welcome to volume 78 (January 2010) of
down in the dirt
internet issn 1554-9666
(for the print issn 1554-9623)
Alexandira Rand, Editor
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from the book Tales of Madnes, by Tom Ball
a seris of short short stories
Crazy Voices
Tom Ball
Of course in order to best “preserve” Stonehenge, the monuments are fenced off and have guards. But one day a group of people snuck in past the barrier and began singing ancient folk songs in crazy, unique voices on top of the pillars. The guards demanded that they get down but they refused.
Finally, they were removed by police, and security was tightened. But the people had found many friends on the Stonehenge website they’d set up. So the next week hundreds of people charged onto the site one night and again there were wild songs, the likes of which had never been heard before.
The event captured the popular imagination and soon many people were demanding that security only prevent people from knocking over the monument and let people run free here. But the authorities would not allow it.
So they took up a collection and raised millions for a KTV tower. They built it on the outskirts of London and it was 600 m tall, the tallest structure in the world. They wanted to have only singers with a crazy voice sing from the top of the tower. They argued that they were tired of singers always trying to sound like one another, and they wanted unique, wild voices. And they reasoned that everyone has a unique voice, so why not a unique singing voice? The idea was crazy singers could come to the top and using microphones sing their hearts out.
As time went by any promising singer who had a crazy voice and wanted to make it would have to first sing at the tower.
Below the tower people would gather by the thousands and would mark scorecards for each singer. After every hour they would cast their votes, voting for the craziest singer.
The market for crazy, wild singers turned out to be vast and soon even famous normal singers were trying to make their singing voice more wild and unique.
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The Words of Birds
Susan Oleferuk
The words of birds
chortle, exhort, pray,
in hidden canopy
like the company
of old gods.
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Routine
Randy Boone
When I was six
or maybe I was seven,
my dad worked nights,
and I’d be home
alone
with my mom.
And often,
around about ten o’clock
or maybe ten-thirty,
she would write down a number
on a small slip of paper—
944-9221—
the telephone number that called
the Fleetwood police department.
She’d give me the paper
and hand me the phone
and sit me by the top of the stairs
that led to the cellar,
where my dad kept all his guns.
“I’m going downstairs,”
she’d say to me,
“to shoot myself in the head
because I just can’t take it
no more.
So, when you hear the shot,
you call the police,
and don’t go downstairs
by yourself.”
And so she’d go down,
and so I would sit.
Sometimes for minutes,
and sometimes for hours.
Sometimes I’d go down,
and she’d be smoking Bel Airs,
and I’d tell her we need her,
she can’t kill herself,
to come back upstairs.
And other times I’d sit
and I’d sit and I’d sit,
and she’d come back upstairs,
taking the phone from me,
cursing me off to bed.
It was our routine;
it happened enough.
****
Then when I was twenty-two
or perhaps twenty-three,
we got in a fight,
just me and my mom.
Words cut through the air
slicing at spirits,
shredding the bond
that could have been torn
with a finger.
What she said to me,
I can’t recall,
but that’s when I pulled it out,
the story of the phone
and the steps
and the guns.
I lunged for the throat
with my razor edged scimitar,
for I knew
that she’d know
that I understood
how wrong she had been
at the time.
I thrust it at her face
to squelch every last living trace
of bitch that was left inside her soul,
the whole story
of the episodes
again and again
with the phone
and the steps
and the guns.
I screamed it at her;
it was how things came out.
And the argument froze.
She looked a bit stunned
and then simply asked,
“You still remember
that?”
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Randy Boone bio
Randy Boone weighs in at 220 pounds and hails from Hellertown, PA. He currently teaches writing and literature courses at a community college and can often be found lurking about thrift stores and coffee shops. His most recent publications include poems in Ya‚Sou! Ezine, Spout, Glimpse, Lehigh Valley Literary Review, English Journal, Connecticut River Review, Clark Street Review, and Epicenter, among other relatively obscure journals, reviews and magazines, and a chapbook of poems titled Ignoble Daydreams for Impudent Minds.
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Assault of the Purple Martini
Nathan Hahs
1.
The summer sun is setting and soon it will be dark. I am reading Edgar Allen Poe, my favorite author. It is Saturday and at nightfall I will go to the bar, The Upper Room. The Upper Room is the top floor of a converted warehouse. It is there that I will find an attractive woman, subject her to the Assault, and then bring her home. The Upper Room has a revolving clientele, so I rarely see the same people twice- at least not frequently. This Saturday night ritual has been going on for the last two months. Before that I had a steady girlfriend.
When I arrive at ten, the place is alive. I wait patiently for a seat at the bar. When a spot opens up, I sit down and the bartender quickly approaches me. “The usual, Jackson?” he asks me. “Yes, sir,” I reply. My usual is a Jack & Coke. As he sets the drink in front of me, a beautiful brunette with blue eyes appears to my left. “Hello,” I say. She returns the greeting. I flag down the bartender, Mike. “Let me buy you a drink,” I say to the bartender. She looks me over before agreeing. “Mike, how about something special for this young lady?” “You got it,” he says with enthusiasm. In a flash the drink is in front of the brunette. I tip Mike well for this. And now it begins: the Assault of the Purple Martini. I used to be a bartender and the Purple Martini is my own creation. The Purple Martini is one ounce of gin, one ounce of sweet vermounth, and a splash of Everclear shaken over ice like a regular martini. Then, before pouring the mixture into the glass, a purple Jolly Rancher is put in the bottom. The resulting beverage is the Purple Martini.
After three Purple Martinis, I suggest to Margot (the beautiful brunette) that we take a short cab ride to my place. The rest of the night goes very smoothly: sex and Purple Martinis. She leaves the next morning after a quick good-bye.
2.
The summer sun is setting and soon it will be dark. It is Saturday and I am on my way to The Upper Room. As I am getting ready, everything goes black, including the sun. It lasts for what seems like a long time and then everything comes back on. I dismiss it as some sort of strange eclipse. As I walk into The Upper Room, I immediately get a different vibe than most weeks. I survey the crowd and observe that it is mostly males. After waiting for nearly thirty minutes, I get a seat at the bar. “Hello, Jackson,” Mike says, “The usual?” “Sure, why not,” I reply. “I think I’ll have just one tonight, unless things improve.” He knows what I mean. I nurse my drink for an hour and nothing changes. Undaunted, I order another Jack & Coke and decide to give The Upper Room one more hour. The hour passes and there are no signs of female life at the bar. I tip Mike and then head home.
3.
The summer sun is setting and soon it will be dark. It is Saturday and I am on my way to The Upper Room. Right away I am able to get a seat at the bar. Before I can take my first sip of my drink, a beautiful brunette with brown eyes sits down next to me. Mike, as always, is quick to answer my call. In moments, a Purple Martini is set before the beautiful lady to my right. She introduces herself as Anna. I tell her my name is Jackson and asks how she likes the drink. “I love it. What is it?” “It’s the Purple Martini,” I say. She finishes the drink in one large gulp. I order her another one, which she also finishes quickly. She smokes a cigarette and I can tell the alcohol is beginning to set it. Before I have a chance to mention it, she says, “Let’s go back to your place.” Anna and I go downstairs and catch a cab. Twenty minutes later, we are having sex. I offer her another drink, but she declines and then passes out. The next morning she gives me an affectionate good-bye and says, “I hope our paths cross again sometime.”
4.
The summer sun is setting and soon it will be dark. It is Saturday night and I reach The Upper Room around ten. I wait a few minutes for a place at the bar. I order my drink, but before I can pay Mike for it, a blond bombshell says, “I’ll get that.” I turn and introduce myself. The blond ways her name is Constance. I offer to buy her a drink and she accepts. Let the Assault of the Purple Martini begin. After four Purple Martinis, Constance is holding her liquor very well. I, on the other hand, am beginning to feel an intense buzz. She buys me another drink and I return the favor. I cannot finish mine. This woman is drinking me under the table. “Let’s go to my place,” I say, slightly slurring my words. “That sounds like a great idea,” she says. Back at my apartment, Constance insists on another drink. I pass out on the bed and, when I awake, she is gone. I baby my hangover all day and, by evening, am feeling much better. There is only one problem: I have lost my keys. I must have dropped them in my drunken stupor last night. It has been a long time since a woman has drunk me under the table. I wonder if I’ll see her again. She was interesting.
The summer sun is rising and I still cannot find my keys. I visit my neighbor, Elouise, to whom I have given a spare key. She loans it to me and I am off to work. When I get home, a surprise is waiting for me. All of my furniture has been rearranged. This panics me a little, so I have a Jack & Coke. Then, I have another one. The funny thing is I actually like this new setup. I decide to keep it that way. Nothing was stolen; it was all just moved.
5.
The late summer sun is setting and soon it will be dark. I finish reading my Edgar Allen Poe and head off to The Upper Room wondering if my mailbox is full. I only had two keys on my keyring, my apartment key and my mailbox key. I got the key from Elouise, but it costs fifty dollars to get a replacement key for the mailbox. That can wait until payday. When I get to The Upper Room, it is a graveyard. I sit down at the bar, where no one else is sitting right now. “Give me the usual, please, Mike.” At half past two a familiar face appears. It is Constance. “Mike, how about a drink for this young lady?” I say. She gives me a hug, says thanks, and sits down next to me. A Purple Martini appears almost magically in front of her. We close down the bar and catch a cab to my place. When we enter, the first thing she says is, “I like what you have done with the place.” “You like it?” I ask. “I sure do,” she replies. We have a couple more drinks before we head to the bedroom. When I wake, I smell food cooking. I walk into the kitchen and Constance has fixed us omelets. We eat, she cleans up, gives me a wonderful kiss, and then leaves.
6.
The late summer sun is setting and soon it will be dark. Yesterday was payday, so I paid the fifty dollars to get my mailbox key. It was all junk mail. The Upper Room is crowded this evening. I wait nearly an hour for a seat, but when I order my drink, a beautiful blond says, “This one’s on me.” As I peer over to look at the face of this woman, I realize it is Constance. “Hello, Jackson,” she says. Before Mike has a chance to turn around, Constance says, “I’ll have a Purple Martini.” “You’re my kind of woman,” I tell her. “Why is that?” she asks me. “He invented it,” Mike chimes in. “Oh, really? Nice job. I like it,” Constance says. “Cheers,” she says and we raise our glasses in a toast. After another couple rounds of drinks, we head back to my place. After sex, we talk for what seems like a long while before falling asleep. When I wake, she is gone, but there is a stack of pancakes waiting for me. I leave the TV on all day, but I am not watching it. I am day-dreaming about Constance.
7.
The late summer sun is setting and soon it will be dark. I head off to The Upper Room on this Saturday night in hopes of meeting Constance. When I arrive, I am not disappointed. She is already at the bar, Purple Martini in hand. And, she has saved the seat next to her for me. Mike quickly delivers my Jack & Coke and the night begins. I simply cannot keep up with Constance, drink for drink. When the clock strikes twelve, we leave to go to my place. After sex, I ask her a question I haven’t asked a woman in over two months: What’s your last name? “My last name is Greenaway,” she replies. “That’s the same as the bartender Mike at The Upper Room,” I say. “Yeah, he’s my cousin,” she offers. “What the hell?” I exclaim. “That’s right. He’s my cousin. He set me up with you, because he said you were interesting.” “I didn’t realize I was that interesting,” I say. “Well, you did invent your drink, didn’t you?” she inquires. “Yes,” I answer. “Well, you are the only guy I have ever known who has ever invented his own drink,” Constance tells me. We fall asleep and when I wake up, she is gone. I spend Sunday day dreaming about her. In the evening, everything goes black again, but this time only for a moment.
8.
The sun is almost meeting its horizon as I walk through the door of my apartment. It is Friday evening and only one more day until I see Mike’s cousin. As I close the door behind me, I realize I have a big problem. My apartment is naked. Everything is gone. First, my belongings are all moved around. Now, they are all gone. However, there is one thing here. There is a small wooden box in the middle of the floor in the den. I stare at it for a very long moment and then walk over and pick it up. On the top are seven words: To Paul Gaugin From Vincent Van Gogh. My stomach turns as I ponder why my once-normal life has, over the last few weeks, turned strange. I didn’t tell anyone about the furniture when it was moved and I wouldn’t know how to tell someone that I was completely robbed. And, what am I supposed to do with this box? I read the inscription again, rubbing my fingers over the letters. It feels old. I wait another very long moment and then turn the latch on the front. Very slowly, I open the top. The inside is a worn purple felt and lying in the center is a dark brown, gnarled object. I stare closely at it and then realize what it is. How and why do I have in my hands the ear that Van Gogh cut off himself? I close the box and head straight for The Upper Room. I need a drink. When I take a seat at the bar, Mike quickly approaches me. “What are you doing here on a Friday night?” he asks. “You don’t want to hear about it, believe me,” I say. “The usual?” “Yes, and quickly,” I tell him. I gulp down the drink and then another. The box is in front of me the whole time. As I am finishing my third drink, Mike stops in front of me and points to the box with an inquisitive look on his face. I look him in the eye and say, “You don’t want to know.” I take the box and leave, to go home and sleep on my floor.
9.
The late summer sun is rising and I hear a knock at the door. I hastily hide the box in the dark corner of my empty closet before answering the door. It is Constance. She is carrying a brown paper bag in one hand and holding a bag of ice in the other. “May I come in?” she asks. “Why not?” I say. She steps in and drops the bag of ice. “What happened?” “I was robbed,” I tell her. “You look utterly confused,” she tells me, “How about a drink?” “Why not?” I say. “I brought everything we need,” she says. We have a few drinks before I work up the courage to tell her about the box. Later that evening we go to her place.
10.
The late summer sun is rising on this Sunday morning. Constance is in her kitchen fixing us breakfast. We were up most of the night discussing the box. I grab the box and open it. “I wonder what it feels like,” I tell Constance. I reach down into the box with my finger and touch the ear. When I do so, the lights go out. Not just the lights in the apartment, but the light coming in through the window as well. After a second, I remove my finger from the ear and all of the light restores itself. Wide-eyed, I close the box and set it down. “Dear God” I say, I wonder if that’s what happened before?”
11.
The late summer sun is setting and soon I will be meeting Constance. She called on Wednesday to ask me to meet her at The Upper Room at nine on Saturday. In less than an hour we will have our rendez-vous and discuss what to do next. I have an idea and I’m sure she does, too. When we meet, Mike says Constance has already had three Purple Martinis and has been anxiously awaiting my arrival. I have the box with me and I set it on the bar. When Mike is out of earshot, I ask Constance what is on her mind. “Let’s rob a jewelry store,” she says. “I have a better idea,” I say, “Let’s use the box to steal the Picasso at the Art Museum.” “That’s brilliant,” she exclaims, throwing her hands in the air. “Quiet,” I say. “That’s brilliant,” she repeats. “Let’s try it again, just to make sure it works,” I say. “Here? Now?” she asks. “Yes. This time you do it,” I tell her. “Are you sure?” “Yes,” I say, “I did it last time.” She takes a sip of her drink before grabbing the box. She opens the latch, sticks out her finger, and pauses to look at me. “Go ahead,” I say. She touches the ear and everything goes black. A couple of girls behind us shriek and then everything comes back on again. “It worked,” Constance says. “Just like last time,” I answer back. We act confused, so we fit in. After the commotion has subsided, I say, “Meet me in black at my place next Saturday at ten.” “I’ll be ready,” she says. We finish our drinks, say farewell to Mike, and leave.
12.
The late summer sun is setting and it is beginning to get dark earlier. It is Wednesday and I went to the Art Museum after work. I got a visitor’s guide and located the Picasso. We will have to steal it in the dark, so I retraced my steps several times, so I would be familiar with the route for Saturday. I guessed at a rough estimate of its size and bought a cheap, very large suitcase to put the Picasso in to get it back to my apartment. Next, I called Constance to tell her what I had done at the Art Museum. “I went there yesterday,” she tells me. “Fantastic,” I say, “See you soon.”
13.
The autumn sun has set and it is dark. There is a knock at my door. I answer it and there is Constance holding a black duffle bag. “I figured we could walk down in our regular clothes, change into black behind the bushes in front, and then do it,” she says. “Good idea. That way we look like a couple of lost tourists,” I say. I change out of my black clothes and put on a regular outfit. “Let’s have a drink first. I’m nervous,” I say. I am out of Jack Daniel’s, so we both subject ourselves to the Assault of the Purple Martini. After three strong drinks, Constance grabs the duffle bag and I grab the suitcase. We are off.
At midnight, we reach the Art Museum. The streets are busier that I had hoped, but we duck behind the bushes unnoticed. I take the box out of the suitcase and hand it to Constance. I take the suitcase and we leave the duffle bag in the bushes. I anticipated the Picasso being bolted to the wall, so I brought some tools to assist with this. Standing at the entrance, we exchange a glance and I say, “Now.” She opens the box and touches the ear. Everything goes black. This is impressive. We open the door and go in. Finding and stealing the Picasso comes off without a hitch and, in less than an hour, we are standing back at the door. I removed the painting while Constance kept her finger on the ear. When we are outside at the bushes, she takes her finger off the ear and everything comes back on again, including the Art Museum alarm. We put the box in the suitcase with the Picasso and change back into our regular clothes. We walk down the street a couple of blocks before catching a cab to the north side of town. There we ditch the tools and the duffle bag and take another cab to my apartment. We celebrate with sex and Purple Martinis.
14.
The autumn sun is rising and I hear a noise at the door. Constance and I are sitting on the floor and we stand up as my apartment door opens. In walks Edgar Allen Poe. He is holding a revolver. “Give me the box,” he demands. Constance, who is holding the box, opens the latch. “Give me the box,” he repeats. Constance opens the box and, in one swift motion, touches the ear. Everything goes black. A gun shot rings out and Constance and I drop to the floor. Everything comes back on and I turn to Constance. She is shot in the chest and is not breathing. I pull her to me as Edgar Allen Poe walks over to us. The gun is at his side. He takes the box from Constance’s dead fingers and puts the revolver in his coat jacket pocket. Then, he drops my keyring at my side. “You lost these,” he says. He opens the box and everything goes black again. I am still holding Constance. I pull myself together and realize I need to get out of here. I lay Constance back down on the floor and grab the suitcase. Everything is off and on for the next hour or so. I walk to the bus station and buy a ticket for the place furthest from here.
15.
The autumn sun is at high noon as we pull away from the station. I am leaving everything behind me, except for the clothes on my back and the Picasso in the suitcase. I was robbed. Then I stole something. Then Edgar Allen Poe shot my lover. My life used to be so normal. And it all started with the Assault of the Purple Martini.
