She Just Called

I just wish that George weren’t crazy.
I’m about to cry.
It hurts so much. And he can be
So kind to those he loves.
He never liked me even once.
And now I’m getting old.
The people he is chummy with
Are felons, cons and thieves.
I would rather be alone -
God help me! Be alone
Than any longer breathing in
The refuse of the earth.
It’s their genes or how they’re raised
Or something else entirely.
I don’t know and I don’t care.
Just make them go away.

As I See It

Everyone loves Hammerstein.
And for 10 million years
Everyone believed the world was flat.
Those who run in gangs believe
In god, just like your mother.
Big guys win. But adaptation
Makes the spirit numb.

Flailing

One man stands
Has a gun in his hand
Has gum on his breath has
Things in his desk
One man runs
Away from the sun
Has reasons enough
And burdens

When the showdown comes
The action will hum
Like a shadow on stone
Where a bullet seeks bone
Where justice is done
And atonement is gone
From the table
Now and forever

One man stands
His heart in his hands
He’s spit out his gum and
Cleared out his desk
One man runs
His face to the sun
Has hope after all
And wings

The Great Sea Yearns

A body washed up beside the river
In East Saint Louis today,
His head was blown off,
But I imagined he was once
A close friend.
The protesters fill the park downtown
With blackboard picket signs
And pleas of redemption,
And the police,
Dressed tightly in riot gear,
Conduct a symphony of broken bones with their batons
And speeding rubber bullets,
And the tear gas brings rain.
The earth swarms into the room
With the stench of the beheaded,
Of the disappeared,
The living mad,
And the damned.
Penguins are just a ball of sickly oil
Their wings cannot lift,
But tempted with air
And the mocking sky
Every waking moment,
Only to plunge fatigued into the water
And drown.
The sun rising
Is just another dirty trick by god.
The cigarette ash
Evaporates into the air,
And the phone rings in silence.
As the semis pass,
They shake the foundation of the house
And the frames from their mantels.
Two more bodies float down the Mississippi
And into the sun.
Men murdered for no reason.
I’ve seen men killed over tennis shoes,
Over a jacket,
Over a brick of junk,
Over five dollars,
Over a whore.
The worst men have the best jobs,
And the best men have the worst jobs,
Or are unemployed,
Or starving,
Or rotting in a smirking madhouse.
We have one package of instant noodles left,
And the dehumidifier hums
As we smoke our cigarettes
Bellow the cracked window in the corner,
We listen to the sound of sirens seizure in through the window,
As the police go from hood to hood
Shooting,
Jailing,
Beating,
Stabbing,
Blinding,
And raping good people,
But we have done this to ourselves.
We deserve this.
The sun has become aghast with waiting.
Our hearts have given up on us,
And we will be left to rot
In a sea of dead plants,
Wired thorns and sticks shriveling in a windless sky.
Somehow,
I’m glad we’re through.
Maybe we don’t deserve to be saved,
Maybe we just deserve to be entertained.
The absence of art has dealt its blow,
The war has dealt his while smiling,
Decayed love evaporates us with the stale wind,
The way we lived each day
Like the next were
Infinity.
When the bombs finally roll in
Like chariots,
I don’t care what they do.
We’ve already killed ourselves
Each day we get out of bed.
So I keep smoking my cigarette.
I take a deep drag,
And hold it there in my blackened lungs
As I hear more shooting in the streets,
And wait without
Wonder.

Family Poison Pack

Buy ‘em up, a dirty eight-count, the family poison pack.
Fast ingredients melt through metal.
Do not thaw until consumption.
Never forget the prime directive.

They’re only going down the throat and flooding through the body.

They only power vital organs: heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, brain, etc.
Dirty fuel is better than empty.
Empty is a kind of hell.

Family poison pack, dirty dollars, a week of mangy meals.
It isn’t great, but we’re buying more.
We can’t afford escargot.

Give me a gut bomb, a foamy filler.
Wrap it up all nice and tight.

Brian Looney Bio

    Brian Looney was born 12/2/85 and is from Albuquerque, NM. He likes it when Lady Poetry kicks him in the head. The harder the better. Check out his website at Reclusewritings.com.

On a New Psychological Disorder

Symptoms:
                    frequent frustration
leading to extreme job dissatisfaction,
loss of morale leading to complete apathy
There had been a great debate whether to make
this a brand-new syndrome,
                                              or
to treat it as a subset of an existing disorder
The new disorder:
                              PMSD
(Post-Moronic Stress Disorder,
the traumatic experience of working for stupid people)

Uncle Sam gives Liberty the ax

Poor ol’ Uncle’s
gone an done it, axed
statuesque Ms. Liberty.
Whack! Hack!
He’s offed an arm!
Screech! Slash!
She’s lost her head!
Chop! Plop!
Liberty’s not got
a leg stand on!
Now, arrested through lawsuit,
ol’ Uncle’s protestin
HE’s a hapless victim
who’s lost
his inalienable freedom
to express
constitutional
proclivities.

The Poet

His words enter your words’ black pupil-periods,
converting your outlook into insights.
In an age in which Truth is a pop-
ularity contest polled inside one’s peer group
we’re a set-up for the wimpy King Success
instead of the poet, Rabbi Jesus Christ Super-
star Robin Hood, who gives back more than he heists.
He’s Marx’s ideal without the devil
of a religion called politics dressed
in Good Intention’s diabolical disguise
that gulls the gullible for all it’s worth
and gives us a license that’s hardly poetic
though is kinetic enough to blow up the world.

About Andrew H. Oerke

    Poems by Andrew H. Oerke have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Poetry, and in numerous other magazines. In 2006 two new books of poetry by Andrew H. Oerke, African Stiltdancer and San Miguel de Allende, were published jointly by Swan Books and the UN Society for Writers and Artists. They have received the United Nations Literature Award. ’s most recent book, Never Seek to Tell Thy Love, was published in 2010.

Bastard

Covered with dark shades
The black eye she carries
In time fades
Her place in life - scary
Why does this happen? makes no since
The bastard’s angry way
Once again the blood soaked rag she stands at the sink to rinse
It’s all her fault, according to her husband Ray
She begins to question it as well
“What did I do?” She asks herself
“What story will I tell?”
“Perhaps a book fell from the shelf.”
Young Mary sees it all
Time and time again
The blood, the tears, then to the floor she sees her mother fall
Her mother controlled and trained
What is she to do?
He has isolated her
No money, no job, no family or friends to run to
But she stays day after miserable day, hiding it from everyone
Police come and go for years
Young Mary’s now grown
With her own fears
She has a man of her own

Mom’s First Husband

On nights Joni Mitchell’s voice unspooled from the spinning
record and Mom slouched in front of the speakers, Dad

leaned into the cupboard for SpaghettiOs or Chef Boyardee.
On nights Mom stared at that blue face on the album cover
and traced the name TODD written in unfamiliar block letters

in the upper right corner, Dad tucked us into bed without
washing faces or brushing teeth. On nights Mom sobbed,

cried out, I should have stopped him, Dad lifted the needle,
slipped the cover from her hands and led her down the hall
as he whispered, he got drunk. He got on that motorcycle.

Corey Cook Biography (20120312)

    Corey Cook is the author of two chapbooks: Rhodendron in a Time of War (Scars Publications) and What to Do with a Dying Parakeet (Pudding House Publications). His work has recently appeared in Foliate Oak Literary Journal and new pieces are forthcoming in Red River Review, The Rusty Nail, and THRUSH Poetry Journal. Corey edits The Orange Room Review with his wife, Rachael. They live in Thetford Center, Vermont with their two daughters.

Us, Actually Touching

I heard a physicist explain
that when two solid objects
are pressed together
they never actually touch

I can’t imagine it
but maybe
because electrons repel
all objects remain one molecule apart

I wonder if this is why
when I see you
and when we embrace
I want to hold you tighter and tighter

because I want to defy
the laws of physics
and feel that contact with you
as long as I possibly can

is this why whenever we embrace
I want my face at your neck
so that I inhale you deeply
I breathe you in

because I want to experience you
with all my senses
I want our molecules to intermingle
I want us to actually touch

Beauty in the Eyes of Einstein

I heard NASA scientists say
that Einstein dismissed some of his theories

even some theories we may know all too well

but Einstein didn’t like some of his theories
because he thought they weren’t beautiful

and I wonder:
what is beauty

is it the geomagnetic abberations
of the Aurora Borealis
dancing along the horizon
at the arctic circle

is it the way you look at me
with those gorgeous doe eyes
after we’ve been apart so long

is it the scattered collisions from comet
Shoemaker Levy-9 into the planet Jupiter

is it what I feel
when your arms are finally around me
and I don’t want to open my eyes
and I never want to let go

is it the eternally changing
whisps of volcanic trails
in the Saturn moon Titan’s atmosphere

is it the way that listening
to the music you make
fills me with such energy

or is it converting matter into pure energy
with just the right formula

Einstein believed
“The most beautiful thing
we can experience
is the mysterious.
It is the source
of all art and science.”

so am I driven
to look up at the stars in the night sky
to see stars from billions of years ago
to fall in love every night

Einstein reminds us,
“We are all ruled
in what we do
by impulses”

so is it how on impulse
I move a bit closer to you
so I can feel the heat from your body
so close to mine

we ask, what is beauty

they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder
so it makes me wonder

Gonna Break

after almost losing my life
and unable to hold a job
i
became a dependent
on someone with better fortune
who threw me a life preserver
attached to a really rugged rope
so i could stat afloat
over these tumultuous waters

and this life line’s been a godsend
as i’m riding the waves
from atop this buoyant ring

it’s been a nice ride
when my savior’s good fortune
covered my nine hundred dollar a week
medication, allowing me
to survive and thrive

and yeah, i hated
becoming a dependent
having to survive
off someone else’s good fortune
having no control
over that life line,
letting me live,
but holding me in

but at least i’m on this little donut
my little life preserver
being dragged behind my own cruise ship

and it was all smooth sailing
and the weather was perfect
until the big storm came along
and almost overturned
my little life ring

when i looked up
the cruise ship was gone
and all that was carrying me along
was a little row boat

that’s when i realized
my salvation, my special someone,
the one with the better fortune
they lost their job too

so now i float here
leaning on my little life preserver
and that rope to that little boat
seems to be getting
thinner and thinner

i look at the shoreline
knowing no one on land
would want me for work

so i look back at my life line
wondering when
that rope
is
gonna break

mechanical soldiers

power line towers
are my transformers

they’re our little mechanical soldiers

they’ll rip the electric lines out
when they come to attack

Zach Makes Me
Think About These Things

Okay,
so cats
reallylove
to eat fish.
And the things is,
cats are
deathly afraid
of water.

Fascinating.

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.
    Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, Prominent Tongue, Chaotic Elements, Fusion, her death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, and A Picture’s Worth 1,000 Words, (available a a color and as a b&w photography journalism and art book). Three collection books were also published of her work in 2004, Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art).

Climbing Mt. Fuji

    I was climbing Mt. Fuji when seemingly out of nowhere appeared a beautiful geisha. She didn’t speak but beckoned me to follow her and I did. She led me back to a small but very charming palace. She took me to her private chambers, turned her back to me and unhooked one clasp that held her entire kimono in place. When it fell to the floor, a butterfly emerged and flew out the window. I followed its flight. It grew and grew in size until the entire sky was darkened with the expanse of its wings. Temperatures dropped and clouds boiled in the heavens, an ominous warning that storms which would destroy the earth would soon arrive. Suddenly, the enormous bulk of Godzilla rose over the skyline of Tokyo. He had a huge flyswatter in his hand. With one mighty muscular swipe, he smashed the butterfly and the entrails splattered as far as Vladivostok. I returned to the trail but was extremely hungry, so instead of completing the climb of Mt. Fuji I went back to base camp and ate a light but satisfying meal of tofu and rice.

John Rachel short bio

    John Rachel has a B. A. in Philosophy, has traveled extensively, is a songwriter and music producer, and a left-of-left liberal. Prompted by the trauma of graduating high school and having to leave his beloved city of Detroit to attend university, the development his social skills and world view were arrested at about age 18. This affliction figures prominently in all of his creative work. He is author of four full-length novels, From Thailand With Love, The Man Who Loved Too Much, 11-11-11 and the just published 12-12-12. He considers his home to be Japan but has been traveling in Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan while he works on new stories and promotes his latest project, Leaving On A Jet Plane, a creative non-fiction piece about his five plus years as a literary vagabond.

I wake up with my nose in Kafka’s dungbeetle

    I wake up with my nose in Kafka’s dungbeetle. I am a mosquito, & when Kafka wants to question our relationship, it’s serious. The dungbeetle explains to Kafka that she’s pregnant, & breaking up with me would leave the child fatherless. Kafka says when the father is a mosquito, it’s better for the child to have nothing to do with him, leaving my nose limp & depressed. Kafka, thank Jesoo, retires to his castle, & we’re free to marry or not. I take Franz seriously. Maybe a mosquito is not capable of raising a kid that pops out of a dungbeetle. Maybe the little bastard is best off fending for himself, & I should keep my nose out of his business. It’s a jungle out there, & mosquitos thrive in the jungle, but a dungbeetle is better off in a toilet where he’s closer to the dung.

    “Darling,” I say, “Kafka has got a point.”
    “Not like your point,” she says defensively.
    “But we’re really entirely different, love. How can a mosquito & a dungbeetle form a lasting, mature relationship? It’s like me marrying a hippo.”
    “You have something against my hips?”
    “Of course not. You have lovely hips. But what will our neighbors think when we try to take a walk together? They probably won’t allow us to move into their neighborhood. They’ll fear their property value will collapse.”
    “My god, mosquito! You talk like we’re African Americans invading a Polish community in the 60s.”
    “I don’t care what date it is. They’ll try to step on you, & for me they’ll bring out the swat team. They’d rather spray the entire city than keep us around.”
    “Oh, we dungbeetles will be around long after them. That doesn’t go for nosy mosquitos like you.”
    “See, we’re already fighting, & we’re not close to being married.”
    “You make any more comments about my hips, we’re even farther away from getting married!”
    “It wasn’t about your hips. It was about hippos.”
    “I know what you really meant.”
    Oh, Lord, Kafka knew more about dungbeetles than he’d put in a story. I hear the sirens. They’re coming to get me. I can’t wait around for the swat team. I buzz on out of there.

Republicans prove their worth

    Republicans prove their worth by having the legs of all women about to have abortions tied together & sent to Auschwitz. They can’t abort now. Instead they explode for little perverts & monsters to fly into the world to perish in agony, as the Republicans look on & cheer. The women, now pieces of flesh & blood, are too dead to vote, which is another Republican victory, because the fewer people who vote, the greater chance for a GOP victory in our American plutocracy & slaughterhouse.
    The stars & stripes flap & blaze over the American Legion bldg as the female freaks & misfits fall around the flagpole as a mound of ashes. Job sits on the pole & skewers himself through the asshole & up out of the hole in the top of his head, the blood gushing up like Old Faithful & spreading over the nation in gory glory. The ashes are hot & roast Job’s fanny to the bone. The bones break up into candles burning in Job’s cake of feculence, which the little girls eat to celebrate their birth- day party, as the crones of Auschwitz scream & scream ...

