The Pittsburgh Kid

Advance Report

2290-03-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

Well, this is disappointing...

The Godbaby

2012-02-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

I was given eight days and 2,500 words in which to write a story satisfying the following requirements:

Genre: GhostStory

Subject: Trust

Character: A baby

This is apparently what I wrote:

The Godbaby

"I remember back when I was a baby, there wasn't all thisnefarious paedological activity," John said. "It would have been unthinkable! We werecontent with the fair, hard-won fruits of our honest labour, and the thought oforganized crime even on the scale that you see in the rural preschools nowadaysnever occurred to us even in our most selfish dreams."

The three men leaned back on their chairs. Then forward. Then backagain. They were seated in identical rocking chairs on an innocuously locatedporch in a rural town in southern Iowa.

The men on the porch were well known to all of the residents of thetown of Awoi, Iowa. John was tall and skinny. Murray was fat and bespectacled.Rainier was short, squat, and always wore a mesh Best Feeds hat. Backwards.Revealing his liver-spotted forehead through the arch.

John stood up, turned abruptly, and hobbled inside to get some water.

Then he hobbled back to his rocking chair and sat back down.

Ranier looked around the table, then said, with a slight smirk,"Everyone'll be there tonight, I reckon?"

"What if something unforeseen happens?" Murray asked.

"Murray, we've come all this way," Ranier said.

"But what if it does?"

"Well, then, you're just gonna have to trust me," he said.

Murray looked at him. "OK," he said.

John just grunted and took another swig.

"Good," said Ranier, nodding slowly. "Good."

The night hung heavy over the town of Awoi, Iowa. The three pillars ofthe community made their way down the street from John's house, carrying theirprovisions in carpbetbags. Three sticks. Three bags full of any and allbaby-protection paraphernalia an old man might need. And three mouths dry asbone, three bodies as jumpy as newborn bunnies, three heartbeats fast as scatimprov.

They'd been planning this outing for weeks, and each of them hadfilled his free time dreaming up any eventualities they could conceive andplotting counter-attacks.

And if any of them slowed up as they turned the corner of Dove Street,the ancient house at 11662 finally coming into view, no one thought the less ofthem for it.

For years now, the townspeople had wondered what went on in themysterious manse at 11662 Dove. It was officially listed as belonging toInfantry Inc., a laundry service out of Dover, Delaware. John had researchedthe company exhaustively and found nothing to indicate it was anything morethan a shell corporation. A photographic map search of the given area on theinternet clearly indicated the address listed as its headquarters as awarehouse with "For Rent" signs posted on it. On one, someone hadspraypainted an "s" over the "n" and then added"Gump" underneath.

Consistent with the head office, no one was ever seen coming or goingfrom the premises on Dove. Occasionally, a light would be seen on inside behindthe drawn drapes, but no one could recall seeing any beings in silhouette. Noteven Murray, who'd staked out the site overnight, though he feared he'dprobably slipped into unconsciousness a time or two, especially since he awokein the basement of the house in question with his fly unzipped, having dreamthe was going to his own bathroom in his own house.

This was how the gang had discovered their in.

Ranier felt no need for confirmations of the fishiness of thesituation. His gut told him the whole thing stank to high heaven, and if timehad taught him anything, it was that his gut was more reliable than any pieceof evidence or law of science.

As John and Murray were psychologically reconciling their needs forpreparation with their increasingly urgent hopes that any irregular activity atthe house would, like most exciting things in life, turn out to be purefantasy, Ranier's exhilaration matched his certainty.

Despite the fact that Ranier had twice returned to the house sinceMurray's inadvertant discovery and both times found the back door to thebasement unlocked, John and Murray both held out hope that this would be thetime it didn't open.

But it did.

Despite being the one most certain there was something to be wary of, Ranierwalked in as if he owned the place. It was furnished, and clean. Otherwise,there were no signs of life.

"Y'see? I knew this was all in your head," John said toRanier as he made his way to the stairs.

The first floor matched the basement - everything in order, everythingclean, no sign of habitation. John determined the most comfortable-lookingcouch was the one in the living room and sat down on it.

"I think I've seen all there is to see," he said. "Now,I'm going to sleep."

"John, as usual, your evaluation exhibits the measured, objectivethoroughness and patience of a Christopher Colombus," Ranier replied.

"I think this is more of a Stanley/Livingston situation,Ranier," said Murray. "Clearly, no one's been in this place formonths."

Ranier licked his finger, ran it alng the top edge of a bookshelf, andheld it out toward his companions.

"Then where's the dust?" he asked.

Murray was stumped to silence, but John answered, "There's got tobe a maid."

"I've never seen a car parked here," Ranier said.

"Maybe she's dropped off and picked up," Murray offered."Or takes the bus."

"We could have done all this hypothesising from John'sporch," Murray said, tossing his stick-and-bag into the corner. "I'mgoing to investigate."

"You go ahead, and call me if you need help separating the normalfrom the boring," John said, lying down on the couch.

Murray sat down in the Laz-Z-Boy, saying nothing.

The next thing Murray knew, he was being shaken awake by a hystericalRanier, until John threw a pillow that smacked him in the back of the head.

"Calm down, will ya'?" John mumbled from the couch.

"The bathroom! You have to come see the bathroom!"

Ranier's look, as much as his words, made it clear that they did, infact, have to see the bathroom - he had the wide eyes of someone on too muchmethylphenidate and the agitated manner of someone on...well, too muchmethylphenidate.

"Are you on methylphenidate?" Murray asked.

"This is not a joke!" Ranier half-screamed.

"Come on, Murray, you know Janice threw out his stash afterhe stayed up that night organizing their DVD collection by release date."

"If one of you doesn't come with me this instant, I'm bringingdown what's up there. And I don't think you want that."

Ranier took a step toward the stairs before Murray got up to join him.As John put his head back down on the pillow, Murray pulled the pillow away.

"If I'm going, you're going," he said.

The two of them followed Ranier up the stairs. Outside the bathroomdoor, Ranier gave them each a sincere look and exhaled melodramatically, thenturned and opened the door.

It was a normal bathroom, as clean and tidy as the rest of the house.Murray and John exchanged glances, but Ranier was already on his way into whatlooked like a steam room.

Murray and John followed. Right as they reached the door, Ranierflipped on the lights to reveal piles of body parts. The head of an old womanwho'd lived down the street stared at them as if she'd just shouted"Bingo!" An arm sat on a nearby bench, the area that had been rippedfrom the shoulder clearly visible, resembling a mass of melted earthworms.

In the far corner were a congregation of torsos, some arms and a strayleg or two were stashed underneath the bench on the far wall, and what lookedlike a few toes lay just beside the doorway.

When Murray realized the sound he'd been hearing was John runningaway, John was already out of sight. Murray followed out of the room, down thestairs, and back to the living room where they'd left their gear. Ranier followedafter them, more slowly.

"Oh my God! OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod!" John kept repeating ashe fumbled to put his blanket back in his carpetbag.

"We have to call the police," said Murray.

"We have to get out of here," said John, as he fumbled moreferociously with the blanket, and the remainder of the goods in his carpetbagfell to the floor.

That's when they heard a noise in the basement. And froze. Then,following Ranier's lead, they grabbed their sticks and bags and hid behind thecouch as the slow, light steps got increasingly loud.

Finally, four toddlers carrying a bassinet, each holding one of thelegs, emerged from the stairway. They walked into the kitchen and set down thebassinet in the middle of the room. In it was an infant sucking on a pacifier. Hewas clearly the leader.

Ranier's brow was moist as a spit rag. Murray had soiled himself. AndJohn cowered in the corner, fervently sucking his thumb.

All of the children stood (or did their best to try to stand) in acircle around this Godbaby. He seemed to be communicating to them by sucking onhis pacifier. He varied the rate and pitch, and the babies occasionally noddedin unison.

The moment had come, Ranier knew. It was time to live your life to thefullest, as the GeriaTricks™ commericials exhorted thelikes of him. He went into his deepest baritone, the long sound waves too lowfor the babies to hear, and, though they'd run through this scenario onlyonce, half-heartedly, when Ranier was too drunk to be resisted, his compatriotscreaked into action.

Ranier slipped slowly but quietly into the hallway and thence up thestairs. He winced as the top step creaked under his weight, but comfortedhimself with the thought They're toddlers - it'll take 'em forever to climball those steps.

Murray stayed low and rolled out of sight behind the couch, thecontents of his adult diaper forming a new working mold of his buttocks witheach rotation.

John pulled his thumb from his mouth like the the pin from a grenade.Just as with riding a bicycle, he found, you never forget how to be a soldier -his 'Nam training came back in a snap. He'd taken evasive manoeuvers andpositioned himself in a shadowed corner of the basement right before the munitions squad exited the armory.His hand still dripped from his quick visit to the bathroom. The squad, ofabout half a dozen, came wobbling by, cocking rifles and dragging ammo. As hefought hard to swallow his disgust at their freshly powdered scent, he noticedthe female drop something, and he silently reached out and picked up the slimypiece of detritus.

He waited until the enemy line had mostly disappeared up the stairs.As the final toddler neared the doorway, John did his best to clear his mind ofall worry, then flicked the chosen object of distraction in the direction ofthe kid in the rear of the group with the gear.

He'd imagined the object smartly striking the wall just behind thetoddler's left ankle, then rolling down a step or three. Unfortunately, he'doverestimated how long it'd been since he'd toed the rubber, or maybeunderestimated how different his chosen projectile was from a spit-slickedbaseball.

Regardless, the chucked fup-pup struck the terminal toddler squarelybetween the shoulder blades.

"Shit!" John mouthed, as he sunk back down and hoped.

The rugrat was either braver than he'd expected, or stupider, Johnthought, as the kid turned and backtracked with nary a word to his platoon.

John leaned toward stupider.

The kid picked up the pacifier at the bottom of the stairs, turned itaround in his hand, and then began looking around the room.

'kid wouldn't have lasted a minute against Charlie, John thought as he unfolded himself from the corner, clocked the kidover the head with a brick he'd pulled from the top tank of the toilet - Maybethe environment can save you, he thought - and dragged theknocked-out toddler to take his spot amongst the shadows, relieving him of themini-arsenal he wouldn't be needing for a spell. Then, thinking better of it,he grabbed the knife off the kid's belt and slit his throat with it, darn nearcutting all the way through.

"Just to be safe," he told himself.

You're just gonna have to trust me. Ranier'swords rang in his ears as he stood behind the bathroom door. He heard thepitter-patter of little feet retracing the path he'd just taken. He could seetheir reflection in the mirror as they summited the stairs. One went left, andone came toward him. As Ranier craned his neck to keep them in the mirror, thefloorboard beneath him creaked. They both came right for him. As soon as thesecond stepped beyond the door, Ranier kicked the door shut, grabbed thetoddler from behind, and snapped his neck like a fresh carrot. He then swungthe limp body as hard as he could, the feet striking the other toddler in theface. Ranier didn't know whether the kid went unconscious before a couple ofhis bloody teeth hit the mirror - all he knew was that, a second later, he hadstripped them each of a knife and was slipping into the master bedroom.

As he lay there, he heard what sounded like a drunken army mountingthe steps, mumbling, fumbling, and slowly advancing. Then he heard the sound ofa gun cocking, and his stomach dropped. Then he heard a chorus of guns cocking,and his bladder evacuated. He was one man with two knives. They were a dozen babieswith loaded guns.

They headed straight for him. He was done. He knew it. "I'm goin'out big," he thought, and, putting a knife in each hand, sprang up tocharge.

The gunfire was immediate and overwhelming. He was surprised at howboring death was. He felt as if he were just standing there, in blackness.

Then, finally, he heard it - the voice.

"Ranier! Stop standing there like an idiot! Let's move!"

He opened his eyes to see John standing in front of him, a sea of bloodied toddlers in his wake.

"My God! John!"

"I know," John said, "Nick of time. You can thank melater. Let's go!"

The two ran down the stairs to find Murray at the front door.

"Murray! Let's move!" John shouted, dragging Ranier behindhim. But Murray just stood there.

"It's OK," he said. "It's OK now. It's all over."He was looking toward the kitchen.

In the kitchen, in the bassinet, lay the Godbaby, a diaper strappedover his face, his sucking muffled and belaboured.

Then, before their eyes, the diaper dropped into the otherwise emptybassinet. John ran up the steps.

"They're gone! They're all gone!"

The three of them sat in silence, the sound of sucking nowhere to be heard.

Gnomenclature

2012-01-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

The most-recent 24-hour short-story contest gave 850 as the maximum word limit (although the following is 861, as I've made some post-submission additions) and the following as the prompt:

Blue ice stretched to the horizon, fading into the blinding rays of another waning winter sun. She shivered violently as the shifting mass groaned under her feet. She instinctively glanced down, looking for cracks under the transparent sheen. Suddenly, she tensed and dropped to her knees. Desperately clawing at the ice, she screamed...

So I submitted the following:

Gnomenclature

Blue ice stretched tothe horizon, fading into the blinding rays of another waning winter sun. Sheshivered violently as the shifting mass groaned under her feet. Sheinstinctively glanced down, looking for cracks under the transparent sheen.Suddenly, she tensed and dropped to her knees. Desperately clawing at the ice,she screamed, "Papa! Papa! Come home!"

Her cry was a barelyintelligible mix of squeal and death moan. Tears burst from her eyes likeboiling water from a geyser. By the time they hit the ground, their temperature'd chilled to ambient.

Her face covered in amixture of tears, mucus, saliva, and sweat, she felt her head drop down intothe snow, her neck too weak to do anything but guide the landing. Her arms lay slack by her side. The snow didn't sting or ache. Rather, it felt likethe best pillow she'd ever known.

When she awoke, thetemperature had risen by at least twenty degrees. Her limbs were stiff butfully functional. And she felt rested as she rarely had before.

When she finallymanaged to roll over onto her back, she felt a strange combination of intenseheat and persistent pressure. Gnomes they were, with a capital (but silent)"G", although only at the beginning of a sentence or when part of aproper name. And what proper names they were: Gnome Alaska. GnomeAgaciaparra. Gnome Ann Isanisland. Gnome Chomsky. The names seemed somehowfamiliar to her, yet she knew not how - she was certain she'd never before meta gnome. At least, not formally. However, there had been those crazy nights atthe clubs, after her breakup with Petr, and one couldn't confidently dismissanything as having not happened during that blitzkrieg she'd raged, armed only with alcohol and birth control.

Of course, she didn'tknow their names back then. It's not as if they wore nametags on the fronts oftheir vests. (They wore them on the back. Ha! Gnomes - can't live with 'em,can't kill 'em in a massive, orgiastic genocide. At least, not without someitch at the back of your mind born of fear of their supernatural powers. They'relike indigenous peoples that way. Or gypsies.)

As she tumbled backonto her front, she realized these gnomes were weak. Extremely weak. Likebabies who hadn't hit the gym in months, no matter how many times they'd paidlip service to doing so to their wives as they lay on their couches until 3a.m. watching two Division 3 teams they'd never even heard of before play eachother on a poorly lit dirt field surrounded by more cows than fans.

She also realized thatthe gnomes were pushing her back onto her front. She turned her head and sawwhy - the scalding sensation she'd felt, before the pushing had distracted her,was from a large fire the gnomes had made. In pushing her away from it, theirbacks were extremely close to it - so close, in fact, that, had she known theywore nametags on their backs, she would have wondered how they kept frommelting. (A space-age polymer, she would later learn.)

All this is to saythat she finally ended up on her other side, away from the fire. And it wasfrom this relatively safer position that she began questioning the gnomes.

"Who areyou?" she asked.

"Who areyou?" they asked in unison.

"I'mStephanie," she said.

"We'regnomes," they said, in trison. (The fire had thrown off their timing.)

"What are yournames?"

They introducedthemselves. Alaska was tanned, Agaciaparra was built like a stocky, power-hitting catcher, Ann Isanisland was the only one without glasses (for she wasilliterate), and Chomsky just kept spitting (for his mouth was full of chew).

Stephanie liked themall immediately (except for Ann Isanisland - and it was thus Stephanie discovered that her jealousy of other femalesextended even into the gnome world).

They helped her up andtook her back to their hovel (beside which she built her own dwelling intowhich she could wholly fit.)

As the days turned intoweeks and the weeks into months, she began to think, "This is strange -where I come from, a week is always seven days, and a month is always thirty.Or thirty-one. Or, sometimes, twenty-eight. OK. OK. And, once every four years,twenty-nine. But never a week!" But this was gnome time, and much likeparty time, temporal perceptions were challenged and new understandingsreached, but almost always with a concomitant hangover.

The five of them became bests offriends (even Stephanie and Ann Isanisland - after all, girls got to sticktogether) and worsts of enemies - when Ann Isanisland saw Alaska coming out ofStephanie's domicile one morning, groggy and half-dressed, she didn't speak toStephanie for almost a year (which was really only a month and a half, but itkind of felt like a year).

However, when you're stuckwith people, you learn to get along. Or kill each other. And gnomes aresemi-immortal, so Stephanie learned to deal with it.

And they all livedhappily ever after.

Kind of.

An Uncle Rodney Christmas

2011-12-27T14:48:00.000-08:00

From my Uncle Rodney:

MERRY CHRISMAS!!!!

Billy did that. the colores and the snmowman.
Now it;s my turn at hthe computer.

i like this font because it lookes like it is REAL HAND RIGHTING WITH A PEN. It;s whatdoyoucall genuine. and when i talk at at to you i want to be like a GENUIUNE GUY.

SO I GABE BILLY A BOOK FOR CHRISTMAS. YOU CAN LOKA T THE PICTURE ON THE IPICTURE. IT IS THE BOOK.

BILLY ISN;T OLD D ENOUGH TO USE GUNS SO I TOOK THE BOOK BACK AND NOW IT;S MINE. I THINK IT;S GREAT BECAUSE I ALWAYS WANTED A BOOK LIKE THAT. WHAT LUCK!

BILLY BUILT ME A TOMHAS JEFFERSON STYLE DUMB-WAITER AND ALSO A MODEL PLANE AND CLEAED MY HOUSE AND FIXED MY CHIMNEY FOR HIS CHRIST-X PRESNENT TO ME. I THINK THAT IS A LOT OF SHIT COMPARED WITH TO MY PRESENT. BILLY HAS GOT A LOT TO ELEARN ABOUT GROWING UPO AND BEING GROWED UP.

