ABSTRACT

PRETEND

This is a collection of short stories that weave together elements of reality with hints of the uncanny in order to juxtapose the idea of stunted hopes and dreams in the modern world. Many of the characters throughout this collection are dreamers faced with the harsh reality of social expectations, love that does not fulfill or is unrequited, and even the dangers of an ever-increasing desensitization to violence and sex as a society. These individuals live their lives through their imaginations, but are impeded by the world around them, their dreams encroached upon by a dark strangeness that is both enticing and repulsive. To survive, in a sense, they must hold on to the memories that tether them to what they hold dear. To remain sane, they must pretend.

Brandon Baker May 2015

PRETEND

by Brandon Baker

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2015 APPROVED For the Department of English:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Brandon Baker Thesis Author

Randa Jarrar (Chair) English

Alex Espinoza English

John Hales English

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies

AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS

I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

X Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

DIG ...... 1 THE ADVENTURES OF DOUGLASS BEAN – “NOT EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOOD!” BY DOUGLASS BEAN ...... 18

THE OCEAN BLUE ...... 22

RESTRICTED ...... 41

DEEP NIGHT ...... 57

ANXIETY ...... 61

WAVE ...... 82

SUICIDELAND ...... 84

THINGS UNSEEN ...... 92

ROOM 213 ...... 99

THE CHILDREN ON CHESTNUT STREET ...... 107

EBB TIDE ...... 113

BEFORE ...... 117

DARLING ...... 141

Pretend you’re happy

when you’re

blue.

It isn’t very hard to do.

And you’ll find happiness without

an end

if only you

pretend.

-Lew Douglas

DIG

I’m not quite sure when I started gaining weight, but I was never aware it was an issue until sixth grade, when a fourth grader at recess jokingly begged me not to sit on him. That was back when I used to report to my mom all of the things that had happened at school every day over ice cream, and I remember her looking sad and saying that she needed to learn to cook. We lived in a small town and everyone knew each other, so we all felt separate from the world but together as a whole. Our family was different because my dad was always travelling, and even had apartments in different bigger towns where he visited often, but that’s what I considered normal at the time. He’d punch me on the shoulder and ruffle my Gecko shirt, and then say that looking at me was like looking in a mirror. Everyone always said I looked like him, but it was hard to tell because I only ever saw him in a suit and groomed to perfection. Sometimes he’d loosen his tie, take it off and wrap it around my neck when he’d come home from his travels. When I looked in the mirror with those ties, I could see the resemblance in spite of the fact that I was a bit frumpy and awkward, growing hair too soon and in places I didn’t want. I never felt like being different was bad, however, until I entered middle school last year and everyone started to separate and act like their differences were superior to mine. When Donald started digging, I simply deflected the shame onto him, though it wasn’t a complete transition. I didn’t think anything of it at first— handicapped kids always had their own eccentricities we weren’t supposed to notice out loud. But the day Jake pushed me in front of a popular girl that I had almost couple-skated with once, I tripped over one of the holes Donald had dug and saw an opportunity. 2 2

“Fat Frankie can’t walk can he, Fat Frankie falls better than he can walk.” Jake checked his collar to make sure it was popped up, and nobody said anything about the allergy-ridden runny nose he constantly fought by sniffling. He also looked down whenever any authority figure would talk to him and he’d mumble out of the side of his mouth but say “Yessir” with sincerity, even if it was a lady. Nobody ever talked back to him though, because somehow the allergies and nervous ticks and Yessirs weren’t different enough to exclude him. And because he liked hurting people. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t my fault,” I said. “What was that, Fatty?” “It’s Donald’s fault.” “Who?” “Donald, the… the retard. He digs.” “What do you mean, he digs.” “He digs holes everywhere, that’s why I fell.” “He digs holes? Does that make you less fat, you fat piggy fuck?” “I’m just saying, he digs everywhere because he’s retarded and he thinks there’s buried treasure.” As if on cue, Donald, chubby like me, ran out of a nearby classroom, his uneven eyes darting around for a good spot to begin. He ran over to a planter by the science building and started going at the dirt with his bare hands. I pointed and Jake saw Donald. “Is that Donnie?” “It’s the Duck,” one of his cohorts retorted. Donald had grown up with all of us since we were in Kindergarten. His differences stood out immediately, and he had been ostracized at an early age from 3 3 the group activities and classes that once united us all. Everyone made fun of him back then, before we knew it was wrong to point out things we didn’t understand—and sometimes even after we knew. “Hey, Donnie!” Jake shouted across the quad. Donald looked up, clearly thinking he was in trouble, and shuffled off behind nearby bushes. “What’s he doing?” The bushes started shaking and then pieces of dirt flew in a small arc from behind them. “He’s digging. Hm.” Jake contemplated his new victim for the rest of the week. He left me alone after that and he and his cronies started putting things like poop and roadkill in the ground. They even had me help a couple of times, but I didn’t think we were doing much damage. Sometimes, I would hide fun things—well, colorful things like candy bar wrappers and juice boxes—so Donald would find something that made his digging feel worthwhile. I thought I was helping, but I think I was just spurring him on, enabling an unfortunate habit. He didn’t seem to understand that he was being mocked, though, and when Jake would confront him, he would just mumble the word dig over and over again until Jake would push him and walk away. Then Donald would nod and head for the nearest planter. They would make fun of him behind his back, but let me stand just outside of their circle and laugh. They pointed out his moth-bitten shirt with an embossed image of Charlie Chaplin’s face—the shirt that he wore every day. They commented on the delicate gold heart locket he wore around his neck, the red fanny pack he collected his treasures in, and the hair on the back of his ears and neck. They never left out the thick lens on his uneven goggles that made his eyes look like those of a wild tarsier. And all the 4 4 while, Donald never seemed to notice, never seemed to care. I sort of envied the kid, but I could never say it out loud. He seemed happy searching for treasure, and a part of me wished he would find it and shut everyone up. “Dig, dig, dig, dig.” Of course, the faculty attempted to stop the digging a number of times, even confining him to a sort of detention at lunchtime in order to keep him away from the dirt. They eventually just gave up, realizing that he was at least respectful by avoiding grass and plants in his mission—also, he never got very far, stopping as the dirt grew harder. I once tried politely asking him what he was doing, perhaps regretting the passive bully I had become and hoping to make up for my sins with friendship. He just responded by shouting the word dig and clapping. Then he pointed down at where I was standing and said dig over and over again until it didn’t sound like a real word anymore—until I analyzed every sound possible by those combination of letters and came up short. I later came to find out that his parents had died when he was young but that his father used to read him pirate stories full of adventures, kraken hunting and of course, buried treasure. After that, he had been sent to his widowed grandma’s farm and had spent many a Sunday morning ditching church and digging anywhere he could find free soil at home. One day when Jake didn’t show up to school, I attempted to ask Donald questions about his family, which made him stop for a moment before repeating his mantra again and again. I figured it must have been hard to be an orphan so I told him a little bit about my family. I told him about my earliest memories when we’d go see my dad off at the airport that we had to drive two hours to get to. I told him that it must have been as early as three in the morning at times, and we’d follow him all the way to his gate and then wait by the windows. I told him that I remembered leaning against the 5 5 window as my dad’s plane was taxiing and how I’d draw pictures in the fog my breath created. My mom would interrupt at some point and say his plane was taking off and her, my baby brother and I would all wave in that direction, imagining him waving back. I told him that my dad was a known motivational speaker, the one who created the popular series, “A World of Endless Possibilities.” I told him about the commercials and about the time I got to meet the governor, even though it was before I could remember. Donald stopped a moment and looked at me. “Dad!” he said. I snapped out of my reverie. “What?” “Dig!” “Oh.”



One Thursday, while Jake was feeling particularly bored or mischievous or whatever it was that motivated him, he hatched a plan that included me and said to meet after school. I was able to get out of the house by telling my mom I was going bowling with friends and reminding her that it was practically the weekend. When the storm started, I had to tell her I wanted to go to a friend’s house instead— which was kind of true depending on the accepted definitions of friend and house. “Oh really, who?” “Mom, I have friends.” “Of course, I was just wondering. I have a right to ask.” 6 6

“His name is Jake.” “Betty’s son?” “I guess, I dunno.” “Hmm. Well don’t let her make you feel poor. We’re doing just fine.” “I know, whatever.” She smiled sad and told me to be safe. I put on the new shoes my dad had bought me before leaving to a conference in Tampa for the week. The shoes were light gray and I didn’t want them to get dirty, but I knew they were a popular fad at the time and that I wanted everyone to see them. My dad always liked brand-name items, which is probably why my mom kept talking about debt. In spite of his being gone most of the time, I always looked forward to the things he’d bring us when he got back, not to mention the stories he told about the people he’d meet—politicians, millionaires, even a television star who hunted for mythical creatures. The only thing I didn’t like about his traveling was all the planes he had to fly—they were contraptions that made little sense to me and that, combined with my fear of heights, always gave me anxiety when my dad’s plane would disappear into the horizon. So with my new shoes on, as well as my mom’s purple umbrella (nothing else was available), I headed out into the rain toward The House of Paincakes, a torture-themed fifties diner on Main. I felt like a Goonie, but part of me shriveled inside when I saw Donald step out from behind a dumpster smiling and waving. Then Jake appeared with his two cronies, Dave and Nick. He hollered, jumped in the air and clapped. “Dig!” Jake shouted over the rain. Donald laughed and repeated his mantra. 7 7

“Dig, boy, dig!” A car pulled up all slick and fast like in a movie, but it was a minivan. It honked at us. I didn’t dare ask where we were going, but Jake hopped into the van and told us to get in, looking down and snickering all the way. Jake’s brother Kent was driving. “This better be quick, little shit.” “Yessir.” “I’m not dad.” Jake furrowed his brow and mumbled something before bopping me on the head. “What was that for, Jake?” “Shut up.” I looked around and saw a shovel, but what disturbed me was its twin sitting just beside it. Both looked rusted and full of splinters, most likely stolen from someone’s garage. “Why are there two?” Jake kept his voice down. “Why do you think, Fatty? I care about your health. You need a workout.” “But…” “Finders keepers. He needs a helper and you need to shed pounds. Don’t worry, we’ll be there watching.” Dave and Nick giggled and attempted a high-five but missed and slapped each other lightly on the ears. Nick mumbled, “Dumb,” under his breath. 8 8

Dave lowered his voice and said “Shit man, watch it.” I remember thinking that it was probably the first time Dave had said “Shit.” He used to go to church with me, but as of late had been drawn to Jake’s influence after his mom left his alcoholic dad. We drove the two blocks it took to get to school—closer than the walk to the diner from my house—and parked in a lot adjacent to the school. As soon as we left the van, Kent yelled what sounded like a made-up curse word and then sped off laughing. They spoke quietly, but I heard Nick ask Jake if he would get in trouble and Jake just checked his collar and said that he had taken care of it. Nick hesitated and then told him that he had told his stepmom that he would be spending the night at Jake’s and that it wouldn’t matter if they stayed out all night. “What are you looking at, Fatty?” Jake caught me listening and I looked down at my shoes. “Let’s go, Dickheads!” The school didn’t have a fence, but we knew there’d be a security guard who checked the campus once a night at random times. To be safe, Jake led us to an unlit rectangular planter between the cafeteria and gym. It was about the size of a small boat and it was filled with mud and water. The guys threw the shovels in the mud and set up chairs and umbrellas so they could watch. They also had flashlights that were of little consequence in the torrent of water pouring from the sky. “Do it.” Jake took my umbrella, turned it inside out and threw it on the ground. “You can use that too if you’d like another tool.” 9 9

Donald grabbed a shovel in glee and awe and began to wade through the puddle and dig with what was most likely the greatest tool he had ever used in this setting. “Dig, boy, dig!” “I think he has a boner, man.” “Yeah he probably thinks it’s Christmas or something.” I laughed half-heartedly and Jake laughed and then turned to me and asked what I was waiting for. I remained on the pavement, leaned over and stuck the spade into the muddy ground, refusing to actually stand in it. “Why can’t I just watch?” “Cause you need the exercise.” I looked down at the new shoes and started silently crying. I kept my features in place, but I knew that the rain was covering up more tears than I would like to have shed. I was frozen in place when I felt Jake stand up behind me. I haphazardly started running the spade along the mud, but couldn’t get a good load before he was in my face. All the while, Donald dug. “Get in there, piggy. That’s home.” He grabbed my neck and pushed me forward, but I maneuvered in such a way that my shoes remained on the cement even when I fell. He looked down and saw the shoes. “Oh I get it.” “I’ll dig, I’ll dig.” Donald, hunched over, peeked up and nodded, laughing. Jake looked down at his own feet and then back at me. “What size are you, Fatty? Do you have fat feet too?” 10 10

“Jake, please.” I remember tightening my grip around the handle of the shovel. “What size, Piggy?” “Jake…” Nick jumped up and grabbed my feet. “Answer him Fatty!” Jake leaned in and pushed Nick off. “Allow me.” He grabbed my foot and started taking off a shoe. I cried out with a complete lack of self-awareness. I cried like I used to the nights before we would take my dad to the airport, praying that guardian angels would hold up my dad’s plane and bring him home safe. “Fatty is crying, hey Donnie look!” Jake pointed in the opposite direction and Donald shifted his whole body as Jake threw my shoe in the hole he was digging. “Must’ve been a ghost, look Donnie, treasure!” Donald turned back to see the shoe in the muddy hole and looked over at me. I saw his blurry form through tears and rain and watched as he picked up my shoe and brought it over to me. Donald patted my foot once and placed the shoe upside down on the end of my now muddy sock. “Dig.” Everyone was silent for a moment, until Donald emphatically shouted his mantra and continued his digging. I wiped snot off of my face and tried to clear out the rain and tears, but the rain just kept pouring harder. Jake and his cronies looked distracted by something 11 11 and for a moment, I thought it might be Donald’s kindness—like at the end of a movie when everyone suddenly sees goodness and begins to change. But then I saw the lights. Blue alien orbs appeared in the large window of the cafeteria through the reflections of the rain. “Security, run!” The three guys grabbed their gear and bolted. I sat up and looked back at Donald, who continued digging. “Come on Donnie, we gotta go!” “Dig!” “We’ll dig later, let’s go!” I grabbed his arm and he slapped it away. The lights grew larger in the reflection and the three guys had somehow already disappeared, chairs and umbrellas too. “Dangit!” I picked up my loose and dirty shoe and hobbled towards the parking lot, which must have acted as a distraction and allowed Donald to continue his plight. I slipped and fell on wet grass and was forced to look back, seeing the security car—security cart would be a better description—ambling after me at what appeared to be my own mile-run pacing. I still moved with urgency, rocking back and forth to gain momentum and stand up. I started jogging away while looking over my shoulder every couple of seconds and slowed down when I saw the cart reach its imaginary boundary, losing momentum down at the far end of the parking lot. I pictured the security guard standing up and shaking his fist, having gained an arch-nemesis and shouting that I would rue the day, or rule the day or 12 12 whatever—it was one of those terms like play it by ear that I never quite understood or heard correctly. The point is I got away. I wanted to find the guys, but I was sure they were long gone. I figured I could go home, but then I’d have a lot of explaining to do and I didn’t want to put my mom through that mess. I put on my dirty shoe and made sure to step in large puddles so they would wash off the mud, but I knew that it was probably too late to save it. I knew there was a park nearby, so I headed that direction and spent the night under a large oak dripping like water torture every time I thought I was asleep. I was hoping it would continue to rain during the day so I would have an excuse as to why I was so wet. Explaining why I was also dirty and potentially sick might be harder. I prayed and asked God to heal me and forgive me for making my mom’s life more difficult. She was already busy enough taking care of my little brother and I while my dad was always travelling, teaching and motivating people who paid good money to see him. I felt bad for her, but proud to be the son of someone who could speak in front of hundreds of people at a time. I felt like the son of a celebrity, and maybe that’s why I endured Jake and the mocking whispers of others that I perceived everywhere I went on campus. I couldn’t prove that people were saying things, but they always looked away when I would unintentionally make eye contact. And when they were nice, I figured it was because they felt sorry for me, a fat kid dressed in tie-dyed shirts my mom made. They probably noticed my hair that stuck up in the back, and the dandruff my mom was always trying to get out, and the smell of sweat when my deodorant would give out early in the day. I drifted off to sleep thinking about these things, and finally gained about an hour and a half of solid rest before the school bell down the street woke me up. 13 13



The sky was clear and bright. Between the cafeteria and the gym, the mud had hardened to soft clay, and where we had been digging there was a hole. Most people didn’t think anything of it at first, but the ones who came close realized that it wasn’t just a slight indention in the ground, but a child-sized tunnel that didn’t appear to end. At first, members of the faculty were called, then the principal, then the fire department when they all became aware that Donald was missing, and had been since the previous evening. Embedded into the dried mud not far into the hole were his clothes, clearly shed as he continued to move down. First his shirt, then socks and shoes, then his pants—though his underwear remained missing. People began calling down into the hole, but there was only silence. Since it wasn’t large enough for a full-grown man to lower himself down into it, a rope was lowered with a camera attached to the end. Even with increasing lengths (up to three-hundred feet), a bottom was never found. After the first day and night, a fire truck drove onto campus and a fireman threw down a snorkel before lowering a hose and turning it on, initially with a tool that slowed its torrent of water. After a full day of that, and a rotation of seven trucks, a search party started to fan out throughout the rest of the town and the water hoses were set to full blast. By then, I was in shock. I had been right there with Donald and couldn’t remember him digging that fast or that deep—but I had been focused on Jake, my shoes, and then the security guard. Many attempts were made by the faculty, the police and by Donald’s grandma at getting more information, but Jake made it clear what would happen if I said anything. I remember walking up to the hole once and feeling dizzy as terror seized my bones and physically brought me to my 14 14 knees—I felt as if I was standing on the edge Grand Canyon, but even that revealed its end. This could have gone down forever, and endless hell of falling that never resolved, never satisfied. I prayed for the school and for Donald and for myself, apologizing and wondering if God wanted me to ask Him to let me take Donald’s place. I refused to ask.



After thirty-three days of searching and head scratching, we all came to school and a metal sewage cover was placed over the top of the hole. Attached to it was a small gold bell connected to a long rope through the cover’s opening in case Donald ever somehow made his way up the impossibly deep hole and needed help. At an impromptu assembly, the school had a moment of silence during which Nick farted, but nobody but us knew it was him. People began to forget about Donald, but one day a large box was covering the manhole, surrounded by poles and caution tape. “Maybe they found him and he’s dead in there but the cops couldn’t make it in time so they had to cover it up.” “Maybe his rotting flesh smells now and they had to cover the stench.” “Maybe they are building a tower in memory.” The latter was almost correct. Apparently some parents on the school board had raised money to erect a statue in his honor. When the three foot tall plaster statue was finally revealed, we all noticed there was something wrong with it, something different. “He’s normal.” 15 15

“What does that mean?” “Like… he’s not retarded looking. Look at his eyes.” Indeed, they were correct. Everything about him was proportionate and he was smiling and waving like a politician. He appeared to be wearing a shirt similar to the Charlie Chaplin one, but no locket, no fanny pack, no goggles. His hair was parted neatly in the middle and his eyes were straight and solemn. He was smiling, but it looked like a caricature of the person he once was. The bell beneath the statue often chimed, which sparked superstition and an enormous amount of wasted time when faculty would be called out to investigate. “Donald, is that you? Are you ok? Say something?” They would become increasingly hesitant when speaking into the two inch wide hole where the rope descended, kneeling down but clearly not wanting their face anywhere near it. “Um… hello?” There was, of course, never a response. It always turned out to be the wind, so most grew accustomed to the tinkling sound in the background of every conversation. The classes nearest it eventually put in dual pane windows, and a few brave students would stick a rock on the rope so it wouldn’t go off until someone else would remove it out of respect. To me, the bell always sounded like some sort of evil fairy chiming the word dig over and over again. I would often plug my ears when I went anywhere near it, but I’d go to sleep and wake up to the sound of ringing even from the comforts of my own bed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I would chant. “You can stop digging Donnie,” I would say. “It’s ok, Donnie, we’ll find treasure together.” 16 16

I’d imagine myself collecting some of my favorite toys and maybe even money, and then hiding them strategically for him to find around campus. “Come on, buddy, I hear Blackbeard has been spotted in the South region of Building L. Let’s take a look, but watch out for kraken!” My mother grew worried and even had me talk to a counselor. “That boy really affected you huh?” “I didn’t really know him.” “Well, just let me know if you want to talk about anything.” I didn’t. She looked down at my shoe, the one caked with dirt that squeaked when I walked, but didn’t say anything. “When’s dad coming home this time?” She pursed her lips and swallowed, spinning her wedding ring with her thumb. “Wednesday I think.” “Everything ok?” “Yes, of course Frankie. I love you.” “Love you too.” Jake left me alone for the most part after that—I honestly think he was horrified by the outcome of that night, though I know he’d never admit it. He would shrug off the stories by telling people that Donald ran off and was probably looking for gold on an island somewhere. Whatever he said, he’d always end the subject immediately. For most, the idea of someone being buried alive or falling into the heart of the earth was the worst kind of death, especially when it was visited on someone so innocent. Few people walked anywhere near the statue and the bell after that, 17 17 jogging past as quickly as possible if it was a necessary route. I would often eat lunch alone across the grassy quad and stare at the bell as it rang slowly back and forth on windy days, wondering if Donald was somehow still down there digging. It didn’t seem impossible given the fact that he was able to dig that hole in the first place. The alternative would be that he dug until he reached some sort of cavern or wider space that had already been hollowed out, perhaps digging himself right into a massive sinkhole. That seemed more real, but not the kind of reality I wanted to accept. “Dig, boy, dig.” In my reality, he had found a great underground wormhole and would surface in some other part of the world—a king among men finally having attained the treasure he searched so hard for. Then I would go and visit and dig for him if he desired it. I would fly to his kingdom and become a pirate searching for treasure to bring back to King Donald. My parents would watch me from the terminal and wave and I’d wave back, future bright and promising. But then the wind would pick up and the tiny gold bell would chime. Dig, dig, dig.

