Untitled (moonlight)

Moonlight, starry skies;
smoky clouds floating to earth
    summer’s ghostly dance

Acrostic

Keeping thoughts of you close to me
As I travel the road, my true home
Thoughts of you I paint with sunlight
Even the cold cannot diminish; thoughts of you
Linger like a snowfall, like a tune I hear
You humming, as you walk ahead of me
Now, thoughts of you linger, sweet as chocolate, i

Hold in my hands, pretend it’s your hand
A star burning bright, will soon die, but
Never fails to leave a mark; you’re a supernova
Still lingering on in my thoughts, sweet as
One’s desire, yet dark as longing
Never will a song linger like the thought of you

R. Nixon Toes the Line
in the White House Bowling Alley

His form is questionable:
the black fifteen pound ball held
high against his chest in his
right hand, cradled by the left
as he stares down the under-
ground alley toward the pins.
If this is relaxation, he is as
awkward in sport, off-hours, as
he is on the job, on TV addressing
the nation as the elected leader
claiming a stack of recently
discovered audio tapes will
vindicate all his claims of
innocence to wrong doing,
malfeasance, high crimes and
misdemeanors, a claim almost
as incredible and as ludicrous as
the vanity in having made these
tapes at all; certainly his place in
history is already more than assured.
If vanity were the worst failure of
his character, the manner in which
he dressed himself is not an expression
of that fault: off-the-rack trousers
belted way too high above the waist,
an unflattering, tasteless t-shirt more
likely to be found in a fire sale,
bargain basement, than in a designer
showroom, all incredibly out of style.
Even the decorating scheme, the walls
in the alley where he is poised, toes
squarely on the third and fourth dots
along the suggested line, just this side
of the lighted one for recording fouls,
suggest early East Jersey cocktail lounge
circa 1966, though he can hardly be held
accountable for that lapse in taste.
No this leader of the free world,
R. Nixon, former political-persona-non-grata,
dead-man-walking, is about to release,
to drop the black weight from his hands,
to propel it as hard as he can down that
slick, that slippery well-oiled path toward
a stationery target, firing for effect; whether
the shot is a perfect strike, a well-aimed
missile is nowhere recorded; only the spooks,
special agents, soldiers sworn to secrecy know.

The Pain To Come

I’m living at my sister’s house back> in our old hometown these days, they fixed
up a room for me off the porch. She says
I’m welcome to stay as long as it takes
for me to get back on my feet again.
Not to worry, glad to have me, and
my brother-in-law keeps my glass full
of club soda when we watch baseball at night.

I’ve noticed the first bar I ever went to regularly
in town isn’t around anymore, the old building
next to the volunteer fire hall torn down
I don’t know when. No mixed drinks there,
just shots of Jameson or Jack Daniel’s.
The only kind of beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon
on tap, by the glass, frosted mug or pitcher.
Pat was the owner and only bartender,
every 3^rd or 4^th drink was on the house.
He served green beer on St. Patrick’s Day,
opened early for the 4^th of July parade.
My mom sent me his obit from the local weekly
when I was living down in Houston after
my first divorce. I stuck it on my fridge,
thought about him every time I got another beer
or ice for one more tall gin and tonic.

My friends and I played Midnight Rider and Sundown
a million times on the jukebox, lost all our other quarters
shooting 8-ball with all the old timers. At closing time
one night I fell down the steps into the parking lot, lay there
numb and laughing, blind to the pain to come, knowing then
I could still get up all on my own.

The Stuckey’s that used to be off I-74
(Central Illinois 3:16)

Impossible, to enjoy a joint
Where people eat when they travel
They’re in and gone
You won’t see them
Won’t know them
No love
Townies fixture’d amongst those leaving
Are there to gawk, or
Just stubborn, claiming town space
With their asses
Or, they’re folk who have nothing left
That can be called with any confidence
A Life
No love

Oh, okay
Maybe that last subgroup denoted
Loves
Maybe
But, no one wants it

Nature Trail

Follow leafy trails
into red and orange,
silver, green;
let the dew of life
wash clean our
dirty hands;
be still, antic winds
till nothing’s heard
but an egg-bird;
a tear in the eye;
all our yesterdays
on standby

A Mad Escape

Black as her witch’s cape,
she rises and then crawls,
sprawls in air.
Bottles break beneath her feet.
Nothing to her is clear now,
muddy seas of emotion
shift wildly, a cape
flying in winds or torrents.
With no certain light,
she blames darkness
on black night fears.
A vinyl record spins
through her mind of sparkle
and scratches: gray or silver
dresses hang in her closet.
She dances as if on waves
in a crowded club.
There is a harmless parade
of light streams
coming through clouds or mist now.
Lakes of dancers wave through the room
from water to landscape,
shore to sand.
Cold breezes come through vents
and fans; air dragging her cape
into the mists of her mind.
Everything is shadow now.
A boat is painted on a wall.
She is lost at sea on it.
Light and blackness interplay.
She is lost under a cape,
crawls into a shell
of nothingness, silence,
and all runs black.

Maura Gage Cavell bio

    Maura Gage Cavell is Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program at Louisiana State University Eunice. She resides in Crowley with her family. She has recently published poetry in California Quarterly, Poem, Louisiana Literature, Boulevard, and The Louisiana Review.

Silver Anniversary

your hair
is sprinkled

with grey

your skin
paved

with wrinkles

but
your blue

eyes
still gleam

with
mischief

Bomb Drill

in the fifth grade
in Wichita, Kansas
our teacher
gave

each one of us
a set of silver
dog tags

with our name
blood type
and place
to ship
our dead body
engraved in them

we had to wear them
every day

because
the teacher checked us

and once
a month

we all practiced
the bomb drill
in the hallway

by curling
into a ball

and covering
our heads
with

our hands

Black(all the time)

I’m part of the generation that wears black,
a generation not limited to time or trend or history,
but the collective(intellectual) consciousness,
which forever seeks
to realize itself,
which sometimes
thinks it has.

I’m part of the generation that wears black(all the time),
but not always outwardly,
which(personally)
separates my voice
from interference,
though it may just
vary for others
of my generation.
I’m just saying that everybody’s different.

I’m part of the generation that wears black(and sometimes tie-dye),
who rolls their eyes or flashes fingers
or thumbs a nose or flicks a chin,
or cleanly calls it quits,
who doubts and doubts, and then turns
around and doubts itself for doubting,
for daring to doubt,
doubt for doubt’s sake,
to refine the mind
and kill some time,
buckshot at the ducks.

I’m part of the generation that wears black(plainly),
and it doesn’t have to be all black,
not goth black, not that obsession,
not that, but is included
(to some extent);
I mean black as a
comfort color, and one
that’s second nature, not
the kind that
draws a stare.

My God’s better than your God

Despite exceptions,
much of human history’s
disfigured by the premise
‘My God’s better than your God,’
with apostles of that imparity
ministering merciless atrocities
to lord it over others’ deities.
And as vengeful Gods
have come and gone
over tedious millennia of torture,
pillage, rape, devastation
- surely enough to satisfy
any divinity’s bloodlust
for human sacrifice -
what insight
has this unsavory past
brought so many of us?
‘My God IS better than your God!’

Letter to Natalya Gorbanevskaya

Thirty years ago
I discovered that rare force
of your banned poetry
only learning later
you’d demonstrated against
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
and that disclosing protester prosecution
landed you in a psychiatric hospital,
resolved at length
by emigration.

Then, ever so much later,
communism fell

Well now, since those heady days,
you’d be appalled to find
history’s gone full circle
with Vladimir Putin
gnawing on Ukraine
like a dog on a bone,
claiming it’s because
that bone’s stuck
in mother Russia’s craw,
with democracy and liberty
an elusive rabbit in a hat,
vanishing at a wave
of the conjurer’s paw.
But then, as you’d already written,
“the way of penitence,
like the path of sin,
is never-ending”*

* Natalya Gorbanevskaya (1936 - 2013) was a
choice Russian poet that the author first met
through the book, “Russia’s Underground Poets”,
pub. 1969. The ending lines of this poem were taken
from an article in “Modern Poetry in Translation”
written by Yury Kublanovsky, translated by Daniel Weissbort.
A sampling of N. Gorbanevskaya’s poetry,
translated into English, is available on the internet.

The Beatles Can’t Poem

Jesse Williams

How deep am I into capitalism?
I guess you never really know
until you hit 40 like a bird on a windshield
and spend two years
trying to go to Burning Man.

Generation Head and Shoulders

Jesse Williams

I took a bath in one of the quartiles of my
demographic. It was unpleasant to
say the least. I had a glaze of misogyny on my skin and
when I stood up
the unemployed swung from my hair like
circus ants.

At the Grave
A Saddest Pity

        The words of our prayers are different,         but our tears are the same.
        (Abraham Joshua Heschel)

And she comes and visits you
black-clad like two hours later
and her figure is slender and her
grips are fragile unto her mouth

Corners bow that low and her head is
that deep in her veil that one may wonder
what grief and whom’s suffering and
pondering on broken pieces of grammar

Eye glasses hairs ashes fences
protheses ID pictures evidences
of torture and starvation practices
to bodies of her sons lost to Cyclone B

On golden of her toe is only lightning
the scene like a lost glass slipper
to Snowwhite’s death from exhaustive cold
portrayed by Jaceh Malczewski—

Śmierć Ellenai
Death of Helena

(Thanks to Antoni Pleszowski his 1887 Nad grobem Jaceh Malczewski
his 1883 Śmierć Ellenai in Sukiennice Muzeum and Block 11)

Love

We meet again.
The moment,
Kind and generous,
The beauty,
Peaceful and serene.

The spirit alive
In all that is
And not what could be.

And all of this
Born of love,
In a moment
That is timeless
And always
Enough.

If I Didn’t Have Dollies

If I didn’t have
dollies
I would have to
bring people home
and kill them
and stuff them
so that I could
hold them
anytime
I wanted.
They would be mine
always.
And never
could they leave.
I would keep them
on the couch
and carry them
to bed
and touch them
anywhere
I wanted and
they would be
mine mine mine.

So the next time
you feel
like ridiculing
someone
for collecting
dolls,
or anything
for that matter,
just remember
the lives
that are saved
when things
are collected
rather than
human bodies.

Previously published in PANK 6

Worm On Cement

watch a worm struggle
beached and bloodied with small sand:
this is how we die

“Southside” Love Story

“Rom-Com” producers,
promote a new project,
featuring “Barry” Obama
and Michelle Robinson,
two yuppie lawyers
in a Chicago firm.

Porno parodists
mount a new production,
giving a hot new meaning
to the popular term
“stimulus package”.

White is Not a Color

just a state of mind
employed by a
privileged few―
to keep
the rest
of us
in our
place.

untitled (mute)

I used to do a lot of things
But life was different back then
I was a different person back then
I used to love myself
I was confident, independent, and pretty
I had a lot of friends and admirers
I had my pick of the litter
And look what I picked
Litter

A lot has happened since I was a naîve girl
Now I am not so sure of myself
Codependent and ugly with very few friends
And even fewer admirers
He has seen to that
My choices have dwindled down to zero
I am stuck
With a man who is everything I told myself I did not want
Ever

I used to love him
I used to worship him
I used to want nothing more than to be beside him
I used to fall to pieces whenever he said my name
Like I said
Used to
Now I despise him
Detest him and loathe him
Now I fear him
Can’t stand the sight of him
And I cringe whenever he says my name
I wish I could get the pieces back
I’d glue it back together and make it whole again
And get as far away from him as I could
But now it is too late
For me and my child
I am scared for me
But terrified for my child
He would find us and beat us
Perhaps kill us
I know he would
He told me as much over and over
And I believe him

I hate him
If I had an ounce of courage left
One morsel of self-respect remaining
I would take a knife and slit his throat
While he was sleeping
If only I could be sure he would be dead
I would do it
My fear of him having enough strength
Left to do harm one more time keeps me stagnant
If I had just a gram of discipline left
I would take a knife and slit my own wrists
While I take a warm bath
And gently drift away from this prison
If only I could be sure I would die
I would do it
My fear of waking up in the hospital
With him at my bedside
Knowing I had to return to my nightmare
But this time with even less courage and strength
Keeps me paralyzed

People have no idea what he is really like
He is like Clark Kent
Everyone thinks he is an angel
They don’t know how he transforms
Not into Superman
But into an evil entity
Someone I have never known
Only have seen on the Hollywood screen
He covers his tracks like the Vietcong
He is a master at infiltration and torture
Psychologically he is terrifying
Nobody would believe me
Shit, sometimes I don’t believe me
That is his gift
He makes me doubt myself
And somehow feel responsible
Imagine that
If you knew me years ago
You would not recognize me either
I was outgoing, strong and vocal
Now, he has beaten me until I am nothing but pulp
Puny, dependent and silent
Even in my solace
My cries are mute

When we have sex
I count the seconds until it is over
Again silent in my horror and rage
He has socialized me into a mute
A blind and deaf being

I hate him
I hate our life together
I hate myself
I hate
I

DG Mago bio

    DG Mago was born and raised in NYC. He has a Masters degree in counseling and has worked in the prison system with incarcerated youth dealing with serious crimes, substance abuse, and sexual and physical abuse. He relocated and lived in the Central American country of Nicaragua for 4 years. While in Nicaragua, he started a program to help at risk children to avoid some of life’s pitfalls. Since DG Mago became involved in organic agriculture and bringing clean drinking water to rural communities, he bought an organic coffee farm (fincajava.com). His writing is unique and fresh, and his poetry is thought provoking and moving. He has written and self-published two books, Shelterball and Flurries, both including original poetry. He is looking for a publisher and literary agency to represent him and eventually use their connections to help turn his vision into a film, mini-series or play.

violent affair

how one-sided
is a violent
passionate
sexual affair

is it
a small metal boat
tied with a long rope to the dock
living
to react to the tide
trapped there
pounding against the ocean alone

then
with the tide

rushing in
seeping out
rhythmically

waiting for that tide
to rush it into the shore
save for that damn rope
holding it back
then being taken away again
to do it all over again

spending it’s time
held back
and waiting

then almost
being
turned upside-down
by that rush

then recovering
and waiting
for it to all happen again

eight ball answers all

I look around me
and see so many things that are wrong.
I pick up recyclable trash
that people leave in the streets
because
everyone’s made this world
such a filthy place,
so I wonder:
are the choices we make
to recycle cardboard, tin or plastic
helping the environment at all?
Maybe I should ask
the Magic 8 Ball:
Are we making a difference
for the environment
when we try to recycle?

COME BACK AND ASK AGAIN

What?
Okay, let me rephrase that.
Wait, I have
a fuel-efficient car,
so is it smart to buy
a hybrid-electric car?

MY SOURCES SAY NO

I guess that makes sense,
since they need a special Nickel alloy
for those electric batteries,
and the only way they do that
is to pull the Nickel
from a Nickel mine
in Sudbury Ontario
(and because of the way they mined
for I don’t know how many years
the landscape in that whole area
looked like a lunar landscape for decades,
not a single thing could grow
with all the pollution
they threw onto the land there).

And wait a minute,
we Americans want those cars with the batteries,
and they’re destroying land in Canada for it,
but THEN they’re shipping that Nickel to CHINA,
where the apparently whip that Nickel
into a FOAM of some sort for the battery.

THEN they ship it to us
slobbering Pavlovian Dogs
in the United States.

Besides, they cost more to buy
than fuel-efficient cars,
so if you owned the electric hybrid
for more than 16 years,
you’ll brake even.

And they say you need to replace
that globally bad for you battery
every 100,000 miles.

Did you now that in the U.K.
they call the Prius the Pry-us?

Kind of reminds me
of the South park episode
where people thought
they were high and mighty
and bought “pious” cars... (Versus “Prius”...)

That was the same episode
where the same people
farted into wine glasses,
because they liked the smell
of their own farts.

Wait a minute...
Magic 8 Ball,
you’re supposed to be
answering question for me.
So let me think...

I’ve got one:
I heard a woman recently
who accused a man of raping her,
it got a ton of news coverage,
and then I found out
that she made it up
because everyone would assume
she was raped
and we’d instantly care deeply
for this “victim”.
So I want to know,
I know people talk about rape
like it doesn’t happen anymore,
so, are women not being attacked
sexually like that anymore?

MY REPLY IS NO

Right, because I heard a while ago
that one in three women
are sexually assaulted
by the time they leave college,
but I didn’t know
if that meant things had changed.

I know I get cat calls and horn honks
when I go out for walks
on the street in the summer,
but it might just be me,
so Magic 8 Ball,
is sexism still really a problem now?

WITHOUT A DOUBT

That’s what I figured.
I know there were so many stories before
of women in the military getting harassed,
and not being able to tell their male superiors.
And I know that what I get is next to nothing
compared to the comments some women can get
just walking down the street —

and I am sick and tired of people saying
that the problem is that men just can’t help it,
and maybe women shouldn’t try to look too enticing
to men when they walk down the street.

So apparently we can’t
expose our legs, or wear tank tops
when the weather’s warm.

Maybe we women
should dress in a burqa
and only show our eyes
to all those men out there
who can’t help it.

Either that
or act like a crazy person,
failing our arms
and babbling at anyone,
maybe that will distract them
and make them forget
about degrading women.

(Pause)

Ah, the things we women have to do
because otherwise, you men can’t help it.

(Pause)

(Look down at the Magic 8 Ball)

(finally speak)

What are you looking at?

Oh, fine,
I’m supposed
to be asking you questions.
Let me think...

Wait a minute,
the Ebola virus
has been spreading again —
I’ve heard it appearing annually
(kind of like the flu,
but a little more lethal,
and only seemingly spreading
on the other side of the planet)
but I’ve never heard of Ebola
affecting anyone I know.

But I heard right-wing
24 hour news media pundits
only talk about the fact
that one person came from Liberia,
then got sick from Ebola
after helping a bleeding
pregnant woman in Africa.
I even heard for a full day
about how no one was willing
to enter the infected man’s apartment
to sanitize it
    (sorry, that’s what haz-mat suits are for,
    and sorry, clean-up crew, that’s your job)
but I have heard one source after another
complain that the U.S.
should restrict flights from Africa
and quarantine infected countries.

I don’t know if Obama will allow that
since he seems to want to give amnesty
to every Mexican illegal immigrant
in the United States...
But I did hear someone say
that the United States used to do that,
to halt flights into the States
from countries with infectious diseases,
so... Do you think
the U.S. will stop travel from Africa?

IT IS DEFINITELY NO

Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
But Ebola has never been a problem
in the States before,
in more developed countries
they have been able
to isolate people infected
and help them survive.
So, are the Republican talking heads
just trying to scare their listeners?

IT IS CERTAIN

(laugh)
Maybe I shouldn’t listen
to the scare tactics
the 24/7 drive-by media.
Because I heard one bobble head
from FOX News say
that we should stop all flights
from South Africa.

(look to South African man playing music)
So, you’ve just come from South Africa.
(they nod yes)
Do you have Ebola?
(they nod no)
Did anyone at your airport
stop people from flying
to the United States
because of Ebola?
(they nod no)

Well, maybe that says
a lot more than any 8 Ball could.