I WOULD LIKE TO CLOSE WITH SOME CHRISTMAS CAROLES. YOU CAN FOLLOW ALONG BECAUSE I ROTE THE LYRICS FOR YOU.JIGGLE BELLSDASHIG THROGH THE SNOW
LAUGHING ON THE FUN
ON THE FIELDS WE GO
LAUGHING ON THE WAY (YOU CAN LAUGH AT THIS PART BUT ONLY IF YOU DON;T SOUND LIK E A DUMB ASS)
JINGLE BELLS
JIGGLE BELLS
JINGEL ON THE WAY
OH WAHT FUN IT IS TO RIFE IN A OPEN HORSE SLEIGH RIDE
JINGLE BELLS
JIGNGLE BELLS
JINGLE ALL THE WAY
OH WAHT FUNI T IS TO RIDE IN A 1 HORSE RIDE.
Dick The Halls
DESK THE HALLS WITH BOWLS OF HOLLY
FALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA (YOU SAY IT MAYBE SIX OR FIVE TIMES AND THEN YOU STOP)
DECK THE HALLS TO BE JOLLY
FALA LA LA LALA. (ONCE AGAIN, FIVE OR FIVE TIMES)
DON WE NOW GAY ON PERIL
FA LFA LALALAL A (THIS PART IS DIFFERENT A LITTLE)
TIS THE SAEASON TO BE JOLLY
FALALALAFALAFEL POCKETSFAFAFAFAFA!! (loudly)Santos Claus is Coming to TownYOU BETTER WATCH OUT!
YOU BETTER NOT CRY!
YOU BETTER WATCH OUT AND ILL TELL YOU WHY
SANTA CLAUS IS COMING AT YOU
HE'S CHECKING A LIST
HE'S CHECKING IT TWICE
HE'S GONNA FIND OUT WHO;S NOT A NICE
SANTA CLAUS IS IN TOWN
HE SEEMS YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING
HE SEEMS WHEN YOU'RE AWAKEJINGLE ALL THE WAY
OH WAHT FUNI T IS TO RIDE IN A 1 HORSE RIDE.
We Wish You a Merry Hcristmas
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISMAS
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTERMSASWE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISMAS
(REPEAT CHANT TIL THE SONG IS DONE)

Sleigh Ride

Check the address for typing errors such as
    ww.example.com instead of
    www.example.com
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
    connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
    that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

I'LL BE HOME ON CHISTMAS
YOU CAN CUNT ON ME
PLEASE HAVE SNOW AND MISSLE TOE
AND PRESENTS ON THE TREE
YOU CAN HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
CHRISTMAS EVE WILL FIND ME
WHERE THE BLUE LIGHT ROAMS
I'LL BE AT THE CHRISTMAS
IF ONLY IN YOUR DREAMS

(YOU CAN BELCH AT THE END, I ALWAYS DO BECAUSE THAT;S WHEN IT COMES)

I HOPE YOU GOT LEARNED SOMETHING BY THIS EMAIL. MERRY CHESTNUTS.

LOVE,
RODBNEY

The President of Canada

2011-12-24T07:03:00.000-08:00

“I just don’t like it,” she said, staring at him with those big brown eyes under smoldering eyebrows.

“You think I like it any more than you do? But what choice do I have?”” he asked, his blue eyes wide.

“You have no choice.”

“I have but one choice – to die for my country.”

“That’s not a choice, that’s a path.”

“Yes, I have but one path – country-death.”

“So it’s not heroic, it’s just tragic.”

“Yeah, I’m a tragic hero.”

“You are tragic.”

“Heroically.”

Actually, I take it back – you always have a choice.

Yeah, to starve or to do the devil’s work – some choice.

Weaker men than you have chosen the former.

DUMBER men than I have chosen the former.

I can’t tell you what to do.

Seems like you are.

Well, I can’t make you do what I want.

Not for lack of whining.

Where’d u hear that?

The president of Canada.

Canada doesn’t have a president.

Then I declare myself President of Canada!

You’ll have no power.

Neither do those Windsors, but look how famous they are.

Technically, they do, but they’re only to be consulted when all else has failed.

Like Bush!

I guess so.

So, that’ll be me, minus the power.

I don’t see the point.

It’ll be great! You can be my mistress!

Mistress?

Yeah, I’ll need a respectable wife, but you’ll provide just that hint of scandal that keeps people interested – you’ll be my Camilla.

Your Lewinski.

Exactly!

Fat chance.

Ha ha!

My gosh – let the poor woman rest in peace!

I’m pretty sure she’s still alive.

I should hope so – she’s sleeping on my couch.

Oh, is that who that was? I thought it was your sister.

My sister’s in another state.

Which one?

Shock.

What happened?

She fought the law.

And the law won?

Yeah, the law of physics – she was fixing this one outlet – turned out it was a live one.

Was she like, “We’ve got a live one here!”?

No, she was like, convulsing.

A shadow of a dream

2011-12-22T05:35:00.001-08:00

Though the following is autobiographical, some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

One day, I saw the wireless-detector image blinking, alerting me to the availability of wireless networks. Sure, they'd always been available—they'd just never had anything to do with me. I was consistently, unyieldingly, locked out of them.

Call me superstitious, but something, this time, felt different. So I clicked to open the window, and sure enough, there she was—wApple633fq, a connection I'd never seen before, and, miraculously, absent that soul-crushing "lock" icon by her side.

Why not? I took a chance and clicked, still certain something would go wrong—we wouldn't connect, for some unknown reason. I'd connect with her, but it would be local access only—nothing that gave me any internet. It wouldn't be anyone's fault. It wouldn't even be a shame—it'd just be the way things were.

But no. Somehow, everything clicked, and, before I knew it, she had opened to show me Google, right there on my screen, clear as day.

The signal was strongest in bed—there, I could have it anywhere I wanted. The kitchen and bathroom were out of range, as was most of the entryway, but it worked fine right behind the front door.

It was wonderful. The days passed, and we fell into a routine. Honestly—and it seems like both a sin and an impossibility when I think about it now—the wonderment did fade. No longer was it an unexpected joy to come home and find internet in my bed, waiting for me to slip under the covers, ready to take me anywhere I wanted to go. If you can believe it, I actually began to expect to be transported to images of the Colosseum, to have access to definitions of any word in myriad languages, to be told everything I could ever want to know about the Armenian genocide. Sadly, perhaps—or, I don't know, maybe it's just the way of things—as I began to expect it, I took less and less advantage of the situation. I'd check e-mail and Facebook, craving that shallow, immediate buzz I'd find in mostly meaningless messages. I'd have conversations with people I wasn't interested in communicating with just to avoid working on that Hindi story, even though I finally had the miracle of bedroom access to translation dictionaries; grammar forums; and, wonder of wonders, actual real, live Hindi speakers.

As if she knew this, she began to withdraw. Once available in every square foot of the bed, she became accessible solely in the southeast corner, next to the wall, and only in a certain position—smack-up against the window, the laptop on my thighs.

Then, even that wasn't enough. It had to sit on my chest, inches from my face. It was getting to the point that it almost wasn't worth the effort.

Then things changed yet again—to gain access, I'd have to lie in bed with the window just on my left, legs up against the wall, laptop on my shins. I don't know how many times the resistance provided by my kneecaps was all that kept gravity from scrambling hardware on the bed like eggs in a pan.

But, still, I only accessed her when the need was strong, and it wasn't really uncomfortable. Overall, it was actually an improvement from the on-the-chest situation. Sometimes I'd have to swing my feet one way or the other to reach that connection with her, but it was sometimes surprisingly strong, and certainly reliably there, almost always attainable, if I had the motivation to do the needful.

Then, one day, just like that—as all victims of the thief called Time come to know—just as she had come into my life, she was gone.

This wasn't unprecedented—there'd been instances when I'd come home to find her gone, but, sure enough, like clockwork, the next morning, she'd be back with me, and things would return to normal.

So, as usual, I patiently awaited her return. Noon came and went. Still, no sign. I had an appointment. I left the house and came back that evening. Still no trace. I began to suspect something was different—that maybe, this time, she wouldn't come back.

I fell into the habit of sitting there, looking for her—trying to figure out if maybe she was around, just under a different name—is that you, now going by TWC0859? Did you use to be mine, Abramson Family Network? 2WIRE920, you look new—have I seen you around here before?

Truthfully, I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway. All of them were—are—locked. Off limits. Even if it is "she", it's not. She's a different entity than she was. As different from before as a locked bank vault to an open bedroom door.

Isn't it funny how circumstances dictate so much of life—so much of who we think we are? Already, it's returned almost completely to the way it was before her: I work on the computer at home. I study. I read. If I need access, I know where I can get it—if I want it with some level of privacy, and don't mind it seeming a bit like work, I can sit at a cubicle at FedEx Kinko's. If I'm happy to take what's available for the price of a bagel, I can head over to Starbucks. When the time's right, and there's a seat, I can get it at the library for free.

Truthfully, though, it's not totally the same. It never is, is it? Sure, this is the way my life used to be—exactly the same, by all outward appearances—even the most astute observer would be hard-pressed to pinpoint any change. Still, sometimes I'll just hover my mouse icon over the wireless detection box and watch, transfixed, for minutes on end, the weakest signals appearing and vanishing—like a cowboy staring out at the plain shadows at dusk, waiting for the silhouette of the beautiful girl he once knew, decades ago, to appear once more.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Turcotti

2011-12-07T23:29:00.001-08:00

For the second part of Round 1 of our five-page-script competition, Rod and I were given the following:

Genre: Drama

Location: A Brewery

Item: A Cooked Turkey

We wrote this script:

Merry Christmas, Mr. Turcotti

Feedback on "Fool's Goldfish"

2011-11-17T16:06:00.001-08:00

(If you'd like to read the story this feedback refers to, namely, "Fool's Goldfish", then please click on this link: This is a link to "Fool's Goldfish".

''Fool's Goldfish'' by Matt McHugh - WHATTHE JUDGE(S) LIKED ABOUT YOUR SCRIPT - ......Even though there were so manylarger words in the opening paragraph I almost got lost (I'd suggest fewerlarge words; there's just too many in that opening), I LOVED Malcolm's voiceand thought it was well-developed. I also like that the writer has given us avery clear picture of Malcolm's personality right in the opening--and that he'slikable. Your "lovable geek" so to speak. Very nice work on this. Ialso like the pithy dialogue.............Malcolm's infatuation with Sallystrikes a humorous tone and plays well within the storyline. Their search forthe missing goldfish is a sort of representation for theirdynamic..........................................................

WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK - ......I wasconfused about what kind of fish was lost, because we were never told that hewas in a bowl and somehow made it into the koi pond? (By the way,"koi" is the correct spelling). And I also didn't understand the pondWAS a koi pond until the end, so I'd suggest that somewhere up front we get amuch more clear explanation of the fish was in a bowl, and now he's lost, andwhy Malcolm would believe the fish made it from the bowl to the pond. I justreally didn't understand that. In addition, how old IS Malcolm? I'm assuminghe's a teenager, so I'd also establish this--when he's referencing his gran'sfish, I thought he was maybe 10, but using all of that upper-end language justisn't likely for a 10-year-old (if he's a genius, then establish that). I'dalso suggest adding dialogue tags or stage business during the conversationwith Sally--the back and forth was difficult to follow.............The overallstoryline could use some more action/interesting events. While the main eventsof them searching for the goldfish has a distinct thematic value, try addinglayers of complexity............................…........................

Those Halcyon Days of Youth

2011-11-13T22:59:00.001-08:00

Honestly, though, what's the point of showering with young boys if you can't hug them?

In unrelated news, Penn State has already received a bid to the Vatican Bowl, sponsored by Secret Deodorant.

Thirst

2011-11-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Rod and I have written this five-page script:

Thirst

Home

2011-10-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone, check out my most-recent failure! I wrote this for the 24-hour Short-Story contest from Writers Weekly.

First, the prompt:

She wasstanding on the porch of a sagging cabin with bright yellow leaves collectingaround her feet. As the cold wind billowed her skit, she shivered and wonderedif the owner of the purse really lived here. She knocked timidly and the doorquickly opened, revealing a tiny girl holding a hideous, bald doll…

Now,the entry that lost if for me:

Home

The tiny girl held a hideous, bald figurine. It looked like a cancer-ridden Kewpie doll - something for very sick children. Not to inspire in them the will to live. Something to comfort them as they accepted the alternative.

The girl's arsenal of teeth was spotty - her mouth looked like the dental version of the porch on which she stood.

"Come in," I was certain I'd heard her command, as she turned and walked down the hall.

I looked around. All I saw were bare white birch trees, a carpet of bright yellow and orange leaves, and the wind intermixing the two. The path I'd arrived on seemed more faded by the moment.

As I crossed the threshold of the decaying cabin, I was immersed in feelings I'd last felt at six, frozen in bed in my darkened room, convinced any movement would guarantee my imminent demise at the hands of the murderous spirits whose presence I felt just beyond the mattress's edge.

Surprised to be the more scared of the two of us, I followed the girl around a corner, past a sliding glass door that revealed an enclosed porch, and into a kitchen that reeked of damp cigar smoke and rotting wood - strangely, because the room seemed neither damp nor rotting. It looked old and used, but sturdy and neat.

"This is him," the little girl said, pointing at the ground where she stood on the other side of the counter. Ice-cold fear shot up my back and down my arms as I approached her.

Lying there, eyes open, hand in mid-grasp, was a corpse. I almost screamed, but it would have been so incongruous with the girl's demeanor that I tamped it down into rapid breaths.

The man was skinny, before death. He wore no shirt - only overalls. He looked to be in his 40s, and maybe five days' dead, I thought, though I know not what experience I drew from.

His right hand reached toward me as if his last wish had been to grasp something in my direction. I tried to imagine what, and all I could picture was a mischievous hovering sphere - something like the snitch from Harry Potter - staying just out of the man's reach.

"I think we should go," I said, acknowledging the feeling that any of a hundred different things would jump out of the shadows, despite the fact it was a gray day of the type that fosters none - the kind in which everything seems to be illuminated by a diffuse, depressing fog of light.

"He said to stay," said the girl.

"When?" I heard myself ask, though I immediately felt that wasn't the line of questioning I wished to pursue.

"Just before he passed," she said, her voice dropping with each syllable, until it was an echoing, sonorous bellow. She seemed to expand imperceptibly, like a marshmallow in a microwave. I couldn't focus on both her and her surroundings, so I wasn't sure if she was growing or my eyes were readjusting, until suddenly she towered over me, a six-foot-tall mass of black shadow and yellow eyes.

"He said to never leave."

Again - the terror I'd felt as a child, my bed a lone raft adrift atop a black sea of sadistic death. The same terror I'd known in dreams when I'd scream for help but no words would come. When I'd try to run but realize I was completely paralyzed.

Then I felt my feet take me away. I expected the creature would overpower me at once, but it remained, watching. I was exiting the kitchen, the beast, in my eyes, shrinking in size as it stood there.

I turned just in time to feel the pane of glass that was the sliding glass door ram my nose down what felt like my throat.

I awoke later facing a strange ceiling. As before, my body moved before my mind could paralyze it. I lifted my head before the fear inspired by that black mass fully returned, and I saw that the coast to the door was clear.

Half my mind wondered if the man was still behind the counter. I didn't sense the creature there, but neither could I make myself look. I put out my hand, got to my feet, and began walking toward the door. Immediately, I was running. Expecting anything. Expecting nothing. I was simply where I was. Totally and fully:

Running out the door. Avoiding the protruding knot in the fallen branch. Speeding by the procession of leafless trees, over and down the hill. I dared not look back, too afraid my luck would change. I thought of Sodom and Gomorrah and salt and Lot's wife - the sound of those words in my head as I ran. I ran until I was on asphalt again. Until I saw my car.

I got behind the wheel. I turned the ignition. And I drove.

I drove until I saw cars - modern, sensical cars. And people driving them. Real, live people. I drove until I saw traffic lights and restaurants and pedestrians. I drove past the exit for my house. I drove past the city limits. I drove until I was in front of my parents' house. I wanted to go inside, as I had ten thousand times before. I wanted to turn off the alarm and pet my dog and go up to my room and just lie there. But I couldn't. My parents weren't here anymore. My parents weren't anymore.

One Cool Dude

2011-10-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

Read about the jerk I met!!
The World's Most-Immature Man

And, a follow-up sighting!

Fool's Goldfish

2011-09-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

Round 2 of this competition. I'm somewhere between fifteenth place and last. (When you get down that low, you're basically all tied for last, so no one gets any points.)

My assignment, if I chose to accept it (I chose to):

Genre: Comedy

Location: A greenhouse
Object: A goldfish

Maximum number of words: 1,000 (mine's 993)

Maximum time allowed to write: 48 hours.

Fool's Goldfish

Sometimes I sit. Sometimes I think. Rarely do I do both simultaneously. This is more due to ability than preference. I can’t think if I have nothing to distract me. This is to say, if I sit down and concentrate on something, my mind manufactures its won distractions. Conversely, if I struggle to follow the traces of the tail of an idea, dodging obstacular thoughts and detour-inducing envisionments, the detritus of half-conceived ruminations, aborted foetal thoughts, abandoned ponderances, and discarded musings, the challenge of following that contemplation trail to the end is often enough motivation to reveal some real revelation.

Right now, I’m sitting.

That’s why I’m making little (OK, no) progress on the mystery – the mystery of the missing fish. Where does a fish go? My grandma says that all fish go to heaven – she’s a Pescaterian – but, I mean, I can’t even find a body. Where does a fish go? It has to be somewhere in the pond – doesn’t it?

Well, if I don’t find him before grandma gets back, she’ll send me to heaven. Or wherever God sends negligent fish homiciders.

But I’m not even sure he’s dead. But what else could it be? Harry jumped in his Geo Supermarine and took off for Marseilles?

I stand up and take what must be my tenth lap around the greenhouse. Three-quarters of the way through, I see Sally come by again. And, as usual, I’m struck by the feeling that I have no idea what enables her gluteus maximus to carry itself with such a regal bearing. I’ve heard women’s bodies described as defying gravity, but Sally’s also defies anatomy and structural engineering. What reproduction pressures could have selected for her rump to possess such divine deportment?

As usual, I thank and curse God for his rear-end work on this particular model.

Strolling along in the transfenestral light of the afternoon sun, I already feel dangerously somnolent. Catching sight of Sally makes me light-headed.

“Sally,” I venture.

“Hey, Malcolm,” she says, awaiting more. Or not.

I smile until she turns away.

“Do you…?”

“Yes?” she turns back. The sun filters through her nectarine-red hair and makes her eyes glow like liquid oxygen, the tittular freckles dusted on her smooth, pale face like candy crystals on God’s favorite red-velvet cupcake.

I can’t help but think that, even though a million of those freckles on my tongue would never fill me up, one would be all I’d ever need.

“Malcolm?” she asks again. Now she’s right in front of me. You got to watch these pretty ones. They have powers.

“I can’t find my gran’s fish.”

“Have you checked the pond?”

I just stare at her.

“He’s not in the pond,” she asks?

I shake my head.

“Well, then where could he be?” she asks, catching up.

I shrug.

“Well, what do we do?” she asks.

I like that, though I have no answer.

“What could have happened?” she asks. “A cat came in and stole him?”

“Maybe. But what cat? And how’d it get in? And how’d it get out?”

“I don’t know. What else is there? It emigrated to the Atlantic?”

“OK, what would you do if you were a fish?” I ask.

“Nothing. That’s why I’m stumped.”

“What would you like to do?”

“I don’t know – maybe go visit another pond? I might get lonely here all by myself.”

“But how would you leave? On your bicycle?”

“Oh my gosh – Gloria Steinam was right!”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“So…?”

“Well, there’s that tube, right there,” she says, pointing to a tube that’s right there.

“But that’s for incoming water,” I say. “You think it swam up against the current to freedom in the water tower? It’s a goldfish, not a salmon.”

“Have you ever noticed that, when they start swimming against the current, salmon seem in a rush to die?”

“Like someone who’d write The Satanic Verses?”

“Aww, come on – you give Khomeini too much credit.”

“You give Muslims too little – look at what they did on 9/11. On 26/11.”

“Those guys were about as Muslim as the crusaders were Catholic.”

“Yeah, OK, but I give murderous sycophants appropriate credit.”

“Well, you shouldn’t – the dude who planned to kill Rusdie blew himself up hanging out in his hotel room.”

“Well, maybe he was repenting.”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“Anyway, this fish needs to get found. The pump was down last night. Do you want to pursue the out-of-greenhouse theory or not?”

“Where’s this tube come from?”