THE ADVENTURES OF DOUGLASS BEAN – “NOT EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOOD!” BY DOUGLASS BEAN

Douglass Bean had never been to a dance before, in light of the unfortunate truth that his mom didn’t throw one. Home schooling had its perks, but social outings were not on that list. When Douglass Bean finally entered the 7th grade, so to speak, he joined the Friends of Friends Physical and Social Activities Society for Home Schoolers—FRIENDS for short. Because of this, he was able to interact with other people his own age, take a yearbook picture, and attend various activities, which included an annual Winter Ball. Ever since Douglass Bean saw Annabelle Curtain, he knew she would be The One. It was at a sand volleyball tournament on the beach of a man-made lake fifteen minutes outside of town. He decided not to play because his self- proclaimed epic abilities to knock a ball into space had never been put on public display prior, and he didn’t want to embarrass some of the new kids, because Douglass Bean was just naturally kind like that—a silent hero. Annabelle Curtain had been sitting on the other side of the court filing her nails or maybe painting them or something and as soon as he saw her, his heart skipped a beat and he lifted his inhaler to his mouth, but didn’t suck in—he just stayed there frozen like a popsicle. It was something he hadn’t felt for the seven million minutes of his entire life. Yes, this was the one, this was his Princess Ann, his Terry McKay, his Holly Golightly—well maybe that was taking it too far because rumor had it Holly Golightly was a Woman of the Night. But this was it, because she had that something that went deeper than her hazel eyes, her fair complexion, her sandy brown hair, her long lashes, her modest dress, her mysterious demeanor. She had that thing that made all other things feel new, which is what Douglass Bean felt on 19 19

Christmas morning or when the leaves began to fall every Autumn—that something that smelled familiar but wasn’t a smell, tasted like nostalgia but wasn’t a taste, breathed like hope but was just chemicals from an inhaler. He knew that the Winter Ball was coming up fast like a Leopleurodon who just caught the scent of a Great White for dinner. From what he read in books and from the ridiculous amount of time Mom took to get ready before going anywhere important with Father, he knew that girls needed time to prepare for important matters. He would give her all the time she needed—but he needed a plan of attack. He had never talked to her, nay, had yet to even hear her voice, but he knew the only opportunity he would have would be to see her at the next FRIENDS event at the bowling alley: The Slick Richard’s Lanes. In slow motion, the door to his home swung outward and he was silhouetted with the blinding light of the Fresno summer sun. He made sure the roses he had picked from the neighbor’s garden remained at least somewhat hidden, and he was thankful that he had chosen the blue backpack his father had received at the conference in Atlanta because it was large and bulky and kept his prize out of sight. Mom tried to pat his head but he casually bobbed the other way—a canary has got to be free to fly on his own. He popped a thumbs-up without even glancing at her, because he wanted to make sure he knew he loved her and that all was well. Then he broke off from the formation and flew a different direction, making sure the three layers of gel had kept his cowlick at bay. Heart beating rapidly, pulse pounding in places he didn’t even know existed, Douglass Bean made his way over to Annabelle Curtain’s lane. She was there and he was terrified but he kept walking and he stepped up to her and his whole body felt like when his leg felt when it fell asleep, and he curled his upper lip like he had practiced during his Elvis obsession, and he retrieved the roses 20 20 from his backpack quiver and held them out in front of him, and instead of saying his speech that went something like this: My dear, you are a rose among thorns, a princess among toads, a true lady among mere women, would that you delight in accompanying me to the Winter’s Ball and thereby make me more than a man, but a Prince and a gentlemen and at the very least, full of joy forever? Instead, this happened: My prince’s, you are—did you bowl yet? Did you score good? I was just these flowers and well thought you might be with me at dance I mean if not that’s ok honestly no problem it isn’t a big deal. Not what he had wanted, but a true Lady would look right through the nerve into the heart of her Prince. He looked up at her and gazed directly into her eyes. He would never forget her response. Finally eye cant believe its taken this loooong and eyem like definitely the prettiest in this crowd soet doesn’t make sense that eye like am still waiting and eye definitely thought chad would by now but obviously hes an idiot and cant tell his right hand from his left so at least someone smart asked me who are you anyway eye said you look smart but eye may be just doing the stereotyping thing because you wear glasses and your homeschooled and eye know eym homeschooled too but its different its because eyem too smart for a classroom and daddy says that they are not advanced enough for me because eyem really special and besides all the boys look at me there which is really annoyingandridiculous they need to stop drooling and focus on their futures because eye definitely wont look at them if they don’t have dreams like meyedad who got his doctors degree even though he does stuff with numbers and electrical engineering so anyway how are we going to do this thing and just so you know, no kissing, no offense but youre really not my type and this is just going to be a dance and nothing more ok 21 21 sorry to burst your bubble oh and thanks for the flowers but I like pink peonies and were not in love besides. Douglass Bean remembered blinking twice and walking away—and then his world truly did change after that. Girls weren’t like they were in the movies. Not the movies he watched. He gave her the flowers, he walked the walk, Mom bought him a sweet blue tux, he even taught her (attempted to teach her) how to waltz despite the fact that the obnoxious hip-hop tune didn’t match. He was good like that. He could dance to any rhythm, but this was the first time he began to question if perhaps his preferred style needed to change. Perhaps this idea of The One would be a little bit harder to come by than he formerly imagined. During the last dance and after a half hour of listening to her go on about how some girl had stepped on her toe and she had done it on purpose and she would show her by the time the night was over, Douglass Bean shook his head and said out loud: Darn you Audrey Hepburn. Darn you Deborah Kerr. Liars all!

THE OCEAN BLUE

The beach house is blue and only called a beach house in the tradition of the Klein family affinity for referring to it as such based on its vicinity to the ocean. It is three blocks away and up a small hill, an ideal target for the salt air, stray balloons, dead fish musk, and the morning fog that often remains until early afternoon. Craig sits on the deck smoking a pipe and perusing Moby Dick between naps and the imaginary conversations he is having with his dead wife. He is dressed in all blue because it reminds him of his early days in the Navy, and of the ocean itself—expansive, a highway to adventure, to death, an old nemesis, now an old friend. He is the patriarch to a large family and the house is one they rent out every year in this quiet town. They used to come here to “bring the noise, not get away from it,” as he would always say, but his joke became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Now that Edna was gone and there were no more babies, now that everyone had phones, computers, boyfriends and girlfriends, the house was merely an extension of their lives at home. Craig was a man familiar with unsteady waters, so it wasn’t something he’d complain about—although he still liked sitting out and staring at the ocean, contemplating it, watching the tiny people on the beach (often members of his family) skip around and explore. This house and this beach and this tradition had created a certain nostalgia that had almost caught up to itself, one he hoped would continue when he was gone. This is a safe haven, Craig thinks to himself, but not without a pang of untethered regret, an instinctive fear of something looming, a hungry shark waiting in the shallows to sink its teeth into anyone who may take for granted the freedom they feel in the concurrent refreshment and pain of the ocean’s cold. 23 23

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Travis and Jon, cousins of 13 and 12 respectively, are allowed to roam free here. The city is more of a small village, with only one main street to distinguish it from any of the other cities that flank both sides, and the hill that cuts them all off from the US Route 1. It is quiet here, incessantly quiet, but the occasional seagull and the steady crashing of waves that echo against the hills allow the boys respite from the sort of silence that would give away any of their secrets, such as: “So you like Lindsey?” “Dude, I said we’re just friends.” That sort of thing. Today in particular, they are traversing the length of the beach to brave Pirate Cove, a name they’ve given to a section of cliff overlooking the shore that is split and covered by plant life. It is filled with engravings, the ranting of other travellers and the homeless, as well as graffiti and broken bottles of beer. “The only way to reach it is to swim around Doom Rock, climb Jack’s Ladder, and then enter on your belly!” Travis, wearing only swim trunks, emphasizes the names with a certain amount of irony as he waves his hands in emphasis, and rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth in excitement. “And you’ve done this before?” Jon pulls his shirt down in vain to cover his growing belly when he sees people up ahead. “Twice!” “You didn’t two years ago.” “You just missed it. You were probably eating s’mores.” “We only do those at night,” Jon says as he pulls his shirt down harder. 24 24

“Yeah, and your point is?” “You went at night?” “Yeah.” “What about the tide?” “I told you last time me and Jason just, like, wanted to see what was around that rock, but Mom kept telling me I couldn’t go because I was too young and all and I was like, come with me then, Mom, Jason is gonna do it. I—you know, she didn’t like that, but—I ended up eventually wearing her down and she said we could, but then Jason got that cold and I just figured, hey, just cause he can’t go all the way doesn’t mean he can’t go part way. So anyway, last year—you were, well, you know… with your dad and all—last year while they were doing Story Night, I had Jason come to the rock and I went around. I climbed it though, because the water was too cold that year.” “Can we climb it now, instead of swim?” “The water will be nice this year, my mom says.” “What about shar—” A child runs past them and cuts them off, running up to the water and then immediately retreating when the water threatens to reach her feet. Travis and Jon keep walking, as the little girl turns to look at her father, a man in his early thirties sitting on a beach towel. She giggles and starts to run along the water.

“Wait up, lil K,” the man says. Thomas leans back and rocks himself forward to gain momentum in order to stand and chase his daughter. He weighs “less than 200” still, but he is breathing heavy as he follows her to the water. 25 25

When she nears the water, she turns facing him and folds her hands together, as if in prayer, and the water grazes her heels. “It’s cold!” She dances off the sensation. Thomas smiles and saunters over to where she stands. He realizes he’s rubbing the sunless circle on his ring finger again, so he reprimands himself and looks out at the water. “Are you gonna take a risk and go in, K?” “What’s a rikks?” “A risk. Something you do that’s usually a good kind of dangerous. Kind of.” She turns around and looks at the water and he wonders how she views it. He thinks she should be afraid, not just of its vastness but its mystery. He doesn’t want to impose this on her naivety, but she is at an age where she picks up more than either of them can fully comprehend. She looks up at him, appearing uncertain. “We only have a few hours, so go for it. Look how blue!” “Why can’t we stay?” “Well… mommy needs you tonight.” She looks out at the ocean again and he thinks she understands. He turns away from the water and looks at the houses and hills flanking the coast. He stops at the Blue Castle, as his ex-wife Mandy had called it when they visited here the time he proposed. They had spoken of buying it one day and filling it with dogs and cats and even a python to keep order and impose crowd control. She was opposed to children, thinking herself incapable of escaping her biological fate as a terrible mother, a curse that had been handed down three generations before her. “Let’s both go in the ocean,” Kelsey says. 26 26

He surfaces, leaving behind the Blue Castle, the endless clouds, the salt air relentlessly cold in spite of the heat from the sun—and leaving behind Mandy, at least for now. “I’m not sure I’m feelin’ it.” She pouts and revs up for a fake tantrum. “Don’t go there with me. I’m pretty sure my sweet daughter is a happy camper. And I have a deal.” “What?” “We take turns running into the water. We have to start at Home Base and run as fast as we can and jump right in. Capisce?” “But it’s cold!” “That’s why we have to jump in all the way. The cold goes away quicker and it will wake you up, like Daddy’s coffee.” “But that’s hot.” “Same concept.” “I’m already awake.” “You think you are, but wait till you hit the water.” He makes a goofy face and tickles her and wonders at what point in his life he lost public self-awareness. They make their way back to Home Base, which consists of a giant towel with a palm tree on it, as well as two weathered canvas chairs, one displaying a Giants logo and the other, the Dodgers. “You go first Daddy.” “No way, I’m the adult, I’ve earned the right to choose to go last.” She shakes her head and says, “Babboon,” a euphemism for idiot she no doubt picked up from Mandy. 27 27

“On your mark, get set, go.” Nothing. “Look, if you don’t want to go in, you don’t have to. It’s probably full of mermaids and laughter and music anyway. And candy.” She crosses her arms and looks around, before breaking out into a grin and exclaiming: “Tricked you!” She screeches and flails her hands as she runs. Thomas notices a jogger out of the corner of his eye, but she is running too slowly to collide with Kelsey, who reaches the edge of the water, tiptoes in, and then falls in screaming when a small wave rolls into her. She stands up shivering at the entrance into the wide-open flatlands that swell and boil, shrouding the cold and mystery under that hot sun. He is instinctively afraid for her, but smiles and raises his hands, clapping in mid air and crossing his eyes to be goofy, and remembering once again that he perhaps should be more self-aware now that he is back on the market. He straightens out his face and clears his throat. He starts to turn towards Mandy to see her smile, as he often did when Kelsey would do something worth remembering. All that’s there is a towel and two empty chairs. As Kelsey makes her way back towards him, the jogger almost collides with her, an older woman tilted forward as if in a sprint, but running much slower than her stance indicates. The woman is shaking her head and appears to be talking to herself.

Pam regrets not creating a new playlist in the hotel. Her computer was dead but she could have charged it and waited—although had she waited, she most 28 28 likely would’ve been stuck watching re-runs of Bewitched or buying movies at the sky-high prices Oceanside Inn would have charged. In spite of all that, she needs the new tunes to keep her motivated, especially when running in the sand, which is more difficult than her treadmill. Even as she weaves closer to the water’s edge and back again when it splashes her, her clunky shoes sink further in than she expects, and her decreasing speeds make her feel like she is over-extending what little athletic prowess she still possesses from her track years decades ago. As Karen Carpenters sings, Pam slows to a halt and steps over a significant pile of kelp. When she speeds up again, she loses her breath more quickly than before and regrets slowing down for the kelp. “Pride comes before the fall. Take heed, lest you trip, Pam,” she says to herself. At 62, she still comes to this beach twice each summer. She leaves her dog with her neighbor Bonnie, and she sets the cats up to fend for themselves for the weekend, but has Bonnie check in on them to make sure they’re not sick or hurt or creating chaos, as she has heard cats are likely to do. She still worries, though, because she remembers a story Mary once told her about a cat who had been left alone and got a claw stuck just deep enough in an electrical socket to cause it to lose some of the hair on its tail. “An ugly cat is better than a dead one,” she says out loud and then giggles. She looks out at the ocean and wonders at its calm, knowing underneath is a world alive and dark. What a vast, fearful thing! And something in it calls to her, something she doesn’t trust. She can’t remember the last time she’s gone in, but even her feet chill and send goosebumps up her calves when the waves lap at her and pull back. Come. Jump in. 29 29

“No thank you.” You’ll get over the cold faster than you think. “I’ll get numb is what I’ll get, and that I don’t trust.” Someone nearby looks at her and responds as if she were talking to him, and, flushing maroon, she pretends like she doesn’t hear him. “Girl, I must look like a real winner.” The definition of love for Pam is: the person you imagine yourself talking to when you are talking to yourself. For her this is her daughter, Kelly, who lives just three hours away and has a family of her own and a full time career that takes up most of her time. They speak on the phone every so often, but Kelly stays active and has little time for catching up. There are Christmas cards to look forward to, and holiday calls, and occasional visits by their family to Windham. Pam answers only when called and visits only when asked, for fear of imposing. Whilst Pam talks to Kelly when Kelly is not there, Kelly is still her 15- year-old self, mature enough to have adult conversation and strangely in-tune with their relationship. Pam knows she was lucky when Kelly was that age— most young girls begin fighting with and hating their mothers around that time. Kelly had matured early and had seemed grateful for the honesty by which their broken family operated. By then, she had already been switching between homes with her father, Pam’s ex-husband. Mom, just jump in. Try it. Do something different, take a risk. Start here. Pam glances sideways at the ocean. “I’ll get there eventually.” She swallows hard and starts to speed up, forgetting about her bad ankle and about the cats, and about how she wishes she had put less in her fanny pack before heading out. 30 30

She glances at the water again and sees something dark in the corner of her eye. She turns her head towards it, having expected an ocean blue but always forgetting the old eyesore of a pier. The pier is dilapidated and blocked off halfway down by caution tape, as if the steel gate at the entrance isn’t enough. And apparently it isn’t— two younger people make their way down, wearing black hoodies that make them stand out in the light of day.

Marcos looks around and pulls Jade closer. “This is so obvious.” “Be a man!” He rolls his eyes and questions his choice in women until Jade turns around and he sees her clear blue eyes. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Marcos leaps forward while still holding on to what is left of the wooden handrail. “I’ve always wanted to do this, and yesterday I saw some damn kids doing it midday. Nobody is watching and no one cares.” Marcos looks back at her, now having moved ahead. “So by worth my while…” “Shut up.” Marcos looks forward toward the caution tape and wonders why he had never thought of this when he was in high school. They had tossed toilet paper on various houses, had bonfires every Saturday night and messed with the bums who lived on the beach, and played pranks on all the old tourists who inevitably came 31 31 here for “peace and calm” every summer. They always overlooked the old pier, which had been an eyesore to outsiders and invisible to locals for decades now. Jade stops and looks toward the end, which appears increasingly treacherous past the caution tape, as well as blackened and singed in parts. “What happened to this anyway?” “I don’t know. I asked around, but I heard three or four different stories.” “And?” “Something about a mayor committing suicide, and then someone else jumping off the end and trying to commit suicide awhile later, so they closed it and now it’s haunted.” “Ok, that’s one.” “And… a fire because some fisherman was smoking and the wood wasn’t flame retarded—” Jade doubles over laughing. “Retardant.” “You asked!” She catches up to him by skirting a hole in the wood, and placing both hands on the handrail, she kisses him. “You’re a math major, I don’t expect you to know words.” He shakes his head, wipes his eyes and looks down. “It’s just so hard being a beach-rat that looks this swoll, and staying a virgin for my long-distance girlfriend—” Jade hits him. “Now that’s retarded.” “Just sayin.” 32 32

“Well what’s really difficult is going to college for the first time and having so many sweet guys helping me find my way around campus and teaching me what it’s like to be a real woman, while having only a senior picture of my douchebag boyfriend who only exists occasionally—” He grabs her and wraps his arms around her and kisses her while slowly moving his hand up her back and underneath her sweater. She smiles and the small waves beneath push an eternally broken piece of wood against another, leaving a circular space amidst the barnacles that will forever be barren. The caution tape flutters in the wind and makes a sound that catches Jade’s attention. “Let’s keep going.” “I’m down.” “No, the pier.” “Damn you.” Behind her, he looks at the hills and sees the blue house she is staying in with her family. He knows her mother will expect her back by a certain time, but he hopes to at least get some action out here. “As long as we make it back before the boys,” Jade says, reading his mind. “Can we?” “Let’s go out further.” He turns back toward the caution tape and the increasing disintegration as the pier moves out into deeper waters. He wonders how far they will have to go.

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33 33

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”

- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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The boys approach Doom Rock and Travis claps his hands together and rubs them in excitement as a small wave crashes against the base of the barnacled rocks that act as natural guardians to the mountain they must circumvent, appearing to protect it and them from what may lie in the deep. “So we can’t just climb up and around… or…” Jon trails off as he realizes the stairs are dilapidated and impossible, and as he sees how smooth the jutted-out mountain, or Doom Rock, is around the sides. “Dead end, so we gotta swim fur it, boy!” Travis balls his hands into fists and cries out while jumping up and down. 34 34

“Let’s do this!” He slaps Jon hard on the back and sprints towards the water. “Ow!” It is an anti-climactic thing to watch, as Travis’s sprint is slowed by the shallow water and by a hidden rock he hadn’t seen prior. He gives in and belly flops into the ocean as a wave rolls over him. Jon heads toward the water. “It’s ice!” Travis yells as he pops up from the shifting surface. “Fantastic.” “Take your shirt off, doofus.” “No.” Jon saunters in, his lower lip pressing hard against his upper lip, squinting even in the shadow of the mountain. “It’s cold.” Travis makes his way straight out toward the rocks as Jon comes as near to the smooth surface of mountain as he can, unable to resist the pull of the ocean and relenting as he falls in waist-deep. “Where are you going?” Jon cries out with an energy birthed by the cold. Travis doesn’t answer, but swims out, ducks under a wave, holds on to a rock, and follows a wide-arced trajectory to get to the other side. Jon holds on to the mountain and makes it to the other side faster than he expected. There is sun here, and he holds his shirt out and down to dry it off, silently thankful that the saltwater’s weight seems to add much needed length and girth to his clothing. He looks for Travis and feels something tugging in his gut, a sort of guilt at having taken the shorter route. He thinks of the Christmas Carol play in school and 35 35 the relief he had when he tried out for Scrooge and didn’t get it. He thinks of the theme park he wants to design someday, and of the rides he’s sketched that stay low to the ground so he can ride them himself without facing his fear of heights. He thinks of the couple-skating session in which he glided with Lindsey while holding her hand, but was too afraid to ask her anything without the added: “as just friends, you know, just like, you’re my sister.” He looks up at the gentle slope that zigzags its way up to the top of the mountain and knows they will easily get to their Cave, will most likely avoid bums, will play as if they are pirates. He is disappointed at the aftermath of taking the shorter route, of avoiding the very risk they are seeking to incite. “Hypocrite,” he says to himself. He looks out at the rocks and considers swimming. His vision is blurred from the saltwater splash and he thinks one of the rocks must be Travis, because it is moving.

Further down the coastline, Kelsey falls to the ground exhausted. “That was great, K. How was it?” “Stinkin cold. You now!” Thomas realizes that he didn’t bring a change of clothes for himself, and that the drive home would be a wet, cold experience. “What if I let you go again, lil one?” She squints her eyes and Thomas is reminded of the tension of living with her mother. He jumps up in the air, stretches out his arms and feigns a yawn (which becomes a real one), and starts to lie down next to Kelsey. “I’m just gonna…” 36 36

“Dad, you tricked me!” “I’m just gonna—take a bath!” He kisses her on the forehead, jumps back up, throws off his shirt and races as fast as he can towards the water. As he’s running, the wind picks up and numbs his face. He thinks of when he left for the last time, knowing that he could have apologized and made up with Mandy, but also banking on a fix from somewhere outside, a need for something to break their cycle of war. He thinks of all the times he avoided pain in the past, avoided living, avoided risk. He purses his lips in anticipation of the cold, and then he lets them grow slack. Come and follow me, where the ocean meets the sea, where the Sirens sing their song, where the sailor gets along… He’s not even sure if he has the lyrics down, but thinks he heard it in a bar somewhere. He’s in the water, but that’s not enough. He is looking out and challenging himself to more. He swims, further in and farther out, breath now gone, cold saltwater splashing against his chest.

Breathing heavy, Pam is running faster, no longer heeding the viscosity of the dirt, picturing Charles her cat shaking his head at her, and she is laughing with little self-awareness. She allows her face to express what her heart is feeling, a grimace and a smile. The wind picks up and stings her now watery eyes, which in turn make her think of Kelly as a baby—now she can’t tell if it’s the wind or real tears. So much of life ahead, we’ll find a place where’s there’s room to grow, and yes, we’ve just begun… 37 37

She wipes her eyes and when her vision becomes clear, she sees a two-foot tall sandcastle a dozen meters ahead and something inside of her marks it as a starting line. She thinks of when Mike took them to the beach when Kelly was a baby. She had colic, and they needed a vacation but their sitter had cancelled last minute so he had said: “We need a break, dammit, and the fresh air may clear up those crying demons inside her mouth.” They made it a day trip, which grew into an annual tradition that she continued alone. Mike had once dared Pam to run in the ocean and she had. Nearing the castle, she veers right, slows down and sits in an inch of water. “It’s a start, hon.” She scoots further into the water, taking in the cold a little at a time. Her lower side grows numb, and she thinks of when they would go to amusement parks as a family before Mike left her for another woman. Pam was always terrified of heights, but wouldn’t be able to leave the park until she had ridden the thrill rides she feared the most, partly because she had wanted to make a bucket list of sorts after the fact, partly because she felt a sort of fulfilled hope when the first drop was over. The last time she had gone to an amusement park was with her church group, and she had felt an odd weight that resembled guilt and disappointment at how settled she was at not having ridden anything at all. “I come for the hot dogs, these rides make me sick.” “You’re scared, you think these are going to break down,” her friend had said. “Nope, just don’t need this stuff anymore.” Pam no longer trusts fun. God is an evil genie that thwarts fun. 38 38

Right now, she says to herself (and to Imaginary Kelly): “That’s the devil speaking.” Come. Jump in. She feels safe and trusts the water, which conversely makes her feel suspicious and wonder—what if? She continues forward and accepts the numbness as it gives way to a surprising, awakening chill. She giggles, swimming now into deeper waters, wondering when she should make herself stop, and deciding that it is perhaps time to call her daughter and ask to go and visit her once she dries off.

