ONE TRACK MIND

by

Joel David Kassay

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Fine Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

August 2003 ONE TRACK MIND

by Joel David Kassay

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor, Dr. Jason Schwartz, Department of English, and has been approved by the members of his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.

SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

Date

11 ABSTRACT

Author: Joel David Kassay

Title: One Track Mind

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Advisor: Dr. Jason Schwartz

Degree: Master of Fine Arts

Year: 2003

One Track Mind is a world wherein characters, driven by their unique, individual sexualities, are both prey and companionship for each other. The resulting, incessant shifting between cooperation and competition comprises the dramatic action of the stories. However, more dramatic than much of the action are the stylistic shifts of narration-both within and among the stories. This diversity of narrative style, much more so than invocation of place-names, describes and defines the myriad landscapes of the world of One Track Mind: serene and absurd, lush and sparse, sincere and sardonic.

111 Table of Contents

Quondam Quarry ...... 1

Because Sometimes Awakenings Come Right on Time Like Trains ...... 24

Cure for Insomnia ...... 3 7

Another Encounter ...... 41

The Girl Who Took to Practicing Dying ...... 60

Palm Trees; Nightclubs; Coffee ...... 80

Reassessed ...... 96

Hollow Conversation ...... 113

What There Is ...... 11 7

Loser ...... 128

Echo-Stroke ...... 144

Nominal Fee ...... 164

One Bedroom Over ...... 191

Special Weapons and Tactics ...... 205

Filled to Over:flowing ...... 211

lV Quondam Quarry

When it comes to humping, I'm nothing like your usual panda.

This fact occurs to me as I spank a six-foot-tall, fluorescent orange, velour rabbit, or perhaps while said rabbit spanks me. I can't say I remember exactly. What I do remember are the pads of those front paws-white, not the black you might expect (to go with the harshness of the orange )-and my marvel at how they stay so clean. Especially when the two ofus are being so dirty. I wonder about myself; if my animal identity is supposed to match my original one, how come I didn't pick a creature more representative of this libido I'm always failing to contain? Why did I pick a panda instead of a rabbit? Why are my white belly and head a little grimy all the time, when these rabbit paws I'm sucking on are nearly pristine? I dress up in bigger-than-people-sized, fuzzy animal suits, and I have sex with people who do the same. Certain questions persist, even for me.

At least one or two of the answers come when I'm at work the next day. Work, like play, involves my panda self. (After a while, you try not to call it a costume.) Work also involves walking around Wally's Wonder World-the largest amusement park in

Oregon-and having my picture taken with the children who run up and hug me.

"Smile honey, just like your panda friend there." The little girl's dad, clearly an object of resentment for the unfortunate people who work under him wherever it is he collects a paycheck from, says to his pretty-but-clingy daughter.

1 We're not friends, I think to myself, we're really only acquaintances. It's not like

I wouldn't be friends, but really, let's recognize a professional relationship when we see one. It's not like this child and I have anything in common, any shared experience other than that photograph.

I watch the kid run back up to her dad as though, all of a sudden, I'd tried to eat her or told her she was ugly. (They all do that, to all of us; children's photo op is a thankless job.) Behind me is a topiary in the shape of a dragon; it's even got fire-like fern emanating from its mouth. Something about the overall affect strikes me as laughing. Right now, at me. Of course, I'm still looking at the kid, not the dragon tree, but I know it's there the same way all of my dreams take place in this park, I've worked here so long.

"Actually, if you note the ovular mouth, and the bottoms of the eyes, you can tell it's really more of a surprised panda. There's not really a smile there at all." This from

Gabe, my art-student escort, who thinks he's smart. Wally's Wonder World requires that all "costumed personalities" be accompanied by an unfettered escort, for security reasons.

"Thanks, big guy," the dad smirks at Gabe, and walks away, dragging his daughter along. Another picture of me in tow, somewhere inside his camera.

"Dick," Gabe offers to the man's back.

A sneeze is my contribution. I tell myself that the sneeze is an allergic reaction to that suggestion of confrontation. (Mine is not a job one wants to do with a stuffy nose; a full-blown cold is grounds for retirement.) The dad looks back at us, and must tell himselfthat all he heard was the sneeze, because he doesn't say anything and just keeps walking away, his daughter already pointing to a purple-bulldog colleague of mine

2 standing just outside the building that houses the Haunted Castle Ghoster Coaster. I don't even bother to care, this time, about the little girl's reaction. I don't bother with reminding myself that she just sailed through the emotional landscapes embarrassment, anxiety, and enthusiasm all right in front of me. At that moment, the only thing I want is to not be sneezing in the close, closed quarters of a faux-fur and polyurethane head, wherein the breathing hole is the same black scrim I see out of and that multi-purpose portal (disguised and doubling, on the outside, as a panda's mouth) is currently covered with my snot. Mine is not a job one wants to do with a stuffy nose. Removing my head in public, though, would not only cost me my job, it would also end the cute little game

I've got going with Gabe, a game that, even though it's clearly flirting, I still find fun.

Lunch, for me, consists of a cold grilled cheese sandwich (it's weird eating meat while wearing a panda suit, and bamboo tastes like feet), a couple extra doses of cold medicine, and a lot of paper-towel scrubbing of the inside of my panda head. Gabe, carrying a manila folder, runs up to me as I leave the employee locker room, having just replaced my head. I know what this means, and it's not fair, because I already don't feel well.

"Damn. Just missed it," Gabe nods in the general direction of my panda head, pointing his eyes at my plastic versions. In the three weeks that Gabe's worked at

Wally's Wonder World, and, therefore, with me, he's never seen my face. But he wants to. Bad. "What do you say you take off that helmet, just once, just for me?" he says, actually a little joking this time.

3 "It's a head, not a helmet," I say, and point to the folder, "Boy or girl?" Gabe may be inclined to denial, or distraction, but I just want to get it over with.

"Come on," he says, "just one little drawing, of your head on the panda body; it won't take an hour."

"Gab e."

"Boy," Gabe says, "a young one."

Police departments have the right idea; whenever a kid goes missing, the first place they call is us, the amusement parks. A call comes in, a fax follows it, and in a matter of minutes the park's entire staff is carrying around a picture of the child and any-what they call-expected escort. This is the right idea for the cops because kidnappers have the right idea, too.

Gabe holds the folder open for me, where I can see the picture, and the briefing on the boy's situation paper-clipped behind it, but I can't make out the words. He keeps looking at my panda face, as though my expression will somehow clue him in on how to feel. Every time, he's greeted with the same, surprised panda. You'd think he'd figure that out after the first few looks. Even my eyes are hidden behind that scrim; you can only see through it if you're looking out from within.

Especially in the first few hours of a kidnapping, the little one's bound to be frantic over the anxiety of separation, at least, and that's not even considering anything awful that might have happened during the moment of what the authorities call

"departure." So, the first thing any smart abductor does is distract all would-be tantrums, and probably the best place to do this is a lulling world of rides, candy, and fantasy

4 animals who talk and hug. Also known as Wally's Wonder World if you're in Oregon.

Or, in my case: work.

"What's his name?"

"Parker Ketchum," he says.

The "costumed personalities" at all relevant parks get a photo of the kid, which we're expected to study and know, since we often have such intimate contact with the park's youngest visitors. Gabe was told about this, like I was, when he first started on the job. I know because I watched it happen. Because I helped train him. But this is the first alert he's actually gotten. I sniffle a little, and manage: "That's a cute name."

"He's three," Gabe says.

The looking that will follow is not something I'm looking forward to:" But of course the only thing to say, just then, is: "We might as well get out there."

Gabe stays put, reading the folder, as I walk on; at first, he mumbles: "He's only seven." Then, he enunciates, at me: "Have you ever actually seen one ofthese kids?"

"Twice," I say, facing the direction opposite Gabe, walking down the plain white hallway in the usual, bow-legged-and-swinging-arms walk of people in animal costumes,

"in twenty years." Call me crazy, but I cut lunch short when it seems appropriate. I'm dizzy from the meds, and it's hot outside, but who wants to sit around an employee break room staring at a photo of an abducted child? I don't fancy myself a hero, it's not like I'll ever pummel any wrongdoers (not successfully, anyway), but I feel a certain responsibility. It would be nice to rescue a kid, to know one's safe, for once, instead of just hearing the opposite on the news. To buck the mathematical probability against the

5 opposite outcome. Of course, I'm also still concerned about all the same, stupid things, like my runny nose and the fact that I just gave Gabe a hint at my age.

The rest of the afternoon, it's: kid, camera, click; kid, camera, click. Parents and other permutations of the same responsibility take pictures of me with their kids.

Literally, they take a little bit of me home with them from their vacation. You've heard the theory; some people think a photo steals your soul. There's something to that, but I think it's really only a little part of your soul. A dad in camouflage-patterned, cut-off shorts, and a hot-pink Wally's Wonder World t-shirt (Wally's clown face, in close-up, encircled by the name of the park) walks away from me, his twin sons holding a hand apiece, and much as I've left a small impression of myself on the film in the camera slung around his neck, each ofhis kids leave a little bit of the chocolate that had been on their mouths on my supposedly white panda belly. I think there's some snot, too. Which is not as much of a concern as the chocolate, since I've left plenty of that inside the head.

I've watched it accumulate all day, right there on the back of the black scrim. It reminds me, unfortunately, of some ofthe fluids I've left on other costumes over the years.

"Hey," I say to Gabe, "Let's go in; I'm dirty."

"You don't look bad. The chocolate isn't all that noticeable."

He's right, of course, and if I stay out another halfhour there's that much more of a chance that we'll spot Parker Ketchum; today is not a day for quitting early. "Okay.

Let me see that picture again."

At a concession stand behind us, a line offive or six park-goers watch Gabe and I talk. This isn't ideal. As a costumed personality at Wally's Wonder World, I'm

6 supposed to stay silent. The personnel manager, though, would never reprimand me for diligent attention to a missing child alert. Susie, said manager, believes in long shots and lost causes almost as much as I do. Every kid that goes missing in our time zone, she's sure we'll find him at Wally's. Just the same, I point at the building-in the shape of

Wally's clown-like, elaborately-mustachioed head, brown bowler hat and all-and tell

Gabe: "Let's try to be discreet." I'm an idiot. "Discreet" is a word you simply can't speak and be at the same time. Especially when you're speaking as a six-foot-tall panda.

The concession line goes a little quiet, about half of them watching us even more attentively than before.

So, with everybody watching like that-maybe even the concessions vender­

Gabe nestles up to me, and opens the folder with a flick of the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, as his right hand wraps around my waist. I can barely feel it, deep inside the padded billow of the panda suit with its canvas and fur. I tum to him, as though to make eye contact, "That goes for our little chat, not just the info in the file."

"What?"

"Your arm."

"What about it," and he steps away a bit, removing the arm, closing the folder.

He does an excellent job of pretending, and of course that's just what he's doing, that he doesn't know what I'm talking about.

"Nothing. Let's make a pass through the Midway; that should pretty much take us to closing time."

"Lead the way," he says; the perfect response for a guy whose job description is

"to stay as inconspicuous as possible while the character parades through the park."

7 On the way to the Midway, Gabe reads to me from Parker's file.

That last hour or so takes forever, and involves many, many more new photos. Of course, the whole time, I'm only envisioning one photo, and it's fading steadily from my memory. Eclipsing the photo is the knowledge that accompanies it. Abductor: unknown.

Despite how it seems on television and movie screens, this is an extreme irregularity.

Around us, children smash rubber mallets on to steel springs and send green rubber frogs hurtling toward unsteady fake lily pads. Basketballs and darts are thrown. All of this is engineered toward forgetting.

After all that looking and forgetting, I get to sit around the locker room, in costume, talking to other character players (many of whom stay in costume too, some for reasons I know, others for reasons I can guess) until Gabe finally gets the hint that he'll have to leave before we get undressed. No. We will not let him draw us. No; not even some sketches. No. Not one of us. When he does leave, Wally's Wonder Walrus locks the locker room door behind us. The silver walrus and I understand each other, as most of us do. Fang, the magenta lion. Wings, the blue eagle. Rufy, the purple bulldog.

Others of assorted names and phyla. There's a unity among us that supercedes both species and color. None of us is sure who let Gabe in to begin with. (I have a nagging suspicion it was me, but none of our little group bothers with intimations or accusations.)

We leave the locker room together, and enter our respective cars silently. Even if all of our escorts were waiting in the parking lot for us, they'd never know who was who unless we spoke. We fuzzies like our privacy, despite the fact that Wally's Wonder World­ which is, topiaries aside, a decidedly budget theme park---{)nly provides us with one

8 dressing room yet employs both sexes as "costumed personalities." For a lot of reasons, undressing in front of each other is no problem.

I spend the night after that day with Bizzy, my rabbit friend. Bizzy doesn't work at Wally's, with me, so we get to tell each other that we've missed each other all day.

Then we pull out the collars and leashes, and get to play.

I need this. To think as far away from Parker as possible. And there he is. Just as Bizzy straps a made-for-fuzzies, plastic saddle around my panda back, I think of

Parker, and the fact that he "may have been injured during abduction," and have to stop.

"I'm sorry." I stand up.

"What's wrong?"

"Work."

"Did one of the others give you a problem? Is it Susie?"

"No. There's a kid missing." Bizzy and I have been playing long enough that

I've spoken about this before.

"Wow. I'm sorry." Bizzy takes off the rabbit head. "Do you want me to make you dinner?"

I leave my panda head on. "I don't know." I look at my belly, where I expect chocolate to be. But this is my personal costume, not the one from work. As a rule, I don't take my job home with me; it's an essential setup when your fetish gear is also your work clothes, somehow you have to maintain a truly personal personal life. This belly sports different stains than my work belly.

Then I decide: "No. I like making you dinner. Just talk to me during, okay?"

9 Bizzy stands behind me as I sprinkle and pour spices and stuff into the sauce I'm making us. Even in full panda regalia, I move around Bizzy's kitchen well. "I can't imagine what that must be like. That's such an awful responsibility they level on you." I move around Bizzy's kitchen so well because it is very large. Bizzy doesn't work as a fuzzy.

Bizzy likes to take the rabbit head off when we're not playing. I wish the hint would sink in, that Bizzy would see how my panda head tends to stay on until it's time to eat together, or, as it happens on other days, until I get into the shower. Bizzy doesn't get the hint.

I strain the pasta, assuring, "It's not so bad. It'd even be nice, if! could ever actually feel like I was helping."

Bizzy says something else about it, and starts off on a rant.

Bizzy doesn't make a living off of the fuzzy identity.

Sure, this means Bizzy's forced to live a divided existence for huge portions of the day, or life, but it also means good money. Bizzy's a CPA, with an office and a staff and everything. I tell Bizzy to work from home. Let me be the staff. We could be fuzzy together all day. Then I always say: "You could pay me more than Wally's ever will, and still save money," and Bizzy gets quiet, and changes the subject. Why I always say that I don't know.

I don't even bring up the subject as I pour the pasta into the pot that the sauce is still simmering in. I hand Bizzy a bowl, interrupting something to the effect of, " ...just

10 like taxes; all these people with no real, sworn authority taking people's lives and freedoms and just doing ... ," and I say: "Let's eat."

I spend the night at Bizzy's.

My first appearance, that next day, is just outside of Wally's Water Wonders-the section of the park that involves the flume ride, a wave pool, and some water slides.

Chlorine wreaks havoc on faux panda fur. I can smell it melting. I think. Three girls, of varying ages under twelve, all with red hair and freckles, shove their one-pieces against my chocolate-stained belly. (No; it never quite came out.) I lean over, throwning my shaggy black arms around all six of their shoulders. Their mother snaps a snapshot. The mother, also red-haired, prompts them, "What do we say, girls?"

They all tum and look at me. I point my panda eyes at them, which means I'm looking at their feet. They scream. "Thanks Popper!" It would suck to be that young again, I think. And right away, I feel bad about it. Dripping remnants of the redheads still making their way off of me, Parker Ketchum flashes back to mind.

"Does that get you wet, in there?" Gabe steals Parker's place in the forefront front of my concern, mostly because he's lowered his face in to my line of vision in order to ask that.

I resume a standing posture: "What?"

"Are all these kids in swimsuits getting your clothes wet, or is that panda you're wearing insulated? There's a breeze today; you don't want that cold to tum to pneumonia."

Oh. "I'm fine. Worst-case scenario, I'll fade a little bit."

11 "Let's move over by the flume then; most of them are more splashed than drenched."

I follow him. This is both what I've meant to do and what I've avoided all day.

The flume is where I first identified an abductee at Wally's Wonder World.

I'd only been working as a fuzzy for a few months, at that point, and an alert came out. My escort carried around the bulletin all day. I don't remember that escort's name, but she was nice, and pretty. Sometimes, when I tell the story, I call her Alicia, but it was actually Azalea or Annelise, or something like that. She'd only been with us for a few days, and that would be her last. We were both big fans of detective shows on television, and we were both sure that we'd spot the missing girl, Amanda Barnes, right there in our very own section-the water section-of our very own theme park, even though she'd actually gone missing two states away.

It had been four days since Amanda had been taken, and Wally's had just gotten notice. Alacia and I were standing next to the railing that overlooks the flume ride, studying Amanda's photo, a few children waiting (relatively patiently) behind me to be hugged, when the missing little girl's body floated by where the log was supposed to go.

I called Susie, who was already my manager.

Following Gabe, he's thin, and short, and has an ass much like Alacia's.

I start skipping, swinging my kid-stained panda paws from side to side, my head all around, attracting nearby children into stride with me. They leave drip-spattered footprints and anxious parents behind them.

Gabe does not go to that bad spot near the flume's railing; I do. A crowd of children behind me, waiting to be hugged, handshaked, and hair-mussed, I stare down at

12 the flume trench. Blue half-pipe, rusty, ferrous gears in its center, chlorine-clear water running over all of that. I am an idiot. There's no body there. There's no reason to even think Parker is in Oregon anymore.

I tum around and start hugging children. They scream. They jump. They ignore the parents behind them, snapping photos of us all, screaming (just like their kids),

"Smile, honey," pretending that they weren't angry mothers and fathers even a moment ago as the little ones ran to me. Just as Gabe finally makes it through the throng, to his proscribed place left-of-me-and-to-the-rear, the flume shoots by just a few feet from the railing, erupting a cascade of chlorinated wave onto all of us from behind. We all scream, and then laugh, me included.

Lunch is spent cleaning my scrim. I sneeze about once a minute, despite my medication. I begin to fear I am allergic to children. Or Gabe. Then I decide it's just a cold; I've been around both Gabe and children for a while now, and this is the first time

I've been sick in years.

After lunch is Wally's Warp World. In Wally's Warp World the idea is it's always the future, and today it's raining.

"This sucks," Gabe says.

"It's washing out the chlorine," I offer.

"I hope so." Gabe has, in the past, gone so far as to suggest I should wear sunblock to fight against fading. Sunblock on fur. Gabe hates fading.

13 Gabe holds an umbrella-supposedly for us-mostly over himself. He doesn't realize it; I don't mind it.

No children come to greet us, even when I stand under the awning ofFuturePizza, another one of Wally's exclusive concessions. It's pizza on glow-in-the-dark trays. I don't go inside; it smells inside. Gabe and I watch through the windowed walls as trays make waiters' hands glow. All the children stay inside, and when they leave, they don't stop to hug me, but, rather, run behind their parents to the nearest rollercoaster. All of them ponchoed.

Under the umbrella, Gabe, too, wears a poncho. He doesn't don the hood, though.

"Why don't you put on the hood? It'd keep your ears dry."

"It shoves my bangs down into my eyes. This is the only way to keep them out of the way."

The wet his hair has incidentally accumulated from umbrella runoff and occasional gusts has plastered his nostril-length bangs against his cheeks, echoing the sideburns he already has. He looks both silly and adorable, and he has touched on the heart of the matter. The reason I led us here after lunch, as opposed to, say, the indoor refuge of working the lines at Wally's Ghoster Coaster, is to get this part out of the way.

Despite my claims to altruism-letting Rufy, the purple bulldog, have the haunted duties, instead-what I'm really doing is accepting the fact that, for whatever reason, I'm working through some nostalgia, or whatever, that's clung itself to this whole Parker

Ketchum thing. I have unsettled business with Wally's Wonder Warp-the biggest roller coaster in the park. As we get sort-of-rained-on under that awning, I work up two nerves:

14 one to brave the rain we'll have to run through to get to the coaster's building; and the other one to deal with the, well, past.

Eventually, I just run for it, furry feet splashing puddles into droplets the whole way, Gabe running behind me, wrestling with an inverting umbrella as the wind kicks up.

Inside the almost abstract architecture of the conic and spire-laden building that houses Wally's Wonder Warp, it's line, line, line. The line is huge. This is arguably the park's most popular ride, so the line's always huge. On a rainy day, though, everybody rushes to the inside rides. A downpour, by the way, is the best time to take in a merry­ go-round, if you're interested.

I tell Gabe: "Search the line," and point to Gabe's jacket, inside of which is

Parker's photo. We don't have a photo of even an alleged abductor; we only know that the person had long hair, like a woman. I waste a few moments wondering if it's better or worse that way. For Parker and us. Then I remember to search the line.

I'm in Wally's Wonder Warp because, after the flume, I might as well be. It's where I saw the second, and (at least until Parker) last abducted child I've run into at

Wally's. It was a few years after Amanda, but not many.

I was working the lines at the Warp, keeping kids from realizing how long the wait was. Some of the parents, especially those with cameras, were similarly fleeced.

My escort, Pat, was holding a folder with a picture of Jesse Carter, missing two days, on top of a written description ofthe abductor. Pat and I both had been there the day Amanda turned up. Jesse, you might imagine, was very important to us.

I hugged children, shook adult hands, and watched. I intended to stay in that one place all day, watching. Law of averages, you figure.

15 Then there was noise. People talking loud and fast. Pointing. Wally's Wonder

World employees, all in white, collared shirts, receiving complaints and searching the room in front ofthem for answers. Apparently, quite a lot of people who'd just ridden the ride got off of it very, very upset by what they saw in the front car. The woman sitting there, with a boy next to her, had, in the course of the ride, somehow stood up, despite the safety bar that was supposed to hold her in. She'd proceeded to hold Jesse over her head, as the coaster dipped, climbed and banked, roaring by and under rafters and lights, yelling something to the effect of: "If you ever leave me like that again, I'll bring you back here and let this ride rip your head right off. Do you hear me? Do you understand? Dead."

Well, the woman's fellow passengers pointed her out to Wally's World employees as soon as the ride stopped, and they chased her. As they ran by me, I saw the child she was carrying, and it was clearly, although only a glimpse, Jesse Carter. I ran

after them, too, but people not in six-foot-tall panda suits, including Pat, with walkie­ talkies and the occasional golf cart, even, couldn't catch up. And before very long at all, thinking of Amanda, I gave up my own stake in the search. The woman, somehow, disappeared into the crowds. She made it away from the park, and stayed away from

authorities. She was never caught. She was Jesse's mother, whom the state had deemed unfit for custody.

Parker's picture is fresh in my mind, next to many, many pictures of other

abducted children, none of which, besides Amanda and Jesse, I've seen in the flesh.

I examine the children in front of me. I trace their hands down from the railing they all cling to. The railing that forces the line to snake in on itself. The railing that

16 needs painting. At one point, it was maroon; now it's just chipped, at best. The bigger parks, in bigger states, paint high-traffic installations like railings and water fountains every single night, right after the park's close. Of course, the fact that they have to use such fast-drying paint is partly to blame for the short life of each night's job, but there's never really a chance, in the world of amusement parks, to break the cycle. People are on vacation here every day, and vacation can't close for repairs.

The kids' faces are tired, many of their noses dripping, like mine. The fever I've developed wants my eyes to hang like theirs, but, instead, mine are locked on theirs.

Looking for Parker. Gabe is, too. His bangs drying, ceasing to be sideburns, getting poofy, getting in his way. He pushes some hair out of his line of sight, turns and asks me:

"How come these just wave, and don't want to hug you?"

Gabe is usually, actually, pretty smart. "Don't you remember? At a time like this, you couldn't afford to run and hug, you didn't want to lose your place in line."

"I guess this is the Warp."

"Exactly."

"Hey, is it true ... ," and Gabe prepares to ask me about the urban legend that sprung up from Jesse's story, that his mom did bring him back one day, and that she actually did let one of the rafters in Wally's Wonder Warp take his head.

"No," I refuse to let him even finish the question. Even when kids aren't really paying attention to you, they still hear just about everything you say. "It's not true."

We stay there for hours, waving, even hugging a few kids, waiting for the rain to stop. It doesn't, even when it's time for the park to close. Of course, we never see

Parker.

17 That night, Bizzy sends me an instant message over the internet. The text reads:

"Want 2 C me 2nite?" Why Bizzy writes "nite" instead of"night," I'll never understand.

Does one letter really make that much difference?

I'd like to, to feel anything other than sick, and sad.

Just as much, though, I don't detect in myself, just then, even an ounce of tolerance for Bizzy's inevitable bullshit. "No thanks," I write, "I feel 2 bad."

"Prob'ly 4 the best," Bizzy writes, "Wet roads. Still on 4 conference this wkend?"

I sign off, and crawl into bed, even though it's way, way before my bedtime. I haven't turned a single light on since I got home, and it still hasn't stopped raining. The house is dark. I can't even see my own, human hands. Maybe if they were bigger-say, paws-things would be different, but I'm just too tired, and getting more so by the moment.

I'll claim there was a blackout, ifBizzy gets mad at me for not answering. I ponder the diction of my future excuse. The last thing I want to do, just then, is think about anything having to do with conferences. Even though they're important to Bizzy and me, conferences are. It's where we met.

In Montana, of all places. Far enough away that no one would know me, close enough that I didn't feel uncomfortable. I'd never been to one before, but I'd heard about them, read about them on the internet. Supposedly, a group offuzzies was taking over a hotel across the street from the state capitol. Fuzzy-only breakfasts in the conference rooms. A fuzzies-only screening of a few fuzzy-friendly films. A fuzzy dance. And it

18 all actually happened. I was having a great time, there in Helena. Hell, I felt like I was taking over. The only problem was, unlike most of the people there, I was going to bed alone.

On the last night, the night of the fuzzy dance, I determined to make a change, and to that end I started chatting with this seafoam fox. Fiddles, as the fox apparently was called, was pretty hot. That bushy tail, for starters. Then I asked: -t'So, what do you do?''

"Oh. I'm fuzzy for a living, actually."

"Really? Me too; I..."

"Commercials, mostly, but also, I do one-shots. Whenever a new Chinese restaurant opens up, they always need a six-foot panda with social etiquette to greet those first few, pioneering customers, and I'm always the only one around. But that's mostly just or fun. The commercials are my bread-and-butter."

"Wait. You're a panda, too?"

"Well, sure. I'm five or six species now. Whatever they call up needing."

"That's really funny," I said, '"cause I'm a panda, too."

"Yeah, I see that," Fiddles said, without any humor at all, and I started to understand why he was still alone after three days. He didn't stop: "Yeah, commercials money, especially a national campaign, keeps me pretty well supplied with winter vacations in Oahu and summers in Anchorage. I've sold tires, sleeping pills, even

Viagra. Speaking ofViagra ... "

And then: "Excuse me."

19 I turned around: "Yes?" Standing in front of me was a rabbit named Bizzy, a beautiful one, who actually listened to my answer to the question: "Where'd you get your suit from?"

Bizzy and I ditched Fiddles pretty much right away, and went to my room not long after. That, at least, was something I had a little experience with.

It was just serendipitous, or providence, at least, that we both lived in Oregon.

The rest is, well, another story. Suffice to say that Bizzy and I have attended quite a few conferences together, in the years since, as a couple.

After a fitful night of not-really-sleep, full of dreams, I emerge into the park the next day with Gabe struggling to keep up with me. Against all logic, I have energy. I start walking, fast. Certain of the occasional, attentive parents try to stop me, to take pictures of their kids. I have none of it; I pretend not to see them. Gabe calls after me:

"Where are we headed?" And I just don't give him an answer. I only stop when we get back to the Midway. There's the usual, carnie-style games, a little less rigged than their actual, carnie counterparts. But there's also an indoor arcade: video games; skee bowling; pinball. We go in. The air conditioning feels good: I have, after all, a panda suit and a fever to contend with. The thing is, the night before involved a dream where I tapped a kid (playing pinball) on the shoulder with my big, panda paw, and the paw was a pristine, glowing white that hurt my eyes to see, and the kid that turned around was

Parker Ketchum.

20 And then, in the locker room that morning, in the middle of talking to Rufy about that weekend's conference, I noticed that my panda belly is clean. The rainstorm washed the chocolate off.

It was a sign.

So, when Gabe finally catches up to me-despite me having a fever and me having to hobble-! tell him: "Let's work around here today. We deserve it easy after yesterday." No, I don't tell him about the dream; that would be embarrassing.

And then he asks me: "Is it okay ifl make some sketches, then?"

He asks because we're inside, and it's a small building. Little chance of a manager coming by and getting mad at him, and an even smaller chance of anybody in here being bored enough to try and topple over the top-heavy panda, just for kicks.

Everyone's too content in their various distractions to waste time abusing me. And I know what he wants, what he means. He means to sketch me. He's already got this notebook in his hand that he's pulled out ofl-don't-know-where, and a pen, and the fact is that, just then, that's the least of my concerns. "Sure," I say, "whatever," and even as he flips the cover open, I start walking away, which I'm sure isn't quite what he had in mind. The thing is, I have an appointment with a pinball machine.

Gabe follows me. I hardly notice except for the fact that I do.

I reach the row of pinball machines-there are six-and a wave of nausea hits me, and my vision blurs. I want to be sick, but that's just not an option. Not when you're wearing an over-sized, poorly-ventilated helmet of a panda head. And not, more importantly, when you're on duty. I take a breath; I settle, and focus. Then, I can see all of the kids playing pinball, all at once, in profile.

21 None of them is Parker Ketchum.

Of course, I knew this would be the case. I'm not the sort who expects dreams to come true. I am, however, the sort that takes a hint when one presents itself. I find a comer, and I lean it.

Gabe stays back a few feet, sketching away.

I prepare to wait, as long as it takes. I even cross my panda arms across my chest.

My panda legs across one another. I have a feeling.

Hours pass. I make the rounds of the arcade a few times. I always return to the pinball machines. No one even tries to hug me.

Gabe keeps sketching, never asking why we're still there.

Then, it happens. The double doors just across from me open, throwing light in my face. Blinding me, even through the scrim. I blink.

I blink.

I blink again.

Gabe looks up; from his different angle, he's not blinded the way I am. He drops his sketchbook, and his mouth opens.

"Susie!"

Gabe's voice cracks as if he were still young enough to belong in that arcade as a player instead of a worker.

"Hey," Susie says to Gabe, and walks up to me.

She comes up real close. She waves Gabe over.

22 "I just wanted you guys to know," she says, "since I know you've been working really hard on it. It's good news; Parker Ketchum was rescued in a National Wildlife

Preserve on the Idaho-Utah border. About three hours ago, now. He's fine; and they got the guy. So, no worries, eh? Great news to go to lunch on."

"Yeah, great," Gabe says, and means it. It's the first thing he's said about Parker all day. I remain silent. Maybe I nod once at Susie, just so she won't keep talking.

"Okay, then, have a good one," and Susie starts to walk away.

She opens the doors, the light returns, and she says over her shoulder: "And Gabe, quit sketching at work; escorts are easily replaced." And she leaves, and the doors shut, and it's dark again, and all the kids just go on playing their games.

Gabe looks at me, just standing there-no longer leaning-and says: "So, lunch?"

I sniffle a bit, and say: "Yeah. Let's go to the locker room." He looks at me, and knows just what I want.

23 Because Sometimes Awakenings Come Right on Time Like Trains

With her hands thrust out the car window, the air had presence-motion, dimension, and texture-like her hair. Terese let it noodle through her fingers. She felt

Popsci (next to her, in the driver's seat) watching the road instead of her back. All of him was white like his eyes. The all ofhis eyes was white. Up to that point, he'd been reflecting whatever he saw back at her, so the reprieve that was his profile lifted what had been a ceaseless, smothering tangency. As that weight was lifted, the rest of her body joined her hands, flying. But only in her head.

On the bottoms ofher upper arms, the wedge of the car door into which the window sinks began to dig its own trench into the skin it had been supporting. That skin was unfamiliar to such rough touch. As Popsci slowed the hearse for a traffic light, the

air stalled itself and dissipated, and Terese brought her sore arms back inside, settling into her seat and staring forward to the same nowhere special spot down the road that had

fixed Popsci's attention.

Earlier, Terese was in the process of forming what would later be a memory. The

chrome coolness of the door handle was gentle compared to the bottle of soda she cradled by the neck in her left hand. Popsci asked over the car's roof: "You got that okay, pretty lady?

24 People had been calling her "young lady" lately, and each time it amazed and troubled her how many folks-some she didn't even know very well-seemed to have heard the news of her recent change. Her father had celebrated awkwardly (at, she knew, her sister Sarah's urging) with a cake. She knew Sarah had picked, and therefore also probably thought of, the cake because the icing was Sarah's favorite purple as opposed to

Terese's favorite orange. But it was ice cream cake, and good. And her father had told her she looked real pretty that night.

And Popsci, from inside the car, asked, "What's taken ya so long?" Then he turned the key in the ignition, and Terese opened the door and climbed onto the catchy stick of the cracked leather seat.

"It's hot in here," she said.

And Popsci offered: "It'll be better in a second," and cranked his window down.

Terese did the same, and they began their drive, backwards first, from the parking lot of the Cashiuck's Quick Stop.

"Where we goin?" Terese tried not to look to her left, though the lane the car was in suggested they were headed in that direction.

"I told ya, it's a swimmin hole."

"Where it at?" Terese saw the light change and felt the wind begin again. It brushed one of her braids' clips against and back off ofher right ear. She let it, waiting for her answer.

"Girl, you sure don't like to talk right, do ya?"

25 Terese craned her neck, struggling for a full view over the high, cracked dashboard.

"'Where's it at.' You're sposed to say 'where's it at.' Don't they teach y'all

English in Granton no more?"

Terese crossed her arms and turned her head to face the old man: "I ain't goin to no Granton. I'm in six grade now." As she said that, though, she thought of the last cake her father'd given her, only two months earlier, in June. It was ice cream, too, with pink icing, and had two candles on it. He said to her: "For eleven, you know?"

But the candles weren't two candles each in the shape of the number one. They were just regular, straight candles. With those twists to them, so that a strip of white cut through the pink wax. When the candles kept re-lighting after she kept blowing them out, her father and sister both laughed and kept laughing. Laughing, even, at each other's laughing. Terese didn't care to laugh, just then, though. But the fact of her father and sister laughing at the same time was enough to leave her smiling a small, stinging smile the rest of the night.

Without ever hearing that story, Popsci said: "I'm sorry 'bout that, pretty lady. I didn't know."

The pink ofthat cake kept flashing back at her where Popsci's driving profile should have been, so she turned her head back towards her own window, and let only her right hand ride the irregularly cresting air.

Earlier, way before touching a car door, still in Cashiuck's Quick Stop, Terese listened to her sister, Sarah, make fun of her for buying a candy bar. "Girl, you stupid or

26 somethin? You fixin to spend half the money I gave you on that fat-ass choclate? That choclate gonna give you a fat ass, you know. Ain't that right, Cherry." And Sarah stood on the tips of her toes, so she could see over the aisle of chocolate and candy to the wall of refrigerated drinks where her friend was standing and choosing.

"Cherry," Sarah repeated, "Ain't that right?"

"Betchyo ass itiz."

The only words of Cherry's that Terese ever understood were the dirty ones. The rest was just, well, confused. Or confusing. Terese was never really sure.

Terese began walking her candy bar up to the counter to pay for it.

Sarah snapped at her, though: "You gonna get a fat ass, and old Popsci's gonna getchya!"

Terese refused to tum around, to look at her sister, but the man whose name she could never remember, though her father always called him by name when he brought

Terese in with him to pay for their gas, just kept sitting behind the counter, reading a newspaper with pictures of cars all over it, and didn't say a word or even look at Terese.

Not even at the mention of the name Popsci, which made most people in Terese's town either cringe or giggle, the way Cherry was, just then.