“The coy pond in the garden.”

“Oh, God,” I say.

“Allah,” she offers.

“Brahman,” I counter, and we lose interest as we exit the greenhouse, and run to the coy pond.

She stands over the pond, shaking her head.

“He wouldn’t last a minute in here,” she says.

“I’m dead. He’s dead, and now I’m dead.”

“Wait – what’s that?” she says.

She reaches for a leaf that covers half of the tube that sends water into the greenhouse pond. Behind it is a miniature version of the behemoth fish boredly floating around above it.

“Grab him!” she says.

“I need a net! Protect him!” I say as I run away.

“They’re coming to me! They think I’m going to feed him!”

“Distract them!” I say as I run into the greenhouse.

I’m back with the net and I see her on the other side of the pond, tossing pieces of crushed leaf onto the water, surrounded by progressively less-interested coy.

I sweep the net down near Harry, flicking my wrist to pull some water back toward it, and then scoop.

Up comes the net, and in it is a tiny, shining fish.

I go back inside, putting Harry safely in a glass of water.

“Don’t drink that,” I say, my hand on the counter.

She smiles and exhales relief. Then, she collapses into my chest.

I grab the shoulder away from me and laugh.

“Exhausting, huh?"

She whispers into my neck, "Let's take a nap.”

A Learner's Literary Life

2011-09-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hey, kids - even gotten back an English paper in which you were told you incorrectly identified a symbol? Thought the pickle jar in Ethan Frome was just a pickle jar? Missed four of the twenty Christ-images in whichever Victorian novel you've just read? Didn't realize Alice was bi-curious when she went down that rabbit hole? Ha. I envy your naivete...

Well, now's your chance to talk to determine the symbolism for yourself! You've probably read "A Literary Life" in your AP English classes. Now, avail yourself of the opportunity to actually determine what symbolizes what! In the comments section for this post, please tell me what you'd like something "A Literary Life" to symbolize.

For example:

1.) I think Moishele should represent Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

2.) North Samarsheffieldchestershire = Babylon

3.) The adverb "spontaneously" in the phrase "one of the books spontaneously shook" is used to symbolize the uneasy balance between the modern Western woman's quest for self-determination and her primordial need to play the role of birth-mother-goddess-queen.

The best answers for each word will be chosen as the official representation of that word in this story. All other answers will be wrong. It will be indisputable!

Knock yourselves out!

(Also, anyone who finds run-on sentences in A Literary Life gets an honorable mention here. Please alert me to them in one of the "comments" sections.)

Feedback on "A Literary Life"

2011-09-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

''A Literary Life'' by Matthew McHugh - WHAT THE JUDGE(S) LIKED ABOUT YOUR SCRIPT - ...The very subtle sexual attraction here between M. and the librarian is well done; it's also good that the writer has firmly grounded us in exactly where/what/who/when......................The remote control action was funny and somewhat genuine. The ending was also a nicely handled twist.................................................... WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK - ...The use of the word "stalked" in the first line was odd to me; also, a bit further down, there is "comforted and depressed him." These are conflicting emotions--and I wanted to know why; perhaps tie this to the attraction he has for the librarian more concretely, so that this makes more sense? I'd also consider the introduction of the character/conflict/crisis/change structure--the potential or strains of it are already in the piece--obviously, the rabbit, a symbol of fertility, is part of that. But then the question becomes: what does the rabbit DO that makes this man realize he really needs to go for this librarian? I'd give this some thought......................Title/synopsis should be on their own page. There are quite a few places where the narrative doesn't quite make sense. For example: warm-cold fluorescent lights; that over an 11 month period, there would be holidays wherein the library is closed, even during normal business hours (Monday-Saturday); that most libraries have high shelves, and it would be impossible to dance on top of them without hitting the ceiling. There are some grammatical mistakes, chief among them run-on sentences.

A Literary Life

2011-09-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

This was written for a 48-hour short-story contest. It had to be 1,000 words or fewer, and it had to include fantasy, a library, and a remote control:

Moishele stalked into the library as he had every Monday through Saturday for the past 11 months.

The warm, cold fluorescent lights of the library comforted and depressed him. But what did he want? A waterside park to arise from the children's section? Perhaps a wet bar to open over in fiction? He pictured Miss Gupta, the librarian who looked a young 25 and acted an old 85, dancing in high heels atop the bookshelf.

"Mr. Gwynn?" came a voice from behind him.

He assumed it was Miss Gupta, though it sounded as if she had a cold. Not only was she the only one there with a British accent, she was also the only one who ever struck up conversation with Moisele, though it tended so toward either the mundane or the literarily analytical that Moisele would eventually find himself imagining grabbing her and kissing her, half because of her shimmering lips and that accent, and half just to shut her up. Of course, that was as far as even his imagination allowed him to go without embarrassment.

Moishele turned toward the voice. Instead of Miss Gupta, he was surprised to see a spring hare in a dressing gown on its hind legs, addressing him.

"Your reputation impedes you."

Moishele felt himself blushing. How awkward for this semi-literate hare, he thought.

"'Your reputation precedes you' is, I believe, the phrase you are grasping for," he said.

"Oh, that it does as well, sir, but that is not me intended message," said the hare. "I mean to communicate that your reputation, or, more accurately, your self-image, really, keeps you from realizing your full potential."

"Bollocks," said Moishele, surprising himself - he'd never considered British a medium in which his tongue was very comfortable.

"Most right, sir - that's the spirit! Never too late to change things for the better!" replied the hare.

"Why would I want to change things? And why can no one else see you?"

"Why would you think me invisible to them, sir? It's a library - it's rude to stare."

"But not to come up unannounced behind a bloke and accuse him of self-limitation?"

"Well, no, sir - that's just honest good-Samaritanism!"

"You're from Samaria?"

"North Samarsheffieldchestershire, near Trifle-upon-Avon."

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar."

"Quite not - they'd find you very strange indeed, sir. Strange but intriguing. But we have other matters to attend."

"What exactly are the matters?"

"The matters are myriad, but, in crude summary..."

The hare somehow held in his small, hairy paw a remote control of the most peculiar variety. It was purple with neon-green writing and trim. It appeared to have a raised glass prism near the upper-right corner in which a small gummiworm-like object seemed to rotate.

It had all the usual buttons - "Play", "Pause", etc. But it also had others, including one labeled "Viewer Selection", and that mysterious prism.

"It's like a sorcerer's TV remote," Moishele said.

"Give it a try," said the smiling hare.

"I don't have a sorcerer's TV."

"The world is your set," said the hare as he bounded off and disappeared into Reference.

Moishele looked the remote over. It was compelling. It begged to be manipulated.

The most alluring part was undoubtedly the prism, but, If I start there, where is there to go? thought Moisele.

After much deliberation, his fingers hovering over the "Fast-Forward" button, then "Rewind". Finally, pointing it at an elderly patron, he pressed "Play".

Nothing happened.

He pointed it at the bookshelf and tried again.

This time, one of the books spontaneously shook, fell off the shelf, and opened.

Above it appeared something like a hologram, but dreamier. A pirate ship rocked on storm-stirred sea.

Zoom into the captain's room, where sat a pirate and a beautiful maiden on a rickety bed. He tore at her clothes, and she at his.

Moishele looked around, embarrassed. But no one else seemed to be paying the least bit of attention to the half-naked grope-fest unfolding before his eyes.

Still, he didn't want to risk it. Panickedly, he pushed "Pause". The figures froze in a skinful embrace.

That wasn't much better.

So Moishele pushed "Stop". And the figures disappeared. And the book closed. It still lay on the floor, however.

Moishele went to put it back. As he did, he saw the title for the first time: Pilfered Passions.

He pointed the remote at An Annotated History of the Crimean War and pressed "Play". The book fell open and atop it appeared a mishmash of sword-fighting horsemen. It looked as if England were trying to take over Turkey. The noise was deafening.

Still, no one batted an eyelash.

He pressed "Stop".

The war ended. Or, at least, disappeared.

Too numb to be astonished, Moishele wanted to know what the glass prism did.

He was about to touch it when he heard footsteps approaching.

"Hey, Moishele. Oh, what you got there?"

Miss Gupta was there, a thick tome under her arm as usual, staring at the remote. Moishele handed it to her.

"Well, now, what's this?" she continued. "'Viewer Selection'?"

She moved the viewer selection dial from "1" to "2".

"It's beautiful. It looks so high-tech, yet this prism reminds me of something I read about in a Victorian novel."

"I'm still figuring it out myself."

"Well, you'll have to tell me what it does when you're mastered it," she said, handing it back.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I think a little of the library dust has already begun to blanket that beautiful crystal. Let me just…"

She placed one hand on the remote to steady it and blew on the crystal.

Where she and Moishele had stood, only the tome that had fallen from Miss Gupta's grasp remained. Open to page one, it read "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Sing as well the confusion of Moishele Gwynn, son of Ira, and Shama Gupta, daughter of Anil, thrust into a war not theirs…"

Souvenir

2011-09-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

My 11-page screenplay - check it!

Reality Check

2011-09-02T02:02:00.000-07:00

Rod and I wrote this short script:

Click here to read the "Reality Check" script.

Wedding-Night Jitters

2011-08-28T19:41:00.001-07:00

There was a contest I lost. Entrants had to write stories of 875 words or fewer in 24 hours based on the following prompt:

Strong waves pounded the dark sand just a few yards away. Hidden by beach grass, they embraced, relieved to finally escape their wedding guests. His poetic whispers suddenly ceased as he leaned back, and said, "There's something I need to tell you..."

This is the story I wrote:

Relieved to have finally escaped our wedding guests, I whispered, "There's something I need to tell you – I’ve been with a woman.”

“Since we’ve been together?”

“Since we’ve been married.”

“How?”

“Your mom cornered me in the bathroom.”

“Again?”

“Huh?”

She turned and stalked back toward the reception.

I followed her into the bright room and the sight of dancing guests. She went straight for the head table, beside which stood her mother. As my bride confronted her, her mother’s tongue fell like a just-shot seal from the ear of the catering boy.

“Mother! How could you?”

“He’s 18,” she said as she turned to the caterer boy. As he started to shake his head, she pushed him away.

“Not him. Him!” she said, looking at me.

“He’s definitely 18,” she said, giving me raised eyebrows and a slight smile.

“I thought you said this would stop.”

“And it would have, had he stopped it.”

“You’re my mother – you’re supposed to love me!” she said, ignoring the reference to me.

“And I do. That doesn’t mean I can’t love others.”

She winked at the DJ, who nodded to her with a smile.

My new wife turned away and headed toward the door, storming right past her grandmother, who was whispering into the ear of her dance partner, the cake girl.

On the way out, the priest managed to waylay her.

“My child, why are you so distraught?” He asked. “May I provide some counsel?”

“Yeah – do you know a good divorce lawyer?”

“But, my daughter, you’ve just been joined in love in the house of the Lord.”

Looking at me, she said, “He just made love to my mother in the stall of the bathroom.”

He looked at me.

“Oh, God – son, but, why?”

“The cloakroom was occupied.”

The father looked at us sheepishly.

“Young David and I have a special relationship.”

“I understand, Father. You are forgiven,” I said, mercifully.

“My nephew David – the ring bearer?” she said, making it about her.

“He bore more than that this evening,” I said

The father and I shared a knowing smirk.

The priest addressed her once again.

“Let us not get sidetracked. The issue here is forgiveness. Dear, can you forgive him for what he’s done?”

“No.”

“My son, can you forgive her for not offering forgiveness?”

“Yes,” I said, confident that I could.

“Well, then, there you go,” said the father, smiling at her. “I think my job here is done.”

She just stared at him before starting to walk away. Then she hesitated and turned back.

“And, Father, I don’t want you corrupting young David anymore.”

“Any more than what?” he asked.

A low growl became audible that seemed to originate deep in her throat. I shrugged to the father. He shrugged back.

Women.

He had chosen a life without them, and I was really beginning to see why.

She slugged him in the gut before she turned and marched out of the reception toward our car – in which her family had arrived. I followed her. Some might think this tactic folly, but our limo had long since left. She was my ride home.

She opened the unlocked door but realized she didn’t have the keys – her dress didn’t even have pockets.

Women.

In one final, humbling act, she turned to me.

“Give me the keys.”

But I didn’t have the keys.

I shrugged.

She reached into the back seat and grabbed her grandmother’s non-dancing cane.

She swung.

I ducked.

She came at me again.

This time, I sidestepped it and caught her in my embrace. I would hold her until her mind was calmed by remembered love.

She caught a bit of my ear between her teeth and pulled in quickly alternating directions.

I released her in the hope that she would release my ear in kind.

She didn’t.

I socked her in the gut.

She only bit harder.

“Listen, dear, we have an untenable situation here.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I find it very tenab-“

I pulled my ear from her vice-like bite. I couldn’t feel it, so I reached up and felt it. It seemed to still be there, though with my lover’s bite impression firmly embedded in it like some crazy love tattoo.

“We don’t have to be enemies,” I ventured

Her eyes lit with a ferocity I’d not known possible. They seemed luminescent, outshining the weak light of the moon.

“But we can be,” I offered as I backed up.

She came at me again. Instinctually, I dove into the car and slammed the door, locking it.

Even in that state, with my ear in that state, I thought I’d heard something jingle when I’d slammed the door. It was either coins or…

I reached into the door-side container to find the rage of the moment – the keys.

As she banged the glass inches from my face with the newly recovered cane, I decided we needed some time apart – things had been going downhill ever since the wedding.

My last memory of her, as she faded in my mirrors from the red of the taillights to the dim blue of moonlight, was the unmistakable sound of cane flung against trunk.

4 a.m.

2011-08-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

I look at my phone - it's 4 a.m. I don't even know what to do with 4 a.m. Sure, 4 a.m.'s OK if you're about to fall asleep. Or if you've just woken up and in the mood to work - nothing else to do at 4 a.m. but work or sleep. But what if, like me, you've already tried working. You've already tried sleeping. Neither works - what then?

Then you just sit there and get irritated by the irregular sound of the blinds being cleaved by the wayward slab on the air conditioning vent. Like a snaggletooth with less charm, or a persistent cowlick, the moment you let it irritate you, you've set forth on an irreversible spiral into madness.

And why is there stain on my glasses? A filthy, grimy smudge. Can't they keep themselves clean? I clean myself every day - is it too much to ask that they do the same? I bought them. I keep them safe in their little case. Is it really too much for them to show some appreciation? Some common hygienic decency?

And why is the earplug in my right ear not as good as the one in my left? I wouldn't even need earplugs except for the stupid sound from the stupid blinds because of the stupid broken AC vent. But of course it is and they do so I must, to keep me from going insane, but now there's more noise coming into my right ear than my left, and that's a recipe for lunacy if I've ever heard one.

What am I supposed to do? Eat? I just ate. It's getting cold in here. But you know three seconds after I turn down the AC, it's going to be too hot.

If only I had something to distract me. If I had worked all day under the hot sun, or in the dark mine, then I'd be too exhausted to worry about this stupid stuff. But no, I had to spend the stupid day in the stupid coffee shop, typing to stupid people online while trying not to make eye contact with the lady in sunglasses sitting next to me.

"Sunglasses?" you snicker? "How can you know if you're making eye contact with someone in sunglasses?" you laughingly question? Well, I'll tell you - when you know the person is hungrily stalking you as a lion a lame gazelle, waiting for the slightest opportunity to strike…up conversation.

And, yeah, OK, maybe I did the same thing with the cute blonde girl on the plane, but that's the price she pays for being cute. I'm not cute, I'm just there, and the conversational predator next to me would as gladly prey on my momentary unabsorbedness and careless gaze placement as she would the next guy's. It's just I'm the easiest pickins 'cause I'm the closest target.

Life is brutal.

Overcast

2011-07-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

It was the beginning of a new semester at the University of Pittsburgh, and the first week, which was also the first week of September, looked as if it had been misplaced from somewhere in late October. The drizzle, chill, and wind forced the girls to hide their wares underneath oppressive layers of fabric. It was as if the dance of the new semester had undergone a theme change at the last minute, from “Basking in Nature and Each Other’s Gazes” to “Shelter from the Elements”.

Happy to be inside, under the comforting fluorescent lights of the engineering building, the large windows in the hallway functioned for me much like my head as it poked out from under the covers on a cold night – enhancing my comfort by showing me what I was one down comforter (or, in this case, a double window pane) from enduring.

I sat at my desk, trying to muster some forward momentum on my attempts to write a program to quickly model light-diffraction. In fact, it was already quick. The problem was that it was nowhere near accurate. As I sat there, hoping the success I felt at having turned on the computer would carry me forward to something even greater, I heard her.

From her cough, I could tell she was attractive – maybe 5’4”, 115 lbs, long black hair, white skin, a longish, beautiful face, a pretty-but-conservative dress. Maybe smart. Maybe a bit of a sorority girl. But dignified, as those things go.

I headed down the hall toward the water fountain specifically to see her. I turned the corner, and there she was – 5’2”, maybe, light-brown skin, ringlet-curly dark hair with blonde highlights. Freckles. Cute. Perhaps quite a distraction if she had some personality to her. But not someone to make me fall all over myself. Unless I thought about her to much. Or she smiled at me.

In the past, each had proved critical mass.

I continued past her down the hall toward the water fountain, filled up the water bottle I’d brought with me, and headed back, by which time she’d vanished.

Five minutes later I sat fully hydrated in front of my computer, the code of the modelling program confronting me. I decided I should probably check if Jose was in yet. I walked across the hall and knocked.

“Come in,” he said.

I did, and, to my utter shock, found that my view of Jose was blocked by ringlet-curly highlights, sitting quite boldly on the desk of my colleague and newly former friend.

How did she know Jose? And why was she sitting on his desk, dangling her foot off the side like that? How had he kept this secret from me? More importantly, why?

He’d been hiding her, obviously. Jealously guarding her – secreting her away, when a creature of her beauty and grace deserved to be free to roam the entire engineering department unhindered and uninhibited. He deserved, nay, required a harsh rebuke and severe reprimand for his greed and arrogance.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, man,” he said.

“Hi,” she finally decided to say.

“Hi,” I responded

He looked at me, slightly smiling. Waiting. She looked at him, then back at me. I looked at him, then at her.

“Oh, haven’t you two met?”

Come, come now, Mr. Bond – you know as well as I that we’ve never before exchanged so much as a glance.

“No,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Zoraida, this is Sam.”

We shared our assessments on the acquaintance-making that had just occurred, (and, in what was perhaps a sign of our compatibility), assessing it identically – as nice.

There was an enchanting confidence in the way she spoke. Her speech accented undeserved final syllables just often enough to deny a listener’s attention any rest. I didn’t know if it pointed to her accent or her personality. Maybe the interplay of the two.

I excused myself when I felt things were getting awkward, which is usually well after things had actually gotten awkward. I returned to my desk and busied myself with tedious work, going over the simulation’s code and making sure all instances of the old equation had been replaced by the new one and that no doubling factor remained anywhere.

I got a reprieve with lunch and a couple afternoon classes, then returned to finish changing the code. I had little realistic hope that this latest attempt would result in any kind of breakthrough, but, as always, there was that rather significant bit of unreasonable hope that the first run would miraculously yield exactly the pattern we’d been looking for, and, at that point, I was too tired to even try to suppress it.

The first run yielded an error message, and I decided either I or the computer had to go, and the machine seemed firmly entrenched.

