the New Deal

Foul Plays

She planned her revenge
while out on the lawn.
But deep inside
he too spawns
ideas of his own.

75 people in a Dallas room

In a monied culture built on money
One learns numbers are
The sum total
A clandestine dinner party of White is Right
Rockwell glasses hoisted petard, in a toast
Honestly does not matter
‘Matter’, being not relative
Unless you really believe
Stats are bullshit
It honestly would not matter
If American Nazis descended from Heaven
Upon wings of silver to strains of Enya
If from unclean lips poured purest dreams
Glacial water, fountain,
I knew Chin Chinardson
Elven Kucinich
Joseph P. Biden-his-time had Aught Chance
In 20Aught8
When I spied with my little C-SPAN
Each emptied room of scant apostles
The damned lie of no butts in seats

the Fish with Head Intact

It said nothing to me
of the fancy surrounds,
the intimate decor,
the flickering candle
that centered the table,
nor the silverware,
each knife and fork
intricately engraved
with the restaurant’s florid name.
Not one word either
on the menu,
entrees in French
with every ingredient listed
like hues on the cook’s palette.
Its conversation didn’t lend itself
to sauces, reductions, obscure vegetables,
the extravagant prices,
or the waiter’s exaggerated accent.
It didn’t ask
what I was celebrating,
who my companion was,
what was in the drinks,
nor what I expected in return
for footing the outlandish bill.
All it could say was
“Once I was a living creature,
cold blooded, aquatic,
swimming freely in the bay.”
And it didn’t even say that.

John Grey bio

    John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Rockhurst Review and Spindrift with work upcoming in South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Sanskrit and Louisiana Literature.

Something More

As much as music it was fog,
as cold descending,
as candles stayed unlit,
as if daylight was more than daylight.
It was not ceremonial,
a stillness filling a doorway.
A reverie not yet begun,
pedestrians stopped,
mediums stumped.
No one could have choreographed it,
nor was there need for naming it,
not paid for, done for the taking,
nothing held back.
The accidental whelming up:
data eclipsing tact:
antiques totalled, squatters edgy, swat teams
with their sawed off shotguns at the ready.

blood of revenge & hate

Charlie Hebro satirical review
mocks Muhammed &
the Muslims shoot them all dead like

back to the Crusades when
it was done before &
no one has forgiven/ the

blood of revenge & hate when
all prevaricate, &
the only solution is murder, &

the French come in the
guise of justice, but nobody
knows what that is/ confusion

prevails & blood flows in
pails until all drown in
their own evil beyond

understanding &
murder becomes the only
recourse/ hate

rules the day &
no one’s left
standing    .    .    .

lynching & cutting off heads

They’re still lynching them in Mexico &
cutting off their heads in Syria &
beyond/ it’s an institution of revenge &

hate/ there’s no time to wait/ it’s
a time to hate which may be forever,
ubiquitous & endless as an

expression of man’s respect & love for
man/ there’s no compassion/ no
body gives a damn/ the

bodies pile high &
spirits rot/ the stench is
outrageous/ ISIL recruits

everywhere & men stream in to
add their bloody mark on a
world of sin/ the

religious fanatics still try
to dance on the head of a
pin/ the

bodies pile high to
besmirch the sky as
Jesoo keeps laughing with

his severed head revolting/
the dust accumulates &
blows dry    .    .    .

untitled (aroma)

without turning in bed:
salt-sweet aroma of her

The Outside World Observed
the Scottish Referendum

Scotland’s people debated,
determined a new future.

World scholars discussed
the key developments,
placed them in context.

Previously they asked,
“Is Britain still great?”

Yesterday they wondered,
“Is Britain still a United Kingdom?”

Election Letter #1

To the Voters of Ohio,

Again we had our chance,
and again we blew it
Every twenty years we get a chance to vote
on whether to hold a constitutional convention,
and though a generation has changed
for the fifth straight time we’ve rejected
the chance to re-write or revise our basic law
Our ancestors were better citizens:
holding conventions in 1851
(new constitution adopted),
                            1873
(new constitution rejected),
                            and in 1912
(thirty-three of forty-one amendments passed)
                                            But
too many of us listened to the elites,
those demonizers of demos,
                            who,
rightly fearing reduction of their power,
once again were uniformly against it

And we had a second chance
to rein in the political class,
and blew that too,
                rejecting
a measure that would have taken the power
to protect themselves and their cronies
away from self-serving politicians
(sorry for the redundancy)
and given it to independent citizens
                                    Again,
the elites were uniformly against it;
                                again,
too many of us listened
                        Well,
at least we don’t have to wait twenty years
to have another chance on this one

Better luck next time,
Michael

Dancing at “The Abyss”

There’s a club dubbed “The Abyss”
where everyone who’s anyone
dances on the edge,
where terrorist and general
separatist and loyalist,
leftist and conservative,
elbow one another,
high on jingoistic near beer
and solidarity’s addicting upper,
cultural-ethnic superiority,
where war and death
prance cheek to cheek
to an orchestration so enthralling,
with a culmination so invigorating,
it’s left all caterwauling,
“From crematoria of Europe,
    to killing fields of Rwanda,
    Syria, Cambodia,
    we’re dancing at The Abyss”

Dead Poets At Barnes & Noble

The dead poet’s section
down at Barnes & Noble
appears to be getting
progressively smaller each
time I go in there, with my
Xmas gift card. Now, only a
few shelves remain over in
an obscure corner near
the children’s section. And
scattered among the tombs
are a handful of living poets:
the academics, of course,
those approved by the Empire,
who have been bestowed
with the dubious honor of
becoming functionaries of the
Empire. And those few poets
might as well be dead too, for
all they’re worth.

L-I-F-E, Spelling Us Out

As a child,
I would play as a child,
cry as a child,
try to make sense
of a world I would never
understand

As a youth,
I explored the passion
of youth,
chasing its gods
through a world I struggled
to defend

As a young man,
I would point a finger
at bigotry,
tracking its origins
through looking glass wars
all around

Older, little wiser,
I would run the gamut
of rogue truths
draining the body
for demanding centre stage
of the mind

Mature. Human eyes
reassessing any potential,
fast tracking us
to dog ears pricking up
at even the slightest breath
of ill wind

Dead to all intents
and purposes, found wanting
for failing to clear
the table of leftovers
for history to make sense
of a kind

Acharugo

I met a lady once of a jovial nature
She moved her hips freely from left to right
Then spun round and round and round and round
Like a flying saucer

“I used to come to your house in Roswell” she said
As she pointed a finger at me
Her accent thick as tar
With a smile on her face
And an eyelid stuck in a perpetual gaze

She moved her hips freely from left to right
All the while looking
Staring
With a smile on her face
And then she left
Without a trace

I’ve thought of her since
By one phrase

“I used to come to your house in Roswell”
She said once
In that wild party hall
So she stood tall
Pointing from far away

But if only she stayed longer
I would have introduced myself

That accent
Thick as tar
I still remember her well
In dialect

“My name is Acharugo”
She said

Don’t Become Me

I kept a bowie knife
after the sheriff
kicked me out of my foreclosed house.

With it, I stabbed his chest,
cutting a line from the waist down.
With my bare hands,
I ripped open the rib cage,
cleaved the arms and legs off the body,
saving the extra meat for the next day.

I took a few chomps out of a heart, held in my palm,
blood dripping down my shirt.

A few eyes and their extensions, tied together,
dangled from my neck.

I pulled the organs from the body,
laughing, trembling uncontrollably,
the meat lying in front of me,
giving me a flesh-eating virus,
eating away my neck.

The tremors grew worse,
the laughter more unstable,
I soon lost control of my muscles.
Unable to speak or swallow my food,
I sat, waiting, unresponsive to my surroundings,
not even able to lift my head or breathe through it.

Crime Blotter #1
Thirty-Four Times

When she woke me up, she was screaming, Find the title to the car, damn it. We began to argue. They say I must have stabbed her thirty-four times before they broke down the door. I don’t remember. Thirty-four times?—I’ll take their word for it. Me, I can’t remember a thing, except those screams, and the sound of an airplane flying overhead when the cops broke down the door. I told them, explaining, “After her screams woke me up, we began to argue.” I just wanted to shut her up before the cops broke down the door. “Shut up” I said. She wouldn’t listen. She never listened. “Shut up. Shut up” I said over and over. I do remember it, the sound of an airplane when the cops broke down the door. We had been arguing. I don’t remember stabbing her thirty-four times. Find the title to the car, damn it, she was screaming. I just wanted to shut her up. Thirty-four times? I don’t remember.

Published in Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, 2014

Boss Lady

She ties
the scarf around her neck
and checks in the mirror to see if the loose skin on her chin is showing

She puts on her drugstore rouge

She is proud
of the fact
that she has come so far in her career
on only an undergraduate degree

She comes in the office
at 9:20 AM
because her child would not let go of her leg this morning
She leaves the office
at 4:30 PM
because she’s already paid her dues in the industry

She won’t let her five year old get a pet
She and her husband find dirt of any kind
horrifying

She invites
all of her friends in from out of town
to celebrate her 45th birthday
and buys t-shirts for everyone that read
“45 and Fabulous!”

She thinks of theme restaurants as haute cuisine

She gets into
dueling martyr contests at the office
about who ate the least amount for dinner last night
She goes on a rampage
later that morning
demanding everyone to hand over their chocolate

She feels entitled
to complain about her weight
even though she refuses to exercise

She hires young women
straight out of graduate school
to mold in her own image
and help create her family’s Christmas newsletter

She is nicknamed
Murphy Brown
by her friends
as she can’t keep an assistant for very long

And someday
when she is an old lady
she shall wear
purple

unmarried women and
dead bodies everywhere

the Ganges River in India,
the most saced river to Hindus
is still religiously renowned

but on one day not too long ago,
at one tributary of the Ganges river
they discovered twenty-eight bodies

the locals first spotted the corpses
when vultures surrounded those bodies
as they piled up along the shore

online news sources explain
that bodies may have been left there
when families couldn’t afford a burial

and at those same online news sources,
lucky you, you can see videos of dogs
eating at the flesh of the dead

—

but I was there, I read those newspapers
as the Times of India came to me daily,
while locals discovered more bodies:

before they found one hundred and four
the local papers explained
that this ‘tradition’ of “jalpravah”

is a custom in some cultures —

when unmarried women die
their bodies are dumped in the river

—

unrecognizably decomposed,
more and more bodies
of unmarried women

kept floating to he surface
in just a few days,
in the sacred Ganges river

—

I kept looking for an explanation,
and all I could think was that
this river was supposed to be sacred

and I wondered if this is their effort
to give these women a family
in the afterlife, putting them in a river

they call sacred

because I know how they view women
in India, cover their skin, they don’t talk back,
because even though women

are treated like nothing to men there,
they’d be less than nothing
if they’re not married

 

one twenty fifteen
destruction instructions:
use drones to kill

The new arsenal
for the U.S. military
has been to use drones
to kill Middle-Eastern enemies.

Because, you know,
with drones for killing
we’re free of friendly fire
and are saved from sniper strikes.

What a deal.
But now those drones
are used by Amazon
to send your products to you,

and these drones
are filling up he sky
invading our airspace —
the FAA’s starting restrictions...

But who listens
to the FAA anyway,
when drones with cameras
are for sale to the highest bidder?

‘Cuz I’ve got plans
for my little drone.
I’ll take that camera off.
(I don’t need to film what my

drone’s gonna do.
It might implicate me.)
Because my little hover drone
will be armed with gun turrets,

and instructions
of exactly which house
to go to, and of exactly
who to aim for. Cause you see,

I can keep
my distance,
and let my technology
do my work for me. As I said,

as long as I set
the coordinates,
right on your heart —
the way you destroyed mine,

I don’t need
to be near you
to cover my tracks and
set my destruction instructions.

I’ll watch that drone
fly off to do my bidding.
And i’ll sit back, have a drink,
and wait to hear of your ghastly death.

one twenty fifteen
destruction instructions:
on destroying a relationship

I know you came to me
for assistance, and I know
all I’m telling you are don’ts,
but if you really want to get rid of them,
follow these simple steps
to destroy a relationship.

Don’t pay them any attention.
I mean, when they ask you
a direct question,
sure, you have to
answer them — eventually,
but just start
going about your life
like they weren’t there.
Forget you have plans together.
Make plans with your friends.
I mean, if the two of you
aren’t meant for each other,
they’re not going to want
to hang out with your
friends anyway, right?
(By the way, that could be
your rationale, if they ask
why you didn’t invite them.)

Don’t give them any space at your place.
Because you don’t want them
to feel like they have
any permanence in your life...
Oh God, you’ve done that already,
haven’t you?
They have their crap at your place?
Or let me guess, they’re trying
to redecorate? (Oh, that’s worse...)
Is the stuff there something of theirs
that can be destroyed —
on “accident”? ‘Cause really,
if you want to end a relationship,
you have to cut any and all strings.
I mean it.

Oh, I was going to suggest
you should look like
you have violent tendencies,
maybe clean your guns more,
but then I realized
that acting crazy
might backfire on you,
they could call the cops or something,
and you don’t want to deal
with that load of mess.
So, don’t go acting crazy,
to drive them away...
As tempting as that sounds.

When something goes wrong,
goes violently wrong,
don’t tell your partner
that you don’t want this to end.
Don’t say that you
don’t want this to be good bye.
Because then you’re giving them
mixed signals, you’re giving them
a glimmer of hope
that things might work out after all...
Because really, the whole point for you
is that you want this relationship
to NOT to work out, right?

Don’t say you don’t want to throw away
your relationship (even if you do),
please, don’t let them think
you’re vested in this any more.

And another thing,
when something goes wrong,
goes violently wrong,
don’t tell them you’re sorry.
God no, that’s the worst thing to say.
Don’t open the window for them
to think you might be at fault...
I don’t give a shit
if it’s your fault or not,
but the last thing you do
is tell them you’re sorry. For anything.

I know they might cling,
I know they might get desperate,
but you said you wanted to be free.
I’m only here to help.

You might not like it,
this might seem
counter-intuitive sometimes,
but they key is
to not think
about what you’re doing.

Yeah, it might hurt,
but that’s the point,
isn’t it?

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.
    From January 2010 through August 2015 Kuypers also hosted the Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the open mic’s weekly feature / open mic podcast (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), the three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc& hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry, a year long Journey, Bon Voyage!, and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed.

Carlotta

    “Let’s build a state of the art trauma center on the Southside of town.” My identical twin sister Weena shocked us at the family dinner. “After all Jerry, that would crown your philanthropic desire, right?”
    “Right.” I said and waited for it to hit the fan.
    “Our funds will be released when we’re thirty five.”
    “Oh, really?” She snarled at my sarcasm.
    My lovely but uppity sister cleared her throat. “Let’s make it interesting, whoever has the most professions on our birthday wins.”
    “Wins what, Weena?”
    “If you win I’ll put my money in to build your hospital; you lose you forget that and help me get richer.”
    “OK, I’ll take that bet.” It was a dare, but I did it anyway.
    We have a family tradition that goes back to my great grandfather Harrison Dittle, the real first Black billionaire. Help the less fortunate. His wealth and accomplishments were hidden. A few Whites aided Harrison’s technological innovations to market and made them filthy rich and in return he prospered in secret. Grandpa was six feet tall, wide shoulders, thick black straight hair, medium features and light brown eyes. That East Indian appearance kept him from being lynched at times and from early photos my sister and I look exactly like him. His wealth was gradually released, but he still maintained a low profile. Act average, look average and your problems will be fewer. Grandpa’s words of wisdom.
    That one “OK” fifteen years later still upset me, but I shook it off and focused on my job. I scraped the side of the pot several times to make sure I got all the remaining pot roast. Nothing bothered me more than wasting food. It warmed my heart to serve the less fortunate, but there’s a dark side to my philanthropic efforts.
    Jerry Dittle has a sexual fetish for homeless females!
    The things they do when they think you have a little money.
    And speaking of homeless females, the one I’ve had my eye on for awhile slipped through the door. She wasn’t a regular that’s why it took two weeks before she told me her name. Carlotta sighed and looked for a spot to park her backpack. She preferred a corner view to keep her one good eye on the entrance. When I get to know as her I’ll recommend a plastic surgeon to reconstruct that side of her face. The patch she wore didn’t cover the scar tissue to my liking.
    There I go making plans for a fantasy I hadn’t slept with yet.
    She picked a table next to the wall where I hung new signs of encouragement for recovery. The other women paid her little attention. Their heads were buried in their plates; today pot roast, potatoes and carrots as much as you could eat virtually unheard of at the Southside shelters. Carlotta hurried in line before the last of the pots were removed. I caught her eye and beckoned her to my end where I took a chance and put a plate aside. I had to talk to her today. She could disappear at any time go to another shelter or whatever. I didn’t want to be pushy, but in a few days I’ll be thirty five. It will be time to leave this place and Weena will be blowing up my phone. She might forget, but I doubt it. My work at the shelter should stand for something if we tie. I closed the lid to her plate. “We need to talk, Carlotta.”
    Her eyebrow arched, “We do?”
    “Yeah, it’s important.” She smiled, nodded and went to her seat. Why she wore a 3X black sweatshirt puzzled the hell out of me. It was ninety degrees outside. It still sagged off her broad shoulders, but it did the job of concealing, what I figured, was a curvy waistline. Carlotta unwrapped her utensils, spaced them neatly next to her plate and refolded the napkin on her lap. Tedious with good table manners. I like that. She went to work on her food and didn’t notice when the others left. She forgot her peach cobbler; I went over and eased it across the bumpy surface of the table. “You forgot your desert; you can share if you like.” She sank her spoon in the bowl for a sample. She dabbed the corners of her small mouth.
    “Um...good, I can’t do it.” She had a soft childlike laugh.
    “You hurt my feeling, Carlotta.”
    “Jerry, you’ll get over it and I know what you are thinking, but say it anyway.” She gave me those bedroom eyes.
    “I want to see you away from here.”
    “She giggled. “I knew it...me too. Where are we going your or your place?” She tapped my leg under the table.
    “Uh, a nice room will do if you don’t mind?”
    “You married or what?” She asked.
    “No, but the what is complicated.”
    “OK, with me, I never had an East Indian looking guy before; can I meet you out back in an hour?” I nodded and she gathered her things and left.
    In an hour? Where was she going? There’s nothing but empty warehouses and a scrap metal place in the area. I waited a few minutes and peeked out the back door. I’m not nosy by nature, but something about a cat dying came to mind. I couldn’t remember the saying, but I looked for Carlotta anyway.
    The alley was full of abandoned cars with flats. The majority sat on chipped and broken concrete blocks. I walked between the vehicles and the buildings. I called myself shadowing her. If she came back around the corner I was busted and that would blow the date. I looked around the corner and saw her push an old shopping cart full of scrap sheet metal and cans. She made a left down another alley toward Acco Metals and the neighboring junk yard. She’d be back soon. I sat in my early model Honda Accord and waited.
    A tap on the window woke me. I wiped my mouth, popped the locks and she jumped in. “Somebody’s really tired. Sorry it took me longer than I expected...take me to the motel down the way about a mile. It’s cool and the ceiling is mirrored. I’m ready for serious lovemaking.” She gazed at me and studied my reaction.
    I smiled and pulled off. “You don’t waste time do you?” She shook her head. “I’m not complaining.” She leaned and put her hand in my lap. I smelled her sweaty skin and hair. It turned me on. I couldn’t get to the Southeast Motel fast enough. I ran across Torrance Road to the convenience store and picked up a six pack and sandwiches.The place was a step above a cheap flop house for whores and drug addicts, but it did have plenty of towels. The covers on the queen size were cheap but clean. The lamp on the night stand looked like something out of the forties, a new table in front of the window and an inexpensive flat screen TV was bolted to the wall. Tolerable for forty bucks a night.
    I hadn’t put the bag down good when I found myself lifting off her sweatshirt and she unbuckled my pants. I pulled her dusty jeans down to her ankles. Those worn dirty clothes revealed a bronze colored sculptured body with no stretch marks. Carlotta, to my surprise, didn’t have kids. I pulled her in the shower and our lips locked. I tried to adjust the water while we kissed; we screamed from the blast of cold water. “No soap honey, I’m allergic.” She laughed. We were locked in passion until satisfied. I dabbed her face dry and avoided the scar tissue that surrounded her missing eye. The patch was wet but stationary. She was an inch shorter, perfect to smell her hair while I cupped her behind. Her flesh had a distinct aroma that I’d never encountered. She satisfied my fetish; she wasn’t offensive, but natural. Earthy was the term that best described her.
    We lay on the bed wrapped in bath towels, drank beer and channel surfed. Carlotta organized the 16oz cans in order and portioned the chips in cups. She didn’t approve of the ice bucket and used it to hold the neatly folded paper bag. “You might want to take a can or two home. She changed the channel. “TV’s better in a clean orderly environment, don’t you think?”
    “Yeah, I guess, I never thought about it, but it doesn’t hurt.” Her diction and mannerism said she’d been exposed to the finer things in life including formal education. In a roundabout way I questioned her about the past. She placed her finger tip on my lips.
    “Those baby butt soft hands of your tell me we don’t do the same type of work. I almost had an orgasm when your palms clutched my backside. If I’d followed the advice of people who cared for me I wouldn’t been influenced by the wrong crowd. That’s an issue you didn’t have.” She ran her callus palms across my chest, kissed me and we became one, again and again. We talked about everything and she skillfully avoided her past. I didn’t want to irritate her. I’d timed our encounter right. But, I had feelings for the stranger who called herself Carlotta. She intrigued me. Several types like her took my money and ran and never returned to the shelter, like I couldn’t have them found. Carlotta didn’t do that. When I woke she’d made her side of the bed and cleaned the room. I sleep sound and snore like a bullfrog. I didn’t hear a thing. Her integrity and tedious nature was an aphrodisiac. I had to see her again.

