Red House, Winter

The house looked like any other red brick farmhouse except for the ornamental cornice above each window. These were done in the oriental style and seemed exotic to me. It seemed out of place in this village, which was far from exotic and closer to safe, conservative and, to me, boring.
I stood on the sidewalk across the street and measured the view. It was winter, 1924, and the snow piled across the eaves, threatening to smother the oddity with the bland sameness that had so successfully routed adventure in every corner of this place.
I wont repeat the words that the others used to describe the unusual facade, simply because to do so would be to propagate a disease of the strange and spread fear of the unknown.
I marveled at the courage and the fortitude of the mind that built it, admiring the will that stretched and bent the mores of our little inbred society and championed difference and individuality.
I returned the next day with my pad and pencils and quickly sketched the house, the trees that hung over the walkway, threatening collapse because of the laden branches and I did not forget to include the rows of tenements in the back ground, the perfect antithesis to the wonder of invention.
One detail marked this portrait of rural bliss as a wonder, to me, and since that day I have seen the detail that man marks his world with. As they say, "The Devil is in the detail.", and all men are devils.

Here And There

The patterns in the ice refract the lights from the street and create a swirling cascade of colour inside the cab. Through a small hole, clearing on the glass, I can make out the sign for the Bramasole Cafe and we cross Bank street.
Before I left, someone took my hand and asked me if I was okay. I mumbled that I was, not wanting to explain the confusing streaks of sorrow that are beginning to obscure my view. There's nothing anyone can do.
In the picture, the water is the same colour as the sky, separated only by a wide swath of green trees halfway up. She is behind me, with her arms wrapped around my chest, her mouth close to my ear. If I close my eyes I can smell her hair and feel her leaning against me. And if I concentrate I can hear her laughter, abrupt and sweet.
"Here?" the cab driver says.
Here. I am here.
I am there, too. I guess I always will be.

Greatest Hits

"You are looking good, my young friend." he said.
"I'm feeling good, C.G." I answered.
The place was a mess and it was late for company, but some of my visitors don't come in through the door and I haven't figured out how to advertise my waking hours to the world that knows no time.
"What's going on? Is something wrong?" I asked him. I had just pulled myself out of bed, my throat dry and my eyes cluttered, and had stumbled across him going through my cd collection.
"What is this?" he asked me, avoiding my question.
"Uh...that is the greatest hits of Curtis Mayfield."
"The most popular of his recordings?"
"You got it. Do you want to hear something?"
"And I'd like coffee. Do you have coffee?"
"Yeah, no problem."
I put the cd in the tray and shuffled into the kitchen to make some coffee.
I heard him grunt to the opening strains of the beautifully haunting 'The Makings of you'. It's a song that I've always loved.
As Curtis' grainy falsetto filled the room I could see C.G.'s eyes widen. It had the same effect on me the first time I heard it.

"Do you have a 'greatest hits'?" he asked me. I could see his foot tapping to the infectious grooves of 'Move on up'. I smiled to myself.
"No. I don't. I'm not a recording artist."
"I don't mean musically. Literal, always so literal."
"A 'greatest hits'? I don't know. That's an odd question." I told him.
"Bah!. No such thing as an odd question. This is good." he said pointing to the mug of coffee sitting in front of him.
"You hate my coffee. What's going on, C.G.? Why are we sitting here listening to Curtis Mayfield, drinking coffee and exchanging pleasantries at three in the morning? Are you sure you're all right.?"
He said nothing for a minute and I couldn't help but be transported by Mayfield again.

I knew from a very young age that music was what I wanted from life. The expression, the rhythm, the words, the message and something inexplicable in the way it pockets a part of my imagination and removes doubt from my mind has affected me in a profound way since I was a kid. It has carried me all my life. It has been a part of my coping mechanism and helped me define myself.
"Now you know why I play bass." I said to him at the opening strains of 'Freddie's Dead'. He nodded and smiled, his head cocked, following the suggestion and answer in the flow of the bass line.
"And so? Your 'greatest hits'?" he smiled an unusually cocky smile at me.
"I don't know, C.G."
"I understand. "
"Well, I don't. What are you up to?"
"Can you play that first song again?"

"The love of all mankind should reflect some sign of these words I've tried to recite." Curtis sang. "They're close but not quite, almost impossible to do, reciting the makings of you."

"Can you do it?"
"It might be a short list."
I had almost forgotten that he was there, sitting so quietly with his coffee perched on the arm of the chair. It was nearly four o'clock and my eyes were drooping again.
"Nonetheless."
"Okay. I'll do it. Now, can I go back to bed?"
"Do you mind if I stay and listen to Mr. Mayfield?"
"You like it, eh?" I said. For some reason, that made me happy.

The Truth and The Consequences

Jeanette Walker surprised me by jumping out from behind the fence that runs along the McCoy’s yard. That’s what started it all. I let out a squeaky scream and dropped a book about airplanes that I had been carrying. Everybody heard it, so I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t been scared and almost immediately Albert Moody started making fun of me. He was a jerk but everybody thought he was cool because if you didn’t, he’d beat you up.
I honestly can’t say that I know why I did it, but I called him an asshole, and even as the words were coming out of my mouth I knew I was in trouble. Maybe it was Jeanette standing there with a smug and satisfied smile on her face, or maybe it was just that I’d had enough. Whatever the reason, it was out there and now I’d have to deal with it.
“What did you call me?” said Albert.
I sighed inwardly and then looked around to see if anybody was likely to help me out. They weren’t. My friends, loyal and true up until a minute ago, were disappearing one by one into vapour and I felt, not for the last time, the sting of loneliness in the face of adversity. There was really only one way to deal with this.
“I called you an asshole, Moody.” I said, hoping my voice didn’t break. It didn’t and I saw, for a brief second a chance for rescue from my situation because Albert seemed a little confused. I don’t think anyone had ever stood up to him before and he was taken aback. He didn’t let his confusion get the better of him, though, and he only paused for a second before he punched me in the nose.

Later, as I plodded home, my nose stuffed with tissue to stop any more blood from staining the front of my shirt, I wondered what made people like Albert Moody so mean. I assumed it was because his parents were mean to him.
The Moody house was famously off limits for anyone not associated with the family. There were two German Shepherds that reinforced that, chained to the bumper of a rusted out pick-up truck in their front yard. In those days if a dog bit you it was your fault, not the dog’s.
My friends and I would give a wide berth to the property, walking a block out of the way to get to Main Street and the arcade.
The arcade was the place to be and it was full of pinball machines not video games. I know some of you will find that hard to believe but pinball was all we had, back then. When Space Invaders was unleashed on the world I thought I’d seen just about everything. I remember walking about five miles down the railway tracks to Kanata just to play Space Invaders.
It wasn’t the pinball machines that made the arcade cool, it was just where we hung out, at least until one of the Moody’s came along. Then we’d have to leave. They were tough and mean and there was always more of them at home.
It seemed like the supply of Moody’s never ran out but I think there were five boys ranging in age, at that time, from twelve to nineteen. It was no wonder that at forty Mrs. Moody looked like she was seventy. There was no Mr. Moody. We assumed that he had been killed in a heist or something. In those days most people lived in misery rather than divorce so it was unthinkable that he'd just walked out one day.

That Albert Moody had punched me in the nose was not very news worthy. Albert Moody was always punching someone in the nose. It was that right after he punched me in the nose that something snapped in me. I don’t really remember what happened. I just know that while the pain of being punched in the nose, and it hurts believe me, was coursing through me I started swinging and caught Albert napping. He’d never had to worry about someone punching him back before and here I was coming at him flailing my arms like a wild man. He just stood there until I clipped the side of his head and he went down in a heap.
No one moved for a minute. My friends, my disappearing friends, suddenly stopped disappearing and became solid again. Jeanette Walker’s mouth was hanging open as she stared at Albert lying on the ground. The birds flying high above stalled in mid-air and twisted their heads to see what was going on and the wind stopped blowing to see what the fuss was. Time stood still and five people were trapped, unable to move, speak or even think. The impossible had happened. Someone had knocked out Albert Moody and that someone was me. The world stood still.
As nonchalantly as I could, I stooped and picked up my book. It was about airplanes, something I couldn’t get enough of at the time. I brushed it off and adjusted my jacket. Then I looked at Albert Moody, lying on the ground, trying to re-gain his senses and I said, “Yeah, You’re an asshole.” And then I walked off.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. I believed that at any moment the door of my room would be kicked open and I’d be hauled out of bed by the Moody clan and strung up from the nearest tree. I really believed it. But it didn’t happen. In fact nothing happened.
The next day at school Albert Moody went about his business of harassing people just for the fun of it. If a girl didn’t cry at recess and a boy didn’t get sent to the nurse with a bloody nose then it was a bad day for Albert. He didn’t look at me or even acknowledge my existence. Nothing happened. There was no reprisal from any of the Moody’s that day or any day after that.
Now I know it was because it never happened, at least as far as Albert Moody was concerned. If you could find him today and ask him about it he’d deny that there was even a fight. He would deny ever knowing me.
The world is what we make it, after all, and Albert Moody wasn’t about to let one wild punch change anything. The truth of anything can be tested by examining the consequences. Who knows? Maybe it never really happened at all.