I stopped for a bagel on the way home and saw Jose in the cafe. He told me to sit with him. It felt awkward – I was sure I stunk of jealousy and that my eyes accused betrayal. As I looked down to sit, I told myself, “When you look at him again, just pretend he’s a normal person, not the traitor he is. But my brain was too smart to believe that, and I was sure my feelings were tattooed on my hot face and my thoughts telegraphed through my every pained action and muted reaction.

Luckily, he spoke first.

“So, how’s it going, Paleskin? Looks like there’s a storm coming, eh?”

I looked out the window at the sky, which had finally switched from overcast to dark.

“Yeah, well, you can’t always believe what you see,” I said.

“Hmm… you seem very wise today.”

“Clouds bring me clarity.”

We talked for a bit – Family Guy and international politics – the usual. Finally, he stood.

“Well, I should get going.”

“I’ll join you.”

We exited the café.

“So, this Zoraida…” I started.

He smiled. Turned. Looked at me. Lost the smile. Raised his eyebrows.

“Yes?”

“How… how long you known her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a year. We TA’ed Circuits 101 together two spring semesters ago.”

“Where’s she been since then?”

“She studied abroad in Mexico for a year,” he said as we continued our passive-aggressive race against the weather, walking down the sidewalk toward our places in Shadyside.

“You must be glad she’s back.”

He turned to face me again.

“Why do you say that, Paleskin?”

“I don’t know – you guys seemed like friends.”

“Yeah. It just felt like you might be implying something more.”

“Would that be offensive?” I asked, looking down at my shadow.

“I’m not sure. Coming from you, a lot of things seem to be.”

“Seem to be.”

“Perception is reality,” he said.

“Well, one version of it, at least,” I said, slowing to take off my jacket – all this activity had warmed me up.

“But each of us only has one version.”

“I didn’t make the rules.”

“But you play by them.”

“Under protest.”

He gave me a look.

“Paleskin, is there anything you want to come out and say to me?”

“Sorry, buddy – I’m still not gay.”

“What?”

“’Come out.’? I know your code.”

He sighed.

“Are you ever serious?”

I looked up and felt his gaze follow mine to the bright-golden late-afternoon sun.

“Only when it’s cloudy.”

A Shocking Conversation

2011-07-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

“I just don’t like it,” she said, staring at him with those big brown eyes under smoldering brows.

“You think I like it any more than you do? But what choice do I have?” he asked, his blue eyes wide.

“You have no choice.”

“I have but one choice – to die for my country.”

“That’s not a choice, that’s a path.”

“Yes, I have but one path – country-death.”

“So it’s not heroic, it’s just tragic.”

“Yeah, I’m a tragic hero.”

“You are tragic.”

“Heroically."

"Actually, I take it back – you always have a choice."

"Yeah, to starve or to do the devil’s work – some choice."

"Weaker men than you have chosen the former."

"DUMBER men than I have chosen the former."

"I can’t tell you what to do."

"Seems like you are."

"Well, I can’t make you do what I want."

"Not for lack of whining."

"Where’d u hear that?"

"The President of Canada."

"Canada doesn’t have a president."

"Then I declare myself President of Canada!"

"You’ll have no power."

"Neither do those Windsors, but look at all the fun they have."

"Technically, they do, but they’re only to be consulted when all else has failed."

"Like Bush!"

"I guess."

"So, that’ll be me, minus the power."

"I don’t see the point."

"It’ll be great! You can be my mistress!"

"Mistress?"

"Yeah. I’ll need a respectable wife, but you’ll provide just that hint of scandal that keeps people interested – you’ll be my Camilla."

"Your Lewinski."

"Exactly!"

" Fat chance."

"Ha ha!"

"My gosh – let the poor woman rest in peace!"

"I’m pretty sure she’s still alive."

"I should hope so – she’s sleeping on my couch."

"Oh, is that who that was? I thought it was your sister."

"My sister’s in another state."

"Which one?"

"Shock."

"What happened?"

"She fought the law."

"And the law won?"

"Yeah, the law of physics – she was fixing this one outlet – turned out it was a live one."

"Was she like, 'We’ve got a live one here!'?"

"No, she was like, convulsing."

Words

2011-06-25T20:29:00.000-07:00

That’s what my Nana used to say to me when I’d open up a fresh tin of sardines. But she’d often doze off in the midst of her soliloquies, not colloquies – or calls o’ quay, which are like catcalls at construction sites, but 100 times worser, as are seamen to construction workers - after which she’d awake refreshed and stinking of gin. That was Nana – who was I to say anything? Only a teenage tart just then coming into my own. A pop tart, they would call me today, had I been a pop singer, which I wasn’t, so they wouldn’t – they’d have just left me alone.

A clear style is beginning to emerge from these incoherent ramblings, and that is one of a desperate debaucher. Not “dee baucher,” as Fraulein Magda used to call the meat-cutter. But a depraved human being with a fondness for base animal desires like to eat and to sire. Debased and unstable like rolling stone. Gather no moss, but at what cost?

Bloom’s day. Bloomingdale’s. Which one for this culture prevails? But intellectual snobs have been propping themselves up with their judgments on others’ crass desire for basic human necessities for as long as there have been noses to look down. Perhaps longer, if you consider East Asians to have no nose, which only a quack with notions whack would ever really try to back with any kind of argument – one truly full of rage up-pent. Or an inveterate liar like Verbal Kent, but such was his bent, the merry gent, his legacy now in cement.

Though that’s still not exactly what I meant when I set to talk of things ill-sent. The first of these, the government-‘s taxes claiming your last red cent. And that scent it leaves behind, nothing like autumn leaves and fine red wine, which ‘round us right now we find, as we in this ship’s bowels dine, for once vowing to take the time to find out what the other needs – or says they need, which says it all. Not straight out, but off the wall. A carom shot, a blowing glance, a glancing blow thy lover’s lance the source of pain and of romance, the pleasure only to enhance like those crazy cosmopolitans in France. That one last chance, a wine romance, what more need thee than song and dance? But song so sweet and soft and full like Ray relaxing at the pool. You’d have to be a bloody fool to miss this chance to hear unspool melodies from the king of cool. Forty acres and a mule is all they asked the world cruel, but it declined – sent them to school – not one equipped with a slide rule. Rather, that of hard knocks – violence and cunning their only tools. Hard knocks, not knocking hard, though the latter recalls a scene in our front yard – rather, at our front door, some years before, a young man I’d come to know came calling one day just as though my parents were as liberal with me as each of us is with ourselves, hardly a feat one might expect encounter, much less assume from people strange – and strangers to him they today remain, their trust he never seemed to gain, for his search ended up in vain, his search for beauty, truth, and the humane, a quest for only the insane, for only they can find the strength to pursue to any depth or length a goal with such model-slim odds one might as well defy the gods.

Part Next:

They came in unrelenting waves, like Latinos into the construction trade or South Asians into hospitals. One after the other, like the locusts in the tale of Rip Van Winkle, or the Liliputians from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. An undeniable hunger pulled them forth – or was it a terrible fear that drove them on? No one could say, for no two shared a language. One might be desperately escaping while his compatriot, his comrade, his brother-in-arms, was relentlessly searching. Every which way but loose. Indeed, loose was the one thing they dared not be. A bad reputation would be a permanent scar – this group was all they had, and it was imperative that they keep in good stead. How a reputation is acquired when no language exists is a pertinent question, and one I’m glad you’ve asked. However, they dared not take that risk.

A little while on, when the cliff walls closed in to reveal only a narrow stream of sky above, the more cautious of them raised a cry of protest. But how does one distinguish a cry of protest from a call to persevere when one knows not the language of the protestant? Being a lone protestant in the group ranking as greatly more desirable than being alone in the canyon kept the group together and progressing.

When the stream above had turned from blue sky to black ink, finally the leader sat to think. Or so his followers may have thought. This, we have no way of knowing. But follow him still they did, stopping around him and waiting. Some reclining, others pacing. With time, more the former, fewer the latter. Soon after gravity overtook them, sleep followed.

Not for nothing had they come this far. The morning brought a renewed vigor to their march, and by high noon they had crested the hill and overlooked a valley pasture. Perhaps those who were running felt the fear in them abate. Perhaps those who were seeking found this is what they’d sought. They each of them spread out across the land, claiming their own plot, no longer part of the group, but still members of the community.

Perhaps it takes a village to raise a child. Perhaps it takes a group of confused individuals with more-or-less-coinciding goals to raise a village. The rivulet of sky they’d followed was now a vast sea supporting nebulous lily pads. The rocks, still so close as to look on, were in sharp contrast to the blanket of grass shot through by the occasional tree.

Over the horizon who knew what lay? Was it desert, swamp, plateau – the land changed so quickly here, it was hard to know. Perhaps over the horizon lay lusher fields. Maybe placid lakes abounded.

But, geez, you gotta stop somewhere.

Bodega Girl

2011-04-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

She loved sitting in the late-afternoon sun in the street outside the bodega. The orange-yellow light of the sun draped the dirt street and the plaster walls in an even browner, oranger tone than they natively possessed. She didn’t mind the boys who would walk by and give her long looks and short smiles as they tracked home from school or work, a contrail of dust in their wakes. But she’d loved this time even before she attracted the boys’ gazes; even before she’d cared what the boys thought. This was the time of the day when the Earth, like the people, settled down. It began to cool off from the noon sun, radiating away heat like someone sweating. Most days, her face was sticky from dried sweat by this time, her hair sticking up of its own accord, and she’d have to blow it out of her face or tie it back. She also took a guilty pleasure in glancing at her reflection in the shop window at times like these – she felt the honest work had made her beautiful – not in the way of a princess at a ball, but a more real - more desirable, really - beauty that didn’t wither with time but bloomed. The way she saw her mother’s beauty blooming in the wrinkles around her eyes when she smiled, and coming to full ripeness after cleaning the shop, or washing the dishes, or digging in the garden. This was a hearty kind of beauty that wasn’t at risk of being blown out by the wind or washed off in the rain.

Today she stood in the doorway holding Miguel, her nephew, and in him too she saw this kind of beauty. He was a happy child. He rarely cried and was content to sit with her for hours, sometimes, just amusing himself by watching her, or a spider in its corner web, or a lizard on the wall.

Tonight she would go out, she thought. The work week was over and she hadn’t had time to herself in days. She would go wash up – “working pretty” was fine for the afternoon, but it didn’t hurt to fancy up for a night out every now and then – maybe put on her short olive green summer dress and go look for Marisa and Bobby in the square, where she could watch the boys dance and sing and juggle and fight and in general make themselves look foolish trying to win some attention.

Boys...boys were still a novelty...

Critique of "Siesta"

2011-04-05T19:11:00.001-07:00

Feedback from the contest judges on my failed story (I think perhaps the positives were written by a different person than were the negatives, as several aspects seem to be mentioned in both the "liked" and "disliked" categories):

''Siesta'' by Matthew McHugh - WHAT THE JUDGE(S) LIKED ABOUT YOUR SCRIPT - ..................It's easy to like the protagonist, especially with his willingness to put himself in danger for the cat. The details in the story add to its realism.......There is an interesting and odd sense of humor at work in the piece, certainly. The final punchline is part of that overall odd world that is masterfully created throughout.................................................... WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK - ..................I think the title could be more relevant to the subject matter. While the ending is amusing, it doesn't seem like enough of a resolution.......I'm not sure that the main character is as interesting or funny as he thinks he is. I think a little more less of his interior world and a little more action might be worth considering. I got a bit "tired" of him pretty early on and wanted more compelling things to be taking place in the story. Maybe it's just his digressive way of talking that irked me a bit......................…....

Siesta

2011-03-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

I wrote this fictional piece (of...) for a contest
Contest stipulations:
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theme: Evacuation
Word max: 2,500
Contest Result: Loss

“Evacuate! Evacuate!”

The call came, curiously, from behind the bathroom door. In my brother’s voice. Having just come in, I began to bombard the door with fists and Nikes and to shout in return. If I was evacuating, it was going to be to the sight of his heels.

“Stephen! What’s the matter?”

“Hey! I’m using the bathroom here!”

My panic waned to concern.

“What’s the matter?”

“I didn’t know anyone was home.”

My concern changed to confusion.

“Then who’re you shouting at?”

“My bowels.”

My confusion ignited to anger.

“You’re a shithead.”

“Probably. I’ve been constipated for like a week.”

My anger dissipated to contempt. I walked away.

Kicking off my shoes in the direction of the door to the garage, through which I’d entered, I went up to my room and sat down in the last of the good midafternoon sun, before it became just grayening orange illumination for couples in sweat suits walking their dogs through the shadows. I sat on my bedroom floor and attended to the half-finished (in space, for who knew about time, as it’d been sitting in approximately this state for the past – what? – two months now) miniature construction kit that had begun to look like an elaborate, multi-turreted castle. My consciousness was quickly melted by the warm light, and, as I lay on my side, perhaps to get a different take on the structure, I asked myself, again, why it is that we don’t have siestas.

The next thoughts I remember were, 1.) Why am I awake? 2.) Why is the sun still in the same place, and 3.) Why won’t the feather duster let me be?

In a strangely asymmetrical resumption of consciousness, I pegged the relative passage of time before I realized it was our dog’s tail that was buffeting my nose like a belligerent cloud.

However, it was rare that I would awaken to such a fate, as 1.) I rarely slept on the floor these days, and 2.) our dog hadn’t been allowed up the stairs since he’d wagged goodbye to puppyhood, at which point Dad had stated that he wasn’t “going to raise another worthless slug like the two of you,” meaning that, unlike Stephen and me, Gus had to earn his keep by sleeping at entry level.

In practice, this came to mean that, instead of sleeping on the floor of my parents’ bedroom, as he had as a puppy, Gus had the choice of three different couches as his bed. His preference usually tended toward the short-but-plush model in the den, though, on nights when thunder rang out in the distance, he would move to the longer one in the family room so as to provide a place for repose for whomever descended to staunch his whimpers.

I realize I may have digressed from my main task, which was the relation of the manner in which the eventual evacuation was effected. The point to be made here is that the presence of Gus’s tail in my face as I lay in my room was quite unusual and sparked in me, half-asleep though I was, and fully though I wished to be, a certain unsettlement of thought. Following the imaginary line from Gus’s raised tail to his upturned nose, which usually led one directly to a plate of brownies or a turkey sandwich, my gaze sidled through the crack in the window and followed the color gradient of the smoke I saw outside until it ran smack dab into the neighbors’ window.

The boy known as Stephen was downstairs blending food in the mixer and loudly.

“Hey! Steve?” I shouted, when the aural carnage recessed.

“I’m blending!” came the reply.

I stumbled down the hallway and the stairs as I regained full consciousness and avoided the helpful, anticipating form of Gus doing his best to lead me wherever I was going. We reached the lower stairs as Stephen once again took up blending.

Gus, torn between the terror that was for him the blender and the uncompromising law of inertia, borne on by the low-friction tile at the stairs’ landing and his eagerness to track the smoke, managed to skid into the wall next to the opening to the kitchen, turn himself 80 degrees to the right, and sneak, head down, over to the door to the garage, seemingly undetected by the blender.

“Steve!”

“What?”

“I think the McPherson’s house is on fire.”

“Really?”

He shut off the blender.

I followed Gus to the door, collecting my shoes on the way. I opened the door to the garage and then the automatic garage door. Gus led. Stephen followed.

We ran through the hedgerow into the neighbors’ yard. We looked to the street and saw it as vacant as ever. I had a vision of the house going up in a blazing orgy of black smoke and remorseless fire and everything outside this plot of land continuing on untouched in sunny afternoon suburbia.

The front door was closed. We could hear the fire alarm inside. Stephen went to open it, then withdrew his hand as if realizing he’d mistaken the handle for a viper. I pushed him back and felt the door. It was only slightly hot.

“The key!” he shouted and ran back toward our yard. I took off my shirt and made it into a hand turban. I got a grip on the handle through it and rotated it, confirming its lockedness.

Stephen was back with the key. He unlocked the door with a bare hand. I turned the knob and pushed it open.

The powerful, shrill whine of the smoke alarm shot out at us on the heavy, particulate air. Immediately, my eyes began to burn, and Stephen and I both began to cough. Gus sneezed continuously.

I stepped inside. The air was caustic. Even just inside the front door, I felt I could barely breathe. I coughed uncontrollably. I looked behind me but Stephen wasn’t there. Then he came around the corner, holding his shirt, balled up and dripping, over his mouth. He motioned around the corner and I saw the water spigot was open.

“The fire department!” I said.

“I hit the button!” he said, pointing back to our house.

I took off my shirt and held it under the spigot. I turned to follow him in, then thought again and went back to the spigot and did my best to wet my pants from the knees down, as well as my shoes. Then, following Stephen’s lead, I put the shirt over my mouth and entered. Amazed I could breathe, I followed Stephen to the foot of the stairs and began shouting.

At the door, through thick tears, I could see Gus barking and continually entering, sneezing, and leaving.

“Gus, no! Stay!” I shouted.

As usual, he didn’t.

I ran to the door to push him away, but he wouldn’t give up.

“Suit yourself,” I said as I stepped outside and tore my T-shirt in two. I encased his muzzle in one of the sleeves and tucked another piece of the shirt over the end, covering his nose.

He ran straight for the stairs and began to climb them until his head was level with ours. At that point, he sneezed, backed up a step, backed up some more, almost to the floor, then stood barking.

“Steve! I think…”

He said, “I think he thinks there’s someone upstairs!”

“Yeah!”

He looked up the stairs, then back at me.

Then he motioned toward Gus.

“But he’s an idiot!”

I shrugged acknowledgement mixed with uncertainty.

He said, “Yeah, I know!”

He started up the steps, then turned and said, “If I don’t come back, tell them where I went!”

I froze in indecision and responsibility. I should have gone first. But now, I couldn’t follow him – if neither of us came back, no one would know we’d gone.

I waited and looked at Gus, expecting accusation. Instead, I saw he’d turned his head and was now barking directly at the opposite corner of the second floor.

I focused on the ground, trying to think. My gaze fell on the shallow plastic trough my mom had given Mrs. McPherson when our parents had given up trying to train us. Every time she came back from visiting Mrs. McPherson, Mom would then tell us, disappointedly, that it always held one pair of shoes for each member who was home with that jealous gleam in her eyes that backlights the reflection of a utopia one knows one deserves but whose gates one must stand idly by as one watches another enter.

Now, it was as empty as it had always been at our house.

I ran out to the garage. I looked through the glass panes in the door. The smoke was less here, and the garage was clearly empty.

I ran back in the front door. Gus was still barking in his new favorite direction.

With Gus’s barking and the smoke, I couldn’t hear or see Stephen. I started climbing the steps. Halfway up, even the T-shirt-filtered air was too harsh. Coughing, I knelt down and began to crawl, then realized I needed both hands for that. I wrapped the shirt around my face and made to tie it in the back. I only had enough slack to make a perilously loose knot, but it held.

Summiting the stairs, I saw Stephen fifteen feet ahead of me, moving down the hall, the sleeves of his shirt sprouting in opposite directions from where they were knotted at the back of his neck. He was moving toward the darkest of the smoke.

“Steve! I don’t think anyone’s home!”

He didn’t turn.

Moving a foot in there felt like ten yards. I pulled off my shoe and threw it at him. It hit him in the backside and he flipped around as if it had been a falling beam or a red-hot poker.

“No one’s home!” I said.

He crawled closer to me.

“No one’s home!” I repeated, shaking my head, and, pointing toward the door, “The shoe tray’s empty!”

His brows communicated confusion, then comprehension, then – was that judgment?