Idol Worship

    I was working on a manuscript when Max walked in and sat down on my couch. He had his own coffee in a thermal cup.
    I hit “save,” turned around in my swivel chair and waited for him to speak.
    “Go to church today?” he asked.
    “Yes, I did.”
    “Take part in that cannibalistic ritual?”
    “You mean the bread and the wine? Yes, we do that every Sunday. And not only that, we lit another Advent candle.”
    “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Got to have candles. Some big, muck-a-muck candle maker must have been on the first ritual committee back in Biblical times. Made sure you churchers burned up lots of candles. The Papists are especially big on that. And come to think of it, the Jews have their Menorah.”
    “Can’t have religious rites without candles, Max,” I said.
    “You know, talking about candles reminds me of a time when I took part in a religious ceremony,” Max said, looking out the window.
    “Surely, you jest!” I said skeptically.
    “No, I really did. It was a Buddhist rite.”
    “No doubt caught in a compromising position with a delicate flower of the Asian persuasion by heavily armed, non-Anglo-Saxons and had to convert to save your skin?”
    “No, nothing like that,” he said, laughing. “I’ll tell you about it.”
    To set the scene, I have to tell you that Max is a big fellow and spent years as a spook doing work that, to this day, he doesn’t talk about. I know he has been through some rough stuff but I probably don’t want to know what. In other words, he can be dangerous.
    He leaned back, took a sip of his coffee and began.
    “It was a long time ago when I was fairly young and new to Southeast Asia. I had been, ah, working in some European venues and had just arrived in Thailand, staying in Bangkok, waiting for a flight upcountry to Takhli. Well sir, I got tired of sitting around the hotel, so I went out on the street to do some sight-seeing. It was about eight in the evening and most of the stores were closed. I was strolling along looking in shop windows when I felt a tug on my pants leg. I looked down and there was this little Thai girl, couldn’t have been more than four or five, cutest little thing you ever saw, looked more like a little Chinese doll than anything. When I looked at her, she said, ‘You buy!’
    “She was holding some stuff in her hands and insisting that I buy it. It was a little garland of fleshy flowers, a small candle and a package of something wrapped in delicate green paper. I said, ‘No, I don’t want to buy.’ But she insisted, she frowned and became very intense and said, ‘You buy, you buy!’
    “Of course she was so cute, I couldn’t resist her. I looked over in the shadows of a doorway and saw what must have been her mother, holding a supply of the goods displayed by the little girl, watching us intently. I finally said, ‘Okay, I buy. How much?’
    “She answered, ‘One baht.’ So I fished a baht, which was worth about a nickel, out of my pocket and handed it to her. She shook her head and said, ‘three baht!’
    I pretended outrage and said, ‘You said one baht.’ She knew she had put one over on me and smiled the most endearing smile you ever saw and said, ‘One baht each.’ So I fished out two more baht and she handed me the goods.
    “So I had a candle, a flower garland and a package of something or other. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the stuff and walked down the street sniffing the flower garland. It had a sweet and pleasant aroma. But I got the drift that I was in over my head when I met some round-eyes walking the other direction. They looked at me like I was Jojo, the two-headed boy in the side show.
    “When I approached the end of the block, I realized why I was getting those stares. At the corner, there was a plaza given over to worship. There was a great, six-armed Buddha sitting there on a covered dais of some kind with its back to the street. In front of the Buddha was an iron fence about three feet high upon which dozens of flower garlands were draped. In front of the idol, there was a bed of sand in which candles and incense sticks were burning. You can imagine my consternation; me, a non-believer, carrying the implements of a pagan rite in my hands. I turned and started to bolt but who confronted me and barred my path but the little girl who had sold me the stuff. She looked at me intently without smiling. Now understand that in my day, I have walked through some pretty unpleasant chaps who attempted to bar my way, so to speak. But this tiny little doll-like girl had me buffaloed. I stood there looking at her, trying to figure out what to do next.
    “About that time, a Thai lad of about nineteen or twenty saw my consternation and offered to help. He opened the paper-wrapped package which turned out to be incense sticks, counted them to make certain there was the right number and explained to me that I was to approach the idol, drape the flowers on the iron fence, stick the incense sticks upright in the sand, light the candle and light each incense stick, then place the candle in the sand all while maintaining a pious attitude.
    “I looked back at the little girl who was still watching me and walked over to the entrance to the plaza. Accustomed to Middle Eastern religions and concomitant hysteria, I assumed I would get stares and perhaps a few smart remarks from the spectators and worshippers since I stood out among those relatively small people like a sore thumb. (Max is six feet, two inches tall.) But no one seemed to notice. I approached the altar with bowed head, placed the flowers over a fence picket, lit the candle, lit the incense and placed the candle in the sand. Then I backed away slowly to a respectful distance and hastened out of the plaza. To my surprise, no one seemed to even notice me, a tall round-eye in their midst paying homage to a six-armed idol! When I got back on the sidewalk, that little girl was nowhere to be seen so I went to the nearest bar and had a martini.”
    Max was silent for a moment and I said, “I’m trying to discern a moral somewhere in that story, Max.”
    Max finally said, “What really went through my mind was if I left without using those things in the proper manner, that little girl would have been disappointed. She obviously believed very strongly in the religion and the ritual, otherwise, she wouldn’t have followed me to make sure I acted responsibly. The ritual meant nothing to me, of course. It was just that little girl’s eyes.”
    “So you’re not so tough, you’re a big softy, Max!” I laughed. “You did something just to keep from disappointing a little girl. If one of your marriages had lasted and you had a daughter, she would have wrapped you around her little finger.”
    Max sat quietly for a long while, looking at the floor. “I doubt that,” he said. “Well, I’ve got to go.”
    When he left, I could have sworn I detected a little bit of regret in his eyes, but then it might just have been my imagination.

The Interruption

    Near downtown is the north end neighborhood. Really, it’s just a couple of streets, not quite the Nothing side of town, but in close enough proximity to turn noses upward. He bought his house forty years ago, however, and he damn sure wasn’t leaving because things around it had changed. As long as people stayed out of his yard, fine.
    He had written for The Wanderville Journal, but thought it necessary to retire when the good subject matter retired. His children were gone, called sometimes. His wife was dead. And so were all their original neighbors. But he kept his lawn mowed, updated the paint often enough, and watered his plants. He sort of enjoyed the way he was viewed in the community. The old man. He liked the fact that anyone who knew he was sharp, one of the sharpest, was dead or gone. There were no prospects, however, and the light at the end of that tunnel grew dimmer and dimmer every day.

    He formed the story in his head the way he did the pieces he had written for the journal. He sat next to the front window in that dark green recliner, hands folded in his lap, a thick slice of morning light showing through the sheers. He reflected.

    Not only one, no, I had four or five different ways to say it, ways to show it. Need. But nothing would have kept them. She is gone. He is gone. Everyone is gone. What is the point?
    Reflecting, I can see where I went wrong, believing what I knew to be false. However, the con artists were not much different from the pieces-of-work at my last family reunion. Family; the fiction of it, the unconditional nothingness of it, the lullaby, just people pretending to love you. So, who am I to judge them for taking advantage of my willingness to play stupid, to pull the wool over my own eyes? The pyramid scheme was not alluring. I am not stupid. No. It was the ‘not my life’ aspects of the situation, the ‘not my same old boring life’ aspects that snatched my attention, that asked me how far I could take them, rather than how far I could be taken. So, you see, some of the manipulation, most of it, was mine as well. Mine.
    You stand back at some point in your life. Some point. You take a long, too long, look and maybe you don’t like anything you see. Maybe you realize, all at once, where all you have done has placed you in the world. Maybe all you see is quiet, dim, weightless, uninterrupted life. Maybe it is a slow wasting away of the intelligence you took so long to sharpen to fine point. And maybe you hate it. The woman was beautiful, yes, and so was the man, though that was not enough. I am out of a bit of money as well, yes. But I have been truly interrupted for the first time in my life. I liked it. I am 69 years old, and I have never had so much fun.

W. Dontā Andrews Bio

    W. Dontā Andrews lives and writes in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He studied Business Management at Cornerstone University. He studies life for writing material. He founded and has run a regularly attended writers group for the past 6 years. His work was also published in the anthology “All Poetry is Prayer” (Creative Justice Press). Recently he finished his first book, a collection of stories and poetry concentrated on self awareness, or rather the epidemic of its absence in the world today. It includes the pieces accepted for publication in CC&D Magazine. He is currently working on a novel.

Fine

    Conrad Conway’s problem was he never had very-good morals. Or at least, that was the way it felt. After all, why was life so hard all the time? It seemed not having very good morals explained it; or at least partly explained it.
    But Conrad Conway tried real hard, and I mean REAL hard. He played bass in his church’s choir. He believed in it, and it was a friendly church, not some mean-spirited church.
    But seeing as Conrad Conway’s morals were never very good, he had to blow off steam every once in a while. That is, just a little bit of steam. Conrad Conway was a good man, but sometimes...
    So late Friday afternoon he cashed his paycheck and went grocery shopping. Now... Conrad Conway was middle aged, so he had to watch all his fatty foods, and his triglycerides were up around 600 or so, so I’m sure you can see going grocery shopping isn’t easy, especially when your morals aren’t very good and you play bass in the church choir. You take your life in your hands when you go grocery shopping in the country.
    In his cart it was the usual cereal, milk and orange juice for breakfast. That’s good for you. But still it’s just cereal, milk and orange juice, so Conrad Conway picked up some eggs and bacon for good measure. Puts meat on your bones and gives you strength. He also dropped in a package of prunes, but he knew he wouldn’t eat them. They were good for you.
    Then he added in the roast beef, fried chicken and white bread. On top of it, candy and frozen pizza. And in addition to it all: a twelve pack of beer! Conrad Conway figured his triglycerides weren’t that bad. The thought of enjoying that brew put Conrad Conway into a good mood.
    But that good mood didn’t last very long; for you see, something happened in the supermarket that changed everything. Conrad Conway ran into Mrs. Angelina Goodman. Mrs. Goodman and Conway both attended the same church, and Mrs. Goodman sang in the choir along with Conrad Conway so there was no escape for our unfortunate little friend. He had to approach and be scrutinized. Considering Conrad Conway’s morals were never very good, it wasn’t looking good...
    “How are you, Mrs. Goodman?” asked Conrad Conway. CC always liked to be respectful to the elderly, especially all the proper ladies. Mrs. Goodman had lived in this town for years, and she was very respected as being a woman who loved and tended her family.
    “Oh, I’m fine Conrad,” replied Mrs. Goodman. “I hope you’re fine yourself and in good spirits today. Do you have any plans for the weekend?”
    “My brother is coming over from out-of-state,” explained CC.
    “Oh, that’s wonderful. I hope you enjoy his stay,” said Mrs. Goodman delightfully. Then Mrs. Goodman caught sight of Conrad Conway’s grocery cart.
    “Oh what have we here... in this cart... I see roast beef, fried chicken and frozen pizza. At least you bought the prunes. They’re good for you.”
    “Yes, they are Mrs. Goodman,” said CC. But Mrs. Goodman wasn’t finished there...
    “Oh! And I see you have beer!” said Mrs. Goodman with a chuckle. “I suppose it’s always good to have beer on hand when family comes over.”
    “Yes, it is,” replied Conrad Conway. He had been hoping Mrs. Goodman wouldn’t see the beer. She really did seem to have very-good morals, and CC looked up to her.
    “I usually don’t eat this way,” explained CC. “It’s a special occasion.”
    “I see,” said Mrs. Goodman. “Well, I’ll be seeing you along.”
    “OK.”
    That next Sunday morning Conrad Conway ran into Mrs. Angelina Goodman in front of the church before the service. The pastor was present, so Conrad Conway had to put on his best face.
    “And how are we this lovely Sunday morning,” asked Mrs. Goodman with dignity.
    “Fine.”