The Dead And The Dying

High above the world, restrained and insolent, courage lacks the force of intent, seemingly emasculated by the vacuum of space, withered by the distance that separates our souls and keeps alive the truth of our insulation. The plaintive calls that leak across the expanse of space and time in a trickling stream of desire seem weak and ineffective; too quiet for anyone to hear. And all the while, curiosity sings an endless refrain in the back of the skull, teasing a reaction from the grumbling, dissatisfied captor of our dualistic spirit. It's a no-win situation.
The radio hummed in the background but I didn't pay it any attention. The snow on the windshield made it hard to see where the road ended and the wide world began. I absently took out a cigarette but before I could light it she interrupted my thoughts to say, "Please don't smoke in here."
Okay. I didn't want one anyway. It's something I do to keep my hands moving. To keep my mind numb and my body quiet.
I stared across the empty fields and thought about the long winter ahead. I wondered about the ceaseless revolution of seasons that turns innocent thoughts into sinister intent. I read into every gust of wind an accusation and criticism. I'm afraid of those nights when the mottled sky darkens too soon and the stiff appetite of my imagination ingests the sorrow held frozen in the furrows waiting for spring.
"You're quiet, tonight." she said to me.
I understand her concern for me. I haven't made it easy for anyone. And I lie about it all the time. I can see in her face the frustration of her growing distraction. I wish I could erase it and see her fresh and full of the thoughtless happiness that was once there. But all I can do is sit here in this car, driving across these barren fields, going somewhere, I don't know where, to do something I can't put my finger on, and stare out the window instead of looking at her, the only person I really want to see.
Restrained and insolent, my dreams lack the force of intent.

The Gentleman Daydreamer

She curled her fingers around the handle and raised her arm, pointing the gun at the centre of his chest. She was surprised at how heavy it was. As her arm began to shake she worried that he would think she was frightened. She managed a quick self-deprecating thought; she was frightened, but she was also determined and with that she squeezed the trigger.
Her world exploded with the concussion. The recoil jerked her arm up and back and she staggered a step or two and tried to focus on where he had been. She was shocked to see him still standing there with a lewd grin on his face and she realized that she had missed him. No one ever missed on television, she thought.
He hadn't moved. He just stood there, defying her with a smile and then he came towards her and before she could raise her arm again, he took the pistol from her hand.
"I'm still here," he said, as he safetied the gun, "and now you're going to stop this and get over there with the others." He paused to look at her and added, "Unless you want me to try. I won't miss, though."
And then he turned away and walked to the counter. With his back to them he could let go of the muscles that had hardened into a grin. He felt sick and his heart was beating so hard he couldn't hear his own thoughts. He rested his hands on the counter and took a deep breath. He had never been so close to death and he didn't like the feeling.
Things had gone so far wrong. A security guard lay on the floor with a gunshot wound in his leg. His whimpering was distracting. And now another one of them had very nearly ended his life.
In thirteen banks he had been quick and successful; in and out before anybody knew, except for the unlucky cashier he had chosen, and he was gone long before the police arrived. He didn't even carry a gun. He had surmised that if he was unarmed he would be safer than if he stormed the door with an assault rifle. He was polite. He had never even raised his voice. He was the perfect gentleman bandit and now someone had nearly shot him.
He knew that he was in very serious trouble. After the teller had screamed and the security guard had shot himself in the leg trying to pull out his gun, all hell had broken loose. And how does a suburban housewife find the courage to pick up a revolver and point it at a man she doesn't even know?
And now he was screwed. After the guard shot himself he had fought for control, yelling that he had a gun and would kill anybody who moved. It wasn't true but they didn't know that.
Except that now he did have a gun.
Things have gone so far wrong, he thought, as the sound of police sirens filled the air, rising above the crying and terrified screams of the customers and other employees.

"You're telling me that, even in your own daydreams, you're a failure?"
"Go to hell, Ricky."
"That's hysterical. "
"Well, what would you do?"
"I'd go out shooting, man. No one's gonna put me in a cage."
"Sure you would."
"I would, man. Then I'd pick up that little chickie who tried to shoot me and I'd carry her off into the sunset."
"That's way more gay than I wanted."

He turned and pulled the gun from his waistband and pointed it at her.
"Get up and don't say a word or I'll shoot you right here."
She stood up and as she looked at him she smiled wickedly. She felt flushed and alive with excitement. She pursed her lips and cocked one hip towards him.
"Let's get out here." she said.
The late afternoon rush hour traffic was brought to a standstill by the blazing gun battle and using her as a shield he pushed his way through the line that cordoned off the bank. They commandeered a car, pulling the startled driver out of his seat and dumping him on the sidewalk. Before she got in she reached down and patted the startled man's head. "Good dog." she said and then they climbed in to the car and sped off into the distance.

"Jesus, that's so unbelievable."
"What the hell do you know about believable? A gentleman bandit? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. "
"Shut up and pass me a beer, man. You don't know shit about realism."
"I know you're an idiot. That's real."

She reached across the space that separated them and slipped her hand under his shirt.
"I'm so hot, right now." she whispered.
"Not now, baby, I'm trying to drive."
The lights of the cars following faded into the distance and the sirens had long since been silenced as the cops realized they'd never catch these two.
The detective stepped from the car and leaned against the door as he watched the taillights disappear into the desert.
"I'll find you, someday. You can't hide forever."
After all, he wasn't the top daydream cop for nothing.

Wellington Walker

My brother Steve once stole one of the legal pads I used to write in and then, sitting at the kitchen table while my mother served up her famous chicken and dumplings, began to read a story that I'd written about a dog that can talk to his master. After that I began to hide everything I wanted kept secret in a trunk at the foot of my bed. It had a padlock on it and I had the only key. It cost me two weeks worth of allowance, but I've never had to sit through another dinner like that. I was humiliated, not because it was a bad story, but because in my family you just didn't do things like write stories.

My mother was impressed, I think. She had no idea that I could write a story, much less fill pad after pad with ideas. She seemed amused that one of her sons could have invented something from nothing.
My father was much less impressed and before my brother could get to the part where the dog becomes the master and makes his owner walk on all fours and wear a collar, he confiscated the pads and I never saw them again.

It was probably a good thing. By the time I sat down to re-write it, almost twelve years later, I had forgotten most of the story, but the central idea survived and it became the basis for my first novel.
In it a dull witted teenage boy steals a book and in it finds a powerful incantation that unleashes the Egyptian god Anubis, who is very unhappy that most of his followers have forgotten him. The dull witted thief becomes the dog god's first victim. I don't think Steve ever forgave me for that. Calling him dull-witted, that is. He started it, though.

After that my father tried to make sure that I never had another free moment in which to sit down and write stories. That period of my life became my second novel in which a dominating megalomaniac tires of having to tell his followers what to do every minute of the day and regrets overthrowing the world. In the end he puts on a dress and slips out the back of the palace and is never seen again. Much like the way my father disappeared one night when I was fourteen. And while, in the book, society crumbles and struggles for its survival, life at home picked up for me and my brother Steve.

My third book, Wellington Walker, had its origins in a regrettable relationship I had with a girl who broke my heart. Wellington Abruter realizes that he's become invisible after he learns that his true love is cheating on him. It's a twist on the old Zen koan about the tree in the forest; if a man has no one who loves him is he still a man? He begins to use his invisibility to help others who have been wronged until he meets another invisible man. He and his new friend, Walker, start an invisibility club, called Wellington Walker, that has chapters all across the country, taking in love-lost and love-lorn refugees. At a members meeting he meets a beautiful young woman who has been invisible since she was a girl. They fall in love and disappear from the head offices of Wellington Walker and are never seen again.

I wrote another three books after that and have done quite well for myself. I have another one in the pipe right now. It's about a man who discovers that his daydreams are spawning duplicate lives. He runs into himself disguised as a reprehensible womanizer and decides he has to kill off all the other daydream versions of himself. It isn't until half way through the book that he learns he is nothing more than a daydream himself and finds himself on the run from a man, who looks a lot like him, intent on putting out his lights and getting back to work.

I have to tell you that this one is based on real life. It's true. I don't have much time. Somewhere, right now, someone-me-or at least a version of me is sitting at a desk writing a story about himself as a writer. Soon, though, he's going to get tired, his back will get sore, or he'll have to get up and answer the telephone and then I'm done for.

I'm working as fast as I can to get this new novel finished, before his concentration goes and I disappear forever. It makes me sad. I've had a good life, for the most part, and I don't want it to end, but like my brother Steve once said, "Being a character in one of your books is like looking into a funhouse mirror. You never get it right, do you?" Maybe he's right. Maybe this is no way to live, but on the other hand, I think I've been lucky. I could have been a very bad dream. I think he's just jealous.

Are We Good?

"Did you know that India is the seventh biggest country in the world?"
"Seventh? That's pretty big." I said to her. I was, admittedly, a little distracted. She had the atlas that I'd given to her for her birthday flattened on the table in front of her and was poring over the details with her fingers splayed across one of the pages. She was three when she'd begun to read. It boggled my mind that she was so smart.
"And that there are a billion people living there? There's only 32 million in all of Canada." She said this last with an air of wonder in her voice as if she was loading all those people onto an imaginary balance scale.
"That's a lot, eh?" I put away the last of the dishes and shut the cupboard door with a sigh.
I've never been a big fan of washing dishes. To me it's one of those chores that seem fruitless, especially when you figure that in another two hours I'll just have to pull them all out and dirty them again.
"Dad. You're not listening. You have to look at me when you answer. Then I know you're listening to me." She had on her teaching voice, which she used with me when she knew I needed guidance, as she often felt I did. I could hear her mother's voice in there, correcting, scolding and laying on a guilt trip, with nothing more than a few words. That woman displayed an incredible economy with words.
"I'm sorry. You're absolutely right. And now, just to prove that I'm listening to you I'm going to stare right at you, just in case you say something else. That way you'll know that I'm always listening to you."
She frowned at me for a minute, trying I think, to gauge what she should do. I made my eyes a little buggy and leaned over to stare at her, and she squirmed under the scrutiny. Then she decided that I was playing a game with her and she began to laugh.
"Dad. You don't have to listen all the time." and then she squealed as I zeroed in on her, my eyes locked on hers. "Daddy. Don't be a doofus." and she tried to hide her eyes.
"I'm still looking at you. I can still hear every word you're saying."
"Daddy. Stop looking at me." I picked her up and put my forehead to hers, my eyes still wide and staring. I soon wouldn't be able to lift her; she was getting so big.
"But then I won't be listening to you anymore."
"You don't have to listen all the time, I guess." she laughed
"Okay." I said and I dramatically turned my head to the wall.
"That's better." she said. She put her hands on my cheeks and looked into my face as if she was looking at one of her maps and following the route down from my eyebrows and across the bridge of my nose.
"What?" I said, "I'm not listening to you anymore."
"Daddy." she yelled, pretty much right into my face.
"Is someone talking? I can't tell. I'm not looking at anyone." She giggled and squirmed in my arms to reach up until her hands were on top of my head.
"Daddy." she screamed again, "Listen to me now."
"I wonder if someone's talking to me." I said.
"You. Listen to me now." her voice had taken on an imperious tone. I had told her once that I would do anything she asked as long as she asked nicely. She had forgotten that one, I guess.
"How will I know when someone is talking to me, I wonder." I said, still looking at the wall.
"Daddy." This time her voice squirreled up into that piercing range, where usually only mice can go. I felt her arch her back away from me and then she slapped my face as hard as she could and screamed again, "Daddy."