*

    For days I waited for her to walk through the door. The work got monotonous; a first for me. She left a residue on my heart I couldn’t shake. My curiosity overwhelmed me and I went to the metal recycling company. A tall overweight white guy stood by a scale with huge bags on it. “What do you need, sir?” His high pitched voice shocked me for a rugged looking guy.
    “I’m looking for Carlotta, she been around lately?”
    He hesitated, gave me the once over and slap the weights on the scale. “You got cans to be weighed or what mister?”
    I pulled out a hundred dollar bill.” She been around or what?” His eyes lit up. He wiped his hands on his filthy overalls took the bill and shook my hand. “Thanks, you just missed ‘the perfect bum’. That’s what we call her, affectionately, of course.”
    “Of course.” I said.
    “She said she had to get wood before it starts to rain.”
    “Wood?”
    “Yeah, she works on that shit in the back.
    The sky darkened, thunder followed, it poured for a minute and stopped. “I’m not a cop I’m a relative, but I wasn’t here, right?”
    “Right.” He grabbed the bag of cans and went about his business. She worked with wood that explained why her dust clothing. I guess she did other things for money. Now that I knew she was still in the area how would I approach her? Don’t, not yet anyway. Leave now before she gets back.
    Once again Carlotta surprised me. This time she went straight to the back of the line. She got caught in the downpour. Rain made her clothing smell musty. I loaded her plate and whispered, “Meet me in the back after hours.” She nodded. The rain stopped when she got in the car. “We need to get you out of those wet clothes.”
    “OK, baby.” She agreed.
    “Let’s go to my place.” I trusted her enough to share my hideaway.
    “Cool with me,” she smiled and rubbed my leg.

*

    I rented a furnished apartment in a former transient hotel near the lake. I chose a one bedroom. I stayed here during the week and went home on the weekends. I slammed the gate of the elevator and punched three. And up we went. When we walked in I smelled the garbage I forgot to take out. Carlotta emptied the can and took it to the dump shute. In her angelic voice she said, “Lovemaking is best in a clean environment, baby.” My place was a typical bachelor apartment except for the 60" flat screen mounted on the wall. The kitchen had the usual modern appliances. A stacked washer/dryer combo was embedded in the pantry section. The brown wall to wall carpeting needed shampooing, but the cocktail table and dining room set were glass and chrome. I replaced the old wood pole lamps with contemporary brushed nickel ones. Carlotta worked her magic and insisted I remain seated. “I got this.”When she finished I ordered Chinese food from down the block. We peeled off our clothes and for three days we wore nothing but bath towels.
    She left me the same way when we were at the motel. My kitchen and bath were immaculate; the dining table settings were perfect as were the appliances on the counter. What was the purpose of her flawless organizational skills and her tacky appearance? I tried not to think about it.

*

    I unlocked the door at 6am for the first time. I arranged pots and pans and wondered, would I miss this place? An hour later the other volunteers poured in; good, I needed a break. I stepped out back to escape the heat. The sun struggled to break through the clouds, but the rainy coolness remained. Carlotta turned the corner from behind a delivery truck. She had a box eighteen inches square sitting on top of her shopping cart. She smiled. “Hey honey, I got a surprise for you.” Her jeans were holier than usual and her baseball cap was pulled down over a fresh perm.
    “It’s been a week, where have you been?”
    She ignored the question and adjusted the box. “Pop the trunk and help me put this in, Jerry.”
    “OK, OK.” I hit the button.
    She pushed a few things aside. “Good, now it’ll fit.” We placed it in the middle and braced it with other stuff. “What time do you get off?”
    “Now, if you like, what’s in here?” I shut the trunk and she gave me a don’t ask look. “OK, I’ll wait until we get to my place. I’ll be back in a minute.” I went and turned in my apron.

*

    Carlotta stood back from her surprise on the cocktail table. “Open it, Jerry.”
    I pulled back the flaps and lifted out a model of a floor plan.
    It was a replica of my apartment!
    The chairs and sofa were covered with black imitation leather. The tables, lamp kitchen cabinets and all appliances were painted with tiny books, magazines utensils and remote controls placed in their usual positions. “Jesus, Carlotta this is beautiful! Are or were you an architect or interior designer?” I wanted an answer; all I got was that don’t ask expression.
    “Don’t go there, Jerry, enjoy it and your welcome.”
    The sheets on the bed were folded with a piece of chocolate on the tiny pillow. “I like the bed.”
    She beamed. “You do?”
    “Yeah.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, lifted her and we went in the bedroom. “I’ll show you how much.”

*

    I had to remember to tell Carlotta, if I see her again, a surgeon who will work on her eye. I continued to take inventory of the linen closet when Big Wilma walked in and said, “A weird guy asked about your girl Carlotta, Jerry.”
    “My girl?”
    Short and wide, Wilma’s stomach bounced when she laughed and her mouth gaped open showing all her teeth. “Yeah, Jerry, we know you like her. I’m not surprised you added her to your list of conquest. People talk, remember? But, anyway that guy’s got a two day beard that not a guy’s whose down on his luck beard. He got a fresh manicure and his skin ain’t right. He ain’t one of us; he got military posture and analytical eyes. If he’s hit hard times it just happened. He don’t smell like cop; he wants to blend in for a second to find her. You’ll see him he’s still sitting at the book table; medium height, build, dark brother with jeans and ragged t-shirt and cap. He’s creepy. See you later.” She grabbed a stack of sheets and left.
    I finished that task and went to the food line. In the corner by the window was the creepy guy. I tried to be objective, but Wilma was right, he didn’t fit. If Carlotta kept to her erratic schedule she could walk through that door at any minute. We finished lunch and no Carlotta. Too bad she doesn’t have a cell phone. “I don’t need one,” she said. Who doesn’t need a cell phone? I scrubbed pots when my alarm indicator went off. Somebody bumped the car. It wasn’t worth stealing. I hit the reset button and went to the back door. No broken glass and everything appeared normal.
    I decided to start the weekend early. I pulled away from the building and saw a metal shopping cart sitting next to a white panel truck in front of me. It was Carlotta’s; she had the last of its type in the area she said. I recognized it because the flaps that covered the holes for the child’s leg were missing. Where’s Carlotta? Maybe she’s at Acco Metals? I drove slow down the alley and saw the big guy on a forklift with a towel wrapped around his head like an Arab sheik. When I pulled up he jumped off the machine to adjust a load on the forks. “Hey, big guy you seen Carlotta today?”
    “You the second person to ask me today, she got her tool box, flipped me the bird and left. I’m glad she gone.” He snapped.
    “I wasn’t here. OK?” He gave me a dirty look and got back on his machine and drove away. “Screw you too.” I shrugged it off and made a beeline home. She might stop by.

*

    Something told me to check the trunk. I opened it and there sat a box with an envelope on top. I rushed upstairs and cleared the cocktail table. What was Carlotta up too? Was she gone for good? Did this have anything to do with the weird guy? I pulled back the flap and lifted out a model of the Dittle estate. Amazing. The landscaping was accurate down to the row of hedges that lined the cobblestone drive. The mansion’s contemporary picture windows were detailed to perfection. It had the pool, tennis and basketball courts and an enclosed garden. How did she do this? Then it hit me Google Earth and our estate had been in several architectural magazines. But, none of the family was ever pictured and my address is not on my license or application for any jobs I’ve held. The letter was on beautiful pastel stationary with raised rose petals in the top corners.
    Jerry,
    We had a good time. I enjoyed you immensely. If I didn’t I wouldn’t say it, but now we’ve come to the end we know was close at hand. My world and past is not for you. This is why I will not share it with you. Do not try to find out. You’re a good one percenter not one of those snobbish Negroes. Stay that way, Jerry. Thanks, enjoy the models.
    Crazy about you,
    Carlotta
    I balled up the letter and threw it at the wall. Who was Carlotta? Why did she check me out? Did she see through me at first or what? It was obvious that weird guy made her run. Should I be concerned about my safety? No, he didn’t notice you and your eyes didn’t meet. I took a deep breath. Don’t worry about it, you know nothing. I felt strange; did she break my heart or what? I missed her, but do what she said, Jerry.
    I opened a cold one and flopped on the sofa. I stared at Carlotta’s creation, what a gift. When I get home I’ll find a special place for it in the library. A pedestal when you first walk in will do.
    What will I do about my fetish?
    It’s risky; there are the mentally ill amongst them. But, the smell and feel of them in bed overwhelmed logic. I need to join a support group before my luck runs out. First, a break would be appropriate in the form of a vacation in Monaco. I accomplished two professions to help the less fortunate. The knowledge and experience have been immeasurable, now I’m an RN and a teacher. Weena claims her three separate positions in medicine; nurse assistant, RN and nurse practitioner are different professions. “I win, Jerry.” I’ll let the lawyers work it out. Either way I’ll get the money Grandpa Dittle left one day in the future to help others. Now it’s time to enjoy myself.

What if We Believed Our Choices Actually Mattered?

    Cancel plans. Change your mind. Backtrack. Deny. Don’t let yourself be pinned down. Hold on to the only freedom you can imagine at this juncture. Hell is a future plan realized with your name on it, typed on it like the label on a manila file folder in a locked file cabinet you can’t break into without being caught and having the FBI all over your ass.

    You’ve been running away for so long it feels like standing still, or fighting being sucked down with the swirling water in the dirty toilet bowl of your life as someone viciously keeps pushing down the handle. And you’re gasping for breath and you’re doggy paddling and begging for mercy or just a fair break or a moment to catch your breath.

    There’s no clear vantage point. No way to analyze all the data, foresee all the consequences, evaluate the ramifications, warn those who will be left to clean up the mess, or you hope, if all goes well, live in the shiny palace of a world that is better because of something you had the foresight to do, or a bet you had the good luck to make, as you gambled as if life depended on it, because it did.

Her Laugh Broke the Silence

    Her laugh broke the silence. A silence I’m assuming was a long and uncomfortable fifteen seconds for her. I use silence as a tool to get clients to open up an speak. Silence makes people nervous so they frantically search for something to say regardless of how stupid it sounds. Many of Brenda’s comments contain no prior thought because her intention is to say something, anything. In this case, Brenda said nothing. Instead a weird laugh shattered the barrier of silence between us. Caught off guard I asked what was so funny; Brenda just said she remembered something amusing. Man, I’ve listened to her boring stories for the better part of three years pointing out various issues and trying to help her to deal with them, and she still appears to not find the flaws in her behavior. Benda is gorgeous to look at though, and many times, I get lost in her looks and brown eyes.
    I would never act on it, I don’t think, I claim to be a professional, but this woman is so boring there isn’t anything else to do but fantasize about throwing that bubble black ass across the desk and screwing her two ways from Sunday.
    She has been witness to a rough life. I feel for her, but she is not working on the issues as hard as she should be. Brenda wants me to do it for her but that’s something that won’t happen. Years ago, I decided I’ll never work harder than clients. Often I confront her, and she will seem to snap, but then falls back into the same old pity party.
    Ten more minutes, I notice as I sneak a peek at the clock ticking like a bomb on the wall. Then thankfully, it will be lunchtime for God’s sake. Oh God, there’s her sultry poor me look. Such a turn on, the way she sticks her lips out as to say, “I am such a worthless victim, I deserve to be fucked, just take me with my little girl pout.”
     Brenda is so fine. Oh hell, I had better cross my legs, so she doesn’t see my huge erection. I feel like I will explode, what is she doing? Holy shit, she’s untying her hair, letting it spill over her shoulders. Holy crap she’s walking towards me, Oh my fucking ass God she is on top of me.
    “What are you doing Brenda?”
    “Fucking you unconscious, that’s what.”

    “Dr. Cox, are you listening?”
    Fuck, I slipped off into another fantasy.
    “Yes... yes... I’m listening; I just noticed time is up for the day, same time next week?”
    “Yes same time.”
    Brenda leaves and I go into the bathroom and jack off as usual after our sessions.
    If people knew what went through my mind, they’d shit in their pants. Strange shit goes through everyone’s mind. I should know I’ve been listening to people’s shit for thirty years. All of us are fucked up and are hypocrites in one way or another. I learned from the best, the best being my parents. Dad was a devout prejudiced Christian who hated, “niggers, sissy fags, and anyone else who wasn’t a member of the Baptist Church.” These are his words, not mine.
    Dad was a character, was shady, and loved to have fun, but carried himself well in the house of the Lord every Sunday.
    I saw through dad’s shit from a young age and he knew it. Although, looking back, he never tried to hide his behaviors from us, or friends outside of the church. Hell, what am I saying, he didn’t give a fuck. The old man always did what he wanted, when he wanted, that was that. Dad was a good man even with these faults and was always good to mother and I. I always wondered if others saw through the bullshit over the years. If so they never ever said anything, but they had to have. In high school, my old man flirted with girls I brought home and slept with one or two of them. As I’ve become older, I look back and wonder how he showed his face in church every Sunday after how he acted all week. Cool how he pulled it off so easily. This was especially cool when I was a teen. The old man was the coolest dad in the world. Dad is passed now and I still feel like he was the coolest ever. Dad died in a car wreck last year out on highway 10 beside the patch of pine trees where he proposed to mom.
    The two met at sixteen and married for thirty years. Mom died from an infection after stepping on a rake. The prongs went into her foot, she never went to the Dr. Little, and she freaking died on a Saturday morning in bed while watching cartoons. This woman was a piece of work suffering from delusions and hallucinations. Hell I guess she did, who knows, maybe she really saw and heard shit, who am I to judge. Mom claimed the spirit of a Native American woman followed her since visiting Santa Fe when she was three. The sprits name was Column. Yes I know, but this is what she said, her hallucination not mine. Anyway, she told us several times about a sprit that protected her from the evils of life, the hardships of the daily struggle, and my father’s wondering cock. Many times she referred to dad as w. c. wondering cock.
    Funny thing is that through all of their strange behaviors, they loved each other until their dying day. They always had a good time together; were always laughing and joking. These people were strange, twisted, and prejudiced, but they knew how to have fun. I found my way into this quirky family on February 5, 1966. Growing up was difficult, and I grew tired of seeing their hypocrisy, and many times I felt like I was the parent, because of their partying and non-caring attitude, but they were good parents and were fun. These two had no qualms about anything and were always quick to tell a joke. Neither liked to work, so they didn’t. After the accidents, there was plenty of money. To them life was too short to work and not long enough for fun, so they got with the fun part and rid of themselves of the working part.
    Every year we went to the beach, and they partied even harder than normal. We always had money, so this wasn’t an issue, and they had no problem spending it. My grandparents were killed in a freak accident when dad was twenty-five. They left him ten million dollars; their death resulted at the hands of a moose, you might say in Yellowstone National Park. They were asleep in a tent at a campground and a moose trampled them killing them both. The family sued the park settling out of court. My old man always said it was the ten million dollar moose. Dad loved mooses.
    Mom’s parents died in New York City when someone threw an apple off the top of the Empire State Building. They were walking on the street below and somehow one apple killed them both. My mother and uncle sued the city and received another ten million. To put it short, my parents didn’t believe in work, so they had fun and so have I. That’s the one thing I loved the most about them. I however, work at my own clinical therapy practice. Don’t know why, I have all the money I could ever want or spend, which I inherited from my parents, but I guess I just need somewhere to go every day.
    I am just as fucked up as mom and dad I suppose, but I help clients in my practice. Over the years I’ve helped many recover from drugs, sex addiction and have taught them to deal with life on life’s terms. My mind wonders off on the occasional fantasy about several of my clients, but I’m good at my job. I don’t work that much, but when I do I take it serious.
    My personal life is one big party, which I learned from my parents. If I can’t have fun, then I am not interested in life. Having money helps to have fun. I love to travel and could live in a hotel room and never tire of it. I love to be on the go seeing new places. When you have money, you can get things, such as women and drugs, well, weed, that’s all I do, I don’t consider that a drug. Ok I do cocaine, several times a week. Chicks, weed, coke and money, who could ask for anything more?
    Just last month while in Vegas I was walking through a casino and saw the most beautiful woman playing roulette. I walked over offering her a drink and small talk, flashed a wad of cash, and in an hour was banging her big brown ass in my suite. This chicks name was Suzie, that’s what she said anyway, but she wasn’t being honest, I didn’t give a fuck though, I just wanted to party and get laid. She had fun, I had fun, no strings attached so hey, why not? What makes me different from my clients is that I own control over cocaine, weed, and the fast life; the shit doesn’t own me. I’m on top of this shit, for sure.
    Last summer in the Bahamas, I came across two beautiful brown skin women who loved going down on one another. I watched, and then they laid my ass. I over did the partying and lost control that week, but other than that, I control this shit. There is nothing better than to see two brown skin Goddesses making love to each other, God, what a good time that was.
    Don’t misunderstand me, I do regular stuff on vacation. I sight see, snorkel, and always take several friends to hang out with. These friends love the drugs, my money, and me, and they think I’m fun. These are good friends who are with me for the long haul. By the good fortune of my grandparents, my parents, and myself, I have lived the life of a rock star. The money is a bonus, it’s hard to get anywhere in this world without it.

    “Tell me where you have gotten with money, and more about how you have control over drug use and the fast life as you say.”
    “Ha, ok Doctor, fuck, you got me. To be honest, I have no real friends, and I am a drug addict losing my counseling license. In addition, I’m sitting here spilling my guts in this therapy session. That’s where it’s gotten me, but at least I realize and admit I need help.”

The New Deal

    It snuck up on me. She snuck up on me. Insanity snuck up on me.
    Finally the holiday season was over. Mail volume was light. I was resting up. Management was still leaning on me, but they were easy to appease by then. I had taken one of their toughest routes off their hands and proven myself once again.
    I had recovered from the Melinda bullshit, and had enough energy to get my apartment in order. I wrote at night again. The Seahawks were on track to win their first Super Bowl. My finances were largely straightened out. I was working six days a week, but the days were easier.
    I was sound asleep one night when a single word echoed through my mind. It sent panic through my body to where I rolled off the couch.
    Stephanie.
    I had forgotten how stupid I had been.

    I contacted Melinda for the first time since she left. She was awake and talking with guys, of course.
    Yes, Stephanie was coming.
    Melinda begged. Stephanie was a different person. She wouldn’t do the same things. She was driven. Educated. Starving for a chance.
    I got Stephanie’s number, took a half a sleeping pill and dozed off.

    Stephanie nervously answered the phone the next night and got the riot act read to her. I would never go through Melinda’s shit again. Never. There would be a new deal; NO DATING, NO FUCKING, NO PARTYING! THE FIRST OFFENSE WOULD BE THE LAST!
    She readily agreed, then denounced Melinda. We talked for a few hours. I repeated threats to throw her out. She accepted.

    Weeks rolled by and the Seahawks kept winning. The NFC Championship had been a narrow win over the rival 49r’s. I had wanted to go out, but had to pick up Stephanie at the airport later that night. I couldn’t drink much and would have to nap before driving.
    My old GMC truck roared to Seatac Airport. I grumbled the whole way. Me and my stupidity. Bleeding heart bullshit.
    Anyway, what did she look like? Twenty two. Cute. There were some commonalities between us, according to phone convo. This might not be too bad, maybe. Doubtful, but it might be ok.
    It didn’t take too long before she called my cell phone to pick her up. I drove to the pick up area and parked. Several young women weaved their way through the three lanes of parked cars. Several really beautiful women looked all around. I drooled at some, silently praying one of them was Stephanie. Each of them crawled into other vehicles.
    There was no way to miss my giant red truck. Soon a woman bashfully waved and headed my way. She was young and cute, but heavy. Around my height. There was something immediately familiar about her somehow. I couldn’t place it.
    Her cheap luggage weighed over seventy pounds. I tossed it in the back seat. I went to hug her, welcoming her to Seattle. She coldly hugged me back.
    We each lit a smoke immediately. She relaxed into the seat. Convo was sparse. I did what I could to be cheery and upbeat, and get her to talk. She would open up for a brief time, then get really cold, often in midsentence. Again, something familiar.
    I parked the giant truck in the usual area. A full quarter mile up the hill from my apartment. I carried her heavy bag as we headed down the steep hill in Queen Anne. It was the same pattern; she’d warm up to excitement, then grow really cold.
    Even with wine poured and beer opened, it was the same. Excitement and warmth would immediately give way to cold. Well, I reasoned, it was a huge leap for her. Moving cross country to live with some guy she had only spoken with over the phone for a couple months, hit or miss. And that was the tip of the ice berg.
    Slowly, with wine, she opened up a bit, and some good times and laughs were had. I was actually off work the next day, so I could stay up late.
    She began settling in the next day as I drank beer. She set out a bunch of stuff relating to Korean music and culture. It turned out that she was obsessed. Severely.
    I took her to the Korean Restaurant down the street. She glowed brightly and ordered heavily. The food was really good. Neither of us had ever had it. The booze went down smooth, almost like water, but packed something of a punch. Not bad. Fifty bucks well spent.
    We walked through the neighborhood. She was distant, and walked away from me. We crashed early. I went to work as usual.