Lord Have Mercy

Looked into the coffin
of a man who was once great,

at least that’s what I hear,
but the cancer ravaged him

until his bones crumbled to dust.
The family then wondered how

the people at the funeral home
could make him look like him,

and as the family walked
into that room, they held their breath

for more reasons than death,
more reasons than their last

viewing of the man they lost, now,
once again with meat on his bones.

When the services started
we all had to follow

the reverend’s laments by all
periodically proclaiming

Lord have mercy.

The man with the collar would talk,
and I would wonder what it would be like

to hold the job of applying make-up
to the dead, to try to make them look

not so dead. Puff the cheeks, apply face paint
to give them color. Lord have mercy.

Beforehand, a string of older firemen
came to us before the coffin,

with small black bands over each
of their badges. “When the fire station

started, before the town even had a
fire station, he used his red truck,

with ladders tacked to the sides,
and a trailer to haul a barrel of water.”

Lord have mercy. The man with
the collar started a hymn;

everyone in this small town
knew the lines and sang along

like little lemmings, and I tried
to remember the lines from

my childhood that I have no reason
to say except when people need

something, anything, to make them
think their life doesn’t have to end.

Lord have mercy. The man with
the collar reminded the room

that people were created for life,
that death was not part of the plan.

But stifle the overwhelming desire
to caress the one you loved,

now in a coffin, for the coldness
would be too stark a reminder.

Lord have mercy. Wanted to try
to look into the coffin from a

different angle; maybe then
the deceased would look more real.

Maybe then I wouldn’t see his lack
of hair from chemo gone wrong,

maybe then I wouldn’t see
his hands clasping rosary beads.

Lord have mercy. I remember
the string of people waiting to meet us

before they proceeded to the coffin
(which reminded me of the procession

of people waiting to congratulate
the bride and groom immediately after

their wedding ceremony),
but in this macabre receiving line

all of the funeral attendants
were repeatedly saying to us,

“I’m sorry for your loss,” and I wonder
how many times the man in the coffin

had to say those words
in his lifetime of service,

how hollow these words were
when he spoke them,

when the words then seemed so stifling,
and I think of how people

say this when nothing can express
how anyone is feeling, especially when

people don’t know how to feel
anymore. Lord have mercy.

#

The chants now ended; the Knights
of Columbus stopped their constant

repeated prayers for the painted man
in the coffin, to help us justify

the pain we don’t know how
to deal with. Lord have mercy,

was all I could think, not to call
a higher power, but to give empty words

at an empty time, with too many
injustices in this living death scene.

We’re all players in this charade,
making up death in a way

that we want to believe is not ghoulish,
that’s what we keep telling ourselves

unless we choose to ignore the macabre
while unsettled lives are still around us.

We mourn, or cry, and we try to fit
this piece into the puzzle of our lives.

And for those who believe,
and even for those who don’t,

these seem the only fitting words
to think, or feel... Lord have mercy.

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 three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), 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, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc& hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed.

Lucky

    I lay naked on the bed and gazed through the shades of red, gold and yellow leaves that blanked the trees. Those huge providers of shade and cover lined the court way of the quaint building. Several tenants ignored it and still parted their blinds and draperies. Directly across I saw a head full of sandy hair buried between a set of thick white thighs. Her fingers had a firm grip. Her legs shot straight up; she must’ve come. That guy was relentless. He didn’t come up for air; it was like he tried to be reborn. A lightning quick flip and he buried his head in her curvaceous cheeks.
    I wish my man would do that to me! I envied her.
    He looked familiar when he did come up for air.
    What? It was my husband! “Jeff, you dirty bastard!”
    Carla rushed in, “What’s wrong, Lucky?” She crawled into bed and her snakelike tongue darted inside my ear. I shook off the sensation and buried my face in the pillow. “Don’t answer then.” My heart ached and I resisted her caresses. She flipped me, cupped my breast and nibbled on my lips. “I love it. There’s still gloss on them.” She wiped a tear running to my ear. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing, be right back.” I jumped up, rushed in the bathroom and locked the door. I splashed cold water on my face. I wept as quiet as possible.
    Does he love her?
    Am I a hypocrite?
     Does he know I sleep with women?
    Where did I go wrong?
    Which one of us started messing around first?
    Why does he do that to her and not me? I’ve asked many different ways and times. My hygiene is second to none; maybe that was it. He likes it ripe; if that was the case, too damn bad. I’m going over there and confront the son of a bitch. Jeff’s smart and he’ll hit right back. “What are you doing in the ‘Dike District’?” I hated that term, but that’s what I’d face. Forget that.
    “Lucky, are you OK?”
    I dabbed my face and flushed the toilet. “I’m good, just a minute.” I opened the door and smiled. “See.” I spun around. She gave me a funny look.
    The blinds were closed. “Girl, the lady across the way had a good time. She’s paralyzed.” Carla giggled. “Like you were earlier.”
    Like I needed to be reminded. “I saw them, Carla.” She knew I was upset, those penetrating eyes couldn’t help but display what she thought more times than she realized. If you knew Carla, you loved her. She was pretty; a flawless tan, flat firm abs and wide hips. Her eyes brows arched like an Italian movie star, but she was a hundred percent lesbian, never had a man, so she said. If I was gay, I should be flattered she loved me.
    But, I don’t care, I love men. I only got in her bed because she does the thing I love. I got hooked.
    Today it ends. She’d started to smother me and that got on my nerves. Time to move on. I laid back across the satin sheets on the king size piece of heaven and watched the ceiling fan rotate. The breeze soothed the stickiness on the skin while I fought the urge to look out the window.
    Confront him, Lucky. No, there was a better way. Since I’m not edible, leave him like you said, a thousand times.
    I loved Carla’s condo, plush white carpeting, contemporary furniture, not much clutter and an ultra modern kitchen. Her surroundings reflected her successful CPA business. I’ll miss her for a minute. I got up and dressed. “I’ll see you later, Carla.”
    She sat up. “How much later, Lucky?”
    “It’ll be awhile.” She understood my marriage. I kissed her and she felt the good bye on my lips.

    Jeff’s ring tone made me sick. I had to answer. “Hello, Jeff.”
    “Lucky, where are you I called the house?”
    “Out and about,” I said, too firm for my own liking. He hesitated.
    “Remember the appointment with Attorney Clark.”
    “OK. How’s the work you had to catch up on?” I asked to see what lie he’d tell.
    “Well, I had a lot to digest, but I got it done.”
    No shit!
    It should’ve been me. “That’s good I’ll see you there.” Legal business on a Saturday? I hated it, but it’s not every day you get an inheritance.
    I pulled over to drop the top on the Audi Jeff surprised me with on my thirty-fifth birthday. I felt like side swiping a tree, but I might not be lucky as usual. Parts of Garfield Blvd. were tricky to maneuver, sloped lanes, pot holes and poor lane striping. A lotto billboard reminded me to get a ticket. I pulled into a Go-Lo Food Mart. A few ominous clouds hung for a minute and I wished I’d raised the top. But, the line of dreamers rounded the building. I took a chance and stayed in line. Thank God the line moved fast. I got a quick-pick for the two hundred million and a five minute fill-up later I was on my way.
    I sat in the vacant parking lot and dreaded being in the same room with my husband. I should ask for a divorce and watch the look on Attorney Clark’s and Jeff’s faces. I’ll consider it if things go well with reading of my aunt’s will. I checked my face one last time.
    When the receptionist says, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Amanda Stallworth.” I’ll explain to her why I’m called Lucky. I know she’s being friendly, but I wasn’t in the mood. “Lolita, I’m going to tell you why they call me Lucky. Somebody found me in a dumpster. And, being a ‘Baby Doe’ the nurses named me, Lucky. When the Dominsky’s adopted me my Christian name Amanda never really stuck. When I was an invincible teenager being ejected from a head on collision didn’t injure me. The fact I’m tall, thin, but curvy was considered lucky. A bunch of my girlfriends wore their hair short and black like mine for luck. I never understood it, but I accepted it. Long story short, when my family taught me to play poker, coupled with a high IQ, luck got me through the University of Illinois nursing school. Call me Lucky, it sounds good.”
    The elevator opened and Lolita dabbed the corner of her wide mouth. That hot dog and fries smelled good. Her stripped jogging suit fit snugly, but she still looked good. She swallowed and smiled. “Good afternoon, Lucky, go right in ther’re waiting.”
    Damn, she called me Lucky, what a surprise. What’s next? You’d think Clark would tighten the doorknob on that squeaky door to an otherwise flawless office. Not one book or piece of furniture out of place. A desk full of computers always suggested to me Attorney Anthony Clark might also be a day trader. Clark brushed back a lock of hair on his obvious toupee. He hadn’t lost any weight; still obese, but charming. His size made his thousand dollar suits look cheap no matter how flashy the accessories. “Hey, Lucky.” He moved to stand. I waved him down.
    “Hello, Clark, how are you doing?” I cut my eyes at Jeff. “Hello.”
    Clark nodded and smiled. “Hey, Lucky, you ready?” Jeff replied.
    I sighed. “Yeah, let’s get this out of the way.” Jeff pushed a chair over. “Your hair looks nice after the beating it took, the stylist earned his money.” Jeff’s sandy colored hair had been given the wet look. Nice cranberry colored shirt and tan slacks, Jeff. Is her scent still on you, you dirty bastard?
    He looked puzzled. “Uh, thanks, I hoped you’d like it.”
    “I hate to be impatient, but let’s get on with it.” I said.
    Clark smiled. “OK.” He cleared his throat. “Well, Lucky.” He opened a folder. “Since you’re the only Dominsky still around, and I’m sorry for your loss; your aunt left you the entire estate which we thought wasn’t that much. But, it’s not.” Clark spun a piece of paper and pushed it toward me. “I found out when we checked everything...well Lucky she was worth close to a half a million.”
    “What? You’re kidding.” I read the paper. “Damn, it’s true.” Jeff leaned over and read.
    “Congrats, Lucky...that’s nice.”
    Jeff beamed; I schemed.
    My investment banker husband thinks he’ll get his hands on this money. I don’t think so. We concluded the paperwork and left. I followed him to drop his Mercedes at the dealer. He got the silent treatment on the way home.
    “What’s wrong, Lucky? For someone who inherited that kind of money—.”
    “PMS...keep driving.”

    “Welcome to tonight’s Lottery drawings.” I stepped in the kitchen and snatched the micro door. The popcorn steamed and I picked up the wrong end as usual. I dumped the contents, hit the volume and watched the balls roll down the tube. “The first number, eight...sixteen...forty...twenty...thirty-one...nineteen and the Powerball...nine.” Three numbers were Jeff’s regulars. He rushed in the room toward the frig. “Jeff, your regular numbers came out on the Powerball.”
     “Oh, yeah.” He sat and his hands dove into the bowl.
    “That would be amazing if we hit. I’ll go get the ticket.” My gut churned. That would be amazing; an inheritance and the lottery. I could really get rid of that dirty bastard. I picked up the ticket...my heart sank. “Oh my God.” I ran downstairs to double check. “Give me your phone.” The website had posted the numbers. We jumped for joy. Our celebration went well past 2 am. Jeff snored loud when he was drunk. I struggled to hear my thoughts to avenge his infidelity.
    Twenty people hit the two hundred million dollar jackpot. Ten million plus my inheritance, what a windfall.. We decided to wait to make the announcement. Even though Jeff’s financial expertise would be crucial in any decision making caution had to be exercised. His entire outlook on life changed. The stress and strain of over achievement to be a part of the corporate culture disappeared.
    But, I didn’t share his relief and for several months I kept my distance. He knew something was wrong, but I didn’t care. He stopped pursuing me. On occasion we had unintentional sex. That let’s see if the other wants to be bothered bullshit.
    I cancelled my leave of absence from Midwest Hospital. The supervising surgical nurse went on maternity leave unexpectedly and they begged me to fill in. I sat in the cafeteria and sipped a cup of coffee. That’s where I first met Carla and that triggered memories I tried to ignore. One day my flesh got the best of me and I headed for Carla’s place. I hoped she didn’t have company. A skimpy dressed kid shot out the building’s entrance wrought iron gate. I just missed getting in. I hit the buzzer.
    “Yes, who is it?” Her voice crackled from the intercom.
    “It’s, Lucky.” The gate slammed behind me. A guy came out the door of the condos across from Carla’s. I did a double take. “Jeff, what are you doing here?” He was dressed in blue leather pants and a black sleeveless shirt.
    He stopped. “What?”
    “You heard me. You back for more.” I walked up to him.
    “What’s wrong with you lady?”
    His voice was soft and feminine.
    Jesus...that ain’t Jeff! The guy was gay with the same build...exact same.
    His hair the same color, his eyes the same and mouth.
    He had the same broke nose. How in the hell does that happen?
    “I’m...I’m sorry mister...you look exactly like somebody I know.” He gave me a dirty look and stepped around me. I felt like a damn fool.
     Carla hung out the window. “Lucky, you coming or what?” I walked in Carla’s and flopped on the sofa. She wore a shear gown and sat next to me. My gut turned flips Jeff was innocent, but was he? “Boy, are you pale, you OK?” I nodded. “I see you met the guy who wears my neighbor out. Did he ask to do you?”
    “No...what did you say about the neighbor?”
    “That’s the guy you saw in the window months ago.” Carla said.
    “Carla, I got to go, something just hit me. I left the oven on.” I opened the door. “I’ll call you later.” I kissed her. “I’m sorry.” I was relieved and still felt like a fool. All this time hating my husband. I hit the speed dial.
    “Hello.”
    “Hey, babe, how are you?” Thank God, he answered. I tried not to sound frantic. If he told me to go to hell I deserved it.
    “Hey, babe? I haven’t heard that in a long while. What the hell is wrong with you?” Jeff snapped.
    “Nothing bad, you at home?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Stay there, I’m on my way.”

    I blew two lights getting home. I hate paying fines to the current regime of Chicago, but I didn’t care, for now anyway. I pulled in the driveway and told Jeff to turn off the leaf shredder. He obeyed and got pulled upstairs. I peeled off his favorite ragged work clothes. He flipped me on the bed and opened my legs. He smiled and pushed back my skirt and saw no panties. He nibbled on my thighs and started doing what I love; over and over again. I screamed and begged him to stop. The pleasure was too much, but I gripped his head not to move.
    What changed him? He broke up with whoever, that had to be it.
    It wasn’t the money. We played the lottery for years and agreed to split the money no matter what. We pride ourselves on sticking to business deals.
    For the past several months I’ve been in heaven. And, he acts overjoyed. We’ve setup the money to our liking. I called Carla, said good bye and deleted her number.
     Jeff cooked a special meal, well special for him, broiled filet mignon and mixed vegetables. “Have I made you happy?”
    “Yes.” My nerves were on edge. Look out, Lucky.
    “Our lives have changed; we love each other.” He said.
    “Yes.” Jeff, you are killing, what is it?
    “We’ve all we got.” He reached for my hand.
    “Yes.”
    “I enjoy doing what you like. I didn’t think I would, but it’s great. Let’s eat.”
    My heart started to beat again and I almost cried. Jeff wanted to transfer to Las Vegas, now that he didn’t need or care what the job did, they treated him with respect. The assholes. I’m going to enjoy this happiness while I can and buy a Bentley when we land.

At The Parade

    Derek Malcolm’s expressions said it all. Problem, not a big problem, but a concern. He had what I call “a talking face,” enviably handsome, but easily read. Sometimes getting his kind to talk about it wasn’t easy. It took psychology, my specialty. I first met Derek in a counseling class I taught for the State’s DUI program. Getting smart with a cop got him a bogus DUI charge like several others in the class. We accidently bumped into each other at O’Connor’s, my favorite watering hole. He lied and said he’d been sober since being enrolled in the class. I lied about being sober for several years meeting the criteria to teach it. We kept each other’s secret. I needed the extra money; he needed his license.
    “Hey Doctor Gleeson, how are you?” He pulled out a stool and sat. He was dressed like a biker with a sleeveless studded shirt that accented his muscle tone.
    “You aren’t riding are you?”
    “No.”
    “Good, what are you drinking?”
    “Heineken.” Big Jimmy greeted him with a fist bump, reached in the cooler and produced a cold one. “I got a weird story for you.”
    “Okay, I’m listening.” Surprise, he wanted to share. He took a gulp and belched like a bullfrog.
    “A few decades ago The Chicago Gay Pride parade wasn’t a significant event, now the spectators and participants are a million strong. People wouldn’t miss it for the world. Mother Nature demonstrated love for the LGBT community; hot, humid and not a cloud in the beautiful blue sky.”
    I nodded. “Yes, I know, Derek.”
    “A break in the parade allowed me to slip across the street to a local bar. I forgot the name of the place, but it was packed and noisy. I emptied a Heineken into a frosted glass and gazed out the window. I called my editor to answer his texts. He said what I expected, more shots of the dancers. Okay, so I hit the button, he got them and that ended the work day. The used beer department called. I asked the leggy guy in drag next to me with the real looking tits to hold my seat. I lot to ask I know, but what the hell. ‘Go ahead guy, I got you.’ He said.
    The washroom was crowded and larger than I expected. I didn’t expect to see all the stalls with double occupancy. The hookers male and female were making money. I caught a glimpse of a security badge clipped on somebody’s belt around their knees. Between flushes I heard moans and groans. I finished my business and when I turned; the guard and his friend came out. They smiled, but avoided eye contact.”
    “They were embarrassed.” I said and laughed.
    “Perhaps. My seat was still empty and I thanked the guy. He looked like a movie star. He was gorgeous; perfect tan, hairless skin, hazel eyes and jet black hair. The problem with my observation, I shouldn’t have noticed. You see what I mean?”
    I shook my head. “No, but maybe a little, I guess. Let me get this right. You thought he was pretty and since you aren’t gay that bothered the hell out of you. Right... sort of?”
    “Uh...yeah.” Derek hesitated. “Well, I love lesbians. Lesbians of all kinds, from the ones who dress like men to the one’s you can’t tell. Weird I know, but that’s me. Anyway, when I looked across the bar a female squeezed her way in between some guys who surrounded her friend.
    She was hot; short black hair and a radiant beautiful smile and a face to match.
    Our eyes met and we sent each other a drink. She kissed her companion, who was equally attractive. She came over and stood beside me. ‘I’m Molly, nice to meet you.’”
    “Derek, good to meet you. She refused my seat. She was long, lean and curvaceous. Our conversation flowed from subject to subject.” He sipped his beer and sighed. “Now, this is the crazy part of the story. The guard, or whatever he was, from the bathroom came up and introduced himself. He favored Molly. He was her brother; ain’t that something? She excused herself to go to the little girl’s room. You’ll love this part. He said, ‘straight guy’s like you don’t do shit but hurt my sister. Don’t hurt my sister. He walked away.’”
    “Okay, Derek, what does that mean?” He spun his beer and stared into the bottle.
    “I really liked Molly. With my half drunk self I came up with an idea to make her brother think I’m gay. I didn’t want trouble in the future and it might get me some free beers.”
    “Oh really and how...”
    “Wait a minute, doc.” He interrupted and finished his Heineken. “You’ll think I’m crazy and maybe I am. Molly returned and signaled me she’d be back while she said whatever to her friend and her brother.” He cleared his throat. “I asked the shemale next to me if I gave him a twenty would he kiss me. A Hollywood kiss, of course and I told him why.”
    “You’re kidding?” I dropped my head and giggled. Derek turned red under that tan of his. “I’m sorry, finish your story.”
    “The guy, his name was Charlie, he giggled too and agreed. I slipped him the money and we kissed.”
    “You did?” I couldn’t help but have a big grin on my face. “And then what happened?”
    “Long story short...we tongued a little; I liked it. The brother thinks I’m gay and me and Molly see each other off and on. But, now I’m crazy about Charlie. Am I gay or what? What do I do?”
    Jesus...what’s wrong with him? That was a fantasy of thousands of guys and gals. “Derek, you are, I’d say bisexual, enjoy it and stop torturing yourself.”
    “Thanks, doc, thanks for listening. I feel better. You know I still have a problem with him in drag...”
    “Is she beautiful to you?” I jumped in knowing the answer.
    “Yes... gorgeous, but he doesn’t go out like that except on Parade day and Halloween. Charlie’s a lawyer so that explains that. He dresses for me. He says it brings out the animal in me. Want another beer?”
    “Yeah.” He signaled the bartender.
    “Why don’t you and Charlie come to a private club I belong to for all kinds of people? People who like their privacy, it’s very exclusive and we’re having a fashion show.”
    “We’d love to.”
    “I’m glad.” It will be interesting to see his reaction when I slip my petite beautiful body into the bra and panty sets. He might fall in love with me. I hope anyway.

