Playful Pierce is eliminated due to inactivity.
Talented Taylor received the most votes so s/he is removed.
TKO #5:
[Personal] Write about an experience where you visit someone that knows something about your future.
Of course, fiction is always allowed. Due Friday at 11:59pm (Pacific).
This is the final week that 2 will be removed and the last five will remain for the final ranking.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Merry Monroe #4
We listened to Jill Bolte Taylor being interviewed on NPR on the way to the wake. Charlie's father didn't die of a stroke, but the interview still thickened the air with just enough unease that we hadn't spoken a word since Exit 33, two miles back. We listened the the fuzzy AM station and I began to fall asleep, my neck jerking up explosively at the moment before real sleep set in. I must have found a comfortable nook in the corner between the headrest, window and seatbelt anchor; I woke up to the sound of gravel crunching under the slowing tires.
"U Pick-'Em : $1/pint" was scrawled on piece of cardboard taped to a whitewashed stake in the grass on the side of the road.
"Blueberries?" I asked.
"Yeah, I don't want to get to the funeral home too early." We weren't making particularly good time , but I didn't want to get there early, either, so I went along with the logic.
There was a little card table near a curve of the road with a white-blond boy sitting, wearing denim overalls, with no shirt on, and in my sleepy haze I wondered if I was dreaming some sort of Mark Twain world where young boys actually wear denim overalls. As we got out of the car, I realized he was playing Sudoku and listening to an ipod and my quaint little vision was ruined.
"Hey, buddy, can we pick some berries?"
The boy looked at Charlie, then at me, then at Charlie again. "Um..."
Funeral blacks, not ideal for July blueberry picking. The dust from the road had already dulled our shoes.
"Shit - I meant shoot." Charlie looked around the farm. He turned to me, "I really don't know what to do."
I didn't know what to say. He wasn't the spontaneous type. I knew this wasn't about blueberries - I knew I couldn't recommend getting back into the car and actually going to the wake.
"We have a peacock petting zoo, you want me to take you?" The boy could sense our desperation.
"Petting zoo?"
"Yeah." the kid said, rolling his eyes with a smile, "My dad set it up last year. You can't really pet them, but I guess he didn't know what else to call it."
"Let's go pet some peacocks." Charlie looked at me, nodded, and we walked down the road, my ankles unsteady in my black pumps.
The "Petting Zoo" was remarkably full - home-town tourists, I thought. Maybe these were the people who were taking all the "stay-cations" I kept reading about in articles about how the economy and gas prices were affecting family's summer trip planning. We walked up to the peacock pen, sticking out among the shorts and polo shirts the other adults were sporting. There were three peacocks in the wire pen; it was roomy, almost as big as our studio apartment back in Manhattan. There were one or two families sticking their hands through the wire, feeding the birds seed that was sold out of what looked like the old gumball machines we grew up with at supermarkets.
"Can I have a dime?" Charlie asked me. I've never seen this man so much as smile at the Golden Retriever puppies our neighbors have; I wasn't expecting him to feed these huge, beedy-eyed birds by hand. But I fished through my purse and handed him a dime.
"We really shouldn't be too too late, you know?"
"I know, just - - - , just give me a minute, 'kay?"
I left him alone and sat down at one of the picnic tables. I played with my Blackberry, office emails piling up in spite of my out-of-office reply. Charlie and I have been together for 5 years; he's mentioned his father exactly once, a throwaway comment about how his dad hated tupperware when we were at Pottery Barn furnishing our first apartment. Other than that, silence. I didn't push it, I was pathologically adverse to conflict. When he heard from his brother than his father had passed last Friday, he hung up the phone and quietly told me he needed me to take off the next Monday and Tuesday. He didn't seem upset, just distant. I didn't know what to do, so I just left him alone.
Fifteen minutes later, he came over to me, "Okay, let's go." Just like that. And so we walked out of the peacock petting pen, down the little road, waved at the boy and got back into our car.
We got back on the highway and drove silently to the funeral home. I am not good at this "supportive girlfiend" bit, I realized.
We pulled into the funeral home and saw the placard in the lobby "Charles G. Sinclair, Room 3." They had the same name. I never knew this, a girlfriend should know her boyfriend's father's name, especially if he's a Jr. "You never told me you got your name from him."
"Yea, I would have gone by my middle name if it wasn't Gaelen," he said quickly.
We walked into Room 3 and were greeted by a room that was almost completely empty, except for the closed casket in the front of the room. An elderly lady was in the corner looking at both of the small flower arrangements. She turned around, smiled faintly, "Are you family?"
Charlie didn't reply right away, so I said "Yes, family" quietly. I couldn't believe no one showed up to this man's funeral. Not even Charlie's brothers and sisters (I knew he had at least three). Maybe they came earlier in the afternoon? Charlie sat in the back row of empty chairs, farthest away from the casket. I held his hand.
Two minutes later, he squeezed my hand, "Let's go."
"Um, are you sure you, you know, don't want to...." I gestured at the casket.
"No."
So as quickly as we came, we left.
"One more stop, babe," Charlie said as soon as we got into the car.
"Yeah, of course." We had taken two full days off, no point in rushing home for no reason.
We drove a few minutes through the neighborhood, making a few turns until Charlie pulled the car into a driveway of a little Bungalow. "Is this your house?" "Yea, but I only lived here for maybe six months; we moved here at the end of high school. But I still have the key." He flashed the little brass key on his key chain in my direction. He opened the door and I followed him into the house.
The house was spotless. I didn't know if a family member had come in and cleaned after the death, but I couldn't imagine why someone would do that and then skip the wake. Charlie walked up the stairs, calling behind him, "I'll be right back."
I sat at the kitchen table and flipped through a TV guide that was sitting on the window sill. It was from January, three months back. A smiling picture of Kelly Ripa and her husband (Mark Something?) was on the glossy cover. I heard banging and shuffling coming from upstairs.
He came into the kitchen holding an old cardboard box with the name "Chuck" scrawled on the front in a magic marker. He caught me looking at the name, "Nickname from when I was a kid," he said. Another thing I didn't know.
He set the box on the table. I sat across from him, flipping through the TV Guide, not really reading any of the words on the color-blocked pages. Lots of repeats on NBC in January, I thought to myself.
He started pulling out old envelopes, ten or so tied together with thick twine. After about a dozen of these bundles, he cast the box, still filled with paper to the floor and untied the first bundle. The handwriting on the front was the same on all of them, a heart dotting the "i" on Sinclair. "Charlie, what are those?" I aksed him quietly.
"Letters from my mom." Charlie got up and started looking through the cabinets and pulled out a wine bottle from underneath the sink.
"Your mom?"
"My mom left when I was a baby."
"But she wrote you letters?"
"Yeah, Mikey found them six years ago when he was helping Dad replace the windows in the attic. He said Dad flipped out and told him never to snoop around again. He told the rest of us, but we never wanted to actually spend time with Dad in order to sneak up there. She must have sent one like every week."
"I still don't get why she would write you letters instead of coming back. Or why he would keep them if he wasn't going to let you read them."
"Well, here's to finding out." He placed a glass of wine on the table in front of me and we began to read.
"U Pick-'Em : $1/pint" was scrawled on piece of cardboard taped to a whitewashed stake in the grass on the side of the road.
"Blueberries?" I asked.
"Yeah, I don't want to get to the funeral home too early." We weren't making particularly good time , but I didn't want to get there early, either, so I went along with the logic.
There was a little card table near a curve of the road with a white-blond boy sitting, wearing denim overalls, with no shirt on, and in my sleepy haze I wondered if I was dreaming some sort of Mark Twain world where young boys actually wear denim overalls. As we got out of the car, I realized he was playing Sudoku and listening to an ipod and my quaint little vision was ruined.
"Hey, buddy, can we pick some berries?"
The boy looked at Charlie, then at me, then at Charlie again. "Um..."
Funeral blacks, not ideal for July blueberry picking. The dust from the road had already dulled our shoes.
"Shit - I meant shoot." Charlie looked around the farm. He turned to me, "I really don't know what to do."
I didn't know what to say. He wasn't the spontaneous type. I knew this wasn't about blueberries - I knew I couldn't recommend getting back into the car and actually going to the wake.
"We have a peacock petting zoo, you want me to take you?" The boy could sense our desperation.
"Petting zoo?"
"Yeah." the kid said, rolling his eyes with a smile, "My dad set it up last year. You can't really pet them, but I guess he didn't know what else to call it."
"Let's go pet some peacocks." Charlie looked at me, nodded, and we walked down the road, my ankles unsteady in my black pumps.
The "Petting Zoo" was remarkably full - home-town tourists, I thought. Maybe these were the people who were taking all the "stay-cations" I kept reading about in articles about how the economy and gas prices were affecting family's summer trip planning. We walked up to the peacock pen, sticking out among the shorts and polo shirts the other adults were sporting. There were three peacocks in the wire pen; it was roomy, almost as big as our studio apartment back in Manhattan. There were one or two families sticking their hands through the wire, feeding the birds seed that was sold out of what looked like the old gumball machines we grew up with at supermarkets.
"Can I have a dime?" Charlie asked me. I've never seen this man so much as smile at the Golden Retriever puppies our neighbors have; I wasn't expecting him to feed these huge, beedy-eyed birds by hand. But I fished through my purse and handed him a dime.
"We really shouldn't be too too late, you know?"
"I know, just - - - , just give me a minute, 'kay?"
I left him alone and sat down at one of the picnic tables. I played with my Blackberry, office emails piling up in spite of my out-of-office reply. Charlie and I have been together for 5 years; he's mentioned his father exactly once, a throwaway comment about how his dad hated tupperware when we were at Pottery Barn furnishing our first apartment. Other than that, silence. I didn't push it, I was pathologically adverse to conflict. When he heard from his brother than his father had passed last Friday, he hung up the phone and quietly told me he needed me to take off the next Monday and Tuesday. He didn't seem upset, just distant. I didn't know what to do, so I just left him alone.
Fifteen minutes later, he came over to me, "Okay, let's go." Just like that. And so we walked out of the peacock petting pen, down the little road, waved at the boy and got back into our car.
We got back on the highway and drove silently to the funeral home. I am not good at this "supportive girlfiend" bit, I realized.
We pulled into the funeral home and saw the placard in the lobby "Charles G. Sinclair, Room 3." They had the same name. I never knew this, a girlfriend should know her boyfriend's father's name, especially if he's a Jr. "You never told me you got your name from him."
"Yea, I would have gone by my middle name if it wasn't Gaelen," he said quickly.
We walked into Room 3 and were greeted by a room that was almost completely empty, except for the closed casket in the front of the room. An elderly lady was in the corner looking at both of the small flower arrangements. She turned around, smiled faintly, "Are you family?"
Charlie didn't reply right away, so I said "Yes, family" quietly. I couldn't believe no one showed up to this man's funeral. Not even Charlie's brothers and sisters (I knew he had at least three). Maybe they came earlier in the afternoon? Charlie sat in the back row of empty chairs, farthest away from the casket. I held his hand.
Two minutes later, he squeezed my hand, "Let's go."
"Um, are you sure you, you know, don't want to...." I gestured at the casket.
"No."
So as quickly as we came, we left.
"One more stop, babe," Charlie said as soon as we got into the car.
"Yeah, of course." We had taken two full days off, no point in rushing home for no reason.
We drove a few minutes through the neighborhood, making a few turns until Charlie pulled the car into a driveway of a little Bungalow. "Is this your house?" "Yea, but I only lived here for maybe six months; we moved here at the end of high school. But I still have the key." He flashed the little brass key on his key chain in my direction. He opened the door and I followed him into the house.
The house was spotless. I didn't know if a family member had come in and cleaned after the death, but I couldn't imagine why someone would do that and then skip the wake. Charlie walked up the stairs, calling behind him, "I'll be right back."
I sat at the kitchen table and flipped through a TV guide that was sitting on the window sill. It was from January, three months back. A smiling picture of Kelly Ripa and her husband (Mark Something?) was on the glossy cover. I heard banging and shuffling coming from upstairs.
He came into the kitchen holding an old cardboard box with the name "Chuck" scrawled on the front in a magic marker. He caught me looking at the name, "Nickname from when I was a kid," he said. Another thing I didn't know.
He set the box on the table. I sat across from him, flipping through the TV Guide, not really reading any of the words on the color-blocked pages. Lots of repeats on NBC in January, I thought to myself.
He started pulling out old envelopes, ten or so tied together with thick twine. After about a dozen of these bundles, he cast the box, still filled with paper to the floor and untied the first bundle. The handwriting on the front was the same on all of them, a heart dotting the "i" on Sinclair. "Charlie, what are those?" I aksed him quietly.
"Letters from my mom." Charlie got up and started looking through the cabinets and pulled out a wine bottle from underneath the sink.
"Your mom?"
"My mom left when I was a baby."
"But she wrote you letters?"
"Yeah, Mikey found them six years ago when he was helping Dad replace the windows in the attic. He said Dad flipped out and told him never to snoop around again. He told the rest of us, but we never wanted to actually spend time with Dad in order to sneak up there. She must have sent one like every week."
"I still don't get why she would write you letters instead of coming back. Or why he would keep them if he wasn't going to let you read them."
"Well, here's to finding out." He placed a glass of wine on the table in front of me and we began to read.
Happy Harrison #4
Kathleen had been in Amsterdam just over a year. She was a financial analyst doing a lengthy consult with a major European telecom firm. And she was just a little repulsed by the hash bars and all the other Americans she ran into. Maybe it was embarrassment on their behalf. Or maybe it was because she just didn't like getting high anymore. Either way, the idealistic young woman that she had been on arrival now wallowed in a general disgust with humanity.
She had had a rough week and was breaking her rule about doing the tourist thing this evening. Taking in the city a bit should have taken her mind off matters, but the frustration that had been building with her job had recently reached an overwhelming level. The sun had set and a mist was forming as Kathleen came to the canal district. And she realized that she was miserable. Trapped.
There really wasn't any other way to look at what she was doing. Cooking the books. On some level it was liberating to recognize her denial for what it was and to be mortified by it. But she couldn't figure out how to relieve herself of the guilt that was now developing. You just didn't walk away from seven figures, you just didn't. But still. This would ultimately be destructive, and it was illegal after all.
A dime. It almost escaped her attention laying there on the sidewalk until she realized it was out of context. She stopped and peered down at it. Yes, that was indeed an American dime. Nothing entirely out of the ordinary, but it did give her a moment to pause, to look around and reflect. And realize that she was standing directly in front of the Anne Frank house. How odd. It was one of the tourist destinations that she actually had her heart set on seeing months ago but had subsequently become so loath of crowds and lines that she couldn't put herself through the wait to get in.
The building looked so different in the dim wash of street light. With the fog thickening and the lines missing. There was a glow about it. The street was quiet. She looked back and forth and saw that it was even empty. Glancing back up at the building, she pictured herself standing in that upper room that she had still never seen. And a wave of relief washed over her. Finally.
She was not trapped. Not in such a literal way. She felt more than a little silly about herself when she thought of the Franks' fear in that attic of anticipation. How they waited and waited and how their salvation was never complete. And yet that little girl had the capacity to hope. Kathleen was ashamed. She was only trapping herself.