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Driven
Don Kunz
Erin Sampson felt slammed. Stalled in traffic in her low-slung electric-yellow Camaro, she shifted her cell phone to her left hand so she could tilt her rearview down with her right. Now all she could see was her own face. The Wet n’ Wild Conceal Corrector had reduced her black eye from wounded vanity to dirty smudge. Still, she didn’t feel beautiful enough to be out. She could use a little blush. Erin flipped the mirror back up and glared at the traffic signal on Mass Ave. at Clearway, as she explained over the cell to her live-in boyfriend Duane how it had refused to turn green for at least two minutes just to drive her crazy. It wasn’t only Boston heavy traffic, the same old same old. This was like the big guy at the D.O.T. had a grudge against her personally. And she knew there wasn’t time for getting hung up. Duane was holding two ringside seats at the Worcester Centrum for the WWE Smackdown Slam of the Week at eight PM sharp. Then the light changed, and Erin was smoking the rubber off her high-performance American-Eagles. She felt driven by impulse to ignore any other red lights standing between her and Duane watching Stone Cold Steve Austin strutting around the ring with his big gold title belt draped over his left shoulder while Hulk Hogan in his yellow and red cape raced up and down the center aisle taunting the rabid fans screaming over the heavy metal on the public address. She became blind to everything but the Hulk’s act filling her head, his fists pummeling the air, his blonde Fu Man Chu mustache quivering with rage, his face contorting into an angry red mask pulsing under the strobe lights. Then Erin started from her reverie, feeling the real impact of her heavy metal on flesh: The old man shuffling too slowly to beat the light at the crosswalk on Boylston came crashing onto the hood and through the windshield of her boss ride.
Suddenly Erin was looking through a spider web of glass, which both fragmented and connected everything in front of her with crazed lines. Her first words screamed into the cell phone—“Holy shit!”—were torn from her by a hellish August wind. It poured through a jagged hole where only a second before the passenger side of her windshield had been like an unblemished shield protecting her from all the nastiness of every road she traveled. Now she was staring at a disgusting stranger who had punched his way head and shoulders through the glass into her Camaro, her private space, like he owned it. The man looked vaguely familiar, but then didn’t they all? Another geezer like the ones haunting her nightmares left over from work. But this one was in worse shape than usual—a twitching ancient from a freak show, a toothless mouth breather with a quarter inch of gray stubble climbing the valleys of his pock-marked face. For a moment it drove all thoughts of the WWE Smackdown from Erin’s head.
“Say again,” Duane said on the other end. “You’re breaking up, Erin.”
“Damnit, Duane! You won’t believe this!” Erin shouted above the road noise. “Some old man jumped up on my hood and stuck his head through my windshield. You believe that? Can you believe that?” Erin stole a quick look at her uninvited passenger. His bloody head, tattered shoulders, and outstretched arms converged toward a fatal point. He looked like a human spear, just thrown, and still quivering above the pebbly black dashboard of her Camaro next to the lapsed state inspection sticker. Through her crazed windshield Erin saw his scrawny, ghost-white legs tangled up in a crumpled aluminum walker splayed across the hood. The jagged metal edges were scratching deep grooves into the embossed red flames accenting her electric-yellow turbo-charger air intake. Then the tangle of metal tumbled over the side, and Erin felt a jolt as it passed under her rear wheels. It had been a Healthpro 1200 series with easy-roll ball bearings, seven-inch multidirectional wheels, and soft-side neoprene grips. Erin Sampson knew walkers. She was a nurse’s aid coming off second shift at the Goodfellas Retirement Center in the south end, where it seemed like she had worked forever. It had been a very bad day. Just like all the others.
Duane’s voice was coming in angry now, loud and clear over the wind whipping Erin’s big hair around her face like a shroud. “You gotta be shittin me, Erin! People don’t do that, specially old people. They aren’t that, you know, quick.”
It seemed to Erin that Duane was like her boss at Goodfellas, always trying to set her straight. She reckoned because Duane did skip traces for Bulldog Bail Bonds in Roxbury, he figured he knew how the world ran and knew she didn’t because she was stuck out at Goodfellas with nothing but geezers and someone to tell her what to do every minute of her life. But Erin had learned one thing for sure from watching WWE’s Survivor Series on TV: When the big guy comes at you in a rage, you get right up in his face or you get run over. Since she started facing off that way against Duane, he almost never hit her, yesterday being an exception. Tonight he was making it up to her with ringside seats. So, now Erin came right back at him. “Yeah? Like now you’re you’re the expert on old folks? You don’t know nuthin. I keep tellin you they’re like little kids. They see something they want, they go for it. And they just keep pushin till they get what they’re after. This one must have wanted somebody to drive him somewhere real bad. If you’d been here, you’d see, Duane. Anyway you look at it, it’s not my fault.”
Duane sighed deeply into the phone. “How many times I tell you? You can’t smoke shit while you’re at work. Hell, this guy probably ain’t even real, just one a them hallucin a whatchmacallits you get sometimes.”
Erin brought her knees up hard beneath the steering wheel and tried to stay straight, then she reached out and poked the old man’s ribs with an index finger. “Oh, he’s real, Duane! Real as anything you’d see hanging on the ropes lookin for a way outta the ring. And about me smokin rock? If I want a toke or two in the changing room after work cause it relaxes me, I can deal with it. Whadda yuh gettin all bent out a shape about?”
“Erin, we gotta leave in fifteen. You gonna be home or am I goin to the Centrum alone?”
Erin reached down, and turned up the air conditioner to max recirculate then resumed steering with her right hand. “Don’t you even think about that, Duane,” she shouted. “It’s my night out. You owe me! Remember? This is the big one. Start of The Survivor Series. So, I’m gonna be there. Day like I’ve had, I need it, keep me from killin somebody on purpose.”
“Well, say this was an accident. Say it ain’t your fault, Erin. . . . I don’t care. We got no time to deal with cops! Can’t you dump this guy somewhere? You know, street rules.”
“Well, duh! Hello? Duane, I’m in the middle of traffic here. Just gettin on the Mass Pike from Newbury, I’m doin the double nickle on the ramp, and I already got five cars drivin up my ass. So, how am I gonna dump him? Awww, man! He’s decided to bleed all over my dash. His head’s a mess. And he’s moanin and shit.”
“Well, ain’t you the bitch? Don’t know good news when it smacks you in the chops! Listen, all that m e a n s is he survived gettin knocked around. So, he’s okay. Plus like you was tellin me the other day, not a geezer in America hasn’t got govermint insurance up the wazoo.”
“Yeah, but, Duane, why was he on the street anyways? Over at Goodfellas, we keep ‘em locked. They stay put. . . . So, what’s the deal here?”
“Forgetaboutit. How many times I tell you? Stop wastin time! Just drive on home.”
“Duane, like I’m tellin the boss, ain’t never enough time. All day I’m runnin. Now you’re given me more beat the clock. Don’t get worked up, man. It’s my ride’s all messed up!”
“I copy you, Erin. We’ll take mine. C’mon, get that beautiful butt home.”
“Okay, I’m there in ten, providin I don’t get hung up payin the toll. Mr. Fast Track’s cranky. You got to hit him just right. And me I can’t see for shit through this busted windshield. I’m a hang up now and drive.”
Erin shoved her cell phone back into its retrofit black plastic holder on the dashboard just below her CD changer. She thought the Nokia was deadly—voice mail, call forwarding, auto redial, caller ID, alpha numeric messaging, coast-to-coast unlimited minutes nights and weekends, no roaming charges. She could reach out and touch anybody 24/7. And do it to bad background music. She loved her JBL changer loaded with Nine Inch Nails, Scarface, Trick Daddy, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Styx. Great sounds to drive to, ‘specially with the bass cranked up to major throb. She had a Jones for tunes with hard edges. Last week she and Duane had fought over top song of the year. His was “It Ain’t Safe No More.” She thought there should be a tie between “Paid Da Cost To Be The Boss” and “Does This Look Infected?”
Erin accelerated sharply, swerving into the third passing lane, grinding her teeth at the angry horns. She noticed a few startled glances from other drivers, but the heavy freeway traffic immediately demanded their attention. Erin figured most of them had seen more interesting stunts on television shows like “Jackass.” She forced herself in a few feet behind a black Lexus SUV and drafted just like she’d seen Dale Earnhardt do at Daytona. Blasting along at eighty five, she rooted in her purse, brought out a hard-sided flip-top box, shook out an unfiltered Marlboro, lipped and lit it. Squinting against the smoke, she glanced at the old man. He had collapsed in on himself and was hanging limply over her dash board. The wind whipped his polyester red and blue striped shirt against the back of his head like it was trying to refill a busted balloon. “Look at you! Look at you!” She shouted. “What is it? You think you’re one of the beautiful people or somethin? I’m here to tell you, you oughta be ashamed tryin to hitch a ride, you bein messed up and all. Why don’t you clean up before you go out in public? Huh?” You think decent folks gonna give you a ride lookin like that? No, sir! So, whadda you do? Just push your way in! Don’t care what you break! What kind a mess you make! You think Erin’s gonna pick up after you. Looks to me like this is more a that tryin to make Erin look bad on purpose. Well, I played that game before. They do it out at Goodfellas. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Some geezer blows lunch and tells the boss it was caus I whacked ‘em. I’m onto all them dirty tricks.”
Erin swiveled her head around loosening the kinks in her neck. In front of her, behind her, beside her, other drivers talked on cell phones, drank coffee, ate cheeseburgers, sang along with their radios, applied cosmetics, brushed their hair, fumbled for tollbooth tokens, glanced at maps, jockeyed for position. Erin took a long drag and inhaled deeply. Smoke dribbled out as she spoke. “Guess you think it’s my lucky day, huh? Don’t you think I got anything better to do than drive you around?” Erin slapped both hands down on her steering wheel. Ashes blew into the backseat. “Here’s the deal, see. My man Duane scored a couple WWE tickets tonight. I’m talkin’ Smackdown here, Slam of the Week. Know what I mean, ole timer? You ever heard a The Rock? No? The Big Show? No? Well, hell! He’s only seven foot tall and 500 pounds. He ain’t easy to miss if you’re payin attention. How about The Undertaker? You heard a him?”
The old man groaned and raised up off the dashboard. His face was a patchwork of cuts like a map to nowhere, nothing but intersections. Fine shards of glass littered his hair with bright dust. His shirt was more tattered than the Star Spangled Banner. He squinted, paddling his hands feebly as if trying to find something solid to grasp. “Help me,” he croaked.
“Now you just settle down. Bad enough you jump into my ride bleedin like that. Don’t go squirmin around on me. Not unless you’re plannin on gettin out, which I don’t recommend. Number one, I’m not slowin down for no dismount. Number two, they don’t allow hitchin on the pike. Don’t you know it’s rush hour?” Erin stared hard at the old man’s face dripping blood. She grabbed a wad of Kleenex from her map pocket and dabbed at the carnage puddled on her passenger seat. “Say, you aren’t HIV are you? Should I be thinkin latex here?”
The man gasped, struggling to turn his head toward Erin. “Help me. Help me.”
His voice was a phlegmy wheeze, reminding her of all the other old ones waiting to die at Goodfellas. Erin heard it as a chorus of needs from all the crippled bodies and blown minds that she never had enough time to satisfy. Bitching she thought. She thought weaklings. I’m cold. My bed pan’s full. Where’s my pills? Is my daughter coming today? Would you rub my back? Where am I? I want a bath. This room stinks. Why doesn’t anybody listen around here? But I don’t like meatloaf. I can’t button this. Wheel me over by the window. Where have you been? I need a shot. I need it right now! Why’s everybody mean to me? It was like they followed her everywhere now, dreaming or waking—used up cases, no light in their rheumy eyes, dopes on the ropes. Erin knew Hulk Hogan wouldn’t put up with this, this negativity. That man was a survivor.
Her exit coming up fast now just before the Weston Reservoir, Erin tapped the brakes, slowed to seventy, and lurched into the far right lane. She still couldn’t believe this was happening to her. When she thought about what she might lose, her anger soared like a meth rush. Slam of the Week. The Rock against The Hulk. The Big Show and The Rabid Wolverine going tag team against Andre The Giant and The Undertaker. She stared ahead at the green light above the Fast Track lane of the toll booth. “Help you, huh? What do you think I’m doin’? You tear up my wheels, but I’m givin you a ride anyways! You without the courtesy to even put out your thumb. Not you. You just bang your way in, so I have to take care of you.” Cigarette smoke curled around Erin’s head like steam around a kettle. “Well, I’m here to tell ya, you’re not getting much more outta me! No sir, I’m off duty.” She slid the driver’s side window down, flipped her lighted cigarette out. “Know what I think? You old guys are all alike. It’s all about you!” Erin hit her brakes again hard, slowing to forty five through the Fast Track lane. Instantly she heard a clanging of bells behind her and saw the lights cycling yellow and red in her rearview. She figured the geezer had bled on her Fast-Track Tag, the electric eye unable to get her number.
They were in the country now. The dark hardwood forest with its thick tangle of brambles loomed on either side of the Mass Pike. Ahead, partially blocking her exit, brake lights gleamed like a long wet trail of blood into the dusk of late August. She could almost smell it. The slow lane of traffic was stuck behind a white Dodge Caravan with a flat rear tire. It sagged to the right, its hazard lights flashing. The driver and passenger, two clueless teenage girls, stood in the breakdown lane as if they owned it, the taller one talking on a cell phone, the shorter one holding a tire iron with both hands like it was a puzzle she couldn’t put together. Erin disliked young people almost as much as old people. They weren’t like her. They weren’t in the driver’s seat.
“Hold on,” Erin growled. “Might get bumpy.” She smacked her horn down, held it there, and jerked the Camaro into the breakdown lane. She watched the girls’ eyes widen as she roared down on them. Stupid broads! The short one was much too fat to be wearing a red tank top cut off at the midriff. And where did that tall goony one get off standing in the road like that yakyakyaking? She needed to pay attention. Erin wanted to get them into the ring one at a time, grab them by the hair and the crotch, lift them over her head, do the airplane, then slam them to the canvas just to see how high they’d bounce. Do it to heavy metal.
The girls watched her, first paralyzed with disbelief, then shrieking and dancing like their feet were on fire, and finally jumping back, flattening themselves against the side of the Caravan like dark bruises. Erin clipped an orange construction barrel on the shoulder of her exit. It careened against the New Jersey Barrier then bounced back against the Caravan in the slow travel lane. She glanced quickly in her rearview. “Well, isn’t this a regular demolition derby? Who the hell entered me, I wanna know? Lemme tell ya, Buster, this is one night I can’t get home soon enough.” Erin accelerated through the off-ramp curve, her radials screaming.
They were on a gravel side road now leading to a new development. Erin’s Camaro blasted past the real estate billboard for Stony Fort Hills—”A Planned Community.” Carved into the woods near the reservoir, it looked like a long painful gash across the face of earth, something like botched surgery to airline pilots headed west out of Logan. Erin rocketed over the first hill at fifty, spewing gravel like shrapnel. At the bottom she saw her first sign of the law all day, a State Police cruiser, its lights pulsing a ruddy glow against the dense undergrowth of the dark forest. The Statie had his feet in the ditch and his head and shoulders in the passenger side door of a green Toyota 4-Runner. Head down, he fumbled with a child’s car seat while a blonde toddler screeched hysterically into his ear. Erin remembered her least favorite bumper sticker, “State Troopers. Always There When You Need Them.” She always told Duane, there was a lot to be learned from bumper stickers if you were willing to pay attention. Her dead solid all time favorite was “Nuke the Gay Whales for Jesus.” Erin slowed to thirty five, breezing by in a cloud of dust that settled like face powder in her wake. She didn’t want to get stopped for speeding, not now, not after all she’d been through.
On the right three identical ranch houses with red brick facades squatted in a cul de sac jammed with greasy yellow backhoes, scarred bulldozers, trench cutters. Mounds of black loam had been dumped across the front yards as if waiting beside graves to be filled. The first two homes were empty, their dark windows like vacant eye sockets. Erin braked hard at the third, did a four-wheel drift around the corner, then roared up the driveway.
Duane was leaning up against his signal-red Dodge Avenger. He wore engineer boots, black jeans, and a sleeveless black wife beater. Look at this Erin thought. Duane holding his ground. Her man a piece of work. Wrapped in his ringside attitude like body armor. He had his arms crossed to show the tats like fresh welts on his biceps, something oriental neither of them could translate. Duane looked pissed, one eyebrow raised just like The Rock. Erin slid down the passenger window, pushed the old man’s head down so she could see over him, and crowed to Duane, “told you I’d get here!”
Duane uncrossed his arms, braced both hands on his knees, and leaned through the window, punching his words out. “Well, shit! Twelve minutes, Erin. Twelve! Not ten! We’re gonna have to haul ass.”
The old man pushed up against Erin’s hand, squinted, and turned toward Duane. “Help me,” he rasped. His breath was like a gust from carrion.
Duane took in the old man now, and recoiled from the white hair and bloody face. He gave it his hard stare, jawing at Erin. “Goddam! Whadda ya doin’ still screwin’ around with this thing here?” Duane stood up, slammed his fists down on the Camaro’s T-Top. The reverberation hung in the air promising something like a rim shot in a strip joint. Slowly he bent down to window level again. “It don’t even look human! Ask me, it looks like a used Q Tip!”
“Christ, Duane, if I’d a stopped to push him out the car, it woulda taken me forever!” Erin jutting out her jaw now and pushing the geezer’s head down again to confront Duane directly. “Say, you wanna talk or drive? Cause it ain’t gettin any earlier here.”
Duane gave Erin a murderous glance. He spread his hands out like he was holding something down, something inside that wanted out. “Okay, Erin” he growled. “You’re right. You always gotta be the one that’s right, don’tcha? Always. But let me say this. Don’t even think about takin him along!”
Erin primped a little for Duane, fluffed her big hair, and grinned for the first time all day. “Course not. We ain’t got but two tickets.”
Duane kicked his right boot into the loose dirt of the driveway. Erin could see he was venting a little, letting her know he was holding back for now. She thought he’d probably let it out ringside, make himself part of the show. He didn’t look at her. He just kept staring at the dirt in the driveway like it was the most important thing in his life. He spit his words at her. “Damnit, Erin, let’s go, then! Put that wreck in the garage! And leave the door open! Maybe what’s left of him will crawl off on its own.”
Erin punched her accelerator. Tires spinning in the loose soil, her Camaro leaped into the garage. Its brake lights cast a red glow that bounced off the walls. Over the roar of her engine she heard Duane shout, “don’t look like he’s too crazy about the suburbs!”
As she set her emergency brake, Erin watched Duane in her rearview. He was shaking his head over the dirt she had kicked up with the Camaro. He tamped it down beneath his boots. She remembered the driveway was supposed to have been paved last week, but the contractor was late as usual. Duane was probably figuring he would have to get in his face again to get it done at all. Now she caught him looking over at the demolition equipment cluttering up their cul de sac like it was something he held the mortgage on and was thinking about how he was going to get out of paying. Erin saw Duane’s shoulders drop as if he had been startled from a dream and realized he didn’t have time for this now. She saw him turn and jerk open the door to his Avenger. He climbed in, turned the key, and revved the big V8, grinning at the baritone throb of his custom exhaust.