Jade and Marcos are holding on to either side of a wooden guardrail past the caution tape. “This is not a good idea.” “Pussy.” “Watch your mouth young lady!” “Don’t talk like that to me.” Marcos looks down, involuntarily raises his eyebrows and whistles at the thirty-foot drop into unnervingly quiet, calm waters. “They weren’t kidding about the caution.” “It’s deep enough.” “Still, I don’t wanna fall.” They both stop when the beam they are standing on creaks. “Well there ya go, mission accomplished.” “Hey look!” Marcos follows her gaze to some handwriting on the pier just beyond where they stand. 39 39

“I’m not going any farther,” Marcos says. “Then I’m not either.” “Bitch.” Marcos stays back, but Jade inches forward and leans into the writing. “It says: All in, forever. Love, E—hey, isn’t that your gra—shit!” The wood doesn’t snap but bends down and away from the bottom of the handrails. “Don’t move, Jade, don’t move.” She screams for help as the bolts holding the plank strip and start to fall out. She grabs on to what she can for support and tries to slide toward Marcos. He reaches out for her, stretching his arm to its limit. “Almost there—” He cries out as the board continues to peel downward, melting, now starting to take him with it. He looks down at the cement blocks holding the broken wood and sees something dark floating in the water. He swallows hard and looks over at her. “Jade—” She slips and falls, causing the board to stop slipping and leaving Marcos in safety. She screams before being cut off by the Atlantic. “Jade!” She surfaces, checks herself for injuries, and laughs in relief. “Are you ok?” She looks up at him as her body starts to go numb from the cold. “Your turn.” “Fuck you! Jade—” 40 40

She removes her top and tosses it on a block of cement. “Marco polo.”



Craig snorts and wakes up, his heart racing, thinking he has heard someone shriek his name, but unsure if it’s simply from the dream he had been having—the one where he is on watch aboard the USS Edson and their sonar picks up an irregular sound thirty fathoms deep just off of Guadalcanal. He can’t be sure if the dream is based in reality, or perhaps a TV show, or even just something he fabricated in his sleep. He decides to pretend it is simply a recurring nightmare. Every time it ends with him stepping to the forecastle, but still somehow hearing the sonar pulse as if the transducer were directly next to him. The sounds become longer with increased intervals, but he is looking at the slope of the ocean on the horizon, whispering to himself an old sailors’ song, transfixed on the mighty expanse he cannot look away from. The sonar pulses an irregular beat and scratches out a hollow sound. He looks to his left and to his horror, all of the ocean is in turmoil, a vicious wall of boiling waters rising up and overshadowing their ship. He is about to scream, but the waters scream first and cry out his name. And that’s always when he wakes up, usually thankful, but this time more unnerved— as the same horizon he was gazing at just before the dream went sour is the same horizon that now stares back at him, awake.



RESTRICTED

Caleb often found himself disappearing. He was never quite sure of where he went, but he would focus so intently on a thought, that when he resumed opacity, he wondered where it was he had been, or if he had been, or if he had been dreaming. This happened so often that he would allow himself the possibility that he had already died and that his afterlife was a somewhat tangible haunting of the place he once worked before the accident, seen now from a different angle. He grabbed his manager’s business card, turned it over and wrote: Jumped off building? Hung self in closet? Tried to save ____ from terrorist attack and died for her? The coffee shop, Roaster Pen, was located inside the main lobby of The Claremont Grande Hotel, and centered between the restaurant and the Orange Ballroom. From behind the counter, Caleb could view the lobby’s crystal chandelier, a feat of engineering and aesthetics that allowed bulk to balance serenely from a thin, steel wire. Directly across from him was a large grandfather clock located between the lobby restrooms. It still ticked, but the hour hand was fast. Such elegant features allowed him a sense of royalty and pomp that gave meaning to tedium, and enhanced menial tasks such as taking the temperature of milk, and replacing old grind-skins with new ones. A young man wearing square sunglasses and a shirt featuring an intricate dragon eating the word Loyalty approached, squinted, and looked at the menu. “Do you have Mochas over ice—not blended with the ice, but poured over the ice?” “We absolutely do.” “How many ounces is a Vet-ni?” 42 42

Caleb was already writing the note in his head: Spends more time primping in the bathroom than his current girlfriend. “We serve Medium or Large. Large is 24 ounces.” “Do you have almond milk? “Indeed we do, mon frere.” The man looked at Caleb. “What did you call me? Nevermind, a’ight, one vet-ni iced mocha. Almond milk.” “Would you like extra whip?” “Yeah, of course.” He made the man’s drink so fast, he couldn’t remember if he used the right ingredients. “Have a nice day sir.” Having recently finished school, Caleb had begun working on collecting his thoughts for what could someday be a novel, but was, in the meantime, simply a blog splintered into segments over various social outlets. In exchange for his duties at Roaster Pen and his four-hour night shift as a janitor, not to mention his relation to his Uncle Don on the management team, Caleb was allowed to stay in the smallest room on the thirteenth floor. This floor, after dozens of complaints due to Triskaidekaphobia, was now labeled the 14th floor. Even in light of that, guests often complained of the logic, so the shiftless management simply designated the 14th floor as a last-case scenario and, moving most of their storage items to the floor, turned their former storage rooms in the basement into tiny conference rooms and windowless offices. Caleb felt lucky he hadn’t been placed in one of those, and honored to have a writing spot he also felt could be haunted— though he often considered himself the ghost. 43 43

An older woman with hair that reflected various shades of orange walked by, clearly proud of her unrestrained fake breasts nearly ripping out of her blouse. The only interesting thing about Sexy is that it’s unattainable, and when it’s attained, it simply becomes Pretty/commonplace/used? Does that concept apply to all good things…? He crumpled up the napkin to near oblivion, and placed it in his pocket among the rest of the broken thoughts that would reside there until tossing them in his overflowing mini-desk drawer. Among the remains of pocket lint were words of wisdom written on napkins, gum wrappers, and anything else he could access when the world opened up to him. As a writer of stories and a connoisseur of Truth, Caleb knew that the best place to call upon such wisdom was real life and the constantly fleeting memories he sought so desperately to catch in the moment.

Caleb had learned in his years of observation that people were predictable, and he agreed with the phrase that stereotyping was often accurate and even convenient. He was proud of the insights his literature degree had taught him, applying psychology and history through the funnel of storytelling. He was proud of getting schooling in something that allowed him freedom of thought, even if it didn’t so much allow for freedom of career. He viewed his life as having endless potential for story, and was excited to see where his was going. It was only a matter of time before he would be snatched up to some editing firm, some business office, somewhere different and new. The Grande was the perfect setting—old, full of movement, haunted. Anything can happen here / time, clock / potential and forward movement. He was in a hot air balloon, rising up into the sky through cotton-candy blue clouds. It was moving up the side of a vertical mountain slope, one that felt at 44 44 large as the Earth itself, horrifying in scope but beautiful to behold, once he had regained his footing in the basket made of wicker-worked licorice. He felt a pang of loneliness in the basket, but when he looked over, the girl that slowly appeared was both spontaneous and intricately created by him at the same time—she was no doubt his match. A ripping sound as her smile retreated and he snapped his head up. The balloon had snagged on a giant dead tree jutting out from the side of the mountain. “I’ll save you!” “You’re still here!” He looked down from the hideous tree at the girl in front of him. “Daydream?” she asked. She had green eyes, freckles and a wide, white grin. Her dark brown hair almost matched her black peacoat and made her resemble a nun until she came into focus. “Y-yes,” he muttered. “I’ve seen you here before. Last year’s conference.” “Yeah, if it was a Thursday, I was probably here,” he said. He immediately realized how earnest he had sounded and thereby over-compensated with a nervous laugh and an under-the-breath, “Just kidding.” “Going to school right?” “Just graduated.” He tried to remember specifics. He certainly remembered her smile, but little else. “Congratulations. Was it… philosophy or something?” “Literature.” “Ah, so teaching?” 45 45

“Maybe. Writing for now.” “Well, there’s always time,” she said. Caleb met eyes with the large grandfather clock, debating whether or not to point at it and attempt humor. Not with grandpa over there, he moves faster than a… than a… something with Viagra… No. “I’m Meghan.” They shook hands and she ordered something that he made while thinking about the specific ingredients, and the temperature that was required of standard hot drinks. He stirred three times, even though two was the minimum requirement, and he made a design in the foam that looked like it could be intentional, but wasn’t. “Oh, is that a leaf?” “If I told you, it wouldn’t mean as much.” She raised one eyebrow and took her drink, as he smiled with all his teeth. “Yum. Well, nice meeting you… again!” “Yeah! The pleasure is all—nice to meet you too. Again. Or—Just kidding.” She had already wandered off in the direction of the Orange Ballroom, where he had recalled seeing signs for a weekend conference hosted by a motivational speaker for entrepreneurs. He didn’t realize how far he was leaning over the counter until Ghost Marge suddenly appeared. With her usual intrusive pointer finger, she sounded out her order of “small caw-fee, with half a dollop of cream and a quarter of a spoon of sugar.” She ended her speech by raising her eyebrows to her hairline to signify that this was no joke. Caleb nodded and made her drink behind the bar while she 46 46 stared at him, leaning slightly forward to make sure he was correctly measuring a dollop. With two stirs and a hesitant sip, she floated off to sit in the lobby and people-watch, or wait for someone special, or reminisce. Caleb knew she’d order another in two hours before disappearing. He was part of her daily ritual, and long past questioning her motives or even mocking someone so fervent in her routine.

Cory came to relieve him for his lunch break and without a word, started texting on her phone before he could say anything that could be constituted as small talk. He grabbed an expired sandwich he had saved from the day before in the commercial refrigerator in the back. He made his way to the table next to Ghost Marge and sat in his usual spot, in direct view of the chandelier and, just past that, the South Tower. He liked the view better at night, when he could stare at the windows from outside and across the street, and watch them light up and turn off, forming patterns that always meant that someone was going somewhere, or at least coming from there. From his vantage point, he could also see the main desk and the traffic in the lobby. Luggage. Travel. Potential. People came and went and sometimes they were even the same people he had seen some time before, returning for business, vacation, a mystery for him to solve and imagine that extended them beyond their routine. Endless material for his writings. Endless stories to tell. Endless character traits waiting to be immortalized for his novel. What’s it about, you ask? He imagines himself talking to the girl from the balloon, who now looks strikingly similar to Meghan. He tells Imaginary Meghan in a simultaneously vague and succinct manner, that it is about hope. He asks her if she still believes in 47 47

Santa Claus and she says of course not. He smiles and says, But doesn’t some part of you still want to? She blushes and says she gets it now. And he talks about how rare hope is these days, and how it simultaneously disappoints and motivates. A plate shatters in the distance and he pictures the dead tree on the mountain, which ruptures his fake conversation. Caleb looks around for inspiration. An old man in the corner sits, droopy cheeks and staring forward, as his shaky hand maneuvers a bit of pasta towards his pinched mouth. A couple with three small children struggle to make the twenty yard goal from lobby to the north elevator. A pretty black-haired woman subtlety adjusts her bra under her paper- thin pink summer dress, while seeming to ponder how messy her hair is going to look as soon as the breeze hits it in five, four, three, two—she veers left and takes out a mirror for one last look. There was also a man in a business suit whose frustrated voice entered the space long before he did. He was rushing, almost spilling the contents of his rolling suitcase as it moved from rug to stone on such delicate wheels. The case tipped over and he dragged it for a moment before stopping to turn it to its normal position and continue on. A question was posed to a concierge, and the man adjusted his route and made his way toward the Orange Ballroom.

Weaving his way through the maze intended to add mystery, story, to what was simply a standard L-shaped layout, Caleb steered his way to the Ballroom and stopped in front of the large, cardboard stand revealing a picture of the man with the faulty rolling suitcase pointing one finger directly at Celeb and winking his left eye. Above his trimmed beard and glistening eye was the title of his message: A World of Endless Possibilities. 48 48

Caleb liked the sound of that, though he wondered if the plural was accurate or some sort of slang variation that had become accepted as a real word. He supposed leaving the word Possibility as is would imply only one direction in life, and this was highly limiting. There were no flyers to be found, and remembering that a good storyteller’s ultimate antagonist was forgetfulness, he proceeded to enter the conference in search of a pen and something to write on. He slowly cracked open the door and was met almost instantly with the gaze of a security guard staring through the crack at him. “Do you have a pass?” “I work here.” “This event requires a pass.” “I just need to grab something. It’s for Don.” The security guard frowned but let him through. The distance from the door to the nearest table at the back was uncomfortably long, so Caleb made the journey quickly, hunched over like a speed-walking geriatric, despite the darkness and the universal focus on the stage at the opposite end of the room. The speaker seemed well into his speech already, though sweating profusely and panting from his run to the stage. “You have to exist in the now, remember the then, but always be prepared and two steps ahead of the what-will-be.” He continued on but Caleb was focused on getting a pen. Next to him was a mustached man in his late forties who was clearly soaking up everything the speaker was saying. He even had an acronym listed vertically along the side of the page. SUCCEED. Caleb didn’t take the time to read what that meant, but grabbed a pen and a business card that was loose on the table. 49 49

“A world of endless possibilities.” Towards the front of the room and all the way to the right was Meghan. She was looking at him and made a slight wave before signifying with her hands that she felt like or was going to hang herself. Caleb rolled his eyes and smiled. He also shrugged for some reason, instantly regretted “raising the roof” with his hands, and was exceedingly thankful that she smiled and returned her gaze back to the speaker, leaving her awkward mime behind for now. “Do not let the now affect the future. Do not let the lack of materials you’ve been given limit what is possible. Better to remain hopeful in the future, and to expect better out of life, than to settle for what’s in front of you now. Use what’s here to mold something great. MOLD. Movement Outside of Limiting Don’ts. MOLD.” Caleb squinted his eyes while determining if it was noteworthy but already forgot exactly what had been said. It caused him to ruminate, so he scrambled to write something down: Better to hope than to settle. He thought for a minute and wrote another line: Better to use what’s given you than to give it up in hopes for finding something better. He felt frustrated at how much he had potentially butchered the line, but it was just an afterthought anyhow. He could always get the tapes later.

He climbed up the ropes holding the basket to the balloon but the wind blew his loose shirt towards the flames. With one motion, he ripped off his sleeve just as the tip caught fire, and he let the flames devour his now untethered shirt, which became dust and ash and pushed the balloon up further into the sharp, twisted tree. His girl, now fully Meghan, reappeared and begged him to be safe and told him she loved him. He climbed faster and reached for a branch, but it 50 50 crumbled upon touching it and the whole tree, to his surprised joy and terror, became dust. He lost his footing on the rope and fell backwards as the balloon skyrocketed up again. He was upside-down and caught between the mountain and the fire. He looked down at his girl and smiled at her emerald eyes. I’ll always love you. “You’re still here!” He hadn’t even seen Meghan approaching, but was instantly certain by the sway of her hips that she had just wandered from the bar next to where the conference was. “Guilty.” “Don’t you have a home to go to?” “This is my home. I’ve never left.” “You a ghost?” “Yes, actually.” Where could this lead? She took his hand and said something about an Idea through slurred speech. He wondered if they were going to her room and felt thrilled and terrified at the thought. They passed the grandfather clock and haphazardly made their way through the maze, passing the bar, passing the conference room and Cardboard Beard shouting about Possibilities. “Do you know where you’re going?” “Elevators.” After a series of chimes, the door opened and Meghan pulled Caleb directly through an exiting and baffled Chinese family and their luggage. He mumbled an apology and waited to see what she’d do next. 51 51

She didn’t throw him up against the wall and kiss him, but she did smile and move close. And she did speak first. “This is crazy!” He smiled and nodded. “Yes, yes it is.” “You know what he told us today, the guy in there, he said: the world is full of endless possibilities and to take it, Life, to take it and grab it by the balls and move it.” She grabbed his faded and loose jeans at the crotch and squeezed gently. “That’s… those are my keys.” “Ha! Yes! That’s what I thought! What’s there to grab when everything is so broken and fragmented, so unrelenting and unpredictable?” “Wait what?” “If you want to do something, do it.” She grabbed him and moved her dry, chapped lips close to his. “When you have something to hold, when there’s something to move, you’ve already ended all possibilities. You’ve already chosen. And it moves you.” She looked at his lips and back up at his eyes. The door opened with a chime. They were still on the first floor. A very old couple stared at them. “Going up?” “No,” Meghan said to the bewildered couple as she pushed the button marking the top floor. “I want to see the roof, I want to see the world,” she said to Caleb. This was followed by a spin as her hands raised up in the air. So it wasn’t her room they were going to, but perhaps there was still room for adventure, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointment. 52 52

The balloon was spinning upwards and he, still upside-down, grabbed ahold of the ropes beside him and used his upper body strength to let himself down, carefully avoiding the flame on his way. He landed in the basket, where she was waiting all along. He looked deep into her eyes and she looked back, clear green eyes looking into the parts of his soul that only existed when she was around, and she belched in his face. “Sorry, one too many… maybe three too many.” The elevator went straight to the top and opened to a long row of doors. At the far end of the hallway was a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the rest of Hotel Circle and just to the right was the entrance to the stairwell, which led to the roof. Nobody was allowed up there and only security, maintenance and the higher- up staff had keys to the top. They stopped at the window. Four other hotels faced them, all smaller, all unique in their own way. It was dark enough to see the patterns of lights across the face of each building. Most shades were drawn but in one, they could see a middle aged man lying on his bed, his worn face and unkempt beard hinted at by the light of the flickering TV which remained unseen. “I wonder if he’s watching porn.” Caleb stopped looking out and focused on her reflection. “His pants are still on.” “Maybe he’s taking his time, leaving room for any possibility, eh?” “Foreplay?” “Maybe he’s a mood guy. Maybe he needs to kick back a few before he feels comfortable enough to allow his hands to cross the line.” She quickly lost interest and opened the door to the stairwell. Their footsteps echoed through the off-white interior as they moved up to the small 53 53 landing that ended in a door marked: RESTRICTED. Caleb looked down and wondered what it would be like if there really was an emergency, and the stairwell was the only exit. He wondered how many people could crowd in and to what degree their urgency would lead more quickly to lives lost, to an end of all possibilities. She moved her hands over his crotch. To the sound of shifting scraps of napkins and paper, he looked at the handle but didn’t touch it. She moved her hand under his shirt. A world of possibility stood in front of him and it was moving its hands around in circles, further crumpling the papers that probably made it sound like he was wearing a diaper. She didn’t seem to mind. It was getting hotter, and her efforts were increasing. She unzipped his pants. “Woah there, hello.” He frantically looked around, even up, to make sure nobody was watching as she exposed him and started licking. “You’re so big. Mmmm.” “You’re big… I mean, just kidding,” he whispered, as he struggled to ascertain whether the face she was making indicated even a degree of sarcasm. “Yes, Kevin, yes.” “Caleb,” he whimpered. He cleared his throat and instinctively thrust forward. Meghan opened her eyes, choked and immediately vomited champagne and what appeared to be shrimp all over him. 54 54

She fell to the side and continued her purge down through the railing and all the way to the bottom floor of the staircase, raining down her evening past anyone impatient enough to wait for the elevators. Meghan then moved away and haphazardly down the stairs, crying out for a bathroom and leaving Caleb behind. He scrambled to zip up his pants, ignoring his unresolved frustration and the fact that his white briefs were forever soiled. Breathing through his mouth alone, he reached in his pocket and grabbed his notes from the day, trying to salvage what he could from the mess she had made. Most of them were ruined. Thankful for his Uncle Don, he pulled out his privileged key and unlocked the roof access door. He quickly moved the edge of the building, hoping the cool winds would cleanse the stench and dry his soaked jeans. One by one, he let go of the damaged, damp bits of paper. They fell without fluttering, weighed down by the contents of Meghan’s gut, all the way to the bushes below. All of that wisdom from the week, lost. Memories and quotes that disappeared into oblivion. Caleb thought it was unfortunate that in whatever form he chose to write his masterpiece, it would be missing the immensely unique characters and quotes of the current day and previous week. Jumped off, unattainable, time He breathed in fresh air and looked at the world below, including the adjoining tower. The lights that were on gave him hope. People were always moving, coming and going, getting refreshed and heading down to the lobby and out into the world to do something exciting. From his vantage point, there was someone always there, so the potential never ended. 55 55

He remembered the cardboard sign and decided that it would be easy to take. He would add it to the collection of thoughts and place it in front of his note drawer. That was at least one possibility he’d remember. He thought he heard a noise coming from inside, and wondered if it was Meghan. Part of him hoped it wasn’t, and he felt a combination of relief and regret when silence ensued. Breathing in deeply, he decided he’d enjoy the view for awhile before his shift cleaning the lobby began.

The balloon basket contained only Caleb again, rising along the monstrous mountain. Of course, a girl would occasionally materialize, but her features were vague. Ghost Marge stood in front of him. He looked her in the eye this time, past the pointer finger and the specific demands. All he knew about her was she had worked in maintenance for thirty years, and the rest amounted to rumors and fables. Her eyes were watery and he wondered if what he was looking at was sadness. “What do you do again, Marge?” She retreated under her eyebrows. “What do you do, son?” “I’m a writer, I’m writing a novel.” “Go to school?” “I did.” “You married?” “No.” “You have kids?” “No.” 56 56

She stared at him before pointing directly at his nose. “You have your whole life ahead of you, keep it that way.” “Thanks.” She never answered his question, but simply left Caleb alone with the clock. He grabbed a napkin and prepared to write something about time, but couldn’t think of anything substantial. He averted his gaze down at the beige patterned carpet while the clock remained staring forward. He imagined all the lights of the South Tower turning on and off in various rhythms and designs, revealing the shifting patterns of a world in motion.