Greenlighting Brennan
part one

    On August 3, 2009, Raul Sanchez scrutinized a police car weaving in and out of traffic. Anger tinged with envy faded as his six-foot frame surveyed yellow, sun-seared metal. This job was far from the fifteen-week study he’d completed with honors that had trained a high school graduate for criminal investigation duty in field units of the US Army Criminal Investigation Command. He had almost given up any hope of someone in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) would rescue his employment application.
    If luck held up this job meant a paycheck, an end to the sleazy Plush Poodle Motel accommodations and most of all, freedom for a twenty-two year old veteran of the Army’s Third Infantry Division smothered by a VA recovery program. His anxiety about the dangers of unfamiliar air-conditioning in a civilian Caterpillar D7H dozer proved well founded—it was not just a body being lulled to sleep—the newly learned psychic defenses were missing in action.
    He plunged his face into cold air that gushed from vents. Metal holding tinted glass moaned as he nervously fanned his wet crew cut. He watched the engine’s exhaust twist like a purple ribbon when a dust devil descended on the Green Zone, but slapped his face until he again saw tourists entering Las Vegas’ casinos.
    Over there he had learned to respect an inner sentinel, intuition’s whisper that had guided him around unseen hazards. It had almost cost him this opportunity; he had balked at accepting Fenton’s job offer, something about the guy didn’t feel right. Fear of a life in Calexico’s barrio had won out, Rosanna was right. “The job was a stepping stone to respectability—you take it.”
    An hour later, the body was engaged but the brain drifted. A weak premonition had intensified into an undeniable fact, danger lurked under the dozer gorging asphalt miles from Baghdad’s IUDs. He had heard from a soldier on the Strip that the Green Zone was now called the International Zone, Streets in Baghdad where coalition planners lived as they engineered an unlikely democracy were now more heavily guarded.
    Sanchez remembered what a Baghdad resident, who had peddled heroin to his outfit, had said about a time before the American bombing when tree-lined boulevards carried every kind of transport from mule to eighteen-wheeler. Saddam Hussein’s palaces would need vertical height and over-the-top exteriors to resemble Las Vegas’ ornate playground, but images warped by heat rising from the sand conspired against certainty.
    Suddenly, the polished blade struck concrete. Stepping outside, he saw splintered wood and fluttering fabric. Pink and gray stripes of cloth triggered paralysis. He’d seen this before when Baath Party residents in early 2003 had looted Saddam’s palaces in the Green Zone. He’d watched a militant urinate on a U.S. infantry man’s corpse before shredding an American flag.
    The sight of a parked dozer propelled Wayne Fenton’s pickup. Neither a blaring horn nor dust raised by a skidding stop had an effect; Sanchez was shut down, the dozer soon followed.
    “Get your ass in gear, Sanchez!”
    “Hell no, I found flag!”
    Sanchez kept his back to Fenton examining pieces of an American flag and moved to the blade. His hands explored concrete blocks, splintered wood, shredded flag and sand. Fenton saw a face frozen in fear as Sanchez fell backwards with a hand stuck to a human skull. He scampered away on hands and heels like a crab. Fenton lifted Sanchez to his feet and flipped the fleshless head on its side with a boot.
    Worms fled from unwelcomed light into eye sockets to join a writhing mass within. A slug-like creature entered a hole above the left eye socket in line with missing bone at the back.
    “This parking lot of yours is a G.I. graveyard.”
    “Dig on the Strip and you find losers. The dummy must have pissed off the mob.”
    “He’s wrapped in our flag. I’m calling the cops.”
    “I wouldn’t do that; this guy’s got strings attached.”
    At 8 P.M. Fenton walked by the empty dozer near rotating HAZ-MAT lights. Casino workers, day laborers and tourists gawked at shadows inside a tent where the Clarke County Coroner wore a facemask and radiation badge as he shifted sand. Bones passed a ticking Geiger counter under Sanchez’s scrutiny.
    “Is he hot?”
    “Maybe, but I always work far from the public. This was all downwind when the Army tested warheads in the fifties. You’re hearing radioactive fill used on the Strip.”
    “What’s happens to me now?”
    The coroner looked at the young facial appearance assembling a flag-puzzle. “You’re still missing stars forget about that our homicide detective has a few questions.” He motioned with his eyes that Sanchez’s job had ended. Two policemen closed as Sanchez returned the coroner’s missing clipboard. The mystery had been partially solved: male, late-forties and likely cause of death, one .45 caliber bullet through the brain.
    “Did you take anything else?”
    “Can we speak privately, Sir?”
    Sanchez waited until the last policeman left, but he was lost for words, fearing the wrong one would mean permanent unemployment.
    “I don’t want any trouble, but the guy who hired me heard a rumor about the burial.”
    “What was it?”
    Silence followed sagging shoulders. A lowered head watched boot push sand into a ridge. The coroner waited, and then a frown meant he’d seen enough. After another agonizing minute, the boot rested and a hand dug into a pants pocket. The corroded dog tag fell to the coroner’s hand as the other summoned uniforms.
    “I figured he was Army, but I was wrong.”
    “The Navy finds Joffre...you steal his dog tags...let’s hear that rumor?”
    “Can’t we forget about that?”
    “You’re on your way to meet Brennan.”
    Inside the tent a blue suit cast a dull reflective sheen—evidence of too many pressings—on Brennan’s polished head. The whisper Sanchez heard was loud, “don’t trust this man.” To his surprise, Daniel Brennan proved accommodating. The interrogation took place in Little Caesar’s, a disheartened relic amid the glitz of a constantly changing Las Vegas.
    Sanchez suppressed giggles as he followed an expansive posterior and swaying ponytail. He watched as Brennan beheld a bloated five and one-half foot reflection in the glass door that dipped to straighten a red tie. A wink erupted from the slit above a rosy jowl as Brennan lifted a kitten. “I’d buy this guy a drink if she served cow juice in her dump.”
    Each shifted his eyes as they entered. Seeing no windows and a padlocked back door, Sanchez’s only option was to give the rotund man a snow job. Vanna White and Pat Sajack mumbled from a wedge-shaped overhead speaker tied to a blinking coin-operated screen that recreated Wheel of Fortune. A blob of wax inside a lava lamp cast a glow that crawled across paper plates smothered in popcorn.
    Brennan had taken his time mounting the stool before the cocktail table and was fully aware of her gaze. “I’ll take my usual, Cherie.” Sanchez scanned the novelties: penny slots enthralling white-haired grannies, an abused craps table enticing unfortunates and cracked ceiling fans blending the odor of cigarettes, burnt butter and saccharine laced lemonade. Brennan mopped his wet brows and sniffed his palms; Old Spice had weathered the storm. He fished a cigarette from a crushed pack and continued.
    “Get to that rumor. I’m ready to roll film.”
    “What?”
    “Life’s a heap of flicks, but this case has the makings of a great screenplay. Look at the setup for your big scene, perfect props and crew.”
    Brennan saw Sanchez’s nostrils enlarge while his hands tightened. As if half listening, Sanchez turned away, intent on arranging plastic cutlery. He was reaching to his left to recruit additional paper napkins when a swift hand sent food flying. Brennan moved closer.
    “I’m not really sure...what he said.”
    “Son, I’m a fifty-seven year old policeman who’s not in the mood for bullshit.”
    “I think he was fooling around, Sir.”
    “Don’t Sir me. You sound like a pussy instead of ex-Army grunt...the dialog stinks.”
    Sanchez studied dribbled popcorn on a shirt stretched thin by a distended belly. This character was not only untrustworthy; he was hazardous to one’s health.
    “The main course is getting though the scene without changing locations. Studio heads mess with my talent if we take this downtown.”
    “Well, the guy that hired me—”
    “Get something straight; detail defines great art. Wayne Fenton is fifty something and sprouts hairy arms from work uniforms. He struts around in scruffy, steel-tipped, work boots. Think Sly Stallone in Paradise Alley without that fucking hat. This is a low-budget black and white, a Who-Dun-It with characters so real they outshine fiction.”
    “I get it; you’re that fat Anglo, Alfred Doublechin. I borrowed a cellphone to call in that burial, so if there’s reward money, I’ll play your game.”
    “Talk money later, the name you butchered trolling for comedic relieve is Alfred Hitchcock. Your ex-boss at Castle Construction, Wayne, is in front of a camera now. The studio is looking for clues on Horizon Drive in Henderson to explain the Navy skull. Since he’s tied to a known prostitute, he’ll spend time in jail till he recalls details—don’t you like me?”
    “I’d have to think about that.” Brennan grinned. “You’re a righty that looks left, so you make up answers on the fly. The back story says that in a second enlistment you fried your brains so my military equivalent tossed you from the ranks to push dirt. You were trained in police work, so I’ll offer professional courtesy provided you left your mama with bigger balls than hers.”
    Sanchez wrapped his hands around Brennan’s suit lapels. “Look in my eyes, Alfred. I started a civilian job and dug up a military officer. Then I lost that job respecting a code you don’t understand. I fry brains, but I don’t let frogs with a badge and ponytail dump on me.”
    He never saw the fist.

    Sanchez awoke amid lemonade boarding with napkins plastered to his face.
    “I thought you’d cashed in your chips.”
    “No, but you’re carrying my marker.”
    “Well said and now I’ll take that rumor off your hands and Christ—clean up that...blood.”
    Brennan thought Sanchez acted as if being laid out on the deck, although unexpected, seemed necessary, maybe justified. He watched a persistent Sanchez tongue round up a tooth. “Fenton said not to call the police. The guy came with strings attached.”
    Brennan picked Sanchez up one-handed and quickly motioned for prying extras to carry on. Sanchez’s tooth hit the lamp and then Brennan assaulted his cellphone’s keypad. He took in the hushed room and settled on a red-haired man about to take their picture.
    “Put that away or I’ll plant that where the sun never shines.” The man nodded and lowered a disposable camera. He adjusted designer eyeglasses and took a corner table. When Brennan finished his phone conversation, he had two lit cigarettes.
    “So, the deceased was French with a family. They lived in La Jolla next to known twins raised by a widow drowning in booze. The Feds think the shooter is Dennis Hollister, the twin who disappeared in 1984 along with that corpse you found. You’ve thawed a case that’s been in the NCIS freezer for years—jurisdiction could be dicey—but in spite of that I thank you.”
    Brennan’s face glowed in a friendly way and a smile crept to one corner of his mouth to a woman who held ice cubes. The ice server’s right hand rested on her hip. She wore a black silk blouse and matching slacks. Gray hair was drawn back and secured with a pink ribbon in the back. In front, a border of blond hair arched over masqueraded eyes that registered awareness of beauty still inviting male inspection.
    “The NCIS, that’s a Navy outfit?”
    “Thank the lady after she drops my special seer. We’re talking about the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, trained agents, investigators and forensic experts. They’re like your old Army outfit. They swing into action if Navy personnel fall victim to foul play. The NCIS got active when Joffre disappeared. Since he wasn’t found, they declared his disappearance a judiciable action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
    “So, if I can wangle the lead in the Cold Case Detail—”
    “Why would you have to...wrangle it?”
    “Don’t strain that brain.”
    “Wait a minute; you investigated this murder before, didn’t you?”
    Brennan’s eyes widened and he rubbed his face in an attempt to contain amazement.
    “You’re good, Sanchez. The case you dug up fits every cold case heading: unsolved, unresolved—meaning suspects known and suspected but not successfully prosecuted and unidentified—meaning whoever grew that skull hasn’t been formally identified.”
    He knew the questions Sanchez would ask: where did the murder occur, who owned the gun and where was it now? Clark County had already contacted the NCIS and FBI. Continued FBI interest would be due to the desire of Joffre’s son-in-law, the good twin Bradley Hollister, to bring the perpetrator to justice himself. The LVMPD stood by ready to examine dirt where the coffin had laid, substances on its splintered wood, the manufacturer and last owner.
    When forensic materials came to the NCIS’ lab, a new round of scrutiny would reveal microscopic debris: pollen in the flag and pathology in the body. After positive identification was made Brennan hoped the NCIS would ask the LVMPD’s Cold Case Detail for help. A prosecutorial reason existed why jurisdiction would remain with the NCIS. If the perpetrator was an active military member at the time of the crime, the individual would be charged under the UCMJ. If not, then under federal statute in either California or Nevada.

    As Brennan organized details in his head, Sanchez raced to a conclusion. The rules of evidence within federal and state systems were compatible with the UCMJ, so Brennan stymied earlier by a missing corpse might solve the case, but only if Sanchez ended Brennan’s Hollywood whimsy. When the time came for prosecution in civilian courts, unlike the military, elected officials would rule the day. Sanchez wondered if friends in high places would assist Brennan. As if a mind reader, Brennan’s smile widened to prompt greater caution.

    “I pulled your military record when I saw that second job application. You want to be an understudy?” A jaw dropped under intense eyes. “I get back to criminal work and earn serious money?” Brennan slurped popcorn, swallowed and raised confirming eyebrows.

    “An honorable discharge paved the way. I’m making a dicey bet. Stay clean or you’ll leave your four-star accommodations for a lean-to in Calexico—don’t pull any crazy shit.”
    Sanchez, sensing he teetered on the brink of a colossal mistake, followed Brennan’s gaze to the opening back door. He didn’t see the film about to be screened in Brennan’s brain; the scene had been sent to the cutting room floor years earlier but could reappear in an instant.
    The woman in the flashback, a much younger ice server, named Brigitte arrived at the bed. Her tanned body devoid of white zones was all curves. The scent of lavender blossoms from imported French soap rendered him helpless. Her hand held a sketchpad ready for charcoal to draw a naked male. The camera moved from Brennan’s scarred shoulder pass his buttocks to a closeup on two books at his feet, Kama Sutra and The Alchemy of Ecstasy.
    Her hand held a lofty chin. Full lips had parted to expose flawless teeth. Childlike sniggers condensed into malicious laughter. “True love...Le véritable amour. If that’s what you need, look in your own bed, it isn’t found in my books. We French call your kind of love Luxure. The American word is vulgar, mindless lust. Haven’t you read Euripide? One play, his Electra, interests the Joffre child. It would a good gift, yes? Much better than Freud’s tale, no?”
    Their night together would be all business. She was correct; he had a wife primed for lovemaking, but he was never interested. The unwelcomed flashback ended when a man entered. Brennan raised a smile and welcoming hand.
    “That’s FBI agent Bradley Hollister, Joffre’s son-in-law...the good twin.”
    Sanchez hoped after the day’s events, that whatever this Hollister offered would be helpful. A glance at Brigitte’s distressed expression granted the wish. Brennan’s cellphone speaker told the table that the NCIS was leading the reopened investigation. The burial would be at Arlington Cemetery when the NCIS released Joffre’s remains.
    Bradley looked as if he was trapped. Brown eyes flashed from Bridgette to a tempting front door while Sanchez wondered if the fat movie director grinning at the square-jawed, forty-five year old with an athletic build knew how inadequate he looked. Brennan learned when Bradley without a word said, stood up and darted outside. The closing door ended Bradley’s derisive laughter as a hand swiped Sanchez’s paper napkin.
    “Listen up, Brigitte Fenton, Wayne’s mother, is far from an average hooker. In fact she’s too intelligent for that body or her own good. She drew well-heeled Johns: politicos, high rollers, Hollywood types and military bigwigs.”
    Sanchez made notes on another paper napkin and pressed ice to a swollen lip.
    “No paper notes, we’ll use the department PCs.”
    “Sure, but Brad Pitt plays the Fed who spooks Bridgette.”
    “That’s right, you can handle the casting. My retirement bets are off. I’m going to get a greenlighted production out of this if we find a way around the studio heads downtown.”
    His first inkling in the tent had been right on the money; Brennan was a lonely man with major issues, who would never be trusted, only scrutinized from a safe distance.