Devil’s Cage

Dear Sarah,
    I have wanted to share this story with you for years, but I was undecided whether it would mean anything to you. I don’t know if I’ll get back to talk about it in person so here it is.

Your brother,

Isaiah

    Monsignor Simon Cottle sat at an antique wooden desk with fifteen foot bookshelves behind him. Two rickety ladders were at each end of that section. I remember seeing that set-up in the movies. Cottle’s awkward overweight frame would easily crack a rung or two on his way up. He always gave me a strange look before saying my name. Today wasn’t any different. “Student Isaiah Ortiz Mohammed,” he grumbled with obvious discontent he thought he disguised. I wanted to break in and tell him; my Mom was a Jew, my Dad an Arab with a dash of Mexican and a touch of Black on the side, so fucking what? But, I didn’t have a death wish. “I see the time has come for you to share your thoughts.” He opened the envelope took out the contents. He slid the empty folder at me and smirked. I wanted to punch him in those flabby jowls on his wrinkled face. “THE VAN ALLEN RADIATION BELT KEEPS THE DEVIL IMPRISONED ON EARTH... Oh really?”
    “Yes, really, Monsignor Cottle. I thought we were supposed to come up with outrageous doctrines that the opposition could use against us. Was my interpretation wrong or what?” Why they gave assignments was nothing but torture. Watching certain students jump through hoops for a deferment from the military got them off. Cottle’s recommendation was paramount for my conscientious objector status and to remain at St. James Seminary.
    “No, but this one is...” Cottle shook his head.
    “If you have doubts.” And he did. “If I came up with this you might want to hear my other questions, observations or whatever you want to call them.”
    Cottle leaned back and smiled. “Okay. You know you’re pretty young to be a CO.” He looked at his screen. “You just turned nineteen. This young generation of yours think they’re so wise. Can’t say I blame you I wouldn’t want to end up in America’s black hole called Iraq. We’ve been in and out of there since 2008 or so. Those assholes are still letting the Islamisst make a damn fool out of the country in 2030. When I was nineteen we didn’t have these pressures. And, before I forget, in spite of what you’ve heard I have nothing against Jews, Latinos or Arabs. Okay?”
    “Okay, Monsignor Cottle.” I didn’t care. He didn’t know I accidentally over heard him talking about people like myself. I had to exercise caution around there you couldn’t talk to everybody about the racism or mistrust of other groups. Catholic institutions recommended deferments that were granted by the draft board. The Evangelicals were second in that respect, but the Baptist were ignored the majority of the time. I was lucky to be admitted to St. James. High IQs run in the family. I could run circles around my classmates, but grandpa warned me about envy and jealousy. Both can get you killed. Well, let’s see what the Monsignor thinks about my questions. “Don’t open this envelope.” Grandpa ordered. “Make sure Cottle does.” I removed it from my accordion file case and pushed it to Cottle. “Here they are.”
    “Thank you, Student Mohammed.” He picked out a letter opener from a container of pens and pencils. A quick slit and he thumbed through the pages and read. My stomach knotted; his approval would ease the stress.
    If the Van Allen Radiation Belt traps spirits will it harm flesh also?
    Man listened to the devil and God punished us, so if man went to the Moon and going to Mars does he escape God’s wrath?
    Is mankind then without sin?
    “This is interesting stuff Student Mohammed.” He chuckled. “Quite creative and your grades or adequate, but against my better judgment I’ll grant you a recommendation for your deferment.” Why...what have I done wrong? He entered the code. Thank God. Grandpa said all would go according to plan. Monsignor Cottle tucked the pages in a folder. “You can go student, I’ll read the remaining questions/ideas later with the other submissions. I guess you’re relieved you’ll be continuing into the collegiate curriculum.”
    I nodded. “Thank you, Monsignor.” I couldn’t get out the door fast enough. It slammed behind me; I looked both ways. The statue lined hall was vacant. I sat on a bench next to a statue of St. Michael and sighed. I didn’t know when the chemicals grandpa put on the paper would take effect, but Cottle got full exposure. I felt a tinge of remorse.
    I helped assassinate a Monsignor of the Catholic Church!
    But, grandpa said, “The SOB deserved it.” And, more than likely the monsignor and his kind had something to do with Grandpa’s not being able to practice medicine anymore. Arabs who travel to the Middle East often were under constant scrutiny.The bell rang and I snapped out of it. The halls were flooded with fellow students. I blended in the hectic flow and headed for chemistry class. When and if they find Cottle it will be a mess. If residue from the poison remained it should cover other questionnaires and statements. I wouldn’t be the only one under scrutiny.
    I stopped at my locker; my gut churned. A strange feeling overwhelmed me, was it my conscience? I claimed to be a CO, but I agreed with murder.
    I’m a hypocrite.
    The family bragged about how amazing it is that all the Mohammed’s were shorter than 5'5", but have the brains and courage of giants. I still felt bad. I should cut class. No...stay on schedule like grandpa said. I pushed through the crowd to the washroom opposite my locker. A finger down the throat will kill the nausea. I heaved up my guts.
    All that did was made my breath stink and throat burn.

    The retinal scan to the Science Building Complex gave me a headache every time. I requested a special pass, but it got rejected. Miss Pardo, my chemistry instructor with great legs and large green eyes said I looked ill and excused me. I went and sat in the empty student lounge. I felt the same way.
    What I did was necessary — or was it?
    I hoped he thought of everything not to get us caught. I put my head down. I must’ve appeared dead or something. A security monitor poked me. I sighed and looked up at the humanoid machine. “Are you in need of assistance, Student Mohammed, Miss Pardo said you are ill?” A beam scanned my uniform’s vital sensors. Why does it ask when it’s going to scan you anyway?
    “I’m fine just a little tired.”
    “Vitals are satisfactory...good bye, Student Mohammed.” The machine’s squeaky wheels made my skin crawl.
    Conversation with somebody might help, but they said prayer does the trick. I didn’t feel like it. Grandpa told me about lobbyists like Monsignor Cottle that were responsible for the Supreme Court ruling against freedom of religion which gave way to the huge religious conglomerates. The conglomerates were formulated to consolidate Christianity and dozens of versions of the Bible confused people. Islam has one book; The Holy Quran, period. Islamophobia overran the country; wars in the Middle East, for financial reasons, caused problems the Americans and their allies couldn’t shake. The best that could be done; a big Catholic group, a big Evangelical council and a Baptist council. The most consolidation came in the African-American community. No more store fronts or limited community churches and revival meetings. The banks wouldn’t lend pastors, or wannabees, money unless they had millions in collateral. The plan was a work in progress. The powers that be were pleased and the pastors who benefited from it elevated themselves into “Super Christians.” The family cloaked their disdain for this system for good reasons. They watched all Arabs and Arab looking peoples. A sense of pride filled me; pride in my multiple heritage.
    Fuck the paranoids, if you don’t like Muslims and Islam get your ass out of Iraq.
    I didn’t take the LTS(Light Rail Transit System) home, the sunny two mile walk home felt good.

    Grandpa Isadore Mohammed un-reclined his black leather chair and gave me the once over when I walked in the room. He continued to chew on his ham sandwich. His shoulder length white hair was tied in a pony tail. I didn’t know what to say while his soul piercing eyes continued their analysis. A sip of tea and his expressions were still frozen. “Hello, Grandpa Issie.” I got silence; then he broke into a smile.
    “You followed your instructions to the letter Isaiah, I’m proud of you.”
    I nodded, but how did he know? I asked myself that every since I’ve known him. “Yes, he did just like you said. I did my usual routine.”
    “You look sick. If you didn’t, I’d think you’d not be human. The first time...well now you know. Sit down.” He hit the remote and un-muted the 3D. “It isn’t often I watch baseball, Chicago is beating the Yankees again.” I still didn’t know how to ask other questions. “You have questions, questions like; will anyone find out? The answer, no. Your grandmother and your parents would be proud of you. They experienced injustice from the bigots. They would’ve told you the things I have too. Their tragic accident hurt us all.”
    “I don’t remember them I was only seven and Sarah a baby. I try but...”
    “Don’t try, leave it alone. What was done was necessary. If only you knew the whole story of demons like Cottle. And, I will not burden you with details you don’t need to know.” I still wondered. “Now tell me what happened.” I told him the Monsignor entered the CO code to the draft board. He wasn’t surprised and nodded with approval. A news flash shot across the local ticker; Monsignor Cottle had been found unconscious and rushed to the medical center. Archbishop Smith and Cardinal Monaghan were summoned by the family to join them in prayer. “Good riddance, Cottle.” Grandpa said. He reclined his chair and took a nap.
    Grandpa Issie got sick and died a few months after they put Cottle in the ground. No matter what they gave him he still suffered. I didn’t tell you after you and Aunt Clarissa and Uncle Jose left that he whispered in my ear, “Be careful when you dig somebody a hole.”

    A large number of the more world renowned Catholic officials attended the funeral. The upper classmen of St. James were forced to attend. Don’t show; you’ll regret it.
    Several months later Cottle’s replacement was an unknown from the West Coast. Cardinal McMann possessed a gentle persona, but when the tall thin fiftyish administrator opened his mouth there was a crackle of sarcasm in every syllable. You couldn’t help but think; asshole. One of the first things he did; interview the students with deferments. I was first on the list.
    I was surprised the Cardinal didn’t rearrange anything in Cottle’s office. The book shelf ladders remained in the same spot and the stack of coffee cups were the same height. McMann gave me a dirty look. “Student Isaiah Mohammed, what do you mean, the Van Allen Radiation Belt keeps the devil a prisoner?”
    I took off my glasses. I wanted him to see the contempt in my eyes. “With all due respect, Cardinal, that was an exercise...a joke in my opinion, to listen to other doctrines of the organizations or sects that don’t agree with the church. Did you read it or what?” What did I say that for? He turned blood red and stood up.
    “Watch yourself, Student Mohammed.”
    “I am Cardinal...is something wrong with what I said?”
    He walked around his desk and towered over me. I stood and stared back at him. His how dare you look didn’t faze me. “It’s blasphemy.”
    “Blasphemy? You’re kidding...did you read the one about Catholics can go to Purgatory for a million years and then God will admit them to heaven. And, of course, all people of other religions, except Jews, are doomed to go to hell if and only if their bank accounts are under a million dollars. A White guy wrote that one.” He put on his Black bean with the red tassel and cracked a smile.
    “No.” He snapped. “I didn’t, but...”
    “But...but what?” I interrupted. At that point I knew my deferment was dead the next time around.
    “Do you plan on being a priest, Student Mohammed?” He shouted. The corners of his lipless mouth turned white.
    No, hell no, I’m like most people at this place. I’m avoiding the draft. Who in the hell wants to go to Iraq? But, I dare not say it. I felt imaginary blood trickle down the corners of my mouth from biting my tongue. “That’s the plan, Cardinal McMann.”
    “We’ll see about that. I’ll be watching...you can leave now.”
    “Thank you, Cardinal for the interview. I’m not impressed.” I slammed the door behind me.
    Fuck St. James Seminary Complex!
    Sarah, I lost the CO deferment. But, the draft lottery worked in my favor until I graduated. Of course the priesthood was out of the question. A priest with my ancestry? McMann wouldn’t allow it. That bigot messed over all the students of color and they lost their deferments. I thought I was lucky or blessed I ended up being an Assistant Chaplin near a firebase. For two years I’ve been in this hellhole because of that fucking McMann.
    War ain’t shit! The one’s who start this shit are on a yacht somewhere.
    I balled up my scribbled feelings and tossed it into the shredder. The blades ate my hatred.
    Well sis, you won’t see that.
    I couldn’t say what I helped do to Cottle, but I felt better writing it down. Because of McMann I’ll leave a leg and a half in Iraq. How the hell that missile got through the laser screen is anybody’s guess. But, it happened and now I have to make the best of a fucked up situation. Unlike my grandpa I will not use anybody to carry out McMann’s execution. I want to look him in his eyes when life leaves his worthless body. I dreamt of sweat trickling down the wrinkles on his pale face. “What gives you the right to preach who will or who wouldn’t by saved by God you racist son of a bitch?”
    Whatever his answer I’ll squeeze the trigger with no remorse.
    If I experience what Grandpa did, so be it. When I look at the stubs I have for legs it will be worth it.

Adventures on Horseback: Cherished Dreams Sometimes Come True

    Since Amanda Rosaleigh Blake could remember, she and her close friend and neighbor, Carolyn Howells, wanted horses. The dream began in their preschool days when every so often a high school girl, who lived close, took them on short rides with her in control of the reins. It was not thrilling, although it was better than nothing. It did not come close to their fantasies. These involved them on their horses galloping across a field with their hair flying in the wind.
    One day this girl’s horse, a Palomino named Missy, was grazing in a field across from the girl’s house and a block from the little girls’ houses. The girls decided to take the horse, hoping to have a horse adventure. They untied and led Missy away with a rope attached to her halter. They took her down 4^th, a dirt road adjacent to the field, and led her down to 3^rd Street via Palm Avenue, both dirt roads. After they crossed 3^rd Street they went into a citrus orchard Carolyn’s parents owned. Another neighbor, Jen, was with them. She cared nothing for horses, but loved making trouble.

    Carolyn’s grandmother lived down in the grove from Carolyn’s house in a home built by her late husband, Percy Rogers. Granny Rodgers seemed okay with the situation, but soon Jen’s mother appeared. She was steaming mad. She scolded them soundly for stealing the horse. She told them they would take Missy back to Faith’s house and apologize for taking her horse, which they did.
    They had no more experiences with horses until Amanda was in the 6^th and Carolyn was in the 7^th grade. Carolyn’s science teacher and the assistant football coach, Allen Locke, drove some pre and young teens on Saturday to the Circle F Dude Ranch in Lake Wales, a small city 15 miles north of Frostproof, the village where the girls were born and lived. They rode here for nearly two years.
     For $4.50 they were provided with two long rides led by Allen, a delicious lunch, an arts and crafts session, and transportation to and from the ranch. They had lots of adventures, some that were fun and others that were a bit painful. Amanda’s most dramatic experience happened when the horse in front of her stepped on a log inhabited by a bee hive. When the horse lifted its foot off the log a swarm of bees come toward her and her horse.
    When the horse felt the stings, it began to buck attempting to escape them. When he bucked Amanda fell off, a good thing. On the ground she had two hands free to kill many of the bees on her clothes and skin. She was bitten at least 30+ times, nothing compared to the poor horse, but painful.
    In late April on Carolyn 14^th birthday, her parents gave her a Tennessee walking horse. Amanda was jealous, envious, and miserable. Her parents decided it was time to get her a horse as she would be 13 in May, though it was a bit of a financial strain. The Blake’s went horse shopping. After looking at two relatively broken down nags, they hit “pay dirt.” They found a pretty mare who was half Morgan and half Thoroughbred. The former was bred for riding; the latter for racing. Beauty, as Amanda named her, had smooth gaits except for her trot. She was also spirited and loved to gallop and run.
    Beauty’s ribs showed at first. She had a cute foal which was part of the deal. Amanda wondered if the man from whom they bought her did not feed her all she needed during her pregnancy. In no time she filled out and was truly beautiful. She had a dark reddish brown hue which glimmered in the sun.
    Amanda’s brother, Justin, claimed the foal that he named Shamrock. The little horse was perfect for him. He was four and half year younger than Amanda. Shamrock was a small, young male foal or colt. Foal is a general term for any young horse. Filly is the term for a female foal. The colt was a palomino color. His father was a Shetland pony. He was a small horse, but he was not as short as a Shetland. Shamrock inherited Beauty’s small bone structure rather than his father’s stocky build. Shamrock needed to be a little older before anyone should ride him. The first time Justin rode Shamrock, he did not protest, much less buck. He was tamed and part of the community by then. They were able to buy both horses and all the riding and maintenance equipment for $100. This was a deal even in 1957.
    Carolyn and Amanda rode almost daily during the years they had their horses. Carolyn’s horse was a little bit taller and stockier than Beauty. Lady, the name Carolyn gave her horse compared to the one Amanda selected, told much about the differences between the girls. Carolyn was more concerned with following the respectable social conventions of a “lady,” than she was with beauty or adventures. Amanda hated Carolyn’s horse’s name, and could have cared less about respectability. She was into beauty and adventure, both in nature and art.
    Amanda was also not much impressed by Lady’s color. She was a lighter brown than Beauty, and had none of the red hues that made Beauty’s coat exquisitely beautiful. Amanda was quite taken with Lady’s gaits. Tennessee walkers had two walking gaits, slow and fast. They went from the fast walk into a canter. That was a great comfort. Other horses trotted. That meant the rider had to post. This involved standing on the rough, bouncy part of the trot and sitting down in between. One had to do this over and over until the horse broke into a canter or settled into a walk. Posting looked stupid from the uninformed outsider’s view. It was embarrassing to have to do it in front of them. Amanda sometimes had to post while crossing the foot ball field when the players were practicing on the other end. She could have walked but she was usually in a
    hurry to meet Carolyn. The players thought it was funny until a couple of them who had grown up with horses explained to the rest it was a health measure. After she heard about their ignorant laughter, a few times she rapidly went into a canter at the field and often got up to a gallop before stopping suddenly a few feet from the players. Their mouths were gapping open at these times.
    During fall school days in Amanda’s 9^th and 10^th grades, they rode because of Amanda, after cheerleading practice. In the winter of the same two years Carolyn and Amanda had basketball practice. They rode after it was over sticking to the dirt roads south of their houses from 3^rd through 8^th Streets. Since their horses were not shod, they could not be ridden on paved roads much. Their hoofs would crack. There were many orchards, fields, and three miles of lake property to ride on. The latter was a few seconds ride from their houses. The lake was a beautiful spring-fed body of water with white sandy beaches, which extended out until they dropped off to heights over the tallest persons’ heads.
    All of these places were good for fast riding. Carolyn did not like to ride fast often. Amanda sometimes went riding alone to ride faster than a canter. Carolyn was silly about this. She was scared to death they were going to do harm to the horses by overheating them. Anyone who knew anything about horses knew when to stop the fast stuff. That is when the horse starts to get covered with a white lather. Otherwise, fast riding is fine, and the horses enjoy a run or gallop from time to time.
    Frostproof is 50 miles south of Orlando. The community was classified as a village as it was at the upper limit of that community type (2500). Over weekends and vacations, they made trips outside the village limits. On Saturdays they often rode to Babson Park, a village smaller than Frostproof, 7 miles north. They rode through the groves, over fields, and on the dirt roads that extended northward. At Babson Park, they went to the only restaurant for a hamburger. The restaurant, a filling station, and a grocery store were the only businesses in Babson Park. It was the home of Webber College, whose mission was to teach dumb rich girls how to manage their inheritances.
    Years later Amanda could testify that Carolyn’s Webber classmates she introduced her to, were talking about having trouble mastering the eights and nines in the multiplication tables. After taking college algebra, trigonometry, and introductory calculus at the University of Florida, Amanda was shocked that academic standards were that low in any institution of higher learning. Where did the girls go to high school?
    For that matter the tables are learned in grade school; where did they go to primary school? Amanda was clueless as to why Carolyn was going to this crib joint. She failed to make a 2.0 at Stetson University the first semester. After making a 1.6 she dropped out, and graduated from Ocala Junior College in two years. When she attended Webber, Amanda guessed she did not have anything else to do. Carolyn was not dumb, but she was undisciplined. Finally after graduating from Webber, she spent twelve months at computer school after which she was hired as a programmer. Amanda felt her other post-secondary education was a waste of time and money. No problem, her parents could afford to throw it away. Granddad Rodgers, a land hungry Irish immigrant, left them many acres of citrus groves. In the end Carolyn was a spoiled rich girl, and she eventually paid dearly for it; that, however is the subject of another story.
    One Saturday after they ate, the girls rode back through an orchard which had some rain gage tubes fastened on stakes. They were curious and rode up to get a closer look. On Monday, the Blake’s received a call from a Mr. Greenly, who worked for the fat cat who owned the grove the rain gages were in. Amanda could tell the man on the phone was accusing Carolyn and her of doing something to those gages. She gave her mother a quick summary of what actually happened. She believed Amanda and politely gave the man a piece of her mind.
    She said, “Look Mr. Greenly, neither my daughter nor Carolyn did anything to your rain gages. They rode closer to look at them. That is all. Frankly, they are plenty smart. If they had wanted to do anything to your gages, they would have left their horses far away, walked to the gages, and worked whatever mischief was worked.” We did not hear from this presumptuous jerk again.
    The summer before Amanda began the 9^th grade, someone gave her an English saddle. She and Carolyn usually rode Western style. Amanda’s English saddle’s girth had only one string; the rest had broken. Amanda needed only to get some string from the feed or hardware store, but she kept putting it off. It held for a long time, but nothing lasts for ever.
    One evening when Amanda ate supper, she left Beauty grazing in the yard. When she finished she went outside and mounted her. The two headed down the backyard hill. The strand broke and off went Amanda on the saddle. She landed on her left wrist and fractured it. What a deserved, but hateful fate. School started tomorrow.
    Her parents and Carolyn took her to the Lake Wales Hospital. The nature of the fracture required a strange looking caste which bent over at the wrist. She received her share of teasing about being “bucked off” her horse. She did not bother to explain. She was thankful it would be healed before it was time for the girls to go out for basketball.