Non-disclosure agreements be damned. She didn't have to say a word to anyone, she didn't have to make any promises, but she had every right to march in on Monday and throw down her letter of resignation. They might sue. But what could they take from her if she un-trapped herself? From her money. From her culture, from her expectations, from her dishonesty.
Kathleen looked down at the shiny little coin. She smiled. And kept walking.
She had had a rough week and was breaking her rule about doing the tourist thing this evening. Taking in the city a bit should have taken her mind off matters, but the frustration that had been building with her job had recently reached an overwhelming level. The sun had set and a mist was forming as Kathleen came to the canal district. And she realized that she was miserable. Trapped.
There really wasn't any other way to look at what she was doing. Cooking the books. On some level it was liberating to recognize her denial for what it was and to be mortified by it. But she couldn't figure out how to relieve herself of the guilt that was now developing. You just didn't walk away from seven figures, you just didn't. But still. This would ultimately be destructive, and it was illegal after all.
A dime. It almost escaped her attention laying there on the sidewalk until she realized it was out of context. She stopped and peered down at it. Yes, that was indeed an American dime. Nothing entirely out of the ordinary, but it did give her a moment to pause, to look around and reflect. And realize that she was standing directly in front of the Anne Frank house. How odd. It was one of the tourist destinations that she actually had her heart set on seeing months ago but had subsequently become so loath of crowds and lines that she couldn't put herself through the wait to get in.
The building looked so different in the dim wash of street light. With the fog thickening and the lines missing. There was a glow about it. The street was quiet. She looked back and forth and saw that it was even empty. Glancing back up at the building, she pictured herself standing in that upper room that she had still never seen. And a wave of relief washed over her. Finally.
She was not trapped. Not in such a literal way. She felt more than a little silly about herself when she thought of the Franks' fear in that attic of anticipation. How they waited and waited and how their salvation was never complete. And yet that little girl had the capacity to hope. Kathleen was ashamed. She was only trapping herself.
Non-disclosure agreements be damned. She didn't have to say a word to anyone, she didn't have to make any promises, but she had every right to march in on Monday and throw down her letter of resignation. They might sue. But what could they take from her if she un-trapped herself? From her money. From her culture, from her expectations, from her dishonesty.
Kathleen looked down at the shiny little coin. She smiled. And kept walking.
Loud Lincoln #4
Here there be dragons.
It’s hot, and I’m tired of working in the afternoon sun. It’s been three days and I’ve found nothing. Nothing at all. The red-orange rock is unyielding as I continue digging in my little twined off square. The Texas Red Rock beds have birthed huge insights into paleontology, but not today, and not for me. Dr. Bakker seems to have the most energy, walking amongst us to check progress, and to give an encouraging pat on the back, or a bottle of water. Digging, sifting, brushing, digging some more. I smell like sweat, the pits and collar of my shirt are red with the crumbled rock of ages clinging to the moisture I produce.
I drift back to the cold winter days that drove me to the attic. The attic was the warmest part of the house (heat rises). There I found some dead uncle’s encyclopedia, and happened upon the entry “Dinosaurs”. The information was from the 50’s, with black and white sketches that would make a modern anatomist scoff. But I was hooked. Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus had separate entries still, years later they were actually found to be the same creature. On cold winter evenings I’d be surrounded by relics of a by gone era, looking even deeper in the pages for a by-gone millennium. Dinosaurs were an obsession, a fantasy, and in the intervening years I studied them fervently, searching for clues in old books that would dispel the mists of time and make these ginormous critters, clearer, realer. My little kid brain couldn’t fathom epochs.
The site I’m working on now is about 2 hours from
I entered Paleontology with a fantasy. Big finds, fantastic creatures, large sums of money. All myths, I might as well be searching for the Loch Ness monster. With Paleontology, you’ve got to have an imagination, have a hope that some day you might find something big. But what we really do is carve dragons out of the earth, make since of them, explain them, whittle them down to words on a page of an academic journal. We take something majestic and knock it down to dry, pretentious babble. Hardly the notion that pulled me into this field. The kid in the attic no longer feels the mysticism of a by gone era. Mostly I grumble good-naturedly about the heat, the dirt, and how long I have until my master’s degree is done.
But sometimes, when it’s cooler-I dream I’m in the attic, looking for dragons.
Talented Taylor #4
Lanie had just turned seven the day before. She was in the back seat of her dad's 1985 Chevy Blazer with her two younger sisters. It was 4th of July weekend and they were going to Austin to visit her parents friends. She was in the seat right behind her dad. It was her seat. She had even written her name and colored a picture of herself on the back of her dad's seat in order to mark it as hers so her sisters wouldn't try to take it. The blue and pink crayon marks were still perfectly visible against the tan leather.
It was hot-- at least 100 degrees. The Blazer had broken down, and they were sitting in it on the side of the road. Lanie was coloring in her Little Mermaid coloring and activity book. She turned to a page with a picture of Ariel and Flounder putting away an alarm clock in the cavern with her human collectables.
"Mommy! Do the Mad Lib with me!"
"Okay, sweetie."
"I need a verb that ends in -ing, a noun, a place, and an item." Lanie filled out the Mad Lib as her mom gave her the words she needed, and then read the completed project out loud.
" Ariel and Flounder were hopping. They were on their way back from visiting Scuttle. Scuttle was a tourist. They were on their way to Ariel's attic. Ariel had found a dime. Scuttle had told her it was used by humans to help them fall asleep at night," Lanie finished the story and looked at the bottom of the page.
"The picture has Ariel with an alarm clock! That's the item you were supposed to say! Scuttle told her it's to help people fall asleep, but it's to help wake us up!" Lanie laughed and temporarily forgot about the heat.
Magical Madison #4
I opened the file with a sigh, the way I always did now.
What did this one do? I thought to myself.
I was jaded. I'd been working at the public defender's office for almost five years now, and this was just another night at arraignments.
Male, 28, criminal possession of marijuana.
Great, another drug case.
Male was found in the attic of an abandoned building in Harlem.
What was he doing there?
Police Officer found 14 dime bags of marijuana with suspect.
No criminal record in New York.
Okay, that's good.
I went in the back to speak to him.
"Hi, I'm Chelsea and I'm going to be your lawyer."
He was nice looking. Well dressed. And when he opened his mouth and began to speak, I knew immediately, he wasn't from around here. A tourist. The southern accent dripped off every word.
I always felt sorry for the tourists who came to New York and got arrested and spent one of their vacation nights in jail.
"So, why don't you tell me what happened here."
He described the story. He and a friend had come to New York City from Birmingham, Alabama and were looking for something fun to do, an introduction to New York. It was their first time in New York. They met a girl on the subway platform. She seemed like a nice girl and she was so friendly and welcoming to them, and they were just tourists. She told them there was a party in Harlem. She told them to meet her on Lenox Avenue. She had been so sweet.
Were all Southerners this naïve? He seemed genuine, but there was something a little off about him. I couldn't put my finger on it.
So she met up with them at the corner as promised. She had a friend with her and the four of them proceeded to this attic in an abandoned building. He asked if they were allowed to be there; she said, "It's cool."
They got upstairs and she said it was where she kept her "stash." She pulled out the marijuana, all nicely divided into little dime bags. She dumped out one of the dime bags and rolled a joint. She passed it along to him. He didn't usually smoke, but this time he decided to. It was really a one-time thing. The drugs weren't even his.
Maybe he really was telling the truth.
"Okay, well we're going to go before the judge soon, so I will try to get you out of here tonight. If they offer you a plea, maybe you should take it, okay?"
He nodded and said, "Yes ma'am."
I started to like him and feel sorry for him. He was just a tourist and the drugs weren't even his. I was starting to think I really had been too quick to judge.
"Docket Ending in 4356" the Court Officer yelled out. That was us.
I argued the case before the Judge and although the prosecutor was recommending jail time, the judge agreed to let him take a plea and get out that night.
After we were done, he thanked me and the judge, and left the courtroom.
Following a long night of arraignments, I headed home. I needed to unwind, so I flipped on the TV. The news was on and I let it play in the background as I went to grab a beer.
"A woman was brutally murdered tonight, found outside the criminal courthouse. The murder follows the same M.O. as a series of twelve murders throughout the country."
I wandered back into the living room, only halfheartedly listening.
“The suspect is a 25-30 year old white male who was last seen exiting the courthouse, here is a police sketch as described by a witness.” I looked up. It was him.
What did this one do? I thought to myself.
I was jaded. I'd been working at the public defender's office for almost five years now, and this was just another night at arraignments.
Male, 28, criminal possession of marijuana.
Great, another drug case.
Male was found in the attic of an abandoned building in Harlem.
What was he doing there?
Police Officer found 14 dime bags of marijuana with suspect.
No criminal record in New York.
Okay, that's good.
I went in the back to speak to him.
"Hi, I'm Chelsea and I'm going to be your lawyer."
He was nice looking. Well dressed. And when he opened his mouth and began to speak, I knew immediately, he wasn't from around here. A tourist. The southern accent dripped off every word.
I always felt sorry for the tourists who came to New York and got arrested and spent one of their vacation nights in jail.
"So, why don't you tell me what happened here."
He described the story. He and a friend had come to New York City from Birmingham, Alabama and were looking for something fun to do, an introduction to New York. It was their first time in New York. They met a girl on the subway platform. She seemed like a nice girl and she was so friendly and welcoming to them, and they were just tourists. She told them there was a party in Harlem. She told them to meet her on Lenox Avenue. She had been so sweet.
Were all Southerners this naïve? He seemed genuine, but there was something a little off about him. I couldn't put my finger on it.
So she met up with them at the corner as promised. She had a friend with her and the four of them proceeded to this attic in an abandoned building. He asked if they were allowed to be there; she said, "It's cool."
They got upstairs and she said it was where she kept her "stash." She pulled out the marijuana, all nicely divided into little dime bags. She dumped out one of the dime bags and rolled a joint. She passed it along to him. He didn't usually smoke, but this time he decided to. It was really a one-time thing. The drugs weren't even his.
Maybe he really was telling the truth.
"Okay, well we're going to go before the judge soon, so I will try to get you out of here tonight. If they offer you a plea, maybe you should take it, okay?"
He nodded and said, "Yes ma'am."
I started to like him and feel sorry for him. He was just a tourist and the drugs weren't even his. I was starting to think I really had been too quick to judge.
"Docket Ending in 4356" the Court Officer yelled out. That was us.
I argued the case before the Judge and although the prosecutor was recommending jail time, the judge agreed to let him take a plea and get out that night.
After we were done, he thanked me and the judge, and left the courtroom.
Following a long night of arraignments, I headed home. I needed to unwind, so I flipped on the TV. The news was on and I let it play in the background as I went to grab a beer.
"A woman was brutally murdered tonight, found outside the criminal courthouse. The murder follows the same M.O. as a series of twelve murders throughout the country."
I wandered back into the living room, only halfheartedly listening.
“The suspect is a 25-30 year old white male who was last seen exiting the courthouse, here is a police sketch as described by a witness.” I looked up. It was him.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Jolly Jefferson #4
One spring break, back during college, my buddies convinced me to take a trip to
It was a blast. I honestly don’t remember much of that week. But I do remember Wednesday, because that was the day I woke up early and snuck off for some alone time. There were a couple of sites I wanted to see that wouldn’t interest my buddies. The Van Gough museum, a couple other places.
But the one place I really wanted to see was the Anne Frank house. I knew my buddies couldn’t care less, but this was a piece of history. I’d read the Diary of Anne Frank in high school and been deeply moved by the plight of Jews in
So I hopped a bus and followed the directions until I got to the House. I paid my eight Euros and wandered around.
I read all the material and just reflected on what I had read and what I was seeing. After a while, I started to get angry. Here we were, a bunch of tourists, looking through this house like it was some attraction to be viewed – like the
I couldn’t help thinking of the fear that poor little girl and her family must have felt, hidden up in that attic, worried about every knock on the door. Was that the visit they would be discovered? Were those Nazi soldiers down there, come to take them to the camps?
How could you trust anyone? Sure, the family that was housing you were trustworthy. Because their lives were just as forfeit as yours if they were caught. But what about the neighbors? What if someone had dropped a dime on you? Anyone could betray you, just to make themselves look good. Who knew why people did what they did in those days?
Studies had been done – turns out a lot of people just respond to authority, regardless of what that authority orders them to do. Stanley Milgram did a study of it, back at Stanford in the 60s. With a little coaxing, people could be convinced to apparently electrocute complete strangers. And all because some man in a lab coat, with a clip board, told them to continue an experiment they were being paid $5 to participate in.
Some of the subjects had to be treated psychologically. The realization that they were capable of torture and murder, just because a man in authority told them to press a button was too much for some of them. It broke them. Universities weren’t allowed to conduct those types of experiments any more.
I shook myself as these dark thoughts took over my head. I needed to get out of this house. I needed to get back to the hotel. After all, my friends were probably waiting for me. I wanted to take a night off, but they told me we only had a couple nights left. We just had to see a sex show while we were there. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, but what could I do? I didn’t want them to think less of me. God, peer pressure is a bitch.
Joyous Johnson #4
Why is it so fucking hot up here?
She wiped a river of sweat off of her forehead as she ascended from the last step of the ladder into the attic. She doubted that she had been up there since she moved into the house ten years ago. Now that she was moving again, she had to return. That’s life, I guess.
Light shined through a dusty window on dustier boxes. At least it was early. She shuddered to think how hot it would be by noon.
Sighing, she pulled the first box away from the wall, dusted it off, and cut it open. Inside was a stack of brown fake leather albums. This was the problem with moving. Now that she saw the albums, she had to know what was inside – not that she’d throw them away either way – not that it was productive at all – but she just had to know.
The first one was typical – baby pictures, the first day of school, high school prom and graduation. C’mon, she thought, I know it’s in here somewhere… and there it was. As she opened the second album, loose pictures flew everywhere. She had gone through a scrapbooking phase, but, like all of her phases, it was brief. True to form, the first five pages of the scrapbook were neatly decorated with different colored construction paper (still bright, even after fifteen years – I guess that’s one thing to be said for not unpacking between moves), crisp cut letters spelling out various words (“Hollywood”, “California, here we come!”, “Tinseltown”, etc.), and knick-knacks, and after that, she had become too lazy to even glue the pictures to the soft cotton paper. She flipped through the first few pages without really even looking, but then something caught her eye.
She had been a gawky eighteen-year old, fresh out of high school, in California for a month for the first time in her life because her first goal as an emancipated adult was to see the ocean. The first thing she did was go to the pier. She stood amidst all the coin binocular machines, staring out into the seemingly endless blueish gray waves, snapping endless pictures, thinking of nothing, when she suddenly realized there was someone right behind her. “You can see the mountains from here, you know,” he said in a low and gravely voice.
She didn’t even turn around. “Why on earth would you want to see the mountains? You can see mountains anywhere. Why would you even look at the mountains when something so beautiful is right here?”
“Got a dime?” he asked. For the first time since he walked up, she could smell the whiskey on his breath. Great. She had been in California for, at most, three hours, and already here she was, alone on the pier, being hassled for change by some drunk.