“Gus! Stay!” Stephen said, and I looked to see the barking dog halfway up the stairs, still turned as if he were trying to scratch his back with his chin.

“Gus! No one’s home!”

Then I heard a meow from the other end of the hallway. So did Stephen. He began to follow me toward the noise.

“Get him out of here!” I said, pointing to Gus.

“OK!” he said.

“One cat – that’s it, right?”

“I think so!” he said as he took Gus’s collar and rose up into a crouch near the bottom of the stairs.

I crawled toward the room at the far end of the hall. Entering the master bedroom, I finally got a visual on the cat. I headed straight for it. It was near the far corner of the room. I felt my pace quicken as I got close.

I made to crawl the final six feet between us as quickly as I could, and it shot back into the corner. It felt as if the heat had just increased, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up – I had seen myself emerging in a few seconds, cat in hand, as the house crumbled in the background. That picture changed – I was going to die trying to rescue a suicidal cat.

I decided I had to give it one fair chance. I forced myself to inch toward it, then I remembered that I had seen this cat once before, along with how it had only allowed me to pet it after I’d followed the McPherson’s girl’s instructions to lie on the floor a painstakingly long time, just calling it.

I figured I’d give it a shot. I lay down with my hand out, palm up, and called.

“Come on, Bisquick. Come. Come on. It’s OK, Bisquick. Come on.”

He inched his way out of the corner, performing practice retreats with his nose every other second. Still, he was making progress toward me. The smoke seemed to be getting heavier, but I forced myself to stay there, trying to exude as calm a demeanor as possible.

“It’s OK, Bisquick. That a boy…” I said, waving my fingers toward myself as I looked back down the hall and for the first time saw actual flames. They were making their way toward the stairs.

“Come on, Bisquick! Come on!” I said, staring at the flames, trying to will the fire into stasis.

Feeling the rough flame lick my fingertips, I whipped my hand back to my body and looked up to see the cat move from where he had been rubbing his sandpaper tongue on my hand almost all the way back into the corner.

“Son of a…Bisquick. Sorry. My fault. Come back. Come on. It’s OK.”

Strained now by the additional irritation at myself, my patience ran out. I moved toward the cat, figuring I’d either corner it or chase it into oblivion. Either way, I’d take the sweet tumble down those stairs any second.

Bisquick flattened to half his already-insubstantial height, but didn’t run. I moved closer. Making myself believe what I saw in his eyes was a look of waiting to be directed, I reached for him. Magically, I felt my hands close around his torso. I pulled him to my chest like a running back with a golden pigskin and slithered across the carpet like an earthworm.

I made surprisingly rapid progress, as, before I thought to check in again with the flames, I saw the banister at the top of the stairs at the edge of my vision. Realizing any flames in my path wouldn’t affect my route, I pivoted, cat brushing banister, and began what was shaping up to be a head-first descent.

My hip left the top step for the second with a thud, whipping my head into the stairs. The T-shirt dropped from my face. I didn’t think to hold my breath until I’d already breathed. At that point, I couldn’t do anything but cough. Trying anything else just made me convulse with each stifled cough.

I began to stand up, figuring I just needed to make it to the door. I stumbled down the steps and into someone’s bare chest. Stephen pulled me down the steps and pushed me out the door, where the air was the best thing I’d ever felt, like a combination of water and air and food and freedom.

I lay on the grass for a while, then retreated to the side of the yard when I heard the sirens.

Stephen had brought Gus back on a leash. He sat wagging his tail, sneaking glances at Bisquick.

“All right, Bisquick,” I said, looking at my stockinged foot. “We made it.”

Stephen looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Man, the cat’s name’s Biscuit.”

Whence comes this con...dom-in-the-win-dow?

2011-01-16T00:05:00.000-08:00

Oh, myster’ous condom from the sky, ‘pon my windowsill — wherefore is thy Romeo casting the likes of thee out the grated vent?

Thou, who, I can see, performed thy duty to protect and serve, because, though, at first, I admit, thy integrity did I doubt, upon further inspection at the business end of my toilet-cleaner-liquid bottle, thou showed thyself whole and unbreached as the Allies’ front lines in The Battle of the Bulge.

Thou wert marked by a strange yellow stain off-tip about 1/8 of the way to base, and a downy pigeon feather clinging to thy exterior. Dear mystery condom, I implore thee, reveal what brand of sordid lunacy did up there transpire.

Furthermore, oh puzzling prophylactic, why such an unceremonious exit wert thou granted consequent to performing so ably thy duty? Not even a proper burial in the trash can was afforded thee? Ay, perhaps it is for daredevils like thee a far grander finale to leave the world of the undiscarded via a kamikaze act of defenestration, no doubt tossed off either as post-coital ablution or urination. Perhaps the bladder so full spared no time for erection redirection, and thou wert shot out the window as if an ill-placed camper who’d perched atop Old Unfaithful in Yellowstream National Park.

Or so thou must have thought, when thou began thy plummet so many hours ago, not knowing thy journey would reach only the fourth-floor ledge before quickly meeting with abeyance. With pride and sanguinity do I spur on thy daredevil descent with a poke of this stick, hopeful that to thee soon comes the purpose of thy new stage of existence and with that knowledge the blessing of the dutifully employed, for theirs is peace of mind.

Securely Yours,

2010-11-29T12:26:00.000-08:00

Phone: The FBI reports that there is an attempted burglary in the US every 17 seconds. You can help protect your family and belongings by purchasing a security system. If you take advantage of this offer and place our sign in your yard, we will waive the installation fee.

Dude: Hello.

Me: Hey.

Dude: Can I help you?

Me: So, there’s a burglary every 17 seconds?

Dude: According to the FBI, there’s an attempted burglary every 17 seconds.

Me: Are you saying that you don’t believe that information yourself, or just like can’t confirm or deny, or…?

Dude: Yes. I can neither confirm nor deny.

Me: Ha. Nice – neither confirm nor deny.

Dude: So, are you interested in a securing your home?

Me: Well, but, how recent is that information? Which report is it actually stated in? Do you have a name, or…?

Dude: It’s pretty recent.

Me: OK, pretty recent. OK.

Dude: So, are you interested in a security system.

Me: Yeah, sure. I mean, every 17 seconds, right? I’d like to learn more.

Dude: OK, so, do you own a home?

Me: I do not own a home.

Dude: …

Me: But my parents do. I could talk to them. I bet they’d like to secure their home.

Dude: OK. And what state do your parents live in?

Me: Well, now that you know their home isn’t secure, I’m not sure I should be telling you that. How can I be sure you won’t try to exploit them using this information?

Dude: Well, it’s up to you, if you want to take advantage of this offer…

Me: OK, well, I can tell you which state, but I can’t tell you more than that. It’s not a state, actually. It’s a Commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Dude: OK. We offer installation only in the continental United States.

Me: Does that include Alaska?

Dude: No. Only in the continental United States.

Me: Well, but, do you mean the contiguous United States? Because Alaska’s still in the same continent - North America – right?

Dude: Well…

Me: I mean, I think. I think…

Dude: OK.

Me: So, can you give me some details about what’s being offered?

Dude: We’ll provide wireless transmitters on all of the external doors and pet-friendly motion detectors. We’ll install three panic buttons. We’ll provide you with a crest and window stickers to prevent a break-in altogether. And, since this is a special promotional offer, we’ll waive the installation fee in the hope you’ll tell your friends about it.

Me: OK.

Dude: You’ll have a connection to us that is active 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If any alarms are tripped, we’ll be notified and can have the police on their way within 36 seconds. Since you won’t be charged any installation fee, you’ll only have to pay for the maintenance and monitoring contract, which is about $1 a day. And, if you move, we’ll move the system with you for free.

Me: OK.

Dude: …

Me: Hello?

Dude: …

Me: Hi?

Dude: Yes. Sorry.

Me: OK, so…

Dude: Do you think your parents might be interested?

Me: Yeah. I’d have to go over it with them, though.

Dude: OK.

Me: So, do you have a number, or…

Dude: Yeah…866…

Me: 866…

Beep beep beep

“Signal faded.”

A Pink Oasis

2010-11-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

Upon entering the Pink Katalyst head offices in Mumbai Central, seated, as they are, at the head of the hallway and behind their glass door, the vibrant pink letters championing the company’s name, and its preeminent product, Singchana.com, visible from one side of the seventh floor to the other, a visitor can expect to be soothed by the smooth, gurgling sounds of a miniwaterfall. A new acoustic addition to enhance the aural aesthetic? Perhaps a natural counterpoise to the columnar concrete honeycombs that rise unnaturally straight from the paved earth, batting the music of the metropolis - the battling braying of horns - between their walls like unholy, unyielding badminton champions?

Perhaps.

The origin of this particular sound is, however, and however prosaically, the temperamental toilet that lies just inside the entrance to the home of those brothers who love you never more than when you play the singer in you. A simple jiggling of the handle can render the device mute—but, I ask you, especially in such a temple where daily gather adherents of the ancient art of soul-healing through the medicine that is melody-making, "At what cost, brother? Oh, at what cost?"

The Harvest/24-Hour Short-Story Contest

2010-11-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for the Fall 2010 WritersWeekly.com 24-Hour Short-Story Contest and was mentioned as having lost with honour. I used the prompt that was given as the first two paragraphs of my story. The story had to relate to it, though not necessarily include it. And the story had to be 900 words or fewer, and finished within 24 hours of the prompt having been sent out. The rather original title is my work, and wasn't included in the word count, which, for mine, was 896.

The Harvest

He stood on his tiptoes at the small cabin's rear window, staring out at the deepening dusk, sensing the excitement in the town's air. The cold wind seeped through an old crack, tickling his chubby cheek, and a whirlwind of red and orange leaves made him laugh. The corn stalks rustled in the brisk breeze, waving to him. He waved back.

Behind him, Mommy was busy in the small kitchen and delicious smells wafted his way, making his tiny tummy grumble with glee. She was making lots of treats to tempt the town's children. After all, she'd promised him a new brother or sister.

That promise inspired in Johnny glee of perhaps an-even-more-intense strain than the aroma. After all, he’d been bugging Mommy for a new brother or sister since, in fact, his very first words to her: “Do I have a little brother or little sister?”

Of course, such may seem an unusual inaugural verbalization to one’s mother, but, then again, it was the unusual child who met his mother at the age of three. She encouraged him not to see himself as “adopted.” She always used the word “chosen.”

“You’ve been chosen,” Marcus had told him on that day Johnny initially discovered he’d be staying. Marcus was his first brother—first sibling of any kind. An older brother he’d acquired at the age of three—that was another unusual piece of Johnny’s family history.

That day, the harvest festival attendees had flooded the yard and first floor of Mommy’s cabin, with the pond of people lapping at the edges of the corn field, squealing young children and whispering young lovers trickling in and out of the stalks, families and neighbors concentrated at the wooden picnic tables and large picnic blankets that had condensed into a communal hive, where, by dusk, the jagged grass footpaths in between had atrophied to mere memory and a trek through them become an act of contrition.

From this, it was difficult to notice a subtraction of one. Certainly one like Johnny.

Thus it was that Marcus, eight years his senior, had easily corralled him into a corner of the cabin and down a minimalist flight of stairs half-hidden behind a large wooden trunk.

Down there, Johnny had encountered a heaping basket of candy apples, an artful arrangement of circus-sized lollipops, and various toy vehicles, balls, and blocks.

Marcus almost found words superfluous in convincing Johnny that that would be his new home.

Not that he was likely to be missed. His father had a problem with sobriety that consequently caused him no end of difficulty with work, relationships, and child-rearing. The last sighting of the man had been weeks before. Johnny had been subsisting on scraps of food and kindness from a neighbor who already had too many children of her own.

The light transitioned from the dusk that decreasingly permeated the darkening air to that of the sulfur-yellow bulbs that hung at regular intervals and irregular locations from the line strung over tree branches, around fence posts, and off of roof corners. The scene could have almost undetectably been swapped with the one two years earlier, when

Johnny had been ushered into the house and down the stairs.

Though he hadn’t eaten one since, nor even desired to, a sudden craving for lollipops seized Johnny. From his position on the porch, he ventured to the head of the stairs, pulling aside the curtain that now obscured the descent, and saw the boxes and plywood that, most of the year, barricaded the way were cleared to the side. Fitting easily on the half of the stairs that remained, Johnny followed the map still so clear, though not once refreshed, in his memory—down the stairs, to the left, down a short hallway, and right, into a room.

As he approached, he heard voices. As he paused just outside the ajar door, they were clear.

Johnny’s heart leapt as he listened.

“You heard me, Marcus—I promised him a new brother or sister!”

“But Mommy,” Johnny heard Marcus say, his voice disconcertingly supplicatory, “she was the youngest I could find. They guard the little ones so closely!”

“It’s taken me months to prepare this, Marcus. Last year, nothing. And this year, with so many new parents, all you can find me is this antique?”

Johnny peeked through the opening between door and jamb to see a girl a little older than he sitting in the corner, chewing on something and combing the blonde hair of a doll.

“Maybe this is a clear sign you’re ready to go from acquirer to producer, Marcus. If you can’t find Mommy a little one, you’ll soon be old enough to make her one.”

Johnny pictured Marcus assembling a baby, snapping together arms and torso, as he’d had to do to dolls such as the one the girl now played with on some occasions when he’d been less gentle than intended.

“Mommy, no!” said Marcus. “I’ll find you one! I promise! I just need more time! I’ll go out looking! Just give me until winter!”

“Fine. Take this dinosaur away,” she said, and Marcus swiftly approached the girl. Johnny moved to the dark corner of the hallway as Mommy turned to leave the room.

“But remember—until the first snow, Marcus—that’s how long you have.” She laughed. “You’d better pray for an Indian summer.”

The Necessity of Bears?

2010-09-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

(Editor's note: If you enjoy this story, I urge you to view the first comment for an inspired remix.)

The most outrageous thing has happened in my apartment building — on the ground floor, where, for the longest time there was a closed-up, unoccupied space, it seems that someone had the bright idea to open a Bear Shop.

Yes, you read that right. Do a double, even a triple take if you want. I know I did, when I saw the sign, but every time I looked back, there it was, same as ever: Now Open! Bear Shop!

What? A Bear Shop? In this neighborhood? There are stray dogs everywhere!

Not for long, I suppose.

And children just wander around. Even if they stayed home, there’s a slum of about 20 families not 50 yards from this ursine-animal vendor.

The shop is done up nicely, I must admit. The last I’d seen of it, maybe a month ago, it was a large plastered room with various debris scattered about. Now, the walls are stylized, textured, dark-pink tile. The ceiling fan’s speed recalls a jet engine. And various spirit containers sit in a hollowed-out shelf along the back wall and in a shiny new glass display case in the front counter.

True, it seems like a safe place. Not only did I fail to spy even a single loose bear—I saw no signs of any. Not one bear, nor a hair or paw print. I didn’t even hear what could be considered a gentle roar.

Nothing.

Obviously, the bears have been well contained.

So far.

Now, admittedly, I’m no bear expert, the most extensive study I’ve done of that kind being some heavy petting in my dad’s Olds up at Procreation Point during a spell of low self-esteem back in high school. However, it seems to be common knowledge that the bear is a difficult animal to manage. Not for naught are they considered powerful, ferocious creatures.

“Run! It’s a bear!” is a saying every child knows. There’s a reason you won’t hear “Run! It’s a hare!” And, outside of those from Berrian DC and Dalian Chicago, I bet none of you’s ever heard “Run! It’s the mayor!”

No, there seems to be a general consensus that bears are more than a handful, which makes it suspicious that they would be peddled from a shop that is probably 200 square feet on a dry day, less when it’s humid.

The other suspicious observable is the partiality of the place toward alcohol. And whom’s the alcohol for? The bears? Their handlers? Complaining neighbors? Pesky officials? Victims’ relatives?

That, I have yet to discern. Also, the shop seems devoid of any brandy, bourbon, whisky, gin, vodka, rum, wine, schnapps, cider, liquor, liqueur, arrack, or even toddy.

A lot of cans. And some bottles, I think.

I can tell the neighbors are on edge—they definitely seem to have been drinking more than usual. And that isn’t just an imagined correlation—those who are drunkest are those milling around the Bear Shop the most—obviously, putting themselves in danger for the safety of their fellow man, ready to sound the alarm and provide the first line of defense.

Thankfully, so far, disaster has been averted. No tragic maimings. Nary a close call. Still, something doesn’t add up. Dog shop—sure, this place is filthy with filthy dogs, and some people even own a few of them. Goat shop—yeah, a couple of my favorite upstairs neighbors are goats. Cow shop—now there’s a moneymaker if I ever heard one. Even a monkey shop—sure, you see the occasional Mumbaikar with their monkey on a leash—even in the general compartments of the commuter trains—but you never actually see any monkeys around. Not wild, and certainly not for sale.

Any of these, and I’d have no problem. The raison d’être would be obvious. In fact, their absence puzzles me, now that I’ve given it some thought. But bears—the only bear I can even remember associating with any part of this country is a talking specimen named Baloo.

No, something doesn’t add up, and, as a responsible member of the community and a reasonable member of the human race, it’s my responsibility to pay heed my hunches, and mind my instincts.

For now, this citizen remains wary.

The Two Gentlemen of Baroda

2010-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

Weighted down by sleep but kept conscious by hunger and the three hour nap I’d apparently just finished, I groped for the remote and turned on the TV to find Braveheart.

Half an hour later, when the cute chick’d been murdered and I was more hungry and less sleepy, I groped for the room-service menu. Its terminal hour was 11. My clock read ten minutes past. Summoning energy that can only be mustered when one has already verified that the minibar has nothing but water, I grabbed my card from the let-there-be-light slot and made my way to the front desk.

Doubtful that I could get something from the kitchen, thinking maybe a nearby restaurant would be open, and confident in the reserves of the well-stocked vending machine I’d noticed when arriving, I addressed the kids working reception.

“Hey, is there anywhere I could get food here?”

“Sorry, sir. The kitchen is closed.”

“Any restaurants?”

I pointed at the door, but, in a way that, I knew, indicated I meant “beyond the door”.

“No, all closed.”

“Oh. Ok. Well, how about the vending machine?”

“Vending machine is closed.”

What? Was I in one of those Kafkaesque novels by Kafka? Was this some kind of comedy of the absurd? For what purpose vending machines, if not to vend? And to vend like hell, as long as there be electricity? And preservatives?

I stared at him with unbridled contempt saturating my glare. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so angry. Not irritated, but angry — usually, I just get irritated. And frequently. But this was something else.

Typing a text message on my cell phone, I walked to the door that leads into the accommodation area, having just finished keying in ‘the vending machine is closed’ — for those were to be my motivation — as I turned around and headed for the door.

“I just hope it’s not raining,” I thought as I exited through the thin, motion-triggered, sliding double glass doors.

The drops fell steadily and confidently upon my head and shoulders, and I quickly realized that if I didn’t find an eatery shortly, I’d be soaked. I headed toward a top-of-the-building sign a few doors down that looked to advertise a food-provisioning facility, but the illuminated sign proved to be the sole source of light in the building. Seeming to have reached the end of the road in terms of nourishment possibilities in that direction, I continued on without altering course — I'm nothing if not hesitant to backtrack over verified food-free territory when seeking immediately sustenance.

However, just then, by me passed two gentleman of Baroda who seemed tentatively interested in offering help, so I asked the less tentative and more interested-looking one where I could find food.

This more-bold one simultaneously pointed in the directions whence they’d come and whither I headed.

“No food that way,” he said.