First Terese's right foot, and then her left, tossed her whole body's weight back and forth, she made up her mind to say "bitch" out loud but under her breath, and head toward the magazine rack at the other end of the store beyond the counter. She'd barely stopped there and registered the presence of the newspaper with the cars on it when she felt her sister's breath on her neck. Sarah spoke under her breath in the way that meant

27 she was very, very upset but didn't want everyone, or sometimes just someone, to know about it: "Whadjyu cawlme, bitch?"

Her sister was sounding more and more like Cherry every day. Terese stayed quiet, staring at the magazines.

Sarah's breath found its way back to Terese's ear: "Whatcyu even lookin at them magazines fo? Just a bunch a skinny white girls in bikinis ... "

"Sarah! Y oopayin fuhthis shit ahnat?"

Cherry sounded anxious, but Sarah continued into Terese's ear: "You ain't never gonna be white, you don't own no bikini, and that candy bar gonna get you a fat ass."

Sarah was three years older, but wrong. Terese knew it. She picked up a magazine with the prettiest of the assembled girls on the cover. She flipped through until she heard Sarah walking away-only then looking back at her. Then looking back at her magazine. Sarah paid for the sodas Cherry had picked for them, while the cashier remained silent. Cherry declared something "shit," or not even that, and Sarah laughed hard, stomping her foot to try and convince herself to stop. Terese hated it when she did that. Sarah's laugh was a lippy one, and that effect combined with the stomping to render her otherwise lovely-looking sister decidedly horse-like. Doing her best not to try and hear what Cherry was going on about, Terese studied the titles of the articles in the magazine: "How To Win His Heart-For Good," "Why He's Your Friendliest Friend," and "A Better Body, Right Away."

As the bell on the door clanked Sarah and Cherry's exit, she heard Sarah say to

Cherry: "Ain't a one of those she can even afford." Terese stared at an article in response, not even having read its title, but just flipping to any page that presented itself.

28 When she heard the door close Terese flipped the magazine over in her hands. Its cover confirmed what Sarah had said. She threw it down and ran out the door, to catch up with her sister and her friend. It was only as she reached the two of them, picking up Cherry's bike in the parking lot, that she realized she still held the candy bar that she'd never paid for. She slipped it into her pocket before her sister, helping Cherry with her lock and chain, could see.

Laughing a subtler version of the earlier, equine laugh, Sarah looked Terese in the eye and said: "You run on home to Daddy now. I'm goin to Cherry's house."

"I could ride on the handle bars."

"No. You can't, cuz I'm ridin on the handle bars." Her sister did a terrible imitation of her voice. If only she knew how bad it was.

"I could ride on the back on them pegs she got."

And Cherry added: "Noyoocaint. Yougottafat ass." And Terese was sure she added an s or two to the word that time.

Sarah laughed.

She hopped on the handle bars as Cherry steadied the bike they'd all simply walked next to, leaving school, on the way to the store. As the bike teetered away,

Terese refused to call after them, but Sarah broke what would have been silence with what seemed like a genuine attempt at reassurance: "I'll be home to help Daddy with the dinner; gaw on and tell him instead starin at them stupid-ass white girls."

Why Sarah thought Daddy needed her, Terese couldn't figure out.

29 During the drive, they went down roads Terese didn't know. They saw some buildings, trees, and signs for towns that didn't seem familiar at all, either. The sun had started to set, and the sky was growing Terese's favorite color.

Just as Terese was getting uncomfortable under her seat belt, and prepared to move it, they pulled off the road and into an area amidst some trees that didn't seem to be a parking lot at all, but, instead, a spot like the one her Daddy had once gotten stuck in­ because of mud-on one of those few mornings he'd actually taken them fishing with him. Sarah hated those mornings, as if Terese didn't enjoy them enough anyway. Terese thought to warn the old man, and then thought otherwise.

"There it is," he said, and shifted the rod on the side of the steering wheel. The car jerked. "Go ahead. Swim."

"You comin?"

"In a bit. I'm a sit here an eat my sandwich first." The man pointed a thumb over his right shoulder in the general direction of what looked something like Terese recognized as a lunchbox, and so she believed him, and hopped out of the car.

She looked at the lake the car's windshield faced. The sun, all of it, looked back at her, at its orangest, and reminded her of her mother's voice when she'd say "it's time to meet the day"-trickling, warm, and enveloping.

Outside, there was no mud to speak of, so she took off her shoes and socks, but left everything else on, waiting until she got closer to the shore.

Earlier. After staring in the direction of the departed bicycle for a long, long time, but still before opening the chrome-handled car door, Terese walked back in to

30 Cashiuck's Quick Stop and barely had time to register that the cashier was still reading that same dumb car paper before the door at the opposite end of the store-the one to the bathrooms-flew open, and the man she knew as Popsci walked out of it.

"Hey pretty lady!"

She'd seen him every day for years, but always kept her distance, and what speed she could muster, as she passed by the bench he usually occupied outside the store.

Those were the first words he'd ever spoken to her.

Her response: "When'd you get here," were the first words she ever said to him.

"You two know each other," were the first words the cashier had said, that Terese had heard, all day.

"Nope," was the old man's reply.

"You know him?" Terese watched the cashier's face as he answered her question, and saw, to her surprise, a smile, and even a laugh, as he said: "Sure. This here's Popsci.

Every day, twice a day, momin and anftemoon, he comes in, buys a big ole Dr. Popsci cola, and drinks it on the bench. Been doin that forty odd years or more, since before my daddy owned the store. He's our loyalest customer."

The old man joined the younger's laughter, but managed: "Well, thank ya, Jed."

"Shit, girl, yer daddy knows him, soya best quit bein rude and shake the man's hand."

Terese vacated her perch against the store's front door (the brass bell was digging into her back, anyway) and stepped forward to take the man's hand. She couldn't help wondering, since what she'd always heard about his name seemed to be true, if the rest of

31 what she'd heard wasn't true. Terese looked the old man in the eye-bold, like her

Daddy taught her-as she asked him: "Are you a nice man?"

He threw back his head and laughed again. He tossed the question to Jed: "Well, whaddayou say, Jed?"

Jed said: "Nicest man I know." And laughed his own laugh, and Terese admitted to herself that she didn't get the joke. She had a suspicion, though, that Jed didn't either.

And something about that made her laugh. Which made Popsci renew his laugh, with more vigor than he'd originally begun it. And, at that, Terese's laughed slipped quietly back away. Despite that, it wasn't long before she was sitting on the bench with Popsci, sipping a soda he'd bought her. It was neither her nor his favorite brand, but he said it was the one that all the pretty girls liked.

Terese toed around the edge of the lake, careful not to slip in the grass at its bottom; if she fell in and got her hair wet, she'd have that much more explaining to do to

Daddy, and for whatever reason that was the last thing she wanted to have to think about, just then. She looked down at her chest, reflecting the sun, now, just the way the water was. She studied the water, reflecting her chest and face back at her. She turned back towards the car. The windshield was filled with the same reflection, but a hint ofPopsci lingered behind it. She stared at her clothes, crumpled on the edge of the lake, but moved her gaze when she thought he might see her. She was afraid he might be ashamed of her, leaving her clothes in such an unfolded, muddy mess. Facing the car, she could look down at the water and see through it, and she saw the whiteness of her underwear sporadically interrupted by the dark of her skin in the places it chose to cling to her. Had

32 the shorts and shirt she'd taken offbeen white, themselves, she'd have put them back on, for the sake of studying that same effect in greater scope.

Earlier, after they'd spoken but before they'd driven away, the old man and the girl sat together on the bench she'd always seen him sitting on. She thought, for a moment, about being seen there, now, herself. She drank her soda instead. She looked at the man's profile, the sun stretching his nose (really only the shadow of the nose, but it quickly became the same thing) across his face. Accentuating its hook. She studied the place-places-where the white hairs curved to shadow his ear. All of that in shadow, too. He looked soft. Some sweat or other made its way down his cheek and her stare re­ traced its trail up to his forehead. She followed another trail back down, to the tip of his nose. Something about his eyes, or, really, the skin around them, reminded her of her father. She asked him: "Are you alright?"

"Yup," he said, "just hot is all."

"I'm hot too," she offered, waiting for him to say anything at all. She felt chocolate, caramel, and a collection of nuts melting together against her leg, still trapped in their wrapper. This left her staring at her knees. Then his. His knees were sweaty, with pants sticking against them. A similar thing was going on with his shoulders and shirt, and he seemed, simply, to be carrying quite a lot. Something about that made her want to slip her hand, maybe just a finger, along one of the slick tracks left on Popsci's forehead by the departing sweat.

She watched him.

She saw him, she thought, very well.

33 She watched him, and found herself enjoying it. The overall sensation being one of a general sort of cooling on her own, damp face.

And, finally, she added: "Sho would be a good day fuh swimmin."

No way it was true. He wasjust eating a sandwich. What she'd heard about the back of that big, black car, and how it was always little girls but never white ones. No way. She wasn't scared. Not like she'd always been, not like not knowing him. She wanted him to be swimming with her. She waited, staring at the car. She waded out of the water.

Standing next to her clothes-just far enough away not to puddle them with her dripping-she decided not to put them on. Not feeling any real need; not wanting to get them wet. Looking forward to their promise of later dryness, knowing there would be a point where that was welcome. She could see slightly more into the car, but could not see Popsci eating a sandwich. All she could see was a certain, subtle shaking ofhis shoulders. She worried for him and took slow steps toward the car.

Thinking for some reason that she might somehow startle him, she made sure to walk to her side of the car. She opened the door, looked in, and saw him.

His left arm, stretched out almost straight, ended in a grip of the steering wheel.

It was shaking.

When she saw where his right arm was, she looked back at her clothes. But, almost immediately, she forced herself to realize that the whole of that arm-all the way to the hand-was perfectly still, and looked again at his left arm. She knew nothing to say.

34 She knew, also, that there was a need to say nothing at all.

She climbed into the car, and he finally turned his head to look at her, keeping both ofhis hands where they'd been.

When he saw that she'd settled, wet, into the leather slip of the seat (and closed the door) he turned his head again to resume looking at the lake.

Before very long at all, the left arm, too, was still.

After his chin had dropped to his chest, his head, too, was still. All of him was still.

She stayed, staring at him. At his whiteness. At his absence of pink.

At the orange and pink of the sun using his unblinking face as a canvas.

The almost-not-there whiteness of his hair bristled against the elliptical edge of his ear, and it was still.

She stayed, staring at him, for a long, long while.

She looked to the back seat, and its untouched lunchbox. Careful not to bump him, she reached over the front, bench seat and grabbed the metal box's plastic handle.

She returned to her seat, cradling the box in her lap. Inside was a sandwich. A sort of liverwurst with lettuce, she thought. She tasted, and liked it, letting its cellophane, former wrapper just billow and shuffle around her knuckles as she kept disappearing the bleached bread and its charge. As she kept staring at the relaxed half-twist of the man's right wrist. The clench of the hand at the end of it. The limpidity inside of it.

She saw a tinfoil wrapper in the open lunchbox (still in her lap) failing to conceal the brand label of the beer inside the can it was trying to keep cool. She knew the brand;

35 her father had taken, lately, to deeming it "healthier than that goddamn Knoxville water."

She looked at the occasionally rolling droplets on her thighs, knees, and forearms.

She finished the sandwich, staring all the while, at Popsci instead of the ever­ darkening water. In the waning light his skin seemed to assume a grayness.

Later, she would wonder about touching him.

She would sit like that for hours.

36 Cure for Insomnia

The noise wasn't deafening; it was unrelenting. I'd thought I'd beaten the system.

Huge studio apartment, comer ofthe building with lots ofwindows, the middle ofSoHo, and rent controlled at a pittance. I didn't expect a new neighbor to be so problematic, though. The old lady in the apartment above me, who'd once brought me homemade chicken soup when she heard me up all night coughing with the flu, had died. Somebody had to fill the space. Somebody did, in a flash. And they had lots of unforgivably loud sex.

At first I only noticed a few out-of-place sounds as I drifted off to sleep. When you live in New York City you suspect something's wrong ifthat's NOT the case. Then, the clamor began to last longer. It started earlier each night, too. I started pondering possible recourse when I couldn't hear myself chew nachos at dinner. Was I losing my perspective? Were the reports growing gradually louder? When I could no longer hear my television at primetime, I snapped.

I picked up the phone and sent a few electronic beeps in the direction of the marching-band rhythm. Four rings, and the noises stopped; it seemed like the first silence in days. Five rings, six, seven ...

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Uh ... H-Hello ... " I didn't mean to, of course, but I was mumbling.

"Yeah. What do you want?"

37 "Can I ask who it is I'm speaking to?" I was trying to be polite. I was also just realizing that the old lady's number wasn't necessarily my new neighbor's. Then I considered the all-too-coincidental silence that had begun after the ringing, and I decided that I was the second guy in my building who'd gotten lucky that night. Then the guy on the other line, my upstairs-neighbor, answered the first question I'd ever asked him.

"It's God."

"What?"

"What 'what'? You called me."

It was Him. "Well, uhm, I. .. "

"Spit it out, kid."

Since He wanted to be terse about it, "Well, frankly, it's the noise."

"What about it?''

So, I said: "It's keeping me up. And I have a hard time watching ... well, I mean, I can't hear myself think."

God said: "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well, uhm ... "

"Listen, I'm a busy guy. You figure out what you want and we'll talk. For now, what say I get back to work?"

What do you say when you can hear God having sex in the apartment above you?

Don't say: "Oh. Okay, that'll be ... fine." He said "good" and hung up. The rhythmic screeching of his box spring reconvened almost immediately. It might have been a few less decibels, but it was just as determined.

38 As my brain chewed on the situation, I realized that I would have figured God for a futon-type guy. I was learning fast. I'd learned two things, for certain: firstly, that the bumper stickers are wrong-God is male; and second, but much more importantly, He has incomprehensible stamina. From that point, the situation went sour. The racket persisted. I had a hard time getting any sleep at all.

Insomnia is an extremely lonely ailment. After labored contemplation, I conceived only one possible solution. So, one night, I brought a girl home. Things were going smoothly; I wasn't thinking about upstairs. I started playing with her hair. Her left ear was exposed by the displaced locks. She abruptly stopped kissing me.

"What's that sound?"

In between overdue, deep breaths, I managed: "It's just God, up there, having sex."

She looked disgusted. She mumbled something about "not funny at all" and how far I was from making the Earth move as she picked up her blouse and high heels off my hardwood floor. I heard God's first moan of the night right after my front door slammed.

As I watched the unused light fixture on my ceiling rattle to the undulating rhythm, it fell.

Its glass shattered all over my blue, fuzzy monkey slippers. The pounding refused to relent. My mouth, conveniently agape, filled with paint chips and sawdust from the still­ shaking roof. I crammed my fingers in my ears and objectively examined the taste.

Funny, I thought, how the color eggshell tastes nothing like eggs at all. Then I spat. A lot.

39 I began to sleep so little that my work suffered. I was fired just before the six­ week anniversary of my first and only conversation with God. I have to admit, I didn't mind much. I'd begun to accept it.

When you think about it, actual eggshells don't really taste like eggs, either.

Now, though, I've learned to live on welfare and inheritance. I remain comfortable in my apartment as long as the television volume is all the way up. I sleep, mostly, during the news; it's comforting background.

40 Another Encounter

Why are people so quiet in museums? I mean, the idea is to, like, learn, right?

And in school all the teachers say we learn by asking questions, or answering them, or discussing stuff. Still, though, in museums there's all this stuff we're supposed to know, but apparently we're not supposed to talk about it. Now that I think about it, I guess that's just like girls.

So, I'm skipping school. Since I've started high school people are doing that all the time. Sure. There are prison fences with barbs and blades and shit up around the whole deal-buildings and fields and all. These are supposed to be for our protection.

Child molesters, I guess, or whatever. Thing is, I'm usually more worried about what's inside with me really. But the point is there are fences, but the fences have holes in them, pretty much, everywhere. And kids are constantly going through them.

Then there's the kids that just walk right out the front door. Nobody stops them, even though, the way they tell it, everyone's supposed to.

Instead of deal with all that, though, I just didn't go today. Instead of walking to the bus stop, I just walked two miles further, to there. The Coca-Cola Museum.

At first I was worried, when I blew past my bus stop this morning (I just kept walking, head down, feet paced), that maybe the bus would see me and make me get on or, something, but then I passed Mike's stop, on the comer of Peachtree and 2nd, and he said: "Yo Jim."

41 "Hey." I was still walking. I hadn't realized yet that we were supposed to keep talking that time.

"Hey. Wait up. Where ya goin'?"

I didn't tum around. The wind was blowing at my back, and the hood of my sweatshirt was up-covering my stupid curly hair-and I just didn't want to mess with all that blowing and turning and fixing and shit. So I just shouted over my shoulder, head down, hood up, passing Mike: "Skipping."

Mike yelled: "What? Whadjya say? I didn't hear ya!" Cuz I was past him at that point.

I yelled back: "I'm skipping." And that's when I realized that we were both yelling over the bus's engine because it was pulling up to Mike's spot right that minute. I heard its brakes squeal and its door open, and then I heard Mike yell: "Dude. Can I come?''

I was just like: "Sure. Whatever." I was walking faster, then, though, cuz I didn't wanna have to get hassled by the bus driver.

Then Mike was running to catch up with me, then slowing back down to walk in time with me. And I was sure the bus driver was gonna get pissed and follow us, but I heard the door close a bunch a yards back, and then I watched that big yellow bullshit shipper roll right past us. The fumes were just as bad and black as they are when they drop you off at home at the end of the day. But I didn't mind so much this time, because

I realized I was about to have a day to myself.

Well, myself, and, well, Mike.

42 When we got to the Coke Museum Mike told me we had a problem. He said:

"Dude, Jim. We got a problem."

I turned around, expecting to see a bus. Then said: "You fuckin scared me. What is it, dipshit?"

"I don't have any cash." He says. "Dude, can you spot me? I can pay you back tomorrow cuz I'm gonna ... ,"or some stupid shit like that.

I stopped walking. He stopped walking. He turned and looked at me. I was still looking straight ahead at the front doors. They were framed in red neon with the Coke logo all huge, red and white in lights that kind of did a wave to match that swirly symbol in the logo and then would do this sort of fizzle or dissolve thing. I guess it was supposed to be like bubbles or something. I don't know, but it was still pretty cool, and I just kind of stared at it for a sec.

"You don't have any money?"

"Well, two bucks-a burrito and a coke, y'know? For lunch. Like we always have for lunch."

"Lunch at school, maybe, but you're gonna need more than that to even get in here."

"Do you think they'll have burritos here? Can we get some of those? I doubt they'll be as good as at school, I mean, but they're still probably pretty good. I mean, it's

Coke, right? It's gotta be good. Dude. Spot me. You've always got money."

Every day Mike and I eat lunch together. We don't really talk or anything; just eat. But then, when we've both finished a burrito and coke each-which costs exactly

43 two bucks at school-every single goddamn day Mike asks me for sixty cents so' he can buy a brownie, too.

He's still hungry, he says.

I ask him why he didn't bring more money.

He didn't know he'd be hungry, he says.

I tell him how he does this every day.

His mom only gives him two bucks each day, he says. He'll have money after

Christmas, he says.

But that's still like a month away, and who knows ifMike'll drop out before second semester, anyway. So I let Mike's hopes get all worked up all on their own. And

I have my mom give me a couple extra bucks each day. Cuz who needs the hassle?

Besides. Mom's a lawyer. She's got money. So's Dad. He's got plenty, too.

Mike asked me: "Come on, man. How much you got?"

So I finally just gave in: "Twenty bucks."

"Dude. Where from?" Mike asks.

"Left over from my birthday. Come on. Let's just go." And I started walking towards the doors even though I kind ofhad to squint against the glow.

Mike followed me, yelling: "Dude, thanks man," like, three times before we even got inside the door.

Right before we got to the ticket lady he started talking about how we went to the movies on my birthday and how it was really cool how we snuck into a second one for free and how there were those girls who snuck into the same movie as us and he was still wondering if they were laughing at us or just, like, laughing in general when they were

44 sitting behind us. It was the same kinda talking Mike does through lunch every day. The nonstop kind. It's nice to have someone to talk to, but the thing is that his stories just never end. I mean, it's one thing to have to listen to him forever, but you never get to hear the end. And either it leaves you wondering, or you think you've heard the end and then there's more and you wonder why it's there.

Anyway.

When we got to the ticket lady she tried to give us shit. All I'd said was: "Two students, please." And she should've taken my ten bucks and that should've been it. But no. She had to grimace, or smirk, or whatever, and say: "Shouldn't you two be in school?" I just kinda looked at the sign above her head and pretended to be checking the prices. I thought about pretending to only speak Spanish, but I couldn't really remember any, right then, and then I realized that I'd already spoken in English so that whole thing was kind of a bust.

Then Mike actually made himself useful. He pushed up on his toes and said over my shoulder (right in my ear, really): "We home school. We've got today off. We thought this would make a good field trip, though. You know, for sociology. And economics, of course."

His voice cracked as he said it, but I thought it was a pretty good argument. But that bitch ticket lady with the blue eyeshadow above and below her stupid eyes said: "Oh, and I'm supposed to believe that?"

I would've told her how fat she was at that point, but I thought about how Mike kinda was, too, and I decided to leave it alone. Just in time, Mike made himself useful again, and said: "Hey, what are you tryin' to say about home school?"

45 His voice didn't crack.

The ticket bitch took the money out of my hand, put a receipt in its place, gave us each a sticker to wear and a paper stub, and we walked away and into the bathrooms behind her stupid red desk.

Mike was behind me on the way into the bathroom and, like he always does, took the urinal right next to mine. He wanted applause or something. In the middle of pissing he said: "Dude. Didjya see that?"

I didn't say anything.

"It worked just like she said it would. It's just like the time my sister was skipping school. She was skipping, and then she ran into this teacher who ... "

He was talking about his sister who's away at college and supposedly taught him everything he'd ever need to know to act cool in high school. I know this because he talks about her all the time: at lunch when he's chewing his burrito, after gym when we're changing, and-apparently-while we're standing at urinals. Personally, I think he trusts her a little too much. But I have to admit. It worked. And really, I owed the whole skipping idea to her anyway. So I didn't let myself hate Mike for talking while we were peeing, even though I really hate it when people do that.

Just then we heard a fart. A big, loud one. We both turned our heads toward the stalls. I stopped pissing right then, but I heard Mike's hit the wall. Just to the left of

Mike's ear I saw shoes under the stall. Whoever it was, he'd heard us, and that could've been a pain in the ass. Who wants to explain skipping school to some smelly guy? So I zipped up and got outta there. I figured Mike would be right behind me. I was right.

46 Outside the bathroom I said: "Let's get outta here," and headed for the stairs to the second floor. Mike just kept following me.

I've been to the Coke Museum a bunch of times. I mean, field trips, family time, and all that shit adds up. The first floor's always the same. It's the history of Coca-Cola.

Big fat fuckin deal. Some guy puts enough chemicals together that people actually like it. Now he's rich and we all have a reason to carry change. Who the fuck cares? Who wants to see the first Coke bottle? The first Coke crate? The first Coke T -shirt? All this shit is just propaganda. Polar bears singing jingles. A bunch of rednecks spending a century perfecting the best way to waste water to make ice so their products don't taste like ass. I don't need to see black-and-white pictures of pimply fuckheads waiting on a bunch oflosers in letter jackets fifty years ago. I can see that real-time in any

McDonald's, mall, or coffee shop my parents take me into. I hate it in those places. I really hate it as museum exhibits, though. The idea is you're gonna learn something and all you see is the stuff you know doesn't matter.

There's one little spot on that floor that's worth seeing, I guess. There's this counter in one comer with a guy wearing a little vest. A real guy. Not like a mannequin or anything. And he says you can ask him anything you want to about Coke. So when I walked by there I went up to him-there wasn't a line or anything-and asked: "Is it true what they say about how Coke used to have coke in it?" The guy tried to pull some bullshit about not knowing what I was talking about so I asked it a little different: "Was there ever cocaine in your soda?" The vest guy said "Well, let me tell you about that; it's a common misconception ... ," and he kept going while he reached in some cooler under the counter and pulled out a bottle of coke that was all steamy from being cold. He was

47 still talking while he popped off the top, but I walked away in the middle ofhim pushing the bottle towards me and telling me about myths and stuff. Same old shit: people afraid to say what's really up.

The second floor, though, is pretty interesting.

It's about Coke all over the world. And shit, yeah, I know big corporations, and oil companies, and like, the WTO are bad, or whatever. But it's cool, though, seeing the like, Albanians, carrying six packs. Japanese people like thinner bottles than we do; their cans are smaller, too. There are even videos of those African chicks with the rings around their necks and huge baskets on their heads carrying half-empty Coke bottles at the same time. And it's just neat to see that. It's different than the news, or textbooks.

All you see there are people with flags and guns and shit. And they're all starving or shooting because they wear different clothes or have different churches and shit. It's a nice change of pace to see everybody drinking the same thing. Doing anything the same,

I guess.

The second floor of the Coca-Cola Museum is full of videos of that kind of stuff.

The screens take up the whole walls, floor to ceiling, and they play in this continual loop with music from, like, a bunch of different countries. And it's got real-life bottles in huge display cases all with that same red and white logo but different writing. The ones in Arabic are just a bunch of squiggly lines. In Japanese they're a bunch of straight lines.

I can _actually read most of the Spanish ones. The German ones are pretty much the same. England's even closer to us, but their bottles are shaped more like Japan's. But when you can see all of them right next to each other, in plastic, or glass, it all starts to look pretty much the same, but in a good way, a way that doesn't really get boring.

48 Today, though, I realized that I was checking shit out pretty much on my own.

Mike had run up the stairs way before I did, like when I was still talking to that guy at the counter, but he wasn't anywhere in the international section. I figured it out pretty quick, though. I left the international section and walked into the next one. There was Mike, in the sample room, sucking down free soda.

The sample room is this huge cylinder you walk into and they have a whole bunch of dispensers with soda flavors from all over the world. Some of' em are pretty nasty: cantaloupe soda, who the fuck drinks that? But nasty or not, they're all free, and they've all got sugar in 'em, so Mike was in love.

As I walked in the room he was about halfway through the circle of dispensers.

That meant he'd had about twenty or thirty samples. The museum worker who's supposed to keep people from doing shit like that wasn't paying any attention to Mike, or any of the other, regular people scattered around the room, because he was lecturing a tour group that had come into the room just before Mike had gotten there. Their maroon jackets and khaki slacks and skirts kicked me right in the eyes. It was a field trip from my old school.

Mike swallowed and tried to greet me with: "Hey man. You gotta try this-grape and chocolate-it tastes just like Pepsi except maybe ... "

But before he finished that I was saying: "Come on man, let's get outta here."

Mike was in the middle of saying: "No way; all this shit is free," when I saw just what I was afraid of.

I was looking over my shoulder at all that maroon and khaki when the blonde hair

I was pretty sure was Michelle Sanders turned around and was Michelle Sanders. One of

49 her friends was whispering in her ear. She smiled at me and turned back around. I saw her head bow a little and her hand go up to her mouth as her friend said something else and then looked my way with a real quick glance. The friend was Cheri. A girl I'd always hated but who always insisted on talking to me when I'd sit with Michelle and her friends at the Academy's basketball games.

I turned back around in time to see Mike mixing Guava and peppermint sodas.

That one, I'll admit, didn't smell too bad. Mike's review of it was; "Dude, you gotta try this; it tastes just like that pie they had that one day in school last week that had the coconut stuff on ... "

You see, my old school-the one I went to last year-was Asheton Academy. It was private, and like, pretty expensive. When I was there I had about as many friends as

I do now. Which is basically Mike. But sometimes I hung out with Michelle, who was a year younger than me, but not stupid like most seventh graders, and not annoying and giggly like most girls. Like Cheri, y'know?

I met Michelle in English. She was a year ahead in that class. A lot of the kids I knew hassled her for that. Called her a baby or a teacher's pet, y'know, stupid middle school shit. I didn't really have any reason to like her or not. One day we were doing this story by James Joyce, though. The asshole teacher who scared pretty much everybody and found a reason to make fun of Mike almost every day asked a question that nobody had an answer to. Then Michelle, who'd been quiet the whole semester, said something about how the woman in the story was made of ashes and made things out of clay, all while living in dirt, and how those were really all different words for the same thing. And that usually-asshole teacher said: "Impressive."

50 Then Michelle smiled.

That day I made a point to sit with her at lunch. Mike followed me, of course, but

Michelle didn't really seem bothered. Only her idiot friend Cheri said something when

Mike started blowing spitballs at the table next to us.

After that, though, Michelle hung out with me and Mike a lot, and it was nice to have someone new around. For all of us, I guess.

Anyway, the last basketball game of my eighth grade year was some kinda championship. I don't really know what to call it. Basketball games were really more

Michelle's idea. But I was there, and we, like, won, or something, and all the Asheton kids-which was basically all the kids on that side of the court-were jumping around and stuff, but Michelle and I stayed sitting a second longer than everybody else cuz we both, like, looked at each other at the same time or something.

And then she, well, kissed me.

And when she stopped she was just kind of looking at me for a second, with everybody jumping and yelling around us, and I was about to say something, when Cheri stopped jumping, crouched down and whispered something in Michelle's ear. Michelle looked at me again, and I looked at her, and everything was kinda quiet in my head, and then she stood up and jumped around with Cheri. I was still sitting there a few minutes later when Cheri's parents came to pick them up. Michelle stopped running down the bleachers just long enough to tum around and say "Bye Jim," and then she left. I said

"bye" too, but I don't know if it was loud enough for her to hear me or not. I would've just repeated it, but I didn't wanna look like an idiot. My parents showed up a couple minutes after that.

51 But that was months ago. Michelle called me a few times over the summer, but I was always at Mike's, and my mom always got her to leave a message but she didn't the first time-when just the machine picked up--and the only way I knew it was her was through the caller ID machine so I figured maybe it would be weird ifl called her after that.

And besides, since then me and Mike had switched to the same public school, so it was important that we stick together. Public school is tough with one friend. It would be pretty much impossible without any at all. When I think about it, I got pretty lucky.

The day after that last basketball game Mike called me up and had me come over to spend the night. His parents had told him that he'd have to leave Asheton and go into public school cuz his grades were too low.

So he called me up, and we spent the night playing video games, and talking trash about Asheton. The whole time I was feeling pretty lucky that I didn't get low grades.

Public school kids had a long and well-known rep for kicking the shit out of Asheton kids. I was sure Mike was gonna get killed in the fall.

At one point that night Mike went a long time without dying, and it was only a one-player video game, so I got bored, and walked into the kitchen to get a drink, or some chips, or really just do anything besides sit there and watch Mike not lose and listen to

stories about times when he did really good at the game he was playing or even whatever

other games he had, or whatever. Before I turned on the kitchen light, though, I saw the one from the refrigerator. It was surrounding Mike's sister.

Aimee was wearing just her underwear and this little t-shirt, and she was bending over to get something out of the back of the fridge.

52 And, I'll admit, she was pretty hot. I mean, I'd known her a long time, but I'd never really seen her undressed before.

When she turned around, I was still kinda stuck there, I guess like a squirrel does in the road.

Aimee was pretty decent though. She just smiled and asked me, not mad or anything: "Were you just looking at me?"

And I was all embarrassed, or whatever, and I said: "No. No, I just got here; I was ... "

But she could hear me bullshitting and said: "It's okay. There are worse things to do than check a girl out."

I said: "Sorry."

And she was really cool about it and said: "No, really. It's okay. I'll take it as a compliment."

I tried to explain, but she wouldn't have it. She just kind oflaughed, and then she hopped up on the kitchen counter. She didn't even close the fridge. Then she patted the spot next to her. So I checked the hallway, to make sure the light was off under her parents' door, and hopped up next to her.

Then she said some shit that made me a little uncomfortable: "Jim, you and Mike have been friends for, like, ever, right."

It was true.

"I want you to look out for him next year, okay? I mean, I know you guys won't be in the same school or anything, but stay his friend, okay? You have no idea how important you are to him. And with me going away to college, he's not gonna have

53 anybody to really show him how things are supposed to go. We both know you're smart, and good with girls ... ," at that she smiled and kicked her legs out a bit, and I got a little more uncomfortable, then she continued, "and Mike's, well, slower, at all that. So help him out as much as you can, okay? Invite him to Asheton parties, and go with him to the public school stuff when you can, okay? Those kids are tough; he's gonna need you to help him fit in."

For some reason, the open refrigerator door didn't make her squint the way it did me.

I didn't know what to say. I'd never really thought about it that way. But, I wanted to say something. I didn't wanna sit there all quiet, like a jerk, so I said: "Sure.

No problem." And I felt like I was lying, which made me feel bad, but I forgot all about that pretty quick when Aimee kissed me.

And no, it wasn't like how Michelle kissed me. It was still on the lips and everything, but it was just real quick, like a peck, or whatever, and then she hopped off the counter, said, "Thanks Jim, you're sweet," smiled, blinked, and went back to her room and closed the door. It took me a few minutes before I was ready to go back to

Mike's room, so I stood in front of the refrigerator, where the door had been open that whole time. That hadn't seemed to bother Aimee at all. I couldn't even tell if she had noticed.

When Mike was bumming all that free soda, with all those Asheton kids looking at us, what Aimee said made a lot of sense all of a sudden. When I saw the girl standing next to Michelle point in Mike's general direction, I just grabbed him by the sleeve and

54 led him out of the sample room. He managed to not spill too much pineapple soda on himself when I tugged him, but still more than I hoped anybody could see.

I found the stairs and led us back to the first floor. We were in a room that was supposed to represent the future of Coke. Basically it was just a bunch of translucent tables and chairs in weird shapes with lights going through them. All over the tables were Coke bottles in the same shapes as the tables. These were shapes they don't even have in Thailand. Some of the bottles were spheres, others were like, amoebas, or something. All the lights must have met the syrup in Mike's stomach, cuz he said: "Jim,

I don't feel so good, can we sit down a sec?''

I shot a look up the stairs, and heard a bunch of the dispensers working in the sample room, and figured we had a couple minutes to spare. We sat down at a table next to some kids that made me a little nervous. I was pretty sure they were from our school, but older-like seniors or something. They didn't seem to pay too much attention though. So I thought we were okay.

I was wrong, though.

Mike put his head down on the table, and I leaned back in my amoeba-shaped chair. We were there, like, five seconds when one of the kids at the table next to us tapped Mike on the shoulder and said: "Hey man, you don't look so good. Drink this.

You'll feel better."

Mike, about as smart as always, took the square Coke bottle the kid handed him, and sucked down a bunch of the brown liquid inside. Then he spit. All over the table.

Pretty much right away I could smell the alcohol.

55 The table next to us laughed pretty hard, but they didn't tum into the assholes I thought they might. The kid who'd passed the bottle said: "Sorry about the surprise, man. Make it up to ya; you can finish that bottle, we brought more." Then he held up another square bottle with a Coke sticker on it. I realized that both bottles had black stickers under the Coke signs. I thought to myself how that was actually pretty smart.

Out loud I said: "Thanks," took the bottle from Mike, and took a swig.

Like I hoped, they all gave me a little cheer for that, which caught the attention of a family sitting at a table on the other side of the room. Thankfully, though, nothing came of that.

Instead, the prettiest of the three girls at the table said, "why don't you boys join us." The two guys at the table kind of grimaced at that, but they shifted around to make room for us anyway.

Mike clearly wasn't going to be saying too much, just then, so I took care of the introductions: "Hey. Thanks. I'm Jim. This is Mike. You guys go to Central, right?"

The pretty girl answered me: "Yeah. Do you, too?''

I said: "Yeah. We're freshmen."

She said: "Cool."

Her friends were pretty much silent. They didn't seem very interested in liking us. Aimee was all over my mind, even though I wanted to do my best to focus to make sure things didn't tum bad. All I could think ofto say, though, was: "So, what are you guys doin'?"

One guy said: "Drinkin' ."

56 The other guy said: "Gonna move on to smokin' soon." And he chuckled a little bit.

The less pretty girls stayed quiet. But the pretty one said: "And we're all drawing, too. Corne on guys, everybody show Mike and Jim what you've done." She was laughing, but they took her seriously, and they all held up notebooks with pencil sketches on them. The quality ranged from pretty stupid to kind of impressive. Coke products made appearances in each sketch, though. The pretty one said: "We're drawin' the room."