“Look, I don’t have much more money than you, ok? I’m certainly not going to waste MY money to buy YOUR booze,” she spoke with the unfounded confidence that only someone who is eighteen can evince.
He laughed. “Honey, I don’t need your money for booze. I just wanted to show you the mountains.” She stood up taller, squared her shoulders, and turned. “I’m going to go down the pier. Please don’t follow me.” As she walked away, all she could hear was a gravely belly laugh. She didn’t turn back.
Two years later, she had lost the boyfriend who convinced her to stay in California, the job she had found there, and the idealism that she came with. She had gained 10 pounds, $15,000 in credit card debt, and hostility toward the general public.
The last evening before she drove back East, she returned to the pier. It didn’t look the same. She didn’t even see the ocean. She was too busy examining the mold on the old wood, scoffing at the tourists, and clutching her purse to her side to avoid being mugged. She stood there, thinking it was too humid to be March, thinking it was too late to keep standing here, when she suddenly realized that someone was behind her. “You know, from here, you can see the mountains.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Don’t get me wrong – the ocean’s nice – but there’s just something refreshing about seeing something new, about being the only person in a crowd of people to notice something. All these people,” he gestured around, “they all came out here to see the ocean. To be famous. To fall in love.” He shook his head. “We’re not those people. I came out here because Kansas was too quiet, and I think too much when it’s quiet. And you – well, whatever reason you came out here for, from the look on your face, I’m guessing it hasn’t worked out. So why not do something new?”
She paused and fumbled through her pockets. “You got a dime?”
He gave her two. “Here – one for today, and one for if you ever see someone who needs to see the mountains.”
She left the next morning. She moved to Atlanta, traded her flipflops for power suits, her love of solitude for the constant companionship of a Blackberry, and her view of the ocean for a concrete jungle.
And after fifteen years, there she sat – thirty-five, cross-legged on a hot dusty attic floor, 2,000 miles away, staring at a half-empty scrapbook with nothing but a dime taped to the page – and all she wanted was to see the mountains.
She wiped a river of sweat off of her forehead as she ascended from the last step of the ladder into the attic. She doubted that she had been up there since she moved into the house ten years ago. Now that she was moving again, she had to return. That’s life, I guess.
Light shined through a dusty window on dustier boxes. At least it was early. She shuddered to think how hot it would be by noon.
Sighing, she pulled the first box away from the wall, dusted it off, and cut it open. Inside was a stack of brown fake leather albums. This was the problem with moving. Now that she saw the albums, she had to know what was inside – not that she’d throw them away either way – not that it was productive at all – but she just had to know.
The first one was typical – baby pictures, the first day of school, high school prom and graduation. C’mon, she thought, I know it’s in here somewhere… and there it was. As she opened the second album, loose pictures flew everywhere. She had gone through a scrapbooking phase, but, like all of her phases, it was brief. True to form, the first five pages of the scrapbook were neatly decorated with different colored construction paper (still bright, even after fifteen years – I guess that’s one thing to be said for not unpacking between moves), crisp cut letters spelling out various words (“Hollywood”, “California, here we come!”, “Tinseltown”, etc.), and knick-knacks, and after that, she had become too lazy to even glue the pictures to the soft cotton paper. She flipped through the first few pages without really even looking, but then something caught her eye.
She had been a gawky eighteen-year old, fresh out of high school, in California for a month for the first time in her life because her first goal as an emancipated adult was to see the ocean. The first thing she did was go to the pier. She stood amidst all the coin binocular machines, staring out into the seemingly endless blueish gray waves, snapping endless pictures, thinking of nothing, when she suddenly realized there was someone right behind her. “You can see the mountains from here, you know,” he said in a low and gravely voice.
She didn’t even turn around. “Why on earth would you want to see the mountains? You can see mountains anywhere. Why would you even look at the mountains when something so beautiful is right here?”
“Got a dime?” he asked. For the first time since he walked up, she could smell the whiskey on his breath. Great. She had been in California for, at most, three hours, and already here she was, alone on the pier, being hassled for change by some drunk.
“Look, I don’t have much more money than you, ok? I’m certainly not going to waste MY money to buy YOUR booze,” she spoke with the unfounded confidence that only someone who is eighteen can evince.
He laughed. “Honey, I don’t need your money for booze. I just wanted to show you the mountains.” She stood up taller, squared her shoulders, and turned. “I’m going to go down the pier. Please don’t follow me.” As she walked away, all she could hear was a gravely belly laugh. She didn’t turn back.
Two years later, she had lost the boyfriend who convinced her to stay in California, the job she had found there, and the idealism that she came with. She had gained 10 pounds, $15,000 in credit card debt, and hostility toward the general public.
The last evening before she drove back East, she returned to the pier. It didn’t look the same. She didn’t even see the ocean. She was too busy examining the mold on the old wood, scoffing at the tourists, and clutching her purse to her side to avoid being mugged. She stood there, thinking it was too humid to be March, thinking it was too late to keep standing here, when she suddenly realized that someone was behind her. “You know, from here, you can see the mountains.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Don’t get me wrong – the ocean’s nice – but there’s just something refreshing about seeing something new, about being the only person in a crowd of people to notice something. All these people,” he gestured around, “they all came out here to see the ocean. To be famous. To fall in love.” He shook his head. “We’re not those people. I came out here because Kansas was too quiet, and I think too much when it’s quiet. And you – well, whatever reason you came out here for, from the look on your face, I’m guessing it hasn’t worked out. So why not do something new?”
She paused and fumbled through her pockets. “You got a dime?”
He gave her two. “Here – one for today, and one for if you ever see someone who needs to see the mountains.”
She left the next morning. She moved to Atlanta, traded her flipflops for power suits, her love of solitude for the constant companionship of a Blackberry, and her view of the ocean for a concrete jungle.
And after fifteen years, there she sat – thirty-five, cross-legged on a hot dusty attic floor, 2,000 miles away, staring at a half-empty scrapbook with nothing but a dime taped to the page – and all she wanted was to see the mountains.
Wacky Washington #4
My wife spent all morning in the attic. I spent all morning worrying about her.
She finally came down around noon, dust smudged across her cheek, bearing a cardboard box. She wiped the back of her hand across her brow, moving an errant strand of hair that must have been tickling her skin. Her hands were dusty, which explained the awkward gesture.
“Everything okay, Meggan?” I asked.
She glared at me. “Ask me that one more time, seriously. Please.”
I bit my tongue. I had no idea how to deal with her. “I’m sorry.”
She waved it off, sitting on the couch. I found it odd that she took the time to keep her dusty fingers off her face by using the back of her hand to fix her hair, but paid no attention to her dusty pants on the couch. She was meticulous about the living room.
“What do you have there?”
Meggan opened the box, ignoring me. She pulled out several old photo albums. I had never seen them before.
“Are those from your parents’ place?”
“My mom’s, yeah.” She was flipping through one of the albums, turning pages rapidly. Every once in awhile she would stop and stare at a picture.
I sat down in the armchair, at a ninety-degree angle from the couch, watching her face. Whenever she paused, a small smile would grow in the corner of her mouth. Then her lips would tighten and she would blink really hard. Then she would turn the page.
I leaned forward, trying to see what she was looking at. I craned my neck.
“Is that your cousin?”
Meggan slammed the album shut and glared at me, wiping a tear from her eye. She picked up the album, threw it into the box, and then gathered up the whole thing. She stormed out of the room and I heard our bedroom door slam.
“Great.” I slumped down in my chair.
***
“Mr. Jenkins, I assure you, we’re doing everything we can. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t.”
“I appreciate that, Detective, and I’m sorry for wasting your time. It’s just, I really don’t know how to deal with this, and maybe some progress on the case would help, I don’t know, calm her nerves a little.”
“I can totally sympathize. I’ve seen some awful things in this job. Grieving is a difficult process. All I can recommend is maybe helping your wife find a good therapist. Even if we catch this guy, she’s not necessarily going to feel any closure. We have a lot of missing tourists and only one body so far. There’s no evidence to suggest he got your wife’s cousin, too. Just a suspicion. Nothing will change the fact that her cousin is gone. I’m sorry you wasted your time.”
“I’m sorry for wasting yours. I just felt like I needed to do something, anything, you know?”
“I understand, sir. You have a good day.”
I hung up the phone and wandered over to the kitchen window. I watched my daughter playing in her sandbox in the backyard. Everything here seemed so quiet and safe, the picture of suburban tranquility. No one would suspect the utter chaos in our lives, the dark grief.
I walked slowly up the stairs to the second floor, and listened outside our bedroom. I couldn’t hear much of anything. I tapped quietly.
“Honey? It’s time for lunch.”
Nothing.
“I made tuna, your favourite.”
Quiet.
“I’m going to go get Molly. We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us.”
I walked slowly back down the steps, looking over my shoulder at the door a couple of times. I shrugged, and called Molly in from the back door. We sat down to tuna salad sandwiches in the kitchen. I made them like my dad: tuna, mayo, relish, celery and green onions. Meggan had always loved his recipe. At her house they had just added mayonnaise.
Molly held her cup of milk in two hands, gulping it. She put the cup on the table, sitting on her knees to do so, and then wiped the milk off her mouth with the back of her hand.
“More, please,” she said, with a soft gasp of air.
“Don’t drink it so fast next time,” I smiled. I poured her another cup.
We went out to the hammock after lunch, under the big maple. I read her a story while she cuddled in my lap. Princesses and dragons fascinated her for about twenty minutes.
“Daddy, is there such thing as real magic?”
“Sure there is. I can show you.”
“You can?” Her eyes went big.
“Sure.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a dime. “Watch this.”
I made the coin dance over my fingers and knuckles, in and out. On one rotation, it disappeared. She gasped.
“Where did it go?”
I showed her my open hands, and then looked around the hammock and the grass.
“I guess I dropped it. Oh, no, wait… Here it is!”
Molly was sitting on the hammock. I knelt down in the grass and reached over. I pulled the shiny coin out from behind her ear, making her giggle.
“How did you do that?” Molly laughed. “Do it again!”
“Can you make my cousin reappear?” I heard from behind me.
“Hi, Mommy!”
I turned and saw my wife standing a short distance from us. I smiled softly.
“Wish I could. I haven’t learned that trick yet.”
“Thank you for the sandwiches.”
I shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
She knelt down with me and hugged Molly. Meggan turned and kissed me softly.
“Mommy, are you still sad?”
“Yes, baby. But only a little. Daddy’s magic cheered me up.”
“How’d he do that?” Molly asked, impressed.
“By being the best daddy in the world, and an awfully patient husband.” She smiled.
I wiped my eyes and sniffled.
“You’re such a sap, Sam.” Meggan leaned in and kissed me again.
She finally came down around noon, dust smudged across her cheek, bearing a cardboard box. She wiped the back of her hand across her brow, moving an errant strand of hair that must have been tickling her skin. Her hands were dusty, which explained the awkward gesture.
“Everything okay, Meggan?” I asked.
She glared at me. “Ask me that one more time, seriously. Please.”
I bit my tongue. I had no idea how to deal with her. “I’m sorry.”
She waved it off, sitting on the couch. I found it odd that she took the time to keep her dusty fingers off her face by using the back of her hand to fix her hair, but paid no attention to her dusty pants on the couch. She was meticulous about the living room.
“What do you have there?”
Meggan opened the box, ignoring me. She pulled out several old photo albums. I had never seen them before.
“Are those from your parents’ place?”
“My mom’s, yeah.” She was flipping through one of the albums, turning pages rapidly. Every once in awhile she would stop and stare at a picture.
I sat down in the armchair, at a ninety-degree angle from the couch, watching her face. Whenever she paused, a small smile would grow in the corner of her mouth. Then her lips would tighten and she would blink really hard. Then she would turn the page.
I leaned forward, trying to see what she was looking at. I craned my neck.
“Is that your cousin?”
Meggan slammed the album shut and glared at me, wiping a tear from her eye. She picked up the album, threw it into the box, and then gathered up the whole thing. She stormed out of the room and I heard our bedroom door slam.
“Great.” I slumped down in my chair.
***
“Mr. Jenkins, I assure you, we’re doing everything we can. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t.”
“I appreciate that, Detective, and I’m sorry for wasting your time. It’s just, I really don’t know how to deal with this, and maybe some progress on the case would help, I don’t know, calm her nerves a little.”
“I can totally sympathize. I’ve seen some awful things in this job. Grieving is a difficult process. All I can recommend is maybe helping your wife find a good therapist. Even if we catch this guy, she’s not necessarily going to feel any closure. We have a lot of missing tourists and only one body so far. There’s no evidence to suggest he got your wife’s cousin, too. Just a suspicion. Nothing will change the fact that her cousin is gone. I’m sorry you wasted your time.”
“I’m sorry for wasting yours. I just felt like I needed to do something, anything, you know?”
“I understand, sir. You have a good day.”
I hung up the phone and wandered over to the kitchen window. I watched my daughter playing in her sandbox in the backyard. Everything here seemed so quiet and safe, the picture of suburban tranquility. No one would suspect the utter chaos in our lives, the dark grief.
I walked slowly up the stairs to the second floor, and listened outside our bedroom. I couldn’t hear much of anything. I tapped quietly.
“Honey? It’s time for lunch.”
Nothing.
“I made tuna, your favourite.”
Quiet.
“I’m going to go get Molly. We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us.”
I walked slowly back down the steps, looking over my shoulder at the door a couple of times. I shrugged, and called Molly in from the back door. We sat down to tuna salad sandwiches in the kitchen. I made them like my dad: tuna, mayo, relish, celery and green onions. Meggan had always loved his recipe. At her house they had just added mayonnaise.
Molly held her cup of milk in two hands, gulping it. She put the cup on the table, sitting on her knees to do so, and then wiped the milk off her mouth with the back of her hand.
“More, please,” she said, with a soft gasp of air.
“Don’t drink it so fast next time,” I smiled. I poured her another cup.
We went out to the hammock after lunch, under the big maple. I read her a story while she cuddled in my lap. Princesses and dragons fascinated her for about twenty minutes.
“Daddy, is there such thing as real magic?”
“Sure there is. I can show you.”
“You can?” Her eyes went big.
“Sure.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a dime. “Watch this.”
I made the coin dance over my fingers and knuckles, in and out. On one rotation, it disappeared. She gasped.
“Where did it go?”
I showed her my open hands, and then looked around the hammock and the grass.
“I guess I dropped it. Oh, no, wait… Here it is!”
Molly was sitting on the hammock. I knelt down in the grass and reached over. I pulled the shiny coin out from behind her ear, making her giggle.
“How did you do that?” Molly laughed. “Do it again!”
“Can you make my cousin reappear?” I heard from behind me.
“Hi, Mommy!”
I turned and saw my wife standing a short distance from us. I smiled softly.
“Wish I could. I haven’t learned that trick yet.”
“Thank you for the sandwiches.”
I shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
She knelt down with me and hugged Molly. Meggan turned and kissed me softly.
“Mommy, are you still sad?”
“Yes, baby. But only a little. Daddy’s magic cheered me up.”
