speculative faith.” And when having discussion in reference to religious faith versus “other” faiths, the second more descriptive definition might be helpful for the religious, but at the core the differences are the same. In this more elaborate second definition, it looks for histories truthfulness when there is not enough tangible physical evidence (and to them, a few people writing a single book collection a few hundred years after their Savior’s life ended is not enough evidence for them). Ergo blind faith.
    It may seem silly to go on about the negative implications with the phrase “blind faith,” but Awake! says atheists use purposeless blind chance, which seems a lot more daunting than the phrase “blind faith.”
    The article goes on to ask: Which faith stands up under test—that of the atheist of that of the religious believer? And it goes on to talk about the origin of life to try to make its point. They state (truthfully) that evolutionists readily acknowledge that the origin of life remains a mystery. Okay we knew that, and Awake! goes on to state that there are differences in opinion about leading theories. (Of course there are differences in opinions on theories, people debate while they learn more before the gain enough evidence to come to sound conclusions. That is the scientific method, to acquire new knowledge while correcting and integrating previous knowledge.) Dawkins postulates that due to the size of the universe there must be life somewhere else in the universe, but other scientists are not sure. Cambridge Professor John Barrow says that the belief in “the evolution of life and mind... There are just so many ways in which life can fail to evolve in a complex and hostile environment that it would be sheer hubris to suppose that, simply given enough carbon and enough time, anything is possible.”
    Well, that is one opinion. That’s what talking about theories is all about. But it is foolish to state, as Awake! does: Would chance accidents produce complex information, such as a computer program, an algebraic formula, an encyclopedia, or even a recipe for a cake? Unless the chance series of “accidents” are the evolution of humankind to the breeding of Betty Crocker, who by chance created cake recipes, or the accidents are the evolution of humankind to the breeding of Alan Turing (known to some now as the father of computer science), which led to the accidental creation of ENIAC —the first general-purpose, electronic computer, which led to people accidentally writing computer programs.
    Awake! does make a point soon afterward, though: that all of the things that man creates may not compare to the biological splendor of DNA, or the information stored in the genetic code of living organisms. But in their next section:

    Part 4: Luck as the First Cause—Good Science?
    Paul Davies (physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist working at Arizona State University) is quoted heavily in the beginning of this section, hypothesizing that the way the universe has developed allowed for life as we know it. “The universe may or may not have a deep underlying unity, but there is no design, purpose, or point to it all—at least none that would make sense to us.” As far as Mr. Davies knows. These are theories, right? Religion to him is a series of theories, but at least the conclusions he has drawn on what he believes is based on scientific data. Apparently he, or anyone really, has not learned the theory explaining it all.
    Because that’s what religion is too, isn’t it? Trying to come up with a theory to explain it all? The religious use “blind faith,” others use science and logic and reason. The only real difference is faith without evidence and faith with evidence.
    But let me get back to the article... It starts to quote molecular biologist Michael Denton, who later adapts Intelligent Design, but the theme of the rest of the article becomes guessing if it was chance that created everything, or if it was a God. If an archaeologist found a perfectly formed shape of a human bust, down to the finest details... Does he attribute this item to chance? No, his logical mind says ‘Someone made this.’ Using similar reasoning, the Bible states: “Every house is constructed by someone, but he that he constructed all things is God.” (Hebrews 3:4) Do you agree with that statement?
    And that is how Awake! finishes their article; with a series of questions. Bringing up evil perpetuated in God’s name, they postulate what others have thought: that mankind may be better off without religion. So without really forcing their beliefs down the reader’s throat in their articles, they give you only selective quotes from people, trying to lead you down the path to the decision they want you to make.

    A later article asks: A WORLD WITHOUT RELIGION—AN IMPROVEMENT? Questioning whether or not war would cease to exist. Although many evils have been done historically in God’s name, many atrocities have also existed without religion as a defined base.
    I would, however, question law professor Philip Johnson, who is quoted in this article, who concludes that ‘no God’ [means] “no objective values which we are obligated to respect.” The only reason I would question this is because I know a number of atheists who seem to hold higher values than some Christians I’ve known...

This editorial is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Janet Kuypers Note: the author photo is Kuypers at the Creation Museum 05/10/09 in Kentucky, photographed with the “Garden of Eden” behind her.

Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet I’ll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers’. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren’t they?

what is veganism?

A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don’t consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.

why veganism?

This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.

so what is vegan action?

We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.

A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.

vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies) cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist. I really like (“Writing Your Name”). It’s one of those kind of things where your eye isn’t exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked “knowledge” for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.

Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor’s copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@scars.tv... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv

Mark Blickley, writer The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)

functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen

We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.

Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site) I just checked out the site. It looks great.

Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.

John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs) Visuals were awesome. They’ve got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool. (on “Hope Chest in the Attic”) Some excellent writing in “Hope Chest in the Attic.” I thought “Children, Churches and Daddies” and “The Room of the Rape” were particularly powerful pieces.

Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.

Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies) The new cc&d looks absolutely amazing. It’s a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can’t wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!!

Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Mark Blickley, writer
The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.

Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We’re only an e-mail away. Write to us.

Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST’s three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST’s SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does “on the road” presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

Brian B. Braddock, WrBrian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) Brian B. Braddock, WrI passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
“Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
“Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.

Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info!

The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright © 1993 through 2011 Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I’ll have to kill you.
Okay, it’s this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you’ll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we’re gonna print it. It’s that simple!

Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It’s a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the 1999 book “Rinse and Repeat”, the 2001 book “Survive and Thrive”, the 2001 books “Torture and Triumph” and “(no so) Warm and Fuzzy”,which all have issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us and tell us you saw this ad space. It’s an offer you can’t refuse...

Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.

Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It’s your call...

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: “Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. “Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer’s styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.

Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Children, Churches and Daddies the unreligious, non-family oriented literary and art magazine Scars Publications and Design ccandd96@scars.tv http://scars.tv Publishers/Designers Of Children, Churches and Daddies magazine cc+d Ezines The Burning mini poem books God Eyes mini poem books The Poetry Wall Calendar The Poetry Box The Poetry Sampler Mom’s Favorite Vase Newsletters Reverberate Music Magazine Down In The Dirt magazine Freedom and Strength Press forum plus assorted chapbooks and books music, poery compact discs live performances of songs and readings Sponsors Of past editions: Poetry Chapbook Contest, Poetry Book Contest Prose Chapbook Contest, Prose Book Contest Poetry Calendar Contest current editions: Editor’s Choice Award (writing and web sites) Collection Volumes Children, Churches and Daddies (founded 1993) has been written and researched by political groups and writers from the United States, Canada, England, India, Italy, Malta, Norway and Turkey. Regular features provide coverage of environmental, political and social issues (via news and philosophy) as well as fiction and poetry, and act as an information and education source. Children, Churches and Daddies is the leading magazine for this combination of information, education and entertainment. Children, Churches and Daddies (ISSN 1068-5154) is published monthly by Scars Publications and Design. Contact Janet Kuypers via e-mail (ccandd96@scars.tv) for snail-mail address or prices for annual collection books. To contributors: No racist, sexist or blatantly homophobic material. No originals; if mailed, include SASE & bio. Work sent on disks or through e-mail preferred. Previously published work accepted. Authors always retain rights to their own work. All magazine rights reserved. Reproduction of Children, Churches and Daddies without publisher permission is forbidden. Children, Churches and Daddies copyright Copyright © 1993 through 2011 Scars Publications and Design, Children, Churches and Daddies, Janet Kuypers. All rights remain with the authors of the individual pieces. No material may be reprinted without express permission.