a final entry

She wasn’t sure what to include in her final entry. She thought about writing a poem, doing something more in the line of stream-of-consciousness, or, more pedantically, just saying good-bye. She finally decided that the final entry would be only one word. Only one. And it had to be the right one. She ran through these, of course: “love;” “hope;” “faith;” “truth.” They all sounded either to frou-frou or too preachy, and she was, truly, neither. After a time, she settled on “dignity,” which was a bit odd, at first glance. She wasn’t always the most dignified of people. Her language often was peppered with the most objectionable of vulgarities. She never really dressed with any purpose or élan. She never, as far as she could remember, which varied greatly, lately, depending on the day, used the word in conversation. Never discussed it. Never espoused it, for sure. But it was what she was feeling, now, what she was trying to meet, after all she’d been through. She wanted to be remembered by that – dignity. So, it was that which she left behind. In the end, that one word. Writing it made her smile, that final entry. And that, in itself, was a very, very good thing.

sparrow

He wasn’t into tattoos. He thought most of them seemed slutty, and not in a good way. But she had a peacock on her left shoulder, that bled down her arm, a bit, sort of faded, purposefully, he guessed, but colorful, and pretty damn sexy. Most importantly, she wore it well. Problem was, now, at this moment, that he wasn’t into tattoo talk. What was he supposed to say? “Nice ink?” “Sweet tat?” And he knew his first line, with her, especially, was critical. He thought for a moment, then for another, then said, to her, “You have very nice taste.” She smiled, said, ‘Thanks,” and blushed, just a bit, but enough for him to know that it was all good. Her name was Virginia; close friends called her Sparrow. She was 32 and single. She slept with him, that night. On her terms, which was fine with him. And: the peacock looked even better in the morning.

not roses

Her name is Claire Louise and he’s loved her since the first time his eyes met hers. It’s her smile, mostly. He gets lost in it. He’s not exactly sure how that happens, but it does. Just yesterday, he said to her, “I’d like a double vanilla latte with whipped cream and some chocolate sprinkles,” and he felt his heart trip, catching himself before he said "spronkles." She works at the Starbucks at the corner of Smith and Wesson streets in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and lives with her boyfriend, Todd, who drives a van for the state correctional facility in nearby Laramie. He plans to send her flowers for Valentine’s Day. Not roses. Something a bit less showy. Carnations, maybe. He’s started saving his money. His name is Roy. He’s a 10th grader at Wyoming Central High School. He's in the band, plays tenor sax. It will be the first gift he’s purchased for a girl, the flowers. His hopes are high.

as he did

It is a ceding of time and territory
and
possibility. They are where he was
30 years ago – and he is
jealous and he can’t help
it. Their canvasses are
blank, ready to be marked,
colored,
painted,
trimmed,
folded. Some has already
taken place. His is
cast, he thinks, indelibly. He tries
to convince himself that it
hasn’t been finished, yet, but he knows, too,
that some of
the colors
have been set
irrevocably, indelibly.
So, he wishes them
godspeed and
wishes,
too,
he could go with
them on their journey, if not just
to
be there. But they travel
alone, as
they
should. As he would.
As
he
did.

the morning before

“I’m not sure this is working,” he said, poking at the waffle iron, but addressing something much more tenuous. “Do you mean us?” she asked, softly, rinsing the dishes from last night’s late dinner that she planned to use for the morning’s breakfast. “It’s just cool. No heat,” he said, almost absentmindedly. “Just like us,” she said, quietly, almost under her breath, but not quite. “Maybe it just needs a bit more time,” he said, tapping a fork on the formica countertop. “Time, I have,” she said, this time completely indiscernibly. “Jeesh. Here it is. I just forgot to plug it in,” he said, tapping himself on the forehead. “There. All it needed was that.” She finished wiping the plates, then sat, at the table, watching him, feeling that he’d hit it squarely on the head without suspecting it. That was how he was. It wasn’t how she was. She felt the impending doom, but smiled nicely, politely, bravely, keenly.

hisself: a riddle

Where shall I go next, he asks himself, and his self responds: “Wherever,” knowing full well that he who asked trusts himself and his self, which means that it may be time, soon, to pack up, again. What he doesn’t ask himself is “why,” because he is sure that his self has no real answer, himself. It is a double-edged sword, himself and his self. They might seem as though they are the same person, but they’re not. They’re close enough, he supposes, for government work, but in the real world, not nearly. So, he will continue to second-guess himself, and, at some point, will maybe even be beside himself.

mountain climing

He knows what he needs
to
do: He needs to embrace
his aloneness, not
fight it, so he considers the benefits:
eating what he wants, when
he wants; watching what he
chooses, when
he
chooses; doing what he wants,
any old time – i.e. freedom, which is a good
thing, perhaps one of
the
best
of things, behind, only, maybe
hope. And he wonders, how would
he give up
all that
for someone? Could he?
Again?
Or is this the way it’s
supposed
to be. After all, it was this
way for his father – loveless, for so long, even
though he was married. He
sighs and thinks of
the warmth and touch of
a lover and that perhaps this, too:
maybe it’s
time to climb
a
real
mountain.

merry christmas

It is after midnight, Christmas Eve-cum-Christmas morning and sporadic fireworks light the sky, a celebration that is new to him. Five hours north, a sneak attack of winter wreaks havoc with holiday travel. Here, the wind gusts with a certain fervor, but does no more damage than toss about strings of Christmas lights that really needed, hindsight being what it is, to be secured a bit more carefully. Coffee brews in the kitchenette counter, behind him. The $9.99 WalMart clock, leaning securely against the wall, ticks and tocks far too loud, though he usually doesn’t hear it. He’s usually asleep, by now. In the old days, years ago, he’d use these dark, quiet hours to wrap gifts and lay them beneath the glowing Christmas tree. He has no tree, this year. First time, ever. Times change. Time changes. He gets all that. In fifteen minutes, he will leave to meet the flight that will reunite his children for the first time in more than a year. He pours himself a cup of coffee, sips it. It tastes better than he’d expected.

20 items or ... fewer

The sign at the checkout counter read, “20 items or less,” and while he wasn’t going to waste anyone’s time by pointing out that it should read, “20 items or fewer,” he did give the woman ahead of him a look that said, if she was willing to listen (which she wasn’t), “20 items, not 35.” He did no more than that, though, because it was Christmas Eve. He counted his own cartful – 18 items – then thought for a moment about whether he should attend church. He decided against it. He knew the late-night service might make him feel less lonely, but he fancied himself someone who was honest in everything he did and going to church on Christmas Eve to avoid the awaiting loneliness seemed phony. He’d bought a bottle of wine. Not the cheap stuff, but nothing too pricey, either. He would go home, cook a frozen pizza, one of those rising-crust brands, with pepperoni and sausage, open the wine and pass the next six hours until Christmas Eve was gone. Then, he would sleep. Then, all that would be left would be Christmas Day. He knew the drill, only too, too well.

why don't you ...

He was sitting on the toilet when the car plowed into the side of his house and ground to a halt inches from the bathroom sink. When the smoke cleared, he could see that the driver’s head was stuck in the windshield. His left ear was severed, it seemed, though from where he sat, Leny Doon wasn’t exactly sure. But blood was everywhere. The car’s engine was still grinding, but all Leny could think of, for the moment, for the briefest of moments, for Leny was a good guy, was the $2,000 deductible on his insurance. The man in the windshield started groaning, surprisingly on beat, to “Build Me Up, Buttercup,” which was playing on the car stereo. Leny moved toward the man, who said, “Please, help me.” Leny did, but first he reached in, fished around for the dial, and turned off the radio. It seemed like the right thing to do. Besides, he never did like the song.

stranded

The snow kept falling. Pretty soon it would cover their tracks.
That wasn’t good. They’d left the car, the safety of the car, because they’d die if they didn’t, which was an irony he understood only too, too well. The flakes were getting smaller, icier, it seemed. Instead of falling silently, they made a sound, now, tinny, clinking, something, some sort of sound that was clearly different from soundlessly. He turned. Mollie was 15 feet back. She usually was stronger than him. He knew that. But she didn’t look good. He stopped, waited. “We’ll be okay, babe,” he said. She carried Oliver against her chest. Ollie was 18 months. Their first. “I’ll take Ollie,” he said. She looked into his eyes and said, “We’re all going to die, aren’t we?” He tried to look away, but couldn’t. “Tell me,” she said. “We’ll be okay,” he said. The snow was falling heavier, now. “We’ll be okay,” he repeated. He checked his watch – 4:13 p.m. In half an hour, darkness would fall.

christmas day

It is his first Christmas away from home. He is spending it in Beeville, Mississippi. At home, back in Vincent, Kansas, a fire is roaring in the fireplace and Aunt Junie has just arrived with her mince-meat pie. In an hour or two, his father will pull the turkey from the oven and slice it into submission, while his mother mashes potatoes and his two younger sisters, now 16 and 18, respectively, set the table. Twenty-three people, relatives and friends, are expected. The family dog, Junior, sleeps at the top of the stairs. Outside it has begun to snow. Three to five inches are expected. It’s 83, with 90 percent humidity, in Beeville. In 15 minutes, he will drive to the nearest Subway and order a foot-long meatball sub. He will eat it alone, while watching ESPN2. He should call home, but waits, instead, for them to call him. He is feeling sorry for himself. He feels as though he’s allowed to. This one day, if none other.

we need to talk ...