Just then, Mike squinted at a sketch that looked like that family across the room, except with horns and beards, all drinking free Coke out of strangely-shaped bottles.

Then he did the perfect thing: he laughed. Hard. And loud.

And then the rest of the table did, too.

As the laughing started to die down, the pretty one leaned over in her chair and dug through something I couldn't see-a backpack or purse, I guess-and sat back up holding two pens. She handed Mike and me pens, and then a few sheets of paper and said: "Let's see what you can do, freshmen."

Then everything was quiet again.

I could hear the family across the room mumbling a little bit, but basically that room sounded like the rest of the museum.

I wanted to draw. But instead I was stuck thinking. I thought about the Monday after my kitchen conversation with Aimee. I remembered sitting in English class, drawing a picture of Aimee sitting on that counter in just her underwear and t-shirt. I remembered drawing-in big bubble letters-like a girl, I thought to myself, her name

57 with just a period instead of an exclamation point. I remembered how class ended, and

Michelle came up to me, to talk, I think, and before I ever saw her, because I was looking down at the page, she saw what I was drawing. She cleared her throat, and I looked up at her. I didn't know what to do. She held up a folded piece of paper, then dropped it on my desk, and then left the room.

After she was gone, I read the piece of paper. In real small letters, on just one line of the page, she'd written: "That was nice. I'm glad it happened."

That was pretty much the last time we spoke, or not, or whatever.

Remembering that, I got kind of uncomfortable. I didn't wannabe at the Coke museum, I wanted to be home. But then I thought about home and how my parents always hassle me about making new friends. That's even why they took me out of

Asheton. In like, the middle of the summer, my mom said: "Jim honey, we think you need more friends than just Mike. You spend too much time sitting alone at home. You need to meet people. What do you think about a year or two at public school?"

And I can remember I didn't really say too much, and a couple months later I was entering high school in pretty much all the same classes as Mike.

To get my mind off home, I started to actually draw something. I didn't really plan it, but it ended up being Michelle, in an Asheton uniform, drinking out of an old­ style glass Coke bottle. Underneath it I wrote, in real small letters; I started to write

Michelle, but I hadn't done the "e" yet when I heard a voice behind me say, "And so, that brings us to the end of our tour. And just as Coca-Cola started its journey right here in

Atlanta over a century ago, its future begins right here, with refreshment, and you." And a bunch of clapping started.

58 I turned around to see what was happening and there was Michelle standing at the front of the Asheton group, looking right at me.

Mike turned around, too.

Everybody was still clapping when Mike said: "Dude!"

But they'd stopped clapping right before he said: "It's Michelle!"

And everything was museum quiet.

Mike waved at Michelle. Waved her over, actually.

She actually started walking over.

I turned back around, away from Michelle, and the pretty girl was looking right in my eyes, and kind of smiling.

And so I was sitting there, looking at this girl whose name I didn't even know, trying to decide if I should tum over my piece of paper, or just try to cover it up with my arm. I didn't know which one would draw more of the wrong attention. I started hoping something would distract Michelle's. And I wasn't sure what, if anything, to say to

Mike. The fact was, whatever came after that was gonna be pretty difficult, and different than I'd hoped.

59 The Girl Who Took to Practicing Dying

"This isn't going like it should."

That was what she heard the last time she was practicing dying. She heard those words in the voice of her boyfriend's best friend, Rob, who was in medical school, and very smart. At the time, her boyfriend, John, was sitting, she thought, on the side of the bed opposite the side where Rob was working, because that was where John had been when she'd last had her eyes open. But she was wrong to think that. Because when Rob followed that first sentence with: "I don't understand," John had run around the foot of the bed, around Jane's feet, to look over Rob's shoulder at the tiny box that had started to beep much more slowly than before.

That was the girl's name-Jane. She was the girl in the bed. That was how all this started. One day, this girl had decided to practice dying.

Jane never saw that John stumbled, just a little bit, in the blanket, in his blanket, that they'd left on the floor on the side of the bed because Jane had wanted to be under a sheet but not a blanket. "Only under a sheet," she'd said.

As Rob started banging the side of the beeping machine, Jane remembered the day she'd decided. She remembered waking up to her professor, Professor Adkins, hitting his desk. He was hitting his desk with his palm. The palm was flat, but also large and fat, so that it produced not so much a smacking sound on the chipped, oak desk, as it did, simply, a banging.

60 Bang. Bang ... bang!

Jane woke up.

Bang!

Jane had looked around the room. She hac\ seen three of the other twenty or so students still sleeping.

Bang bang bang.

Jane admitted to herself, there in the bed, in John's dorm room, with John and

Rob milling about around her, that she kind of respected it. She kind of respected

Professor Adkins for actually acknowledging the fact that they were all sleeping.

Because they all always were. Every Monday, Wednesday, and, Friday, from eight-thirty to eleven, they slept. Jane's advisor said it was because the class was so early. Jane's advisor wondered, out loud, why the college scheduled prerequisite courses so early.

Which made Jane ask whether or not she really, really had to have the class for her major.

She did. Jane's advisor double-checked. Yes, Jane did. That was on the second

Wednesday of the course. The day Jane made her decision, the day of the banging, was,

Jane thought to herself-while Rob turned the machine off, and then back on again-the tenth or eleventh Wednesday of the course. It was her third semester, she reminded herself. The first semester of her second year. It was Professor Adkins's class on The

Romantic Poets. Professor Adkins of the monotone. Professor Adkins of the videos on the lives of the poets. Professor Adkins of the study of meter.

Jane remembered, both in Adkins's class, and later, in the bed next to the machine, really loving The Romantic Poets in high school. In the bed next to the machine, she couldn't even remember, anymore, which ones were the romantic poets.

61 Was Rimbaud a romantic poet, or not? Was Shelley? Yes. Shelley. Definitely Shelley.

Then she thought to herself, in the bed next to the machine, how somehow, this was all

Shelley's fault. And then, if she could have, she'd have smiled. And then John turned off the little beeping machine, and turned it back on again, leaning towards it in order to stare, really hard, at its little green display. All Jane knew was the click of the little black knob with the little white line.

For whatever reason, hearing the knob click off, and back on, made Jane remember waking up in Professor Adkins' class. It made her remember how he managed to yell, without raising his voice, at the three students who were slower than Jane at waking up. It made Jane remember him yelling, sort ofscratchily, "Ifyou're not going to participate in this class .. .if you're not going to enjoy this class, you shouldn't even bother coming." No way, Jane remembered thinking, no way he'd been working on that for eight or more weeks. So what had he been doing? Then Professor Adkins had turned his head back towards Jane's side of the room, and shook his head, just half a shake. And lying there, thinking really clearly between only occasional beeps, Jane remembered thinking, God, homework, two hours a night, three nights each week, for this. All that time I could be sleeping. Or anything. Then Jane in bed remembered what Jane in

Adkins' class had remembered, at the time.

And then Rob put his head on top of Jane's. The top of Rob's ear tickled the bottom of Jane's nose. She felt that. And again, she would have smiled.

John said, his voice a little high, like when he'd ask if she'd written down the homework assignment for whatever class, "Do you hear anything? Is there anything there? Rob! Whadduyou hear?''

62 Jane thought ofthe posters on John's wall. One of a Seattle-grunge-rock band.

One of a Picasso. One of Bob Marley smoking a joint. One with funny cartoons of funny cartoon figures drinking heavily and falling on the floor. One on the ceiling that was all just shapes and pixels that glowed really neat in black light.

She wondered if the boys had turned off the black light after she'd closed her eyes.

And then the little box beeped. And then Jane remembered what she'd been remembering before.

Jane remembered (both there in the bed and earlier, in Professor Adkins' class) the June before college. The night of graduation from high school. After the ceremony.

Two Great Aunts still eating graduation cake. Two Great Aunts being eighty-eight and eighty-three. Visiting from the home they shared in Las Vegas. Having flown in, via

Indiana, with Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Sue. All of them having flown to Jane's home in

Kansas City, which of course involved Missouri. (Jane could always make herselflaugh by putting it that way.) Jane remembered yelling, at her mother, "All of my friends are going! It's the last time I'll see a lot of them! Lisa leaves for Massachusetts on Sunday!"

Jane remembered her mother responding, while they both stood in the kitchen, not really doing the dishes.

"I don't want to hear it. Your aunts are in their eighties. How many times do you think you'll see them again? They're here for you. And you should be here to go to dinner with them. Now no more. They're going to hear you." And then Jane's mother jerked her head in the direction of a wall, on the other side of which was the dining room, and graduation cake, and all the relevant relatives.

63 And of course, Jane thought, they wouldn't have heard her, because they were talking with her father. And with Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Sue. And of course there were the hearing aids to consider.

And then Jane felt just a little something in her arm. And Jane stopped remembering things, for a second, and listened.

"That should bring her out of it." This, Jane was almost positive, from Rob.

"Are you sure?" The question from John.

And then Jane felt, stronger than on her nose or in her arm, her head kind of wiggle. Not her hair and her eyes her head, but her brain, and that kind of swelly tissue she could always feel behind her nose when the pollen was bad, all that kind of, well, wiggled. And then it all felt really tired.

And what Jane never heard, and of course never saw, was Rob kind of shove John out of the way, a hand on each shoulder, as he ran to John's closet, and threw a lot of soccer gear (shin-guards and a ball and an old, faded, forest green towel, all in a big off­ white mesh bag) out of the closet and onto John's desk, which was on the other side of

John's single-occupancy room but still only three feet away. Rob carried over to the bed a metal kind of suitcase, and opened it. He grabbed inside it and said, "Clear."

And John said, "What?"

"Clear!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I've gotta shock her."

"Dude, this isn't TV, cut it out."

64 "John, I know what I'm doing. Get out of the way." And John mostly did. And

Rob picked up two little handles, that were humming, which John completely recognized.

And then Rob said, "Shit! Her shirt. John. Tear her shirt."

"What?"

"Just do it!"

And, stepping around to the opposite side of the bed, John did. And his fingernail kind of scraped Jane's neck, at kind of her collarbone. But the shirt seemed to be pretty sufficiently tom. And John put his finger out to Jane, to touch it, but Rob moved forward with the handles, and John backed away again.

Jane felt like she'd fallen down. Then she heard John say, "Is she okay now?"

She heard Rob answer, "Yeah. I think so. She should be."

"Where did you get those?"

"From your closet."

"No, but I mean ... "

"I got it when I got the rest of the stuff, just in case."

"Dude, that's kind of... you shoulda told me about that. You should've told me that could happen. I think we should wake her up."

"There's no way. We've just gotta wait for it to wear off."

"Why didn't you tell me we might need those?"

"I didn't think we would, and I didn't want you to freak out."

And then Jane wanted to put her palm on John's cheek, and slide it through his hair, and then kind of shove his whole head to the side a bit. Gently, but so he could feel

65 it, and shove back, and smile. But she just as much couldn't as before. And it made her remember, some more. She remembered getting back to her room, and calling John, after the class in which Professor Adkins had made her remember that awful, and ultimately teary, graduation luncheon.

"John, it's Jane. Do you still know that guy that can get pills?

"Uh, yeah. I guess. Why?"

"I've gotta make it through another month of Adkins, and I think I wanna do it on

Valium."

"What?"

"Just gimme that guy's number."

"Okay."

And Jane finished that semester, and started the next one, she ended the winter, really, deciding if she liked Valium or Xanax better. Both ofthem, Xanax and Valium, made sure nothing really ever had an edge, so that nothing could ever get dull. And to that end, both were just what Jane had wanted. She'd decided to start to practice dying.

She felt she was progressing swiftly.

Then Jane stopped remembering again, and heard John: "Is there anything we can give her? To speed it up?" And she let a breath pass through her. Jane let herself accept the fact that John was only trying to be attentive. And wasn't that nice. But it was the opposite of what she wanted, just then. So she had to do something about it. So she said: "No. Don't rush it. Let it be. It's nice."

And what Rob and John heard, decidedly faintly, was: "Nnh. Dbblsjhsgt. Lhbee.

Nhgghnyme."

66 But of course Jane didn't waste too much of her time or energy caring that that was what they heard, and John didn't speak again on that subject at any point in the immediately following moments. So nothing interrupted the smile she wasn't making, but was having for herself, in her head, thinking about the poster on the back of John's door. The white one. With four white squares. Each square containing the black-and­ white head of a Beatie. If she could've, she'd have laughed for conjuring the image for herself. She'd have laughed because she realized that she wasn't even sure if John had the album or not.

And then from Rob: "I think she said she wants us to double it."

"What?"

"I think she wants another hit of the stuff. I think she wants to go deeper."

"Are you sure? I don't think that's what she said. I'm not sure she said anything.

I think she was just mumbling."

"No. She wasn't mumbling. You can tell because she's emoting. Look at her lips, they're kinda taut at the edges. She's smiling. She likes it."

"What if that's just gravity pulling the edges of her lips down toward the pillow?"

"No. She wants more."

And then Jane heard Rob, she knew it had to be Rob, thumping another syringe.

And she knew what would happen, and she wondered for a moment if that was what she wanted or not. And she couldn't have really done anything about it even if she had cared to. What motion she had mustered, when she'd moved her lips, was the most she'd had for hours. She didn't even have the energy to keep her eyes closed. That's what Rob had said. She'd closed them on her own, but they'd opened, Rob explained, only a little

67 while before the beeps on the machine had gone slow, gone wrong. Rob had told John,

"The relaxed position of the eyelids, that is, in a prone head, the natural position for eyelids at rest, is open. When they're closed, they're stretched. They can lock themselves, sort of... " (He'd actually said "sort of' and Jane would have laughed at that if she could have laughed.) "They can lock themselves closed, like when you shut them on a corpse, but it takes mortician's wax to keep them closed."

"What's mortician's wax?" John had asked.

"It's a semi-permanent, but totally non-toxic sealant and bonding agent. Don't worry, it's not just for dead people; movies use it, too, for special effects." Jane would have smiled at that, too, because the first sentence was, clearly, Rob remembering a label he'd read, and the second sentence was Rob reading John, clearly. Just as she would have. Clear as tears, as John would have said, John hailing from Kentucky.

And hearing Rob thump the syringe made her remember the pressure, the oh-so­ slight pressure she'd felt on her eyes as Rob had put a daub on each of her sets oflashes, to keep her eyes from opening. To keep her from looking weird. To keep her from maybe hurting her eyes, Rob had told John. And remembering that made Jane remember the party. The party that was the first time Jane had really talked to Rob. Jane had spoken to Rob before, sure. She'd been buying muscle-relaxers and tranquilizers from him since at least the previous Halloween. But those had been transactions, not conversations. Each time she'd bought from him, Rob's small talk had consisted of unskillfully crafted come-ons, and Jane had said, "I'm dating John. You know, your friend John." And she'd walked away. And each time she would call Rob on the

68 telephone, he'd say he shouldn't even be talking to her. That she was rude. And then

Jane would place her order.

The party was at the end of January. It was a Super Bowl party. It was John's

Super Bowl Party. She was sitting on the couch in John's dorm room. She was actually watching the game. She was the only one actually watching the game. The half-dozen guys, the only other occupants of John's dorm room, were all eating Lay's potato chips and doing keg stands. Jane was enjoying the three Darvocets she'd taken. She was washing them down with vodka mixed with orange juice.

Then Rob came in the room.

The friend of John's that was doing the keg stand, right then, tried to yell, "Hey

Rob!" But instead he only managed to dribble a mouthful ofbeer down his nostrils, and spent the next few minutes choking while John and the others, after dropping him from · his previous, head-standing position, just laughed.

Rob said, "Hello boys." Then he walked over to the relatively-unobstructed keg, drew himself a beer into a red plastic cup, and joined Jane on the couch.

Jane stopped remembering the party, for a second, and remembered how John had asked, just a few minutes before the box had started beeping too slowly, "I've never seen mortician's wax on a real dead person, Rob. Are you sure morticians use it?"

"Of course they do. That's why it's called mortician's wax. They use it a lot better than I do. A lot cleaner. A lot neater. I'm no mortician, you know. I'm in med school."

"Well, you made it look like she's crying glue. I saw my grandpa dead, dude. He didn't have any glue on him."

69 "I think morticians actually use tape under the eyelids. They use the wax for orifices and wounds, but it serves our purposes, too. It won't hurt her."

Jane remembered John saying, "Oh." She remembered thinking that John probably didn't know what "orifice" meant. Then Jane resumed her remembrance of the party, just where she'd left off.

Rob, upon sitting down, had said to her, "So, you enjoying what you bought this morning?"

Jane remembered taking a sip of vodka and orange juice, smacking her lips, and saying, "Very much. Thank you."

Then she remembered Rob saying: "Well, I'm glad you're having a good time.

As your doctor, though, you know I have to warn you against mixing alcohol with sedatives."

And Jane remembered responding: "You're not my doctor; you're my dealer.

Now shut-up and watch the game."

And he had. And they'd watched the second quarter of the game, and half of the halftime show, with the aging rockers and the pop starlet, and finally Rob turned to Jane and asked, "Are we the only ones watching this thing?"

And Jane had replied: "Yeah. I tried to snag their attention when the kickoffwas happening, but they all just yelled, chugged a beer, and went back to doing keg stands."

"So they've been at it a while, then?"

"Since lunch. With hoagies."

"Sorry I missed it."

"You should be. They were good hoagies."

70 "I always miss the good stuff. Curses on the lab sciences. Oh well. It'll be worth it when I drive a Porsche to the reunion. A Porsche and a swimsuit model, that is."

"You're gonna need more than a Porsche to compensate for your under-developed social skills, Rob."

"Hey, I'm mingling, aren't I? Which is more than I can say for your beloved beau over there."

Remembering that, Jane remembered laughing at the time. She did, again, there in the bed next to the machine, which had resumed its beeping, though the beeping was at, now, even longer intervals.

All that the boys heard was a low-toned rumbling, from what seemed like a spot deep in her chest: "Hrumphasha. Jhsh hanmuh. Hrumphahanahana."

"What did she say?" John said.

"She was thanking me." Rob said.

"For what?"

"The second hit."

"How can you tell?"

"I'm a grad student. I'm gonna be a doctor. You wouldn't understand, senor undeclared-junior."

John retorted: "Bite me."

"I wouldn't want to make Jane jealous." And that was the second-to-last thing that Jane heard Rob say. John, as far as Jane could tell, did not reply. But she might have simply missed it, because right about then Jane resumed her remembrance of the

71 party, again. Jane remembered her reply to Rob's comment about mingling, which was:

"It doesn't take much to out-gentleman John."

"You seem like you're saying more than you're saying." Rob had said.

Maybe because he was right, maybe as a reward, Jane gave Rob the truth. "You know what's special about today? It's my birthday."

"Oh. I didn't know. I'd have given you the Darvocets for free."

"No worries. Nobody else gave me anything, either."

"John didn't ... "

"He hasn't even mentioned it."

"Well, how long have you guys been dating?"

"Since September. The September before last."

"Oh."

"Since I broke up with Brad."

"Who's Brad?''

"My high school boyfriend."

"Why'd you break up with him?"

"John."

"Oh."

And, having remembered that, Jane remembered how Rob had just stared at her,

then. She remembered how she had just stared back. Stared back until John had yelled,

sort of actually pronouncing the syllables: "Huz whinnying?"

She remembered turning her head away from Rob, and towards the television.

She remembered seeing a commercial, and picking up the remote and just flipping

72 channels. She had flipped channels until she got to a safari show. She had seen a bunch oflions enjoying something that had, a few moments before, probably been running. She had yelled, over her left shoulder, at John, "The Lions."

And John had said, "But thayher notheaven playing. It's bearuhs versezzeh dolphins."

And Jane remembered responding, "Yeah, but the lions are winning."

And John had responded: "Oh. Okay."

And Jane turned to Rob and offered: "It's actually no big deal. He missed it last year, too, and I told him that meant I was allowed to skip his, and he said it was a deal.

So I guess you could say we have an understanding."

And then there'd been a few more minutes of silence and watching lions.

And then Rob had said, "Since lunch, eh? Those guys are gonna make me really rich in a few years."

"If you're lucky enough to pass med school," Jane had said.

"Yeah, and ifthey're lucky enough to survive that long."

"I wouldn't call that lucky."

"What?"

"Surviving."

"Oh, I thought you meant getting treated by me." And then Rob smiled.

Smirked, really. In a way, Jane had to admit, both then and later, as she lay listening for beeping, that was kind of cute.

"Well, yeah, that too, but mostly I meant surviving."

"Oh come on, John's a good guy, but he's not worth that much malaise."

73 "John's the least of my concerns."

"Who's the first? Brad?'' Again, Rob invoked the smile, but to less effect, the second time.

Pretending that the suggestion actually warranted comment, Jane had responded:

"No. Brad was just a summer thing. From a Grad Night party 'til, well, John."

"Okay, who then?"

"Dad."

"Where's he?"

"Indiana. With my last great aunt. She's dying."

"Sorry."

"I'm not."

"Maybe your dad will call."

"Maybe, but I don't wannabe home to get it. Too little. Too late."

"What about your mom?"

"Well, mom remembered. When I was home for Christmas break. December twenty-seventh. She said she didn't want to risk 'that crazy campus mail.' She gave me a card. It said, 'Don't think this is it. Dad's got something special planned!' It had a gift certificate in it. I bought a blouse."

"That was, like, a month ago."

"You're quick."

"No, I mean, where was your dad, has he sent anything?"

"He was in Indiana for my whole break. My other aunt was dying. He hasn't been home since. But a card came, supposedly from him. Last week. With a postmark

74 from my hometown. Signed in my mom's handwriting. It had a gift certificate in it. I bought some jeans."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not. I've moved on, from sad to bored."

Jane, in the bed, realized she hadn't heard a beep in quite a while, maybe even a minute. She listened for one. She listened for a beep, but all she heard was John.

Snoring. She knew the sound of John snoring. Then she heard Rob. She heard him breathing. She heard the air whistle, just a little, in his nose. Then she remembered the next thing Rob had said at the party all those nights ago, "The first aunt to die ... "

"What about her?"

"She was the younger one, right?"

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"It always happens that way."

Jane remembered how that had made her tum away. She'd turned away, and looked at the lions, and finished her drink.

Something, exploded though. Inside her, of course. She had to ask: "How can you know about that? How can it be simple for you? How can you know anything, really know, I mean, about death?"

"It's not. It's not simple. But there are patterns. It makes a certain kind of sense when you think about it enough times."

Jane replied, "I think about it a lot, though. All the time. All those un-testable theories scare me. Science. Religion. None of it makes sense."

The lions moved a little bit. Jane was able to decipher their dinner; it was a zebra.

75 "Well, you've gotta pick one, I guess. I mean, I study the science, I guess I kind of practice the science, but I still believe what they told me in church. Mostly."

"I'm not interested in picking one. I have my doubts about both. Science and religion. I think it's na'ive to think you've got it figured out."

"Well, it sounds like you've already made up your mind. What do you think happens?"

"No. I haven't made up my mind. I have no idea what to think. It's the one thing you can completely know will happen, but it's almost impossible to control how. Really the whole thing just terrifies me."

"Why? What's the worst that could happen?"

And Jane had thought about this, plenty of times. Dozens of times, while John was already asleep, snoring, Jane had kept herself awake with this. No one had ever suggested, before, though, that she vocalize it. She'd never really told anyone, really, all that she'd thought about it. But she did, then: "I'm afraid I have a soul. I'm afraid I'll retain consciousness after my body stops. For eternity. Or a single moment that feels like eternity. That everything will be black and there's nothing to hear and no one to hear you. For ever. And it happens to all of us but none of us can reach the others. I'm afraid we all just stay completely separated, from everything, forever."

Rob replied: "That would suck."

And Jane agreed with the sentiment, but there was something about the delivery that left her completely uninterested.

And then Rob grabbed her interest again. He said: "So, what, are you trying to find an answer, or something? Are you trying to explore? Is that why your drug money

76 is practically paying my rent? Is that why it's almost always depressants? I mean, I'd wondered. Most girls who get muscle-relaxers have supposedly legitimate prescriptions."

And Jane was pleased with Rob, for having guessed. He'd guessed incorrectly.

He was wrong. Wrong, but close. So, again, she rewarded him with the truth: "I'm not interested in exploring. I'm not sure I want to know. But I do want to be ready.

Prepared, I guess you could say. I guess you could say I wanna practice. And sometimes

I actually get to, I think. I'm staring at the ceiling, and there's nobody to talk to, and it's too late to call anyone or do anything else but I'm completely alert and attentive.

Because my brain's going light speed, but I can't do anything. There's just ... nothing for me to do. I figure that's what it must be like to be dead. And it's pretty terrible: nobody to talk to, nothing to feel. After a while, there's not even anything left to say. Or think.

So ifl can practice for that, train for it, so it won't be so hard, I want to. I want to be good at it. I want it to be easy."

And with that, Jane remembered, Rob had turned his head back toward the television, finished his beer, and not said anything else the rest of that night. Except, of course, "goodnight." And that had come a few hours later. Right after the last two keg standers had fallen asleep. Long after John had. A little while after John had begun snoring, in fact. And Jane, forgetting to listen for beeps, realized that she still didn't, a couple of months later, know who had won that Super Bowl.

But there had been other parties. On other nights. And there had been other talks with Rob. And there had been a night in the library when Rob had come up behind her, while she sat at a computer, searching for a book. And Rob had, quietly, reached over

77 her head, and dropped a book into her lap. It had had descriptions of drugs. Chemicals.

It described the effects these chemicals had on a person. On a body. Not so much a brain but a body. It had described paralysis. And its stages. Then Rob showed Jane another book. He showed her more, other descriptions. He talked about how these chemicals could be combined. And Jane asked, "Has anyone ever tried that before?"

"Well, I've seen it in a couple of movies, but both the motives and the methods were decidedly different." That smile again.

"Shut-up," she said, "you know what I mean."

And Rob replied, "I'll answer your question after you answer mine."

And Jane smiled, and said, "Okay, what's your question?"

"Why do you stay with John?"

Jane told herself, then, that she should have expected that question. But she hadn't. But she answered, anyway: "Because I'm already with him. And what difference does it really make? And sometimes, he's not even disappointing. So why should I disappoint him?"

And Rob was quiet, keeping his smile. And then he said: "No."

"What?"

"Nobody's ever tried this mixture before."

And Jane got excited. Really excited. For the first time in a long time. At one point she finally said: "Sure."

And, remembering all that, Jane thought of the Quentin Tarrantino movie poster that John kept above his desk, and she would have smiled. But instead, she remembered the rest ofhow she'd gotten there.

78 There had been conversations between Jane and John. And then there had been more conversations, sometimes between Jane and Rob, sometimes between Rob and

John. But finally one last one between Jane and John.

And then Spring Break had started. And there were empty buildings. And it was still cold in Michigan. Which was where they were, Michigan. And ice was still on tree limbs, but they'd all been looking at that for months, at that point.

And Jane had wanted the black light on, so the poster would be cool. And the extra blanket over the window, to keep out the sun, so the poster would be really cool.

And she could focus on it. And yes, Rob could work in the black light. And John could always tum on more light, if Rob needed it, after Jane's eyes were closed. Because John was there to help.

And upon considering all of this, Jane heard a beep. And then she heard the last thing she ever heard Rob say to her. He asked her, quietly, not waking John: "Is it anything like you expected?"

And then everything felt really tired again. Her brain. Her nose. Her eyelids, that time, too. And she stopped hearing beeps. And John. And Jane tried to say John's name. She tried to say, "John." But the boys heard nothing. And then, as Jane had expected, even suspected, and of course most-certainly feared, everything was just like it had been before.

79 Palm Trees; Nightclubs; Coffee

Millennia ago, palm trees opted for bending instead of breaking. Hurricanes, in all their reporter-disheveling and roof-dilapidating glory, usually whisk right through them. More often than not, when the winds die, the tree continues to grow. On those occasions when an invisible blender does manage to wrench a palm, helicopter-like, into an undulating purple sky-cockroaches and coconuts flying from its feathers-it will return to earth uprooted, but intact. "Snapping" is not natural for a palm. You realize this when you drive a German sports car up the noble tree's trunk, flooding the windshield with fronds and stars.

Before that ...

Partying in South Beach, there's a five-and-a-half-foot, hundred-pound blonde in a barely-there dress leaning towards me with a drink in each hand. I met her about twenty minutes ago, so conversation time is over. The couch is bristly with purple velvet, in an unevenly lit comer, and we're both rubbing it, intermittently, with our thighs, shoulder blades, hands ... practicing for each other. We both intend to put our newly­ honed muscles and skills to excessively indulgent use before the night's over. It's not quite perfect, though. She's still trying to figure out if the new BMW (that I made sure she knew I had) was bought with contest-type fluke money or a salary big enough to fuel the ego I've been flaunting all night. I'm still trying to figure out how I convinced her to

80 start downing two drinks at once. Words flow effortlessly to cranial approval centers. It

all seems natural and inevitable, like underwear dropping to the floor. Foreshadowing

that, in fact.

Before that. .. the previous night. ..

"Great. Well, we're both glad you came. Guess we'll see you tomorrow."

This is not what I'd hoped for. I brought the cake, and now she wants me to leave

the party early. I remember why divorced sometimes isn't such a bad thing to be.

"I don't have anywhere I have to be. I thought I might stay."

"Oh, you don't have to, I can clean up ... "

"No, I mean, I'd like to ... Amber only has one birthday a year." An inscrutable

argument, in my opinion.

"Well, we just put Amber to bed, and I. .. "

"I thought you and I could stay up, have a drink. We haven't talked in a while ... "

"We finished the wine you brought, and I really need some quiet time. Busy day

and all."

My feet shuffle, though I tell them not to. "Well then hey, why don't I take

Amber home with me? The weekend's only a day away. It'd save me an hour each way tomorrow. You could have the house to yourself... "

"Amber has school tomorrow. She needs her sleep. I don't think it's a good

idea."

Ideas: where the arguments used to start. Lately I've preferred avoiding

arguments. I can tell I'm getting better at this because I change the subject: "Well, I hope

81 you can find a place for the tank. I know it's a little unwieldy, they just didn't have too many selections for turtles."

"We'll work it.out."

"Amber seemed to like how big it was."

"She seemed even happier than the turtle." And she smiles. And auburn hair goes inexplicably well with smiles. And I remember why divorced is such a bad thing to be. Then she must remember that she prefers being unhappy around me. She's very good at that. She changes the subject: "It's a fancy-looking turtle; I hope you didn't spend too much ... "

I'm a little offended, "It doesn't matter." I tum to leave. I stumble over a suitcase she's got sitting by the door. I remember that I always did the cleaning. I'm inclined to

smile, but my shin hurts.

For no good reason, she asks, "Are you okay to drive?"

I mumble something nasty about the placement of the suitcase and leave, closing the door behind myself.

After that ... the next day ...

"What do you mean by 'leaving'?" I ask. I hate asking this question over the telephone.

"I told you. It's just for the weekend. Orlando. Disney World. For Amber's birthday. Frank's treat." I simultaneously think of three things:

1) How good she is at leaving.

2) How much I hate Frank, the new accountant boyfriend.

82 3) How much it costs to even call my lawyer, usually to no effect.

Then I remember that I was born without a spine, and ask, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Before she can answer I finally muster enough self-respect to mumble something about

"I'm supposed to have weekends ... "

"I told you all about it last night." She offers no response to my second statement.

"I don't recall a bit of that."

"You were drunk."

"The hell I was."

"The hell you weren't." She's right, of course. I'm drunk, again, though, as I'm having this conversation. (It's after lunch, after all.) So I have no chance of even remembering parts of any conversations that did or did not take place the previous night.

Then my head clears, for a moment, and I remember having no clue why that suitcase

was by the door. That means she most likely did not mention any trip. Otherwise I would have made the connection. I call her bluff, "If you told me about it last night, why

are you calling to tell me now?" Before she can answer, I push her against the ropes:

"You know you shouldn't make personal calls to my office. I've got reading, and work, to do."

"I didn't call to tell you; I called to remind you." The lioness smelled my mental stutter. Damn. Then she makes an unchecked swipe at my jugular: "And to ask you if you'd water the plants for me while we're gone."

"We live sixty miles apart! I'm not driving that just to water your Goddarnned plants!" She's been obsessed with orchids since before we met. Orchids give me

83 m1grames. She always insisted on keeping them inside the house. Out of the cold. In

South Florida. I'm hanging by fingertips, but I haven't fallen yet. I decide that she's going down with me. So, I play my ace, "Why not have your neighbor do it?"

"You mean Lance? I already asked him. He's busy. He can't."

She knew exactly who I meant. I put my foot down. "Bullshit. I don't care. Get

Lance ... "

"How's the University of Miami's hardest working English professor?" Lance asks this while walking into my office.

I hesitate.

She seizes the opening: "What? Is somebody there to see you? Go ahead. I'll talk to you next week. The key's under the mat. Thanks again. I really appreciate it."

Click.

I'm still staring at Lance, phone to my ear, as he sits down across from me. My mouth is open, but silent. That nerve I had? Lost. It and physical proximity are mutually exclusive. I hate Lance. We used to be neighbors-took turns hosting poker.

We used to be friends. Then the divorce, and my relocation, made my commute easier but the poker game impractical. Lance and I disintegrate to "Hey. How's it going?" in the parking lot. Then George, one of the poker guys, calls me one day. He's always good for gossip, cuz he's always finding things out. It probably has something to do with the fact that he's a detective. I get warm fuzzies of nostalgia, anticipating news from my old hometown. George kills my buzz by saying, "Hey. Sorry it's been so long since I called. Just wanted to voice my support, y'know? I think what Lance did to you was pretty low." When we get past my confusion, and the clarification that Lance was not

84 one of the men that my ex-wife admitted to cheating on me with, we finally figure out that he was actually the first fling of the bunch. George, murderer of poker faces, is also my savior, delivering me from delusion. I confront my ex for no good reason. I never say anything to Lance, but I reduce our interaction almost entirely to brief nods of acknowledgement-and those only in passing. I decide that my silence is a subtle but potent kind of victory over him, and her. He tries to taunt me occasionally with these

Nutra-sweet congenial visits. I actually almost enjoy the opportunities to insert his present, moving face into my fantasies of pummeling him toothless. He usually leaves before I get bored.

"Doesn't that hurt your ear?" He's referring to the dial tone. After a few more seconds, I hang up the phone.

"What's up?" I'm waiting for him to say something stupid. I feel like fucking with him.

"Goin' out with a few of the guys from the math department tonight. We were thinking South Beach. Thought about how you probably haven't gone out in a while.

Thought you might wanna join us." He's wrong, of course. I'm about to laugh in his face. Then I do something stupid, though. I look at Amber's picture on my desk, and the decidedly dated aesthetic of the faux-bamboo frame; I taste the whiskey on the back of my throat. All that considered, I still don't entirely understand why I say: "Sure. What time?''

After that .. .later that night ... back on the couch ...

85 The blonde's got her head tilted back, the champagne flute clutched between her teeth, alcohol pouring down her throat and neck, and her right hand on my thigh. The whiskey's still in her left hand, slowly but surely disappearing. Awestruck, I can't decide ifl'm repulsed or impressed. After dispensing, one way or another, of the champagne, she turns her head away from me and spits the glass into the wall. Her chin grazes her chest as she turns back towards me. Her lips move much more than they have to as she concludes, "Satisfying shatter."

Sold. I grab her wrist, yell "Puck you, asslapper!" in Lance's ear as we pass him on our way out, and toss her into the car. While yelling, I had grabbed Lance's keys.

Shortly before that. ..

Club number four. "Yes. This is the one," Lance assures me. Lance says he knows a bartender at one of the clubs on the strip that can get us good drugs. His treat, he says, as consolation for the "others" he'd said would accompany us never showing up at the first club. I didn't care then. I still don't. But I let Lance play his game. I'm operating with the conviction that God considers it saintly, noble, or at least admirable, to suffer the whims of idiots and assholes. So, it's doubly holy of me to accommodate

Lance. The only insurmountably annoying thing is that he can't remember which club it is. He insists that this lapse evidences the quality of the promised narcotics. I don't care about this, either, but I relish the time spent at each club's bar, waiting for "Jacques" to be found or not. Thus far, it usually takes about two drinks' time to certify Jacques' absence at any given bar. I'm only on my first drink of the fourth club when Lance returns from his search somewhere in the club's nether-regions and, yanking me from my

86 stool, leads us to the restroom singing, I swear to God, "Jacques' in the world; the whores will come ... " I still don't care, but it is slightly satisfying to have all my theories about

Lance proven absolutely true in one little stumbling moment.