“How’d he do that?” Molly asked, impressed.
“By being the best daddy in the world, and an awfully patient husband.” She smiled.
I wiped my eyes and sniffled.
“You’re such a sap, Sam.” Meggan leaned in and kissed me again.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
TKO #4
TKO #4 [Fiction]
Write a scene/story where the following three nouns play an important role: tourist, attic, and dime.
Post is due Friday at 11:59pm (Pacific).
Write a scene/story where the following three nouns play an important role: tourist, attic, and dime.
Post is due Friday at 11:59pm (Pacific).
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Results of Vote #3
Brave Buchanan is automatically removed for failure to respond.
Fiesty Fillmore received the most votes. There was a tie, which was broken because Fillmore received less favorite votes in rounds 1 and 2 combined than the player who he was tied with.
Fiesty Fillmore received the most votes. There was a tie, which was broken because Fillmore received less favorite votes in rounds 1 and 2 combined than the player who he was tied with.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Playful Pierce #3
The day after Terry was hospitalized by her boyfriend, Ashley began receiving emails from herself; from the future. The first one read:
Ashley,
It’s me: you. I’m you. Remember that time in 2nd grade when you borrowed one of Dad’s saint statues for show and tell, but dropped it on the way home and cut yourself trying to pick up all the pieces so you lied and said the neighbor’s pit-bull attacked you? We never told anyone else that.
You should know that there’s going to be a pop-quiz in your Cold War History class tomorrow on the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The professor thinks that nobody does the assigned reading, so she’s going to try to surprise everyone. Be sure to read the footnotes.
-You
Ashley blinked a couple times and glanced at the clock. She was supposed to be getting a call from the boy she met in her political science class, but it was already 11:24. She reached into her bag, pulled out the text for history and cracked the spine open.
* * *
At lunch, Nikki asked how Ashley did on the quiz.
“Not too bad.”
“Better than me I’m sure.” Nikki said. “I’ve never opened that damn book.”
“I had some free time last night.”
“Trent didn’t call?”
Ashley shrugged her shoulders. She noticed Nikki had pizza sauce on the side of her mouth and pointed at it.
“Thanks,” Nikki said, licking the corners of her mouth before beginning on her third slice of pepperoni.
“Have you seen Terry yet?”
Nikki swallowed. “Not yet. I don’t know if I can. I heard she’s pretty messed up.”
“I think he pushed her down the stairs.”
“She was so pretty. And thin.” Nikki opened the container with the cheesecake inside. “He probably hit her before.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, but that kind of stuff always builds up, doesn’t it?” Nikki paused. “Plus, she had that bruise on her cheek a couple weeks ago. Remember?”
Ashley nodded. Terry had said she had slipped in the rain and fell on her face.
“I just can’t believe she stayed.” Nikki stood up and gathered everything on her tray.
“I don’t know. I might.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Ashley dumped the rest of her salad in the trashcan. “If we had been dating a long time and he was really sorry, I think I could forgive someone.” Ashley noticed the bewildered look on Nikki’s face and added, “Once.”
“You’re crazy,” Nikki said.
Ashley waited for Nikki to refill her diet soda before they drove back to the apartment.
* * *
When she got home, Ashley checked her email and found another one from herself:
Hey,
Good job on the quiz. Have fun tonight and don’t worry about waking up early tomorrow. Your poli. sci. professor has the flu and is going to cancel at the last minute.
Later,
-Me
That night, Ashley rented three romantic comedies from the video store down the street and stayed awake until three in the morning watching them.
* * *
Ashley used her free day to visit Terry in the hospital. She had a neck brace and her left leg was in a cast elevated by a sling. Ashley mentally traced the stitching on Terry’s face from just below her right eye to underneath her nose.
“It’ll take about a week before they let me out of here.” Terry said. “They’re going to do the reconstructive stuff after they make sure I can walk.” Terry smiled and Ashley noticed that she was missing two of her lower teeth.
Ashley grimaced.
For a couple minutes neither of them said anything, before the silence was interrupted by a loud smack at the window. Ashley jumped.
“Sorry. I should’ve warned you about Jake.”
Ashley turned her head toward the window. A blackbird appeared on the windowsill before flying back to a tree a couple yards away.
“He keeps trying to get in here. The nurses can’t really do anything about it though.”
“Why do you call him Jake?”
“I named him after that really nice kid in high school. The one on the math club that kept asking me out even though I turned him down every time.” Terry sighed. “I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.”
After a couple minutes, Ashley added, “We had a quiz in history.”
“Cool.”
Ashley watched Jake take off from the tree and collide head-on into the window again. “Crazy bird.”
“That’s the definition, right?” Terry said. “Repeating the same thing but expecting a different result?”
“Something like that.”
* * *
Trent called Ashley’s cellphone on the bus ride home.
“So you’re psychic right?” he asked.
“Who told you?” she said.
“I knew it. Tell me my fortune.”
“You’re going to graduate from college with a lame business degree and sell your soul to the corporate world.”
“As long as I’m rich.”
Ashley laughed.
“But honestly: how did you know?” he asked.
“Know what?”
“Political Science. The one day you don’t show up, class is cancelled.”
Ashley blushed.
“You still there?”
“Yeah, sorry.” An Indian man across the aisle gave her a puzzled look, so Ashley turned her body to the left and hunched over.
“Random question for you, how do you feel about live music?”
* * *
Ashley picked out a red low-cut shirt and skinny jeans, which she set on her bed. Before jumping in the shower she got online. Her inbox had one message, the last contact she ever made with her future self. The subject line was: Important! It read:
I have a favor to ask you.
Please do not go out with that guy tonight. Call him back and tell him that you’re sick or that there’s a family emergency or that you have a big test that you need to study for—anything to get out of it. It’s not going to work out. Please.
-Us
Before she left, Ashley sent a reply.
* * *
Ashley met Trent at a jazz club on 50th. He was inside waiting for her at a table near the back wearing a pinstriped suit.
“Suddenly I feel very underdressed,” she said, sliding into the booth next to him in view of the stage.
“Papa always told me that jazz is something to dress up for.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.”
“What makes you think there will be a next time?”
Ashley tapped her head. “Psychic, remember?”
“Of course.” Trent waved a hand at the waitress and ordered two martinis, extra dirty. “Your favorite, right?” He tilted his head toward Ashley after the waitress left. “I’m psychic too,” he whispered.
Ashley’s hands tightened their grip on her napkin. “Really?” she squeaked.
“Your friend Nikki and I have a math class together. I hope you don’t think I’m a stalker or something.”
“No, it’s cool.” Ashley sighed and plopped the napkin back on the table. She added, “How’d you get into all of this? Was it your dad?”
“Both my parents grew up in the Beat generation. ‘On The Road’ is practically the family bible.”
“I hope you don’t plan on abandoning me in Mexico.”
“In that case,” Trent pointed to the drink the waitress delivered, “You probably shouldn’t take a sip of that.”
Ashley slid the martini away from her, too fast, and a small amount sloshed over the side of the glass.
“I was just kidding.” Trent picked up the drink and took a sip. “See? Clean.”
Ashley forced a laugh.
“How much do you know about jazz anyway?”
“Just the instruments, saxophone, trumpet, piano, I’ve never really heard it live before.” Ashley braved a sip of her drink.
“It’s better live.”
“Why’s that?”
“Improvisation.” Trent fanned his hands out as if he was doing a magic act. “Jazz doesn’t really follow the rules for live music. Nothing’s rehearsed. The musicians just come in and play how they’re feeling. It sounds different each time. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse, but it’s always interesting, fresh.”
Ashley nodded and downed the rest of her drink in one large gulp.
* * *
The first thing Ashley did when she got home was check her email. The reply letter she had sent bounced back to her, citing an error for a nonexistent address.
A year later she got an email from the past with two words: Why not?, but by then she already knew the answer.
Ashley,
It’s me: you. I’m you. Remember that time in 2nd grade when you borrowed one of Dad’s saint statues for show and tell, but dropped it on the way home and cut yourself trying to pick up all the pieces so you lied and said the neighbor’s pit-bull attacked you? We never told anyone else that.
You should know that there’s going to be a pop-quiz in your Cold War History class tomorrow on the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The professor thinks that nobody does the assigned reading, so she’s going to try to surprise everyone. Be sure to read the footnotes.
-You
Ashley blinked a couple times and glanced at the clock. She was supposed to be getting a call from the boy she met in her political science class, but it was already 11:24. She reached into her bag, pulled out the text for history and cracked the spine open.
* * *
At lunch, Nikki asked how Ashley did on the quiz.
“Not too bad.”
“Better than me I’m sure.” Nikki said. “I’ve never opened that damn book.”
“I had some free time last night.”
“Trent didn’t call?”
Ashley shrugged her shoulders. She noticed Nikki had pizza sauce on the side of her mouth and pointed at it.
“Thanks,” Nikki said, licking the corners of her mouth before beginning on her third slice of pepperoni.
“Have you seen Terry yet?”
Nikki swallowed. “Not yet. I don’t know if I can. I heard she’s pretty messed up.”
“I think he pushed her down the stairs.”
“She was so pretty. And thin.” Nikki opened the container with the cheesecake inside. “He probably hit her before.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, but that kind of stuff always builds up, doesn’t it?” Nikki paused. “Plus, she had that bruise on her cheek a couple weeks ago. Remember?”
Ashley nodded. Terry had said she had slipped in the rain and fell on her face.
“I just can’t believe she stayed.” Nikki stood up and gathered everything on her tray.
“I don’t know. I might.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Ashley dumped the rest of her salad in the trashcan. “If we had been dating a long time and he was really sorry, I think I could forgive someone.” Ashley noticed the bewildered look on Nikki’s face and added, “Once.”
“You’re crazy,” Nikki said.
Ashley waited for Nikki to refill her diet soda before they drove back to the apartment.
* * *
When she got home, Ashley checked her email and found another one from herself:
Hey,
Good job on the quiz. Have fun tonight and don’t worry about waking up early tomorrow. Your poli. sci. professor has the flu and is going to cancel at the last minute.
Later,
-Me
That night, Ashley rented three romantic comedies from the video store down the street and stayed awake until three in the morning watching them.
* * *
Ashley used her free day to visit Terry in the hospital. She had a neck brace and her left leg was in a cast elevated by a sling. Ashley mentally traced the stitching on Terry’s face from just below her right eye to underneath her nose.
“It’ll take about a week before they let me out of here.” Terry said. “They’re going to do the reconstructive stuff after they make sure I can walk.” Terry smiled and Ashley noticed that she was missing two of her lower teeth.
Ashley grimaced.
For a couple minutes neither of them said anything, before the silence was interrupted by a loud smack at the window. Ashley jumped.
“Sorry. I should’ve warned you about Jake.”
Ashley turned her head toward the window. A blackbird appeared on the windowsill before flying back to a tree a couple yards away.
“He keeps trying to get in here. The nurses can’t really do anything about it though.”
“Why do you call him Jake?”
“I named him after that really nice kid in high school. The one on the math club that kept asking me out even though I turned him down every time.” Terry sighed. “I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.”
After a couple minutes, Ashley added, “We had a quiz in history.”
“Cool.”
Ashley watched Jake take off from the tree and collide head-on into the window again. “Crazy bird.”
“That’s the definition, right?” Terry said. “Repeating the same thing but expecting a different result?”
“Something like that.”
* * *
Trent called Ashley’s cellphone on the bus ride home.
“So you’re psychic right?” he asked.
“Who told you?” she said.
“I knew it. Tell me my fortune.”
“You’re going to graduate from college with a lame business degree and sell your soul to the corporate world.”
“As long as I’m rich.”
Ashley laughed.
“But honestly: how did you know?” he asked.
“Know what?”
“Political Science. The one day you don’t show up, class is cancelled.”
Ashley blushed.
“You still there?”
“Yeah, sorry.” An Indian man across the aisle gave her a puzzled look, so Ashley turned her body to the left and hunched over.
“Random question for you, how do you feel about live music?”
* * *
Ashley picked out a red low-cut shirt and skinny jeans, which she set on her bed. Before jumping in the shower she got online. Her inbox had one message, the last contact she ever made with her future self. The subject line was: Important! It read:
I have a favor to ask you.
Please do not go out with that guy tonight. Call him back and tell him that you’re sick or that there’s a family emergency or that you have a big test that you need to study for—anything to get out of it. It’s not going to work out. Please.
-Us
Before she left, Ashley sent a reply.
* * *
Ashley met Trent at a jazz club on 50th. He was inside waiting for her at a table near the back wearing a pinstriped suit.
“Suddenly I feel very underdressed,” she said, sliding into the booth next to him in view of the stage.
“Papa always told me that jazz is something to dress up for.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.”
“What makes you think there will be a next time?”
Ashley tapped her head. “Psychic, remember?”
“Of course.” Trent waved a hand at the waitress and ordered two martinis, extra dirty. “Your favorite, right?” He tilted his head toward Ashley after the waitress left. “I’m psychic too,” he whispered.
Ashley’s hands tightened their grip on her napkin. “Really?” she squeaked.
“Your friend Nikki and I have a math class together. I hope you don’t think I’m a stalker or something.”
“No, it’s cool.” Ashley sighed and plopped the napkin back on the table. She added, “How’d you get into all of this? Was it your dad?”
“Both my parents grew up in the Beat generation. ‘On The Road’ is practically the family bible.”
“I hope you don’t plan on abandoning me in Mexico.”
“In that case,” Trent pointed to the drink the waitress delivered, “You probably shouldn’t take a sip of that.”
Ashley slid the martini away from her, too fast, and a small amount sloshed over the side of the glass.
“I was just kidding.” Trent picked up the drink and took a sip. “See? Clean.”
Ashley forced a laugh.
“How much do you know about jazz anyway?”
“Just the instruments, saxophone, trumpet, piano, I’ve never really heard it live before.” Ashley braved a sip of her drink.
“It’s better live.”
“Why’s that?”
“Improvisation.” Trent fanned his hands out as if he was doing a magic act. “Jazz doesn’t really follow the rules for live music. Nothing’s rehearsed. The musicians just come in and play how they’re feeling. It sounds different each time. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse, but it’s always interesting, fresh.”
Ashley nodded and downed the rest of her drink in one large gulp.
* * *
The first thing Ashley did when she got home was check her email. The reply letter she had sent bounced back to her, citing an error for a nonexistent address.
A year later she got an email from the past with two words: Why not?, but by then she already knew the answer.
Merry Monroe #3
She still maintained, to her mother and gynecologist, that she only smoked when she was out with her friends, drinking.
Of course, she started sneaking smokes on her way home from the bars, and then started smoking one on her way to the subway at the beginning of the night. Then, the hangover smoke, just one, with black coffee and sunglasses. When her boyfriend broke up with her, she chain-smoked for three weeks, Indian-style on her fire escape, waving her hand in a futile attempt to keep the upstairs neighbors from complaining to the super about her smokey loitering. Of course, these same neighbors heard her tears, angry cell phone conversations followed promptly by sad ones to her two best friends. They didn't say "Hi" in the hallways, the nameless neighbors upstairs, but they knew more about her than her mother did (most obvious of which, of course, was the smoking).