“I will tell her, tonight,” he tells his best friend. “I will tell him, tonight,” she tells her best friend. “Are you sure?” his best friend asks. “Are you ready for this?” her best friend queries. Both he and she nod. They both tell their best friends that they have spent time and energy thinking everything through. “I’ll be around, later, if you need to talk,” his best friend says. “Call me and tell me how it goes,” hers says. It is mid-evening when they sit to talk. The dishes are done. The kids are in bed. The TV has hummed itself into a whispery, flickering drone. Outside, it’s snowing, lightly. “I need to talk,” he says. “Me, too,” she replies. “You first,” he says. “No, you,” she replies. “You. You go.” He nods okay. “I’ve been thinking a lot, lately,’ he says, “and I think I want …” “Another baby?” she says, finishing his sentence with a lovely smile. “… a divorce,” he says, before her words hit home. She is stunned to tears. He, to silence.

winnie

The dog was abandoned and suffers from separation anxiety, if there is such a thing for dogs. He’s pretty smart and terribly athletic. His first owner called him Zeke. The guys at the pound named him Max. His third owner rechristened him Winston. He is a beautiful specimen of Golden Retriever. He gnaws cooked bones with relish and protects raw ones with bared teeth. He was a good friend, an unconditional companion. He is missed. Terribly.

her butt

Her name is Ronnie and she’s got the nicest ass anyone’s ever seen, herself included. It was God’s gift, genes, but she doesn’t take it for granted. She visits the gym six times a week, minimum, and bumps and grinds for all she’s worth so that she keeps her tukus in shape. Her boyfriend worships her derriere, her husband, too. Just kidding. She’s monogamous, with a girlfriend-partner. She’s not exactly a lesbian, she says, though she’s hard pressed, when asked by friends just what “not exactly” means. She’s studying to be a surgeon. She won’t end up a surgeon, of course. She will go into AIDS research and lead a team that will find an antidote for the virus. The year will be 2023. Two things will never be forgotten: her contribution to mankind and her butt when she was 26. Such is life.

now

Here’s what he dreamed of: a wedding, not theirs, but a final child’s, a daughter’s, and he would look into her eyes, not his daughter’s, but his wife’s, and, without saying a word, both would know, exactly, what each other was thinking: we made it. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t always pretty. But we stuck with it. It was, he thought, the way it should end, or the way a new beginning should begin. She, however, his wife, had other ideas, a few years ago, none of which included him. So much for that dream, he knows, now. A little sad, now. More than a little, now and then. But it is what it is, he tells himself. It was what it was, he tells himself. She is who she always was, he knows, now. Now. Now.

o quiet night

It is the first year, ever, that she will not have a tree. She is not sad about it. Or maybe it’s just because she doesn’t think about it much, if at all. She has become good at compartmentalizing, like this: Her place is too small for a tree and a tree would just be more mess to clean up, after the holidays. Plus, she can use the extra $35 a tree would cost, the economy being what it is. She has memories of grand trees, years ago, with presents spread beneath, while the snow fell, quiet and soft, outside, and the children giggled and buzzed with anticipation. Then, back then, the tree was the center of their Christmas celebration. When she lived in the country, after the divorce, she’d gone out in the moonlight at midnight, exactly, one year, and cut a tree from the forest, and she felt guilty about it, because she'd made a hole in the woods. She sits, tonight, in a room that looks the same as it did in August, September and October. Perhaps she’ll connect with the real idea of the holy day, this way. Or perhaps she’ll weep. She’s still not sure.

little drummer boy

He once was a terrific drummer. He knew it. Everyone knew it. He could keep the beat, and then some, and he loved it, lived for it. It was more than the music. It was … him. Then, he stopped playing, just like that. Don’t count on music, his mother had said. It’s a tough life, his father had said. So, he moved on, not realizing that you never really move on from music, that it becomes part of you, almost like a heart beating, blood coursing, breathing. He filled the emptiness with other things, busyness, mostly, and anything else he could find, but the beat always played in his head, in his heart, in his soul. It was him. When he finally realized that, he promised himself he would someday return to it, but he hasn’t, yet. There’s still time, he thinks.

questioned marks

A life well lived is
what? And how? And what happens,
if, in the end, you somehow realize
that
yours wasn’t? Do you
carry
that
disappointment into the
next life – if there is one? Or does
a light flash and everything suddenly
is
made
OK? Or do you, can you
in your last breath, if given one,
reconcile all that was done and even
that
which
wasn’t? Someone once told me not
to write
questions if I was trying to write poetry,
and
I think
he may have been right.
But what else is there, in the end,
but
questions?
Answers, perhaps?
Maybe that’s
the
heaven people
talk of – knowing that you did
what you did and why and that it was
all alright.

the street

She can hear the traffic from the road outside her place. She’s set back from the street, but sound carries better, here, than in other places she’s been. Sometimes it’s soothing, comforting. Some nights she falls asleep to the noise. Other times, it reminds her of how alone she is: she imagines everyone passing her place is heading toward someone, while she stays alone. It wasn’t always like this. When she was younger, she had more friends than she could count. Or at least it seemed so. Now, most of her friends are in other places, literally and figuratively. She is tempted to go on the road, again, to start driving and keep driving until she arrives someplace that feels more like home. Problem is, she doesn’t know where home is, anymore. So, she’s decided to make a stand, here, and hope tonight, anyway, that the road lullaby sings her to sleep. She’s learned, better, by now, to take it one night at a time.

payback

It wasn’t the right thing to do, invite the kid to her place, after the party, but she did it, anyway. She’d never done anything like it. Never even come close. But she was tired of being alone, tired of him being gone, tired of feeling so angry, all the time. They drove in separate cars and when the kid finally arrived, she gave him the rules. No kissing. No hugging. No nudity. No exchanging phone numbers. And if he somehow got ahold of her cell number and tried to text her, she said she’d find him and slap him silly. She only wanted him because she needed him to complete her infidelity. When she was done with him, with it, that was that. He said he could deal with that, so she turned off the lights and backed into him and he, soon, moved into her. It all happened quickly, much quicker than she’d even imagined it would, though she was so overcome with anger that she only realized the act’s ice cold brevity much, much later. When they were done, she put herself back together and led him to the door, let him out, locked the door and sat on the couch, still in the darkness. It was 2:11 a.m., and she was alone, again. And it was at that very moment that she decided she wouldn’t cry. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. Maybe not ever, again.

the way we were

She teases him with images
from the
past and she knows exactly
what
she is doing though she
feigns – nice word, feign –
ignorance. But he knows
how she is and what she
does and why
she
does it, which doesn’t make anything
any easier, but does, in a way,
warm his heart and soul, for it does
remind him
of
the way things were, which
was
a movie of the 70s, or so,
he remembers. He
never thought,
tho,
he would
star
in
it, even though he does fancy
himself a
bit of
a
Redford.

brother robert

He lay in bed, in the darkness, thinking. He had given his life to God, spent 70-some years in his service. His name was Brother Robert and he knew his time was drawing to a close. The cough had grown more rancorous, gripping his lungs every time he breathed deeply. The diagnosis was pneumonia. He’d managed, however, to remain resolute in his faith. He harbored no anger, no resentment. God’s will was God’s will. He did allow himself this, though: As his condition had worsened, he grew more and more inclined to think about Clare, the only girl he’d loved and how things might have been different if he’d chosen her, instead of his Savior, for she had made no bones about choosing him. He thought of her smile and how her eyes lit up the night and how her touch somehow made him feel safe. In a few minutes, he would get up from his bed, sit down and handwrite a letter to her, beginning “Dear Clare” and ending “Oh, how I loved you and love you still.” He would never get to mail it.

back home

He returned from Iraq and Afghanistan without injury. Not a scratch. Three of his West Virginia National Guard mates were not so lucky. Two died. Vinnie Ray Murray lost his left leg and part of his right. The Boles Springs community held a “Welcome Home” dinner at Coleman Middle School last night and a thanksgiving prayer service at the 5th Baptist-Methodist Church this morning. Both were well attended. People did care, he decided. He figured he’d take off a few weeks, then return to work, after Christmas, as a mechanic at the Pep Boys franchise at Wilson and Main. They’d held his spot. Before that, he’d thought about taking a trip, driving somewhere, take it slow. He thought about visiting Maggie, who lived in Pierre, South Dakota, but he knew she’d ask too many questions, even if he asked her not to. It was just the way she was. Maybe he’d just pick a road, get on it, just drive and end up where he’d end up. He needed space. Lots of it. So much that it scared him, sometimes. He also needed to come to peace with being alive. Space helped with that. A little.

on tour

She was a dancer with the “Mary MacCarthy “Proud Mary’ Revue” and she was on the road for the 106th straight day, with some two weeks-plus yet to go. Her back, neck and hips ached from the recent back-to-back-to-back shows, and the drugs she’d negotiated from the doctor in Vienna had lost their pop. It was 2 a.m., now, the final show in Frankfurt having ended 20 minutes ago. Most everyone in the band and crew was heading off to a local pub for drinks and a late dinner, but she was tired of that, too, and decided to head, instead, back to the hotel. It was only a seven minute walk from the theater, but she decided to sight-see on the way back. A good night for it. The shops and buildings were festooned with Christmas lights and snow drizzled down in tiny, whispery flakes, like something out of a movie. Her little boy, Jed, was home in Georgia with her mother. Jed’d be spending another Christmas with his grandparents. He was three, and she missed him. She stopped, for a moment, by a window filled with toys, looking for something to pick out for him, tomorrow, before they boarded the train for Prague. That’s when the first shot rang out.

drive, papa

His daddy comes home, tonight,
which is a good thing
for
everyone but
me. I liked being a
dad, again, not that I’m not,
still, but
not in those same ways, of course, the
ways of wonder
and
discovery
and unconditional love and
intense discussion highlighted
by a
lack of
vocabulary on both parts –
him with me and
me with him. But
the process, even when
consternating,
is
joyful. And light.
And happy.
And gay.
“Drive, papa.”
“I have to wait for
green. Green means
go.”
He knows that,
now. I
taught him.

walled-en

He stands outside, in his driveway, and stares across the street at the wall. His house is in Texas, a few hundred feet from Mexico. His father was born a Mexican citizen, delivered by a midwife in the very same house, years ago, of course, before the Rio Grande redirected itself and turned what was then Mexico into what is, now, the United States. Levees have been built, since, so that the river, the one-time line of demarcation, will never, would never, again, pull that sort of passport-boggling trick. But, now stands, there, the wall, as much a necessity, some believe, as he thinks an insult. He looks at it, gazes at it mostly in the mornings, as he leaves for work. By night, he’s too tired to think about anything but dinner and a cold beer. But those mornings he does marvel at the idea of the anniversary recently celebrated over the fall of the wall in Berlin and this one, here. He tries to discern a difference, but he sees little dissimilarity between the two.