    Stephanie was not home when I got home around six. Seven rolled around. Not a word. Eight. Nothing. Nine was silent. I began to worry. It was her first day in this city. I texted at ten.
    Ten thirty had a text from her. She was ok, going to spend the night at friend’s. Really. Here I go again. I texted back.
    “Whatever.”
    “Hey. Are we ok?”
    “Whatever.”
    The phone rang.
    “Hey, I’m only staying over at a friend’s, ok?”
    “Whatever. We’ll talk later.”
    “Hey, we’re ok, right?”
    “Whatever. We’ll talk later.”
    I hung up, rolled over on my couch, and drifted off.

    Stephanie was not home the next night. Seven rolled around. Nine brought nothing. I didn’t text at ten. I went to sleep. It was what it was. My stupidity. Help someone get their start, huh?
    The door opened at two thirty. Stephanie’s shadow headed into my bedroom. The bedroom door closed. I drifted back to sleep.

    I resolved to kick her out. We had a deal. My having read her the riot act over the phone had been ignored. I was stuck providing for some bitch to do nothing but date, party, and fuck other men. What and who she does is her business, but I should not have to pay for her while she does it. We had a deal. This was for her to get her start; job, savings, and her OWN place. Not depending on me.

    I got home to the same old story. I was on the couch by ten. At one, she came rolling in. She jumped as I broke the silence.
    “If you’re not here by the time I get home tonight, all your stuff will be outside.”
    “Huh? But I came home.”
    “Our deal was for you to get your start. A job. Save for an apartment. Be on your own. Then leave me the fuck alone. We must talk tonight. I’m serious. Your stuff will be outside tonight if you’re not here. Got it?”
    “Ok.”
    The bedroom door closed hard, but not slammed.

    Work finished early. I bought beer and went home for a fight. I was serious. It was too much. I prepared to throw Stephanie out.
    She wasn’t home. I groaned, opened a beer, and sat at my laptop. I planned to put her stuff outside at ten.
    Just before seven, Stephanie rolled in. There was so something familiar about her. I couldn’t quite place it. She looked harsh. I said hello with a mix of friendliness and sternness. I wasn’t going to take it.
    “Help yourself to some wine. Relax. I’m glad you’re here.”
    “Really? Can I have some?”
    “Of course.”
    She sat down, glass in hand, and lit a smoke. I chugged down the last of my beer and got another. Then I started.
    “This is not a motel. I am not your dad or your uncle. I am not supporting you so you can party and date and fuck. It ends now, or you’re out. I have had enough. Really.”
    She sat silently, nodding her head.
    “Remember our deal. We spoke about this over the phone many times. I was harsh about it. You said you’d never...”
    “I didn’t though. I stayed at a friend’s house one night, and made it home the other nights...”
    “You were out partying, dating, fucking...”
    “No...I wasn’t..”
    “Come on now. Really?!”
    She looked away.
    “Look. I don’t get to party and date and fuck. I have to pay the bills here. I work. Hard. And now I have to pay for you, and live with you, with your stuff in my apartment. I can’t bring a woman here now. I’m putting my life on hold to help you get your start here in Seattle. So you can have it good. You’re making me regret it.”
    She looked down at her glass.
    “Ok. You’re right. You’re right. It’s just...I’m excited to be here and...”
    She got cold. We sat in silence.
    “You know, when I started out here, no one did this for me. You’re getting a hell of an opportunity here. What are you doing for work? Any leads?”
    “No. not yet.”
    “Ok. Can you see my problem here? If you can go out there and party, you can put efforts onto finding work, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That was our deal, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “This does not have to be draconian. It’s one thing to meet for drinks or dinner once in a while, but it’s a question of extent. The emphasis needs to be on work, saving for an apartment, and moving out on your own. Really. I am not here to support your partying, dating, and fucking.”
    She nodded, and sat there pouting. I tried to lighten the mood. She asked for more wine. I encouraged. We sat there largely in silence, drinking and smoking. Bad sitcoms played in the distance.

    I came home the next night to find Stephanie sound asleep on the couch. I quietly went to put my beer in the fridge. There was a fresh twelve pack already in there. The dishes were done. The recycling had been taken out. I quietly walked to use the bathroom. It had been scrubbed!
    I opened a beer and sat in my usual office chair. Stephanie snored quietly. I played FB football, caught up on email and news, and just relaxed. Before long, I started the oven and took out a frozen lasagna, then opened another beer.
    The lasagna was done just as she awoke.
    “Care for a glass of wine?”
    “Yes please.”
    “Thanks so much for cleaning! The place looks great!”
    She chugged half the tall glass.
    “What’s cooking?”
    “Lasagna. Hope you like.”
    “Good. I’m hungry.”
    We settled in and reacquainted. We ate a lot, drank a bit, and talked about anything. It was a good night.

    What Stephanie had packed mainly consisted of Korean music fan stuffs. Her clothes was old and worn. She had been dirt poor. Her clothes tore often from being so worn out, and she spent plenty of time hand stitching them back together. She was out of money. I lent. Lent more. Bus fare. Phone. Phone bill (prepaid). She cried about being so poor.
    She applied for work and ran around interviewing. Her lack of confidence showed through badly. Poverty has such effects. I knew it all too well. She cried more.
    I tried to ease things as best I could, relating my own stories of being down and out. Many of them. Realizing I may now be part of the problem, I promised that, so long as she continued making efforts, she was welcome to stay as long as it took to get her start.
    “Take that concern off your plate. It might help.”

    Sometimes we would drink heavily. Long conversations and laughter echoed through my large apartment. She began to grow on me. There were some good times. Still, there was distance and coldness. An all too familiar feel. I still couldn’t place it. It occupied my mind all too often. There was something there.
    I was also having email conversations with my ex. Samantha was hit or miss. She would go weeks without word, then write a long email. She was with someone else. It still bothered me. We were once so close. Nearly engaged twice. Lived together. Loved. Lived. Lusted.
    I wondered.

    One night Stephanie and I had drank too much, but needed more. We had been talking and laughing and carrying on for hours. Neither wanted it to end. We walked down the frozen streets to the convenience store. As we got there, she admitted she had been fucking some guy named Andrew when she first arrived. That resulted in a huge argument as we started home.
    At one point we were face to face. I noticed her eyes were off center, slightly crossed. Just like my ex wife. Her arguments were eerily familiar. We had words. She started bolting off. Pissed. I followed. We passed by a crowd. Men and women looked down as she charged through. I saw Stephanie’s shoulders start shaking as she made her way past. I caught up with her. She was crying. I put my arm around her.
    She looked down and leaned on me.
    “My pants spit open. Everyone saw my vagina.”
    Her purple winter coat was old and largely shredded. I tried to zip it up. It wouldn’t work. We still had to walk through another crowd. Stephanie cried more.
    “Fuck my life!”
    I put my arms around her curves, and walked beside her, holding her coat shut. It hid her parts, and made it look like we were a couple who was making up after a fight. Dignity.
    We got home and had one more drink. She was hating her cast in life almost as much as I had. I went to my closet and brought out a black long coat that I knew would fit her well.
    “Here. It’s yours. It’ll match your hair, and accentuate how your wear your makeup. Class. You’ll make this look classier than it could be.”
    Truth told, it was a newer coat. Quite nice. I used to wear it when I went out. It fit her perfectly. She danced around and modeled it.

    Stephanie was still secretive. There was something going on. We’d still fight. There was something so familiar. Her logic. Free floating and adjustable realities until caught, only to float again. Her nose when her nostrils flared. Her slightly crossed eyes. Her voice. Pitch. Color in her face. All too familiar. Huge arguments. Lasting.
    Stephanie was home on that Saturday evening. I was amazed. The usual set up ensued with her sitting on the couch and me sitting in my office chair by my laptop. Korean shows played on TV. I watched a little as she laughed, then went back to my laptop.
    When the Korean News came on, she tuned out. We began conversing. Wine and beer were having a good effect. Suddenly, there came a serious look on her face. The mystery of the strangely familiar was about to be partially solved.
    Stephanie came out with it; she had BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). Just like my ex wife. She had been to jail over it. It made her violent.
    It all made sense. After all these years, I was stuck living with someone who had BPD, again. Flashbacks.
    I stared, wide eyed, into the distance.
    The next day made me uncomfortable being inside alone with her. Our fights had often been very severe. I needed some time to digest it all and figure out how to deal with it.
    I decided to take her for a walk down to the waterfront to show her around. It was vital to stay in public. She put on her headset and listened to Korean music and walked distant from me. I was not happy being ignored, but it was better than arguing. Once in a while I would point something out. She would nod and go back to ignoring me.

    It was then I saw Her. Samantha was walking our way. She was still in the distance. It was panic.
    From what I knew of BPD, a possible abandonment could make Stephanie flip out. I knew how sudden that could happen. Of all the times for Samantha and I to bump into each other! We could all end up in jail.
    The only thing I could think to do was to pretend I hadn’t seen Samantha and walk past. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Samantha glow and smile. My heart broke at passing by her like that. I was helpless to do anything other.

    Later, Stephanie was to go to some cultural get together. I needed to get things at the grocery store, so I walked with her to her pick up point. Some ten year old Mercedes pulled up with an Asian guy driving. Stephanie was in the bathroom and had asked me to tell him she’d be right out. I said hi. He threw his nose up and looked away.
    “She’ll be right out.”
    He rolled up his window and looked away. I stood glaring until he looked my direction, then gave him my middle finger. He reached for the door handle. I waved him to come on out. He drove to the other side of the parking lot, nearer to the door of the restaurant. Stephanie soon came out and got into his car. They both saw me flip them off. Tires squealed.
    Of course, that led to one hell of an argument.

    On Wednesday, an email came from Samantha. My heart pounded. Wednesdays used to be one of our days. The email was part friendly, part just shy of flirty. She had been thinking of me. She had actually gone to bars on the NFC Championship Sunday hoping to run into me.
    That was the day I had to pick Stephanie up from the airport. Fuck.
    All in all, it seemed like there was a chance still between us.
    Then, Samantha mentioned that she’d be watching the Super Bowl with her new guy and friends.
    I wrote an email back that was colder than I intended. If she hadn’t mentioned him, it would have been a very warm reception.
    It would be the last I would hear from Samantha.

    Stephanie invited me to a Super Bowl party with her Korean friends. I joked about hooking up with some hot young Korean chick. Steph shot me a look. That look.
    She spent a great deal of time hand making a Korean dessert. It meant a lot to her. She got the finishing touches done when her phone rang. We were uninvited. More specifically, she was uninvited. She breathed deep, and we settled in and waited for the big game.
    I decided to make a nice chicken dinner with Thai peanut sauce. Stephanie joined in. We drank and smoked, laughed, and even smeared food on each other.
    Then her phone went off. She texted with focus. Soon she had to go outside to talk. When she came back in, there was no joy in her. Nothing. Pouting. Anger. Ice.
    Wine flowed. Smoke billowed. She stewed. A fight was brewing.

    “Why can’t I go out and spend the night?”
    “Huh? We covered this. I am not paying to support someone just so they can go out and date and fuck and party. We had this covered. If you’re with some guy, let him support you. Not me. Or support yourself. Whatever. But I am not paying.”
    “Ok. Ok. But really, why can’t I go be with friends?”
    “You can, of course. But I am not paying for someone else’s girlfriend or for you to be out dating, fucking, partying. This is supposed to be about you getting your start. Work. Save. Get your own place. Move in with someone else. Whatever, but not having me pay...”
    And so it began. Arguing. Yelling. Throwing shit (her not me). It lasted the entire Super Bowl. I didn’t know who won. Stephanie went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. I laid down on my couch and slept.

    That fight seemed to have a lasting effect. Stephanie doubled down on finding work and was home most evenings. Even when she went to events in the evenings, she came in around ten. We settled into making something of a home, taking turns doing chores and cooking. I bought all the food, wine, smokes, and lent money for buses and a little spending money. One cannot really have confidence in job hunting if one is completely broke and desperate.
    Good times were had once in a while, and fighting was almost vanished.
    It was around then that I remembered a place I once worked as a part time driver delivering car parts. They were always hiring. It was not a good job, but it was something. I told Stephanie to call them and mention my name. It worked. Stephanie had a full time job.
    Immediately, Stephanie needed pot. It was the most effective medication she could have. At the time, pot had just been legalized, and companies popped up offering home delivery. I lent her fifty to get a good supply. It was better than risking explosive fights. She was, at last, relaxed.

    The months that followed had us growing closer. The routine was she would get together with a girlfriend, Song Ming, on Sunday afternoons. It felt good to have some time to myself. The rest of the week had us together at home in the evenings talking and laughing. Usually the topics covered work and relationships, plus making fun of people. I knew people she worked with. Plenty of writing material.
    With our connection growing, I became a little concerned. There seemed to be an attachment being formed on both sides. When we went out, people saw us as a couple. We acted as a couple at home too, except there was no sex (although it came close more than once).
    I kept reminding myself that she had BPD and was twenty two. She had to go through the usual bullshit of dating and fucking and partying. Once she had her own place, she wouldn’t want some forty year old guy around. She’d need to play the field. Eventually, we would be distant friends with some memories together.
    I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be with her in a relationship even if things did work out. She had BPD after all. Time in jail for acts of violence. She also was not quite there mentally unless she was smoking pot and drinking.
    Plus, being in a relationship would mean giving up on Samantha, possibly permanently. Despite it all, and knowing she was likely long, long gone, I still wasn’t quite ready to completely let go in my own mind.

    Stephanie came out with something new one evening. She was having some romantic feelings toward Song Ming. She thought she might be finding herself as a lesbian. She showed me pictures of them together at the waterfront. Song Ming was a petite young Asian woman. I joked that I might get to fuck both of them. Stephanie smiled and said, “You just might.”

    Stephanie and Melinda had their own deal. Stephanie would get the job and apartment, then Melinda would come and live with her. It had been their plan from day one. I was fine with that, so long as Melinda was not living with me.

    Phone calls started coming from creditors. It wasn’t enough that my ex wife had stuck me with the IRS issue and a car (both of which required me to hire lawyers), but she and her hubby had included me in their scams as they borrowed money, then ran when the bills piled up. We had divorced seven years earlier, but had the same last name still. More legal bills. Great.
    I told Stephanie of this as I vented. She looked at old pictures of my ex wife, Stacy, and I together.
    “Wow! What a beautiful woman! I like her.”

    Stephanie played hell finding an apartment. Rents were skyrocketing and availability dropped. Seattle was the place to be. Amazon was growing explosively. Time was tightening.
    It so happened that my five day break in service, and thus my trip to see family back east, was coming right after Stephanie was to move into her new apartment with Melinda. The timing would be perfect.
    I had mixed emotions about it all. My whole world would be changing dramatically in a very short time. First, Stephanie would be moving out. Despite a very rocky start, it was actually great having her around. We had great times together, and often seemed like a couple. I knew that soon, we would barely be any part of each other’s lives. I would be alone again.
    Second, some people at work had made career, and someone would be taking my route. I had been on that route for a year. I knew it so well. I was used to it to where I could do it blindfolded. I would be moving on.
    Then there was my truck. It broke down so often that my insurance company cancelled roadside assistance. It had meant so much to me for quite a while. It was the vehicle that started my recovery from my days on worker’s comp.
    Also, friends that I had known during my days with Samantha were largely gone. The one remaining friend was moving back to Utah. I knew it would be a matter of time before he would be a part of the past. Generally, people in/from Utah didn’t like me at all. That influence would not be denied.
    Lastly, relatives back east were passing away. It might be my last time seeing some of them. I still remembered them as relatively young and vibrant. Now many of them were already gone.

    Melinda was to arrive on Wednesday night. It would mark an end to Stephanie and I living together. Melinda would stay through Friday night, then they would be at their new place on Saturday. My flight back east would leave early Sunday morning.
    I came home Monday to Stephanie napping on the couch. Her soft snore seemed loud. She had been exhausted in searching for apartments, buying things they needed, packing, and planning. I sat and sipped beer.
    She awoke and smiled, then poured a tall glass of wine and smoked a bowl. She stared at me appreciatively. Her eyes glistened, then she ran off to the bathroom. A few minutes later, she went to the kitchen and began chopping veggies and boiling water. She was making homemade lasagna to mark our dwindling time together. We shared a moment in the kitchen. She cried when I told her that she would be sorely missed.
    We held each other for a very long time.

    Tuesday and Wednesday went by in a blur. It was the same old, but different. There were sighs. Stephanie stared around the old apartment with wet eyes. Her laughter held sadnesses. Wednesday would be our last evening alone together. Melinda’s flight would be later, so Stephanie would be leaving for the airport around when I would be snoozing for another long day of work.
    “I just can’t believe this is our last night like this.”
    “Me either. It doesn’t seem real yet.”
    We embraced for a long time before she left to meet Melinda. I watched as she left, the door closing in a finality.

    The next morning I knocked on the bedroom door right before I left for work. It was tradition. It was the next to the last time.
    “Melinda isn’t here. Her flight was delayed. She’ll be here late tonight.”
    “Ok. Have a great day!”
    “You too.”

    Friday morning’s knock on the bedroom door was answered by “Melinda is here.”
    The workday flew by. With the holiday, and two days vacation, plus the five day break in service, plus a Sunday, I had nine days off. Nine days. I needed rest. One more day to go.
    I had hoped to not see Melinda. Maybe she’d be out dating and fucking, only to show up at Stephanie’s after the move. I could only hope.
    There she was, sitting at my desk, piling on makeup. Her four hundred pound body jumped up to embrace me. I stood back, but hugged her nonetheless. I moved out of the way of her kiss though, and went for the fridge to put away my beer. She went back to piling on makeup, preparing for her date.
    There wasn’t a huge amount of time. We had to move almost everything Stephanie owned. We didn’t want to do it on Saturday night. It would be too rushed.
    Melinda left for her date. Stephanie was pissed. Melinda was supposed to help. I was relieved for it to be just me and Stephanie. Everything went in one trip.

    I came home to a drunken Melinda on Saturday. Her makeup was caked on. Her massive body grabbed mine as soon as I came in the door. I wrestled free and opened a beer. She sat looking at me glowingly. I was relieved when Stephanie rolled in.
    I sat in my usual office chair near my laptop. Stephanie sat in her usual spot on the couch. Melinda sat on the other end. As alcohol flowed, conversation followed. Mostly it was me and Stephanie talking, reliving fun times. Melinda sat there like a sore thumb. I couldn’t believe the difference in size between them. Melinda was three times the size of Stephanie. Maybe four.
    There was a certain look to Stephanie. She glowed so bright sitting there. She had come so far so fast. A full time job and an apartment in such a city as Seattle. Good income. Opportunity for better. No more stitching together ragged clothes. No more crying about poverty. She had made it.

    I was surprised when I came back from getting a beer. Stephanie was sitting in my chair. “The King’s Seat.” She was facing me with her eyes welling. She called me closer until I was standing right in front of her. She looked up at me with Doe eyes and grabbed both my hands.
    “There’s something I want to say to you... Thank you for everything you’ve done. I just can’t say enough... You could have thrown me out many times. But you didn’t. You kept giving me chances and helping me. We had our fights, lots of them, but you always were there to help... Now I have a job and an apartment...I’m not poor now. And I owe it to you...”
    Her crying overwhelmed her. She shook her head. “No, I have more to say...”
    I held her tight. Her crying intensified. I held her tighter.
    “Wait...I have more to say...I...I...I...”
    Melinda came thumping over and put her massive arms around both of us. She spoke heavily.
    “Ok. Enough of that. This is a party! Come on, come on...”
    She pulled us apart. Stephanie headed for the bathroom.
    “I...but...I wanted to...I...I...”

    More booze ran and cheers made. Soon it was time. The mood was high. It was no longer tears. The two former Kentucky girls made their way out the door, giggling and laughing. I slowly went for another beer. I saw a small baggie of pot on the floor. I had to catch Stephanie. She would be lost without it. I ran out into the streets without shoes.
    “Stephanie! Stephanie!” echoed off the buildings.
    She turned and looked from a block away.
    “You left your pot!” what the hell, it was now legal.
    She came back into the apartment and got it. She bent over to pick it up.
    I went to say “You take care.” and get another hug, but choked up.
    She walked out the door.