So this social smoker became less and less social and more and more smoker, and now, waiting for the thunderstorm to pass under the awning of some jazz club, she lit a cigarette between her wet fingertips, just to take the edge off from a long day at work.
She met her current "boyfriend" (quotations because she hadn't yet actually spoken to him on the phone yet, just texts and IMs - her once-arbitrary junior high rule about a phone call being the start of a relationship becoming more and more insightful as she aged) outside of a bar on the Upper East Side (she hated this neighborhood more than any other, even Murray Hill. But it was a birthday party for an old friend she had just reconnected with, so she begrudgingly trekked to the land that self-awareness forgot). They had both escaped the bar for a smoke break, urged by the bouncer to stand the legally-required 15 feet from the door. They rolled their eyes at each other and by the end of the night were making out. They text each other on the weekends now, meeting up when they're in the same neighborhood. Since their relationship started because of cigarettes, she wasn't ready to not smoke when he smoked - which was much more often than she thought she did. But, what if he would go outside the bar and meet some NEW blonde with a penchant for cigarettes and kissing? So smoked she did, dutifully, every 20 minutes on these nights they would meet up.
The summer storm passed as quickly as it came, so she dropped what was left of the cigarette, the cherry sizzling for a second on the wet pavement.
Of course, she started sneaking smokes on her way home from the bars, and then started smoking one on her way to the subway at the beginning of the night. Then, the hangover smoke, just one, with black coffee and sunglasses. When her boyfriend broke up with her, she chain-smoked for three weeks, Indian-style on her fire escape, waving her hand in a futile attempt to keep the upstairs neighbors from complaining to the super about her smokey loitering. Of course, these same neighbors heard her tears, angry cell phone conversations followed promptly by sad ones to her two best friends. They didn't say "Hi" in the hallways, the nameless neighbors upstairs, but they knew more about her than her mother did (most obvious of which, of course, was the smoking).
So this social smoker became less and less social and more and more smoker, and now, waiting for the thunderstorm to pass under the awning of some jazz club, she lit a cigarette between her wet fingertips, just to take the edge off from a long day at work.
She met her current "boyfriend" (quotations because she hadn't yet actually spoken to him on the phone yet, just texts and IMs - her once-arbitrary junior high rule about a phone call being the start of a relationship becoming more and more insightful as she aged) outside of a bar on the Upper East Side (she hated this neighborhood more than any other, even Murray Hill. But it was a birthday party for an old friend she had just reconnected with, so she begrudgingly trekked to the land that self-awareness forgot). They had both escaped the bar for a smoke break, urged by the bouncer to stand the legally-required 15 feet from the door. They rolled their eyes at each other and by the end of the night were making out. They text each other on the weekends now, meeting up when they're in the same neighborhood. Since their relationship started because of cigarettes, she wasn't ready to not smoke when he smoked - which was much more often than she thought she did. But, what if he would go outside the bar and meet some NEW blonde with a penchant for cigarettes and kissing? So smoked she did, dutifully, every 20 minutes on these nights they would meet up.
The summer storm passed as quickly as it came, so she dropped what was left of the cigarette, the cherry sizzling for a second on the wet pavement.
Happy Harrison #3
Agent Patterson mused on emphysema as she smoked her eighth cigarette of the night. Lung cancer. Bronchitis, chronic asthma. Stop it.
No one ordered her to smoke as part of her cover, it was purely her choice. She had never felt comfortable ‘just standing there,’ she always needed something in her hands. Something that gave her purpose. Even if that purpose at the moment was enduring carbon monoxide poisoning. Stop it.
She didn’t know what she would have to do to recondition herself. She also didn’t know how much more nicotine she could take before she puked. Stop it!
Maybe she should go inside and get a drink.
Her earpiece squawked, “Blue Team, eyes open. We’ve got a visual on a suspect moving southwest out of the park. White male, eighteen to thirty years, six feet, one hundred sixty pounds. He’s got a knit cap and a brightly colored backpack.”
On a private channel Agent Mangunta piped, “Kara, sounds like he’s moving right towards us.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She snubbed out her cigarette and couldn’t help thinking that it was going to hurt to run tonight. It was hot, humid as hell, and she was wearing a long-sleeved blouse to conceal her vest. And besides, the description she was just given could be any one of 100,000 douchebags walking through the Village at any given moment.
For the next minute or two she listened while the rest of Blue Team called in negative contact. Agent Mangunta was just finishing his second negative report when he interrupted himself with, “Stand by, I think I have something.” Patterson strained her eyes to see up the block to his position. He must be just around the corner, she couldn’t see him. He called back, “Yeah, I have visual on a possible suspect. I’m flashing my lure, stand by.”
A chirp told Patterson that her partner had shut off the allcom but left open their private channel for her benefit. She could hear him talking to somebody. It sounded as if that person were taking the bait. Then it was quiet. From previous encounters, they knew there would be at least two minutes of downtime. “Hey Rupe, did he take your phone? Just clear your throat or something.” On a busy street, no one could hear the glottal click Agent Mangunta issued through his comset.
“Alright. I can’t see you. Give me a heads up if he comes my way.” Patterson pulled out another cigarette and made sure that her cell phone was displayed prominently on her hip.
The two of them were part of a unit investigating a bizarre series of attacks on local cellular networks. Over the last month, they had witnessed a dozen or so phones each night dialing a mysterious untraceable number. The phones downloaded some sort of information packet from this source, a virus with unknown consequences. And as the evenings wore on, the phones propagated this packet to most of the local numbers stored on the phones, all without even making a call that registered on the network. With hundreds of thousands of devices tying up network resources on a nightly basis, all the major cellular providers were panicking. Aside from service outages, they feared further attacks of unknown magnitude. Attacks that could perhaps even permanently damage their multi-billion-dollar infrastructure.
A truly mysterious aspect of the investigation was that all of this activity appeared to be instigated by a handful of college kids who approached strangers on the street, asking to borrow their phone for an emergency call. It was only in the last week that agents had directly witnessed the calls being placed. They had still been unable to trace or even capture the number that served as the source of the virus.
Special Agent in Charge Matheson impatiently squawked in their ears, “Mangunta, what’s your twenty?” Patterson heard a sigh over her private channel. Matheson continued, “We might have a trace. Yellow Team mobilize, stand by.”
“Rupe,” Patterson called. “We’ve got twenty seconds by my count. Hang on.” She heard him clear his throat before saying, “Yeah, thanks, no problem.” Finally. A further ten seconds and he was reporting over the allcom:
“SAC, I’m at Fourth and Sullivan. Kara, he turned, he’s coming straight for you. I confirm: suspect ‘borrowed’ my cell. It’s still transmitting. Advise.”
Matheson came back, “If it’s the same guy, that’s our second agent hit tonight. Apprehend.”
“Alright then, Rupe, give me a detailed description,” Patterson said. “I’ve got less than a minute.” He obliged her with recall that Patterson knew she could depend on.
“Six feet, one-six-oh pounds accurate. Scruffy brown hair under gray and black hat, brown and yellow plaid shirt, orange and black satchel, fraying tan cargo shorts, sandals. Blue eyes, some sort of necklace, I didn’t notice any piercings or tattoos.”
“Thanks, I’ve got him. Come back me up.” Keeping all the pedestrians coming toward her in the periphery of her vision, she peered back into the club outside of which she had been posted while she eased her left hand behind her back to pull out her sidearm. Only by the tiniest of increments did she allow her gaze to follow the unsuspecting young gentleman in the knit cap as he approached. Gripping her weapon behind her, she was a breath away from stepping into his path. Something wasn’t right. He was looking right at her.
The suspect locked eyes with Agent Patterson as her weight shifted to spring. Was that something in his ear? There was something in his hand. She didn’t get a word out before the taser hit her. She was still screaming and writhing when Agent Mangunta arrived at her side. He quickly gloved a hand and pulled the darts from her neck and arm. She’d have some second-degree burns, it appeared.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she inquired, “Rupesh, what are you doing?” Shouldn’t he be pursuing the suspect? He wasn’t listening to her, there were instructions coming in over his earpiece. Why wasn’t she hearing anything? The tasing must have shorted out her comset. She tried to sit up, but suddenly vomited. Okay, so she was glad her partner hadn’t run down the street and left her here alone. “What’s happening?”
“SAC says one of our mobile listening posts was rammed by another van. A bomb squad is en route and Red Team is scattered all over chasing down the driver and passengers of the van. He’s talking to Washington right now to see if U.S. Marshals will assist.” He looked down at his partner. “Are you okay, Kara?”
Before she could answer, Patterson mentally kicked herself for wanting another cigarette.
No one ordered her to smoke as part of her cover, it was purely her choice. She had never felt comfortable ‘just standing there,’ she always needed something in her hands. Something that gave her purpose. Even if that purpose at the moment was enduring carbon monoxide poisoning. Stop it.
She didn’t know what she would have to do to recondition herself. She also didn’t know how much more nicotine she could take before she puked. Stop it!
Maybe she should go inside and get a drink.
Her earpiece squawked, “Blue Team, eyes open. We’ve got a visual on a suspect moving southwest out of the park. White male, eighteen to thirty years, six feet, one hundred sixty pounds. He’s got a knit cap and a brightly colored backpack.”
On a private channel Agent Mangunta piped, “Kara, sounds like he’s moving right towards us.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She snubbed out her cigarette and couldn’t help thinking that it was going to hurt to run tonight. It was hot, humid as hell, and she was wearing a long-sleeved blouse to conceal her vest. And besides, the description she was just given could be any one of 100,000 douchebags walking through the Village at any given moment.
For the next minute or two she listened while the rest of Blue Team called in negative contact. Agent Mangunta was just finishing his second negative report when he interrupted himself with, “Stand by, I think I have something.” Patterson strained her eyes to see up the block to his position. He must be just around the corner, she couldn’t see him. He called back, “Yeah, I have visual on a possible suspect. I’m flashing my lure, stand by.”
A chirp told Patterson that her partner had shut off the allcom but left open their private channel for her benefit. She could hear him talking to somebody. It sounded as if that person were taking the bait. Then it was quiet. From previous encounters, they knew there would be at least two minutes of downtime. “Hey Rupe, did he take your phone? Just clear your throat or something.” On a busy street, no one could hear the glottal click Agent Mangunta issued through his comset.
“Alright. I can’t see you. Give me a heads up if he comes my way.” Patterson pulled out another cigarette and made sure that her cell phone was displayed prominently on her hip.
The two of them were part of a unit investigating a bizarre series of attacks on local cellular networks. Over the last month, they had witnessed a dozen or so phones each night dialing a mysterious untraceable number. The phones downloaded some sort of information packet from this source, a virus with unknown consequences. And as the evenings wore on, the phones propagated this packet to most of the local numbers stored on the phones, all without even making a call that registered on the network. With hundreds of thousands of devices tying up network resources on a nightly basis, all the major cellular providers were panicking. Aside from service outages, they feared further attacks of unknown magnitude. Attacks that could perhaps even permanently damage their multi-billion-dollar infrastructure.
A truly mysterious aspect of the investigation was that all of this activity appeared to be instigated by a handful of college kids who approached strangers on the street, asking to borrow their phone for an emergency call. It was only in the last week that agents had directly witnessed the calls being placed. They had still been unable to trace or even capture the number that served as the source of the virus.
Special Agent in Charge Matheson impatiently squawked in their ears, “Mangunta, what’s your twenty?” Patterson heard a sigh over her private channel. Matheson continued, “We might have a trace. Yellow Team mobilize, stand by.”
“Rupe,” Patterson called. “We’ve got twenty seconds by my count. Hang on.” She heard him clear his throat before saying, “Yeah, thanks, no problem.” Finally. A further ten seconds and he was reporting over the allcom:
“SAC, I’m at Fourth and Sullivan. Kara, he turned, he’s coming straight for you. I confirm: suspect ‘borrowed’ my cell. It’s still transmitting. Advise.”
Matheson came back, “If it’s the same guy, that’s our second agent hit tonight. Apprehend.”
“Alright then, Rupe, give me a detailed description,” Patterson said. “I’ve got less than a minute.” He obliged her with recall that Patterson knew she could depend on.
“Six feet, one-six-oh pounds accurate. Scruffy brown hair under gray and black hat, brown and yellow plaid shirt, orange and black satchel, fraying tan cargo shorts, sandals. Blue eyes, some sort of necklace, I didn’t notice any piercings or tattoos.”
“Thanks, I’ve got him. Come back me up.” Keeping all the pedestrians coming toward her in the periphery of her vision, she peered back into the club outside of which she had been posted while she eased her left hand behind her back to pull out her sidearm. Only by the tiniest of increments did she allow her gaze to follow the unsuspecting young gentleman in the knit cap as he approached. Gripping her weapon behind her, she was a breath away from stepping into his path. Something wasn’t right. He was looking right at her.
The suspect locked eyes with Agent Patterson as her weight shifted to spring. Was that something in his ear? There was something in his hand. She didn’t get a word out before the taser hit her. She was still screaming and writhing when Agent Mangunta arrived at her side. He quickly gloved a hand and pulled the darts from her neck and arm. She’d have some second-degree burns, it appeared.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she inquired, “Rupesh, what are you doing?” Shouldn’t he be pursuing the suspect? He wasn’t listening to her, there were instructions coming in over his earpiece. Why wasn’t she hearing anything? The tasing must have shorted out her comset. She tried to sit up, but suddenly vomited. Okay, so she was glad her partner hadn’t run down the street and left her here alone. “What’s happening?”
“SAC says one of our mobile listening posts was rammed by another van. A bomb squad is en route and Red Team is scattered all over chasing down the driver and passengers of the van. He’s talking to Washington right now to see if U.S. Marshals will assist.” He looked down at his partner. “Are you okay, Kara?”
Before she could answer, Patterson mentally kicked herself for wanting another cigarette.
Jolly Jefferson #3
I was so nervous that night, I’ll never forget it. I was 19, away at college and I had finally gotten my hands on a fake ID. My roommate Shannon and I had decided to go out on the town. She was an old hand at this. She’d scored a fake her freshman year, but I was a good girl. I didn’t do that sort of thing. At least, not until now.
But the way she talked about going out on Thursday night, meeting mature men, not like the boys who lived on our floor. Men in bars were sophisticated, she told me. They knew about things like current events. They weren’t out to just get wasted and puke at the end of the night. And they wanted to get to know you. They didn’t just want to get into your pants.
I wasn’t so sure about that. My older sister had very different ideas than
I wasn’t sure it would work, but
My knees were knocking. I was sure my chunky earrings were swaying back and forth from my shaking.
I’d spent about an hour on my makeup and hair. I had to change my shirt twice, I’d been so nervous I had smeared makeup on the first two. Now, I was wearing a white dress shirt and some khaki slacks. I brought a pack of cigarettes, but
The cab let us out in front of the jazz club. I could hear the sad wail of a saxophone through the door as it opened and closed as patrons entered and exited.
I smiled nervously as I handed him my sister’s ID. I was sure he wouldn’t just turn me away, but call the cops over to arrest me for trying to scam him. But he just gave it a quick glance and waved me inside.