christmas shopping

He pulled a CD from the display – “The Wonder Pets,” a Nick show. It was for his little sister, Monica. It was her favorite. He took a quick look around, feigned nonchalance as best he knew, slid the CD inside his shirt and pushed it into the waistband of his pants. He knew, of course, what could happen to him. This wasn’t the first time, and it wasn’t as if he’d never been caught. But this was important. The county had placed him and Monica in different homes. The lady in the office said they wouldn’t split up siblings, but they did. He only saw her every other week and she always cried when they had to leave one another, again. This would be the perfect Christmas gift, though. He took a deep breath as he neared the exit and felt the package slide down from his waistband into his pants leg. No matter, he made it out. He felt the sweat on his back, now, in the cool evening. He walked a few blocks before re-examining the CD. He could almost picture Monica’s smile. She was three and not nearly as brave as he. Not yet, anyway. He was 12.

his birthday

His name is Harold and he has only one leg. He’d lost the other in Vietnam, had come home to a country that hated him, and him without the means to run away. He has a recurring dream that his leg has regenerated itself, regrown, only to wake to find himself the same cripple who’d drunk himself to sleep. Never married, he has a steady girl, lately, named Deb, who’d lost her boyfriend in ‘Nam. Deb isn’t much to look at, but she gets him, and that’s good. Tomorrow is his birthday. He’ll be 61. Forty-one years in a wheelchair. As a present, Deb is setting him up with a doctor who specializes in high-tech prosthetics. Her goal is to have him up and walking within the year. It is a surprise. He will not be happy. Too much effort, he’ll reason, too little reward, not to mention too, too late. It will not be a happy day.

the moment

He remembers the moment like few he remembers. She was lying in bed, naked, and he was leaving, because it was time, and he looked over at her and saw, for the first time, how incredibly beautiful she was and how beautifully innocent she was, and he realized, then, that he never would have her, never could have her. He kept seeing her, of course, but, from that moment on, with an understanding of what it was: a moment of time borrowed, not owned, and never forever. He couldn’t explain it to her, even if he tried, which he didn’t. He was certain, and correctly so, that she wouldn’t understand.

tattoed

She couldn’t decide on the tattoo. She knew where she wanted it: on her left breast, just above the nipple and curved around it. She’d narrowed the list of possibilities: a dove with an olive branch; a single word – LOVE; a red rose. She was nervous, too. It would be her first tattoo. She hadn’t told her parents. They would be crazy. Especially her father, Stu. He was pretty hard core. She hadn’t told anyone, not even her best friend, Hattie. This was her thing. She had the money. She’d selected the artist – Bunny, a girl on 65th and Warden, who seemed pretty cool. All she needed to do, now, was do it. She pulled into the parking lot, found a space, parked, turned off the car. The moment of truth. It was hot, unseasonably so. She checked her purse, made sure she had enough money; Bunny only took cash. On the way in, she decided on the rose. The rose would be it, it would be good.

the secret

Everyone has a secret, his mother once told him, and, she said, it’s often better if you don’t know exactly what that secret, their secret, is. He never asked her about that bit of advice, but he would, now, if he could, and the question would be, perhaps a bit inappropriately: what was yours? He suspects hers, his mother’s, might have been that she’d been molested by her father. He’d always had this creepy, gut feeling about that and about his grandfather. In the broader view, he’d always looked differently at people after she’d said that to him. It was a bit of a game, at first – who was doing what to whom? But later it became more and more of an obsession: what was his, hers, theirs? And why was it a secret? His secret? He wasn’t telling anyone, ever. It was better, that way, for everyone – especially his siblings.

the phone call

She doesn’t have long to live, she knows that. The doctors gave her six months, but she doesn’t trust them. She trusts her instincts, now, as much as ever, and she always had good instincts. So, she needs to act, she thinks. She’s made a list of things she wants to do and at the top is calling him. She will call him and tell him that she always loved him, always wanted to be with him, that her life always seemed empty without him. He will be devastated, she thinks, but she has no choice. She needs to say it; he needs to know. She will do it this weekend, when her husband is out of town with the kids – a hockey tournament in Erie. She’s not sure, yet, of exactly what she will say, but she will say something. Then she will say goodbye and hang up. Just like that. Her name is not important, but you probably know her.

snowstorm

He’d worked on the road crew for about seven years, now. Good pay. Decent hours. Lots of overtime. It was mindless work, mostly, but he liked the guys and the few women who worked his shifts. He generally didn’t think much about what he was doing, he just did as he was scheduled and told. Put in the time, head home, do it again the next day. He had a young son and a wife and bills and she was pregnant, again. His job wasn’t exactly recession-proof, but he had built up some seniority, so things weren’t as gloomy for him as for others, nowadays. Except when he allowed himself to stop and take stock. He was in his middle 30s, now, and he was in pretty deep. He’d invested time and effort. Another 10 or so years and his retirement would be pretty well set. It didn’t seem like such a long time until he thought about what he’d really wanted to do. He’d always wanted to be an artist. He’d won awards in grade school and high school for his sketches. In the yearbook, he was listed as “the Hixson High Panther most likely to have his work displayed in an art museum.” Today, not so much. A snowstorm was due in a few hours and he’d be on the plow until late tomorrow morning. Then, sleep.

30 years

He was born 30 years
too soon, or she was born
30 years too late, if chronology has
anything
to do
with anything. He used to think, yes,
but sometimes, now,
he’s not so sure. He wondered, tonight,
about her in 20 years. Will she
still look at him
like now? Will she even
recognize him? How will she regard
what once was? He thought about
what it would
be like
to grow old
with her and how unfair that
might be
to her.
Or not? And is it even his
job to worry
about that. Perhaps it’s not.
Still, he wonders, more, now, than
he thought he ever would about
what
might
have
been.

the interview

The coach took a long drag on his cigarette, then a drink from his bottle. It was past midnight and he was in his campus office with the new beat reporter from the Daily News. He said, “You know all those blowhards – I’m not going to name names – who pass out all this sanctimonious bullshit about why they coach? Because they’re competitors. Because of the kids. Because … shit. I could go on and on.” The reporter nodded. He was young, too, too young, his editor at the paper would soon discover. “It’s all about one thing. Are you ready?” The reporter nodded, again. “Coaching is finite. That’s right. There’s an end to it. And if you fuck up – when you fuck up – you always get another chance, or mostly always. There’s always another game. Maybe not as big as the last one, but another one, just the same, and you know, too, that all you have to do is be good enough for an hour or two. It’s defined. You think all these guys are fucking geniuses?” The reporter shook his head, this time. “Most of them couldn’t pee by themselves if they had to do a real job. In real life, they’d be losers. And isn’t it funny that they’re the ones writing the books about how to be successful.” He paused, then said, “My fucking ass.” He looked at the reporter. The kid’s mouth was wide open, now. The coach said, “Aw, shit, you’re just a kid. Just my luck.”

mary loo2

Mary Loo Tortella was and interesting amalgam of grit, hustle, comeliness and sexual energy. She’d finished first in her high school class and first in college, too. Her plan was to attend Harvard Law and become rich. The reality was that she was overqualified for law school, even Harvard Law, in that she was a doer and lawyers didn’t do. They waited for others to do, then cleaned up the mess. Mary Loo needed to be on the front end of things. She had energy to burn. When she walked into Walker Jonas’s shop, she already had a plan. She’d just seen him on TV and it had come to her. She was ready to change his life – and maybe hers, too.

her dream

On gusty, brittle nights like these, the wind slapped you in the face no matter which way you turned, which she knew was impossible, but true, nonetheless. She checked her watch – almost midnight. The last train was due in 12 minutes. She’d make it if she hurried. She was running down McAdam – well, not really running, but hurrying, quickly. She was almost to the train station when she stopped. She’d heard someone call her name. Or at least she thought she had. The intersection – she was at McAdam and Purifoy – was deserted. Neon signs lit each corner. Two flashed; two were steady. She heard it, again. She looked all about – nothing. No one. She had two minutes to spare, so she stood perfectly still and listened. The wind blew, then whistled. The neon sign closest to her – McCready’s Deli -- clicked and snapped. She held her breath. Nothing. She must’ve been hearing things. She crossed Purifoy in a slow walk, then began jogging as she reached the other side. She made the train with only seconds to spare. That night, she dreamed she’d seen her father, downtown, in a sidestreet alley. He’d died three years earlier. She still missed him. Terribly.

rik

His name is Ricardo and he goes by Rik. He uses the “k,” because he thinks it’s distinctive. He’s a sophomore in high school and he’s in the marching band and he’s heard all the “beater or blower” jokes from the jocks and other BMOCs and he doesn’t really care, most of the time, except that now he has a crush on Maryela, who’s the lead in the school play and likes drummers and he plays clarinet. He wanted to be a drummer, but his family had a clarinet, not drums. That was the way things worked in his family: you did with what you had. He’s decided that he still will try to woo Maryela, but, in the end, as always, she will dance at the musical after-party with someone more important. This time it’s Ned, who is a football player. He will take her outside, ply her with booze and have sorry, fumbled sex with her in the backseat of his car. Someday, Rik will be a featured jazz clarinetist on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Millions of jazz aficionados will know his name. Maryela will marry Ned. And you do know the rest of that story, don’t you?

sunday morning

The couple stands atop a small dune, looking out at the Gulf. She is slender and appears younger than he. Her smile is younger, at least, or somehow seems so. He is slender, too. His hair is gray and thinning and blows in the wind. They talk, but their conversation, nothing too intense or intimate, it is assumed by their smiles and carriage, is carried off by the gusts. They might be husband and wife, or perhaps lovers, or could be, more innocently, father and daughter. What they are – how they are – isn’t important. What’s important – and, for that matter, so nice on an overcast, chilly December morning – is that they’re together. Light laughter rolls down from the dune, now. She kisses him on the cheek, puts her arm in his. He kisses her back.

tomorrow

Tomorrow, she will turn in her son. He knows nothing of it. The sheriff’s deputies will arrive at 8 a.m., sharp, they promised, handcuff him and take him to the county jail. She will try to explain, but he won’t listen, of course. He will feel betrayed, as she might, too, she knows. But it has come to this. She has no choice. If not this, he will end up dead, and, she fears, sooner than later. This is no panacea, either. She knows that, too. But it might forestall the inevitable, buy her some time to try to figure out how to – who can – help him. She pours herself some wine. It is late. After midnight. The wind wails at this hour, in this part of the country, especially in the dead of January. The temperature is expected to drop to minus-15, much lower with the wind chill. She opens the door to the wood-burning stove and throws in two logs. She will wait for another 15 minutes, then enter his room to make sure he’s covered and to kiss him on the cheek. Then, she will go to her bedroom and weep and, maybe, sleep.