    Two days later, Bradley adjusted his binoculars in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii to sync the sight of a gray steeple atop Mokuaikaua Church with the sound of traffic from a small collapsible antenna. He paced like a caged animal convinced somehow he’d find a better vantage point before training the binoculars on the window where two shadows might have passed in the background.
    He filled his lungs to capacity before fingers drew the window closer. The target lifted sunglasses past a ragged beard onto long brown hair compressed by a headband. Blue eyes inspected silver hairs that poked from sun ripened shoulders. There was a suspicion that his twin might lurk behind the arms folded in front of the figure, but on second thought he’d never folded his arms like that or stayed in one spot before.
    Time had fled but not hatred and Bradley knew that emotion could stifle logic. Fenton had called one phone on the Big Island; the one inside this condo occupied by a local skipper named Ross Dodds, the man under scrutiny. Dodds stood in flip flops below a white windbreaker and black swimming trunks. He stepped outside to the edge of the balcony to lay a bronze key on crimson. The glinting metal was believed a necessary but mysterious element required to sustain the poinsettia’s red leaves. On the Big Island poinsettias grow into fifty-foot trees from lava that erupt from Kilauea Volcano.
    Soon after, Bradley watched Dodds take refuge in the shadow of a banyan tree. It was there that he admitted to himself that he’d never stopped loving Michelle Joffre. Her almond eyes emerged from under black hair following the passage of a quick hand. Beneath the bikini’s encumbered halter top a flat stomach vanished into a low rise bikini bottom. She bit the stem of an orange plumeria flower and rejoiced as teardrop-shaped pedals fell to kiss her feet.
    Michelle’s fingertips worked the Nikon to bring the butterfly wings into sharp focus. Time hadn’t changed the high school freshman who still captured hearts. She’d kept her peculiar set of secret rituals and beguiling traits. Why Mikala—that’s what Michelle had been called on their honeymoon on the Big Island—was where she was on that last morning troubled Bradley.
    The thought of that name—Mikala—brought mental pictures to mind: bra strap pulling in hallways and carrying books to a house underneath the Stars and Stripes that she called her Presidio. Wipeout Beach’s swirling currents and rocks teeming with kelp and seaweed led to a secret cave and addictive pleasure. The thought of Michelle’s father, a tyrant in naval attire who had returned again to rule their world ended Bradley’s reminiscence.
    Michelle placed her camera in a backpack and trailing children and teenaged male admirers had set out toward available umbrellas. She took no notice of Dodds hiding behind West Hawaii Today, but inside she rejoiced knowing opposites attract and thankfully radically different people had even become soul mates.
    Each had a private domain; Michelle retreated to her world of flowers and childish concealment. The multiple shapes, smells and colors of flowers had never lost their appeal. One universally loved flower, the rose—whose thorns had punctured baby fingers—didn’t exist.
    Dennis, a shy and determined introvert, hid behind imposed frustration. No matter how hard he tried he had never found success. It looked as if that was Bradley’s unique birthright. Surprisingly, he had impersonated Bradley bowing to kiss her hand at their junior prom only to leave in tears with a cracked rib. An implausible rivalry ended when Bradley wed Michelle.
    Blossoms waged their battle with brewed Kona coffee as Bradley hid from view behind shrubs. Listening to his bikini-clad schemer charm Hawaiians with her French inflection near a dull-witted twin deepened his resolve to end her suspected betrayal quickly.
    “Where do you come from?”
    “I’m from Santa Catalina, an island in California much smaller than yours.”
    “You have children, Lady?”
    “Yes, two boys, older than you.”
    The children were Pierre, a graduate student at San Diego State, and Claude, a college dropout living in St. Gratien outside Paris. Michelle’s home above Avalon was the Joffre legacy; she was the sole beneficiary mentioned in his will. Bradley’s sadness on seeing Michelle was mounting—loss suppressed attraction—until he heard “Mikala, let’s talk.” Bradley faced new challenges: a missing father-in-law had surfaced, a lost twin had replaced an identity and an ex-wife had forced him to alter a plan.
    “Could that be Bradley Hollister actually reading?”
    “You’re wrong, Lady that’s Captain Dodds.”
    “No, this man is my savior.”

    In Las Vegas, a wall clock showed 11:45 A.M. within the LVMPD. The narrow office held two gun-gray metal chairs, a matching filing cabinet and a desk burdened with file folders, a loaded ashtray and cast-aside socks. Brennan straddled a chair observing a computer monitor encased in pizza crusts at the edge of a desk. Arms cushioned the chair back supporting a saggy chin as he scanned rolling text through cigarette smoke. Light streamed through a torn curtain followed him. He evaded it by gouging linoleum at annoying intervals.
    Brennan hadn’t looked up when a deputy seated Fenton. He deftly gathered the curtain in one hand while he pried several paperclips open with fingers and teeth to poke the straightened wire through fabric. Metal sutures created a slice of daylight that landed on a scalp, bloated waist and a reddened big toe. He didn’t see Fenton’s face but he knew apprehension had been nurtured.
    “Speak to me, Brennan what’s going on in that head?” The reply, a disinterested yawn, was transparent. “I want a lawyer...I know my rights.” In the ensuing silence an oscillating fan brought whiffs of stale pizza and damp socks amid grunts. The computer’s mouse scrolled a newspaper article in tormenting indifference to Fenton since Brennan had already left the room.
    The sun had just set and the camera lens framed a yellow crescent rising above a scarlet line where sky met water. It was dusk on July 19, 1984 in Pacific Beach, a coastal town bordering La Jolla. Seventy feet below the junction of Mission and Diamond the first act was drawing to a close. The camera crew rode a dolly mounted on rails to close in on the couple reaching a shared climax on a white blanket bearing the blue letters N-A-V-Y. Behind the couple ice plants climbed a wall of gritty brown sandstone; extras were lining up.

    “Ask me something—you need a favor. When my mother shows up she’ll file a complaint with the signatures of her regulars at Little Caesar’s. You hit a patron; they all saw it.”
    “The youthful daughter should have been Natalie Wood; she was born to play this role. I’ll have to ask Chris Walken and RJ Wagner about that.”
    Brennan had reluctantly decided to cast Angelina Jolie in the role, although he hated surgically inflated lips. The camera saw a shadow approach and then Michelle went rigid as her widened pupils hinting at danger ahead of a stranger’s refection.

    “Go on, have at her.” The yell lifted Fenton from his chair. He followed the action in a state approaching total shock, but Brennan’s script would find credibility.
    “He’s loud, but the man behind that voice strikes a match which brings his image to the screen. He’s a derelict in his seventies, with deep-set eyes in a hollow face that seem a bad fit for that tone of voice. He wears a stained, high-end raincoat buttoned halfway up a faded flannel shirt; you know—that classic red and black-checkered pattern with a gray silk lining. Below are torn suit pants with a one-inch cuff held up by a greasy tie. That wardrobe declares this guy was once an important person. I’ll offer Jeremy Irons a cameo appearance.”
    “Jesus, she always said you were nuts.” An elbow dropped to the back of the chair in no particular hurry, but Brennan had refocused. He slowly reached under his left armpit to place a Kimber Tactical Pro II .45 pistol alongside the mouse.
    “No, I’m quite rational, so let’s just shoot the next scene with your nasty boy. As I was saying, we see the twin—you know that face—in the center of the beam coming from a cop’s flashlight say, ‘I guess I lost it completely; it’s all just a blur. The next thing I remember was Michelle hanging on my neck and then I saw my bloody fists. She was gulping air amid whimpers. The blanket beneath us was covered with red spots.’”
    “The extras have closed in. Dennis stares into the lens saying, ‘I dressed before a stricken face. She searched for a glimmer of concern in me. There wasn’t any. That misfit was lying on the sand. I wanted to pick him up and use my hands to get that rush again.’”
    “Anyway he dodges a grand jury by claiming self-defense. Why not? He’s an all-American boy banging a doll from La Jolla who happens to be the daughter of a naval officer. The audience thinks it serves the old fart right; I’m thinking Irons just stole the scene. He’s greedy and wants another Oscar.”
    “You’re a fucking fruitcake. ‘I know that face’, I want out.” Brennan responded in an almost soothing voice. “Those are big words coming from a lucky gob that slid out of a rubber and through a sheet to the Promised Land. My script is adapted from authentic news articles.”
    Brennan produced a paper bag. He bit into a stapled nametag to pour its contents over Fenton. A wallet, ring of keys and coins cascaded between closed legs. Brennan held out a business card but Fenton waved it off as he flattened the paper bag. After a futile search he looked up and met a finger, which collapsed his nose. Brennan tossed the cellphone to waiting hands.
    “Why ask questions when you already know the answers? After Joffre tumbled from splintered wood, you got greedy. You made a call to Hula Land where you’ve been blackmailing Dennis Hollister, your nasty boy. I’ll find a money trail before or after Dodds finds you.”
    “Bullshit, see a shrink and learn police work.”
    “I’m learning, last night I read about sociopaths. These folks are famous for using a ton of charm to do hideous things without an ounce of remorse. I’m no expert, but the Harvard psychiatrist that typed the pages was astounded by the inability of these sickos to feel empathy or compassion. It isn’t in those frontal lobes, so why did you piss off a sociopath? If you have questions, I put my cell number in that phone of yours.”
     “By the way, Irons dies of a cerebral hemorrhage on a dry mattress. I shot that scene on location at the actual charity ward two weeks after the beach scene. I’d expected a subdural hematoma as a probable cause, but the coroner claimed death by asphyxiation.”
    On the verge of walking out, Fenton waited. Grown men who mix hard fact with their own fiction might be crazy but what he thought he had witnessed was simply an unprofessional attempt to gain information.
    “The camera shoots over Irons for a closeup of Dennis. The audience sees a raised butt when he drops stolen whites as I fade to black. Later a .45 slug became the chosen instrument for the surgical chore known as a trephination he performs on Joffre.”

    Bradley parked a rental car in Hawaii. Dark sunglasses and a white windbreaker’s hood above black swimming trunks offered protection. He removed a stone holding the emergency door open and ran upstairs in flip-flops stopping to avoid a covey of squawking maids with a descent on foot to the eight and an elevator ride to the tenth floor where he inserted a key.
    He rushed to the closet and withdrew a submersible backpack. Two credit cards and a driving license went to his wallet as he retrieved a pack of blue contact lens. Minutes later, he reconnected the circuit that let the hotel know when the exit door had been left open. He stooped to retrieve a fallen loafer before driving off.
    A mile away Michelle stopped at the manager’s office inside the Kona Surf Hotel to retrieve her FedEx shipment. She conducted an underwater inspection in facemask and snorkel in the hotel pool; leaky camera housings were always a concern. By the time her taxi entered Alii Drive palm trees and brick sidewalks were swept by shadows racing inland over Highway 11. Trade winds carried rain to palm fronds and rumpled feathers in seagrape trees. Over the sloping land white clouds concluded in a heavy mist that obscured Mauna Kea’s snowy summit.
    Michelle arrived at Kailua Pier in the center of old Kailua-Kona with a backpack to find a Hawaiian waiting to ferry her gear to Makai riding a gentle chop. Dennis, clean shaven and sullen, arrived minutes later and headed straight for the helm. The engines rumbled prompting screens behind the wheel to display colorful data from radar, sonar, autopilot and chart plotter. A radio burped Channel 16’s static as Michelle tossed the familiar mooring lines.
    She clung to the fighting chair as twin props built their roster tail. The course setting would take them through Kaneohe Bay near the Captain Cooke Monument and south along the Kohala Coast to an anchorage off Green Sands Beach. The sky was clearing as she shed her top and skipped forward in circles within touching distance of chrome handrails. Porpoises leapt over waves to race the bow twisting silky bodies only to plunge below and reappear in the lead.
    As Makai adeptly sliced cobalt water Michelle pressed against Dennis’ back facing animated instruments. “You’re being silly; you knew you would need help with that letter.” Dennis stared in front; he gave the impression he wanted exceptional solitude beyond the obvious disinterest in her naked torso. She shed her dungarees to emerge without panties. Dennis shook his head and held out a white terrycloth robe that fell open as she spun in the fighting chair.
    “What if someone saw her?”
    “You’re right, Admiral. Do I have your permission to use the head?
    “Why ask me, you own it?”
    “Don’t talk like that and they’ll be no sleeping today. You had your chance.”

    Michelle descended to open her backpack at the head’s mirror. The pearl-handled pistol looked serene. She held the metal against her warm cheek taking pleasure in cold steel. The barrel had retained the acrid scent of gunpowder. Thinking of the muffled blast that had floated feathers produced warmth in the pit of her stomach. It wet her appetite for the jolt to her wrists, the pressure wave on her chest and the sound that would leave her breathless yet again.
    She held the pistol in her hand close to her stomach and a sideways glance in the mirror tempted her to lower the protruding barrel. An impish grin came with a giddy smugness. Enjoying racing engines that quivered bare skin, she crept on hands and knees toward the bow. Her palms slid along the bulkhead as the hull carved Kealakekua Bay into curling indigo sheets.
    Air heavy with pungent fuel was welcomed, so she kissed Pierre’s photo slipping between the sheets to hide the pistol. She awoke to the boat’s gentle swaying, the engines had stopped. She rushed to kneel at the opened door beneath the sink in the head and tapped her wedding ring on the drain pipe. She held her breath until two returning taps would force opened eyes.
    Leaning back her hands encased her breasts when blood from Bradley’s matted hair broadened into narrow tributaries on teak. It took on hues from scarlet to burgundy in the bright sunlight. It brought to mind the joy of her first fishing trip years before when she had dipped fingers into sloshing salt water to examine a fish scale from a gaffed Pacific Blue Marlin.

    The next morning in San Diego, Brennan flipped a cigarette butt through the car window and shoved six Egg McMuffin wrappers and three coffee containers under the Ford’s front seat. He unglued his back from sweaty, vibrating plastic to dangle car keys over Sanchez.
    “Pick off the Pink Poodle’s flees and get out to that set. You got one prop, a Mexican name on a California driver’s license. Pick me up at 17:00 and keep your hands off those girls.”
    “I got a bad feeling about Bradley, why share anything with him?”
    “Trust me, Sanchez; the FBI will take a backseat to the NCIS. When their man heads off bucking a boss all the way to Hula Land, I say we give him more rope.”
    “Find out why Brigitte Fenton flinched when she saw Bradley and we solve this case.”
     Brennan put his hands over his ears and shook his head as if the smooth running machine inside had suddenly been thrown off balance. “If I find her, I’ll be sure to ask.”
    Thirty minutes later, Brennan slid a Kimber Tactical Pro II .45 pistol, loaded magazine, LVMPD ID and a cellphone to a clerk with a nametag that read S. Robinson. She was young and attractive in spite of a black cotton T-shirt, trousers and high-top sneakers.
    “What we talked about is needed today along with a quiet desk.”
    “Hush up, Baby—you loading cop-killers?”
    “Black Talons, they open up like a pinwheel. I want that edge in my magazine.”
    “I’d love to pat you down, but why not just tell me about the item hidden in your hand?”
    “It’s nothing. Without a secretary, this recorder has to work overtime.”
    He snatched his cellphone from the counter and followed her down the corridor wishing it was longer. When she moved, nice things bounced. Behind a locked door he torn into folders and took several cigarettes and a book of matches from his socks.
    Brennan read that Pierre Hollister’s arrival justified a compulsory marriage according to Michelle’s sworn testimony taken as part of the NCIS investigation into her father’s disappearance. Four decades earlier Marcel Joffre, a young French submarine officer, had left Marseilles when Charles De Gaulle sent NATO packing to Belgium. He found the U.S. Navy hospitable and eager to learn about French plans if the Cold War got hot.
    The French hadn’t liked the maneuver and people found his ego difficult to swallow until a Tahitian teenager living in Pearl City torpedoed his heart. Well educated and bilingual, Asta Breaud became Mrs. Joffre and assisted his rapid climb within U.S. submarine ranks. After training at Electric Boat, where they endured a distasteful Connecticut winter, a French-speaking detailer born in Quebec City had arranged for additional schooling in San Diego.
    It was there that Asta, a high-risk candidate, entered her last trimester of pregnancy in 1967. Brennan read that the Navy Hospital’s obstetrician encountered placenta privia that necessitated an emergency caesarian section. The operation had resulted in hemorrhagic anemia and death.
    The surgeon had added a cryptic handwritten note. “Distraught father of compromised neonate appeared at NICU and became irate when denied access. Nurse stated father declared, ‘my daughter is all I have, I’m taking her now and don’t try to stop me.’”
    Sanchez passed muster at the front desk inside Highland Glen, a nursing home surrounded by an oleander barricade on forgotten dirt in Chula Vista. Claiming to be a nephew, he began his quest for Maria Chivas at an elevator. He faced the closed door but it didn’t help. A bony hand grasped his pant leg forcing attention. The damaged doll was cradled as its frail mother was complimented on the infant’s beauty, which he said was apparent in the smile before him.
    Reasons to win in life were abundant in air heavy with moans and odors. Wrinkled faces scanned his hoping to see someone from a misplaced past. He bolted to safety riding in an unventilated box with a thumb on the CLOSE button. Maria Chivas remembered a proud Joffre who embraced all things American while running a tight ship. Sanchez took his time asking critical questions and found intact memories.
    An employment agency’s call, although two days late, was without a doubt Maria’s best birthday present. The housekeeper hired by Joffre passed through a trellised archway to encounter a garden edged in flagstone. The scent of flowers hung in air alongside the rope bridge that crossed the oval fishpond. Gravel paths wandered through a carpet of lavender to converge at the small house. Maria waited for Joffre by a stone fountain that he proudly stated was copied from the medieval Church of St. Trophime in Arles, France.
    Maria’s first encounter with Joffre was a potent taste of things to come. He chided her for calling the evergreen shrub which exhibits thick stems leaden with purple pedals a flower. Her expertise in all areas would be continually questioned.
    “If you think I tolerate ignorance in my house you are mistaken.”
    “As children we learned those plants were—”
    “If you wish to learn, ask intelligent questions...go on...I’m waiting.”
    “What is this lavender?”
    “Lavender is part of the mint family but with its distinct flavor, it stands unaccompanied.”
    The faithful servant trusted to water Joffre’s beloved Dutch Iris flowers tended to Joffre and his daughter’s every need unless the girl was visiting Pear City on Oahu. She wasn’t mentioned in Joffre’s will. Her reward was a dog-eared photo album. She recalled Joffre’s cameras, but nothing held his eye as tenaciously as his sprouting daughter.
    The Hollister twins were not welcomed on Maria’s watch; Bradley, the brighter of the two, bullied a thin-skinned sibling who caught carp with baited hooks. Maria visited her parents in Ensenada whenever a naval gathering called for catering. At such times Joffre’s edict concerning the banished twins was personally enforced.
    Sanchez left the rest home and arrived forty minutes late. As an exit ramp approached on Interstate 15 near Temecula, Brennan’s hand grabbed the steering wheel heading for Denny’s. Catsup covered fries and three burgers.
    “Blackmail began at the bones. Eyeball Fenton’s finances, especially bank receipts.”
    “Bones? The man was an officer. What about the FBI, any news on Brigitte?”
    “She knows how to hide. We’ll operate under their radar.”
    “Take a napkin, you’re bleeding on photos. The property department hates that.”