“See, Emily?”
I nearly fainted when she used my real name. After all, my ID said my name was Jennifer. But the bouncer either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He was busy checking the ID of the next people in line.
I couldn’t believe it! I’d made it!
I had no idea what to drink, so I ordered the first thing that popped into my mind. “Cosmo,” I said. What can I say? I’m a Sex and the City girl. If it was good enough for Carrie, I thought….
He turned to the bartender and ordered a cosmo and a Jack and Coke. I thanked him when the drink arrived and we made small talk for a little while. Turned out he was an investment banker or something.
She was on her third drink, while I was still nursing my first. The club was swinging with some wild jazz. An old black man was wailing away on a clarinet up front.
I hurried over and looked at the screen. “Oh my God!” I squealed. “I look so adult!” I realized what I just said and looked around. No one seemed to have heard me. I picked my drink back up and finished it off.
I was about to wander back to the bar when
“Relax. We just slip out the back.” She grabbed my hand and tugged on it. I stood rooted to the spot, staring at the cops as they asked some other girls for ID.
“Come on, Emily!”
I snapped out of it. I let her lead me back to the back of the bar, near the restrooms. There was a large door marked “EXIT” next to the restrooms. She pushed it open and shoved me out, following quickly.
The alley behind the place smelled awful, and I was pretty sure there was at least one homeless guy passed out in a pile of garbage. We ran down the alley and hailed a cab as soon as we hit the street.
We jumped in back and gave directions back to campus. We were out of breath and laughing. My heart was pounding and my laughter was a little hysterical.
The night was a bust, but I still have the photo
Magical Madison #3
It's a filthy habit. I know it is. It's disgusting. I used to be one of those girls who looked down on smokers. Who, when asked for a light, said "no, I don't smoke, and neither should you." And now look at me. Standing here, outside the club, while my friends sit inside, laughing, drinking, listening to music.
I started smoking because of him. He smoked. When I first met him, he said it was only socially, only when he drank. So, although I found it disgusting and had to walk away so as not to embarrass myself and cough in front of him when I took too big of a drag, I smoked too.
Then he started smoking during the day, at work. We worked together, so when I saw him walking past my office to go have a cigarette, I grabbed my purse and ran after him. I started smoking during the day, too.
When I kissed him, I could always taste the cigarette he had just smoked. He always had one after we had sex. I started doing the same.
Then, I started smoking without him. When he was home, with his wife. I smoked and thought about him. The cigarettes tasted like him. I missed him.
Now, he was gone. I still had the filthy habit, but he was never coming back. Standing there, outside on the street alone...the cigarette still tasted like him.
I started smoking because of him. He smoked. When I first met him, he said it was only socially, only when he drank. So, although I found it disgusting and had to walk away so as not to embarrass myself and cough in front of him when I took too big of a drag, I smoked too.
Then he started smoking during the day, at work. We worked together, so when I saw him walking past my office to go have a cigarette, I grabbed my purse and ran after him. I started smoking during the day, too.
When I kissed him, I could always taste the cigarette he had just smoked. He always had one after we had sex. I started doing the same.
Then, I started smoking without him. When he was home, with his wife. I smoked and thought about him. The cigarettes tasted like him. I missed him.
Now, he was gone. I still had the filthy habit, but he was never coming back. Standing there, outside on the street alone...the cigarette still tasted like him.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Joyous Johnson #3
As she stepped out of the club, one practiced hand reached into her purse for a cigarette. Within seconds, she had smoothly drawn it from her snakeskin clutch and placed it between her lips. Unfortunately, as these things often go, she became much less classy and graceful after that. As she fumbled for her lighter (where the hell could it be, anyway? Her purse wasn’t that big), her clutch fell to the ground, and her belongings scattered on the dirty city sidewalk.
It was as if she could hear her mother’s voice over the sweet drifting jazz: “That’s a nasty habit.”
As she pulled her lighter out from under the city bench (and abandoned the lipstick that had fallen next to it), she sighed. Cigarettes were a clumsy, inconvenient, widely-loathed thing. Maybe that’s why she liked them.
The jazz continued to float out the door with each new person entering the already-crowded club.
Twas in the Spring, one sunny day, that’s when he left me, he said he’d stay… but now he’s gone, and I don’t worry – I’m sitting on top of the world…
Of all the songs…
She could remember the first time she heard that one. It was what got her into blues. She was at a friend’s house. At the time, she thought he was pretty much the only guy for her. Now she couldn’t remember his name. She could, however, remember his record collection. In a world of CDs, he stuck to vinyl. He had everything – rock, country, jazz, classical… but, most importantly, he had blues.
It was a languid summer night, pretty much like this one, but easily a decade ago, and they were trying to figure out what to do. There weren’t good movies out, they were too cool for parties, and it was too hot to go outside. She was anxious. This wasn’t life. They should be out doing something wonderful, not just sitting there.
But he was calm. As she bounced ideas of things to do, she finally realized she was talking to herself. He was in another world, sitting cross-legged on the floor, humming quietly, and digging through a pile of records that lined the entire back wall of his room.
It wasn’t a surprise, really. No one listened to her. As she quietly descended into teenage angst, he gently put the record on its player. A quivering harmonica started. “Oh, great. Aimlessly, rambling blues, played by someone who can neither play the harmonica nor sing.”
But, then, the words – she got it. It was the loneliest voice she had ever heard, and, yet, the most comforting…
Worked all the summer, worked all the fall, still spendin’ Christmas in my overalls… and now he’s gone, but I don’t worry – I’m sitting on top of the world…
The summer continued, and their relationship bloomed. At the time, she thought she was falling in love with him. Looking back, she knows it was the blues.
But he was losing interest. All he wanted to do was go out, go to movies, go to parties, go outside. All she wanted to do was sit cross-legged on the floor and listen to his records.
Don’t come here running, holdin out your hand – you can have your woman, got me a man – but now he’s gone, and I don’t worry….
The wind started blowing, and the days got colder. She was foolish for falling for him. She knew she was leaving, but she never could find the heart to tell him…
Finally, she had to. He cried, but she was numb. He reached out for her, she turned away.
Was in the summer, the early fall, just trying to find my little all and all… but now she’s gone, I don’t worry…
She looked between her fingers to find nothing but a burning filter. She let out a bored sigh and snuffed out what remained. The band moved on, and so did she – shoving her hands in her pockets and shuffling down the city street into the darkness.
It was as if she could hear her mother’s voice over the sweet drifting jazz: “That’s a nasty habit.”
As she pulled her lighter out from under the city bench (and abandoned the lipstick that had fallen next to it), she sighed. Cigarettes were a clumsy, inconvenient, widely-loathed thing. Maybe that’s why she liked them.
The jazz continued to float out the door with each new person entering the already-crowded club.
Twas in the Spring, one sunny day, that’s when he left me, he said he’d stay… but now he’s gone, and I don’t worry – I’m sitting on top of the world…
Of all the songs…
She could remember the first time she heard that one. It was what got her into blues. She was at a friend’s house. At the time, she thought he was pretty much the only guy for her. Now she couldn’t remember his name. She could, however, remember his record collection. In a world of CDs, he stuck to vinyl. He had everything – rock, country, jazz, classical… but, most importantly, he had blues.
It was a languid summer night, pretty much like this one, but easily a decade ago, and they were trying to figure out what to do. There weren’t good movies out, they were too cool for parties, and it was too hot to go outside. She was anxious. This wasn’t life. They should be out doing something wonderful, not just sitting there.
But he was calm. As she bounced ideas of things to do, she finally realized she was talking to herself. He was in another world, sitting cross-legged on the floor, humming quietly, and digging through a pile of records that lined the entire back wall of his room.
It wasn’t a surprise, really. No one listened to her. As she quietly descended into teenage angst, he gently put the record on its player. A quivering harmonica started. “Oh, great. Aimlessly, rambling blues, played by someone who can neither play the harmonica nor sing.”
But, then, the words – she got it. It was the loneliest voice she had ever heard, and, yet, the most comforting…
Worked all the summer, worked all the fall, still spendin’ Christmas in my overalls… and now he’s gone, but I don’t worry – I’m sitting on top of the world…
The summer continued, and their relationship bloomed. At the time, she thought she was falling in love with him. Looking back, she knows it was the blues.
But he was losing interest. All he wanted to do was go out, go to movies, go to parties, go outside. All she wanted to do was sit cross-legged on the floor and listen to his records.
Don’t come here running, holdin out your hand – you can have your woman, got me a man – but now he’s gone, and I don’t worry….
The wind started blowing, and the days got colder. She was foolish for falling for him. She knew she was leaving, but she never could find the heart to tell him…
Finally, she had to. He cried, but she was numb. He reached out for her, she turned away.
Was in the summer, the early fall, just trying to find my little all and all… but now she’s gone, I don’t worry…
She looked between her fingers to find nothing but a burning filter. She let out a bored sigh and snuffed out what remained. The band moved on, and so did she – shoving her hands in her pockets and shuffling down the city street into the darkness.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Loud Lincoln #3
It’s going to rain. The bright lights and iridescent colors can’t shake away the unadulterated need of thunderclouds to lighten their load. The water is going to be shunted-off roof tops, off another roof top, onto the pavement and into the sewer where it will be flushed out like waste. Pushed and pulled, slightly controlled, as it’s overzealous bearing tips the scale and overflows the gutters of the city. Ignored, and for the most part unwanted, it moves onto other places where it’s a life-bringer and not a nuisance.
I can smell it. Along with the hot dog vendor left over from 5th St.and the smell of the addict’s piss over in the corner. You can take the girl out of the
The recognition that a lightning storm is coming. The knowledge when staring in someone’s eyes, that they are hurt. In this “Me” centered city, looking at another person and wondering who they are, instead of brushing by, ignoring the angst on a face like it’s a hemorrhoid commercial.
As I’m waiting for my date, the jazz leaks out of the joint-almost egging the thundercloud to burst with a barry sax solo. He’s not going to come.
The cigarette is almost out, and the smell of the rain is fading, maybe next time.
But as, I go in, it starts to pour, and the air becomes suddenly clear of all the soot and grime it’s accumulated through the day. It smells perhaps like home.
And the syncopation of the drops adds to the percussionist’s beat. People’s faces smiling for the first time in a long hectic day. Maybe it’s the music and maybe it’s the rain.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Talented Taylor #3
It's funny how a song can describe events in your life so well. It used to be one of my favorites, but tonight I can't stand it. I was just trying to relax and get a little change of scenery. You can only watch sappy romantic comedies in the dark by yourself for so long before you get absolutely sick of them, and at that point, you probably need to move on to the next step.
I watched the smoke from my cigarette float into the light. It was soothing. Breathing in and out, slowly, almost as if I was subconsciously trying to breathe to the beat. With every drag I feel a little calmer, a little better. I wish it would rain.
It was raining before. When I realized it was over. Again. I don't know why I try so hard every time. I know it's going to end the same way. That's a lie, and lying won't help me feel better. I love him. I always have and I always will. He's like my other half. On the outside our personalities are completely different, but we understand each other. We know how the other is going to react. Neither of us gets close to very many people. We've been hurt too many times. I push people away by being distant. He pushes people away by being harsh.
We met in high school. I had just moved to a new town, and he had moved a couple years back. I had met his friend's mom while my mom dragged me out to look at houses in the new town, and she suggested that I could come out and meet her son and his friends.
I liked him almost immediately, but he spent a good portion of the time talking about his girlfriend. I was new and didn't want to cause a bunch of drama or spend my time crushing on someone that didn't see me that way. So I moved on, I dated other people. We became friends. He went through some messy break ups in high school with two girls he dated off and on. Most people assumed since he was so abrasive that his feelings couldn't be hurt and treated him as if he didn't have any. We had so many classes together and spent so much time outside of school hanging out either at debate tournaments or with friends that I learned how to read him. I saw the look in his eyes when people said mean things to him, or about him. He covered it up pretty well. We spent a lot of bus rides to and from tournaments just sitting in the back in silence together. It was comforting to both of us.
I met up with him again a couple years after graduation. We spent the entire summer together. We would both be going to opposite ends of the country again in the fall. He stopped calling sometime in September. We saw each other again the following June and spent a good portion of the summer together again. That time the calls stopped in January. Usually they stopped because he started dating someone else. I heard from him again the following August, but by the time I was in relationship. He tried to derail it.
A few years later we both moved to Austin. He moved with a friend from college, I moved for graduate school. By this time he realized how much of an idiot he was for letting things fall apart with me. After a few months of him telling me this I agreed to date him again. It was wonderful, like it always was, but I knew it wouldn't last. He gets restless. I get restless. I got into a PhD program in another state.
It was pouring down rain. If you've never seen it pour down rain in Texas, then you don't understand what it means to pour. It's monsoon-like. The wind is blowing water every and you can't see anything else. There are whitecaps on the waves of water flowing down the streets. He locked himself in his room and watched his dvd collection all weekend. He rarely came out and when he did he refused to talk to anyone. The tornado sirens were going off and that's when I realized that he's not coming with me. He's hurt because I'm leaving, but he won't come with me.
I light up another cigarette. They've been playing 'Texas Flood' for nearly six minutes now. I know Stevie Ray Vaughn's live version is eleven minutes long, so I'm sure the guys on stage will be going for awhile, and I don't want to go back in where the song is louder. With every drag of my cigarette I become more convinced that I do still want him to call me. And that I want to talk to him. And see him. I know it'll all blow over soon and he'll move out here or I'll move back there. Somewhere over the years our friendship ceased to be only that. I can't pinpoint when that moment was, but ever since we've just needed each other.
I wish it would rain.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Wacky Washington #3
It’s funny what will get a person’s attention.
He was walking alone at night, as was his custom, just enjoying the crisp night air and the starlight. The lights of the city twinkled and sparkled down the still-busy streets, where nightclubs and bars served their customers. Music spilled out of doorways as people entered and left.
He enjoyed the pulse and beat of the streets, seeing people come and go. Groups chattering, couples holding hands, the rhythms of night. He passed the jazz club and saw a woman, standing alone in the doorway, smoking.
The smoke floated up in the air, a diaphanous cloud hovering in the night. He thought to himself “How odd.” In his mind’s eye, jazz clubs were places where bands and solo performers sat on stage, perhaps on stools, playing trumpet and sax and bass amidst in smoky rooms. Now that smoking was banned in public places, he would never see such a scene again.
It made him a little sad, the image was so iconic, a piece of history. In previous years, the woman would never be outside by herself. She would have been inside, enjoying the music with friends. It was almost criminal.
On an impulse, he walked over. He smiled his charming smile, and she smiled back. His manner was warm, and he made her laugh once or twice. She told him that she was a tourist, enjoying the romance of the city and its music. He told her that he was an artist, and wanted her to model. She had captured his attention.
Flattered, she agreed. They walked along the city streets arm in arm, looking like any other couple out for a stroll. There was banter and jokes, an easy feeling of attraction and curiosity.
He took her to his studio, a place of quiet solitude for an introspective artist. He set her up in the position he wanted, moving her head from side to side for the right angle. He took pictures and then posed her a different way.
