Words

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

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"

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

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?

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,

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

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?"