DEEP NIGHT

They didn’t hear a splash, but the hallway erupted in footsteps of all shapes and sizes and it woke them up. “What’s happening?” “Someone’s gone overboard I think.” He had been listening to similar conversations as the footsteps and whispers passed like ghosts through the hallway, but wondered if his translucent memories of the voices were figments of dreams. “Do they know who?” He thought someone had said something about a teenage boy. “A boy, from the sound of it.” “Drunk?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Well, should we see?” “I don’t think we need to add to the confusion.” He noticed the curve of his wife’s thigh under the expensive sheets. She said something but he couldn’t quite hear her because she was mumbling and because she was facing away. “What?” “Nothing.” He looked out the porthole window and saw a bright spotlight in the murky dark, revealing a moving patch of black ocean about ten feet in diameter. Distant voices were calling out. As the spotlight moved over the water, his mind took in the vastness of dark. He thought of when he used to find the brightest star and focus on it as if he was on the inside of a pencil and the star was the tip writing the universe into existence, and the dark all around it was the interior that he was viewing creation 58 58 from. Other times, he would find the brightest star and feel like he was in a tunnel and that the light at the end of it was so far away. He thought of the boy out there, alone, where any sort of imagination was counterintuitive to hope. Perhaps he would be able to see the ship as it disappeared—it would become one single light like a star. “Hey,” his wife said. He breathed in sharply. Had he fallen asleep? “Yeah.” “Did you remember to book the excursion?” “Yes.” “Ok, I just, you know, remembered and didn’t want to forget. There’s not much else to do there other than just sit around so…” “Yeah, we’re on the list.” “Great.” “Are you feeling better?” “A lot better, thanks,” she said as he felt her nod. “Good. I want you to enjoy the honeymoon.” He thought of what he would do if he had drifted away in darkness and cold. Would he let himself drown? Would he try to swim? Would he wait as he watched the waves like pendulums swing back and forth as he simultaneously eased into death and thoughts of hope? Where would his mind wander? With the same morbid curiosity that made him twist his neck to look at a car wreck, he imagined himself waking up from a drunken stupor only to find himself floating in the cold depths of the Pacific. He closed his eyes and felt the saltwater splash up to his nostrils. He would cough and spit it out because this was reality and not a dream. Dread only felt when actually in danger would create a 59 59 sinking feeling in his chest. He would open his eyes as wide as possible to take in his surrounding and search, in desperation, for any source of light, for any source of hope. He would scream a few times but then stop, afraid of whatever was beneath becoming aware of him. He would make sure his movements were minimal unless he saw the shore or a boat, as if the nearness of salvation would exclude him from the things he was afraid of when hope wasn’t there. Would it? He might laugh to lighten the situation or because of disbelief and shock. He might cry even though he hadn’t in years because here, on his final voyage, he would have to face the things he’d protected himself from for so long with boundaries invisible, yet strong enough to block him even from himself. He might sing mildly to keep up his mood. An old song sung by Frank Sinatra popped into his head. Deep night, stars in the sky above… Moonlight, lighting our place of love… Night winds, seem to have gone to rest… Two eyes, brightly with love are gleaming come to my arms my darling my sweetheart my own… He was sinking, sinking deeper, unsure of whether or not he had decided to drown or was unable to tread any longer. His father’s ghost was floating next to him in the cold black water, smiling and mouthing something that he didn’t want to hear. His wife rose up next to him, but looking away, distracted by something or someone else, focused on anything but him—he would love her anyway. He turned around and saw his friends disappearing behind him, his friends who he hadn’t talked to in years because of all of the focus on her, and their life together, and their wedding. He tried to breathe in, but couldn’t. His eyes opened wider and he couldn’t tell if he was crying or if the salt was simply stinging his eyes. Bringing you nearer, dearer and dearer, deep night, deep in the arms of love… 60 60

It was still dark and the song was playing. He must have forgotten to hit “buzzer” on the clock, so the radio had kicked in. “Morning,” his wife said. He blinked himself awake. “Hi.” “Bad dream?” “I…. didn’t even know I was asleep.” He rubbed his eyes and they were wet. She was wringing out her hair. “Ready for the excursion?” “Yeah.” “What do you think happened with the boy?” “I don’t know. I hope they found him.” They both hoped for his sake that he was already dead, his suffering ceased. Neither admitted this out loud. He was twisting his wedding ring with his thumb again and he stopped as he became aware of it. He looked at the red glow of the clock and the incessant glare of the dot next to the word Alarm. He slid the dial to the Off position, but it took a minute to blink away the red numbers that still shone in his eyes in spite of the darkness. He looked out of the porthole at the gray expanse and wondered, for a moment, where the ocean began and the sky ended.



ANXIETY

A lifeless black phone on the kitchen counter erupts in booming vibrations and a red, flashing LED. Madison pops out the one earbud she has in her ear, almost dropping the dangling one she had taken out to stay alert while updating the calendar on the counter and making the third pitcher of coffee that morning. “Are you gonna get that?” “The game is on. How many times did it ring?” “It vibrated.” “Once or twice?” “I don’t know. I only heard it once, but maybe I missed the first one. There’s a light.” “Is it blue, green or yellow?” “Red.” “Red?” He sighs and leaves his game to get his phone from the kitchen. Madison stops pouring the coffee. “Who is it?” “Just an email.” “Someone from work?” “Spam.” “Pam?” “Spam.” She nods and sniffs. “Allergies?” he asks, and she can tell his muscles are tense. 62 62

She continues pouring coffee, one earbud back in, as Ethan carries the phone into the next room. “Coffee?” she asks. “The game is on,” he says and she sees him look at his phone again, just out of sight.



On the two-block walk from his car to his office in the Gaslamp District, Ethan practices looking up, countering the many times he’s caught himself looking at the cracks in the ground so as not to trip—missing the world in front of him while lacking the look of confidence he should be maintaining by his upscale attire. A billboard with a hot air balloon says: It isn’t just hot air, the skies are no longer the limit! The top of one building has a gazebo that makes him think of Greece, which makes him think of their marriage at the lake and if maybe they should have looked into something more elegant. He looks higher, past a jumbled marquee at the plain baby blue sky, cut by a patchwork of intersecting jetstreams. The sky shakes as he runs into a woman walking the opposite direction. A series of paperwork falls out of her hands and is scattered around them. “I’m so sorry!” he blurts out as he scrambles to pick up the papers. She doesn’t say a word but smiles and nods her head. 63 63

At the same time, they look up at each other and he is at once deeply inspired and ashamed by her clear eyes, the shade of her dark hair, one crooked tooth set amidst white, perfectly straight teeth. “Hi.” He swallows hard and imagines Madison watching him with binoculars from a window nearby. “Guess I should keep my head out of the sky,” he mumbles and literally says, “Haha.” He waits for a response, but she shakes her head and smiles again, signing with her hands and emitting a guttural sound while expressing “Thank you.” She walks on and he collects himself before continuing on, visualizing the encounter like an opening scene from a romantic comedy. He tries to remember feeling that way about Madison—he remembers snow, the cabin, the racing sleds. He can see their laughter, the moments new and fresh, but time has monotonized every moment and routine has set in at home. Work is the new frontier for movement, for direction, for change. Sometimes at the office on 5th, sometimes researching and planning at the café nearby, often travelling to other cities to speak, Ethan co-manages loan officers and helps with other duties as a jack of many trades. When they started asking him to help recruit at meetings and conferences around the country, he segued into the dream he always had for becoming a motivational speaker. He likes to throw in mottos and acronyms as practice, which generally meet with success and life-change stories, as well as new-hires and an expansion of the name of his own mortgage company throughout the nation. He enjoys traveling the most, especially when they hold conferences in fancy hotels. He appreciates the constant appearance of cleanliness applied to 64 64 something so used, so worn. Every room is refreshed on a daily basis and, like a kid on Christmas morning, Ethan finds joy at the crossroads of newness and anticipation as expressed at every turn of a well put-together hotel. The problem with these trips are the advances of women who spend extra effort in trying to get him drunk to find out which room he is staying in. One time, a woman had been successful in getting into his room, but it was because Ollie had said there’d be a party up there and then had fallen asleep after they had all had champagne downstairs. He had simply been trying to help but the event had culminated in a near fatal breakup with Madison. It was also the last time Ethan had been completely open about a situation that didn’t require paying any attention to, as the event itself had been harmless and the outcome, more work than necessary. He learned then that honesty in a relationship didn’t incorporate every aspect of every day, every word spoken in every context with anyone outside of their marriage. Communication could be boiled down, and when managed properly, broken into only the necessary fragments.

o

“I am no shut-in,” Madison tells her sister-in-law one day over coffee. “Well you have your crafts, so you keep busy,” Sheila says. “I do, I do keep busy and to be honest, I pay for that TV he watches all day. And the damn phone.” “Wish I could say the same for Craig,” Sheila says. “Is he still looking?” “He’s networking all the time online, but can it be this hard?” “I think with what the news is saying about the market…” 65 65

“Well I’m not asking him to do what Ethan does, just something, anything! At least he watches the baby so I can get out like this.” “Well trust me, better to have him around than always wonder.” “Wonder?” “Well, I mean, he is always travelling and surrounded by those business women—never mind. I keep busy and I’m glad we live the way we do. Ethan works hard for us. And Sam will find work too.” “If I have anything to say about it, he will. Money is just so tight these days. And they say that sixty percent of marriages end because of money.” “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Sam’s a good, faithful man. You can trust him.” Sheila raises her eyebrows and says “Oh!” as her phone vibrates on the table next to her. She picks it up and swipes. “What is it,” Madison asks. “Oh just a news alert.” Sheila’s eyes dart back and forth. She touches the screen a couple of times and shakes her head. “Another problem down by Rosecrans.” “Again?” “Again.” “One woman in critical condition, and the husband is missing.” “Of course. Ran away with someone?” Madison asks. “It doesn’t say.” Madison purses her lips and remembers watching her mother do the same when her father would say he was working late. When her mother had overdosed on pills and drowned in their tub, everyone wondered at the nature of her death— whether or not it was an accident. Either way, Madison, seventeen then, promised 66 66 herself she would never allow for the same behavior, that she would never put up with a neglectful, lying man. She looks over and sees a man walking across the street with a cart full of blankets and folded boxes and clothes. Behind him is a woman wearing a dingy American flag sweater and a men’s green fishing hat, and holding a leash attached to a dog that looks healthier than its owners. The man reaches the other side before the woman and her dog, and once he maneuvers the cart over the curb and onto the sidewalk, he waits for her to catch up before they continue walking together. “Don’t you wish you had that?” Madison snaps out of the trance. “What?” “Look at that tiramisu.” Sheila points behind Madison’s shoulder at a couple of teenage girls eating dessert at the table behind her. “Yes,” she says, “that looks incredible.”



They sit in bed as Ethan studies his laptop. He has a privacy screen on so he can work without prying eyes whenever he travels, or if he feels the need to focus on something alone in his own little bubble. He’s looking at sports news, which leads to movie news, which leads to celebrity scandal, and then back to sports again. It is all meaningless information, but he takes a stand against removing the privacy screen because he knows that is all Madison is thinking about currently. He knows if he does remove it, she will be pleased, but he is tired of always living in apprehension of every electronic sound or light or vibration that is sent his 67 67 direction—it is always followed by a tensing of her muscles, an arched eyebrow, a glance in the other direction, as if she has been caught staring and has to over- compensate for it. As if on cue, an alert goes off on his computer and Ethan’s nerves force a smile in response to his frustration at not having silenced the computer—and the fact that the alert is actually for a news app that he had accidentally downloaded while looking at famous sex scenes from movies. He stiffens, and acts interested in the story, now hoping she is looking so that she can see there is nothing to worry about. The page says something about a homicide by a Russian man who killed his brother’s wife and two children with a large chef’s knife. He wonders if the husband hired his brother and if the husband had to do anything in return, but there is little information as the event had only occurred the night before. Ethan starts to think about time, and consequences, and how quickly one story can become horrifying news. He shudders and moves on. He clicks on another link that takes him to a page about a woman who killed her boyfriend with an axe. This story is older, so there are pictures of a brown hardware store bag containing a bloody axe in a garage, as well as caution tape surrounding a couch in front of a black television and stereo system. There is also a photo of the murderer—makeup untouched, hair slightly frizzled, expression blank. He looks over at Madison. He remembers how beautiful he used to think she was, and knows that the tension that hangs over their home shouldn’t be necessary. He knows she is fiercely insecure, but the distance it has created feels insurmountable. He tries to think of words to bridge the gap, but she looks up and catches him staring and he panics. “Can you turn off the light? I’m out,” he says. 68 68

“How was your work?” “Good.” “Get a lot done?” “Yeah, it went well.” “When’s the next conference?” “Two weeks.” He pauses and remembers that it started with an M, but feels obligated to answer so she won’t get suspicious. “Milwaukee.” “Of course. Goodnight.” The lights are out and he closes his computer, trying to think of anything other than the axe, the caution tape, the stereo system with blank displays.

o

They sit in bed as Ethan studies his laptop. Madison knows he has the privacy screen on so he can edit and view files while he does work on planes. She instinctively looks over to see what he’s doing, but she can’t see and doesn’t want him to think she’s prying. She has made comments before that have led to a blowout, so she pretends to read her news on a tablet device while he does work. Something dings on his computer and she knows that it means some sort of instant message. She keeps her head still, but moves her eyes as far as she can toward him without him noticing. It looks like he’s grinning. She sniffs and returns to her news story. The page says something about a homicide by a Russian man who killed his brother’s wife and two children with a large chef’s knife. She is drawn to the details, and feels guilty though she can’t get enough. She clicks on link after link, and only stops when she sees a leaked photo of the crime scene itself. She clicks out and hopes it is simply a screenshot from a 69 69 horror film. Then she remembers one they had seen recently that had claimed it was based on a true story, so she goes back into the web browser and searches for clues to that. Given the publicity of the crime and the years of leaked, unprotected old photos, she finds herself in a war zone of actual pictures from the event that the movie was based on, mixed in with brutal special effects shots from the film— she can’t tell which is which. A pregnant woman is bludgeoned to death in a corner, and there is a man frozen in fear with sixteen stab wounds on his right side. A half severed head lies facedown on the bottom step of a flight of stairs, trailing just ahead of the remainder of a mangled body. There is more and she can’t stop scrolling. It is fascinating, unknown, and restricted. Little in life remains a mystery, so the disgust incited by the images does nothing to outweigh the need to know more, or simply just to know. She sniffs and snaps out of the trance. She feels sick to her stomach but can’t stop thinking of what it must feel like for a knife to plunge inside of her. She can’t take her mind away from the reality of the something that could come at any moment unannounced, the tragedies that could happen every day to anyone under the sun. She wonders if they had any premonitions, any warnings of such a monumental occurrence as their own deaths. She wants to ask them if they accepted what was happening even as it happened. And she wants to ask how the murderer, in this case, got to the point of having the ability to do what he did. She scrolls, further down and farther away from anything mild. The images get closer, bloodier. She feels like she may vomit but she also feels a warm sensation on her inner thigh as she pictures the knife moving in and out, past every layer of skin, past the muscle and inside, deep inside— She feels eyes on her and looks over to see Ethan staring. “Can you turn off the light? I’m out.” 70 70

“How was your work?” “Good.” “Get a lot done?” “Yeah, it went well.” “When’s the next conference?” “Two weeks.” He pauses and looks panicked. “Milwaukee.” “Of course. Goodnight.” Who can know the day or the hour? The lights are out and she looks at one last open-mouthed stab victim before she turns her device off. The woman’s hair is matted down and her eyes are bruised and sunken. That woman knew she was going to die. She knew.

o

They have been attending the same church for years now, but neither spends more time talking to others than what is required at the beginning of service when the man on stage cries out for the congregation to greet each other. “Tell someone sitting next to you that you’re glad to see them today, Amen?” Just like that, and he says it like a question. Now music starts, and Madison looks around for people Ethan may know, perhaps match faces to the various online friends he claimed were necessary for networking. One young woman in the front pew stands when the choir sings the word “stand.” One by one, like the moles from that carnival game that get bopped on the 71 71 head, the people in front and most likely behind them sprout up and sing. Some stand reluctantly, but Ethan pops up inspired and Madison follows. One bearded fellow just beyond them, the one masquerading a rug as a suit, is snapping—he is actually snapping and he isn’t even on rhythm. A woman with coke-bottle spectacles sings too loudly. Perhaps if she closes her eyes like the rest, her hearing senses would immediately be focused and she will either sing with the beat or even stop singing altogether. Everyone should be aware of their weaknesses. Madison can’t help but smile at the eccentricities of others. She feels relief at ending her frantic search for a clue to infidelity. She looks up at Ethan, who is motions to the Snapper. They both laugh. She breathes in deeply and starts clapping on rhythm to the song, thankful that maybe the problem is more with her than Ethan, and that perhaps she can relax from now on and enjoy their time together—at least for the moment. She looks at the Snapper one more time, and a girl makes eye contact before quickly looking away. It is that young girl from Ethan’s work. Madison thinks her name is associated with an animal, but she can’t remember how. She thinks it should be Cow, though this girl is young and she is pretty, she is engaging and outgoing. PR people have to be—it is a label that excuses all manner of sins. “Kat!” Madison looks around to find out if she had said it out loud. She is safe. After service Ethan says he has work. Even though it’s Family Day, he leaves. Madison finds it suspicious that Kat does not greet them on the way out. What is she hiding?

o 72 72

Ethan leaves his computer on the couch again. It times out exactly sixty seconds after use and is replaced by a screensaver that requires a password. Kat is not that password, but neither is Madison. It is not the kind of password that is attached to any account that can be recovered. It is one that he also claims is required by his computer. He often leaves the computer unattended, but not in the way that the phone is left unattended, as agreed upon to keep up trust, to inspire unity. When he leaves the computer, it makes Madison smile because what lying man in his right mind would allow such a folly? Whenever he leaves it unattended, she also counts backwards from sixty. It’s lunchtime, and Ethan shows up unexpectedly. He sets his phone on the kitchen counter. “Trouble at the office?” “I can’t come home and enjoy some time with my wife?” She seems baffled, but doesn’t resist. “Meatball sandwich?” He smiles. “That would be great.” He turns on his computer and types his password. Something dings and he laughs while she drops the frozen meatballs on a pan. It dings again and he types quickly. “Something good? Anything interesting?” she dares to ask. He doesn’t answer. He just types something, and she watches his hand click the mouse. He stands up and goes to the restroom. 60, 59, 58. She turns the oven on and waits. 45, 44. 73 73

The toilet still hasn’t flushed. 23, 22, 21. It’s silly, really. She moves to the dining room, closer to where the computer is. 17, 16, 15, 14. She is breathing heavily, and a wave of déjà vu hits stronger than ever before. She’s been here before—often. The arrow on the screen is where the minimize box would have been. Three programs are open. Ethan is standing in the hallway. “Something wrong?” She corrects her shocked expression and hopes her pale face doesn’t reflect her rapidly beating heart. “I was…” He moves on, checking something on the computer screen and then his phone rings. It plays a song that Madison’s not used to hearing. It is not his standard ringtone, and she looks up at him as the oven signals having reached its destination point. He leaves his computer and answers the phone, looking baffled. 59, 58. “Hello?” He starts laughing. “I wondered! Thanks for that tune, I guess I need to lock this phone from now on—I’m at home but I—are you sure—no, well I guess—they are?” He stretches the corners of his mouth to Madison and shows his bottom teeth. “Well, alright, if it must—ok.” 45, 44, 43. She purses her lips and nods. “It’s ok.” 74 74

“It’s a big client and they need me to sort out some numbers,” he says as he leans his head sideways and raises his eyebrow in apology. 39, 38, 37. “I understand.” “I’ll see you after work hon. Let’s hope this doesn’t go late!” 31, 30, 29. “Let’s hope it doesn’t.” “I’ll call if I can.” A quick kiss on the cheek and he’s out the door. Madison doesn’t move until she hears the car door shut and the engine start. The windows are thin, so even the shift to reverse is heard clearly. He is gone. 15, 14, 13. She turns off the oven and glances at the computer screen. It’s facing away from her now. 8,7,6…



A phone on the counter vibrates. Ethan is watching the game but is suspicious of Madison’s silence. He wants to focus on the game because Ollie had pressured him into contributing to the fantasy league at work, and he is hoping he can win and surprise Madison with the results rather than lose and explain why he gave up so much money. The phone vibrates again and he stands up to get it, reprimanding himself about leaving it on the kitchen counter as a sign of trust, even though now that they are married, trust should be expected. 75 75

Before he can read it, he looks around to see where Madison is. He had taken it for granted that she wasn’t home, expecting her to be in the bathroom or in the garage. Both were empty and he chides himself for not immediately noticing that her car was gone. He goes into the hallway and the garage starts opening before he can check the phone. He pockets it quickly and hears the car door slam. Then the trunk. Then the rustling of shopping bags. She slams open the door to the garage and storms straight across the hallway and into the bedroom. Ethan has seen her like this before, and is afraid that she’s using the hormones as an excuse. He remains silent. He also wonders what was in the trunk. He knew she had been hiding her tablet from him and wants to know what it was she was ashamed or even guilty of. She had been showing passive-aggressive tendencies again, but it had been so long since the last blowout. He goes into the garage and sees a large brown bag from the hardware store. He moves closer and peeks inside, trying to look without crumpling the paper to avoid being heard through the paper-thin walls. Plumbing supplies for the sink. He had forgotten again. That explains it all.



She is back in the kitchen and cooking, but everything is slamming and nothing looks right from what he can tell. He looks at the counter and realizes he left the phone in his pocket, so he nods to himself and shakes his head. “Sorry I forgot. I was just thrown off by you not being home.” She ignores him, but he sets the phone on the counter anyway. 76 76

“Look I know I never bought those supplies, but I’ll work on the sink tonight,” is what he wants to say. He remains silent, calculating whether or not he should admit that he followed his suspicions into the garage and into the hardware store bag. She is touchy, and he doesn’t want to poke at something that might set her off. The phone rings, and this time it’s a dance party mix to a bubblegum pop song by a girl who sounds like a young teenager. Both Ethan and Madison stop what they’re doing and look at the phone. He moves up to it with a genuinely confused expression. “Clarence?” He answers. “Hello? No. No. This is—” He moves it away from his ear and looks at the phone closely. He laughs nervously. “No, no. Sorry, I’m a co-worker. Must’ve switched phones.” He hangs up. She is silent in the kitchen but staring at him with owl eyes. “It’s not—” “Who?” “Just someone from the office, we must’ve—” “Who?” “Some secretary. Kat.” He sees his computer closed and doesn’t remember if he had left it that way or not. Either way, he doesn’t think she knows his password. He has little to hide, but knows this looks bad. Kat, admittedly a flirt, had been at the meeting and they carried the same model and color of phone, so she was always playing pranks by changing his settings. She must have forgotten to switch the phones back. 77 77

Madison stares through him, at the television. He turns around and sees that it has turned to static, as it often does given their intermittent reception. He looks back to her and watches as she loses herself in the static, as his wife becomes entranced by it. He imagines the light flickering like a candle on her fair complexion and he remembers for a moment how much he once longed for intimacy with her. “Hon? Madison?” She is ignoring him and he knows he doesn’t deserve this treatment. He is tired of feeling guilty for things he didn’t do, and nothing happened in the hotel room. Why should he have to leave his phone on the counter, come home for lunch just to avoid silent treatment, ignore all the people he knew at church just so she wouldn’t feel jealous? “Mattie!” She shakes her head in disgust. “Nothing happened! It was probably a prank.” “Sure,” she says. “This— I—” The phone slips from his hand and the screen cracks. “Talk!” he says. “Say something! Nothing happened!” She just stares. He bites his tongue and flares his nostrils. “Talk!”

o

78 78

The car is speeding and Madison feels like she is flying. Her phone is ringing off the hook and she wonders how it even got there. The radio plays static and even though she keeps attempting to change the station, it seems that nothing is available. She feels fury coursing through her veins, but is thankful she had the courage to remove herself from the situation. She had only seen him act that way once before, and it had subsided quickly after he had repeated some sort of mantra under his breath. She is confused about the combination of violent words directed at her, mingled with her feelings about Kat and the fact that it isn’t Milwaukee that he is going to, but Minneapolis as stated in an email she found on his computer. Who is in Minneapolis? Why did he lie? Is Kat meeting him there? Is he meeting her family? She wants to drive as fast as she can, but it seems every stoplight in town is against her. Red, red, red. When she checks herself in the mirror, she can’t help but think of the picture of the dead woman with the matted hair. She looks down at her phone and sees an unknown number calling. It must be Ethan calling from Kat’s phone. He would call and apologize, and she would forgive him and they would go back to what they call normal. She drives faster and runs a red light. It’s late enough to be safe and the road is empty, but she hopes it isn’t a light with a traffic camera. She is on the two-lane country road again. The phone keeps ringing and she rolls down her window to throw it out. She doesn’t even hear it hit the pavement before feeling the relief of a kind of freedom. She breathes heavily in and her stuffed nose rattles. She continues turning stations until a familiar song pops on, but it sounds too close to that girl’s ringtone. She turns it off. Silence. She looks up just as a stopped car’s trunk enters her windshield. 79 79

o

There is only static on the radio and lights that spin in a strange manner and in all directions. She hears Ethan yelling and someone’s phone ringing. Someone is talking in a hushed manner and when her blurry vision allows her a better view, she sees a metal sculpture surrounding her, embracing her. She thinks it might be some sort of art, and she wonders if she could see it more clearly, would she find it beautiful?