    A July afternoon that summer, the girls decided to ride around Ready Lake a ways and then head south over dirt roads, orchards and fields to a beautiful creek with Hyacinths blooming in it. When they came back to Ready Blvd, a storm was brewing. The wind picked up, lightening sparks could be seen, and thunder was roaring in the distance. They reached the place where they went their separate ways to their horse pens, which were ½ mile from each other. Carolyn’s was in the grove where her house was located. Amanda’s was in her dad’s shop. He owned several acres of land in addition to that which the shop building was on. The building housed his electric saws and other sensitive construction equipment, as well as horse food, riding equipment, and maintenance items.
    When Amanda turned toward the shop, she and Beauty had to go through a grove. As they entered it, a loud clap of thunder following a huge lightening flash scared Beauty and she began galloping. Amanda was torn between slowing her down and letting her gallop to get to the shop quickly. That lightening was close. She feared they might be struck, but she was afraid of the low growing limbs of citrus trees. She put her head and chest on Beauty’s neck hoping she would not be knocked off by a limb.
    Amanda did not allow her to go into a full run, although Beauty wanted it. A curb chain under her chin stopped that. After what seemed an eternity, they emerged from the grove. The violence of the storm had subsided. Beauty had calmed down. The shop was three blocks away. Amanda wondered if Beauty was as glad as she was to be home. Her clothes were soaked, but by now the sun was beating down and the wet felt good.
    Amanda removed Beauty’s saddle and bridle, rubbed her down, with her brush, and combed her mane and tail. She gave her some oats and sweet feed. By then Pop, Amanda’s granddad, was waiting for her in his 51 Oldsmobile. Carolyn had alerted him to pick her up. She needed to take care of Lady. Amanda could not wait to compare notes on her part of the adventure! When she did, Carolyn told her the storm had not gotten to their houses until she was home. Amanda smiled at her. She was thinking, oh well, it is all probably just as well. She decided not to tell Carolyn the details of her adventure. She feared this would dilute the experience and bring her down. For several reasons the adventure had made her high as a kite. The rain, wind, speed, possible dangers, suspense, and that it ended well were all factors. This was one of Amanda’s happiest days with her well loved horse.
    The fact the Beauty was deeply loved made the day Amanda sold her nearly three years later the saddest, although she felt good about it. She was near the end of the 11^th grade. Concerns about college, school talent contests, editing the yearbook, a more intense interest in boys, although she had been dating since the latter part of the 8^th grade, and other new interests began to interfere with riding Beauty as much as she needed. The man who bought her needed a horse in order to ride with his youngest daughter. He had leased several acres for Beauty to run on.
    The day the Barbers came to get Beauty, Amanda retired to her walk-in closet. She did not want her parents to see her weep about this. However, her father was quite sensitive to her feelings. Before she knew it he was in the hall outside of her bedroom.
    He called softly, “Amanda, honey, we don’t have to sell Beauty if you don’t want to.”
    “It’s okay Dad. It’s best for everyone involved, especially Beauty. Her welfare is what’s important.”
    “Okay,” her dad said. “We just don’t want you to be unhappy about it.”
    Amanda was, but she was soon over it. She was deeply thankful for the time she had riding and caring for her beloved Beauty. She knew it had matured and improved her in a many ways. It made her posture better. It tested her courage and strength and much more. An amazing part of the situation was Beauty lived to be 38 years old, a ripe old age for a horse. This was a high compliment for Amanda, the Barbers, and her dad regarding all of their care and love of Beauty. The latter’s soft heart led him to give her an extra bit of food when he went by his shop.

Gator, Brad, and P. J.: Race Relations in a Florida Citrus Village During the Depression.

    Bradford Paine Blake came from a background of adventuresome, creative, and progressive people. Born and raised until he was 10 in Massachusetts, his family moved to Florida in 1921. Brad, as he was called by family and friends, aspired to be an architect. He spent two years studying architecture at the University of Florida. At the end of his second year, he was told by two doctors that he should drop his ambitions to be a full time architect. He inherited essential tremors from his father. The doctors said to remain able to function well; he needed some manual labor in his work. He began working as a private surveyor and building contractor. He used the architectural knowledge and skills he had acquired at the university in surveying, drawing and interpreting blue prints, and other tasks.
    In 1936 at age 25, this slender, 6' tall, blue eyed, blonde was appointed as a supervisor in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the area. This aspect of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, among other things, dealt with building and repairing infrastructures. Brad supervised the building of much needed clay roads through the rapidly growing citrus groves, and out of the village of Frostproof where Brad lived, toward nearby communities. Other tasks performed by the WPA were the rehabilitation of older and the building of new public edifices such as libraries, government buildings, and public schools. The WPA also extended power lines to farm houses not served by private companies. Another section of the WPA involved the hiring of unemployed literate persons to teach basic literacy skills to illiterate persons. Talented artists were subsidized to create art for public entertainment, education, and beauty. These and other projects helped the troubled economy get back to a semblance of normal functioning by creating jobs.
    The only one paved road in the area was asphalt, 53 miles long and 9 feet wide. It ran in between Haines City and Ft. Meade. The other roads before the clay ones began to be built were made of ‘dirt.’ Dirt is in quotes because there is virtually no dirt in this section of Florida as people from other states know it; there is only sand. The sand ranges from snow white to ebony with all shades in between, but it is still sand. I cannot take credit for this observation. I lived in Frostproof until I left for college in 1961. My soul mate and I lived there off and on from spring 1993 to winter 1995. We were making changes in our lives moving from being university professors to free lance work of various kinds. Being a native, I accepted dirt as the proper designation for the sand my dad dumped in the back yard of my parent’s cottage where we stayed. I wanted the soil to create a garden. Sand or not with some cow manure, it turned out to be a productive and lovely garden with enough vegetables to share with my folks and some of the neighbors.
    My husband was an army brat who lived all over the world until his father left the U.S. Army when he was nine. At this his family settled in Columbus, Georgia where they have real dirt. He was the one who made the observation of the ubiquitousness of sand in that part of Florida. As usual with his wry and keen sense of humor he provided me with many a laugh about Florida ‘dirt.’ However, since Floridians call the stuff dirt; dirt it shall be henceforth without quotation marks. Also, it does not sound right designate a route as a sand road. These dirt roads became impassable during rainy times unless saw dust from the lumber company was put on top of the dirt. When the saw dust ran out, less effective wood chips were used.
    On April l6, 1936 when Brad went to work, he had no idea of the excitement that would ensue and the crises with which he would have to deal. At the time of the incident with which this story is concerned Brad was working in a private capacity as a surveyor with his friend and partner in this work, Moses Johnson, a black man known as ‘Gator’, a nickname he acquired as a boy. He was around 40 now with a slender, strong body. They were working together running grade levels. They were filling in low spots on uneven land to make it smoother and improve the property.
    Gator and Brad were hired by Bill Carnation, the owner/operator of the local movie theatre to work on a piece of his land. Since the dirt was being supplied by the County, P. J. Langford, a prominent local citizen and County Commissioner, was present. P.J. was an attractive man in his middle fifties. Relevant to subsequent events P. J. was old enough to be Brad’s father. He had been Brad’s Sunday school teacher when he was a boy, until Brad lost interest in church in late childhood.
    Not only was the activity on which Brad and Gator were working involved in county business. it was also related to Brad’s responsibilities as a WPA supervisor. The dirt used to fill the low places in Mr. Carnations and other local residents land was removed by the county government to get at the clay underneath for the work of building the roads Brad was supervising. To accomplish this task and get the dirt to the appointed places, P. J. was using some old Model T dump trucks in an effort to save money for Polk County. As in many places during the Great Depression, the county was deeply in debt for that time.
    When Brad was interviewed for a part of this story, he said, “Today, we smile or even laugh at what we consider to be a tiny sum. At the time it was huge. This $18,000 debt was considered a burdensome and unhealthy problem for the political economy. P. J. did succeed heroically by several means to eliminate the entire debt and build a surplus of the same amount!”
    The trucks he was using were made only until 1926. This was the last year any Model T Trucks were made which had no cabs in the front and no mechanical lifts. These were already features of the 1927 models. In the old kind, the truck was supposed to be loaded with more dirt in the back of the truck bed than the front. This greatly facilitated unloading. The load was held intact by the tailgate and three hooks designed for unloading the truck as quickly and with as little manual labor as possible. In order to make sure the excess dirt fell off the back by itself the hooks had to be released prior to or at the same time as the tailgate. If the latter was opened too soon, all of the advantage of the more efficient unloading preparations was nullified. Most of the dirt had to be unloaded by a man with a shovel. The hook on the front controlled the two on the back. A person in the drivers’ seat could operate the whole apparatus from there.
    Sometime in the unloading process Gator’s hoe accidently got stuck in the hook in the front. Disentangling the hoe was an easy task for Gator. He was good at what he did. P. J., a rather high strung nervous person, panicked and apparently ‘lost it.’ He suddenly ran over and grabbed the hoe Gator held in his hands, and up to this point, was disengaging it from the hook. A tug of war ensued for a few seconds. Brad, who was some distance away with his surveying instrument, ran over to the two men. Initially, he thought he would be helping P. J. It looked as though the younger, stronger Gator was getting the best of him. It was the Jim Crow Era and Brad was afraid of what would happen to Gator if he even minimally harmed this respected leader. Equally important were the possibilities of serious injuries to either man.
    Surprisingly, when Brad reached the men, the situation had drastically changed. In fact, it had reversed itself. Now P. J. was definitely getting the better of Gator. He had dropped the hoe and picked up another tool Gator was using. He obviously intended to use it to whack Gator over the head. Right in the middle of P. J.’s aggressive action Brad managed to raise his arm and catch the tool/weapon before it hit Gator’s head. By this time according to Brad, Gator was understandably terrified. He was totally scared out of his wits. He arose that morning expecting to spend a regular and peaceful day working with his friend and partner. Now here he was in a novel and horrifying situation with a prominent and powerful white man who could and seemed to want to do him great harm.
    Brad said, “Run as fast as you can, Gator!” Gator did not hesitate; he headed for a thick clump of bushes at break neck speed. After Brad’s active interference in defending Gator from P. J.’s attempt to harm him P. J. told him, “Brad, you hold him here until I can go home, get my gun, and fix Gator!” How P. J. could think Brad was in sympathy with his intention to hurt Gator, after his actions in stopping him from using his weapon and telling his black friend to run, is anybody’s guess. As soon as P. J. left in his car, Brad motioned for Gator to come from behind the clump of bushes.
    “Damn,” Gator cried hysterically. “What should I do Brad?”
    “Get in your car and go to the nearest woods as quickly as possible. Go as far as you can into the woods until this ridiculous incident blows over. I’ll find you with food and water.”
    “Thank you, dear friend,” Gator responded and then headed for his vehicle. “See you later,” he said over his shoulder. Poor Gator was undone enough by his ordeal he turned the wrong way when he came to the road going past the Carnation property. Whoops he thought I’m going in the direction of P. J.’s house! He quickly tried to turn around, but got stuck when he backed off the road to make the turn. Under some thick brush, a ditch awaited to hang him up. He tried to get the car out, but he was stuck. His 20 horsepower Model T Motor did not have the power to pull him and his vehicle out.
    At this point in his part of the interview, Brad prefaced his remarks with the providential words, “Some things are just destined to happen.” Soon after Gator got stuck in the ditch, a local white man, Charles Lyles, who was employed by the lumber company and was driving their truck, came by.
    He stopped, jumped out of the truck, and asked, “Can I help, Gator?”
    “I sure hope so Mr. Lyles.” Gator replied. Meanwhile, Brad had found a piece of wire lying around which was a yard, even a little less, long.
    He said to the two men, “Here let me see if I can get this around the axles of each vehicle.”
    “Brad,” Gator said gratefully. “You’re my guardian angel. You too, Mr. Lyles.”
    The first few times he fastened it to the two vehicles, it slipped off. Time was passing and P. J. did not live very far away. Things were getting increasingly desperate. The wire finally held on the vehicles and Gator came out of the ditch. He drove as quickly as possible to the nearest woodlands out of the angry P. J.’s reach. Coincidentally, the sympathetic Charles later married one of Brad’s progressive Uncle’s granddaughters. In the meantime, as the rescue effort was occurring, several white people had gathered nearby. All of them were in sympathy with Gator. This was in spite of the fact that many, maybe all of them, still held deeply ingrained racial prejudices typical of that time in the south as well as some of the rest of the country. Everyone cheered when Gator made his escape. Moreover, just as Brad figured, the incident soon blew over.
    Florida, largely because of the diversity of its population, was not quite as racially biased as what is called the Deep South—-Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Frostproof reflected the diverse cultural backgrounds of the state’s population. Besides New England and the rest of the Northeast and Europe, Florida already had dust bowl refugees, other folks from the Midwest, and parts of the far west. There were also Latin Americans, mainly Mexicans, and Seminole Indians.
    There were also many people who had migrated to Florida from other parts of the old Confederacy. Only the most northern part the peninsula was in om it. The former Confederates’ attitudes were reflected by certain arrangements and practices. No black people were allowed to live in the city limits of the village unless they worked full time for a white and lived in a small dwelling on his employer’s property. The vast majority were moved to areas outside the village limits in what were referred to as ‘n_____’ quarters. The blacks were used and abused as fruit pickers, maids, and other menial laborers. These groups of shacks did not disappear until desegregation took over and the Civil Rights Movement made many changes in the relationships between blacks and whites in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
    It was even more unusual that this authentic sympathy for Gator came in spite of the fact that P. J. was a highly esteemed and popular leader. Usually he was a fair minded man, who was open to political dialogue with both blacks and whites regarding any county business that affected them. It was quite obvious to everyone around that P. J. was not behaving as he usually did. He was revealing a rather nasty streak of racism.
    This streak was somewhat mitigated by the fact that P. J. “more or less apologized,” Brad commented. The writer is not sure what he meant by this ‘more or less’ qualification. She failed as an interviewer in not asking for a clarification. Brad did make another statement that suggested P. J. was quite morally developed.
    Brad said, “He admitted he was wrong.”
    If this quick witted descendent of scores of progressives—- abolitionists, feminists, socialists, and highly creative people——poets, historians, philosophers, and journalists, had not been present, Gator might have been badly hurt or even killed from a blow to the head with P. J.’s weapon/tool or his gun. On the other hand, had the struggle gone the other way, Gator might have been lynched without a trial or other due process by a group of rednecks had he so much as caused P. J. the most minor injury. Even worse the rednecks, who were acting illegally in their group murder, would never be prosecuted.
    Brad prevented a tragedy which would have reached across the entire community. It would have lowered the quality of life in the citrus village for years to come. P. J.’s mood would have been sad and mournful until death mercifully took him out. His conscience would have haunted him for the rest of his life, although his crime never would have been investigated, much less would he have been charged. However, the highly evolved young man was there and acted in congruence with his heritage and the values transmitted by his progressive, imaginative, and compassionate ancestors. He also grew up around spiritual evolved persons, i.e., persons guided by high moral principles. High morality should not be confused with the conventional morality accepted by a culture or society at a specific time. In some societies it is moral to be a fascist or other evil person. High moral principles refer to granting moral equality to all persons. It involves treating every person as an end and not as a mere means or tool to be used for other’s goals and purposes.