fat a**

Burger King calls them
“French toast” sticks,
but they’re really just fried
bread, and
who thought
up
that? And: did he (or she) win
a prize or bonus – not to mention the
genius who came
up with the
truncated “tater tots.” And
while
we’re on the subject, walks
past a woman
with the “guess” logo slapped across her butt.
that’s just
a no-brainer:
FAT
ASS.

one 'tall,' please

“You’ve ruined coffee, you know,” he says, aloud, at the Starbucks kiosk concession at the LA airport. “All this frou-frou crap. Coffee used to be coffee, but now it’s a fucking soft drink.” The clerk looks confused, then a bit frightened, and who wouldn’t be, this day and age, when people pull out guns and start shooting anyone over anything. Just yesterday, a guy in Culver City shot a 13-year-old girl for trying to steal his lawn gnome. “Latte this, latte that. Coffee is supposed to be coffee. Fuck all this other shit.” Security is called, beckoned away from people a stone’s throw north who are busy taking off their shoes to prove they’re not terrorists. “Excuse me, sir,” the first guard on the scene says. “You’re excused, asshole,” the coffee whisperer says, in a voice louder, of course, than a whisper. “Will you please come with us?” The answer is “No,” of course, and a second guard appears, this one a bit more focused. He tasers the protestor. When he comes to, Arnie Slobodokian, the patron, will find himself face down in an airline holding cell. His first words will be, “And what’s with a goddam 'tall'?”

sadness

What makes his sadness
seem
worse, at least
to him
is that
for some reason
everyone
around him seems
happy and he wonders: are
they, really,
or is it just me? He doesn’t wish
them unhappiness or sadness,
but he
does feel left out and
that
makes it more
difficult to navigate. It’s a funny
thing,
this feeling bad, he thinks,
not so humorously. The way it would seem is to
be around happiness,
but often being around it only exacerbates
the
pain (and makes it worse, too,
he thinks, redundantly, which makes
him smile, a bit – and
that’s not
a
sad
thing).

the maid

Anja comes bumping into the classroom and complains, aloud, “The maid keeps stealing my clothes,” then drops herself into an empty desk with a disgusted thunk. No one asks her how she knows this for certain or why she feels it necessary to announce it to a group of 15-year-old biology students, few of whom seem to be her friends. Anja’s father owns six car dealerships in the valley; her mother is an art broker. Her personal driver brings her to school. A bodyguard accompanies her. She will graduate in the top third of her class, though barely, and matriculate to one of the toniest colleges on the East Coast, at which time her father will refer to the annual tuition as “tip money.” Over the same period of time, the maid, who is not stealing Anja’s clothes, will suffer her mother’s death, her father’s hospitalization and the diagnosis of her teenage son’s learning disability as “severe.” The maid’s name is Luisa. She once saved Anja’s life when Anja was choking.

christmas eve

It’s late and cold and windy and Maria Gutierrez has no idea where she and her two children, Rey and Nelda, will spend the night. Last night and most of today they stayed at a friend’s, Jessie’s, but that place turned ugly in the late evening when Jessie’s boyfriend, Oscar, came by drunk and angry, threatening Jessie and anyone who might get in his way. Had things been different, Maria would’ve stayed for Jess, or, better, convinced her friend to come with them. But another body was, well, another body, she rationalized, and Jessie seemed okay, or at least said she was or would be. She said she could handle Oscar. The fact was, she couldn’t. Tomorrow she would be found beaten, her bloodied body stuffed in a kitchen closet. Maria knows none of this, now, of course. She is busy parking her car in the back of the vacant, flea market parking lot. It’s a safe spot, she guesses, though so very dark. She turns off the engine and climbs into the back seat with the children. Rey asks, in a polite whisper, for Nelda is already asleep, “Momma will we go to church tomorrow? It’s Christmas.” Maria smiles as bravely as she can, shushes him, pulls him closer. She is 23, Maria is, and scared to death.

a victim

She remains in the hospital, recovering from the gunshot wound suffered during the attack. She was a secretary, still is, or still will be. It wasn’t being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was her place. She’d worked in the office, there, for five years. Nothing, of course, ever happened like this. When he walked in, she’d had a tiny flash of panic that something was wrong, or was about to be wrong. He had words with the receptionist, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting. He hadn’t aimed at her, not so that she remembered. It was more he just started shooting, at anything and at nothing. The first bullet hit her in the hip, fracturing her femur. The second hit her in the back. Funny, both times she didn’t feel pain, but just a thump or thunk. The doctors said she might not walk, again, and she wasn’t so angry with the shooter as she was with her God. She believed He had control over everything. So: why her? She’d since stopped praying and resorted, instead, to hoping. She was 27 and had her whole life in front of her. Had. Despite her injuries, the doctors said she could expect to live a long life, one, she knew, now, she might spend questioning the existence of her God, or any God. Just so you know, her name was Millie. Is Millie.

rachel

He’d never paid for sex, but he knew, too, that everything had its time, so he was able to rationalize it, for this was the time, or so he told himself. Her name was Rachel, or so she said, and he’d met her at the furthest barstool from the entrance at The Barnstormer, a local meat market in the downtown singles area. They talked a bit and he told her he hadn’t had sex in a year and she said she’d be willing to address that, if he was interested. He said he was and they bartered a bit, in a consciously clandestine way, and they agreed on a deal and found a motel nearby and, over the course of the next few hours, settled matters. He, of course, was taken by her kindness, which was genuine, he’d judged. She was perfunctory, as always, though sympathetically so, and, perhaps, a trifle taken. When they left, he paid her $300. It was, he would later assess, the best $300 he’d ever spent. She used it to get her car fixed – new muffler. It was a perfect example of free-market economy: A good deal was had by all.

the cold

She thought she missed the snow, but what she’d really been missing was the cold. The cold seemed to clear everything, to sweep away all the “stuff” that hung around and grew in the heat and the dampness. When the front swept through in the early morning, the early daylight hours, she felt a lightness she’d been missing. Nothing she could quantify, just something that made everything seem a bit less complicated. She slept better, at night, too, knowing that the darkest hours would be the coldest, the most brittle and brutal and that as the sun warmed things, life would become a bit more manageable, that she could hide beneath the covers during the night, but emerge to a kinder morning. She was sure she was just making it all up, rationalizing it, how things changed for her, depending on the weather, but it made her feel better, nonetheless, and that was all that mattered.

hello mary loo

His business was called “Music 2 Live By,” and he’d divined the idea from a TV sitcom years ago that had a tag line about a good life made better by living it to music. His idea: put together musical selections for individuals based on their likes and dislikes, lifestyles and personalities, with different playlists for different moods and times. His friends thought the idea was crazy. He thought it was crazy, too, but crazy like bottled water. His main goal was not to make money, but to meet women, whom he assumed would be his main clients. He was right – and on all accounts. In the first year he’d netted $75,000, been featured in Rolling Stone, the New York Times and on the Today show and had dated 29 of his 75 female clients. Life was good. Then, one day, into his tiny shop on 66th Street walked Mary Loo Tortella.

the party

They give him a party, now that’s back home from the war – and in one piece, “Let’s all drink a toast.” It is a gala affair, by mid-sized town standards. Beer. A nice dinner at one of the nicer restaurants. A cake, later, at home, while everyone sings, “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow,” because, well, that’s what someone started singing. But it’s two hours later, now, and everyone is gone and he’s alone in his bedroom, the bedroom he had as a boy, with everything still the way it was, and instead of feeling at home, he feels an anger well up, deep inside, which is from where his anger always seems to come. And he knows at whom it’s directed, or mis-directed. At them. All of them, at the party, at his party. He knows it’s not fair to be upset with them, but he is, nonetheless, because they do not know, he knows, that he never will come home. He can’t come home, anymore, though they act as though he should, and did, and he is maddened by their ignorance. He decides he can’t stay, it is best that he leave, and he quietly grabs a few clothes and goes. He does not know where to go, but he will find it, the place, he knows. Maybe not soon, but someday. His name is Allen Joseph Walker. You maybe meet him, someday, or perhaps you already have and didn’t know it.

safety

He had not thought if it like that – safety. He’d thought that he was supposed to make her feel safe. But she’d made him feel that way. It was true, now that he thought about it, and even though he’d heard the line, been introduced to the sentiment in a recent “chick-flick” movie. Even that didn’t diminish the truth. They were, those were the moments when he felt untouched by everything that was happening around and about him. Moments. Minutes. Half-hours, sometimes whole. She was younger and less experienced and less worldly, certainly, but she had that effect on him, on his life. He didn’t feel as safe, now that she was gone, off, away. He didn’t feel in danger, it wasn’t like that. He just didn’t feel safe.

maddie

She was only five when her grandmother took her to the lady with the big, funny looking cards. She remembers little about the visit, except for the lady – she was very pretty in an oddly elegant, black way – and the smell. It – the lady’s home – smelled like candles, colorful candles, if colors had smells, and, at that age, the little girl thought they did. She never did ask her grandmother why they visited the woman, nor why her grandmother looked so sad when they left. When she tried, as she got older, her grandmother would tell her that she was imaging things, that they’d never visited the woman. But the image was too sharp to be something she just dreamed. Finally, one day, when she was 14 and telling her grandmother about the boy she “loved,” her grandmother took her in her arms and held her tight. “Love isn’t everything it’s made out to be,” her grandmother said in a soft whisper. The girl’s name was Madeline and she was unfathomably beautiful.

christmas Eve

She pulls her coat tight, warding off the brittle, gusty wind. It’s almost midnight, Christmas Eve. She has no one waiting at home, so she’s in no hurry. As the wind dies, the snow begins to fall gently. When it picks up, again, the eddies reswirl. She thinks: Maybe I should just get in my car and drive. Just go, anywhere, somewhere. Stop and sleep. Wake and eat breakfast. See what Christmas feels like, there, somewhere. It’s not always been so, like this. Her ex has the kids, tonight; they’d decided to take turns with the holidays and he’d won the coin toss. So, this is new. She passes a bar – “Gracie’s” – then stops, turns and heads back, stops, peeks in, pulls open the door and enters. It’s warm, dark, but it feels safe. “Come in, hon,” the older man behind the bar says. She does. “Whatever you want, it’s on the house.” She smiles and says, “I want to be six, again.” The barkeep chuckles, nicely. She smiles, says “Merry Christmas,” and turns back into the evening. From somewhere far away she hears carolers singing – “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” As she walks, now, she sings along.