Madison used to imagine herself going back in time and watching Young Madison as she went about her day, not knowing which chance meetings may lead to a lover, a marriage, or simply an important life moment. She would observe Young Madison as her current self, taking in what she did and wondering if she had any sort of premonition for the moments which would lead to the larger occasions in life. When she first met Ethan, they were at coffee doing homework. There were no tables left because the place was crowded. She had already been there, and he simply walked up and asked if he could share a table. She was shy, but said yes because he had kind eyes. Modern Madison wouldn’t have intervened, because she would have been taken in by the moment in much the same way Young Madison had been. But did her younger self know? Did she have any hint as to how much her life had changed at that moment? Madison vaguely remembers such thoughts, but they float away like a dream, unattainable but for a second. Time moves forward at such a rate that there is no looking back. She can no longer talk, but she can type into a machine that 80 80 looks like a laptop. It speaks the words she writes, and she writes as much as she can while she thinks. She wishes thoughts wouldn’t escape so quickly, so she tries to keep up with them, knowing that once they are whisked away, she may never access them again. They sit together in church still, but they stay in the back where there is a handicap space next to a smaller pew. They arrive just after the command to greet, and they leave just before the congregation is dismissed. When everyone stands to sing, they both look down and Ethan mumbles the words while her fingers dance over her keypad without pressing any buttons. She silently asks God if he still hears her singing them in her heart, or if he requires her to type them for validity, but then the thought escapes her. People tell her things, but it’s hard to remember. The accident, the accident. They said speeding, but it seems too simple an explanation for something leading to so many complications—though complications often begin with something simple and end with a lack of communication. At least that’s what Ethan would have said at one of his conferences. While watching TV, a phone vibrates on the table and neither answer it. “Who would be calling?” he asks rhetorically, with a hint of anticipation. “Must be a sales person,” she types. “We’ll have to take ourselves off whatever list they have.” Both face forward as the commercial ends. They sit in silence as their favorite show returns, the flickering lights of the screen dancing on their stoic expressions. Madison tries to remember what she had wanted to paint before the accident, and thinks about how she may be able to go about that someday. Ethan wonders what Kat is doing, and then quickly shoves the thought aside, as if the contraption Madison uses to speak can somehow read his mind. He eyes his anti- 81 81 depressants and takes another in the same manner a child would receive dessert. They both drift off to sleep as a shopping ad for an old-fashioned love song collection plays. As they close their eyes, the world slowly goes dark and they dream about the moments in life that felt new.

WAVE

You always saw my life as part of a larger story, and I wanted to immerse others in story, specifically by designing an amusement park. I’d draw intricate park maps, lines of imagined risk, worlds of feigned adventure. My park had no name, but much of it was ocean-themed, the centerpiece a giant sandcastle that separated a boardwalk retail area from the rest of the park, divided up into sections that contained their own specific escapades. The boardwalk stood over a man- made ocean with real waves, measured and cyclic.

At the same time that you were crawling across the floor, forcing cancer- ridden limbs to submit to a final test of will, fighting a war you knew you had already lost, I dreamt we were at an amusement park together. It was just the two of us, and similar to the parks I had designed and had drawn in years past, this one was full of wicked imagination—it was intended to scare and delight. As is expected of dreams, the rides were enormous and broke all laws of physics. You wanted to ride them all.

You were sliding along the ground, soldier at war, seeking the gun before Mom would wake up. I was telling you how afraid I was and saying I couldn’t ride these, that I wasn’t ready. You were loading a single bullet with impossibly shaken hands—stints, drugs and radiation. I was resisting a giant roller coaster, a behemoth I wanted to design for others more daring than I, controlling every wave of every hill but inherently unable to brave them.

When you would fly away for work, I would watch through foggy window at ungodly hours as your plane would take off—we could wait at the gate back 83 83 then. Mom would tell us to stay until your plane would take off. Then we would wave—pretending, and at the time believing, that we could see you waving back.

When they rolled you out in front of us, face and body covered in a green canvas bag, my mom and I waved—believing, but mainly hoping, that you could see us waving goodbye one last time.



SUICIDELAND

The kids are staring at the screen again, eyes aglow with the dancing reflections of a cartoon bear frolicking through a forest—something simple, someone they see that looks familiar. Lenny the Bear trips and falls and they laugh. He stands up and tells them that sometimes life is full of unexpected twists, hiccups along the road. He tells them to come see the consequences of a life ill- lived, but one where escape is possible at every turn. “Maybe you need a break,” Felix the Klown cries out. Lenny is startled and trips again and the kids laugh as Felix hops out from behind the bushes. “Maybe you need a way out… of the house. Come see what parents don’t want you to see. Maybe this opens your eyes, maybe this saves you from the world, or the world from you. There’s no safer place to fulfill your hungry imagination than Suicideland!”

One short flight and welcome to the beginning of the end—the first stop here in the park. Participant Maribel has her face painted today, all spiderwebs and tattoos and skull craters to highlight her eyes. She looks like beauty in death and she’s chosen the Boom Room. This attraction is performed before a live audience made of ticket holders who’ve chosen this day and this attraction to start with. In front of the crowd, Maribel climbs a kind of ladder and ends up on a well-lit platform. Now she has options here, but the highest rated is the Sling Ring—it’s showier and she does want to go out with a bang. Arrangements, by the way, are part of the plan. The lawyers will make sure her family (if she has one) receives the rest of the insurance money immediately. 85 85

And the personalized letter to her loved ones (or even a celebrity crush) will be postmarked the same day. So Maribel has signed her paperwork and is immediately given the Elite, a combination of euphoric drugs meant to sooth, stimulate, and sometimes even arouse. Once ingested, she has six hours to do as she pleases, the attraction itself scheduled within five. If she forgoes the attraction of choice and other arrangements can’t be made, the Elite does its job in a manner that is often described as transcendent. In this case, it’s been four hours, and Maribel, beaming, climbs the steps under what is designed to look and feel like a real big top from the early Twentieth Century. She is the star trapeze artist tonight, making her way out on the platform in front of a wall painted with a giant red target. It’s show time and she’s the star. Maribel takes in the cheers. She giggles and waves, mouth taut and teeth glimmering now that she has the attention she so longs for. She pictures the Televised Celebration of Life she has chosen to buy with her insurance money, and how her family will remember and appreciate her in front of the entire world. She thinks of her Grandma Jane and of her first dog Simon, and wonders if they will be waiting for her, the only two she ever felt truly cared. She wonders what they would say about— She feels faint, but the warmth that spreads throughout starts in her belly and creeps downward. The crowd crescendos. She looks up through a haze at the dangling rope and pulls the release. Part of the tent above her zips open and from it a .45 caliber handgun on a rigid steel cable arcs toward her, a mechanical lever snaps the trigger and boom! 86 86

Maribel is shot point blank in the face with a golden keepsake hollow point, head painted on the wall behind her and mouth still smiling wider than she has in years. The rest of her falls forward into a net twenty feet below and earns her a standing ovation. “And all that’s left is that beautiful smile folks, thanks for coming down… Herb!” A man in a janitor suit with a clown wig and a matching mop starts working his way up from the bottom step. The crowd files out of the turnstiles and into the open air of the park, smelling of cotton candy and churros. Paine Street is full of hometown nostalgia with nods to the macabre, featuring Felix’s Clown Around Snack Shack, the Lenny Bear Maul, and the House of Paincakes. The Guillotine Gift Shoppe has been around since the park opened and features paraphernalia related to the world- famous attractions, as well as the PicPass hub so that guests never forget to remember their fantastic day.

Up ahead is the Mini G, a record-breaking roller coaster at 200 meters tall, with three consecutive loops and space enough in between to keep the G-forces at bay. This is on the park’s short but growing list of Non-Lethal Attractions for thrillseekers who are 48” or taller. Just beyond and above that, Danny eyes the featured E-coaster, The Glory Roll. It stands 500 meters tall with an almost vertical drop into seven consecutively smaller loops. It reaches 10 G’s of force and sustains them long enough to put riders to sleep before gently suffocating the brain. In short, they will be experiencing what the founding astronauts once felt when flying into space! But the drop is for thrill-seekers only—riders are awake for that part. 87 87

Danny heads toward the attraction and touches his VIPass, a magnetic insert painlessly planted into his forearm to designate him as an active Participant. The award-winning Participant Experience Representative points at the entrance as a neon sign flashes green: ASCEND. Danny is smiling in excitement as he crosses a series of themed bridges with images of the sky overhead. A scale model of New York City lies underneath through a mist meant to simulate walking on clouds, a notion that is about to become a reality in more ways than one. Once he reaches the loading station, he is seated in the two-man vehicle with a woman whose eyes are closed. Danny looks at the Ride Operator, who assures him that the Elite affects some Participants sooner than others, and that she is simply asleep. Danny smiles and raises his fists in the air with the same enthusiasm that often garnered ridicule at his school and even at home. “Enjoy your flight, son!” They ascend, now through real clouds as the fog hangs low today. Danny giggles in awe as the wind picks up. The structure sways near the top, the elasticity of the steel indicating durability over weakness. Danny instinctively grabs the side of the car and feels terror when he looks at the pavement over 1000 feet below—he had always been afraid of heights but knows the lap bar is meant to keep him safely in his seat. The rapid clicking sounds of the anti-rollback device under the car slow to a metronomic tempo as the car crests over the edge. The woman next to Danny wakes up with a start. Park guests stand on a bridge that crosses a path through the center of the loops, waiting in silence before a mechanical roar mixed with shrill, thrill-seeking screams echoes from above. The aerodynamic car emerges, and the crowd looks 88 88 up as the first enormous loop silences the riders. The speeding bullet slows down with each loop and the roar grows soft, and softer, and then silent. A crew emerges to remove the bodies for burial—that view costs an extra fee for admission, but the bridge is free.

Upon venturing further into the park, guests pass over the nostalgic yellow road through a series of eucalyptus trees and between two private water towers. Not one to waste space, the founder of the park has included winding staircases to the top of each, where an indoor platform lies just below ropes of varying lengths that are held tightly to a metal rod above. These are shaped into nooses and meant to terminally function approximately three to four meters above an open-air platform on which park guests watch, take pictures, and, now a growing tradition, catch loose change from the heavy pockets of Participants. This view is free, and even if the platform beneath is full, there are numerous vantage points from which to take in the sights. When signing up in the Attraction section of the qualifying questionnaire, Participants often confuse these towers with The Dam Snapper, which in appearance and form is actually quite different. A life-size replica of the Hoover Dam hangs off of the back end of the park, requiring four sets of record-length escalators to escort guests to the pricey splash-zone below. On a large screen, viewers can watch close-ups of the active Participant harnessing up and preparing for their jump with a bungee cord engineered to snap just above the asphalt bullseye. Hosts of the attraction are often improvisational actors who enjoy hamming it up: “Nothin’ will possibly go wrong, we’ve been testing this cord on the homeless for over a century!” Cue uproarious laughter. 89 89

Once the Participant has jumped, the hosts often pull out giant scissors or even toy chainsaws to feign the cut before the bungee snaps, leading to a terminal fall. One minor sidenote, by the way—a celebrity guest once requested an oversized bungee instead of one that breaks, which resulted in a larger radius of mess when the jumper, imbalanced after initial impact, bounced erratically and spread the fun outside of the intended radius. The park no longer carries an Invisible Menu of sorts. The ever-evolving and popular options should exceed desires as is.

Above the Dam and further south on the map is the Pepsi-Cola Coliseum, featuring lions, tigers, bears and, starting next season, chimpanzees. The Coliseum is the best place to get pictures with Lenny and Felix, along with other popular characters inspired by and created for the park. Nearby is The Cutty Museum, an exact replica of The Olde J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, but painted red to blend in with the inordinate amount of blood spilled on attractions such as the Sword Appeal, The Trim-poline Field, and the Dice Cube. More than any other attraction, these often change form and function every season, but remain within the general theme of piercings. Real art exhibits in the Museum often highlight modern surrealist painters, including the late Edvard Loburg’s infamously haunted collection.

It is now winter and Amber is wearing a fishnet dress with only flesh- colored underwear beneath. She is walking through an open orange grove toward an old Southern-style Victorian mansion. She has taken two Elites, as required by Participants at Belasco Manor in addition to being at least 16 years of age (13 and up for the rest of the park). She is already smiling and is flattered by the catcalls 90 90 and claps from everyone around her. She enters through the stage door after scanning her VIPass and is greeted by multiple Participant Experience Representatives. She gets a free viewing of Deep Dark and WellWellWell if she so chooses. The former is an asphyxiation room where guests are given night vision goggles as Participants are enclosed in a glass case whereupon air is sucked out with an overhead vacuum. The latter is a giant magician’s water tank on a stage in a room with an old-fashioned theater. Both are referred to as The Tanks at Belasco. There are three tanks, however, and Amber is about to reach hers. She giggles and removes her clothes of her own accord, wanting the full experience, which is encouraged if one so desires. She moves past guests who, for this tank, are required to sit at least four meters away. The room is dimly lit with torches on the wall and a mock kitchen surrounding the tank in keeping with the Belasco Manor theme. She steps inside a metal case with thick clear walls surrounding her—it is roughly the size of four coffins, so it is quite roomy as one may feel they need to explore their space during the event. She is barefoot but the open mesh metal beneath her has a soft sealant on top for comfort. A Participant Experience Representative whispers something to her and closes the door, locking it with a spin of the Seal Wheel. Amber looks through the opaque two-inch thick glass and sees blurry faces smiling, very much like a vintage Loburg. She waves and moves her hips back and forth before pretending to touch the red button next to her. Then she backs off, feigning a naïve smile. “She is certainly giving us a show folks!” Everyone laughs. There is little clarity left, but she squints and a shape through the glass becomes the shape she remembers as her father. White teeth glow through and she 91 91 thinks of his mustache and the way it scratched her cheek when she was young. It was rough, but pleasant. She hasn’t thought of him in some time, and a wave of nostalgia rises up through images of needles and hospital beds and stitches and goodbyes— She slams her palm against the button and the Sin Tin does its work, a retired NASA rocket-launcher releasing enough heat to disintegrate her within a minute. “And all that’s left is that beautiful smile, folks, thanks for coming down!” Herb has to wait hours before he can pick up the teeth, which, if the family allows it (if there is family at all), are set in a ball of plastic over a plaque, and displayed in the Library of the Manor.

In the decade since the park opened, only one incident has occurred that required any extraneous law consultations and, unfortunately and unfairly, garnered media attention. The Boom Room attraction misfired and simply disfigured a Participant, who, still smiling on one side, tried to say something to the audience. The lawsuits resulted when a newer employee grabbed the gun and finished the job, thereby violating the contract in his involvement. Luckily, the employee was let go and the park continued on with its usual business, avoiding any questions relating to James B. Stewart’s so-called exposé, Behind the Smiles. In spite of this ever so minor hiccup in the history of the only park where even the sky isn’t the limit, park officials are proud to say that no accidental deaths have ever occurred, designating this as the safest park in the world.

THINGS UNSEEN

Edvard Loburg mouthed phrases that meant little to him at such a young age. He could read music, but Latin still eluded any corporeal association, though its mystery added something like beauty for the youth. While singing in the back row of a choir during an arrangement of “How Great Thou Art”, the winter sun shone through one of the uppermost stained-glass windows of the cathedral at just the right time to match the crescendo of the chorus, leaving an impression that formed in him an understanding of the miraculous. Though just a minor event, he referred to this moment of emotional transcendence throughout his life, and, in a way, it inspired his artistic pursuits. He became a painter, seeking to capture on canvas the experience he’d had in that choir as a boy—to reveal to others the mystery of dreams, the grandeur just beyond the realms of vision, the things unseen. He painted mountains as large as the earth, ones he dreamt were hiding in the clouds just beyond his village. He painted an abyss in the sea that mimicked the sky and looked more like dawn as it pushed the depths of our world, appearing somehow cooler and more beautiful as it sunk. He depicted clouds shaped like castles beyond the horizon, where impressionist renderings of a crowd of people floated in the sky without ever falling, walking along rain-soaked cloud paths on their way to somewhere important. Unlike many other artists of his time and of times since, his pieces became successful almost immediately, garnering attention from the local clergy at first, followed by politicians and then enthusiasts out into the surrounding towns. Tall and skeletal, always dressed in a black frock coat with a matching fedora, he’d occasionally hold a crowd at a showing of one of his paintings, telling everyone to look up at the sky or off into the distant mountains and close their eyes halfway. 93 93

He’d tell them to add grandeur to what they saw, capturing what lay between God’s painted lines. He’d then tell them then to open their eyes fully and look for glimpses of the divine in his own works. His first collection was to consist of seven pieces inspired by these invisible visions he saw, or pretended to see, or perhaps simply felt. Given the improvisational nature of his inspirations, he became stumped after the first six, which he revealed once a month at first, then once a season, with the sixth spaced a year apart from the fifth. After much prayer, he went to the altar one day to seek God’s help. Partway through his request, he heard an audible whisper and immediately looked up. A light through a stained glass window again shone through, and he followed the beam as it landed on a woman kneeling in prayer at the pew behind him. Upon finishing her prayer, she looked up to see Edvard standing just above her, wide-eyed and trembling. He asked her not to stop, but she had already been given what she had just asked for. And so had he. They married a month later and moved to a cottage that allowed him to reside in the midst of the nature he so loved to translate, while still remaining close enough to the village to walk to the cathedral, buy necessities, and show off his latest works. Each morning Edvard would watch his wife Elise wake up, and in the evenings, fall asleep. During the day, he would touch the lines of her face and study the depths of her eyes, studying, as he said, the patterns God used to stitch such an elaborate tapestry. Elise was, without a doubt, the seventh and final painting for his first collection. With much trepidation and reverence, he attempted to sketch her countenance with charcoal before putting paint to canvas. He spent as much time 94 94 sketching her likeness as a foundation than he did finishing any three of his previous works. One day, when Elise had gone to the village to collect items from the grocer, Edvard dipped his brush in a mixture of oil paint and beeswax for consistency. As he traced the lines and added colors, his charcoal sketch disappeared under the thickening pigments. Once finished with a rendering of his attempt, he stepped back and noticed a black mark grazing her cheek. He fixed it immediately with a mixture of sienna, white and ochre, and upon looking again, was satisfied for a time. The next morning, he discovered another black stain, this time just above her right eye. He found, in fact, that he couldn’t paint her without each time discovering a black mark that appeared in different places with each new layer. This dark and subtle stain haunted and eluded him, but something bothered him more—he couldn’t accurately portray her features, each new attempt resulting in less of a likeness than the last. Elise would ask him why he wouldn’t try another canvas, but his response was that this particular one must be graced with her and her alone—a superstition garnered by his previous successes. Outsiders would visit and ask when the final piece of his collection would be revealed, but Edvard had instructed Elise to send anyone away until a time had come when he could reveal his work as it should be. As he continued his efforts, the canvas displayed an increasing roughness of the beeswax craters and chipped paint. Not having previously experienced this degree of artist’s block, he punished himself for his inability to perfect the image, eating and sleeping very little throughout the process, losing track of time and date, and viewing his young wife through a haze—as if in a dream.

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Weeks passed, then months. On one cold day, indistinguishable to him from any other, he looked up from his latest failed attempt and realized Elise had gone. He went inside to see her, but she wasn’t there. He grew worried when she hadn’t arrived home before dark, so he went looking for her. After asking around town, shocking those who hadn’t seen him in some time by his malnourished sunken face, he finally found her staying at an inn near the doctor’s office, where she had fainted and been taken in by the owner. The doctor immediately told him that she had taken a turn for the worse. Edvard, agitated, begged the doctor and owner of the inn to explain. As it happened, Elise had been ill for some time, growing more pale and emaciated with each passing month. The doctor expressed shock at Edvard never having noticed. Edvard told him that Elise took care of their home, often going to the village and leaving Edvard alone to his business, as she felt that she didn’t want to stand in the way of high art. The doctor suggested that he should talk with her when she awoke and that perhaps the owner of the inn should explain how she had contracted such a disease. He suggested that perhaps the priest should visit, but was unclear as to whether he meant for penance or last rites. The doctor then mumbled something incoherent, while the innkeeper shook his head and gave threatening gestures if he were to speak further. The ailing Edvard took little notice—all the while, he held her hand, kissing her forehead, begging forgiveness. In time, the doctor gave up and left, the innkeeper now placated and offering assistance while attending to his many businesses. When Elise awoke, the couple spent the evening conversing as she lay in bed—she making plans for her passing, he expressing disbelief and desperate hope. 96 96

The next morning she faded away, lines of white washing away her expression before Edvard’s bloodshot eyes. Edvard stayed in town, overwhelmed by the support of the men in town whom he had little acquaintance with prior. The services were held the day following her death, and he was allowed to remain with her even after the mortician had visited the inn, to dress her for viewing and to paint her face as it looked in life. Edvard, defeated, allowed it and took note of the colors the man chose to express beauty in death. When Edvard returned home three days later, the seventh painting stood on an easel by his bed. He stared at it, not remembering putting it there, but challenged by the black stain on Elise’s neck and by the false skin tone that stood in opposition to the gaunt yellow she had displayed just before she had passed. He covered it with the sheets from their bed and threw it in the attic.

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After some time, Edvard started his second collection, a series of six paintings meant to mimic the first, but this time with the opposite aim. Each piece in the collection, initially not revealed to the public, looked exactly like its mirror piece but with a macabre and sometimes horrific tone. The earth-sized mountain had a menacing face, representing now the all-encompassing destructive side of nature—when looked at closely, orange lines of melted rock spilled down the sides, and the haphazard dead trees upon its steep and rugged cliffs often formed vague likenesses of skulls. The abyss revealed what would be expected from an abyss—the deeper it went, the hotter the hell. The cloud castles had moats and drawbridges and heads on spikes, albeit all in cloud form and subtle until carefully 97 97 looked at—the hazy forms of people floating through the air all looked down, minded their own business, appeared somehow suicidal in their aim. The paintings were inspired nightmares, just as difficult to turn away from as the originals and subtle in what could be misconstrued as sensationalist or overly visceral. More alarming than the content, however, was the fact that he finished them all in two weeks. As for the seventh painting, Edvard carried it down from the attic and made it the focus of his existence, starving himself as he attempted to carefully paint Elise as she once was when he first saw her. After several attempts, and perhaps unable to erase the black mark that still plagued the painting, he sought help. The last person to see him alive was the priest, who admitted that Edvard had come to him in distress, confessing to him that Elise had been returning in dreams but looking like each new rendition of the failed attempts at painting her. The dreams had started out peaceful and had inspired him to try at his art again, but Elise had become increasingly violent, warning that he must join her if she wasn’t rendered properly, pockmarked and blackened as the rough oil and beeswax built up. Upon speaking with the priest, who attempted to convince Edvard that the late Elise was perhaps not what he imagined, Edvard went back and covered the canvas with layers of pitch black paint. He was unable, however, to erase the impression of her that continually grew more hideous with each attempt. A parishioner sent by the old priest sought to establish Edvard’s health a few days later, returning after failing to receive a response from the artist. Time passed, the priest grew ill, and the inhabitants of the town forgot about Edvard. They had been used to looking at him as a recluse, and had little concern with his paintings, as it had been two years since anyone had seen anything new from him. 98 98

A suspicious postman discovered him a month after the parishioner’s visit—Edvard decaying, lying in his own dried blood and an inordinate amount of black paint. A canvas stood on an easel above his body, black as night with a small grayish stain in the bottom corner. 