In an instant, she was crying. I held her out at arms reach as she began to swing her little fists. I was ducking and weaving the little blows and she had gone from laughing to crying, almost in one breath, and was now on the verge of hysteria. She started to kick at me and then she was having an all-out temper tantrum.
I pulled her in close and pinned her against my shoulder, a million thoughts running through my startled brain. I had pushed it too far, I knew, but her reaction was so extreme. Why was she suddenly so upset? And who taught her to hit someone who didn't listen?
I felt the tension go out of her body and she wrapped her arms around my neck and was sobbing into my shoulder. I was so stunned that for a moment I just held her.
"Hey. It's okay. I'm listening. I was just playing with you. It's okay. I'm sorry, baby. Daddy was just being silly." I tried to pour every bit of love I felt for her into that hug as she cried, and slowly she settled down, suddenly tired from her outburst.
"It's okay. I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry."

"Don't you ever don't listen to me again." she scolded me, after she had calmed down. She was looking right into my eyes, her face only inches from mine. If she hadn't been so serious, I would have laughed.
I put on a very solemn expression and said to her, "I promise. I will never not listen to you again."
That seemed good enough for her and she wriggled in my arms to be let down. I put on her feet and she began to gather up her atlas and her papers. She always had papers, it seemed. Papers to draw her pictures on. Pages and pages of drawings, and now she was cataloging them according to her own system.
When she had collected her 'work', she turned and headed for the living room. At the door she turned to me and gave me what I would call an even look.
"Are we good?" she said and I nearly choked on my own tongue. It was an expression that I had heard someone else say, so many times, in that exact tone, and I felt my stomach heave a little. My chest felt like it was caving in.
"We're good." I said softly. "You go play in the living room for a bit and then we'll go to the park. Okay?"
"Yeah," she cheered,"the park." and disappeared around the corner.

I leaned against the counter and tried to collect my thoughts, which had run from what I was thinking and had gone off groping around in the dark, looking for clues to what had just happened. I felt like I was going to be sick. And then a calmness settled over me. I stood up straight and I shrugged off my fear.
I went and looked around the corner and saw her sitting on the couch, her atlas opened again and her mouth moving over the strange words, her hand running over the surface of the page as if she could feel every river and mountain printed there.
I watched her for a minute and decided she was fully immersed in her book and then I went to the phone.
There was only one person who had ever said that to me. 'Are we good?'
We weren't good. But I was going to take care of that.

Time on My Hands

To begin at the beginning is something I would call the easy way out. I prefer to begin right in the middle. The things that led up to it and what happened afterwards were just ripples, careening out in every direction and tipping over the stools we sat on, causing both the stumble that brought them face to face and then, years later, the accident that left Jeremy with a cast on his leg and Jules, her scar. It wasn't a big scar, more like a fine line of curiosity which she could turn into a great story every time some one asked about it.
But right in the middle of it, I happened to be looking in both directions and I saw the ripples stretch out and gently nudge my memories aside and implant the new ones. If I hadn't been paying attention I would have missed it entirely and I probably wouldn't remember the way things had been, had really been, just the way it seems right now.
I know now that it happens all the time. We really are a curious lot and sometimes we act impulsively, with complete free will. The anomalous outcome reverberates like a giant oriental gong in our fish tank of no surprises and when the vibrations slow things are just a little bit different than they were a few minutes ago.
This might not make much sense to you if you've never seen it happen. Halloway thinks it's a mystery and starts to pray whenever he notices a ripple pass by. I think he's just praying he'll still be here when it settles. I asked him to help me with my experiment because he's really the only one who can wrap his head around all the variables. It is probably for the best that he's refused. I don't trust that his judgment will remain unaffected by his religious leanings.
The key bit of information is that it has to be totally spontaneous and outside the normal state of functioning. I think by definition it should be impossible, after all, we are what we are. But I've seen it. Truly spontaneous things happen all the time. And they interrupt the flow of linear time much like a damn dropped across a river. It keeps moving but it has to make changes to accommodate the obstruction.
The biggest question now is what to do. Do I give it the Jimmy Stewart try and see what life would be like without, say, the guy who does my dry cleaning? Or do I just start mucking about and let the random nature of the universe go exploring? What a conundrum.
I guess you'll just have to wait and see, won't you. Except that unless you're paying very close attention you won't notice a thing. I think that's the funniest aspect of this whole experiment. I'll be the only one who has any idea that something has happened. And believe me, I'm no expert in this area. Things are about to get seriously weird.

The Meter Man

January 1982

Don't ever let the threats that come veiled as dreams get in the way of your pursuing them. The dreams that is. The threats are nothing more than they seem; sinister levels of manipulation that don't usually add up to much. Although, the time I stole that '76 Olds and wrecked it in the gully prompted such a rash of sub-conscious warnings that it was a month before I got a good night's sleep. They might have continued except that Morrie found out it was me and I got a good beating over it. Satisfied that I'd paid for my stupidity, my dreams returned to the normal guy+girl+girl theme and I got on with my life.
What's happening now is of a strictly different variety and my life may never be the same. Don't fuck around with the guilty/not-guilty slide rule that measures your short-comings. It rests in the hands of that quiet voice in the back of your head and he measures you and every thing you do with it.

About a month ago I began having really disturbing dreams. They would start out the same way, like 'I meet a girl at a party and we hide in the closet for awhile' type but then it would morph into me standing on the back of a pick-up truck, say, lighting down the highway at about sixty miles an hour with nothing to hang on to but a rope that's coming apart. I watch the rope begin to stretch and then the tiny tendrils begin to snap and, one by one, every fiber comes undone. Just as I lurch backwards into the night I wake up, soaked in sweat, and wondering what I'd done to get such a stern warning from the dark side of my brain.

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but when I was young my mother caught me stuffing those penny crackers into the mouth of a frog and I caught shit when my dad got home. His hand, that fucking huge hand, came out of nowhere and clouded my head with pain and bright lights but that was nothing compared to what I suffered that night when I fell asleep. As she was passing by the room I shared with my brother she opened the door and said, "I hope you can sleep with the knowledge that you killed one of God's creature's today." and I was fucked. For two weeks every time I closed my eyes I was trying to outrun a giant toad hell-bent on stuffing a stick of dynamite into my ass. Not very imaginative, maybe, but I was only ten, and let me assure you that my internal grievance mechanism has matured along with the rest of me.

The problem now is that I have no idea what I did. I haven't stole anything of real value in months. I've been reasonably well behaved and when Buck and I go down to the Won-Ton things are cool. But, like I said before, life has a way of teaching you a lesson in real time. The dreams are still coming and they're always the same. Let me give you an example.

I'm walking across the lot beside the A&P, the one with the rusted out 150 in the ditch, and I come across a length of rope lying in the weeds. Since you never know when a good length of rope might come in handy, I pick it up and put it in a backpack that is suddenly on my shoulders. I have never had a backpack but it doesn't really seem to be a concern so I just keep on humping myself across the lot with my new rope.
It's getting dark out and I can't quite make out the line of trees that stretches from the back of the lot up to Margrave Ave., but I know it's there. And then I see something struggling to get up and out of the ditch. I don't recognize him because his head is bloodied beyond recognition. The guy's obviously been beaten up pretty bad and he staggers toward me with his hands stretched out as if he wants to grab me. Even though it's a dream, I don't want some guy that's missing half his head giving me a bear-hug so I side-step his little lunging lunatic dance and I turn around to watch him as I pass. That's when I get grabbed from behind by something I can't see, something big, and it pins my arms behind me, and sure enough before I know what's going on, the rope is going around and around and I'm trussed like a chicken and forced onto my knees.
I'm starting to freak out, but underneath I'm planning, always planning. This staggering idiot with the head-like-mush is coming at me again and now I can't move. I can hear a gurgling sound as he tries to breath in, like he's trying to suck ice cream through a straw, and he leans in close. I'm in a state of blind, fucking panic now and my plans are out the window. I start thrashing and pulling at the rope, and a hand comes free. I swing wildly at the zombie guy and my hand goes right through what is left of his head.

And then it's all gone and I'm alone in the parking lot, the rope lying at my feet and the back-pack with it. The only thing I can hear is my name being called out in the distance, quietly. But it's coming from a long way off.