Fifth stall in a row of six (the only one with a lock), and it houses us all comfortably, as though it were meant to. Lance makes sure that both Jacques and I understand that the tab's on him. We do. Then, the shopping begins.

Lance: "What's on the menu?"

Jacques: "Whateva you want."

Lance: "Coke?"

Jacques: "How much?"

Lance: "For me? Just a little; I've already gotten started."

Jacques and I: "No shit."

Jacques produces a baggy from seemingly nowhere and tosses it to Lance, who almost doesn't catch it. Jacques turns to me, "For you?"

I look at Lance, already alternating his pinky between the baggy and his nose. He looks up at me between sniffs. "Go ahead. Don't be shy. Just tell him how much."

All I really want is to just bite Lance's nose off and clean his upper lip with my tongue. But I've got no taste for iron, just then, so I compromise, "Too much. However much is too much. I want that. Then double it."

Jacques chuckles. It's that laugh that asks you to retract whatever it was you just said. I just stay quiet, and look at him the way I was looking at Lance the moment before. He hands me a bag that barely fits in my pocket.

87 After that .. .in the car ...

"So, you're a teacher?"

"Yup." She's dragging her index finger up and down the back of my hand. I only know this by watching it happen. My hand is numb. Maybe it's because I'm squeezing the knob off the gearshift. It also might have something to do with the cocaine. It's been ten years, but I seem to remember the same sensation emerging from grad school's self­ medicated, sleepless, weeklong cram sessions. I've shared plenty, too. Before their present engagement, our fingers fought inside the bag. Scooping, licking, and sucking ensued. At times I didn't know whose fingers were in my mouth. It was beautiful. Now we're in that supposedly subtle seduction phase just before the fluid swapping. The little nylon dress is already half-off-slipping down her shoulders and sliding up her legs over the leather interior. I consider it a sealed deal. I'm not saying much, just to make sure I don't say anything that'll screw up the whole night.

"So, teachers make a lot of money?"

"This one does." This is only halfuntrue. We're driving north on US-I, to my former house in Palm Beach. Lance still lives next door. His last book (unlike mine) sold well. So, I'm driving my one-night stand to what is, since the settlement, my ex­ wife's house. But hey, she left the key under the mat.

Her confusion (read: hesitance) abated, the blonde goes full-tilt. She's nibbling my jawbone. Licking my ear. Then my zipper's down. Then her head's in my lap.

Doubling, sometimes tripling the speed limit, my eyes are closed. The road is almost invariably straight. Life is perfect.

88 Then, there's warmth. Wrong warmth. I know; but I do not want to know. I

slam on the brakes. The car fishtails, jolts, jolts again, and then "thuds" to a stop. I try to

smell the smoldering rubber. I can't.

Her head's still down there. I pull her up by the hair. Even as she's staring into my eyes, there's still vomit dripping from her mouth.

I'm about to return her gift, but instead I tum away, making sure to keep her head

at a safe distance.

I'm looking for something to look at. I find the windshield. I find the sky. And

rolling flashes of green-at the pace of wind. There are no stop-signs or taillights.

Clarity reigns in the absence of interruption. Then a coconut falls, straight at my face,

and cracks on the glass. Everything returns to milky.

How it happened ...

The postcards are accurate-Florida's full of Palm Trees. They're on the beach.

They're in frontyards. They're in backyards. They are the shoulders of the roads. And they grow out of the medians, where they are perpendicular impositions on safety. For this and so many other reasons (discussed above) I had driven up one. Not into, mind you, but up one. The speed and curb had sent us, windshield toward the heavens, into a bear-hug with the tree. The car had then slid, axles to bark, down its length, resting only our rear bumper on the ground.

So, finally ...

89 Seated, as we were, like pre-ignition astronauts, it was time to go somewhere.

Gravity dictated that the doors remain shut. With some difficulty I found the button that

rolled the windows down. When I told the blonde "get out," she looked insulted. I

informed her that there was nothing else to do. In fear of boredom, I think, she slithered

out the window to the ground. After grabbing the coke, I did likewise.

We stood in the humidity with nothing to do but walk. So we did. Across the

street was an all-night diner. I recognized it. We were close to the house, a few miles, at most, and I thought of showers and beds. I'd tried to fly a car, though, and failing,

wanted a break from motion as soon as possible. I craved a booth. With dilated pupils,

covered in vomit, we were seated, but service was slow. The blonde started bitching

about it. I made a suggestion: "Shut-up, or go home."

"Fuck you. Are you paying the cab fare?"

I tried to stare at her, to stare her down, but when I looked right at her she was my

ex. My ex, with blonde hair. Then the waitress came up, wondering what we'd drink.

Then the waitress was my wife with red hair. I realized that whatever Jacques had cut the

coke with was finally kicking in. I suspected as much. Well, eating was no longer an

option. Anything brought to the table would look like worms or ants or little Lances.

The coffee pot that my ex with red hair was holding had already become, for my perception's purposes, Jacques' head. It was time for me to go. I tossed the coke at the blonde, quipping, "cab fare," and strolled out the door. Regardless of the too-many-to­ walk miles, not to mention the intracoastal, ahead of me, I continued the formerly interrupted northward journey.

90 I walked a long, long way. Each step that didn't end with me on my face was, really, its own tiny miracle. I made it all the way to the southernmost bridge that connects West Palm Beach to Palm Beach Island on the other side of the intracoastal.

Somehow, I had to cross it. The potential for drowning was, well, probable, given that, at that' point in my hallucination, everything was its own shade of pink and the concrete of the road was taking on the image ofhuge fields of marigolds. Or maybe roses. I've never been that good with flowers.

Right there in the middle of the bridge, halfway between shores, I passed a turtle.

I cursed him, for being there, and free. I'd spent a lot of cab fare on a turtle the day before and then driven his amphibious little ass across that same bridge to give him (or was it her?) to my daughter. My inclination was to just keep walking. But this new, free turtle yelled at me. "Hey! How 'bout a lift?" That was a sentiment I could sympathize with. I picked him up. Like any good hitchhiker, he made polite conversation, "So, watchya' doin'?"

"Sightseeing."

"Good night for it. Checked out the skyline yet?"

I followed his advice. The condos on the ocean side kaleidoscoped-fuchsia to azure and back again. The clouds melted into the sea. The trees just waved. I couldn't tell if it was hello or good-bye. Puzzling this, I didn't notice the blue lights behind me.

The turtle clued me in: "Pssst. Behind you!"

"Hold it right there!"

The turtle whispered in my ear. "Don't listen to him." So, I didn't. I slung the turtle, discus-like, at the ball ofloudness and brightness. I heard glass. Something about

91 this revitalized my focus. For the first time, I realized the precarious nature of my

situation. I turned, much more quickly this time, to run. It was too quick. My eyes,

perception, and balance couldn't keep up with each other. I teetered for a moment. My head tilted skyward for the last time that night, and I fell.

Waking up, I smelled orchids. I was face down on my porch. My ex-porch. It

was morning. In front of me, on the doormat, staring me in the eye, was the turtle. His

shell was cracked in a couple of places, but nothing too nasty. Nothing leaky.

Thankfully, he was no longer talking. Funny thing-! remember thinking that he looked

like he wanted to. I smelled aftershave and toothpaste above me. I was afraid to know.

"Looks like he beat you home."

Lance. I couldn't decide if this was worse than I expected or not. I didn't have

much else to do, just then, so I volleyed his little conversational serve: "Where are the

cops?"

"You got lucky."

"That doesn't happen."

"It happens to everybody at some point."

"Not to me. Not anymore."

"Wrong again, Professor. George found my car. George found you. You threw a

turtle at George. You passed out. George called me. George and I decided to bring you

here. He's taking care of the paperwork. The turtle was his idea, too. He thought you

might want a memento."

"He can do that?"

92 "Yup. He made captain. He said take your time sobering up before you call to thank him."

"Wow. Well, I guess all that's left is for you and I to talk."

"Yup."

"I'm pretty sure I'm insured ... "

"No, not that."

"What do you want to talk about, then?"

"Your wife."

"I know about you and my wife."

"I know that you know about me and your wife. I've known that you knew as long as you've known."

"Bullshit." Later, trying to figure out how I'd kept up with him would give me a migraine with its own nauseous accompaniment.

"I told George. In a way that guaranteed that he'd tell you."

I imagined the various approaches to sharing such a "secret" that would, without fail, compel George to pass on such information. Basically, it probably consisted of telling George to keep it to himself. Or, even, not to. Despite that, I challenged Lance's position with the same reasoning that had been working so well for me throughout that conversation: "Bullshit."

He just stared at me.

What do you say to that? I said: "Okay. So, what, we're supposed to go to coffee now, or something? Or should I just try to beat your ass."

93 "You're a lot of things that it sucks to be, but you're not an idiot, so shut-up. We both know me fucking your wife was the best thing that's happened to you in a long time.

Only difference between you and me is that I've understood that since the hour I did it.

You only figured it out some time last night."

Of course, I wanted to return the suggestion to just shut the fuck up, but something about that rang a little uncomfortable, which usually means a little true.

Instead I offered: "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?'' At this point I was leaning up against my ex-front-door, kind of petting the turtle I'd pitched through a windshield the night before. I couldn't imagine anything he could say that might ruin my day, well, more.

"There are a few conversations I've thought we should have for a long time.

Some of them are about how your wife was looking for an excuse to leave you long before we even met, and how I've thought for a long time, now, that you deserved better than that. Let's just say I did what I could to make the world a little bit more like I thought it should be."

One thing you don't want to go with a hangover: confusion. Another thing: contemplation. Basically anything that involves your head. "Are you trying to tell me you're not an asshole for sleeping with my wife?"

"No. I'm trying to tell you that I respect you. That I think you're a much better writer than I am, and I wanna pick your brain, so I'm going to resist your best efforts not to keep it alive. And also, that I've thought you were a good guy as long as I've known you, and that, really, I've always acted accordingly. I'm also trying to say that I wanna

94 buy us breakfast. And that I hope you're one of those guys that carries keys to his ex­ wife's car, 'cause it's a long fucking walk."

"Holy shit. You actually do want to go to coffee."

"Yup. Figured we could go right after you water the plants. That is, if you've got the keys."

I cocked my head, looked right at him, and crammed my hand in my pocket.

After a second or two of fishing around, and then another couple seconds, I finally came out with: "Yeah; I've got the keys. But I'm not watering the fucking plants."

"I'd hoped you'd say that."

I tossed Lance the keys and said: "You drive. Anywhere but that diner just over the bridge."

He caught the keys and asked me: "You gonna put that turtle in with Amber's?"

"Nah ... This one's mine." I picked him up and stared him in the eye. "He's coming with me." I yanked a leaf off an orchid and held it up to his mouth. He grabbed it. Then, slowly, he tucked himself in. He was all shell, with a hint ofleaf poking out of the edges. He stayed like that through coffee, and for a while after.

95 Reassessed

She wasn't so much an animal as she was an amalgam of animals. Menagerie personified, if you will. That first glance, born of a moment I'd taken to stand up and stretch, afforded my eyes an odiously-overdue refrain from that luminescent lockjaw they call a workstation. I was blustering through the hands-over-arms bit when Mrs. Perkins, in p.r., led the prodigious specimen into the office's greater, bay area and started showing her around. Introductions. An accolade or two: "Oh, yes, I've heard so much about you," was intimated, insinuated, and just plain fictionalized more times than I cared count. Across that quiet battlefield of cubicle walls and computer chips something about her countenance-her hair, perhaps, or the pinches under her cheekbones (dimples, some might say)-reminded me of my only, long-ago excursion, to Ecuador, where I witnessed a flock of macaws fly through a storm.

One wonders if a gathering of macaws might better be called a gaggle. Their attentions (or, rather, their instincts) to order and form rival those of geese, and yet how much more distinguished a term is brandished on that Canadian cousin? The rainbows macaws flourish behind them warrant an eponym much more faceted than "flock." Even the buffet of associations a similar, simple box of crayons might draw eclipses the peasantry of a collective noun that rhymes with "frock." A skip more and you've rendered into a house-coat the brightest bird in the world. Perhaps the mind wanders, but

96 what apart from a macaw could ever impel equivalent flights-of-fancy? To that end, perhaps, "a murder" might suit better.

Those birds cut through that rain, its drench, and all the accompanying lightning, glowing and vibrant as though the sky were clear.

But I digress, back to the girl.

Resuming my seat, smoothing my tie, I pretended to remember what I was working on. Soon and sure enough, Mrs. Perkins and this new, nubile candidate presented themselves at my cubicle's comer, and I greeted them with a smile, and my hand, and some snappy banter or another.

"Hi, I'm Doug; nice to meet you," was all I ever heard him say to her. Then again, I'm just in public relations, maybe that was some advertisers' secret code or something. To hear them tell it, it all is.

I was almost itchy with anticipation. Not because I expected anything brilliant or magical. I eviscerated my romanticism aeons ago. So, quite the contrary, I was putting a lot of stock in those first words from her because I feared, well, that she'd say something stupid. And the hibernation of my aspirations would be, again, resolute and absolute.

I vacillated, momentarily, over the pros and cons of some compliment of her beige skirt or white blouse. The blouse boasted soft lines-no comers, in an antiquated manner-markedly maligned in today's office apparel but, to my mind, a pleasant change of pace.

97 But I didn't get to comment because she shooed the silence with a smile which sandwiched the salutation: "Hi Doug. Nice office. I'm Denise."

Nice office. To put it plainly: that's what she said.

Brilliant! Most people didn't even notice. I'd adorned my desk with a new, mimosa bonsai the previous January, and, nonetheless, not one of my supposed "team members" had spared me a word on it. This new girl, this Denise-Denise Portentia, I'd later discern-showed some promise. Sure, she stayed a little vague, but hey, all I'd managed was "hi" and my name. Sometimes these things just can't be rushed. All concerned parties need to scope the territory, check the scents, before any substantive association can be expected to begin. Forward-thinking, though, as always, I offered: "I think you'll really enjoy it here."

Perkins ended that first meeting with the happy news that Denise would be joining my creative team-the garrulous herd I headed under the Vice President ofNew

Accounts Development, Mr. Aldous Hindley. Perfect. Just as I'd hoped. New blood. A new face. Again, the lack ofloquacity was an early and immediate concern, but I wanted to keep my options open, as they say. Any actually intelligent addition to the buffoons

I'd been bequeathed was welcome, even if she never said more than that lovely, latin name. Far be it from me to criticize a slow tongue. Her silence suggested that brains were kept where words usually came from.

Still to be seen was her composure in meetings. Would she scope her team-mates moves? Or would she lead, content to let their anesthetized eyes and legs follow her?

From what vantage would this vixen hunt?

98 Denise came to work with us at the worst possible time. It was the day of our first team meeting with Doug as the Leader. As if the whole team thing wasn't bad enough. I mean, who's ever heard of teamwork in advertising? And then Hindley put Doug in there. In charge. Doug, of two different color socks. Doug of two different plants. I'm serious. The guy kept two little plants right there at his desk. I mean, lots of people had a little fern, or cactus or something, but this guy had these whole, but tiny little trees, that he'd spend his entire lunch hour working on. Trimming and watering-the usual stuff, I guess. The thing is that they didn't just take up a bunch of his time, but most of his office, too. They were in these really small, ceramic pots that they'd clearly grown out of, but he never changed them. Even when the limbs of these things started growing off the side ofhis desk, and down toward the floor, he still kept them inside, in these little ceramic pots. I remember one day, not long before Denise came to work with us, how one of the plants got sick. That's what Doug said, anyway: "Sick. It got sick." And he tried to say some long name of some oriental disease that I guess those plants get, but all we could really hear was him sniffling, trying to hold back tears, I'd say.

And yeah, that was almost kind of sweet, and you wanted to feel for the guy, despite the way he'd always just stare at everybody in meetings, and the hallway, and, the guys used to tell me, the bathroom. I mean, that he cared that much about a plant, that was, well, it was ruined was what it was. Because, in the midst of all that sniveling, he took it into the bathroom, and there was a crash, and then we heard a flush. Turns out, he broke the pot right off of it inside the garbage can and then shoved the damn plant down the toilet.

99 Next day, he came in to work carrying the exact same kind of plant, exactly the same size as the last one. Only way you could tell it was a new one was by the ceramic shards in the garbage of the men's bathroom and the way they were a different shade of red from the pot of the new plant he came in with, smiling and whistling to himself. No shit.

Every once in a while, I used to say something to the boss about him, but Hindley would always reply the same way: "Tonya, if you'd ever seen the work he did for his company in his first year, not only would you be ashamed of yourself and your own output, you'd also realize that maybe a little crazy doesn't hurt when you're trying to be creative." So of course, Hindley was an idiot. Sure, it doesn't necessarily mean much to be the biggest ad agency in Albuquerque, but we did represent some pretty popular sportswear, and I never heard Doug so much as mention sneakers. You've gotta wonder just why the old guy kept him around.

"Well, I know you all miss Johnson. As you know, though, he scored big for us on that running shoes account, and now he's one floor up, with an office all his own, handling the executive accounts. So, let's not get too sad for him; let's see how many more of you we can get up there. You should have high hopes. Doug here has seen more new associates sent up than any other Team Leader in New Accounts. But take advantage ofhis experience while you can-he's sure to strike gold and go up any day, himself. The Leader from Team Three just moved upstairs last week."

Of course, that was all bullshit. Poor Doug. Ten years, and he was still in the bullpen. When the guy came to us I hired him on the spot. He had such an eye. So alive.

100 It wasn't afraid to move. And that's rare. Especially in the school recruits. But Doug was different: sure, he had a whole load of natural talent, but he was diligent in his study, too. Psychology, art, management. All of it. Every day, he was in my office asking more questions.

So, that first day Denise joined us, I asked for any new ideas they had. This part of the meeting killed another little piece of me every week. Since the previous year that

Team, Two, had been working on what I hoped would be the company's newest national television campaign. It was a candy company. They made sweet stuff in every conceivable color, but we couldn't get past slogans like "Dig the Rainbow" and "Let the

Juice Loose." Sure as hell couldn't come up with an image to accompany the text we still didn't have. So, after months, I began to prefer that the room just stayed quiet when

I got to that certain part of the meeting. The thing was, even though my wife's nephew

(her side, of course, not mine) was the v.p. of marketing at the company we were trying to represent, I knew they'd only hold on for so long.

That week the brainstorm session went something like this: Bob wanted to sell the candy as a gladiator that bested a talking stalk of grain with a sword made of sugar; Andy thought that showing dentists glowering over the money they made filling cavities would actually support the slogan "more doctors recommend ... ," so well that we wouldn't even need to consult any doctors; Tonya wanted us to steal a certain maple syrup account and dress its mascot in a dashiki sporting gumdrop-filled pockets; George had gone so far as to prepare concept art of plastic models of adult film stars' nether regions with accompanying placards that illustrated stick figures licking models of themselves. Of all of them, Tonya's was, sadly, the most marketable idea. She'd used the same gimmick on

101 an instant-rice campaign the previous year, and to considerable success. Normally, when one of our junior group members comes up with something like that, they get an executive spot-it's not like they'll stay there long before New York comes calling-but every once in a while you have to think about being able to respect yourself. Let's just say that was another form of the same kinds of executive decisions that led to me keep

Doug around, so I can't say you can ever really know how that's gonna go.

Rather than really listen to most of the rest of that first meeting Denise saw, I made a mental note to peruse George's personnel records.

Denise, though, was quiet.

I wondered, for a moment, if I might fall in love with her. I think I decided that there was definitely a possibility of something happening at some point.

All that was left, then, was to see her produce some small stroke of advertising genius, and the months I'd plundered, pining for something special, in a place that so very much wasn't, wouldn't seem so insipid. Denise Portentia, with her speechless, obviously artistic ruminations, began to represent the possibility of a validation of all that stuff I thought I'd grown out of: expectation, excitement, even enlightenment.

Then came the quixotic quandary of the second meeting.

We'd all spent another woe-some week, toiling at our desks-quills, paper and brains smoldering with the friction of production. But we had absolutely nothing praiseworthy to show for it. Hindley morphed from his usual, motivational tack to a nimbus and needling note: "Listen team, it's been two weeks now with next-to-nothing

102 creative seeping out of this little group. Hell, George has the most workable idea at the table. Now that's a problem. Let's take stock, now, and see ... "

As he blathered on, I spied Denise. She sat there nodding an "I know, I know" smile. Content in Hindley's criticism of us all. Content even in his criticism ofher. I thought, "wow," that's a lot of maturity from a girl so young and fresh faced.

This was my chance.

She shouldn't have been content. She should have been bothered. She should have been catalyzed into reaction. She should have been producing something. Offering something. Instead she just sat there, arms folded across her chest as though they always were. Like a lioness licking her paws. Those pouty lips doing their little pouting; a crocodile lazing on a shore.

Summarily, she was stuffed. What she needed was are-animator.

She needed the insight, the interest, and the investment of someone with a little more knowledge and a wealth of experience.

She needed her Leader. She needed me.

Immediately after Hindley adjourned his little coup d' gripe, I bounded to my desk to grab the necessary implements, and then proceeded straight for Denise's cubicle, a distinguished destiny cradled in my arms, well within our reach. Arriving there, I was faced with a fetid little obstacle. Tonya had wheeled her malodorous perch into Denise's space. And they were talking.

There the chair stood, full ofTonya's ass, between me and my destiny.

When the girls looked up at me I realized-by the sudden silence-that I had, in fact, walked up on the two of them giggling.

103 Giggling.

I mean, really.

What did they have to giggle about? Boys?

To Denise's credit, she had a pad and pencil in hand. I wanted to say something that would, as they say, break the ice, but the reception I'd received was pretty impenetrably cool. Tanya's presence, of course, was corrupting what should have been a cinematic meeting of minds. With a stranger present, I hesitated even introducing my eleemosynary effort.

So, there I stood, needing Denise, but needing to do away with Tonya. So, I splayed my plumage wide, and made my intentions known.

"Hi, everyone. How'd you like that meeting." That was all I heard, because that was all it took for me to get up and go away. I think I told Denise: "Come get me for lunch," over my shoulder as I left. I even forgot my chair. And when I remembered that

I'd forgotten, I still didn't go back for it. Don't get me wrong; Denise seemed like a nice girl, but I'd only known her a week and I wasn't about to make small-talk with some smelly tree freak just because the new girl still wore her skirts too tight. She'd learn, and he'd lose interest. That's how it'd been with every woman in the office the whole time

I'd been there. And I heard that's the way it was before me, too. I sure got a month or two of it, but one day I came to work in jeans and no makeup and the pervy bastard gave up. I mean, yeah, maybe I said a little something to him, too, but nothing too nasty because then, just like now, it's hard to say just what there was between Hindley and him.

Point is, I took care of myself and everything came out okay. She should've been able to,

104 too. I'd say it's pretty clear there was something different, something nobody could've expected about Denise. I'd say it's Hindley who's got the real story on Doug.

All I heard him-and I was at the desk right next to her, just a four-foot-tall, inch­ thick wall between us-say was: "Hi Denise. This is my ideas-in-development folder. I want you to have it. I'm not working on any ofthose anymore, so feel free to take and build on whatever you'd like." And yeah, that's strange. No ad guy on his regular medication gives away his idea folder. What Denise said, though, was even weirder. It was all: "Wow. Gee. Thanks Doug. That's really nice. Are you sure? Really sure?

Well, ifl get anything out of it I'll bring you in on whatever I come up with." I mean, seriously? It's like she actually bought the whole "team" thing. Nobody does that.

Nobody ever brings anybody else in. Especially on a big project. Those are the ones you don't even tell your wife about. Those are the ones with the promotions attached. It's all about number one. Just look: we live in a world where porn stars can lick plastic models of their own private parts while other. ..

No. It's not against company policy for team members to share their portfolios with each other. Though, yes, one might reasonably assume that such a sharing would result in cooperative work and acknowledgement of such a nature of a relationship--were one to develop--to the rest of the group. So, yes, the whole thing was bassackwards, on a few different levels. I think what's of particular note is that Doug had never let anyone even see his portfolio in the entirety ofhis previous tenure with the firm.

105 I was giving gladly that day. And yes, I'll admit, a little expectantly.

Her beige skirt and jacket were looking a tad beiger than the best you've ever seen. Beige! Who'd have thought? Her irises shone, pitch. It wasn't hard to imagine retractable claws hidden under that subtle French-manicure. That little lisp she had was, clearly, a forked tongue's effort to elucidate around fangs. Somewhere under that perfect plane of skirt lingered a prehensile tail-with a point for a tip.

What I mean to say is, this was a girl you knew would do something.

No. I didn't proffer the portfolio as a pretense toward partnership. Its purpose was closer to that of a preliminary pact of permeability. Not equality. Frankly, I was a bit put off by her suggestion, at the time, of a collaboration. She was a student; I her teacher. Her leader. Her liege. It wasn't time. I've explained this, now, so many times.

Her only task at that time was to prove herself. I might have gotten a smidge carried away with her, but I would only permit speculation to carry her, even in the expanses of my own imagination, so far.

But yes, I did glean something from that brief foray. I jaunted back to my desk holding nothing new, mind you. Denise's gift to me was of a less tangible nature, but all the more potent for it.

She returned to me, somehow, the-what's the common term?-the killer instinct

I'd lost so long before.

I had, for the first time in such a long time, an idea.

Not some twist or flare of style, but a concept conceived within me, its creator. It existed nowhere, in no form, before that moment when Denise received my offering, and presented, as recompense, her smile.

106 That next week was a wondrously weary one. I even ventured in on Saturday and

Sunday, neglecting my usual gardening. I spent the time in the company art department, wielding markers, oils, and yes, even the inevitable graphics software. By the time the team assembled for Monday's meeting, I had more than a dozen, fully-realized proposals for that wretched rainbow candy.

That girl, that Denise Portentia, had pulled me back into what once had been my natural rhythm, she'd enabled me to one again access my most visceral viscera. My power.

We sat around the table. Hindley issued some threats. Then he made some announcements. All this passed through me like water. It always did. Coffee before the meeting; water during. That way it was always one big orgy of diuretics. I didn't need to hear or feel any of the shit that floated all around me in those crappy meetings. All I had to do was need to pee. Finally, Tindley asked for new ideas, and Doug stood up.

Everybody's eyes followed his rising head.

He said: "I've got something."

A few breaths were drawn in. People. When will they learn that you're never disappointed if you expect disappointment?

He said: "It's for the candy, and it's the best idea I've ever had."

Andy said: "Oh, please."

Bob said: "Shhh," and Doug didn't even seem to hear them, he just put his specs, already mounted, mind you, up on the easel.

107 That one thing he said I remember word for word, because it was just so, well, bad: "Feast Freely." That was his slogan. And then he started flipping through his cards.

He held up the first card.

There was silence.

The second card.

Silence.

The third. The fourth.

I stopped counting at ten, but there were more.

Everybody was still silent. And still still.

I was just glad he seemed to be out of cards. I really needed to pee.

Finally, Hindley said: "Well, anybody have any ideas for Doug?" And we didn't.

Because it was just the same picture-a close-up of the lower half of a face, with its tongue stuck out, with a single little candy on the tip of the tongue-in monochromatic installments of each color that the candy came in. It was ridiculous. It just didn't make any damn sense. And Doug was just standing there.

And nobody said anything.

Hindley looked down at the table, cleared his throat, and asked: "Well, is there anything else?"

That was when there was one last, long silence.

And then, Denise said: "Well, I've got a little something." Then she reached below the table and pulled up some art ofher own. It was a bunch of photographs­ close-ups--of women. Just women. Some sweaty; some not. Working out. Running.

Stretching. Some were designed as split-screens: close-ups of the faces next to different

108 parts of their bodies. Legs. A shoulder-blade. A fist. A butt. Not all of the bodies were even in good shape. Some were old. One was even a little hairy. But every picture included a woman's face. And regardless of what face it was, it was smiling.

It was a sneaker account.

Everybody was loving it.

Bob asked: "Is this for print, television, or both?"

Andy asked: "Will there be a men's line?"

I think I said: "Now that's what I call power."

George wanted to know whether or not we'd airbrush the nipples away.

Hindley, knowing it was a sure sell (and a big one, too), started to gush: "Now this is really something." He kept going, but I didn't hear it, because it was right about then that I noticed Doug was still standing in the same spot, just looking at us, like he was still waiting for us to say something.

He was still standing there when everybody eventually got their fill of Denise's work, and we all left at the same time to take her to lunch, to celebrate. I know because I literally backed out of the room, watching him the whole time. Sure, I pretended to be back-pedaling, talking and walking, you know, but I had this feeling, see. I walked as slow as everybody else did, because that new feeling was a lot worse than how bad I had to pee. Really, that had kind of gone away. Somehow, I guess I just knew.

Denise's lips weren't pouty; Denise was.

That's what I figured out.

109 She was just like all the rest of them-sightless, a random, featureless roe roving about the bottom of an unseen sea floor. But worse, for she had scoffed in my face: clamoring on with one vapid vociferation after another when what those other impish oafs needed was quiet, in order to focus, on that which I'd presented them.

But no. My offering of guidance was rewarded, quid pro quo, with abeyance.

She'd grown into her own little guppy, and had decided to eat away at me from the bottom up, snapping at the one morsel I'd denied her. I suppose she decided I needed nothing for myself-that my sole purpose was to nourish her. Perhaps I condemn too completely, but regardless whether the sin was mistake or malignancy, she'd tried to eat the hand that fed her, and she'd done it with an audience.

Of course, the other ninnies thereabout followed her in kind. A subtle murmur persisted, so I simply strolled away, and back to my desk. Hindley didn't even notice as I left, his mind was so adrift.

In front of my computer's keyboard, I'd left a half-drunk vessel of water. I emptied it into the larger bonsai, spilling some on my desk.

All that pouring and puddling conjured depictions of Denise, the guppy, flailing around her hollow, opaque ocean. Denise with her puffing, fatty gills where cheeks should be. Her scaly, razor-rough legs poking out of that beige skirt. She was far too plain to be pretty-her in her beige-but nowhere near interesting enough to be ugly.

She was just a blur of blah oozing out-from-under the inescapable weight of averageness.

Forgettable. She was nothing unlike all those fishy girls skirting along in all those indistinguishable schools-rows of pairs-giggling to each other, producing nothing but

110 little pockets of spent air that some might deem-generously-bubbly: a litany of sodality. A tragic, ignorant solidarity.

I indulged to imagine, momentarily, that puddle under my bonsai as a puddle of

Denise's blood. It was mixed, most likely, with that of the sot, Tonya. But who's to say for sure?

I pictured myself putting them both in a cage, along with all of their ichthyic school. A cage I then dropped into a giant blender. The water in the blender offering a respite from the choking they'd been doing, waterless, inside the cage. And then me, hopping up and down-doing jumping jacks, even-on the puree button.

Squat thrusts, as the fancy took me.

I'd thought I loved her feral; I came to think I wanted her ferrous. Her and her cage, and her kind, all ameliorated into a voiceless, staid precipitate, in mixture with the blades that had once been the bottom of the blender.

But no, of course I'd never do such a thing. The reality of the world demands realistic, rational approaches to conflict resolution. Take a tree, for example: no matter how unwieldy it gets, you don't poison the roots, nor the soil; that produces nothing-no fruit, bitter or otherwise. What you have to do is persevere, to prune. Clip away a branch or two. Teach a growing thing the propriety of its reach.

It's just that it had been a strong first couple of years. And he was liked locally.

Him being born here, getting his degree in this town. He said once, early on, that despite all that, he was alone in this town. He said a job was the only thing left for him in the only place he'd known his whole life. The one time he ever acted strange that I saw was

111 just before that first vacation. He said it was family stuff, and that was the first and last he ever said about that. When he came back, he was back to normal.

I don't really talk about it. Denise. I think that, in some cases, that's the worst thing to do. Yeah, we could have been friends-she was really friendly-but not now.

She could have been a lot of things. What, or how, she'll manage now is anybody's guess. I don't think there's any way to tell all of the things he took from her. I'd like to say it was a shock, or even a surprise, but it's like I said, I knew, I just didn't know what I should, or could say.

112 Hollow Conversation

On a bench at a bus stop sits a boy, and this boy is actually the angel of death. He wears a black blazer of wool and cotton blend with a white shirt and black, modish necktie; his pants are also black cotton, but, actually, shorts. A young couple approaches him, talking in low tones with the intention that young ears wouldn't hear the lascivious things they say. They stand, near but behind him, an arm, each, around the other's back, and their temples-sometimes cheeks-touching as they whisper intermittently.

The boy turns his head just enough to say, over his shoulder: "The two of you are lovely."

The couple identifies an unusual sort of comic quality in this situation, and responds accordingly, with smiles, blushes, and a: "Well, thank you." And, of course, a:

"You're very handsome, yourself."

And then a silence. The couple thinking of what they should say next.

Wondering where the bus is.

"Nice day," one of the couple manages.

It reminds the young woman of a thing she once saw in Seattle: "It's like that glass in the sidewalks in Seattle. The way it used to let light into people's basements.

It's great how blue it is. All those shades, in all those patterns. Like checkerboards. All those sea- and electric-blues, they're just like the sky today, maybe even better.

113 When neither the little boy nor her companion says anything in response, the girl continues: "It's funny when you think that the sky in Seattle's always so gray. When sun hit those glass sidewalks, the basements must have had bluer skies than the roofs."

The boy nods, and responds: "There's a certain species of moth that lives only in caves. These moths never eat, but spend their entire lives skimming the surfaces of pools inside the caves. Most of them die when they see a small glow above them and then fly into it. When the moths do this, they have usually only been in their mature forms for a few days, and have never seen the sun, or any other aspect of the outside world. They see this glow, and think that it's the light of stars in the night sky. This glow is actually phosphorescence emitted by stringy mucus that is, itself, secreted by a certain species of worm. After the moths entangle themselves in the mucus, the worms eat them. That worm is actually the larval, immature stage of the very same kind of moth that it traps in the mucus. Once a larva has consumed enough moths to mature into one of them, it's anyone's guess whether or not it remembers, based on its own history, just what's in store for it."

The young woman thinks to question the boy's choice of the word "remember," but her male companion says: "There's the bus," and it's the only thing he's said or really communicated at all, for minutes. All three board the bus wordlessly and ride it the same way.

Looking out the window, riding the bus, the boy's face is washed, momentarily, in the shadow of an interstate overpass. The experience reminds him of his last ride in a vehicle with a couple. He sat in the back seat, unseen. Invisible, some would say, inaccurately. The couple sat up front, one of the girls driving. They sang along to the

114 car's stereo, their voices both rich and pure. "Honey I'm a roller, concrete clover./

Tadzio, Tadzio ... ,"they sang, their mouths gaping, their chins jutting up and outward.

Shaking their heads to carry the notes. And, it occurred to the boy, they meant it. Not long thereafter, the songs changed, and they sang: "It always ends up drivel./ One day, I am going to grow wings,/ a chemical reaction!/ Hysterical and useless./ Hysterical and ... ," and they still seemed to mean it.

The couple was harmonizing, mid-note, when the interstate gave way beneath them. A sink-hole, the newspaper would call it. The boy watched their heads snap forward and back, only to end up forward again due to the incline of the car, its back wheels lodged higher in the hole than those in the front. At some point, somehow, the windshield had cracked into a plethora of variations of what was basically a pentagon shape. One of the two passengers had sprayed some blood across the glass. After a moment umbrella-ed by an assortment of foreboding noises above-screeching tires, the rumble of that traffic which could continue, a crunch ofbumpers and fenders-the girls turned to face each other, both conscious. The boy admitted to himself that he liked them, which matters, of course, to a certain extent. They had just blinked at each other as if to say: "Good to see you," when the second car plowed into the hole. The roof above the boy suffered a gaping tear upon the entrance of the second car's grill, and the boy left.