    The trip went too fast but too slow. Each moment seemed to drag on, but each day seemed to fly. Not much happened. Before I knew it, it was time to come back.
    Stephanie had texted after only a few days. She was having trouble with Melinda. A lot of trouble. She said she missed me, and wanted to know when I would be back. She needed to talk.
    I arrived late on Saturday. It had been tough to leave, not knowing when I would be able to visit Pennsylvania again. Now it would be tough to come home to an empty apartment. I was no longer used to being alone. Five beers and pizza rolls made it tolerable enough to sleep. It still felt like Stephanie was still there, snoozing in my bed.
    Sunday evening brought her there. Song Ming had dropped her off. Someone had let her in the outside door. I had left the apartment door unlocked. I was pleasantly surprised to see her walk right in.
    Stephanie came on like a hurricane. Her arms nearly squeezed the wind out of me. Her body quaked as she gasped.
    “Gawd I’ve missed you! We have so much to talk about!”
    We sat in our usual spots, talking and laughing. She glowed so brightly. As I got up to get another beer, she got silent. I could see her mind working overtime. She got up and came at me, holding me frozen in time and space.
    “I...I...I love you.”
    It took me a moment. I had let her go, and she came back? What?
    “I love you too.”
    The words saddened me. I wasn’t sure I meant it. I wasn’t sure what I meant. The last time I said those words was with Samantha. I had meant it then.
    We embraced for a long time. A very long time. I knew I could have made love to her, but...

    Melinda had turned into a nightmare. Not exactly a shock. She had eaten everything and drank everything, then ran off with guys. Melinda had stolen money from Stephanie’s purse. Three hundred. That made the rent check bounce. The landlord was pissed. Stephanie hadn’t eaten in two days. We made sandwiches.
    Melinda had told everyone in their hometown that the only reason I had helped them out was that I wanted to fuck both of them and their mothers. Really. That Stephanie only had money because I prostituted her out. Melinda said we both demanded she do the same. Guys from Kentucky were ready to come find us both. It was humiliation.
    Then Melinda stole more from Stephanie and took off to stay with some guy, saying she’d be back. She had the keys to their apartment. Stephanie didn’t feel safe there anymore.

    I handed Stephanie her old key and told her to stay with me. I agreed to lend her money to cover rent and food, but only if she stayed at my place. Not one dime was to go anywhere near Melinda. Not one. Not even a chicken nugget. After that month though, Stephanie would have to figure something out. I wasn’t going to lend an endless supply of money. Even if it meant that she moved back in with me.
    We spent the night together. I’ll leave it at that.

    A few nights later, as we bitched about Melinda, I came up with a really stupid idea. When I had moved into my apartment, there was an old plastic fake engagement ring left behind. The former tenant had been a part time actor. I still had it somewhere. Stephanie could wear it and tell Melinda that we got engaged and would be buying a condo together, and thus Melinda had just two months to get her own place. We both laughed and agreed to pull the prank.
    I found the fake glass ring. Very traditional. I handed it to Stephanie as she sat on the toilet pissing. To my alarm, she gleefully and loudly proclaimed, “It fits perfectly!”
    What had I just done?

    Saturday night had us doing our usual. It was nice. Then came texts. Melinda. Fightings. Intensities. Song Ming began texting. Everything was unravelling.
    It was supposed to be that Stephanie would have her long time friend Melinda living with her, hang out with Song Ming, and have me, in addition to meeting more people. Now Melinda was gone, there was trouble with Song Ming, and Stephanie was broke. I was the only person she had left. We held each other as she cried. We would end up being together all Sunday too. Song Ming didn’t want to see her.
    Mondays were Stephanie’s days off. I dared not wake her when I left for work, aside from a soft kiss. I got through the day, and came home to an empty apartment. Before long, Stephanie came rolling in. She was wearing one of my Steeler shirts. It brought flooding memories, as it was the very shirt Samantha had worn right before we separated.
    “Well, the rent is paid. I’m totally broke now, but I have the rent all straightened out.”
    I handed her a twenty. She shook her head no. I took it back.
    “I don’t want to take any more from you.”
    I sat down with my beer. She poured a glass of wine. I offered her a smoke. She declined and rolled a cigarette.
    “I have to tell you something. You’re not going to like it.”
    I chugged the rest of my beer, got another, and lit a smoke. She can’t be knocked up. Not by me anyway. I’ve been snipped.
    “Song Ming is a guy. His American name is Andrew.”

    The whole time. Nothing but a lie.
    I sat there, staring ahead in the distance. The whole fucking time. All a scam. All fake.
    “We had a deal. You lied to me this whole fucking time. You used me. I did nothing but help you, and you pulled this?!”
    “I don’t blame you if you never want to see me again..”
    “Well, that’s a start. What about the money you owe me? You can’t afford to pay it back. And...so...let me get this straight. I told you from day one that I would never tolerate paying for some guy’s girlfriend, yet that’s what I was fucking conned into...and where was he? Why did you have to turn to me to save you? Not him? Why?”
    “He’s a student. He can’t afford...”
    “So that cunt has to have me pay for his fucking girlfriend?! I paid MY OWN FUCKING WAY THROUGH COLLEGE! I put life on hold while doing it. I didn’t con some guy into paying for my piece of ass. Your guy is a sheltered, sniveling cunt.”
    “He’ll have a great future...”
    “As a con man...he should run for office as a Republican.”
    I continued.
    “Stephanie. Remember who you turned to time after time after time? Who was that?”
    “You.”
    “Why?”
    Tears.
    I asked her to go pick me up some beer so I would have time to think. She eagerly rushed out the door. I gathered her remaining possessions and bagged them up. When she returned, her eyes swelled at the sight.
    The fight went on. Eventually Stephanie stormed out, slamming the door to where it rocked the building.
    I got another beer. There sat Stephanie’s bags, including her food. I put it away and finished my beer. Sleep came easier than I thought.
    Hell gripped me the next day. No one should go without food. I relented and texted her about the stuff she left. She asked me to check the couch. She was missing her state ID. It was under the couch cushion, placed perfectly in the center. Perfectly. I texted her back that it was there. She said she’d be by the next day to pick her stuff up.
    I looked at her picture on it. Every hair on my body stood straight up. With blond hair, she looked exactly like my ex wife Stacy. Exactly. Twins. It all made sense now.

    I was actually sad about it. This would be the last night we’d see each other. We had been close, or so I thought. This was it. She came over sheepishly. I poured a glass of wine and handed it to her. Might as well go out as we came in.
    Small talk gave way to heavy.
    “So, this is it. The last we see of each other. Cheers.”
    “Well, I was thinking. You’re about to go to seven days a week working. Maybe I can work off the money I owe you by cleaning your place. We’ll hang out and drink and I’ll clean.”
    It kinda made sense.
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “I don’t want this to be the last. I lied to you, but I really enjoy...”
    “I have a hard time believing that.”
    “Ok. Let me know. But can I come over Saturday? I’m very tired tonight, and all this has been hell. I can’t stop crying. Really...That way, if there is anything I left behind...”
    “Alright. Saturday it is. Beyond that, I have doubts. I just don’t think I can get past it.”
    “I understand.”

    I resolved to say goodbyes on Saturday. I hoped she would crash one last night for old times’ sake, and Sunday would be kind of like old times. She’d help me clean, then get ready for her usual Sunday, and leave as if it was the usual. That way it wouldn’t seem like she was leaving. She just wouldn’t ever be home again.

    She was late on Saturday, but came bounding in. We talked as if nothing we happening, but it was time.
    As I got up to get another beer, Stephanie announced that she couldn’t stay long. I stopped right where I stood. This was goodbye, after all. The last.
    Oh well, it is what it is.
    We drank and talked and laughed. Great times were remembered. Bowls lit again and again. Soon we gathered her remaining things. Much fit into her backpack. There were two bags of food. She’d have a long road again. I knew that road all too well. At least she’d be well stocked to start out.
    It all sat there waiting.
    She offered to come by Sunday evening. I said I didn’t think that was a good idea, but didn’t rule it out. She then said maybe. We both knew. Neither wanted to say.
    “Ok. Lemme roll another cigarette, then I have to go.”
    “Why not stay for one last smoke? That way you can finish your wine.”
    “Ok. But can I check my email real fast? There’s something I want to see. It won’t take long.”
    “Go ahead.” I went to piss.

    We sat and sipped our drinks. Smoke billowed through what had been our apartment. Our laughter echoed the last.
    “I’ll be by tomorrow.”
    “We’ll see.”
    She stood up and went to piss. I stood when she got out. I still had on my sweat stained uniform. She was wearing far nicer clothing than when she had first arrived.
    We embraced tightly, sighing and breathing heavily on each other’s shoulder. Whenever one lessened their grip, the other found new strength.
    On and on the holding went. Neither wanted it to end, but it was time. Twenty two. Forty.
    As she lessened her grip, I leaned in;
    “When you leave, close the door softly, so I can watch as you go...”
    The sound of shock and tragedy poured out of her;
    “What?!”

    Hot tears poured from her, soaked through my sweat stained uniform, and ticked my chest hair as they ran past a heavy heart. Humid gasps blasted my shoulder.
    When the embrace broke, Stephanie looked straight down. She turned her back to me and picked up her stuff. I went over and sat in my chair and watched as she made her way to the door. It opened softly. She backed out looking down the whole time. She did indeed close it slowly, softly. I watched as it cruelly hid her young, beautiful face forever. It clicked.
    The outside door always closed with a bang. Almost like a gunshot. I sat watching exactly where she had been seen last. Just moments ago...
    There it was; BANG!
    A love and a major life chapter for both of us had been murdered.
    I raised my bottle high into the air.
    “Have a great life, Stephanie.”
    Yet another woman had left my life.
    The bottle went down in three chugs. The apartment was empty. Life was empty. A shining star in the empty night sky had breathed its’ last.

    I chatted with people online and sipped beer. I knew it was a story to write, but it might be too long for publication. I cried a bit. Despite it all, I would miss her, or at least I would miss who I thought she was.

    An hour later, I saw that she had left her email up. I was going to click off of it, but one email caught my eye. It was between Stephanie and Stacy!
    I didn’t read it. I didn’t want to know. I had been down that road. Some things are best left unknown.

    A week later, I was on my old route. It was a dark rainy day. I was in the shade of large trees along a major street. A car beeped. I waved, thinking it was a customer. I looked up and nearly shit myself.
    There was a gold Toyota Corolla, almost identical to the one Stacy and I had owned together when we split. She had made a huge deal about it being the last thing we held in common. Behind the wheel of that Corolla was Stacy and her hubby. They were waving to me.
    They had last been known to have been in Colorado. They somehow had noticed me in the dark shadows along a busy street thousands of miles from where they had made a home.

    I found myself standing there in my sweat and tear stained uniform, doing my route for the very last time, pummeled by the ice cold rain, while smiling and laughing like a madman, all alone in the world.
    It was the only way such a story could have ended.

The Mistake

    “God! Let her in!”
    The pounding of fists on the bus door had stopped and a woman’s face, frantic with fear, appeared framed in the coach window.
    I saw her mouth the words.
    “Please help me!”
    But the bus was already attempting to move off in the congested road.
    Its door firmly closed.
    “Stop! Didn’t you hear me?”
    The driver shrugged his shoulders as if he’d washed his hands of her.
    “I don’t know her. She’s not one of us!” he said.
    “What the hell does that matter!” I screamed. “She’s lost. She needs help!”
    “I cannot help her,” he muttered, looking in his rear view mirror.
    As if she’d heard him the woman ran forward to the bus in front and began pounding on its doors. But it had already managed to wedge itself into the slow-moving stream of others that choked the approach road to the Dung Gate, the most direct entry to Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall. Shunning her skilfully. Her face appeared again in my window, her hands waving wildly in desperation.
    “For God’s sake! Stop the bus!”
    But the driver nailed his eyes to the rear-view mirror.
    The woman’s face was fast fading as my bus swung sheepishly into the concourse of confusion. I ran to the rear of the bus. In the direction of the driver’s eyes. The woman struck at the door of the bus behind like Christian in the Slough of Despond. But its doors remained stonily sealed.
    “Someone help her!” I screamed. Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed must have heard me. For as the third bus withdrew from her and struck out into the street, the message had got through to someone. A hand appeared on her arm.
    Someone had got her.

—————————————————————

    “Are you all right?”
    The girl’s face peered down anxiously as her arm lifted me from my face-down position on the crowded street.
    I had the distinct feeling I shouldn’t like her.
    I nodded.
    “I had a bad dream,” I said.
    “You passed out. It’s probably the heat – and nerves,” she said. “And that damn bus! Making us sit in the back. Segregated. Like second-hand citizens.”
    The words were spat out.
    I felt her arm protectively under my elbow as she propelled me forward in the crowd of people.
    The crowd split and formed two queues.
    “There’s been a mistake,” I said.
    I’d said it before.
    Somewhere.
    If only I could remember.
    “I shouldn’t say that here,” she whispered, giving up her bag to a surly faced soldier, who proceeded to ransack its interior.
    He looked at me and waved me through the metal detector.
    I had no bag.
    We started walking, propelled forward by the crowd. The sweat broke out on my brow.
    And then I saw it.
    The Ha- Kotel – the Western Wailing Wall.
    I was back. Back home.
    “What day is it?” I asked.
    “Tuesday,” she said. Bar Mitzvah Day. Don’t you remember?” she fretted.
    Bar Mitzvah! I’d see Ami’s Bar Mitzvah after all. Ami. My thirteen years and one day old nephew.
    Thank you, God, I prayed silently.
    I’d always been religious. You could say religion was my life.
    But I’d been away. Now I was back home. In God’s presence. Again. On Earth.
    We surged forward towards the crowded plaza, the 488 metres high wall of Herod’s Second Temple beckoning me.
    Ami. I’d see Ami. And Moshe, my brother. And Zedekiah. And the others.
    I couldn’t wait.
    “Not that way. This way,” said my companion.
    Something was wrong.
    Ami wasn’t here. Nor Moshe. Nor Zedekiah.
    There were only women. Nothing but women. Some, their lips moving silently, pushing pieces of paper with prayers into the over full fissures in the small part of the wall I had never seen before.
    “There’s been a mistake,” I said.
    But my companion had already left my side and was joining a line of others who had climbed on the row of chairs that seemed to form a barricade of some sort.
    Their backs were turned towards me.
    What were they looking at? And where was Ami? And Moshe and Zedekiah?
    My companion turned and beckoned me over, pointing to a chair to climb on.
    I climbed up and looked over.
    “Are you ready?” she said.
    I looked over the wall.
    Ami. Moshe. Zedekiah. They were there. They were all there.
    “Yes,” I said.
    I was ready to join them.
    “Are you all ready?” my companion repeated loudly.
    The women lining the barricade began singing.
    My companion began singing.
    “Ami!” I shouted. “Moshe! Zedekiah! I’m back!”
    But my voice was drowned by a surge in the singing.
    “Now!” yelled my companion.
    The women pressed forward. And the wall tumbled down.
    The women jumped off the chairs and surged forward like Joshua and his army at Jericho.
    “Ami! Moshe! Zedekiah!” I shouted rushing forward.
    Zedekiah opened his mouth. He was shouting. Shouting. Zedekiah was shouting at me. Zedekiah, with his long beard, his black hat and coat.
     Zedekiah, my friend.
    “Roast in hell, you cows!” he shouted.
    And then I remembered. My hand flew to my face. No beard. And my head. No black hat. And I looked down. No black coat.
    I wasn’t an ultra orthodox Jew. I was dressed as a woman.
    I was a woman!
    And the words! They were my words. The words I had shouted at the women singing at the wall before the pain in my chest and my fall to the ground.
    “There’s been a mistake!” I’d said when I got there. “I can’t die now! I need to be at my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah!”
    And there’d come a voice.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, yes, I’m sure! I’ll do anything you want. Only let me go back. Back to the wall. Back to Ami’s Bar Mitzvah!”
    “You’re sure!”
    “Surer than I’ve ever been about anything!” I’d said.
    And He’d granted my wish. I was back.
    But not as a man. Not as an Ultra Orthodox Jew.
    As a woman.
    “Run!” screamed my companion, grabbing me by the arm. “Run!”
    And I was running. Running. Running away from Ami. And Moshe, my brother. And Zedekiah, my old friend. Up the hill.
    Towards the buses.
    “There’s been a mistake!” I shouted as I reached the bus. Please help me!”
    I pounded with my fists on the bus door. But the bus was already moving off in the congested road. Its doors firmly closed.
    I tried not to think about what I knew happened to women who protested at segregation at the Wall. What I’d previously welcomed.
    Restrained. Fettered. Strip-searched. Jailed. For protesting.
    But for the removal of the barricade?
    I tried not to think about it.
    I pounded at the door of the second bus.
    It remained stonily sealed as it slunk off up the slope.
    I saw my companion disappear into the bus behind. I ran for it but the bus had already closed its doors.
    I saw her mouth the words.
    “Someone help her!”
    And I knew. I knew what would come. The hand. The hand on my arm.
    The message had got through to someone.
    Someone had got me.
    “There’s been a mistake!” I said.

Hortalanus Fallax

    The cab pulled into the driveway of Frederick’s childhood home. The night light in his mother Rosa’s bedroom window glowed dimly through the blinds; she’d already in bed at seven-thirty. The living room window flickered from the television. His father Dominick would be watching a game show. The blinds in Rosa’s bedroom moved, part of a head was outlined. The light inside the cab came on when the rear door opened, making Frederick visible to his mother.
    Frederick got out, trying to open his umbrella against the rain. The umbrella got stuck in the car door, then in the overhanging dead branches of the blue spruce that he and his father had planted on the occasion of Frederick’s confirmation, the day Frederick told his mother he wanted to become a priest. The tree had flourished for a decade, but then the lower branches started to lose their needles. Stigmina had infected the tree, the arborist had told him on one of his visits home; there was no treatment for it. Gradually the lower limbs died. Early in his priesthood Frederick had pruned them away during his summer vacation visits, but there had been no summer vacations the last several years, leaving the dead middle branches to puncture Frederick’s umbrella.
    Frederick walked up to the front door under his leaky umbrella. Dominick opened the front door, but he didn’t turn on the light. “Go around to the kitchen door so you won’t muddy your mother’s carpet,” he said through the screen door. Frederick stopped for a moment, then turned and went around to the back of the house. His mother Rosa would be too tired to greet her son until the morning.