Anyway, I wake up and it's my Mom calling me to get the hell out of bed and go to work. You have to add these things up, I guess: nearly spilling out of a truck on the highway, the zombie guy trying to tongue me, and then see what the common thread is. The trouble is that the only common theme is a length of rope that, at first, is about to snap and send me to my death, and, secondly, is used to tie me up. I just don't see it. I can't make any connections so I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

July 1982

It's been a while since I wrote anything. I've tried but I've got nothing to say. The nightmares have stopped, for the time being, and that's a good thing but I know it won't last. There's just too much to take-in right now; I'm a little over-loaded. All I know is that I'm in for it, sooner or later. I know that for sure.
I'm on my own now, except for Buck, my little brother Brian, but he's mostly gone, too. He doesn't want to stay here anymore and I can't say I blame him. He wants to get as far away from the old man as possible. I don't think he knows what happened; I think he bought the story just like everyone else did but he knows things aren't right anymore.
And me? I'm terrified. I spend my days nearly sick to the point of throwing up and scared to death that I'll see him again. And I feel even more sick when I think that I watched it all and didn't do a thing to help her.

And although my dreams are quiet for now, I can sense that things are coming to a head on the inside and I know that when these dreams unfold they'll be playing for keeps.

Now, I just lie awake at night, afraid to fall asleep and afraid, I guess, that I'll get what's coming to me; afraid I might not survive the onslaught of terror that I'm preparing for myself. I got no choice, though. I got no fucking choice. And here comes the Meter Man. All hail the Meter Man.

The Sitting Room

He was in the sitting room. The tall windows had been opened and the shear curtains waved silently in the breeze. He sat in an old fashioned wingback chair, holding a rock glass in one hand as he gripped the arm of the chair with the other, holding on, it seemed, as if he was afraid that he might drift up and out one of the windows to sail away into the clear morning light. He wondered if that was a bad thing to wish for. He wished it would just happen.
The door burst open and he turned to see his son, Christopher, stalking towards him. He could tell from the expression on Christopher’s face that his pronouncement of this morning had been passed along and he turned away, not wanting to fight.
“Is it true?” said Christopher as he came to an abrupt halt in front of the chair his father sat in.
“Is what true?” his father replied. He raised his glass to his lips and sipped at it, the glass barely touching his lips.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. Marie told me you’re not coming to the funeral. Is it true?” Christopher tired to still his shaking hands, to quiet the anger that was trying break free.
“Yes, it’s true. I’m not going.”
“You’re not going? No, you’re going.” said Christopher almost yelling.
“Don’t you come in here and tell me what to do. I made a promise and I’m going to damn well keep it. Now get the hell out of here or you’ll be late.” He leaned forward and set the glass down on the table and then, as an afterthought, reached for a coaster to put under it. He would have chuckled to himself at the irony of that, on any other day.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you have any feelings? Don’t you care what the rest of us think?” Christopher pointed a finger at him, in a gesture that his father had always found annoying.
“Why should I care what you think? You’ve never given a shit about what I think.”
“So this is about you, again, is it? Jesus,” Christopher spun around looking for something, “you are the most selfish person I’ve ever known. This isn’t about you, Dad. It’s about her. Your wife. Remember her? Or have you forgotten about her already?” He saw what he was looking for and he took the picture and thrust it in his father’s direction.
“How dare you?” said his father, struggling to rise up out of the chair. “How dare you speak to me like that? You little shit; you have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual.” He knocked the table with his elbow and the glass there sailed out over the carpet and upended itself, splashing his drink across the hardwood floor. An ice cube skittered away as both of them tried to contain its wild bouncing.
“Jesus.” said Christopher and he left the room and returned with a cloth to soak up the spilled drink. “What is this?” he asked as he put the cloth to his nose.
“It’s soda water, you idiot. Just soak it up before your mother…” and they both stopped, frozen by the words he was about to say.

“Just tell me why.” Christopher sat on the sofa across from his father. He spoke quietly, embarrassed by his father’s slip.
“I made her a promise, that’s why.”
“What promise? What are you talking about?”
His father said nothing for a moment, his eyes far away, remembering a day, like this one, long ago. Finally he cleared his throat and looked at his son.
“How long have you been married now?”
Christopher groaned and let his head fall forward. “Six years. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything. It has everything to do with it. This year, your mother and I will have been married for thirty-seven years.”
“I know.” said Christopher.
“Thirty-seven years. That’s a long time.”
“I know. What’s your point?”
“And do you fight?”
“Sometimes. Who doesn’t?”
“And who usually wins? You or her?”
“It’s a bit of both. Where are you going with this?”
“Your mother and I haven’t had a fight in probably fifteen years.”
“You barely speak to each other. Is that supposed to impress me?” said Christopher.
“Just shut your mouth for a minute and let me tell my story.”
“Then tell your story. We have a funeral to go to.” Christopher could barely conceal his disdain for the old man. He had very little reason to like him and his father had never bothered to hide his contempt for his son.
“We used to fight, all the time, y’know.”
“I remember.” said Christopher with a grimace.
“We used to fight and say terrible things to each other. And sometimes we would look at each other and wonder why we ever got married in the first place.”
“I’ve wondered that from time to time, myself.”
“Yeah, well, you were very small at the time when it was the worst. There isn’t a person alive who can get under my skin like your mother. When you’re married for thirty-seven years you don’t get to have any secrets anymore. Eventually, though, we settled into it and we haven’t fought a day since that time.”
“Dad, you never speak to each other. What’s to fight about when you barely acknowledge each other’s presence?”
“Christ, you can be so stupid. I’m trying to tell you something, here. Do you want to hear it or do you just want to sit there and make smart-assed remarks?”
“Tell your story then, for Christ’s sake.”
“Look. When you spend as much time as your mother and I did fighting, you get very good at finding weakness and exploiting it. I lied about stupid things and purposely broke promises just to start fights and she manipulated everything I said, turned it around on me. It becomes a stupid game of one-upmanship and before long you find yourself betraying secrets and smashing trust like it was a house made out of toothpicks.” he paused and lifted the glass to his lips and for a moment seemed to be somewhere else. Then he shook his head and set the glass down.
“But one day, one day you wake up and realize that the person who holds the most over your head is also the only one who’s been there with you through it all. After all that time poking and prodding at each other we just ran out of bad things to say and we discovered that we were still together. That’s an amazing thing. An amazing thing.
We found in each other something that most people will likely never find and that thing is faith. And we fell in love all over again. Not like it was when we first met but something better, more real. And, without ever talking about it, we began to realize that the most wonderful thing about it was that no matter what happened we would always be together. It was like that right up until she died.
You say you never see us talk. We didn’t need to. We could have entire conversations passing each other in the hall on the way to the kitchen. I knew where she was and she knew where I was and at any given time she could have told you what I was thinking and she would have been right.”
He sat up in his chair and leveled a finger at his son, mimicking that same gesture which infuriated him so much when Christopher did it.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about when you criticize me, or her, for the things that went on between the two of us. You may be our son, but she was my wife and there’s something there that you’ll only get a glimpse of when you can say you’ve been married for the better part of a half century.
Don’t you ever talk to me about my relationship with my wife unless it’s to honour what we lived through just to get here. And now she’s dead. And you waltz in here telling me what I should do and what I should think but you don’t have any fucking idea what you’re talking about.”
He sat back in the chair, his eyes going to the garden outside the tall windows.
“You want to know why I’m not going to the funeral? I’ll tell you why. We made a promise to each other, one day, a beautiful sunny day; so much like this one it hurts just to remember it. She was so beautiful and happy, then. You had just moved out and we were sitting in here, just like this, and we looked at each other and found that after all we’d been through, all the struggling and all the fighting, that we were still in love with each other.
And that day she made me promise that if she went first that I wouldn’t go to the funeral. I was surprised by the way she said it, too. She was very emphatic. She said she wanted me to remember her like she was that day, young and in love. I held her hand and she squeezed it so tight. And I made her that promise.
I never expected to outlive her. I always knew in my heart that I’d die first. And then when she got so sick that I couldn’t take care of her by myself anymore she made me ask you and Marie to come. She was almost embarrassed to let me see her like that.
The day before she died she asked me if I remembered the promise that I’d made to her and she told me that she expected me to keep it. And I will.”
Christopher was sitting with his hands in his lap, his head down, unable to look at his father.
“Listen to me, Christopher. You may be my son but she was my wife and I love her more than anything in this world and I will die before I break another promise to her. You think that because I’m not going down there to stand beside her coffin and listen to people I barely know tell me how sorry they are, that I don’t love her, or honour her? It is because I do love her and honour her that I’m going to sit here and watch this day unfold, knowing that when I see her again I can tell her that I kept my promise.”
Christopher looked at his father who was staring out into the garden and saw that his father was crying quietly and without any attempt to hide it.
“I had no idea.” he said.
“Of course you had no idea. How could you?” and then he smiled. “It was between her and I. And no matter how much it hurts, it has nothing to do with you.” said his father. “Now, go, or you’ll be late. I’m going to sit here for awhile and finish my drink.”
Christopher got up and looked around the room, at the curtains billowing in the breeze, at the sun streaking its way across the floor and at the old man, that he barely knew, staring out the window and he tried to imagine his parents sitting side by side on the couch, holding hands and making promises to each other every day for thirty-seven years and he wondered why it was that the older he got the more complicated everything became.

And So I Did

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then. She just looked at me and then, slowly, ever so slowly, the both of us fully aware of how she could use it, what I'd just said, to start an argument, she smiled. I hadn't meant to say it; it just came out. I'd like to think that I am a better man than that, than to bring up something that I knew would provoke her. But it was out there. I'd said it and now it was up to her.