Her body was simultaneously something pleasurable that he could touch and manipulate, and also a prop in his art. He thought again, “How odd.” People could be so many things, from one moment to the next. He liked his pictures. There, frozen in time, people stayed as what he made them.
As usual, his artistic admiration and attention became something more. Her body wasn’t just a thing of artistically interesting angles. It was elegant and soft, a place of pleasure. He couldn’t’ help himself. He took what he wanted, with the shameless ego of an artist who knows they are a true talent. He used her this way for days, enjoying their time together. But in the end it was fleeting, and, as usual, he dumped her.
She was pretty broken up about it. He told himself this was the cost of artistic expression: the solitude, the need to search for new subjects, the drive to stay experimental and alone. He did not have time for petty human concerns like feelings; he was a genius. He walked away and only thought of her when looking through his pictures. He always kept them afterwards, as reminders.
It’s funny what will get a person’s attention. The homeless woman had been looking for food, and only crawled into the dumpster because of the sparkly shoe sticking out of the edge of a bag. The heel had torn a hole. She thought it was beautiful, and wanted it for her collection.
Her screams brought a shopkeeper, who then got the police. There was only the one leg: it took them six weeks to find and locate all the parts, and longer still to identify her. By then the trail was cold. The detective in charge of the case could not help but admire his evil quarry. Efficient, precise, and untraceable.
A real artist.
He was walking alone at night, as was his custom, just enjoying the crisp night air and the starlight. The lights of the city twinkled and sparkled down the still-busy streets, where nightclubs and bars served their customers. Music spilled out of doorways as people entered and left.
He enjoyed the pulse and beat of the streets, seeing people come and go. Groups chattering, couples holding hands, the rhythms of night. He passed the jazz club and saw a woman, standing alone in the doorway, smoking.
The smoke floated up in the air, a diaphanous cloud hovering in the night. He thought to himself “How odd.” In his mind’s eye, jazz clubs were places where bands and solo performers sat on stage, perhaps on stools, playing trumpet and sax and bass amidst in smoky rooms. Now that smoking was banned in public places, he would never see such a scene again.
It made him a little sad, the image was so iconic, a piece of history. In previous years, the woman would never be outside by herself. She would have been inside, enjoying the music with friends. It was almost criminal.
On an impulse, he walked over. He smiled his charming smile, and she smiled back. His manner was warm, and he made her laugh once or twice. She told him that she was a tourist, enjoying the romance of the city and its music. He told her that he was an artist, and wanted her to model. She had captured his attention.
Flattered, she agreed. They walked along the city streets arm in arm, looking like any other couple out for a stroll. There was banter and jokes, an easy feeling of attraction and curiosity.
He took her to his studio, a place of quiet solitude for an introspective artist. He set her up in the position he wanted, moving her head from side to side for the right angle. He took pictures and then posed her a different way.
Her body was simultaneously something pleasurable that he could touch and manipulate, and also a prop in his art. He thought again, “How odd.” People could be so many things, from one moment to the next. He liked his pictures. There, frozen in time, people stayed as what he made them.
As usual, his artistic admiration and attention became something more. Her body wasn’t just a thing of artistically interesting angles. It was elegant and soft, a place of pleasure. He couldn’t’ help himself. He took what he wanted, with the shameless ego of an artist who knows they are a true talent. He used her this way for days, enjoying their time together. But in the end it was fleeting, and, as usual, he dumped her.
She was pretty broken up about it. He told himself this was the cost of artistic expression: the solitude, the need to search for new subjects, the drive to stay experimental and alone. He did not have time for petty human concerns like feelings; he was a genius. He walked away and only thought of her when looking through his pictures. He always kept them afterwards, as reminders.
It’s funny what will get a person’s attention. The homeless woman had been looking for food, and only crawled into the dumpster because of the sparkly shoe sticking out of the edge of a bag. The heel had torn a hole. She thought it was beautiful, and wanted it for her collection.
Her screams brought a shopkeeper, who then got the police. There was only the one leg: it took them six weeks to find and locate all the parts, and longer still to identify her. By then the trail was cold. The detective in charge of the case could not help but admire his evil quarry. Efficient, precise, and untraceable.
A real artist.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
TKO #3/Results #2 Fave Vote
[Fiction]
Be inspired by this photograph. Write.
If you're curious I shot it :)
Post due on Friday, June 13th, at 11:59pm (Pacific).
The top three contestants, in random order, Loud Lincoln, Wacky Washington and Playful Pierce.
Be inspired by this photograph. Write.
If you're curious I shot it :)
Post due on Friday, June 13th, at 11:59pm (Pacific).
The top three contestants, in random order, Loud Lincoln, Wacky Washington and Playful Pierce.
TKO #2 Closed
It's after 11:59pm (Central) Friday, so TKO #2 is officially closed. Two people didn't post again so there will be no elimination vote. This is very distressing to me. I could rant more about the time it takes me to organize the game and how much time you have to respond, but those of you reading probably posted on time anyway.
So,
Thrifty Tyler
Artistic Adams
are automatically removed for failure to respond.
Like last week, we'll collect favorite votes so that everyone who did post will get a chance to receive some feedback. The votes are due Sunday at noon. If you don't vote, then I won't tell you your vote totals.
I plan to post TKO #3 early since this isn't an elimination vote so feel free to stop by sometime tomorrow to find out the new TKO a day early. If anyone has thought that the TKOs are particularly hard, let me know via email how you think they could be made interesting but easier.
So,
Thrifty Tyler
Artistic Adams
are automatically removed for failure to respond.
Like last week, we'll collect favorite votes so that everyone who did post will get a chance to receive some feedback. The votes are due Sunday at noon. If you don't vote, then I won't tell you your vote totals.
I plan to post TKO #3 early since this isn't an elimination vote so feel free to stop by sometime tomorrow to find out the new TKO a day early. If anyone has thought that the TKOs are particularly hard, let me know via email how you think they could be made interesting but easier.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Brave Buchanan #2
Tears streamed down her face as I caught her eye across the room. Mascara smeared across her face as she wiped the tears away, trying to conceal her pain. I watched her carefully, not wanting to intrude on such a private moment, but captivated by the agony in her eyes.
Her curls fell across her cheek as she tilted her head down, chest still heaving. Her sobs rang in my ears as I wondered what could have prompted such a rush of emotion. She covered her mouth to stifle the whimpers, but her shoulders still shook visibly. Unable to stop myself I sat and stared for a minute, concerned and curious, and overwhelmed by her display.
Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I got up and turned the mirror around.
Merry Monroe #2
I left him home when we got in a fight.
It was a stupid fight, something about Brie or the DVR or the fact that he would honestly choose to go back to Iraq while I was left alone here.
So he went back, and I sucked it up; I sucked it up so that we would have a lovely goodbye, a poetic one, when I was crying and he was stoic.
And so I realized I knew more about the chicken and rice guy down the street than I knew about you.
So I listened to Sade, for three days straight, when it was 100 degrees here, and maybe 110 there. I gave you what I could before you left, the khakis and the water bottles and the DVDs to kill "down time."
I wish I had down time, down time from worrying about you, down time from wondering whether you are healthy or fighting or relaxing or dying.
It was a stupid fight, something about Brie or the DVR or the fact that he would honestly choose to go back to Iraq while I was left alone here.
So he went back, and I sucked it up; I sucked it up so that we would have a lovely goodbye, a poetic one, when I was crying and he was stoic.
And so I realized I knew more about the chicken and rice guy down the street than I knew about you.
So I listened to Sade, for three days straight, when it was 100 degrees here, and maybe 110 there. I gave you what I could before you left, the khakis and the water bottles and the DVDs to kill "down time."
I wish I had down time, down time from worrying about you, down time from wondering whether you are healthy or fighting or relaxing or dying.
Loud Lincoln #2
I hated art students. Natty hair, awkward clothing styling and a chip on their shoulder that made the Thing from Fantastic Four look small. I was poor and working for the
It was a Monday, the bus had gotten back at
She comes in, and for an Art Major, actually looks well kept.
She sits down at one of the benches and starts to sketch the imitation Greek Marble statue. Except she’s using pastels. I know for a fact that this was supposed to be a charcoal assignment. A Fresher in 101 told me.
“Hey- your doing it wrong.”
“no, no I’m not”
“Okay-your funeral”
This is where it gets weird. She starts singing to herself, beautifully even. It’s so soft no can hear her. My post is right by her, so I can, but I’m probably the only one. It’s soft and low, pretty and strong smooth, flowing like the water. As she crescendos, I turn around and as I open my mouth to tell her to be quiet. I actually glance at the statue. She’s singing the statue. The curves and moves of the lithe figure are somehow expressed in her song. Instead of rebuking her, I say:
“How do you do that?”
“Oh…It’s easy”
“Whadda mean it’s easy?”
“It’s just easy for me”
She continues singing now, softly as she’s got and audience now. The song even matches the pastel strokes. She still sees me watching.
“It works the other way too.”
She grabs my MP3 player and listens to the Jazz song I’ve got to listen to for class.
And starts sketching with her pastels on another piece of paper. The song is a smooth mellow one, with the sax adding a bit of tart. Like a ice cool tea with a bit of unexpected lemon. She listens to the song about five times, and I can’t stop watching her hands. The move purposefully, almost with a power unexpected from such a demure individual. This way and that, with bits of blue, and silver, and ebony and green flitting creating a piece of abstract art that’s simply breath-taking, even for someone jaded as me.
When she was done she handed me the piece.
“I couldn’t tell you were an art major, your clothes are so normal”
“I’m not, and I certainly couldn’t function if I saw the sound of a rock band in my reflection.”
“You see sound?”
“Yeah, and hear color. It’s some sort of complex, synesthesia or something like that.”
“So what major are you if you’re not an art or music major”
“I’m going to be an accountant.”
Fiesty Filmore #2
I’ve never been particularly religious, but I’ve had a religious experience. It happened in Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. My friends and I arrived in Rome in the late afternoon and decided we had time to see one cathedral in the evening before getting dinner. We decided on the Santa Maria because it was close to our hostel. The basilica doesn’t look like much from the outside, seeing as it’s built inside the ruins of the Roman Baths of Diocletian. But in the golden hour, as dusk settles on the city, the last long red rays of the sun give the weathered façade a special glow. In some subtle way, the warm hues cast by the setting sun seem to not only bridge the day and the night, they fuse the past and the present as they splash against the ancient walls.
The friscalating dusk light, lovely as it was, didn’t prepare me for what awaited inside the basilica. I had never been in a Cathedral before in my life. I grew up in the Deep South, where the most architecturally impressive places of worship are enormous Baptist churches. Each town has an especially large one, usually referred to by the locals that do not attend it as ‘Six Flags over Jesus.’ While they’re big, they’re not anymore impressive than a basketball arena, just a big place full of seats. Needless to say, none of them were designed by Michelangelo, or the final resting place of Pope Pius IV. I didn’t know this before we entered the basilica. I didn’t know much of anything about cathedrals before we walked in. And I’m glad for it. Because being totally unprepared for what was inside made it all the better.
The great vaulted transepts create a diurnal space that sends the last rays of the sun dancing up into the soaring ceilings of its domes. I had never seen such an amazing creation of space before. The feeling was positively sublime. Staring up at the ceiling, you felt as if you were somehow lifted up out of yourself towards the heavens. And while I’ll never forget the feeling of looking up at those great ceilings for the first time, that feeling of the divinity architecture can conjure. But it was not the august arches, or the magnificent papal tomb that struck me the most.
That came when I saw another tourist who in any other setting I probably wouldn’t have paid a second glance, unless it was to make a joke to one of my friends. He must have been seventeen or eighteen years old. But he was one of those people with the misfortune of looking middle aged even while still in high school. It was as if his body decided to go ahead and assume the shape of someone in his mid forties, and just wait for his age to catch up. My impression was confirmed by the fact his dad standing beside him, the mirror image of his son, if a mirror adds thirty some odd years to your life. The kid had a thin mustache that would one day fill out and probably provide his lip much-needed warmth against the harsh winter winds of Minnesota, Iowa, or whatever other Midwestern state he was from. I guess what I’m trying to say, in my own elitist way, is that if you saw this kid you wouldn’t think he had much going for him in life. He was a mortal lock to be a Driver’s Ed instructor or the day manager of an Arby’s. To top it all off, he was wearing a black t-shirt with an epically drawn sword-wielding archangel that had the words ‘St. Michael Defend Us’ dramatically emblazoned across the chest in red letters.
But to look at his face, in that cathedral, you could have never guessed he’d been dealt a short hand. He stood there, neck craned toward the ceiling, mouth half open in a dopey smile, looking at Michelangelo’s arches with a look of absolute wonder. As I stood across the cathedral, looking at him look at the ceiling, I knew that for all the books I’d read and fancy adjectives I toted around in my head, like diurnal or august, I could never hope to even touch for the briefest of moments the sheer awe that was coursing through him. All those things that I would’ve been so scornful of, the Midwestern provinciality, the lame shirt, the hokey Catholic theology, all of those things were thrown right back at me in that dopey smile.
I hate it when people try to use the fact that “it could be a whole lot worse” as a source of comfort. The first thought that comes in my head is “well it could be a whole lot better too.” There also seems to be something perverse about using the fact that someone has it worse than you do to make yourself feel better, as if seeing somebody lower on the totem pole makes you better off. But that day, I did feel better about somebody else being somewhere else on the totem pole of life, only it was reversed. If you had asked me if I wanted to trade places with that kid I would have said ‘no’ any and every day of the week. But on that evening, in that cathedral, I envied the hell out of that kid. And that’s the beauty of the human spectrum. Depending on the time, the place, and especially the light, we can all shine brightly.
The friscalating dusk light, lovely as it was, didn’t prepare me for what awaited inside the basilica. I had never been in a Cathedral before in my life. I grew up in the Deep South, where the most architecturally impressive places of worship are enormous Baptist churches. Each town has an especially large one, usually referred to by the locals that do not attend it as ‘Six Flags over Jesus.’ While they’re big, they’re not anymore impressive than a basketball arena, just a big place full of seats. Needless to say, none of them were designed by Michelangelo, or the final resting place of Pope Pius IV. I didn’t know this before we entered the basilica. I didn’t know much of anything about cathedrals before we walked in. And I’m glad for it. Because being totally unprepared for what was inside made it all the better.
The great vaulted transepts create a diurnal space that sends the last rays of the sun dancing up into the soaring ceilings of its domes. I had never seen such an amazing creation of space before. The feeling was positively sublime. Staring up at the ceiling, you felt as if you were somehow lifted up out of yourself towards the heavens. And while I’ll never forget the feeling of looking up at those great ceilings for the first time, that feeling of the divinity architecture can conjure. But it was not the august arches, or the magnificent papal tomb that struck me the most.