Erin rooted in her purse, pulled out her last wad of Kleenex and held it out toward the old man. He seemed to be sleeping. She closed her purse, tucked it under her arm, slammed the driver’s side door, sashayed to Duane’s ride, and hopped in. Immediately he was on her ass about the seat belt. As she fastened it, something shifted behind her eyes. Now that she wasn’t trying to see through cobwebs of shattered glass chattering in the wind of the highway, now that she was in the passenger seat, now that she was being driven, something had changed. She struggled to face it. Now that they were backing away, Erin found herself letting go of her day; she was looking through a double layer of clear glass, Duane’s windshield and beyond that her rear window still intact. She saw the old man paddling his arms slowly as if part of another world barely resembling her own, television maybe. The sharply raked rear window of her Camaro fractured his image like a stick in water. It reminded her of dark rainy days when she was hung over, looking into the women’s-room mirror at Goodfellas under the pitiless gaze of the fluorescent lights and trying to freshen her makeup. Erin had trouble recognizing that what was staring back had anything to do with her. But she had the same vague feeling now, a feeling that something needed to be covered up. Something ugly.
|
Moth
Chris Butler
Heading into
the darkness
of infinite light,
locust insects
blindly fly in
sporadic circles
into inanimate,
objectified objects,
blue flames
forming orange
eyes through
powdered skin,
fluttering humming
wings, shuttering
images of earth’s
overexposure
from god’s first
born sun,
just to crash
and burn
into it.
|
Mary
Kevin John Dail
I was very young,
flush with hormones and lust
and the desire to love.
You were the carny girl,
tough, sexy, full of life and lies,
both of us alone and hungry.
Now I look back with amusement
on the memory of my stupidity,
and thank all the gods that you left.
|
Bernie the Bookie
Bobby Townsend
Bernie the Bookie was a thin little guy who owned a barroom on a winding road out in the woods somewhere and it was an extremely odd place for it to be, not only because you wouldn’t expect a business to be in such a location, but because the city of Brockton, Massachusetts, was pretty heavily populated and there simply weren’t that many wooded areas around. But that’s where Bernie set up shop and he did a fair amount of business because Bernie had a lot of friends who became regular customers and they told their friends about the place and, after all, word-of-mouth is the best kind of advertising. Certainly no passerby would ever just see the sign for Bernie’s Barroom and decide on the spur of the moment to stop in and wet their snouts because there was no reason to be on that particular road unless you were driving home to the little town of Whitman nearby and not many people lived in the little town of Whitman. And, besides that, come to think of it, there was no sign outside of Bernie’s. The building looked just like a big old warehouse and if you didn’t know in advance that there was a barroom inside, there wasn’t any reason to presume it was a place where you could wet your snout. But Bernie hired some very pretty young babes to tend bar and there was a huge backroom behind the bar that had a big-screen TV where you could watch sporting events and anybody who heard about Bernie’s and tried it once was likely to come back.
A friend of mine brought me to Bernie’s one night and I found Bernie to be very personable, indeed. Like I said, he was a little guy. He had a wealth of gray hair mixed into his black and a pencil thin moustache that was all gray and he walked like a chicken. Part of the reason for that, I was told, was that he had polio when he was a kid. His neck was stiff and, when he turned his head, his whole body turned. He had a muffled, whispery voice like Marlon Brando’s when Brando was playing the godfather. I kind of wondered if that came naturally or through years of practice of trying to sound like Brando.
The night I met Bernie, he was dressed entirely in black, which I would come to learn, he was prone to do. I would also learn that Bernie was a very rich man and, as good as business was at the barroom, it was hard to imagine he was making all that money by dispensing beer. And he wasn’t. Bernie was a bookie by trade and that was the secret of his affluence, although his affluence was no secret at all. Bernie was always dressed to kill. He wore a huge rock on his right hand, its cousin on his left hand, a Rolex watch and he always carried an outrageous wad of bills in each pocket. In the right pocket, he carried one-, five-, and ten-dollar bills; small potatoes whenever he needed them. In the left, were all fifties and hundreds. And he didn’t mind flashing either wad. Like he kid, he was proud of the money he carried and he seemed to want everybody to know he was carrying it.
At one point during the night I met Bernie, he was peeling off two hundred dollar bills from the large-bill wad when he turned his whole body to a greasy, mechanic-type dude who was at the bar. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said in his whispery voice to the dude with the dirty fingernails and the slicked down hair. “You’re thinking that one night you’ll catch me alone out in the parking lot, knock me over the head with one of your wrenches and rob me. Well, let me tell you, if you do, you better kill me because, I will spend any amount of money to see you dead.”
It was a very chilling comment, indeed.
Well, after that first night I spent many more nights at Bernie’s because, like I said, once anybody tried the place, he was likely to come back. It was extremely pleasant watching sporting events on the big-screen TV and very handy, too, having a bookie right there on the premises. You could place your bets right up until game time.
One night I was sitting at the bar having a drink and chatting with Bernie as I very often did because he was such a personable guy and I asked him how he got away with being so open about being a bookie. I mean, everybody knew he was the biggest bookie in town and the nickname, Bernie the Bookie, was a dead giveaway.
“Well, first of all,” he whispered, “I didn’t get the nickname because I’m a bookie. I read a lot. But, more importantly, I pay off the cops. They don’t give me no trouble.”
I was shocked! Not so much by the fact that Bernie was paying off the cops or that the cops were accepting his contributions to leave him alone, we all know those kinds of things go on in the best of neighborhoods. But I was shocked about Bernie’s candidness in telling me. I mean, I was a reporter for the local newspaper at the time and Bernie’s remarks didn’t seem appropriate to be telling a newspaper reporter.
I guess Bernie was either confident in the relationship we had struck in the last couple of months or, if I wrote such an expose, it would be my word against his and the cops. Or maybe he figured if I wrote such a story I’d better make sure he was dead or he’d spend any amount of money to see me dead.
Actually, I was a court reporter for the local newspaper. I covered trials. So, obviously, I was very interested in the trial of Francis “Bucky” McGee when that case got to court. You see, Bucky McGee was charged with attempted armed robbery and the alleged victim in the case was none other than Bernie the Bookie.
Of course, everyone who hangs at Bernie’s Barroom had heard the story about the attempted robbery. In fact, we had all heard several versions. You know how stories get distorted when they get passed around. But from all I was told when I attempted to separate fact from fiction, the story went something like this:
It was a Tuesday afternoon and business was pretty slow at Bernie’s Barroom being a Tuesday afternoon and nothing on the television but daytime TV. There were only seven people at the bar; Jake the (retired) Plumber and his old lady, both nursing a beer; Clyde, who was known to sell hot watches out of a case, and three bikers were drinking beer from bottles and playing liars poker with one-dollar bills. Doris, a cute little dirty-blonde, was tending the bar and Bernie was walking toward the front door when it opened, a burst of cold air came inside and so did a tall, skinny dude with outrageous buck teeth and severe pock marks on his face.
Bernie, hit by the blast of cold air, stopped in his tracks a moment and the tall, skinny dude, produced a handgun from his bulky coat and said: “Give me your money, old man!”
I guess Bernie was pretty offended, not only because this tall, skinny guy was holding a gun on him, but because still in his late forties, Bernie didn’t think of himself as being that old.
In any event, Bernie stood motionless for a moment, staring down the tiny barrel of the little handgun, and then he let out a wild squeal, turned around and started running toward the back room. Clyde, the dude who was known to sell hot watches, told me it was a very funny sight because when Bernie took to running, he went very bow-legged and his legs were flailing out on both sides. Nobody had ever seen Bernie run before. In fact, Clyde said it was such a funny sight that he burst out laughing. As Bernie ran toward the back room, he yelled to Doris: “Call the cops! Call the cops!”
It was obvious that the tall, skinny dude didn’t know what to do. He had never anticipated such a reaction from Bernie and I guess he wasn’t prepared to shoot him because his put his handgun back into his jacket and ran out the front door. After a couple of minutes, when Clyde had gotten all of the laughs out of him, he went to the door of the back room and said: “It’s OK. You can come out now. The guy with the gun took off.”
When Bernie returned to the bar, Doris told him the cops were on the way.
“What did you call them for?” Bernie asked.
“You told me to,” she said.
“Yeah, but I didn’t want you to call the cops. I just wanted to scare the guy with the gun. We don’t need the cops involved.”
But now the cops were involved. They took Bernie down to the station to have him look at books of mug shots and it wasn’t long before he saw the tall skinny dude with the outrageous buck teeth and the severe pock marks. For a moment, Bernie considered just telling the cops that he couldn’t identify the culprit, but then he pointed out his assailant.
“Are you sure that’s him?” asked the cop.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Bernie said.
I was a little surprised the day of the trial. I didn’t know the name Bucky McGee from a hole in the ground, but when I saw the dude I recognized him immediately from several Brockton watering holes I had a few beers in from time to time. He frequented bars in Montello, the north side of Brockton, and I was known to have tipped a few beers there, too.
I listened intently in court as Bernie told the story in his muffled voice. He told the story pretty much as I related it to you, except he didn’t mention anything about squealing before he turned to run or his legs flailing out.
When it came time for cross-examination, the public defender representing Bucky McGee, didn’t ask much of anything at all. Quite often, when you go to court with a public defender, you get what you pay for, which is nothing at all. But I had seen this young public defender, Candy Cameron, in action before and she was really a sharp cookie. I couldn’t imagine where she was going with her cross-examination of Bernie, though. She didn’t get anything out of him that mattered at all.
Then the cop who responded to the scene and took Bernie back to the station to look at mug books testified. Candy didn’t ask Patrolman Jerry DuChane anything of any particular importance, either.
“Did you ask Mr. Romero (Bernie’s last name) how much money he had on him at the time?”
“Yes, I did,” DuChane responded.
“How much did he say he had one him?”
“Ten or fifteen dollars.”
After DuChane’s testimony, the prosecution rested its case. Short and sweet. I guess the prosecution figured it was a slam-dunk. And, after all, it was only an attempted armed robbery. If Bernie had been shot, the prosecution would have called in Jake the (retired) Plumber and his old lady, Clyde the Watchman, the bikers, ballistics experts and, if Bernie had died, a coroner.
But it was only an attempted robbery and the prosecution had Bernie’s testimony, an identification and a previous-convicted felon in the defendant’s chair. Good enough.
When the prosecution rested, the court broke for lunch.
After lunch, Candy Cameron called the defendant to the witness stand.
Francis “Bucky” McGee said he couldn’t have been the dude who walked into Bernie’s Barroom and pulled a gun on the owner because he wasn’t anywhere near Bernie’s that afternoon. He said he was across in the Montello section of Brockton bar-hopping with a dude by the name of “Rabbit” that day. No, he didn’t know Rabbit’s real name.
The cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney George Peterson was really something else. George Peterson was a crusty old guy with vicious eyes and a thirst for the jugular.
“So, you were with a friend called Rabbit on the day in question?” Peterson asked.
“Yes, I was.”
“And what was Rabbit’s real name?”
“Like I said, I don’t know.”
“Not much of a friend, was he?”
Candy jumped to her feet, but before she had a chance to object, Peterson said: “Withdrawn.”
“What did Rabbit look like?” Peterson asked.
“He was tall. Had big ears.”
“How tall?”
“I don’t know. Maybe 6-3.”
“And his ears were very big, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, that’s why they called him Rabbit, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“And you’re sure you were with Rabbit that day?”
“Yes.”
“Very sure?” Peterson nearly screamed, as if he thought the vibrations from his voice would shake the defendant free of his story.
“Yes.”
Peterson then went on to ask Bucky a series of mundane questions about where he and Rabbit had been drinking that day, who they saw in which barroom and what they had talked about. Then he walked back toward the prosecution table as if he were through questioning, but he stopped, turned back to him and asked in a very meek voice: “You’re sure you were with Rabbit that day?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Peterson then finished the walk to his table picked up a document and approached the witness stand, handing it to the defendant.
“Is this the man you know as Rabbit?” Peterson asked.
When Bucky hesitated, Peterson added: “You can see that’s a wanted person’s poster with the name Ralph “Rabbit” Robinson’s name under the picture.”
“Objection!” Candy shouted. The judge called the lawyers to his bench and, after a conference in whispered tones, the judge told the jury: “Disregard the last comment”.
“Is that the man that you know as Rabbit?” Peterson asked the defendant.
“Yes, it is,” Bucky responded.
“Where does this document list as Rabbit’s last known address?”
“The Overland Hotel on Main Street in Brockton.”
“Have you seen Rabbit since the day in question?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Do you know where he is today?”
“No, I don’t?”
“Would it surprise you to learn that Ralph “Rabbit” Robinson died two months before the day you say you were barhopping with him on the West Side of Brockton, Mr. McGee?”
Bucky stood on the witness stand with his mouth open, all color drained from his cheeks.
“I hand you this death certificate of one Ralph Robinson of the Overland Hotel on Main Street in Brockton, dated two months to the day before you say you were barhopping with him on the West Side of Brockton.”
Bucky McGee didn’t have anything to say.
“Are you the same Francis McGee who pleaded guilty to a charge of unarmed robbery in 1994 and was given five years’ probation?’ Peterson asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you the same Francis McGee who was found guilty of unarmed robbery in 1996 and was sentenced to five-to-seven years in prison?” Peterson asked.
“Yes.”
After Bucky McGee’s testimony, the prosecution rested its case and court broke for the day. The judge told jurors they would be hearing closing arguments in the morning.
The next day when court convened, however, there were no jurors in the jury box.
“Miss Cameron,” the judge said to the defense attorney, “I have been told you would like to address the court before the jury is brought in.”
“Yes, your honor,” the tall and somewhat lanky defense attorney responded. “It would appear my client has lost confidence in me and would be requesting a new lawyer.”
“Miss Cameron, the trial is nearly complete.”
“Yes, your honor, I would request a mistrial and ask that the court appoint Mr. McGee new counsel.”
The judge turned his gaze to the defendant – with daggers. “Mr. McGee!”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Stand when you address the court,” a court officer barked and Bucky sprang to his feet.
“Why is it that you feel you want new counsel?”
“You heard what went on yesterday, your honor. My lawyer isn’t doing her job. She let the DA lead me down the primrose path. No objections or nothing. Just let him lead me into a trap. How can I get a fair trial now? How could a jury ever find me innocent at this point?”
“Mr. McGee,” the judge responded, “I’m sure Miss Cameron is not responsible for who you were with – or not with – on the day of this attempted robbery. And I don’t think Miss Cameron let the Assistant District Attorney lead you down a primrose path. I think you elected to walk down that path all by yourself. Your motion for new counsel is denied.”
Turning to a court officer, the judge instructed: “Bring the jury in now.”
I kind of felt sorry for Candy Cameron. I mean, having to make a closing argument for this loser after he tried to fire her in court. I thought her closing remarks would say a lot about her character. How much enthusiasm could she muster to try to convince a jury that this liar didn’t commit the crime? I guess she was in a similar position to an athlete playing out the season after his team has been eliminated from the playoffs. Playing for pride.
But Candy’s closing argument nearly knocked me off my seat. It went something like this:
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury; you will soon here the judge instruct you on the law in this case and he will tell you that there are two things the prosecution must prove to you in order for you to find my client guilty. And both things must be proven to you beyond a reasonable doubt. If the prosecution fails to prove either of these two things, then you must find my client not guilty. Even if you don’t want to do it. Even if you think my client is a liar and a cheat and a despicable person.
“First, the prosecution must prove that a crime has been committed. In this case, it’s the crime of attempted armed robbery. And then, if you believe that in fact a crime has been committed, you must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that my client committed the crime.”
Candy then approached the jury box, placed her hands on the rail and leaned forward as if she were going to speak to the jurors very confidentially. When she spoke, her voice was deeper. It was almost as if she was trying to strike the pose and persona of Spencer Tracey in the movie “Inherit the Wind.” The movie was based on the Scopes Monkey Trial and Spencer Tracey was playing the part of the defense attorney, who was Henry Drummond in the movie, but was actually Clarence Darrow in real life. And, as sharp as Candy Cameron was, of course she was no Clarence Darrow.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that if you get beyond the first prong of what the prosecution must prove – that a crime has been committed – if at the end of the day here, you truly believe a crime has been committed, then it would be reasonable for you to find that my client committed it.”
There was a gasp in the courtroom. What was she doing? Throwing her client to the wolves because he had the unmitigated gall to try to fire her? Was she throwing the trial? The judge jerked anxiously in his high chair as if he had suddenly become uncomfortable.
“Sure, it you believe a crime has been committed, it would be perfectly logical to believe my client did it. He obviously lied about where he was that Tuesday. Or, at least, he lied about who he was with. You can’t go hopping from bar to bar with a dead man, can you? Mr. McGee was obviously lying. Or very mistaken.
“That was six months ago. Can any of your tell me where you were or who you were wish on that Tuesday six months ago?
“Still, if this attempted armed robbery happened, you could find that Mr. McGee did it. Hey, he did it before, didn’t he? You heard about the two unarmed robberies he was convicted of. It wouldn’t be such a stretch for you to figure that he added a gun to his repertoire.”
Candy removed her palms from the railing of the jury box, paced several steps back from the jurors turned, pointing at them and bellowed with a voice from deep down inside her: “But I suggest to you, when all is said and done, you will not be convinced that a crime has been committed! You cannot convict my client of an attempted armed robbery because an attempted armed robbery simply did not happen!
“Sure you heard Bernard Romero take the witness stand and tell you that a tall skinny male with protruding teeth and pock marks came into his establishment, pulled a gun on him and demanded his money.
“Now, I want you to stop and analyze this testimony and ask yourself, ‘Does it make sense?’
“Of course it doesn’t! If a gunman is going to walk into a barroom to commit a robbery, where’s he going to go once inside? He’s going to go to the cash register and pull his weapon on the bartender. That’s where the money is.
“He’s not going to stop some little guy halfway between the front door and the cash register and attempt to rob him. There’s no guarantee he’s going to have any money at all. He may have just spent the last two bucks he had for a beer.
“You’ll recall Bernard told the police that night he had ten or fifteen dollars on him at the time. Why’s he going to take the chance of settling for ten or fifteen dollars when there are obviously hundreds in the cash register?
“I don’t know what Bernard’s game is here. I don’t know why he came in and told this story. I don’t know if he ever met my client before or what kind of a grudge he has against him. He told you he never met my client before, but come on; Brockton isn’t that large a city. My client, as you can surmise, spends plenty of time bar hopping and Bernard owns a bar.
“Barnard’s story simply does not make sense. It’s doesn’t have the ring of truth. You can’t convict my client of a crime that didn’t happen. As much as you might like to.”
There was more, a lot more. Lawyers like to talk. And then there was the prosecutor’s spiel. Then the jury heard instructions from the judge and was sent out to deliberate.
They deliberated for about three hours and sent the judge a message saying they had reached a verdict.