He was gone, greeting an elderly man in a town far away, when the third, fourth, and

final cars took their positions on top of the first two cars.

The window grows hot on the boy's leaning forehead. The heat is both soothing

and disconcerting. After a moment, he moves, and settles into his seat, staring forward at the back of the seat in front ofhim. He got on first, and so didn't see them, but he knows

115 the couple chose the very first bench. He's not sure quite what to make of this; though, naturally, he has his guesses.

He kicks his feet. Other overpasses pass by.

The boy notes to himself that some people use the term "flyovers," albeit, he

thinks, inaccurate. Some people also refer to interstates with the article "the," others as a

proper noun. Neither seems appropriate to him, and he brushes dust off of one of the legs

of his short pants.

The seat eventually grows hot like the window. Tinted glass would be a simple

solution to the problem, he thinks.

He tells himself he is painfully bored. He acknowledges that he's never been sure

that he completely understands the description implied by the term "lonely," though.

When the bus stops and the couple and the boy continue on that day, it's almost

entirely up to him-much the same as his appearance and the nature of it-whether he

wants company, and whose.

116 What There Is

What there is, is this transvestite on a bicycle. What I mean is, every day I drive home from work there's this guy on a bicycle in a purple dress, matching heels, a.rid shoulder length auburn hair with a brown leather handbag slung over his back. He doesn't wear falsies or anything, but remember, he's pedaling a bicycle while wearing high heels and pantyhose, so it's not like you can take anything away from him. As if that weren't enough, what he's doing on that bicycle is delivering pizza.

The first day I met him was a Friday. I remember that just fine because my carpool buds, Nudge and Phil, were over, and we were having Pom-n-Pizza Friday. This is a special holiday the three of us invented, and it comes every Friday.

What it entails is watching porn and eating pizza. On Friday.

So this one Friday, Phil and I told Nudge that it was his tum to pay for the pizza because he's a cheap bastard and had never paid once in the whole history ofPom-n­

Pizza, so I tossed him my phone and said: "Order whatever you want, but it better not be just plain cheese, you cheap bastard."

He didn't say anything at the moment, just took the phone and walked out on to the balcony of my second story apartment, and I was pretty sure we were gonna end up with just plain cheese, but I was actually fine with that. I like cheese pizza just fine. I've got no respect for cheap bastards, though. That's a problem when your friends with

Nudge, because he got that nickname when, after parking on the side of a mountain road

117 (in the middle of a rain storm) he got his car stuck in the mud. It was real good and stuck, mostly because it couldn't get back up on to the relatively high road shoulder. But instead of calling for a tow truck and spending twenty bucks for a lift back on to the macadam, Nudge told the friend he had with him, "Maybe if we nudge it a little further away from the road, we'll find a spot where the tires can catch." Well, they did, and the car rolled the opposite direction just fine-all the way down the mountain. The cheap part wasn't so much that Nudge caused all that by not wanting pay for a tow, but because he actually walked down the mountain, found the car, and drove it horne. Whatever friend it was that was with him made sure the name stuck.

To Nudge's credit, though, when the pizza carne it had pepperoni and mushrooms on it, which is just as good as cheese, but what was weird was that it was delivered by a man in a purple dress.

Nudge handed the guy the money and said: "Hey, is that the usual uniform at

Pizza House?"

It was only then that Phil and I got up off the couch and saw what was standing there. You see, we were pretty upset when we heard Nudge say Pizza House because it's this pretty cheap, nasty morn-and-pop place near my house that, I think it's pretty obvious, makes money only when people misread the phonebook.

When Phil and I got to the door Nudge was counting his change under his breath,

I fell silent, and Phil started cracking up. Somewhere in the background, two, no, three girls, went "Oh!" all at the same time.

And sure, he was in a dress and had long hair, but he also had a big ole Adam's apple, and a five-o-clock shadow. I mean, he was clearly-if not entirely-male.

118 The delivery, uhm, guy, said: "Hello."

We got out of that one pretty lucky because Nudge just said: "Thanks," handed the guy a pretty decent tip and closed the door. Phil still laughing; me still silent. And sure, we started joking about it pretty much right away, but Nudge got us quiet again by saying: "Hey! I'm tryin' to watch porn here!" And then, of course, we started making fun of those three screaming girls because apparently at that point the Crisco they were rolling around in had gotten cold. Or chunky. I'm still not sure.

But the next day, at work, I guess because we had an audience, we really let him have it.

Right on the middle of the floor, with the whole line right there, I yelled across the room: "Hey, Nudge! What do ya get when ya call Pizza House?"

And Phil finished it up from the opposite end: "A house coat!"

Yeah, I know it's not a funny joke, but the whole room laughed because of course

Phil and I had already told everybody all about it. Hell, Nudge had probably even told a couple people. He's a good sport that way.

So, Phil and I were pretty proud of ourselves for getting the room to laugh like that because every single one of those people was elbow deep in chicken parts at the time. You see, Phil, Nudge, and I all work at the Lewis Chicken Processing Plant. And what that means is we all spend all day ripping apart chickens-every little piece into even smaller pieces, so that chicken can get molded into nuggets and patties for consumption by the general public. That is, all of us.

119 Of course, all day long, people on the line, in between throwing gizzards into the gut trench and feathers into burlap sacks, would ask Nudge questions like: "So, tell us, was he hot?"

And Nudge would say something like: "I guess. If you're into back hair."

At one point Phil said: "He offered to top our pies with sausage, but we said we didn't eat meat."

Maybe some of those jokes were in bad taste, but we all also think it's pretty funny that that big warehouse devoted solely to the destruction of innocent, unsuspecting animals is named after a professional boxer. Especially that professional boxer.

What I think might be even more important for you to know is the kind of people we work with. Even though the plant is in Huntersville, North Carolina, former home of the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and yes there's still a lot of folks just bored enough to hang on to all that white power nonsense, sixty percent of the people I work with are Mexicans. Or Hispanic, I guess. The thing is, it's an easy job for 'em to get, even if their immigration isn't exactly settled. Or, as one guy that did some yelling at a union rally put it one day, "You don't need English skills to defeather a chicken."

And that makes some people mad, and some other people madder, but my point is

I get along great with everybody I work with, and I sure as Hell don't go to any damn

Klan meetings, so I don't want you thinking I'm prejudiced about anything or anything like that when I tell you that we made a point to call Pizza House the very next Friday, too, just so we could videotape our transvestite pizza delivery guy. And like I said, no, it wasn't to, whaddayacallit, objectify him or anything, we just wanted to send something in to a reality television show and win a million dollars or something.

120 And I mean, Hell, if we'd won, we would've split the money with him and everything.

But it didn't tum out quite right. How it happened was like this: I ordered the pizza, paid the guy for it, and sent him on his way, and at the bottom of the staircase to my apartment, Phil was hiding in the bushes with a camcorder. When the guy in the dress came back down the stairs, Phil jumped out at him and yelled: "Hey! Wasn't that the dress you were wearing last week?!"

And of course, the guy shrieked-yes, like a girl-and somehow managed to jump back in such a way that he actually fell up the stairs to my apartment and finally stopped squirming and whatnot with his head on the bottom step and his feet three steps higher.

What this meant was: his dress was over his head.

And what that meant was: Phil, still filming, yelled: "Hey dude, with your dress like that I can see your penis!"

And of course that meant that Nudge and I ran back outside and looked down the stairs and saw the whole thing. And then Nudge yelled: "Jesus! That thing's huge!"

And by then some of my neighbors had heard the screaming and were sticking their heads out their apartment doors and when Nudge yelled that last thing they all just looked at him, and he saw them see him, and he just went stone quiet.

And right about then the delivery guy snapped out of whatever trance he'd fallen into and started to get up off the stairs really clumsy like and scramble past Phil who was just laughing and videotaping the whole damn thing. As the guy picked up his bike, rolled up his skirt, and finally straddled his seat, Phil yelled, "Hey! Don't run off yet. We

121 don't even know your name!" But the guy just started pedaling, and Phil yelled: "Come back and watch some porn! I'm sorry we scared ya!"

After the delivery guy had ridden out of sight, Phil filmed a couple ofwhat he

deemed "reaction shots" of my neighbors and then finally came back up the stairs to help me with Nudge. As we led him inside his face was all pale, but at least he started talking

again: "I mean, that guy in the dress is longer than the guys in our movies."

And of course, Phil was laughing, but the next thing out of Nudge's mouth was:

"What does that say about me?"

And yeah, I'll admit, I was kind of thinking the same thing.

And for whatever reason, none of us laughed quite as much, or ogled quite as much, at the three hours of porno that followed that little episode. Not even Phil.

And I guess Phil had that in mind the following Friday when it was his tum to

order, because not only did he call the nationwide chain that Pizza House stole its name

from, but he also called some girls.

Now, we'd been doing Pom-N-Pizza Fridays for a few months at that point, but

we'd never, not once, invited any women to join in. I mean, first off, the whole point of

those Friday get-togethers was to have a night full of our favorite things without any of the usual complications that estrogen brings. And second, who'd ever expect a bunch of women to come over to my place for pizza and porno?

Well, apparently, Phil did. And before long we had three large pies and three

drunk women all strewn across my living room and so, of course, Phil was videotaping

the whole damn thing.

122 One of the girls-was it Leslie or Lisa-said to Phil: "Don't be gettin' any ideas just cuz you've been watchin' dirty movies all night."

And at that, one of the girl's friends got quiet and her other friend laughed, and I felt a sort of connection to her, so I brought two beers with me and sat down on the couch next to her and actually started talking to her about, well, stuff, like her name, I guess.

And where she worked; there was that, too.

So right after I asked that girl, "So, how do you know Phil?" and she started to say: "I already told you that," we heard a knock at the door and a voice yelled "Pizza

Delivery!"

And it's my apartment so I got up and went to the door and opened it and the first thing I saw was this big flash of light the way they say the universe either started or is gonna end or whatever. And the second thing I saw was a man in a purple dress holding one of those big-ass cameras with a round flash bulb mounted on top.

And then he said: "My name is Roger. I am not an object."

And he took another picture. And of course that made me stumble around a little bit and when I could see again I realized that I'd taken a step backward and he'd taken one or two forward so that he was actually standing in my apartment.

And then he said: "All I'm trying to do is earn a living. Do you think it's funny that I can't afford a car? Or even a new dress?"

And then he took another picture, but I was ready for it and my hand blocked most of the glare. In fact, I could even see the girls. Lisa was standing in front of the other two, who were huddled in a comer yelling stufflike: "Holy shit," and "Where does

Phil meet these people?"

123 And then Roger said: "You people are pathetic." And he took a few more pictures, but it barely phased me because I was looking the other direction, into my apartment, where Nudge and Phil both were just standing there, pale as that flash bulb while it was recharging.

Then Roger said: "I hate you all. And I think you should know that delivery guys wipe their asses with pizza dough just because we've got nothing better to do."

Then he pointed his camera so it pointed at just me, Nudge, Phil, took a picture, and ran out my door, slamming it behind himself.

I took a breath, and looked back at my guests. And I was just in time to see

Nudge fall on the floor laughing while Phil just stood right where he had been, his hands down at his sides, one of them holding a camcorder that was filming, well, my floor, but pretty much nothing.

I basically spent the rest of that weekend alone. I didn't even call Nudge or Phil, and Lisa was entirely out of my mind.

On Monday morning, though, Nudge and Phil showed up at my house for their ride as punctual as ever. None of us really said much, and we spent the whole ride listening to a radio station I don't even think any of us likes. In fact, I suppose it's a good question why that station was even on.

When we got to work we realized that Leslie or one of her friends must be related to some of the people we work with, because I know none of us talked, but as we walked in, there were a bunch of our coworkers taking our pictures with everything from disposable cameras to camcorders nicer than Phil's. Everybody was tossing jokes

124 around, like: "Hey, when's the movie coming out? What's it rated?" Or: "Heard you fellas had four lady friends over the other night." I doubt any of those girls told that story like a joke, but I suppose the people we work with, even though they'd heard the most recent chapter elsewhere, only thought of transvestites-on-bicycles stories as, well, funny, and I guess I knew even then exactly why that was.

The joking slowed down a bit when we joined the line, but it didn't stop. At one point, we were pretty sure we heard it coming through the walls from the next room over.

At the other end of the room was a machine that rolled the chickens down a conveyor belt one at a time. And each of the couple dozen of us on the line was responsible for dismantling a specific part. That day Phil, Nudge, and I took places right next to each other towards the end of the line, so when the birds got to us they were bald and gutted. I was yanking off feet, Nudge ripped off the wings, and Phil was using this wedge-shaped thing to take off their heads. We were tossing these parts into the gut trench so they could be used for "specialty products" and I think we were doing a pretty good job of ignoring our coworkers as they said stufflike: "Hey! Which do I shave first, the chicken or my legs?!"

But we all looked up at once when the room got quiet. Well, I mean, that machine was still galumphing along, spewing out dead chickens, but the people ahead of us in line stopped picking them up. Instead, they all just stared at the birds.

And then we did, too, and we understood.

Stapled to the first bird was a photocopied picture of me holding my hand in front of my face. Written at the bottom of it was: "Pussy."

125 The next bird carried a photo ofNudge and Phil with their eyes wide as pizzas.

At the bottom of that, in the same, thick, black marker scrawl, was written: "Scaredy cat."

A photo of all of us followed on the very next bird. It had two staples in it, and at the bottom it read: "Wuss."

More birds rolled down the belt, some with the girls, some not. All of them with subtitles.

"Candy-ass."

"Yellowbelly."

All of these rolled right through the room and into the next, where the parts were usually separated into a bunch of different boxes, and we couldn't see anything, but we certainly didn't hear any more camera jokes coming through the walls, either.

Then, a bird came down the line at us looking a little different from the rest.

Stapled right on to its beak was a Polaroid. In the white space at the bottom somebody had written, in black permanent marker one little word that looked really, really awful written out all plainly the way it was: "Chicken."

That was the first thing you noticed. The second thing you noticed was that it was a picture of the backs of all of our heads, taken as we stared out the windshield of my pickup truck on the way to work that morning. Reflected in the rearview mirror, right there oetween Nudge and Phil, was Roger-one hand working the camera, the other hand waving at us.

Of course, that was the last day of our carpool. Nudge and Phil both found excuses to call in sick, buy cars, and change jobs pretty much right away in pretty much

126 that order. We tried to have Pom-n-Pizza nights a couple of times after that. I mean, friends stick together and all, but I can't say it was ever actually fun again.

One night, we even tried to watch that video of Roger, see if maybe we could send it to some contest after all, but it just wasn't funny anymore. Phil took the tape home with him that night, and something tells me he wouldn't know where it is if you asked him.

What kills me is, that guy still works right there in my neighborhood. And I don't know ifhe's delivering pizzas to his own house or what, but everyday at the same time, just as I'm getting home from work, there he is bicycling past my apartment building.

And the guy waves at me, and smiles.

127 Loser

Yeah, I'm an idiot.

I actually live with my ex-boyfriend.

It's just easier than finding another place. When we got the apartment-seven months ago, when Tom and I were still together-we figured we'd never need the second bedroom. So, we turned it into a gym. Well, the gym only consisted ofhis free-weights and my treadmill. But that was a treadmill and five-hundred pounds of free-weights we had to move out of the second bedroom (into what had never become the breakfast area) when we broke up with eight months left in our lease.

I should say, five-hundred pounds of free-weights I had to move. That day (about thirty minutes before the lunch hour we had agreed to share in order to "remodel") Tom called my cell to tell me that all of a sudden his best friend Billy needed a ride home from the airport. Despite the fact that Billy was coming back from a "shopping tour" (of Paris,

Cannes, and some other French city that always sounds like "arugula" to me) with his way-too-rich girlfriend, they were, for some reason, "unexpectedly" short on cab fare that day. So, while Tom played chauffeur, I played steam shovel. By the time we were back at our respective jobs, I had four walls, a futon (sans frame), and a night stand to define my bedroom. Tom had traded me a month's rent for the furniture we'd bought together.

128 At that point, Tom traded for everything. He worked at Subway, so he traded foot-longs for clothes with friends who worked at Abercrombie & Fitch. He worked at the movies, too, so he'd let his cell-phone-selling friends in for free in exchange for

"employee plans." In other words he had a cell phone for free. The month after he first worked that out, Tom gave me a cell phone for my birthday. I felt special.

But the month after that, I tried to give Tom my half of the rent money, and he refused it.

"Nah. Forget about it."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just don't worry about it. I got it taken care of."

"What? Did you plunge something for the Super? Paint something?"

"Yeah. Somethin' like that." And then he started to walk into what had been our room. I remembered confessing to him one time-in one of those still-naked-after­ multiples, so I'll say more than I should, sorts of moments-that I guiltily loved it a little when he was cryptic. So, it was a natural question, I think, when I asked him, "Are you trying to get me to fuck you or something?"

He didn't stop walking, he just said, "fuck no," and closed the door behind him.

I'm pretty sure I even heard it lock.

I said to the door, more quietly than the rest had been: "Well, you didn't have to be so sure about it."

That night, I slept poorly, but with a month's extra discretionary income. Half the time I thought about the last time I was in bed with Tom. The other half I thought about the colors that were under-represented in my wardrobe. I remembered seeing something

129 at Victoria's Secret that I thought would kill Tom when he accidentally saw me in it during our often-synchronized late-night binges at the fridge. Then I realized that there wasn't, at present, a candidate for the position ofreason-I'd-be-wearing-it-in-the-first­ place.

And, of course, Tom beat me to having an overnight guest. About a week after

Tom was generous with the rent, his "buddy," Adam, was "crashing" on our couch.

Something about a "girlfriend" and her change of status to "bitch." Of course, as soon as

I found out that it would be an Adam instead of, say, an Amanda, and that he'd be on the couch instead of Tom's room, I started cooking up at least partially respectable schemes that could result in Tom catching Adam and me making out on our couch.

When Adam got there, a problem presented itself: Adam was ugly.

So, I wasn't too disappointed when they spent the whole night in Tom's room with the door closed.

Except, I was disappointed.

I thought, hey, I may be the ex-girlfriend, but you could at least have dinner with me. You could at least introduce the visitor. Except, neither of them did either of those things.

They were just in his room. The whole night. With his stereo on. Loud.

Next morning, Adam was gone before I woke up. Well, before I got up, anyway.

I heard his departure. It was full of "cool" and "straight" and "word" and a bunch of other slang that was apparently-in the boy world, at any rate-good to use and reassuring and

130 bond-affirming. It made me want to take up bulimia, and I didn't even hear all of it. I stayed in bed, painting my nails some metallic variation of gray.

As soon as I heard the door shut behind Adam, and the deadbolt tum, I ventured out of my bed and into the kitchen-for water, of course. I was wearing forest-green, bikini-cut underwear and a white T-shirt too small to conceal that fact. As I closed my room door behind me, Tom (his hand still on the front-doorknob) jumped and whirled around. He backed into the door. Then I jumped, unintentionally similarly, and backed into my door. I think I even yelled a little bit. It took him a few too many seconds, even for before noon, to bring me into focus. I noticed that his pupils couldn't keep me that way, either.

Right about then, I grew a clue.

You see, over the eighteen months we'd dated, Tom and I had done some drugs together. Nothing serious. Mostly because we were fresh out of college, working shit jobs, and a weekend's worth of weed was way cheaper than two evenings at the movies.

When Tom managed to trade steak-and-cheese subs for it, weed was even cheaper than

Blockbuster.

Then, of course, once every few months, a lot of old people would go on vacation in a given week, my commission check would be huge, and we'd celebrate. For two meals' worth of cash, we'd have half a day's worth of ecstasy, go to a club, and it felt like

Christmas in whenever. Except better. Christmas with fireworks.

Our second Valentine's Day, though, Tom was an asshole. I know he was trying to be sweet, but it was guy sweet. Apparently Tom's friends told him that cocaine made

131 sex unbelievable. Which, apparently, made Tom forget about my no-sex-on-drugs rule.

Let's just say I got that out of my system in college. And it was great the way Tom respected my boundaries. Except when he didn't. He pushed.

"But Babe, it'll be great."

"I don't think so, Stallion. You snort that shit tonight and you're sleepin' alone."

"The hell I will be."

"What?!"

And, of course, he apologized immediately and it was all a big joke and blah blah blah, but let's just say I found it unfunny enough to employ as evidence-of-assholeness during our break-up argument two months later. And I only did that because he ended up doing the coke a week later, on, I'll admit, an otherwise uneventful night. I had to use it for argument ammo, though, because while he was coming down from it, he got really, really freaked out. His eyelids started sweating, he started jumping up and down trying to check the cracks in the ceiling for hidden microphones, and finally, he gave me a speech about the resourcefulness of the DEA. Apparently it's actually staffed with near­ omniscient, extra-terrestrial lawyers on steroids. Tom was, you might have guessed, a little sensitive about any mention of cocaine after that night.

So, all that considered, when I took a few steps toward Tom that morning that

Adam left, and stopped in front of his room door, he already knew I was gonna eat him alive. I saw sweat drip offhis left eyelid. I took a moment for reflection. And then I turned my head, and looked in his room. On the floor, in front of the bed we'd bought together, was the coke.

132 You know those meatballs they give you at Italian restaurants that are advertised as "Spaghetti and Meatballs" but it comes out and has just a few noodles and one, giant meatball bigger than your fist? Well, imagine that meatball as coke.

No. Imagine that whole plate: meatball, pasta, sauce, and all as coke.

It was that much coke.

And it was on a sterling silver serving platter I'd inherited from my grandmother.

My grandmother always said that it was a platter the first governor of Montana ate off of the first night he moved to the new capitol mansion in Helena. Sure this was the kind of thing that only ever mattered for a moment. But when it did, it did. The lid was sitting upside down on his bed.

I turned my head back to Tom. My eyes found his. His eyes continued to sweat.

"Shit. Jess, I'm sorry."

Nothing from me.

"Jess. Jessica, I'm sorry. I can explain. Don't be mad. Please. Don't be mad.

And this isn't paranoia talking. That's the great part. I've only been happy all night. .. "

I'm still not sure if he actually thought I wanted to hear that.

" ... This is better shit than that shit from before. Much better shit. This shit is good shit."

And with that, I actually had to work not to laugh. Right about then I wanted to claw out his sweaty little eyes with my just-painted fingernails, but I also wanted to tell him how hilarious he was. Rather than give him that satisfaction, and thereby lose my bitching rights, I just nodded, really slowly. Then I spun on one heel, and went back to my room.

133 He spent the next thirty minutes sobering up while huddled, in full fetal position, against my door, whining: "Please. Please, can I just have a hug?" I was all smiles the whole time. I took the opportunity to organize my sock drawer. (I had purchased a lovely mahogany armoire and matching dresser, by then.)- When I had no more socks to pair, and was getting too hungry to ignore, I finally ventured out into the kitchen, stepping over Torn on the way.

Over the preparation of a grilled cheese, we sorted some things out. I had questions. Torn, still a few minutes from sober, was very forthcoming.

"Where?"

"Billy. He got introduced to this guy in L.A."

"You're an idiot, you know. You're going to kill yourself, you know."

"No. No. It's not for me. Last night was the first night I did any of it. I had it for a week and didn't touch it. And I won't touch it again. I promise. It's to sell. It was always to sell. Adam was Billy's idea; I just met him a few days ago."

"I thought he was having girl problems." I actually managed to say that like I cared about it. I was so proud of myself.

"He was! He was supposed to be over a week ago, to pick up a bunch of it.

That's the great part. Bill does the buying, Adam does the selling. I'm just storage, but I get half the profit!"

"So, you're trying to argue that you're less of an idiot and liar because you're a drug dealer instead of a drug addict?"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah. Except ... no."

134 "Aw, come on. Jess, I need this. I can't work sixty hour weeks anymore. Ifl do this, I can take care ofboth ofus."

"Now you're about to get smacked." I express-laned-it to my room.

"No. Jess. Wait. Wait. I'll pay the rent. All of it. Every month!"

I walked back out into the living room. I took a moment for composure. "You're damn right you will."

"Yeah. Yes. Yes. I'll pay all the rent."

He was halfway through offering: "And I'll clean your platter, good as new, it's just a really good surface for ... ," when I added: "And buying the groceries." I could never be an actress. I can never keep a straight face. But dumb luck or divine intervention or somehow, I pulled it off. I officially had a sugar daddy. And I didn't even have to be sweet.

But that was months ago. And since then, Tom has proven that he's both a coke dealer and a coke addict.

And hey, I'm objective. There are parts I like. We have a big screen TV now.

After one night, when he spilled coke on my toothbrush, and I freaked, and threatened to call the cops, Tom took on my car payment, too. But there are also parts I don't like. I don't like how there are so many college girls in this city that can't afford to pay for the coke they apparently have to have. And I don't like the way it has become Tom's "thing" that he keeps his coke on a sterling silver serving platter-my platter-that he keeps under the bed-our bed. These girls, whether they like it or know it or not, are playing the old sex-for-drugs, really prostitution except in name, game. Even when they don't

135 actually sleep with him. Even when they're smart enough to snort up with him and then all of a sudden have to go, I still have to watch it all go down. From my couch. At least two (more often three) nights each week, I wish our TV was much, much, bigger. And louder.

One night, he brought home two girls. A blonde and a redhead. They both had slightly-but-certainly better bodies than me. I could tell this, of course, because their outfits were actually experiments in how little one can wear and still be considered

"clothed." As the three ofthem walked in the door, Tom decided to play cordial: "Oh, you ladies don't know each other. Jess, this is Lindsey and Cindy."

I still don't know which one was which. I stopped chewing my burrito and managed: "Nice to meet you."

By way of response, they just kind of looked at me, and giggled. I think they were actually laughing at themselves, specifically the fact that they couldn't form the words to actually greet me. Tom's drugs would not be the first in them that night. Tom started to giggle with them, and then he caught my glare. His posture got a little stiff, but he kept chuckling. Between breaths he managed, "Ladies, what we came for is behind door number one." And he pointed to his room. Tom turned back to me and offered:

"Hey Jess, wanna join us?"

"Not even a little."

"Didn't think so." And then he made a point to look pleased with the answer.

Then the girls followed Tom into the room, closing the door behind themselves. I heard the (new) TV in Tom's room tum on.

136 Less than an hour later, though, I could hear all of them over the TV. I got itchy.

I went into the bathroom and started preening my eyebrows. Then I was curling my eyelashes. All for no particular reason. At one point, my fingers started to cramp. I took a moment for composure, and decided to get a reason. I ran back into my room, found the phone number a personal trainer at my gym (membership paid for by Torn) had hit on me with, and called it.

"Hello?"

"Hey. This is Jess. From the gym. Did you mean it, the other day, about my back being impressive?"

"Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you never see ... "

"Good. Have you had dinner yet?"

"Well, unfortunately, yeah."

"Good. Do you wanna come over?"

I could hear the smile in his voice. I wouldn't have guessed you could still get giddy when you weigh two-twenty and you know exactly what percentage of that is fat.

But he did, and he said, "Sure."

So, directions, a shower on my part, me in a towel when he got there, blah blah blah. We had sex. For a long time. Three times, actually. After the second, I heard

Lindsey and Cindy leave. So, there had to be a third, and it had to be loud. In the morning I sent Rob (that was the trainer's name, by the way) into the kitchen to get us water. He tried to put his jeans on before he went, but I told him he was being a prude. I told him he looked great in his boxer-briefs. Hey, he did. I heard him meet Tom in the kitchen. It sounded awkward. It sounded perfect.

137 Until last night, neither Tom nor I mentioned that night. The silence was fine with me. Even though that night left me feeling more satisfied than slutty, there was still that slutty part. I at least had the consolation prize of a noticeable absence of other women in my apartment. But the same thing that kept Tom quiet for a few weeks also, I think, finally drove him to mention something. On an otherwise pleasant (and therefore rare) night, we were sharing Chinese and watching DVDs on the big screen. While

staring at his fork sticking out of that greasy white carton, Tom noted: "So, I haven't seen your muscled friend around in a while."

I could've been put, well, off, or worse, in my place, by this, but instead I said,

"Well, I haven't invited him over again."

"Yeah, it figures."

"What's that supposed to mean?''

"I don't think you really like guys." It was the smile he asid this with that sold it as playful instead ofbaleful.

"Shut up. I slept with you for over a year. And even though you're not exactly an exemplary specimen of the male anatomy, you're nowhere near a woman."

"Oh, so now I'm ugly."

I have no idea why I decided to massage his wounded ego. Maybe it was because we were having our longest conversation in weeks. Maybe it was because I wasn't quite over him. Maybe it was the wine we were drinking. Maybe it was because the shrimp in my moo goo gai pan was an aphrodisiac. But the fact is I did it: "No, Tom, you're not ugly."

138 "No, no I get it. I hurt your eyes."

"Shut up."

"I bet if I took my shirt off right now you'd run into your room."

Sometimes, you're just coy, even though you don't mean to be: "Maybe."

Then he stood up, and took offhis shirt. I stayed still. He caught me looking at him between bites. I saw his eyes get shiny.

"And I bet if I took off my pants, you'd run away screaming." Then he unzipped, and he wasn't wearing any underwear. His jeans rested, barely, on his hips.

"Oh, just get it over with."

"No way. I'm not gonnajust prance around. I'm no free show. You too."

"You know I'm not that easy. You gotta at least gimme a reason."

"Skinny dipping?"

As soon as he said it, I knew I was more convinced than I wanted to be. He knew

I loved skinny dipping. Our first time together had started as "innocent" nightswimming.

I didn't want to be so comfortable with him. But the fact was, when he wasn't high, or fucking somebody else, I was.

I did something dangerous; I started thinking. I thought: I'll never be twenty-five agam. My thighs will never be tighter. My stomach will never be flatter. And yes, of course, my boobs would never be perkier. Against my better judgment, but in sync with the alcohol I'd imbibed, I stood up, said, "Grab the keys," and took off my shirt.

So, after Tom buttoned his pants and found his keys, we both ran, topless but bottomed, to the pool at the center of our complex. It was close to midnight on a

139 Tuesday, and we were right not to expect any interruptions. We made it to the pool, dropped our pants, and dove.

We swam around, splashed each other, pushed each other, all the while pretending to not be flirting. The fact is, I was having a great time. The fact is, I loved the way Tom looked naked. He was no personal trainer. He was more the scrawny, see­ his-ribs-but-not-any-abs, starving-artist type. Naked, he just, you know, worked-as a package.

No pun intended. Okay, well, maybe a little bit intended.

He was, in fact, an artist. It's just that his canvases created more bills than they paid. Hence, the whole drug dealer thing. I thought about that part just as he was swimming up to me, encircling me in that arms-around-my hips thing he always used to do just before he'd initiate kissing.

His waist was pressed against my waist.

"What're you doing?"

"I was thinking I might kiss you."

I managed to keep a smile on, but hearing him actually say it made it sound like a really bad idea. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Sure it is." Then he leaned in and kissed me. Nothing sloppy or anything, but it was definitely more than "hello."

I found myself not reciprocating. I managed to pull my head back. "Tom, I mean it. I'm sorry. I just don't think I can ... "

"Oh, shut-up and kiss me." And he leaned in again. And a year earlier, I would've been goo at that point. But all I wanted just then was home. I pulled away

140 agam. I pushed against his chest, too. I felt his arms get a little tighter. At that point, my hips were turned away from his. I was trying to walk in the other direction. Any other direction. Then he pulled me, hard, into him, and his lips fell around my neck in the same softness-covering-firmness way that he was digging into my side. The parts of me in and out of the water could both feel his heavy, breathing heat. His right hand dropped a little bit so that his fingers pretty much completely encircled the outside of my right thigh and his thumb dug into the inside of it. His thumbnail dug into the skin high up on my leg, and it pinched like a needle.

I let one of my hands slide up his chest onto his neck.

I shoved. I yelled: "Let go."

And he did. And I was up over the side of the pool and running back to our apartment. Leaving my shorts. Not having the keys.

It turned out not to matter; we'd never locked the door.

I was in my room, under the covers, with the door locked. Staring at the red digital of my alarm clock. Five minutes. Maybe six. After four I lost count of the seconds. I thought about getting up to lock the front door, but then I heard Tom come home.

He was coughing and swearing, and shoving stuff around in the kitchen. Finally, a sound I was sure of: the top coming off a beer. Then him sinking into the couch. Then the TV. Loud. Then louder. He just kept turning it up. Even through the wall, it was so loud I couldn't actually hear it. It was just a bunch of bass and treble and migraine.

141 I threw on some sweats, opened my door, saw Tom on the couch, and yelled:

"Tom. Please." And, to his credit, he turned it off.

There was a moment where we were just staring at each other.

Finally, I made an effort: "I think we need to talk about what just happened."

He stared at me, even while swigging the bottle. He finished his gulp and said,

"Your ass jiggles when you run."

Another swig. Me just staring. Another swallow.

And then he sniffled a little. I took a moment for reflection.

Before the pool, he'd taken a long time to get his keys. Fucker.

I flicked him off and slammed my door. Found Rob's number. Called it. Rob was over in twenty minutes. I'd told him to just walk right in. He had. As he opened my room door, he looked over his shoulder, gave a little wave, and said, "Hey, Tom." I heard Tom snort in response. It sounded like a long line. Before I could even think about getting out of bed to see for sure, Rob had closed the door behind himself and locked us m.

In the morning, I woke up alone. My bedroom door was open a few inches. I heard voices. I heard Rob: "Man, I haven't had shit this good since high school."

"That's the best shit you'll find around here." I wanted to assume that the second voice was Tom's, but it wasn't. It was Billy. I knew his whiny nasal from dozens of your-boyfriend's-friends-are-your-friends dinners.

Then: "If you want, I can send you home with some of this shit." I was pretty sure that was Adam.

142 Finally: "Omelets are ready guys. Pass me a straw." Tom. Universal diplomat.

Mr. Popularity. Breakfast chef. The really shitty part? He actually had made eggs, and they smelled really good.

But that was hours ago, now. So, what? So what ifl live with my junkie, coke­ dealing, physically-and-emotionally-abusive ex-boyfriend? I'm young. I'm liberated. I can make the best of this situation. I'll show him.

Yeah. I am an idiot.

Once, when I was young, I was climbing in a tree when I realized that the thing

I'd been resting my foot on for about a whole second wasn't a limb, but a beehive. I freaked out, and kind of flinched or jumped or something, hitting my head on the branch above me. When I woke up, on the ground underneath the tree, it actually took a few seconds for me to realize that, somehow, I'd landed with the beehive stuck in my new, white, Sunday skirt. This feels like that.

143 Echo-Stroke

He said: "I'm dying, you know."

And all I came up with was, "I know."

He called me out: "I don't know how you expect me to do this."

And I managed: "What else have you got to do?"

But he won, again, with, "Lots. I've actually got a list."

And I did my best to cover: "Well, make your list one item shorter, start now with shutting up, and keep painting."

And he did, both. He'd never really needed convincing to paint. His hand shook, as, he'd said, it had for most of the last decade. It made me think ofhow, at first, he'd been credited with the first abstract-expressionist innovation since, well, abstract­ expressionism. And how that was incredible, supposedly, because he was sixty-seven or so at the time. And then, of course, I thought about how he, and then the magazines, and then the world, and then I, in France (living the cliche), all learned that his "echo-stroke" was really just Parkinson's.

And while I switched from a brush strewn with mauve to a brush dripping coral, I remembered how I laughed when I first heard it. Because it is. It's a joke. It's a wonderful fucking joke. When you look at a situation where everyone involved looks like an idiot, and you don't laugh, that's when you're dead. So: ha! It was funny, and I knew it was.

144 But Annie. My wife Annie. My wonderful, newspaper-reading wife Annie, who's never gotten a joke, knew it wasn't a joke, made me call him. Made me say,

"Gene? Gene, it's Paul. I heard. I'm sorry." Of course, it took me, what, three or four years to make that call. So of course Gene said, "A little quicker with the cognition nowadays, eh?"

Once a motherfucker, always a motherfucker.

So, he got me. The call, a month's preparation. A month's preparation for a week in New Orleans. A prodigal-son month in the city Gene and I had owned, together, for a while. It was more than forty years ago, but yeah, I stepped off the plane still feeling like I owned the place. There weren't any reporters that time, not even a sideways stare from a passerby, far as I could tell, but I guess you always feel like a celebrity in your old hometown, even if you really were one, once. Even in the taxi out to the Quarter, a little, peppy part of me kept expecting the cabbie to do a double-take into the rearview mirror.