I'm not sure when it was that I began to notice the subtle changes in the way we spoke to each other. Somewhere around the six month mark, I guess, when we felt like we knew things about each other that no one else knew. I think it's a form of possession and a way to claim ownership. There are quick looks, direct eye to eye contact, when something is said, in front of friends, or at a bar, and then the conversation moves on. Sometimes we would talk about it later. She would say, "Peter really pissed me off, tonight." and I would answer, "Yeah, I noticed."

That subtext of ownership goes both ways, too. "Do you need to vacuum the couch?" she would say, laughing outwardly. It didn't bother me, though. The best I can hope for is that my odd little habits will become endearing and not annoying. I made a promise to myself, after all.

I realized right away that I'd made a mistake. I had blurted it out, blithely thinking that I was adding another layer, another subtext to our relationship, but all it was, was hurtful. I could tell that because, despite her smile, I recognized the flash of emotion in her eyes, gone as soon as it appeared. That smile snapped shut the avenue of intimacy. That smile was a barrier that reminded me that, as well as we knew each other, we were also better than anyone else could ever be at grinding down each other's defenses. It hung there, in the air between us. Maybe she saw the instant remorse in my expression, although I tried not to show it, or maybe she just decided that she wasn't going to let me bait her anymore.

Her smile widened and became a laugh, and I used the forced levity to spit out an apology that sounded more like I'd just stepped on her foot rather than laid open her insecurities and ridiculed them. She accepted it, though, and the full impact of that hit me. That silent communication crossed the room, that eye to eye contact, and I knew that despite the meanness of what I'd said, she understood that it was a reflex and that given time and a chance to reconsider, I never would have said it. That's an incredible amount of trust to put in someone who could potentially bring down the tent on your head. She trusts me. And she forgave me.

I think that was when I realized that I loved her. Simple as that. She showed me that she could overlook a few shortcomings and that, if I felt the same way, I'd better ante up. And so I did.

Cat and Mouse

I sat quietly, no, I sat more than quietly, I sat absolutely still, barely breathing, for close to an hour, waiting out and out witting those teeth, those claws, that scratched and pawed at the molding that separated us, the barrier between this life and whatever comes next and it could smell me, of that I'm sure, because I made no sound nor did I move so much as a muscle, although, at first, they had screamed in my head, "Move, run." and then they became still and heavy, like lead, leaving me no choice but wait it out, wait until either it succeeded in ripping away the barrier or it became confused and wondered if I was really there at all, wondering if maybe it was nothing more than a memory and it became confused by the lack of movement, wondering if I was already dead and therefore of no interest, because it had no interest in dead things, that was a rule to be observed and, anyway, dead things were past their expiry date and unsafe to eat and I became the representation of a lost opportunity, although I'm sure it wasn't smart enough to form those kind of thoughts, at least I hoped so because, you see, my own intelligence is the vanguard of my army and without it death would sever me from everything I know and love, my family, the simple pleasures I feel and delight in, and the anticipated scent of delivery that sometimes comes on the faint and wafting breeze and explains this world to me and indicates direction, both forward and back and, just then, told me that it had moved away, but was not gone, and that is where anyone else would have made a fatal mistake and bolted through the shadows for the safety of home, but not me because I'm not that stupid and I knew at that point that I would have to remain there, still, absolutely still, for perhaps another half-hour, just to be safe because, and it's important that you know this, impatience and foolishness always results in tragedy and I don't intend to be a footnote in someone else's story, an off-hand remark about that time he got caught unaware and out in the open, exposed and in need. Do you understand?

Lost And Looking For Home

He turned out the light on the front porch and put the bowl of chocolate bars and licorice strips on the counter in the kitchen. It was over for another year and that was fine.
It had become more and more difficult with the passage of time. The kids were less interested in the blood and the gore and more interested in the candy. He'd heard them groan as he dropped, what in his day would have been a brilliant treat, into their bags, full sized pillow cases, half full and heavy with enough candy to rot the teeth of an entire generation.
And the costumes really were bad. Who the hell is afraid of a secretary or a doctor? Where were the raving marauders, their axes heavy with the greasy blood of their enemies or the mad scientists, a pulsing heart in one hand and a jagged saw-toothed blade in the other or the carrion feeders who relied on the offal that slipped unheeded from the bellies of the freshly slain?
But then, he had changed too, over the years.
The bonfires were prohibited now, as were the depictions of crucifixions that used to hang from the eaves. He'd been forced to put down the werewolves, removing the skins they wore so proudly and forcing them into human shape before he'd cut their throats and left them for the buzzards. And the most heart-wrenching, for him, he'd had to let loose the harpies, whose chains had been so slick with human blood that he'd been forced to cut them with a blow torch and had singed the feathers of one. That had cost him an eye. He wasn't in the mood for what the changing mores of polite society dictated.
As he blew out the last of the candles he looked at the sky and was saddened that his sisters, once so feared, were now a joke and likened to childless old women and thought powerless and weak. The wind that brushed past him held no hint of sulfur and the moon shone clearly without a hint of red and he let out a long sigh and went inside.
In the kitchen he opened the closet door, absently putting the padlock into the pocket of his robe and from the shelves he took up his favorite tools. He turned at the sound of padded feet and straightened in hesitation and fear. The cat jumped from the floor onto the table and sniffed the air tentatively and then wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"One of them has soiled himself." the cat said.
"I'm sorry, Master, they have weak constitutions. They are a faint-hearted race. I will finish them quickly." he said, nervously.
"No, you fool. Remember, Gohtar, do not kill them, just make them remember this night for the rest of their pitiful lives. In fear resides pure power. Remember that." and with that the cat leapt to the floor and padded out of the room.
Gohtar exhaled a ragged breath of relief and continued with his selection. Then he replaced the padlock and shuffled to the top of the stairs.
As he descended to the chamber he began to hum a happy little tune, one that his victims would be sure to remember for the rest of their miserable lives, but even that comfort felt hollow. Nothing was the same anymore. Perhaps the world really was changing and perhaps there really was no going back, but for as long as his master commanded him to persuade the terrified cries of these miserable beasts out of their blood choked throats, and as long as he believed that they could still open the door, he would do his Master's bidding. Gohtar paused before he reached the bottom step and rested his heavy body against the wall. 'I hate this place' he sniffled, 'I just want to go home.'

Home Coming

"Father" said the Hound in greeting.
Lugh appeared from the darkness and sat beside Cuchulainn in the long grass that covered the hillside, high above the fort.
"Why are you here, on this of all nights?" asked Lugh.
"It's part of my penance. You know that." answered the Hound.
Lugh said nothing to this but bowed his head and let out a great sigh.

After a moment, Lugh rose up and turned to his son and said, "Setanta, you have served your penance, you fulfilled that promise long ago. It's time to come home."
"Home?" answered Cuchulainn, "Father, I am home. It's my duty to guard this hill, this night especially. They fear the Tuatha de Danann and the Bean Sidhe, and I am bound to fulfill my duties to them."
"And what night is this." Lugh said, softly, watching his son's face.
"It's Samhain, Father, you know that."
"And what happens on Samhain, Setanta?"
"The Sidhe open and the two worlds join. The dead return to the world of the living and walk among us." Cuchulainn recited, like a child at his lessons. His eyes were glazed over and he seemed to be looking at something far in the distance, something Lugh could not see.
"And me, Setanta? What of me?" said Lugh.

Cuchulainn turned to look at his father. His father's eyes were bright and fixed and in them Cuchulainn began to see the reflections of a great war and the glory that his father had won in battle and the might with which he had wielded the spear and then Lugh's eyes clouded and Cuchulainn saw his father's death at the hands of one of the sons of the Dagda and he reeled in confusion. And then Cuchulainn saw his own life unfolding, from his birth to the years of training in Scotland and the face of Ferdiad, his foster-brother, who had stood beside him so many times in battle. And finally before the light in his father's eyes faded completely he saw his own death, tied to a pillar of stone and the face of Lugaid, his enemy, as the spear found the heart of Ulster and his eyes opened wide in recognition.
"No." said Cuchulainn, "how can this be?"
"It is Samhain, Setanta. The dead return to the earth for one night."
"And we are dead, Father?" the Hound asked. He lowered his head and Lugh saw that he understood.

"Hundreds of generations have come and gone since you joined me in death, Setanta. Look around you." Lugh swept a hand across the vista in front of them. "Look and see. These aren't the fields you remember from childhood. There is no fort anymore. This is a city now. Look at the lights, how they glare against the darkness pushing back the unknown and the fear. This isn't the land that you guarded in your youth, but a strange land that has grown up where ours once stood." Cuchulainn listened to his fathers words and as the truth of them became apparent, Lugh said, "Come with me. Let's go and see what these people have done with what we taught them. Let's go have some fun ."
The Hound stood, and for a few minutes he could see the hills he had climbed in his youth, and the rough stone walls of the house, and he could hear the plaintive calls of the cattle, out of site, in the pastures behind him. And then that vision faded and he looked at the grim buildings of concrete and steel that stood before him, now. The world was gray and bleak and he could sense the disassociation they held high as a standard of strength and pride and he felt saddened that so much had been lost to the passage of time.

He looked again at his Father who was unchanged, despite the passage of the centuries, and who stood with a hand outstretched for him and he took it and let himself be led down the hill and into the city, where for one night, every year, the doors of the Sidhe open and the dead can walk once again among the living.

It All Turns On A Dime

The blister packing had been punctured and that was why, he supposed, that the big red "Sale" sticker had been stamped over the price. He looked around for a smock, the uniform of employees and found none within range. His frustration grew, as he wheeled up and down the aisles cursing that the specifics he was searching out weren't listed on the over-hanging signs, as the old women, who avoided the place after five, crowded the passages with their carts, left sideways in front of the soup and pasta section, and as the cheerily indifferent cashier explained that "Sale" meant only ten percent off and not the fifty he wanted.
The days, when his soft-scented recollections were thin, were the worst. The bleak sky represented his mood, the stripped bare trees represented his soul, the whiteness of the road represented his bleached suppositions of optimism and he shut the door on it all and sat, unseeing, while the television filled his head with illusions of importance.