    Next morning, Frederick found his father Dominick sitting at the kitchen table while his mother Rosa was at the stove, cooking his favorite breakfast, pineapple pancakes and Italian sausage. She was humming. When was the last time Frederick heard her hum? And she was out of bed before 9 AM. Dressed before noon!
    Frederick sat at the kitchen table across from Dominick.
    “It’s so nice to have you home again, Father Freddy.” Rosa said.
    “Mother, it’s not necessary to address your own son as Father,” Frederick said.
    “Why are you scowling at me like that?” Rosa said. Tears welled in her eyes. “I always call you Father Freddy. Your ordination was a dream come true. Now you are ruining it.”
    Frederick jumped up out of his chair and hugged his mother. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m just tired from the long trip. I had trouble sleeping.” He kissed her forehead.
    “Oh, all right, you silly,” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Now sit down and let me finish your breakfast, FATHER FREDDY.”
    Frederick sat down with a smiling face that evaporated as soon as Rosa turned her back.
    “Now, Father Father,” Rosa said, turning to Dominick. She looked over at Frederick and gave him a wink. “What will you be having for breakfast?”
    “What I have every morning when I get back from six-thirty mass—oatmeal, which I ate an hour ago,” Dominick said. He drank from his coffee cup and then opened the morning paper, screening him from Rosa’s and Frederick’s view. A moment later Dominick took the paper to the back porch, out of Rosa’s sight, and slideout one of the inside pages and placed it under a handful of older papers in the recycling bin. Frederick guessed the page contained an article about the lawsuit against the Diocese of Bridgeport filed by thirteen families of altar boys abused by four priests during the 1990s.
    “Where did you go with that paper?” Rosa said. “I didn’t get to read it yet.”
    “When was the last time you read the morning paper?” Dominick said.
    “Well, you know, lately I haven’t been up for all the bad news, you know, people are always hurting other people’s feelings,” Rosa said.
    “Well, I just threw away some salacious underwear ads. Were you interested in them?”
    “Of course not,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. “Leave the paper on the table, and I’ll get to it later, maybe.” Rosa slid the pancakes and sausage onto Frederick’s plate. “You must be hungry if you went to six-thirty mass with your father, Father Freddy?”
    “I didn’t go today.”
    “Oh, well, that’s all right. After all, you are on vacation, and going to mass is kind of like a job for you,” Rosa said.
    “The pancakes are wonderful, Mother,” Frederick said. “Thank you.”
    “Well, you’re very welcome, Father Freddy,” Rosa said. She wiped her hands on her apron. “That was a lot of work for me so early in the morning. I’m going to take my tea and sit down in front of the TV for a little while.” Half way out the door, she turned to Dominick. “Do they still have that program on the TV I like to watch?”
    “No, that went off the air over a year ago. Try channel 47,” Dominick said.
    She sighed. “Oh, all right.”
    “What are you up to today?” Dominick said to Frederick.
    “I need to find a place to stay, then I’ll look for work.”
    “You’re planning on living here? In Ridgecrest?”
    “I don’t know where else to go?” Frederick said.
    “How about somewhere where nobody knows you? So you can get a fresh start.”
    Frederick stood up and scraped most of his pancakes and sausage into the garbage can. He rinsed off his plate and put it in the dishwasher. “Maybe you’re right. I know a place in Bridgeport where I could probably stay for a while.”
    “I could loan you some money, in case you are short,” Dominick said.
    “Thanks.”
    “Do you need a car? I can take your mother’s car down to Greeley’s and get it in working order in a day or two.”
    “That would be helpful.” Frederick went into the living room and sat on the couch next to his mother’s recliner. She was already asleep. “Mister Ed” was playing on the TV.
    Mister Ed said, “Now Wilbur.” The laugh track roared, and Rosa opened her eyes. Frederick was sitting across from her on the couch. He wasn’t laughing or even smiling.
    “Frederick, how long will you be visiting?”
    “Not long, Mother. Just a few days.”
    “Who’s taking care of the Parish while you are gone? It’s the middle of Lent, and there were a lot of preparations for Holy Week and Easter.”
    “Father Robert is in charge of the Easter preparations now.”
    “But, won’t—”
    “Aren’t you happy to have me home for a visit?” Frederick said. “The last couple of years you’ve been complaining about my being too busy to visit.”
    Rosa sat up in her recliner. She put on a smile that didn’t hide her concerns. “Well, of course, I thank God for the chance to have you home again. I’m just—”
    “Maybe I’ll go out and work in the garden for a while, turn over the soil to get ready for spring planting,” Frederick said, standing up. “Would you like to come out and help?”
    “Oh, I don’t go out to the garden much anymore,” she said. “You go. I’ll rest and talk with you later.”
    “All right.” Frederick got up and went directly to the front door.
    “Why are you going out the front? Don’t you want a jacket or a cap? It’s cold out,” Rosa called to him, but he was already out the door. Frederick stopped at the old spruce tree, grabbing one of the dead limbs and trying to break it off. It bent and cracked, but it wouldn’t break off.
    Frederick was cursing at the tree, but not loudly enough for his mother to hear. She’d told him he was her good boy, a priest, the only pure thing that came from the disgusting necessities of marriage. Pregnancy was hell; it was her sacrifice to God.
    Frederick had never known his parents to sleep in the same bed, or even in the same bedroom. In spite of what he might have seen on television or in the movies, his father had told him, when he was old enough for the lecture on the birds and the bees, sex after childbirth was painful for some women. His father said he’d struggled with a calling to the priesthood because he didn’t think he could remain celibate. He’d laughed, after turning away from Frederick for a moment; he’d very nearly kept the vow, but for a few months, he said.
    Rosa’s months of sacrifice produced a pair of fraternal twins. Frederick and Caroline—Yin and Yang, if you followed Chinese philosophy—you needed the dark in order to see the light.
    Frederick and Caroline were certainly opposites. From his mother’s perspective, Frederick was good in every way; Caroline was bad. She skipped out of school, she drank, she smoked, and not just cigarettes. She ran around with a wild crowd. Rosa couldn’t deal with her, she left it to Dominick to try and control her. Once, Frederick had heard his father call Caroline a slut. His mother couldn’t manage the birds-and-the-bee talk with her own daughter. Caroline had many boyfriends, most with long, dirty hair and fingernails, even motorcycles. Rosa had been scandalized by the idea of a proper lady even riding on a motorcycle up against a man’s backside? His mother always asked Frederick to pray for Caroline, many, many rosaries. It never did any good. Caroline never changed. It was his mother’s cross to bear, but then she also had Frederick, Father Freddy, the pure one, who lightened the burden.

    By the next day Frederick had nearly finished working the soil for the whole vegetable garden when he heard a car pull into the driveway. Then the back door slammed shut. He heard voices coming from the kitchen.
    “Where’s the perv?” Caroline said.
    “He’s out in the garden. It’s too early to be turning over the soil, but I guess he needs something to do,” Dominick said. “And keep you voice down. Your mother will hear.”
    “She doesn’t know?” There was a pause. Through the window Frederick saw Caroline pouring a cup of coffee. “Of course she doesn’t know.”
    “It’s better that way,” Dominick said.
    “Better for whom? For you? So you won’t have to deal with her meltdown when she discovers her little saint is actually a sinner?”
    “It’s better for both of us,” Dominick said. “And you’re not going to say anything, not if you expect me to keep paying the rent on your apartment.”
    “I had a full tip jar at the bar last night.” Another pause, then the sound of running water. “Folgers again? What happened to the Starbuck’s I brought home for you?”
    “You drank it all. I like the weak stuff. Doesn’t keep me up at night, after your mother has one of her whimpering episodes.”
    “All right, I’ll keep my mouth shut,” Caroline said. “Now what do you want me to do with Fred-ER-ick?”
    “Take him down to Bridgeport. He’s lined up an efficiency apartment at the Putnam Tower on East Street. Get him to sign the lease agreement.” Dominick handed her an envelope. “There’s a check for the first and last month’s rent and security deposit.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a couple of fifty dollar bills. “In case you need to grease the skids. Keep whatever is left.”
    Frederick closed the back door loudly. Coming into the kitchen he saw Caroline jamming the bills into her back pocket and putting an envelope in the inside pocket of her coat.
    “Hey, the—, Fred. How’s it going?” Frederick didn’t answer. “Need help getting your stuff in the car.”
    Frederick gave Caroline and Dominick a quizzical look.
    “He can’t move in until Friday,” Dominick said. “Just sign the papers, maybe buy some stuff for the apartment. Then bring him back home.”
    “Oh, Mommy will be so happy to have Father Freddy around for a couple of more days. I suppose Bridgeport is to be your new assignment?”
    “Let’s go,” Frederick said. He moved toward the back door.
    Dominick looked at Caroline. “Drive carefully, no more speeding tickets.”

    Frederick kicked the mud off of his boots before entering the back door. Dominick was sitting, waiting for him at the kitchen table. “I finished turning over the soil in the vegetable garden, and the flower gardens by the front porch and the side yard are all cleaned out.”
    “Thanks,” Dominick said. “Maybe I’ll get around to planting a garden this year.” Frederick sat down across from him.
    “I could come back in April for a few days to help you out like I used to,” Frederick said.
    “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Dominick said. “You’ll probably be too busy getting settled down in Bridgeport.” Dominick held out his hand. “Here are the keys to your mother’s Tempo. I replaced the tires and the battery. The car hadn’t been driven for a couple of years, so they were both shot. I had Greeley check all the hoses and belts. Even though the car only has eighteen-thousand miles on it, it’s nearly twenty years old, and that stuff gets brittle after a while. Greeley only found a couple of things that needed changing. The air conditioning doesn’t work. They used Freon back when the Tempo was built. It would need new tubing and gaskets for the refrigerant they are allowed to use today.”
    Frederick jangled the keys, listening to his father. “Hopefully, I won’t need to keep it all summer.”
    “Oh, and here are the court documents the sheriff dropped off yesterday afternoon. I signed for them, hope that was alright.”
    “Sure.” Frederick took the envelope and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “Father, I just wanted to say—“
    “No need, glad to help out. I mean, the car was just sitting in the garage anyway.”
    “Right, but I meant about—“
    “Oh, we were glad to have you. You saw how your mother brightened up during your visit.” Dominick put a hand on Frederick’s shoulder, guiding him toward the back door. “Now you have a safe trip. Greeley said the brakes on the Tempo are almost like new. Your mother hardly drove fast enough to ever need them.”
    “I know you must be disappointed—“
    “Nonsense. Everything will be fine once you get set up in your new place.” Dominick increased the pressure on Frederick’s shoulder. “We don’t want to wake up your mother. The lamb stew dinner she made for you last night took a lot out of her,” Dominick whispered.
    “No, of course. We wouldn’t want her wake up.”
    Dominick patted Frederick on the back as he went through the door. The door closed softly behind him. A minute later Frederick drove the Tempo drive out of the driveway and onto Main Street.

    From his seat on the East Main Street bus, Frederick saw Gonzalo Ramirez waiting at the bus stop. A moment later Gonzalo was sitting next to him.
    “Como va, Freddy?” Gonzalo said.
    “Bien, y usted, Gonzalo?” Frederick said.
    “No, say ‘tu’, not ‘usted’ when talking to a friend,” Gonzalo said.
    “There’s no familiar and formal you’s in Latin. I keep translating from Latin.”
    “Yeah, you sound funny, too. Not like a gringo speaking Spanish. You sound like a foreigner, maybe like an Italian,” Gonzalo said.
    The bus stopped at East Main and Barnum. Frederick and Gonzalo got off and crossed the street to the Three-Ring Circus Pawn Shop, where Gonzalo was the manager and Frederick was the trainee. Inside, Frederick started the coffeemaker.
    “I have to miss work tomorrow morning. They want me over at the courthouse at 9 am. There’s a hearing at 9:30. I’ll get back as soon as I can, but it could be all morning.”
    “Okay. No sense coming here to open,” Gonzalo said. “You can stay on the East Main bus. If you get off at the James Street stop, you will only have to backtrack one block to the Superior Court building. I had to go over there two, three times a week for my stolen property trial. It takes longer, but no transfers, no waiting in the rain.”
    “Thanks. I keep hoping the diocese will settle the case,” Frederick said. “I need the hours here to make my rent.”
    “Yeah, damn lawyers and judges. Just waste everybody’s time,” Gonzalo said. “All the damn motions and nitpicking, didn’t do me no good. I still got six months.”
    “This is just about money, how much the diocese is going to pay in damages,” Frederick said. “They already took everything I have. I just want to keep a roof over my head.”
    “Just money! Money is the only thing that matters in this world. Well, and getting laid once, twice a month.” Gonzalo grinned. “But with money, that ain’t hard to arrange neither.”
    “Well, right now, I just need enough money to pay the rent and buy some hamburger helper to cook on my hotplate,” Frederick said.
    “Hey, ‘nother couple a months, you gonna finish your traineeship. You’ll get promoted to assistant manager. Pays no better, but you get commissions for selling junk above the reserve price. Move outta that crappy apartment, away from the Dominicans. You could move down a couple blocks where I am. Where the Puertoriqueños live, it’s nice,” Gonzalo said, still grinning.

    Frederick sat on the bench outside of Superior Court 3B. The diocesan attorney met with him shortly after 9 am.
    “Mr. Martinelli, we might need you to testify at the evidentiary hearing.”
    “What about?”
    “It’s about the letter that you sent Jason. We are arguing that it’s privileged. He was clearly seeking religious counseling. It happened before the alleged incident,” the attorney said.
    “What do you want me to say?”
    “If you’re asked, that nothing was going on between you and Jason at the time you wrote the letter. That’s what we understood from your deposition, which was the basis of your agreement with the diocese,” the attorney said. Frederick said nothing. The attorney continued, “Great, then I’ll let you know if you need to testify as soon as possible. Just wait here.”
    Ninety-five minutes later the attorney came out of the courtroom and said, “You can go home. We’ll call you when we need your testimony during the trial.” Frederick took the bus back to the Pawn Shop just in time to relieve Gonzalo for lunch.

    The Pawn Shop door opened and four Hispanic women in their twenties entered. Gonzalo said, “¿Que quieren, hijas?”
    The women ignored Gonzalo and went to the back of the shop where Frederick was tidying the jewelry case.
    “We need cruxes for kids’ communion,” one of the women said.
    Frederick hesitated a moment. “Ah, first communion. I have a nice selection of gold crosses on short chains, just the right size for children.”
    Frederick took the women to the next jewelry case and brought out four gold crosses on gold chains.
    “¿Cuanto?” the leader of the group said.
    “These three are 18-carat gold, $10 each. This one is 24-carat gold, $15,” Frederick said.
    The women huddled. “Forty dollar for all four?” the leader said.
    “Forty-two dollars,” Frederick said.
    Another brief huddle. “Okay,” the leader said, handing Frederick two tens, three fives and seven ones.
    Frederick put each cross and chain in a small velvet pouch and each pouch into a small, white box. He handed one box to each woman; the leader got the 24-carat chain. The women smiled at Frederick. “Gracias,” they said in unison. They turned around and left, cooing like a small flock of doves.
    “How much you sell those chains for?” Gonzalo said.
    “Forty-two dollars.”
    “Oh, man, you coulda got those Dominican putas to pay twenty bucks each, and extra for the pouch and the box,” Gonzalo said.
    “I know, but it was for their kids’ first communion,” Frederick said.
    “Ha, that’s what they told you, lying bitches. They don’t look fat enough to have kids,” Gonzalo said. “You gonna make a living here, you gotta learn to take advantage of a good business situation.”
    Frederick went back to rearranging the jewelry case to accommodate the four missing chains.

    Frederick finished sweeping the floor and cleaning off the counters. Gonzalo was at his desk doing the final tally of the day’s receipts.
    “Gonzalo, do you think the owner would let us put in a little flower garden in that patch of dirt by the front door?” Frederick said.
    “What? Are you nuts, man?” Gonzalo said. “Those Dominician putas will just come and steal’em, sell’em in the market for a couple of bucks. And they’ll be setting off the motion sensors, and the security company going to be call me all the time to come down and check the store. I tried to get Mr. Stein to cover that dirt with a plaque to Roberto Clemente. You know him? He was the greatest baseball player ever, born in Puerto Rico in the town right next to where my father was born. But Mr. Stein, he’s a Yankee fan and wouldn’t go for it.”

    Gonzalo’s second arrest for receiving stolen property left Frederick the acting manager of the Three-Ring Circus Pawn Shop. With the extra income, Frederick moved out of his efficiency at the Putnam Tower into a small two-room apartment above the Caribe Market on the corner of Park and Barnum, three blocks from the Pawn Shop. The landlord let him put in a window box on his second floor window, with a view of the west end of Washington Park and the Cathedral of St. Augustine that lies across from the southwest corner of the park.
    Although Frederick was born and raised in nearby Ridgecrest, his father insisted on treating St. Augustine’s as the family’s home parish. Frederick was baptized in the cathedral and received his first communion there. He attended the cathedral parochial school and served there as an altar boy. His confirmation ceremony was performed by the Old Prelate, then the auxiliary bishop; a decade later Frederick lay prostrate on the floor of St. Augustine’s while the Old Prelate ordained him. During the 13 months Jason’s misconduct allegation was being investigated, Frederick lived in the diocesan residence, acting as the Old Prelate’s administrative assistant.
    As the Pawn Shop’s acting manager, Frederick was free every other Saturday afternoon. That Saturday afternoon Frederick was volunteering with the Washington Park ground staff getting the flower gardens ready to spring planting. From the gardens, he was monitoring activities at the cathedral and its associated convent, school, clergy residence and the administrative annex, housing the offices of the diocese’s Vietnamese mission.
    Since Christmas, activity around the cathedral had increased. Frederick had seen new cohorts of Vietnamnese clergy in their tropical white robles floating back and forth between the cathedral and the dormitories on Noble Street. Even today, a Saturday, maintenance workers were repairing some of the cathedral’s crumbling statuary. Frederick saw spring flowers planted in front of the cathedral for the first time in several years.
    The weather was unseasonably sunny and warm for a late March day, and Frederick was taking a break, enjoying the warm breeze. It was quarter to two, and he was waiting to see who will be hearing confessions at 2 pm. An old, crouched cleric walked from the diocesan residence toward the cathedral’s side entrance where the confessionals are located. Frederick was unsure at first, but then he saw that it was the Old Prelate, who retired late last year, shortly before Christmas. The Old Prelate still lived in the diocesan residence, although no longer in the main chambers, and ministered to the nuns in the adjacent convent and filled in for the regular clergy during vacations, illnesses or other emergencies.
    Frederick had not entered the cathedral since he was laicized. He put on his jacket and crossed the park to the cathedral.

    “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three years, five months and twelve days since my last confession,” Frederick said.
    “Why so long, my son?” the Old Prelate said.
    “I was too ashamed to enter the cathedral again. I did not think any of the clergy here would be able to forgive me for the shame I brought on them,” Frederick said.
    There is a pause. “Freddy, is that you?” the Old Prelate said.
    “Yes, Your Excellency.”
    “None of that, I am a lowly cleric now, the same as you were when you were banished, Freddy.”
    “Yes, Father,” Frederick said. “I would like to be forgiven for the harm I have done to the church.”
    “I forgive you, Freddy, and I hope you forgive me,” the Old Prelate said.
    “Forgive you for what?”
    “I was the one who led you into sin. But worse, I should have taught you how to recognize a special friend who has a true vocation. Only love between special friends who share a true vocation works to the benefit of the church,” the Old Prelate said.
    Frederick lowered his head. “I knew Jason was wrong for me; he was too unstable and spiritually frail. But I was weak. I shouldn’t have used him to satisfy my own needs. I should have waited for the right person, as you did, Father.”
    “Jason was unable to reciprocate your special friendship. But I understand. It is a lonely life in a small parish by yourself. You fell victim to the treachery of the Devil. I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” the Old Prelate said. “For your penance, say ten Our Father’s, and please keep me in your prayers.”
    “I will. Thank you, Father.”
    Frederick crossed himself and prepared to leave when the Old Prelate said, “I want to involve you in church activities again, Freddy.”
    “I don’t think the diocese will let me participate in religious services or Sunday school, not based on the terms of the lawsuit settlement,” Frederick said.
    “No, but you were always a good gardener. I could talk to the Diocesan Sexton about having you help with the convent or rectory gardens, somewhere away from children,” the Old Prelate said.
    “That would be wonderful,” Frederick said. He hesitated a moment. “You know, we have a lot of unredeemed religious jewelry and artifacts at the Shop. It’s hard to move with our clientele. I wonder if the cathedral’s gift shoppe might take our merchandise on consignment. With our low prices and the cathedral’s foot traffic, both parties might benefit.”
    “Very interesting,” the Old Prelate said. “I’ll talk with the Bursar on Monday. If this were to be successful, it is just the kind of idea that could persuade the Most Reverend to bring you back into the church.”
    “I don’t understand. I haven’t been excommunicated,” Frederick said.
    “Oh, no, I don’t mean that. I mean get you back into the church organization in some formal way. This could be your salvation.” The Old Prelate smiled at Frederick through the confessional screen that prevents him from reaching out to touch his cheek.
    Frederick smiled back. “Thank you, Your Excellency.”

    Frederick took a break from weeding to watch the golden-winged skimmer perched on the Phlox paniculata waiting for its next meal to pass. Sobbing spilled out one of the garden-facing windows of the Pio Nono Hospice. Another soul was on its way to its final judgment. Frederick wanted to believe that he would be ready for that judgment when the cancer that had spread from his colon into his liver did its inevitable work, but today his soul still wasn’t quite ready for the trip. He hoped to be able to continue for another few weeks, even months, God willing, tending to the hospice’s garden.
    Reaching for the Convolvulus arvensis that had begun to climb the stem of the Echinacea purpurea, Frederick noticed the young boy, maybe fourth or fifth grade, sitting in the meditation garden. He’d just put down his Gameboy and was wiping his eyes with a tissue. He’d been a regular visitor to the garden for the last week, coming from inside the hospice out to the garden with his school books and Gameboy. He arrived in the afternoon and stayed until after Frederick had left.
    “What’s wrong, son?” It was a stupid question to ask of a visitor to a hospice, but Frederick had wanted to say hello for the last few days.
    “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” the boy said.
    “I’m not a stranger,” Frederick said. “I’m the gardener here. Do you like my flowers?” Frederick swept his hands across the expanse of blooming Phlox paniculata and Monarda. “The butterflies like them, don’t they?”
    “I guess,” the boy said. “My mom says there’s a lot of creeps in the world, and I have to be careful not to fall on their crutches?”
    “Or maybe into their clutches?” Frederick said, smiling.
    “Whatever,” the boy said. “I guess you’re okay. You’re as old as my grandpa, and I heard him tell my grandma that a man his age can flirt as much as he wants because even the little blue pills don’t work for him anymore. Grandma laughed and said he should have been taking the little blue pills since Jerry Ford—whoever he was?”
    “Well, he was the President a long time ago, before you were born.” Frederick thought of the garden he’d found at St. Catherine’s back in the fall of 1974, just after Ford had replaced Richard Nixon as President. Well, it was more of a weed patch than a garden. It took two years before the garden was an acceptable place for a wedding or baptismal reception.
    “But not before you were born?” the boy said.
    “No, I was just starting my first job back then?”
    “Doing what?”
    “Oh, what do you think?” Frederick said, holding up his trowel. “So how old are you? What eight, nine?” Frederick knew to guess low, so the child could correct him and relax.
    “I’m way older, ten and a half.”
    “Stand up, let me see,” Frederick said, twirling him around gently by the shoulder. “I can see that now, you’re bigger than I thought.”
    “Mom says I’m going to have a growth spurt soon, then I will be able to play basketball on the regular court with the ten foot hoop.”
    “Who are you visiting here,” Frederick said. “Is it your grandma or grandpa?”
    “Not it’s Uncle Tim. He’s real sick, but I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
    “Oh?”
    “It’s because he got sick from being a fag, my cousin Jeff said.”
    “That’s not a nice thing to say,” Frederick said. “I see why you don’t want to talk about it.”
    “And Jeff said he got that way because he was an altar boy.”
    “I don’t understand, how can you get sick from being an altar boy?”
    “I don’t know. Something happened to him in church that made him sick,” the boy said.
    “Are you an altar boy?”
    “No, Mom won’t let me. She doesn’t want me to end up sick like Uncle Tim.”
    “Well, that’s too bad. I was an altar boy when I was your age, and I thought it was wonderful to help out with the mass, especially Easter and Christmas with all the beautiful vestments and the chanting.”
    “Yeah, I would like that too. Maybe when I’m older and can take care of myself better, Mom says.”
    “George,” someone called from the garden entrance.
    “I got to go.”
    “Maybe I’ll see you here tomorrow?”
    “Yeah,” the boy said, “if Uncle Tim’s still alive.”

