toluka

They say you don’t hear the bullet, but he did. He heard it whistle and whiz. In fact, he could repeat exactly what he’d heard. He’d heard it coming closer. Heard it slow, but just a bit. Heard it grunt when it bowled into his left thigh, then grind to a stop against his femur, and it, crack. Odd, he now considered, after all he’d read and caught from his friends, his pals, who were, now, standing over him, looking at him, eyes bulging, mouths open. And he wanted to tell them that, yes, he was able to hear the one that got him, that maybe that would help them. But, now, he felt himself move to the top, over himself, watching, now, from over himself. Over himself. He worried, suddenly, about Kenny Toon, the kid just in from Toluka and his wife, Mardi, who was pregnant. But all he could do was watch as they gaped at him. Before he exactly knew what was happening, he thought of his dog, back home in Topeka. He worried about Stuka. Stuka would miss him. Might even kill him. Stuka.

pablo

She is a 45-year-old virgin and the question isn’t why or what happened, but what will she do, tonight, how will it go tonight, what will happen tonight when they get to that point, again, because she wants him to have her. She’s ready. Better, she’s in love. But what happens if … What happens when … Maybe it would be best just to avoid it. Maybe it would be best to stop seeing him, now, before things got, what? Difficult? Why her? she thinks. What was it that she did wrong? It wasn’t supposed to be this way, her life. She looks down at her feet. Lies, there, her dog. It’s name is Pablo. He’s a Golden. Why Pablo, she can’t remember.

bonnie

She’d changed her name from Mathilde to Bonnie, six months before they found her body in the garage of the house on September Street, rolled into a faded WalMart rug and stuffed into a ceiling crawl space. She’d hated Mathilde. It made her feel ethnic and, besides, kids made fun of her for it. Funny thing was, she never really outgrew it or escaped it. It was like that with a name. You can change all you want, but what you are named is what you are and, sometimes, who you will be. She never really was Bonnie. Never really know how to be a Bonnie. But, to her credit, she did try. She was 23, when her boyfriend, Drago Vdmilic, killed her with a rusty machete. Her gravestone would read Mathilde Cartwright. Her parents knew no Bonnies. They hardly recognized her body.