Later, while the chemical surrogates chimed in his veins, he laughed. Then he wondered why he had laughed. Then he stopped wondering why and laughed again.

Outside, the vista shifted and instead of decrepit houses and time stained corpulence, there emerged tendrils of contentment, nothing more, and he turned the television off and went to sit on the veranda. While the breeze, which picked up the scent of the cigars and body odour, trickled up the steps, he sought out and found those other refugees, hundreds of them, gazing out into the night and he felt hope, for the first time that day. They all sat, some smoking, some just sitting, while their vanities slept and their truculence dissolved, and he felt something of a connection.

"It all turns on a dime." he said out loud and his neighbour, who had been sitting back in the shadows and out of the light of the street, answered, "You got that right."

Wrecked

When the dust cleared and it became apparent that he wasn't injured, Silas looked around at the wreckage and breathed a sigh of relief. He crawled out from behind the airbag and fell onto the sidewalk, where the car was perched at an odd angle. The street was strangely quiet as if the noise of the accident had silenced the creatures that hide in the windows and doorways, like crickets in a field.
Despite the fact that the collision had let loose a magnificent contatenation of sounds, which escaped and pounded out over the city blocks around him, he wondered that fear could hold human curiosity so neatly in check.
He felt a trickle of blood winding its way down his forehead and wiped it away with the sleeve of his jacket. He sent a message of thanks to whoever held his fate in hand and that there hadn't been anybody on the street at that hour.
When, finally a police car pulled up, he struggled to his feet, aware that the shock he could feel pulling at his consciousness was gaining control and then he blacked out.
They didn't arrest him until he had received medical treatment but by then he had assumed responsibility, anyway. There was no denying that he was drunk; the bottles, that had spilled out onto the pavement when the casing of the car had cracked wide, couldn't be denied.
The tow-truck pulled his car from its metal hammock and the city workers used a mini-crane to straighten the pole, but they couldn't erase the traces left, that despite being barely recognizable, stood glaring in the sun, the next morning.
The crickets came out, then, to watch the last of the clean-up, to commiserate with their brothers, to pretend they were living while it happened, instead of crouched in fear, not of the physical danger that had been present but because of the overwhelming need to be invisible and hidden in the dark when reality intruded on them and shook them into awareness.
And then they turned away and forgot about it. And the city came to life.

Politics

The turgid ramblings of the street prophets have been silenced for the time being. That's alright. They're usually wrong anyway. If you need to know the score, look to the billboards and traffic lights. They'll tell you all you need to know about how long this rat trap will stand. And so the slippery and half-seen shades of discontent that crouch in corners and whisper about the blackness will be swept away as sun goes down, in reverse of the natural order. Government town.

I've read about places where a man can be free and mostly disbelieved what is said but someday, when I can no longer stand the sight of my own withering complexion, I might go there, just to see if they were telling me the truth. You see, I suspect that everyone lies much more than they need to, much more than is healthy. I understand, all too well, the very human need to extinguish even the idea of progress. I blame the mass hypnosis promulgated by the lecher crouched on the hill. The blaze on the horizon, that must be licking the bottom of creation by now, seems so far away as to be nothing more than a mirage of (hope, I was about to say) deception. I know that now.

A girl I once knew told me she wasn't going to be a victim anymore, while waving around the flags of aggression. I told her that the only people who have a problem with zealots are zealots and she never spoke to me again. Perception is nine-tenths reality.

You Don't Know Jack

He punched her in the face and a bruise was born that would cover the left side of her face, almost completely. She'd lost consciousness for a minute or two and dreamt about the time the cat had stalked a mole half-way across the yard before disemboweling it. When she woke up, he was crying and trying to put the spilled pasta back in the bag.
I am a vector of transitional thought, loose and free. And you sit in a squalid walk-up crooning about past hurts and collapse at the sight of blood.
There was only one thing to do. I took him into the desert and made him dig his own grave, just like in Casino, and he pissed himself before he was done. At least I wanted to, but she wouldn't let me.
Instead I drove her home to Syracuse and left her with Manny and Isabel. She'll be alright, there.
I like to drive at night. I like to pick a long, straight road and turn off the lights. I can see the heavens unfold like a black angel spreading its wings and sink my teeth into the horizon and pull. Faith is a word and faithful is a feeling. I distrust them both.
It took me two days to get home but by then I had a plan. He was still there, sitting on the couch, feeling sorry for himself. He wasn't happy to see me. Nobody is. I'm a vector of transitional thought, loose and free.

Super Murray

They arrested Marco outside the building on March 3rd. That was three days after he'd let himself be videotaped while holding up a convenience store in the Trough. As soon as I heard I went down to Alice's apartment and found them all crowded into her living room. Alice was an active member of the Tenants' Association and had become the centre of activity in the building. As it was I was the enemy.
"Mom, the Super's here." her other son, Josh, yelled from the door.
"I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am, Alice." I said as she came down the hall.
"Murray, you just can't help yourself, can you?" she said, her voice quivering with barely concealed rage.
"Alice, I just came by to say I'm sorry, that's it."
"Well stick it in your ass, Murray. I don't need you feeling sorry for me, right now."

When the feds caught Walker Casey, in 903, cheating on his taxes the Tenants' Association voted to have him turfed and he left without much of a fight. I was curious to see what would happen now that one of their own was in trouble. It looked to me like they were closing up ranks but before long the cracks appeared and they came to me one day, without Alice, and told me she'd been voted off the committee. They wanted her out of the building, too.
"With that other one still living with her it's only a matter of time before something happens and we just don't feel safe knowing that there is a criminal element amongst us." That was the official line. These were not people who you showed weakness to.
This isn't a high end building. I mean, it's nice and I do my best to keep up with all of the problems but it's not Shangrila.
Alice handed in her notice later that week and I felt pretty sick about it. She'd never caused any problems and even her sons, who were a little wild maybe, had never been a concern of mine. I asked her what she was going to do now and she just said, "I'm moving, Murray."
"But where will you go?" I asked her.
"What do you care, Murray? Really."
I told her that I hoped she found something nice and not too expensive.

The next day I went up to her apartment to do the obligatory inspection. The place was immaculate. I hadn't been in the apartment since before she and her sons had moved in . I'd never been called to fix a leak or patch a hole. And yet someone had done some very nice work in there. Crown moldings had been added in the living room. The hard wood floors had been sanded down and stained and the tiles in the kitchen, instead of the standard linoleum, were now a very nice faux granite. It was the best looking apartment I had seen in this building and I've been around awhile. When I told her how impressed I was she barked at me, "I'm not some low-life Murray. I'm not a criminal." and I let her alone.
She stopped me at the door, just as I was leaving and apologized.
"You've never been anything but polite to me. It's just that I'm under a bit of stress right now, with Marco. He's not co-operating with the police and I'm afraid they're going to put him in jail." She leaned her head on the wall, looking up at me and I realized that she was a very beautiful woman. She looked tired, though, and I felt bad for her.
"Y'know that the Tenant's Association's recommendations are only that: recommendations."
"And stay here? Most of my neighbor's won't even look at me, Murray."
"Yeah," I said, "it would be tough, but I could put in a good word for you, Alice. They listen to me sometimes. Besides, the owner's do like to stick it to these tenants every now and again." I said with a smile. She smiled back at me, but she was too weary and too tired to answer.

Three days later she came to the office and told me she was staying.
"I fought their battles and now that I need them they've turned their backs on me. Well, screw them, Murray."
"Good for you, Alice. " I said, and I meant it. I was happy to hear her say that. Sometimes you just have to dig in your heels.
We talked about Marco then and she told me that he'd be on probation for two years.
"He was the lookout, the stupid idiot. He's a good kid, Murray, he just got caught up in something he couldn't get out of."
I myself have been in trouble with the law once or twice. I knew Marco would be alright. He was a good kid. This neighborhood just isn't what it used to be.
"You're a widower aren't you?"
That caught me off guard. My wife died seven years ago. She stepped off a curb in the Market and the driver hadn't seen her until it was too late.
"When was the last time you had a decent meal?"
"I'm not a complete idiot in the kitchen, y'know, Alice." I said, but I let myself be invited over for dinner anyway.

Eventually the frost eased up and Alice, to her credit, never let any of her neighbors make her feel guilty about the whole incident. She still had a lot of friends in the building and now I'm happy to call myself one, too.
Maybe we're a little more than friends, but for now it's good and for once in my life I feel like I'm happier than I have been in a very long time.

Stairway to Heaven

I had a beautiful vision this morning. I was sitting on the edge of a fountain when I heard a voice and looked up. Coming towards me, calling my name, was a tall, regal looking woman, who was as naked as it gets. She said something or other about the future and she made me repeat it back to her. Then she got mad at me because I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying. She was very uptight for a vision who walks around with no clothes on.
Without some sort of vision for the future, you're pretty much destined to find a comfortable chair and relax for the rest of your life. Living 'in the moment' is fine if you happen to like what's going on in that moment. That's why you don't find many enlightened people in line at the bank, but if you do you can bet they're the ones who don't mind if you butt in front of them.

The mystical experience of life is something that most of us are missing. When you wake up every morning with a headache, late for work, driving an old piece of shit car and wondering how you'll ever retire on what you have saved up, you're not likely to stop and look around in wonder at the world or anybody in it. And yet the most curious of superstitions still persist.
The reason hockey players don't shave during the playoffs is the same kind of thinking that makes you lift your feet as you cross a set of railroad tracks. Knocking on wood is a ritual that persists when talking about the future and consider what you're doing when you cross yourself after something ugly happens to you. I personally know people who believe that they will be rescued from a burning lake of fire by God but wouldn't cross the street to help out a neighbor. It's all about what happens next, isn't it.