    Next morning Frederick cut some flowers from the Gaillardia aristata and Rudbeckia fulgida and brought them to the front desk in the vases he’d salvaged out of the dumpster from the room of the elderly gentlemen who passed away the day before.
    “Marge, I wondered if some of the patients might like to have some flowers from the garden in their room. A boy named George said his Uncle Tim likes flowers.”
    “Well, Fred, thank you. That’s a good idea. Mostly we get greenhouse flowers from the florists. Flowers from our own garden will be a nice change.”
    “I can drop them off if you like,” Frederick said.
    “Oh, no, I can...” The phone rang, and then the second line. “Okay, go ahead. Timothy Rossi is in 3A.”
    The name was familiar, one of the plaintiffs from St. Catherine’s, dismissed due to the statute of limitations. The room was empty except for the patient, who was on his side turned away from the door, wheezing slightly, possibly asleep. Frederick came around the bedside and placed the flower vase on the bed stand heavily enough to make a noise. One of Timothy’s eyes opened.
    “I brought you some flowers from the garden. Your nephew said you might like them.” Timothy made a low gurgling sound, the left side of his mouth twitched slightly, and then his eyes closed. Frederick had been in the company of the dying many times. He took a minute to study Timothy’s face. It was gaunt and blotched and probably looked twenty years older than it should, but it was vaguely familiar. Frederick made the sign of the cross over Timothy, which made him feet better, even though it didn’t mean anything. Frederick dropped off the other vase in Mrs. Fernandez’s room. Her daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter were grateful for the gesture.

    George was fingering through his math book when Frederick snuck up on him. He dropped his pencil, Frederick picked it up.
    “What have you got there?” Frederick said.
    “My math homework. I can’t figure out how to calculate the area of a trapezoid.”
    “Oh, I was terrible in math myself. It was always my worst subject,” Frederick said. “Let’s see, a trapezoid is like a box with one side smaller than the other, right?”
    “Right,” George said. “Like that flower bed there.” George pointed at the bed with the red flowers.
    “The Asclepias tuberosa bed,” Frederick said. “Well look, it has a rectangle inside of it, so that’s just length by width, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Then what’s left over are two triangles, one of each side. If you flipped one triangle over and put it together with the other one, it would make another rectangle. Then just add together the areas of the two rectangles, and your have the area of the trapezoid, I’m pretty sure, but like I said, I was never good in math.”
    “Thanks,” George said.
    “How’s your Uncle doing today?” the gardener said.
    “The same. Mom’s worried they’re going to kick him out of the hospice because he’s taking too long to die.”
    “I’m sure they’ll find a good place for him.”
    “Moms’ afraid she’ll have to take him home. Grandma and Grandpa are old and sick. Besides they’re mad at Uncle Tim for being a fag.”
    “I don’t know if you should use that term?”
    “Mom told me not too, that it would hurt Uncle Tim if he heard it, but Uncle Tim hurt us by being a fag and now he’ll never be able to make it up to us.”
    “Don’t you think God would want us to forgive Uncle Tim for his sins and stand by him in his hour of need?”
    “I suppose,” George said. “I got to finish my math homework. Thanks for the help.”
    Frederick moved off to weed around the cactus in the corner, leaving George to his homework, who shortly put it aside for the Gameboy.

    Frederick had to miss work the next day to visit the clinic for a CT scan of his liver and colon. The news wasn’t good, the tumors were metastasizing faster than they had hoped. Still, it was good that the pain was manageable with over the counter analgesics and that he was ambulatory. Frederick could keep working in the garden as long as he liked, nothing he could do there would reasonably change the outcome or make it worse. After the exam, Frederick walked over to St. Cecilia’s and sat in the pews. He thought he might like to pray. Instinctively he reached into his pocket for the onyx and sterling silver rosary his parents had given him for his ordination, but then he remembered he’d pawned it after he’d been laicized. Frederick sat for a couple of hours, but the urge to pray never moved in him. He lit three candles for his father, mother and sister, and then walked home.
    The next morning he worked hard to catch up from his day away from the garden. Some of the plants were looking stressed from not being watered. It was amazing how the weeds had grown so fast in only a day. By the afternoon when George arrived, Frederick was caught up and in need of a break.
    “How’s your uncle doing today, George?”
    George didn’t immediately look up from his Gameboy; he finished his move and put the game on pause. “Oh, no change. The nurse told Mom they needed the bed by next Wednesday.” Frederick grabbed onto the back of the bench George was sitting on. “Hey, you don’t look too good. Your eyeballs are kind of yellow.”
    “I’m okay,” Frederick said. “I just had a lot to do today, I’m a little tired.” Feeling dizzy, Frederick sat on the bench next to George. He put his hand down to steady himself, it fell on George’s hand.
    “Hey, watch it,” George said, pulling his hand away.
    “Sorry, I didn’t see you hand there.” Frederick was sweating. He wiped his shirtsleeve across his forehead. “It’s hot today, isn’t it?”
    “No, it’s nice out. Are you sure you are okay?”
    “Oh, sure.” Frederick took a drink from his water bottle. “Did you have a quiz on the trapezoids?”
    “Yeah, and I got a B+, thanks to you.”
    “What’s you next math topic?”
    Before George could answer, Marge called out of the garden door of the hospice to Frederick, “Monsignor Allen is here administering the last rites to one of the patients. He’d like you to meet him in the chapel.”

    Frederick sat in second chair next to the little altar of the hospice chapel. Behind and above the altar was a stained glass window of our Lady of Fatima. Frederick moved closer; he remembered this window in St. Therese’s convent because of the image of the Blessed Virgin and the three shepherd children with their sheep in the background. They must have salvaged and restored the window after the convent fire in 1987, when he was the assistant pastor there. There was some crackling in the lower left corner that was probably considered too minor to repair.
    “Frederick,” the monsignor said.
    Frederick turned expecting a blessing; the monsignor must have heard of his illness.
    “What were you doing with that boy?”
    “Nothing.”
    “I saw you holding his hand.”
    “No, I wasn’t. I just sat down and accidentally touched his hand.”
    “How many times have you used that excuse?” The monsignor threw his hands up in frustration. “What about the time your pants accidentally fell to the floor in the boys’ bathroom and you accidentally weren’t wearing underwear.”
    “I was feeling a little lightheaded. I needed to sit down.”
    “You were instructed not to come within twenty feet of anyone under the age of puberty. You couldn’t find somewhere else to sit down?”
    “I’m no longer a priest, that instruction doesn’t apply anymore.”
    “Christ Almighty, how many times have I made excuses for you? How many times have I overlooked, no covered up, your sins? I practically had to sacrifice my left testicle to get you this job after you were laicized, and this is how you repay me.”
    “This is a mistake. I didn’t do anything?”
    “You never think you are doing something, until then you accidentally do it. You’re through here. You’re lucky I don’t report you to the police. I’m calling the hospice director as soon as I get back to the rectory.” The monsignor turned away from Frederick. “God, she’s going to bust my balls when she finds out what you’ve done.”
    “You’d better act fast,” Frederick said. “I have end-stage liver cancer. I’ll probably be dead before you can have me fired.” Then he collapsed.

    From the bed that just a week before had held Mrs. Isabella Fernandez, Frederick could hear George talking to Marge at the nursing station.
    “What happened to the gardener guy? I need him to help me with my homework,” George said. “Mom’s too busy sitting with Uncle Tim.”
    “I thought you knew, George,” Marge said. “Mr. Martinelli got sick last week. It was right after he was talking with you.”
    “I didn’t think he looked good. His eyes were yellow.”
    “Yes, he has liver cancer. That’s one of the symptoms,” Marge said. “He was in the chapel talking with Monsignor Allen, the judicial vicar for the diocese.” George gave Marge a confused look. “He’s like a judge.”
    “Is the gardener in trouble?” George said.
    “Oh, no. There’re just old friends. They were talking and Mr. Martinelli got sick, that’s all. They took him to the hospital for some tests, but then he came back here because there was nothing they could do for him. He’s right across the hall there.”
    “Can I visit him?” George said.
    “Sure, he would probably like that. I’ll tell you what, we’ll go out and pick some flowers from the garden for him as soon as I take my break.”
    Fifteen minutes later, Marge and George were armed with a handful of flowers to put in the empty vase Frederick had given Mrs. Fernandez last week.
    “Fred, you have a visitor,” Marge said.
    George put the flowers into the vase on the side table.
    “Oh, the Aquilegia canadensis and the Lobelia cardinalis are beautiful,” Frederick said.
    “I thought these were cardinal flowers, Fred?” Marge said.
    “I like to use the Latin names. I used to speak a lot of Latin back in the old days,” Frederick said.
    “Wow, you were alive during the Roman Empire?” George said.
    “No, I meant, back when I was a, ah, altar boy. You know the mass was all in Latin back then. And I studied Latin in school, so I got pretty good at it.”
    “I’d like to learn Latin. Maybe when I become an altar boy.”
    Marge’s break was over and she excused herself.
    “Well, they don’t say the mass in Latin anymore, and they don’t teach it in high school either. Maybe at the community college.”
    “Anything would be better than math,” George said.
    “Yes, anything is better than math,” Frederick said. “What are you studying now?”
    “I’ll go get my book and show you,” George said, but when he came back Frederick had closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep. George took out his Gameboy and went back to the waiting area.

    Frederick heard someone talking to him. He was drifting in and out of consciousness every time he pressed the button of the morphine pump.
    “Mister gardener, are you awake?” George said.
    “Hello, George. How long have you been here?”
    “Not long. My Mom is meeting with the medical director. She said Uncle Tim is about ready to go.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that, George. I will say a prayer for him.”
    “He woke up for just a minute yesterday while Mom was talking to the nurses,” George said. “Uncle Tim said he wanted me to tell you he remembers you from St. Catherine’s.”
    “He must have been one of the altar boys who helped me in the garden.”
    “Uncle Tim gave me this book.” George held it up for Frederick to look at.
    “I don’t have my glasses on, George. I can’t read the title.”
    “It’s called, Collected Stories of Victims of Clerical Abuse. The author is the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests—New England Chapter,” George said. “What does that mean, clerical abuse?”
    “It’s when a priest has a romantic liaison with an underage parishioner.”
    “Romantic liaison? That’s like sex, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And that’s what happened to Uncle Tim? That’s why he became a fag?”
    “I think you are probably correct.”
    “So it wasn’t his fault?”
    “No, it wasn’t.”
    “Shit, I’ve been blaming him this whole time. I got to go apologize before it’s too late.” George got up to leave. He handed Uncle Tim’s book to Frederick. “Uncle Tim said you could keep it. He marked a page for you to read.”
    Frederick put on his glasses and opened the book to page where Timothy had inserted a pewter bookmark that read ‘Confirmed in Christ’ on the front. On the back the engraving read: Timothy Michael Rossi, confirmed in St. Catherine’s Catholic Church on November 24, 1978, from Reverend Frederick Martinelli, Pastor.
    Frederick pressed the button on the morphine pump. He heard footsteps coming into his room. George was wearing an anguished face.
    “Uncle Tim is dead.” George started crying.
    “I’m sorry, George. Remember, he is with God now, and his suffering is over.”
    “I need to ask you a question,” George said. “About Uncle Tim, about what happened to him.”
    “Sure, George, but before you do, could you help me with one thing.” George nodded. “This machine that giving me my medicine, it’s locked up. Could you just pull the plug out of the socket and then put it back in. That will reset the machine.” George pulled the plug, waited a moment and plugged it back in. Frederick reached over and hit the start button. “Great, it’s working again. Thank you, George.”
    As his last clerical act Frederick administered the last rites for Mrs. Irma Cunningham thirteen years ago. She was using the same morphine pump for pain control after abdominal surgery. Someone accidentally dislodged the plug from the electrical socket and then plugged it back in without telling the nurse. The pump controller reset itself to the default morphine concentration of 0.1 mg/mL when, like Frederick’s, the medication cartridge was sending 5.0 mg/mL morphine into the pump. Frederick pressed the dose button for the morphine pump.
    Frederick feigned a smile. “Okay, George, what is it you want to know?” Frederick heard George begin to speak, but then his voice drifted away, as though George was inside the confessional at St. Catherine’s speaking to Frederick, who was standing at the altar at the other end of the church dressed in white vestments for the confirmation mass. George’s voice became a rasping, urgent buzz, like an insect rubbing its legs inside of Frederick’s ear.
    Frederick could see George’s lips moving, but he couldn’t understand what he was saying. He clutched his thumb over the dose button of the morphine pump. If he remained conscious for the next four minutes, the pump would deliver another massive dose of morphine. Outside the window the red and yellow flowers of the Hieracium aurantiacum swayed silently in the breeze. The golden-winged skimmer landed on the left-most flower and turned his big red eyes toward Frederick.

Red State Sis

    “You’re my baby brother and I worry for you. I worry about what will happen to you — when it comes.”
    My sister, Claudine, had called me from her home near Billings, Montana to catch up on family gossip—mostly, the latest shenanigans of our other sister, Jessica who still lived in our home town of Shelbyville, Indiana. I was just about to grab my umbrella and head into Harvard Square to putter around. Claudine and I spoke infrequently so instead of begging off I decided to hang around and chat with her for a few minutes. This urgent worry for my well being on her part was odd. I had heard from Jessica that Claudine was experiencing some health issues of late. But—what were these vague references of things happening to me? And, what was coming? I certainly wasn’t aware of any portentous event looming in my future.
    “Uh huh. And— what is supposed to happen?”
    “You know. The End of Days.”
    She pronounced the phrase in a quiet, solemn manner, as though she were afraid that articulating the words at normal volume might actually precipitate the heralding of trumpets, or the formation of crevices in the ground.
    “Ohhh kay.”
    I now remembered our conversations over the past few years where Claudine wanted to know if I had accepted Jesus Christ, a prerequisite for admission into the Kingdom of Heaven. But according to Claudine’s ominous tone, it now sounded as though the departure date was being moved up.
    “You don’t believe me?” She sounded incredulous. “Haven’t you been following the news stories, little brother?”
    Claudine went on to explain to me the publicity surrounding the Rev. Harold Crumpett, the president of The Word Radio. It seemed that the good Reverend had put his notable numerology skills at work in interpreting various biblical passages to arrive at the date of the End Times. Crumpett predicted that Jesus would return to Earth on May 21, 2011 “whereupon the righteous would fly up to heaven, and that there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, with the final destruction of the world.”
    Of course, what Claudine failed to say was, Crumpett had previously predicted that Judgment Day was supposed to have occurred on or about September 6, 1994. This I learned by way of Wikipedia.
    “I know you were raised a Christian, and I pray with all of my might that you’ll still allow Jesus to come into your heart. Before it’s — too late.”
    Her last few words tapered off. They were almost inaudible. I could tell she was fighting back the tears.
    “I— Gosh— I don’t know what to say, Claudine. We’ve had this conversation before. I’m not — it’s not that I’m a complete atheist. I suppose I’m agnostic. Or part pagan. I believe that there may be something out there that created the universe. There may even be energy in the universe that comprises spiritual power. Perhaps even the Earth Mother. But there are many, many different paths to enlightenment. I can’t accept your view that only Christians will achieve some sort of salvation or afterlife, while all the moral Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims and Pagans—“
    “—Arrrrrg! You make me so angry sometimes, Tom! You use labels like ‘atheist’ and ‘agnostic’ like you’re some sort of elitist east coast snob. Don’t be so foolish! You studied the Bible as a child. You know the Word. The Truth! The Reverend Crumpett and his followers, they’re trying desperately to spread The Word to as many as possible before it’s too late.”
    Claudine told me she and her husband, John had contributed several thousand dollars to Crumpett’s The Word Radio organization to help fund their campaign to enlighten the world about the End Days. Over the phone she could not see me roll my eyes, nor could she hear me sigh with my hand cupped over the microphone.
    I assured her that I would try and keep an open mind (and heart) about Jesus, and to remember Crumpett’s prediction/deadline, but I was fairly certain she doubted my sincerity. Frankly, Claudine was beginning to annoy me. I had given her far more time than I ever granted to anyone else who had tried winning me over to Jesus.
    I hung up with my big sister.
    “Wow.”
    She was right about one thing. It was true — I did feel like an East Coast snob. I had changed. I was no longer the innocent, wide-eyed Hoosier kid that she remembered from our childhood. For over half my life I had lived in Boston. I had met people from all walks of life and every corner of the earth. I had been exposed to all manner of spiritual and intellectual belief systems. My world was no longer the black-and-white, good-versus-evil world that my sister and her ilk inhabited. I was a citizen of the World. I lived in a Blue State.

    In the weeks that followed, I heard much more from Claudine than I ever had over the past five years. She peppered me with daily email updates and Facebook posts. Claudine and John joined one of Crumpett’s traveling caravans. They were excited to be a part of this crusade along with dozens of other families making their way across western states to proclaim the coming Rapture. Theirs was just one of a dozen or so caravans crisscrossing the United States and Canada in the final weeks. Claudine and John were retired, so they didn’t have careers to hold them back. And, they owned a large recreational vehicle. Many of Crumpett’s followers had quit their jobs, sold their homes, and had given all their money to the Church. I didn’t ask the couple whether the two were planning to donate all of their savings to the Good Reverend. After all, what good would their money be to them after May 21? (Or to the church, for that matter.) I was sorely tempted to ask Claudine if I could have it — but that would have merely confirmed her suspicions that I intended to stay behind. On a lark, I did ask about her plans for their two beloved Chihuahuas, Roxy and Scarlett. After all — wasn’t it a known fact among Believers that the Rapture would “take” only God-fearing people and not animals, for they have no souls? (Personally, I found this idea repugnant. Animals most certainly are self-aware; they have feelings and express love. If that doesn’t constitute a soul, I don’t know what does.)
    “Oh, we have that covered,” explained Claudine. “There’s a Jewish couple in Lewistown who are members of After The Rapture Pet Care. A week before the End Times, we’ll drop off Roxy and Scarlett at their house.”
    I found the idea of a pet-sitting outfit catering to Rapturists almost too much to swallow, but I checked them out and they seemed legitimate. The organization offered a sincere and cogent explanation of its service on their web site:
    “When all the Christians on the planet disappear, there will certainly be massive confusion. However, the majority of people will still be on earth, and communications will be their first priority to maintain. Therefore [...] it will not be a problem to coordinate activities to rescue and care for your pets. As far as the data about all registered pets, it is located on Google servers (the most secure servers in the world) as well as our own server in Lansing, Michigan (away from political and military hot spots to minimize chance of destruction if there is a post-Rapture war). The non-Christian administrators assigned to coordinate our efforts after we’re gone are also located in multiple locations — all with log in information.”

    Claudine and John made their way across Montana, Idaho, and briefly into Utah (not many converts to be had among the Church of Latter Day Saints, I gather) before heading further west into Nevada. The eventual destination of their Holy wagon train was San Francisco, California, for it was a well-known fact that the City by the Bay was home to multitudes of heathens, homosexuals, pagans and other assorted godless and wicked people.
    While in Las Vegas, Claudine made a short video from one of their stops outside of Caesar’s Palace that she posted on YouTube. No doubt the famous gambling establishment held great symbolism to Crumpett’s Christian soldiers. Claudine’s video featured one of Crumpett’s dedicated disciples, Andrew Freedman, a thirty-something evangelical preacher (and Vice President of The Word Radio). Freedman hailed from Little Rock, Arkansas; he was the unofficial leader of this particular caravan.
    I clicked on the video, intrigued. There were several dozen of Crumpett’s followers standing behind Freedman. Many were holding signs about the Rapture. I could see John among the flock near the edge of the screen. It was bright, sunny morning; most people were sporting sunglasses and colorful summer attire. Caesars’s magnificent fountains were visible in the distance. Huge plumes of water erupted into the air.
    “. . . America has tasted the poisonous fruits: pride, lust, envy, passion, frivolity, and entitlement. She has tasted of their sweet deception, and she has found it irresistible. She has danced in the streets, intoxicated by the very poison that will be her undoing.”
    “America— Does God still bless America? No! For America has rebelled against God. She has shaken her fist at Him and arrogantly cried, ‘We don’t need you. We don’t want you. We have our own gods. They are more powerful. Go away.’
    “And so now He’s going away.
    “Hosea, Chapter Nine, Verse Twelve talks of judgment against the nation that ‘plays the harlot’ before God: ‘Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them to the last man. Yes, woe to them when I depart —’”
    Freedman was briefly interrupted by the honking of several car horns, followed by jeering patrons who were exiting Caesar’s Palace, no doubt after spending a sleepless night at the slots or the card games. One stopped briefly in front of Claudine’s camera and gave her the finger. The camera panned down to street level for a few seconds, then it returned to recapture Freedman.
    “Friends, the day is coming when the Lord will return and unless people have a death wish in the Tribulation period, they will surely want to go up in the rapture of the church. The only way to do that is to accept the Lord’s payment of the sin debt by accepting his atonement on the Cross.”
    I had had enough. I scanned the various comments below the video. Claudine’s daughter, Carrie had posted a comment:
    “Won’t it be glorious mom, when the Rapture comes and we’ll all be raised into heaven together? I can’t wait! I hope and pray that Roger will accompany me. Time will tell. Wish I were on the road with you. Love to you and dad.”
    Carrie’s fiancée, Roger considered himself a Christian. But according to Carrie’s post he was either not completely convinced, or unenthusiastic about moving on. I suspect the real reason was, Roger wasn’t keen on trading in his wheels — a big ole’ Harley hog — for a pair of angel wings and some sissy harp. The Hog would have to stay back on Terra Firma. It would fall into the hands of some lucky non-believer who got left behind. I can’t say I blamed Roger for being ambivalent. It was definitely a sick machine.