His twelve paintings have since become the subject of speculation and superstition, displayed throughout Europe, generally mis-associated with suicides taking place in the vicinity. The thirteenth painting, officially titled Deep Dark (or The Darkness over the Water in some exhibits), is always the highlight, creating controversy as to its standalone place in art amongst his other pieces, which reveal a cross between impressionist and modernist pieces. The cottage remains, the interior full of stains and covered in black paint. It is treated as a historical site and owned by the local government. A choral rendition of “How Great Thou Art” in Latin plays from a phonograph in the living room, which lies next to a closed Bible. It costs very little to walk through and see what is left of a man whose life was dedicated to that which we cannot see. To this end, the canvases hanging on the walls of this historic site are unpainted, chalk- white and waiting for a touch of imagination.

ROOM 213

The promotion no longer mattered. Neither did Room 213’s lingering smell of smoke which had, only moments ago, threatened Buck’s sanity. Elsie was gone. He leaned forward in the armchair, about to kick off his shoes. “There was a Chinese boy who drowned trying to kiss the moon in the river.” “He was drunk, but terribly poetic don't you think,” Buck mouthed along with Katherine Hepburn. She had been Elsie’s favorite actress. He leaned back, forgetting his shoes, forgetting everything but her. Suddenly, the bed was their bed. The lamp was the lamp her mother had given them for their wedding that they never got rid of in spite of his insistence. That kiss on the television was their first kiss, on the rocks of the jetty that overlooked a moonlit bay at Shelter Island. Buck picked up his tape recorder and hit record. “October first. Elsie is gone.” He stopped it and rewound the tape. Play. His voice echoed back, then silence. He waited for a response, for some sound to echo back his, as it had always done when she was alive. He hit record again. “Do you remember that first party, Elsie? I do. Those dark eyes looked right into me. Did you know then? Do you remember? Do you remember that?” Stop. Rewind. Play. “Do you remember that,” he mouthed along with his own voice echoing through a chasm of static and loneliness. Then silence. 100 100

He really had expected something that time. In spite of his melancholy demeanor, he laughed. That soft, sing-song voice would never again speak his name, or any other for that matter.

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Buck’s shoes were off now. He stood in the off-white socks she had bought him from the local thrift store. They had been struggling with money ever since he had lost his first job at the bank. It had been the worst time in their marriage. So bad, in fact, that Buck felt they had never recovered the purity of the relationship that they had shared before it. Time does paint roses where once there had only been weeds, he thought. Maybe all those times were just lies, memories made to look beautiful in comparison to the chaos of what came after, nostalgia as asymptote. “Maybe even today will someday be painted with a heavy coat of dreams and lies,” he whispered to himself, pleased with his lyricism. “Mr. Appleby?” Buck stood still as someone knocked on the door. “Mr. Appleby, someone is here to see you.” For what seemed like an eternity, Buck stood still in thick, painful silence, broken only by the muffled whispers of what sounded like two men outside his door. His voice caught in his throat, and then he mumbled, “Who is it?” “It’s me. Charles.” Moments later, Buck’s estranged son-in-law was standing in the entryway. “Wasn’t sure you’d make it in time,” Buck said. “Well I didn’t get much notice.” 101 101

“Unexpected, terrible thing.” “Yes.” Charles stared through him with Elsie’s dark eyes, and Buck was forced to look away. “Are you staying here too?” he asked to lighten the heavy silence. “No, I’m at the house.” Elsie’s first husband had kept the house Charles grew up in. In her will, she had stated she wanted to be buried in a cemetery nearby, which was a journey for everyone who had left Little Rock years since. Buck looked back up at Charles and wondered what he had come here for. Perhaps to say sorry, an irony Buck would have found some pleasure in given the circumstances. Or perhaps he was suspicious? Charles was looking down now, clearing his throat, before he asked what time the funeral would be. Buck answered, growing more suspicious by the minute, knowing that Charles could have received this information from anyone else. “Just wondered. Sorry for your loss.” Buck, perplexed, echoed the sentiment and closed the door as Charles abruptly walked away. Did he suspect? Buck did not want to talk to anyone. Not now, not ever. He retreated into the room and sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at the TV as Cary Grant started a monologue. “It's astonishing what money can do for people, don't you agree, Mr. Connor? Not too much, you know—just more than enough. Now take Tracy for 102 102 example. Never a blow that hasn't been softened for her. Never a blow that won't be softened. As a matter of fact, she's even changed her shape—she was a dumpy little thing at one time.”

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Elsie moved through the crowd and time stood still. It seemed as if she was the only one in the room, this woman he had never even seen before. Like a queen moving through an endless tide of meaningless servants, this charming woman had chosen him to acquaint herself with. “Hello I’m Buck,” was all he could muster up. She smiled, clearly sensing his nervous excitement. He suddenly became conscious of every muscle in his body; the awkward way he moved his hands when unsure of where to rest them, the pressure of his tongue as he moved it along the inside of his cheek, the uncertainty of where to land his gaze upon that beautiful face of hers. And this is a woman so of course she is aware of it as well, he thought. “Aren’t you in the business program?” “Yes.” “What emphasis?” “Accounting.” “Were you over at Anderson’s house last Tuesday?” “No.” Was she using a line on him? “Hmm. Must’ve of been someone else. You business people are all the same anyhow.” “We’re not all the same,” he said, “some of us are poor.” She raised an eyebrow. 103 103

“But all of you do all you can to avoid it.” They smiled.



Buck woke up on his side, face dampened by the sheets he had drooled on. He looked at the clock. He had only slept for 20 minutes. “Elsie,” he called out instinctively. Only silence. Would he ever get used to this? Would he ever change? Could he ever get on with his life, his career? Record. “Are you in the room?” Stop. Rewind. Play. “Are you in the room?” Buck had only occasionally and even then, partially, believed in an afterlife or anything beyond what could be seen. Elsie had, of course, staked her life on it. He had, without her knowing, gone to see a clairvoyant once. He needed help and he hadn’t had anywhere else to go. She, as he suspected but not hoped, had been a fraud. “The light of day will make you known.” He repeated those words now and laughed with a half-smile. Foolish. That’s when the phone rang for the first time. He became conscious of every muscle in his body; the awkward way he moved his hands when unsure of where to rest them, the pressure of his tongue as he moved it along the inside of his cheek, the uncertainty of where to land his gaze upon that porcelain mediator of fate. This could be Samantha, Elsie’s sister. 104 104

He couldn’t answer. The ringing continued on. He stepped away. The room began to feel like a coffin. Determining not to die yet, Buck opened a window. Light. He was still alive. His aluminum watch reflected the sunlight, probably blinding anyone unfortunate enough to have looked at that window at that time. Fate! The uncertainty of it all. Life seemed to Buck a series of random happenings all bouncing off each other. Life was in no way like this watch; small parts working together to perform anything important. You lived, worked and died. There was nothing fair or unfair about it. That woman over there walking her dog could, at any moment, fall and land on something in just the right way so as to end her meaningless existence here on earth. That man who has business and purpose in his eyes could be whisked away at any moment to a hungry grave. That man seemed to see Buck, so he closed the blinds again. Darkness. Ringing. He unplugged the phone. Did that show he didn’t care? Record. “Tell me, are you there? Do you know more now? Talk to me, is there more?” Stop. Rewind. Play. He looked at the TV. The wedding scene.

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The thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours had come to a point. It was those eyes again, surrounded by white this time. Even from a distance, he could tell she was already crying. Was the music playing? Were people sitting or 105 105 standing? Was he crying? For the first and last time in his life, Buck was certain there was more to this life than what he could see. She walked down the aisle somewhat clumsily, her mother’s dress clinging to her hips more than anywhere else, and these idiosyncrasies made him love her even more. She was made for so much more than this, than me. This queen was dressed in hand-me-downs! He would fix that. He would make it up to her. She finally reached him. “Didn’t think you’d make it.” They smiled.



He woke up again with his recorder still in hand, face dampened from what could have been tears. He paused a moment. “What is, is.” Stop. Rewind. Play. “Is there more?” it said. He must have forgotten to hit record. He knew he had to plug in the phone again. He knew he needed to be ready soon or things would look bad for him. “I’ve done nothing wrong, of course,” he said out loud. She can’t see. She doesn’t know. And who will suspect? 106 106

He knew the bank would call within the week and that he would be signing papers as if his life depended on it. And it did. His life would be made easy with her savings and insurance money—he was free to live to his heart’s content. With what little heart I have left, he thought. He plugged the phone back in and opened the shades. “That's the gist of it; because you'll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman, until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty.” Cary Grant again. The light of day shone in on Buck and his heart skipped a beat when he saw someone next to him. He looked over, discovering the gilded mirror for the first time. He glared back at himself, and wondered if anyone else would see the simultaneous guilt and pleasure pulling at the lines in his face. He turned back to the window and was thankful she would be buried far from home, too far for him to hear a telltale heartbeat, too far to have to deal with prying minds dissecting every dime spent. Maybe I’ll buy a boat, he thought. So the promotion no longer mattered. Neither did Room 213’s lingering smell of smoke which had, only an hour ago, threatened Buck’s sanity. It was done.

THE CHILDREN ON CHESTNUT STREET

In a small town, only one street, the one nearest the ocean but most hidden from it by the hill, is known well by tourists. It boasts small art exhibits—one of which put the town on the map thanks to its local artist—as well as an ice cream parlor, and a barbeque restaurant that has since become a chain throughout the state. For being so near the ocean, the town is heavily wooded, and the streets wind like veins in circles and upwards from what is now called Main Street (once called Low Street). If the art shops and ice cream parlor, all reminiscent of times long since past, are the feet of the town, the old mayor’s house would be a hand. The widowed but thriving Mrs. Shelley, ice cream parlor owner, resides in a home that would be the heart, albeit a little off center. Just up the way would be the school, close enough to the head of the city to make the connection. Just outside of the roughly formed body that is this small town, set up in the furthest corner of the highest hill, lies an old Victorian-style house. It is layered, as many of them are, in such a manner that plays tricks on the eye when one tries to imagine any sort of consistent structure to map out something that should, given its detail, be orderly. Windows look out at various angles and in horizontal concentric circles around the house. Anywhere between two and four stories can be counted, depending on the vantage point. Just when a front door should be spotted, a hedge juts out to conceal a mystery where perhaps none should be. The house appears intentional in its ability to give a passer-by just enough detail to look for a moment, but not enough to delve further. It flirts with locals, who are, in this area, the only souls to travel such an odd direction. At the top of the structure, there is one oval window that is distinct from the rest, bordered by a faded color that once may have been a pleasant new-baby-girl pink. The few schoolchildren whose path averts them in this direction often stop and look surreptitiously toward 108 108 this window. And almost every time they look, even out of the corner of their eye, Charlotte is just behind the glass waving back. “Don’t look, idiot!” one of them says. “I wasn’t trying to.” “She’ll remember you.” “She’s just lonely.” “And so is that house. It’s watching us.” “She looks like a mannequin. How do we know it isn’t?” “Because we never look long enough, and we shouldn’t.”

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Left foot tapping, arms folded, nightgown draped perfectly over her lap, Charlotte delicately pushes back on the chair as the gentle, wooden arc creaks backward. The third story window of her home provides a perfect view of the wooded part of Chestnut Street, which they have lived on for over four decades now. The chair used to be comfortable, but nothing made by human hands is meant to last so long, especially one that isn’t supposed to remain static. But she endures. Once she made her mind up, Charlotte has never been one to change it. Joseph had been resigned to this fact, so he leaves her alone when she needs “nursery time”, as she affectionately calls it. “It’s an attic,” he would say. “It’s a vantage point.” A girl turns a corner on the street below and Charlotte waves. She has named this one Anna, and to Charlotte, Anna is a bright girl of eleven years. She wasn’t like the others from the start and her parents know that because she doesn’t 109 109 like the color pink or the idea of glitter. She isn’t a tomboy, because she has too much grace. But she isn’t a princess, because she has too much common sense. She walks with one foot on the dirt and one on the pavement, and her lunchbox is blue. She looks up and above Charlotte, most likely at the bottom-heavy black clouds set against a gray sky. If asked, Charlotte would say that it is a beautiful Thursday. If only Anna knew that to be a child was to naturally carry with you hope and the endless possibility of spontaneous change—and to not know loss in such a way that it cuts you. She would learn in time, but for now Charlotte couldn’t help but be impressed by that little girl’s demeanor even as her younger brother… Evan, catches up to her and gracelessly bops her on the shoulder. Charlotte can see their lips move but can’t quite see what they are saying. She fills in their words for them: “What is it you want, love,” in her best motherly impression. “Did you see the doggy over there, Annie!” exclaimed in a precious tone. “Say Anna. And yes, I saw him.” “He was barking at me, Annie!” “He probably just wants to play, Evan.” “Well, me too. Can I?” Charlotte smiles. Evan… is adventurous and fears nothing. When he grows up, his parents probably won’t be fond of the activities he participates in. His mother will be anxious whenever he comes up with a new idea. Charlotte imagines that he will parachute out of an airplane someday, go bungee jumping, and maybe even explore unknown parts of the world. He has the stomach for it. Then he will settle down and do something to help people, like become a doctor or a lawyer; the 110 110 good kind of course. He will defend the helpless, not because he cares about money, but because he wants to make a difference in this world. The children continue to walk closer to the house. Evan spins in a circle and jumps in the air. He is singing something that Charlotte guesses is a song from Peter Pan, which must his current favorite. He stops. Charlotte’s heart skips a beat. Evan looks up and waves, and Anna follows his gaze. Charlotte smiles and waves back, waves in such a way that her arthritis flares up. Anna, shy now, glances up smiles and walks faster, but Evan stops. He is mouthing something to Charlotte, but too far away for her to understand what he is trying to say. She laughs and shakes her head. “I can’t hear you.” The rocking chair arcs forward and stops. Her face is right next to the window and she almost hits her forehead on the thick, reflective glass. “Use your hands!” She has always been very expressive with her hands, and now they wave around wildly. Joseph used to make fun of her for that, but her hands had been still for eleven years now. She doesn’t like to go out anymore either. Home is a comfortable and safe place—why leave? The outside world isn’t what it used to be. The colors are loud and the sounds are dull. And nobody keeps to themselves anymore. Anna, ahead of Evan, waves to him. He jumps straight up when he understand how he wanted to say it this time. He points at his eye. Then to his heart. Then, with his index finger, he points up at Charlotte. 111 111

“I love you.” She weeps. For emphasis, he yells something she can’t hear. Then, with his precious index finger, he points up at Charlotte. Anna shakes her head. “It’s not your fault.” The nursery she is sitting in is a testament to the two kids they planned for but didn’t have. This used to be the attic, but she had arranged it neatly and even put wallpaper in to make it feel like home for children that never existed. A cradle full of dolls they never needed rests on her left, two of which lie on the dresser beside her. To her right is a painting of four children playing in a garden. A shattered mirror hangs just above the dresser. The therapist Charlotte had gone to for a year told her that it wasn’t her fault, that just because a doctor said she was barren didn’t mean there was something wrong with her soul. That even though her womb was poisoned, the kids may not have made it anyway. It was even suggested that they were spared a life of pain, because life here on earth, after all, is pain. She points at her heart and then with her translucent, leathery, living index finger, she points at the children on Chestnut Street. They smile and wave and walk off into the shadows. The clouds are ready to burst and rain is imminent. Charlottes perks up as another girl walks around the corner, but this one speeds up and looks down the whole time. She is one Charlotte calls Maribel, and Maribel is a dark beauty who will one day make something of herself…

 112 112

The town is too low and near the ocean to receive snow, but to its unaccustomed residents and tourists, it has become unusually cold even for winter. Because of this, Mrs. Shelley has closed the ice cream shop for the first couple days of the week. The painter, famously rumored to be cursed, has been inspired to write a series of paintings reflecting his disillusionment of a love now lost. The barbeque restaurant has closed all but two of its locations, this being one of them. If you move up the veins of the town and just outside it, just past the still-twisted knot of a sign once displaying the town’s old and forgotten Welcome greeting, displaced and set up for historic reasons in a hidden part of town, you will see that somehow the shrubs and hedges that surround the old house are somehow still thriving. Odd sounds can be heard, were anyone around to hear them. Left foot still, arms at her side, nightgown draped unevenly over her lap, Charlotte sits still as the chair creaks backwards to a slow stop. The third story window in the attic provides a perfect view of the wooded part of Chestnut Street, which they have lived on for over four decades now. Joseph died long ago, but his urn rests at her side, next to two tiny porcelain boxes to represent the miscarried children. The chair used to be comfortable, but nothing made on earth is meant to last so long, especially something that isn’t supposed to remain static.

EBB TIDE

I am on the front lawn getting the mail from yesterday. Boots is inside taking care of the kids. She keeps telling me to fix the ant problem in the cupboard, but this walk outside is my time to think. It’s silent, and the lone broken sprinkler remains standing so I step on it, but it stays still and my busted ankle twists. I swear, but keep walking, this time with a limp that forces me to slow down even more. I look at the green grass of my lawn and the lawn next door, the blue sky with cotton-candy clouds like froth from waves in a baby-blue ocean, the yellow trim on the house. Still, the silence gets to me—a bomb waiting to explode at any second. Boots tells me to count to ten when the anxiety starts to come on, so I do. I count, but I’m aware that my counting is a coping mechanism. Now a car backfires and I’m ashamed of the break in my routine as I shout and as my heart beats and feels like it’s being sucked into a black hole. There is a calming effect the rain has, maybe because it masks the smell of napalm and gore and the mud that I’ve become. I used to get bent out of shape when my socks would get wet—now this hell. We’re equipped for land, but I look back at the water, and in spite of it all, the waves still push and pull, in the same rhythm they always followed, war or not. Jersey Mike is finally looking up again— he’s cooled off now that the explosions have ceased and all has become steady with the sounds of water, thick as the ocean, light as rain. Even the other side is quiet. No more fireworks, deep bass booms, the glittering rain of shrapnel. Even death stops for a moment, but then someone starts shrieking, their shock wearing off—now realizing that a limb is missing, that a hole in the shoulder is real, that they can see inside themselves in a way nobody can prepare for. And now a new crater is born nearby, which unearths the German I just shot in the head who looked to be about my age. 114 114

She is surprisingly ugly for a newborn. Her lips puff out and her body is slime. I can handle anything, but watching Boots suffer for 18 hours, off and on, relief and then agony, was as bad as any war. I held her tight though, gritted my teeth with her, dug my keys into my leg to share pain while my bride suffered. I watch my first child carried off, and I hear someone say it’s a girl and that she’s healthy. My mind is numb but Boots is smiling with her eyes and mutters between heavy breathing that our girl’s name will be Darcy after all. I think of the baseball mitt my pop gave me, and how I need to take it out from where I hid it under the crib in the nursery before Boots sees it. I’m not disappointed, just baffled. A girl. I look down at the war-torn sheets and remember how many men I knew who didn’t survive being ripped open. Boots holds my hand and mumbles that everything will be ok. A series of electronic noises make their way to our ears and her hand goes limp. The nurses gather around and everyone raises their voice and moves quickly. We’re on the sidewalk next to the beach we go to every year. We talk openly with no bitterness, just matter-of-fact. We speak of the many chances we may have missed to know each other—all the little factors that may have led us to others. As we speak with morbid nostalgia, she uses my wheelchair like a walker while I manually roll it—it squeaks with old age but operates just fine for us both. Boots falters when I speed up, so I slow down as she tries to catch up and runs into the back of my chair and laughs. She can keep up, her legs stronger than her mind. She remembers me in the mornings, which is… wonderful. But at nights, she gets to re-learn her husband of over six decades. The talks we have are the same as the ones we had in college. She stops to rest and faces me toward the ocean, and there is something like a rush I feel as the cold salt air mingles with her words and the seagulls and sound of the steady early morning waves. All in, forever. 115 115

The metal on my temple is heavy and part of me is thankful that my hand is shaking. It is so quiet. I threw away all three notes I tried to write, and stuck with: I’m sorry—Love, Craig. The kids deserve a better father and Boots deserves a man who doesn’t fly into a rage when Darcy throws a fit, or whenever our adopted son Jeff (God be with him, any other father would have been better) keeps at it with the crying. The word Temple keeps occurring and it runs through my mind so many times it starts to sound like something else altogether. I think: This temple will be destroyed and rebuilt in three days. Nothing flashes before my eyes like Boston Rick said when he pulled the pin and then dropped the grenade at his feet and it stuck in the mud—funny thing, it never went off and he survived and has three kids and a wife who’s a bombshell, and he goes to church and even sings in the choir. The gun lowers and I wonder about this life, so full of fury and so full of little joys that I don’t allow myself to feel. If I pull the trigger, will this shell be a dud? Can I chance it? I see a picture of the kids and am torn, the bullet hungry for my skull, my fingers itchy, my kids shooting daggers. I raise the barrel again, but hear Boots’s voice as she arrives home with the kids. My chest burns and I sob uncontrollably, ashamed. Of all things and this is the biggest risk now, my life so dull in the very routine that I’ve spent my time creating. I’m stepping out and saying I believe in something I can’t see. I’m giving in to what my pals consider myth and a lie that is meant to appease the weak—my comrades in war, however, never spoke of God in such a way. And maybe life is war. A car backfires and I still duck, but Boots is sick now—I’d rather have the real war. Jeff’s sickness led to Little Jon being fatherless in what felt like an instant, like the explosions that took limbs and lives in an instant. As I walk up the aisle towards the altar, I tell myself I haven’t gone soft, but I feel my face turn hot and I hold back tears. I picture the front of the 116 116 church as an ocean, terrifying and freeing at the same time—at once revealing beauty, completeness and terror in its greatness. Boots’s favorite song is playing now—How Great Thou Art. For the first time I listen to the words. And for the first time in years I cry as I look back and see her face, wet with emotion, pale with death. An old man whose wife won’t remember this moment she’s been waiting for so long, I kneel down in front of everyone and the song ends, real life returning as one note lingers on the organ. The ringing continues, now a dull tone prolonged. I’m staring at the ocean.