stand up and B counted

And the announcer says: “All 90,000
stand as one,” which is a lie, of course,
because not all 90,000 stand, nor is the
number
exactly 90,000, nor, even if all did, could they do it
“as
one,” without some practice, and this is the same announcer
who
castigates athletes
for not telling the truth,
or
lying, whichever comes first (for there
is a difference, you know). It is
an unnecessary silliness, this throwaway line,
meant, somehow, to dramatize something
that needs
no
additional drama.
The curious question, though, is this: does this
bother anyone else, that this lame brain so
easily insults our collective intelligence by trying to make
us believe that 90,000 people,
who have trouble getting out of each other’s way in
the concourse, much less the
post-game parking mess, could possibly “stand
as one?”
Or
is
it
just me? (I'm not
sure you need
to answer
that.)

the meaning of life

What does this all mean, he asks himself, then
answers, himself, too: It means
nothing. There is
no
meaning. It is
an exercise in futility
to find meaning, for we
are
here for no great purpose,
other than to
survive and help others
do the same. That is the function
of propagation – to keep
the mystery continual. For if
someone solved it – and many
talk about what it is, as though
they cracked the code – or if we ran out of people, it would
all
be
over. Which begs the question, then: Just
how hard are we
trying to figure
it
all
out, in between love affairs and kids
and visits to the dentist and dinner
at
Chick-fil-a, for example. When is there
time
to really think about ... it? And, so,
life
goes
on. Think about it –
or
don’t. It doesn’t make
any
difference.
Really.

lettuce prey

The confusing thing is this idea
of
God. OK, so there is
a
God; someone – something – had
to put
all this together. It is not possible
that two boulders crashed into
one
another and -- poof! –
all this intricacy happened. At least
that’s what
he
believes. But what beyond
that? What does
God expect of him? Of them?
Of anyone? And what about
the End Result, though he’s
not so sure he believes in anything
other than
re-mineralizing
some plot of grass, somewhere. So – but – if
we pray to Him, to whom
are we praying? It seems
a legitimate question.
To him?
To an idea?
Or is it just a moment
of concentration, a moment
of pause, an engineered time
to breathe deeply and re-think,
again, and come away somehow
re-buoyed?
Buoyed, again?

realization

He went to kiss her and she said, “I don’t like to kiss, so much,” and all he could think of was how he’d heard that prostitutes didn’t like to kiss, either, because it was too intimate. Fucking for money was one thing; kissing was quite another. But this was his wife. This was their wedding night. They’d kissed, before, sure, but he’d always noticed her holding back, not so much getting into it. They’d had sex, too, before they were wed. It was sometimes semi-passionate, sometimes even more perfunctory. All this flickered through his mind as she said, “Let’s just have sex,” and so, he did, they did, but he would remember the moment as a moment when he finally began to understand who she really was, because he thought the prostitutes were right, and he wondered, “What have I gotten myself into?” He would spend parts of the next 28 years trying to fix whatever was holding her back. He didn’t know until it was over that there was no fixing it, that, her.

tommie

His name is Tom and he’s a Vietnam vet, never married, never moved from his folks’ house. They’re both long dead – his parents – but he keeps the place, though just about as you’d imagine. It isn’t a pretty sight. He doesn’t date, has little of a social life, outside of family gatherings, where he’s given wide berth because of his laundry habits, which are often lacking. He’s a smart guy; he saves his money. In fact, he owns three “properties.” It’s not easy to find him, though not too difficult, either, if that makes any sense. He sees a lot of movies. Not the junkie ones. Those with some substance, real or alleged. And indies. He loves indies. They make him feel like someone, indie as he is, himself, or considers himself. He brings his own popcorn and soda, and all the ticket clerks on the east side know him by name. He gave up hoping to meet someone years ago, much less someone who liked movies as much as he did. So, he always sees them alone. He pretends he’s in them, leaves the theater feeling better about himself. He doesn’t have a dog. He needs a dog. If he had one, he’d name it Shane. Or Rooster Cogburn. Even if it was a girl.

unbridled sex

“Poughkeepsie Betty” met “Altoona Ray”
at Winkie’s at 15th and Stahl.
They laughed and they drank and they danced
and they laughed ‘til 15 bells far past last call.

“Let’s go to a hotel, let’s get us a room,”
said Betty, a gleam in her eye.
Ray flashed her a smile and gave her a wink
and hastened to 16th and Rye.

They got them a room, they did what’s to do,
They woke to the morning’s low hum,
And Poughkeepsie Betty and Altoona Ray
went back home from whence they had come.

They ne’er met, again, twas just that one time.
But neither would ever regret,
the kissing, the giggles, the unbridled sex,
at 70, who would’ve guessed?

LAX

He sits in the LA airport
and studies couples and wonders:
how did we
ever look? Bored? Disconected?
Ever
in love? Did I, he wonders,
look to be looking? Did men look
at her and think
she could
be had? and how? Did she look
have-able at someone? He thinks: “I
never knew to look,” and “Just where are
all these
people going? And to see what?
Or
whom?” Jingle Bells plays
and he thinks: “How odd to hear
‘one-horse open sleigh,’ here,
in LA.”

what's in a name

Burger King calls them
“French toast” sticks,
but they’re really just fried
bread, and
who thought
up
that? And: did he (or she) win
a prize or bonus – not to mention the
genius who came
up with the
truncated “tater tots.” and
while
we’re on the subject, walks
past a woman
with the “guess” logo slapped across her butt.
that’s just
a no-brainer:
fat
ass.

banjo

He puts three logs into the wood-burning stove and pulls a chair closer to the warmth. His dog’s name is Banjo and it sidles closer, too, to the heat. It is Sunday night and he – they – are waiting for bedtime. It has come to this – waiting to go to sleep. Tomorrow, he will head into town, looking for work. It has been like this for the past seven Mondays. No one is hiring. No one needs an honest laborer. Already, he’s cut back on Banjo’s portions. Already he’s cut back on electricity and logs. Already he’s cut back on his own amenities, much as they were. The wind blows, whistles, outside, and he hopes he can wait out the downturn. He never expected to be like this, but it is what it is, he has come to say. He pulls on a second sweater and crosses himself, thanking God for global warming. It could be much, much worse. Banjo sneezes, then yawns. At least he is not alone.

i do

“I am afraid,” she says, “that you will forget about me.” He smiles, because her vulnerability makes her so much more endearing. “I might,” he says, teasingly. “I might forget about you, someday.” She shakes her head and says, “I don’t want that, ever, no matter what happens, no matter where we are.” He kisses her on the forehead and she pushes into his shoulder and feels her eyes fill with tears. “You tease about this, but it is important to me.” He says, “What should be important to you, now, to us, now, is now.” She pushes closer, into his neck and kisses him softly. “Tell me you love me,” she says, and he says, “I do, now.”

christmas

The two children stare, wide-eyed at the Christmas tree in the Wal-Mart display and, finally, one asks, “Can we have a tree, this year, papa?” and the man with them says, curtly, without looking over, “No, we ain’t havin’ a tree this year.” He doesn’t choose to be mean, but he doesn’t know how to tell them that he can’t afford a tree, again, this year. He could tell them, he supposes, but they wouldn’t understand, so he does what he does and hides his own disappointment behind a shrug of disgust – “Just dries out and goes to waste.” The children don’t understand any of this, of course, especially because they’re looking at fake trees. And they’re kids, after all. So, they will wake Christmas morning to a day mostly like the rest of the days – cereal, milk, morning TV – and when they ask about Christmas and presents and snow and all the other things they’ve seen on TV, their father will sip from a cup of black coffee and not say anything. He’ll go to work at six and they’ll watch “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” and begin wishing for next year, just like they did the year before.

Barney

They got it all wrong, he thought, in the books and the movies and the recruiting pitches, especially. It was nothing about bravery. Bravery was a myth. It was about surviving – what you did, how you managed it, why you succeeded, if you did. The rest was all bullshit. Valor. Honor. Dignity. They were all just bigshot words that disguised the red-hot, paralyzing, blinding fear. What he needed to do, now, was find a way to survive – him and the others, as many as he could take with him. It was too early, now, though. Night had just begun to fall, the day’s heat just starting to dissipate. In an hour or two the evening’s breezes would come up, maybe cool, but probably not. Then, he would see how good he was at surviving. Until then it wasn’t survival, it was only marking time. A dog barked in the distance and he remembered his, back home -- Barney, a mutt. Barney was a good dog.

when it's time

In his last few hours, he has grown young, again. He sees things the way they used to be, the way they once were. There’s too much to recall, but, now, here, there’s Ray and Hank, old army buddies, in fatigues, bare-chested, smiling, sharing a smoke. Ray was a comic; Hank was a pistol. Ray was shot down over Ploesti. Hank, too. He’s missed them for a long, long time. There’s Mindy, now, too, his first love, his very first. She’s a picture of life, of beauty. Her smile is incandescent. Always was. He wanted to marry her, but never asked. She got tired of waiting, moved to Dallas, became a successful doctor. Never married. Over there is Biff, his favorite dog. A mutt, Heinz 57 variety. He pulled Biff in off the street one bitterly cold, gusty Christmas night, all fur and bones. Biff spent the next 13 years with him, ‘til he fell asleep one night at his feet and never woke. He sees his children, too, now, all four of them. This is the way he’d wanted it to be when it was time – seeing them all, like this, together, by him. Mary, the youngest girl, says, “We love you, dad. You were a good father.” He nods, imperceptibly, and closes his eyes, relaxes his entire body, smiles. It is time. No need to hold on any longer. It is time.