Duh, I thought, I could’a told you that…

“We are going to the station for food. (He pantomimed feeding himself some granola mix, for clarity.) Would you like to come?” (He tilted his head, presumably, stationward. For clarity.)

“Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”

As I accompanied them, I twice learned and forgot their names. One may have been Arjun. I think the other’s name began with an “A” and ended with a “J”. I learned that they were firefighting trainees from Gunjapuh.

I later learned they were firefighting trainees from Mithapur who looked at me with confusion when I asked questions about Gunjapuh.

I decided the less bold one, AJ, was only necessarily less confident with English. I appreciated him because he, as I, lacked any kind of rain barrier like the mackintosh Arjun wore.

We walked in a row along the empty, dimly lit streets, collapsing into a column along the left side of
the road as cars approached from behind.

Arjun motioned toward the lights above the wall we approached that ran perpendicular to our direction of travel.

“Station,” he said, as we followed AJ to the left.

Here, there was some activity — some buildings; hotels, mostly; had lights on inside. Roadside vending carts were often attended by their roadside vendors, and the street-center lights were more-closely placed.

As I sought to avoid an approaching bus, I followed Arjun’s lead and realized we’d be exiting the edge of the right lane for the middle of the left, which was submerged in water.

As we waded back toward the recently departed shore of the right lane, I asked Arjun and AJ why only Arjun had rain gear.

“Yes. Raincoat.” Arjun said.

Sensing a hint of miscommunication, I amended my query to something resembling Hindi.

“Uske pas raincoat nahin hai,” I think I said, motioning toward AJ.

A murmur went up.

I tried again.

“Uske pas…”

“Uske pas…no. No raincoat,” said Arjun, motioning toward AJ.

“Kyun?” I asked, asking why.

“No, no raincoat,” repeated Arjun.

“Kyun nahin?” I asked, asking why not.

We collectively moved closer to the banks of the left lane to avoid an approaching truck.

Reconvening back at the right lane, Arjun explained.

“In Gujarat, in the barish, in the rain, many people like to…” (He motioned with open arms toward the sky. The water.)

“Walk in the rain?” I asked.

“Yes.”

And then we had arrived.

In front of the Indian railways interstate railway station, which, as luck would have it, was celebrating 150 years of service, as noted on its facade, many people, mostly men, gathered at food stalls, huddled under the upward-opening sides of the stalls like prospective entrants to a 1940s proto-DeLorean.

AJ pointed out a vegetarian pav bhaji place where he and Arjun set me up with some bhaji, buttered rolls, and chopped onions before walking over to Naseer’s Omelet cart. I ate the hot, spicy bhaji as quickly as possible, asked for some napkins or water with which to clean my hands, received newspaper, thanked the bhajiman, paid him 20 rupees, and forded the parking lot over to A&A, trying to stick mainly to an impromptu stone bridge-path.

As I arrived, Arjun received his egg fried rice from the chef, who was aided, I noticed, by a man wearing a black, collared shirt with MTV written in shiny yellow-green on the left breast.
Arjun several times forcefully encouraged me to order some rice for myself, but it looked hot, I’d just eaten, and I didn’t want to wait for it to be made. He offered me some of his, to which I began to accede, then hesitated, asking if it was hot.

“Yes,” he nodded, as if it were a desirable quality under the circumstances.

I spooned a forkful, tossed it into my left hand to avoid dirtying his fork with my mouth, then, wondering if everyone watching me (and, yes, everyone was watching me) would think me uncouth for eating from my traditionally rear-end-wiping hand, quickly tossed it into my mouth.
It was hot. Instinctively, my tongue, cheeks, and the roof of my mouth retreated from the hot rice, but it followed my tongue and mouth-bottom unfailingly. All there was left to do was open my mouth and try to let the stream outward flow.

Eventually, I swallowed and assured Arjun that I’d found it very agreeable, though, in truth, the intense heat of it had burned from my memory any taste that may have registered.

At one point, as they ate and I waited, AJ disappeared to another stall and came back with three half-litre, clear, polyethylene sachets of water.

When Arjun and AJ had finished, they used some of the water from the sachets to rinse their hands, then drank most of the rest, throwing the bags on the ground. I fished my sachet out of my pocket, where I'd stored it, and tore at the corner with my teeth, managing to rip a hole but failing to severe any plastic, so that the water just dripped down the stretched plastic corner as it would a melting icicle. After a bit of moral debate and level-headed reasoning, I figured this wasn’t too much worse than anything else I seemed to be consuming, so I held the plastic icicle over my mouth and squeezed the sachet.

Folding up the empty sachet and shoving it in my pocket, I followed A&A. We went to a chai stand, where I think I was successful at communicating my ambivalence towards tea. As always, that required an explanation, and a lengthy one, if my hosts were to not be insulted by my refusal. Then arose the inevitable coffee question, to which, as usual, and because I do, I said I hate it.

Let me tell you, friend — a foe of coffee is understood and respected. An enemy of chai can find acceptance. But a friend of neither — well, there's a man without a beverage, and such a man just isn’t to be trusted.

“What do you drink?” they’ll usually ask.

My reply of “water” is met with skepticism, as if, fine, water, yeah, but, wouldn’t you really, in your heart of hearts, prefer it to be heated to very high temperatures and flavored using either beans or leaves?

If the conversation continues, I’ll be asked if I smoke. Since I don’t, the next question is (and, why wouldn’t it be?) whether I drink. Sometimes the gesture of “thumb to mouth, little finger in air” is exhibited in order to make sure I understand the implication is alcohol, although I don’t know that I drink other beverages any differently than placing them in containers whose bottoms I proceed to tip above mouth level.

When I tell them I don’t do drink, either, there’s really nothing to save me. If they somehow find out I’m a vegetarian, it only confirms what they already know. I’m given a knowing nod and told I’m “a good guy”.

This vexes me, mainly because I’m not. But is such a situation either the time or place to delve into an unsolicited list of my vices, shortcomings, and failures? I almost always find myself deciding that it’s neither. I offer a simple, “Well, no. Not really,” and leave it at that.

Luckily, this conversation lacked the steam to surpass non-alcoholic beverages, transitioning to where I was from in the U.S. soon after I made eye contact with the pair of guys who were sitting next to us under the tea cart-rain tarp, and they inquired as to my origins.

Having finished the chai (they, not I), I waved goodbye my new friends — the pair of guys, and kinda the chaiwalla — and we hit the road.

Asked by Arjun if I wouldn’t like to take something back to my room with me, I said I could probably handle some jalebis. We went to the jalebi cart, and Arjun ordered me what looked like a typical order. I looked in my wallet and was reminded by the sight of the 500-rupee note there that all I had was a 500-rupee note, which, while sufficient, probably wouldn’t sit too well with the jalebiwalla, who was probably going to charge 15 rupees.

He charged twenty, and I looked guilty and showed Arjun the 500-rupee note. He waved it off and paid for it himself.

The rain had all but ceased, and our walk back was quiet and pleasant. I tried to explain what it is I do in Mumbai, and why, and I asked them a few questions about their hometown. When we got to my hotel, I gave them my card, telling them that if they’re ever in Mumbai, to tell me so I can pay them back for the jalebis and we can hang out. They thanked me several times, said “Goodbye,” and walked on.

I re-entered the hotel lobby a little after twelve a.m., happy that I hadn’t shouted at or assaulted the desk clerks over the whole vending-machine debacle. As that occurred to me, I turned to the source of my earlier frustration to see it there, shining bright as the midday sun, happy orange and yellow wrappers half-full of preservative-laden food staring welcomingly out at me.

I thought, “Oh. Maybe the vending machine reopens at midnight.”

As I walked past the front desk, the clerk told me that the machine was now open.

“There was a problem with the machine, but we fixed it.”

I wondered if they’d fixed it just for me, and I felt a bit guilty.

“You can use it now,” he continued.

“Thanks,” I said, nodding sheepishly, and sidestepping toward the hallway door. With a pocket full of jalebis, I didn’t see much need for the vending machine at the moment.

Plus, I only had a 500.

A Man Named Haynes

2010-03-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

Dedication: In honor of my mom's birthday, this entry is dedicated to her. Happy birthday, Mom - no gift, but...here's a post?

We got our tickets from a man named Haynes. Not Hayes. Haynes. My wife kept confusing the two, and for good reason, I thought – you want to trust a man who sells you tickets, and a name like Haynes just doesn’t lend itself to trust.

Not a car, not a dog, not licorice – you don’t really want to buy anything from a man named Haynes. Maybe you wouldn’t mind knowing him in passing – pat him on the back as you walk by him on a barstool – “Hey, Haynes, how’d you like the Chicago game? Fourteen points in the final five minutes – I told you your D wasn’t built to play a full sixty.” Maybe see him on the street – “Hey, Haynes, how’s the lawn? Drought’s been vicious this year, what?” Maybe even get culinary tips from him – “Now, you want to chop the onions very finely! If you’ve done that, you’re in for one fine bouillabaisse, or my name isn’t Haynes! (applause)” Sure, any of that might be OK – “Haynes” doesn’t have to make a man a pariah – it just makes him an untrustworthy vendor.

But we were hard up and he was willing – a not-uncommon complementary relationship in many business deals. So we completed the transaction and walked the half a block to the concert hall.

“I wonder why Mr. Hayes didn’t need his tickets,” my wife said as the snowflakes began to linger a few seconds on the snub-nosed brim of her black, felty hat before melting.

“Haynes,” I said. “Was it Mr. Haynes, or just Haynes?”

“I don’t really know. Anyway, I wonder why he didn’t need them.”

“I don’t know – he looked dressed for it. Especially those shiny, tasseled shoes.”

“Yeah – maybe his wife was sick.”

“Or his husband,” I said, thinking as much about egalitarian mindsets as I was about his shiny shoes.

“Maybe. He had a gorgeous wedding ring, though.”

“That’s no guarantee.”

Well, wouldn’t you know it, we got to the theater, and the tickets were rejected.

A look of pity settled into well-worn grooves on the ticket-taker’s face.

“I’m sorry, sir, but these tickets seem to be counterfeit. Where did you buy them?”

Haynes!

I could feel my face going red. I turned and ran the half a block to where we’d done the deal with Haynes, knowing full well that he’d have to be less than an idiot to still be there. I found the spot – everything was as it had been, except for Haynes.

I made my way back to meet my following wife, who, though upset herself, had to play consolator to my much more upset psychology.

“It’s OK. Don’t worry about it, David. We’ll find somewhere nice to eat, and we’ll forget about it.”

“Son of a bitch. If I ever find Haynes…”

“Who?”

“Haynes – the guy who sold us the tickets.”

“Was that his name?”

I couldn’t believe it – she hadn’t remembered his name. Probably hadn’t even made her suspicious!

“Of course that was his name. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him.”

“It’s OK, dear. It’s my fault. We’ll buy them on time next time.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s Haynes’s fault!”

“Honey, please. Don’t make it worse than it is. We’ll be fine. Let’s go get something to eat. You’ll feel better.”

But I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted Haynes to feel worse.

We walked along the wide brick paths under the Christmas decorations – white, lacey, and irregular wide-gauge nets of insulated wire strings hung above us, in some kind of whole-street-consistent decorating motif, looking like the branches of a bare tree flattened to two dimensions, with a light at every intersection. There were fake-candle lamps and fake oil lights in store windows. It was like a stage set for a Christmas play, and I began to think of Haynes as the cockney-accented swindler in a dirty top hat with a deteriorating ribbon around it and crooked fingers reaching out of a jacket with too-long, too-wide sleeves.

We sat down in a concert hall of a restaurant that was part Victorian sitting room, part ski lodge. The lights were low, and there were gas lamps on every table. Huge wood pillars cobwebbed this way and that twenty feet above our heads, and the tables and booths were set so far apart you could walk four across between the parties. Some booths were hidden behind a large, attractive piece of drift-tree art that sat on a waist-high stand across the middle of the room. A fish tank near the wall was the brightest thing in the place and cast an ethereal light across a quarter of it. We were seated next to a wall of windows that looked out onto the cement pathway and, beyond that, to the calm black waters of the bay.

We looked over the thin menus inside the thick leatherish covers the hostess had left us as going-away presents. I thought the clam chowder bread bowl looked like it might be my order.

“He probably didn’t even give us his real name, you know,” my wife said to me, not looking up from her menu.

Of course he wouldn’t have given us his real name! It dawned on me that all we really knew about Haynes was that he’d sold us fake theater tickets and that his name wasn’t Haynes. It could be anything else imaginable – Andrecovich, Chevalier, Ramachandran – anything but Haynes. It turned out that you couldn’t trust a man not named Haynes, either. But how could you know if he indeed was or wasn’t Haynes until you’d tried the tickets? Yet I realized that we'd known, when buying them, that they must either be real or fake – therefore, that his name must either be, or definitely not be, Haynes.

“Hi, my name’s Wendy, and I’ll be your server,” said our server, Wendy. She was an attractive brunette in her mid-thirties.

My wife ordered a White Zinfandel. I hadn’t even known we were ordering wine. So I didn't.

I ordered an apple juice.

I saw my wife’s eyebrows rise, but she didn’t say anything.

“The water looks like the sky,” my wife said, and I felt as if I’d just dived out of the hot sun and into a cool swimming pool. I hadn’t even realized I was still so tense.

I looked out at the bay and saw how the lights from the boats, and the dock, rested in it like very large stars.

“Yeah,” I said. “It does.” And I looked at her, into her wide, dark eyes, the irises so dark you can’t tell where they end and the pupils begins, and that’s kind of like looking into the dark night sky, too. And the smile that forms below isn’t unlike the stars that make the night sky beautiful and wonder-inspiring instead of foreboding and despair-inducing.

And it’s a smile that’s surprisingly small – boxier than you’d expect. And that sometimes annoys me when I’m irritated, but makes me smile when I’m not. And right then I wasn’t. I was, at least, had been, tense, and shaken up, and angry, but not irritated. And so I smiled. And put my hand on hers. And it didn’t feel silly or irritating or forced, but welcome and happy and easy.

We ordered jointly, as we do when we’re happy. We ordered a salad and mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce and, for after, a small steak with steamed asparagus and, yes, the chowder in the bread bowl.

We spoke a bit – not about the ticket fiasco, or the play, but about other things. How pretty and neat the salt and pepper shakers were (the salt shaker was yin, the pepper shaker yang, and they fit together to complete the symbol). How the driftwood art reminded us of the beach vacation we’d been casually discussing taking. How cold the feet of the little white Pekingese being walked along the path outside must be.

Following the dog’s paws bouncing along the sidewalk, my eyes landed on something, and I felt my stomach go tight. I realized it was a shoe. A shiny, tasseled shoe. I looked up to see Haynes. He was still in that fancy getup, the low-down, simple thief.

I knew I couldn’t take it sitting down, though a part of me wanted to stay with my wife, in the beautiful restaurant, eating our dinner. But I couldn’t just sit here and watch him stroll by. How would I live with myself afterwards? I sprang up and ran out of the place.

I found Haynes not twenty feet from where I’d seen him. He smiled at me when he saw me.

“Hello, sir,” he said, smiling – too forcefully, I thought.

“Give me back my money,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The tickets were fake. Give me back my hundred dollars.”

I noticed, past Haynes, that the Pekingese and its owner had turned around to watch the festivities.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Maybe you confused me for someone else.”

“Give me back my money, Haynes!”

“My name isn’t Haynes, sir.”

“Right. Of course it isn’t. So why’d you tell us it was? What is your name? John Doe? Mark Twain?”

“Listen, friend, I’m sorry, but I’m sure you’ve confused me with someone else.”

I smiled the confident smile of the beaten and desperate. I sensed my wife somewhere back behind me – she must have followed me out.

“You…” I laughed. “You sold us fake tickets, Haynes! Now just give us what we’re due, and you won’t have any problem!”

“Listen, sir, I’m sorry about your situation, but I’m not the man you’re looking for.” He held out his hands and turned them palms up as he finished, emphasizing his empathy. “You should probably go to the police.”

And that’s when I saw the glittering gold on his left ring finger. It was a beautiful ring – not just a typical wedding band, but thicker, and intricately carved.

Though he stood a few inches taller than I, my rage had overcome any physical fear I might have had. It was all I could do to stop from punching him.

“Friend…” Haynes said, as he inexplicably reached out to touch my shoulder.

I pushed back, instinctually, but willingly. He may have been off balance reaching for me, or standing on some ice, or my rage may have been too much, but when I pushed, he lost his balance. He fell backwards, not getting his hands down in time, landing on his hip and letting out a moan.

“Bark!” exclaimed the Pekingese.

In a moment of inspiration, I saw my chance for redemption. A chance to recoup my losses. I reached down and grabbed it. It slid off as if he wore buttered socks. He looked up at me, holding his shoe in my hand, with incomprehension. But what he didn’t do is move his still-shod foot. So I reached down and snatched that shoe, too.

I looked over at my wife. Her expression was almost indistinguishable from that I’d just seen on Haynes. It was not the look of someone to be counted on.

I took off alone down the walkway, the bay water on my right, the cold air a welcome sting in my throat, cooling the fire in my head. I was totally alone. I began to fixate on the bay – on how its placid sheen reflected the occasional shore light like a flawless black mirror.

Like the polish on my new shoes.

I've got a bridge in Lake Havasu I'd like to sell you...

2010-02-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

In Oklahoma, the grass and fallow fields began giving way to ground that was barer, with small shrubs scattered about. Also, it became hillier—and not gently rolling hills, but more abrupt changes in altitude, with microplateaus and nanocliffs.

Hungry for breakfast and having seen only dull golden grass contained by miles-distant bluffs for the past couple of hours, I searched for the location of the nearest food on the Garmin. It was 48 miles in front of me. Forty-eight miles later, where one state route crossed another, lay some kind of town amputation—as each piece of a singly cleaved earthworm often begins to grow into a new, whole worm, this collection of buildings seems to lack some of the basics of a whole, healthy town while possessing some extraneities. I didn’t see a town center, or any municipal buildings, but I did find a restaurant and what seemed to be a junkyard.

I entered the restaurant and was told “Hello” by an AARP-qualifying white guy in a mesh hat and flannel sitting at the table near the door next to a similarly dressed and aged man. After I sat down, a man who would win the part of Sitting Bull in any local theater production entered and greeted the two older white men, indicating that the enmity between the white man and the red has eased significantly. However, he did communicate with the waitress in Spanish, so my suspicions have not been completely alleviated, and I fear there may be a rebellion stirring.
Santa Fe is like one of those all-too-short, over-too-soon levels in a video game. It’s surreal. It’s bright and blue and Mexican and Amerdian (Amerindian) and surrounded by mountains so close that an errantly tossed tortilla might get caught on a peak.

As I drove down the blacktop, the afternoon sun was white hot in its aggression, transforming the tar lines on the asphalt into visual lightning bolts.

The diversity of the southwestern states was encouraging to see. Nowhere was this culture of inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance more apparent than in Albuquerque, which, if you can believe it, contained not only a Whataburger but also a Lotaburger, showing that there’s enough room for a rich, diverse citizenry, some prefering quantity of burger, some more highly prizing quality.

Another encouraging discovey I made was of a certain, apparently popular, type of Mexican music that sounded a lot like polka to me. It made me happy to know that such a tradition is still going strong in 2009.

The lack of any natural barriers out here really is amazing. The roads just go on forever - you could run a marathon blindfolded.