BEFORE

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DANIELS -- Walter Daniels, 58, died Friday. He is survived by his wife Sylvia Miles-Daniels, and his son Clarke Evan

Daniels. He was a mortgage lender for Realty First for 25 years.

Services will be held on Thursday at First Hope Community Church at 1 p.m. Send condolences to:

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Sylvia again. Clarke puts his phone on silent. No matter how fast she drives, he knows his stepmom won’t make it, and to him, that is for the better. Her recent neglect reflects the passionate ups and downs of their relationship, but now none of that matters. He sits by the bedside, watching in silence. His mother Katharine reaches out and holds his father’s hand and he wonders why it hadn’t happened sooner— the touch, that is. His father wheezes and Clarke knows that though he hasn’t yet passed, he is already gone. He looks at his mother, who is biting her cheek and whose face seems to be collapsing inward. 118 118

“Not much longer now,” the nurse says with pursed lips and one raised eyebrow, trying to feign the sympathy required by her job when all of the numbers and equations and experiments fail. “All in, bud,” Katharine says to Walt. After all of it, she still holds his hand. She still loves him. Clarke retreats into himself and observes. He feels shame for not crying, but knows the tears will come when nobody is looking. He thinks of himself breaking down with Hannah, telling her all of the hidden, pent-up emotions that he only seems to feel when he imagines himself talking to her. Even when talking with himself, it is always her he projects by his side listening, comforting, tearing up when he, in his imagination, stoically speaks of something too painful to expound upon out loud. He looks through the window and he can’t help but think of the early morning goodbyes—of waiting in the mist, cold even on the hottest days of summer, as his father stepped out to the car for what he called his Sales Voyages. He would hug and kiss them and say goodbye, as most working parents do before heading off to work for the day. Then he would leave for days and sometimes even weeks at a time. Clarke would go back inside and lean against the living room window until his breath clouded his vision, and then move to the next clear bit of window, remaining in an early morning stupor. When the car would finally pull out, Clarke would wave frantically until it was out of sight, set in its direction for an adventure—and one without them. Hannah’s imaginary lips quiver and Clarke puts a finger on her lips. “It’s ok.” “No I’m crying because you sound like a damn diary.” Clarke finds himself in the hospital room again and wipes his eyes. He re- focuses his gaze and realizes that he’s been staring at one of the balloons meant to 119 119 somehow mask the gloom, the dread, the silence of this room. This room with the decreased intervals between sonar sounds—life retreating. This room with the white walls and the pleasant indications of home to transition a human life from one comfort to— Oblivion, emptiness. He wants to imagine something funny. He regularly thinks in images, but they are all blank. He wants to force life into this gray diorama he can’t escape, an inevitable cliché in the making. But all that remains is the lack of everything, a canvas blank. He tries to picture more balloons and they are all dead, limping just above the floor, unmoving. Even that image relieves him to some extent, adding to the pointedly hopeless life with color that floats ever so slightly. Imaginary Hannah still waits by his side, now crying for him so he doesn’t have to. An overbearing angelic harp sounds blasts thought he speakers: another baby born. Do they do that for stillborns? Imaginary Hannah chides him for that thought and he can’t help but smile when he imagines Mariachi music playing every time a child is born, possibly loud enough to scare patients to death, but certainly evoking a life well lived and the joy of a newborn. He snaps out of it and the nurse is looking at him, appearing genuinely touched by the smile she most likely attributed to a joy at new life. He snaps into a grimace and she turns away. One long and final tone. Katherine breaks down and Clarke looks at the foggy window. He feels something release inside him. He feels…

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“That one way you felt when you were, like, riding a bike as a kid and didn’t care what anyone thought. You didn’t even have, you know, the capacity to think outside yourself and wonder if anyone cared if you had a booger on your face or, I don’t know—” He realizes he’s holding the phone away from his ear while navigating the labyrinthine hallways of St. Clare’s. He slows down and presses the phone back up against his face. “That instinct is always there. That’s why kids hide behind their parents’ legs,” he replies. “I don’t think so Superman. That’s stranger danger.” “You’re cutting out, Hannah.” “I’m just saying, you can show emotion. It will be fine.” “I can’t hear you… hospital equipment jamming the signal I guess.” “Convenient. Bye, Superman.” “Adios Banana.” He hangs up and stops to take out his wallet and a small piece of paper falls out. He finds the handwritten room number and puts it back, ignoring the fading magenta numbers printed on the other side that mean so much to Hannah. Clarke passes more whitewashed halls on his way to the ICU. Two nurses brush past him as one compares the date she had last night with a patient in the OR. Clarke wonders at how people can become desensitized to suffering to the degree it takes to work in such a place. He supposes the clean appearance, sanitary smells and closed doors do something to separate the suffering from those simply carrying out a task. He wonders if the hospital itself is some sort of dream world 121 121 that welcomes creative minds to come explore the possibility of hope—a meeting place of faith in science and faith in life. Or maybe it’s all just a cover-up for experiments meant to sell medication and keep health care insurance alive—just a business, just a lie. Clarke shakes his head. He wonders when he had lost faith in it all. How old had he been when hope in Good went away? Had it been gradual, disappearing slowly as experience washed away the glimmer that once twinkled in his eye? Had it dissipated ever so slightly as the mere twenty-four years of his life had passed by so quickly? Why had everything become so logical, so dreary, so calculated— emotions evoked like a bad actor struggling to match his face with an obscure series of commands. Devastated, unfulfilled, disappointed, dreamer. Now act! Erosion. Even a rock can only take so much. But what tragedy had he been through? Nothing that he could think of. Nothing severe like the straight-to-TV movies displayed. Nothing worth the sympathy of others, or the time wasted on a shrink or a journal. He arrives. “Come in. We’re just about to wake him up so we can test his vitals.” The nurse moves around his father with what appears to be accuracy, concern, and a sort of rehearsed pleasantry, like a maid in a hotel fitting new sheets to an overused bed. “He did fine. Your mother was just in here,” she says. Clarke looks around the room so as not to face the sleeping figure in bed. There are cards, gift baskets, and candies—sentiments to remind him that he is human and can still enjoy the finer things. There are gift cards and a fishing pole to imply that he will be out of here in no time. There are also a few balloons, 122 122 round and plain ones accenting the mylar “Get Better,” which the nurse has to move aside in order not to risk interference with the tasks at hand. “Yeah, she said earlier that she’d have to go back to work before I got here.” He almost asks if Sylvia came yet, but he figures it doesn’t matter. She is bold, but she wouldn’t be around if there was the slightest chance of running into his mother. And his mother was still the emergency contact for a reason. In spite of everything, she would be the one to nurse his father back to health. The area is full of disquieting silence until a man in another room starts screaming. He asks for God to take him away, and he cries out with explicit descriptions of his fear and pain. The nurse moves across the room past Clarke and closes the door, but the now muffled pleas for mercy can still be heard. “He’s been doing that all day. Sometimes the brain triggers a reaction,” the nurse says. “That sounded like more than a reaction.” “We asked where it hurt and he said nowhere, that he couldn’t help but scream those things.” “What, like Tourette’s?” “Something like that, only more temporary. And in consistent intervals. He’s fine, really.” Clarke imagines that the face he’s making is more of a grimace than the half-smile he is attempting. His father wakes up, so that now he has to look at him for the first time since the surgery. 123 123

His head is shaven, his face too. He’s of course not wearing his reading glasses, or his running shoes, or his worn out hat with the marlin patch that neither Katharine nor Sylvia could ever convince him to throw out. With only one eye open, he mumbles a greeting. Clarke swallows and smiles, trying to ignore the scar that reveals itself ever so slightly toward the back end of his skull. “Hey dad.” An arm full of tubes and needles reaches out and attempts to grip Clarke’s arm, like one of the horror movies they traditionally attended together on holidays as a sort of commonality to substitute Clarke’s clumsiness in sports. Multiple questions start to form on his lips as he takes his father’s hand. They had said he was doing well. They had said the surgery was a simple one, a no-brainer, at which Clarke had smiled. This result was not funny. “How are you feeling?” “Good, good. It’s hard but good. It’s really hard,” is what Clarke can decipher. He mechanically recites what his mother had told him as the nurse toys with dials, needles, liquids. “Great. They said you did well. They said they were able to remove the tumor cleanly, and that now you just needed to recover, and that as long as they don’t find it anywhere else, it’s in remission.” “After radiation. And maybe even chemo,” he grunts and stutters as quickly as he can. It takes about a minute. “Yeah, just to make sure it’s all gone.” Clarke stares through his father and tries to remain balanced. His father nods and blinks the one eye he can open. 124 124

“I look like a damn pirate.” Clarke smiles and intentionally coughs to choke back the welling-up inside his throat. “Do you get a patch?” His father ignores the question and responds slowly, muffled, confused: “They, they hit part of the brain and now I can’t use this one.” He had always been very expressive with his hands, but as he attempts to point at his bad eye, he almost knocks over the chocolate shake Katharine had left by his bed. He notices it and looks to Clarke. “Sylvia come by yet?” his father asks. “No.” “Hmph.” The nurse smiles and says that she’ll check back in an hour, but to let her know if they need anything. When she opens the door to step out, the screamer from the next room becomes the center of attention, and Clarke sees his father staring towards the sound even after the heavy door has once again muffled the cries. They wait in silence for a moment, not used to anything more than small- talk updates or staring at a movie screen. “Ya gotta be anywhere?” his father asks. “No, of course not.” Clarke pulls up a cheap plastic chair and sits by his father. “Your mother was here this morning.” “She told me, yeah.” “How is she?” “Busy.” 125 125

“So is Sylvia. But your mother cares.” “Yeah. Well….” Clarke has no idea what to say. His mother had left his father a long time ago and for good reason, but that was the past. They remained close to this day, despite the havoc it wreaked on subsequent relationships, not the least of which was his current marriage to the young real estate agent Sylvia. They had met at a conference in Vegas two years prior, and his father had seemed like a bipolar teenager in love ever since—elated or furious, smitten or irritated. Walter had mostly lost contact with Katharine under the understandably intolerant eye of this latest vixen, but the current situation superseded her rules, and had ironically taken place very suddenly while she was at a conference in Georgia. “How are you doing?” his father asks. “Fine.” Clarke clears his throat. He never confides much in anyone but Hannah, let alone his father. Under laborious breathing and strained neck muscles, his dad attempts to annunciate: “Sorry I haven’t really been there. I’ve been wanting to provide for you and maybe that’s all I know how to do… give you things. Money. If I don’t make it, you and mom get everything. You two are everything to me.” Clarke rubs his nose. “Dad…” His father moves a shaky hand over to Clarke’s arm. “Dad… you’re going to be fine.” Clarke swallows hard and stops blinking. He pinches his own leg as hard as he can and focuses on that pain instead. “You’re going to be fine.”

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The evening is cool and Clarke can tell it will be the kind of night where the stars might be seen through the moonlit white clouds, given that the wind has brushed away the haze of pesticides and pollution ordinarily revealed solely by their ability to hide the beauty of the dark universe beyond. The wind also carries with it the scent of budding flowers, recently uncovered barbeques, and an overabundance of chlorine that marks the beginning of summer. He and his father are walking away from the latest in a long line of lowbrow, high-budget scary movies that mark the end of the post-Oscar down season. “Better than the last one huh?” his father says as he rubs his forehead, winces, and opens his eyes wide to seemingly adjust his vision. “I guess. Glad you paid.” “Hey anytime, buddy.” He smiles and nods. “How are classes?” “Good. Busy. How’s Sylvia?” “Great. She’s a handful, but women that look like that usually are. You still talking to Hannah?” “She’s just a friend.” “Right, right.” His father nods and appears pensive. “How’s Katherine?” “Mom is fine. She’s still working at the thrift store downtown.” “She’s always helping someone.” Clarke nods as they reach his father’s Acura. “Whelp. Thanks for the movie.” 127 127

“Anytime bud, I love ya. You’re a good kid,” his father says with a hint of an accent like a tough guy in a stereotypical gangster movie. “Yeah, you too,” Clarke says mechanically and coughs a laugh to imply sincerity to his joke; or perhaps humor to his lack of sincerity. “See you at the gym tomorrow?” “Maybe. I like to go later now,” Clarke replies. “Hey as long as you’re going, that’s great. Give your mind a break.” They hug and slap each other on the back one too many times before Clarke goes to his separate car. He always feels a strange sort of guilt when spending time with his father—as if it’s never enough time or deep enough conversation, as if it appears that he resents his father when he really doesn’t. It’s simply a wall he puts up that he can’t define or tear down.

An hour later, he is sitting on the couch of his apartment doing homework, and Hannah is putting a lesson plan together for her teaching credential. “Can’t you just show a movie?” Clarke asks. “I wish. This is ridiculous. It would have been easier to get a Masters.” “At least you’re done after this year. I have another three semesters.” She lets out a long sigh. “Can we go somewhere?” “I have to finish,” Clarke says. “You’re boring.” “Hey, you could always hang out with Brett.” “Yeah I’m sure you’d love that.” “Do what you want.” He realizes it’s silent for too long and that perhaps she didn’t take that the way he had meant it, and how had he meant it? He brushes the thought aside and 128 128 remains looking down at his book, reaching his hand out for his mug without having to engage any of her complicated feelings that could risk the friendship they’d achieved over the years. “I don’t know how you drink that stuff,” she says. “I like my coffee black and my cereal dry. I’m old-fashioned.” “That’s just old.” He looks up at her with feigned emotion and expressive fists. “Can’t you just appreciate me the way I am?” “There he is. You used to be fun.” Clarke nods and breathes in the scent of dust and leftover spaghetti before entering into one of the talks they often have that begin with the same phrase: “Remember when we used to—” As always, it will continue on for some time and almost act as a competition of sorts as to who can remember the most about what. It is an untitled ritual that brings about an almost unconscious joy in spite of its foolish assumption that the other may not remember the events they continually recount. Most of the events are picked apart with as much new detail as they can remember, with some added nuance that may or may not be accurate, but remain a memory nevertheless—like details of a dream when one first wakes up. The slightest events are romanticized and the most common ones become epic. This particular night, they allow a suspension of worry over deadlines, responsibilities and time, as, in the background, both of Clarke’s roommates come and go, and come again and fall asleep. “How is Brett?” he asks. “Good, just busy.” “Doctor stuff?” 129 129

“Yeah, something like that.” “I never pictured you with that type.” “Me neither,” she says. She looks down and her light brown curls fall over her oversized blue sweater. “Remember ThaiThis?” she asks. “Titis! Dumbest name for a restaurant ever.” She raises her eyebrows. “I think it’s time you do it.” Clarke shakes his head. “Ridiculous.” “I have them right here, sir. The future of us and our children lies in your hand.” He cocks his head. “Our separate children, nerd,” she corrects herself while rolling her eyes. “It’s too late and we’re way behind on work.” “Pretty sure every liquor store is open. Do it for me.” “You do it.” She purses her lips in a mocking manner and crosses her eyes. “You know better. Has to be you. That’s what happened in the dream.” “You are a crazy, superstitious woman. You are well on your way to becoming a cat lady who predicts the end of times and stands on street corners in various used Halloween costumes.” “I’m telling you, these five numbers will change our lives.” She begins to plead in a mocking, feigned desperation. “You used to have faith in things, you used to believe in more, little Superman. Fly again!” 130 130

“Brett will make you that money anyway. I don’t need to waste a dollar on the lotto.” She breathes heavily and looks down at her lesson plan. “Fine, I’m gonna go home,” she says. “Really? You’re mad over a lotto ticket you’ve been saving for three years?” “I’m just tired. Honest. I’m going to be the worst teacher in the world if this is any indication.” “I’m telling you: Movies. That’s how I learned.” “Tempting, but you’re a boring old man.” “With a slightly above-average intelligence level, baby.” They hug for an appropriate amount of time given that she is claimed and that he isn’t interested anyway. Not in that way. Not that he’d thought much about it, but what was there to think about? Clarke continues to study and doesn’t even remember falling asleep. He does, however, get up to relieve himself at 6:42 AM and sees two missed calls from his mother. He checks the message first. The headache hadn’t gone away and his father was just going in for a check-up. He’d always been healthy and active, so it was nothing to worry about. She just really wanted Clarke to be informed.

<

Clarke sits in his room as something hits the wall and the framed world map slaps the wall and almost falls. It isn’t anger he feels, or fear, or anything else that he can define. He knows he just needs to focus on something else, so he dives further into the book he’s reading, in and of itself a self-inflicting punishment 131 131 filled with gore and pain and sex and anger. In some ways, it placates him. He is drawn to it and is, in a sense, in control of it. He sees what he wants and knows it isn’t real, and it can simmer and set inside of him something otherworldly, a power to allow him into a fantasy of imagination that nobody else can tarnish—a darkness he can see into. His pager vibrates. Hannah. He breathes in heavily and looks outside of his window at the lights of the nearby, newly built stadium at their high school. He is not interested in attending such loud festivities, though his curiosity is aroused by the social aspect of them. He likes the various outcomes he can see were he to attend one—a meeting with Angela perhaps. He somehow fears that if he attends one, it will not meet the high expectations his imagination has set for him. That, for him, it won’t allow the same sort of elation he sees in the people on MTV, or hears in the voices of those who scored in the innumerable ways one can score within this context. A balloon rises up and he can’t help but be transfixed by its journey. He wonders how high it will travel before it pops. He feels an inexplicable amount of fear as it rises, increasing as it mounts new heights. It is irrational, so he looks away and thinks of anything else. A muffled curse hits home just outside his doorway and he hears his mother slam a door. “Come out right now, Katharine, or I swear…” Silence on her end. His father continues to rattle off sounds that Clarke can barely decipher, muffled cries that shake his insides and cause him to retreat further into himself. He grabs the telephone and dials, hoping Hannah will answer instead of her overtly curious and prying mother. 132 132

“Hello?” Shit, he can’t tell which one it is. “Yeah, hi…” “Sup Superman?” “Hey Hannah Banana.” “Oh you want Hannah, let me go get her.” “Umm, oh sorry Mrs.—” “It’s me, I kid.” “Dangit Hannah!” “You love the mystery! What are you doing?” “Reading.” “Me too,” she says. “Right, one of those girl books again?” “Yes! It’s all about how this chance meeting at a restaurant bring these two people together and they both get the same lottery numbers and win, and someh—” “Blah, blah. Next.” “Whatever. You know you wanna read it. You like lofty ideas and this is about fate and chance, and mainly about faith in things despite the outcome. Interested now?” “What? I fell asleep for a moment.” “Ugh. Ok. Hey, let’s watch a movie!” “Are we gonna agree on one this time?” “Just pick a movie we both have.” “I have, like, barely any.” She proceeds to list off titles, one of which is something he recognizes. “We have to start it at the same time,” she says. 133 133

“Ok, I’ll go get it.” Clarke hesitates and realizes he’s staring at his door. He breathes in, stands up and turns the handle. He makes his way down a hallway he imagines as dimly lit, just like in the novel he’s reading. He wonders at the sudden silence and moves with purpose and with caution, like any hero would. Lights flicker and spiders scuttle in and out of cracks, or at least it seems like they do. And where is his father? The living room is not as pristine as his mother used to keep it. The floor is littered with crumbs, salt, paperwork, and a coffee stain; luckily his father drinks it black so there’s no lingering scent of spoiled cream. He moves past it all and heads to the mantle with the small collection of films. After choosing the right one, he turns around and finds himself facing his father. “Hey Clarke. Whatcha doin?” “Just getting a movie.” “Sorry about all the noise,” he says with a smile. “Ok.” “It’s just that your mother is a fuckin’ crazy bitch with no understanding of what I do for you two,” he shouts loud enough for her to hear. “Ok,” is all Clarke can muster. A door opens in the back of the house and his mother comes rushing out. “Leave him out of this!” Clarke is frozen in place. “It’s—it’s ok.” “See, he’s ok honey. He didn’t take after you, you over-sensitive bitch.” “Don’t bring him into this!” 134 134

“You’re right. I apologize. Clarke, go to your room. Good luck trying to block all the shit your crazy ass mom’s about to lay down on me. Lucky you turned out the way you did having been stuck here all the time.” Katharine just shakes her head. He mocks her in an attempted impression. “You bastard, Walter. You never stay home with us, what are doing out there all those weeks you’re gone? Why aren’t you here supporting us Walt?” She butts in. “Well, it’s true!” He then roars in his own voice, “I’m fucking doing everything I fucking can for you two with no regard to anything that I wanted to do with my life! I’m traveling to fuckin’ backwoods shit hotels to learn absolutely nothing so my manager can go home to his damn wife and feel like he’s worth a shit because he’s properly training his fucking monkeys to dance in circles and do what he says!” The veins are popping out in his head and Clarke is reminded of the time his father had almost hit his mother during one of these rages. He hadn’t though, and that was important. Clarke chides himself for even remembering it, while at the same time wondering if the inevitable result of these battles will eventually come to fruition. “I can’t keep doing this,” Katharine says as storms from the room. Before the bedroom door slams, they hear here speak through tears, almost to herself: “I’m tired of hoping.” Walter plops down on the living room sofa and looks up at Clarke. “I’m sorry son. It’s just—” He can’t finish the sentence. Clarke quickly shuffles off to his room, closes the door and picks up the receiver. 135 135

“They’re fighting again?” she asks, having heard everything. “Yeah, his flight leaves tomorrow so it should be fine.” “Did he… hit—” “No, that never… no.” “Sorry, just wanted to make sure.” “Is your mom asking again?” Clarke inquires. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t tell her even if he did something… I don’t think. Just want to make sure you’re ok.” Clarke is silent. He is thinking about Angela in his Biology class—her dark features, perfect skin, the way her breasts move underneath her gym shirt. And yet… this girl Hannah has been around for a couple years now, and he can’t imagine not having her around. She is plain—brown eyes, light brown curleyish hair, average weight and height. But she is funny. She is smart. He could go anywhere with her and be happy. But Clarke supposes that’s what friends are for. Still… “I’m ok, let’s watch this movie.” “I have to rewind mine,” Clarke says. “Ugh, hurry I’ve been waiting.” “Oh wait… mom must’ve rewound it already. Never mind, I can just fast- forward through the previews instead.” The line cuts out and Clarke looks at the phone, trying to decide whether or not to call first or wait for her. The phone rings almost instantly and he is thankful she can’t see the rush of excitement he feels at hearing her voice. “Ready Superman?”