And then I painted white, while Gene painted taupe, and I thought about the decade before our little joust with fame. The decade in half an illegal studio, sharing hot showers to save money. When we were still really together. Not just magazine-cover together, but white-at-the-same-time, both on top of taupe, together. And of course, that time only seemed great at the times when we stopped to convince ourselves it was. But it was, to know a guy so well, to understand him so well, that you knew which arm he'd raise next-and how fast-despite the fact that he was standing behind you. Even skill at getting the fuck out of the way is something to hold on to, if its real, and you like it.

145 The temptation, of course, is to wax near-sighted. To say it all really was that great. All the time. Me not yet thirty. Gene not yet gay. Not saying it, at any rate.

Gene not yet gay; me not yet an idiot. This, this painting we were doing, that first day back, not sucking.

Because it did.

And it still does.

God, it really sucks.

But when you get right down to it all that dancing around canvases we did, it was little more than acrobatics. And I'm old enough now (not as old as Gene, of course, but old in my own right) that I can honestly say acrobatics no longer impress me. Neither does purple. But I was streaking the canvas with it my first day there, with my hand, because both of us needed something to distract us from, well, from lots of things. For

Gene. Because I thought he wanted to. So I smeared the canvas, and kind of swirled the result around, like I was smashing one of those fuzzy characters from a live-action children's television show. And I made sure to pretend like I was above it, like we both were and we both knew it, and the whole exercise was a bit of spoofing.

But I saw Gene standing back. Pretending to study. Really just trying to see anything that was really there at all. I saw that he'd realize how much his hand hurt as soon as he'd finished focusing. That squint, man. I was in between it and the canvas, and if that's what it feels like to have people squint at you, somebody ought to go up there and give the sun a greeting card, because that just hurt. The lines his cheeks made, throwing shadows all over each other, in between his eyes and his ears, it was like they

146 were gonna become a mouth of their own and just swallow Gene's whole head. And the whole time, his whole body shook.

And that's all the backstory. The rest is the story of how my friend died.

Don't think that that gives anything away, because we already knew that. After all, it was the first thing Gene had said when we'd started painting that first day. Well, second I guess. You see, I'd come in the door and he'd greeted me with: "Paul; good to see you." And I'd said, "Same here," and meant it, but after that was just silence for a minute, and my bag was heavy on my arm, and Gene-always much smarter than me­ said: "Let's paint," and scuffed back into his apartment, leaving the door open, telling me without saying a damn thing that I should get my ass in there and not forget to close the door behind myself. And the next thing was us in his studio space, staring at a blank canvas that had already, pretty conveniently if you ask me, been set up on one of those pulley systems Gene always preferred over easels or just plain walls. I'd always told myself hey, at least he didn't have a thing for the floor; that would have been a little too much to take.

That day, though, he didn't seem ready for any of it at all. Sure, he already had an acetate-heavy coffee can in one hand, a brush in the other. (Even at seventy-eight, he still, apparently, took all the labels off; that, or the cans were a few years old, but they still had a shine to them, so I don't think so.) But the hand with the brush in it, his left, was shaking like a teenager under his comforter. That's despite the fact that the hand with the can in it was supporting about eight or so more pounds than the left hand was. It's not necessarily a question of strength, the Parkinson's.

Fuck that. The age. Just the age. It makes things just not work right sometimes.

147 So I made a gesture: I picked up a can and a brush from the dozen or so of each on the floor, and I started first.

And he said: "Why don't you take off your coat before you fuck it up."

That despite all the shaking on his left side. And no, I hadn't really needed it; it wasn't quite cold enough, anymore, at that point in the year, but I just hadn't gotten around to it. And besides, it gave some definition back to my shoulders, I thought.

So, I took off the coat. And started again.

And he did, too. Of course, he started with yellow. If he'd ever taken even a second's break from the yellow, they could have identified everything before that moment as a yellow period, which I guess would have been significant because nobody with a rep as good as Gene's has every really had a yellow period, at least not one that was any good. But the fact is he's been hung up on that yellow shit since day one. And he hasn't really wavered from it. Sometimes it ranges between mustard and a light, kind of watered down piss shade, but it's always there. I know because I kept up. I never stopped keeping tabs on his work. There were a couple of times, about twelve years before we hooked back up, that I was at an opening ofhis that he wasn't even at. And no, it wasn't supposed to be some noble effort at re-acquaintance. It was the kind of thing where I was in New York, teaching some special semester at one ofthe Universities or something, and some of the kids wanted to go to his show. Maybe one of the prettier girls asked me to take them, flirted with me a bit to seal the deal. I've always been a bit of a slut-with my approval, at least, if not my affection.

So, the pretty girl, or some other pretty girl, or maybe even a not-so pretty girl

(Who remembers? And who knows, at this point, which occasion I'm even thinking of?)

148 tried to get her name in the books as re-uniting us, and all I ever intended to do was have him see her tits and know I intended to bury my face in her when we left his little wine and cheese hoopla. This happened three or four times. At the time, I remember being disappointed, because it felt like he somehow knew I'd be there, and wanted to snatch what I would have considered a victory from me, by simply refusing to show. Of course, the glossies decided it was some sort of protest against some criticism, or just attention.

And what it really was was him back in the house on Chartres, drinking these viscous, fern-colored milkshakes that were supposed to rebuild some neural membrane or another.

And of course, I never really got around to hitting on the girl, or I did and got turned down, but Gene never would've had to know that. All Gene would've needed to know was that I was both straight and a foregone conclusion, and that would've pretty much killed him, I thought, and that would've been fine by me, I thought.

So, we stood there painting, and, (more often) not, with Gene shaking like that for a while. At one point, we swapped that bullshit banter about how he was dying and how

I didn't want to hear about it. And when I finally tried to really get into it, to really try and paint, well, that's when he decided to start with the truth.

"Wait a beat," he said, which always meant he wanted me to back off and give him room. He was going in for one ofhis big sweeps. His left arm went up, the hand just above his head, the arm bent like he was throwing sidearm, and he streaked an irregular arc across the bottom of the canvas. (Yell ow, again, of course.) And then I actually got to see it happen. After the first sweep his arm went swinging right back into its starting place like it always had, but it didn't quite make it. Halfway through, it stopped, and jerked halfway back across the canvas. The result was a short yellow line

149 just above a longer, yellow line, with all the requisite and usual gradations of thin and solid portions from the fray of the bristles; the overall affect being an idea ofthe sun if it ever had to melt into a pyramid-sort of tier not unlike Japanese calligraphy for the number two.

I'd heard about this echo-stroke for about fifteen years, at that point. I'd envied it.

But I didn't really get to enjoy seeing it because the next thing I saw was the canvas swing away from him on its wires-an effect he used to love to manipulate by stepping back so it could only kiss the tip of his brush on its return trip-and then it hit him, square in the gut, leaving a big yellow line on what had been a clean, ironed, baby-blue oxford shirt. When the canvas finally came to a stop, all that was the left in the room was

Gene staring at his shirt and me staring at Gene.

Eventually, he changed his shirt. We went out to lunch.

"How's Annie," he asked.

"She's great. She wanted to come, of course, but ... "

He watched me. He wasn't about to let me get away with this one. He always had gotten along a little too well with Annie. Like one of them keeping me honest wasn't enough. He just stared at me, and he chewed his salad. And smiled. That motherfucker couldn't get enough of smiling, those last few weeks.

It was one of the few weeks in New Orleans spring that doesn't involve a parade, but we were at an outdoor cafe, and a car drove by on the street behind him tossing beads at pedestrians who had no idea they were coming. It was just one guy, jutting intermittently in and out of his window. No context, you know, for these people to know they were supposed to be catching. What you ended up with were a lot of people getting

150 hit in the ass and the back of the knees with beads that were purple, green, white, and gold. "What it comes down to is she didn't want to make this easy on me."

"Mrnrn," he finished chewing, "No, she wouldn't want to do that, would she."

"Yeah," I said, and started on a mouthful of my own. The jambalaya was good, with plenty of tomato, but the spice was its own foreshadowing. It always was. Like crazy women.

"I never could quite figure out just how she decided which of your shit to put up with and what to throw back in your face."

"Corne on, Gene," was my version of a witty retort.

"You're not still waving all those girls in front of her face are you? That really got in the way of me liking you, you know. Especially when ... "

And I didn't want to, but I had to, I jumped all over him: "You had a bigger problem with it than she ever did."

No beads were flying, just then. "So, Paul, you want to help me pick out a headstone this afternoon?"

What he was really saying was, the way he intended to get back at me for all that time I just refused to talk to him, or-as far as the glossies were concerned-about him, was that, now that I was ready, he wasn't going to let me. Not ever.

For some people, old age is a metaphor.

For the ends of things, I guess.

That's crap, of course.

It really is the end of things, just about everything.

151 A few other things, it's just the start of. Like being back at your friend's studio, fishing around an old, red tackle box for the etching drill he swore he put there a few years ago. We found it, of course, and spent the afternoon heating our way through a dozen or so old sheets of copper he wanted nailed onto the front of his tomb. Of course, he'd had me help him drag all that metal out of his shed and up a steep, angled flight of chipping, loose steps to his studio.

The thing was, that etching we did was worth the effort. They looked like our paintings. Not that shit we'd done earlier that day, but our first stuff together that (sure, after a decade of scrounging, but hey) scored us both small fortunes and as much fame as you really get, doing what we do and still being alive. And, for me at least (I can't say I really know if it was the same for Gene) the money lasted long after the fame ran out, and

at that point the money was the only thing I cared about anyway.

That's why, when he finally turned off the drill (it had been his tum with it,

anyway), and picked up one of the sheets (the third or fourth one we'd done, not the last), he said: "This is the one that'll really make me famous." Not because it was any better than the rest we'd done, or any of our paintings, but because that was the thing people would identify all of it with. It's what people would sleep under. Put on the covers of books. Maybe even do their own paintings on. Two whole careers working against the idea of symbolism, knowing, in the end, that it was all people would ever know us by.

Symbols of cars, houses, women, and everyday life. Symbols of our century's sexual liberation. Symbols of meaning; symbols of an effort against symbols. All afternoon long, little, golden bubbles of copper followed the needle of the etching drill as we made our squiggles, strikes, and the occasional, shallow sweep. It was nice to do it sitting at

152 Gene's kitchen table, instead of standing in front of those damn pulleys of his, because the walk back from the restaurant had been three blocks, twenty minutes, and four stinging calves long. All afternoon, as those little metal bubbles popped, they puffed out wisps of smoke that we breathed into already weak lungs, and reveled, wordlessly, each in our own heads, at the chance for our legs to do that little bit of healing. You're only ever as meaningful, or not, or as innovative, as people understand you. To be, I guess.

Anyway, it was a pretty meaningful moment, Gene holding up his copper square with our formless, colorless signature on it, regardless of what came after it. Regardless of the fact that that implied I was signing off on his life just as much as he was. We both knew it, that it was right.

To think, that fucker had wanted to do the etching on the pulleys. First, I asked him: "Do you even know how you'd attach it?''

And he admitted: "Not really." But pestered me with: "Doesn't mean it can't be done."

And I was both mean and fair with him when I asked him: "Are you prepared to jump back, out of the way, when little drips ofliquid metal fall from the tip of that etching drill down towards your toes? Do you know how hot bronze is as a liquid? Do you know how hot your shoes can get before they melt."

Gene was wearing his house slippers, fuzzy ones, at the time, and said: "Ah, fuck it. Have it your way."

And I'd say it turned out for the better.

153 That night I got up to piss, for about probably the fifth time, and as I crossed from

the guest room to the bathroom, I saw Gene sitting in this big, puffy recliner a few feet

from the canvas we'd done that morning.

"Hey," I offered. In my own ears, at any rate, I thought I sounded like I was twelve.

But all Gene came up with was: "Hey."

"Thinking to finish that thing without me?"

"No," he said, "I was lying down for a couple hours there, but the spins came back, and I couldn't sleep."

"Any pills I can get you?"

"Nah. It goes away ifl sit still enough," he managed, through a wince.

"Sounds good," I said.

But he corrected me: "Actually, it's horrible. When the shakes come on, and they

always do, after the spins, sitting still hurts worse than just about anything you could

imagine." And he was quiet a minute before he added: "It's like trying to brush your teeth with that etching drill, if you had teeth in your armpits, under your toenails, and on

your nipples."

"Jesus, Gene," I said, before I thought, "you're making me sick."

"Join the club," he said.

And we were quiet for a few minutes, neither of us really capable of studying that painting there in the dark. Gene, ultimately, gave us both a break: "Even though I was

dizzy, I still managed to drag this rank-ass recliner in here from my bedroom. It made me think of when we used to stare at the cathedral."

154 What he meant by "the cathedral" was the St. Louis Cathedral. It's the oldest in the country. And what he meant by "staring" at it was how we used to shake ourselves out of a creative slump. What it involved was us in the apartment, nodding at each other, once, and sharp, and then stripping down as fast as we could; then we'd run the three blocks to the river and jump in, bare-ass. The farther we swam toward the opposite shore, the more of the cathedral we could see when we looked back. Even up against the wall of the other bank, we could still really only see the top half of the thing. We'd actually sprint right by it as we left the apartment, so it meant looking back to the shore we'd come from, and over a city block of park that separated the landmark from the river.

But it was taller than everything else, and lit up pretty well at night, even then. It was a chance to se the stuff that towered over us everyday as we walked one place or another, in a slightly smaller, postcard-encapsulated sort of way. And Gene and I had both been raised Catholic, and in the relative youth we enjoyed at that point, we carried around a lot of supposed reasons to resent that history. Treading, naked, in that sometimes cold, sometimes piss-warm river, naked, just staring at the clock in its center tower Gust when they put it in, and when they took it out, I don't know, but it was there when we were), timing how long we could stay in one place, well, we fancied ourselves claiming a victory, both over it and entirely removed from it-the history, I mean.

Sometimes, on the few nights when Annie would sleep over, and actually stay up as late as we worked, she'd come with us, but it never felt the same, to Gene or me. Not necessarily bad, just nowhere near as good.

155 The few people who saw us, of the dozens of times we pulled this little stunt, usually just laughed, not realizing at all how wonderful it was. Our strength. The quiet challenge we were issuing to all that rock and steel.

Often, because they were just leaving are just entering the cathedral, it was nuns or priests who saw us. Just about all of them handled it the same ways: the first time they saw us they'd kind of grimace and avert their eyes; the second time, if we recognized each other, Gene and I could hear them laugh as we passed (their laughing, by the way, was louder than any of the tourists', when it did come); and those few who saw us a third time, or more, they smiled and waved.

And I guess you could say that was the point.

What Gene said, in the dark, that night, all those years after we'd gone swimming together, was: "It really is a beautiful building."

And the ancient bluster I'd held against the place, all those years, felt slimy inside my throat, like silliness and guilt.

"I think I'd like to go there tomorrow," he said.

Nervous, I asked him, "You mean the river, skinny dipping?"

And he knew that I knew that wasn't what he meant, but he obliged me: "Nope. I don't think I even have the energy to undress tonight, so swimming's pretty much out of the picture. I mean the church."

I realized that, yeah, even though he said he'd already lain down, once, for the night, he was still in his slacks and shirt. Even his belt. So, I felt stupid, that it still gave me pause to ask: "You mean for a mass?"

156 But, "Hell, no," he said, "I want to go to one of those psychics on the street out front," which set me to genuine laughing.

When my laughter died down again, and it was a little too quiet, I asked him:

"You want me to help you get those pants off?"

"No," he said, "I think I'll just sit here." And he did, at least until I finally walked back to my room, forgetting to take that piss.

The next morning a piece of paper was taped to the refrigerator door. It read: "To

Do:" and had: "Fix my will," and "See a psychic," written and numbered underneath the heading.

At the psychic's table, in the pedestrian street just outside the cathedral's front door, a fat Creole woman in a flowy dress but no beads or turban held Gene's slightly shaking hand and said, right into his eyes: "You got troubles, sure, but a lotta life left, too. You gonna find great happiness; you see." We were all sitting in folding beach chairs, my back hurt. I tried to think of something to say.

And Gene laughed in her face, but jovially, not like I would have, tipped her fifty percent of the price he'd already paid, and led us away. "Hey," he said, "I want you to come with me, to my lawyer's. I want you take care of my estate. There are some paintings left. Make sure they go to museums that couldn't afford 'em, okay?"

I stopped us, by grabbing Gene's arm, outside the window of a high-end magic shop, and the marionette in the window watched me say to Gene: "I don't get it."

"What?"

157 "This. That crap right there. The ease of it. Why you actually wanted me to come here. Why you're actually nice to me. Why we're friends again. Ever since we did that bronze-work, we've both been pretending like there's not a lifetime worth of distance between us. I know why I'm here, because I feel like shit and I know that I'm a guilty idiot who acted like a child. But what the fuck is in this for you?"

He looked at our feet as he said to me: "Well, shit, I wish we could've done this while we were sitting down somewhere." And he sighed, and went on: "I'll keep it short.

I've wanted to, a long time. Fact is, you weren't as wrong as you think you were, despite what political correctness or your guilt at how you treat Annie tells you you should feel.

Fact is, there's no reason you needed to read in a magazine that the roommate you'd just sold a whole show's worth ofpaintings with wanted to fuck you. I should've just told you. If for no other reason than because we were supposed to be friends. And so this is good, that we both get a chance to quit being the stupid we've been for too long."

The dummy was staring at me through its strings. He was an ugly dummy, that dummy.

I didn't say that it was also because really, he'd ended up with no one else.

Instead, I just stared back down the street at the cathedral. The thing was, during that whole little diatribe-both of them, really: mine and his-he hadn't looked me in the eye.

And that just wasn't something Gene failed to do. So I knew he knew what I wasn't saying, and I felt both righteous and terrible, as usual, about that.

"Annie and I have written all along, you know." And I felt like the dummy, just then, turning its head to stare at Gene's new, straight-on stare. "She gets you. You got

158 me. A great little triangle, really, it's just that that one thing got in the way. A fucking shame, really, she didn't call us on it sooner-how dumb we were."

Owning her, for once, I told him: "Except, she did."

And I could see him think about a specific letter, even though I didn't know that's what he was doing at the time, one I would read a while later, when I was sorting out his things, and he said: "Yeah; she did."

At the time, I was thinking about a different letter. One she'd written to me even though we lived in the same house at that point. That's Annie. When it's important, she writes a letter.

"Let's get to the lawyer's; it's hot as hell out here."

It wasn't; we walked anyway. For some people art is a metaphor; for us it had been an excuse to be quiet together.

After a week or two of calls to places like cemeteries, charities, a couple of magazines doing retrospectives or salutes, and a bit of the kinds of sightseeing you usually never get to do in your own town, Gene got sick. No; he didn't degenerate into a quivering mass of disconnecting tissues like I'd envisioned. Like I'd actually spent time hoping would wait to happen until I left. Turned out he got pneumonia. We brought a nurse in (something he'd refused to do until then, and fought me about daily), but he had no intention of trying to beat it. They'd told him he had two or three good years left before the Parkinson's would take him, that he actually had a mild case of it, for an old bastard like him. But he hated the pain, and he wouldn't let me take him to a hospital because he wasn't "coughing up blood with little chunks in it."

159 For some people art is a metaphor. That still seems like a mistake to me. At most

I think you end up with a couple of coincidences.

The thing was, Gene didn't die. Not then, from the pneumonia. It wasn't a bad case. Gene was good, I guess, at getting light cases of serious illnesses. Despite the fact that I'm a shitty nurse with little or no knowledge of how to care for a geriatric with a respiratory infection, Gene got well. How it happened was I woke up one day to him standing over me, already dressed, and him shouting into my otherwise sleeping ear: "Get your ass up; I'm not dead yet."

I hoped he'd get sicker from the morning breath I made a point to gush all over him: "I guess this means your stubborn ass is feeling better."

And he said: "Yep; and I want you to take me to a basketball game."

So, I did. The thing is, there wasn't a pro game anywhere nearby. I'm not even sure New Orleans has a pro team. And sure, the only thing that information cost me was trip through the phone book, to some ticket agency, but it brought back all the bile I'd been chewing on since I'd been there.

And Gene said: "Let me call my agent."

And he did. And Gene's agent got tickets to some important college game that was happening at one of the schools there in the city. And yeah, that hurt, because at that point I didn't even have an agent. Didn't even know I wanted one.

So, we were at the game, and we'd sat through a lot of it, and I asked Gene:

"When did you take up basketball."

160 "I didn't," he said. The arena was full. There were fights over whether people had the right seats. There were lines at the bathroom. At one point, security guards actually frisked both Gene and me, as though either of us had the vigor left to start a commotion.

"Well then why the fuck are we here?" Gene had even bought one of those big foam mock-ups of a hand with a raised finger signifYing some sort of supremacy. The whole thing was pretty ugly. And loud.

"Don't you like it?"

"Hell no." Gene and I had always gone to baseball games together, in those couple of years that we actually followed sports. They were minor league games, with mistakes, painful seats, and ugly, depressed fans. We considered it research. Reality, even, maybe. And it felt right. Basketball, for some reason, had always struck me as a little too similar to television news-everybody doing their damndest not to fuck up a flawed, frustrating script and succeeding a lot less often than not. "Please tell me we're not here because you thought I wanted to be."

And Gene fessed up: "No. Not really."

"So, what is this, then, you trying to catch everything you can that you think you missed, because I can go book us some plane tickets to China if you want."

"No," he said, "I've already been to China, and that's not the point."

"What then?"

"Frankly," Gene said, "I just wanted to fuck with you." And he threw on that smile of his, with the wrinkles around his lips that were there even before he was forty.

And, in one of those coincidences I was talking about, something important happened on

161 the court, and the crowd cheered, and Gene started laughing at his own, make-believe power. "I think that means you have to buy us some beers," he said, "then hurry back, and help me pretend to enjoy this game."

When I got back with the beer, the whole arena was standing, shouting, and generally making some sort of displeasure known. It took me forever to find our seats.

All the people I thought I'd recognize looked different because they were standing up. I eventually wedged through the crowd, though, and down our row, and found Gene, just sitting there. His eyes were closed, his head down.

"You okay?"

"What ... ," he stammered for a second, the overall impression being a guilty one, and then: "Oh! Oh yeah! Hal I bet you thought ... ho! No. I was just asleep.

Remember, I don't give a shit about this game."

"Fair enough," I said, and sat down next to him.

At one point, the crowd was sitting back down again, and Gene pointed up at the huge screen that hung, from the ceiling, over the center of the court. It presented stick figures in various forms and ranges of physical exertion, all with a red, almost-orange, l.e.d. hue, and as one little stick figure karate-kicked an oversized house key in half depicting, apparently, one of the real-life player's accomplishments, Gene pointed up at it and said: "You know, they've almost got something there."

And then we both saw the couple sitting to our right snap their cooperative gaze up at the screen. Gene and I looked at each other, and laughed for a moment or two. By that point, we'd had three of those beers, each.

162 At one point, everyone else had left the arena, and it was just Gene and I, sitting

there, drunk. Some people were still in lines, at the ends of the aisles, milling around

each other's traffic, waiting to leave, but no cops or janitors had come to tell us to leave,

so we just sat there, more or less comfortable.

Why, I'm not sure, but I said to him: "You know, I don't know what you've

heard, but I've never cheated on Annie."

"Really?" The question was sincere, and sincerely a question.

"Really. Sure, I participated in the publicity game on purpose a few times. Let a

photo get snapped here or there. Stayed ambiguous in an interview. But I've never really, sincerely tried to break my marriage, and I've certainly never succeeded."

"That means a lot," he said, and then he stayed quiet for a few minutes. And then he said: "You want me to tell her?"

And so, of course, I told him, "Please do."

Fact is, I was getting too tired to stay stupid. A few days after the game, but still a

few more before I was supposed to go back to Annie, Gene, still in health so good that neither of us really knew what to think or do, asked me: "What are the chances you and

Annie might move back here?"

So, of course, I made a call. "Annie," I said, "It might get terrible here without you; we need you." And she said: "Okay; I'm coming."

And she did. And we stayed, even a while after Gene passed, which was, of

course, much, much later.

163 Nominal Fee

For a nominal fee, the funeral parlor will suck about a third ofthe fat out of my sister's corpse. Mr. MacKenzie, the director, made this offer when I winced at the price he quoted for the "full-sized" casket-the only one, he explained, that she'd fit in. So, for exactly half of the difference between a "standard" coffin and the one my sister would otherwise need, a certified mortician can perform liposuction on her dead body. The guy in the (black) tie explained all this as he filled out page after page of forms, checking and x-ing boxes pertinent to issues I'd already decided on. Of course, he even had to explain that. This was all new to me; when we'd buried our parents, my sister, older, had tended to most of these sorts of issues. Even what I had seen is awash in about a decade's worth of memory now, so all that supposed experience was of pretty much zero use to me yesterday as I sat on that couch signing at the bottoms of all those pages.

And now I can't even remember what those pages said. I remember the couch instead-beige with little brown and almost-orange paisleys. That couch in the front room of the funeral parlor sits covered in a pattern designed to avoid reminding you of absolutely anything. Just in case you remember something, anyway, there's tissue in a box on the coffee table in front of the couch. Tissue and flowers. But not tissue flowers, unless they've changed something since yesterday.

The one drawback to the surgical option is that it wouldn't include the "complimentary personalization" that comes with the purchase of the larger-model casket. So, I'm faced with the

164 possibility of not seeing my sister's name-Leslie Janice Waldrup-etched in bronze on the lid of the box that I bury her in.

Sitting on that couch yesterday, staring at the one page that was free of any "x", checks, or signatures, I tried to sort out how I'd gotten there. All of it: the tedium; the creepy coffin salesman in front of me; the loss; there had to be some reason for it, some start to it. Before all this, whenever I thought of my sister's weight and all its problems, a single conversation came to mind. It started over the phone. The connection was terrible. I asked her: "Where are you?"

She answered: "I'm on the interstate." She was basically yelling.

I continued: "With your windows open?"

"Nope! With my convertible top down!"

"Why are you driving a convertible?"

"Because I bought one."

"You bought a convertible?!"

"Yup. And a Twinkie."

And then she continued the conversation, while eating the Twinkie: "So, where can I take you for dinner?"

Just like my bus pass would never keep up with her new Mercedes, I never could keep up with my sister. That night, at dinner at an all-you-can-eat steakhouse, Leslie filled me in on some things that were going on in her life. Halfway through her second sirloin, she started:

"Teddy Baby, it's official."

"I hate it when you call me that."

"No you don't. You just think you do." 165 "It's belittling. And I've hated it since we were kids."

"Well, you're just going to have to start accepting the fact that I'm bigger than you.

That's what I called to tell you about. That's what's official. As of today, I'm obese. The doctor said so."

I watched her finish the rest of her second steak and wash it down with the glass of milk that had been sitting in front of her. I let her swallow before I asked: "Which doctor was that: the cardiologist, the podiatrist, or the neurologist?" In the year before that dinner, she'd begun seeing each of those doctors regularly. Monthly, I think.

"Actually, it was the gynecologist."

"Oh." I pushed my plate-the rest of my steak getting cold on it-over to Leslie's side of the table.

She continued: "Actually, he said I've probably been clinically obese for a while now; it's just never been certified on a form or anything before, so today was kind of special. He bought me the convertible to celebrate."

"I thought you said ... "

"I picked the color; he signed the check."

"Oh ... "

You see, when I said, before, that "she'd begun seeing" all those doctors, I meant in both the professional and social senses of the phrase. And it was right about that same time that she'd really started to balloon up.

I couldn't leave her hanging; I thought of the two-seater she'd left in the parking lot after driving us to dinner-the one she'd swept across the interstate so fast it made me sweat: "Well, it's a really provocative shade of red. Mom would've been proud."

166 "Thanks."

So, yesterday, on that couch, the director guy alternately loosening his tie and clearing his throat, all while calculating sales tax on, well, my sister, I wanted there to be more to whatever it was that was puzzling me. I thought further back. I decided that the saga that had come to define my sister really started a year or two before that dinner. I guess.

Leslie's house. Thanksgiving dinner. I'd shown up alone, and Leslie and her husband gave me a really hard time about it.

"Guess we're gonna have to fill in for your date, eh Ted?" This from Norm, the husband.

"Good thing there's plenty ofus to go around."

I took a second spoonful of sweet potatoes with those little marshmallows on top, losing some off the bottom of the serving spoon as I brought it to my plate. I decided that, even if it did stain, the holly-berry-patterned, paper tablecloth wouldn't be a major loss.

"Save some for us, Ted. You know we need it more than you." Norm always laughed at his own jokes, and his own jokes were always about the extra weight that he and Leslie had put on in the five or so years of their marriage. I took a third spoonful.

Leslie continued the barrage: "You keep eating like that, Teddy Baby, and you're gonna end up like me and Norm." She started to laugh at herself. I smiled. Norm stayed quiet. Leslie cut her chortle short.

A little later, after Norm trying to talk to me about football and Leslie and I deciding whether or not her cranberry sauce was better than mom's had been, I stabbed a sliver of turkey with my fork, swathed it in sweet potatoes, and chewed all that as I asked: "So, how's the kids

167 thing coming along?" I expected Norm to be the one to answer; whenever he could be he always was. But everything got quiet again for the first time since my sister's last fat joke.

"What did I say?"

Norm, still with stuffing in his mouth, kind of answered me: "What have you told him?"

Leslie swallowed before she responded: "Come on Norm. It's Teddy. Who else can I talk to?"

There we were again. Usually, though, my brother-in-law voiced his resentment only from the unseen background of my sister's side of the line during our weekly calls. Dallas to

Chicago-the whole height of the country between us-and he still managed to reaffirm the impression I'd always had ofhim, without ever picking up a phone. The argument they had after that (right in front of me, as I finished those potatoes and the pretty good cabemet I'd brought) turned out to be their last. Leslie slept in the guest room with me that night, and flew back to

Dallas with me the next morning. All the rest had been sorted out via lawyers at great expense to

Norm, the guy who would tum out to be my sister's first cardiologist.

In the two years after that my sister embraced divorced life about as healthfully as you could want. She dated, but never too seriously. She (somehow) applied her low-level Chicago newspaper skills to slightly-less low-level Dallas jobs, and she and I basically had a great time having each other in the same town and working through pretty much normal, rut-type lives.

Reliving that, I decided I wanted some sweet potatoes, or any food, really. The fact was I was hungry. I looked up at the guy: "Is there any way I can let you know about the whole coffin thing tomorrow?"

168 He cleared his throat one last time, resumed his initial posture, and turned on that low, smooth voice: "Of course; you've opted to forego a viewing, we can hold off on interment a few days ... Do you think you can make your decision by the end of business tomorrow?"

I told him yeah, I thought so, and left.

Sitting up last night, watching home movies (converted from 18mm to VHS) of her-us-at middle school birthday parties and elementary school Christmases, I began to think I'd need more time.

Despite what I said before, about ease of adjustment, there were two ways that Leslie let extremity into her life during her time in Dallas: appetite and attraction.

Yeah, she dated the healthy way. The healthy way, they say, for divorcees. She let herself meet people, but didn't go looking. She'd go on a few dates-sex sometimes, she'd say-but never let it get serious. What was troubling was the men she'd end up with. Leslie wasn't small when she left Norm, and in Dallas her eating got perpetually more enthusiastic. All that cattle-country steak, rich, delicious, and relatively cheap. The men she ended up with, though, were of two types-needle thin and Jell-0 undefined. It was really disconcerting, and it all started when we were out to dinner one night.

There we were, eating tacos on a bus-stop bench (Leslie doing most of the work of taking up nearly the whole thing) outside a chain Tex-Mex joint, enjoying the sun, and watching

Porsches go by. We were chatting about the cars, lusting after them, really, for at least ten minutes. Leslie had just said: "I want one of those ... " when this guy walked up to us, blocking all chance of what could have been our tans. He just jumped right to it: "Hey baby. Why're you eating with that shrimp when you could be with a whale?" 169 Right.

But, exactly opposite of what I expected, my sister totally went for it: "Oh really? Are you offering a ride, or just a round of sightseeing?"

"Both, if you call me."

Then he handed her a business card and walked away.

Okay.

No correction, from my sister, of this man's impression that I was "a shrimp." She didn't even bother to point out that I was, in fact, her brother, and not a romantic interest like the three­ hundred-pound pursuer who had departed our company in order to pour himself into a speedster not unlike many of those we'd been eyeing. But hey, my sister always had a magnetic, or whatever, personality; she was always a lot of fun for everybody to be around. People approaching her was a pretty much constant occurrence.

Fine.

What killed me, okay, only shocked me a little bit, was how she slid that card into her purse instead of just laughing and throwing it away. The part that killed me, actually killed me, left-me-smoking killed me, was the call I got from her the next morning. The ringing woke me up. I fumbled for the receiver, for the words to get the coming conversation going. I didn't have them; it started without me: "Teddy Baby, sex with a fat man is fantastic."

"Whoa!"

"I mean, Norm was big, but I got lost in this guy!"

"Hey! I just woke up! Cut it out!"

"I'm sorry baby, but I just want you to know how happy I am."

"When are you not happy? And why do you have to be so specific?"

170 Rather than answer my question, she told me all about her date: "Well, he picked me up in that same little car he was in at the taco joint. He held the door open for me, then closed it really slow and gentle. When he got in, and shifted into reverse, our arms kind of touched because there was nowhere else to put them."

I got up, thankful for the cordless phone, and walked into the bathroom for my morning pee. I commenced; she continued: " ... and that was when he started dragging his finger up and down the back of my hand, kind of tugging the loose skin as he went. .. "

I almost lost my aim: "Okay. Okay. What say you just give me the basics. I gotta brush my teeth in a minute." I'd been up most of the night before eating nachos, and right about then, I could taste them again.

Leslie complied with my request: "Okay. Dinner. Lobster. Two-each. Wine-two bottles. Ice cream cones along the beach afterward. Skipped the movie he'd talked about. My place. Two hours. Slept. Then two more hours. He just left a couple of minutes ago."

The desire to brush my teeth grew a little more potent, a little more urgent. "Well, I'm glad you had a good time." Shook. Flushed. "Are we still on for dinner tonight?"

"I can't. Greg's taking me out."

"Again?"

"No. No. No. That was Bob last night. I met Greg at the restaurant. Got his number while Bob was in the bathroom. Bob was fun, but I don't see it going anywhere. He uses the bathroom with the door open."

Preparing my toothbrush, I kicked my door open the rest of the way with the back of my heel, and smiled to myself in the mirror. "Well, how about dinner Sunday then?"

171 The Sunday part of that memory brought me out of the little trance I was in, and I found myself watching a still, blue screen; the movie I'd rented after leaving the funeral parlor was over. Greg was on my mind. I got up and walked over to my bookcase.

Pictures of Leslie were all over it. I picked up the one with her arm around Greg. I took it into the kitchen with me and left it on the table while I pulled some leftover spaghetti out of the fridge. I slurped it cold while I stared at the picture and chewed on the memory.

Leslie had told me to meet her at this twenty-four-hour breakfast place we'd driven by a bunch of times but never eaten at. I sat in the sparkly red naugahyde booth, drinking good coffee, when Leslie walked in, wearing a dress that looked a little more designer than she usually went in for. As she sat down she revealed the man that had been walking behind her. He was so small that I hadn't seen him behind her. Then he sat down next to her.

"Teddy, I want you to meet Greg."

"Oh."

Greg said: "What?"

"Uhm, hi. Leslie didn't tell me she was bringing a friend. It's nice to meet you." We did the whole handshake and smile thing. He said: "Same here." Then Greg turned to my sister, waiting for her to make the next move, and I took the chance to throw her a whydidn'tyoutellme glance.

She answered both of us: "Teddy Baby, I'm sorry I couldn't call in time to tell you about the change in plans. We've just been so busy the last couple of days ... " They did one ofthose annoying, new-couple-turns-their-heads-at-the-same-time, giggly-look

172 things and then turned back to me, Leslie continued: "You could have brought a girlfriend. We could've made it a double date."

I emptied my coffee cup, and shifted on the naugahyde.

"Sorry to mess things up, Greg, but contrary to my sister's suggestion I'm kind of in­ between girlfriends right now."