    Brennan knew he had created a monster with hovering napkins, but Sanchez had proven clean, productive and most important of all manageable.
    “Christ, get out to the limo, there’s a magnifying glass in my glove compartment.”
    It was grainy but unmistakable, even under tomato goop. A pearl-handled M1911A1 service pistol rested on the top shelf near its empty magazine. The ammo stacked nearby looked to Brennan like expected 220-grain APC. As Brennan’s ego rode ever higher on a whimsical Hollywood fantasy Sanchez’s skepticism grew. Maria had shared a troubling intimacy with Sanchez. His gut told him not to trust Brennan with her information.
    If Maria told the truth, the cabinet was always locked; the murderer had simply borrowed the key. She had returned for a forgotten grocery list and entered the back door. Crossing the oak parquet flooring she found wet footprints that led from the library to the carpeted staircase. Frightened by muffled sobs she climbed the stairs to witness Michelle peppering her father’s portrait with imaginary bullets.
    “Her sobs were frightful to me because...she was smiling. I ran to her and she dropped the pistol. I slapped her face—I could not help it. Her dressing gown opened over a growing belly. I forced open her hand and took the key. She ran past her bedroom into mine. It was there I opened my Sunday Missal and hid the key. I begged for forgiveness. This I do every night.”
    Tension was high and Joffre ordered Maria to visit her parents. She returned a week later to drop her suitcase and rush past a sullen Michelle to examine the cabinet. It was still locked, the pistol untouched. Later she entered her bedroom where Maria now slept. She lifted the Sunday Missal’s back cover and clutched the key.
    “A terrible thing was done. With a heart closed...an angel became the devil.”
    “Don’t blame yourself.”
    “She slept in my bed but never did we talk about her little one— only that woman.”
    “Was she a beautiful woman...anxious to be the wife of an officer?
    “Yes. She was ugly inside. She was...this word I cannot find.”
    “La parabla es Francés. She was from France.”
    Later inside the Ford, Brennan took a hushed call from Susanne Robinson. In response to his newest sweetener a classified NCIS file had revealed valuable information. “Look, do you want Diddy in the distance or close enough to get your own whiff?” The update transpired with the cellphone speaker on. They learned Michelle had given birth to seven-pound Pierre in El Cajon four months after a visit to The Garden of Love in downtown Las Vegas.
    Brennan knew its location, two blocks from the Four Queens. The reception had been in a suite in Binon’s Horseshoe reserved for high rollers and clients that frequented Brigitte. The bridal party consisted of the groom, Bradley Hollister, and his twin. Both were dressed in Mickey Mouse shorts and yellow shirts and sported enormous mouse ears.
    The NCIS had obtained the photo in a search conducted at Brigitte’s home in 1985. The LVMPD had arrested her for soliciting prostitution and selling bootlegged X-rated videos when she wasn’t busy hawking weddings to kids suffering from elopement fever.
    “I got to go. Sounds like we got company,” had ended Robinson’s call. Brennan had reopened Maria’s album. He had a lawn party under a magnifying glass, when from behind white uniforms that greeted arriving young women, a lens had captured Joffre and Brigitte sharing a kiss. The next incoming call wasn’t shared.
    “You knew Maria hated Brigitte a long time ago didn’t you?
    “Yeah, I put her through the ringer before they hung me out to dry.”
    “What’s her connection to Bradley?”
    “No idea but Dodds’ condo is under surveillance and Makai is missing.”
    “Give me a minute on the Internet and he’s mine. What’s the full name?”
    “Please, it’s a sixty-two foot fishing boat about to sink our production. Find out how long of a wake a twenty-two year old Striker can make starting at the Kailua Pier: fuel capacity, consumption at cruise, updated instruments and whatever else those web pages can tell you.”
    Inside the speeding car, sweet smoke curled from a thin joint. Brennan had laid down on the back seat with his naked feet sticking outside the back window. “Forget that boat, when do we start identifying suspects?”
    Sanchez waited as a tempting aroma filled the car. Brennan’s red face imploded as his head rose from the back seat. He devastated himself in hurried puffs. Closed eyes flooded dry cheeks and a rasping voice stalled and then gathered speed. He watched the rear view mirror as Brennan raked a hand across bloodshot eyes.
    “Please...you’re still got training wheels on your ass. Look no further than the twins and Michelle, they’re all glued together. Either Dennis or Bradley knocked her up or it’s that sister-daughter thing. Who could forget Towne’s Chinatown script?”

On Social Networking

    “Welcome to another shitty introduction course that the university forced me to teach,” Mr. Triste said, squinting at the students sitting in the amphitheater.
    The students resembled clusters of shriveled vegetables in the produce section, and they stared back at him, but not for long. They could not sustain their heads for more than two minutes before looking down and typing some important update into their laptops or cellular devices.
    Mr. Triste wiped his black, square rimmed glasses, lifted them to his face, and looked up at the mass of teenagers narrowing their eyes into slits or pushing their glasses further up on their noses to get a better look at him. He straightened his goatee. Then he smiled so widely that all 32 teeth poked out from his gums. In this day and age, he couldn’t look anything less than a god. Photos would be taken.
    Mr. Triste pointed at the large white screen guarding the class, and scribbled in the date with his fingers, September 1^st, 2042. The pyramid-like arrangements of seats stood before this little man like those that sat before Congress in the State of the Internet address. Mr. Triste looked down as his fingers raced across his phone’s keypad. Then his head shot upward.
     “I don’t have an introduction to the course because we all know that today, I am preaching what should be religious doctrine to every boy and girl in this audience,” he said.
    He stretched his mouth as far as he could, waiting for the applause and camera flashes to cease.
    “I mean common, did our grandparents live in an age when not having a social networking account was illegal?” he added.
    Nearly everyone laughed. A few students picked at their fingernails. These students probably thought of their poor parents, who had gotten summons for not creating accounts for them once they reached middle school.
    “Now, Thomas Hardy was a guy who believed that the universe didn’t give a shit about us,” Mr. Triste said shaking his head. “He believed that whether we win a million dollars or are mauled by coyotes, the universe just don’t care.” He paced back and forth.
    “But today, in the midst of modern technology, we know that this is untrue. Everyone,” he paused for emphasis, and pointed at his students, “gives a shit about us.”
    Mr. Triste took a breath, and then pulled a camera out of his pocket. He walked up to a lanky blonde boy in the front row.
    “Can you take a picture of me?” This action was second nature to the boy whose fingers were bent in the position of one taking a photo. He snapped one of his professor who had run to flip over his podium. Mr. Triste was standing on it, giving the thumbs up, and smiling.
    The flash went off and Mr. Triste retrieved his camera.
    “Thanks, I’ll upload that after class,” Mr. Triste said.
    A redhead girl dotted with freckles raised her hand.
    “Yes, Pippy?” Mr. Triste looked at her grinning.
    She tapped her foot against the linoleum.
    “Uh, I was just wondering if me and my friends can get a picture with you?”
    “Of course, can we get one on my camera too?” Mr. Triste said.
    The rest of the class sat there typing away on their laptops, programmed to accept such interruptions.
    After the photo was taken, Mr. Triste continued.
    “Now, in a class titled Social Networking 101, what do I mean by everyone gives a flying cahoot?” he asked.
    A girl with long black hair and black eyeliner living around her eyes like she was a cat raised her hand.
    “You, emo girl,” Mr. Triste said.
    “That it’s our job as productive citizens to log onto the social networking site and show everyone the happiest, greatest versions of ourselves,” she said without stopping.
    The rest of the class mouthed what she said in unison like a group of Catholic school students whispering the Hail Mary. A friend in the seat next to the girl held up a camera, and they stuck out their tongues and gave peace signs as they tried to look as cheerful as they could.
    “I couldn’t have said it better myself!” Mr. Triste exclaimed. “Your parents have been taking photos of you and uploading them to The Social Networking Site since your births, but the government didn’t force you to create accounts until junior high. We all know college is the time to reinforce your roles in the realm of social networking,” he said.
    He stopped a minute, and walked over to his computer to type something into The Site. “Having a great time in class so far!” he typed.
    The students took some time to update their own statuses with messages such as “Having an amazing, spectacular, wonderful day today!” Students who were in the mood for some loving words typed statuses such as, “Miserable, having the worst day of my life!” This group made sure to add sad faces at the end.
     Mr. Triste looked up. “Anyways, it is our job, to prove to our friends, family, coworkers, ex boyfriends, girlfriends, professors etc, that we are the happiest, most satisfied, beautiful version of ourselves. Our part in the networking community establishes this and all we or anyone we know has to do to realize how flawless and fun we are is to look at our profiles.”
    The class nodded in agreement.
    Camera flashes blinded Mr. Triste and other students, but he nodded and clapped.
    “Now for tonight what I want you all to do is to go on the Social Networking Site for four hours. I want you to look at all of your ex boyfriend or girlfriends’ most recent photos and statuses, and I want you to analyze how all of the statuses were developed especially for you. There is a purpose behind every update, and you will know immediately that these purposes are always directed towards you. Even if it says ‘Taking my cat for a walk,’ we all know that the status is about you. You are God.” The bobble head version of himself that sat on the podium expressed its approval.
    “Next, I want you to go on the profiles, gazing at people you haven’t seen since high school. Look at their vacation photos and on Wednesday we will discuss how to put up photos that will make you look as if you’re having just as much fun as they are. Tonight, I want you to spend at least two hours editing your photos to the point that you don’t even look like yourselves anymore. You want to look like models in a magazine. A formula for happiness has been created and we are lucky enough to live in the time when this is possible,” Mr. Triste said, working hard to broaden his mouth.
    Just as Mr. Triste began walking over to look at his laptop, a girl raised her hand. He gazed at her. Her rosy cheeks, bright eyes, and smile, didn’t blend in with the rest of the class. Mr. Triste had to blink a minute, because she still hadn’t put her head down.
    “You, Blondie?” he said.
    “Carly,” she corrected, twisting her ring around her finger.
    “Blondie.”
    “I don’t have the Internet, and so I don’t have an account on The Social Networking site,” she said.
    Everyone stopped shuffling papers, zipping up back backs, and stood there, gaping at her. A gasp reverberated throughout the room. Carly sat there like a witch on trial.
    Mr. Triste looked her up and down. “How,” he breathed, “have you gotten through life?”
    Carly sighed. “My family just can’t afford it. They never thought The Networking Site was a necessary expense,” she said.
    “They know that they can be arrested for this,” Mr. Triste said.
    “Yes, of course, but they feel that it’s for my benefit” she said.
    “I guess you don’t have healthcare either!” someone shouted.
    Again, Mr. Triste stared. “Your benefit?” he laughed. “Do you go to counseling?” he asked.
    “Counseling, for what?” she said.
    “Doesn’t it make you very unhappy to never know what other people are doing?” Mr. Triste said.
    “No,” Carly replied. “It seems like a lot of work.”
    Everyone’s heads were turned her way.
    “Well yes, this is a class. You’re going to have to work,” Mr. Triste said.
    Carly pulled on her hair. “I mean I’m happy, but it seems like a lot of work to try and look like I am.”
    Everyone scrunched their eyebrows or shook their heads. One girl made the cookoo sign.
    “I don’t understand.” Mr. Triste was scrunching his fist. “I have to talk to your parents,” he said.
    “Okay, sorry,” Carly said and walked out of the room before the rest of the class.
    The clap of textbooks shutting was heard and everyone shuffled out of the room like automated robots. Their mouths remained in straight lines, but the moment they saw someone with a camera they shifted gears, painting wide grins on otherwise blank faces.
    ***
    A girl with bleached blonde hair, gaunt cheeks, and a palate of makeup on her face shuffled out of class with a tall boy with shaggy black hair.
    “Tolbert, will you come with me Saturday to go on a hot air balloon ride?” she asked.
    Tolbert scratched his head for a minute. “Sure, I’ll go with you Mallory.”
    “Okay, great. So the goal is to get at least 100 photos, cause we have to make it look like we’re having a good time,” she said.
    “Yeah, definitely.” he agreed. “But do you think you can come over Friday and get at least 50 pictures with me and my little sister. I want Deidre to think I’m a good brother.”
    “Sure,” she said.
    Mallory and Tolbert’s mouths rested in straight lines, but as soon as they saw a camera pop out, like marionettes, they opened the creases of their mouths, showing every tooth.
    “So what’d you think of that weird girl in our class?” Mallory asked.
    “I dunno, she’s probably really depressed all the time,” Tolbert said.
    They walked toward their dorms, with their eyelids cast down, and a gray mist of color barely peaking out underneath their lids. They sped up, hoping to get back to the dorms to on their computers.
    “So what’re you up to now?” Tolbert asked.
    “I’m probably gonna spend an hour or three finding some quote or song lyric for my status that’ll make me look intellectual or something,” she said. “How about you?”
    “Yeah, after I analyze Deidre’s status, I’ll probably do that too,” Tolbert said. “She put up song lyrics the other day about a girl getting ice cream with her mom, but I know it’s about me cause we got ice cream on our first date,” he said.
    “Duh, of course it was,” Mallory said nodding.
    Tolbert branched off from Malory to go to his dorm. Before, saying goodbye, they took a picture together in front of the dumpsters.
    “It’ll make us look adventurous,” Mallory said.
    Tolbert sat in his tiny dorm room, which was covered with photos of him and his friends. Because he was on the first floor, there was a cage covering his window. He stared out of it, watching a family play on the turf running parallel to the dorm. The mom and dad were kicking a soccer ball around with their little boy.
    The family snapped millions of photos of the boy, but the boy simply ran away laughing, oblivious to anything but the ball in front of him. He wouldn’t have to join The Networking Site until middle school.
    The boy reminded Tolbert of someone. He tapped his finger against his chin, trying to get a better glimpse of the boys’ eyes and carefree smile.
    “That’s it!” Tolbert said to his empty room. The boy reminded him of that odd girl Carly.
    ***
    “Oh good, someone’s finally using those glasses I bought for us on New Years,” Carly’s mom said as she entered the kitchen and walked over to the toaster.
    Carly sat down, gazing at the coffee cup rings intermingling with their dark wood table. The table hadn’t fit in with the rest of the decrepit kitchen – broken dishwasher, pots and pans littering the sink, pizza stains on the white walls - but at least these rings proved that the table was trying.
    Carly lifted her wine glass, the 2042 glaring at her from the other end, and making her feel cross-eyed. The water that slid down her throat with the morning’s cheerios was the equivalent of a single drop of rain.
    “Yeah, but it’s so small I can only take one sip,” she said.
    “What’re you your father?” Her mother asked. “I only had one sip.”
    They both laughed as Carly’s father emerged from the cave, the bedroom in their cabin-like, ranch style home.
    “What was that?” he asked, already having heard the slight.
    Carly smiled. “These glasses mom bought don’t fit much water in them,” she said.
    “Well just fill it up again Einstein,” her father said as he picked up the other one, filled it up, took a sip, then added, “you’re right, these kind of suck.”
    Her mom let out a deep sigh.
    “So are we still going on that hike today?” Carly asked.
    Her mom was buttering a bagel.
    “Yeah, I guess I’ll start getting that 100 pounds off,” her mom said, her laughter echoing through the room.
    “I should really start exercising again too,” her dad added patting his beer belly.
    “No, I really am starting my diet this week though,” her mom continued.
    “Uh huh,” Carly said rolling her eyes.
    She looked at her small, dysfunctional family. Her mom was chubby with long blonde hair, and a big bosom to store all of her laughter. Her dad was short with a beer gut, auburn hair and an auburn beard.
    Her dad leaned against the counter, and scratched his head.
    “First, we need to figure out what you’re going to do about tomorrow.”
    Carly’s mom came and sat next to her at the table.
    “I know,” Carly said.
    “If your teacher gives you a problem about not having the Internet, you call me and we’ll have to get it straightened out,” he said.
    “I know,” she said.
    “Alright, now let’s go hiking!” her dad said mimicking karate moves.
    “Yippy!” her mom shouted.
    Carly smiled. Through the years, her classmates had always asked her,
    “How do you smile without trying? Don’t you have a lot to worry about with you’re parents always being in danger with the law?”
    Everyone asked her parents the same thing.
    “I don’t know,” Carly would reply giggling. “I’ve never had to try to smile.”
    Carly looked out the kitchen window. Her parents always left it open, and she let the September sun hit her face.
    An elderly woman was slowly inching her way towards the window. Her “I was a 90s baby” t-shirt revealed that she must be around Carly’s parents’ age.
    People are dying younger and younger, Carly thought. But she was never too concerned about her parents, who were always complimented on their youthful appearances.
    The woman’s bony fingers were twisted in a way that was similar to the boy in Carly’s class: they appeared to be always ready to take a photo. Her eyes were sunken into two unrecognizable holes. She was squinting and tears poured out of her eyes. This sight was not uncommon to Carly; most people from her parents’ generation were blind. The woman tried to put her big black sunglasses on, but her head was tilted so far downward that they kept falling off.
    Sighing, the woman did the only thing that came easy to her. She grabbed her cell phone, and went to work updating her status.