    I continued to follow Claudine and John’s exploits via the Internet with interest. Just three weeks before the End Days, their Holy Caravan arrived in San Francisco on a bright Saturday morning just in time to set up a prayer vigil in The Castro, the nation’s quintessential gay neighborhood. How Crumpett’s flock secured a permit for that section of town was a mystery. Perhaps it was merely a coincidence; most probably, it was the City’s policy of embracing diversity. Whatever the reason, it was quite a culture shock — and the perfect storm. After only a few minutes, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning folk started to appear from nowhere to an event which had received absolutely no advance publicity. No doubt the curiosity factor drew many that day. By noontime, several thousand people had converged at the intersection of Market and Castro Streets to hear the Doomsayers preach of their demise. The police eventually cordoned off the area, and closed the streets to all vehicular traffic. The City had issued this Christian group a permit — and by God, they were going to have their say.
    At first, the crowd was respectful and well-behaved — even jovial, according to the bloggers and social media reporters who were present. The homophobic literature incited some to mock Crumpett’s people and its mission, but it was nothing too disrespectful. Things quickly soured, however, when Rev. Freedman started in with some of the more traditional Old Testament rants condemning homosexuality:
    “God says in Deuteronomy ‘not to bring any whore, sodomite, or dog into the house of the Lord.’ For ‘these things are an abomination to the Lord.’
    “Sodomites and dogs are biblical names for homosexuals, ladies and gentlemen. That’s YOU! You are Sodomites. You are ‘dogs.’ By God, you ought to be struck down where you stand. But you will surely, SURELY be left behind to die horribly in the coming months.”
     The crowd retaliated by chanting the lyrics to, “All You Need Is Love.” Then they staged a group “kissing” session. Many of the Christians were visibly shaken by this public display. They shook their fists and shouted stronger epitaphs at the crowd. That elicited a reaction by eight to ten men and women near the front who collectively “mooned” Crumpett’s followers by pulling down their britches and wiggling their buttocks as though they were in a chorus line. Infuriated, two of Crumpett’s men began to throw coffee mugs and other objects at the demonstrators. Suddenly, a shot rang out. A bullet struck one of the chorus men in the buttocks. Panic and pandemonium ensued. People ran in every direction. The Christians had drawn first blood.

    “Clearly, you all forgot why you traveled to San Francisco.”
    I was speaking to Claudine by cell phone shortly after the riot. I expected her to sound shaken and upset, but instead she seemed upbeat — perhaps even a little defiant.
    “They had no right to behave like that. Besides, we were the ones with a public permit. If the homos didn’t like our message, no one was making them stay and listen.”
    “But, why did someone in your group take a shot at them? Surely you’ve heard and seen worse. Haven’t you been been heckled at every stop along the way?”
    “Not like this,” she replied. “It was just plain— it was—“
    She was at a loss for words.
    “—They were savages. They were acting like animals! I guess it’s no surprise, seeing as they practice the lifestyle that they do.”
    “Listen to yourself! I thought you were supposed to be about Jesus’ love and all that. Whatever happened to, ‘hate the sin, love the sinner?’ Huh?”
    Claudine was silent for a moment. Perhaps she was reflecting on my question. More likely, the adrenalin was exhausted, and the shock and fatigue of the day’s events were slowly starting to sink in. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt among either spectators or Christians. The shooter had been apprehended, and Crumpett’s followers had been quickly escorted away from The Castro to a safe location.
    “What about you? Have you thought more about it?”
    “About what?”
    I knew perfectly well what she was referring to. It was a weak verbal parry on my part. I hadn’t expected Claudine to raise the issue of my personal conversion just then, in the aftermath of the group’s near-disaster in San Francisco only a few hours earlier. I dreaded the closure.
    “No— Yes, actually, yes. I have thought about it.”
    “And?”
    “Claudine, you know that I love you. But I can’t accept this dogma that you and Crumpett’s followers are dishing out. My God! You’re basing everything on a book that’s been translated from centuries of storytelling. And, in how many languages?! Do you even REALIZE that the King James Version is simply the latest in a series of, of—“
    I stopped myself. I had raised my voice and was speaking to her in an angry tone. There was no reason for me to behave in this manner.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I am too, Tom. I’ll pray for you. I’ll pray until the last moment my feet are planted on this earth, until the very second I start to float away with John, Carrie, and all of my friends. And even after that, I’ll look down lovingly upon you from above. It will be glorious. Glorious! And, Tom?”
    “Yes?”
    “I WILL try and love the sinner, and hate the sin. Thank you for that. Goodbye now.”

    The End Day came and went without incident. I remember the stories on the various network news shows covering the non-event. People around the country gathered to hold mock End of the World bashes. The whole saga was out of the public eye in just under forty-eight hours. I thought about giving Claudine a call to catch up, but I didn’t want her to think I was gloating or being smug. The last thing I wanted to do was to rub salt in a fresh wound. No, she’d call me when she was ready.

    Several months passed. I came across an old online news clipping I had saved about the Crumpett caravans back in May.
    I should really reach out to Claudine and see if she and John are okay.
    I picked up my cell and called her home number.
    “... The number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and try your call again. This is a recording...”
    That’s odd.
    I called her cell. She picked up on the second ring.
    “Hi, sis. How are you? What’s with the disconnected number at home?”
    “Hi, little brother! It’s great to hear from you. Sorry, John and I have been out of touch, lately. It’s been a busy past couple of months.”
    Claudine went on to explain that she and John were now officially ‘nomads’ living out of their mobile home. I had reached them at a campground outside of Flagstaff. It seems that they had put their home in Billings on the market at a steep discount back in early January. It sold in a matter of weeks – right before they joined the Crumpett caravan. Claudine and John had given all the proceeds from the home sale to The Word Radio — less a few thousand dollars they figured they needed to tide them over until the Rapture. The temptation to say to her, “Who’s the fool now?” was overwhelming but I bit my tongue.
    “What will you do?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. We still have our social security, along with John’s military pension and benefits. We have our medical and dental. And there are military PXes near many of the campgrounds that we’re staying at. We’re officially residents of South Dakota — that’s where the camper and truck are registered. So for now, I guess, it’s the two pooches and us. ‘On the road again.’ Just like Willy Nelson.”
    We chatted about inconsequential things for a while. I caught her up on what I had heard about Jessica and her kids. Then I broached the subject.
    “Do you ever regret this whole thing with Crumpett? Selling your house? Believing in the End of Days?”
    “Heck, no! The Reverend was a bit off on his timing, that’s all. He’s such a wonderful man. John and I were heartbroken when we heard he suffered a stroke. But I hear he’s recuperating nicely.
    “Tom, it’s only a matter of time until the Rapture DOES happen. It might not be next week, or next month, or even next year. You have to admit – the country is spiraling downward into oblivion. The liberals might actually get this Muslim president reelected again. I know you probably don’t agree with me, but Obama IS the Anti-Christ. Mark my words. There’s a lot of evidence and biblical signs to support it.”
    I heard John say something to Claudia in the background. She returned to the phone.
    “Uh, sorry, got to run. The steaks on the grill are ready, and after lunch John and I are heading over to a gun show near Flagstaff. I want to pick up a new Beretta, and John has his heart set on a Remington Model 870 Wingmaster. We have to stock up before the libtards try and make it illegal to bear arms in this country.
    “Love ya’, little brother. Bye-bye, now.”

Eat a Dog; Pet a Hog

    Eat a Dog; Pet a Hog.
    A sign on a stand a dozen feet away. Hot dogs on rotisserie. Humans cannot live on hay. Sink your teeth into an all-beef frank. Give the hog a thankful slap.

    Eat a Dog; Pet a Hog.
    A very clean hog, so as not to mar the smell of roasted swine, the most effective advertisement. And you can bet the meat is fresh. And the hog, it juts its snout between the horizontal bars and tongues the ravenizing scent.

    Eat a Dog; Pet a Hog.
    Step right up, my boy. Now what sort of dog you like? We’ve got chilidogs, corndogs, saltydogs, butterdogs, and my personal favorite, lavadogs. You just leave the hog for now and tell me what I can getchya? You know you gotta eat a dog to pet the hog.

    Eat a Dog; Pet a Hog.
    Load up on the relish. Get yourself a fountain drink. Toss a morsel at the hog. Watch him lap it up without a thought. Hear him brusquely grunt and sniff for more. Maybe he will train his beady eyes on you.

Between the Cracks

    As autumn gets a firm foothold on the Appalachian coal country, the old man’s mood seems to change to one of vigilance as he looks ahead to what will soon be required to get by. Requirements that seldom change and always bring a melancholy type of purpose to his life by offering up the carrot of another spring if he gets it right. Along the river the leaves have changed and the chill has set deeper with each passing day, bringing the time when being apart becomes personal and selfish. His infatuation with things like good land, clean water, and air, seems rather bothersome to those who are in power. To them he might be considered an outsider. But he was here first and he knows that the real outsiders are the ones who dig and carry away their finds to an appetite in far off places. Knowing there is little that he can do about it, he tells himself that it’s ok, for he has looked all over and even with the alienation this is the place that he understands most. He can feel the right to be here in the pushback of his steps through mountain orchards with rotting apples lying among the fallen leaves on a ground marked by deer tracks. A ground ready for another season of sleep. His hair is white now but his step is still light enough to hear the rustle of wildlife in the thickets as he nears. They are also trying to get it right. Neither too hard nor too soft, it is a good place to dream and prepare.
    Long ago, when he didn’t know how to stay away from those consumptive masters of men that longed for his mountain’s riches, he embarked upon the flight that eventually led him back to this land and the rich colors of dying leaves. Now, hardly an ending of the colors goes by that he doesn’t remember how he came to take that journey. It all began as a boy wandering the coal digs, watching what he thought belonged to him get shipped away. And it seemed then that all things were destined to leave that place.

    A huge grey coal truck with a plume of coal dust streaming from the black hump of its load barreled down the narrow road toward 10 year old Danny. It gave him just enough time to turn his back as it blew by and showered him with fine cinders. Every morning the trucks were part of his trek to the school that was located up a hollow a half mile beyond. And every morning, for those few seconds that he was buffeted by the trucks he would feel as angry and insignificant as the coal camp where he lived. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of the driver high in the cab, grasping the steering wheel like a machine gun as if he were in some sort of war. One thing was for sure, if he tripped and fell at the wrong moment he would end up squashed flat and probably no one would even know until they finally had to scrape him up.
    Beside the road the creek flowed it’s usual mustard brown from the rain and mine waste that found its way there. Out in the middle of the passing waters a big double size mattress was stuck on one of the rocks and the banks were littered with cans and bottles. No wonder not a living thing could be found there. When Danny was a little younger he used to fish there until he finally realized that the only things living in that sludge were just in his imagination. Then he knew why the miners would joke with him about catching the big one. And he had felt foolish. Now, with all pretend left for the snot noses not old enough to see the truth, the creek was only good for shooting at bottles or rats with his BB gun. That and standing by the road at night, guessing from their headlights what kind of car was coming, was about all there was to do for people like him. He had never lived in any one place long enough for it to really matter so he didn’t feel deprived, he just wanted out of the way of the lousy coal trucks. With a dad that had black lung and couldn’t work the mines any more and a mom that was always down in her back, his wish didn’t seem real likely to happen anytime soon. They were squatting on mine land, living in an old shack they had patched up, and there just didn‘t seem the need to go anywhere else. When times would try to nudge them out of their squatter’s shack there would always be talk about Detroit and making cars but they had been able to wait most of those nudges out so far. That was fine with Danny since he couldn’t see himself around all those Yankees and their fancy ways to begin with. No sir, when he left he wanted to go South where the girls were clean. And where Elvis Presley came from. Until then he reckoned that he would just stay around his little West Virginia hollow and learn the best way to do that.
    His thoughts of one day getting away from the soot spouting trucks was suddenly interrupted by the distant wail of a siren. It had suddenly turned damp and through the early morning mist and drizzle the muted sound of the siren reminded him of the mournful call of the loon he used to hear on a pretty lake over in Virginia where he and his dad used to camp. That was back before black lung got in the way and Danny saw first hand what the mines could do to a person. Now he well knew that the siren had nothing to do with pretty lakes, or pretty anything for that matter. It meant that there was an emergency up at the Benwick # 2 mine, which was up the same hollow as his school. Hardly a month went by that there was not something going wrong up there. Mostly it was roof falls from trying to dig too much coal without spending enough on roof bolts and mine props. And when that caused the mountain to come down on a man it made for worse than a kid hit by a coal truck. His dad used to say that maybe black lung saved his life by getting him out of the mines. But that was before he started spitting up blood every morning. He didn’t say that any more. Sometimes after a roof fall it took days before they could even find anybody. And when they did find them the dead were so messed up that they couldn’t even open the box at the funeral to say goodbye. That’s one of the reasons that he hated mining and knew he would never do it. Saying goodbye had always been important to him, he was good at it, and he didn’t want to be cheated out of one of the things he did well. Detroit and making cars with the Yankees would come before that.
    Up ahead he saw a small crowd beginning to gather at the little camp store. Some were miners from the graveyard shift who always stopped by there to unwind before going on home and the rest were families trying to get some word of what had happened up at the #2. When he got to the store he stood off to the side of the crowd, watched, and listened until he learned that there had been an explosion and roof fall. The faces of the people waiting there told him that it was bad, women quietly sobbed while most of the men, angry and agitated, were yelling about how the mine was only using them to make money and didn’t care if they got sick or killed. One old man who always hung around there in a wheelchair while sipping from a jar was telling anybody who would listen how he lost his legs in the mines and how the company kicked him and his family out of their company house because he couldn’t work any more. Didn’t matter that he offered to pay rent, they wanted the house for the able bodied who could mine coal. Danny had heard his story before and continuously lived it with his dad and, like many of the others, didn’t need it. He wished he would be quiet. The few kids there among the crowd were younger than Danny. They looked scared and lost. For a lot of them it was probably their first time. The adults not yelling and cursing the mine owners or sobbing into their scarves just stood by the road, quietly chain smoking as they stared up towards the entrance of the hollow.
    A couple of ambulances screamed by on their way to the nearest doctor at Whitesville while another one went the other direction towards the miners hospital over the mountain at Beckley. Then after what seemed like a long while a convoy of three ambulances, escorted by a sheriff’s car and a state police cruiser, slowly came out of the hollow and turned towards Beckley and the only morgue in the area. A hush suddenly fell over the crowd and it seemed like time was frozen as they stared after the departing ambulances, as if looking for some unknown sign that could free them to live again. One that only they would recognize.
    After a while Danny broke from the gathering and continued on up the road towards school and the hollow where the dead and injured had just come from. When he got to the bridge that crossed the creek to where most of the company housing was he was joined by Billy Naven. Billy lived in that part of the camp where the houses were usually painted and a little better than most of those along the roads and hollows. It was where a lot of the younger miners lived.
    “Guess you might be lucky your dad’s got black lung,” Billy said, “could have been him in one of those ambulances.”
    “Yeah, maybe so but we ain’t got no fit house like you got either,” Danny replied. “What about your dad, he OK?”
    “He don’t work that shift no more,” Billy said. “He’s graveyard now, just got home a while ago. He’s ok ‘cept he’s always too tired to do anything when he ain’t working. We used to go and do stuff like fish or watch the football games down at the high school on Friday nights, but now it’s like he’s just not interested in anything but TV and a six-pack of beer.”
    Danny knew what Billy meant. The life of the coal miner was pretty much defined as far as he was concerned too. He had seen what had happened to his dad. One day when he had ask him about it his dad had told him that young men who got married and entered the mines would be wore out before they had finished their thirties.
    Danny learned that life in the coal fields was not very happy but it was where he was and where he had managed to establish a feeling of belonging to something. So it was better than nothing and he figured that one day he would get out. Heck, he was just a kid. He had time.
    He asked Billy, “You getting out of here when you grow up?”
    Seeming to have never considered the possibility, Billy thought about what to say.
     “I don’t know, where would I go? Every place else thinks we’re just a bunch of dumb hillbillies.”
    “Yeah I know, but maybe they’re right, Billy. Maybe staying here proves that they are right. I mean there ain’t much to do here except play a little high school ball and then go in the mines. I saw dad spit up blood again this morning and when he saw me looking he told me, “Don’t you ever mine coal, Danny boy,” and I ain’t. I don’t know how but when my schooling is over I’m getting out of here.”
    “I got a cousin from over Marsh Fork way,” Billy said, “he joined the air force and got out plenty fast enough. He’s over in Germany now seeing the world and drinking beer with those blonde girls, like the ones in the magazines. He says they all love Americans and can’t tell where you’re from. All they care about is that your American.”
    “Really?” Danny thought about the poster of Uncle Sam pointing his finger at him down by the store and decided that the air force wouldn’t do for him. Maybe the Marines. They have those pretty uniforms and they’re the toughest, everybody knows. “What about you,” Danny ask, “you think you might join the Air Force?”
    “I ain’t smart enough probably,” Billy moaned. “My cousin graduated high school and I’m having a hard time making it through the fourth grade. Maybe the mines is all I can get come that time.”
    “Aw, come on Billy, maybe not the Air Force but maybe the Marines. You and me could join together when we get big. Audie Murphy was only sixteen when he joined the army during the big one. They wanted all they could get then, smart or dumb. Maybe we’ll get into another one and they’ll be begging us to sign up. What do you think, Billy? Think maybe we could do that? Think of all the fun we could have traveling around in our clean new uniforms. Wouldn’t that be something? Sure beats mining coal and spitting up blood.”
    Billy seemed to light up a little bit. “Yeah maybe we could get in another fight and then they would need me. I wouldn’t have to be so smart. And it sure would be nice us going together. It’s sure something to think about, ain’t it?”
    “Sure is,” Danny said, as they turned up the dirt road into the hollow. It had rained hard the night before and the road had about two inches of mud on it that sucked at their shoes as they trudged up the grade.
    Every now and then a coal truck came down the hill splattering mud and driving them almost into the ditch.
    A few miners were still walking out of the hollow, carrying their dinner buckets and looking like the walking dead. Usually they joked around with the kids and tried to put on a little fun but that day they didn’t seem to even notice the boys, or themselves for that matter. Big black sticks of human figures with two sunken white spots for eyes that saw nothing, they passed the two boys as if they weren‘t even there. Danny looked at Billy and could tell that he was scared. Death hung heavy in the air.
    As they topped the first muddy grade up the hollow the sooty white wooden school house, perched on a little flat place against the mountainside, came into view. With the flag pole as it’s only adornment it wasn’t much to look at. Since it only had three rooms, made up of two grades each, and one large room for the lunch cafeteria, there were only three teachers and that included the principal. The kids that went there were mainly from the mining families where education was simply a resting place before entering the mines. There was not much difference in most of the kids but there was one kid, name of Alan Stover, who was different. For one thing he rarely came to school and had failed sixth grade so many times that he was almost old enough to quit school altogether. Perhaps for that reason he was also the toughest. But Alan, when he did come to school, didn’t mingle with the other kids much and even though he was the toughest he didn’t bully. With Danny he seemed to let down the wall he kept around himself and sometimes when Danny was alone he would come up to him and ask questions about school or some of the places Danny had been, like he was interested in what Danny had to say. Hard to explain, but he acted like Danny could help him with his life or something.
    When Billy and Danny arrived at school they could see that Alan was absent again because he wasn’t in his usual spot outside smoking and waiting for the bell to ring. But everyone could see his cousin, Butch Stover, standing on the school porch and checking lunch bags to see if he could get a free treat. Butch did bully and most kids tried to stay away from him when they could.
    Although cousins, Butch and Alan were worlds apart when it came to how they treated the other kids. Alan was smaller and by the way he dressed Danny could tell that he had less than most, yet he still held himself over the others with a quiet pride that went beyond his dress. Butch, who had failed at least once too, was bigger and enjoyed using his size to push others around but he never messed with Alan who simply ignored him. It seemed that Butch also knew when Alan wasn’t around because at those times he would get meaner and that morning was no different as Billy and Danny somehow snuck by and into the school while Butch was taking some first grader’s Baby Ruth.
    When the time for recess came they had to stay inside because of the rain and mud. Other than Billy, who was a grade lower than him and in another room, Danny didn’t have any real friends to talk to and he felt trapped in the small crowded room. Outside recess he could play marbles, talk to Billy, or just run around and choose the kids that he wanted to be with. Plus there was an old basketball hoop out back. But it didn’t get used much because the only basketball was flat and nobody bothered to fix it. About the only thing Danny could do during recess on rainy days was watch the girls who all stayed in one part of the room doing their private talks and glancing at the boys occasionally. A couple of them were pretty. He didn’t know that girls could be so interesting much before, and now that he knew they seemed to not want anything to do with him. Still it was something to watch them and see if he could catch them looking back. The other boys didn’t seem all that interested in girls but Danny liked to see what kind of dresses they wore and even on such a rainy day, in their muddy shoes and socks, their legs were still pretty and fun to just look at. However he had to be careful to hide his looks by peeking over a library book that he pretended to read.
    It rained pretty near all that day and when the final bell rang it was so nice to get out of there, even with the slushy mud all over the place.
    On his way home Danny could usually avoid Butch by getting him in sight and then maneuvering to stay behind as they came out of the hollow. But this day Butch had decided to stop along the side of the hollow and hurl insults and threats as the other kids walked by. When he saw Danny his eyes lit up and there was no way for Danny to avoid him short of turning around and going back to school. But he couldn’t even do that. That would only piss Butch off and he would be sure to come after him. So Danny fixed his eyes on the muddy road just ahead of his steps and continued on, wishing he could disappear. When he drew even with Butch he heard the sarcastic bait.
    “Hey teachers boy, are you going home to your momma?”
     Danny pretended not to hear him and kept going with his heart beating a mile a minute.
    “Hey, Daniel! I’m talking to you. You’d better stop and give me an answer or I’m going to smear you and your fancy new jacket in the mud.”
    Butch was now walking along to stay even with him.
    Danny had just been given a new white jacket by his mom and he was terrified that Butch would throw him down in the mud so he stopped and fearfully look up.
    “I’m just going home like everybody else. I have to feed the dog and make sure he stays in the yard,” Danny said.
    Desperate to keep Butch from following him home he quickly continued, “He’s a mean dog and mom and dad can’t handle him but he does whatever I tell him to do.”
    Butch seemed to consider that for a moment then walked up close and said, “Well let me tell you something smart ass. If I see you walking this way tomorrow I’m going to kick your ass up between your shoulder blades. You better find another way home you little piss ant. You got it?”
    Danny felt a surge of relief when he realized that he was going to get out of there without getting beat up.
    “I got it,” he said , and quickly put distance between himself and Butch who was now strutting down the road, creating a wide path among the other kids.
    Situated in a half hidden gully over the bank of the muddy road sat a derelict coal company shack not too unlike the one Danny lived in. It was just a couple of rooms with no running water and a coal fired stove. In front there was a long dilapidated porch and out back beside a black stream of mine wash was the toilet or outhouse as most called it. An old broken down couple squatted there and somehow managed to survive. Maybe they were kin to Alan Stover and maybe not but some days when he was supposed to be in school Alan would walk the railroad tracks with an old burlap sack and collect the big lumps of coal that had fallen from the passing trains and lug them up the hollow to the old couples shack. This had been such a day and there on the front porch of that shack, unseen by either Butch or Danny, stood Alan. He had seen and heard the whole thing between Butch and Danny.
    All that evening Danny worried about Butch and getting beat up, then finally accepted his fate since there was no way he could avoid it. He would just do the best he could. Maybe Butch would forget about it or find somebody else to pick on.
    The next day in the classroom where Danny’s fifth grade sat on one side of the room and Butch’s sixth grade sat on the other, Danny tried to avoid looking at him but a couple of times he couldn’t help it. And when Butch had his attention he would slowly smile as he wagged his finger at him. This caused Danny’s fear to return full force and made him know for sure that it was going to be a very different kind of school day. Something else was different about that day too because in the last row of the sixth graders, half asleep, sat Alan.
    As the final bell rang and school let out Danny hung back as most of the other kids hustled out the door, across the play yard, and onto the road. He was going slower than usual but it wasn’t long before he saw Butch standing in the same spot as the day before. His heart began to pound.
    A large group of girls were a little ways behind him as he approached Butch. And behind the girls, out of mind and out of sight, was Alan trailing them all, walking slowly and smoking a cigarette.
    Danny felt terrible, he had a crush on three of the girls and they were about to see him shamed by Butch. Or worse.
    When he got to the spot where Butch was waiting he cringed as he heard him say, “Just hold it right there you little twerp.”
    Everybody stopped and Danny could plainly hear the girls giggling which for Butch was too good to be true. He had an audience of girls to show how tough he was.
    “Didn’t I tell you to not come by here?”
    “Yeah but there ain’t no other way to go. I have to come by here.”
    Danny felt like throwing his books down and making a run for it but he just couldn’t with Virginia, Nancy, and Peggy Sue watching. He didn’t know what he would do but he couldn’t run.
    “Well ain’t that just too bad,” Butch said as he closed the few feet between them. “Looks like I’m going to have to kick your butt.”
    Danny’s eyes filled with tears as he stood there waiting for it to begin.
    The girls turned silent and drew closer together.
    Then suddenly before anything could happen everyone was surprised by a loud voice as Alan stepped from behind the girls.
    “You ain’t gonna kick nobody’s butt Butch Stover.”
    Alan had a bow legged way of walking and he was shorter but as he strode up to Butch and glared up into his face Butch seemed to lose two sizes.
    “Hey, Alan what you doin’ here? I’m just having a little fun with momma’s boy here. Don’t mean nothing. I wouldn’t waste my time with him.”
    Alan was small but his clenched hands at his sides were the largest Danny had ever seen on a boy.
    “Well why don’t you try me.” Alan said, “That be a waste of your time too, Butch?”
    “Hell no, Alan. Everybody knows you don’t take nothin from nobody,” Butch replied, so scared that he was actually shaking.
    “You’re a big tough guy, Butch, always picking on those smaller than you. I’m smaller than you, come on, pick on me,” Alan kept on.
    There was silence for perhaps five seconds as the two looked at each other.
    Then as fast as a rattler’s strike Alan’s left hand opened up and swung around to the side of Butch’s face.
    The smack sounded like a 22 rifle had been fired off, making the girls gasp and everyone but Alan jump. Then with his coal black curls hanging down over his forehead, his jaw jutted forward, and his hands back fisted at his sides in a flash, he continued to glare up at Butch as he pushed on.
    “Do it Butch. You want it, come and get it right now!”
    Butch’s lower lip quivered as his face twisted and then he began to openly cry.
    Alan glared at him for a few seconds then slowly looked to the ground, spat and said, “That’s what I thought.”
    Then he turned to Danny like he was talking to his dog or something and said, “Go on home Danny, he won’t bother you no more.”
    As they continued on out of the hollow, each with their own thoughts. Nothing more was said and when Danny chanced a look back, there stood Butch in the same spot, his clenched fists at his sides, his head hanging, and crying so hard that his whole body was jerking with the tears.