“Not guilty!”
Unbelievable.
Bernie wasn’t in the courtroom when the verdict was delivered. Hell, he hadn’t even been there when the lawyers made their closing arguments. He left the courthouse as soon as he finished his testimony.
I went back to the newspaper, wrote my story and then headed out to Bernie’s. I knew the prosecutor would have been in touch with him by then and figured Bernie would really be pissed.
“I gotta ask you something,” I said to Bernie over a beer. “Why the hell did you ever tell the cop you were only carrying ten of fifteen dollars?”
“Why, did that come out in court?” Bernie asked.
“Yeah, it became a very big deal at the trial.” Then I went on to explain to him how the defense attorney made it a very big deal.
Bernie smiled.
“So why did you tell the cop you were only carrying ten or fifteen dollars?” I asked again.
“It was a joke,” Bernie said. “Jerry knows me. He knows I was carrying a few thousand. Everybody in Brockton knows I always carry a few thousand. So when he asked me how much I had on me, I said, ‘Not much, ten of fifteen dollars.’ It was a joke.”
Bernie was still smiling. He didn’t seem very upset.
“How come you’re not pissed he was found not guilty?” I asked.
“Ah, I never expected much,” he said. “I never trusted the court system.”
I never saw Bucky McGee around the bars again. Even when I did some bar hopping in Montello.
Nobody in Brockton ever saw Bucky McGee around again.
|
Amy
Caleb True
She showed up, first on the internet, then in person upon arrival home for the summer. Amy and I had been friends before, in high school.
We talked for a long time online before there were sparks.
How about you, she finally asked. Seeing anyone?
I was seeing nobody. Her boyfriend in Philadelphia was keeping her.
She auditioned for a short play while in town, and invited me to come see it if she made it.
I told her I would love to.
Everyone was socializing after the play, and I made my way toward the door. Amy came out from behind the curtain and rushed into my arms.
We went back to my house afterward, and looked at photos from Europe on my bed. She left the smell of her hair on the blankets.
~
Earlier that summer, my parents had moved out for a job opportunity in the Capitol. I was left with the house. It had not occurred to me how drafty and cavernous the place was. The refrigerator shuddered in the middle of the night, the wind banged the window frames in their tracks.
The days were humid; I kept all the windows on the second floor open. I hung the compost bucket from a chopstick propped in the window, so it didn’t stink up the kitchen.
I walked around naked, drank beer, lifted weights in front of the mirror. I took extra classes at the University, playing catch up after a year loafing in Europe.
I did homework late at night when I couldn’t sleep, and swatted mosquitoes drawn to the computer screen.
In the early morning the TV glowed. I ate breakfast slouched in a wooden chair with my feet up on the kitchen table, and would peel my ass off the seat to pour some tea or heat up leftovers.
While food rotated in the microwave, I would grab the detergent bottle and squirt out a poisonous barrier where ants got in from between the wall and the floor. The ants had a little operation that led from the crumbs under the toaster to their home in the compost pile at the edge of the garden. They snuck in through the cracks. I filled the cracks with gobs of detergent.
They squirmed, got stuck in the goo, and died.
~
Nothing happened with Amy until weeks later when we went to the movies. She told me she had broken up with the boy in Philadelphia. In the theatre, I held her chin and gently turned her head. In the dark, with the flashing images of the movie to the right, my lips found hers. We kissed, and came apart staring.
~
We cooked dinner for her parents, split a beer. We touched arms under the table.
We went to the sunroom after dinner, which went late. She turned on the window fan to make noise. She put on music.
We connected, stroking. I tasted her, inhaled the smell of conditioner and smoke from her parents’ cigarettes at dinner. I licked her top row of teeth. She bit her lip. Her mouth opened and no sound escaped, and with one arm she reached for the radiator unit at the wall.
She said her arms went numb. My left leg thrummed. I got up to get a Kleenex, and nearly blacked out, supporting myself with both hands on the sill, focusing on the moth caught between the panes of glass. I closed my eyes.
~
My house became a palace that summer, and Amy and I ravaged each other in the Queen bed on the first floor. Sweating all over each other in the sunroom at her house, curling up in each other’s arms at my place. Swatting mosquitoes off each other in the dark, rising at dawn to make pancakes.
She poured detergent on the ants while I covered the pancakes with syrup.
The sunlight came in the window and lit the kitchen, shone off her golden hair and smooth skin. She turned, detergent bottle in hand, and smiled.
I didn’t want to think that we had less than a week left together. She must have seen the thought on my face as I gazed at her.
What, she said with a faltering smile. She knew.
She put down the detergent bottle and came over to me. I stood up and we held each other. I smelled her hair.
The syrup had melted into the pancakes by the time we sat down.
~
Autumn came, and I scaled back my grocery shopping. Amy was gone, back at school. Feeding only one required much less cooking, fewer peels in the compost bucket, fewer trips to the compost pile.
As it got colder outside, the ants stopped their pilgrimage from the compost pile in the garden, through the cracks, over the gobs of detergent, to the crumbs underneath the toaster.
I cleaned the detergent mess I had made all summer killing the ants. When I took out the compost bucket it occurred to me that maybe I was feeding the ants with the compost pile, which stank ripe.
~
We did out best to stay together.
Up late at night, hunched over the computer, or in bed with the phone to my ear, I asked how her day was. She asked me about fighting the ants. When it was time, we said goodnight and sometimes lingered, teasing each other in the dark before we signed off, hung up. Always at the end, the last word would be a sincere insistence.
She said of course we could do it, we were meant for each other.
I’ve never felt this way before, she said.
~
With the first snow, Amy flew home for a brief weekend visit. I prepared her favorite dish with broccolis and spicy carrot relish.
We popped a cork and drank, but made no toast.
After dinner we laid in bed for a long time, not talking.
The sun set, darkening the bedroom where we nestled. Dim light from the streetlamp outside the window gleamed off her moist cheeks, and she sobbed into my shoulder.
She said the long distance was killing her. She just couldn’t do it anymore. I did not know what to say that could help the situation any. I resigned myself to just listen, but she was done. Just lying there in silence for an hour or two longer, it became too much.
She put on her shoes, and left.
~
The colder it became, the more I avoided taking the compost bucket out altogether. I pitched peels in the trash and took that out instead.
Mid winter I finally capitulated.
I tiptoed the compost bucket out to the garden, avoiding kicking snow into my slippers. On my way back in I noticed the ants at work in the basement, piling their dead in mounds on the floor. I had destroyed half of the mounds on my way out, scattering the bodies when I opened the door.
I washed out the compost bucket and soaped it up to cover the stench. I rinsed the maggot larvae down the drain. It had been two months since the last time I emptied the compost, when I was tidying up for a visit from Amy.
|
Just a Feeling
Tres Crow
“Do you think you have much longer here?” I asked, my face blank and staring ahead into the empty street so that Ben couldn’t see how important the question was to me.
“Hmm?”
He looked at me, bemused, his brows raised and his hung-over eyes bloodshot and bleary. He was lost in his own idea of things.
“You know. Here on Earth. Do you think you’ll live much longer?”
We looked into the street, together but not together. There was no indication that the power was still out, or that it had been since early the previous evening, other than the blind eyes of the traffic lights and the eerie lack of cars on the road.
The moment was apocalyptic: no power, no cars, just the two of us sitting on the porch and watching the remains of the world. The sun glittered off sprays of broken beer bottles on the sidewalk and the tiny wings of flies beat the stale air around a half-empty keg sitting in a bucket of warm water, which had been a bucket of ice just seven hours before.
Ben didn’t answer right away, but that wasn’t his style; he thought before he spoke. He was silent and tight-mouthed, and the only sounds were the flies and the ineffectual breeze, which caressed the branches of the trees but didn’t touch me.
As I waited for him I thought too. It occurred to me that apocalypse comes in two acts. In the first act the lights go out and, as if a switch has turned on, as if they’ve always been waiting for something like it to happen, the survivors find each other and then maybe they buy a keg. And they celebrate the end of jobs and commutes and responsibilities; they celebrate each other, their very humanity and the warm glow of community, and maybe, as the blackness of the powerless night deepens, they marvel at how bright the stars are and that the Milky Way is so clearly visible as a wisp of cloud drifting permanently across the sky. Everything feels fresh and new and perfect and they become ecstatic as they realize all of the things they’ve been missing while they worked and went to bed early and commuted.
But then the second act: in the morning they wake up and the power is still out and the house is trashed from the party. There is no running water so the house remains trashed and the accumulated urine of tens of drunken people sits fetid in the toilet upstairs, and the dirty dishes kiss flies in the sink. And eventually the survivors, who had welcomed the unexpected holiday with gloriously upheld arms just hours before, begin to ask, at first only in their heads and then eventually out loud, “I wonder when the power’s gonna come back on?”
Ben opened his mouth but paused for another moment before he spoke. His eyes were closed tight. He said: “I dunno. I guess I’ve never really thought about it before.”
I pulled my face away from the broken glass on the sidewalk, “I don’t believe you. Everyone’s thought about it before. At least once.”
“Hmm.”
He got up and went to the keg.
“Do you think it’s still good?” I shrugged and he grabbed a blue plastic cup, inspected it for cleanliness, and then pumped some warm beer for himself. “Want any?”
“Nah,” I replied and he slumped back down next to me on the couch. “Me. I don’t think I have very long.”
“How do you know?” he asked, his voice echo-y from the cup over his mouth.
“I dunno. I guess I don’t, really, no one can, right? But it’s just a feeling I get when I can’t sleep. I can actually feel what it’ll be like to be dead. Not my spirit, mind you, but my body. And times like that, death just feels too close to be too far off, ya know?”
He sipped his beer and stared into a distance that didn’t actually exist.
“Are you ready to die?” he asked.
“I suppose so...” I started and his eyebrows rose. “...sort of...well, no, not really. No. I don’t think I am actually.”
He smiled, kindly, old-souled. “Well then, I guess it’s just a feeling, isn’t it?”
We laughed together and the sound of our mingled voices echoed across the emptiness. It was just us two there, everyone else slept upstairs or in their own houses, and I was glad for the moment that I wasn’t alone. The broken glass glittered over the sidewalk, looking more beautiful in death than it had in life. Ben handed me the cup of beer and I took a sip through my smile.
He asked: “When do you think the power’s gonna come back on?”
I shrugged and we looked out at the empty street, together and yet not. But it didn’t matter anyway.
|
Western Meditation #1
Mark Fleury
Working to fill the tank. What flows from
The pump? My glass is full of it if empty,
I mean transparency: the way the filter
Of a cigarette, tar-saturated, is clear, is
My heart pumping oil? And if I fill my glass
With gasoline would the smell repel or thrill?
The wall where the sun became a setting
Road for tunnel vision, according to the
Window sill, it should’ve risen. Then I,
Glad to look over the edge for the underbelly
Of the moon, would’ve bet my shadow on it.
Darkness when and where I tried to chain a
Serpent to an east outside myself. Inside
Is worse, as if looking directly into night is
The opposite of behind me. Still a spine has
To start somewhere, otherwise raindrops’d be
Much longer, and the dagger on the sill of
Each of my eyes would be cause to pull back
My tongue. I’d stuck it out at being able to
Walk into the darkness of a wall, much the way
A book is entered and reading stops above and
Before the spine. You see, if you could see
Where mine starts I’d want to rattle it so who
Can blame the snake? Even vision narrowed to
Tip of flame can see that gasoline fumes blue
A human face. So I had to back up and try to
Find the other side of darkness. The other wing?
So I imagine a book where seven
Is the first number (as in lowest). The real
Reason is because my favorite rhyme is angel
And angle, but only if real doesn’t mean serious.
|
Pearls 2
Jeremie Guy
Things just didn’t seem to be the same anymore. Was she right? Wrong? Who cared anyway? A guilty heart weighs down even the strongest of men.
Sable wasn’t wrong for what she had done. She was just too right. As right as two left feet. She was too much of a woman and too real to be held down by the confines of normal everyday description. You couldn’t classify her with the rest of humanity. That would require too many words. Regardless of how much of a woman she was, she felt guilty.
The orange eye of the sky slowly fell behind the face of the earth and created dazzling purples, oranges, and reds: a genius child’s artwork against an infinite backdrop. Sable sighed a deep sigh from the bottom of her diaphragm and pulled Patrick closer. Ever since they started dating her life had been a wild ride of fun and excitement. She couldn’t help but miss her ex-husband though. Ah yes, the good old days.
Sable let Patrick go and stood to her feet, facing the setting sun. A cool breeze gently invaded her garments and sent a shiver up her spine: the cold fingers of a forbidden lover. Patrick soon slid his hands around her waist and cupped her stomach. It was getting rounder and fuller each day: a pearl in the soft flesh of a clam.
Patrick’s chin came to a rest on his lover’s shoulder and he felt like he had the universe between his palms. Not a care in the world. He had won the war and it felt good.
Sable didn’t feel Patrick’s hands. All she felt was cold: the snake-like guilt slithering through her gut and grasping onto her nerves. She just couldn’t seem to shake the feeling. She wasn’t wrong for what she had done. It was just a mistake. A mistake that no longer could be fixed. It was much too late for repair. Eugene probably wanted to divorce her years ago anyway. That’s why she had to take everything. It was his fault that everything ended the way it did.
The cold continued to encase her body until the warmth of her love failed to serve any purpose. She shivered and decided to take a walk. It was dark now. Or were her eyes closed? The moist ground embraced her feet and offered some relief, but she didn’t accept it. She kept moving, forgetting the earth and floating off into a sea of memories.
A head, distorted and disgustingly white, drifted by: Eugene’s face. These weren’t the currents that Sable wanted to travel, so she paddled her way west, sailing further and further back in the seas of memory.
Music caressed her ears and she smiled. The opera was her favorite and Eugene always treated her to a show for their anniversary. He was a good man. His job was nice and his money was deep: the rain and the fire on the grass of their relationship. The music faded and a black ice solidified over Sable’s body. She wasn’t wrong for what she had done, she just wasn’t right.
The money was the real reason that everything went to hell. Money is the root of all evil, but money makes the world go around. What then can be the expected outcome of the state of the world?
Eugene was a workaholic and it made Sable seethe with envy. Being the woman that she was, she was jealous of everything and anything that came between her and her desires, even if what came in between was the green fuel that powered her world. Nothing else seemed to matter to Eugene. All he did was work work work and more work. He came home, gave her a kiss on the cheek and worked. He even ate his food while working. Though the opera made her happy, and Eugene never failed to take her to the opera on their anniversaries, he would work right through the whole night. Work work work work. Was money that important to him? The answer was obviously yes, and that was why she had to leave.
Things started out slowly at first, but eventually spun out of control. It started with a conversation. Patrick was an ear to fill with problems and Sable had plenty. He was smart. Lend a woman your hand and get a smile in return; lend a woman your money and get her happiness in return; but lend a woman your ears and get her heart in return.
It all started with a simple touch. One little finger to the thigh: a drop of gasoline on an ember. Before long, Sable couldn’t hold back the fires of her passion any longer. She craved the touch of a man that wasn’t thinking about money all the time.
When Patrick and Sable came together they devoured each other. Sable didn’t care that he was a horrible lover. She just needed love. Like a starving man at a cheap buffet, Sable gorged herself until she could take no more. She grew tired of Patrick and there was nothing she could do. Eugene was at least good at what he did before the money came.
Sable crashed back to earth and felt Patrick’s thin excuses for arms around her waste. Her eyes rolled up to the heavens and the black of space consumed her: an oil blanket on the lungs of a baby. She wished she could be free of this man. Patrick. Eugene. Max. Terry. Bill. Christian. Would the list go on? Could the list go on? Should the list go on? She looked over her shoulder and the brightness of the full moon caused Patrick’s eyes to glisten: two green turtle shells hiding a pathetic excuse for masculinity.
Sable had to leave. She wouldn’t be Sable if she didn’t leave somehow. She left her family when she was 12. She left religion when she was 15. She left school when she was 20. She left Eugene when she was 33. She didn’t know how to do anything but leave. Leave with everything important and never look back. The pearl in her belly begged her to stay, but Sable had to be Sable. She wasn’t wrong for what she did. She was merely doing what she did best. Sable removed Patrick’s arms and they flopped to his side. She took a quick glance over his frail body and almost giggled to herself.
Patrick was clueless. Just another seashell on the shores of Sable beach. He expected everything to turn out for the better with Sable, but Sable had to be Sable. Patrick wasn’t worth her time anyway. Was Eugene?
A frigid chill caked over Sable’s heart and she couldn’t help but shiver. She wrapped her arms around the growing pearl in her tummy and whispered a lullaby. She had to find the warmth that her soul craved. Nothing else seemed to matter.
|
Pieceful
Twixt
There is a small portion of rain flying
through the evening on its trip into the
many thoughts I’ve crossed out — but how fitting,
it’s part of everything — I’ll leave that in.
|
She is a Library
Chloe Viner
She bends the binding of her paper back thought
and eases herself in the margins
she tucks herself in between the sentences
and finds comforts in the periods and colons
|
Not Far From Here,
John T. Hitchner
She stood in a pub doorway in a city 5000 miles from my home, her skin the shade of light coffee, black hair in ringlets, brown leather mini skirt, pearl-buttoned scoop-neck white blouse, the tops of her breasts like smooth crescents.
“Come on in, enjoy the music,” she greeted me.
I thought, Why not.
Over watered down wine and beer, we swapped life stories: I a travel writer between marriages, a stranger in this city of cathedrals and colleges. She a full-time single mother, part-time waitress, part-time singer.
“Will you write about me someday?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“Stay?” she said, her hand covering mine. “I’m on again at eleven. Afterward, we can walk.”
She closed her eyes and sang of empty rooms and half-open windows and half-open doors, bass, sax, and piano behind her. Her voice and hands let lyrics drift toward unanswered questions and dead ends. When she closed with “Heart Like a Wheel,” I wanted to lie down beside her.
“Let’s go,” she said when she came back to the table.
“Where?” I said.
“Where you’re staying.”
In bed she asked questions with her body, but the answers I gave her were the laments and dead ends she had sung about.
When she got up to leave I said, “Stay.”
“I have to go. You’re all strangers,” she replied.
“I’ll walk you home,” I said.
“Never mind. I’m not far from here.”
|
Explosion
Mel Waldman
“Doc, I watched him murder my mother. He threw a grenade at her. Couldn’t stop him. And she blew up into...a lot of ugly, bloody, freaky pieces. Couldn’t recognize her.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve years old.”
The old shrink gazed at Maria Torres, a 45-year-old Hispanic woman with dark brown eyes and long jet black hair. The little woman was about five feet tall and strikingly beautiful, with high cheek bones and an olive complexion. And yet a dark veil covered her wounded soul.
A long silence separated the antediluvian analyst, who looked a little like Freud, and the middle-aged woman who sat a few feet away.
“Why don’t you lie on the couch, Ms. Torres? It will speed up your analysis and progress.”
“No thank you.”