The root of the problem stems from the fact that we don't know why we're here. We didn't have anything to do with it. We woke up, one day, and found we had a family, lived in a house, had cereal for breakfast every day and a dog that humps the cushions on the couch.
But the afterlife is all ours. It's something we created and it can be anything we want. Everybody has their own version of heaven and it usually contradicts our neighbors' idea of it. There's only one planet Earth but there are millions and maybe billions of personal heavens somewhere out there, each one marked by a sign post that says something like, "Mike's Heaven. Trespassers will be prosecuted."

In the very grey zone that exists where science meets spirituality, you'll find people who are looking into the basic components of existence and they're agreeing that what we call home seems to be both a very practical place, where flat tires are the norm, and a place where thoughts and ideas become reality, where thinking something makes it possible. It's the proving ground for the axiomatic, "Be careful what you wish for." In short, it's no wonder you have a bad day when all you do is think about what a bad day it's going to be.

If you really believe that there is a fate or destiny attached to you, that you are something special and deserve a better life, it seems reasonable to assume that you might have something to do with bringing it to fruition, no? I think we can discount the people who have been driven insane by the pressures of life, and who spend their time trying to subvert whole countries and eradicate people whose beliefs don't coincide with theirs , just so they can afford to put gas in a monster truck that spits poison into the atmosphere and will destroy the planet. Those people are nuts. But you and me? We have to get by on what we've got, and what we've got is this:

If you believe that there is a God, then God exists. Easy enough. If you have faith that people are essentially good then they are. If you believe you will have a good day, then you will. If you believe that you can be happy then you will be happy. But you're not. You don't believe that last one, do you? It's time to ask yourself, "Why?"

I'm going back to bed. Maybe I'll have another vision. And this time I'm going to listen.

Hey, the spell checker just told me I didn't spell anything wrong today. That has to mean something. It's a sign.

Always A Moral

I loved going to work with my Dad.
"Let me tell you a story." he said.

A long time ago, in the vicinity of the Echoing Sand Mountain, near to where Lo-tsun saw the spectacular display of sunlight but before he had begun to carve the first of the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas, there lived a young couple who, although very happy, were also very poor.
Every day they would leave their miserable hut and go into the mountains to gather firewood. Every day they gathered two bundles of wood, one for their own use and one to sell, so that they could buy rice to make porridge.
One evening, after they had collected enough wood to sell, and after leaving the extra bundle in the courtyard, as they usually did, they settled into a long night's sleep. When they woke the next morning they discovered that someone had crept in while they slept and stolen the extra firewood.
All of their work had been for nothing and that day they redoubled their efforts to make up for the loss. The next day they discovered that the extra bundle they collected had also been stolen. They were perplexed by this and promptly went out to collect more wood.
After a week had gone by, and after seven bundles of firewood had been stolen from their courtyard the wife pleaded with her husband to do something.
"You idiot." she said, "How many bundles do we have to lose before you put a stop to this."
He thought about it and decided that he didn't want to lose another bundle of wood, so he hatched a plan to arrange himself inside an extra bundle of wood and wait for the perpetrator.
He lay awake, through most of the night, and just before dawn a rope came down out of the heavens and attached itself to the bundle. It was hoisted up through the air and landed at the Gates of Heaven. The man lay perfectly still, hoping to see who had been stealing his wood and soon an old man came along and picked up the bundle.
"I must be getting old," said the Emperor of Heaven, "These bundles of wood are getting heavier and heavier."
And at that moment the man burst from the bundle and accused the Emperor of Heaven of being a thief.
The Emperor of Heaven was dismayed by this and said, "Why do you collect two bundles of firewood each day if not to warm the Emperor of Heaven?"
The man explained why they collected an extra bundle of wood each day and that he and his wife had not eaten in a week because of the theft.
The Emperor of Heaven laughed when he heard this but took pity on the man and said, "Well, I suppose I should pay you for your wood, then."
"Damn straight." said the man, knowing that if anyone could afford it, the Emperor of Heaven could.
The Emperor of Heaven took the man into a large hall filled with bags of jewels and money and said to the man, "Take any bag you want. This will be my payment for your wood."
The man couldn't believe his luck and because he was a greedy man he chose the biggest and heaviest bag there was. The old man stopped him on the way out and said, "The only condition is that you can only take one coin from the bag every day and no more."
When the man returned home with the bag of money his wife was overjoyed. She considered the Emperor of Heaven's restriction reasonable and began to collect the coins that her husband pulled from the bag, one at a time, until she had a sizable stack of them.
"It's enough for an ox." he said one day.
"Dream on. I'm saving to build us a better house." she answered. Time passed and the pile of coins grew larger.
"It's enough for some cows." he said one day.
"Get your hands off that money or I'll break your arm." she answered. And the pile of coins grew larger.
"Surely it's enough to build a house now." he said one day and she relented. She gave him the pile of coins to buy the supplies they would need but instead of coming back with wooden beams and thatch he returned with bricks and mortar.
"Are you completely daft?" she said to him. "That's not enough to build a kennel much less a house."
"My pet," he said, "do not worry. Each day, as we pull a coin from the bag I will use it to buy more supplies until the house is finished." and there wasn't much she could say to that.
Before long, however, he realized that the house would never be done before the wind started to howl down from Echoing Sand Mountain and he decided that he needed to take more than one coin a day from the bag. He reached for the bag and, after he had taken one, he reached in again and withdrew another and then he reached in and drew out a third. When he reached in for a forth time he found the bag empty and he heard a wail go up from behind him.
"What have you done, you witless moron?" and he turned to see his wife standing on the threshold of their old thatch hut. All of the bricks and mortar were gone.
The man fell to his knees and pleaded with the Emperor of Heaven for another chance but his cries went unheeded and he was forced to go back to collecting firewood, an extra bundle every day, so that he could sell it at the market to buy rice to make porridge.

"I don't get it." I said.
"You asked me why your Mother is always mad at me." said my Dad.
"Yeah, but I don't get what this story has to do with you or Mom."
"Someday you will, son. Now stop asking me so many questions and start picking up wood." he said.
I looked around but didn't see any wood and for the rest of the afternoon my Dad just leaned on the Deli-counter, looking out onto 7th Avenue.

My Dad was a very weird guy.

The Grove

I slipped away from the house after dinner. The confusion in the kitchen allowed me go unnoticed and I followed the path that led from the back door down to the river. I ducked under the low branches of the willow that overhung the shore and untied the boat and climbed in.
The water was almost black in the failing light and along the shore I could vaguely make out the incandescent hues of spider fungus and Aletheusis, just beginning to give off its supernatural light. I paddled upstream, pushing hard against the current, aiming the boat at the opposite shore. I could barely see the shape of Morgan's' tree against the darkening sky and knew I'd have trouble finding my way back, unless I waited until the morning light could guide me.
I leapt into the shallow water and pulled the boat up on the sand under the tree and tied it off.
The shadows here were darker and my eyes strained to pick out the void between the rocks; the path to the top of the hill.
This was where I came when I needed to be alone, or when something needed to be done, and tonight I was there for both reasons. I'd had a dream the night before and as I walked through the house, my house, I'd stepped on something soft and pliable and when I looked down I saw that it was a small mouse. I'd crushed its spine and killed it. This is where I came to bury bad dreams.
When I reached the grove I had to tear away some of the vines that had crept in and over-grown the open space. The light was poor but the sky was beginning to take on its lunar glow and by the time I had dug the grave the moon had come into view.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the package, feeling for the contents in the dark, and I dropped it into the hole. I gently covered it with loose dirt and then lay my hand, palm down, on the mound. I whispered some words into the night and then cleaned the ground around the other markers I'd left there, some going all the way back to my childhood. A life time of bad dreams buried, mourned and left here as a token to the lost nights, spent feverish and alone.
When I had finished my cleaning I looked up and knew that I would have to wait until morning before going back, that or risk missing the landing and having to plod upstream looking for the house.
I lay down among my memories and wished for a deep and trouble free sleep, knowing that once buried they were harmless and their power broken. The newest, and the last, the most troubling of them all, because, in the manner of dreams, I knew that that small mouse, darting here and there, looking for escape, only to be crushed to death was me. It needed a decent burial.
I watched the branches of the trees waving back and forth across the black blue sky, leaving trails and after-images in my mind, until my eyes closed on their own and sleep overcame me.

Eight Ball

I never knew that I liked L.A. Woman by the Doors until she wandered over to the juke-box and played it. I took my shot and waited for her to come back. She didn't even make it half-way across the room before some drunk old pecker stood in her way and asked her to dance. I stood up a little straighter, wondering if I was going to have to step in and break it up, but she pointed to the end of her cue and then she pointed between the guys legs and he got the message and sat down. She hadn't said a word. They all knew her, though, and the game was played out on a regular basis every time we were in there after that.
It's hard to date a woman that everyone wants to be with.

I grew up on the road, learning how to play pool from club owners and strippers. The one time I went to a real pool hall I was confused by the 'real' rules because I'd never played on a table that you didn't have to feed coins into. When she asked me to play I decided I'd better take it easy on her. By the time she'd beat me three games straight I knew I was in love.

We didn't have much, in those days. She clipped coupons from the paper and I hustled a little on the market. The university kids were always easy because they had money and came down here to drink cheap beer. When she wasn't working she'd come in a half hour after me and challenge the table. After I'd beat everybody in the room she'd take the table from me and then we'd play another for show. After that they'd line up and let her take their money. Those were great nights, but mostly because I loved to see the looks on their faces when I'd leave with her on my arm. Not only did we take their money but every man in there wished he was me. That's a pretty good feeling.