She Kissed a Tomato

    I lost my English class yesterday. I was walking down the second-floor corridor, about five minutes late as usual, and first noticed something was wrong when I found myself looking out a window at the end of the hall. I turned and looked back at the rows of closed doors. They all looked the same. I knew my English class wasn’t behind any of them.
    At first I thought I might be in the wrong building. The stairs seemed not quite in the right place. A plaque on the door was strange to me. But then I remembered seeing the familiar gray-haired secretary huddled over her typewriter as I came in. All right. I walked down the stairs to the first landing, then climbed back up, pretending it was for the first time that day and my English class was right around the corner, three doors down. I walked along nonchalantly, not focusing my eyes, pushed through the third door and found myself face to face with a urinal.
    Take a piss, I thought, and try to think what day it is. I tried but I couldn’t begin to remember what happened the day before, much less what day it had been. The foolishness of my attempt made me laugh out loud. How could I remember what I’d done if I didn’t know what day is was? I laughed again and thought I heard a pair of shoes shifting nervously in one of the stalls.
    Back in the corridor, it came to me. Tomorrow I’d be going to Jacob’s for stuffed peppers. Jacob’s always had stuffed peppers on Wednesday, so today had to be Tuesday. My first conclusion had been incorrect. I hadn’t lost my English class; it had disappeared.
    On an impulse I decided to check out the third floor. All the rooms were quiet and empty like a Friday afternoon. Little families of dust balls strolled the corridor. Cardinal Cushing’s here, I thought. I left the building and walked to my car. The secretary was no longer there when I left. Outside, students with books crisscrossed around me. Who needs it. It wasn’t the first time a class had disappeared on me.
    I drove immediately to the supermarket. My supermarket. It lies, like a petrified bird in its nest, at the intersection of two busy thoroughfares. A traffic signal determines who enters when.
    The building is of pale green cement with a black façade, glass and aluminum trimming, and measures 40 x 80 yards. I am not sure if that is important.
    What is important is that I have fallen in love in this supermarket several times. The first was the most memorable. I’d been inside the store for about ten minutes, working my way through the aisles gathering my supper, when something caught the corner of my eye in the fruit and vegetable section.
    The girl had bent over without warning and had kissed a tomato. It might as well have been me. She turned and walked down the aisle, leaving a smile that said, “Sure, you can come over some time and we’ll make French fries.” I moved over to the tomato bin. They all looked alike. A sign said: “Tomatoes 79 cents lb.”
    I looked for her in the canned goods section without hope. No doubt she checked out and drove away while I wandered among the neat, captive rows of cans. If you came here at precisely five o’clock every day, the faces of the customers would be new and soon forgotten. Usually there is a red-haired girl at one of the checkout counters, but she has never spoken. The canned meats, though, will always be found locked in formation. And the vegetables.
    One Halloween when I was alone, a thousand miles from here, I gave out only clumps of peas to all who came to my door. Sometimes I cheated and stuck my hand deep into the bags before the beggars could see they weren’t getting a Tootsie Roll or Hershey’s. Other times I let my offering be seen. The next morning out front I found peas, crushed on the walk and scattered in the grass like tiny abandoned eggs. I forgot about it until a year or so later when Halloween came again. This time I was prepared and gave out popcorn and malted milk balls until I felt a little sick. Then, after 10 when no one had come for awhile, a girl about 19 with short brown hair came by herself and closed her bag to the popcorn and candy. A boy’s shirt on her and frozen waterfalls for eyes.
    I went to the refrigerator and found a single pea stuck in the ice. We took a knife and unstuck it together, and each of us ate half. I felt better immediately. We made love for several hours, and in the morning skipped breakfast and had peas for lunch. We ate peas for a week – fresh peas and peas with butter, giant ones and baby ones, peas with small onions. We made love. Sunday night, the peas were gone, and while she combed her short brown hair in the bathroom mirror, I boiled some rice. She looked sad when she came out, and we ate together sadly.
    A month later I received a card from Florida that said “Hi.” Once again from Texas and then no more.

Bit Rock

    Refactor this, refactor that. I wasn’t sure how the quadratic formula related to anything in my life that mattered. I possessed skill enough to improve the world, but I didn’t get in in touch with that in high school algebra.
    “Hey Jorg,” called Rich Collins from the front corner of the room. “Nice Def Leppard shirt. Did you find it at a flea market?”
    Jorg Jorgman, sitting directly to my left, smiled. “Rich, I’ve been flexing my muscles in front of the mirror for one year, and I still don’t look as done up as you in that jean jacket vest.” Jorg combed through his hair in mock glamor. “Anyways, with regard to this shirt, of course I didn’t get it at a flea market. I bought it a thrift store!” Jorg laughed and held his hand up for a high five. His self deprecating humor was sort of funny, I guess. He was my best friend.
    From the other front corner of the room, Fred chimed in, “Def Leppard is for pussies. Next time you’re at Goodwill, Jorgman, pick me up a shirt that says ‘Slayer, Angel of Death!’”
    Jorg’s smile faded. “Interesting request,” he replied finally.
    “Boys, please watch your language and quiet down.” Mrs. Romaine stood at the chalkboard. “Today we will review the quadratic formula.”
    But Rich and Fred needed to shout to hear each other. Policy at East Bay Vista High was to keep the Wolf Dealer Vikings separated. In addition to shouting, though, the WDVs practiced a signal code to fluency. They flashed signs to set up deals, fights, meetings, basically anything happening between class or after school.
    “Okay, someone help me out. How does the quadratic formula start?” Mrs. Romaine held chalk in her hand. The room was quiet. “No one knows how the quadratic formula starts?” she asked.
    “Negative b!” said Gil.
    “Thank you, Gil!”
    “Righteous!” Jorg held up his hand for another high five.
    Mrs. Romaine wrote out the quadratic formula on the board. “And as you know, x equals negative b equals plus minus square root...”
    Rich flashed the first message of the day. Fred laughed and signalled some sort of O shape back. It was as if those dudes wanted to make it as obvious as possible they were doing something illegal, and whatever crime it was had an O in it.
    I had seen it all before. “SUICIDAL TENDENCIES” was etched lightly into my desk. I got to work filling it in with the broken mechanical pencil I found in PE.
    Jorg on the other hand, was engrossed, swivelling his head left and right, at a tennis match of gang signs. Then he removed a large hardbound book from his backpack. On the cover was a picture of someone making a fist. “Check this out, Dan! I picked up another one of these rad books at the library,” he said, smiling at me now. He made a similar looking fist with his hand. “That’s ‘S.’ For sign language! Cool, huh?”
    It was not in fact very surprising that Jorg knew sign language. Jorg’s father had supposedly been deaf, and an artist. I never met him. Whatever the case, Jorg was a keen observer of anything visual.
    Gil leaned in next to Jorg. “Do you really understand what those guys are saying? You know sign language?” she asked.
    “Most definitely,” he answered.
    “How do you sign my name, then?”
    Jorg leaned back in his desk, dealing with what apparently was the simplest request he’d fielded all week. He motioned a series of signs with his right hand. “Eff... oh...” he said, and hooked an index finger, “ex!”
    Gil opened her mouth in a look of disgust. “‘Fox?’ Ew! It’s like you’re stuck in the 70s. I have an actual name, you know.”

    “Hey Mom, you need some help with that food?”
    Next to the sink, Mom sprinkled ingredients into the tuna casserole. Then she rinsed her hands. “Yeah sure, put the rest of those potato chips on it. When the oven is ready, leave it in there for 20 minutes.” She washed the knife and the cutting board, then walked to her bedroom and shut the door.
    As I brought my plate to my desk, I was excited. I turned on my IBM PC, upgraded with a 20 megabyte hard drive. The machine groaned to life. Today I would finally finish breaking the new Me Era game, Money Quest 2. Me Era built the disks with certain sectors purposely messed up. As the game loaded, it tested that those sectors were damaged. But my version of the game was copied on top of a new, blank floppy disk. All the sectors of the disk were fine. I needed to trick the program into thinking it was running on a damaged disk.
    To get started with the break, I loaded Money Quest 2 into the DEBUG program, and stepped through each instruction with the trace command.

    C:\> DEBUG MQ2.EXE
    - t
    AX=0000 BX=0000 CX=7BA8 DX=0CEE SP=0080 BP=0000 SI=0000 DI=0000
    DS=07D2 ES=07D2 SS=0FAD CS=07E2 IP=0003 NV UP DI PL NZ NA PO NC
    07E2:0003 2E89163502 MOV CS:[0235],DX CS:0235=0000

    I stayed up late, tracing the code and looking up disk read interrupts in a library book. Eventually I found the section that needed to report a disk error, and modified the machine code so that it always did.
    Now when I started up Money Quest 2

    C:\> MQ2

    it worked. I played it for a while, then wrote a text file describing how to modify the code. When I logged onto the Bit Rock BBS, I uploaded that file to the breaking section.

    Subject: Money Quest 2 has been doctored

    And then it was after 2 AM. I went to bed.

    Even the parked cars made sound as I whipped past on my Huffy. Of course, I wanted a GT Pro Performer. That wasn’t what my mom gave me, though. The biggest trick I ever pulled off was when I bunny hopped over a lawn chair. But that was the day my mom brought home the IBM PC from her work, where it had been marked as trash. “Go out to the car. Something for you there in the trunk,” she said.
    And in that summer of 1986, I opened my mom’s trunk, saw the PC, brought it to my room and turned it on. From that moment on, I rode my bike with purpose. Like to the library. I was looking for computer books. And that’s where I met Jorg, hanging out with his step-dad. Now it was three years later.
    The grid of East Bay Vista began at the water. Next to East Bay was a large dock and industrial park. I lived with my mom in an apartment a few blocks away. Further toward the hills, in the nicer houses is where Jorg lived.
    I slowed down on 40th as I passed a row of muscle cars. Rich Collins leaned against his Chevy Nova, gesticulating furiously to Fred. Lining the other side of the street were motorcycles. It was “Wolf Wednesday,” which meant a business meeting between the two groups.
    In a musty locker room, I changed into my gym clothes. I prepared for my least favorite part of the day.
    Mr. Lucas called out the drills. “OK, ladies. Standing hamstring stretch.” With the last name Dillinger, PE teaches assigned me to the front row during stretches. And because of the way the numbers looped around, I was near Donny Winstead. Bending forward I could see he was standing behind me.
     “Hey Dan. I saw your mom yesterday. While she was cleaning toilets, I was thinking about my 4.0 GPA,” he said. Donny wore Nike Air Jordans and Hammer pants. The Hammer pants were okay, but his Jordans were rad. “You checking out my shoes, Dan. I’ll trade you my Jordans for those Prowings you have on... Psyche!”
    I did a forward neck bend, as Donny continued. “I tell you what, just ask your mom to buy you some new shoes. Oh wait, that’s right she’s a janitor. Well maybe someday I’ll sell these to your mom. Or one of them! Haha!”
    There were a few smiles in the class as Donny looked left and right. Donny was proud of the very skin that held him together. He was proud of his father, the East Bay Vista police chief. And he was proud of the large house in the hills he lived in.
    Mr. Lucas sat down on a folding chair. “OK, girls. Hurdler stretch.”
    As we stretched Donny continued his announcements. “Didn’t y’all hear me? Marsha was scrubbing the toilet in the next stall. When I took a piss, she snuck in to have a look.”
    The teachers at the school, they were strictly referred to as Mr. or Mrs. They were respected. But my mom wasn’t Mrs. anything. She had the worst job. And she was disrespected all day, being called her first name by students and teachers. Donny decided upon his own last name for Mom. “And then I took it out,” he said. “‘Hey Mrs. Dirigible, you need something to hold on to?’ She was so full of hot gas I thought she might float away!”
    As I stood up, Jorg looked at me and he shook his head. We had run this over before, in prayer moves. I needed to find the words. And finally I did. “I’m sure it was comforting for my mom to hold it since Chief Winstead holds your dick when you piss.”
    Donny hit me with his elbows, knocking my chest backward. Floating over the air, my palms brushed the cement. I landed on my back. But with my legs over my head I was on my feet again. And as I stood up I felt a strong set of arms on shoulders.
    “Dillinger! Back on your number,” said Mr. Lucas. “It’s time for jumping jacks.”
    I was happy he didn’t call me a dirigible.

    Using my 2400 baud modem, I dialed up a community college Unix line Jorg had told me about. Jorg had added a user account for me under the handle dr_rd. I simply logged in and had shell access. And from there I opened irc.

    login: dr_rd
    password: ******

    dr_rd:~$ irc

    Once in irc, I switched to the #breaks channel and posted a message about the Money Quest 2 break script.

    /channel #breaks
    [#breaks] money quest 2 has been doctored
    [#breaks] dcc me for break script

    I sent a few people the script over the course of an hour or two. But then I received a direct chat request from Jorg, who copying my style used the handle jr_rj. I accepted the chat request with the dcc command.

    DCC CHAT from jr_rj
    [#breaks] /dcc chat jr_rj

    I didn’t think he’d be interested in the script, but I was proud of what I had done and asked him if he wanted it anyways. Sure enough, he didn’t want to talk about that at all.

    DCC CHAT connection with jr_rj
    sup dude, you want the money quest 2 break?
    hey dan, during class today the WDVs were flashing a drug deal and really laughing. rich gave a sign for a blimp. and well, you know... by blimp he meant dirigible

    Apparently Donny Winstead’s bullshit term had spread to the Wolf Dealer Vikings.

    yeah...
    they said that they weren’t going to deal to your mother
    how do you know?
    i know because of what they flashed a few times in class: no... sale... blimp
    oh
    so we better do the run tomorrow

    At 7 AM my alarm clock went off. I was tired, so I hit snooze a couple times and slept in for about an hour. The only subject I really liked was English, which was in the second period. So when I got out of bed it was because I didn’t want to miss my favorite class.
    Teachers told me that since I liked computers, I should be into math. But when I programmed it wasn’t math. The characters were the letters. The statements were the sentences. The functions were sort of like paragraphs. And I had always loved those.
    In the trunk of the car with the PC my mom brought home was a manual of the “IBM Disk Operating System.” I read it in one night. That’s how I figured out how to put the Planetfall disk into the disk drive, and start the game.

    A:\› DIR

    Directory of A:\        .        <DIR› 08-28-83 6:58a        ..        <DIR› 08-28-83 7:04a     INFOCOM EXE 32,168 08-28-83 6:58a     SETUP      INF                  3 08-28-83 6:58a     SAVE                        <DIR› 08-28-83 6:55a     DATA                  <DIR› 08-18-14 9:59p              9 file(s)                  170,526 bytes

    A:\› INFOCOM`

    This game was all text. Now I was on a spaceship cleaning stuff with a mop. But there was a way to escape. I traveled to a different planet. I picked up a laser gun. I made friends with a robot. I solved puzzles and navigated through mazes. Just by typing letters and numbers, there was always a way to the next stage.
    Mrs. Scheetz paced back and forth at the front of the classroom. Lit. 2 assigned reading for that week was Catcher in the Rye. “OK. So hopefully everyone finished what we were supposed to do this week so far. Any thoughts?” asked Mrs. Scheetz. Donny, who sat in the front row raised his hand, but Mrs. Sheetz ignored him. “Someone else, for a change,” she said. Finally she made eye contact with me. “Dan! What did you think.”
    I slouched. I felt embarrassed speaking in English class since I hadn’t learned how to discuss things eloquently. “Not a lot of shit happened but it was still a good read,” I said.
    Mrs. Scheetz walked toward my desk. “Okay, Dan. I gather you liked it better than The Scarlet Letter. Why was it a good read?”
    Two girls in front of me giggled, whispered and craned their necks around. What made Catcher in the Rye so good? I searched the wall, then the clock. The second hand was spinning. Always so slow, but always in the same direction. Thank God.
    “Dan?”
    “Well, to me it was just, more realistic,” I said. “Like for example... when it covered a day, time moved more like it does in real life.”
    “Different literary method for presenting a sequence of time. Okay Dan. Now we’re getting somewhere.” Mrs. Sheetz strolled to the front of the room past Donny Winstead and others. My desk was clean and smooth as I placed Ender’s Game on it. Finally it was time for silent reading.
    After class, walking away I felt a tap on my shoulder. Donny was there.
    “Dan Dirigible!” he said.
    “Man, shut the fuck up with that shit,” I replied.
    “I’m just kidding, dude. Lighten up.”
    I kept walking.
    “Anyways, dang dude!” Joe continued. “How do you read so fast? I’m still finishing up The Scarlet Letter while you’re already done with the next book.”
    “I like to read,” I said.
    “Yeah, but I mean, you finish books before most of the people in class have even started. How about I visit sometime, and you can show me some of that speed reading stuff?”
    It was a puzzling proposition. I imagined it, Joe Winstead in the two bedroom apartment with my mom and I. “What, are you just going to drive over?” I asked.
    “Yeah, you’re over in those apartments near the industrial park, not too far away from here.”
    I wasn’t sure how Donny knew where I lived.
    “Just think it over, man!” said Donny, as he walked away.

    Mom reclined on a chair in the living room, empty Pepsi bottle in her lap. “Hey son,” she said. On TV a woman sold gold watches on the QVC network. “The colors are bright on this television. You’re such a good boy.”
    “That’s okay, Mom.” I said. “How was work today?”
    Mom scratched her face. “Oh, I didn’t go in. I’m feeling ill.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    Mom turned her head away from me, looking out the window into darkness. “This show is not very interesting. Nothing good on anymore.”
    I left Mom in the living room, and changed into black clothes. At 8 PM Jorg waited for me outside the apartment in his car. He drove us down Military Avenue toward the bay. Rows of lights striped the street yellow. Within half a mile the dark centers of the stripes gave way to the orange hue of the refinery. Jorg turned right, and we headed to a small hill with some new houses on it. At least half of them were vacant, including 701 Daffodil Drive.
    I spotted the boxes walking up the steps. Car stereos. Home stereos. Tape decks. VCRs. We loaded them into Jorg’s trunk in two trips.

    On Friday Mom returned home a few hours after I got back from school. “Hey son, nice to see you.” She bent down and gave me a hug. “You look so big. You’ve gotten so big.” Mom smiled. She chewed her thumb. “What did my boy learn in school today?”
    “The usual stuff,” I said.
    “Are you hungry? You must be hungry do you want something to eat?” She walked to the kitchen.
    “A little, I guess,” I told Mom.
    “Well if you’re hungry, I can make you something to eat.” Mom opened one drawer, then another. She scratched her nose. Then she reached into a cabinet and took out a can of soup. “I can make you whatever you want!” She opened the refrigerator. “Oops, I thought we had some milk. Soup won’t be good without some milk.”
    “That’s okay Mom. I can just eat the soup without milk,” I said.
    “I’ll go get you some milk.” she said, and put on her jacket.
    “I don’t need any milk!”
    Mom was out the front door.