"I know a lot of great girls, Ted, I could introduce you to some." That from Greg, which none of us really knew how to respond to.

Finally, after way too long, Greg pretended to clear his throat, and excused himself to go to the bathroom. Leslie leaned across the table pretty much immediately. "So, whaddaya think?"

"He's, uhm, small."

At the time, Leslie was nowhere near where she'd be when she died, but she was already substantial, and after I'd first seen Greg, I'd seen people around the diner scowl at the mismatch.

Something had to be said. The actual act of voicing it made my tongue itchy, but it didn't seem to bother Leslie at all. "I know! I was so surprised when he approached me at the restaurant.

You'd think he'd want someone skinny like him. But it's just the opposite ... "

I knew I didn't want to hear what came next, but you could never really ask Leslie to stop, well, anything.

" ... He says that when he's on top of me he feels like he's the size of both of us together, and that it's like he's a god!"

For whatever reason, I thought of an omelet, and knew I wouldn't be having one.

"Can you believe that? A god! No man's ever told me that I make him feel that way."

173 "Les, I'm worried you might be jumping into the whole relationship thing a little too quickly ... "

"I never said the 'r' word, Teddy Baby. Greg snores; it would never last."

"But, you said something about the last two days ... "

"Spent mostly inside, hon."

Greg returned, and Les and I got quiet, before I could protest that last comment.

"So, what are you kids talking about?"

"Our orders." That from both ofus.

"Oh. Great! I've been looking forward to scrambled eggs all day. I think I'm even gonna have some peppers and mushrooms thrown in there, maybe some cheese, too ... "

Anything to change the subject: "So, Greg, I heard you and Leslie met eating at the same restaurant." I didn't expect it to go anywhere, but I was fine with that as long as it didn't go where the other thing would have.

But Greg surprised me a little bit with: "Actually, she was eating; I was working; I'm a waiter."

"Oh. Nice." I looked at Leslie. She was playing with the sugar substitute. She shrugged.

Last night, after the funeral parlor and leftover spaghetti, leaving the sauce-caked bowl on the table, I brought the picture back to its partners on the bookcase. I looked at all those faces standing next to my sister. At a carnival. On a boardwalk in front of some ocean. At

McDonald's. All taken by strangers; all featuring strangers. Greg had lasted a few weeks, but there had been many more. They ranged in income from dishwasher to money-launderer, but

174 they were all either fat or thin. There was no healthy center to Leslie's social circle. The fetish element was clear, and it wasn't like Leslie pretended it wasn't there. In fact, like everything else, she spoke perfectly frankly about it: "The big ones are often too small, the small ones shockingly big. Maybe it's just an illusion: associative perception, or something, but I could swear it's a pattern."

The fact that she was so forthcoming about the whole thing, and that forthcoming had been her lifelong mode, inclined me to let her have her way. And for a long time I did. But I finally had to have one of those big brother talks with her (despite the fact that I was her younger brother) when I noticed how quickly her wardrobe was changing. The problem was that I could tell why.

One night, on a then-rare, just-us excursion, eating smiley-faced shaped ice cream on sticks at the Big Water amusement park, watching that night's fireworks, I had to bring it up:

"Hey, let's go buy t-shirts."

"I don't really want to."

I knew that she'd say that. That's why I'd suggested it. "Why not?" I already knew the answer, just like I knew she wouldn't give me the real one.

"They're too expensive."

"Bullshit. The t-shirt you're wearing now is by an Italian with a company named after him. Souvenirs are bargains compared to the wear you've been sporting lately."

"Yeah, well." She sucked the last remaining bit of yellow-vanilla face and chocolate features off of her ice-cream smeared stick.

"Exactly."

175 "Jerk. If you've already got it figured out, why do you have to rub my nose in it?" She licked defiantly.

Boom. Crackle. Red. Gold. Blue. Fireworks all above us, all raining down violent bright, landing somewhere unseen. "Because I want you to confirm my suspicion that you've gotten too big to buy from the stores, so you special order your clothes from designers, haute couture, cuz it's the only stuffthat'll fit. And because, if that's the case, I want you to slow down; I don't want you to hurt yourself." I let what seemed like a finale explode above us.

While children clapped I asked: "Am I right?"

"Well, yeah. That, and the stuff in the Big&Tall stores just hurts my eyes to look at."

Ah. Yes. That part I hadn't guessed, but should have. I wanted to smile. I wanted to even be able to fake one. But the fact was that I found it all way too frightening to treat any way but seriously. "Les, honey, you know I love you all big and all, but we both knew our whole family, and me, so it's not genes, and we both know that I really don't know what I'd do ifl lost you one day."

She tossed her clean ice cream stick in a trashcan and yanked me toward her, hugging me, lifting me off my feet, my ice cream crushed between us. Then she held me by the shoulders at arm's length and said: "I'll be careful. I'll even look into a diet. But don't expect thin."

I smiled. "I don't think anybody wants that."

"Certainly none of the men that I know." Then she winked at me, and grabbed the battered remnants of my ice cream out of my hand and finished it. She said: "Tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow." The actual finale was happening overhead, but I hardly noticed, and didn't look at all; I was too busy chuckling, lightly (with my sister), my nose stinging warmly as her perfume mixed inside it with the vanilla and chocolate.

176 That sense of safety, or clarity, or whatever it was, was short-lived. It wasn't long after that day at Big Water that I got another disturbing wake up call from my sister.

There was the usual fumbling, and then: "Hello?"

"Ted, don't freak out, but I sorta had a heart attack."

I was out of the bed, tripping over the sheet wrapped around my legs, ready to run catch the bus while still in my pajamas: "What? Where are you? I'm coming. Raise your arm! Call an ambulance. No! I'll call an ambulance; you keep your arm raised. I'm coming." I was wedging my way into a second slipper, shedding the sheet, scanning the living room for my keys.

"Stop freaking out; you're gonna give me another one."

"Sorry!"

"Ted!"

"Sorry."

"That's better. Now, put down your keys. It happened last night. It's over."

Damn. She'd heard them. "Sorry. But I'm still coming to see you. Where are you?"

"Ron's."

Oh. "Are you crazy? Why aren't you in a hospital?"

"Because Ron's a cardiologist."

"Oh."

"He took care of me while it happened. He said it was just some 'irregularity' or something. That it wasn't a heart attack, but kind of a warning that one could happen some time soon. He gave me a pill that made it go by smoother. I actually feel pretty good, considering."

"Wait a minute; please tell me I've seen too many movies. It didn't happen while ... "

177 "Oh yeah it did."

"Oh! Oh. Oh."

"Yeah. Can't say I'm surprised. It's not like I was with Ron because he bores me."

She sounded fine. I put my keys back on the coffee table I'd retrieved them from, but left my slippers on until I could get the answer to one more question: "So, I'm guessing there's a

reason you called me, as opposed to telling me all this at the lunch we're scheduled for in ... two hours."

"Yeah, I want you to make sure and not let me date anybody but cardiologists from here

on out. Or at least until I get some of this weight off. I got lucky this time, but it's like dad

always said 'you can't count on coincidence."'

I don't know why I felt the need to give her a hard time just then, maybe because she'd

scared me, and I felt silly, and wanted revenge, maybe because I was resentful of the developing

trend of relegating me to lunches so she could have dinners with men: "Here's a revolutionary

idea; why not just stick with good ole' Ron there?"

"Because his wife comes back from New York this evening."

Oh. "Oh."

By four this morning I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep, so I got on the stationary

bike where I keep my dust in the comer of my living room. The computer display showed I.e. d.

pictures of progressively faster cliches: a turtle, a rabbit, something that looked like a dog, a man,

and (finally, after way too much pedaling) a woman in a convertible with her hair blowing in the

wind. Perhaps I would have been mentally applauding the artistic feats of diode technology if I

178 hadn't been reminded of that day my sister called me from the interstate to take me to steak dinner in her new, crimson German gift.

That came from her gynecologist. The way that happened was that her cardiologist rule was hard to follow. There were plenty of doctors in Dallas with weight-fetish issues. It makes a certain kind of sense when you realize that the second biggest industry in the greater Dallas/Ft.

Worth is plastic surgery. L.A. invented the facelift, but the first set ofbreast implants was interred in our very own Dallas. Even this and, by extension, Leslie's popularity with these guys, smacks of inevitability when you consider the long-standing Texas insistence on the idea that bigger is better. The only pursuit more popular and lucrative in Dallas than re-shaping women is cattle ranching, source of such cultural landmarks as: backyards bigger than whole other states; the one-pound steak; and (in its current, more corporate incarnations) bovine growth hormones. The fact ofthe matter is, at one point the possibility that these rich Texas guys­ whose history told them they should work with the largest animals around, but whose new, socialite culture told them to marry the youngest beauty pageant winner they could find­ fantasized that my sister was some kind of herd animal as they rode her actually crossed my mind, and though it sickened me, it never struck me as irrational.

For her part, once Leslie moved on to the fetishist doctors of Dallas she either lost either her taste or patience for extremes of physique. At some point, the profession had grown into a novelty for her. But they were all exactly alike in one way: they were all married. So these guys had to wait until their wives went out of town-the beach; shopping; seeing their own lovers­ before indulging their less than popular compulsions with Leslie. As long as I didn't think about it too much I really didn't mind because it pretty much gave me my sister back. Even after she relaxed her security standards (not because she'd managed to lose any weight, of course, but

179 simply because the cardiologist pool was too small) there were still only so many urologists with traveling wives. And the traveling usually happened on the weekends. So most weekdays, I had someone to eat dinner with again-the only person I really cared to have dinner with, just then, now that I think about it.

And then there was that night at the steakhouse-the Mercedes still all new-car-smell in the parking lot. Dallas is one of America's biggest urban centers at this point, it's not like there's much mud to walk through in a twenty-mile radius, but just the same I'd felt compelled to kick my shoes clean before getting in to it for the first time.

My sister sat there, eating the rest of my (first) steak, and telling me: "Yeah, it was really weird, you know?" Chew. Chew. Chew. Then, still chewing: "Getting weighed, I mean. Jeff thought it was great. And he's, you know, rich, from cleaning out all those land-barons' wives, and he just thought that having an actual number on me, making it official, was the greatest thing in the world. He bought me the car to mark the occasion. He's that rich, and that pleased with me. He called me an ideal woman. A goddess. He even said the name of one, but I didn't recognize it. Maybe if I was concentrating, but I was too busy stepping on and off the scale, watching it spin, you know ... ," and she motioned with her finger, twirling it, and then finished,

"to think about anything else, even how much I actually weighed."

Wondering if this was going to get a laugh or not, I ventured: "How long had it been?"

No laugh, just: "Since Norm."

That I hadn't expected. "Oh."

"Did I ever tell you what he used to make me do?"

I looked at the plastic placard on the table's edge, hoping it was a wine list. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

180 "He used to make me get on the scale, while he stood right behind me, writing down the result, five times every day; when I woke up; after we ate breakfast; he'd come home for lunch, just to take the measurement; then there was dinner; and once more just before bed. And after every single time, even when the new number was lower than an old one, he'd say the same thing: 'Unacceptable.' Just that one word. But that's all he'd say until I brought up something else."

I'd like to say I was speechless: "Les. Hon. How long did that go on?"

"Pretty much a whole year before that Thanksgiving dinner."

I was quiet. I tried: "I don't understand, you guys were always making jokes. I mean, sure he only thought his were funny, but that's just because ... " and even I knew how stupid I sounded.

"What, did you think I left him because of that one fight?"

It was only then that I realized that I'd never really asked about that. I'd always just disliked the guy, and that had been enough for me. Enough of a reason for my sister to come down to Dallas, to become the object of stares. To be the object of fantasies. To be an object.

She started to cry.

Then I joined her. We started out quietly, holding all four of our hands together in a pile at the center of the table. When a natural crescendo presented itself, though, we didn't resist it, letting ourselves go on for a long, long time.

When we were done, never having bothered to notice if anybody had noticed us, we left the restaurant in silence, and got into the car. I kept my hands folded in my lap. Her arm touched mine anyway. It was only after that that I looked down at my shoes, turning my feet to check the soles. In the comer of my eye I saw Leslie tum her head in my direction; I looked

181 back at her. She took a breath, let it out, "I'm through. With the games. It's gotten boring. And worse, stupid. The next one's gonna have to be average. He's actually gonna have to like me, not just what I feel like, or represent. The next one's gonna be a real relationship. With somebody sane. Normal. . .like you." And then she pinched my cheek. She actually pinched my cheek. She shifted into reverse, then first, and we were gone.

I was in the shower, washing off the stationary bike, when I remembered how it all started to end. Something about conditioner, I think I use the same stuff she did. I know she used the same as me at one point cuz I bought what I did cuz her hair smelled good one day and I told her and she told me what she used and so I bought that. And I think that was the same stuff that I was washing out of my eyes when I remembered the last time I brushed her hair out of my eyes. I'm really not sure, though, now.

It took awhile, a lot of fruitless nights at clubs, a lot of frustrating false starts, but a few weeks ago Leslie gave me another wake up call: "Ted. It's me. I think I found him."

"Hey, that's great! Hand him the phone, I want to meet him." Yeah, I was giving her a hard time, but it's not like she'd ever really stopped having fun.

"Jerk. He's not here. I'm not gonna let it be like that with this one."

"Wow. You must really like this guy if you're not gonna sleep with him."

"That's the idea. I think I'll give it a month. Let's have lunch, I'll tell ya all about him."

And we did. And she did. And he sounded great, and weeks went by. Then came the morning that Leslie woke me with the most disturbing thing she'd ever said to me. It wasn't over the phone, but her lips, right in my ear: "Ted. Ted wake up. I need your help getting into some lingerie."

182 Pretty much instantly, I was awake.

"Tonight's the night, Ted. I bought something special to wear, but I can't get it on."

And that's why my sister used her key to my apartment for the very first time, so I could strap her into a corset.

I wanted, so very, very badly, to tell her no, that she was going too far that time. But of course I couldn't. Because we really only had each other. Because there still hasn't been a single day since it happened that I haven't thought about the night she picked me up in that new car.

So, we got started. She pulled the relevant garment out of a bag, the price tag hanging, spinning, from it. "You bought this in a store?"

"Yeah. But I didn't try it on. I mean, I tried to try it on, but I couldn't quite reach, and I didn't want to ask one ofthe salespeople so I just tried to shop by size, you know, and I've lost some weight; a few pounds ... "

"It's okay. We'll get it on you."

"Thanks."

"So, what do you wear, you know, underneath it?'' I prayed for "panties," even though I absolutely hate that word, I would have treasured hearing it, just then, over God whispering me a stock tip.

"Nothing." Of course, that's what I was afraid of.

So, I got up, and she got naked. The corset was closer to a bodice, or maybe something else that I don't know the name of. It's not like I've ever actually read the catalogues. It was mauve satin, fringed in black lace. There were garters attached, dangling along with the price tag. "Hold on a sec." I ran into the kitchen still in my pajamas and found some scissors in the

183 drawer under the sink. I trotted back to the bedroom: "Hold it up so I can cut." Kneeling before her I wanted to hit a rewind button somewhere and think to do this before she took her clothes off.

She held up the garment by its top, lacey fringe.

I separated the elastic garter straps from the translucent cord holding the tag and cut it. I tossed the scissors onto the bed. "Okay, let me have it."

She let the full weight of the garment fall into my hands; it was heavy.

I found the top, spread the whole thing open to the full extent of the lace-up back, and held it open on the floor in front of her feet. I just kept my head down; even if I'd tried it would have been physically impossible for me to look Leslie in the eye, her stomach eclipsed me.

"Okay, step into it."

She brought her left foot forward, picked it up, and wiggled the satin onto the top of her feet with her toes. Her toes squeaked slightly as they were re-united with the wood of my floor.

Then came her right foot, toes arched downward, held close together. She lost her balance a bit, her left hand falling, soft but indomitable, on my right shoulder. Her belly, too, came forward, hitting me in the crown and pillowing all around my forehead. Just after her weight had come forward, equal and opposite, it began to lurch backwards as her knees locked against the strain. I grabbed high on her thighs, trying to keep her up, but my hands sunk. She fell to the floor; it made little noise. Both ofher feet were inside the mauve and black.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I cushioned my fall." She tried to smile, to make that a joke, but it was just too true to be funny.

I smiled back, weakly.

184 Leslie offered: "Maybe we should just finish like this ... "

I tasted my un-brushed teeth. "Yeah; maybe you're right."

She stayed prone, but lifted the appropriate parts of her body as I slid the satin up towards her torso. At her hips she had to start helping me. I knelt on her right side-between Leslie and my bed-stretching the cords and elastic of the corset while she held the other half of it firm in her left hand. She lifted her ribs, her spine, away from the floor as we dragged the garment up around her breasts. She pushed, jabbed, and tucked them into position underneath the lace.

Then we did the stockings-also lace, one-at-a-time-with much instruction from her (a lot about how to roll them in my hand) and a good deal of wiggling from me. I fastened the garters that had hung loose at the tops of her thighs. The skin pinched red under the taut elastic.

The stockings didn't tear.

"Okay, Les, roll over."

She did.

I fastened the second set of garters that lay curled at the top of her thighs. The tops of her thighs that were pretty much indecipherable from her sloughing, accordion buttocks. Again, the skin quickly turned red, then a purple only slightly lighter than the satin, under the jagged­ toothed clip that kept the stocking stretched.

"Does that hurt?"

"No."

"Okay. I just have to tie you, okay?"

I crawled on my knees toward her back, but I could only avoid straddling her for so long.

The problem became perfectly clear pretty quickly: as I sat on her back my bent knees couldn't find the floor beyond the sides of her stomach. My toes scraped uselessly against the hardwood.

185 Each of my hands grabbed a black cord at the top of the lace-up back. As I pulled, my weight fell into her. I rocked backwards and forwards; I couldn't stay still long enough to even cross the cords-much less tie a bow. Breath was pushed out of her sporadically, audibly.

I finally just let go and rolled off of Leslie onto the floor beside her.

I turned my head, looked at her, half of each of our faces pressed flat against the floor.

"Les, I can't get it."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure. Unless ... can you stand up?"

"We can try it."

She rolled back over, and, leaning back, I helped her up. It hurt my back.

She turned around, face away from me, and that's when my face got buried in her hair: as

I choked up on those cords, tugging until my back hurt again, I let my elbows bend-for leverage, I thought-and I ended up with my face against the back of her head. Her hair smelled great. It was closer than I could have gotten to her had I tried to hug her, normally, facing her.

The result was, I think, a mixture of lilac and lavender.

"Ted?"

"Yeah?"

"It's not supposed to work like this, something hurts."

"But I've barely started."

"Something hurts."

"Okay. What do we do?"

"Here." She dropped to her knees as I released the cords. She trudged over to the foot of my bed and leaned the upper half of her body against it. "Try it now."

186 I walked up behind her, regained my grip on the cords, and pulled. Standing, I was actually able to pull the two sides of satin together. In my hands, a knot formed itself. I tied a bow on top of it. "How's that?"

She turned her head ninety degrees, looking at me over her left shoulder: "It hurts, but not as bad as it did. I guess maybe it's supposed to a little. I'll be okay."

I watched the skin get red around the lace upper edge. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Can you untie it yourself?"

She tried; she didn't even come close to reaching the cords. Her bent arm made a smacking sound as it fished around her lower back. Pushing off the edge of my bed, she stood up; still no luck. She turned to me: "It's okay; I won't be the one untying it, anyway."

We both smiled, genuinely. We laughed. She dressed and left, still smiling, like she usually did. Her hair smelling great.

The last call I'll ever get from my sister came the next morning, waking me up as usual.

I was awake and clear quicker than usual, though: "Les?''

"Hey babe."

"How was the date?"

"Terrib 1e."

"What? But I thought. .. "

"Yeah, well, we were back at my place and everything, and my clothes hit the floor, and I was standing there in the thing, and ... "

187 "Yeah?" I couldn't believe I heard myself asking, but I just didn't understand what was wrong.

"He asked if we could tum the lights out."

"Oh, no."

"Yeah. I kicked him out. Oh well; there's my excuse to go out next weekend, right?"

I smiled: "Yeah."

"Right. Now get over here and get this thing off of me. I slept in it, and I think it gave me a rash. I'm all itchy. You tie a good knot. I even tried barbecue tongs, but I'm still pretty stuck."

I laughed: "Okay, I'm coming."

"Get here quick, or I'm gonna grab some scissors."

I remember thinking ofthe price tag, and cringing: "I'll be right there."

When I found her, Leslie's face wasn't blue yet, but the skin around all the lace edges, and under those clips on her legs, was darker than the satin. She wasn't moving; I couldn't move her. By the time the ambulance got there-me still shoving her chest and exhaling into her mouth-the lingerie cut to shreds but still, somehow, stretched all around her body, her face had begun to match the rest of her body.

The hospital. The morgue. A nameless, useless doctor.

"Your sister died from protracted suffocation. The garment she was in restricted her blood flow to a degree that it could not re-oxygenate. Even though she could breathe, the air was useless to her. It had no place to go from her lungs. Basically, she clotted so thoroughly that her breathing was useless."

But of course, I'd already guessed-already knew that.

188 The funeral parlor. Mr. MacKenzie.

Out of the shower, dripping on that spot on the floor where she'd fallen, I decided to go back to my bookcase and all of those pictures. I picked up the only one of just her-one I took.

I slid it out the side of the plastic frame and found just what I was pretty sure I remembered

putting there. It was my parents with their arms around each other, holding me. All newborn

and blanketed, I had flinched as my sister had taken the picture. Of course, I don't remember

any of that. I slid that one picture of my sister behind the one of my parents. There were plenty left of Leslie.

Well practiced from all those weekends spent alone, I watched television until what

seemed like a reasonable time to call Mr. MacKenzie. So, it was just a little while ago that he picked up the phone and I asked: "What about the fat?"

"What do you mean?''

"After you suck the fat out of my sister's corpse, does it get buried with her?"

"Mr. Waldrup, if your concern is the burial of your sister's entirety, perhaps you should ignore your financial reservations and opt for the larger. .. "

"It's not the money. There's plenty of that. I just don't want my sister forced into some

fat-person's box. The idea's about as pejorative as the price. So, ifthere's gonna be a chunk of her missing, I want to know what you intend to do with it."

"It's not like we do this all the time; I can't say I really ... I suppose I can make some

inquiries ... "

"Good. I just need to know. Get what information you can, call me back with it, and I'll tell you what we're doing."

189 Since then I've dusted off my whole bookshelf, rearranging a few of the pictures. I'm still waiting for that call. Of course, I've already made my decision, and a backup, but I'll be damned if MacKenzie gets an answer before I get mine. Even though, I'll admit, he asked first.

The thing is, I just want to know how far behind the rest of her that body was. Is. And this-this holding out-seems like a way to maybe get a hint. After that, maybe, I can try to sleep. I guess all along, though, I've known the only two important things for certain. My sister is fat, and I loved her to death.

190 One Bedroom Over

The problem is, calls come in, and she takes them. The song she chose as her ring-tone, "Unchained Melody," just keeps playing and playing if she doesn't pick up, so she does. She talks to Andy. She talks to Steve. She talks to Bill in accounting and always giggles to herself about that. Even when it's just Andy or Steve-and so only marketing or development-she starts listening and forgets to watch and before she knows it she's missed her exit.

She misses her exit.

In the back seat Nathan just keeps asking her if there's any Mountain Dew in the house. Right away, she thinks and says I'm not sure and then she just thinks why wasn't my first impulse to just tum up the stereo and then she thinks about if it should be or not and before she can come to a conclusion the phone rings again. And when she checks the road before looking down to hit SEND and the button below the word "SPEAKER" she realizes that she's gone an exit too far.

"DAMN IT!"

"Mom, that's a quarter for swearing. You have to put a quarter in the jar."

"Yes. I know."

"How can you know; what, did Bill already tell you? I told that little lapdog that I should be the one to break it to you on this one." But that's Steve and he's on speaker­ phone and does he really think she was talking to him and doesn't he understand what it's

191 like to have a kid in the car. And she hates being on the speaker-phone. She values her

privacy. Why did she ever hire him in the first place? Oh yeah he graduated magna from

Stanford and oh yeah she loves him.

Before the call from Steve is over she's gotten off on the next exit and headed

back on the 405 to the 101 exchange that she missed before and then taken the Laurel

Canyon exit back home.

In the driveway everything's all: "What do they mean we can't afford her? She's

an unknown. That's the whole point. To get her known. While she's still cheap. So she

can be too expensive for us the next time we need her. Come on. I think this girl can do it."

"You know I do, too, Syl, but there's just no budget for it. We've gotta trim a

couple of parts. Hers is the first to go. It was only an add-on, after all. It's just fat at this point. Sorry. I know you must hate this."

Walking in the door, letting Nathan in first so he can put his backpack down because it's just too heavy, appreciating Steve's effort to distract (it's one of those million small reasons she loves him and if only she'd married him instead but oh well),

she's all: "Fine. Whatever. It's just that I told her. .. " Nathan is running into the kitchen because he's looking for Mountain Dew because it's his favorite drink and Steve is still talking but she doesn't really want to think about cutting that part anymore and also she's thinking how her car is German and has like a million cylinders or whatever and seat warmers and daytime running lights and something to keep you from skidding but it doesn't warn you when you're about to miss your exit now that would be a car worth what her parents paid for her private, all-girl college.

192 It's hours after that until Daniel comes home.

Daniel comes home and tells her it's not a good idea to drink wine when she's sitting in the hot tub. Something about passing out. His shirt looks bad, but she knows how much it costs so of course it wrinkles easy but it looks like he's eaten three meals while wearing it and he should really work fewer hours but wait. ..

That's. Not., Her. Job.

"Looks like you had a rough day. You can join me ifyou want."

He starts unbuttoning the second and third buttons on his shirt and says: "Nah.

Probably not a good idea."

"Yeah, you're right. I was just trying ... nevermind."

"Yeah." He looks again at the wine glass and then through the glass doors in at

Nathan watching television.

"Don't get the wrong idea; I was just trying to be nice. I don't want you to think that I. .. "

" ... You gonna put Nathan to bed soon?"

She thinks to argue but squares her shoulders and tells herself that that's not her job anymore, either. "Yeah. As soon as I finish this. Say good night now if you want to."

"Good night. Hope ya sleep well." And he turns and starts walking back towards the house.

"Nathan! I meant you should tell Nathan good night."

193 As he pulls the door open and is halfway through it he says, "I know," and closes it.

It's hours after that that Sylvia just can't sleep so she gets up and passes Daniel's door and sees the light on underneath it and knows she shouldn't but she's going to the kitchen and she just wants to know if he'd like her to bring anything back so she knocks and then she knocks again.

"Yeah. Come in."

"Hey. I was just going to the kitchen. I can't sleep. Did you want me to bring you anything back?"

"Nah. I'm okay. I'm going to sleep as soon as this show's over."

And Oh Yeah he's watching TV and, "Okay." And she starts walking back out of the room and then she stops and says: "Y'know, there's a problem with my car."

He sets the glass he's holding down next to the second half of the merlot that's waiting there in the bottle for him to finish drinking himself to sleep. Then he fishes around the sheets for the remote and finds it and hits mute and then turns and looks at her and says: "Really? Well, we can call the eight-hundred number. You wanna do it now?"

"Well, no; I don't know if it needs it but. .. "

"Well you don't wanna fool around with it; if it's the clutch you should really ... "

She's still just standing there and she says: "Do automatics even have clutches?"

And he sits up straighter and says: "Well of course they do. I mean, it's not like my stick, of course, but it still needs a ... "

194 And he keeps going and she's simultaneously not really interested at all but at the same time she's smiling and feeling a warmth in the space between her folded arms and her chest.

" ... Andjust like the clutch on a standard, if it's wearing out it's much cheaper to ... "

She feels just like she used to and she lets him finish and says it's okay I'll deal with it tomorrow and she leaves and closes the door and she hears the TV unmute and doesn't care and turns left towards the stairs but then turns right and back past Daniel's door to the one just beyond it because now she actually feels sleepy and who needs the calories, anyway?

At breakfast the next morning Daniel's irritable and she's pretty sure it's because he's hungover. Nathan is running late for school and is pretending to rush through breakfast by slurping every spoonful ofhis cereal. Each slurp is another little exclamation point on Daniel's headache, which is of course written all over his forehead which of course she sees.

"Hey, do you want some aspirin?"

"Why would I want aspirin?"

"Oh. Right. Of course. No reason. Silly me." Sometimes he manages just barely to stay on the right side of cute with his pretending to be invincible. So she's only thinking: hey let's play then, when she pours second helpings of cereal and milk into

Nathan's bowl. Not that he needs it, only that Daniel is officially on a roll as eye candy, at this point, and she wants to make sure there's plenty of fuel for that fire.

195 And so there's more slurping and more forehead wrinkling and then there's the burning: "Nathan! Stop stuffing your face and get to school."

So Nathan right away gets up and puts his bowl in the sink without rinsing it out because of course he's nine but Sylvia takes a second to hope he's still doing that when he's fifteen and then in another second thinks of all the times she's yelled at Daniel for doing exactly that and how yelling about that was the start of the argument that had ended in his suggestion that they get a divorce.

For something to do while she clears her head of all that and to give Nathan another minute to get his backpack and get into her car and just to give Daniel a hard time for letting his often endearing immaturity slip into that annoying, insensitive, mode that she's sure even the attorneys have noticed, she says: "Hey, that problem with my car, the thing is it doesn't keep me from getting lost."

"That's not the car's doing."

"Okay; I get lost."

"You've lived in this city for fifteen years; how do you get lost?"

"I get distracted. Like when I'm on the phone or something."

"So get off the phone."

"If I did that your company would go bankrupt."

"If you were really all that worried about my financial well being you'd have hired a different divorce lawyer."

"Well, it's half my company, too."

"Two-thirds, ifl listen to your lawyer."

196 "Exactly. So I need to be on the phone. So I need something to help me not get lost."

"You mean like that GPS I told you you'd want when you bought that car?"

"Yeah. Where can I get one now?"

"You can buy one from the dealership, but it's gonna count against your fifty percent."

That's just one too many mentions of the money thing so she says: "Fifty percent, huh? Only if your attorney has a good day," and then walks out to the garage where

Nathan's waiting in the car. As she passes his car, she sees the same GPS he tried to get her to buy right there in his car. In the bottom right comer of the screen is a scratch-and­ sniff sticker that smells and looks like birthday cake that she gave Nathan a whole page of at his party last month. She takes a moment to remember how she used to like how he was one ofthose guys who didn't mind stopping to ask for directions. Right now it just seems like another weakness. A co-dependency, maybe? She'll have to ask someone about that.

Maybe even read a book about that.

No. She definitely will not read one of those awful books. Co-dependents.

Sheesh.

That night there's all the same things: Nathan's still up even though it's far past his bedtime because he drinks Mountain Dew incessantly from the moment he gets home

(all that caffeine ... ); Daniel's in a foul mood because the day's shoot ran longer than he wanted it to and he couldn't communicate his ideas to the actors or they just refused to

197 accept his direction; and Sylvia is tired, too, but not too tired to wish that either of them

were in a better mood. She keeps the television on programs she thinks they would like

and makes sure to laugh loudly as they pass through the room so they have the chance to

recognize the fact that they might want to stay.

Nathan passes through, recognizes a show they've enjoyed together, and sits

down next to Sylvia. "Can I stay up just a little while longer?" "I told you no two hours

ago." Not long after he falls asleep leaning against her shoulder, still holding a half­

drunk can of Mountain Dew in his left hand, she hears the front door open and then shut.

It's hours before the door opens and shuts again. Sylvia has already tucked

Nathan in and set her own alarm but she's still just staring at her ceiling, not sleeping,

because when she checked, yep, Daniel's car was gone. He'd gone out. On a weeknight.

Without saying a word.

Just as she figured, Daniel comes home accompanied by laughter. Four feet make

their way through the front hallway, past Daniel's door, and up the stairs. Sylvia asks herself if she should make her appearance before or after. She opts for before.

She stands at her door, waiting to hear his get opened. She throws hers open, and

stares at the two of them. Of course, she knows both of them: one is still technically

Sylvia's husband and the other one has a contract that technically makes her Sylvia's

employee.

Well, and Daniel's too, for that matter. Sylvia contemplates whether or not to make some biting mention of this fact but decides that it's just too easy. Too cheap. Hm.

And then again.

198 They're all three just staring at each other. Finally, Sylvia stops it: "Really? Our home?''

"Listen. We're separated."

"Not by much."

"That wasn't my idea."

"Right now I wish it wasn't mine, either."

In the morning Sylvia wakes up unsure of whether or not she heard them leaving after she shut her door behind herself (slowly, so as not to wake Nathan). What she doesn't remember is anything coming through the wall. She remembers actually praying for sleep to come just so she could be out before anything came through the wall. All that she wants in the world is one empty chair, out of three, at the breakfast table.

There are two.

With no one to talk to and no one to tell him no Nathan has already finished his bowl of cereal, put it in the sink, and grabbed a Mountain Dew from the fridge.

"Nathan, it's too early for Mountain Dew."

"I've already had breakfast."

"Have you told your father good morning?"

"He was already gone when I got up."

She loves how he gets himself up even though he's only nine. So mature. So independent. "Well, let's get you to school."

When they get in the car Daniel's little GPS board, with the scratch-and-sniff sticker that smells like birthday cake in the comer, is sitting on her seat with a note that says: "Plug it into the lighter after you tum the car on. Don't leave it in; it might run

199 down the battery." It doesn't say "love, Danny" and she's not really very mad right then but she's glad it's absent, just the same. She plugs in the GPS and it turns on all blue with red lines and beautiful. There's an arrow with the title "You Are Here" under it just like at the mall. Who knows if it's actually programmed to beep or whatever if she's about to pass her exit, or if it even knows which exit is hers, because hey, it's not like she ever really needed it, it's just something she's wanted, is all. She smiles, meaning it.

On the way home from work that day, after picking Nathan up from school, he's got a headache from caffeine withdrawal he says. It hurts so bad he's crying, he says.

He says, "Mom, please can we stop and get some Mountain Dew? I haven't had one all day!"

"What happened to your soda money?"

"This kid took it."

She doesn't want to hear the story just then because when she said the word

"money" she reminded herself that she forgot to sign the payroll checks and she goes to call the office but her phone isn't on the console where she usually puts it because the

GPS is there and plugged in and blue and isn't it nice that that's there. She reaches into her jacket pocket for the phone, finds it and flips it open. She hits a button and as it rings she says to Nathan, because she knows she's supposed to: "Did he get your lunch money too?"

But he's crying too much to talk and moaning periodically, too, and his eyes are squinted shut. Gee, he seemed to be telling the truth that time.

200 She pulls off the 405 and up to the first convenience store and walks in while

Steve answers the phone, she doesn't want to have this conversation because ultimately it will mean thinking about Monica but she's a business woman and bigger than that so she listens as Steve says: "Hey! You forgot the checks."

"I know. Send Andy over to my house. I'd come back, but Nathan's sick; I gotta get him home."

"You know he's gonna complain, right?"

"Yeah, just tell him ... " BEEP! BEEP!

Her phone goes BEEP! BEEP! Right in her ear. It's low on power because she never plugged it in that morning and not on the ride home either because the GPS thing was using the socket.

"Steve? I'll have to call you back. My phone's about to go dead."

"Okay."

And she's still got the phone between her shoulder and her ear while she pays the cashier and she hasn't hung up yet because she hasn't had a free hand and she hears Steve yell: "Andy! She wants you to bring the checks to her house! Yeah, now!"

And she's back in her car giving Nathan the Mountain Dew and thinking maybe she can get the phone plugged in before it dies because she just plain hates how long the damn thing takes to tum back on and get a signal or whatever they call it so she rushes to find the plug and employ it.

Sylvia stops right in the middle of opening Nathan's can of Mountain Dew for him. She's got the can in the cup holder and the phone to her ear, calling Steve back. He picks up, and so do Nathan's complaints, all the way to sobbing.

201 "Hi," she says.

"Hey! Got the phone straightened out?" She thinks to herself how nice it is to have people in your life who recognize your voice over the telephone. Then again, though, he knew she was calling back. "Listen," Steve says, "Monica's check. Do you want me to just take care of that one?"