    Butch never bothered Danny after that. In fact he seemed to change. His bullying fell by the wayside as he finished up grade school and finally moved on up to the high school down the road. Danny followed him there and onto the athletic field a year later where Butch ended up blocking for him. The time Butch was put down by Alan was never mentioned but Danny never forgot it. Like a snap shot he could always recall that face off between them amid the hard life of the coal camp.
    He didn’t see Alan around much after that partly because Alan never made it to high school. But Danny knew that he stayed out of the coal mines because he heard that he got into the army and was killed in one of the early Vietnam battles while helping the South Vietnamese Army fight.
    Billy never made it through high school either but, like they had hoped, by the time Danny graduated the country was begging for enlistments so he and Billy joined the marines on the buddy plan and shipped out of the coal fields. They stayed together through training but got split up when they were sent to Vietnam. Danny ended up around Marble Mountain near Da Nang while Billy got sent up north to Khe Sanh where he was killed on Hill 881 during the big battle there. Every time Danny thought of Billy he remembered how excited and happy he had been those many years ago to learn that you didn’t have to be smart to fight in America’s wars. And at the same time he always rued the day that he had taught him that.
    Butch stayed out of the mines and the war by getting married and moving to California. Seems they got set up out there by some of his wife’s relatives. And last Danny heard, Butch was out there working as a prison guard.
    Danny, after he got back from the war, wasn’t good for much so he just drifted around picking up jobs as he went. Along the way he met a looker down in a Texas bar that he was tending and got married. That lasted until he killed a man he caught her sleeping with and did a little time. The jury figured the guy deserved killing so Danny only got a couple of years.
    He thought his wife deserved killing too but had decided that would probably be too costly.

    Now back in the Appalachians, white haired and as far away from most other people and the coal mines as he can get, Danny just quietly gets old as he practices his vigilance for the end of colors. He’s not, nor ever was, what you would call a real contributing member of society. But then the way he learned it, that was for those destined to never return to the Appalachian coal country.

first published by eFiction magazine May 2015 vol. 06 no. 02

The Party

    I don’t remember how I got here or why. Maybe I was under the influence, but of what, I don’t know. Whatever, I’m at the party. We’re all at the party.
    Everybody who’s anybody is here. So is everybody who’s nobody. The silky ones with smug, marble faces, the sloppy ones with screaming kids, the vain good-looking, the defiantly ugly – they’re all here.
    I’m in one of the larger rooms. There are rows and rows of banquet tables, lots of space to dance or mill around. Duke Ellington’s version of “Satin Doll” is playing. Including me, there are five at my table. There is Richard, my gay guy-friend, Lisa, my zany, wonderful best girlfriend, and two others I hardly know - Mrs. Rapolli, a plump old woman who always looks disturbed and Professor Winston Graves, an elegant, academic type with skin like milk chocolate.
    Richard examines his wine glass for smudges. He says he can’t relax unless everything is “up to snuff.” That means he can never relax. If one thing in this huge hall is “incorrect,” he’ll spot it. Lisa is the opposite. She doesn’t worry about what’s correct; she’s more interested in feeling good. That gets her into trouble sometimes but she sure has a lot of fun. I love them both.
    Right now I’m watching a statuesque blonde in a red leotard looking down on a middle-aged man doing push-ups. She is knockout gorgeous. It’s not fair. The man looks as strong as an asparagus and seems about to give up.
    “More!” she orders. “You don’t want ‘them’ coming for you, do you?!”
    He glances over his shoulder, then gives it a try. His face flushes and eyes bulge but he squeezes out three more push-ups.
    He’s not the only one working out. One group is doing yoga, another jogs in place and an old guy with a weathered, seaman’s face is doing hardcore crunches. They all seem grim and determined.
    I am looking at my own blubbery thighs, thinking I ought to work out too when someone takes my arm.
    I yelp. “What!”
    It’s only Lisa. “Look,” she whispers, nodding toward a nearby table.
    A child, a boy about nine, pale and thin with suffering eyes, is sitting with people who are probably his parents. An ethereal young woman in a white, gauzy dress has taken the boy’s hand. He cries out as if her touch hurts. The mother gasps and holds him close. The father envelops the mother and child in a tight embrace. They hang in balance, the smiling, ethereal woman, the crying boy and his frantic parents.
    Mrs. Rapolli leaves the table and wanders over to the exits. She does this periodically. She’ll be back.
    Suddenly, the boy relaxes, untangles himself from his parents and follows the woman in white out the door. The mother wails.
    A gloom descends on the party. People speak in hushed tones.
    Abruptly, a pale girl-woman with hollow eyes and a snake tattoo jumps onto a table. She shuts her kohl-rimmed eyes and sways, slowly unzipping her black leather dress. The band switches to a bump and grind. Her black bra flies through the air and lands on our table. Men yell, “Take it off, baby!” and leer like teen-aged boys. I’d hate it if men looked at me like that. Of course, they never do. And she isn’t even pretty.
    After a while, the party is back to normal. We order dinner. Richard treats us to a bottle of champagne. “Your best organic brut,” he tells the waiter. “And make sure it’s properly chilled.”
    Lisa empties her glass and holds it out for more. Richard frowns, but fills it.
    “What’s wrong?” I ask her.
    “It’s this scene,” she mutters. “It gives me the creeps.”
    Lisa is an artist. She has a thing about only using what she calls “everyday materials.” Like now, she is doing a portrait of the professor right on the tablecloth, painting with what’s handy – coffee, mustard, blood from her finger. Her work is beginning to get noticed.
        Mrs. Rapolli is back. She sips champagne and looks sad. “My husband walked out on me in this very room,” she begins. “We were dancing – Vince and me, we were big dancers. Right in the middle of “Deep Purple,” this woman in a white gown like for a wedding, taps his shoulder. Without so much as a word to me, he turns away and dances off with her. Not even a word.” A tear trickles down her wrinkled cheek. “Left me on the dance floor all alone.”
        “I got left too,” I tell her. “I had a date but the guy disappeared on me. Why are men like that?”
        Winston, the professor, shakes his head. He has a hunger in his eyes that I recognize. “Women are like that too,” he says softly.
        “For crying out loud!” Lisa’s fist slams the table. “This is a party! Do we have to go all depressing and morbid?” She laughs but her eyes scare me.
    “Let’s drink to happy relationships,” I say. I clink glasses with Winston and look him over. He’s working on a book, something about the way people in groups share delusions. He’s always tapping at his laptop but now he is looking at me. He is pretty hot in a tweedy, BMW kind of way.
    I flash him a smile. “Having fun?” I ask.
    He looks surprised. Was I too forward?
    All of a sudden, a crazed-looking Tarzan type runs past us. He’s got a white loincloth on and nothing else. A man and a woman who are in his way bolt from their chairs. The wild man is heading for an obese woman who gnaws a chicken leg and looks lost in food heaven. She stops, stares bugged-eyed at him, then snatches another mouthful. Without a word, he scoops her up as if she was made of air and carries her out a side door. The drumstick rolls to the floor.
    The couple looks relieved. The woman licks her fingers and dabs a spot on the man’s tie. He lights a cigarette.
    I turn back to Winston to pick up where we left off but he’s watching a man in a wheelchair near one of the exits. The man’s head is bobbing and his mouth is hanging open, but intelligence screams through his eyes. With spastic jerks, he injects a needle in his arm. Immediately, a grandmother-type in a white orderly’s uniform comes and whisks him away.
    I burst into tears. “That poor man.”
    Winston takes my hand. “He’s better off,” he says.
        I let him keep my hand. He asks me to dance.
    His warm breath caresses my ear as he sings along to “All We Are Is Dust In The Wind.” It feels good. I think he’s going to kiss me and pull me close. But he never does. Another dud – the story of my life.
    We return to the table. I keep going over it in my mind – why don’t men want me?
    I’d ask Mrs. Rapolli, but she’s off wandering again.
    I turn to Richard. “You’re a man. Do you think I’m attractive?”
    He gives my hand a courtly kiss. “You’re marvelous, darling.”
    I can’t tell if he means it or not. He and I need to talk, really talk. But just then a new commotion erupts. Why is there never time to get close to anyone?
    A man with a long, pinched face is standing on a chair, waving his arms. “You’re all sinners!” he shouts. “Sinners and fornicators! Come with me to a righteous party, a real celebration!”
    People line up to follow him. Not me. Once a guy like that led twenty-eight folks out of here and no one ever saw them again.
    The professor is talking to me. “I dreamed I was at this party but it was long ago and I was someone else.”
    “I had a dream just like that,” I say.
    “You did?” his voice lifts. “What do you think it means?”
    I am excited. “What if it’s true; what if we were here before?”
    “Spare me,” Lisa butts in. “Those are just dreams. This is it, kiddo. You better enjoy it!”
    I feel like punching her. Winston looks down at his laptop.
    Mrs. Rapolli is back. “What do you think?” I ask her. “Do you think we could have been here before?”
    “Who can know?” The old woman pats my hand but looks past me toward the doors. I follow her gaze.
    A huge Hindu looking man in billowing, white pants and a white turban is coming in. He glides through the crowd in our direction. Richard and Lisa reach for each other. Mrs. Rapolli gets up and leaves again. Winston is typing furiously. I feel more alone than ever.
    The Indian is after a man wearing mirrored glasses at a table behind us. The man springs from his chair, leaps behind a seated woman, presumably his wife, and shoves her, chair and all, between himself and the turbaned stranger. Her chair tips and she falls with a crash. The Indian sidesteps her body and silently takes her husband’s arm. As he is led away, the husband yells, “I love you!” to the woman, now bleeding on the floor.
    Everyone is shocked, though maybe we act more shocked than we really are.
    I lose track of the woman on the floor when our waiter comes with our orders. He serves my steak. My vision travels up from his strong hand to his muscled arm, his face, his eyes...
    He catches me and winks.
    I look away and slice into my steak. Bloody juice runs onto the plate.
    “I wouldn’t eat that if I were you,” Richard warns. “It’s full of toxins.”
    “So what?” I snap.
    “Toxins attract the White Ones,” he says.
    I’m surprised he says that. Most people don’t mention the ones in white.
    Winston looks up from his typing. “That’s an interesting theory,” he says.
    “A lot of us believe it’s a fact,” says Richard. “We have an organization.”
    “Indeed?” says the professor. “Might I attend a meeting?”
    Across the room, another white clad figure is leading a pregnant woman out the door. A frail old woman tugs the figure’s sleeve as if begging to go too. The figure leaves without giving her a glance.
    “I need a drink,” Lisa announces. Her portrait of Winston is finished. She hasn’t started anything new.
    The waiter brings a pitcher of gin and tonic. She pours one glass, then another. Richard disapproves but I join her. It helps me forget what is going on.
    I look around and don’t see Richard. Did I pass out?
    “Where’s Richard?” I ask Winston. I’m so drunk my words wobble.
    He shrugs, sips his coffee.
    I am alarmed. “What happened to Richard?” I shout at Mrs. Rapolli.
    “He went off with one of those people.”
    I shake her. “What people?!”
    Lisa gently pulls me back. Her eyes are swollen. “Take it easy,” she says. “There’s nothing we can do.”
    “Did Richard say anything when he left? Tell me everything.”
    “You know Richard,” she sighs. “When the woman came for him, he insisted she was making a mistake. ‘I’ve been so careful,’ he kept saying. She took him anyway. In the end he seemed to understand.”
    “Understand what?”
    “I wish I knew,” she whispers. Lisa has changed. She seems very subdued.
    I am tired of the party. The food is good but so what? And I’m bored with the music. It used to be a lot better. The constant talk, the endless tide of people coming and going. There’s no quiet, no peace. And it’s always the same; nothing lasts or seems as good as it did at first. It’s enough to wear a person out. I rest my head on the table and doze.
    I wake to see a teenage boy jump in front of that Indian man in the white turban. He gives the man the finger and darts back, laughing. Just when the kid must be thinking he got away with his prank, the man’s hand swoops down and seizes the boy by the ear. Whoosh! That kid is out the door.
    “Wow,” I say. “Incredible.”
    Lisa nods. “Poor kid.”
    I don’t tell her but I meant the man with the turban. The way he moves, so masterfully and sure. I never used to think about the ones in white, but lately I find them fascinating.
    I’m wishing something exciting would happen when a tall, silver-haired gentleman in a white tux saunters in. Like a beacon of power, he surveys the crowd and heads for our table. My heart pounds.
    He holds out his hand to Lisa. She takes it and he wraps himself around her like a lover. No one ever holds me like that. Lisa doesn’t look back.
    I miss her.
    The feeling that this entire party might be a dream comes and goes.
    Time passes. Mrs. Rapolli leaves for one of her wanderings and doesn’t return. I’ve got no one to talk to. Only the professor is left at the table, but all he does is type.
    I move closer to a door and watch who comes and goes. I have nothing better to do. Besides, maybe one of the ones in white will choose me.

Margaret Karmazin bio

    Margaret Karmazin’s credits include stories published in literary and national magazines, including Rosebud, Chrysalis Reader, North Atlantic Review, Mobius, Confrontation, Pennsylvania Review, Another Realm and Hyperpulp and cc&d. Her stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine, Licking River Review and Words of Wisdom were nominated for Pushcart awards. Her story, “The Manly Thing,” was nominated for the 2010 Million Writers Award. She has stories included in STILL GOING STRONG, TEN TWISTED TALES, PIECES OF EIGHT (AUTISM ACCEPTANCE), ZERO GRAVITY, COVER OF DARKNESS, DAUGHTERS OF ICARUS, M-BRANE SCI-FI QUARTERLIES, and a YA novel, REPLACING FIONA and children’s book, FLICK-FLICK & DREAMER, published by etreasurespublishing.com.

Janet Amalia Weinberg bio

    Janet Amalia Weinberg is a former psychologist and the editor of an anthology which was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist (STILL GOING STRONG; Memoirs, Stories, and Poems About Great Older Women, Routledge). Her writing credits include essays in Psychology Tomorrow, Long Island Woman and New Age Travel and short stories in Room, Wild Violet, Long Story Short, Weave Magazine, Moondance, West Wind Review, Ascen Aspirations and other literary and sci-fi magazines.