    Mr. Lucas called out floor hockey captains from the side of the room. The contest was about checking people into the wall more than you got checked.
    Donny wasn’t there, so the game wouldn’t be as fun. But one of Donny’s sidekicks, Bill was on the other team. He elbowed me in the back, slamming me into the kitchen take out counter that jutted into the multipurpose room. I landed on the ground with the wind knocked out of me.
    The game stopped for a while, as I slowly gathered myself. I stood up. And in the center of the floor, I tangled with Bill again. As he bent over, going for the ball, I smashed my forearm into his face.
    “Dan!” Mr. Lucas called.
    Bill cupped two hands over his mouth, wincing in pain. “Ow! Motherfucker!”
    “Sorry!” I shouted.
    “Dan! Get your ass over here.”
    I saw Officer Brady standing next to Mr. Lucas, his hand in front of his mouth, talking into his walkie talkie. I didn’t move.
    “Goddamnit Dan!” said Mr Lucas.
    Brady walked over and gripped my arm. “Dan. You’re going to need to come with me, son.” He led me out the door, down the hall to the Vice Principals office.
    “Take a seat on the couch,” said Mrs. Downfield, the vice principal. Brady, flipped through a small spiral bound notepad.
    “So you’re the Janitors’ kid, huh?” Officer Brady asked. “Are you aware of the type of stuff she’s been up to?”
    Mrs. Downfield breathed heavily in her chair. It was an unpleasant sound. I doubt even she liked hearing it. “Answer the question, Dan.”
    “Yeah,” I said, tossing in a few mock breaths, “My mom has been cleaning toilets.”
    “That’s not why were here, Dan,” said Brady. “Your mom has been up to
    some bad things. And we received information that you have been as well.”
    “Who told you that?” I asked.
    Brady tapped his index finger on the notepad. “It’s all in here.”
    On Mrs. Downfield’s desk was a computer. It was an original IBM PC. The floppy disk on the left side was the same as mine, but the hard drive on the right was slightly smaller.
    “I see you checking my computer out, Dan. I understand you like computers.” Mrs Downfield said. “Well when I enter your grades into this computer, I see that those grades are not good. I know that you are Marsha’s kid. I want to be on your side. But you push us to our limits. Mr. Lucas informed us of fighting in P.E. and Mr. Romaine, believes you’ve been defacing school furniture. Is that true?”
    The computer on Mrs. Downfield’s desk left a mouth of space open, while at home mine had been retrofitted with a plastic cover. “You should cover that gap on your computer so shit doesn’t get inside,” I said.
    When Officer Brady stood up, I was eye-level with his belt and everything attached to it. I recognized some of the equipment from a Me Era game.
    “Please don’t whip me with your PR-24,” I requested.
    Brady backed up a few paces. “Son, I’ve had enough of your wisecracks. Now Mrs. Downfield just asked you about fighting. Chief Winstead wants me to take you down to juvy and lock you up. I recommend you make this easier by cooperating.”
    Chief Winstead... Donny Winstead’s Dad. Brady was under orders from Chief Winstead. It seemed more than a coincidence. “Chief Winstead’s son is a dick who makes fun of my mom all the time,” I said.
    “We’re not here to feel sorry for you, Dan,” said Mrs. Downfield. “We all must endure insults. The students here don’t have a lot of nice things to say about me either. Just because Donny says mean things about your mom doesn’t mean you need to.... pay the Wolf Dealer Vikings in stolen goods so that they can... deal her speed.”
    Brady shook his head, “No, it doesn’t.”
    “How did you get all that stuff?” Mrs. Downfield asked.
    “Prayer moves,” I said.
    Mrs. Downfield stood up. “This is ridiculous. Dan, have fun in Juvenile Hall.”
    I was seated when Brady handcuffed me. He hoisted me up by my biceps, walked me out of the vice principals office, and that’s the last I would ever see of that place.

    ***

    Opportunity High was a joke. I’m not sure why they even bothered holding class. The only thing I liked about it was the recreation room, where you could play board games and dominoes and other stuff like that.
    The first time I walked into Rec I heard my name, “Dan!” And I saw Fred and Rich crouched in one corner. They were with three or four others, apparently WDVs.
    “Dan in this,” Fred said, and howled. The other WDVs stood up. “I introduce to you,
    Masterplan Dillinger. What’s up man? You expelled here too?” One by one, I high fived all the dudes.
    Rich asked me if I wanted to play chess. We set up a chessboard at a table near the window.
    “Did they get you at school?” I asked.
    Rich shook his head, maintaining a gaze on his pawn. “Nope. Cops raided the house. They found drugs and shit like that. Fred was over and they took him in, too. I guess the police chief has been keeping tabs on the WDVs for a while.”
    I moved a pawn to e5. “What about my mom?” I asked.
    “Don’t know. The cops just told us, ‘Not a good idea dealing to the school janitor.’”
    Mom had gone to a treatment clinic on nights and weekends for a few weeks. It was a relief to see she had gained some health back. At home that night, she shuffled in an old pair of jeans and tennis shoes next to the sink, preparing dinner.
     “Hi Mom!” I called. “Are you feeling better?”
    Mom continued peeling a carrot as she shook her head.
    “I was wondering, Mom,” I continued. “How did they catch you?”
    “Well... they said someone had seen me with drugs and took me to the security office. The cop, Brady was there and the vice principal gave me a drug test. I failed it, and then Brady found some speed in my purse.” She paused then, and took a breath. “Sorry, son.”
    “Yeah but you went to treatment, Mom. That part is good.”
    Mom nodded.
    “But how did they know? At the school, I mean. Why did they call you in?” I asked.
    “Well there was this one kid. Somehow he knew what I was up to with the wolves. He’d find me in the bathrooms, and ask me for some speed. Later I found out he was the police chief’s son.”

    I pedalled to Opportunity High and found Rich in the same corner of the recreation room. I asked him where I could find Riker Smith.
    Rich chewed on a stick of liquorice. “What you want to see Riker about, man?”
    “I just want to talk to him.”
    Rich reached in a bag for another piece. “You can’t just... talk to him. We only call our hammer up for serious purposes.”
    I grabbed the liquorice out of Rich’s hand. “Taking care of a rat is serious, right? Anyways, I want to discuss Donny Winstead.”
    Rich’s eyes bugged out. “You know Donny is the son of the chief of the police, right?”
    That night I started on the assembly program, typing it out with the IBM Model M keyboard. The going was slow. I had printed out a few assembly language tutorials from Bit Rock BBS. It took a lot of reading just to write one line. During the reading, I heard a knock at the front door.
    Standing on the front steps was Riker Smith.
    “Riker,” I said. “Thanks for coming over.”
    “Call me Rake,” he said.
    I wasn’t sure why a guy like Riker needed a nickname like Rake. A tattoo with some sort of wings crept out past his collarbone.
    Mom stood behind me, mesmerized. With Rake’s muscular build and long flowing hair, he was the most in shape, imposing person to set foot on our doorstep. He towered over both of us.
    “Come in,” I said. And he did.
    “Ma’am,” said to my Mom.
    “Hi,” she said. “I’m Marsha.”
    “Pleased to meet you. I’m Riker, but please call me Rake. Oh, and incidentally I commend you on your recent efforts to take charge of your health.”
    “Okay, thanks,” she said.
    Rake nodded.
    I nodded too. “Mom, I’m going to talk to Rake about some of those kids at school.”
    When we were in my room with the door shut, Rake sat at my desk and looked through my books. “You into this computer stuff?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Big time.”
    Rake looked me in the eye. “Wild. Maybe you’ll be the next Bill Gates.”
    I had not, until that moment, imagined being anything other than Dan Dillinger. “Yeah,” I said.
    “I heard he has a billion dollars.”
    “A... billion?”
    Rake smiled. “So what’s the issue here.”
    “Well, there is someone at the high school. His name is Donny Winstead.”
    “Yes. The Chief’s son.”
    “Okay, well I have a problem with him.”
    “Many people do.”
    “Yeah well he ratted my mom out.”
    “What a creep,” he said. “Although that is not particularly surprising. So what do you need me for.”
    “Well... ” I trailed off to a mumble.
    Rake flipped through my assembly language programming book. “I’m going to need you to think about it. Make sure you really want to carry this out.”

    “Yes, I’ve heard of that dude, Rake! You met up with him?” Jorg asked. We stood in his backyard. “What about?”
    “Donny Winstead.”
    Jorg’s fists were clenched into a ball. He circled his right leg back, then forward again. Then he repeated the move with his left foot. He closed his eyes. “I recall advising you not to attack your enemies directly. These impromptu revelations of rash behavior make it challenging to uphold my end of the discussion. Do you know what I mean?”
    “Actually, no not really,” I said after a while.
    “The man you are discussing with Rake is the son of the Chief of Police.”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    Jorg stood in a shoulder width crouch, and pushed forward with two open hands. Then he drew in his hands and pushed them out to the side of his body. “I know you know. And since you know, I am curious as to what you seek to gain by involving Rake?”
    I drew my right hand behind my body, then I stabbed it through the air, matching Jorg’s prayer move. “I seek to have Rake install some software.”
    Jorg raised his knee, lowered it, then faced me. He clasped his hands. “Now that is very indirect,” he said, bowing forward.
    Explaining to Rake where he was to install the software was one of the more difficult portions of the escapade. Rake was about 10 years older than us, and had not gone to our high school. “You simply go in through the front doors, okay? Then turn left and head to the vice principals office,” I told him.
    “I’m going to need more than that to go on. I walked over there the other day. I couldn’t see any offices from the entrance.”
    Jorg tore a piece of paper from one of my notebooks. He put a sharpened pencil to it, drawing a sequence of lines that became a top-down map of the high school front office. He completed the image with a few arrows. “That’s where you should go, Rake,” he said. Then he drew the row of offices from a first person perspective, including a houseplant. “And Rake, the door to the right of this fake houseplant is the one you want to open.”
    I resumed flipping through the book of assembly language. And for many months I programmed it. I rarely went to school, and later coded throughout summer.
    Then, one night Rake brought a 5¼-inch floppy disk to East Bay Vista High School. He smashed the front window and walked in. From there he turned left, straight into the corridor he knew from the top. He opened the office to the right of the fake plant. The PC was off. Rake inserted the floppy into the drive. He snapped down the lever and engaged the catch. He powered the machine on.
    And after a few minutes, Rake removed the disk and turned the computer off. He walked walked out to find his truck, and drove away.
    At East Bay Vista High school security realized there was a break in, and checked for lost property. The front window was shattered, but nothing was missing. In fact, something was added. When Mrs. Downfield turned on the computer the hard disk spun up. The boot sector solenoid engaged the drive magnet, and the signal was amplified. My program was loaded into memory. And then my program terminated.

    I found a part-time job working IT for a computer repair shop. It paid well. I finally bought that GT Pro Performer. In the afternoons, I rode down to the East Bay Vista skate park. I was not the coolest guy in 1992, but at least I could bunny hop over a lawn chair again.
    And my code in the vice principals office stayed resident. It modified the student records application, the same application that was on the PC my mom had brought home. And it waited for Donny Winstead. When the report cards were issued, it did nothing. But when a sealed copy of Donny’s transcripts were requested, it reduced Donny’s grades to Ds and Fs. It modified the disciplinary report. Now Donny Winstead was a bully who bought drugs from the janitorial staff. No college would admit him.
    Years later, I went back to the same skatepark. I was drinking a 40 oz, now a father but still unmarried. Jorg had gotten his life together, a couple of times. He was Dr. Jorgman. On that day he drove up in a white Mercedes Benz 500 SEC. It was old school, just like us. Jorg handed me some cash as a reward for a bit of work I had done. I nodded toward the center divider of a nearby street. Donny Winstead was trimming hedges. And Jorg and I couldn’t help but smile.

the other window

    i told them i was suicidal when i was fine. doctor’s orders.

    to quit two old meds and start a new one, i went in, because my law-suit-fearing (paranoid) psychiatrist insisted i make the changes inpatient. i had never been institutionalized before.

    the old meds i was quitting were depakote and lamictal. the new med was topamax, an anti-seizure med that was now being prescribed off-label for severe manic-depression.

    the first day, the nurse gave me a very low dose of 25 mg topamax and zero neurontin, a med which was not to be changed. i took 1500 mg of neurontin daily and she gave me zero. then the nurse jacked up my lamictal, one of the drugs i had come in to get off. i told her she was getting it wrong and she said, “you’re not getting paranoid on me, are you?” she was an older nurse. like many mental health providers i had met, she was out to paint the patient as sicker and more dependent than he was. getting my right meds, on time, became a political endeavor more than a medical one. i talked to the other nurses and tried to get word to the doctor. i had to incorporate a public relations firm. i ran internet ads. they mulled over the problem to see if it was a problem. none of these people did a thing without computers and palm pilots, so it took longer than looking at the bottle, tapping the pills into my hand, and swallowing with water.

    the first night, they hold you in a pool with other psyche patients for “observation.” from here, they weed out the ones they’ll treat on the other side of the floor. essentially, you must prove that you are nuts but somewhat sane in order to be transferred. it’s a fine line for a disoriented patient to walk. they want to be sure you’re safe and able to understand a psychiatrist. yet you must be sick enough to be worth their time. sometimes a patient waits days to get out of observation. sometimes a patient never makes it out, in which case he is treated like a sick animal the hospital cannot legally put down. my first night i was given ativan and observed. i’d gone to the e.r. first, claiming i wanted to kill myself. my paranoid doctor had told me to do this. it was the only way in. my paranoid doctor told me he wouldn’t give me topamax unless i admitted myself for the med change. if i had told the truth, i wouldn’t have gotten into the hospital. i wouldn’t have gotten topamax, which i believed would help me. of course, i didn’t belong in the hospital. they didn’t admit stable people for med changes.

    one factor in my transfer out of observation the second day was my constant thirst. this thirst provided reason and opportunity to talk with the nurses, so they could see that i was thirsty, annoying, and a reasonable suicide. they gave me soda. on the other side, patients had a refrigerator stocked with juices and water fountains. the other side also had a living room with couches, tv, a kitchen with a ping-pong table, two patient telephones, two bathrooms, a laundry room — and the privilege of two-hour furloughs outside the hospital if you played their game: be social and go to group therapy and contribute.

    i did not believe in groups and i did not go to them at first, even though they were required. i have always avoided crowds. i didn’t want to sit around and say the right words when i needed to sleep. i tried, but nurses came into my room to tell me i was not in group therapy. i told them i had come to the hospital to rest. they continued to wake me up and seemed to enjoy waking me up. it was hopeless. i went to groups with my new friends and contributed the best i could. the only reason i thought seriously during these groups was because i wanted to be discharged. the psychologists seemed to like me better than the nurses did. i got word that the older nurse had reported to the doctor that i was “anti-social.” we were in a group when the psychiatrist stopped by and i stood up and said to the group, very loudly, “do i talk to you?” and a chorus of 12 people said, “yes. why?” the psychologist took note. i worried about the others that nurse would try to fuck over. she was a sociopath with a name-tag. there was something wrong with her. she gave the wrong meds and lied. she had told me i was paranoid for questioning my meds when they were all wrong. i considered whether her goal was to hurt us.

    social
    un-social
    anti-social

    the silent ones who stare into space with foam frozen on their lips are classified as unsocial. unsocial is acceptable. especially if you’re from a wealthy family.

    i called david twice tonight to talk to an intelligent man about the free world. he wasn’t home.

    they told me my lithium level was 40% above normal. i was toxic. they drew blood three times a day. then they cut the lithium. i had thought my lithium level was okay. i had been on the same dose for seven years, but i felt better and more aware on less. my law-suit-fearing psychiatrist had prescribed the high dose and the regular laboratory tests on blood levels were being sent to him. i guess he didn’t read them. he collected his paycheck and collected lawsuits while i destroyed my kidneys.

    if it could hurt an ant, it was banned. no keys, pens, shoelaces, belts, or spiral notebooks. they had overlooked my shoelaces and i had smuggled in a spiral notebook and pen. nobody else had shoelaces and none of them asked me for mine. the most dangerous thing about a spiral notebook is not the metal wire, but what one can write in it. incompetence documented. it is also therapeutic to write one’s thoughts, but these people were so worried about law-suits, they couldn’t let us do things which made us feel better.

    “this is a prison with nurses and mercenaries and idiots who delight in authority’s entitlements, namely the one where it’s time to fuck with your brain.”

    my friend the nurse, the one who graduated in the 1960s to go on to call me anti-social, told the hospital shrink that i was paranoid. the nurses had a lot of influence because the psychiatrist spent little time with us. we saw the shrink briefly in his office to discuss medications. i saw him come out of his office once in 11 days. he gathered his information from staff members, most of whom were competent. the idea that i was paranoid for refusing the wrong medications had hit the highest level. the doctor gave me an anti-psychotic for paranoia. i took it simply to see if it made me feel better. i left for home on my first two-hour pass, my first cigarette in six days. i was sitting at my computer writing an email when the pill kicked in like bad acid. i felt anxiety, paranoia, disjointed and diminished, vulnerable, agitated, aggressive, and helpless. i limped back to the hospital, a paranoiac. i told the doctor and he looked at me like i was lying. he said, “abilify shouldn’t do that.” (the patient is always wrong.)

    i had friends out in the world who knew what i was doing. they were skeptical of my doctor’s order to admit myself to change a couple of meds, as would be other psychiatrists later. meanwhile, those med changes were happening too slowly. after five days, i was up to only 50 mg of topamax, with 150 mg to go. the way they were giving the meds, it would take 15 more days to get off the old meds and be on a full dose of the new med. i had gone on and off meds before and it did not take this long to quit them or to achieve therapeutic levels. i had always changed meds outpatient, without a problem. most of the time i was given a med and told to increase to the full dose within three days. the hospital was making a project out of this during which i felt like shit and medicare was paying them $1,100 a day. this was my paranoid shrink’s idea of medicine.

    sue was an ex, but we were friends. she was my best friend katz’ ex and we had had a nice affair after his death. sue said she would come visit me, but she wanted to bring along her new friend jean, who wanted to “see tower 8” for the first time. jean was the chick who denied ever sleeping with katz. i believed his version of the story more than i believed her vehement denials. sue and jean had become friends after his cock was incinerated. sue said jean was asking about me, but also was saying she had “never seen tower 8 and wanted to know what is was like.” i said no to the tourist. i didn’t know her well and i didn’t like how she’d denied katz. in her next call, sue didn’t mention jean, but i was still pissed off. she tried to cut me off five times before i finally got across why i didn’t want jean coming. sue then said she had never said anything about jean never having seen tower 8. i told her she was a liar and she didn’t deny it. sue was a bad liar. sue played up jean’s interest in me. i said it was my interest to keep jean off my guest list. i hung up on sue.

    five people returned the scrod tonight. i don’t know what was wrong with it, but it disgusted five fish-loving mental patients stranded in a place where there was nothing else to eat. we agreed it was toxic scrod. we asked the kitchen to send up sandwiches, but they never did.

    i miss coke, my room, cigarettes, and yeah, my freedom.

    craig got a pass, but had no money. i bought nirvana’s nevermind off him for $8, so he could buy butts while he was out. maybe he’d smuggle one in for me in a plastic bag shoved in his armpit. i’d smoke it in the shower. craig and i have a past. we come from the same small island town and went to school together from second grade through high school. we were on the same basketball team. i hadn’t seen him for 12 years until the hospital. he was committed by his mother and brother. i knew his brother in high school and he was a good guy. i doubt he’d take this easily. craig remains as pretentious as he always was, so i just tell him when to shut up. he does. he knows he is full of shit. he never shuts up for long, though.