“It may be easier to talk about your past if you lie on the couch.”
“No, doc. I need to see your face. You make me feel safe.”
“But...”
“I’ll tell you when I’m ready for the couch. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Richard Friedman was an expensive Manhattan psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His office was on Central Park West near the American Museum of Natural History. But he saw some patients pro bono, especially poor minority patients who suffered from various traumas. Maria Torres was one of these patients. She suffered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and psychosis.
Maria was referred to Dr. Friedman by a former colleague, a psychiatrist, who worked part time in a South Bronx mental health clinic. The patient was trapped in the past and neither her psychiatrist nor her therapist could help the woman. Indeed, she seemed to be regressing at the time of the referral, almost a year ago. But she had refused to be hospitalized. And since she was neither suicidal nor homicidal, according to the admitting psychiatrist, she could not be hospitalized against her will. Dr. Friedman took the case pro bono and in the past 11 months, the patient had responded positively to Dr. Friedman and the treatment.
In the language of psychoanalysis, Maria Torres had a positive transference to Dr. Friedman. She had positive thoughts and feelings about the gentle doctor who reminded her of the good people in her past. Later in the treatment, she would develop negative thoughts and feelings about him. Then he would remind her of the bad people in her past. If she could verbalize her positive and negative thoughts and feelings, she would make significant progress. In the meantime, her progress was slow but steady.
The little woman gazed quizzically at the paternal doctor and asked: “How did you survive?”
The pale, emaciated 85-year-old psychiatrist/analyst, a Holocaust survivor who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz, whispered: “Have you been doing research on me, Ms. Torres?”
“Of course, Dr. Friedman.”
“Why?”
“Because you took my case for free. And because...you believe in me. You believe...I can heal.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You crazy, crazy doctor.”
“Why am I crazy?”
“Because you believe in me. No one else does.”
“Well maybe those people are the crazy ones.”
“Thanks, doc. You feed me hope!”
After his session with Maria Torres, who was the last patient of the night, Dr. Friedman sat quietly in his office for ten minutes and meditated. He took a few deep breaths, slowly inhaling, holding his breath for a few seconds, and then exhaling, symbolically ejecting the emotional toxins of the day from his mind and body. While listening to the horrific stories of his patients, he had experienced their dark emotions and had swallowed their emotional poisons. But at the end of the day, he needed his own psychological and spiritual catharsis in order to cleanse his soul.
Later, he left his office and hailed a cab on Central Park West. “Brooklyn Heights,” he told the driver. “Number 2 Pierrepont Place.”
On his trip to Brooklyn, he thought about his beloved wife Sarah who had passed away two years ago of breast cancer. After she died, he sold their home in Westchester. He bought a condo in Brooklyn Heights on Pierrepont Place. He could have bought a beautiful condo on Central Park West near his office. It would have been convenient, especially since he enjoyed strolling through Central Park. But his oldest son Jonathan owned a house in Manhattan Beach, not far from Brighton Beach and Coney Island. And he was a surgeon at Long Island College Hospital on Hicks Street near Atlantic Avenue. The lonely doctor wanted to be close to his son. And since Sarah had loved Brooklyn and used to visit the large borough as often as possible, especially Brooklyn Heights where husband and wife strolled on the Promenade overlooking the East River, he became a full-fledged Brooklynite.
He did not go directly home. When he got out of the cab, he sauntered off to the Promenade. It was a sultry August night and he’d search for a bench to sit on near the river.
Soon, he watched a golden sunset as couples rushed slowly along the Promenade. Nearby, the East River sparkled and glittered as the sun vanished beyond the distant Manhattan skyline. Wearing a black pinstripe suit, white shirt, and blue tie, the dapper shrink took in the glorious panoramic view. Yet shortly after the sun set, he dozed off, perhaps hypnotized by the dazzling river or tired after a very long day.
When he awakened, he was slightly disoriented and thought he was still asleep. The Promenade was pitch-black and seemed deserted. But when his eyes adjusted to the night, he noticed a few people sitting nearby and strolling on the Promenade. It was still very hot-almost oppressively hot on this August night. Yet he did not leave. He sat upright and took in the surreal atmosphere surrounding and swaddling him.
For a short while, he was content. Then suddenly, he felt someone’s eyes staring at the back of his head. He turned his head and peered through the darkness, but found no one gazing at him. Perhaps his imagination was getting the best of him. He sat quietly and inhaled the mysterious night. But soon, he felt the other’s presence again. He turned suddenly. Yet once again, he saw no one looking at him. This time he stood up, looked around, and scurried off. The phantasmagoric night had chased him away.
Friday night he saw Maria Torres again. She was his last patient.
“He murdered her...killed her with a grenade...”
“Are you sure it was a grenade?”
“Yeah, doc. My stepfather was a Viet Nam vet. Came back from the war...real crazy...and...I watched him kill her. But he didn’t kill me. No, not me.”
“Why not?”
“He needed me alive for other things. He used to beat Mama. Then late at night, he crept into my bed and raped me. When I told her, she didn’t believe me. Why didn’t Mama believe me?”
The old man looked at the little woman with much compassion and sadness. But he didn’t speak.
“Why didn’t Mama believe me?” she repeated. Then she drifted off for a little while.
“I used to hide in my bedroom closet. Felt safe there in the pitch-black darkness. Hid there for hours, especially when I heard the furious sounds of violence in Mama’s bedroom.”
“Is that where he threw the grenade?”
“No. That night Mama was in the kitchen cooking dinner. He came home drunk and staggered into the living room. Consumed by rage, he screamed and cursed her. Then he retreated into Mama’s bedroom. I was in my bedroom. The door was ajar-open a few inches. In the distance, I saw Mama in the kitchen. Then he returned to the living room. He had something in his right hand. Couldn’t see what it was. He rushed into the kitchen and dragged Mama out into the living room. She tried to escape but he grabbed her long black hair and pulled her back into the room. They struggled and suddenly, he kissed her. It was a malicious kiss, I guess. Mama slapped him in his face and he threw her against the wall.
“‘The devil’s waiting for you, whore! He’s waiting!’ And he took a few steps backward... It’s a blur. He threw it and...it landed in her lap. Guess she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know. Didn’t try to get rid of it. She just waited. Then with frenzied eyes, he rushed toward me. Suddenly, Mama blew up!”
Saturday morning, Dr. Friedman saw patients. Afterwards, he spent a few hours in Central Park. He enjoyed strolling through the Mall or Promenade. When he reached the Terrace on the Lake, he looked down and saw the familiar Bethesda Fountain. For a moment, he took in the sweeping, hypnotic view of the fountain, the Lake and the Ramble. Then, he left the upper part of the Terrace, descended the stairs, and slowly approached the fountain. Within seconds, he stood in front of the Bethesda Fountain and studied the Angel of the Waters, a spiritual work of art. The celestial sculpture was inspired by the Biblical story of the angel who came down from Heaven and gave the waters of Bethesda healing powers. Beneath the Angel of the Waters are the four cherubs of Temperance, Purity, Health and Peace.
For a short while, he stood transfixed in front of the holy angel. But then his mind meandered and drifted off to a darker place. He was preoccupied with some of his patients. When Sarah was alive, he left his patients and their problems in the office. But since her death, he carried them in the dark caverns of his mind.
He worried about Maria Torres. She had made progress. Recently, she passed her GED exam. She planned to go to Hunter College and major in English or social work. She dreamed of becoming a writer and/or social worker. Perhaps, she could do both. But she was still consumed by her past, traumatized by events that had occurred decades ago. Unfortunately, there were others like her.
Robert Fox, a 30-year-old white male, had been physically abused by his alcoholic father who also beat the patient’s mother. Fox, a short, skinny young man did not look dangerous. Yet he had a violent temper. And recently, he had beaten his African-American wife. Because of his domestic violence, he was court-mandated to seek treatment and go for weekly psychotherapy. To control and channel his rage, he ran five miles a day and buried himself in his work. A workaholic, he worked long hours as an electrician and locked his demons in a dark secret room within his mind.
Joseph Brown was a 25-year-old African-American combat vet who had just returned from Iraq. He had witnessed his buddies blown-up and suffered from PTSD. Brown was guilt-ridden and puzzled that he was still alive. A walking time bomb, he needed intensive therapy. Most days he suffered from flashbacks and re-experienced horrific events of war in the dark landscape of his psyche. His brain was fragmented and fried by the traumas of Iraq. In the war, he was a combat soldier and an explosives expert. But back home, he was a loose cannon.
The old doctor wandered through this waste land of mine fields and then returned to the Angel of the Waters in the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. Back from Dante’s Inferno, he looked up at the heavens and felt the soothing heat of the sprawling sun. Yet suddenly, he felt someone’s eyes staring at the back of his head. He turned his head and peered through the crowd. No one seemed to be looking at him. Perhaps his imagination was playing tricks on him. But soon, he felt the other’s presence again. He turned abruptly but found no one looking at him. He hurried off toward the Lake and back to Central Park West.
Monday evening Maria Torres was his last patient.
“The old man is gonna kill me, doc. I’m afraid. I see him in my dark dreams.”
“Didn’t you tell me he was in prison?”
“Yes. He got a life sentence. He’s upstate in Dannemora-New York’s Siberia. But...”
The little woman looked quizzically at Dr. Friedman.
“He got life, doc. But he’s up for parole.”
“How can that be?”
“Don’t know,” she said as her body shook violently. “Heard he’s been a model prisoner for years. And he’s been treated for PTSD. They say he might be cured.”
Now, the old shrink gazed at his tiny patient with bewilderment and surprise.
“It’s incredible, Ms. Torres. But still...he must appear before the Parole Board. Most likely, he won’t be granted parole.”
“I am terrified, Dr. Friedman! If he is released, he will find and kill me!”
Troubled by his fragile patient’s revelation and trapped with her in a Twilight Zone of despair and unreality, he waited for the session to end. Soon, the whirling silence encircled therapist and patient in a dark noose of terror.
Tuesday morning Robert Fox was Dr. Friedman’s first patient. The emaciated young man, wearing faded jeans, a white T-shirt, and sneakers, was agitated and seemed disoriented. When he entered Dr. Friedman’s office, he did not sit down or lie on the couch. He paced back and forth.
“Why don’t you lie on the couch, Mr. Fox?”
“I can’t.”
“Then please have a seat.”
Reluctantly, the angry man, a seething cauldron of fury, sat down. His frenzied eyes darted back and forth across the room, finally focusing on the doctor.
“Can’t sleep at night. Can you give me something to sleep?”
“Perhaps.”
“Doc, I have the same dream every night. It’s killing me.”
“Tell me about the dream.”
“My wife Diana and I are arguing. The argument escalates and soon...we’re shouting and cursing each other. In the heat of this altercation, I threaten her. ‘Stop or I’ll kill you!’ Diana laughs maniacally. She’s a beautiful black woman with large brown eyes and full-bodied with large succulent breasts and an ass to kill for. But when she laughs at me, I see stars and...I become a raging bull. Well...she says something. Can’t recall...maybe it’s: ‘You’re not my Savior! You’re just a drunk like your father and a wife-beater!’ Doc, it happens real fast. Suddenly, I got this big knife in my right hand and...I lunge at Diana. Cut her real bad. Then I hear this explosion...a bomb goes off...it’s the end of the world...I wake up trembling and shaking, in shock and disbelief.”
After a brief silence, the old shrink asks: “Do you have any conscious thoughts of killing your wife?”
“Of course not!”
“Not even passing thoughts?”
“No. Not even one fleeting thought. Diana is my Queen-my life!”
“But you’re mandated to come here because you beat her.”
“Yes, I lost control. It happened.”
“So I’ll ask you one more time. Do you have any thoughts-perhaps plans to hurt or kill your wife?”
“No! Absolutely not! And it didn’t happen that way. I lost control. We had a heated argument and...my mind snapped. Maybe I blacked out. Don’t know.”
“No thoughts-no plans to kill her?”
“None.”
“But what about your impulsive rage?”
“That’s why I’m here-to learn how to control my rage.”
“Yes, that’s why you’re here. Now, just a few more questions.”
“Shoot, doc.”
“Do you hear voices in your head?”
“No.”
“Do you see things that seem real but are in fact imaginary?”
“No.”
“Do people wish to harm you?”
“No. It’s a beautiful world.”
“Do you have special talents-abilities?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me, please, who you really are and what you expect to accomplish. And what is your real name?”
“I believe God sent me here to do great things on this planet. I’m a flawed man, I know. But the real me...don’t laugh, doc. I believe I am The Savior.”
“Which Savior?”
“Jesus Christ, doc. I am the Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Son of God! I have much love to offer mankind. Resurrected as an imperfect man, I must go through a tortured metamorphosis-shed my rage, forgive my father, and reveal the truth to the world.”
Dr. Friedman gazed quizzically at his patient and announced: “I’ll give you some pills to help you sleep.”
“Ambien?”
“No. Something stronger. Risperdal 4 mg. at night before going to sleep.”
“Are you sure, doc?”
“Absolutely!”
Wednesday night Joseph Brown was Dr. Friedman’s last patient. The muscular young man, who looked like a weight lifter with his bulging muscles, stood about 5-feet-5 inches tall. He wore a white T-shirt with the words War on Terrorism imprinted in the center. His head was shaved and he had tattoos on his arms and neck. On his left and right arms, he had tattoos of the phoenix and the American flag. On his neck, he had a small tattoo of a bald eagle. He wore blue shorts, white Reebok sneakers, and a khaki backpack.
“What’s up, doc?”
“That’s my line.”
Grinning sardonically, Brown sat down, stared at Dr. Friedman, and announced: “Nothing’s changed. The war continues. And it’s still in my head.”
The doctor was silent.
“Yeah, I’m not here, doc. I’m back in Iraq. Yeah. I’m in a very dark place.”
The old man still did not speak.
“Do you hear that, doc?”
“What?”
“I hear explosions. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“My buddies are dead. Yet I’m still alive.”
Joseph Brown drifted off, his frenzied eyes leaping across the room in search of a lost treasure, perhaps, and vanishing in a vast wilderness of lost souls. When he returned, he looked quizzically at the doctor and mumbled: “Why do you want to kill me?”
“What did I do to give you that impression?”
“Nothing, doc. But your harsh voice...sounds like the frightening voice of the enemy and your face...it’s a dark mask hiding an alien, brutal image...and I hear your eerie voice and see your strangely familiar face and smell the foul odors of death...coming from your body...I hear the distant explosions again and again...my brain is on fire and shattered...there’s nothing left of me, doc, nothing!”
“Are you taking your meds?”
“Yeah.”
“Any side effects?”
“None. But the pills don’t work.”
“It takes time. Still, I’ll increase the doses and add another medication.”
“Okay, doc,” he whispered as he drifted off once more, a dwindling figure in a vast universe of Hell.
Thursday morning Dr. Friedman made a long distance call. He was puzzled and surprised by the information he received. He stored these enigmatic facts in the postern of his mind and thought about having dinner tonight with his son Jonathan. They’d eat at an old fashioned diner on Montague Street. Afterwards, he would sit alone or with his son on the Promenade and enjoy the magnificent sunset.
Before hailing a cab to Brooklyn Heights, Dr. Friedman picked up late editions of The New York Times and Post. He leafed through the pages and found a short article that interested him. There had been an explosion in a building on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. Thus far, only one person was confirmed dead. The cause of the explosion was still unknown. In the cab, he finished reading the article. Then he closed his eyes and rested.
After dinner, Father and son sat on a bench on the Promenade and watched a breathtaking sunset. Later, Jonathan left his father behind to enjoy the August night. The old shrink swallowed the beautiful view, drinking the sweet red wine of nature. Yet once again, he fell asleep. When he awakened, the Promenade was pitch-black. But still, he felt the other’s presence. Even before his eyes adjusted to the night, the other moved closer and sat next to the doctor.
“It’s you! Have you been following me the past few nights?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I feel safe when I’m close to you. But ...”
“Yes?”
“Something’s different. Can’t explain.”
Silently, they looked at each other through the darkness, bewildered and surprised by the inexplicable distance between them, although their bodies almost touched. Then the lonely doctor interrupted the silence and said: “I made a long distance call today.”
“Oh?”
“To a prison upstate.”
“Yes?”
“I believe you told me where he was during one of our sessions.”
“Perhaps. I don’t recall.”
“Described the crime to the warden. And once he verified who I was, he informed me that a prisoner named Jose Torres, a Viet Nam vet, died in prison ten years ago. He had, indeed, murdered his wife by blowing her up with a grenade. The only witness was the woman’s daughter. It was an unforgettable crime.”
“Of course it was.”
“I also asked him if the prisoner had any visitors during his incarceration. Seems his son Frank Torres used to visit him.”
“Guess even murderers are loved.”
“Yes, that seems to be the case. Human nature is certainly mysterious.”
“It is.”
“And coincidentally, I read an article in today’s paper about an explosion in a building on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. A man named Frank Torres died in the explosion. Well, a famous analyst named Carl Jung said there are meaningful coincidences in life. He labeled this phenomenon synchronicity. I suppose it could have been a meaningful coincidence or...something else.”
“What else, doc?”
“Revenge-for the sins of the father!”
“Dr. Friedman, even if I wanted revenge, I know nothing about explosives or other methods of causing an explosion. My scientific ignorance is proof of my innocence.”
“Proof only that you did not murder him alone. You had help. I imagine you hooked up with one of my other patients. You see, I have some very gifted patients, including you.”
“Thank you, doctor. You’re very kind. But not so bright. If I had help, I would have used more than one man. Perhaps, one man to break into his basement apartment while he was away and screw up the wiring-setting the stage for a fire or explosion. A second man would have followed him home, rung his doorbell, and forced his way in. I would have chosen a very strong and violent man to beat him up but not kill him, making sure he was semiconscious. This man might have been an explosives expert too, with access to the black market and illegal weapons like a grenade. Perhaps, in the very beginning I would have screwed both men to make them fall in love with me. Then I would have told them that Frank Torres raped me. Men are such fools. They think with their cocks. Like young boys, they pretend to be heroes.”
“Did Frank Torres rape you too?”
“Yes. His father told him about me. And he stalked me, broke into my apartment, and raped me in my own bed. He laughed in my face and said he’d be back. Any time. Any day.”
“Did he return?”
“Several times. He stopped about a year ago. But a few weeks ago, he called me. Said he’d be back any day. The prick laughed uncontrollably over the phone and then hung up.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“The cops are worse than the perverts. They blame the victim. Some of them are more twisted than these freaks. No way, Jose.”
A thick silence separated them. And they were covered by a veil of darkness and despair. The weary doctor waited for Maria to speak.
“Frank Torres got what he deserved. Hypothetically, if I had help, the second man would have started a few fires near the faulty wiring and thrown the grenade at Frank Torres. Before leaping to safety, he would have seen the terror in the pervert’s eyes.”
Abruptly, the troubled woman stood up. Clutching a black pocketbook, she said: “I used to feel safe in your presence. Now...you remind me of him.”