Carnival

    Each face a phantom version of itself, each figure spectral, each street a shaft of smoke and mirrors ...
    Fog shrouds the buildings, wraps the antique streetlamps. We can see nothing. The monsters sweep us blindly through maze – devils and demons, banshees and goblins, witches, warlocks, vampires and cretins – festival costumed creatures lurching drunkenly through the labyrinths. Or are they?
    “We’re walking in circles!”
    Deserie clutches my arm. Thunder rocks the rain-lashed streets, lightning flares.
    “Look for the church!” I shout above the chaos. “Try to spot the steeple!”
    Deserie seems an apparition herself, pale, frenzied.
    We had been lost in the mountains, driving dizzily through the dusk, in the ancient black Bentley, which the hotel had provided for us, when we saw the lights of a city flickering in the valley.
    “Shangri La?” I quipped.
    “Dunno about that.” Deserie studied the tour guide by the interior light. “Whatever it is, it’s not on our map.”
    “Maybe the map’s as outdated as our ‘vintage’ loaner car?”
    “Nothing’s as old as old Bentley.” Deserie patted the dash. “Maybe Noah’s Ark.”
    The car was a riot. It was a mystery it ran. I immediately nicknamed it: “Our Honeymoon hearse.”
    Night fell swiftly, as we descended the steeps. I wrestled the black shadow down the long winding roads, between the snow capped mountains with their bends and sweeps. The chasms were treacherous. We held our breaths. The city in the valley seemed nestled in death. My joke got less funny. We reached the bottom with our crossed fingers cramped, amazed that we made it, civilization at last.
    We parked near an old church on a narrow, cobbled lane — a grim, gaunt structure with a tall bell steeple. But the roller coaster ride was not over. Bonfires, lanterns, fireworks lit the streets. The old city was mobbed. There was a carnival or some sort of festival in progress.“One big party.” I “Groucho Marxed” my eyebrows at Deserie, after I danced around the Bentley and opened the passenger door.
    “That was your vow.”
    She gathered her skirts and slipped out.
    “Life in the fast lane.” I crooned. “Life on the edge. The trip to nowhere.”
    “I think we found it.”
    Jugglers, acrobats, magicians mingled amidst the throngs, vendors, fortune tellers, phantoms on stilts – everyone was costumed, everyone was masked. It reminded us of Mardi Gras or The Day of the Dead, or that one Halloween night in Greenwich Village when everyone turned out. But there was something disturbing about this festival. The revelers seemed too strident, their fervor directed, madly, at itself, as if madness was what they were celebrating, their march a lockstep into hell. Like bats in a belfry they swooped and swarmed us in the night. My pockets were picked. Deserie’s purse was snatched. Before we knew it, everything was gone – identification, money, even the keys to the car. We were swept up in a maelstrom which made no sense. The streets had no names, the shops no signs, the buildings no numbers, the clocks no hands. There were no policemen, except the costumed kind. The revelers wouldn’t talk to us. They didn’t seem to speak at all.
    A flash of lightening illuminates the stormy sky. The city looks like a demon’s dream, as we jostle with the mob. The fog shrouded dwellings with their balustrades and balconies, their high shutterless windows, seem to gaze at us like ghoulish skulls, gruesomely grinning.
    “Deserie!”
    I feel her fingers slip from mine. I twist and shove.
    “Deserie!”
    I turn and try to push the marching monsters back. But the procession keeps coming and I’m helplessly swept along.

About a Driver

    When I walked into work I saw Marcus smiling, sleep-deprived with his red eyes and cigar-stained teeth. He was sitting next to the plastic trashcans in the middle of the garage in a desk chair with a broken wheel, newspaper in hand, coffee on the ground by his feet, a white light flickering overhead. “You’re in early,” he said.
    “So are you,” I replied, rubbing my hands together, trying to wake up the blood. It was Friday, right? Three days to Monday. I started going through the motions. Keying in my number at the time clock, watching the screen and waiting for it to go through, pulling my jacket and hat from the hooks on the wall, keys from the filing cabinet in the corner. This was my life.
    His eyes were locked on the sports section, trawling through all the week’s betting lines for the keys to his freedom—some hunch that Vegas had left the door open for a man as worthless as himself to step through into fortune and happiness and all the good things. At least for the weekend. “I saw your car over at the Microtel on 7th North the other day,” he said. “You meet up with some strange down at Mully’s after we went out. Had to take her somewhere classy?”
    The wheels on my dolly squeaked like old brakes as I drove five totes of deliveries to the garage door. “Yeah, Marc,” I replied, “your sister.” That was a lie. I did stay at the Microtel on Wednesday night, but I was alone. Sometimes I did stuff like that, like booking a forty dollar room at a dirty hotel where old professional people would go to have affairs or lose themselves in a one-night crack binge. I would sit in that room until I’d get too tired to think, until my eyes couldn’t stay open. I’d sleep for maybe two hours and then wake up in the same seat feeling like the world was brand new. There was a science to it. When you surf around on the web long enough you can find all kinds of ideas. Homeopathics, meditation, special diets, drugs, anything. But in the end, it’s all just shit. Everything just buys you a couple weeks at the most, then you’re back to square one. No cure for life.
    Marc let out a chuckle. “Hey, Sil,” he said, “do me a favor and drive into a ditch or something.”
    I told him I’d think about it.

    There was trash in the streets. A morning wind behind plastic bags and fliers and scraps of newspapers and take-out menus. Another day about to fall into the past like so many others—the hours swallowed up by routine, regurgitated as a paycheck, as a means to stay alive.
    The world was still asleep. Everything in sight drenched with pastel shades of blue and gray. I passed old houses, trees swaying above manicured lawns, casting skinny shadows on the ground. Sometimes I saw faces in the motion of the leaves, other times it all just looked like static.
    I drove through the toll booth, glanced over my shoulder to see half an orange sun struggling to rise above the horizon. The clouds around it like a cotton frame. I wound down a window, smelled the end of summer and thought about old westerns—cowboys always riding off into sunsets. There I was, driving away from one.

    An old couple watched a weatherman on the rest area TV as he waved his arms and told them about the next big storm. They were sitting on the only bench in the building, sharing a cup of coffee, straining their brows like they believed every word he said. I guess age doesn’t guarantee a decline in gullibility. Or maybe they just weren’t from around here.
    The floor was slick in the restroom but there was no yellow sign on the ground to warn me. Slipping crossed my mind, and the thought of a few months of disability. I glanced around and saw the mute janitor wringing water from a mop in the corner. He’d probably lose his job if I did it. The world didn’t need that. Besides, I was too much of a coward to do it right.
    Some genius for a day had scratched the words, “random hate,” into the tiles above the urinal. I smiled when I saw it. Apparently, people were running out of ideas.
    On my way out I checked the vending machines in the lobby and noticed they had added two new types of sandwich cookies that would probably stay there long past the expiration date. They were on row 3 right above the two middle cells which held lines of small, unassuming cardboard boxes—one set labeled “condoms,” the other set labeled “tampons”. Two-dollars a piece.
    I put in two bucks and hit E5 to get a box of condoms. Nothing happened so I pressed it again and still got nothing. I typed in a different code, reluctantly, and got a Baby Ruth and three quarters returned to me, then I walked out into daylight.
    Along the Thruway, there were cars and tractor trailers roaring by under the shadow of an Upstate drumlin crowned, as they all were, with a giant cell phone tower. The sounds all merged together in a steady drone. The sound of business. The backstage of America. Constant as the tide.

    “How was your week?” asked the tall girl with the dark eyes and the visor at the McDonald’s drive-through.
    I lied and said it was busy as I fished through my pockets for two quarters.
    “I got lost,” she said, a wide grin on her face like she was proud of the fact. “I was going to Buffalo yesterday and I took the wrong exit.”
    I found the change just in time. I didn’t need any details. I grabbed the coffee and drove off. When I reached the intersection I tried to remember whether I said thank you. When I reached the stoplight I couldn’t have cared less.
    Waterloo. What a town. It smelled like garbage the way it always did. The summertime was worse. Every day you’d see the trucks, the big flatbeds overflowing with trash taking that right off 96 to the Waterloo Landfill and climbing up one of the four mountains of shit. Everything inside would be steaming and rotting. I’ve seen the satellite images on Google. They’re all black.
    After the intersection with River Road it wasn’t that bad. Route 96 would open up a bit and on either side I could see the countryside bloom. The silos and cornfields, old barns, cows chewing cud and staring at nothing. There were Mennonite children who waited at the bus stops and held small, red coolers in their hands. The boys wore neat suits and little top hats, the girls wore dresses and had scarves pulled over their hair and tied beneath their chin. It was like going back in time.
    I saw billboards advertising Christ—as if he needed marketing—and little shacks that sold baked goods on Friday and Saturday. I passed a harness shop, saw two men with neck beards riding along on a horse-pulled buggy; the Sheriff’s Department, an army depot, a clearing; I saw light glinting off a strip of razor wire behind a wall of trees; I saw red bricks and aluminum ceilings behind an American flag and a big sign for the state prison.
    The van’s engine sputtered as I parked in front and unloaded the first two tote of medications. It was always making little groans like that, like it was just as loath to be out here as I was. We’d logged a quarter-million miles together. Just me and the van. Soon enough it would be sitting in a gravel lot somewhere, its guts being sold to mechanics piece by piece until there was nothing left but the rust.
    I walked into the main lobby past CO’s who all nodded their heads, the bald one behind the desk making a call to medical as I took a seat in the corner and waited. The banter was typical. Arguments over football teams, stories from the weekend, random attacks on officers’ sexual orientation.
    “Hey Orange!” said a five-foot-tall officer as he walked in with a coffee in hand, smiling beneath his handlebar mustache. “You should see if the drug guy’s got anything to help you grow your hair back.”
    Orange was the bald, stonefaced officer behind the reception counter. “That gonorrhea clearing up all right for you?” he asked. “Might want to see if he’s got anything to help you,” he added.
    “He’s probably got some Viagra for you and your limp dick. Maybe then your wife’ll stop calling me.”
    It was always the same nonsense. I’d heard it all.
    The gate opposite me opened up at the whim of one of the officers in the control room and the curly haired nurse on the other side strolled in behind her med cart. I noticed the fatigue around her eyes as she walked over in her scrubs and said good morning in monotone. I replied with the same and asked how she was doing. She said she was tired. I said I was too. We traded totes and I left.
    Outside, a white doe stood by the picnic table sniffing around for some food. We locked eyes as I walked past and she continued staring, fearlessly, even as I got in the van and slammed the door shut. There was that silence again as I scribbled the time and the miles on a piece of paper. My hands were shaking a little.