    “i didn’t know you were an intellectual,” craig said. “i though you were always the happy, go-lucky trumpet player.”

    i called my paranoid shrink and told him the hospital was moving too slowly. if they didn’t speed up this transition, i was walking.

    i called my paranoid shrink to tell him i was walking. the nurse said, “hang on another day. don’t throw away all the progress you’ve made.”

    they gave me no lamictal on thursday.

    they gave me 50 mg lamictal on friday.

    they gave me no lamictal on saturday.

    i refused lamictal on sunday.

    “sue, i am glad you came by and i didn’t know i would be. you know?”

    each time i start to write, i get called by a nurse, phlebotomist, or nurse’s assistant.
     wake up!
     meds!
     blood!
     shower!
     shave!
     group!

    food, food, fucking food, always food, trays and trays and cups and fucking plastic utensils, which they count on the way out. i ate one meal a day at home and i had never contemplated injuring myself or anyone with a plastic fork.

    darryl was the main man on the floor at night. he was a nurse’s assistant and he’d been there 40 years. built low, like a wrestler, with one false eye. he was married and lived in a ranch with awnings and he handed out peppermint patties when he started his shift. we called him “the enforcer.” he was intent on making sure the garrulous and gangly jane and i were not in the same room together. darryl’s radar was so damned good, he was a form of birth control.

    fu man-chu was my new roommate. he was an artist and animator who was starving himself to death. anorexia is a mental disorder, but i didn’t know what they were going to do for him. they couldn’t treat manic-depression properly. he had starvation down to a science. he was matter-of-fact and calm. he knew that if he could die, his mustache would grow more impressive. he told me that parsley flakes have four calories per teaspoon.

    the hospital shrink’s boss came in. he was also a shrink, using stupidity as a defense. pure arrogance.

    the shrink says he does not want craig hanging out at my place while out on pass. what could it be?

    the beer?

    anne’s email: “sorry to hear your head needs hospitalization, but glad you’ve decided to let it be so, since it does.”
    me: “wait a minute, bitch.”

    the shrink decided to give me all my lithium at bedtime to make it “simpler.” they drew my blood in the morning and were horrified by my lithium levels. then they reduced the lithium, rather than spacing out the doses. i mobilized and lobbied, passed out pamphlets and held 50,000 babies on tv. i got the doses spaced out. then my blood levels were fine. i had to fight. i had to beat them over the heads to achieve common sense. this was supposed to be their expertise? i had to talk to nurses, get the message to the doc, persuade other nurses. they were going to turn me suicidal. what the patient does is fight people who assume they are smarter than he is, assume they know more about his illness than he does. he fights while these professionals are trying to dismantle his brain. i thoroughly resented the mistake and the effort required of me, a patient, to correct it via politics and force. i was weak and there to rest and i had to orchestrate the obvious, teach a course on lithium 101 to eight professionals. it was more stressful being in the hospital than out of it. if consciousness is life, i had to defend my life against these well-trained people.

    the psychologist advised me to move out of my house. my upstairs neighbors were pounding on my ceiling when i tried to write, when i tried to take naps, and when i went to bed early (which insured that i’d be up before them, typing again.) these neighbors would not tolerate the sound of me typing on a computer keyboard in a heavily built victorian house. when i typed, they pounded. they were freaks and they worked and were paid as freaks. her phenomenal hearing earned her a job at naval underwater research center (nusc), a subcontractor for the department of defense. she was hired specifically for her extraordinary hearing capabilities to listen to the sounds made by submarine propeller prototypes. i had to live below these motherfuckers, who did not allow one inch for the fact that the problem was theirs. but he was worse than her. he was a big ex-marine who managed a restaurant. he was able to locate me wherever i was in my apartment. he’d walk over and stand above me and rock on his feet. when i walked across the room or into the next room, he followed me and stopped where i’d stopped. one time i walked across the room and he followed me, so i walked back to where i had been and he followed me. then i walked back to where i’d gone the first time and he followed me. then i walked back to where i had been and he stopped after three steps. he knew i was fucking with him. he was the bigger problem and the more sheepish in the hall. when i finally did move out, she said to me, “i tried.” they tormented the living hell out of me 24/7 with their sadistic streak. the psychologists were right, but it would take time to find a new place.

    i’d also had run-ins with a new tenant, a 6'5" former armed forces boxing champion and wife beater. he was smart as toilet water, but much bigger than i was and he had decided as soon as he moved in that he hated me. he hated me because he wanted my two huge rooms. his room was 10x14 feet and darker than a garage. he had one small window, no sun. he was a recovered alcoholic who drank and he owed child support to eight different women. he smoked crack and drove a school bus and had been forced to take classes in anger management. in the kitchen, he poured dish soap into my coffee maker and threw out my food. he commented on my bowel movements and punched the wall when he walked down the hallway: my rooms were on the other side. he got up very early to drive those kids and he busied himself before 6 a.m. throwing pots and pans into the kitchen closet, which shared a wall with my bed. one day i told him what a wife-beating piece of shit he was and he raised his fist, knuckles beside his face. “i could kill you,” he said. “i don’t doubt you could,” i said. he wanted my rooms and the six giant windows and sunlight. he wanted me to move out and so he had declared a war. my paranoid shrink had called my problems with my neighbors “an elaborate construct” and pushed anti-psychotics. my landlord, a methodist and retired naval officer, didn’t want to get involved, which means he chose the side of evil, with whom he had many conversations about the red sox and patriots.

    out on pass

    david, this is me, out on pass, two hours to smoke cigarettes, drink beer, and give myself enemas. we are all navigating errors by the hospital shrink, who yesterday said i am delusional about my upstairs neighbors. to which i replied, “have you ever read the painted bird, by jerzey kosinsky?” and he said no, but he knew of it and wanted to read it. i said, “well, maybe jerzey kosinsky was delusional too.” took the smirk off his face. it is hard to tell whether i am better or worse. i feel manic on these passes. maybe because i’m out. i will be out again tomorrow, so write. the people in there are cool. craig thinks he’s a rock star. jane woke up beside her dead boyfriend. another woman simply does not have the guts to tell her son to move out. he is driving her insane and here she is in tower 8 – because she loves him too much. they check our shoes for cigarettes when we go back. they frown on naps and serve bad food. a real break. i’ll call.

    love,
    tommy

    david, 29f. 9:34 a.m. the house is sunday morning quiet, the streets getting rumbly and peopled. godzilla and bigfoot are not pounding on the ceiling because they can’t get their asses out of bed on sundays.

    shaving is supervised due to the razor.

    all we do is mill about on weekends, waiting for meals and pills. we talk . . . sleep . . . i go into a zone and i know others do too. to avoid the pain of actually living each minute of that lame existence. when you come out here, you cannot quickly pull yourself out of it.

    love,
    tommy

    anne, no tombstone yet for me. but the shrink has a report from a nurse that i am “confused.” maybe i asked her where the bathroom was on the second day. one nurse, maybe the same nurse, accused me of not playing with the other children, but i took care of her. fucking place. you have to fake being well so they won’t drive you to a worse place. i am home on a pass. have to be back in 45. i’ll be back tomorrow.

    love,
    tommy

    david, at home, edged out on drugs. craig is coming after he picks up a pizza. for me, craig and jane make the place. at this point, jane could be gone any time. she has been there two weeks. craig could be in another week. his relationship with his family is bad and they put him in there, though his committal has since been reclassified as voluntary. anyhow, he is unique enough to be in there another week. still adjusting to the meds. i feel better, but not strong in the head. you have to guard yourself from these people every inch. i played ping-pong with jack the ripper yesterday. nice guy. i couldn’t beat him. they put him in here because they got tired of him probing his innards with sharp objects, nearly killing himself twice. he thrusts knives into his belly-button when he drinks, or is on drugs, or during big emotional bouts. he stabs himself and then twists the knife and pokes around. the surgeons are apparently sick of this guy, so he is actually under arrest.

    love,
    tommy

    david, a patient walking around at night is something they can’t deal with. imagine, a mental patient with insomnia. they break out the clubs. tell pete i was committed for washing my hands in the rainy streets.

    love,
    tommy

    sue, i don’t know what to do with the two hours i have at home and a part of me looks forward to going back up and doing nothing. i need more than two hours. i need days to figure out what to do down here. it’s pathetic, huh? craig just left after eating a pizza in front of me, allowing me 20 minutes of silence. $100 check from granny. nothing new around here. i’m going to try a new drug. i do not think i’m paranoid and i know my problems with my neighbors are real, but sometimes my thoughts get scrambled and daily i descend into a depression that is unbearable. it is also possible that the constant attacks are creating a paranoia. i’m willing to try anything once. jane, the yankee who acts like a new yorker, left. enter stage right: two hot chicks. a crack-head junkie and prostitute has joined us for day classes and a redhead with tattoos is shaping up to be good material. when she told us why she was in there, everyone applauded. what did she do? she asked a cop for a tampon. the cop gave her something and when she went to use it she discovered it was a maxi-pad. she was wearing a pair of $90 jeans, so she threw the maxi pad at the cop. that’s what can land you in a mental institution these days. i gotta run. i’ll talk to you later.

    love,
    tommy

    post discharge

    the two rooms have a harder pair of eyes, but i’m willing. medicinally, i am less than 30% the same. singing just now i found my voice is not as blocked as it had been. i got to know some interesting people in there. maybe about three or four of the dozens. they made it tolerable. humbling scene. i feel okay. time is the test.

    feel weird. took the anti-psychotic geodon to see what happens. a little early for it, but fuck. i feel weird. ole george is glad i’m back to walk kelly. the ole bastard doesn’t seem to remember he owes me for a couple days before i went in. i’ll just add them to this short week. he’s been patient. eleven days i was in that zone. i am disoriented out here. craig and i went for a walk downtown to starbucks on his pass. he’s still hanging with the shady despite of shrink’s orders. i guess the shrink believes i am not good for his mental health. craig seems less and less stable. today he was a prick, rude, not listening, cruising women by trying to start conversations with strangers on the sidewalk. craig has never been a lady’s man and he never will be. his attempts were embarrassing. he was never the tough-guy or burn-out type either, which some chicks gravitate toward. he was a scholar at a catholic university and a great choral singer in high school and college, where his best friend was the school priest, who he says cured him of his pacifism. i knew his father all too well and his father did not like me. he was a dry drunk kind of prick, an empowered junior high english teacher kind of prick. he was beating a’s out of craig and making kids cry at school. he was a tall, loud, possessed, perfectionist who was very subjective in his grading and made kids stand up in front of the class and say “i am stupid” fifty times if they made a mistake. he liked to flirt with the girls and graded the better-looking ones leniently. he stuck me in the last row by the window. he was an example of how aggressive the wrong can be. when i saw craig’s mother on tower 8 early on in his committal i remembered her from years ago, a diminutive and calculating bitch who was a secretary for a navy subcontractor. she could be behind the shrink’s order for craig not to hang out with me. she didn’t like him hanging out with me when we were kids. at first it was because she didn’t feel i was smart and talented enough. when i got better grades than craig and unseated him as first trumpet, i was invited over once or twice, but she saw i was trouble. she didn’t want to expose her precious scholar to a kid who was almost deported to australia. more recently, she knew me as a reporter for the local paper, in which i had crucified her brother, dick.

    craig studied with shaman healers in california. he confessed to me, and that’s what it was, that he has the voice of a native american shaman in his head. he wants to get rid of it or get it under control. he spoke, or let the shaman be heard, in some strange language. he said the indian is always there and has been for the last five years, coinciding with the onset of his bipolar disorder, a disease he does not want to hear about. he refuses to go on lithium because if it worked it would be evidence he is a manic-depressive. he prefers to lie to doctors about his symptoms. i got to thinking about the indians at the school we both attended. our elementary and junior high school was built on an ancient indian burial ground. they dug up the bones and moved them to one spot on a hill overlooking our playground. artifacts were put on display at the town library. i don’t know where craig was born, but ever since i knew him (about age eight) he lived a half-block from the school, on the same sacred ground. i went over there once or twice and we’d look at his father’s magazines, all the women with their legs spread to show us what they had. i got flea bites sleeping overnight in craig’s bed and they were lax about the dog shitting on the carpet. the home had no spiritual cohesion.

    i seem to be okay, materially. i feel cut loose, without a routine here yet, lonely, skeptical of the place. lonely is a funny one. i hung out with some good people up there on a constant basis. thought-provoking circumstances, intelligent.

    craig was over here yesterday, eyeing matt’s hendrix box set. it is still here. i recognized craig on the observation side when he gave me his first name – when he stopped pacing. he’s been roughed up by life and worked over by alcohol, but the kid i knew was there. he didn’t recognize me. he was walking around the hospital listening to nirvana, motown, led zep, dylan. he can sing anything, anybody, but he is not the rock-star he sees. i’m out, looking for the routine, looking to move. i leapt through the revolving door at the hospital. i was going out for good. it was too late to walk through, but on a personal dare against physical fate, i became superman and beat the motherfucker, setting off the alarm and shutting down the door. one leap for a man, one small step for a man. i usually don’t act that way in public. i got jane’s number. she hasn’t called me back. maybe she just wants to forget the place. or the rules have changed, for we are now on the outside. she is a paralegal and i discerned that she did not dig upon my no-work philosophy.

    craig came by yesterday and stole back the nirvana cd i bought from him for $8. today he has called me four times regarding the led zeppelin cd he let me borrow. he says that he remembers that it belongs to his uncle dick and his uncle dick must have it by thursday. uncle dick is a 60-year-old millionaire, engineer and politician, and one of the most corrupt city council presidents i ever encountered when i was a reporter. dick has a sudden interest in the led zeppelin bbc sessions. i guess dick either got bored with highways and high-rises or craig feels he must bring out the big guns and invoke the name of an uncle who’s power he doesn’t question. craig leaves messages in a very serious lawyerly tone. he speaks in a low voice. he wants to meet. we must have a summit at which led zeppelin will change hands. jimmy page and f. lee bailey will preside. i put the cd in a box and rode to the p.o. and mailed it to him. he has some of my cd’s and he can keep them so long as i don’t see his fucking face again. all things as they are, spinning in perfect circles.

    i’ve still got terrific mood swings, but i am less vegetative when i go down. it is either the topamax or the anti-psychotic geodon that’s keeping me out of the darker places. at the same time, life feels less life-like, less open and exciting. i am subdued, silent, cracking fewer jokes. this chick i’ve met, sade, is a strange one. she’s brilliant and she’s a good fuck, but she’s going to put me back in the hospital. last night we got into a fight about the catholic church and politics. she wants to be married in a catholic church. it was quite a surprise because she is an artist and intellectual. granted, schizophrenics can be preoccupied with religion, but she is smart enough to be a protestant. i was focused on retrieving my shoes from under her bed, where she had kicked them to prevent me from leaving.

    sade’s best friend and lover of 11 years nearly decapitated himself with a saws-all 11 months ago. her brother shot himself several years earlier. the medical examiner said her boyfriend’s suicide was the most horrific thing she had ever seen a human being do to himself. sade found him. he did it when he knew she was on her way over with lunch. now she tells me she is my angel of death and is here to guide me through my suicide. she is serious. it gives her a feeling of importance and surely helps legitimize her boyfriend’s death. but i am not sure my angel of death will be so overt about it. it seems if sade was working for god, it would be a more sublime duty. such a demonic encounter can only be taken as a test. hearing her talk about me killing myself makes me think there are about six safe hours in the day to be with her and i won’t be there for any of them. there is not enough evil in the word cunt to cover this cunt’s presumptuousness. by the way, her boyfriend was a patient of my paranoid doctor’s. the doctor missed his psychotic state and sent him home. the guy was having auditory hallucinations, exactly what this doctor now accuses me of having (the pounding on the ceiling). he’s so paranoid, he’s affixing ailments to patients so that he can treat them and be safe from lawsuits that never would have happened.

    craig sometimes admits he is bipolar, but i think schizophrenia is closer to the mark. i think his identity may have been crushed by the beatings and expectations from his old man – if it was not genetically destined to be fractured. anyhow, i don’t want to hang out with him and i’ll have to let him know that if he stops by. the day we were both out and walked downtown to starbucks: along the way, he talked to, or i should say at, everyone in newport. he didn’t say a word to me. he didn’t look at me or acknowledge that i was beside him once, walking with him. we’re talking a mile. i was useful and discounted. it was reminiscent of the arrogance which overcame him in junior high. he lacks a grasp, an appreciation of the other. he doesn’t feel the connection. he is too inflated. he stopped by here on his way to an aa meeting, where he was meeting a girl. he was going to take her out after the meeting. i was glad for him. he needed a woman and i needed less of him. but he only had $2 to take this chick out. i gave him $20. the next time i talked to him, about a week later, he told me things were going well with this girl. then he says, “did i tell you i met her at aa?” i’ve stopped taking and returning his calls and now he leaves messages day and night calling me a “fucking asshole.” i’ve given him enough chances.

    craig came by last night. he got his ass kicked in the park when he insisted on singing to a group of blacks . he was beat up pretty good and i felt sympathetic because i’d been beaten up by a group of blacks while walking down the street. even beat up, he still couldn’t shut up. he thinks he is kurt cobain and the cia is after him. he ranted about blacks. i agreed blacks were hypersensitive, but i didn’t go pulling a sinatra for them. he drank my gin. he puked. i had been passed out after four martinis before he arrived. i had to baby-sit for 12 hours to make sure he didn’t burn the house down. he kept the neighbors up, which is fine, but he left this morning pissed at me for telling him he was difficult. sitting on the floor in a pool of vomit, vomit on him, vomit on my blanket, vomit on my pillow, he said “where am i?” “newport.” “good. can i have some more gin?” “no.” the prick rearranged my room while i was asleep. he emptied the fridge of all its contents and carefully arranged them on my desk. the milk sat out for six hours. he threw comet all over the toilet and bathroom. he stole from me a knife, cds, an anthology of poets, and a sweater. before he left this morning, ashley stopped by on her way to school. ashley is a 17-year old beauty i just started with. she is a wampanoag indian princess and natural punk. craig: “is this your girlfriend? you should marry her. be good to tommy. he’s a genius.” he tried to pick her up and she ignored him. “you hang out with guys like that,” she said later, “why?” when we finally parted, he called me a “bitch.” i said, “you’ve called me a fucking asshole, a bitch, and stupid. you know who else called me stupid?” “who?” “your father.” “i’m my father’s son.” walking off the front deck, he turned and said: “you know why you didn’t become a professional musician? because you’re a coward.” i had never told him i was a writer. instinct had kept me silent in the hospital and afterward. if he was his father’s son, he was swine.