"Steve. Come on. I can at least act like I don't care." After getting this out, she decides to find a free hand to finish opening Nathan's soda. That effort's interrupted, though, by the next thing Steve says: "I mean, I could even make the books say that we don't owe her anything at all. .. That little bitch. Who would she be without you; who would Dan be? When I think of all you gave up for that asshair. .. ,"the creative twists

Steve throws into his curses usually make her laugh, but this time all she can think about are the two, dulling, full-color posters that throw her face back at her from across her office. Steve may be looking at them, she thinks. She has copies in a closet at home, though, if she really wants to waste time staring at them today.

At this point, Nathan's sobbing is almost entirely just moaning, but he sucks a huge breath up through his nose and the sound is like an engine failing to start. She pulls out of the parking lot and back on to the 405.

"I know you think it's better for Nathan, and it keeps Dan from running off with anything before the papers are final, but I'm not sure that's worth what you're putting yourselfthrough ... What's that, Andy?"

"Andy's still there?"

"What?" Steve actually waits for an answer, for a change.

202 "Why is Andy still there? I told you to send him over. Now get him out of there."

No way she wants to start working the kinds ofhours Daniel does. Especially if it's going to be at her home. Some things should be finished as soon as possible.

Sylvia just hangs up the phone and hands Nathan the unopened Mountain Dew without even looking at him. His crying is entirely too loud.

She flies past a billboard of "Gabrielle" the woman who's never been in a movie but puts her picture on every space she can afford. In her own way she's the biggest star in Hollywood. She gets more face time than the A-list. She's even on buses. Syl's phone rings. "Unchained Melody" is only bleeps from somewhere inside her phone but she hears the words in her head: "Oh my love," blah blah blah, "I hunger," beep beep deet deet, "for your touch."

It's Steve. "Hey! What happened to you?" His voice is wrong. Not what she knows as his voice. "Did we get disconnected?" Click click click is Nathan's thumb on the can's top which he can't seem to open. He refuses concession, though, in his pursuit ofthe same.

"Make sure Andy brings Monica's check with him."

"Oh, Syl, hon, now come on. Don't you think that's just a little more than you should even have to deal with today?"

"What do you mean?''

"Oh. Nothing. Just that, well ... "

"I can sign my own name."

"Well, of course."

203 "How did you even hear about this?"

"What?" Nathan's can pops open with a hissing announcement. The cadence of it, Syl thinks to herself, isn't unlike applause.

"How did you know about Monica and Daniel?"

"Oh, well Andy and Monica were. Well, before ... You know, the grapevine.

Andy and Monica are kind of... "

"N evermind."

"Oh. Right. Of course. I never should have said anything ... "

Another Gabrielle whizzes by. Three in a row, actually. Each in slightly different poses. The overall result closely resembles movement.

"I just thought that should be the last thing on your mind, I mean, considering how it's kind oflike you how you and Daniel. .. "

" ... Really, Steve, the last thing on my mind?"

She hangs up, passing three more Gabrielle billboards but not her exit. The phone is plugged in but sitting unused on the passenger seat next to the GPS with the black screen. She pulls into her driveway but not her garage before the phone rings and the caller ID says it's Daniel and she puts the car in park, half-on and half-off of the driveway, and just sits there and listens to Nathan's slurping ofthe Mountain Dew get intermittently drowned out by "Unchained Melody" and as it plays and plays it sounds less like a song and more and more like a series of senselessly juxtaposed irritations.

204 Special Weapons and Tactics

You watch her pull her thong up over the black heels she never took off and under her leg-hugging skirt-knees clinched together, hips jerking from side to side-and you realize two things: first, this is the only person you've had sex with that you've never seen naked; second, according to one of those cardinal rules of fashion, the midnight blue of her underwear clashes with her black outfit in a way that men are forgiven for being blind to but women are expected to know to resist, intrinsically, so, clearly, she wasn't thinking when she got dressed this morning. This is perfectly understandable; today was the day she'd scheduled to tum off her father's life support. Speaking of which, scattered somewhere on the floor is the Release/Transfer Approval form you'd brought in for her to sign, but it's mixed in with the innumerable prayer guides that formerly occupied the table you just used, so it might take a minute to find. With your hand on the light switch, you try to gauge her expression in an effort to predict whether or not she's ready for the light to be back on. Despite the fact that you gave her quite a lot of time after the final procedure (about a halfhour, maybe forty-five minutes; you remember thinking it was just a tad longer than the standard) it's anybody's guess how long a person will need to make peace with something like that. Even a mourner in the acceptance stage of grief usually isn't prepared to function productively in the normal current of society. But you can't let this situation get the best of you. As much as it irks you, and as much as you hate to lay this on her right now, there's still business to attend to, and you can't afford

205 any more administrative attention on you any time soon. So, a dilemma faces you. All that there's room for in the closet-small, hospital chapel is two chairs against one wall facing that waxy coffee table on the other wall with just a foot or two between them, and maneuvering your way around that space in search of anything would, will, be absolute hell. Making matters worse, the votive she lit before you arrived is flickering, and that might call attention, via the shimmering under the door. Sure, it's locked, but who knows how many nurses have a key, and after all it's their job to tend to things like burning candles and things of that nature in apparently unoccupied rooms. The look you see, though, when you check out her face, is too complex for you to be comfortable guessing at an interpretation. It's clear that she feels really, really, bad; that much you know. That much you can relate to. The question on your mind, in her case, is exactly why.

"I'm afraid you might be regretting what just happened," you say.

She doesn't say anything; she fidgets with the zipper on the back of her dress, which reminds you of yours.

While tending to your pants, you offer: "Well, I want you to know you shouldn't."

More silence in response.

"There's a perfectly natural connection between sex and death. Everybody feels it." You clear your throat after just barely getting that out, and put your weight on your forward foot, ready to lean in for a hug if she gives an insinuating signal. You let your hand linger on the light switch, though.

She makes an adjustment of her bra, gripping its wire frame at points just underneath her breasts and tugging around a bit.

206 "People talk about it a lot," you offer, "some might even say it's trite at this point, but you know what they say about cliches and truth ... ," and you're so stupid that you actually smile after that, failing to consider the possibility that she wouldn't be. Rather, she buttons her shirt (its line still crisp all the way to the point where it slides into the waist of her skirt) all the way up to one button higher than it was when you entered the poorly ventilated chapel. The slow precision ofher fingertips' sliding of the buttons and their holes endues her with a grace that imbues you with guilt.

Nothing else to lose, you venture-in as lilting a tone as you can manage: "In

French they call orgasms 'the little death."' Pronouncing the actual French would be a classy move, at this point, but you contemplate the accent of the first syllable for a moment and the whole thing escapes you.

The jovial intention of your comment does not escape her. One comer of her smile glows in the inconstant candlelight.

She begins to return her auburn, smells-of-jasmine hair to its previous bun.

Winding her hands around the top of her head over and over again, the impression is of someone trying to start a toy.

You realize how long you've been staring and rush to look anywhere else. Where your eyes end up is down. Your shirt needs buttoning, too; the hair on your chest, even in low light, shows through the supposedly-rich weave. You should've worn an undershirt. The silence nearing the length of the stare, you break it: "All that intellectualism, though, those critics, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. Sex, death, none of it's as complicated as chess or baseball if you boil it down. It's just a matter of the

207 essentials, the inevitable, and what proportions people perceive them in. Put them in, too,

I guess. Games people play, you know," and you look to her.

Her hair is fixed, and she is still, staring at you. You see a tendon in her neck twitch and her lips part. She is about to say something; avoiding that risk, you hurry to clarify: "Not necessarily with each other. I mean, that's every movie you've ever seen ... "

She's still staring, her neck relaxed.

"Or books, or magazines. And I guess that's true to an extent, but what I mean is with themselves. The tricks people play on themselves, that they should act this way or feel this thing; it's really terrible if you think about it." Who taught you to talk? You esteemed yourself educated once. And sure, you snagged a couple of pills from the drug locker this morning, but no more than usual Gust enough to get through what you knew would be a bad day, with the scheduled cessation, that is), so that's no excuse.

You forgot where you were for a minute. The light switch. You flip it on, watching her wince. Somehow avoiding doing so yourself. You notice your coat, your name embroidered bright red over the pocket, sitting in and hanging over one of the two chairs. That will have to get picked up at an appropriate moment.

You know her attention hasn't shifted from the new, intruding light yet. "Sorry about that," you say.

She stops blinking and stares at you again; unreadable, again.

The next thing that happens is her picking her purse up. Her picking her purse up off of the other of the two chairs-lacquered wooden handles, small black bag; her

208 focusing the entirety ofher attention on that singular, simple effort-is the saddest thing you have ever seen.

This isn't fair. She came on to you. Didn't say a word. Just shoved the door closed behind you, threw an arm around your neck, and plunged her tongue into your mouth. Sure, you locked the door. Sure, you'd rhapsodized her beauty to your friends for weeks, now. Sure, you gave up wearing your wedding ring a few months ago, but that didn't mean this was your fault. The intention was all hers.

Your defense: "Of course, the obsequy you ordered for him ... ," her stare returns to you with an energy, a will, that just wasn't there before, "I heard you on the phone; it's clear you've got some religious leanings, which are probably all his fault, in the first place, so there's a psychological quality you shouldn't take for granted, but you ought to realize that, at root, those are all just social constructs. They only mean what meaning you give them."

"I'm an atheist," she says, "just like my father was."

"But you ... ," is all you can get out. You're not sure, just then, if you care, again, about what you let out. In the interim, resulting silence, she takes a cigarette out ofher purse and lights it up.

"He was an asshole, too." Cocking her head toward the wall of the chapel opposite the door, she shoves a cloud of smoke out of her mouth, and continues her motion fluidly, bringing her left shoulder against your right, and lays a soft, second-long kiss on your lips.

She stares at you with that energy again, purpose and vigor that wasn't even there as your hands were dug into her thighs. You remember how you noticed that, though her

209 ass had looked great, you could definitely feel a little bit of flab on her legs. Maybe even some cellulite.

Your remembrance is interrupted by the last word you will ever hear her speak:

"Thanks," and she leaves, with the forethought to unlock the door before trying the handle.

You let it close, and you drop into the newly vacated chair next to your lab coat.

The candle floats in its own puddle, but persists. You should get to your rounds, but there are papers and pamphlets all over the floor, and they need ordering. You lean over to pick them up.

210 Filled to Overflowing

Whenever he gets lonely, he starts throwing knives. There's a tree behind the house he rents, to which he's nailed an old cross-section of trunk, and he fills it-fairly regularly, really-with holes.

The knives are kept in a bucket, point up, but James keeps telling himself that one day, one of these days, he'll get around to preparing them some proper sort of receptacle.

Perhaps something rawhide, where they could all slip through designated slots, and hang in a row on a wall when the leather was unfurled. But for now, they all sit in a bucket;

James has a bad habit of failing to keep track ofhis sheaths.

Phthunk.

Another knife enters the little circle of former tree, and James feels a little bit better. He picks up his bucket, and leaves it in his garage just before climbing into his truck to go to work. The one knife that James landed that morning gets left there in the target at least until James gets home.

James works in a box factory. It's not so much working, though, as it is checking-up on work. Other people, in conjunction with various machines, oversee and undertake the corrugation of various recycled materials into the boxes James monitors.

Finished sheets come replete with perforations and indentations so that the recipients

(usually in factories of their own) of the bundles ofboxes-which these sheets eventually represent-can cut and fold their own boxes, as use necessitates. It's James' job to make

211 sure that appropriate numbers ofbundles ofboxes reach and leave the loading dock each day. James counts the bundled boxes as they come in; James counts how many go out.

All of this is recorded. James makes checks on a checklist, testifying to the fact that both the box-making and James' own counting has been done. It's a good job--one he can do even with a migraine.

This is not the entirety of James' work, but it is the bulk.

"Those belong on the next row over," James says to Vern (a relatively new forklift operator with a bulbous shock of hair surrounding his head like a misplaced bush), and jerks his head at the row of shelves marked "small" just beyond the idling machine. He holds a clipboard that he holds all day, which holds, itself, the sheets of paper that James spends all day filling out: checking boxes to record his checking of the boxes. As he lashes another check onto the page, his stomach makes a noise so loud that it threatens to reach Vern even over the forklift's engine.

On the return trip from properly placing the bundle of small boxes, Vern pauses the forklift, and yells to James: "You wanna get some lunch?"

Even from the forklift, Vern's breath languishes in so much alcohol that James pictures it as some pale suggestion of organic geometry sitting in a jar on a shelf somewhere. James says: "No. Not really."

Vern's work shirt is almost as wrinkled as James'. Vern's pants, though, are not.

On the factory's lunch hour, James stays in his office, and calls his mom: "How's it feel today?"

"Fine. I suppose." She doesn't go on.

James tells his mom about how his day has been.

212 After reviewing, for his mother, the memos that greeted him on his desk that morning, James says: "What's more, one of my guys asked ifl wanted to go to lunch today, so I had to tell him ... "

"Well, I've gotta go; talk to you tomorrow," his mother interrupts.

"I mean, it wouldn't have mattered anyway; the guy's a drunk. I wouldn't have really wanted ... " James says to the phone.

"Hey James, you coming to lunch?"

He turns, seeing Kara at the door. She works under him.

"No," James says, "I brought a sandwich," and he points at his desk, where a bag sits in the bottom drawer.

"Every day, huh?"

James says: "What," genuinely not quite understanding.

And Kara walks away.

James sits at his desk and eats his sandwich. He keeps his clipboard just to the right of the half of the sandwich that he isn't working on. He turns to his computer.

In the electronic file folder marked "films" is a list of things he's enjoyed before and knows that he can enjoy again. A blockbuster featuring an explosive, but character­ driven car chase occupies the remaining thirty minutes of his lunch hour. It's called

Extreme Malice. When a bell rings, James crumples up his wax-paper wrapper, turns off his computer, and returns his attention to the clipboard.

He walks among the rows of shelves that hold the bundles of boxes. Twelve rows. Four for each size ofbox. James counts the bundles, stacked to the ceiling, monitoring how quickly the boxes make it to the shelves and how quickly they're

213 removed. He knows he spends an inordinate amount of time between the two rows of small-box shelves, and he tells himself that it's because the bundles of smaller boxes are more numerous and therefore take longer to count, but the clock is on that aisle, and he knows (he admits to his mom, upon occasion) that he likes to watch it.

At home, he has a muted orange, cloth-lined recliner. The right arm has a wear spot that keeps James from holding his remote in just the spot he likes. The wood that's come through is coarse, and it's just not pleasant, so the remote rests in his hand in his lap. His left hand stays on the left arm of the chair as he watches television. Often,

James' left hand likes to hold a root beer float. In such a moment, the evening after

Vern's invitation to lunch, James walks his hand to the kitchen to procure said soda and

Ice cream.

His ice cream already foaming and floating in his glass, James opens the door to the left of his refrigerator. Behind the door are James' washing machine and clothes dryer. As tall as they are, a pile of jeans, work slacks, work-shirts, underwear and t-shirts equals their height. All of these clothes are clean; James simply doesn't get around to folding them. The pile precludes any entry into what would otherwise be James' laundry room. His ice cream eroding on the counter behind him, James removes the undershirt he's worn all day, leans over the pile of clean clothes, and deposits the damp, used article into the washing machine. It falls on top of the day's work-shirt and pajamas from the night before.

From the top of the pile, James selects at-shirt, dons it, and tisks at its tightness.

He shuts the laundry room door and returns to his ice cream. And, shortly thereafter, to his television, a show he'd hoped to watch having only then just started.

214 On a channel about history James watches a special about the first English colony in America, and how it disappeared completely, leaving a one-word, carved note that made absolutely no sense to those who eventually came looking for them. For whatever reason, this reminds James of the various notes written dn the factory's bathroom stalls.

"Those who write ... ," "J.W. and P.T. forever," and "The FERN was here," all make for interesting, albeit limited reading. They keep the connection between the factory and high school-which James sees no point in denying-fresh in his head. Sometimes there's even a drawing or two. Permanent-marker renderings of the management are popular. As are breasts. James laughed all day the time he sat down and noticed a picture ofhimselfwith a perky set of fetching mammary protrusions. The anonymous artists had depicted them supporting the weight of his clipboard. "If only," James remembers thinking.

At nine o'clock that night, missing the last ten minutes of the special on early

America in order to drive there, James attends a "Prayer Meeting in The Spirit of the

Unification of Faiths" in the gymnasium of the high school he attended about two decades previously.

Dorothy Kay Heller, a self-proclaimed "concerned citizen" and deacon at her own church, begins the meeting of the thirty or so "fellows in prayer" with a clearing of her throat: "Well, friends, I don't know if it's a good or bad sign that we only have eight names on our prayer list tonight, but it does mean we have plenty of time to devote to each one."

Normally, the meeting consists almost entirely of Dorothy beginning the meeting, and then everyone else bowing their heads to listen as she reads through a list of names

215 one or two pages long (if instances of rustling are any indication). She usually waits a minute or two between names, during which Dorothy invites everyone to offer any

"vocal" prayer they feel moved to, but offering, herself, the assurance that it's okay to remain silent, too. Almost every week, Dorothy explains that that's how it was done when she was a child in Pennsylvania, and how that seemed to work just fine.

Usually, everyone takes Dorothy up on her offering of silence.

Sometimes, though, Marge Bajer interjects: "Thank you, Jesus." Especially right after those rare times-maybe once in a given meeting-when someone else has just shared a prayer ofher own.

"Yes. Thank you, Jesus," Dorothy adds.

In the previous weeks, though, the prayer list has grown shorter and shorter

That night, the first name Dorothy reads is "Pastor George Gorwin," and it's followed by a couple of gasps and James opening his eyes to see others' opened, too.

"Yes," Dorothy, head still bowed, eyes still closed, explains, "Pastor Gorwin, of our own First United, was taken to the hospital this morning, suffering from a partial diabetic stroke."

"Oh. He's struggled so long," Marge Bajer laments.

"Yes, he has," Dorothy says, lifting her head, "All the more reason he needs our strength, now," she offers.

Ashley Collins, one of the other six men in the group (the one who sits next to

James), his eyes open, asks: "Can we visit?"

"I'm sure the pastor would appreciate that, Ashley; you can see me after the meeting for the necessary information," Dorothy directs.

216 Everyone falls silent again.

James watches eyes close. Finally closes his.

Many minutes pass. James ignores his stiffening knee. The tingling buttock.

Finally, Dorothy continues the session: "And we pray, also, for James' mother, Enid

Henchliff."

James, as always, makes sure to keep his eyes closed, his head down. He always feels caught when others see him staring when their loved ones' names are called.

Dorothy doesn't say anything after "Henchliff," and the silence begins, but it's soon interrupted by the chunk-chunk of one of the double doors opening, and Kara, from work, standing in the resulting opening, and James looking at Dorothy watching Kara ask: "Am I too late?"

Kara, like Dorothy (and only four or five of the other women present), wears a dress.

"Of course not," Dorothy concedes.

Phyllis Welter turns the folding chair next to her toward the center of the circle and empties it, as it had previously been facing her and holding her purse, and pats the seat as she nods at Kara. Kara sits in the offered chair, asking Dorothy, "Did you get this week's prayer list? I'm sorry I was so late e-mailing it. .. "

"Got it just fine, we were just praying for Mrs. Henchliff," Dorothy instructs.

James refrains from correcting her-Ms. Henchliff. He thinks of how it might have been to have a last name of only one syllable, and then remembers that he'd rather his eyes were closed and returns his head to its bow after a quick glance at Kara, who offers him a wink and a full smile heavy with sad eyes.

217 With a click-actually, two-the door Kara entered finally finishes closing. Its pneumatic hinge is slow. Funny that the door should be so loud. James realizes that where he's looking and what he's hearing are, at that moment, two different things.

James moves his eyes, looking for something to look at. The color of the legs of

Kara's chair-the only part James can see-reminds him of the color ofboxes, but lighter. The turquoise of her dress complements it nicely.

Kara joined the group a couple of months before, volunteering responsibility for the prayer list as soon as Dorothy announced the need for the filling of an opening.

Immediately, Dorothy recorded and dispersed Kara's phone number and addresses­ electronic and otherwise-to the pen-and-napkin bearing group. Kara made fast friends with all of them, but it would be a few weeks before James offered his mother's name to this relative stranger, this woman he'd met in the factory, whose productivity he monitored, but whom he'd personally never hired, didn't really know.

James fingers his keys in his pocket, careful not to let them jingle. Before too long, he resumes the clasp of his hands.

The silent prayers for Mrs. Henchliffproceed silently, Kara's head bowed and eyes closed.

James makes it through the meeting-the rest of his mother's time, Jim Nacen with the newly-severed fingers, Jim Welter, Senior, still fighting cancer, Dax Frith whose arm was broken in a Little League mishap, and all the rest-without glancing at Kara or

Dorothy again, even as the latter presses through her usual closing: "And, in closing, we

218 pray for our President and other leaders, for guidance and support for them, in these difficult times for our country."

Dorothy has prayed for the President since his election, when he removed the incumbent who'd hailed from their own, small town, who'd have seemed to warrant the term "ours" even more so than the current incarnation, but who was the subject of

Dorothy's prayers only on select occasions. Lately, James could see Dorothy's eyes widen, even under the closed lids, as she said the phrase "our President." It made James smile, the secrecy of that little show for which he seemed to be the only audience.

Dorothy excited was like the sun at night; you weren't supposed to see it. He'd spent years in the prayer group--and, earlier, at her church-before James knew to watch for reaction in Dorothy. The glimmer, the flicker, the way it excited him, was worth, he told himself, even necessitated, the wait.

As Dorothy pumps her clasped hands twice, to the cadence of a-men, the rest of the group joins her, and James wiggles his toes in anticipation of departure. He stands as everyone else does, and as usual, is the first out of the double doors. In the periphery of his perception, he tracks Ashley's movement toward Dorothy. Jim Hood seems to follow, listening. As he passes through them, James hears Kara saying: "Actually, about

Ms. Henchliff... ,"and James walks on to his truck.

At home, James stays up late enough to catch the cable channel's second showing of the special on the first British American colony. As soon as it ends, he hurries to the bathroom and back, just in time to catch a special on early Spanish ports in the Gulf of

Mexico. At one of the second show's commercials, James calls his mother, and waits through many rings for: "James? Is that you?" James knows that his mother knows it is

219 him. She insists on both having and employing a caller ID machine. James, accordingly, bought it for her, for the birthday before her last. "Yeah Mom, it's me."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to tell ... "

"Then why'd you call now? I could've been napping. You know that."

"I'm sorry; it's just that I saw this show, and I thought you might ... "

"James, are you calling me about a television show?"

"Yeah; it's on now."

"I've got my own shows on now honey. Call at our time tomorrow."

James listens to the dial tone, then returns to his show just as its break ends.

James left hand pulls at lose threads on its side of the chair. His belly rumbles.

He refuses even to use the bathroom at the expense of more ofthe show. His fascination, ultimately, eclipses all of these distractions. He smiles as he watches.

The Spanish conquer Indians. The French, after a point, are conquered too. At one point England prevails, but the United States emerge. After that show, the channel switches to infomercials, and James goes off to bed.

James lies awake, failing to stare at the ceiling he can't see in the dark. The veracity of country dark, the factory's third-shift lights the only interruption (and those far away), leaving the night outside of James' windows fully night. It's nice to not be able to stare at his bedroom ceiling. It's a safeguard against insomnia.

After rhapsodizing, silently and briefly, the absent burden of impinged sleep,

James lulls in the memory of a one-time family trip, east to Alabama. The Space Center he'd wanted to see had been the better part of a day's drive, but his mother remained

220 enthusiastic upon arrival. They took four rolls of pictures that day: in front of rockets;

dangling from statues; picnicking in the grass. Lunch was freeze-dried ice cream. They both decided it was even better that way. Later, James and his mother had to wait in a long, noisy line, to touch the one touchable moon rock present. A group of children-in

Space Camp, their t-shirts declared-clogged the way, taking their time. James, in his insomnia, still remembers their unchecked pointing and calling, the really cool sneakers.

In one room of the museum, James paused for a photograph-a trick of perception-that suggested he was wearing a space suit. A block he stood on leveled his head with that of a large glass dome, itself perched atop only the front half of an astronaut

suit. In the photograph James still has, glare from the helmet masks most ofhis face. In

other years, James would see simpler, plywood and painted versions of the very same illusion.

Enid, then, had James take a picture of her in the mock-up apparatus. Her face would come out fine, perfectly perceptible.

For the show in the planetarium, Enid bought them not only two sodas and

popcorn, but two white-cherry icees, as well. Upon sitting down and slurping, she made

a funny face at her immediate brain freeze. "It hurts," she said through a laugh. "Must be good," she decided, as always. James held his two drinks the entire time, thinking the

floor dirty but even more not wanting to risk knocking one over. The school children were told to be quiet when the performance started. Various other tourists, mostly young

couples, crunched popcorn in a rhythm James found he could kick his legs to.

Before the show was over, James had noticed Enid sleeping at least twice.

221 In the car ride home, James was sick to his stomach, and happy. His mother sang along to the radio, occasionally making sure with James that he wasn't so sick that she should stop. "Should I stop? Am I making it worse?"

"No. Keep going. I just wanna get home," James said, twelve.

"No, Shug, I just wanted to know if I should stop singing."

"No. It's okay."

She turned down the radio, and he heard her voice in his direction: "If you urp in the car I'm never letting you eat ice cream for lunch again."

"Maybe that's a good idea." Outside the window were the fences of farms. Signs for small roads. The radio and his mother, both, stayed quiet.

Young grass from outside announced its presence through the car's rattling-but­ working air conditioner. Passing a paper mill, Enid shut off the air and scrunched her cheeks up around her eyes.

"I had a good time. Thanks Mom. For driving and all."

The radio murmured. Enid turned the air back on. It rattled over the radio.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. It was great." She'd bought him a plastic rocket you were supposed to be able to really shoot off. He picked it up off the floorboard. The tips of its fins left dimples in his thumb as he poked, bending them gently left and right.

She turned the radio back up.

"You think this is a good station?"

"I don't know; what else is there," was the best answer he could give.

She flipped through the dial a whole tum forward and another, whole tum back.

222 "Nothing," she decided.

"Must be good then," he smiled.

She smiled. Some miles later, she was singing again.

He lies in bed, ceasing his memory. He's hungry, but to walk in to the kitchen is to look at the laundry room, or at least its door, and its reminder of all that laundry that needs folding. It's useless. He can't sleep, but he goes on failing to stare, and eventually to sleep.

Hours later, James wakes up, remembering that he forgot to buy cereal the day before, and, thus, realizing he'll have to go without it once again. He remembers the stomachache and the headache that chased him into his lunch hour the day before, and heads out to the back yard, still in his pajamas. Barefoot.

Whenever he gets anxious, he starts throwing knives.

He remembers the knives in the garage, and shuffles to retrieve them.

He returns to the usual spot, sets down his bucket, and selects a knife. He grips it from the tip. He breathes in the target, he swears the dark rings smell like peeled oranges still uncut, the rest, most of it, like a fresh-mopped floor. He swears he can smell them both at the same time. He picks up two more knives by their tips. They wait in his left hand.

The houses around him are small, like his. Big yards. All separated by chain link fences of varying heights. To his right is his house. As far as James is from the target, the target is from the fence behind it. The same distance as that which separates James from the fence to his left. Not to mention the fence to his back.

223 He's quite a ways, though, from his house. Deep yards, not quite as wide. Divots in the bark around the target chronicle other anxious mornings. He needs to get dressed soon.

He throws.

Phthunk. Phthunk. Pting.

He misses the third, and walks across the yard to pick it up. Its handle, he decides, is too weighty for the blade to be a good throwing knife. James' technique involves gripping the tip ofthe blade, and throwing it flat, so that the sides of a blade, as opposed to its edges, face the target as the knife tumbles, end over end, into it.

If James opted for a style that let edges face the target, the distribution of the knife's weight wouldn't be such a problem, but the arc of the throw would be. James prefers the flat throw. The knife travels more slowly, and he can watch it as it tumbles tip over butt over tip.

James picks up the knife of the one errant throw, cocks his eye at its dozen-or-so partners still in the bucket, and carries the blade he's holding all the way to the trash can in the kitchen.

James dresses from the top of the pile, digging around only briefly for a certain matching sock; James goes to work.

On Vern's forklift, James has a problem. James takes bundles ofboxes off the uppermost of one stack of shelves and moves them to another. Where the boxes that should be on the other shelf are, he still doesn't know. The engine fills his ears.

Somewhere on it, leaked oil is burning on a crank case or valve. He shifts the forklift into neutral, the tusks into a vertical climb.

224 "Boss?! What're you doing up there?" Vern's aromatic approach announces him nearly as potently as his voice does.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"What?"

It's a cordial conversation, despite the fact that it's conducted in yells. James shuts off the engine. "You put small box bundles where the medium boxes go. Where were you?"

"Lunch." His eyes close as his head rocks.

"Get up here."

"Sure thing, boss." James descends from the forklift, making room for the stammer that is Vern approaching the operator's seat. One foot mounting the cockpit's iron cage, V em rocks backwards. One hand swings widely away from the machine, the other loses its grip, and V em heads for the floor.

James steps forward and catches him from behind-James' arms under V em's shoulders. The weight of Vern is enough that James folds his hands together in the center ofVem's chest; he aims to endure, even as Vern slackens. For a moment, Vern's head rests on James's shoulder, but the smell ofVem's hair is a bitter sting that James hates to suffer even in small, conversational doses. With strands of the malodorous mop riding the crests ofbreath up his nose, James drops Vern on his ass.

This wakes Vern up.

V em raises his head to stare at James, whose nose is scrunched up as close to a ball as possible. "Sorry about that," one of them says, followed by the other.

The first thing James thinks of is how he wants to wash his hands and face.

225 The second thing James thinks of is the sentence: "You need a nap and a shower; go home," and so he says just that to Vern as he walks into the nearest restroom as Vern stares at his own, reticent legs. The pants covering them are flat, even creased, but his shirt is variously tucked in and hanging out, the tips of its collar individually pointing up and down. Clearly, he tends to sleep in it. His hair has begun to stain the back of the collar. Vern's rapt, downward stare only pretends to assess the issue the same way as

James'. Vern's eyes might as well be closed. He's not quite asleep, but he has ceased to perceive.

Whenever James gets angry, he starts throwing knives.

Of course, that cannot happen now. Sometimes release has to wait.

The open stall door reflects into the bathroom mirror seemingly new messages and pictures, large and colorful, adorning the walls above the john. In reverse, James thinks, the bathroom doodles look like the paintings he's seen in books. He stares at them for some time before finally washing up. He returns to his office without really reading anything, only seeing it.

Back in his office, James rings his mother, but there's no answer. The clock says one-eighteen, just past the hour in which Enid asks that he call. He lets it ring, hoping to avoid any hostility during the next day's conversation, but ultimately hearing only a recorded operator.

He tries again a couple of minutes later, hoping to catch her during a commercial.

He gets a busy signal.

He slams down the phone and turns on his computer. His head hurts. Even spins a little. He realizes for the first time that he forgot to eat dinner the night before. The

226 float had been only temporarily filling. Twenty-four hours of neglect twist him inside, and James checks first the clock and then his memory of the crowds and their trends at the employee cafeteria. When James looks out his office window, Vern is still sitting in the middle of the factory floor, waving to a passing co-worker.

His head swims, and he turns down the volume on Extreme Malice. He knows the scene that's playing is always too loud for him; what on Earth possesses him to tum it up so loud in the first place? All the same, the film and a candy bar from the vending machines near his office carry him through most of the rest of his lunch hour. At some point, he looks out his office window and V em is finally gone.

"James," the voice says, and James wakes up facing the clock on his desk that says there are five minutes left of his lunch hour.

Not looking at his office doorway, James says: "I'm still on break."

"Sorry; I can come back." It's Kara, and James looks at her.

"No. Wait. What did you need?" James clicks stop on his computer, Extreme

Malice immediately ceases its hushed playback.

She turns back around, and steps back inside the door, but still not all the way to his desk.

"Well, I was wondering why you didn't want to come. I thought maybe it was me. And if that's the case then I can just..."

"Wait. What?" James sits up, his back flush with the chair, working against the cramping that sleep left behind.

227 "The lunch. Your mom said you didn't want to come, but she didn't say why. I

thought maybe it was me."

"What? What lunch?"

"We were going to lunch today. She's off that one medication, you know, so she

can have dairy again, so I was taking you guys to that place with the great milkshakes?"

Her explanations reach James's ears in question form.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"We've been talking about it for a couple of days. Didn't she mention it to ... "

"Who's we?"

"Enid and I."

"Since when do you talk to my mother?"

For a moment, Kara is quiet. Then, though: "James, I'm sorry ifl've upset you.

As part of the prayer service I, well ... if you think it wouldn't be ... "

"When did you talk to my mother?"

"Well, it was just now that she said you didn't want to go. But we planned this a

couple days ago." James stares at her. "I mean, I've been going to see her for weeks; I just assumed she mentioned ... ," James just stares at her, "I thought you two talked every

day ... "

James stands up, his hands lingering on the clipboard on his desk. Shuffling it

around. Picking it up. "Do us both a favor and shut up."

Kara takes a moment to look shocked. James watches her cross her arms; it

strikes him as put on. "I'm sorry," she says, "I just. .. "

228 "Stop talking!" He points at her with the hand holding the clipboard, and the papers it holds spring free from the binding, aluminum lip. They flutter to the ground as

James and Kara watch them. James' eyes first try to follow them all, but eventually settle on a single sheet as it falls to rest. He continues to stare at it as he says: "You should know better. That's nobody's business."

James doesn't tell her to get out; she leaves anyway, quickly. She says something as she turns to leave that James doesn't even really bother to try to hear.

James works very, very late that night, undoing the work Vern managed in the first half of the day. He does not look at the clock. Afterward, on, first, the way out to his truck and then his ride home, James notes the slickness of the streets and knows what to expect. The images begin long before they're even nearly really there. Inside the factory, he never even heard the rain.

Rather than enter his house, he walks around to the back of it. James turns on his porch light, and a cloud ofbrightness refracts all over his dewy, backyard air. Right at the spot he stands in to throw, his bucket ofknives sits, beads of water clinging to its sides, some silt at its base. He walks over to it. The water inside is only a few inches high, but dirty. Dirt from the handles. From his hands. From misses. There's even one or two blades of grass. How he let those get in there he doesn't know and shakes his head at himself. It's just like he anticipated in the truck, just like finding her in the tub.

The swirling. His own hesitance to touch anything. Even after a dozen years, his hands feel empty, and guilty because of that.

He grabs a handful of knives-by the blades, the hilts, whatever his fingers land on.

229 Some of the hilts, leather-wrapped, sog heavy with absorption. Cohesion.

Bugs around the porch light flutter shadows all over the yard, as if the moon, unwatched, is really a flag in the wind.

He starts throwing knives. He empties the bucket ofknives, missing most of the

throws, but letting his eyes perpetually re-focus, locked, on the droplets that explode off

of the knives as they fly and, similarly, at the momentary prisms that result. They nearly

enable him to ignore the slight glitch he detects in his technique. He's pulling his power.

Checking what would otherwise be a strong delivery. He throws until the calluses on his

fingertips are broken, but there's no getting rid of the tic.

He picks up each knife and wipes it on his pants. None, though, get either clean

or dry before he carries them inside with him to the recliner.

The knives sit with him for hours staring at a blank television. He tries to

remember words that he's thinking but can't quite say. They're not in his usual

vocabulary, but he's heard them. It takes a while, but he knows he can muster them.

His body grows hot with his mind's work. He removes his shirt and drops it on

the floor to the left of the recliner. He kicks his shoes out from under his feet in the same

direction. His undershirt clings to his neck, but the fabric is soft. At one point, James

succumbs to the fact that it's too late for anything but infomercials, and turns on the

television. It's not too bad; certain of the rhythms, even, strike James as familiar. One

might even consider it a study.

When James gets out of the chair and walks towards his bed, the sun is long since

up and seeping, filling the house even after he draws the curtains. He leaves the knives

230 on the floor next to the chair, and two ideas carved into its right arm: "VIVACIOUS" and, under that, "INVASIVE".

231