“Who?”
“Jose.”
“In what way?”
“He was an old man too. Pretended to love my mother and me. But we know what he wanted-what you want.”
“Ms. Torres, I am your doctor!”
“And he was my stepfather. Yet he raped me-stole my body. And you raped my mind! Goodbye, Dr. Friedman.”
Before he could speak, she scurried off into the pitch-black night. He sat quietly in the darkness trying to comprehend the madness and evil that had confronted him. A Holocaust survivor, he was eerily familiar with evil. Yet Maria’s confessions and hypothetical story of revenge and murder cut a deep hole in his soul. He closed his eyes and prayed.
Later, when he felt soothed by his prayers, it happened. Out of the darkness, she leaped and stabbed him once in the chest with a sleek knife. She tasted his blood and sauntered off, leaving him behind to die.
Perhaps, someone would discover his bloody body and call 911 in time. It was possible but improbable. And she could always count on people to look the other way. That’s what decent folks did, you see. Even at or just before sunrise when the joggers were out, she could count on the inherent evil in men, often hidden but ready to explode at any time.
In the distance, she slithered into the night, smiling sardonically, as she listened to the repetitive explosions in the waste land of her mind-imagining the final terrifying moments in the life of Frank Torres, a genetic freak who paid the ultimate price for the sins of his father.
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RAPE VICTIM
A Six-Word Story
Mel Waldman
Rape Victim. Predator returns. Shot. Castrated.
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BIO
Mel Waldman, Ph. D.
Dr. Mel Waldman is a licensed New York State psychologist and a candidate in Psychoanalysis at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies (CMPS). He is also a poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. After 9/11, he wrote 4 songs, including “Our Song,” which addresses the tragedy. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines including HAPPY, SWEET ANNIE PRESS, CHILDREN, CHURCHES AND DADDIES and DOWN IN THE DIRT (SCARS PUBLICATIONS), NEW THOUGHT JOURNAL, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, HARDBOILED, HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, ESPIONAGE, and THE SAINT. He is a past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature. Periodically, he has given poetry and prose readings and has appeared on national T.V. and cable T.V. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, American Mensa, Ltd., and the American Psychological Association. He is currently working on a mystery novel inspired by Freud’s case studies. Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, a mystery novel, was published by iUniverse in February 2006. It can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. Recently, some of his poems have appeared online in THE JERUSALEM POST. Dark Soul of the Millennium, a collection of plays and poetry, was published by World Audience, Inc. in January 2007. It can be purchased at www.worldaudience.org, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. A 7-volume short story collection was published by World Audience, Inc. in June 2007 and can also be purchased online at the above-mentioned sites.
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A Special Mirror
John Ragusa
Bert Randall went to a furniture store named Haints and Sons because his neighbor, Roy Seegler, said it had some interesting merchandise. Bert wanted to buy his wife Mandy a present for her birthday, and he figured this was the ideal place to find it.
He walked into the store and was amazed at the huge stock on display. There was furniture of every conceivable style and size in there. It all looked very expensive.
A salesman approached him. “Greetings, sir. Do you want some assistance? I can show you the vast array of items we have here.”
Bert pointed to a dresser drawer. “I like the look of this. How much are you asking for it?”
“The retail price goes for $12,000.”
“Wow! That’s too high for me.”
“Are you shopping for yourself or someone else?”
“I’m looking for a birthday gift to give to my wife.”
The salesman showed Bert a baroque little mirror. “This item is a special piece of furniture.”
“How so?”
“When a person looks in it, he sees the face of someone he loves.”
“You’re putting me on!”
The salesman shook his head. “I’m telling you the truth. The mirror has magical properties.”
“Gosh, that’s incredible.”
“You don’t believe me? Then buy it and take it home. You’ll see that it has a supernatural power.”
“Well, even if it doesn’t, it still would look nice on my bedroom wall.”
“Sure it would.”
“Okay, I’ll purchase it on my credit card.”
After the salesman rang up the sale, Bert drove home with the mirror, convinced that Mandy would like it.
* * *
When she saw it, Mandy didn’t seem very impressed with it. “It’s a rather strange little mirror, isn’t it?”
“I thought you’d be more excited about it,” Bert said.
“I suppose I could get used to it.”
“I’m sorry that you’re disappointed.”
“That’s okay, darling. It’s the thought that counts.”
“Should I get a refund?”
“No, definitely not. It’ll decorate our bedroom wall. It looked kind of dull with nothing on it.”
So Mandy hung the mirror on the wall next to their bed.
Bert didn’t tell her about the mirror’s power because he didn’t think she’d believe him. He thought it was a lot of nonsense himself.
* * *
The next morning, Bert woke up and looked in the mirror. He was stunned to see Mandy’s face!
It had to be a trick. He felt the glass to see if a photograph was glued on it, but there was nothing attached to it. Besides, Mandy wasn’t the type to play practical jokes.
Could it be that the mirror really was magical? He doubted it; he was probably imagining that he saw Mandy’s face.
The salesman at Haints and Sons must have thought he was gullible when he told him that gibberish about the mirror. Bert had no belief in the occult. He knew that black magic was superstitious bunk. No one can imbue inanimate objects with magic powers; it simply can’t be done. In the past, ignorant people believed in witches because they didn’t know any better. Today, everyone realized that sorcery is twaddle.
At that moment, Bert’s son Lex entered the bedroom.
“Good morning, Dad,” he said. “Are we going fishing today?”
“Yes, we’ll go later, but right now I want you to do something for me.”
“All right.”
“Look in this mirror and tell me what you see.”
Lex looked in the glass. “I see Sam.”
“You mean Sam, your dog?”
“Yeah. You know Sam.”
“Of course I do.”
“How come I saw Sam in the mirror?”
“Because a person sees the face of someone he loves when he gazes into this mirror.”
“Boy, that sounds weird.”
“I know,” Bert said. “But it’s true.”
He told Lex to go fetch his fishing pole for later in the day. The boy obeyed him, excited about the afternoon’s activity.
Two people had seen the faces of loved ones in the mirror, so it had to have a magical power. Bert now believed fully in the existence of black sorcery. He wasn’t skeptical anymore.
Mandy woke up then. “Hi, honey. How long have you been up?”
“I’ve been awake for a while.”
She got out of bed and stood in front of the mirror. Then she let out a gasp.
“What’s wrong?” Bert asked.
“I just saw Roy Seegler’s face in the mirror!” Mandy exclaimed.
Bert did a double take. Come to think of it, hadn’t Mandy flirted with Roy at a neighborhood block party a few weeks back? She certainly had.
Bert picked up a heavy glass paperweight from an end table. “Sweetheart,” he said, “come here a second. I have a surprise for you.”
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The childish ability to dream.
Jack Jones
I saw Hitler crying into his cereal.
Maybe they were Coco Pops.
With Labrador eyes and teeth unsharpened.
He was grey, malnourished and sagged great folds into the bowl.
No more malice.
Barely able to maintain his upper lip.
Churchill, on the other hand is laughing at his toast.
Golden butter glowing under his chin.
A healthy wobble.
No need for whiskey.
“Just peachy, thank you.”
He gestures all worry away.
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Post-Postmodernism?
Collin Breaux
Postmodernism is, arguably, the defining movement of the twentieth and twenty-first century. The other day I was watching this movie called My Big Fat Independent Movie. It was funny but it made me think too. Metafiction and metaart reveal our awareness of clichés and artistic conventions, as well as an analysis of our existences.
Navel-gazing seems to be a trend in our current age. In our advaced culture, wth monetary and social issues stable (for the most part), we still find a spiritual ennui. We feel empty amidst a comfortable lifestyle. So, we turn to a process of self-analysis to try and discover who we exactly are.
As well, we seek to discover the methods and reasons behind art. Art is a sense of exploring the human condition, and so we go to its very core. The humorous facet of self-referential works seems to be a way to express dismay and dissatisfaction with hackneyed expressions and stereotypical plots.
The postmodernist principle of chaotic collage is a reflection of the absurd insanity of contemporary urbanization, as well the over saturation of useless consumer goods...the clutter of Dada comments on the “garbage” within our daily lives.
I realize the idea presented forth by hyperreality and simulacrums—-that we live in a false age in which we create reality, that the days are so far removed from the real thing that we’re nothing but a copy, an imitation. I would dub this era the era of artificiality. Our fast food is processed in factories. The supermarkets we spend the majority of our time in are white and plain. We are illuminated more by fluorescent light than sunlight. We get our ideas about love from movies. We think we’re supposed to look like the stars on television; never mind that no one truly looks like that or we’ve never even met these people ourselves.
What surrealism, modernism, and transgressional art reflect is a breakdown of order and clarity instigated by the Industrial Revolution, which brings about an alienated and fragmented view of the world. The seriousness of high-brow art is scrutinized, and even that is rendered dull and pretentious.
On a more spiritual level, metaficton and other forms of art that consciously realize they’re fiction question the very essence of reality, ala The Matrix, and can be seen as a metaphor for Buddhist or Taoist enlightment. Think about it: most of our socializing takes place in front of a computer screen now, devoid of any real human contact. Technology only further contributes to this depersonalization. Even antiestablishment or antiglobalization ideals spring from others. No Logo and Crass have only reached that point before any of us did, and in fact they influence us in such a realm. No idea is truly original or our own.
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Progress
Mike Berger, Ph.D.
The tired old chalky brick
was no match for the massive
steel blade. The scruffy man at
the controls plowed with precision.
Section by section succumbed;
tumbling over it in chunks. The
roar of the diesel engine grew
as the blade shoot into foundation.
Toppled domino tracks scarred
the earth. The beep beep beep
of those are in reverse announced
another pass.
The quaint old Victorian home
stood in the way of progress. Its
demise was quick; no witnesses,
funeral or eulogies.
A twisted mass of rubble would make
way for modern convenience. It would
be replaced by a cold gray concrete
parking terrace.
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Details on Mike Berger, Ph.D.
I am 72 years old. I have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and was a practicing psychotherapist for 30 years. I am now fully retired. I have authored two books of short stories. I have published in numerous professional journals. I have freelanced for more than 20 years. My humor pieces Clyde and Goliath , Good Grief Columbus, and If Noah Built the Ark Today have won awards. I am now writing poetry full-time. I have many pursuits which include sculpting, painting, gardening and baking bread. My forcaccia is to die for.
WORK HISTORY: Weber County Mental Health 1961 -- 1991. Senior therapist on the youth team. Specialized in attention deficit disorder in children. Certified in biofeedback. Conducted psychological research.
Private practice specializing in bio feedback for attention deficit disorder in children.
HOBBIES and INTERESTS: Active scouter for 47 years. Currently a zone commissioner and an 11-year-old scout leader. I paint and sculpt. Some of my sculpture has won prizes in local fairs. Writing for the last 25 years. I have published two books of short stories plus numerous articles. Deep interest in science. My science library is extensive. I am particularly enamored with cosmology. I also read a lot in the area of human consciousness. I garden and have a lovely Japanese garden in my backyard. I baked bread and my focaccia is to die for. I sing a little bass in the church choir, but age is taking a toll on my voice.
OTHER INFORMATION: 71 years old and retired. I spend my time writing and sculpting. Married and have been for 48 years. Seven children and fifteen grand children. Of course they are all bright, articulate and good-looking.
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The House on Lily Lane
Lawrence Vernon
Susan set her suitcases down and knocked on the front door to 33 Lily Lane, a neat and prim two-story structure that boasted gleaming white walls, a picket fence, and the pleasant aroma of a freshly cut lawn. The door swung open, revealing a tall woman with gray hair and clad in a yellow, cotton dress. She focused her beady blue eyes on Susan as if the young woman was an unwelcomed intruder.
“Hello, Grandma,” Susan said.
Grandma did not reply. Instead, she held the door open and gestured for Susan to enter. Hefting her luggage, Susan walked through the doorway into a foyer. A flight of stairs led upward. To her right, an archway led to the kitchen. On her left, a second archway led to the living room. To its right, a photograph of her deceased grandfather hung over a table with a single rock lily in a black vase.
After her grandmother closed the door, Susan felt the woman’s hard glare drilling holes into her back. She turned to face Grandma.
Susan smiled weakly. “Thank you for letting me stay here until I can find a place of my own. Things have been difficult for me since Ben died. If there’s anything—”
“How bad was it?” Grandma asked.
“Excuse me?”
“The accident. How bad was it?”
“How bad was it?” Susan gawked at her grandmother as if the old woman had asked her to go streaking through the neighborhood. “Grandma, my fiancé died. Doesn’t that sound pretty bad to you?”
“You didn’t get hurt, though?”
“I got banged up a little, but nothing serious.”
“You wore your seatbelt, right?”
“Of course, I wore my seatbelt. I always wear my seatbelt. Why would you ask me something like that?
Her grandmother nodded as if confirming a suspicion and then pointed up the flight of stairs. “You can use your old bedroom. Lunch will be ready in an hour.”
Susan continued to stare at her grandmother until the old woman disappeared into the kitchen.
What was that all about? Why would she ask if I had worn my seatbelt? What a strange question. The old bird must be losing it.
Susan climbed the stairs, each step groaning with bitter memories. When she was fourteen, her parents had died in a fire, the result of her negligence with a coffeemaker. She had moved in with her grandparents and lived with them until she got an apartment with Ben. Pain, like a noxious brew, filled the years she had spent with her grandparents. Memories of abusive discipline, harsh feelings, and a lack of love haunted her mind.
At the top of the stairs, a hallway of doors stretched to a point of darkness. She turned to look down the flight of stairs.
A dark memory invaded her mind. She remembered Grandma was out visiting friends, leaving Susan and Grandpa alone together. Her grandfather had fallen down the stairs. Hearing the fall, Susan ran out of her bedroom. From the crazy angle Grandpa’s head tilted at, she surmised he had broken his neck. He couldn’t call out, but his eyes pleaded desperately for help.
She could have helped him but memories of brutal beatings with a thick, black cane crawled through her mind like slimy beetles. She turned on her heel and returned to her bedroom. Two hours later, she called 911.
When the paramedics arrived, Susan told them she didn’t know when her grandfather fell down the stairs. She was in her bedroom, listening to music on her CD player while doing her homework. After the paramedics transported Grandpa to the hospital, a doctor pronounced him dead on arrival.
He deserved to die. After the hell he put me through, how could I let such a man live?
She marched to her bedroom to twist the knob. The door swung open.
The tone of her old bedroom room radiated depression. Bland, white walls, void of decorations, frowned at her. Dusty drapes hung limply from a solitary window. Across from the foot of a neatly made bed, a bureau with a mirror leaned against a wall. Susan sniffed the air. Her room smelled musty as if it was a decaying corpse.
With her sneakers thumping upon the hardwood floor, Susan approached the bed and threw her suitcases onto it. They bounced once and settled.
She turned to gaze at her reflection in the mirror. Dark brown hair cascaded toward her shoulders. White skin glistened. A pair of lips formed a pink slash across her face. Moving her head closer to the mirror, Susan stared into her soft, brown eyes.
Her pupils constricted into tips of black. In them, agony squirmed like a wounded snake. Agony because Ben was dead. Agony because she had to live with her grandmother. Agony because the past had robbed her of her hopes and dreams. Agony because the future promised nothing but dark nightmares.
Tears trickled from the corner of her eyes. Her mouth twisted into a grimace, and her throat tightened. She collapsed to the floor as wretched sobs racked her body.
“Please, God, let everything be all right. Please.”
Only the suffocating silence of the bedroom answered her prayer.
#
“Isn’t this great, Sue?” Ben shifted the Celica into fifth gear. The needle climbed from seventy to eighty. The scenery on both sides of the car rushed by in a blur.
After slurping down a can of beer, Susan giggled. Earlier today, she and Ben had celebrated her twenty-first birthday at a surprise party. She beamed with happiness as Ben, in his silly juvenile manner, tried to impress her with his newly purchased Celica.
When a curve loomed ahead, Susan glanced at the speedometer. The needle dangled just below eighty-two. Concerned, she looked back up at the approaching curve.
“Be careful, Ben,” she said. “That curve looks sharp.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry, babe. I can handle it.”
Ben slowed down a little. The needle dropped below seventy-five, making Susan feel a little easier. However, her stomach was still a tight knot.
The car rounded the curve and Ben probably would have made it if a green Ford wasn’t in their lane. The horrified look on the driver’s face filled her vision while Ben screamed something.
Closing her eyes, she braced for the impact. When the two cars crashed into each other, Susan lurched forward causing her forehead to smack against the windshield. Pain ripped through her body as shards of glass punctured her flesh. Blood filled her mouth.
When Susan opened her eyes, she landed on the hood with a loud thud. Her body jerked once, and then she could no longer move. Her pain faded and blackness met her eyes. A voice whispered in her mind: You’re dead, Sue.
Susan bolted awake. Her heart pounded. Her sweat-drenched nightgown clung to her body like a layer of molasses. A sharp odor of urine tickled her nose, and she placed a hand between her legs, feeling a damp spot.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered.
Hyperventilating, she thought about her dream. It was all true except the ending. Susan never went through the windshield. She wouldn’t be here if she had. Besides, she always wore her seatbelt.
Not that time you didn’t.
Susan jerked as if someone had poked her with a pin. She kicked off her blankets, left her bed, and headed to the bathroom to clean herself.
An hour later, and wearing blue jeans and a blouse, Susan went downstairs into the dreary kitchen to find a cold breakfast of sausage and eggs waiting for her. After gobbling the food down, she thought about her plan of action for today. First, she would buy a couple of newspapers and peruse the want ads to see if she could find a job. She wanted to save up as much money as she could and get an apartment. The sooner she left this place, the better.
After putting her dish and utensils in the sink, Susan entered the foyer. Something gleaming in the living room caught her eye. Curious, she entered that room and stopped.
Like wasps, horror swarmed throughout her body, stinging every part of her being. Her mouth dropped open. Her heart rate accelerated. Perspiration trickled from under her arms and down her face.
A smashed, gray Celica dominated the center of the living room.
Susan cautiously approached the wrecked car and placed her hand upon the driver’s side door. Cold metal kissed her palm. She walked to the front and discovered a gaping hole where the windshield used to be.
You forgot to put your seatbelt on.
Through the busted windshield, Susan could see an unhooked seatbelt resting on the bloody passenger seat.
Susan backed away from the car. Dark terror wormed its way through her stomach, up her throat, and tore from between her lips. “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?”
“Susie,” someone said behind her.
Twisting around, Susan faced a thin, pale man with a shock of brown hair who smelled like rotting meat. A sweaty, white shirt hung onto his skeletal frame while baggy pants clung to his waist.
“Daddy?” Susan gasped. “But how? You’re dead!”
“Just like you,” her father said.
“What?”
“Just like you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her father advanced on her with outstretched arms and an awkward gait. His skin blackened and flaked off like chips of paint. He grinned.
Susan backed away. “Stay away from me!”