buffalo bob

They call him Buffalo Bob. He sells used cars at the Martinez Auto Mart, specializing in middle-aged women, divorcees’, specifically. He can see them coming from a mile or two – poofed-up hair, high heels, décolletage gaudily on display, ready to make an “ex” pay, somehow, some way. He steers them away from the “utility rides” and toward the Mini-Coopers or something even sexier. He’s had his way with one or two or three, but that’s not his motivation. He gets enough sex from his wife, Mayela. What he thrives on is his customers’ vulnerability. It’s better than the sex, or has been, to this point, getting them all where it hurts. He knows he should see a therapist, because he suspects he’s a closet misogynist. But there’ll be time for that. Right now, comes Ellie Marie Jaurez and she’s got her boobs on display and an agenda to die for -- and he’s got the antidote and the answer. God, what a beautiful day, what a day to be alive, what a day to be a salesman. Buffalo Bob, at your service.

she feels

She feels connected when he is beside her. Not always to him, specifically, but just somehow connected. Sometimes she thinks is it his warmth; sometimes, she thinks, it is his breathing. Sometimes, she thinks, she just imagines it, because she wants to feel it so. Those times, she weeps, softly, doesn’t let him see, doesn’t let him know. An aunt told her, once, (her favorite aunt) that love hurts and she thinks she is beginning to understand, at these moments, the latter, specifically. She is young, still, and wonders if it will always be this way, that she will want it so badly and that no one will ever be able to make the ache disappear. Because she is young, she hopes, and hope is a good thing, she knows. So, she dries her eyes and moves closer to him. He sleeps. She does not, but will, eventually, of course.

thanksgiving dinner

Little Man told him that there would be a pretty good meal at the old St. Albert’s Church on Middlestrand, so he headed that way, figuring he would stop by, in a block or two, and get Silent Joe, take him along. Silent Joe, whose real name was Rick, lived in the back of an abandoned garage a few blocks north, on Churchill. Churchill used to be a handsome, tree-lined arcadia; now, it was a ghost of its past, or worse. Nothing much remained – a garage, here, a duplex, there; old, rusting cars; an abandoned corner store across from a deserted diner across from a boarded-up barber shop. The stop sign at the end of the street was pock-marked and twisted and marked with graffiti, and, almost perfectly, indecipherably so. He hopes Silent Joe isn’t dead. He always worries about that. Silent Joe dead would put a damper on Thanksgiving dinner.

close-ure

They’re closing down her church. Officially, it’s a consolidation. They’re combining parishes with St. Henry’s. It sounds simple, but it’s not, at least not to her. She’s been attending 7 a.m. Mass at St. Dorothy’s for 63 years, this June. She was married there, her kids were baptized there, Dante was buried from there. She even stayed when the colored started moving in. It is her place – hers. She knows God is everywhere. She knows he works in mysterious ways. But this? This won’t be simple. A different confessional. Different kneelers. (St. Henry's are too hard.) Different everything. She wonders if this is a test of her faith. If it is, she doesn’t like it, not one bit. She won’t stop saying her rosary, but she might stop praying for the bishop. She never did like him much, anyway.

he wrote

He wrote: I would like, once more, to soar at 25,000 feet. I would like to look at her – her -- and feel that squishy, lovely feeling in my stomach, again. I would like to hear a song for the very first time, again, and know that it was a song that would never leave me. I would like to taste the sweet sweat of my two-year-olds when I kiss them and hear their glorious giggles as I toss them about. I would like to kiss my first kiss for the first time, again, and feel the power of a phrase well constructed and know that I did that, that I could do that. I would like to remember what it was like to wait up for Santa Claus, not already knowing it was Uncle Ray. I would like to hockey stop without falling, for the first time, and settle into her arms after love and feel the closeness and her heat and listen to her heartbeat. I would like to walk into the woods on a Christmas Eve and see the snow falling through the trees and wonder if heaven was like this, just a bit. I would like to do just about everything over, again, and pay more attention, to memorize the moments, to hold them and honor them. Oh, that I could, he wrote.

dead and gone

He decries the death of dignity,
or
at
least its dearth. The word has
lost its honor, he believes,
which is ironic
because
he thinks honor
also
has gone missing. He learned
both words, early, when he was
a
kid, he thinks, or at least a young
man. Today’s children, its students,
its hope for the future
cannot define either, nor
give examples, thereof, but is it
their failure or ours,
he wonders, knowing full well, of course,
that it
is
everyone’s loss.

finally

She teaches a course in religion at the local Catholic high school. She is good at her job. She understands the material; the kids get it. They get her. After school, tonight, though it’s not the first time, she will meet a man she knows only through the Internet at a small, dusty motel outside town and spend the evening, there. She does this with some regularity, with different men she knows the same, because it is faceless and dangerous and she finds the two somehow symbiotic, and though she leaves feeling guilty, for she is baptized and was raised Catholic, she also feels leaving strangely alive. Tonight when she leaves, in the darkest, quietest part of the night, she will feel a shadow approach, as she reaches to unlock the car door. She is unafraid, and strangely so. In fact, though no one else would understand -- and how could they? -- she is somehow ready.

what he heard

He misses the music most. There was a life to it, a sense of hope. “Dancin’ in the Streets.” “Good Golly Miss Molly.” “Get Ready.” “Wake Me, Shake Me.” Sometimes silly, always joyous. Lord knows it mostly didn’t come from a place of hope, though it rang like one. And maybe that was what made it feel so good, so vital. That, and how it got to him, across that AM signal from Detroit. It was as though he’d tapped into something, directly into something. From a real place. His parents didn’t get it. How could they? They’d already given up, they’d already resigned. Wasn’t that the way with the adults? Get there and stay there and wait for judgment day, when, finally, things would get better. But that wasn’t for him. He wanted to ride the feelings; he wanted to ride that lifeline. He still does, today, so many years later, but now wonders if it isn’t just time to get somewhere and wait. He desperately needs a song.

kia

He hadn’t seen his son in almost two years, and, now, he was hearing from the army that Billy had been killed in action, in Afghanistan. It still hadn’t registered, completely. He knew it, intellectually; it had been explained to him by more than one army official. The day. The time. The incident. The bomb. Remains had been identified; they were on the way home. It all added up. But he still struggled with the “what if,” that last bit of hope, that last vestige of right. Maybe someone had made a mistake. After all, it would be wrong for Billy to go before they could talk, again. It would be wrong for Billy to die before they had one last moment to sit together. It would be almost evil for Billy to die before he had a chance to hug and kiss him. He puts his hands on his head, now, and tells himself to be smart, to accept, to let it all in and allow it time before he thinks, says, acts. It is not easily accepted nor done, this resignation. He thinks it might kill him. And he doesn’t care, much, if it does.

acceptance

She looks at herself in the mirror. Studies herself. Every Saturday morning she takes stock, always when she first arises, before gravity gets the better of things. She will be 50 in two days. She wrinkles her nose at the thought, at her image, but only half-heartedly. She still likes what she sees. Her shoulders still have carriage. Her breasts sag only a bit and, somehow, lustily. Her hips still command space rather than flood it. Thighs, ok. Legs – check. She wouldn’t change a thing, now, and how nice that feels, to accept oneself. It wasn’t always so.

changeling

There is a moment,
he thinks, in everyone’s
life, that changes
everything,
forever. Why
he
believes this, he is
not sure, for he has no proof,
really, about this, just
a
feeling.
It might be a word, a smile, a deed,
a fact from a book,
a picture
someone else took that somehow
captured
an imagination, something considered, by
the faulty human mechanism
that considers such things so
trivial or indiscriminate that
memory loses it, and
without conscience.
But “it,” whatever “it” was,
changed a life.
changed
lives.
and continues to do so. So:
what
was
yours?

surf's up

he walks along the beach and
realizes this: for all the
times he walks the
route, he never,
yet, has put his
feet
into the water. In fact,
he
avoids the surf, sometimes, even athletically,
when
it crawls toward him. Given any other year
or time, he might
not
give such avoidance a second thought, but today
he
wonders:
what and why. Just another
thing
to
contemplate. Or
is
it?

re en act ment

He sits at the edge of the encampment, at a table, near the tent and his bedroll, which is yet unrolled, but slid to the rear of the tent, hiding the TV, which he’ll connect, later, to a 200-foot electrical cord, so he can watch “Saturday Night Live,” for two reasons: one, tonight’s show is not a re-run and, two, because it’s hosted by Taylor Swift, a current, country heartthrob. The field before him has been lit with 8,000 candles, representing the approximate 8,000 who fell during a pivotal battle in the war with Mexico. It is a lovely, peaceful, powerful sight, blessed by a cool night and gentle breeze. By weekday and late evenings he works the evening shift at the IHOP nearest the mall, in the kitchen. He is good at omelets. And they are good, because he adds a dash of pancake batter to the eggs. Tonight, though, he is a mercenary, one who deserted the U.S. forces and joined the Mexicans, at the promise of land and money, and will end up hanged for doing so. Dressed appropriately, he tells his story to the visitors, youths, mostly, armed with video cameras. He spins a good tale. He does a good deed. He has given life to history. Tomorrow, though, it’s back to the griddle and senior citizen 2-for-1 specials, which is better than the gallows, though not nearly so dramatic. His name is Fermin. He is 46.

she left, before morning

She left before morning, just as she’d planned,
telling no one, giving no one a hint.
They all slept unworried, her boys and the girl
and her husband whose nickname was Clint.

She did leave a note, handwritten, in print,
Told them all that she needed to go,
That they wouldn’t find her so they needn’t try
If they loved her, they’d just leave it so.

She drove 16 hours and six hours more
‘til she pulled to the side just to sleep.
In the wisp of a moment before nodding off
She asked Him her soul there to keep.

She woke hours later to early dawn’s dew.
The shudder it came like a shot
She’d made a mistake, a horrible one
Don’t think, just keep going, she thought.

They found her in Houston some 16 days more
In the back of her car on the road,
No number no address no ID or cards
No message no goodbye no note.