She couldn't fall asleep unless she had her head on my shoulder and a hand on my chest. That's a pretty good feeling, too. There were times when all I could do was look at the ceiling and wonder how I could be so happy. She burned incense in the room and hung brightly coloured cloth over the lights and, despite the chill seeping in around the window's frame, we were warm, cocooned and together.

Yesterday would have been fifteen years. I say would have been because we're not together anymore. She used to come and visit for awhile but slowly, over the long months before the trial, and after, her visits became less frequent. I couldn't blame her, but that didn't make my nights any less painful. I could see it in her eyes and I knew I was in trouble. In one of the most incredibly stupid maneuvers of my life I told her to stop coming and get on with her life. Stupid, because I was wrong. There was never anyone else. At least not until I told her to leave me alone.

The last time I saw her, sitting across from me, behind the glass, she told me she was getting married. And she did. I wonder if she's happy. I hope she is. She deserves it after what I did to her. You see it wasn't the drugs, or the stealing, or even the jail time that she couldn't deal with. It was the fact that she had put everything aside, everything, to help me through this. Her life was turned upside down but she had managed, for awhile, but I let her down by thinking that she would rather be with someone else. It broke her heart.

She played to win and never made excuses for her game by blaming the table, but she couldn't fall asleep at night unless she had her head on my shoulder and a hand on my chest. Now I'm the guy whose eyes follow them out of the room, knowing that I've been hustled by the most beautiful girl in the room and I wish I was him.

End Times

I really shouldn't stay up all night reading 'end days' prophesies and apocalyptic interpretations of historical events. It's bad for my digestive system and I woke up this morning with a headache.

As a species, and in general, we have a morbid fascination with our own mortality. This has led, at various times, to people from all walks of life getting into the prophecy game. There are lots to chose from so I've thrown together a bunch just to see what happens when you mix and match human destiny with religious fervor and a pinch of mysticism. I have come up with the following.

From the Catholic Church's refusal to reveal the third prophecy of Lucia dos Santos, otherwise known as the 'Our Lady of Fatima' events, to the identification, by certain groups, of the European Union as the 'Seven Headed Dragon' to the revelation that the U.N., who is in the midst of trying to find a new leader, will become the world power ruled by Lucifer in disguise and will topple all forms of government but its own, I have gleaned that we are on the edge of an abyss into which most of us will be plunged as the war for the souls of mankind rages between the forces of Our Father, Who Art In Heaven, and his ungrateful and renegade Arch-Angel, Lucifer.

Generally, it goes like this:

By ignoring the third warning delivered by the Virgin Mary at Fatima, in 1917, and refusing to consecrate Russia, like they were told to, the Vatican has put us on the path to destruction. The Church will be overtaken by the 'anti-pope' who will bring about the destruction of that establishment. Then the European Union will emerge as the dominate power in the western world. The U.N. will assume world government and wage war on an unnamed Eastern Power (take a guess.) and the war of the Apocalypse will be engaged.

Pope John Paul 2, in Fulda, Germany in 1980, was caught a little off guard when he was asked about the contents of the third prophecy of Fatima said, more or less, "What good will it do you to know that the oceans will rise and destroy a bunch of us, and that the church will be subverted, millions will die and a world power, led by the devil, will annihilate the rest of us? But that's not what it says, it says we should all pray and be good. Seriously, I'm telling you the truth, here. It's a message of hope and all that stuff about pain and destruction was just a little joke. Get it?"

Things to watch out for:

1) The re-emergence of the Roman Empire-Done (see European Union)
2) One World Government led by the anti-Christ-Waiting to see what happens at the U.N.
3) One World Money System-Coming (I'm changing everything to Euros in anticipation)
4) The appearance of the Whore Of Babylon, who will rule beside the anti-Christ-Uncertain (variously referred to as the Church, Jerusalem, The Soviet Union, Queen Elizabeth [according to Rastafarians], The United States and Pauly Shore.)
5) Christ appears in Jackson County, Missouri-Not yet (This, according to the Mormons)
6) Christ becomes King of Heaven-Already happened (1914, according to the Jehovah's Witness')
7) The birth of the Buddha Maitreya-Uncertain (Buddhist's aren't saying, but not denying it either)

All in all, I intend to keep a watchful eye on things, although I don't know that it will do any of us any good to get ourselves in a knot over it. I should probably be paying attention to things a little closer to home, like the price of gas, the monopoly Roger's is building, Stephan Harper's weight, and that smell coming from behind the stove.

Oh, and if I'm wrong, just ignore this and chalk it up to a little indigestion.

Something Special

"Are we poor?"
Nelson Tubbs looked up at his mother from the the dinner table as he asked this. Eunice Tubbs had her back to him and he thought he saw a slight stiffening in her shoulders as he asked his question. She didn't say anything, instead she shoveled the dry biscuits onto a plate, waiting, maybe, for an answer from the wheezing blob at the head of the table.
"Mom?"
"What, Nelson?" she said, pretending to inspect her latest creation. The biscuits sat quietly on the plate, trying to look innocent without much success. I'm making biscuits with powdered milk, she thought, you tell me if we're poor. But she didn't say it. Instead she said, "Ask your father."
"Hey, Dad? Are we poor?"
Donald Tubbs said nothing and seemed not to have heard. Nelson watched the paper in front of his father's face, waiting, but the paper didn't move except for one quick snap as a page was turned.
"Aren't you going to answer your son?" said his mother.
"Uh huh." from behind the paper, "Yeah."

Nelson tuned out the argument and when he was finished his dinner he left the table and went to his room. He had never known that his family was poor but Ritchie Clark had told him he was, that afternoon, after school. Sometimes Ritchie Clark was allowed to have friends over to play in his basement before dinner. Nelson liked going to Ritchie Clark's house because Ritchie had nearly every G.I. Joe that there was. He also had the jeep and the helicopter and the base, but he wouldn't let Nelson play with those, just in case he broke them. Ritchie Clark always made him play with the blond haired G.I. Joe, who wasn't as cool, but Nelson might have done the same if Ritchie ever came over to his house to play and if Nelson had more than one G.I. Joe.
That was how Ritchie knew he was poor, Nelson thought.

Eunice Tubbs sat long into the night, with only a small lamp to illuminate the room, her fingers working, abstractly alone, on the sweater as she considered her options. She wondered how things could have turned out so wrong for her. There was a time when she had considered herself very lucky, but that memory had been left to gather dust while she struggled to make ends meet with the pitiful allowance she got from the silent, brooding, selfish man she'd pinned her dreams to. No longer, did she smile at the memory of her girlfriends giggling when he came into the room or at the anticipation she felt as his car pulled into the yard wondering when he would ask her the only question she wanted to hear. And now she knew that the truth was out there, on the lips of everyone in town. She was poor and there wasn't a goddamned thing she could do about it. She put down her needles and turned out the light but stayed in her chair, looking out the window and eventually fell asleep dreaming of the day she met him, the day she'd lost herself in his dreams and drowned in his arms.

Donald Tubbs sat at the end of the bar absently mopping up the condensation from the glass with the sleeve of his shirt. He thought about her, her eyes hard and her mouth twisted into a grimace as she cut him open and lay out his pride, right there in front of the ungrateful little bastard. He thought about the long days he spent in the sun, breaking his back for them, all so that he could come home and be treated like a criminal. 'You don't even give me enough to feed us properly' she had screamed into his face. Where did that come from? They ate every night, under his roof, at his table, and they had the nerve to complain about it. This is my life, he thought.
He looked around the room. It was quiet tonight. There was one other couple in the place and they were leaning drunkenly on each other as he whispered into her ear and she giggled at everything he said. Donald wanted to go over there and slap the man stupid, telling him to get out while he could, before she trapped him and pinned him with kids, a mortgage and expectations he could never fulfill.
He finished his beer and wobbled to the front door, searching his pockets for the keys. Behind the wheel, he started the car and then shut it off again. He leaned his head on his hands and than felt a wave of nausea rising up from his stomach and with a heaving flush of self-loathing, he punched the wheel, immersing himself in the pain and waiting for it to transform his guilt into anger. But it didn't come tonight, the anger. Instead, it dissolved into nothing, leaving him quiet and alone. This life is a quiet killer, he thought, and now so am I. He started the car again but before he could slip it into gear another wave of dizziness raced up his spine and he slipped into unconsciousness and slumped over on the front seat, the engine still sputtering into the night.

"Hi, Mom." chirped Nelson as he sat down at the table. She set a bowl of cereal in front of him and he dug in hungrily, not stopping until the last Shreddie was gone and then he tilted the bowl and drank the milk left in the bottom.
"Did you sleep okay?" she asked him, watching his eyes as they moved to the empty chair at the other end of the table.
"Yeah. Where's Dad?" he said.
"Oh, he had to go into work early today. Nelson, are you sure you're okay? Are you still thinking about what Ritchie said to you yesterday?" Eunice tried to sound casual, sure her son would hear the fear in her voice.
"No. Ritchie Clark is a jerk. He just thinks that because he has lots of toys, he's better than me. But I got eighty-eight on my spelling test and he only got a seventy-three. And he got in trouble yesterday for talking in class." Nelson took his bowl to the sink and rinsed it out.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Nelson?"
"I don't care if we're poor. I got lots of toys and a lot more friends than Ritchie Clark." he stood, legs apart, waiting for her to finish putting his peanut butter sandwiches into his lunch box.
Eunice Tubbs thought about what he'd said long after he'd climbed onto the school bus and long into the morning, as she washed the dishes, and long into the afternoon, as she sat knitting her sweater, and then she put it away and got up to see what she could find in the freezer for dinner. Something special.