Others are deceptively marked, at least on the computer map I had. One of the “county roads” my Garmin recommended I take was pretty much just two tire tracks in the dirt separated from each other by grass. It ran along a rancher’s fence. My Camry, I assume, would be flattered by the Garmin’s faith in it, but some of the potholes looked like something only a flatbed truck or SUV could handle them, so I backtracked the way I’d come.

Driving into the mountains, approaching Yuma from the east at sunset, was beautiful—the sun setting behind the mountains left the sky above a brilliant rainbow of low-frequency visible wavelengths, all suddenly obscured by the monolithic, monochromatic, monodimensional, jagged-edged range that looked like someone had torn off a piece of black construction paper and pasted it to the base of the horizon. However, like one of those dual, mutually exclusively messaged illustrations, where it’s either a young girl or an old lady, depending on what you’re brain is categorizing the lines as, as I stared at this truly magnificent explosion of color and contrast, I realized that, approached from an inverse point-of-view, it was fear-inspiring, as it could also be conceptualized as resembling a beautiful color palate whose bottom portion had been torn off to reveal a black no-man’s-land beyond, from which the headlights of escaping cars dimly appeared and other cars foolishly entered, their brake lights disappearing into its gaping maw of voidity. Alternately, it looked as if termites had eaten through the bottom of the horizon on the set of The Truman Show, and true night slipped in for the first time. Additionally, it should be noted that one should not have been embarassed to admit that it struck one as if the end of the world had been blasted through, and now travel to and from whatever else was out there was possible by automobile.

Having headed north from Yuma and then turning east at London Bridge, I was driving through weather in the mid-seventies, headed for the snow falling up in Flagstaff.

Nearing Flagstaff, I passed a guy driving a car with New York plates, and I got the same kick-in-the-gut feeling of humility I get when I see some guy wearing shorts in weather so cold that I’ve yielded to pants. It’s the same feeling I’d get when I’d see a white guy from a non-English-speaking country getting by living in India—he’s not only white like me (the title of my autobiography, perhaps?), but he’s also getting by with a foreign language. I nodded at this man from New York and said, with grudging respect, “You win...You win.”

I also saw a car with Ontario plates...but those people are crazy.

Having pulled into a rest stop somewhere above 5,000 ft, I got out and took some pictures of the snow. Returning to the car, I passed a guy wearing a flannel shirt with a shirt underneath, pants, boots, and a hat. He said to me, “You get the award for being inappropriately dressed,” as he looked at me in my winter coat, tennis shoes, and shorts. So that was nice. It was still 33 degrees, though. Still, after the New York-plate incident, I was taking what I could get. (It was 70 when I’d l begun climbing that mountain an hour before, and it would be in the mid-sixties when I’d return to the base a few hours later. )

Of Gettin' Out of Dodge, the Gang Dalton, and Adventures Courtesy of Sam Walton

2010-02-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

Stopped in to the Carr Audio store in Larned, KS, where I had been told they might have some kind of camera repair kit—dust had finagled its way onto an inner lens and dirtied almost all pictures taken using the zoom. I found two women in their 60s there. One asked me if I needed help.

“Yeah,” I said, “do you know if there’s a camera shop around here?”

“In Larned?” she asked. Then she laughed. So I laughed too. Then she told me maybe I should check Wichita, which I found out is where she does her boutique shopping. A guy in a Dodge City Radio Shack would later confirm Wichita as the camera-shop capital of Kansas, at least in popular opinion among those living along a three-hour radius of it.

“I think what you’d need to do is go to a specialist, like in a camera shop.”

“And there aren’t any...?”

“No, we haven’t had one for five years. I think the closest one’s in Wichita.”

Finally, I got the hell outta Dodge, although after spending more time than was in any way conceivably necessary in the Dodge Wal-Mart. Especially the parking lot. Hunted for the power cord to the GPS navigation unit for about half an hour. At least it was 60 F outside, or the repeated trips between the interior of the car and the trunk would have been even less pleasant.

Finally found it on the backseat underneath a bag.

Saw where the Dalton gang hid out—well, probably only used it a few times, said the curator. Until most of them were shot dead. But they were bank robbers, so that’s an occupational hazard. Something about the whole town coming out and shooting them on one of their heists—must have been a red state. I didn’t do much research, first of all because I was in a hurry to move before the sun set, and secondly, because the place freaked me out. The gift shop/former barn was fine, but the house was done up as if it were 1900. As far as I can tell, the gang consisted of three brothers and possibly a sister and her husband. And maybe one other guy. A couple of the brothers had been federal marshals, but then a third brother had been arrested, and, they claimed, mistreated while in jail. They used that to justify their engagement in some after-hours train robberies. And I guess it paid better, so they went into it full time. Anyway, the barn was connected to the house by a tunnel (really a ditch that had been covered with plywood and then dirt) through which they could escape to the barn, and thence, on horseback, if the police showed up at the house. It is obviously neat to have a secret tunnel in one’s house, but, as I said, I didn’t stay in the actual house very long because the only other person around was the employee, who was at the other end of the tunnel, in the barn, and the house was completely silent and made up as if the Daltons had just left. That was weird enough—with pictures on the table and some fake food in the kitchen—but the horror movie coup de grace was a little baby doll sitting on the made-up bed. I don’t know why five or six adults hiding from the cops would need to put a baby doll on their bed after having made it, but in this recreation, at least, there it was.

The guy manning the barn/gift shop wore a cowboy hat and vest and talked with a strong and kind-of-overdone western accent. When he greeted me I proceeded to reply somewhat hesitantly, in order to let him know that I wasn’t a five-year-old who needed to be patronized with the Old West accent. Then, as we began talking about his old sports cards and the book “The Physics of Baseball,” I realized that the accent was gen-you-wine. He was a nice guy, though, and we bonded over baseballic futility. (I told him I was a Pirates fan, and he admitted to rooting for the Royals.) Maybe that’s why he let me walk down the tunnel without having to pay the $4 charge, although at the time I wasn’t so sure it wasn’t so that he could viciously murder me, in keeping with the decor of the place.

Also, “yegg,” meaning a burglar who robs safes, or a safecracker, was dictionary.com’s word of the day that day. Here was one of the two accompanying quotations:

"A train robber is better than a public yegg" has been the campaign slogan of A.L. Jennings, train robber and member of the famous Dalton gang, who was nominated in today's primaries for County Attorney over a half dozen opponents.
-- New York Times, 1912-08-08

I told the curator that I was on my way to Albuquerque, and he had about a thousand suggestions of what to do in New Mexico—he was a big fan. He did admit, however, to having yet to see one of the state’s (main?) attractions—the burial place of Billy the Kid.

Of Quietude, the Cosmos, and Manure

2010-02-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

Nebraska state bird? Western meadowlark. State motto? “Equality before the law.” State smell? Manure. Seriously. OK, I didn’t smell it in Omaha, but I stopped at two highway-side gas stations, and each time there was a distinct manure scent in the air. I’d stopped at gas stations all along the way. I’d stopped at gas stations in Kansas. I’d stopped at gas stations in Iowa. I’d stopped at many many gas stations in central Pennsylvania. I’ve never noticed such a scent. Each time I stopped in Nebraska, I did. (Also, the Internet seems to think that Nebraska’s state soft drink is Kool-Aid. Do you maybe mean “state fun drink” or “state pasttime drink,” Internet? When did Kool-Aid become a soft drink? Aren’t they carbonated? (dictionary.com says they are usually carbonated, but we all know it’s just covering its rear.))

Roads in Nebraska are also audacious. Maybe more so than Iowan roads. They just go where they want— no curving around anything. No weaving or diverting for hills or mountains or bluffs or buttes or anything.

An amazing thing that I photographically documented—I found a gas pump that had no pay-at-the-pump credit card facility. And I was able to pump first and pay later...AFTER DARK!!

Kansas may have even more stars than Iowa. It was amazing—on an unlit state route that ran through farming fields, I stopped and got out of the car and stared up at the sky. I could see more stars than I’d ever seen before—a big swath of them across the night sky. And even with a bright, though crescent, moon. And it was amazingly quiet. Not even any animal sounds. With fields that stretched for miles on each side. I don’t know what makes so much noise where I usually hang out outside, but it was noticeably much quieter than I’m used to. It was very impressive. You give up some things when you live with light and noise pollution from all the modern conveniences. I wondered what it would be like to camp out in those fields. I was kinda afraid a buffalo would sneak up on me and attack, however.

It woulda’ had to have been really quiet, though.

Driving through Kansas at night was disorienting. I had to keep squinting and unsquinting to try to get my bearings. I felt as if I were at sea—the fields stretch so far and are so flat that you can eventually see light in most directions—kind of like staring off into the cosmos. Some light sources are probably twenty times closer than others, but they all look equidistant, just of varying size or brightness, just as some people have imagined stars to all be on the edge of the same sphere (or hemisphere) surrounding us. It was also kind of like being at sea but in sight of the lights on shore—all blackness except for dots of light on the horizon.

The Inequity! The Inequity!

2010-02-17T23:41:00.000-08:00

Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards is so upset, he went so far as to criticize Roger Goodell after learning the NFL commissioner made $9.759 million in 2008.

"I don't see him out there getting hit or nothing like that. The commissioner makes $9 million, so you tell me where the balance is? He doesn't put his life on the line, he pushes a pen.
from Ross Tucker at si.com (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/ross_tucker/02/17/freeagents/index.html)

"To what is this prelude?" I wondered with eager anticipation. "Finally, the hard-hitting statement we've needed, from that spokesman for egalitarianism, defensive end Ray Edwards, that will lead the way to a state where financial remuneration is based purely on the danger of the occupation! Finally, timber cutters, fisher(people (including kings)), and pilots (and navigators) will get the money they deserve for putting their lives on the line each day they go to work! Pizza delivery people, truck drivers, and farm workers will be compensated for the risks they take to perform their duties."

"What was that title again?" I asked as I scrolled to the top of the page.

"Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards pushes to raise hazard pay for military personnel"?

"Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards to launch campaign promoting fight club for successful Wall Street bankers"?

But no, it was just "Free agency is changing, and NFL players aren't happy about it". And Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards was just promoting a pay raise for Minnesota defensive end Ray Edwards (and, presumably, others like him who must wait another year (one more than had been customary) before becoming unrestricted free agents unless a new NFL collective bargaining agreement is reached before March 5.)

Oh well. Let's wish him luck. The last player to die on the field was Chuck Hughes. That happened in 1971. Of course, Korey Stringer died of complications brought on by heat stroke while practicing in 2001, and Chicago Bears defensive end Gaines Adams died of an enlarged heart during his team's offseason. In 2005, Thomas Herrion collapsed after a game and later died in the hospital. His death was attributed to ischaemic heart disease, or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. And others have suffered permanent injuries, including spinal cord injuries, while playing.

If we count all presumably football-induced deaths (and therefore, Stringer's), and even those due to pre-existing conditions that were exacerbated by the physical exertion required by playing the game, like Herrion's, (but not those, such as Adams's, which have no clear link to playing) I estimate that we maybe get a maximum number of one death every two years (or 0.5 deaths per year). If there are 32 x 53 = 1,696 players on active NFL rosters at any one time, then we have a rate of 0.5/1,696 = .000295 NFL players dying per season. I would assume it's less than that, but let's say, worst-case, that's what it is. That is higher than truck drivers, at a slightly lower risk of .00025 (according to this Money Central report: http//moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/extra/p63405.asp). Are NFL players paid more than truck drivers? Mostly, I would guess they are. But the NFL death-on-the-job rate is four times less than that for loggers (at .00117). Are loggers paid more than NFL players? One would certainly have to assume so. And, of course, the average American worker has a chance of dying of .00004, which is about 1/8th the risk of the average NFL player. But how much does the average NFL player make? Around $900,000/year. (http://www.ehow.com/facts_5005211_what-average-salary-nfl-players.html) and (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_salary_of_an_NFL_football_player) Is this more than the U.S. national average salary of $45,600? Yes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_average_salary)

Is it more than 8 times the U.S. national average salary? Yes. In fact, it's over 19 times as much.

And every NFL player makes at least $325,000/year, which is 7 times the average U.S. salary.

So, if we're equating salary to death risk in order to judge fairness, then the average NFL player is doing much better than the average American. And, as compared to the average truck driver, or the average logger...well...

But that damned Goodell! When's he gonna earn HIS money?!!

Oh, so I'M the Asshole?

2010-02-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

1:20 a.m., Bombay

Ring. Ring.

“Hello?” I say as I pick up my American phone and wonder who would be calling me on it.

“The recent financial crisis has put many hard-working people into debt. If you are in debt and have been looking to consolidate your debt, we are here to help. We offer…”

“Beep.” (‘Cuz I pushed “1” on a hunch.)

“…”

“Hello? Is anyone there? You can’t plant me in your penthouse – I’m goin’ back to my plough…back to the howlin’ old owl in the woods, huntin’ the horny-backed toad…”

“Hello. Thank you for holding.”

“You are welcome.”

“So, you are having problems with debt?”

“With debt?”

“Yes. You held on the line to receive help consolidating your debt?”

“Yes I did.”

“OK, let me tell you that this program is supported by the federal government, and this call is being recorded for quality assurance. By the federal government.”

“OK.”

“So, how much do you owe?”

“I owe…lots.”

“OK. How much is that?”

“Like…many dollars. Lots of pounds. A whole lotta euros.”

“And how much – can you give me a number?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen thousand?”

“Seventeen thousand?!... Yes!”

“OK, and…”

“Euros.”

“Seventeen thousand euros?”

“Yes.”

“How much are you paying now?”

“For what?”

“Are you covering the full amount for your bills now?”

“Well, not for the ones I don’t pay.”

“OK, and…can you tell me how you got into this situation?”

“Well, you see, what happened is…I bought things…I used my credit card. I bought a lot of things…but I didn’t earn enough money to pay for them. Now, I don’t have to tell you what happens when you go on like that for a while…”

“…right. OK. My name is Joshua, and I work with a program supported by the federal government that helps people consolidate their debt. We work with a group of 17 or 18 lawyers to consolidate your debt and lower the amount you have to pay. What if I told you we could get your seventeen thousand dollars down to nine thousand?”

“Pounds.” (I know I said euros before – European money confuses me.)

“Pounds?”

“Yes. Seventeen thousand pounds.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Pounds sterling. British pounds.”

“What?”

“British currency.”

“…OK. So what if we could get your debt down to nine thousand dollars?”

“Nine…OK. That would be nice.”

“And you would pay two hundred dollars per week. If you did that, you could be out of debt within a year.”

“OK.”

“And if you paid more, you could be out sooner.”

“Yup.”

“If you paid three hundred dollars per week, you could be paid off just over six months.”

“OK.”

“So you would be able to pay two hundred dollars per week?”

“Umm…how much is that in pounds?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Pounds. British financial currency. British money.”

“I’m talking about America.”

“And when did we say I was…”

“America. Dollars. English.”

“…Umm…Wait…What language do you think they speak in England?”

“You know what? You’re an asshole.”

“When – at what point in the conversation did you ask me if I was in America?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Wait. I just…no one told me I had to be in America…You’ve…hello? You’ve left me, haven’t you? Hmm…”

Frank and fries

2010-01-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

Stopped in to Omaha to lunch. I’ve seen Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Krakow, Warsaw, Rio de Janeiro, and Mumbai, but Omaha amazed me—mainly due to the fact that it looked younger than I am. The city, frankly, looked like it shouldn’t quite have its learner’s permit yet. It didn’t even have any stubble...of course, it didn’t look as if it had completely filled out yet, either. The major downtown buildings—more than a few of whose exteriors consisted mostly of glass—looked new and free of grime...or really any deterioration at all. I can see why the Denver-based sports reporter who came to Pittsburgh when the two cities’ teams played in the AFC Championship Game before Super Bowl XL described Pittsburgh as old and dirty—compared to pubescent Midwestern or western cities, it is. That’s much the same reaction I had to Pittsburgh when I first visited after having spent the first six or seven years of my life in the suburbs—that it was old and dirty. But I had never been to any municipalities of such size, so I figured maybe with size came grit. But if this guy’s from a city as clean as Omaha, he must know that that’s not the case. And according to Wikipedia, Omaha has about a 25% higher population than Pittsburgh.

Upon parking my car on the brick road upon which sit shops in a higher-class, commercial area of Omaha, I heard the sound of the Gator Bowl, where the Cornhuskers were taking on Clemson, emanating from speakers perched above a couple of bars across the street. I avoided the bars, which looked to be filled with former frat boys on beer number five, and walked to the nice little boutiques. I was looking for a restaurant to my liking and found one, but unfortunately Ahmad was serving none of his Persian cuisine on New Year’s Day. Disappointed, but still hungry, I continued on, seeing an East-Asian mother and two children being photographed crossing the street by their father. I laughed at such people who must photographically document everything, then took out my camera and snapped a picture of the street.

Walking by the Spaghetti Works, I found that it didn’t open for another three hours. Then I ran into a blond man, about six-foot-one, wearing a winter hat and a jacket. He stuck his hand out and asked my name. I thought of how much money I was willing to part with in the name of interstate relations. I told him I was Mike. He told me he was Frank. I assume only one of us was lying. He asked me where I was going. I said I was just looking around. He said we could do that together. I looked to see who could help me when he began mugging me—the East Asians, along with everyone else, were nowhere in sight.

He suggested we sit down at the Spaghetti Works outdoor tables. This is where I learned that he has been living in the shelter for about a year. This is also where I noticed he wore three jackets over a button-down shirt and a T-shirt, two winter hats, and a small 2” x 2” x 2” clock somehow secured in a chaotically wrapped string that hung from his neck. This isn’t too make fun at his expense, as he was either maybe mentally retarded, certainly mentally ill, probably a combination of both, or the best actor I’ve ever met. This may sound callous, but I wasn’t completely convinced the latter wasn’t the case throughout our shared time. However, I was pretty sure he was sincere, especially after he greeted a stranger who was walking by, then, later, walked over to an old safe that apparently belonged to the Spaghetti Works, asked, “Should I open it?” did so, then said, “Look! There are millions billions dollars inside!”

Sufficiently confident no subterfuge was at hand, I thought it would be nice to buy him lunch and spend some time with him, so we got up from the bench, heading for a coffee place he knew. As we went to turn the corner, a police car being driven in an agitated manner crossed the intersection in front of us. Another one honked agitatedly at the car that was blocking him from following his friend. A third police car approached from the orthogonal street. They came toward us and converged on a man who was just leaving the ATM after having looked as if it was not cooperating with him. He tried to walk unsuspiciously away, and, when they approached him, he looked at them innocently enough for my tastes. However, not for theirs, as they had him stand against the wall and handcuffed him. One of the policemen motioned across the street to a shop, which made me think maybe something had happened there and someone had identified the now-manacled gentleman—however, I had been over there earlier, and all the shops had appeared closed.

Whatever it was, I didn’t want to stay around long enough to find out. Who knew what would transpire next? Frank, however, felt as if entertainment had been dropped into his lap, evidenced by his suggestion that we sit down on a bench about thirty feet from the action and take in the drama. I wouldn’t have wanted to remain there if I had been alone, but I especially didn’t want to be near that with someone who was in the habit of talking to strangers and touching things most people wouldn’t.

When we got to the coffee shop (Starbucks), he ordered conspicuously but fairly competently, and we sat down. That’s where he recommended to me a song by Roy Buchanan called “Running Out,” and also whistled a few bars of it. Several times.

He also told me his father was a German scientist.

And a cowboy.