“Dear mom,” Maize had written when first she had left,
“please come home, we won’t make you cry.”
But fixing was over, any saving was through
And no one would know, ever, why.

the buck stops ... here

He sighted. Aimed, carefully. Fired. The buck dropped to its front forelegs, pitched further forward, nosed into the mud, toppled. It happened in slow motion. It always did. And perhaps that was part of the attraction -- watching the life bleed away. The animal was still breathing, struggling to, when he arrived at its side. Its eyes were glassed over, growing cloudy. He moved away, at an angle, so the dying eye couldn’t find him. He didn’t like being spotted, even by dying animals, and he’d made a career outside the hunting range by being invisible. He sat on a thick root to the left of the carcass, pushed back on the bill of his cap and lit a cigarette. It was still barely dawn. Only half the sky was lit, and, then, only a deep purple. He was almost admiring it when the first shot hit him, toppling him forward, not unlike the buck, severing his spinal cord. He felt strangely separate from his body, almost benumbed, but he still could hear, and the wheezing of the buck now blended almost synchronously with his own final gasps and the muted squish of approaching footsteps.

not a plan ... yet

She is startled by the thought crossing her mind -- what if she just left and never returned? – and is struck both by guilt and exhilaration. Is it possible? Could she do that? She once read a book about a mother who went for a walk along the beach and never returned. She just kept walking. The phone rings, now, and she ignores it. She sits; she must. The kids would be fine, maybe even better. Sam was a good father, a much better parent than she. To be free, again – or, more to the point, for once. She feels her pulse race. Her heart beats against her chest – hard. It is possible. She would need just to start walking, and not look back. Looking back would be fatal. She stood. Not today, though. Not tomorrow, either. But maybe someday.

he said

He said all the time, “in a manner of speaking,” and it drove her crazy. It was an affectation, one that seemed somehow endearing when he was in his 20s and trying to make his way through the forest of tall trees in the overcrowded investment industry. Now it just sounded, to her, anyway, like so much bullshit. He’d become successful and she’d loved the climb, but now she was wondering, more and more, why and what for. Sometimes she felt as though she were acting like a spoiled child. Other times she felt as though she were beginning finally to grasp some shred of life’s meaning. In either case, he didn’t figure into her future, she knew that, now. He was stern and boring and not as nearly as smart as she once thought, which caused her to wonder if she’d gotten smarter or if she’d just wised up. Her girlfriends told her she had a pretty good deal going, that she’d be crazy to do anything stupid. So, for the time being, she was staying put, anesthetizing herself with anti-depressants and avoiding sex as much as possible, which wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d thought, nor as lonely.

graveyard shift

She gathers her clothes, quickly, pulls herself into the bathroom, dresses with haste. She will not kiss him goodbye, she knows. She never does. She believes, odd as it may seem, childish as it sounds, that she has only a finite number of kisses to give, or she has made herself believe that, because to her the kissing is the most intimate of actions and she doesn’t share them with many, if any. He will not wake for another hour. It is always this way. The meet, enjoin, she lies awake till it’s almost light, then leaves, while he sleeps. On the way home she will wonder why she keeps doing this, like this, not with him, but doing it, period. She comes up with answers, but never likes any of them, because none of them are truly honest and, despite even this, she considers herself an honest person. Her cell phone rings. It is her daughter. She wonders why her mother is late coming home, again, from the graveyard shift. She’d awoken and mom wasn’t there and dad just told her to go back to sleep. “I love you,” she tells the girl. “I’ll be home, soon.” And she is, mostly.

the moon

He looks out the window
of the
car and marvels
at the moon. He calls to
it and
waves at it, with a smile. He doesn’t
know, yet, that a cow jumped over it
(though he will soon); or that man
walked on it; or that someday
“a moon” will
take on
an altogether different meaning. Now,
he just
marvels at the fact
that it is there and it is luminous
and that it brightens
where there
is mostly
darkness. He seems satisfied with
that, and well he should be.
He is two, he
is in a car at night for the first
time and he
has found a friend
that follows him along the road.
Would we all
be
so
lucky.

the bodyguard

Marco is a bodyguard in charge of Jose Matisse Ruiz’s four children. He is paid well. He drives them to school, across the border. He waits for them, outside the school gates, drinking coffee and chewing gum and smoking three cigarettes, which is all he allows himself for the afternoon. At night, he goes home to his wife, Maria, and their two children, Dionicio and Griselda. She is a school teacher in the States and is very beautiful and makes a point, every day, of admonishing her students not to use such indefinite adjectives as “very.” Tonight, when Marco arrives home, he will be met, in his own living room, by two members of the Castro drug cartel. They will tell him exactly where and at what time he will turn over to them Aldo, the oldest of the Ruiz children, whom they will hold for a $1 million ransom. They also tell him what will happen if he doesn’t comply: his wife will be disfigured. “You will not ever be able to look at her, again,” the smallest and darkest of the henchmen says. His name is Jack. Marco does not sleep that night. Indeed, he may never be able to sleep, again.

the family

His mother’s family seemed normal to him, when he was a child. Or perhaps it was all he knew. Both of his uncles drank, good-naturedly, it seemed, and his grandfather, while quintessentially German in the worst ways, had redeeming qualities that, at one time, seemed almost honorable. Later, he’d learn that his one uncle was a philanderer as well as a drunk, and almost unabashedly so, and that his other uncle hit his wife, who one day ended up dead at the bottom of the stairs. The older he grew, the more he suspected that his grandfather sexually abused his mother. He knows families keep secrets, some of the most deep and of the darkest kind. And none of the secrets he supposes, here, have ever been mentioned aloud, or even hinted at, at any family gathering, even though all the suspects are long dead and gone and whiskey and wine often flow freely. He lives far away, now, but still, he wonders, every now and then, about them and the clan, as it is, and when he does he always remembers, first, that the uncle who hit his aunt always played Santa Claus at Christmas, and in the most jolly of fashions. Odd, that, he thinks. Or maybe not.

in the mind of ...

The paintings depict acts of sex that might cause most to blush, but she smiles, and at him, as he follows a few people behind her, in line. She does not know him nor he her, but they connect with an unspoken appreciation of the forbidden. They will not meet, nor connect. She is too careful for that; he is too wary of the social ramifications. After all, he is married. But, tonight, before each falls asleep, he and she will remember the moment as the best sex they ever had.

ledger main

She feels as if she is standing on the ledge of a building, six stories up, afraid to look up, certainly afraid to look down. The most perplexing thing: she has no idea how she got there, or why she’s out there. It is her mind, again, she tells herself. It is playing tricks on her, again. She wants to blank out, to erase everything, but she can’t. The harder she tries, the worse it gets -- the narrower the ledge becomes, the more gusty the winds, the more shrill the cry of the vultures circling above, which are all in her head, too, for she is standing, in the rain, waiting for the train, nowhere near anything so towering as a six-story building. I can survive this, she tells herself, refusing to move her eyes up or down or side to side, but focusing only straight ahead. Then, she decides to close her eyes, tight, and let herself fall, why, she has no idea, just to do it, to get it all over with, and when she opens her eyes, again, she sees herself on the sidewalk, far below, spread-eagle, unmoving, and for some odd reason, she feels a sudden sense of calm.

his father's business

It is his father’s business and he knows it only from the shadows and the late night whispers that sometimes seep into his bedroom. He is not allowed to ask questions or even wonder. He crosses the border, everyday, and attends the best high school in the area. He will be educated, his father said. He will be able to communicate well and maybe even be able to write better than well, so someone, he in particular, someday, can tell the tale of what passes as commerce on the modern-day Mexico border with the U. S. His school friends may know more of what his father does then he and that sometimes makes him a bit uneasy. But when they jibe, he just smiles, diffidently, shrugs, makes a lame joke, purposefully lame, so that he looks as dumb as he truly is about the truth. He had a girlfriend, once, but her parents forbade her to see him after they did a little looking about, gathering most of their information in the parking lot after Sunday Mass. So, he’s mostly lonely. But it is all right, for now. Someday, though, things will be different. Much, much different.

tell me

She wears a summer dress, white, sleeveless, in sandals, and a sweater, open, dancing, alone, on the cobblestone veranda of the mostly empty restaurant that sits on the quiet shore of a small Maine village. It is an October evening, a Saturday night, not cold, cool, and she looks at him with her azure eyes and her lovely smile, gliding unabashedly to a wonderfully steamy Dylan tune that includes the lyrics “Ever gone broke in a big way? Ever done the opposite of what the experts say?” It's the first time she's heard the song, but she matches its intent and spirit as though she wrote it with him. He knows the song, and the words, and he watches, carefully, intently, smiling, too, for she is dancing not only for him, but to him. It is almost eleven and he thinks he’s never seen anything so beautiful. And he is right.

marry me

Marry me, she said to him and he
did, without
thinking much about it, odd as that
may sound for
something so delicate, yet life-changing, because
he figured, wrongly so, it turned out,
that he could
make
just about anything work, because, well,
couldn’t he? And if not just him, couldn’t they? And she’d talked
a good game, like he, so what was
the risk? She would later say she was
“desperate” to get married, not so’s she’d told it
to him, of course, but would even that have made
a difference? He thinks not.
He figured to be her rescuer. It was, he thinks, now,
his destiny, no matter how ill-fated.
She turned out
to be
his destroyer, if she
could’ve been, lately, lastly.
Holy matrimony, it wasn’t.
Wholly foolish?
Perhaps. But who knew that, then,
or at least was willing to
say
it?

writers block

How does this “writing process” work,
he wonders, as he waits for the
word
or the thought
or the memory
or the face, word, sound, idea that
will
set him to creating something
that sounds real or at least
plausible.
He tries to remember how it sounded
or felt back when he was writing
without really knowing what he was doing,
and thinking
that he knew what he was
doing. Then, he stopped
and didn’t start up soon enough, again,
and his muse got wind of it
and left for greener pastures
or imaginations. Now, he is left
to his own doings and devices, as they might
be, and writes, hoping to catch
a kernel of truth and
turn it into
something that looks
like nothing he’d seen.
Most of the time from the
darkness, where nothing
much
is
visible.
Most
of the time.

mostly

There are times he wants
to run
away
from it all. He wants them – some
of them, not all – to finally wonder:
where is he? is he ok? what is his life
like?
He wants some of them – not all –
to consider
things, for a moment, from his
view, from his world, from the way
he saw that things were. And he wants
them
to miss him, just a bit. He knows
it is selfish and maybe silly and
perhaps even
a
bit
narcissistic – ouch -- but, so what? He allows
himself that, for a moment, for a
second, for, ok, maybe an entire
day.
Because tomorrow, he will be, again,
like his father was and as he strives
to be: steady, steadfast,
and maybe mostly imperturbable.
Mostly.
Mostly.
Mostly.