She stumbled over something and fell. With wide eyes, she leaped up, ready to defend herself, and realized she was no longer in the living room.
Cold cement walls frowned at her, and electric lights swung from the ceiling. A pile of wood rested in a corner. Cool moist air caressed her body. Rats squeaked.
“The basement,” Susan whispered. “How did I end up here?”
“Susan.” A hand touched her shoulder.
Shrieking, Susan whipped around to see a slender woman about thirty-five-years old. She wore a nightgown with a floral pattern and had long, blonde hair flowing from her head like a waterfall. Her eyes shone with rage.
“Mommy?” Susan cried.
Her mother’s body suddenly erupted into a flaming pyre, bathing Susan in a cascade of suffocating heat. With a nasty grin, the burning woman reached for Susan’s throat.
Susan fled from the hideous apparition and down a hallway that had somehow materialized within the brick wall. She continued to run until she bumped into something solid.
After falling onto her buttocks, Susan looked up. A tall, pale faced man in a black tuxedo and stinking of formaldehyde glared down at her.
“Hello, Susan,” the man said.
“Grandpa?” Susan asked.
“You could have saved me but you let me die, didn’t you? You hated me. You despised me. You wanted me dead. Now, I’m going to make you pay.”
With a nasty grin and outstretched hands, he advanced on her.
Susan twisted around and fled down the hallway. Instead of leading back into the basement, the hallway returned her to the living room.
When she arrived there, she discovered a rolled-up piece of paper with a yellow ribbon tied around its middle in place of the Celica. With her heart thumping, Susan retrieved the paper and read it.
Susan shut her eyes and dropped the paper as shock forced her into a near swoon.
“That can’t be,” she said. “That can’t be.”
The paper was a death certificate bearing her name.
When something creaked behind her, Susan spun around. Her grandmother was rocking back and forth in a rocking chair.
“What is going on here?” Susan asked.
Grandma stopped rocking, stood, and held up an unhooked seatbelt. “You forgot to put it on.”
“No.”
“Yes, you were drinking and so happy that Ben got a new car that you forgot to put it on. You went right through the windshield and died.”
“No.”
“Face it, Susan. We’re all dead and trapped in this house.”
“That can’t be! We’re not dead.”
“Yes, we are. You died in that car crash. I died from a stroke a month later.”
“No! You’re lying, you crazy, old bitch. I’m leaving right now.”
Susan rushed to the front door and wrenched it open. A brick wall greeted her. She backed away from the wall and collapsed onto the stairs.
“No,” she whispered.
“We can’t leave.” Grandma stood and waved her hand around. “This house is like a giant battery for lost souls. Sometimes when someone dies in or near it, the house will trap that person’s soul. That’s why we are all here. That’s why you are here.”
Grandma approached Susan and dropped the seatbelt onto the young woman’s lap. It lay there like a dozing snake.
“Face the facts, young lady,” Grandma said. “You are dead. You are trapped here and you’re going to be here for a long time. So get used to it.”
With that, Grandma departed for the kitchen.
Susan gazed upon the seatbelt for a long time before pushing it away. It clattered onto the floor. She buried her face in her hands and wept.
#
“So what do you think, honey?” John asked.
Christine shrugged. “It has a certain . . . charm.”
“That it does.”
While the young newlyweds stood in front of 33 Lily Lane, a soft, summer breeze that carried the scent of a freshly cut lawn ruffled John’s black hair and stroked Christine’s golden blonde strands.
A For Sale sign stood on the front lawn. Earlier today, the realtor, a lovely woman with a cheerful personality, had shown them the property. She had left to keep another appointment, but the couple had decided to explore the exterior of the house and its surroundings some more to determine if they would be happy here.
“I like it,” John said. “It’s close to work. It’s nice and roomy. I can convert one of the bedrooms into an office. I can set up a gym down in the basement too.”
Christine maintained a steady silence prompting John to nudge her.
“You don’t like it?” he asked.
“Oh no, I like it,” Christine said. “It’s just that the previous owner died in the kitchen.”
John chuckled. “What? You believe in ghosts?”
“No, I don’t believe in ghosts. It’s just that . . .”
Christine suddenly drew in a sharp intake of breath and widened her eyes. She remained transfixed as if under a fearful enchantment.
“Hey, hon.” John shook his wife’s arm. “Are you okay?”
Shaking her head, Christine blinked several times as if she had wakened from a deep sleep. “I’m sorry. I must have been seeing things. I thought I saw a young woman staring out of the window.”
“A young woman?”
“Yeah, she looked . . . really sad.”
John pursed his lips. “Maybe we better head back.”
“Yeah, maybe we should.”
They approached a SUV in the driveway. John hopped into the driver’s seat while Christine entered the passenger seat. He started the engine, and was about to back up when Christine grabbed his arm in a crushing grip.
“John!”
“What?”
Christine gazed at him like a frightened child. Her normally tan flesh had become bone-white, and her green eyes glowed with a violent fear.
“Your seatbelt,” she said. “You forgot to put it on!”
John looked down and realized he did indeed forget to buckle up. Shaking, he grabbed the seatbelt, pulled the strap out, and snapped it in place.
“Jesus, Christine,” John said. “You didn’t have to scream like that. You scared the hell out of me.”
She faced forward. “We can’t ever forget to buckle up.”
“Well, okay. I’ll be sure to remember that.”
Christine fell into a deep silence while John backed the SUV out of the driveway. After shifting gears, he drove away from 33 Lily Lane.
|
Frame
Dale Howard
A rectangular frame surrounds his face as if he is peering in from a giant movie theater screen. Dark spots blur the bottom edges of the frame like black holes, which turn out to be his thumbs placed in the corners. His brown eyes are swollen and coated in red from the salt that has leaked from them for hours.
Not much can be seen of his side of the frame but the pale, gaunt extreme close-up of his face shadowed in a single smothered sepia light that comes from god knows where, muting every tone and color so that it is hard to tell the man from the ceiling the color of dry dirt beyond him.
But on this side of the photograph, there is nothing but color and space. The sun, vibrance and warmth erupt in ten-mega-pixel brilliance too sharp to be called a true image of this one instant caught in time.
And they both smile. He, six months younger than now, is taller than her, so her pristinely blond head is pressed to his cheek, his left arm wrapping around her waist to pull her in closer to ensure he gets both of them into the shot.
The sepia man absently moves the picture around in his hand as if he were looking through a window to try and see more of the situation, but his attempts yield nothing more than what is directly presented to him in the photo; their faces shining at him through the glow that envelops them like a healthy aura...and a little bit of his right shoulder, all in front of an arctic blue sky.
But on this side, you can see what he misses. You see the park they stand in, treeless, but populated by voiceless hills of grass an emerald green the deep rich color of her eyes, and the city that surrounds it like an overzealous promise. The buildings aren’t quite skyscrapers, but lift upwards as if they are straining to reach the proper height, their angles twenty-first century modern and funky with colors that match brushed stainless steel balconies and glass, like rust red, sky blue, and desert tan.
You see not just their faces and a bit of arm, but their entire bodies, every pore and stitch of clothing. She is wearing vivid blue jean shorts and subtly pink sandals. Her tank top is so vividly orange you can smell sherbet when you look at it. Her hair is short-cropped and cute and surrounds a bubbly face flawlessly smooth—if not slightly freckled—even at such high resolution. Her teeth show through her smile and shine like a sensational idea.
He wears his blue jeans faded from years of diligent use, the missing back pocket a testament to their survival. A t-shirt the color of faded autumn leaves covers his lanky frame, and his long face gives an impression only of ivory when he smiles. His right arm is stretching in front of him, his fingers somehow enclosing around, not the camera you would expect, but the over-sized rectangular frame, though somehow, there is no distortion of measurement. Beyond the frame, all else is gray.
The sepia man blinks, and a tear comes crashing down upon the rectangular frame, blurring the ability to see him clearly from this side. One of the smudges in the corner lifts away and rubs at the blur, momentarily shielding him from the view of the happy couple smiling and staring blankly at him through this side of the photo.
The sepia man says something, though it is impossible to hear through the barrier of the rectangular frame, yet the way his lips move, it looks like he says this was the best time, and however melodramatic the sentence really is, it is undoubtedly true for there is nowhere to go from the “best” but in a steady decline. And the evidence is there if you know where to look.
From where he is, the sepia man can see only the happiness of the two looking back. But if you step to the side at almost ninety degrees, for example, you can see that her smile is pulled down ever so slightly at the edges to crinkle in resignation. If you continue on, and step behind her, you will notice her hip avoids contact with his, even though he pulls her close. And if you move a final time, and stand just off center from the rectangular frame that he stares through, then you will realize that the gossamer glint in her eye is not happiness, but doubt.
Finally, the man of six-months-later wipes his nose and the perspective of the silently still couple suddenly changes from the man and ceiling to the view of an empty room. Bare of everything that she has taken with her.
|
My Favorite Line in
the Silence of the Lambs
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
While the senator’s daughter
was singing along to
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’
American Girl,
Buffalo Bill was coveting
her skin. He tricked her
into helping him
getting a couch into his van.
Later in the movie the senator’s
daughter was down in a
hole in Buffalo Bill’s
cellar, while Buffalo
Bill danced for the camera,
tucking his dick between his
legs to appear like a woman;
the sick bastard.
For a homicidal killer,
Buffalo Bill had a soft
spot for his dog
Precious. Later in the movie
the senator’s daughter
called out, “Precious,
you little shit!” That was
my favorite line.
|
The Possibility Of Lucidity
Randy Medeiros
“The world around us has not changed as much as you think my friend.” Said Eddie as he reached into his right pocket for his green lighter.
“How can you say that with a strait face man? In the last hundred years, even the city cops have taken to the skys above, ninety percent of all cancers are curable, paper money is an antiquity, and,” Jake paused to hold up the joint between his fingers, “in our lifetime, this has been legal since we turned twenty. The world, has-fucking-so changed.”
Eddie barked a single breath of laughter at his friend, then turned his attention over to the two young ladies sitting with them in their after work circle, “Pardon me for bragging ladies, but I have an IQ of one hundred and eighty, and, I have been preview to nearly every history program available at UCLA III. I know. The changes before us are insignificant.”
They were sitting on Jake’s living room floor in a boy, girl, boy, girl fashion, ready to get stoned, when Jake had to justify their work to the two new girls, and get Eddie’s panties in a ruffle.
Susan, the blond to Eddie’s right with an apparent taste for Jake, spoke. “I don’t know if I could call flying cops insignificant, but I think I get what you mean by our changes are really nothing, as far as bettering man kind goes.”
“Please don’t encourage him Sue,” Jake said, then turned to his pal and said, “Now give me a light asshole.”
“But I am the light Ake, what you seek is fire,” Eddie said as he simultaneously lit the joint hanging from Jakes lips, and gave him the finger with a smirk.
“All she means is,” Said Odeta — the light brown angel to Eddie’s left — as she excepted the joint she was passed, “oppression, as well as aggression, has only changed in their favor over the last century.” She took a drag, then passed to Eddie who was now grinning from ear to ear.
Eddie nodded his thanks to the angle at his side turning her bright red. He was still holding in his hit when Jake piped in, reiterating his initial subject point by saying, “We construct and produce peoples new, or improved inventions, every day. Crazy gadgets with all the bells and whistles that would have made our great Grand’s shit pools around their ankles.” Susan laughed/coughed and began to tear up, “And no one in this circle can see the severe steps this place has taken? Don’t you people watch classic cinema?”
Jake patted Susan on the back. They made eye contact and smiled at each other. He mouthed, are you OK, and she nodded.
“So Ted McFuckall gets rich off of the self stringing guitar, and you want to give him the peace prize?” Eddie asked, acting a little defensive.
“Now now sweat pee,” Jake replied, cool as ice for he saw this on the horizon, “You know I’d never give that butt any real credit even if he deserved it.” It was now Jake’s turn to address the ladies of the room, “You see girls, Ed came up with that guitar thing a whole year before our boss. Ed still hasn’t gotten over it.”
The joint was back to Eddie, and when he drew in, he did it deep and long, without looking at any of the others. “Well... what happened?” Odeta asked.
Holding onto his hit as if it were worth twice its weight in US credits, Eddie croaked out, “The bastard stole it from me,” then exhaled. “He was at this party with us when I came up with the idea. I said I was too lazy to restring and tune my Gibson, so I had this idea to make one that could do it for me. It was easy enough to construct, and I just spat it all out to the people I was sitting with, in like, three minuets or something. Dick head heard it all. One year latter, he was offering me a job. That’s why I say things are the same, and always will be. Nobody wants to quit being dicks to each other, and guys like me never catch a break.”
“So you just took it? The job I mean,” Susan inquired as the joint made it‘s way to her.
“Not right away,” Jake answered, “First, the two of us got hammered as hell and robed Ted for half of his plans and burned’em. Then we went in and asked for double what he was offering, and he excepted.”
Odeta passed to Eddie once the joint made its next round, and then asked, “Well if you knew, why didn’t you just sue the guy for the cash, instead of poorly sabotaging him before becoming his slave?”
“For starters,” Jake said, still cool, still calm, and expecting all of this, “we are slaves to no man. And before the sabotage mission, I tried to help Ed, but I tried to help him get off his ass and make the guitar himself before the whole Ted thing. He was just too lazy.” Eddie sighed. “He can only find his creative groove when he’s baked, then he just kind of goes numb. Don’cha Eddie?”
“Eat me,” Eddie spat.
“He has the smarts. He has the ideas. He just doesn’t have the drive for it anymore. He refuses to apply himself.” Jake spoke with a grin, knowing he was getting under his friends skin, and liking it. He had after all promised his pal he would do this whenever the opportunity arose until the day he saw his pal woke up and become the guy he had the potential to be. It was a promise Jake loved to keep.
“Well that’s my queue to depart,” Eddie said to the group.
“What does he mean, ‘anymore’?” Odeta asked Eddie.
“Tell ya another time gorgeous,” He answered as he hit the joint one final time before getting to his feet. He passed it to the right, then walked toward the door of his friend’s apartment.
“You girls can kill that,” Jake said, pointing at the roach in Odeta’s hand. “Be right back.” He got to his feet, and followed Eddie.
When he got to him he asked if they were going to talk over the weekend. Eddie said they would get together tomorrow night for drinks, but tonight, he just wanted to chill at home after a nice, slow, stoned walk home. Jake shot his pal an — aw shucks, I was jus ribben ya pard — kind of look, and Eddie accepted it without debate.
They shook hands. Eddie walked into the late evening setting sun, and Jake closed the door behind him.
#
By the time Eddie had crossed the street and headed north, leaving his friends home, Jake would be bragging to the girls about how his best buddy since grade school, had created a drug that took one to amazing places without ever having to leave the bedroom.
In his reverie, Eddie wanted to picture the pair of girls, Ooing, and Awing, over his accomplishment, but his constant lack of imagination would not allow it. He saw them instead for how they most likely react. Curious, and chalk full O’ questions.
Is it still available?
Does it have any weird side effects?
Have you ever tried it Jake?
What’s it like?
Can we get some?
Where did he get the idea?
All questions easy enough to answer. He had them committed to memory like an actor memorizes his role. He had answered them enough over the past half decade, and that was why he left. Tired, ashamed, confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed by failure, it was a story he could no longer file under bragging rights.
#
Eddie left the comforts of his father’s home the day before he started college, and moved in with his grandfather. His grandfather’s home was a mile further from campus, and on the east side, but Ol’Gramps needed the company, and Eddie needed the freedom.
Grandpa Steve was a great roommate. Pot was both recreation, as well as medicine. Drinking was allowed, so long as there was enough to go around, and the same rule applied to loose woman. If one cleaned up after themselves, Gramps cleaned up after himself, which meant chores were obsolete. Loud music was a necessity because Gramp’s was nearly deaf, and sage like advice lied around every single corner, whether one wanted it or not. Life with Grandpa was virtual perfection.
The draw back was that unnecessary chores pertained strictly to the household stuff. Every morning, every afternoon after class, and every night, Eddie had to make sure Grandpa Steve was up to par with his meds. A simple enough task in 2105. Most meds were administered through a wave emitter chip in the patients temple. Brain wave fabrication was found to be easier on the body because it only gave the patient a two inch scar on the side of the face, and carried with it zero chemicals whatsoever. All the care giver needed to do is press a button on the face of a hand held device (and be sure that it was not the remote to the home media monitor). No more worrying about patients spiting out pills, digestion problems, or unchecked tolerance growth. Just point and click. Simple. Unless of course you get smashed and forget.
One afternoon, after returning home late from class’s, Eddie found his Grandfather outside, pacing back and forth confused, in his favorite shirt (My other penis is a Porsche printed on the front), mismatched footwear, and scratching his bald head for the third time in one week. He was pants-less and fancy free once again, and unaware of what he was doing.
He would address Eddie by his father’s name, and Eddie refused to correct him. They would walk inside, Eddie never pointing out his Grandfathers lack of attire, and lead him to the bedroom to find some clothing. Grandpa Steve would stop in front of his mirror and say, “Roland my boy, what the hell happened to my pants? And good god would you look at my junk! It’s gone and spoiled.” He would stare at his miniscule member, surrounded by dark charcoal grey pubes that he refused to trim with good reason (old people shake a lot don’cha know), and pluck at the blond tips of hair that were splitting at the ends. “It looks like a pale plum moon, smiling through a thunder cloud with stars in it,” he would mumble. “Roland, grab your father a pair of fresh panties would ya? The old man needs at cover up this re-damn-diculus catastrophe.”
Eddie waited for him to dress, point his meds to his temple, and click. He would then spend the next five or so minuets denying any and all reasons for his grin.
Latter that night, Eddie decided this was the last time his Grandpa Steve had to go through this. He retired early, and ducked into the basement. There, he read and researched every corner of his mind until he came up with the solution. He would make a drug that would keep Gramps busy until he returned from school. It would have to be a consumable drug because as smart as Eddie was, he knew doodely squat about brain wave activity. There were still small quantities of consumable drugs on the market for people that did not trust their brains to electronics, and Edie knew he could make something out of them.
Taking the following day off from school, Eddie kept his Grandfathers meds in check, and concocted a cocktail of old pills his Grandfather kept in a box downstairs. It was mostly Melatonin, and Antipsychotic pills, but there were a few hints of mood stabilizers, as well as antidepressants. He knew all about chemistry, and his drug recognition was that of a super Pharmacist, so when he slipped the concoction into Grandpa Steve’s cereal on Saturday afternoon, he did it without fear or question.
The first two doses left Gramps a little drowsy, but otherwise fine, and in a good mood. Eddie skipped the electro meds both times and found no sign of side-effects. But on the third day, when Grandpa Steve woke from his afternoon beer nap, he had something more to add to Eddie‘s research.