That came when I saw another tourist who in any other setting I probably wouldn’t have paid a second glance, unless it was to make a joke to one of my friends. He must have been seventeen or eighteen years old. But he was one of those people with the misfortune of looking middle aged even while still in high school. It was as if his body decided to go ahead and assume the shape of someone in his mid forties, and just wait for his age to catch up. My impression was confirmed by the fact his dad standing beside him, the mirror image of his son, if a mirror adds thirty some odd years to your life. The kid had a thin mustache that would one day fill out and probably provide his lip much-needed warmth against the harsh winter winds of Minnesota, Iowa, or whatever other Midwestern state he was from. I guess what I’m trying to say, in my own elitist way, is that if you saw this kid you wouldn’t think he had much going for him in life. He was a mortal lock to be a Driver’s Ed instructor or the day manager of an Arby’s. To top it all off, he was wearing a black t-shirt with an epically drawn sword-wielding archangel that had the words ‘St. Michael Defend Us’ dramatically emblazoned across the chest in red letters.
But to look at his face, in that cathedral, you could have never guessed he’d been dealt a short hand. He stood there, neck craned toward the ceiling, mouth half open in a dopey smile, looking at Michelangelo’s arches with a look of absolute wonder. As I stood across the cathedral, looking at him look at the ceiling, I knew that for all the books I’d read and fancy adjectives I toted around in my head, like diurnal or august, I could never hope to even touch for the briefest of moments the sheer awe that was coursing through him. All those things that I would’ve been so scornful of, the Midwestern provinciality, the lame shirt, the hokey Catholic theology, all of those things were thrown right back at me in that dopey smile.
I hate it when people try to use the fact that “it could be a whole lot worse” as a source of comfort. The first thought that comes in my head is “well it could be a whole lot better too.” There also seems to be something perverse about using the fact that someone has it worse than you do to make yourself feel better, as if seeing somebody lower on the totem pole makes you better off. But that day, I did feel better about somebody else being somewhere else on the totem pole of life, only it was reversed. If you had asked me if I wanted to trade places with that kid I would have said ‘no’ any and every day of the week. But on that evening, in that cathedral, I envied the hell out of that kid. And that’s the beauty of the human spectrum. Depending on the time, the place, and especially the light, we can all shine brightly.
Playful Pierce #2
“This is derivative of something I wrote last week,” she said, holding one finger in the black and white composition book. “But I still think it’s okay.”
She shrugged and smiled. She opened the book, took a deep breath and began to read.
“There is a very good reason why Julia Green can’t sleep at night, but I can’t tell you, or at least I won’t. Not now.
“So what I will tell you is that, instead of sleeping, Julia arranges her hundreds of movies by genre then by alphabetical order. She creates a database on her laptop of all the movies and prints it out to keep track of them should she ever lend them out to some friends.
“She won’t.”
A strand of red hair escaped her ponytail and settled in front of her face. But instead of pushing it away, she trudged on.
I watched the hair flit up every time she pronounced a hard ‘p’.
“The next week Julia plants petunias and posies in her backyard. She digs up her grandfather’s old miner helmet from the basement so she can see what she’s doing. The neighbor’s 13-year-old son, who had been watching television past his bedtime, sees the mysterious light and begins to suspect that she is a serial killer or a drug dealer. Julia is shocked when the flowerbed is upturned Tuesday evening. She drives to the market for more seeds.
“Julia misinterprets the strange looks the boy in the gardening department gives her when she asks about flowers with more sturdiness to them. She is certain the boy thinks she is crazy. In actuality, he finds her cute and quirky. He suggests roses. She thinks them too cliché, but is afraid to say so. She buys the smallest packet available and never returns on Tuesdays.”
She stopped, closed the book, and moved back to her desk.
The professor cleared his throat and asked, “What did you think of Jackie’s piece?”
A boy in a beanie said something about character change, but I didn’t pay much attention. Instead, I watched her glance between the boy and the professor, occasionally taking notes of any helpful suggestions.
The professor asked, “Why do you think that Julia can’t sleep?”
“Sex,” I said.
“Care to expand on that theory Mr. Reed?”
“She hasn’t had it. She doesn’t have friends. She’s awkward around guys who are interested in her. She thinks roses are cliché because she’s never gotten any.” I turned my head to stare at Jackie. I smiled. “She’s probably a virgin.”
She didn’t look up from her notebook.
* * *
After class, I caught up with Jackie at the foot of the stairs.
“What?”
“I liked your story,” I said.
She rolled her eyes and walked out the door.
I ran to catch up with her again. I grabbed her elbow and spun her around. “No, I really did. I’m sorry about that stuff. It was just for attention.” I shrugged.
She crossed her arms.
“I’m a goof-off. That doesn’t excuse it, but…” I said, looking back to the English building behind me.
“But what?”
I turned to face her. “I thought you’d let me make it up to you.”
* * *
At the dimly lit Italian restaurant Jackie told me about moving between cities every other year when she was growing up.
“Eventually I just figured out it was easier to not have stuff,” she said, breaking a breadstick in half.
“Can’t do that. I’m kind of a collector.”
“Yeah? What kind of stuff?”
“A little bit of everything. For example,” I pulled a toy skateboard out of my pocket, “I don’t even know why I have this. I just saw it and kept it.”
The waiter interrupted our conversation to take our orders. I shoved the skateboard back in my pocket. She had the fettuccine alfredo. I had the manicotti.
“So, how’d you end up here?” I asked.
She held up one hand to her mouth to finish chewing. After she swallowed, she said, “remind me to show you that. It’s kind of interesting.”
Twenty minutes later the waiter dropped the bill off at our table.
“You got this, right?”
Her fork clattered on the dessert plate.
“Only joking,” I said, pulling my wallet out of my jeans. I set the credit card on the ticket and spied a piece of cheesecake hanging on the corner of her lips. I reached out to wipe it off with a napkin.
She blushed.
* * *
In the car in front of her apartment I was getting ready to wish her a good night when she asked if I’d like to come in.
“If you want,” she said. “I can show you how I ended up going to school here.”
“Why not?”
Her apartment was quiet enough to hear the faint drizzling on her windows.
“Do you not have any roommates?” I asked.
“I do better by myself,” she yelled from her bedroom.
I sat myself down on the couch in her living room and heard her yell “found it.”
She walked back in to the living room and laid a map out on the coffee table in front of me. On one end of the map was a blue flag marked “Dad” and a red one marked “Mom” was on the other. Using two fingers, I traced the line between them until I hit the halfway point: the town where our school was located.
“Very clever,” I said.
“I’m sorry?” she yelled from the kitchen over the whir of a cappuccino machine.
I stood up. “I said it was very clever,” I shouted.
“Oh. Yeah.”
I walked to the front of the kitchen and watched her pull a second coffee mug from her cabinet. The machine stopped.
“It’s as good a selection process as any,” she said. She handed me the first cup.
I shook my head.
“No, you have to try it.”
I shrugged, reached for the mug and took a sip. I smiled. “It’s kind of hot.”
“Sorry, I should’ve warned you.”
“No it’s fine,” I said. “I kind of deserved it.”
She smiled and flipped the machine on again.
After another five minutes of whirring, we clinked our mugs together and toasted “to forgiveness.” We set our mugs down on the table.
“What now?” she asked.
* * *
I woke up in her bed in the middle of the night. She wasn’t there. The sheets on her bed were clean and economical: dark blue with no print. I stood up, put on my boxers and took the opportunity to look around.
She hadn’t lied when she said she didn’t keep things. Her walls were bare. There were no knick-knacks on the chest of drawers and nothing under her bed. A small amount of clothes hung in her closet, perhaps the same amount that a more wealthy person would take on a long vacation. I wondered why it took her so long to find the map.
In the corner of her bedroom were three racks of DVD’s with a binder leaning up on one of them. I opened the binder and flipped through the spreadsheet with all of the movie titles on it.
I heard sounds coming from somewhere else. I followed the noises to find her watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons in the living room wearing a long t-shirt and panties.
She turned around to see me standing there, then turned back to face the TV without saying anything.
I sat down beside her. “So, I was wrong?”
“Looks that way,” she said.
“Did you—”
“—know?” She turned to look at me.
I nodded.
“No.” She sighed. “Honestly, I kind of hoped…” She trailed off. After a minute, she turned back to the cartoon.
“Did you—” I began. I paused, collected my thoughts and tried again. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah,” she said, without looking away from the screen.
“No, I mean, did you—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Oh.”
She turned to face me. “Sorry. It’s just frustrating.”
I placed my hand on her cheek and pulled her face close to mine. I kissed her neck. “Maybe,” I whispered, “we could—”
She stood up and walked to her bedroom. She came back a couple minutes later carrying my clothes. “I think you should go.” She watched me dress myself.
I pulled on my jeans. The toy skateboard fell out of the left pocket. I picked it up from the shag carpet.
She watched me set it down on the halfway point on her map without saying anything.
* * *
The next class she read a new story.
Everyone loved it.
She shrugged and smiled. She opened the book, took a deep breath and began to read.
“There is a very good reason why Julia Green can’t sleep at night, but I can’t tell you, or at least I won’t. Not now.
“So what I will tell you is that, instead of sleeping, Julia arranges her hundreds of movies by genre then by alphabetical order. She creates a database on her laptop of all the movies and prints it out to keep track of them should she ever lend them out to some friends.
“She won’t.”
A strand of red hair escaped her ponytail and settled in front of her face. But instead of pushing it away, she trudged on.
I watched the hair flit up every time she pronounced a hard ‘p’.
“The next week Julia plants petunias and posies in her backyard. She digs up her grandfather’s old miner helmet from the basement so she can see what she’s doing. The neighbor’s 13-year-old son, who had been watching television past his bedtime, sees the mysterious light and begins to suspect that she is a serial killer or a drug dealer. Julia is shocked when the flowerbed is upturned Tuesday evening. She drives to the market for more seeds.
“Julia misinterprets the strange looks the boy in the gardening department gives her when she asks about flowers with more sturdiness to them. She is certain the boy thinks she is crazy. In actuality, he finds her cute and quirky. He suggests roses. She thinks them too cliché, but is afraid to say so. She buys the smallest packet available and never returns on Tuesdays.”
She stopped, closed the book, and moved back to her desk.
The professor cleared his throat and asked, “What did you think of Jackie’s piece?”
A boy in a beanie said something about character change, but I didn’t pay much attention. Instead, I watched her glance between the boy and the professor, occasionally taking notes of any helpful suggestions.
The professor asked, “Why do you think that Julia can’t sleep?”
“Sex,” I said.
“Care to expand on that theory Mr. Reed?”
“She hasn’t had it. She doesn’t have friends. She’s awkward around guys who are interested in her. She thinks roses are cliché because she’s never gotten any.” I turned my head to stare at Jackie. I smiled. “She’s probably a virgin.”
She didn’t look up from her notebook.
* * *
After class, I caught up with Jackie at the foot of the stairs.
“What?”
“I liked your story,” I said.
She rolled her eyes and walked out the door.
I ran to catch up with her again. I grabbed her elbow and spun her around. “No, I really did. I’m sorry about that stuff. It was just for attention.” I shrugged.
She crossed her arms.
“I’m a goof-off. That doesn’t excuse it, but…” I said, looking back to the English building behind me.
“But what?”
I turned to face her. “I thought you’d let me make it up to you.”
* * *
At the dimly lit Italian restaurant Jackie told me about moving between cities every other year when she was growing up.
“Eventually I just figured out it was easier to not have stuff,” she said, breaking a breadstick in half.
“Can’t do that. I’m kind of a collector.”
“Yeah? What kind of stuff?”
“A little bit of everything. For example,” I pulled a toy skateboard out of my pocket, “I don’t even know why I have this. I just saw it and kept it.”
The waiter interrupted our conversation to take our orders. I shoved the skateboard back in my pocket. She had the fettuccine alfredo. I had the manicotti.
“So, how’d you end up here?” I asked.
She held up one hand to her mouth to finish chewing. After she swallowed, she said, “remind me to show you that. It’s kind of interesting.”
Twenty minutes later the waiter dropped the bill off at our table.
“You got this, right?”
Her fork clattered on the dessert plate.
“Only joking,” I said, pulling my wallet out of my jeans. I set the credit card on the ticket and spied a piece of cheesecake hanging on the corner of her lips. I reached out to wipe it off with a napkin.
She blushed.
* * *
In the car in front of her apartment I was getting ready to wish her a good night when she asked if I’d like to come in.
“If you want,” she said. “I can show you how I ended up going to school here.”
“Why not?”
Her apartment was quiet enough to hear the faint drizzling on her windows.
“Do you not have any roommates?” I asked.
“I do better by myself,” she yelled from her bedroom.
I sat myself down on the couch in her living room and heard her yell “found it.”
She walked back in to the living room and laid a map out on the coffee table in front of me. On one end of the map was a blue flag marked “Dad” and a red one marked “Mom” was on the other. Using two fingers, I traced the line between them until I hit the halfway point: the town where our school was located.
“Very clever,” I said.
“I’m sorry?” she yelled from the kitchen over the whir of a cappuccino machine.
I stood up. “I said it was very clever,” I shouted.
“Oh. Yeah.”
I walked to the front of the kitchen and watched her pull a second coffee mug from her cabinet. The machine stopped.
“It’s as good a selection process as any,” she said. She handed me the first cup.
I shook my head.
“No, you have to try it.”
I shrugged, reached for the mug and took a sip. I smiled. “It’s kind of hot.”
“Sorry, I should’ve warned you.”
“No it’s fine,” I said. “I kind of deserved it.”
She smiled and flipped the machine on again.
After another five minutes of whirring, we clinked our mugs together and toasted “to forgiveness.” We set our mugs down on the table.
“What now?” she asked.
* * *
I woke up in her bed in the middle of the night. She wasn’t there. The sheets on her bed were clean and economical: dark blue with no print. I stood up, put on my boxers and took the opportunity to look around.
She hadn’t lied when she said she didn’t keep things. Her walls were bare. There were no knick-knacks on the chest of drawers and nothing under her bed. A small amount of clothes hung in her closet, perhaps the same amount that a more wealthy person would take on a long vacation. I wondered why it took her so long to find the map.
In the corner of her bedroom were three racks of DVD’s with a binder leaning up on one of them. I opened the binder and flipped through the spreadsheet with all of the movie titles on it.
I heard sounds coming from somewhere else. I followed the noises to find her watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons in the living room wearing a long t-shirt and panties.
She turned around to see me standing there, then turned back to face the TV without saying anything.
I sat down beside her. “So, I was wrong?”
“Looks that way,” she said.
“Did you—”
“—know?” She turned to look at me.
I nodded.
“No.” She sighed. “Honestly, I kind of hoped…” She trailed off. After a minute, she turned back to the cartoon.
“Did you—” I began. I paused, collected my thoughts and tried again. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah,” she said, without looking away from the screen.
“No, I mean, did you—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Oh.”
She turned to face me. “Sorry. It’s just frustrating.”
I placed my hand on her cheek and pulled her face close to mine. I kissed her neck. “Maybe,” I whispered, “we could—”
She stood up and walked to her bedroom. She came back a couple minutes later carrying my clothes. “I think you should go.” She watched me dress myself.
I pulled on my jeans. The toy skateboard fell out of the left pocket. I picked it up from the shag carpet.
She watched me set it down on the halfway point on her map without saying anything.
* * *
The next class she read a new story.
Everyone loved it.
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