His Story

    “It sure is big, isn’t it?”
    Laura smiled at the scruffy, small boy in the crumpled suit who had suddenly appeared beside her on the bank of the Chicago River. Barely noticeable among the throngs of people gathered there awaiting the start of the Architectural Boat Tour.
    A small boy in a big city.
    And big it was. She’d been completely overawed from the moment she’d gazed upwards from the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, after emerging from the tunnel of streets and overhead railway lines that had obscured her view of the city. Towering. Majestic. Awe-inspiring. Useless words to describe the soaring, dizzying spectacle that surrounded her. The boy was right.
    Big was better.
    A monument in stone to man’s achievements.
    And yet as she’d snaked her way between the tunnel of tall buildings along “The Magnificent Mile”, her flip-flopped feet tiring with every trudge, she was aware of a terrible smallness, sneaking into her soul. It was nothing new. It had come with getting older. Now and then. When she least expected it.
    Small.
    A small person. Who’d led a small life.
    And walking among those soaring skyscrapers she felt it again.
    Small.
    A bit like the boy beside her.
    She couldn’t resist a smile.
    Kids could always be guaranteed to cheer you up she thought.
    He wasn’t worried about being small.
    “It sure is!” she said, staring at the towering skyscrapers lining the banks that seemed to subdue the river before her.
    “Do you like big things?”
    Laura smiled again.
    It was just the sort of thing a small boy would say. Didn’t all small boys want to be big? Have big ideas? And own big things?
    And small girls.
    Hadn’t she had big ideas? To be someone special. Do something amazing.
    And, for a while, in the generation she’d grown up in, it had all seemed possible.
    What had held her back? Other people? Society?
    No. She was under no illusion. It was what held everyone back. In varying degrees.
    Fear.
    So she’d never done big things. Owned big things. Been big. Felt big.
    And now there was a different generation.
    “I don’t know,” she said.
    “Me neither,” he said. “But I’ve seen them!”
    “You have?”
    Laura noted the excitement in the boy’s voice. She smiled at him again.
    “What big things have you seen?”
    “Titanic!” he said, his eyes widening in ever increasing circles.
    Laura’s smile waned slightly.
    “Yes, it was big, wasn’t it?”
    Laura had a mental vision of the ship in the movie.
    He doesn’t look like he would have the money to see a movie, thought Laura. It shows you never can tell.
    “Yes. But I didn’t like it!”
    “You didn’t?”
    Laura was surprised. She hadn’t met a kid yet who hadn’t liked the movie. Or an adult.
    “No, you see, it was partly to blame.”
    “To blame?”
    Laura wasn’t sure she understood the kid’s thinking.
    “For sinking?”
    “No, for the lifeboats.”
    “Ahh!”
    The kid had really been paying attention to the film, thought Laura.
    She knew there had been a lack of lifeboats and that had contributed to a greater loss of life. And so did he. Smart kid.
    “There were too many!” he said.
    “No, you’ve got it wrong!” she said. “There weren’t enough!”
    Perhaps the kid wasn’t so smart after all.
    An angry look washed over the kid’s face.
    “How do you know? You weren’t there!”
    The boy’s voice was accusing. He went on.
    “It was too big, you see. That’s why I don’t like big things.”
    He sure was an unusual kid thought Laura. Different to most of his generation. Didn’t everyone like big things nowadays? Big toys, big houses, big cars, big cruise ships, big shopping malls. Didn’t everyone worship big? Big money, big movie stars, big celebrities.
    I guess he’s like me, thought Laura. Never had anything big. Poor kid.
    She thought back to her childhood. The fear that had stopped her attending dancing classes. And her teenage years. And the fear that had stopped her becoming a journalist.
    “Don’t you have big ambitions? Everyone has big ambitions when they’re small! Don’t you want to be anything? Do anything?”
    Her voice held a note of anger.
    A sad look crawled across the boy’s face.
    “I did have,” he said, “but they were cut short by fear.”
    Laura looked at the boy sternly.
    “Never let fear stop you from doing anything!” she said severely. “If you do, you won’t make it big in this world!”
    “What’s so good about big?” said the boy. “The builder of the Titanic made it big and there were a lot of big, important people on it. Everyone thought it was the biggest ship ever. And it sank.”
    “Yes,” said Laura, taking in the enormity of what he had said, “but maybe a big lesson was learnt from it all. And we’ve never forgotten it. Or the people who died.”
    She lowered her voice respectfully, mindful of the people on the bank of the river who were already starting to board the Architectural Boat Cruise.
    She swallowed fearfully.
    “I’m afraid,” said the boy.
    Laura was about to ask him what he was afraid of when he went on.
    “Just like you’re afraid to get on that boat.”
    Laura stared at the boy angrily.
    How had he known that?
    “I’m not afraid of anything,” she lied.
    She’d come down to the bank of the Chicago River specifically to take the cruise but as she’d approached the boat something had pulled her back. Stopped her. No one else seemed to have the same feeling. Everyone looked happy to take the cruise.
    Was it fear?
    She’d never learnt to swim. It had stopped her enjoying many holidays. Anywhere near water.
    She felt ashamed lying to the boy.
    “I can’t swim,” she admitted.
    “I can,” he said. “But it didn’t help.”
    “It must do,” said Laura. “It must take away fear.”
    “Maybe fear’s a good thing,” said the boy.
    “Never!” said Laura, adamantly, thinking of all her missed opportunities.
    “It can stop you from doing something perhaps you shouldn’t do for some reason.”
    “You mean like getting on that boat.”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s silly. Everyone else is getting on it. They’re not afraid.”
    The boy looked at all the passengers already on the boat.
    “They’re oblivious,” he said. “So many people are oblivious. Like that day. Music playing. Glasses clinking. Crowds jamming the deck. Women and children—————————.”
    The boy broke off.
    Plainly the film had affected him a lot, thought Laura.
    For some reason a deep feeling of depression settled down on her.
    “Crushed. Suffocated. Drowned. Babies – floating on the water. Forgotten.”
    “They aren’t forgotten,” said Laura, gently, thinking perhaps the boy’s parents shouldn’t have let him watch the film.
    “Yes they are. Because they weren’t big. Or wealthy. Or influential.”
    He has to be talking about the steerage passengers, thought Laura.
    The last of the passengers were on the gangplank. Laura knew she’d better hurry if she was going to make the cruise. But her feet didn’t move.
    “Are you going on board?” said the boy.
    No,” said Laura, annoyed at herself. “I’m afraid.”
    “I told you, sometimes fear is a good thing. I was afraid but they said it was all right. The biggest ship. Bigger still with the extra lifeboats.”
    The boy’s got it wrong again, thought Laura. There weren’t extra lifeboats.
    “And they all died. Buried by hundreds of people, pianos, crates. Women, children, babies. And now I’m more afraid. Afraid they’ve been forgotten. Like the money they forgot to pay to the survivors. Because they were small. Unimportant. The big ship went on. The big company prospered. The big payout to the salvage company went through. And everyone forgot. They just want to be remembered. That’s all they want. That’s all we want.”
    The kid’s got his facts wrong, thought Laura, but he was right about one thing. All anyone wanted was to be remembered.
    Not lead a small life.
    “They are. You can be sure of that.”
    “I hope so. That’s why I picked you. I hope you can help us.”
    So that’s what it was all about, thought Laura.
    The kid’s a beggar.
    She opened her bag, took out her purse against her better nature and handed the kid a coin. He looked like he needed it.
    “No thank you, it’s no use.”
    The kid didn’t want money! What did he want?
    The ship was pulling out into the middle of the river. Another missed opportunity, thought Laura, already regretting her irrational fear. She turned to the little boy.
    But there was an empty space by her side.
    Her eyes scanned the steps and the bridge above. Nothing. The kid had gone.
    As she trudged back between the big buildings of the “Magnificent Mile” towards her hotel, she thought of the small boy.
    A small life. Like hers. Probably going back to some small seedy apartment on the South Side.
    What did it all mean?
    She flopped on the bed, weary from her mile long trudge, propped up her pillows and settled down with her guide book to Chicago. Big buildings. Big attractions. Big moments. Big celebrities. Only serving to make her feel smaller.
    Like the small boy.
    Where was the history? She’d always liked history. She didn’t know why. After all, wasn’t history only a record of big events?
    No room for smallness.
    There was none.
    She threw the book wearily on the bed, pulled out her laptop and was about to surf the shopping channels when some quirk made her type in Chicago River.
    She subconsciously scrolled down the list of websites that appeared and was about to leave when one word jumped out at her.
    Lifeboats. Under something called Eastland. She clicked on it and started reading. Another word underlined in bold leapt out from the page.
    Titanic.
    It had to be a coincidence.
    She read on————————
    “———the third worst ship disaster in loss of life apart from the Titanic and Sultana. 844 people, mostly women and children lost their life when the steamship “Eastland”, hired by the Western Electric Company to take employees, families and friends to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana, rolled over and sank at its moorings in the Chicago River. The cause is still open to debate but the Eastland, already top-heavy and prone to listing, had recently had more lifeboats fitted, after widespread public concern over the sinking of the Titanic—————————”
    Laura’s eyes broke away from the print.
    What was it the boy had said when she asked him about “Titanic”?
    “I didn’t like it. No, you see, it was partly to blame. ———for the lifeboats. There were too many.”
    A cold chill filled Laura as she remembered his words.
    “Crushed, suffocated, drowned. Babies – floating on the water. Forgotten.”
    He hadn’t been talking about Titanic!
    He’d been talking about the Eastland!
    But how could he have known?
    Had he been surfing the internet like her?
    And then she recalled his words——————————
    “I was afraid but they said it was all right. The biggest ship. Bigger still with the extra lifeboats.”
    And when she’d said she couldn’t swim, he’d replied.
    “I can but it didn’t help.”
    She read on.
    “A little mandolin and fiddle orchestra played ragtime on the upper deck ——————.”
    Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the boy’s words.
    Music playing. Glasses clinking. Crowds jamming the deck. ————————women and children.”
    The small boy. Had he been one of them?
    Impossible.
    Then she recalled his crumpled suit. Suit? What little boy these days wore a suit?
    “They just want to be remembered. That’s all they want. That’s all we want.”
    The boy’s words haunted her.
    And her own.
    “Don’t you have big ambitions? Everyone has big ambitions when they are small! Don’t you want to be anything? Do anything?”
    And his reply.
    “I did have but they were cut short by fear.”
    Had the boy been a ghost? A ghost?
    Had the boy been on the Eastland – in 1915 – when it sank?”
    A small boy on a big ship.
    Drowned.
    No life in a seedy apartment on the South Side.
    A life cut short.
    No life.
    She closed down the computer. Ghost or no ghost.
    It was all so unfair.
    A small life. Extinguished. Forgotten. Amid a big city.
    Like hers would soon be.
    She sat there gazing at the blank wall, her mind numbed with the pain of life. And death.
    And the smallness of it all.
    But there was something else. Something else he’d said.
    If only she could remember.
    Remember. That was it.
    “They just want to be remembered. That’s all they want. That’s all we want. ——————————That’s why I picked you. I hope you can help us.”
    He’d picked her. Was she the only one who had seen him?
    “I hope you can help us.”
    What could she do?
    What had she ever done?
    Hadn’t she been afraid to do anything?
    His words seemed to re-echo.
    “—————————————cut short by fear.”
    She opened the laptop. She’d always wanted to write. But fear had stopped her. Fear of lack of talent. Fear of lack of ideas. Fear of success. Fear of failure.
    She thought of the small life cut short by fear. The small life that didn’t get a chance to be big.
    No life.
    Then she realised.
    It wasn’t about being big. Or small.
    How many people knew about that small boy and the others that perished? They knew about “Titanic”. They knew about the big ship on the big sea with the big and important people on it that sank. That was history. But so was the small boy, the small children, the common people that perished in the middle of a big city so close to the dock. That was his story.
    The time for fear was past. Maybe she could help after all. She’d never know unless she tried. She began to type.
    For now she knew.
    It wasn’t about a big life or a small life.
    It was about a life.
    A life remembered.

    First published in The Storyteller.

“If rape is bad,
then just don’t call it rape...”

    Recently heard of a woman who claimed some men from a college fraternity raped her, and the 24-hour drive-by media was all over it — and it was another statement to me that the treatment of women as objects has not changed since my own college days, but maybe now with more media coverage people may learn that this is not something men can feel they can do to young women like this anymore.
    I know I worked as an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator for years, and I ran both local flyers and newspaper ads highlighting the topic of acquaintance rape to try to remind people that this is common — and it isn’t right. And I know that after people learned I do this kind of work I’d then hear stories about assaults for years (and from “non-violent-seeming” to violent in nature, I’d hear them all), where women would come up to me and tell me about their own past issues of being sexually attacked or raped, and having no one to turn to. So it made me feel good that, if things may not have necessarily improved between the sexes this way over the years, that maybe then the media will be all over stories like that, and it may deter someone from doing that to a woman again.
    But then I heard the mews media cover this woman’s story again, where they discovered that this woman was making the rape story up, because she figured that the masses would rally behind her if they thought she was raped.
    And it was heartbreaking to hear that (not that she wasn’t sexually violated, but to hear she made it up), because whether or not she made it up, there are women who go through that (even if she didn’t go through this and wasn’t raped, she was basing her lie on well-known truthful stories, and knew that the commonality of a crime like this makes it sound too believable to not be true).
    It as also heartbreaking to hear that a woman would lie like this, because there are too many women who are too afraid to come forward. Too many women who believe in the “victim blaming” myth, that they must have dome something to provoke this, and they also believe that others may not believe them if they came forward in the first place.
    And now, when a story like this — of a woman who was “making it all up” comes out, that’s like hammering another nail into the coffin of ones who are afraid to tell people their story in the first place.
    So I just had to remind myself of the stats I learned too long ago, that one in three woman are sexually assaulted somehow by the time they reach age 21. That fewer than 5% of women come forward when they have been attacked. That the term ‘victim’ is used far too much more than ‘survivor,’ or any word that may make it feel like less of an assault on the women’s very existence.
    So, since the drive-by media instantaneously found another story to cover, I went about my business, and then I heard states from the liberal media that the rates of sexual assault on women in the military are at staggeringly high levels, and the women cannot come to their male higher officers to report any crime when those superiors are often feeling so much comradery with the male offenders that she would be further ridiculed of she tried to come forward.
    When I mentioned this information to a man who used to be in the military, they told me that the stats not covered by the media of the sexual assaults on men be other men in the military, because no man in the military would want to admit they were sexually attacked by another military man.
    (Well, I cannot comment on information like that?I’m unaware of, but this just shows how a man can get the subject away from sexual attacks against women. Thank you for avoiding the subject.)
    But moe recently another sexual story came through the media, and this time it was from an article published in Rolling Stone magazine, where they interviewed a woman (and published her story under a different name, of course) who told her story of being gang raped my a number of men at a Virginia college fraternity.
    (When I first heard this story, I remembered a guy in a frat tell me about how one room in their frat house basement was covered with mattresses, so that at any time during a party a guy could take the girl-of-the-moment to the basement for sex. I don’t know if they called this the sex room or the rape room, but for some reason that story came to mind when I heard of this story in Virginia.)
    But when this story was published in Rolling Stone, I heard that the college where this happened decided to abolish all fraternities on campus, to make sure nothing like this could happen on their campus again.
    Then later I heard that this story may have been made up from this woman (because different sources said she gave different accounts or different details). She asked the writers at Rolling Stone to not try to contact the attackers (to protect and respect her), which they did. The magazine then felt bad that they didn’t do this basic research in their journalism story, and that once again a story about a women who has been sexually attacked that come to the media for release possibly wasn’t true.
    Oh, you’re kidding me, was all I could think.
    But then a friend of the victim/survivor/story-teller came forward in a letter, stating that she didn’t know what happened that night but that her friend’s behavior did change after that night, and this friend is sure something happened to the woman.
    And so now we all play the collective guessing game, trying to decipher what may or may not have happened, trying to be sleuths when we have far too clues. And yes, the media was talking about it, but finally, one person said that they fear that in all of this coverage about the wrong part of this story, that maybe one woman somewhere, who has gone through a traumatic experience like this, may not come forward because of all of the slanted hype.
    Because this is just one story. Any there is truth to it, though in this one case we don’t know the extent and the details, but there is truth to this story. Because this does happen to women, and for every one story we hear about it, there are probably an exponentially higher number of cases that are never brought to television, or even brought to a police station or a hospital. (Only in more recent years have women felt comfortable even telling other women about what happened to them — and I only heard of these many personal stories because I did work in the field to help women through these traumas.) And that is what has been missing from these discussions, the discussions of how to treat women. To remind hormonally charged men (and no, I’m not going to tell you the percentage of “hormonally charged” men out there, but I think you get the point) that women are not sexual objects that they can abuse on their whim.
    ...If men didn’t think of women as sexually usable objects this way, then there never would have been a market for creating something we now call the “rate rape drug”.
    You can say it is an effort to attract men, but women, when going out, put a lot more effort into looking good for the opposite sex — from doing their hair and make-up to wearing jewelry, and even king painful choices about the clothes they wear (go to any bar, and the women will be injuring their feet and legs by wearing high heels, and the men will all be wearing jeans and t-shirts, often baseball caps so they don’t have to worry about their hair, and of course, they’ll all be wearing gym shoes). Part of the ‘victim blaming’ mentality is that women dress too well, to imply that women are asking for it, when that”s one of the things women are pretty universally taught to do to in the attraction game (because historically women have been taught that outside of working at jobs to try to earn comparable pay as men for the same job, the important thing is to look good, since men can choose the best looking woman for a mate, or at least just a date). Mixed messages are given to women their entire life (look like a Barbie, have eternally perky breasts and never eat so you can remain disproportionately thin — so anorexia can remain a hidden secret and won’t be discussed, and spending thousands of dollars to put silicon breast implants under your skin will seem like something women should aspire for and strive to do). Women have worked to gain the right to work, but in the family they’re still expected (when n the workplace as much as men in their household) to cook the meals, or clean the house, or take care of the kids. Women keep working to be treated as equals, but that glass ceiling keeps getting thicker and thicker, and despite their work, are still objectified, and no one seems to have an issue with that dichotomy. It’s difficult climbing the corporate ladder when the men around you are busy looking up your skirt as you climb. And it’s difficult when women work to look attractive to the opposite sex (because that is what we’re trained to do), when some men will see that as a go-ahead for acting on their sexual desires (whether or not the women want it from them).
    Maybe I won’t have to hear news reports about sexual attacks where the reports then question the truthfulness of the woman attacked once we actually start to have honest discussions about the value and role of women in the world — and in this case, especially when it comes to how men view women today.

— Janet Kuypers

    For a fun addition to how women are still viewed as of late...
    While reading the Times of India, I read of a U.S. study (yes, I was in India and I read a study from the U.S., just go with it), and the study was done on college men, stating that only ~13% of men said they had “intentions to rape a woman” if there weren’t any consequences — but nearly a third of men said they would act on “intentions to force a woman to sexual intercourse” if they could get away with it.
    That is rape boys, whether you call it rape or not.
    And the more frightening this is that men are more likedly to do these things to women “if they could get away with it.”
    Well men, it seems that historically you have been getting away with it. So, all I can sarcastically think is, “Keep up the good work...”