“Feels kinda like... the side effects of a good time, only without the head pain,” Grandpa had said with a grin. “I was dreaming, and I knew it. I didn’t wake up like I usually do... ya know, before you can go on a screw spree with every skirt you see? Instead, I had complete control. The clock say’s Iv been snoozen for two hours, but I swear Iv been screw’en for days. That shit you put in my cereal has one hell of a kick kid. Can I have more before bed?”
Eddie was shocked, but he shouldn’t have been. Trying to secretly drug any other old fucker mite be easy, but this was Steven Dechain. The man that saw everything.
He did as his Grandfather asked, and the next morning was greeted with the same results. The cocktail was helping his Gramps to dream lucidly. Added to that, Gramps never had another episode of pants free in the afternoon breeze, and never forgot to take his pills.
After retracing his research, and finding the drug to be safe enough for public use, Eddie decided to go forward with more testing, and more patients. He made a few calls, found some old supplies of most of the drugs he needed, found chemicals to reproduce the ones he did not, and got to work calling classmates that he knew would go along for the ride. If all went well, he would buy Grandpa Steve that voice op bidet for shits and giggles, just like the old fart always wanted. After all, Gramps deserved it. He always loved, and supported Eddie, all the way to the end.
#
Willfredo Almada, was smiling in Eddie’s minds eye, as each foot carried him forward, closer, and closer to his home. From the monitors set to news, net mag’s, and of course, that first day in court, that wrinkled douche never quit grinning.
Gramps had promised to strangle Willfredo if ever the chance came his way. “I’ll wrap my softy round his neck, n’ wait for a stiffy. That’ll do it,” Grandpa Steve had screamed at the monitor in the kitchen whenever Willfredo’s picture came on. “Silly bastard cant read any how. Way I see, I’m doing the world a favor.”
Eddie took in a breath, then laughed, eyes still at half mass from the pot he shared with his new friends in Jake‘s living-room. That was the angriest he had ever seen his Grandfather, but even when angered, you still had to laugh at him. It was the way Gramps had liked things.
Eddie was glad his Grandfather had not seen the turn out after the whole fiasco had ended. The depression would have killed him all over again.
No one, not even Eddie’s colorfully imaginative Grandfather, could have predicted that an eighty year old man, minus one pair of glasses, would go into a pharmacy, take the wrong product off of the shelf mistaking it for laxatives in a day and age where pills are nearly obsolete, stop for a big meal, eat, go home, swallow a hand full of said product, sleep for half a week, then, wake up so full of shit he has to call an ambulance because he cant walk.
The media was ecstatic. The court rooms were full. The lawyers were greedy. The stress was high. The public was confused, and angry.
The pills stopped selling. Eddie went broke. Grandpa died. Mr. Almada lost. Lucidity came off the shelves. The dream died.
Even though Almada had been laughed at by the Judge, Eddie was still stuck with the bill. Lawyers, and court fees, drained him of every dime he made from Lucidity. All he had left was two cases of pills that he preordered for his Grandfather, and a voice operated bidet, still in the box.
He kicked at a piece of gravel in his path, knocking it three yards along the sidewalk. He was depressing himself, and his buzz was clearing up. Soon he would be home, drinking a beer, and trying to forget his past by browsing dirty movies online.
He could install his Grandfathers bidet in his own bathroom. It was still in the original package. But why change routine when you know what worked?
He cocked his foot back for a third kick at that piece of gravel when a city bot came whizzing between his feet. The whirling saucer, no bigger than a dinner plate and no thicker than Eddie’s shoe, flashed its amber lights while beeping and bleeping with frustration, not caring that it almost knocked him on his ass. It stopped whirling, but the beeping and bleeping, along with the flashing lights, continued. Two windows, on what mite be the city bots face opened up to let loose two aluminum arms of spindly proportions. Atop the head, in-between the two amber lights, was a square metal plaque reading — City Bot’s : Road Work Division : Property Of USA. Then, from inside the little bot, came a low growling noise that Eddie had almost mistook for animalistic anger, until the machine produced a paper violation for disturbing a city employee out of its rear end.
The city bot flew off taking the piece of gravel Eddie hoped to kick all the way home with it. It left the violation at his feet. Eddie gave it the finger after seeing the price he had to pay for kicking a stone in his path, but the bot did not see his act of defiance. Not a year ago, Eddie would have been exalted in flipping of a human instead of a bot. Maybe Jake was right. The world really had changed.
He hung his head, picked up his paper violation before the bot could return and ticket him for littering in a work area, and shuffled the rest of the way home.
#
The small square panel beside his front door read his thumb chip, and opened his door. The newer chip locks read via flat panels for hygienic reasons, but Eddie was living in an antiquated part of the city, and his lock required him to slide his thumb into a hole in the wall. The same process was required to page the occupant inside by visitors; therefore, it became the deciding factor when Eddie chose his first apartment after college. Hygienic or not, he loved the reaction from visitors when they paged him and received a low, sexy, yea baby, from the computer inside his home. Even if it didn’t make him laugh out loud, it never failed to bring a smile to his face.
As the door slid open the computer welcomed him in. The chip lock had made him smile, but the wavery woman’s voice from his outdated DD-VACA (Domestic Domicile - Voice Activated Computer Assistant) had been creeping him out lately, and his smile faltered.
“Hello DD. How was your day love?” He asked as he settled in.
“Fine sir,” The woman’s voice responded. “And yours sir?” It asked in its fabricated politeness.
Eddie did not answer. He was busy, still standing at his entrance, looking around his apartment, searching for his stash. He looked left, over the four foot length of breakfast bar into the narrow kitchen, then right, into the 30x50 room that served as both living and dining area. The room was bordered by a long black couch that faced the media monitor hanging on the wall between the bathroom (Left), and the bedroom (Right), and between these two objects was a brown coffee table that contained his manual access panel for the DD-VACA, and his stash.
He clapped his hands together, rubbing his palms, happy to see all was as he left it this morning, then walked forward to the monstrosity that was his dining table. Once upon a time, people actually viewed sleek silver pieces of metal to be artistic, and modern. Eddies table was just that. A 6x4 slab of re-enforced aluminum jutting from the wall, with four matching chairs, and no legs to hold it up. It was ugly as hell, floating like some divers spring board in the middle of his home, but it served its purpose. He emptied his pockets onto the table. His card keys from work (ID chips under the thumb nail were for identification and financial purposes only. The law prohibited people from using them in the work place.), his cigarettes, and one violation for three hundred and fifty credits, then made his way to the refrigerator.
“DD love,” Eddie said, addressing the computer, “My day was just peachy. Are there any messages?”
“Yes sir, several. Shall I display them on the refrigerator monitor?” DD asked.
Eddie opened the fridge, and extracted a bottle of synthetic beer. He only bought synthetic. It tasted better then the natural stuff that only the well off could afford, and to his knowledge, even the well off drank the cheap synthetic unless they were being watched. Organic hops just couldn’t stand up to the cloned flavor anymore. He twisted off the bottles cap, and said, “Yes, please. And for fuck’s sake DD, do a diagnostic tonight when I go to bed. Find out what’s wrong with your audio and fix it. Shit gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“My apologizes sir, but I have no file on heebie-jeebies. Are they dangerous?”
“No DD, but they are very agitating.”
“Then it shall be done sir,” DD assured. “First message. Origin, your office sir. Playing message.”
Eddie leaned against the breakfast bar, and the monitor on the fridge displayed the origin number of the message along with and orange bar that signified it was a commercial business communication line. He watched the screen as he listened to his own voice emit from invisible speakers in the walls and ceiling.
“Eddie man,” his voice said, “stir fry some veggies tonight. Your physique needs to improve to impress the new girl at work. And do some sit ups too.”
“End of message sir,” DD said as Eddie drained a long, happy, gulp of beer out of the bottle, thankful that he had bought the light. “Second message. Origin, same as first. Playing message sir.”
Eddie was rummaging in the fridge for the frozen veggies, when his voice from the past reached him again, “Eddie man. Jake has convinced the new girls to meet us after work for a bowl. The caramel cutie thinks you have a sweet ass. Forget the veggies, stick to the norm.”
“End of message sir,” Said DD as Eddie threw his frozen veggies back into the fridge. “Third message. Origin, domestic.”
“Just a sec DD,” Eddie interrupted. “When we’re all set with the messages, call dominoes and order my usual please.”
“Yes sir. Playing third message.”
Eddie closed the fridge, paused with his beer bottle by his lips, and sighed. The blue bar, domestic line communication, bore an all too familiar number. He drank deep and long from the bottles neck, letting in the cool liquid, and savoring the warmth of his blood as his ex-girlfriends voice came out of his walls.
“Eddie, you lame dick! Its Rita,” the voice of his ex Spewed. “You still have over a hundred hours of my music files in your computer and I want them back. I’m tired of chasseing you down Eddie. I want them by Monday or else. And change your computers voice. It’s not funny.”
“End of message sir,” DD said.
“DD, did you relay the message to Rita we agreed upon?” Eddie asked.
“Yes sir. Her response was that she had completed the task you gave her several times this morning, and that both performances far exceeded those completed by you, sir.”
“She always was a quick witted gal.”
“My apologies sir, but I have no files on how one can have relations with ones self, therefore; I cannot share in the wit you and the young lady have exchanged. Shall I continue with the final message?”
Eddie took another sip from his beer, finishing off the first half of the bottle, swallowed, then said, “Yes DD love, please continue.”
“Final message. Origin, private. Playing message sir.”
Private? Eddie leaned forward too take a better look at the display on the fridge. The number was from somewhere in the north, possibly New York, or Boston. The black and white bar was corporation communications. Big corporation.
Eddie held his breath, and listened closely.
“Hello Eddie,” The voice of a professional woman speaking in casual tones began. “How have you been sleeping lately? Not that it’s any of my business, but inquiring minds want to know.” There was a short pause before the woman continued, “A few friends, along with myself, are very interested in your past, and hope to use it to better our futures. All of our futures. Including yours Eddie. Get back to me when you can. We would all be very exited to hear back from you, so try not to keep us waiting.”
“End of messages sir,” DD said as Eddie exhaled.
He dumped the rest of his beer into his stomach with two long gulps, then belched good and heavy. His eyes wide, jaw dropped, he placed the empty bottle beside the sink, just left of his fridge, then began to pace back and forth.
“Could it be true?” Eddie thought out loud. Could someone be interested in re-marketing Lucidity? Interested? Exited? About me?”
When DD spoke up to tell him his dinner would be arriving in fifteen minuets, Eddie jumped. He stopped pacing and headed for his bedroom. Inside, left of his bed, his closet doors were open. Inside the closet he could see the crate containing Grandpa Steve’s unused gift, and on top of that, two unused cases of Lucidity. He grabbed the case on top, and brought it with him into the living/dining room.
Spilling everything off of the coffee table — stash included — Eddie put the box of Lucidity down, then sat on the couch in front of it. He snagged a loose piece of tape from the left side using his right hand and tore it off in one smooth motion. The contents inside had an aroma of new electronics. He picked up the first box he saw inside and studied it. He had been studying it for so long, and so intense, that when the delivery man paged him the, yea baby, in its wavery voice barely reached him.
He walked all the way to the door, package of Lucidity in hand, eyes watery and never wandering from their point of interest. When the delivery guy commented on how much he liked the door pager, Eddie paid him no attention. He took his pizza, barely noticing that he was balancing a box of buffalo wings on top, set them on the dinning room table, then returned to the door to pay for his purchase, all the while staring at the box in his hand. He held out his right hand, palm down, and let the delivery guy scan his thumb. He tipped twenty percent, and closed the door before the guy could thank him, not meaning to be rude, but doing it anyway.
He sat down at his ugly table with a fresh beer, and ate in silence. The box he had carried with him to the door, was now propped up like a picture frame less then twelve inches from his face.
Coming out of his trance, Eddie finished eating, put the leftovers in the fridge, got himself a third beer, got his cigarettes and lighter off of the table, along with the box of Lucidity, and brought everything to the couch. He dropped the Lucidity back into the case with the others, then set the case on the floor. He cleaned up everything he had spilled from his coffee table, then packed his pipe, and smoked in silence.
When he finished smoking, he set the pipe aside, watched it smolder out, and lit a cigarette. He picked another box of Lucidity out of the case without looking, still a bit shocked from his call, and opened it. He took out a single pill, put the rest back into their container, then tossed them into the case by his feet.
He studied the pill in his fingers, wondering why after seven years he had never tried the drug himself. He had practiced the art of lucid dreaming many times, and had on occasion accomplished his goal, but never with the aid of his creation. He had tried most of the drugs that completed the cocktail in each pill, but all of them separately. He was willing to bet, this one pill he was holding, would give him he effect his Grandfather had to wait three days for, simply because he had already studied the art.
He opened the foil package, and popped the pill into his mouth, then swallowed it with a mouth full of beer. The drug was not meant to be taken with alcohol, but synthetic beer would do no harm, and Eddie didn’t care either way.
He laid back, finishing his cigarette, thinking if he wasn’t on his way back to the top, the pill would at least let him dream he was.
|
Inheritance
David Shreve, Jr.
“The clearest sign that your soul is dying comes in your sleep,” you remember him saying a few times. “When you stop dreaming in possibilities and start dreaming in memories, that’s when you know you have an old spirit.”
You used to overlook his ideas. You used to discard the knowledge carried in his guidance. You’d nod with your head and shrug it off in your mind. But now you wish you could ask for more. You want some sort of elaboration. You want to know why you’re only dreaming about losing loved ones and committing crimes.
Because it turns out, he was right about pretty much everything. You’ve come to find that his perceptions and predictions are as accurate as humanly possible. All these years later, it’s clear to you that true genius is best on display when one speaks only what one knows, which is never really much, and his wisdom never relied on outward assumption. He never let his thoughts step outside of his existence and that made him more intelligent than anyone gives either of his parents credit for in the early years.
It seems he had you pegged from the start and you wasted any advantage that might have offered.
He was not clairvoyant or anything. He only knows about you because the only thing that separates the two of you is twenty-seven years. He was you before you were even born. The days of denying it are long gone. There’s proof in every inch of your being.
You have his shaky hands and his weak knees.
You have his wild hair and his sharp stubble beard.
You have his fascination with death and his passion for storytelling.
You have his sad eyes and nervous laugh.
You have his social anxiety— his knack for being as far away as possible from everyone. In every sense.
But tonight, that last part is failing you. Tonight you have company. The kind of company that fills ashtrays and empties bottles. The kind of company that keeps burning into you with a staring promise of an all night stay. The kind with modest looks but eyes that work well enough to make you consider forbidden terms and lips wet enough to make you breathe like you hate the air in your lungs and skin so fucking warm you can’t figure out why you still prefer an empty bed.
You’ve dealt with the talking part that you and he both hate. Now you have to deal with the even more painful part, the one he knows nothing about. That jittery wait as she leafs through the pages she’s begged you to let her read. The pages you’ve composed against his better advice to drop your delusional hobby and pick a more promising career path. Five months of poverty, a minimal diet complete with regular hunger cramps, a series of meaningless part time jobs, an overwhelming sense of worthlessness, and an ongoing lack of ideas has proven him right on that front as well.
And now she’s so focused she hasn’t brushed the hair that’s come loose from her ponytail away from her face in minutes. She’s wrinkling her forehead and letting her mouth hang slightly ajar. You can’t help but wonder if she’s concentrating on the words or on counting how many seconds it would take for her to finish each page of this boring, boring, boring story before she flips to the next one without really reading. Jesus, you even have his self doubt.
As you put your lips to the glass and tilt it back, the ice sings a mocking song at you. You let what is left of the liquid contents swim down your open throat. The burn is deep in your belly and for a moment, in some inexplicable way, that discomfort screams at you loud enough to drown out the rest of them. It occurs to you that, most likely, she will be tasting the dull punch of Scotch when your mouths press together open for one another, but then you realize that her tongue promises to be like a vodka tinged bullet, so you’re okay with that. As long as it provides that muting of the mind that you usually require for nights like these.
Yet another aspect of life that he had correctly warned you about. “Don’t start drinking. With your blood, the only drink you’ll ever turn down is your first one.” This one had always been more than just a precautionary instruction, it was the silently desperate plea of fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years of sobriety trying to save you from a similar trap.
Your loss again. Now, if you make it to a Friday without a drink, you’re shaking a little more, hating your life a little harder, and mumbling vicious words to yourself in that state between consciousness and sleep. Scotch. It was his drink before it was your drink and like a small portion of the other things you’ve inherited, you wish he would have kept it for himself.
The greater portion of your short story is behind the index finger she is using as a separator and it looks like she only has about three pages left. Shit. Now it’s hitting you hard. That cold blanket of realization that smothers you in the useless wish that you could take back the entire day and just not dial her number, that you could flip these dim lights completely off and she would disappear. That worst kind of loneliness. The sort that’s only intensified in the presence of a yearning other. When a second party only highlights that aimless sense of floating that has bludgeoned your spirit to submission over the last few years. You’ve hid those thoughts so successfully on your own. You’ve taken those notions that every relationship we have is an illusion constructed from loneliness— that all affection is fear of death— and you’ve trapped them in the dungeons of your mind. But with her right next to you, these notions have realized that your guard was down and they’ve escaped. Now they are attacking you with the violence of a prisoner fighting for freedom.
It’s a reality that, from your experience, applies only to two lives. Yours and his. With every purchase of love, there comes a free gift of hate. One hand might beckon her closer, but the other will push her back after her initial step. During your youth, it was the awkwardness of the quiet living room and loud implosion of two voices in the kitchen that you woke up hearing at night time. It was your mother trying hard not to cry in front of you and him finding ways around apologies. And yet it was the way that theirs was a strong love. And now it’s your fight to find that balance.
Recently, you keep hearing his voice and those words of solace he offers to you all the time. “As long as I’m alive, you have a home, bud. If you need to stay somewhere while you figure things out, then it should be here.” It hurts you to know that you’re making him leave his comfort zone, begging him to be more open than he really wants. But, every day it seems more likely that if this pretty plan doesn’t work out, you might have to take him up on it.
She’s finished the story now and placed it on the coffee table.
“There’s something about the way you write...” she speaks a sentence fragment and catches the rest by biting her bottom lip. Meanwhile, her fingernails are pressing tiny crescent moon indentations into the top of your thighs and your heart is whispering to you a painful promise that you’ll be a little more dead in the morning when you wake up next to her. But you don’t know what to say back because he never taught you anything about where this is supposed to go or how it’s supposed to get there.
|
Unnoticed acts of God
Sean Anthony McGhee
When the sky changes color
Do you actually fathom what is happening?
Does your mind contain the capacity to comprehend all that is unfolding in front of you?
And has every single day of your life?
How often do you feel gratitude?
What does summer taste like at dusk?
It’s like someone set a bouquet of roses on fire and threw it into a pool of purple house paint,
Then I fall asleep
|
what is veganism?
A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don’t consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.
why veganism?
This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.
so what is vegan action?
We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.
A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.
vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444
MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)
functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen
We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.
The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST’s three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST’s SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does “on the road” presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061
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