After a lunch of French fries in a nearby diner, I told Frank I should be leaving. He asked if I
could spare any change because, as he put it, “I’m poor.” I gave him the change that remained from the ten we’d purchased his coffee with, and he took it and quickly said goodbye the way I’d probably done a hundred times to my parents. I felt a little insulted, but that I'd helped out a good guy.

Following the Straight and Narrow

2010-01-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

I just realized my goal is to get to LA via Omaha—although it’s a little different if you’re not starting in Alabama.

I noticed that, in Illinois, all they seem to do when plotting a road is choose a starting point and an end point, and then carving out the space in between. Sure, it’s easier than elsewhere, but the laws of nature extract every red cent due them in the end. And who pays? As usual, it’s humanity. Because the poor souls who drive that road can see their destination coming—or that it’s not yet visible—for miles away. And they must make the long, slow trek toward it with nary a barrier or obstruction to take their mind off the work to be done. Just think if we could see all the work we have to do in our lives stretched out before us at this very moment. How many of us do you think have the psychological fortitude to then go ahead and immerse ourselves in it? To even take the first step? But that’s what those Illinoisians? Illinoiscois? Do every time they take one of those roads. Maybe that training is what enables the Cubs to show up at the top of every first inning and get to work.

It might have been a better trip to make in a more pleasant season, but then I’d miss out on the 28-degree temperatures and the freeze-your-fingers-in-under-sixty-seconds mile-per-hour winds.

I learned there are more Mexicans/Latinos/Spanish-speakers in this country than living in Pittsburgh would lead you to believe.

I learned that middle America loves Bible talk and Christian rock a lot more than any other place I’ve ever been.

I also learned – and I think I may have heard this in a stand-up act – that there are two types of Christian songs – those about loving the Lord, and those about being in love with the Lord. The latter's always creeps me out the first time they substitute "Jesus," for "you."

Who Wants to Boogie with Baby '37?

2009-11-28T13:15:00.000-08:00

Midwestern people are the nicest anywhere. They’re like Indians, but fewer of them want your money or steal your stuff. Seriously, though. The guy at the front desk of this motel greeted me friendily. Then he pushed his black lab’s snout back through the sliding glass door behind the counter as the dog mumble/growled something, prompting the owner to inform me, “He thinks he can talk.” Later, when I re-entered the lobby to ask about a nearby store, the clerk called me by my name, having remembered it from my credit card, and politely told me that the convenience store next door was open for another fifteen minutes.

In other news, the Iowan freeway has more stars than I’ve ever before seen. I checked again at the motel, and the stars weren’t as many or as bright, but on the highway, when I gazed out the window, I saw more and brighter stars than I’d ever seen.

It’s actually kind of lonely spending New Year’s in a motel room with the only entertainment being the epic comic duo that was Kathy Griffin’s playing the thirteen-year-old bully trying to scandalize the polite, endlessly patient grandmother who looked suspiciously like Anderson Cooper. As I sat there alone, I wondered if I was having one of those climax-of-movie moments where people realize that everything they’ve felt was important in life had been a terrible selfish miscalculation. But then I thought, sure, I’m lonely, but that’s why Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper are here. I also wondered why it was that Anderson Cooper covered terrible large-scale tragedies and New Year’s Eve.

Driving along the Illinois highway, I gazed to my left and saw the most amazing sight—the bright sun behind wide-angle clouds being puffed out of a short-squat smokestack beyond a field of green ‘neath an otherwise blue sky. That may not sound like much (though I think we can safely say it was rather impressively rendered), but imagine this—imagine if there were a jar of marshmallow fluff—but not just any jar of marshmallow fluff. This jar of marshmallow fluff has lived a life so admirable, so worthwhile, so selfless, that it without a doubt merited beatification. And imagine if this marshmallow fluff were minding its own business one day, coming home from work on the A train, and all of a sudden, it steps onto the platform, and some desperate, drug-crazed kid with a gun sticks a snubnose in its side and whispers, loud enough to communicate his unyielding assuredness and soleness of purpose, but not loud enough for any of the other commuters to hear (it’s a loud station, after all), “Gimme all your cash, buddy,” and Marshmallow Fluff, not having any pockets, as his only attire is a jar, and therefore opting to carry only a single credit card (and his subway pass, of course) saying, “I’m sorry. All I have is this credit card. And this subway pass, of course. They’re both yours. Here,” hands them over. But the drug-crazed kid isn’t logical. He can see that marshmallow fluff has nowhere to stash his cash—has no cash cache, as it were, but he doesn’t realize it. He doesn’t make the connection. All he knows is he took a risk, thought he’d get some dough out of it, and it pretty much failed. He’s mad. He’s scared. He’s downright crazy. He pulls the trigger, putting a bullet through the jar and square into Marshmallow Fluff’s side at point-blank range.

This is no flesh wound. There’s no obvious reason for hope here. This isn’t even anything from which hope could be excavated—Fluff’s not gonna make it. And, soon, all-too-soon, as the kid backs up, apoplectic over what he’s done, scarcely believing his confused anger of a second ago could have made him do such a thing—turned him into a killer—and is jumped upon and taken down by a dozen or so commuters who had been standing behind him, all he—all anyone—can do is watch as the soul, the saintly, the unblemished, the white-as-his-mortal-guise soul leaves Fluff’s earthly jar and ascends upward, through the exhaust grate, up, away from the street, and alone, solitary, through a bright, sky-blue sky, his work in this life complete, his work in the next just begun—only that could begin to approximate this sight I espied along the Illinois highway.

Umm...Erica?

2009-11-27T13:04:00.000-08:00

I left just in time to see the long sunset from the turnpike, casting the leafless trees in silhouette and looking lovely and kind of lonesome above the long flat stretches of land between Pittsburgh and Ohio. As I passed Lordstown, OH, I wondered what it’s like to be a dog there. Passing Ohio turnpike exits for Toledo and Ann Arbor, MI, I learned, in between French-language songs, that St. Boniface is Manitoba’s Francophone capital—knowledge that I had somehow navigated my whole life without. Here’s a question—how come people fluent in Spanish who grow up in the southern U.S. speak English with American accents, but people who appear on the St. Boniface radio station—people who, I assume, grew up in Manitoba—have funny accents that are distinctly funnier than those of regular non-Quebecois Canadians? Huh? (This is not a question of why Quebecois sound like they can’t speak English—the answer to that is because they can’t, the result of a conscious choice they all make and goal they all have.)

I stopped for the night when, just having entered Indiana territory, the rain began freezing on my windshield—something I’d never before seen. I pulled off the turnpike through an automated tollbooth. I saw signs for several chains, all of which I’d previously heard of. I decided to turn left, toward the Super 8 and the Holiday Inn Express, as opposed to right, where lay the Holiday Inn and another more expensive-sounding hotel. As I reached the intersection, I saw on my right a Motor Inn (or something similar) and, realizing that it hadn’t even warranted space on the lodgings-at-this-exit sign, pictured the myriad visitors who no doubt already knew about and chose that hotel in preference to the name brands, thus rendering a sign on the highway unnecessary—namely, cockroaches. This thought made me confident in my decision to choose either the Express or the 8. I came to the Express first, and, looking down the road and seeing only pitch blackness, choose it I did. I walked into the lobby and saw an eating area that looked surprisingly non-express. This made me wondered if the Express was ritzier than I had anticipated. Then I saw the pool and knew I’d been had. What’s “express” about a pool? What do they have at the non-Express Holiday Inn? Maybe the Express is actually better. Perhaps the normal one lacks the quick service and straight, easy-to-navigate hallways of the Express, instead possessing a stiff-jointed staff walking the labyrinthine halls of a layout reminiscent of the hedges in “The Shining.” Maybe that’s why it’s worth the $100 the clerk took off of my credit card as I took deep breaths—approximately 3.3333333 times as much as the price I saw advertised at some roadside motel a few hours back. Maybe that’s the problem—I’d entered a hotel when I needed a motel. Is the 8 a motel? I should have shopped around, but, as I said, it was beginning to freezing rain, and the 8 was well camouflaged even, I assume, for a car that didn’t have a second windshield made of ice. Oh well, at least I can get some laps in tomorrow, I thought. The water must be chilled by an expensive, high-tech cooling machine, to expedite my swim and thus earn the basin inclusion in this temple of temporal attention?

Ganpati and me

2009-11-10T21:20:00.000-08:00

In the street, the voice of an adolescent boy cried out pro-Ganpati* chants like a misplaced prepubescent Cambodian guerrilla leader. The fire crackers made you fear there’d been a bombing; the subsequent approach of drumming kind of made you wish there had. Why did they so love this creature? Where lay the appeal of this pachyderman? I had to know.

*Yet another name for the elephant-headed god “Ganesh," or “Ganesha,” aka “Ganapati,” “Vinayaka,” and “Pillaiyar”

At the Ganpati lot, people were strapping to the tops of their cars beautiful Ganpatis of all shapes and sizes—some reclining like elephantine Mata Haris, others sitting straight and regal. I searched through a dense forest of shiny idols. Finally, I espied the perfect one—about 18 inches high, sitting Indian*-style, staring out wisely, nobly, and melancholically, an elephant bull who somewhat recalled his uncle Sitting.

*American*

*Red

I placed the Ganpati on the counter in front of the old shop owner and reached for my wallet. As I went to pay the man for the god, I caught a hint of anxiety in his eye. I squinted and furrowed my brow in return.

“Ganpati come with responsibility,” he said.

“Responsibility?” I eloquently inquired.

“You must entertain Ganpati,”

“Oh, sure,” I chuckled. “I will.”

Now he was the one squinting.

“No joke. You must entertain Ganpati.” Then he got even seriouser. “Always.”

“What about sleep?” I asked.

“You have wife, children entertain Ganpati when you not able,” he said.

I was taken aback for a second, as I had neither wives nor children. However, I figured television, as usual, would fill that void.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I will.”

The man looked at me some more. Then he looked at Ganpati.

“This Ganpati not for you,” he said.

“Whom’s it for?” I asked.

“This not Ganpati for you,” he said.

“What is it for me?” I asked.

He stared at me as if he knew exactly what I was doing and was embarrassed for me. I was embarrassed for myself.

“OK, why not?” I asked.

He reached deep into his counter and came out with a dusty old Ganpati, slightly reclining and with some indefinable accusation in his eye. On second glance, it was gone, and I was left to wonder whether it’d been just a trick of the light or, rather, so minute that I’d already become inured to it. I looked from this Ganpati to mine—it had none of the regal bearing of my chosen one. Rather, it lay in a kind of self-consciously bold position of entitled relaxation, as if waiting to be fanned and fed grapes.

“This Ganpati for you,” he said.

“Umm...it looks old. And dusty,” I said.

He turned to the back of the shop.

“Sanju,” he called.

A boy who looked as if constructed from the spare parts of an erector set emerged from the back and came quickly. The man spoke to him in a tongue unfamiliar to me, and the boy flew back whence he’d come, carrying Ganpati with him.

I looked at the old man quizzically.

He momentarily shot his fingers out at me and then retracted them, as if showing me a naughty tattoo on his palm. I was confused until he provided narration.

“Five minute.”

The way things were going, I figured I didn’t have much choice.

When the boy returned, I thought he must have exchanged that Ganpati for a new one, fresh out of the blister pack. This one was shiny and bright, with blue and red robes and shiny silver and gold jewelry. I wondered what they kept back there.

The man looked at me confidently.

“This Ganpati for you,” he said.

I gave a sly smile of acquiescence. I couldn’t argue that it looked quite nice, possibly even better than my original, though that was nowhere in sight.

“OK, fine,” I said.

And soon I was walking back home, the proud new owner of a shiny old Ganpati.
When I was almost out of earshot, I heard the unmistakable click of tongue against molars. I turned to see the old man looking at me.

“Do not forget—entertain him,” he said.

I brought him home feeing the anxious exhilaration of a new mother, fully aware of the responsibility, but not certain I realized the depth of its extent. His bassinet was a red-cloth-covered stand on the only shelf in my apartment. I had strung what I only know to call Christmas lights around it. But, also like a new mother, as soon as I placed him there, all gussied up in his robes and sparkling jewelry, I just knew we would get along famously.

However, I knew I had to do my part to make the relationship work, and my part was simple, though not easy—I had to entertain little Gani.

I first thought of what I like to do when I’m bored. I pulled over the laptop and played music for him. I played some of my favorite rock ‘n’ roll, but he just looked bored. I went through ragas, Bollywood songs, Hindi pop, rockabilly, Hebrew traditional—through it all, his expression remained one of lethargic ennui.

Figuring he’s from the younger generation and therefore more of a digital-age cat, I placed the TV in front of him. We started with comedies. There was nothing funny about his mien. Tried some dramas—his countenance lacked any hint of the dramatic. Put on some talk shows, but he looked like he’d prefer they all just shut up. Neither late-night celebriphilic nor mid-day disfunctional merited anything more than his blank stare.

Of course! I thought. I’ve been ignoring his inner animal! With hope too desperate for caution, I turned to Animal Planet.

I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw they were showing a documentary on Africa! We were staring straight at mighty beasts whose visages were that which Ol’ Ganzo encountered in every mirror (though, admittedly, more ascetically attired).

Smiling wide, I took my eyes off of the elephant herd* on TV and looked over at Gani—he looked as if I had ordered him to watch paint dry on a humid day.

Under water.

*parade*

*memory

Maybe I’d misjudged him—maybe, I thought, looking at his thick gray facial hide, he’s the stereotypical elephant, with a sharp mind and an old soul.

As my hope, wiser now, allowed itself only the slightest anticipation of success, I brought in the big guns—Austen, Hardy, Bronte, Shakespeare. Frost, Poe, Joyce. Hemingway and Nabokov. Not one elicited as much as a raised eyebrow! Nary an “Oh, bully phrase!” Never an “I say! Bloody brilliant characterization!” And if the reader expects me to regale him with tales of how Gani humoured my questions on what cruel twist of fate might next befall a Hemingwaian hero, or what twisted motivations compel Poe-ish performances, he will be sorely, sorely disappointed.

It was then I realized that all my efforts had been misguided. Gani didn’t want someone else’s work to entertain him—he’s the type of chap who would crave good, old-fashioned camaraderie. The timeless art of conversation.

With a skip in my step and a hop in my skip, I went to the fridge, grabbed a couple of six packs, and put them down between Gani and me. We gazed at the birds flitting about the jacaranda tree as I told him about myself—my childhood in Rajasthan, amongst the camels. My adolescence in Kolkata’s red-light district, just a fresh-faced kid trying to make an honest buck. My early career spent clerking in The Hague.

It was only when I was quite drunk that I realized it was I who had consumed all the beers. It was immediately after that that I realized it was I who had told all the stories. I slowly turned to look at him, knowing only too well what I’d find. But my imagination had been poor preparation for the reality of that cold, mindless stare—one identical, I realized, to those I’d seen at the zoo when stopping by the elephant cage: a half-conscious look of mindless boredom.

That was it. He had insulted great musicians, he had insulted great writers, he had insulted Jerry Springer*, and now he had insulted me.

*former mayor of Cincinnati

What strain of bloke was I dealing with here? His belly was at most a few jelly sandwiches short of Old Saint Nick’s, but no one’s ever heard of coming down Christmas morning to find Santa shirtless, lounging on their couch, bulging out of decadent robes, all their best jewelry making him outblink the Christmas tree every time he repositions his heft. Certainly no one could imagine Father Christmas just lying there, staring at them accusatorially until they whipped him up a satisfactory batch of snickerdoodles.*

*A type of cookie*

*biscuit

I picked up that pachydermal ingrate by back and gut, tore him away from his royal throne, threw him under one arm, and headed out the door. As I purposefully strode down the street, I could feel the confused stares of locals on me, as their idiots’ anthem, “Ganpati Bappa…Maur-ya,”* that three-word call-and-response that kept them entertained for hours, faded to silence.

*This chant is often heard, between the mind-numbing drum beats and nervous-system-overloading bangs of fire crackers, as groups of people march around the streets, taking Ganpati to their homes or, at the end of his stay, taking him to the sea, or some stand-in body of water, to immerse him, sending him back to the earth whence he came, symbolizing the unending cycle of renewal of which we are all part. Or something like that.

Onlookers’ stares heavy on my consciousness the whole way, I finally arrived at the visarjan pond.* Any shame impeding my progress was more than overcome by the rage I felt toward this elephantcephalitic abomination. It was with ill-concealed glee that I held out that morose bastard in both hands and dove into the water after him.

*The pond where people immerse their Ganpatis

In an animosity-driven rush, I headed straight for bottom.

Gargling curses at the elephantine infuriation, I pounded his fixed phizog into the pond’s floor time and again, until my body trembled for air, forcing me to surface. As I reacquainted my lungs with oxygen, I felt something knock against the back of my head. I turned to find that betrunked bastard bobbing beside me, glinting, whole and mocking, in the evening light.

The son of a bitch had never truly lived, and now it seemed he wouldn’t die.

My rage redoubled, I grabbed him and dove once again, this time pushing him trunk-first into the sludge, twisting and turning him, trying to screw him into the pond bottom for good. No matter what technique I tried, though, I’d always feel his wretched mass ascend back into my hands as soon as I released it. Half mad with rage and oxygen deprivation, I began banging him off a submarinean rock my foot had come across.

I evacuated my lungs to bring myself nearer the rock. In a mad frenzy, I began beating rock with elephant at a pace of several times a second. I didn’t slow when I perceived I may have cleaved a section of his exoskeleton. I didn’t yield when my lungs and head began to ache. Rather, the knowledge that I’d soon have to surface only drove me to work harder, eventually coming to thrash my whole body up and down, off of and back onto the silty bottom in a rhythmic attempt at maximal destruction. I only relented when a sharp pain in my groin emptied my mind of all else.

I released the object of my objection without a thought, my hands flying to my groin, to find a sliver of something hard embedded sturdily in my skin. Feeling only that I needed to remove it immediately, I pulled it out and brought it into the sunlight. It was a sharp, pink shard. That’s when I noticed Ganpati floating in front of me a bit off-kilter and saw the top part of a gash where his left back used to reside. Though I didn’t need to, I looked back at the shard to confirm it was the exact size and shape to perfectly plug that capsizing con.

My other hand, on my inner thigh, felt as though it were covering a pulsating whirlpool jet. He’d struck femoral.

I knew I’d never leave that pond.

As a coldness spread across my skin, I realized he’d planned this from the beginning. From the first time he’d laid his droopy eyes on me, he’d known this was how we’d meet our end. And, like some kind of retarded kamikazi, like a deep-cover suicide bomber, his patience, manipulation, and disregard for self-preservation had let him triumph.

I surfaced once more, doing my best to die in my world—the world of air and sight—even if I’d never exit that pond, my body to be interred with the corpses of him and thousands of his brothers. As I watched what I knew was the last sunset I’d ever see, I was hyper aware of the varying gold, orange, and purple hues. I saw the diaphanous beauty of it shining through the leafy branches of the Indian almond tree. I was aware of the elegant luxury of the light breeze upon my face.

The decadent, conquering trunked god saw what I saw. Though he was canting from the water he’d taken on, his back was to me; he also faced the sunset. I noticed the symmetry of our positions, and our situations, and reflected that perhaps it was meant to be.

Inevitable.

Fate.

Karmic destiny.

As my sight faded and my legs weakened, I fought to stay al aire. The breeze had changed directions, cooling a new section of my damp, matted hair, and Ganpati, half-submerged though he was, began to spin away from the setting sun. Moments before gravity triumphed over my legs, he rotated to face me.

It may have been the soon-to-be-fatal blood loss, but I swear I saw him smiling.