    The alarm on my cell phone started beeping at 2:30.
    I forced open eyes that were glued shut with sleep. There was a ringing in my ears. I sat up in the back seat of the van and tried to adjust to the sunlight.
    My deliveries were finished so I’d stopped at a parking area on Route 13. It was supposed to be a place for snow plows to turn around at in the winter rather than for people to pull over and take naps. Regardless, it was empty now. I killed the alarm and kept my head low as I crept back up to the driver’s seat.
    Outside my passenger window the earth sloped down to a shallow creek that trickled along beneath a line of pine trees. The view from the driver’s-side offered only the road, and beyond that, an overgrown field spotted with a few rundown farmhouses and barns.
    I stepped out and took a long stretch. The world barely made a sound.
    I took a leak behind one of the trees and watched the creek as the water curled around rocks and little shrubs; the silence of the countryside urging me, the way it always did, to forget everything and just walk away, leave the van and all my things behind and just disappear into a world splayed out before me like a mirage. Everything was surreal. The way the wind massaged tree limbs as sunlight sneaked its way between leaves and branches; the way the water reflected the world; the smell of summer ending. But it was all just a mirage, a veil, and behind the veil was a cold, stupid, and bitter world where jokes were never really funny and where all you could ever find when you turned a corner was senseless work and the absence of meaning. I knew all that but still I smiled. It’s not like reality surprised me anymore. I’d been alive long enough to know its tricks.
    For a while I just stood there with my hands at my waist. The sunshine beyond closed eyelids becoming a dull glow, my breath slowing down, growing deeper as I emptied my thoughts and tried to remember how I’d made it as far as I had. It was all so easy.

    “What’s up stranger,” said Lisa as I walked into the garage. I dropped the stack of totes I was carrying and let out a sigh.
    “Not much, Lisa. How you holding up?”
    She shrugged her shoulders, made some lazy gesture toward the walls. “I’m here.”
    I offered a smile as I walked over to the filing cabinet and dropped off my manifests.
    “I never see you anymore now that you do this run,” she said.
    I thought I remembered having this conversation before. In fact, I was sure of it.
    “But that’s probably how you like it, huh?”
    She was wearing an extra-large hoodie even though she was barely five feet. She was skinny too, although she probably wouldn’t notice it when she saw herself in the mirror. One of those body disorders. She was smiling at me, dimpled red cheeks on either side of chapped lips, her thick-rimmed glasses only slightly crooked.
    I laughed and shook my head. I didn’t know the answer to that question anymore. Maybe she was right. Maybe that was how I liked it. Alone, empty, disconnected.
    “Hey, what are you doing tonight?” she asked. “It’s Friday, you’ve got to be doing something.”
    I told her probably nothing.
    “Do you still have the same number? I’m having people over. I’ll call you. You should come.”
    I said okay even though I didn’t think I’d actually go. The last time she’d had people over it was just me and the couple that lived below her. They were both sunk into the couch and practically frozen with red eyes like they were high as hell but I thought that might have just been the way they were.
    “You better pick up your phone this time,” she said with a grin as she walked back into the shop.
    After that, I heard our boss’s voice on the intercom asking all the pharmacists to meet her in the conference room. She sounded annoyed, the way she always did, as if she had more important things to do than her job. It was a mood I usually sympathized with. But today it just sounded excessive.
    I took a seat in the desk chair with the broken leg and waited for my time to leave. I could smell the trash in the cans behind me. Rotting food and expired medicine. The sour stench of B vitamins that always overpowered everything. I heard a noise from below and when I looked down there was a drop of blood on the cement floor. A second later, I tasted metal.
    The ceiling light in the pharmacy’s bathroom hummed and flickered as I sat on the toilet with my head tilted back. I squeezed my nose shut with toilet paper and waited for the bleeding to stop. I felt helpless. I wanted to go home. I started breathing a little quicker. Always those little aggravations, reminders of the frailties of the human body—this bag of shit and water I’ve walked around in for all these years—they always make me want to go home.

    In my apartment, the bathroom was lit only by light bleeding in from the hallway behind me. It threw my shadow on the wall in the shower, my touseled hair like some demonic crown as I sat on the edge of the tub with my clothes on the floor behind me.
    I’d been talking to her again. Or my shadow, or God—I don’t know. Whoever I spoke to remained silent. There was no voice to answer my questions. I’d been sitting there for what seemed like an hour, trying to right my breathing, trying to clear my mind. My eyelids had gone numb, but a side stitch that had started on the ride home wouldn’t go away.
    I didn’t know what to think anymore. Or even how to think. It had been a long time since my last meditation. The routine had stopped around the same time I stopped smoking. A coincidence, I think.
    “What the hell am I doing wrong?” My eyes focused on the flesh of my wrists and the arteries beneath. “All just moving so damn fast.”
    I thought I heard someone knocking on the front door so I laughed and might have even waved at my shadow on the wall, or my shadow might have waved at me, either way it meant nothing. The knocking at the door was left unanswered.
    “What am I doing?”
    My cell phone started ringing. My hands started shaking. I tasted bile. The knocking at the door had stopped but the ringing continued. I stood up and dug my cell phone out of the clothes on the floor behind me. It was Lisa.
    “Hello?”
    “Uh, is this Sil?”
    “Ya, Lisa. What is it?”
    “You sound like you just woke up,” she said. Did I? My voice was hoarse and my nose was congested. “You’re still coming over right?”
    I said, “sure,” and asked what time it was. She said it was eight. Apparently I had only been on the edge of my tub for twenty minutes.
    “We got, like, some liquor. But if you want to bring more that would be cool.”
    “That’s fine,” I said. I told her I’d be over in an hour.
    After I pressed the END button I sat down next to the toilet and stared into the porcelain, hoping the sight of it might agitate my gut. All I could manage was a couple of painful dry heaves.
    I flipped the light switch and turned the shower on.
    “Is this all there is?” I asked myself, breathing in steam that spilled through the air. Was I just another animal? Could I ever adapt to this world?

    “What’s a destrudo?” asked the anorexic girl who was lying on the couch with her legs crossed on her boyfriend’s lap. She had an ultra-light cigarette in one hand and was passing a joint to Lisa with the other. Her name was Jess—one of Lisa’s friends from high school who never made it out of the neighborhood she grew up in. Ten years ago she would’ve said she wanted to be an actress. Now all she wanted to be was a good mother. Things change like that.
    “Some Freudian thing,” I replied, my voice lost in a room full of blank stares. I saw Lisa squinting her eyes like she was about to crack up laughing as she blew out a lung full of smoke. “It’s a psychological term,” I added. “Y’all know what libido means?”
    “Yeah,” said Jess’s boyfriend from underneath the brim of his Yankee’s cap. “That’s when you’re trying to get laid.” Everyone started laughing except him and me. His girlfriend said he was crazy and he just shook his head. “For real,” he added, “Sil knows. Tell her Sil.”
    “Right, and destrudo is like the opposite of that.” I couldn’t remember how we’d got on the topic.
    Lisa stood up from the recliner, winking a tired eye as she offered me the joint. Smoke was dancing off the tip like fog getting peeled off the surface of a lake and I took a few hits, felt the smoke gouge its way through my windpipes. I passed it to Lisa’s sister Cassie who was sprawled out like a corpse on a loveseat in the corner.
    Time passed and somehow I was feeling alright. Something about people, about having actual eyes and ears to share the world with.
    It was a muggy night. One of those hot days at the end of summer. Lisa had fans set up around the flat but they didn’t have much effect. Windows were open in the two bedrooms that were off the living room where we were smoking. The cross breeze brought in smells of cheap air fresheners and perfumes.
    “So what does that mean?” asked Cassie, her eyes closing as she took a long drag. “It’s like, when you don’t want to fuck?”
    They laughed some more.
    I shook my head. “No, not like that.” The legs of the wooden chair creaked as I sat up in it, scratching my head, trying to figure out exactly what I was talking about. “It’s this thing in your mind that just makes you want to rage out and destroy things.” My hands were making some weird gestures like I was trying to massage the idea out of the air. I hadn’t smoked in years and it felt like the world had just become three times heavier. People were speaking but I wasn’t listening to what they said. I heard the words— the little animal noises. I just couldn’t pay attention to what they meant. I was following the cadence, feeling all the breaks and notes like everything was music. Somebody would launch into a scat song, wave their hands in the air, everybody would start laughing and I was laughing, too. Just because.
    At some point we ended up in the kitchen and I was sitting on the linoleum counter next to Lisa, my arm around her waist as somebody gave us each a shot glass. They were cold and mine had a picture of an old car and had the words, “Road Trip!” stamped on it in red paint. It made me think about work, about the highway, about the drone of cars and trucks that echoed along it for all hours of the day and night. Even now.
    Somebody said: “Take the shot, man!” I noticed everybody around me had already taken theirs. I shrugged.
    Cigarette smoke was swirling around the ceiling fan like a storm on the cusp.
    I took the shot. It tasted like nothing.
    Jess’s boyfriend was in the street with his shirt off. He still had his hat on, pulled low over his brow. He was muttering stuff like, “I’m serious, man,” and staggering around in a circle with the stub of a cigarette smoking between his lips as he stared up at the phone lines. He had a big tattoo on his chest of an AK-47, a farmer’s tan around it in the shape of a tank top. “Sil, you know I’m serious, right?”
    I nodded my head from the sidewalk, thought I could feel myself swaying a bit as I stood there. Lisa was next to me, along with the neighbors from downstairs.
    There were cars parked on the side of the road and I couldn’t stop thinking Jess’s boyfriend was about to kick a fender or punch a window. He was that wound up. I couldn’t remember why. He’d been on the phone for a while, and somebody had said something about his brother getting arrested at a baseball game.
    Suddenly he stopped a few feet from the curb. Light from the streetlamps covered everything, made the world glow a dim orange. There was a dog barking from the back of one of the old, ratty colonial homes across the street.
    “Yo, Sil,” he said. “What’d you call that shit again, man?” He was scratching at a red streak across his stomach. “Destrugo? Destrubo? That’s me right now. I feel like destroying some shit for real, man.”
    Lisa took a step onto the uncut grass between the sidewalk and the road. “Dude,” she said. “You need to relax. Your brother’s gonna be alright.”
    He glared back at her, his brow creasing up, confused, like she’d just called him the wrong name. “Lisa, I don’t give a shit about him.” He looked up at the sky. “I’m just pissed off, and I’m fucking drunk.” At least he could admit that much. “I’m sick of waking up and doing the same shit every day. I need to be on my own grind. This bullshit job I got at the call center is some shit for the birds, man. It’s some work for goddamn punks.” His eyes shifted and suddenly, he was staring right at me. “I wanna do what you’re doing, man. Just driving around; no boss; nobody telling you you gotta stop wasting time and get back to work, none of that shit—shit that makes you wanna punch a hole in a wall or a face or something, anything, man.”
    I could only smile. I didn’t know what to think. I wasn’t sure if he’d enjoy it as much as he thought, but I wasn’t ready to say it. I figured it was one of those situations where the grass always looks greener. What time was it? I checked my watch but couldn’t see the dials.
    “I need to be out there,” he said again, waving his hand in the direction of the interstate. He had a smile on his face like he already was—like his mind was flying down the road, wind blasting through open windows, the world disappearing in the rear-view. “I need to be out there, man. I need to be out there.”
    We were sitting on the grass at the harbor, the sound of the wash rolling in like God trying to put the world to sleep. I was staring at a red moon about a hand’s-width above the horizon, the clouds around it barely moving.
    A line of empty boats stretched along the edge of the shore. They were all swaying with the tide, making little creaking noises from the pressure. The one closest to us was a big white houseboat that had the words GOING, GONE printed on it in cursive letters.
    It was just me and Lisa. Her face was pressed against my shoulder. Sniffling, still crying, I think. I can’t remember what had set her off, but I remember her saying something about how her father was trying to control her life, and something else about a woman from the office named Rachel, who she said was a cunt. Her face turned all suspicious when I said I didn’t know Rachel. The fact was, I didn’t know most of the people I worked with. I was surprised how anyone could. So many names and faces. Generic names. Miserable faces.
    I took a long sip from a Coors Original in a paper bag, finished it and tossed it in the harbor. A few drops of beer flew out as it spun. After it splashed in, it just popped back up and floated there on the surface like a weed.
    “Going, gone,” I said with a smirk.
    Lisa lifted her head. I still had an arm around her.
    “What was that?”
    I shrugged, tried to think of something funny. “I dunno,” I said. “A can of beer, I guess.” The world was starting to spin a little. Everything was getting foggy. I asked her if it really mattered and she thought about it for only a second before she leaned her head on my shoulder again and said: “You’re pretty crazy, you know that?”
    Of course I did. I nodded my head, kissed her hair as I watched the light from the stars glimmer off the wrinkled surface of the water. Of course I knew.

    At some point the memories stopped, and I was dreaming.
    I don’t usually dream when I’m drunk. Or maybe I just don’t remember them. They just become more random images lost in the fog, I guess. Images I don’t need and will never get back. But the dream from that night was different. It wanted to happen. It wanted to be seen and remembered. So it did.
    And I was back behind the wheel. Always. Riding that stretch of I-90 that cuts like a knife down the middle of the Montezuma Wildlife Reserve. It was before the fire too, so everything was crystal clear and pristine, no bulldozers tearing up sections or excavators peeling up layers of earth. You could drive through and the sky would get so big—the way it does at the ocean—and you’d be able to see for miles in every direction. The long grass and the trees, the ponds, and there’d always be a group of birds flying up like something from a movie.
    The windows of the van were open, but the wind wasn’t whipping through. Everything was silent even though I was driving about a hundred miles an hour. Speeding because I had this feeling like I had to be somewhere and I was already late.
    I passed a brown SUV with a trailer hitched on the back and a green canoe strapped to the roof. I peeked in the window as I came up alongside and saw a woman in a halter top with short hair, eyes closed, chin on her chest, fast asleep without even a finger on the wheel. I tried to honk the horn but it made no sound. I tried to yell out the window, “Hey, you!” but she couldn’t hear me.
    I passed a rusted Subaru station-wagon and saw a whole family sleeping the trip away. A boy and girl in the backseat, snuggled up together like little chimps. And up front was a guy in glasses and a white shirt, slumped over in the driver’s seat with his face up against the window, a little strip of drool spilling out from the corner of his mouth. His wife didn’t care. She was sleeping, too.
    And it went on and on. Trucks, tractor-trailers, panel-vans, limousines, buses, all piloted by a race of sleeping souls, all somehow staying straight despite the bends in the road.
    I tried the horn again and again. I was shouting, “Hey!” at everyone I could, but nobody listened.
    At some point I started to feel afraid because I couldn’t understand how they were doing it, or how it was even possible. How was there just miles and miles of sleeping traffic and no accidents?
    I shook the thoughts away and tried to focus on the broken white line in the middle of the road as it flickered by. And the mile markers. My mind was drifting again. This was the world.
    What time was it?