< 136 136

They often go fishing but something in Clarke is beginning to empathize with the strange creatures. He wonders if, when they gulp for air, it’s like when he is underwater for just too long. He wonders if they feel pain or if their struggle is merely an impulsive reaction triggered from undiscerning brains, if they even have any. Like when a leg twitches after a doctor taps it. Nevertheless, this is something his father loves doing and it’s far less humiliating than missing a catch or “throwing like a girl,” as was the result of his routines with his father coaching baseball. This was serene, much more relaxed. There’s the rushing sound of the river, and the fresh air that allows for viewing the stars, which he never seems to be able to see in the city. The dark corners where the trees block pathways provide places to pee wherever Clarke wants to, and provide a sense of danger and freedom at the same time—unexplored opportunities and paths that can lead anywhere. And it always smells a little bit like Christmas. They sit on separate rocks and look at the stream up ahead. “Should we try different bait?” His father looks at him under the rim of the merlin stitch hat he just purchased after a fishing trip in Cabo. “We’ll be fine this way.” “Yeah? Sounds good.” Clarke furrows his brow and spits in the dirt like the man in the cowboy movies. “Nice out here, yeah?” his father says. “Definitely nice, dad.” “How’s school?” “Ok. The kids are weird sometimes, but I get better grades.” Walter laughs. “Good job.” 137 137

“How are you and mom doing?” Walter looks away and then back at him. “Why do you ask that?” “Just wondering. My friend Caleb likes this girl Hannah and I figured that’s how it started with you and mom.” “Well, it’s a bit different than dating, but yes, we are still here.” Clarke thinks he feels something, but it’s a small branch that has caught on his line. The stream carries it away and graciously allows him to continue fishing without losing time. “Marriage is way harder than it looks though. Definitely more of a challenge than I expected, but here’s to holding out hope. Things always tend to get better.” Walter’s line lets out and a buzzing victory cry rises above the rapids. He springs into action and performs the necessary actions to ensure dinner. Moments later, a fish writhes in discomfort, or instinct, or agony on a tree stump nearby, as Clarke’s father loops a worm through the same hook he had just used to catch this one. Clarke looks at it from the corner of his eye. He suddenly feels the weight of the Swiss army knife in his pocket that his uncle had given him as a gift earlier that year. He chides himself for even considering it, but perhaps it had been given to him for a reason. Maybe he was here for such a time as this—a mercy killing that would save this poor fish from suffering. His imagination won’t stop—the fish is calling to him, begging for help. He thinks of its family, swimming along as he attempted to grab a simple bite to eat and then— gone. Pulled up into an alien world to be eaten by monsters. Clarke feels he needs to intercede where nature should have taken its course. He attempts 138 138 to dehumanize the fish, but without warning, the name Herbert pops into Clarke’s head and now the fish is more real than ever. Maybe he can throw Herbert back without his father noticing. But would that be weak? Would he throw the fish like a girl? He reels in his line quickly and attempts to do so without his father noticing. He sees that his bait is now caught in some nearby underwater weeds, and he prays that nobody else down there will suffer the same fate as Herbert. He says he’s going to take a leak and heads over to the tree stump while pulling out his knife. What a sacrifice this poor fish was making for the sake of what, a little food Clarke could easily get his mom to buy at McDonalds? Clarke prays a prayer as Herbert kicks and struggles and flips, and then he starts to perform the mercy killing. He grabs Herbert, who is more slippery than he’d remembered other fish being. He lashes out with the knife but this Herbert won’t die. He gets his compassion from his mother and he hates it, because now tears stream from Clarke’s eyes and he’s ashamed at what he’s thinking. He contemplates Herbert and the randomness of fate and circumstance that he is to die on this day, and in such a brutal way. Death had taken their dog, Teddy, last year. It had come in the form of a speeding SUV that never even stopped, probably never even knew what had happened. It just kept on going and—Teddy was gone forever. Now Herbert. His father finally turns around and sees what he is doing. Initially disturbed, he begins to relax when he realizes that his son is simply trying to help. “That’s not how you cut a fish son, let me show you when we’re ready to eat it.” His hands are covered in grime and fish blood. Herbert still twitches. 139 139

Something starts to turn inside of Clarke on this day, something that perhaps can be labeled Maturity, with a dash of Cynicism and a slight subduing of hope in a world that is otherwise a safe and wonderful place. A breeze through the pines reminds him of Christmas once more, and he takes a deep breath.

<

Walter gets up and addresses the crowd. He’s smiling. “There aren’t many things I’ve done right in my life, as I’m sure most of you know.” Katharine is next to him, shaking her head with pursed lips. “I always settled for a C minus in class and I guess I’m a little bit like that when it comes to life too.” She cocks her head to the side as a few men in the audience laugh. “But I just want all of you here today to know that though we got off to an interesting start—cue eye rolls from mom—” Everyone laughs except the grandparents. “We’re gonna make this work. And well, I’ve married my best friend and we have the smartest damn baby in town. I’m a lucky man and I don’t deserve this, but here we are. Cheers.” Katharine raises a toast with her free hand and beams down at Clarke in her other. The tinkling of glasses commences and Walter plants a kiss on her lips. Craig, Clarke’s grandfather, stands up and mumbles something loud and unintelligible. 140 140

“Well, I guess it’s my turn. Not one for speaking up in crowds.” He clears his throat. “You fucked up a lot in life son.” Genuine concern amongst the onlookers, the guests. “But it looks like you made a couple of smart decisions today. I’m proud of you and I’m glad that we didn’t mess you up too much.” He nods across the room to his scowling ex-wife and Sgt. Kurtz, her third husband. “Here’s to us Lottie, let’s hope the apple falls far from the tree.” A couple people giggle while Lottie shakes her head. Walter takes Clarke from Katharine’s arms, kissing her in exchange, and takes his son out to the dance floor where he moves as if nobody is judging him, as if the world couldn’t possibly crumble beneath them and reveal its depth, its sorrows, its injustice. They are, if only for a moment, happy—the complications of life drowned out by champagne, friends, and a sort of rehearsed nostalgia handed down to them from the past, and most likely from what they’ve seen on TV. Clarke’s observant new eyes look towards the sky as his mother receives him back to hold. He watches, transfixed but unconcerned, as a balloon rises above the party, higher and higher into the clouds. He doesn’t blink, because he wants to follow this tiny globe of color and light until there’s nothing left but clouds, and behind them, a clear blue sky.

DARLING

A man once lived in our town whose legacy outlasted his physical presence. His name was Michael and he invented things that pertained to flight, however useless or ridiculous they were perceived to be. His disposition was sweet, so everyone treated him with kindness. Most would consider him a romantic as he often spoke of his search for the elusive “One,” whom he specifically and ironically called by his own last name: Darling. Perhaps this brought back a nostalgia for us all, a reminder of what youthful hope could hold just around the corner—or maybe we all just felt sorry for him. Either way, daily he’d stand outside of Mr. James’s bank on the corner of Hyde and Star and attempt to market his latest invention to anyone who would listen—anybody with a heart, or a weight of guilt for which attention to this lowly man was penance. He had hailed from England at quite a young age, leaving a sister and mother behind due to some form of insanity that his father couldn’t bear. Stern George Darling worked with miserly Mr. James at the very literal Five Story Bank for some time. They developed a close relationship with each other, close enough that George even passed his inheritance onto him, causing Mr. James to become Michael’s benefactor were anything bad ever to happen. It did. Just after Michael turned eighteen, a drunkard recently fired from the bank for petty thievery and general non-conformity jumped from the roof of the very same bank, and landed directly on George as he stepped out at exactly five o’clock. His mal-proportioned body (all gut) allowed just enough cushion for the jumper to survive with a broken back while snapping George’s neck in the process. Death was instant, an unexpected event for such a small town where the gossip mill turned to the whisper of budding or broken relationships, as well as other products of boredom. 142 142

“Couldn’t have been an accident.” “Wouldn’t put it past him.” “Satan did it. Only Satan could have done this.” Mr. James took over the estate, but allowed Michael to stay in the large house at the end of the hill that the boy had shared with his father. He was rumored to have sent some of the funds to the insane asylum housing the ladies left behind in England, as well as provide access for Michael to what most deemed as most of the money George left behind. He continued to run the bank alone and afforded himself very little contact with the boy who had just finished his private studies, and who had little ambition when it came to money, politics or extended education. The boy was a dreamer, and cared more about someday having a family and building modes of communication that would allow others to connect faster, sooner, better, and deeper—specifically that all, like Noah’s animals, would find their match before the great flood of Reality, decay and death found them boatless. Due to a superstition that had something to do with the past of the Darling home, Mr. James kept away. He also kept out of Michael’s affairs in general and simply nodded with a disdainful “hmm” whenever he encountered him. Well over six foot one and a half, Michael’s lack of bulk gave him the appearance of a gawky skeleton in oversized clothes, almost always consisting of a tweed jacket and mismatched pants if he remembered to cover his long johns. He never seemed aware of his height, evidenced by the signposts dented and oiled whilst he gazed at “cotton-candy clouds.” He was also known for rubbing his ring finger raw, a sort of nervous tic the public attributed to his overtly expressed desire for companionship—as if the ache of something missing were a physical malady. 143 143

The town we shared was called Everton and, surrounded by hills, rested right next to the Atlantic. Everton was small and generally predictable, but any incident pertaining to the Darling family gave some cause for the town to have a sort of history, albeit one based on quirks, rumors, and superstition. The myth itself eventually defined the town as one rooted in aviation, albeit the sort only few were able to get their hands on—were they willing to fly by unconventional means.



When the buzzing sound first began, everyone attributed it to a broken lawnmower or a sick helicopter. It was, in fact, Michael the Inventor (now about twenty-four) flying around on a lawn chair attached to an oscillating fan and parachute looking for his Darling. Nobody knew how literally to take his search, so, as most did with his inventions, we humored him and asked what she looked like. The responses shouted down through the noise, mixed with the absurdity of our town’s desperate gossip mill, allowed for many interpretations: “He said she has candy apple red lips and hair like a spider’s silk but in a good way, and eyes that shine and reflect the light of everyone around her.” “White girl with a scar just above her heart, brown hair but light in the sun, circular eyes.” “On the heavier side. Mustached. Sweet.” The contraption he was flying zigzagged through oscillating airstreets for at least a week before landing, disappearing in the general direction of the Darling residence at the end of the hill. 144 144

Following this bizarre flight were the construction-paper signs. Listed below stick-figure sketches were words imploring anyone who found his lost love to “please let him know immediately,” and that their reward would be that they were “making a poor man truly happy to know that she was quite happy.” Those who pitied him pitied him all the more, and those who thought it penance to hear out his ideas gave all they could to help him find this mysterious, unknown, unnamed, un-countenanced woman—who could have, for all anyone knew, been any one of the one-hundred thirty-three women in Everton. This acted as a catalyst and sparked the secretly obvious affection of Darcy, a waitress at the local fifties diner, The Fifties Diner. Darcy was a sweet, freckled girl with strawberry cotton-candy hair, and a unique conflicting personality. She would always play with rubber bands, stretching them around her wrist and fingers until the bands would break, only to pull a new one out of the fanny pack that never left her waist. She was a dreamer as well, constantly running into things, but with a keen self-aware sense of humor that made social life possible and charm inevitable. She would doodle characters and animals on napkins she had taken from the diner and hand them out to children on her way home, where she lived alone in a yellow cottage-like house with a green thatched roof. She would often sneak leftover pies from the diner and place them on her windowsill to make the town think she was baking, when actually she preferred to read and avoid cleaning up her cluttered collection of laundry, dust, and dirty dishes. More importantly, Darcy preferred spending time arranging what she called her Findings, which consisted of odd knick-knacks and maps and any artifacts that reminded her of far- away places. Since Darcy had first laid eyes on Michael, he had been her Darling, so to speak, whom she labeled “The One”—a man that embodied one of her Findings. 145 145

She would linger the longest when he’d expose his latest invention, and she would, having built up the courage, ask him questions to figure out what he was doing, and why, and for whom. The vague signs and the indeterminable descriptions of his Darling gave her hope that countered the inadequacies and insecurities that humans are wont to attribute to themselves when wishing on a potentially unrequited love. Her attention toward him, in other words, remained consistent albeit more available, while others took notice of him for the first time given his very conspicuous recent activities. Like losing one’s wallet, many hadn’t quite realized he had left his soapbox-esque Inventor’s Corner until he left and had started his very public search. Then the town of three-hundred thirty-three started to talk. He was now news worth mentioning, and nobody but Darcy understood how they had missed such a beautiful mystery that had once, in her mind, belonged only to her. The first oddity that grew to be a public fascination during this time was his house—a two-story Victorian mansion surrounded by a deceptively dense hedge that seemed to grow taller as one grew nearer. Once beyond it, as we’ve learned since, there was a raised wooden bridge leading up to the front door surrounded by miniatures of towns and cities from all over the world, some even imagined. The windows and doors were kept open at all times, evidenced by the weathered wear of the drapes and carpet in the vicinity of any opening in the house. Everything inside was later found in disarray but formed in loose concentric circles, layered with years of dust. There was even a long-since dead and rotted Christmas tree, graced still by working lights and a silver star. Portraits of the family lined the staircase, including an older brother who was discovered to have joined the Air Force and disappeared in a routine flight out of San Salvador a few years before George had passed. Between the portraits of Michael and his brother, there was a 146 146 blank section on the wall with the shadowed imprint of a missing frame, which has yet to be found to this day. It appeared the spacious backyard was where he spent his time inventing and even living—a tent, firewood, and all manner of camping equipment lay in neat order. There were also a number of stargazing items found on a balcony that overlooked the backyard, as well as multiple cryptic and confused paintings of star maps. There was also the mystery of his relational status. When speaking to people from his Corner, he would often gaze past them toward the direction of his home. He’d gaze right through them and through the commercial buildings beyond, and most figured he was dreaming of someone special cooped up in his mansion. They wondered if she was at home, making him food, putting up with his nonsense, treating him with the love they couldn’t afford with their busy lives. He would often whisper clichés he thought nobody heard, like “For you, my happy thought, my Darling.” There was never any evidence to suggest she existed, and Darcy never got the feeling that he was unavailable, evidenced also by his empty ring finger. And yet, with the flying chair and the signs, he seemed to be willing to go to great lengths to find this Darling he seemed so set on. How long she had been around, who she was, and her affections towards him, if any, never came to light. When asked, his answers were often ambiguous and yet somehow genuine, giving the impression that he was being forthright. He would mumble something about love and hope and goodness and optimism. He would smile and say that he would wait and never give up. Most simply attributed this as a brilliant ploy to avoid being set up with any of the available women in the town (many were less than eye-catching, to put it mildly). He was an enigma, a mystery that everyone eventually wanted to solve, but none more than Darcy herself.

147 147



Not long after the fly-bys and the signs, Michael did something that nobody expected him to do. Now a town full of curious onlookers, some had witnessed the postman, furrowed brow, making his way towards the Darling residence one afternoon. He held a yellow package and after many attempts at communicating with someone beyond the closed gates, he tossed the package over the hedge and darted off. By morning, the signs had been taken down. When questioned, the postman had stated that the package was from London, and upon researching the subject some years later, it is believed to have contained a journal kept by his sister and a note pertaining to her recent suicide. With little understanding back then as to why his behavior changed, Michael arrived the following week at Mr. James’s bank and asked for a job. This request for something so tangible stunned Mr. James and silenced the gossipers. The former asked Michael if he had lost money, and he replied that most of it remained but that he needed more structure and responsibility and savings for the future, that his life needed to be grounded. Mr. James had reportedly avoided asking about Michael’s recent endeavors, as he tried to stay out of such things, but Michael had of course brought up his Darling and cited her as the reason he needed to “grow up.” To this, Mr. James’s mustached baby face had smiled slightly and told him something to the effect of: “We all need to grow up some time or another. You’ll find responsibility exhilarating.” From then on, he took the boy under his wing and grew significantly less miserly. They were sighted in coffee shops and Mr. James even walked him home a couple times, keeping his distance when they would approach the Darling 148 148 residence. Something about his relationship with Michael sparked a twinkle in Mr. James’s eyes, a look that would linger and reveal a healthy sort of pride in a boy he now perhaps considered to be his own. Once gawky and unkempt, Michael became groomed and well-mannered as befitting his age. Over time, he even began to resemble his late father, wearing a suit, but replacing the standard necktie with a clip-on polka-dotted bowtie, which Mr. James seemed to endure in light of progress. Whether by accident or rehearsed, Darcy ran into him one day and asked how the job was. He said he was working on making himself better for “Her.” For whom, she had asked, to which he replied that it was his Darling, the one he had waited for his whole life. She asked him if he was sure, if he knew who she was, and he obscurely stated that he knew the butterflies in his stomach when he felt them, that he knew his happy thoughts. This statement, along with the physicality of Michael actually laying eyes on Darcy at the same time, was too much for her to bear. She nearly fainted, but made an excuse and ran off, wondering and knowing all at the same time that he was not speaking of or to her directly. She was not only receiving false hope that she knew was false hope, but worried about the state of things when the town dreamer became less different than anyone else. She said later that she had been having nightmares at the time, ones where the world was crumbling beneath her, even as she lay in bed. She remembered herself often feeling at the time that she was standing on top of a tall, pencil-thin skyscraper, even when sitting on the ground. The fall could come at any moment, and would most certainly end in death. Her mindset then was uninhibited and unsafe, and perhaps the strange malady that had once affected Michael was now affecting a mind that couldn’t handle such things. 149 149

When she was able to build up courage enough to speak to him again, she made her way back to the bank and pretended that she was interested in opening up an account. He seemed jovial enough until she started asking questions about his Darling again. How can you be so sure, she had asked. He instinctively countered with asking her about the stars and how she could be so sure they weren’t pinpricks of light in an occasionally dark globe, or even distant islands where dreamers could fly to at night and adventure until they awoke. At that, she recalled a sort of sadness that washed over him. She asked what was wrong and he made up some excuse about leaving something forgotten behind. He spoke of youth and adventure and flight. He mentioned something to the effect of: “Once you learn the joys of youth, you never stop looking for them. If I can’t find it in the stars, if I can’t find it in growing up, I will find it in her.” At this, Michael bolted off, shedding his suit as he ran back to his house, slapping signposts with his head all the way and not seeming to care. Mr. James noticed Michael in his distress and followed after, ducking under each signpost and awning along the way in spite of his being at least a foot shorter than any of them. Darcy followed not far behind, fearing some greater consequence she may have exposed these men to. Mr. James pleaded with the boy to keep his head on the ground and grow up. Michael spoke of love and opportunity and life and hope, which caused his benefactor to wince and nearly throw up. Mr. James began to cite specific examples in town of the consequences of those who had not settled down and settled in—the wide spectrum included a woman who had made terrible life decisions and lived with her baby on the streets, as well as a man who would often yell over a simple mix-up with his order specifications at the café. Life is full of unpleasantries and one should make something of oneself in order to avoid such 150 150 worries. Michael pointed out that the woman’s name was Samantha and that she loved her child more than anyone in the world, and that fate had dealt her a few bad hands, but that he often saw her singing to her smiling baby and would bring them food on his way home. He spoke of Dan, whose wife had recently contracted cancer, and how he had also been laid off of his job of twenty years due to rumors of a highway that was presumably going to be constructed in the near future. The only control Dan felt he had was in correctly receiving his two over-medium eggs, his sausage links strung together to form a smile, and a cup of coffee with a dollop of sugar, a pinch of cream and a light dusting of cinnamon—and even that hadn’t been going well. As optimism and pessimism collided, Darcy found herself wondering how this had all begun and why any of it was relevant. She questioned her own need for finding companionship, while at the same time questioning her questioning of it. She wondered if love was bigger than all of them or perhaps smaller, something that could be controlled. She wondered how youth was related, and recalled running by a pool when she was younger, pebbled concrete smelling of fresh chlorine and the sounds of laughter and the lack of fear. She would jump into the deep end and imagine herself flying until she had to come up for air. And when she remembered this, she felt herself falling even while standing in place— the world being a much larger, wilder, deeper and dangerous place than she once had imagined as a fanny pack-wearing youth. She sat on the sidewalk and tuned in to the argument between Mr. James and Michael, which seem to have ended in a draw. Darcy crept away behind someone’s rose bushes, having neither been seen nor heard.

 151 151

That night, the town awoke once more to a buzzing sound. A dark form moved through the sky, this time with flashlight in hand that lit very little, and gave just enough shape to the form to allow everyone a final glimpse of Michael. The tiny insufficient haze of light in the night sky oscillated back and forth in the direction of the ocean, until it blended in with the stars. That was the last anyone saw of him.



After the disappearance, the town was left in a state of arrested development. Mr. James waited for some time to fill the position at the bank. He initially would gaze in the direction of the Darling house looking disappointed, then angry, and eventually even sad—an expression few had ever seen on that miserly mustached face. The rumor mill became powered by a frenzy and then in time, as all things do, subsided. “Wonder when he’ll be back?” “I’ll miss the guy, even if he was just a little bit retarded.” “Who?” There was felt, during that time, a collective stirring that hadn’t been present for some time in a town where folks had to embellish in order to feel that anything new could happen. The awakening of this odd man’s presence, as well as his plight for a woman who may or may not have existed, caused everyone to talk outside of their own shortsighted vision. His disappearance reflected this in the constant glances and gazes towards the direction of the ocean, eventually summed 152 152 up as nervous tics they were all born with—an evolution of sorts affecting those who lived near the ocean. Darcy grew numb and grew up, in time. The Darling home was remodeled and initially rented by an estate to a young family from the Netherlands. That family eventually bought the house, given the estate holder’s inability to reach any sane Darling on this side of life. As for Mr. James, he grew quite depressed after that. It was said he often wandered around the small beach over the hill, staring into the reflections on the water, perhaps unwilling to view the sky directly. Darcy remembered him becoming a regular at that time. He’d sit at the bar and sip black coffee spiked with whatever he would bring in a flask, and stare into nothing (or perhaps through everything), mumbling about flight and fancy and how life didn’t really amount to anything. Mumbling that numbers were paramount because they made sense and grounded people. The bank closed when the highway was constructed, and the town expanded and filled with big name companies. We weren’t sure what happened to Mr. James in the end, but the rumor remained that he disappeared somewhere in or near the ocean—a broken watch was found washed up on the rocks nearby with his insignia on it. Darcy remained haunted by Michael’s loss. Construction paper signs once again flanked the town’s telephone poles, some covering the remaining bits of Michael’s own creations. These, however, displayed paintings of Michael by a local artist who had vaguely remembered his deer-in-headlights demeanor. Instead of representing the sort of happy naivety Michael displayed when present, however, the renderings posted around town and even at the beach beyond the hill looked as if he had been caught by surprise and frightened by something. This look was perpetuated by the acrylic paint on the thin cloth scrolls Darcy had 153 153 purchased, slightly melting in the sun and creating what townsfolk called The Boogeyman Effect, an Impressionist slant on what could have been a fair likeness of Michael. The eventually terrifying posters grew their own myth and to the dismay of Darcy, overshadowed Michael’s legacy with warnings to the new generations regarding visits by The Flying Man in the event of misbehavior. Eventually, Darcy disappeared into the shadows of her own house, forgotten. Whether she died and was silently taken away overnight, or ran away possibly looking for her lost love, no one was quite sure. Her house remained abandoned and in a constant state of disrepair, the window of her room eternally rusted open, the deed still belonging to her meager estate but worth too little for the bank to pay attention to. Her house became fodder for rumors and dares, challenging brave and foolish children and teens with the darkly welcoming window in the back. There seemed an endless supply of foreign-looking knick-knacks and objects to bring back in order to prove that one had braved The Witch’s House, including various opera glasses, telescopes, and binoculars, as well as sketches of the stars and books on astronomy. On one of the cracked, sponge-like telephone poles in which old ads and bits of both Michael and Darcy’s posters were most likely still entwined, a recent proof of a visit to Darcy’s home was displayed as a trophy—it was one of Michael’s construction paper posters. It displayed a stick figure and a face that somewhat resembled the simple face of a cartoon princess who, even in the most cynical light, resembled Darcy when she was young. In the roughly drawn, haphazard lines was a dream that, when glimpsed right, was made to be believed.

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