mary

She answered the ad on Craigslist for “a model.” Her friends told her what that meant – stripping, porn. She’d never been to a strip club, but she’d seen some porn. She watched some with friends, now and again. Mostly with her old boyfriend, Eddie. The one she remembered was called “Girls Do It All Night.” It was pretty gross, she’d thought, then, and still, now, kind of, but not as much. Whatever, she felt she had no choice. She had a baby and she needed money for rent. Her parents had kicked her out, She figured she would check it out and see. The place – the office – was cold and almost sterile, though she wouldn’t’ve used that word, exactly. The guy was pretty creepy. His name was Robert, or so he said. He had a gut. She’d worn a t-shirt and short cutoffs. He said she looked hot and took a few photos before asking her to strip. She wanted to cry, but didn’t. Didn’t even let him see that she wanted to. She sort of pretended that it really wasn’t her, that someone else was doing it – whatever he asked her to do. She even said a prayer, not for forgiveness, but for help. She was, after all, Catholic. Her name was Mary.

to have and to ... possess

He is most often
stunned by her beauty and
sometimes thinks of how
to describe
it and he feels failed, or, more directly,
a failure. Then he gets it:
it is
indescribable. But that seems to be a copout, too,
so he returns
to
trying, for a moment, anyway. The problem is
her essence, now and always, is ever colored by the past – her warmth,
her touch,
her kiss,
her softness,
her shiver and shudder,
her breath as she sleeps,
her eyes as she wakes,
her smile
as she focuses … on
him.
It makes him want not only to
hold her, but to
possess
her.
And he wonders if that
is
bad.

the parrot

The beach was empty, except for the winter Texans, who began arriving, even though winter still is a far bit of a piece around the corner. A few children played in the surf. A few surfers surfed in it. The seagulls stalked about the catfish beached by the so-called red tide, which wasn’t really red, but hot, all the same, what with the pepper in the air that scratched at the throat and stung the eyes. In a few hours, the municipal, beach clean-up crews would gather what was left of the catfish. He observed all of this and none of it, the scene passing before him as though it were there one moment and not, another, which is the way time works, actually. Besides, he was not so much thinking as he was wishing – wishing that the empty spot in his life weren’t so, well, empty. He knew it would take more than wishing to make that so, so, instead, he finished his walk and drove to Dirty Al’s and ate some deep fried shrimp and blackened chicken until he was full. For the moment, anyway. When he left the restaurant, he found a wild parrot perched on the hood of his car. He took it for an omen. It wasn’t.

they walk the line

There is a line
they do
not cross.
They dare not
cross. They
cannot see the line
but they know
where it is:
It bifurcates
(look it up)
and makes things
safe. Or at least
safe-er.
Sometimes, they see how close they
can come
to crossing the line without, with
a nod, or a smile or
a wink
or a whisper, which she did the
other night and he held himself back.
But
he got close.
Maybe too close.
And it wasn’t
the first
time.

soul searched

Where to be.
What to do.
How to do it.
Where.
And why.
For what reason.
And for whom.
When.
Is it possible.
Yes.
It is.
Or:
Is it?
Really.

a baby

She got the message from her sister and, now, she needed a place to sit and think, to compose herself, to figure out what she needed to say, to do, to think, really. She headed to the lounge, much as it was, down a flight of stairs, nearest the basement pharmacy. She felt her feet grow heavy, her steps, too. The father, the baby’s father, was newly listed as KIA in Afghanistan. Maybe if she’d aborted the baby the news would be no more than painful a reminder. of a thoughtless indiscretion But it wasn’t that now, anymore. It was more, bigger, different, at the very least. Her head was spinning. Whom did she need to call? Anyone? Everyone? Mary Wolnert was sitting in the lounge, nursing a large diet Coke. Behind her back, everyone called her “Hairy Mary.” She did have a bit of a moustache, not that it seemed to bother her. “You ok?” Mary asked, now. Becky nodded. It wasn’t near time, yet, but she felt something move in her belly. She’d swear to it, even though the doctors would later tell her that it wasn’t possible. “I’m a little tired,” she said. “Well, sit,” Mary said. “I can make you a cup of tea.” And she did. And Becky decided, as Mary tinkered near the sink, in her own mind, by herself, that she would call Ron’s mother and tell her that she would be a grandmother. It was the best thing she could think of, given the circumstances.

the dog

They named the dog Hazard, because in a way it – he – was. He didn‘t come home from the pound named Hazard. His first given name was Doug – Doug the Dog. But he ended up underfoot so often as a pup that he was soon re-named “Hazard.” Hazard was blackish brown with an orange nose. Yes, orange. He had floppy ears and feet that were made for a much larger dog so that he sort of “sluffed” around, as Mary would say. The best thing about Hazard was that he didn’t smell, even when he got wet. Celeste called that “a miracle.” Hazard was Harry’s dog, really. And that was OK with everyone. Harry needed that sort of companionship. He was an odd sort of kid. Loveable, but a bit distressingly so, especially to a parent, odd.

a mother

She was too sick to nurse when the baby was born, so they took the infant and placed her in an incubator. It was a good incubator, nothing wrong with it. It was a good hospital, one of the best in the area. But she still felt the guilt. She’d held all her other children. She’d pulled them close, against her soft, tender breasts and held them there, passing on her warmth, her living, her breathing to them. And as the years went on, she’d recall that, how it was, what she hadn’t done, and the fact that she’d been emotionally low, not physically – she didn’t feel the connection with this child, even while inside her – and that’s why she’d feigned her inability to the nurses. She would spend a lifetime trying to make it up, make up for something that no one else knew, or even suspected, not even her husband. Problem was, she knew she never could. And only a mother could know that.

roger

Roger is the husband. He’s not a bad husband, which means to say, he isn’t a very good one, either. If truth be told, he never was sure what it meant to be a husband. He knew how to be a boyfriend. He knew how to be a lover – at least in his own mind. But this husband deal was more confusing. His father would say, “You just work, then come home and work at it,” which was his father’s response to most questions, though not a response to a direct one about husbanding from Roger, who would never think to ask his father’s advice. It was something his dad had said once, out loud, during a movie about a married couple. He didn’t say it with malice or contempt, but more with a fatigue. But maybe that was even worse. Who would know? What Roger did know was that Celeste was different, lately, changed, somehow, and it puzzled him, because he didn’t feel at all different. He noticed it mostly in bed, at night. Not the sex. That remained a battle of wits and temperments and desires and need. Always had been. No, it was after, when they went to sleep. Celeste was further away, now, and not just literally. He didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, but when it did cross his mind it seemed especially troubling. He had no time, now, though. He was busy at work. He didn’t know it, but his world was about to implode. Not literally, but in the way far worse.

arnold

Arnold was no catch. He had a pear-shaped body that never did respond to running or weightlifting, much less a pilates class with Estelle at the “Fit Factory,” who had to tone it down after three people in her first week needed hospitalization. He had a bit of a lisp, which he hid rather well, and walked with a touch of a limp, not from an old football injury, but from getting his leg caught in a service elevator when he loaded bread trucks, downtown, while he was in high school. (Surgery should’ve been done, but wasn’t required.) Arnold wasn’t excessively bright and no one had taught him the finer points of satisfying a woman, nor had he learned on his own. But he was this: he was patient and kind and had a wonderful, calming air of gentleness about him. Not gentility, which is different, but gentle-ness. In a few hours, he would meet a woman driving a green Camry in the parking lot of the Rick’s True Value Hardware. He would fall in love with here, right there. On the spot. Like that. Like he’d sometimes imagined, if not dreamed. And he would spend the rest of his life loving her.

celeste

Her name is Celeste and she drives a green Camry. She has two children and a husband named Roger. The kids – Harry and Mary – are smack dab in the middle of middle school. They’re twins. Celeste has been fighting for weeks, now – no, more like months – this seeping sadness that her life is done, that this is it – Roger, the kids, the green Camry. She’s talked with her best friend Rosetta about this, talked the way women talk about these things, which is to say with a bluntness and honesty that would shock and appall and surprise most men, they acting just the opposite with their friends, unless three-quarters in the tank or having to confess something akin to the issue, like the greasy, unsatisfying roundabout they might’ve had with the whore-y waitress at Hooters named Jinnifer, all the while making it sound like a grand time was had by all. Rosetta told her it might be “time to move on,” but she’s seen other women who’d chosen that route and what they’d moved on to didn’t seem like much. So, worse than feeling sad and depressed, now, she felt stuck. Worse than all that? (Could it even be worse?) This afternoon, completely out of the blue, she would meet Arnold, quite innocently, because it was and because when you’re on your period the last thing, or one of the last things anyone thinks of, except, maybe, a husband, is romance. Messy sex, maybe, hormones being what they can be, but not love. And things would get even worse, because, now, Celeste would soon feel the need to make a decision, one that would affect everyone. But that would be later, today, for a start, then later this week and month. Now, she had to get their dog, Hazard, to the vet. He had worms.

prayer

The woman in the
red
Land Cruiser drives
with a rosary
hanging from the rear-view mirror,
Many do,
here. Even those
in the BMWs and
Jaguars.
The rosaries sway
and its beads rattle,
bumping into one another,
gently,
quietly.
My mother
never hung a
rosary, that I can
remember.
She gripped
it, instead, tightly, deathly tight,
especially at night, when no one else
was up,
when she prayed, often moments before dawn,
for more
penances, more chance to prove
her
heavenly worth. That’s
what she believed in:
punishment.
She
drove
an ’83
LeBaron.

i walk

I have become used
to walking along
the beach
alone.
I used to think that perhaps
someday, one day,
I would meet
her
walking the other
way, that she would
be looking for me,
while I for her and that we
would meet after our eyes
did.
Now,
I’m not so sure.
Now, I think
that that is what
a
young
romantic thinks,
not a
romantic like me
who
understands romanticism’s
tease and her truth.
So, I walk alone
and
expect nothing more.

sae whad?

He says – and with a straight
face, for that is of a modicum
of
importance, here:
"If it’s a fad, why is everyone
doing it?" It is of little
import, really, in the
grand
scope
of things, this little bit
of incredible stupidity. But it
does
strike
a cord, as he might
say. Doesn’t anyone
care, anymore, how
we
speak? He is a personality,
a TV one, so he will,
undoubtedly, be asked to speak,
someday, at some college graduation. We
can only hope
he doesn’t say to those assembled, “You’ve all done
good.” But
he
might.