    My first thought was the realization that I didn’t have my credit card. It was still at a bar somewhere between Lisa’s house and the harbor. Not for the first time, I was the drunken idiot who stumbled out into the night without closing his tab. Probably lucky, though. I would’ve messed up the tip. My car was there, too. But I was proud of that one. A couple years ago I doubt I would’ve thought twice. Not anymore. When you drive 360 miles a day, walking five doesn’t seem like much.
    Apparently it was, though. Because I wasn’t in my bed. I knew that.
    I was sprawled out next to a tree on a road about five blocks from my apartment. The sun was up, burning a hole through the clouds and making them all shimmer and glow like melted chunks of shattered china. There was no hiding in that light.
    I didn’t care, though. No guilt. I sat there rubbing my eyes and yawning as I pushed my back up against the tree. The street was familiar. The short, ranch-style houses with giant lawns and garages. No cracks in the paint. And no sidewalk on the side of the road with the houses, either.
    Behind me was the cemetery. Not where I wanted to be. It happened though, so I could only shrug. I let out a chuckle, too, and leaned back.
    There were kids playing in the street a few houses down. I could hear their little voices barking politics across the breeze, imitating the tones of their parents. They were young, so it was harmless. All four of them were standing around with their hands behind their backs like little Marines, someone would say some magic word and everyone would start running and dodging in so many directions you couldn’t tell who was chasing who. They would do this for almost half a minute until all of a sudden, everyone would stop and they would start over.
    I had no desire to watch, so I closed my eyes and started talking to myself. It’s a habit you develop from driving alone for so many hours per week. More like muttering in your sleep than carrying on full-bodied conversations with your subconscious. Most times it was just gibberish. This was no different.
    After a while one of the kids walked over. A boy about eleven or twelve-years-old with a big green t-shirt on, the collar stretched out and the sleeves reaching almost an inch past his elbows. He was wearing sweatpants and taking sips from a coffee mug with the words BECAUSE I’M THE BOSS printed on it in black letters. Narrow eyes stared right through me.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked.
    I yawned and told him I was trying to wake up.
    He was quiet for a moment, eyes gazing down at his feet. He took a step forward and held out his mug. I shook my head.
    “It’s just water.”
    There were church bells ringing at the other end of the cemetery, past about a mile of headstones and mausoleums and little pathways for the bereaved. I rubbed my forehead, reached out and took a long sip of the boy’s water before handing it back. I felt lightheaded. My legs were weak and wobbly even though I was still sitting in the grass.
    “Are you okay?”
    I nodded, glanced up the street to see his friends still playing the same game, strutting around like machines. “What’s your name?” I asked.
    “Bill.”
    I told him it was a good name and he just shrugged. I couldn’t think of much to say. I wasn’t good at talking to kids.
    “What do you want to be when you grow up, Bill?”
    He gazed into his mug, looked almost embarrassed. “A nuclear physicist.”
    I started laughing and he made a face like he wished he was bigger so he could strangle the life out of me until I was just as dead as the people buried behind me. There I was, just laughing at a little kid’s dream. The same asshole as I was yesterday. I had to stop laughing, but I maintained the smile because it was still kind of funny.
    I remember my uncle used to say he wanted to be a nuclear physicist. He said he could have been the next Einstein. He even got a scholarship to go study physics at Yale or RIT or something. I don’t know what happened. Somehow he ended up a fireman and he did that for fifteen years before he died in a housefire. Flames caught a gasline while he was inside trying to rescue some woman’s daughter, blew him straight out the kitchen window. As it turned out, the woman’s daughter wasn’t even in the house. She’d slept over at her friends place. It didn’t really matter.
    The church bells had stopped and I was finally standing up, stretching my back. I told Bill to be good but he didn’t say anything, just went on watching me with those narrow eyes. A breeze was blowing leaves along the side of the road as I started off down the street, along the edge of the cemetery, cars passing by the way they always did. For some reason I was thinking about the ocean, summer vacations when I was a kid, standing there as the waves crashed on the shore. I would watch the sunlight against the motion of the waves, never once thinking how absurd that freedom was, and how it would never last.

Sterling A Slechta Bio

    Sterling Slechta is a fiction writer from Upstate New York. He studied religion at Syracuse University and since graduating, has made his living working in parks, prisons, nursing homes, and schools. He currently lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY.

When Christ Reached Nirvana

    I was standing there thinking whether or not I would go to hell, just as the priest was holding the bread above the cup of wine and water. I thought about all of the good and bad things that I had done, and I wondered if they evened each other out. Then I wondered if it worked like that: one good deed cancels out one bad. I figured it didn’t because I remember reading a philosopher who wrote that when you get to heaven you’ll see people you never expected to, and some of the people you expected to see won’t be there. It was all plain and confusing to me because I saw religion as a group of people who know, but don’t really know. I related it to waiting to hear back from a college that, with your grades and impressive extracurriculars, you’d be sure to get into. And you could be as sure as you wanted that you would get into that college, but the truth is that there would be no way to actually know except for when the letter arrives in your mailbox.

    All my life I had been raised in the Catholic faith and I started to drift away from it when I was about sixteen years old. I was attending a Catholic high school in northern Illinois and that place really put me off to religion in general. I started to see it as nothing but groups of people who claimed that their group held more truth than the others. I remember a conversation I had in a comparative religions class that I took the last semester of my senior year. The teacher was a real nice guy by the name of Mr. Vince. He played in a christian rock band and was always trying to get me to strengthen my faith. One day during class we delved into the topic of Buddhism and the birth of its founder, Siddhartha Gautama. There was a real asshole sitting to my left named Joseph David. Joseph was the worst type of asshole, the coward type that would act all sorts of friendly to your face because he didn’t have the balls to be real. He always had something stupid to say, too. And no matter what he said, his paparazzi would laugh and give him a hi-five; he was a jock.
    Anyways, we were sitting in class and Mr. Vince brought up the story of how Siddhartha was believed to be conceived. The sacred texts read that Siddhartha’s mother had a dream, and in that dream a white elephant touched her side with its trunk and at that moment, she was pregnant with Siddhartha.
    Joseph immediately broke out into laughter saying, “These people can’t be serious! They would have to be absolutely insane, out of their minds or just plain stupid to believe that a white-” he couldn’t even get the words out without laughing, “A white elephant touched her side?” He burst into laughter again, and in his idiotic laughter and sheer ignorance, my mind conjured a thought that I felt held value. I turned to him and said, “That is funny, Joseph.”
    And he looked over at me with his face shinning bright red and said, “How stupid can they be? An elephant? An elephant? Really?” His eyes were watering and he just kept laughing. I waited for him to settle down for a minute before I said, “I wasn’t talking about the birth of the Buddha being funny.”
    His face straightened and he looked at me with a confused look, not knowing whether to keep laughing or to become offended. It was my goal to clear that up as soon as possible, “What’s funny is that you’re laughing at the thought of an elephant touching a woman’s side and becoming pregnant, but you firmly believe that an angel came down from a cloud and said, ‘You are pregnant with the Lord’s Child.’”
    Mr. Vincent said, “Moving on...” and continued with a lecture about karma and reincarnation. I remember that day so vividly because it was the same day that I beat the living hell out of Joseph for bullying a real nice kid by the name of Nick Bimere. I had known Nick for all of eleven years. We had gone to the same grade school, middle school and high school. He was a real genuine spirit with a hard head and his own ideas, needless to say, he was misunderstood. I have to admit that I was not always the nicest to him, often he would try too hard to talk about things that most people had no interest in talking about, and he was always right. Like I said, the kid had a very hard head. I mean, you couldn’t tell him anything without him giving you some crazy explanation pulled straight from his ass. But, the kid was genuine and in no way did he deserve to be treated the way he was treated by his peers. I never knew much about Nick, and to be honest, I never did bother to find out more like I should have. I just knew his name and I knew that he enjoyed medieval video games and his father was some sort of teacher. I also knew that he took the public bus to and from school and his glasses were so strong that without him he couldn’t make out a face from two feet away. He was always talking about politics and North Korea, “We should drop bread on North Korea!” And everyone would give him this weird look and he’d say, “Think of it, just think of it for one moment, listen: in World War II we dropped propaganda from fighter jets to inform the people of countries fighting against us that our motives were good and hopefully they would start a protest. North Korea is so poor, but they don’t know any better. The only intelligence that they have is the intelligence that their dictator-emperor will allow them to have. They don’t even know how bad they have it because they’re brainwashed to think that they have it the best, and they hate America. We need to drop bread from planes and have little notes attached to the loaves that say ‘From: America.’”
    When he got around to telling me that, I said, “Yeah, Nick. Good idea, let’s drop bread on the North Koreans so they can take it the wrong way and think, ‘Oh those asshole Americans, they know we’re dirt poor and they’re trying to to kill us by dropping bread on us! Oh the cruel irony of the Americans!’”
    He laughed.
    But I wasn’t laughing the day when Joseph David walked up to Nick and called him a “Dumb-ass-nerd-loser,” then spat on his glasses. No, I wasn’t laughing one bit. And when Joseph and his friends were giving each other hi-fives and chest bumps, I was sorting through some sort of merciless-psychotic-killer instinct to reach for the fire extinguisher and bash his hollow head in until he was thirty minutes past dead.
    Nick was a small kid, only an inch or two taller than me. He had a bowl-cut of soft yellow hair and big blue eyes that he could barely see out of. His glasses were two large eggs with a thin wire frame. He slouched a little when he walked and he was constantly pushing his glasses back behind his ears, they were old and warn out, but his family didn’t have the money to buy him a new pair. He didn’t drink or smoke tea, he never had. One day I was sitting next to him in the library with a water bottle containing half water and half vodka, and I asked him if he wanted a sip. He shook his head, “I don’t drink or do anything like that. I like my brain, and I like to take care of it.”
    I took a hard hit from the bottle and I said, “I care about my brain too, both of them, actually,” and I winked to a skinny girl with blue eyes and wild hair.
    I was actually very respectful to women and I didn’t care much for drinking or partying. In fact, the only reason that I had the water bottle full of alcohol that day was because I would have to sit through the awards assembly. The awards assembly was literally three hours of sitting on the most uncomfortable bleachers in the most uncomfortable gymnasium. The place had no fans or air conditioning, and there were one thousand kids jammed into that sardine can of a gym, all breathing heavier than the person sitting next to them. You’d have to be absolutely insane to sit through that without alcohol or tea or something! Especially when the entertainment would begin, and by entertainment I mean the dozens and dozens of kids that would pass out during the assembly. I’m not joking when I say dozens and dozens. During almost every assembly at that place there would be a minimum of ten kids passing out, some of them were real good too. I mean these kids were ten, twenty rows up passing out and tumbling down the bleachers until a limb got stuck or they got snagged on a fat kid. To see that happen while you were drunk or high was just about the funniest thing that you’d ever witness in your life.
    “I had a friend that drank and smoked,” he said, “we were best friends until he got hooked on being high or drunk all the time. He started dealing drugs and the next thing I knew he was just some sort of zombie, a shell of what he used to be.”
    I was tipsy and had no desire to hear anything about that, plus I knew all about it. “Just because it happened to your friend doesn’t mean it’s going to happen to you or me or anyone.” I took another swig, “Addiction is for the weak.” Nick moved his head back and forth and hunched his shoulders up.
    It was a good assembly, one girl fainted and fell so hard that she gave herself a concussion. I don’t know how that school didn’t get sued for neglecting the safety of its students, but they got away with it. And it was really that thought that made me abandon my backpack and lunge on top of Joseph David with a frenzy of fists: they got away with it.
    The way I saw the world of my generation was nothing but bad people getting away with doing bad things, while the good people had to suffer. I didn’t understand any of it, especially in a Catholic school. A school where the teachings of Christ were supposed to be upheld and the community was supposed to consist of loving individuals. What a joke, what a funny joke.
    I didn’t believe in karma, but I believed that the concept of it was good. I mean what is a better incentive to do something good if something good is going to happen to you in return? I saw no problem with that. It could be argued that people would only be doing good deeds for self gain but is it a problem to want good things to happen to you if you spend your time doing good things? And I never saw Nick doing any bad things. I never saw him lie, cheat or steal. I never saw him kill anybody. I never saw him say an unkind word or even lift a finger to anyone in a negative way. I only saw Nick being a genuine spirit. I only saw him wanting to learn and to talk and to have somebody to truly call his friend. And I know that even the worst thing he had ever done in his life was not worthy of having Joseph David say such cruelties to him and then spit on his face, and I learned from my junior religion teacher, Fr. Bernie, that God is more of a spectator on earth. Which meant that God gave everyone free will and people can do whatever they want on this earth with no consequences; their consequences would come when they were either rewarded with heaven or punished with hell. I didn’t like looking at God as some type of observer who would let good people go through bad things, like my friend George. His mother passed away the first month of senior year and he was the most generous, kind and friendly person I had ever met, and of course it would be his mother that would pass.
    I knew damn well that Christ and all the the saints in heaven sitting naked in the clouds above would do absolutely nothing for this kind spirit who had his face spit on and publicly humiliated as Joseph David and his minions laughed and laughed. I knew that nothing bad would happen to them and they would grow up to be even bigger picks who have lots of money and beautifully stupid wives, creating little versions of themselves that would grow up to be the same shit-bags they were.
    And I did what any good person would do. I, standing five foot six inches, weighing in at one hundred and forty five pounds, lunged on top of Joseph David and hit him time after time again. I broke all of my knuckles on my left hand on the right cheekbone of his face. His friends gathered around in sheer awe as they watched their football God be nailed over and over by my hammer of a fist. And when I was done, I spat on his face and looked at Nick, whose eyes were wide with fear that was magnified by his powerful glasses. I looked at him and said, “Would you like a ride home?”

    And as I stood in the back of the church as the priest was holding the bread above the chalice, I wondered if I would go to hell. I wondered if my ideals were all wrong and someday I would meet the creature that is making Hitler dance for eternity. I wondered if good deeds outweighed the bad, and above all, I wondered what exactly good was.

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!

    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 quarterly by Scars Publications and Design, 829 Brian Court, Gurnee, IL 60031-3155 USA; attn: Janet Kuypers. Contact us via snail-mail or e-mail (ccandd96@scars.tv) for subscription rates 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 2012 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.